Of Lady Demeter, goddess of the golden grain, I sing, and her fair-ankled daughter Persephone whom the ancients addressed as Kore, The Maiden, in whose laughter is the promise of spring. 
Now Kore was playing away from the protection of her mother, who is also the lady of the golden sword. In a meadow she found two flowers she had never seen before, narcissus and hyacinth, and gathered them in her apron to make a garland. Alas, had she known their history, she might not have been so grasping! Did not Narcissus waste away upon the riverbank pining after his reflection far below? Did not Hyacinth’s blood stain the grass after he was struck by a faithless discus cast from his lover Apollo?
The lure taken, the trap was sprung. A chasm opened. Hades on a chariot drawn by dreadful horses erupted from the earth and bore her down. The jaws of the ground closed over Persephone’s cry of Father. Futile, for Zeus her sire had secretly promised her as bride to lord Hades. No one knew what had happened save Hekate in the ear of her cave and Helios the all-seeing Sun.
Demeter searched for nine days, abstaining from food and drink. At last wise Hekate found her and reported what she had heard, and they sought out Helios to learn what he had seen. He told them of the chariot and the maiden, and, more, he told them of Zeus’ secret meeting with the underworld god.
(Syncroblog suggested by Mahud: Theme “Landscapes”)
I’ll tell you a story about Atlantis, the Lost Land.
Once upon a time, a Greek philosopher named Plato was writing about his mentor Socrates and their circle of learned friends. Sometimes they would talk about right and wrong, the soul and other erudite matters by telling stories that illustrated what they meant. In the Republic, Socrates told of a man who died and learned the nature of the soul, but that myth isn’t so well remembered. In the Symposium, Aristophanes told a myth about how people are descended from separated twins, to explain love and why some people are homosexual. That story was written off by the Middle Ages as a joke. In the Timaeus and Kritias, Socrates’ old friend Kritias told about a powerful civilization that Athens had fought 9000 years before his own day. That story, the legend of Atlantis, has taken on a life of its own, so that people who have never read Plato have heard of it, and many people who did read Plato have spent their lives searching for it.
Plato wrote that Kritias said that Solon said that he heard the story from some Egyptian priests. Have you got all that? That’s the first report we have of Atlantis; everyone afterwards was writing with Plato’s story in mind. We’ve never found any records about Atlantis in Egypt. The archaeological record shows no major settlement at Athens 9000 years before classical Greece. The civilization Kritias describes sounds Bronze Age, not Stone Age, which it should have been so long ago. But historical accuracy was irrelevant to these philosophers. They were using stories instead of just dry dusty reason to show how people ought to live in harmony with the land and with their gods.
The marvellous thing about Atlantis, the lost land that may not even have existed, is that so many people have found it. They’ve found it in the Atlantic, in the Mediterranean, in the Bahamas and in the Yucatán. Eden is more elusive, and the Tower of Babel — well, we know where that is. There’s oil wells instead of a single tower in Babylonia nowadays, but we’re still fighting over it.
There have been many myths of Atlantis. Atlantis wakes something in us that yearns for a Lost Land, a golden age when civilization and the land were one — until the land (or rather, the sea) ended it.
Let me tell you about my Atlantis.
In ancient times, there was not simply Apollo or Athena. Each area, city, or shrine had its particular god, who may have evolved from an earlier local deity that later became merged with one of the popular, Olympian gods that spread throughout the Greek-speaking world. (Amazingly, the popular epics about the Trojan War composed by Homer may have done much to solidify the Greeks’ views of the “chief” gods.) Greece itself was not unified in the classical period. It consisted of powerful city-states like Athens, Sparta, Delphi, each of which consisted of a city and the surrounding farmland or grazing lands. So there were many regional customs, religious festivals, and variations of each god. Each city or temple tended to have one chief god and a few other gods that were given special reverence. Myths arose to explain why one god was popular in one place, another in another.
In general terms, Athena was the daughter of Zeus, the supreme or chief god of Olympus, originally a sky-god. Athena was the goddess of wisdom, tactics, war, and crafts like weaving — arts that employ planning and intelligence, not just physical abilities. Athena Polias was the particular Athena that protected the city of Athens.
Photo credit: Ed BrambleyPhaethon was the son of Helios the sun-god and the ocean-goddess Klymene. She later married Merops, King of Ethiopia, who raised the boy as his own son. One day Phaethon’s best friend Epaphos, a prince from a neighboring kingdom, began to taunt him about his parentage.
“Son of Helios?” Epaphos said. “A likely story. Your mother is ashamed to admit that she dallied with some commoner, and so she claims a lofty lover who’s too far away to deny it.”
Phaethon was beside himself, but there was nothing he could say to silence his friend’s jeers. At last he went to his mother seeking proof. “Your father is Helios,” she promised him. “I swear by the River Styx, the dread river of the underworld on which the Olympian gods swear binding oaths. If you doubt me, go to him yourself, for his halls are east of Ethiopia, a land blessed by the sun.”
Delighted, Phaethon set forth to seek his father’s house, following the directions Klymene had given him. Many were his adventures in the eastern lands, but they are no longer remembered. In those days there were not searing deserts in the east, but lush gardens, verdant forests, and shallow lakes. Still, he was wandering in wild lands where they say dwell creatures whose faces are in their stomachs, and giant furry ants that can devour a camel in a matter of minutes: that according to Herodotus, at least. So it was by feats of courage and caution that he reached at last the Mountain of the Sun.
Photo credit: TimDan2 on FlickrAkrisios, king of Argos, had a daughter of surpassing beauty, but no son. At last he sent a messenger to the oracle at Delphi to ask what hope he had for an heir. The oracle’s reply was grim: Akrisios would have no son, and his grandson would kill him.
In the world of Greek mythology, Fate was an implacable force which the gods themselves could not escape. That didn’t stop people from trying. Often, their efforts caused the fate they feared.
So the king imprisoned his daughter, Danae, in a bronze chamber buried beneath the palace courtyard. Servants fed and cared for her, but she never saw the light of day. How many daughters have felt walled in by a father’s fears?
Walls, however, could not bar Zeus, the promiscuous father of the gods. Smitten by her beauty, he descended in the guise of golden rain, a splash of sunlight in her dreary cell. Small wonder the lonely girl succumbed to his advances. But Zeus nipped out as soon as he’d had his way with her, since the one thing he feared was Hera’s fury when she caught him cheating. Lonely once more, Danae gave birth to Perseus nine months later.
Her nurse helped hide the boy for a few years, but eventually his gleeful shouts ringing up through the courtyard gave them away. Akrisios dragged his daughter before the altar of Zeus and commanded that she confess the father’s name. Her answer sounded like blasphemy. Enraged, the father bound his daughter and grandson in a chest and commanded it to be tossed into the sea.
When I was eight, one of my favorite books was Bernard Evslin’s The Dolphin Rider. I’ve forgotten which other myths it contained, although I suspect that Oedipus’ family troubles weren’t among them. The one that I remember is the myth the book was named for, a story that’s stayed with me all my life. That’s the myth I’d like to share first.
If you’ve been following my rotating “Myth o’ the Month” column on Ancient Greece Odyssey, I apologize for repeating myself; I’m going to archive the old entries first before moving on to Herakles’s next labor. However, what follows is not quite the same tale I posted before, because I’m no longer constrained to 2000 characters. Besides, what bard ever tells a story the same way twice?
Note that this is a loose adaptation of the myth; I’m telling the story as I remember it from childhood, and over the years I’ve embellished it here and there.
[Edit: After posting this, I ventured to check Herodotus, and I see that there’s nothing about Ionia in the original version!]
Arion was a youth in Corinth who played the lyre with such skill that many said he was taught by Orpheus, the greatest musician of all. For Arion had the power to charm birds and beasts, and some said the very earth was moved by his wild tunes. Corinthians pointed proudly to local rings of rocks or trees that had gathered around to listen, they said, where he had stopped to play for a while.
One day word came from the harbor that a great music contest was to be held in Ionia across the sea. The prize a bag of silver. Wealth did not draw Arion, but like many young lads he wanted to make a name for himself, the κλέος that was so important to heroes and the poets who sang about them. And where better to win fame than the birthplace of Homer?
His friend Periander, king of Corinth, warned him of sea-travel’s risks. There were no ferries in those days; one booked passage on any ship and hoped. But Arion was eager and adamant. So at last Periander yielded. For how could Corinth not send its best to compete before Homer’s gods?
