Heracles Labours PDF

Heracles (super divine): Week 11 even as a baby, he was born with super strength; can squish and kill snakes in order to cleanse bad vibes from himself due to a murder he committed (miasma), he has to perform 12 labours for his c...

Heracles (super divine): Week 11 even as a baby, he was born with super strength; can squish and kill snakes in order to cleanse bad vibes from himself due to a murder he committed (miasma), he has to perform 12 labours for his cousin, the King of Mycenia 6 labours are on the greek mainland, other 6 take place around the Mediterranean area Labors of Heracles: icons depicting what Heracles does Greek Mainland Labours: Nemean Lion - its skin is indestructible, weapons cannot penetrate the skin, claws destroy armour - Heracles wrestles the lion, where he grabs the claws to penetrate the lion's skin The Hydra: - means water/water monster, has 9 snakey heads where if you remove the heads of it, their heads regrow once removed - calls his nephew to help with the dismantling of the snake; use a torch so that when it is removed, they can't regrow due to the burning - King disallowed it; not allowed to recieve help, suppose to do it by yourself The Ceryneian Deer: - challange since the deer has super speed; magically fast - able to catch it while it was asleep, but meets up with Artemis where he asks to borrow the hind for his labours, where he was allowed. Once the labour was done, the hind goes away The Erymanthian Boar: - boar is so powerful that it cannot be stopped, people and animals couldn't stop it - uses deep snow and his club to capture, where it got suck and he tangled/wrestled it - brings it back to Eurystheus but he was in such fear that he hides in a large vessel Stables of Augeus: - son of Helios has a herd of magical cows, immortal divine healthy, never get sick forever, no pressure to keep them clean - instructed to clean the stables, which had several decades of cow manure; uses super strength to divert and bring the two rivers together to powerwash the manure and the cows away - doesnt count either; asking to get paid for the labour, its for your own good Stymphalian Birds: - birds with feathers that are bronze; eating all of the crops, altering with the terrain - uses a bow and arrow, or a slingshot to shoot the birds down; familar in Egyptian paintings - take out the flock of bronze, monsterous birds, and get credit for it  The Cretan Bull: - go to Crete and capture the bull of Crete; supernatural bull that killed crops - captures it by using his super strength to wrestle and strangle it; brings it back to his cousin, where he lets the bull go after revealing it to him Horses of Diomedes: supernatural horses, taught to eat people by Diomedes Heracles subdues and steals the horses, killing Diomedes by feeding their owner to the them and cures their desire to eat people brings them back to Greece and his cousin where he dedicated them to Hera Belt of Hippolyta: - while Hippolyta is willing to give the belt, Hera interferes by convincing other Amazons that Hera is kidnapping them - gets in a fight with some of the Amazons; successfully wins against them, and fits into the theme of the Greek world fighting against the non-Greek world - Heracles returned to Mycenae, and gave the belt to his cousin Eurystheus Cattle of Geryon: - cattle of a three headed monster (big giant with plenty of torsos) - uses his poison arrows to kill the guarddog of the cattle and Geryon himself - takes the cattle back to his cousin, and sacifiice in Hera's honour Apples of the Hesperides: - adventure in the mythical west; retrieve the golden apples of immortality - depicted as a big snake guarding the tree; Heracles wrestle the shape-shifting ocean god, and makes another plan on how to get in the garden and retrieve it - Heracles in one version does everything, but the other had him asking Atlas to allow him to hold the sky while he gets the apples ' - Presents the apples to his cousin, yet later hands the apples to Athena Cerberus: - three-heading guarddog that disallows anyone from leaving; stinging metals - go to underworld and retrieves Cerberus; gets Hades' approval but wants him back unharmed - once he's done bringing the dog to his cousin, he safely returns it to Hades Death & Apotheosis (Death Story) story came from Sophocles, writes on the death of Heracles, alongside Deianeira & Nessus Heacles and Deianeira crossing the river with the ferrymen, Nessu trys to kidnap Deianeira due to her beauty, but Heracles kills Nessus with a poison arrow Deianeria (husband slayer in Greek) decides to burn away the human half of Heracules' and getting away with poison blood although his human half dies, his god half desends and arrives on Olympus Perseus: - demigod (child of Zeus), recieves a prophecy of Danae, imprisons her in a underground room to never have children; Acrisius puts Danae and Perseus in a wooden box and drifts it away in the ocean to avoid guilt - grows up be a young man (raised by fishermen), gets the head of Medusa, for the King's wedding gift - Perseus both being a demigod and hero gets assitence from other supernatural sprits from Hermes and Athena: 1) Cap/helmet of invisiblity, 2) "Kibisis", backpack to put the head in, 3) Adamantine sword (magical stone), 4) Hermes' winged sandals, 5) Mirrored shield given by Athena; gets Medusa to look at herself and gettng turned to stone  - finds Medusa in their mythical world; able to retrieve her head due to the magical things that he was given - Pegasus appears from her body; flying board or a golden man with a sword and becomes the mount, who was set to kill Chimera (composite animal, too many body parts) - Perseus on his way back rescues Andromeda from the sea monster's sacifrice of her, takes her back where he later marries her' able to return to the island of the King, presents Medusa's head to Athena Perseus presents Medusa's head to Athena Theseus: - super important to the Athenians; a foundational hero - initially unaware of his royal heritage, goes to the Oracle of Delphi to ask what will happen next; has him sleep with the friend's daugther after he gets him drunk - his mother did not send him to Athens until he was a young man able to life a stone - he had a mini Heracles story, depicting the episodes in which Theseus has to go through; wrestle a couple of bandits The Labours of Theseus Minotaur: - Athens have their own problems; sends 14 people, 7 men and 7 women to the island of Crete for the Minotaur to eat them in the maze of Labyrinth (divine punishment) - monsterous child - maze-like structure in the Palace of Knossos - Theseus is assisted by Araidne and gives him a ball of thread (clew) which can be used to navigate around the maze; able to kill the Minotaur and runs away - He abandoned Ariadne due to Dionysus claiming Ariadne as wife, ends up being his diving consort  - Particular group of female main characters; story based on Greek knowledge they had - Inverse of Greek historical society; women mainly do all of the work, have a female-dominated society (accepts men only one or twice a year) - Symbol of Greek artwork; barbarians that are present in other narratives · WEEK 12 - meets on the battlefield, kills her but falls in love with her once she was dead (love at first sight) - Penethesilea led an army of Amazons to fight for Troy against the Greeks Golden Fleece: - two stories in two different times; first is the play (written first in timeline, sequel to a story later on - heroic vouage; long mission to fetch a magical object (golden fleece is from a golden ram) \ - sent by this sky goddess named Nephele to rescue children from a evil stepmother; Phrixus escapes to Colchis but his sistet Helle falls off the ram during the mission and falls into the sea; Phrixus sacifices the ram to Zeus, and the golden fleece is protected - Argonauts are lead by Jason, who is the hero of the Argonautica; quest to retrieve the fleece - Jason is the rightful ruler of the city of Iolcos; trained to be a proper Greek hero with fairytale qualities - Taking place in Argos, a part of Greece where worship of Hera is pretty old; Hera favor Jason is a represenation of her being part of Greece - Pelias wants Jason to prove that he's the ruler of Iolcos by retrieving the golden fleece; puts together a group of heroes and a vessel (Argo, Athena helps with the building) and heads off - begins in Iolcus and stops briefly in Lemnos (mostly women there) before going through this narrow passage with huge rocks - Phineas and the Harpies: where the heroes help somebody that have important knowledge - Argonautica is heading east; these two stories cover regions that the Greek are familiar with already, Black Sea is imporant for trading relations, like food supply and grain Atalanta: - sometimes includes as part of the Argo crew; the daugther of a king of a city-state in Greece, but gets sent away into the woods - adopted by a family of bears and raised; becomes a skillful archer and called to hunt down the Calydonian Boar who was sent by Artemis in anger - rulers of Caldon calls out the best archers to deal with the boar, including Atalanta and Meleager - able to successfuly track and kill the boar, where Atalanta was the one that killed for good but leads for a fight with Atalanta and Meleager's family (reason why she's in a Argo) Argonauts: - Hera teams up with Aphrodite and gets Medea to fall in love with Jason; comes from the family of witches, can make potions, spells, magic to help Jason go through the obstacles to the fleece - Plant the filed a teeth of a dragon, which grows into many men and fights them for the retrival; comes up with a trick to get the men fighting each other, throws some rock - Get past the dragon/snake, where Medea uses more of her magic for the dragon to fall asleep and Jason takes the golden fleece and escapes - Argonautica is written second, but chronically take splace before the play; talks about ' Jason and Medea being exiled, where Jason divorced her and abandons their two children - At the end of the play, she kills everyone with poison except for Jason, kills her two own children too and escaped on a flying dragon to athens where she further went into exile - Medea and her son run off to the near east; reason why there's a region named after her name  Ariadne: - the woman who falls in love with Theseus and completes the trials with him; escapes to Crete together, yet abandons her and goes back to Athens alone (some stories has him hetting taught by Athena to do this) - she gets discovered by DIonysus; becomes his spouse and divine charatcer in her own right and part of the Olympian family Electra: - Electra was one of the female characters in the Orestia; daugther of Agamemnon, and plans to put revenge with the help of Orestes - counsel Orestesto do what hee needs to do for revenge - more actively present in the revenge plot; enocurages Orestes in a number of speeches to do what he needs to revenge his father Penelope: - the wife of Odysseus; holding his fort while he makes his way back from the Trojan War where it is significiant in the Odyssey (trying to maintain control of the household) - group of suitors are trying to overrule Telemachus; having to negociate and they are bullies for destroying her household and wrecking their wine and food - refered to as the wife that matched her heart; 'Periphron' epihet, means considering playing all of the angles, thinking around the situation until a solution is found - she's weaving this garment and she makes progress on the weaving in the day, but undones all of her work at night (continues for several years); strategicly holds off the suitor for a while, being tricky - when Odysseus returns, he's disgused to sneak in, loeaded conservation in the Odyssey, talking to him as if she wonders where her husband is and what he's doing - Penelope comes up with another strategy; talks to the suitors about what man she will marry and asks them if they can bend a create a bow and arrow and shoot a arrow from it (no suitor can, but Odysseus can due to his super strength) - Athena reveals Odysseus takes control of the household once again - Penelope has one more trick have one of the servants gets a bed and puts it in the hallway and she sleeps in a different room to trick him into sleeping with her - Polutropon: complicated situation, turning many ways WEEK 13 - backstory: the birth of the eventual Helen of Troy and her siblings at the beginning; heroic character tend to have unorthadox birth story, begins with Leda visited by Zeus in a form of a swan - after Leda was visited with Zeus, she layed two eggs, which hatched two different sexes of children, Castor & Clytemnestra, and Helen & Pollius - author saw the egg shells in one of the temple; Helen becomes one of the most beautiful females in the world (semi-divine heritage and qualities) - If he picks one, then he will offend the others; one of the princes who are present and seeking other advantages, wants Helen's father to put in a good word for the other father - Make all of them a promise, to defend the honour of whoever the chosen husband is; backed up if adversity comes and they fulfill it - Menelaus is the brother of Agamemnon and he is backed up by the princes if adversity comes; he gets married with Helen - golds are involved in the stories of the Iliad; Thetis is one of the women that Zeus should not have a relationship with - Zeus marries Peleus off to a human, Thetis - The wedding goes ahead, eventually becomes the parents of Achilles; this version tells us that at the wedding, the goddess of disagreement has not been invited, but shows up anyway, has a apple made of gold with symbolic words, throws it and disappears - Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite resonate with the gift more than the others; most beautiful  The Judgement of Paris: - Paris is living as a sheppard, obscure life in Troy, secretly as one of the sons of the King of Troy; folktale narrative, idea of the hero is unaware of the divine heritage and qualities - Perform a task for a divine or magical entity that granted himself special favours; later though - Queen has dreamed of getting birth to a flaming torch that burns up the whole city, sends him away - This particular episode is not mentioned in the Iliad, but interjected by other authors - Other goddesses that cliamed the apple belongs to him, and then goes to Paris and offers him something of value (bribe), to select who is the most beautiful - Hera holding lion, symbolizing the rule of Europe and Asia, Athena offers him military success (armour, weapons) and Aphrodite offers the love of the most beautiful woman to marry - Paris had offended Hera and Athena, but praised Aphrodite; chooses her, but she's already married, so she engineered the woman in oder for Paris to get married - In some versions of the story, she had second thoughts, but others are ghost-related or she gets married anyways - In the Iliad specifically, Paris and Helen have runn of together to Troy, but offended Menelaus, so the princes worked together to retreive Helen back for the backing of her husband - Rage is the first main word; most important to remember about, main theme at the beginning - Peleus' son Achilles is angry and causes a lot of problems for the war and the Greeks - Achilles and Agamemnon have a dispute, because Agamemnon has taken bridal prizes, which are captive women, kidnapped as part of the warfare in the War; takes one of them as his loot, but her father is the priest of Apollo and ransoms her back - Agamemnon doesn't wanna give her up, and the priest of Apollo goes away and prays for her daugther's release - Inflicts the army with a plaque to stir up conversations about her release, Agamemnon agrees to release her, but his status won't be downgraded - This causes a huge fight, because Agamemnon is taking Achilles' status, and as a result, Achilles swears off, not participating in the war until the Greeks understand the misfortune they did - Achilles ask Thetis to ask Zeus about the Greeks - his closest friend, Patroclus, is depicted as having a romatic relationship with one another; described having a beard and being the main male character - When Achilles died, he asked his remains to be buried in the same burail as Achilles' remains - Patroclus talks about them growing up, but upset at the fact that so many Greeks died due to Achilles - Apollo "slaps the armour" of Achilles out of Patroclus after getting killed by Hector; Achilles kills Hector, but promises that he will not have a appropriate burial, shows his permanent disrespect - final scene depicts Priam who is the king of Troy is assisted to sneak out of Troy and sneak to the camp of Greeks and retrieve Hector to be properly buried; petitions Achilles for Hector to be released - Achilles agrees, allows Priam to take the body back; Priam holds the proper funeral and the poem ends (the war hasn't ended though) - trojan horse; important element of the myth, but doesn't occur in the Iliad, only after the death of Achilles and in the Odyssey (Odyseeus) - comes up with the plan, to build this secret wooden horse statue that is hollow inside and fills it with men, to sneak inside the city of Troy and win the war - "timeo danaos et dona ferentes" = I fear the Greeks (Danaians), even when they offer such gifts Book 9: Lotus-Eaters and Polyphemus - trying to figure out whether or not Odysseus is able to come home and preserve his household in the meantime - held as prisoner by a nymph; able to escape to the Phaeicians, where they are very welcoming and held a party in his honour - performer sings about the fall of Troy; he is upset by this because he was present in the war and tries to get back to his family to tell about the experiences and his story - tells them about the Lotus-Eaters, who has a mysterious fruit that causes them to forget that they are there; encounter Polyphemus - Odysseus has a plan to have the Cyclops drunk and stab his eyes with a sharp stick to not see him for Odysseus to escape; successfully Book 10: Circe - she is associated with magic potions; turns Odysseus' men to pigs after they see her in Aeaea - Odysseus goes to rescue them, but Hermes approaches him, telling him to eat an herb to protect himself from Circe's drug and lunge at her when she tries to strike him with her sword - successfully fought Circe and allow his men to be turned back into humans and stayed with Circe for quite some time - Odysseus asks Circe for the way back to Ithaca, but she replies that he must sail to Hades to speak with Tiresias for his way back home Book 11: The Nekia - Odysseus and Tiresias in the underworld - Pours libations and performs sacrifices to attract the souls of the dead; speaks with Tiresias after fighting off the souls, who reveals that Poseidon is punishing the Achaeans for blinding his son Polyphemus, and that he warns Odysseus to avoid harming cattle of the sun god Helios, otherwise it will bring destruction to his ship and crew - Odysseus also encounters the spirits of other famous figures, like Agamemnon, Achilles, Ajax Book 12: The Sirens, The Straits, and the Cattle of the Sun - He has himself tied to masks so that he can hear what the sirens (bird women) are saying; sings about his victory - Odysseus' ship is attacked by the Sirens, but saves the ship and his crew by plug his men's ears with beeswax and listening to them - Odysseus and his men must navigate through the straits between two sea monsters; only 6 men are eaten, and they eventually arrive at the place where the Cattle of the Sun is present, sacifirices one of the cows in order to eat it - The ship is strucked by the lighting of Zeus after the Sun finds about their ordeal of the cattle; all of the men died except for Odysseus who barely survived the storm Book 14: A Clever Plan - Odysseus returns in disguise and goes back because the suitors are costing his wife, son, and the household; he's decisive whether to trust Athena or not - tells Eumaeus about background of claiming to be a Cretan man who suffered many hardships; Eumaeus faithfully cared for Odysseus' estate in his absence and he's very welcoming even though he doesn't truly know about his identity Books 21-23: Rousting the Suitors - suitors are harrasing Odysseus' wife and sons, and in disguise was able to successfully kill all of the suitors that causes problems for the family - gets back with his wife since he proves to her that he had a strength of making a bow and arrow and shooting a arrow from it WEEK 13 Major Themes: Iliad: menis(first word): wrath, rage, fury; Achilles' fury is the motivating factor of the story kleos: glory, fame, or renoun; what motivates them to achieve kleos time: respect, honour; people should honour you, and how you are seen by your peers arete: excellence, virtue, manliness; lot of the battle scenes are meant to display the arete of the characters in battle ker: fated death; death that is destined for you, example is the will of Zeus Odyssey: nostos: return, homecoming; several of these occur in Greek mythology (Odysseus trying to get back to his family) metis: wisdom, wit, cleverness, intelligence; Odysseus' heroic qualities xenia: guest-friendship, guest/host relations; compliciated rules to follow when you are in a guest's party or home