The Midas Touch

                                                               "The Midas Touch"

         King Midas knew that Seilenus was a companion of Dionysus, so King

King Midas finding out his magical "touch".

Midas royally entertained Seilenus for 10 days and nights. Seilenus was old and drunk but King Midas was aware of Dionysus' power, he had learned the rites of loud-roaring Dionysus from the great minstrel Orpheus. Dionysus had cultivated the vineyards on Mount Tmolus, which grew near the Pactolus River. After entertaining him for 10 days and nights, King Midas reunited Seilenus with Dionysus. Dionysus was so happy to be reunited with his companion that he told King Midas that he would grant one wish for him, so King Midas asked for the power to turn everything he touches into gold. So Dionysus granted King Midas his wish as he promised and King Midas started trying out his new power and was full of joy as everything he picked up turned to gold. Being overwhelmed by the fact that his power was so amazing he went home to have his servants make him a feast. When the feast came to Midas, he tried to drink his water, which turned into a gold glass with gold inside of it, he then touched the food and it also turned to gold. Midas now had realized that the power he wanted was a curse if anything, and wanted to get rid of it. He went to the almighty Bacchus and asked him what he should do to get this curse off of him so he wouldn't die of starvation. Bacchus then told him to wash his hands off in the Pactolus River. Midas travelled to said river and dipped his hands into the river so he could finally eat something. When he put his hands into the river, The power flowed through the river and the sands turned to gold, explaining why the Pactolus river was so rich in gold. Midas, after having this power hated riches and wealth, so he moved to the countryside with Pan, and worshiped Pan the god of the fields and satyr. Pan wanted to compare his music with that of Apollo, so he challenged him to a competition of skill. So, then Pan blew on his pipes as Midas followed in his steps. Midas was shocked at the beautiful music Pan played. Then Apollo plucked his Lyre and the gods almost immediately awarded Apollo with the victory. Midas disagreed with this and thought Pan should be the victor. Apollo couldn't deal with Midas' attitude so he turned his ears into a donkeys ears, because his taste in music was bad. Midas hated his misfortune and always hid his ears, except from his barber because he had to see them. Midas always wore a hat around to prevent the others from seeing. The barber could not hold his secret though, so he dug a hole and whispered into it the Midas had donkey ears. Later a bed of reeds grew from that spot, whispering that Midas had donkey ears every time the wind blew. This was the end of the chapter on King Midas.

24: Daedalus and Icarus

Daedalus and Icarus

    Daedalus has a career in architect,engineering and sculpting. Daedalus represented golden mean in Greek thinking. He didn't fly to high or to low. On the other hand Icarus suffered from hybris. Daedalus was a master artisan and received art craftsmanship from Athena. Daedalus was the first to build the open eyes, arm swinging away from side, and legs separated in a stride pose statue. Perdix was a young genius. Perdix was the first to make the draftsman's compass. Daedalus was very jealous of his nephews creativity. So Daedalus took him to the top of Athena's temple. At the top of the temple Daedalus pushes his nephew Perdix off Athena's temple. Daedalus and Icarus were pushes from escaping prion and put into a labyrinth. When Daedalus and his son Icarus were in prison Daedalus is trying to find another way out. He see a seagull in which he gets a bright idea. Daedalus is now gathering feathers up and making wings in the structure of the seagulls wings. Before he test the wings he is giving advice to his son Icarus. First advice don't fly to low or sea will soak the feathers. Second advice don't fly to high or else the sun will scorch the wings. When Icarus had courage to fly he went to high up to the sun and scorched his wings. He then fell down to the sea. His father Daedalus the father Icarus is searching for him. When he see feathers every where down at the sea. The rule of Icarus emotion caused his death. Icarus death caused Daedalus to last be seen in Sardinia, and stayed in Athens many years. Daedalus now stays in Sicily for many years.   

Chapter 22

Aaron Pena
10/21/10
Mythology

Mythology;

Chapter; 22 summary

The story Erysichthon

Erysichthon trying to fill his insatiable appetite.

The giants acted with reluctance to the Prince’s surprise. The Prince then announced that anyone who dared disobey his orders would be beheaded. The Prince added on that he would destroy the giant oak even if it was Demeter herself. Before Erysichthon could swing his axe at the tree, the giant oak tree let out a terrible scream and Demeter heard the cry and was angry. Demeter, angrily exclaimed “who dares destroy my sacred trees?”, and came forth disguised as her mortal chief priestess. Demeter approached the prince and warned him “do not mutilate trees in which are sacred to the immortals and take your servants and leave”. Erysichthon was not intimidated by Demeter’s disguised mortal advice. Now the prince was even more belligerent and replied “leave me to my ways or I shall fall you with my eager axe”, and proceeded to tell disguised Demeter that he intended to build a palace with the trees and within its walls bear a feast for him and his friends.
• Erysichthon was a mortal who was punished for his arrogance  and caused his own fate by his attitude and actions. He had no respect for any ones property and in this myth, the property was sacred to a god. Erysichthon was given a chance to change his ways and chose not to, he saw no difference in himself compared to a god. He thought of himself as superior to the gods in order to have felt that he had the right to destroy Demeter’s sacred grove. His punishment convinced anyone who could have been tempted to lose sight of their mortal condition, that gods did not tolerate arrogance, gods expectation was man must know himself and know his place in the universe.
• Demeter dearly loved her sacred grove of trees in Thessaly and spent countless hours in its shade. She became furious when Erysichthon an impious young prince who decided to desecrate Demeter’s sacred grove by building a palace with the sacred trees. The Prince didn’t act alone he gathered twenty giant servants who had the combined strength to uproot an entire city, the giants were armed with hatchets,double bladed axes, and many other weapons. The young prince who gave them these weapons led them to Demeter’s sacred grove and ordered them to cut the sacred trees down. The Prince announced that he himself would cut down the largest of the trees, which was a gigantic oak tree, who’s branches seemed to touch the heavens.
• The tree was then cut down by the prince and as the tree died it proclaimed “with my departing life I prophecy that vengeance for your actions is near for I am the Dryad who lives within this sacred tree”. Erysichthon’s servants abandoned him and their actions were excused by Demeter for them being forced against their will, ordered to cut down her sacred trees. Demeter then embraced the prince with an embarrassing curse, in which he ate within his newly built palace’s walls for the rest of his life, his family ashamed. All caused by the prince’s arrogance and the fair haired Demeter’s curse.
• Demeter gave the prince his curse by ordering her nymph to take her chariot with harnessed dragons to Scythia near Mount Caucasus to find famine, a hideous creature who caused people to vanquish, as the prince did. Famine grabbed onto the prince as he slept and in doing that gave the prince his uncontrollable hunger. The disease worked on the prince by infecting his mortal body and forcing him to devour all his nourishment.

• 

  Fair haired Demeter.

  After a while the prince lost his palace along with it his wealth and forced his family into poverty, eventually causing him to live on the streets, stuck with his embarrassing curse eating peoples table scrapes. His father called upon Zeus crying to the heavens “if you truly are my father, look upon your grandson and help him” and continuing to tell him he’d rather have his son stuck with another dreadful punishment than him being stuck with an insatiable appetite, adding on that he was forced into poverty by supplying his son with descent food. Then the father pleaded if Zeus could not break the curse if he could help feed the prince. The lord of the Sea heard his son’s prayer but it was to late. When Erysichthon could no longer supply his own body with sufficient food, the prince began to consume his own blood and flesh, thus consuming himself and dying. Fair haired Demeter was avenged.

Bellerophon

Pegasus, The Winged Horse

Bellerophon was one of the biggest heroes in Greek mythology in the time before Hercules came around. The myth was told by his Grandson, Glaucus, which also happened to be the name of his father, King Glaucus. In the begenning of the myth Bellerophon accidently killed his brother or a figure posing at him (different resources tell different things), which lead to him being banished into exile for murder. He then traveled to the King of Tirnys, Proetus. Proetus heard his story and cleansed him of his crimes he committed in Corinth. After this the Kings wife, Stheneboea, took on to him and fell for him. Bellerophon rejected the kings wife though, and she got angry with him and told the king that he had tried to rape her. This made the king very displeased, but wanted Bellerophon to be socially acceptable and sent him to King Lobates in Lycia. With him he sent a letter that was to go to King Lobates. When Bellerophon arrived, he was treated great for nine days. On the tenth day, Lobates found out about the letter, and demanded to see it. When he opened the latter he found it said "Take care of Bellerophon because he tried to sleep with my wife". Lobates did not want to kill Bellerophon for fear of the gods, so he sent him on a journey deemed impossible, to kill the fire breathing beast, Chimera. Chimera was a beast that had the body of a goat, head of a lion, and tail of a serpent. To do this task he was told he needed to obtain Pegasus in order for his journey to be successful. Pegasus was a untamed horse that had wings. In order to do this, Polyeidos told him to sleep in the temple of Athena. While sleeping in this temple, Bellerophon had a dream that Athena came to him, with a gold bridle. Athena talked to him and said that the bridle was a sacrifice to the tamer and he needed it in order to get Pegasus. When he woke up he found the bridle sitting right next to him. He was then told that he needed to approach Pegasus when he was drinking from the well in his home city, Corinth, at the never ending Pirene. Other sources say different on how he got Pegasus but this is the one I found. When he caught Pegasus he flew off to where Chimera was believed to be located. Chimera was located in Lycia, and when Bellerophon found him he was not the slightest bit pleased. Bellerophon couldn't phase the beast as it blew fire and threw him off track. He then got the idea to attach a large block of lead to a spear and then threw it towards Chimera's throat. The block of lead lodged in his throat and when it tried to breath fire it melted the lead killing the beast by blocking its air passage. He returned to Lobates and he couldn't believe he had done it. He later went on to do many other tasks like fight against the Amazons and the Solymi. Bellerophon got so full of himself he thought he would fly up to Mount Olympus, which angered Zues. Right before Bellerophon made it up to Olympus Zues took Pegasus from him and Bellerophon fell to back to Earth. Bellerophon would then live the rest of his life a cripple and blind, and not respected by the population.

Chapter 19-Lycaon, The Flood, Dawn Of New Era

In Chapter 19, there were three myths; Lycaon, The Flood, And Down of a new era.The first myth, Lycaon, was about Zeus's dislike to human sacrifice, which was mainly focused on cannibalism. In the times of the Greeks, cannibalism had been practiced in Attica. The start of the myth starts out with Zeus being very dissatisfied with the bronze race of Greeks, so decided to take the form of a humble man and punish the disrespectful ones. Zeus traveled to Arcadia, where Lycaon was the king. Lycaon was a man who had 50 sons and practiced cannibalism. Zeus had heard rumors about the family and decided to go to the castle. Zeus presented himself to the king in the name of Zeus, since he was in the form of a humble looking being. Lycaon doubted that Zeus had sent this man, so he invited him to dinner to see if it was true. Lucaon brought in a servant boy and chopped him up and cooked him, while after that he did the same to a cow and mixed it up into a platter of some what. He knew that if this was really Zeus's messenger he would not touch the dish made with the servant. Sense Lycaon was very impatient though he started dining on the food, and then Zeus showed himself. He completely destroyed the house with his powers of thunder and lighting, and the only one left after this was Lycaon, who ran away into the town. Lycaon tried to communicate to people to tell them Zeus was angry, but found out that he had been turned into a coyote, for the savage he was. Zeus knew at this time he needed to destroy mankind. The second myth,The Flood, continues with Zeus's plan to destroy humankind. This myth is much like the biblical story of Noah and the ark. Zeus was angry and knew he couldn't use his lightning bolt because then he could risk setting the whole world a blaze and destroying any means of life in the future. So then he came up with the plan to use water and flood the earth. First he trapped the west and north winds so the storm wouldn't move and would not freeze or go away. Then the god of the dark clouds came with a horrible storm and Zeus squeezed all the moisture out of the cloud and caused horrible damage. Zeus found the damage to not be sufficient enough, so he called for Iris to ta ke more water up into the clouds and a second burst of the storm came. Finally, Zeus called on his brother, Poseidon, and told him to tell all the sea gods and goddesses to open their gates and let water flow free. After this the population of the world as they saw, was dead and gone. In the final part of this chapter, Dawn of a new Era, Talks about how before the storm Prometheus warned his son Deucalion to build a boat and take the mortal Pyrra with him. So Deucalion built the boat and entered it with Pyrra and the storm happened. They were then taken by the water to Mount Pathasus after 9 days and 9 nights. This is when Zeus looked own on the earth and saw that these two were alive, but Zeus was ok with these two being the only ones living, since it was Prometheus's son and partner. Then Zeus released the west and north winds which blew the storm away and gave sun to the earth again. Deucalion and Pyrr, realizing their the last on earth, went to Themis' Temple and prayed to the goddess of justice. When they prayed they heard a reply from Themis, asking them to wear their clothes loosely and to take the bones of their 'Mighty Mother' and throw them over your shoulders and over your backs. Deucalion took this as a test and thought the bones meant the rocks of the earth, earth being the mother. So they went to the hill, with their clothes loose and their heads covered, and started to throw rocks over their shoulders and backs. When they did this they felt a weird twist in the world, and when they uncovered their heads they saw that the rocks below them were transforming into softer material and different shapes and sizes, it turned out that the rocks Deucalion threw, turned into young men, and the ones Pyrra threw were young women. This was how the new era of humans began and is the end of chapter 19.

Lycaon Being turned into a Coyote

Deucalion and Pyrra Throwing Rocks That Turned Into The New Human Race

Zeus Causing 'The Flood'