#theogony

[ahotpeaceofshit]

Different versions of Calypso in ancient sources, I only added ones that had conflicting information.

[divinationdrawings]

"Fair wreathed Kytherea"

-Hesiod's Theogony, Gany translation

Aphrodite of the golden crown

The lustrous hand mirror

Seafoam from the cosmos rains down

The mist grows clearer

Kytherea blew in

From warm Cyprus winds

Enchanting the Seamen and Seafarers

I hope you enjoyed today's tale of legend and lore, come back next week and there will be even more

[boymanmaletheshequel]

A god to consider: Nyx 🌚🪶

Lady Nyx, the primordial, ancient goddess of the night and of darkness itself, one of the protogenoi, daughter of Chaos, is one of the gods of the underworld. A premordial Cthonic deity, She is the mother of the daemons, as well as the mother of sleep, death, and pain. Referred to as “the subduer of gods and men” She is one of, if not the single most intimidating god, so terrifying in her cadence in fact, that Zeus himself was once in terrified awe of her power. She bore nearly all of her children through immaculate conception, these children being some of the most fearsome gods of Hellen, including but not limited to: Hypnos, Thanatos, Nemesis, the Morae, and the Daemons. She is the mother of death, the mistress of dreams, the personification of night. She is Nyx, learn her name.

If you wish to learn more about Nyx, consider the sources below. If you wish to learn about more gods of Hellen, please consider giving my blog a follow! I lost daily. Blessed be your day! 💙🏛️💙

Sources:

• Theoi.com

• Wikipedia.org

• “the Iliad” - Homer

• “Theogony” - Hesiod

Relevant stories:

• Theogony - Hesiod

• The Iliad - Homer

• works and days - Hesiod

• Eumenides - Aeschylus

• Aeneid - Virgil

[brainrotroulette]

Now, you could call this one a real "cliff hanger"

Been a lifelong Greek myths nerd, just started taking up drawing, and JUST got into EPIC.

I know that it's based on the Homeric telling of Odysseus' life and that Hesoid's Thoegony was basically fanfic. HOWEVER, it doesn't stop the thoughts swirling about if Hesoid's idea of Odysseus' lineage existed within the context of this musical; a man who occasionally snaps back into reality, and names sons whose existence he can barely stomach after the two things he wants most in the world, a quick ship and navigation proficiency so he can return home to Penelope and Telemachus and not the woman who is about to strip him of his memories and make him play house with a song.

[depressed-linguist]

‘three fair-cheeked Kharites…from whose eyes as they glanced flowed love that unnerves the limbs’

- hesiod, theogony

The Three Graces - detail from La Primavera, Sandro Botticelli (Uffizi Gallery, Firenze)

[whencyclopedia]

This infographic illustrates the 12 Olympian Gods (Greek: Δωδεκάθεον, Dodekatheon), the principal deities of the Greek pantheon who reside on Mount Olympus, ruling over aspects of the natural world, human life, and cosmic order. Traditionally, they include Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, Demeter, Athena, Apollo, Artemis, Ares, Aphrodite, Hephaestus, Hermes, and Dionysus, with Hades (brother of Zeus and Poseidon...

[clare-with-no-i]

fun fact: there is a file collecting dust on my laptop called 'greek myth jily' which has absolutely nothing to do with theog and was, in fact, going to be a canonverse one-shot which interwove parts of Hesiod's theogony into jily's love story. that was the reason I spent a random evening reading Hesiod's theogony in August of 2021. later that same night, though, I got the idea for (what is now) theog "as a joke" because in my head it felt so overplayed and formulaic – I just couldn't stop thinking about it as I went to bed.

about a week later I got tagged in an ask game where one of the prompts was "Ideas I probably won't get to but it would be nice" and I ranted and raved about this dumb idea that wouldn't get out of my mind. I got a bunch of responses telling me to write it, so I spent a few hours plotting it out (handwritten! in the notebook I would later use for the Masters program I would audit before deciding on law school!), wrote the prologue and the epilogue, and posted the prologue the next day. I had a concrete plan to be done with it by January 2022. lmfao.

I'm not going to write the canonverse piece, because I think I've just about had enough of intertwining greek mythology and jily, but it is pretty fun to look back on and giggle about.

i guess the moral of the story is: be open to changing your ideas around if something really strikes your interest. and if you can't stop thinking about something (even in a derogatory way) that probably means something.

[templeofelysium]

some mentions of Hades in historical works

HESIOD'S THEOGONY:

" In front of that stand the echoing halls Of mighty Hades and dread Persephone, Underworld gods, and a frightful, pitiless Hound stands guard, and he has a mean trick: When someone comes in, he fawns upon him, Wagging his tail and dropping his ears, But he will not allow anyone to leave— He runs down and eats anyone he catches Leaving Persephone’s and Hades’ gates. "

THE ORPHIC HYMNS

" You dwell below the earth, O' strong-spirited one, a meadow in Tartarus, thick-shaded and dark. Sceptered Chthonic Zeus, please accept this sacrifice, O' Plouton, holder of the keys to the whole earth. To mankind you give the wealth of the year’s fruits, yours is the third portion, earth, queen of all, seat of the gods, mighty lap of mortals. Your throne rests on a dark realm, the realm of distant, of untiring, of windless, and of impassive Hades; it does rest on gloomy Acheron, the river who girds the roots of the earth. All-receiver, master of death, master of mortals, host of many, Euboulos, you once took as your bride pure Demeter’s daughter: you tore her away from the meadow, and through the sea you carried her to an Attic cave upon your steeds— it was the district of Eleusis, where the gates to Hades are. You alone were born to judge deeds obscure and conspicuous. Holiest and illustrious ruler of all, frenzied god, you delight in the respect and in the reverence of your worshippers. I summon you, come with favor, come with joy to the initiates. "

THE HOMERIC HYMNS

PLATO'S GORGIAS

[zebedeezing]

Big lincoln sends you to hell

[sarafangirlart]

I’m kinda tired of Medusa fans defending how Ovid depicts her and saying it’s just as valid as Ancient Greek sources that say she was born a monster, it’s one thing to say that you like an idea or story beat from a Roman or even medieval source and even use it in your interpretation (I do that with Kronos and Hera), it’s another thing entirely to say it’s equally valid as Ancient Greek sources, when all these stories come from different cultures and time periods. I’d probably be more forgiving of this kind of thing if “Medusa was pretty then turned into a monster” was at least implied in ancient sources but it’s not.

[dionysusmybeloved]

I decided to make a post on this since I kinda forgot to make a separate one from the master-list, but I wanted to share that I've made a free library of resources to use!

Which includes:

• The Theogony, Works and Days, The Shield

• The Odyssey and Illiad

• The Homeric and Orphic Hymns

• The Library by Apollodorus

• Hellenic Polytheism: Household Worship

and many more books / plays (Euripides, Aeschylus, Aristophanes, Sophocles), secondary resources on Dionysus, etc.

also, you can message me to add some books and resources, I'll try to add it to the best of my ability (I'm uploading Euripides I to IV tomorrow probably)

[ahotpeaceofshit]

Ody making some toys for his sons... while looking out towards ithaca

[brimo5]

Kronos: (look at young Zeus) Gaia was right. Just look at this adorable child! What's all the fuss about? I wish I had more children. Zeus: (delivers a sudden punch to his father's stomach) Kronos: (vomiting up a stone and his children) UUUUURRRGGHHHH!

[stevenmeeksfreeamericaradio]

As epic the musical is coming to a close next week I want to bring up the Theogony.

I like to call it the first odyssey fanfic in which Circe has a child with Odysseus.

Even Ancient Greece had fanfics.

[ditoob]

Okay so back to the Hesiod and Homer topic, the Theogony mentions Odysseus having two children with Circe (interstingly not mentioning Telgonus) and two with Calypso

You think Homer ever threw hands with Hesiod to defend Odypen?

[lyculuscaelus]

In general, the mythological picture Homer and other ancient writers were trying to provide us in their poems is quite different from each other in many aspects. One of which is the lore about Odysseus. For example, in a Homeric world, Odysseus’s family is a line of single sons, as Telemachus has pointed out in the Odyssey, book 16, line 117–120:

ὧδε γὰρ ἡμετέρην γενεὴν μούνωσε Κρονίων: μοῦνον Λαέρτην Ἀρκείσιος υἱὸν ἔτικτε, μοῦνον δ᾽ αὖτ᾽ Ὀδυσῆα πατὴρ τέκεν: αὐτὰρ Ὀδυσσεὺς μοῦνον ἔμ᾽ ἐν μεγάροισι τεκὼν λίπεν οὐδ᾽ ἀπόνητο. 120 The son of Cronus makes our family a line of single sons: Only one son—Laërtes, did Arceisius beget; Only one son—Odysseus, did his father (Laërtes) beget; then Odysseus, begetting Only one son—me, left me in his halls, and had no joy of me.

Also, it’s not just Telemachus using dramatic here and I stand by my point. Might rant about it at some point but for now, let’s just say the word μούνωσε (its 1st person present indicative form being μονόω) is extremely interesting here, and another thing to keep in mind is the use of Dios boulē in the Odyssey, which also deserves some ranting of its own.

Now, back to the topic. The choice of words here is presumably deliberate, as Homer is trying to establish his own version of the story and suppressing some other epichoric traditions. (Creative liberties is certainly not just a modern concept fellas but anyways) Therefore we have our so-called Homeric tradition, which is the result of the omission of a number of local traditions, plus his unique portrayal of characters as a treat. Keep in mind that this is not the only version of the story (but certainly the most intriguing and influential one), so you would notice something off almost immediately (say, Dictys Cretensis and the Telegony). Now, there is only one point I’d like to bring up:

Don’t pretend that those non-Homeric stories could still work well within the Homeric tradition; and don’t expect certain Homeric rules to apply to other non-Homeric lore.

Again, back to our example. The one-son-per-generation rule is most certainly Homeric and can only stay in a Homeric setting. You do not apply this to Theogony and certainly not the infamous Telegony. On the other hand, the Telegony is NOT a sequel to the Odyssey, but rather tells a different story which is set after the time of the Odyssey. That Odysseus seen in Proclus’s summary of this poem is certainly not the Odysseus we know of, and chances are that he was exile by his people while this is invalidated by the ending of book 24 of the Odyssey, and the oar quest might not even have happened in the Telegony.

Yes, I know that some may find the angst potential of Nausinous and Nausithous (this includes me) or the painful death of Odysseus (you lost me here) irresistible, but keep in mind that they’re in a different setting now, and the portrait of characters is likely different. But that doesn’t mean you can’t explore the story itself. In fact, it’s even more intriguing to see how our beloved Homeric characters would behave in these non-Homeric settings. Giving Odysseus a chance to be the father he never was is angsty as hell; putting Odysseus in Thesprotia after him facing family issues also brings the story itself to a new level (glances at Smitty 👀); etc. After all, one could even say they’re fanfic ideas set in different AUs, waiting to be explored by future writers…

So…yeah.