The Tales of Gods- Belfinch’s Mythology Assignment 1

Each and every one of these tales had a message written beneath. We obviously cannot take these stories literally, but we can analyze them and find their deeper meaning. For example I found that when Prometheus gave fire to man and Pandora opened the box with all the evil, “Prometheus, who, with the aid of Minerva, went up to heaven, and lighted his torch at the chariot of the sun, and brought down fire to man”, “Pandora was seized with an eager curiosity to know what this jar contained; and one day she slipped off the cover and looked in. Forthwith there escaped a multitude of plagues for hapless man,—such as gout, rheumatism, and colic for his body, and envy, spite, and revenge for his mind.” These represented the fall of man, our descent into evil and sin. It may also represent that all our actions have consequences. These stories should be learned and interpreted well, lest we perceive their messages poorly.
The story of Apollo and Daphne was also written for the hidden message. Apollo insulted Cupid and therefore was cursed. He was struck with the arrow of love and Daphne the opposite, this forced Apollo to forever chase after Daphne which eventually led of her death. “He took his stand on a rock of Parnassus, and drew from his quiver two arrows of different workmanship, one to excite love, the other to repel it.”
The story of Midas tells us to be careful what you wish for, it might turn around into something you didn’t expect or something terrible. He wished that everything he touched would turn to gold, and when he tried to eat it became gold, when he touched his daughter she turned to gold. He believed it was a blessing but it turned into a curse. “Then he found to his dismay that whether he touched bread, it hardened in his hand; or put a morsel to his lips, it defied his teeth. He took a glass of wine, but it flowed down his throat like melted gold.”
The Sphinx was a telling of a man Oedipus, also known as Oedipus Rex. His father was told that his son would kill him when he grew into an adult so the king gave the task of killing his son to a farmer. The farmer left him to die and instead of doing so a poor man found him. One day, when Oedipus was older he unknowingly encountered his father. He refused to stand aside for the king, his father; this led to a fight and eventually the king’s death. The king’s unwillingness to do the job himself was his own demise.
The fifth story I read was that of Perseus and Medusa. Medusa was once a beautiful maiden but in her own arrogance she was turned into a monster. She insulted Minerva and then had her beauty turned into horror. “She was once a beautiful maiden whose hair was her chief glory, but as she dared to vie in beauty with Minerva, the goddess deprived her of her charms and changed her beautiful ringlets into hissing serpents.”
The final story of Orion, the hunter, I believe attempted to tell us of jealousy. All mankind feels jealousy or envy at one time or another. Apollo was so jealous of Orion he caused Diana to accidentally murder Orion. “One day, observing Orion wading through the sea with his head just above the water, Apollo pointed it out to his sister and maintained that she could not hit that black thing on the sea. The archer-goddess discharged a shaft with fatal aim.”
Each and every one of these tales has a message or lesson that we can learn from. All are human defects that we all experience, these stories teach us about them so that we might be able to avoid them from time to time.