Myths

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April 25th, 2018 at 10:45:29 AM permalink
Nareed
Member since: Oct 24, 2012
Threads: 346
Posts: 12545
Part of the course is about African myths.

I found it disappointing. In part it's because you can't ump together diverse cultures, But also many of the myths examined seem fairly recent in origin (for instance, a few mention guns), and the lecturer doesn't place them in a temporal context (or for that matter in a broader cultural context most times.

So I don't feel I learned much useful about these myths. Except several traditions include a trickster god. This deity seems to embody things like misfortune and chance (and sometimes the stories about them are funny). at first glance, Greek mythology lacks any such figure (a case can be made for Odysseus, but he certainly is no god), but I would point to prophecy and fate.

Not all prophecies, to be sure. But often, especially in stage drama, prophecies serve as drivers of events, and wind up being fulfilled despite any measures taken to avoid them. In essence a prophecy tricks people into fulfilling it. The most famous is the one involving Oedipus. The attempts by his parents, and Oedipus, to avoid it, wind up placing everyone in line to fulfill it. A similar prophecy involves Perseus and his mother Danaë and the king of Argos.

This features shows up into historical time. The Oracle ar Delphi was in business well into Roman times, after all. If you read about Croesus, you'll learn he consulted the Oracle about invading Persia. he was told if he did so, a mighty empire would perish. He invaded Persia, and a mighty empire did perish. Unfortunately it was Croesus's own.
Donald Trump is a one-term LOSER
April 26th, 2018 at 10:40:09 AM permalink
Nareed
Member since: Oct 24, 2012
Threads: 346
Posts: 12545
Related tangentially to the topic of myths and legends, there's this unit of measurement called the "millihelen."

What is it? Why, the quantity of beauty necessary to launch one ship.

this implies the existence of a centihelen (10 ships), a decihelen (100 ships) a hemihelen (500 ships), and of course a decahelen (10,000 ships), hectahelen (100,000 ships), kilohelen (1,000,000 ships) megahelen, (1 billion ships), etc.
Donald Trump is a one-term LOSER
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