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Eros and psyche essay 123essays
How do greek myths present the ideas of love
How is the myth of eros shown in today's culture? eros and the modern world
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Many people don't know what or how people fall in love. The answer
lies in Eros or Cupid, the god of love in Greek Mythology. Mythology is a
group of stories that explain a natural phenomenon or something in life. The
purpose of mythology is to state issues in life and to have a way to connect
everyone to the past. In Greek Mythology, Eros or Cupid was the reason for
love.
Eros/Cupid explains how people fall in love or even how it came
upon. Eros/Cupid is the god of love, passion, and sexual desire. He is the
son of Aphrodite, the goddess of love, and Aries, the god of war. He got
married to Psyche and had children Volupta and Nyx. Eros/Cupid has many
powers. He has the power to bring love to both gods and mortals. He also
has the power to shoot love and hatred arrows. His love
arrows were golden with dove feathers and his hatred arrows were made out
of lead with owl feathers.
Eros/Cupid appears to be a small, naked, winged boy. He was also
seen as a full, grown, man because there was a curse that Aphrodite's 2nd son
would make Eros/Cupid older. He was also blindfolded because they
believed love is blind. Eros/Cupid was believed that he was born from a
silver egg. He honored on January 22 for Eros Day.
Unlike other gods and goddesses, Eros has a wacky story. The story
is called Eros/Cupid and Psyche. It all started one day when Aphrodite is
mad at Psyche. She goes and tells her son Eros to make her fall in love with
an ugly creature. He arranged for Psyche to be abandoned by her parents on
a hilltop. But when Eros sees Psyche, he falls in love with her but tells her
not to see his face. Eros visits her only at night. Psyche is told that
Eros is a monster. She listens to them and goes to Cupid. She lights a
candle to see his face and realizes he is a handsome man. But she gets
scared and drops hot oil on his shoulders. Eros wakes up and gets mad. He
then gets up and flies away. Psyche then prayed to every god to give Eros
place for her to determine that she was in fact a border dweller. This awakening is crucial to her
purpose; she flees from him. He then sees the souls of those who died in battle.
...eisz. She can hear her playing the piano and thinks of her talking about art. She wonders if she is a real artist. She becomes exhausted and knows that she is too far out to return. The water that she was so mesmerized with throughout the novel and that was the beginning of her new life, was also the end.
In the Aeneid, love is depicted as an uncontrollable emotion. Venus and Juno promote the romance between Dido and Aeneas. Dido, the queen of Carthage, begins to fall in love with Aeneas, even though she has vowed to her late husband that she would set her “face against marriage” (Virgil 975). Aeneas falls in love with Dido and remains with her in Carthage, even though he knows that he must continue his travel to Rome. Love is a passion which consumes the soul in spite of its will. It is an “inward fire” (Virgil 976). Juno arranges it so that Dido and Aeneas consummate their love in a cave during a storm. Again, mortals have little or no control over their loves. The gods are the ones who cause people to fall in love.
tells the priest and the suffering people of Thebes. If Oedipus did not care for
No ordinary surprise awaited the audience assembled at the Bourgogne when Racine's Andromaque made its appearance. In addition to being a tragedy of the order so long desired in vain, it was to them what the Cid had been to their progenitors in the days of Richelieu, the sudden revelation of a genius previously unsuspected. In framing his plot, Racine deviated very widely from the legend of the captivity of Hector's widow and son at the palace of Pyrrhus, king of Epirus. Three distinct and conflicting interests are brought into play. Andromache is loved by Pyrrhus, Pyrrhus by Hermione, and Hermione by Orestes. It is only by becoming the wife of her tyrant that Andromache can save her son from being delivered up to the vindictive Greeks.; a deep-seated reverence for the memory of Hector struggles with the impulses of maternal affection, and at length, with a determination not to survive the marriage ceremony, she consents to the sacrifice required at her hands. Betrothed to Pyrrhus, whom she has left Greece to wed, Hermione, stung to madness by her humiliation, causes him to be assassinated on the altar steps just after the safety of Astyanax is assured, the chosen instrument of her vengeance being Orestes. But a fierce revulsion of feelings sweeps through her mind as the latter tells her of the crime she has urged him to perpetrate. Far from giving him the expected reward of his devotion, she assails him with bitter invective, falls into an agony of remorse and destroys herself on the bier of her victim. Stunned by the discovery that he has lost his honor to no purpose, Orestes is hurried by Pylades and other friends beyond reach of the punishment with which he is threatened. In elaborating this impressive s...
In the Symposium, a most interesting view on love and soul mates are provided by one of the characters, Aristophanes. In the speech of Aristophanes, he says that there is basically a type of love that connects people. Aristophanes begins his description of love by telling the tale of how love began. He presents the tale of three sexes: male, female, and a combination of both. These three distinct sexes represented one’s soul. These souls split in half, creating a mirror image of each one of them. Aristophanes describes love as the search for the other half of your soul in this quote: “When a man’s natural form was split in two, each half went round looking for its other half. They put their arms around one another, and embraced each other, in their desire to grow together again. Aristophanes theme is the power of Eros and how not to abuse it.
Aphrodite, goddess of love and beauty, later rose from the sea where Uranus's body had been thrown. Now Cronus became king of the universe. Cronos married his sister, Rhea, and they had six children. At the time of Cronos's marriage to Rhea, Gaea prophesied that one of his children would overthrow Cronos, as he had overthrown Uranus. To protect himself, Cronos swallowed each of his first five children -- Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Hades, and Poseidon -- immediatly after birth.
makes up his mind of killing himself too by her dead body. At the tomb
50),” manifests her rage though the physical fire set to the Trojans ships by the women. Juno’s divine wrath against Aeneas stems from two events; the first being Paris choosing Venus as the fairest women compared to Juno and Minerva. The second being the Trojan descendants are fated to destroy Juno’s favorite city, Carthage. Juno understands she cannot stop Aeneas from reaching fated Italy, but she still does everything in her power to make the journey difficult. Juno’s burning rage is most clearly seen when she sends down her messenger, Iris, to convince the Trojan women to burn Aeneas’ fleet. Aeneas and his crew had just landed in Eryx and held festivities to honor Anchises. As the men are distracted by the games, Iris impersonates Beroe and persuades the women to light “burning torches” (V.635) and ignite the ships. The women act on their emotions and are easily persuaded because they want to stop traveling and stay in Eryx. Iris is “the first to seize destroying flame” (V.641) and throw it onto the ships. The women “watched in horror” (V.643-4) but soon join the attack. The “raging fire didn’t slaken” (V.680) until Jupiter intervenes and releases a “rage of pouring rain and thunder” (V.694). Juno’s internal rage is demonstrated though the external fire set by Iris and the women. The destructive fires and the manipulation of the women’s emotions emphasize the rage Juno feels that is only be smothered by Jupiter’s
What makes the depiction between Athena and Aphrodite interesting is the different ways they are portrayed even sharing the similarity of being born strictly from male only. Athena from the all-powerful king of the gods Zeus and Aphrodite from Ouronos. Though they were both born from man alone, the content of these births caused Athena to be expressed in a more dignified, respected, and superior way. Hesiod’s recount of the births of Athena and Aphrodite in his Theogony reveals the source of Athena’s superiority. According to the Theogony, Ouranos’ genitals are thrown into the sea where they mix with the sea foam to result in Aphrodite (Hesiod 180-192). Aphrodite is said to be called, by Hesiod, “Philommedes, fond of a man’s genitals” ( Hesiod, 200-201). In contrast, Hesiod writes that Athena is born from Zeus’ head (Hesiod 924) after Zeus consumes her mother Metis, the goddess whose name means wisdom, for fear of her giving birth to someone who was destined to be his match in wisdom (Hesiod 894-900).
then watches, with an excitable evil in his eye, as his human pyres go up in
In Edith Hamilton’ book King Acrisius is desperate for a son. He goes to Delphi to ask if he will someday have a son but the priestess tells him no and also tell him that this daughter will have a son who will some day kill him. He did not want to kill his daughter because he loved her but also because he feared the anger of the gods. So he built an underground bronze house and imprisoned her there. It was there that Zeus visited her and made her pregnant. When the King found out about this he had his daughter placed in a chest and put out to sea. They were discovered by a fisherman who took care of the them as though they were members of his family.
Just as Jocasta was, Oedipus is left in a confused state of mind and is quick to make the assumption that the oracles were false in their prophecies. "They led me to believe that I would kill my father. But he is dead and in his grave, while I stand here - never having touched a weapon" (Sophocles 22). At this time Oedipus is ignorant to the fact that Polybus was not his father. Although comforted in thinking that he was able to avoid the oracle because he did not kill his father, Oedipus still fears his union with his mother in bed. "But my fear is of her - as long as she lives" (Sophocles 22). If Merope was to have been Oedipus' mother, then he would not have been a sacrificial scapegoat, because one characteristic of the sacrificial scapegoat is the permission of the character to engage in sexual intercourse with a woman usually forbidden to him. It is not natural for a man to sleep with his mother, and Oedipus thinks he has managed to refrain from doing so. Later in this scene the messenger reveals information to Oedipus that contradicts everything that he had long believed. "Then you must realize that your fear is groundless. Because Polybus was no relative of yours" (Sophocles 23). The messenger proceeds in telling Oedipus about his childhood - that he gave Oedipus to Polybus as a gift after receiving him from another shepherd in the hills of Cithaeron. Because Oedipus wanted more information