starting from delphic oracle apollo and artemis

Starting from Delphic Oracle

Apollo and Artemis

Wu Shiyu

课外作业

神话故事： Echo 和 Narcissus

Echo 是 nymph，喜欢说话偷情， Hera,只能重复他人的话的最后几个字爱上 Narcissus，遭拒Narcissus不爱任何人“愿他只爱自己，永远享受不到他所爱的东西”（ P61）水边的，再见。

皮刺摩斯和提斯柏

邻居墙，裂缝桑树底下约会提斯柏，雄狮、牛，衣服外套，宝剑，自杀提斯柏也自杀，桑树浆果变红

Apollo and Artemis

Olympians: Apollo and Artemis

Twin sisters

Zeus the father

Leto the mother

sun and moon

More complex

God Apollo

God of:

Sun

Youth

Medicine

Healing

God Apollo

God of:

Arts: music, poetry

Preside the nine Muses

Creative ability

Representing Culture

Olympians: Apollo

Still god of

Sudden death for men

Plague

Wearing a quiver

Carrying a bow

Apollo: God of Prophecy

The most important aspect:

God of prophecy

Delphic oracle (Delphi)

Sacred to Apollo

Apollo’s role as a god of who provides prophecy for humans is central to our understanding of him

Delphic Oracle (特尔斐神谕 )

Consult the oracle

People travel to Delphi

Ask the prietess there

Questions –Pythia-- answers

Questions big or small, public or privacy

“If you cross the river Halys, you will destroy a great empire.”

The story of Croesus

Video

Apollo: God of reason and moderation

Association with reason and with moderation.

Carved on the temple:

“Know thyself”

“Nothing in Excess”

Crucial to understanding of Greek culture

Immortal and mortal

God and man

Immortal and mortal

limitations

Unstable

Uncertain

Do not transgress

The Story of Niobe

The Story of Niobe

Niobe: queen of Thebes, mother of 14 children

Greater than Leto (goddess)

worshiped instead of Leto

Apollo and Artemis shoot

Cliff, water running down

Eternal tears

Lessons to learn

Sins visited upon children

Human good fortune unstable

Changeable, unstable, disappear in the blink of an eye

Follow reason, nothing in excess, know yourself

Two maxims connected.

Excess---- not know yourself

Address by Jobs

The Story of Croesus

Croesus, the king of Lydia (560-546 B.C.)

Lydia, Egypt, Babylon, Media

Rich, gold, silver, coinage, happiest man in the world;

Five generation ago, Candaules, Gyges

Gyges took power

Croesus and Solon

Solon, Athenian, the law giver, Seven Sages

“Who is the happiest man in the world?”

Tellus

“Who is the second happiest man?”

Cleobis and Biton

A lucky person, look to the end

Croesus and Solon

Solon, Athenian, the law giver, Seven Sages

“Who is the happiest man in the world?”

Tellus

“Who is the second happiest man?”

Cleobis and Biton

A lucky person, look to the end

Solon’s Happiness

“Human life is so unpredictable, we are so at the mercy of fate, that until we are safely dead, no one can say whether we are happy or fortunate as we do not know what calamities might befall us from one day to the next. No one can truly be called happy until they are dead.”

No one is happy until the end is known.

This was not at all what Croesus wanted to hear;

He dismissed Solon as a fool and put his words from his mind.

Croesus’ Downfall

Dream, god’s message, son, iron weapon, killed

A savage boar, hurls the spear, killed the boy

Consult the oracle,

“You will ruin the day your son speaks?”

“If you march against the Persia Empire, a great kingdom will be destroyed.”

“Until a mule sits upon the throne of Persia”

Sardis, Cyrus came suddenly

Burn alive, “Solon, Solon, Solon!”

Immortal and Mortal

"If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right."

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don‘t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life…”

-----Steve Jobs

Immortal and Mortal

Eos, the dawn goddess

Affair with the human Tithonos

Enjoyed him so much

Make him immortal

Failed ageless

Continue to age

Nothing left but a voice

Complaining voice

A back chamber

Immortal and Mortal

Attempt to gain immortality

Result in total disaster

Sybil, a female lover of Apollo

Asked for as many years of life as there were grains of sand on the shore of sea

This was granted

But eternal youth was left out

Grows older and older

Withered away into a little thing sits in cage

几个问题

1.古希腊神话里对“人”的思考，比如本课所讲的人与神的区别，还有斯芬克斯之谜里的问题；

2.古希腊文明所体现的理性，自省与其悲剧意识和这一文明的创造性的思考。

Homework: Hubris or hybris

Humans must avoid hubris

A word come into English from Greek.

What is hubris? Implications for our life.

Refer to presentations

Artemis: her twins’ opposite

God of moon

Huntress

Wild beasts

Protector of young species

Sudden death

Mistress of wild beasts

Protector of young babies including of humans

Protector of childbirth

Protector of childbirth

Forever virgins: Artemis, Athena and Hestia

Is it contradictory?

Identify women with nature, men with culture.

In Greek culture

Women were submissive

Male dominant

Rejecting domination by a male because of her essential wildness

Her rejection of sexuality illustrates the danger of crossing a god or transgressing the boundaries between humans and gods.

The story of Actaeon

The story of Actaeon

The story of Actaeon

The story of Actaeon

The story of Actaeon

A great hunter (Thebes)

Hunting with his friends

Wandering through woods

Surrounded a lake

Artemis, nymphs bathing

Unintentionally, by mistake

Stag, animal body, human mind

Own hounds tear to shreds

Most dreadful story

The relation between intention and action

Involuntary slaughter

First-degree murder

In Greek myth, intention is less important that actions

Summary

Apollo and Artemis

Polar opposite of one another

Representing culture and moderation

Representing nature and wildness

宙斯和勒托的孩子

阿尔忒弥斯（ Artemis Diana）： Acteon的故事，鹿，猎狗， Niobes的故事）

Appollo（阿波罗）

The Kingdom of Lydia

Tellus:

a brave man, sufficient money, raised up his family, all grown up, died from fighting for his country, killed in a battle, got a public funeral

Cleobis and Biton:

young men of Argos, priestess of Hera, yoke themselves up to the wagon, lucky, greatest gift, fell asleep, did not wake up.

died at the height of their pride and fame before life could pull them down

a nice family, a good public reputation, died with that reputation.

No one is happy until the end is known.