Troy is not the beginning of the heroic age. It is the point where the heroic age destroys itself. The Greeks understood this. Their myths do not describe a long golden era stretching indefinitely backward into legend. The heroic age is startlingly brief. From the first monster-slayers to the sack of Troy spans only aContinue reading “Troy”
Tag Archives: Thebes
The Golden Fleece
I am not certain if I read too broadly or not concisely enough. In thinking about the Argonauts, I recall the Golden Fleece, a ram’s skin of radiant gold, and immediately think of the golden calf that Moses cast down, and then to scapegoats, Jesus as the lamb. The narratives form a skein that demandsContinue reading “The Golden Fleece”
The Use of Myth
Hesiod stands at the beginning. He is the first to write down stories that had been circulating for centuries. His account is not a moral arc in the way the Hebrew tradition would later tell its story. Hesiod is part farmer’s almanac and part chronicler. This is how the seasons work, and this is whoContinue reading “The Use of Myth”
Protective Arts 