| 290 lines of discussion for Jan. 28, 1999 |
20:57 Morgana Flavius enters... 20:59 Torrey Philemon enters... 20:59 Torrey Philemon: Hello Morgana....Is it just you and me? 21:00 Morgana Flavius: Hi! I guess so... 21:00 Torrey Philemon: I don't know if Lusinda or Aurora or coming. Maybe they'll show up. Also Flavius.... 21:01 Torrey Philemon: What I thought though was that each of us could choose a topic or theme and direct the discussion on it, and take turns. 21:01 Morgana Flavius: And my connection seems a bit unstable... 21:01 Torrey Philemon: What's happening for you? 21:02 Morgana Flavius: Yes, it's a good idea... 21:02 Morgana Flavius: It is slow... 21:03 Torrey Philemon: Maybe you could say one or two topics you'd like to discuss. I have two in mind myself and am having trouble choosing between them.... 21:03 Morgana Flavius: I read your last posting about book IV... most of your questions are mine too. 21:05 Morgana Flavius: But I had not thought about Ovid being involved in the rites of Bacchus himself... 21:05 Torrey Philemon: Interesting. I just now read the Perseus story and now I have more questions. Very interested in Medusa....and the theme of goddesses seeking revenge. What about yours? 21:06 Morgana Flavius: although I did find it odd that he chose to devote so much attention to the problems with the rites of that god... 21:06 Torrey Philemon: The worship of Bacchus? 21:07 Morgana Flavius: I am always wondering what Ovid was trying to say to his audience through those myths... specially through the way he put them together... 21:08 Morgana Flavius: yes, the worship of Bacchus. I spent sometime last night trying to find out why he gave so much "space" in his poem to Bacchus. 21:08 Torrey Philemon: Yes I wonder the same thing. I was looking up some Ovid sites but didn't find information. Apparently the question of whether the book is supposed to be a unity or just a collection of stories has been raised for centuries. 21:08 Torrey Philemon: What did you find out about Ovid and Bacchus? Was he involved in Bacchic worship himself? 21:09 Morgana Flavius: Yes, that seems to be the core of the scholarly debates: unity or scattered stories put together... 21:10 Morgana Flavius: No, I didn't find anything about Ovid and Bacchus... But the city of Thebes and Bacchus were tightly connected. 21:11 Morgana Flavius: I only find political reasons behind all those myths... 21:11 Torrey Philemon: It seems to be a mixture. There are some unifying themes...but then if he was trying to be true to the original stories, he might not have been able to create total unity. It's like a scriptwriter trying to make a film from a biography. One works with what one has or alters it for better effects. 21:12 Torrey Philemon: Was Ovid shaping them for his own purposes or just telling them as he heard them... What political reasons? 21:13 Morgana Flavius: Juno/Hera was the goddess of the local people, specially in Argos, where resided her biggest temple. And Dionysius/Bacchus was the foreign newcomer. Thebes was a recently founded city and was already adhering to foreign cults... 21:13 Torrey Philemon: So maybe he was around people who had a Bacchic focus? 21:13 Torrey Philemon: What connection did Ovid have to Thebes? 21:13 Morgana Flavius: well, depending on the god a city chose to worship, the family whose story was related to that god or goddess would be the ruler... 21:14 Torrey Philemon: I have a hard time imagining worshipping Juno. I can't find anything positive about that goddess. What was her appeal? 21:14 Morgana Flavius: Thebes represented Rome, I think. Rome was also a relatively new city among ancient ones like Troy or the Greek cities... 21:15 Torrey Philemon: Wasn't Ovid in Rome...at least until his exile? 21:16 Torrey Philemon: Oh, I see. I did read something suggesting the Cadmus Thebes story may have been related to Aeneas and Rome... 21:17 Morgana Flavius: Ovid was not in Thebes, but Thebes had some famous heroes and I guess it was kind of "cool" to make a parallel between Rome and Thebes... 21:18 Torrey Philemon: Well if so, it doesn't appear to be a favorable comparison. Cadmus isn't exactly rewarded for founding a new civilization. 21:18 Morgana Flavius: Juno/Hera was one of the Titans who defeated Uranus in order to rule the world. She was not only the wife of Zeus/Jupiter, but also his sister. Her rites had a lot to do with the Great Goddess rites. 21:18 Nimue Cormac enters... 21:19 Morgana Flavius: Right, Cadmus is not rewarded because he chose to worship the wrong god... 21:19 Torrey Philemon: In fact it took me awhile to figure out why he was constantly being punished. It all seemed to have to do with Europa.....(welcome Nimue) 21:19 Morgana Flavius: Hi Nimue! 21:20 Nimue Cormac: Hi Thought Id drop by and see if I can learn something. 21:20 Torrey Philemon: My impression was, according to Ovid, that Cadmus was punished because he was of Europa's line....did he not worship Bacchus or was it that his children didn't?......(there's only two of us here Nimue and we're trying to learn something too!) 21:20 Morgana Flavius: Oh, yes Torrey! Cadmus punishment started with Europa (who was never punished herself, not transformed in anything). But the punishment of Cadmus was through his children and grandchildren. 21:22 Torrey Philemon: Oh, I keep thinking Europa was transformed into a bull but Jupiter was the bull, right? Well, Europa was really an exception...I keep wanting to make sense out of all the transformations but they all don't seem to be following any rules.... 21:22 Morgana Flavius: Semele, the "mother" of Bacchus was Cadmus' daughter. So the second generation was the one who brought foreign gods to Greece. And the punishment of Cadmus starts only when Bacchus comes into the scene. 21:22 Nimue Cormac: Actually? I read the excerpt you posted at Shakespeares Globe and it really tuoched me. 21:23 Torrey Philemon: Oh, Nimue, the Pyramus and Thisbe story....? 21:24 Morgana Flavius: But I agree with you that the role of Hera/Juno, up to now in the sequence of myths in Metamorp., is not a nice one... I wonder what it means too... 21:24 Torrey Philemon: Hmm, Morgana. There's a shift in the stories with the emphasis on Bacchus in book 4. Not worshipping him is now the biggest crime... 21:25 Nimue Cormac: Yes. I'd never heard the story before. I'll never be able to eat mulberries again without thinking of it. 21:26 Morgana Flavius: Oh, yes. The Shakespeare business... It seems that he had many inspirations in ancient Greek/Roman myths, besides Pyramus/Romeo and Thisbe/Julliet story... 21:26 Torrey Philemon: It is hard for me to take myself out of my moral/ethical stance and imagine worshipping gods for reasons unrelated to their virtues. I want to find gods and goddesses admirable. Perhaps worship then had more to do with POWER, and little to do with ETHICS or MORALITY....(hang in there Nimue and we can talk about Pyramus and Thisbe soon) 21:27 Morgana Flavius: Torrey, I am absolutely convinced that morality had nothing to do with Greek/Roman religion. 21:28 Nimue Cormac: I know i haven't studied these like you, but it seems to me that a lot of cultures worship gods from fearof what they might do rathert than moral good. 21:29 Morgana Flavius: Putting it in crude words: you could be the worst crook of Athens, but if you sacrificed the right animal to the right god, you'd be alright. Ethics and morality was something only mortal people should be concerned with. 21:29 Torrey Philemon: Right, Morgana....It's just hard to grasp the motives behind worship without it....Or maybe it didn't have much to do with one's spiritual sense but more doing rituals that would win the gods' favor. Political motives.... 21:30 Torrey Philemon: Yes Nimue that does seem right one. Fear of their negative power, and desire to gain their support in regard to positive power..... 21:30 Morgana Flavius: Exactly, Nimue. Apparently, only monotheistic religions had concerns about the "salvation of the soul" through morally acceptable acts. 21:31 Morgana Flavius: And to worship a god always meant to take a political side too. (My opinion) 21:31 Torrey Philemon: What then was the impetus to morality and ethics then if not related to religion? More of a fear of punishment by the government? The Romans seemed to have a higher sense of morality than the Greeks (I saw the history of the Etruscans show last night, and it said that Roman morality condemned Etruscan hedonism, sacrifice, rape...) 21:33 Morgana Flavius: Ethics and morality was a matter of the civil/social aspect of the society. Usually connected with the transference of property or rights from one generation to the other. 21:34 Torrey Philemon: Come to think of it, maybe a lot of it is an extension of family life. One has to "play up" to one's mother or father, to court the ones that have power in one's family, no matter what their character is....The city and country become an extension of family life. 21:35 Morgana Flavius: It seems to have reached a point where citizens had their "public" religion and the one they practised privately. And when I say privately, I don't mean hidden. Everybody knew about it, but it was done within the citizen's house only. 21:36 Morgana Flavius: I agree with that, Torrey. The city/country was an extension of family. 21:37 Torrey Philemon: Sort of like public religion and private spirituality?...Anyway, in the event that I'm taking us too far afield from Ovid.....did you want to talk about Pyramus and Thisbe, Nimue? 21:38 Nimue Cormac: Contrary to public opinion religion and spirituality are not the sane thing 21:39 Morgana Flavius: The religion practised in private usually had to do with that family ancestors, who were deified and worshiped as gods after their death. I don't know how much "spirituality" that carried, because it seems again connected with authority within that family. 21:39 Nimue Cormac: That was the first Ovid I had ever read and it really made me want to go out and buy another book 21:40 Morgana Flavius: Just before switching to P. & T., I have a question. 21:41 Torrey Philemon: Oh Nimue, the stories in Ovid are just marvelous, particularly though in some of the contemporary translations like Mandelbaum....Yes, Morgana (this is schizophrenic, isn't it! GRIN! The ball's in your court, M!! 21:42 Morgana Flavius: Maybe I misinterpreted the Ino story in book IV... did you say that worshiping Bacchus was fine after a certain point, Torrey? 21:44 Torrey Philemon: No, I'm unclear about the Bacchus part, Morgana. What I said is that punishments by the gods and goddesses seem to focus on NOT worshipping Bacchus in book 4, whereas before they were related to rape, or seeing the god in full power etc. Though actually book 4 also involved Juno's revenge. 21:44 Morgana Flavius: I understood it as Juno punishing Ino and her husband exactly because they were worshiping Bacchus, instead of worshiping her (Juno). 21:46 Torrey Philemon: Well I wasn't clear about that either, so I tried to hunt down the source of Juno's punishments and found a line which said that they were because of Europa I think (let me look).... 21:46 Nimue Cormac: It was so vivid. I really felt the emotions of those two young people. So impetuous. But I couldn't figure out if Ovid was on their side or their parent's. Did he approve? Or not? 21:47 Morgana Flavius: In my research about Thebes, I found out that a grandson of Cadmus, who ruled Thebes, just like Pentheus also wanted to banish the rites of Bacchus from Thebes. And it is interesting that Juno did not punish him, Labdacus was the grandson of Cadmus, and chose to punish Ino (one of Cadmus daughters) who was worshiping Bacchus. 21:48 Torrey Philemon: Hold on just a second, Nimue, and we'll talk about T&P as soon as sort out the Bacchus confusion M&I are having. 21:48 Morgana Flavius: Yes, Europa is always the primary reason for Juno's revenge... I wonder why she never punished Europa! Anyway, let's go to Thisbe and Pyramus. 21:49 Torrey Philemon: Here's one line: "The rage that Juno's rival had provoked / Was aimed at all who shared Europa's blood." 21:49 Nimue Cormac: Don't rush on my account. 21:50 Torrey Philemon: Actually I don' t know what to say about Thisbe and Pyramus except that I saw the musical The Fantastics and it IS the P&T story.....Also themovie Shakespeare in Love ignores the existence of the story, as if Shakespeare got the story idea from Marlowe. 21:53 Nimue Cormac: But with his Roman morality, did Ovid think of this as a nice romance as we do? Or did he think these kids should have been turned over someones knee a long time ago? 21:54 Nimue Cormac: I mean... weren't roman children to obey their parents especially their farthers at all times? 21:54 Morgana Flavius: In some instances Shakespeare did not hide the source for his stories, as in the case of "Oedipus King". But Romeo and Julliet are said to be based in a real story that happened in Verona during the Renaiscense... 21:54 Torrey Philemon: Also the P&T story doesn't seem to really fit into Metamorphoses in that it doesn't involve a physical transformation or a punishment by the gods...or does it? 21:55 Nimue Cormac: There was the transformation of the mulberry 21:57 Torrey Philemon: Maybe R&J had multiple sources...yes, Nimue, I just reread it now. The reason for telling the story was said to be to tell why the mulberry changed color! 21:57 Morgana Flavius: I think that all lies in the way Ovid presents the stories. T&P are a story within a story. The "big" Metamorphoses are the sisters who tell the stories who are transformed into bats, for not worshiping Bacchus. And this time, no Juno is there to make things happen. 21:58 Torrey Philemon: Morgana, does it seem to you that the Pyramus and Thisbe story seems very different from all the others....and not just because it's a story within a story.... 21:59 Nimue Cormac: Ovid was writing these stories for a specific audience wasn't he? 21:59 Morgana Flavius: Why different, Torrey? 21:59 Torrey Philemon: Right. Nimue, that may not be clear to you because I quoted the story out of context last night. Three sisters who don't worship Bacchus tell stories while everyone else is at the Bacchus celebration. This is one of their stories. Afterwards they are changed into bats. But apparently Ovid chose which stories they would tell, unless he learned in his own mythical learnings that P&T is one of the ones that they told. 22:00 Torrey Philemon: I'm not sure why different, Morgana. Maybe I've got it all mixed up with Shakespeare in Love, which I just saw. I see scenes from Verona in my head. 22:00 Morgana Flavius: Nimue, I understood that Ovid was writing only for a small circle of nobles and for the imperial family itself. 22:02 Nimue Cormac: Pardon a question from a classics neophyte. Why is it that things seem to come in threes in these tales? 3 fates.... 3 sisters 22:02 Torrey Philemon: You're both sort of raising the question of who a writer writes for. Some writers are aimed at their audience, and others are more influenced by their own need to express something important to them....(I've written a few books, and have always struggled because my Muse runs the show and doesn't care about the audience. I'm just reflecting on the kind of writer Ovid could have been...to the extent that he was a poet, he's writing as much from his own archetypal inspiration as he is for an audience) 22:03 Morgana Flavius: Worship or not worship a god would not mean any sure reason to be safe in ancient times. Now, worship the right god (which means the god "suggested" by the ruler) would be something safe. 22:04 Torrey Philemon: About threes, Nimue...don't know. It's too early to be related to the Trinity. And this was long before the time of separation of Church and State which influences us today......Oh, Nimue, aren't the roots of the THREES in early pagan lore. Like the three faces of the goddesses etc.?.. 22:06 Torrey Philemon: And Morgana, you seem to be pointing out how important it was to be politically correct in one's religion. 22:07 Nimue Cormac: yes Maiden......Mother ......Crone. 3 again. 22:08 Nimue Cormac: It's found in a lot of cultures. Egypts Isis...Osirus.... Horus 22:09 Morgana Flavius: Yes. So what I see is an Ovid struggling to be politically correct in order to be accepted by his reduced audience and his apparently irresistible irony. The almost "frantic" succession of myths in his work seem to be telling that "you worship Baccus you get punished; you don't worship Bacchus you get punished too". It's not the god/goddess who matters. It's who's the power behind the gods... 22:10 Torrey Philemon: (Side comment: I just discovered you can drag the top frame in the chat room up and cover up that totally distracting animated banner at top so you don't get a headache from the animals jumping around the pet site banner!! GRIN!) 22:11 Nimue Cormac: Thanks Torry 22:12 Torrey Philemon: Interesting , Morgana. I can almost imagine that at some point in writing he went and injected all the Bacchus stories just to make his book more politically acceptable.....He must have been on shaky grounds; he was eventually exiled) 22:12 Morgana Flavius: wow, Torrey! What a wonderful discovery! I just got rid of that banner by following your instructions! *g* 22:12 Torrey Philemon: Not that anyone knows for sure why he was exiled. 22:13 Nimue Cormac: It didn't take much back then did it? 22:13 Morgana Flavius: But... I hope the "gods" don't find out about that and "punish" us for not worshiping the Marketing God! LOL! 22:14 Torrey Philemon: LOL! But sadly enough, I think the god of the late 20th century is the Marketing God. Or the Money god....Pluto? 22:15 Torrey Philemon: At least in the U.S...maybe not in the worlds of the Amazon.... 22:15 Morgana Flavius: Right Torrey, and a sharky ground is what Ovid gives us with all those myths in Metamorphoses. (Pluto and Marketing gods reign here too, Torrey!) 22:16 Torrey Philemon: (Hey even better you can drag all the chat frames around and make the chat area fill up your whole screen) 22:17 Nimue Cormac: It must have been a shaky life. Being a writer anf knowing that anything you write could get you arrested 22:18 Torrey Philemon: And the Metamorphoses doesn't seem political. Whereas Virgil was focused on a political purpose....It seems that the political was likely to be secondary to Ovid though, not primary. That he was coming from the POET in him more than the politician.... 22:19 Torrey Philemon: My impression is that his eventual exile was due more to an "indiscretion" in love and not what he wrote.... 22:20 Nimue Cormac: I didn't think the moral Romans did things like that 22:21 Torrey Philemon: Hmm, Morgana, about "sharky ground." Hera is really coming from, "get your competitors," isn't she? Or get their families? Now how about comparing Hera to Bill Gates? GRIN! 22:21 Nimue Cormac: Only nobody could sue Hera.LOL 22:22 Morgana Flavius: Torrey, I'd like to think that too... that Ovid was just being a poet... and apparently he was famous for describing what he saw... no matter how pleasing it would be to the others... and that got him into trouble. I fully believed that Ovid was exiled because Augusuts was lead to think that he had a love affair with Julia, Augustus daughter, or was at least describing her love affairs. 22:23 Torrey Philemon: Yes, that was my impression too, or that's the speculation. That he was somehow or other suspected of not doing right with Augustus' daughter. 22:24 Morgana Flavius: Hera/the Congress and Jove/Bill Gates? 22:24 Nimue Cormac: Now thats a scary thought 22:25 Torrey Philemon: Actually I'm thinking of the way Bill Gates has been out to squash all competitors, hurting innocent people and companies in the process... 22:27 Torrey Philemon: Written by Ovid: "Through two crimes, a song and mistake, have destroyed me, on the cause of the one deed I have to remain silent. The other charge remains: I am accused of becoming by a shameful song a teacher of obscene adultery. " From Ovid FAQ, at http://www.nyu.edu/classes/latin2/faq/ 22:28 Nimue Cormac: And Congress is Hera...trying to punish him??? 22:28 Morgana Flavius: This reminds me of Venus & Mars story. You see, both are gods (of the highest rank: Olympians). They cannot be punished like mortals (Jove's adulterous partners). And even when someone tries to make others laugh at their "crime", it backfires... Morality is not for the gods and they don't care about it... that's only for us, petty mortals... LOL! 22:28 Torrey Philemon: Juno seems to have the most revengeful streak of all the goddesses...but so much of Metamorphoses is about the vengeance of the goddesses.... 22:29 Torrey Philemon: Plays on words: Moral, mortal, morality, mortality.... 22:30 Torrey Philemon: The laughter backfires, with Venus and Mars? Because Vulcan/Hephaestus is really the one most laughed at? 22:31 Morgana Flavius: Well, Bacchus seems to be a revengeful god too, Torrey. And we are still in book IV. I am not sure if we can say, at this point, what Metamorphoses as a whole is about... 22:31 Morgana Flavius: Yes, Vulcan is the one who's laughted at. No doubt about it. 22:31 Torrey Philemon: Yet Morgana, occasionally even Jove has pangs of conscience, when the innocent suffer, or when females he's raped or savagely punished by Juno.....Is it conscience though or emotional attachment? 22:32 Morgana Flavius: Nimue, are you still with us? 22:33 Torrey Philemon: Are Demeter or Vesta (few stories about her) ever vengeful? Demeter perhaps only when mourning Persephone and refusing to bring spring to the world....but that's more out of grief. But Minerva and Juno and Venus and Diana are all vengeful.... 22:33 Nimue Cormac: Still here. just thinking about the things you're saying. 22:34 Torrey Philemon: I hope you'll read some Metamorphoses, Nimue. You don't have to start from the beginning. You can just jump in since there are so many separate stories....And you can find the older translations all online. 22:34 Nimue Cormac: Nothing more dangerous than a woman scorned 22:35 Nimue Cormac: I'll try to fit it in....in my spare time.lol 22:36 Nimue Cormac: Just the tiny bit i read impressed me. Theres a reason why these stories are classics 22:37 Torrey Philemon: And on another level, I try to understand the attitudes of the patriarchy toward women through these myths......Like Medusa. She was a beautiful innocent who was raped by Poseidon in Athena/Minerva's temple and so she was transformed into a monster by ATHENA of all goddesses.... 22:37 Morgana Flavius: I don't think Jupiter has emotional attachment to his "victims". Occasionally, he finds it appropriate to help them, but most of the time he is totally absent of their lives after he gets what he wants... 22:38 Torrey Philemon: The psychoanalytic interpretation of the Medusa story is that it reflects the male terror of female genitals (snakes) and uterus...the fear of being devoured again by the mother and disempowered by women.... 22:38 Nimue Cormac: "Its the woman's fault " is not a modern idea 22:39 Morgana Flavius: Torrey, I didn't get to the Medusa yet. I could just start Perseus this evening... 22:39 Torrey Philemon: Most of the time he is absent, Morgana, but I know there are a few passages where he feels badly about how awful Juno is and steps in, trying to help.....At least one in Metamorphoses, anyway. 22:39 Nimue Cormac: The one idea I've gotten from all the reading of these and other old stories is that men feel inferior to women 22:40 Torrey Philemon: There's only a little bit on Medusa at the end of book 4, Morgana. But I guess that's best for next chat since the Perseus story stops in the middle at end of book four. The Perseus story is sort of told out of order too. 22:40 Morgana Flavius: Well, he feels awful in the case of Io, for instance... He restores her to her human shape, didn't he? But not after letting her suffer a great deal! 22:40 Nimue Cormac: Because of that they try to subjugate them 22:41 Torrey Philemon: Yes, that's the one I'm thinking of. He helps out Io. 22:42 Morgana Flavius: What strikes me is the fact the Jupiter never leaves Juno! It seems that he's always feeling bad about his fooling around when he has to confront Juno. 22:42 Torrey Philemon: (have you heard that Freud invented Penis Envy to compensate for his own Womb Envy, and that so much of male accomplishment and power tactics are an ttempt to make up for the fact that they're not creative reproductive forces like women are) 22:43 Torrey Philemon: That's true Morgana. Now what keeps them together anyway? And you never really here anything about her as a mother ... 22:44 Nimue Cormac: Maybe he couldn't leave her. Even gods have their own rules 22:44 Torrey Philemon: Yeah, Jove/Zeus is kind of like a little boy who doesn't want his mother to catch him with his fingers in the candy jar or his * in the **.. 22:45 Torrey Philemon: Yeah you really don't hear about divorce and separation up on Olympus, do you? 22:46 Morgana Flavius: LOL! 22:47 Morgana Flavius: No, no divorces among Olympians. I guess only Jove & Juno and Venus & Vulcan are married among the 12 greater gods/goddesses. 22:47 Nimue Cormac: In an era when marriage has more to do with power than love, she may have had the power(reproduction?) 22:48 Torrey Philemon: Though there are other stories of Hephaestus' other wives. Like in the Iliad he's married to Aglaia one of the Graces, but there are no real stories about it. 22:48 Nimue Cormac: Only women can create. 22:48 Torrey Philemon: We never hear stories about Vesta/Hestia and yet she's one of the 12 Olympians....Maybe she's hiding away at home all the time (on the Internet).... 22:48 Morgana Flavius: I think that in the union between Juno and Jupiter/Jove lies the roots of the translation between matrilinear to patrilinear societies. But that's a whole discussion not pertaining to this chat. Besides, I need to research more on that anyway... 22:49 Torrey Philemon: I'd like to hear more about that Morgana. Let us know what you find. 22:49 Nimue Cormac: Yes 22:50 Nimue Cormac: me too 22:50 Morgana Flavius: I will. 22:50 Torrey Philemon: Have you studied the classics much in school Morgana or are you mostly self-taught (like Nimue and I are!) 22:50 Morgana Flavius: transition, not translation... sorry... 22:52 Morgana Flavius: I am not sure, but I think Calasso (The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmonia) says something about that. No, I never studied classics in school. Only self-taught. 22:52 Torrey Philemon: Here's a question: I've read a LOT of Greek mythology, but there are some stories in Ovid I've never encountered in Greek myth. Are any of these stories unique to Roman myth? Do you know? 22:53 Nimue Cormac: got to go for now. RL has returned with a vengence. Thanks for including me. I'll try to read some before the next chat 22:55 Torrey Philemon: Real life is Hera with a vengeance...Glad you could come Nimue! Maybe we could just concentrate on the Perseus stories next time, part of book 4-5. 22:56 Morgana Flavius: I was just thinking about that, Torrey. I think, for ex., that the stories within the stories, like Thisbe & Pyramus, the Sun and Leucothoe, are traditional myths either from Rome or other lands. But the stories of the people who tell the stories, like the 3 sisters, are something that Ovid might have invented. They don't "sound" like traditional myths to me. Just a guess... 22:56 Morgana Flavius: Bye Nimue! thanks for being with us! 22:58 Torrey Philemon: Hmm....I wonder if we can find out more of this through research or if scholars don't know....I looked at Amazon.com and there simply aren't any commentaries or biographies of Ovid that aren't special order ...One would have to hunt through library stacks ......(hope to see you again here Nimue) 22:58 Morgana Flavius: End of book 4 and book 5 sound ok for me. But I guess I'll need more than a week for that. I just got myself a lot of work during this week and this will be like this for the next 2 months, I guess. 22:58 Torrey Philemon: My schedule is getting busier too. Do you want to skip a week? 22:59 Torrey Philemon: Thursday the 11th at 9pm est...? 22:59 Morgana Flavius: Yes, let's skip a week. 23:00 Torrey Philemon: Only the first half of book 5 is Perseus, I think (haven't read it yet). Perseus spans book 4 and 5, then there's more in book 5.... 23:01 Torrey Philemon: I found a good table of contents of all the books at Perseus (the web site). I can post the url...actually I added it to the top of the link page, and also added more image links to. Will add your pages also Morgana. What's the Venus/Mars page url...? 23:01 Morgana Flavius: Most of the myths told by Ovid I had already heard about. But I confess that Perseus is a classic myth which I never had the oportunity to read. It's my chance now! *g* 23:02 Torrey Philemon: ok book 5 continues Perseus then is: Hippocrene, Pieretes, Ceres, Proserpina, Arethusa 23:04 Morgana Flavius: Venus & Mars page url is www.ancientsites.com/~Morgana_Flavius/metamorp/ven&mar.htm 23:04 Torrey Philemon: I like the Perseus myth a lot. I used to run dream interpretation groups and always used it as an example of how we can't look directly at the meaning of our dreams....the powerful archetypes come to us in symbols, which are reflections of reality. So looking at symbols (and myths) is like looking at Perseus' shield, rather than directly at the power of the Gorgon.... 23:04 Morgana Flavius: Ceres & Prosepina is a wonderful story to talk about! 23:04 Torrey Philemon: You can have the & symbol in html? didn't know that.... 23:05 Torrey Philemon: I don't know the Hippocrene or Pieretes stories.... 23:06 Morgana Flavius: hum... you got me on that... but the file was uploaded with that name and I can have access to it when I type that url... I wonder if everyone else can... 23:06 Torrey Philemon: There's a great Proserpine image somewhere...is it Waterhouse? 23:07 Torrey Philemon: oh, your venus and mars page. I did check it out and it loaded fine.... 23:07 Morgana Flavius: Waterhouse is pre-raphaelite... I know some great paintings by reanaiscentist artists on the Ceres & Prosepina theme. Can't remember a name now, though... ;*g* 23:08 Torrey Philemon: Yes, your url is right. It's loading. 23:09 Morgana Flavius: Oh, ok, good. (about my url) 23:10 Torrey Philemon: Rossetti image on Persephone/Proserpine. Links on my link page. And that Bernini statue is incredible! 23:10 Torrey Philemon: http://www.cockatoo.com/muenchen/kunst/hdk/rossetti/ro01.htm 23:11 Morgana Flavius: You know what got me interested in classical myths when I was a kid? A Brazilian writer who wrote children's stories. He wrote 2 wonderful books for kids and the main theme were Greek/Roman myths. I just loved them. After that, I started to chase myths through art... painting and classic music, mostly. 23:12 Torrey Philemon: Interesting. You read the myths as Portuguese children books? Fortunately I did read myths in school, studying Edith Hamilton. Just greek though. 23:14 Morgana Flavius: Yes, Portuguese children's books. I was 9 years old and I knew by heart the names of the 12 Olympians in Greek and Roman versions! I was just crazy about those stories. But I never had the oportunity to study them seriously... like in school or like here in AS. This has been a wonderful experience for me! 23:16 Torrey Philemon: When I studied them in high school, we just read them and memorized gods and goddesses and heroes. Never attempted to understand them or their context.....but then I started reading from the standpoint of a counselor/psychotherapist, in terms of personal meaning and personal growth. But never learned about them in their own context. 23:17 Torrey Philemon: Ovid is a totally new discovery!! Can't wait to do Heroides or Art of Love next..... What I'd like to see more of here is more of us sharing about the personal connection we have to the stories.....how they speak to our own life scripts and archetypes or people we know..... 23:19 Torrey Philemon: Which story so far most speaks to you? 23:19 Morgana Flavius: Well, I gotta go Torrey. It is already very late. It was great to be here again. I only wished we had at least one male representative, because I think myths deal mostly with our feminine and masculine perceptions. 23:20 Torrey Philemon: I need to go too...yes, it would be nice to have a male here. I wish Theseus Artistides could read Ovid and join us. By the way, that After Ovid book of contemporary poetry is just fantastic..... 23:20 Morgana Flavius: To tell you the truth, so far no particular story has affected me. What attracts me most is the vast universe they cover. 23:22 Torrey Philemon: I am going to harass Theseus into reading the last half of book 4 and book 5......Maybe there will be a story that speaks to you more deeply than the others before we're done.....Anyway, sweet dreams! 23:24 Morgana Flavius: And all these myths are connected to a specific family and the respective city they founded and ruled. For instance, this whole book IV, up to Perseus, deals with Thebes. And sometimes the material I read about the Theban clan is more interesting than the myth. The myth is always there to corroborate their power. Perseus will make us go into the Mycenae clan. Which is one of the most interesting in ancient history (IMO). 23:26 Torrey Philemon: Yes, you have a greater historical and political understanding than I have, which is helpful...I can lend more of the psychological interpretation. 23:26 Morgana Flavius: He does not have to read Ovid to come to chat with us. If he knows the myth, it is more than fine! (Talking about Theseus Aristides now). 23:27 Morgana Flavius: Thank you and you too have sweet dreams! Bye! 23:27 Torrey Philemon: Well if he just read the Perseus stuff, that would help. He has to do most of his reading online so I'll give him urls of the online translations. I think the Perseus site interp is better than the Dryden one...more readable..... 23:28 Torrey Philemon: Well thankyou and goodnight too!!! 23:28 Morgana Flavius exits. |
GO TO: Ovid Chat 1 Ovid Chat 3 Metamorphoses Links Themis (now available) Phaethon (available) and Phaethon translations Ovid Translations - Books 1-3 BACK TO MythQuest
at A.S. |