Reading Diary Week 3: Homer's Iliad

Homer's Iliad was a great story and was unlike the Ovid unit that I read in the sense that it was one big story rather than many small ones. This made the reading very intriguing and I read it much faster than I planned! The only strange thing I noticed in the story was the theme of the number 9. Anytime a number was given it was 9 men being killed at a time, or a 9 day truce, etc. Surely this isn't coincidence?

Of How the War withTroy Began

Helen was the daughter of the King of Sparta and had many suitors. The King made them all promise to be good friends with whoever married her and that if she was ever stolen away they would all help get her back.

Helen chose Menelaus as her suitor, who was the brother of Agamemnon. Helen’s father eventually died and Menelaus became the King of Sparta. One day a prince named Paris came to Sparta whose father was the King of Troy. Paris stole Helen along with gold and other valuables.

The previous suitor’s of Helen kept their oath and agreed to help Menelaus and Agamemnon find Helen. Most notably of those who came to help was Achilles, the “bravest and strongest of all the Greeks.”

After 9 years of unsuccessfully attacking the city of Troy and its massive walls, some of the Greek fighters left to go loot other cities, starting a massive fight.

The Quarrel

One of the cities that were looted happened to be where the priest of the god Apollo resided. Agamemnon stole the priest’s daughter and refused to give her back even after the priest offered him gold. The priest prayed to Apollo and then Apollo came and began killing the Greek soldiers and their animals as well.

After 9 days of this, Achilles called a meeting and then they learn why Apollo had been so mad. Achilles decides to go home because he is fed up with the greedy Agamemnon and gets so mad that he attempts to kill him. He is stopped by the goddess Athene and told that eventually he will get the best of Agamemnon.

As promised for walking out on the fight, Agamemnon sends men to retrieve Briseis, the woman who was given to Achilles. Saddened, Achilles cries out to his mother Thetis and tells her to go inform Zeus of what the Greeks have done, as well as to assist the Trojans.

What Thetis Did forHer Son

Thetis goes to Zeus and asks that he assist the Trojans in battle so the Greeks realize that they need Achilles. Zeus agrees to help even though it will anger his wife, Hera. Hera does in fact get upset, mostly because his promise will cause many Greeks to die. Zeus decided that the best way to help the Trojans was to have Agamemnon dream that if he goes to battle, even without Achilles, he will win.

Hector and Andromache

Agamemnon follows his dream and begins a war with the Trojans. This story picks up with Hector, the brother of Paris and leader of the Trojan soldiers, leaving the battle and trying to convince Paris to come join the fight. Paris agrees and Hector leaves to go find his wife, Andromache. He is informed that she is gone and went to watch the battle.  Andromache sees Hector as he is about to go back into battle and tries to convince him not to go. We then learn that Achilles has killed Hector’s father as well as all of his brothers during the war. Hector goes to battle anyway but first prays to the gods that his son will become even a greater warrior than he is. Hector and Paris then join the battle together.

The Embassy toAchilles

Agamemnon eventually realizes that the Greeks need Achilles in order to win the war and sends some men to go persuade him to come back. Achilles greets the men and joins them for a feast. After the feast the men tell Achilles why they have come and offer him all of the gifts that they brought with. Achilles once again talks about how he slaved day after day to conquer cities and bring riches back to Agamemnon and that he would keep all the riches for himself even though he did none of the fighting. Achilles refuses to join the fight and says that he will sail back to his homeland the next day.

The Deeds and Deathof Patroclus

Achilles continues to refuse to fight and his friend Patroclus begins to ask him if he can go fight while wearing Achilles’s armor so the Trojans think it’s him. Achilles agrees and allows Patroclus to use his armor and warns him not go near the city walls. The Trojans make it all the way to the sea and start burning Greek ships, so Achilles sends Patroclus and 50 ships carrying 50 Myrmidons each.

Once Patroclus gets to the battle, the tides start to turn and some Trojans, including Hector, flee back to Troy.  After Patroclus kills one of the Trojan’s bravest men, the Trojans rally and Hector decides that the man in Achilles’s armor must be Patroclus and then he goes to fight him. Hector kills Patroclus, but only after the god Apollo weakens him.

The Rousing ofAchilles

After Patroclus dies, there is a great fight for his body. Hector takes the armor of Achilles and puts it on himself. Hector also tried to take Achilles’s horses and chariot, but Zeus did not allow this. Antilochus is sent to go tell Achilles of his friend’s death.

After hearing the news, Achilles is so enraged that he says he will return to battle. Achilles stands in a trench wearing the shield of Athene and shouts to the Trojans.  They get scared and retreat from the battle. The Greeks then finally claim the body of Patroclus.

The Slaying of Hector

After receiving new armor, Achilles returns to the battlefield the next day and picks up exactly where he left off. Apollo intervenes with the battle and takes the form of a man Achilles was chasing. Achilles cannot catch Apollo and eventually Apollo reveals himself and the fact that all of the Trojans safely fled into the city during their chase.

Hector is the only remaining Trojan outside of the wall and as Achilles approaches he begins to run. Achilles chases Hector around the city and the gods talk about which they should allow to live. Even though Apollo was helping Hector, Achilles eventually kills Hector with the help of the gods.

Hector’s last wish is for Achilles to give his body back to his father and mother, but instead Achilles has his horses drag Hector back to the Greek ships.

The Ransoming ofHector

Hector’s father, Priam, goes to Achilles and tries to offer Achilles gifts in exchange for Hector’s body. Achilles agrees and then eats with Priam in his tent. Priam also asks for a 9-day truce in the fighting, and Achilles agrees. After 9 days Hector’s funeral is held and the story ends.

Essay for Week 2: Sexual Conduct and Misconduct

In terms of sexual misconduct, something that surprised me about a lot of the Greek Myths is how much misconduct there actually was. Pretty much the only perpetrator was Jupiter, but it seemed as though he had free will to do whatever he pleased (I suppose this is the case when you’re the ruler of the world). If there were any consistencies through the stories, it was that Jupiter would see a woman he desired and not even attempt to seduce her. Rather, he would somehow trick the woman by disguising himself as something or someone else and then rape the woman. Not to mention the fact that he is married to Juno! It also became clear that there were never any consequences for his actions, other than an upset Juno who would often punish the woman with some sort of curse rather than Jupiter himself.

As far as sexual desires, the stories focused much more on the desires of men rather than women, with one exception. In Echo, Jupiter and Juno are quarreling over whether sexual activities are more pleasurable for men or women. After consulting a third party, it is decided that women experience the greater pleasure. However, women are definitely held to a different standard than men. In the case of rapes, it was often the woman who was looked down upon or punished, which seems completely backwards. Perseus and Andromeda even talked about the virgin Andromeda and who it would be shameful if she merely laid eyes on a man.

There doesn’t seem to be any sexual taboos from the readings at this point, but we’ll see what surfaces in the myths next week. However, there are points of comparison between these ancient myths and today’s society. The fact that women seemed to be held to a different sexual standard than men in the stories also reigns true today as far as number of partners and being a virgin is concerned.

Overall, in the myths I read this week, there was a lot of sexual activity, both conduct and misconduct!

This oil painting by Rembrandt was done in 1631 and titled
"Andromeda Chained to the Rocks."

Bibliography

Image: Andromeda Chained to the Rocks, Rembrandt (1631). Web Source: Wikipedia.

Storytelling for Week 2: How Perseus Frees Andromeda

Author's Note

I chose to retell the story of Perseus and Medusa, but go into more detail about the most exciting part of the story. My main goal for the story was to provide an exciting tale about how Perseus actually killed the sea monster. In the original story, Perseus is trying to free the princess Andromeda, who is exceptionally beautiful and has been chained to a mountain to please the sea monster that terrorizes the area. Perseus has just slain Medusa and is offered Andromeda as a wife and his own kingdom in exchange for freeing the princess. I kept to the main story except for the details of how Perseus actually killed the sea monster.

How Perseus Freed Andromeda

After agreeing to free the princess Andromeda in exchange for a kingdom from her parents and her hand in marriage, Perseus sets off to slay the sea monster. Having just slain the beast Medusa, he is quite confident and eagerly awaits his prize when he rescues the princess. He does not know much regarding the lair of the monster, except that it resides in a cave. Using his winged sandals, Perseus flies into the cave and is shocked by the size of the lair. Exploring the cave, he realizes that the sea continues into the cave, which also happens to be extremely dark.

Possessing a magical bow that shoots glowing arrows and a curved sword, Perseus begins to attempt to find the monster. He hovers above the dark water and begins to shoot his glowing arrows into the water. They light up the water, but there is nothing to see as the arrows seemingly sink forever. After hours of searching the expansive cave, Perseus thinks of a sure way to draw the monster out of the cave and into the light. He flies to the ledge on rocky slope that Andromeda is chained to and pulls out his sword. He strikes one of the chains that is holding the princess captive, which breaks the chain. Immediately, the sea monster lets out an enormous roar and emerges from the cave. Perseus flies into the air and begins to shoot arrows at the monster, but the monster maneuvers around the arrows while continuing to get closer to Perseus.

A thick fog begins to encase the two combatants, making it harder for Perseus to fly as his winged sandals get soaked and become heavy. Realizing he doesn’t have much flight left in his sandals, Perseus allows the monster to get extremely close. As the monster encloses, Perseus lands a few arrows into the monsters scaly skin. Clearly injured, the monster begins to lose elevation, allowing Perseus to fly down and deliver a fatal blow with his sword.

The monster sank deep into the sea and finally Perseus could fly over to the princess and release her. Upon returning to Andromeda’s parents, he is given everything that he was promised and there is a massive feast thrown in celebration. At the feast Perseus showcases the head of Medusa and goes on to explain how he beheaded her. Eventually the festivities wind down and Perseus joins his new wife for the night.

This statue of Perseus holding Medusa's head was sculpted by
Antonio Canova and is made from marble (unknown year).

Bibliography

Story: Ovid's Metamorphoses, translated by Tony Kline (2000).

Image: Perseus Holding the Head of Medusa, Antonio Canova. Web Source: Wikipedia

Reading Diary Week 2: Greek Myths: Ovid I

The notes provided by professor Gibbs are very helpful to clarify some of the stories, and it is interesting to see where some of our English words came from! All of the following readings were from Unit: Ovid I.


Deucalion and Pyrrah

Surprising to see it closely resembles the bible with flood and 2 survivors, Deucalion even mentions his father breathing life into the earth

Jupiter = Zeus
Neptune = Poseidon
Juno = Hera

Deucalion and Pyrrah survive by going to Mount Parnassus. They were both worshippers of the gods so they were allowed to survive.

The couple prays to Themis to revive the human race, and they are told to throw stones behind them back into the temple. The stones change form after they are thrown and become mankind.

Io

Jupiter tricks the goddess Io and rapes her. Juno suspects her husband has done wrong and goes to search for him, so he changes io into a heifer. Juno falls for it and takes the heifer as a gift.

Io realizes she is a heifer and runs away after seeing her reflection even though she was always being watched by Juno’s guard. She goes to her family and tells them what happened. Argus, her watcher takes her back and takes her to a mountain top.

Jupiter sends his son to kill the guard, which he does. Juno takes the guards eyes and puts them in the feathers of her bird. To quiet Juno’s anger Jupiter turns Io back into her original form.

Phaethon and the Sun

Phaethon, son of the sun god Phoebus Apollo, goes to his mother for confirmation of who his father actually is. She assures him he is the son of Apollo, and he sets off to find his fathers temple.

Once in the presence of Phoebus, Phaethon is once again he is the son of Phoebus. This excites Phaethon and he then asks his father for his flying chariot and the horses that drive it. His father gives him many warnings that it would not be safe and the story concludes.

Phaethon’s Ride

Phaethon once again ignores his father’s warnings and insists on driving the sun chariot.

After starting their journey, the chariot immediately gets off course and Phaethon is unable to control the horses. He gets scared of creatures he sees in the sky and drops his reins.

The horses continue to go wild and when they get too close to the earth it becomes engulfed in flames.

The Death of Phaethon

Noticing that the Earth was about to be destroyed, Jupiter throws a lightning bolt at Phaethon and kills him. This also causes the horses to break from their restraints and separate from each other.

Phaethon’s sisters randomly turn into trees and his friend becomes a swan?

Phoebus feels his son did not deserve to be killed, and refuses to drive the chariot through the sky. He eventually goes back to his horses and takes his anger out on them.

Callisto

Jupiter is observing the Earth and fixing what the fires had destroyed when he spots a nymph, Callisto. Much like io, Jupiter deceives Callisto and then rapes her. The goddess Diana discovers what has happened and banishes Callisto from her community. Juno finds Callisto, and knowing what she has done, turns her into a bear out of anger. Jupiter turns Callisto and her son into constellations, the great and little bear.

Semele

Semele is yet another woman who Jupiter has had sexual relations with, and bears his child. Juno is once again enraged and and kills Semele in a fire storm.

Echo

The child of Jupiter and Semele is born from Jupiter’s leg. Jupiter and Juno are having a friendly argument about which gender love-making pleasures the most. They ask a man named Tiresius and he confirms Jupiter’s argument that it’s more pleasurable for a woman. Juno gets upset and punishes Tiresius to eternal blindness, but Jupiter rewards him with knowledge of the future. As a result of this, people throughout the world consult Tiresius.

Tiresius is consulted about a boy named Narcissus and is asked if he will have a long life. “If he does not discover himself,” is the reply from Tiresius.

We learn of a nymph named Echo who can only repeat the last words she has heard. Echo sees a beautiful boy, Narcissus, walking in the woods and wants to talk to him. She can’t until he speaks though, but they eventually find each other and end up in a hug.

Narcissus gets scared of the stranger and she runs back into the woods. She still remains there today, repeating the last words she has heard.

Narcissus

Narcissus’s discarding of the nymph Echo also causes all other nymphs to be offended as well. ‘So may he himself love, and so may he fail to command what he loves,’ is what the nymphs cry. The goddess Nemesis hears this and complies.

Narcissus sees himself in a fountain and is amazed by his own good looks. He falls in love with himself and then realizes he can’t have his own reflection. He does not realize that he is looking at his own reflection and stays by it, trying to get closer for days. He begins to hit himself with stones and eventually dies, with Echo repeating his last words. After he dies he becomes a flower.

Pyramus and Thisbe

Pyramis and Thisbe are an exceptionally good-looking young boy and girl who live in Babylon. They were neighbors who wanted to wed but their parents prevented it. They agree to escape together and when Thisbe gets to the meeting place she sees a lion and runs off. Her veil is left behind and the lion gets its blood on it. After seeing this, Pyramis kills himself. Thisbe then sees her dead lover and and kills herself as well.

Mars and Venus

This short story involves the god Vulcan, his wife Venus, and the god Mars. Vulcan learns that his wife is having an affair with Mars and crafts a net out of bronze that will cling to anything that touches it, then places the net on a bed. When Venus and Mars begin their adulterous acts on the bed, they become trapped in the net and Vulcan opens the doors so every god and goddess can see the two and shame them.

This story almost served as comic relief from some the previously intense and fatal stories!

Perseus and Andromeda

The story begins with Perseus flying across the world while holding the head of recently slain Medusa. He stops by the home of Atlas and asks for a place to rest. After Atlas refuses, Perseus turns him into stone using Medusa’s head, creating Mount Atlas.

Persius continues his flight and sees the princess Andromeda, who is chained to a rock. Perseus goes to Andromeda and offers to save her from the sea monster and in return they offer him the kingdom and their daughter’s hand in marriage.

Perseus and Medusa

Perseus fights the sea monster and eventually kills it. He then frees Andromeda and returns to her parents, where they get married and he begins to tell the story of how he killed Medusa. We do not learn much of this but we do learn why Medusa has snakes for hair. She was a woman with beautiful hair but was raped by Neptune. Her hair was then changed to snakes to ward off all other suitors.

Week 1 Introduction: Engagement, Mountains, and Surgery!

Hi everyone!

As you can probably tell from the blog, my name is Jeremy Brazel. I'm a Civil Engineering student and this is my last semester before graduation! My biggest extracurricular activity is being in the Navy ROTC program here. Once I graduate, I will be going to the Navy's nuclear engineering school in South Carolina and after that be an officer on submarines. My other big activity is sports, I love playing and watching pretty much any sport out there.

This summer has definitely been an interesting one. I started off by selling my Mustang and getting an old Jeep, which has been a blast to have this summer. My favorite thing this summer has been the places I've traveled. I got to go to Washington, D.C., Colorado, and New Mexico.

I went to Colorado with a friend for a backpacking trip, and got to see some amazing scenery. We went on a three day, 30 mile trip and were absolutely exhausted by the end.

This is a picture I took after hiking up 5,000' to the top of
the Continental Divide.

The last trip I took the summer was to Taos, New Mexico to do some fishing and hiking with my girlfriend. It rained everyday but we had a great time and got engaged along the way!

Next came the not so fun part of my summer. For a few weeks I had been helping a friend remodel the house his family was about to move into. On the very last day of our work, I was using a table saw to cut a board in half and when I was done and going to turn off the saw, I stumbled and my right index finger hit the saw blade. It cut straight through my bone and tendon, but thankfully not all the way through my finger. Just last week I had surgery and there are now pins in my finger holding it together. It will always look weird and I'm not expected to be able to bend it ever again, but at least it's still attached! My whole hand is in a cast which definitely makes typing a slow process!

I thought about posting some gross finger pictures but I chose the mountains instead :)

Week 1: My 3 Storybook Favorites

The first storybook that caught my eye was Mermaids--CSI. I immediately liked that the storybook was based on a television series and it was the title that got me to click on this storybook. It's obvious that the story will be about mermaids who have done some form of wrongdoing, and this is such a creative way to tell the stories! The introduction was very clever and provided a brief background about the author and gave the inspiration for writing the storybook, which I think is important to do. The introduction also explained the plot of the story. One of the things that I like about this story is that it's written in first person. I also thought the white text on a black background was a very good look for the pages.



The next storybook I found interesting was The Unanswered Questions of Pooh and Friends. This title intrigued me because I assumed that it was based on the Disney story, which it was. Unlike Mermaids--CSI, I wasn't sure what these stories would be about though. Very cleverly, the author based these writings on a story about a bear and a cat, but changed the characters to Pooh and Tigger. I really like the idea of taking a famous story and adapting other stories to fit the famous characters. I think this makes the stories more entertaining for the readers as well. The font looked like something that would be found in a children's book, which was perfect for these stories!



My other favorite storybook was actually from a previous Indian Epics class. Social Media in Ancient India struck me as a very ironic title, so I looked further into the storybook to see what it was about. The introduction explains that the author took two characters from ancient Indian poetry and created stories about how they keep in touch through social media. The design of the site was my favorite part of this storybook, with lots of Facebook posts, tweets, and Instagram pictures being exchanged between the two characters. This was extremely creative and used modern technology to tell a very old tale!

UN-Textbook Exploring: Week 1

Greek Myths: Ovid I, II, and III. The topics that immediately caught my eye for the first unit was the Greek Myths. I have always been fascinated by Greek Mythology and have enjoyed the very few stories that I have read for literature classes in the past. I'm already excited to select two Greek Myth sections for my first two topics!

Ancient Egypt: Keeping with the mythology theme, I think it would be very interesting to learn about mythology other than the most popular Greek and Roman stories that most people are familiar with. I am also interested to see if there are any similarities I would notice in these stories compared to the Greek Myths I will have read the two weeks earlier.

Alice in Wonderland: I was very surprised to see this in the UN-Textbook! I have only seen the movie and have never read the story but I would be curious to see how similar they are to each other. I also realized it's a long story so hopefully it will be a lighter week in my semester when we get to this unit!

Grimm (Cane and Hunt): These also caught my eye because they are the stories lots of Disney movies are based off of. I would love to read these and compare them to how the Disney movies portrayed them.