Mythos: A Retelling of the Myths of Ancient Greece

fn11 The violent mysteries of these extreme worshippers were depicted in all their shocking savagery by the Athenian playwright Euripides in the fifth century BC in the Bacchae. In this bloody tragedy Dionysus returns to Thebes to wreak his revenge on those of his mother’s sisters who refused to believe Semele’s claim to be carrying Zeus’s child. The god sends King Pentheus mad and causes his own bewitched aunts, Agave, Ino and Autonoë, to tear the poor man apart, limb from limb.

fn12 Ovid, in his retellings of Dionysus’ myths, commonly uses the name LIBER for him. It carries the sense of ‘freedom’ and of ‘libertine’ – as well as, unconnectedly, ‘book’.

THE BEAUTIFUL AND THE DAMNED

fn1 If you want to impress your friends, you can learn the following list of the male and female hounds as given by Ovid in his version of the myth. If nothing else they might serve as useful names for online passwords.

Dogs: Melampus, Ichnobates, Pamphagos, Dorceus, Oribasos, Nebrophonos, Lailaps, Theron, Pterelas, Hylaeus, Ladon, Dromas, Tigris, Leucon, Asbolos, Lacon, Aello, Thoos, Harpalos, Melaneus, Labros, Arcas, Argiodus, Hylactor.

Bitches: Agre, Nape, Poemenis, Harpyia, Canache, Sticte, Alce, Lycisce, Lachne, Melanchaetes, Therodamas, Oresitrophos.

THE DOCTOR AND THE CROW

fn1 Although, on a BBC TV adaptation of the Gormenghast books, I worked with an albino crow called Jimmy White.

fn2koronis is a Greek word for ‘crow’ or ‘rook’. Its original meaning is ‘curved’, whether in reference to the curves of the princess or of the bird’s beak I cannot say.

fn3 Some use the staff of Asclepius (or Hippocratic staff) – a rough wooden stick, entwined with a single serpent. Others use the caduceus of Hermes – a more slender and elegant staff entwined by two serpents whose heads meet at the top and are surmounted by a pair of wings. There does not seem to be any professional or clinical significance in the choice; it is purely a matter of preference.

fn4 The poet and scholar Callimachus, who lived in the third century BC, suggested that Apollo and Admetus became enthusiastic lovers during this period of servitude.

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

fn1 Only one such equine–human hybrid had been seen on earth before: the great Chiron, tutor to Asclepius, Achilles and many others. Chiron’s birth could be traced back to the time of Kronos, son of Ouranos and Gaia, father of Zeus and Hera. During a lull in the Titanomachy, Kronos fell for PHYLIRA, an Oceanid of great beauty. She repelled his advances until, tiring of her bashfulness, he transformed himself into a great black stallion and took her against her will. Chiron was the offspring of this union and – despite pre-dating Centauros by many hundreds of years – he is referred to as a centaur by convention.

fn2 Athamas was a brother of Sisyphus, the reason for whose infamy we shall soon see.

fn3 Shakespeare’s King Lear cries out:

Thou art a soul in bliss, but I am bound

Upon a wheel of fire, that mine own tears

Do scald like molten lead.

fn4 There was another son, BROTEAS, who liked to hunt and whose life seems to have been uneventful compared to that of his siblings. He is said to have carved a figure of Cybele, the Anatolian mother goddess, into the rock of Mount Sipylus. Parts of it are still visible to the tourist today.

fn5 The Olympians may have subsisted on ambrosia and nectar, but they took great delight in the variety offered by mortal diets too.

fn6 Named by historical convention the house of Atreus, after one his sons. The fall of the house of Pelops and Atreus involves the destinies of many heroes and warriors right down to the Trojan war and its aftermath. Agamemnon, Clytemnestra and Orestes were all descended from Pelops and said to have inherited his and Tantalus’s curse. Pelops’s name lives on, of course, in the Peloponnese, the great peninsula to the south west of the Grecian mainland.

fn7 Tantalum is one of those refractory metals that is essential these days in the manufacture of many of our electronic devices.

fn8 A tantalus is a small cabinet containing two or three drinks decanters, usually of brandy, whisky or rum. The drinks are on display but the cabinet is locked, and thus tantalizingly out of the reach of the children of the household.

SISYPHUS

fn1 The rascally entertainer, pickpocket, tinker and ‘snapper-up of unconsidered trifles’ in Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale is called Autolycus.

fn2 This violation of Amphithea gave rise to the rumour that Sisyphus was the true father of Autolycus’s daughter ANTICLEA. Anticlea begat LAERTES and Laertes begat the great hero ODYSSEUS aka Ulysses, who was known above all for his wiliness and resource.

fn3 Asopos had charge of at least two rivers. There was the one in Boeotia that watered Thebes, and this one, which ran through Corinth.

HUBRIS