CLA 2323 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Greek Mythology, Tityos, Odysseus
21 May 2018
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Department
Course
Professor
Friday, May 11, 2018
Greek Mythology
Notes: Midterm
The Underworld
• The concept of punishment after death suggests a parallel between one’s moral conduct and the
consequences after life over
• What was the afterlife like to Ancient Greeks?
• Homer — depicted in the Odyssey
• Odysseus goes on a voyage to the Land of the Dead
• There are two rivers in the underworld, Pyriphlegethon ‘blazing with fire’, and Kokytos
‘Lamentation’
• They both flow into a third river, called Acheron ‘groaning’
• Odysseys sacrifices a ram and an ew — fills a pit with their blood, which is said to extract the
souls of the dead
• He drinks the blood, which allows Odysseus to have conversations with the dead
• He learns that souls keep their demeanour which they had in life, but the experience is much
more painful
• The underworld is not necessarily just for bad people, but it is a place to which all souls enter, good or
bad
• Only truly remarkable souls will gain entrance to a much better place, known as Elysium
• Odysseys’ account doesn’t clearly depict the topography of the underworld
• Tityos — would-be rapist of Leto, is having his liver pecked out for all eternity
• Tantalos — permitted by the Gods to share their ambrosia/nectar, but betrayed the trust and suffers
torment
• Food and drink are eternally ‘tantalizing’, or ‘beyond reach’
• Sisyphus — who attempted to cheat death, must endlessly roll a boulder uphill
• The punishments are not just due to any human crime, but most importantly, these are crimes against
the Gods
!1
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Document Summary
Judges of punishment in the underworld minos, a cretan king. Lethe was seldom referred to said to cause the dead to forget their earlier existence (contrary to the odyssey) The styx, generally agreed to be one of the central features of the underworld. The styx flowed into a lake, a part of hades whose source was a stream of icy water plunging 650ft. Pausanians was no doubt about this stream"s power brought death to humans and creature. The styx was especially sacred: acheron was associated with the afterlife euripides said it was across the acheron that charon rowed the soul of alkestis after she gave up her life for her husband. The acheron is a real-world location parallel to the underworld theprotian mountains of epeiros. The delphi have shrines situated in remote, mountainous locations. The nekyomanteion poses no such apparent access issues as. Vases showed evidence of charon playing a characteristic role, receiving souls from hermes.
