10/18/11

"On their wedding day, young and radiant, Cadmus and Harmony had arrived standing on a chariot drawn by a lion and a boar. Now, thrown out of their own home, these two old exiles climbed on a cart pulled by a pair of simple oxen and loaded with memories. When the cart rolled off, Cadmus and Harmony sat down side by side, and the Thebans saw the couple's backs knot together in the scales of a single snake. Cadmus and Harmony road away, twined snakes below, heads held high" (pg.390 Cadmus).

It's sad that they get kicked out of their city that they made. They had to leave because Pentheus, Cadmus' grandson was the king and only thought of Cadmus as a good for nothing old man. Pentheus decided to mess with Dionysus and ended up getting torn apart by his own mother. Everyone knows not to quarrel with the gods. Thebes has changed and so Cadmus and Harmony must now leave.

Class Notes:

• The middles are all about the rituals.
• Assignment: put on blog what ritual you decide to tell in class
• Beginnings are the creation of the world, its what makes us the way we are.
• The middles are all about moving from the world of the gods to the world of the heros. The heros are associated with battles and wars. Achilles is a commonly known hero, a war hero.
• Vomative- Coronis puked up Zeus' brothers
• All the great stories are about families. Hatfield and McCoy feud
• The furies or erinyes are born from the dripping blood that comes from Coronis' cut off genitals.
• Chthonic- of or related to the underworld



This is a picture of Orestes being chased by the furies right 

after killing his mother, Clytemnestra. 

• Where is the origin of our jury system?
• It comes from the story of Orestes and his trial that he went through because he killed his mother. Athena cast the tie breaker vote and Orestes was let go. They argued that a woman is only there to house a child and feed them once they are born but after the child is old enough they don't need their mother anymore. 
• Archetype- the original pattern or model from which all things of the same kind are copied or on which they are based; a model or first form; prototype
• Senex- wise old man- impatient- not a compliment
• Zeus and Athena don't like circles/cycles. They like straight lines and things that proceed forward and don't repeat.
• Metis- Zeus ate Metis and ingested wisdom from her. This act put an end of the cycle of vengeance. This is how Athena was born from Zeus' skull.
• Peitho- persuasion
• Ulysses-Roman name for Odysseus. Book by James Joyce
• The book shows us that we are all heros, every day of our lives we do something heroic without even knowing it
• The heros of the ancient world are us
• Menial concerns, repeating events every day
• Ground Hog Day the movie is about a guy who lives in an ordinary town and on an ordinary day, ground hogs day, something happens and the day is repeated until he gets it right.
• The ordinary is extraordinary
• The Eleusinian Mysteries- initiation ceremonies held every year in honor of Demeter's visit
• Rituals are obsessive acts
• Decent
• Search 
• Ascent
• Temenos- holy precinct a piece of land marked off from common uses and dedicated to a god
• Decent of Ishtar- decent into the underworld
• Persephone= Kore= daughter of the corn