Greek Tales

Lessons from eras that no longer exist

Awfully recently i was reading this Substack by Tanisha Sharma, about Achilles the greek hero. As a nerd about mythology, Greek, Japanese, or otherwise, I had thoughts and stories that I really needed to get out of me.

Icarus

King Minos prays to Poseidon, Poseidon lends him a magical bull, and tells him that he’ll take the bull back after some time. Minos impregnates the bull. When Poseidon comes back, he curses Minos for his child to be a half bull half man monster who would eat humans alive.

Minos commissions Daedalus (a master inventor) to build a labyrinth to keep the minotaur and occasionally send in people for the minotaur to devour. After it’s built, Minos locks up Daedalus and Icarus (son of Daedalus) in a tower, surrounded by the sea and the sky, such that they could never escape.

Daedalus invented wings for them to fly. He warned Icarus to not fly too close to the sun because the wax on the wings would felt and he’d meet his fall. Similarly Icarus was told to not fly too low as the sea pray would make the feathers of the wings heavy and he would fall yet again.

Icarus takes flight, up and up he does. He flies too close to the sun, and he falls, even if he falls, he died knowing he soared as high as he could.

This tale is my favourite, it has the concept of both complacency versus the need of greatness and the concept of doing things to prevent you from regretting not having done them ever.

I believe icarus would have regretted if he never flew that high in his life even if he survived without soaring.

Funnily last year i build a platformer game and it won 3rd place at a game jam as a solo participant. (I dare you to get to level 20)

Eros and Psyche

Eros is the god of love (sort of the cupid), Psyche is the representation of the human soul.

Psyche is a princess, a princess deemed to be even more beautiful than Aphrodite (goddess of beauty and lust). Aphrodite doesn’t take it well when people prettier than her exist (why the Trojan war happened btw).

Aphrodite sends Eros to ruin Psyche’s life, but one of Eros’ arrows hits himself and he becomes infatuated with Psyche. The same happens to Psyche, and the two of them in fall in love deeply. Aphrodite does everything in her power to keep the two of them apart.

True love finds its ways (and all the other gods help Psyche) and she get togethers with Eros.

They then have a child name Hedon (personification of joy/pleasure).

To me the tale sort of says that happiness is born from the union of love and the human soul. Somewhere it also says that material beauty and lust suck and keep humans from achieving love and happiness.

Achilles

So now where this all started, back at Achilles. The tale of achilles is funny, devastating and sad.

According to legend, helen is the most beautiful lady on earth, she’s married to an irrelevant man in the story, but all of her suitors have a binding vow to protect her marriage.

Now in another story, the greek goddess Eris (goddess of discord, not the chat platform, discord means chaos) plants an apple which is a prize for the most fairest greek goddess. Athena (goddess of wisdom and victory in battle), Aphrodite (goddess of beauty/Venus) and Hera (wife of zeus, queen goddess) are in contest.

A random dude named Paris is given the task of deciding which goddess wins. Now all three goddesses negotiate with him and agree to gift him with lavish rewards for if he declares that goddess the winner. Hera offers to make him king of the world. Athena offers him victory in battle and conquest. Aphrodite offers him Helen’s hand in marriage.

Yes. Aphrodite offers to get him married to an already married lady. and he picks that one, over kingship of the world?

Now every suitor of Helen is bound to get her back. every single important king from Greece. Now, Achilles was not even born when Helen was looking for marriage suitors, ergo he was never bound by any oath or vow.

But his mother had a prophecy that if he went to Troy, he would die, but if he went there he’d be remembered forever, if he didn’t go there he’d live a long but obscure life.

He chose to die and leave his name in the books of history. I think that’s the Greek’s way of saying, an exciting long life always trumps a boring long life. it’s a tale on how to do whimsical things without worrying about the consequences sometimes, I think.