希腊神话

[fengza]

厄洛斯(丘比特)
Eros was the god of love, better known by hislatin name Cupid. Son of Aphrodite by Ares , he took his place among the small gods of Olympus. He was represented asa little naked boy, with sparkling wings, and he carried his bowand arrows wherever he wandered. Shooting his thrilling arrows in evils, he inspired the passion of love and provided all nature with life and power of reproduction. The lovely, naughty god had two kinds of arrows: the gold tipped arrows used to quicken the pulse of love and the lead tipped ones to palsy it. Besides, he had a torch to light hearts with.
Though sometimes he was blindfolded , no man nor god, Zeus himself included, was safe from his evils. At one time the little naughty god was wounded by his own arrows and suchburning love was awakened in him for the human maiden Psyche that he disregarded the constant interference of his mother and plucked up his courage to beg Zeus for justice. Another famousstory where Eros played an important part was the Argonautic expedition. Medea, daughter of king Aeetes, was wounded by Eros' arrows, took Jason's part in recovering the golden fleece and eventually became the hero's wife.

[fengza]

阿瑞斯
Son of Zeus and Hera, Ares was appointed god of war. Hewas terrible and majestic , and his march shook the world. Of all the major gods at Olympus, he was the most hateful, loving struggle and war and ever thirsty for blood . On the other hand he signified courage and victory in battle, and was devoutly worshipped by soldiers going to war. Prayers were addressed to him before the war and spoils presented at his altar after it.
He was the one god who ever had to submit to the power ofhis inferiors . At one time lack of tact and good udge ment led to his shame. He was fighting with two giants, and finding himself no match for the two monstrous creatures, laid down hisarms and was imprisoned in chains. He was set free in the end by the artful Hermes, but not before he had suffered all the humiliations .
He was as thoughtless as he was unkind . A son of Poseidon's, attempting to kidnap his daughter, made the war-god unhappy, so that he killed the youth Without he sitation.In retaliation , Poseidon dragged him before a group of Athenian judges for trial. The court was held on a hill outside Athens. Ares presented his case and was declared innocent . The hill was ever after called Areopagus, "the hill of Ares", and the judges receivedthe names of Areopagitae.

[fengza]

狄俄尼索斯
Dionysus was the god of wine. He was the son of Zeus by Semele. When his mother was burnt to death in the glory of Zeus . He was still a helpless infant. His father trusted his upbringing to some mountain fairy maidens . They tookthe greatest care of him. Under the tutorship of Silennus, the Satyr, he was introduced to all the secrets of nature and the culture of the wine. He travelled far and wide in his carriage drawn by wild beasts. He was said to have been to India and Ethiopia . Wherever he went, there was music and song and revelling. Hisattendants, known as the Bacchantes, were noted for their noiseand disorder. A most wild, noisy crow, they drank, danced andsang in a careless way. The women Bacchantes were infamous for their excessive immodesty and disgraceful excitement . In their madness and intoxication they committed cruel violence. They tore Orpheus, the gifted musician, limb from limb. King Pentheus of Thebes, for frowning on the worship of Bacchus in his kingdom, suffered the same treatment at the hands of a band of these fanatical women, of whom his own mother was the leader.

[fengza]

菲勒美拉
King Pandion of Athens had two daughters, Procne and Philomela. When Athens was threatened by the wild men, King Tereus of Thrace came to its help. Out of gratitude King Pandion offered Tereus either of his daughters in marriage and the Thracian king chose Procne as wife. For yearsthey lived in Thrace and had one son, Itylus by name. Then Procne became homesick and longed to see her dear sister Philomela. At her repeated requests Tereus sailed to Athens tofetch Philomela. On the way back his evil heart took flame at the sight of Philomela who was then in her beauty of maidenhood. He seized and carried her away by force, cut out her tongue and imprisoned her in a lonely hut in the woods. To Procne he lied, saying that Philomela was dead. Philomela stayed in prison for ayear, where she had woven her painful story into the web of a robe . Then she managed to send the robe to her sister. As soon as she received the web Procne came over to the woods and to reher sister away from the keepers.
Back at the palace, the two women, hot for paying back , killed little Itylus and served him up to his father . When Tereus learned of the terrible truth he grasped his sword and chased the sisters into the woods. There the gods turned Procne into a swallow, Philomela a nightingale and Tereus a hoopoe .

[fengza]

雅典娜的神像
When Ilus had first built his new seat, the city of Troy, he prayed Zeus to show some sign of blessing for it. His prayer was heard, and a wooden image of Pallas- A-thena fell from heaven to within the walls of the city. Known as the Palladium, the statue afforded the city safety and protection. At religious meetings of the goddess it was carried through the city streets amid joys and songs of praise.
After the flames of war had spread for ten years before the walls of Troy, a prophet foretold that Troy could never be expected to fall as long as the Palladium was treasured by its people . In order to steal it out, Odysseus and Diomedes slipped into the capital one night in disguise , known to none but Hellen. The bad woman took out them to He cuba, the queen of Troy, at whose feet Odysseus immediately bowed down and asked formercy. The queen granted their request, and with the help of Helen, they successfully brought the image back to the Greek camp at dawn.
Later it was said that Aeneas got hold of it and carried itwith him to his new land, where it was Preserved together with the goddess' fire.

[fengza]

埃杰克斯(巨人）
Ajax was a man of giant stature, daring but slow. When the Trojan War was about to break out he led his forces from Salamis to join the Greek army at Aulis. As one of the trustiest champions of the Greek cause, he was given thejob of guarding one end of the Greek camp near Troy. He was noted in the battlefield for his bravery and courage. After Achilles' death he became one of the two hot contestants for the dead hero's shield and armour, the other being Odysseus. When the weapons were finally judged to his rival, Ajax went mad for grief. Unable to get over the hardships, he took his own life. When, in order to seek the advice of, Odysseus came to visit the lower world, the shade of Ajax frowned uponhim. In the lower world Ajax chose to be a lion, guided clearly by the bitter recollection of his former life.

[fengza]

杰森
Among the pupils of the wise and just Centaur, there wasa boy named Jason. He was by birth a prince. His father Aeson was once king of Iolcus, but was overthrown by his own half brother Pelias. So he sent his baby son Jason to the Centaur for safekeeping. As a boy Jason took part in the boarhunt. When he grew up into a strong youth he was told of the secret of his birth. So he went to avenge his father's wrongs .
On his way back to his native city he met a weak old woman waiting to be helped across a mountain stream. Kind and polite, Jason carried the old lady on his back and walked across the stream. Little had he thought that the old woman was just Hera herself . Thus he got the help and protection of a power fulfriend at the beginning of his life. As he lost one shoe in the stream he had to enter Pelias' palace in only one shoe. Pelias was quite scared to see such a stranger because he had been warned by a prophet to be careful of a man wearing only one shoe. He was not surprised when Jason told him who he was and what his business was about. The artful Pelias welcomed hisnephew with false pride and joy ; he promised to give up the kingdom to one who had proved himself worthy of it. And heurged the youth to bring the golden fleece back from Colchis. He felt quite certain that his nephew would never come back alivefrom the hopeless task. Pelias' prediction was quite right. Jasondied a poor death in the kingdom of Colchis.

[fengza]

伊俄
Io was the daughter of a rivergod. She was loved, run after and won by Zeus. Hera became so greeneyed that she flew down from Olympus one day to pay her rival back . Zeus, however, had foreseen her arrival and changed Io into abeautiful white little cow. Seeing through the trick, Hera asked for the cow as a present and Zeus had to give in to her wish . Then she left the cow to the care of a hundredeyed monster, Argus. Argus' eyes were ever open and no escape was possible. Unable to bear to see her so unhappy, Zeus sent Hermes down todestroy the monster. Dressed up as a shepherd, Hermes lulled Argus to sleep with his sweet songs and long stories, then killed him and set Io free. But Hera's anger was not to be calmed downyet. She sent a gadfly to attack the cow and drive her from land to land. In her misery the cow passed over the strait which divides Europe and Asia. In this way the strip of water got itsname Bosporus , the way of the cow. She wandered over thesea, which by chance got from her its name the Ionian Sea . In the end she arrived in Egypt where she was turned back into hernatural form . She settled down and gave birth to a son, Some of her children remained in Egypt and ruled as kings for a longtime.

[fengza]

海妖塞壬
Far out in the sea there was an island, on the rocky edge of which lived three Sirens, the three sisters of magic song. Half human and half bird, the Siren sisters sat in a field of flowers, singing in voices that excited the hearts of men. The attractive songs were so sweet that ships were attracted to the island and struck to pieces on the rocks. No sailor nor ship had ever been known to pass the Island of the Sirens without being attracted to disaster .
Acting on the advice of Circe, Odysseus took careful preparation against the Sirens. Before their ships came to where they could hear the song, Odysseus had himself tied to the mast , stopped the ears of his men with wax and ordered them to ignorehis orders and gestures when they were passing the fatal is land .
Soon they came in sight of the rocky is land, and the attractive song reached the ears of Odysseus. It moved him so much that he struggled in despair to free himself and shouted for his men to turn towards the rich and flowery grass land of the singing sisters. But no one paid any attention to him. The sailorskept straight on until they were completely out of hearing. Then his friends freed him and took the wax out of their ears. For once the Sirens had sung with no effects. The eldest of the sisters, Partherope, loved Odysseus so much that she threw herself into the sea after his ships had passed.

[fengza]

赫克犹巴
He cuba's life was one of grief and sorrow. She saw withher own eyes her eldest born Hector killed and insulted by Achilles. She saw her son Polites slain in front of her by Pyrrhus. And she saw her husband, the aged Priam, dragged towards the household altar and ruthlessly butchered there. After the fall of Troy she was carried into slavery . Shehad the misfortune to witness her daughter Polyxena, her soleconsolation in bondage , sacrificed at the tomb of Achilles. She had the sad fate to see washed ashore the corpse of her young estson Polydorus, who had been entrusted to the Thracian king for safekeeping. With her fifty children all dead she became thequeen of sorrows from whom no other woman could obtain the crown . Yet in her distress and despair, she plucked up hercourage to avenge herself upon the Thracian king, who had murdered her son in order to get her son's gold. Later, as Dionysushad prophesied , she was transformed into a dog with bloodshoteyes and, unable to endure the new misery, she leapt into thesea and thus ended her unfortunate life.