#14127
11/08/2001 1:58 PM
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My reference for Oed was Sophocles...
That's the great thing about myths; they provide so much fodder for story-telling and reinterpretation. But I don't think anyone considers, e.g., Jesus Christ Super-Star to be a definitive telling of the central myth of the Christian church.
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#14128
11/08/2001 6:55 PM
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Well, Faldage, good point about Jesus Christ, Super Star, so I'm all ears about your Oedipus who differs from Sophocles' Oed. Tell your tale here, if you get a chance. In the Graves you mention, it's flat-out stated that Oedipus knew he was killing the king of Thebes? And that, by killing the Sphinx, he was forgiven and then married the queen? Or was it more planned? Did he fall in love with the queen, kill the king, solve the riddle, marry the queen, bring about the plague, learn the truth, blind himself a la Sophocles, and so on....or does is the Graves completely different?
This is very, very interesting. So, if you have a moment to jot the Graves Oed facts down, thanks a lot. I'd look 'em up myself, but I've got rehearsal with the Munchkins to plan for...
Best regards,
WW
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#14129
11/08/2001 8:13 PM
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is the Graves completely different?
As I remember it, yes. I'll gotta look it up tonight, but I may not get to it till the weekend. Tonight's gone be getting the lovely AnnaS back on line. Not to mention laundry.
For a teaser, the Sphinx's riddle is glossed from a whole nother story.
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#14130
11/09/2001 12:56 PM
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Faldage: Looking forward to hearing about the Graves. Thanks for checking it out. I won't be able to read anything this weekend till Sunday due to our rural phones lines being down.... But, anyway, good luck with getting AnnaS all set up, and happy hunting through the Graves. (Gosh, that sounds lugubrious!)
WW
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#14131
11/09/2001 3:37 PM
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Not salubrious, but not necessarily lugubrious. One man's grave robbing is another man's archaeology.
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#14132
11/12/2001 2:04 AM
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So true, wwh, about the archaeology. We used to have mummies displayed in the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, but I don't think any may be viewed anymore. I'll have to check it out one weekend to see whether there are any that remain, so to speak.
I can understand how sensitive people would protest the display, but, honestly, those mummies were the highpoint of visits by most children...
MM Murmuring Mummy, or WordWind upside-down
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#14133
11/12/2001 5:46 AM
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Immanuel Velikovsky had the theory that the story of Oedipus was actually a memory of the pharaoh Akhenaten, but I forget why.
Bingley
Bingley
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#14134
11/12/2001 2:29 PM
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Immanuel Velikovsky had the theory ... but I forget why.
Because he was whacked out.
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#14135
11/12/2001 4:41 PM
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Worlds in Collision, 1950, and Earth in Upheaval, 1955. Velikovsky suffered permanent concussion from writing this.
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#14136
11/13/2001 1:10 AM
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Eugene O'Neill very consciously encased his great play, Mourning Becomes Electra, within the patterened shell of the Greek Electra myth, in a loose parallel of Aeschylus' timeless tragedy, The Oresteia. Only O'Neill set his work in post-Civil War New England among a Yankee aristocratic family, the Mannons. Lot's of Oedipal subtext! Read O'Neill's play... all the answers are there!  Really.
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#14137
11/13/2001 10:04 PM
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F notes that the Sphinx's riddle is glossed from a whole nother story.
Hercules, is it not? Or is my nose out of joint?
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#14138
11/14/2001 12:02 AM
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Bingley wrote, Immanuel Velikovsky had the theory that the story of Oedipus was actually a memory of the pharaoh Akhenaten...
If you Google ["Immanuel Velikovsky" Oedipus], there's some really interesting information about Velikovsky's analysis of why the Oedipus myth came out of Egyptian lore. Faldage suggested I check it out, and I did. One salient point Velikovsky made was the appearance of the sphinx in Sophocles, a most decidedly un-Grecian monster and ultra-Egyptian one. Velikovsky also points out that the meeting of the three roads where Oedipus kills his father in the Sophocles tragedy would have been unusual in how roads were laid in Greece, but not unusual in roads meeting at an oasis as shown on ancient Egyptian maps. There's by far more fodder at the trough of Velikovsky if you have some time....
Best regards,
DubDub
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#14139
11/14/2001 1:54 PM
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Winged Moon Goddess of Thebes representing the two parts of the Theban year; the lion for the waxing part and the serpent for the waning part. The new king gives his devotions to her before marrying the Queen, which he must do to become king. The riddle was invented to explain the image of an infant, a warrior and an old man worshipping Her.
This according to Graves in The Greek Myths.
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#14140
11/14/2001 2:01 PM
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the appearance of the sphinx in Sophocles, a most decidedly un-Grecian monster and ultra-Egyptian one.
The Greek Sphinx and the Egyptian Sphinx are decidedly diferent thangs. The former with wings and a serpents tail, the latter with just a plain old lion's bod and a human head. It's like comparing horses and unicorns.
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#14141
11/14/2001 2:37 PM
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I was interested to learn that the etymology of "Sphinx" carries forward to two very vital structures in the human alimentary canal, exceedingly important check points! The duodenal sphincter and the,er, final one.
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#14142
11/14/2001 3:52 PM
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Again according to Graves, sphinx means the throttler. Perhaps the Egyptian Sphinx was so named simply for its superficial resemblance to the Greek Sphinx.
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#14143
01/03/2002 9:16 PM
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We've all heard that poor Ariadne gave that turd Theseus who was to betray her,
a ball of string to help him find his way back out of the Labyrinth after killing the
Minotaur. From this we get clew, meaning a ball of cord, and also clue, meaning
information leading to a solution of a problem. But WHAT IN HELL DID ARIADNE
CALL IT?
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#14144
01/03/2002 9:22 PM
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WHAT IN HELL DID ARIADNE CALL IT?
She probably called it a ball of cord. In Minoan, of course.
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#14145
01/03/2002 9:29 PM
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OK, wise guy. WHAT IN HELL DID THESEUS CALL IT?
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#14146
01/04/2002 1:53 AM
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#14147
01/04/2002 3:19 AM
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I'm really interested in finding out what the Greek or Roman words would have been for a ball of twine. They must have had words. Why do we have only a much later, apparently Germanic word?
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#14148
01/04/2002 8:14 AM
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#14149
01/04/2002 12:48 PM
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http://www.daedalus.gr/DAEI/THEME/Knossos.htmMinoan civilization was about 1000 years before the founding of the city of Rome. Latin ain' gone do you much good when you phase the linear time sequence to put yourself back there to talk to Ariadne to tell her don't do it. You might as well speak Vogon to her.
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#14150
01/05/2002 10:33 PM
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a single word for "a ball of twine."Uh... baseball? what, Max? no retort for that magnificient cricket quote I found for ya?
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#14151
01/06/2002 12:45 AM
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#14152
01/06/2002 12:50 AM
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I have news for you (expletive omitted). For thousands of years women had been spinning, if only with a whorl spindle, and they had to carefully wind the yarn into a ball, to keep it from getting tangled. The Theseus-Ariadne myth is very old. I have no idea when it first saw print, nor any idea when it was first translated into English. NicholasW gave a couple words that were in the ballpark, but did not mean balls of thread. But the first translation had to be from a Greek or Roman word that was for no reason I can think of changed to a Germanic root. Incidentally twine means two threads twisted together for increased strength.
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#14153
01/06/2002 1:02 AM
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#14154
01/06/2002 5:22 AM
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And, don't forget Dr. Bill, the Celts were mainly shepherds who spun wool for thousands of years. So perhaps this missing linguistic link was coined in Gaelic, or an earlier Celtic language.
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#14155
01/06/2002 5:53 AM
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#14156
01/06/2002 3:01 PM
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I don't have any proof the Greeks spoke Greek, nor any that the Latins spoke Latin. They probably wrote in English. Or maybe Gaelic.
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#14157
01/06/2002 7:56 PM
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Jeesh!
I tole ya the Latin word. I also tole ya the Latin word was way too late to be of any use. Parbly the Greek wouln't do ya no good neither. Minoan, whatever it was, and don' nobody know, not even if it were Indo-European, Hamito-Semitic or sommat entirely else, is a whole nother ballpark (or cricket pitch if you'd druther) an' totally unknown. Ain' no way you gone get to tell Ariadne to dump that Theseus loser. An' if ya wants ta tell Theseus sommat yer gone is haveta use sommat other than Modren Greek; ya'll haveta know it in Ionian or Dorian or whatever it was they spoke in Athens time back way back,
Jeesh!
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#14158
01/06/2002 9:29 PM
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Dear Faldage: My point is this. What was the source of the English version of the legend? I would like to find it, to see if I could find the word that some idiot used a Germanic root for, when he could, I'm sure, have made a nice coinage from the classical root. Rooti-toot-toot.Cocking a snook.
I've been having fun looking, but have not found anything worth posting about. Hoped you might succeed where I have been unable to.
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#14159
01/06/2002 11:33 PM
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the word that some idiot used a Germanic root for, when he could, I'm sure, have made a nice coinage from the classical root.
You want someone should make up a word from a classical root just because the story came from a classical source? When we have a perfectly good word in English? Clue, BTW, traces back to the same IE root, gel- that spawned the Latin glomer-.
OK. but be careful what you ask for:
Ariadne gave Theseus a glom that he might find his way out the maze after the Minotaur made mincemeat out of him. Theseus glommed on to it with the knowledge that he wan't gone be mincemeat and that he would make Ariadne pay for her evil ways.
There, I hope you're healthy.
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#14160
01/06/2002 11:44 PM
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#14161
01/07/2002 5:37 PM
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Dear Max: I still wonder what Greek or Latin text was the source of the legend in English.
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#14162
01/07/2002 7:28 PM
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#14163
01/07/2002 9:00 PM
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I was hoping our illustrious contributor NicholasW might be able to provide that.
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#14164
01/11/2002 11:52 AM
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Dr. Bill wonders what Greek or Latin text was the source of the legend in English.
Graves cites Apollodorus, Plutarch (who quotes Philochorus, Simonides et al.), Scholiast, Pausanias, Callimachus, Catullus et al.
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#14165
01/11/2002 7:52 PM
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Thanks for the "clews" Faldage. I anticipate problems untangling that mountain of manuscripts.
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#14166
01/11/2002 8:21 PM
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I get all my stuff about this from Robert Graves: The Greek Myths. Look it up at amazon.com. Then buy it from your local independent bookstore.
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