Ok…I’ve been reading a lot of mythology lately and I must admit that some of the tales are rather, well, disturbing!
I was wondering if you guys had read and would like to share your personal favorite(s) twisted stories from mythology.
My current favorite story is abour the Birth of the minotaur. This is from Apollodorus’ Library Book III, Chapt I Sections 3-4
Asterius dying childless, Minos wished to reign over Crete, but his claim was opposed. So he alleged that he had received the kingdom from the gods, and in proof of it he said that whatever he prayed for would be done. And in sacrificing to Poseidon he prayed that a bull might appear from the depths, promising to sacrifice it when it appeared. Poseidon did send him up a fine bull, and Minos obtained the kingdom, but he sent the bull to the herds and sacrificed another.
But angry at him for not sacrificing the bull, Poseidon made the animal savage, and contrived that Pasiphae (Minos’s wife) should conceive a passion for it. In her love for the bull she found an accomplice in Daedalus, an architect, who had been banished from Athens for murd3r. He constructed a wooden cow on wheels, took it, hollowed it out in the inside, sewed it up in the hide of a cow which he had skinned, and set it in the meadow in which the bull used to graze. Then he introduced Pasiphae into it; and the bull came and coupled with it, as if it were a real cow. And she gave birth to Asterius, who was called the Minotaur.
See what I mean…twisted stuff…OK Guys (and Gals)…let’s hear it…whadda ya got!!!
That’s indeed odd especially since it defies nature. Once I read a Latin story (I’ll try and dig it up), long time ago its fuzzy, but basically it included a ball and a boy playing with it and joking with a sword toward some guy then that some guy just killed the boy. It was quite twisted. It inspired me to write far more strange stories. Indeed not just an idle threat my stories are absolutely messed up if they were a person they would be the wacko at Kopio’s door. Shouldn’t shoot my stories though, they’re only sheets. (btw classical literature in my experience is far more twisted than anything I know, don’t even begin to ask me about the disgusting brutality of which every one has read, that’s why I don’t read them any longer)
I must say…I am sorely dissapointed. I thought for sure that I’d get some good stories from you all!! Oh well, I guess that it must be more fun to play silly games than talk about Classical Greek and Mythology
Simply the thought of Kronos and his sickle is enough to make me nervous and tense. I lack the fortitude to discuss the incident at length, my fondness for Hesiod notwithstanding.
the story about dionysus’ birth is pretty bizarre, how zeus took the 6-month foetus out of semele (after he scared her to death) and stitched it into his own thigh (as one does in these types of medical emergency) until dionysus was born…
I would have to say, from what I have read, the story of the House of Atreus. It is really long and full of shocking events, but the worst one must be the Thyestean Feast, briefly:
Atreus and Thyestes are brothers. Atreus marries Aerope, Thyestes has an affair with Aerope and Atreus banishes him from the city. Thyestes asks if he can return and Atreus says “Oh, sure, we’ll have a huge banquet!”. So… after they finish eating, Atreus informs Thyestes that he has just been served, and did indeed eat, the flesh of his own two sons (whom Atreus apparently murdered). I think, and I don’t suppose I am alone in thinking this, that the Greeks took revenge a bit too far.
Of course, there is also Oedipus, who kills his father and marries his mother; Hercules, who murders his music teacher because he doesn’t like the lessons. Let’s not discuss the conception of Venus/Aphrodite…
In some stories she was maddened by Aphrodite and conceived an overwhelming passion for… her father! Some stories have Dionysus gestating in a tree after removal from Semele.
Steven although your stories may be odd, I did like the Hercules killing his teacher because he did not like the lessons, they’re not exactly credible. Eating sons? Come on. Anything with a ball is far more disturbing because it CAN happen.
I knew I couldn’t possibly have the worst story out there! I must say, that I’ve plugged Apollodorus’ Library Vol 1-2 quite a few times on this forum (I’m almost through the 1st Loeb) and it’s because I keep reading all of these great stories from Mythology.
I read this story the night after I read about the one I posted about…kinda interesting. I must say, I was rather supreised at just how much of a philanderer Zeus was…what a dog!
William…I have never read or even heard of Chronos and his Sickle…can you tell me a little more without getting too pale?
It’s Kronos, or Cronus, not Ch-. Nothing to do with time.
I dare not relate the tale myself. I draw your attention to the relevent lines of Hesiod’s Theogony. The translation is oblique. For “members” substitute “genitals.”
