10/18 Chelsea Lum Period 8

Chelsea Lum

Blogger #17

10.18.2019

Modern Mythology 2020

Aim: How can we explicate the flower myths to derive morals?

Today in class, we continued our discussion on the book Mythology by Edith Hamilton. More specifically, we focused on the flower myths in the book. To kick off the conversation, we started to talk about the morals of each flower myth within our groups. 

In Group 1, they discussed the moral of the story of Persephone. In this story, Persephone is in a garden with other maidens. In the field, she was allured by a flower that Zeus had put there. When she picked the flower, Hades had come up from the underworld and brought her back down with her. Adam had said the flower represented temptation because the flower was put there on purpose as a trap. Ryan added on and said this story was very similar to the myth of Pandora’s Box. Both were similar because she picked the flower from safety and got trapped from it. Overall, we came to the conclusion that the moral was to resist the temptation of things you are unsure of. 

The next group discussed the moral in the myth of Narcissus. Sarah began by giving us a background on who Narcissus was. He was one of the most beautiful men and was loved by many women. However, he did not reciprocate those feelings to anyone. Narcissus was then cursed to love only himself for the rest of his life. From this story, we concluded that the lesson was taught to be more open minded and to be more appreciative of others. Leyao also added on another lesson was to realize that the world does not revolve around you. 

In Group 3, they shared the myth of Echo, who was a very talkative nymph. Hera had overheard her conversation with other nymphs and cursed her to never be able to have the first word. She would only be able to copy other people’s words. Ryan had concluded that the myth told us to not be so concerned with having the last word in an argument or a conversation. 

In groups 4 and 5, they discussed the stories of Hyacinthus. In one of the versions discussed, Zephyr, the god of the west wind, was jealous of Apollo and Hyacinthus’ relationship. This was because he also had feelings for Hyacinthus, but the feelings were not reciprocated. So, he blew the west wind while Apollo and Hyacinthus were having a disk throwing contest. The disk eventually kills Hyacinthus. From this story, group 4 came to a conclusion that jealousy will blind you. Brian commented that fate is out of your control sometimes. In group 5, Hyacinthus was killed by a disk thrown by Apollo. Stanley added that the lesson might be that there will always be consequences to your actions. Ms. Fusaro also added that you should be aware of mismatched competition. 

Finally, in group 6, we discussed the myth of Adonis. He was a very beautiful man, whom both Aphrodite and Persephone loved. Because they had loved him so much, Zeus declared that for 6 months he would stay with one goddess and for the other six months who would stay with the other. One day while he was out hunting a boar, he died. Aphrodite could not do anything but give him one last kiss. From his blood, a flower grew in his place. Ms. Fusaro drew a parallel between this myth and the story of King Solomon. In the story of King Solomon, two women argue over the paternity of the baby. He wanted to cut the baby in half so both women would get a part of the baby. The real mother did not want to cut the baby in half. From both stories, the lesson learned could be that if you truly love something, set it free. 

Next, we continued to our pair-share activity. We discussed why there is always a need to associate sorrow with beauty. Gabby started off with talking about the balance of life, like most Greeks. People need to associate something so sad to show that nothing in this world is perfect, even if it seems like it. Ruby drew a parallel to two sides of a coin. She gave an example of when there is light, there is also darkness. 

During today’s lesson and the reading from the night before, I was very interested in how the Greeks viewed flowers. I had never seen stories like this written about flowers. It was fascinating to see how the Greeks viewed something so beautiful to stem from something sorrowful. These myths also reinforced the idea of hamartia, as we had discussed many lessons ago. The myth showcased hamartia because all the stories ended in sadness. It also showed me how the Greeks did believe that there were consequences to every action good. They did not believe good things happened by themselves, but happened because something bad had happened before. In a way, it reminds of karma because there are consequences.  From this lesson forward, I will try to see how the Greeks also use hamartia and hubris in other myths.