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7170877

Anonymous Mon Sep 28 15:20:04 2015 No.7170877 [Reply] [Original]

>Polyphemus
>giant one eyed dude who eats people, makes jokes about it to the people he eats, and is ruthless as fuck
>also likes to compose and perform beautiful works of music especially so that he can serenade his beloved sea nymph Galatea
>which either results in her playing hard to get and eventually the two opposites falling in love or her reviling him and him crushing her mortal lover with a big boulder

Why is so much of Greek myth like this? Characters can be capable of excessive and calculated sadism and cruelty yet softly tender at other times. It is so common in Greek stuff

I first really noticed this after I read that Odysseus threw Hector's infant child off a cliff during the siege of Troy because he was still ass blasted about Achilles getting sniped by Paris.

In fact, Hector is the only consistently noble and admirable person in all the Greek shit I've read so far and he gets rewarded with being humiliated, sword through the neck, corpse descrated, and then his wife and baby killed

>>	fun guy aengoth Mon Sep 28 15:32:54 2015 No.7170924 Hector was an arrogant fella mate all about that arete son

>>	Anonymous Mon Sep 28 15:41:22 2015 No.7170953 because the greeks weren't fucking retarded yet

>>	Anonymous Mon Sep 28 15:42:25 2015 No.7170958 >>7170877 Possibly because the Hellenic people were aware of the fact that humans are not moral paragons.

>>	Anonymous Mon Sep 28 15:43:52 2015 No.7170962 The Greek pantheon is like the ancient version of tolkien's Middle Earth, isn't it? Just a huge, autistic universe that every author rips off.

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Anonymous Mon Sep 28 15:49:07 2015 No.7170979

>>7170958
This tbh.

Polytheism has a lot more room for moral ambiguity.

And, back then, being a manly man was far different than it is now. Currently, Men work on cars. Back then, you were a limp wristed queer Or the ancient equivalent of as being a flaming faggot was only weird if you didn't have a wife and kids to go home to after you finished with the boipucci if you didn't write poetry.

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Anonymous Mon Sep 28 15:54:29 2015 No.7170992
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>>7170958

Look at arguably the most famous Greek of them all, Alexander. Noble disposition, relatively humane, but also given over to fits of excess. Even stripping away all the Athenian slander of his life and deeds, there's still a highly complex and conflicted kernel left over.

In battle he strove to emulate Achilles, minus the penchant for sulking. In diplomacy he was much like Odysseus, using wit and rhetoric to achieve his aims. Throw in a little Xenophon (his model general) and a dash of the philosopher (a la Aristotle) and you have one of the most sublimely intricate people that has ever lived.

>>	Anonymous Mon Sep 28 15:55:49 2015 No.7170998 >>7170877 Because before Plato times greeks didn't thought that life was a battle against evilness

>>	Anonymous Mon Sep 28 15:59:04 2015 No.7171005 >>7170877 a lot of retroactive look at the greek moral system places their mythology in the realm of "evil" rather than "noble." Odysseus occupies the 8th circle of hell with other grecian heroes in Dante

>>	Anonymous Mon Sep 28 16:00:21 2015 No.7171010 >>7170877 Odysseus is a titanic fucking piece of shit, so I wouldn't be using him as an example.

>>	Anonymous Mon Sep 28 16:01:41 2015 No.7171013 Hector was a nice guy but in the end, he lacked arete and got whacked. And that's what matters.

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Anonymous Mon Sep 28 16:04:03 2015 No.7171025

>>7170992
Yeah Alexander is definitely one of the most important people to ever live. Influenced the way the West and Near East have interacted for at 2,000 years now. In fact he's a hero in the west but a villain, unsurprisingly, in lots of Medieval Islamic texts. I think he's even mentioned in the Koran, if I'm not mistaken. Portrayed as your typical blood thirsty conqueror.

One thing I don't like is this attempt to portray him as gay. There isn't a single piece of evidence that he ever had homosexual relationships and the main argument for it seems to be "It was common at the time and he had like a best friend that was a guy!" In fact Herodotus even mentions specifically a story about Alexander being offered a male prostitute as a spoil of war and being disgusted at the notion of indulging in it.

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Anonymous Mon Sep 28 16:05:58 2015 No.7171027

>>7170877
You have to understand that in Hesiod and Homer's time, there was no "ethics" as we know it. Heroes and Gods were not constrained by such measures - they did things because they willed it so.
It should not come as a surprise to you that Nietzsche's entire philosophy revolved around the Homeric hero.

>>	Anonymous Mon Sep 28 16:06:29 2015 No.7171030 >>7171025 >Herodotus even mentions specifically a story about Alexander Shit, Herodotus could time-travel? No wonder he invented history

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Anonymous Mon Sep 28 16:08:52 2015 No.7171036

>>7171025

There was no such thing as 'gay' or 'straight' back then. Pederasty was commonplace and he retained one of Darius' personal eunuchs.

Hell, his own father was killed by a disgraced male lover.

Also I'm not sure where you're getting the information on Alexander in Islamic lore from. Alexander is held in high esteem in many Islamic texts; some traditions even have him spreading the truth of Allah to barbaric peoples before Muhammad.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_the_Great_in_the_Quran

>>	Anonymous Mon Sep 28 16:09:55 2015 No.7171038 >>7170962 You're talking bollocks,. Y'all need to get yourself a copy of Finley's World of Odysseus and educate yourself.

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Anonymous Mon Sep 28 16:10:18 2015 No.7171039

>>7171030
Fuck you, you know I meant Plutarch.

"When Philoxenus, the leader of the seashore, wrote to Alexander that there was a youth in Ionia whose beauty has yet to be seen and asked him in a letter if he (Alexander) would like him (the boy) to be sent over, he (Alexander) responded in a strict and disgusted manner: "You are the most hideous and malign of all men, have you ever seen me involved in such dirty (sexual) work that you found the urge to flatter me with such hedonistic business?"

From "Luck and Virtue of Alexander"

>>	Anonymous Mon Sep 28 16:12:12 2015 No.7171045 >>7171036 Ah, I guess I just imagined it. I could have swore there was a passage about some great conqueror that obviously alluded to Alexander in the Koran. Like I was certain that was a thing.

>>	Anonymous Mon Sep 28 16:13:47 2015 No.7171053 >>7171025 He made egyptians sculpt him touching some god dick, that's pretty gay for me no matter the subtext and symbolism.

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Anonymous Mon Sep 28 16:14:38 2015 No.7171056

>>7171025
The Quranic figure of Dhul-al-Qarnayn isn't described as either blood thirsty or particularly terrible. The Shahnameh, the Persian book of kings written in the 10th century refers to him as a rightful king of Iran and overall an okay guy. In both narratives Alexander is described as being more of an adventurer than a conqueror.

>>	Anonymous Mon Sep 28 16:17:45 2015 No.7171061 >>7171045 you're probably referring to Alexander as Dhul-Qarnayn, the Two Horned One https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_the_Great_in_the_Quran#Quran