According to her, this is an important influence on modern Western thought.
In the final section, Hamilton briefly discusses Norse mythology.
Tragedies revolve around multi-generational families where sins of parents are revisited by their children, leading to more bloodshed in a cycle of violence. They also examine situations where Greek ideas of morality are put at odds with each other, as with Orestes who is caught between avenging his father and sparing his mother.
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They question fate and whether humans have free will or not. These tragedies include famous ones like Oedipus and Orestes. Later in the book, Hamilton describes tragedies that Greek playwrights created. Flower myths usually involve beautiful youths dying tragically and can be traced back to primitive human sacrifice rituals. Some serve no purpose other than entertainment.
Other myths explain natural phenomena like the constellations or flowers. Many ancient myths are stories about heroes, such as Aeneas, who founded the Roman Empire. She groups these biographies around the Trojan War which is immortalized by Homer’s epics about it. These heroes are famous for their exploits in life and Hamilton describes them in detail. Due to this, they give birth to heroes like Theseus, Hercules and Achilles. The stories begin to multiply and expand as the gods, especially Zeus, have sex with humans. Humans populated Earth along with other supernatural creatures such as Hades-the land of the dead. The gods overthrew their father and ruled over humans. After that, monsters were born from the Titans (children of Cronus). Then, love came and created heaven and earth. Demeter grows corn but Dionysus loves wine more than anything else which makes him different from his fellow Olympians because they prefer nectar, ambrosia, or nothing at all if it comes down to it. Hephaestus crafts items for them while Aphrodite loves beauty but lives on earth with humans instead of on Mount Olympus with her family. Hestia protects hearth fires while Hermes delivers messages to everyone in Greece from Olympus (the home of all Greek gods). Poseidon rules over the sea while Hades rules over death. His wife Hera is jealous of him and their children are Ares who is cruel and Apollo who’s a poet. Zeus is the chief and god of thunder and sky. In her introduction, she talks about how these myths are precursors to Western thought, which can be useful today.Īfter introducing the main characters, Hamilton then talks about the gods. She briefly explains the Norse myths as well, but she focuses mostly on Greek and Roman mythology. 1-Page Summary of Mythology Overall SummaryĮdith Hamilton’s Mythology is like a study guide in itself because it references so many different stories and characters.
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