Speaker 1: Hi, Hello, this is Let's talk about mits baby, and
Speaker 1: I am your host live who's trying to think of
Speaker 1: something quippy to say but doesn't have anything. So today's episode,
Speaker 1: as promised, is the New Year Q and AA episode.
Speaker 1: I have been asking you all to ask me questions,
Speaker 1: provide me with suggestions of topics really any and everything,
Speaker 1: and you all delivered because you're lovely. Now today I've
Speaker 1: been looking at the questions and it looks like I
Speaker 1: have enough to split this into two episodes, which frankly
Speaker 1: is also just good for me for selfish purposes, in
Speaker 1: that basically everything in my life exploded in December in
Speaker 1: a way that is just I mean literally, the end
Speaker 1: of twenty twenty four has probably been the worst year
Speaker 1: of my life in terms of just volume and extensivity
Speaker 1: of personal tragedy and trauma and stress and oh my god,
Speaker 1: it's just been a time. And that is all to say.
Speaker 1: I'm really lucky that I about six months ago planned
Speaker 1: a trip away from my home in January, but it
Speaker 1: does mean I had to prepare some episodes in advance.
Speaker 1: Now I'm just rambling, but basically I could not write
Speaker 1: a script in the last week because usually I just
Speaker 1: end up crying. So I'm just gonna answer your questions
Speaker 1: over two episodes and thank you all. Basically you've helped
Speaker 1: me immensely, because yep, it's been a time, but thankfully
Speaker 1: I have the distraction of all of your incredible questions.
Speaker 1: You asked some really fun ones somewhere. I forget which
Speaker 1: one this was. I'm sure it'll come up when I
Speaker 1: get to it, but I just remember reading it come
Speaker 1: in through my email and I was like, oh, I
Speaker 1: am so glad someone asked that. Like so often, you
Speaker 1: guys ask me things that I would love to talk about,
Speaker 1: but they just don't easily come up naturally in an episode.
Speaker 1: It is why I love Q and A episodes. It's
Speaker 1: why my Patreon, when it is usually running, is also
Speaker 1: filled with bonus Q and A episodes, because it presents
Speaker 1: new ways of thinking about these topics, new ideas, new
Speaker 1: answers that come to me when reading your questions. It
Speaker 1: really brings up so many new concepts and thoughts that
Speaker 1: I personally find them to be so beneficial. And I
Speaker 1: keep hearing from you all that you do too, so
Speaker 1: that I get to do these kind of now to
Speaker 1: twice a year is really lovely. It really helps me
Speaker 1: and it's just kind of a joy. So, without any
Speaker 1: further rambling before I get into what is just going
Speaker 1: to be an episode full of unscripted rambling, let's just
Speaker 1: dive right in. This is episode two forty three, digging
Speaker 1: deeper into minor gods, exploring modern Greece and praising dian Issus,
Speaker 1: A New Year, Q and A Part one. All right,
Speaker 1: I had such a wonderful number of questions from all
Speaker 1: of you, so I'm just kind of scrolling through picking
Speaker 1: some stuff at random, and we are going to dive
Speaker 1: right in. Let's start with something quick and fun. This
Speaker 1: one comes from Nicole Tony, who says, what is your
Speaker 1: fave Euripides play and also fave translation? Thank you, thank you. Okay.
Speaker 1: The thing about me picking favorites of anything, and this
Speaker 1: comes up with like literally everything in my life, but
Speaker 1: a lot really specifically to do with Greek mythology, is
Speaker 1: that my favorite depends on what kind of mood I'm in,
Speaker 1: you know, like basically I have. I would say four
Speaker 1: favorite plays of Euripides. It's back Eye when I just
Speaker 1: feel like reading about somebody fucking shit up. It's Medea
Speaker 1: when I want to feel righteously, furiously angry. It's Alcestes
Speaker 1: when I want something silly and weird, and it is
Speaker 1: the Helen when I want God's incredible mess. The Helen
Speaker 1: is It's just like there's just there's so much to Euripides,
Speaker 1: and he his plays are just so wide and varied
Speaker 1: in terms of their theme and and even just like
Speaker 1: the mood generally that it just totally depends. But I mean,
Speaker 1: all of them are wonderful because Euripides is a fucking
Speaker 1: king among men. But fave translations, it really depends. I
Speaker 1: often read Anne Carson's translations. They're really readable, really poetic,
Speaker 1: but also she kind of keeps her her translations simple,
Speaker 1: I would say, and to the point, so they they're
Speaker 1: really they're really interesting translations for sure. And then I
Speaker 1: have this other book called the Greek Plays, which is
Speaker 1: like a really big compendium. If you're looking to just
Speaker 1: pick up a translation of all three of the Tragedians,
Speaker 1: this is a great place to start because it's it's
Speaker 1: really huge. I think there's like three or four plays
Speaker 1: from each of them, and there's a lot of women
Speaker 1: translators and there, including some by Emily Wilson and I
Speaker 1: really enjoy those ones of the ones that I have read,
Speaker 1: I'm forgetting which translator translated the Euripides ones in there,
Speaker 1: but I remember definitely enjoying them. And then let's go
Speaker 1: straight into something wild. This one comes from somebody who
Speaker 1: I note actually did not put their name, just pronounce.
Speaker 1: So she says, in myth there is a lot of incest.
Speaker 1: Kings marry their daughters to their sons, or cousins to cousins.
Speaker 1: The gods are all related in some ways, so there's
Speaker 1: a lot of procreation amongst siblings. However, in Oedipus, the
Speaker 1: marriage and children between himself and his mother is taboo.
Speaker 1: Was parent child incests specifically not accepted in society? Did
Speaker 1: any Greek gods have relationships that were parent childs? I
Speaker 1: love this question because, like, the Greek mythology is so
Speaker 1: fucked up, and I love that we're just gonna dive
Speaker 1: straight into it. So I will say, like, I don't know,
Speaker 1: I don't know the explicit rules when it comes to
Speaker 1: Greek society, but I can make very educated guesses and assumptions,
Speaker 1: and in that I would say that it's the gods
Speaker 1: are gods I think is the biggest thing to remember.
Speaker 1: The gods are gods, they are not humans, and so
Speaker 1: I don't think that any of the relationships between the
Speaker 1: gods in terms of incest would be considered even remotely
Speaker 1: okay amongst humans. I think that's a really specific distinction,
Speaker 1: and it comes around probably a lot of different places,
Speaker 1: but the primary one being that, like, if you're developing
Speaker 1: a world of gods where everyone you know has to
Speaker 1: kind of come from somewhere, there are just going to
Speaker 1: be these inevitable relationships, particularly when when you're looking at
Speaker 1: people like the Olympians, Like the Olympians are meant to
Speaker 1: be the most important, the most powerful, and so like
Speaker 1: they just kind of inherently have to be related and
Speaker 1: you just kind of inherently have to be okay with them.
Speaker 1: Then marrying that said, I don't think that think that
Speaker 1: there are any parent child relationships. I think that that definitely,
Speaker 1: like on so many levels, would be too far even
Speaker 1: for the gods, which I think is why Oedipus and
Speaker 1: Jocasta is the main issue. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: the big issue with Oedipus and Jocasta is also that
Speaker 1: one that they had children, I think because that kind
Speaker 1: of adds as like a different criminal aspect, but also
Speaker 1: that he killed his father to get to that position.
Speaker 1: Like there's a lot of different things coming into play
Speaker 1: in that play that make it really distinctly bad. But
Speaker 1: that said, yeah, like I don't think I mean, I
Speaker 1: imagine cousins married because like that's just the way it
Speaker 1: was for a really long time, you know, like really
Speaker 1: recently that was a thing. So I would say, you know,
Speaker 1: you kind of kind of ignore the whole cousin aspect,
Speaker 1: but in terms of closer relations, I don't think that
Speaker 1: that was common or acceptable in general Greek society, and
Speaker 1: the gods really are just just a different situation entirely
Speaker 1: out of so many different reasons, but the big one
Speaker 1: just being that they were divine, you know, and they
Speaker 1: kind of just didn't fall into the same categories. But
Speaker 1: I really truly love that you asked this question. Like
Speaker 1: my favorite part about talking about Greek mythology is just
Speaker 1: generally how fucked up it was if you look at
Speaker 1: it through any kind of like critical lens and just
Speaker 1: kind of considered that, like this is just what was
Speaker 1: happening in the general belief structure of the time, And
Speaker 1: I think that's incredibly weird and fun and far more
Speaker 1: interesting than you know. I don't know then if they
Speaker 1: weren't all fucking related and weird, all right. This one
Speaker 1: is from Kyla, who says has two part question. One.
Speaker 1: I noticed that the translations you read often used the
Speaker 1: word car. Did car have a meaning before the modern engine?
Speaker 1: Or is it to draw an image for their audience
Speaker 1: like the use of the word corn. And I'm so
Speaker 1: glad that you brought up both of those words because
Speaker 1: it's something that I've been wanting to talk about on
Speaker 1: the show but needed a better opportunity. So the word
Speaker 1: car has existed long, long, long before what we think
Speaker 1: of as cars. It's just coming from more old and
Speaker 1: ancient notions of like carts, vehicles of any kind. You know,
Speaker 1: it seems like according to Wikipedia, because I did look
Speaker 1: this up for etymological reasons, and it looks like it.
Speaker 1: The word in English probably or might come from the
Speaker 1: Latin word chorus or karum, which just meant wheeled vehicle,
Speaker 1: it says. Or even there's like Middle English that's car,
Speaker 1: but like C A, R R E, and that just
Speaker 1: meant to wheeled cart. So we're just talking like things
Speaker 1: with wheels basically, when you're referring to car and with corn.
Speaker 1: It's really interesting. I've been told this from a couple
Speaker 1: of different people because obviously I come from North America,
Speaker 1: where corn is like our thing, right, and then the
Speaker 1: whole thing is that you know, what we, at least
Speaker 1: in North America considered to be corn, you know, like
Speaker 1: poppscorn kind of why is that the only one I
Speaker 1: can think of? Anyway, that kind of corn is not
Speaker 1: the general consensus on the word corn. And so in
Speaker 1: beyond North America, it really it seems to have just
Speaker 1: generally meant like grain, so the word can be used
Speaker 1: to refer to cereals, grains, any kind of like that
Speaker 1: type of crop, like, well, beyond what we in North
Speaker 1: America consider to be corn. So it I had originally
Speaker 1: thought it was more like a mistranslation, but no, it's
Speaker 1: just like a different usage of the word. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's so I find this stuff so interesting because like,
Speaker 1: I'm obviously very North American, and while I'm Canadian and
Speaker 1: we use you know, we have Canadian English, which is
Speaker 1: a lot closer to British English than it is to
Speaker 1: American English. But it's really something weirdly in between. You know,
Speaker 1: like I am still defined by North America, and it's
Speaker 1: just an interesting thing. I'm often disappointed that I am
Speaker 1: defined by North America because I think North America in
Speaker 1: its current colonial structure is a fucking disaster and weirdly
Speaker 1: insular and absolutely cultureless besides everything that we stole. And
Speaker 1: you know, I love hearing from the world beyond North
Speaker 1: America and figuring out the things that I don't know
Speaker 1: because of where I came from. So I'm really glad
Speaker 1: you asked that, because I think it's just generally really
Speaker 1: fucking interesting. And the second question by Kyla is if
Speaker 1: Chronos was the time deity and the grain slash farming
Speaker 1: association came from the Roman Saturn. Was Chronos the Titan
Speaker 1: of anything? And that was Sorry, two different spellings of Chronos,
Speaker 1: which I will get into in my response, because yeah,
Speaker 1: so Chronos c H was a time deity and then
Speaker 1: Chronos with a K in the Greek but often spelled
Speaker 1: with a C. But no H is you know that
Speaker 1: titan the father of Zeus and his lot, and he
Speaker 1: is the one associated with the Roman Saturn in a way.
Speaker 1: Roman gods are really interesting because why they have a
Speaker 1: lot of close associations with some Greek gods, they're often
Speaker 1: really really different. Like Saturn was a much more important
Speaker 1: and widely uh worshiped god than Chronos was. Chronos was
Speaker 1: like not as far as I understand Chronos in Greek mythology,
Speaker 1: and I am talking about the Titan Chronos, he wasn't
Speaker 1: really a god that people like still thought of, you know,
Speaker 1: he was a historical god, right, he was like the
Speaker 1: one who came before Zeus, but humans worshiped Zeus and
Speaker 1: he had been overthrown and all this stuff. So like,
Speaker 1: I don't think anyone went out there and like worshiped Chronos,
Speaker 1: whereas in Rome it's just like a totally different situation
Speaker 1: because it's coming from a very different place. You know.
Speaker 1: They are kind of taking on and adapting certain things
Speaker 1: about Greek mythology in some cases, but they're completely making
Speaker 1: them their own. And Saturn is a really really good
Speaker 1: example of a god that has these Greek origins ish
Speaker 1: you know, but also is like completely distinct from Greek.
Speaker 1: Now Chronos the Greek again, the Titan, hey did have
Speaker 1: the symbol of the sickle, right, but it wasn't a
Speaker 1: sickle like that he was using in farming. It was
Speaker 1: a sickle that he used to you know, castrate his
Speaker 1: father Uranos, right, like that kind of sickle, you know.
Speaker 1: And so I imagine that that sort of eventually lent itself
Speaker 1: to grain and farming associations, because obviously it is a
Speaker 1: farming tool. So I don't know the saturn bit well
Speaker 1: enough to say confidently, because I just don't know enough
Speaker 1: about when those Roman gods like were so distinct from
Speaker 1: the Greek. But I would imagine that that kind of
Speaker 1: just became a natural association. And then Kronos, the god
Speaker 1: of time, is really interesting because he really only shows
Speaker 1: up in orphic mythology. He really does not get included
Speaker 1: in any in anything beyond beyond orphic. You know. He
Speaker 1: might have been sort of ment here and there, I think,
Speaker 1: but even if you look into him, like he's very
Speaker 1: specifically called an orphic deity, but I think then you know,
Speaker 1: he is associated with time. He is where we get
Speaker 1: the word chronology. Now, all of that said, I just
Speaker 1: read further down on theoa's page on him, and it
Speaker 1: does look like I mean, I don't know, so they
Speaker 1: they say here that be outside of the orphic tradition,
Speaker 1: Chronos with ach is connected with Chronos the Titan. They
Speaker 1: say that very clearly, but I don't actually see what
Speaker 1: they're talking about, because it says that they're like they're
Speaker 1: usually identical see Pindar below. But then Pindar doesn't seem
Speaker 1: to say that, like he literally just says he just
Speaker 1: references Chronos with a ch or just with an h
Speaker 1: is the key because when it's in Greek, it's still okay,
Speaker 1: but it's kh it's very confusing when you're talking English.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I I still think that he is a
Speaker 1: different kind of god, but I would imagine that that
Speaker 1: Chronos with an h is is more like a personification god, right,
Speaker 1: one of those diamond gods, because I never know how
Speaker 1: to say a demon or diamond anyway, because he is
Speaker 1: just sort of a He is time. He is a
Speaker 1: personification of time, and so I think and eventually these
Speaker 1: things just kind of get pushed together. You know, he
Speaker 1: is time. So sometimes you'll even just see him be
Speaker 1: called time in a translation because it literally means time. Right,
Speaker 1: It's like you know, a niek victory is going to
Speaker 1: come up later. She is another example of that, where
Speaker 1: often in translations it will just say victory because the word.
Speaker 1: The name is the word, right, we think of it
Speaker 1: as a name now because the name is Nike or
Speaker 1: Chronos with a K, but it just means victory and time.
Speaker 1: Because these things just symbolized a concept, you know, in
Speaker 1: as just as much as they also symbolized like an
Speaker 1: actual deity. So I imagine this sort of all eventually
Speaker 1: just kind of came together because you're talking these two
Speaker 1: gods that have such similar names, and they're even more
Speaker 1: similar once they are, you know, transliterated into Latin and English,
Speaker 1: because you know, in Greek there is no letter C, right,
Speaker 1: there's just a K, or there's a there's a kappa,
Speaker 1: or there's a key, which it looks like H when
Speaker 1: we write it in English, but it really looks like
Speaker 1: an X in English. I mean, there's a there's a
Speaker 1: lot going on here. We trying to like explain Greek
Speaker 1: letters and etymology all in one place. But like I
Speaker 1: imagine it just sort of as a later conflation. Also
Speaker 1: because for a long time, most of what we had
Speaker 1: from ancient Greece actually came to us through Latin, Like
Speaker 1: Latin was the dominant language for so long that that
Speaker 1: a lot of times, like that's why You'll often see
Speaker 1: these translations of even like Homer, where Latin names are
Speaker 1: used right where it's like it's Homer, but Odysseus is Ulysses,
Speaker 1: but it's Homer. And that's because we had Homer in Latin,
Speaker 1: which then got translated into English, but it was Latin
Speaker 1: from the Greek, and so like there's just these different
Speaker 1: layers that were happening in between for a really long
Speaker 1: time before people started translating i think direct from Greek.
Speaker 1: And so you know, there's just a lot of kind
Speaker 1: of things happening there. But I imagine that's how the
Speaker 1: two chronoses ended up becoming one and becoming so linked
Speaker 1: to the Latin Chronos or the Latin Saturn rather, because
Speaker 1: like we've got these obvious connections, and Latin just became
Speaker 1: the more important one. And I mean, there's honestly so
Speaker 1: much there, and I would love to speak to a
Speaker 1: scholar who can talk more about, you know, this like
Speaker 1: Greek Latin divide and everything that kind of happened there historically,
Speaker 1: Like I'm talking well beyond the ancient world, because what
Speaker 1: I find is interesting is like so much happened after
Speaker 1: the fact, so much happened just in terms of like
Speaker 1: the last thousand years in terms of what we had
Speaker 1: access to and could translate, and how that affected how
Speaker 1: we see kind of everything, certainly as you know modern
Speaker 1: and I'm saying English speaking people because that's what was
Speaker 1: so influenced by Latin. Honestly, it's fascinating. Thank you for
Speaker 1: that question, Kyla. Okay, next one, because I'm going to
Speaker 1: try to get through a ton. What am I doing?
Speaker 1: It's already been twenty minutes. This next one is from
Speaker 1: Maguire Trots, who says, this is a great one. Do
Speaker 1: you think that perhaps one of the reasons that Euripides
Speaker 1: is so great is that he was gay? I like
Speaker 1: to think so. I like to think so too. So
Speaker 1: I definitely think I think that there is something going
Speaker 1: on with Euripides. I think I think him being gay
Speaker 1: is a very very convincing argument. I also had a
Speaker 1: guest on I believe it was Julie Levy who theorized
Speaker 1: that Euripides was uh trans I forget if it. If
Speaker 1: their theory was that, I imagine like a closeted transman.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's really difficult to say, obviously, because there
Speaker 1: was so much happening there that we just we can't
Speaker 1: translate into modern notions. But I do think that certainly
Speaker 1: Euripides was queer in some way and or just like,
Speaker 1: I mean, I just think there's so much going on
Speaker 1: because I mean, I think trans is probably a really
Speaker 1: convincing argument, even if just we're looking at the fact
Speaker 1: that Euripides was so interested in the lives of women,
Speaker 1: and I just think that that really lends it self
Speaker 1: to this idea that like maybe, you know, even if
Speaker 1: he didn't know that he was transling, maybe he had
Speaker 1: these inklings, you know, these feelings of like, you know,
Speaker 1: I just I feel more comfortable with women, I associate
Speaker 1: more with women, I have more in common with them,
Speaker 1: like whatever it was, like, I do think that there's
Speaker 1: something going on with Euripities that that really lent itself
Speaker 1: to why his work and his treatment of women is
Speaker 1: so unique. But I yeah, I think that's a great theory.
Speaker 1: I definitely think that he was queer in some way,
Speaker 1: even if it's just sort of this kind of amorphous notion,
Speaker 1: because it's really impossible to put these modern ideas onto
Speaker 1: someone who would have no idea what the fuck we're
Speaker 1: talking about, right, because it just wasn't acceptable it wasn't done,
Speaker 1: but it wasn't even so much unacceptable as it was
Speaker 1: just like not thought of, you know, like I think,
Speaker 1: I think it's it's best to think about the Greeks
Speaker 1: as just sort of not thinking about sexual in that
Speaker 1: way at all. They considered it to be the right
Speaker 1: thing to marry, for men to marry a woman, but
Speaker 1: that is in large part coming from procreation, right, and
Speaker 1: so it just became the natural order. But at the
Speaker 1: same time, there was an entire tradition of having romantic
Speaker 1: and sexual relationships between men. You know, a lot of
Speaker 1: that is pederasties. So there's a lot going on in
Speaker 1: terms of you know, age and consent and a lot
Speaker 1: of questions that you know, I won't get into right now,
Speaker 1: but are very important to consider when we're talking about this.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, we have to remember that
Speaker 1: it was absolutely acceptable for men to be in relationships
Speaker 1: with other men. It's just that it they never married.
Speaker 1: But it wasn't like like it to me. It wasn't
Speaker 1: that like they weren't you know, they weren't allowed by society.
Speaker 1: It was simply just like not thought of. It was
Speaker 1: not that it was never conceptualized because it was simply
Speaker 1: a matter of, yeah, you had this romantic sexual relationship
Speaker 1: with this man, you absolutely loved him, Uh, but you
Speaker 1: had to marry a woman because procreation, like it just
Speaker 1: wasn't about it wasn't about right and wrong. In my head,
Speaker 1: again this is this is me theorizing, but in my head,
Speaker 1: it wasn't so much about right and wrong as it
Speaker 1: was about just like the physical nature of the world.
Speaker 1: And so they just didn't consider it in that way
Speaker 1: because they were able to maintain these romantic relationships. So
Speaker 1: it's not like a man was like not allowed if
Speaker 1: he was in love with another man. He wasn't not
Speaker 1: allowed to see him, he wasn't not allowed to have
Speaker 1: sex with him. He wasn't even not allowed to like
Speaker 1: openly have some kind of romantic entanglement. It's just that
Speaker 1: like the actual physical act of marriage was so inherently
Speaker 1: tied to creating a baby that it just didn't mesh up.
Speaker 1: Like marriage was not about romance. It was about about
Speaker 1: procreation and creating this like family structure, you know. Anyway,
Speaker 1: it's really it's really really interesting. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: like because all of our notions, certainly as English and
Speaker 1: from the West, all of our notions are so inherently
Speaker 1: tied to Christianity, as much as we might not want
Speaker 1: them to be. Like, I'm not remotely fucking Christian, but
Speaker 1: I was raised with Christmas, you know, like it. So
Speaker 1: even I am coming at it from this way where
Speaker 1: I don't believe anything from Christianity, but I'm still I
Speaker 1: have grown up in this structure. That means that, like,
Speaker 1: all of my notions are still tied to Christianity. When
Speaker 1: these the Greeks were before that, just long before, and
Speaker 1: so they didn't have any of those same hang ups
Speaker 1: or ties or notions, and so it's just kind of
Speaker 1: almost impossible to theorize, or it's impossible to know with
Speaker 1: any kind of certainty, but theorizing is really interesting. Oh
Speaker 1: my gosh, I clearly could talk about that forever, but
Speaker 1: it's absolutely fascinating. I'm gonna move on. This next question
Speaker 1: is from Brie, and they asked, will you be covering
Speaker 1: myths featuring the Hyperboreans with acknowledgment of the misuse of
Speaker 1: them by the far right? Thank you, Brie. You almost
Speaker 1: inspired me to try this in January, and then I
Speaker 1: kept opening files and crying instead. So not right now,
Speaker 1: but soon enough. Yes, I would love to talk without Hyperborians.
Speaker 1: The thing about the fucking Hyperboreans is that like there's
Speaker 1: no stories, you know, there's just like this amorphous concept
Speaker 1: of like these people who lived in the north and
Speaker 1: then were apparently like fancy and divine in some way,
Speaker 1: and then of course, yeah, far right white supremacists locked
Speaker 1: onto them in the same way that they locked onto Atlantis.
Speaker 1: But like again, like the Hyperborians are at least more
Speaker 1: mythical than Atlantis, because mythographers talked about them. But there's
Speaker 1: not like a lot of stories or there's not like
Speaker 1: any kind of heavy mythology. It's just like this vague
Speaker 1: notion of like, well, it's it's mostly just that they
Speaker 1: like knew there were people to the north and they
Speaker 1: were like, ooh, you're living that far, you must be special.
Speaker 1: Like it wasn't anything anyway. But one day I will
Speaker 1: definitely talk about them in more detail. Thank you for asking.
Speaker 1: All Right, this one, I'm just gonna say because some
Speaker 1: of you might have been wondering about it. Mel asked
Speaker 1: me tell us about the Crown of Starlight controversy, and
Speaker 1: I won't. I will let you google what you need
Speaker 1: to google, because what you might not have known in
Speaker 1: asking about this is that I was friends with the
Speaker 1: author of Crown of Starlight and that fucking mess and
Speaker 1: utter bullshit was definitely a large part of what made
Speaker 1: the last four months of my life fucking shit. So
Speaker 1: you can go ahead and google. It was awful and
Speaker 1: I am no longer friends with them and absolutely think
Speaker 1: it was fucking ah. Anyway, Yeah, I'm just gonna fucking
Speaker 1: step back. But the book is not existing anymore, so
Speaker 1: we don't have to worry. It's been a time, okay.
Speaker 1: Next one is from Maria Ignacia, who says, what's a
Speaker 1: value or principle represented in myth that you think we
Speaker 1: should bring back? And I'm gonna tell you I don't
Speaker 1: think I have a satisfying quite answer for this. Instead,
Speaker 1: what I'm gonna say is that, like I I get,
Speaker 1: I don't know, like it's funny because I am a
Speaker 1: person who is really really passionate about right and wrong
Speaker 1: and humanity and the sanctity of human life for everyone,
Speaker 1: no matter where where they live or where they were born,
Speaker 1: or what people associated with them might have done. And
Speaker 1: so you know, like I feel really strongly about this
Speaker 1: stuff so much that it absolutely takes over my ability
Speaker 1: to live a happy life. But at the same time, like,
Speaker 1: I don't look to the ancients for that, Like I
Speaker 1: don't really I can't name a single value or principle
Speaker 1: like from myth that I even really consider a value
Speaker 1: or principle, let alone that I think should be brought back,
Speaker 1: because I also think, and I to be clear, I
Speaker 1: do not think that this was your intention, Maria, and
Speaker 1: I am not coming for you whatsoever whatsoever with this,
Speaker 1: But I do think that this notion is often used
Speaker 1: as a way to glorify the ancient Greeks specifically, you know,
Speaker 1: it kind of gets tied to this notion that they
Speaker 1: were smarter, better, more interesting, more impressive than other ancient
Speaker 1: people who we have not so distinctly connected to the
Speaker 1: constructive Western civilization and so like. As a result, the
Speaker 1: Greeks get put on this pedestal as if they were
Speaker 1: so much better, and then that inherently gets tied to
Speaker 1: the West being so much better, which is obviously just
Speaker 1: so problematic, Like there were so many other ancient people
Speaker 1: doing absolutely the same level of wonderful things as the
Speaker 1: ancient Greeks, all at the same time in the same
Speaker 1: region further, you know, in all other parts of the world,
Speaker 1: and they don't get enough attention, and like, obviously I'm
Speaker 1: perpetuating that by talking about Greece. But I like, but
Speaker 1: it's just that's who I'm interested in, that's who I love.
Speaker 1: But I also want to make sure that I am
Speaker 1: using my platform to like point out that these issues.
Speaker 1: But I mean, even aside from that, I just like
Speaker 1: don't really think in values and principles, like I just
Speaker 1: I just go to like what feels to be like
Speaker 1: so obviously right and wrong, and so I just don't
Speaker 1: kind of have any connection to that mythology specifically. But
Speaker 1: I do think it's really interesting question. I don't think
Speaker 1: there's anything wrong with seeing it that way, as long
Speaker 1: as you kind of are aware of, like, you know,
Speaker 1: kind of what else exists in that sort of realm
Speaker 1: of thought. I just personally just don't think about that
Speaker 1: at all. I just think of the Greek myths as
Speaker 1: like this fascinating look at how ancient people told stories
Speaker 1: and thought and what they might have believed. But I
Speaker 1: just don't connect it to the modern world in that way.
Speaker 1: I don't know. My brain's weird. Also I don't tend
Speaker 1: to think in the same ways as a lot of
Speaker 1: people want me to, and I'm perpetually sorry that I
Speaker 1: can't answer your questions better. I'll right. This next one
Speaker 1: is from Coal and they said, I know you are
Speaker 1: vehement about Pegasus being an individual not a species. I
Speaker 1: also think I recall you mentioned that the chimera is
Speaker 1: your favorite mythical monster, or at the very least one
Speaker 1: you enjoy a lot. With those statements in mind, does
Speaker 1: it bother you that the word chimera has sort of
Speaker 1: changed from being the monster's name to being a sort
Speaker 1: of catch all term for hybrid monsters. If not, why
Speaker 1: does that bother you what Pegasus does? If you know,
Speaker 1: my ADHD brain doesn't always know why things do or
Speaker 1: don't bother me, So I understand if you aren't able
Speaker 1: to verbalize it. Oh, I am able to verbalize it. Cole,
Speaker 1: I am thrilled that you ask this question. All right,
Speaker 1: And here is my reasoning. So this is probably not
Speaker 1: entirely historically and etymologically valid reasoning. I'll say that upfront
Speaker 1: this is a my brain reasoning, and it is this.
Speaker 1: Pegasus is a name like a proper like a name
Speaker 1: like his given name. It's you know, it's not the same,
Speaker 1: he didn't have a parent name him, but like it
Speaker 1: is his given name, you know, Whereas the chimera to me,
Speaker 1: feels more like just the name given to a creature
Speaker 1: by the people, you know, coming upon that creature in
Speaker 1: the same way, like the Nimian lion or the hydra
Speaker 1: and so and again, I do I think that this
Speaker 1: is mythologically accurate. Maybe not, but in my head this
Speaker 1: is why. And also the difference comes in the ways
Speaker 1: that the names have been changed. So I like the
Speaker 1: idea that a chimera means a kind of you know,
Speaker 1: amalgam of creatures because that's interesting, uh. And also because
Speaker 1: the chimera was so fucking weird that that just fits
Speaker 1: so perfectly, right lion, goat lion, uh, snake like it
Speaker 1: becoming this meaning of like an amalgamated creature, that's interesting.
Speaker 1: Whereas what I don't like about Pegasus becoming this name
Speaker 1: for flying horses is that, like, the term flying horses
Speaker 1: is far more descriptive of a flying horse than Pegasus.
Speaker 1: You know, Pegasus is literally his name. And so just
Speaker 1: to me, like and again, this is this is adhd
Speaker 1: brain like they're just not the same. And I probably
Speaker 1: don't need to explain further, but that is where my
Speaker 1: brain goes, and I really appreciate you letting me break
Speaker 1: that down in my own brain and put it into words.
Speaker 1: Do I think you're wrong for questioning why I have
Speaker 1: differing answers to both? Not at all, but those are
Speaker 1: my answers, all right. Next one comes from Ryan, and
Speaker 1: I don't know anything about you, Ryan, but your name
Speaker 1: is spelled interestingly and if your dad is named Tim,
Speaker 1: We've bought some weird things to talk about. If any
Speaker 1: lost Greek this is Ryan's question. I'm just making it weird.
Speaker 1: If any lost Greek play slash myth was suddenly discovered,
Speaker 1: is there anyone you would love it to be? Oh
Speaker 1: my god, yes, yes, Oh my gosh. Okay, you know
Speaker 1: there are so many And again it's like my answer
Speaker 1: about my favorite Euripidy's play, like it totally depends on
Speaker 1: all these different kind of factors. But I'm going to
Speaker 1: go with my first thought, which is that Euripides wrote
Speaker 1: a play called The Cadmus, and I desperately want to
Speaker 1: know how much Cadmus it was about, if it was
Speaker 1: about him at the time, of uh you know, the
Speaker 1: back eye. I don't give a fuck because that's after
Speaker 1: all of the things I'm interested in. If it is
Speaker 1: about a young cad miss, then I want it more
Speaker 1: than anything. He also though, had plays about Bullerophon, which
Speaker 1: I think would be really interesting because Billerophon is so
Speaker 1: like under spoken of speaking of the chimera. And there
Speaker 1: are probably so many more, but I'm going to actively
Speaker 1: not look at a list so that I don't have
Speaker 1: any more answers, because truly I just want them all
Speaker 1: all right. This next one is from Serena, who just says, Dole,
Speaker 1: do sell signed copies of your book through your website
Speaker 1: or Monroe's still? Thank you for asking, Serena. Yes, I
Speaker 1: do so if you if any of you are looking
Speaker 1: to get a signed copy of either of my books,
Speaker 1: The Cocktails, Nectar of the Gods or my little Greek
Speaker 1: mythology book, uh yes, if you want to sign, you
Speaker 1: can still go to Monroe's. I don't think that they
Speaker 1: always have me sign their stock now because they probably
Speaker 1: think it bothers me, and I don't blame them. It doesn't,
Speaker 1: but you know, I don't want to bug them either.
Speaker 1: But if you want to signed copy. All you have
Speaker 1: to do is like put a note in when you
Speaker 1: order it that you want it signed, and if you
Speaker 1: want it personalized, you can write that there too, and
Speaker 1: I will happily go sign it. It's really easy for
Speaker 1: me to go to Monroe's and I love signing books there,
Speaker 1: so yes, if you ever need one, I do think
Speaker 1: it's to listen on my website, but it's Monroebooks dot com.
Speaker 1: That's m U n r O Books dot com. It's
Speaker 1: also a very famous and precious Victoria independent bookstore, so
Speaker 1: it's really easy to google if you ever want that
Speaker 1: as well. And the next one is from Mira, who
Speaker 1: says who is your favorite hero and why? Also your
Speaker 1: opinions on Percy Jackson. Thank you Mira. Now, okay, first
Speaker 1: part of your question, My favorite hero is Cadmus because
Speaker 1: we don't know enough about him. I find what little
Speaker 1: we know to be super fucking interesting and I love him.
Speaker 1: If you want to know more about why, listen to
Speaker 1: my episodes on him. He was really cool, but his
Speaker 1: wife was even cooler. That's Harmonia. The second part request
Speaker 1: in Percy Jackson. I'm sorry I still don't have opinions
Speaker 1: on Percy Jackson, I don't, I know I should. I
Speaker 1: am so grateful to Percy Jackson. I know that those
Speaker 1: books brought an entire new generation of people to Greek mythology,
Speaker 1: and I think that's the coolest fucking thing in the world.
Speaker 1: But to remind you all sadly, I am old. I
Speaker 1: think it doesn't come across, which is nice, but I
Speaker 1: am When the first Percy Jackson book came out, which
Speaker 1: you know, features like I think a ten year old,
Speaker 1: I was like eighteen or seventeen, So I just didn't
Speaker 1: read them, and I just, yeah, I just I also
Speaker 1: have trouble reading a lot of fiction Greek mythology now
Speaker 1: because I just live so much in the mythology that
Speaker 1: it always feels like work, and so I need my
Speaker 1: books to kind of be more of an escape. So
Speaker 1: I actively look for things that have absolutely no Greek
Speaker 1: mythology just because that's work, and that's you know, I
Speaker 1: love it, love my work. But yeah, so anyway, all
Speaker 1: to say, I'm sorry, I still don't have opinions. This
Speaker 1: will come up again on another question, so we'll leave
Speaker 1: it for now, all right, Candace asks, what would you
Speaker 1: recommend I go read if I love Dionysus. Aside from
Speaker 1: the obvious the back Guy and the Frogs, Thank you,
Speaker 1: thank you, Candace. Back GUYE is the big one. For sure.
Speaker 1: It is the best. There's also an ancient text called
Speaker 1: the Dionysiaca if you want to read that. It is
Speaker 1: an epic about the entire life of Dionysus from all
Speaker 1: the way like to his forefathers. But it is also
Speaker 1: the longest surviving Greek epic. It is ridiculously fucking long.
Speaker 1: And also it was written the fourth century CE. It's
Speaker 1: like really really really late, like from the Christian period,
Speaker 1: which is like interesting, but also just means it's like,
Speaker 1: you know, eight hundred years divorced from even like the
Speaker 1: back Guy eight hundred years. Sometimes I think we forget
Speaker 1: how many years are in between some of these sources,
Speaker 1: so I'll just remind you eight hundred. It is available
Speaker 1: to read on THEOI dot com if you just look
Speaker 1: up Dianesiaca, or it's written by a band named Nonas
Speaker 1: and O and Us if you want to google it.
Speaker 1: But yeah, like that's quite a thing if you really
Speaker 1: want to dive in. I don't think that it's a
Speaker 1: great portrayal of like a more ancient notion of his mythology,
Speaker 1: because again it's eight hundred years past Back Eye and Backuye,
Speaker 1: you know, is a play, and so it is even
Speaker 1: a few hundred years past most mythology. But it is
Speaker 1: really interesting. You get some different insights. It's quite you know,
Speaker 1: it's written at a time he's Greek, but I think
Speaker 1: he was in Alexandria, so he was like living in
Speaker 1: the Roman Empire, but far from Rome. I don't know,
Speaker 1: but it has all these really interesting implications when it
Speaker 1: comes to Rome, because Rome had was like so imperial
Speaker 1: by ben and had like conquered and like colonized so
Speaker 1: many different lands that like there's this whole section where
Speaker 1: Dionysus like goes to war with India, which is just
Speaker 1: really interesting and kind of weird and like, so it's
Speaker 1: written at this time when you know, like India had
Speaker 1: been discovered by these people. Obviously the people in India
Speaker 1: were already there. I just mean that the Greeks and
Speaker 1: the Romans had also come to India and we're like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, you guys are here and you have elephants.
Speaker 1: That's really cool. So it's from this really interesting time
Speaker 1: that's quite late compared to you know, the Greek period
Speaker 1: because before Alexander the Great, the Greece did not know
Speaker 1: about India, let alone elephants. So it's quite interesting. It
Speaker 1: has all these different sort of ramifications, but it is
Speaker 1: like a very late source, so I wouldn't read it
Speaker 1: and then be like I know everything about ancient Greek
Speaker 1: Dionysus because that won't be accurate. But it is a
Speaker 1: really interesting source and just uh, you should read the
Speaker 1: Homeric Hymn to Dionysus. Trying to think of where's other
Speaker 1: good stuff is if you just like look up the
Speaker 1: name Dionysus in a podcast app and pick my episodes,
Speaker 1: then I'll have sources that are good that'll listen more
Speaker 1: to you. Or just google THEOI so t h Eoi
Speaker 1: and Dionysus. That is the best way to learn fucking
Speaker 1: anything about any god, by the way, because Theoi dot
Speaker 1: com is a dream and it's so fucking helpful. But
Speaker 1: also just like list all these ancient sources. So if
Speaker 1: you go there, then it'll have like this list of
Speaker 1: sources and then you can go read those sources if
Speaker 1: you want. But like it's a good place to be,
Speaker 1: like here are the sources I would like to read.
Speaker 1: That's where I even learned about the Dionysiaca existing because
Speaker 1: it is a wild fucking ride. The translation of it
Speaker 1: is tragically not in the public domain, because oh would
Speaker 1: be reading it to you right now if I legally could.
Speaker 1: All right, this next one is from Alex and they said, Hi.
Speaker 1: First off, I hope you're doing amazing. Thank you. I
Speaker 1: love listening to you every morning. It's one of the
Speaker 1: highlights of my day. More than a question. I just
Speaker 1: wanted to tell you about an artist, a singer. Now
Speaker 1: I don't know what music you enjoy, so I have
Speaker 1: no idea if you'll like hers. But she wrote an
Speaker 1: album in inspired by the Greek gods. It's called The
Speaker 1: Gods We Can Touch and her name is Aurora from Norway.
Speaker 1: And then okay, so Alex talks about this a little
Speaker 1: bit more, and I just have to tell you this
Speaker 1: made me laugh and like so I for the past year,
Speaker 1: I have been reading a lot or at the beginning
Speaker 1: of the year, I started reading a ton of fantasy
Speaker 1: romance novels, like just so many, and then I started
Speaker 1: listening to Aurora like so much. Aurora like literally to
Speaker 1: the point where my Spotify was like, are you doing okay?
Speaker 1: Like she wasn't my number one. That was Florence and
Speaker 1: Machine for similar reasons, but like a huge amount. Anyway,
Speaker 1: I've been listening to that album for like a year,
Speaker 1: like a lot, and I did not know it was
Speaker 1: about the Greek gods at all. I know almost every
Speaker 1: song on that album. I just like didn't listen to
Speaker 1: the lyrics of it. Also like reading while I listen
Speaker 1: or writing while I listened, so just don't pay enough attention.
Speaker 1: But like I can sing along, but did I know
Speaker 1: they are about Greek gods? No? So she made me
Speaker 1: laugh really hard. Thank you very much. That was a
Speaker 1: joy to learn. And there's a lot of more interesting
Speaker 1: stuff about Aurora and this album in this question. I
Speaker 1: can't read it all through, but thank you Alex. That
Speaker 1: was a real joy to read and so interesting and
Speaker 1: just like honestly so fucking funny that like I had
Speaker 1: no idea, and now I have to pay closer attention
Speaker 1: because like truly, I'm just like you've included lyrics and everything,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, I listen to so much it's absurd.
Speaker 1: That was a joy. Thank you. Okay. This next one
Speaker 1: is from meyra. I Hope I pronounced that right. Hi?
Speaker 1: Do you think Romans copied Greek mythology into Roman? Do
Speaker 1: you think Greeks were very angry when they knew about it?
Speaker 1: By the way, I love your podcast. It totally makes
Speaker 1: my day. You're amazing. Thank you. That was very kind
Speaker 1: and it's a great question. So I've tried to talk
Speaker 1: about this in like recent episodes because my opinion on
Speaker 1: this has changed so much because I think they're really
Speaker 1: common misconception, but that I definitely had like going into
Speaker 1: the show, and just like researching Greek mythology generally, is
Speaker 1: that the Romans like copied the Greeks, you know, I
Speaker 1: think people say that a lot. It's a lot of memes.
Speaker 1: The memes are funny, so it's hard to be annoyed
Speaker 1: by them. Like that cat one, you know, where the
Speaker 1: person's drawing the cat and it's like, there's a real
Speaker 1: cat and that's Greek mythology. Then there's like a really
Speaker 1: shitty drawing of a cat and that's Roman mythology. Like
Speaker 1: that's a great meme, but at the same time it's
Speaker 1: just not true. So so is what happened. I went
Speaker 1: into this in a recent episode from August. I forget
Speaker 1: which episode, but it's something in August because that's when
Speaker 1: I talked about Rome. I think it would be pretty
Speaker 1: clear if you look back just to August one of
Speaker 1: twenty three episodes and take a listen, because I definitely
Speaker 1: talked about this in greater detail in a way that
Speaker 1: I can't in this episode. But it's a common misconception
Speaker 1: because of all of the things that I talked about earlier,
Speaker 1: when I was talking about how you know, Latin was
Speaker 1: the dominant language, and so a lot of the Greek
Speaker 1: sources that we had for a long time came from
Speaker 1: Latin translations first rather than their original Greek. And because
Speaker 1: of that, we get this idea of the Roman gods
Speaker 1: being the same as the Greek gods, Like we get
Speaker 1: this notion you know that Jupiter was Zeus and Juno
Speaker 1: was Hera, and you know, I'm just trying to think
Speaker 1: of all the examples, like Apollo is a bad one
Speaker 1: because it's literally the same name. But Diana was Artemis,
Speaker 1: Minerva was Athena, all these different concepts, right, Mars was
Speaker 1: Aries And it's just not that simple. It's not so
Speaker 1: in a lot of cases, like yes, the god does
Speaker 1: essentially represent the same thing, and in a lot of cases,
Speaker 1: you know, Apollo being the most obvious, Dionysus is another,
Speaker 1: and Pluto Hades is another where they even had like
Speaker 1: a lot of the same names. Right, Apollo is just
Speaker 1: the same name Dionysus. His other name in Greek is Bacchus,
Speaker 1: that's his Roman name. Pluto is a name in Greek,
Speaker 1: and it became Hades's Roman name, and so those those
Speaker 1: things lead us to this belief that the Romans just
Speaker 1: straight copied and it's, yeah, it's not that simple. So
Speaker 1: you know, with a lot of those definitely they were
Speaker 1: influenced by Greek. You know, the Romans, the certainly the Republic.
Speaker 1: You know, there's so much more history to this, but
Speaker 1: but the Romans were coming around at a time when
Speaker 1: the Greeks had just kind of been nearby doing similar
Speaker 1: things for longer. And you know, Magna Greca is Sicily
Speaker 1: essentially like a lot of southern Italy was very Greek.
Speaker 1: It was literally Greek colonies before it was Roman, and
Speaker 1: so we get these ideas, you know, like they just
Speaker 1: had a lot of contact, and so you know, Rome
Speaker 1: is developing and figuring out its own mythos, its own religion,
Speaker 1: and they're just being influenced in some ways, and so
Speaker 1: they take on some similarities. But it's very similar to
Speaker 1: the way that we know that that that say Aphrodite,
Speaker 1: you know, is coming from the East. You know, the
Speaker 1: Greek Aphrodite is heavily influenced by Astarte of the Phoenicians,
Speaker 1: the Canonite of Ishtar, and Anana from the Mesopotamians heavily influenced.
Speaker 1: That doesn't make Aphrodite not Greek. It just gives her
Speaker 1: these Eastern influences, right, same with Dionysus. It's very common
Speaker 1: because while we often want to think about these people
Speaker 1: existing in this kind of ancient vacuum where they were
Speaker 1: just by themselves developing everything all in their own little
Speaker 1: brilliant minds, like that's unreasonable, right, It's unrealistic to imagine
Speaker 1: that the entire Mediterranean was in contact with one another.
Speaker 1: They were sailing around, they were you know, they were trading,
Speaker 1: they were interacting. You know the Greeks. Ancient Greeks acknowledged
Speaker 1: that their alphabet comes from the Phoenician alphabet, right, you know,
Speaker 1: it's they're just having all of these interactions all around
Speaker 1: and they're just taking on these notions, they're adapting them
Speaker 1: to their own needs, they're evolving it all of these things,
Speaker 1: and the Romans did exactly the same thing. It's just
Speaker 1: that because of the way the world evolved after and
Speaker 1: the way Latin took over because of Christianity, like, it
Speaker 1: just became more common to think that the Romans just
Speaker 1: like stole the Greeks. But it's just not the case. Like,
Speaker 1: there are a lot of really good examples where the
Speaker 1: Roman gods, while we might be able to connect them
Speaker 1: to a Greek god, are just so different. So the
Speaker 1: best examples are Minerva and Mars. Okay, so when you
Speaker 1: hear those names, you will if you google them, you
Speaker 1: will immediately see Minerva is Athena, Mars is Aris. And
Speaker 1: it's just not that simple. Like, so, yes, Mars is
Speaker 1: a god of war. He has a lot of similarities
Speaker 1: with Aris. The Romans adapted some stories. Definitely, you can
Speaker 1: connect him with Aris, there's nothing wrong with doing that,
Speaker 1: but he is not the same god. The Romans saw
Speaker 1: him very differently. They worshiped Mars in a way that
Speaker 1: the Greeks simply did not worship Ares. To the Greeks,
Speaker 1: Aris was more about the violence the horror of war,
Speaker 1: whereas Athena was about working with your mind the strategizing
Speaker 1: of war right, and the Roman Minerva doesn't really have
Speaker 1: that association at all. She is not a war goddess.
Speaker 1: They have a goddess of war. Her name is Belga.
Speaker 1: She does not have an equivalent in Greek because she
Speaker 1: is a purely Roman goddess. And so it's just like
Speaker 1: we get these ideas that they're the same, but that
Speaker 1: is because of everything that happened in the last thousand years,
Speaker 1: not because of what was going on back then. They
Speaker 1: were influenced. Yes, they took on a lot of the
Speaker 1: same notions, they adapted them to their own needs, absolutely,
Speaker 1: But the Greeks did the same thing. They just did
Speaker 1: it with people further to the east, and it just
Speaker 1: did not get publicized later with as much, you know,
Speaker 1: obvious connections to that region. It's really interesting, though, to
Speaker 1: look at at how this has has been seen. And
Speaker 1: I'm really glad you asked, because I know at the
Speaker 1: beginning of the show I very much perpetuated the idea
Speaker 1: that the Romans stole everything from the Greeks. But I
Speaker 1: think it is just so much more interesting to look
Speaker 1: at it for what it was, which is just this
Speaker 1: interaction across the Mediterranean amongst all of these different ancient
Speaker 1: people who are just adapting and learning and growing and evolving,
Speaker 1: and they're just doing that in concert with everyone around them.
Speaker 1: And then all of these influences, like there are all
Speaker 1: these other Roman gods that are explicitly influenced by other groups,
Speaker 1: and ones that were totally invented by Rome, and or
Speaker 1: they took notions from Greek and they made them so
Speaker 1: much bigger, Like the Roman Vesta fascinating goddess equivalent to
Speaker 1: the Greek Hestia and yet vastly different. Vesta was seen
Speaker 1: in a very different light, you know, a lot of
Speaker 1: similarities and a lot of really major differences. And I
Speaker 1: just think that is so much more interesting than looking
Speaker 1: at it as it's kind of like stole thing. So again,
Speaker 1: thrilled you ask, because I think it's so interesting. I
Speaker 1: want to have someone on to have a conversation about
Speaker 1: this because it's really hard to convey just my talking,
Speaker 1: because like there's just so much more to it. One
Speaker 1: of these days I will figure out who is best
Speaker 1: for that, because I really think it's interesting. Thank you
Speaker 1: so much for that question. All right, This next one
Speaker 1: is coming from B, who says, Hi, So I'm very
Speaker 1: excited and nervous to share this, but I'm in the
Speaker 1: process of researching for a novel I'm writing. It's going
Speaker 1: to be about the story of Heracles, but rewritten as
Speaker 1: if Heracles was a woman. Basically, my question to you,
Speaker 1: o knowledgeable one, is what readings and referencing material would
Speaker 1: you recommend slash suggest as I begin this venture. Thank you, B.
Speaker 1: That's so exciting. I love to hear of more and
Speaker 1: new Greek mythology retail, especially like unique takes like this
Speaker 1: really interesting. As I was saying earlier, THEOI dot com
Speaker 1: is your friend. They are not as good, Like it's weird.
Speaker 1: They don't have individual pages for most of the heroes,
Speaker 1: which is perpetually infuriating, but I get it because it's
Speaker 1: like they would just be too extensive. But Heracles is
Speaker 1: a different one. They do have individual pages for all
Speaker 1: of his labors and another handful for other things that
Speaker 1: have been done. Heracles is tricky, you know, because he
Speaker 1: he really you know, he just spanned so many generations.
Speaker 1: His stories are so fragmentary because he was just so
Speaker 1: important that everyone wanted to talk about him. But I
Speaker 1: think he's a lot like a lot of those other
Speaker 1: gods where they were so important that the stories just
Speaker 1: didn't get put down into like intense detail because they
Speaker 1: were too busy, Like these gods and concepts were too
Speaker 1: busy just being like really important on a day to
Speaker 1: day basis. Look at those websites, Look at imagery because
Speaker 1: a lot of the times, what we know of Heracles's
Speaker 1: stories comes purely because like a pot would display this
Speaker 1: thing that we don't even have a source for, but
Speaker 1: it's on a pot, which is just kind of fun.
Speaker 1: There's this two books set which is very expensive web store,
Speaker 1: but maybe it's available at a library near you. It
Speaker 1: is called Early Greek Myths by Timothy Gantz, and it
Speaker 1: is very academic. It is very dry. It is very
Speaker 1: much just for sourcing, but it does detail kind of
Speaker 1: all of the different sources for all the different versions
Speaker 1: of certain characters, so it would be a good one too.
Speaker 1: But honestly, yeah, I mean, it is tricky to research
Speaker 1: this stuff, it really is. So listen to all the
Speaker 1: episodes I've done. That's helpful too. You can check my sources.
Speaker 1: They're always in the episode's description and good luck. That's
Speaker 1: seriously so fun. The more retelling's the better, if you
Speaker 1: ask me. All right, Next one and actually quite related,
Speaker 1: so I'm thrilled to heaven. Next is from Michelle, who says,
Speaker 1: why haven't you covered Hebe the goddess of youth? I
Speaker 1: would love to know more about her. Thank you, Michelle,
Speaker 1: what a great question. Hebe was married to Heracles once
Speaker 1: you got deified. But that is almost the only thing
Speaker 1: we know about her, which is why I haven't talked
Speaker 1: about her. I'm sorry. Hebby is really interesting. Yes, she
Speaker 1: is the goddess of youth. She marries Heracles. She is
Speaker 1: the daughter of Hara and Zeus, one of the few
Speaker 1: children they explicitly have together, versus Zeus having them with
Speaker 1: everyone else. But there's just not really any stories associated
Speaker 1: with Hebe. There's just not enough to fill an episode. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: that's the case of so many gods, and it doesn't
Speaker 1: make them any less important or interesting. It's just a
Speaker 1: matter of like actual stories. Like there's lots of references
Speaker 1: to Hebe, she was all around, she is mentioned a lot.
Speaker 1: She does not have stories, She does not have a
Speaker 1: narrative structure. For me, to give you, And so when
Speaker 1: it comes to my scripted episodes, there's just nothing I
Speaker 1: can really do because like, there just isn't a story.
Speaker 1: Like I'm even scrolling through her page on Theoi dot com,
Speaker 1: which if you want to learn more, go go there again.
Speaker 1: I basically should be just like Sellingthoi dot com now,
Speaker 1: but I just love them so much. But like even
Speaker 1: a lot of the references we have are like this
Speaker 1: is from the Homeric hymn to Hermes or to Heracles. Sorry,
Speaker 1: he says, Heracles lives happily in the glorious home of
Speaker 1: snowy Olympus and has neat ankles hebe for his wife.
Speaker 1: You're like, great, we know hebe was there, we know
Speaker 1: she was his wife. That's it, Pindar, says the hero Heracles.
Speaker 1: It was Alcmene's mighty son who gave it last to
Speaker 1: high Olympus, He who, searching out all the far lands
Speaker 1: of earth and rock walled stretches of the foaming seas,
Speaker 1: tempered the rough straits of this for the seamen's sails.
Speaker 1: Now with the side of Zeus, the aegis bearer, he dwells,
Speaker 1: enjoying happiness most fair of the immortal gods, a friend
Speaker 1: held high in honor, lord of the Golden Hall's, husband
Speaker 1: of Hebe, son in law of hera like Hebe is
Speaker 1: just this additional piece of heracles puzzle, essentially, like it's
Speaker 1: it's quite it is too bad. Like we have another
Speaker 1: reference in the Iliad away from Heracles, we got hebe
Speaker 1: washed aries clean and she put clothing on him, or
Speaker 1: you know, sometimes she's just noted as being standing next
Speaker 1: to her mother, like Pindar says, beside her mother Harah,
Speaker 1: guardian of marriage, hebe fairest of all the goddesses. Like
Speaker 1: we know she was pretty, We know she was there.
Speaker 1: That's it, honestly, it's it's really too bad. I would
Speaker 1: love if there was a story for me to tell you,
Speaker 1: but they're just there, just isn't. There's so many gods
Speaker 1: like that, which is why I love these q and
Speaker 1: A's because I know you guys want to hear about them.
Speaker 1: And if you give me this chance, you give me
Speaker 1: the name Hebe, then I can go on and I
Speaker 1: can talk about what little we do know like this,
Speaker 1: you know, but I just can't. I can't write five
Speaker 1: thousand words about her. I would love to, but they
Speaker 1: would all be fictionalized, and that's just not what I
Speaker 1: do here, all right, And we're gonna finish this first
Speaker 1: part of the Q and A episodes with one from Bella,
Speaker 1: And actually, you know what, Bella had two questions and
Speaker 1: I'm gonna cover both of them. So the first one
Speaker 1: from Bella is, I've noticed a lot of times in
Speaker 1: Greek myth a singular woman will get agency, while women
Speaker 1: as a whole don't necessarily get agency. Are there any
Speaker 1: myths where all the women in the story get some
Speaker 1: sort of agency? I was gonna say no, and then
Speaker 1: I realized that there are the Danaids, So like, maybe
Speaker 1: if you want if you want one, you could maybe
Speaker 1: make a stretch and say the Danaiads, which are the
Speaker 1: forty nine women who kill their forty nine cousin husbands.
Speaker 1: That's not a great example, but no, I would say. Okay,
Speaker 1: I would say no. But that is also because mythology
Speaker 1: doesn't look at agency the way we would look at
Speaker 1: agency now, right, So the mythology just I mean, I
Speaker 1: know I've said this in so many different episodes, so
Speaker 1: I won't try to harp on it. But I also
Speaker 1: know not everyone listens to everything, so maybe it's helpful,
Speaker 1: it's for me to say, but basically we have to
Speaker 1: remember that Greek myths Greek myths, like I would say,
Speaker 1: this does not include the plays, right, the actual the
Speaker 1: myths themselves were not developed like we develop stories, novels,
Speaker 1: what have you. Now. They were not developed with a
Speaker 1: plot in mind, or with character development, or with agency,
Speaker 1: because the purpose was to explain something about the world,
Speaker 1: something about history, you know, their their understanding of history.
Speaker 1: Their purpose was to explain and just sort of like
Speaker 1: talk about life. It wasn't to develop these you know,
Speaker 1: realistic characters with realistic personalities and agency. So it's just
Speaker 1: sort of irrelevant. Like, you know, I don't want to
Speaker 1: suggest that this means that the women in the stories
Speaker 1: had it good like obviously did they didn't. But agency
Speaker 1: specifically is just sort of irrelevant in mythology, like no
Speaker 1: one really has a lot of agency because it just
Speaker 1: was not the point. Again, that is different when we're
Speaker 1: talking with the plays, because the plays were developed with entertainment,
Speaker 1: with storytelling, with plot in mind, and so I think
Speaker 1: you could easily say that a lot of the characters
Speaker 1: and women broadly in plays have a lot of agency,
Speaker 1: Say I mean, maybe the Phoenician women or the Trojan
Speaker 1: women might be good examples. Both of those I covered
Speaker 1: so long ago in the show now that it is
Speaker 1: hard for me to remember exactly, but it's you know,
Speaker 1: those might be good examples, but yeah, in the mythology itself,
Speaker 1: it's just sort of irrelevant. And that's the thing that
Speaker 1: interests me most, you know, the fact that these weren't
Speaker 1: stories written for plot and character, that they were just
Speaker 1: something else, entirely, something that now we in this modern
Speaker 1: world basically can't understand. We can't understand it in the
Speaker 1: way that they understood it. It's impossible because we know
Speaker 1: too much. We have too much broad knowledge of the Earth,
Speaker 1: the planet, science, nature, sure, like we just have too
Speaker 1: much knowledge to understand anything like they would have understood it.
Speaker 1: And that's interesting in itself. So it's just sort of
Speaker 1: this unknowable thing, and to me, that's so much more
Speaker 1: interesting than looking at whether they have agency. That's it.
Speaker 1: In the plays, it is really interesting, like Midea is
Speaker 1: such a great example of having agency and like what
Speaker 1: she does with it, you know, So I think that
Speaker 1: if you're talking about plays, that's a really interesting question
Speaker 1: to examine. But in myths broadly, don't worry about it.
Speaker 1: But again, like, if you want to stretch, look up
Speaker 1: the Daniads. I did an episode on them ages ago now,
Speaker 1: but they're pretty wild, all right. And Bella's second question
Speaker 1: is going to be the last one of this part
Speaker 1: and then I will get to more next week. And
Speaker 1: it is it just begins, and this is why it
Speaker 1: is my last question, what does life live? So, of course,
Speaker 1: as any intellectual woman would do, I made a feminist
Speaker 1: rage playlist, which got me thinking, what is your favorite
Speaker 1: female rage Greek mythology moment? First off, Bella me your
Speaker 1: feminist rage playlist please. Second, I mean, I guess it's
Speaker 1: just gotta be Medeia. Like I don't condone killing your children,
Speaker 1: that's the bit that's not good. But her revenge on
Speaker 1: Jason is. It is female rage and it is everything
Speaker 1: I want, I think, everything I need right now in
Speaker 1: my life. So yeah, it's got to be. It's got
Speaker 1: to be Medea. Thank you, Oh my gosh, thank you
Speaker 1: all so much for listening. I am really doing my
Speaker 1: best right now. I know a lot of you and
Speaker 1: like this was in part of a different question. Actually,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm going to finish this off with
Speaker 1: like a little note. Someone named Britney left me a
Speaker 1: really lovely message about just taking care of myself. I'm
Speaker 1: assuming this was a reference to a couple of months
Speaker 1: ago when I had COVID caught it has it has
Speaker 1: barely been two months, but yeah, thank you. It's really kind. Unfortunately, well,
Speaker 1: you know, not unfortunately, because basically you know the reason
Speaker 1: why I can still do this podcast and why it
Speaker 1: is my job, and that is the coolest and greatest
Speaker 1: thing that's ever happened to me. So I won't say
Speaker 1: that this is a bad thing, but but that does
Speaker 1: come with responsibility in terms of how much content I
Speaker 1: put out. So there is only so much kind of
Speaker 1: resting and keeping to myself that I am allowed to
Speaker 1: do in order to keep this, you know, as a
Speaker 1: career in the way that I want it to be,
Speaker 1: in the way that I love. So it's fine. It
Speaker 1: just makes it more like a regular job, right, But
Speaker 1: it does mean I get a lot of lovely messages
Speaker 1: from you all telling me to take care of myself,
Speaker 1: and I it means the whole world to me. This
Speaker 1: has been sort of hinted at, and it will be
Speaker 1: I think hinted at in other episodes. I've recorded a
Speaker 1: bunch of things up front, just because I'm going away
Speaker 1: for a couple of weeks, and I'm going to try
Speaker 1: to say this without crying. But my cat died. And
Speaker 1: I know everyone has strong relationship ships with their pets,
Speaker 1: and I don't want to try to lessen anyone else's experience,
Speaker 1: but I had that cat for sixteen years and got
Speaker 1: him when I was eighteen and moved out of my
Speaker 1: mom's house, so I've just sort of never had life
Speaker 1: without him. So this is choppy while I pause and
Speaker 1: allow myself to speak, But anyway, I just wanted to
Speaker 1: say it because the episodes that I've been recording in
Speaker 1: advance of Thankfully I had this trip booked to leave
Speaker 1: my apartment and I don't have to be in it,
Speaker 1: and I'm really really grateful that I am able to
Speaker 1: travel and escape. Just mean, I've had to prepare all
Speaker 1: of these episodes in advance, so I'm like having to
Speaker 1: prepare them while also like in deep, unending amounts of grief,
Speaker 1: and then also like prepare a lot of them quickly,
Speaker 1: which is why I'm really glad that I have two
Speaker 1: episodes worth of Q and A is to do for
Speaker 1: you guys. I also struggle so much with like how
Speaker 1: much me to put on this podcast. I know you
Speaker 1: all love it and it's part of what's made me me.
Speaker 1: It's also really hard sometimes because I'm like a really
Speaker 1: introverted person and and and it's it's weird like talking
Speaker 1: into this microphone and then knowing how many people are
Speaker 1: going to hear it. But I also know that you know,
Speaker 1: the the cat was on from episode one, so f
Speaker 1: y I and if if the next few episodes are weird,
Speaker 1: you know, give me some grace because I need to
Speaker 1: do them, but I'm also trying to do them in
Speaker 1: a way that, uh, you know that I can can manage.
Speaker 1: At this time. There's also just like so much else
Speaker 1: that's happened in the past two months. It's really it's
Speaker 1: really impressive actually just how many things both directly in
Speaker 1: my life and peripherally like have have exploded all at once.
Speaker 1: So yeah, anyway, Scott Dark, thank you all so much
Speaker 1: for your questions, Like they really mean a lot to me,
Speaker 1: and I'm really glad to have them, not least because
Speaker 1: it just makes doing this easier at this really hard time,
Speaker 1: but also you know, I just really appreciate the questions.
Speaker 1: I like doing these episodes, you know, at the best
Speaker 1: of times, I really do, because they open up all
Speaker 1: these new forms of thought and they really let me.
Speaker 1: They let me share stuff with you guys that I
Speaker 1: wouldn't think of otherwise, because I need to hear these
Speaker 1: prompts from you. I need to have these questions so
Speaker 1: that I know the stuff that you want to understand
Speaker 1: more or that you want broken down for you in
Speaker 1: different ways. Like it's really great and I find it
Speaker 1: so beneficial and so enjoyable. So thank you so much
Speaker 1: for your questions. I will get to hopefully the rest
Speaker 1: of them next week. I probably can't get to all
Speaker 1: of them, but I'm going to do my best, and
Speaker 1: just yeah, thank you all for listening for however long
Speaker 1: you have been. I'm recording this right at the end
Speaker 1: of December, so it's sort of looking into a new
Speaker 1: year and hopefully a good one. But thank you all,
Speaker 1: you know, for however long you've listened, for supporting the show,
Speaker 1: for doing whatever you do, because you know, like for all,
Speaker 1: life is shit right now now, the fact that this
Speaker 1: is my job is still the fucking coolest thing. That's
Speaker 1: ever happened to me, and the fact that you know,
Speaker 1: I'm in this position where where I can travel, where
Speaker 1: I can you know, do this for my job and
Speaker 1: and work on other things that I hopefully get to
Speaker 1: bring to you all soon as well. It's just it's
Speaker 1: really fucking cool and and I really couldn't do it
Speaker 1: without you all listening. So thank you. Like, yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: really bad at being vulnerable, clearly made a mestadent of
Speaker 1: it in this episode, but thank you all so much
Speaker 1: for listening and supporting the show, and and all your
Speaker 1: kind words and these messages and these these questions through
Speaker 1: my site and any kind thing anyone has commented on
Speaker 1: Instagram or or emailed me. Really just thank you, like
Speaker 1: every all of it, all of it really means the
Speaker 1: whole world to me. Let's talk about Miss Baby is
Speaker 1: written and produced by me Live Albert Mikayla Smith is
Speaker 1: the Hermes to My Olympians. My assistant producer, Laura Smith
Speaker 1: is the absolutely wonderful production assistant and audio engineer. Select
Speaker 1: music used in this episode was by Luke Chaos. The
Speaker 1: podcast is part of the iHeart podcast Network. Listen on
Speaker 1: Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts and help me
Speaker 1: continue bringing you the world of Greek mythology and the
Speaker 1: ancient Mediterranean by becoming a patron, where you will get
Speaker 1: bonus episodes and more. I have not been active on
Speaker 1: my Patreon for the last month or two, between covid
Speaker 1: and then literally like my childhood best friend died last
Speaker 1: month and we like did not have a close relationship.
Speaker 1: It was the most complicated thing in my life. But
Speaker 1: it was still a blow and then loopin and like
Speaker 1: and then like so much friends stuff. Oh my god,
Speaker 1: it has been. It has been a time. So if
Speaker 1: you are one of my patrons, I'm sorry for not
Speaker 1: getting you everything that you all deserve. I hope to
Speaker 1: be back soon, Jesus, thank you all so much for listening. Uh.
Speaker 1: I'm excited to feel better soon when I come back
Speaker 1: from this trip. Hopefully well enough time will have passed
Speaker 1: and I can start being funny and an interesting in
Speaker 1: these episodes. Again. That's got to be one of the
Speaker 1: hardest parts about doing a job that you love and
Speaker 1: are passionate about when you are desperately sad. It's a mess.
Speaker 1: Thank you all so much for listening. I have got
Speaker 1: to stop talking now. I am live, and I love
Speaker 1: this shit.