Relationship Between Myth and History - Essay Example

Myth and History Introduction Teachings, history and myths associated to ancient Greeks are contained in the larger literary body refered to as Greek mythology. Essentially, Greek mythology is concerned with tales about the genesis and importance of their ritual practices, cults, heroic battles, the attributes of the world, journeys to the underworld, their heroes and gods and god-like beings (Woodward 17). Contemporary researchers have spent time and resources in an attempt to explain and validate both political and religious institutions of the ancient Greeks as well as their civilization by referring to, and studying, their myths. However, other perspectives opine that myths do not always agree with history since most are branded as a discourse of fabricated stories while history aims to state true facts about things. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how certain Greek myths negotiate the relationship between myth and history and further elucidate whether the two terms oppose each other in the chosen myths. Overview of Greek Myths When dealing with cultural and social history of the Greek, scholars have proven that myth is an invaluable source of facts and information (Powell 89). Greek mythology served as a pathway of explaining the natural phenomena witnessed by humankind and the environment in which they lived from days, through months, seasons and years. Of particular interest, they were connected more intricately to the Greek world’s religion. However, whether a study focuses on Greek sexual customs and traditions or the rise of cities, the historical facts will always be engrained deeply in the Greek myths that are embodied explicitly in narrative collections and implicitly in arts. Speaking broadly, the imaginative myths created by the Greeks are an explanation of just about all aspects of life and the human condition (Woodward 14). This paper will examine how the Hesiod’s myth of Theogony, which is classified as cosmogonical myth, and the myth of Prometheus, a transformation myth, go about the relationship between myth and history. The Myth of Theogony Like most historical narratives, the Greek mythology typically begins with the myths of creation, attempting to make sense of the mysteries of life and imposing order and structure so as to define where the universe, races and individuals are placed (Powell 73). As a cosmogonical myth, the myth of Theogony is among the most important Greek myths as it seeks to explain the origins of heaven and earth. Viewed strictly from the perspective of the historical and/or religious origins of heaven and earth rather than from a scientific one, history and myth are not opposed in the myth of Theogony. According to the Greeks, only chaos, or disorder, existed in the beginning. Just like history teaches, the Greeks believe that there was endless darkness, silence and emptiness. Then, with the birth of love, order started forming. Out of the love that somehow appeared, came light, which was known as day (Woodward 23). The moment day appeared Gaia also appeared as the earth’s personification and was known as the great mother of all. So far, apart from being assigned the female gender in the myth, the story of Gaia shares common details of the Greek perspective of the beginning of the earth with the perspective of the Christian history. The myth describes Gaia as the primal mother goddess that was the giver of birth and creator of the universe, just like the Christian literatures profess. The coming into being of love that gave rise to light and day is synonymous with the way Christian history teaches that all the while, before creation, God hovered around as a supernatural being. The striking similarity is how Hesiod explains in the myth how Uranus, who was Gaia’s son equal and the heaven, was brought forth without he refers to as the sweet union of love (Powell 103). This can be likened again to Christian history where a savior was born of a woman without intercourse. Further, Hesiod says Gaia bore the sea and hills in the same way. Slight contradictions may be cited between the explanations of the origin of subsequent human generations, but much similarity is still seen. For instance, Gaia is said to have mated with his son Uranus when Eros, or sexual love was first described in the myth (Woodward 24). From there, they bore their first six offspring, followed by another six and then more followed. Basically, this is a personification of the underlying principle on which all subsequent procreation that populated the universe was founded. History may not have always agreed with science, but at least copulation is acknowledged as a principle means of procreation, just like Greek myth and history agree. Indeed, after the initially occurring chaos in the myth of Theogony that was followed by the birth of darkness (Erebus), night (Nyx) and Uranus, every other creation according to the Greek came forth via mating (Powell 101). Hesiod teaches that because Uranus was full of love for the earth (his mother), he gave her plenty of fertile rain. This can be related to historical perspectives where gods have been typically described with both human feelings and failings, especially among agricultural tribes. History teaches that farmers often carried out rituals to appease the gods so that they could send them rain and enable them cultivate their land. They only sent rain when they were happy and felt love for their people (Woodward 29). In agreement, Hesiod describes that Uranus sent fertile rain to the earth because he was happy with it. Notably, this myth uses familiar, natural occurrences to negotiate between history and myth without offering opposing views. Rather, it makes extensive use of the liberty Greek writers had to formulate their own versions, according to their own understanding, of natural phenomena and develop unique thinking systems. Just like historians, they follow the basic structure of defining where the universe and its inhabitants are by first trying to sense of where they came from. Myth of Prometheus This is a transformation myth, the category concerned with explaining the way certain concepts and things, and negative ones in particular, came into being (Woodward 11). In Greek mythology, death is one of the prominent subjects of transformation myth, and Prometheus bears the blame for the coming of death into the world. The myth portrays him as the titan god of cunning advice and forethought. In similar ways, historical narratives that try to describe death often portray it as cunning and indeed with forethought, because it is said to be unavoidable once its time has come. Viewed in both the understanding of Greek mythology and history, this means death had already planned in advance on when to strike, hence the idea of forethought, which is a non-opposing view. When he was entrusted by Zeus to mould mankind from clay, Prometheus attempted to outdo Zeus by stealing fire from heaven and giving it to mankind (Powell 92). He did this in a bid to make the lives of his creations better, resulting into conflict with Zeus. The punishment meted out to him was in the form of the beautiful woman, Pandora, whom Zeus ordered Hephaestus to make. Pandora was then given to Epimetheus, a brother to Prometheus. However, she was sent along with a box full of misery, misfortune and despair, which she was warned about but nevertheless, went ahead and opened. From that moment, disasters plagued mankind, albeit amidst some hope. The myth may be a primitive and also symbolic explanation of the origin of misery and death among humans in ways that science could not explain, but has a lot in common with the most widely read pieces of history. For instance, Christian material provides a vast pool of information trying to explain the history of some concepts in the world (Woodward 29). To this end, the myth of Prometheus has similar origins with the story of Adam, Eve, the Serpent and the forbidden fruit, all woven together by the being thrown out of the Garden of Eden of Adam and Eve. Here, symbolism has been used strategically to formulate an explanation through which myth and history are seen to be mutually in support of each other. Another way of looking at the myth of Prometheus would be through Hesiod’s perspective and the angle of how Satan fell out of favor with God, also explained in the myth of Theogony (Powell 99). Prometheus first appears as a deprived competitor of Zeus’s omnipotence by trying to trick him. At the contest to set aside the immortal from the mortals, he tricked Zeus into choosing inedible bones wrapped in a pleasing exterior in the form of glistening fat. While choosing this, Zeus left nutritious beef wrapped in an unpleasant exterior in the form of a bull’s stomach. The trick set the precedent for mankind to offer burnt offerings to Zeus, which essentially was a heap of bones while the meat hidden in the bull’s stomach was kept for mankind. Zeus was infuriated by the trickery, and kept fire away from mankind. This version of Prometheus’ myth is slightly different because it depicts mankind as a creation that already knew the use of fire, but was later withdrawn from them by Zeus (Woodward 38). Prometheus, steals it back, however, and avails it to mankind. In the first story, Prometheus was portrayed as trying to directly form a creature superior from the one Zeus had instructed him to do from clay. In the second story, he appears to be more like the serpent that tricked Eve into taking a bite into the forbidden fruit when he steals the fire and gives it back to mankind. The reason mankind appears to already know the use of fire in the second story is that he uses it to sent burnt offerings to Zeus. However, this is a replica of Christian history in which Adam and Eve knew of the forbidden fruit but did not consume of it because they had been warmed that it would make them cleverer than God. Then, in this perspective, Prometheus is just like history describes the serpent. Hesiod explains in the myth of Prometheus, Pandora was created of a deadly race to bring trouble to man, who was mortal (Woodward 40). In the same way, history explains that Adam was cast out of the Garden of Eden to live with a woman who had caused him problems, which payment was toiling for food and, ultimately, death. It is possible to see how both Greek mythology and history were influenced by physical and spiritual features, and they still continue to have an impact on how the two are developed in the modern world. The ancient land of the Greeks, and indeed present day Greece, is typically made up of islands and seas surrounding a peninsula (Powell 104). Further, the land is characterized by rocky hillsides and seashore that separates small areas. From the perspective of history, the beginnings are described through a world that was of similar appearance and nature, long before cities were created and developed. The countryside picture is also painted by the fact that history usually portrays its subjects as farmers and herders. A notable similarity between history and myth is that of a recurrent theme that of the similarities between mankind and their deities, or even monsters. The deities and monsters possessed grand powers, but the behaved much like their subjects because their actions and reactions were founded on identifiable love, obsessions, urge for revenge, arrogance, love and envy. In the explanation of both the origin of creations and death, myth and history are in agreement on how supernatural beings reacted to events and people, leading to the rise of other phenomena that are explained in the same way. The deities in myths are often said to have left the mountains to join their mortal subjects in the affairs of their lives to celebrate victory and also punish wrongdoers. Similarly, history has also narrated many times how supernatural beings joined their people in forms of fire and other symbols. In both approaches towards explaining the origin of things, it is also common to find that deities and supernatural beings prominently used disguised personalities and tricks so as to influence events, or the lack of them. The use of trickery and disguises by supernatural beings in history is often used to explain how things people come across are not exactly what the mortals’ eyes perceive them to be (Powell 102). This is also a strategy found in many Greek myths, and the two are tied together supportively by the common notion that good conduct is rewarded while misconduct is punishable. Conclusion It can confidently be said that although myth and history are distinct schools of thought, they share many common features that cannot be delinked from either. Similarly, they are both clustered around numerous subjects, but the most common between them is that of creation and the coming into being of life. Both extensively use gods, goddesses, evil spirits and, generally, the interaction between the supernatural and mankind to explain their concepts, albeit with varying versions, but they tend to have the same structure and ultimate message (Woodward 63). Among the ancient Greek, myths formed the foundation of belief systems, and among the modern communities, culture is developed from what history teaches. It follows, therefore, that apart from offering information that works together, myth and history are also common in the sense that they serve the same purpose. This paper has used a set of two Greek myths to show that myth and history are not always opposed to each other and can, in fact, be mutually supportive. Works Cited Powell, Barry. Classical Myth. New Jersey: Prentice, 2008. Print. Woodward, Roger. The Cambridge Companion to Greek Mythology. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007. Print. Read More