A Long Vacation
Artemis lamented the barrenness of planet Mars, where the jungle cannot grow. Her hunting bows rotted, and arrows turned to scrap metal, and Hephaestus was trying to restore her treasures, which made him feel nostalgic. Artemis complained that the artisan's men had caused a series of troubles by causing an accident in the forge. Hephaestus digressed, "You moved out of the jungle long before that happened."
It is said that instead of going to Hades, the ghost of Phaethon's drifted high in the sky, mourning for his tragic fate. One day, he passed by a cloud that blended the human noises. Intrigued, Phaethon gently brought his body closer, and then something funny happened: the gas burrowed into his body, and his invisible soul swelled up and spread out like a dumpling skin. Helios, the sun god, could not see that his dead son was being scorched, firing his energy as usual. Since this incident, the once comfortable dwelling of the gods has more or less malfunctioned.
Artemis recalls that when she was living in the forest, she could hear the screams of trees and animals being killed every day, and the jungle became an eerie and horrible place visited by the goddess of nightmares. The spirits of the trees who died tragically said that they were killed not only by the fickle gods of wind and rain, but also by humans seeking for resources. In the deserted palace of Olympos, Artemis asks her omnipotent father to bring punishment to the ungodly, and especially to send the troublemaker Phaethon to hell. But Zeus only said to listen to the goddess of fate. Her fellow nymphs said that life in the city was more interesting, and one by one they left. Artemis felt that forest life was becoming very frustrating. One day, she finally let go of the deer that had accompanied her for years from the chariot and left the cypress forest.
Hephaestus handed back to her the recast bow and arrows and began to recount the events of that disaster. He said he was more familiar with the ocean than with the forest. In the last years before the earth's destruction, Poseidon changed his temperament and became gluttonous and irritable. The sea swallowed many islands, including probably Delos, and several times he saw the corpses of the giant demons floating in the distance from high places. Greed made the sea swell, and many of his volcanic forges in low places could not be activated. One day, the Cyclops went out as usual to find materials for the foundry, and on their way, they heard a human maiden make a prophecy: an unprecedented disaster was about to happen. That day, they carried back from the bottom of the sea a strange metal column body, without consulting their boss, they threw into the furnace to extract the metal. In an instant, the Aegean Sea was surrounded by flames. The furious Vulcan spewed lava, the air was unbearably hot, the sea boiled and raised huge waves, and even the coral was melted.
Later Athena removed Medusa from her shield and had Hermes fly over the islands high in the sky holding this head aloft, and only then did the cross-flowing lava solidify. But when the catastrophe stopped, the earth mother Gaia conveyed Zeus that she would need a long time to bring the place back to life. As a result, the gods had to temporarily move to Mars to pass the time in the boring days. "A long vacation," they said, "and screw that Phaeton!"
Analysis
This myth tries to write an origin and an outcome for global warming. In this story, global warming is followed by catastrophic climate change, and the Olympian gods migrate to Mars to await the next age of prosperity. I attribute global warming to the unfortunate Phaethon, and then choose Artemis and Hephaestus as representative victims who tell the effects of global warming on the land and the sea, respectively.
As a former unsuccessful solar chariot pilot, Phaethon is said to have led to "the beleaguered bastions of the universe" (Ov. Met. 1.252). I suggest that the failure of Phaethon is an interesting metaphor for the climate crisis. For in the topic of global warming, man is like the confident Phaethon, always believing that he can control the "reins" of nature by his free will, and selectively ignoring the warnings from the scientific community. In the story, the phantom of Phaethon combined with the diverse voices of human beings, and then together they became the bane of global warming in the form of greenhouse gases. Although presented in a silly way, I expressed my shallow understanding of the causes of global warming: not just an excessive bravery (arrogance), it also involves complex human aspirations. For some, global warming can be interpreted as an ill effect of greed for pleasure, for others, carbon emission means a vision of a decent life. But no matter how complex the reasons are for generating large amounts of greenhouse gases, this mixed desire is packaged by the will of Phaethon into a tangible landscape, that is, a layer of gas that blocks the emission of heat. Naturally, in this apocalyptic story, humans do not have the opportunity to manifest their power of action (as is the case in reality). In any way, I hope that this part of the explanation of the causes did not seem too didactic.
The spirited Artemis, who carried the characteristic bow and arrows with her, often rode her chariot pulled by golden-horned deer (HH5. 18-20). Artemis and Hephaestus were close - it was Hephaestus who created the weapon for her as a child (Callim. Hymn 3.46). It is said that she was born in a dense cypress forest on the island of Delos (HH3a. 115), which is why the caring Hephaestus spoke specifically about the possibility that the city of her birth had been flooded. I let these two old friends use the repair of the bow and arrow as an opportunity to gossip about the terrible events of the earth. Artemis in the story talks about the ecological catastrophe that is taking place in the forest, in which it is difficult to even define responsibility. Once the damage of global warming is done, we could see an irreversible decline in species diversity, even if it is not desired. Not to mention the fact that deforestation and other acts of destruction of the natural environment have never been effectively stopped. Artemis, who has made the forest her home, must feel upset, but it seems that even Zeus cannot have a solution to undo the ecological disaster. Having respect for the natural resources one claims from has become a distant story like the Trojan War, so the paragraph also mentions the story of Artemis receiving the sacrifice of Iphigeneia (Cyp. 45).
Hephaestus, who lived near the Sicilian coast, together with his three Cyclops assistants, worked day and night in a volcanic cave (Verg. Aen. 8.372). In the story Hephaestus tells how Poseidon's gluttony and expansion led him to relocate his workshop. Poseidon has a reputation for easily angered, but also quoted here are the claims of Bishop Erik Pontoppidan, that is, the reports of "floating islands," were actually nothing more than encounters with the Kraken the sea monster (Pontoppidan 1755, 516), so that Poseidon could devour the islands like a fish. The maiden whom the Cyclopes met on the way was, of course, the famous Cassandra, whose prophecies were destined to be heard by no one (Hom. Il. 24.697-706). Just like Cassandra, glaciologists and many scientists make cries that no one hears, but their words are on important topics of real concern for the fate of humanity. The explosive picked up by the one-eyed giants is a droll joke, referring to the haunting V-2 rocket Thomas Pynchon wrote about in Gravity's Rainbow, for war is not unpredictable towards a climate catastrophe. It is said that coral, originally a seaweed, because of the absorption of Medusa's gaze of toxicity resulting in the nature of hardening once exposed to the air, thus we can imagine how great her magic power shall be (Ov. Met. 4.740). The sight of magma solidified thanks to Medusa's peculiar eyes is a rough description of the desolate apocalypse after the disaster.
The one-eyed giants' negligence became the cause of a geological disaster, but apparently the responsibility did not lie with them. The gods blame the mischievous Phaethon because he needs to reflect on what his actions mean for the gods and humans respectively: for the gods of Olympia, it's just a temporary move to Mars to wait for the next time to make an appearance, while for humans, it's clearing the slate and starting from scratch. Whether successful or not, the ending of the story tries to convey the concept of the "cycle". The change of the stars can be compared with Phoenix's cycle. According to Pliny, Phoenix dies and comes back to life once every Platonic year (Plin. Nat. 10.2). Its life cycle is so long, to which Borges explains: "Upon fulfillment of this vast astronomical cycle, the history of the world would repeat itself in all its details under the repeated influence of the planets; the Phoenix would be a mirror or an image of this process (Borges 1974 118)." The same is true for the Earth, which has geological cycles of change. Pessimistic apologists claim that over a longer time span, everything will be destroyed all over again. The question is, are all human efforts to destroy the environment and repair it a waste of energy? Personally, I doubt humans who are not yet immortal can be as leisurely as the Greek gods, but this is an open question.
Work Cited
Borges, Jorge Luis. 1974. The Book of Imaginary Beings. Translated by Norman Thomas. Penguin Books.
Callimachus. 1921. Hymns and Epigrams, Lycophron and Aratus. Translation by Mair, A. W. & Mair, G. R. Loeb Classical Library Volume 129. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.
Hesiod. 1914. Homeric Hymns. Epic Cycle. Homerica. Translation by Evelyn-White, H. G. Loeb Classical Library Vol 57. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.
Homer. 1924. The Iliad. Translation by Lattimore, R. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Ovid. 1922. Metamorphoses. Translation by Melville, A. D. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Pliny the Elder. 1938. Natural History. Translation by Rackham, H. Loeb Classical Library, 3 Volumes. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.
Pontoppidan, Erich. 1755. Natural History of Norway. Translated by A. Berthelson. London. https://archive.org/details/naturalhistoryNc1Pont/page/n9/mode/2up (accessed March 31, 2021).
Pynchon, Thomas. 1973. Gravity's Rainbow. Penguin Books.
Virgil. 1916. The Aeneid. Translation by Day-Lewis, C. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
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