There were once two titans who oversaw filling the earth of humans and animals. After one of the titans secretly gave fire to humans, a god of higher power became furious, and the titan’s liver was then fed on daily by an eagle. The fire that was given to the humans was also angrily taken away and was replaced with one woman and a box. Little did the woman know that when she opened the box, evil and misery would take over and roam the earth forever. This was meant to act as punishment; however, it instead ignited the flame to what caused complete backfire, as the titan steals back the fire and returns it to the humans who begin to take advantage of what was once taken away from them.
Since its return, fire was used in many acts of violence. Humans would take fire and its heat to cook and kill animals, eating their insides as well as wearing their outsides. It was used in the making of weapons and ignition of explosives. There was once a time where a man used a burning wooden stick to blind and escape from a giant cannibal. It was a baby who created the practice of burning animals to serve as sacrifices for rituals and offerings to the gods. Soldiers would make use of these rituals to pray to the gods for strength and courage in the midst of war. After a while, humans went so far as to steal from the earth its natural material to strengthen their power for faster and bigger amounts of creation.
It was by this point that generations of humanity were so evil that relationships meant to be loving and caring were toxic and violent. Lady Justice was often wrongfully lied to out of greed. To put a stop to further wrongdoing, spirits roamed the earth searching for those who committed evil, so that they may be rightfully punished. Those who excessively used fire and or selfishly took the earth’s resources were punished with melted ice, burning forests and dying animals. However, the impact of these punishments was not as obvious as others. What the humans did not realize is that the more they played with fire and heat, the deeper they were digging their own grave. The ultimate punishment was the humans killing their home and eventually bringing themselves down with it.
Analysis
My aetiological myth about global warming explains that global warming stemmed from the evil Zeus gave to the humans, making them suffer from their own evil of harming the earth with their use of fire, providing multiple examples incorporated throughout classical myth to prove it. It starts with a short explanation of Prometheus’ stealing of fire, a myth stating how Zeus gave evil and misery to humans after Prometheus gave them fire when he was not supposed to (Hesiod, Theogony 567-620). After Zeus discovers that Prometheus had given fire to the humans, he punishes Prometheus by having an eagle come eat his liver every day. He also punishes the humans by creating Pandora, along with a box which she is told not to open. Eventually she gives into curiosity and temptation and opens the box, introducing all kinds of evil to the world. Continuing from the opening of the box, the supposed evil released from the box caused the humans to excessively use fire once it was given back to them. To put it simply, global warming is the rise of global temperature caused by a large amount of greenhouse gases being released into the atmosphere. A lot of these greenhouse gases can come from the lighting of fire, which emits gas into the air. The several references of classical myth following the explanation of Prometheus’ stealing of fire shows how humans have been excessively using fire throughout the years.
The man who used the burning stick against a giant cannibal was referring to Odysseus’ encounter with Polyphemus, a man-eating cyclops. On his way back to Ithaca, Odysseus and his men find himself captured by Polyphemus. As part of his plan to escape, Odysseus heats up a sharpened stake and pokes Polyphemus in the eye, preventing him from seeing anything (Homer, Odyssey 9.360-412). The part of my myth explaining how humans would burn animals as rituals and offerings to the gods happens in several instances in different myths. It explains how the practice of sacrifice was invented by a baby, which originally comes from the Homeric Hymn to Hermes, where he takes cows to use as a sacrifice. Shortly after the birth of Hermes, one of the first things he does is steal Apollo’s cows, cut them up and cook them as offerings to the other gods (Homer, Homeric Hymns 4c.68-104). The soldiers praying to the gods during war was a reference to the Trojan War, in which there were instances of people making offers to the gods in exchange for any kind of help in the war. One example of this would be in the Iliad when Agamemnon tells Odysseus to return Chryses’ daughter to him so that Apollo will remove the plague harming his troops. When Chryses’ daughter is returned to him, He ties up cattle around an alter along with some wheat and barley and offers it to Apollo, who shortly removes the plague afterwards (Homer, Iliad 1.428-487). There is also a more modern reference to human contribution to global warming, in which we use up a lot of fossil fuels in our daily lives, drastically reducing the earth’s natural resources. The “faster and bigger parts of creation” statement is talking about how factories are using fossil fuels for quicker and larger amounts of production of their products. Part of how we collect fossil fuels (like coal) is through using explosives, which is also referenced in my myth. All these examples from myth and modern times were listed in my myth to prove how humans have been using fire in immoral ways, showing how the release of evil into the world has affected them.
All these acts starting from the stealing of fire and impacts of the releasing of evil from Pandora’s box into the earth introduces the virtue of justice and the reference to the Five Ages, specifically the Iron Age (Hesiod, Works & Days 212-218). As the timeline of mankind went on, each generation was given more trouble and grief, the Iron Age getting the worst of it. The myth describes how relationships such as families and couples were becoming toxic, which is meant to explain humanity’s evil and misery during the Iron Age. The part about lying to Lady Justice is a reference to the creation of justice, also from Works & Days. What I meant by lying to Lady Justice in my myth is the act of wrongfully convicting people of crimes they did not commit. I chose to word it this way to make it sound similar to its reference, where they also incorporate Lady Justice as a personification to explain the concept of justice (Hesiod, Works & Days 255-260). Although unrelated to global warming, I decided to include the part about Lady Justice in my myth as an example of an obviously wrong crime with a small impact on only a few people. Compared to global warming, it affects the entirety of the earth’s population and its environment. Not everyone believes, cares, or is even aware of it, as I state that the punishment is not as obvious others, like a judge going to jail for purposely giving the wrong verdict. The idea of crime being witnessed by spirits roaming the earth comes from the same justice myth. When a person commits any sort of wrongdoing, spirits who are working for Zeus will spot it and report back to him so that he can punish them (Hesiod, Works & Days 292-295). This is put into my myth because it shows how the evil acts of stealing and harming the earth will not go unpunished, and that global warming was created to be just a small part of a bigger punishment. These acts of injustice and toxic relationships also prove to display evil human qualities such as greed, jealousy and being violent, again stemming from the opening of Pandora’s box. It is these human qualities that show how humans are caring less about the earth and are doing as much as possible to benefit off it, contributing to the creation of global warming. My myth ends with a brief list of the evidence of global warming (melting of ice, burning of trees, etc.) because it shows the impact of our own evil and how it will ultimately lead to our own demise, or in other words, digging our own grave. This is more about the result of global warming more than its creation, but I wanted to keep it to prove its importance on the earth and human life. It also explains how Zeus exchanging fire with evil at the start of the myth explains that the evil that was given to them was taking advantage of fire and the earth for personal gain, only to make themselves and their surroundings suffer as a result.
References:
Hesiod. 1993. Works & Days. Translated by R. Lamberton, S. Lombardo. Indianapolis:Hackett Publishing Company
Hesiod. 1993. Theogony. Translated by R. Lamberton, S. Lombardo. Indianapolis:Hackett Publishing Company
Homer. 2009. Iliad. Translated by A.S. Kline.Poetry in Translation.
Homer. 2004. Homeric Hymns. Translated by S. Trzaskoma, S.R. Smith, S. Brunet, T.G. Palaima. Indianapolis:Hackett Publishing Company
Homer. 2004. Odyssey. Translated by A.S. Kline.Poetry in Translation.
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