Molded from the hands of a Titan, Prometheus shared his greatest wisdom and boons among mortals. He bestowed mankind the gifts of meat and fire against the wishes of Zeus. He gave humans strength and wit that could rival their sculptor’s own mastermind, for men were meant to be his finest masterpiece. The mortals eventually climbed from the highest mountain peaks on Gaia to reach Olympus, seeking a domain greater than their own. Yet loud-thundering Zeus was enraged and diminished the size and minds of mortals with a struck of his thunderbolt. He demanded a dome to be cast between Chaos and Aether by the Aerial Nephelai to pry mortals out of the seats of heaven. Zeus delivered his next punishment in the form of Pandora and the greatest sufferings of men.
The cosmic separation stabilized itself, from the heavens, the mortal world, and Hades. As miserable as humans lived, their sense of hope burned and birthed ingenuity, curiosity, and a boom in technology. They sought ways of powering their inventions and searched through the deepest parts of the Earth. Fruitful was Hades’ domain as souls of the most ancient plant and animal life remained trapped in the seams of sediment and coal, thickening the barriers of the lower cosmos. Men burnt what they found and saw energy that burned with greater intensities than whatever existed prior. Souls trapped in sediment departed as smoke with no farther destination above or below the earth. Humans had little knowledge of the existence of souls extending beyond their own species, but like men, no sensitive soul could pass Zeus’ lofty barrier without a traditional burial and monetary tribute for the boatman, Charon.
Soon, humans harnessed this energy from what would be called fossil fuels to create the vastest technology society has ever seen. However, the souls that were released began to materialize themselves to humans. Their accumulated energy smothered the sky and melted the cold of winter, they burned in agony through forest fires, and brought droughts in search of Hades before falling into the seas. Poseidon was unpleased by humans’ invasion of his domain and shook the earth with a strike of his trident, churning souls and creating massive floods. These would be the disasters attributed to global warming.
Hades, the host of many guests, recognized humanity’s own reckless actions and tasked Hermes to tend to the matters. True to his cunningness and responsibility as psychopomp, swift Hermes dug tunnel rings in the center of growing trees to offer passage to the wandering ghosts back into the soil. For as vast greenery spread, nature presents its best attempts to revoke the misconduct and greediness of human activities. Although successful was Hermes’ design, nature struggled with the demands of emissions. As fast as souls bridged back into the soil, the faster humans polluted the planet. Were they to ruin the plenties and wealth of the Earth at their disposal, then they will have nothing else to fall back onto.
Analysis
The passage to the underworld is a highly influential motif in mythology. Whether there are the spiritual remains of living existence, where it ends up, and how one decides who gets allotted where after death are questions explored in the rules dictating narratives of different cultures. In Greek mythology, the ultimate destination of the dead is the underworld realm where Hades is responsible for resting the souls where they belong (Plat. Gorg. 523a-523b). Most evidence of the paths to the underworld pertains specifically to the exploration of human souls. In the Iliad, the dead were to be buried and funeral rites were held in honour of fallen warriors, such as Patroclus and Hector, to provide them safe passage to Hades (Hom. Il. 23. 54-107). The consequences otherwise, would be that their spirits were left to wander in the mortal realm. These elements of the states of living spirits were used in this composition to explain an aetiological myth for global warming. Ultimately, the phenomenon was the consequence of human activities interfering beyond the mortal domain.
The establishment of the atmosphere refers to the aetiology of mankind and extends from Prometheus’ and Zeus’ involvement in the myth (Hes. WD. 60-128). This incorporation was used to support the separation between mortals from the heavens and provided context to the possibility of advancements in society, which are both important in explaining metaphysics and how its limits cause global warming. Understanding Prometheus’ endearment for humanity, I thought it would be appropriate if mortals were initially more powerful than they once were but were diminished for their transgressions, similarly to how men were punished with Pandora. Greek mythological texts did not refer to the atmosphere specifically but made the distinction between the air that mortals breathed and the heavenly air. Aether was the embodiment of the upper air that was associated with the clouds, mountain peaks, and celestial bodies and would be the counterpart to Chaos, the embodiment of the lower air (Dam. Orph. Theog. frag. 54). The barrier that was created to establish the hierarchy of Olympus and Gaia by the cloud nymph, Nephelai (Ar. Clouds. 264 ff). Prometheus’ role as the creator of mankind and gift of fire are symbolic of progressions in humanity, how mortals acquire strength against nature’s adversities, and their capability to evolve as a civilization (Hes. WD. 60-128). Even when punished by the creation of Pandora and the absence of gods’ favours, humans learned to become resourceful with their few gifts and held onto the hope that remained (Hes. WD. 60-128). By connecting the aetiologies of Hesiod’s works further in a modern context, the extent of progression by virtue of humanity’s endurance and curiosity is demonstrated.
The role of souls, spirits and wandering ghosts play a large role in this piece. The understanding of the existence after death is localized in the realm of Hades. As the abodes of the dead are often referred to as beyond the knowledge and observation of the typical lives of mortals, I use this vacancy of the unknown laws of the dead as an opportunity to innovate aspects of Chthonic myth. Very little is ever mentioned of animals or plants representations of souls that are sent to the underworld, and I used this lack of attention for non-human spirits as an indication of humanity’s failure to predict the outcome of global warming. In Greek myth, nymphs were the representation of different spirits in aspects of nature. Dryads and Oreads were the nymphs of trees and forests and I took inspiration from their legacy onto the concept of non-human souls (Ath.78b). In this myth, all biotic beings are considered to have a living essence that equates to the same weight and role of the human soul.
Global warming is a present-day threat to the Earth’s weather patterns that have been associated with the continual exploitation of fossil fuels for human activities. The aetiology of this crisis is set during the industrial period as coal, petroleum, and oil were some of the latest and most effective sources to allow the advancement of technology. As a consequence, rates of greenhouse emissions increased rapidly and society has been struggling to compensate for some of its catastrophic consequences. Since fossil fuels were made from a process of decomposed organic matter, I took from the reality of technology’s historic negative impacts on the environment and incorporated the idea that the immaterial soul of plants and animals were trapped in their buried remains for millions of years as a function for the underworld’s barrier. The initial invention of industrial technology released souls from where they belonged and caused consequences leading to global warming.
Traditions around mourning and burial rites are a recurring motif in mythology. We see an example of wandering ghosts, where Patroclus haunts Achilles in this immaterial form in the Iliad (Hom. Il. 23. 54-107) and in Book 11 of the Odyssey where Odysseus sees the spirit of one of his crewmates after his dead body was left on Aeaea (Hom. Od. 11. 51-89). Throughout mythological canon, we have seen an example of which the living conjure the dead in the Odyssey through sacrifices (Hom. Od. 11. 23-35). Inspirations were drawn from these methods and comparisons can be made to emphasize the issues of the actions of mankind. Here, people were not deliberately meaning to influence the dead and made a fatal error in the process. Like with the theft of fire, the discovery of fossil fuels led to rapid advancements in civilization and technology. However, this feat led to consequences of disturbances in climate change, as was Zeus’ revenge on humanity (Hes. WD. 60-128). In both cases, mortals have stolen something outside of their place within the cosmos and used it to their own advantage.
In the mentions of psychopomps in myth, I chose to integrate Charon and Hermes as their domains and characters fit well into the aetiology. Mentions of Charon, the Ferryman of the Dead, suggest that he was responsible for transporting them to Hades from the Akheron if an obol was placed in the mouth of corpses during a burial (Calli. Aet. frag. 31). Those who had no offering wandered as ghosts. This was innovated upon to explain why animals and plants never properly appear as shades in Hades, as burials were a civilized tradition.
Many consequences follow the exploitation of natural resources. In particular I chose to explain the occurrences of marine catastrophes as influenced by Poseidon. Remarkably, he was known as being the cause of floods and recognizable with his trident, where he overwhelmed Athens when contesting against Athena for ownership of the city (Apollod. Bibl. 3.14.1).
Hermes’ largest role in the narrative is during the resolution. Understanding his duty as the guide for transitions into the underworld and his cleverness, I thought his involvement would suit the complex nature of how the earth could respond to global warming by restoring the atmosphere’s condition (Hom. Od. 24. 1-99). This way, he is also responsible for helping non-human souls transition to the underworld with the modification to trees as their main entryway, similar to how carbon dioxide gets taken up by plants. The souls of animals and nature return back to the soil before fossil fuels were removed by humans. This was a successful strategy but not efficient enough to mitigate the consequences of pollution and global warming completely, as humans rapidly increased their use of fossil fuels and continued to destroy trees and natural ecosystems for urban expansion.
The narrative concludes rather openly as we anticipate that humanity continues to exploit the natural resources at their disposal and the severity of its effects on climate change, much like what is observed in the present. We may wonder how long before society makes sustainable changes to replace the use of non-renewable energy and how successful they are implemented.
Works Cited
Gulick, Charles B. “Athenaeus – The Deopnosophists.” Loeb Classical Library, 1941, 78b.
Lamb, WRM. “Plato – Lysis. Symposium. Gorgias.” Loeb Classical Library, 1925, p. 523a.
Lombardo, S. “Why Life is Hard.” Hesiod – Works and Days. Hackett Publishing Co, 1914, 60-128.
Murray, AT. “Homer – Odyssey.” Loeb Classical Library, 1919.
Murray, AT. “Homer – Iliad.” Loeb Classical Library, 1924.
O’Neill, E. “Aristophanes – Clouds.” Random House, 1938, 264 ff.
Tryphanis, CA. “Hecale Fragment 31.” Aetia Iambi Hecale & other Fragments, Loeb Classical Library, 1973.
West, ML. “Orphic fragment 54.” The Orphic Poems, 1998 edition, Sandpiper Books Ltd, 1998, p.178.
Comments