PREFACE
Chosen topic: Racial difference.
“Gods participate in Olympathelics & Co-op Olympus Games.”
Epieths, Events, powers, or character to be demonstrated in the narrative.
Names of goddess & gods (children to gods) & their powers
Athena- goddess of ware and handicraft
Hermes- Tricker’s god/ master of manipulation and games
Achilles Shield- the shield that the Greek hero used during his duel against Hector, prince of Troy, towards the end of the Trojan War.
Ares- ware, violence, battle,
Persephone- Queen of the underworld; afterlife, grain/crops, spring.
Hephaestus- metallurgy, fire, volcanoes = lameness, hammers
Herakles- hero; going through all the labours.
Aphrodite- goddess of beauty and wisdom
PART I
Write your Myth (narrative) analyzing one of the given topics. This should be between 300-500 words.
Narrator: The gods were in a state of calmness and happiness as their children on earth grounds had been tirelessly practicing for their upcoming championship at camp UITUP, Olympathelics & Co-op Olympus Games. The winning team will then get the honourable Shield of Achilles to keep as part of their skill practices until it gets passed on to the next winning team next year. Two teams: Athena, Hermes vs Hephaestus, Artemis, Herakles, and Aphrodite.
Persephone: This Friday your team will participate in archery, sorcery skills tests, fencing and ending with a race. The winner will take home the Shield of Achilles. Let us remind each other, as you go to bed you all may be just children of the gods, but till awakening at dawn you all are warriors. Let us pray: Father Zeus, great and glorious, who reigns on Ida, whichever man brought these sorrows on both teams competing in this championship, let him be eliminated for the time and descend to Hades, but let solemn oaths bring friendship between us.’
Athena: You know our team has got more skills and plus people who look like you—our society is very strict with who gets what. A society where children of gods did not have to fight in war tirelessly. You should be put to fight the 12 souls from the underworld instead of fighting on our campgrounds.
Herakles: Why must we all avenge one another when we can be team players. For those on your team, you will invoke violence and put us down in winning, be aware our great god Zeus shall punish all of you with the pain we feel being of colour. A penalty and justice will be served.
Athena: True colours of our parent’s blood will be shed and shown. Like Hermes will play games around you, mastering his skills in Sorcery while Ares will put you to death with his battle skills in the last round of activities. I shall bestow a curse on your team so that you will not perform your best during the archery and battle activities. This curse originates from the fire and ashes of Hades power that will burn away your ugliness and weak powers and shall once again our team will win.
Artemis: Brave you may be, godlike Achilles, but do not try to trick me with your cleverness. There is a way to win even though we may have different powers and appear different than your team.
Persephone: Under much consideration, Athena’s team will be the winners this year as we have witnessed their talents and the other team has just shown little effort. You shall make up your work throughout the Farmer’s year by working day and night to sustain your status at camp UITUP.
Aphrodite: Why not share the Shield of Achilles to be a fair winning team. If not, then I will take yours, or seize and keep that of the great God Zeus. Let us fellow warriors make known that the act of division shall not stand in our ways of beholding the great shield of Achilles.
END
PART II
Write your analysis of your own composition should be between 1000-1500 words.
The purpose of this narrative is to emphasize how systems of colour within individuals came to be in society. Within this narrative, I aimed to explain the challenges that some of the goddesses had to face to win in the yearly athletic championship games “Olympathelics & Co-op Olympus Games”. No one seems to notice that there is a serious issue of discrimination between those who do not hold the same power as the stronger gods and goddesses due to their skin colour. Two main teams then get split into smaller groups for the activities.
I chose to write this as a dialogue/ script because I thought it would bring the small details and characteristics out of the gods especially Athena who is the main character. Athena’s curse and her powerful words against Herakles team demonstrated the beginning of a division between the teams and more specifically implicitly highlighting that due to the team’s physical appearance (“ugliness”) Athena decides to curse their team to perform awful during the championship. I connected this with racial differences because as we know, historically whites always hold power over coloured people. Not only this, but I made a huge emphasis on how much someone's words can hold power over another person as we saw Athena's outburst in the myth towards the other team.
"Female and male, the arts of war are thine, O much-formed, Drakaina (She-Dragon), inspired divine: over the Phlegraion Gigantes (Phlegraean Giants), roused to ire, thy coursers driving with destructive dire. Tritogeneia, of splendid mien, purger of evils, all-victorious queen” (Orph, frs, 30).
You see the passage mentions “all-victorious queen” but also “destructive dire”. This passage expresses how Athena always wins, and she needs to win, it's in her blood. The addition of the destructive dire shows how far she might go to win, we see in this case she was okay with allowing the other teams to turn against each other and take matters to extremes measures just so her team could win; she then puts a curse on the other so that they will perform awful and she will win.
First, I had mentioned the Shield of Achilles as the prize the winning team would win. In Iliad book 18, it referred to the art on the shield in the following passage “On it, he showed the earth, sea, sky, the tireless sun and the full moon, and all the constellations that crown the heavens, the Pleiades, Hyades, great Orion, and the Bear, that men also call the Wain, that circles round in its place, never bathing in Ocean’s stream, while gazing warily at Orion.” (Hom, II. 468-470) I thought this would be a good ancient source to use as part of the reward from the championship because of the great story behind when used in the battle of Troy, it is only right for the winning team to be recognized for their resilience and bravery.
One thing I implemented within this story that connects back to Greek literature was Persephone’s leadership role in running the event on camp UITUP. Knowing her background of being the queen of the underworld (grain/crops), I made the change to make her the villain where she would punish them to the fire of Hades and followed by the tireless work of farming. This can be connected back to our Greek literature to Hesiod, Theogony, and selections from Works and Days; more specifically, I chose to highlight the Farmer’s Year poem connecting Persephone’s punishment to this line “I am not going give you another drop, work you fool Perses. Work” (Hes. Theog. 445-47). I chose to make Persephone the punisher because as we know historically, one way how racial differences stemmed was from slavery wherein the eyes of white-skinned individuals, were considered as higher status than those who were dark-skinned who were not. I have implicitly made this myth in a way that other teams (Herakles, Artemis, and Aphrodite) have coloured skin and weaker powers than the other team.
As part of my myth, you will notice that Herakles team is not happy at all when Athena makes very harsh comments towards them when she said: “that there is no way to win the championship when being coloured only represents weakness”. We can see Herakles' response to Athena to be very shocking and powerful. When looking further into my myth, there were some things that I kept the same according to ancient texts to develop the storyline. For example, as we see in the myth the strong argument between Athena and the other team; more specifically with Artemis, I made this story to connect it to the argument in the Iliad Book 3 between Achilles and Agamemnon.
Brave you may be, godlike Achilles, but do not try to trick me with your cleverness. You will not outwit me or cajole me. Do you think, since you demand I return her, that I will sit here without a prize while you keep yours? (Hom., II, 108-113.)
As we saw this argument between Achilles and Agamemnon, it sufficed from both rage and their egos. However, in the myth, I have not made it seem like both have a large ego in wanting to win the Shield of Achilles. Athena’s ego is in fact shown a lot larger while Arthemis is trying to make the championship just and fair. We also know that in the argument between Achilles and Agamemnon, Agamemnon felt disrespected when he was asked to return his prize. This same theme of disrespect symbolizes the conflict between Athena and Arthemis; moreover, due to Arthemis's skin colour, he shall not win the Shield. However, the teams have not even finished their activities, but we see that Athena has already made her mind up that she will win. (a continuous level of disrespect from Athena)
Along with this reference, I kept the storyline the same to having Aphrodite express having the exchange of prizes or rather a comprise in having both teams able to win the Shield of Achilles; keeping the same tradition from the Iliad and the argument between Achilles and Agamemnon speaking.
Let the great-hearted Achaeans find a prize, one that is to my taste, so the exchange is equal. If not, then I will take yours, or seize and keep that of Ajax or Odysseus (Hom., II, 108-113).
Athena’s ego and pride in winning were very much evident in my myth and we see that Aphrodite was not having it. This line symbolizes that even though Athena has shown so much disrespect towards the other team, someone like Aphrodite---goddess of wisdom and beauty---was able to stand up for her team.
Another topic that I had changed around in myth was again looking at Athena speaking to the other team and being overly superior to them. Her line where she speaks and says, “This curse originates from the fire and ashes of Hades power that will burn away your ugliness and weak powers and shall once again our team will rule.” Of course, Hades does not have the power to do this in Greek culture, but we can interpret his background of ruling the Underworld to acknowledge that Herakles team does not belong on earth due to their skin colour; hence, mentioning that the fire shall make their ugliness disappear altogether. Like this, we see that I changed around the theme of Herakles 12 labours of fighting off the monsters to fighting the 12 souls of the underworld. A similar connection to Herakles fighting the monsters; for example,
“He killed the invulnerable Neman Lion, which the Moon raised in a cave with the openings, and he used its skin as a protective covering (Hyg. Fab, 30-31).
Athena is seen once again arguing with the other team members about how they should not be able to participate in the annual championship. So, she makes the statement for them to instead fight with the 12 souls in the underworld just as Herakles in Greek literature was seen fighting off the 12 monsters. I changed this because I thought it emphasized the beginning of division between the two different races and in this case the different teams. Historically, we know that coloured people were always put at a disadvantage especially in the slavery era and so we see this origin of differences occurring between Athena who is of lighter skin and more powerful compared to the other team of colour.
PART III
Bibliography
· Homer. 2009. The Iliad: Book III. Translated by A. S. Kline.
· Euripides. 2012. Herakles. Translated by George Theodoridis. Bacchicstage Word Press.
· Hesiod. Lamberton, Robert.; Lombardo, Stanley. Theogony: Work and Days. 1943-Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company.
· Homer. 2008 The Iliad: Book XVII. Translated by A. S. Kline.
· Hyginus. 2004. The Twelve Labors Imposed on Hercules by Eurystheus. Trzaskoma, Stephen, Smith, R. Scott, 1971, Brunet, Stephen, 1954, Palaima, Thomas G. Indianapolis: Hackett Pub Company.
· Orpheus. Hymn 32 to Athena. Translated by Taylor. Thomas (1792). University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999.
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