A tragic song was playing as a Greek musician couple was welcoming their daughter. Their love for music, song, and dance influenced their decision to name their beloved daughter, Melpomene. As Melpomene grew up, she became fascinated with the fairy tales told by poets in the theatres, but she soon came to realize that her mortal life was not one bit fascinating. For instance, her home, Earth, was too overcrowded, too hot, and there was always an everlasting smell of something burning. One day, Melpomene grew tired of how offbeat her life was and became determined to get herself back into the groove. Her good friend, Athena, being the wise and caring self that she was, decides to give Melpomene some advice. Athena comes up with an elaborate plan for Melpomene to find a cornucopia, the horn of plenty, located just south of Earth past the mountains. She further tells Melpomene that she personally knows a lawful and orderly man who resides at the foot of the mountains who will gladly welcome her into his home amidst her travels. Eventually, Athena convinces her that she must obtain the cornucopia in order to have an endless amount of good energy and fortune by her side.
The next day, Melpomene packs olives and grapes as gift offerings for when she arrives at the lawful and orderly man’s home and sets off on her quest to obtain the cornucopia. She spends the entire day climbing uphill and by nightfall, she makes it to the foot of the mountains in which she spots the house Athena was referring to. Melpomene makes her way towards the house in hopes that the owner would allow her to stay the night amidst her travelling endeavours. At the doorstep, her attempt to knock on the door is interrupted when the door opens before she could do so. A man appears behind the door and Melpomene introduces herself as a traveler with an important mission. However, right after hearing her introduction, the man shuts the door on her face. She gets confused so she takes out her gift offering as she thought that the man wouldn’t let her in because she wasn’t offering a gift in exchange for her stay. When she proceeds to knock on the door again, the metal doorknob gives her a static shock. The man shouts from his window without opening the door and says, “You mortals are ruining Earth as we speak, just because Prometheus gave fire to mortals, it doesn’t mean that you should use it irresponsibly! Haven’t you noticed that the temperature is rising day by day? Leave my property at once and change your mortal activities at once!” After hearing this, Melpomene becomes infuriated and before she abandons her quest and heads back to her hometown, she yells back saying that because he did not provide her with hospitality at her time of need, he has tarnished the social codes so chaos will follow – their heated dispute was left unresolved.
Image: Plaster Cast of an Intaglio; Melpomene's head in the profile (to the right), to the left is her tragic mask; Western Europe, first half to mid-19th century; Source: The State Hermitage Museum.
Myth Analysis
The narrative of this myth is based on the goddess, Melpomene, who is said to be one of the nine Muses in ancient Greek mythology – more specifically, she is known to be the Muse/Goddess of Tragedy (Hesiod, Theogony, 77). Rather than using her portrayal of tragedy in music, song, and dance, I changed it so that it was the fate of tragedy that was in association with Melpomene that would explain the origins of global warming. This is shown through her journey to obtain the cornucopia; however, she fails to obtain the item which is one the causes of chaos i.e., global warming. Throughout the myth she encounters other problems that contribute to the origin of global warming which will be discussed later in the analysis. Additionally, Melpomene is a goddess of song in ancient myth (Homer, Iliad 2, 484) whereas she is characterized as a mortal with a tragic fate. Instead, her parents are portrayed as musicians to subtlety associate music and song with Melpomene.
Additionally, the conceptualization of the cosmos was used in this myth. According to Hesiod’s account of the cosmos, Earth was located as the foundation for mortals, and it was located above Hades who was in association with the Underworld (Hesiod, Theogony, 116; Homer, Iliad 15, 187). The myth of the cosmos helped set the plot as Melpomene’s quest would be to find the cornucopia. The cornucopia is a symbol that represents “the horn of plenty” and it was often in association with the god, Hades, as he is the giver of all good things e.g., wealth and food (Hesiod, Work and Days, 435). In this myth, the cornucopia was an important item that Melpomene needed to obtain in order to bring good fortune to her life and to those living in Earth. However, because she is unable to obtain the cornucopia, bad things rather than good things will be in store for her and Earth. In addition, she would have to travel towards the direction of the Underworld in order to obtain this item, which is why I used to the formation of the cosmos to depict her travels. However, in this myth, she isn’t necessarily entering the Underworld and returning from it as she is not going on a hero's journey but more so going on a quest to find something important (Dougherty, 2001).
Furthermore, the goddess of wisdom and good counsel, Athena, was referenced in this myth to depict a helpful guide that will provide aid for Melpomene’s journey (Homer, H.H. 39 to Athena; Orpheus, Orphic Hymns). Athena is often depicted as the helper god of heroes as she provides strategy and wisdom for the heroes to succeed in their quests or journeys. For example, she once helped Heracles when was performing his twelve labours (Hesiod, Shield of Heracles, 122; Pseudo-Apollodorus. Bibliotheca). In this myth, Athena nudges Melpomene towards her quest by telling her about the cornucopia. She further describes as lawful and orderly man she knows that can be Melpomene’s host amidst her travels. This man is personified as the god, Zeus. Zeus is often in association with weather and because he is the “King of the Gods,” he is associated with law and order as well (Hesiod, Theogony, 881). Because this myth is explaining the origin of global warming, I used the Zeus’s association with weather as a basis of why the temperature has been changing since Zeus has the power to change weather. Additionally, because Zeus is in association with law and order, it is important for him to follow the rules and to never break them or else chaos would occur. In reference to a classical myth, Zeus had to contradict the fates in order to save his son, Sarpedon, but he was unable to save him at the end because chaos would occur if he contradicted how the cosmos worked (Homer, Iliad 16, 493-496). In relation to this myth, I used the concept of Zeus as the focal point as to why global warming is a current issue. This is because he did not follow the social orders of 'xenia' in which hosts are expected to provide shelter for any travelling persons (Homer, Iliad 6, 214-245). In contrary, within this myth, Zeus is portrayed as boundless, and he is not afraid to contradict the law and order by not allowing Melpomene into his home even though she offered a gift. By contradicting this important social order of how things worked, chaos followed – which in this case, was global warming. Another reference to the man being Zeus was the static shock that Melpomene received when she reached for the metal doorknob. This is because Zeus is often attributed with lightning bolts in ancient myth (Pseudo-Apollodorus. Bibliotheca 1, 6-7).
Moreover, the Titan god, Prometheus, was referred to as the god who gave fire to mortals. This was in reference to the myth about how the crafty Prometheus was able to deceive the gods by stealing fire from the heavens and delivering it to man instead (Hesiod, Works and Days, 42; Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound, 944). This gift of fire that Prometheus bestowed on mortals is important in this myth as it represents how mortals are potentially misusing the fire that was given to them, thus, they are the reason why the temperature on Earth is slowly increasing. To explain, because fire belonged to the heavens and to the gods and was not initially supposed to be given to mortals to begin with, this could be another explanation as to why ‘chaos’ i.e., global warming, occurred.
Lastly, I wanted to make the myth as realistic as possible, and I associated some characteristics with the ancient Greek landscape. That is, in association with the landscape of ancient Greece, climbing mountains was a part of Melpomene’s journey as the real landscape was very mountainous. Moreover, she gifts to give to her host amidst her journey as that is part of the traditions of xenia in ancient myth (Homer, Iliad). Additionally, the reason why she packed grapes and olives is because these fruits grow abundantly within the Greek landscape so I thought that this would be an appropriate detail to add to the plot.
Bibliography
Aeschylus. Prometheus Bound. Translated by Ruffell Ian. Bristol Classical Press. 2012.
Dougherty, Carol. The raft of Odysseus: the ethnographic imagination of Homer’s Odyssey. Oxford. 2001.
Hesiod, Lombardo, Stanley & Lamberton, Robert. Theogony. Hackett Pub. Co. 1993.
Hesiod, Lombardo, Stanley & Lamberton, Robert. Work and Days. Hackett Pub. Co. 1993.
Hesiod. Shield of Heracles. Translated by H. G. Evelyn-White.
Homer. The Homeric Hymns. Translated by H. G. Evelyn-White.
Homer. Homer: The Iliad. Translated by A. S. Kline. Poetry in Translation. 2009.
Orpheus, Wolkow, Benjamin M., & Apostolos N. Athanassakis. The Orphic Hymns. The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013.
Pseudo-Apollodorus. Bibliotheca. Translated by Aldrich.