If Zeus and his kind lived on Mount Olympus, mankind lived on Earth. This proximity and the construct of the godly world of Olympus was fascinating. The Gods were larger than life humans. They enjoyed immortality. They specialised in areas where they had supernatural talents that they exercised to influence lives of mortals. These were Mother Nature's gift to them; natural excellence justified their distinctions as Gods. Such a construct was close to Man's own nature. They were like us only more so in everything; the only divide was immortality.
The arrival of the Titan Prometheus in this narrative allowed mortals to rival modestly with the Gods, as he gave them knowledge of fire and sparked the quest for finding the tree of knowledge. He paid a price as he was condemned by Zeus to enchained slavery, and suffered daily torture.
The narrative now accelerates with the arrival of Heroes who are mortal copies of Gods. Hercules a Demi-god then appears and epitomises godly strength and godly ire as well. In a fit of madness he kills his progeny and to atone for this sin is condemned to his Twelve Labours.
The twelve labours aggrandise Man's destiny on Earth, as he spends his life righting wrongs. In the eleventh labour he even frees Prometheus from his captivity and finds the golden apples of eternal youth; only to find that these will return to their original garden of the Hesperides without permanently benefitting humanity! Such remains Man's inevitable destiny.
What Hercules's fable teaches us is that Man is condemned to assume his own sins and redress the wrongs he does on Earth. To do this he has to surpass himself in Herculean endeavour. Such is the price to pay. This legend alike the parable of Pandora's box teaches us the moral lesson that what we sow we must then reap, like our own Nemesis.
Humanity has in Hercules's tale the best example of man's permanent quest in search of truth and justice. And the impossibility of ever achieving immortality in this life.
The Promethean legacy pushes us on in this quest; the Pandora's box parable makes us unsuspectingly organise our own downfall and we need Herculean efforts to avoid retribution at the hands of a Nemesis.
Abrahamic old Testament says the same thing in Man's fall from the Garden of Eden. But it is more dogmatic in ideology, more tribally ethnic in context, whereas Greek mythology is universal to all mankind. Olympus is a very human place unlike Jehovah's heaven.
Greek mythology thus represented for me first steps to a Universal culture, where Man's adventure begins in search of knowledge and truth.
Why is this age of Heroes of relevance to our modern age?
Just compare the past and the present :
* Our modern age is best iconised in real terms by its new heroes, as epitomised by our sportsmen, resuscitated by the Baron de Coubertin in the modern age of Olympics; and the professional sporting icons of mass media sport that it spawned subsequently. It's now an unending tradition of the likes of Pelé and Mohamed Ali and, as antithesis, Tiger Woods...idealised icon of hubristic bent, as well a huge promotional tool for Big business. Money and idealism always make bad bedfellows.
* Our virtual world, comic strip and manga heroes, now universal icons of culture, all inspired by the mythical heroes of old Greek mythology : Tarzan, Superman and Batman. What more can we ask for?
Its the sign of the times! Heroes and anti-heroes...
They, like the pagan Gods of old, are much more palatable to humanity than the Abrahamic construct of patriarchal, totalitarian Oligarchy; bearded, exclusive, male ideology that debased divine femininity into total subserviency, like the Virgin Mary, now purely used as transcendent icon. From those times onward, Woman was relegated to role of jealous, bitter or submissive partner to hubristic Man; not surprising that she revolted as a revitalised icon of new age; where woman is now defender of spiritual faith and her own personal integrity, there where hedonistic man is defender of ephemeral, irrational impulse : the age of pornographic culture, hubris of phallocracy. What a fall that was my countrymen...
Why is this age of Heroes of relevance to our modern age?
Just compare the past and the present :
* Our modern age is best iconised in real terms by its new heroes, as epitomised by our sportsmen, resuscitated by the Baron de Coubertin in the modern age of Olympics; and the professional sporting icons of mass media sport that it spawned subsequently. It's now an unending tradition of the likes of Pelé and Mohamed Ali and, as antithesis, Tiger Woods...idealised icon of hubristic bent, as well a huge promotional tool for Big business. Money and idealism always make bad bedfellows.
* Our virtual world, comic strip and manga heroes, now universal icons of culture, all inspired by the mythical heroes of old Greek mythology : Tarzan, Superman and Batman. What more can we ask for?
Its the sign of the times! Heroes and anti-heroes...
They, like the pagan Gods of old, are much more palatable to humanity than the Abrahamic construct of patriarchal, totalitarian Oligarchy; bearded, exclusive, male ideology that debased divine femininity into total subserviency, like the Virgin Mary, now purely used as transcendent icon. From those times onward, Woman was relegated to role of jealous, bitter or submissive partner to hubristic Man; not surprising that she revolted as a revitalised icon of new age; where woman is now defender of spiritual faith and her own personal integrity, there where hedonistic man is defender of ephemeral, irrational impulse : the age of pornographic culture, hubris of phallocracy. What a fall that was my countrymen...
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