The Reading Room

9:30 AM

@b_jonas It was a popular trope -- there's also Ruggiero and Angelica in Orlando Furioso

Rand al'Thor

10:09 AM

Two more reviews needed on this post to delete it from the review queue without mod intervention.

Rand al'Thor

10:25 AM

And done. Thanks Gareth and Mith!

Next up is this one :-)

Interesting case of presentism here -- trying to get at the meaning of Heraclitus through the lens of contemporary U.S. politics

10:56 AM

Meanwhile, let me see what my go-to popular reference book says about Andromeda.

It tells the back story of how king Kēpheus in Aithiopia was forced to sacrifice his daughter Andromeda to a sea monster. Perseus happened to travel there when this happened, and killed the sea monster, and took Andromeda as his wife. It does not mention Hēraklēs at that point.

So it at least doesn't seem like I just missed this in this book that I've read a lot.

Codosaur's answer mythology.stackexchange.com/a/7824/197 gives the variant myth where Hēraklēs kills a sea monster, but the king is Laomedon, the daughter is Hesione, and the reward is different.

So apparently this variant is situated in Troy rather than Aithiopia.

The two myths don't even seem to exclude each other: the only character shared is Poseidōn, and I wouldn't put it against him to send multiple different sea monsters against different people in anger.

Let me look this up in the popular reference book too.

Right, this one is mentioned in the chapter about Hēraklēs.

11:19 AM

It's common for there to be multiple variants of a myth with different characters -- it's easy to imagine that a poet or story-teller might modify a myth so that it featured the local hero or god or king rather than the hero from the other city where the myth originated

So again Poseidōn is angry at the king, this time Laomedōn of Troy, and an oracle says that he must sacrifice his daughter Hēsionē. Hēraklēs happens to wander there, kills the sea monster and saves the daughter, just as Codosaur's answer describes. But again, no mention of being inside the monster.

In fact Codosaur's answer doesn't describe Hercules being inside the monster either, so it doesn't really answer my question.

As I said above, the detail of Heracles being swallowed appears for the first time in pseudo-Lycophron

It's not in the ancient versions of the story like the ones in the Iliad

@GarethRees Sure, that's why we have two contradictory myths about killing the Gorgons.

11:43 AM

@GarethRees But if that writing is from the 2nd century BC, then it seems to be later than the Old Testament story about Jonas the prophet living inside the whale.

That isn't a problem for me, it's just a problem for that book I quoted that tries to give it as a possible source of the Old Testament story.

11:54 AM

@GarethRees I think it's more like multiple sea monsters that Poseidōn summoned and the greek myths didn't bother to save a detailed enough description to distinguish them.

But yes, it's a long career if you count the princess mentioned in Prince Ricardo too.

12:42 PM

@b_jonas Yes, that's right -- since pseudo-Lycophron was writing in the 2nd or 3rd century BC, he could have got the detail from Jonah

Q: Does "if" here mean "although"?

0

In In the Midst of Alarms (1894) by Robert Barr, a man was talking about some of dime novels, saying: The young man went into the tent, and shortly returned with an armful of yellow-covered, paper-bound small volumes, which he flung in profusion at the feet of the man from Toronto. They were mos...

in-the-midst-of-alarms robert-barr

@GarethRees So do you want to post an answer, or do you still not post on Mythology SE for some reason? If you won't post one for a while then I'll post a summary of what you said there.

1:03 PM

@b_jonas I'm not posting an answer because I haven't done the work! A proper answer would need to locate and quote the relevant passage(s) in Homer and pseudo-Lycophron, which I haven't done. Secondary sources aren't really reliable enough for this kind of thing, as you found with your book

@GarethRees Not posting it yet, sure. I mean do you eventually want to post an answer?

I'm not making any promises -- if you want to go ahead then do so by all means

Q: What is the underlying message of the first story of 听你的 ("Up To You")?

1

I read an (untitled) short story: the first chapter of 《听你的》 (full text is here), and I don't feel I fully understand the plot. Here's my summarization: The main character "you" (unnamed) is generally happy with mediocrity. You work a simple job with all of your family members. At work, you d...

meaning short-stories chinese-literature

1:19 PM

As for Homer, Iliad chapter 5 talks shortly about Hēraklēs having attacked Laomedōn in vengeance because Laomedōn didn't give him the horses, but I don't see where it says that the reason why he owed horses was Hēraklēs killing the sea monster to save Laomedōn's daughter Hēsionē.

It looks like as this was in the middle of a battle, the fighters didn't take the time to tell the whole long story.

But I can never be sure that something doesn't appear in the Iliad, as I'm not familiar enough with it, and it uses all sorts of epithets to replace all the common names, it's hard to search for anything definitely.

No wait, maybe it does mention the original story too…

Iliad chapter 20 does mention the walls of Troy, built to protect … someone from the sea monster and that this is somehow connected to Hēraklēs. Well this is unclear.

Yes, you wouldn't connect the allusions in the Iliad unless you already knew the story!

The way these poetry always assume that the audience is already familiar with the myths and just reminds them of it with cryptic references, it's so annoying, and yet we still can't get rid of it in the age of internet and quasi-unlimited text article sizes and hyperlinks.

There are still too many articles and comments on the internet with the same sort of cryptic mentions that require the day's context to interpret, it's just sad.

For a more complete version of the myth, you need the Bibliotheca of pseudo-Apollodorus, where it appears in book II chapter 9 -- link goes to Frazer's parallel Greek-English edition

1:35 PM

Hmm while we're there the popular reference work that I mentioned earlier is Trencsényi-Waldapfel Imre, Görög regék, (1973) Móra Ferenc kvk, Budapest.

I think we can excuse Homer since he was a poet and not a mythographer. The people who can't be excused are those writers of dictionaries of classical mythology who mash up all the different versions together without references

@GarethRees Of course! It's some of the modern internet commenters that I'm blaming, not Homer.

theoi.com/Ther/KetosTroias.html Let me see what this reference gives

> THE KETOS TROIAS (Trojan Cetus) was a giant sea-monster sent by Poseidon to plague the land of Troy as punishment for King Laomedon's refusal to pay him for the building of the city's walls. An oracle declared that the only way to be rid of the beast was to offer the king's daughter as sacrifice. Laomedon did so, chaining Hesione to the rocks, where she was rescued by Herakles who despatched the beast with a fish-hook or volley of arrows.

That website is useful because it gives more specific references.

In particular it points to Iliad chapter 21 about building the wall, let me see that.

2:08 PM

> [still from the Theoi webpage] According to a tradition not mentioned by Homer, Poseidon punished the breach [not paying for the wall] of promise by sending a marine monster into the territory of Troy, which ravaged the whole country.

Then goes on about the rest of the story. The trojans sacrificed maidens to the sea monster, including Laomedon's daughter Hesione. Heracles killed the monster for a promise of Laomedon's horses. Laomedon refused to pay him, so Heracles attacked him in vengeance later. And gives references to that part too:

> (Hom. Il. v. 265, 640, &c., xxiii. 348; Schol. ad Il. xx. 145, xxi. 442; Apollod. ii. 5. § 9, 6. § 4; Diod. iv. 32, 49; Hygin. Fab. 89.)

And gives the quote from Pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheca.

> *Pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheca 2. 103 (trans. Aldrich) (Greek mythographer C2nd A.D.):*
> "Poseidon sent a Ketos (Cetus, Sea-Monster) which would come inland on a flood-tide and grab people on the plain. Oracles proclaimed that there would be release from these adversities if Laomedon were to set his daughter Hesione out as a meal for the Ketos, so he fastened her to the rocks by the seaside. When he saw her lying there, Herakles promised to save her in return for the mares which Zeus had donated as satisfaction for the abduction of Ganymedes. Laomedon agreed to this, and so Herakles sl…

But then proceeds to give a different source for Hēraklēs inside the monster:

> *Lycophron, Alexandra 470 ff (trans. Mair) (Greek poet C3rd B.C.):*
> "She [Hesione] it was that the babbler, the father of three daughters, standing up in the council of his townsmen, urged should be offered as dark banquet for the grey hound [the Ketos (Sea-Monster)], which with briny water was turning all the land to mud, spewing waves from his jaws and with fierce surge flooding all the ground. But, in place of the woodpecker [Hesione], he swallowed in his throat a scorpion [Herakles] and bewailed to Phorkys (Phorcys) the burden of his evil travail, seeking to find counsel in his pain.”

Let me see the other quotes that that page gives.

Oh great.

> Pseudo-Hyginus, Fabulae 89: "[…] Hercules and Telamon came there, The Argonauts being on their way to Colchis, and killed the Cetus."

So they can't even agree that Hēraklēs happened to be there because he was bringing the girdle of the Amazon queen's daughter.

And later another source for the same claim that it was during Hēraklēs's short adventure on the Argo (Valerius Flaccus, Argonautica 2. 450 ff (trans. Mozley) (Roman epic C1st A.D.))

2:30 PM

Here's the passage from pseudo-Lycophron in George Moody's translation. The language is very obscure — I would not have guessed that "scorpion" refers to Heracles!

On that page, only that one quote from Lycophron seems to say that Hēraklēs was swallowed, and even that only very briefly.

@GarethRees That two-language edition gives the footnote: “476. The monster swallowed Heracles instead of Hesione, and, in its agony after swallowing him, sought counsel and help from the sea-god Phorcus (Phorcys, Phorcyn, 376 supr.).”

Yes, I can see the footnote, but where does the footnote comes from? How do we know that "scorpion" represents Heracles?

No idea, it does indeed seem very obscure.

@GarethRees Let me see that book. It doesn't seem to have a book 2 chapter 9, but you link to a specific page.

Oh, it's book 2 chapter 5, something 9.

Sorry, I mean book II, chapter V, section 9

Possibly John Tzetzes glosses "scorpion" as "Heracles" in his commentary on pseudo-Lycophron?

2:48 PM

Ok, so in that edition of pseudo-Apollodorus, the main text doesn't mention Hēraklēs being swallowed, but it has a footnote “Tzetzes says that Hercules, in full armor, leaped into the jaws of the sea-monster, and was in its belly for three days hewing and hacking it, and that at the end of the three days he came forth without any hair on his head. The scholiast on Homer (l.c.) tells the tale similarly, and refers to Hellanicus as his authority.

[continuing footnote] The story of Hercules and Hesione corresponds closely to that of Perseus and Andromeda (see Apollodorus, ii. 4. 3).”

5:29 PM

I found the passage in John Tzetzes's scholia on pseudo-Lycophron lines 31–36 though since I don't read Greek I had to use a Latin translation.

The details are scattered over several notes, but you should be able to see:

"Hercules a ceto vorantus feruit" (Hercules had been swallowed by the sea monster)

"Trivesperi Leonis, olim quem suis / Malis voravit saeva Tritonos canis" (for three evenings the evil hound of angry Triton swallowed the Lion [that is, Hercules, from the lion-skin he wore after defeating the Nemean Lion])

"ceti ventre, cuius nativus calor ... Herculis caesarium decoxit" (the belly of the sea monster, whose natural heat ... boiled away Hercules' hair")

Q: Paperback book about a falsely arrested man living in the wilderness who raises wolf cubs

0

The book starts with the protagonist, a shop owner, who gets falsely arrested for murder. While he's being taken away in a police car, he manages to escape and runs off into the woods, which happens to be a national park. He lives in a cave near the top of a hill. At some point in the book, he fi...

identification-request

Is it clear from the notes which sea monster that is, in particular, if it's the one in Troy?

@b_jonas Yes, see the note to line 31 which provides the context

Thanks for that info, so that footnote about the cryptic passage is based on Tzetze's notes

@GarethRees Good.

@GarethRees "voratus" rather than "vorantus"

I had to retype it since the Internet Archive's OCR failed, so I may have made some typos

5:36 PM

Yes, that's why I note the typos now, before you put it into a post.

I'm not proposing to make a post

There will be a post, because if you don't make it, I'll have to.

Q: Are birds a theme of Enrique Villasis's poetry, and why?

6:49 PM

0

Enrique Villasis is a Filipino poet, and every poem of his that I've found is something to do with birds: Birds in Flight, 1965 Birds of Paradise, 1965 Birdman, 1973, and White Bird Dark Shadow, 1962 (all links are to webpages including English translations of these poems originally in Filipino...

poetry motif enrique-villasis filipino-literature