More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Stephen Fry
Read between
December 22, 2022 - January 29, 2023
One of the most important of all Greek city-states. The name given to its people, the Argives, was often used by Homer simply to mean “Greek.” Philip II and his son Alexander the Great, although Macedonian, were said to originate from Argos.
Hero's by Stephen Fry
“Change his name?” said Amphitryon. “How would that help?” “If you were to call him ‘Hera’s glory’ for instance? ‘Hera’s pride.’” And so it was decided. From now on Alcides would be called Heracles.28 The creation of the Milky Way.
Heroes by Stephen Fry
At the same time CASTOR himself, the twin of POLYDEUCES, and like Heracles the offspring of a divine heteropaternal superfecundation,30 offered to complete the youth’s training in weaponry and the manly arts.
Heroes by Stephen Fry
Heracles stood by its body and bowed his head. “It was a fair fight,” he said. “And I hope you didn’t suffer. I hope you will forgive me if I now flay the hide from you.” Such respect for an enemy, even a dumb brute, was typical of Heracles. When an adversary was alive he knew no mercy, but the moment they were gone he did his best, where possible, to send them to the next world with honor and ceremony. He could not be sure that animals had souls or the expectation of an afterlife, even those descended from primordial entities like Echidna and Typhon, but he behaved as if they did. The greater
...more
Heroes Stephen Fry
Riding on horseback—the first warriors in the world to do so—the Amazons had defeated all the tribes they had encountered in battle. When they conquered and subdued a people they took home the males that they judged would father the best daughters and bred with them. When the men had done their duty by them they were killed, like the males of many species of spider, mantis, and fish. They put to death any male babies they bore, raising only girls to join their band. If they were accused of cruelty, they pointed out how many girl-children around the “civilized” world were left exposed on
...more
Heroes By Stephen Fry
As a memorial of his great trip, he erected two vast pillars of stone, one on the northern, Iberian, side of the straits that open from the Mediterranean into the Atlantic, the other on the southern, Moroccan, side. To this day the Pillars of Hercules greet travelers who pass through the straits. The African pillar is called Ceuta; the Iberian is known as the Rock of Gibraltar.
Heroes By Stephen Fry
No labor was more Heraclean than the labor of being Heracles. In his uncomplaining life of pain and persistence, in his compassion and desire to do the right thing, he showed, as the American classicist and mythographer Edith Hamilton put it, “greatness of soul.” Heracles may not have possessed the pert agility and charm of Perseus and Bellerophon, the intellect of Oedipus, the talent for leadership of Jason, or the wit and imagination of Theseus, but he had a feeling heart that was stronger and warmer than any of theirs.
Heroes By Stephen Fry
On entering the palace’s great hall, Orpheus found himself facing the three Judges of the Underworld, MINOS, RHADAMANTHUS, and AEACUS, enthroned in a grim semi-circle.134
Heroes by Stephen Fry
Hades curled a beckoning finger. “If you wish to avoid an eternal punishment more excruciating than those of IXION, SISYPHUS, and TANTALUS combined, you had better explain yourself, mortal. What possible excuse could you have for this indecent display?” “Not an excuse, sir, but a reason. The best and only reason.” “A pert reply. And what is this reason?” “Love.”
Heroes By Stephen Fry
Instead, Jason ordered Ancaeus to veer away, avoiding Scylla and Charybdis altogether, but taking them toward another danger—the infamous Planctae, or Wandering Rocks.201
Heroes by Stephdn Fry
sometimes dream that a great find will restore thousands of the great lost works of antiquity to us. Many perished in the catastrophic fire (or fires) at the Library of Alexandria in Egypt, but who knows?—maybe one day a huge repository of manuscripts will be uncovered. We have 18 or 19 plays by Euripides, for example, yet he is known to have written almost 100. Only 7 of Aeschylus’s 80 remain, while just 7 plays of Sophocles have come down to us out of 120 known titles. Almost every character you come across when reading the Greek myths had a play about them written by one, other, or all
...more
Heroes By Stephen Fry
The ship he brought back from his adventures in the Labyrinth of Crete remained moored in the harbor at Piraeus, a visitor attraction right up to the days of historical ancient Athens, the time of Socrates and Aristotle. Its continuous presence there for such a long time caused the Ship of Theseus to become a subject of intriguing philosophical speculation. Over hundreds of years, its rigging, its planks, its hull, deck, keel, prow, stern, and all its timbers had been replaced so that not one atom of the original remained. Could one call it the same ship? Am I the same person I was fifty years
...more
Heroes by Stephen Fry Theseus
306. The Grandfather’s Axe, its blade, and handle regularly replaced, presents a similar ontological conundrum in the field of study known as the Metaphysics of Identity.
Heroes by Stephen Fry
Myth is not history. Variant tellings and narrative lines are inevitable. I have tried where possible to give some overarching shape to the stories of the heroes whose lives and deaths I have told here, but chronological incongruities are bound to make themselves manifest. Apollodorus’s Bibliotheca (Library) is a major source for all Greek myth, though he is often at variance with Hesiod and Homer. Apollonius Rhodius wrote the Argonautica, from which most of the details of Jason’s great voyage in search of the Golden Fleece are derived. The Roman writers Hyginus and Ovid embroider and
...more
Heroes By Stephen Fry
Carl Jung described myths as the product of our “collective unconscious.” Joseph Campbell put it another way and called them “public dreams.”311
Heroes By Stephen Fry
311. And dreams, “private myths.”
Heroes By Stephen Fry
