Sundrop Lyre

He/Him, 20 Hellenic Pagan! I love to learn, and I mostly post reblogs. Devoted to Pan + Selene + Helios + Apollo

[sundroplyre]

Hello, I am Milo, and this is my religious blog!

Hellenic Polytheist focused, although I do get a little bit more general. I tend to reblog more on deities i'm more dedicated too, but I do branch out occasionally.

Enjoy!

[sarafangirlart]

One day ppl will understand that Greek gods aren’t tyrants with superpowers but rather forces of nature that are capable of both extreme cruelty and kindness and that they were used to explain the harsh and confusing realities that Ancient Greeks had to live through every single day and why they set up certain rules and customs.

One day ppl will understand that Greek heroes weren’t supervillains but complex human beings who are representations of the best and worst of humanity and that they aren’t remembered bc they were ‘heroic’ in a modern sense and that the Ancient Greeks rarely actually whitewashed their heroes actions but instead used them to tell fables and tragedies.

One day ppl will understand that Greek heroines did have power and agency in spite of the patriarchal society they live in, one day ppl will actually read the source material and properly learn about these women than take what retellings say about them like gospel.

[wizardarchetypes]

if u get into neopaganism u really have to spend the first like 2 years sorting out all the bullshit and finding out how much of it is either completely made up or outright stolen from other cultures and then go from there. u truly have to experience ego death, academic death, book collection death, and probably 47 other maimings or else you will be stuck believing something some guy said based on nothing in 1987 as your religion. it's harrowing. it's dire.

[kingoftheu]

One tragic aspect of the Odyssey that I've never really seen handled by any adaptation is the link between Odysseus' marriage and the Trojan War itself.

When Helen was of age to be married, all the Lords of Greece came to seek her hand. This was an issue for her stepfather the King of Sparta who could only pick one husband and then would have to deal with the far greater number of angry rejected suitors.

One suitor was Odysseus, then a younger man. He quickly ascertained that he had no chance of marrying Helen. Ithaca was too poor for him to even bring any proper gifts, let alone a dowry. But he did catch the eye of the King's niece, one Penelope.

Now Penelope was still a bit out of Odysseus' league, but not so much as Helen was. So he makes a deal with the King of Sparta. Support my bid to marry Penelope, and I'll give you a solution to this suitors problem. The King agrees, so Odysseus suggests all the suitors swear an oath to defend Helen's marriage from anyone who might strike against it. They all, including Odysseus, so swear, and Helen is married to Menelaus. The King proves as good as his word, and Penelope is wed to Odysseus.

Of course this means that Odysseus has now bound himself to fight for Helen and Menelaus. After an attempt to feign madness he is forced to fulfill his duty.

So his own plan, to marry Penelope and stop a hoard of ravenous suitors, ends with him forced to defend his own marriage from a hoard of ravenous suitors.

[idionymon]

Wish I was a late bronze age girl

I would have my homeland invaded by the sea peoples. I would be lain siege to by the sea peoples. My cities would be sacked by the sea peoples. I would make bronze tools and pottery. My shores would be invaded by the mysterious sea peoples. I would be mustering my armies to fend off the sea peoples.

[2seeitall]

Poppies at the Temple of Apollo, Ancient Corinth (Greece) 

[tridentandtales]

Group of ancient Greek perfume bottles

610 - 550 BCE

British Museum 1860,0404.38

[tridentandtales]

Roman mosaic depicting Triton, a dolphin, and a fish, found in the Sanctuary of Artemis (Ephesus)

ca. 200 CE

British Museum 1872,0803.72

[what-even-is-thiss]

I am aware that I’m at a point where in order to research classical mythology and religion more in depth than I already have I’ll probably have to learn Ancient Greek and Latin but I don’t wannaaaa

[borkborkheresadork]

The bow being plucked in the odyssey was the sound of a period accurate lyre by the way. Exactly like how bards would emphasize beats and motifs and movements in their retelling of myths. If you even care.

[evilios]

See my issue with that terrible movie adding on facial scarring alongside that absolutely heinous comment is at the very least questionable undertones in inventing a new to Helen's story sort of violence only to add it to the version of her character played by a Black woman after advertising this Helen by using Lupita's objective beauty. It leaves a very sour taste in my mouth. A choice notably made by a white director critically incapable of writing women who I have no reason to assume even had in mind gender or racial commentary.

However I don't think the very fact of adding patriarchal cruelty to Menelaus and Helen is exactly weird. Trojan Women!Menelaus exists and I don't particularly love the one-note way that people interpret their relationship as this "necessarily happy fairy tale". There is room for nuance and I don't find depicting any ancient man as a diehard "wife guy" exactly... compelling, given the inescapable gender dynamics. I just don't think the way it was done in that terrible movie served any narrative purpose.

[narcissa-black-supermacy]

i thought the “this is the face that launched a thousand ships, although now it would maybe be five-hundred.” line was just an internet joke but apparently that's a line Menelaus actually says in Nolan's Odyssey??

Not only that the language itself sounds straight out of a marvel forcibly funny haha moment, but Menelaus? The Menelaus who all thoughout human history, from Homer, to Sappho, to Euripides, to Virgil, to Shakespeare, to Brooke, to Barth; from Classical vases to Medieval poetry to Reinessance art, has been known as the man whose sword fell from his hands at the sight of his wife after 10 years apart?

"What joy for me to hold my wife" Menelaus?

"He flung the sword away, and kissed her feet" Menelaus?

"I believe all. I understand nothing. I love you" Menelaus?

"I have no fault to find; my wife, he daughter of Zeus and Leda, is mine again, she whom her brothers on their snow-white steeds, whilst torches blazed, made my happy bride, but gods removed her from my home." Menelaus?

The Menelaus who was picked out of the suitors by Helen herself? The Menelaus who couldn't kill a begging Trojan so his brother had to do it for him? The Menelaus who rescued Odysseus and got out Patroclus' body? The Menelaus who volounteered to fight Paris one on one so everybody could go home? Who kept expressing his guilt about himself being the cause of war through every assembly he spoke at in the Iliad? Who after 10 years away at Troy, took his wife through a 7-year long journey at sea back home, where he reinstated her as the queen of Sparta? Who wept like a child in front of Telemachus recalling the war and his brother and all the friends he lost and the only consolation being his wife' gentle hand on his?

You want me to believe that man scarred Helen's face and called her only worth half the ships because of it?

I'm actually physically sick just thinking about it.

[celestial-fang]

Instead of the new dogshit Odyssey film you should watch Iphigenia (1977). It’s made by actual Greek people and focuses on a mother-daughter relationship to explore how women are sacrificed by powerful men in times of war. Also the main actress has the face of an angel 🙏 the whole movie is available on YT with English subtitles.

[pjsfailedcareer]

People wonder why Black people aren’t active in online fandom spaces, but then turn around and post microaggressive memes about a Black actress, and defend white supremacist rhetoric under the guise of “wanting their culture better represented” when it comes to Black Artists depicting Greek Gods as Black or fat—like what the fuck.

[sarafangirlart]

Y’all cannot be deadass, do you genuinely believe Nolan, a white man, was intentionally making social commentary with Helen’s race? Do you genuinely believe this story of a Greek character being recast as a black woman only to be rewritten to get abused by her white husband was actually good writing? Do you genuinely believe that Menelaus fetishizing Helen’s skin color and scarring her face to humiliate her is good reinterpretation of Helen and her relationship to Menelaus?

Mediocre white men can really get away with anything huh?

[apoetriee]

i don’t know why people are so against helen who’s willingly running away with paris when there’s literally no “right” version of the myth and for centuries both versions coexisted

i just feel this usual modern view of women in the greek mythology kinda circles back to how misogynistic they were portrayed during those times. it’s always about how victims suffer and how everything is terrible even with helen. that she’s just a poor girl in a world of men who’s been taken away and then returned as some item, with no place for her own voice and desires

my take is that making the female character suffer is not the empowerment but of course it’s important to address their suffering. helen is one of the most interesting figures in the greek mythology with a HUGE potential and i love how complex her character is

give me helen who’s in love with both menelaus and paris but differently give me helen who knows how to use her looks and gain whatever she wants give me helen who FIGHTS give me helen who’s silly and not the embodiment of the bestest “traditionally feminine” traits

[evilios]

I feel uncomfortable when people insist that polytheistic worldview, due to the presence of propitiatory sacrifices, must have been all about avoiding the threat of smiting and nothing else. Or that the fear of the natural elements of the world was/is somehow unnatural to have, especially for ancient communities for whom anywhere outside of the town border was Danger Zone.