#i'm learning shit

[luna-lilium-nineteenth]

Same day, different week, same sandwich, different coffee, same book and new sexy shoes...

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Sunday wicca book and coffee vibes

[mintypineapple]

You little shit.

[thestoryweneededtowrite]

Spare a thought for those of us in the land of tea and crumpets who can't preorder the Newsies movie 😢

[mintypineapple]

Oedipus

WHERE TO START?

Ok, so Oedipus lives in Corinth and hears a prophecy that he will kill his father and get it on with his mother. So he leaves his home to avoid this. He then comes to this crossroads and bumps into this group of people. Neither one of them will move out of the way, so Oedipus gets mad and kills them.

EFFECTIVE PROBLEM SOLVING.

So then he moves onto Thebes. Thebes is being annoyed by this Sphinx asking riddles. No one can correctly answer it, but Oedipus is a smart soon-to-be motherfucker. He correctly guesses the riddle and the Sphinx slinks away.

EFFECTIVE PROBLEM SOLVING.

Everyone is so happy that they offer him the kingdom and the recently deceased king’s wife, Jacosta. He accepts, marries Jacosta, and things are pretty good for a while. Then he’s told that he needs to figure out who murdered the previous king and avenge his death. He’s like, yeah, cool. I can do that. Get me someone who might know who did it.

Then this one guy is like “Well, it was you.” And Oedipus is like “The fuck it was.” But things start adding up. He soon realizes it was the guy he met on the road.

Also, somewhere around here, Jacosta tries to reassure Oedipus that prophecies suck and that he won’t kill his dad and marry his mom because they also avoided a prophecy saying that the king’s son would kill the king. They had a kid and just threw him out into the wilderness with his ankles pierced.

EFFECTIVE PROBLEM SOLVING.

Anyway, then another guy comes saying that Oedipus’s dad is dead and they want him to come be king of Corinth. So Oedipus is all “YaY! I beat the curse! I mean, I’m sad, but you know... Didn’t kill my dad!” And the messenger is like “Well, I mean he’s not your real dad, so...” And Oedipus is all like “What?” And he’s like “Yeah, I found you in the wilderness and took you to the king and queen because they really wanted a kid.”

Then everything just sinks in. He killed his dad and got it on with his mom.

Jacosta hangs herself and Oedipus stabs his eyes out. Then basically says he wants to go back to the wilderness where he believes he belongs.

Which is interesting, because thew wilderness is basically between Thebes and Corinth. And he comes from both but doesn’t really belong to either. He’s stuck between the two.

But the thing is, a lot of this seems like it’s not really his fault? I mean, he did kill a dude in what is basically road rage. And apparently it’s really bad to just scoff at oracles and say their prophecies are shit and he should have talked to the oracle to see what could be done to avoid this. Talk that shit out. But seriously, this guy didn’t know. Prophecies are dumb.

[mintypineapple]

Bacchae

First off, some backstory. There’s this dude named Cadmus and he basically founded Thebes. And most of his children have terrible fates. One of them jumps to her death after being chased by her crazed husband. Another is killed by his hound dogs. Another gets pregnant by Zeus, doesn’t believe it, then Zeus reveals himself to her in all his glory completely incinerating her, but leaving behind the unborn baby. So Zeus pops that baby into his thigh and gives birth to him later. That baby is Dionysus.

Dionysus is basically like the party god. All of the rituals surrounding him are kind of the opposite of everyone else’s rituals. Most are during the day, his are at night. Most involve cooked food, his requires eating raw food. Men are usually more in power, in his women are more in power. Also you drink and have sex to excess. It’s a wild ride, man.

Anyway, Cadmus is all down for worshipping Dionysus, but his grandson Pentheus doesn’t buy that Dionysus is a god. Dionysus shows up to celebrate, but Pentheus captures him and says “You’re not a god, you’re just a guy who’s riling up all the women folk.”

Dionysus then proceeds to fuck shit up. He gets out of his restraints and puts a bull in his place, then lightning and shit happens, and Pentheus’s palace basically gets fucked up.

Still though, Pentheus doesn’t think Dionysus is a real god. So Dionysus kind of starts hypnotizing Pentheus and convinces him that he should check out the rituals. And so as not to be caught spying, he should dress as a woman. (Which I guess is supposed to be humiliating? This is old Greek shit, so whatevs.)

Anyway, Dionysus puts him up in a tree so he can spy on the women. (Which is apparently symbolic of him putting himself above the gods, but then it also leaves him vulnerable and puts him out in the open.)

The women see him up in the tree spying, then pull him down. Then his own mother Agave proceeds to rip his head clean off. The rest of the women also start ripping him apart.

Agave then returns saying “Hey, I killed this lion, come take a look.” Then Cadmus is all like “Oh shit. That’s no lion!” And she’s like “Oh fuck.” Then Dionysus banishes Agave and the other women. Then he turns Cadmus and his wife into a snake.

Like... that’s a bit much, man. Calm down.

[mintypineapple]

Ovid's Metamorphoses

We only read excerpts of this for the class, but it’s a lot of fun. It’s basically, just a collection of everything myth. It’s random and chaotic. It also pokes fun at it a bit? So I love it.

Highlight: Narcissus falling in love with his reflection in a pond and then dying because he cannot be with himself.

Also, he sort of gets rid of all the heroics in the Trojan War and just shows the nastiness. There’s long gory fight scenes just for the heck of it. There’s a verbal battle where people just trade insults.

He also just kind of thought everything was falling apart and really liked things that turned into other things (animals, plants, genders). I kind of love Ovid?

Anyway, that’s it. The course is over and now I guess I have to write a thing.

[mintypineapple]

The Aeneid: Part One

This was difficult. The writing in this was way harder for me to grasp. I’m honestly not sure what was happening half of the time and that’s after the lectures explaining the stuff. But it’s kind of the Roman version of the Trojan War and afterwards.

Basically, there’s a dude Aeneas who got out of Troy after (or during?) the Trojan War and has to reestablish Troy somewhere else (spoilers: Rome.). He goes from place to place and everywhere is a big no. He also sort of revisits some places from The Odyssey in a way that’s kind of like “Hey, the Odyssey kind of sucked and we’re way better, right?” But also at the same time, the whole book is kind of a reworking of the Iliad and the Odyssey. *shrug* But this dude is like the anti-Odysseus. He’s very honest and dutiful and Odysseus was cunning and lied a shit ton. Honestly, Odysseus was way more fun.

Anyway, there’s this whole thing where this woman, Dido, fell in love with him, but he has to leave because destiny and then she kills herself in a fire because he left.

Then there’s some games and sports.

Ok, so like the idea of this is interesting, but I hate the style of the book, so I’m sorry this summary sucks.

Thankfully, I only have to read one more book of this for the class. If I had to read the whole thing, I would not.

[mintypineapple]

Agamemnon: The Anti-Odyssey

So Agamemnon returns home from the Trojan War bringing along his new concubine Cassandra. Then Agamemnon’s wife Clytemnestra kills Agamemnon and Cassandra. Turns out she’d been planning this with Aegisthus for awhile now. Why? Because Agamemnon had previously sacrificed his and Clytemnestra’s daughter to get some good sailing winds happening.

This whole family is fucked, ya’ll.

So some of the themes that were in the Odyssey are here as well, but in the reverse. There’s weaving and nets that symbolize the closeness of Odysseus and Penelope. Here the nets and weaving symbolize traps and how they aren’t close at all. Odysseus and Penelope kept secrets that secured their positions and kept them together. Here secrets cause stabby stabby deaths.

There’s also this idea of things being two things at once. A drug and a cure. A purification and a pollution. So for example, Clytemnestra is getting revenge for her daughter, but also it’s killing Agamemnon. Agamemnon gets into a bath to clean himself and then gets murdered in it, turning it into a blood bath. What’s good turns out to be bad. And it’s this non-ending cycle. And how do you get out of it?