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The Epic of Gilgamesh

Separation-Gilgamesh leaves Uruk with Enkidu, Initiation-Battles Humbaba, faces Enkidu’s death, seeks immortality, Return-Comes back to Uruk wiser, accepting mortality,7th Century BCE, preceding the Bible, oral epic, 1900-250 BCE, Uruk, Middle East, likely in the Mesopotamia, Sumerian poetry written in Babylonian, a variant of the Akkadian language

Gilgamesh

A bad king, ruthless to his people, ⅔ god ⅓ man, after his journey became good so that he would be immortal through honor by people telling his story

Enkidu

made to be the opposite of gilgamesh

Humbaba

giant monster who can turn enemies into stone, The fearsome demon who guards the Cedar Forest forbidden to mortals.

Ninsun

The mother of Gilgamesh, also called the Lady Wildcow Ninsun. She is a minor goddess, noted for her wisdom. Her husband is Lugulbanda.

Ishtar

The goddess of love and fertility, as well as the goddess of war. Ishtar is frequently called the Queen of Heaven. She wanted Gilgamesh to marry her.

Bull of Heaven

Divine creature sent by Ishtar to attack Gilgamesh because he rejected her

Uruk

The Kingdom

Noah

Similar story to Noah’s arc in Utnapishtim’s story

Inanna

another name for Ishtar

Ereshkigal

Terrifying queen of the underworld, her realm is referenced but she’s not in the book directly

Queen of Heaven and Earth

Another name for Ishtar

Queen of the Great Below

Another name for Ereshkigal

Monomyth

The Hero’s Journey, the separation, initiation, return

Aphrodite

Venus, goddess of love, son named aros/cupid, on trojan’s side, mother of Aeneus

Apollo

Sol, god of sun, poetry, music, prophecy, sender of disease, patronage god of bowmen, trojan’s side

Ares

Mars, god of war, trojan’s side, one of Aphrodite’s lovers

Artemis

Diana, goddess of moon, hunting, charity, wild animals, trojan’s side

Athena

Minerva, goddess of wisdom, arts and crafts (weaving), goddess of war, greek’s side

Hades

Orcus, god of dead, underworld, neutral side (also the name of the underworld)

Hephaestus

Vulcan, Blacksmith of gods, god of metal, working, fire, architecture, husband of aphrodite, greek’s side

Hera

Juno, wife/sister to Zeus, mother to most gods, goddess of marriage & childbirth, greek’s side

Hermes

Mercury, messenger vans ambassador of the gods, trickster god, patronage god of merchants, travelers, and thieves, greek’s side

Poseidon

Neptune, god of sea, greek’s side, exception he hates odysseus

Zeus

Jupiter, god of the sky, god of all gods, neutral

Homer

wrote the odyssey and the Iliad, considered one of the greatest poets because he understands human nature, not just heroic on battlefield, uses intellect to fight just as much

The Odyssey

Separation-Leaves for Troy; begins journey home after war, Initiation-Faces trials (Cyclops, Sirens, Underworld, etc.), Return-Comes home wiser, defeats suitors, reclaims throne, 750-650 BCE, Greek, Ithaca, Aegean Sea, Homeric Greek, Homer

Odysseus

Man of many wiles, clever, went to war for the greeks, 20 years since he left home

Telemachus

Odysseus’s son, goes out on quest to find his father

Penelope

Wife of Odysseus

Mentor/Mentes

Athena dressed in disguise to help out Tele

Circe

witch, transforms Odysseyus’s crew into swine because they were poor guests

Calypso

Odysseus lands on her island and stays there for 7 years until Hermes tells her to release him

Athena

helps guide the family, convinces Zeus to let Odyseus go, tells Penelope in a dream that it will be okay, guides Telemachus

Poseidon

hates Odysessus because cyclops are his children, and he had stabbed one in the eye

Penelope’s test of the suitors

says she’ll marry whoever can string his bow and shoot an arrow through 12 axe handles

Odysseus’s test of the suitors

He disguises himself as a beggar to see how the suitors treat him

Punishment of suitors

Odysseus literally just kills all of them who are disloyal

The Aeneid

Separation-Aeneas flees Troy, begins journey to Italy, Initiation-Faces trials, visits Underworld, embraces destiny, Return-Arrives in Italy, defeats enemies, founds future Rome, Written in 30-19 BC, but story takes time after trojan war 12-13th century BC, City of Rome, Mainly roman

Augustus

Octavious, Julius Caesar's nephew, renamed himself to Augustus and was the first emperor of rome

Founding of Rome

In the Aeneid, tells the story of how the Trojan prince, Aeneas, came to Italy

Virgil

Publius Vergilius Mao, 70 BCE, Italy, wealthy and good family, quit lawyer job to become a poet, devoted life to philosophy and literature, good friends with Augustus, who asked him to make an epic about the founding of rome

Aeneus

A trojan, ancestor of Agustus, son of Venus (Aphrodite), wandering after war and Juno (Hera) hates him because he’s called to destroy Carthage, and she is the patronage god of it, he is destine to become a roman and destroy carthage

Venus

Aeneus’s mother, wants to protect him

Dido

Queen of Carthage, a city in northern Africa, widow after husband dies, Venus and Juno make an agreement to make her fall in love with Aeneus, win-win situation, Aeneus leaves her and she kills herself

Minerva

Athena, protects the Greeks during the Trojan War and helps them conquer Troy, linked to the Greek deception with the Trojan Horse

Juno

She hates Romans and loves Carthage, and knows that Romans are destine to destroy carthage and don't want that to happen

Cupid

disguises himself as Ascanius, Aeneas’s son, and causes Dido to fall in love with Aeneas

Sibyl

Oracle, goddess of prophecy at Apollo’s temple, Aeneus asks her about going to Hades, so she tells him it will be dangerous, finds the Golden Bough

Father, son, and household gods

the 3 things that Aeneus saves from Troy, father represents past, son represents future, household gods represent faith and culture, later on father dies symbolizing his change

Meeting in the cave

dido and aeneus get married, jupiter gets alerted and sends mercury to remind Aeneus of his true journey and destiny to create Rome

Last Trojan and First Roman

are both Aeneus, he is the last trojan and when he leaves hell he no longer considers himself as the last trojan or trojan at all, he now views himself as roman, with roman values of duty

Descent to the underworld

Does so to find more about the future of Rome, meets future roman heroes waiting to be reborn, exits spiritually transformed and fully committed to his destiny.

Significance of Carthage

tension in the epic between duty and desire, Rome and its enemies, and fate versus personal emotion.

Written epic

The Aeneid was the first example of a Literary epic. It didn’t exist before being written down. Focus-Ideology content not plot, not so much repetition, sophisticated poetic style. Didactic, made to teach a moral/lesson, that was the whole purpose and it was intentional.Usually moral, patriotic, or philosophical message. Characters more admirable, not realistic characters to feel empathetic for

Oral epic

Were not written down, were sung or memorized like the Odyssey and Iliad. For entertainment, heroes have consistent personalities, spontaneous. Repetition, epithets

Invocation of the muse

story so grand and important that it’s outside of human ability to write it, often opens with a prayer asking for help to write, states the intention of the work

In medias res

latin “in the middle of the thing” means the story begins in the middle

Epithets

2 word descriptions commonly

Medea by Euripides

Greek Tragedy, Athens, Story takes place in Corinth, written in 431 BCE,

Euripides

author of Medea

Medea

A sorceress and a princess, literally kills people for Jason

Jason

husband of Medea, divorces her to marry the daughter of the king of creon, tells her that she’s overreacting a ton

Creon

the king who tells medea he’s exiling her from Corinth and that she needs to leave

Glauce

daughter of creon who jason is marrying, she and her dad are killed by Medea's “gifts”

Nurse

Caretaker of the house, the nurse of the children serves as Medea's confidant. Her presence is mainly felt in the play's opening lament and in a few speeches addressing diverse subjects not entirely related to the action of the play.

Chorus of women

they sympathize with medea but also think she’s going too far, tell her not to but keep the promise of not sharing either

Aegeus/Aigeus

king from another kingdom who is an old friend of medea. Medea tells him that if he provides her with a place to stay, she will help him and his wife have children. He agrees, but says she must find her own way to get to his kingdom.

Sun-god’s chariot

The sun-god’s chariot is not just a magical escape — it’s a powerful theatrical symbol that reinforces Medea’s divine lineage, her victory, and the moral complexity of the tragedy.

Deus ex machina

“a god from a machine” a plot device used when a seemingly unsolvable conflict or impossible problem is solved by the sudden appearance of an unexpected person, object, or event. Happens when gods intervene to save the day. For ex-Helios, Medea's grandfather sends her a chariot

Stoicism

you are cultivating for a freedom of possession or desire, trying to be detached from the outside world and just care about your own “stuff”, restrain yourself from emotional responses, resist both joy & grief, lives by “it is what it is”, how am i going to adapt “(good, bad, anything)”, mentally train themselves to not have these reactions, innate attachments ex-oyalty to city bc born there regardless if you like the politics or not, stay because you were born there

Epicurianism

Pleasure seekers→freedom from pain, wanted balanced connection b/w mind and body through simple living. Man’s most important need is to server ourself from lucirary desires, desire never ends, so must tame your desires. If you can be content without, you can be free from pain. Approach ex- if you don’t like your city, move. Move somewhere that shares your values. Don't search to overcome pain through desire. Deliberate connections.

Patriarchy

Rule of the Father, rules over the estate, family, property, income. Father is central to Greek and Roman life & the rest of the estate is dependent on them. Father decides who to pass his role onto, doesn’t always have to be his child.

Patrimony

The estate itself, decides what goes to who, like marrying off daughter, giving house to

Patricide

People who want to kill the guy in power, patriarch. Very common if you have a lot of stuff. Infesticide (killing babies) is common because of prophets, oracles, people leave them in the wild to die so the gods won’t be mad at them

Achaeans, Argives, Danaans

main names for Greeks, all greeks but don’t think of themselves as “greeks”

Confucius

knowledge attributed to him, descent of legendary figure, 19 married off and had a government job, left to become a teacher, when he was minister of crime in chima, drop in crime rates, bc of a disagreement with the duke, he left and wandered, emphasized personal and governmental morality, correctness of social relationships, loyal to ancestor worship, respect, dont dishonor those who came before you

Analects

disciples collected little sayings he said into “Lun Yu”, “discussion over” (his words), used many years after he died

“transmitter who invented nothing”

he didn’t like to think of himself as a writer, instead a transmitter who invented nothing

Golden rule

do not do to others what you do not done to you

Ren

compassion for others, need to cultivate empathy and use it as a guiding thought for actions, how will what I do affect people around me. Take into account the rippling impacts. If you cultivate ren, simple in manner, slow in speech, thinking before speaking, not worried about what others think of you but instead how your actions affect others. Need to learn to exercise self restraint by study and master li

Li

propriety (customs of it), ex-how you address someone when you first meet them, involves self mastery, constraint. Figure out how to reconcile your needs with your community. How does your desire work with your family’s needs? You can want something but not at the expense of your family’s prosperity. Observance of ritual and propriety.

Emphasis on study

to promote deeper thought