AP Lit Greek Allusions VI

Minerva

• The daughter of Zeus.

• She sprang from Zeus' head.

• "gray-eyed" or "flashing-eyed." She was the chief of the three virgin goddesses.

• Embodiment/Goddess of wisdom, reason, purity.

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Orion

• He was a young man of gigantic stature and great beauty, and a mighty hunter.

• He cleared Chios of wild beasts for its princess' hand in marriage.

• The king kept putting it off, Orion insulted Merope drunkenly, Dionysus put him in a deep sleep, and Oenopion blinded him.

• Then Hank went as far east as Lemnos, and he regained his sight and entered the service of Artemis.

• Artemis killed him. He was put into the stars as a constellation.

Orpheus

• A master musician and Theraces prince.

• He followed Eurydice into the Underworld after she died.

• lost her by looking back

• Symbol of art’s power and of loss.

Pan

• The chief of the lesser gods of earth.

• He was Hermes' son.

• Part animal, with a goat's horns, goat's hooves, and the goatherd's companion.

• He was always in love with one nymph or another, but was always rejected because of his ugliness.

• Goat-legged god of the wild, shepherds, and music (panpipes)

• Source of the word “panic”

• Symbol of nature and wildness.

Pandora

• The first woman.

• She opened the famous Pandora's box.

• Symbol of an action with unforeseen, disastrous consequences.

Prometheus

• A Titan, the son of Iapetus and Themis, and brother to Atlas, Epimetheus and Menoetius.

• He was a champion of human-kind known for his wily intelligence, who stole fire from Zeus and gave it to mortals.

• Zeus then punished him for his crime by having him bound to a rock while a great eagle ate his liver every day only to have it grow back to be eaten again the next day.

• Symbol of defiance, rebellion, and the price of bringing knowledge or progress.

Proteus

• Sometimes said to be Poseidon's son, sometimes his attendant.

• He had the power both of foretelling the future and of changing his shape at will.

• symbol of change or something that is hard to pin down.

Psyche

• Cupid fell in love with her, Aphrodite didn't approve, so Cupid stopped working until she relented.

• Psyche has to do various tasks, go to the Underworld to win Cupid’s love

• Symbol of the soul or of love tested

Pygmalion

• He made a statue that no mortal woman could rival in beauty

• Venus turned her into a real woman.

• Symbol of creating or shaping someone, or of idealized love.

Scylla

• A nymph, who Glaucus (half-man half-fish).

• Six-headed sea monster on one side of a narrow strait (opposite Charybdis)

• Circe fell in love with Glaucus, and so turned Scylla into a monster with serpents and fierce dogs heads.

Siren

• Lived on an island in the Sea.

• They had enchanting voices and their singing lured sailors to their death.

• It was not known what they looked life, for no one who saw them ever returned.

• Symbol of a dangerous temptation.

Sisyphus

• Has to push a stone uphill because he once betrayed a secret of Zeus, only to have it roll back down

• symbol of futile, endless labor.

Sphinx

• A creature shaped like a winged lion, but with the breast and face of a woman.

• She lay in wait for the wayfarers along the road to Thebes and whomever she seized she put a riddle to, telling him if he could answer it, she would let him go

Styx

• The river of the unbreakable oath by which the gods swear.

• River that separates the world of the living from the Underworld (Hades);

• Symbol of death and the boundary crossed at death.

Stenor

• A herald of the Greeks at Troy

• voice was as loud as that of fifty other men together.

• His name has become proverbial for anyone who screams or shouts with an unusually loud voice.

Tantalus

• A son of Zeus and the nymph Plouto. He gave the gods his son cut up into soup.

• Demeter ate some, and was furious.

• He is now stuck in the underworld, every time he reaches for the grapes they pull out of his way.

• Every time he bends down to drink water, it descends until he can't reach it.

Theseus

• His father was Aegeus, a king of Athens, who accepted only once he was able to roll back a stone which held his birthright.

• On his way to Athens, he became a hero by killing thieves and bandits in the way the killed others.

• He promised to marry Ariadne after he got out of the Labyrinth which housed the Minotaur. He killed the Minotaur with his bare fists.

• He left Ariadne on an island after she was seasick and died.

• Before he left Athens, he promised his father he would sail a black flag if he had won. He forgot, and Aegeus threw himself off of a cliff.

Tiresias

• A blind prophet of Thebes,

• famous for being transformed into a woman for seven years.

• He was the son of the shepherd Everes and the nymph Chariclo.

• saw the truth others couldn’t

Zeus

• Firstborn among Poseidon, Hades, and himself/the divine gods of Olympus.

• Impregnated hundreds of women.

• Married to Hera.

• Bore Athena from his head.

• Not omnipotent or omniscient.