Greek/Roman Allusions

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Delphic oracle

Apollo spoke through his oracle: the sibyl or priestess of the oracle at Delphi was known as the Pythia; she had to be an older woman of blameless life chosen from among the peasants of the area

scylla and charybdis

Being between Scylla and Charybdis is an idiom deriving from Greek mythology, meaning "having to choose between two evils".

Sir Gawain

Gawain is King Arthur's nephew and a Knight of the Round Table in the Arthurian legend. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

Hephaestus/Vulcan

Greek god of blacksmiths

Eros/Cupid

Greek god of love

Trojan horse

Greeks used to get into Troy and win the war

Aeneas

He became the first true hero of Rome.

Adonis

He is an annually-renewed, ever-youthful vegetation god, a life-death-rebirth deity whose nature is tied to the calendar. His name is often applied in modern times to handsome youths, of whom he is the archetype.

Daedalus

He is the father of Icarus, creator of labyrinth

Laocoon

He was a Trojan priest who was attacked, with his two sons, by giant serpents sent by the gods.

Sisyphus

He was punished for his self-aggrandizing craftiness and deceitfulness by being forced to roll an immense boulder up a hill, only to watch it roll back down, repeating this action for eternity.

Medea

In Euripides's play Medea, Jason leaves Medea when Creon, king of Corinth, offers him his daughter, Glauce. The play tells of Medea avenging her husband's betrayal by killing their children.

centaur

Its head, arms, and chest are those of a human and the rest of its body, including four legs, hindquarters, and a tail is like that of a horse. There are also deer-centaurs, dog-centaurs, and the Gaelic androcephalous or man-headed horse.

Jason and the Argonauts

Jason was an ancient Greek mythological hero who was famous for his role as the leader of the Argonauts and their quest for the Golden Fleece

Round Table

King Arthur's famed table in the Arthurian legend, around which he and his Knights congregate. As its name suggests, it has no head, implying that everyone who sits there has equal status.

Lysistrata

Lysistrata persuades the women of Greece to withhold sexual privileges from their husbands and lovers as a means of forcing the men to negotiate peace

Sir Mordred

Mordred or Modred is a character in the Arthurian legend, known as a notorious traitor who fought King Arthur at the Battle of Camlann, where he was killed and Arthur fatally wounded.

Hercules

Roman name for the Greek divine hero Heracles, who was the son of Zeus

Sir Galahad

Sir Galahad, in Arthurian legend, is a knight of King Arthur's Round Table and one of the three achievers of the Holy Grail. He is the illegitimate son of Sir Lancelot and Elaine of Corbenic, and is renowned for his gallantry and purity.

Atlas

Titan who held up the sky

Agamemnon

When Helen, the wife of Menelaus, ran off with Paris of Troy, Agamemnon commanded the united Greek armed forces in the ensuing Trojan War. Was murdered when he got home.

Hera/Juno

Zeus' wife and sister, and was raised by the Titans Oceanus and Tethys. She was the supreme goddess, patron of marriage and childbirth, having a special interest in protecting married women

Argus

a 100-eyed giant

Camelot

a castle and court associated with the legendary King Arthur

Psyche

a former mortal woman and goddess of the soul in Greek mythology. She is the wife of Eros (Cupid) and the mother of Hedone. She is always pictured with butterfly wings

Robin Hood

a heroic outlaw in English folklore who, according to legend, was a highly skilled archer and swordsman

King Arthur

a legendary British leader who, according to medieval histories and romances, led the defence of Britain against Saxon invaders in the late 5th and early 6th centuries AD.

the phoenix

a long-lived bird that is cyclically regenerated or reborn. Associated with the sun, a phoenix obtains new life by arising from the ashes of its predecessor

Cyclops

a member of a race of savage one-eyed giants. In the Odyssey, Odysseus escaped death by blinding the Cyclops Polyphemus.

Pygmalion

a sculptor who fell in love with a statue he had carved

The Emperor's New Clothes

a short tale by Hans Christian Andersen about two weavers who promise an emperor a new suit of clothes that is invisible to those who are unfit for their positions, stupid, or incompetent. When the Emperor parades before his subjects in his new clothes, no one dares to say that he doesn't see any suit of clothes until a child cries out, "But he isn't wearing anything at all!"

Fountain of Youth

a spring that supposedly restores the youth of anyone who drinks or bathes in its waters

Persephone/Proserpina

abduction by the god of the Underworld, her mother Ceres' frantic search for her, and her eventual but temporary restitution to the world above

Pandora's Box

contained all the evils of the world. Pandora opened the jar and all the evils flew out, leaving only Hope inside once she had closed it again. Today the phrase "to open Pandora's box" means to perform an action that may seem small or innocent, but that turns out to have severely detrimental and far-reaching consequences.

Helen of Troy

daughter of zeus, beautiful, was married then kidnapped by paris starting war

Medusa

described as a winged human female with a hideous face and living venomous snakes in place of hair

muses

each of nine goddesses, the daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne, who preside over the arts and sciences

the Furies

female chthonic deities of vengeance; they were sometimes referred to as "infernal goddesses"

Hermes/Mercury

god of commerce

Morpheus

god of dreams

Apollo

god of music, truth and prophecy, healing, the sun and light, plague, poetry

Poseidon/Neptune

god of the sea

Hades/Pluto

god of the underworld

Zephyr

god of the west wind, one of the four directional Anemoi (Wind-Gods)

Ares/Mars

god of war

Bacchus/Dionysus

god of wine, agriculture, and fertility of nature, who is also the patron god of the Greek stage

Circe

goddess of magic. transformed her enemies, or those who offended her, into animals. Some say she was exiled to the solitary island of Aeaea by her subjects and her father for ending the life of her husband, the prince of Colchis.

Demeter/Ceres

goddess of the harvest. "Law-Bringer,"

Narcissus

he saw his own reflection in the water and fell in love with it, not realizing it was merely an image. Unable to leave the beauty of his reflection, Narcissus lost his will to live. He stared at his reflection until he died

Prometheus

is a Titan in Greek mythology, best known as the deity in Greek mythology who was the creator of mankind and its greatest benefactor, who gave mankind fire stolen from Mount Olympus

River Styx

is a deity and a river that forms the boundary between Earth and the Underworld

Atlantis

is a fictional island mentioned within an allegory on the hubris of nations in Plato's works Timaeus and Critias, where it represents the antagonist naval power that besieges "Ancient Athens", the pseudo-historic embodiment of Plato's ideal state

a sphinx/ the riddle of the spinx

is a mythical creature with the body of a lion, most often with a human head and sometimes with wings. is mythicised as treacherous and merciless. Those who cannot answer its riddle suffer a fate typical in such mythological stories, as they are killed and eaten by this ravenous monster. This deadly version of a sphinx appears in the myth and drama of Oedipus.

Charon

is the ferryman of Hades who carries souls of the newly deceased across the rivers Styx and Acheron that divided the world of the living from the world of the dead.

Golden Fleece

is the fleece of the gold-hair winged ram, which was held in Colchis. The fleece is a symbol of authority and kingship.

Janus

is the god of beginnings, gates, transitions, doorways, time, and doors, and by of gates, doors, doorways, passages and endings

Oedipus

killed dad, married mom

Lady of the Lake

name of the ruler of Avalon in the Arthurian legend. She plays a pivotal role in many stories, including giving King Arthur his sword Excalibur, enchanting Merlin, and raising Lancelot after the death of his father

the Gordian knot

often used as a metaphor for an intractable problem (disentangling an "impossible" knot) solved easily by loophole or "thinking outside the box" ("cutting the Gordian knot")

Amazon

one of a race of female warriors in Scythia

Midas

popularly remembered in Greek mythology for his ability to turn everything he touched into gold

Icarus

s the son of the master craftsman Daedalus, the creator of the Labyrinth. Often depicted in art, Icarus and his father attempt to escape from Crete by means of wings that his father constructed from feathers and wax. Icarus's father warns him first of complacency and then of hubris, asking that he fly neither too low nor too high, so the sea's dampness would not clog his wings or the sun's heat melt them. Icarus ignored his father's instructions not to fly too close to the sun, whereupon the wax in his wings melted and he fell into the sea.

Nemesis

spirit of divine retribution against those who succumb to hubris

Sword of Damocles

sword on string over throne. an allusion to the imminent and ever-present peril faced by those in positions of power

Aphrodite/Venus and her two famous sons

the Greek goddess of love, beauty, pleasure, and procreation. aneas and eros

the Labyrinth

the Labyrinth was an elaborate structure constructed for King Minos of Crete and designed by the legendary artificer Daedalus to hold the Minotaur, a creature that was half man and half bull and which was eventually killed by the Athenian hero Theseus.

minotaur

the Minotaur was a creature with the head of a bull and the body of a man. The Minotaur dwelt at the center of the Labyrinth

Holy Grail

the cup or platter used by Jesus at the Last Supper, and in which Joseph of Arimathea received Christ's blood at the Cross. Quests for it undertaken by medieval knights are described in versions of the Arthurian legends written from the early 13th century onward. a thing that is being earnestly pursued or sought after

Antigone

the daughter/sister of Oedipus and his mother

Elysian Fields

the final resting places of the souls of the heroic and the virtuous

ambrosia

the food or drink of the Greek gods, often depicted as conferring longevity or immortality upon whoever consumed it

Leda and the Swan

the god Zeus, in the form of a swan, seduces or rapes Leda. According to later Greek mythology, Leda bore Helen and Polydeuces, children of Zeus, while at the same time bearing Castor and Clytemnestra, children of her husband Tyndareus, the King of Sparta.

Pan

the god of the wild, shepherds and flocks, nature of mountain wilds and rustic music, and companion of the nymphs

Excalibur

the legendary sword of King Arthur, sometimes attributed with magical powers or associated with the rightful sovereignty of Great Britain

Dido

the reputed founder of Carthage

Zeus/Jupiter

the sky and thunder god in ancient Greek, ruled over other gods

judgement of paris

three goddesses asked paris who was the prettiest and he chose Aphrodite after promised Helen and so started the war

Cerebus

three-headed dog that guarded the entrance of the Underworld, allowing the dead to enter but letting none out

the apple of discord

thrown at wedding to "the fairest", beauty and vanity battle started among goddesses, now used core of argument or something small that could turn into one

Romulus and Remus

twin brothers. raised by female wolf

Diana/Artemis

twin sister of Apollo. She was the Hellenic goddess of the hunt, wild animals, wilderness, childbirth, virginity and protector of young girls, bringing and relieving disease in women; she often was depicted as a huntress carrying a bow and arrows

Athena/Minerva

virgin goddess of reason, intelligent activity, arts and literature

Trojan War

waged against troy by greeks because of kidnapping thing

Troy

war took place here (in turkey)

Achilles

was a Greek hero of the Trojan War and the central character and greatest warrior of Homer's Iliad. he was killed near the end of the Trojan War by Paris, who shot him in the heel with an arrow. Achilles was invulnerable in all of his body except for his heel. Because of his death from a small wound in the heel, the term Achilles' heel has come to mean a person's point of weakness.

Tiresias

was a blind prophet of Apollo in Thebes, famous for clairvoyance and for being transformed into a woman for seven years

harpies

was a female monster in the form of a bird with a human face

Odysseus

was a legendary Greek king of Ithaca and the hero of Homer's epic poem the Odyssey

St. George

was a soldier in the Roman army who later became venerated as a Christian martyr

Lady Godiva

was an 11th-century Anglo-Saxon noblewoman who, according to a legend dating back at least to the 13th century, rode naked - only covered in her long hair - through the streets of Coventry in order to gain a remission of the oppressive taxation imposed by her husband on his tenants. The name "Peeping Tom" for a voyeur originates from later versions of this legend in which a man named Tom had watched her ride and was struck blind or dead

Sir Lancelot

was one of the Knights of the Round Table in the Arthurian legend. He typically features as King Arthur's greatest champion, the lord of Joyous Gard and the greatest swordsman and jouster of the age — until his adultery with Queen Guinevere is discovered, causing a civil war exploited by Mordred which brings about the end of Arthur's kingdom

Titans

were members of the second order of divine beings, descending from the primordial deities and preceding the Olympian deities. Titans were overthrown by Cronus' children (Zeus, Hades, Poseidon, Hestia, Hera and Demeter) , in the Titanomachy (or "War of the Titans")

Pegasus

winged divine stallion usually depicted as pure white in color

sirens

women or winged creatures whose singing lured unwary sailors onto rocks.


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