Greek/Roman Allusions
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.