Classical Mythology Unit Mr. Ayres

ILT  Classical Mythology  

Unit Objectives:  The students will gain confidence and skills in process writing;  learn more about the myths of Daphne and Apollo, Prometheus, Icarus, and Orpheus and Euridice;  and, improve word processing skills through typing, revising and incorporating images on typed pages.

Directions:

Write a story of about 400 – 500 words in Word.  Having selected one of the following myths, add your own writing to the Wikipedia- provided plot elements to create a story (myth).  You should add researched material AND add your own words and imaginative ideas as much as possible. Remember, myths were created from people's imaginations; for this creative assignment it's fine to add some of your own ideas!  Add 2 images to your text; quest.eb.com has good ones, with captions.  Wrap text around the images. Save your Word document to your ILT folder as "Greek myth."  You may take 3 class periods to work on this.

Daphne and Apollo

• The petulant Eros took two arrows, one of gold and one of lead. The gold one was supposed to incite love, while the lead one was supposed to incite hatred. With the leaden shaft, Eros shot the nymph Daphne and with the golden one, he shot Apollo through the heart.
• She begged her father to let her remain unmarried, like Apollo's twin sister, Artemis.

·        Apollo continually followed her, begging her to stay, but the nymph continued her flight. They were evenly matched in the race until Eros intervened and helped Apollo gain upon Daphne.

·        Suddenly, her skin turned into bark, her hair became leaves, and her arms were transformed into branches.

• Apollo promised that her leaves would decorate the heads of leaders as crowns.

Prometheus
·       He was a son of the Titan, Iapetus by Clymene, one of the Oceanids. He was brother to Menoetius, Atlas, and Epimetheus. In the trick at Mecone, a sacrificial meal marking the "settling of accounts" between mortals and immortals, Prometheus played a trick against Zeus.

• …henceforth, humans would keep the meat for themselves and burn the bones wrapped in fat as an offering to the gods.
• This angered Zeus, who hid fire from humans in retribution. Prometheus in turn stole fire in a giant fennel-stalk and gave it back to mankind.
• This further enraged Zeus, who sent Pandora, the first woman, to live with men.  "From her is the race of women and female kind," Hesiod writes.
• Prometheus, in eternal punishment, is chained to a rock in the Caucasus, where his liver is eaten daily by an eagle.

Icarus

·        Icarus's father, Daedalus, a talented and remarkable Athenian craftsman, attempted to escape from his exile in the palace of Knossos, Crete, where he and his son were imprisoned at the hands of King Minos, the king for whom he had built the Labyrinth to imprison the Minotaur (half man, half bull).

·        Daedalus fashioned two pairs of wings out of wax and feathers for himself and his son…

·        … and warns his son not to fly too close to the sun.

·        Icarus came too close to the sun, which melted the wax.

·        And so, Icarus fell into the sea in the area which bears his name, the Icarian Sea near Icaria, an island southwest of Samos.

Orpheus and Eurydice

·       Orpheus was a legendary musician, poet, and prophet in ancient Greek religion and myth. The major stories about him are centered on his ability to charm all living things and even stones with his music; his attempt to retrieve his wife, Eurydice, from the underworld; and his death at the hands of those who could not hear his divine music.

·       While walking among her people, the Cicones, in tall grass at her wedding, Eurydice was set upon by a satyr. In her efforts to escape the satyr, Eurydice fell into a nest of vipers and she suffered a fatal bite on her heel.

• Orpheus travelled to the underworld and by his music softened the hearts of Hades and Persephone (he was the only person ever to do so), who agreed to allow Eurydice to return with him to earth on one condition: he should walk in front of her and not look back until they both had reached the upper world.
• she vanished for the second time, but now forever.
• Orpheus at the end of his life disdained the worship of all gods save the sun, whom he called by the name of his former lover Apollo. One early morning he went to the oracle of Dionysus at Mount Pangaion to salute his god at dawn, but was ripped to pieces by Thracian Maenads.