# Mythology  ## Metadata - Author:: [[Edith Hamilton]] - Full Title:: Mythology - Category: #books ## Highlights > The first cornfield was the beginning of settled life on earth. ([Location 664](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00852YXU8&location=664)) > They could best understand her, too, who was worshiped, not like other gods by the bloody sacrifices men liked, but in every humble act that made the farm fruitful. Through her the field of grain was hallowed. “Demeter’s holy grain.” The threshing-floor, too, was under her protection. ([Location 667](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00852YXU8&location=667)) - Tags: [[favorite]] > “At the sacred threshing-floor, when they are winnowing, she herself, Demeter of the corn-ripe yellow hair, divides the grain and the chaff in the rush of the wind, and the heap of chaff grows white.” “May it be mine,” the reaper prays, “beside Demeter’s altar to dig the great winnowing fan through her heaps of corn, while she stands smiling by with sheaves and poppies in her hand.” ([Location 670](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00852YXU8&location=670)) > The great temple was at Eleusis, a little town near Athens, and the worship was called the Eleusinian Mysteries. ([Location 680](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00852YXU8&location=680)) > Cicero, writing in the century before Christ, says: “Nothing is higher than these mysteries. They have sweetened our characters and softened our customs; they have made us pass from the condition of savages to true humanity. They have not only shown us the way to live joyfully, but they have taught us how to die with a better hope.” ([Location 681](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00852YXU8&location=681)) - Tags: [[favorite]] > Each knew pain as well as joy. In that way, too, they were closely linked together; they were both suffering gods. ([Location 693](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00852YXU8&location=693)) - Note: Demeter & bacchus the suffering gods > Then a still greater grief entered Demeter’s heart. She left Olympus; she dwelt on earth, but so disguised that none knew her, and, indeed, the gods are not easily discerned by mortal men. ([Location 714](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00852YXU8&location=714)) > barley-water flavored with mint, the cooling draught of the reaper at harvest time and also the sacred cup given the worshipers at Eleusis. ([Location 724](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00852YXU8&location=724)) - Tags: [[favorite]] > Demeter anointed him with ambrosia and at night she would place him in the red heart of the fire. Her purpose was to give him immortal youth. ([Location 727](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00852YXU8&location=727)) - Note: Thetis & Achilles. Thetis didn’t dip her first six children in ambrosia, so they burned. > That year was most dreadful and cruel for mankind over all the earth. Nothing grew; no seed sprang up; in vain the oxen drew the plowshare through the furrows. It seemed the whole race of men would die of famine. ([Location 738](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00852YXU8&location=738)) > She taught him and Celeus and the others her sacred rites, “mysteries which no one may utter, for deep awe checks the tongue. Blessed is he who has seen them; his lot will be good in the world to come.” ([Location 762](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00852YXU8&location=762)) > Queen of fragrant Eleusis, Giver of earth’s good gifts, Give me your grace, O Demeter. You, too, Persephone, fairest, Maiden all lovely, I offer Song for your favor. ([Location 765](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00852YXU8&location=765)) - Tags: [[favorite]] - Note: Homeric hymns > After the lord of the dark world below carried her away she was never again the gay young creature who had played in the flowery meadow without a thought of care or trouble. She did indeed rise from the dead every spring, but she brought with her the memory of where she had come from; with all her bright beauty there was something strange and awesome about her. She was often said to be “the maiden whose name may not be spoken.” ([Location 775](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00852YXU8&location=775)) > The Olympians were “the happy gods,” “the deathless gods,” far removed from suffering mortals destined to die. But in their grief and at the hour of death, men could turn for compassion to the goddess who sorrowed and the goddess who died. ([Location 778](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00852YXU8&location=778)) > But Zeus snatched from her her child that was near birth, and hid it in his own side away from Hera until the time had come for it to be born. ([Location 793](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00852YXU8&location=793)) > So the God of the Vine was born of fire and nursed by rain, the hard burning heat that ripens the grapes and the water that keeps the plant alive. ([Location 796](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00852YXU8&location=796)) > The gods of Olympus loved order and beauty in their sacrifices and their temples. The madwomen, the Maenads, had no temples. They went to the wilderness to worship, to the wildest mountains, the deepest forests, as if they kept to the customs of an ancient time before men had thought of building houses for their gods. ([Location 836](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00852YXU8&location=836)) > Dionysus gave them food and drink: herbs and ([Location 838](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00852YXU8&location=838)) > The worship of Dionysus was centered in these two ideas so far apart—of freedom and ecstatic joy and of savage brutality. The God of Wine could give either to his worshipers. Throughout the story of his life he is sometimes man’s blessing, sometimes his ruin. ([Location 842](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00852YXU8&location=842)) - Tags: [[favorite]] > Wine is bad as well as good. It cheers and warms men’s hearts; it also makes them drunk. The Greeks were a people who saw facts very clearly. They could not shut their eyes to the ugly and degrading side of wine-drinking and see only the delightful side. ([Location 895](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00852YXU8&location=895)) > The reason that Dionysus was so different at one time from another was because of this double nature of wine and so of the god of wine. He was man’s benefactor and he was man’s destroyer. ([Location 904](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00852YXU8&location=904)) > All this happy freedom and confidence passed away, of course, as they either grew sober or got drunk, but while it lasted it was like being possessed by a power greater than themselves. So people felt about Dionysus as about no other god. ([Location 909](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00852YXU8&location=909)) - Tags: [[favorite]] > He was not only outside of them, he was within them, too. They could be transformed by him into being like him. The momentary sense of exultant power wine-drinking can give was only a sign to show men that they had within them more than they knew; “they could themselves become divine.” ([Location 911](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00852YXU8&location=911)) > The Eleusinian Mysteries, which were always chiefly Demeter’s, had indeed great importance. ([Location 916](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00852YXU8&location=916)) > He, like Demeter, was afflicted, not because of grief for another, as she was, but because of his own pain. ([Location 931](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00852YXU8&location=931)) > Like Persephone Dionysus died with the coming of the cold. Unlike her, his death was terrible: he was torn to pieces, in some stories by the Titans, in others by Hera’s orders. ([Location 933](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00852YXU8&location=933)) > He was the tragic god. There was none other. ([Location 936](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00852YXU8&location=936)) > His worshipers believed that his death and resurrection showed that the soul lives on forever after the body dies. ([Location 937](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00852YXU8&location=937)) > Around the year 80 A.D., a great Greek writer, Plutarch, received news, when he was far from home, that a little daughter of his had died—a child of most gentle nature, he says. In his letter to his wife he writes: “About that which you have heard, dear heart, that the soul once departed from the body vanishes and feels nothing, I know that you give no belief to such assertions because of those sacred and faithful promises given in the mysteries of Bacchus which we who are of that religious brotherhood know. We hold it firmly for an undoubted truth that our soul is incorruptible and immortal. We are to think (of the dead) that they pass into a better place and a happier condition. Let us behave ourselves accordingly, outwardly ordering our lives, while within all should be purer, wiser, incorruptible.” ([Location 943](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00852YXU8&location=943)) - Tags: [[favorite]] > SISYPHUS was King of Corinth. One day he chanced to see a mighty eagle, greater and more splendid than any mortal bird, bearing a maiden to an island not far away. When the river-god Asopus came to him to tell him that his daughter Aegina had been carried off, he strongly suspected by Zeus, and to ask his help in finding her, Sisyphus told him what he had seen. Thereby he drew down on himself the relentless wrath of Zeus. In Hades he was punished by having to try forever to roll a rock uphill which forever rolled back upon him. Nor did he help Asopus. The river-god went to the island but Zeus drove him away with his thunderbolt. The name of the island was changed to Aegina in honor of the maiden, and her son Aeacus was the grandfather of Achilles, who was called sometimes Aeacides, descendant of Aeacus. ([Location 5113](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00852YXU8&location=5113)) # Mythology  ## Metadata - Author:: [[Edith Hamilton]] - Full Title:: Mythology - Category: #books ## Highlights > The first cornfield was the beginning of settled life on earth. ([Location 664](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00852YXU8&location=664)) > They could best understand her, too, who was worshiped, not like other gods by the bloody sacrifices men liked, but in every humble act that made the farm fruitful. Through her the field of grain was hallowed. “Demeter’s holy grain.” The threshing-floor, too, was under her protection. ([Location 667](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00852YXU8&location=667)) - Tags: [[favorite]] > “At the sacred threshing-floor, when they are winnowing, she herself, Demeter of the corn-ripe yellow hair, divides the grain and the chaff in the rush of the wind, and the heap of chaff grows white.” “May it be mine,” the reaper prays, “beside Demeter’s altar to dig the great winnowing fan through her heaps of corn, while she stands smiling by with sheaves and poppies in her hand.” ([Location 670](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00852YXU8&location=670)) > The great temple was at Eleusis, a little town near Athens, and the worship was called the Eleusinian Mysteries. ([Location 680](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00852YXU8&location=680)) > Cicero, writing in the century before Christ, says: “Nothing is higher than these mysteries. They have sweetened our characters and softened our customs; they have made us pass from the condition of savages to true humanity. They have not only shown us the way to live joyfully, but they have taught us how to die with a better hope.” ([Location 681](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00852YXU8&location=681)) - Tags: [[favorite]] > Each knew pain as well as joy. In that way, too, they were closely linked together; they were both suffering gods. ([Location 693](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00852YXU8&location=693)) - Note: Demeter & bacchus the suffering gods > Then a still greater grief entered Demeter’s heart. She left Olympus; she dwelt on earth, but so disguised that none knew her, and, indeed, the gods are not easily discerned by mortal men. ([Location 714](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00852YXU8&location=714)) > barley-water flavored with mint, the cooling draught of the reaper at harvest time and also the sacred cup given the worshipers at Eleusis. ([Location 724](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00852YXU8&location=724)) - Tags: [[favorite]] > Demeter anointed him with ambrosia and at night she would place him in the red heart of the fire. Her purpose was to give him immortal youth. ([Location 727](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00852YXU8&location=727)) - Note: Thetis & Achilles. Thetis didn’t dip her first six children in ambrosia, so they burned. > That year was most dreadful and cruel for mankind over all the earth. Nothing grew; no seed sprang up; in vain the oxen drew the plowshare through the furrows. It seemed the whole race of men would die of famine. ([Location 738](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00852YXU8&location=738)) > She taught him and Celeus and the others her sacred rites, “mysteries which no one may utter, for deep awe checks the tongue. Blessed is he who has seen them; his lot will be good in the world to come.” ([Location 762](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00852YXU8&location=762)) > Queen of fragrant Eleusis, Giver of earth’s good gifts, Give me your grace, O Demeter. You, too, Persephone, fairest, Maiden all lovely, I offer Song for your favor. ([Location 765](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00852YXU8&location=765)) - Tags: [[favorite]] - Note: Homeric hymns > After the lord of the dark world below carried her away she was never again the gay young creature who had played in the flowery meadow without a thought of care or trouble. She did indeed rise from the dead every spring, but she brought with her the memory of where she had come from; with all her bright beauty there was something strange and awesome about her. She was often said to be “the maiden whose name may not be spoken.” ([Location 775](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00852YXU8&location=775)) > The Olympians were “the happy gods,” “the deathless gods,” far removed from suffering mortals destined to die. But in their grief and at the hour of death, men could turn for compassion to the goddess who sorrowed and the goddess who died. ([Location 778](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00852YXU8&location=778)) > But Zeus snatched from her her child that was near birth, and hid it in his own side away from Hera until the time had come for it to be born. ([Location 793](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00852YXU8&location=793)) > So the God of the Vine was born of fire and nursed by rain, the hard burning heat that ripens the grapes and the water that keeps the plant alive. ([Location 796](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00852YXU8&location=796)) > The gods of Olympus loved order and beauty in their sacrifices and their temples. The madwomen, the Maenads, had no temples. They went to the wilderness to worship, to the wildest mountains, the deepest forests, as if they kept to the customs of an ancient time before men had thought of building houses for their gods. ([Location 836](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00852YXU8&location=836)) > Dionysus gave them food and drink: herbs and ([Location 838](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00852YXU8&location=838)) > The worship of Dionysus was centered in these two ideas so far apart—of freedom and ecstatic joy and of savage brutality. The God of Wine could give either to his worshipers. Throughout the story of his life he is sometimes man’s blessing, sometimes his ruin. ([Location 842](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00852YXU8&location=842)) - Tags: [[favorite]] > Wine is bad as well as good. It cheers and warms men’s hearts; it also makes them drunk. The Greeks were a people who saw facts very clearly. They could not shut their eyes to the ugly and degrading side of wine-drinking and see only the delightful side. ([Location 895](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00852YXU8&location=895)) > The reason that Dionysus was so different at one time from another was because of this double nature of wine and so of the god of wine. He was man’s benefactor and he was man’s destroyer. ([Location 904](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00852YXU8&location=904)) > All this happy freedom and confidence passed away, of course, as they either grew sober or got drunk, but while it lasted it was like being possessed by a power greater than themselves. So people felt about Dionysus as about no other god. ([Location 909](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00852YXU8&location=909)) - Tags: [[favorite]] > He was not only outside of them, he was within them, too. They could be transformed by him into being like him. The momentary sense of exultant power wine-drinking can give was only a sign to show men that they had within them more than they knew; “they could themselves become divine.” ([Location 911](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00852YXU8&location=911)) > The Eleusinian Mysteries, which were always chiefly Demeter’s, had indeed great importance. ([Location 916](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00852YXU8&location=916)) > He, like Demeter, was afflicted, not because of grief for another, as she was, but because of his own pain. ([Location 931](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00852YXU8&location=931)) > Like Persephone Dionysus died with the coming of the cold. Unlike her, his death was terrible: he was torn to pieces, in some stories by the Titans, in others by Hera’s orders. ([Location 933](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00852YXU8&location=933)) > He was the tragic god. There was none other. ([Location 936](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00852YXU8&location=936)) > His worshipers believed that his death and resurrection showed that the soul lives on forever after the body dies. ([Location 937](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00852YXU8&location=937)) > Around the year 80 A.D., a great Greek writer, Plutarch, received news, when he was far from home, that a little daughter of his had died—a child of most gentle nature, he says. In his letter to his wife he writes: “About that which you have heard, dear heart, that the soul once departed from the body vanishes and feels nothing, I know that you give no belief to such assertions because of those sacred and faithful promises given in the mysteries of Bacchus which we who are of that religious brotherhood know. We hold it firmly for an undoubted truth that our soul is incorruptible and immortal. We are to think (of the dead) that they pass into a better place and a happier condition. Let us behave ourselves accordingly, outwardly ordering our lives, while within all should be purer, wiser, incorruptible.” ([Location 943](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00852YXU8&location=943)) - Tags: [[favorite]] > SISYPHUS was King of Corinth. One day he chanced to see a mighty eagle, greater and more splendid than any mortal bird, bearing a maiden to an island not far away. When the river-god Asopus came to him to tell him that his daughter Aegina had been carried off, he strongly suspected by Zeus, and to ask his help in finding her, Sisyphus told him what he had seen. Thereby he drew down on himself the relentless wrath of Zeus. In Hades he was punished by having to try forever to roll a rock uphill which forever rolled back upon him. Nor did he help Asopus. The river-god went to the island but Zeus drove him away with his thunderbolt. The name of the island was changed to Aegina in honor of the maiden, and her son Aeacus was the grandfather of Achilles, who was called sometimes Aeacides, descendant of Aeacus. ([Location 5113](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00852YXU8&location=5113))