Mythology

The word myth is often mistakenly understood to mean fiction something that never happened, a made-up story or fanciful tale. Myth is really a way of thinking about the past. Myths tell only of that which really happened. This does not mean that myths correctly explain what literally happened. It does suggest, however, that behind the explanation there is a reality that cannot be seen and examined.

Mythology is a body or collection of myths belonging to a group of people and addressing their origin, history, deities, ancestors, and heroes. To the Greeks, mythology was extremely important. These stories answered every question of why something was the way that it was in their civilization. They also showed that the gods were powerful and the people looked up to them as well as interacted with them. They passed these stories on from one generation to the next. The stories were very exciting and created with much imagination. The stories show mankind and their struggles with themselves and with the gods. Greek mythology is still present all around the world especially in the United States.

The legends of ancient Greece are more familiar because they have become so permanently embedded in literary traditions o

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We also get many of our words from the Greeks. We get psychology from Psyche and we get Valentine’s Day from cupid and his motives. This story showed that gods and goddesses were usually more beautiful than humans, but Psyche was an exception. Often many of these stories go along with Disney movies. Their stories may not seem very believable, but they were satisfied with having them as their explanation to what was going on and what had happened. Zeus made her pregnant and so she had a son. After he retrieved the head he returned to his father to be and turned him into stone and yet again it was just Perseus, his mother and Dictys, who saved them and had been like a father to him. More than likely other things that we use today come from this story, but I could not think of them. This was just the way he wanted it. I think that something we also have today from this story is the fact that Perseus used the winged shoes that came from the god Nike. They did not like when a human had any quality equal or greater than their own, in this case it was beauty. Cupid did not approve of his mother’s madness and so he went forth to Jupiter (the father of gods and men). People stopped visiting her temples because she was no longer the most attractive.

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