Greek Mythology

The new birth of the world with the awakening of Greece.

Mankind became the center of the universe.

Greeks realized what exactly mankind was.

Gods took human form.

Greeks depicted them as wise and beautiful humans

Greeks were more comfortable with human figures; it made them less unknown, less fearful.

Demeter and Dionysus

Different from other gods because they dwelt on earth and were gods of earth and bother were touched by everlasting grief

Dionysus' mother died and he died every winter,

Demeter loses her daughter every winter

Demeter's cruelty

Famines and droughts

cast a boy on the ground and made a town build a temple for her because a mother angered her

Dionysus' cruelty

Pirates captured him, so he turned them into dolphins but left one human to tell the rest of the world.

When Lycurgus opposed him, he left him in a cave.

Made men mad drunk, which turned them into monsters

Turned on Pentheus when he threatened/insulted/refused to worship him, then destroyed him.

Cupid and Psyche

Psyche was a beautiful daughter of a king. Her beauty became famous and people started neglecting Venus' temples.

Venus told her son to make Psyche fall in love with the most vile creature on Earth.

When Cupid saw Psyche, he fell in love with her. Instead of making her fall in love, he made it s she wouldn't fall in love at all.

Psyche's two sisters were married, making it seem as if Psyche was unwanted.

Psyche's father prayed to Apollo to ask how to get her a husband.

Apollo stated that they must leave her on a rocky hill in mourning cloths, where a winged serpent would take her as his wife.

Psyche went to the hill and waited.

Zephyr floated her into a grassy meadow, where she slept.

when she awoke, she was next to a river and a beautiful mansion. Voices told her to enter and not be afraid; they were her servants. She bathed and ate, but had no company, other than the voices.

During the night, Cupid came to see her. Although she couldn't see him, he was sure he wasn't an evil monster.

One night when Cupid came he warned her that her two sisters were coming to mourn for her, but that she must no go to them. She persuaded him to let her see them, but only if she would not let them trick her into doing something.

The two came to the castle and were filled with jealousy. Psyche lied about Cupid's absence , saying that he was out hunting. They became so jealous that they started plotting her ruin.

When they came back the next day, her faltering descriptions when asked of Cupid's appearance gave her away. They told her to kill him, because he had to be a fearful monster. Psyche decided she would look at him.

That night, when she looked at him while he was sleeping, some hot oil dripped onto him and woke him. He fled the castle and said love could not be where there is no faith.

Psyche decided she would devote the rest of her life to finding him.

Cupid went to Venus to get his wound treated, but when she learned of Psyche, she left in rage to find her.

Psyche had been trying to win over gods so she wouldn't have to fight Venus alone, but none did. She instead went to Venus and asked to be her servant.

Venus put Psyche through hard tasks in order to minimize her beauty.

The tasks:

1. Venus gave Psyche a large pile of seeds and told her to separate them be nightfall. Ants came and organized them for her.

2. Venus ordered Psyche to get some golden fleece of the violent sheep who loved by the riverbank. Just as she was about to give up, a reed to go into the bushes after the sheep left, and there would be golden fleece stuck in the branches.

3. Psyche then had to fill a flask with water from the Styx. An eagle took the flask and filled it for her.

4. Venus gave Psyche a box which she was to take to the underworld and ask Persephone to fill it with her beauty. A tower directed Psyche how to get to Persephone safely to the underworld through a hole in the earth, the river of death, and Cerberus. Persephone put her beauty in the box and Psyche went back to the world of the living.

Curious, Psyche opened the box. At this, she fell into a heavy sleep. Cupid then found her and wiped the sleep from her eyes and waking her with a prick of his arrow. He then told her to take the box back to his mother.

Cupid went to Jupiter, wanting Venus to make no more trouble for him. In a great assembly, Jupiter announced they were married, and Psyche was to be made immortal.

Venus couldn't object to having a divine daughter in law, and all was well.

8 short love stories in mythology

Pyramus and Thisbe

"Once upon a time the deep red berries of the mulberry trees were white as snow. The change in color came about strangely and sadly. The death of two young lovers was the cause"

Pyramus and Thisbe were both super beautiful and grew up side by side in Babylon. They wanted to get married, but their parents wouldn't let them.

One day, as they talked through a chink in the wall separating the houses, They decided they would