myths 14th entry

The water Deities

This story, more than a myth is a description of the family of the rulers of the seas. How strange it is that Achilles, the hero of the battle of Troy, was related to Neptune, the chief of the water deities and the ruler of the seas. I imagine that whole family, Neptune, Triton, Amphitrite and all of them as Triton was shown in the Little Mermaid so that is why it is so hard for me to assimilate Achilles with a guy who’s half-fish and half-god.

Another thing that I can relate from real life to this story is Neptune’s trident. “The symbol of his power was the trident, or spear with three points, with which he used to shatter rocks” In Christianity, the Devil has been represented with a trident too. This makes me think that Neptune may’ve been evil in some point or maybe the devil has a trident because it symbolizes power.

I’d say that the Greeks and the Romans made us what we are today and that things would’ve been much more different if those cultures wouldn’t succeeded. They were highly influential in every aspect of our lives and they are found in our daily activities. For example, Nike, the most recognized sports merchandise brand was named after a goddess.


The Camenae

I read this short fragment and it briefly talks about Egeria, a fountain nymph and her relationship with Numa, the second king of Rome. She supposedly helped Numa in the building of the rising empire and he was filled with wisdom and lessons. I don’t even know why were these two characters referred in this book because after all, the roman king, wasn’t even in the vocabulary of Microsoft word and Egeria, she didn’t do something of great importance. “After the death of Numa the nymph pined away and was changed into a fountain”. (Pg 141) You could deduce from this sentence that these two were having an affair rather than a relationship in which the share wisdom because from what I know, if I happen to die, teachers will not accompany me in the other side.


The winds

I have to say that today I picked the worse stories because they don’t have much of a plot. These stories are plain descriptions of families, loves and affairs. Actually, this specific story was the one I disliked the most. It talked about the different names that the different winds had. They were personified and even had affairs and fights with other people at the time. I discovered that the best stories are the largest ones, because although they take more time to be read, they develop a stronger story with fully described characters from which you can find interesting thoughts and etc. My conclusion after reading this is related with a saying in Spanish that says, “El peresoso trabaja doble”. This means that lazy people have to do much more work and its funny if you think about these phrase a lot, because there are lots of situations around the day that recall to this phrase.