86 pages • 2 hours read
Edith HamiltonMythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1942A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Part 5Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 5: “The Great Families of Mythology”
Chapter 1 Summary: “The House of Atreus”
Hamilton calls the House of Atreus “one of the most famous families in mythology” for its connection to Trojan war figures (333). A curse hung over the house that could be traced back to the Lydian king Tantalus, a beloved son of Zeus. For unknown reasons, he boiled his son Pelops and served him to the gods, but they recognized what he had done, recoiled from the meal, and punished Tantalus severely. Placed in a pool of water below a grove of fruit trees, he was never able to quench his thirst or satisfy his hunger. The gods restored Pelops, and he had a happy life and marriage to Hippodamia.
Pelops’s sister Niobe also had a happy marriage that produced seven daughters and seven sons, but she challenged the people of Thebes to worship her instead of Leto, since she only had two children, Artemis and Apollo, while Niobe had 14. In retaliation, Apollo and Artemis struck down all of her children. Pelops’s two sons were Atreus and Thyestes. The latter stole his brother’s wife, and Atreus punished his brother by serving his own children to him at a banquet. Atreus did not pay for his crime; rather, his children and grandchildren did.
While Agamemnon was at Troy, his wife Clytemnestra had taken Aegisthus as a lover. She welcomed him when he returned but all the time was plotting his murder in retribution for his having sacrificed their daughter Iphigenia. Their two surviving children, Orestes and Electra, were separated: Electra remaining at home, Orestes being sent away. Eventually, he returned to avenge his father by killing his mother, though he knew that doing so would cause the Furies to pursue him. Apollo’s oracle affirmed that Orestes should kill his mother, and the Furies subsequently hounded him. After many years of wandering, Orestes went to Athens with Apollo and asked Athena to purify him. She accepted his request, and after a trial, Orestes was acquitted. Athena mollified the Furies, transforming them into the Eumenides, meaning the kindly ones. The curse on the House of Atreus thus ended.
The final story Hamilton relays concerns the aftermath of Iphigenia’s sacrifice: It did not end with her death. Rather, Artemis whisked her away to Tauris to be a priestess in her temple, leaving a slain deer in her place. There, Iphigenia was in charge of preparing human sacrificial victims. Years later, Orestes arrived with his friend. The siblings eventually recognized each other and escaped together, helped by Athena, who announced to anyone attempting to stop them that the group was under her divine protection
Chapter 2 Summary: “The Royal House of Thebes”
Cadmus came to Greece while searching for his sister Europa, but Apollo’s oracle advised him to found his own city, which he did in Thebes. He and his wife Harmonia, a daughter of Ares and Aphrodite, lived happily and prosperously, but their son and four daughters did not enjoy the gods’ favor. Zeus destroyed Semele via a trick by Hera. Ion’s husband killed their son, and she dove into the sea with his body, though she was changed into a sea-goddess and her son a sea-god. Agave tore apart her own son through the work of Dionysus, and Artemis turned Autonoe’s son Actaeon, into a deer that was torn apart by his own dogs after he accidentally saw the goddess naked.
Apollo’s oracle warned Theban king Laius, a great-grandson of Cadmus, and his wife Jocasta that Laius would be killed by his own son. When the child was born, they exposed him in the mountains to die. Years later, Laius was killed by robbers, and it appeared the prophecy had been averted. At the time, Thebes was in the grip of the Sphinx, who demanded men answer a riddle, killing those who gave the wrong answer. Oedipus, who had exiled himself from his home in Corinth after hearing a prophecy that he would kill his father and marry his mother, arrived in Thebes and answered the Sphinx’s riddle correctly. She killed herself, and the city was finally free. Oedipus married Laius’s widow Jocasta, and all seemed well until a plague broke out. The prophet Tiresias was summoned, and the truth was revealed: Oedipus was the baby who was meant to be exposed but was rescued by a shepherd and raised by Polybus, the king of Corinth. In horror, Jocasta killed herself, and Oedipus blinded himself.
Having resigned the throne, Oedipus remained in Thebes for a time with his four children: sons Eteocles and Polyneices, and daughters Antigone and Ismene. Jocasta’s brother Creon served as regent. Eventually, the Thebans exiled Oedipus, who went to Athens with Antigone, after which his sons fought for the throne. Eteocles succeeded while Polyneices fled to Thebes. In Athens, king Theseus welcomed Oedipus, whose grave Apollo promised would be blessed by the gods. After his death, Polyneices marched on Thebes with six others, and the brothers killed each other. Creon decreed that Polyneices should not be buried, but Antigone defied this violation of a sacred duty to bury the dead, asserting that she adhered to a higher law, and was put to death.
Of the seven men who had marched against Thebes, only Adrastus survived. He appealed to Theseus to compel the Thebans to allow the other five to be buried. His mother Aethra convinced Theseus to support them, and he agreed, provided the citizens of Athens consented. The dead men’s mothers and sons appealed to the city of Athens, and they agreed to help them. A Theban herald arrived and debated with Theseus the merits of “mob” rule (Thebes’s view of Athens) and tyranny (Athens’s view of Thebes) (375). Theseus asserted that Athens would defend burial rites and defeated Thebes but insisted only that the dead be buried. Their mothers found peace, but their sons vowed to avenge their fathers and conquered Thebes 10 years later.
Chapter 3 Summary: “The Royal House of Athens”
Attica’s first king Cecrops was half human, half dragon. When Athena and Poseidon each offered the city a gift to become its patron deity, Cecrops arbitrated, choosing Athena’s olive tree over Poseidon’s well. Another version of the story holds that women voted at the time, but because the women outnumbered the men, and the women all voted for Athena, men took away their right to vote. In both cases, Athena became the city’s patron goddess. In other versions, Cecrops is characterized as the son of Erechtheus, king of Athens and great-grandfather of Theseus.
Erechtheus had two sisters, Procne and Philomela. Procne’s husband was Tereus, a son of Ares from Thrace. When their son Itys was five, Procne asked Tereus to invite her sister to Thrace, and he agreed to escort her from Athens himself. When he saw her, he fell in love and, during their journey, “forced her into a pretended marriage” (380). To prevent her from revealing the truth, he cut out her tongue, left her under guard, and told Procne that Philomela had died, but Philomela wove her story into a cloth and sent it to her sister as a gift. Returning to the palace with her sister, Procne killed her young son and served him to Tereus in a meal, then revealed what she had done. As he was about to kill the sister, the gods turned them into birds.
The sisters’ niece Procris was happily married to Cephalus. Aurora abducted him, but he would not succumb to her. She finally released him to return to his wife, and he became obsessed with finding out whether Procris had been as true to him as he had been to her. He returned in disguise and tried to seduce her, but she repeatedly rebuffed him. On one occasion, when she did not immediately reject him, he revealed himself and accused her of infidelity. She left him without a word, and shortly after he realized his wrong and went after her. They were reconciled until he accidentally killed her on a hunting trip.
The North Wind, Boreas, fell in love with Orithyia, a sister of Procris, and abducted her. She gave birth to his sons Zetes and Calais, who joined Jason on his quest for the Fleece. Procris and Orithyia’s sister Creusa had a sad fate. Apollo kidnapped her and forced a child on her, whom she abandoned. Eventually, her father married her to Xuthus, who was not Athenian and thus disdained. They were unable to have children, but when her son, called Ion, grew into adulthood, Apollo gave him as a gift to the couple. Through the garments Creusa left with Ion, mother and son recognized each other and were reconciled. Athena confirmed the truth and ordered Creusa to bring Ion back to Athens to rule her city.
Part 5 Analysis
In this section, Hamilton gathers together myths associated with a particular mythical figure or place. Her “family-tree” organizing influence here seems to follow from Apollodorus, who similarly created a compendium of mythological narratives. Stories associated with the Trojan war are collected under the House of Atreus, those associated with Thebes under the House of Cadmus, and those in relationship to Athens under the House of Athens. Hamilton’s sources for these myths are primarily Greek ones, though Roman Ovid’s renderings were also an influence. Athenian tragedians Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, each writing during different stages in the life of the city, are featured prominently.
Aeschylus’ tragic trilogy the Oresteia is a source to which Hamilton ascribes special importance. Athenian tragedies were presented in competition during religious festivals; tragedians staged three interconnected tragedies and a fourth tragicomic satyr play. The Oresteia—composed of Agamemnon, Libation Bearers, and the Eumenides—is the only trilogy to survive complete into the present, though the satyr play performed with it has not survived. The trilogy was staged in 458 BC when Athens was ascending into a dominant power in the Greek world, proud of and confident in its direct democracy. One way it has been interpreted is as a foundation myth for and celebration of the Athenian legal system, which Athena effectively introduces at the conclusion of the Eumenides.
In Homer, an important source for Hamilton, the House of Atreus is described as cursed. To examine the origins of this curse, Hamilton must look beyond both Homer and Aeschylus, hence the inclusion of details from Pindar, Ovid, and Apollodorus. As always for Hamilton, she pursues the chronological progression of narrative. Including Ovid’s version of Amphion and Niobe’s myth is necessary because his is the only ancient source that “tells [their story] in full” (333). In Greek oral culture, the interest is not in locating a “complete” or “true” version but the intersection of local/particular and universal. Thus, Pindar tells Tantalus’s tale as suits his intention to craft a victory ode for the winner of a festival game, as Aeschylus shapes the story of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra to speak to mid-fifth-century Athens at its height, and as Euripides’ Iphigenia Among the Taurians speaks to Athens at a time when the city was suffering. For Hamilton, having Athena appear in support of the fleeing heroes at the end of the tragedy signifies a “lapse on the part of one of the greatest poets the worlds has known” (350, italics in original). This is perhaps due to her aesthetic values clashing with the religious undercurrent of any tragedy that were performed to bring the city together to honor the gods.
For the House of Cadmus, Hamilton relies largely on the narratives of Sophocles’ Oedipus plays and Antigone, though the riddle of the Sphinx comes from other varied sources. Her source for the tale of Cadmus is Apollodorus, who she here values for his simple and clear narrative. Both Aeschylus and Euripides retell myths concerning the seven who marched against Thebes; Hamilton prefers Euripides’ version, recounted in his tragedy the Suppliants because it “shows his modern mind” and “reflects remarkably our own point of view” (373, italics in original). Her priority is not to account for why so many different versions circulated across time and place in antiquity but to craft a single narrative, preferably one that reflects “our own” modern perspective (373, italics in original).
The House of Athens creates a banner under which to collect a variety of myths from a range of sources that are all in some way associated with Athens. The myths of Procne and Philomela, Procris, and Orithyia all come from Ovid, who Hamilton believes “tells it better than anyone else” despite her objection to his apparent love of violent details, which the Greeks “were not given to” (377, italics in original). Characteristically, Hamilton does not explore beneath the surface of her observation of the sources’ different approaches.
Euripides is her source for the story of Creusa and Ion, which she believes reveals what he thought “the gods of the myths really were when judged by the ordinary human standards of mercy, honor, self-control” (378, italics in original). She believes Euripides is exposing the gods to scrutiny, adding, “The end of Greek mythology was at hand when such plays drew full houses in Athens” (378). These were not “plays” but sacred events that all Athenian citizens may have considered themselves obliged to attend. While they had separate laws to govern relationships among humans and laws between gods and humans, ancient Greek city-states were not secular institutions. The myth of Boreas and Procris is mentioned in Plato’s dialogue Phaedrus when Socrates and his student Phadrus stroll through the area in which the myth is set. Phaedrus asks his teacher if he “believe[s] the story” (386). Socrates replies that wise men doubt, so he would not be alone if he too doubted. Hamilton cites this as evidence that “[t]he old stories had begun by then to lose their hold on men’s minds” (386). However, this interpretation may be misunderstanding the function of Socrates, who in the dialogue is a creation of Plato. Though Plato could be said to be rethinking how to characterize superhuman forces, his philosophy rests on a belief in a divine realm with which the eternal part of the human—the soul—will ultimately be united. Socrates, in Plato, functions as a personification of philosophy, itself a superhuman “hero.”
