13: Death Flashcards
The afterlife, villains, heroes, orphism, vergil's underworld
what happens to orpheus, why
his head is severed and put on a lyre by the followers of dionysus (bachhus), they tear him apart because they wanted him and he refused them.
what is orpheus
a musician argonaut
why does orpheus go to the underworld
to retrieve eurydice
what is he told not to do when he is retrieving eurydice but does it anyway. what happens?
he is told not to look back, but he does and she disappears
what question does the myth of orpheus and eurydice pose?
what happens after death
what was the body vs soul considered as
body recognized as moral bits, soul was connected to idea of airiness, recognized that breathing keeps you alive).
why was it important to manage the dead
to keep a good relationship between living and dead
what did sisyphus do? what was his punishment in the underworld?
He tried to cheat death and come back for a second life. He is punished by having to endlessly push a boulder up a hill. When he gets to the top it rolls down and he must start again.
how was tantalus punished in the underworld? what word comes from this
he is put under an apple that is just out of reach, and a pool of water below him just out of reach. Everytime he tries to lean down and get water the water sinks into the ground. He can never satisfy thirst and hunger. Word: tantalizing.
what does tantalus do to get punished
He chops up his son pelops and serves it to the gods
who is the only goddess that eats pelops, what happens to pelops in the end
demeter bc she is so overcome with grief at loss of persephone, they bring pelops back to life but bc his shoulder was eaten they fashion him one out of ivory.
what did ixion do to get punished what results from it
he tried to rape hera, but not really hera,she in the form of a cloud and can’t do anything. Ixion ejaculates on her goes through her and it becomes the sea. From this sea comes Centaurus whose children are centaurs.
what was Ixion’s punishment
he is fixed to a firey wheel that spins.
what do the danaids- the 50 daughters of Danaus do?
They are pursued by the 50 sons of igyptus (their cousins). They have a big mass wedding, and on the wedding night the daughters murder their husbands. except one daughter who spares her husband icapus because he respects her wish to remain virgin.
how are the 49 daughters punished in the underworld
they have to fetch water from a well but their buckets have holes and would keep leaking and they can never succeed in the task. This is a punishment like chores for the living.
how were the underworld punishments like those for the living
the living would’ve related and not wanted it to happen to them.
what is elysium imagined to be, whats an alternative name for it
It’s imagined to be the ends of the earth. alternative name: “the isles of the blessed”
In orphism what is believed about how the universe came to be? how humans came to be?
attributed to orpheus, a weird cosmogony (different from Hesiod’s). A cosmic egg cracks and the universe comes from this. There is consumption of a phallus. Zeus ends up in charge. Persephone and zeus have child:** Dionysus Zagreus (different dionysus, this is orphic one)**. The titans dismember and cook Zagreus making zeus mad so he kills the titans with his thunder bolt. Humanity is created from the ashes of the titans and bits of Zagreus.
What does pythagoras believe happens after you die
That your** soul is alive, immortal, can be put into a new body**, and live a new life.
what does plato believe after you die, describe the myth of Er.
The myth of Er describes his own funeral. After you’re dead if you’re wicked you get a bad vessel and if you’re good you get a good vessel. Reward or punishment for someone’s life. He also believes the soul is alive.
what do the ghosts of patroclus and elepnor ask for in dreams
Burial
with no threat or power though
what is odysseus in the odyssey
a necromancer (summons spirits from the underworld).
what is unique about tiresias? how did this happen?
He’s experienced both genders. Tiresias is in the woods and comes across two snakes copulating so he smacked them to separate them and in that moment he became a woman. Later he comes across them again smacks them and transforms back to man.
what do Hera and zeus ask tiresias when arguing, what’s his answer
if women or men enjoy sex more. he takes zeus’ side that women do
