Greek culture in the series of lectures on Western culture (Part II)

Next I will introduce a general structure of Greek mythology, the structure of mythical legends, the Greek tragedy, and the general characteristics of Greek mythology.

First, I would like to tell you about Greek mythology. The Greek mythology dates back to the earliest. It was written by heshse Odo, a fellow of his time with Homa. The book describes the origins of the gods. Later, in the age of the city-state, the word of God formed a family that the Greek believed in. Later Greek mythology were developed on the basis of the word of God. In my opinion, this genealogy contains two meanings: one meaning is that it represents how the Greek in the Age of ignorance understand the process of natural evolution and the origin of the universe. Their origins of nature are more manifested by the reproductive principles of God. It is a God that gives birth to the next God and breeds from generation to generation. Every God represents a natural phenomenon. Therefore, the process of opening up the earth, the process of God's reproduction, in the end, is the process of the origin and development of the entire natural world. The second meaning is the idea of fate, which will be explained later in the light of the Greek tragedy.

The earliest God described in the score of God is callos, which means chaos. (laughter) Any myth begins with chaos, including Christianity, god begins to create everything in the world. The difference is that Greek mythology does not even have God. It begins with chaos, so greek mythology is more in line with the natural evolution process. In chaos, the god of the Earth first came into being, Gaya, and a series of related gods. Gaya, herself, created hulanos, the God of heaven. Then Gaya and armanos combined to give birth to the twelve gods of the Titan clan. What does this reflect? Students, this reflects the process of natural evolution. The previous process is a bit like the split of the single-cell creature itself (Laugh). Then Gaya and her son hulanos combined to have children, it's a bit like the Unwedding status in the primitive society. The youngest of the Titan gods is Kloos. At the beginning of the combination of armanos and Gaya, armanos had a revelation of fate, saying that one of his children would replace him as the king of the gods. In order to prevent their power from being overwhelmed, armanos put all their children into hell, but his youngest son, Kloos, was spared by the Protection of Gaya. Sure enough, as soon as he grew up, Kronos became a more powerful new generation of God. He fought with his father and defeated and castrated his father (SMILE ). The students may ask, why do Greek mythology need to be castrated? Because Greek mythology follows the reproductive principle, having no reproductive ability means to completely exit the stage of history! (Laugh) As a result, Kronos replaced his father to become a new generation of God. It can be seen that Greek mythology reflects the evolution of nature and the natural laws that reveal the historical metabolism of mankind. In the Comparison between Chinese and western cultures, I will talk about the differences between Chinese and western cultures. In the Chinese mythology, it refers to the parent-child business, which is a continuation of continuity and affirmation. At the beginning, Greek mythology began to have a denial. The new generation of Gods had a denial of the old generation, so they showed a strong mechanism of continuous negation and social evolution. After being a new god, Kloos and his sister Loya gave birth to another kind of God-Olympus, which is mainly composed of two generations of gods. The first generation: herla, hestiya, tekhest, posidon, and Zeus. In the second generation, Zeus and other goddesses, including her own sisters, were born with the god of the sun, Apollo, the goddess of wisdom Athena, the god of the United States of America, and the God of poetry. The name of arvodi was later copied by Rome and renamed Venus, which we all know. All of our students who have some knowledge of Greek mythology are related to the Olympus gods. The dramatic effect is that when he joined his sister, he got a mysterious notice like his father, saying that one of his sons would replace him. In order to avoid the recurrence of the tragedy, Kloos adopted a more decisive method to give birth to the next swallowed up. When the youngest son, Zeus, was born, REIA spent the sky crossing the sea to protect its only son, give her husband the swarm of the rock to swallow it. Needless to say, Zeus naturally replaced coros as a new generation of God. Unlike his father, Zeus wisely changed his rule, instead of using violent rules, but more democratic. According to his review of his history, this is a sign that Western politics has moved from authoritarian to democratic. Even the Democratic Zeus could not get rid of the fate God's arrangements in the dark. He also had a revelation of fate, saying that one of his sons would replace him. From this we can see that, although there is no God in Greek mythology, there is a fate behind the gods that is invisible and never displayed. It is like a pair of invisible hands that arrange and manipulate the gods in the rain, the gods are powerless to face their own destiny and cannot fight. However, what is commendable is that Zeus did not take any authoritarian measures, but continued to live in harmony with his children on the Mount Olympus. Here, let's talk about one of the three steps of the tragedy by the famous Greek tragedy writer eskuros-the bound Prometheus. Prometheus is the God who steals fire from heaven to the earth. It is a God of high morality and a member of the Titan family. He used to help Zeus defeat Kloos, so he gained the favor of Zeus. However, in Greek, Prometheus was meant to be a prophet, that is, among the gods, only that he knew the past, the future, and who would replace Zeus. Zeus was eager to reveal the answer, but he never missed a word, and often ridiculed Zeus. In addition, Prometheus was always empty and spared no efforts to steal the fire of heaven for humans. The intolerable Zeus bound him to the mountain of the Caribbean, and allowed the hawks to eat his liver and suffer such punishment forever. In his "the bound Prometheus", escuus described it as follows: Zeus appointed his messenger and came to the mountain of the White Lake to negotiate with Prometheus, saying that as long as you say who will replace Zeus, zeus has forgiven you for this kind of pain. He said: the power of Skill cannot beat a certain number, and fate cannot be defended! However, in the third installment of the liberated Prometheus in escuusos, Prometheus tells Zeus that if you are connected to the goddess of the sea, the son will replace you. Therefore, Zeus was forced to marry tedis to the human hero Pan stream, avoiding this terrible marriage. Aklius, born of tedis and panstream, grew up to be a brave hero in heaven and earth, but since his father was a mortal, he would not threaten the regime of Zeus in any case.

Let's look back at the "God spectrum", which mainly reflects two contents. The first reflection of the Greek understanding of the natural evolution process: from chaos to the generation of heaven and earth, the generation of heaven and moon stars, rivers and mountains, and then in the next generation of Zeus god, we can see that some social phenomena have emerged, such as beauty, commerce, wisdom, and war. Therefore, this shows that ancient greek people use reproductive principles and Mythical thinking, it shows a natural evolution and the formation of the universe. Second, we say that in Greek mythology, a thing that does not appear is called fate. It determines everything, including the fate of God. Therefore, Greek mythology contains a very profound idea-Fate. The famous western philosopher Russell believes that the god with true religious significance in Greek mythology is fate, but those hot and lively and noisy gods do not have any religious significance. This indicates that the early religion was full of human feelings. It personalizes various phenomena of nature. Unlike the later advanced religion-Christianity, it abstracted the spiritual power of man, worship as the opposite of people. Feubaha once mentioned in his article that the religion of ancient Greece is a natural religion, while Christianity is a spiritual religion. Natural religion personalizes human power, while Christianity personalizes human power. Because the god of Christianity is created by man, it is the rational nature of the well-known, omnipotent, and all-good people in people's minds. People abstract the essence of this reason into a god and worship him. This is the biggest difference between natural and advanced religions. Looking at history, we will find that religion in the early days of mankind is a natural religion. China, India, Egypt, and the ancient Babylon are like this, all of which personalize non-human and natural things. More or less, it is somewhat "same-shape.

Let's take a look at the legends of Greece. Although Greek mythology is a story about God, legends are dominated by heroes. In Greece, heroes and gods are often mixed in stories. God and man are fighting together, whether it's the two poems of HOMA or some other historical stories. In the 5th century BC, there began to be a tragedy in Greece. The protagonists in the tragedy were heroes, but God often appeared. Because heroes and gods often appear in both epic and tragedy, we can make a comparison: the image of God is often not glorious, but the hero is at the top of the ground. From the movie "Trojan", we can see that, whether it's a Greek hero, akstream or the hero of the Trojan, it's extremely brave. They love their motherland, loyalty, and keep their vows, sacrifice your life for your city State. The gods tend to be timid and cowardly and escape responsibility.

Let's talk about legends: there is still an important idea in the Greek tragedy, that is, the idea of destiny. The subject of tragedy is the subject of destiny. The so-called tragedy is a miserable ending story, as Mr. Lu Xun said: tragedy is to tear up beautiful things for your appreciation. The great philosopher of ancient Greece, arisidu, commented on the tragedy and said: Tragedy plays an important role in purifying our spirit and soul. Why? Because when we look at the tragedy, we will have two most important feelings: Pity and fear. Compassion is what we say, compassion, and a kind of emotion. Fear is a kind of fear of unknown power when we see that a great hero is played by an invisible god of fate in the palm of your hand, but there is no desperate situation. This fear will make you feel in awe, and a person who fears his words and deeds will be cautious. On the contrary, he may become a demon not afraid of fear. We Chinese also say, "a gentleman has three fears. Therefore, pity and fear are very healthy emotions. This kind of emotion makes a person Noble, so that his/her personality is sublimated, and his/her soul is purified. Tragedy has a huge impact on the lives of the Greek people. It always shows the power of fate to people through the tragic outcome of a hero. The following are two famous stories about tragedy:

The first story is about the berlubeni family. Berhobenius is a plain of Greece. There are several city states on the plain. One of them is Sparta, and the king is mnielargus. He has a beautiful wife, which is known as the beautiful Helen, the fuse of the Trojan War. Another city-state is maysiini, and the king is agemennong. The earliest ancestor of the berluben Nisa family was tantos, And because tantos was born to God and other people, they enjoyed an honor to attend the banquet of God on the mount of Olympus. As a result, tentaros forgot his mind and often used some pranks for God. I even made my son Pelops into a dish and presented it to God to see if God could recognize it. Maybe they thought it was cruel, but it just showed a kind of ritual of killing sub-sacrifices in the original tribe. The wise gods saw his tricks at a glance, and the gods cursed: this family will be bullied and destroyed by flesh and blood for generations to come. God revived his son, Pelops, and ruled him
Ben Nisa. As a result, his son has done a lot of bad things, deceiving the gods, and the god has again lowered the curse. So in this family of sins, there was a story of flesh and blood in the middle of the son and grandson. His three grandsons were agemennor, mnielargus, and aegolsus. Later, mnielargus's wife, Helen, was abducted by Prince Troy. mnielargus and agemennon organized a Greek coalition, A decade of hard work has been carried out throughout the history of the famous Trojan war. While agemennor and monelargus fought in the east, ekalislos abducted the wife of agemennon and snatched the throne of maysieni. Ten years later, agemennor returned to his city-state and did not want to be killed by herkalisos and his wife. Then, when argalenon's son orristiya grew up, he took revenge for his father and killed ekalislos and his mother. Because he killed his mother, he was killed by the three goddesses of revenge. Orristiya escaped to a temple of Apollo to pray for an oracle. Apollo told him that he could only go to the Treasure Mountains in Athens, where an elder Court consisting of Athena, the god of wisdom, and 12 Elders asked them to judge and decide. As a result, orristiya came to Athens and had a debate with the goddess of revenge. Orristiya first elaborated on her reasons for killing her mother: she committed double murder, killing her husband and my father. (laugh) I avenge my father. Why? The reason for the goddess of revenge is: Your mother has no kinship with your father, and you have a kinship with your mother, but you have killed her, so you are guilty. This reason fully embodies the principles of the maternal clan. Apollo also clarified his point of view: his father is the real world, and he broadcasts the seeds of his life. His mother only breeds it, so it is not guilty to kill his mother. Obviously, Apollo spoke again from the standpoint of the parent clan. The two sides stick to each other, making it difficult to win. In the end, the Court ruled that the 12 elders had to vote at 6: 6. (Laugh) I didn't expect Athena to vote for orristiya. She stated her reason: I don't have a mother, I jumped out of my father's mind, so I will always be on the man's side. Therefore, orristiya's sin is forgiven. Both Marx and ighii have discussed the significance of this lawsuit in sociology in their books. Marx said: this tragedy means that the Greek society has changed from the maternal clan to the parent clan. people no longer pay attention to kinship, but pay more attention to property and inheritance. Father represents property and inheritance. This reflects the transformation of Greek society. Of course, today I am not talking about its social significance. We are talking about its "destiny" idea. What does this family's tragedy mean? It shows that the curse of God is like the Sword of DMOs, which is always hanging on the heads of the berlubenius family. It is doomed to be a brother-in-one, and a brother-in-law, it cannot be escaped.

The second story is about the thebai family. This family has two generations. The previous generation is layioss, the king of thebay, and the next generation is Russia. Raios has committed many sins because it has no children. Therefore, the curse of God has come to this family. Layios was about 50 years old and still had no child. He worried that no one would inherit from his throne, so he came to the temple of Arnon to pray for an oracle. It is said that the female priests of the temple of del non often express the oracle in an ambiguous language in a crazy state. (Laugh) the female said something: you will get a son, the king of the city, but your son will kill his father and mother. Raios returned to the city state with fear. Indeed, her wife soon became pregnant and gave birth to a son. In order to prevent the oracle from fulfilling its head, layios ordered a servant to kill his son. The kind servant moved his heart and put his two feet in a chain. Then
Put him in the box and drift along the river. He was picked up by a shepherd in the downstream city-state corlins and presented to the King of corlins who had no sons. Because the two legs were swollen when the child was picked up, the name of the child was Russian pups (swollen people) (Laugh ). Under the care of the King, the Russian back-ups grew into a kind of kind, brave and responsible aristocratic young man. After learning about his oracle, he had to leave his parents and wander out to avoid disasters. In an accidental battle, he lost his hand and killed an old man and two of his servants. The other servant escaped. This old man is the father of Russia, layio. (To be continued)

 

The Russian back-to-back continued and came to the city. At this time, dibaicheng was suffering from a huge disaster. The half-person and half-animal styles were standing at the door of dibaicheng and asked all the pedestrians a question: what animal has four legs in the morning, two legs at noon, and three legs at night? If the answer is not answered, It will be eaten by him. With his wit and courage, Russia answered styles's question: Is it human. Thus saving the whole people of the city. The people of the city of thibaas have learned that their kings have been killed, so they have set up Russia to be the new kings, and follow the customs of the city of thibaas, he married the old King's wife (SMILE), gave birth to a daughter, managed the city gang, and guotaimin'an. Years later, a red-blooded disaster suddenly came to the city of dibaicheng, where crops were not harvested, women were infertile, and cattle and sheep died. Therefore, Ops sent another person to the temple of del Phan to pray for the oracle, And the God Yu received was: Unless you find the culprit of killing the king, the disaster will never go over. As a result, the old servant who escaped in the past was the servant who let him go to Russia. He recognized Russia and killed the king. Then he saw the scars on Russia's legs, he is the son of the old king. The dark was revealed, and the Russian back-ups regretted the pain and sighed: I killed the father who should not be killed, married the mother who should not be married, and gave birth to the children who should not have been born (Laugh ). So he stabbed his eyes and left the city and died in the wandering. In the later hero stories, his children killed each other and finally destroyed all of them.

From these tragedies, we can see that the Greek tragedies are full of profound meanings. Sometimes I like to compare the tragedy of Greece with that of modern times. We are most familiar with Shakespeare's "Hamlet", "King Lee", and "Luo". The cause of the tragedy is that the bad guys are setting up good people. When they appear, good and evil are in the external opposition, at last, evil forces destroyed goodness through various tricks. Although the evil forces were also punished, the good was destroyed after all. Let's look at the tragedy of Greece. There is no obvious good or evil. It shows the free will of the same tragic hero and the conflict between the inevitability behind his fate. I personally think that such conflicts are more profound than those between external good and evil, and reveal the essence and root cause of our tragedy. We will always encounter some tragedies in our life. We are always used to forwarding the cause of the tragedy to others. We always think that it is a bad and an evil force that threatens us, this led to our tragedy. In fact, let's think about it. The root cause of a real tragedy is often your own self. It is the conflict between your free will and the inevitability behind your destiny. Such conflicts are even more rooted. I think Greece has a profound understanding of the tragedy. However, their understanding is just self-conscious. They feel that there is another force that cannot be controlled by human resources that controls the fate of people, society, and nature. We are powerless in the face of such power.

Finally, let me summarize the characteristics of Greek culture. One is natural worship, which includes two parts: one is the worship of nature itself. What's more important is the worship of the natural form and the worship of the physical body. The Greek value for the body is far more than the value for the soul. The second is sensory. The Greek people are emotional, so they are not profound and there is not much reason. It is also manifested in two aspects: one is love for beautiful things, and the other is God. The second manifestation is the love for the current life, and the Greek never wanted to live on the other side. These two features constitute the overall characteristic of Greek culture-the beauty of harmony. It is beautiful because none of his conflicting things are in opposition. In the Greek God and the people, the flesh and the soul, the other side and the current world, the ideal and the reality have not become binary opposites, it is integrated. Spiritual pleasure is gathered in your own flesh. Heaven and Earth, ideals and reality are the same thing. It is the beauty of harmony in Greek culture that always gives us sensory pleasure, rather than a bitter and profound sense like a Christian myth.

Let's talk about Greek culture. Thank you!