Deucalion And Pyrrha Essay

Myths were written to introduce morals and illustrate history in a way that individuals can interpret and apply to life. Many myths have been known to show a parallel between the immortal world and the mortal world. Although many myths portray gods as celestial beings many of these stories identify gods with humanlike qualities such as lust, jealousy and even fear. These characteristics allow people to identify with these stories because they can relate to these qualities as being that of human nature. They recount universal truths in the context of themes ranging from love and war, with which we can still identify millennia later (Littleton, 2002).

Many believe the relationship between men and gods was that of complete respect. John

This myth shows readers the importance of being good human beings and respecting the higher power. It also gave an explanation to the creation of better humans. Deucalion and Pyrrhas were the only two mortals to survive the flood Jupiter initiated after he found the world to be full of horrible humans that no longer cared or respected the power of the gods. Jupiter did not have to save these two but he was aware of their goodness and always being pious towards the gods. They were the exception to the evil that had become humanity. These two traveled to the scared shrine of Themis where they were told to “leave this temple. Veil your heads, loosen your robes, And throw behind your back your great mother’s bones”. At first Pyrrha took this literally and did not want to desecrate her mother’s bones, but then they remembered that gods do not act in disgraceful ways and figures out that the great mother is the earth and her bones are rocks. They threw the rocks and with each toss a new human generated. This story shows how rituals and myths interact. The flood symbolizes the purification to the world and before Deucalion and Pyrrha got to the temple they washed and purified themselves before going into the temple. We learned in “An introduction to Roman Religion” that one of the main customs before sacrifice and rituals is to purify yourself with water and flour. This story shows the divine power of the gods and the divine power of being true to that power of the