I have seen a lot of interaction, both indirect and direct contacts, between humans and the gods in literature such as the Hesiod, the Odyssey, and the Homeric Hymns, and I would be safe in assuming that petty feuding and revenge on humans acts as a past time for the Greek Gods. Yet, the humans are no better, which is why my essay will argue that the interaction between the gods is negative for humans and we see that demonstrated when humans interact with gods, how the gods interact with humans, and how the gods can act on their own personal motives.
Though the Gods are clearly more powerful than humans, the relationship between the two isn’t as one-sided as one might think. Humans have the ability to sway gods through sacrifice and are capable of creating their own and even humanities fate, for better or for worse. First, there direct contact between the mortal, Paris, and the goddesses, Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite. This would be an example of the human condition where humans are competitive and selfish. Although the human condition is amplified to an extreme when Paris’ pick sparked the Trojan War, which resulted in the fall of Troy (Lecture, Feb. 17). Secondly, Greeks specifically have influence when it comes to which Greek God they sacrifice to. Poseidon complains to Zeus and speaks of his embarrassment at the fact that mortals are no longer under his wrath or consequences since Odysseus was able to make it home safe. (Odyssey 13.142-50) Poseidon then turns the boat to stone, which is an example that humans are not rewarded if it interferes with other gods. e Although the Phacaeacians acted as they should by providing hospitality for Odysseus, they are still are still brutally punished because one god was offended. Lastly, ...
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... throughout mythology like The Odyssey, Homeric Hymns, and Theogony, is that gods are seen as spiteful and unstable towards the people that revere them. Homer depicted the gods as powerful beings with negative attributes that will harm people if they do not appease to the immortals. So are the Greeks of this time just worshipping the gods to avoid harm and repercussions? People seemed to be so focused on appeasing the gods that they weren’t following their own paths of life. Regular people make mistakes and with the temperate of the immortals, the whole race could nearly be wiped out for making the wrong reaction in the presence of a god. Whether it would be direct contact or indirect effects of an immortal to a mortal, the interaction with gods may have some positive effects for humans, but overall gods can overreact at petty things thus canceling out the positive.
The ancient Greeks have brought upon numerous ideas, inventions, and stories to the world. Greek mythology influences modern day literature and life. The Odyssey is an epic poem written by Homer, which tells the story of Odysseus's journey home after the Trojan War. Odysseus does not achieve his goal of reaching home so easily; monsters and gods come in his way and hinder him. The Odyssey expresses Greek values of hospitality from the customs of Ithaca, humility from Odysseus’s reform, and loyalty from Odysseus’s family.
The Greek gods were portrayed as humans, which meant that they were not perfect. That is, the gods made mistakes, felt pain (e.g. Aphrodite in love with the mortal Adonis), and succumbed to anger and their tempers (e.g.
Euripides’ plays Hippolytus, The Bacchae and Iphigenia at Aulis all revolve around the journey of key characters that fail to show respect to various deities within the Greek Pantheon. This disrespect, in all three plays, is met out with retaliation from the gods themselves, thus effecting those that disrespected them as well as their families. To convey these tales Euripides implements many themes, one such theme being divine retaliation. Euripides’ use of the theme of divine retaliation provides a stark illustration of the Greek Pantheon striving to prove their superiority relentlessly and gives insight into their merciless use of mortals as pawns to achieve this.
The Odyssey is a tale that has changed literature and storytelling. In this tale Odysseus is a Soldier from the battle of Troy trying to get home to his island of Ithaca, where he is king. His wife and son must wait ten years while he is trying to make his way home. In Odysseus’s absence wooer’s, or better known as suitors, learn of his absence and travel to Ithaca to win his wife’s hand in marriage. These men come every day feasting on Odysseus’s food and wine, and give his servant’s orders. His son Telemachus, does his best to keep the suitors from ruining his fathers house but he is only a boy, and doesn’t receive the respect of an adult. Telemachus then has a visit from the god Athena, whom Odysseus is friends with, who advises him to travel to find out about his father. In his travels he hears that Odysseus may still be alive. Meanwhile Odysseus goes through a series of adventures and hardships that prove his wisdom. It is interesting in contrast of the Iliad, even though Achilles was much stronger and a better warrior, Odysseus was portrayed as a greater hero due to his wisdom. He uses this wisdom to escape from the Cyclops.
Homer’s poem The Odyssey depicts the tendency of people to ignore the consequences of their actions. Odysseus punished Penelope’s suitors without thinking of consequences that he would have to endure. He did not acknowledge the consequences because that would prevent him from doing what he wants to do. Odysseus wanted to kill the suitors; they ate away at his fortune. Finding consequences for murdering the suitors would force Odysseus to realize what he is about to do is not a good idea. Odysseus chose to ignore the consequences and killed the suitors anyway. Odysseus had absolutely no reason to kill the suitors; they had the right to stay in his home because Penelope made them feel welcome, Penelope and Telemachus both told them that Odysseus was dead, and although Telemachus told them to leave, he did not have the right to do so.
Socrates, a Greek philosopher stated, "Look death in the face with joyful hope, and consider this a lasting truth: the righteous man has nothing to fear, neither in life, nor in death, and the Gods will not forsake him” (Socrates). This explains the basis for Greek beliefs that can be carried over to values and qualities of them. As in this, Homer, the author of The Odyssey, portrays many Greek values that make up a righteous man or as, Homer’s character Odysseus, an epic hero. The Odyssey is the story of King Odysseus' return from the Trojan War to his kingdom of Ithaca. Stories, like The Odyssey, are told with the intent of delivering a message that was important to their culture. Through characters and situations, The Odyssey promotes and emphasizes many important ancient Greek values such as hospitality, pride, and fate.
Over the course of the play, Artemis does not interfere in the actions of Aphrodite, which shows that the gods, while divine, do have restrictions; in this case, it shows the gods cannot interfere with each other. (1328-1330) The gods are sometimes evil and revengeful, though, as can seen by what Artemis has to say about Aphrodite: "I'll wait till she loves a mortal next time, and with this hand - with these unerring arrows I'll punish him." (1420-1422) The relationship of mankind and the gods also needs to be discussed. This relationship seems to be a sort of give-and-take relationship, in part. The Greeks believed that if they gave to the gods, through prayer and sacrifices, that the gods would help them out.
In book eight of Homer’s The Odyssey, Odysseus is on the island of the Phaeacians and is waiting to return home to Ithaca. Meanwhile, Alcinous, the Phaeacian king, has arranged for a feast and celebration of games in honor of Odysseus, who has not yet revealed his true identity. During the feast, a blind bard named Demodocus sings about the quarrel between Odysseus and Achilles at Troy. The song causes Odysseus to start weeping, so Alcinous ends the feast and orders the games to begin. During dinner after the games, Odysseus asks Demodocus to sing about the Trojan horse and the sack of Troy. This song too causes Odysseus to break down and cry. Homer uses a dramatic simile to describe the pain and sorrow that Odysseus feels as he recalls the story of Troy.
The epic poem called The Odyssey, which was written by the poet Homer, is one of the many classical stories from Ancient Greek culture. It tells the story of Odysseus, King of Ithaca, and his journey back home from the war with Troy, which had occurred in Homer’s other epic Greek poem, The Illiad. Odysseus faces many trials and quests in his journey home and to take back his kingdom from the suitors, such as meeting the witch Circe, blinding a Cyclops named Polyphemus, dealing with Poseidon, and staying with the goddess Calypso. The poem has many themes that are relevant to it. One such theme is the factor of redemption. Redemption is usually a typical subject in any kind of religion, like the Greek religion and Christian religion. The story of Odysseus has an underlying message of him receiving redemption from the Greek gods. The Odyssey is a tale of redemption because it deals with Odysseus being forgiven by the gods after having to go through many trials and wrongs to rightfully claim back his wife and the throne of Ithaca.
The Greeks in the Odyssey viewed justice as only coming from the gods. They believed the gods punished them because they have fallen out of their favor, and not because they had really done anything wrong by human standards. As Socrates later stated in the Euthyphro, what is holy, and perhaps then just, is what is “approved by the gods.” Although Socrates proved this to be wrong, it still shows the view of most Greeks. Zeus in the opening book of the Odyssey stated, “Upon my word, just see how mortal men always put the blame on us gods! We are the source of evil, so they say- when they have only their own madness to thank if their miseries are worse than they ought to be.” This shows that the Greeks feared justice; they felt it was negative and often undeserved. However, each Greek deserved his punishment because he has a hand in its reason. For example, when Odysseus’s troops killed the cattle of Helios, they deserved Zeus destroying their ships because he had warned Odysseus beforehand not to let the men eat the cattle. When the Greeks disobeyed the gods, they disrupted the right order of things, and when the gods punished them, they made the other Greeks respect them once again, and thus fixed the balance of the world.
Throughout Homer’s epic poem, The Iliad, gods are presented as remarkably human in almost every way. While it is assumed that gods are divine entities incapable of human transgression, they are portrayed with all the flaws of mortals in The Iliad. The gods are a manifestation of human emotions consequently helping to explain the behavior of the humans in The Iliad. The actions of the heroes are what determine their fate, not divine intervention. Ultimately, the humans in The Iliad have inherent characteristics that provide the driving force behind their actions: the gods simply act in concert with them, allowing the human beings to exercise free will of
“Gods can be evil sometimes.” In the play “Oedipus the King”, Sophocles defamed the gods’ reputation, and lowered their status by making them look harmful and evil. It is known that all gods should be perfect and infallible, and should represent justice and equity, but with Oedipus, the gods decided to destroy him and his family for no reason. It might be hard to believe that gods can have humanistic traits, but in fact they do. The gods, especially Apollo, are considered evil by the reader because they destroyed an innocent man’s life and his family. They destroyed Oedipus by controlling his fate, granting people the power of prophecy, telling Oedipus about his fate through the oracle of Apollo, and finally afflicting the people of Thebes with a dreadful plague. Fundamentally, by utilizing fate, prophecies, the oracle of Apollo, and the plague, the gods played a significant role in the destruction of Oedipus and his family.
Gods are were seen interacting with mortal on numerous occasions. When Athena goes to Telemachus and to provide information about his father. Later, Telemachus thought about dismissing all suitors because Athena advised him to do so. It was kind of a friendly relationship sometimes between gods and mortals in the Odyssey. On Telemachus journey, Athena provided a lot of confidence into the prince. It gave Telemachus a sense of hope that his father was still out there. When there is hope there is always a way and that is what Athena gave to to him. Another interaction is when Odyessy made Poseidon upset. Poseidon is one of the Gods who holds a grudge against a mortal and had a negative impact during the journey. Odysseus killed Polyphemus, that is why Poseidon left Odysseus on an island before his return home. The relationship between Gods and Humans are similar between humans and humans. The only thing that is different is that Gods have the powers and ability to do
the Gods in the affairs of humanity is much greater in the Iliad then in the
One view of the gods’ intervention in the mortal conflict was that they were just setting events back onto the course of fate. For example, when Patroclus was killed outside of Troy, Apollo felt no guilt for his actions. It had already been decided by fate that Patroclus would not defeat the Trojans. As a god, Apollo was just setting fate on a straight line again. After this event, Achilles blames Hector and the Trojans, not even considering Apollo, who was the one who was mostly responsible for the death. Apollo’s part in the matter was merely accepted as a natural disaster would be accepted today in our