Episode Two: The Greek Creation Myth

Listen here:

https://jesslcoutinho.podbean.com/e/episodetwo-greek-creation-myth/

Transcript:

Hello Hurricanes! It's Jess, your dramaturg, and today I'm sharing with you the Greek Origin myth to help in your overall understanding of the world of Hurricane Diane. 

So unlike the Judeo-Christian creation story where first there was God, and then there was creation, the Greek creation story starts with Chaos, and the Gods spring forth from there. BUUUT it's not the pantheon that most of us are familiar with, like Zeus and his fellow Olympians.  

First, we have the Primordial gods: Gaia (mother earth) and Uranus- not your anus, Uranus, a.k.a Sky. There is also Pontus who is the ocean, Nyx who is night, yatta yatta yatta. Besides earth, Sky, day, night, and ocean, we also get a big gnarly pit called Tartarus, though it's not sentient like the others. Tartarus eventually becomes part of Hades, but only once man is created. 

We are going to focus on Gaia and Uranus because they are parents to the 12 titans. Edith Hamilton, who has one of the best books on Greek mythology, calls the titans the Elder Gods. Now, as Gaia gives birth to each baby titan, Uranus decides he's going to throw them all into Tartarus. Which, of course, pisses off mama Gaia. She asks her babies if they will rise against him. The only one willing to do so is her youngest, Kronos. He defeats papa Uranus by chopping off his genitals and throwing them into the sea. Fun fact, that's how we get Aphrodite. 

So, Kronos is living his best life and decides he wants to have someone worship him, so he creates the first men. Now, all the ages of men are recorded in the epic poem by Hesiod in Work and Days. Phillip Freeman briefly discusses some of this in, Oh My Gods: A Modern Retelling of Greek and Roman Myths, but Hamilton delves much deeper in her book, Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes. Both of these books are under $6 on thriftbooks.com, or you can borrow my copies if you want to read them.

There are five ages of men: The Golden, Silver, Bronze, Heroic, and Iron Ages. Kronos is responsible for the golden men. They were not made of gold, but they lived in a golden age: that is without work, suffering, or illness, and eventually died of very old age. 

While these golden men were off doing whatever it is they did, Kronos was getting busy and making babies, but he was just like dear old dad and was a terrible parent because it was prophesied that one of his sons would kill him. So he swallowed them whole upon birth to avoid his fate-- because that always works out. 

His wife Rhea was not down with that and tricked him by making him swallow a stone instead of his son Zeus. Then there are all kinds of fun stories about this epic battle, but it culminates in the Titans being imprisoned in Tartarus and the twelve gods climbing Mt. Olympus, which is why they are called Olympians. Well, most of the twelve gods, our boy Dionysus is added to the pantheon later, and in some cases, he's never considered one of the twelve, but that's a whole rabbit hole we are not going to go down. 

The Olympian gods get bored easily and want to be worshiped, which is how Zeus decides to create other ages of men. All of which died out for stupid reasons, often self-destructive. The silver men (who are. like, lesser in character than the gold) and bronze men (so named for the tools of war) these two ages of men are mean to each other and kill each other off. The silver men's spirits did not live on past death; whereas the Bronze warlike people end up wallowing in Asophodel, which is like the Christian hellfire and brimstone level of Hades. The hero age is where we get the amazing heroes of the epic poems: Odyessys, Achillies, Thesus, etc, and they get to spend their posthumous eternity in Elysium. 

The last age is ours! We're the Iron Men. Unlike the golden men, we are iron because we have to work. But we have those golden men watching out for us... yay? But we are just as warlike and bitter as the bronze and heroic men and Hesiod says:

"Zeus will destroy this race of mortal men too: For the father will not agree with his children, nor the children with their father, nor guest with his host, nor comrade with comrade, nor will brothers love each other as once they did. Men will dishonour their parents as they attain Old Age, without repaying them the cost of their nurture. Might shall be right, so that one man may sack another man's city. There will be no merit for the man who keeps his word, or for the just, or for the good; rather, men will praise the evil-doer and admire his audacity and violent dealings. Strength will be right, and respect will vanish as an empty word. Peace being banished, the MUSES will depart; therefore they will lead a life in ugliness. The wicked will hurt the worthy, speaking false words against them; therefore will Envy walk along with them. The gods will forsake mortal men, letting bitter sorrows fall upon them; and being defenseless like children in the wilderness, they will not find any help against all evil they themselves created."

Now consider what is currently going on in the world today. This consideration is the answer to why this play now. I'm going to go through some specific lines here: 

"For the father will not agree with his children, nor the children with their father," I believe this is the fact that worship of Zeus and other ancient gods is dwindling. 

"Men will dishonour their parents as they attain Old Age, without repaying them the cost of their nurture." I see that as generational disputes, but this is a phenomenon that I'm sure existed in ancient Greece, which is why Hesiod brings it up. 

"Might shall be right, so that one man may sack another man's city." Well, we have Putin sacking Ukraine, which has gone on for over a year, not including the Russian annexation of Crimea... from... I think that was 2014?

"...men will praise the evil-doer and admire his audacity and violent dealings." We have an extremist cult-like following for Trump who is admired for being base, dishonest, and stripping the rights of people that his base dislikes. This play was written while he was in the White House. He is a literal evil-doer who is praised for his "audacity and violent dealings" as he is still revered because of Jan 6th by his insurrectionists.

"Peace being banished, the MUSES will depart; therefore they will lead a life in ugliness. " The current attack on the drag community and the banning of books in Florida could be seen as the MUSES leaving, though this happened after George penned the play, but I suspect this play was written as a warning, though it's a comedy, albeit one with a tragic ending. 

Now for the final line of that excerpt: "The gods will forsake mortal men, letting bitter sorrows fall upon them; and being defenseless like children in the wilderness, they will not find any help against all evil they themselves created." 

Let's look to Carol's position in her closing monologue:

"This is our world, we made this world

Even as you look upon me,

I strengthen

I grow...

[yatta yatta yatta]

What we have unleashed is

darker

is

vaster

is

more mysterious than any god."

A storm promptly destroys Carol, who here represents the Iron Age of men. We created a great evil that is climate change. Scientists constantly tell us that this will lead to a mass extinction event if we don't work to correct the damage, but we ignore that for our creature comforts and continued support of corporations either through our spending or through the election of lawmakers that fail to correct those corporations. 

I'm leaning heavily into theme here, but I don't think George's message is sublet by any means. Greek plays are meant to be a dedication to the gods, yes... specifically Dionysos, but they are also cautionary tales to the people of the ancient Greek world. I think George taps into that and this play is meant to be a cautionary tale in the same medium that Euripides and his contemporaries employed. There's a reason why classics are still examined, and this is a perfect update. 

That's all for this episode, and I'm going to be working on the permaculture next, so I don't think I'll be doing that in podcast form. If you guys want another episode, I can jump into Greek theater a little bit, or I can provide some video links that I found that are much higher production that what I can do.

Uh, switching gears, I wanna remind everyone as- not your dramaturg, but as student ambassador, that you should be signing up for summer theater and if you are planning to graduate this semester, you need to petition to graduate by the end of this month. It's wicked easy, I can help you, or you can go to Maxie in the Liberal Arts Center. That's all for now, see you in the next rehearsal.