Mythology Greek Quotes

Don't feel bad, I'm usually about to die.

But in a solitary life, there are rare moments when another soul dips near yours, as stars once a year brush the earth. Such a constellation was he to me.

That is — your friend?" "Philtatos," Achilles replied, sharply. Most beloved.

He showed me his scars, and in return he let me pretend that I had none.

According to Greek mythology, humans were originally created with four arms, four legs and a head with two faces. Fearing their power, Zeus split them into two separate parts, condemning them to spend their lives in search of their other halves.

I have done it," she says. At first I do not understand. But then I see the tomb, and the marks she has made on the stone. A C H I L L E S, it reads. And beside it, P A T R O C L U S. "Go," she says. "He waits for you." In the darkness, two shadows, reaching through the hopeless, heavy dusk. Their hands meet, and light spills in a flood like a hundred golden urns pouring out of the sun.

Being a hero doesn’t mean you’re invincible. It just means that you’re brave enough to stand up and do what’s needed.

You cannot know how frightened gods are of pain. There is nothing more foreign to them, and so nothing they ache more deeply to see.

Time, which sees all things, has found you out.

Do you think we can be friends?” I asked. He stared up at the ceiling. “Probably not, but we can pretend.

We’d read about sirens in English this fall; Greek mythology bullshit about women so beautiful, their voices so enchanting, that men did anything for them. Turned out that mythology crap was real because every time I saw her, I lost my mind.

Something has got to hold it together. I'm saying my prayers to Elmer, the Greek god of glue.

I conjure the boy I knew. Achilles, grinning as the figs blur in his hands. His green eyes laughing into mine. Catch, he says. Achilles, outlined against the sky, hanging from a branch over the river. The thick warmth of his sleepy breath against my ear. If you have to go, I will go with you. My fears forgotten in the golden harbor of his arms. The memories come, and come. She listens, staring into the grain of the stone. We are all there, goddess and mortal and the boy who was both.

What happened to the alpha-wolf?" "LEGOs." "Legos?" It sounded Greek but I couldn't recall anything mythological with that name. Wasn't it an island? "He was carrying a load of laundry into the basement and tripped on the old set of LEGOs his kids left on the stairs. Broke two ribs and an ankle.

Gaia visited her daughter Mnemosyne, who was busy being unpronounceable.

Vane grabbed me. “DuLac, let’s chat.” Chat. British-speak for “Stand still while I yell at you.

I think: this is what I will miss. I think: I will kill myself rather than miss it. I think: how long do we have?

In beauty of face no maiden ever equaled her. It was the radiance of an opium-dream - an airy and spirit-lifting vision more wildly divine than the fantasies which hovered about the slumbering souls of the daughters of Delos.

...She nourishes the poison in her veins and is consumed by a secret fire.

But gods are born of ichor and nectar, their excellences already bursting from their fingertips. So they find their fame by proving what they can mar: destroying cities, starting wars, breeding plagues and monsters. All that smoke and savor rising so delicately from our altars. It leaves only ash behind.

Nosoi?” Percy planted his feet in a fighting stance. “You know, I keep thinking, I have now killed every single thing in Greek mythology. But the list never seems to end.” “You haven’t killed me yet,” I noted. “Don’t tempt me.

I saw then how I had changed. I did not mind anymore that I lost when we raced and I lost when we swam out to the rocks and I lost when we tossed spears or skipped stones. For who can be ashamed to lose to such beauty? It was enough to watch him win, to see the soles of his feet flashing as they kicked up sand, or the rise and fall of his shoulders as he pulled through the salt. It was enough.

They sent forth men to battle, But no such men return; And home, to claim their welcome, Come ashes in an urn

Ladies and Gentlemen, meet my glow-in-the-dark boyfriend.

All is as if the world did cease to exist. The city's monuments go unseen, its past unheard, and its culture slowly fading in the dismal sea.

Vane’s lips tightened to suppress a smile. “Why so hostile, love?” “You whacked me on the head with a ball!” “You deserved it.

There’s a Greek legend—no, it’s in something Plato wrote—about how true lovers are really two halves of the same person. It says that people wander around searching for their other half, and when they find him or her, they are finally whole and perfect. The thing that gets me is that the story says that originally all people were really pairs of people, joined back to back, and that some of the pairs were man and man, some woman and woman, and others man and woman. What happened was that all of these double people went to war with the gods, and the gods, to punish them, split them all in two. That’s why some lovers are heterosexual and some are homosexual, female and female, or male and male.

Icarus should have waited for nightfall, the moon would have never let him go.

I caught his hand. “What do you want me to do?” Leaning down, he kissed the pulse beating on my neck just above the damaged skin. “Tomorrow, I need you to die.

For the world seems never to offer anything worthwhile without also providing a dreadful opposite.

Maybe that's why you demonised them, turned them into monsters, because you think monsters are easier to understand than women who say no to you.

The Greeks created gods that were in their image; warlike but creative, wise but ferocious, loving but jealous, tender but brutal, compassionate, but vengeful.

Gaia listened carefully to this wise counsel and - as we all do, whether mortal or immortal - ignored it.

In the make-up of human beings, intelligence counts for more than our hands, and that is our true strength.

He’d used the amulet to read my thoughts again. I pictured smacking him in the face.

Why would anyone love a monster?' asked Perseus. 'Who are you to decide who is worthy of love?' said Hermes. 'I mean, I wasn't...' 'And who are you to decide who is a monster?' added the messenger god.

Zeus, first cause, prime mover; for what thing without Zeus is done among mortals?

Behold, my children!" she said. "The instrument of my revenge. I will call it a scythe!" The Titans muttered among themselves: What is that for? Why is it curved? How do you spell scythe?

Do we not each dream of dreams? Do we not dance on the notes of lost memories? Then are we not each dreamers of tomorrow and yesterday, since dreams play when time is askew? Are we not all adrift in the constant sea of trial and when all is done, do we not all yearn for ships to carry us home?

I'm a damsel, I'm in distress, I can handle this. Have a nice day!

But the queen--too long she has suffered the pain of love, hour by hour nursing the wound with her lifeblood, consumed by the fire buried in her heart. [...] His looks, his words, they pierce her heart and cling-- no peace, no rest for her body, love will give her none.

Do not worry about your contradictions - Persephone is both floral maiden and queen of death. You, too, can be both.

You make the rarest canvas, love

When lust descends, discretion, common sense and wisdom fly off and what may seem cunning concealment to one in the grip of passion looks like transparently clumsy idiocy to everyone else.

He liked such sharpness, for there was nothing in him that had any blood you might spill.

Call me crazy, but there is something terribly wrong with this city.

I love Greek Mythology, wish there was a TV series, like being human or smallville, but with the series based around Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Holla Mayne!

Hi, this is Ganymede, cup-bearer to Zeus, and when I'm out buying wine for the Lord of the Skies, I always buckle up!

Despite being the only one of us who owned the game, I wasn't very good at Resurrection. As I watched them tramp through a ghoul-infested space station, Ben said, "Goblin, Radar, goblin." I see him." Come here you little bastard," Ben said, the controller twisting in his hand. "Daddy's gonna put you on a sailboat across the River Styx." Did you just use Greek mythology to talk trash?" I asked. Radar laughed. Ben started pummeling buttons, shouting, "Eat it, goblin! Eat it like Zeus ate Metis!

I had no right to claim him, I knew it. But in a solitary life, there are rare moments when another soul dips near yours, as stars once a year brush the earth. Such a constellation he was to me.

I sort of fell." "Percy! Six hundred and thirty feet?

As for queens, they are either hated or forgotten. She already knows which option suits her better. Let her be hated forever.

Will you tell me who hurt you? I imagine saying, 'You.' But that is nothing more than childishness.

THE MARK OF ATHENA BABY!!!!!!

I can’t help but ask, “Do you know where you are?” She turns to me with a foreboding glare. “Do you?

You wanted to ride, my nasty girl, so fucking ride,” Sander challenged.

the dank night is sweeping down from the sky and the setting stars incline our heads to sleep.

Narcissistic personality disorder is named for Narcissus, from Greek mythology, who fell in love with his own reflection. Freud used the term to describe persons who were self-absorbed, and psychoanalysts have focused on the narcissist's need to bolster his or her self-esteem through grandiose fantasy, exaggerated ambition, exhibitionism, and feelings of entitlement.

Rough palms cradled my face while my fingers gripped the pillow on either side of his. Lips, teeth, tongue, mingled together. I ate him up and didn’t let go until I had to come up for air.

It is enough to say that the Greeks thought it was Chaos who, with a massive heave, or a great shrug, or hiccup, vomit or cough, began the long chain of creation that has ended with pelicans and penicillin and toadstools and toads, sea-lions, lions, human beings and daffodils and murder and art and love and confusion and death and madness and biscuits.

Painters, poets and philosophers have seen many things in the myth of Sisyphus. They have seen an image of the absurdity of human life, the futility of effort, the remorseless cruelty of fate, the unconquerable power of gravity. But they have seen too something of mankind’s courage, resilience, fortitude, endurance and self-belief. They see something heroic in our refusal to submit.

I looked at the titles on the bookshelf and found a book on Greek mythology next to a book of poetry, which was flanked by a book on German philosophy. "How are these organized?" "They're not." I turned to him. "How do you find anything? There must be thousands of books here." "I like the search. It's like visiting old friends.

The seeding of Gaia gave us meaning, a germination of thought into shape. Seminal semantic semiology from the semen of the sky.

There is a stillness between us, a period of restlessness that ties my stomach in a hangman’s noose. It is this same lack in noise that lives, there! in the darkness of the grave, how it frightens me beyond all things.

The wine god sighed. 'Oh Hades if I know. But remember, boy, that a kind act can sometimes be as powerful as a sword. As a mortal, I was never a great fighter or athlete or poet. I only made wine. The people in my village laughed at me. They said I would never amount to anything. Look at me now. Sometimes small things can become very large indeed.' He left me alone to think about that. And as I watched Clarisse and Chris singing a stupid campfire song together, holding hands in the darkness, where they thought nobody could see them, I had to smile.

Pandora's Box could not be unopened, no one could return to Eden.

Even Cronus, the Titan who literally had his kids for breakfast, would find these facts hard to swallow.

You’re like a god from a Greek myth, Saiman. You have no empathy. You have no concept of the world beyond your ego. Wanting something gives you an automatic right to obtain it by whatever means necessary with no regard to the damage it may do. I would be careful if I were you. Friends and objects of deities’ desires dropped like flies. In the end the gods always ended up miserable and alone." — Kate Daniels

Little by little I began to listen better: to the sap moving in the plants, to the blood in my veins. I learned to understand my own intention, to prune and to add, to feel where the power gathered and speak the right words to draw it to its height. That was the moment I lived for, when it all came clear at last and the spell could sing with its pure note, for me and me alone.

What Pandora did not know was that, when she shut the lid of the jar so hastily, she for ever imprisoned inside one last daughter of Nyx. One last little creature was left behind to beat its wings hopelessly in the jar for ever. Its name was ELPIS, Hope.

I will not sentence myself to such a living death.

Helios thought he looked pretty hot, and he had an annoying habit of calling the sun his "chick magnet.

Faith that you will find a way to make wine out of your sour grapes.

Yield, and I'll eat your little pussy... first.

Nothing shall part us in our love till Thanatos (Death) at his appointed hour removed us from the light of day.

Come up when you’re finished down here.” He raised a brow. “I don’t have any alarms to check up there.” That sexy sparkle was back in her eyes. “Then I guess you’ll just have to check me.

I noticed him right away. No, it wasn’t his lean, rugged face. Or the dark waves of shiny hair that hung just a little too long on his forehead. It wasn’t the slim, collarless biker jacket he wore, hugging his lean shoulders. It was the way he stood. The confident way he waited in the cafeteria line to get a slice of pizza. He didn’t saunter. He didn’t amble. He stood at the center, and let the other people buzz around him. His stance was straight and sure.

I am Cassandra—she who, without asking, understood it all and still came to her fate, I, Cassandra, full of visions, who sees her own death without turning away, and hears in the night the day that follows.

You’re the shield, and I’m the sword.

She kissed his chest. "Thanks for letting me into your heart." He tucked her hair behind her ear. "You walked in like you had a key.

Apollo, sacred guard of earth's true core, Whence first came frenzied, wild prophetic word...

..and why the winter suns so rush to bathe themselves in the sea and what slows down the nights to a long lingering crawl...

Let us see how high we can fly before the sun melts the wax in our wings.

When night falls and the world lies lost in sleep, I take to my bed, my heart throbbing, about to break, anxieties swarming, piercing—I may go mad with grief.

She rose on her tiptoes and brushed a slow kiss to his lips. "This doesn't have to be a relationship, okay? Just let me be your muse." He bent to taste her again and smiled. "And I'll be your Guardian.

I love you like a man insane.

Did Bach ever eat pancakes at midnight?

Whatever the truth, science today agrees that everything is destined to return to Chaos. It calls this inevitable fate entropy: part of the great cycle from Chaos to order and back again to Chaos.

Zeus may have been the God of lightning and of thunder. But it was Hera who invented the rain

In every one of the Greeks' mythology tales, there is this: a man chasing a woman, or a woman chasing a man. There is never a meeting in the middle.

Here Phaeton lies who in the sun-god’s chariot fared. And though greatly he failed, more greatly he dared.

She covered his hand with hers over her abdomen. His was so much bigger than hers and had probably fired guns, rifles, and god knew what else, but right here, right now, his tenderness broke down her will as sure as any grenade.

The nine Greek Muses, awakened again for this generation of man and meant to inspire mankind forward in the sciences and the arts.

I'm a sucker for a guy with scars, so for your protection, we should probably stick to the case." "I'm not scared.

Inspiration before intercourse.

Scars and a thrill seeker. Gods help her...

His stories are good to hear at night, because we can dream about them asleep; and good in the morning, too, because then we can dream about them awake. (Cowslip)

Do not let what you gained this day be so easily lost.' - Chiron

She will bow to no one. Her destiny will be what she wants it to be.

Something was going on. Something big, like the dreams that brought her sisters together. But this time, it wasn't a theater bringing them together. It was a killer tearing them apart.

Since my trips to Earth, I've only managed to assemble a few basics facts about humans, condensing them in to four, overall points: kids got Reese's, teens got recess, adults got recessions, and seniors got receding.

-’Tell me’, he said, ‘who gives better offerings, a miserable man or a happy one’? -’A happy one, of course.’ -’Wrong. A happy man is too occupied with his life. He thinks he is beholden to no one. But make him shiver, kill his wife, cripple his child, then you will hear from him. He will starve his family for a month to buy yo a pure-white yearling calf. If he can afford it, he will buy you a hundred’. -’But surely, I said, you have to reward him eventually. Otherwise he will stop offering’. -’Oh, you would be surprised how long he will go on. But yes, in the end, it’s best to give him something. Then he will be happy again. And you can start over.

I’m going to destroy you, princess. I’ll toy with you, tempt you, and give you everything you never knew to ask for.

Even meaning and destiny themselves can be read in ordinary things, if you have the gift.

Was this the face that launch'd a thousand ships, And burnt the topless towers of Ilium-- Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss.-- ''[kisses her]'' Her lips suck forth my soul: see, where it flies!-- Come, Helen, come, give me my soul again. Here will I dwell, for heaven is in these lips, And all is dross that is not Helena. I will be Paris, and for love of thee, Instead of Troy, shall Wertenberg be sack'd; And I will combat with weak Menelaus, And wear thy colours on my plumed crest; Yea, I will wound Achilles in the heel, And then return to Helen for a kiss. O, thou art fairer than the evening air Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars; Brighter art thou than flaming Jupiter When he appear'd to hapless Semele; More lovely than the monarch of the sky In wanton Arethusa's azur'd arms; And none but thou shalt be my paramour!

You see?' said Prometheus. 'It is your fate to be Heracles the hero, burdened with labours, yet it is also your choice. You choose to submit to it. Such is the paradox of living. We willingly accept that we have no will.

What the myth founds is a double existence between the upper world and the underworld: a dimension of death is introduced into life, and a dimension of life is introduced into death.

Annabeth and I were relaxing on the Great Lawn in Central Park when she ambushed me with a question. “You forgot, didn’t you?” I went into red-alert mode. It’s easy to panic when you’re a new boyfriend. Sure, I’d fought monsters with Annabeth for years. Together we’d faced the wrath of the gods. We’d battled Titans and calmly faced death a dozen times. But now that we were dating, one frown from her and I freaked. What had I done wrong? I mentally reviewed the picnic list: Comfy blanket? Check. Annabeth’s favorite pizza with extra olives? Check. Chocolate toffee from La Maison du Chocolat? Check. Chilled sparkling water with twist of lemon? Check. Weapons in case of sudden Greek mythological apocalypse? Check. So what had I forgotten? I was tempted (briefly) to bluff my way through. Two things stopped me. First, I didn’t want to lie to Annabeth. Second, she was too smart. She’d see right through me. So I did what I do best. I stared at her blankly and acted dumb.

The Greek word for 'everything that is the case', what we could call 'the universe', is COSMOS. And at the moment - although 'moment' is a time word and makes no sense just now (neither does the phrase 'just now') - at the moment, Cosmos is Chaos and only Chaos because Chaos is the only thing that is the case.

My whore of a brother has done it again." "Then, as always, orders me to clean up the mess." "I think I hate him." Poseidon to his brother, Zeus.

Hero,” he said softly, in a manner that was much like his father’s. “Vengeance and glory are the ways of the Greeks and the Trojans. We are of the Herdsmen.

Keep eating me up with those eyes, little Goddess, and I’ll be so deep inside that hot little pussy you won’t remember what you came here for.

If I take off my clothes, I won’t stop there, and if I touch you, it’s over. Do you want me to claim you, princess?

Psyche did not think the feeling running through her could exist, it was too powerful, too profound and pierced her soul in a way that was a beautiful agony.

As for the goddess' answer. I did not care. I would have no need of her. I did not plan to live after he was gone

It is their refusal to see any divine beings as perfect, whole and complete of themselves, whether Zeus, Moros or Prometheus, that makes the Greeks so satisfying.

It is probably best for us not to concentrate in too literal a fashion on the temporal structure of myth.

It is the destiny of children of spirit to soar too close to the sun and fall no matter how many times they are warned of the danger. Some will make it, but many do not.

I have a pullout couch, and I could sleep in the living room. You can have the bedroom." "I'm sorry. No." Mel put her hand on his chest, her eyes sparkling. "I have to draw the line there. I should at least get sex out of this deal or this really would be a tragedy.

I will never let you go, and I will never leave you. I would defy creatures, and Gods, and terrible, brutal queens to keep you safe and by my side. I would move Mount Olympus itself to hold you in my arms and feel your heart beat against mine. You are my soul, and yes, I will fight for you and protect you until my dying breath.

Some legends say that Hera's breast milk sprayed across the sky and created the Milky Way. I don't know. That seems like a whole lot of solar systems from just one squirt

History doesn’t start with a tall building and a card with your name written on it, but jokes do. I think someone is taking us for suckers and is playing a mean game.

I can feel you watching me." Her breathy voice slid over him and it felt like her fingers were running over his hard cock. How the fuck was her voice alone able to rule his dick?

Aphrodite is about love and beauty. Being loving. Spreading beauty. Good friends. Good times. Good deeds.

The signs of the old flame, I know them well. I pray that the earth gape deep enough to take me down or the almighty Father blast me with one bolt to the shades, the pale, glimmering shades in hell, the pit of night, before I dishonor you, my conscience, break your laws.

Childhood is bound like the Gordian knot with my memories of the Black Sea, and I still feel its waters welling up within me today. Sometimes these waters are leaden, as grey as the military ships that sail on their curved expanses, and sometimes they are blue as pigmented cobalt. Then would come dusk, when I would sit and watch the seabirds waver to shore, flitting from open waters to the quiet empty vastlands in darkening spaces behind me, the same birds Ovid once saw during his exile, perhaps; and the same waters the Argonauts crossed searching for the fleece of renewal. And out in the distance, invisible, the towering heights of Caucasus, where once-bright memories of the fire-thief have transmuted into something weird and many-faceted, and beyond these, pitch-black Karabakh in dolorous Armenia.

Poseidon spent almost all his time pursuing a perfectly exhausting quantity of beautiful girls and boys and fathering by the girls an even greater number of monsters, demigods and human heroes - Percy Jackson and Theseus to name but two.

According to Greek mythology, humans were orginally created with four arms, four legs and a head with two faces. Fearing their power, Zeus split them in two seperate beings, condeming them to spend their lives in search of their other halves.

Every generation, the nine daughters of Zeus are reborn, and with their rebirth are also nine Guardians. They will be marked by the gods, and given gifts to protect his treasure. Their abilities will only be unlocked when they find their muse.

Tragedy is born of myth, not morality. Prometheus and Icarus are tragic heroes. Yet none of the myths in which they appear has anything to do with moral dilemmas. Nor have the greatest Greek tragedies. If Euripides is the most tragic of the Greek playwrights, it is not because he deals with moral conflicts but because he understood that reason cannot be the guide of life.

Eyes open, Ileana,” he growled. “I want you to see who’s in you. Who gives you what you need.

If you’re going to clean me, you’ll do it with your tongue, Natasha.

One small hand lifted to the shower head and he stilled. He’d yet to see her skin; the dragon had claimed her on scent alone.

Matt was almost completely naked. A tattered loincloth and an ugly chain with a yellow diamond were his only apparel.

Greek mythology has always been my Achilles elbow.

...people always grow more foolish, unless they take care to grow wiser and wiser...

Hermes, the Psychopomp.

He gripped her hips tightly. "I need you," he whispered, and her heart pounded in answer. She rose up over him and slowly settled onto his erection, moaning as each inch of him filled her, enjoying every second. "Made for me," he growled beneath her.

It is easier to be hated than to face not being loved Easier to be angry than accept sadness

I’m going to wreck you, Rain… You’ll be mine completely after this. You may deserve more than you’re getting, but I won’t let go once I’ve had you…

..,No love cannot leave where there is no trust..,~cupid and psyche..,"Greek mythology of Edith Hamilton

Medusa wasn't always a monster, Helen of Troy wasn't always an adulterer, Pandora wasn't ever a villain.

Can the sun find its match in anything but the moon? Can the heavens lose interest in the earth?" Hades pulled away from her and stroked her cheek. "Can death exist without life?

Brooding, simmering and raging in the ground, deep beneath the earth that once loved him, Ouranos compressed all his fury and divine energy into the very rock itself, hoping that one day some excavating creature somewhere would mine it and try to harness the immortal power that radiated from within. That could never happen, of course. It would be too dangerous. Surely the race had yet to be born that could be so foolish as to attempt to unleash the power of uranium?

The Order of the Titans had agreed with his assessment. This generation, the Order would be successful where previous generations had failed, because this time they would steal mankind's inspiration. They would kill the muses for the greater good.... For the good of mankind.

Most people assume that a muse is a creature of perfect beauty, poise and grace. Like the creatures from Greek mythology. They're wrong. In fact, there should be a marked absence of perfection in a muse--a gaping hole between what she is and what she might be. The ideal muse is a woman whose rough edges and contradictions drive you to fill in the blanks of her character. She is the irritant to your creativity. A remarkable possibility, waiting to be formed.

Words were torn from him. Ones he’d never spoken, in a language long since extinct, but only they could truly convey what she was to him, how much she meant. Eternity wouldn’t be enough...

Superheroes fill a gap in the pop culture psyche, similar to the role of Greek mythology. There isn't really anything else that does the job in modern terms. For me, Batman is the one that can most clearly be taken seriously. He's not from another planet, or filled with radioactive gunk. I mean, Superman is essentially a god, but Batman is more like Hercules: he's a human being, very flawed, and bridges the divide.

Matters of immense import may depend on such issues, but we can never do more than guess the outcomes of the roads we do not take.

Don’t blame your mother, Tony. I was the one being promiscuous.” Owen said. Evelyn nodded. “And you know how much I love Greek mythology, Son.

All Southern women wished of their menfolk was simply to be 'like Paris handsome and like Hector brave'.

I can feel you watching me." Her breathy voice slid over him and felt like her fingers were running over his hard cock. How the fuck was her voice alone able to rule his dick?

Medusa's mouth twisted. "I would rather be remembered for what I did, what I said, whom I loved, than how I met my end.

We were silent a moment. 'So, which of the suitors would you have picked?' I shoved him, and he laughed

I dragged on my ruined life in darkness and grief, wrathful in my heart...

The only way Addie knows how to keep going is to keep going forward. They are Orpheus, she is Eurydice, and every time they turn back, she is ruined.

Rainbows, very macho -Leo

I know,” said Helen. “Like all sacred and truly precious objects it is very plain. Only profane things are beautiful.

You are young and young your rule and you think that the tower in which you live is free from sorrow: from it have I not seen two tyrants thrown? The third, who now is king, I shall yet live to see him fall, of all three most suddenly, most dishonored.

Do you think you might be able to love me someday?" He asked and heard her laugh softly. "I already do." She said and his soul soared. "So this is what the poets write about? This is what they call love?" She asked. "Yes my love." He said softly. "They do not do it justice." She stated and he laughed. "I agree." He told her as he held her, wondering how this could be real.

She loved him, in fact; his violence and strength appealed to some deep part of her. He in turn grew to love her, so far as such a violent brute was capable of the emotion. Love and war, Venus and Mars, have always had a strong affinity. No one quite knows why, but plenty of money has been made trying to find an answer.

Lia pulled back, moonlight dancing in her dark eyes. “If you’re trying to make me go easy on you, it won’t work.” Cooper's teeth brushed her lower lip. “No way. Just getting an early taste of my prize.” She grinned. “I feel like I’ve already won.” He kissed her once more, whispering, “I know I have.

We don't worship Satan, we worship ourselves using the metaphorical representation of the qualities of Satan. Satan is the name used by Judeo-Christians for that force of individuality and pride within us. But the force itself has been called by many names.We embrace Christian myths of Satan and Lucifer, along with Satanic renderings in Greek, Roman, Islamic, Sumerian, Syrian, Phrygian, Egyptian, Chinese or Hindu mythologies, to name but a few. We are not limited to one deity, but encompass all the expressions of the accuser or the one who advocates free thought and rational alternatives by whatever name he is called in a particular time and land. It so happens that we are living in a culture that is predominantly Judeo-Christian, so we emphasize Satan. If we were living in Roman times, the central figure, perhaps the title of our religion, would be different. But the name would be expressing and communicating the same thing. It's all context.

Don’t blame your mother, Tony. I was the one being promiscuous.” Owen said. Evelyn nodded. “And you know how much I love Greek mythology, Son.

Traveling through space is for the birds. I’m bored…should’ve brought the wife. Poseidon, the Okeanos Pantheon.

I don’t know why it’s not universally acknowledged that looking back is a terrible idea. It only makes going forward that much harder.

When you can inspire a muse, you've got it going on.

I had loved and lost, and now... Love had found me again, brought me back to life in the land of the dead.

I Don't Have Time For Both A Wife And An Airplane.

…I bet Echo that she couldn't repeat the following line ten times fast:   Cupid's Academy counts kissing cousins as completed conquests cause his classes cunningly conspire unconscious couples to copulate and canoodle copiously.

The room turned gray, then white. The bed felt cold without him, and too large. I heard no sounds, and the stillness frightened me. It is like a tomb. I rose and rubbed my limbs, slapped them awake, trying to ward off a rising hysteria. This is what it will be, every day, without him.

The Greeks were more preoccupied with, where these ousted gods resided. That is: The fallen son's of God could go where humans were, but humans could not go where they were. According to Greek mythology, Tartarus was an imposed condition for bad gods--not bad humans.

I took the sheep and cut their throats over the pit, and let the dark blood flow. Then there gathered the spirits of the dead, brides and unwed youths, old men worn out by labour, and tender maidens with hearts still new to sorrow.

The Greeks shape bronze statues so real they seem to breathe, And carve cold marble until it almost comes to life. The Greeks compose great orations, and measure The heavens so well they can predict the rising of the stars. But you, Romans, remember your great arts; To govern the peoples with authority, To establish peace under the rule of law, To conquer the mighty, and show them mercy once they are conquered." -Virgil, Aeneid VI, 847-853

This species, the mute swan, became holy to Apollo. In remembrance of the death of the beloved Phaeton the bird is silent all its life until the very moment of its death, when it sings with terrible melancholy its strange and lovely goodbye, its swan song. In honour of Cygnus the young of all swans are called ‘cygnets’.

In addition to the interpretive frameworks of the mythological (classical-Greek), the theological (Medieval-Christian), and the existential (modern-European), would it be possible to shift our framework to something we can only call cosmological? Could such a cosmological view be understood not simply as the view from inter-stellar space, but as the view of the world-without-us, the Planetary view?

Then, like ravening wolves in a black mist, when the belly's lawless rage has driven them blindly forth, and their whelps at home await them with thirsty jaws, through swords, through foes we pass to certain death, and hold our way to the city's heart; black night hovers around with sheltering shade.

Perhaps narcissism is best defined as a need to look on other people as mirrored surfaces who satisfy us only when they reflect back a loving or admiring image of ourselves. When we look into another’s eyes, in other words, we are not looking to see who they are, but how we are reflected in their eyes. By this definition, which of us can honestly disown our share of narcissism?

Almost immediately, I found the red door into the library. I opened it idly- and the breath stopped in my throat. It was the same room I remembered: the shelves, the lion-footed table, the white bass-relief of Clio. But now, tendrils of dark green ivy grew between the shelves, reaching toward the books as if they were hungry to read. White mist flowed along the floor, rippling and tumbling as if blown by wind. Across the ceiling wove a network of icy ropes like tree roots. They dripped- not little droplets like the ice melting off a tree but grape-sized drops of water, like giant tears, that splashed on the table, plopped to the floor.

If your mind and spirit are directed to your task, everything else will follow. Relax.” “But focus,” said Hermes. “Relaxation without focus leads to failure.” “Focus without relaxation leads to failure just as surely,” said Athena. “So concentrate . . .” said Perseus. “Exactly.” “. . . but calmly?” “Concentrate calmly. You have it.

I can not remember telling my parents that I was studying classics, they might well have found out for the first time on graduation day. Of all the subjects on this planet, I think they would have been hard-put to name one less useful in Greek mythology when it came to securing the keys of an executive bathroom. Now I would like to make it clear in parenthesis, that I do not blame my parents for their point of view. There is an expiry date for blaming your parents for steering you in the wrong direction. The moment you are old enough to take the wheel, responsibility lies with you. What is more, I can not criticize my parents for hoping that I would never experience poverty. They had been poor themselves, and I have since been poor. And I quite agree with them, that it is not an ennobling experience. Poverty, entails fear, and stress, and sometimes depression, It means a thousand petty humiliations and hardships. Climbing out of poverty by your own efforts, that is something by which to pride yourself, but poverty itself, is romanticized only by fools. But I feared at your age was not poverty, but failure... Now, I am not dull enough to suppose that because you are young, gifted, and well educated, that you have never known heartbreak, hardship, or heartache. Talent and intelligence, never yet inoculated anyone against the caprice of the fates... ultimately, we all have to decide for ourselves what constitutes failure.

I steal one glance over my shoulder as soon as we are far from the foreboding luminance of the neon glow, and it is there that my stomach leaps into my throat. Squatting just shy of the light and partially concealed by the shade of an alley is a sinister silhouette beneath a crimson cowl, beaming a demonic smile which spans from cheek to swollen cheek.

There is an ancient story that King Midas hunted in the forest a long time for the wise Silenus, the companion of Dionysus, without capturing him. When Silenus at last fell into his hands, the king asked what was the best and most desirable of all things for man. Fixed and immovable, the demigod said not a word, till at last, urged by the king, he gave a shrill laugh and broke out into these words: ‘Oh, wretched ephemeral race, children of chance and misery, why do you compel me to tell you what it would be most expedient for you not to hear? What is best of all is utterly beyond your reach: not to be born, not to be, to be nothing. But the second best for you is—to die soon.

Carved on the temple [at Delphi] were the exhortations "Know yourself" and "Nothing too much," mottoes with a similar meaning: You are only human, so don't try more than you are able (or you will pay the price). A recurring theme in Greek myth is the man or woman who loses sight of human limitations and acts arrogantly and with violence, as if immortal. And pays a terrible price.

It is funny,’ she said, ‘That even after all this time, you still believe you should be rewarded, just because you have been obedient. I thought you would have learned that lesson in your father’s halls. None shrank and simpered as you did, and yet the great Helios stepped on you all the faster, because you were already crouched at his feet.’ She was leaning forward, her golden hair loose, embroidering the sheets around her. ‘Let me tell you the truth about Helios and all the rest. They do not care if you are good. They barely care if you are wicked. The only thing that makes them listen is power.

...we do not lend the hearth quite the importance that our ancestors did, Greek or otherwise. Yet, even for us, the word stands for something more than just a fireplace. We speak of 'hearth and home'. The word 'hearth' shares its ancestry with 'heart', just as the modern Greek for 'hearth' is kardia, which also means 'heart'. In Ancient Greece the wider concept of hearth and home was expressed by the oikos, which lives on for us today in economics and ecology. The Latin for hearth is focus - with speaks for itself. It is a strange and wonderful thing that out of the words for fireplace we have spun "cardiologist', 'deep focus' and 'eco-warrior'. The essential meaning of centrality that connects them also reveals the great significance of the hearth to the Greeks and Romans, and consequently the importance of Hestia, its presiding deity.

Pluto claimed that in ancient times, all humans had been a combination of male and female. Each person had two heads, four arms, four legs. Supposedly, these combo-humans had been so powerful they made the gods uneasy, so Zeus split them in half - man and woman. Ever since, humans had felt incomplete. They spent their whole lives searching for their other halves.

My husband claims I have an unhealthy obsession with secondhand bookshops. That I spend too much time daydreaming altogether. But either you intrinsically understand the attraction of searching for hidden treasure amongst rows of dusty shelves or you don't; it's a passion, bordering on a spiritual illness, which cannot be explained to the unaffected. True, they're not for the faint of heart. Wild and chaotic, capricious and frustrating, there are certain physical laws that govern secondhand bookstores and like gravity, they're pretty much nonnegotiable. Paperback editions of D. H. Lawrence must constitute no less than 55 percent of all stock in any shop. Natural law also dictates that the remaining 45 percent consist of at least two shelves worth of literary criticism on Paradise Lost and there should always be an entire room in the basement devoted to military history which, by sheer coincidence, will be haunted by a man in his seventies. (Personal studies prove it's the same man. No matter how quickly you move from one bookshop to the next, he's always there. He's forgotten something about the war that no book can contain, but like a figure in Greek mythology, is doomed to spend his days wandering from basement room to basement room, searching through memoirs of the best/worst days of his life.) Modern booksellers can't really compare with these eccentric charms. They keep regular hours, have central heating, and are staffed by freshly scrubbed young people in black T-shirts. They're devoid of both basement rooms and fallen Greek heroes in smelly tweeds. You'll find no dogs or cats curled up next to ancient space heathers like familiars nor the intoxicating smell of mold and mildew that could emanate equally from the unevenly stacked volumes or from the owner himself. People visit Waterstone's and leave. But secondhand bookshops have pilgrims. The words out of print are a call to arms for those who seek a Holy Grail made of paper and ink.

We can’t just stand here in the rain with our backs to the town,’ said Baucis. ‘I’ll look if you will.’ ‘I love you Philemon, my husband.’ ‘I love you Baucis, my wife.’ They turned and looked down. They were just in time to see the great flood inundating Eumeneia before Philemon was turned into an oak tree and Baucis into a linden. For hundreds of years the two trees stood side by side, symbols of eternal love and humble kindness, their intertwining branches hung with the tokens left by admiring pilgrims.

In Greek mythology, Pallas Athena was celebrated as the goddess of reason and justice.1 To end the cycle of violence that began with Agamemnon’s sacrifice of his daughter, Iphigenia, Athena created a court of justice to try Orestes, thereby installing the rule of law in lieu of the reign of vengeance.2 Recall also the biblical Deborah (from the Book of Judges).3 She was at the same time prophet, judge, and military leader. This triple-headed authority was exercised by only two other Israelites, both men: Moses and Samuel. People came from far and wide to seek Deborah’s judgment. According to the rabbis, Deborah was independently wealthy; thus she could afford to work pro bono.4 Even if its members knew nothing of Athena and Deborah, the U.S. legal establishment resisted admitting women into its ranks far too long.

Aeneas' mother is a star?" "No; a goddess." I said cautiously, "Venus is the power that we invoke in spring, in the garden, when things begin growing. And we call the evening star Venus." He thought it over. Perhaps having grown up in the country, among pagans like me, helped him understand my bewilderment. "So do we, he said. "But Venus also became more...With the help of the Greeks. They call her Aphrodite...There was a great poet who praised her in Latin. Delight of men and gods, he called her, dear nurturer. Under the sliding star signs she fills the ship-laden sea and the fruitful earth with her being; through her the generations are conceived and rise up to see the sun; from her the storm clouds flee; to her the earth, the skillful maker, offers flowers. The wide levels of the sea smile at her, and all the quiet sky shines and streams with light..." It was the Venus I had prayed to, it was my prayer, though I had no such words. They filled my eyes with tears and my heart with inexpressible joy.

Tell me something. Do you believe in God?' Snow darted an apprehensive glance in my direction. 'What? Who still believes nowadays?' 'It isn't that simple. I don't mean the traditional God of Earth religion. I'm no expert in the history of religions, and perhaps this is nothing new--do you happen to know if there was ever a belief in an...imperfect God?' 'What do you mean by imperfect?' Snow frowned. 'In a way all the gods of the old religions were imperfect, considered that their attributes were amplified human ones. The God of the Old Testament, for instance, required humble submission and sacrifices, and and was jealous of other gods. The Greek gods had fits of sulks and family quarrels, and they were just as imperfect as mortals...' 'No,' I interrupted. 'I'm not thinking of a god whose imperfection arises out of the candor of his human creators, but one whose imperfection represents his essential characteristic: a god limited in his omniscience and power, fallible, incapable of foreseeing the consequences of his acts, and creating things that lead to horror. He is a...sick god, whose ambitions exceed his powers and who does not realize it at first. A god who has created clocks, but not the time they measure. He has created systems or mechanisms that serves specific ends but have now overstepped and betrayed them. And he has created eternity, which was to have measured his power, and which measures his unending defeat.' Snow hesitated, but his attitude no longer showed any of the wary reserve of recent weeks: 'There was Manicheanism...' 'Nothing at all to do with the principles of Good and Evil,' I broke in immediately. 'This god has no existence outside of matter. He would like to free himself from matter, but he cannot...' Snow pondered for a while: 'I don't know of any religion that answers your description. That kind of religion has never been...necessary. If i understand you, and I'm afraid I do, what you have in mind is an evolving god, who develops in the course of time, grows, and keeps increasing in power while remaining aware of his powerlessness. For your god, the divine condition is a situation without a goal. And understanding that, he despairs. But isn't this despairing god of yours mankind, Kelvin? Is it man you are talking about, and that is a fallacy, not just philosophically but also mystically speaking.' I kept on: 'No, it's nothing to do with man. man may correspond to my provisional definition from some point of view, but that is because the definition has a lot of gaps. Man does not create gods, in spite of appearances. The times, the age, impose them on him. Man can serve is age or rebel against it, but the target of his cooperation or rebellion comes to him from outside. If there was only a since human being in existence, he would apparently be able to attempt the experiment of creating his own goals in complete freedom--apparently, because a man not brought up among other human beings cannot become a man. And the being--the being I have in mind--cannot exist in the plural, you see? ...Perhaps he has already been born somewhere, in some corner of the galaxy, and soon he will have some childish enthusiasm that will set him putting out one star and lighting another. We will notice him after a while...' 'We already have,' Snow said sarcastically. 'Novas and supernovas. According to you they are candles on his altar.' 'If you're going to take what I say literally...' ...Snow asked abruptly: 'What gave you this idea of an imperfect god?' 'I don't know. It seems quite feasible to me. That is the only god I could imagine believing in, a god whose passion is not a redemption, who saves nothing, fulfills no purpose--a god who simply is.

Persephone Speaks “I asked him for it. For the blood, for the rust, for the sin. I didn’t want the pearls other girls talked about, or the fine marble of palaces, or even the roses in the mouth of servants. I wanted pomegranates— I wanted darkness, I wanted him. So I grabbed my king and ran away to a land of death, where I reigned and people whispered that I’d been dragged. I’ll tell you I’ve changed. I’ll tell you, the red on my lips isn’t wine. I hope you’ve heard of horns, but that isn’t half of it. Out of an entire kingdom he kneels only to me, calls me Queen, calls me Mercy. Mama, Mama, I hope you get this. Know the bed is warm and our hearts are cold, know never have I been better than when I am here. Do not send flowers, we’ll throw them in the river. ‘Flowers are for the dead’, ‘least that’s what the mortals say. I’ll come back when he bores me, but Mama, not today.

I am the interpretation of the prophet I am the artist in the coffin I am the brave flag stained with blood I am the wounds overcome I am the dream refusing to sleep I am the bare-breasted voice of liberty I am the comic the insult and the laugh I am the right the middle and the left I am the poached eggs in the sky I am the Parisian streets at night I am the dance that swings till dawn I am the grass on the greener lawn I am the respectful neighbour and the graceful man I am the encouraging smile and the helping hand I am the straight back and the lifted chin I am the tender heart and the will to win I am the rainbow in rain I am the human who won’t die in vain I am Athena of Greek mythology I am the religion that praises equality I am the woman of stealth and affection I am the man of value and compassion I am the wild horse ploughing through I am the shoulder to lean onto I am the Muslim the Jew and the Christian I am the Dane the French and the Palestinian I am the straight the square and the round I am the white the black and the brown I am the free speech and the free press I am the freedom to express I will die for my right to be all the above here mentioned And should threat encounter I’ll pull my pencil

Fate has always been the realm of the gods, though even the gods are subject to it. In ancient Greek mythology, the Three Sisters of Fate spin out a person's destiny within three nights of their birth. Imagine your newborn child in his nursery. It's dark and soft and warm, somewhere between two and four a.m., one of those hours that belong exclusively to the newly born or the dying. The first sister - Clotho - appears next to you. She's a maiden, young and smooth. In her hands she holds a spindle, and on it she spins the thrads of your child's life. Next to her is Lachesis, older and more matronly than her sister. In her hands, she holds the rod used to mesure the thread of life. The length and destiny of your child's life is in her hands. Finally we have Atropos - old, haggardly. Inevitable. In her hands she holds the terrible shears she'll use to cut the thread of your child's life. She determines the time and manner of his or her death. Imagine the awesome and awful sight of these three sisters pressed together, presiding over his crib, dermining his future. In modern times, the sisters have largely disappeared from the collective consiousness, but the idea of Fate hasn't. Why do we still believe? Does itmake tragedy more bearable to believe that we ourselves had no hand in it, that we couldn't have prevented it? It was always ever thus. Things happen for a reason, says Natasha's mother. What she means is Fate has a Reason and, though you may not know it, there's a certain comfort in knowing that there's a Plan.

Eros mumbled something. "I'm sorry?" said Aphrodite. "Whatwouldjesusdo." "What would Jesus do?" said Aphrodite. "Let me tell you something. Jesus was a very good boy. He would do exactly what his mother told him to." "But-" "Jesus was supposed to be a god, right?" said Aphrodite. "Ergo, he did revenge. All gods do revenge." "Not exactly. He said you should turn the other-" "What else does your Jesus say?" Aphrodite interrupted. "I thought you didn't care." "Let me see," said Aphrodite. "I remember. 'Honour thy father and mother'." "One, that wasn't Jesus. And two, it's hard to honour your father when there are so many candidates for who he might be." "That's not very nice," said Aphrodite. "You know who your father is. It's your cousin Ares." [...] "I wish the Virgin Mary was my mother," grumbled Eros eventually.

The heroes cleansed our world of chthonic terrors -- earthborn monsters that endangered mankind and threatened to choke the rise of civilisation. So long as dragons, giants, centaurs and mutant beasts infested the air, earth and seas we could never spread out with confidence and transform the wild world into a place of safety for humanity. In time, even the benevolent minor deities would find themselves elbowed out by the burgeoning and newly confident human race. The nymphs, dryads, fauns, satyrs and sprites of the mountains, streams, meadows and oceans could not compete with our need and greed for land to quarry, farm and build upon. The rise of a spirit of rational enquiry and scientific understanding pushed the immortals further from us. The world was being reshaped as a home fit for mortal beings only. Today, of course, some of the rarer and more vulnerable mortal creatures that have shared the world with us are undergoing the same threats to their natural territories that cuased the end of the nymphs and woodland spirits. Habitat loss and species extinction have all happened before. The days of the gods themselves were numbered too. Prometheus's gift of fire, as Zeus had feared, would one day allow us to do even without the Olympians.

Not to waste the spring I threw down everything, And ran into the open world To sing what I could sing... To dance what I could dance! And join with everyone! I wandered with a reckless heart beneath the newborn sun. First stepping through the blushing dawn, I crossed beneath a garden bower, counting every hermit thrush, counting every hour. When morning's light was ripe at last, I stumbled on with reckless feet; and found two nymphs engaged in play, approaching them stirred no retreat. With naked skin, their weaving hands, in form akin to Calliope's maids, shook winter currents from their hair to weave within them vernal braids. I grabbed the first, who seemed the stronger by her soft and dewy leg, and swore blind eyes, Lest I find I, before Diana, a hunted stag. But the nymphs they laughed, and shook their heads. and begged I drop beseeching hands. For one was no goddess, the other no huntress, merely two girls at play in the early day. "Please come to us, with unblinded eyes, and raise your ready lips. We will wash your mouth with watery sighs, weave you springtime with our fingertips." So the nymphs they spoke, we kissed and laid, by noontime's hour, our love was made, Like braided chains of crocus stems, We lay entwined, I laid with them, Our breath, one glassy, tideless sea, Our bodies draping wearily. We slept, I slept so lucidly, with hopes to stay this memory. I woke in dusty afternoon, Alone, the nymphs had left too soon, I searched where perched upon my knees Heard only larks' songs in the trees. "Be you, the larks, my far-flung maids? With lilac feet and branchlike braids... Who sing sweet odes to my elation, in your larking exaltation!" With these, my clumsy, carefree words, The birds they stirred and flew away, "Be I, poor Actaeon," I cried, "Be dead… Before they, like Hippodamia, be gone astray!" Yet these words, too late, remained unheard, By lark, that parting, morning bird. I looked upon its parting flight, and smelled the coming of the night; desirous, I gazed upon its jaunt, as Leander gazes Hellespont. Now the hour was ripe and dark, sensuous memories of sunlight past, I stood alone in garden bowers and asked the value of my hours. Time was spent or time was tossed, Life was loved and life was lost. I kissed the flesh of tender girls, I heard the songs of vernal birds. I gazed upon the blushing light, aware of day before the night. So let me ask and hear a thought: Did I live the spring I’d sought? It's true in joy, I walked along, took part in dance, and sang the song. and never tried to bind an hour to my borrowed garden bower; nor did I once entreat a day to slumber at my feet. Yet days aren't lulled by lyric song, like morning birds they pass along, o'er crests of trees, to none belong; o'er crests of trees of drying dew, their larking flight, my hands, eschew Thus I'll say it once and true… From all that I saw, and everywhere I wandered, I learned that time cannot be spent, It only can be squandered.

In the novel Fight Club, the character Jack’s apartment is blown up. All of his possessions—“every stick of furniture,” which he pathetically loved—were lost. Later it turns out that Jack blew it up himself. He had multiple personalities, and “Tyler Durden” orchestrated the explosion to shock Jack from the sad stupor he was afraid to do anything about. The result was a journey into an entirely different and rather dark part of his life. In Greek mythology, characters often experience katabasis—or “a going down.” They’re forced to retreat, they experience a depression, or in some cases literally descend into the underworld. When they emerge, it’s with heightened knowledge and understanding. Today, we’d call that hell—and on occasion we all spend some time there. We surround ourselves with bullshit. With distractions. With lies about what makes us happy and what’s important. We become people we shouldn’t become and engage in destructive, awful behaviors. This unhealthy and ego-derived state hardens and becomes almost permanent. Until katabasis forces us to face it. Duris dura franguntur. Hard things are broken by hard things. The bigger the ego the harder the fall. It would be nice if it didn’t have to be that way. If we could nicely be nudged to correct our ways, if a quiet admonishment was what it took to shoo away illusions, if we could manage to circumvent ego on our own. But it is just not so. The Reverend William A. Sutton observed some 120 years ago that “we cannot be humble except by enduring humiliations.” How much better it would be to spare ourselves these experiences, but sometimes it’s the only way the blind can be made to see.

And when we say also that the Word, who is the first-birth of God, was produced without sexual union, and that He, Jesus Christ, our Teacher, was crucified and died, and rose again, and ascended into heaven, we propound nothing different from what you believe regarding those whom you esteem sons of Jupiter. For you know how many sons your esteemed writers ascribed to Jupiter: Mercury, the interpreting word and teacher of all; Aesculapius, who, though he was a great physician, was struck by a thunderbolt, and so ascended to heaven; and Bacchus too, after he had been torn limb from limb; and Hercules, when he had committed himself to the flames to escape his toils; and the sons of Leda, and Dioscuri; and Perseus, son of Danae; and Bellerophon, who, though sprung from mortals, rose to heaven on the horse Pegasus. For what shall I say of Ariadne, and those who, like her, have been declared to be set among the stars? And what of the emperors who die among yourselves, whom you deem worthy of deification, and in whose behalf you produce some one who swears he has seen the burning Caesar rise to heaven from the funeral pyre? And what kind of deeds are recorded of each of these reputed sons of Jupiter, it is needless to tell to those who already know. This only shall be said, that they are written for the advantage and encouragement of youthful scholars; for all reckon it an honourable thing to imitate the gods. But far be such a thought concerning the gods from every well-conditioned soul, as to believe that Jupiter himself, the governor and creator of all things, was both a parricide and the son of a parricide, and that being overcome by the love of base and shameful pleasures, he came in to Ganymede and those many women whom he had violated and that his sons did like actions. But, as we said above, wicked devils perpetrated these things. And we have learned that those only are deified who have lived near to God in holiness and virtue; and we believe that those who live wickedly and do not repent are punished in everlasting fire.