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Next we're gonna have a look at the ideas
that the ancients had on their own myths.

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Greeks were not just passive readers or
listeners to their own mythic stories they

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had ideas about them and tried to figure
out themselves what myth was all about.

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We started with some early ideas in this
course about myth, looking at the

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contemporary English word myth and the
many contradictory and inter,

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interestingly contradictory ideas that are
contained in it.

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Well, this story gets even richer when we
look back over time and have a look at

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what the ancients thought about their own
mythic stories.

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After this video we're going to move
forward and have a look at things from the

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Renaissance and forward.
But here we'll look at what those in

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antiquity thought about their own mythic
tales.

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We'll find that the views are not uniform,
that they're very different and lots of,

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we'll have lots of different voices
represented.

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Starting off with an anonymous ancient
manuscript commentator.

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Someone who scribbled in the margins of
the myth that he was reading.

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This one had to do with, well, somebody
that we'll spend some time talking about.

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A myth that had some nasty things
happening, gods having sexual relations in

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public.
And this anonymous manuscript commentator

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writes in the side of the manuscript.
Among some people these things are not

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permitted on account of the display of
indecency.

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Yes indeed, it's true censorship as an
attitude toward these mythic stories is

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alive and well.
Some of the ancient commentators are very

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scrupulous about what should be told and
what shouldn't be told.

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And there are some decency police that are
operative here that want to make sure the

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stories that get retold are cleaned up a
bit, as our commentator wants to make sure

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of here.
Another figure, Plato, whose dates are 429

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to 337 BCE, a great philosopher in the
Western Tradition, had many complex views

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about ancient myth and about the poets
that retell these myths.

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Most of them were not so easy to take,
because Plato was not a friend of the

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poets.
In his Republic, he has lots of different

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commentaries that develop some of his
ideas, and he is not one I want to pull

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out for our class.
Such utterances are both impious and

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false.
They are furthermore harmful to those who

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hear them.
For every man will be lenient with his own

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misdeeds, if he is convinced that such
are, and were, the actions of the gods.

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Plato is once again making a commentary on
the same thing our anonymous an-,

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manuscript commentator made a comment on,
talking about gods having sexual relations

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in public, and he says, well goodness, we
can't go around doing this.

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But notice that Plato's criticism is a
little bit more trenchant than the one

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that's given by the manuscript
commentator.

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That earlier one was only about decency
and indecency and, I guess, worried about

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being scandalized by some nasty things
happening.

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Plato, instead, focuses on the deleterious
effect that hearing such stories is gonna

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have on people as they are building values
in their culture.

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So, here, myths are not just something
that you listen to and get entertained by,

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or even offended by.
They are powerful.

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They actually shape the kind of person you
are, and the kind of values you have.

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According to Plato, then, we've got
another idea, which is that myths have the

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power to construct culture.
Myths have the power to construct culture.

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Another figure that predates Plato is
[foreign] of [foreign], known for his many

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colorful views.
Some of them having to do with myth, wrote

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in the sixth to fifth century BCE and told
us this little piece of wisdom.

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Mortals consider that the gods are born
and that they have clothes and speech and

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bodies like their own.
The Ethiopians say that their gods are

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snub nosed and black.
The Thracians, that their have light blue

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eyes and red hair.
But if cattle and horses or lions had

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hands or were able to draw, horses would
draw the forms of their gods like horses,

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cattle like cattle.
Xenophanes has a pretty sophisticated view

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here.
So, unless we quick thought that all these

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ancients walked around believing their own
myths, well, goodness, no.

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Xenophanes has, quite, quite a skeptical
view.

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He's skeptical of the kinds of sheeps that
the poets give to the gods, and ha-,

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having the gods anthropomorphized and
walking around in shapes that seem like

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ours.
Furthermore, he adds, you know, what's

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happening here in these mythic stories is
that all we're doing as Greeks is

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reflecting back in our gods what we see in
ourselves.

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We make our mythic stories on the kinds of
cultural values that we hold.

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And if we had ethnic differences, such as
he observes in Ethiopians or the

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Thracians, we would make our mythic
stories according to a reflection of what

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ethnic and specific ethnic qualities are
that we have.

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So it's good with us.
And this would happen true, too, even

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across species.
So, according to Xenophanes, culture

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actually constructs myth.
Culture plays a powerful shaping role on

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the kinds of myths that people tell each
other.

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Were inverting an observation from Plato,
putting the two of those together, we've

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got a pretty powerful reciprocal
relationship and observation in, in, our,

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in our hands.
Having a look at another theory, a figure

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named Metrodorus of Lampsacus, who lived
in the fifth century BCE.

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Not a very well-known person, but some of
his ideas are preserved by later people

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that comment, that, that quote his work,
and one of his famous quotation survives

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here: neither Hera nor Athena nor Zeus are
the things which those who consecrate

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temples and walls to them consider them to
be, but they are manifestations of nature,

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and arrangements of the elements.
Agamemnon is air, Achilles is the sun.

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Helen is the Earth, and Paris the air.
Hector is the Moon.

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But among the gods Demeter is the liver,
Dionysus is the spleen, and Apollo the

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bile.
So, Metrodorus looks at these stories and

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says, you know, what's happening on the
surface as one god talks to a human, or a

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human talks to a god, or a god talks to a
god, it's not as though we've got some

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divinities floating around engaging in
conversations with others or engaged in

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actual physical actions.
Instead what we have is representations of

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deep truths, symbolically carrying forward
deep hidden wisdom.

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And look at the kind of mapping that
Metrodorus makes when he talks about the

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code that's underlying this hidden wisdom.
All the human beings, in the stories that

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he's interested in, this drawing from
Homer's Iliad, we've got Agenendon who's

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related to the air, Achilles the sun,
Helen the earth, Paris the air, Hector the

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moon, so all of these humans are related
to specific pieces of the natural,

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physical cosmos.
Furthermore, the pieces, the relationships

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between humans and pieces of the cosmos
doesn't have to be one to one.

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Agamemnon is there, and Paris, also at the
same time, is air.

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So, the relationships can be multiple,
from figures to features of the cosmos.

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And then when we look at the gods, well
look at what the gods are mapped onto.

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Their deep hidden meanings, their symbolic
representa-, their symbolic

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representations of, is body parts.
Demeter is the liver, Dionysus the spleen,

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and Apollo the bile.
So, maybe, was he suggesting that when we

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tell stories about human beings, what
we're really doing is reflecting deep

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truths about some features of the physical
cosmos around us and when we tell stories

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about gods, what we're really doing is
reflecting deep ideas we have about our

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human nature.
A fascinating idea.

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We don't have Metrodorus around to ask
him.

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I wish we had more we could read of him
instead of, you know, just these little

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snippets.
So, looking at Metrodorus's view of the

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world, this is a very famous school of
ancient ideas about myth called allegory.

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Metrodorus and many others were convinced
of the idea that myths carried deep,

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hidden truths.
Those who did were, can be fit under the

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school of ancient allegory, and when they
ran into mythic stories they said to

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themselves okay, the surface level must be
a code for some hidden deeper truths.

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And all kinds of stories get, or all kinds
of meanings get discovered and found in

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these, in these mythic stories.
Stories about the physical cosmos and its

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shape, about the weather, about morality.
All kinds of hidden wisdom were thought to

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be contained in these rich powerful texts
especially of Homer.

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Ancient readers loved to read Homer
allegorically and find deep hidden truths

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in them.
Now, all this hunting around for hidden

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meanings can sometimes get to be annoying.
Right?

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Because a person can say, oh look, this is
a hidden meaning here, and this is a

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hidden meaning here.
You don't usually bring the author back to

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say, did you intend this or didn't you?
And at a certain point, there are some

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people that developed a kind of
anti-allegorical strategy.

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Aristarchus of Samothrace is one of those
figures.

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His dates are 216 to 144 BCE.
He's a very sober commentator.

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A more scholarly type of person,
interested in a literary approach to the

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mythic tales.
And he told us a view that was captured by

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a, a later commentator that summarized his
views this way.

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Aristarchus thought that readers of the
myths ought not to take things told by the

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poet, I'm sorry, ought to take the things
told by the poet as more like legends

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according to poetic license, and not
bother themselves about what is outside

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the things told by the poet.
So Aristarchus is saying, just take a step

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back from trying to find all these deep
hidden truths in there.

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Instead, what you're gonna see is a story
that.

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Because of poetic license, poets like to
tell exaggerated representations of

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things, but don't go around looking for
bunches of hidden wisdom in there.

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So Aristarchus gives us a view that we
would characterize as something that is

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literary and pretty strongly
anti-allegorical.

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Finally among our ancient views, I wanna
take a look at a figure named Euhemerus.

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His dates are the fourth to the third
century BCE, and here's another example of

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a summary of ideas in, in a later author.
Nothing survives except small quotations

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of Euhemerus, and this summary helps us
get a grip on him.

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The gods, we are told, were terrestrial
beings who gained immortal honor and fame

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because of their gifts to humanity.
Regarding these gods, many and varied

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accounts have been handed down by the
writers of history and mythology.

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So Euhemerus had the view that the stories
that we hear are actually based on real

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historical characters.
These stores of historical characters get

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told and retold over time until they're
literally deified.

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They become gods in the retelling and this
is where the myths come from.

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Real and historic personages are the
background behind any of the mythic

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characters we have.
As time advances euhemerism and allegory

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are the two most prominent theories that
survive.

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We'll see through the Middle Ages, and
then in our next segment, we'll look at

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what happens in the Renaissance and beyond
as people try to grip, get a grip on these

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strange, wonderful stories.
But through the Middle Ages, allegory and

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euhemerism are the ideas that really have
the most weight.