So it is Saturday again and I must think of something to
write. I have decided to write rather than video- because I assure you, you all
have much better things to look at than my face.
The theme this week is ‘Nobody’s perfect’ and I had a
brilliant post for it. I promise you, it is the most astounding, clever and
witty post. With Emily’s blessing I planned to tell you the many failings of Alexander
the Great- a seemingly perfect man.
As it is- the post has proved too much of a monster for me
to write, and so the idea sits comfortably on the shelf, along with my epic on
Greek women, which will one day, probably never, be written.
 |
| I mean seriously, would this guy ever get THAT angry about an apple? |
One thing I have been doing this week is watching the
Hercules TV show. The old Disney one based on the movie, because the many
historical inaccuracies are good for a laugh. I mean, I don’t expect much out
of a show where Hercules is best friends with Icarus and Cassandra, taught by
Herodotus and Homer is a journalist, but it’s still amusing to me. Mostly,
because the Hercules from Greek
mythology is so far removed from the show.
Greek Hercules, was a bit of a pratt.
Yep. He really sucked. Hercules (or Herakles if we are going
to use the Greek terminology) was a really terrible guy. His response to every
adversity was to hit it with his club until it stopped moving. I’m not saying
he wasn’t cunning, the trick with Augean stables (cleaning them by diverting a
river to run through) was pretty clever. But he could also be an idiot. At one
point- an apple was in his way in the valley he was crossing, and rather than
like any normal guy and just ignoring the apple, he decided to hit it with his
club. When it didn’t erupt into a million small apple pieces, but instead grew
in size, he hit it again. This went on for a while, until the apple grew to
fill the entire valley and he couldn’t walk past. Athena eventually turns up,
and tells him the apple is a manifestation of Eris, the goddess of Strife, and
it is maybe a good idea to STOP HITTING THE APPLE as now he is stuck. For such
a famous hero, Herakles could really have done with utilising his demi-godic
brain cells more often.
All the Greek heroes were like this. Pretty bad folks. Odysseus,
my least favourite Greek hero to spell, abandons his loving wife for a big war
in troy. Fair enough, but on the way home sleeps with multiple women (and only
one of them was necessary for the Odyssey’s plot advancement) while Penelope
turns down several better offers to wait for him.
In the Euripides play, Jason casts aside his (admittedly pretty
awful) wife Medea for a younger woman, after Medea killed her brother to be
with him. He claims he was trying to help his family, and he was still going to
look after Medea and their sons once married to his new wife, who happens to be
a Princess, but never felt it necessary to tell her this. Although, I do admit
Medea may have overreacted to his betrayal by killing their children.
Theseus may have killed the Minotaur, but it’s pretty clear
he could only do it with Ariadne’s help. She gives him string and a sword to
kill the beast, and he shows his appreciation by abandoning her on an island.
It ends alright though, because she gets with the God Dionysus instead.
And Perseus he… um… actually, Perseus was a pretty cool guy.
He stayed with the Princess he married, didn’t have too many affairs that I
know of, and didn’t have a compulsion to smash apples. Yeah, Perseus was good.
Anyway, no-one is perfect, not even the Greek hero’s. Especially, not the Greek Hero’s.
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