Mythography

Baltasar de Vitoria is widely known for his Theatro de los Dioses de la Gentilidad (1st. Part, Salamanca, 1620, 1st. ed.; 2nd. Part, Salamanca, 1623, 1st. ed.), which is the first Hispanic handbook, in the current sense of the word, on Classical Mythology. My communication is to analyze the treatment made by the author of the "love affairs" between Mars and Venus. To do so, after a presentation of the autor, the work and its importance, of its structure and its encyclopedic character, I will present in detail the chapter dedicated to the well-known love affairs between Mars and Venus –the chapter number IV of the Book number VI of the First Part. I will offer what were the sources –primary, secondary, Classical, Renaissance– used.

Les mythes grecs et latins ont été transmis par les poètes et par les mythographes. Mais, quoique leur rôle ait été décisif, ces derniers ont été peu étudiés. Une des raisons en est que leur activité n'a jamais été constituée en genre, leurs pratiques étant aussi diverses que complexes. Ce volume, issu des travaux du groupe de recherches international Polymnia, cherche à répondre à la question : Que recouvre le terme 'mythographie' ? en étudiant un choix de textes représentatifs de la tradition mythographique en Grèce, à Rome, dans l'Europe du moyen âge et de la Renaissance. Pour mieux appréhender la diversité des méthodes et des propositions des mythographes anciens et modernes sur les significations et la fabrication des mythes, ces études sont centrées sur les formes, usages et visées de leurs écrits. Loin d' être de simples médiateurs et compilateurs, les mythographes ont été des analystes, des interprètes et des recréateurs de mythes, qui nous invitent à réfléchir à notre tour sur les constants efforts d' exégèse qui ont construit la culture occidentale.

Qu'y avait-il au commencement, avant que le monde soit le monde, avant qu'il y ait de la terre, de l'eau, des végétaux, des animaux, puis l'homme, puis des cités et des civilisations ? Qu'y avait-il ? Les réponses diffèrent selon les cultures et les civilisations. Selon certaines, il n'y avait rien. Selon d'autres, la parole. Point commun à toutes ces cultures et civilisations : c'est pour répondre à cette question que les hommes se sont mis à inventer des histoires et à les raconter. En Grèce, berceau de la civilisation occidentale, les poètes ont raconté qu'au commencement était un vide : la béance ou Chaos et que dans ce vide est apparue la Terre : Gaïa. Peu de temps après être apparue, Gaïa, la terre, va donner naissance au Ciel, Ouranos, puis aux eaux : les fleuves, les mers, etc. Parce qu'Ouranos, qu'a enfanté Gaïa, est de la même taille qu'elle, il se couche sur elle pour la recouvrir complètement, tant et si bien que Gaïa devient grosse d'une kyrielle d'enfants, mais d'enfants qui ne peuvent sortir d'elle tant Ouranos l'étouffe. Les enfants que porte en elle Gaïa, ce sont les Titans. Ce sont des êtres gigantesques, six filles et six garçons, dont le plus jeune a pour nom Cronos. Parce qu'Ouranos est accolé à Gaïa, il n'y a pas de lumière : c'est la nuit perpétuelle. Gaïa est furieuse car elle souffre des enfants qui sont en sont en elle. Aussi leur demande-t-elle de l'aide : « Écoutez, votre père nous fait injure, il nous soumet à des violences épouvantables, il faut que cela cesse. Vous devez vous révolter contre votre père, Ciel ». Cependant, aussi gigantesques et aussi puissants soient-ils, les Titans ont peur d'Ouranos qui est encore plus gigantesque et encore plus puissant qu'eux, tous, à l'exception de Cronos. Gaïa fabrique en son sein une serpe en métal qu'elle remet à Cronos. Lorsqu'Ouranos s'apprête de nouveau à pénétrer Gaïa, Cronos saisit son sexe, le tranche à l'aide de la serpe, et jette le sexe par-dessus son épaule, loin derrière lui où il est englouti par la mer. Ouranos hurle et, sous la douleur, se détache de Gaïa pour se fixer en haut du monde, faisant place, dans le même temps, à la lumière et au jour…

(Fr) : Cette étude vise  à  analyser  la  prise  de  conscience  de  l’existence  d’une tradition littéraire des troubadours de la première moitié du XVIe  siècle en France. On ne trouve, parmi les traités de ce temps, que des allusions mineures au passé des troubadours, même dans les œuvres relativement bien connues et influentes. Nous tenterons d’esquisser un panorama de ces passages qui, si bref soit-il, pourrait bien illustrer le climat culturel dans lequel intervint Jehan de Nostredame avec ses Vies.

This article approaches the relationship between the Odyssey’s nostos and other Nostoi from the perspective of the epic’s treatment of Cassandra. In doing so, I emphasize two perspectives. First, rather than privileging either “lost” poems or our extant epic as primary in a “vertical” relationship, I assume a horizontal dynamic wherein the reconstructed poems and the Odyssey influenced each other. Second, I assume that, since little can be said with certainty about lost poems, references to other traditions attest primarily to the compositional methods and the poetics of our extant poem. After outlining the major narrative features of the story of Cassandra that were likely available to Homeric audiences, I argue that the suppression of her story in the Odyssey is both part of the epic’s strategy to celebrate Odysseus and Penelope and a feature of the enforcement of a male-dominated ideology.

The image of the mythological shape-changing sea-god Proteus was used in several contexts relating to natural philosophy in early modern Britain. These uses derived from different ancient sources, including Homer, Plato, and Diodorus Siculus. Proteus's use as an image of nature itself, most common among writers on alchemy and natural philosophy, disproves the common idea that images of nature were always female. Coercive relations between the natural philosopher and nature were not dependent on gendering nature as female, but were also expressed through the metaphor of the "binding of Proteus." Proteus was treated by mythographers as representing the investigator of nature, and by antioccultists as an image of the magician making false claims to natural knowledge. The use of the image of Proteus in relation to natural philosophy declined in the late seventeenth century with the rise of mechanical philosophy. IDEAS ABOUT NATURE IN THE EARLY MODERN PERIOD were often expressed through metaphor. This article discusses the varied uses of one classical image, that of sea-god Proteus, in relation to natural philosophy in early modern Britain, roughly from the late Elizabethan era to the Restoration. Proteus came into writing about natural philosophy and natural knowledge from a number of sources, including mythographies, alchemical writings, and antioccultist polemic. Not as well known as the mother figure Natura, or the clockwork universe of the mechanical philosophers, Proteus was a surprisingly common image, revealing the importance of the humanistic and classical vocabulary in natural-philosophical writing. Examining the uses of Proteus, both by natural philosophers and by writers who were not natural philosophers themselves but connected Proteus with natural philosophy also reveals that the assertion of much recent, feminist-inspired scholarship that personifications of nature are always female is greatly exaggerated.' Proteus, who despite his shape-changing ability was never considered a sexually ambiguous deity, was used as a symbol for nature, showing that nature was not necessarily gendered 1"From ancient to modern times, nature-the object of scientific study-has been conceived as unquestionably female"

In the Metamorphoses Ovid is a poet-mythographer, who avows, implicitly or
explicitly, his conformity or disagreement with the traditional versions of the
legends that he treats. The poem is not a real mythographic handbook, because
it uses of the epic poetry’s narrative principles. It is necessary to emphasize among
these principles the different levels of narration and the continuous ruptures of
the chronological thread, looking for the varietas, the surprise and attention of
the conspirational reader of the referential situations from the moment in which
it is written. These are very different principles from the quasi historical narrative
of Pseudo Apollodorus’ Bibliotheca. This is demonstrated by comparison of some
legends of the Met. I-V with the mythographic handbook.

website: http://eman-archives.org/Mythologia/
scientific blog: http://mythologia.hypotheses.org
This project aims to inform the construction of Antiquity during the early modern age by taking as a privileged example Natale Conti’s Mythologiae Libri Decem. We want to understand how Renaissance humanists created the conditions for an understanding of Antiquity in the different fields of thought and knowledge such as history, geography, natural sciences, philosophy, and technical knowledge as well. The project will highlight the material, social and intellectual conditions governing the constitution of knowledge and its sharing in the European area before the Enlightenment. We will also analyze the ways in which civil society appropriates this knowledge and enhance the dynamics of knowledge transformation by different European publics (in particular English, Italian, French, and German) during the 16th and 17th centuries. This will be achieved by taking advantage of the contributions of cultural anthropology and the study of erudite practices: the project aims to study the invention of the past, going beyond transmission studies, beyond the question of intertextuality and the paradigm of heritage, which implies some form of passive reception.

The late Antique mosaic of Orpheus decorated a small room, approximately 18 m2 in area, connected with two even smaller ones, in 4 m2 and the other 2 m2 in area, belonging most likely to a small funerary chapel (or tomb) discovered in the ancient necropolis by the Damascene Gate in Jerusalem; it was discovered in 1901 by H. Vincent.
The author proposes a new interpretation of the iconographic program of the Orpheus myth used by wealthy Christians in a sepulchral context (see Olszewski M.T. «Orphée endeuillé de la mosaïque funéraire de Jérusalem», in Rey Mimoso-Ruiz, B. ed., Actes du colloque «Orphée entre Soleil et ombre», à l’Institut Catholique de Toulouse du 16 au 17 novembre 2007, Inter Lignes, numéros spécial – mars 2008, pp. 205-214, 226). He also proposes a new interpretation of the role Orpheus played in Roman funerary art, concentrating on the importance of the play on words and the visual and textual punning that was popular in ancient art and especially in funerary art. He rejects the popular interpretation of Orpheus as Christ in the Roman catacombs and proposes to interpret the image as that of Orpheus, bard of the departed souls, without any ahistorical connection with Christ. The program of the mosaic from Jerusalem is thus explained as a play on the words Orpheus-orphanos and Chiron (Chi-Rho) and Pan [Παν(τοκράτωρ)].The frequently used Christian funerary formula of resting in peace, Christ or the Lord corresponds
perfectly with the mood created around the mythical bard.
Orpheus’ universal role as singer and musician moving even the most stony of hearts, extolling the beloved departed, is absolutely justified in the context of a 6th-century Christian tomb. Orpheus is a popular and neutral figure, meaning that in effect it does not constitute a threat to Christian theology and can be tolerated by the educated Christians of Jerusalem.

This collection of essays brings innovative perspectives to the study of ancient mythography, that is, the writings of Greeks and Romans about their own mythical traditions. It treats a range of sources from the beginnings of myth criticism in the 5th century BCE to the end of antiquity in the 5th century CE, highlighting mythography's centrality to ancient views of myth and moving beyond seeing mythographic texts as valuable primarily for the preservation of details about traditional stories. Important individual mythographers are treated (e.g., Ps.-Apollodorus and Hyginus), but throughout there is an emphasis on the connections of mythography with more literary genres, such as epic, and more prestigious prose genres, such as historiography and geography. This makes the volume of interest for those who work on myth in Greek and Roman society, but also for anyone working on ancient intellectual history more broadly, including those who study rhetoric, education, literary composition, art and ancient scholarly traditions.

This article presents the first modern exploration of the relationship between Ovid's Fasti and the Catasterismi attributed to Eratosthenes. It argues that mythological handbooks such as the Catasterismi would have been familiar not only to Ovid but also his readers, and that as such they should be considered as potential intertexts. An examination of this intertextual relationship between the Fasti and the Catasterismi shows how in his first extended star myths Ovid raises the politically sensitive question of how to populate his heavens; and how after teasing his reader with Aratean order and justice, he embraces the chaotic and uncertain world of the Catasterismi.

Cornutus was a Roman philosopher who wrote this compendium on the Greek gods in Greek language in the first century A.D. He wanted to teach the basics of Stoic philosophy to an unknown Roman boy using this mythological work by etymologizing and allegorizing the gods' names and epithets.

This is the first critical edition of the compendium since 1881.

The inscription known as ‘The Pride of Halikarnassos’ or ‘Salmakis inscription’ (late 2nd-early 1st cent. BC) provides a significant example of the self-representation of a late Hellenistic city as well as of the construction of its cultural memory. In particular, a historical and mythological analysis of lines 15-22 of the text – devoted to the myth of the local nymph Salmakis and the Greek hero Hermaphroditos – allows us to appreciate a refined process of reconstruction and reinterpretation of Halikarnassian history. Through the work of the anonymous poet, the city of Halikarnassos remodels the traditions and accounts that depict its foundation, and even remodels its real past, in order to shape a renewed mythical identity. In doing so, the city highlights the most prominent features of the local history, such as ethnic mixture and integration. The eponymous nymph Salmakis plays the major role in this process, representing the homonymous ancient community, territory and spring, whose historical role and importance remains alive in the memory of Hellenistic Halikarnassos.

The Saite mythological manual of the Delta (pBrooklyn 47.218.84) contains myths of Bastet and Horit that are reinterpreted here to shed light on how the Ancient Egyptians conceptualised menstruation within a mythological system. Implications for our understanding of a number of central rituals associated with the myth of the Return of the Goddess are suggested.

Le Fabulae di Igino costituiscono un testo composito e di tradizione in gran parte incerta. Tuttavia, tenuto conto della forma testuale e dello stile, che in massima parte si lasciano ricondurre a paradigmi di semplicità e compilazione propri di prodotti antiquari e informativi di varie età che intendono conservare e trasmettere, si ravvisa una fondamentale coesione e coerenza nell'insieme. Quest'ultima è data in particolare dall'adesione a un teorico modello mitografico, rappresentato nel mondo greco da Apollodoro, di cui si mette in luce l'analogia a certe istanze proprie della tradizione enciclopedica.

This thesis consists of an analysis of two ancient Egyptian
mythological manual; the Tebtunis Mythological Manual and the
Mythological Manual of the Delta. The analysis is focused on the
different modes of structuring and interpreting mythology found in
the manuals. The first chapter is a critical overview of the
different Egyptological theories on Egyptian mythology, with
special emphasis on aetiological myth and etymology. Structuralist theories are drawn upon to formulate two approaches to the mythological material found in the manual and utilized by the Egyptians themselves, viz. the paradigmatic and the syntagmatic. The manuals are found to use model mythological narratives or key myths built upon the myths of the Heliopolitan Ennead to structure the wealth of local mythological traditions. This creates a redundant structure in which the mythology of the individual district becomes an echo or actualization of basic mythic patterns. The Delta manual demonstrates the heuristic nature of this system by adding an extra deity to the Ennead in the form of the female Horus. This goddess is practically unknown outside of priestly manuals but was included to better interpret and associate myths of the Egyptian goddesses. Finally the techniques and structures found in the mythological manuals are compared to those found in the other priestly manuals found in archives, temple libraries or written on temple walls. I conclude that they share similar and compatible approaches which can also be applied to Egyptian ritual texts and narratives.

This thesis contends that myth served the role of speculative philosophy for ancient Near Eastern peoples and examines some of the implications, particularly hermeneutical implications, of the claim.  The Introduction presents a case for using the Sumerian mythographic tradition as a control, an introduction to the field of mythography, and the problem of viewing ancient Near Eastern myth through the lens of Western, particularly Hellenistic, views of myth.
Chapter One is an overview of the influential mythographers of the last two hundred years and their writings. Emphasis is placed on functionalist approaches to myth as functionalism is the aspect of ancient Near Eastern myth being addressed in this thesis.  Chapter Two is the heart of the thesis and presents the case for speculative philosophy as a dominant function, but not the only function, of ancient Near Eastern myth.  The ways in which rational-instrumental thought contrasts with analogical reasoning are unpacked and the case is made that one does not preclude the other.  Divination is presented as a (counter-intuitive) example of rational-instrumental thought and a brief excursus on analogical vs. rational-instrumental thought in Genesis 4 is provided to help make the distinction concrete and to model the hermeneutical implications of the distinction.
Chapters Three and Four present case studies. The first (Chapter Three) is the Sumerian myth Gilgamesh and Huwawa and the second (Chapter Four) is the Babel story of Genesis 11:1-9.  Both case studies are presented for two reasons: 1) To demonstrate that I am not an outside theorist but have gained the expertise to handle the materials in the original languages; and 2) To provide concrete examples of the hermeneutical implications of the claims made in Chapter Two.
A note of concern: The order of the chapters of the dissertation could give the impression that I developed a theory and then tried to apply it to the data (in this case, texts). In actuality I developed the theory from immersing myself in the texts.

La place que tient Orphée dans la mythologie et la religion gréco-romaines est connue depuis fort longtemps. Ce qu'on savait moins jusqu'à une époque récente, c'est que le chantre thrace n'a jamais disparu de la culture occidentale. On le retrouve en effet dans la littérature pseudépigraphique de l'époque hellénistique et romaine, chez les Pères de l'Église, dans l'art paléochrétien, la philosophie médiévale et les littératures en langues latine et vernaculaires du Moyen Âge. Le livre de John Block Friedman s'interroge sur les raisons de cette survivance et étudie les métamorphoses de la figure mythique au cours quelque dix-huit siècles qui séparent le judaïsme hellénisé de la Renaissance écossaise.
Cet ouvrage ne met pas seulement à disposition des lecteurs francophones un classique des études médiévales, il présente en outre plusieurs traductions françaises inédites de textes écrits originellement en grec, en latin et dans diverses langues vernaculaires du Moyen Âge.
Une postface intitulée "De l'Orphée juif à l'Orfée écossais" propose un bilan des travaux effectués depuis la publication de l'ouvrage et fait le point sur les perspectives qui s'offrent encore aux chercheurs.

Note: The PDF does not exactly match with the printed book and the page references in the index are not right.

This article is the second part in a series. It shows that the Old Norse term hrímþurs, often translated 'frost-ogre' or 'frost-giant' in English, was a poetic term as a variation on the archaic and obscure poetic term þurs (addressed in part I) that was employed for h-alliteration. After reviewing the limited poetic examples, the article shows that this term was strategically correlated with hrím ['rime, frost'] as a prime element of the world-creation in Snorri Sturluson's 13th century mythography, where hrímþurs is otherwise uniquely elevated to a distinct ethnonym. This construction of a mythic ethnic category is placed in
dialogue with other places where Snorri seems to have elevated or created a term and constructed a mythic ethnos in Edda. This discussion is put forward as a frame for considering whether Snorri also constructed the category of gods called ‘Vanir’, the controversial topic of the so-called Vanir Debate.

RESUMEN: El examen de la nomenclatura aplicada a Hecateo de Mileto en los Testimonia no sólo revela las distintas valoraciones de su obra en la Antigüedad, según el concepto de historia manejado por sus receptores, sino que también permite reflexionar sobre la emergencia de la mitografía dentro de los géneros de la prosa griega.

ABSTRACT: The review of the names applied to Hecataeus of Miletus in the Testimonia not only reveals the different assessments of his work in Antiquity, according to the concept of history used by its readers, but also allows to think about the emergence of mythography within genres of Greek prose.
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The metaphor of remigium alarum used by Verg. Aen. 6, 19 to describe the flight of Daedalus is the starting point for an investigation into the exegetical tradition which grew up on this myth from Late Antiquity to the Middle Ages. Particular attention is given to some variants and the rationalizing version of the story, which is attested and constantly renewed from Classical Antiquity to the Latin Medieval Commentaries on the Divine Comedy; according to it, Daedalus and Icarus didn’t fly
on a pair of makeshift wings but sailed off in a boat, by which they seemed to be flying. A new critical text of the scholium of Servius Danielis to Verg. Aen. 1, 14 is therefore provided and medieval notes on Sen. Oed. 882 s.14 are examined as well as several unpublished scholia occurring in the supposed Commentary of Remigius of Auxerre on Vergil and the so-called Vulgate Commentary on Ov. met. 8, 159 s. These glosses report original mythographic informations about the Labyrinth and Daedalus. Their origine and fortune are here investigated.

En Grecia el estudio del pasado remoto se abordó con distintos niveles de rigor; en la historiografía, que es un género literario y científico a la vez, la cuestión ha sido estudiada con solvencia, en trabajos recientes , Hornblower 1994 o Marincola 2001. En este trabajo, voy a intentar volver a la cuestión centrándome sobre todo en los que se han quedado en los márgenes de ese género, los autores que se ven como precursores, los primeros logógrafos, y los que se convirtieron en sus sucesores más directos, los autores de lo que acabó constituyendo un género aparte, el de la mitografía. Todo ello espero que ayude a precisar lo que distingue a historiadores en sentido estricto (Heródoto, Tucídides ...) de otros escritores que en la antigüedad a veces recibían el nombre de historiadores pero que normalmente son llamados lógografos o mitógrafos. La del rigor es la principal cuestión que se plantea cuando se intenta definir la historiografía griega, porque este género, a diferencia de otros, se valora también respecto a una realidad espacial y temporal "objetiva" y su valor se mide no sólo por criterios estilísticos, sino por su adecuación a lo que se supone que es la realidad del pasado. El núcleo del problema es el tratamiento del mito: lo que es fundamental en la tragedia se percibe como negativo en el género de la historia, ya desde pronto híbrido entre género literario y ciencia.

Among the general elements that define myth, the temporal dimension is certainly recognized as a crucial one by many scholars. The purpose of this chapter is to examine this aspect further. Since the temporal element is closely connected to the foundation of cosmological order, this chapter will focus on the analysis of specific case studies that confirm the relevance of this connection. Four myths shall be examined, whose purpose is to establish: a) the origin of a constellation; b) the separation of humans from animals; c) the role of the poet; d) a ritual for Hera's festival in Argos.

Historical inquiries into religious giving are generally limited to the point at which a society becomes literate and begins keeping written records. With the analytical tools of linguistics, though, plausible inferences may be also drawn regarding the religious rituals and giving practices of pre-literate societies. This paper examines linguistic and mythographic evidence indicating that Prometheus in Hesiod and Mātariśvan in the Rig Veda are cognate figures, pointing to the existence of a Proto-Prometheus dating to at least the last point of Graeco-Aryan unity, around 2500 BCE. One of the strongest points of correspondence between Prometheus and Mātariśvan is their role in founding the ritual of sacrifice to the Gods with burnt offerings; a ritual also closely associated with the private provision of public feasts in both archaic Greece and Vedic India. Establishing the existence of a Graeco-Aryan Proto-Prometheus, therefore, also implies the existence of religious giving in that society.

The D-Scholia to the Iliad contain a set of mythic plots (historiae fabulares) attributable to the so-called Mythographus Homericus. Some of them appear to have undergone a complex process of rewritting along the textual transmission. Apollodorus' Library was used in some cases to fill some gaps, to the extend that good deal of these stories are almost a verbatim copy of  some passages of the Library. The D-scholiast used Apollodorus's Library to mend the text of the Mythographus Homericus in some passages whose text had been irrevocably corrupted by textual transmission