Echo and Narcissus

Echo and Narcissus in Greek mythology

      Echo was a nymph, a forest fairy,she was speaking endlessly and walked among the trees, laughing loudly.One day the goddess Hera was annoyed by the noise she was making and commanded her to be quiet, but she could not obey. Thus, when Hera discovered that apart from her chatter Echo was also telling to many lies,she got very angry.
      Shaking her finger menacingly told her curtly "I am very angry with the noise you do. Henceforth,you  will not be able to talk anymore.
You will only be able to repeat what the others say." Echo opened her mouth to complain but she could not say anything. Could no longer speak at all.
      "Now you are free to go",Hera commanded her."To go" repeated Echo.
Terrified she wandered in forests lonely and unhappy, since no longer anyone wanted to be her friend.
One day as she walked there, she met Narcisse. Echo hide behind some bushes to observer him better. The young man was so beautiful that she fell in love with him at first sight.
      From that day she followed him everywhere, became his shadow. At first he did not gave importance, because he was used to girls to fall in love with him and had learned their antics. Sometime, however he got flustered, because wherever he went, he met Echo in front of him.
      "Go away, i dont love you", he shouted. "I love you, i love you", repeated Echo. "Leave me alone", continued Narcissus. "Alone,alone", she replied.
      Sad and unhappy,she wandered in the forests and as the time passed, she was getting weaker and paler. Nothing had left from the old Echo, except her voice, which was repeating only the words of the others.
      Narcissus didn't even notice her absence even though he heard sometimes,her voice .Then the goddess Artemis decided to punish him for his cruelty and his arrogance. One day while he was sitting at the shore of a lake,the goddess made him bend over and look at himself. His face mirrored at the dark water of the lake, but he didn't realise that it was he, because never before he had looked in the mirror. And because he had not seen before such a beautiful face, he fell in love with it.
      The days were passing and Narcissus could not take his eyes from his reflection, which was mirrored at the lake.
      Neither he understood, because every time he was speaking, the lips of the other face were also moving. One day he tried to kiss his reflection, but once he touched the water, his image disappeared behind the playful wavelets.Once the water calmed , he saw his image again. Many times he requested his reflection to get out and love him as he did. But nothing ever happened.
      Narcissus could not stand it anymore. And he was not used to be rejected,so one day being downhearted, commited suicide. There where his body fell, a beautiful,white and tall flower grew. That flower we call it Narcissus, and it always blooms in spring.

Fire

Prometheus and the gift of fire

The very old time in Greek mythology,the gods and goddesses of the Greek were living in palaces built at the top of the mount Olympus.Leader of the gods,- father of the gods and human- as they called him,was Zeus.He was wise and powerful.But he was also cruel and could offen show his cruelty.He used his thunderbolts when he was getting angry,so even the other gods were afraid of him.Zeus was married with Hera and they had many children.
  The first years the gods ruled an almost empty world ,there lived only animals and were no human beings.The animals were created by the brother of Prometheus,Epimetheus,but he didnt know how to create people.

  One day Zeus asked Prometheus to create human,to live in the world.So,Prometheus took some clay,gave shape to it and created the people,men and women.He made them to look like the gods and by blowing in their mouth,gave them life.
  People were living nicely but they didn't have fire,because Zeus didn't want to give them.But,Prometheus loved the people and was pity of them,becasue they shiverd at the cold nights,they couldnt see in the dark and they ate their food raw.
  So,one day he went to Olympus,sneaked into the Palace of Zeus and took a piece of lit coal.He gave that piece to the people and tought them how to light fire.Since then human learnt to cook their food,they could stay warm in the cold night and could see in the dark.People were thankful to Prometheus and never forgot his special gift he gave them.
  When the smell of the cooked food,reached Olympus,and the light in the night could be seen,Zeus figured out what Prometheus had done.Zeus,outraged,shouted with a voice which sounded like a thunderstrike,"How dare you do that Prometheus!Ignore my orders,be prepared for your punishment!"
  In order to punish Prometheus,Zeus ordered to leash him with chains to the slope of a huge mountain,Caucasus.Everyday and eagle was eating his liver and ever night his liver grew back.Prometheus was in horrible pain,but he could not die,because as a god,he was immortal.His torture lasted for many ages,until Zeus decided to forgive him and released him.

Trojan War

The Trojan War in Greek mythology

The Trojan War in Greek mythology was a decade warfare, the Greeks (Achaeans or Argives or Danaans by Homer) with the Trojans under the walls of Troy. The main cause of the war was the abduction of Helen, wife of the king of Sparta, Menelaus from the Trojan prince Paris. This war is one of the main events in Greek mythology and was a source of inexhaustible inspiration in ancient Greek literature, including the works of Homer: the Iliad, which recounts a period of the last year of the war and the Odyssey, which recounts the journey back to his homeland of Odysseus, one of the Achaean leaders. Other facts about the Trojan War described in the Trojan epic cycle from which they were rescued only snippets. Events of the war also inspired the ancient Greek tragedy, Latin literature and many newer works of literature, visual arts and music.
The causes of war are reduced to divine conflict between Athena, Hera and Aphrodite, which caused Eris by giving them a golden apple with the display "to the most beautiful" . Zeus wanting to give solution to the dispute over who deserves the apple, did not refer to the Trojan prince Paris who selected Aphrodite.  As a reward for his judgment , Aphrodite rewarded him by making Helen the most beautiful mortal woman fall in love with him and follow him to Troy. Immediately after the abduction  , Agamemnon , king of Mycenae and the brother of Helen's husband , Menelaus , led a generalized campaign of the Greeks and besieged Troy for ten years. After the deaths of many heroes, like Achilles and Ajax of Telamon and the Trojans Hector and Paris , the city was captured thanks to the ruse of the Trojan Horse . The occupation of the city by the Achaeans accompanied by slaughter and complete the destruction and desecration of the holy . This action provoked the wrath of the gods , who avenged many of the survivors Achaean kings . Very few of them were able to continue peaceful life in their home . The Romans believed that the Trojan hero Aeneas after the fall of the city fled to Lazio in the Italian peninsula and that he is considered as their ancestor .



The ancient Greeks believed that the Trojan War (like most events of mythology) was a historic event that took place in the 13th or 12th century BC and that Troy is located on the Asian side of the Hellespont (Dardanelles). Once in 1870, the German archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann after excavations discovered until then, completely mythical Troy. Today the entire archaeological community agrees that indeed this particular location is Troy, and that certainly is one historic core,about the war. The question now is whether some particular facts and persons recounted was real or just fabrications. Researchers have argued that the date given by the ancient historian Eratosthenes: 1194-1184 BC, is the most representative, and agrees with archaeological evidence suggesting that in the city then broke disastrous fire and specifically in the layer of VIIa  Troy. 

Hephaestus

God Hephaestus in Greek mythology

Hephaestus is the god of fire and metalworking in Greek mythology. He was the son of Zeus and Hera. This refers at the Homeric verses, which were followed by later writers. However, Hesiod presents the god as the child of Hera only, who was born with parthenogenesis without the involving of  a father.Borned ugly and distorted,but his mother Hera was shamed so she, threw him from Mount Olympus.The god-infant fell into the sea, where he was collected by Thetis and Eurynome,they raised him for nine years. Once the god grew up, he immediately erected his first ironworks in the depth of the Aegean sea, hammering there beautiful objects for these two deities.
One day, Hera, envious of the jewelery of Thetis the Nereid asked them about their origins, and when she discovered that they were crafted by the son that she had despised, she went, took him and brought him back to the mountain of the gods. There, she offered him a blacksmith with 20 bellows and gave him as wife, the beautiful Aphrodite.
There is also another version,about the return of Hephaestus at the picks of Olympus,  according to which he sent a gift to his mother, a unique art throne, when she sat on it she got trapped automatically by invisible shackles and forced to seek the help of the despised son to be released.
In the Iliad, Aphrodite appears to cheat Hephaestus with the charming  Ares on the marital bed, but one day,unawared they got caught by the ugly but also clever god of fire ,trapping them in a thin gold net and then expose them in front of all the other gods . Hesiod, however, displays as a wife of Hephaestus Aglaia, the youngest of the Graces.
In a later incident, Zeus threw god-blacksmith from the god's residence because he was rushing to help Hera when she was hanging from the celestial vault, grounded for the storm she had sent against Hercules. This time, the fate of Hephaestus was to fall into shore on the island of Lemnos, where he was found by the Sintis at the evening, exhausted and broken both his legs from falling on the hard ground. The care and the hospitality of these poor people made ​​ their island the favorite place of God on earth of mortals. There, on Mount Mosychlos, he recreated, his permanent this time workshop. There he will create many exquisite objects which were  ordering the gods, and weapons for some people.
Among the crafts of Hephaestus stands out the clay woman, Pandora, whom Zeus gave to Epimetheus as a wife in order to avenge the insult  that  had  done by his brother Prometheus, when  stole the fire.

Hephaestus and volcanoes

The name of Hephaestus was given to the "volcanoes mountains," currently known in geology as volcanoes, which in turn baptized and the whole industry, the Volcanology. It is obvious why,people imagined that beneath a mountain from which derived smoke, fire and more sonorous sounds,a god had his forge. For the same reason, except Mosychlos (which for centuries was emitting fumes), other versions want the forge of Hephaestus to "conceals" in other volcanic places, usually in Etna, Mount Vesuvius or the Aeolian Islands.