Enrichment Activities in 2009 : All about Love: Stories from Ancient Greece (Part II)

Brief Description

Last Monday, to add to your enjoyment and understanding of The Symposium, we organized a storytelling session at lunchtime. Those who came showed such positive responses that the three happy storytellers decided on the spot to go slow and give a complete version of all the stories, making it necessary to leave half of the stories prepared for a second session in the sequel.

In the first session last week, we told the following stories:

EROS: His birth; Cupid and Psyche
APHRODITE: Her birth (two versions), her husband, her lovers (Mars; Adonis)
ORPHEUS: His journey to Hades and his tragic murder by the maenads
ALCESTIS and Admetus
ACHILLES and Patroclus
APOLLO: Apollo and Daphne
APOLLONIAN vs. DIONYSIAN spirit

Now in the second session, to be held this coming Monday, we will pick up where we left off. You will hear the fascinating story of:

HERMES: his relation with herms and herma
HERMAPHRODITUS (son of Hermes and Aphrodite): how he becomes half man, half woman.
DIONYSUS and satyrs, his half-man, half-beast followers
SILENUS: a follower of Dionysus who looks like Socrates
MARSYAS: another follower of Dionysus who challenges Apollo
LEDA and the Swan (how Zeus rapes a mortal woman)
NARCISSUS, the man who falls in love with himself
PYGMALION, the man who falls in love with his statue

All these are love stories from Greco-Roman mythology, and many provided the backdrop for The Symposium. The storytelling will be aided with images of sculptures and paintings depicting mortals and immortals in Greek myths and legends. If we have time, we will also look at a list of English words derived from these Greek myths (aphrodisiacs, nymphomania, satyriasis, etc.)

The storytelling will last about an hour, and there will be a discussion afterwards.