Essay for Week 2: May the Gods be Ever in Your Favor

Greek mythology has always had an interesting take on their gods and goddesses. It has always seemed like Greek gods were more human-like than any other gods. They are portrayed as selfish, manipulative, and heavily flawed. They simply use their powers to do whatever they want - not caring about the humans they are higher than. It seems as though the gods just lucked out and somehow had powers and were placed above mankind. The morality of it all is almost nonexistent it seems. However, they are interesting characters, especially in understanding how the Greeks believe certain things were brought to existence and certain events (particularly weather) took place.

In these stories, some of the gods are helpful and listen to human desires, but a lot of them are just doing their selfish thing and not really caring about humanity. Jupiter in particular has a terrible problem with lust, it seems. In this unit alone, he rapes three different women. Now, the subject of rape is a rant for some other time, but this is a clear sign that Jupiter is not going to compromise his own wants for anyone else. He's a god - so I guess people should be thankful that he wants to rape them? I don't know. Plus, is sexual escapades gets him into a whole lot of trouble with Juno, his wife.

Onto Juno, she has every right to be mad at Jupiter regarding his wandering eyes and body parts, but she is a jealous wife to the point of altering the lives of others to ensure she can spy on her husband accurately. What is coming to mind is the causing Echo to only repeat the last things other people say. Echo is forever haunted by her speech issues just so Juno would not have a distraction in catching her husband in the act of sex. Again, it's granted that Juno has a right to want to catch her cheating husband, but the methods to reach her goal completely disregard the lives of humans.

I think this is common with many of the other gods, as well. Vulcan's wife, Aphrodite, had an affair with Ares, which is a very human thing to do. Poseidon was angered by humans to the point where he made them sacrifice Andromeda to his son. I mean, the gods clearly have an agenda all their own - and humans are simply caught in the crossfire. It's a bad place to be, and it seems that even though there are gods in the world, one still has to be lucky to live a decent life.

Zeus and Io

Ovid's Metamorphoses I