GREEK MYTHS 1 OEDIPUS REX 1 When Laius and Jocasta, the king and queen of Thebes, have a baby, Laius goes to the oracle at Delphi to ask about it. But the oracle tell Laius that his son will kill him. Horrified, Laius order that his baby son is expelled in the woods. But the baby is rescued and the king and queen of Corinth adopt the baby, But they don't tell the baby, Oedipus, that he is adopted. When Oedipus grows up, he also visites the oracle at Delphi, and the oracle told him that he will kill his father and marry his mother. Oedipus run away from Corinth, trying to escape of this. 2 OEDIPUS REX 2 As he travels down in his chariot, with his horses, he comes to a crossroads. An older man comes to the crossroads at the same time, but he pass before. Oedipus is angry and kills the other man. When Oedipus goes to the town of Thebes, he find the great Sphinx there. The Sphinx asks everyone who comes there a riddle. If you can answer it, the Sphinx let you go, but if you can t answer the riddle, then the Sphinx eat you. This is the Sphinx's riddle: 3 OEDIPUS REX 3 What goes on four feet in the morning, two feet at noon, and three feet in the evening? The answer is: a man. A man is a baby in the morning of his life and he walks on four feet. A man is an adult in the noon - the middle part - of his life and he walks on two feet. But when a man is old, he walks with a cane, on three feet.
4 OEDIPUS REX 4 When Oedipus answers the riddle correctly, the Sphinx is so angry that she kills herself. Oedipus goes to Thebes. There, the Thebans are very angries because somebody has killed their king, Laius, But they are happy to hear that Oedipus knows the riddle of the Sphinx. So they make Oedipus their new king. then, Oedipus marries the queen, Jocasta. 5 OEDIPUS REX 5 Many years after, Oedipus and Jocasta has four children, two boys and two girls, and they get old. One day a plague comes to Thebes. King Oedipus sends a messenger to the oracle at Delphi to know why the gods has sent this terrible plague. The oracle tells the messenger that Thebes has a bad man, and they have to find him and expelle him or the plague will continue killing people. 6 OEDIPUS REX 6 Oedipus tries to find this bad man, but he gradually realizes that he, Oedipus, is the bad man, because he has killed his father (the man at the crossroads) and married his mother, just as the oracle said. Horrified, he hurts his own eyes with a stick. When Jocasta hears the news, she hangs herself. Finally, Oedipus leaves Thebes with his children. 7 ANTIGONA 1 Antigone is the daughter of Oedipus. When Oedipus is married to his own mother, Jocasta, they have four children - two sons, Polyneices and Eteocles, and two daughters, Antigone and Ismene. After Oedipus dies, his two sons are supposed to rule Thebes together. but they begin to fight over who will be the king. They have a big war, and Polyneices and his brother kill each other. The people choose Creon for their new king. Creon has been on the side of Eteocles, and he is buried like a hero. But he orders to leave Polynices outside the city, unburied, like a traitor, and the dogs eats his body.
8 ANTIGONA 2 Antigone is very angry by this order. She wants her brother to be buried right! So early the next morning, Antigone goes out of the city and buries Polynices with her hands. When Creon finds that Antigone has buried Polynices, he is very angry. Antigona says that it is more important to obey the law of the gods (to bury your brother) than to obey the law of the king. But Creon said the king decides the law, and everyone has to obey it. He orderes his guards to kill her. 9 Perseus 1 a good King is killed by His bad brother, and so he is the king. The bad brother takes king's wife (Danae) and baby (Perseus), and he puts them in a wooden chest in the ocean. After a long time they arrives to a new kingdom. Perseus and his mother Danae stay there while Perseus grew up. But after a time the king of the new place wants to marry Danae, but she don't want to marry him. 10 Perseus 2 the king sends Perseus on a mission to kill the monster Medusa, who has snakes instead of hair, and bring back her head. She is so ugly that if you look at her, you turn into a stone statue! Perseus meets the god Hermes, who give him winged sandals to fly to where Medusa is. he meets too the goddess Athena, who give him a sword and a shield. Athena tells Perseus not to look at Medusa or her ugliness turns him to stone. perseus uses the shield as a mirror, medusa looks in that, turns to Stone, and he cuts her head. 11 prometheus Zeus is very angry with mankind. He decides not to give them an important tool: fire! Prometheus feels sorry for his human Friends, steals a ray from Zeus and gives it to mankind. Zeus is furious. he has defied Zeus, and He orders Prometheus chains to a rock as punishment for help the humans. To make punishment harder, Zeus sends storms against Prometheus, makes the sun shine really brightly, and even sends an eagle to attack poor Prometheus' body. It is Hercules who finally releases him.
12 PANDORA 1 Zeus is so angry at Prometheus for giving people fire, he wants to punish other people that helped prometheus. Zeus orders the god Hephaistos to make a beautiful woman, Pandora (which means all-gifts). Zeus sends Pandora down to earth and gives her as a present to Prometheus' brother. Zeus tells him that he must marry Pandora. Also, Zeus sends Pandora with a little box, and He says not to open the box, never. 13 PANDORA 2 But Pandora is very curious about what is in the box. she steals the key and opens it. Oh! Out of the box goes out every kind of trouble that people has never known about before: illnesses, problems and crimes, hate, envy and all sorts of bad things. Pandora is very sorry, But the last thing to fly out of the box is good. It is Hope, which Zeus sends to people when all the things goes down. 14 DEDALUS AND ICARUS 1 On the island of Crete, lives a King, his name is Minos. in his palace at Knossos lives a great architect and inventor named Daedalos. Daedalos is the builter of the great Labyrinth to keep the Minotaur in. After Daedalos builts the Labyrinth, King Minos do not want he tells the secrets to anybody else, and so he takes Daedalos prisoner in a tall tower with only his young son Icarus. 15 DEDALUS AND ICARUS 2 Daedalos decides to make wings for himself and Icarus to scape. They make the wings with feathers and wax. Daedalos says his son to be careful when he is flying: if he fly too high in the sky, the heat of the sun will melt the wax on his wings and he will fall. At first everything goes well, but He begans to play and goes up and down. Suddenly, he sees his wings really are melting! He tries to go down again, but it is too late. he falls down, down, down into the ocean. Daedalus is horrified that his son has died.
16 HERCULES 1 He is a great hero, zeus son, and very strong. Even when he was only a few days old. The goddess Hera was angry, because Zeus was her husband and had children with other women. So she sent two big snakes to the little baby. But Hercules strangled them! Hera is still angry at Hercules. One day she sens a madness on him. He is so crazy that he kills his own children, and also his wife. 17 HERCULES 2 When Hera lets Hercules comes to his senses, he says "What have I done?!" He needs to find some way for the gods to forgive him for this terrible crime. He goes to Delphi and asks Apollo what to do. Apollo sais the gods will forgive Him if he does twelve hard jobs for the king of Argos - we call these the twelve labors of Hercules. 18 THESEUS 1 the King of Crete, Minos, has a very strong navy, and he sends his navy to attack Greek cities. The King of Athens makes an agreement with King Minos to be not attacked: he will send seven Athenian boys and seven Athenian girls to Crete every nine years, to a terrible monster that lived on Crete, the Minotaur, half bull, half man. Prince Theseus is the son of King of Athens. One day it is time to send the boys and girls to Crete. Everyone is crying. Prince Theseus says that he will go there and kill the Minotaur. 19 THESEUS 2 When the Athenians goes to Crete, King Minos and his daughter Princess Ariadne come out of their palace to see Them, and Ariadne fall in love with Theseus. Now, she wants to help him. Ariadne gives Theseus a sword and a ball of string. She tells him to tie the string to the door of the Labyrinth where the Minotaur lives. Then, he must unroll it and so he can find the way. with the sword, he can kill the Minotaur. Theseus promises to marry her if he escapes from the Monster.
20 THESEUS 3 The next morning all the Athenians go into the Labyrinth. The others are afraid, but Prince Theseus ties the string to the door and goes to find the Minotaur. Finally he finds him and there is a big fight. Theseus kills the Minotaur with his sword and follows the string back to the door. The other Athenians are very happy to see him and to hear that he has killed the Minotaur! Princess Ariadne opens the door and let them out. they all run away to their ship. 21 JUDGMENT OF PARIS 1 The goddesses Aphrodite, Athena, and Hera are talking about which one of them is the most beautiful. They accept to choose a human man and let him decide. Paris, the youngest son of King of Troy, is the judge. Each of the goddesses offers Paris a gift to get the vote for her. Athena offers him wisdom. Hera offers him power. But Aphrodite offers him the most beautiful woman in the world, and Paris votes for her. 22 JUDGMENT OF PARIS 2 the Greek king of Sparta, Menelaus, is married to Helen, who is the most beautiful woman in the world. Menelaus and Helen welcome Paris kindly, and give him dinner. But during the night, Paris convinces Helen to run away with him. He takes her back to Troy and marries her. The war of troy begins. 23 THE ILIAD 1 The Greeks believed that the Trojan War lasted for ten years, and this story happens in the tenth year of the war. both sides Are really TIRED of being at war, and the Greeks Are TIRED of being away from home. The Iliad begins with a fight between the leader of the Greeks, King Agamemnon of Mycenae, and the Greeks' best fighter, King Achilles. Both Warriors want a beautiful slave. saying that he is the head of the army, King agamennon takes briseis.
24 THE ILIAD 2 Achilles is so angry that Agamemnon take Briseis from him that he refuses to fight for the Greeks. Without their best fighter, the Greeks start to loose battles. Finally Achilles' best friend Patroclos has an idea. He puts on Achilles' famous armor and goes to fight. Both the Greeks and the Trojans think Achilles has come back to the battle and the Greeks win a big victory. but Patroclos is killed in the fighting. When Achilles hears that Patroclos is dead, he decides to fight again. 25 THE ILIAD 3 Now the Greeks start to win. So the best Trojan fighter, Prince Hector, says he wants to fight Achilles. They fight for a long time, but finally Achilles kills Hector with a great cruelty. He drags his death body in front of the walls. So, the mother and the father of hector can see the hoorible spectacle. 26 THE ILIAD 4 After the death of Hector, the Trojan War still is not over. Finally, one of the Greek kings, Odysseus of Ithaca, has an idea. "Build a big wooden horse," he sais, "to five Greek soldiers can hide inside it." So the Greeks make it. Then the Greeks pretend to sail home (except the five soldiers inside the horse!), But really they hid just around the corner. 27 THE ILIAD 5 Soon the Trojans find the horse. "What is it?" they ask each other. Nobody knows. They think it is an offering to Athena. Well, the Trojans don't want to angry Athena, so they put the big horse into the city of Troy. They leave it at the temple of Athena, and then the Trojans had a big party to celebrate the end of the war.
28 THE ILIAD 6 Finally everyone falls asleep, and then the Greek soldiers come out of the Trojan Horse and killed the guards on the walls. They signal to the other Greeks to come attack Troy. They open the city doors and ther is a big battle. the Greeks win. All the Trojan men are killed, and all the women and children are taken back to Greece as slaves. But achilles is killed too: an arrow on his heel, his only weak point. París is killed too, but helen comes back greece with menelaus. 29 ODYSEY 1 It is the story of King Odysseus' return from the Trojan War to his kingdom of Ithaca, a small island of Greece. Odysseus has a lot of trouble going back home. The god of the seas, Poseidon, hates him, but the goddess Athena helps Odysseus to get home. First he sails from Troy with many ships and a lot of gold and slaves he has taken from Troy. And many men from Ithaca who has followed him to war. 30 ODYSEY 2 But Odysseus has troubles in the first island he stops on the way home. There exists a tree with a delicious fruit: the lotus. But who eats it, forgets everything. Odysseus has to convince their men not to eat. But the travel will be very hard, and it is an easy way to finish all their problems Some mene at the fruit, but odysseus can sabe the most part of them. 31 ODYSEY 3 In other island live a group of gigants, the cyclops, who have only one eye, and eat human flesh. One of them, plyphemus, traps odysseus and his men. The monster asks who is the leader, and odysseus says: me, my name is nobody! By night, they nail a trunk on his eye, and hide under the sheeps. The very very angry mosnter cries: nobody has hurt me, nobody has hurt me!!!. The other cyclops think his is mad, and odysseus and his men can scape.
32 ODYSEY 4 The wich circe invites odysseus and his men to dinner. Like a wise man he is, he doesn t drink the wine she offers. Later, all the men who has drunk are transformed in pigs! Odysseus surprises circe and menaces her if she doesn t free his men. 33 ODYSEY 5 A legend says there is an island where lives the syrens. They eat human flesh, and have very beautiful voices. When they sing, sailors goes to that rocks and death. Odysseus, acurious man, wants to hear that song. He asks his men to tie him. He orders his men to put wax on their ears. When he hears the syrens song, he orders his men to realised him, but they don t hear anything, and they can pass away. 34 ODYSEY 6 Calypso is a beautiful nymph who lives in an island alone. When odysseus arrives there, she fall in love with him. They have a great love story during several years. But one day, calypso asks odysseus why he is so sad. He answers that he is thinking about his wife and his son. Calypso can keep odysseus with her, but she prefers realised to her love. Really sad, odysseus leaves calypso again alone 35 ODYSEY 7 Even after Odysseus comes back home, he has more troubles. He finds that a group of men is in his house. They want to marry his wife, Penelope. These men think that Odysseus is dead because he has been away so long. Twenty years has passed from odysseus went to the trojan war, and nobody, except his dog, recognized him. But with the help of his son Telemachus, Odysseus kills all of the pretenders, and the slaves who has helped them too. Finally, he turns to rule his island with Penelope.