Symbols are objects, characters, figures, and colors
used to represent abstract ideas or concepts.
Cannibalism
Cannibalism, eating the flesh of one’s own kind, is disturbingly present
in Mythology. While it might seem repulsive to
include cannibalistic details within a story, there are a strikingly
large number of myths in which people—for the most part children—are
sliced, cooked, and eaten. Aside from Tantalus’s inexplicably poor
decision to serve his son to the gods, we see several stories in
which the cannibalism of one’s children serves as the sweetest revenge—as Atreus
exacts it upon his brother, and Procne upon her husband, Tereus.
Even Cronus, the father of Zeus and lord of the universe, methodically
swallows his children one by one in an attempt to forestall his
downfall. Though the prevalence of cannibalism in these myths might
lead us to believe that the practice was accepted in classical society,
we see that cannibalism is severely punished in each case. Why it
occurs so frequently in the first place remains a mystery.
Perhaps the roots of cannibalism lie in human sacrifice,
the same source Hamilton identifies in the flower myths of Hyacinth
and Adonis. As we see, these sacrifices are unwanted by the gods
and typically punished severely, an indictment of both cannibalism
and human sacrifice. In this regard, it is interesting to note the
one instance in which a god actually does want
such a sacrifice: Artemis’s call for the sacrifice of Iphigenia.
Significantly, in a later telling of this myth, Artemis miraculously
saves the girl instead.
Art
As civilizations prized for their art, it is no wonder
that the Greeks and Romans retained a mythology that elevates art
to a divine practice or at least one that almost consistently pleases
the divine. The most prominent examples of mythological artistry
are Pygmalion’s beloved statue Galatea, Arachne’s tapestry, and
the poet who is the one person Odysseus spares from death at the
end of the Odyssey. Both gods and mortals in the
myths understand the power and influence of art almost as they do
the unwritten rules of fate.
On a literary level, the symbol of art serves a glorifying
purpose, staking a claim for the power of the text itself. This
self-glorification is perhaps most obvious in Homer: Odysseus spares
the poet, unlike the priest whom he has just dispatched, because
he is loath to kill “such a man, taught by the gods to sing divinely.”
In a less than subtle way, Homer is hinting that he himself is one
such sacred, divinely touched creature. In addition to this self-glorification,
art is used to link men with their gods, as the gods not only appreciate
art, but actually make it themselves. Apollo is proud of his lyre,
Pan of his set of pipes, and Hephaestus of the artisanship of the
fine products of his smithy. Art, then, is symbolically and literally
a bridge between mortals and gods.
