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Satyr
In Greek mythology, a satyr (, ), also known as a silenus or ''silenos'' ( ), and sileni (plural), is a male List of nature deities, nature spirit with ears and a tail resembling those of a horse, as well as a permanent, exaggerated erection. Early artistic representations sometimes include horse-like legs, but, by the sixth century BC, they were more often represented with human legs. Comically hideous, they have mane-like hair, bestial faces, and snub noses and they always are shown naked. Satyrs were characterized by their ribaldry and were known as lovers of wine, music, dancing, and women. They were companions of the god Dionysus and were believed to inhabit remote locales, such as woodlands, mountains, and pastures. They often attempted to seduce or rape nymphs and mortal women alike, usually with little success. They are sometimes shown masturbation, masturbating or engaging in bestiality. In classical Athens, satyrs made up the Greek chorus, chorus in a genre of play kn ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Satyr Play
The satyr play is a form of Attic theatre performance related to both comedy and tragedy. It preserves theatrical elements of dialogue, actors speaking verse, a chorus that dances and sings, masks and costumes. Its relationship to tragedy is strong; satyr plays were written by tragedians, and satyr plays were performed in the Dionysian festival following the performance of a group of three tragedies. The satyr play's mythological-heroic stories and the style of language are similar to that of the tragedies. Its connection with comedy is also significant – it has similar plots, titles, themes, characters, and happy endings. The remarkable feature of the satyr play is the chorus of satyrs, with their costumes that focus on the phallus, and with their language, which uses wordplay, sexual innuendos, references to breasts, farting, erections, and other references that do not occur in tragedy. As Mark Griffith points out, the satyr play was "not merely a deeply traditional Dionysi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cyclops (play)
''Cyclops'' (, ''Kyklōps'') is an ancient Greek satyr play by Euripides, based closely on an episode from the ''Odyssey''. It is likely to have been the fourth part of a tetralogy presented by Euripides in a dramatic festival in Fifth-century Athens, 5th Century BC Athens, although its intended and actual performance contexts are unknown. The date of its composition is unknown, but it was probably written late in Euripides' career. It is the only complete satyr play extant. Plot The play is set in Sicily at Mount Etna. Silenus explains that he and his sons, the chorus, are slaves to the Cyclopes, Cyclops Polyphemus. The chorus enter with singing and sheep. Silenus tells them to stop singing and send the sheep into the cave because he can see a Greek ship by the coast and men coming to the cave. Odysseus enters with his men and asks where they can find water and if anyone will sell them food. Silenus questions Odysseus and Odysseus questions Silenus. On learning that he will pro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dionysus
In ancient Greek religion and Greek mythology, myth, Dionysus (; ) is the god of wine-making, orchards and fruit, vegetation, fertility, festivity, insanity, ritual madness, religious ecstasy, and theatre. He was also known as Bacchus ( or ; ) by the Greeks (a name later adopted by the Ancient Rome, Romans) for a frenzy he is said to induce called ''baccheia''. His wine, music, and ecstatic dance were considered to free his followers from self-conscious fear and care, and subvert the oppressive restraints of the powerful. His ''thyrsus'', a fennel-stem sceptre, sometimes wound with ivy and dripping with honey, is both a beneficent wand and a weapon used to destroy those who oppose his Cult of Dionysus, cult and the freedoms he represents. Those who partake of his mysteries are believed to become possessed and empowered by the god himself. His origins are uncertain, and his cults took many forms; some are described by ancient sources as Thrace, Thracian, others as Greek. In O ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nymph
A nymph (; ; sometimes spelled nymphe) is a minor female nature deity in ancient Greek folklore. Distinct from other Greek goddesses, nymphs are generally regarded as personifications of nature; they are typically tied to a specific place, landform, or tree, and are usually depicted as Virginity, maidens. Because of their association with springs, they were often seen as having healing properties; other divine powers of the nymphs included divination and shapeshifting. In spite of their divine nature, they were not immortality, immortal. Nymphs are divided into various Nymph#List, broad subgroups based on their habitat, such as the Meliae (ash tree nymphs), the Dryads (oak tree nymphs), the Alseids (Grove (nature), grove nymphs), the Naiads (Spring (hydrology), spring nymphs), the Nereids (sea nymphs), the Oceanids (ocean nymphs), and the Oreads (mountain nymphs). Other nymphs included the Hesperides (evening nymphs), the Hyades (mythology), Hyades (rain nymphs), and the Pleiade ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Marsyas
In Greek mythology, the satyr Marsyas (; ) is a central figure in two stories involving music: in one, he picked up the double oboe (''aulos'') that had been abandoned by Athena and played it; in the other, he challenged Apollo to a contest of music and lost his hide and life. Literary sources from Classical antiquity, antiquity often emphasize the ''hubris'' of Marsyas and the justice of his punishment. One strand of modern comparative mythography regards the domination of Marsyas by Apollo as an example of myth that recapitulates a supposed supplanting by the Twelve Olympians, Olympian pantheon of an earlier Pelasgians, "Pelasgian" religion of chthonic Greek hero cult, heroic ancestors and Animism, nature spirits. Marsyas was a devoté of the ancient Mother Goddess Rhea (mythology), Rhea/Cybele, and the mythographers situate his episodes in Celaenae (or Kelainai), in Phrygia, at the main source of the Meander (the river Büyük Menderes River, Menderes in Turkey). Family Wh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Silenus
In Greek mythology, Silenus (; , ) was a companion and tutor to the wine god Dionysus. He is typically older than the satyrs of the Dionysian retinue ('' thiasos''), and sometimes considerably older, in which case he may be referred to as a Papposilenus. ''Silen'' and its plural ''sileni'' refer to the mythological figure as a type that is sometimes thought to be differentiated from a satyr by having the attributes of a horse rather than a goat, though usage of the two words is not consistent enough to permit a sharp distinction. Silenus presides over other daimons and is related to musical creativity, prophetic ecstasy, drunken joy, drunken dances and gestures. In the decorative arts, a "silene" is a Silenus-like figure, often a "mask" (face) alone. Evolution The original Silenus resembled a folkloric man of the forest, with the ears of a horse and sometimes also the tail and legs of a horse. The later sileni were drunken followers of Dionysus, usually bald and fat with th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ichneutae
The ''Ichneutae'' (, ''Ichneutai'', "trackers"), also known as the ''Searchers'', ''Trackers'' or ''Tracking Satyrs'', is a fragmentary satyr play by the fifth-century BC Athenian dramatist Sophocles. Three undistinguished quotations in ancient authors were all that was known of the play until 1912, when the extensive remains of a second-century CE papyrus roll of the ''Ichneutae'' were published among the Oxyrhynchus Papyri. With more than four hundred lines surviving in their entirety or in part, the ''Ichneutae'' is now the best preserved ancient satyr play after Euripides' ''Cyclops'', the only fully extant example of the genre. The manuscript is now kept in the British Library in London. Plot The plot of the play was derived from the inset myth of the '' Homeric Hymn to Hermes''. A newborn Hermes has stolen Apollo's cattle, and the older god sends a chorus of satyrs to retrieve the animals, promising them the dual rewards of freedom and gold should they be successful. The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sophocles
Sophocles ( 497/496 – winter 406/405 BC)Sommerstein (2002), p. 41. was an ancient Greek tragedian known as one of three from whom at least two plays have survived in full. His first plays were written later than, or contemporary with, those of Aeschylus and earlier than, or contemporary with, those of Euripides. Sophocles wrote more than 120 plays, but only seven have survived in a complete form: '' Ajax'', '' Antigone'', '' Women of Trachis'', '' Oedipus Rex'', '' Electra'', '' Philoctetes'', and '' Oedipus at Colonus''. For almost fifty years, Sophocles was the most celebrated playwright in the dramatic competitions of the city-state of Athens, which took place during the religious festivals of the Lenaea and the Dionysia. He competed in thirty competitions, won twenty-four, and was never judged lower than second place. Aeschylus won thirteen competitions and was sometimes defeated by Sophocles; Euripides won four.. The most famous tragedies of Sophocles feature Oedip ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Faun
The faun (, ; , ) is a half-human and half-goat mythological creature appearing in Greek and Roman mythology. Originally fauns of Roman mythology were ghosts ( genii) of rustic places, lesser versions of their chief, the god Faunus. Before their conflation with Greek satyrs, they and Faunus were represented as naked men (e.g. the Barberini Faun). Later fauns became copies of the satyrs of Greek mythology, who themselves were originally shown as part-horse rather than part-goat. By the Renaissance, fauns were depicted as two-footed creatures with the horns, legs, and tail of a goat and the head, torso, and arms of a human; they are often depicted with pointed ears. These late-form mythological creatures borrowed their look from the satyrs, who in turn borrowed their look from the god Pan of the Greek pantheon. They were symbols of peace and fertility, and their Greek chieftain, Silenus, was a minor deity of Greek mythology. Origins Romans believed fauns stirred fear in m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Euripides
Euripides () was a Greek tragedy, tragedian of classical Athens. Along with Aeschylus and Sophocles, he is one of the three ancient Greek tragedians for whom any plays have survived in full. Some ancient scholars attributed ninety-five plays to him, but the ''Suda'' says it was ninety-two at most. Of these, eighteen or nineteen have survived more or less complete (''Rhesus (play), Rhesus'' is suspect). There are many fragments (some substantial) of most of his other plays. More of his plays have survived intact than those of Aeschylus and Sophocles together, partly because his popularity grew as theirs declinedMoses Hadas, ''Ten Plays by Euripides'', Bantam Classic (2006), Introduction, p. ixhe became, in the Hellenistic Age, a cornerstone of ancient literary education, along with Homer, Demosthenes, and Menander.L.P.E.Parker, ''Euripides: Alcestis'', Oxford University Press (2007), Introduction p. lx Euripides is identified with theatrical innovations that have profoundly influ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Greek Chorus
A Greek chorus () in the context of ancient Greek tragedy, comedy, satyr plays, is a homogeneous group of performers, who comment with a collective voice on the action of the scene they appear in, or provide necessary insight into action which has taken place offstage. Historically, the chorus consisted of between 12 and 50 players, who variously danced, sang or spoke their lines in unison, and sometimes wore masks. The players used masks to change their emotions while they were performing. History A common theory for the origin of the Greek chorus stems from the ancient Greek poet Arion's invention of the tragedy, the stationary chorus, and satyrs' verses. In Aristotle's ''Poetics,'' he writes that " ragedy'sbeginnings, certainly, were in improvisation utoschediastikês as were also those for comedy, tragedy originating in impromptus by the leaders of dithyrambic choruses, and comedy in those of the leaders of the phallic performances which still remain customary in many ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
List Of Nature Deities
In religion, a nature deity is a deity in charge of forces of nature, such as water, biological processes, or weather. These deities can also govern natural features such as mountains, trees, or volcanoes. Accepted in animism, pantheism, panentheism, polytheism, deism, totemism, shamanism, Taoism, Hinduism, and paganism, the nature deity can embody a number of archetypes including mother goddess, Mother Nature, or lord of the animals. African Akan mythology * Asase Yaa, Mother of the Dead and the goddess of the harsh earth and truth * Asase Afua, the goddess of the lush earth, fertility, love, procreation and farming * Bia, personification of the Bia River and god of the wilderness and wild animals * Tano, personification of the Tano River and god of the river and thunder Bantu mythology * Jengu, Sawabantu and Duala water spirits * Nyambe, Bantu Supreme deity and god of the sun * Nzambi, Bakongo Sky Father and god of the sun * Nzambici, Bakongo Sky Mother an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
