Epic Heroes
He killed Procrustes.
He abandoned his fiance after she helped him through the labyrinth.
He killed the minotaur.
Who was Theseus?
A Mayan epic about how the world was made.
In this epic, the first version of people were made from mud.
The next version of people were wooden.
Their possessions came back to harm them.
This story explains the origins of monkeys.
What was the Popol Vuh?
A murder mystery of sorts.
About a man who blinds himself after learning the truth.
About a man who married his own mother and murdered his father.
What is Oedipus Rex?
She was a famous Greek poet.
She lived on the island of Lesbos.
Who was Sappho?
“There is no hill that never ends.”
These are little bits of wisdom.
What are proverbs?
Story about a man freeing his people from Egypt.
10 plagues hit the Egyptians.
In this story Moses parts the Red Sea as they escape.
What is The Exodus?
Story of a ten year war.
The Greeks fight the Trojans to get back Helen.
What is the Iliad?
This is just one section of the Mahabharata.
It tells the story of five brothers as they each drink poisoned water.
One brother finally doesn’t drink the water and saves them all.
What is the "100 Questions"?
He was a wise Greek thinker who wrote down the wisdom of his mentor, Socrates.
Who was Plato?
This is a chart that we use to explain that many main characters in the stories we see and read follow a similar pattern.
What is the hero's journey?
He made King Priam beg for the body of his son.
He wanted revenge after a Trojan warrior killed his best friend Patroclus.
He killed Hector.
Who was Achilles?
A sequel of sorts to the Iliad.
It tells the story of the Trojan horse.
It shows the death of King Priam.
It tells the story of a Trojan warrior who was told by multiple people to leave Troy and start a new country…. Rome!
What was the Aenead?
This is just one section of the Mahabharata.
It is a sacred text for the Hindu religion.
It's a conversation between Arjuna and Lord Krishna (a god) about doing one's duty, killing cousins, and reincarnation.
What is the Bhagavad Gita?
He was exiled for his political views.
In exile he wrote a three part story about the afterlife.
The main character of the Inferno.
Who was Dante?
When Sohrab and Rostam don’t realize they are actually father and son.
When Oedipus doesn’t realize he married his own mother, but we do.
When we know something that the characters in the story do not.
What is Dramatic Irony?
He was the brother of Paris, who started the Trojan war.
He accidentally killed Patroclus.
He was killed by Achilles.
Who was Hector?
It tells the “history” of the world from creation up through Julius Caesar.
It tells stories about Hercules, Midas, the Trojans, and many other well-known Greek and Roman tales.
It was written by Ovid (in Rome)
It’s the epic that got away from us. I just couldn’t figure out which part to read.
What is the Metamorphoses?
This is another famous Indian epic.
We watched a weird movie about it with a guy with ten heads.
It tells the story of two people who fight one another.
What is the Ramayana?
He was in love with an older woman who was already married.
He wrote sad, desperate love songs.
He often wrote poems about Sappho, the dead Greek poet he had a crush on.
Who was Catullus?
Doing one's duty.
Even if it means killing your cousins.
He had a best friend named Enkidu.
His epic is named after him.
A story about a hero trying to find eternal life.
He hears a flood story from Utnapishtim.
Who was Gilgamesh?
A famous Indian epic.
Tells the story of a war between the Pandavas and the Kauravas.
Those two families were actually cousins.
What is the Mahabharata?
Another famous Indian story.
It is a frame story of two princes being educated.
Inside that story is the story of jungle animals learning lessons.
Inside that story, they tell the story of Right-Mind and Wrong-Mind
Inside that story, it tells the story of a crane who doesn’t want a snake to keep eating it’s eggs.
What is the Panchatantra?
He wrote Roman poetry.
He came up with “The Golden Mean”
He also talked about “Carpe Diem”
Who was Horace?
This has the same passage written in three different languages.
Only one language was still understood when it was found.
They used it to help us translate the other two languages.
What was the Rosetta Stone?