Customer Reviews
By Zeus! - By: Kurt Messick, 04 May 2005 
Edith Hamilton's very popular 'Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods & Heroes' is a very basic, very popular & very good text for the introduction of Greek & Roman mythology. This book by Hamilton, simply entitled 'Mythology' is an expansion of the materialin the shorter book. Largely, however, it is a repetition of the same material.
In our Western culture, the term 'mythology' is most often equated with these tales, & Hamilton, first writing before World War II, has helped to reinforce that equation with the current generations of readers.
Those looking for the mythological stories of other cultures will be disappointed -- with the exception of a brief section on Norse mythology at the end (about five percent of the entire volume), it covers nothing outside the Greek & Roman pantheons. Of course, part of the difficulty of approaching mythology of other cultures is that,in many instances, it is not mythology to them; or,in the case of mythology, one needs a firmer groundingin the culture & religious aspects of that culture before the mythology becomes accessible.
Hamilton (raised, as I was astonished to discover,in Indiana, where I currently reside) studied at Bryn Mawr, & had a distinguished teacher careerin addition to writing this useful text. Hamilton's writing is not complicated & very easy to follow -- this has made her texts selected often for high school & undergraduate coursesin Greek & Roman mythology, more frequently perhaps than any other text producedin this century.
Hamilton begins the text with an essay giving an overview of what mythology is, & what the purpose of it was.
'Through it,' she wrote, 'we can retrace the path from civilised man who lives so far from nature, to man who livedin close companionship with nature; & the real interest of the myths is that they lead us back to a time when the world was young & people had a connection with the earth, with trees & seas & flowers & hills, unlike anything we ourselves can feel.'
She proceeds with a brief history of the development of Greek mythology, the origins of the stories lostin the mists of time. She tells of the influences of Greek thought on subsequent developmentsin thought & religion: 'Saint Paul said the invisible must be understood by the visible. That was not a Hebrew idea, it was Greek.' Unlike most religious constructs, the Greek mythological world tried to make sense of the greater life of the universein terms that were very human indeed, with a minimum of mystery. 'The terrifying irrational has no placein classical mythology.'
This is not to say, of course, that there were not terrible stories & fantastic creatures -- indeed, the mythological stories are full of them -- Gorgons & hydras & chimaeras dire. But these are mostly metaphorical (and were understood as such), & primarily used for a hero to be made (this same idea has pervaded to the most recent Mission Impossible movie).
Hamilton proceeds after this essay to describe the members of the pantheon, the major & minor gods & goddesses, the ideas of creation, the heroes (human, semi-divine & divine), stories of love & devotion, justice & injustice, and, of course, of warfare, victory, defeat, & courage. Those heroes before the Trojan War, perhaps the Greek-mythological-equivalent of a world war, had battles & dire circumstances to fight & overcome. The Trojan War figured largelyin the mythological frameworks of Greece & Rome -- all the gods & goddess were involvedin this conflict, it seemed, as were many of the heroes of Greek mythology.
Hamilton, writingin a fairly conservative period of time, &in a fairly conservative culture, sanitised the mythological stories to a large extent. The Greeks were a very human & often rather bawdy bunch; the Romans were even moreso. Much of the sexualityin the mythological stories is omitted, save to demonstrate the less-desirable aspects. Quite often, undergraduates who study mythology are astonished to discover, if they had used Hamilton's textin an earlier high school setting, that there is a lot more sex & violencein the 'real' stories than they had been previously exposed to.
Of course, one of the primary aspects of the mythological tales was not to explain the cosmos or to build complex theological constructs (reason did these, often with help from the myths, but not using the myths as the basis), but rather the illustration of moral truths -- those of honesty, virtue, & courage as primarily valuedin Greek & Roman society. Evil befalls those who do not lead a moral life; rewards come to those who do. Of course, there is a bit of whimsyin the cosmos -- bad things happen to good people, etc., evenin ancient Greece. The fluctuating personalities of the gods (and the number of them) ultimately gives a satisfying explanation (if not a satisfying reason) why such things might occur.
Edith Hamilton tells the timeless tales of gods and heroes - By: Lawrance M. Bernabo, 28 Jan 2004 Edith Hamilton's "Mythology" tell the "Timeless Tales of Gods & Heroes" of classical mythology & this volume, first writtenin 1942, is now a timeless classic itself. This was the first book of mythology that I ever read & it is still the best. When Hamilton retells the love story of Cupid & Psyche or the tragedy of Agamemnon & his children, she does so with a full sense of what it meant when first told by Apuleius or Aeschylus. These are not children's tales, but the heroic legends & religious beliefs of the ancient Greeks. Furthermore, the illustrations by Steele Savage have the elegance of wood block prints, which, for all I know, is exactly what they are. I appreciate Hamilton's choice to avoid relying on Ovid, for while the "Metamorphoses" is the most comprehensive ancient text dealing with the classical myths, Ovid is an unbeliever. For Hamilton the writings of Homer, Hesiod & Pindar are more abbreviatedin terms of providing details for the myths, but at least they take the tales seriously.
Another strength of the book is how she organizes the mythsin her seven parts: (1) Covers the complete pantheon of deities, including the lesser gods of Olympus & Earth & the later Roman additions, as well as the earliest heroes. (2) Retells the various tales of love, between mortals & the gods or each other, along with the Quest for the Golden Fleece & other early heroic adventures. (3) Focuses specifically on the greatest heroes, Perseus, Theseus & Hercules, with Atalanta thrownin the mixin a curious but understandable editorial decision by Hamilton. (4) Puts together Homer's Iliad & Virgil's Aeneid into a giant epic stretching from the Judgment of Paris to the founding of Roman, with the Odyssey & the tragedies of Euripides. (5) Tells about the great mythological families, namely the House of Atreus (Agamemnon), the Royal House of Thebes (Oedipus & Antigone), & the Royal House of Athens. (6) Covers all of the lesser myths, most notably Midas. (7) Goes offin a new direction, providing a very brief introduction to Norse mythology that seems woefully inadequate given the comprehensive compilation of classical mythology that precedes it.
If you want analysis of these myths, then you certainly want to look elsewhere. But if you want a solid retelling of the key stories of classical mythology, then Edith Hamilton's volume is still at the top of the list as far as I concerned. I fully admit that I am biased because I read this during my formative years & her language & rhythms are engrainedin my brain.
