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Thinking comparatively about Greek mythology VI, A Mycenaean phase in the reception of myths about Hēraklēs

2019.08.30 | By Gregory Nagy §0. I have already commented on a set of myths known as the twelve Labors of Hēraklēs, and also on a multitude of further myths that I describe as the sub-Labors of the hero. In my posting for 2019.08.15, abbreviated here simply as TC IV, I listed all twelve of the Labors and most of the numerous sub-Labors as narrated by Diodorus of Sicily, who… Read more

Thinking comparatively about Greek mythology V, Reconstructing Hēraklēs forward in time

2019.08.22 | By Gregory Nagy §0. Previously, in “Thinking comparatively about Greek mythology IV,” hereafter abbreviated as TC IV, I was reconstructing the mythological persona of the Greek hero Hēraklēs by tracing him backward in time, back to the earliest reconstructable phases of myths that told his story. Here in TC V, I will trace such myths forward in time, and I will start my procedure of “reconstructing forward” by… Read more

Thinking comparatively about Greek mythology IV, Reconstructing Hēraklēs backward in time

2019.08.15 | By Gregory Nagy §0. As I have argued in the posting for 2019.07.26, “Thinking comparatively about Greek mythology I” (hereafter TC I), the myths about the Greek hero Hēraklēs and the Scandinavian hero Starkaðr are cognate, verbalized in cognate languages belonging to a language-family known to linguists as "Indo-European." Viewed in this light, the term “Indo-European” can be applied not only with reference to cognate language-groupings like Greek… Read more