Hi, Hello, Welcome. This is Let's talk about MIT's Baby, and I am your host, live here with part two of the Q and A episode. And frankly, I'm not even gonna fuck with an introduction this time because there are so many questions and I want to get to as many as possible, so we're just going to jump right in, all right. So I had a couple of questions that were from back in August, actually basically the last time after i'd closed the last Q and A. But they're both kind of about visiting Greece. So I thought, what a good way to start out this episode. So Penelope asked, what's your dream mythology inspired itinerary for Greece? Any sites in the mainland that you haven't visited but feel or must see. So Penelope one great name. I actually have a number of friends who have named their children Penelope. Plus, you know, we got the Odyssey. There's just so much happening there. Well done, dream itinerary, So I thought this was a good time to kind of bring up you know, it is already closed for this year, but I am doing the first ever like official Myths Baby group trip to Greece, which is just so utterly wild, but if it goes smoothly, I hope to do this more often. And we set up a really incredible itinerary that, honestly I think serves as a really great like, if you want to squish in as many ancient sites as possible, you know, in and around close enough to Athens that it's doable. This is a Gret itinerary, so I thought i'd share it with you all in case you just want to like do it on your own. So basically every flight, you know, unless you're coming from within Europe or even better within Greece, everything is going to just land in Athens. That's where you land. Obviously. Also you want to see Athens because the ruins in Athens are amazing. You know, we've got there's so much Greek ruins to see, but there's also a lot from the Roman period which is really interesting as well. You get to see some architectural differences, like really learn to spot those things. It's incredibly fun. So you know, if you are in Athens. Actually I'm going to leave the if you're in Athens to the next question, so we'll go with beyond Athens, because if you're looking at sites generally Okay, so you arrive in Athens, great, see everything there, I will get into it. Then you can go to Eleusis, or as it's called now Elepsis, which is only like forty five minutes to an hour I think outside of Athens. It's like on the way to most other things that I'm going to talk about. So it's a great kind of stopping point. Eleusis is fast because the ancient site itself, while enormous, is like not well publicized. There's not a lot like happening there as far as I could tell. I went, not this year but last year. It's really interesting and it's really big, but it's sort of just like there just being Elusis, which is of course like an enormously important ancient site. It was the site of the Ellucinian mysteries. It it was huge, and so what you can see now is like it's really hard to get kind of a grasp when what was there, because it's sort of still kind of its kind of seems very in progress. The museum at the time was closed. That habits with a lot of regional Greek museums, but definitely it must visit. And it's really easy because you can basically drive like if you rent a car, do drive Athens to Eleusis. You go see everything there, like I said, modern Elepsis, and then you keep driving. You go over, you go like through the mountains there, and there's a couple tunnels that are named for people that theseus killed on the way to Athens, which is so fun. And then you curve down and you go across the Isthmus of Corinth, which is incredible, Like the canal at Corinth is amazing. Take a look at that. And then you can go visit Corinth, which I have not been had the time to visit Corinth unfortunately, but I know there are a little bit of a couple of ancient sites there. But if you go further south, then you can get to Epidavros, which is where there is the modern theater that is the best preserved theater in Greece. It's not sorry, it's an ancient theater, but it is best preserved and it is still in use today. If you go in July and August, they put on Greek plays. I have never seen them because I have not been able to brave that heat, but one of these days I will. But they're performed Epidavros. So not only is that theater incredible, but right near the theater, like just like in the same general site is the Esclepeon, which is this enormous temple complex to Asclepias. If you've played Assassin's Creed Odyssey, it's where you go and like ask all those questions when you're searching for your mom. But yeah, like there's this whole Esclepion. The ruins are pretty incredible and it's just sort of like they're hanging out. And then also close to that, like within half an hour to an hour drive is Myceni. You can visit the ancient site of Myceni, which is utterly incredible. It's bronze age, it's fucking huge. The Tholos tombs there, the beehive tombs, utterly incredible, incredible. There's also a site at Tyrans, which I have not been to, but I know they also have Tholos tombs. Tireans was also a major archaeological or is a major archaeological site, but also like a major mythological site. And then just south of there's Nafplio that doesn't have much in the way of my kind of ancient love, but the museum there is really interesting. They have a lot of stuff, but it is mostly I think a Byzantine slash Ottoman kind of region. There's a lot of history around the Greek War of Independence, which is cool, but in terms of ancient stuff not quite as much. But it's a great place to stay and there's lots of great food, So you can kind of do the whole art and Attica and Athens like pretty easily. If you have more time, you can drive and you can go to Sparta. I don't think there's a ton of ruins left to see in Sparta, but it's still Sparta Sparti now and Olympia. I would love to see Olympia. I haven't gotten as far as that yet, but also an enormous ancient site to be visited now. Of course. Also you can do a day trip from Athens and go to Delphi if you want it. That's about two and a half hour drive. I think it's in a different direction, so it's trickier. These are all the things we're doing on this trip, which is pretty amazing, so I'm hoping we can do it again. We are not going as far as Olympia and Sparta unfortunately, but we're doing that whole argyllid bit and also Delphi because Delphi, Yeah, like it's another drivable site. Obviously, Delphi is fucking incredible to see. It's absolutely unreal. Another great little drive you can do from Athens is to go to the Temple of Posidon. It's sun Yon, utterly stunning, like it's a beautiful temple generally, but it's also on a cliff overlooking the sea. It's fucking beautiful. And if you go there, you can also go down into Lavrio, which is one of the port towns, and the seafood there, Oh my god, it's amazing. But yeah, so like those are some really simple things you can do, you know, if you are just generally in that area without having to go too far. So that is my kind of that was my dream I tinerary just in terms of what is doable. So again, hope to make this like a regular thing, but it's a really good little itinerary if you are going on your own too. Now, if you want to expand, like there's just so much Like ideally you would go to Delos. It's fucking amazing, but you have to take a ferry it's like three hour fairy minimum, so it is trickier. But if you're there for a longer time, you know, Naxos is amazing. Delos highly recommend and of course there is literally so much more. It's endless, But I will stick with that for now and move on straight to Evan's question, who said, I'm planning a trip for a trip to Athens in March, and apart from the usual sites and museums, is there anywhere you'd recommend that we should definitely go, whether that be cafes or unique places. So Athens, I'm gonna go. Off the top of my head, I'm sure I could think up more. We'll go with some simple stuff again, like if you're in the area, one do go to the National Archaeological Museum. It is like further if you're just kind of staying around the Acropolis, like that's lovely and beautiful. The Acropolis Museum is absolutely musty as well. The Archaeological Museum is a little further. It's not far, but it's like not easily walkable basically, but go see it. Go take a whole day for that museum. It is unbelievable, the stuff they have in there. It is unreal. It is one of my favorite museums in the world. Super underrated because Greek museums don't tend to have a lot of money, so there are a little like bare bones. You know, that's less true in Athens, but but like the stuff that's in there. So go to the National Archaeological Museum, no question again, Acropolis Museum for sure. The ancient sites. They have this like bulk ticket that's the wrong word, but they have this ticket that you can buy that's like ten euro more than just the Acropolis price, and it gets you into five different ancient sites. See all of those. One of tho sites that not everybody goes to. It's like you can walk it is. Karamicos. Karamacos is amazing. It's an ancient cemetery. Go to Karamicos. If you go in September or October, often you will see tortoises fucking It's pretty fun. But also there's a lot of great ruins and cats. It's a whole deal. Absolutely, go to Karamacos. Oh everything, gosh, I mean, there's there's just so much. There is an incredible restaurant in the Placa, so again, really touristy area. But really good restaurant called to Caffeineo. It does just me in the cafe, but the to Cafeeo in the placa, Oh my god, the food unbelievable. Yeah. Oh and this is a great cocktail bar that I love called Hitchcocktails. It's like really tucked away. It's by the Acropolis Museum again really in the tourist area, but I absolutely love it. That's my go to's uh for Athens and you know, see everything, but do not miss miss the National Archaeology Museum and give yourself enough time. It's huge, the stuff. Oh my god, I could dream of that museum literally forever. Thank you, Evan, Oh my god, have so much fun. Okay, Next up from Stephanie. As for how the ancient people saw their gods. Did they see them as the concept of their powers, I e. Zeus and lightning. Every time lightning strikes Zeus was the lightning or controlling said lightning? Or did they see them as physical humans like able to interact with the common people. What makes me think that way was the amount of children the gods had with the mortals or both or other great question. I think the answer is all of the above. Honestly all of the above. And I think that's what makes it so great, right, so great mythology. It's just like it's so many different things. If you are looking at the most ancient of sources, it is a lot more of the gods representing these like physical concepts, you know, of both being the weather, natural phenomena, and also being these deities who can be interacting with humans. Again, though that is that's much more of like that historical mythological take. Like I don't think people living in Athens, you know, even as far back as the Archaic period, we're going thinking that like they're going to run into a god at any time. I don't think that that was a mindset. But I do think that they had this kind of conceptual idea that there, you know, was this time when the gods interacted with humans. That's how all the babies came about, you know. Like I think they had this kind of conceptual idea of it being a thing, a past thing, but I don't think it was like a thing they actually worried about. But yeah, light lightning is trickier lightning, like he controls them because it's like the Cyclops made the lightning bolts kind of thing. You know, Poseidon is the earth shaker, he is not the see he does control certain things. Like it's very conceptual. It also really does change over the time period. So like we are talking about a thousand years worth of mythology, right and a thousand years worth of people evolving. Think about how much the world has evolved in the last thousand years thousand years. It's often it's easy to forget that because we just think of Greek history and Greek mythology as this like thing, this like singular thing, particularly mythology, but the mythology too, was evolving over a thousand years. That's why when I tell you guys stories sometimes it's like, well, this version said this, and this said that, and this said that, and it's like, doesn't make any sense. And that's simply because, like we are talking a thousand years. If I am the difference between reading he see it, Okay, he see it, which is, you know, the earliest surviving source we have for sort of the beginning of the world, all of the gods and their origin story, that's the earliest surviving we make. It was probably put to paper in the fifth or sixth century BCE. But it is probably older than that, or then you jump right to say Pseudo Apollodorus, who is another great source for just like kind of everything in myth. It was really brief, but it kind of covers all of the basics. Now Pseudopolydorus is difficult. We call him pseudo because there was a time when we believe that he was. This was written by somebody named a Polyodorus, who I think then they thought he was like second century BCE, and then it became clear that like, no, whoever wrote this it was probably later wasn't a Polyodorus, but that's the name. That's why we call it Pseudo Apollodorus instead, And that was probably more like first century CE, I think. So we're talking like seven hundred years between him and he Sid, right seven hundred years, So you start to think about that in terms of any kind of understanding, Like sure, when he Seid was around, they probably did have a deeper understanding of the gods as like this like physical construct in the world, whereas seven hundred years later they're probably thinking a bit more spiritually, they're thinking a bit more in terms of how we see religion now as more of like a little bit less like hands on right, and so you just kind of have to imagine, you know, how much can change in that amount of time. It's utterly fascinating. So yeah, it's a great question. I also think truly all of your ideas are right in different ways, you know. Okay, Stephanie had a few. We're doing one more from Stephanie, but thank you for all of them. So, as a member of the LGBTQ community, Sappho plays a huge role in how I identify love her or as you would say, I love this shit, even have a tattoo piece of her. Me too. But are there any other surviving fragments or pieces by ancient Greek women poets who wrote about women that we know of? Okay, there are other Greek women poets I don't know offhand if any of them wrote about women, I would say, I mean, Sapho is certainly the best surviving. The thing about Sappho is she survives a lot because of random luck. A lot of the reason why Sappho's fragments are so fragmentary is because they were like literally found on like little bits of ripped up papyrus that was like reused on other things. It's really interesting. But that's all to say that, like most of Sappho was not preserved intentionally, which is why we don't have a lot from other poets as well. So we know there were other female poets, and there are other fragments I think that survive. They're just minimal compared to Sapo. I don't remember their names off but but there's a book called Sappho's Liar by Diane Rayer, and it is about Sappho, but it also talks about other women poets at the time and sort of what we do have that survives, or what we do know about the people that existed. So I highly recommend that if you want to learn more, there are definitely a handful. Safo is still the best example. And again I don't know if those women wrote about other women, even Sappho. The problem is, like people will love to argue that like, oh, when she wrote about women, it's because she wrote the poem for a man to give to a woman. It's like, okay, like give me a break. The like straight washing of that is pretty wild. But what that just means is that like it is hard for us to have like any kind of real grasp on what was happening because it has just been straight washed for so long. Do I believe Safa was gay? Abso fucking lute? Like I think that you know she was. I mean, it's tough to say. Like she did write about men too. I think she was probably by you know, but absolutely she did write about women. That's all to say. That was like a not a super helpful answer. But read that book if you want to know more. The subtitle of it is literally Archaic Love and Women Poets of Ancient Greece. I think that's exactly a Yeah, my glasses are on, but the book is far enough away that I had to make sure. All right, Lauren says, do you ever plan on talking about Troyliss and Poleaxana and all the other horrific things Achilles did throughout his life? I had somebody on to talk about the Shakespeare play about Troylists and Cressida. That's not helpful. I don't know enough about troy Lists. I feel like all of that is from the Fall of Troy source probably I want to ask you, but I can't. But yeah, I think all of that survives, as far as I know offhand, survives in only the Roman source the Fall of Troy, so I just never tend to go to that, but I do want to eventually. It's just like an enormous fucking epic that is kind of hard to get through. But yeah, no, I would love to. I want to talk more about the Trojan War characters generally, but it is so hard because ninety nine percent of what we have from Greece is from the Iliad, and like I've done that, the Eliot obviously loses out on a lot of things. I think Paul Axenna would have been in the Trojan Women. Maybe I'm free. There's so many women with similar names. Yeah, so that's a good example. I wish I knew more of them offhand, but I'm going to put them on my list of people to look into about whether I can do a whole episode on them. So thank you, Lauren. All Right, next one of my Emily's that's just a running joke. If you get it, you get it. Emily says, sorry if this seems like rambling, but recently I was thinking about Greek myth and how it is a good, good in quotes thing for a woman to be thin ankled, and how that would be basically the only way her appearance would be described, if at all. Also, I have heard Hara being referred to as cowfaced, and I wondered if that would be a good thing or a slight dig at her. I guess what I am trying to ask. Is there an expert slash source you could point me to that talks about the subject of beauty slash appearance in ancient Greece and their possible nuances. Oh, what a great question. I'm racking my brain. I want to have the answer to this. The neat ankled thing, so sometimes it's translated as thin ankled, and sometimes it's translated as neat. I like neat better. It is still weird to focus on ankles, especially because like Greek women like they weren't not showing skin. Ankles is so specific. There's gotta be a good reason. And the cow faced thing, ah, that's definitely. I'm pretty sure it is meant to be kind. I read about this somewhere, and I've forgotten where. This is the problem. I do too much research and then I it. I did a little bit of digging, but I literally just googled. So I won't pretend like I have better sources to give you, but I think that it's more it was so it's like sometimes cowface, sometimes cow eyed, sometimes ox eyed. These are just like translational differences. But I think it seems like it's more about just her having like big pretty eyes, like you know, because also you have to think like it's we think of cow as a bad insult because of fat phobia, and like the grossness of the last you know, one hundred years or so, or like, as a millennial, I think of the grossness of just the nineties and the two thousands, but like cows and heifers and ox like those were really important animals and like it wasn't an insult that's just like, oh, you have big eyes. You know. These are just like vitally vitally important animals. So I think it is like a nice thing, but it just sounds weird to us. As for the wider question, which was so great, of like where to look for stuff like this, I don't have an answer, but I desperately want one, so I might be I might try to look into this a little further and maybe hopefully mention something on an upcoming episode because it sounds so interesting and I imagine that there's a great source on this because I think it is probably like a really full topic with like so much to learn because the epithets were so weird, like some epithets are wild and they make very little sense. You know, it's contextual, it's like what mattered and what was important back then. But the neat ankled thing has always made me laugh, Like what anyway, I would love to know more. I hope to have an answer in the future. I'm sorry for not having it now, but yeah, I'm only doing I'm doing literally what I can to survive right now, so thank you for asking it, though, my god. Okay, so I have a question from Strischi and Chloe I hope I pronounced that even remotely right, who both collectively said, could you please do a small episode on the birth of some minor goddess god slash goddesses Hestia, Hecate, children of Nicks, et cetera. And I'm reading that because it's a I would love to if there was anything. But when it comes to the minor gods, the sources tend to be they were born like that's it. So it would be like, these are the children of Nicks and then list names Hestia is the daughter of X. I don't even say who because there's all these different options. But it's like that's it. There's no story, and I would I wish I could talk more easily about kind of everyone. But the thing is is that if I come into a microphone and I just list people who people were born of, like people are not going to sit through a half an hour of that, and I have to make them half an hour justify giving you guys ads, I really try not to give you ads on anything less. So yeah, I just there isn't Unfortunately, there just isn't enough. But I did read the Theogony last year or the year before around this time of year, which is a good example of that. Like it's literally just a list of who was born to whom. Yeah, I would, I honestly like, I so wish there was more. And that's why I kind of recommended to you guys to ask me about these gods, because if there are gods that you'd like to know more about, you know, I'd love to talk about them in this kind of setting when I can. When it comes to the births, though, which is, yeah, what do you ask about here? Like there's just there's nothing. There's literally just who were their parents if we know them, and that tends to be about it. I'm always looking for more on Hestia and Hecate. I think when this episode comes out, it'll be right after my episode with Natalie Haynes, where we just basically talked about Hestia, revolving around her newest book, but mostly we just talked about Hestia and even she was like, there's nothing, and I'm like, yeah, it's awful. I just want to talk about hest all the time, but there's nothing. But yeah, so you know, I think, yeah, I'm sorry this. You can tell that I want to tell you more. There's just not enough. If I ever find a way to fit in an episode that isn't going to be just a boredom factory and talk about all these gods, I will, I promise, all right. This one comes from Ariadney. Thank you Ariadney. Hi. I love the podcast and have been obsessed with Greek mythology for a long time. I am also of Greek descent, hence my name. I guessed, but notice that though you have covered covered extremely well some of my favorite ancient Greek heroines Cledemnestra, Thetis, Electra, Circe. You have yet to do an episode on my namesake Ariadney, but I have. I've done tons of material on her if you're interested, though, I'm sure you have that covered and would absolutely love to hear her often ignored story. So my question is, could you do an episode slast share what you know about her? So Ariadney one, if you want to send me mention of whatever sources you have. I'm always happy to hear of sources. I do only really look to primary sources with some exceptions, but I would absolutely love to hear what you have to share with me, So please feel fear to email me. It's Mythsbabe at gmail dot com. But I have some an episode on Ariadney. The problem with Ariadney's story is that, aside from the Dionysiaca, which I have not been able to dive deep enough into yet, her story just revolves around unfortunately theseus and dionysus. She does deserve better, but those are the facts, and so I have done an episode on her. If you just search Ariadny in a podcast app and then look for my podcast, you will find it. I think there's only been a couple, but yeah, I've definitely talked about her in relation to those men, because she's awesome and she deserves the world. But unfortunately I have to work with what sources exist. But also it's really great that that's your name. I love that for you, Thank you. And speaking of names, literally the very next day, I had a question from and I'm going to pronounce your name like we do in North America, and I apologize if that's not how it's pronounced, but unice, but I'm also going to later try to guess how it would be pronounced in Greek, because Yuna says my name is derived from the Greek goddess Nike, which of course you already know. You know what I didn't. We'll get into that. Is there any slash enough research to touch on her mythos? I hated my name for most of my adolescents until I learned it's etymology, which also kicked my interest, kicked off my interest in mythology. Thank you for the show, Thank you. I love that. So I didn't like I know that Niki is based off Nike because in Greece they basically pronounce it Niki. But I love that, and so I googled it and it looks like it's specifically good victory, which is where the the eu at the beginning comes in, which I love. I imagine in modern Greek, if it is still a modern Greek name, it would be pronounced like Evniki, which I love. Evniki. That would be so so pretty. Anyway, I love that so much. So Niek she is tricky. I love her. I mean the winged victory of Samothraki is my has my whole heart, obviously because I've been there and it's the greatest place in the world. But Nick is one of those frustrating deities honestly, like like the ones I mentioned earlier, because I think she she daughter of Nix or somebody else. Either way, she is one of those personification deities where like I talk about last Week and the Q and A, like you know, Chronos with an h how he just is time. Nik's just is victory, right, And so there is no story about her as a character because she didn't matter as a character. And I mean that in a good way because basically Nick was there for any and all victorious moments, any and all victories that happen in any myth. If the word victory appears then it was Niki, right, particularly if you read a translation it's capitalized, you can just be like that might as well be Nick. So you know, there are no stories about her. We do know. I just I just made sure she is the daughter of sticks. Apologies not Nicks sticks, but we do so that's just it, right, So we literally have like she is the daughter of the river Styx, but she just is Victory. Like her siblings are Power and Force and zeal. So it's like they are just conceptual, you know. It's it's unfortunate because we want to hear these things, especially because she's beautiful and all these the visual representations of her, right, like she's just lovely goddess with these gorgeous wings. Especially like if you haven't, if you don't know what I'm talking about, and I say winged Victory, google it. There's a lot of different names. She's in the Louver, I think, where they call her winged Victory. She's Nikiev, Samothraci, Samothrace. But she was stolen, you know, by the French, which is why she's there. But it's nice to call her, you know, by her more Greek name. The same applies if you just FYI if you want to adjust how you say these words. But the Venus de Milo, right, was also stolen by the French. She is Aphrediti of Milos. There's no reason to call her venus because she is a Greek statue found in Grace, stolen from Milos. And so the name Venus de Milo sounds it's just like very not you know where she came from. So that is Afredititi of Milos. More accurately speaking anyway, But nik is just so interesting because we want her to have these stories, we want her to have so much more. But it is just purely that she was just victory. So you know, even if your go on her, you know her list of all the mentions of her in the ancient sources on theo A as I'll mention THEOA again, we literally just have you know, sticks bear Oh look trim ankle to nick Inhesid. So we with that, that's what we have. She she headed her nice ankles, you know. Oh she's called warlike in the Homeric hymn. That's nice. She's yeah, mentioned later the daughter of Styx like. She She was often shown accompanying Athena just because of these associations with war and strategy and victory. She you know, is mentioned in relation to the war with the Titans, but again because somebody won. You know, it's not about including someone in the story so much as making sure that your story includes victory. I do see there's some references in the Dionysia co which I've mentioned, but again I think it's just going to be related to just the concept of victory. It's unfortunate, I don't you know. I know I've checked this before because I've been looking for more on Nique forever forever. I promise I would have told you. But it's just these these conceptual ideas of victory, broadly because she just it's not that she wasn't important, it's that she was too important as a concept for them to bother writing her into stories or theorizing on stories because it's like, well, they didn't need to because if she's in every story, because she's victory, right, they just had different priorities than us. It was just about writing down this a story of a major event, and so like no of Niki was there, but just because there was victory. So hope that helps. I really always want to have more satisfying answers for you guys. Personally, I find that part more interesting, Like I think it's more interesting to look at why there are no stories of her and how that is because she was this concept. But I know that it's frustrating to most. But either way, your name is beautiful and yeah so and Nika is seriously cool even if we don't have stories of her all right. Next one, I have one from Ali who says I've been listening to and loving the post for years, but this is the first time I'm writing in for a Q and A episode. I'm usually listening while I'm in between appointments or steaming dresses at my job as a bridal stylist. Since I'm around brides all day and listening to plans about their wedding while we find them the dress, I wanted to ask what you think the worst wedding and all of Greek myth is I go back and forth between Perseus and Traumatas and Pellias and Thetises. Are there other major weddings of note? Can we even count if a Ganiah's wedding two Achilles? On a completely separate note, I also wanted to ask if you're watching the new animated show Crap Populis. I'm really liking it so far. You're not the first person to ask about Crepopolis, so I will just very quickly tell you and the other I'm sorry, no, I have not watched it. But to your earlier question, oh my god, worst wedding, I think you're right in debating between those two. But I also think you're right in popping in if a Gania's fake wedding to Achilles, like I think arguably probably that one's the worst if you want to count it as a wedding, because like, if you're this nice teenage girl being told you're going to marry the best of the Greeks and instead your dad kills you, like not ideal, not great, But otherwise I would say probably between Percys and Andromeda and Pelias and Thetis, I think percy Is and Andromeda's has a higher death toll, a much much higher death Well that's a it has a much higher direct death toll, and that like everyone at the wedding dies mostly. But if you count the Trojan war as a death toll of the wedding of Pelias and Thetis, well then that one's worse, really I think we could go back and forth forever, and I love that you had me do that, but yeah, I don't think we can pick between them. It's just like, what are the levels of bad? You know, there's there's other weddings. Cadmins and Harmonia have a wedding mythologically where shit does not go down, so that's nice for them. Yeah, I think that's the only like kind of more official wedding. There's some really interesting stuff about young women preparing for their wedding. We talked about it in my episode with doctor Ellie Mack and Roberts about Persephone, because they often looked to that story in preparation for their own wedding, both by being excited and also from the other side of oh my god, I'm being forced to marry this man. And I think that that story really connected with a lot of people. So that was really interesting conversation I had if you wanted to listen to it. But I definitely think you're right in terms of your theorizing on the worst weddings for sure. Okay, We're gonna try to power through a bunch more because you guys have so many good questions and also time is the thing. Okay, Vicky wrote in and they say, hey, live big fan here. My question is what myth can people read if they like the weirdest stuff ever, including me? Tbh, I'm with you, Vicky, Okay. Homeric him to Hermes Chef's fucking kiss It's literally perfect. Oh what else? I mean? The elkest is pl is weird as shit, but it is a play. The myth is a little bit more mysterious and missing. I mean it's so hard, like everything is so weird in its own kind of way, you know, like honestly, just reading any of the original sources, like you're gonna get some weird shit, pick up some pseudo Apollodorus even he see it. Maybe. Homeric Him's broadly are pretty fun summer weird. I mean they were all weird, you know, Like the story of Pacife and the Bull is what really reminded me how weird and interesting the Greeks were, and like why I was like, I think I'm gonna talk about them into a microphone, you know, and then here we are. Ah, they were all just so weird. I wish, yeah, I wish I had more detailed answers. Homeric him to Hermes is my good go to so quick read. It's deeply wild. It's just so silly, all right. Connor has an interesting question. I don't have an answer, but Connor, I'm going to read it in case other people do. Okay, Connor says, as a big fan of the Six musical, I cannot help but notice the similarities between Medea and Catherine of Aragon. Both are foreign princesses married to a king to bear his children, but are cast out for a local wife. Catherine does end up in a nunnery, and she isn't happy about it, though she does not kill her daughter on a dragon chariot. Has anyone else written about the similarities between these two fiction or nonfiction? I don't know. I don't know of anything about Catherine of Aragon really, but that's really interesting. So I mean, if anyone has any recommendations for that, feel free to write in and I will read it on an upcoming episode, because that's interesting, all right. One from Paris and they said love the podcast. I was listening to another podcast which doesn't have a mythology focus, and so the hosts are not well versed. However, on a tangent they called the myth of a sterion a parable for step children. I can't recall if you made the same connection, but it seemed misguided to me to refer to the myth as such. What are your thoughts? Is a stereo on a warm warning about step children? Or is that too reductionist? Keep up the amazing work. I love listening. Thank you, Paris. I think that is also a reductionist, Like I don't, I mean, if you want to say it, like I don't think it's wrong, but I think to suggest that that is, like any kind of major point of the story of Asterion Slash the Minotaur, to be clear, is yeah, is reductionist. I mean, it is at its heart something about the gods, right, like stepchild is a stretch, Like I mean, for lots of reasons, one being it was a bull. But like step children would the implication would be either like from a previous marriage or a further marriage. But like, yeah, I think I think it's reductionist. And also just like boring, like I think there is much more interesting things to say about the minotaur and Hysterion and his birth and him as a character. And yeah, because also like we don't, I mean minos like in terms of the ancient sources, he doesn't have a huge role to play, Like we don't really know it's it's tough. It's tough. Yeah, I don't think that there's enough going on in the sources to say that. All right, Lily Has says, I live. Thanks for your guidance on my Pathos assignment last Q and A. You're welcome. I forgot about that. That was fun. My question is do you have a favorite ancient artwork? Oh another question where it's just like what is my mood? But you know what I'm gonna go with. So last year I was lucky enough to go to Santerini for the first time. I normally wouldn't have wanted to go. It's so expensive compared to the rest of Greece, but my mom like desperately wanted to go, so we made it a thing, and I mean thankfully, like I'm very glad I did. Because the thing about Santrini, if you ignore all of the tourism, like it is gorgeous for one, because it's a fucking volcano, but like it's so flip and expensive compared to the rest of the country. But the incredible thing about Santrini that no one really talks about because it's too busy being Sancherini. Is that you know, it was a volcano, which means that it does have a preserved city like in the vein of Pompeii, only two thousand years older, can more like sixteen hundred, but like sixteen hundred years older than Pompeii. Right, It's called Acriteria. It's in the south of Santerini. You can take a really easy bus to get there. I think the bus cost us like two euro it was the best. And Acriteria is a fully well, you know, preserved in whatever way possible town from the Bronze Age, was preserved by the volcanic corruption of Thera. And it is wild. It is incredible, like you see an ancient town like but and by ancient in this case, like I mean the Bronze Age, so I mean I mean sixteen hundred years before Pompeii, but like a thousand years before, more than a thousand years before the play rights before Plato, like it's so old. And this leads me to the actual answer to your question, sorry, which is that in Thera. In town of Thera on Santorini, it's far from a criteria, but it's a small island. Is the Archaeological Museum of Thera, and holy shit, because I have been to the National Archaeological Museum in Athens, as I told you all, you have to go. It's the fucking best. Do not go to Athens and not see it. And there they have some wall paintings from Acriteri, from this preserved Bronze Age town, and the wallpaintings that they have in the nam are amazing. They're beautiful, They're so colorful, like the color is preserved right by this volcanic corruption in a way that would never be possible without it. They're incredible. But then you go to fucking Thera and there's like a hundred times as many. So the wall paintings preserved from Acriteria, like all of them, but like, oh, I can't even honestly, I can't even name like a specific favorite because it's just all of them. They're un real. Or if you want that more famous thing I'm obsessed with being Victory, the ones I've talked about earlier. It's in the loof because it's from Samothrae and also it's this hellenistic joy it's fucking incredible. So yeah, those would be my favorites, but also honestly, like I could list one thousand more. All right. This next one was from Emma, who says, would you ever write another book and would you do an episode on the meanings of Greek names? All right? Emma one, yes, uh so, I want to publish lots more books. But I'm currently working on a new novel set aside Cadm's and Harmonia for a little while because I couldn't get to it, but I've written something else and we're working on it. We're working on making that happen. It is something the meaning of Greek names. I was, I love that. Maybe I'll like focus A, Q and A on it somehow sometime because the thing about that, it's a lot like what I was talking about I think earlier, but it was maybe last week. I've recorded them both at once. When I was talking about how difficult it is to just like list names, you know, as one person, Like if I can turn it into a discussion with somebody, that's so different. But in terms of me doing an episode like it would just get boring so quickly, unfortunately, you know, like it just would so maybe I'll just kind of prompt people next Q and A to like if so, even just now, if you guys have any questions about specific Greek names and the meanings, feel free to put them into this the same Q and A form mythsbaby dot com slash questions, and I can get to it in the next Q and A in the summer, because I would love to. It's just that I need prompting and I need it can't be just a list, So if you tell me any names you're interested in, I will do the research and figure it out. Because it's a great idea. It's just one of those things that like logistically, just like doesn't work very well in the type of podcast that I have to give you. All Right, This next one is from Julia, and it gives me joy. She's got three questions. One, maybe this is dumb, but given the Greek's obsession with dix, why do all those ancient sculptures have such tiny genitalia? Great question. I don't know the answer, like you know, you know, I don't. I don't, But because like a lot of the sculptures do, I'm trying to think of time period and like whether maybe those are coming later. A lot of the things we're imagining, because like, if you're curious about the opposite of that, you go ahead and you type the Roman god Preapus into the Google. You go type pre APIs pr I a p us. You're welcome. But also, you know, they like carry dicks around all the time, they put them on everything. I don't know. Yeah, I don't know. You know, I don't have one, so I just don't think about them that much. Number two, do you know anything about Demeter's be maidens and they're dance leading people into the underworld. I saw them mentioned somewhere but never dived into it, although it sounded interesting. Okay, now I am obsessed, Julia. Maybe I'll do an episode on Demeter. I would love to talk more about Demeter, but her story is pretty like specifically connected to Persephone. Yeah, yeah, I don't. I don't offhand. I would love to learn more, though, So thank you for bringing them up. I mean, I know bees were super important. I mean they are obvious bees Jesus, They're like gonna save or kill the world, and by them killing us, I mean we killing them. Oh I can't speak today, Yeah I don't, but I would love to have that as an idea, so thank you Number three. How do you feel about the fact that the ancient Romans would pronounce your name as fifty four? I love that. I think it's funny sometimes. Oh A good moment of having my name be live is that if somebody texts it to me all in caps, like if they're just being they're yelling my name at me, or like being expositional, And if I ask my phone, if I ask Siri to read it to me, she just says fifty four. She doesn't say my name, she just says fifty four. So the assumption is if it's an all caps, it's actually a Roman numeral and not my name. And I find a lot of joy in that. And I had one from blendin. I hope I pronounced that right. I'm sorry technically I'm French. I'm shitty at it though, and I'm not going to read it, but I just want to say it was about my ipag and I among the Torrian's episodes and some of the things that I said without saying, which is what I'm doing again now, just because I am not in the mental space to take people accusing me of saying things I didn't say, which is what happens whenever anyone talks about what's happening right now. But I just want to tell you that originally, when this message came in at the beginning of December, like I couldn't have needed it more so, you saying what you said and praising or even just recognizing what I said in those episodes meant so much to me. It really really helped me at a really difficult time. So thank you very much for your message. You definitely didn't make it weird. It was really great. All right, I've got just a couple more questions we're going to try to get through. So Andy, she says, are you going to watch the Percy Jackson series on Disney Plus? Andy, I don't know. I don't know. I don't currently have Disney for reasons. I don't know. I hope everyone's enjoying it though, for real I do, but again, like I don't know the story, I do in theory, I want to watch it. I do. Sorry, that's the least helpful answer, but I wanted to read the question and answer because I know a lot of people are probably thinking that right now. All right, and Becca said, Hi, live, absolutely love your show. This question isn't really related to anything mythological, but I always see you on trips to Greece, which is an absolute dream of mine. I was just wondering what you do to pass all of your time on what I assume is a very, very long flight from the Canadian West coast. Becca. It is a long flight because there is no direct flight. There is no direct flight. Yes, I am fortunate enough thankfully the podcast, honestly, so you all have helped me be fortunate enough to be able to go to Greece quite often, and I couldn't be more grateful. But also, yeah, the flight is crazy long. It's usually about twenty to twenty four hours of me traveling just to get there because I live on the farthest part of North America basically. But yeah, no, I read mostly and I try to sleep, and you know how difficult that can be on a plane. So mostly I just read and try not to I don't even know curl in on myself. But it's always worth it. It's always worth it because I'm in Greece. Okay, we're going to end today's with a question from Lauren and Lauren's Brain seems to work a lot like mine, which is why I'm going to joyfully read this entire question, which is long. But you guys are all gonna deal with it, all right, Lauren says, First of all, I love your show and you for that matter, not in a weird way, though I'm not a creep, I promise. However, I do have one grape. You had the audacity to flaunt your podcast or privilege getting Stephanie mccartter's translation of Metamorphoses early, while the rest of us have peasants had to endure the agonizing weight as the calendar dragged on and on, watching the days when the status went from pre order to shift. I wish you could hear the dripping sarcasm. It's truly a crime. And I also hope that my assumption is true, because if not, I'm an asshole. Anyway, my ADHD brain got all dramatic. My question is this, when it comes to translations of ancient texts, besides being leary of most translations by cis hat white dudes and buying slash acquiring the text before reading it, are there things to look for or ways to identify clear biases? Are there? Translator blacklist websites or a few translators that you can recommend. I know Emily Wilson as Chef's Kiss that maybe aren't as well known. To give you a little context, I have a similar narrative when it comes to mythology and that I picked up a disneyfied copy of Greek myths and I've not only ended up gay, but I'm now interested in every single culture's mythology and folklore that ever existed. So spiraling down a few rap it holds at two am is child's play at this point. Thank you for all your hard work and powering through on your rough days to give us this amazing content. Thank you for being so open about those hard days. Oh this is ironic. Thank you not ironic, this bad grammar. Live about those hard days and still showing up for us, though I hope you're showing up for yourself, because you're pretty fucking fabulous. As someone who struggles with the laundry list of mental illnesses, I can relate, and I have an idea how hard it can be to literally just put socks on. I can barely function and bathe when I'm having a particularly bad time, so I can't imagine running a podcast on that podcast being your soul income At this point, I don't know how often you get people thanking and validating you for that, so I just wanted to make sure that I did live. You're a goddamn goddess yourself, and thank you for loving this shit. I started reading that because it was just like funny, silly adhd brain, and then it became deep. Thank you. Really, I couldn't have possibly needed that more because sometimes sometimes I have to podcast even when even when the worst thing has happened. So thank you for appreciate it. I always love my job, but it is very weird having a job where I just talk to a microphone and hope people listen. Sometimes I really do need to actually hear from people who do listen, because it can feel really odd that I just do this and just kind of like let it go out into the world and hope for the best. So thank you. I really did start reading this because I just wanted to answer your question about translators and also laugh about basically everything you typed, because it was incredibly funny about Stephanie McCarter. It's that the book had come out in the UK, and I so you at North Americans had to wait, or maybe it was the opposite. Maybe it was it had come out in the US and British people had to wait. I don't remember. I'm sorry. I definitely did get it early, though, and that was my podcaster or privilege. Actually that time too, I didn't even use. I used to work at Penguin and sometimes I get stuff early because of them, not because of podcaster, but this time it was all podcaster. Anyway, that's a great translation, but translation is broadly trying to think of anyone who I would know is like I mean, I think the newer the better generally, not always, but you know, if you pick up one that's really cheap, it's usually cheap because it's like one hundred plus years old. And while you know, there's nothing wrong with those inherently, like I'm obviously I read them on the show because they're all I can legally read aloud to you guys. But like there's imagine one hundred years ago, Like there's biases there just inherent by the world one hundred years ago, whether they be about women or just racist or you know, homophobic, like who knows, right, So the newer the better, generally, but then there are still shitty people out there translating. Now again, I don't I can't name any offhand that I would be like, oh my god, no not now. Yeah, you know there's so Ann Carson's I really like, I've talked about her a lot, so maybe that's not like a behind the scenes one last week on the Q and A, I mentioned that Greek myths or not Greek myths, I might have called it Greek myths. It's called Greek plays. It's a it's a modern library edition of like all three Tragedians, like three or four plays each, and it's translations from the last like ten years or so, when they're all pretty good. I mean, yeah, it's really difficult. There's not like any clear biases that aren't you know, like really obvious shit, like if you open the book and the word slut is there, like that's probably not from the ancient Greek, you know, probably was just woman. Yeah, I mean I try to just kind of, I try to refer to more than one if I can. Sometimes I can't. And you know, if I know the translator is pretty good, translation is subjective. You know, Like this came up a lot when the new Iliad came out and all the dudes were so angry, like saying that she changed, and it's like she literally didn't change it. She just made choices, because you have to make choices as a translator. It's literally impossible to translate literally because if you are reading a literal translation, it's not going to make any fucking sense because words change and English has, you know, different words for something than Greek would, or or multiple words that can mean the same thing in Greek or vice versa. Like you know, a translation is always going to have bias. Stephanie McCarter talked about this on my episode with her, and it was really interesting because it really is always going to have bias because everyone is human and you are going to put your human nature into the translation. It is unavoidable. The question is what those translators are thinking and intending with that translation. So, you know, when Stephanie talked about this, she talked about how she was making a conscious effort to equal the playing fields between men and women, to look at what other translations have done, to look at the Latin and make a call, you know, based on whatever the least you know, the sort of the I guess the least bias, but again she did admit, you know, working within her own bias. It's just it's really interesting looking at translation and you know what has to be done in order for something to not only make sense when translated into a modern language when it was written, you know, two thousand plus years ago, but just like you know what comes out of that and what people can read from it, you know, it's it's utterly fascinating. Like I've read, you know, a bunch of stories from all of it, in like three or four or five even different translations, and they're all interesting in their own ways. And you know, even the old ones that are certainly full of biases, they're still good because you're still reading the ancient text in some form. You just have to kind of keep in mind that there might be you know, more glaring biases that you're not aware of, you know, just keep it in mind. If you read something and you're like, well that's the odd you know, like maybe pick up a different translation and try to find the same passage and how they read it. I just find that really interesting, you know, looking at multiple translations and things like that. Actually, now the more I ramble, the more I realize. So there is also like there's a website called Poetry and Translation which provides a lot of free translations to ancient works. I'm not super familiar with the translators involved, or all of them at least, but it's still like it's a good free resource that you can go on and read. And they are recent translations, so while there still might be some biases in there, you're not dealing with like one hundred years worth of social innovation being lost, you know, by reading a really old one. So you know, if you if you're looking for a translation you don't want to spend money, or you can't spend money, check out Poetry and Translation if they have what you're looking for, or THEOI dot com or you know, it's always going there's always going to be something. It is inevitable, even if you're reading it. You know, something translated by like literally anyone is going to have some kind of bias involved. It just sort of depends on what type you want. That's why I look for those written by women or translated by women rather because I'd rather have that, Like I'll be blunt about it. If I'm gonna have to read something with a bias. I want to read it by a woman like. Sorry, I don't really like I'm not going to pretend, you know that anyone can can interpret this stuff without a bias. Obviously I have one too. I just happen to think that it's a pretty good one, you know, just equality weird. Yeah, so you know, but I do think it's a great question. And yeah, I hope that was helpful. Thank you all so much for listening. I wish I was in a better headspace to answer these questions because I feel like I've just not been able to think for the past couple of months. Really, But here we are. It had to happen. Yeah, it's been a time. Like I said last week, I've been recording a bunch of things up front so that I can kind of escape my life for a little while. And I'm really hoping to be in some kind of good shape when I come back and return full force to having fun with the podcast and being able to write entertaining and smart things and have my brain actually work. But it's just been one thing after the other since it's like October, and I just need to breathe. But anyway, I hope you all enjoy this anyway. I hope that you found the answers helpful. I hope you enjoyed listening to your question be heard. If I didn't get to your question, I'm really sorry. There were really so many. I always think I'm not getting enough, and then I'm like, oh shit, no, there's too many, even for two hour long episodes, Jesus. But I really I'm so grateful for all of you. I'm really, really so grateful for everyone who listens to this podcast, for everyone who writes in, for everyone who follows me in comments and emails and literally anything, like they all mean the world to me, even if I can't answer or read your question like I read it to myself, even if I don't read it aloud, you know, and it all means the whole world to me. I really love hearing from people, because, like I said earlier, like this is the greatest job in the world. But there is something particularly weird about recording a podcast and then just putting it out into the world and hoping that people listen, like it is an incredibly odd experience. And sometimes I'm just like faced with this like reminder that so many people listen to me and love the show and all these things, but I otherwise just live in this little bubble, and recently the bubble just kind of like blew up. And so you know, I really I needed to hear from a lot of you, or I didn't know, but I did, and so these these questions were really helpful, and all the kind words and just the thanks. Hearing anyone say thank you for this show means the whole world, because I really love what I do, but I do need to know that people, you know, continue to want to hear it and continue to get something out of it, because this show is about sharing knowledge in an exciting and fun and passionate way, and it can be, you know, an odd experience. So anyway, I'm just rambling. I really can't think straight. Thank you all so much for listening. You're just absolutely wonderful. Let's Talk with Maybe. As written and produced by Me Live Albert Mikayla Smith is the Hermes to My Olympians. My assistant producer, Laura Smith is the production assistant and audio engineer. Select music from this episode is by Luke Chaos. The podcast is part of the iHeart podcast network. Helped me continue bringing you the world of Greek mythology and the Ancient Mediterranean. By becoming a patron where you get loads of back bonus episodes and more. I'm gonna bring back the q and as soon, I promise, but until then, at least I have like a good hundred bonus episodes. I didn't even realize how many had done. Anyway, I'm consider joining the Patreon if you want, but either way, thank you for listening. Thank you. Listening is enough. You're the best I am live, and I love this shit