Yay. Our favorite writer of plays, Shakespeare. And I found out he really sucked at Greek Mythology, and is getting a lot wrong. Here’s my proof.
First, in The Tempest, Shakespeare made a bunch of gods & goddesses to bless Miranda and Ferdinand. The goddesses were Juno, the goddess of marriage, Ceres, the goddess of agriculture, and Iris, the goddess of rainbows. The symbolism was okay, but the names were completely wrong. Iris, is a Greek goddess, and has no Roman form in any sort. Juno & Ceres were both Roman goddesses. Sure the Roman and Greek gods were practically the same, but still, Will, can you please check for obvious mistakes such as this. If you want all Greek gods, do all Greek.
Second example, in Midsummer’s Night Dream, the whole thing of the marriage is MADE UP. In the old stories, Theseus had NEVER married the queen of the Amazons, Hippolyta. Sure, they have a kid together and had a sort of a fling. But Theseus never married Hippolyta. At that time, Theseus was still married with Phaedra (long story). In fact, Phaedra divorced Theseus because of this (kinda divorced? Nobody has officially invented divorced yet). Theseus did not re-marry ever after.
I guess Shakespeare just loaded up the allusions without making any distinction between Greek and Roman mythologies on the understanding that his audience likely wouldn’t make such a distinction.
maybe he just thought we’re not quite smart enough to figure that out
Artistic license, Diet Pepsi. That’s why people invented copyright
.
You should copyright all your posts.
Difficult on a public blog, but etiquette would dictate that anybody quoting Diet Pepsi’s guides would give creditby way of citation
Shakespeare probably took the “Theseus is married to Hippolyta” thing from “Canterbury Tales”.