Bea's Blog

King Midas ruled the kingdom Phrygia, with an uneven hand.   He was known in Greek mythology as a rogue ruler, whose doings to his people, distracted the gods. Midas spent his days spoiling himself and his daughter, Zoe in feasts, riches and wine. He always felt something with the god, Dionysus the of wine, carnival and performance. One day Midas saw a Satyr sleeping in one of his rose bushes, drunk on more then the scent of the flowers. Midas recognized the Satyr as one of Dionysus’s followers and let him nurse his hangover at the palace. Pleased with the king’s hospitality, Dionysus offered him one wish. Midas said, he wanted everything he touched to turn into gold, so the god sent the power to the king. King Midas went inside his house then started to touch everything his walls. His statues, candles, cups and mirrors. Exhausted and hungry from his rampage, Midas picked up a bunch of grapes, they turned to gold, when he picked up a loaf of bread, it turned to gold. Midas tired ...

Daedalus was jealous of his nephew and murdered him.   As punishment Daedalus was banished from Atheris and made his way to Crete. Daedalus became the technical adviser for the king at Crete. The king’s wife, Pasiphae, was cursed by Poseidon to fall in love with the king’s bull. Under the spell she asked Daedalus, to help her. Daedalus made a hollow wooden cow, so realistic to fool the bull. While Pasiphae hiding in the cow, she gave birth to the half-bull half-human Minotaur. Of course, the king was enraged and as punishment, Daedalus was forced to make an inescapable labyrinth, for the Minotaur. When it was completed, the king imprisoned Daedalus and his son Icarus on the top of the tallest tower, where they will stay for the rest of their lives. While Daedalus watched the birds, he found out how they would escape. He and Icarus would fly out of the tower.   Using the feathers that fell from the flock into the tower, and the wax from candles, he made two pairs of giant win...

This is the story of Orpheus and Eurydice. As Eurydice was walking to Orpheus, she was bit by a snake and fell. By the time Orpheus reached her side, she was dead with the snake that bit her slithering away. At Eurydice’s funeral, Orpheus was not able to accept that his beloved was gone. Orpheus decided to journey to the land of the dead, to return his beloved. When Orpheus reached the gates, he started to strum his lyre. The music was so beautiful that Cerberus let him in. Charon, so amazed at the music let Orpheus in his boat and brought him across. When Orpheus entered Hades and Persephone’s palace, he sang of his love for Eurydice. When Orpheus finished, everything in the land of the dead stood still. Sisyphus, no longer rolled his rock up the hill. Tantalus didn’t reach for the water he was not allowed to drink. And the Furies, the goddesses of vengeance, cried. Hades and Persephone granted his wish, on one condition. While he climbed out of the land of the dead, he was not allo...

Today I will tell the myth of Thor’s journey to the land of the giants. Thor, with his quick-footed human servant, Thjalfi and Loki, were on a journey to Jotunheim, the land of the giants. On their way, they met a giant named Skrymir, who offered to accompany them and carry their stuff in his bag. When they made a camp, Skrymir dozed off to sleep. Thor the son of Odin, god of thunder and protector of mankind struggled mightily against his greatest challenge yet, opening a bag of food. Thor, frustrated and hungry, tried to wake the sleeping giant three times by hitting his head with his hammer, Mjolnir as strong as he could. But each time, Skrymir thought it was an acorn falling on his head, then went back to sleep. The next morning Skrymir left and the three travelers eventually reached the fortress called, Utgard. Inside the fortress they met the king of the giants, Utgard-Loki, who greeted his guests with a challenge, Each of them must prove they were best at something. Loki went f...

Third post of Greek mythology. Yay! Psyche had been born with a physical perfection so complete that people worshiped her instead of Aphrodite. Since Aphrodite doesn’t take people being prettier than her very well, she had just the plan. She called the god of love, Eros, to shoot Psyche with one of his arrows so she will fall in love with a monster. While Psyche slept, Eros flew down to Earth to shoot her with the arrow. But as soon as he saw her he was mesmerized to see how beautiful she was, that he pricked himself instead. The next day, Psyche went to the oracle to ask if she will ever find love. The oracle says she will, sadly to a monster that even the gods feared. So, Psyche is taken to a cliff, so her monster boyfriend can find her, then Zephyr, the west wind, carries her to her monster boyfriend’s huge palace. As soon as she steps in, she finds out he’s invisible. One day Psyche’s two sisters pay her a visit and see all the luxury she lived in and got jealous. Her sisters tal...

This is the second story on my Greek mythology posts. This is about Prometheus the Titan. Before humanity, the gods won a battle against these giants called Titans. Most of the Titans were destroyed or either threw into the eternal hell, Tartarus. But the Titan Prometheus who’s name means foresight, convinced his brother, Epimetheus to fight with him on the side of the gods. As thanks Zeus trusted the brothers with the task of creating all living things. Epimetheus’s job was to give the living things different gifts. To some he gave flight, to some he gave the ability to move in water, and to some to race in the grass. He gave some beasts scales, others soft fur, and sharp claws. While he did those, Prometheus was shaping the first humans. They were made out of mud, and were shaped in the image of the gods. Zeus said that they were to stay mortal and worship mount Olympus from below. Zeus made humans depend on the gods for protection. How ever Prometheus versioned his creations in a ...

Alright here are my thoughts. First of all I think that was very wrong for Arachne to brag and boast, and it was very “wise” of Athena the goddess of wisdom, to let jealousy take over her and turn her Arachne into a spider. I think that if the gods found a person with talent worthy of a god, they should help them embrace it and help them make themselves a better person. When Arachne made the tapestry of the gods in such a way, it felt so wrong to me, that she had so much “pride” in her to do that. At that time gods were thanked for everything. They thanked them for grain, wheat, milk, animals, life and etc. For Arachne to betray the gods in such a way, I really thought that the other people would help Athena, with Arachne’s doings. But not all storys have good guys, and not all storys have bad guys. So I’m not saying that Arachne was a bad guy nor to Athena.  

She scolded Arachne in public “how dare you claim your self better than the gods! Said Athena. Arachne only laughed, as she did the old lady revealed her true form as a god. If Arachne insisted defaming the gods said Athena, who challenged her to a contest directly. Masking her shock Arachne agreed. Athena drew up her own glittering loom as a big crowd gathered to watch. Athena wove a tapestry showing the power of the gods, Poseidon riding the waves, Zeus firing thunder bolts, and Apollo hurdling across the sky. In Athena’s beautiful tapestry the glory of the gods dwarfed mortal life. But Arachne had no interest in bosting godly egos, her tapestry showed the god abusing their power, squabbling amongst them selves, drinking, bragging and meddling with the lives of mortals. (I’m not going to put all of it because there are too many and they are awful) But even thou Arachne casted the gods in the most unflattering light, Arachne’s work shown with her dazzling skill. Her tapestry was almo...

Recently I have been watching a lot of Greek and Roman myths. So I will be saying some of them with my thoughts about them. As you know from the title, this will be about Arachne. Arachne was a spinner, and a daughter of a trades man, who spent his days dyeing cloth. Arachne had a flair for spinning the finest threads, weaving them into flowing fabric and creating magnificent tapestries. People flocked to watch her hands flying across her loom, as if thread sprung directly from her finger tips. But as praise from her work grew, so did her pride Arachne was often heard boasting about her skills declaring that her talent surpassed anyone else’s, mortal or god, she refused to receive weaving as a gift from the gods and instead flaunted it as her own personal genius. Unfortunately the god of wisdom and craft Athena, heard her bragging. Planning to teach the ungrateful girl a lesson Athena disguised herself as a old woman and went in the crowd. Want to know what happens next? Go to part 2....

Your Still here? Thanks! In 1898 they reported 2 new elements Polonium, named after Marie’s native Poland, and Radium the Latin word for ray, they also quoined the term radioactivity along the way. By 1902 the Curies had extracted a 10 th of a gram of pure radium chloride salt, from several tons of pitchblende, an incredible feet at the time. Later that year Pierre Curie and Henri Becquerel were nominated for the Nobel prize in physics, but Marie was overlooked. Pierre took a stand in support of his wife’s well earned recognition, and so both of the Curies and Becquerel shared the 1903 Nobel prize making Marie Curie the first female Noble laureate. Well funded and well respected the Curies were on a roll. But tragedy struck at 1906 when Pierre was crushed by a horse strung cart, as he crossed at the intersection. Marie devastated, amerced herself in her research and took over Pierre’s teaching position at the Sorbonne, becoming the school’s first female professor. Her solo work was ...

Here is part 2. Thank you for still being here to listen. Back in Paris, the lovelorn Pierre was waiting. As soon as Marie got back to Paris, the pair quickly married and became a formidable scientific team. Another physicist’s work sparked Marie Curie’s interest in 1896. Henri Becquerel discovered that uranium spontaneously admitted a mysterious x-ray like radiation, that could interact with photographic film. Marie Curie soon found that the element thorium, admitted similar radiation. Most importantly the strength of the radiation depended mostly on the element’s quantity, and was not effected by physical or chemical changes. This led her to conclude that radiation was coming from something, fundamental within the atoms of each element. The idea was radical and helped to disprove the long standing model of atoms in the visible objects. next by focusing on a super radioactive ore called Pitchblende. The Curies realized that uranium alone couldn’t be creating all the radiation so whe...

Today let’s talk about Marie Curie. Growing up in Warsaw in Russian occupied Poland lived young Marie, originally named Maria Sklowska, was a brilliant student. But she had to face some challenging barriers as a woman, she was bared from perusing higher education so in an act of defiance Marie enrolled in the floating university, a secret institution that provided clandestine education to Poland youth. By saving money and working as a governess, and tutor she eventually was able to move to Paris, to study at the reputed Sorbonne. There Marie earned both her physics, and mathematics degree surviving mostly on bread and tea, and sometimes fainting from near starvation. In Paris Marie met the physicist Pierre Curie who shared his lab, and his heart with her, but she need to be back to Poland. Upon her return to Warsaw she found that securing a academic position as a woman, thou remained a challenge. I will continue this story at my next blog post.