B00ARI2G5C EBOK (56 page)

Thales
(103-6, Sc. 10c
passim
,
247
f.): Thales of Miletus, according to tradition, was the first of the Greek philosophers (c.600
BC
). He was credited with various discoveries, and said to have taught that all things are modifications of one eternal substance, which Thales held to be water. Goethe adopts him as the representative of the ‘neptunist’ doctrine (see Introd., p. xxxvi and note).

Thebes
(
141
): the principal city of Boeotia, supposed to have been the birthplace of Dionysus and of Hercules and the scene of many other famous myths, notably those involving Oedipus and his family. Goethe’s allusion is to the legend of the seven champions who attacked the city, led by one of the warring sons of Oedipus; these were the subject of Aeschylus’s tragedy
The Seven Against Thebes
.

Thersites
(
28
): in Homer’s
Iliad
, an ugly low-born Greek noted for his cynical and scurrilous abuse of the heroes besieging Troy; he also appears in Shakespeare’s
Troilus and Cressida
. (Cf.
Zoilus
.)

Theseus
(
135
): a mythical king of Athens, the son of Aegeus (after whom the Aegean Sea was named); he was thought of as a parallel figure to Hercules (8849) and credited with a number of similar heroic exploits, including the killing of the monstrous Minotaur of Crete. Goethe’s allusion is to the story according to which Theseus abducted Helen when she was a child, carrying her off to Aphidnae in Attica, where she was rescued by her brothers the Dioscuri (see
Twins
).

Thessaly
(
109
,
246
): the fertile plains of Thessaly were reputed, in mythical times and later, to be full of sorcerers and witches, able to predict the future and conjure the moon down to earth. (‘Thessalian witches’,
77
,
106
; ‘Thessalian hag’,
171
).

Thetis
(
44
): see
Peleus
.

Thyrsus-staff
(
101
): a wand wreathed in ivy and vine-leaves, with a pine-cone at the top, carried by the worshippers of Dionysus.

Tiresias
(
133
,
249
): a Theban seer, appearing in many stories, who was blind but gifted with prophecy and a sevenfold or ninefold life-span (hence typifying extreme old age).

Titans
(
95
): the original generation of gods, preceding
Zeus
(q.v.) and the other ‘Olympian’ deities. In the Greek myth, as in others world-wide, they were children of the Sky (Uranus) and the Earth (Gaia). Cronus, the youngest, overpowered and castrated his father Uranus, married his sister Rhea, and by her was the father of Zeus and his siblings, who in their turn eventually overthrew him and the other Titans after a ten-year war (the ‘Titanomachy’).

Tritons
(
110
,
113
f.,
247
): originally ‘Triton’ was the name of an individual son of the sea-god Poseidon, half human in shape but resembling a fish from the waist down; he is then pluralized in some stories. Goethe’s ‘nereids and tritons’ correspond to mermaids and mermen.

Troy
(
Troia
) (
62
,
112
,
124
,
128
, etc.): an ancient fortified city in north-west Asia Minor, also called
Ilium
, and chiefly famous as the semi-legendary theme of the
Iliad
, the heroic epic poem traditionally attributed to Homer. The poem describes the last phase of the ten-year siege of Troy by an expedition of allied mainland Greeks, which ended in the city’s destruction (Trojan War, ?13th or 12th century
BC);
modern archaeological excavations have suggested that this story may have some historical basis. A second epic (the
Odyssey
, also attributed to Homer) describes the adventures of Ulysses (Gk. Odysseus) in the aftermath of the war. (See
Helen, Menelaus, Paris, Achilles
).

Twins
(
89
(‘Celestial Twins’),
91
(‘Twins’) 124 (‘the twins Castor and Pollux’)): the twin sons of
Leda
(q.v.), Castor and Polydeuces (Lat. Pollux). Zeus, the father of their sister Helen by Leda, was also said to have fathered one or both of the Twins, who were therefore known as the Dioscuri (Δι
ς κουροι, ‘sons of Zeus’). Their exploits included an expedition to rescue their sister (7416) when she had been abducted by Theseus, and they were also said to have sailed with the Argonauts (7369). Later tradition associated them with the Cabiri and with the protection of mariners (
10
, 600 f.); they also appear as the zodiacal constellation of Gemini (the ‘Heavenly Twins’).

Tyndareus
(
124
,
140
): king of Sparta, husband of Helen’s mother Leda.

Ulysses
(a generally adopted later spelling of’Ulyxes’, the Latin form of the original Greek name Odysseus) (
85
,
112
): the hero of Homer’s
Odyssey
and a prominent figure in the
Iliad
(see Troy). Goethe alludes here only to his adventure with the
Sirens
(q.v.) (
Odyssey
, book XII).

Venus
(
108
,
112
): see
Aphrodite
.

Zeus
(
82
,
121
,
128
,
162
, etc.): the supreme god, identified by the Romans with Jupiter. His father, the
Titan
(q.v.) Cronus, feared his own overthrow, and swallowed all his offspring except Zeus, who was hidden from him and grew up in Crete, eventually defeating and dethroning Cronus and casting down the other Titans. He then divided the world by lot with his brothers Poseidon and Hades, these taking the sea and the underworld respectively, while Zeus ruled the heavens, commanding thunderstorms and the weather generally, like other sky-gods of world mythology; the ‘thunderbolt’, wielded only by him, signifies his supreme power. He is called ‘the cloud-gatherer’ by Homer, and lives on or above high mountain-tops, holding court especially on Mount Olympus. He is also the supreme representative of impartial justice. Although his official partner was his sister Hera (Juno), he loved many other goddesses and mortal women, and was called ‘father of gods and men’ as being the only god who had himself fathered other important gods, as well as various human or semi-divine heroes, (see
Apollo, Diana, Dionysus, Helen, Leda, Twins, Hercules, Hermes,
etc.).

Zoilus
(
28
): a philosopher and rhetorician (4th century
BC
) of the ‘Cynic’ school, notorious and indeed proverbial for his carping and rancorous attacks on writers of genius and especially on Homer. As a disguise for Mephistopheles in the Carnival scene, Goethe conflates him with Ther-sites, this double identity as ‘Zoilo-Thersites’ being appropriate to the negative and cynical outlook professed by Mephistopheles in
Faust
generally.