Week2:Portrait of Cassandra--the tragic prophetess

Paris's sister,Cassandra

In ancient Greek stories, Cassandra was the daughter of Priam, the King of Troy. The god Apollo gave her the power to see what would happen in the future, but he also made sure that no one would believe her, so when she warned her father that the Greeks could use the Trojan Horse to take control of Troy, no one believed her. Struck by her beauty, Apollo had provided her with the gift of prophecy, but when Cassandra refused Apollo's romantic advances, he placed a curse ensuring that nobody would believe her warnings. Cassandra was then left with the knowledge of future events, but could neither alter these events nor convince others of the validity of her predictions.


Mythology is ripe with tragically sad stories. In fact, very few myths actually finish with a happy ending. However, I consider the story of Cassandra to be one of the very saddest tales of all time. Cassandra was princess of the legendary city of Troy. As was very common in Greek mythology, the god Apollo lusted after the beautiful young mortal woman and intended to make her his own. To convince her to give into his advances, he promised to bestow upon her the gift of prophecy.

While Cassandra was obviously flattered that an Olympian god sought her favors, she wasn't at all convinced that she wanted to take him as lover. Still, unable to resist the gift he offered, she eventually relented.

Apollo took Cassandra under his wing and taught her how to use her prophecies. Once her mentorship was finished, however, Cassandra refused to give her body to Apollo as promised.

Furious at being rejected by a mere mortal Apollo decided to punish her. While he couldn't take back the gift he'd already given, he could alter it. After having his way with Cassandra, the god's anger was still not satiated. So he leveled a terrible curse upon her head. While Cassandra would still be able to foresee the future, the curse ensured that no one would believe her. Worse than that, they would believe that she was purposely telling lies.

True to his word, Cassandra was able to foresee the future for herself and those around her. But every attempt she made to warn people in advance of impending doom was ignored or, worse yet, labeled as an out right lie.

Ashamed of his daughter's supposed madness, the king pronounced her insane and jailed her by locking her inside her own chambers. Denying his daughter altogether, he told many people that she had died. Others, who already knew of her predicament simply didn't care since they, too, thought she was either crazy or a pathological liar.

One of Cassandra's most important prophecies involved the fall of Troy at the hands of the Greeks and the infamous Trojan Horse. Escaping from her prison, she begged her people to believe her predictions but, once again, no one would listen.

Cassandra managed to escape from Troy and elude the raping and pillaging of the Greek's as they tore apart her home. She hid within the temple of the goddess Athena, who promised to provide shelter to her former priestess. But Ajax found the girl there, clinging helplessly to the statue of Athena and he could not resist forcing himself upon the young beauty.

The goddess, infuriated that such an act would happen in her sacred temple, involving someone under her protection took revenge upon Ajax. She vowed that he would never again return home. Her wrath was fulfilled when Ajax died after his ship crashed against the rocks of Gyraen.

Twice raped, labeled a liar and insane, Cassandra finally relented and gave in to her fate. She allowed Agamemnon to claim her as his concubine, considering herself a rightful spoil of the Trojan War. Although he didn't marry her, she bore him two children, twin boys named Teledamus and Pelops.

Upon return to his home shores, Agamemnon's wife Clytamnestra greeted the couple with full heroic honors. She even embraced Cassandra, promising the young girl that she would make certain her servitude would not be too difficult. However, Cassandra had foreseen her fate as well as that of Agamemnon and she chose to fight it no longer.

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Vocabulary in THIS article:

😉concubine: one having a recognized social status in a household below that of a wife

😉servitude:the condition of being a slave or of having to obey another person

😉pillage:the act of looting or plundering especially in war
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Greek Name	Roman Name	Description
Aphrodite	Venus	The famous, beautiful love goddess, the one awarded the apple of Discord that was instrumental in the start of the Trojan War and for the Romans, the mother of the Trojan hero Aeneas
Apollo		Brother of Artemis/Diana, shared by Romans and Greeks alike
Ares	Mars	The god of war for both Romans and Greeks, but so destructive he was not much loved by the Greeks, even though Aphrodite loved him. On the other hand, he was admired by the Romans, where he was associated with fertility as well as the military, and a very important deity.
Artemis	Diana	The sister of Apollo, she was a hunting goddess. Like her brother, she is often combined with the deity in charge of a celestial body. In her case, the moon; in her brother's, the sun. Although a virgin goddess, she assisted in childbirth. Although she hunted, she could also be the animals' protector. In general, she is full of contradictions
Athena	Minerva	She was a virgin goddess of wisdom and crafts, associated with warfare as her wisdom led to strategic planning. Athena was the patron goddess of Athens. She helped many of the great heroes.
Demeter	Ceres	A fertility and mother goddess associated with cultivation of grain. Demeter is associated with an important religious cult, the Eleusinian mysteries. She is also the law-bringer
Hades	Pluto	While he was the king of the Underworld, he was not the god of death. That was left to Thanatos. He is married to Demeter's daughter, whom he abducted. Pluto is the conventional Roman name and you might use it for a trivia question, but really Pluto, a god of wealth, is the equivalent of a Greek god of wealth called Dis
Hephaistos	Vulcan	The Roman version of this god's name was lent to a geological phenomenon and he required frequent pacification. He is a fire and blacksmith god for both. Stories about Hephaestus show him as the lame, cuckolded husband of Aphrodite.
Hera	Juno	A marriage goddess and the wife of the king of the gods, Zeus
Hermes	Mercury	A many-talented messenger of the gods and sometimes a trickster god and god of commerce.
Hestia	Vesta	It was important to keep the hearth fires burning and the hearth was the domain of this stay-at-home goddess. Her Roman virgin priestesses, the Vestals, were vital to the fortunes of Rome.
Kronos	Saturn	A very ancient god, the father of many of the others. Cronus or Kronus is known for having swallowed his children, until his youngest child, Zeus, forced him to regurgitate. The Roman version is far more benign. The Saturnalia festival celebrates his pleasant rule.
Persephone	Proserpina	The daughter of Demeter, the wife of Hades, and another goddess important in religious mystery cults.
Poseidon	Neptune	The sea and fresh water springs god, brother of Zeus and Hades. He is also associated with horses.
Zeus	Jupiter	Sky and thunder god, the head honcho and one of the most promiscuous of the gods.

Week2:About the word

ori ：起  始  源

origin (n)起源
=ori開始  +  gin產生
original (a)最初的，原始的，原創的
=ori開始  +  gin產生  +al形容詞字尾

aboriginal  (a)原來的 (n)原住民
orient(v)定方向，使朝東(orientation (Noun))
disorient(v)失去方向感(disorientation(n)失去方向Or迷惑)
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a-
prefix meaning "not," from Latin a-, short for ab "away from" (as in avert)

apathy
Definition from Webster's Dictionary: the feeling of not having much emotion or interest ;
                                                     an apathetic state.
E.g:Many commentators are surprised by the apathy [=indifference] of the country's voters.
atheist
Definition from Webster's Dictionary:1570s, from French athéiste (16c.), from Greek atheos "without god, denying the gods; abandoned of the gods; godless, ungodly," from a- "without" + theos "a god"

E.g:Although he was raised a Catholic, he was an agnostic for most of his adult life.
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How agnostic Differs from atheist

Many people are interested in distinguishing between the words agnostic and atheist. The difference is quite simple: atheist refers to someone who believes that there is no god (or gods), and agnostic refers to someone who doesn’t know whether there is a god, or even if such a thing is knowable. This distinction can be troublesome to remember, but examining the origins of the two words can help.

Agnostic first appeared in 1869, (possibly coined by the English biologist Thomas Henry Huxley), and was formed from the Greek agnōstos (meaning "unknown, unknowable"). Atheist came to English from the French athéisme. Although both words share a prefix (which is probably the source of much of the confusion) the main body of each word is quite different. Agnostic shares part of its history with words such as prognosticate and prognosis, words which have something to do with knowledge or knowing something. Atheist shares roots with words such as theology and theism, which generally have something to do with God.

Notable epic poems

Week2:Dante Alighieri--the writer of Divine Comedy

 The Divine Comedy is an epic poem by Dante Alighieri, begun c. 1308 and completed 1320, a year before his death in 1321. It is widely considered the preeminent work of Italian literature and is seen as one of the greatest works of world literature.



Out of my curiosity,i took some rough research of this great Italian poet.


Dante was born in Florence,Italy.The exactly date he born was remained unknown.

When Dante was 12, he was promised in marriage to Gemma di Manetto Donati, daughter of  member of a powerful Donati family. Contracting marriages at this early age was quite common and involved a formal ceremony, including contracts signed before a notary. But by this time Dante had fallen in love with another, Beatrice Portinari, whom he first met when he was only nine. Years after his marriage to Gemma he claims to have met Beatrice again; he wrote several sonnets to Beatrice but never mentioned Gemma in any of his poems.
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Beatrice and Dante--The love story

In this epic poem(Divine Comedy), Beatrice talks to Dante, the author and a character himself, for the first time in Canto 2 of Inferno: she descends into Limbo and prays that the poet Virgil can rescue Dante. She then reappears in Canto 30 of Purgatory, when Virgil disappears.
Finally, Beatrice accompanies Dante in Paradise to the point closest to God that he is allowed to reach.

Their last meeting is set among the blessed in Heaven at the end of their afterworld journey.

Tradition says that Dante and Beatrice were also neighbors outside the walls of Florence—near the hill of Fiesole, where the Portinari and Alighieri families had two neighboring summer villas. It is plausible that Dante and Beatrice met each other as children there.

In his Vita Nova, Dante says he saw Beatrice for the first time when they were children: he was nine years old and she was eight.

He never forgot her after this meeting.


He meets her again after nine years in an unexpected way: Beatrice was walking with two women on Lungarno (one of the Florence streets along the Arno River).Dante remembered the episode well, but he ran away without saying a word.
Today, we know that Dante’s love for Beatrice was real. She represented the ideal of beauty and grace but was also a real woman.

Beatrice died at the age twenty-four. Dante was devastated and took refuge in poetry. He was not able to find peace, however, until he decided to start writing The Divine Comedy.

What did i learn from this article?

Maybe Dante wrote one of the world's greatest masterpiece just in order to obtaining his spiritual console for his beloved,however,this epic poem now possesses much more meaning in the field of Western Literature than an ordinary love poem.