Pod Insights Let's Talk About Myths, Baby! | Greek Mythology & the Ancient Mediterranean RE-AIR: How Much Mythology Is Too Much?? Five Years of Let’s Talk About Myths, Baby! About this episode We're coming up on the EIGHT year anniversary of LTAMB so as a treat here is the special episode from the FIFTH anniversary! This episode originally aired on July 19, 2022. Liv looks back on some of her favourite moments, episodes, and quotes from the last five years of Let's Talk About Myths, Baby! (Plus she tells you all how thankful she is to have you as listeners.) Listen to the full episodes clipped in this episode on this Spotify playlist https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5u42hMhePexEquOIbeX9VX?si=YKnx9mQhRVys9hna4CiB_A!
Submit your question for the next Q&A via email http://mythsbaby.com/questions or a voice note https://www.speakpipe.com/LTAMB. Get ad-free episodes and so, so much more, by subscribing to the Oracle Edition at patreon.com/mythsbaby http://patreon.com/mythsbaby
CW/TW: far too many Greek myths involve assault. I try to provide direct warnings when there is reference to anything with overtly traumatic themes but be aware that Greek mythology regularly features assault, death, and many other potentially triggering events.
Attributions and licensing information for music used in the podcast can be found here:mythsbaby.com/sources-attributions http://mythsbaby.com/sources-attributions.
Learn more about Liv's next group trips https://travelbugxlivalbert.my.canva.site/ to GREECE! Application deadline is November 30 (Subject to change due to demand).
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Liv Albert? Hey nerds, really quick note from me. I want to tell you that we now have the applications open for the next set of listener group trips. This is us going back to the original, the trips that we have held in the past that have been so much fun, so successful, and pretty affordable in terms of wandering around Greece with a bunch of nerds. So check out the details and get your applications in at mythsbaby.com/groups.
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1:56 Liv Albert? Hello, this is Let's Talk About Myths, baby, and I am your host, Liv. Here just once more with a quick introduction on my shitty whatever microphone I can plug into my computer easily. I have gotten back from the group trips to Greece, which were amazing, but also just overwhelming, really nice and, you know, a lot for your introvert friend over here. And simultaneously, I have the most incredible, but also rushed deadline for this Odyssey retelling, which is obviously the coolest thing that's ever happened to me.
2:38 Liv Albert? That is all to say that today, while my kitten taps at my computer for no good reason, I have another re-air episode for all of you. I thought I would pull something from just a couple of years ago. I've always tried to do like fun things for birthday episodes for the show. It's the show's birthday. It's also my birthday coming up, and it's been fun kind of playing with that. And right now, I've been also asking for your questions for an upcoming big Q and A episode that will also celebrate that. So if you have anything to offer there, I'm going to be recording in the next few days. Just go to mythsbaby.com/questions and you can drop it there. Question, concern, whatever,
3:23 Liv Albert? like, give me something to talk about, basically. But for now, we're going to do a re-air of a couple of years ago, when I asked all of you cool nerdy people, oh my god, was it four years ago? Sorry, now I'm realizing it could have been a while. We'll see how out of date this stuff is. But a while back, I asked you all for like your favorite moments from the show, your favorite episodes, clips, whatever, and I put them all into one big piece. And that's what I'm going to play for you now, because why not? It's fun. It's a re-air from a few years ago, and you can look forward to a bunch of new stuff coming. I'm going to be doing more reading episodes and a bunch of Q and As. I'm just...
4:04 Liv Albert? Getting back on my brain feet, which is absolutely a term I just made up, but which fully makes sense. And until then, thank you so much for being here. Again, if you've got something to add to the Q and A episode, amazing, mythsbaby.com/questions. And otherwise, I will talk to you so soon.
4:47 Liv Albert? Oh, hello there, nerds, and welcome to a very special episode of Let's Talk About Myths, Baby. I am your host, Liv, that ridiculous woman who's been yelling at you about gods and heroes and mortals and nymphs and playwrights and history and just a touch of Atlantis for, well, five years now. Today is the five-year anniversary of Let's Talk About Myths, Baby, the podcast I started because I was bored and lonely and developing an anxiety disorder. And now, here we are. Five years ago, I'd moved to a new city after the career I'd been
5:29 Liv Albert? working towards for the entirety of my twenties turned out to be an enormous failure. I was absolutely having a quarter-life crisis and then found myself in a city that I didn't like, where I didn't have any friends, and working at a job that was considerably worse than what I'd left in Toronto, but did fortunately pay a bit better. All I did all day was listen to podcasts, literally all day. And then one day, I was listening and I thought, hey, maybe this is a thing I should do when I'm sad and bored and in need of an outlet. So I started writing episodes of this podcast in the Notes app on my phone when I was supposed to be doing that job, just sitting in my sad, windowless, undecorated office, writing about mythology on my phone.
6:13 Liv Albert? Starting a podcast is slow going. It takes a lot of time and effort and has very little reward. You just put it out into the world and hope people find it. I wish I remembered those early days of watching as people listened to the podcast, paying close attention to when they found me on Instagram, maybe even reached out to me. It was such a huge deal. And I mean, it still is, but we're on a bit of a different scale now. I still can't quite wrap my head around the fact that so many people love the show, that so many people not only want to hear this much about mythology, but that they want to hear it in the way that I want to tell it. They want to hear the stories of women, both the stories that we know and those that we know that we don't know. That you want
6:55 Liv Albert? to hear me talk shit about Theseus because he's being an ass, or rage on Zeus because he's an absolute predator. You want to hear the intricacies of Euripides and tragedy, why he is definitely without question the best of the surviving playwrights. The biggest and coolest shift on this show was when I discovered that not only did you all want to hear me talking about all this stuff, but you wanted to hear scholars, academics, authors also talk about this stuff, but on a much more nuanced and specific and detailed scale. That I can have scholars on the show to talk about their very, very, very niche topic and that you all will listen and love it, and even sometimes tell me that you've
7:39 Liv Albert? listened like multiple times just to take in all the information. That is the absolute fucking coolest thing in the whole world to me. That was a game changer. And honestly, a game changer for academics and scholars too. Like, I can't tell you the number of times that I've heard from people that I know, guests or otherwise, about how incredible it is for scholars, academics, to have an outlet like this show. A way for people to share their passions, their research, the cool things they've discovered, the facts that live in their brain outside the realm of academia. It's a place for people to share their work where they know it will actually reach everyday people, not just those doing
8:21 Liv Albert? graduate study with access to academic journals. This reaches everyone who's interested in the realm of the ancient Mediterranean, the history and the mythology. It's huge.
8:33 Liv Albert? Because of all of you, I was able to take a podcast that I am not only so fucking proud of, that makes me feel like I'm really doing something interesting and good for the world, but also one that is now a career that pays my bills, that fills me with an enormous amount of joy. Thank you.
8:53 Liv Albert? Did I set out to talk this much in the introduction? Nope, but I'm going with it because five years of this show is a huge deal. And honestly, I kind of needed this reminder. Sometimes it's easy to get caught up in the day to day, the stumbles, disappointments, and forget the big picture. Recently, one of the big podcast platforms just decided to, I don't know, stop promoting my show, maybe stop featuring or suggesting it to people. Whatever they did made a huge dent in my downloads, which is how the worth of a show is calculated. It's been stressful, feeling like maybe the bubble will burst, but then I sit down to write a script for the fifth anniversary and I have to think back to where I started,
9:38 Liv Albert? where I was and what I was trying to do, and how far it's come. So fuck those disappointments and worries. This show is still going strong. There are so, so many of you who love what I'm doing and want more, and I love you all for that.
9:56 Liv Albert? So how many of you are just thinking, fuck Liv, get to the episode? And what even is that title? Too much mythology? Gods, nerds, let me get there.
10:20 Liv Albert? This is episode 172. How much mythology is too much? Five years of let's talk about myths, baby.
10:43 Liv Albert? When I started this podcast five years ago, I often wish that I'd have considered what the future would look like, specifically anniversary episodes, how I would want to do something special, and what day those anniversary episodes would land on. Because, see, today's my birthday. I started the show on my birthday, and so now every year I get to spend a bunch of extra time preparing some kind of special episode on my birthday. This year, I decided I wasn't going to crowdsource anything. Last year's anniversary episode was so, so much fun for that, hearing what all you loved about the show. But this year, this year, I'm doing what I love about the show. The formative moments and episodes
11:24 Liv Albert? that I remember, the ones that changed what I was doing, or just really exemplified the thrill of creating this show, the moments and stories that I think back on with so much pride, or, well, just ones that make me laugh. The ancient Greek world began with chaos. It was the first thing to exist, sort of a semi-sentient nothingness. And from chaos came Gaia, who was the personification of Earth. She's essentially where we get the concept of Mother Earth, and obviously the concept of Gaia. Gaia created herself a companion, who's named Uranus, and he is the sky and
12:03 Liv Albert? the universe itself. And yes, that is Uranus of planet fame, though sometimes spelled differently. You say Uranus, I say Uranus, neither of us are wrong, but mine sounds less like we're in elementary school, so I'm going with it.
12:19 Liv Albert? Let's start at the beginning, the beginning of it all, and the origin of one of my favorite concepts, my favorite quotes from you all, my favorite, well, anything.
12:33 Liv Albert? Gaia gives him a sickle, which is that super scary knife thing that old timey farmers used to cut hay, I guess. I'm not a farmer. Or more famously, it's what the hooded figure of death carries around. Very ominous. And I guess Gaia just tells Cronus to go for it. Cronus then sneaks up on his father and he uses the sickle to castrate him. We don't even know if he actually kills Uranus. Literally, the number one part of the story is that Cronus castrates Uranus. Cronus then tosses his father's important bits into the sea, and they fly. As they fly across, Uranus's precious parts spatter blood on the land, and finally
13:15 Liv Albert? they land in the sea, which causes a foam to bubble up. It's really pleasant. We're told that from the blood spatter on the land are born the Gigantes, who are a race of giants, and the Runaways, who are better known as the Furies. The Furies are women. It's never totally clear how many there are. We go with three, I think, most often. And they're deities of vengeance. Basically, if you do anything requiring major punishment, they're there to serve it up. And they're pretty hardcore. They appear most often in Greek plays, featuring kids killing their parents, a common theme, or the reverse, equally common. Depending where you get your information, the Runaways are described
13:58 Liv Albert? as crones with snakes for hair, or with dogs' heads, or bat wings and bloodshot eyes. Basically, they're not ladies you want hounding you. And that's completely aside from the fact that they're straight up born from blood spatter. And that's not all the act of castration can create in the world of ancient myth. Like I mentioned, a sea foam erupted from where Uranus's bits actually landed. And from that foam, our girl Aphrodite was born. That's right, the goddess of love, beauty, desire, pleasure, and procreation was born from the sea foam of castrated man parts. It's romantic, isn't it? Just picture that
14:38 Liv Albert? classic painting, Botticelli's The Birth of Venus. Aphrodite, or Venus in the Roman, looking all angelic in her clamshell. She's surrounded by beautiful figures. The sea is the backdrop. That clamshell is floating on top of castration foam.
14:56 Liv Albert? If you look up Cronus's descendants on Wikipedia, Aphrodite is literally listed under Uranus's genitals. And it's origin stories like this that make me want to talk about Greek myths just all the time. Who came up with that? Ah, the castration foam. One of the all-time best moments from Greek mythology. And now shifting gears, let's get to everyone's favorite Disney hero, the man who can go the distance, the reason I get to quote one of my favorite movies from childhood at any and every opportunity. Plus, you know, the big difference between the Disney movie and the real story of Heracles and Megara.
15:38 Liv Albert? So now that Heracles is allowed back to Thebes and Creon is happy with him, I think you could imagine what's coming. See, Creon had a daughter. And guess what? You'll never guess. Creon tells Heracles that he could marry his daughter. Because seriously, what are women for if not property you can give away? Heracles marries Megara, princess of Thebes. And yes, that is something vaguely right about the Disney movie. Vaguely. They're married for a few years and they had a bunch of kids and were happy. And as the mythology book I'm reading for this story says, "Megara, quote, 'proved to be a loyal wife and sensible mother.'" This book was written by a man, as you might have guessed.
16:22 Liv Albert? Aside from some very annoying comments like this, it's quite a good source. There's info about it in the episode description. So Heracles and Megara are married for years, they have so many kids, they're just a happy family, just living the life and all is well. But, unfortunately Hera was still waging her war on Heracles and one day she causes him to lose his fucking mind. In his madness, he goes from room to room in his house and kills all the children he has with Megara and Megara herself.
17:04 Liv Albert? See, Hera had convinced him that they were all enemies and of course in ancient Greece you just straight up murder your enemies.
17:13 Liv Albert? Athena sees what's going on and wants to help. Athena always wanting to help male heroes. She's rarely a fan of the ladies. She goes down to Heracles and she hits him on the head with a rock. She knocks him out and when he comes to, he's back to normal. Except legit, everyone is dead. His whole family. He wakes up to the bloody, super gross and depressing bodies of his children and his wife. Not quite the Disney romance there, but at least they got the name Megara right, I guess.
18:06 Liv Albert? Cupid now truly madly deeply in love with Psyche. Truly madly deeply. Truly madly deeply in love. And together, the gods of love will use godly skills to have Dido fall deeply, truly madly deeply in love with Aeneas. Truly madly deeply. Do Helen and Paris fall truly madly deeply in love? This makes Apollo fall truly madly deeply in love with a nymph named Daphne. He's a bow and arrow and the arrows are tipped with some special sauce that causes everyone pricked by them to fall truly madly deeply in love with whoever they see post-prick.
18:49 Liv Albert? And he makes Minos' wife, Pasiphae, fall truly madly deeply in love with this bull.
18:59 Liv Albert? She immediately falls truly madly deeply in love with this strange man she's seeing in the middle of the forest and doesn't know at all. Truly madly deeply in love. Truly madly deeply. Yes, yes, I had to pull them all into one incredible combination of truly madly deeply's. I really had to do it. Not only has this always been one of my favorite lines to insert into an episode, but it recently brought me the most joy, the most incredible levels of entertainment that I have experienced in a long time.
19:37 Liv Albert? So here's the deal nerds. One of my favorite things to come out of the survey that I'm running right now is a learning that a favorite quote for so many listeners is when I say truly, madly, deeply. One person though, thankfully, provided me with the context that I needed in order to understand this phenomenon. They provided me with a piece of information that changed my life, made me laugh for literally hours and made me feel very satisfyingly old. Truly, madly, deeply. Okay, now just truly, but truly I will never forget the moment I learned this and
20:22 Liv Albert? the way that it exemplifies the hilarious and perfect and amazing divide between two generations. Yeah, I'm drawing it out. So for all this time, these five years of episodes, I have been tucking the phrase truly madly deeply into episodes wherever I can. Is there love of any kind? Awesome. I'm gonna say truly madly deeply. And every single time I say it, I think to myself with a little laugh, sneaky Savage Garden quote. Because see, I'm a millennial. I'm 34 today, and I was a child and preteen in the 90s, which means I listened to a lot of Savage Garden,
21:00 Liv Albert? like so much. But see, what I learned from this survey is that there is also a One Direction song called truly madly deeply. And so many of you have been under the impression that I've been intentionally quoting One Direction to you these past five years, when in fact I had no idea that that song existed. And I'm sorry to say that while I know that I know some One Direction songs, I couldn't actually name any. I mean, don't worry, I have been listening to Harry's House literally nonstop because Harry Styles is a gift from the literal gods. But I don't know anything about One Direction. But no, I have been trying to quote Savage Garden to you this
21:45 Liv Albert? whole time. And the fact that there are two generationally different bands that use that line dividing us all into the most incredible ways is a thrill that I will never, ever forget.
21:58 Liv Albert? I honestly laughed for hours and told every single one of my friends and then later told a bunch of archaeologists that I was hanging out with, all of whom were also of the Savage Garden generation. Go listen to Savage Gardens Truly Madly Deeply, it's a perfect, perfect 90's song and I think you'll all thank me. Whew, but also in search of these truly madly deeply entertaining clips of generationally significant song lyrics, I found a couple of other moments and quotes that reminded me why I love making this show and why it's been incredibly fun and weird right from the beginning. The myths of ancient Greece and Rome too, in this case, are bizarre and quirky and fun
22:41 Liv Albert? in such uniquely enjoyable ways.
22:46 Speaker 03 Pygmalion has sculpted his perfect woman. She's flawless, beautiful, a recreation of the goddess of love. Plus, she doesn't speak or have a mind of her own. Bonus for old Pygmalion. He wants a woman free of the sins of, you know, being a human fucking person, and he's found her in this sculpture.
23:08 Liv Albert? Now, the grossest thing about this part of the story is that the people obsessing over Psyche as a human version of Venus are most psyched, pun absolutely intended, that this version of Venus is a virgin, because people are gross and invasive. Venus is super pissed that this woman is getting so much attention and that she's basically been left in the dust. Add to that, this attention is based primarily on how goddamn beautiful she is, and you've got a very peeved and jealous goddess. Beauty is Venus's territory, and she will fight for it. So, in all Venus's anger, she ruminates to herself, according to this brilliant translation
23:50 Liv Albert? I have, quote, "So, here I am, the progenitor of creation, the very origin of nature, Venus, the nurturer of the whole planet, and I'm placed in the position of divvying up my exalted privilege with a human wench and seeing my name cherished in heaven, desecrated by terrestrial trash?"
24:16 Liv Albert? Ugh, that translation of Cupid and Psyche, honestly, I'm gonna have to reread it because just that quote alone reminded me how wonderfully entertaining that section of Apuleius is, even if the rest of the book is weird, to put it mildly.
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26:06 Liv Albert? But moving on, what would an episode of favorite moments and stories be without the fan favorite and one of my favorites, the episode on Arachne and Medusa?
26:17 Speaker 03 I remember writing this episode in a way that I rarely do. Because while I write 5,000 words a week in scripts, and honestly, it all ends up blending together. But not this one. I remember sitting and reading through Ovid's Metamorphoses, particularly this section on Ariadne that I'm gonna share, and, and thinking, fuck, Ovid is such an incredibly interesting source. So visceral and dramatic. He has such sympathy for the women in these two stories, in the way they both had to contend with the gods broadly, and Athena, Minerva, very specifically.
26:57 Speaker 03 The weave-off begins, and here, Ovid bestows upon his reader quite the use of weevology. That is, words and terms I don't understand, and description of a process I don't understand. How nice would it be to talk to the women of ancient Greece and tell them that I have no idea what weaving entails, because in my generation, even though we still make less than men and are generally treated as lesser people than our male counterparts, we're able to decide to do things other than weaving and cooking and cleaning. Ah, how impressed and disappointed. They would be nearly 3,000 years, and though equality still seems a far-off concept, at least we can do things like start our own podcast from scratch where we talk about all the bullshit the ancient ladies had to deal with.
27:43 Speaker 03 The times, they have changed. Arachne, on the other hand, weaves into her piece the scene of Europa, the young Phoenician princess who was tricked by the image of a bull. The image Arachne weaves is so incredible that the bull and the waves it descends into look like they must be real. Europa is looking back as she sits on the bull's back. She's calling to her friends as she and the bull descend into the sea. Arachne is making a fucking statement here. She's not just messing with Minerva. She's not just saying she's better at weaving than Minerva. She's taking issue with everything the gods do to humans. If it weren't for this, I might be tempted to make the point that Arachne could have avoided her fate.
28:26 Speaker 03 She could have conceded that Minerva was better at weaving than her, but she didn't. She didn't because that wasn't the point. The point was that regardless of how good the humans are at anything, the gods always have to be better. The gods always have to fuck with the humans, both figuratively and literally. The gods are just making trouble, and Arachne sees that. She sees that probably more than any other human in Greek mythology. It's obvious to her. She's not just competing with Minerva when it comes to weaving skills. She's standing up for humanity in a way that no other human has done in mythology.
29:21 Speaker 03 Meanwhile, there's a certain flying horse that's gaining some acclaim in the region. You see, our boy Pegasus is getting pretty famous about this time.
29:32 Speaker 03 His birth, of course, was a thing in itself. Who isn't impressed by a flying horse who comes into this world by flying out of the stump of a recently decapitated Gorgon? And that's not all that makes Pegasus special. What did he do after being birthed in this impressive and not at all gross and weird way? Well, on Mount Helicon, the mountain of the nine muses, a spring called Hippocrene sprang up from the place where Pegasus stomped his foot. The word Hippocrene means horse fountain, so everyone who came upon it understood just how special it was.
30:07 Speaker 03 And obviously, everyone likes a good spring, but poets especially loved this spring. Due to its location amongst the home of the muses, Hippocrene becomes the spring most beloved by poets. With this, Pegasus makes quite the name for himself and is lauded in the region for bringing water in this very Poseidon-esque way.
30:30 Speaker 03 And that is not a coincidence. You see, while Pegasus and his brother, that no one cares about, Chrysior, sprung up from the stump of Medusa's decapitated neck, they are in fact, children of Poseidon. When Poseidon raped Medusa in Athena's temple, he impregnated her with the flying horse and the boy. However, they were unable to be born until Medusa was killed. So, Bellerophon and Pegasus are actually half-brothers, something that could only happen in Greek mythology.
31:02 Liv Albert? That's right, this next section is truly one of my favorite stories, even if honestly, it is rarely, if ever, mentioned by listeners. Rude. Poor Bellerophon, he's ignored even in the podcast that did its absolute best to tell the truth about who actually rode Pegasus. Who killed the Chimera? Who is the most forgotten and ignored hero of all Greek mythology? I tried, Bellerophon, I promise. Perseus never rode Pegasus, neither did Heracles, and Bellerophon was a pretty cool guy, even if he did, you know, murder someone, among other things. But his name, his name alone is amazing, and he is truly, completely, the only hero to have ever ridden Pegasus
31:46 Liv Albert? in the surviving sources of Greek mythology. Plus, the Chimera is a badass creature that deserves all the love and respect that we have to offer.
31:55 Speaker 03 Bellerophon just stares back, blinking slowly. Maybe he raises an eyebrow slightly. Real incredulous. Did Iobatis seriously just ask him to kill the Chimera? Just like that? Iobatis is honest, at least, about what he's asking of Bellerophon, because he goes on to regale him with details of what exactly the Chimera is. Well, he says, it's like this. You remember those monsters Typhon and Echidna? The real famous ones? See, they had a bunch of kids. They had the Hydra, you know her, I'm sure, with all the heads. And they had Cerberus, the dog with, come to think of it, also all the heads. Well, see, they had another kid, the Chimera, and, you guessed it, lot of heads.
32:39 Speaker 03 Iobatis tells Belaerfann that the chimera is a creature that, from afar, and even straight on, you might think is just a massive lion. But then you turn to the side and bam, big angry goat head sticking off its back. And bam, the tail, or sometimes described as just the back end of this thing entirely, it's a snake. Oh, and it breathes fire.
33:03 Liv Albert? Now, what would a LIV's Favorite Moment episode be without my main man Odysseus? Ideally featuring one of my favorite monsters, too. Skilla.
33:14 Speaker 03 Cersei greets the men who've returned to her. She's welcoming and thrilled that they succeeded in traveling to the underworld and back again. She offers them food and to stay there all day drinking wine. What an offer. I wish I could spend all day drinking wine on Iyaia.
33:30 Speaker 03 Next Cersei tells them that they may be off the very next morning, finally, to return to Ithaca, and that she'll explain their route in great detail so that they won't encounter anyone or anything that could prevent them from returning home. Fine a fucking Lee. The men and Cersei eat and drink all day until it's very late. Most then go to sleep, but Cersei pulls Odysseus aside so she can tell him exactly how they must reach Ithaca.
33:58 Speaker 03 She tells him that first he'll encounter the sirens, women who bewitch anyone who hears their song. If anyone nears the sirens or hears their singing, they'll never travel home, never see their wives and children. The sirens sit in their own meadow, ready to seduce anyone and everyone to their deaths. They sit on piles of dead men as the flesh rots away. They're really very, very lovely. So Cersei tells Odysseus, "Use wax to block your ears so you're deaf to their song." But, she continues, "If you want to hear their song, you could consider tying yourself to the mast of the ship and giving your men the wax to block their ears.
34:43 Speaker 03 After the sirens, you must let your heart decide which route, because you know, neither are good or easy. The first option, Cersei tells Odysseus, is to go through these enormous hanging rocks where Emphritidae, queen of the sea, throws crashing waves all day long. These are called the wandering rocks, and not even birds can fly through them and survive." No mortal ship has ever done it successfully because when they try, there are waves but also raging gusts of fire. Fire. Only the Argo has ever made it, she tells him, but that was with the help of Hera. So you know, great first option, totally survivable and definitely not insane.
35:29 Speaker 03 Next option, Cersei tells Odysseus, you meet two rocks. One is so tall, you can't see the top. It's perpetually surrounded by fog. No light makes it through the fog and no one could ever climb the rock. It's so smooth, it's as if it were polished.
35:48 Speaker 03 In the middle of this insurmountable rock is a cave. Avoid this cave, Cersei warns Odysseus with a note of real drama in her voice.
35:59 Speaker 03 It's so high, you could never shoot at it nor defend yourself from what's in it. And what's in the cave is Skilla. Ah, Skilla.
36:10 Speaker 03 Now Homer's description here is a bit different from what I gave you in her origin story those weeks ago. Here, Skilla howls and barks, even the gods are afraid of her. She has twelve legs and six long necks with terrifying heads on each and in each face on her six heads is three rows of razor sharp teeth. Quote, pregnant with death. Skilla watches from her cave, hunting for fish, dolphins, even whales. She's always there, always ready to catch anyone who sails near her cave. No sailors have ever passed without harm. Her six long necks are always ready to snatch men right off their ships.
36:52 Speaker 03 Odysseus at this point, I imagine, would just be staring at Cersei, dumbfounded. Like, I'm sorry, what's my second option? It sounds just as fucking insane as the first option. Ahem, Cersei might say, giving Odysseus a look. I'm not finished describing your second option. To which I think Odysseus would simply gulp and start to sweat profusely.
37:13 Speaker 03 On the other rock, opposite this rock of Skilla, Cersei continues, grows a fig tree. Oh, Odysseus might stop and think, that doesn't sound so bad. And then Cersei would give him another look and tell him she's not fucking finished.
37:27 Speaker 03 Beneath the fig tree, divine Corybdis, a vicious whirlpool, sucks water down into the depths of the sea. Three times a day she does this, the power of this whirlpool unmatched and certainly not able to be beaten by speed or force. "Row fast," Cersei instructs. "Avoid Corybdis entirely, sailing closer to Skilla's rock." "It's better," she tells him, "to lose six men to Skilla's six heads than everyone to Corybdis's death whirlpool."
37:57 Speaker 03 Odysseus, I imagine, would just stare blankly at Cersei, since in my head he interrupted her enough that he thinks this can't possibly be it. There must be some other horrific death awaiting him as he tries to get through this one part of the sea. What options? But no, Cersei's done. These are his options. Good, easy options.
38:16 Liv Albert? Now, one of the best things to come out of continuing this podcast through the early days of the pandemic is how I had to adapt. I remember so specifically when it all started to crumble, the world. I was just beginning the series on the Aeneid, which honestly was kind of a slog to get through and to write episodes about, even at the best of times. And I wasn't feeling super inspired to begin with. And then, well, you know, COVID happened and suddenly I was laid off and locked up alone in my apartment. And the idea of having to try to read the Aeneid and make it fun and entertaining for you all was daunting. So I first had some fun taking a break from the Aeneid and with Aristophanes's play,
38:57 Liv Albert? The Frogs. That was good, silly and weird. And then, then I had my stroke of genius, which was just retelling the story of Theseus, using my now well-established skills at storytelling and researching. Taking what was a single episode in the very earliest days of the podcast and turning it into, well, so many episodes.
39:22 Liv Albert? But don't worry, I'm not sharing a Theseus clip. I covered him again last week. I can't get enough of that asshole. No, instead, I'm sharing an episode that came out of my covering Theseus and the stories of Crete in such extensive detail. The Time Dionysus Was Kidnapped By Pirates.
39:43 Liv Albert? Yes, Dionysus was kidnapped by pirates. But still, he was the god Dionysus. The pirates got Dionysus on their ship and immediately worked to tie him up with ropes and intricate knots. Intricate knots that of course, the pirates were used to having great success with. They weren't amateur pirates, these were experienced dudes. They tried to tie Dionysus up, but as soon as they'd secured the knots, the ropes simply fell off him. The knots came undone, all of their own accord, falling to the deck of the ship, almost like magic. Almost like they'd kidnapped an Olympian god.
40:25 Liv Albert? As the ropes fell around Dionysus, he simply looked on at the pirates, a smile plastered across his face. He was proud of himself, he knew how they must have been panicking, and he was really quite amused by the whole situation. Imagine mortals kidnapping a god. This is when one of the other pirates realized what was going on. He was at the helm of the ship, so he wasn't involved in the kidnapping of Dionysus in the first place. Immediately, this helmsman realizes that this is no man, he is a god. He calls to his fellow pirates, saying exactly that. He wonders aloud which god this man could be. Is it Zeus himself, or perhaps Apollo, may he Poseidon?
41:11 Liv Albert? "Release him," he calls to his pals. "Put him back onshore this moment, and try not to anger him any further. Who knows what he could do to us if we anger him?" this very smart pirate announces. It's unclear how he figures the god isn't already pretty angry with being bundled onto a ship in a full-blown, attempted kidnapping?
41:33 Liv Albert? But, the captain of this ship disagrees with this very, very smart helmsman. He orders the rest of the pirates not to return Dionysus, a god, to land and instead to continue on. He believes that the god they'd kidnapped must have been headed to Egypt or Cyprus and that eventually he'll just give in to them and reveal where all his wealth and all his family's wealth is for them to steal.
42:00 Liv Albert? This was not a good idea.
42:04 Liv Albert? So, the pirates don't release Dionysus. They choose not to listen to this very smart man on board who clearly recognizes that they've kidnapped a god rather than a regular old wealthy human, Etherich, and that it wasn't going to go particularly well for them. Instead, the captain orders that they hoist the sail and away they go. They head farther out to sea, farther away from the land they'd taken Dionysus from. It quickly fades into the distance.
42:38 Liv Albert? It's not long into their journey before very, very odd happenings begin to occur on the ship. It doesn't begin subtly either. Deep red wine begins to run through the deck of this ship, appearing out of nowhere and inundating the men. The smell is intoxicating, literally.
43:06 Liv Albert? The men are, not surprisingly, taken aback by what's occurring on the ship. It really is like magic.
43:15 Liv Albert? Next, vines sprout from the ship's deck and begin winding quickly around the masts and the rest of the ship, growing it once again in almost magical speed. Flowers sprout from the leafy, bright green vines and then deep red berries.
43:37 Liv Albert? Finally, finally, this is when the captain determines that, okay, maybe the helmsman was right and they shouldn't have kidnapped this god. He orders the ship to turn around and head back toward the shore before the god can do anything more to the pirates or their ship. But it's too late. Dionysus is angry. He transforms himself into a lion right there on the deck of the ship. And at the opposite end, he creates a bear from thin air. A bear.
44:19 Liv Albert? The men run from the bear, not knowing there's a lion at the other end. They all run to the helmsman, who was feeling pretty proud of himself for his original decision making, even if they hadn't listened and even if he too was being threatened by, well, a bear and a lion onboard a ship in the middle of the sea. Dionysus, as a lion, springs upon the captain as the men gather around this helmsman. The rest of them see this and they know they have only one option. They leap overboard, each one of them jumping into the sea. A far less horrific fate than being devoured by a lion or a bear on your own ship.
45:02 Liv Albert? Once they hit the water, Dionysus transforms them into dolphins and forever takes them on as his own symbols.
45:29 Liv Albert? Hey, do you remember that time that Hermes did a whole slew of wild and weird stuff when he was just a newborn baby? Let me remind you.
45:37 Liv Albert? Hermes stole out of his mother's cave on Mount Kylini and was about to set out in search of those cattle, but what's that? A distraction! He may have been an advanced infant, but a baby he still was. Before Hermes could get anywhere in his search for cattle to steal, he encountered a turtle. Yes, a turtle. Or maybe a tortoise, I always forget the difference. "Oh, what a cute and lovely turtle!" Hermes said to himself. He quite enjoyed the animal, examining it and appreciating its means of evolution. "What a shell, so protective, but not protective enough." Once Hermes has examined and appreciated the turtle, told the little guy how impressive he was, how very cool, how much Hermes loved him, he realized he had an even better idea. So he killed the turtle and emptied out its shell.
46:22 Liv Albert? You know, as a baby is wont to do. He emptied out its shell and attached some reeds and things to the right spots to invent the lyre, the musical instrument that would become so important to ancient Greece, their mythology, and the gods themselves, all invented by a baby who killed a turtle. That was one of my all-time favorite moments, ever. It's one of the funniest stories from ancient Greece, and one of the oldest, coming from all the way back to the Homeric hymn to Hermes. It's magnificent, perfect, incredible, I'm obsessed! Also, while I do now fully understand the difference between a turtle and a tortoise, I will tell you that in fact, in modern Greek, there is only the one word and it refers
47:06 Liv Albert? to both types. So I am gonna say I'm not wrong. The word is halona. Sappho is one of those names that most people have at least heard in their lives. You've heard the name Sappho, or the word sapphic, or at the absolute least, you've heard the word lesbian, and all of those come from this so-called tenth muse, the poetess of lesbos, Sappho.
47:34 Liv Albert? Sappho was a poet on, yes, the island of Lesbos, hence lesbian, during the Archaic Period, that is, the 7th century. She was born around 612 BCE, making her quite ancient in terms of the sources that we know so well. Lesbos is far off in the northwest of the Aegean, it's remote and nowhere near the Greek mainland, much closer to what is now Turkey. As for the timeline and where Sappho sits within it, people like Hesiod and the possible Homer would have come before her, but she came long before the playwrights, the tragedians, and other notable people from the world of Classical Greece, particularly Classical Athens.
48:18 Liv Albert? She is also the only woman poet of the Archaic Period that we have explicit evidence for. That Sappho episode from last year is a favorite for so many reasons. First, Sappho was incredibly cool, which this clip just reminded you of. Maybe listen to that episode again, too. Everyone should know more about Sappho. But it became a favorite also due to a bit of feedback that I got from someone. So first, this person was not a listener of the show, they made that very clear, and that's why I'm comfortable sharing this absurd DM that I received. That, and the tweet I did about it went viral anyway, so cat's out of the bag. Shortly after I released this episode about Sappho, the lesbian from Lesbos, I received
49:03 Liv Albert? a DM on Instagram. It said that this person who was DMing me, they'd been scrolling through my episode titles. That is, not listening nor checking details, just scrolling through my list of episodes. And they saw the word Lesbos, and thus sought me out on Instagram to let me know that actually that word is a slur, and that they're not okay with me using the word. But if I'm a lesbian, then actually they are then okay with me using it. The word being Lesbos. The ancient Greek island where Sappho was from and thus the reason we have the word lesbian at all. They thought I was saying a slightly different pronunciation of the word, I guess. Plural? You get it.
49:46 Liv Albert? Because she wrote love poems about women and because she was from Lesbos, Sappho is the reason we get the word lesbian. Now admittedly, the modern Greek island is called Lesbos. But the point stands. Anyway, now I'll never see the word or the island or Sappho without thinking of about this person and the way they just didn't look into anything, that they read or listened to anything to find out that, hey, maybe I was actually teaching them the history of the word lesbian. Nope, even though the episode's description literally explains where the word comes from. Anyway, long story short, I did end up explaining the history to this person and that it was utterly wild of them to assume that I was using a slur or being offensive in my episode's description rather than, say,
50:31 Liv Albert? Googling the name Sappho and learning something super important and super relevant. Being a personality on the internet is so fucking weird and hilarious sometimes. And Sappho, I will love you forever for this reason alone.
50:46 Liv Albert? There are so many more episodes that I'm just so incredibly proud of that meant a lot to me to write and research and that I just simply love. But I've gotta start wrapping up this episode of my favorites. So I'm gonna finish with a piece of a very recent episode series that ended up blowing my mind in the most satisfying of ways. Sometimes researching for this show is pretty straightforward. I have an idea of what the story or the myth is, or I know it super well and I just want sources to find as many details and variations as I possibly can. I have my standard places to look and sometimes I get to dig further. Or sometimes I'm telling a story of a play that I, again, have an idea of how it goes because I've read or heard things or references.
51:31 Liv Albert? I think I know what I'm in for because I understand the playwright, usually Euripides, let's be honest. And I think, okay, this is gonna be pretty standard. Let's dive right in. And then there was the time I started reading Euripides's Alcestis. And while Admetus stubbornly refused to admit that yes, his wife has actually just died, and yes, he's about to perform the necessary rites on her body, and like, maybe he shouldn't have a guest to celebrate. Instead, he welcomed Heracles, basically confirmed that the dead person he was going to bury was a stranger and no one of any importance. Then he insisted Heracles stay there in their home in Ferei. Meanwhile, Admetus's father shows up, and the two have a ridiculous and long-winded
52:14 Liv Albert? fight about right and wrong and life and death and sacrifice and martyrdom and just how much you can reasonably expect from your parents. We landed on, "You don't have the right to ask them to die for you." Weird, I know.
52:30 Liv Albert? Then, while an attendant arrived on the stage to talk about how Heracles was being an absolute shitshow inside the house, he's drunk and singing and disrespecting absolutely everything about the household's grieving of Alcestis, again, because he has no idea that she's dead. A tragic comedy, indeed. Once the chorus has sung of the sadness of Alcestis, of her gross and sad martyrdom, Heracles returns to the stage accompanied by someone. It's a woman, yes, but she's wearing a veil. We can't see who she is. Heracles speaks to Admetus immediately, raising his concerns about how Admetus handled
53:12 Liv Albert? his arrival as a guest, how he didn't tell him that the woman who had died was his own wife, that he was intruding upon the household's grief. So he wants to leave this woman with Admetus for safekeeping. He tells him to keep her in his house as a servant. He says he went through quite a bit to get her. Admetus, though, doesn't want this woman. He asks Heracles to "please, please" bring her to any of his other friends in Thessaly instead, that if Admetus were to keep her, he would only be more sad than he already is. Even better, his next suggestion is, "What, should I bring her into my dead wife's bed? What will people think?"
53:55 Liv Albert? I have truly lost all of my patience with Admetus. But hey, at least he's funny, because he continues, quote, "Woman, whoever you are, no, you have Alcestis's size and shape. You look just like her." Mm-hmm. Heracles then notes that he wishes he could bring Alcestis back from the dead and return her to Admetis.
54:17 Liv Albert? This play is just so weird, I will never get over it. From here, the pair launch into a back-and-forth where Heracles does agree that Admetis has lost a wonderful, noble wife, the best wife in Alcestis, but that time will help to ease his pain and that, well, quote, "A new wife will cure your longing."
54:40 Liv Albert? Admetis, to his credit, says, "No, absolutely not," and that Heracles shouldn't even speak such a thing. But then, when Heracles counters, asking him, "What, you'll never remarry?", Admetis says, "No one would want him." They go on like this, with Admetis explaining that he promised his dying wife that he wouldn't remarry, that he wouldn't betray her in this way. May he die if he does. Heracles returns to the question of the strange woman standing there, veiled, asking Admetis to take her into his house. Admetis doesn't want to, he keeps pushing back. Heracles tells him he'll be making a big mistake to trust him. It's just what he needs.
55:26 Liv Albert? Finally, Admetis agrees, but he's super mad about it, wishing that Heracles had never won this woman as a prize in the first place. And Heracles is honestly, basically, just winking, super obviously at this point. He says he knows something, that he wants Admetis to take her himself. I honestly can't tell if it's meant to be dramatic at all, I mean, maybe, but it comes off as mostly comedic in the text. I'm just so curious how it would've been played. It's bizarre. Like, the chorus all knows that Heracles made his bizarre pronouncement, that he was gonna squeeze Thanatos until he gave Alcestis up, and then he arrives with this veiled
56:06 Liv Albert? woman who, uh, you know, looks just like her, and he works this hard to convince Admetis to take her.
56:15 Liv Albert? At one point, Admetis is like, "Okay, fine. She can come into this house." "Hey, attendant, why don't you go take her in?" And then again, nearly winking his entire face, Heracles is like, "Oh, well, no, no. I don't think she should go with an attendant. I only trust her with you." He might as well be jabbing Admetis with his elbow, like wink, wink, nudge, nudge, get it, Admetis? Get it?
56:39 Liv Albert? Finally, Admetis says, and these next bits are all quotes, "You force me to do this against my will." Heracles says, "Courage! Reach out your hand and touch the stranger." "I reach out my hand as if beheading a gorgon," Admetis says as he takes hold of the woman's arm. "You have her?" "Yes," Admetis says. "Keep her safe." And then, he pulls off the woman's veil and, oh, what do you know? Can you believe it? Big surprise. Who saw this coming? Not me. It's Alcestis.
57:14 Liv Albert? Quote, "Look at her. Does she look like your wife?"
57:19 Liv Albert? I love that Heracles had to spell it out for Admetis. Not totally certain who needed the obvious reveal, more, like, but it really adds to the comedy. But, well, there she is. Admetis can't believe it at first, which, I mean, who blames him? It is super weird and not even a thing that happens elsewhere in Greek mythology. Like, even Orpheus failed in bringing back Eurydice. This is an absolute one-off, which in itself makes this play so much weirder. But in the end, Heracles convinces Admetis that this is, in fact, his wife. Quote, "This friend of yours doesn't conjure with ghosts."
57:58 Liv Albert? Admetis is in shock, and Alcestis is just standing there while these two men talk about her. It's just so bizarre. He doesn't speak to her, though. Doesn't even try. Before he even clocks that she stayed so silent, he's already asked Heracles how he got her back, and explanation of which that takes up, like, literally two lines. Quote, "I fought with a god who was in charge of her. Beside her tomb, I ambushed him and grabbed him."
58:23 Liv Albert? Squeezing Thanatos real hard worked. And this, this is when Admatos asks why she's remained silent. And Heracles explains to him that, uh, well, he's not actually allowed to hear her voice yet. That she can't speak until she's been back for three days and then she'll be released from the bond that she has now with the underworld. Sure, and he just tells Admatos to bring her inside. He turns down an offer to be a guest once more. He's got some man-eating horses to return to Eurystheus. And so with a wave, he's gone.
58:58 Liv Albert? And Alcestis remains silent.
59:17 Liv Albert? Oh, beloved and devoted nerds, thank you all so much for listening. As always, you all are keeping me going, both because your listening helps pay my bills and because you validate the hell out of what I'm doing when you listen, when you reach out on social media via email. I also want to let you all know that I do see you all asking for recommendations on and tips on traveling to Greece, and I want to do an episode of some kind on that in the future because I honestly get asked like two to three times a week and I, I unfortunately, I just don't have the time to answer with personalized recommendations on travel. But I fucking love you for asking and I love that I'm inspiring so many people to visit that incredible country. It's cool. Anyway, truly, thank you for listening.
59:59 Liv Albert? Thank you to anyone who listens to every single episode of every week, to those who listen periodically, to those who binge the show. All of you are absolutely vital to keeping this show going and I'm so incredibly thankful to have you all as listeners. Okay, I'll stop rambling now. Five years of my voice ranting and raving and rambling about Greek mythology? Man, how is that even a thing? Let's talk about Myth TV is written and produced by me, Liv Albert. And Kayla Smith is the Hermes to my Olympians and handles so many podcast-related things. I mean, gosh, honestly, she just, she's the best. She does it all. She keeps me sane. Grace Roby is our intern, working on young person things like merch and TikTok. She's wonderful.
1:00:41 Liv Albert? Stephanie Foley works to transcribe the podcast for YouTube captions and accessibility. The podcast is hosted and monetized by Acast. I am Liv and I love this shit very, very much, even after five years.
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Previous Moms, Prophecies, and oh ya Orpheus is there too... KAOS Takeover w/ Christie Vogler and Anastasia Pantazopoulou (Part 2) Next Liv Reads Statius: The Thebaid (Part 7) Page updated November 1, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated