The first allusion that I’m going to bring up is ‘The Garden of Eden’ in Genesis 1-3. In the Garden of Eden everything is perfect. There are fruit trees, cool breezes, and rivers. People walk around naked, without shame. And talks to mortals, but suddenly you are whisked away from paradise, and banished. Well that’s what happed to Adam and Eve. After Eve ate a piece of forbidden fruit with Adam, even though God told them not to, they were ostracized. Next is the story of Echo and Narcissus from Greek Mythology.
Okay so basically there’s this kid Echo who’s a nymph who is trapped in Zeus’s love triangle, but the problem with Nymph was that she could only repeat what the person she’s taking to. And then there’s Narcissus who’s a very handsome young guy he was so handsome that many girls and nymphs fell in love him, but he can’t look in at his refection or he’ll die. And well once Echo meet Narcissus she falls for him, but when he calls for her she can only repeat what he says, annoyed he rejects her. Heartbroken she ran and hid.
Some versions claim that she was so angry that she put a spell on him so when he saw his reflection in a pool of water, he found himself so beautiful that he could not look away, and wasted away at the edge of the pool, while another states that one day while hunting, got some water at a pool, when he reached to get some the same thing happened, but because it was his destiny. Echo felt so bad for him she turned him into a flower, so he could forever see is reflection. The third story is the tale of Cupid and Psyche from Roman mythology. There’s is a story of love, and how love can overcome all.
So there this King and Queen, they have three daughter, all beautiful though the third is the most beautiful. Eventually people started to worship her like a Goddess, and would say she was more beautiful than Venus. When Venus heard she was so not happy, so she ordered her son Cupid to stick an arrow in her so that she would fall in love with the ugliest thing around. But when he is about to do the deed, he sees how beautiful she is and accidently pricks himself with an arrow. Cupid falls in love with her and leaves without doing what his mother told him to.
Psyche life continues regularly, but since Venus has it out for her no one ever falls in love with her. When both of her sister’s get married her parents’ worry that they have angered the Gods, they go to the oracle of Apollo. They tell them that Psyche is destined to marry a monster, and nether God nor mortal can stop it. Her parents are instructed to leave her on a mountain to meet her hideous groom. So wedding dress clad they bring her there. Zephyr, the west wind, takes the princes from the chilling mountain tops and bring her to a valley f flowers. There she sees a castle ginormous castle.
She enters and inside is all this glamorous stuff. Then a voice tells her that everything in the castle is, but she can never see her husband’s face. She okay with it for a while but she gets lonely since her husband only comes at night. So she asks the voice if her sisters can visit, reluctantly the voice says yes. When her sisters arrive the get super-jealous and start asking her questions about her husband. She lies to them and says that he’s a handsome young-man whom spends all day hunting. They don’t buy it, and continue interrogating her. Psyche eventually admits that she hasn’t seen his face.
They advise her to sneak into his room tonight and sneak a peak of his face and to bring a knife in case he really is a monster. So that night she brings a lamp and a knife and looks over him. When she looks she is shocked to see that it Cupid, she is so distracted that she accidently lets hot oil from the lamp fall on his face, burning him. When Cupid wakes and sees his wife with a knife in her hand he furiously flies out the window, telling Psyche that she’ll never see her again. The beautiful castle disappears and Psyche is left alone. Depressed she heads back to her sisters and she tells them the whole ordeal.
After hearing about what happened they go up in the mountains to try and find Cupid and make him their own. They jump off the mountain expecting Zephyr to catch them but he doesn’t and they fall to their death, being crushed by rocks. Meanwhile Psyche wanders around looking for Cupid, finds her way to the temple of Ceres, Goddess of the Harvest. The place is a total wreck, so Psyche cleans it up. Ceres is impressed with Psyches commitment. Psyche asks for help. Ceres wishes she could give Psyche a hand, but the goddess says she can’t go against Venus.
She suggests that Psyche go to Venus and ask for forgiveness. So she goes to Venus, whom is still crazy mad at her, that Cupid is still recovering from the burn. She tells Psyche that she must prove herself worthy to be Cupids wife. Psyche is given 3 tasks. One, she must organize al the grain in a storehouse, that belongs to Venus, and it must be ready by evening. Cupid intervenes and sends a colony of ants to to help her. The ants get the job done and go back underground. Venus returns and tells Psyche that it doesn’t count, because Psyche couldn’t have done it by herself.
2. She must cross over a river and collect the Golden Fleece from the sheep. When she’s about to cross the river the river god tells her to wait till noon cause the man hating rams come out in the early morning. So she waits till noon and collects the fleece. The goddess of love is still not satisfied, though, saying again that Psyche didn’t do it on her own. 3. Now Psyche must go to the Underworld and see Proserpine, the Queen of the Underworld, and bring back a little bit of her beauty in a box. Confused on how to get there she assumes that she must kill herself to get to the Underworld.
Just as she about jump off a cliff she is stopped by Cupid’s voice tells her where there’s a cave that leads down to the underworld, how to convince Charon to take her there and back, and how to avoid Cerberus, the vicious three-headed dog who guards the underworld. Psyche makes it to the palace and asks Proserpine to borrow some of her beauty. She’s given a box and leaves. While walking, she becomes curious about what’s in the box. A voice warns her not to open the box but she does it anyway thinking that if she had more beauty she would be even more worthy of Cupids love.
When she opens it she finds no beauty and falls into a deep sleep. Cupid flies down and strikes her with a love arrow tells her to take to box and he would take care of the rest, he asks Jupiter (Zeus) to help him and Psyche out. He summons Venus tells her chill. He brings Psyche to Mt. Olympus and gives her a drink that makes her immortal, so that Cupid and Psyche can be together forever. Our next Allusion is The Birth of Christ from Luke 1-2. 2000 years ago God sent an angel to a virgin named Mary. She was engaged to Joseph, a Carpenter. The angel told Mary that she would conceive a son.
When Joseph learned she was pregnant, he was told to marry her by an angel. He took Mary to Bethlehem so he could register for a census. While in Bethlehem Mary gave birth to Jesus, and laid him in a Manger, since there was no room in the inn. Shepherds visited Jesus, and three wise men brought gifts to Jesus. The told Herod the Great, a wicked king, that Jesus would rule Israel. So Herod sent soldiers to kill all the children in Bethlehem. Luckily an angel warned Joseph. He took his family to Egypt, and after Herod died, they returned to Israel and raised Jesus in a town called Nazareth.
Now we shall turn our attention to The Burning Bush in Exodus 3. Moses, a former Egyptian prince and now religious leader, was guarding his father-in-law’s flock of sheep, and he wandered with them to Horeb, the mountain of God. Soon an angel approached him in the form of a bush on fire but dose burn. Moses goes over to see what’s going on. When he got there God tells Moses that he’s back to help the Israelites out of the bondage in Egypt, and that Moses must lead them. Moses gets worried about all the responsibility, and asks God why He chose him for the job.
God tells him not to worry, that God will do most of the work. “…a land flowing with milk and honey [3. 8]” [for the Israelites], God also reveals his name to Moses, and identifies himself as “the God of your ancestors”. Our next topic of Allusion is The Passover, from Exodus 12. In Exodus 12, God and the destroyer kill every first born Egyptian, Exodus 12:30 says “There was not a house without someone dead. ” All the Egyptians told the Israelites to leave. The Israelites left quickly, but not before taking all the Egyptians gold and silver. 600,000 Men and unmentioned Women and Children left Egypt that night.
God tells the Israelites how to include other people in the Passover ceremony, they must become circumcised. Our next Allusion is about King Midas from Roman Mythology. So this God Dionysus, was traveling Mt. Timolus, with a bunch of his followers, one of whom gets drunk and loses his way. He is later found by some peasants and is taken to King Midas, who recognizes him as a follower of Dionysus and gives him a 10 day feast. When Midas returns Dionysus follower to him, he offers the King a wish as an award. The King wishes that everything touched would turn to gold.
At first he loves his new powers but when he tried to eat, his food turns to gold. Midas goes to Dionysus and begs him to reverse the wish. So he tells him that if he bathes in the river of Pactolus, everything would be as it was before. So he doses and the golden touch flows into the water, leaving gold nuggets in the sand. Now on to Paris and the Golden Apple from Greek Mythology. Eris, the goddess of Discord, had not been invited to the wedding of King Peleus. She was so furious she was not invited that she decided to go to the weeding and throw a golden apple, the fruit of temptation, to the banquet table.
She said that the apple would go to the fairest one. Three Goddess claimed the fruit, Hera, goddess of Marriage, Athena, goddess of Wisdom and War, and Aphrodite, the goddess of love. Zeus could decide, since they were all dear to him, so he handed judgment to a handsome young man named Paris, the prince of Troy. Hera and Athena tried to bribe him with power and glory, but Aphrodite seduced him with love, offering him Helen of Sparta. Paris chose Aphrodite, and Helen of Sparta became Helen of Troy, starting the ten-year Trojan War. Next up Pandora’s Box from Greek Mythology.
After Promotheus’ theft of the secret fire, Zeus ordered Hephaestus to create the Woman Pandora, as punishment for mankind. She was given many seductive gifts from Aphrodite and other gods. But fear of additional reprisals, Prometheus warned his brother Epimetheus not to accept any gifts from Zeus, but he didn’t listen, and married Pandora. Pandora had been given a large jar by Zeus, and had been told to never open it, but her curiosity got the better of her and she opened it, letting loses all the evils, ills, diseases, and burdensome hard labors we had never endured before, but it is said at the bottom of the jar there laid hope.
