Classical Mythology Quotes & Sayings

Aphrodite then reminded Zeus what Themis had said. She had to swallow a whole amphora full of his seed before Eros & Chaos would let her girdle hang free. And she said that she looked forward to swallowing his seed, if he would let her. Zeus then took the young Goddess in his arms & told her that he would even willingly give her a whole amphora full of his blood if that would make her happy. He would like to give her all the seed that his sperm sacs could produce each day but only wished that the transaction did not have to go through Hera. — Nicholas Chong

Then, having accomplished what he wanted to do, Eros decided to stop the futile battle. He recalled Phobos & Deimos from Mars & sent him Anteros & Himeros instead.
And immediately, the God of Hate turned into the God of Passion. — Nicholas Chong

Oracle of Delphi:
In my deep mystery I breathe
your fragrance swirling in
your odourless soul
I return your mystery
revealing your destiny deep in
the seed of your God Self — Ramon Ravenswood

When Pandora was ready, she was taken by Hermes to Epimetheus as a gift from Zeus.
Epimetheus looked at the beautiful girl & asked her to remove her veil so that he could better admire her lovely face & he asked her to remove her girdle & white shimmering raiment so that he could appreciate the gifts of the Gods. As he had never seen a woman before. And Pandora grinned & put on an impish smile as she stood naked before him. — Nicholas Chong

But as the God of War, Mars could not help being belligerent.He announced that he had come to avenge the honour & dignity of his brother,Hephaestus, & was glad that she had accepted his invitation to do battle.He now challenged her to remove her girdle since he had heard that it was a magic girdle & would thus afford the wearer undue advantage, as he would now remove all his battle attire so that, as their wearer, he too would not enjoy any undue advantage. And so saying, the belligerent Mars doffed his warlike raiment & stood proud & naked before her. And, thus provoked,Venus took off her girdle & did likewise. — Nicholas Chong

Eros, who was awakened when the girdle was cast aside, thought it unfitting that the Goddess of Love should turn herself into a Goddess of War, since that post was already filled by Athena. On the other hand, a battle between the Goddess of Love with the God of War also did not make sense, as they should either make love or make war & indulge either in love-games or war-games. For how could one party make love whilst the other make war at the same time? For it took two parties to either make love or make war.
And thus Eros decided to turn Mars into the God of Hate to see whether a battle between Love & Hate could produce Chaos, since Love & Chaos were one & so were Hate & Chaos. And thus Eros sent Phobos & Deimos to Mars, to turn the God of War into the God of Hate. — Nicholas Chong

And it was told that as soon as Poseidon saw the young Goddess, who looked no more than eighteen years of age, by human reckoning, passion immediately overwhelmed him. Unlike all the other Goddesses & Nymphs of the Sea, Aphrodite was not naked. She wore a huge girdle around her slender waist which covered her breasts & her hips as well as her crotch & buttocks. And, thus, instead of impaling her with his trident, Poseidon was overcome with curiosity as to what she hid beneath her girdle. He thus introduced himself as the King & Sheriff of the Seas & told the young Goddess that, as such, no secrets should be kept from him by all those who wished to live in the sea. He would therefore request that she removed the girdle to show him what she hid beneath it. — Nicholas Chong

I go back and research, say, every reference to the Gorgons, and I find what the classical writers said about them and it's so much richer than you might get in an average Greek mythology text. I feel like an archaeologist - I'm dusting off these things that people have not seen for thousands of years and bringing them into the modern world. — Rick Riordan

When Zeus[Jupiter]first saw Aphrodite[Venus]& Aphrodite thus first saw Zeus, it was love at first sight.Naturally.
Since Zeus was the King of the Gods, who loved all beautiful Goddesses.And Aphrodite was the Goddess of Love, the most beautiful & lovely of all the Goddesses.But love was all they had in common. — Nicholas Chong

He was the King of the Gods & could have anything he wanted, but only in theory. Whilst in actual fact, he was the only God who could not have everything he wanted.He had to work hard, since the responsibilities of his office laid heavily on his shoulders.And he could not even play hard, as his jealous wife, Hera, had eyes everywhere.She even had the terrible Argos with the hundred eyes in her service. — Nicholas Chong

But on the minus side, Zeus had also had his share of fiascos. He swallowed Metis, the Goddess of Wisdom & Prudence, & thus was responsible for the disappearance of both wisdom & prudence in Olympus. And he could not keep his hands off all those lovely Titanesses, Giantesses, Nymphs & Mortal women whom he loved or secretly loved. He took them to wife, even when they were unwilling, such as Metis, Leto, Asteria & Nemesis. And he raped them, even when they were not aware that they were being raped, such as Alcmene, Danae, Io & Europa. And these were only a few of his many love affairs that Hera knew. What he had managed to keep secret from Hera was his greatest love affair of all- his affair with the Goddess of Love, which had already resulted in the mis-begetting of the monstrous love-child, Priapus. — Nicholas Chong

The story was however told that when Hephaestus was instructed to create Pandora, he had misunderstood Zeus' intentions.Pandora should have been given wings so that the abilities of men could at least equal those of the beasts.But instead, Hephaestus gave women the burdens of ovulation,pregnancy,catamenia,birth pangs & of suckling their offspring, the abilities that enabled the beasts to reproduce themselves:burdens from which Goddesses & Nymphs were spared & happy to be without. — Nicholas Chong

And although Passion was the ugly side of Love, Passion made love-making fun. Himeros made lovers lusty, passionate & violent. It aroused sexual excitement & also brutality, & thus when Love turned to Chaos, Himeros was to blame. Thus, when Eros reunited Sky & Earth in the union of love, Himeros made Uranus so awful to Gaea that she had to resort to having him castrated. — Nicholas Chong

Aphrodite then promised Zeus that as soon as the girdle could be removed, she would reserve her flower for him. And she told him that her flower, as Nerites had advised her, was like a lovely oyster & she hoped that he liked oysters. And she told him that that was all that she had to give him in return for his seed. And she hoped that he would swallow her flower just as she swallowed his seed. — Nicholas Chong

The two lovers then hugged & embraced each other as Zeus said that he had to leave soon: he did not want the Gods & Goddesses of Olympus to get too worked up about his disappearance. Then Aphrodite kissed her beloved on the lips & pressed his mouth open with her tongue. And their tongues made contact & liked the feel of each other. And so they kissed with their tongues lashing excitedly in each other's mouth, with love & passion. And that was the first time Gods & Goddesses kissed that way. — Nicholas Chong

It's classical mythology, Cohen," said the minstrel. "I thought everyone knew. He was chained to a rock for eternity and every day an eagle comes and pecks out his liver."
"Is that true?"
"It's mentioned in many of the classic texts."
"I'm not much of a reader," said Cohen. "Chained to a rock? For a first offence? He's still there?"
"Eternity isn't finished yet, Cohen."
"He must've had a big liver!"
"It grows again every night, according to the legend," said the minstrel.
"I wish my kidneys did," said Cohen. — Terry Pratchett

UFO mythology is similar to the message of the classical religions where God sends his Angels as emissaries who offer salvation to those who accept the faith and obey his Prophets. Today, the chariots of the gods are UFOs. What we are witnessing in the past half century is the spawning of a New Age religion. — Paul Kurtz

And thus, the Titans & titanesses made love without passion And so did the Gods & Goddesses. They only had Longing[Pothos], Love[Eros] & Reciprocal Love[Anteros] between them, but no Passion. And this fact accounted for the unimaginative number of offspring that some of them had. And the unimaginative tendency of Gods & Goddesses to take aunts & uncles, sons & daughters & even granddads & grandmas to wife or to husband. So much so that some Gods & Goddesses preferred to produce offspring asexually, even without Love. As Hera begot Hephaestus. — Nicholas Chong

And let Apollo drive Prince Hector back to battle,
breathe power back in his lungs, make him forget
the pain that racks his heart. Let him whip the Achaeans
in headlong panic rout and roll them back once more,
tumbling back on the oar-swept ships of Peleus' son Achilles.
And he, will launch his comrade Patroclus into action
and glorious Hector will cut him down with a spear
in front of Troy, once Patroclus has slaughtered
whole battalions of strong young fighting men
and among them all, my shining son Sarpedon.
But then - enraged for Patroclus -
brilliant Achilles will bring Prince Hector down.
And then, from that day on, I'll turn the tide of war:
back the fighting goes, no stopping it, ever. — Homer

And thus when the great day arrived when the amphora was full with Poseidon's seed, the young Goddess was carried by Zeus' Great Eagle to Mount Ida from where she hurled the amphora into the sea. And it was reported by witnesses that when the amphora hit the water, thousands of Nymphs of all types were born & only three Cabiri & five Dactyls. For that was the power of Poseidon's seed. And this accounts for the fact that all the Sea Nymphs, other than the Nereids, were Poseidon's daughters, born of the creatures of the sea. — Nicholas Chong

The Milesians did not model their women after Helen, reported to be the most beautiful woman of their times, & who, reportedly, had five husbands.Nor did they model their women after the Athenian housewives. Instead, Milesians celebrated womanly beauty from the physical endowments of two naked slave girls, Briseis & Chryseis-the bones of contention between Achilles & Agamemnon. Tradition cast Briseis as a tall brunette with a dark complexion & with a very distinguished appearance.Whilst Chryseis was described as fair, slender & small in stature.[INTRO] — Nicholas Chong

And each day when Poseidon & his entourage of Goddesses & Nymphs arrived, Hera would come with them. And as the amphora began to be filled with Poseidon's seed, Hera would report that her amphora would take much longer to fill, as Zeus, her husband, was not a willing donor. But she had in fact been cheating by instructing her daughters, Hebe & Eilithyia, to empty the amphora filled with their father's seed into the rivers & streams, lakes & ponds, & the springs in the woods, so that the amphora would never be full, as this was the only way she could continue to keep her husband's sex drive in check, & with good reason to do so. — Nicholas Chong

The natural mates of men were the Meliads[Ash Nymphs], who were Demi-Goddesses, & the Goddesses.Whilst it was believed that women could mate with animals & produce offspring, as Pasiphae did with a bull & begot the Minotaur & Theophane did with Poseidon in the form of a ram, & begot the Ram with the Golden Fleece. And thus, women were part-animals,further proven by the fact that Helen, considered the most beautiful of them all,was hatched from an egg.
And since women were playthings,daughters were given away as gifts, prizes & bribes. And it was considered good form to take women by force, as plunder or booty, or as spoils of war & to sell them as slaves for profit.[INTRO] — Nicholas Chong

Many of these omnibuses were driven, oddly enough, by male models who had retired from the business, which meant that Parisians of Manet's day were transported around the city by men who had once posed as valiant biblical heroes or the vindictive deities of classical mythology. — Ross King

Then Pandora bade Epimetheus to touch her breasts,as her heart palpitated excitedly beneath her chest, & invited him to fondle her nipples which were firm & turgid.And she then held his quaking hand in hers & took it & placed it over her pubic hair.
And she set herself down & opened her thighs wide to allow him to examine her crotch.And she challenged him to find a little cup dripping with Nectar that she hid within the folds of her crotch. — Nicholas Chong

Classical mythology is a catalogue of indescribable cruelty: [ ... ] It is a world dominated by evil, where even the most beautiful beings carry out atrocities. — Umberto Eco

And the naked lovers looked for a place where they could lay together & Aphrodite suggested that her bed was as good as any. And thus, Ares & Aphrodite, dropped their war games in favour of love games, to make love, not war. And as they kissed & coupled again & again in Aphrodite's bed, the Goddess of Love was impregnated with the lovely Harmonia since Harmony & Peace prevailed when people made love, not war. And that was also the time when Chaos fell on the lovers as the invisible netting rigged by Hephaestus over his wife's bed caught the lovers in its trap. — Nicholas Chong

And Pandora pointed out to Epimetheus that he neither had wings nor wheels & so he should therefore not expect that of her also.And that besides,she had also brought with her a jar containing 10,000 gifts from Zeus for the blunder he had made in distributing to the beasts all the abilities that should have been given to men.And thus, he should be satisfied with whatever he had been given.As she, Pandora, had spoken. — Nicholas Chong

Hera also slept well that night as she had brilliantly engineered the coup of her life.Her wayward husband had returned late that evening & announced that he was too tired to make love.He had had a most entangling day,he said, performing his kingly duties.She then told him to have a good night's rest as she had an important job for him to perform in the morning.It was a job demanded by Chaos & Eros who were responsible for the beginning of things, she said. — Nicholas Chong

I have a great interest in classical mythology and I need to make a sphinx or satyr every once in awhile to satisfy those interests. ( ... ) — Wendy Froud

And Nerites told her what virginity was all about.He said that his sisters were all virgins before they coupled with the Gods, Dactyls & Cabiri & that those who were thus deflowered had lost their maidenheads with their maidenhood. And he told her that his sisters, Melite, Thalia & Polynoe were still virgins. The flesh within their little cups looked more like the meat of oysters, rather than flowers, & he opined that calling the maidenhead a flower was probably a misnomer.It should be called an oyster. — Nicholas Chong

Adams dealt him so sound a Compliment over his Face with his Fist, that the Blood immediately gushed out of his Nose in a Stream. The Host being unwilling to be outdone in Courtesy, especially by a Person of Adams's Figure, returned the Favour with so much Gratitude, that the Parson's Nostrils likewise began to look a little redder than usual. — Henry Fielding

It was told that during the wedding feast, Eris [Discordia], a daughter of Nyx, threw a golden apple into their midst, intended as a prize for the most beautiful amongst the three Goddesses at the table: Athena, Hera & Aphrodite, the daughter, wife & clandestine lover of Zeus, respectively. And Zeus wisely dodged the responsibility of making such a tough decision,directing that it should be made by Paris of Troy instead. — Nicholas Chong

At that point, Hermes asked Epimetheus if he was satisfied that whatever had been delivered was in good order & Epimetheus said that he was satisfied but wished that Pandora was also equipped with wings or wheels so that his problems of transportation would also be alleviated.
As that sounded like an impertinent remark , Hermes left without answering him. — Nicholas Chong

And thus Epimetheus took the lovely Pandora to wife in spite of the warning of his brother, Prometheus, then in the Caucasus, to beware of the Gods bearing gifts. — Nicholas Chong

In how few words, for instance, the Greeks would have told the story of Abelard and Heloise, making but a sentence of our classical dictionary ... We moderns, on the other hand, collect only the raw materials of biography and history, "memoirs to serve for a history," which is but materials to serve for a mythology. — Henry David Thoreau

And thus, having been assured by Themis, the mother of the Fates,that it was fated that she & the God of War should meet, Aphrodite, with downcast eyes,informed the Goddess of Oracles, Rites & Laws that she would be happy to accept Ares' challenge, adding that she thought that Mars sounded better than Ares & that she would prefer to call him Mars if he would call her Venus. — Nicholas Chong