Thalassa
Thalassa (
Mythology
According to a scholion on
The Roman mythographer
Literature
Two rather similar fables are recorded by Babrius. In one, numbered 168 in the Perry Index, a farmer witnesses a shipwreck and reproaches the sea for being “an enemy of mankind”. Assuming the form of a woman, she answers by blaming the winds for her turbulence. Otherwise, “I am gentler than that dry land of yours.”[11] In the other, a survivor from a shipwreck accuses the sea of treachery and receives the same excuse. But for the winds, “by nature I am as calm and safe as the land.”[12]
In yet another fable, Perry’s number 412 and only recorded by Syntipas, the rivers complain to the sea that their sweet water is turned undrinkably salty by contact with her. The sea replies that if they know as much, they should avoid such contact. The commentary suggests that the tale may be applied to people who criticize someone inappropriately even though they may actually be helping them.[13]
In the 2nd century CE, Lucian represented Thalassa in a comic dialogue with Xanthus, the god of the River Scamander, who had been attacked by a rival Greek deity for complaining that his course was being choked with dead bodies during the Trojan War. In this case he had been badly scorched and asks her to soothe his wounds.[14]
Art
While the sea-divinities Tethys and Oceanus were formerly represented in Roman-era mosaics, they were replaced at a later period by the figure of Thalassa, especially in
In 2011, Swoon created a site-specific installation depicting the goddess in the atrium of the New Orleans Museum of Art.[16] In fall 2016, the installation was erected once more in the atrium of the Detroit Institute of Arts.
Notes
- ^ Beekes, s.v. Θάλασσα, p. 530.
- ^ Silva, pp. 71 ff.; Beekes, s.v. Θάλασσα, p. 530.
- ^ Beekes, s.v. Θάλασσα, p. 530.
- ^ Ion of Chios, fr. 741 Campbell [= fr. 741 PMG = Scholia on Apollonius of Rhodes, 1.1165c (Wendel, p. 106)]; BNJ, commentary on 3 F43, commentary on 424 F5.
- ^ Diodorus Siculus, 5.55.1, 5.55.4.
- ^ Morand, p. 338, table 2; Athanassakis and Wolkow, p. 114.
- ^ Morand, p. 332, table 1; Orphic Hymn to the Sea (22), 7 (Athanassakis and Wolkow, p. 22).
- ^ Oxford Classical Dictionary, s.v. Pontus, p. 1220.
- Fabulae Theogony 2 (Smith and Trzaskoma, p. 95; Latin text).
- Fabulae Theogony 5 (Smith and Trzaskoma, p. 95; Latin text).
- ^ Babrius II.22
- ^ Babrius I.71
- ^ Aesopica
- ^ Lucian, Confabulations of the Marine Deities XI (pp. 355–6).
- ^ Eraslan, pp. 5–7.
- ^ "Swoon: THALASSA (The Great Hall Project)". Retrieved 2013-04-16.
References
- ISBN 978-1-4214-0882-8.
- Babrius, Phaedrus, Fables. Translated by Ben Edwin Perry. Loeb Classical Library No. 436. Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press, 1965. Online version at Harvard University Press.
- .
- Campbell, David A., Greek Lyric, Volume IV: Bacchylides, Corinna, .
- .
- Eraslan, Şehnaz, "Tethys and Thalassa in mosaic art", in Art Sanat, Vol. 4, pp. 1–13. PDF.
- .
- Herbert Jennings Rose, Leiden, Sijthoff, 1934. Online version at Packhum.
- Lucian, Lucian of Samosata, from the Greek, with the Comments and Illustrations of Wieland and others, Volume I, translated by William Tooke, London, 1820. Google Books.
- Morand, Anne-France, Études sur les Hymnes Orphiques, .
- .
- Silva, Moises, God, Language and Scripture: Reading the Bible in the light of general linguistics, Zondervan, 1990. ISBN 978-0-310-87743-1.
- Wendel, Carl, Scholia in Apollonium Rhodium vetera, Hildesheim, Weidmann, 1999. ISBN 978-3-615-15400-9.
External links
- Media related to Thalassa (mythology) at Wikimedia Commons