Mythlet: "I Belong to No Man!"

Live from Mount Olympus

Onassis Foundation

Kids & Family, Stories For Kids

4.4 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 14 December 2021

⏱️ 6 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

When Athena burst from her father’s head she looked just like a hoplite warrior, with armor and a helmet. Dr. Kate Birney tells us about this fierce aspect of the goddess as well as the civilized attributes of the patron goddess of Athens. No wonder she’s Danae’s favorite goddess – and maybe yours too? Visit our pages on social media or search #livefrommountolympus to find images of Athena made by the residents of the city that bears her name with pride.

Live from Mount Olympus is a production of the Onassis Foundation, and co-produced by The TEAM. The podcast is directed by Tony Award-winner Rachel Chavkin (Hadestown) and Zhailon Levingston (Tina: The Tina Turner Musical) and created by Peabody Award-winning producer Julie Burstein. Karen Brooks Hopkins is the executive producer.

Live from Mount Olympus is presented by TRAX from PRX with support from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Find out more at Onassis.link/Olympus

Our actors include Vinie Burrows, Jill Frutkin, Divine Garland, Amber Gray, Adrienne Hopkins, Natalie Hopkins, Modesto "Flako" Jimenez, Libby King, Ian Lassiter, Zhailon Levingston, Christina Liberus, Nehemiah Luckett, Jake Margolin, James Harrison Monaco, Kristen Sieh, Jillian Walker, Baby Perseus is played by Calvin Samuel Blanch and Whit Vega Margolin-Vaughan, and André De Shields is Hermes.

Our production team includes: sound designer David Schulman; production assistant Tessa Zitter; writer Nathan Yungerberg; music composed and performed by Magda Giannikou with Luca Bordonaro; and illustrations by Jason Adam Katzenstein.

Our guest today, Dr. Kate Birney, is Chair of the Archaeology Department at Wesleyan University. Our mythlets are written and produced by Tessa Zitter and mastered by John Melillo.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Have you ever had an awful headache where you feel like your skull is splitting into?
0:10.0	My head, declining. It works.
0:15.0	Well, sometimes even the king of the gods gets that kind of headache.
0:20.0	Praise your souls!
0:21.0	Hephaestus swung his mighty axe and split Zeus's forehead in two.
0:27.0	Out sprung a goddess with a mighty cry.
0:33.2	Yeah!
0:36.2	Athena doesn't have a childhood.
0:38.9	Athena leaps out of the head of Zeus fully formed and fully armed bristling ready to be able
0:46.1	to attack or more likely to defend her dad. It's time for another mythlet and
0:51.2	today Dr. Bernie is going to tell us all about Deny's favorite
0:56.9	goddess and maybe yours too. Athena. When Athena burst out of her father's head, she looked just like a hoplight warrior.
1:07.0	She's got the shield, she's got the spear, she's got the helmet, and she is vicious and ready to defend.
1:13.7	This fierce aspect of the goddess is called Athena Promocos.
1:18.0	Now this word Promocos is the same word that they use to describe the great heroes in the
1:23.0	Iliad who run out in front of the battle. It's the same
1:25.9	description that's given to describe hoplites in the front line, the guys who
1:29.7	are in the greatest danger. At the moment Athena burst out of his head, Zeus probably thinks he's in grave danger, because
1:36.5	his mother Gaya had given him a dire prophecy about his firstborn child.
1:42.0	If Metis bears you a son, he will unseat you, just as you dethroned your father.
1:51.3	No!
1:52.3	No!
	...

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