Sacred Hospitality: Difference between revisions

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*** And so, Ixion was thrown into Tartarus, chained to a wheel, set on fire and left to burn for all eternity. The Hera sexdoll gave birth to the Centaurs. And, ladies and gentlemen, this why ''you [[Too Dumb to Live|do not abuse the hospitality of the Greek gods]]''.

** Tantalus. For some reason, the Olympians liked him enough to attend one of his banquets. When he noticed that his larder wasn't fully stocked with enough meat to prepare the feast, he decided to supplement it with his ''own son'' Pelops. This revolted the Olympians, who revived the boy but decided to give Tantalus a chance to redeem himself as their guest. What did Tantalus do? He ''stole their ambrosia'', shared it with his mortal friends, and blabbed the secrets of the gods. Tantalus stole the food of the gods and ''bragged about it''. His punishment was just as nasty as Ixion's. Since Tantalus' crimes were food related he was condemned to eternal starvation and thirst in Tartarus. He was chained to a tree laden with ripe fruit while waist deep in fresh water, with the nasty catch that the tree branches would lift the fruit out of his reach and the water would recede whenever he tried to take a sip.

*** Tantalus' bit with Pelops leads to a whole chain of curses--many of them involving parents killing children or the other way around--that end up defining a good chunk of Greek Myth, including the breach of hospitality that started the Trojan War. On one hand, Pelops, as King of Pisa (the one in the Peloponnese), curses the King of Thebes Laios after he raped and abducted Chrysippus--Pelops' son--while a guest in Pisa, saying "May your own son kill you, Theban!" This curse is what leads to [[Oedipus Rex|that famous bit with Laios getting killed and his son marrying his wife]], which in turn leads to the Seven Against Thebes, regarded as a warm-up to the Trojan War. In the meantime, Pelops' other son Atreus became King of Mycenae--a very good gig--but his other brother Thyestes makes the mistake of seducing Mrs. Atreus. Atreus finds out and in revenge serves up Thyestes' sons and tricks him (Thyestes) into eating them. Thystes then curses Atreus, whose sons are Menelaus and Agamemnon, whose tale is partly recorded above. Of course, then you get into the interesting story of how he gets killed by his wife (who was seeing Thyestes' son Aegisthus after the Iphigenia story), who then gets killed by her son Orestes and daughter Electra, the former of whom goes mad until absolved by an Athenian court (and [[Just So Story|creating the presumption of innocence in the Athenian justice system]], if [[Aeschylus]]' ''[[Oresteia (Theatre)|Oresteia]]'' is to be believed).

*** Tantalus' bit with Pelops leads to a whole chain of curses--many of them involving parents killing children or the other way around--that end up defining a good chunk of Greek Myth, including the breach of hospitality that started the Trojan War. On one hand, Pelops, as King of Pisa (the one in the Peloponnese), curses the King of Thebes Laios after he raped and abducted Chrysippus--Pelops' son--while a guest in Pisa, saying "May your own son kill you, Theban!" This curse is what leads to [[Oedipus Rex|that famous bit with Laios getting killed and his son marrying his wife]], which in turn leads to the Seven Against Thebes, regarded as a warm-up to the Trojan War. In the meantime, Pelops' other son Atreus became King of Mycenae--a very good gig--but his other brother Thyestes makes the mistake of seducing Mrs. Atreus. Atreus finds out and in revenge serves up Thyestes' sons and tricks him (Thyestes) into eating them. Thystes then curses Atreus, whose sons are Menelaus and Agamemnon, whose tale is partly recorded above. Of course, then you get into the interesting story of how he gets killed by his wife (who was seeing Thyestes' son Aegisthus after the Iphigenia story), who then gets killed by her son Orestes and daughter Electra, the former of whom goes mad until absolved by an Athenian court (and [[Just-So Story|creating the presumption of innocence in the Athenian justice system]], if [[Aeschylus]]' ''[[Oresteia (Theatre)|Oresteia]]'' is to be believed).

** The reason the Trojan War started was not only because Paris stole Menelaus' wife (and because all of Helen's other suitors had made an oath to help her husband defend her, if it came to it) - but because Paris was Menelaus' ''guest'' when he did so. The fact that he was visiting Menelaus' kingdom was, in fact, the only reason he ever met Helen. The other kings showed up because of their oath - but it's likely that the war would never have continued for so long if Paris hadn't broken the laws of hospitality at the same time he made off with Helen.

** Bellerophon was an unwitting beneficiary of hospitality's protection. The wife of his first host attempted to seduce him, and then claimed Bellerophon had ravished her when he refused. Suitably enraged, the host could not kill Bellerophon so he instead gave him a missive to be delivered to the wife's father. On arriving in the new city, Bellerophon and his new host feasted for several days before the missive was opened, containing a request that the host kill the bearer of said missive. Now protected doubly by hospitality, the host devised suicidal schemes fro Bellerophon to accomplish... which he did repeatedly.

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[[Category:Older Than Feudalism]]

[[Category:Sacred Hospitality]]

[[Category:Trope]]