Personal Library -- Greek and Roman Mythology Stories

Author: (American) Thomas Bulfinch
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-09-01
Features: The ancients said, "Travel ten thousand miles and read ten thousand books." For modern people, traveling ten thousand miles is easy, but reading ten thousand books is difficult. The wheels of technology are sweeping across the world at an astonishing speed. The modern people, busy in front of computers and all kinds of machines all day, have turned the Earth into a village with wires, optical cables, tracks, or air routes. With a click of the mouse, we can paste ourselves anywhere in the world. However, facing the vast civilization, without the foundation of reading ten thousand books, we not only frequently encounter the awkwardness of "meeting face to face but not recognizing each other," but we also accumulate the strangeness that comes from the depths of our hearts. For this, we long for a deeper understanding, a connection of the soul; we long for a return to a way of traveling—before traveling ten thousand miles, put a few books in our spiritual backpack so that our steps and souls can go further. A spiritual journey does not require "writing poems in youth and studying until the hair turns white," nor does it require hanging the head on the beam, stealing light through the wall, or having a red sleeve add fragrance while not letting go of the book. A spiritual journey only requires reading a few classics in the leisure of life. Novels, essays, and poems can all be made into soup for the soul; buses, subways, and even the palms of our hands can be our desks. Therefore, we have tailored a "pocket library" for busy urban dwellers. Classics are the soul of the library; easy to absorb is the essence of the library; carrying it with you, reading anytime, anywhere, and in any way is the purpose of the library. The selected works in the library are all the timeless classics that have been refined after years of hardship and trials in foreign civilizations; the illustrations, carefully selected and painstakingly collected from hundreds of rare books and private collections, are a true restoration of the essence of the classics. The small format design makes it as clever as a wallet; the special printing process makes every book "filled with the fragrance of osmanthus." Classics are not afraid of time, but life cannot withstand the erosion of "time flies." The charm of classics is better seen than heard. It is better to use them to mend the gaps in our time, to add value to the fragments of our days; it is better to use on-the-go reading to gather wisdom piece by piece, and to understand life in the spiritual journey. Reading classics, with the least travel expenses, to reach the furthest distance of life.
The development of Greek mythology went through a long period of several hundred years in the original Greek society. At that historical stage, the level of productivity was very low, and people's understanding of nature was limited. They often used imagination to explain the surrounding natural phenomena and life phenomena, which gave rise to myths. At the beginning, due to the very limited understanding of nature, humans did not understand the true causes of natural forces, so they personified the gods they created as their own embodiment of power, such as Zeus, Poseidon, Hades, and Athena. Later, demigods or divine warriors, who were revered as gods, appeared in mythology, along with guardians of the gods, known as saints. Each of them had their own constellation. Ancient Greeks had highly developed astrology, which also came from mythology. They predicted what a god would do through astrological divination, which was also the prediction of possible natural phenomena. Each demigod and saint had their own unique achievements, which greatly enriched the treasure trove of Greek mythology. Greek mythology, with its perfect artistic expression and profound philosophical connotations, reflects the cultural and political development level of the Greek nation. Compared to Chinese mythology, it can be seen more clearly that there are great differences in the development of Eastern and Western cultures, as well as the unique aspects of ancient Greek civilization. In ancient Greece, every nation had strong and brave heroes and warriors as symbols of their tribes, who were eventually included among the gods of Olympus. People also embodied their ideals and wishes to reduce labor and increase productivity in the form of art in the gods, such as the fire-bringer Prometheus, who symbolized the Greeks' victory over nature in obtaining fire.