Daily Life of the Ancient Greeks

304 Daily Life of the Ancient Greeks
is generous and noble in human nature, few myths have happy
endings, to the extent that they have endings at all. And such happiness
as does occur is either fleeting or purchased at the cost of
much misery. Through myth we encounter the dark side of human
life, from which many of us would perhaps prefer to avert our gaze.
Yet myth also provides us with an incomparably rich language for
coming to terms with that dark side.
In the disunited and fractured world of Greece, mythology served
as a powerful cultural unifier by providing people with both the
sense of a shared past and the means of interpreting it. Nothing in
the modern world performs a comparable function, and our society
is much poorer for the lack of it. Yet, in Plato’s words, if we pay
attention to it, it may yet save us.
Making Connections
Write a play in three acts based on a Greek myth. Try to
incorporate some of the conventions that were observed by
the Greeks, such as the inclusion of a chorus, limiting the
number of actors who appear on stage at any one time, and
banning violent deeds. (You can, of course, have a messenger
come on stage and describe in graphic detail what has occurred
off stage.) Although your play draws from myth, feel free to update it
in any way you see fit. You may write either a tragedy or a comedy or
even a mixture of both.