[HN Gopher] Persian legends and their Western counterparts (2020)
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Persian legends and their Western counterparts (2020)
Author : diodorus
Score : 125 points
Date : 2021-05-26 02:31 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.tor.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.tor.com)
| YeGoblynQueenne wrote:
| >> While poring over Persian myths and legends for my upcoming
| novel, Girl, Serpent, Thorn, I was always delightfully surprised
| whenever I came across a story that sounded familiar to me from
| my western upbringing.
|
| Here, the author of the article is advertising her book. I see
| this very often- I'm reading an article on an online publication
| and the author suddendly and more or less surreptitiously inserts
| a reference to the latest book they have published and that is
| currently being sold.
|
| I confess I find this a bit annoying, especially when the subject
| of the book is unrelated to the subject of the article. I
| understand that authors must take every opportunity to promote
| their work, exactly in the same way as everyone else [1].
|
| What I wonder is, is this something that authors are asked to do
| by agents or publishers? Or is it something an author decides
| upon him or herself? Is it more common for an author to advertise
| their recently published books in an article they write, or is it
| more common not to?
|
| _______________________
|
| Here's my latest published paper:
|
| https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10994-020-05945-w
| autarch wrote:
| This is published on tor.com. Tor is a publisher of SF/F books.
| The author wrote an SF/F book for Flatiron Books, a publisher
| with the same parent company, Macmillan. So clearly this
| article is part of her book's marketing.
| YeGoblynQueenne wrote:
| So you believe she was asked to do it by her publisher? I
| agree it's likely. I also wonder whether this is a common
| thing that is done in the publishing industry.
| autarch wrote:
| > So you believe she was asked to do it by her publisher?
|
| Yes, almost certainly. It seems like a smart way to get the
| author and her book in front of more eyes, and it seems to
| have worked, since we're talking about it here!
| boringg wrote:
| Smart, aware of how the market works, self promoter author
| would do it naturally - otherwise publisher would ask them to
| do it.
| B1FF_PSUVM wrote:
| > The story of a father killing his son is found in other tales
| in the west, perhaps most famously in Arthurian legend.
|
| Also:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_the_Terrible_and_His_Son_...
|
| and:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titus_Manlius_Imperiosus_Torqu...
|
| P.S.
|
| > the Celtic story of Tristan and Isolde ... where the young man
| goes off and marries someone else for a while before returning to
| his true love.
|
| Now that I see it summarized, I'm surprised the British tabloids
| did not latch on to it ... probably too obscure a source, lacking
| a movie to drive it.
| kowlo wrote:
| Rostam and Sohrab.... tragic
|
| fun art
| https://i.pinimg.com/originals/e4/f4/08/e4f40806a8afb57fd661...
| JasonFruit wrote:
| Like, for example, an _entire opera by Wagner_ ...
| agumonkey wrote:
| And it's probably emotional/biological.. even star wars had a
| son/father struggle. Who coined the metaphorical 'killing
| father' concept ?
| handrous wrote:
| Oedipus is an early one. What, 350-400BCE? Somewhere around
| there? [spoilers?] Oedipus is prophesied to kill his father
| and marry his mother, so runs off trying to avoid this
| horrible fate, but makes the rookie mistake of killing some
| rando old enough to be his dad (surprise! He was!) and then
| marrying a lady old enough to be his mom (surprise! She was!)
|
| Though that's more of a _literal_ "killing father" than a
| metaphorical one, I guess.
|
| Then of course there's the story of how the core Greek
| pantheon comes to be, which features patricide _very_
| prominently and probably dates, in something resembling the
| form we know it, to ~800BCE, and possibly much older in
| cultures that influenced the Greeks.
|
| [EDIT] I can't recall anything like that in the ~1800-2000BCE
| Gilgamesh, but there may be something. I remember that one
| having _a lot_ more mommy issues than daddy issues.
| 0xbadcafebee wrote:
| Well each culture has its own quirks which changes how
| often you see a particular story. Greek culture held that
| the Gods saw "blood crime" as the worst thing imaginable,
| so you get a lot of mythic story arcs around it. For later
| Western European cultures, killing your kin just means
| you're taking initiative.
| JasonFruit wrote:
| > killing your kin just means you're taking initiative
|
| Well, that's a lot less true once you get outside the
| upper classes where succession based on descent was a way
| to wealth and power.
| agumonkey wrote:
| It's funny how I didn't appreciate the depth of oedipus.
| Younger I read it like a thriller.. with a big plot twist.
| Not as an existential metaphor about inner desires, love
| bonds and family ties.
| ArtWomb wrote:
| Not Persian mythos (which is an endless fountain of joy), but I
| recently stumbled upon an Ur-source of Ancient Greek transmission
| to Modern Europe: Ibn Tufail's Improvement of Human Reason. From
| the first page one can feel its resonance and shocking modernity.
| From Galileo through Newton and von Humboldt down to the modern
| philosophical novels of Sartre and Camus ;)
|
| https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/16831
| camjohnson26 wrote:
| If the idea of common motifs through different cultures and
| mythologies interests you I highly recommend this 6 part
| interview with Joseph Campbell, who was the author of "The Hero
| with 1000 Faces" and an expert in the field.
|
| Joseph Campbell and The Power of Myth with Bill Moyers.
| Mediterraneo10 wrote:
| While Joseph Campbell (who was not an actual "expert in the
| field" for most of what he wrote about) has a big reputation
| among the public because he wrote books directed towards a
| popular audience, and e.g. George Lucas's praise of his work
| for _Star Wars_ guaranteed him renown, he is not taken very
| seriously by actual specialists on folklore and anthropology.
| IMO, citing him does more harm than good.
| drknownuffin wrote:
| My understanding from my readings in the field of mythology
| is that the parent post is precisely correct: Campbell was an
| enthusiastic amateur who did a whole bunch of cherry-picking
| to suit his passionate holding-forth on the topics, but
| without systematic study.
|
| If he was alive today, he (still) wouldn't be a PhD, but he'd
| have a YT channel, a vigorously active twitter page, and
| maybe have penned a couple of D&D modules.
| turadg wrote:
| What authors or works would you recommend instead?
| gen220 wrote:
| The difficulty with folklore is that it's so intensely
| regional and period-specific, and that no real "canon"
| exists for most regions and times, especially when you're
| reaching back into pre-christianity folklore.
|
| This is the mistake that Campbell made. He thought you
| could unify folklore with some psychological frameworks.
| But you can't, unless you're employing gratuitous selection
| bias, which he did.
|
| So it depends what you're interested in! I've personally
| found it most fun to find some culture I'm incidentally
| connected to, with a long literary history, and try to find
| the earliest transcriptions and translations of stories
| that I can.
|
| If you're interested in some region and time in particular,
| somebody here can probably help get you started.
| drknownuffin wrote:
| I second this statement.
|
| Russian Folk Belief by Ivanits is a good one.
| jk7tarYZAQNpTQa wrote:
| > Joseph Campbell and The Power of Myth with Bill Moyers
|
| https://archive.org/details/josephcampbellandthepowerofmyth0...
| orlandohill wrote:
| The creator of Prince of Persia, Jordan Mechner, has recently
| adapted the ancient Persian tale, Samak the Ayyar.
|
| _Samak, a rogue with the skills of a ninja and the ideals of a
| knight, leads his band of ayyars in a thrilling adventure of
| secret missions, battlefield heroics, love and intrigue. A
| masterpiece of Persia's thousand-year-old oral storytelling
| tradition, Samak the Ayyar is a vivid glimpse into the enchanting
| world that inspired Prince of Persia._
|
| http://jordanmechner.com/samak/
| monkeybutton wrote:
| Does anyone have a recommendation for English translated
| collections of Persian folklore and mythology?
| jk7tarYZAQNpTQa wrote:
| The Shahnameh is a good start. IIRC there's a high quality
| bilingual (English and Persian) version of it, with drawings
| and all. If you prefer it in podcast version, Mazandercast [1]
| spends a few minutes of each episode to narrate it. The rest of
| the episode is spent explaining traditions, festivities, etc. A
| good podcast if you're interested in overall Persian culture
| and history.
|
| Of course another good book is "One Thousand and One Nights".
|
| [1]
| https://open.spotify.com/show/4wOrW7rq5g4HZpSbi3nvwl?si=Ft_t...
| monkeybutton wrote:
| Thank you! What got me interested in the first place was
| seeing some pages of the Shahnameh on display at the Aga Khan
| Museum in Toronto:
| https://agakhanmuseum.org/collection/artifact/isfandiyar-
| kil...
| OnlyMortal wrote:
| It's not surprising that the tales are similar. It's not like
| Persia was disconnected from the Greeks, Egyptians or even the
| Romans.
|
| I imagine a good tale went in all directions. The epic of
| Gilgamesh been an obvious candidate.
| [deleted]
| geijoenr wrote:
| Comparative mythology is a field of study. Is is well known
| there are common Indo-European roots for many myths that are
| similar across a number of cultures and religions, including
| Norse one.
| geijoenr wrote:
| see, for instance: Etude de mythologie comparee indo-
| europenne from Georges Dumezil
| OnlyMortal wrote:
| TIL. It's an interesting subject, for sure, given we
| incorrectly generally consider ancient peoples isolated.
|
| It's obviously untrue given Alexander The Great and the
| peoples who traversed the Mediterranean, like the
| Phoenicians.
|
| As for Northern Europe, I understand that a Buddha was dug up
| in a Swedish Viking era burial site.
|
| My point been, some people travelled far for trading reasons.
| lioeters wrote:
| > a Buddha was dug up in a Swedish Viking era burial site
|
| Fascinating, it's the first time I've heard of this.
|
| The Helgo Treasure: A Viking Age Buddha -
| http://irisharchaeology.ie/2013/12/the-helgo-treasure-a-
| viki...
|
| > A remarkable collection of religious items sourced from
| diverse lands was discovered during archaeological
| excavations on the Swedish island of Helgo.
|
| > Discovered close together, these artefacts included a
| Buddha from the Indian sub-continent, an elaborate crozier-
| head from Ireland and a bronze ladle from North-Africa.
|
| > ..[T]he most extraordinary find..was a small, bronze
| Buddha. This devotional figure dates from circa the 6th
| century AD and was probably made in Kashmir, on the
| Pakistan/India border.
|
| > The Buddha has a silver urna on his forehead, symbolizing
| the third eye, while the ears have long lobes, the insignia
| of royalty. He sits in a meditative pose upon a double
| lotus throne, the latter representing purity. The Buddha
| probably arrived in Helgo via Swedish merchants whose
| eastern trade routes were concentrated along Russian rivers
| such as the Volga.
| danidiaz wrote:
| I recently read and enjoyed "Haft Peykar" by the poet Nizami.
| Although I guess that much of its original beauty is lost in
| translation, some the language and imagery remain striking
| nonetheless.
|
| One of the stories-within-the-story is the original source of
| Puccini's "Turandot".
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nizami_Ganjavi#Haft_Peykar
| RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote:
| As some of the comments in the article point out, some of the
| commonalities may because the legends may be referencing older
| Indo-European legends which both European and Persian cultures
| have in common.
|
| In addition, especially after 300 BC, with the conquests of
| Alexander the Great, Greek culture spread throughout much of the
| region. The Parthians were actually very much fans of Greek
| culture.
| geraneum wrote:
| The book "Shahname", translated to "The Book of Kings" which is
| referenced in the article is not the first occurrence of these
| legends and mythologies. They are a collection made of much
| older folklore stories. While you can find Iranian girls
| nowadays named "Helia" or "Atena" which came from greek (a
| testament to Greek influence) but these legends date back to
| before the Greek invasion. But yes, as you mentioned, they run
| deep in Indo-European cultures.
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| And in cultures that were adjacent to them. Check out the
| "Nart sagas", oral sagas recorded by the northwest Caucasian
| language speakers who were neighbours of the Yamnaya/proto-
| Indo-Europeans. Their sagas have lots of elements with huge
| overlap with classic Indo-European stories.
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