The remarkable feature of Greek mythology is that it contains truths that are not to be found in the mythology of the modern world. The myths the Greeks created were not merely dreams, but expressions of reality that are too deep to be expressed in straightforward prose. That is why Greek mythology has remained alive and relevant throughout history. One ancient myth in particular is sufficient to illustrate the point.
The tragic story of Phyllis appears in Ovid’s Heroides. She was a Thracian princess who fell deeply in love with Demophon, the son of Theseus. When Demophon left for the Trojan War, she gave him a small box which contained a sacred object. She told him not to open it unless he had lost all hope of returning to her. He was delayed on his way back home though he had promised to return by a specific time. His delay caused Phyllis to believe that he had abandoned her. She was overwhelmed by despair and ended her life. The gods had pity on her broken heart and transformed her into an almond tree. Demophon was grief-stricken upon arriving home. When he opened the box, he was driven to madness and fell on his sword. His final act was to embrace the tree which caused a shower of blossoms suddenly to burst into bloom, despite the fact that the tree had no leaves. Accordingly, the name Phyllis, in Greek, means “leaves” or “foliage.”
The tragic tale of Phyllis bears a strong resemblance to the fate of Romeo and Juliet, a tragic tale in which both fateful lovers perished in the same order, as Phyllis and Demophon. Literary scholars assert that Shakespeare almost certainly read the story of Phyllis in one version or another. No doubt Shakespeare recognized a great deal of realism that was contained in the myth. One may recall the lyrics from Henry Mancini’s “The Sweetheart Tree” from the motion picture, The Great Race, which has a more Hollywood contour: “They say if you kiss the right sweetheart, the one you’ve been waiting for, big blossoms of white will burst into sight and your love will be true evermore.” It is Phyllis and Demophon, but this time with a happy ending.
The myth of Phyllis contains five incontestable truths: (1) that love between a man and a woman can be sufficiently strong that neither can live without the other; (2) that God is moved by the tragedy of a woman—according to a venerated aphorism, “God counts the tears of women”; (3) life after death continues in some form; (4) love and the proliferation of life are interchangeable; (5) some things are sacred and cannot be altered by human means. These five truths have moral significance. Love, life, fidelity, hope, grief, the afterlife, and God’s intervention are seen as characterizing the moral nature of the human being. Morality answers the two questions: “Who am I?” and “What am I supposed to do?”
There is the equivalent of mythology in the modern world, but it does not seem to speak to the nature of the human soul. (1) The so-called American Dream presents a life that is materially comfortable and financially secure. This myth, however, does not spring from the human heart, but from the desire to enjoy “gracious living.” (2) The ideology of “antinatalism” has been gaining traction. It is a rejection of new life, a disvaluing of procreation. Contraception and abortion are important components of this myth which convey the promise of a more productive and less cluttered lifestyle. (3) Modern atheism, another growing ideology, insists that neither God nor the afterlife exist. We are alone in a loveless and unredeeming cosmos. (4) The prevailing myth that a better world will come into being when each individual is allowed to make his own choices, even if those choices do not agree with the choices of others. That we are autonomous and have control of our body may be the most fraudulent of today’s mythology. (5) We are in danger of dis-acknowledging the sacred. There is nothing of value that does not come with a price tag.
The modern world could benefit from understanding the human and divine elements that are woven into the mythology pertaining to Phyllis: Love is real. It is also creative. Lovers are vulnerable. God is watching. Justice reigns. We live by hope. Some things are sacred. These are the primary values. Wealth, property, status, and possessions rank in a far distant arena.
Today’s mythology is not wrapped in engaging stories. It is, nonetheless, real in the minds of people who believe that all we need is what this world offers. We are losing sight of the dignity of life, the reality of God, and the power of love. The unformulated mythology of the current world has become spellbinding in its seductiveness. Progress, when applied to the human soul, is a myth not only because it is untrue, but also because it is historically contradicted. As Edward Gibbon has stated in his 1776 opus, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, “History…is, indeed, little more than a register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind.” For G.K. Chesterton, egoism is “the enduring blunder of mankind.”
The Phyllis myth is truth veiled in fiction. The reigning contemporary myth is simply fiction.
Image from Wikimedia Commons
