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发布时间：2006-06-23 16:27     点击：

　　Text 3

　　Greek mythology is largely made up of stories about gods and goddesses, but it must not be read as a kind of Greek Bible, an account of the Greek religion.

　　According to the most modern idea, a real myth has nothing to do with religion. It is an explanation of something in nature; how, for instance, any and everything in the universe came into existence: men, animals, this or that tree or flower, the sun, the moon, the stars, storms, eruptions, earthquakes, all that is and all that happens. Thunder and lightning are caused when Zeus hurls his thunderbolt. A volcano erupts because a terrible creature is imprisoned in the mountain and every now and then struggles to get free. The Dipper ( 大熊星座) , the constellation ( 星座) called also the Great Bear, does not set below the horizon because a goddess once was angry at it and decreed (命令 ) that it should never sink into the sea. Myths are early science, the result of men ' s first trying to explain what they saw around them.

　　But there are many so-called myths which explain nothing at all. These tales are pure entertainment, the sort of thing people would tell each other on a long winter' s evening. The story of Pygmalion (皮格马利翁) and Galatea is an example; it has no conceivable connection with any event in nature. Neither has the Quest of the Golden Fleece (寻找金羊毛) , nor Orpheus (奥菲士，竖琴圣手) and Eurydice, nor many another. This fact is now generally accepted; and we do not have to try to find in every mythological heroine the moon or the dawn and in every hero' s life a sun myth. The stories are early literature as well as early science. But religion is there, too. In the background, to be sure, but nevertheless plain to see. From Homer through the tragedians and even later, there is a deepening realization of what human beings need and what they must have in their gods.

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