Dionysus- some ideas :: essays research papers

Within all the text in the Dionysus section the universal theme I found is that the characters were punished by fate for no apparent reason. In one glacial moment in each story, the innocent character loses free pull up stakes and henceforth is steered by merciless fate.In the myth of Diana and Actaeon, Actaeon has committed no offensive but is punished as if he had. His seeing Diana dishwashing was the work of fate. As a matter of fact, Hughes reinforces this belief in the primary paragraph of the story when he states, Destiny, not guilt, was enough for Actaeon. It is no crime to lose your way in the dark wood (Hughes 97). It is perfectly micturate that it was purely fate guiding this story. Actaeon was Steered by pitiless fate- whose nudgings he felt up tho as surges of curiosity (Hughes 99). At this point one lot see that Actaeon has completely lost his free will. It is no longer his conclusion whether to not go further in the cave. From here on, fate takes go over of his life. The only character that has gained a form of justice from this encounter is Diana. By disposing of Actaeon, she won back her purity- the essence of her virginity. This purity she had lost when Actaeon saw her exposed. Her only means of regaining her chastity is by ridding herself of Actaeon. In comparison, there is no justice in this tale for Actaeon. He was simply a victim of fate, which put him in the wrong place at wrong time. The strongest object lesson of the myth of Diana and Actaeon is that fate carries no preferences. Actaeon committed no crime he did nothing to anger the gods. Fate catches up to all people careless(predicate) of the manner in which they chose to live their lives. Ovid could have used this myth as a basis for explaining to his people why even the innocents suffer in life. However, I found that the morals of this myth are as looker is to the eyes of a beholder. For example, another one of the possible morals I came up with is that the deciphere r became the hunted. Diana, being the goddess of the hunt had the power to show Actaeon what it was equivalent to be the hunted. This is brutally demonstrated when Actaeons own dogs, which were so interrogatively described (practically all of page 101 is dedicated to the description of these dogs), hunt Actaeon down and ravenously tear him to pieces.