Heroes: Volume II of Mythos

S ECTION T WO 19. Priestess of Delphi, John Collier, 1891. Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide / Alamy. 20. Hylas and the Nymphs, 1896, John William Waterhouse. Manchester Art Gallery, UK / Alamy. 21. Jason and the Argonauts Sail Through the Symplegades (Clashing Rocks). Engraving depicting Jason and the Argonauts from ‘Tableaux du temple des muses’ (1655). Almay. 22. Jason Taming the Bulls of Aeëtes, 1742, Jean Francois de Troy. The Henry Barber Trust, The Barber Institute of Fine Arts, University of Birmingham, UK / Bridgeman. 23. Medea, Anthony Frederick Augustus Sandys, nineteenth century. Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery, UK / Bridgeman. 24. Medea Putting the Dragon guarding the Golden Fleece to Sleep, Spanish School, nineteenth century. Private Collection / © Look and Learn / Bridgeman. 25. And plunged them deep within the locks of gold (pen and ink on paper), Maxwell Ashby Armfield, Illustration for ‘Life & Death of Jason’ by William Morris. Private Collection / Bridgeman. 26. The Calydonian Boar Hunt, 1617, Peter Paul Rubens. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna / Alamy. 27. Atalanta and Hippomenes, c.1612, Guido Reni. Prado, Madrid, Spain / Bridgeman. 28. Oedipus and the Sphinx, 1864, Gustave Moreau. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA / Alamy. 29. Red-figured Kylix, depicting the deeds of the hero Theseus, made in Athens. Dated fifth century BC. British Museum / Alamy. 30. Theseus Taming the Bull of Marathon, 1745, Charles-André van Loo. Los Angeles County Museum of Art / Alamy. 31. The Toreador Fresco, Knossos Palace, Crete, c.1500 BC (fresco) / National Archaeological Museum, Athens, Greece / Bridgeman. 32. The Tribute to the Minotaur, woodcut engraving from the original painting by Auguste Gendron, 1882. Glasshouse Images / Alamy. 33. The Legend of Theseus with a Detail of the Cretan Labyrinth (engraving), sixteenth century. Private Collection / Bridgeman. 34. Attic bilingual eye-cup with black-figure interior depicting running minotaur and inscription reading ‘the boy is beautiful’. Werner Forman Archive / Bridgeman. 35. Landscape with Fall of Icarus, Carlo Saraceni, 1606–7. Museo di Capodimonte, Naples, Campania, Italy / Mondadori Portfolio/Electa/Sergio Anelli / Bridgeman. 36. Ariadne in Naxos, 1925–26 (tempera on handwoven linen), Joseph Southall. Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery, UK / Bridgeman. 37. Statue of Theseus, Athens. © Sotiris Tsagariolos / Alamy.

Foreword Heroes can be regarded as a continuation to my book Mythos, which told the story of the beginning of everything, the birth of the Titans and gods and the creation of mankind. You don’t need to have read Mythos to follow – and I hope enjoy – this book, but plenty of footnotes will point you, by paperback page number, to stories, characters and mythical events that were covered in Mythos and which can be encountered there in fuller detail. Some people find footnotes a distraction, but I have been told that plenty of readers enjoyed them last time round, so I hope you will navigate them with pleasure as and when the mood takes you. I know how off-putting for some Greek names can be – all those Ys, Ks and PHs. Where possible I have suggested the easiest way for our English-speaking mouths to form them. Modern Greeks will be astonished by what we do to their wonderful names, and German, French, American and other readers – who have their own ways with Ancient Greek – will wonder at some of my suggestions. But that is all they are, suggestions … whether you like to say Eddipus or Eedipus, Epidaurus or Ebeethavros, Philoctetes or Philocteetees, the characters and stories remain the same.

Stephen Fry