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2. Calliope
Since Calliope is the name of the main character, it is mentioned many times in this novel. We can find it even in the first page of Book One as the introduction of
the main character who also the narrator to the reader: “My birth certificate lists my name as Calliope Helen Stephanides
” Eugenides 3. According to the Greek Myths, God Zeus attracts the young woman
Mnemosyne the goddess of memory and sleeps with her for nine consecutive nights. Mnemosyne bears the Nine Muses. The Nine Muses are: Clio, Euterpe,
Thalia, Melpomene, Terpsichore, Erato, Polyhymnia, Urania and Calliope. When they grow up they show their interests in arts, taught by God Apollo himself. Clio is
the muse of history, Euterpe of lyric poetry, Thalia of comedy, Melpomene of tragedy, Terpsichore of choral songs and the dance, Erato of love poetry, Polyhymnia
of sacred poetry, Urania of astronomy, and Calliope of epic poetry. Muse Calliope who is also sometimes called the mother of Hymen the god of
marriage, Ialemus sad song god, the Corybantes, the Sirens, is the superior Muse, the eldest and the wisest. Calliope in Greek means beautiful voice. She accompanies
kings and princes in order to impose justice and serenity. She is the protector of heroic poems and rhetoric art. According to the myth, Homer asks from Calliope to
inspire him while writing Iliad and Odyssey, and thus, Calliope is depicted holding laurels in one hand and the two Homeric poems in the other hand. Simon Vouet in
1634 pictured Calliope in his painting in figure 3.
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Fig.3 Muse Calliope, The Muses Urania and Calliope,1634, Simon Vouet, 22 December 2009, http:www.mlahanas.deGreeksMythologyCalliope.html
3. Hermaphroditus
Hermaphroditus becomes the title of the chapter in Book Four. In that chapter, Hermaphroditus is mentioned many times.
According to Ryan Tuccinardi, Michael Lahanas, Theoi and Myth Encylopedia, Hermaphroditus is the son of Hermes, the messenger of the god, and
Aphrodite, the goddess of love. When Hermaphroditus is fifteen years old, he decides to travel and wanders in unknown lands, visiting the cities of the Lycians and the
Carians, and somewhere he founds a pool with clear water. In the pool lives a nymph, a minor goddess of nature, usually represented as
young and beautiful named Salmacis. When Hermaphroditus approaches the pool, Salmacis immediately falls in love with him and declares openly her love to him.
However, when Hermaphroditus refuses both her love and kisses, Salmacis turns
26 away and leaves, pretending to accept his rejection. Afterwards, Hermaphroditus
thinks that he is alone, dives into the pool and starts swimming. Salmacis then appears again in the waters, holding him fast, stealing kisses, and embracing him. The
more Hermaphroditus tries to escape, the more she clings to him. While she forces him, she prays to the gods not to let them ever be separated. The gods hears the
prayer and merges the two bodies into one. From that day they are no more two persons, they became one neither man nor woman. Hermaphroditus, in his shame and
grief, makes his own vow, cursing the pool so that any other who bathes within it shall be transformed like what happens to him, half man and half woman.
In literary work, he is mentioned in Book IV of Ovids Metamorphose
.
Jan Gossaert made a painting entitled The Transformation of Hermaphroditus and
Salmacis :
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Fig.4 Hermaphroditus and Salmacis, The Transformation of Hermaphroditus and Salmacis,
1st third of 16th century, Jan Gossaert, 29 January 2010, http:www.mlahanas.deGreeksMythologySalmacisJanGossaert.html
4. Minotaur
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