Word Finder - mythological

definition

Of, or relating to myths or mythology.

definition

Legendary.

definition

Imaginary.

It is true that the serpent of Eden has mythological affinities.

Euphorion and Rhianus wrote mythological epics.

The age was prolific of epics, both historical and mythological, and that of Varro seems to have held a high rank among them.

The prose literature of Siam consists largely of mythological and historical fables, almost all of which are of Indian origin, though many of them have come to Siam through Cambodia.

But when Greek deities were introduced into Rome on the advice of the Sibylline books (in 495 B.C., on the occasion of a severe drought), Demeter, the Greek goddess of seed and harvest, whose worship was already common in Sicily and Lower Italy, usurped the place of Ceres in Rome, or rather, to Ceres were added the religious rites which the Greeks paid to Demeter, and the mythological incidents which originated with her.

Some kittens have even been named after mythological creatures.

These mythological ideas and symbols of the American aborigines were woven in their textiles, painted on their robes and furniture, burned into their pottery, drawn in sand mosaics on deserts, and perpetuated in the only sculptures.

The 12th century in Constantinople is marked by the name of Tzetzes (c. r r ro-c. 1180), the author of a mythological, literary and historical miscellany called the Chiliades, in the course of which he quotes more than four hundred authors.

His mythological or pastoral dramas, his great satiric epos of Adam Homo (1841-1848), his comedies, his lyrics, and above all his noble philosophic tragedy of Kalanus, prove the immense breadth of his compass, and the inexhaustible riches of his imagination.

The "great fish" especially has a very mythological appearance.

It appears their vision of the Festival is also mythological.

In his fondness for mythological subjects (Hercules, Theseus) and his introduction on the stage (by a bold anachronism) of the poets Archilochus and Hipponax as rivals of Sappho, he approximates to the spirit of the latter.

For it strikingly illustrates the fact that the temple of En-lil, like that of the Sun-god at Sippar and the other great temples in Babylonia, possessed a body of mythological and religious texts, which formed subjects for study and comment among the priestly scribes.

The Thebaid of Antimachus, however, was not popular, and seems to have been a great storehouse of mythological learning rather than a poem of the Homeric school.

The confusion which previous scholars had made between the ancient post-Homeric poets (Arctinus, Lesches, &c.) and the learned mythological writers (such as the " scriptor cyclicus " of Horace) was first cleared up by Welcker.

The literary documents, both in Sanskrit and Pali, dating from about the time of Buddha onwards - particularly the two epic poems, the Mahabharata and Ramayana - still show us in the main the personnel of the old pantheon; but the character of the gods has changed; they have become anthropomorphized and almost purely mythological figures.

In addition to such essentially mythological conceptions, we meet in the religious life of this period with an element of more serious aspect in the two gods, on one or other of whom the religious fervour of the large majority of Hindus has ever since concentrated itself, viz.

An ambitious didactic composition in hexameters, entitled Urania, embodying the astronomical science of the age, and adorning this high theme with brilliant mythological episodes, won the admiration of Italy.

Along with these works may be classed the curiously learned piece, De Sapientia Veterum, in which he works out a favourite idea, that the mythological fables of the Greeks were allegorical and concealed the deepest truths of their philosophy.

Another important tract is the De Principiis atque Originibus secundum Fabulas Cupidinis et Caeli, where, under the disguise of two old mythological stories, he (in the manner of the Sapientia Veterum) finds the deepest truths concealed.

Sensier at this date (1850) Millet expressed his resolve to break once and for all with mythological and undraped subjects, and the names of the principal works painted subsequently will show how steadfastly this resolution was kept.

Cinna's chief work was a mythological epic poem called Smyrna, the subject of which was the incestuous love of Smyrna (or Myrrha) for her father Cinyras, treated after the manner of the Alexandrian poets.

They are either mythological travesties (resembling the satyric drama of Athens) or character comedies.

Etymology was pressed into the service, and the wildest conjectures as to the meaning of names did duty as a basis for mythological explanations.

Dates were assigned even to mythological occurrences, because Varro believed in the theory of Euhemerus, that all the beings worshipped as gods had once lived as men.

The scenes are partly mythological (labours of Heracles), partly purely heraldic. Eighteen panels were transported to the Louvre in 1838; other fragments rewarded the Americans, and a scientific ground-plan was drawn.

The engraved subjects are chiefly mythological.

It is to be noted that Hecate plays little or no part in mythological legend.

Even here the mythological tendency displays itself - vow-6,, and alcrenra being severally committed to Atropos, Lachesis and Clotho.

The Pentactaea, at all events as it sprang from the brain of Semon, must pass to the limbo of mythological ancestors.

It was written by the author for the benefit of his son Eustathius (or Eustachius), and contains a great variety of curious historical, mythological, critical and grammatical disquisitions.

Some of the titles of his plays, Danaides, Actaeon, Alcestis, Tantalus, show that he treated mythological as well as contemporary subjects.

Unless the mythological key can also explain Haman and Vashti, it is of no use.

Following the real or fancied light of these names, Prof. Jensen holds that the Esther-legend is based on a mythological account of the victory of the Babylonian deities over those of Elam, which in plain prose means the deliverance of ancient Babylonia from its Elamite oppressors, and that such an account was closely connected with the Babylonian New Year's festival, called Zagmuk, just as the Esther-legend is connected with the festival of Purim.

While shrewdness, plain straightforwardness, and a certain stern way of looking at life are common to both, the Icelandic school adds a complexity of structure and ornament, an elaborate mythological and enigmatical phraseology, and a regularity of rhyme, assonance, luxuriance, quantity and syllabification, which it caught from the Latin and Celtic poets, and adapted with exquisite ingenuity to its own main object, that of securing the greatest possible beauty of sound.

But in the mythological account of Cagn given by Qing he appears as a kind of grasshopper, supernaturally endowed, the hero of a most absurd cycle of senseless adventures.

The abbe Banier published a mythological compilation in which he systematically resolved all the Greek myths into ordinary history.

It is no longer necessary to give an elaborate analysis of this theory, because neither in its philological nor mythological side has it any advocates who need be reckoned with.

These human beings are often sacrificed, for various reasons, actual or hypothetical, and gods and heroes are almost as likely to be explained as spirits of vegetation now, as they were likely to become solar mythological figures in the system of Max Muller.

The Zulus are so absorbed in propitiating the shades of their dead (who, though in serpentine bodies, have human dispositions) that they appear to take little pleasure in mythological narratives.

Turning from the natives of Australia, and from African races of various degrees of culture, to the Papuan inhabitants of Melanesia, we find that mythological ideas are scarcely on a higher level.

The Ahts, however, differ but little in their mythological beliefs from the races of the Banks Islands or of the New Hebrides.

Now the Vedic deities, so imposing when regarded as vast natural forces (as such forces seem to us), so benignant when appealed to as forgivers of sins, have also their mythological aspect.

It may be mentioned here that on the first of these sites a cuneiform tablet belonging to the Amarna series was discovered; at Gezer, a deed of sale; at Tell-el-Hasy the remains of a Babylonian stele, three seals, and three cylinders with Babylonian mythological representations; at Tell-el-Mutasellim, a seal bearing a Babylonian legend, and at Taannek, twelve tablets and fragments of tablets were found near the fragments of the terracotta box in which they were stored.

From the earliest times the star-groups known as constellations, the smaller groups (parts of constellations) known as asterisms, and also individual stars, have received names connoting some meteorological phenomena, or symbolizing religious or mythological beliefs.

It takes a small amount of research to realize that feng shui is a mightily complex subject - almost mythological in proportion and feel.

The favorite subjects for intaglio include floral elements, animals and even mythological scenes.

Early Christianity's use of the Old Testament regarding Jesus indicates a belief in a historical Jesus rather than indicating a purely mythological savior.

The consciousness of Soviet people became mythological as a result of such ideological repression.

The mythological explanation of the moon's phases was that the eye was healed by the god Thoth.