An Update and Changes

Hello there!

We’ve been terrible at blogging these past couple of months, haven’t we?

Every time we get busy the blog is the first thing to take the blow, despite the fact that we really love blogging.

We are gonna be better, promise!

So, not much happened since the last (actual) blog post, which was early September...ouch!

We are working on the book, we had some really cool new ideas, some of which we’ll probably be sharing soon, and that’s about it.

Now, onto the important news: we’ve decided to move the blog to tumblr, since it seems more fitting with how this entire project is turning out to be.

So, here’s the new address http://theerosandpsycheproject.tumblr.com/ and hopefully we’ll see you there!

Doodling in between

First things first: this is not really a post.

I drew a couple of sketches of Leto the other day (mother of Apollo and Artemis) and I thought I would share

Pregnant Leto in the island of Delos

Giving birth with the help of Rhea and Amphitrite

That's all for now!

Chocolate Factory

Hello! 

It has been a while since I lastly wrote anything in this blog so I thought it was about time that I did :-)

Taking a break from our mythological subject, I'd like to share with you our (Myrto's and mine) latest outing. Myrto visited Thessaloniki (my hometown) last weekend and as per usual we had a great time!

Even if Myrto visiting is an exciting fact on its’ own, the reason why she came was even more exciting.

Every year Thessaloniki holds the HELEXPO (which, obviously, is a part of the EXPO), so for this year one of the exhibitions was called "Chocolate Factory" and, as you might have guessed by now, its’ subject was, well, chocolate!

Part of the "Factory" is a photography exhibition which held a contest as to who the participants would be. Guess who got to participate in the exhibition?? Myrto!!

I believe you can tell why we were so excited about this! A big CONGRATULATIONS to Myrto and let's hope that many more occasions like this will follow ;-)

An outer view of the Chocolate Factory

Myrto, me and our friends Oli and Dimitris in front of the chocolate waterfall

Imagine this wonderful setup with the amazing smell of chocolate and biscuit!

And there is Myrto's picture!! (those in the picture are my glasses as a matter of fact)

Mythological Couples: Idas and Marpessa

Greetings everyone!

After quite some time, we're talking about mythological couples again. Marpessa and Idas have quite an interesting story, so let's get right into it! 

Marpessa was a very beautiful and noble girl, daughter of Evenus and Alcippe. Evenus did not want her married to anyone, so he devised a plan to get rid of all aspiring suitors: any man wishing to marry Marpessa would first have to defeat him in a chariot race; if they failed, they would be decapitated.

Evenus was sure of his success, because his horses were strong and fierce, given to him by his father, Ares.

Many men lost their lives in the chariot race; and many did not even dare to compete with Evenus. There was a man though, Idas, the prince of Messene, who though he could win the race; he owned a winged chariot, a gift to him by Poseidon himself, so he figured he stood a pretty good chance against Evenus.

He did win, so naturally he demanded to marry Marpessa, as Evenus had promised. Evenus refused, but Idas would have none of that. He kidnapped Marpessa and set off for his homeland. Evenus went after them, but when he realised he could not stop them, he drowned himself in a nearby river.

Idas and Marpessa eventually reached Messene. They spent the night in a nearby temple, but upon waking up the next morning, Idas realised that Marpessa had gone missing.

Here's Apollo fighting Idas for Marpessa. (more details can be found here)
Surprisingly enough there are very few depictions in art, and this was the only one properly referenced, so we're sharing.

It turned out that Apollo, who had also fallen in love with the beautiful maiden, had stolen her. Idas, completely enraged, ran after them, prepared to fight to death in order to get Marpessa back.

They fought for hours; Apollo might be a god, but Idas was an extremely skilled warrior too so none of them was yielding. Knowing that neither was going to win, Zeus decided to put an end to their battle. He stopped them and asked Marpessa to choose between the two; the choice would be hers alone.

Marpessa was confused. A god wanted her, so naturally she was flattered. Apollo was handsome and powerful and he could give her the world. But he also would never grow old, while she would. Sure, Apollo loved her now that she was young and beautiful; once she grew old and lost her beauty, someone else would catch his eye and he would lose interest in her and dismiss her.

On the other side, Idas might be mortal and not nearly as handsome as Apollo, but he had proved his love for her; he was so determined to marry her, he had even fought against a god for her sake! She had a better chance at a long-lasting and faithful relationship with him. .

Instantly, she knew what to do. She turned down Apollo and chose Idas as her husband. Surprisingly, Apollo, although defeated, made a promise to never seek revenge.

With nothing else standing in their way, Idas and Marpessa finally got married and lived happily ever after.

Until next time!

Acrocorinth

Hi all!

You know how it’s summer and people go on vacation and usually take a break from things, right?

That was our case too, for the most part. You see, both Eirini and I had plans for this summer (because everyone needs to rest at some point), but, the thing is, we didn’t really want to take a break from blogging, so we had planned a few entries ahead in order to still have something new to upload while on vacation.

So today’s entry was actually all planned out and sorted, until I decided to “hijack” the blog and do a spontaneous entry about my visit to Acrocorinth, the Acropolis of Ancient Corinth. On that note, Eirini, I am sorry (not really, because I know you'll enjoy it :-D) for uploading an entry without consulting with you first.

Acrocorinth is one of the most impressive of the Acropoleis of Greece, both because of its’ position and geomorphology, but also because of its’ history. It was continuously occupied from archaic times to the early 19th century. Because of that continuity, one can see remains from various time periods, which makes it really exciting. Not to mention that it has three sets of walls: the Archaic one, the Byzantine one and the Frankish one.

How’s that relevant to the project you ask? Well, I was reading a book about the lowlifes of the ancient world (yeah, I read things like that for fun!) and I read that at some point there was a temple dedicated to Aphrodite there.

Naturally, I did some more research and found out that that temple was one of Aphrodite’s most famous ones. There was a statue of her and one of a winged Eros too; of course I wanted to go. So I got my dad and my sister to join me and off we went!

Since Acrocorinth was continuously occupied, over the course of the years the temple changed uses; first it was turned into a church and then into a mosque and, sadly, today one can only see the foundations of the temple.

The remains of Aphrodite's temple...

...the highest point with the gorgeous view (it's said that on a very clear day one can see the Acropolis in Athens)...

...and the replica of the statue.

According to mythology, Helios owned Acrocorinth and the entire area surrounding it; his son, Aeëtes , inherited everything but Acrocorinth, which Helios offered to Aphrodite as a gift.

She much preferred Mount Olympus though, so she gifted Acrocorinth to Medea, Aeëtes’s daughter. Medea built a temple dedicated to Aphrodite to the highest point of Acrocorinth. It was nothing fancy, and didn’t have many visitors until they managed to get running water up that hill (there’s a very interesting myth about it, which you can read here), and it sort of became an “in” place.

Sacred prostitution was practiced here, which, simply put, meant that Aphrodite’s priestesses were paid to introduce men to the mysteries of love. Also, in antiquity, Corinthians prostitutes were famous. People travelled from all over the world and paid insane amounts of money for a single night of pleasure, so it makes perfect sense that Aphrodite was worshipped here.

Until next time!

Soul Talk

Hi all!

After almost eight months of blogging, we realised that we haven’t given Psyche the attention she deserves; we’ve talked about Eros and his common depiction in art, we even discussed his wings! For some strange reason we neglected Psyche, so today we are fixing that!

Now, in case you aren’t aware of it, in art sometimes Psyche is depicted having butterfly wings.

Love and Psyche (William Adolphe Bougerau - 1899)

Psyche (Friedrich Paul Thumann- 1893)

We were curious about it too, so we looked into it (of course!) and that was one of the turning points for our research.

In Greek, Psyche (=Ψυχή) means literally means “soul”; ancient Greeks used to call butterflies “souls” (“ψυχές”), because they believed that were the souls of the dead.

The metamorphosis of the insect to a butterfly symbolises the course of soul from its mortal state to immortality. That same symbolization is used quite often when interpreting the myth too.

Psyche (Guillaume Seignac - 1900)

Psyche (Guillaume Seignac)

Psyche, a mortal girl, overcomes death and gains immortality through Eros’s love. She starts off as naïve and childlike; she falls in love, but being unprepared for it, she makes mistakes and loses Eros’ love. So she is forced to grow and leave her old self behind, so she can make amends and claim that love again, which eventually makes her immortal. So, her old self has to die, so she can be “reborn” through divine love, pretty much like a soul (a butterfly!) that leaves the mortal state behind.

Psyche (Wilhelm Kray)

The Awakening of Psyche (Guillaume Seignac - 1904)

And here’s a little fun fact too; as I was re-reading the entry, checking for mistakes and such, this was going through my head: “Oh dear, we must be completely crazy wanting to adapt this myth!” :-p

Psyche (Nikolaos Gyzis - 1893)

But then I remembered that we are indeed a tiny bit crazy (just the right amount) and how much we enjoy a good challenge, so, all’s good! ;-)

Until next time!

The Writing Process

Hi all!

So, Eirini has already talked about how she goes about drawing a scene, so we figured it's about time I talked about how I go about writing, so here goes.

Let me start by saying that working on an adaptation is quite different than working on an original story. When you are working on an adaptation, you are working within a fixed frame and while you can alter things, it’s only up to a certain degree.

You already know where your story starts and where it ends and you know your heroes too, so you are already “limited” in a way, whereas in an original story, the possibilities are (theoretically) countless.

Having said that, allow me to further explain; I am only going to talk about writing for this project, because I wouldn't want to bore you to death talking about the Victorian Project we are also working on. :-p

So, the "easiest" for me to write are the stories for the "Mythological Couples" series, because it usually goes like this: I study the myth (if I don't know it already) and make a few keynotes about the characters first; and then I re-read it, trying to figure out the dynamics between the characters, because I strongly believe that if you've got them right, they will guide you through the story. 

And then of course I have to decide if I will be making a story based on the entire myth (like I did with Daphnis and Chloe) or I'll just focus on a particular part of their story (like I did with Perseus and Andromeda)

Naturally, I always keep in mind that there's an illustration that goes along with each of the stories, so they have to go nicely together. See, the "deal" Eirini and I have about these stories is this: whoever comes up with an idea about the couple first, we go with that.

For instance, when we did the story about Meleager and Atalanta, I had finished the story first and the illustration followed, but when we did Perseus and Andromeda, Eirini had done the illustration first and I built the story around that (of course that's not a new thing for us; I've written countless things based on one of Eirini's sketches, so no surprises there).

The same things, more or less, apply to the myth of Eros and Psyche as well, multiplied by a thousand, quite possibly two. :-p

What's different about that myth is the insane amount of research that goes with it: past adaptations, papers on the heroes' emotional growth and change, psychological analyses, symbolisation and meaning; you name it, we've read it! :-p

This myth is a very beautiful one; and at the same time so very difficult. When writing the adaptation, I always try my hardest to keep its' messages intact, and, at the same time, "own" the myth, so the way we perceive it is made pretty obvious too. And to top all that, I have to make sure that my personal writing style is not getting lost in there somewhere. Piece of cake, right? :-p

Honestly? No. But I am not complaining; just because it's not easy, that doen't mean it's not worth it.

Until next time!

A Girl's Guide to Fashion, Ancient Greece style!

Hi all!

I think we’ve already said so (and even if we haven’t, it’s easily deductable), but one of the things we enjoy most about working on this project is the insane amount of research we do; yeah, we’re nerds, and we love every minute of it! :-p

But it’s more than that; when it comes down to it, it’s all about delivering the best possible result we can, simple as that.

Sooo, a while back, when we were still trying to figure out hairstyles and clothes for Eros and Psyche, as a result of the aforementioned research, Eirini did some doodles of ancient greek hairstyles and clothes, all drawn after original drawings on ancient greek vases, and today we'll be showing you the girls' collection! :-p 

Of course you’ve might have already seen them online, since they are uploaded on her dA page here (along with loads of other awesome art - and no, I am not biased!)  for a while now, but anyway here goes: Hairstyles and Dresses, ancient Greece style!

Part one of hairstyles...

...part two...

...and of course the collection wouldn't be complete without a few dresses thrown in for good measure. 

And in case you’re wondering why we didn’t make an entry about those back in March when Eirini uploaded the dresses, we forgot…kinda? :-p

See you all next week!

Dion

Greetings!

Let me start by saying that if you are like me and enjoy going to museums and archaeological sites, do yourself a favour and pick an archaeologist as a companion. :-p

I know it’s stereotyping, but it’s their thing, you know? They are more likely to pay attention, they won’t get tired and grouchy (you may even have trouble keeping up with them at times…just sayin’), and they’ll be great at explaining things.

So yeah, Eirini, now you know the true reasons I wanted to go on this trip to Dion with you! :-p

Seriously now, Dion is one of the most gorgeous archaeological sites in Greece, albeit a bit underappreciated. It is located at the foot of Mount Olympus and its’ name comes from the sanctuary dedicated to Zeus (Δίας in Greek -or Dias in its’ latinised form). 

The ruins of Zeus's temple

Besides the temple dedicated to Zeus, there is a temple dedicated to Demeter and one dedicated to Isis, the Egyptian goddess (the cult of Isis was introduced to traditional centres of worship in Greece after the conquest of Egypt by Alexander the Great). And there's also a theatre, the ruins of the walls and the city adjacent to the sacred site.

The ruins of Demeter's temple.

The ruins of Isis's temple

The entire site has this fantastic energy about it, that makes it very easy to realise why it was considered a sacred place. Rich vegetation, fantastic trees, springs, a river, Mount Olympus, the ruins of an ancient city; the photographer in me was very excited about it all; and the nerd too! :-D

If anyone's interested in drawing a jungle, we can provide the pictures. :-p

Since it was mid-July already, any sane person would go out bright and early to avoid heat;  that’s not our style though. :-p

We arrived sometime close to noun, when the sun was already high in the sky, and we walked around for almost three hours, which resulted in sunburn and a minor heatstroke too; and because clearly, who cares about that, that was the day we ate the stew we mentioned in the previous entry. (...yep, completely mental!)

Theatre ruins

City ruins

Still, the heat didn’t stop us from taking our time to explore the site (“we are walking through an actual ancient city, how cool is that?”), taking a million pictures and talking -once again- about all topics imaginable; thankfully no one could understand what we were saying (because there weren’t any other Greeks around), otherwise that would have been a tiiiny bit embarrassing at some points. :-p   

And here's the traditional selfie too; not bad at all! :-)

Now, although I’ve been to Dion before, I’ve always wanted to go back; and really, I don’t think I’d enjoy it this much the second time around, had I gone with anyone else but Eirini; not because she’s an archaeologist and she had worked on an excavation there (that was just an added bonus, because it felt like I had my own private guide :-p), but because we are interested in the same things, and that made touring the site a lot more exciting.  

And of course, Eirini had first thought about drawing the myth of Eros and Psyche there; how could I not want to Dion with her? In a way, it all started there! :-)

Until next time! 

Cook with Us

Hi all!

How about another “these girls must be slightly mental” post? :-p

Sooo, I just got back from visiting with Eirini. This time around, my visit was planned; a couple of weeks back we scheduled a day trip to Dion (where Eirini first got the idea for Psyche, remember?), so on Thursday evening I, once again, found myself on a plane flying to Thessaloniki.

We’ve had an amazing time (but then again, we always do, so no surprise there); we caught up with each other’s news in person, got to work on the project, teased each other mercilessly and laughed quite a lot. :-p

We will be talking about Dion on our next post though, because today we are talking about something entirely different (and completely irrelevant), but still a lot of fun; at least for us it was. We haven’t mentioned so before, but both Eirini and I enjoy cooking; we’ve been wanting to cook together for ages now, but we never managed to do so before. But finally we did it!

One of the things we wanted to make was a Charlotte cake; see, Charlotte cakes have a sort of special meaning for us. They are a Victorian dish and we happen to be working on a Victorian project (aside from this one) and our main heroine is called Charlotte. So, how could we resist? :-p

So we went on and made one. Of course, we had to improvise a bit since we couldn’t find berries or strawberries or any of the fruit commonly used to make them, but it was still all right (=edible). Apparently cherries don’t work that well. ;-)

Once the Charlotte cake was done, we went on and cooked some more. We are both fans of the “Hunger Games” series, so when we came across “The Unofficial Hunger Games Cookbook” by Emily Ansara Baines, we were pretty excited.

We tried two of the recipes included in it:

“The Boy with the Bread: Hearty Raisin Nut Bread”, which is awesome! Very easy to make, since the instructions are extremely detailed, and it tastes amazing! We even fed some ducks at Dion with it and they agreed too!  :-p

“Katniss’s favorite Lamb Stew with Dried Plums”. This was an easy recipe despite the many ingredients. Once again we improvised though and used beef, since neither of us likes lamp. It was still very tasty, so what does it matter? And yes, we did eat a stew in July!

Aaaand that’s about it for today; the next entry will be coming shortly and it will be all about Dion!

Goodbye until then!

Mythology with a Twist: Perseus and Andromeda

Perseus could not wait to get home and shove Medusa’s head into the King’s face; that would teach him a lesson for thinking him as weak!

Admittedly, he could have never done it on his own; hadn’t it been for Athena, he’d still be trying to figure a way to get to Medusa’s cave.

Not only she had instructed him on how to get to Medusa and kill her, but she had equipped him with all these extraordinary weapons too.

Athena herself had offered him her shield; Hades had provided a helm that turned him invisible at will; Hermes had given him winged sandals. Not to mention he had killed Medusa using Zeus’s sword; how many mortals could claim the same?

The desperate pleas for help coming from somewhere below him, brought him out of his reverie.

He stopped midair and took a good look around; he spotted a girl chained to a rock mid-ocean and some sort of sea monster swimming in circles around the small rock-island she was chained on.

This was not looking good at all.

What could she have possibly done?

He shook his head; whatever it was, she didn’t deserve to die in such a way.

Quickly, he made up his mind. He made a dive, directing himself towards the rock.

“Keep your eyes closed fair maiden.” He called to her and took out Medusa’s head from the satchel he was keeping it in.

Holding it out in front of him as a shield, Perseus landed between the girl and the serpent; instantly it turned to stone. Without even a second thought, he took out his sword and slew the monster for good measure.

He took a deep breath and smiled; it had worked!

Little did they know, but Eros had chosen that particular moment to pay them a visit; at Athena’s request, he’d be keeping an eye on Perseus for some time now, trying to find him a suitable match; this girl, Andromeda, was just right for him. And, in turn, Perseus was the kind of man she deserved.

He took out an arrow, aimed and shot; Perseus first.

“Excuse me,” the girl said, trying to catch his attention, “but could you-?” she asked, pointing at her chained hands.

Perseus turned to look at her and colour rose to his cheeks; in the heat of the moment he had not noticed she was not wearing any clothes.

But that hardly mattered; with or without clothes on, she was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen!

“Oh, er, sure.” He replied, blushing slightly. “Just let me put this away first.”

He collected his satchel from where he had tossed it earlier and tucked Medusa’s head inside. Carelessly, he dropped it back to the ground and made to remove his helmet; Eros smiled. It was Andromeda’s turn now.

Eros’s arrow hit her at the exact moment Perseus was taking off Hades’s helm.

He was sweaty, he had not shaved in a while and his dark hair was mated to his forehead, but Andromeda had never seen anyone looking so handsome before.

They simply stood there, looking stupidly at each other. Eros grinned, obviously pleased with himself. He rose off the ground, and flew off; his work here was done. They’d figure the rest on their own.

“I’ll try to be quick.” Perseus said and closed the distance between them.

“Sorry?” Andromeda said.

“Your chains?”

Andromeda blushed. “Right, sorry.”

“Step back.” Perseus instructed as he raised his sword; had he been using any other sword he’d be worried about hurting her, but not with Zeus’s sword.

He struck on her chains and, in only a matter of seconds, Andromeda was free.

“Thank you.” She said, rubbing her wrists.

“It was nothing.” Perseus replied, dropping his eyes to the ground.

Suddenly, it dawned to him; he knelt to the ground, rummaged through his satchel and fished out his cloak.

“Here.” He said awkwardly as he handed it to her.

Gratefully, she took it and wrapped it around herself.

“So, what did you do exactly to deserve such a punishment?”

“My parents, Cepheus and Cassiopeia are King and Queen of Aethiopia. My mother kept bragging that I was more beautiful that the Nereids, so Poseidon got angry at her and sent this monster against our country. When my father asked the oracle, Apollo said I was to be sacrificed.”

“Can’t say I blame her.” Perseus said under his breath, but Andromeda had heard him; she flushed scarlet.

Perseus noticed, and he, too, blushed in turn.

“Now, you’ve told me your story,” he said, trying to change the subject, “but you have not given me your name yet.”

“Andromeda.” She replied. “And yours? I think I am entitled to know the name of my savior.”

“I am Perseus, milady; at your service.”

She blushed again.

“And talking about services, I think it’s time to take you back to your parents, don’t you agree?”

***

Needless to say, a big feast was thrown in honour of the man who had saved the princess from certain death.

Once the majority of the guests had left, Cepheus asked to be left alone with Perseus in his throne room, so they could talk.

“Now, kind stranger, you’ve saved my daughter from a horrible fate, and for that I will be eternally grateful. I shall grant you anything you ask me for.”

“My lord; there is only one thing I want.”

“Go on.” Cepheus urged.

“I want to make your daughter my wife.”

“I…”

“You’ve said I could ask for anything.” Perseus insisted.

“I am sorry, lad, but she’s already promised to someone else.”

“Pardon me my lord, but where was he, when that monster was about to eat her alive? Shouldn’t he at least attempt to save her?”

Cepheus fell silent and thought things through. Perseus was right.

“You may marry Andromeda.” He said finally. “On the condition she agrees to marry you.”

“Fair enough.” Perseus responded.

“Very well then.” Cepheus said and stood. “I’ll be back shortly.”

Perseus nodded; he couldn’t wait!

***

Cepheus knocked on his daughter’s door and shortly afterwards, his wife answered.

He smiled; he knew he’d find them both here.

“Cepheus, what’s the matter?”

He stepped inside and closed the door behind him.

“Perseus has named his price.” He said.

“And?” Cassiopeia asked. “What did he ask for?”

“He wishes to marry Andromeda; if she agrees of course.”

Andromeda perked up upon hearing those words; she had been afraid they’d make her marry that old goat he’d been after her for ages now.

“But what about Phineus?”

“I will deal with him.” Cepheus said calmly. “If he cared for Andromeda, he would have at least tried to save her; he has no right to speak. So, my dear child, what do you think?”

Andromeda was elated, but tried really hard to keep her composure. “He saved me from that monster, so my life is his anyway; of course I will marry him.”

“Very well then.” Cepheus said, obviously pleased. “I will let him know and we can start with the preparations in the morning.”

“Yes, father.” Andromeda said obediently.

“Don’t stay up too long.” He advised and moved to the door.

Cassiopeia shook her head at how naïve her husband was. Did he really expect that their daughter would prefer to marry a man twice her age, when she could marry a man young and strong? And handsome too!

“Well done.” She said approvingly and winked at her daughter.

Andromeda blushed to the roots of her hair. “I am sure I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Sure you don’t.” Cassiopeia said and moved to the door. “Sleep tight.”

***

Perseus couldn’t sleep. He jumped to his feet, got dressed and made his way to the garden.

He wandered aimlessly for a bit, but he didn’t mind. It was such a beautiful night; the moon was so bright and it was almost as if the stars were sparkling tonight.

He could hardly contain his excitement. A couple more days and he would be married to Andromeda.

Perseus chuckled. A few weeks back, he set out to kill Medusa; how in Gaia’s name did he manage to find himself a wife in the process too?

“Hi.” Andromeda said, suddenly appearing next to him out of thin air.

“Hi.” He said back. “You’ve startled me.”

“What were you thinking about?”

“You.” Perseus said boldly, making her blush.

“What about me?” She asked, but Perseus did not reply; he was looking at her in a way that excited her beyond words.

Before she had time to react, he had taken her in his arms and was kissing her; it only took her a few moments to follow his lead and kiss him back.

“I should go back inside.” She said breathlessly once they broke apart.

“Wait.” Perseus said and grabbed for her hand.

“What? Someone might see us.” She protested half-heartedly.

“These couple of days will seem like an eternity.”

Andromeda gave him a wide smile. Perseus smiled back and dropped her hand.

“We’ll manage.” She said and turned around to leave.

“Just barely!” Perseus called after her.

She grinned; her thoughts exactly.