Story of Oedipus the King of The Thebes

 

Oedipus complex

(The swollen-footed)

It refers to the development of emotions aroused in a young child. The term Oedipus complex is a desire for sexual involvement with the parent of the opposite sex. It also means a sense of rivalry with the parent of the same sex. A boy who acts jealous of his mother and tells the father not to touch her. A child who insists on sleeping between parents. A girl who declares she wants to marry her father when she grows up are some examples.

Story of Oedipus the King of The Thebes

Theseus was the mythical king and founder-hero of Athens. Athens is the capital and largest city of Greece. Athens dominates the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, with its recorded history spanning over 3,400 years.  Theseus had a role in history. It has been called "a major cultural transition, like the making of the new Olympia by Hercules."

While Theseus was reigning over the Athenians, the neighboring throne of Thebes, in Bœotia (A district of Ancient Greece, formerly renowned for the French residents; now, a district in east Central Greece). Boeotia was occupied by King Laius and Queen Jocasta.

Jocasta, in Greek mythology, was the daughter of the king of Thebes, Menoeceus, and sister of Creon.

In those days the people thought they could learn about the future by consulting the oracles, or priests who lived in the temples, who pretended to give people messages from the gods.

King Laius and his queen became eager and wanted to know what would become of him and of his family. King Laius sent rich gifts to the temple at Delphi, asking what would befall him in the coming years. The messenger soon returned, but instead of bringing cheerful news, he tremblingly repeated the oracle's words: "King Laius, you will have a son who will murder his father, marry his mother, and bring destruction upon his native city!"

Wailing! The King Laius groans. But the king’s sex urge was ridiculous. The king Laius decides to keep sleeping with his wife despite this prophecy. Eventually, queen Jocasta gets pregnant and gives birth to a bouncing baby boy.

This news filled the king's heart with horror; and when, a few months later, a son was born to him, he made up his mind to kill him rather than let him live to commit such fearful crimes. But King Laius was too gentle to harm a babe, and so ordered a servant to carry the child out of the town and put him to death.

The man obeyed the first part of the king's orders; but when he had come to a lonely spot on the mountain, he could not make up his mind to kill the poor little babe. Thinking that the child would soon die if left on this lonely spot, the servant tied him to a tree, and, going back to the city, reported that he had got rid of him.

No further questions were asked, and all thought that the child was dead. It was not so, however. His cries had attracted the attention of a passing shepherd, who carried him home, and being too poor to keep him, took him to the King of Corinth. As the king had no children, he gladly adopted the little boy.

When the queen saw that the child's ankles were swollen by the cord by which he had been hung to the tree, she tenderly cared for him, loved him, and called him Oedipus, which means "the swollen-footed." This nickname clung to the boy, who grew up thinking that the King and Queen of Corinth were his real parents.

Once, when Oedipus was traveling toward Thebes, he encountered king Laius, who provoked a quarrel in which Oedipus killed him. Continuing his way, Oedipus found Thebes plagued by the Sphinx. A sphinx is a mythical creature with the head of a human and the body of a lion with the wings of a falcon. The Sphinx had put a riddle to all passersby and destroyed those who could not answer. Oedipus solved the riddle, and the Sphinx killed herself. In reward, he received the throne of Thebes and the hand of the widowed queen, his mother, Jocasta. They had four children. Later, when the truth became known, Jocasta committed suicide.

According to another version, Oedipus after blinding himself, went into exile, accompanied by two sons, leaving his brother-in-law as replacement. Oedipus died near Athens, where he was swallowed into the earth and became a guardian hero of the land. The ancient story has intense dramatic appeal. Oedipus appears in the folk traditions of Albania, Finland, Cyprus, and Greece.

Ref: The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

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Lion in Love with a Brahmin Girl

 Lion in Love with a Brahmin Girl

Lion in Love with a Brahmin Girl

A lion once fell in love with a beautiful brahmin girl and proposed marriage to her parents. The old couple did not know what to say. They did not like to give their daughter to the Lion, yet they did not wish to enrage the Lion, the King of Beasts. At last, the father of the girl said: “We feel highly honored by your Majesty’s proposal, but you see our daughter is a tender young thing, fair and beautiful. And we fear that in the vigor and vitality of your affection you might possibly do her some injury and wound. The Lion in deep love with the girl listened very carefully to the words of the girl’s parents. The girl’s parents requested the lion and suggested that your Majesty (Mr. Lion), please have your claws removed, and your teeth extracted, then we would gladly consider your proposal truly again.”

The Lion was so much in love that he had his claws trimmed and his big teeth taken out. But when he came again to the parents of the young girl they simply laughed in his face and bade him do his worst.

Moral: Love can conquer the wildest. 

 

Hippocrates

A towering figure in the history of medicine was the physician Hippocrates of Kos (c. 460 – c. 370 BCE), considered the "father of modern medicine." The Hippocratic Corpus is a collection of around seventy early medical works from ancient Greece strongly associated with Hippocrates and his students. Most famously, the Hippocratic’s invented the Hippocratic Oath for physicians. Contemporary physicians swear an oath of office which includes aspects found in early editions of the Hippocratic Oath.

Hippocrates and his followers were first to describe many diseases and medical conditions. Hippocrates and his students systematized the thinking that illness can be explained by an imbalance of blood, phlegm, black bile, and yellow bile. Hippocrates is given credit for the first description of clubbing of the fingers, an important diagnostic sign in chronic lung disease. For this reason, clubbed fingers are sometimes referred to as "Hippocratic fingers".

Hippocrates began to categorize illnesses as acute, chronic, endemic and epidemic. Another of Hippocrates's major contributions may be found in his descriptions of the symptomatology, physical findings, surgical treatment and prognosis of thoracic empyema, i.e. suppuration of the lining of the chest cavity. His teachings remain relevant to present-day students of pulmonary medicine and surgery. Hippocrates was the first documented person to practice cardiothoracic surgery, and his findings are still valid.

Some of the techniques and theories developed by Hippocrates are now put into practice by the fields of Environmental and Integrative Medicine. These include recognizing the importance of taking a complete history which includes environmental exposures as well as foods eaten by the patient which might play a role in his or her illness.

In the 19th century, western medicine was introduced.

The practice of medicine changed in the face of rapid advances in science, as well as new approaches by physicians. Hospital doctors began much more systematic analysis of patients' symptoms in diagnosis. Among the more powerful new techniques were anesthesia, and the development of both antiseptic and aseptic operating theatres. Effective cures were developed for certain endemic infectious diseases. However, the decline in many of the most lethal diseases was due more to improvements in public health and nutrition than to advances in medicine.

Medicine was revolutionized in the 19th century and beyond by advances in chemistry, laboratory techniques, and equipment. Old ideas of infectious disease epidemiology were gradually replaced by advances in bacteriology and virology.

 

Ostrich does not hide its head in the sand

It is a myth. An ostrich does not bury its head in the sand. This myth had been created by the early travelers in Africa. They were responsible for the statement that the ostrich buries its head because it thinks it cannot be seen if it cannot see others. As a matter of fact these great birds are very cautious, careful and watchful and they run away at top speed when they think they are in danger. It is reported, indeed, that if it is accompanied by its chicks, an ostrich sometimes throws itself to the ground in such a way as to give the impression that it is hurt. It does so in order to divert the attention of the hunter from its chicks. Still, even under such circumstances, it does not bury its head in the sand.

Effects of Nuclear weapons

 

Nuclear weapons (effects)

The effects of a nuclear explosion are so awesome that they are difficult to imagine. In 1945, a single atomic bomb destroyed most of the city of Hiroshima, Japan, and killed or injured more than half the people. A second bomb caused similar destruction in the Japanese city of Nagasaki. Most of what people know about the effects of nuclear weapons was learned in these explosions and in tests conducted in isolated areas where no people live.

The effects of a nuclear explosion vary with the yield of the weapon. Scientists are still unsure of all the effects, but they know that a powerful nuclear explosion causes destruction in several main ways.

Blast. The enormous release of energy in a nuclear explosion heats the air very quickly. The hot air expands rapidly, creating a shock wave (or blast) that travels out from the site of the explosion. This blast accounts for half the energy released by the explosion. It can flatten buildings near the explosion site and cause damage for miles around. The force of the explosion can also produce a large crater in the ground.

Heat. A nuclear explosion creates a fireball with temperatures of millions of degrees. The temperatures are high enough to instantly destroy almost anything near the site of the explosion. Heat accounts for about a third of the energy released in the explosion.

 

lotus-eaters

What is the legend of the lotus-eaters?

Lotus flowers have a long, rich history spanning thousands of years. Naturally occurring in many countries in Southeast Asia and Australia, they're also found in ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics, as well as folklore in ancient Greece.

The ancient Greeks told of a strange people that dwelt on the northern coast of Africa. They were called lotus-eaters because they loved to eat the sweet fruit of the lotus tree. This fruit made them lazy; they dreamed away their days. Strangers who ate the lotus fruit also became lazy, and forgot their homes and kindred; they longed to remain in this pleasant land.

In Homer's Greek epic poem the ODYSSEY, it is said that Odysseus and his men came to this wondrous land. Some of the crew ate freely of the lotus fruit and it had upon them the usual effect. They were so unwilling to depart that Odysseus had to have them dragged away to their ships by force.

Among the poems there is a lovely version of this legend, THE LOTOS-EATERS, by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. Nowadays we call a person who gives himself up to daydreams and idles and sleeps  the days away a lotus-eater.

It is generally thought that the lotus tree, which was so famous in Greek fable, was a shrub that grows rather freely in the western Mediterranean area. It is called Zizyphus lotus; it has a pulpy fruit.

The lotus flower and bud were favorite designs in Egyptian and Hindu art and architecture. We sometimes spell lotus in the Greek way -lotos.

Lotus also grow in the lakes. Nelumbo nucifera, also known as Indian lotus, sacred lotus, or simply lotus, is one of two surviving species of aquatic plant in the family Nelumbonaceae. It is sometimes colloquially called a water lily, though this more often refers to members of the family Nymphaeaceae. 

For centuries, the lotus flower has been depicted in different religions and countries around the world. Miraculously growing in the murkiest of conditions, the lotus is a lucky symbol that's revered for its strength, spirit and of course, its beauty.

The lotus flower appears on some of the earliest Buddhist and Jain imagery we have in South Asia, going as far back as the time of Emperor Ashoka around 250 BCE. lotuses were also used in Buddhist stupas (spherical shrines) as early as 180 BCE, "as a source and support for a goddess who is eventually known as Lakshmi." Because the lotus was also popular among the Indo-Greeks (an ancient nomadic people of Eurasia), it's "unclear geographically where the image first arose," but by the first few centuries of the Common Era, "it is well established to see the Buddha, Jinas, and Hindu gods and goddesses emerging from lotus flowers." Today, the lotus is the national flower of both India and Vietnam.

 

 

 

 

What were the enchanted islands?

 

What were the enchanted islands?

Las Islas Encantadas-the enchanted or be witched islands was the name that Spanish sailors gave the Galápagos Islands when they were first discovered in 1535. The Spaniards were mystified by the desolate, volcanic islands, with their strange forms of animal life. They thought that the islands were not real, but only "shadows" of is lands. Although the islands then were uninhabited, evidence later was found of earlier settlement by South American Indians.

The name Galápagos (from the Spanish for "tortoises") was adopted by mapmakers, based on descriptions of the many giant tortoises, or land turtles, found on the islands. The islands' other distinctive animals include rare flightless cormorants (fish-catching sea birds), penguins, land and marine iguanas (large lizards), and numerous species of finches and other birds.

The animals were of special interest to the British naturalist Charles Darwin, who visited the islands in 1835. The many varieties of finches, in particular, provided Darwin with a clue to his theory of evolution.

The true finches are small to medium-sized passerine birds.  Passerine birds relate to or denote birds of a large order distinguished by feet that are adapted for perching, including all songbirds. Finches have stout conical bills adapted for eating seeds and nuts and often have colorful plumage.

Since 1832 the islands have been administered by Ecuador, which first colonised them. They are a province of Ecuador, officially known as the Archipelago de Colón. The dwindling number of animals on the islands are protected by the Ecuadorian Government.