My team was sharing about weird school memories, and I explained how I learned being the Latin Club president meant I could make a morning announcement whenever I wanted. I began a series called Latin Friday, where I’d read a wildly paired down tl;dr version of a Greek Myth.
They asked me to reinstate this practice. Here’s the first go.
It’s Latin Friday y’all! Time for the story of Zeus turning into a goose.
Zeus approached Queen Leda and they did what people did when Zeus changed forms. A few months later, Queen Leda laid two eggs.
Out of one popped the immortals, Zeus’s kids: Helen (y’all know that name) and Pollux. Helen was the most beautiful woman in the world because Zeus was her dad, but she didn’t get immortality (pay gap if you will?), while Pollux did.
Out of the other egg were her husband’s kids: Clytemnestra and Castor, both mortal but still kids of a powerful Greek king.
Helen and Clytemnestra went on to marry other powerful Greek kings, one started the Trojan war, the other murdered Agamemnon when he came home because he’d sacrificed their daughter for fair sailing winds to get to Troy (after many years, I’m still on Clytemnestra’s side on this one).
She got murdered by her son for it, who was then haunted by the Fates for matricide.
Pollux and Castor were bffs and lovers. They appeared in all the great adventures of the time: Hey! Time to go [insert thing here that ancient wealthy people did on their yachts boats], let’s get Pollux and Castor here!
During one of these adventures, Castor, the mortal one, was shot with an arrow. Pollux wept over his dying body asking to be taken instead because he couldn’t live forever without his bff. Zeus came and said “Ok you’ll share the immortality” and they became the gemini constellation.
I named my kid after this myth (but not telling you which character)🙊
Nota Bene: When you look at how things turned out for the immortalish and mortal girls vs the immortal and eventually immortal boys – DEFINITELY a pay gap.
Nota Bene II: Whenever you think about Castor and Pollux being brothers / twins, know that Pollux and Helen were even more twins, and Castor and Clytemnestra were also even more twins.
#LatinFriday
Puddles of Thought 