The Wisdom of the Ancients, A Series of Mythological Fables


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(4.6 stars; 27 reviews)

"Now I suppose most people will think I am but entertaining myself with a toy, and using much the same kind of licence in expounding the poets’ fables which the poets themselves did in inventing them; and it is true that if I had a mind to vary and relieve my severer studies with some such exercise of pleasure for my own or my reader’s recreation, I might very fairly indulge in it. But that is not my meaning. Not but that I know very well what pliant stuff fable is made of, how freely it will follow any way you please to draw it, and how easily with a little dexterity and discourse of wit meanings which it was never meant to bear may be plausibly put upon it. Neither have I forgotten that there has been old abuse of the thing in practice; that many, wishing only to gain the sanction and reverence of antiquity for doctrines and inventions of their own, have tried to twist the fables of the poets into that sense; and that this is neither a modern vanity nor a rare one, but old of standing and frequent in use; that Chrysippus long ago, interpreting the oldest poets after the manner of an interpreter of dreams, made them out to be Stoics; and that the Alchemists more absurdly still have discovered in the pleasant and sportive fictions of the transformation of bodies, allusion to experiments of the furnace." - Summary from Bacon's Preface (3 hr 17 min)

Chapters

Preface 10:24 Read by Allie Mandell
Cassandra, Or Divination 3:21 Read by Craig Campbell
Typhon, Or A Rebel 5:44 Read by Craig Campbell
The Cyclops, Or The Ministers Of Terror 3:13 Read by Craig Campbell
Narcissus, Or Self-Love 3:22 Read by Craig Campbell
The River Styx, Or Leagues 4:00 Read by Craig Campbell
Pan, Or Nature 18:59 Read by Craig Campbell
Perseus, Or War 8:28 Read by Craig Campbell
Endymion, Or a Favorite 2:36 Read by Owen Cook
The Sister Of The Giants, Or Fame 1:42 Read by DrPGould
Acteon And Pentheus, Or A Curious Man 3:26 Read by Owen Cook
Orpheus, Or Philosophy 8:05 Read by Craig Campbell
Cœlum, Or Beginnings 5:20 Read by Owen Cook
Proteus, Or Matter 5:01 Read by Craig Campbell
Memnon, Or A Youth Too Forward 2:25 Read by Owen Cook
Tythonus, Or Satiety 2:30 Read by Deon Gines
Juno’s Suitor, Or Baseness 2:19 Read by Deon Gines
Cupid, Or An Atom 9:18 Read by Deon Gines
Diomed, Or Zeal 6:55
Dædalus, Or Mechanical Skill 6:08
Ericthonius, Or Imposture 2:25
Deucalion, Or Restitution 2:03 Read by Craig Campbell
Nemesis, Or The Vicissitude Of Things 4:45 Read by Allie Mandell
Achelous, Or Battle 2:33 Read by Owen Cook
Dionysus, Or Bacchus 10:26 Read by Craig Campbell
Atalanta And Hippomenes, Or Gain 3:09 Read by Owen Cook
Prometheus, Or The State Of Man 28:08 Read by Warren Kati
Icarus And Scylla And Charybdis, Or The Middle Way 4:28 Read by Warren Kati
Sphinx, Or Science 9:06 Read by Warren Kati
Proserpine, Or Spirit 8:53 Read by Allie Mandell
Metis, Or Counsel 2:40 Read by Owen Cook
The Sirens, Or Pleasures 5:21 Read by Abigail Johnston

Reviews

good book well read


(5 stars)

Some readings not great but I think they were always basically understandable