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The Wisdom of the Ancients, A Series of Mythological Fables

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(4,556 Sterne; 27 Bewertungen)

"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

Bewertungen

good book well read

(5 Sterne)

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