“Myths deal with gods, heroes, and demigods. They are created by man’s need to answer his existential anxieties: his origins, understanding of the supernatural, his past, and his future destiny,” as explained by Dimitris Anastasopoulos in his article, “Adolescence and Mythology.” He explains that myths were created by man for man to explain the natural phenomenon occurring on the earth. Said myths explain in the form of stories the means of scientific calculations can explain today, including the seasons, the exchanging between day and night, and even how horses came into being. Mythology is important, no matter how one looks at it, to get inside the heads of those ancient peoples who used ...view middle of the document...
She refused his offer of marriage, and fled to where Atlas, holding up the sky, was located. Poseidon relentlessly sent a dolphin after her. She gave in to him and came back on the dolphin, accepting the marriage. The two immortals had one child, Triton.
Triton was what it modernly called a mermaid/merman today. He has a fishtail from the waist down and a normal human body from the waist up. He carried a trident just like his father, along with a curled conch shell that he blew to calm or start the waves. He had the gift of prophecy, much like many other aquatic deities. Triton was known as the “trumpeter of the sea” because he announced the arrival of his father and could summon marine creatures and deities using the same conch shell. It is undecided where he called home. In Hesiod’s Theogony, the first written account of Greek myths, it is mentioned that he lives in a golden palace under the sea with his parents. According to Homer, however, it is said he lives off the coast of Aegae, the old capital of Macedonia. In the story of the Argonauts, Triton lives off the coast of Libya. These several ideas could conclude that perhaps Triton migrated often.
Triton is shown in different media in different ways. In the well-known film, The Little Mermaid, he is depicted as an old merman carrying a golden trident. In the movie, it appears he is the ruler of the sea, in place of Poseidon. In Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson series (The Last Olympian, to be exact), Riordan uses Percy to describe him: “One guy was a merman with two fish tails instead of one. His skin was green, his armor studded with pearls. His black hair was tied in a ponytail, and he looked young - though, it’s hard to tell with non-humans. They could be a thousand years old or three.” This description is a...
