Laguna State Polytechnic University: Republic of The Philippines Province of Laguna

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Laguna State Polytechnic University

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Province of Laguna
Level I Institutionally Accredited
LSPU SELF-PACED LEARNING MODULE: GREAT BOOKS (Module 2)

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LSPU Self-Paced Learning Module (SLM)
Course GE ELEC 2: GREAT BOOKS
Sem/AY Second Semester/2020-2021
Module No. 2
The Glory that was Greece, The Grandeur that was Rome
 The Twelve Olympians from Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes
 Cupid and Psyche from The Golden Ass by Lucius Apuleius
Lesson Title
East is East, West is West
 The Ballade of the Dead Ladies by Francois Villon
 The River-Merchant’s Wife:A Letter by Li Po
Week
Week 5 - Week 8
Duration
Date April 12 - May 8, 2021
This lesson will discuss the different Olympian gods and goddesses, their
characteristics and their role in the Greek Mythology. This also discuss the journey of
Description Psyche in winning her love back which was Cupid, poetry written by Francois Villon
of the which emphasizes lives of different well-known ladies and a piece written by Li Po
Lesson which shows a life of a lady left by her husband.This lesson will also provide activities
and exercises that will enhance the understanding of the students about the Olympian
gods and goddesses.
Learning Outcomes
Students should be able to meet the following intended learning outcomes:
Intended  read critically texts and literature about the ancient Greek;
Learning  understand historical context and cultural influences of the ancient Greece and
Outcomes Rome through a dramatic monologue; and
 make inferences and monitor understanding of Classical and Medieval texts.
At the end of the lesson, students should be able to:
 familiarize themselves with the Greek Gods and Goddesses
 understand historical context and cultural influences of the ancient Greece and
Rome through a dramatic monologue;
Targets/  make inferences and monitor understanding of Classical text through a writing
Objectives activity;
 make inferences by writing a new ending of the story;
 understand historical context and cultural influences of the medieval period
through answering comprehensive questions; and
 make inferences by writing a letter in connection with the literary texts.

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Student Learning Strategies

Online Activities A. Online Discussion via Google Meet

(Synchronous/ You will be directed to attend in a Four-Hour class discussion (one hour
per week). To have access to the Online Discussion check the link posted
Asynchronous) in your google classroom.
The online discussion will happen on ________________, 2020, from ________.
(For further instructions, refer to your Google Classroom and see the
schedule of activities for this module)
Offline Activities
(e-Learning/Self- Lecture Guide
Paced) Part 1
UNIT 3: THE GLORY THAT WAS GREECE AND THE GEANDEUR THAT WAS ROME
Literary Text
THE TWELVE OLYMPIANS
From Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes

By Edith Hamilton
The twelve great Olympians were supreme among the gods who succeeded to the Titans. They
were called the Olympians because Olympus was their home. What Olympus was, however, is
not easy to say. There is no doubt that at first it was held to be a mountain top, and generally
identified with Greece’s highest mountain, Mt. Olympus in Thessaly in the northeast of Greece.
But even in the earliest Greek poem the Iliad, this idea is beginning to give way to the idea of an
Olympus, in some mysterious region far above all the mountains of the earth. In one passage of
the Iliad Zeus talks to the gods from “the topmost peak of many-ridged Olympus,”clearly a
mountain. But only a little further on he says that if he wilted he could hang earth and sea from
the pinnacle of Olympus, clearly no longer a mountain. Even so, it is not heaven. Homer makes
Poseidon say the rules the sea, Hades the dead, Zeus the heavens, But Olympus is common to all
three.
Wherever it was, the entrance to it was a great gate of clouds kept by the Season. Within were
the gods’ dwellings, where they lived and slept and feasted on ambrosia and nectar and
listened to Apollo’s lyre. It was an abode of perfect blessedness. No wind, Homer says, ever
shakes the untroubled peace of Olympus, no rain ever falls there or snow; but the cloudless
firmament stretches around it on all sides and the white glory of Sunshine is diffused upon its
walls.
The twelve Olympians made up a divine family: (1) ZEUS (JUPITER) the chief; his two brothers
(2) POSEIDON (NEPTUNE), and (3) HADES also called PLUTO; their sisters (4) HESTIA (VESTA)
and (5) HERA (JUNO) Zeus’ wife (6) ARES (MARS) their son; Zeus’ children: (7) ATHENA
(MINERVA) (8) APOLLO (9) ARTEMIS (DIANA) (10) APHRODITE (VENUS) and (11) HERMES
(MERCURY) and Hera’s son (12) HEPHAESTUS (Vulcan) , sometimes said to be the son of Zeus’
too.
1. ZEUS (Jupiter)
Zeus and his brothers drew lots for their share of the universe. The sea fell to Poseidon, and the

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underworld to Hades.
Level I Institutionally Zeus became the supreme ruler. He was Lord of the Sky, the Rain-god
Accredited
and the Cloud-gatherer, who wielded the awful thunderbolt. His power was greater than that of
all the other divinities together. In the Iliad he tells his family, "I am mightiest of all. Make trial
that you may know. Fasten a rope of gold to heaven and lay hold, every god and goddess. You
could not drag down Zeus. But if I wished to drag you down, then I would. The rope I would
bind to a pinnacle of Olympus and all would hang in air, yes, the very earth and the sea too."
Nevertheless he was not omnipotent or omniscient, either. He could be opposed and deceived.
Poseidon dupes him in the Iliad and so does Hera. Sometimes, too, the mysterious power, Fate,
is spoken of as stronger than he. Homer makes Hera ask him scornfully if he proposes to
deliver from death a man Fate has doomed. He is represented as falling in love with one woman
after another and descending to all manner of tricks to hide his infidelity from his wife. The
explanation why such actions were ascribed to the most majestic of the gods is, the scholars
say, that the Zeus of song and story has been made by combining many gods. When his worship
spread to a town where there was already a divine ruler the two were slowly fused into one.
The wife of the early god was then transferred to Zeus. The result, however, was unfortunate
and the later Greeks did not like these endless love affairs.
Still, even in the earliest record Zeus had grandeur. In the Iliad Agamemnon prays: "Zeus, most
glorious, most great, God of the storm-cloud, thou that dwellest in the heavens." He demanded,
too, not only sacrifices from men, but right action. The Greek Army at Troy is told "Father Zeus
never helps liars or those who break their oaths." The two ideas of him, the low and the high,
persisted side by side for a long time. His breastplate was the aegis, awful to behold; his bird
was the eagle, his tree the oak. His oracle was Dodona in the land of oak trees. The god's will
was revealed by the rustling of the oak leaves which the priests interpreted.
2. POSEIDON (NEPTUNE)
He was the ruler of the sea, Zeus’ brother and second only to him in eminence. The Greeks on
both sides of the Aegean were seamen and the God of the Sea was all important to them. His
wife was Amphitrite, a granddaughter of the Titan, Ocean. Poseidon had a splendid palace
beneath the sea, but he was oftener found in the Olympus.
Besides being Lord of the Sea, he gave the first horse to man, and he was honored as much for
the one as for the other.
Lord Poseidon, from you this pride is ours,
The strong horses, the young horses, and also the rule of the deep
Storm and calm were under his control; he commanded and the storm wind rose
And the surges of the sea.
But when he drove in his golden car over the waters, the thunder of the waves sank into
stillness and tranquil peace followed his smooth-rolling wheels.
He was commonly called “Earth -shaker” and was always shown carrying his trident, a three-
pronged spear, with which he would shake and shatter whenever he pleased.
He had some connection with the bulls as wellas with horses, but the bull was connected with
many other gods, too.
3. HADES (PLUTO)
He was the third brother among the Olympians, who drew for his share the underworld and the
rule over the dead. He was also called Plato, the God of Wealth, of the precious metals hidden in

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the earth.
Level The Romans
I Institutionally as well as the Greeks called him by this name, but then they translated it
Accredited
into Dis, the Latin word for rich. He had a far-famed cap or helmet which made whoever wore it
invisible. It was rare that he left his dark realm to visit Olympus or the earth, nor he was urged
to do so. He was not a welcome visitor. He was unpitying, inexorable, but just; a terrible, not an
evil god.
His wife was Persephone (Proserpine), whom he carried away from the earthand made Queen
of the Lower World.
He was King of the Dead, not Death himself, whom the Greeks called Thanatos, and the Romans,
Orcas.
4. HESTIA (VESTA)
She was Zeus’ sister and like Athena and Artemis, a virgin goddess. She has no distinct
personality and she plays no part in the myths. She was the Goddess of the Hearth, the symbol
of the home, around which the newborn child must be carried before it could be received into
the family. Every meal began and ended with an offering to her.
Hestia, in all dwellings of men and immortals,

Yours is the highest honor, the sweet wine offered
First and last of the feast, poured out to you duly
Never without you can gods or mortals hold banquet.
Each city too had a public hearth sacred to Hestia, where the fire was never allowed to go out, If
a colony was to be founded, the colonist carried with them coals from the hearth of the mother
city with which to kindle the fire of the new city’s hearth.
In Rome, her fire was cared for by six virgin priestesses called Vestals.
5. HERA (JUNO)
She was Zeus’ wife and sister. The Titans Ocean and Tethys, brought her up. She was the
protector of marriage, and married women were her peculiar care. There is very little that is
attractive in the portrait the poets draw of her. She is called indeed, in the early poem,
Golden-throned Hera, among immortals the queen,

Chief among them in beauty, the glorious lady
All the blessed in high Olympus revere
Honor even as Zeus, the lord of the thunder.
But when any account of her gets down to details, it shows her chiefly engaged in punishing the
many women Zeus fell in love with, even when they yielded only because he coerced or tricked
them. It made no difference to Hera how reluctant any of them were or how innocent, the
goddess treated them alike. Her implacable anger followed them and their children too. She
never forgot an injury. The Trojan war would have ended in an honorable peace, leaving both
sides unconquered, if not for her hatred of a Trojan who had another goddess lovelier than she.
The wrong of her slighted beauty remained with her until Troy fell in ruins.
In one important story, the Queen of Golden Fleece, she was the gracious protector of heroes
and the inspirer of heroic deeds, but not in any other. Nevertheless, she was venerated in many
homes. She was the goddess many women turned to for help. Ilythyia (or Eileithyia), who
helped women in childbirth, was her daughter.
The cow and the peacock were sacred to her. Argos was her favorite city.

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6.Level
ARES (MARS) Accredited
I Institutionally
The God of War, son of Zeus and Hera, both of whom, Homer says, detested him. Indeed, he is
hateful throughout the Iliad, poem of war though it is. Occasionally the heroes “rejoice in the
delight of Ares’ battle,” but far oftener in having escaped the fury of the ruthless god. Homer
calls him murderous, bloodstained, the incarnate curse of mortals and strangely, a coward, too,
who bellows his pain , and runs away when he is wounded. Yet he has a train of attendants on
the battle field which should inspire anyone with confidence. His sister is there, Eris, which
means discord, and Strife, her son. The Goddess of war Enyo,- a Latin Bellona - walks beside
him, and with her are Terror, and Trembling, and panic. As they move, the voice of groaning
arises behind them and the earth streams with blood.
The Romans liked Mars better than the Greeks liked Ares. He was to them the mean, whining
deity of the Iliad, but magnificent in shining armor, redoubtable, invincible. The warriors of the
great Latin heroic poem, the Aeneid, far from rejoicing in escape from him, rejoice when they
see that they are to fall “on mars’ field of the renown.” They “rush on glorious death” and find it
“sweet to die in battle.”
Ares figures little in mythology. In one story he is the lover of Aphrodite and held up to the
contempt of the Olympians by Aphrodite’s husband Hephaestus, but for the most part he is
little than a symbol of war. He is not a distinct personality, like Hermes, or Hera, or Apollo.
He had no cities where he was worshipped. The Greeks said vaguely that he came from Thrace,
home of a rude, fierce people in the northeast of Greece.
Appropriately, his bird was the vulture. The dog was wronged by being chosen as his animal.
7. PALLAS ATHENA (MINERVA)
She was the daughter of Zeus alone. No mother bore her. Full - grown and full armor, she
sprang from his head. In the earliest account of her, the Iliad, she is a fierce and ruthless battle-
goddess, but elsewhere, she is warlike only to defend the State and the home from outside
enemies. She was pre-eminently the Goddess of the City, the protector of civilized life, of
handicrafts and agriculture; the inventor of the bridle, who first tamed horses for men to use.
She was Zeus’ favorite child. He trusted her to carry the awful aegis, his buckler, and his
devastating weapon, the thunderbolt.
The word most often used to describe her is gray-eyed”or, as it is somestimes translated,
“flashing-eyed.” of the three virgin goddesses, she was the chief and was caled the Maiden,
Parthenos, and her temple, the Parthenon. In later poetry she is the embodiment of wisdom,
reason purity.
Athens was her special city.; the olive created by her was her tree; the owl her bird.
So saying, Minerva, goddess, azure-eyed,

Rose to Olympus, the reputed seat
Eternal of the gods, which never storms
Disturb rains drench, or snow invades, but calm
The expanse and cloudless shines withe purest day.
There the inhabitants divine rejoice forever
Amongst these leaves she made a butterfly
With excellent device and wondrous slight,
Fluttering among the olives wantonlly,
That seemed to live, so like it was in sight;

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The velvet
Level nap which
I Institutionally on his wings doth lie,
Accredited
The silken down with which his back is dight,
His broad stretched horns, his hairy thighs,
Which when Arachne saw as overlaid
And mastered with workmanship so rare.
She stood astonished long, ne aught gainsaid
And with fast fixed eyes on her did stare.
8. PHOEBUS APOLLO
The son of Zeus and Leto (Latona), born in the little island of delos. He had been called “ the.”
most Greek of all gods.” He is a beautiful figure in Greek poetry, the master musician who
delights Olympus as he plays on his golden lyre; the lord too of the silver bow, the Archer-god,
far shooting the healer, as well, who taught men the healing art. Even more than of these good
and lovely endowments, he is God of Light, in whom no darkness at all, and so he is God of
Truth. No false word ever falls from his lips.
O Phoebus from your throne of truth

From your dwelling place at the heart of the world,
You speak to men.
By Zeus decree no lie comes there,
No shadow to darken the word of truth.
Zeus sealed by an everlasting right.
Apollo’s honour, that all may trust
With unshaken truth when he speaks.
Delphi under towering Parnassus, where Apollo’s oracle was, plays an important part in
mythology. Castalia was its sacred spring, Cephissus its river. It was held to be the center of the
world, so many pilgrims came to it, from foreign countries as well as Greece. No other shrine
rivaled it. The answeres to the questions asked by the anxious seekers for Truth were delivered
by a priestess who went into trance before she spoke. The trance was supposed to be caused by
a vapor rising from a deep cleft in the rock over which her seat was placed, a three-legged stool,
the tripod.
Apollo was called Delian from Delos, the island of his birth, and Pythian from his killing of a
serpent, Python, which once lived in he cave of Parnassus. It was a frightful monster and the
contest was severe, but in he end, the god’s unerring arrows won the victory. Another name
given him was ‘The Lycian,” variously explained as meaning Wolf-god, God of Light, and God of
Lycia. In the Iliad, hes called “the Sminthian”: the Mouse-god but whether because he protected
mice or destroyed them, no one knows. Often, he was the Sun-god too.His name Phoebus
means “brilliant” or “shining.” Accurately, however, the Sun-god was Helios, child of Titan
Hyperion.
Apollo at Delphi was a purely bebeficent power, a direct link between gods and men, guiding
men to know the divine will showing them how to make peace with the gods; the purifier, too,
able to cleanse even those stained with blood of their kindred. Nevertheless, there are a few
tales told of him which show him pitiless or cruel. The ideas were fighting in im as in all the
gods.; a primitive, crude idea and one that was beautiful and poetic. In him, only a little of the
primitive is left. The laurel is his tree. Many creatures were sacred to him, chief among them
the dolphin and the crow.
9. ARTEMIS (DIANA)
Also called Cynthia, from her birthplace, Mount Cynthus in Delos, Apollo’s twin sister, daughter

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ofLevel
Zeus and Leto.Accredited
I Institutionally She was one of the three maiden goddesses of Olympus.
Goddess Aphrodite who stirs with love all creation,

Cannot bend nor ensnare three hearts: the pure maiden Vesta
Gray-eyed Athena, who cares but for was and the arts of the craftsmen,
Artemis, lover of woods and the wild chase over the mountain.
She was the Lady of Wild Things, Huntsman-in- chief to the gods, an odd office for a woman.
Like a good huntsman, she was careful to preserve the young; she was “the protectress of dewy
youth” everywhere. Nevertheless, with one of those startling contradictions so common in
mythology, she kept the Greek Fleet from sailing to Troy until they sacrificed a maiden to her.
In many another story, too, she is fierce and revengeful. On the other hand, when women died a
swift and painless death, they were held to have been slain by her silver arrows.
As Phoebus was the Sun, she was the Moon called Phoebe and Selene (Luna in Latin). Neither
name originally belonged to her. Phoebe was a Titan, one of the older gods. So, too, was Selene-
a moon goddess, indeed but not connected with Apollo. She was the sister of Helios, the sun-
god with whom Apollo was confused.
In the later poets, Artemis is identified with Hecate. She is “the goddess with three forms,
Selene in the sky, Artemis on earth, Hecate in the lower world and in the world above when it is
wrapped in darkness. Hecate was the Goddess of the Dark of the Moon, the black nights when
the moon is hidden. She was associated with deeds of darkness, the Goddess of the crossways,
which were held to be ghostly places of evil magic. An awful divinity.
Hecate of hell
Mighty to shatter every stubborn thing
Hark! Hark!her hounds are baying through the town.
Where three roads meet, there she is standing
It is a strange transformation from the lovely Huntress flashing through the forest from
The moon making all beautiful with her light, from the pure Maiden-Goddess for whom
Who is chaste of spirit utterly
May gather leaves and fruits and flowers.
The unchaste never.
In here is shown most vividly the uncertainty between good and evil which is apparent in every
one of the divinities. The cypress was sacred to her and all wild animals, but especially the deer.
10. APHRODITE (VENUS)
The Goddess of Love and Beauty, who beguiled all gods and men alike; the laughter-loving
goddess, who laughed swiftly over mockingly at those her wiles had conquered; the resistible
goddess who stole away even the wits of the wise. She is the daughter of Zeus and Dione in the
Iliad but in the later poems she is said to have sprung from the foam of the sea, and her name
was explained as meaning “the foam risen. Aphros is foam in Greek. This sea birth took place
near Cythera, from where she was wafted to Cyprus. But islands were forever after sacred to
her, and she was called Cytherea or the Cyprian as often as her proper name. One of the
Homeric Hymns, calling her “Beautiful, golden goddess,” says of her
The breath of the west wind bore her

Over the sounding sea, Up from the delicate foam
To wave-ringed Cyprus, her isle.
And the hours golden-wreathed
Welcomed her joyously.

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They
Level clad her in raiment
I Institutionally Accredited immortal
And brought her to the gods.
Wonder seized them all as they saw
Violet-crowned Cytherea.
The Romans wrote of her in the same way.

With her, beauty comes.
The winds flee before her and the storm clouds;
sweet flowers embroider the earth;
the waves of the sea laugh;
she moves in radiant light.
Without her there is not joy nor loveliness anywhere.
But she had another side, too. It was natural that she should cut a poor figure in the Iliad, where
the battle of the heroes is the theme. She is a soft, weak creature there, whom a mortal need not
fear to attack. In later poems she is usually shown as treacherous and malicious, exerting a
deadly, and destructive power over men.
In most of the stories she is the wife of Hephaestus (Vulcan), the lame, and ugly god of the
forge.
The myrtle was her tree, the dove her bird - sometimes too the sparrow and the swan.
11. HERMES (MERCURY)
Zeus was his father and Maia, daughter of Atlas, his mother. Because of a very popular statue
his appearance is most familiar to us than that of any other god. He was graceful and swift in
motion. On his feet were winged sandals; wings were on his low-crowned hat, too, and on his
magic wand, the Caduceus. He was Zeus’ messenger, who “flies as fleet as though to do his
bidding.”
The babe was born at the break of day

And ere the night fell he had stolen away
Apollo’s herd.
Zeus made him give them back, and he won Apollo’s forgiveness by presenting him with with
the lyre which he had just invented making it out of a tortoise’s shell. Perhaps, there was some
connection between that very early story of him and the fact tat he was the God of Commerce
and the Market, protector of traders. In odd contrast to this idea of him, he was also the solemn
guide of the dead, the Divine Herald who lead the souls down to their last home. He appears
oftener in the tales of mythology than any other god.
12. HEPHAESTUS (VULCAN / MULCIBER)
The god of Fire, sometimes said to be the son of Zeus and Hera, sometimes of Hera alone, who
bore him in retaliation to Zeus’ having brought forth Athena. Among the perfectly beautiful
immortals he was the only ugly. He was lame as well. In one place in the Iliad, he says that his
shameless mother, when she saw that he was born deformed, cast him out of heaven’ in
another place, he declares that Zeus did this, angry with him for trying to defend Hera. This
second story is the better known, because of Milton’s familiar lines: Mulciber was
Thrown by angry Jove

Sheer o’er the crystal battlements; from morn
To noon he fell; from noon to dewy eve
A Summer’s day, and with the setting sun
Dropt from the Zenith like a falling star,
On Lennos, the Aegean Isle.

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These events, however, were supposed to have taken place in the far, distant past. In Homer, he
is no danger of being driven from Olympus; he is highly honored there. The workman of the
immortals, their armorer and smith, who makes their dwellings and their furnishings as well as
their weapons. In his workshop he has handmaidens he has forged out of gold who can move
and who can help him in his work.
In the later poets his forge is often said to be under this or that volcano, and to cause eruptions.
His wife is one of the three Graces in the Iliad, called Aglaia in Hesiod; in the Odyssey she is
Aphrodite.
He was a kindly, peace-loving god, popular on earth as in heaven. With Athena, he was
important in the life of the city. The two were the patrons of handicrafts, the arts which along
with agriculture are the support of civilization; he is the protector of the smiths as she of the
weavers. When children are formally admitted to the city organization, the god of the ceremony
was Hephaestus.
Lecture Guide
Part 2
UNIT 3: THE GLORY THAT WAS GREECE AND THE GEANDEUR THAT WAS ROME
Literary Text
CUPID AND PSYCHE
by Lucius Apuleius
A certain king and queen had three daughters. The charms of the two elder were more than
common, but the beauty of the youngest was so wonderful that the poverty of language is
unable to express its due praise. The fame of her beauty was so great that strangers from
neighboring countries came in crowds to enjoy the sight, and looked on her with amazement,
paying her that homage which is due only to Venus herself. In fact Venus found her altars
deserted, while men turned their devotion to this young virgin. As she passed along, the people
sang her praises, and strewed her way with chaplets and flowers.
This homage to the exaltation of a mortal gave great offense to the real Venus. Shaking her
ambrosial locks with indignation, she exclaimed, "Am I then to be eclipsed in my honors by a
mortal girl? In vain then did that royal shepherd, whose judgment was approved by Jove
himself, give me the palm of beauty over my illustrious rivals, Pallas and Juno. But she shall not
so quietly usurp my honors. I will give her cause to repent of so unlawful a beauty."
Thereupon she calls her winged son Cupid, mischievous enough in his own nature, and rouses
and provokes him yet more by her complaints. She points out Psyche to him and says, "My dear
son, punish that contumacious beauty; give your mother a revenge as sweet as her injuries are
great; infuse into the bosom of that haughty girl a passion for some low, mean, unworthy being,
so that she may reap a mortification as great as her present exultation and triumph."
Cupid prepared to obey the commands of his mother. There are two fountains in Venus's
garden, one of sweet waters, the other of bitter. Cupid filled two amber vases, one from each
fountain, and suspending them from the top of his quiver, hastened to the chamber of Psyche,
whom he found asleep. He shed a few drops from the bitter fountain over her lips, though the
sight of her almost moved him to pity; then touched her side with the point of his arrow. At the
touch she awoke, and opened eyes upon Cupid (himself invisible), which so startled him that in
his confusion he wounded himself with his own arrow. Heedless of his wound, his whole
thought now was to repair the mischief he had done, and he poured the balmy drops of joy over

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all her silken ringlets.
Psyche, henceforth frowned upon by Venus, derived no benefit from all her charms. True, all
eyes were cast eagerly upon her, and every mouth spoke her praises; but neither king, royal
youth, nor plebeian presented himself to demand her in marriage. Her two elder sisters of
moderate charms had now long been married to two royal princes; but Psyche, in her lonely
apartment, deplored her solitude, sick of that beauty which, while it procured abundance of
flattery, had failed to awaken love.
Her parents, afraid that they had unwittingly incurred the anger of the gods, consulted the
oracle of Apollo, and received this answer, "The virgin is destined for the bride of no mortal
lover. Her future husband awaits her on the top of the mountain. He is a monster whom neither
gods nor men can resist."
This dreadful decree of the oracle filled all the people with dismay, and her parents abandoned
themselves to grief. But Psyche said, "Why, my dear parents, do you now lament me? You
should rather have grieved when the people showered upon me undeserved honors, and with
one voice called me a Venus. I now perceive that I am a victim to that name. I submit. Lead me
to that rock to which my unhappy fate has destined me."
Accordingly, all things being prepared, the royal maid took her place in the procession, which
more resembled a funeral than a nuptial pomp, and with her parents, amid the lamentations of
the people, ascended the mountain, on the summit of which they left her alone, and with
sorrowful hearts returned home.
While Psyche stood on the ridge of the mountain, panting with fear and with eyes full of tears,
the gentle Zephyr raised her from the earth and bore her with an easy motion into a flowery
dale. By degrees her mind became composed, and she laid herself down on the grassy bank to
sleep.
When she awoke refreshed with sleep, she looked round and beheld nearby a pleasant grove of
tall and stately trees. She entered it, and in the midst discovered a fountain, sending forth clear
and crystal waters, and fast by, a magnificent palace whose august front impressed the
spectator that it was not the work of mortal hands, but the happy retreat of some god. Drawn
by admiration and wonder, she approached the building and ventured to enter.
Every object she met filled her with pleasure and amazement. Golden pillars supported the
vaulted roof, and the walls were enriched with carvings and paintings representing beasts of
the chase and rural scenes, adapted to delight the eye of the beholder. Proceeding onward, she
perceived that besides the apartments of state there were others filled with all manner of
treasures, and beautiful and precious productions of nature and art.
While her eyes were thus occupied, a voice addressed her, though she saw no one, uttering
these words, "Sovereign lady, all that you see is yours. We whose voices you hear are your
servants and shall obey all your commands with our utmost care and diligence. Retire,
therefore, to your chamber and repose on your bed of down, and when you see fit, repair to the
bath. Supper awaits you in the adjoining alcove when it pleases you to take your seat there."
Psyche gave ear to the admonitions of her vocal attendants, and after repose and the
refreshment of the bath, seated herself in the alcove, where a table immediately presented
itself, without any visible aid from waiters or servants, and covered with the greatest delicacies
of food and the most nectareous wines. Her ears too were feasted with music from invisible
performers; of whom one sang, another played on the lute, and all closed in the wonderful

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harmony of a full chorus.
She had not yet seen her destined husband. He came only in the hours of darkness and fled
before the dawn of morning, but his accents were full of love, and inspired a like passion in her.
She often begged him to stay and let her behold him, but he would not consent. On the contrary
he charged her to make no attempt to see him, for it was his pleasure, for the best of reasons, to
keep concealed.
"Why should you wish to behold me?" he said. "Have you any doubt of my love? Have you any
wish ungratified? If you saw me, perhaps you would fear me, perhaps adore me, but all I ask of
you is to love me. I would rather you would love me as an equal than adore me as a god."
This reasoning somewhat quieted Psyche for a time, and while the novelty lasted she felt quite
happy. But at length the thought of her parents, left in ignorance of her fate, and of her sisters,
precluded from sharing with her the delights of her situation, preyed on her mind and made
her begin to feel her palace as but a splendid prison. When her husband came one night, she
told him her distress, and at last drew from him an unwilling consent that her sisters should be
brought to see her.
So, calling Zephyr, she acquainted him with her husband's commands, and he, promptly
obedient, soon brought them across the mountain down to their sister's valley. They embraced
her and she returned their caresses.
"Come," said Psyche, "enter with me my house and refresh yourselves with whatever your
sister has to offer."
Then taking their hands she led them into her golden palace, and committed them to the care of
her numerous train of attendant voices, to refresh them in her baths and at her table, and to
show them all her treasures. The view of these celestial delights caused envy to enter their
bosoms, at seeing their young sister possessed of such state and splendor, so much exceeding
their own.
They asked her numberless questions, among others what sort of a person her husband was.
Psyche replied that he was a beautiful youth, who generally spent the daytime in hunting upon
the mountains.
The sisters, not satisfied with this reply, soon made her confess that she had never seen him.
Then they proceeded to fill her bosom with dark suspicions. "Call to mind," they said, "the
Pythian oracle that declared you destined to marry a direful and tremendous monster. The
inhabitants of this valley say that your husband is a terrible and monstrous serpent, who
nourishes you for a while with dainties that he may by and by devour you. Take our advice.
Provide yourself with a lamp and a sharp knife; put them in concealment that your husband
may not discover them, and when he is sound asleep, slip out of bed, bring forth your lamp, and
see for yourself whether what they say is true or not. If it is, hesitate not to cut off the monster's
head, and thereby recover your liberty."
Psyche resisted these persuasions as well as she could, but they did not fail to have their effect
on her mind, and when her sisters were gone, their words and her own curiosity were too
strong for her to resist. So she prepared her lamp and a sharp knife, and hid them out of sight of
her husband. When he had fallen into his first sleep, she silently rose and uncovering her lamp
beheld not a hideous monster, but the most beautiful and charming of the gods, with his golden
ringlets wandering over his snowy neck and crimson cheek, with two dewy wings on his
shoulders, whiter than snow, and with shining feathers like the tender blossoms of spring.

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As she leaned the lamp over to have a better view of his face, a drop of burning oil fell on the
shoulder of the god. Startled, he opened his eyes and fixed them upon her. Then, without saying
a word, he spread his white wings and flew out of the window. Psyche, in vain endeavoring to
follow him, fell from the window to the ground.
Cupid, beholding her as she lay in the dust, stopped his flight for an instant and said, "Oh foolish
Psyche, is it thus you repay my love? After I disobeyed my mother's commands and made you
my wife, will you think me a monster and cut off my head? But go; return to your sisters, whose
advice you seem to think preferable to mine. I inflict no other punishment on you than to leave
you for ever. Love cannot dwell with suspicion." So saying, he fled away, leaving poor Psyche
prostrate on the ground, filling the place with mournful lamentations.
When she had recovered some degree of composure she looked around her, but the palace and
gardens had vanished, and she found herself in the open field not far from the city where her
sisters dwelt. She repaired thither and told them the whole story of her misfortunes, at which,
pretending to grieve, those spiteful creatures inwardly rejoiced.
"For now," said they, "he will perhaps choose one of us." With this idea, without saying a word
of her intentions, each of them rose early the next morning and ascended the mountain, and
having reached the top, called upon Zephyr to receive her and bear her to his lord; then leaping
up, and not being sustained by Zephyr, fell down the precipice and was dashed to pieces.
Psyche meanwhile wandered day and night, without food or repose, in search of her husband.
Casting her eyes on a lofty mountain having on its brow a magnificent temple, she sighed and
said to herself, "Perhaps my love, my lord, inhabits there," and directed her steps thither.
She had no sooner entered than she saw heaps of corn, some in loose ears and some in sheaves,
with mingled ears of barley. Scattered about, lay sickles and rakes, and all the instruments of
harvest, without order, as if thrown carelessly out of the weary reapers' hands in the sultry
hours of the day.
This unseemly confusion the pious Psyche put an end to, by separating and sorting everything
to its proper place and kind, believing that she ought to neglect none of the gods, but endeavor
by her piety to engage them all in her behalf. The holy Ceres, whose temple it was, finding her
so religiously employed, thus spoke to her, "Oh Psyche, truly worthy of our pity, though I
cannot shield you from the frowns of Venus, yet I can teach you how best to allay her
displeasure. Go, then, and voluntarily surrender yourself to your lady and sovereign, and try by
modesty and submission to win her forgiveness, and perhaps her favor will restore you the
husband you have lost."
Psyche obeyed the commands of Ceres and took her way to the temple of Venus, endeavoring
to fortify her mind and ruminating on what she should say and how best propitiate the angry
goddess, feeling that the issue was doubtful and perhaps fatal.
Venus received her with angry countenance. "Most undutiful and faithless of servants," said
she, "do you at last remember that you really have a mistress? Or have you rather come to see
your sick husband, yet laid up of the wound given him by his loving wife? You are so ill favored
and disagreeable that the only way you can merit your lover must be by dint of industry and
diligence. I will make trial of your housewifery." Then she ordered Psyche to be led to the
storehouse of her temple, where was laid up a great quantity of wheat, barley, millet, vetches,
beans, and lentils prepared for food for her pigeons, and said, "Take and separate all these
grains, putting all of the same kind in a parcel by themselves, and see that you get it done
before evening." Then Venus departed and left her to her task.
But Psyche, in a perfect consternation at the enormous work, sat stupid and silent, without

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moving a finger to the inextricable heap.
While she sat despairing, Cupid stirred up the little ant, a native of the fields, to take
compassion on her. The leader of the anthill, followed by whole hosts of his six-legged subjects,
approached the heap, and with the utmost diligence taking grain by grain, they separated the
pile, sorting each kind to its parcel; and when it was all done, they vanished out of sight in a
moment.
Venus at the approach of twilight returned from the banquet of the gods, breathing odors and
crowned with roses. Seeing the task done, she exclaimed, "This is no work of yours, wicked one,
but his, whom to your own and his misfortune you have enticed." So saying, she threw her a
piece of black bread for her supper and went away.
Next morning Venus ordered Psyche to be called and said to her, "Behold yonder grove which
stretches along the margin of the water. There you will find sheep feeding without a shepherd,
with golden-shining fleeces on their backs. Go, fetch me a sample of that precious wool
gathered from every one of their fleeces."
Psyche obediently went to the riverside, prepared to do her best to execute the command. But
the river god inspired the reeds with harmonious murmurs, which seemed to say, "Oh maiden,
severely tried, tempt not the dangerous flood, nor venture among the formidable rams on the
other side, for as long as they are under the influence of the rising sun, they burn with a cruel
rage to destroy mortals with their sharp horns or rude teeth. But when the noontide sun has
driven the cattle to the shade, and the serene spirit of the flood has lulled them to rest, you may
then cross in safety, and you will find the woolly gold sticking to the bushes and the trunks of
the trees."
Thus the compassionate river god gave Psyche instructions how to accomplish her task, and by
observing his directions she soon returned to Venus with her arms full of the golden fleece; but
she received not the approbation of her implacable mistress, who said, "I know very well it is
by none of your own doings that you have succeeded in this task, and I am not satisfied yet that
you have any capacity to make yourself useful. But I have another task for you. Here, take this
box and go your way to the infernal shades, and give this box to Proserpine and say, 'My
mistress Venus desires you to send her a little of your beauty, for in tending her sick son she
has lost some of her own.' Be not too long on your errand, for I must paint myself with it to
appear at the circle of the gods and goddesses this evening."
Psyche was now satisfied that her destruction was at hand, being obliged to go with her own
feet directly down to Erebus. Wherefore, to make no delay of what was not to be avoided, she
goes to the top of a high tower to precipitate herself headlong, thus to descend the shortest way
to the shades below. But a voice from the tower said to her, "Why, poor unlucky girl, do you
design to put an end to your days in so dreadful a manner? And what cowardice makes you
sink under this last danger who have been so miraculously supported in all your former?" Then
the voice told her how by a certain cave she might reach the realms of Pluto, and how to avoid
all the dangers of the road, to pass by Cerberus, the three-headed dog, and prevail on Charon,
the ferryman, to take her across the black river and bring her back again. But the voice added,
"When Proserpine has given you the box filled with her beauty, of all things this is chiefly to be
observed by you, that you never once open or look into the box nor allow your curiosity to pry
into the treasure of the beauty of the goddesses."
Psyche, encouraged by this advice, obeyed it in all things, and taking heed to her ways traveled
safely to the kingdom of Pluto. She was admitted to the palace of Proserpine, and without
accepting the delicate seat or delicious banquet that was offered her, but contented with coarse
bread for her food, she delivered her message from Venus. Presently the box was returned to
her, shut and filled with the precious commodity. Then she returned the way she came, and

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glad was she to come out once more into the light of day.
But having got so far successfully through her dangerous task a longing desire seized her to
examine the contents of the box. "What," said she, "shall I, the carrier of this divine beauty, not
take the least bit to put on my cheeks to appear to more advantage in the eyes of my beloved
husband!" So she carefully opened the box, but found nothing there of any beauty at all, but an
infernal and truly Stygian sleep, which being thus set free from its prison, took possession of
her, and she fell down in the midst of the road, a sleepy corpse without sense or motion.
But Cupid, being now recovered from his wound, and not able longer to bear the absence of his
beloved Psyche, slipping through the smallest crack of the window of his chamber which
happened to be left open, flew to the spot where Psyche lay, and gathering up the sleep from
her body closed it again in the box, and waked Psyche with a light touch of one of his arrows.
"Again," said he, "have you almost perished by the same curiosity. But now perform exactly the
task imposed on you by my mother, and I will take care of the rest."
Then Cupid, as swift as lightning penetrating the heights of heaven, presented himself before
Jupiter with his supplication. Jupiter lent a favoring ear, and pleaded the cause of the lovers so
earnestly with Venus that he won her consent. On this he sent Mercury to bring Psyche up to
the heavenly assembly, and when she arrived, handing her a cup of ambrosia, he said, "Drink
this, Psyche, and be immortal; nor shall Cupid ever break away from the knot in which he is
tied, but these nuptials shall be perpetual."
Thus Psyche became at last united to Cupid, and in due time they had a daughter born to them
whose name was Pleasure.
Lecture Guide
Part 3
UNIT 4: EAST IS EAST, WEST IS WEST
Literary Text
THE BALLADE OF THE DEAD LADIES
by Francois Villon
translated by Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Tell me now in what hidden way is

Lady Flora the lovely Roman?
Where's Hipparchia, and where is Thais,
Neither of them the fairer woman?
Where is Echo, beheld of no man,
Only heard on river and mere--
She whose beauty was more than human?--
But where are the snows of yester-year?
Where's Heloise, the learned nun,

For whose sake Abeillard, I ween,
Lost manhood and put priesthood on?
(From Love he won such dule and teen!)
And where, I pray you, is the Queen
Who willed that Buridan should steer
Sewed in a sack's mouth down the Seine?--
White Queen Blanche, like a queen of lilies,

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With
LevelaI Institutionally
voice like Accredited
any mermaiden--
Bertha Broadfoot, Beatrice, Alice,
And Ermengarde the lady of Maine--
And that good Joan whom Englishmen
At Rouen doomed and burned her there--
Mother of God, where are they then?--
Nay, never ask this week, fair lord,

Where they are gone, nor yet this year,
Except with this for an overword--
Literary Discussion
Discussed here are the important notes in the ballade.
1. Hidden way – this is a byway, archway, back alley, or secret trysting place.
2. Flora/Lady Flora – Lady Flora or Flora in this literary text can be a reference to a prostitute
or the Roman goddess.
Flora the Prostitute- The prostitutes of Rome, who regarded the day as their own,
performed naked in the theater and, suggests Juvenal (Satire VI), fought in the gladiatorial
arena.
Flora the Goddess - In Roman mythology, she is the goddess of flowers and of plants and
trees that bear fruit. She was pictured on coins as a beautiful young woman wearing a
wreath of flowers. Because of her identification with reproduction in nature, she was
associated with sex, fertility, and love. In the third century BC, the Romans began
celebrating a festival in her honor. A temple dedicated to her was erected in Rome near the
Circus Maximus, a stadium for chariot races.
3. Hipparchia – originally the author, Francois Villon, used the name Archipiada in his middle
French poem.But the translator of the ballade, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, changed the word to
Hipparchia, the name of a Thracian woman who became the companion of the Greek cynic
philosopher Crates.Hipparchia is notable for being one of the few women philosophers of
Ancient Greece. Drawn to the doctrines and the self-imposed hardships of the Cynic
lifestyle, Hipparchia lived in poverty with her husband, Crates the Cynic.
4. Thais - Athenian courtesan who traveled with the army of Alexander the Great in its
invasion of Persia. She is chiefly known from the story that represents her as having
persuaded Alexander to set fire to the Achaemenian capital of Persepolis in the course of a
drunken revel.
5. Echo - Ekho (Echo) was an Oreiad-nymph of Mount Kithairon (Cithaeron) in Boiotia. The
goddess Hera cursed her with just an echo for a voice as punishment for distracting her
from the affairs of Zeus with her endless chatter.
6. Héloise, Abeillard- Héloïse (1098-1164) and Peter Abelard (1079-1142). Abelard, a
theologian and philosopher, began tutoring Héloïse, the niece of the canon of Notre Dame
in 1117 or 1118 and they fell in love. After she gave birth to his child, they married. Angry
relatives of Héloïse had Abelard castrated. She lived the rest of her life in a convent as a
nun, and he entered a monastery and became its abbot.
7. Dule-In Gaelic (the Celtic language of Scotland), dule means pain, agony, distress. Dool is an
alternate spelling. In Great Britain in earlier centuries, trees that were used as hanging
gallows came to be known as dule trees because of the suffering and sorrow associated
with them.
8. Queen, Buridan - John Buridan was born sometime before 1300 at or near the town of
Béthune in Picardy, France. He was educated in Paris, first at the CollègeLemoine, where
he was awarded a benefice or stipend for needy students, and then at the University of
Paris, where he received his Master of Arts degree and formal license to teach by the mid-
1320s. There are stories that he met his end when the King of France had him thrown into
the Seine River in a sack because of a scandalous affair with the Queen, that he went on to
found the University of Vienna after being expelled from Paris for his nominalist teachings,
and that he even hit the future Pope Clement VI over the head with a shoe while competing
for the affections of the wife of a German shoemaker.

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9.LevelQueen Blanche
I Institutionally - Blanche Of Castile, French Blanche De Castille, wife of Louis VIII of France,
Accredited
mother of Louis IX (St. Louis), and twice regent of France (1226–34, 1248–52), who by
wars and marital alliances did much to secure and unify French territories. Dressed in
white, on a white palfrey draped in the same colour, she rode into battle at the head of her
troops. After an attempted abduction of the young king, Blanche did not hesitate to replace
rebel noble associates with commoners if she thought it necessary.
10. Bertha Broadfoot - Bertrada of Laon, mother of Charlemagne (742-814) king of the Franks.
Laon is a city in northern France.
11. Beatrice, Ermengarde - characters in old French stories.
12. Joan - Joan of Arc (1412-1431), the saintly peasant girl who was burned at the stake by the
English. She is now a French national heroine.
13. Fiar Lord -It was customary for a poet to address an envoi (the final stanza) to his patron
or to a courtier or member of the royal family.
Literary Term Focus

The Ballade
The ballade is a form of medieval and Renaissance French poetry as well as the corresponding
musical chanson form. The ballade as a verse form typically consists of eight-line stanzas, each
with a consistent meter and a particular rhyme-scheme. The last line in the stanza is a refrain.
The stanzas are often followed by a four-line concluding stanza usually addressed to a prince.
The rhyme scheme is therefore ababbcbCababbcbCbcbC, where the capital “C” is a refrain.
About the Author

Francois Villon, pseudonym of François de Montcorbier or François des Loges, (born 1431,
Paris—died after 1463), one of the greatest French lyric poets. He was known for his life of
criminal excess, spending much time in prison or in banishment from medieval Paris. His chief
works include Le Lais (Le Petit Testament), Le Grand Testament, and various ballades, chansons,
and rondeaux.
Literary Text
THE RIVER-MERCHANT’S WIFE: A LETTER
by Li Po
translated by Ezra Pound
While my hair was still cut straight across my forehead

I played about the front gate, pulling flowers.
You came by on bamboo stilts, playing horse,
You walked about my seat, playing with blue plums.
And we went on living in the village of Chō kan:
Two small people, without dislike or suspicion.
At fourteen I married My Lord you.
I never laughed, being bashful.
Lowering my head, I looked at the wall.
Called to, a thousand times, I never looked back.
At fifteen I stopped scowling,

I desired my dust to be mingled with yours
Forever and forever, and forever.
Why should I climb the look out?
At sixteen you departed

You went into far Ku-tō -en, by the river of swirling eddies,
And you have been gone five months.

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The
Levelmonkeys make
I Institutionally sorrowful noise overhead.
Accredited
You dragged your feet when you went out.

By the gate now, the moss is grown, the different mosses,
Too deep to clear them away!
The leaves fall early this autumn, in wind.
The paired butterflies are already yellow with August
Over the grass in the West garden;
They hurt me.
I grow older.
If you are coming down through the narrows of the river Kiang,
Please let me know beforehand,
And I will come out to meet you
As far as Chō -fū -Sa.
Literary Analysis/Discussion
Summary
The young wife is the speaker in the text, and she begins by informing the reader that she was
married when she was only fourteen. This is not something that she comments on, aside from
simply accepting that it happened. At the time she was very reserved and nervous around her
husband. She didn’t laugh or look him in the eye.
As she aged she came to love him. This love only grew, and at the time the letter was written
her husband was on a trip from which she hopes he will soon return. She suggests that he tell
her through another letter when he’s almost there and she’ll come to meet him.
Analysis
Stanza One
In the first stanza of ‘The River Merchant’s Wife: A Letter’ the speaker, who is a young woman,
describes the beginning of her relationship to the man who is now her husband. She was very
young when she first saw him. These lines paint her as a child, “play[ing] about the front gate,
pulling flowers”. His age is unknown, but she describes him lightheartedly as though he too was
young, at least at heart.
They lived in the village with their separate lives for a time. There was no “dislike or suspicion”.
The first stanza presents the village as a peaceful place, one in which these two grew up among
family and friends. The village in the suburb of Nanking in China.
Stanza Two
Through the use of several end-stopped lines, Pound lays out the basics of this relationship. He
conveys the young woman’s words simply and directly. They got married when she was
fourteen and she “never laughed”. This doesn’t appear to be because she was unhappy, but
because she was “being bashful”. She was embarrassed and nervous to be married. This can be
seen through the images of her “Lowering” her head and looking “at the wall”. Her husband
called out to her and she never looked at him.
These lines create an emotional image of this period of her life that is then contrasted with the
following years as she moved toward the present day.
Stanza Three
The third stanza, which is four lines long, describes the relationship when the young speaker
was fifteen. By this point she had grown used to being married and “desired [her] dust to be
mingled” with her husbands after they died. She fell in love with him. But, her childishness still
shows through, especially in the third line with the phrase “Forever and forever and forever”.
Stanza Four
The fourth stanza is also four lines long and describes the crux of the speaker’s problem. Her
husband left on a trip when she was sixteen. He went “into far Ku-to-yen”. This was a trip along
the river during which he likely sought to buy and sell goods. The river he was travelling down
is also known as Kaing in Japanese.
At the point the letter was written he’d been gone for five months and she had no idea when he

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was
Levelcoming back.Accredited
I Institutionally As a complement to the situation, she adds the phrase “The monkeys make
sorrowful noise overhead”. This represents some of her own sorrow. It is profound enough to
where it’s been transmuted into other creatures.
Stanza Five
The fifth stanza begins with a recollection of what it was like as her husband was leaving. She
really how he “dragged [his] feet” when he left. He didn’t really want to leave her, but he had to.
In the present though, things move on. The moss is growing “Too deep to clear them away!”
And the leaves are falling early. The scene is a peaceful one, and each element of it reminds the
young woman of her missing husband.
She pays attention to the butterflies. They are “paired,” unlike her, and they “hurt” her. They
remind her of the loss that she’s suffering.
In the last lines she adds that when he gets this letter, he should try to tell her where he is. If
possible, when he about to come down the river Kiang he should let her know. Then, she can
meet him. The area she refers to, Cho-fu-Sa, is at quite a distance from the village in which they
live. This makes her idea to meet him more meaningful. She isn’t offering something simple.
About the Author

Li Po is a Chinese poet of the Tang Dynasty, Li Bai (also known as Li Bai, Li Pai, Li T’ai-po, and Li
T’ai-pai) was probably born in central Asia and grew up in Sichuan Province. Li Bai wrote
occasional verse and poems about his own life. His poetry is known for its clear imagery and
conversational tone. His work influenced a number of 20th-century poets, including Ezra
Pound and James Wright.
Performance Tasks
PT 1
Competency  Students familiarize themselves with the Greek Gods and Goddesses.
 Students understand historical context and cultural influences of the
ancient Greece and Rome through a dramatic monologue.
Directions: Perform a dramatic monologue impersonating one of the twelve Olympians. Performance
should show the characteristic that the assigned god/goddess possess. Record/Video your performance and
upload it on our Google Classroom-Classwork or send it via Facebook Messenger (only if necessary).
Technical aspects such as use of background music, costumes, and props are encouraged. (20 points)
Note: The assigned god/goddess to portray will be given by the instructor.

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PT 2
Competency  Students understand historical context and cultural influences of the
ancient Greece and Rome through a dramatic monologue.
Directions: Identify the Olympian Gods/Goddess being describe in each statement. (15points)
He was also known as the God of Wealth, of precious metals hidden in the Earth.
He was the most glorious, most great, God of the storm-cloud.
Daughter of Zeus, a fierce and ruthless battle-goddess.
The Goddess of Love and Beauty, who beguiled all gods and men alike; the
laughter-loving goddess, who laughed swiftly over mockingly at those her wiles had
conquered; the resistible goddess who stole away even the wits of the wise.
She was the protector of marriage, and married women were her peculiar care.
She was the Lady of Wild Things, Huntsman-in- chief to the gods, an odd office for
a woman.
He is a beautiful figure in Greek poetry, the master musician who delights Olympus
as he plays on his golden lyre; the lord too of the silver bow, the Archer-god, far
shooting the healer, as well, who taught men the healing art.
He was always shown carrying a three-pronged spear with which he would shake
and shatter the Earth whenever he pleased.
The Greek God of war, spirit of battle.
She cursed Echo for agreeing with Zeus’ plan to distract her by repeating whatever
she says.
She was the Goddess of the Hearth, the symbol of the home, around which the
newborn child must be carried before it could be received into the family.
He was graceful and swift in motion. On his feet were winged sandals; wings were
on his low-crowned hat, too, and on his magic wand, the Caduceus.
Described as the “flashing-eyed” of the three virgin goddesses, she was the chief
and was called the Maiden, Parthenos, and her temple, the Parthenon.
The god of Fire, sometimes said to be the son of Zeus and Hera, sometimes of Hera
alone, who bore him in retaliation to Zeus’ having brought forth Athena. Among the
perfectly beautiful immortals he was the only ugly.
She was the gracious protector of heroes and the inspirer of heroic deeds.

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PT 3
Competency  Students familiarize themselves with the Greek Gods and Goddesses.
 Students make inferences and monitor understanding of Classical text
through a writing activity.
Directions: Read the literary text “Cupid and Psyche” and make a story review. Do this in paragraph form
following the format below. Strictly one (1) paragraph with five (5) sentences only per part, it will be four (4)
paragraphs for the whole activity. Upload your output on the designated folder/classwork in the Google
Classroom you are enrolled. If handwritten, take a photo of your output and upload it on the
designated folder/classwork in the Google Classroom you are enrolled.(20 points)
Story Review Parts:

Introduction (include some basic facts about the story, including the title, the author and the story genre.)
Summary (Brief summary of the literary text)
Personal Reflection (Discuss what you like or dislike about the story. Give reasons to support your opinion. You
may want to compare and contrast the story with other stories you have read by the same
author or in the same genre.)
Conclusion (evaluate the story and either recommend it or not recommend it to others)

Province of Laguna
PT 4
ancient Greece and Rome.
 Students make inferences by writing a new ending of the story.
Directions: Given the chance to change the ending of the story, write a one (1) paragraph with five (5)
sentences story ending. Upload your output on the designated folder/classwork in the Google
designated folder/classwork in the Google Classroom you are enrolled.(10points)

Province of Laguna
PT 5
Competency  Students make inferences and monitor understanding of Medieval text
through a writing activity.
 Students understand historical context and cultural influences of the
medieval period through answering comprehensive questions.
Directions: Analyse and answer the given questions below about the literary text, “The Ballade of the Dead
Ladies”. Answers must be in a paragraph form. Each answer must be one (1) paragraph per number with five
(5) sentence each paragraph. Upload your output on the designated folder/classwork in the Google
designated folder/classwork in the Google Classroom you are enrolled.(20 points)
1. Who are the women mentioned in the poem? What are the commonalities found in these women?
2. What message does the poet convey? How does the poet make his message felt?
3. What does the poet express with the line “But where are the snows of yesteryear?”
4. What is the relation of the ballade to the life of the author, Francois Villon?

Province of Laguna
PT 2 (Letter Writing)
medieval period through a writing activity.
 Students make inferences by writing a letter in connection with the
literary texts.
Directions: After reading and analysing the literary text, “The River-Merchant’s Wife: A Letter”, write
a letter that shows the response of the merchant to his wife’s letter. Write your answer in a form of a
letter. Upload your output on the designated folder/classwork in the Google Classroom you are
enrolled. If handwritten, take a photo of your output and upload it on the designated folder/classwork
in the Google Classroom you are enrolled.(20 points)
Understanding Directed Assess

Criteria for Monologue (PT1)
Characterization 4 points
Verbal and Nonverbal Communication 4 points
Diction, Projection, and Voice Variety 4 points
Costume and Props 4 points
Technical Aspect 4 points
Total 20 points
Criteria for Story Review (PT3)
Content 4 points
Development 4 points
Organization of Ideas 4 points
Style 4 points
Grammar and Mechanics 4 points
Total 20 points
Criteria for Letter Writing (PT6)
Content 4 points
Development 4 points
Organization of Ideas 4 points
Style 4 points
Grammar and Mechanics 4 points
Total 20 points

Province of Laguna
Learning Resources
Cruz, J., Solmerano, T., Chancoco, J., Del Rosario-Garcia, M., Ondevilla, M.K., Palencia, M.,
&Solmerano, T. M.,. (2018). Great Books: A Treasury of World Literature. 4th ed.
Philippines: FastBooks.
Online Source:
Atsma, A., (2017). EKHO. Retrieved from https://www.theoi.com/
Baldwin, E., (2020). The River-Merchant’s Wife: A Letter. Retrieves from
https://poemanalysis.com/
Cummings, M., (2009). Ballade of the Dead Lady:Study Guide. Retrieved from
https://www.cummingsstudyguides.net/
Dunlap, J., William Morris, The Story of Cupid and Psyche (Book Review). Retrieved from
https://search.proquest.com/
Grams, L., Hipparchia. Retrieved from https://iep.utm.edu/
Greek Gods and Goddesses. The Twelve Olympians. Retrieved from
http://greekgodsandgoddesses.net/
Jeandet, Y., Blanche of Castille Biography. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/
Pernoud, R., Francois Villon Biography. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/
Prepared by:
Ms. Irish Elliane G. Belen, LPT

GEC ELEC 2 Instructor, CAS
Intellectual Property
This module is for educational purpose only. Under section Sec. 185 of RA 8293, which
states, “The fair use of a copyrighted work for criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching
including multiple copies for classroom use, scholarship, research, and similar purposes is not
an infringement of copyright.”
The unauthorized reproduction, use, and dissemination of this module without joint
consent of the authors is strictly prohibited and shall be prosecuted to the full extent of the law,
including appropriate administrative sanctions, civil, and criminal.

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Laguna State Polytechnic University

Level I Institutionally Accredited

LSPU SELF-PACED LEARNING MODULE: GREAT BOOKS (Module 2)

Level I Institutionally Accredited

LSPU SELF-PACED LEARNING MODULE: GREAT BOOKS (Module 2)

Student Learning Strategies

Online Activities A. Online Discussion via Google Meet

The online discussion will happen on ________________, 2020, from ________.

From Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes

LSPU SELF-PACED LEARNING MODULE: GREAT BOOKS (Module 2)

LSPU SELF-PACED LEARNING MODULE: GREAT BOOKS (Module 2)

Hestia, in all dwellings of men and immortals,

Golden-throned Hera, among immortals the queen,

LSPU SELF-PACED LEARNING MODULE: GREAT BOOKS (Module 2)

7. PALLAS ATHENA (MINERVA)

So saying, Minerva, goddess, azure-eyed,

LSPU SELF-PACED LEARNING MODULE: GREAT BOOKS (Module 2)

O Phoebus from your throne of truth

LSPU SELF-PACED LEARNING MODULE: GREAT BOOKS (Module 2)

Goddess Aphrodite who stirs with love all creation,

10. APHRODITE (VENUS)

The breath of the west wind bore her

LSPU SELF-PACED LEARNING MODULE: GREAT BOOKS (Module 2)

The Romans wrote of her in the same way.

11. HERMES (MERCURY)

The babe was born at the break of day

12. HEPHAESTUS (VULCAN / MULCIBER)

Thrown by angry Jove

LSPU SELF-PACED LEARNING MODULE: GREAT BOOKS (Module 2)

Level I Institutionally Accredited

LSPU SELF-PACED LEARNING MODULE: GREAT BOOKS (Module 2)

Level I Institutionally Accredited

LSPU SELF-PACED LEARNING MODULE: GREAT BOOKS (Module 2)

Level I Institutionally Accredited

LSPU SELF-PACED LEARNING MODULE: GREAT BOOKS (Module 2)

Level I Institutionally Accredited

LSPU SELF-PACED LEARNING MODULE: GREAT BOOKS (Module 2)

Level I Institutionally Accredited

LSPU SELF-PACED LEARNING MODULE: GREAT BOOKS (Module 2)

Level I Institutionally Accredited

UNIT 4: EAST IS EAST, WEST IS WEST

Tell me now in what hidden way is

Where's Heloise, the learned nun,

White Queen Blanche, like a queen of lilies,

LSPU SELF-PACED LEARNING MODULE: GREAT BOOKS (Module 2)

Nay, never ask this week, fair lord,

LSPU SELF-PACED LEARNING MODULE: GREAT BOOKS (Module 2)

Literary Term Focus

About the Author

While my hair was still cut straight across my forehead

At fifteen I stopped scowling,

At sixteen you departed

LSPU SELF-PACED LEARNING MODULE: GREAT BOOKS (Module 2)

You dragged your feet when you went out.

LSPU SELF-PACED LEARNING MODULE: GREAT BOOKS (Module 2)

About the Author

LSPU SELF-PACED LEARNING MODULE: GREAT BOOKS (Module 2)

Level I Institutionally Accredited

The online discussion will happen on ________, 2020, from .