Talk:Chthonic/Archive 1

Corinthian or Chthonic?
As for the title of the first section, I think it's rather puzzling to have a "Corinthian" alongside the "Olympian". Could it be "Chthonic" instead? --193.252.199.51 11:09, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Aphrodite?
I was just reading a hymn from the greek magical papyri to Kytheria (Cyprus-born = Aphrodite) and she is address thus:

"O foam-born Kythereia, mother of Both gods and men, etherial and chthonic"

is this unusual? or should she be included in this article as well?--Feralnostalgia 11:19, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Chthonic Rites
Are there sources for any of the information concerning the rites of Chthonic cults? It's interesting stuff, but where's the support for any of it? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.192.68.117 (talk) 18:00, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Bomos
the greek word for "raised alter" was bomos? thats eerily simaliar to Heb. "boma" which means "personal altar" (not temple or tabernacle alters) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 4.239.114.45 (talk) 20:39, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Major revision needed, IMO
The word "chthonic" isn't used just in reference to meek gods. It is used to describe a classification of myths, figures, deities and motifs across multiple cultures and times. Osiris and Demeter are both chthonic deities. Osiris is Egyptian. I'm not sure if Aphrodite is considered to be a chthonic deity. She's got the love thing going for her. But Chthonic aren't just known for their associations with life/fertility, they are also recognized for a concommittant association with death, the two together represent the process of rebirth. Demeter, when searching for her daughter Persephone (another chthonic figure), is known as Demeter Erinys. Erinys is associated with the Furies. Demeter was willing to allow the world to die of winter/starvation. This narrative is an explanation of the seasons: fertility and famine/death and the world's rebirth mirroring that of the spiritual rebirth of the individual, central chthonic motifs. I removed the part of the line under "Chthonic and Olympian" that stated, "Chthonic deities tended to prefer black victims over white ones..." This strikes me as biased (be it religious, cultural, or otherwise), specious and inflammatory. Since it had no ref., I felt it was best to remove it. Any suggestions for further improvement? Phyesalis 12:39, 9 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Your comments on the quoted line "Chthonic deities tended to prefer black victims over white ones..." are fully incorrect and indicate a bias on your part. As we are talking about animals here, and not people, there is nothing biased or inflammatory here. Furthermore, this reflects legitimate scholarship (which the original author of the lines no doubt should have cited). I present you with two lines from Homer (Iliad, III.103-104): "οίσετε δ' άρν', έτερον λευκόν ετέρην δέ μέλαιναν,/ Γηι τε καί Ηελίωι", which translates to "Bring forth two rams (άρν' being in the dual), one white [male] (masculine endings) and one black [female] (feminine endings) for Gaia and for Helios (chiasmic structure common in Homer and most of Greek)". As Allen Benner says in his notes to the text, "The 'white ram' is an offering to the sun; the 'black ewe' to the earth, black being the appropriate color of victims offered to the chthonian deities". This sentiment is echoed in M.M. Willcock's commentary on the same lines, "Male animals were sacrificed to gods, females to goddesses; white to the Olympians, black to the gods of the underworld". The line should be re-added with adequate references to notes such as these. 204.52.215.69 17:55, 4 September 2007 (UTC)


 * I agree the original commenter's comment on bias over the "black victims" is misguided. However the simple assertion that the article needs major revision in my view is correct. There are no references to cover the core topic (One to Jung and one about Greek phonology are hardly pertinent to the core of the actual topic). Also I feel that rather opposing chthonic/olympian it's perhaps better to oppose chtonic/ouranic as some olympians where cthonic. Also there needs to be clearer reference to the fact that just about everthing that touches Hades, so that's Hermes, Persephone, even heros like Orpheus, are nearly always regarded as cthonic deities, even the souls of the dead are referred to as Cthonioi. GermanicusCaesar (talk) 12:50, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Mangled text
Someone's "edits" seems to have butchered this entry, especially the first two or three paragraphs. Crummyusername (talk) 14:25, 15 April 2009 (UTC)Crummyusername


 * Repaired. 91.85.169.218 (talk) 14:28, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Types of Sacrifice?
"While terms such as "Earth deity" have rather sweeping implications in English, the words khthonie and khthonios, had a more precise and technical meaning in Greek, referring primarily to the manner of offering sacrifices to the deity in question."

The article then goes on to describe certain chthonic sacrificial rites, but it doesn't contrast (or compare) these with sacrifices made to the Olympian gods. The distinction, while blurry, is important in the "precise and technical meaning" of the word chthonic. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.38.139.144 (talk) 04:14, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

Chthulhu
There's a mention of the deep Old One, and the mention of sacrificial cults bring me to the opinion that the words share etymology. Vampromero 23:32, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Considering that the Lovecraftian pantheon, though nonetheless awesome, was only a creation of the last century, I think "shared etymology" is a little too glamorous for it. I'd say it's extremely likely that Lovecraft drew from the word "chthonic" in naming the iconic dragonsquid, though I doubt there's likely to be any explicit evidence for this connection.  Since we're talking about ancient arbitrary language compared to recent deliberate fiction, there isn't a valid basis for drawing a linguistic conclusion.  Unless I'm wrong and there is explicit evidence somewhere that Lovecraft used the word, the best we can say is "the name of Cthulhu was likely inspired by the word 'chthonic'," and even then it's kind of OR or speculation.  Tsunomaru (talk) 03:47, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
 * I came to this page to see whether it was related or inspired :) I wonder if there's no explicit evidence, though. Lots of analysis on Lovecraft anyway, maybe I'll see if I can dig up something from Google that's suitable for a citation. Even if some literary expert just says "there is no evidence", might be worth nothing. Would have been noteworthy for me, anyhow :) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.212.39.49 (talk) 22:10, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Underworld Versus "Earth `Mother'"
It strikes me as odd to have this word, chthonic, refer both to a mythical underworld, which might quite plausibly be said to be the Greek origin, and also to the Earth mother myths of the post 1960s feminist movement. Might some disambiguation, and perhaps the accompanying necessary history, be called for? Surely I am not wrong in thinking that the Earth and under-earth are two quite different notions? Or is it the claim that the Greeks really did concatenate them? DavidLJ (talk) 01:20, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

Broken intro
The author of the intro got lost in all their commas and parentheses. It's barely coherent — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.163.8.149 (talk) 01:17, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

Misattributed quotation
The quotation from Man and his Symbols is not in fact written by Carl Jung, but rather Aniela Jaffé, who authored the chapter, "Symbolism in the Visual Arts", in which it appears. I'm not a wikipedia user, but I've temporarily removed the quotation because it was both misattributed and, subjectively, not descriptive of the topic of this article. This edit was made in good faith, though it may be not correct, someone else should make that determination: I am not an expert in Analytical Psychology by any stretch so if someone who is better versed believes it should be included, then by all means. However it should be properly cited to the correct author. I apologize if I have inadvertently made improper changes, as I say I am unfamiliar with wikipedia's internal workings.198.84.226.6 (talk) 02:35, 18 November 2014 (UTC)IM

Pronunciation
The information in Greek Alphabet, Ancient Greek phonology and Modern Greek phonology don't seem to indicate that the initial letter would be pronounced with an 'h' sound as the article states. The Storm Surfer 09:15, 14 November 2006 (UTC)


 * A 'h' sound (/h/) is the closest approximation in English phonology to the /x/ - /ç/ sound of modern Greek and later Ancient Greek. I'll edit it to add the IPA transcription. Xander 00:20, 17 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Where does the k come from in the pronunciation? You have çθonikos where you should have çθonios, no? Also, my IPA is rusty, but that should be a long i (ee), whereas with the k after it it would be short. Also, you say "modern Greek and later Ancient Greek", but in classical (say, Attic) Greek wouldn't the chi be pronounced kh? I suspect the Attic pronunciation might be closer to /kʰətʰoniɔs/, but I'm no expert. --DavidConrad 00:09, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

It's an aspirated k in the Greek, but likely the English pronunciation would drop the aspiration and just pronounce the /k/. The second phoneme in the Greek does appear to be /θ/ (like the th in thigh) rather than aspirated t /tʰ/. This is broadly consistent with a modern Greek pronunciation also. 60.240.207.146 (talk) 05:27, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

Second sentence is very unclear
The second sentence reads as follows:

"The translation of meaning discusses deities or spirits of the underworld, especially in Greek religion."

I really don't think anyone wants to read the phrase "The translation of meaning discusses", since that phrase's own meaning is totally unclear.

I do think that people want to know what the subject of the article — the word chthonic — means.

So maybe someone will rewrite the second sentence to begin as "The word chthonic means ", immediately followed by its meaning and then a period.

I am not the person to do this, since I am not familiar with this word.Daqu (talk) 20:23, 16 May 2015 (UTC)