Sunday, October 24, 2010

Myths and Legends: Atlas

Atlas. To find out more about the Titan Atlas, see this Wikipedia article: link; for information about the image: image source.

You can see the Titan Atlas with the load of the cosmos on his back. Atlas has to carry the heavens on his shoulders as a punishment; he joined with the other Titans in their war against the Olympians and when the Olympians won that war, Zeus chose this particular punishment for Atlas. At one point, Atlas got Heracles to bear the burden for him instead but Heracles tricked Atlas into taking the cosmos back on his shoulders again ("just for a minute," according to Heracles, who claimed he only wanted to put his cloak upon on his shoulders as padding) - and Atlas has been holding up the heavens ever since.

You can also find more myths and legends for the week of October 21-27 here. For more information and links to the actual javascript code, see the Myths & Legends Widget Reference Page.