koltron asked: So am I the only one shipping the piano playing guy and all of the chairs in the music room... I mean are there any cases of mythology getting cleaned the same way a lot of the Bible did like when some translators replaced references to genital being cut off with feet or other limbs getting cut off?
Classically? Not that I’m immediately aware of. Myths change for all sorts of reasons, primarily sucking up to patrons or one’s hometown, but I can’t think of an example from classical antiquity of a bowdlerized myth. Let’s be honest: the culture that brought us Priapus as a divinity (don’t wiki at work) was not super concerned about wieners in their stories. If anything, Ovid was likely to add MORE lurid stuff to his versions.
Anyone who knows a counter-example, please let me know.
Myths were DEFINITELY expurgated post-classically, even up to today. I mean, there are definitely students who are being told that Achilles was mad when Patroclus was killed because they were, you know, SUPER good friends. Any well-known collection of myths was likely put together by a stuffy Edwardian British person, so is probably euphemized at the least.
My favorite example is d’Aulaire’s Greek Myths (in fairness, a book for children), which has Zeus wandering the world just marrying the shit out of some ladies. Polygamy is better than extra-marital sex, I suppose.
