Group Task # 1

Time: thirty minutes. The class is divided into five groups.
Instructions:

Go around the group and introduce yourselves.
Select a presider, a reader, and a recorder (all different).
Let the reader read the myth to the group.
As a group (with the presider presiding), prepare a brief, specific statement of what this myth is about.
Then state, in order of importance, the main "lessons" which the myth conveys.
The recorder shall take down the group's conclusions, together with any dissenting opinions, and shall report for the group.

Apollo has sex with a girl from Thessaly, Coronis, daughter of Phlegyas ["Flaming"] son of Ares [the war-god].

Coronis chooses to live with a young man, Ischus ["Strength"] son of Kaineus ["Killer"].

Apollo kills Coronis.

Dying, she tells Apollo that she is bearing his child.

Apollo attempts to revive Coronis, to no avail.

When Coronis dies, Apollo snatches their son from the funeral pyre.

He takes the son, Asklepios, to the cave of the centaur Chiron to be brought up.

[Chiron, half man and half horse, is the son of Kronos and Philyra.]

Chiron teaches Asklepios the arts of medicine and hunting.

Asklepios takes from Athena the blood from the Gorgon's veins.

[The blood from the left-hand veins brings death, that from the right-hand veins brings life.]

Asklepios prevents people from dying and raises many from the dead.

Zeus blasts Asklepios into Hades with a thunderbolt.

Asklepios is venerated forevermore as a hero and becomes the deity of medicine.

To get revenge for Asklepios' death, Apollo kills the Cyclopes, who forged the thunderbolt for Zeus.

Zeus wants to hurl Apollo into Tartaros, but Leto intervenes on his behalf.

Zeus sentences Apollo instead to a year in exile as a servant to Admetos, king of Thessaly.

Admetos treats Apollo well and earns his gratitude.

Apollo makes all Admetos' cows calve twins.

The time comes when Admetos is fated to die.

Apollo gets the Moirai [Fates] drunk on wine and persuades them to allow someone else to die in Admetos' place.

Only Admetos' wife Alcestis is willing to die for him.

Death [Thanatos] escorts Alcestis to the realm of Hades.

Herakles arrives, wrestles with Death, and rescues Alcestis.

Alcestis and Admetos live out their lives, and die.

Each group will present its findings to the class. Discussion of Apollo will take off from that point.