Erysichthon

Revision Tool Emily Parkes & Sarah Hartill

Part 1 The Tree

Part 1
It is a story told by Achelous at the dinner party. Erysichthon was a man who despised the gods and never made any sacrifices He was a greedy man and decided to cut down one of the trees in the forest The tree he decided to cut down was a large tree that could have been a wood in itself. The tree was dedicated to Ceres, goddess of grain and harvest, and so was decorated in wool bands, prayer tablets and garlands. Even though Erysichthon knew this he still wanted to cut it down.

 None of his slaves would help him so he decided to take an axe to it himself. As he cut at the tree it let out a groan, and turned grey and blood poured out from were the tree had been striked. When one slave tried to stop him he cut his head off. Suddenly a voice came from the tree, it was the voice of one of the nymphs that had been living in the tree and the nymph died. The tree then toppled down.

Part 2 - Hunger

Part 2
The dryads dressed in mourning black and went to visit Ceres to beg her to punish Erysichthon. The goddess agreed and called a rural oread to her. She asked the oread to go to Hunger and ask her to fill Erysichthon with hunger. She had to ask the oread to go for her as she couldnt go to hunger herself for the fates will not let them meet. Hunger is described in great detail by Ovid as a person that is portraying hunger and starvation. Hunger went to Erysichthon in the night and

Part 3 - punishment

Part 3
In his dreams Erysichthon craved food. When he awoke he was ravenous and demanded a banquet with food from all corners of the earth. He moaned in a childlike manner when the food was brought to him. However what could satisfy cities or nations would not fill Erysichthons hunger. The more he eats the hungrier Erysichthon becomes. Ovid uses two similes to compare this. His appetite ate away at his wealth, but his hunger never went away.

 Erysichthon sold everything that he owned, when all he had left was his daughter. He sold his daughter into slavery, but she ran away from her master to the see and asked Neptune to save her as he had raped her before. Neptune altered Mestras form and made it so that she could change forms. Erysichthon used this to his ability by selling her as a slave over and over again, and then having her return in a different form. However even this did not save him as he could not cure his hunger, only make it worse, and ended up eating himself.