Hi, everyone. And welcome back to 酒馆. Hi, 安澜.

Hi 璐璐. Hi everyone.

We have a piece of good news. We have yet another new album.

我们的新课程其实不是新课程, 就是一个新专辑。

Yes.

为什么不是课程呢 ，等一下你就知道了, 因为没有那么正经。

Yeah, to be honest, in this we're not really trying to teach in that way. What we're trying to do is we're trying to share something about western culture that is pretty much well known throughout the English-speaking world, but also French, German, and in particular, the Greek speaking world.

关子卖的够多了，这个专辑叫做【Story Time With Lulu And Anlan- Greek Mythology】.

Yes.

我们把它叫做【璐璐和安澜的晚安故事-希腊神话篇】, 为什么叫做Story Time With Lulu And Anlan?

First of all, we're telling stories

Yeah.

Second of all, in the future we want to expand this to cover other things.

Yes, to be honest, this is really a labor of love.

Yeah, and Greek mythology is only the beginning.

Yes, that's because Lulu and I, we both love stories. This is one of the things that I would say that most of us are like, we love a good story, we love to be told tales, whether or not we're really young children; or whether or not in our cases, a little bit older than that.

不管是儿童还是成年儿童都喜欢听故事。

And this is something universal, and it has been like that since the beginning of time.

Exactly.

I would imagine cave people get together to listen to stories.

Yeah.

But why Greek mythology, 为什么从希腊神话开始, I know that 安澜 has an answer for all of these questions because he absolutely is fascinated with Greek mythology.

Basically we chose Greek mythology because I kept nagging Lulu that we really should do Greek mythology because it's something that I love to talk about.

But first things first, what is Greek mythology? 我们知道说希腊神话, 希腊神话, 但希腊神话实际上包括的是什么东西？

Greek mythology are the myths and legends of ancient Greece, so they're linked to the Gods and Goddesses of ancient Greece. There are so many stories that have come down through the ages.

And these were the stories that were told already in ancient Greece.

Yeah, they were used to explain what the world was like, they were used to entertain, they were used to teach; same as mythologies around the world.

Now what makes Greek mythology I would say even more special is the emphasis and the impact of Greek culture and later Roman culture on western civilization or western societies.

More than a little bit later.

But first things first, you mentioned Roman, ancient Rome, 就古希腊, 古罗马, 我的历史不好, 所以我在这上面总是有一些confusion, 特别是有一些神在Greek mythology里面它叫一个名字, 但他到了Roman mythology又叫另外一个名字, 是这样吗？

比如说宙斯, Zeus, that's his name in Greek mythology.

Yeah, but in ancient Rome, his name was Jupiter.

So Zeus and Jupiter that was basically the same character.

Yes, I won't go too much into details because it's a bit complicated. But ancient Rome really, really admired ancient Greece. They wanted to base their culture in ancient Greece.

I see, so they sort of imitated.

They imitated, they tried to fit in with the Greek world. Sometimes they absolutely loved it, sometimes they absolutely hated it. It's a little bit like what we've done in the UK with French culture.

We try to learn French; we try to imitate French fashion throughout the ages, and also a little bit of East Asia. It comes from the same ideas, the same cultural background i.e., China.

Yes, because obviously Chinese culture has great impact on some of our neighbors.

Yeah.

Coming back to Greek mythology, what was the first time you learned about Greek myth?

It was from my dad. When I was younger, my dad, because he loved Greek mythology in ancient history, instead of telling me all of those stories like Red Riding Hood, Jack and the Bean Stalk...

Typical fairy tales.

Those typical fairy tales. He used to tell me the Greek myths, and from the age of about maybe four or five, he used to tell me the Greek myths.

Wow, forgive me for saying that Greek mythology is not always children friendly.

He told me very sanitized versions. And this is the type of stories that we also share. In our album, we do tell you the truth behind these myths in separate sections.

对, 等一下我们也会说到我们的晚安故事里面其实也分了不同的段, 就是真实的希腊神话里面真的很乱, 有很多对我们现在来说是比较“毁三观”的事情.

Yeah.

比如说像安澜的父亲在他小时候给他讲的故事, 属于比较干净版本的儿童可以听的版本, 在我们的这个里面也会分成完全干净的版本, 以及我们吐槽的比较有料的版本。

So whether you are getting this album for yourself or for your kids, you will both get something out of it.

Exactly.

So when your dad was telling you those stories, how did you feel?

I just felt that was so exciting.

You have to think that the Greek myths happen in the Mediterranean, they happen in Greece and parts of modern-day Turkey.

For someone who was very young like a 5 or 6-year-old, I did travel, I did go to the Mediterranean on occasion.

But it was the idea of this far away world where it was always sunny yet the blue sea, you had these monsters, you had these heroes all in this kind of very sunny part of Europe.

Quite exotic.

It's quite exotic. And my dad used to tell me these stories before I went to bed. But also when we used to go for walks, my dad loves walking and he still does.

And when I was young, I used to go for walks with him through the countryside or along the river in London.

He used to tell me these stories and you can imagine going for walk in central London or going for walk in London is very different, going for a walk in Greece or the Mediterranean.

But he basically used these myth to paint you a picture to create like a fantasy world.

I think that's the beauty of mythology and lores, but tell us do you have any favorite character or stories in Greek myth?

I do, my favorite character is Odysseus.

Odysseus, oh the Odyssey就是《奥德赛》里面的奥德修斯.

I absolutely love the Odyssey, because Odysseus was this very, very clever man who was also a traveler, and I love traveling. And that was one of the first stories that was told to me. I also like Theseus in the Minotaur, which when I was a kid was really scary.

But also I have a grudging respect for Sisyphus who we talk about in our tale.

这些我们都会提到, 比如说西西弗斯, 还有像刚才安澜说的Theseus and Minotaur, 特休斯以及他杀掉的 Minotaur, 米诺陶, 也就是半人半牛的怪兽.

There are so many stories behind it, behind these characters.

Now we talked about what fascinates you about Greek myth. For similar reasons, myth and folklores, they fascinate me.

But why should we learn about Greek myth apart from oh, it’s a good story, we wanna listen to it.

Greek myths are brilliant when it comes to themes and meanings. There's always a moral to many of the tales told in Greek mythology. Sometimes the mole is a bit strange, to say the least, and we'll talk about that in our tale session.

But also the impact, I would say, of Greek mythology and Roman mythology on art, culture, even popular culture.

Yeah, I would say it's not an exaggeration to say that Greek myth pretty much offered certain level of foundation for western civilization.

Yeah, and ultimately some people might say all these are old stories from thousands of years ago, but it's precisely because they're old stories from 1,000 years ago or 2,000 years ago to be precise. That's why we should learn them, because all… how many of the tales that are told nowadays, how many of those do you think are gonna be retold in 2,000 years’ time.

True. 这些Greek myth里面的故事都是已经沉淀了千年的故事, 同时如果你对任何的文艺方面的东西感兴趣, 比如说对于雕塑或者说绘画这些东西感兴趣, then you have to know Greek myths.

Otherwise, when you're traveling, for example, if you're traveling around Europe, seeing all these pieces, all these art pieces on the street or in galleries, museums, you simply wouldn't be able to really fully understand the context.

Yeah. So many of the Greek myths have actually been adapted into films, into plays. They've also influenced books, particularly if you go into an art gallery, probably about1/4 to even 1/2 of the paintings and sculptures that you will see will be based on Greek mythology.