Classics and the Western Canon discussion

The last books seemed to me to be a bit short on transformations (metamorphoses), but Ovid makes up for it in the beginning of Book 9.

Achelous undergoes several transformations, into snake and bull -- presumably he can't be transformed into any different shape by Hercules, who isn't yet a god. Lichas is transformed into a rock. Hercules into a god. Galanthis into a weasel. Dryope into a Lotus tree.

And then we get this interesting section of the gods complaining about not being able to overcome fate, that their powers are too limited. Another significance difference between Greek gods and the Judeo-Christian God, who is omnipotent and can do whatever He wants to.

I always thought of Hercules as someone with drowsy eyes and too much muscle. That Rocky image however did not prevent me noticing parallels between Hercules and Jesus. Both are half-gods, leading heroic lives, choosing death and becoming immortal. The nature of the heroics is different of course, though even here one can see some common ground (cleaning stables vs. cleansing the temple).

A search on the net shows that the analogy has often been commented on, but given the ideological nature of the debate not much of it really merits our attention. The exception is Joseph Campbell's theory of the Monomyth (the Hero's Journey - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monomyth). Personally I feel that he is just telling us that some heroes make a trip, and that that journey may be divided in 17 stages - or maybe a few more or less. It goes to show that comparative mythology remains a tricky business.

I don't quite understand the apotheosis of the demi-gods. Both Dionysus and Hercules were born of mortal women, but the former was a god directly, whereas the latter had to perform 12 labors and die in excruciating pain before being received into the Pantheon. Why? And there were those who, although born of gods, yet were no different from the mortals. What's the difference between those and the first two?

I can't tell if there is any linkage with the Iphis of Ligdus and Telethusa and the Iphis in this passage of Homer, but some strange fluke put this passage in my path today and I share it from The Iliad:

"Now Patroklos gave the maids and his followers orders
to make up without delay a neat bed for Phoinix.
And these obeyed him and made up the bed as he had commanded,
laying fleeces on it, and a blanket, and a sheet of fine linen.
There the old man lay down and waited for the divine Dawn.
But Achilleus slept in the inward corner of the strong-built shelter,
and a woman lay beside him, one he had taken from Lesbos,
Phorbas' daughter, Diomede of the fair colouring,
In the other corner Patroklos went to bed; with him also
was a girl, Iphis the fair-girdled, whom brilliant Achilleus
gave him, when he took sheer Skyros, Enyeus' citadel."

Lattimore, 9.658-668