ABSTRACT
The Greek mind made a careful distinction between mythology and myth, the distance between them is the same as that between history and the writing of history. The term mythology was used by the Greeks exclusively to designate factual recounting of mythological events. A modern analyst of the problematic nature of "myth" will do well, therefore, to remember at all times that the approach, accessus to myth through handbooks is illegitimate. The literary form of mythology since Euripides was not exemplary in the sense that heroic actors behaved properly, thus offering models. The variation introduced by Euripides allowed mythology to place a contemporary image of man in the mythic frame. Only classical poetry was able always to look up to the world of mythology. The high poetry of the Greeks and Romans, of the Middle Ages, and of all contemporary classical revivals avoids two devices as being quite simply antipoetici reference to the present, and approximations of the trivial.
