conversations.from: human
conversations.value: What could be a title for a book about Classics, Greek, Stanford with the genre: Science Fiction & Fantasy, Fantasy?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: A title for this book could be 'Myths of the Ancient Greeks'
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me the first five paragraphs for this book.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Myths of the Ancient Greeks
  In exile, Pandion II fathered four sons. After his death the sons—Pallas, Aegeus, Lykos, and Nisos—conquered "Attica," their ancestral land, and divided it among them, with Aegeus winning the territory around Athens itself. Pallas was jealous, and dangerous as well, since he had no fewer than fifty sons to help him do battle, should it come to that. Aegeus, on the other hand, was childless, a problem that he attempted to solve by consulting the oracle of Apollo at Delphi. He journeyed over the mountains to the northwestern town, and arriving at the shrine, he asked the Pythia—Apollo's mysterious spokeswoman—for advice. As usual, she replied in obscurely significant verse:
  Puzzled by this answer, Aegeus sought an interpretation from clever Pittheus, who ruled Troizen in the Peloponnese. "He does not understand the metaphor in these verses," thought Pittheus when he heard the conundrum, so he proceeded to arrange for Aegeus to "loose the skin's foot" immediately by getting the Athenian to sleep with his daughter—a dynastic decision. Aithra, the girl, became pregnant. Aegeus instructed her that if she bore a son who could, on reaching his teenage years, lift a certain heavy rock, the boy should be sent to Athens to take up his rightful royal crown. He would be recognized, Aegeus said, through the tokens he had hidden in a hollow in the rock: a pair of sandals and an ivory-hilted sword. And so the baby who soon arrived was called Theseus ("Arranger") because Aegeus had ordered things this way.
  Like his cousin Herakles, Theseus' paternity carried an air of ambiguity. Someone—Pittheus, or Aithra herself, perhaps—put out the story that the god Poseidon, not Aegeus, had fathered this handsome child. Some even claimed that Aithra, after lying with Aegeus, waded to an offshore island and that same night made love to the sea god. Aegeus, as it turned out, was by a sad mishap to give his name to the Aegean Sea. Was there in his younger days already something fishy about the king, something godlike and marine? At any rate, the boy Theseus became a great swimmer, yet at a crucial moment in his youth scorned the sea.
  As did many a young hero with an absent father, he dreamed of the day that he could show everyone how important, how loving was the missing man in his life. As soon as soft down began to darken his chin, Theseus put his shoulder to the great stone and shifted it, took the tokens Aegeus had deposited, and headed off to claim his throne at Athens. But he did not go by sea. That would have been too easy, since Athens was a short sail across the gulf from home. Instead, he chose the circuitous mainland route along the seacoast and across the Isthmus, precisely because it was so perilous, filled with fearful creatures and villains his cousin had failed to remove. At the time, Herakles was in Lydia, doing shameful slave labor for the exotic queen Omphalê. It was the moment for Theseus to win his own fame.
  Not far from Troizen is Epidauros, a place that would become prosperous and famous for its great hospital at the healing shrine of the hero Asklepios. In Theseus' day, however, Epidauros was a back-woods spot. Here he met his first opponent, "Club-Man" Periphetes. A son of the crafts god, Hephaestus, he robbed travelers by threatening them with his heavy wooden weapon. Theseus overcame him with his bare hands. He took the ruffian's club—so he, too, had a weapon like Herakles'—and moved on.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me five more paragraphs.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: When the mist lifted, the crowd of Kolkhians were amazed to find among them these handsome Greek youths. The king and queen came to welcome them. Meanwhile, Eros, who had flown over farmland and sea, passed unseen through the crowd and targeted the king's daughter, Medea, just as she emerged from her chamber to see what all the commotion was. His magic arrow pierced her to the core. Immediately, she burned with love, her heart flaring up just like a fire that a working woman feeds with tinder before dawn when she gets up early to work, and keeps blazing in her hearth as she spins her wool. Medea felt bittersweet pain as she stared at the newcomer, the man who had introduced himself as Jason. He was telling her father of his mission, the journey for the Fleece. "But we will not take it without recompense," he said. "I and my crew are ready to fight for your kingdom against whatever enemies you have."
  Aiêtês was at first inclined to kill the Greeks on the spot. It was his kingdom they wanted, of that he was sure. But he thought of a better plan. "It is not right for a brave man like me to give his treasure to just any old pretender. So we'll see how brave you are. There's a deed I can do, and let's see if you can as well. I yoke my bronze-hoofed bulls in the morning and all day long plow the field, and then sow it, but not with seed. Athena gave me half the dragon's teeth that Kadmos once put down in Thebes. Just like his, these cause armed men to spring up. They look like skeletons—except they're tougher than men in armor. I cut them down with my sword before they can get me, and that's my day's work. You must attempt this—or else you'll have to die." Jason was speechless for a long minute. But he recovered his voice and said, "I will," even though he already pictured himself being trampled by those bulls. He signaled to his companions, and they left.
  Medea left as well and went back to her chamber, where she lay on her bed, her mind filled by this beautiful man—how he talked, and moved, and looked. When she thought of the way he was bound to die, it hurt her more than the thought of herself being overpowered by the bulls. She prayed for Jason's safety to Hecate, goddess of night, magic, and the crossroads, whom she served as priestess in her temple.
  At the very time, one of the Kolkhians, a man whom Jason had found at sea a few days before and transported home, was advising him to seek Medea's help. "She knows all manner of herbs and spells," said this man, who happened to be the young woman's nephew. "She can stop flame and wind. Hecate has taught her how to make the moon stand still." When Jason reached the rest of the crew and told them of his plight, and how Medea might help, there was resistance. "Did we come all the way here to depend on women, instead of war?" shouted Idas. But a sign appeared from the gods: a dove, being chased by a hawk, flew down and fell straight into Jason's lap. The hawk, desperately swerving in his plunge, ran head-on into the stern of the ship and dropped down dead. "Look how the bird of Aphrodite has survived. So we, too, should take the gentler way," concluded Mopsos, the seer, as he interpreted this sudden drama. "Ask Medea for her aid."
  At the break of day, she bathed and dressed in a shining, fragrant gown, put on her veil, and went with her serving maids to the shrine of Hecate at the edge of the city. Word was secretly sent to Jason, who came at once to find her. Love blazed between them like a comet when they met. She could hardly speak. Jason, meanwhile, used all his charm to beg Medea for help, even citing mythic precedent—how Theseus once was saved by Ariadne. "In the same way will I spread your name throughout Hellas," the young hero swore.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me the last five paragraphs.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Penelope wanted to test him. If this was truly her husband, not some impostor, there was one secret only he would know. She came to the hall and sat opposite the stranger, staying silent so long that Telemakhos, who was standing nearby, exploded in exasperation, "What other woman among the Greeks would act like this?" But she took her time. Odysseus, meanwhile, gave orders for the servants to make it seem as if a wedding feast were taking place, with music inside the house, lest the kin of the suitors learn too soon what had happened and begin the inevitable vendetta. So it was to a background of marriage songs that Penelope finally spoke. "Yes, and once the master is bathed and clothed, see to it, Eurykleia, that his bed is made, the covers spread, and blankets put on it—that one just outside the bedroom, the bed he crafted himself."
  Odysseus was taken off guard. "Move my bed? Who did it? Not even a god could budge it. You know very well our marriage bed is built from living wood. I made it so the main support was an ancient olive trunk, growing up like a thick column inside the bedchamber. To move that bed, you'd have to cut the tree right at the base. Who did it?"
  At this her knees gave way. Only Odysseus could have known this detail. "I'm sorry. So many have come, and I was afraid. We have suffered so much, being apart for twenty years. I thought maybe a god had come to cause more trouble. But now you have persuaded me." Wife and husband embraced, as welcome to each other as land is to the sailor who lands safely from the churning sea. That night Athena held back the horses of the Dawn, to prolong the couple's talk and lovemaking, as they deserved.
  Odysseus told his wife of all his adventures, not omitting the parts about Circe and Calypso. He let her know, even now, that he would one day make a final journey, as Teiresias had ordered, to a place farthest from the sea. He would have to walk inland with an oar carried over his shoulder, until he reached a spot where the inhabitants, not knowing about boats, asked, "Why do you bear a winnowing fan?" There he would build a shrine to the god Poseidon, his long-standing enemy. After that, he'd come home and grow old peacefully among his people and die a peaceful death free of the waves. But that was far off. Now there were more pressing needs.
  The next day, he went into the countryside to find his aged father. Laertes was overjoyed to see him home, even though Odysseus rather cruelly kept up the pretense that he was in fact somebody else when he first came upon the poor old man. Soon after that, Odysseus had to face the families of the men he killed. It was the proudest moment of Laertes' life. He saw his son and grandson, at the height of their war strength, ranged against their enemies—his bloodline in full flower. Only the intervention of Athena, sent at the last minute by command of Zeus, kept the feud from blowing up into a full-scale war. Both sides ultimately went away in peace. And as their spirits descended to the underworld that same day, the suitors could tell all the generation of heroes gathered there—Achilles, Ajax, and the rest—how the wily king of Ithaca had returned to his steadfast wife. "Lucky Odysseus," sighed the ghost of Agamemnon. "You were remembered well in your own home. The gods gave you—not me—an excellent woman. Now the immortals will remember you both in a splendid song for the rest of time." And that was how it all turned out.