शैडोइंग अभ्यास: Why Do So Many Myths Say “DON’T LOOK BACK”? - वीडियो के साथ अंग्रेजी बोलना सीखें
अभ्यास मोड चुनें
हर मोड पूरी स्क्रीन का अभ्यास कक्ष खोलता है।
360 वाक्य
यदि वाक्य बहुत छोटे या लंबे हों, तो समायोजित करने के लिए Edit पर क्लिक करें।
1
Imagine you are given a simple command.
2
Don't look back.
3
Just keep walking forward, whatever you do.
4
No matter what you hear, no matter what you see, even if you hear your children calling your name,
5
or your loved ones crying out in agony, just keep walking, and don't turn around.
6
Do you think you could do it?
7
It might sound simple enough, But time and time again, in stories from ancient Greece, Korea, the Middle East and countless other places,
8
people fail the simple instruction over and over again.
9
Across thousands of years, there have been hundreds of stories from around the world, all with the same warning, don't look back.
10
Perhaps more interesting than the prevalence of this command in myths from across the world is the fact
11
they almost always fail it.
12
So today, we're going to look at several of these stories
13
and examine what happens when their characters disobey the seemingly straightforward command,
14
before asking why this particular warning appears so often in stories from cultures separated by thousands of miles and thousands of years.
15
Because the most intriguing part isn't that they are told not to look back.
16
It's a fact they always do.
17
The most famous story with this command is that of Orpheus and Eridice, one which I'm sure many of you will have heard before.
18
The version I will be using is from Ovid's great work The Metamorphosis.
19
The main character in the story is of course Orpheus, who was the best musician of all time.
20
Nothing could resist the beautiful melodies that came from his wonderful voice, paired with his masterful playing of the lyre.
21
There was one thing that Orpheus loved as much as music, and that was his wife, Eurydice.
22
Their wedding day was the happiest day of his life, until the god of marriage services,
23
Hyman, who Orpheus had called to bless his marriage, delivered some devastating news.
24
Hyman didn't bless the marriage as he usually would,
25
and his torch, which he brought with him to every wedding and would burn bright when the marriage was to prosper, could barely hold a flame,
26
instead sputtering out fumes that brought the attendees to tears.
27
Unsurprisingly, this was a very bad omen for Orpheus and Eurydice's marriage, and it wouldn't take long for that bad portent to come to fruition.
28
A few days after their marriage, depending on which version you were reading, either Eurydice was walking through the grass with her neid companions,
29
or she was running away from the shepherd Aristeas, who, who, enamoured by her beauty, was chasing her down to assault her,
30
when, in both stories, she was bitten on the ankle by a snake, and very shortly after, died.
31
Unsurprisingly, this devastated Orpheus, who, after a period of intense mourning, decided he was going to do the impossible,
32
and bring his wife back from the underworld.
33
Making his way past countless ghosts who were wandering aimlessly through the land of the dead, he finally enters the lair of Persephone and Hades.
34
He stood before these great gods of the underworld and he took out his lyre and started to sing.
35
He sang his story to the gods.
36
He sang about the death of his beloved Eurydice.
37
He sang about the wonder of Amor, the god of love, also known as Cupid,
38
and tried to remind Hades and Persephone about when they themselves were also captivated by a maw.
39
When Hades abducted Persephone in the events that led to her being trapped in the underworld with him,
40
Orpheus begged the king and queen of the underworld to return Eurydice to the land of the living.
41
And if they didn't, they could take his soul as well.
42
He would rather die than leave without her.
43
What happened next is nothing short of legendary.
44
The entire underworld, this pit of darkness and despair, was filled with emotion.
45
Ovid describes how the surrounding ghosts started to weep,
46
and how the various criminals trapped on the fields of punishment did something that was meant to be impossible.
47
They stopped what they were doing.
48
Ixion, who had been sentenced to be chained to a spinning, fiery wheel for all eternity, stopped spinning.
49
Tantalus stopped reaching for water, which was cursed to always retreat just out of his reach, leaving him perpetually dying of thirst.
50
Sisyphus stopped pushing his rock and instead sat on top of it and watched, transfixed by Orpheus' melodies.
51
The Furies themselves even felt their face become damp with tears.
52
Hades and Persephone, feeling the effect of Orpheus' lyrics and seeing what it had done to everybody else in the underworld, summoned the ghost of Eurydice.
53
They said that Orpheus could do as he wished and would turn with Eurydice to the land of the living, except for one simple condition.
54
He must not look back.
55
Unsurprisingly, Orpheus accepted this condition instantly, and started to make his way back from the underworld.
56
For this next section, I'll be quoting directly from the original
57
Latin, using my own translation.
58
They took the sloping path in absolute silence.
59
It is steep, obscured by dense shadowy fog, and closer to the border to the real world above.
60
It's at this point that doubt starts to creep into the back of Orpheus' mind, teasing him with questions.
61
What if the gods lied to him?
62
Is Eurydice even truly behind him?
63
It is a well -known fact that the Greek gods weren't exactly the most honourable bunch, and they certainly wouldn't be above such a cruel prank.
64
Here, Orpheus makes a mistake that would come to define him.
65
Afraid that Eurydice had faltered, and eager to see her, the lover turned his eyes, and instantly Eurydice dropped back,
66
reaching out her arms, struggling to hold and be held, the unhappy man could snatch at nothing except the vanishing air.
67
And now, dying for the second time, there was no complaint to her husband, for what could she complain of except being loved?
68
And for the last time she said, farewell, a cry that could hardly reach his ears, and returned again to that same place.
69
So goes the story of Orpheus and Eurydice.
70
So, why couldn't Orpheus abide by that simple instruction?
71
He had managed to do the hard part.
72
He had used his superhuman powers of music to convince the king of the underworld himself,
73
and yet he still failed at his task at the final hurdle.
74
Why did he turn around?
75
Although this subject has received a decent amount of scholarly attention, it is still something that I think is criminally under -discussed in scholarship.
76
If we take a surface -level look at the story, the reasons for Orpheus' look back is clear.
77
It all stems from that classic human flaw, doubt.
78
Orpheus was worried that Eurydice may have faltered.
79
However, we don't see anything in the text that suggests that she had in fact tripped.
80
Instead, Orpheus was filled with doubt over the words of Hades and Persephone.
81
He was worried he had been tricked, and looked back to verify Eurydice was truly behind him.
82
This could definitely be seen as an allegory for keeping faith in the divine.
83
If Orpheus had just completely trusted the words of the gods,
84
he would have escaped the underworld with Eurydice and lived the rest of their lives together.
85
Instead, by turning around, he went against the orders of the gods, and Eurydice paid the ultimate price.
86
This could also be a warning against the problem of loving too hard,
87
as after all, it was because of his love for Eurydice that Orpheus turned around, as he was desperate to see her.
88
Here, scholars have linked Orpheus turning around to his status as a poet, as poets have to face their muses and audience,
89
and thus Orpheus turned to look at his audience, his muse Eurydice, and his selfishness caused her to return to the land of the dead.
90
An interesting point to note is that Orpheus had been a known figure in myth since at least the 6th century BC,
91
with a fragment from the lyric poet Ibecus which simply lists Orpheus as Orpheus famous of name, but unfortunately that is all that survives.
92
However, the concept of Orpheus saving Eurydice, and specifically being instructed to not look back, is first found in Roman times,
93
with Virgil's Georgics and Ovid's Metamorphosis, the latter being the basis for my earlier translation.
94
So the concept of not looking back in this myth seems to be maybe a Roman invention, added to an earlier
95
Greek myth concerned with Orpheus.
96
Anyways, we could spend hours reading into the reasons behind Orpheus' actions,
97
and I'm excited to see what you guys have to say in the comments below.
98
At this point, you might be thinking that the Don't Look Back command is simply an unusual feature of the Orpheus story.
99
However, if we turn to our next source, we can see this motif appear again.
100
We have another story of somebody fleeing from one world to another.
101
We have another divine command, that same don't look back.
102
And once again, they turn around.
103
Next we have a famous story from Genesis, the first book of both the Hebrew Bible and the Old Testament,
104
about the wife of a man called Lot, as part of the wider story of Sodom and Gomorrah.
105
The actual story is only a very small section of the wider narrative,
106
so at first let's cover a brief bit of context for people who don't know the story of Sodom and Gomorrah.
107
Sodom and Gomorrah were two cities who were plagued with sin and violence, and perhaps most scandalously, inhospitality.
108
God decided that these two cities deserve to be destroyed for their transgressions against the divine.
109
However, Abraham pleaded on behalf of the cities, as he knew his nephew, named Lot, lived in Sodom.
110
And God agreed that the cities would be spared if there were ten righteous people within them.
111
God sends down two angels and that is where our story starts.
112
The two angels arrive in the city of Sodom where they encounter
113
Lot who invited them into his house and made them some food.
114
Before they went to bed however all the men from Sodom both young and old had surrounded
115
Lot's house demanding the angels to be brought out so they could have sex with them.
116
Lot refused to let them do something so scandalous, and instead offered to give over his own daughters, which is interesting, I guess,
117
but the mob stayed and kept on demanding for the angels to come out.
118
The angels blinded the men outside, and realised that there were not enough righteous people to save the cities, so they ordered
119
Lot to take his wife and two daughters and flee, before God raised the cities to the ground.
120
The angels gave the family a simple instruction.
121
Flee for your lives, don't look back and don't stop anywhere in the plain.
122
Flee to the mountains or you will all be swept away.
123
Lot instead asks
124
if he can flee to the nearby village of Zoar as
125
he would not be able to reach the mountains in time and the angels agree.
126
For the next section I'm going to quote directly from the New International Version of the Bible.
127
By the time
128
Lot reached Zohar, the sun had risen over the land.
129
Then the Lord rained down burning sulfur on Sodom and Gomorrah, from the Lord out of the heavens.
130
Thus he overthrew those cities and the entire plain, destroying all those living in the cities, and also the vegetation in the land.
131
But Lot's wife looked back, and she became a pillar of salt.
132
And so goes the slightly anticlimactic story of Lot's wife.
133
Just one small half sentence, as she quite casually just turns into a pillar of salt.
134
You know, as you do.
135
Although she is unnamed in the Bible, she is known as Edo or Edith in some Jewish traditions.
136
But why does she look back?
137
And why is she punished?
138
Well, if we look at the original
139
Greek and Hebrew texts, we can perhaps get a better idea.
140
In the Greek manuscripts, the verb they use to describe the look from Lot's wife is epiblepe, which can also mean to eye with envy,
141
while the Hebrew verb nabat can also have the implication of regarding with pleasure.
142
With this added context, which we don't get in the New International Version translation, we can see that
143
Lot's wife turned back out of longing for her city, perhaps to look one last time at the place where she called home,
144
Sodom, before it was destroyed.
145
Thus God punished her for two reasons.
146
One, because she dared to go against the order of the angels, and by proxy, the word of God, who commanded her not to look back.
147
The second reason was because even though Sodom was a city filled with sin,
148
she still held some sort of love and desire for it even though God was trying to give her a new life, a better life.
149
All he asked was for her to let go of her past home, but she couldn't.
150
She gave in to the temptation of looking back, and thus she was punished.
151
The choice of punishment may seem bizarre, being turned into a pillar of salt.
152
However, there may be a real -life explanation for this.
153
The real locations of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah are debated, but if they ever did exist, they certainly were somewhere along the Dead Sea,
154
a place with several different natural salt pillars, many of which have since been named after Lot's wife.
155
Thus, it is likely that this story is an example of a legend explaining a geographic feature.
156
So goes our second story, with that dreaded command, don't look back.
157
You might be thinking to yourself that two stories might simply be a coincidence.
158
However, there is actually a name for this pattern.
159
In his gargantuan work, The Motif Index of Folk Literature,
160
Folklorist Stiff Thompson catalogs several thousand motifs found in myths and folklore from around the world, across six huge volumes.
161
In this, we can find a whole section titled
162
The Looking Taboo, and more specifically, a motif classified as C331, Taboo, Looking Back.
163
We'll touch a little bit more on this later, but for now, let's turn our attention to a story from the other side of the world.
164
The next myth we're going to cover is called the Legend of Jangjimok Pond, which is a Korean folk myth of unknown date.
165
In fact, not much at all is known about this myth from what I can understand.
166
It is a result of widespread oral tradition, so I cannot seem to find any one standardised copy of the story,
167
nor much information about the backgrounds and origin of the myth itself.
168
So if there are any Koreans in the comment section that can give more information, that would be amazing.
169
Anyways, the story of Jangja Mok Pond goes something like this.
170
Long ago, there was a wealthy landowner who was a Jangja, or rich man.
171
However, despite all of his wealth, he was notorious for being extremely cruel and greedy,
172
and he would always refuse to help the poor or give hospitality to monks or travellers who would come onto his lands.
173
One day, a Buddhist monk came onto his land asking for food.
174
He held out his bowl to the Jangja, hoping for the wealthy man to fill it with food.
175
Instead, the Jangja filled the monk's bowl with cow dung and chased him away.
176
However, the wealthy man's daughter -in -law, who had witnessed her father treat the monk with such disrespect, was horrified, and secretly followed the monk,
177
and instead filled his bowl with rice, hopefully after cleaning it.
178
The monk thanked the daughter -in -law, and told her that a great disaster would soon fall upon her house,
179
and she should bring everything she held precious, and follow the monk straight away.
180
Shortly after, when the daughter -in -law rejoined the monk, the man told her to not look back, no matter what.
181
As they were walking down the path away from the house, the earth started to tremble and thunder started to rumble.
182
She heard screams and crashes behind her, coming from her house.
183
Startled and fearful of what had happened, the daughter -in -law turned her head and looked behind her.
184
What she saw stunned her.
185
The wealthy man's house had collapsed and a pond was forming in its place, with the landowner and all his possessions sinking into the watery depths.
186
As soon as the woman looked back, she turned into stone.
187
Apparently, in different places in Korea, they call certain ponds Jangjomot, or Rich Man's Pond,
188
named after this tale of the wealthy man who drowned along with the house and riches which he treasured so much.
189
Often, if there was a fitting rock nearby,
190
they would call it, The meaning behind one part of this myth seems blaringly obvious,
191
the punishment of greed.
192
The rich man dared to disrespect the Buddhist monk and never gave charity to anyone,
193
and thus he was punished to drown alongside his house and all of his possessions.
194
The reason behind the punishment of the daughter -in -law, however, is less obvious.
195
I mean, she did go against the command of a monk who told her not to look back,
196
but doesn't it seem a little extreme to turn her to stone because of it?
197
Well, clearly the moral failure is not on her, but instead on the rich man, so why was she punished?
198
To answer this, we need to look at the link between all three of the myths we have seen so far,
199
and that link is the concept of boundaries.
200
All of these stories are concerned with the movement of the main character across boundaries.
201
With Orpheus, it is the boundary between the land of the living and the land of the dead, whereas with both
202
Lot's wife and the daughter -in -law from Janjumot Pond, it is to do with the boundary between the old world and the new world.
203
In the story from Genesis, Lot's wife is leaving behind her old life, her old city, for a new life in a nearby village.
204
Similarly, the daughter -in -law from the Korean tale is leaving behind the old world,
205
her father -in -law's house that has been turned into a pond, for a new, better life by following the monk.
206
In all of these myths, the characters who have been instructed not to look back
207
go against this command when they are in the liminal space between these two worlds.
208
Orpheus was right on the edge of the underworld, mere moments away from the land of the living.
209
Lot's wife looks back after she had left her old life in Sodom,
210
but before she had reached the safety of her new life in the village.
211
The same with the Jangjimot story, the daughter -in -law turned back before safety had been reached.
212
Clearly, there is a link between all these myths, of the main character turning away in the liminal in -between space,
213
between their old world and their new, better world.
214
When someone violates a sacred boundary, i .e a command from the higher, divine power, while they are in this in -between space,
215
they become fixed in that place, stuck there forever.
216
For the case of Lot's wife, she is stuck in that liminal space as a pillar of salt for the daughter -in -law, a stone.
217
For Orpheus, it is not him that receives the punishment, as that would be too kind.
218
He himself said he would give up his life if he could not bring Eridice back.
219
Instead, it is his beloved that must take on his punishment, and Eridice is instead sentenced to an eternity in Limbo,
220
in the land of the dead.
221
By looking at it with the context of other similar myths,
222
we can see it's not just because the daughter -in -law turned back that she was punished,
223
but instead because she turned back in this sacred liminal space, in between the boundaries of her future and past life,
224
that she was cursed to be stuck in that space forever.
225
This idea of not looking back at a boundary also seemed to have made its way into everyday ancient life.
226
Pythagoras, the famous philosopher and polymath from the 6th century BC,
227
supposedly said, I say supposedly because this has only survived in the work of Diogenes Laertius some 700 years later,
228
among several other pieces of advice such as, don't stir the fire with a knife, and always roll your bedclothes up.
229
But anyway, getting back to the point, Pythagoras supposedly said, when you go abroad, don't turn round at the frontier,
230
meaning don't turn around and look back into your native country when at the border with a foreign one.
231
This piece of advice can pretty much be applied to the command given to the characters and the myths we have discovered,
232
as they were also told not to look back when at the border between their homeland, the land of the living for Orpheus,
233
the city of Sodom for Lot's wife, and a father -in -law's home for the Korean tale of Jangjomot, and a new or foreign place,
234
the land of the dead for Orpheus, the new village for Lot's wife,
235
and a new life of safety with the monk for the daughter -in -law.
236
However, they all failed the simple instruction and paid the price.
237
The reason why one must not look back during
238
this movement of crossing the border from one place to another is perhaps quite clear.
239
One must not dote on the past.
240
Instead, they must keep their attention on the future.
241
As if you keep on looking behind you, if you keep on obsessing over your past life and your past mistakes, you will be stranded,
242
unable to reach the safety and salvation of your future life as you are so worried about your past.
243
so you will become stuck in this in -between space, as if you had been turned into a pillar of salt,
244
or your skin turned into stone.
245
Moving on from the myths we have covered so far, we have a couple other tales from different peoples from across the world,
246
all containing the command of, don't look back.
247
I found this next story in a book titled
248
Where Animals Talk, West African Folktales, and supposedly it is a myth from the Fang people,
249
an ethnic group of around 1 million people from countries such as Equatorial Guinea, Gabon and Cameroon.
250
This myth was transmitted to the author of the book, Robert Nassau, by an elder of a different tribe,
251
the Banaka tribe, who wrote down several myths from the Fang people, which Nassau then translated.
252
Most of the myths are concerned with things such as how certain animals got their unique features,
253
and the myth we're going to cover is no exception.
254
It is titled A Lesson in Evolution, and it goes like this.
255
Shrew and Lemur were neighbors in the town of beasts.
256
At that time, the animals did not possess fire.
257
Lemur said to Shrew, go and take for us fire from the town of mankind.
258
Shrew consented, but said, if I go, do not look while I am gone toward any other place except the path on which I go.
259
Do not even wink, watch for me.
260
So Shu went and came to a town of men and found that the people had all emigrated from that town.
261
Yet he went on and on seeking for fire and for a long time found none.
262
But as he continued moving forward from house to house, he at last found a very little fire on a half.
263
He began blowing it and kept on blowing and blowing, for the fire did not soon ignite into a flame.
264
He continued so long at this that his mouth extended forward permanently with the blowing.
265
Then he went back and found Lima faithfully watching with his eyes standing very wide open.
266
Shu asked him, what has made your eyes so big?
267
In return, Lima asked him, what has so lengthened your mouth to a snout.
268
Here, although not a direct command of not looking back, we can see that the shrew told the lemur not to look anywhere but straight ahead,
269
and it could be that the lemur must have looked somewhere else, such as behind him, and thus his eyes grew,
270
explaining why lemurs have such big eyes.
271
This is certainly a much less depressing tale than the other ones we've covered today, and it's one of my favourite examples of an etiological myth,
272
or a myth that explains why something is the way they are.
273
Now another folk tale comes from the tribe of the Inuit people in Greenland and it is titled
274
The Revived Who Came to the Underworld People.
275
This story is centered on a husband and wife and their son, as well as an old couple who were without children, all living together.
276
The son unfortunately dies while they are out fishing
277
and rather than keeping to the Inuit custom of holding five days a morning,
278
the parents of the dead child leave before the fifth day is up, not only going against their sacred custom,
279
but also leaving the old couple alone to fend for themselves, with nobody to provide food for them.
280
The old couple then dig up the body of the dead child, and after chanting incantations over the body, the boy is brought back to life.
281
The old couple asks the boy to look after them and provide food for them, and the boy goes home with the couple,
282
gets a kayak, and becomes their provider.
283
The father of the revived child later comes back to see what happened to the older couple, who expected to had long starved to death.
284
But he was surprised to see bits of skin and blubber that had clearly been stripped from the carcass of a seal.
285
So he asked the old couple who had caught the seal for them.
286
When the couple replied that it was the man's own dead son, he threatened to kill them as he thought he was being mocked.
287
However, he soon saw the impossible.
288
His son was back alive again.
289
As he went to touch his son, the old couple screamed out for him to stop.
290
However, they were too late.
291
The father touched his son on the shoulder, and the son instantly dropped down, dead.
292
The old couple went about doing their magic incantations once more, and the son was revived for a second time, and attacked his father.
293
So his father ran away in shame.
294
Sometime later, the revived son was to be married to a woman of a different tribe,
295
and the older couple wanted to come with him so they wouldn't be left on their own again.
296
The son agreed and loaded the older couple up on his kayak with one condition,
297
that when they approach the rock which enclose the abode of his wife -to -be's tribe, they do not look back,
298
as this will stop all of them, including the son, from being able to find the entrance.
299
The couple agreed and they set sail and when they reached the cliff on the son's kayak,
300
the cliff opened, revealing a utopia with many houses and a pebble beach, with large piles of flesh and skin for them to eat.
301
However, when the old couple saw this, in their delight they forgot the son's warning, and they turned around.
302
Instantly, the beautiful town disappeared, and their boat instead smashed against the side of the cliff, throwing them all down in shock.
303
The son then said that he and the old couple must remain apart forever, and the couple should build their house on a nearby cliff,
304
and the tribe of what was meant to be his wife will provide them with food.
305
The couple did as he said, and they were indeed looked after by the tribe.
306
Meanwhile, the son was left to find a new wife.
307
To me, this story seems to be startlingly similar to that of the myth of Orpheus.
308
Both involve someone being brought back from the dead, both involve that same command of don't look back, and both, as with every other story,
309
involve the main characters going against that command at the very last hurdle, right before Aridic reaches the land of the living in the Orpheus myth,
310
and right before the family reaches the utopia in the Inuit tale.
311
This also fits nicely into the discussion we had earlier about the link between the liminal space between worlds
312
and the Don't Look Back command.
313
As here, very similarly to Orpheus, the Gangnamut story, and Lot's wife, it is as the family about to cross the boundary into the new world,
314
into a new utopia that they look back, and they are forbidden from crossing that frontier.
315
We have covered five different stories where the characters are told not to look behind them, and in every single case,
316
they fail to follow that command.
317
Clearly, there is a lesson behind these myths that is taught in communities from ancient Greece to Korea to Greenland, but what might that lesson be?
318
Picking up on what we were speaking about earlier, One such lesson is that we must not dwell on the past.
319
The physical act of looking back might also reflect the metaphorical act of looking back on the past,
320
which we can often get caught up in and can negatively affect our present.
321
Perhaps the best example of this is in the story of Lot's wife.
322
Not only does she physically look back on her home,
323
the city of Sodom, but she is also reflecting on a time there with a sense of envy,
324
as we discussed earlier when talking about the use of the verb epiblepo.
325
We can also see this allegory in the story of Orpheus.
326
If we look at Virgil's version of the myth, in his Georgics, we see him use the Latin verb respicio,
327
which not only means to physically look back, but also to look back in time.
328
So when Orpheus is looking back at Eridice, he is looking back on his lifetime with her, and reflecting on their time together,
329
rather than accepting the fact that she has passed on to the underworld.
330
This is obviously the whole basis for the myth,
331
Orpheus cannot accept that his wife has passed away and instead travels to the underworld to try and rescue her.
332
However, he must accept that she has died and there's nothing anyone, not even Orpheus, who can charm inanimate objects, can do.
333
It's a lesson in grief.
334
It is only once somebody reaches acceptance, that fifth and final stage of grief, that they can truly get over their loved ones passing away.
335
I am sure there are several other reasons behind the prevalence of the Don't Look Back command in myths and folklore,
336
and I would be interested in hearing yours in the comments below.
337
Unfortunately, it seems to be a rather understudied topic in academia.
338
Obviously myths such as Orpheus and Lot's wife have been studied vigorously, but there doesn't seem to be really any paper
339
or treatise covering the similar themes in these myths with the tales from Greenland or Korea.
340
Like I mentioned earlier, the motif index of folk literature characterises thousands upon thousands of different motifs from folklore from all over the world.
341
Characterised under number C300 to C399 is what Thompson calls the looking taboo and in number C331 we see taboo looking back.
342
Here we can at least put a name to this phenomenon.
343
The motif of the command don't look back is a type of looking taboo specifically focused on looking behind you.
344
To conclude all of these myths are different.
345
Each character has different reasoning behind their actions in these myths.
346
However, what is the same in every single one are two things.
347
One is that command of don't look back.
348
The other is the fact that they always do.
349
It's hard to find a specific reason why this is so prevalent in these myths.
350
However, I believe there's something in that liminal space, the in -between world between the old and the new frontier.
351
It seems to be always in this liminal in -between space that the people turn around and then they are punished.
352
There is something ancient in the idea of not looking behind you at the frontier, as we saw in the quote from Pythagoras.
353
I would also argue
354
that the moral of some of these stories also has to do with the age -old saying of live in the now.
355
All of these people in their myths, by looking behind them, focus too much on their past,
356
sometimes out of grief for their lover or longing for their prior life
357
instead of focusing on their present and they pay the price for it.
358
And that's something I think we can all learn from.
359
I hope you've enjoyed this video.
360
Goodbye.
ऐप डाउनलोड करें
धाराप्रवाह बोलने के लिए ज़रूरी सब कुछ
AI उच्चारण स्कोरहर वाक्य का स्कोर
IPA अभ्यासहर ध्वनि में महारत
शब्दावलीअपना शब्द भंडार बनाएँ
शब्द गेमखेलते हुए सीखें
FOR YOU
अनुशंसित वीडियो
C11
150 वाक्य
Why We Can't Save Those We Love
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C11
162 वाक्य
Why Attacking a Sleeping Roman Army Was a Death Trap
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B21
27 वाक्य
The Scar That Gave Odysseus Away | Gustave Boulanger’s Most Human Homer Scene
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C14
50 वाक्य
What’s the Command “No Idols” Really Getting At?
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C13
114 वाक्य
The Stoic Lesson of Marcus Aurelius' Crumbling Statue
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C13
177 वाक्य
The Desire to Not Exist
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C12
44 वाक्य
4 Key Lessons from Women Who Run With The Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estés
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B23
25 वाक्य
Ulysses and the Sirens Explained: The Hidden Meaning Behind Waterhouse’s Famous Painting
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B15
21 वाक्य
He Looked Back #improveenglish #boostyourconfidence #learnenglish #englishstory #lifelessons
Daily ConversationHigh School StudentsUniversity Students
C110
74 वाक्य
How to Stop Feeling Nostalgic for an Ex
British AccentDaily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C151
34 वाक्य
Don't Despair
British AccentDaily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C14
180 वाक्य
Where Do You Go When You Sleep?
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
इस पाठ की शब्दावली और बोलने के सुझाव
यह स्पीकिंग पाठ वीडियो “Why Do So Many Myths Say “DON’T LOOK BACK”?” पर आधारित है। सबसे ज़्यादा दोहराए गए शब्द ये हैं: Orpheus, myth, wife। इस वीडियो में शैडोइंग के लिए 360 वाक्य और 5583 शब्द हैं। बोला गया हिस्सा 32:57 लंबा है। वक्ता लगभग 169 शब्द प्रति मिनट की स्वाभाविक गति से बोलता है, जो रोज़मर्रा की बातचीत के करीब है। 83% शब्द अंग्रेज़ी के 3,000 सबसे आम शब्दों में से हैं; बाकी शब्द अभ्यास से पहले देख लेना अच्छा रहेगा।
इस वीडियो की मुख्य शब्दावली
वीडियो के 15 सीखने लायक शब्द, उच्चारण और अर्थ के साथ:
| शब्द | उच्चारण | अर्थ |
|---|---|---|
| myth संज्ञा | /mɪθ/ | मिथक |
| monk संज्ञा | /mʌŋk/ | भिक्षु, महन्त |
| angel संज्ञा | /ˈeɪ̯n.d͡ʒəl/ | फ़रिश्ता, फरिश्ता |
| tale संज्ञा | /ˈteɪl/ | कहानी, हिकायत |
| boundary संज्ञा | /ˈbaʊndɹi/ | सीमा |
| punish क्रिया | /ˈpʌnɪʃ/ | सज़ा देना |
| punishment संज्ञा | /ˈpʌnɪʃmənt/ | सज़ा, दण्ड |
| pond संज्ञा | /pɑnd/ | तालाब, पोखर |
| lesson संज्ञा | /ˈlɛs.ən/ | पाठ, सबक़ |
| wealthy विशेषण | /ˈwɛl.θi/ | अमीर, धनी |
| pillar संज्ञा | /ˈpɪlɚ/ | स्तंभ, खंभा |
| divine विशेषण | /dɪˈvaɪn/ | दिव्य |
| instantly क्रिया विशेषण | /ˈɪnstəntli/ | हाथों हाथ |
| instruction संज्ञा | /ɪnˈstɹʌkʃən/ | उपदेश, शिक्षण |
| cliff संज्ञा | /klɪf/ | चट्टान |
दोहराने लायक वाक्य
वीडियो के छोटे, पूरे वाक्य जिन्हें आप रोज़ की बातचीत में इस्तेमाल कर सकते हैं:
- Do you think you could do it?
- Shu asked him, what has made your eyes so big?
- I hope you've enjoyed this video.
इस वीडियो का व्याकरण
वक्ता जिन संरचनाओं का सबसे अधिक प्रयोग करता है, वीडियो के असली शब्दों के साथ:
| संरचना | वीडियो में |
|---|---|
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — बीता हुआ काम जिसका असर अभी भी है | have been · has received · have linked |
| Passive voice be + past participle — ज़ोर इस पर कि क्या होता है, न कि कौन करता है | are given · are told · was bitten |
| Relative clauses who / which + उपवाक्य — व्यक्ति या वस्तु के बारे में अतिरिक्त जानकारी | water, which was · people who don · daughters, which is |
ध्यान देने योग्य उच्चारण
वक्ता 41 बार संक्षिप्त रूपों का प्रयोग करता है, जैसे don't, I'm, we're। इन्हें वैसे ही छोटा बोलें जैसा आप सुनते हैं।
- “th” की ध्वनियाँ: myth /mɪθ/, wealthy /ˈwɛl.θi/, ethnic /ˈɛθ.nɪk/, thunder /ˈθʌndɚ/, threaten /ˈθɹɛt.n̩/
- “sh” और “zh” की ध्वनियाँ: punish /ˈpʌnɪʃ/, punishment /ˈpʌnɪʃmənt/, instruction /ɪnˈstɹʌkʃən/, translation /tɹænzˈleɪʃən/, shortly /ˈʃɔɹtli/
- लंबे शब्द — बलाघात सही रखें: supposedly /səˈpoʊ̯.zɪd.li/, similarly /ˈsɪm.ə.lə.li/, eternity /əˈtɜɹnəti/, unusual /ʌnˈjuːʒ(u)əl/, explanation /ˌɛkspləˈneɪʃən/
हिंदी भाषियों के लिए मुश्किल ध्वनियाँ:
- /v/ और /w/ का फ़र्क़ — /v/ में ऊपर के दाँत निचले होंठ को छूते हैं, /w/ में होंठ गोल होते हैं: wealthy /ˈwɛl.θi/, divine /dɪˈvaɪn/, verb /vɝb/, revive /ɹɪˈvaɪ̯v/, involve /ɪnˈvɑlv/
- /z/ — इसे “ज” (/dʒ/) न बनाएँ: supposedly /səˈpoʊ̯.zɪd.li/, translation /tɹænzˈleɪʃən/, possession /pəˈzɛʃn̩/, physically /ˈfɪz.ɪ.kli/, anyways /ˈɛn.iˌweɪz/
- शब्द की शुरुआत में s + व्यंजन — पहले “इ” न जोड़ें: spin /spɪn/, snake /sneɪk/, scholarship /ˈskɑːləɹʃɪp/, scholar /ˈskɑlɚ/
इस वीडियो से अभ्यास कैसे करें
- पहले बिना बोले पूरा वीडियो एक बार सुनें और जो शब्द नहीं आते उन्हें लिख लें।
- 0.75× गति से शुरू करें, एक-एक वाक्य की शैडोइंग करें, और सहज लगने पर सामान्य गति पर लौटें।
- अपनी आवाज़ रिकॉर्ड करें और मूल से तुलना करें, ख़ासकर myth, monk, angel जैसे शब्दों पर ध्यान दें।
शैडोइंग तकनीक क्या है?
शैडोइंग (Shadowing) एक विज्ञान-समर्थित भाषा सीखने की तकनीक है जो मूल रूप से पेशेवर दुभाषिया प्रशिक्षण के लिए विकसित की गई थी। विधि सरल लेकिन शक्तिशाली है: आप मूल अंग्रेज़ी ऑडियो सुनते हैं और तुरंत इसे ज़ोर से दोहराते हैं — जैसे वक्ता की छाया 1-2 सेकंड की देरी से। शोध से पता चलता है कि यह उच्चारण सटीकता, स्वर, लय, जुड़ी हुई ध्वनियाँ, सुनने की समझ और बोलने की प्रवाहशीलता में काफ़ी सुधार करता है।