>>24479676
>>24479450
>>24479445
To add to this:
A symbol has both a superficial side and a deeper side. You can appreciate it with either. If you like the literaryness of the superficial part, then go ahead, but do not ignore that there is a deeper one.

My favourite symbol is when Paris has to choose between the three godesses. Many people interpret superficially that Athena and Hera get angry and destroy Paris' life because they have a "bitch woman moment", but this is a very superficial interpretation. The deeper symbol is that Paris completelly ignored rationality (Athena) and family (Hera) to worship a forbbiden love (Helena, Aphrodite). It was his act of rejecting knowledge and a good marriage which completelly destroyed his and the troyans' lifes.


Also, completing what I said, here is the Plato fragment, from Phaedrus:
>“I might give a rational explanation, that a blast of Boreas, the north wind, pushed her off the neighbouring rocks as she was playing with Pharmakeia, and that when she had died in this manner she was said to have been carried off by Boreas.”
They were talking about a myth of Boreas (The north wind god) throwing someone off a cliff.