The myth of Pygmalion is another subject of Burton’s philosophical dissection. The mythical figure bedecks a sculpture of his own creation “in rich robes and fine jewelry,” treating it like a living spouse, until, upon a request to the goddess Aphrodite, there blooms “a warmth and redness rising into her lips.” Fantastical though it may sound, Burton argues that artists and lovers more generally animate their marble ideals much like Pygmalion does. The romantic tendency has much to do with personal projections “of our needs, desires, and expectations—which is why it helps on dating sites and apps to fit a particular stereotype or fantasy.” Burton stretches more in this and several other sections. He cites Plato’s Republic, Homer’s Odyssey, and a modern theory called the Pygmalion Effect to unpack the myth. Indeed, he passes not a single myth without referring to a long line of intellectual theorists and poets, stretching from Socrates, Empedocles, and Rumi to Freud, Jung, and Campbell.
Burton’s oracular gaze into the meanings of myth (as well as the occasional ritual, fairy tale, and legend) is not excluded to the psychological. He posits the historical origins of certain mythic characters; were the Greek Prometheus and Georgian Amiran descended from Matarisvan of the Vedas? Lucifer too, he surmises, was inspired by the same light-bringing stock.
