Book summary

ブルフィンチ神話集のあらすじ

著者：トマス・ブルフィンチ

読了8分
10 key ideas
音声は近日公開

Prometheus steals fire, Thor mistakes a giant's glove for a hall, and Arthur draws a sword from a stone.

無料で始めます Read key idea 1 free, no sign-in

3 months free · unlimited eBooks, audiobooks and summaries, and print and large print at cost

Nothing to pay today · お支払いの前にメールでお知らせします · オンラインで二回クリックするだけで解約できます

ブルフィンチ神話集の概要

要約：読むのに8 minかかります

読書時間: 約21 h 5 min16 h 45 min fast, 25 h 5 min slow
所要時間: 301,100語
ライブラリ内の難易度: 読み応えがあります long sentences, a rich vocabulary

Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). 古典を読むのにかかる時間 · 更新日 22 October 2026

3か月間無料でご利用いただけます

ブルフィンチ神話集の要約を最後まで無料で読めます

200,000+の古典を電子書籍、オーディオブック、15分で読める要約で楽しめます。紙の本と大活字本は印刷費のみで購入できます。
ひとつのプランで、ご家庭の最大5人までご利用いただけます

無料で始めます本日のお支払いはありません。初年度は一日あたりUSD 0.14、その後は一日あたりUSD 0.27です。

ブルフィンチ神話集 in short

Bulfinch argues that mythology is useful because it helps us understand literature. He then builds a vast storehouse of tales. It runs from Olympus, creation and the flood through the loves, punishments and quests of gods and heroes, to Troy, Norse and Eastern belief, Arthur and Charlemagne.

What ブルフィンチ神話集 is about

Why does a poet call Rome the Niobe of nations, and why does the line fall flat for a reader who has never met Niobe? Thomas Bulfinch wrote this book to fix that problem. He saw that Milton, Byron, Spenser and Shelley fill their verses with gods, nymphs and heroes, and that readers lose half the beauty when the names mean nothing.

Bulfinch, an American writer who died in 1867, gathered the old stories into one volume for readers of English. Greek and Roman tales sit beside Norse, Egyptian and Eastern myth, the Druids, King Arthur, the Welsh Mabinogeon and Charlemagne. You get a storybook map of the whole imaginative inheritance.

対象読者. This book suits curious readers who love poetry and want its allusions explained, and anyone who enjoys gods, monsters, quests and Arthur's knights told clearly.

The 10 key ideas

Key idea 1 · free to read
Mythology unlocks the literature you already read
Bulfinch begins by defending a subject many call useless. If usefulness means only money and rank, he admits, mythology fails. But if it means making people happier and better, it earns the title, because mythology serves literature and literature serves virtue.
His proof is practical. Milton's short poem Comus holds more than thirty allusions to the old gods. The first page of the Aeneid speaks of Juno's hatred, the Parcae and the judgment of Paris, and a reader without the stories cannot follow it. A dictionary is no cure. It gives bare facts, and the tale of Ceyx and Halcyone fills a chapter here but only eight lines there.
So Bulfinch tells the stories as a storybook, faithful to the ancient sources. The old religions are extinct, yet the gods live on in art and letters.
Learn the stories once, and a great deal of reading opens up.
2
The Greek universe and its crowded Olympus
The first chapter draws the world as the early Greeks saw it.
無料で読書を始めます
3
Fire, Pandora, the four ages and the flood
Bulfinch tells creation the pagan way.
無料で読書を始めます
4
Love and loss become trees, rivers and berries
After the flood, Apollo kills the serpent Python and mocks Cupid's small bow.
無料で読書を始めます
5
Jealous and offended gods punish with swift cruelty
Juno finds Jupiter beside a beautiful heifer, which is the nymph Io in disguise.
無料で読書を始めます
6
Devotion, hospitality and the risk of doubt
Pygmalion, a sculptor who has grown to dislike women, carves an ivory maiden so lifelike that he falls in love with it.
無料で読書を始めます
7
Heroes face monsters, quests and fate
Perseus carries the Gorgon's head across the sky.
無料で読書を始めます
8
Troy, the wanderings of Ulysses and the road to Rome
The Trojan War begins with a golden apple inscribed for the fairest, thrown by Eris, the goddess of Discord.
無料で読書を始めます
9
Northern, Egyptian and Eastern myths widen the map
Bulfinch does not stop at Greece.
無料で読書を始めます
10
Arthur, the Mabinogeon and Charlemagne's paladins
In the later sections Bulfinch turns to the second age of fable.
無料で読書を始めます

Read all 10 key ideas now

3 months free, then USD 0.14 a day: unlimited eBooks, audiobooks and summaries, and print and large print at cost.

Nothing to pay today
お支払いの前にメールでお知らせします
オンラインで二回クリックするだけで解約できます

無料で始めます

The whole book is coming to your plan

The full text of ブルフィンチ神話集 opens soon. Keep this summary as a file today.

Tell me when the book opens

Paperback, hardcover and large print, printed for you at cost, are on their way. Email me when it is printed

『ブルフィンチ神話集』についての質問

What is Bulfinch's Mythology about?

It retells myths and legends in readable prose, from Greek and Roman gods and heroes to Norse, Egyptian and Eastern beliefs, the Druids, King Arthur's knights, Welsh tales and Charlemagne's paladins, with poetic quotations to show their influence.

Who wrote Bulfinch's Mythology and why?

Thomas Bulfinch, an American writer who died in 1867, wrote it so readers of English literature could understand allusions to the gods and heroes in poems, essays and speeches, without having to study the ancient languages.

Where do the stories in Bulfinch's Mythology come from?

Most classical tales come from Ovid and Virgil, the Norse stories from Mallet's Northern Antiquities, and the Charlemagne legends from Italian poets such as Pulci, Boiardo and Ariosto, plus other collections.

Are the Greek and Roman gods the same in this book?

Bulfinch gives both names for most deities, so Jupiter is Zeus, Juno is Hera, Minerva is Athene and Venus is Aphrodite. The classical stories generally use Roman names, and the introduction supplies Greek equivalents for many principal gods.

Is Bulfinch's Mythology easy to read?

Yes, in the sense that the stories are short, told in plain prose, and arranged in separate chapters. You can read one tale at a time or in any order, using the index to find a name.

この版を引用します

Bulfinch, Thomas. Bulfinch's Mythology. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/bulfinchs-mythology.

Bulfinch, T. (2026). Bulfinch's mythology. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/bulfinchs-mythology

Bulfinch, Thomas. Bulfinch's Mythology. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/bulfinchs-mythology.

@book{bulfinch2026bulfinchs,
  author = {Bulfinch, Thomas},
  title = {Bulfinch's Mythology},
  publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/bulfinchs-mythology}
}