Talk:Typhon

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I wonder what the etymology of this word could be... typhon is Chinese for big wind which westerners call typhoons... were the greeks wrestling for control with the chinese? on the seas maybe?

I've also heard this name used for a creature with the front half of a donkey, latter half of a rattlesnake, with dragon wings.. which breathes fire and, more significantly, a great wind. this might be just some fantasy thing, but it sounded mythological and had the same wind-connection. wouldn't the chinese be like tai fun or something? all modern spellings look pretty ambiguous to me, not really greekish.

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[edit] Typhoon

The Chinese phrase "颱風" ("tái fēng") means exactly "typhoon", the tropical cyclone. The second character "風" means "wind", while the first character "颱" is a radical-phonetic compounds (Chinese_character#Classification); it has the sound of "台" (tái) and the meaning of "風". According to the [Central Weather Bureau of Republic of China], the most probable origination of the phrase might be the Min phrase of "風篩" (fēng shāi). The following is a quotation from 《台灣縣志》, re-proofread by 魯鼎梅：「所云颱者，乃土人見颶風挾雨四面環至，空中旋舞如篩。」("What is called a 'tái' is, the aboriginals saw hurricanes which brought rains from every direction, eddying and dancing like a sieve.") The character "颱" was subsequently invented to serve the specific meaning of typhoon, and since then the phrase "風颱" is what the Min speakers used to called the nature weather phenomenon. The Mandarin Chinese has a habit of turning a phrase head over heels, so when the phrase "風颱" reached to Mandarin speakers in Northern China where typhoons seldom comes, it changed to "颱風". Given to its etymology, the resemblance between Typhon and tái fēng seems to be a mere coincidence, because the Chinese phrase originated from "fēng shāi" and could hardly have any real linguistic connection with the Greek word "Typhon". Still, the theory I said above about the origination of the Chinese phrase "颱風" is just one of the probable theory I know of. There might be other theories which support the view that the phrase "颱風" was originated from the word "Typhon", or even the word "Typhon" was originated from the phrase "颱風". --G.S.K.Lee 10:01, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)


I might add that the Japanese term (derived, apparently, from the Chinese) 台風 (taifuu), is even closer to the English "typhoon," so much so that I might imagine that the English word was borrowed from Japanese. 76.180.148.27 04:27, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Cartoons as references

What are we to do about mythic figures employed in cartoon features and "reported" in Wikipedia entries. These add no breadth or depth to articles like this one. Shouldn't these references be at the articles making the reference? How do we explain to the children? I don't want to hurt feelings. --Wetman 00:42, 27 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Correct Etymology

They orgin of the name has nothing to do with chinese it orginates from the greek Typhoios which is still the correct spelling and pronunciation. --Gordon

Correct in Greek. Typhon is the accepted English version. --Wetman 08:30, 19 November 2005 (UTC)


Greek rendering please.--Connection 11:50, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Popular culture

In Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, Typhon was a giant that was trapped under a boulder by Hera.

In Gene Wolfe's The Book of the New Sun, Typhon is a former tyrant of Urth, whom the hero Severian confronts in the course of his quest. Typhon re-appears in an altered form in the later series, The Book of the Long Sun.

In the Final Fantasy series, Typhon (sometimes referred to as 'Chupon') can be found as a monster in Final Fantasy VI and Final Fantasy I & II: Dawn of Souls, and as a Summoned monster in Final Fantasy VII.

In the opening sequence of Zeus: Master of Olympus, a computer game, the story of Typhon is recounted in a paraphrased form.

Typhon is also the big bad of Titan Quest. (81.233.196.49 (talk) 09:42, 27 April 2008 (UTC))

I moved this section from the article. None of it seems notable enough to me to include. - Haukur 13:23, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Which sounds like it's only because you haven't heard of it before. It definitely seems noteworthy enough to me. In particular, I expect that a majority of people who search for "Typhon" will be looking for the Final Fantasy information, since it's a very common recurring monster in that series. -Silence 14:06, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
I agree with Silence and motion that this part be moved back into the article. SpectrumDT 00:01, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
While my opinion may be biased as I was looking for this information, I think it should be put back in. Pop-Culture sections are useful as they show that the reference relates to the subject of the main article and may provide someone researching it to find what they're looking for. Antisora 14:18, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Archangel Sandalphon

Relation to Archangel Sandalphon has no basis. Absolutely no correlation in respective characters. Please provide citation or remove.--Connection 11:46, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Typhoeus and Typhon are not the same

In Hesiod Typhaon and Typhoeus are two distinct beings. Typhaon is a son of Typhoeus (Theog. 869), who by Echidna became the father of the dog Orthus, Cerberus, the Lernaean hydra, Chimaera, and the Sphynx. (Theog. 306; comp. Apollod. ii. 3. § 1, iii. 5. § 8.) Typhoeus, on the other hand, is described as the youngest son of Tartarus and Gaea, or of Hera alone, because she was indignant at Zeus having given birth to Athena. Typhoeus is described as a monster with a hundred heads, fearful eyes, and terrible voices (Pind. Pyth. i. 31, viii. 21, Ol. iv. 12); he wanted to acquire the sovereignty of gods and men, but was subdued, after a fearful struggle, by Zeus, with a thunderbolt.

These two seperate monsters were confused by later writers. Typhoeus deserves a seperate entry and should not be confused with Typhon.

The Prime Source 14:43, 30 April 2007 (UTC)Dales

That's not correct. I'll just quote Martin West's commentary on the Theogony, line 306: "Τυφάονα: the same as the Typhoeus whose birth and nature are described in 820 ff. Goettling's argument that Typhaon is a wind (307 f..), therefore Typhoeus, who is father of winds (869), is father of Typhaon, is still repeated in LSJ, though retracted by its author in his section edition of 1843. Typhaon and Typhoeus are at any rate equivalent for the author of the hymn to Apollo, 306, 352, 367." And as far as I'm aware there is no expert source that would say Typhoeus and Typhon are separate creatures, except for the rather surprising LSJ entry. --Akhilleus (talk) 15:26, 30 April 2007 (UTC)


Fair enough, I stand corrected. Though there are plenty of dictionaries and encyclopedias on Greek myth that claim that the two are seperarte entities so I guess I'm not the only one around who had that idea. The Prime Source 13:14, 7 May 2007 (UTC)Dale

[edit] "Minoan Form" of Hera

There's no conclusive evidence that Hera came from the Minoans. Linear A has, to my knowledge, never been translated and we simply don't know anything about Minoan mythology. All we know are pictures they left of beings that seem mythological. We don't even know whether or not those beings are deities, though they certainly look like Deities. The word "Hera" is Greek. It means "noble woman", so at least the name is a Greek one. The origins of Hera are uncertain, but there's no conclusive proof that She came from the Minoans. So, I recommend that the statement about Hera in her "Minoan Form" be taken out and just replaced simply with "Hera". We know what Hesiod said, but trying to trace the mythology back any farther seems fruitless. - Ivan Richmond, BA Classics, Reed College, 1996

Quite right: we have no idea of the name Cretans gave their Great Goddess, or to what extent she was a Hera-like figure. Perhaps the etymology of "Hera" is more mooted than you sense: "The name of Hera, the queen of the gods, admits a variety of mutually exclusive etymologies," Walter Burkert remarks, beginning "Hera" in Greek Religion. Pauly-Wissowa were very confident, however, in Real-Encyclopadie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft, sub "Hera". Arguments for "the meaning Mistress as a feminine to Heros, Master" are invertable: perhaps heros is an extension of Hera, as Heracles is, and those etymological parallels like heros are just extensions of a pre-existing Hera. I forgot whose point that was. We know nothing of a Minoan "pantheon" into which a Hera-like queen would fit. Perhaps you'd edit a more nuanced, better referenced paragraph. Log in and join us. --Wetman 11:05, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Incorrect story of defeat

As far as I am aware, Typhon was defeated when he hurled a mountain at Zeus, which Zeus struck with a bolt of lightening, burying Typhon in the rubble. (Anon.)

It is a Christian procedure, but not a Greek one, to take a mythic figure and fashion an official "biography". That's why sources are so important. --Wetman 06:22, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Thunderbolts

From what I understand, the Thunderbolt was forged for the first time as a direct counterpoint to the appearance of Typhon and the subsequent defeat of Zeus by him; until that point, Zeus carried his father Cronus's golden sickle as his symbol of power, but it was shattered by Typhon and embedded in his tongues which he then used to sever Zeus' sinews and defeat him...thus becoming the true and rightful ruler of the universe(which is an oft-overlooked fact that any book of rules from any culture in the world would carry to its own logical conclusion).

It was only on the agreement of Gaia the mother Earth to be of assistance that the Cyclopes first forged a weapon as powerful as the thunderbolt; she did so with the realization that, in trying to eliminate Zeus, she had given birth to a being who had the capability to destroy herself and the rest of the world in existence.

The underlying implication here, as I understand it again, is that "thunderbolts" refers to the electromagnetic field of the earth, which is dictated by the iron and other ferrous ore-deposits deep within our world, and that the Cyclopean forge-smiths dug into their mother earth to tap into this electromagetic reserve to create the awesomely powerful thunderbolt...which was then used to defeat the greatest threat to life that had ever existed. Malestrom (talk) 23:11, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] The Personification of the Living Storm

An intersting underlying context regarding Typhon is that he was taken to be the personification of the living storm, or quite simply the greatest monster/beast/being/threat that had ever existed in any form to any form of life on the face of the earth; it is on this thread that a few modern theorists have suggested that Typhon may have been some form of cataclysmic asteroid that hit earth and formed enormous eruptions/cloudstorms/windstorms/debrisstorms/etc.

They draw parallels between classical descriptions of him being "snakeline" to differing degrees and the fact that when an asteroid or meteor starts breaking up, it shoots off trailing bits of itself that each have a destructive capability all of their own.

This would make a bit of sense in the context that he was supposed to have been a child of Gaia the mother earth and the endless black pit of Tartarus(which may be another way of describing deep, endless outer space); certainly asteroids, if any can be observed either in the sky or cooled on the ground, can be seen as chunks of the earth itself which somehow happened to have come out of the sky.

Is it possible also that this might be an allegorical tale which tells of how the earth heaved a terrific volcanic eruption and blew a chunk of itself into orbit which managed to escape the earth's atmosphere and then crash back down to earth...causing incredibly massive damage and destruction as it did so? This eliminates the outer-space/asteroid factor and reinforces the "born of Gaia" aspect, but is it scientifically plausible? Malestrom (talk) 23:11, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Pan

On a humourous note, apparantly Pan the great goat-footed-&-horned god of the Wild was instrumental in defeating Typhon, and it was in the aftermath of this when his role was downplayed by the other Olympians that he decided to leave Olympus and live in the wilds of the earth.

Pan's great cry had the ability to incite fear and excitement into anybody who heard it(and it is from this that we get the modern word panic), and he was still just an infant/toddler when he was snuck into Typhon's cave by his father Hermes(the god of thieves, trickery and mischief, no less); being woken by his incredibly fearful and panicking cry, Typhon fled from Pan which then allowed Apollo, Hermes and the other Olympians to rescue Zeus' ligaments and rally for a victory.

When he felt that he wasn't getting the respect that he deserved on Olympus, Pan left forever and even arranged to fake his own death, according to some stories("The great god Pan is dead!"). Malestrom (talk) 23:11, 28 April 2008 (UTC)