According to the structuralist theory of mythology
We may abstract a mytheme even further. Take the children's game analogy: scissors beat paper, paper beats rock, rock beats scissors (Fig. 1). This game is a projection of scissors cut paper, paper covers rock, and rock breaks scissors. We are so accustomed to hearing that 'scissors beat paper', etc., that we perhaps overlook the fact that each phrase is a mytheme. In reality, scissors do not 'beat' the paper; they cut it. This symbolic use of words is particularly legitimate and frequent in ancient poetical myths. We know that poets allow themselves to change the meanings of words and play such linguistic games. We may, therefore, reduce the mythemes to a minimal form: subject – verb – object and allow the subject or the object to be words made-up by the poet, and the verb, be allegorical.
For example, X kills Y may read X replaces Y. X renders Y obsolete. Y ceases to exist because X replaces Y. X is immortal means that X survives a catastrophe. Or that X is a non-perishable object under normal circumstances, e.g., an island, an object made of non-perishable material (a marble statue), a concept (a house). My house may fall; it is, therefore, mortal. The idea of a home has always existed and will continue to exist as a historical object even when humans will invent another way to protect themselves. The concept of a house is immortal. X is a sibling of Y may mean that X and Y share characteristics. For example, X and Y are of the same material; originate from a common ancestor, not necessarily human or divine; appeared at roughly the same time; have similar functions, etc. Twin brothers could be two versions of the same object, objects with the same purpose, complementary or synergistic things, or integral parts of a whole. X is Y's father/mother, which means that making Y requires X; X precedes Y chronologically or conceptually. X falls in love with Y means that X combines with Y into a functional whole. X has one head, and three bodies describe an object with three parts joined to a shared fourth part, and so on.
In this way, we may write a poem saying that the Prince Telegraph was the son of Semaphore, King of Hills, and Electricity, Queen of Cities. The Prince Telegraph spoke using only two words, the long 'yes' and the short 'no.' Telegraph was slaughtered by Telephone and Handset – his Siamese twin brother who had one body and one head connected with a spiral tail – because he couldn't laugh nor cry. The immortal Radio, the god of waves, got very angry about this massacre. He cut off the connecting tail and implanted Handset into Telephone's body to punish the single-bodied, single-headed Siamese monster. Then, Telephone married Keyboard, the horrible singer of Office who had a voice but no eyes, while Handset fell in love with her sister Facsimile, who had only one linear eye but made no sound. Telephone and Keyboard gave birth to 'Esemes' (SMS) and 'Ememes' (MMS), who never learned to spell, while Handset and Facsimile produced at least four generations of mortal twins. At each time, one of the twins always looked like an eaten apple, while the other was somewhat normal. Each couple of twins founded a city: Agee (1G), Beegee (2G), Ceegee (3G), Deegee (4G), etc. Well, I am not good at poetry or telecommunication technologies; my myth may be inaccurate, but you see what I mean. I am afraid that we interpret Greek mythology as an extraterrestrial would comprehend the above text without knowing the history of our communication technologies.
Myths and mythemes about the same subject (X) or the same object (Y) are likely to resemble one another without them having any common ancestor. They may also be so differently formulated (structured) that their semantic relation is unrecognizable. It will be argued, for example, that the myth of the Minotaur and that of Geryon tell the same story but through entirely different narratives. At the other extreme, the five mythemes in the story of Atlantis are structurally identical – each reporting about a pair of twin brothers from the same parents – but tell five different stories on the island of Atlantis, as we will explore in the relevant chapter.
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