“I will remember and not be unmindful of Apollo who
shoots afar. As he goes through the house of Zeus, the gods tremble before him
and all spring up from their seats when he draws near, as he bends his bright
bow.”
Homeric
Hymn to Apollo
In the scene above, after the initial uproar, Leto
disarms her son and leads him to a throne at the festive table. His father Zeus passes him a cup of nectar
and all is again once merry and delightful on Olympus.
Jenny Strauss-Clay (The
Politics of Olympus, 1989) asks whether this is “Apollo's first reception into Olympus…or whether it represents typical
scene, repeated each and every time the god enters his father’s halls.” Ten excellent pages of reading later, Clay
observers, “That the time of the gods
differs from ours.” (When I read
that line I recalled from my adult confirmation class, Pastor Carroll Marohal
saying God’s time was kairos time rather
than our linear chronos time. And Kurt Vonnegut's phrase, “unstuck in time.”) Clay concludes that the opening scene “portrays
both the first epiphany of the new god on the threshold of Olympus and his
eternally repeated entrance into this father’s house…as he did the first time
and as he will forever.”
I continued reading Clay’s excellent book and
noticed the same “once and for always” phenomena in her analysis of “The
Homeric Hymn to Demeter”. The goddess said, (208-211)” it was not lawful for her to drink red wine,
but bade them mix meal and water with soft mint and give her to drink. And
Metaneira mixed the draught and gave it to the goddess as she bade. So the
great queen Deo received it to observe the sacrament” Here she is referencing and establishing for all time a ritual in the
Eleusinian mysteries, which she hasn’t even found yet.
Currently I am
as student of Professor Gregory Nagy in “The
Ancient Greek Hero in 24 hours” Nagy
seems to support the same “once and for always” notion At 17§9.
Nagy explains Electra’s confusion in the Libation-Bearers 118 (Aeschylus) "What should I say? Instruct
me, inexperienced as I am, and lead me in my thinking." Nagy suggests that Agamemnon is in the
process of becoming a cult hero. Electra’s
offering will be the first of many.
Likewise in “Oedipus at Colonus”
Nagy suggests that all the rituals Oedipus performs for the first time
prior to his death represent Oedipus
formulating his heroic legacy for Theseus (18§48).
At Theogony 545
Prometheus once and for always arranges the portions during a sacrifice. In Eumenides
482, Athena says, “I
will establish this tribunal for all time.” and we’ve had 12 good men on a jury
ever since.
In short, I see evidence that when the Divine acts,
it is once and for always and I encourage readers to test the hypothesis in
their readings.
When did Leto return to Olympus with her children? Did she bring them up in the wilderness as a single mom?
ReplyDeleteAs a whole, the tragi-comedy of her fleeing in the 9th month of pregnancy allegedly because of Hera's jealousy seems highly suspicious to me. Where is Zeus, the father-king, in this affair? After all, we know that he has beaten Hera on far less important occasions.
I think the story becomes coherent only if we assume that Leto was fleeing Zeus, not Hera. Her father was Zeus' defeated and imprisoned enemy. Her sister Asteria had also fled to avoid being raped by Zeus. Also, Hesiod states that Zeus "married" Leto before Hera.
About the libation - I though that not just the heroes but all the dead received libations from their family members.
Maya, Hesiod make an orderly arrangement of Zeus' marriages, but it couldn't have been that easy! You can give yourself quite a headache trying to work out divine chronology. As Captain Janeway says the best way to handle a temporal paradox is ignore it.
ReplyDeleteAs to the pregnant Leto fleeing, be it the Python or the wrath of Hera, a close reading reveals that Leto isn't the one being chased, it is Apollo. Hera always persecutes her pregnant competion but once the "son" is born, she seems to get along fine with the other woman or goddess. Generally, snakes represent the old guard, the mother goddesses defending their honors, priveleges and temples. Note how quickly after birth Apollo claimed Delphi from Gaea/Themis/Phoebe. The Hera/Apollo conflict is just another manifestation of the Earth goddess/Sky god battle.
As to the libation thing; Nagy argues that Electra had performed libations to the dead before but never heroic honors.