Over the Thanksgiving holiday I read Jenny Strauss
Clay’s “Hesiod’s Cosmos”. Looking at
previous blogposts. Apparently this is
my third read-through. Apparently, her
insights are sticking, because as I read through my posts and studied the
underlined items in the text, I said to myself, “I knew this already.”
So the insights I offer here are a little different
for a couple of reasons. 1) My next big article will be about Aeacus and
Arbitration in Ancient Greek myth.
2) Freed from having to follow
the now well-known arguments, I could now read for enjoyment alone. I hope you will do the same. All quotes are
from Clay unless noted otherwise.
Aeacus
and Arbitration
“To favored kings they (the Muses) dispense
the mollifying rhetoric that has the power to resolve even a great quarrel;
those who have been wronged are sooth and reconciled.”
“The people all look to him as he discerns the
ordinances with straight judgments and he speaking without stumbling, quickly
and expertly makes and end even to a big quarrel.”
Theogony 84-87
“The setting is
clearly a communal feast shared by gods and men[i] a dias, whose very name derives from the act of
division or apportionment; hence the formulaic expression, dais eish,
referring to a fair and equitable distribution.
As a social institution, the dias
eish
involves two distinct kinds of apportionment; the first is a division into
strictly equal parts…the second constitutes the portion of honor the geras, assigned in recognition of particular
excellence or esteem. With his division
of the meat, Prometheus honors men by giving them all the edible parts of the
ox. By this very act, he deprives the
gods of that part of the dais eish
that legitimately belong to them.”
Random
Notes
“The
gods in their blissful state needed the presence of inferior creatures to enjoy
their superiority fully.”
“Pandora, who is coeval with the hiding of bios” Hey, same as Eve.
μηδέ ποτ᾽ οὐλομένην πενίην
θυμοφθόρον ἀνδρὶ τέτλαθ᾽ ὀνειδίζειν,
Don’t ever dare to blame
a man for cursed soul-destroying poverty.
Theogony
717
“Cereberus
will later receive a place and function in the organization of Tartarus,
ensuring that the dead cannot escape from the underworld.” This is wrong. Cereberus is there to keep the living from
accidentally wandering in.
“At the outset,
the cosmos came into being when Gaia became oppressed by the burden of her
children within; so now in a parallel fashion
the external pressure of human population weighs her down.” I think a better parallel is that the cosmos
came into being when Gaia was oppressed by the constant weight of Uranus upon
her and now “the external pressure of
human population weighs her down”. Gee, what does that say about us? The severing of the demi-gods from their
lives at Thebes and Troy constitutes a new dispensation, because the gods like
their grandfather Uranus pull back from the earth. “It
renders permanent the gulf separating the eternal gods from ephemeral mortals.”
It is the birth of the Iron Age, when
Man rules.
“I am convinced
that meaning inheres in form.”
“The
succession of races is not linear but cyclical; at the end of the age of
iron…the cycle of races stars again with a new golden age or more likely a new
age of heroes as the sequence reverse itself.”
“Thebes,
traditionally reputed to be the first city.”
“Thebes
and Troy where the heroes demonstrate their valor – and perhaps provide
entertainment for the gods.”
[i]
The feast at Mecone celebrating the victory of the Olympians and their allies
over the Titans. It is the time of the
Great Dispensation when Zeus allotted each their prerogatives, privileges and
powers.
