TFBT: The Seven Wives of Zeus: Part V

The Seven Wives of Zeus: Iasion

 

“So again when Demeter of the lovely hair fell in love with Iasion, and yielded to him in a thrice plowed fallow field, Zeus came to hear of it before so long and killed Iasion with his thunder-bolts“  (Odyssey 5.125,   Kosmos Society)

 

I wonder why Iasion got the shaft?  I have three considerations on the topic so far;

 

1.  First, Calypso who told the tale above also says with a shudder “and her words came forth in rapid flight: “You are merciless, you gods, resentful beyond all other beings; you are jealous if without disguise a goddess makes a man her bedfellow,” (Homer, Odyssey 5.115) So Iasion’s death would be the result of an Olympian taboo on misalliance.  The problem with this argument is that her own lover Odyssey didn’t get the struck by a lightning bolt on account of sleeping with the goddess.

 

1. Second, several scholars will tell you that the myth reflects the fact that “the cutting of three furrows was part of fertility rites performed to inaugurate the new agricultural year.” (Aaron Atsma)  They will say that the re-enactment of the myth took place between the goddess/priestess and the “agricultural hero” (Atsma) or “the sacred king” (Graves) or “corn spirit” (Frazer).  And that his blood fertilized the fields.   Only none of the scholars can offer literary references.  Surely, if it was a tradition back then Hesiod would have mentioned it in Works and Days.

 

1. The third consideration in understanding Iasion’s death is something that should have crossed my mind somewhere in the last half century of research.  The phrase “a thrice plowed fallow field” is a euphemism.  To share and example of this euphemism I turn to Sophocles in the Antigone;    

 

 ISMENE: What? You'd kill your own son's bride?
CREON: Absolutely: there are other fields for him to plow.”

 

Plowing the field is a euphemism for sex.  Iasion may have been slain for his hubristic threat to Zeus’ notorious hyper-masculinity.  Clearly Zeus had lain with Demeter, but he had to turn them both into snakes in order to rape her.  His brother and peer Poseidon had to turn Demeter into a mare in order to rape her.  Now comes along a silver-tongued mortal who not only convinces her to join him for a roll in the hay of her own free will, but Demeter enjoys their tryst so much that they “plow the field” three time before returning to Harmonia’s reception.  In short  a jealous Zeus strike shim dead not for  violating Olympic taboos, nor  to make him the prototype for human sacrifice  but rather out of jealousy of  Iasion’s sexual prowess

Any things else I should be considering in my analysis?