Showing posts with label Chrysaor. Show all posts

Monday, September 12, 2016

TFBT: Blood-Spawned

I got to thinking about Medusa the other day and consequently Uranus. Hesiod mentions that after the castration of Uranus that;

"And not vainly did they fall from his hand; for all the bloody drops that gushed forth Gaia received, and as the seasons moved round she bare the strong Erinyes and the great Giants)with gleaming armour, holding long spears in their hands and the (ash) nymphs whom they Meliae all over the boundless earth. And so soon as he had cut off the members with flint and cast them from the land into the surging sea, they were swept away over the main a long time: and a white foam spread around them from the immortal flesh, and in it there grew a maiden [Aphrodite] "

Similarly of Medusa (the sole mortal Gorgon) Hesiod, says, "When Perseus had cut off the head of Medusa there sprang from her blood great Chrysaor and the horse Pegasus)so named from the springs (pegai) of Oceanus, where she was born." Plus Ovid (Metamorphoses 4. 770 ) credits Libya's sands giving birth to vipers after being splattered by the blood-drops from the Gorgon's Head dripped down and (4. 740) her head placed on a cushion of sea-weed creating coral.

Any connection here between the mortal Pontide and the primordial sky? Many heroes are honored with flowers formed from their blood but Medusa and Uranus' blood spawned intelligent and divine beings. What's up with that? Any other examples?

(PS This is a re-post from a comment in the forums at Hour 25. I post it here to make it easier for Maya M and I to discuss.)

Wednesday, August 17, 2016

TFBT: Part One of Bill’s Geryoneis

There is a lost epic called the Geryoneis by Stesichorus. The fragments, testimonies and vases we have relating to the Geryoneis, indicate the story was about a cattle-raid and the hero Geryon. Stesichorus was a prolific lyric poet (630 – 555 BC^{^[i]}). Most famously he composed a tale critical of Helen of Troy. As a consequence, Helen the goddess blinded him. He then retold the tale, as Helen: Palinodes. In this version Helen never actually went to Troy. The Achaeans and Trojans fought and died for a phantom. Helen spent the war in Egypt. Stesichorus as a consequence, regains his eye-sight. This epic too is lost. ^{^[ii]}

The only mortal-gorgon was called Medusa. She was Geryon’s paternal grandmother. After a dalliance with Poseidon, she was beheaded. At the time she was pregnant with twin sons; Chrysaor and Pegasus. Somewhat like Athena Chrysaor, fully grown and fully armed, burst forth from their mother’s body with Pegasus. Their father Poseidon was the god of horses and had sired a few “horses” on unsuspecting goddesses. So Pegasus was another divine winged horse. His duty in life would be to carry Zeus’ lightning bolts. It’s not far-fetched to envision the twins fleeing their mother’s butcherer with Chrysaor astride Pegasus

Chrysaor was a giant in bronze armor. Or a winged-pig. Yeah, confusing I know. But we have conflicting accounts. Medusa was a Pontide (descendant of Pontus) and piggishness ran in their family. One famous vase painting resolves the issue by having Geryon carry his father’s shield. The insignia on the shield is the winged-pig. We don’t know much about Chrysaor. To quote Aaron Atsma

“Khrysaor's name means "golden-blade" which could be a sword, tusks, or, as in the case Demeter's title Khrysaoros, a reference to golden blades of wheat.”

Maybe in the abstract he was a “golden” lightning bolt; thrown to earth and then retrieved by his brother and brought back to heaven. But that’s totally in the abstract. He married the immortal Oceanide Callirhoe.

Okay, here’s the big part, Geryon was a giant with three bodies. Generally, he is represented on vases as three guys in a line standing hip to hip to hip. With “six hands and six feet and is winged." (Fragment S87) He was non-theomorphic. (He was not made in the gods’ image.) Doesn’t mean he was a monster. Geryon was not a monster, just a guy who owned crimson-colored, ^v “shambling cattle in water-washed Erytheia.” (Hesiod, Theogony)

Below is my attempt to piece the Geryoneis together.

Geryon lived on “sea-circled Erythea beyond the stream of Okeanos… out in the gloomy meadow beyond fabulous Okeanos.” He had a two-headed guard-dog named Orthros^{^[iii]} and the oxherd called Eurytion (Hesiod, Theogony)

Atsma says “Orthros' name was derived from the Greek word orthros meaning "Twilight". “He sired deadly Sphinx, the bane of the Thebans.” (Hesiod, Theogony) Little seems known about Eurytion, except Stesichorus says “of Geryon's herdsman [Eurytion] that he was born' almost opposite famous (island) Erytheia, by the limitless silver-rooted waters of the river Tartessos in the hollow of a rock." ^{^[iv]}

“The dog (Orthros) smelled (the cattle-raider) there and went after him, but he struck him with his club and when the cowherd Eurytion came to help the dog, he slew him as well. Menoites (Meneoestes), who was there tending the cattle of Haides, reported these events to Geryon.” ^{^[v]} and "Menoetes urges Geryon to think of his parents; ‘Your mother Callirhoe and Chrysaor, dear to Ares.’" ^{^[vi]}

Menoetes is urging Geryon to not act rashly and consider his parents. This rather parallels Priam’s words to Achilles in the last book of the Iliad;

But Priam made entreaty, and spake to him, saying: "Remember thy father, O Achilles like to the gods, whose years are even as mine, on the grievous threshold of old age. Him full likely the dwellers that be round about are entreating evilly, neither is there any toward from him ruin and bane. Howbeit, while he heareth of thee as yet alive he hath joy at heart, and therewithal hopeth day by day that he shall see his dear son returning from Troy-land. (Iliad 14.485)

By this we know that Chrysaor, immortal and ageless or not, is still around.

“Answering him the mighty son of immortal Chrysaor and Callirhoe said, ‘Do not with talk of chilling death try to frighten my manly heart, nor beg me… (to avoid the cattle-raider?)…for if I am by birth immortal and ageless, so that I shall share in life on Olympus, then it is better (to endure) the reproaches… (of men?)…and . . . to watch my cattle being driven off far from my stalls; but if, my friend, I must indeed reach hateful old age and spend my life among short-lived mortals far from the blessed gods, then it is much nobler for me to suffer what is fate than to avoid death and shower disgrace on my dear children and all my race hereafter--I am Khrysaor's son. May this not be the wish of the blessed gods . . . concerning my cattle."^{^[vii]}

So, not only is Chrysaor alive, but Geryon assumes his father is immortal. Immortal father and an Oceanid for a mother: the fact that Geryon is “by birth immortal and ageless” is almost a sure thing. So, why should he fear death? Alas, Hesiod says

“Now sing the company of goddesses… even those deathless one who lay with mortal men and bare children like unto gods. And the daughter of Ocean, Callirhoe was joined in the love of rich Aphrodite with stout hearted Chrysaor and bare a son who was the strongest of all men, Geryones^{^[viii]}

The mortal Geryon seems more concerned with his descendants than forbearers. I found one; “Norax was a son of Erytheia, the daughter of Geryones, with Hermes for his father.” Pausanias 10.17.5

So in fragments S12&S13, Callirhoe sees the cattle-raider approaching and addresses her son with words like “Obey me, my child." “I, unhappy woman, miserable in the child I bore, miserable in my sufferings… if ever I offered you my breast…” and then presumably throws open “her fragrant robe." Sounds kind of odd to us, a mother flashing her son, but they did that sort of thing back then. According to evidence on vases, that’s how Helen saved herself when her vengeful husband Menelaus finally caught up with his cheating wife; opened her fragrant robe and his sword fell to the ground. A better example is Queen Hecuba trying to save her son Hector.

“the mother (Hecuba) in her turn wailed and shed tears, loosening the folds of her robe, while with the other hand she showed her breast, and amid shedding of tears she spake unto him winged words: "Hector, my child, have thou respect unto this and pity me, if ever I gave thee the breast to lull thy pain." Iliad 22. [77]

Fragment S14 tells us “then grey-eyed Athene spoke eloquently to her stout-hearted uncle, driver of horses [Poseidon]: ‘Come now, remember the promise you gave and (do not wish to save) Geryon from death.’" In case you don’t know the story Athena is backing the cattle-raider. In vase paintings, Athena is on the left literally backing up the cattle-raider, Geryon on the right with his mother Callirhoe behind him. Poseidon is Geryon’s grandfather, hence is interest. Why can’t help his mortal grandson Geryon is explained in the Iliad 16 426-458. Zeus says to "Ah, woe is me, for that it is fated that Sarpedon, dearest of men to me, be slain by Patroclus” The father of men and gods then admits he is pondering whether to snatch him up and carrying him home to Lycia. “Queenly Hera answered him: "Most dread son of Cronos, what a word hast thou said! A man that is mortal, doomed long since by fate,” She tells him to “Do as thou wilt; but be sure that we other gods assent not”… (and) some other god also be minded to send his own dear son away from the fierce conflict;” In other words, Zeus can’t save Sarpedon and Poseidon can’t save Geryon because if the gods start saving every demi-god and favorite from harsh death the social structure of the universe starts to unravel.

Fragment S15 doesn’t end well for Geryon. The cattle-raider nails him in the head with a rock, Geryon loses “helmet with its horse-hair plume” and his foe follows up with an arrow dipped in the Hydra’s^{^[ix]} venom. “It silently…by divine dispensation…flies straight to the crown of his head…Geryon drooped his neck to one side, like a poppy which spoiling its tender beauty suddenly sheds its petals."

Part One of Bill’s Geryoneis, ends here.

Part Two will look at the evidence from vases more closely.

Part Three will discuss the more esoteric interpretation of all this. (In part three we will discuss how Hera nursed the Hydra with her poisoned left breast. The goddess’ breast was poinsoned by one of the cattle-raiders arrows. The cattle-raiders’ arrows had been dipped in the dying Hydra’s bile. Hey what a minute! Ha ha!

[i] Wikipedia

[ii] Hilda Doolittle wrote an inspired poem based on the few remaining lines of the Palinodes; Helen in Egypt.

[iii] The dog was actually his nephew! Hesiod. Theog. 295

[iv] Stesichorus, Geryoneis Fragment S7 (from Strabo, Geography)

[v] Apollodorus, Bibliotheca 2.106-8

[vi] Stesichorus, Geryoneis Frag S10

[vii] Stesichorus, Geryoneis Fragment S11 (from Papyri): This fragment has a lot of gaps in it, called “lacuna” in classical circles. I filled it just enough to have it make sense.

[viii] Hesiod, Theogony 966 & 979

[ix] The Hydra is brother to Geryon’s fallen dog Orthrus. Go figure!

Sunday, October 25, 2015

TFBT: Adonis Too Was Castrated

I assume my readers, if any, are bibliophiles; lovers of books. If so, I am sure you had this experience. You end up reading a book that is badly written and has a lame ending. In order to save someone else from getting sucked into this mess, you toss it into the garbage rather recycling or donating it to the library. Or it ends up being a piece of propaganda full of lies and half truths. Or it is full of illogic and bad science. I read one of these books, recently; Walker 1983. I would have tossed it, but I was on a five hour flight. In between the waves of nausea and disgust there were a few interesting if odd insights on Greek mythology. This is the first in a series of blogs investigating these possible gems in the rubbish.

"Adonis too was castrated: gored in the groin by Aphrodite's boar-masked priest. His severed phallus became his son the ithyphallic god Priapus...Priapus carried a pruning knife in token of (Adonis') necessary castration before new life could appear on earth. Castrating the god was likened to reaping the grain which Adonis personified. His rebirth was a sprouting from the womb of the Earth."

So, if I can translate this a bit. The “boar-masked priest” is usually described as Aphrodite’s jealous lover, the god of War; Ares (Nonnus, Dionysiaca 42. 1) Only one source describes Priapus the god of lust, as the son of Adonis. Occasionally he carries a sickle, (Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology.) The author goes on to suggest that other heroes are sacrificial fertility figures, like Ancaeus of Arcadia, and the Trojan Prince Anchises.

Ovid, in Metamorphosis 8.391 reports that during the Calydonian boar hunt;

“Ancaeus wielding his war-axe, and rushing madly to his fate, exclaimed, “Witness it! See the weapons of a man excel a woman's! Ho, make way for my achievement! Let Diana shield the brute! Despite her utmost effort my right hand shall slaughter him!” So mighty in his boast he puffed himself; and, lifting with both hands his double-edged axe, he stood erect, on tiptoe fiercely bold. The savage boar caught him, and ripped his tusks through his groin, a spot where death is sure.—Ancaeus fell; and his torn entrails and his crimson blood stained the fair verdure of the spot with death.”

In the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite the Trojan Prince Anchises fears a fate similar to Adonis. Awakening with the goddess in his bed, says to his lover, “ Yet by Zeus who holds the aegis I beseech you, leave me not to lead a palsied life among men, but have pity on me; for he who lies with a deathless goddess is no hale man afterwards.”

Apollonius Rhodius ARGONAUTICA 2.815 “And here his destined fate smote Idmon, son of Abas, skilled in soothsaying; but not at all did his soothsaying save him, for necessity drew him on to death. For in the mead of the reedy river there lay, cooling his flanks and huge belly in the mud, a white-tusked boar, a deadly monster, whom even the nymphs of the marsh dreaded, and no man knew it; but all alone he was feeding in the wide fell. But the son of Abas was passing along the raised banks of the muddy river, and the boar from some unseen lair leapt out of the reed-bed, and charging gashed his thigh.”

Apollodorus. The Library 1.9.12 “Phylacus marveled, and perceiving that he was an excellent soothsayer, he released him and invited him to say how his son Iphiclus might get children…And having sacrificed two bulls and cut them in pieces he summoned the birds; and when a vulture came, he learned from it that once, when Phylacus was gelding rams, he laid down the knife, still bloody, beside Iphiclus, and that when the child was frightened and ran away.”

Hesiod Theogony 176 “And Heaven (Uranus) came, bringing on night and longing for love, and he lay about Earth spreading himself full upon her. Then the son from his ambush stretched forth his left hand and in his right took the great long sickle with jagged teeth, and swiftly lopped off his own father's members”

Aaron Atsma observes; “There is also a vase painting depicting Khrysaor's son Geryon holding a shield emblazoned with the emblem of a winged boar--a likely representation of Khrysaor considering his boar-tusked, winged mother Medusa” Various sources explain the name Chrysaor as meaning “golden aor”, “golden sword”, “golden falchion” or “golden sickle”

So in summary; Adonis castrated by the tusks of an apparent boar. A boar “ripped his tusks through (Ancaeus’) groin.” Prince Anchises fears a similar fate. “…the boar from some unseen lair leapt out of the reed-bed, and charging gashed (Idmon’s) thigh.” Iphiclus was psychologically castrated by watching his father wield a knife while castrating rams. Uranus was castrated by a sickle. And finally Chrysaor, the Golden Sickle was born when Perseus cut off his boarish mother’s head with a sickle.

What that all means, I don’t know.

Bill's Greek Mythology