TFBT: Looking at his Lineage Rather than the Man, Part I

“Now, that is just the point, Miss Sorenson…Betty.  This is the point of view of John Thomas and his fore-bears.  But there are always at least two points of view.  From the viewpoint of Lummox she…he…was not a pet.  Quite the contrary.  John Thomas was his pet.  Lummox was engaged in raising John Thomases.”   

                     The Star Beast by Robert Heinlein and David Baker

Any day I can start a blog post with a quote from my childhood hero Robert Heinlein, is a good day.  I use it to set a tone for this piece.  The “dragon” Lummox had raised four generations of the John Thomas family while it was still a teenager.  Likewise, several times in the Iliad characters point out that in comparison to the immortals, men are just like leaves on a tree that are there for a season and then wilt and die.  (Iliad 6.144 and 21.461)  How difficult it must be for a god to keep an eye on just one leaf in the flurry of the falling leaves in the autumn.  I wonder if the gods, like Lummox, rather than thinking about an individual “short-lived” hero thought instead of a lineage of “John Thomases” or pious Aeacides? 

The favor of a single god or goddess might be fickle, but the favor “of the gods” seems to be eternal.  I still am unsure where all this is going, but all the examples I have to offer seem to involve heroic lineages who “pious”, “piety”, “favor” and beloved of the gods. 

Aeacides

This brings us to Peleus.  We have odd descriptions of this son of Aeacus and father of Achilles.  “Peleus, who was heartily dear to the immortals.”(Iliad 24.59), “blameless”, (Iliad 20.207) “the most chaste of men”[i] and “said to be the most pious man living on the plain of Iolcus.” [ii]  And yet this pious man (dear to the immortals) murdered his half-brother Phocus , [iii] “undesignedly” slew his father-in-law Eurytion,[iv]  diced up Queen Astydamia and lead “his army through her (body parts) into the city”[v] and as a finale raped the goddess Thetis.  (Okay, more accurately he assaulted, abducted and forced the sea nymph to marry him.  Standard fairy-tale motif of the fairy-bride.)   None of the immediate above seems pious in any sense of the word and yet the gods attended his wedding!

You know who was pious?  Aeacus his father.

"Now Aiakos was the most pious of men. Therefore, when Greece suffered from infertility on account of Pelops, (who)  slew King (Stymphalos) under a pretense of friendship, and scattered his mangled limb (just like Peleus a generation later), oracles of the gods declared that Greece would be rid of its present calamities if Aiakos would offer prayers on its behalf. So Aiakos did offer prayers, and Greece was delivered from the dearth." 

                               Pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheca 3. 12. 6

So apparently, because all the Aeacides are interchangeable from the gods’ perspective and because (in my experience) a good reputation is hard to get and harder to lose.  We hear of “ Peleus, who was heartily dear to the immortals and that Achilles too was “very dear to the gods." (Odyssey 24.32 )

Helen North in “Pindar, Isthmian 8 24-38” [vi] says that “ in his odes Pindar frequently praises the Aeacidae (that’s Aeacus and his descendants)  and the island of Aegina (where they ruled) for being “just, friendly to strangers and pious or dear to the gods.”  She is talking about Aeacus, Peleus the Argonaut husband of the goddess Thetis and the heroes Achilles and Ajax of the Iliad.

Possibly a more famous proof of the interchangeability of mortals in the eyes of the divine is provided by Pindar Olympian 8.41 

 “Apollo said right away: “Troy is taken, hero (Aeacus) , through the works of your hand, so says a vision sent to me from the son of Cronus, loud-thundering Zeus not without your sons: the city will be destroyed with the first generation (Telamon), and with the third. (Neoptolemus)”

 So, this is the first in a series of examples.  What do you think?  Is it possible that sometimes when the gods find a man “pious” or” dear” they aren’t thinking so much about one specific short-lived hero, but rather his lineage? 

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[i] (Plato, Republic 391c)  

[ii] (Pindar Isthiaman 8:44) 

[iii] (Antoninus Liberalis, Metamorphoses 38)

[iv] Apollodorus, Library 3.13.2)  

[v] Apollodorus, Library 3.13.7)

[vi] Pindar, Isthmian, 8, 24-28  Helen North The American Journal of Philology Vol. 69, No. 3 (1948), pp. 304-308

Published by: Johns Hopkins University Press  DOI: 10.2307/291361  Stable URL: ttp://www.jstor.org/stable/291361

TFBT: Helius, the Titan versus the Hero Peleus

In an article from 1939; Apollo and Sol in the Latin Poets of the First Century B.C. Joseph E. Fontenrose makes the following comments; 

• Firstly; “All the Latin poets of the first century B .C., distinguish clearly between Apollo and Sol. It is their practice to call both gods Phoebus, and they definitely link Diana with Luna through the medium of Hecate; but wherever the traditional Apollo enters in, he is never connected in any way with the sun, nor is Sol ever endowed with Apolline functions and attributes.”
• Later in the article; “ Sol and Luna refuse to attend the wedding-feast, though all other gods do, including Apollo… Apparently, the sun and moon have a grudge against Peleus or against both Peleus and Thetis. It is a story known to Catullus, but lost to us.” 

What did Helius and Selene find so disgusting and scornful of the union of Peleus and Thetis?   I suggest several reasons below.

 

 #1  According to Hesiod, to Nereus and his wife were born in the barren sea fifty daughters greatly beautiful even among goddesses including “Ploto and Eukrante and Amphitrite and Sao, Eudora and Thetis…” (Theogony 240)  Thetis’ father Nereus was the proverbial “Old Man of the Sea” and son of Pontus the primordial sea.  Jenny Strauss Clay and others suggest that he might be “a unique instance of male parthenogenesis.”  (The Generation of Monsters in Hesiod) The uniqueness of Nereus birth is might pre-figure the uniqueness of Thetis’ family; for most of the divine monsters in Greek Mythology are descended from Pontus.  In the same source Clay states the Pontides; “can be considered anti-gods.” 

 

What I am suggesting here is that Helius and Selene objected to the union of Peleus and Thetis because the brides’ family, the Pontides were not “the right sort of people”. The Olympians and Titans were Ouraniones, descendants of Ouranus; the primordial god of the sky.  Clay suggest that through “intermarriage, the Pontides are rapidly integrated into the Ouranid clan.”  But the intermarriage initially consists of only the marriages of Eos and her father-in-law the Titan Crius who marry descendants of Pontus. (Both Crius and his son seem to disappear after the Titanomachy.) Those marriages resulted in Zeus’ horses and his first allies; the sterile children of Styx.   The rapid part of intermarriage would consist of Poseidon taking Nereid mates to add legitimacy to his lordship over the sea.  In fact for all the talk of the Poseidon and  Zeus competing for Thetis’s hand, none of the other deathless gods who lived upon Olympus chose a lover or a bride from this bevy of prophetic beauties. Possibly, Helios and Selene as the most “skyish” of the Ouraniones most represent this racial bias against the children of Pontus.  

 

#2 But maybe Helius distaste for Nereus brood is more personal than racial.  According to Aelian, (On Animals 14. 28 ff). To Nereus and Doris were born 50 daughters; the Nereids, and one son; Nerites. Nerites was the most beautiful of men and gods. He served as Poseidon’s charioteer. When he drove his chariot over the waves, great monsters of the deep, dolphins and sons of Triton, sprang up from the deep, galloping and dancing alongside the chariot. His escort would be promptly left behind as over the smooth-spread waves coursed his cerulean steeds. His sisters sported on the peaceful water while he raced across the wine red sea driving a team of four steeds yoked together. His abilities as a charioteer were so great that Helios came to resent the swiftness of the boy and transformed his body into the spiral shell.  Aelian makes it clear he is not speculating any further on this myth

 

#3 Maybe Helius’ objection wasn’t to the Pontides’ wedding but rather the horror of mésalliance.  As Calypso so elegantly stated in Homer, Odyssey 5. 118;" You are merciless, you gods, resentful beyond all other beings; you are jealous if without disguise a goddess makes a man her bedfellow, her beloved husband.”  The nymph goes on to relate how the gods sent Artemis to slay Helios’ mortal brother-in-law Orion and how Zeus killed Demeter’s beloved Iasion with a thunder bolt.  Aphrodite cursed Helios own sisters with a craving for mortal men and both suffered greatly. ( Pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheca 1.)   

 

#4  Maybe, what Helius found so repugnant in Peleus and Thetis’ marriage was that it was based on rape.  At first blush that might not  be too convincing based on the normal behavior of  the  (male) gods, but please read further.  First, Greek gods rarely resort to physical rape, in the end their charm and beauty are what over powers their lover.  For example, Helios himself and the mortal Leukothea. “Fear gripped her heart. Distaff and spindle fell unheeded from her hands. Her very fear enhanced her grace. Sol, waiting no more, resumed his own true shape, his wonted splendor, the girl, astounded by the sudden sight, yet vanquished by the glory of the god, with no complain accepted his assault.” (Ovid, Metamorphoses 4). 

 

Second we have proof of Helius objection to rape.  Of all the gods, he was the only to speak up when Hades forcibly abducted her.  The conspiracy against the girl initially consisted of her father Zeus, great-grandmother Gaea and rapist Hades.  Surely some of the Oceanides that accompanied her to the fields that day were enlisted to guide her to the right spot.  Surely Zeus messenger Gossip (Homer, Iliad 2. 93) had ready access to the halls of Olympus.  The silence and lack of support that Demeter found in her time of grief can only be explained by the silent involvement of all the Olympians or their fear to speak up.  Only Helius cried rape.

 

#5  Finally maybe the Hyperionides disgust at the festivities is so much “sour grapes”.  They both had to work that day (drive their chariots) and in disappointment claimed they didn’t want to go in the first place..

 

In summary, we may never know what Catulus knew about Helius and Selene’s   grudge against  Peleus and Thetis. But their reasons might have included racism, a family feud, fear of mismatched marriages, revulsion to rape or just plain old sour grapes.

 

 

TFBT: Peleus Married a Fairy

Peleus, who wrestled with her and won her

in spite of her metamorphoses. Here we have

a widely spread motif of fairy tales, which shows

that Thetis originally was no goddess but a nymph.

The Mycenaean Origin of Greek Mythology,

The motif that Martin P. Nilsson is referring to is “ML5090; Married to a Fairy”

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Folklorist use a numbering system to classify folktales based on the work of Reidar Thoralf Christiansen using Norwegian folktales in The Migratory Legends in 1958. The hypothesis behind the index is that tales migrate from place to place where they are dressed up in local color and retold; hence migratory legends.

In “The Fairy Bride Legend of Wales” (Folklore Society Council Lecture, 1991) Juliette Wood, describes the typical motif for ML 5090; “The tale…tells the story of a fairy woman who married a mortal. She returned to her supernatural realm when her husband violated conditions she herself had laid down, mostly likely when he forced her to agree to marriage. . A most august version of the motif might be one recorded by Sir Walter Scott in The Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border.

“The fairy Melusina, also, who married Guy de Lusignan, Count of Poitou, under condition that he should never attempt to intrude upon her privacy, was of this latter class. She bore the count many children, and erected for him a magnificent castle by her magical art. Their harmony was uninterrupted until the prying husband broke the conditions of their union; by concealing himself to behold his wife make use of her enchanted bath. Hardly had Melusina discovered the indiscreet intruder, than, transforming herself into a dragon, she departed with a loud yell of lamentation, and was never again visible to mortal eyes;”

Usually the misalliance involves the capture or kidnapping of the fairy wife as in the tale of Edric the Wild and his Fairy Wife. (Albion - A guide to legendary Britain, Jennifer Westwood, Granada Publishing, London 1985) This involved Edric and his squire snatching his bride forcefully from the midst of her dancing sisters.

This brings us to the rape of Thetis. The goddess Thetis was a leader amongst the fifty daughters of the ancient marine deity of the sea. She was the foster daughter of Queen Hera, the mother of the hero Achilles and surprisingly the rescuer of several Olympian gods. She was forcible wed by the mortal Peleus. His mentor the centaur Chiron advised the second-rate hero to “seize his future bride and hold her fast in spite of her shape-shifting. He watched his chance and carried her off, and though she turned, now into fire, now into water, and now into a beast, he did not let her go till he saw that she had resumed her former shape.” (Library of Apollodorus 3.13.5) In addition, like the fairy-wives elsewhere she too vanished when surprised by her mortal husband. “When Thetis had got a babe by Peleus, she wished to make it immortal, and unknown to Peleus she used to hide it in the fire by night in order to destroy the mortal element which the child inherited from its father, but by day she anointed him with ambrosia. But Peleus watched her, and, seeing the child writhing on the fire, he cried out; and Thetis, thus prevented from accomplishing her purpose, forsook her infant son and departed to the Nereids” Library of Apollodorus [3.13.6] For Peleus forcible marrying a shape-shifting water nymph seems to be a family tradition. His father Aeacus (with Psamathe) and grandfather Zeus (with Metis) did the same.

As to the status of the offspring of human/fairy marriage, there appears to be no clear-cut answer in literature and legend. However, it is interesting that Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, makes Oberon, King of the Fairies, the son of a mortal, Julius Caesar and a fairy, Morgana de Fay. Arguable Oberon was greater than his father, a prophecy made of the son of both Thetis and Metis, to love-struck King Zeus.

Thanks of http://www.facebook.com/gwendda for the Edric reference and NYPL Digital Library for the image.