TFBT: Graves and the Judgement of Paris

Over at the Kosmos Society  we were discussing some of Robert Graves' theories (The Greek Myths) I made some passing reference to what was really happening at the “Judgement of Paris” according to Graves.  It occurred to me that I should probably explan that comment.

Graves, following Apollodorus 1.6.3 in a myth that seems to be otherwise unknown. Says at  “ Zeus returned to Olympus and, mounted upon a chariot drawn by winged horses, once more pursued Typhon with thunderbolts. Typhon had gone to Mount Nysa, where the Three Fates offered him ephemeral fruits, pretending that these would restore his vigour though, in reality, they doomed him to certain death…(footnote 3) the Cadmeians of Boeotia (Thebans) seem to have been concerned with preserving the Zeus cult. Typhon’s ‘ephemeral fruits’, given him by the Three Fates, appear to be the usual death-apples. In a proto-Hittite version of the myth the serpent Illyunka overcomes the Storm-god and takes away his eyes and heart, which he recovers by stratagem. The Divine Council then call on the goddess Inara to exert vengeance. Illyunka, invited by her to a feast, eats until gorged; when upon she binds him with a cord and he is despatched by the Storm-god.”    (Graves, The Greek Myths, Typhon, e.)

“All the gods brought gifts to the wedding; notably Mother Earth gave Hera a tree with golden apples, which was later guarded by the Hesperides in Hera's orchard on Mount Atlas…(footnote) 5. A hero, as the word indicates, was a sacred king who had been sacrificed to Hera, whose body was safely under the earth, and whose soul had gone to enjoy her paradise at the back of the North Wind. His golden apples, in Greek and Celtic myth, were passports to this paradise.” (Graves, The Greek Myths; Hera and Her Children, b.)

The problem with Graves’ line of logic on golden apples is that many of his arguments are preceded by the phrase; “the misreading of an icon” (Ganymede 1).  So for example “Similarly, the waiting bride has been misread as Eos by a mythographer… This icon would equally illustrate Peleus’s marriage to Thetis.”  (Ganymede 1), “the myth of Arne’s being blinded… is apparently deduced from the familiar icon that yielded the myths of Danaë, Antiope, and the rest. (Sons of Hellen’s. 2) “The anomaly is perhaps due to a misreading of an icon-sequence” (Alope 1).  And these are just a few examples of a phrase.  Even as a child studying Graves in the reference section of my school library I found the phrase suspciously over-used.

So, Graves interpretation of what is really happening in the Judgement of Paris is that a triad of death-goddesses is giving Paris the gold-apple of immortality, his ticket to the Isle of the Blest.  The price of his unwilting fame, is the destruction of his home-land.

TFBT: Obscure References to Titans

This is a continuation of the series of papers generated by the continuing conversations of WilliamMoulton2 and Maya M.  This paper discusses obscure references to the nature of the Titans. 

A little background here; the elder gods in Greek mythology are called the Titans.  They were the twelve children of starry Uranus the primordial sky-god and wide-bosomed Gaea the earth; six male “Titans” and six female “Titanesses”.  The overreaching Titans were; the earth encircling river god Oceanus, Koios, Krios, Hyperion the primordial sun, Iapetus and the youngest Cronus.  Most of whom ended up in Tartarus along with their sons after Zeus took over.

According to Aaron J. Atsma  when the Titans overthrew their cruel father Uranus, “Krios, Koios, Hyperion and Iapetus were posted at the four corners of the world where they seized hold of the Sky-god and held him fast, while Cronus hidden in the center, castrated him with a sickle” provided by their mother. Hyperion was no doubt regarded as the Titan of the pillar of the east. Koios' alternate name, Polos "of the northern pol”), suggests he was the Titan of the pillar of the north” [i] Oceanus whose theoretical place of existence was outside this little drama and therefore “neutral” as he and the female deities were to be until the Gigantomachy.  

That leaves Iapetus as the Titan of the West; a likely scenario since that is the post inherited by his son Atlas and because Iapetus is the titan most associated with the realm of Hades.  (Iliad 8.479)    Iapetus’ sons became leaders among the Titans “rebelling” against Zeus, specifically glorious Menoetius whom . . . “far-seeing Zeus struck him with a lurid thunderbolt and sent him down to Erebus because of his mad presumption and exceeding pride." (  Hesiod, Theogony 507) .  Atsma also suggests  “Menoetius was perhaps identical to Menoites the herdsman of Hades, whom Herakles wrestled with in the underworld.”

Finally , among the Titan subduers of Uranus would be Crios at the south.  Krios has three sons; Perses the father of Hecate, Astraeus husband of the Dawn, and Pallas husband of the River Styx, chiefest of them all the Oceanides.  (Odd that two of Krios’ sons are wed to Zeus’ first allies.)   According to Atsma again, Perses as the dog-star may have been imagined with canine features. His father and brothers were all associated with animals--Krios was literally; the ram, Astraeus was a horse- or ass-featured and Pallas was a goatish god.   Astraeus’ sons were the Anemoi, the horse-shaped gods of the winds. Two of them Boreas and Zephyrus, were the sires of immortal horses. Zeus, god of storms, was sometimes described as driving a chariot drawn by the four horse-shaped winds.  

Cronus too might have had a touch of horsiness, considering  he was the father of the first centaur; Chiron and of Poseidon, the god of horses and sire of many divine horses himself. 

Robert Graves refers to the elder gods as “Titans, lords of the seven-day week”[ii] without any explanation I can find;

·      “Atlas as a simple personification of Mount Atlas…as the Titan of the Second day of the Week, who separated the waters of the firmament from the ware of the earth.”

·      The Oceanide and first wife of Zeus, “immortal Metis, as Titaness of the fourth day” 

·      “Rhea, paired with Cronus as Titaness of the seventh day”

The fact that Graves makes Cronus (aka Saturn in the Roman pantheon) titan of Saturday and comments that Hermes is the “god” of the fourth day, suggests that he is using the traditional Western etymology for days of the week.  That means;

·      Helios/Hyperion on the first day Sunday

·      Selene/Phoebe on the second day Monday

·      Ares on the third day Tuesday (I can’t explain the discrepancy.)

·      Hermes on the fourth day Wednesday

·      Zeus on the fifth day Thursday

·      Aphrodite on the sixth day Friday and

·      Cronus on the seventh day, Saturday[iii]

If we accept Nagy’s notion that the name of a son can reflect a main characteristic of the father; (CHS Open House discussion)  maybe we can make a few more assumptions on the ancient Titans. 

• [Hesiod 507] “Now Iapetus took to wife the neat-ankled mad Clymene,”  Which makes this Titan; daring, (Atlas) arrogant, (Menoetius) and like the elderly Priam at Iliad 3.110 “in whatsoever an old man taketh part, he looketh both before and after,”  (Prometheus and Epimetheus).  Which suggests that Iapetus was eldest of the Titans.
• (Hesiod 375) “And Eurybia, bright goddess, was joined in love to Crius”  making Crius a starry, spear-brandishing destroyer.  

 

  

---

[i] Theoi Project Copyright © 2000 - 2008, Aaron J. Atsma, New Zealand

[ii] Robert Graves, “The Greek Myths”

[iii] http://www.theoi.com/Gallery/Z50.1A.html  and  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_the_days_of_the_week

 

TFBT: Robert Graves’ Tanist

 

“another young man, his (the king’s) twin or supposed twin – a convenient ancient Irish term is ‘tanist’ – then became the Queen’s lover, to be duly scarified at mid-winter and as a reward, reincarnated in an oracular serpent”  Robert Graves

Robert Graves wrote amongst many other things the encyclopedic “The Greek Myths”.  This massive and ambitious work catalogued all the conflicting accounts of fabled Ancient Greece and sorted them into very readable chapters named for an epic or mythological character.  After a very enjoyable telling of tales there would be voluminous footnotes interpreting the tales followed by references used.  A premise to his interpretation is that prior to the arrival of the Indo-Europeans to the lands bordering the Mediterranean Sea there was a rather universal indigenous society.  Graves envisioned a matriarchal society both matrilineal and matrilocal.

The “king” came to power by wedding a beautiful prince.  Think of all those traveling heroes throughout myth and legend who slay some beast and marry to the local princess.¹  The “king” is always from elsewhere because the local community intends to kill him and fertilize the field with this blood.  Think of Demeter and Iasion wedded in a thrice-plowed  field where soon after he was slain.  This is Frazier’s “sacrificial king”.  This is the founding father in Greek myth that travels to a distant land and marries the eponymous nymph.  In time he will be the beast slain by the newer arriving hero or the beast that slays the newly arrived hero.  This newly arrived hero slain by the beast; the man sacrificed in place of the king, Graves call the Tanist.  Adonis for examples was killed by a boar or Ares disguised as a boar.   The Boar with his crescent-shaped tusks and lunar aspect, this Tanist came to represent came to represent the matriarchal need to overthrow Indo-European dominance, as the darker aspects of Gaia time and time again tried to over throw heavenly Zeus. 

Graves further supposes that sometimes this fight to the death between the sacrificial king and his tanist became a mock-battle, a wrestling match, a chariot race and that in fact it was “the surrogate boy-king, or interrex,” who died, and whose blood was used for the sprinkling ceremony.   Oenomaus (p 31) and Evenus (p246) slew many of the local princess’ suitors in a chariot race.  Hippolytus lost his race with the local king (p356).  Diomedes and Glaucus seemed to have dispensed with the race and just thrown their “tanists” to the horses.

There are a surprising large number of “twins” in Greek mythology.² In Graves theory they twins present the sacred king and his tanist.  To avoid death and conflict one option is reign for alternate years; like Polyneices and Eteocles attempted to do at Thebes.  “The yoking of a lion and a wild boar to the same chariot is the theme of a Theban myth, where the original meaning has been equally obscured.” The Lion after the Sphinx was the emblem of Thebes’ king and boar the emblem of his tanist.  “and the oracle seems to have proposed a peaceful settlement of the traditional rivalry between the sacred king and his tanist. “

And sometimes   the sacred king   reigned, with a tanist; like in the dual kingship of Sparta. (Amphion/Zethus p256, Procles/Eurysthenes p206)  In order to allow the sacred king precedence over his tanist, he was usually described as the son of a god or goddess.  “the tanist was not regarded as immortal, nor granted the same posthumous status as his twin. Theseus must originally have had a twin, since his mother lay with both a god and a mortal on the same night. .. He was  allowed an honorary twin, Peirithous who, being mortal, could not escape from Tartarus.  Patroclus… may have once been… Achilles’s twin” and tanist.

In summary Graves presupposes the existence in prehistoric times of a sacred role in society called the Tanist; his man could be the sacrificial king’s heir or victim, best friend or eternal foe and  his Other .  

 ______________________________________________________________

1.      Theseus/Minotaur/Adriane, Jason/Colchian dragon/Medea, Perseus/sea monster/Andromache, Bellephron/Chimera/Philonoe, Orion/wild beasts/Merope, Oedipus/Sphinx/Jocasta references from Robert Graves “The Greek Myths” 1988, Volume 1 unless otherwise stated.

2.      Aeolus/Boeotus p159, Butes/Erechtcheus p168, Calais/Zetes p171, Pelias/Neleus p221, Proteus/Acrisius p237, Eteocles/Polynieces v2 p15, Agenor/Belus p200, Aegyptus/Danaus p200, Autolycus/Philammon p216, Castor/Polydeuces p246, Idas/Lynceus p246, Heracles/Iphicles p250, Amphion/Zethus p256, Agamedes/Trophonius p288.  All references from Robert Graves “The Greek Myths” 1988, Volume 1 unless otherwise stated.

TFBT: The Death of Structural Analysis, Solar Mythology and …

I was disturbed when I read, my hero, Gregory Nagy announce the demise of structural analysis.¹ Specifically, he wrote, “structuralism has become an unstable and even unwieldy concept, which cannot any longer convey the essence of the methodology.”   This is quite the disappointment because I still haven’t gotten a handle on structural analysis.  Many authors in the past seemed to value this tool and offered examples of the insights it offered.  What little I know about this way to study myth came from an article by Claude Levi-Strauss in “Structural Anthropology”.  I had the pleasure to read this article is a small dusty rose-colored book I found at a second hand store, “Myth: a Symposium”²

The end of structuralism felt just like the “Eclipse of Solar Mythology” which I’d read in the exact same volume. Richard M. Dorson did a fine job of explaining Solar Mythology before lampooning it to death with some deft illustrations and a few quick jabs.   In truth, this   was more than I’d ever known about   Max Muller’s work.  (I’ve always wondered if the English translations of his work were burnt by an angry mob of intellectuals with torches and pitchforks.)

 As child I’d learned about Solar Mythology from Gayley in “The Classic Myths”. (First Ed. 1893)  I loved that book, with the square glossy pages, clear quality etching for illustration and enigmatic endnotes.  It was in the reference section at the library and I could never check it out. Everything I knew about Muller came from the back of Gayley.  Although I agree that not everyone can be a solar-hero, Muller’s theories were great for helping me with my studies of Norse Mythology (i.e. The death of Balder, Ull and Odin, and the nine mothers of Heimdall.)  I would think Solar Mythology would also be helpful in the study of sun-gods.

In Gayley too, I learned about George W. Cox.  Even as a child his idyllic theory of shepherds on their backs watching the clouds pass, wasn’t too convincing, but when I hear modern scholars speak of Zeus the cloud-gatherer and refer to him as a storm-god, I feel confident that we learned something from Cox.

Before the internet, Robert Graves’ ”The Greek Myths” provided a wide range of mythological information.  About the time I bought my second copy of the two volume set, someone told me that Graves was not held in wide regard by scholars.  Which struck me as odd, since his theory on the triple goddess worked pretty well when discussing triple goddesses.  And the story of Oedipus makes a lot more sense if you know something about sacrificial kings.

When I purchased Themis by Jane Harrison I read that her writings on ritual-myth were not well-received.  However, all her biographers finish by saying how influential her writings were. 

Here’s my theory; a researcher in some quiet moment receives inspiration; a bolt of lightning out of the blue or the small still voice of the muse. The sudden insight works well on the material at hand and a few associated topics.  A paper is published too much acclaim.  A book follows with much additional material, sometimes far from the original source or intent.  It attracts followers who declare it a universal tonic.  It is re-interpreted, mis-interpreted, “detached from its moorings” and run aground.  Everyone declares it a failure and throws the baby out with the bath water. If I may, new each form of analysis or interpretation is elevated by universal acclaim to Olympic heights and then tossed like Hephaestus.

I would suggest that we retain all the forms of interpretation and analysis that have come to us put them in a toolbox and pull them out to use appropriately.

One other thing disturbs be about Professor Nagy’s eulogy to structuralism. In the next paragraph he discusses the work of Parry and Lord.  Their work in oral composition was earth-shaking and now the foundation of virtually every Homeric discussion.  Let’s hope the classics community treats Parry and Lord better than most.

________________________

1 The Epic Hero” appeared in 2005, A Companion to Ancient Epic (ed. J. M. Foley) 71-89. Oxford.

2  Editor Thomas A Sebeok, Indiana University Press, 1972