A review of "The
Transformation of Hera" by Joan V. O’Brien. The
first time I read this definitive book
on Hera the scholarship and dense writing overwhelmed me. Discovering that the work colored my thinking
on Hera to this day, I thought it well worth another read. And a great read it is. O’Brien leads the reader along a trail of
evidence showing the affects of PanHellenism on the character of the goddess
Hera. I offer here some interesting
excerpts and minimal comments on my part.
“Herodotus
called the temple (of Hera of Samos) the greatest of all he had seen.”
“The
changes in the Samian cult around 600 BC…suggest that this goddess (Hera) underwent
a redefinition from a goddess of general fertility to the “wife and sister” of
Zeus.”
She let’s us know about Hera’s first
husband. “Bathing in the water near the confluence of
the river Imbrasos signified the goddess’ union with a river god.” “Imbrasos
may have been considered her early Samian spouse.”
“The goddess Hera, who alone shares Helen’s
epithet Argeia (in the Iliad. It means); Argive or, of Argos.” “Zeus possess remarkable epithets as
suggesting a period in which Hera was the dominate deity of the Argolid (that
is the land of Argos a narrow plain commanding the Peloponnesian peninsula in
southwestern Greece). As Zeus is spouse
of fair-haired Hera, so Paris is spouse of the fair-haired Helen. Each is posis
of an Argeia”
“marriage
was early viewed as a yoking by a horse-taming goddess.” “Early rites
presumably understood marriage as the taming of young “horses” both male and
female.”
I wondered if this point of view could offer us any insights into Nestor’s
advice on chariot races or Admetus misyoked wedding chariot.
Speaking of Samian Hera’s little-known male
babysitters, O’Brien states “An intriguing question remains. Did the Samians import these “daemons” in the
first place because Hera was already perceived as an aloof mother? She must have been a birth goddess given her
associations with Eileithyia and her action as a birth goddess in the Iliad. She must have been a “kourotrophos”, given
her nursing of monsters and her boast of nursing Thetis. But the Iliadic stories of her relationships
with her two sons Hephaistos and Ares and her stepson Heracles would have done
little to inspire confidence in her maternal instincts. The crippled Hephaestus finds a mother’s
concern not in Iliadic Hera, but in Thetis.
The belligerent Ares serves his mother all too well. The popularity of Heracles in the eighth century
must have led to a popular view of Hera not as a champion of the young but as
their tormenter. “
“The
lust for raw-eating or omophagia is the epic’s primary image of moral
degeneration, just as a meal roasted and shared with others it the primary metaphor
for the best of human behavior.” “Hera-like colos
and menos (lust for vengeance
and rage) on the one hand and Zeus-inspired menis
(wrath) on the other. The sacral menis of Achilles identified with the
will of Zeus is suspended in Book 19… (until) Achilles subsequent renunciation
of omophagia, signaled at an authentically human meal with his archenemy Priam.
“
“the
river god (Xanthus) seeks to bury the hero (Achilles) under mud to prevent
proper burial. For the first time in the
epic, Achilles is afraid.” I found
the last sentence an interesting observation.
“By
depicting Hera and her menos-filled son
(Ares) as those who answer Achilles call to Zeus (for aid against the rising
river) Homer is characterizing Hera with a savagery not to be associated with
Zeus. There are several reasons why Hera
and not Zeus helps the hero here;
- First, Achilles’ mutilation of corpses is inconsistent with the restraint to which Zeus’ example later draws him. Suggesting that Zeus does not support Achilles in his demonic rages …
- Second, although the hero boasts of his lineage from Zeus, his acts suggest the omophaigia of Hera and the menos of her divine sons, Ares and Hephaestus. (O’Brien suggests throughout the work that the savagery of Hera is something Achilles inherited through the milk of Thetis, who in turn got of dose of savagery when she was nursed by Hera.)
- And third, Homer had prepared for her intervention by her earlier plea that Athena and Poseidon stand by Achilles in his terror, when a god, that is Xanthus, pits his strength against him in the fighting:
At
this moment Hera is clearly the deity for Achilles
“Otherwise
Achilles should beware, lest our just anger strike him.” This is the sole instance in the epic in
which nemesis is used of the attitude of the gods toward one who has broken the
moral code.”
“Typhon
is known to both Homer and Hesiod as a traditional character, as the use of the
word pasi “people say”
indicates.”
“Hera
is the only Iliadic figure to swear by the Styx.”
“She
(Hera) is also the only one to invoke the Titans or even mentions (them by name.)”
“The
only two characters whom Iliadic Zeus smites or threatens to smite are Typhon
and his own wife.”
“Tradition
gave Hera two parthenogenetic sons, each of whom was a fire-god, Typhon and
Hephaestus. Homer replaced monstrous Typhon
with the civilized Hephaestus.”
Hence
(Hera) soaring down to the Argolid is an adroit deceiver who’s agenda delays Heracles’’
birth in favor of her own heir’s. The
episode virtually identifies her not with the timid dove Eileithyia, but with deceitful
Ate1. The similarity in their
titles; one the eldest daughter of Kronos and the other the eldest daughter of
Zeus, and the emphasis on their dangerously disruptive feminine agility are
hardly coincidental. With help from infamous
Ate, Hera establishes cultic hegemony over the Argolid thereby rationalizing to
a Panhellenic audience why Zeus was not always considered supreme in Argolic myth.
“
“The
Seduction of Zeus depicts an atypical female, a wife who tames her spouse.
- The first part of the episode finds Hera completing her elaborate toilet by borrowing the magic charm with which Aphrodite tames all immortals and mortals alike.
- The mid-point of the episode foreshadows the climax with reference to Night, the tamer of gods and mortal males. On Mt. Ida, Zeus acknowledges that Eros has never before so tamed him.
- And after the enthralled spouse is tamed by sleep and sex, Night’s son Sleep leaves his perch to spread the good news to Poseidon on the battlefield below.
The
humorously intertwined pre-Olympian motifs recalls a potnian religion in which the female tames all.” “Hera, Night and Sleep come from the old divine
order in which nature gods tamed all else”
Just a beautiful phrase I wanted to
share,
“the Argolic motifs are so magnificently woven into the very fabric of the epic
that the stitching is discernible only by careful scrutiny of the language and
themes.
1. Ate, according
to Homer was a daughterof Zeus, was an ancient Greek divinity, who led both
gods and men to rash and inconsiderate actions and to suffering (Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and
Mythology) I myself find her easier to
envision her as a daemon tempting men (and male gods) to folly
