I am reading "The Wisdom of the Myths" by Luc Ferry;
in English translation from the French. I must admit a bias here. I
am very fond of French literature, Casanova and Dumas being favorites.
And I must admit, in
the epic debate of Iliad versus Odyssey I’ve always favored Achilles’
epic. I prefer to think that can have a
choice in our destiny rather than being buffeted by the winds of
misfortune. Ferry has a different
thought here. Because of the beauty of his writing and skill
as a story teller, I have suspended my disbelief and follow his arguments
carefully to whatever rocky cliff slammed by gray waves. Ferry appears to be more of a philosopher
than mythologist. Hence his unique perspective. After a brief
prologue on this subject Perry begins his work the same place the second great
work in Western literature begins;
"Odysseus...pining for home and wife; the Nymph Calypso, a goddess of strange power and beauty, had kept him captive within her arching caverns"
I’ve seen three ways
to interpret this scene.
1) In my youth, the image of Odysseus gazing across the sea towards
home and Penelope seemed so romantic.
2) After reading the Memoirs of Casanova several times and
attending HeroesX I had a different perspective on the tears of
Telemachus' father. I thought that Odysseus was at this moment pondering
the choice of Achilles; comfortable long life or unfailing glory.
Odysseus might brag that his "fame extends all the way to
heaven." But without a homecoming he would never attain that
unfailing glory, he would be forgotten.
3) Perry offers a third motive. “What Odysseus’ refusal (of
immortality on Calypso’s Island) contains in a nutshell is a definition of the
life well lived from which we begin to glimpse the philosophical dimension of
the myth. Following Odysseus we must learn to prefer to condition of mortality
in accord with cosmic dispensation, as against an immortal life doomed to what
the Greeks termed hubris.” Page 8
There is a code
phrase in Ferry’s quote; “cosmic dispensation”[i] this is the distribution of
rights and privileges among Zeus’s and allies after they defeated the
Titans. For ‘whoever was
unhonured by Cronus and unprivileged, he Zeus would set him in the path of
honour and privileges as was right and just.” Specifically in this
case the settlement between gods and men at a place then called Mecone. “To
each must be allotted his fair share and it is only by such means that the
order established will remain stable.” [ii]
Ferry postulates a
universe where each generation of gods does what it can to stabilize the
cosmos. Gods and men alike fight the monsters intent on destroying
everything. That said, he acknowledges that without the cosmos “will
ossify and all life, all history will disappear.” Hence, I suppose Dionysus is added later to
the cosmic dispensation and the twelve
As Jenny Strauss
Clay demonstrates likewise in “The
Politics of Olympus” the cosmic dispensation must be based dike, justice. According to Ferry, justice is “absolutely
essential to Greek Myth; it is always through justice that one gains one’s
ends, ultimately, because justice is fundamentally nothing more than a form of
adherence to, adjustment to, the cosmic order (dispensation). Each time someone forgets this and goes
against the rule of order the latter is in the end restored destroying the
interloper.
Ferry put a lot of
effort into proving these points in the prologue and first two chapters. He studies each war amongst the gods. He provides some amazing insights into the
myths of Midas and Pandora along the way and brings us back to man’s place in
the cosmic dispensation and the
fragile balanced cosmos it created.
Ferry says of man;
“We all know that on the temple at Delphi, the shrine to Apollo, s
inscribed on of the most famous mottoes in the whole of Greek culture; “Know
Thyself.” The injunction has nothing to do with practicing what I called
introspection, as is sometimes assumed today, in other words the attempt to
know your innermost thought and unmask our unconscious self. It is not a
question of psychoanalysis.
In other words to “know thyself” is to know your natural
place in the cosmic dispensation.
To not know your place is to commit “hubris” in other words –
revolt against the (cosmic dispensation) established through the wars of
the gods.” Hubris for those that don’t know is the
ultimate sin in Greek Mythology, no easier way to get a lightning bolt. Ferry, a philosopher and “secular humanist”
promises a lot of peace and happy ever-afters, if we (Iron Age folks) just
learn to accept our natural place.
Which brings us to
all those fools who hope better than this ragged world Prometheus screwed up
for us. King Midas for one was always
other-reaching, never knew his place.
Ferry asks for us, “How can the judgment of a poor imbecilic like
Midas be of any concern to Apollo, a sublime deity? Because he must
of necessity combat hubris in all its forms” in order to protect the
fragile cosmos created by the cosmic dispensation.
We will hear more on this in the coming chapters.
