TFBT: Before and After the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite

“I loved her better than myself, but after obtaining possession the balance (swung the other way)”  paraphrase from  The Memoirs of Casanova,

 Chapter XIX

Quoting an eighteenth century adventurer might seem an odd start to a classical study.  But, when studying seduction, who would be a better reference.  It is clear in the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite that the mighty goddess will say whatever it takes to consummate her Zeus given passion for the Trojan prince Anchises. Traditional scholarship assumes that Anchises is being honest in his interactions with the disguised goddess.  In this paper I propose that Anchises exaggerates and lies just as much as golden Aphrodite and for the same reason.  

I Loved Her Better Than Myself

After a long preamble and scene setting the action starts around line 81 with “She stood before him, the daughter of Zeus, Aphrodite, looking like an unwed maiden in size of length and appearance.”  Clearly she didn’t want to scare off the royal shepherd, so she began her seduction of the Trojan by disguising her appearance. 

At 91”Seized with love, Anchises said to her: “Hail, my Lady, you who come here to this home, whichever of the blessed ones you are”  (Same sort of flattery that liar Odysseus uses on the fair-faced maiden Nausicaa.  Both men flatter the young woman out in the middle of nowhere by suggesting she is Artemis.  Odyssey 6:145)  Anchises then makes a lengthy guessing about which of the goddesses she is; sort of a descending scale of important goddesses in the Trojan Pantheon. “Artemis or Leto or golden Aphrodite or Themis of noble birth or bright-eyed Athena (95) Or perhaps you are one of the Kharites, you who have come here…Or you are one of those Nymphs who range over beautiful groves, (Dryads) or one of those Nymphs who inhabit this beautiful mountain, (Oreads) and the fountainheads of rivers (Oceanides and Naiads)  and grassy meadows. (Leimonides).  Then he pours on the flattery ( 100) “ For you, on some high peak, in a spot with a view going all round, I will set up an altar, and I will perform for you beautiful sacrifices”  Then speaking like some ancient city’s founding father flirting with eponymous nymph  he ask “Grant that I become a man who is distinguished among the Trojans. Make the genealogy that comes after me become a flourishing one. And make me (105) live a very long life and see the light of the sun, blessed in the midst of the people. “

At line 110, in order to keep up appearance the disguised deity says, “No, I am a mortal. The mother that bore me was a woman. My father is Otreus… The nursemaid who brought me up in the palace was a Trojan.11 Ever since I was a small child, 115 she brought me up, … That is why I know your language as well as my own...the Argos-killer [Hermes], abducted me, … He carried me over many fields of mortal humans …And he [Hermes] said that I, in your bed, … would be called your lawfully-wedded wife, and that I would give you splendid children."   Hmm, let see beautiful wealthy princess falls from Heaven as a gift to Anchises from the gods. She conveniently speaks his language, is lovely, alone and a great distance from father and brothers.  And that horn-dog Hermes delivers her with her virginity intact.  If Anchises believes this he's not thinking with his noos or thumos

Line 145 ; “If you are mortal, and if a woman was the mother who gave birth to you, and if Otreus is your father, … and if you are to be called my wife for all days to come…". Does he hesitate out of respect or for fear of the bolt that Iason got?  (See Calypso at Odyssey 5:116)  or out of wisdom like Diomedes (Iliad 6:122)  “ then it is impossible for any god or any mortal human (150) to hold me back, right here, from joining with you in making love right now, on the spot - not even if the one who shoots from afar, Apollo himself, takes aim from his silver bow and shoots his arrows that bring misery. Then, O Lady who looks like the gods, I would willingly, once I have been in your bed, go down into the palace of Hades below.”  What player hasn’t used the lie that they would die for their lady love.

After, the Balance Swung the Other Way          

At Line 172; “Now that her skin was again beautifully covered over, the resplendent goddess stood by the bed, and the well-built roof-beam - her head reached that high up”. Then she awakes her slumbering lover presumably to tell him about his son,  “I got myself a child beneath my waistband, having slept with a male mortal." However she gets interrupted when he complains (188) “…don’t let me become disabled  don’t let me live on like that among humans! Please, take pity! I know that no man is full of life, able,  if he sleeps with immortal goddesses".

Traditionally, it is assumed that Anchises worries about being "unmanned" by the experience.  Nowhere else in Ancient Greek literature is Anchises' concern shared by other heroes.  Maybe a close reading further along can shed light on his concern.  As a matter of fact the goddess says, "You should have no fear of that I would do any kind of bad thing to you,(195) or that any of the other blessed ones would. For you are philos indeed to the gods."  She continues by swearing to fulfill his original request (104)  “And you will have a philos son, who will be king among the Trojans. And following him will be generations after generations for all time to come. "  

Aphrodite goes on to explain what the results could be for sleeping with a goddess.  Obviously he could get the thunderbolt if he goes around bragging about bedding the daughter of Zeus.

 The other option is what happen to his cousin Tithonus  and great-uncle Ganymede ; "together with the immortal ones (with) the gods in the palace of Zeus… a wonder to behold, given his share of timē by all the immortals, "   Aside from the threat of a thunderbolt, the only un-manning mentioned is becoming no longer a man, but a god.  Aphrodite is preaching to the choir here.  This sort of thing happens a lot to Trojan princes, for example Alexander, that seducer of another daughter of Zeus.   The fame of the horse rearing Troy is based on the horses descended from a set sent by Zeus to King Tros to compensate for the loss of Ganymede.  And Tithonus' sons will come to Troy in its time of need.  So Anchises must know that the second option is the likely reward for a Trojan prince who sleeps with a goddess.  Unfortunately, things didn’t work out too well for cousin Tithonus.  When his lover Eos, Titaness of the Dawn, asked that he receive endless life, she forgot to ask for eternal youth, too.  As a consequence, to Tithonus   "hateful old age was pressing hard on him, with all its might, and he couldn’t move his limbs, much less lift them up,..and he has no strength at all, ". I suggest that this is the unmanning that Anchises fears.  He knows from family lore that he had a good chance that he "would be immortal and ageless, just like the gods." And he took his best shot at attaining it. But Aphrodite’s heartless response was “If you could only stay the way you are, in looks and constitution, staying alive as my lawfully-wedded husband… But now wretched old age will envelop you, “

Their son will be raised by some of the long-lived nymphs Anchises had listed earlier.  Aphrodite will bring the child, Aeneas, to Troy someday for his father to raise.  One last warning to be discrete and the goddess is gone.

In Summary

Before, in order to seduce Anchises, Aphrodite appears to him as a beautiful, rich virgin alone in the woods. In order to flatter the “maiden” he, just like Odysseus, compares her to a goddess.  In order to tempt Anchises she tells him she is far from her father and fated for her bed. Anchises hesitates only a moment then leads her to his bed, their mutual seduction complete.

Afterwards, Aphrodite stays long enough to tell the mortal they will have a son.  Anchises makes a backhanded request for endless life and eternal youth.  Aphrodite says not.

TFBT: The Hymn to Dionysus and 24.CB22.1x

This happy morning, I give thanks as the smell of baking turkey drifts through our home and wait anxiously for Santa Claus to appear at the Macy Day Parade.  This happy morning; this twilight moment between what was and what will be, I finished the final session of The Ancient Greek Hero in Twenty Four Hours. 

 In this session we studied among other things the Homeric Hymn to Dionysus.  It begins with the god apparently looking for a ride standing on “a jutting headland by the shore of the fruitless sea…his rich, dark hair was waving about him, and on his strong shoulders he wore a purple robe.”   Back then only the wealthy could afford purple fabric.   Conveniently, a crew of pirates came upon him and “they thought that he was the son of a line of kings nurtured by the sky god.”  They snatch the young god up in hopes of a great ransom. 

Immediately the helmsman yells out “What kind of daemon possesses you all! What kind of god is this that you seized and tried to tie up…?  Elsewhere, I pondered the helmsman’s second sight.  I wondered if his hand on the rudder could sense the weight of the god affecting the boat.  Professor Nagy says of the helmsman’s clarity and vision; “…you have to have the mentality to get this.  And if you have the right mentality, then you're saved.”  The rest of the crew clearly doesn’t have the helmsman’s pious perspective.  The skipper over rules his arguments and tells him to keep to his work.  Immediately weird things started happening.  Dionysus turns into a lion, grapevines start growing up the mast and line, a bear appears on deck and the “fruitless sea” turns to wine, hence Homer’s wine-dark sea.  Naturally, “The men, terrified, were fleeing toward the stern of the ship, crowding around the steersman.”  Apparently, a bear on deck was the final straw and the crew leaped over board.  Dionysus turned them into the first dolphins.    The helmsman at his post till the end was about to follow them into the deep when the god saved him from doing so.  Dionysus said “Have courage, you radiant man, reached by a force that works from far away.   You have achieved beauty and pleasure   for my heart.” As Nagy explains in the textbook at 24.16 “Since Dionysus caused it to happen that the steersman ‘became the most blessed of all men’, I interpret this divine action as the transforming of a man into a cult hero.”

I had a different perspective this time while reading the textbook, studying the source material and listening to the lectures.  You see the federal government “furloughed” me.  Consequently, I was working at a local cannery located upon “a jutting headland by the shore of the fruitless sea”.  My comrades were not a crew of pirates but neither were they sons “of a line of kings nurtured by the sky god.”  That is to say they did not live in the “rarified air” they believed I did.   One day while we trimmed fillets of salmon, we got some good news about our progress.

 “Praise God!”  I shouted.  “Oh, are you religious?” one of the guys asked innocently.  In the federal government if I began discussing my faith, the boss would have yelled at me and told me to keep to my work.  My cheeks blushed as though I’d drank too much red-wine.  I hesitantly answered, yes.  My comrades showered me with questions about my faith and church.  Then the conversation passed on to other things. 

At break my comrades would stand on the dock at the back overlooking the water.  That day as the afternoon break wound down and our comrades leapt back to work, one of them fled toward the stern of the cannery where I stood and crowded up to me.  He had a question about lying.  Being experienced in dialogue from this class and familiar with Odysseus I helped him work through the ethics of a bummed cigarette. As we returned to work he seemed satisfied with the conclusion we’d drawn, as though he had “achieved beauty and pleasure for (his) heart.”

This concludes my current adventure with version CB22.1x of The Ancient Greek Hero in Twenty Four Hours.  I have” turned the post” as we say.  But the race goes on forever.  After the holidays I will race with other graduates in “Hour 25” and God willing, I and my winged steads will race with others during version CB22.3x during the Summer of 2014.

   

 

 

TFBT: 23.CB22.1x, Phaedo and St. John

This wonderful week in the Harvardx online class called “The Ancient Greek Hero in 24 Hours” Gregory Nagy led us in dialogue on another book concerning the death of Socrates; The Phaedon.

The plot of Phaedon consists of a dialogue between two characters, Phaedo a disciple of Socrates and Echecrates of the town of Philius.  Echecrates ask about the death of Socrates and why it took place so long after his conviction.  He says no one visited Athens anymore and that “has been a long time since any guest from there has visited here.” (57b)  It is an interesting phrase used in conjunction with Death because lately in class we’ve been discussing the esoteric nature of “there” compared to the here and now of “here”.  Eschecrates is right, not too many people from there come back to visit here.

Phaedon explains that the “ship of state” must sail to Delos every year for the great celebration and that the ship was “garlanded” that day. In the textbook  at “23§16 Nagy explains that “… the garlanding of objects or of persons is a way of delineating a ritual framework.” (That explains why tourists in Hawaii and people at Marti Gras wear leis and beads.) Phaedon explains that during this ritual period “they have a custom at this time of the year to purify the city and to refrain from publicly executing anybody before the ship goes to Delos and then comes back from there.” 

Nagy reminds us that Socrates good friend (Can we say therapon?) Chaerephon went to Delphi as a private person to determine, “whether there existed anyone more sophos or ‘wise’ than Socrates.”    I was about say that Socrates wasn’t too wise in the spiritual sense if he didn’t know that such hubris (vanity) was a big Bozo no no according to the gods.  Then I recalled other heroes that got the lightning bolt for their vanity; Capaneus upon the walls of Thebes, saying that not even Zeus could stop him from conquering the city now and Salmoneus who trailed bronze pots behind his chariot and threw firebrands at his subject. ) Both of whom got blasted and instant immortality.  So maybe Socrates lack of sensitive is just further evidence of his effort to go out with a bang.  See The Apology of Socrates” and 22.CB22.1x

Phaedo tells how all the disciples came to the prison and spent long days discussing philosophy.  Many topics are debated in grand style considering their host circumstance.  The day arrives when the boat has returned, so Socrates downs the hemlock.

As to that final moment Echecrates ask if Plato (the author of this two-man play) was in attendance, to which Phaedo replies; “.As for Plato, I think he was not feeling up to it.” (59b).   Off-handedly I thought about Peter denying the Lord three times for the cock crowed. (Matthew 26:75)  At which point I began noticing odd correlations with Jesus and his disciples.  Hey, speaking of which, at the very end Socrates asks one of his disciples to sacrifice a cock on his behalf.

As my Lord had four gospels written about him, so Socrates had two disciples write about his end; The Apology.  One by Xenophon and the other by Plato.  “Then he (Socrates) smiled and said, “It seems just now that I am speaking as an author of some piece of writing Still, what I am saying does hold, I think.” Plato Phaedo 102d.   But in reference to Socrates comment, Nagy concludes, at 23.24 “So, the dialogues that Socrates is having with his students in Plato’s Phaedo, for example, are really mediated by the writings of Plato. That is why Plato has to suppress himself as a writer. ” So should we assume that the red text in the Gospels are really the words of the Gospel writers rather than the Lord?

{Phaedo:} I will tell you. You see, I happened to be seated close to him, at his right hand. I was sitting on a kind of stool, while he was lying on a couch that was quite a bit higher than where I was. So then he stroked my head and fondled the locks of hair along my neck - he had this way of playing with my hair whenever he had a chance.   So this scene, the favorite seated on the right, the honored leader demonstrating his affection for his favorite sort of reminded of  the last Supper with Chris and the Apostle John.  John wrote of himself in the third person, I wonder if Plato did too.  In his Memorabilia Xenophon does not include Phaedon as one of the "true companions" of Socrates.   I wonder if “Phaedon” isn’t just a literary device as was St. John’s “the one whom Jesus loved best”.  (John 13:23) 

We’ve talked in this class about some of the requirements  to attain the status of “Hero” in order to attain heroic honors and the Isle of the Blest after death.  There’s one!  You got to be dead. You have to be larger-than-life, your existence has to have cosmic significance, it helps to have a little ichor in your veins and a god/hero antagonistic relationship with a god that is real similar to you.  In the New Testament Jesus does odd little things now and again in order to fulfill prophecy in the Old Testament, in other words to fulfill the requirement to be the Messiah to the Jewish People.  Maybe at the same time he is consciously fulfilling the requirement listed in The Ancient Greek Hero in 24 Hours in order to be the Savior of the Greeks too.

TFBT: Ripped Apart and Eaten by Dogs

We are entering the final week of The Ancient Greek Hero in 24 Hours an excellent on line class from Harvardx, hosted by my personal hero Gregory Nagy.

 

A “bacchae” is a frenzied female follower of the god Bacchus, also known as Dionysus.  It is also a famous Greek tragedy by Euripides.  One of the major characters in the play ends up dressed like a bacchae. This is King Pentheus of Thebes. 

Pentheus had an aunt named Semele.  Semele use to brag that she was the consort of the king of the gods; Zeus.  For her boast she got blasted with a thunderbolt.  Well at least that is what the Thebans believed.  One day a “man” arrives on the scene with a chorus of women from Asia Minor.  He looks remarkable like Pentheus.  This should have been a clue to the king.  In fact, this man was  Dionysus; the thrice-born god of wine and Pentheus’ first cousin.  The deceased Aunt Semele was in fact the consort of Zeus.  Dionysus’ embroyic body survived the fire that consumed his mother and survived. 

 

Things get really confusing at this point in the play. I will try to explain what comes next, meanwhile be aware that by the end of the play Pentheus is ripped to pieces by his frienzied mother and surviving aunts.  (As an aside,  legend says that at the end of his life the playwright Euripides was ripped to pieces by his patron’s dogs.)

 

Here is what happens between Dionysius’ arrival and Pentheus’ death.  Pentheus refuses to recognize Dionysius as prodigal cousin or as a god.  As a consequence the women of the royal household, go crazy and run off into the wild.  Professor Nagy point out in Chapter 21 of  “The Ancient Greek Hero in 24 Hours” at section 31 that the women of Thebes, the Theban bacchae “have lost control of themselves. But that does not mean that they are “out of control…. They are still under control, but the controller is now the god.”   At 21§32 he adds, “So, the possession of a woman’s mind by Dionysus is a positive experience when the woman possessed is performing a ritual”.

 

Greek Myths are often associated with particular rituals.  Ancient Greek tragedies are often based on myths. So plays often explain rituals.   Hence The Eumenides explains the trial by juror system.  Hippolytus explains initiation rituals in a town on the outskirts of Athens and Oedipus at Colonus explains rituals in the suburbs of Athens. So the Bacchae is explaining rituals too. What wasn't clear to me and unfortunately wasn't clear to Pentheus ; is that the Bacchae is demonstrating two rituals at once.

 

The Ancient Greeks staged tradegies with a handful of actors (if that ) and a chorus.  The chorus could represent the old men of a city, a group of woman concerned for the heroine or any other sort of homogenous peoples.  The chorus interacted with the actors and often voiced the questions they audience might have.  If you are a “Frankie Fan”; if you ever saw “The Rocky Horror Picture Show”  you know how a chorus works because the entire audience is the chorus for that film.

 

The women who came from Asia Minor with  Dionysus are the chorus for the play.  This play, this myth explains the orgins of the annual festival where the tragedies were performed.  This is the first Greek tragedy.  To use Nagy phraseology the women; “ are in a mental state of equilibrium or balance when they participate in the rituals of Dionysian theater by performing the myth that motivates these rituals.” ( 21.33)

 

With Dionysus help, Pentheus dresses like a bacchae, so he can observe their rituals.   His mind befuddled by the god, Pentheus  some how doesn’t realize that the chorus of  women he is going to spy on . “ is not the chorus of the Bacchae. It is not the chorus of Asiatic women who have followed Dionysus to Thebes - and who are the ritually correct chorus of the drama. Rather, this would-be chorus consists of all the women of Thebes. They have left the urban civilization of Thebes and have relocated themselves in the wilderness of the mountains,”

 

The women on the mountain are reinacting another myth and another much darker ritual.  Long ago Dionysus was called Zagreus.  He was the son of Zeus and heir to the throne of the universe.  The Titans, the elder gods enticed the child away from safety ripped him to pieces and ate his flesh.  This is the ritual that Pentheus sees reinacted upon Mt Cithaeron.  When the women see him, the result is common to the uninitiated that trespass on the mysteries; death.  Pentheus is ripped apart on the exact same spot his Uncle Acteon was ripped apart and eaten by his own hunting hounds. 

 

The play ends with the Pentheus’ mother accompanied by the other women proudly marching into town to show off  “this lion's head, my booty from the chase.”  As the frenzy fades, it is left up to Pentheus and Dionysus’ grandfather to explain the will of the gods.

TFBT: “The Apology of Socrates”and 22.CB22.1x

This week in "The Ancient Greek Hero in 24 Hours" we studied Plato. He wrote “The Apology of Socrates”  It  is sort of  a one man play based on the swan song, the final speech  of Plato’s beloved teacher Socrates. 

Like Oedipus before him, just an enigmatic response of Lorixas was enough to send Socrates racing down the road to his doom.   Socrates friend Chaerephon went to the Oracle at Delphi and asked if Socrates was the wisest man in the world.  The pythia (the prophetess and priestess in the Temple)) replied “Yes.”   Socrates being Socrates couldn’t resist dialoguing with everyone to discover it this is true or not.  In other words he bragged himself up and when his listener had doubts  Socrates proved he was smarter than everyone else.  One of the great things about a democracy is that you can vote to kill annoying people.  So, they drummed up some charges and put him on trial. 

Fellow student Wjkim; comments on the god/hero antagonism that Socrates had with Apollo.  “The antagonistic mood between the two exists in the accusations Apollo's Oracle causes against Socrates in the society and Socrates' constant wandering to test and challenge Apollo's words. However, the two figures are also very similar in that they are both icons of wisdom and seekers of truth.”. Paraphrasing the words of Achilles;  another hero/antagonist of Apollo Socrates says death would be better “rather than stay behind here by the curved ships, a laughing stock and a heavy load for Earth to bear( 28b-d) 

The self-described “gadfly of Athens” defends himself by saying that he has a daemon, (a guardian angel, a conscious) that alerts him when he is doing something wrong and it never alerted him that wandering around humiliating people was a bad thing, so he must not be guilty. 

Socrates says, “I must perform for you the tale of my wandering…”  ( 22a), as though he was Odysseus in an assumed identity entertaining the Phaeacians.  As Professor Nagy says in The Ancient Greek Hero in 24 Hours at 22.14 “Socrates now turns his attention to men of his own time, especially to the ...jurors who condemn him to death. He speaks to them ironically and even sarcastically:”

Naturally, it’s thumb down for Socrates.  He then talks about the World to come, philosophy and his hopes for his sons.  His actual death is taken up the in the sequel in Hour 23; Phaedo.

VftSW: Euripides’ Hippolytus and 20.CB22.1x

I am still participating in “The Ancient Greek Hero in 24 Hours” starring Gregory Nagy and a chorus of enthusiastic teaching assistants.  It in a free on-line class from Harvardx.  This “Hour” we studied Hippolytus by the Ancient Greek playwright Euripides. 

If you don’t know the story; Hippolytus is out about in the suburbs of Ancient Athens.  Either he is participating in a major public event or else exercising naked on a remote beach, in either case his stepmother gets an eyeful and falls madly in love.  Hippolytus has two problems with her obsessive affection; 

1) Well, it is his step-mother! 

2) Hippolytus is madly in love with the virginal invisible goddess Artemis.   

Hippolytus picks flowers for Artemis and weaves them into a headband for the goddess.  Explaining that the blossoms are from “a place where it is not fit for the shepherd to pasture his flocks, nor has iron yet come there, but it is unspoiled” (Euripides Hippolytus 75) The above is an euphemism for an “untrod meadow”.  In other words Hippolytus is a virgin.  This is a problem among the Ancient Greeks, particularly when Hippolytus forsakes his dutiful worship at the altars of mighty Aphrodite, the goddess of love and sex.   

Professor Nagy writes in Chapter 20.41 of the textbook “  So, what is the trouble with Hippolytus? The answer is, Hippolytus himself simply cannot make the transition from the phase of virginity into the phase of heterosexuality.” Then at “20§42. “facilitated in the ritual of initiation, leading to social equilibrium, this same transition is blocked in myth (that is the myth of Hippolytus that we studied), leading to personal disequilibrium for the hero and, ultimately, to catastrophe. ”  In other words, like Peter Pan, Hippolytus doesn’t want to grow up. 

At line  87 the young hero says “That is the same way I should go round the turning post, heading toward the end of life just as I began it.“ He came into this world a virgin and he wants to rather unnaturally to go out that way.  The problem is the “turning post”.   

As I discussed elsewhere, in the next to last book of the Iliad Nestor gives a very long speak his son Antilokhos on  how to win a chariot race.  If involves how to turnabout the the turning point.  Two thousand and five hundred  years of scholarship termed that Nestor’s speech had nothing to do with chariot racing.  Neither do Hippolytus’ words.  

Hippolytus loves to drive his chariot along the beach practicing his skills as a chariot driver.  The turning post is what chariots turnabout during a race or contest.  And let’s be honest any time you go anywhere in life, once you go “there” and come back you aren’t the same person.  For Hippolytus, his figurative “turning post” would be the move into adulthood and marriage.   

Nagy says of Hippolytus’ virginity and relationship with the huntress goddess Artemis at 20.58 “Only Aphrodite allows female and male experiences to merge, but that merger can happen only in the adult world of heterosexuality, not in the pre-adult world represented by Hippolytus.” 

One of our lecturers for the hour is Douglas Frame.  He says of this Euripides comments on this turning post.  “he’s just not explicit about it. There's something called an absent signifier here, which means that the audience isn't being told everything.   But the absent signifier is something that you can supply if you just think it through”.  As to Hippolytus chariot racing metaphor, Douglas Frames says, “this metaphor at this point, about reaching the end of his life, turning. It's going to be a crash. He doesn't know that yet.”  

So his step-mother commits suicide and leaves an accusatory note.  Hippolytus whips the horses in hopes of getting away.  But his father believing the suicide note curses his son, the horses are freaked by a bull running up out of a wave, Hippolytus is tangled in the reins and dragged to death.  Bummer, eh?  But after all this is a tragedy. 

Now for the good news.  Artemis asks her nephew Asclepius to resurrect Hippolytus from the dead.  Artemis transplants the now immortal Hippolytus to Italy and gives him the name Virbius to disguise this little trick they played on the fates.  As to Artemis’ nephew: Nagy at 20.30 explains “As the story goes, Zeus incinerated Asclepius with his divine thunderbolt.”

TFBT; Oedipus Tyrannos and 19.CB22.1x

                     
                         “Why was I to see, when eyesight showed me nothing sweet?"
                                                           Oedipus in Oedipus Tyrannos

 

With great joy, I continue my on-line class from Harvard; The Ancient Greek Hero in Twenty-Four Hours”.  Even on the second reading I still enjoy the textbook by the same name. This session we studied Oedipus Tyrannos composed by the great Athenian playwright Sophocles.  

The play opens with the priest announcing to King Oedipus that something has descended on the buds of the fruit trees, upon on the herds of cattle grazing in the pastures and upon the pregnant women, producing lifelessness.   The god of Delphi, Apollo has swooped down. He is the hateful plague-god afflicting the city.   

According to Nagy’s translation,  the citizens say to their beloved king of the last twenty years or so, “Come, best   among mortals, resurrect our city. Come! And do be careful, since now this land here calls you a savior.”  Doesn’t this line just set-up Oedipus for failure?  Calling a person the “best among mortals” and “savior” will doom any subsequence effort on their part as substandard.  This is particularly true in the Ancient world where the gods were petty, jealous and intolerant of excessive pride (hubris) in mortals.  

Oedipus sent his brother-in-law to Delphi to ask of the god what the problem was.  Ends up Oedipus’ predecessor on the throne was murdered and the city is accidently sheltering the murder or murders.  They either have to kill or exile them.  Oedipus asks, “Where on earth are they? Where will this thing be found, this dim trail of an ancient guilt?”     

As you probably know or can guess by now the murderer is Oedipus himself.  The play reveals that the god at Delphi (him again?) predicted that baby Oedipus would grow up to kill his father Laius.  So, King Laius and his wife maimed the baby and left him for the wolves.  Oedipus survives and grows into a strong, lame, young man.  The two men, unknown to one another, meet and have words.  Laius dies.  Oedipus continues on his way, destroys as lion-bodied siren devouring the youth of Thebes.  Consequently they happy citizens give the hero the crown and the hand of the queen.  Unknown to everyone the queen is his mother!  Ugh!  She hangs herself when she realizes she’d bedded her own son and produced four more from that polluted bed.  Our studies raced to the end of the story as rapidly as Oedipus rushed to his doom.   

There is no way to describe this better than Sophocles did and Nagy translated;  

"Oedipus tore from her clothing, those gold-worked brooches of hers, with which she had ornamented herself, and, holding them high with raised hand, he struck his own eyeballs."  

Sophocles adds some pretty gory details after the above line and if that isn’t enough, Professor Nagy adds in lecture “I should tell you that, in Euripides' version of this primal scene, the brooch that she's wearing in her hair had also being used to pierce the feet of (Baby) Oedipus.” 

Naturally the good citizens freak out at the site of their king’s gouged out eyeballs and beg to know what daemon¹ convinced him to do it.

Oedipus responds, “It was Apollo, dear ones Apollo who brought to fulfillment these evil, experiences of mine. But no one with his own hand did the striking. I myself did that, wretch that I am! Why was I to see, when eyesight showed me nothing sweet?"  

That is pretty much the end of the sad story.  Professor Nagy adds in lecture that, “…people have thought that Oedipus, in the sense that he will eventually be expelled from his native city of Thebes…in the sense that he becomes the scapegoat, who, in this case, isn't killed, but expelled from the community.” 

 

 

¹ “daemon” according to Webster’s New World Dic, 2^nd College edition is “any of the secondary divinities ranking between the gods and men”

TFBT:17.CB22.1x and the “Oresteia”

  “You handmaidens who set our house in order”

              Electra in The Libation Bearers

This session in our beautiful online class; the Ancient Greek Hero in 24 Hours, we studied the last two plays in a trilogy of plays called the “Oresteia” by Aeschylus.  They are “The Libation Bearers” and “The Eumenides” 

Professor Nagy said in class; “And I hope that those people out there who are listening to us, who are members of that kind of society, will share with us how their emotional world is shaped by the frequent practice of libations for many

situations.” I didn’t reply, but I was from a “culture” at one time that practiced libations.  For those unaware, libations are when you tip your glass, nominally to the “gods and ghosts of this place” and spill a little on the ground.  The Happy Jack Hotshots poured libations before drinking out of their canteens, before the first sip out of their red cup at keggers, their morning cups of coffee on the kitchen steps.  When they began pouring libations on the cook house floor, that’s when the crew boss tried to stop the tradition.  I don’t know how it started.  Admittedly spilling a little water out of your canteen before taking a drink might wash off the ash, dust and grime, but the habit went way beyond that.  One slow shift on the fire line we spread the crew out along a back-fired hand line to watch for sparks and embers floating over into the “green”.  The smoke from the burnt out valley below rose slowly and low up slope.  Patrolling the light smoke proved tolerable.  Come lunch time when I meet up with my buddy Bob. We discovered clear air in the first few feet above the pine-needle covered earth.  We lay on our sides, dining Roman style.  I gabbed away, pulled the small can of once frozen orange juice from my lunch sack, poured a libation habitually and raised it to my lips.  Bob grasped my wrist.  “Pour another libation.”  I did.  My orange juice was black.  Clearly something went wrong with it somewhere along the line.  And after that the tradition of pouring libations grew more entrenched than ever.  

The two plays in addition to libations are concerned with the effort of Orestes and his sister Electra to avenge the death of their father. To do so requires them to kill their mother. Ugh! Matricide is the ultimate sin in Greek mythology. Their mother killed their father.  The poets claim that Agamemnon (his name is the title of the first of the three plays.) sacrificed their sister Iphigenia.  Rumor reports (Antoninus Liberalis, Metamorphoses 27) that the girl wasn't their sister but a bastard cousin raised in their household.  

The second of the three plays opens with Electra trying to perform the libations; the rituals required in honor of dead ancestors. Being poorly raised in a dysfunctional household she is unsure of her ceremonial responsibility.  She asks the advice of the attendants who came from the palace with her, the “handmaidens who set our house in order,”  

 I find the phraseology ironic because the ceremony turns from a little ritual honoring the dead into a summoning of an Erinye; a spirit of bloody revenge.  The Erinyes are the three divine handmaidens with torches and whips who protect the cosmic order from violation by men and gods.  If you want a description; they are generally winged maidens with snakes for hair, they themselves dripping poisonous venom often covered in gore and blood.

The mortal “handmaidens” suggest at line 400 that rather than the customary water (or even orange juice) “it is the customary law that drops of blood   spilled on the ground demand yet more blood. The devastation   cries out for the Erinyes, which from those who died before brings one disaster after another disaster. “

Eventually Orestes and Electra revenge their father by slaying their mother, but some of her final words are (Line 924] “Take care: beware the hounds of wrath that avenge a mother.”

In response to his doomed mother’s warning Orestes hopes at line 269 “Surely he will not abandon me, the mighty oracle of Loxias, who urged me to brave this peril to the end and loudly proclaims calamities   that chill the warmth of my heart, if I do not take vengeance on those who are guilty of my father’s murder.”   

In previous reading of this trilogy a feeling about the futility of revenge never crept over me.  Agamemnon’s family for generations performed unbelievable acts evil on one another in the name of revenge.  My realization that Agamemnon   resorted to sorcery in slaying the virgin Iphigenia, probably made me aware, that all these people made choices along the way.  Apparently, they didn’t hear Fannie Flagg’s advice, “Love and forgiveness is always right.  Meanness and pettiness is always wrong.”  

The final play; “The Eumenides” opens with Orestes trapped in the temple at Delphi by the hideous Erinyes and his mother’s ghost.  (So much for Loxias’ help!)  The god slips him out the side door and sends him off to Athens and the protection of the goddess Athena.  Then more to himself than anyone less Loxias says, “ And I will aid the suppliant and rescue him! For the mēnis of the suppliant would be awesome to mortals and gods, if I intentionally abandoned him.”  Interestingly Loxias is not concerned about his reputation or the reputation of his Oracle, but rather the wrath, the anger, the menis of Orestes.  “Menis” is a Greek word for anger generally reserved for gods, but in this case, Orestes anger with the gods would have consequences of cosmic proportions.   

When the Erinyes catch up with Orestes, his hostess Athena has a proposal.  Something, “no other human could have anywhere else, either among the Scythians or in the territories of Pelops.”  Rather than the ancient law of the blood feud, Athena introduces the idea of the rule of law, specifically trial by jury.  The Erinyes object at line 779 that the “Younger gods, you have ridden down the ancient laws and snatched them from my hands!”  They object to being deprived of the honors and prerogatives guaranteed them  by Zeus himself at Mecone. At 879 they pray to the mightiest force of the Underworld , “Hear my heart, Mother Night, for the deceptions of the gods are hard to fight and they have nearly deprived me of my ancient honors. “ 

Eventually, they agree to try out this new-fangled jury idea.  Athena rigs the ballot and Orestes is declared innocent. The Erinyes froth with menis, dripping venom and about to hurl rage upon the ground.  But, Athena promises them the world;  Olympian honors, a place in her own temple with the local cult hero, a sanctuary of their own, rites and festivals in their honor , etc., etc.  Somewhere in there she mentions (Line 827) “I alone of the gods know where the keys are to the house (of Zeus) where his thunderbolt is kept safe” 

The Erinyes accept the new situation and new name “The Eumenides”; the Kindly Ones, while continuing to be the " handmaidens who set our house in order"

 

 

TFBT: Random Notes from 16.CB22.1x and “Agamemnon”

I am taking an online class from Harvard called The Ancient Greek Hero in 24 Hours(CB22.1x). This week (hour) in Professor Gregory Nagy’s wonderful class, we studied the play Agamemnon by Aeschylus . Aeschylus was the first of the great Ancient Greek playwrights.

 If you don’t know the story of Agamemnon, here it is.  Agamemnon and his brother Menelaus lead the Greek forces to Troy in an attempt to recover his sister-in-law Helen.  She either ran off with or was kidnapped by the Trojan prince Paris.  Only things didn’t start out too well for the Greeks.  Their fleet got stranded in Aulis due to contrary winds.  Agamemnon got the great idea to sacrifice his daughter Iphigenia, in order to get favorable winds. 

The play starts ten years later.  Iphigenia’s mother, Clytemnstra had ten years to plot her revenge with her lover.   It is not mentioned here or in the Iliad, but Iphigenia was the second of Clytemnestra’s child to die by Agamemnon; a little boy (Apollodorus’ Epitome.2.16 and Euripides’ ” Iphigenia at Aulis”.1148]

After a short lament by the night watchman about the uncomfortable situation for everyone in the kingdom and the signal fires that will announce the fall of Troy, “The signal fire suddenly flashes out… you blaze in the night, a light as if of day"  It must be day, because immediately the men too hold to depart for Troy ten years before are in the street declaring, “all the gods our city worships, the gods supreme, the gods below,  the gods of the sky and of the agora, have their altars ablaze with offerings. Now here, now there, the flames rise high as the sky,” Can you visualize the scene?  A signal fire so bright as to be confused with the sun?  It would be located to the east, part of a series of fires strung out across the world to declare Grecian victory.  The blaze coincides with the rising of the sun.  The panicky Clytemnestra made animal sacrifices at all the holy altars.  The flames made high by flagrant oils brought from the palace store room.  Can you see the glows and glaring rising up beneath the dawn of a new age; the smell of roast meat and rich spices?

Of course the chorus of old men can’t believe the good news their leader says at line 248;  “What happened next I did not see and do not tell.”  This denial on their parts is prompt by fear.  They know a conspiracy is at hand, but fear to acknowledge it.  Professor Nagy says in  The Ancient Greek Hero In 24 Hours, “Refusal to visualize and verbalize is what mystery requires when outside the sacred context.“  This suggests that the silence they’ve learned in order to not reveal the Great Mysteries  is a skill used to avoid the wrath of Queen Clytemnestra.  They are so in the habit of not using their eyes to see or ears to hear, they have a hard time hearing and then seeing when the good news is confirmed at line 269: “What have you said? The meaning of your words has escaped me, so incredible they seemed.  Joy steals over me, and it challenges my tears.”

Clytemnestra tricks her husband into bring on his “bad luck” by trammeling on a ridiculously expensive purple carpet.  Sort of  welcoming home the conquering hero with a “red carpet”.  In response to the display of opulence the Chorus comments at line 774 “But justice shines in smoke-begrimed dwellings and esteems the virtuous man. From gilded mansions, where men’s hands are foul, she departs with averted eyes and makes her way to pure homes.”

Of course Agamemnon has no clue about the doom that awaits him inside his house, but it is amazing how many subtle references there are to the net in which Clytemnestra entangles her husband before stabbing him to death.  “ Round him, as if to catch a haul of fish, I cast an impassable net - fatal wealth of robe - so that he should neither escape nor ward off doom… To lie in this spider’s web, breathing forth your life in an impious death …Is it a net of death?... And as for wounds, had my lord received so many as rumor kept pouring into the house, no net would have been pierced so full of holes as he.

Agamemnon captured the Trojan Prince Cassandra and brought her home as a ware prize.  Cassandra is blessed/cursed with the second sight and knows too well the doom waiting them within the palace walls.  At line  1159 she laments to the old men “Ah me, Scamander, my native stream! Upon your banks in bygone days, unhappy maid, was I nurtured with fostering care;  but now by Cocytus and the banks of Acheron, (rivers in Hades) I think, I soon must chant my prophecies. “

After the bloody event, Clytemnestra and her lover reveal the bodies of Agamemnon and Cassandra to the horrified onlookers and threaten them with harm if they don’t accept their new king and queen.

 One of the queen’s final comments about the event was;  “ No! Iphigenia, his daughter, as is due, shall meet her father lovingly at the swift-flowing ford of sorrows [at the River Acheron], and shall fling her arms around him and kiss him." Could there be a creepier image?