TFBT: Helen on Classical Inquires

A flood of articles on Helen flowed out of Classical Inquires lately!   I would highly recommend them and the website.  Of course, I have opinions to share! 

Darah Vann in Helen of Troy: Unwomanly in Her Sexuality scrutinizes Helen's womanliness.  Her promiscuity and lack of maternal instinct do not make her a candidate for ideal wife, mother, and woman.  But is it right to judge her based on the Ancient Greek notion of womanhood?  Modern womanhood? As a woman at all?  Most authors on the recent series of articles on Helen in Classical Inquires have given a nod to Helen's divinity, maybe this is a place to do it again.  From that light Helen makes a great doublet for the mighty Aphrodite.  The goddess of love came ashore and entered the mythic timeline accompanied by two her two sons Love (Eros) and Desire (Himeros).  (Possible sons of an obscure and minor sea-god Nerites.) She had a short, arranged, "unfruitfull" marriage with Hephaestus. (As Helen did in the marriage the gods arranged for her to Paris.) Aphrodite then proceeded to birth armfuls of erotes by various gods primarily Ares, whom she never wed.  As Helen left her mortal daughter Hermione with Menelaus, so Aphrodite left her mortal daughter Harmonia with Electra to raise (Nonnus, Dionysiaca 3. 373 - 4. 292  ) and Aeneas with the "nymphs" (HH to Aphrodite 247)  Demeter never wed and bore children to two of her three brothers and also to the Titanic Iason.  The sisters Eos and Selene had a thing for mortal men.  Artemis, Athena, Hestia, and Persephone never had children.  Hera was a nightmarish wife.  In comparison Helen makes a pretty good divine mother and goddess.

Gary Smoot wrote “Helenus and the Polyphyletic Etymologies of Helen"; a very thorough and readable survey on the topic; with nine variation on the theme.   I’ve spoken to the ones I found most convincing; #1.   Helen ‘shine’, ‘blaze’  ‘torch’, and ‘shines’.  I like his argument for this meaning.  I think in the process he’s convinced me that all the Spartan goddesses descended from Perseus' daughter Gorgophone can claim epithets of Bright and Shining.  I love the notion that the 'Torch" Helen wed "Paris, the firebrand of Hekabe’s dream," #2. Helen as “Seer and Helen’s supernatural ability to see are well documented by Homer.  I think the fact the male version of the name; Helenus "is the seer among the Trojans" really does support this notion.  I love the fact that Helenus' twin sister Miss Alexandra (Cassandra) is a seeress just like their sister-in-law Mrs. Alexander (Helen as Paris' wife). I might point out that Helen's cousin, Lyncheus, brother of Idas, saw real well too.  Etymology 5 ‘seize’,   So, Marpessa wife of Helen's cousin Ida's got seized just like all the other of the women in that family.  Oh let’s not forget that Helen’s brothers were seizers too. Nagy argues that the names of a hero's sons are often seemly epithets of the hero.  Do the names of the children of Helen, Hillarie and the Phoebes support any of your etymological arguments? 

Lenny Muellner wrote  Helens Fatal Attraction and Its Inversion.  What a great piece demonstrating Helen's gifts as poetess, singer, lamenter and chorus leader.  My question is about the comment that his whole story started.  The seer Helenus sent his brother Hector into the city?  Why? To send their mother on a futile mission to Athena? So Hector could say goodbye to his wife and doomed son?  To have an aborted conversation with theoretically the most important of the women Helen? Was Helenus in the process of switching sides and wanted Hector off the battle field for the benefit of the Achaeans?  Is it a plot device by Homer to allow for one of the most moving scenes in history?

 

“The Homecoming Queen” a guest post by Timothy Banks at Hour 25 considering the character of Helen.  Banks worries about how much choice Helen has in obeying Aphrodite when she sends Helen to bed with Paris, “also her original voyage to Troy”  He concludes Helen was “a reluctant tool of the gods”. He describes a Helen with an “amazing power” of quick perception that can recognize a goddes in disguise, Telemachus’ paternity with just a glance and a Greek hero dressed in the rags of a beggar.  “Helen shows another amazing power, the ability to mimic voices.” And finally compares her to the goddesses Circe and Calypso who “possessed of dangerous sexual allure and mysterious knowledge.” 

Hmm, amazing powers, dangerous feminine sexual allure, and mysterious knowledge; sounds like we are talking about a goddess, not a woman.  I would argue that Helen is not a reluctant tool of the gods, but rather one of the gods, herself.  Too often we think of Helen as merely another mortal woman.  Clearly she is not.  We should not judge her in terms of the laws and limitations of mortals, but rather by the nature of the gods.  Can Ate not tempt men and gods to foolishness?  Can Aphrodite not inspire emotion in men and gods?  She can’t even stop being beautiful in disguise.  Likewise, Helen can not stop being who she is; Epic itself.  She is “the face that launched a thousand ships.” She is the Muse of god-like Homer.  If her words and deeds seem to contradict one another, all the better to maintain Homer’s famous neutrality.  All the better to play Achaean and Trojan against one another.  All the better to attain her destiny in the Isle of the Blest and in the pantheon of Sparta.

 

 

 

 

 

TFBT: Miss Chryses

One of the reading yesterday at church was Acts 16:14

“A certain woman named Lydia, a seller of purple, of the city of Thyatira, which worshipped God, heard us: whose heart the Lord opened, that she attended unto the things which were spoken of Paul." 

 

The “seller of purple (cloth)” caught my attention because Helen was a famous “weaver” of purple cloth”.  I looked at the Greek and it is definitely “seller” not worker like Helen.  Thyatira is a city in “Lydia” so I doubt the woman’s name is “Lydia” but rather that is title.  Sort of like Briseis and Chryseis in the Iliad not actually being the names of the two women.   

“Briseis” can be translated as Miss Briseus   In honor of her father Briseus, priest of Lyrnessus.[i]  Her real name was Hippodameia. [ii]

 Chryseis can be translated as Miss Chryses. This is the girl whom Agamemnon captured, refusing to give her back to her father Chryses, priest of Apollo.  Later writers give her real name as Astynome.[iii]

Nereids can be called Nereis after their father[iv] and Hesiod (Theog. 945) names the Charis whom Hephaestus wed (after Aphrodite); Aglaia.  She is one of the three Charites (Graces). 

Any other Ancient Greek daughters out there with names and patronymic titles?

 

 

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[i] [Hom.Il.1.390].

[ii] (Dictys Cret. ii. 17.)

 

[iii] (Supposedly one of the following references documents the name; Scholia on the Iliad; Hesychius, Lexicon; Malalas, Chronographia 100; Eustathius of Thessalonica, Commentary on the Iliad 1.123.9 van der Valk.)

[iv] (according to the dictionary at Perseus)

Polyxena

Sentenia Antiquae did a great article on the Trojan princess Polyxena.

I can only add that supposedly, Polyxena was Achilles' bride in the other world. (See Philostratus, Her. xx.18; Philostratus, Vit. Apollon.iv.16.). Of course Medeia (Schol. ad Eurip. Med. 10, ad Apollon. Rhod. iv. 814.), Iphigenia (Anton. Lib. 27.) and Helen (Ptolemy Hephaestion, New History Book 4) all claim the title of Mrs. Achilles in the Afterworld too.

TFBT: Enlightened Thinkers' Irreligion

In the introduction of  Loeb Classical Library’s version of “Aeschylus” Herbert Weir Smyth makes the following comment:

 “Aeschylus was the first of the many “enlightened” thinkers who were brough to court for their irreligion; Diagoras (of Melos), Anaxagoras, Protagoras, Socrates, Stilpo(n), Aristotle, and Theodorus (the Atheist); Andocides was tried for violation of the Mysteries.  Euripides had to rewrite the beginning of his Wise Melanippe”

The comment struck my curiosity and I researched the names he listed via A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, William Smith, ed.   Most the charges are trumped up as you will see in the excerpts below.  It is amazing how many of these men accused of impiety received heroic honors upon their death.

“In the accusation of Socrates it was Meletus who laid the indictment before the Archon Basileus… Soon after the death of Socrates, the Athenians repented of their injustice, and Meletus was stoned to death as one of the authors of their folly.”  A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology  William Smith, ed.

“Aeschylus was accused of impiety before the court of the Areiopagus, and that he would have been condemned but for the interposition of his brother Ameinias, who had distinguished himself at the battle of Salamis. According to some authors this accusation was preferred against him, for having in some of his plays either divulged or profanely spoken of the mysteries of Ceres. According to others, the charge originated from his having introduced on the stage the dread goddesses, the Eumenides, which he had done in such a way as not only to do violence to popular prejudice, but also to excite the greatest alarm among the spectators. Now, the Eumenides contains nothing which can be considered as a publication of the mysteries of Ceres, and therefore we are inclined to think that his political enemies availed themselves of the unpopularity he had incurred by his Chorus of Furies, to get up against him a charge of impiety, which they supported not only by what was objectionable in the Eumenides, but also in other plays not now extant” William Smith

(The Athenians) uneasy at being disturbed in their hereditary superstitions, soon found reasons for complaint. Anaxagoras, therefore, was accused of impiety. …it was only owing to the influence and eloquence of Pericles that he was not put to death… The philosopher now went to Lampsacus, and it seems to have been during his absence that the second charge of μηδισμὸς was brought against him, in consequence of which he was condemned to death. He is said to have received the intelligence of his sentence with a smile, and to have died at Lampsacus at the age of seventy-two. The inhabitants of this place honoured Anaxagoras not only during his lifetime, but after his death also.”  William Smith

“The impeachment of Protagoras had been founded on his book on the gods, which began with the statement: "Respecting the gods, I am unable to know whether they exist or do not exist." The impeachment was followed by his banishment.”  William Smith

“Whether he (Stilpo) was in earnest in his antagonism to the popular polytheistic faith, and whether and how the Areiopagus in Athens stepped in, cannot be gathered”  William Smith

“whether justly or not, with considerable suspicion, and he (Euripides) had already been assailed with a charge of impiety in a court of justice, on the ground of the well-known line in the Hippolytus (607), supposed to be expressive of mental reservation. (Arist. Rhet. 3.15.8.) He did not live long to enjoy the honours and pleasures of the Macedonian court, as his death took place in B. C. 406. Most testimonies agree in stating that he was torn in pieces by the king's dogs,”  William Smith

“A man named Pythonicus charged Alcibiades with having divulged and profaned the Elensinian mysteries; and another man, Audrocles, endeavoiured to connect this and sismilair offeinces with the mutilation of the Hermae…At Athens sentence of death was passed upon him, his property confiscated, and a curse pronounced upon him by the ministers of religion…a monument erected to his memory at Melissa, the place of his leath, and a statue of him erected thereon by the emperor Hadrian, who also instituted certain yearly sacrifices in his honour.”  William Smith

“Diagoras (of Melos) … was involved, by the democratical party in a lawsuit about impiety (διαβολῆς τνχὼν ἐπ̓ ἀσεβείᾳ), and he thought it advisable to escape its result by flight. Religion seems to have been only the pretext for that accusation, for the mere fact of his being a Melian made him an object of suspicion…There is no doubt that Diagoras paid no regard to the established religion of the people, and he may occasionally have ridiculed it; but he also ventured on direct attacks upon public institutions of the Athenian worship, such as the Eleusinian mysteries, which he endeavoured to lower in public estimation, and he is said to have prevented many persons from becoming initiated in them.”  William Smith

Callias had but little hope in this case, he brought against him (Andocides) the charge of having profaned the mysteries and violated the laws respecting the temple at Eleusis. (De Myst. § 110, &c.) The orator pleaded his case in the oration still extant, On the Mysteries (περὶ τῶν μυστηρίων), and was acquitted.  William Smith

“The movements which commenced in Grecce against Macedonia after Alexander's death, B. C. 323, endangered also the peace and security of Aristotle…. To bring a political accusation against him was not easy…. He was accordingly accused of impiety (ἀσεβείας) … The charge was grounded on his having addressed a hymn to his friend Hermias as to a god, and paid him divine honours .. Aristotle, however, knew his danger sufficiently well to withdraw from Athens…  we have the account, that his mortal remains were transported to his native city Stageira, and that his memory was honoured there, like that of a hero, by yearly festivals of remembrance.” William Smith

TFBT: Spock, Achilles and Aesop

Captain Kirk provoking Dr. Spock into a fight calls him “a simpering, devil-eared freak, whose father was a computer and his mother an encyclopedia?"[i]  Whether you are a trekkie or no, it is quite the insult.  Hence the first time I heard “gray sea bore you and the sheer cliffs begot you,” in reference to Achilles (Iliad 16:30-34) that too struck quite the chord.  Here is the story of the latter insult; the goddess Leto heavy with the twins Apollo and Artemis having escaped the pursuing Python turned her feet towards Thessaly in search of a place to birth her children.  In horror of being the chosen site and attaining Hera’s eternal wrath, the river-god Anaurus fled as did the great nymph of Larisa and the cliffs of Chiron, too, abandoning to destiny the River Peneus, flowing calmly through the Vale of the Tempe below.[ii] The cliffs of Chiron are on Mt. Pelion in Thessaly, home of the Centaur Chiron.  Here Peleus, father of Achilles, and Achilles himself were raised when not a home in their Kingdom of Phthia.  In describing the rich plains of his homeland Prince Achilles mentions “both mountain and sounding sea." (Iliad 1.155) The background above helps explain the follow reference; “Now, however, he (Hector) kept trying to break the ranks of the enemy wherever he could see them thickest, and in the goodliest armor; but do what he might he could not break through them, for they stood as a tower foursquare, or as some high cliff rising from the gray sea that braves the anger of the gale.”  (Iliad 15: 615-619)  Achilles will someday soon be that cliff. And I end with the quote that got my research started; “May it never be my lot to nurse such a passion as you have done, to the damage of your own good name. Who in future story will speak well of you unless you now save the Argives from ruin? You know no pity; charioteer Peleus was not your father nor Thetis your mother, but the gray sea bore you and the sheer cliffs begot you,” (Iliad 16:30-34)

 

I have thought more on Aesop’s’  “Venus and the Cat; A Cat fell in love with a handsome young man, and entreated Venus to change her into the form of a woman.  Venus consented to her request and transformed her into a beautiful damsel, so that the youth saw her and loved her, and took her home as his bride.  While the two were reclining in their chamber, Venus wishing to discover if the Cat in her change of shape had also altered her habits of life, let down a mouse in the middle of the room.  The Cat, quite forgetting her present condition, started up from the couch and pursued the mouse, wishing to eat it.  Venus was much disappointed and again caused her to return to her former shape.” [iii] Aphrodite in disgust turns the girl back into a cat.  In Greek mythology such things can be rarely undone. I thought specifically of Clay’s analysis of the Homeric Hymn to Apollo  “the first epiphany of the new god on the threshold of Olympus and his eternally repeated entrance into this father’s house…as he did the first time and as he will forever.”[iv]  Or as I like to say, “Once and for Always”.   Okay Tiresias got changed back into his original form, but that was more of a happy accident than divine intent. He saw two snakes coupling and struck them with his staff and as a consequence was turned into a maiden.  A year later “she” saw another pair of snakes doing the nasty, struck them again and his manhood returned.  When retelling this story he angered Hera, she blinded him.  “immortal deities may never turn decrees and deeds of other Gods to naught, but Jove, to recompense his loss of sight, endowed him with the gift of prophecy.”  (Ovid Metamorphoses 3.4)  However at Odyssey 10.388, Circe returned Odysseus’ men to their original shape.  So it is possible.

 

I have thought more on Aesop’s’ “Mercury and the Man Bitten by an Ant; A Man once saw a ship go down with all its crew, and commented severely on the injustice of the gods.”They care nothing for a man's character," said he, "but let the good and the bad go to their deaths together." There was an ant-heap close by where he was standing, and, just as he spoke, he was bitten in the foot by an Ant. Turning in a temper to the ant-heap he stamped upon it and crushed hundreds of unoffending ants. Suddenly Mercury appeared, and belaboured him with his staff, saying as he did so, "You villain, where's your nice sense of justice now?" This fable suggests that as men are to a hill of ants, so gods are to men.  Here Hermes betrays a sensitivity not at all in keeping with his character or the nature of the gods. Although several gods get emotional about the loss of mortal sons during the Trojan War for example Sarpedon, Achilles, Aeneas.  But, I don’t recall any objecting to the destruction of the city in general, the death of thousands or the Cyprian plot against humanity.  

 

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[i] Quote thanks to Memory Alpha   ( http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/This_Side_of_Paradise_(episode)

[ii] Callimachus 4 Hymn to Delos; 104)    

[iii] Quote thanks to;   http://www.aesopfables.com/cgi/aesop1.cgi?sel&TheCatandVenus

[iv] Jenny Strauss-Clay (The Politics of Olympus, 1989)

TFBT: Random Notes on Aesop and the Gods

Our next Book Club selection at Hour 25 will be Aesop’s Fables on Tuesday, April 26, at 11 a.m. EDT.  For my initial reading I read the version at Project Gutenberg,  translation by V. S. Vernon Jones.  As I noted elsewhere, “upon the sandy beach of Playa de los Muertos I skipped through delightful anecdotes often of interest to the classicist in me.”  So this will be a re-reading.  Often when I re-read a book I try to shift my perspective by focusing on something besides the main character or story line.  This time I chose the gods.  G. K. Chesterton in his introduction points out that “…for a fable, all the persons must be impersonal. They must be like abstractions in algebra, or like pieces in chess…”  That said I can’t expect to hear much about the gods as we normally hear about them.  But a close reading might tell us what Aesop thought about the gods.   

In “The Man who Lost his Spade” Aesop’s character, “had no great opinion of the simple country deities” and deemed the gods of the town (Panhellenic?) no shrewder.  On the other hand “The Rogue and the Oracle” makes the gods appear all knowing and shrewd. So I don’t know what Aesop thought of the gods! 

In “The Frogs’ complaint against the Sun”, the Aesop worries about the seemingly endless proliferation of deities, particularly those in the shining lineage of Hyperion.  Admittedly the Theban and Trojan Wars were designed to relieve the earth from the burden of the tribes of men, particularly demi-gods.  And Zeus did pull the veil between gods and men after the war to stop the fraternization of Olympic gods with earthly women and the creation of more demi-gods.  Still that gives us no indication that the divine population would not continue to grow.   That said I think the frogs are safe for three reasons. 

1.    The tradition of female virginity about the Olympians.

2.    The dwindling of powerful divinity among the divine blood lines.  Hades and Persephone are generally consider childless.  Poseidon and Amphitrite produced only minor deities and their greatest child couldn’t even walk.  Zeus and Hera, the power couple of the universe produced only three or four children of no great consequence;

a.     Hebe wed Heracles and they produced two minor daemons.

b.    Ares bedded the mighty Aphrodite and produced only minor daemons and mortal girls.

c.     Hephaestus wed Aphrodite, they produced no children.  

d.    And Eileithyia is another virgin. 

3.    The Hyperion goddesses Selene and Eos were cursed with an obsession with mortal men and their brother for all his bedding of Oceanids sired no sons of significance either. 

In “Mercury and the Woodman” Hermes reprises his role as the luck-bringer (Homeric Hymn 4 to Hermes).  In “Mercury and the Tradesmen” Hermes plays a promethean trickster god very much in character that we know. (Hesiod Works & Days 67-68)  Ironically the story damns tradesmen whose god Hermes is.  As Suda says "They say Hermes was responsible for profit and an overseer of the businesses”   .  In “Prometheus and the Making of Man” we see a bit of the trickster in Prometheus and a damnation of much of humanity.  In other books, like  “Protagoras” 320c - 322a by Plato, we see Epimetheus messing up the creation of man by giving too abundantly the gifts of claw and fang to the animals and leaving nothing for man.  

“Mercury and the Man Bitten by an Ant” suggests that as men are to a hill of ants, so gods are to men.  Here Hermes betrays a sensitivity not at all in keeping with his character or the nature of the gods.

The story of “The Bee and Jupiter” is the story of the Rash Oath.  Zeus “promised to give her anything she liked to ask for”, same mistake that Helios made with his son Phaethon. (Ovid, Metamorphoses 1. 750) and Herod with Herodias (Mark 6:23) In “Jupiter and the Tortoise” it is the tortoise that makes the rash oath.

 In “Jupiter and the Monkey” we see a scenario not comparable to anything in Greek literature; a character who values love over unwilting glory.   

“The Snake and Jupiter” offers a scenario very untypical of snakes and very untypical of Zeus’ relationship with snakes.  In “The Peacock and Juno” Hera,  the representative-in-residence of the more conservative faction among the Olympians, responds with a quick retort to the whining peacock as Zeus did to the whining snake.  Ironically the peacock is usually portrayed as Hera’s favorite. (Fulgeneus Mythologi trans. by L.G.WhitBread Book 2.1-Juno) 

In both “The Farmer and Fortune”, “Hercules and the Waggoner” and “The Traveler and Fortune” we see men blaming the gods for their own condition.   

"Ah how shameless--the way these mortals blame the gods.From us alone, they say, come all their miseries, yes, but they themselves, with their own reckless ways,

compound their pains beyond their proper share."

(Odyssey1.37-40).

In “Hercules and Minerva” we see Heracles exercising brawn instead of brains on the apple of discord and in “Hercules and Plutus” we see the typical heroic distaste for Wealth, saying that Plutus was always to be “found in the company of scoundrels."  And both stories remind me of the parable about Heracles’ path in life, “path of virtue or the path of vice” and the goddesses of each vying for his attention (Prodicus by way of Xenophon.)

In “Venus and the Cat” Aphrodite in disgust turns the girl back into a cat.  In Greek mythology such things can be rarely undone.

In summary, as we should have expected from Chesterton, we did not see Aesop’s version of the gods, but impersonal abstractions.  What we did see is motif’s common to Greek myths and some uncommon motifs I shall explore further.

TFBT: Demeter and Easter

During Lent we hear much about “salvation”. I got to Petersburg Lutheran Church early this morning.  I sat  in the pew awaiting the great announcement that  "The Lord is Risen.  Surrounding me were decorations and flowers with the sunlight streaming in through the stained glass windows.  I wondered about the salvation of the ancients.  All of us know of mortals who thank to their blood-lines, beautiful, divine patroness or heroic deeds attained Olympus. Pausanias tells us that;

"Men of the mythical age of heroes, because of their righteousness and piety, were guests of the gods, eating at the same board; the good were openly honored by the gods, and sinners were openly visited with their wrath. Nay, in those days men were changed to gods, who down to the present day have honors paid to them--Aristaeus, Britomartis of Crete, Heracles the son of Alcmena, Amphiaraus the son of Oicles, and besides these Polydeuces and Castor." Pausanias, Description of Greece 8. 2. 3 (trans. Jones)

But, what of us lesser souls, what hope had we of a happy afterlife. One thought is the Eleusian Mysteries founded by Demeter were meant; "to elevate man above the human sphere into the divine and to assure his redemption by making him a god and so conferring immortality upon him." (Nilsson, Martin P. Greek Popular Religion pages 44)  Of course Pausanias (1.38.7) can say nothing on this sacred subject. “My dream forbade the description of the things within the wall of the sanctuary, and the uninitiated are of course not permitted to learn that which they are prevented from seeing.”  According to the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, the goddess found the Eleusian Mysteries while grieving for her lost daughter.

“she showed the conduct of her rites and taught them all her mysteries, to Triptolemus and Polyxeinus and Diocles also, -- awful mysteries which no one may in any way transgress or pry into or utter, for deep awe of the gods checks the voice. Happy is he among men upon earth who has seen these mysteries; but he who is uninitiated and who has no part in them, never has lot of like good things once he is dead, down in the darkness and gloom.”

The hint here is that via the Mysteries normal people can become residences of the Island of the Blest upon their departure from this world.  My question is why did Demeter found the Mysteries?