Paleothea: the Ancient Goddess

It was Mark Alford who first made me really bother looking a second time at Rick Riordan’s uber-popular Greek myth inspired Percy Jackson series. After I read it and started getting inundated with emails from kids hoping they were really demigods, I realized that it appeared to a lot of people that Riordan was doing something unusual. But honestly, there are lots of people who take Greek myths as their jump off for YA novels. Here’s a few:

• Nobody’s Princess by Esther M. Friesner (about Helen of Troy)
• Quiver by Stephanie Spinner (about Atalanta)
• Medusa Jones by Ross Collins (about, duh, Medusa)
• The Courtesan’s Daughter by Priscilla Galloway (about the infamous ancient Greek courtesan Neaira, more historical than mythic, but close enough)
• The Queen’s Thief series by Megan Whalen Turner starting with The Thief (the world is based off of Ancient Greece and the myths are loosely inspired by Ancient Greek myths)
• The Young Heroes series (they are stand-alone books) by Jane Yolen:
  • Hippolyta and the Curse of the Amazons (about Hippolyta)
  • Odysseus in the Serpent Maze (about Odysseus)
  • Atalanta and the Arcadian Beast (about Atalanta)
  • Jason and the Gorgon’s Blood (about Jason)

Then there’s the one’s that are aimed at grown-ups, like:

• The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood (which I reviewed here)
• Lavinia by Ursula K. LeGuin
• Till We Have Faces by C. S. Lewis (a retelling of the Psyche myth and one of my very favorite books ever)

My secret confession is that despite my love of YA books and my adoration of Greek mythology, I am rarely a fan of the novel adaptations. Mostly I think I’m just a grinch, which is why I hope that interested people will check out some of the ones I’ve listed above (I’m especially a fan of The Courtesan’s Daughter and The Thief), but there’s another reason too.

I really hate it when I get kids emailing me CONVINCED that Rick Riordan’s version of one god or another, or the structure of ancient Greek mythology generally is How It Worked. I don’t mind them getting the myths wrong or misunderstanding the various deities (much), because, honestly, who’s to say? But what I really hate is the idea that gets stuck in their little brains that there is One Correct Version. And the immediate follow up question is always, “is it real?” To which I am loathe to respond “no.” But when I DON’T respond “no” I get asked what the appropriate steps to BECOME a deity are. Or, alternatively, how they can get in contact with other children of Greek gods. Which kind of makes me cringe.

Grinch, I told you. But also because what is really out there is SO much richer! It is a real live other world that no one really sees or knows about anymore that they can actually access by reading the original poems. And they can!!! They TOTALLY can. The Homeric Hymns and certain translations of the Metamorphoses are fantastic for kids! I taught them to middle schoolers with no problems at all. People don’t give kids enough credit.

What do y’all think?

I honestly thought that the next entry I posted was going to say, “Sorry, I’m done with this blog. See you in a few years!” But then someone sent me an email asking me to fix my entry on Medusa to reflect that Medusa was raped by Poseidon and thus the punishment was deeply unjust.

I thought about it. The emailer was correct that the word Ovid uses to describe their sexual intercourse does not emphasize consent. But, in the end I decided not to for two reasons: 1) I’m pretty sure Ovid considered Medusa responsible for the sex, and that is not a description of rape I am comfortable with, and 2) having re-read Ovid’s version, I now think that Medusa is an awesome resister of the patriarchy!

There is a third possible reason as well, namely that earlier versions of the myth describe “laying together in a soft meadow among spring flowers” and even Ovid later describes this event as a “mingling of soft embraces.” This could easily outweigh the one word “vitiasse” (which I have arbitrarily decided to translated as “spoiled”). But the reality is, I don’t think we SHOULD write off “vitiasse.” In fact, quite the opposite! I think that Ovid is making the point that Poseidon “spoiled” Medusa for marriage. I mean, Ovid’s whole introduction to this is about what a hot potential wife Medusa was! This would have been considered illegal for both parties in ancient Rome, which helps explain why Ovid continues that Athena’s mutation of Medusa was a punishment of her “filthy crime.”

So, if you believe as Ovid appeared to that Medusa was complicit and responsible for this whole sexy-sex with Poseidon (which, for those who don’t remember the details of the story, took place in the temple of Athena), then Medusa is not the kind of victim that a current reading of the word “rape” might suggest. Instead, she becomes this totally awesome radical damn-the-man feminist! She says, “F* you, suitors, maybe I just want to have sex with a cute guy instead of sitting inside your women’s quarters for the rest of my life!” She says, “F* you, you daddy-loving, girl-power-hating Goddess! Maybe I don’t think you or any other representation of the system should get to decide where or with whom I get it on!” And, yeah, she totally suffers the consequence of breaking the rules, and, yeah, she is totally turned into this awful threat to women of “this is what happens to women who sleep with sexy men when they should be the property of their fathers,” but DAMN if she doesn’t go down fighting. Looking at it with a BIT of a revisionist eye, she lives out the rest of her life fighting against those “heroes” of patriarchal Greece. Even sitting on Athena’s shield should remind you of the dangerous power of a woman who decides to stop accepting the sexist rules and strikes out to do what she will!

Go Medusa!

I loved Greek myths when I was little. I loved that Athena trounced Ares on the regular and that she cared about the same kind of book-learning wisdom that I, and my privileged family, loved. I loved that Hera, for all that she was kind of annoying, did not just lay down and take it when Zeus cheated. I loved the wild youth of Artemis, and that she wasn’t sweet or kind but was truly fierce in a way Tyra Banks will NEVER understand. And I found ways to work their worship into my life, even as a self-identified Christian, when I spoke to the moon, or did my maidenhood ceremony with my mother.

But, just as the ancient Greeks worshipped their heroes, so did I. Antigone just about blew my mind (and even if I didn’t want to end up the way she did, you better believe I looked at the way she stood up to her uncle and cheered and wished my uncle were half so awful so that I be that cool). And the monsters? The Harpies can hardly fail to inspire your imagination, and in them it is easy to see the hunger, the snatching, selfish NEED that we all must carry somewhere inside us …

When I learned about them, really learned about them, I realized that they didn’t “really” mean to the ancient Greeks what they meant to me. That my use of them, my appropriation of them, wasn’t “authentic.” And as I started to learn more about ancient Greece - and, for example, the meaning of a motherless virgin like Athena who wants nothing to do with power for women - I began to have a great respect for what the world might have looked like for them.

The myths stopped being about me. And when they did, I stopped having a personal relationship with them. And when that happened, when the mystery about their place in the world was gone, I could not worship them any more. Not even in the little syncretic way I was attempting.

Maybe I should post a disclaimer on my site so that unsuspecting worshippers won’t stumble into relativism and out of their sacred cosmoses.

This is a repost from Mahud’s Between Old and New Moons.

The Topic for the Mythology Synchroblog is Mythical Monsters and Otherworldly Entities.

The Mythology Synchroblog is open to anyone who has an interest in mythology and/or Paganism. So, Pagans, if you wish to draw upon your own experiences if you have ever encountered such beings, that fine. Personally, I’ll be coming from a purely mythological stand point.

It would be a great help if would leave a comment, letting us know you would like to participate. Thanks!

Deadline 1st December

Please post your contributions on the 1st December and include a list of everyone’s posts somewhere in your entry.

Previous Mythology Synchrobloggers

• Dream Builders
• Quaker Pagan Reflections
• Executive Pagan
• Mythphile
• Aquila ka Hecate
• Symbolic Meanings
• ReligionThink
• Jewish Myth, Magic, and Mysticism
• When Isis Rises
• Pitch313
• FULL CIRCLE CENTRAL
• Druid’s Apprentice
• Between Old and New Moons
  
• the dance of the elements
• Manzanita, Redwoods and Laurel
• Druid Journal
• Goddess in a Teapot
• Politics and Polytheism
• Hawk’s Cry: The voice of a witch
• Pagan Dad
• Gorgon Resurfaces
• Bubo’s Blog
• Many Questions

–

My previous synchroblog posts are:

Otherworlds Synchroblog: Olympus

The Dual, Part Duo

The Dual

Motherhood, the Sychroblog

Ge, Gaia, Gaie: Earth

My favorite holiday of the year is coming up very very soon!

In my first year of college I was Arachne. It was awesome. And if there weren’t quite so many awesome amazing women to dress up like left, I would be her again. I walked around campus with an enormous spider hugging my torso and a noose hanging from my neck. I’ll grant that my peasant-skirt and bright red vest with cleavage only a freshman girl feels no shame at had little to do with an historically accurate representation, but that costume - and the make-up - was amazing. Awesome. Off the chain, even.

So this year? I’m not absolutely sure yet. At first I thought of Medea, but then I was like, hmmm, maybe carrying around two bloody baby dolls is a bit much outside of a Haunted House. The next thought was of a monster, and trying to get away from the overly dark Medea costume, I considered the sexy Sirens. But the thing is, being half birds, that’s more of a costume than I can throw together from my quite limited wardrobe. (Particularly now that my partner has been making me throw away the more eccentric parts of it and insidiously replacing them with very classy pants, skirts, and shirts that would be appropriate at any dinner party or office meeting.)

So now I’m thinking about Delphyne with cut off hands in a basket and dragon-y make-up to make the point, or Demeter with some sheafs of wheat and a crown or something, or Selene and make my partner dress up like Endymion. What do you think I should be? (Keep in mind, I’m not going to a party, this is just for handing out candy.) What are YOU planning on dressing up like this year?

There are a bunch of fascinating women - human women - in Greek myths. Though the overwhelming majority seem to be tragic figures (when they’re not totally insignificant), there are plenty of exceptions to the rule. If you’re not already familiar with people like Andromeda, Danae, Niobe, and Semele, you should go spend some time reading up on the famous ones. If you don’t believe me about the tragic part, then you should go read the Catalogue of Suicidal Females over at Diotima. If, however, you are like me, and slightly depressed by reading the myths of the mortal women, read on.

I’ve come to some dangerously general conclusions about Goddesses, Amazons, Monsters (especially the female ones) and Nymphs, but thusfar any major generalization about the mortal ladies has escaped me. Some women - like Clytemnestra and Medea - have got the scary woman with power thing going on. Lots of ‘em - like Jocasta and Pelopeia- have got the tragic victim thing down to a science. But there are plenty that do not fit into these common roles at all.

Let me give you a few examples to consider. Semiramis was raised by doves and became a great adviser to a king and, despite some crappy stuff in her personal life, lived a long life in which she dispensed wisdom until she died. Penelope, the wife of Odysseus of Odyssey fame, faced the challenge of being a single parent while her man was at war for 20 years and dealt with the complicated situation of remarriage with aplomb and craftiness. Helen (of Sparta and Troy) was such a complex mythical figure that she continues to stump young students and crusty old professors alike (read up!). And even some of the simpler stories like that of Iphis and Ianthe and Leucippe (with pirates!) are impossible to reduce to mere reflections of a patriarchal storytelling.

It seems like the majority of people visiting this blog are looking for archetypes rather than entertainment, and it is true that when it comes to essentialism the human chicks have less to offer. However, I invite you to give those stories a second read; the mundane dames of Greek myths have a depth that the goddesses often fail to achieve and offer much to the understanding of the human experience.

So the other day, I was sitting at the kitchen table attempting to take notes on Eliade’s book when suddenly I was surrounded by children. I had a moment of sympathy for Harriet Beecher Stowe and then gave up my academic intentions and started showing them pictures from my Gallery. My mythically inclined nephew T-, who asks me to tell him myths whenever we drive anywhere, wanted to see pictures of monsters. So I began with the Hydra, Echidna, and Cerberus. At that point, L- sat down with us. L- is the totally awesome ancient wrinkled lady who is deaf and mute and so full of joy and was adopted by my husband’s family three generations ago here in Ecuador. She doesn’t have any formal sign language, but still makes herself more or less understood. So do we. So with the help of the pictures, I started to explain who these monsters were to L- as well as T- and I-, the oldest niece. We moved onto Medusa, the Sphinx, then the Sirens.

At that point, I started to forget what other monsters I- could show (no internet to remind me of the lists I’ve made!) and I- started to get bored. Instead I- asked to see some pictures of the goddesses and I was happy to oblige. When I got to Aphrodite I remembered to explain to L- who she was, so I made as if to pray, then vamped a sexy sort of beauty as best I could. We continued and eventually the kids got bored, but when I turned to L- she asked to see the images of Aphrodite again and again until my laptop ran out of batteries.

Ecuador is about 90% Catholic and there are images of the Virgin Mary everywhere. It occurred to me after that since L- can’t read, and DOES know Mary, it is highly likely that the two have been conflated in her head. Maybe this makes me a bad person, but secretly I think that is AWESOME.

So, there’s a brand new quiz to take. I admit, it’s all female monsters, but then, this is a site for women in Greek myths …

I would love feedback on the quizzes. Do you like them? Do you want more? What would you change? Which one do you like best and why?

Go take it!

P.S. I’m the Sphinx!