Ancient Entitites

I am currently reading "Myths of the Greeks and Romans", by Michael Grant. It is a great read, and I highly recommend it (I am onl 65 page in).

I was reading about Calypso, who ensnares Oddyseus on an enchanted garden island, detracting him for his manly task as he relishes in the delights of Calypso's land. Of course, Oddyseus cries because he longs to go back to Ithaca, as the gods intend him to -but in the very act of crying with desire to do the masculine act, he shows his emasculation: For tears are the realm of women. The text implies that even sexual desire has waned for Oddyseus on the island, making his emasculation quite literal.

My first thought in reading this was that it was reminiscent of the character Armida in Toqruato Tasso's "Gerusalemme Libeata", a witch who falls in love with Rinaldo, and takes him to live with her in a bewitched garden, where he becomes quite feminine, until male friends come and pull a Cher, telling him to snap out of it and rejoin the Crusade. If memory serves me correctly, the two wind up together after Rinaldo has proved himself on the battle field, and Armida has converted to Christianity.

This connection makes sense, since Tasso was a Renaissance writer who was inspired by classic Greco-Roman mythology. *

My second thought was that it was reminiscent of Eden, where a woman is very much associated with a story about a garden. This is interesting, because the ancient godess Asherah may have been associated with trees, and trees in general seem to be associated with female deities, such as tree nymphs. This makes sense: Trees are symbols of life and of renewal, as well as potential source of life (food) much like grain, which was also associated with female deities, such as Persephone and Demeter.

I also think it is interesting however, that land is so often associated with female deities as well: There is Gaiai, mother earth, and Persephone who spends six months a year below the ground. In Haiti, a woman will often refer to her vagina as "her land". This makes sense: Her vagina produces offspring, the same way that the earth produces life. It also makes sense because often a man will work a woman's land so she has food, in exchange for sexual access to her vagina - a metaphor which may have been applicable to ancient marriages, where women had no career options other than wife - ie, sexual partner - in exchange for which their husbands provided them with sustenance and a place to live - land.

Lands are also places of death and burial. Women's bodies are liminal places: They mark the border between being and non-being, in their ability to give birth. This liminality is extended to include the border between life and death (the other state of non-being, at least as it pertains to this world) as well: Women were often seen as mediums betwen the world of the living and the world of the dead - notice how in Tanach, it is always a "baalat ov", a female who speaks to the dead, who is condemned. Persephone, too, served as a medium between the dead, physically traveling between the two world - bringing life to the earthly world when she emerged from Hades' realm, and taking that life with her when she re-immersed herself in the realm of the dead. The man who manages to come down to Hades realm and live - Orpheus - is not able to bring life up with him: He loses Eurdyce. Only Persephone remains unscathed, and able to carry life-giving from one world to the other. In Candomble as well, women preistesses often have a special power to mediate between the world of the living and the world of the dead.

Women also often acted as healers, which stemmed from their roles as midwives. Their remedies included not only special mixtures of herbs, but special incantations as well - something closer to what today we would call magic. It is for their role as medicine women, as well as (supposed) mediums between the world, combined with a male fear of women having power and being independent, especially if they were post-menopause, that helped lead to so many women being arrested as witches once Catholicism became hegemonic in Europe.

In Greek mythology, there seems to be a dichotomy: Aphordite, the pretty one, and Athena, the wise one, who are contantly bickering with each other, presaging the modern "nerd vs. pretty girl" mofit in pop culture. I wonder if this is where Western culture gets its beleif that brains and beauty in women are mutually incompatible. Judaism's classic text of the ideal woman, by contrast, is all about brains - being able to practically and succesfully manage a business and a household - and goes so far as to assert the "Grace is a life, and beauty is worthless. The woman who fears God she shall be praised". This is one of my favorite quotes, and was supposedly sung by girls as they pursued men on "Tu B'Av", a holiday when women would go out dancing and hit on men (all for the purpose of marriage, of course.)

The idea of a woman's sexual body being incompatible with wisdom would explain both Athena's unique manner of coming into this world (out of a a male Zeuss's head, not out of a woman's vagina) and her supposed virgnity: A woman can not use her body as a woman - ie for sexual congress with a man - and still have wisdom, which is the province of men. The same goes for hunting, and for battle, explaining a) Artemis's virginity b) the myth about the Ammazons cutting off one breast per person - breasts, as symbols of a woman's femininity and of her body's life-giving abilities, were incompatible with the male role the Amazons inhabited. Perhaps too, giving life (ie maternity) and killing were seen as incompatible, and the cutting of the breast symbolized this.

At moments like these, I am grateful for traditional Judaism's view of women - with all of its complexities, and the ocassional troublesome comment or two, there ultimatley is a view that values women both as sexual partners and as life-advisors, as humans with wisdom to share - God told Avraham to listen to Sarah's voice and do everything she said - setting a precedent that no doubt many Jewish men have come to resent in the centuries that have passed since.


* An aside: The opera "Armida", by Rossini, is based on this story, and is quite beautiful.