CLA 219 – Women in Antiquity R. Höschele 09/18/12
Women in Myth – Praise and Blame
Pandora
- Epitome of evil, source of female wickedness, revenge on Prometheus for helping
mankind (stole fire)
- “Pandora” = all-gifted/ gifted all evil
o She was a gift to Epimetheus (afterthought), brother of Prometheus
o Fashioned by the gods
o Opened a pithos (jar) not a box
- Didactic (teaching) ethos ~ Works and Days, Hesiod
o Contains a passage regarding Pandora
o Trouble and hardship born from Pandora’s act and obviously she’s a
woman (very misogynistic)
- Pithos = womb
- Hope rests inside jar – women is keeper of hope, retain it for mankind? Hope for
the future generations (emphasize the need to procreate with women)?
Motivational tactic?
o **Hope in Greek also means “expectations” – which means that keeping it
in allows us to have a better life because it prevents us from knowing more
(or wanting to / prevent access to it)
Expectations of evil (Hope for evil?) retained so it leaves us not
knowing what’s to come – whether it’s good or bad
**Clarify later with prof.
Helen
- Most popular woman, most beautiful – instigator of the Trojan War
- Daughter of Zeus and Leda, who came to her as a swan
o Leda also the wife of Tyndareus, Spartan King
o Twin sister of Clytemnestra, sister of Castor and Pollux
o She was conceived, along with her siblings, on the same night both men
slept with their mother
o She and Pollux are immortal, while Clytemnestra and Castor are mortal
- Helen’s plight all started with the wedding of Peleus and Thetis, Achilles’ parents
o Eris, goddess of discord, was not invited to the wedding so to exact
revenge, she threw a golden apple during the party, inscribed, “to the most
beautiful,” into the midst of three goddess – Aphrodite, Hera and Athena o The three goddesses sought the opinion of Paris, prince of Troy
(“Judgment of Paris”), and he bestowed the golden apple to Aphrodite in
exchange for the most beautiful woman – Helen, wife of Menelaus, King of
Sparta (and brother of the Mycenean king, Agamemnon)
o So begins the Trojan War…
- “For before Helen a cunt was the most terrible cause of war.” (Horace, Satires)
- Helen is often blamed for causing the Trojan War in literature
- Palinode – “again song” (retraction)
o A tradition born from taking back the blame from Helen for fear of divine
retribution (for slander)
- Gorgias wrote in the style of Athenian speeches saying that Helen was not to
blame
o Encomium – hymn / praise to man
- Gorgias’ Encomium to Helen
o If divine will told Helen to go with Paris, she is not to blame
o If she was forced to come along (abducted), she is not to blame
o If she fell to Paris’ persuasions, she is not to blame
o If Helen fell in love with Paris because of Eros’ doing, she is not to blame
- Eris is to blame because she was the one who started it all with the golden apple
- Euripides’ play talks of an alternate version in which Helen was cloned by the
gods and brought to Egypt where she met Menelaus years after
Penelope
- Exemplary in her fidelity and chastity
- Wife of Odysseus and mother of Telemachus
o Waited 20 years for her husband to come home
- Homer’s Odyssey reached the point when Penelope could remarry, Telemachus
being all grown up
- Clytemnestra is deemed the bad wife – opposite Penelope
o Killed Agamemnon the moment he came home
- To elude her suitors and buy time for Odysseus, Penelope wove a tapestry by day
and unwove it by night
- Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood – Odyssey inPenelope’s view
- Ovid assumed the character of mythical women and wrote letters regarding their
lives – e.g., 1 letter written by Penelope to Odysseus, in which she blamed Helen
for her sufferings and for her growing old without her husband at her side
Medea
- Jason’s wife and a witch, helped him
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