Joshua Cook
OXFORD READINGS IN GREEK RELIGION
Chapter 10:
JASON, HYPSIPYLE, AND NEW
FIRE AT LEMNOS,
by Walter Burkert
I. The myth
A. Aphrodite afflicts the Lemnian women with a foul odor that causes
their husbands to prefer Thracian slave girls to them.
B. The Lemnian women murder their husbands and all other males on the
island.
C. Jason and the Argonauts arrive and are welcomed by Queen Hypsipyle
and the Lemnian women, with whom they take up residence.
II. The ritual
A. Lemnian women extinguish all fires and separate themselves from the
male population.
B. For nine days they sacrifice to subterranean and other secret deities.
C. A sacred ship brings new fire to Lemnos from Delos.
D. The new fire is distributed to craftsmen and households, and the
island returns to normal life.
III. Further details of the festival
A. The source
1. A Lemniad, one of the Philostrati, writing about AD 215
2. Textual corruption is amended to read “each year” for the
time of the festival.
B. Deities that were celebrated
1. Hephaistos is the most obvious choice, since the ritual concerned
fire, and since the island of Lemnos was saturated with his references
to him (place names, coins, legends).
2. Aphrodite, wife of Hephaistos, instigated the myth and the ritual.
3. Great Goddess, aka Lemnos herself
4. A festival was not centered around a specific deity, but around an
aspect of human life that could involve several deities.
C. Fire festivals are universal, but they cannot be explained by a common
underlying belief because these beliefs are produced by the rituals themselves.
Comparisons force a more generalized view, but to relate myth to ritual
requires more intricate analysis, not generalization.
D. Historical criticism isolates each element from the whole.
1. Neither Delos nor Lemnos was connected to Athens at the time of the
source writing, nor at the time the festival was instituted.
2. There must originally have been some indigenous source of new fire.
a. Lemnos has never had a volcano.
b. The theory of an earth fire fed on natural gas not likely.
c. Since “the miracles of ritual do not need the miracles of nature”
and “the miracles of nature do not necessarily produce mythology”
(p. 234), the fire could have been made by means of a bronze mirror reflecting
the sun’s rays.
IV. Correspondences between the myth and the
ritual
A. Rhythmically, both demonstrate a pattern of two reversals, the first
to a barren life, the second a return to normal life.
B. Another source, Myrsilos of Lesbos (3rd c. BC), connects the foul
smell of the myth with the ritual separation of the sexes every year.
C. Thoas, father of Hypsipyle, alone was spared by being cast to sea
in a chest. This sending away into the sea (apopompe) corresponds
with the first reversal, the arrival of new fire from the sea corresponds
with the second reversal.
D. Invoking secret and subterranean deities necessitated blood sacrifices,
with a ram perhaps substituted in the place of the Lemnian men.
E. An agon (contest) was held after the arrival of the
Argonauts, with a ram’s fleece as prize for the victor. The winner was
Erginos, a man symbolic of Hephaistos.
F. Licentious sexual activity after the festival may reflect aischrologia
or aischropoiia.
V. Other possible details
A. A club of men wearing masks and begging for wine pretended to be
Kabeiroi, blacksmith dwarfs descended from Hephaistos.
1. Kabeiroi associated with seafaring, so original ship in the
ritual may have been theirs.
2. Kabeiroi may have kindled the new fire on Mt. Mosychlos after
the festival and then conveyed it by torch race to the town to be distributed.
B. Medicinal cakes of red earth were made perhaps on Mt. Mosychlos by
the priestess of Artemis about the same time of year as the Kabeiroi convention,
which was itself connected with the fire festival.
IV. Other close parallels
A. Skirophoria at Athens
1. Women separated themselves from men, abstained from sex, ate garlic
and wore no perfume.
2. Skirophoria procession recalled the apopompe of King
Erechtheus, who disappeared in battle at Skiron.
3. Agon and return to ordinary life delayed until the
Panathenaia in the next month.
4. Skiron perhaps named for its white earth, from which
amulets may have been made similar to the medicinal cakes of Lemnian red
earth, made at about the same time of year.
B. Thesmophoria
1. Women gathered, separating themselves from men, and sacrificed to
earth gods. Pigs were thrown into caves, and there was perhaps a longer,
secret sacrifice near the end of the festival. At Eretria, no fire was
used.
2. In mythology, the sexes were then considered to be at war, the women
fighting off any men who attempted to intrude upon their rites.
3. Herodotus says the Thesmophoria was introduced to Greece by the Danaids,
all of whom had killed their husbands except for Hypermnestra. Her husband
Lynkeus was spared and lit a new fire nearby, since household fires were
extinguished upon the death of a member. Hypermnestra then lit a fire,
and it was spread from there. Argos celebrated a festival of torches every
year, perhaps in connection with this myth.
C. The greatest of Roman purification rituals began with the apopompe
of 27 puppets called Argei (gray men?) thrown into the river.
Then followed abstinences and gatherings of women at the Temple of Vesta
for nine days. Ordinary life returns after the Temple of Vesta is cleaned.
D. These three festivals all follow a similar pattern of “mortification,
purgation, invigoration and jubilation” corresponding to the apopompe,
secret sacrifices, abstinence, and agon and marriage. All
are perhaps influenced by the Egyptians and deal with the Pelasgians, who
are said to have inhabited all the lands involved.
“Similarities of ritual ought to be taken into account in such questions
as much as cetain names of tribes or of gods or certain species of pottery”
(p. 245).
VII. Conclusions concerning the relationship
of myth to ritual
A. Myth corresponds more closely with ritual than was previously thought,
going beyond superimposition or superficial similarities. The Lemnian myth
is the plot of the ritual actions.
B. The question of which came first is beyond the reach of philology,
since they both predate literate culture. Ritual is not dependent on words,
but it does stimulate story-telling and create the stability which makes
the pattern of myths correspond closely with one another.
C. Myth can separate itself from ritual function and live on its own,
with some changes, as demonstrated by Apollonius Rhodius. Ubiquitous myths
such as those of epic poets and rhapsodes gradually molded local traditions
to more widespread myths, and these generalized myths were later re-attached
to their rituals, though the fit was imperfect. Since myths have similar
patterns, one myth may replace another for the same ritual.
D. Myth is more important for illuminating ritual and thus the history
of religion than ritual is for illuminating myth. Myth connects otherwise
isolated elements of ritual known to us. It also helps to date ritual.
E. Myth can no longer be used to reveal the history of political events.
Real acts of bloodshed might be inspired by existing rituals, but they
don’t instigate the ritual itself.
F. Ritual is not dependent on myth, so it is not rooted in beliefs,
but in a cathartic discharge of intra-human tensions.
Return to Main Page: CLST 4003. Greek Religion
Colloquium. Spring, 2002
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