Some notes on Hesiod’s THEOGONY,
from the commentary by Richard S. Caldwell:
Hesiod’s Theogony (Focus: Newburyport, MA,
1987)
D. B. Levine. Feb. 7, 2002.
on the Muses’ insult and the plural form of ‘shepherd’ (27 Lombardo):
“The colloquial insults with which the Muses address Hesiod are
1) a convention in primitive and archaic ritual; 2) a convention in visions
of superior gods to inferior mortals (West, T 160), and 3) because they
are addressed to a plural audience, a characterization of a class of people
(ignorant farmers) among whom Hesiod will be an exception, precisely because
of the Muses’ favor.”
How the Theogony is like a standard hymn to a divinity (37 Lombardo):
“This second part of his prologue is much more like the standard
hymn to a divinity, relating the Muses’ function and situation among the
gods (37-74), the details of their parentage and birth (53-62), their names
(75-79), and their functions in regard to mortals (80-103).”
On Pieria (54): “Pieria, the area north of Mount Olympos in Thessaly,
was well-known in antiquity for its cult of the Muses.
on Memory bearing forgetfulness (lesmosyne, 55): “That Memory should
bear ‘forgetfulness’ is an oxymoron and almost a pun.”
On Chaos (116): “The primary meaning of the Greek word chaos is
not disorder or confusion, but rather an opening or gap. Related to the
verb chasko [open, yawn, gape], chaos signifies a void, an abyss, infinite
space and darkness, unformed matter. This etymology may suggest a womb
which opens to bring forth life, but there are much stronger connotations
of an impenetrable and immeasurable darkness, an opacity in which order
is non-existent or at least unperceived. The concept of a primordial Chaos
is reminiscent of the boundless and featureless watery waste called Nun
in Egyptian cosmogony and the formless void and abyss of Genesis.”
On the first two children of Night (125): The union of Darkness and Night
produces Aither [Brightness] and Hemera [Day], their elemental and complementary
opposites.”
On Ouranos and Gaia (126 “Just her size, a perfect fit on all sides”
Lombardo): “Gaia’s first child Ouranos [Sky] is also her complement;
the phrases ‘equal to herself’ and ‘to cover her all over’ seem to depict
Earth and Sky as two halves of one large mass. This would correspond well
with the hypothesis that Earth and Sky are engaged in continual intercourse,
and appears in mythical form in a fragment of Euripides: ‘Earth and Sky
were one shape, and when they were separated they begot all things.’ …
The ‘dark hole’ of Gaia in which the children are confined is presumably
her womb, and this innermost place of the earth may also be Tartaros. The
means by which Ouranos suppresses his children [must be continuous sexual
intercourse with Gaia; this would explain why their imprisonment will be
ended immediately by castration.”
On the succession of the YOUNGEST: “Kronos’ chronological position
as youngest son predetermines his eventual succession to his father’s throne.
The filial agent of Kronos’ defeat is his youngest son Zeus, and the fact
that he is youngest is appropriate to his role as the successor of Kronos,
just as Kronos was the youngest of the children of Ouranos. In myth it
is typically the youngest son who inherits the father’s position, and it
is not difficult to see the psychological reason for this in the dynamics
of sibling relationships. From the perspective of an older child, it is
always the youngest who inherits, who displaces his predecessors in the
affection and attention of his parents. In the Greek succession myth the
conflict between the societal law of primogeniture (inheritance by the eldest)
and the psychological law that the youngest child must usurp the privileged
position of his older brothers is neatly solved by the imprisonment of the
children as they are born in one or another parental body. When the Titans
are released from the body of Gaia or when the Olympians are disgorged from
the body of Kronos (in each case, a kind of second birth), the order of
birth is reversed. Kronos, the youngest of the Titans, is closest to the
surface of Earth and thus the first to be (re)born, and Zeus, the youngest
of the children of Kronos, moves to the position of eldest by escaping being
swallowed and subsequent rebirth. In this way youngest becomes eldest,
and psychological reality is mythically verified.” (see biblical story
of Jacob ‘one who takes by the heel, or supplants’ and Esau (Gen. 25.26ff).
‘Jacob’ is word play on akev, heel, and the verb form means to ‘overreach’
(Jer. 9.3))
On the sickle (162) “A sickle is the weapon often used to fight
monsters. Perseus uses a sickle to decapitate the Gorgon Medousa, and Iolaos
uses a sickle against the monstrous Hydra during Herakles’ second labor.
In various later versions the sickle of Kronos was said to have been thrown
into the sea; from it several places were supposed to have grown, such
as Sicily, the Homeric island of the Phaiakians, and Cape Drepanon in Greece.”
On the birth of the Erinyes from the blood of the severed genitals of
Ouranos (185): “Their particular concern with the crimes of children
against parents may be seen in their relentless pursuit of the mythical
matricides Orestes and Alkmaion. Themselves born from the crime of sons
against their father, the Erinyes are symbols of guilt, especially that
attached to the enactment of hostile impulses against parents. Born from
castration , they are themselves castrating, as Apollo reminds them in Aeschylus’
Eumenides 185-190: ‘It is not fit that you inhabit this house, bur rather
where there are beheadings and eye-gougings and throat-slit judgments, and
by castration of the virility of young men is ruined, and mutilations and
stoning, and men moan most pitiably, impaled under the spine.”
On Nemesis (223): Nemesis, the Erinyes, the Moirai, and the Keres are
essentially personifications of different aspects of human mortality. The
special role of Nemesis is to punish excess, whether of good or of evil,
and in this leveling function she is the agent of Zeus, who ‘crushes the
strong,’ ‘lowers the high,’ and ‘withers the proud’ (Words and days 5-7).
Nemesis represents the fundamental Greek conception that anyone who rises
too high exposes himself to the envy and vengeance of the gods. The famous
shrine of Nemesis near Marathon in Attika contained a statue of the goddess
which the sculptor Phidias made from a block of Parian marble; the invading
Persians had brought the marble, intending to set up a trophy after they
defeated the Athenians.”
On the Harpies (267-269): The Harpies are storm-wind spirits. They appear
on grave stones carrying the souls of the dead, and are said to have carried
off the daughters of Pandareos (Odyssey 20.77). To be ‘carried away by
the stormwinds [thyellai]’ or ‘by the Harpies’ seems to mean ‘to disappear’
or ‘to die.’ They appear in art with the body of a bird and the breast
and face of a woman (like the Seirenes).”
On the Daughters of Ocean (346-48): The Okeanid nymphs, daughters of
Okeanos and Tethys, are not called Okeanides, but later Okeaninai (364)
and here simply kourai [daughters, girls, maidens], a title which suggests
their function of raising youths [kourizousi, 347]. This function must
be connected with cult practices which put child-rearing under the sponsorship
of legendary guardians of local springs and rivers, along with Apollo.”
On Hekate (411-452): The great emphasis put on the worship of Hekate
and on her omnipresent power is best explained (with West, T 276-280) as
due to Hesiod’s personal interest in the goddess. The Hekate cult seems
to have come to Greece from Karia in Asia Minor; if Hesiod’s father was
a member of the cult, this may explain why he named his older son Perses,
the same name as Hekate’s father. Despite the extensive praise given to
Hekate, we should not suppose that Hesiod regarded her as equal to, or above,
the major Olympian deities. Her status was presumably more like that of
a patron saint, to whom one prays for special favors as well as for regular
guidance and success in various ventures.”
On Hekate and Styx (412): There seems to be an intentional parallel
between Hekate and Styx, who also received honor and ‘outstanding gifts’
from Zeus (399). Styx seems to have the same function among the gods as
Hekate does among mortals; each of them is invoked on particular occasions,
Styx for the oath of the gods (400), and Hekate for concrete favors (416-421,
429-447).”
On Hestia (454): “Hestia has virtually no mythical function or
role…. instead of marriage Zeus gave to her the right of being the goddess
of the hearth. The hearth was the center of ritual; the city hearth, site
of civic ritual, represented for the entire population what the private
hearth in each home meant to the individual and family. Its fire was not
allowed to go out and every day it was the focus (Latin focus = hearth)
of ritual activities such as food offerings and libations.”
On Hades (455): “Hades is the god of death and the underworld;
his names seems to mean the ‘Unseen One’ and the Greeks were generally
reluctant to call him by name, preferring instead to use euphemisms like
‘Master of Many,’ ‘Receiver of Many,’ and the ‘Rich One’ [Polysemantor,
Polydegmon, Plouton]. He appears rarely in myth, since he rarely leaves
his underworld palace; the one notable exception is his brief appearance
on earth to carry off Demeter’s daughter Persephone.”
On Zeus in a Cretan Cave (477): “At this point the Greek version
of the Near Eastern succession myth begins to merge with a Minoan myth of
a divine child. The myth of Zeus’ birth in Crete is clearly derived from
the Aegean cults which preceded the arrival in Greece of Indo-Europeans
and their sky-god. In the Bronze Age matriarchal religion of Crete, there
seems to have been a cult in honor of a male fertility-spirit, who was born
and died each year. He may have been represented sometimes as the bull
who appears so prominently in Minoan iconography sometimes as a young man
later named Kouros, the consort (and perhaps son) of the mother goddess.
As various parts of the Aegean religion were assimilated into the beliefs
o the Greeks, the cult of Kouros was replaced by that of Zeus. A thousand
years after the end of Minoan civilization, Zeus is still addressed as the
‘greatest Kouros’ in a hymn from Palaikastro in east Crete, and there was
even a tomb on Crete in which Zeus was supposedly buried. Lyktos is a town
near Mt. Lasithi in east-central Crete.”
On the Stone disgorged by Kronos (497-500): “The stone disgorged
by Kronos was exhibited at Delphi (Pytho), where Pausanias saw it (10.24).
There was a more famous stone at Delphi, the omphalos [navel-stone] which
marked Delphi as the center of the earth. Pausanias (10.16) distinguishes
the omphalos from the stone of Kronos, but Pausanias is almost 900 years
later than Hesiod, who perhaps identifies the two.”
On the Sacrifice of Prometheus (540-541): “The skillful arrangement
of the bones may express the care Prometheus took to conceal his trick from
Zeus. But it may reflect the side-spread care given to the arrangement
of bones in primitive sacrificial cults, a concern based on the hope that
the dead animal will come to life again.”
On Hades and Persephone (912): “Hades and Persephone have no children,
the only instance in Greek myth of a fruitless divine union.”
On Ariadne and Dionysos in Cult (947-49): “Ariadne is the daughter
of Minos, king of Crete. In the most common version, she helps the Athenian
prince Theseus escape from the labyrinth at Knossos and is taken by him
to the island of Naxos. There he abandons her, but Dionysos finds and marries
her. In Athens, on the second day (the ‘Choes’ day) of the Anthesteria
festival, the marriage of Ariadne and Dionysos was re-enacted; Ariadne
was played y the wife of the archon basileus (the chief religious magistrate),
and the god appeared either as symbolic artifact or as a disguised man (or
perhaps both).”
On Demeter’s lovemaking with Iasion in a thrice-plowed field (969-74):
“The union of Demeter and Iasion in a thrice-plowed field is mentioned
by Homer (Odyssey 5.125-128) and must reflect a ritual practice intended
to promote the fertility of the fields; this is why their son is Ploutos
[Wealth]. The hero Iasion seems here to be Cretan, although we never hear
of Cretan parents for him; Apollodoros makes him a son of Zeus and Elektra
(3.12.1). Both Homer and Apollodoros way that Iasion paid for his erotic
ambition by being struck with Zeus’ lightening.” [M. P. Nilsson, History
of Greek Religion, 1949: p. 109: Demeter’s union with Iasion “is a
mythical disguising of a well-known rite which by human procreation seeks
to arouse the fertility of the fields.”]
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