Classical Mythology, Chapters 1-3 PDF

CHAPTER 1 I N T E R P R E T A T I O N AND D E F I N I T I O N O F CLASSICAL MYTHOLOGY The impossibility of establishing a satisfactory definition of myth has not deterred scholars from developing comprehensive theories on the meaning and in...

CHAPTER 1 I N T E R P R E T A T I O N AND D E F I N I T I O N O F CLASSICAL MYTHOLOGY The impossibility of establishing a satisfactory definition of myth has not deterred scholars from developing comprehensive theories on the meaning and interpre- tation of myth, often to provide bases for a hypothesis about its origins. Useful surveys of the principal theories are readily available, so we shall attempt to touch upon only a few theories that are likely to prove especially fruitful or are per- sistent enough to demand attention.1 One thing is certain: no single theory of myth can cover all kinds of myths. The variety of traditional tales is matched by the variety of their origins and significance; as a result, no monolithic theory can succeed in achieving universal applicability. Definitions of myth will tend to be either too limiting or so broad as to be virtually useless. In the last analysis, def- initions are enlightening because they succeed in identifying particular charac- teristics of different types of stories and thus provide criteria for classification. The word myth comes from the Greek word mythos, which means "word," "speech," "tale," or "story," and that is essentially what a myth is: a story. Some would limit this broad definition by insisting that the story must have proven itself worthy of becoming traditional.2 A myth may be a story that is narrated orally, but usually it is eventually given written form. A myth also may be told by means of no words at all, for example, through painting, sculpture, music, dance, and mime, or by a combination of various media, as in the case of drama, song, opera, or the movies. Many specialists in the field of mythology, however, are not satisfied with such broad interpretations of the term myth. They attempt to distinguish "true myth" (or "myth proper") from other varieties and seek to draw distinctions in terminology between myth and other words often used synonymously, such as legend, saga, and folktale.3 M Y T H , SAGA OR L E G E N D , AND F O L K T A L E Myth is a comprehensive (but not exclusive) term for stories primarily concerned with the gods and humankind's relations with them. Saga, or legend (and we use the words interchangeably), has a perceptible relationship to history; how- 3 4 THE MYTHS OF C R E A T I O N : THE GODS ever fanciful and imaginative, it has its roots in historical fact.4 These two cate- gories underlie the basic division of the first two parts of this book into "The Myths of Creation: The Gods" and "The Greek Sagas: Greek Local Legends." In- terwoven with these broad categories are folktales, which are often tales of ad- venture, sometimes peopled with fantastic beings and enlivened by ingenious strategies on the part of the hero; their object is primarily, but not necessarily solely, to entertain. Fairytales may be classified as particular kinds of folktales, defined as "short, imaginative, traditional tales with a high moral and magical content;" a study by Graham Anderson identifying fairytales in the ancient world is most enlightening.5 Rarely, if ever, do we find a pristine, uncontaminated example of any one of these forms. Yet the traditional categories of myth, folktale, and legend or saga are useful guides as we try to impose some order upon the multitudinous variety of classical tales.6 How loose these categories are can be seen, for exam- ple, in the legends of Odysseus or of the Argonauts, which contain elements of history but are full of stories that may be designated as myths and folktales. The criteria for definition merge and the lines of demarcation blur. M Y T H AND T R U T H Since, as we have seen, the Greek word for myth means "word," "speech," or "story," for a critic like Aristotle it became the designation for the plot of a play; thus, it is easy to understand how a popular view would equate myth with fic- tion. In everyday speech the most common association of the words myth and mythical is with what is incredible and fantastic. How often do we hear the ex- pression, "It's a myth," uttered in derogatory contrast with such laudable con- cepts as reality, truth, science, and the facts? Therefore important distinctions may be drawn between stories that are per- ceived as true and those that are not.7 The contrast between myth and reality has been a major philosophical concern since the time of the early Greek philoso- phers. Myth is a many-faceted personal and cultural phenomenon created to provide a reality and a unity to what is transitory and fragmented in the world that we experience—the philosophical vision of the afterlife in Plato and any re- ligious conception of a god are mythic, not scientific, concepts. Myth provides us with absolutes in the place of ephemeral values and with a comforting per- ception of the world that is necessary to make the insecurity and terror of exis- tence bearable.8 It is disturbing to realize that our faith in absolutes and factual truth can be easily shattered. "Facts" change in all the sciences; textbooks in chemistry, physics, and medicine are sadly (or happily, for progress) soon out of date. It is embarrassingly banal but fundamentally important to reiterate the platitude that myth, like art, is truth on a quite different plane from that of prosaic and tran- sitory factual knowledge. Yet myth and factual truth need not be mutually ex- I N T E R P R E T A T I O N AND D E F I N I T I O N OF C L A S S I C A L MYTHOLOGY 5 elusive, as some so emphatically insist. A story embodying eternal values may contain what was imagined, at any one period, to be scientifically correct in every factual detail; and the accuracy of that information may be a vital component of its mythical raison d'être. Indeed one can create a myth out of a factual story, as a great historian must do: any interpretation of the facts, no matter how cred- ible, will inevitably be a mythic invention. On the other hand, a different kind of artist may create a nonhistorical myth for the ages, and whether it is factu- ally accurate or not may be quite beside the point.9 Myth in a sense is the highest reality; and the thoughtless dismissal of myth as untruth, fiction, or a lie is the most barren and misleading definition of all. The dancer and choreographer Martha Graham, sublimely aware of the time- less "blood memory" that binds our human race and that is continually revoked by the archetypal transformations of mythic art, offers a beautifully concise sum- mation: as opposed to the discoveries of science that "will in time change and perhaps grow obsolete... art is eternal, for it reveals the inner landscape, which is the soul of man."10 M Y T H AND RELIGION As we stated earlier, true myth (as distinguished from saga and folktale) is pri- marily concerned with the gods, religion, and the supernatural. Most Greek and Roman stories reflect this universal preoccupation with creation, the nature of god and humankind, the afterlife, and other spiritual concerns. Thus mythology and religion are inextricably entwined. One tale or another once may have been believed at some time by certain people not only factually but also spiritually; specific creation stories and mythical conceptions of deity may still be considered true today and provide the basis for devout religious be- lief in a contemporary society. In fact, any collection of material for the com- parative study of world mythologies will be dominated by the study of texts that are, by nature, religious. Religious ceremonies and cults (based on mythol- ogy) are a recurrent theme in chapters to follow; among the examples are the worship of Zeus at Olympia, Athena in Athens, Demeter at Eleusis, and the cel- ebration of other mystery religions throughout the ancient world. The ritualist interpretation of the origins of mythology is discussed later in this chapter. Mircea Eliade. Mircea Eliade, one of the most prolific twentieth-century writers on myth, lays great emphasis upon religious aura in his conception of myth as a tale satisfying the yearning of human beings for a fundamental orientation rooted in a sacred timelessness. This yearning is only fully satisfied by stories narrating the events surrounding the beginnings and origins of things. Eliade believes that God once in a holy era created the world and this initial cosmogony becomes the origin myth, the model for creations of every kind and stories about them. His concept develops a complex mysticism that is difficult. Like a reli- gious sacrament, myth provides in the imagination a spiritual release from 6 THE MYTHS OF C R E A T I O N : THE GODS historical time. This is the nature of true myths, which are fundamentally para- digms and explanations and most important to an individual and society.11 This definition, which embraces the explanatory nature of mythology, brings us to another universal theory. M Y T H AND E T I O L O G Y There are some who maintain that myth should be interpreted narrowly as an explication of the origin of some fact or custom. Hence the theory is called etio- logical, from the Greek word for cause (aitia). In this view, the mythmaker is a kind of primitive scientist, using myths to explain facts that cannot otherwise be explained within the limits of society's knowledge at the time. This theory, again, is adequate for some myths, for example, those that account for the ori- gin of certain rituals or cosmology; but interpreted literally and narrowly it does not allow for the imaginative or metaphysical aspects of mythological thought. Yet, if one does not interpret etiological ("the assignment of causes or origins") too literally and narrowly but defines it by the adjective explanatory, interpreted in its most general sense, one perhaps may find at last the most applicable of all the monolithic theories. Myths usually try to explain matters physical, emotional, and spiritual not only literally and realistically but figuratively and metaphori- cally as well. Myths attempt to explain the origin of our physical world: the earth and the heavens, the sun, the moon, and the stars; where human beings came from and the dichotomy between body and soul; the source of beauty and goodness, and of evil and sin; the nature and meaning of love; and so on. It is difficult to tell a story that does not reveal, and at the same time somehow explain, something; and the imaginative answer usually is in some sense or other scientific or theo- logical. The major problem with this universal etiological approach is that it does nothing to identify a myth specifically and distinguish it clearly from any other form of expression, whether scientific, religious, or artistic—that is, too many es- sentially different kinds of story may be basically etiological. RATIONALISM VERSUS M E T A P H O R , A L L E G O R Y , AND S Y M B O L I S M The desire to rationalize classical mythology arose far back in classical antiquity, and is especially associated with the name of Euhemerus (ca. 300 B.c.), who claimed that the gods were men deified for their great deeds.12 The supreme god Zeus, for example, was once a mortal king in Crete who deposed his father, Cronus. At the opposite extreme from Euhemerism is the metaphorical inter- pretation of stories. Antirationalists, who favor metaphorical interpretations, be- lieve that traditional tales hide profound meanings. At its best the metaphorical approach sees myth as allegory (allegory is to be defined as sustained metaphor), where the details of the story are but symbols of universal truths. At its worst I N T E R P R E T A T I O N AND D E F I N I T I O N OF C L A S S I C A L MYTHOLOGY 7 the allegorical approach is a barren exercise in cryptology: to explain the myth of Ixion and the Centaurs in terms of clouds and weather phenomena is hardly enlightening and not at all ennobling.13 Allegorical Nature Myths: Max Muller. An influential theory of the nineteenth century was that of Max Mùller: myths are nature myths, all referring to mete- orological and cosmological phenomena. This is, of course, an extreme devel- opment of the allegorical approach, and it is hard to see how or why all myths can be explained as allegories of, for example, day replacing night, winter suc- ceeding summer, and so on. True, some myths are nature myths, and certain gods, for example Zeus, represent or control the sky and other parts of the nat- ural order; yet it is just as true that a great many more myths have no such re- lationship to nature.14 M Y T H AND P S Y C H O L O G Y : F R E U D AND J U N G Sigmund Freud. The metaphorical approach took many forms in the twentieth century through the theories of the psychologists and psychoanalysts, most es- pecially those of Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung. We need to present at least some of their basic concepts, which have become essential for any understanding of mythic creativity. Freud's views were not completely new, of course (the con- cept of "determinism," for example, "one of the glories of Freudian theory" is to be found in Aristotle),15 but his formulation and analysis of the inner world of humankind bear the irrevocable stamp of genius. Certainly methods and assumptions adopted by comparative mytholo- gists—the formulations of the structuralists and the modern interpretation of mythological tales as imaginative alleviating and directive formulations, created to make existence in this real world tolerable—all these find a confirmation and validity in premises formulated by Freud. The endless critical controversy in our post-Freudian world merely confirms his unique contribution. Among Freud's many important contemporaries and successors, Jung (deeply indebted to the master, but a renegade) must be singled out because of the particular relevance of his theories to a fuller appreciation of the deep-rooted recurring patterns of mythology. Among Freud's greatest contributions are his emphasis upon sexuality (and in particular infantile sexuality), his theory of the unconscious, his interpretation of dreams, and his identification of the Oedipus complex (although the term complex belongs to Jung). Freud has this to say about the story of King Oedipus: His fate moves us only because it might have been our own, because the oracle laid upon us before our birth the very curse which rested upon him. It may be that we are all des- tined to direct our first sexual impulses toward our mothers, and our first impulses of hatred and resistance toward our fathers; our dreams convince us that we were. King Oedipus, who slew his father Laius and wedded his mother Jocasta, is nothing more or 8 THE MYTHS OF C R E A T I O N : THE GODS less than a wish-fulfillment—the fulfillment of the wish of our childhood. But we, more fortunate than he, in so far as we have not become psychoneurotics, have since our child- hood succeeded in withdrawing our sexual impulses from our mothers, and in forget- ting the jealousy of our fathers.... As the poet brings the guilt of Oedipus to light by his investigation, he forces us to become aware of our own inner selves, in which the same impulses are still extant, even though they are suppressed.16 This Oedipal incest complex is here expressed in the masculine form, of a man's behavior in relationship to his mother, but it also could be expressed in terms of the relationship between daughter and father; the daughter turns to the father as an object of love and becomes hostile to her mother as her rival. This is for Jung an Electra complex. Dreams for Freud are the fulfillments of wishes that have been repressed and disguised. To protect sleep and relieve potential anxiety, the mind goes through a process of what is termed "dream-work," which consists of three pri- mary mental activities: "condensation" of elements (they are abbreviated or com- pressed); "displacement" of elements (they are changed, particularly in terms of allusion and a difference of emphasis); and "representation," the transmission of elements into imagery or symbols, which are many, varied, and often sexual. Something similar to this process may be discerned in the origin and evolution of myths; it also provides insight into the mind and the methods of the creative artist, as Freud himself was well aware in his studies.17 Thus Freud's discovery of the significance of dream-symbols led him and his followers to analyze the similarity between dreams and myths. Symbols are many and varied and often sexual (e.g., objects like sticks and swords are phal- lic). Myths, therefore, in the Freudian interpretation, reflect people's waking ef- forts to systematize the incoherent visions and impulses of their sleep world. The patterns in the imaginative world of children, savages, and neurotics are similar, and these patterns are revealed in the motifs and symbols of myth. As can be seen from Freud's description in the earlier quote, one of the ba- sic patterns is that of the Oedipus story, in which the son kills the father in or- der to possess the mother. From this pattern Freud propounded a theory of our archaic heritage, in which the Oedipal drama was played out by a primal horde in their relationship to a primal father. The murder and the eating of the father led to important tribal and social developments, among them deification of the father figure, the triumph of patriarchy, and the establishment of a totemic sys- tem, whereby a sacred animal was chosen as a substitute for the slain father. Most important of all, from the ensuing sense of guilt and sin for parricide emerges the conception of God as Father who must be appeased and to whom atonement must be made. In fact, according to Freud, the Oedipus complex in- spired the beginning not only of religion but also of all ethics, art, and society. It is clear that Freud's connection between dreams and myths is illuminat- ing for many myths, if not for all. In addition to the story of Oedipus one might single out, for example, the legend of the Minotaur or the saga of the House of I N T E R P R E T A T I O N AND D E F I N I T I O N OF C L A S S I C A L MYTHOLOGY 9 Atreus, both of which deal with some of the most persistent, if repressed, hu- man fears and emotions and, by their telling, achieve a kind of catharsis. Carl Jung. Jung went beyond the mere connection of myths and dreams to in- terpret myths as the projection of what he called the "collective unconscious" of the race, that is, a revelation of the continuing psychic tendencies of society. Jung made a distinction between the personal unconscious and the collective uncon- scious: the personal concerns matters of an individual's own life; the collective embraces political and social questions involving the group. Dreams therefore may be either personal or collective. Thus myths contain images or "archetypes" (to use Jung's term, which em- braces Freud's concept of symbols), traditional expressions of collective dreams, developed over thousands of years, of symbols upon which the society as a whole has come to depend. For Jung the Oedipus complex was the first arche- type that Freud discovered. There are many such archetypes in Greek mythol- ogy and in dreams. Here are some of the ways in which Jung thought about ar- chetypes, the collective unconscious, and mythology. An archetype is a kind of dramatic abbreviation of the patterns involved in a whole story or situation, in- cluding the way it develops and how it ends; it is a behavior pattern, an inher- ited scheme of functioning. Just as a bird has the physical and mental attributes of a bird and builds its nest in a characteristic way, so human beings by nature and by instinct are born with predictable and identifiable characteristics.18 In the case of human behavior and attitudes, the patterns are expressed in archetypal images or forms. The archetypes of behavior with which human beings are born and which find their expression in mythological tales are called the "collective unconscious." Therefore, "mythology is a pronouncing of a series of images that formulate the life of archetypes."19 Heroes like Heracles and Theseus are mod- els who teach us how to behave.20 The following are a few examples of archetypes: The anima is the archetypal image of the female that each man has within him; it is to this concept that he responds (for better or for worse) when he falls in love. Indeed the force of an archetype may seize a person suddenly, as when one falls in love at first sight. Similarly, the animus is the archetypal concept of the male that a woman in- stinctively harbors within her. The old wise man and the great mother and sym- bols or signs of various sorts are also among the many Jungian archetypes. These appear in the dreams of individuals or are expressed in the myths of societies. The great value of Jung's concept is that it emphasizes the psychological de- pendence of all societies (sophisticated as well as primitive) upon their tradi- tional myths, often expressed also in religion and ritual. But Jung's theories, like those we have already examined, have their limitations; they are not the only key to an understanding of mythology. The Legacy of Freud. Freud's theories about the origin of mythological themes have attracted devotion and criticism in the century since their promulgation— 10 T H E MYTHS OF C R E A T I O N : THE GODS evidence for their undeniable importance. Classical scholars in the English- speaking world have been more dismissive than others: the important book by H. J. Rose on Greek mythology virtually ignores psychological and psychoana- lytical approaches to myth, and the former Regius Professor of Greek at the Uni- versity of Oxford, Hugh Lloyd-Jones, writing toward the end of the twentieth century, is skeptical yet appreciative of the work of other Regius Professors (Dodds and Kirk), which is based on deep knowledge of Greek language and literatures and some knowledge of comparative sociology, psychology, and re- ligion. Lloyd-Jones is contemptuous of psychoanalytical interpretations of Greek literature and myth by writers unfamiliar with Greek language and history. More gently, Jan Bremmer observes: "Historical and linguistic knowledge remains indispensable. " 21 From the beginning Freud has been under attack from biologists and psy- choanalysts. E. O. Wilson, writing in 1998, says that "Freud guessed wrong" with regard to dreams and the unconscious. Wilson embraces the theory of J. A. Hobson that "dreaming is a kind of insanity," which in a way reorganizes in- formation stored in the memory and is not an expression of childhood trauma or repressed desires. Discussing the incest taboo, Wilson prefers "the Wester- marck effect" (named after the Finnish anthropologist E. A. Westermarck, who published his theory in 1891 in The History of Human Marriage). Westermarck wrote that human avoidance of incest is genetic and that the social taboo comes from this "epigenetic" attribute. In contrast, Freud believed that the desire for incestuous relations (in men directed toward their mothers or sisters) was "the first choice of object in mankind," and therefore its repression was enforced by social taboos. Clearly very different interpretations of the myth of Oedipus will flow from these competing theories.22 There will be other theories, and all of them, it can safely be said, will im- plicitly or explicitly support, attack, or comment upon Freud. This is the mea- sure of his genius. Freud's theories have been a springboard for anthropologists and sociol- ogists—most notably Claude Lévi-Strauss, whose theories have been applied to Greek myth with success by the so-called Paris school, namely Jean-Pierre Vernant, Pierre Vidal-Naquet, and Marcel Détienne.23 These mythographers combine the study of human societies with psychological theories that explain the origins of myth in terms of the minds of individuals. (Jung was particu- larly concerned with the collective unconscious of society, as we have seen.) The work of these French scholars is fundamental for any attempt to under- stand the place of myth in human societies, but, like the theories of Freud and Jung, it overvalues similarities in the minds of individuals and collective ritu- als and myths of societies while undervaluing variations among individual hu- man societies. Before we consider Lévi-Strauss and other structural theorists, we begin with earlier mythographers who associated myth with religion and ritual in society. I N T E R P R E T A T I O N AND D E F I N I T I O N OF C L A S S I C A L MYTHOLOGY 11 M Y T H AND S O C I E T Y Myth and Ritual: J. G. Frazer, Jane Harrison, and Robert Graves. A ritualist inter- pretation of mythology is one of the most influential and persistent points of view. Despite its faults, Sir J. G. Frazer's The Golden Bough remains a pioneering monument in its attempts to link myth with ritual. It is full of comparative data on kingship and ritual, but its value is lessened by the limitations of his ritual- ist interpretations and by his eagerness to establish dubious analogies between myths of primitive tribes and classical myths. Similarly the works of Jane Harrison, Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Reli- gion and Themis, are of seminal importance. Harrison falls in the same tradition as Frazer, and many of her conclusions about comparative mythology, religion, and ritual are subject to the same critical reservations. Frazer and Harrison es- tablished fundamental approaches that were to dominate classical attitudes at the beginning of the twentieth century. Renowned novelist and poet Robert Graves has written an influential treat- ment of Greek myths that is full of valuable factual information unfortunately embedded in much fascinating but unsubstantiated and idiosyncratic analysis. For him the definition of "true myth" is "the reduction to narrative shorthand of ritual mime performed in public festivals, and in many cases recorded picto- rially on temple walls, vases, seals, bowls, mirrors, chests, shields, tapestries, and the like."24 He distinguishes this true myth from twelve other categories, such as philosophical allegory, satire or parody, minstrel romance, political prop- aganda, theatrical melodrama, and realistic fiction. We single out Graves be- cause he was perceptive enough to realize that literary distinctions may be as enlightening as any other type of classification for classical mythology. Yet stated most bluntly, this ritualist theory says that "myth implies ritual, ritual implies myth, they are one and the same." 25 True, many myths are closely connected with rituals, and the theory is valuable for the connection it empha- sizes between myth and religion; but it is patently untenable to connect all true myth with ritual. Myth as Social Charters: Bronislav Malinowski. Important in the development of modern theories is the work of Bronislav Malinowski, who was stranded among the Trobriand Islanders (off New Guinea) during World War I; he used his en- forced leisure to study the Trobrianders.26 As an anthropologist and ethnogra- pher he placed a high value on fieldwork in order to reach his final ideological goal: "to grasp the native's point of view, his relation to life, to realize his vi- sion of his world...." 27 His great discovery was the close connection between myths and social in- stitutions, which led him to explain myths not in cosmic or mysterious terms, but as "charters" of social customs and beliefs. To him myths were related to practical life, and they explained existing facts and institutions by reference to tradition: the myth confirms (i.e., is the "charter" for) the institution, custom, 12 THE MYTHS OF C R E A T I O N : THE GODS or belief. Clearly such a theory will be valid only for certain myths (e.g., those involving the establishment of a ritual), but any theory that excludes the spec- ulative element in myth is bound to be too limited. T H E STRUCTURALISTS: L É V I - S T R A U S S , P R O P P , AND B U R K E R T Claude Lévi-Strauss. More recently, the structural theories of Claude Lévi- Strauss have enriched the anthropological approach to myth, and they have a connection with Malinowski's most important concept, that is, the link between myth and society.28 Lévi-Strauss sees myth as a mode of communication, like language or mu- sic. In music it is not the sounds themselves that are important but their struc- ture, that is, the relationship of sounds to other sounds. In myth it is the narra- tive that takes the part of the sounds of music, and the structure of the narrative can be perceived at various levels and in different codes (e.g., culinary, astro- nomical, and sociological). From this it follows that no one version of a myth is the "right" one; all versions are valid, for myth, like society, is a living organ- ism in which all the parts contribute to the existence of the whole. As in an or- chestral score certain voices or instruments play some sounds, while the whole score is the sum of the individual parts, so in a myth the different, partial ver- sions combine to reveal its total structure, including the relationship of the dif- ferent parts to each other and to the whole. Lévi-Strauss' method is therefore rigorously analytical, breaking down each myth into its component parts. Underlying his analytical approach are basic as- sumptions, of which the most important is that all human behavior is based on certain unchanging patterns, whose structure is the same in all ages and in all societies. Second, he assumes that society has a consistent structure and there- fore a functional unity in which every component plays a meaningful part. As part of the working of this social machine, myths are derived ultimately from the structure of the mind. And the basic structure of the mind, as of the myths it creates, is binary; that is, the mind is constantly dealing with pairs of contra- dictions or opposites. It is the function of myth to mediate between these op- posing extremes—raw/cooked, life/death, hunter /hunted, nature /culture, and so on. "Mythical thought always progresses from the awareness of oppositions towards their resolution."29 Myth, then, is a mode by which a society commu- nicates and through which it finds a resolution between conflicting opposites. The logical structure of a myth provides a means by which the human mind can avoid unpleasant contradictions and thus, through mediation, reconcile conflicts that would be intolerable if unreconciled. Lévi-Strauss would maintain that all versions of a myth are equally authentic for exploring the myth's structure. The theories of Lévi-Strauss have aroused passionate controversy among an- thropologists and mythographers. His analysis of the Oedipus myth, for exam- I N T E R P R E T A T I O N AND D E F I N I T I O N OF C L A S S I C A L MYTHOLOGY 13 pie, has been widely criticized. Yet whatever one's judgment may be, there is no doubt that this structural approach can illuminate a number of Greek myths, especially with regard to the function of "mediating." But the approach is open to the same objections as other comprehensive theories, that it establishes too rigid, too universal a concept of the functioning of the human mind. Indeed, the binary functioning of the human mind and of human society may be common, but it has not been proved to be either universal or necessary. Finally, Lévi- Strauss draws most of his evidence from primitive and preliterate cultures, and his theories seem to work more convincingly for them than for the literate mythology of the Greeks. His approach is better applied, for example, to the early Greek succession myths than to the Sophoclean, literate version of the leg- ends of Oedipus and his family. We should all the same be aware of the poten- tial of structuralist theories and be ready to use them as we seek to make mean- ingful connections between the different constituent elements of a myth or between different myths that share constituent elements. As we noted earlier, Lévi-Strauss was particularly influential upon the Paris school. Vladimir Propp. The structural interpretation of myth was developed, long be- fore the work of Lévi-Strauss, by Vladimir Propp in his study of the Russian folktale.30 Like Lévi-Strauss, Propp analyzed traditional tales into their con- stituent parts, from which he deduced a single, recurrent structure applicable to all Russian folktales. Unlike Lévi-Strauss, however, he described this structure as linear, that is, as having an unchanging temporal sequence, so that one ele- ment in the myth always follows another and never occurs out of order. This is significantly different from the pattern in Lévi-Strauss' theory, where the ele- ments may be grouped without regard to time or sequence. Propp divided his basic structure into thirty-one functions or units of action (which have been defined by others as motifemes, on the analogy of morphemes and phonemes in linguistic analysis). These functions are constants in traditional tales: the characters may change, but the functions do not. Further, these func- tions always occur in an identical sequence, although not all the functions need appear in a particular tale. Those that do, however, will always occur in the same sequence. Finally, Propp states that "all fairy tales are of one type in regard to their structure."31 Propp was using a limited number (one hundred) of Russian folktales of one sort only, that is, the Quest. Yet his apparently strict analysis has proven remark- ably adaptable and valid for other sorts of tales in other cultures. The rigid se- quence of functions is too inflexible to be fully applicable to Greek myths that have a historical dimension (e.g., some of the tales in the Trojan cycle of saga), where the "facts" of history, as far as they can be established, may have a sequence in- dependent of structures whose origins lie in psychological or cultural needs. On the other hand, Propp's theories are very helpful in comparing myths that are apparently unrelated, showing, for example, how the same functions 14 THE MYTHS OF C R E A T I O N : THE GODS appear in the myths, no matter what names are given to the characters who per- form them. Mythological names are a strain on the memory. Merely to master them is to achieve very little, unless they can be related in some meaningful way to other tales, including tales from other mythologies. Dreary memorization, however, becomes both easier and purposeful if underlying structures and their constituent units can be perceived and arranged logically and consistently. A very simple example would be the structural elements common to the myths of Heracles, Theseus, Perseus, and Jason, whose innumerable details can be reduced to a limited sequence of functions. It is more difficult to establish the pattern for, say, a group of stories about the mothers of heroes (e.g., Callisto, Danaë, Io, and Antiope). Yet, as Walter Burkert shows (see the following sec- tion), they resolve themselves into a clear sequence of five functions: (1) the girl leaves home; (2) the girl is secluded (beside a river, in a tower, in a forest, etc.); (3) she is made pregnant by a god; (4) she suffers punishment or rejection or a similar unpleasant consequence; and (5) she is rescued, and her son is born.32 We can say definitely that in most cases it is helpful to the student to ana- lyze a myth into its constituent parts. There should be four consequences: 1. A perceptible pattern or structure will emerge. 2. It will be possible to find the same structure in other myths, thus mak- ing it easier to organize the study of myths. 3. It will be possible to compare the myths of one culture with those of another. 4. As a result of this comparison, it will be easier to appreciate the devel- opment of a myth prior to its literary presentation. Structuralism need not be—indeed, cannot be—applied to all classical mythology, nor need one be enslaved to either Lévi-Strauss or the more rigid but simpler structure of Propp's thirty-one functions; it basically provides a means toward establishing a rational system for understanding and organizing the study of mythology. Walter Burkert. Walter Burkert has persuasively attempted a synthesis of struc- tural theories with the more traditional approaches to classical mythology.33 In defining a theory of myth he developed four theses, which are in part based upon structural theories and in part meet the objection that these theories are not ade- quate for many Greek myths as they have come down to us after a long period of development. According to Burkert, classical myths have a "historical dimen- sion" with "successive layers" of development, during which the original tale has been modified to fit the cultural or other circumstances of the time of its retelling. This will be less true of a tale that has sacred status, for it will have been "crys- tallized" in a sacred document—for example, the myth of Demeter in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter. In contrast, many Greek myths vary with the time of telling and the teller—for example, the myths of Orestes or Meleager appear differently in Homer from their treatment in fifth-century Athens or in Augustan Rome. I N T E R P R E T A T I O N AND D E F I N I T I O N OF C L A S S I C A L MYTHOLOGY 15 Burkert therefore believes that the structure of traditional tales cannot be discovered without taking into account cultural and historical dimensions. With regard to the former, the structure of a tale is shaped by its human creators and by the needs of the culture within which it is developed. Therefore the structure of a tale is "ineradicably anthropomorphic" and fits the needs and expectations of both the teller and the audience. (Indeed, as Burkert points out, this is why good tales are so easy to remember: "There are not terribly many items to mem- orize, since the structure has largely been known in advance.") Further—and here we approach the historical dimension—a tale has a use to which it is put, or, expressed in another way, "Myth is traditional tale applied." This refinement of the structural theory allows for the development of a tale to meet the needs or expectations of the group for whom it is told—family, city, state, or culture group, for example. A myth, in these terms, has reference to "something of collective importance." This further definition meets a funda- mental objection to many earlier "unitary" theories of myth. If myth is a sacred tale or a tale about the gods, how do we include, for example, the myths of Oedi- pus or Achilles? Similar objections can easily be made to other theories that we have been describing. The notions of "myth applied" and "collective impor- tance" avoid the objection of rigid exclusivity, while they allow for the succes- sive stages in the historical development of a myth without the Procrustean men- tal gymnastics demanded by the theories of Lévi-Strauss. Here, then, are the four theses of Burkert's modified synthesis of the struc- tural and historical approaches: 1. Myth belongs to the more general class of traditional tale. 2. The identity of a traditional tale is to be found in a structure of sense within the tale itself. 3. Tale structures, as sequences of motifernes, are founded on basic biolog- ical or cultural programs of actions.34 4. Myth is a traditional tale with secondary, partial reference to something of collective importance. These theses form a good working basis upon which to approach the inter- pretation of myth. They make use of the significant discoveries of anthropolo- gists and psychologists, while they allow flexibility in exploring the structure of classical myths. Finally, they take account of the historical development of myths and of the culture within which they were told. It will be useful to refer to these theses when studying individual traditional tales. C O M P A R A T I V E S T U D Y AND CLASSICAL MYTHOLOGY Comparisons among the various stories told throughout the ages, all over the world, have become influential in establishing definitions and classifications. In the modern study of comparative mythology, much emphasis tends to be placed 16 THE MYTHS OF C R E A T I O N : THE GODS upon stories told by preliterate and primitive societies, and too often the devel- oped literature of the Greeks and Romans has virtually been ignored. It was not always so; for pioneers in the field, such as Frazer (identified earlier), classical mythology was understandably fundamental. Our survey has shown that the comparative study of myths, especially by anthropologists (as opposed to philo- logically trained classicists), has been one of the most fruitful approaches to the interpretation of myths. Oral and Literary Myth. The primary reason for the relative neglect of classical mythology is that many insist that a true myth must be oral, and some would add that it also must be anonymous. Today this is certainly the most persistent definition of all with support from many quarters. Reasons are easy to find in an argument that runs something like this: The tales told in primitive societies, which one may go to hear even today, are the only true myths, pristine and time- less. Such tales represent the poetic vision, the history, the religion, even the sci- ence of the tribe, revealing the fascinating early stages of development in the psyche of humankind. The written word brings with it contamination and a spe- cific designation of authorship for what has been passed on by word of mouth for ages, the original creator with no more identity at all. For Malinowski (dis- cussed earlier), myths were synonymous with the tales of the Trobrianders, which they called lili'u, the important stories a society has to tell.35 For those sympathetic to this view, folktales hold a special place, even those that have be- come a literary text composed by an author, who has imposed a unity upon a multiplicity of oral tales. What has all this to do with classical mythology? We do not concur with those who place such a narrow definition upon the word myth. We would not write a book titled Classical Mythology with the con- viction that the literary texts that we must deal with are not mythology at all. First of all, myth need not be just a story told orally. It can be danced, painted, and enacted, and this, in fact, is what primitive people do. As we stated at the beginning of this chapter, myth may be expressed in various media, and myth is no less a literary form than it is an oral form. Furthermore, the texts of classical mythology can be linked to the oral and literary themes of other mythologies. We have established that, over the past few decades, comparative mythol- ogy has been used extensively for the understanding of the myths of any one culture. Greek mythology, largely because of the genius of the authors who told the stories in their literary form, has too often in the past been considered as something so unusual that it can be set apart from other mythologies. It is true that Greek and Roman literature has certain characteristics to be differentiated from those of the many, oral preliterate tales gathered from other cultures by anthropologists. Yet the work of the structuralists has shown that classical myths share fundamental characteristics with traditional tales everywhere. It is im- portant to be aware of this fact and to realize that there were many successive I N T E R P R E T A T I O N AND D E F I N I T I O N OF C L A S S I C A L MYTHOLOGY 17 layers in the development of Greek and Roman myths before their crystalliza- tion in literary form. The Homeric poems, the Iliad and the Odyssey, no doubt had oral antecedents.36 Often, and especially in structural interpretations, the earlier stages of a myth are discovered to have been rooted in another culture, or at least show the influence of other mythologies. For example, there are ob- vious parallels between the Greek creation and succession myths and myths of Near Eastern cultures (we explore these in the Additional Reading at the end of Chapter 4); such structural and thematic similarities do at least show how Greek myths are to be studied in conjunction with those of other cultures. It is gratifying to report that comparative studies in the classics are becom- ing more and more abundant (made evident in our bibliographies), the focus being the identification of structures and motifs in Greek and Roman literature that are common to mythologies of the world. Joseph Campbell. Joseph Campbell is the comparative mythologist who is the best known among the general public, and his body of work embraces mythologies of every sort—oral, literary, whatever—in the world throughout the centuries. In his vast all-embracing scheme of things, classical mythology is not of major signifi- cance, but it easily could be. He has done much that is worthwhile to popularize the study of comparative mythology, and for this we are grateful, even though we wish that, in his popularizations at least, he had paid more serious attention to the Greeks and the Romans. Perhaps he will appeal most of all to those who seek to recognize the kindred spiritual values that may be found through a comparison of the myths and legends of various peoples over the centuries. It is difficult to know how Campbell should be classified under our previous headings: with those who link mythology and society or religion or psychology?37 His inspiring influence upon Martha Graham and her powerful re-creations of mythology in dance is dis- cussed in Chapter 28. A clear and comprehensive introduction to his numerous works is offered by Robert A. Segal in Joseph Campbell: An Introduction.38 FEMINISM, H O M O S E X U A L I T Y , AND MYTHOLOGY Feminism. Feminist critical theories have led to many new, and often contro- versial, interpretations of classical myths. They approach mythology from the perspective of women and interpret the myths by focusing especially on the psy- chological and social situation of their female characters. These theories share with structuralism a focus on the binary nature of human society and the hu- man mind, especially in the opposition (or complementary relationship) of fe- male and male. Social criticism of the male-centered world of Greek mythology goes back at least to Sappho, who, in her Hymn to Aphrodite (see pp. 197-198) used the image of Homeric warfare to describe her emotions, and in her poem on Anaktoria contrasts what she loves, another human being, with what con- ventional men love, the panoply of war.39 In 1942 the French philosopher Si- mone Weil took basically the same approach in her essay on the Iliad (translated 18 THE MYTHS OF C R E A T I O N : THE GODS by Mary McCarthy as The Iliad, or the Poem of Force), focusing on the issues of violence, power, and domination, fundamental to Homeric mythology. More recently feminist scholars have used the critical methods of narratol- ogy and deconstruction to interpret the traditional tales, associating them with the theories of psychologists (especially Freud) and comparative anthropologists. Many feminist interpretations have compelled readers to think critically about the social and psychological assumptions that underlie approaches to mythology, and they have led to original and stimulating interpretations of many myths, es- pecially where the central figure is female. The work of feminist scholars has led to greater flexibility and often (although by no means always) greater sensitivity in modern readings of classical literature. Helene P. Foley's edition of The Homeric Hymn to Demeter is a good example of how feminist interpretations can be in- corporated in an array of varied interpretative viewpoints.40 Feminist authors too are creating new versions of traditional tales designed to illuminate their point of view about political, social, and sexual conflict between men and women in our world today—for example, the two novels (originally in German) by Christa Wolf, Cassandra and Medea. Nevertheless, some scholars (among them leading classical feminists) have warned against the tendency to interpret classical myths in the light of contemporary social and political concerns. For example, Marilyn Katz criticizes those who object on moral grounds to the apparent infidelity of Odysseus to his wife, saying that "such an interpretation... imports into the poem our own squeamish disapproval of the double standard."41 Feminist interpretations of mythological stories are often determined by con- troversial reconstructions of the treatment and position of women in ancient so- ciety, often making no distinctions between the Greek version and that of the Roman Ovid and thus embracing two civilizations inhabiting a vast area over a lengthy period of time. We single out two major topics that influence feminist theories of myth: the position of women in Greece and the theme of rape. WOMEN IN GREEK SOCIETY. The evidence for the position of women in Greek so- ciety is meager and conflicting. It is also virtually impossible to make valid broad generalizations, since the situation in sixth-century Lesbos must have been dif- ferent from that in Athens of the fifth century, and as time went on women in Sparta gained a great deal of influence. For a long time, we have been reading the literature and looking at the art, and for us, some of the revisionist histories today depict a civilization that we cannot recognize in terms of what little di- rect evidence we do possess, controversial as it may be. A good place to begin for one's own control of what little we do know with any kind of certainty is with a study by A. W. Gomme, "The Position of Women at Athens in the Fifth and Fourth Centuries B.C." 42 We offer here a few basic observations to give a sense of balance to the controversy. First of all, the claim is made today that women were not citizens in the an- cient world. This is not true. Aristotle (Athenian Constitution, 42.1) makes it very I N T E R P R E T A T I O N AND D E F I N I T I O N OF C L A S S I C A L MYTHOLOGY 19 clear that citizenship depended upon the condition that both parents be citizens: "Those born of parents who are both citizens share in citizenship, and when they are eighteen years old, they are registered on the rolls...." It is evident over and over again that in Greek society the citizens were very much aware of the difference between citizens and noncitizens (resident aliens and slaves) in the structure and benefits of society. Women citizens, however, did not vote; to keep things in perspective, one should remember that women did not win the vote anywhere until the first quarter of the twentieth century. Were there no women citizens in the world before that time? in England? in America? It is only in the first quarter of the last century that women have gained not only political but also legal rights equal to those of men, sad as that fact may be in our judgment of humankind. In Athens a woman citizen benefited greatly from the prosper- ity and the artistic expression and freedom of the democracy and empire. She was very important in religious ceremonies, some of which excluded the par- ticipation of males. Women did not walk outdoors veiled, a few became intox- icated and had affairs, and many were very outspoken (amazingly so for this period of time in the history of Western civilization) about their own inferior position as citizens in relation to that of the males. It is difficult to believe all women were illiterate. It is likely that their education was different from that of the men. Much would depend upon contingencies such as class and individual needs. (The women of Sappho's Lesbos must have been able to read and write.) Athenian women went to the theater, where they saw and heard vivid depic- tions of the strength of their character and convictions and debates about their rights. They also saw varied portraits, not all evil but mixed, as it should be, many of great and noble wives such as Alcestis in Euripides and Deïanira in Sophocles' Women of Trachis, among others. In art, women appear idealized and beautiful, but not nude (as men could be) until the fourth century B.c. because of Greek mores. The mythological world of goddesses and heroines reflects the real world of Greek women, for whom it had to have some meaning. THE THEME OF RAPE. A fertile and seminal topic has become the theme of rape. What are we today to make of the many classical myths of ardent pursuit as well as those of amorous conquest? Are they religious stories, are they love sto- ries, or are they in the end all fundamentally horrifying tales of victimization? Only a few basic observations about this vast and vital subject can be made here, with the major purpose of insisting that the questions and the answers are not simple but complex. In Ovid's Metamorphoses, Apollo's pursuit of Daphne is the first of the love stories in the poem. To some it is a beautiful idyll, to others, a glorification of male supremacy and brutality. Quite simply put, it can mean whatever one wants it to mean. Certainly it has been one of the most popular themes among artists throughout the centuries because it is subject to so many varied overt and sub- tle interpretations, primary among them not necessarily being that of rape in the 20 THE MYTHS OF C R E A T I O N : THE GODS sense of the word today. The case is similar in the history of music; the very first opera was Daphne, and she has been a profound, spiritual inspiration in the years to follow. The Greeks and Romans were fascinated with the phenomena of blinding passion and equally compulsive virginity. The passion was usually evoked by the mighty gods Aphrodite and Eros, who could gloriously uplift or pitilessly devastate a human being and a god. The equally ruthless force of chastity was symbolized by devotion to Artemis. Usually, but by no means always, the man defines lust and the woman chastity. In the case of Hippolytus and Phaedra (among others) these roles are reversed. The motif of pursuit by the lover of the beloved with the implicit imagery of the hunter and the hunted is everywhere and becomes formulaic with the pursuit ending in a ritualistic acquiescence or the saving of the pursued from a fate worse than death, often through a metamorphosis. The consummation of sex need not be part of the scenario of this ancient motif, played upon with ver- satile sophistication by a civilized poet such as Ovid. Many seduction scenes are ultimately religious in nature, and the fact that it is a god who seduces a mortal can make all the difference. Zeus may single out a chosen woman to be the mother of a divine child or hero for a grand pur- pose intended for the ultimate good of the world, and the woman may or may not be overjoyed. These tales are told from different points of view, sometimes diametrically opposed. For example, Zeus took Io by force, or their son Epaphus was born by the mere touch of the hand of god. There is no real distinction between the love, abduction, or rape of a woman by a man and of a man by a woman. Eos is just as relentless in her pursuit of Cephalus or Tithonus as any other god, and they succumb to the goddess. Salmacis attacks innocent and pure Hermaphroditus and wins. Aphrodite se- duces Anchises, who does not stand a chance against her devious guile. It is pos- sible, if one so desires, to look beyond the romantic vision of beautiful nymphs in a lovely pool enamored of handsome Hylas to imagine a horrible outrage as the poor lad, outnumbered, is dragged down into the depths. The title for a famous story that has become traditional may be misleading or false. Paris' wooing of Helen is usually referred to as the Rape of Helen. Yet the ancient accounts generally describe how Helen fell quickly and desperately in love with the exotic foreigner Paris and (despite her complaints about Aphrodite) went with him willingly to Troy. Of course a different version can find its legitimacy, too, if an artist wishes to depict a Helen dragged away screaming her protests against the savage force of a bestial Paris. The designation of the seduction/ abduction of Helen by Paris as the "Rape of Helen" was established at a time when the word "rape" did not necessarily have the narrow, sole connotation it has to- day, that of a brutal, forceful sexual act against an unwilling partner. The Rape of Persephone is quite another matter. Hades did brutally abduct Persephone, who did indeed cry out to no avail. Zeus and Hades saw this as I N T E R P R E T A T I O N AND D E F I N I T I O N OF C L A S S I C A L MYTHOLOGY 21 the divine right of gods and kings. Demeter and Persephone did not agree. On the other hand, a religious artist or critic might maintain that god's will is god's will, and it was divinely ordained to have Hades and Persephone as king and queen of the Underworld. This book bears testimony again and again in a multitude of ways to the light these Greek and Roman tales have thrown on our civilization. They ex- plored countless issues and emotions (among them passion and lust), as burn- ing for them (both men and women) as they are for us, in their own images, just as we explore them in ours; we are no less obsessed with the subject of sex than were the ancients, and our depictions certainly can be much more violent and ugly, yet often not as potent. Critics of classical mythology in previous genera- tions sometimes chose not to see the rape: some critics today choose to see noth- ing else. It is fundamental to realize an obvious fact that too often is completely over- looked in our rush to interpretative, righteous judgment about the message of a story. The same tale may embody themes of victimization and rape or sexual love or spiritual salvation, one or all of these issues, or more. Everything de- pends upon the artist and the person responding to the work of art: his or her gender, politics, philosophy, religion, sexual orientation, age, experience or ex- periences—the list could go on. A major contention of this book is that there is no one "correct" interpretation of a story, just as there is no one "correct" defi- nition of a myth. Homosexuality. Homosexuality was accepted and accommodated as a part of life in the ancient world. There were no prevailing hostile religious views that condemned it as a sin. Much has been written about this subject in this era of gay liberation, and fundamental works are listed in the bibliography at the end of the chapter. Dover, in his classic study Greek Homosexuality, offers a scrupu- lous analysis of major evidence for ancient Greece, much of which pertains to Athens. This fundamental work is required reading, but his conclusions need to be tempered by other more realistic appreciations of sexuality in the real world, both ancient and modern. Particularly enlightening because of its wider per- spective is Homophobia: A History, by Byrne Fone. The remarks that follow con- centrate on homosexuality in ancient Greece. There were similarities among the Romans but differences as well. The period of time stretches over centuries and the subject again is vast, complex, and controversial. A prevailing view persists that Athens (representing a kind of paradigm of the Greco-Roman world) was a paradise for homosexuals, particularly in con- trast to the persecution so often found in other societies. There is some truth in this romantic vision, but homosexual activity had to be pursued in accordance with certain unwritten rules, however liberal they may have been. In Athens, a particular respectability was conferred when an older male became the lover of a younger man, and it was important that each should play his proper role in 22 THE MYTHS OF C R E A T I O N : THE GODS the sexual act. The relationship was particularly sanctified by a social code if the primary motive was, at least ostensibly, education of a higher order, the mold- ing of character and responsible citizenship. Longer homosexual relationships between two mature men, promiscuity, and effeminacy were sometimes not so readily accepted. Some homosexuals were made notorious because of their be- havior. Gay pride today could not approve of many attitudes and strictures about sexuality in Athens or for that matter in Greece and Rome generally. In the mythology, as one would expect, homosexuality may be found as an important theme. Aphrodite and Eros in particular play significant roles as deities particularly concerned about homosexual love. Several important myths have as their major theme male homosexual relationships: Zeus and Ganymede, Poseidon and Pelops, Apollo and Hyacinthus, Apollo and Cyparissus, the friend- ship of Achilles and Patroclus, Orestes and Pylades (especially in Euripides' Iphi- genia in Tauris), and Heracles and Hylas. In Roman legend the love and devo- tion of Nisus and Euryalus is a particularly moving example. Female homosexuality in Greek and Roman mythology and society is as im- portant a theme as male homosexuality, but it is not nearly as visible. Sappho (mentioned earlier), a lyric poetess from the island of Lesbos (sixth century B.c.), in a fervent and moving poem (pp. 197-198) invokes Aphrodite's help to win back the love of a young woman with whom she has been involved, and her re- lationships with women are evident both in other poems and in the biographi- cal tradition and have been the subject of endless interpretation. (For those in- terested in Sappho's biography, the ancient testimony is collected and translated in the Loeb Classical Library, published by Harvard University Press.) From Sap- pho comes the term lesbian and the association of Aphrodite with lesbian love. Lesbianism is not so readily detectable in the mythology generally. Some- times it can be deduced as a subtext here and there; for example, it may be a la- tent motif in stories about the strong bond of affection among Artemis and her band of female followers and in the depiction of the society and mores of the warlike Amazons. T H E M O R E S OF M Y T H O L O G I C A L S O C I E T Y Rather than imagine what Greek and Roman society was like over thousands of years in its feminist and homosexual attitudes and then impose tenuous con- clusions upon an interpretation of mythological stories treated by many indi- vidual artists with different points of view, perhaps it may be more fruitful and fair to look at the mythology itself to determine if there is any consistency in the social values it conveys. Along with its nonjudgmental acceptance of homosexuality, and the beau- tiful stories it inspires, Greek and Roman mythology overall reflects the point of view of a heterosexual society, from the depiction of the Olympian family of deities on down. Homer's Odyssey is the most heterosexual of poems, and one I N T E R P R E T A T I O N AND D E F I N I T I O N OF C L A S S I C A L MYTHOLOGY 23 must look long and hard to read any subtext to the contrary. So is the Iliad for that matter, although a subtext comes more easily. True, the poem turns upon Achilles' love for Patroclus, but both men are depicted as heterosexuals, leav- ing the bond between them open for others to read between the lines. Enhanc- ing and illuminating the relationship between Achilles and Patroclus is Achilles' love for Briseis amid the profound depictions of the couples Priam and Hecuba, Hector and Andromache, and, perhaps the most searching of all, Paris and Helen. True, feminists today have a strong case against the inequalities and in- justices inflicted upon women by men. But there are valid cases to be made against all wrongs of all societies in the past. We should not excuse them but try to understand and learn. The Homeric poems embrace many, many timeless moral issues, among them man's inhumanity to man. Their artistic, moving, and meaningful documentation is a possession and an education forever. Homer sets the stage for the basic qualities of the literature to follow. The body of Greek drama, as we have it, is shot through with family and religious values, raised to lofty heights by genius. The great families of tragedy, to be sure, are dysfunctional and neurotic, but the ties that bind them together are those of man and woman, husband and wife, father and mother, brother and sister, son and daughter. It would be difficult to imagine more powerful familial and reli- gious bonds than those in the legend of Oedipus. The mutual devotion between Oedipus and his daughters Ismene and, more particularly, Antigone is extreme. Equally powerful is the feud between Oedipus and his sons Eteocles and Poly- nices. Oedipus dies committed to God, and Antigone remains true to the mem- ory of her brother Polynices because of family and religion. The legend of the Oresteia may be an even better example. The criteria by which Herodotus sin- gles out Tellus the Athenian and Cleobis and Biton as the happiest of men are embodied in ennobling tales (translated on pg. 136-137) confirming the fact that marriage and the family were at the core of the politics and mores of the Greek city-state (polis). Roman mythology is possibly even more dominated by reli- gious, familial, and, we may add, patriotic mores. We all read this vast body of classical literature in different ways, and this is how it should be. The texts have something to say to each of us because they spring from a civilization that is all-embracing (not merely bizarre) and all too recognizable and helpful in the face of our own issues and conflicts and their resolution, not least of all those between heterosexuals and homosexuals and men and women. S O M E C O N C L U S I O N S AND A D E F I N I T I O N OF C L A S S I C A L M Y T H Our survey of some important interpretations of myth is intended to show that there is something of value to be found in a study of various approaches, and we have included only a selection from a wide range of possibilities. There are others that might be explored; belief in the importance and validity of diverse in- 24 THE MYTHS OF C R E A T I O N : THE GODS terpretations naturally varies from reader to reader. About this conclusion, how- ever, we are convinced: it is impossible to develop any one theory that will be meaningfully applicable to all myths; there is no identifiable Platonic Idea or Form of a myth, embodying characteristics copied or reflected in the mythologies of the world. The many interpretations of the origin and nature of myths are pri- marily valuable for highlighting the fact that myths embrace different kinds of stories in different media, which may be classified in numerous different ways. We realize fully the necessity for the study of comparative mythology and appreciate its many attractive rewards, but we are also wary of its dangers: over- simplification, distortion, and the reduction of an intricate masterpiece to a chart of leading motifs. Greek and Roman mythology is unique, but not so unique that we can set it apart from other mythologies. In other words, it will illumi- nate other mythologies drawn from primitive and preliterate societies, just as they will help us understand the origin, development, and meaning of classical literature. We must, however, be aware of the gulf that separates the oral leg- ends from the literary mythological thinking that evolved among the Greeks and Romans and also among their literary antecedents in the Near East. It is mis- leading, of course, to posit a "primitive" mentality, as some anthropologists and sociologists do, as if it were something childlike and simple, in contrast to the "sophisticated" mentality of more advanced societies such as that of the Greeks.43 In fact, it has been clearly proved (as attested to earlier) how far the myths of primitive societies reflect the complexities of social family structures, and their tales may be profitably compared to classical literature. Yet there are important differences, and even our earliest literary sources (Homer, Hesiod, and the lyric poets) provide artistic presentations of intellectual, emotional, and spiritual val- ues and concepts in influential works of the highest order, whatever their debts. Greek and Roman mythology shares similar characteristics with the great liter- atures of the world, which have evolved mythologies of their own, whether or not they have borrowed thematic material from the ancients. Classical mythol- ogy has at least as much (if not more) in common with English and American literature (not to mention French and German, among others)44 as it does with preliterate comparisons of oral folktale and the scrutiny of archaic artifacts, how- ever enlightening these studies may be. Greek and Roman mythology and lit- erature look back to an oral and literary past, use it, modify it, and pass on the transformation to the future. Since the goal of this book is the transmission of the myths themselves as recounted in the Greek and Roman periods, literary myth is inevitably our pri- mary concern. Many of the important myths exist in multiple versions of vary- ing quality, but usually one ancient treatment has been most influential in es- tablishing the prototype or archetype for all subsequent art and thought. Whatever other versions of the Oedipus story exist,45 the dramatic treatment by Sophocles has established and imposed the mythical pattern for all time—he is the poet who forces us to see and feel the universal implications. Although his I N T E R P R E T A T I O N AND D E F I N I T I O N OF C L A S S I C A L MYTHOLOGY 25 art is self-conscious, literary, and aesthetic, nevertheless the myth is the play. We cannot provide complete texts of Greek tragedy, but insofar as possible the original text of the dominant version of a myth will be translated in this book. We believe that a faithful translation or even a paraphrase of the sources is far better than a bald and eclectic retelling in which the essential spirit and artistic subtlety of literary myth is obliterated completely for the sake of scientific analy- sis. It is commonplace to say that myths are by nature good stories, but some are more childish, confused, and repetitious than others; the really good ones are usually good because they have survived in a form molded by an artist. These are the versions to which we may most profitably apply the criteria es- tablished by Aristotle in his Poetics on the basis of his experience of Greek tragedy. Is the plot (muthos) constructed well with a proper beginning, middle, and end? Have the powerful techniques of recognition and reversal been put to the best use? What about the development of characterization—does the pro- tagonist have a tragic flaw? Most important of all, does the work effect a cathar- sis (an emotional and spiritual purging) involving the emotions of pity and fear, possibly a goal for all serious mythic art? There are two indisputable characteristics of the literary myths and legends of Greek and Roman mythology: their artistic merit and the inspiration they have afforded to others. We have, to mention only one example, from the an- cient world touching renditions of the story of Orpheus and Eurydice. The num- ber of retellings of their tale in Western civilization has been legion (in every possible medium), and it seems as though the variations will go on forever.46 Thus we conclude with a short definition that concentrates upon the gratifying tenacity of the classical tradition (in literature and art, but not oral), inextricably woven into the very fabric of our culture: A classical myth is a story that, through its classical form, has attained a kind of im- mortality because its inherent archetypal beauty, profundity, and power have inspired rewarding renewal and transformation by successive generations. The Greeks created a substantial and significant body of myth in various media. The Romans and many subsequent societies have been and continue to be captivated by it. In view of this phenomenal fact, the versions of Oedipus by Seneca, Corneille, von Hoffmansthal, and Cocteau have equal validity as per- sonal expressions of the authors' own vision of Sophocles and the myth, for their own time and their own culture. The same may be said of the depiction of a myth on a Greek vase and a painting by Picasso, or a frieze of ancient dancers and a reinterpretation by Isadora Duncan, and the music (no longer to be heard) for a fifth-century performance of Electra and the opera by Strauss, and so on. This book has been written out of the desire to provide a lucid and compre- hensive introduction to Greek mythology so that the reader may know, appre- ciate, and enjoy its miraculous afterlife (Nachleben, as the Germans call it), which we feel compelled to survey as well because it is integral to the whole contin- 26 THE MYTHS OF C R E A T I O N : THE GODS uum. The creation of classical myth has never really stopped, but from the time of Homer it has constantly been reborn and revitalized, expressed in exciting and challenging new ways through literature, art, music, dance, and film. A P P E N D I X TO C H A P T E R I SOURCES FOR CLASSICAL MYTHOLOGY Traditional tales were handed down orally until they were stabilized in a writ- ten form that spread over a wide area. The geography and topography of the Greek world often made communications by land and sea difficult, and these natural tendencies to cultural separatism were enhanced by tribal, ethnic, and linguistic variations. The Greek myths, therefore, varied greatly from place to place, as did the cults of individual gods. With the coming of writing, perhaps in the eighth century, "standard" versions of myths began to be established, but the sophistication of succeeding generations of poets led also to ingenious vari- ations. Even in the central myths of Athenian drama—whose stories were well known to and expected by their audiences—substantial variations are found, as, for example, in the legends of Electra. The problem of variations is especially acute in saga, where differing literary versions and local variations (often based on local pride in the heroic past) make it virtually impossible to identify a "stan- dard" version. This is especially the case with local heroes like Theseus at Athens. Nevertheless, there is a body of recognized principal sources for classical mythol- ogy from which major versions may be identified. Greek Sources. Pride of place goes to Homer (to use the name of the poet to whom the Iliad and the Odyssey are ascribed), whose poems stabilized the myths of the Olympian gods and exercised an unparalleled influence on all succeed- ing Greek and Roman writers. The Iliad is much more than the story of the wrath of Achilles or the record of an episode in the tenth year of the Trojan War, for it incorporates many myths of the Olympian and Mycenaean heroes, while its picture of the gods has ever since been the foundation of literary and artistic representations of the Olympian pantheon. The poems themselves, which de- veloped over centuries of oral tradition, perhaps took something like their final form in the eighth century, the Iliad being somewhat earlier than the Odyssey. The written text was probably stabilized at Athens under the tyranny of Pisis- tratus during the second half of the sixth century. Our debt to Homeric mythol- ogy and legend will be apparent in this book. Important also for the Olympian gods and the organization of Olympian theology and theogony are the works of Hesiod, the Boeotian poet of the late eighth century, perhaps as late as 700. His Theogony is our most important source for the relationship of Zeus and the Olympians to their predecessors, the Titans, and other early divinities; it also records how Zeus became supreme and or- ganized the Olympian pantheon. Hesiod's Works and Days also contains impor- I N T E R P R E T A T I O N AND D E F I N I T I O N OF C L A S S I C A L MYTHOLOGY 27 tant mythology. Thus substantial portions of these works appear in translation or paraphrase in the earlier chapters. The thirty-three Homeric Hymns are a body of poems composed in honor of Olympian deities, most of which embody at least one myth of the god or god- dess. Four (those to Demeter, Apollo, Hermes, and Aphrodite) are several hun- dred lines long and are the most significant sources for those gods' myths; oth- ers are very short indeed and appear to be preludes for longer compositions that have not survived. Because of their importance we have translated all these hymns complete.47 The Homeric Hymns were composed at widely different times, some perhaps as early as the eighth or seventh century, some (for example, the Hymn to Ares) as late as the fourth century B.C. or Hellenistic times. Another group of archaic poets whose work is an important source for mythology is the lyric poets, who flourished, especially in the islands of the Aegean Sea, during the seventh and sixth centuries. The lyric tradition was con- tinued in the complex victory Odes of the Theban poet Pindar during the first half of the fifth century and in the dithyrambs of his rival and contemporary, Bacchylides of Cos. The lyric choruses of the Athenian dramatists also enshrine important versions of myths. In the fifth century, the flourishing of the Greek city-states led to the cre- ation of great literature and art, nowhere more impressively than at Athens. Here the three great writers of tragedy, Aeschylus (who died in 456), Sophocles, and Euripides (both of whom died in 406), established the authoritative versions of many myths and sagas: a few examples are the Oresteia of Aeschylus for the saga of the House of Atreus; the Theban plays of Sophocles for the saga of the fam- ily of Oedipus; and the Bacchae of Euripides (translated in large part in Chapter 13) for the myths of Dionysus. After the fifth century, the creative presentation of myths in Greek literature gave way to more contrived versions, many of which were composed by the Alexandrian poets in the third century. Neither the Hymns of Callimachus nor the hymn to Zeus of Cleanthes has great value as a source for myth, but the epic Argonautica, of Apollonius of Rhodes (ca. 260 B.c.), is the single most important source for the saga of the Argonauts. Other Alexandrian versions of the classi- cal myths are discussed in Chapter 27. The principal Greek prose sources are the historians and the mythographers. Of the former, Herodotus is preeminent, although some myths are recorded in Thucydides (last quarter of the fifth century). Herodotus (born ca. 485) traveled widely, both within the Greek world and to Persia and Egypt, and he recorded traditional tales wherever he went. Some of his stories contain profound and universal truths of the sort we would associate with myth as well as history; his account of the meeting between Solon and Croesus, which we have translated in Chapter 6, is a perfect example of the developed "historical myth," giving us insight into Greek interpretations of god and fate that arose out of their factual and mythical storytelling. 28 THE MYTHS OF C R E A T I O N : THE GODS The mythographers were late compilers of handbooks of mythology. Of these, the work ascribed to Apollodorus with the title Bibliotheca (Library of Greek Mythology), which is still valuable, perhaps was composed around A.D. 120. The Periegesis (Description of Greece) of Pausanias (ca. A.D. 150) contains many myths in its accounts of religious sites and their works of art. The philosophers, most notably Plato (fourth century B.C.), used myth for didactic purposes, and Plato himself developed out of the tradition of religious tales' "philosophical myth" as a distinct literary form. His myth of Er, for ex- ample, is a philosophical allegory about the soul and its existence after death. It is important as evidence for beliefs about the Underworld, and its religious ori- gins go back to earlier centuries, in particular to the speculations of Pythagorean and Orphic doctrine. The Roman poet Vergil (discussed later in this chapter), in his depiction of the afterlife, combines more traditional mythology developed out of Homer with mythical speculations about rebirth and reincarnation found in philosophers like Plato. Thus by translating all three authors—Homer, Plato, and Vergil—on the Realm of Hades (Chapter 15) we have a composite and vir- tually complete summary of the major mythical and religious beliefs about the afterlife evolved by the Greeks and Romans. One late philosopher who retold archaic myths for both philosophical and satirical purposes was the Syrian author Lucian (born ca. A.D. 120), who wrote in Greek. His satires, often in dialogue form, present the Olympian gods and the old myths with a good deal of humor and critical insight. "The Judgment of Paris," found in Chapter 19, is a fine example of his art. Roman Sources. The Greek authors are the foundation of our knowledge of clas- sical myth. Nevertheless, the Roman authors were not merely derivative. Vergil (70-19 B.c.) developed the myth of the Trojan hero Aeneas in his epic, the Aeneid. In so doing, he preserved the saga of the fall of Troy, a part of the Greek epic cycle now lost to us. He also developed the legend of the Phoenician queen Dido and told a number of myths and tales associated with particular Italian locali- ties, such as the story of Hercules at Rome. Several passages from Vergil appear in Chapter 26 as well as Chapter 15. Vergil's younger contemporary Ovid (43 B.C.-A.D. 17) is the single most im- portant source for classical mythology after Homer, and his poem Metamorphoses (completed ca. A.D. 8) has probably been more influential—even than Homer— as a source for representations of the classical myths in literature and art. A kind of epic, the poem includes more than 200 legends arranged in a loose chrono- logical framework from the Creation down to Ovid's own time. Many of the most familiar stories come from Ovid, for example, the stories of Echo and Nar- cissus, Apollo and Daphne, and Pyramus and Thisbe. Ovid's poem on the Ro- man religious calendar, Fasti, is a unique source for the myths of the Roman gods, although he completed only the first six months of the religious year. We include a great deal from Ovid, in direct translation or in paraphrase. I N T E R P R E T A T I O N AND D E F I N I T I O N OF C L A S S I C A L MYTHOLOGY 29 The historian Livy (59 B.C.-A.D. 17) recorded the foundation myths of Rome in the first book of his Ab Urbe Condita. He is the source for many of the legends from Roman history that are closer to myth than history. Other Roman writers had antiquarian interests, but none wrote continuous accounts comparable with those of Livy. Later in the first century A.D., there was a literary renaissance during the reign of the emperor Nero (54-68). The tragedies of Seneca present important versions of several myths, most notably those of Phaedra and Hippolytus, Medea, and Thyestes, the last named being the only surviving full-length ver- sion of the myth. In the generation following Seneca, there was a revival of epic. The Argo- nautica of Valerius Flaccus (ca. 80) and the Thebaid of Statius (d. 96) are impor- tant versions of their respective sagas. After this time, there are few original works worth notice. One exception is a novel by the African rhetorician Apuleius (b. 123) formally titled Metamorphoses but better known to us as The Golden Ass. This is our source for the tale of Cupid and Psyche, while its final book is in- valuable for its account of the mysteries of Isis. Interest in mythology continued to be shown in a number of handbooks of uncertain date. We have mentioned the Bibliotheca of Apollodorus in Greek; in Latin, compendia were written by Hyginus (perhaps in the mid-second century) and Fulgentius (perhaps an African bishop of the sixth century). This tradition was revived during the Renaissance, especially in Italy, and we discuss some of the important handbooks of mythology in Chapter 27. The Eclectic Variety of the Sources. It is readily apparent that this literary her- itage offers infinite variety. The religious tales of Hesiod contrast with the so- phisticated stories of Ovid. The historical legend of Herodotus differs in char- acter from the legendary history of Homer. The philosophical myth of Plato and the romantic storytelling of Apuleius reveal contrasting spiritual hues. The dra- matic environments of Aeschylus and Seneca are worlds apart. Yet all these au- thors from different periods and with diverse art provide the rich, eclectic her- itage from which a survey of Graeco-Roman mythology must be drawn. Translations. All the Greek and Roman works named here (except for the late Latin handbooks of mythology) are available in inexpensive translations. The Loeb series includes texts with facing translations, the latter of widely varying quality and readability, with improved, new editions made available annually. The translations published by Penguin and by the University of Chicago Press are generally both reliable and in some cases distinguished. But there is con- siderable choice and contemporary translations (some of them excellent) of stan- dard works appear with surprising and gratifying frequency.48 Yet one needs to be wary. Dover publications offers several Greek and Roman translations that should not be purchased indiscriminately; dramas are available individually, in thrift editions at an extremely modest price, but the poetic translations by 30 THE MYTHS OF C R E A T I O N : THE GODS Sir George Young (1837-1930), for example, may be a bit more difficult for mod- ern readers than they bargained for; yet the series includes the acceptable Medea by Rex Warner. The free translations of The Oresteia and of Ovid's Metamorphoses by the distinguished poet Ted Hughes stand as exceptional reinterpretations but can hardly serve as the basis for determining what Sophocles actually said—a vital concern for the student of mythology. Robert Fagles and Stanley Lombardo are, each in his own very different way, commendable translators for today's audiences, although one should be aware of the interpretative liberties they take as they impose their will upon a text. In the case of Homer, Richmond Lattimore wins the crown for his most faithful and poetic transmission of Homer's Iliad. Caveat emptor! Oxford University Press offers in its series Oxford World's Clas- sics attractive paperback volumes of good translations of many works that might supplement our text, among them Hesiod's Theogony and Works and Days, trans- lated by M. L. West, and Sophocles' Antigone, Oedipus the King, and Electra, trans- lated by H. D. F. Kitto; other translations include Homer's Odyssey, Apollodorus' The Library of Greek Mythology, and Euripides, Bacchae, Iphigenia among the Tauri- ans, Iphigenia at Aulis, and Rhesus (translated by James Morwood). The translations presented in this book are our own, and we attempt to of- fer accurate and accessible versions for the reader who knows no Greek or Latin and wants to come as close as possible to the original sources. SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY BIBLIOGRAPHY AND TEACHING O'Connor, J. F., and Rowland, R. J. Teaching Classical Mythology, Education Papers 5. New York: American Philological Association, 1987. An extremely helpful collection of opinions about content and method with significant bibliography. Peradotto, John. Classical Mythology: An Annotated Bibliographical Survey. Urbana: Amer- ican Philological Association, 1973. A valuable and inexpensive guide in which the subject is neatly categorized and books are evaluated; one must look elsewhere for updated bibliography. INTERPRETATION, ANALYSIS, AND COMPARATIVE STUDIES Anderson, Graham. Fairytale in the Ancient World. London and New York: Routledge, 2000. Bremmer, J., ed. Interpretations of Greek Mythology. New York: Barnes & Noble, 1986; Lon- don: Routledge, 1988. A collection of essays. Burkert, Walter. Structure and History in Greek Mythology and Ritual. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979; paperback, 1982. By far the best explanation of the signifi- cance of structural theories. Buxton, R. G. A. Imaginary Greece: The Contexts of Mythology. New York: Cambridge Uni- versity Press, 1994. An introduction, with emphasis on social contexts in which Greek myth was narrated. Calasso, Roberto. The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1993. I N T E R P R E T A T I O N AND D E F I N I T I O N OF C L A S S I C A L MYTHOLOGY 31 Détienne, Marcel. The Creation of Mythology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986. Dowden, K. The Uses of Greek Mythology. London: Routledge, 1992. A judicious assess- ment of psychoanalytical approaches on pp. 32-34 and 180. Dundes, A., ed. Sacred Narrative: Readings in the Theory of Myth. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984. A collection of writing by major interpreters of myth, includ- ing Frazer, Eliade, Malinowski, Jung, and Lévi-Strauss. Eliade, Mircea. The Myth of the Eternal Return. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1954. Edmunds, Lowell, ed. Approaches to Greek Myth. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990. A collection of essays. An article by E. Caldwell, "The Psychoanalytical Interpretation of Greek Myth," seeks to reconcile Freudian and structuralist ap- proaches. Felton, D. Haunted Greece and Rome: Ghost Stories from Classical Antiquity. Austin: Uni- versity of Texas Press, 1999. A folkloric and literary analysis of ancient ghost stories and the influence and development of themes in modern times. Fontenrose, Joseph. The Ritual Theory of Myth. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971. Frazer, James G. The New Golden Bough: A New Abridgement of the Classic Work. Edited by Theodor H. Gaster. New York: Criterion Books, 1959; New York: Mentor Books, 1964. Gomme, A. W. "The Position of Women at Athens in the Fifth and Fourth Centuries B.C." Essays in Greek History and Literature. New York: Essay Index Reprint Series, Books for Libraries Press, 1967. Gordon, R. L., ed. Myth, Religion, and Society: Structuralist Essays by M. Détienne, L. Ger- net, J.-P. Vernant, and P. Vidal-Naquet. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981. Kirk, G. S. Myth: Its Meaning and Function in Ancient and Other Cultures. Berkeley: Uni- versity of California Press, 1970. Valuable for its critical views of comparative stud- ies.. The Nature of Greek Myths. Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1974. Useful for its treat- ment of different approaches to myth. Leach, E. Claude Lévi-Strauss. New York: Viking Press, 1970. A good exposition of Lévi- Strauss; in the chapter "The Structure of Myth," Leach offers structural analysis of several Greek myths. Lévi-Strauss, Claude. The Savage Mind. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1966.. The Raw and the Cooked. Translated by J. and D. Weightman. New York: Harper & Row, 1969. Volume 1 of the four volumes of Mythologiques; its "Overture" is the best introduction to Lévi-Strauss. Malinowski, B. Magic, Science, and Religion. New York: Doubleday, 1955. Includes "Myth in Primitive Psychology," 1989. Propp, Vladimir. Morphology of the Folktale. 2d ed. Translated by Lawrence Scott. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1968. The pioneer work in the structural theory of myth. Puhvel, Jaan. Comparative Mythology. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987. A study of the prehistoric origins of mythical patterns in India, Iran, Greece, Rome, and elsewhere. Sebeok, T. A., ed. Myth: A Symposium. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1971. An especially valuable collection of essays on the major approaches to the interpretation of myth. 32 THE MYTHS OF C R E A T I O N : THE GODS Segal, Robert A. Joseph Campbell: An Introduction. New York: Meridian, 1997. Strenski, Ivan. Four Theories of Myth in Twentieth-Century History: Cassirer, Eliade, Lévi- Strauss and Malinowski. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1987. An iconoclastic judgment of mythography and mythographers. For Strenski (p. 194), no such thing as myth exists—"Rather, what exists is the artifact 'myth' along with the 'industry' manufacturing the concept as it is used here and there." , ed. Malinowski and the Work of Myth. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992. Collection of central writings by Malinowski. Thompson, Stith. Motif-Index of Folk-Literature. 6 vols. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1966. The basic reference book for folktale motifs. Vernant, J.-P. Myth and Society in Ancient Greece. Translated by J. Lloyd. New York: Zone Books, 1990. Walker, Steven F. Jung and the Jungians on Myth: An Introduction. New York: Garland, 1995. West, M. L. The East Face of Helicon: West Asiatic Elements in Greek Poetry and Myth. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. Detailed identification of the links between He- siod, the Homeric epics, the lyric poets, and Aeschylus and the Near East and pos- sible avenues of transmission. M Y T H AND P S Y C H O L O G Y Bolen, Jean Shinoda. Goddesses in Everywoman: A New Psychology of Women. New York: Harper & Row, 1984. A psychologist provides archetypal descriptions of the Greek and Roman goddesses and shows how they provide meaningful patterns for the un- derstanding of the character, behavior, and personality of women today.. Gods in Everyman: A New Psychology of Men's Lives and Loves. New York: Harper & Row, 1989. A sequel for men. Eisner, Robert. The Road to Daulis: Psychoanalysis, Psychology, and Classical Mythology. New- York: Syracuse University Press, 1987. Chapters include "Oedipus and His Kind," "Electra and Other Monsters," and "Apollo and His Boys." Evans, Richard I. Dialogue with C. G. Jung. 2d ed. New York: Praeger, 1981. Basic con- cepts clearly presented through Jung's own words. Jung, C. G., et al. Man and His Symbols. New York: Dell, 1968. Only the first essay ("Ap- proaching the Unconscious") is by Jung. Lloyd-Jones, H. "Psychoanalysis and the Study of the Ancient World," in P. Horden, ed., Freud and the Humanities. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1985, pp. 152-180. (Reprinted in Greek Comedy [etc.]: The Academic Papers of Sir Hugh Lloyd-Jones. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990, pp. 281-305). Hostile criticism of psychoanalytical theory by an authoritative classical scholar. Mullahy, Patrick. Oedipus Myth and Complex: A Review of Psychoanalytic Theory. New York: Grove Press, 1955. An excellent survey. Schneiderman, Leo. The Psychology of Myth, Folklore, and Religion. Chicago: Nelson-Hall, 1981. Chapters include "The Mystical Quest," "The Cult of Fertility," and "Jason and the Totem." Walker, Steven. Jung and the Jungians (Theories of Myth). New York: Routledge, 2