Pandora's Senses: The Feminine Character of the Ancient Text (Wisconsin Studies in Classics)

Pandora’s Senses

Publication of this volume has been ma de possible in part through the generous support and enduring vision of W G. M.

Pandora’s Senses The Feminine Character of the Ancient Text

V    L K   

    

The University of Wisconsin Press  Monroe Street, rd Floor Madison, Wisconsin - www.wisc.edu/wisconsinpress/  Henrietta Street London  , England Copyright ©  The Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System All rights reserved      Printed in th e United States of America

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Lev Kenaan, Vered. Pandora’s senses : the feminine character of the ancient text / Vered Lev Kenaan. p. cm. — (Wisconsin studies in c lassics) Includes bibliographical references and index.  --- (cloth : alk. paper) . Pandora (Greek mythology) in liter ature. . Femininity in liter ature. . Classical literature—History and criticism. I. Title. II. Series. .  .´—dc 

 I   , the wonder of my life

      

Preface ix Introduction



. Pandora’s Light



P, O A



T G  P



M R  P P’ W





. Pandora and the Myth of Otherness



F M H   P  O T F  S  M  G A  I: T C  B T L  S   B  E T D I: L  O

. The Socratic Pandora



W I  I L



T N T   A L T S  P S  T S  P

 





 

  

. Pandora’s Voice and the Emergence of Ovid’s Poetic Persona 

P’ V

F  E E   F T S’ L





T E P





T L T

. Feminine Subjectivity and the Self-Contradicting Text



A  R: M, L G,   P  S  T P S P  N

 



P’ L

A G’ R   B  F S

. Pandora’s Tears



F W: T, T, B, P H’ W



L L  W: P’ T O W L  W X’ T

Epilogue Notes





Bibliography Index

















    

“Throughout hi story people ha ve kn ocked th eir h eads aga inst th e r iddle of femininity.” Thus Freud introduced the subject of his f amous lecture of . He turn ed t o th e a udience an d di stinguished betw een th e meanings of this r iddle for hi s ma le and fema le li steners: “Nor w ill you have escaped w orrying o ver thi s pr oblem—those of you wh o ar e men; to those of you who ar e women thi s w ill not apply—you ar e yourselves the problem.” The enig ma of femininity stimula tes men ’s cur iosity. Freud ha d n o doubt that each of his male listeners knew what it was like to struggle with that m ystery. Indeed, throughout hi story femininit y has been deemed a secret lega cy, inciting a masculin e desir e t o deciph er th e meaning of woman and to explain, and thus put an en d to, this insoluble r iddle. Some femini sts have cr iticized F reud’s s eemingly ster eotypical notion of woman as th e object of male desir e. Because h e v iewed w oman as a riddle, he considered male desire to be a desire for knowledge—or for the unknown. This turn ed w oman in to a sor t of terra incog nita. While sh e continued to play a tr aditionally passive role, men were the inheritors of a metaphysics of desire. In writing Pandora’s Senses, I found myself thinking through and revising Freud’s gendered response to “the problem” of femininity. Being myself “the riddle,” as Freud would have it, I nonetheless find myself sharing the responses of Freud’s ma le li steners to the mysteries at hand. Ever since I can remember, I have been kn ocking my head against the riddle of femininity. One of my most sig nificant memories from early life i s connected to the figure of Eve. Our teacher called in sick on e day, and there seemed ix

x

Preface

to be n o on e a vailable t o t ake c ontrol of our w ild and n oisy c lass. Suddenly a y oung woman teacher appeared and began t o tell us th e story of the apple from the book of Genesis. Imitating Eve’s seductive gestures, she offered a w onderful r ed apple t o her make-believe par tner. We were immediately captivated by this powerful figure. The woman in front of us— that is, Eve—instantly turned us in to silent listeners, stupefied beholders. My early fascination with Eve, and my subsequent captivation with the wonder of Pandora, constituted a fun damental textua l interaction in m y biography. As I s ee it, it i s in tha t m ysterious momen t, the momen t in which woman captures the reader’s imagination, the archetypal moment in which th e reader is struck by the beauty of feminine appearance, that a text di scovers its multif arious s enses. My ear ly r eadings of Eve and Pandora were connected to the text’s sensual dimension—that is, to its ability to evoke the actual t aste of biting into an apple, or to simulate a r eal sense of the danger of gazing at the dazzling P andora. But thi s was only one dimension of a text tha t i s w ritten un der th e feminin e spell. Like Diotima’s er otic c onstruction, the s ensual e ffect of reading thi s text i s inseparable fr om its tr anscendental for ce. In w riting Pandora’s S enses I wanted to locate the mysterious image of woman right at the center of the history of the reading experience. I am composing this preface at Ginzburg’s Café, which is located close to my home. This is where I w ill bring the writing of Pandora’s Senses to a close. But this last st age of writing is where, I hope, the book w ill begin for you. You might be interested to know that my first ruminations about writing thi s text began dur ing strolls a long the Yarkon River in Tel Aviv. These morning wa lks on the banks of what is, in reality, not much bigger than a cr eek were a tr emendous joy. At first, they provided me w ith precious momen ts for w ondering about a possible title while, at th e s ame time, searching for a name for m y expected bab y g irl. And wh en I la ter became deeply engaged in writing Pandora’s Senses, Renana’s beautiful eyes were already gazing up at me from her stroller as she accompanied me on these walks. The creation of Pandora’s Senses is thus biographically intertwined w ith being pr egnant. I a llow myself to tell y ou thi s even th ough that elementary feature of femininity—that is, giving birth—plays no part in the following analysis of feminine character in the ancient text. And yet maternity is certainly integral to the riddle of femininity. The conventional academic curriculum vitae bears w itness only t o our intellectual pr ogeny. It has n o pla ce for descr ibing th e sig nificance of our biological offspring. We are allowed only t o record the merits of our

Preface

xi

published ideas. This per petual s eparation betw een on e’s childr en an d one’s ideas i s a pa inful r eminder of Diotima’s obs ervation r egarding the severing of an intellectual sphere of “giving birth in beauty” from a physical on e. Diotima’s r eference t o th e infer ior st atus of women as simple (earthly) bir th-givers pr ovides an impor tant insig ht in to th e deep par adoxical ess ence of femininity. This par adox un derlies th e v ery exi stence of both men an d w omen. That i s wh y th e ir resolvable tension betw een being a n urturing mother and a dev oted w riter r everberates in so man y other par adoxical stru ctures tha t go vern our exper ience. The r iddle of femininity i s n ot di fferent fr om th e r iddle of eros with its s ensual an d transcendental dua lity, or the folds of meaning that the par adox of allegory conceals beneath its dec eitful surface of signification.
This book i s infused with the spirit of friendship of many people wh ose presence in m y life i s indispensably significant. I am c ertain that without them m y exper ience of writing w ould ha ve been lon ely an d anxious. I wish t o expr ess m y lo ve t o Gor don an d J ay Williams, whose gen erosity and encouragement are outstanding. My studies with Gordon Williams at Yale University have t aught me tha t the work of deciphering should not take for g ranted th e possibilit y of an immedi ate un derstanding; it must always pr oceed under a h ermeneutics of suspicion. Gordon’s teaching i s as dear an d fundamental to me as hi s friendship. David Konstan’s analysis of philia and emotions in antiquity reflects a most amicable soul. I am grateful for his extraordinary friendship, wisdom, and kindness. I wish to thank Froma Zeitlin, Alison Sharrock, Sheila-Marie Flaherty-Jones, Andrew Laird, Jonathan Bernstein, Jane Barry, and Michael Zakim, who read parts of my manuscript or th e whole work. Their own work, acute r esponses, and exper ience enr iched me an d thi s book. Special thanks t o P atricia Rosenmeyer, the coeditor of the Wisconsin Studies in Classics, who welcomed this book and made its publication possible. I acknowledge with appreciation her crucial and constant support. Thanks to Raphael Kadushin, the h umanities edit or of the University of Wisconsin P ress, and M aggie Hilliard, the a cquisitions assi stant, for th eir h elp. I w ish t o thank m y friends and c olleagues in th e F aculty of Humanities a t th e University of Haifa, and in particular Nitza Ben-Dov and Gabriel Zoran of the Department of Hebrew and Comparative Literature. I am g rateful to Yossi BenArtzi; Benjamin Isaak, whose encouragement was vital; and also Ayelet Peer, Ittai Weinryb, and my r esearch assi stants, Sharon Meyer and Yael Nezer.

xii

Preface

My mother and father, Ester and Dov Lev, did everything to make this period o f reflection an d w riting possible. The memor y of their dev oted nurturing of my baby in the first months of her life w ill be ever fresh. To my second mother, Nurith Kenaan-Kedar, I want to say that her uncompromising st ance on a ll fr onts of life, her lo ve of art, and h er outst anding wa y of giving a ccompany me ev erywhere an d for ev er. The br ight thinking and tenderness of Lior Levy illuminate my life. My sisters, Ariela Levy and Racheli Bar-Lev, and their daughters, Lior, Efrat, Yael, and Tami, create the loveliest possible manifest ation of sisterhood. I w ish to thank Benjamin Z. Kedar, whose immaculate erudition is exemplary and whose originality i s enlig htening. Thanks t o J onathan Cana an, whose amazing musical creations are a source of joy and reflection. My close friends who read, commented, and raised excellent questions have cheered me all along the way: Yaron Senderowicz, Eli Friedlander, Noa Naaman-Zauderer, and Eli Stern; my a dmired an d belo ved fr iend Lior a Bilsky, whose w ork on feminism an d nar rative has been inspir ational an d wh ose in vigorating rhythm is always enticing; my beloved friend Michal Grover Friedlander, whose ar tistic an d th eoretical cr eations mak e life ev en mor e in triguing. Thanks to Ariel Meirav from the philosophy department at the University of Haifa, as dear t o me as a br other, whose per ceptive understanding in matters personal and intellectual alike is one of the most pr ecious things I have. The fruits of my passiona te di alogue w ith H agi Baru ch K enaan ar e present in ev ery page of this book. His f ace, a home to me, makes w riting an a ct of addressing. I dedica te thi s book t o our first da ughter, Ilil Lev Kenaan, who was born tw elve years ago while w e were both w riting our theses at Yale University. Her beauty, wisdom, and fr iendship ar e an integral part of my investigation of Pandora’s Senses.

Pandora’s Senses

Introduction

The title Pandora’s Senses: The Feminine Character of the Ancient Text follows a w ell-known c onvention in a cademic w riting. This i s a stu dy tha t presents itself under a double title: a main title and a subtitle. What is the connection between Pandora and “the feminine char acter of the ancient text”? How can the particularity of a specific mythical figure bear on our understanding of the ancient text? What i s th e r elationship betw een th e enigmatic image of the first woman and the enigma lying at the heart of every text, an enigma that marks our desir e for th e text’s meaning? But first, what i s th e r elationship betw een a title an d its subtitle? I s a subtitle subjected to its title? I n what ways does a subtitle oper ate under its governing title? Is a subtitle merely an additional, subsidiary elaboration of a given meaning, or is it a supplemen t in a Der ridian sense? Although Odysseus bears th e name Outis, “Nobody,” in the cave of the Cyclops, he would not ultimately sail away before naming hims elf again. In the epic, the r epetitive act of naming has a nar ratological function. The q uestion of identity is a temporal one, and in this sense the hero’s two names never overlap. Secondary naming i s n ever a mer e supplemen t. In th e cas e of Odysseus, it signifies a tr ansition from the indistinctiveness of a name t o a name tha t embodies an in dividual distinction. Similarly, while q ualifying th e first title, a subtitle ma y a lso r adicalize it an d put it in motion. In its defer ral of a title ’s meaning , a subtitle i s the pla ce for an after thought. How does s econdary meaning a ffect an “original” meaning? Or, to put th e question in th e context of this book’s central image, how does th e feminin e (wh ose meaning fulness i s tr aditionally understood as der ivative and secondary) affect the already established or der of texts? I n Metamorphoses, the supplemen tary fun ction of 



Introduction

secondary naming i s examin ed in th e c ontext of one of Ovid’s major treatments of the feminine voice. On the face of it, Echo epitomizes a repetition compulsion, a recurrence of the s ame through time. Yet, as readers of Ovid have observed, Echo is not a simple principle of reproduction. Anne-Emmanuelle Berger poin ts t o th e descr iption of Narcissus’s utterances as soun ds ( sonos), while Ech o’s r esponse t akes th e form of words (verba): “She is ready to await the sounds to which she may give back her own word s” (illa par ata est / ex pectare s onos ad q uos sua verba r emittat, Met. .–).1 Feminine repetition transposes the said into a new order. It locates the immediacy of self-expression within a sph ere of reflexivity. The said meets its elf in the form of that which i s heard. Echo allows the speaker to identify the utterance as hi s own, but in objectify ing the act of expression, she makes it c lear that the utter ance no longer belongs t o its original owner. Hence, in the exchange between Narcissus and Echo, the repetition scene constitutes a locus of self-enlightenment. Narcissus asks, “Is anyone here? And ‘Here’! Answered she” (equis adest? et ‘adest’ responderat, Met. .). Echo transforms Narcissus’s question into a declaration. The puzzlement in his “adest?” is resolved by her repetition. Yet the repetitive gestur e tha t pr ovides a positi ve answ er t o N arcissus c oncomitantly complicates the original narcissistic utterance. Being echoed, the solipsistic h orizons of his language br eak open on to an ir resolvable dimension of otherness. The spoken i s ins eparable from what i s heard; the “I” cannot be un derstood w ithout a “you,” and th e masculin e i s depen dent on the feminine. The subtitle of this book, The Feminine Character of the Ancient Text, is meant t o ech o th e s enses of Pandora in a mann er tha t w ill r elease h er name from its c onventional misogynist horizons. In feminist readings of the classics, the term “releasing” has taken a meth odological turn. It designates a r eading that is contrasted with a str ategy of critically “resisting” the masculine presuppositions that tr aditionally govern the formation of the an cient text. The str ategy of releasing, as P atricia Sa lzman-Mitchell puts it (following Alison Sharrock), is a reading that will “essentially allow women’s voices to speak despite th e author. It i s a r eading of the fema le voice in male-authored texts as independent from the male authorial intention.”2 Using the term in a similar s ense, my aim is to open up Pandora’s Senses beyond th e contours of the tr aditional image of the first w oman, and to do so b y relocating the myth of Pandora at the intersection of two perspectives on the field of classics: gender studies and intertextuality. This

Introduction



study seeks to create a new place for Pandora in the current feminist discussion of the ancient text. By rearticulating the significance that she carries for a femini st r eading, I w ish t o fr ee h er image fr om its der ogatory connotations and from the marks of patriarchal construction, and show how Pandora can appear as a po werful source of inspiration. In thi s s ense, the pr esent stu dy i s par t of a s eries of current femini st readings. For these r eadings the path to the sig nificance of the feminine does not remain within the bounds of a negation, a critique, or a dec onstruction of the mythical constructions of gender. Yet thi s r elatively new point of view on th e ancient text c ould not have become par t of classics without a feminist tradition whose initial goal was to resist the masculine framing of the ancient text. In th e last deca des, feminist in terpreters, as w ell as w omen ar tists, poets, and novelists, have brought about a rewriting of the classical works of the Western can on. In th eir r eadings femini sts str ive t o mak e v isible and to fill in th e lacunae of the feminine voice, perspective, position, and identity, all of which ar e t ypically obscur ed in r elation t o masculin e agency in th e ancient text. Ann Bergren’s rereading of Homer, for example, emphasizes th e pr ecedence of Helen’s perspecti ve.3 This impli es th e need to release Helen from paternalistic constructions by which her figure becomes meaning ful only on th e basi s of her r ole as eith er th e cause of the war or an object of exchange between two armies. Hence, today Helen is read, as Page duBois puts it, as an “‘actant’ in her own life, the subject of a choice, exemplary in her desiring.”4 As Page duBois and Jack Winkler have independently shown, this form of autonomous subjectivity, the access to a distinctively feminine experience, was already available to writers and readers in antiquity.5 Both duBois and Winkler exemplify th e presence of feminine subjectivity in an tiquity by focusing on th e work of the famous poetess and refined reader of Homer, Sappho. In their respective readings of Sappho’s r eading of Homer, duBois an d Winkler un cover a feminin e perspective thr ough which th e a ffective dimension of Helen’s subjecti vity can sh ow its elf. Sappho’s H elen s ees things di fferently than H omer’s Helen. And in thi s r espect th e q uestion of “what a w oman wan ts” calls for an un derstanding tha t cann ot r emain w ithin th e boun ds of a man’s field of vision. In a c orollary manner, we may a lso s ee why Sappho provides an exemplar y model for wha t it means t o write and read poetr y as a woman. The impact of gender stu dies has n ot been limited t o a r ecovering of hidden feminine perspectives within classical literature, but has altogether



Introduction

changed the character of the classical canon. The canonical corpus of classical liter ature has lost th e pur ity of its masculin e iden tity. Again, the figure of Helen i s a c entral foca l point in th e femini zation of the canon. When th e sig nificance of Helen’s w eaving of the Iliad was r ecognized as “a narration of Helen’s own story,” the distinctiveness of feminine forms of representation became c entral t o th e deciph ering of the epic. 6 While mentioned by the Homeric narrator, Helen’s work of art i s never turned into an object of the authorial ar t of description. Yet once it i s obs erved that Helen’s figurative weaving provides an alternative to the authoritative perspective—an antithetical perspective—it can n o longer be ig nored. In presenting an uncompromising point of view on the war, one that haunts the hegemony of the authoritative narrator, Helen’s woven text mak es its way into the classical corpus. Lillian Doh erty’s Siren Song s: Ge nder, Audiences, and N arrators in th e Odyssey () is a good example of how the symbolic presence of Helen as a w riter of the Iliad becomes a gen eral pr inciple of interpretation. Reading the Odyssey as an “open” and “plural” text impli es, according to Doherty, that a pla ce must be ma de for th e roles of female char acters in the stories and for th eir interest in h earing stories told. In a r ecent study, Doherty focus es on th e Hesiodic Catal ogue of Women, traditionally r ead as “a text c omposed by men for men. ”7 Examining the masculine r eception of this text, she shows how the conventional understanding of it as a genealogy of heroes covers up th e pr esence of women in th e Catalogue’s title and neglects the fact that the text itself—albeit in a fr agmentary condition—specifically takes issue with women and their desires. Furthermore, pointing t o a possible or al feminin e tr adition, Doherty suggests that the genealogy is a liter ary form tha t historically reflects the concerns of women. Such th emes as amor ous r elationships, seduction, rape, and giving birth are just as central to the form of genealogies as they are t o w omen’s biog raphy. Since w omen ar e a ctive par ticipants in th e creation of genealogies, it is plausible to see them as active also in the narration of genealogies. But i s the feminine ti ed to the genr e of genealogy only thematically? The idea of a genealogy, with its c lear teleolog ical linearity, may s eem to emerge from a masculine, logocentric perception of the world. Yet once we c onsider gen ealogies as texts, the par adigm of linearity f ails t o capture th e r ichness of the gen ealogical di scourse, which ten ds t o dig ressions, allusions t o marg inal a ffairs, and un expected ex cursions. Can th e feminine be s een as a textua l pr inciple embedded in th e di scursive form

Introduction



of genealogy? And, more generally, in what ways can a di scourse be s aid to reflect a woman’s logos? This question brings forward the intrinsic connection between gender and textuality and leads us t o a cur rent development in femini st c lassical scholarship of which the present study is par t. One of the di stinctive fea tures of the cur rent femini st pr oject i s tha t it goes be yond the quest of recovering feminine voices, perspectives, and identities in th e ancient text an d s ets for th a di fferent sor t of ambition. How can th e an cient c onstruction of woman r eveal th e (oth er) na ture of the ancient text? How is the feminine operative in shaping th e space of ancient literature? What is the role of the feminine figure in determining the character of the intersection of myth and writing? And, finally, is feminism only a pr ism for un derstanding myth, or can it a lso turn t o myth as a guiding sour ce of inspiration? Whereas feminist research has ma de fruitful us e of classical myth as a means for sorting out the mechanisms of patriarchal hierarchies and cultural anxieties behind the historical exclusion of women, it has only gradually become aware of the empowering potential of myth for a femini st self-understanding an d s elf-determination. This first of all ca lls for an elaboration of an ethical and political agenda envisioned, for example, in Amy Richlin ’s po werful w riting. For Richlin, “the old st ories a wait our retelling,” yet the significance of such a retelling is ultimately political, part of the “battle for c onsciousness.”8 Or, put in a s lightly di fferent p erspective, “the future of feminist theory lies in pr oving what the connection is between the scholarly journals and the streets.”9 Bracketing th e di scussion of the politica l implica tions of a femini st approach to classics, we may point to yet another political dimension intrinsic to a feminist reading of myth. Reading is a crucial activity for raising consciousness. And in thi s respect the Socr atic position on the va lue of myth, stated in Phaedrus (c–b), provides an impor tant reminder. For Socr ates, myth can be in teresting only un der the sign of the Delphic imperative, only if it ultimately enables us t o di scover whether we r eally are “a more complex creature . . . than Typhon, or a simpler, gentler being whom h eaven has bless ed w ith a q uiet, un-Typhonic na ture.”10 As m yth provides a mir ror for s elf-exploration, we may s ee how in r eading myth we also write ourselves. As suggested, the r ewriting of myth i s not only a wa y of deconstructing masculine perceptions or s aving fractions of lost feminine experience from within the bounds of a masculine order. We not only need to release the mythical enig ma of the feminine from the g rip of our f athers in th e



Introduction

way Adriana Cavarero ( ) does t o Plato or Sar ah Kofman ( ) and Jane Gallop () do to Freud.11 Rather, we may explore how retelling the old myth enables mythical writing to mirror our concerns and thus serve as a sour ce for c onstructing a tr adition for femini st thinking. Hence, for example, the announced aim of the recent Laughing w ith Medusa () is “to explore how classical myth has been c entral to the development of feminist thought.”12 Moreover, beyond th e enig ma of mythical femininit y li es th e mor e specific femini st explor ation of the q uestion of textuality, one tha t ca lls for an ar ticulation in terms of the relationship between the figure of the woman an d th e enig ma of the poetic utter ance, between a text an d its meaning. This i s wh ere th e cur rent focus on th e m ythical figuration of poetic inspiration as w oman or god dess becomes indispensable for feminists. Why does the primal voice of poetry spring from a woman’s mouth, a Muse or a Siren? How is the divine feminine voice related to the essence of poetry? In Cultivating the Muse (), these questions are raised against the background of different literary genres.13 In this context, the secularization of the Muse in Roman love elegy and the complex matrix of feminine narrators in the diverse corpus of Ovid’s poetry provide, as Efrossini Spentzou () and Patricia Salzman-Mitchell () show, an exemplary framework for ar ticulating the centrality of a feminine poetics. 14 It i s i n this feminist context of reading classical myth that I w ould like to introduce the book’s title: Pandora’s Senses. The myth of Pandora, the first woman, presents one of the most in triguing figures of femininity. The discrepancy between Pandora’s beauty and her ev il domina tes a long tr adition of images of women fr om H elen t o Circe an d Ca lypso, Delilah an d Sa lome, and on t o th e modern femme fatale, Bizet’s Carmen, Wedekind’s L ulu, and M ann’s R osa F röhlich. It also r esonates, perhaps in mor e c omplicated wa ys, in su ch figures as Madame Bovary and Anna Karenina. But while it i s clear to us as r eaders why a Medea or a Circe is regarded as morally problematic, the evil nature associated w ith th e pr ototypical w oman r emains vagu e an d i s a lways dependent on th e ju dgmental perspecti ves of her an cient an d modern interpreters. Is it because of Pandora’s opening of the jar tha t Hesiod denounces her as ev il? Is it h er sexuality, her seductiveness, or the deceptive nature of her sweet language? I ndeed, these tr aits of Pandora illuminate her bad reputation. But since they are traditionally left unspeci fied, these traits do not allow us to fathom her evil, beyond the general understanding

Introduction



that what makes Pandora evil is the very structure of sexuality, seduction, and language. Pandora embodi es an ir resolvable tension tha t i s tr aditionally understood as constitutive of femininity—the tension between an outer appearance an d a c oncealed in teriority. Pandora i s th e epit ome of the tw ofold manner in which the feminine lends itself to the masculine gaze. While her seductive beauty displays itself as that which is seized by the eye (of men), her true nature constantly remains elusive. This elusiveness is essential to her being, yet her beauty is rendered superficial. With Pandora, appearance can n o longer be a simple expr ession of inner na ture; beauty i s s evered from th e good. In oth er w ords, Pandora’s ev il i s ti ed t o a n ew stru cture of meaning that she introduces into the world of men. Pandora hides b y showing. Her appearance is a form of concealment. This study is an attempt to decipher the enigmatic image of Pandora and to do so b y framing the riddle of her femininity in a n ew way. Our starting point is the understanding that ancient conceptions of femininity do n ot provide a su fficient context for in terpreting the unsettling portrait of the first woman. Furthermore, the key to Pandora is to be found not in the Hesiodic image its elf, but rather in its tr ansformations and variations, in the refractions of Pandora’s image w ithin the liter ary di scourse of antiquity. Pandora’s Senses traces the profound impact of Hesiod’s Pandora on the history of literature by deciphering the significance of this myth for interrogating the meeting point of gender and textuality in antiquity. Uncovering the strong connection existing in an tiquity between images of femininity and different forms of poetics, the book argues that the fascinating figure of Pandora g rounds th e var ious ancient conceptions of the liter ary text. For the important work done at the intersection of feminism and classical studies, Pandora is a c lear symptom of ancient misogynist culture.15 Feminist sch olars ten d t o think of the H esiodic P andora as a blig ht: a painful reminder of the feminine condition in an tiquity. Pandora’s Senses takes a different route. While clearly building on this feminist groundwork, it articulates a new framework for studying the prototypical character of the first woman. Pandora’s Senses moves beyond a feminist critique of masculine hegemony, and does so in the first place by challenging the reading of Pandora as an embodimen t of the misogynist vision of the feminine. The first original contribution of this study is the manner in which it liber ates the myth of Pandora from the fetters of a critical focus on its misogynism. As suggested, the figure of Pandora, as it appears in H esiodic poetr y, is often associ ated w ith tr aits tr aditionally denig rated as feminin e: a



Introduction

troubling beauty, otherness, seductiveness, lasciviousness, and deception. Without denying the traits attributed to her, this book shows how the significance of Hesiod’s Pandora belies a one-sidedly negative interpretation. Pandora bin ds t ogether th e dich otomies tha t un derlie th e most fun damental aspects of the Western liter ary canon: beauty and ev il, body and soul, depth and superficiality, truth and lie. Far more than a Hesiodic diatribe against the female sex, Pandora is first of all a sig n of complexity. Influenced b y th e w ork of Jean-Pierre Vernant an d Pi etro P ucci, I develop th e suggestion tha t P andora embodi es “a pr inciple of ambiguity”16 and, as such, is tied to the Hesiodic notion of poetry.17 In Pandora’s Senses I elaborate this insight by showing how, starting with Hesiod, Pandora’s complexity becomes a met aphor for th e space of literature. Focusing on H esiod and th en on Pla to, Xenophon, and Ov id, I sh ow tha t h er central feminine traits are transformed into key images of the mechanisms and effects of their writing. My main thesis is that Pandora embodies the very idea of the ancient literary text. She speaks in multiplicit y. She is the enigma of the tension between interiority and exteriority (e.g., sign/meaning, literal/allegorical). She is the temptation of opening a mysterious container on to th e depth of meaning, which, in its elf, remains in trinsically elusive. In thi s r espect, Hesiod has g iven us a r adical c onception of the feminine, one that identifies femininity with the mystery of meaning and, more importantly, understands the feminine as the grand power of signification: the movement of creation and manipulation of sense. While studying Pandora I have often wondered why we so seldom read of her after H esiod. Why didn’t the ancient poets a ttempt to r ewrite the Hesiodic myth? Isn’t Pandora excellent material for an Ov idian spectacle, for example? The apparent occlusion of this figure after Hesiod raises the question of how su ch a po werful m yth can di sappear fr om an tiquity’s imagery. One could look for th e traces of Pandora by means of a historiography of the representations of women, as Eva Cantarella (), Marina Warner ( ), Mary R. Lefkowitz (), and Ellen D. Reeder do ().18 In Pandora’s S enses, however, I look for P andora in pla ces tha t ha ve n o explicit connection to the feminine. I show that her legacy was never forgotten and that her figure was very much alive at the very heart of canonical w riting. Pandora w ill be pr esented h ere as th e ma ternal ar chetype of a genealogy of writings that traditionally do not seem to belong to the same textual f amily. Her figure will thus be sh own to be pr esent in su ch central genr es as th e c osmological an d dida ctic epic, the philosophica l dialogue, and the Roman love elegy.

Introduction



Through a s eries of excursions in G reek an d R oman liter ature, this investigation w ill r eveal the central role played by the image of Pandora in shaping th e idea of a text, its meaning , and its r eadership. Moreover, this stu dy br ings t o lig ht th e mann er in which m ythological figures of femininity—the feminine voice, body, craft, biography—ground the text’s mechanism an d e ffects. Pandora’s S enses seeks t o un cover a c onstitutive dimension of the ancient liter ary text tha t r emains hidden pr ecisely because it emerges from a feminine sensibility. But how is this dimension to be approached? Where in the text is it located? What kind of reading does the feminine call for? Uncovering Pandora as a textual principle calls for an intertextual methodology. As the hi story of her image sh ows, the enig ma of her char acter i s never r esolved b y on e de finitive w ork of interpretation. This i s a t least partly beca use h er s ecret i s n ot foun d in the image its elf. It i s foun d, rather, in the relationships, links, networks, refractions, echoes, and effects through which th e image of Pandora continues to show itself in the tr adition—in th e mann er in which thi s image k eeps on cr eating ev er-new enigmas. To be mor e speci fic: as a textua l pr inciple, Pandora cann ot be seen if we search for her by trying to arrive at the essential kernel—whatever tha t mig ht be—of any g iven text. And, again, this i s because sh e i s not pr esent in th e unit y of specific texts—in an y speci fic text as a g iven unity. Instead, her pr esence should be look ed for in th e r esonance of an intertextuality or in th e mirror play of what Sharrock terms an in tratextuality: “Reading in tratextually means looking a t th e text fr om di fferent directions (backwards as well as forwards), chopping it up in various ways, building it up again, contracting and expanding its boundaries both within the opus and outside it.” This kind of reading is based on th e hypothesis that “a text’s meaning g rows not only out of the readings of its parts and its whole, but also out of readings of the relationships between the parts, and the reading of those parts as par ts, and parts as r elationships (interactive or r ebarbative): all thi s both forma lly (e.g ., episodes, digression, frame, narrative line, etc.) and substantively (e.g., in voice, theme, allusion, topos, etc.)—and teleologically.”19 In r eading in tertextually, we suspen d th e appar ent s elf-sufficiency of texts as substantive unities. Instead, we respond to texts primarily through the prism of the relational matrixes underlying both th e internal organization and the differential individuation of these texts. Following Bakhtin and Kristeva, an intertextual reading i s one that circumvents the kind of



Introduction

hermeneutical space in which th e act of reading is governed by the claim of an autonomous s elf-contained text. Intertextuality does n ot deny that texts t ake th e form of unities, but it insi sts tha t th e appar ent unit y of a text is already part of a differential matrix in which texts bec ome meaningful thr ough th e pla ce th ey oc cupy in th e c omplex n et of differential relations between other texts, scenes, images, and figures. As such, an intertextual reading often challenges traditional notions of authorial boundaries fixed w ithin an in dividual liter ary corpus as w ell as w ithin conventional generic categories. In the context of the present study, intertextuality opens up the possibility of exploring certain tr ajectories leading from Greek to Latin an d th en ba ck fr om La tin t o G reek liter ature b y br eaking up th e traditional c onstruction tha t for ces th ese tw o fields of texts in to a pr egiven hierarchical relationship based on the opposition between originality and imit ation. But it i s first of all th e char acter of the feminin e tha t calls for an in tertextual appr oach. Pandora’s in fluence cann ot be r ecognized in a doma in of fully objectified texts beca use it belongs t o the very shaping of the liter ary space within which texts t ake on th eir form. Pandora’s traces should be look ed for in th e threads of the textile of which a text is made. One str iking example of her in tertextual char acter i s foun d in h er emblem—in the box, Pandora’s box, that remains so v ivid in our liter ary and pict orial imag inations. As w e c onsider th e sig nificance of this personal object, as depicted, for example, in Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s famous paintings, it i s impor tant that we r ecall that the box was n ot par t of the “original” Hesiodic representation of Pandora. What the first woman opens in Hesiod’s version of the myth is a jar, a pithos. The substitution of box for jar occurred ages later, in the sixteenth century, as Dora and Erwin Panofsky show in th eir important Pandora’s Box (). In f act, it was Er asmus of Rotterdam who conflated the two containers in hi s Adages (.). According to Erasmus, the box was g iven as a gift to Pandora, herself a gift, by Zeus. As a beautiful and fallacious object, the box clearly provides a v isual analogy to the feminine figure. Erasmus construed it as a feminin e object wh ose beauty is deceptive, but why was it specifically a box that he associated with Pandora? Was “Pandora’s box” merely th e r esult of a mi stake, a textua l in tervention? What i s th e r easoning behind Erasmus’s forgetfulness of Hesiod’s pithos, and how can the repression of the jar be c onnected with the surfacing of the pyxis? Erwin and Dor a P anofsky expla in th e s lip as a c onfusion betw een th e G reek Pandora an d Apuleius’s P syche. Erasmus’s mi stake n ot only c overs up

Introduction



Hesiod’s jar; it also uncovers an interesting family resemblance that binds together tw o di fferent figures, a ca thexis. But i s thi s ca thexis c ompletely coincidental? Pandora and Psyche belong t o very different hi storical and cultural ba ckgrounds, yet th ey ha ve mu ch in c ommon, as i s r evealed, albeit unintentionally, by Erasmus. In attributing Psyche’s box to Pandora, Erasmus i s, in f act, tying th e for bidden opening of the c oncealed t o th e promise of eternal beauty. His mistake illuminates an in teresting yet unnoticed textua l r elationship: the deeper truth of the c onfusion betw een Pandora and Psyche is the inner connection, alive in both Greek and Latin literature, between woman and the idea of a text. My first two chapters are dedicated to the Hesiodic Pandora. These chapters ana lyze th e tw o v ersions of the m yth as th ey appear in Theogony and Works and Da ys, aiming to uncover the manner in which P andora’s feminine tr aits s erve H esiod in stru cturing th e gen eric char acter of his poetics. Chapter  explores the v isual sig nificance of the feminine for th e cosmological epic. Pandora is not simply an object in th e world, a beautiful thing in a g iven v isual field. She i s ma de t o be s een, and h er iden tity i s thus defined by her beholders. At the same time, she is the very force that structures th e field of the v isual. Her bea uty stimula tes th e first v isual experience that men ha ve. In f act, she initiates men’s capacity as beh olders. The appear ance of the first w oman th us marks a turning poin t in human consciousness. The shocking effect of her sig ht r eleases mankind from its unr eflecting existence in the world, opening up the possibility of a standing vis-à-vis the world and allowing humanity to differentiate itself from the universe. As I argu e, Pandora’s ultimate g ift to humanity i s the gift of wonder. And in Theogony she serves as th e modus operandi for the cosmological meditation. The textua l significance of Pandora li es in th e way she grounds a n ew kind of gaze, one that is equally necessary for r eading a cosmogony. Here the meaning of her beauty is fundamental, since it i s precisely her beauty that enlivens w ith r adiance the murky an d dark beg inning of the world. Her central role is evident. As a miniature manifestation of the world, she helps to establish its aesthetic dimension. Pandora is the medium through which men can per ceive the conglomeration of divine, natural, and conceptual elemen ts as c onstituting th e par ts of one wh ole: the uni verse. Concomitantly, the focalizing force of her image is also significant for perceiving Theogony as a wh ole. Pandora’s image pr ovides a v isualized an d



Introduction

encoded picture of Theogony, one that contains the possibility of reading it as a textua l unity in th e Aristotelian sense of the term. Pandora’s effect is immortalized as thauma idesthai, “a wonder to see.” Yet th e w onderful v isual exper ience pr ovoked b y h er appear ance i s n ot only pleasing; it is also shocking. Her mysterious—some would say monstrous—exterior stimulates the imagination of her beholders. Men fear her, inflamed as th ey ar e by her s eductive look. I argue that thi s r esponse to Pandora’s threatening presence is fundamental to the reading of the didactic epic, Works and Da ys. The anxiety provoked by Pandora’s appear ance is ti ed to her st atus as an a lien in a h omogeneous community of males. Chapter  concentrates on H esiod’s understanding of the feminin e as a form of otherness. In being Oth er in a w orld of men, Pandora is commonly perceived as disruptive of a harmony typical of the original human condition. In contrast to such views, I argue that with the introduction of alterity, Pandora not only ruptur es the revered homogeneity of mankind but, in fact, creates a h eterogeneity that is necessary for th e possibility of meaning. In developing this claim I examine several myths of the Golden Age—myths that, I contend, withstand the ideal of identity and sameness typically associ ated w ith th em. Once w e un derstand tha t su ch an idea l has no place in th ese or igin myths, we can t ake a n ew look a t Pandora’s otherness. In a corollary manner, we need to understand how Hesiod’s use of the myth of the ar chetypal w oman enables him t o loca te a n otion of alterity at the heart of his ethical and poetic agen da. And so, for Hesiod, the image of the feminin e s erves as a r egulating sy mbolic pr inciple: the principle of dialogue. That is to say, otherness is the intrinsic condition of a dialogic relationship. It informs th e communication between a speak er and li stener, teacher an d di sciple, and, of course, poet (namely, Hesiod) and audience. In Works and Days, which seeks to regulate the ethical life by means of the marriage ideal, the dangers associ ated with Pandora are the motivating force of the didactic text. In the liter ary context of Hesiod’s didactic epic and Xenophon’s Oeconomicus, men are advised to meet the feminine threat through marriage. Analogously, Pandora’s threat constructs reading as a pr ocess of familiarization b y which th e r eader bec omes a cquainted with th e ethica l deman ds of the text an d subject hims elf to th e text ’s authority. Pandora th us suppli es th e c ontractual r elationship betw een a text’s author and its r eader. The latter, who is the text’s mysterious object of desire, is r emolded an d hi s an onymity i s dem ystified as h e g radually becomes, in the process of reading, the text’s faithful lover.

Introduction



Chapter  interweaves the dimensions of wonder and otherness developed in the previous chapters to show how these feminine traits are transposed into the archetypal image of the philosopher: Socrates. But what is the r elationship of Pandora, the first woman, to Socr ates, the exemplar y philosopher? Thi s chapter r eveals th e str iking c onnection betw een th ese two figures. In response to Hesiod, Plato construes the figure of Socrates as a mir ror image of Pandora: Pandora an d Socr ates shar e a dec eptive appearance, and th eir s eduction i s bas ed on a di screpancy betw een th e visible and the invisible. But while P andora is known as th e kalon kakon, the on e wh ose exter ior i s beautiful and in terior i s ev il, Socrates i s characterized by an ugly exteriority and a beautiful and good inwardness. That is, Pandora exempli fies th e dec eptiveness of appearance while Socr ates represents th e hid denness of truth. I argu e tha t th ese tw o s eductive figures embody a tension tha t is intrinsic to what a text—an y text—is. And this i s because the interiority of both Socr ates and Pandora i s construed as a r egulative idea an d not as an a ttainable, given, content. Socrates and Pandora ar e images tha t pr ivilege th e v ery q uest for meaning o ver an d against any actual grasp of a determinate content. Chapters  and  examine how the philosophica l figure of the teacher of love r eemerges in th e c ontext of Roman lo ve eleg y, and in par ticular in Ovid’s amatory writing. At the center of the move from Plato to Ovid, from a met aphysical t o a pr agmatic di scourse on lo ve, lies, again, the question of the didactic r ole of the liter ary text. Under th e sig n of Pandora, both teachers, the philosopher and the poet, create texts tha t operate in a mann er to which a n otion of seduction is central. Chapter  offers a new reading of Ovid’s singularity among the Roman love eleg ists b y focusing on h ow h e de fines th e in trinsic r elationship between femininit y, love, and textua lity. For Ov id, love i s n ot in tegral to the natural constitution of a human being. Love i s neither innate nor inborn but is, rather, a social and cultural construction created and developed in and through language and its extension into the semiotics of gesture and performative action. Ovid understands the phenomenon of love as a field of appearances tha t i s ess entially textua l. But thi s understanding is also what traditionally subjects hi s teaching to moralistic criticism, echoing the common response to Pandora. How does Ovid’s poetry come to terms w ith the accusations—also commonly directed against feminine language—of insincerity and superficiality, and even illegitimacy? I argu e that th e n egotiation of these a ccusations i s c entral t o th e Ov idian text. Ovid i s an a uthor wh o speci fically elabor ates th e feminin e tr aits of his



Introduction

writing. Moreover, he internalizes these char acteristics, making them the emblem of his poetry. Ovid rejects the conventional effeminate persona of the Roman love elegist, adopting, instead, as I argu e, a feminine authorial stance influenced by the heritage of Pandora. This i s done by embr acing the m ythical figure of Sappho as hi s Musa pr oterva. In R oman cultur e, Sappho stands for a subversive mixture of immoderate passion and excessive language. To write poetry under the influence of Sappho, as Ovid does, is to commandeer a fr eedom of speech that is, by definition, licentious. Chapter  focuses on Ovid’s Ars Amatoria and Remedia Amoris and aims to decipher the enigma of their palinodic structure. While Ars teaches its readers h ow t o c onstruct a lo ve life, Remedia calls for a r enunciation of love that is based on an understanding of love as a malaise. The juxtaposition of Ars and Remedia creates a literary puzzle that, again, brings Ovid’s reliability an d sin cerity in to q uestion. How can Ov id’s dida ctic position be taken seriously if his text is self-contradictory? I argue that in order to understand the Ovidian treatment of love, we need to embrace the structure of contradiction as in tegral to his text. More specifically, we need to understand the palinodic structure as a textua l str ategy that allows Ovid to elabor ate a n ew conception of subjectivity by adopting a stru cture of contradiction, one c ouched in forms of narrativity tha t ar e feminin e a t heart and are found in myths of virginity. Pandora’s paradoxical presence as a s eductive ma iden thus o ffers th e key for deciph ering th e text ’s s elfcontradicting effect. Chapter  ties together the central themes developed in previous chapters by concentrating on th e mythical image of the weaving woman, the origin of which i s Pandora. The image of the w eaver connects text, textile, and femininity in a mann er that sheds light on wha t I ca ll the feminine sense. What does feminine weaving signify? Myths of female weavers, such as th e Homeric Helen or th e Ov idian Philomela, depict weaving as intrinsic to the personal and autobiographical dimensions of women’s art. The woven textile i s a feminin e text. It i s not a di sinterested r epresentation but i s soaked w ith the tears of its maker and intended for th e tears of its beholder. Traditionally marginalized by ancient literary and hermeneutic conventions, the text’s feminine sense nevertheless remained at the heart of the an cient textua l exper ience. I sh ow tha t th e v ery a ttempt t o exclude th e feminin e fr om th e inn er w eb of a text ’s “essential” meaning betrays the dependence of the ancient text on th e s ense of the feminine. It is only by recognizing the autonomy of the feminine sense in the ancient text that we can appr eciate its v itality and didactic-therapeutic force.

chapter 

Pandora’s Light

P, O A In the beginning there were only men. Then came one woman. That is how Hesiod, epic poet of the eighth century BCE, conceived of the creation of humanity. In introducing Pandora, the first woman, Hesiod g rounds hi s history of humanity in th e di stinction betw een th e on e an d th e man y. Before Pandora the world i s inhabited b y a gen eric crowd of males who remain nameless an d wh olly unspeci fied. Despite th e us e of the term “male,” we need to notice that until Pandora’s arrival humanity was essentially c omposed of asexual an d in distinguishable beings. As th e ar chetype of femininity, she introduces the very dimension of difference into a homogeneous regime of sameness. This, in turn, means that Pandora was the first real individual. Her legacy is manifest in h umanity’s transformation from a uniform mass into a community of gendered individuals. The present chapter explores this aspect of Pandora’s heritage, which was principally developed by Hesiod in Theogony. More specifically, I wish to show that while Pandora may have been a puni shment—a device conceived by Zeus in r evenge for P rometheus’s theft of fire—she nonetheless plays an essential r ole in th e dev elopment of the c osmos. Perceived as a na tural descendant of the erotic heritage that began with the primordial Eros and was follo wed b y Aphrodite, Pandora embodi es th e ultima te st age in th e development of the sensual world, the world of phenomena. Hesiod has left us w ith two liter ary versions of the myth of Pandora. The first appears in the middle of his cosmological poem, Theogony (– ), while th e s econd v ersion opens hi s dida ctic epic, Works and Da ys (–). These are singular tr eatments of Pandora that are unique in the 



Pandora’s Light

history of ancient liter ature.1 As th e s eminal stu dy b y Dor a an d Er win Panofsky has sh own, Hesiod’s two versions of Pandora have no r ivals in the ancient texts w e poss ess.2 This abs ence of other Pandoras i s su rprising, particularly in lig ht of the profound in fluence the myth has ha d on the misogynist tradition, on the history of images, and, as I argu e in thi s book, on the history of literature and philosophy in gen eral. In thi s r espect, Pandora i s notably di stinct from other mythical feminine figures such as Helen and Penelope, who, like Pandora, relate back to a (lost) or al tr adition, but wh o ha ve bec ome kn own t o us thr ough an abundance of written versions. Their stories were frequently reshaped and retold, not only b y Homer but a lso b y numerous oth er ancient authors. Pandora is also to be di stinguished from her mythical feminine counterparts in terms of narrative dimension. While the narratives of Helen and Penelope i ssue fr om th e c omplexities of their life exper iences, the m yth of Pandora o ffers only an a ccount of her cr eation an d her deliv ery to Epimetheus. But th e cru deness of her biog raphy does n ot s eem t o be a result of Hesiod’s n eglect of other epi sodes in h er life. Such epi sodes simply do n ot exist.3 Pandora’s r ole i s th e in vocation of new times. Her ess ence li es in th e way she signals the arrival of a new form of present. Pandora’s narrative constitutes a strategy for creating this new form of temporality. Her figure is a temporal marker that distinguishes an ideal past (human society without w omen) fr om a less benig n pr esent (of sexuality an d pr ocreation). Pandora is, thus, a figure that symbolizes origin rather than one that imitates a speci fic woman’s life st ory. This symbolic role reflects Hesiod’s idiosyncratic interpretation of the myth of the first woman, and it mig ht explain why the figure of Pandora was n eglected b y hi s an cient su ccessors. But sh e i s n ot just a m ythical figure for H esiod. She i s a lso an in dex tha t a llows him t o c onstrue hi s two poems under the sign of two generic categories. Pandora serves as the unifying principle of Theogony and Work and Da ys, one that, at the same time, assigns these works their generic splendor. In Theogony she appears as the image of the cosmos, integrating many of the cosmological themes and thus providing the means for deciphering them. In Works and Days her figure is again a key to understanding the overarching structure and meaning of the didactic epic. This occurs as H esiod uses the image of the first woman as a basi s for ar ticulating hi s notion of a di alogic relationship— one that i s ess ential to the didactic genr e. Consequently, we may understand Pandora’s central role in Hesiod’s poetics as the very thing that may

Pandora’s Light



have discouraged the ancient poets fr om revising or r ewriting her story.4 Pandora was far too Hesiodic and far less a mythical product of oral poetry. Rewriting her would have been t oo blatant a cha llenge, unlikely to result in anything better than a duplica tion of Hesiod. This was something th e ancient poets r efused t o do , just as th ey r efused t o s ee in th e Pla tonic Diotima or Er st andard mythical figures waiting to be r evived in liter ary reproductions. Hesiod’s P andora r emains in an tiquity pur ely H esiodic, just as Diotima an d Er r emain purely Platonic.5 In beginning my analysis, it is first important to situate my reading in relation t o four of the major (modern an d postmodern) in terpretations of Hesiod’s Pandora. In so doing , I hope to explain why a n ew interpretation of Pandora i s n eeded, and t o a lso a cknowledge th e in fluence o f earlier studies on m y work. A r adical change in th e r eception of Hesiod occurred in th e early s, born of two impor tant f actors: the influence of structuralist th ought on th e stu dy of Greek m yth an d th e impa ct of feminist thought on c lassical studies. Jean-Pierre Vernant was th e first to argue tha t P andora was a k ey figure in th e c onstruction of the m yth’s logic.6 In his seminal “The Myth of Prometheus in Hesiod,” Vernant reads her story as an inherent part of a sequence of episodes: the sacrifice of the ox, the hidden celestial fire, and the hidden grain.7 He shows that Pandora does n ot simply happen t o be th e final link in th e nar rative cha in; she actually manifests intrinsic structural relationships with the other episodes in the myth of Prometheus. After Vernant, the myth of Pandora could no longer be read in isolation (in and of itself) as an autonomous myth. In exploring the differences between the two Hesiodic versions, Vernant offered another inn ovation: his focus on th e ana logies betw een th em.8 Insisting on reading both Pandoras as complementary episodes, he emphasized the semantic levels common to both texts. This str ategy reveals the complex mythological network created by Hesiod’s two poems an d, more specifically, the interrelated functions of the two Pandoras in construing a mythical picture of the human condition. Vernant’s inn ovative appr oach t o P andora i s n ot dir ectly inspir ed b y feminist thinking, but his interpretation is clearly not foreign to the concerns that were characteristic of contemporaneous feminist approaches to the feminin e.9 Vernant was th e first t o explica te P andora’s dich otomous nature, emphasizing th e cru cial s et of tensions sh e embodi es: between body and soul, outside and inside, lies and truth, human and bestial, as well as divine and human. Pandora for Vernant is “the symbol of the ambiguity of human existence.”10 In this respect, his article paves the way for later



Pandora’s Light

interpretations that expand our understanding of both the role of Pandora in Hesiodic poetics and her contribution to our understanding of the Greek notion of gender differences. At the same time, however, Vernant’s structuralist method cannot make room for th e uniq ue poetic sig nificance of each of Hesiod’s P andoras, and he ultimately ignores the specificity of their contributions to the two poems. Vernant’s primary concern with the “essence” of the mythical seems to cover up th e important differences between Hesiod’s two liter ary representations of Pandora. In oth er w ords, for Vernant sh e r emains a linguistic or s emiotic elemen t tha t has a n ecessary fun ction in uph olding the coherence of the complex mythological matrix to which Hesiod gives voice. In this sense, her absence from the article’s title is telling, as it reproduces the traditional relegation of the feminine to the realm of the insignificant, the nonessential. Dealing with Pandora under the title “The Myth of Prometheus in Hesiod” testifies clearly that in Vernant’s eyes the essential core of Hesiod’s myth is its ma le protagonist. As Vernant showed, the two versions of Pandora in Theogony and Works and Da ys are c losely r elated an d t ogether c onstitute th e sig nificance of “woman” as the difference between humans and gods, and as the difference between humans and beasts. Yet I think tha t the figure of Pandora carries a richer meaning. The first step tha t needs to be t aken in r eclaiming her full sig nificance i s to di sentangle the two Pandoras from the compelling perception of them as ess entially similar manifest ations of the m ythical conception of the human condition. By allowing ourselves to distinguish between the two versions, we make room for seeing that this figure of the feminine oper ates di fferently w ithin th e tw o kin ds of texts in which it appears: the cosmological epic an d the didactic epic. The s econd cru cial momen t in th e r eception of Pandora was Pi etro Pucci’s Hesiod and the Language of Poetry (). While following Vernant in hi s rendering of Pandora as a tr ope of ambiguity, Pucci elabor ates on this understanding by making th e analogy between Pandora and the language of poetry. He focus es on th e ambigu ous s elf-presentation of the Muses in the beginning of the Theogony: their ability to express both truth and lies. As poetry develops, the polarity between origin (Muses) and reproduction (poet) i s established. Pucci argues that the first woman operates in a similar wa y: subverting the uni fied and s elf-transparent or igins of mankind. With Der rida’s n otion of “différance” in th e ba ckground,11 Pucci analyzes the figure of Pandora in terms of a principle of difference and negativity that generates an in tricate matrix of oppositions:

Pandora’s Light



We have s een tha t Pandora c onstitutes th e tr ansition fr om th e golden age to our o wn c orrupt time; thus, it i s un derstandable tha t th e text sh ould heighten h er t otal n egativity. Like th e cr ooked, deflecting, false, imitative logos, she stands at the opposite pole of what is straight, identical, and good. But here again, this separation and opposition suits only th e edifying force and meaning of the text. As we have s een, Pandora functions as a “figure” and an impersona tion of that imit ative pr ocess which lea ds t o s ameness through di ffering, protracting, and defer ring mo vement. She i s, therefore, that which a llows the est ablishment of oppositions, and in f act appears t o us as both or igin and the non-origin.12

Pandora, according t o P ucci, marks a turning poin t in th e hi story of humanity, one tha t “initiates th e bea utifying, imitative, rhetorical pr ocess.”13 She marks, in other words, the emergence of rhetoric. Pucci interprets Pandora as the figure of rhetoric, underscoring her centrality to the history of writing. A thir d inn ovative perspecti ve on P andora tha t has been cru cial for the pr esent w ork i s foun d in F roma Zeitlin’s  “Travesties of Gender and Genr e in Aristophanes’ Thesmophoriazousae.” According t o Zeitlin, Pandora sh ould be pr imarily un derstood as a par adigmatic figure of femininity. Focusing on th e r elationship betw een th eatrical imit ation and femininity, Zeitlin examines a f amily of great feminine figures of the ancient w orld (including Ech o and H elen), arguing tha t Pandora st ands first in the lineage of those heroines central to Greek theatricality and the Greeks’ notion of imitation: The eidolon [i.e., image] as a seductive objet d’art cannot be separated from the generic image of the feminine. For the “real” woman could be de fined as a “real” eidolon, created as su ch fr om th e beg inning in th e person of the first woman, Pandora. . . . Pandora is from the outset, in Hesiod’s text of the Theogony, a fictive object, a c opy, not an or iginal. Fashioned a t th e orders of Zeus as puni shment for P rometheus’s deceptive theft of celestial fire for men, the fema le i s the first imit ation and the living counterpart to that original deception.14

Pandora, according to Zeitlin, is an emblem of femininity that underlies the Greek conception of imitation and mimesis. She develops this insight further in “The Case of Hesiod’s Pandora,”15 analyzing two elements that are c onstitutive of Greek mi sogyny: first, the unbr idgeable dich otomy



Pandora’s Light

between feminine sexuality and motherhood, and, second, the prioritization of fatherhood o ver moth erhood.16 In thi s c ontext Zeitlin pr ovides a r eading of Hesiod’s Theogony in which sh e suggests tha t th e f act tha t Pandora i s depr ived of procreative po wers i s sy mptomatic of masculine anxiety r egarding thi s na tural a dvantage of women.17 Yet in depr iving the archetypal image of femininity of the dimension of motherhood, the Hesiodic text un dermines, according to Zeitlin, the very essence of femininity. This gesture of emptying the feminine of its essence is underscored by the fact that the Pandora of Theogony is left as a mer e substitute, “only a composite imitation” of a goddess.18 Zeitlin’s interpretation finds confirmation in Nicole Loraux’s Les enfants d’Athena (), which presents the Theogonic Pandora as an antithesis to the myth of the creation of man. Moreover, according to Loraux, Hesiod should be understood as making us e of the myth of Pandora precisely in order to endorse the autochthonous origin of mankind: In the Theogony, the first woman i s her adornments—she has n o body. At least, everything happens as if the text were reluctant to give her one. What, then, is woman? “The likeness of a chaste virgin” (partheno aidoie ikelon). Is she a “false w oman”? No; rather, she i s a w oman because sh e r esembles a woman—or, to be mor e pr ecise, because sh e r esembles th e pr oblematic parthenos. The w oman i s a c opy of herself. An ikelon: the w oman i s an image.19

These ar e a ll compelling r eadings of the Hesiodic image tha t force us t o ask the question Loraux raises: “What, then, is woman?” There is no doubt but that Hesiod’s text invites nonessentialist readings. Zeitlin and Loraux both show that Pandora stands for an image, a mimesis that frustrates its beholders for la ck of an or iginal, an image tha t can be lik ened to a peel without its fruit. 20 Such interpretations show that the Hesiodic construction of the feminine derives from strong antifeminine concerns that have (justifiably) appa lled man y of Hesiod’s r eaders. Take, for example, Page duBois’s response to Hesiod: But n o ma tter h ow I think about th e cultur al object den oted b y th e c lassical tradition as “Hesiod,” I find myself uncomfortable. And it is, of course, because I am a w oman, and H esiod s eems, on th e f ace of it, to despi se my kind.21

Pandora’s Light



Is there a wa y to redeem the Hesiodic text fr om its o wn misogynist constraints? I w ould suggest tha t the reading of Pandora as a c opy, an image without an original, legitimate and important as it is, obfuscates other textual interests that are conjured up b y Theogony’s version of Pandora. This chapter th erefore seeks to uncover the constructive dimension of the image of the Hesiodic first woman. Pandora, as I will show, is not just a sy mbolic image. She i s r ather a v ital an d in fluential pr esence wh ose effect is transformational: through her, the world gains its sig nificance as an object of reflection, and again, it is through her that the human is born as a homo spectator. Consequently, in this chapter I argue that Pandora has a crucial role in shaping the poetics of Hesiod’s cosmological poem. As we shall see, she helps to establish the aesthetic dimension of the world, and as such she may be un derstood as th e cosmological poem’s main protagonist. The chapter presents the Pandora of Theogony as a source of enlightenment, as th e par adigmatic ph enomenon b y v irtue of which th e w orld of appearances i s born. In so doing , I w ish to think of Pandora’s role in Theogony as analogous to the role of Diotima in the Symposium. What has Diotima t o do w ith Pandora? On th e f ace of things, these tw o feminine figures seem to be opposites. However, their roles in their respective texts contain in teresting similar ities. The pr iestess fr om M antinea i s a g reat authority on th e mysteries of love. As such, she fills the role of an erotic apostle r epresenting the genealogy and va lues of Eros. Pandora’s role c an also be conceived of as apostolic in nature. Since, as I argue, she descends from a speci fic f amily lin e, one per taining t o th e gen ealogy of Eros, her presence embodi es th e c oncept of primordial Er os. Theogony’s P andora marks a final stage in the evolution of the erotic principle that first emerged with the primordial Eros and continued with the birth of Aphrodite. Pandora’s affiliation with the cosmic and divine family of Eros and Aphrodite is a manifest ation of Eros in th e h uman r ealm. This i s wh ere Pandora’s illuminating force is similar to the didactic role of Diotima. Nevertheless, Pandora and Diotima ha ve distinct ways of illustrating the erotic. Diotima’s is an outsider’s voice—sacred and feminine—that penetrates the intellectual male sphere and, through the mediation of Socrates, constructs a th eory of love that g rounds Western thought. If Diotima i s the figure wh o dir ects th e human gaze a way from ph enomena t o pur e concepts, to the Platonic Idea, I would argue that Pandora employs a similar philosophical force, although, teleologically, an opposite on e. In contrast to Diotima, Pandora turns the human gaze downward, toward herself, and



Pandora’s Light

toward the phenomenon. The Pandora who appears in Theogony inaugurates the visibility of the sensible world, while she is herself the first phenomenon and the last (h uman) descendant of the divine erotic line. Taking into account her deep a ffiliation w ith the v isual world—being herself the human tr ansformation of the erotic pr inciple and the pr incipal element of the sensible world—Pandora is no deviation from an original. She i s no imit ation lacking an or igin. As I w ill sh ow, the emphasi s on Pandora’s visibility does not make her into a mere externality. Nor does the f act that the Theogonic Pandora lacks a body mark h er as a simulacrum. Pandora’s visibility is directly linked to the essence of phenomena, to tha t which mak es th e s ensible w orld wha t it i s—namely, the v isible world. At this point we must s ay more about th e correlation between the feminine and the sensible. T G  P tau=ta/ moi e)/spete Mou=sai 0Olu/mpia dw/mat' e)/xousai e)c a)rxh=j, kai\ ei)/paq' o(/ti prw=ton ge/net' au)tw=n. 2Htoi me\n prw/tista Xa/oj ge/net': au)ta\r e)/peita Gai=' eu)ru/sternoj, pa/ntwn e(/doj a)sfale\j ai)ei\ a)qana/twn oi(\ e)/xousi ka/rh nifo/entoj 0Olu/mpou, Ta/rtara/ t' h)ero/enta muxw=| xqono\j eu)ruodei/hj, h)d' )/Eroj, o(\j ka/llistoj e)n a)qana/toisi qeoi=si, lusimelh/j, pa/ntwn te qew=n pa/ntwn t' a)nqrw/pwn da/mnatai e)n sth/qessi no/on kai\ e)pi/frona boulh/n. (Th. –) [Tell me thi s, Muses, who have your Olympian homes, from the beginning. Tell me which of the gods first came in to being. First of all, Chaos came in to being. Next broad-breasted Gaia, always a st able seat of all the immortals, who live on th e peaks of snowy Olympus, then dark Tartaros in th e innermost part of the spacious earth. And then Eros, who is the most bea utiful of the immortal gods, The limb-loosener, who subjugates the mind and the good c ounsel in the breasts of all gods an d humans.]22

Eros’s first appearance in Theogony signals the beginning of cosmological development, which is thematized as an imma terial entity, a transformative po wer, and a pr imordial elemen t of the uni verse. Theogony ascribes

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

to Eros an ambiguous status. It is at once an inherent and an extrinsic element in th e universe. Although Eros is ranked high in th e cosmic hierarchy—introduced as th e four th (masculine) element, after Chaos (chasm and void), Gaia (earth), and Tartaros (the inner part of the earth)23—it has an outsider ’s appear ance. The first thr ee elemen ts ar e r elated b y f amily resemblance: Chaos, Gaia, and Tartaros are dark and chthonic. Eros, however, is neither dark nor chthonic. Devoid of the material character of earth and of the spatial dimension of a void, Eros assumes a str ange position in the cosmic beginning. It i s a ph ysical element of the world, but one that as yet has n o bearing on th e world. It is a pr imal, cosmic element whose contribution to the world is yet to be made. This point, the future aspect of Eros, is a most fun damental one. As is discernible in its por trayal ( Th.–), Eros i s destin ed t o be a c ontroversial an d mer ciless for ce. However, there i s n o manifest ation of erotic power at thi s pr imordial st age. Eros w ill r ealize its po wer only a t a la ter stage of the world’s development. Lacking par ental lineage, itself barren, Eros is erotically ineffectual at the primordial phase. Certainly, its existence is less s elf-evident than Ga ia’s, for inst ance, at thi s point. In char acterizing Eros as “the most beautiful of the immortal gods, / the limb-loosener, who subjugates the mind and the good counsel / in the breasts of all gods and humans,” Hesiod foreshadows what Eros is to become but i s not yet. More specifically, Eros’s superior beauty has no validity at this early stage of the w orld’s dev elopment, since th e bea utiful gods ha ve n ot y et been born. Eros’s domination over gods and humans is likewise not yet proven. Hesiod thus creates an abstract, intangible concept that, at best, vaguely contributes to the impregnation of the first cosmic creatures. That is why Eros i s initi ally det ached from th e r ealm of the s ensual, which means it has no erotic manifestation at all.24 Eros’s place in th e world will become established as th e world’s future subjects—gods and humans—are born. But the dangerous powers ascr ibed to it —its abilit y to weaken the body and threaten the sound mind—reinforce its ear ly subversive image as an outsider, a stranger in its o wn world. The world acquires its er otic dimension only w ith the birth of Aphrodite ( Th. –). Aphrodite’s position in th e di vine gen ealogy i s a lso unusual, for she was born after th e family of physical gods had come into being. Gaia gave birth to Uranos (sky), and together they conceived twelve children, the futur e T itans. Since Uranos soug ht t o pr event th e deli very of the children by physically blocking th eir bir th, Gaia asked her youngest child, Kronos, to castr ate hi s f ather. In performing thi s t ask, Kronos



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brought about the separation between Gaia and Uranos as well as the desired birth of the Titans. Uranos’s sexual organs were thrown into the sea, where Aphrodite was born from the mixture of sea foam (aphros) and the god’s seed. She is, consequently, of divine descent, but not at all a conventional one. mh/dea d' w(j to\ prw=ton a)potmh/caj a)da/manti ka/bbal' a)p' h)pei/roio poluklu/stw| e)ni\ po/ntw|, w(\j fe/ret' a)\m pe/lagoj poulu\n xro/non: a)mfi\ de\ leuko\j a)fro\j a)p' a)qana/tou xroo\j w)/rnuto: tw=| d' e)/ni kou/rh e)qre/fqh: prw=ton de\ Kuqh/roisi zaqe/oisin e)/plht', e)/nqen e)/peita peri/rruton i(/keto Ku/pron. e)k d' e)/bh ai)doi/h kalh\ qeo/j, a)mfi\ de\ poi/h possi\n u(/po r(adinoi=sin a)e/ceto: th\n d' )Afrodi/thn a)frogene/a te qea\n kai\ e)uste/fanon Kuqe/reian kiklh/|skousi qeoi/ te kai\ a)ne/rej, ou(/nek' e)n a)frw=| qre/fqh: a)ta\r Kuqe/reian, o(/ti prose/kurse Kuqh/roij: Kuprogene/a d', o(/ti ge/nto perilu/stw | e)ni\ Ku/prw? h0de\ filommhde/a, o(/ti mhde/wn e)cefaa/nqh. th=| d' )/Eroj w(ma/rthse kai\ (/Imeroj e(/speto kalo\j geinome/nh| ta\ prw=ta qew=n t' e)j fu=lon i)ou/sh|. tau/thn d' e)c a)rxh=j timh\n e)/xei h)de\ le/logxe moi=ran e)n a)nqrw/poisi kai\ a)qana/toisi qeoi=si, parqeni/ouj t' o)a/rouj meidh/mata/ t' e)capa/taj te te/ryin te glukerh\n filo/thta/ te meilixi/hn te.

(Th. –) [But the sexual organs, when Kronos first cut th em off with his steel and threw them from the mainland into the stormy sea— for a long time th ey drifted on th e sea, and white foam started circling around the immortal flesh. And in it a y oung woman began to grow. First she came t o sacred Kythereia, then she reached the sea-washed Kyprus, and there she stepped out, a respectful and beautiful goddess. And around her slender feet th e grass grew. And Aphrodite, the aphros-foam goddess, and the beautifully garlanded Kythereia, gods and men name h er, because she was born fr om the aphros. And Kythereia, because she had come to Kythereia. And Kyprogeneia, because she was born in s ea-washed Kyprus.

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

And sex-loving Philomeidea, because she appeared from the sexual organs. Eros accompanied her and beautiful Himeros attended her when she was born an d as sh e joined the community of the gods. From the beginning she has thi s sphere of influence and responsibility over men an d the immortal gods: maidens’ conversations, smiles, tricks, sweet delight, and gentle love.]

Aphrodite is the first divine figure to realize the worldly destiny of the cosmological Er os. She i s th e first among th e gods t o expos e th e w orld to its o wn erotic structure. Not only i s Eros invoked at Aphrodite’s birth, but it a lso n ow los es its r emote st atus, being immers ed in th e di vine appearance of the erotic goddess. Eros’s reappearance in Theogony marks the midpoin t in th e dev elopment fr om th e er otic c oncept (pr imordial Eros and its embodiment in th e divine figure of Aphrodite) to the erotic phenomenon (P andora). In or der t o bec ome a pr oductive an d s ensual power, Eros needs the persona of Aphrodite. The abstract beauty of Eros needs t o be r eflected in th e c oncretely bea utiful form of the god dess in order to emanate through her. Aphrodite is a medium for th e ineffectual primordial Eros. As a god dess belong ing t o th e r eign of the Oly mpians, Aphrodite’s divine duty is to specify th e erotic field of experience, marking it as h er own area of expertise and responsibility. She thus earns h er divine authority as a personi fication of the primordial Eros, just as Zeus comes to manifest and represent the heavenly realm (Uranos) and Hades the underworld (Tartaros). With the distribution of the divine parts of the world among them, the Olympian gods determine the ethical function of the primordial cosmic elements, which then, under the Olympic tutelage, become signifiers of values and of other aspects of human life. Aphrodite spurs a c oncretization of the w orld an d c ontributes t o its maturation as a s ensual being . When thi s happens, Eros assumes a n ew position, losing its indifferent, abstract appearance in r esponse to Aphrodite’s divine form. The erotic pr inciple thus becomes integrated into the feminine doma in of Aphrodite. As w e sha ll s ee, the cr eation of the first woman w ill br ing to its c onclusion thi s process of associating the erotic with the feminine. Let us first, however, focus on Eros’s second appearance and its r elation to Aphrodite. Following her birth, Aphrodite is accompanied by two subordinates, Eros and Himeros.25 By means of an alliteration, Hesiod presents the two subordinates as a pa ir whose role i s to resonate and accentuate the meaning of Aphrodite. Being thus duplicated, Eros and



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Himeros together create the emotive force. This collaboration is reflective of the change tha t Er os’s former ec centricity has un dergone; it i s n ow a part of the family of affects. Aphrodite’s other names, Kyprian or Kytherea, and the sex-loving Philomeidea, similarly manifest a manifold appearance (Th. –). The various names of the goddess and her attendants generate a family of terms that display the variegated significance of the erotic field. This speci fication and naming of the di fferent divine forces i s a lso indicative of the concretization the world has un dergone. But how are Eros and Himeros related to Aphrodite? In Cratylus b Plato suggests tha t the erotic terms eros and himeros stem from the s ame verbal ro ot, rhei, meaning “flowing.”26 Plato’s r eference to the fluidity of eros and himeros recalls th e subst ances of which th e Hesiodic Aphrodite is made. One might think of her three engendering liquid elements—the seawater, sea foam, and semen—as the matter that the fluidity of Eros and Himeros, as Plato understands them, puts into motion. But regardless of how fancifully Plato plays with etymology, his linguistic game converts eros and himeros to th e H esiodic image of Aphrodite an d th us r eestablishes their f amily r esemblance. Eros an d H imeros ar e n ot, consequently, the same as Aphrodite; rather, they are her driving forces. They are related to Aphrodite as passion i s to beauty.27 As noted above, the liquid materiality that is Aphrodite does not remain formless. Not only does she grow up to become a radiantly beautiful young woman, a koure (Th. , ), but she also locates her two masculine companions in a n ew semantic field: the field of femininity.28 The world had already been expos ed t o on e impor tant feminin e manifest ation befor e the bir th of Aphrodite. This was th e figure of Mother E arth, Gaia, the first personi fied c osmic pr inciple.29 She bec omes ang ry a t h er o ffspringhusband, Uranos, who prevents the delivery of their children. The wish to rescue her children from her dark belly c oincides with her will to power. This leads to the scheme of castrating Uranos, which is carried out by her youngest child, Kronos. Gaia’s conniving and castrating methods are a conspicuous celebration of the way she performs moth erhood. But it i s only with Aphrodite that the erotic facet of womanhood begins to develop. Aphrodite cr eates the field of femininity by specify ing feminine characteristics and behavior. This prepares the way for the creation of woman. In light of the description of Aphrodite’s divine authority (Th. –), she is also understood to be th e divine role model for h er future descendant, the first woman. Aphrodite is granted precedence “over maidens’ conversations [ oarous],30 smiles [ meidemata], tricks [ exapatas], / sw eet delig ht

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

[terpsin te glukeren], and gentle love [philoteta meilichien].” All these seductive features are characterized by Aphrodite as ess entially feminine. Their linear order schematizes the outlines of feminine erotic behavior. Female conversations are centered on s ecret passions. 31 As these passions ar e exchanged and exposed, they intensify, inciting a desire to fulfill them. Smiles, tricks, and delig ht ar e th e meth ods of feminine s eduction. The w oman communicates her passion through facial gestures (smiles), verbal gestures (tricks), and a beautiful appearance (sweet delight). This is then followed by th e final st age of the er otic endeavor, which i s fully a ccomplished b y soft intercourse (gentle love). This ph enomenology of gentle er otic c onduct i s r adically s eparated from the violent and merciless characterization of the primordial Eros. It thus marks the transition from the abstract Eros that pertains to the austere cosmic beg inning t o th e feminine embodiment of Eros and its n ew position in th e cultur ally sublimated world. Although born of the inhumanly v iolent a ct of castration, Aphrodite’s gen tle figure obliter ates an y signs of this brut al or igin. Her feminin e persona pr ovides a di vine pr efiguration of human s exuality. More pr ecisely, Aphrodite hands over the primary responsibility for h uman sexuality to women. Aphrodite underlines the dependence of the feminine erotic presence on interpersonal relationships. Feminine sexuality operates within the interpersonal field, the spa ce cr eated betw een th e on e wh o s ees an d th e on e who is seen, between the seducer and the seduced. In emphasizing Aphrodite’s responsibility for di alogic relationships, Hesiod establishes the connection between femininit y, sexuality, and v isibility. Aphrodite promotes the feminine figure into a sexual being because she defines feminine erotic existence through interactions with others: smiling at, seducing, and touching men. Thus, Aphrodite in troduces s eeing an d being as c onstitutive elements of sexuality. In other words, she shows that visibility is an indispensable feature of the erotic field. The c onnection betw een th e er otic an d th e v isible i s impor tant for understanding cosmic development. The r elationship betw een th e erotic and the visible was vagu ely alluded to earlier in th e poem in its r eference to the beauty of primordial Eros. This was only a vagu e allusion because the pr imordial er otic pr inciple i s formless an d, consequently, invisible. Only th e bea utiful form of Aphrodite mak es v isibility an aspect of the erotic and thus marks a n ew stage in th e cosmological development. Her birth introduces beauty and visibility into the world. Her divine influence is manifest in making v isibility a par t of life. With her birth, the world is

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ready to make the passage from the intangible stage of the cosmos to the sensual stage of appearances. The divine contribution of Aphrodite to the sensual aspect i s followed by the appearance of the first woman. Primarily understood as a feminine asset, sexuality assigns women predominance over the r ealm of phenomena—that is, the visible sphere. Since the feminine, being under the divine influence of its beautiful patroness, Aphrodite, represents the visible world more than th e masculine does, femininity is, in fact, the pronunciation of the erotic phenomenon. And so the ultimate stage of the erotic process that began w ith the invisible force of Eros and culminated in the maturation of the sensible world is marked by the creation of the ultimate phenomenon, the first woman. Although Aphrodite is not directly responsible for Pandora’s creation,32 she is certainly expected to be her patroness, being the goddess of that sexuality sh e has c onstructed as ess entially feminin e. While Aphrodite thus serves as P andora’s r ole model, Pandora’s appear ance i s a r ealization of the erotic codes established by her divine patroness.33 Shared features show that, on a semantic level at least, Pandora is a direct descendant of Aphrodite.34 Both are young and beautiful feminine figures chiefly characterized by their sexuality rather than by motherhood. Moreover, Pandora is a necessary extension of Aphrodite beca use, without h er, the god dess cann ot fulfill her divine responsibility. Together they initiate the genealogy of the feminine r ace. Each, however, has a di stinct role. One is the patroness of sexuality an d femininit y. The oth er i s th e a ctual model for a ll w omen, defining the essence of the feminine existence. Pandora is, in this sense, a bridge, for sh e continues th e line from th e di vine Aphrodite t o w omankind.35 Her sig nificance i s born of the in tersection betw een femininit y, sexuality, and v isibility, this being th e par adigmatic feminin e ph enomenon. Pandora appears as th e final link in th e er otic dev elopment of the cosmos, which begins with the primordial erotic principle and continues with its c oncretization in th e divine Aphrodite. Pandora brings the erotic genealogy to its culmina tion, providing a human embodiment of Aphrodite. Following in th e footsteps of her di vine pa troness, she mak es h er contribution to the matu ration of the phenomenological world. This signal contribution by Pandora to the cosmic order is not openly acknowledged b y th e text of Theogony. On th e c ontrary, Hesiod mak es an effort to prove the opposite—namely, that Pandora is a sign of human degeneration. Moreover, although th e log ic of erotic dev elopment suggests that her creation should immediately follow the birth of Aphrodite, Hesiod ch ooses instea d t o ins ert th e Pandora epi sode in a la ter st age of

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

the cosmological nar rative. This postponement, in f act, leads t o another role an d meaning for P andora. Indeed, one of the c omplexities char acteristic of this poem i s its simult aneous suggestion of varied st orylines. Our interpretation of Pandora as an in dispensable element of the s ensible world will have to grapple, for instance, with the more common view of her as a superfluous addendum, a blemish, whose purpose is to remind the human race of its own imperfection an d inferiority. My argument is that Theogony creates a double role for Pandora. She is at once an inh erent part of the erotic development that brings the sensible world to full ma turation and, at the same time, an artifice: a cunning device and a divine punishment. Although neither of these roles ultimately precludes the other, their coexistence demands an explanation. The poem consequently c ontains tw o lev els of expression. On th e on e han d, the text constitutes an outspok en expression of traditional misogynist forms of thought. On the other hand, it produces a r eversed notion of the feminine. Hesiod’s mi sogynist pr esentation of Pandora, in oth er w ords, is rivaled by an a lternative and pathbreaking notion of the feminine that is concomitantly developed by Hesiod’s text. Theogony allows us t o s ee the destructive image of Pandora as simult aneously the source of humanity’s transformation from indistinguishable beings in to self-reflecting individuals. This is the sense in which I r ead Theogony as a c oncealed eulogy of the feminine. How does a text pr oduce two radically different pictures of the same phenomenon? M R  P Ignoring th e log ic of erotic dev elopment, as n oted abo ve, Hesiod dela ys Pandora’s creation until the middle of the poem (Th. –). Following Aphrodite’s birth, Theogony provides accounts of numerous divine births and gen ealogies tha t c ollectively r esult in th e cr eation of the Oly mpian family (–). In enumerating the various gods and their descendants, the text explica tes the development of the cosmos, following the process by which th e world became a c oncrete place. After the birth of Zeus and his Olympian siblings, however, the successive births come to a ha lt, and the text n ow focuses instead on th e glories of Zeus’s rule an d on hi s cosmic r esponsibilities. A turning poin t in th e text oc curs when Zeus o verrules hi s f ather, Kronos. This dev elopment i s follo wed b y a descr iption of the r elationship between Zeus an d Prometheus ( –). Prometheus seeks to defend the standing of humans under Zeus’s regime, while Zeus responds by making their condition harsher. Zeus conceals from men the

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fire that is their source of light and warmth, leading Prometheus to steal a flaming g rain fr om th e hid den fire an d br ing it ba ck t o th em. Zeus, enraged, immediately responds by creating the first woman.36 At this point, Hesiod intensifies his poetic st yle. The description of the Pandora figure diverges from his earlier descriptions—the static, detached portrayal of Eros or the solemn account of Aphrodite. The new and striking embodiment of Eros in th e human r ealm inspir es a subjecti ve form of expression. More t o th e poin t, the pass age follo wing P andora’s cr eation (–) signals a disruption in Hesiod’s austere, condensed style. The language bec omes emotiona l and excited ( –). Clearly, the det ailed construction of the er otic field as par t of this n ew fema le figure i s n o longer detached from the narrator’s own life exper ience. Indeed, this tender maiden, newly introduced to the world, causes the narrator to embark upon a bitter lamentation about the miserable condition of humanity. The Pandora epi sode consequently consists of two par ts, which w e w ill consider separately: the making of Pandora and the responses to her creation. “At once, in return for th e fire, he produced an ev il thing for h umankind,” the narrator ominously remarks (). Nevertheless, the succeeding depiction of Pandora’s creation (–) does not elaborate on the meaning of the afor ementioned ev il. In f act, this pass age, which r ecounts th e creation of the female, makes no connection between the newly fabricated female image and its di sastrous implications for the world of men. As we shall s ee, Hesiod’s mi sogynist r emark fun ctions as par t of a rh etorical strategy, catching th e r eader b y sur prise. In its elf, the di vine cr eation of the beautiful ma iden does n ot r eveal th e tr agedy th e author has a lready inscribed for th e ma le r eader’s life. The depiction of her cr eation lea ves open the question of the origin of evil, making those who respond to her image (including the readers) responsible for resolving it. In other words, the image of Pandora its elf is blameless. Rather, it i s th e in terpretations of and r esponses t o thi s inn ocent image tha t charge it w ith ev il. Traditional mi sogyny i s c onsequently r eproduced an ew ea ch time b y r eaders who in terpret th e bea utiful image of the first w oman as a har binger of evil. We n eed t o ask ours elves, then, why r esponses t o th e first fema le image assigned it such evil connotations. We need also to inquire into the meaning of the term “evil” (kakon) intended by the text. Here is the first part of the Pandora episode: Au)ti/ka d' a)nti\ puro\j teu=cen kako\n a)nqrw/poisin: gai/hj ga\r su/mplasse perikluto\j 0Amfiguh/eij

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

parqe/nw| ai)doi/h| i)/kelon Kroni/dew dia\ boula/j. zw=se de\ kai\ ko/smhse qea\ glaukw=pij )Aqh/nh a)rgufe/h e)sqh=ti: kata\ krh=qen de\ kalu/ptrhn daidale/hn xei/ressi kate/sxeqe, qau=ma i)de/sqai: a)mfi\ de/ oi( stefa/nouj, neoqhle/oj a)/nqesi poi/hj i(mertou\j peri/qhke karh/ati Palla\j )Aqh/nh. a)mfi\ de/ oi( stefa/nhn xruse/hn kefalh=fin e)/qhke, th\n au)to\j poi/hse perikluto\j )Amfiguh/eij a)skh/saj pala/mh|si, xarizo/menoj Dii\ patri/. th=| d' e)ni\ dai/dala polla\ teteu/xato, qau=ma i)de/sqai, knw/dal', o(/j' h)/peiroj deina\ tre/fei h)de\ qa/lassa, tw=n o(/ ge po/ll' e)ne/qhke -xa/rij d' e0pi\ pa~sin a1htoqauma/sia, zw/|oisin e)oiko/ta fwnh/essin. (Th. –) [At once, in r eturn for th e fire, he produced an ev il thing for h umankind. For the f amous lame god molded out of earth the image of an honorable maiden as th e son of Kronos w illed. And th e g ray-eyed god dess Athena girded and adorned her w ith a sil very dr ess, and down from her head she spread with her hands an embroidered veil, a wonder to see; and around her head Pallas Athena laid desirable garlands, flowers of a fresh-budding field. Around her head she put a golden cr own that the famous lame god elaborately ma de hims elf with hi s o wn han ds t o pleas e hi s f ather, Zeus. On it he lavished many car efully w rought things, wonderful to s ee: terrible w ild creatures reared up on land or sea, wonderful things, like living beings with voices, and upon a ll of them he breathed charm.]

Hesiod’s pr ogrammatic st atement ( ), which pr efaces thi s descr iption and ann ounces tha t w e ar e t o w itness th e c onstruction of “our” human destruction, is f ar less c learly elabor ated here than it i s in hi s other version of Pandora in Works and Da ys.37 In Theogony, the cardinal moment in which Pandora is identified with evil occurs as the female image is gazed upon. That i s, the a ctual pr ocess of creation does n ot r eveal ev il in tentions on th e par t of her makers. Only once th e feminine model i s completed and the image i s r evealed to the divine and human ass embly i s it given a sig nification: Au)ta\r e)pei\ dh\ teu=ce kalo\n kako\n a)nt' a)gaqoi=o, e)ca/gag', e)/nqa per a)/lloi e)/san qeoi\ h)d' a)/nqrwpoi,



Pandora’s Light ko/smw| a)gallome/nhn glaukw/pidoj o)brimopa/trhj. qau=ma d' e)/x' a)qana/touj te qeou\j qnhtou/j t' a)nqrw/pouj, w(j ei)=don do/lon ai)pu/n, a)mh/xanon a)nqrw/poisin. (Th. –) [But after h e ha d completed thi s beautiful ev il, in r eturn for th e good, he led her out to where the other gods and men were, adorned with the apparel of the gray-eyed daughter of the mighty father. Wonder seized the immortal gods an d mor tal men as th ey s aw the f atal deceit, for which men ha ve no remedy.]

This pass age depicts n ot only th e cr eation of the first w oman, but th e creation of the first work of art as w ell. The presentation of the image t o the public weds the two actions of seeing and condemning. How does this happen exactly? Does th e r esponse mean tha t beauty, simply by appearing, must a llure, seduce, and di vert us fr om goodn ess? Does thi s text advance a conception of sinful beauty? We will postpone this question for now. Instead, we notice that Hesiod identifies seeing with foreseeing. Gods and men both look a t something c ompletely new, grasping it (as i s characteristic of this proleptic text) as a sig n of what is not yet there. That is, they see what they see as if they were already in the future. Before further examining the spectator’s mode of seeing, let us briefly attend to the narrator’s entangled perspective: e)k th=j ga\r ge/noj e)sti\ gunaikw=n qhlutera/wn, th=j ga\r o)lw/io/n e)sti ge/noj kai\ fu=la gunaikw=n: ph=ma me/ga qnhtoi=si met' a)ndra/si naieta/ousin, ou)lome/nhj peni/hj ou) su/mforoi, a)lla\ ko/roio. w(j d' o(po/t' e)n smh/nessi kathrefe/essi me/lissai khfh=naj bo/sk ousi, kakw=n cunh/onaj e)/rgwn: ai(\ me/n te pro/pan h)=mar e)j h)e/lion katadu/nta h)ma/tiai speu/dousi tiqei=si/ te khri/a leuka/, oi(\ d' e)/ntosqe me/nontej e)phrefe/aj kata\ si/mblouj a)llo/trion ka/maton sfete/rhn e)j gaste/r' a)mw=ntai: w(\j d' au)/twj a)/ndressi kako\n qnhtoi=si gunai=kaj Zeu\j u(yibreme/thj qh=ke, cunh/onaj e)/rgwn a)rgale/wn: e(/teron de\ po/ren kako\n a)nt' a)gaqoi=o: o(/j ke ga/mon feu/gwn kai\ me/rmera e)/rga gunaikw=n mh\ gh=mai e)qe/lh|, o)loo\n d' e)pi\ gh=raj i(/khtai

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

xh/tei ghroko/moio, o(/ g' ou) bio/tou e)pideuh\j zw/ei, a)pofqime/nou de\ dia\ zwh\n date/ontai xhrwstai/: w(=| d' au)=te ga/mou meta\ moi=ra ge/nhtai, kednh\n d' e)/sxen a)/koitin a)rhrui=an prapi/dessi, tw=| de/ t' a)p' ai)w=noj kako\n e)sqlw=| a)ntiferi/zei e)mmene/j: o(\j de/ ke te/tmh| a)tarthroi=o gene/qlhj, zw/ei e)ni\ sth/qessin e)/xwn a)li/aston a)ni/hn qumw=| kai\ kradi/h|, kai\ a)nh/keston kako/n e)stin. (Th. –) [For from her comes the r ace of women and fema les. From her comes the destructive r ace, the tribes of women, a great ca lamity to mor tals; they do not dwell with men as companions in times of cursed poverty, but in plenty. As in vaulted hives bees feed th eir drones, partners in ev il things—the bees work hard all day long from dawn to setting sun and lay down white combs, while the drones st ay in th e sheltered hives and collect the labor of others for their own bellies—even so Zeus th undering on hig h created women as an evil for mor tal men, doers of grievous works. And he gave another evil, as the pr ice of good: whoever, avoiding mar riage and the troubles women cause, does not marry, he reaches deadly old age w ithout anyone to care for him, and though he does not lack means while h e lives, his kinsmen di vide up his property when he dies. But for him wh ose lot i s marriage, and who has a dutiful w ife suited t o his ways, evil ceaselessly fights with good in hi s life; if he should get pestilent children, the grief in his heart and soul is unremitting throughout life: this evil has n o cure.]

Pandora is made to carry the feminine responsibility for human misery. Yet thi s harsh H esiodic c onclusion cann ot be infer red fr om h er initi al appearance as an inn ocent and inexperienced maiden. In order to bridge the gap between the benign origin and the present state of things, we need to establish a r elationship between the narrator’s response to women and the mythical response of the immediate audience to the first female image. It is significant that Theogony’s denunciation of women is grounded in a chain of horrified responses toward the female. In fact, in a cunningly gradual process, the text loads the feminine image with different meanings. We can trace this progress of signification, together with the intensification of the metaphoric reactions toward her stunning image. First, the initially innocent expression, “image of an honorable maiden” (partheno aidoie ikel on, ), is r eplaced in th e v iewer’s r esponse t o th e

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female image w ith th e danger ous c onnotation of “beautiful ev il” (kalon kakon, ) and “fatal deceit” (dolon aipyn, ). Next, Hesiod’s moralizing account adds another collection of dreadful meanings: “destructive r ace” (oloion ge nos, ), “a g reat ca lamity” (pema me ga, ), and th e c omplex drone simile ( –). Addressing the feminine model met aphorically r eenacts the dr essing of the first woman w ith beautiful c lothes and adornments. It is only at this point, and for the first time in Theogony, that Hesiod names thi s object of art as liter ally th e first w oman. This i s th e origin of the race of women, genos gynaikon (). The naming of the first w oman oc curs while th e spect ators an d th e readers are gazing a t her. The name “Pandora” is thus tied to her visibility, indicating that visibility is the essence of woman. Visual appearance is the mark of the feminine. The appear ance of the first woman incites r esponses that turn to metaphorical language in or der to capture its meaning. In other words, the meaning of the word “woman” derives from the idiomatic and imagistic responses that Pandora’s beauty invokes. As a lready n oticed b y numerous r eaders, Pandora i s th e first w ork of art, the first product of manufacture, and the first manifestation of techne, as opposed to phusis. Even more importantly, Theogony introduces through the making of Pandora th e v ery exper ience of objectification. The pr esentation of Pandora as an object of art r esults in an ekphr asis, which, by virtue of its rhetorical quality, creates two portraits: that of the object (the creation of Pandora), and that of the act of gazing at the object (th e responses to Pandora). Hesiod delineates the object’s visibility and thereby allows us to encounter a phenomenon in its pur e essence, through its appearance. This confrontation with appearance has a c entral role in est ablishing the meaning of the cosmological poem as a wh ole. P’ W One of the more conspicuous elements in th e Pandora episode is the recurrent use of thauma, “wonder.” The term appears first in the section that describes the creation of the first woman and then reappears in th e passage that focuses on th e audience’s response to her: At on ce, in r eturn for th e fire, he pr oduced an ev il thing for h umankind. For the very famous lame god molded out of earth the image of an honorable maiden as the son of Kronos willed. And the gray-eyed goddess Athena girded an d a dorned h er w ith sil very dr ess, and do wn fr om h er h ead sh e spread with her hands an embroidered veil, a wonder to see; and around her

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head Pallas Athena laid desirable garlands, flowers of a fresh-budding field. Around her head she put a golden cr own that the famous lame god elaborately made himself with his own hands to please his father Zeus. On it h e lavished many carefully wrought things, wonderful to see: terrible wild creatures r eared up on lan d an d s ea, wonderful thing s, like li ving beings w ith voices, and upon a ll of them he breathed charm. But after he had completed this beautiful evil, in return for the good, he led her out to where the other gods and men were, adorned with the apparel of the gray-eyed daughter of the mighty f ather. Wonder seized the immortal gods an d mor tal men as th ey s aw the f atal deceit, for which men ha ve no remedy. (Th. –, my emphasis)

As w e ha ve a lready n oted, the crux of this epi sode i s en capsulated in the response to it. In this case, the primordial spectator’s response to the image is the most r evealing. The audience is said to be s eized by wonder. This r esponse c ould be expla ined in terms of an aesth etic exper ience evoked by looking at a beautiful masterpiece. However, Hesiod makes “wonder” a synonym for “fear.” The audience is seized with wonder because it sees a f atal deceit. In other words, gods and men a like are shocked by the effect of charming bea uty, which th ey r ecognize as a sour ce of danger. Why i s thi s bea uty danger ous? First of all beca use it i s n ew: the first feminine model sig nals a br eak with routine; it announces an en d to old times. Gods and men r espond as if they were old-fashioned country folk encountering a modern in vention for th e first time. New technologies, as we kn ow, provoke anxi ety an d r esistance, even ha tred. But wh y was th e first woman so foreign to the human world? Why was this beauty so alien to the human world? In order to understand the significance of Pandora’s striking bea uty, we n eed t o think about it in r elation t o oth er str iking phenomena in Theogony. As we will see, Pandora’s uniq ue sig nificance is related to the structure and design of the specific narrative strategy that positions her story precisely in th e middle of Theogony.   ’  The Pandora episode divides the cosmological poem into two parts.38 This is an in teresting editorial choice. The complicated narrative of successive births creates what one interpreter has called “a structureless mess.”39 And yet thi s mess has an or der of sorts, one tha t enables us t o dr aw out a linear nar rative. That nar rative i s th e hi story of the h egemony of Zeus. The gen eral outlin es of this st ory ar e a lready kn own befor e P andora’s

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appearance ( –): Zeus’s supr emacy i s est ablished w ith th e castr ation of his g randfather, Uranos, which i s then followed by Zeus’s ascendance over his father, Kronos. The poem celebrates the victory of the son over his father when Rhea, Zeus’s mother and Kronos’s wife, replaces baby Zeus with a st one. Zeus, who was oth erwise destined to be swa llowed by Kronos, grows up s afely under hi s grandmother Gaia’s care. Deceived by his w ife’s tr ick, Kronos swa llows th e st one an d th en v omits it up a long with his previously swallowed children. When Zeus eventually ascends to the throne on Olympus, he commemorates the event by turning the stone that saved his life into a sema, a sign signifying the victory over his father (–). Though th e st ory mig ht ha ve en ded h ere, having expla ined Zeus ’s ascendancy,40 it continues with a grave intermezzo on the conflict between Zeus and Prometheus, culminating in the creation of the first woman (– ). The next section, the second half of the poem ( –), includes, among oth er ev ents, two cru cial epi sodes descr ibing th e in tensification of Zeus’s po wer: the ba ttle betw een th e Oly mpians an d th e T itans, and Zeus’s combat with the monstrous Typhoeus. Both episodes are digressive because they recount events leading to the supremacy of Zeus, which has already been est ablished in th e poem. The battle between the Olympians and the Titans is a par ticularly conspicuous digression, since it i s already mentioned in th e account of the sema that Zeus inst alled in Delphi as a monument to his supremacy. However, the second half of the poem i s not simply an exten ded postscript. In this part of the poem, the physical world reaches its final stages of development speci fically thr ough th ese tw o impor tant ba ttles in dicative of Zeus’s a uthority.41 But if the final form of the ph ysical w orld i s not established until the second half of the poem, why are the Prometheus intermezzo and the Pandora episode placed in the middle of the text, rather than in their rightful (later) place in the chronology? Pandora, as we know, was not created until after the succession of various divine births and struggles, and only after th e bir th of men. Why i s thi s g limpse of the human world inserted into the account of the still-incomplete physical world? Although Theogony consistently treats the subject of cosmogony in r elation to human experience, the centrality of the first woman in the text requires more than a chronological explanation. How, then, can we explain the central position of her story? As we shall see, the episode of the first woman plays a c entral role in determining th e poetical ambitiousness of the text and its ethica l function.

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

        To appr eciate th e sig nificance of Pandora’s ins ertion in to th e mid dle of the poem, we n eed n ow t o r eturn t o th e beg inning of the c osmological narrative. The initial state of the physical world is a meager one. Four elements c onstitute an in conceivable exi stence, a uni verse tha t i s dark an d largely intangible. The physical development that follows br ings the cosmological picture into focus. The world begins to look lik e the world we know, crossed w ith rivers and mountains, sea, a sky o verhead, a sun an d a moon. During the s eries of births giving rise to the s ensible world, we do not grasp the cosmic outcome as a wh ole. Nor are we told that it i s a beautiful or a good thing . We ar e hardly g iven any notion of the beauty of the universe’s par ticulars.42 Contrast the abs ence in th e Hesiodic cosmology of any uni fied pictur e of the universe w ith the biblica l and Platonic a ccounts of creation. In th e book of Genesis an d in Timaeus, the world has a di vine cr eator, a demiurge or a car ing f ather, who desir es that hi s w orld be good. The God in Gen esis r ejoices upon v iewing hi s world, as infer red from the Hebrew formulaic idiom c oncluding each of the six da ys of creation: “And h e s aw tha t it was good ” (va-yar ki tov ). God’s final evaluation, made on the sixth day, refers to the “all,” the whole of his cr eation: “And go d s aw all he has don e an d tha t it i s v ery good ” (Gen. ., my emphasis). In Timaeus, this unnamed “all” is called cosmos: “For the world is the best of things that have become, and he [the demiurge] i s the best of causes” (Tim. ). Although good ( tov) in Gen esis i s grasped through a di vine e ye, emphasis i s placed on th e v isibility of the world, which satisfies its beholder and maker. In Timaeus, too, the world’s goodness i s r elated t o, and ev en der ives fr om, its pleas ant appear ance (cf. Tim.  and c). Hesiod’s poem, in contrast, emphasizes the terrible and gloomy aspects of the cosmos. Toward the end of the poem, and in anticipation of the last stage of evolution, the first elements of the cosmos are once again invoked, this time in or der t o cr eate a pictur e of the wh ole w orld for which, as M. L. West remarks, “no single expression yet existed.”43 e)/nqa de\ gh=j dnoferh=j kai\ Tarta/rou h0ero/entoj po/ntou t' a)truge/toio kai\ ou)ranou= a)stero/entoj e(cei/hj pa/ntwn phgai\ kai\ pei/rat' e)/asin, a)rgale/' eu)rw/enta, ta/ te stuge/ousi qeoi/ per: (Th. –)44



Pandora’s Light [There dark ear th and gloomy Tartaros, barren sea and starry sky, all have their r oots and f arthest edges, side b y side in or der. It i s a g loomy r egion that even gods abh or.]

While thi s pictur e i s link ed t o th e descr iption of the despicable un derworld, it is distinctive in the way it conveys, for the first time in Theogony, a notion of cosmic unity. And yet this call for a unit y—an invocation to recognize an object as a wh ole—is to be foun d earlier in th e text as w ell, when the first woman is presented before the assembly of gods and men. In contrast to the physical world, Pandora has a cr eator, and her creation is teleological. She is, first of all, the product of the thoughts of Zeus, who is otherwise not directly responsible for forming the cosmic elements. But while thus differentiated from the world, she is also related to it. The P andora epi sode c onstitutes a mini ature v ersion of the w orld a t large. The epi sode has th us a syn ecdochical r elation t o th e o verall st ory told in Theogony. The Pandora episode incorporates the cosmological elements. Moreover, the epi sode i s about cr eation: Pandora i s composed of earth, her h ead w reathed in g rass and flowers. Her c lothing an d a dornments shine by v irtue of the ear th’s gold an d silver. The creatures represented on her diadem not only populate the world but also are themselves metonymic of earth, sea, and sky. Eros, the fourth primordial element, is represented by a r eference to P andora’s erotic charm ( charis). In lig ht of this ama lgamation of diverse ear thly elemen ts, the Th eogonic P andora can be s aid to mirror the world. As such, she mediates between men an d the world. Seen as a mini ature of the world, the didactic role of the myth of Pandora bec omes ob vious. Nowhere els e does th e text of Theogony present the w orld t o th e r eader as an object of meditation or a dmiration. Only with th e appear ance of the first w oman i s it possible for us t o br eak from th e flux of phenomena. This epi sode th erefore marks a turning point in th e cosmogony. It undergirds a pr ovisional substitute, functioning as a v isual reflection of the untitled cosmos. Although the poem does not name or de fine the cosmos, the story of Pandora’s creation nevertheless seems to satisfy an un conscious desire for su ch terminology. The experience of gazing a t Pandora c ompensates for th e la ck of any unify ing conception of the cosmos; her depiction pa ves the way for th e possibility of grasping the poem as a wh ole. Reflecting the unit y of the cosmological p oem, Pandora’s image manifests met onymically th e uni fied appearance of the world.

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  Pandora i s the first object t o impr ess upon th e human mind the understanding that what it perceives is the world of phenomena. This is the context for recalling that Pandora is characterized as a substitute for fire (). Interpreters who are guided b y the ancient notion of female insatiability conceive of her as a symbol of women’s unquenchable passion.45 Yet while fire signifies heat, the primary symbolic sense it conjures is light.46 In fact, one of the distinctive features of the feminine image is its radiance. Given that th e appear ance of the uni verse in Theogony is ge nerally m urky and dark, the feminine provides a moment of illumination, of enlightenment. Pandora pours for th str eams of light that ar e der ived from two sources. The first i s the fire that melted gold an d silver into her shiny finery. The second is the divine charm breathed into her, which grants her visibility.47 And sin ce h er figure gi ves o ff light, the gods an d men n earby n ot only behold h er, but a lso s ee b y h er th e w orld. In thi s s ense, the cr eation of Pandora i s an etiolog ical myth addressing the or igin of seeing. It can be regarded as a foundational myth for the kind of scientific inquiry into the mechanism of seeing envisaged in Timaeus, where the “fiery e ye” theory of vision is formulated. Plato explains that the mechanism of seeing consists in a c oalescence of the external fire of daylight with the internal fire of the eye (Tim. b–a). Although we cannot assume tha t Hesiod subscribed to even a pr imitive version of the theory of vision, the mythical encounter of the human eye with the glimmering appearance of Pandora nevertheless provides a met aphorical space for th e sci entific ar ticulation of vision. Pandora’s r adiant appear ance i s, as th e text tells us mor e than on ce, thauma idesthai, “a w onder t o s ee.”48 She i s a sour ce of wonder, and w e cannot help but think of the place assig ned to wonder by another tr adition—namely, philosophy. Philosophy has its or igin, as the Greeks saw it, in wonder. Aristotle, following his teacher Plato, observed that philosophy began w ith wonder (Metaph. A, b–). Wonder i s the feeling, or the mood, or the kind of experience that presents the world to us in a mann er calling for our r eflection. At the same time, this is a r eflection that is not governed by rationality. “This sense of wonder is the mark of the philosopher,” Socrates explains to the young Theaetetus. “Philosophy indeed has no oth er or igin” (Tht. d).49 Wonder, moreover, seems t o be in trinsically tied to and powerfully present in th e realm of the visible. “Philosophy indeed has n o other or igin,” Socrates continues, “and he was a good genealogist wh o ma de I ris th e da ughter of Thaumas” (d). Thaumas,

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the di vine figure of wonder, is th e f ather of Iris. And so , for Pla to, Iris, the v ision of the r ainbow, is th e embodimen t of wonder in th e doma in of the visual. The rainbow is a na tural phenomenon that not only str ikes the eye with its bea uty but ca lls for an explana tion as w ell. And yet even when an explana tion i s a t hand and w e understand h ow th e r ainbow i s created, there r emains a s ense of wonder, of the un explainable. Wonder is th e appear ance of a w orld wh ose m ystery cann ot be r educed t o our (human) understanding. Under thi s philosophica l sig n of wonder w e can r eturn t o Theogony, which presents several instances of wonder, among which the example of Pandora is the most conspicuous. In what way does the wonder of Pandora foreshadow the origin of philosophy? That i s to s ay, in what way i s Pandora’s wonder a sour ce of reflection? Thi s i s an oppor tunity to examine the interconnections between the cases of wonder presented in Theogony.    The shocking, or terrifying, aspect of Pandora has been commonly understood as related to her bestial nature. Hesiod’s commentary on the nature of women s eems t o associ ate th e dev ouring belly of the fema le—that which n ever finds s atisfaction, from s ex or fr om food —with th e besti al representation w rought on P andora’s di adem. In f act, however, the only explicit reference to Pandora’s appearance as frightening is in the description of the diadem: Around her head she put a golden cr own that the famous lame god elaborately made himself with his own hands to please his father Zeus. On it h e lavished many carefully wrought things, wonderful to see: Terrible wild creatures r eared up on lan d or s ea, wonderful thing s, like li ving beings w ith voices, and upon a ll of them he breathed charm. (Th. –, my emphasis)

Pandora i s human. But she looks lik e a y oung woman as r adiant as a goddess, which means that she also has a divine part. In addition, the ornaments on h er di adem accord her a besti al dimension. Pandora i s in thi s sense a h ybrid, bringing together the human, the divine, and the besti al. Such a tr iadic nature might, furthermore, be understood to be ana logous to the Platonic soul, composed of logic, emotion, and appetite. This, however, is not the cas e. Pandora i s not besti al in th e s ame s ense that she i s divine or human. Her association with the world of beasts is not the same as h er r elationship t o h umans an d gods. She r esembles h umanity an d

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carries a di vine aura in ways that are distinct from the ways in which sh e resembles a beast. According to the description in Theogony, she does not look lik e an anima l an d exhibits n o anima l-like q ualities. The besti al aspect is limited to the adornment on her diadem. The animal decoration does not qualify her persona; it sy mbolizes, rather, another figure, external t o Pandora, an inversion of Pandora. Rather than r eflecting h er, her diadem pr efigures h er in version: the monstr ous Typhoeus. The anima l representation on th e diadem, I would argue, is a c ondensed reference to the figure of Typhoeus. The monstrous Typhoeus, about whom we hear in th e s econd par t of Theogony, is the last creature born to Gaia, through a union with Tartaros. This last bir th has been un derstood as r epresenting Gaia’s final and unsuccessful attempt to challenge Zeus’s authority. The diadem is a manifold thing, portraying a di verse ga llery of beasts wh ose li veliness i s a chieved by their vocal verisimilitude. Analogously, Typhoeus’s monstrosity lies in its multifarious visual and sonorous manifestation. It exhibits a h undred snakeheads w ith ter rifying fiery t ongues an d e yes. But th e crux of its savageness is found in its multiplicity of voices. This creature is able simultaneously to utter every sound. The divergence of the voices it so mimetically pronounces gives the creature its multif arious visual verisimilitude. Typhoeus challenges Zeus by virtue of the great power embodied in its deadly g lowing t ongues an d in th e spark of its e yes. The monster ’s fire represents a h eathen antithesis to Zeus’s lightning. Moreover, it threatens Zeus’s rule beca use it c onspires aga inst th e uni vocal v oice char acteristic of Zeus’s institutionalized order. The poet mak es it c lear that Typhoeus’s polyphony i s danger ous wh en h e r efers t o its o verwhelming e ffect: a wonder to hear (thaumat’ akousai, .) In f act, he has a lready identified this danger ear lier in hi s text wh en descr ibing Hephaestus’s work of art. For Pandora’s di adem i s a v isual c ommemoration, encoded in th e v ivid portrayal of the anima ls, of Zeus’s subjuga tion of Typhoeus’s stunning voice. The di adem r epresents th e momen t wh en th e sub versive besti al voices are silenced by Zeus’s overwhelming power, the power of visibility. In thi s wa y, Pandora’s di adem sublima tes Typhoeus’s v ocal monstr osity by sub verting it in to a charming sig ht. The r epression of the danger ous voices i s c omplete on ce th e e ffect inscr ibed b y th e idiom “a won der to hear,” thaumat’ akousai () is abandoned in f avor of the visual effect, “a wonder to see,” thauma idesthai () and thaumasia ().50 Pandora’s di adem tr ansforms voice into a v isual icon. As such, it pr efigures Zeus’s defeat of Typhoeus. At the same time, its resplendent figures

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are testimony to the new status the monstrous voice has acquired through the ekphrasis: a dead, or silent, voice is made visible by divine artisanship and th en b y poetr y. Pandora’s splen dor r efers th e spect ator t o an other sema, to be interpreted analogously to the stone sema established by Zeus as a memor ial in Delphi. The stone, originally served to Kronos as a substitute for bab y Zeus an d th en v omited up fr om K ronos’s dark en trails, was granted the glorious appearance of thauma by Zeus ().51 Pandora’s illuminating power r esides, therefore, in her capacity to elucidate meanings buried deep w ithin the cosmic beginning.52 ’    ’   The f act tha t th e sig ht of Pandora sh ocks an d dazzles i s n ot, in its elf, an indication of her destructiveness. This is especially notable in contrast with Zeus, whose thunder and lightning blind. Zeus’s lightning is potentially dangerous for th e f aculty of seeing. And, indeed, it i s by means of thunder an d lig htning tha t Zeus pr oves hi s omnipoten ce in th e ba ttle against the Titans. After a long , unremitting struggle, Zeus finally shoots flashes of lightning upon the earth and sea that ignite the whole universe with burning fire a nd fill th e a ir w ith unbear able h eat. Surprisingly, the act results not in total destruction but, rather, in Zeus’s victory. The divine fire does n ot manifest its tru e power in th e blaze, but in its lig ht, which blinds the Titans’ eyes (). This epiphany—this manifestation of Zeus’s power in th e appear ance of a most r adiant lig ht—is a f atal sig n for th e Titans, whose consequent blindness deli vers th em into th e cha ins of the three Gi ants. The w onder ig nited b y P andora’s sig ht, however, does n ot involve ph ysical destru ction. Her br ight appear ance does n ot blin d. On the contrary, it shar pens the sig ht. The v isual f aculty of her beholders i s enhanced. The presence of Pandora as a thauma idesthai opens our eyes to the visual field. Men are no longer caught randomly in the visual field; as Pandora’s beholders they perceive, they become engaged in what they see. ’   ’  On the occasion of his initi ation at the hands of the Muses ( Th. –), Hesiod r efers to a w onderful sig ht: “And they gave me a flourishing laurel staff, plucking the branch, wonderful to gaze on [theeton].” Translators tend to read theeton as a pr edicate modifying the laurel br anch, one that qualifies it as ha ving a pleas ant appear ance.53 Theeton is appli ed t o tha t which is gazed a t in w onder. Yet Hesiod experiences the staff as a sy mbol of his poetical inauguration, and, more specifically, of his transformative

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

encounter with the Muses. It seems to me, therefore, that theeton qualifies not the laurel branch specifically, but the initiation scene more generally. In oth er w ords, the w ondrous en compasses th e wh ole en counter w ith the Muses, beginning as Hesiod’s herd is pasturing at the foot of Helicon, continuing as th e M uses in troduce th emselves t o him, and c oncluding with hi s initi ation w ith th e la urel br anch ( –). The wh ole ev ent i s a wonder to behold. When on e r eads th e poem fr om th e beg inning, this appear ance i s indeed celebrated dr amatically. Hesiod descr ibes the divine performance of the Muses as th ey sing an d dance, assigning precedence to their beautiful v oices; the Muses can be h eard but cann ot be s een. As th e pr eface states, they perform in th e dark of the night. The poet, however, does not focus on scan t, faint, dim figures bar ely v isible in th e g loom. He r ather accentuates the murkiness of the nocturnal scene, describing the Muses as hidden in a thick c loud (Th. ), an epic formula tion for s aying they were invisible.54 Theogony begins in a st ate of total darkness, murkiness, and invisibility. Not only i s the beginning dark: its general outlook upon th e world is no less g loomy. Life is lived in th e dimness of night. But the night is also characterized b y v itality, for thi s i s wh en di vine poetr y i s t o be h eard, indicative of the in tangible pr esence of the gods, and wh en sh epherds like Hesiod pasture their herds. Night—which plays a most important role within the cosmogony as the parent of all hidden thoughts, intentions, and passions, as well as death, sleep, and dreams—dominates human life (Th. –). Hesiod’s poem insistently portrays darkness as the regulative principle go verning th e w orld. Light, brought b y its di vine sig nifier, Zeus, and by the Muses, is the sign of irregular events. In Greek mythology, the gaze of gods upon h umanity i s a sour ce of light. For poets lik e H esiod, the en counter w ith th e M uses i s th erefore a w onder t o s ee. It marks a transformative moment when the poet i s granted illumination. Through this encounter with the Muses, the poet c eases to be an ig norant inhabitant of caliginous darkness, occupied pr imarily w ith the appetites of his belly. Their radiant presence allows him to see, even if for just a moment, beyond hi s dr eary exi stence. This i s n ot b y an y means a met aphysical moment. It is not the kind of enlightenment that issues from the wonderful (thaumaston), sudden vision that Diotima associates with the epiphany of the tr anscendental world (Symp. e–). This i s, rather, a lightningbrief clarification of what there i s, a sudden illumination of what i s regularly kept in th e dark.



Pandora’s Light

Whereas th e Muses’ gift i s a uniq ue kind of enlightenment for poets, Pandora symbolizes the gift of enlightenment for common people. She is the first figure to endow men w ith a perspecti ve a llowing them a r eflective di stance fr om th e w orld. In thi s s ense sh e pr edicates th ought on visibility. She then preconditions visibility, marking the distance between man and world. This distance is a pr erequisite for s eeing. With Pandora, visibility becomes an in dispensable element of being in th e world.55 Her crucial r ole in determining th e exper ience of seeing can be detected in relation to the figure of Eros. Incorporating one of the principles of visibility in an ear ly stage of Theogony, Eros is said to be “the most beautiful [kallistos] of the immortal gods” (). However, such beauty is senseless in the dark state of the primordial world. Because Pandora’s beauty shines in br ightness, it liber ates men fr om their pr imordial condition of blindness. Accentuating her visibility by means of her erotic charm and beauty, the gods open men t o th eir s enses. The la tter n ow r esemble Adam an d Eve, whose eyes are wide open. With the appear ance of Pandora, the world of men has been r adically changed; it is no longer the domain of nature. Once Pandora is introduced into the world, that world los es its na iveté. The wonder of Pandora produces in those who behold her a moment of self-realization. She leads her beholders to revise their past vision. Now dissatisfied with their own senses, men are deprived of the privileges granted them by their autochthonous nativity.56 Since th e cr eation of the first w oman, men ar e n o longer th e world’s autochthonic offspring. Men are denied their status as the world’s naive inhabit ants as th ey beg in t o a cquire th e capa city t o objectify th e world, to per ceive th eir o wn being as di stinct fr om both th e w orld an d the gods wh o embody it. 57 In thi s wa y, Hesiod s eems t o be s aying tha t Pandora’s wonder is what expels men fr om the dreamland of nature. The world described in Theogony is a godly realm, for its nature is the creation of the gods and is indistinguishable from them. Prior to Pandora’s appearance, humanity’s primordial existence led h umans to perceive themselves as a na tural continuation of the anthropomorphic cosmology. Pandora’s sight strikes the human mind with the realization that men are to be found outside, in front of, or in th e world—they can n o longer solely think of themselves as in distinguishable from it. The Hesiodic effect of wonder is not at all romantic—in contrast, for example, to Gaston Bachelard’s view of wonder as tha t wishful moment in which w e melt in to the world.58 In Bachelard’s a ccount, cosmic bea uty i s wha t a llows us t o r eturn t o th e world from which P andora’s wondrous appearance separated us.

Pandora’s Light



Surprised by this discovery, men can n o longer per ceive themselves as an intrinsic part and extension of the world. They can no longer perceive the world as a given. In wondering about the nature of their world through Pandora’s estr anging e ffect, they a lso bec ome desir ing men. The in troduction of beauty to the human domain constitutes existence (the world) and demar cates on e being fr om th e oth er. Pandora’s bea uty, therefore, instantiates difference. Hence, men not only alter their disposition toward the world. Wonder at Pandora brings desire, whereby men ar e reborn as sexual beings. The end of the age of innocence r esults in h umanity’s tr ansformation from the unmarked and undifferentiated mass t o a c ollection of individuals.59 Pandora’s enlig htening for ce i s dark ened b y H esiod’s outburst of misogynist clichés. Yet her wonder-full image cannot be ignored. Hesiod’s bitter den unciation of the fema le gen us has in deed shaped th e h eritage of Pandora, and yet it still leaves open an a lternative, unapologetic way of reading her complex figure. This kind of reading approaches Pandora by bracketing—not forgetting, but methodologically suspending—Theogony’s misogyny. Once we release our r eading from the impact of Hesiod’s antifeminist di atribe, we can s ee th e in trinsic ti es c onnecting th e figure of Pandora, and the ways in which sh e echoes the wonder of poetry and of insight in gen eral, to the very splendor of Theogony.

chapter 

Pandora and the Myth of Otherness toi=j d' e)gw\ a)nti\ puro\j dw/sw kako/n, w(=| ken a(/pantej te/rpwntai kata\ qumo\n e(o\n kako\n a)mfagapw=ntej.''... w(\j e)/fat', e)k d' e)ge/lasse path\r a)ndrw=n te qew=n te. ei)j )Epimhqe/a pe/mpe path\r kluto\n )Argei+fo/nthn dw=ron a)/gonta, qew=n taxu\n a)/ggelon: ou)d' )Epimhqeu\j e)fra/saq' w(/j oi( e)/eipe Promhqeu\j mh/ pote dw=ron de/casqai pa\r Zhno\j )Olumpi/ou, a)ll' a)pope/mpein e)copi/sw, mh/ pou/ ti kako\n qnhtoi=si ge/nhtai: au)ta\r o(\ deca/menoj, o(/te dh\ kako\n ei)=x', e)no/hse. Pri\n me\n ga\r zw/eskon e)pi\ xqoni\ fu=l' a)nqrw/pwn no/sfin a)/ter te kakw=n kai\ a)/ter xalepoi=o po/noio nou/swn t' a)rgale/wn, ai(/ t' a)ndra/si Kh=raj e)/dwkan. —      , W&D – [I will give men as th e price of fire an ev il, in which a ll men w ill delight in th eir hearts, an evil they will warmly embr ace. . . . But when he finished this sheer trick, without remedy, the father sent the famed Slayer of Argos, swift messenger of the gods, to take her to Epimetheus as a g ift. And Epimetheus did n ot think h ow Prometheus had told him never to accept a g ift from Olympian Zeus, but to send it ba ck, lest it prove to be an ev il for men. But when he took the gift, when he had the evil, he understood. Before this the races of men lived upon th e earth free from evils, free from hard work, and without painful diseases that bring fates down upon men. —Trans.  . ]

In th e beg inning th ere w ere only men. Then came th e first w oman and disrupted th e s elf-sameness tha t g rounded th e harmonious c ondition of humanity.1 Pandora appears in the world and immediately takes the form of the ultima te Oth er. But th e f act tha t sh e bears th e mark of otherness is due not only to her femininity or to her sexuality as such. Pandora is a 

Pandora and th e Myth of Otherness



gift. Her appear ance in th e w orld i s th e appear ance of something g iven to men. She i s n ot an inh erent elemen t of the w orld, not a da ughter of nature. The first w oman la cks th e a utochthonic r oots of men. Pandora presents a n ew mode of being in th e world that st ands in opposition t o the natural being of men. Within a s etting in which th e world gives itself to mankin d in a na tural an d spon taneous mann er, Pandora in troduces a new form of giving. She is a work of art, an artificial product contrived by th e gods. She i s a for eign elemen t in a w orld of men, embodying a dimension of otherness that threatens the natural and self-sufficient rapport between men an d their world. In thi s chapter, I am c oncerned w ith th e implica tions tha t P andora’s otherness carries for our understanding of Hesiod’s Works and Days. Pandora’s otherness has in deed been dea lt with in th e context of critiques of misogynist cultur e, and speci fically in th e c ontext of feminist c lassical scholarship exploring the complexities of the relationship between femininity an d oth erness.2 Feminist tr eatments of woman as an Oth er ha ve first tended to map the concept of femininity in terms of the sets of oppositions tha t go vern an cient binar y th ought. They ha ve th us sh own h ow ancient culture relegates the feminine, in opposition t o the masculine, to a secondary and inferior domain of otherness consisting of such categories as th e barbarian and the bestial.3 More r ecent tr eatments of femininity in an cient liter ature ha ve n ot only dealt with the exclusion of otherness but have also tried to show that the v ery opposition betw een th e masculin e an d th e feminin e, the s ame and the other, is already constitutive of ancient culture, society, and subjectivity. For feminist scholars such as Nicole Loraux and Page duBois, for example, women ar e th e epit ome of the very idea of difference. Women are no longer un derstood as a simple form of an excluded Other but ar e taken to be, in themselves, the mark of the idea of gender difference.4 Consequently, femininity reflects internal conflicts contained within a culture. The feminine, according to such readings, is not only marginalized but is, at th e s ame time, operative in cr eating a di alectical r elationship, a r elationship of mutual in terdependence betw een s ameness an d oth erness.5 Building on thi s groundwork, I wish to examine the significance of Pandora’s otherness in lig ht of its contribution to the formation of Hesiod’s didactic epic. In par ticular, I sha ll show that Pandora’s tr ait as an Oth er governs the Hesiodic text an d grounds its mechani sm and effects. Works and Da ys provides a det ailed an d c omplex por trayal of Pandora and comes much closer than Theogony to a concrete representation of the first w oman as a h uman being .6 Her det ailed por trait g ives bir th



Pandora and th e Myth of Otherness

to a uniq uely specific persona. In f act, through Pandora a w orld of faceless inhabit ants r eceives its first human por trait. Before her ar rival, men had no distinctive identity, and no particular features. Moreover, the first woman i s th e first h uman in H esiod’s poetr y t o be g iven a name. 7 Yet Pandora’s otherness cannot be understood simply in terms of her foreign appearance in a w orld of men. She i s in deed externa l t o th e masculin e community, but h er oth erness i s ev en mor e fundamental: it stems fr om the f act of her uniqueness, her singularity, which i s the di stinctive mark, the essence, of being human. What makes Pandora the ultimate Other is not her aberration from humankind but precisely her all-too-human quality. In thi s r espect, she br ings to Hesiod’s text a bon ding of the f amiliar and the strange. Pandora is the familiar stranger, an image of an estranged familiarity tha t, in m y v iew, epitomizes th e ess ence of the dida ctic epic. F M H   P  O Hesiod’s Works and Days presents us with a new form of poetics, radically different from his Theogony. The invention of the didactic epic testifies to a poetica l tr ansformation in H esiod’s work, and mor e speci fically to the emergence of a new form of poetic consciousness. The background for the composition of Works and Da ys is a n ew c onception of the language of poetry that Hesiod must have developed after Theogony—a new picture of the place of sameness and otherness in poetry, of the relationship between language, meaning, and truth. The gist of this picture lies, in my view, in Hesiod’s recognition of an unbridgeable gap betw een hi s poetr y and the divine utterance, so that the poet cann ot evade a dimension of otherness that is always present in his language. I am concerned here, therefore, with the ethica l dev elopment impli ed b y th e tr ansition fr om th e poetics of a theological cosmogony (Theogony) to the poetics of a didactic epic (Works and Da ys).8 In or der t o un derstand thi s n ew dev elopment, however, we first need to return to Theogony, and specifically to its forma tive poetical experience: Hesiod’s encounter with the Muses on M ount Helicon. Famous for its dr amatic st aging, this initi ation scene pictur es Hesiod, the ig norant shepherd, as chosen by the Muses to become their inspir ed poet. But it a lso gives voice to the Muses’ uncanny self-presentation: poime/nej a)/grauloi, ka/k' e)le/gxea, gaste/rej oi)=on, i)/dmen yeu/dea polla\ le/gein e)tu/moisin o(moi=a, i)/dmen d', eu)=t' e)qe/lwmen, a)lhqe/a ghru/sasqai. (Th. –)

Pandora and th e Myth of Otherness



[Shepherds of the fields, poor fools, mere bellies! We know how to say many lies similar (or iden tical) To true things, but if we want, we know how to sing th e truth.—Trans. Pietro Pucci]9

The Muses know how to sing th e truth, and at times th ey may actualize this kn owledge. More c ommonly, however, and mor e a ccessibly t o th e human mind, they tell li es. These li es ar e perceived by the human audience as truth, a f act tha t does n ot mak e th em any less un truthful. They remain li es because their r elationship to truth i s bas ed on di stortion, or alteration. “The Muses,” Pucci w rites, “are th e only sour ce of truth, and since th e poet w ill for ever be unable t o c ompare th eir song w ith ‘the things as th ey are,’ he cannot be aware of the distortions, deflections, and inventions that draw the poetic di scourse into falsehood and fiction.”10 To un derstand th e M uses’ phrase “lies similar [or iden tical] t o tru e things,” the term homoia is crucial. Pucci’s tr anslation leaves the deliberation between “similar” and “identical” unresolved. This double s ense of homoia is also impor tant for un derstanding the ambiguity of the Muses’ song. They know that their song is identical to true things (“we know how to sing the truth”), but they also know how to sing it in a wa y that would appear t o H esiod t o be similar t o tru e things. In oth er w ords, Hesiod refers to two poetical options associated with the Muses: a kind of poetry in which truth i s tr anscribed, and a poetica l mode tha t is similar t o, but nevertheless r emains di stinct fr om, truth. Inspired b y Der rida’s w ork, Pucci ascr ibes t o H esiod th e beli ef that th e or iginal truth (t o which th e Muses’ song r efers) i s for ever abs ent, remaining ina ccessible for h uman imitation.11 Pucci’s ana lysis of the en counter betw een H esiod an d th e M uses i s guided by both Platonic and postmodern r eadings of Hesiod. Plato’s theory of mimesis, on th e one hand, and Der rida’s notion of différance, on the other, enable Pucci to argue that Hesiod does not accept the traditional polarity betw een truth an d f alsehood. Pucci per ceives th e encounter between th e M uses an d H esiod as th e site wh ere th e opposition betw een truth an d f alsehood c ollapses. Since truth i s for ever lost, all w e can s ay about the pr evaricating nature of human mimesi s i s that it i s a w ork of simulation. And in this sense Pucci reads Theogony in a manner that foreshadows the postmodern idea of the absence and inaccessibility of truth. What in m y v iew r emains unn oticed in P ucci’s in terpretation i s a di stinction central to Hesiod’s poetry. That is, Theogony is a text tha t makes



Pandora and th e Myth of Otherness

a c lear distinction between truth an d f alsehood. In par ticular, it is a text that celebrates the essential difference between divine and human poetry. Pucci’s failure to see this polarity is the result of the emphasis (and perhaps even the overemphasis) he puts on Theogony –. A car eful look at th e pass ages tha t pr ecede an d follo w th e initi ation sc ene r eveals an entirely different picture of the twofold nature of poetry. Poetry has both divine and human roots. Its source can be eith er divine or human. In the programmatic preface of Theogony, Hesiod creates a place for divine poetry. Divine poetr y i s th us performed an d h eard ( Th. –), just as h uman poetry is, through the mouth of Hesiod. The distinction is between divine utterance, spoken solely among th e gods, and the human-directed utterance b y which th e M uses in fluence an d guide h uman poetic di scourse. “True poetry” is the Muses’ poetry, addressed exclusively to the gods an d performed in their abodes. “False poetry” is transmitted to inspired poets like H esiod an d a ccordingly a ddressed t o h uman ears. 12 In c ontrast t o Pucci’s conclusion, the distinction is not that of an original and a c opy.13 Rather, the distinction between divine and human poetry is based on th e difference between the two a udiences. We w ill n ow c onsider H esiod’s c onception of the di fference b etween divine song ( Th. –, –) an d h uman poetr y ( Th. –, –). Human poets sing about the past and the future, as Hesiod testifies. “They breathed an inspir ed voice into me, so that I c ould tell of things to come and things of the past ” (). The Muses, however, whose di vine song i s introduced once again in lin e  (mousaon archometha), sing not only of past and future events but about the present as well: “They tell of the present, the future and the past and they fit them together with voice” (–). The accessibility of the pr esent to the Muses st ands in opposition t o the fact that the present is not central to Theogony. The cosmogonical poem, according to Hesiod’s conception of inspired human poetry, is concerned with th e m ythical past. Accordingly, human poetr y i s en dowed w ith an oracular capacity that uncovers the buried past an d reveals the unknown future. This functional dimension does n ot hold, however, in the cas e of divine poetr y, for the divine recipients do n ot live according to the rules of human tempor ality. While the di fferent categories of time—past ( pro t’eonta), present (ta t’eonta), and future (t’essomena)—reflect the subjugation of humanity to change an d constant movement, the st able realm of immortality identified with the rule of Olympian Zeus i s free of temporal categories. This explains why the Muses’ song effects a harmonious relationship between the three temporal conditions (homereusai, ). In contrast

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

to h uman poetr y, which appr oaches th e subject of the di vine gen ealogy from a h uman perspecti ve, divine poetr y r eflects th e di vine exper ience of time, one that is unattainable to humanity. In divine poetr y, the present i s th e most sig nificant of the thr ee dimensions of time—not only because th e pr esent pr ovides an insig ht in to th e meaning of being, but also because divine beings live in a tempor al continuance, an unchanging present. This harmonious ly c ontinuous form of temporality r eflects th e idea of eternal time. Unbound by human temporal constraints, divine poetry is lighter than human poetry: “They [the Muses] delight [terpousai] the mighty mind of father Zeus ” (Th. ). Divine poetr y i s id entified w ith jo y, pleasure, and delight, which correspond to the superiority of the gods (cf. , , , and ). The emotional force of human poetry, in contrast, has an ambiguous form, creating an o xymoron of painful jo y. More speci fically, human poetry pla ys out in th e spa ce betw een ga in an d loss. It g ives an d t akes concomitantly. It can assuage an d change th e spir it, temporarily r emoving pain and grief. It is simultaneously a reminder (of a remote past) and a suppressor (of an impoverished present). Human poetry creates painful joy because its capa city to cause forgetfulness does n ot cause pain to disappear. Pain is merely bracketed, or hidden in th e depth of memory represented by Mnemosyne, the Muses’ mother, who i s the maternal source of the poem (–). Hesiod i s w ell a ware of the infer iority of his poetica l deli verance in comparison w ith the Muses’ divine ar t. He emphasi zes the f ailure of his inspired poetr y to reach the superior level of divine poetr y in hi s recurrent a ttempts (thr ee in a ll) t o captur e th e la tter’s perfection. Theogony describes thr ee ev ents in which th e pur e song of the Muses i s deli vered to the gods. In the first scene (–), the Muses sing and dance on Mount Helicon. In the second (–), they sing in Zeus’s abode on Mount Olympus. The final scene (–) occurs on th eir way from Pieria, their birthplace, to M ount Oly mpus. These thr ee oc casions ar e s et apar t fr om th e composition of Theogony as a whole because the cosmological poem is an example of inspired poetr y medi ated by a h uman poet ( Th. –). On all three occasions the Muses’ intended audience i s exclusively divine. As a consequence, the content of their last two songs i s only br iefly sketched by Hesiod. This absence might have led us to accept the general notion of the inaccessibility of the Muses’ true poetry, except that, through Hesiod, we become witnesses to their song on Mount Helicon (–) and are thus granted partial access.



Pandora and th e Myth of Otherness

The Muses’ performance on M ount H elicon i s ex ceptional beca use it stays in th e memor y of a h uman w itness despite its s acred na ture. Like Actaeon, Hesiod has transgressed the boundaries that mark off the sacred space and has h eard the divine voice that he is not supposed to hear. But Hesiod’s transgression is less a cute than Actaeon’s. While the latter views a for bidden sig ht, Hesiod only h ears a v oice. A mi sty nig ht conceals th e divine (forbidden) view, yet the shepherd senses the holy presence of the goddesses. We know this because the specification of time and place makes their pr esence cr edible an d c oncrete. Although th eir tru e song i s v eiled by the screen of darkness, it is not unavailable to human experience. It is heard and, consequently, partially revealed to the human auditor. Under th e M uses’ tutelage, Hesiod aspir es t o c ompose poetr y tha t i s similar or identical (homoia) to their song. However, this aspiration toward identity is futile, since time and again, as we have seen, Hesiod brings out the inherent differences between divine and inspired human poetry. At the same time, the c omposer of Theogony does n ot aban don th e desir e t o draw close to the divine song and even to assimilate its di vine principles. Theogony records Hesiod’s memory of being struck by the revelatory and inspirational power of the Muses, being utterly spellbound by the mystical experience on M ount Helicon. His cosmological poem i s, as a r esult, suffused with a naive, forceful desire to produce poetry that will be indistinguishable from that of the Muses. This moti vation i s char acteristic of a y oung poet ’s first w ork; it w ill weaken in H esiod’s dida ctic poem. In Works and Da ys he aban dons an alleged Golden Age char acterized b y th e desir e t o cr eate poetr y tha t i s similar to divine poetr y. As a ma ture and di sillusioned poet, he s eeks to explore the meaning of a life dev oid of the idea of sameness. The meanings of the a djective homoios, which r ange fr om “identical” and “same” to “similar,” reveal the problematic r elations between things. Homoios carries tw o pr incipal c onnotations. On th e on e han d it specifies th e kin d of resemblance of one thing t o an other tha t pr oduces th e illusion tha t th ey ar e in distinguishable. On th e oth er, it char acterizes the r esemblance of one thing t o an other un der th e un derstanding tha t they ar e two di fferent entities. While Theogony carries mor e ambiguiti es in regard to the relation between similar things, Works and Days is closer to th e idea tha t a ll similar things ar e in ess ence di fferent. In Theogony Hesiod’s use of homoios is ambivalent, since he both perceives the Muses’ song as di stinct fr om hi s o wn an d dec lares tha t hi s poetr y stems fr om a di vine sour ce. Theogony expresses th e poet ’s aspir ation t o imbibe th e

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

Muses’ poetic power. The young Hesiod wanted his poem to be similar to the Muses’ song. Works and Da ys expresses a di fferent poetic fr ame of mind. Here Hesiod gives up on the goal of sameness and even becomes disillusioned with his ear lier poetic ambition. He s eems to r evise the meaning of homoios, which n ow c onnotes a t otally una ttainable iden tity. Hesiod n o longer contends that his poetry can achieve even an apparent identity with divine poetry. He wants it t o contain di vine va lues su ch as justic e, but h e does not think of it as similar t o a di vine utter ance. Works and Da ys interiorizes the essential difference between divine and human utterances. As an epic, Works and Da ys stands in c ontrast to Hesiod’s ear lier cosmological poem in tha t it car ries c lear pr agmatic and ethica l goa ls. The poem i s addressed to a speci fic, nonexpert audience whom Hesiod s eeks to teach how to cultivate the land. His didactic program i s guided b y an ethical view that equates knowledge of farming with the quest for a good and just life. We ar e n ot dea ling h ere w ith a guide t o better f arming so much as w ith a w ork whose focus i s the educational process itself. What occupies the center of Works and Days is the dynamic relationship between the poet and his student, a relationship that serves as an ethica l prism for understanding the world of farming. In contrast to Theogony, Works and Days is immers ed in th e soci al an d cultur al dimensions of human life, and its poetics i s governed by the principle of otherness. Hence, in comparison w ith Theogony, Hesiod dev elops th e a utonomy of, and g rants autobiographical depth to, the figures of poet and listener. The poetics of didactic poetry is grounded, as we shall now see, on the difference between these two figures. As we have already noticed, Hesiod’s revision of the myth of sameness begins with his relationship with the Muses. In Works and Days he severs the composition of his poetry from their tutelage.14 Works and Days differs from Theogony in that it i s pr esented as H esiod’s own cr eation. It i s not inspired poetr y. Nor i s it a kin d of poetry that der ives dir ectly from the Muses’ original voice. Rather, Hesiod’s didactic epic establishes clear distinctions between the divine and human realms. As human discourse, Works and Days emphasizes the author’s presence by means of didactic and autobiographical elemen ts. The ma in n ovelty of Hesiod’s dida ctic epic i s its abandonment of an externa l di vine pr ovenance in f avor of the a uthor’s personal an d mor al exper ience. Hesiod marks hi s poetica l speech w ith his o wn sig nature. He emphasi zes hi s fears an d beli efs an d a dds bits of biography and personality, thereby creating a form of poetics that is based

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on human perspective.15 In contrast to Theogony and to Homeric poetry, Hesiod’s dida ctic poetr y s eeks t o c oncretize th e figures of speaker an d intended listener, both of whom play distinctive roles in the poem. As the first didactic literary creation in G reek literature, Works and Da ys is particularly concerned with grounding the ethical function of human poetry. The poet ’s dida ctic a uthority i s first of all a chieved thr ough hi s un dertaking to scrutinize the distinction between the human and the divine. T F  S  M  G The “secular” poetics of Works and Days also suggests that its worldview is not the one suggested by the cosmological picture presented in Theogony. The w orld has dev eloped since its initi al appear ance in Theogony. It has acquired a hi storical dimension, in par ticular as a r esult of the m yth of the Five Ages (W&D –). As noted above, Hesiod insists on recounting the myth of human history from a human point of view. He does not inculpate the Muses in questions concerning the credibility of his didactic authority or the veracity of the myths he narrates. Moreover, he explicitly denies the existence of a divine source for his narrative by introducing the myth of the Five Ages with skeptical remarks. ei) d' e)qe/leij, e(/tero/n toi e)gw\ lo/gon e)kkorufw/sw eu)= kai\ e)pistame/nwj: su\ d' e)ni\ fresi\ ba/lleo sh=|sin. (W&D –) [And if you wish, I will outline for y ou another story (heteron logon), Well and skillfully st ore it up in y our mind.]

The story Hesiod refers to is the myth of the Five Ages. He presents it here as heteron logon, another tale, a different version. It is his second attempt to describe the power of Zeus over human affairs. His first logos was the myth of Pandora ( W&D –). These tw o su ccessive m yths shar e an interest in exploring the meaning of the present through a pivotal event— the cr eation of Pandora or th e demi se of the Golden Age. Both ev ents explain the significance of the present time on the basis of the past, which serves to highlight the present and make it perceptible. By focusing on the present h uman c ondition, Hesiod on ce aga in c onfines hi s poetr y t o th e human domain.16 The theme of the fall, the end of the blissful condition of humanity, is told first in th e myth of Pandora and then again in th e myth of the Five

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Ages. Both m yths, thus, present a pr istine per iod wh en “from th e s ame source [ homothen], gods and mor tals came in to being” (W&D ). But Hesiod’s strategy of providing two versions of the same story raises questions about their validity and, more particularly, about their shared argument. Using two versions destabilizes the notion of identity and reinforces the f antastical, skeptical, and eph emeral dimension of human poetr y. Whereas th e depiction of the Golden Age c elebrates th e in tercourse between gods an d men, the follo wing s ection—on th e en d of that age— reverses course and is devoted to disillusionment: Deu/teron au)=te ge/noj polu\ xeiro/teron meto/pisqen a)rgu/reon poi/hsan )Olu/mpia dw/mat' e)/xontej, xruse/w| ou)/te fuh\n e)nali/gkion ou)/te no/hma: (W&D –) [Next after th ese the dwellers upon Oly mpus cr eated a s econd generation, of silver, far worse than the other. They were not like the golden ones either in shape or spir it.—Trans. Richmond Lattimore]

The myth of the Golden Age is always a commemoration of the demise of that age, of the transition from the first (golden) to the second (silver) generation. How is this transition explained? Why did the Olympians choose to create an inferior generation once the Golden Age had passed? Can this version of the end of the Golden Age be un derstood as a m yth r ecounting humanity’s fall? There is no clear answer to these disturbing questions. Human exi stence in th e Golden Age i s par adoxical. How can th e perfect become imperfect, dissolving into a lesser (silver) human generation? And why does th e divine way of life of the Golden Age suddenly st art behaving like humanity? Did th e perfect Golden Age actually conceal a mor al flaw? Were there faults in the ideal (divine) human condition that required divine punishment—namely, creation of an inferior humanity?17 I suggest that the Golden Age’s defect is to be detected in the erroneous human assumption—which is equivalent to the notion of human pretension (hubris)—that humanity i s identical to divinity. In other words, the transition fr om th e Golden Age t o th e Sil ver Age i s a pr ocess of disillusionment in relation to an idealistic, unreal (that is, erroneous) picture of an ancient past. Whereas in th e Silver Age human insolence is dominant, as manifested in sacrilegious behavior, the moral failing of the Golden Age lies in h umanity’s mi sconception of itself as shar ing the s ame or igins as

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the gods. 18 The myth of the Golden Age is therefore not about a lost perfect human condition, but about th e human mi sconception of its divine identity. The identification of gods and humans is an old dr eam: the radicalism of Works and Da ys is to be foun d in its a ttempt to delimit tha t dream to the una ttainable m ythic r ealm. Hesiod r efers t o s ameness as a f antastic phenomenon confined to the Golden Age. In succeeding ages, as we shall see, the possibility of sameness cannot even be an object of fantasy. In addition, the inherent asymmetry between humans and gods a ffects relationships between humans as well. When the Golden Age is lost, dissimilarity increases: humans come to be not only dissimilar to the gods (as they were in the Golden Age), but a lso to one another. The loss of the Golden Age consequently represents the impossibility of maintaining a r ange of intimate affiliations, communalities, and solidarities. But how did the fantastic identification of gods and men come into being, and how do Theogony and Works and Da ys reflect Hesiod’s attitude toward that fantasy? The genealogy of the gods pr esented in Theogony does not include the origins of the human species. Theogony does not make a place for men in the genealogical map of the gods. It would appear, then, that the account of a shared origin is a product of wishful thinking, expressed in the form of human needs, ambitions, and desires. More specifically, the human fantasy of being iden tical t o th e gods i s ins eparable fr om th e aspir ation t o make human existence an integral part of the world. By fantasizing about its di vine or igins, humanity c laims poss ession o ver th e w orld. Indeed, Hesiod’s theological discourse does not posit an acute dichotomy between the gods an d th e w orld. The gen ealogy of the gods tha t i s r ecounted in Theogony is also an account of the development of the cosmos in general. Theogony conceives of the gods as w orldly elemen ts an d th e w orld as a manifestation of their divine realm. When reading Works and Days in light of Theogony, one cannot help but s ee that Hesiod has r evised his previous account of the relationship between men and the world. He separates gods and men, which entails the latter’s expulsion from an imma ture image of the world. Men ar e no longer a llowed to perceive themselves as in tegral to the world. But humanity failed to internalize this separation—according to Hesiod, men ig nore it beca use they t ake humanity’s poss ession of the w orld for g ranted.19 The or igins of this a ttitude t oward th e w orld are to be found in the primal human condition as descr ibed in Theogony. In that cosmological poem, men lack a perspecti ve on th e world and are blind t o its a utonomous appear ance. In Works and Da ys this p erceptual

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limitation develops into a g rievous moral weakness. Men’s relation to the world is instrumental. The world was han ded to men an d has been handled b y men. Men li ve an d t oil in it. And so th e na tural w orld, being used and abused by men, has, in men’s minds, become inseparable from the social and ethical dimension of human life. It has bec ome a h umanized world. The myth of the Five Ages can thus be s aid to tell of the symbiosis between men and the world.20 This symbiosis has two stages. The first belongs to the mythical time of the Golden Age; the second pertains to the historical er a tha t follo wed. The Golden Age sy mbolizes an er a wh en h uman and divine were considered synonymous. That affinity between gods an d humans was possible beca use of humanity’s state of being: a life of fabulous wealth where needs were perfectly fulfilled, one in which the earth was a place of total, spontaneous fecundity (W&D –). In such blissful conditions human needs were not recognized as needs at all. Men of the Golden Age were, as a result, trapped in an illusion of being identical to the gods. The end of the Golden Age did not, however, mark the end of this symbiosis. Instead, a new kind of symbiosis developed—this time between man and world. The Silver, Bronze, and Iron Ages experienced a steady decline in every aspect of life with each succeeding generation. The wealth of the Golden Age was lost. Religious duties were unfulfilled, which showed disrespect for the gods (W&D –). And since these three generations have proven to be morally inferior to that of the Golden Age, they have encountered pain, illness, and a miserable death. The waning of religious devotion implies a severing from the divine. Yet in undoing their ties to the gods, men did not divorce themselves from the world. In other words, the symbiosis between men and gods has continued, but with a slight semantic difference. This a ltered attitude on th e par t of humanity found expression in men ’s instrumental relationship to the earth. The generosity of the earth was now taken for granted; men no longer conceived of it as an autonomous entity (W&D –, –). Blind to its a utonomy, failing to recognize that it exists in dependently of humans, humanity does n ot s ee th e w orld qua world. It r educes or r estricts th e meaning of the w orld t o tha t which i s representative of humanity. This per ception of the w orld as something identical to them is an expr ession of men’s megalomaniac nature: xeirodi/kai: e(/teroj d' e(te/rou po/lin e)calapa/cei. ou)de/ tij eu)o/rkou xa/rij e)/ssetai ou)/te dikai/ou ou0d0 a)gaqou=, ma=llon de\ kakw=n r(ekth=ra kai\ u(/brin

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Pandora and th e Myth of Otherness a)ne/ra timh/sousi: di/kh d' e)n xersi/ kai\ ai)dw\j ou)k e)/stai, bla/yei d' o( kako\j to\n a)rei/ona fw=ta mu/qoisi skolioi=j e)ne/pwn, e)pi\ d' o(/rkon o)mei=tai. (W&D –) [Strong of hand, one man ( heteros) shall seek the city of another (heterou). No man who keeps his oath would be ca lled charismatic, nor the righteous or the good man. Rather they shall respect the violence of the evildoer. Right will be in th e arm. Shame w ill not be. The v ile man w ill crowd hi s better out and attack him with twisted accusation and swear an oath to his story.— Adapted from Lattimore translation]

Absent from this description of the Iron Age is any reference to the natural elements of the physical world. Whereas the account of the Golden Age mentions the grain-giving land (zeidoros aroura, W&D ), later allusions to the natural elements refer to materials—silver, bronze, and iron— only outside their natural setting, emphasizing instead their new artificial function, their service to humanity. As each generation successively discovers these elements, they become mer e tools in men ’s hands. And so th ey come to represent human desires and ambitions (power and wealth). That is how the world’s elements have come to be identified as human qualities. Hesiod tells of the r esult of humanity’s active ig norance of the w orld in th e I ron Age in hi s descr iption of its ur ban lan dscape an d char acter. We now have a w orld of cities: “One man [ heteros] sha ll s eek the cit y of another [heterou].” Men conceive of the world as an en tity that provides a place for cr eating their own communities. Once these communities are established in th e form of cities, they are made into human places. They rarely bear th e signs of their original natural character. These communities divide the world and create new methods of living that culminate in war and other forms of aggression. Life in the cities thus encourages hostile relationships between different peoples, just as it accentuates the differences among men. Heteros does not simply distinguish one party from the other. It raises the idea that there is no place in the Iron Age for harmonious and equal groups. Men dev elop a mir ror r elationship v is-à-vis th e w orld: they s ee in it a reflection of themselves, while their behavior in turn a ffects the world. Following thi s interpretation, the pass ages concerning the Silver, Bronze, and Iron Ages disclose a tight-fisted world that is no longer identified with the benevolent and generous image of Mother Earth, as in the Golden Age,

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but, rather, reflects a v iolent an d sting y f ather. Since th e w orld mir rors the human condition, it comes to appear as a fr ightening place full of evil ambition and dreadful death, a world that i s mi serable and dark, like its inhabitants. Hesiod conceives of the Golden Age, and of the Silver, Bronze, and Iron Ages that follow, as reflecting two misconceptions about the place of man in th e w orld: a f alse iden tification w ith th e gods, and a f alse iden tification with the world. He does n ot endorse a n ostalgic return to a Golden Age in which men an d gods w ould aga in bec ome iden tical, but n either does he approve of the tendency to humanize the world. Works and Da ys offers a dida ctic pr ogram for men t o est ablish an appr opriate pla ce for themselves in the world. Hesiod is determined to reform the relationship between men an d th e w orld b y tea ching th e former t o dev elop a s ense of humility in r elation to both na ture and the gods. In thi s s ense, Works and Days is dedicated to an un derstanding of a world that i s other than human. Hesiod wishes to return to a world that is familiar to the farmer. Familiarity, achieved through sweat and toil, reveals the division between man and the world and a llows the latter to r eceive the honor it des erves as man learns its idiosyn cratic ph enomena, functions, and r egularities. Interestingly, this learning became possible in the most horrible of human generations, the Iron Age, Hesiod’s generation, when nature was no longer seen t o be a spon taneous ph enomenon an d an in finite pr ovider ( W&D ). Hesiod consequently teaches men to become aware of their needs and assume responsibility for their own well-being. The ability to satisfy one’s own needs depends on a f amiliarity with, a close observation of, nature’s laws. In order to enjoy the earth’s productivity, in order to keep the fire alive, men need to acquaint themselves with the order of the natural elements. Even then, however, Hesiodic knowledge will not make the world an entirely f amiliar pla ce, absolutely on e an d th e s ame w ith men. As H esiod remarks: “Yet still, the mind of Zeus of the aeg is changes w ith chang ing occasions, and it is a hard thing for mor tal men to figure” (W&D –, trans. Lattimore). In many ways Works and Da ys is a tr agic epic tha t mourns th e loss of innocence. But what is so tragic about losing something we never had? The nostalgic v iew of the Golden Age does n ot s eriously encourage a r eturn to it. In what way, then, is the mythical memory of the coexistence of gods and men vital to the human experience? Works and Days constructs a complicated notion of this imaginative world. On the one hand, it locates the realm of the Golden Age within a fantastic framework. On the other hand,

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it does not conceive divine and human coexistence as a utopian moment.21 This means that the Golden Age represents an unattainable object of desire, the emphasis being on its unattainability. What, then, is the aim of poetry, which apparently arouses a futile long ing in its a udience? Homer’s version of the Golden Age is illuminating in thi s respect. The description of the island of Phaeacia in Book  of the Odyssey renders it as a Golden Age kingdom. 22 The pa lace of Alkinoos shimmers w ith gold and sil ver. The r oyal gar den i s di sconnected fr om th e chang ing of the seasons, producing a g reat variety of fruits that grow abundantly without requiring culti vation. The gods join th e Phaea cians a t s acrificial mea ls and dine with them. And yet this ideal way of life is carried on under the shadow of an old di vine curse that threatens the Phaeacians with a mortal r ebuke for th eir h ospitality. They expr ess th eir outst anding kin dness toward Odysseus by taking their guest back home in th eir magical ships, an act for which th ey are eventually punished. Odysseus is the last mor tal man to be a llowed into their land, and with his departure this ideal place becomes for ever o ff limits t o str angers. Lost in th eir g lorious ex clusiveness, the Phaea cians ar e doomed t o obli vion. Such an unhappy destin y brings the ideal image of this land into question, for it turns out that even such a perfect soci ety as tha t of the Phaea cians ev entually su cceeds in offending the gods. Their consequent expulsion from the human world is an indication of how they abused their close relationship with the divine realm (th ey ar e ca lled ankhitheoi, “relatives of the gods,” at Od. .) b y mistaking it for a sig n of their complete identity with the gods. Nostalgic poetr y su ch as tha t found in th e Odyssey calls upon its li steners to know their place in the world and use it in or der to gain ethical knowledge. Arousing a y earning for an idea lized world, nostalgic poetr y entices its li steners t o tr anscend th eir habitua l exi stence an d aspir e t o a better life. It can gen erate a form of escapism (which w ould be manifest, for example, if Odysseus remained with the Phaeacians and forgot about his homeland). Or it can en courage a r econciliation with one’s condition (his deci sion t o r eturn t o I thaka). Acknowledgment of the imperfection of the human condition is essential for ethica l responsibility. If life is imperfect, it i s our r esponsibility to make it w orthy. Odysseus’s deci sion to return home reflects such an un derstanding. Home i s where he assumes responsibility for hi s life, despite the inexorable presence of death. I read Works and Days as a didactic version of nostos, an epic homecoming that, in the manner of the Odyssey, strives to bring a lost farmer back to his land and endow him with a better understanding of the world. Works and Days

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is n ot n ostalgic t oward th e idea lized Golden Age; it aspir es t o r edefine the idea of a home, and of making one’s own home in th e world. In the Odyssey one of the major factors in making the homecoming successful is the marital relationship. The homecoming depends on th e way Penelope reacts t o th e str anger and r ecognizes him as h er lost h usband. This important f actor i s a lso dominan t in th e r ole tha t th e w oman plays in th e construction of the notion of home in Works and Da ys. If we think of Works and Days as a kind of homecoming poem, the ethical significance of a face-to-face encounter between a man and a woman, between a h usband and a w ife, as in th e Odyssey, is a lso necessary h ere. Hesiod’s poem, as we shall see, encourages its reader to turn Pandora into a Penelope. The poet’s ethical demand from his reader therefore requires a reconciliation with the woman. We shall return to this point at the end of this chapter. A  I: T C  B ou)de\ path\r pai/dessin o(moi/ioj ou)de/ ti pai=dej ou)de\ cei=noj ceinodo/kw| kai\ e(tai=roj e(tai/rw|, ou)de\ kasi/gnhtoj fi/loj e)/ssetai, w(j to\ pa/roj per. (W&D –) [Father i s n ot a t on e ( homoiios) w ith hi s childr en, nor ar e th e childr en a t one w ith him. The guest i s not at one w ith hi s host, and the fr iend i s not at one with his friend. And the brother is no longer th e friend as h e was in the past.]

The long ing for a Golden Age i s an expr ession of an ess ential abs ence that i s inh erent in th e human c ondition. (The in terdependence betw een longing and absence is significant to Plato’s theory of eros, which we will discuss belo w.) I n Works and Da ys the long ing for a Golden Age r epresents th e abs ence of sameness, or th e pr esence of an appar ent di ssimilarity an d a lterity. It i s q uite c lear fr om hi s descr iption of the pr esent condition of humanity tha t H esiod r egards th e idea of absolute h uman homogeneity (relative to one another) to be sheer fantasy. A human sameness bas ed on iden tical in terests an d a t otal s ense of affinity i s for eign to th e post–Golden Age w orld. Reconciling w ith th e h uman c ondition means finding a way to live with alterity. That is why such a considerable part of Hesiod’s guide t o f arming addresses varieties of human relationships that suffer from differences, whether they involve neighbors, friends,

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artisans, old people, or youth. Human discord belongs to Hesiod’s didactic pr ogram, which s eeks t o h elp r eaders a ccommodate di ssimilarity in their relationships. The H esiodic pr esent, the I ron Age, is mark ed b y a tr agic n otion of alterity that characterizes the relationships between parent and child an d between siblings. In all cases, a natural bonding that was once inherent in human experience is absent. The golden principle of human relationships, that of being at one with each other, Hesiod calls homoios.23 The current structure of the social world has been di srupted: the most basic human relationships have proven to be unstable and unreliable. The guest and the friend remain str angers. Hospitality and friendship do n ot create grounds for shar ed interests and mutual trust. Blood relations are not characterized by intimacy and warmth but mor e closely resemble the intercourse between strangers. Each human connection involves a cautious interaction and arouses suspicions on both sides regarding the other’s true interests. This is especially so in th e case of xeinos, a guest-friend (), a term that contains within it th e duality between remoteness and affinity. Xeinos is not, strictly speaking, a stranger. He is, rather, a stranger who is potentially a fr iend. Likewise, he i s not str ictly a fr iend, since h e r etains his primal aggressiveness as an outsider . As is typical of the Iron Age, the ambiguous meaning of “friend” and “guest” remains unresolved. Disputes occupy a central place in Hesiod’s didactic poetry.24 He chooses, however, to r aise th e pr oblem of difference in h uman r elationships b y means of the ph enomenon of brothers. This i s beca use of the h ybrid nature of that r elationship. Brothers ar e a t once th e s ame and di fferent. They shar e th e s ame or igins an d th e s ame par entage, but th ey g row up to b e d ifferent people. They ma y be in compatible, and th ey sometimes become bitter rivals. The ambiguity of the fraternal relationship is indicative of what is so problematic about the nature of human relationships in general: the tension betw een similar ity (th e uni versality of the h uman phenomenon) and alterity (the concrete differences—cultural, gender, economic, and others—that distinguish one person from another). In my view, Hesiod begins Works and Days with a representation of a specific fraternal dispute pr ecisely because thi s r elationship i s par adigmatic of all human relationships. Moreover, considering th e poetic fun ction of the fr aternal disparity, it seems that this disputative relationship is the backbone of the didactic epic. In other words, the didactic structure of the poem is neither tied to nor inspired by the Muses. It is formulated and provoked by a disagreement between two brothers.

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The uniqueness of the didactic mode i s manifest in its being bas ed on a conflictual relationship between instructor and disciple. This makes the relationship betw een “I” and “other” fundamental t o th e liter ary exper ience created in Works and Days. Otherness grounds the communicability of the dida ctic epic, binding th e r eader t o th e a uthor, and Perses t o hi s brother, Hesiod. Works and Da ys expounds on th e di fferences b etween Hesiod and his brother. The two brothers represent a series of oppositions between diligent and lazy farmer, between poet and beggar,25 and between one who is faithful to his village’s values and another who is attracted to the city’s litigious institutions.26 Hesiod and Perses are not the only brothers t o be foun d in Works and Da ys. Hesiod un derscores th eir polar ity by referring to a di vine instance of a fraternal dispute, that between Prometheus and Epimetheus. The pairing of intelligent and fooli sh brothers exemplifies the difference between counselor and counseled and between speaker an d li stener. As su ch, the r elationship betw een P rometheus an d Epimetheus fills th e s ame dida ctic r ole as th e di alogue betw een H esiod and P erses, a r ole tha t, according t o Anthony Ed wards, is in tended “to transform Perses from an achreios into an esthlos, from a man wh o keeps no counsel to a man wh o follows the good c ounsel of another.”27 Hesiod and Perses, just like Prometheus and Epimetheus, create a stru ctural pattern on which th e dialogic relationship between the didactic poet and his addressee i s modeled. The didactic epic emphasi zes the hi erarchical di stinction between poet and listener and, in Hesiod’s case, specifically marks the addressee as th e Other. A fr aternal r elationship imbu ed w ith dua lity an d di fference i s n ot unique t o Works and Da ys. It i s common t o oth er mythical and liter ary treatments of brothers, particularly tw in brothers: for example, Herakles and his twin, Iphikles.28 They are the sons of Alkmene, who delivered them together but conceived them on two successive nights, the first shared with Zeus, and the second with her human husband, Amphitryon. Herakles was born fr om th e di vine in tercourse an d I phikles fr om th e h uman. Hesiod depicts thi s pair of twins in th e Shield of Herakles (–) by emphasi zing their differences: h(\ de\ qew=| dmhqei=sa kai\ a)ne/ri pollo\n a)ri/stw| Qh/bh| e)n e(ptapu/lw| diduma/one gei/nato pai=de, ou)keq' o(ma\ frone/onte: kasignh/tw ge me\n h)/sthn: to\n me\n xeiro/teron, to\n d' au)= me/g' a)mei/nona fw=ta, deino/n te kratero/n te, bi/hn (Hraklhei/hn,

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Pandora and th e Myth of Otherness to\n me\n u(podmhqei=sa kelainefe/i Kroni/wni, au0ta\r )Ifiklh=a dorusso/w| 0Amfitru/wni: kekrime/nhn geneh/n, to\n me\n brotw=| a)ndri\ migei=sa, to\n de\ Dii\ Kroni/wni, qew=n shma/ntori pa/ntwn. [And th e la dy, submitting t o th e god, and t o th e man f ar best of men in Thebes of the seven gates, bore twin sons whose hearts and spirits were not alike; it i s tru e th ey w ere br others, but th e on e was a less er man, and th e other a man f ar g reater, a dr ead man an d str ong, Herakles th e po werful. This one she conceived under the embr aces of Zeus, the dark c louded, but the oth er on e, Iphikles, to Amphitryon of the r estless spear, seed tha t was separate; one ly ing w ith a mor tal man an d one w ith Zeus, son of Kronos, marshal of all the immortal.—Trans. Richmond Lattimore]

As a rule, myths concerning twin brothers reveal a deep disparity that turns their apparent similarity into a sig n of the tr agic quality of fraternity. In the case of Herakles and Iphikles, their mutual maternal (superficial) origin makes them formally twins, but the inherent difference between divine and h uman s emen dict ates a di stinctive char acter an d s eparate destin y. The stories of Herakles and Iphikles, as well as Otos and Ephialtes, Castor and Pollux, and Remus and Romulus, all involve a h uman mother and a divine father. The examples are also a testament to the ancient conception of twins as constituting a tragic hybrid of the divine and the human. Otos and Ephialtes, the sons of Poseidon and the human Iphimedeia, accidentally kill ea ch oth er. The Diosk ouri, Castor an d P ollux, are s aid in on e version of their tale to be of mixed origin. Both are the sons of Leda, but Castor is the son of Leda’s human husband, Tyndareus, whereas Pollux is the son of Zeus (Pindar, Nem. :–). Although th e immor tal Pollux persuades Zeus t o grant his mortal brother immortality, the two of them alternate th eir r esidence on Oly mpus and c onsequently n o longer meet. Remus and Romulus are the twin sons of Mars and the vestal priestess Rhea. Despite their similar ity, they develop a g reat hostility and become political rivals. The element of rivalry and jealousy is also typical of biblical twins such as Cain and Abel and Jacob and Esau. The dissimilarity of biblical tw ins does n ot involve di vine and h uman f athers; in th e monotheistic v ersion, the fr aternal di fference emerges thr ough th e opposition of the blessed son an d the cursed one. Whereas the theme of similarity in a tr agic context works through the difference between divine and human, the comic tradition focuses on the

Pandora and th e Myth of Otherness

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phenomenon of mistaken iden tity. Plautine c omedy dea ls w ith th e c onfusion of a god an d a man in Amphitryon. But th e in teraction betw een identical tw in brothers i s of particular interest, allowing a psy chological analysis of the mi sguided human tendency to s ee similar things as identical. The par adigmatic comedy of errors, Plautus’s Menaechmi, is structured around the tension betw een identity and difference. Its twins—not identical, but physically similar—were separated in childh ood and raised in different cities. The inevitable encounter between them provokes a primal anxiety, the fear of the doppelgänger. The play contrives a c ontinual source of confusion for both br others and their c lose companions, none of whom r ealize tha t th ere ar e a ctually tw o M enaechmi in E pidamnus. The plot develops out of the conflict between Menaechmus of Epidamnus, who tries to arrange a day off from his busy routine, and his twin brother, who is visiting from Syracuse and is free of responsibilities. Since Menaechmus of Syracuse looks exa ctly like hi s tw in brother from Epidamnus, he undeservedly enjo ys th e pleasur es meticulous ly pr epared b y hi s br other in advance. At the end of the play the confusion is resolved by the inevitable meeting betw een the two, which enables r elatives and companions to acknowledge in astonishment the brothers’ striking similarity. Here is the slave Messenio’s response: illic homo aut sycophanta aut geminus est fr ater tuos. nam ego h ominem hominis similiorem numquam vidi alterum. neque aqua aquae nec lacte est la ctis, crede mi, usquam similius quam hic tui est, toque huiius autem; poste eandem patriam ac patrem memorat. (Men. –) [That man i s either a sw indler or y our tw in brother! I n ever s aw two men look so mu ch a like. You’re as har d t o tell apar t as tw o dr ops of water or two dr ops of milk. And besides, he c laims th e s ame f ather an d th e s ame country.—Trans. E. C. Weist and R. W. Hyde]29

The episode describes a s elf-realization scene: the brothers who were believed to be one are revealed to be two. The significance of this discovery is manifest in th e f act tha t th e r evelation of similarity—the r ealization of the tw ins’ almost iden tical appear ance—is a ctually th e appear ance, and th e pr oof, of the di fference betw een th em. In oth er w ords, the di scovery of the similar ity betw een on e and th e oth er i s on e and th e s ame

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Pandora and th e Myth of Otherness

event as th e discovery of the difference between the two. The slave struggles w ith the common er ror of mistaking both of them for on e and the same person. The play moves from a false conception of one and the same person (numerical identity) to a c orrect conception of a perfect similar ity between two different people. Recognizing the tw ins’ identicalness leads, at th e s ame time, to a r ecognition of them as tw o di fferent persons. In fact, the sur prising mess age of this r ecognition sc ene i s n ot th e iden tity between th e brothers but, rather, their nonidentity despite th eir similarity. The pla y explor es th us th e impossibilit y of perfect iden tity betw een two personalities. Moreover, it privileges the value of dissimilarity between the tw in br others. This pr ivileging i s an ess entially ethica l st ance, since only recognition of their difference allows the twins to meet f ace to face, to become acquainted with each other, and to learn from each other’s life experiences.30 T L  S   B  E All m yths c oncerning tw ins emphasi ze th eir di fferences. In thi s s ense, these myths are related to the myth of the Golden Age, which negates the perfect iden tity of gods an d men. The ph enomenon of identical tw ins likewise r epresents an impossibilit y: the desir e for tw o t o bec ome on e. Consider, for example, the erotic connotation of Plautus’s metaphoric language r egarding th e br others’ similarity. The imager y of two iden tical drops of water or milk tha t h e us es t o descr ibe th eir c lose r esemblance is t ypical of descriptions of lovers’ desire t o bec ome on e an d th e s ame. Such erotic aspir ations are essential to Plato’s theory of love in th e Symposium. The lovers’ desire grows from a fun damental human experience: the exper ience of absence, the other side of which i s a long ing for identity with another. In Plato this form of desire is rooted in n ostalgia for a Golden Age. In th e Symposium Aristophanes first r aises th e r elationship betw een eros and the exper ience of loss and abs ence, a r elationship t aken up an d elaborated philosophica lly b y Socr ates. Aristophanes c ontributes t o th e discussion by inquiring into the mythological meaning of eros. And so his speech offers a var iation on th e Hesiodic myth of the Golden Age. dei= de\ prw=ton u(ma=j maqei=n th\n a)nqrwpi/nhn fu/sin kai\ ta\ paqh/mata au)th=j. h( ga\r pa/lai h(mw=n fu/sij ou)x au(th\ h)=n h(/per nu=n, a)ll' a)lloi/a. (Symp. d–)

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[We need first to learn h uman nature and what it has su ffered. Since once upon a time our na ture was n ot as it i s now, but of another kind.]

The “once upon a time” pattern by which Aristophanes begins his mythopoetic speech i s t ypical of a m ythological nar rative. It marks a poin t of departure in the history of humanity. The Golden Age formula signifies a drastic transition—a decline—from the fantasy of the perfect human condition that i s t ypical of other Golden Age myths (compare, for inst ance, the expulsion fr om par adise in th e book of Genesis and th e cr eation of the first woman in H esiodic poetry). Aristophanes’ mythopoesis is etiological. Wondering “how we all came to be what we are today” leads to an examination of the nature of eros. In other words, the origin of eros can explain our own nature as erotic human beings. Aristophanes’ rhetorical strategy is to tie eros to human nature by positing two inseparable questions. Explaining the meaning of eros, then, tells us what a human being is, and vice versa. According to Aristophanes, humanity’s or igins were completely di fferent from its pr esent condition. In contrast to the current division into male and female genders, ancient humans had three sexes. Each of these three different kinds of human was a dua l being; that i s, each had a doubled bod y. They were s elf-sufficient, perfect. However, this human perfection, so char acteristic of the Golden Age, provoked arrogance, which was ultimately punished by Zeus.31 To r educe the power of humans, Zeus decided that each would be split into two separate beings. This explains the present state of things, with two sexes, male an d fema le, but thr ee var ieties of sexuality—two kin ds of homoerotic and one heterosexual love, all determined by one’s spherical origins. Aristophanes does n ot say much about th e state of mind of the spherical creatures. Did they conceive of themselves as one or as a couple? Were they a di vided or a uni vocal s elf ? I t i s har d t o tell, especially beca use Aristophanes’ description focus es on th e cr eatures’ physical exper ience. However, his depiction of their extraordinary physical competence reveals a perfect c ontrol over bodily gestur es and a singular mo ving force. e)/peita o(/lon h)=n e(ka/stou tou= a)nqrw/pou to\ ei)=doj stroggu/lon, nw=ton kai\ pleura\j ku/klw| e)/xon, xei=raj de\ te/ttaraj ei)=xe, kai\ ske/lh ta\ i)/sa tai=j xersi/n, kai\ pro/swpa du/' e)p' au)xe/ni kukloterei=, o(/moia pa/nth|: kefalh\n d' e)p' a)mfote/roij toi=j prosw/poij e)nanti/oij keime/noij mi/an, kai\ w)=ta te/ttara, kai\ ai)doi=a du/o, kai\ ta)=lla pa/nta w(j a)po\ tou/twn a)/n tij ei)ka/seien. e)poreu/eto de\ kai\ o)rqo\n w(/sper nu=n, o(pote/rwse

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Pandora and th e Myth of Otherness j r r r , r boulhqei/h: kai\ o(po/te taxu\ o(rmh/seien qei=n, w(/sper oi( kubistw=ntej kai\ ei)j o)rqo\n ta\ ske/lh perifero/menoi kubistw=si ku/klw|, o)ktw\ to/te ou)=si toi=j me/lesin a)pereido/menoi taxu\ e)fe/ronto ku/klw|. (Symp. e–a) [Again, the form of each human being as a whole was round, with back and sides forming a cir cle, but it ha d four arms an d an eq ual number of legs, and two faces exactly alike on a cylindrical neck; there was a sing le head for both f aces, which f aced in opposite dir ections, and four ears an d tw o s ets of pudenda, and on e can imag ine a ll th e r est fr om thi s. It a lso tr aveled upright just as now, in whatever direction it wished; and whenever they took off in a sw ift run, they brought their legs around straight and somersaulted as tumblers do , and then, with eight limbs t o suppor t them, they rolled in a swift circle.—Trans. R. E. Allen]32

Close obs ervation of the ph ysiognomic stru cture of the thr ee sph erical beings r eveals a dditional ambiguiti es. Two fea tures ar e cru cial t o our investigation: the two f aces were turned in opposite dir ections, and their genitals f aced outwar d.33 This means, first, that th ese cr eatures ha d n o idea what their other face looked like, and, second, that they could not see the other’s genit als. The latter point i s of special interest for th e androgynous pair, for there was n o s exual difference in th e cas e of the doubled male spherical creature or the doubled female. Although the androgynous being exhibited a heterosexual pair of genitals, the male and female halves could not be aware of their sexual difference, since their eyes could never fix on th e other’s front. It i s interesting to note that the androgynous cr eature i s the only on e of the thr ee m ythical h uman kin ds t o r eveal an y sig n of divergence in what w ere oth erwise ph ysically iden tical doubled beings. Aristophanes accentuates the heterogeneous nature of the androgynous genus, the malefemale creature, when he considers the material origins of the three beings. Whereas th e ma le-male cr eature or iginated in th e sun, and th e fema lefemale creature in th e earth, the androgynous creature was der ived from the moon, which has a shar e in both th e sun and the earth. Although the man-woman genus is considered to be the weakest and lowliest of the three (Symp. d–e), its sexual nature, its heterosexuality, is the most pr evalent kind, more common than th e tw o forms of homoerotic passion. In other w ords, the h eritage of sexual di fference inh erited fr om th e ma lefemale cr eature, rather than th e s exual s ameness of the ma le-male an d

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female-female creatures, has become the most typical form of human sexuality. Another wa y of saying thi s i s t o obs erve tha t Aristophanes pr ivileges homoerotic eros over heterosexual eros precisely because homoerotic love retains the memory and fantasy of sameness more than heterosexual love does. For Aristophanes it is important to underscore the identity between the two halves of the primordial human creatures. The theme of identity extends also to the most idiosyncratic physiognomic element of the human body, the face. Hence, the two faces of these spherical beings are described by Aristophanes as homoia pante, “the same in ev ery way” (Symp. a). This means tha t ea ch of the thr ee sph erical cr eatures ha d tw o iden tical faces. But were they conscious of this identity? It is most lik ely that they were not. For, as obs erved above, the location of their doubled f ace pr evented them from engaging in a face-to-face encounter, making it unlikely that the doubled humans were at all aware of their sameness. In contrast, awareness of their similarity became possible in th e dramatic recognition scene that followed their separation. This was th e first time in th e life of the sph erical cr eatures tha t th ey f aced each oth er and ast onishingly r ecognized th eir ph ysical iden tity. One can s ee tha t th eir ph ysical iden tity contributed to their s elf-realization as n ew s exual beings, inciting a va in desire t o merge in to th e oth er and aga in become th e One tha t th ey ha d once been. Aristophanes mak es a di stinction betw een th e er otic na tures of the ancient split beings an d pr esent-day h umans. Unlike our an cestors, we have n o v isual r ecollection of our lost oth er. We a lso ha ve n o ph ysical experience of what it means t o be a wh ole made of two separate beings. 34 Lovemaking, as Aristophanes argu es, is an enig matic and r emote r eflection of the perfect sph erical c ondition tha t has been lost. Nevertheless, we do search in love for a lost twin. In our life, too, eros still means a longing for a lost ha lf, a desir e to become whole: tou hol ou oun te e pithumia (Symp. e). It would s eem, then, that to love in th e pr esent context of human experience is to desire to overcome the inherent difference between two beings. To put it an other wa y, in a lo ve r elationship w e wan t t o be accepted an d be r ecognized for wha t w e la ck, and w e w ish tha t la ck t o be complemented by the other. In thi s s ense, the erotic condition of the present world acknowledges and legitimates the ineluctable difference that exists in each coupling. This is not a conventional interpretation, however. Aristophanes’ myth i s mor e commonly understood to be a ru dimentary introduction t o r omantic an d met aphysical c onceptions of love.35 It i s

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traditionally conceived by aspiring romantic lovers as a validation of their union, underlining th eir beli ef in th e met aphysical dimension of their relationship—that i s, the determini st nature of their encounter. Platonic anamnesis, or the theory of recollection, provides a theoretical support for such typical expressions as “We were meant for each other and fell in love at first sight.” And so th e myth of the origin of eros is open t o two interpretations. One s eeks t o culti vate iden tity in th e c ouple’s lo ve life. The other acknowledges the significance of difference in th e love relationship. The f act tha t Aristophanes’ myth can be r ead in su ch opposing wa ys suggests that our erotic experience is by nature a contradictory one. Being in love means both tha t we aspir e to exper ience an ultima te s atisfaction (symbiosis with the other) and that we accept the futility of such a desire.36 This makes Aristophanes’ speech a tr agicomic tr eatment of love. On the one hand, he expresses skepticism about the lovers’ doomed aspiration to merge into a wh ole. On the other hand, he rather optimistically assumes that a lthough w e ar e incapable of merging and making on e out of two, we can nevertheless grow similar t o each other over time. This allows the comedian Aristophanes to forge a c omic ending to a tr agic myth, providing a pr agmatic solution t o a pr oblem that i s tr agically unsolvable. Eros, according to Aristophanes, is a relationship that needs time and cultivation: le/gw de\ ou)=n e)g / wge kaq' a(pa/ntwn kai\ a)ndrw=n kai\ gunaikw=n, o(/ti ou(t / wj a)n\ h(mw=n to\ ge/noj eu)d/ aimon ge/noito, ei) e)ktele/saimen to\n e)/rwta kai\ tw=n paidikw=n tw=n au(tou= e(/kastoj tu/xoi ei)j th\n a)rxai/an a)pelqw\n fu/sin. ei) de\ tou=to a)/riston, a)nagkai=on kai\ tw=n nu=n paro/ntwn to\ tou/tou e)gguta/tw a)/riston ei)=nai: tou=to d' e)sti\ paidikw=n tuxei=n kata\ nou=n au)tw=| pefuko/twn: (Symp. c) [But I’ m s aying about ev eryone, men an d w omen a like, that thi s i s h ow our r ace would become happy, if we should fulfill our lo ve and each meet with his own darling boy, returning to his ancient nature. If this is best, then necessarily what is nearest to it under present circumstances is also best: that is, to meet a dar ling boy who naturally would become likeminded.]37

In the epilogue to the myth of eros, Aristophanes reexamines the question of how t o s atisfy (ev en par tially) th e inborn desir e t o bec ome on e w ith the other. This is done through education and play: love is about learning and assimila ting th e na ture of the oth er. In lo ve w e learn t o be lik e th e

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other. And in lo ve we teach our dar lings to “become likeminded.” Aristophanes approaches love in a mann er that ultimately ridicules the f antasy of a mir aculous, spontaneous f alling in lo ve. Rather, he ca lls on us t o choose as lo vers th ose wh o w ould be in clined t o r ealize th eir f antasy of sameness in us. At this point I r eturn to Hesiod’s Works and Da ys in order to examine the poem’s influence on the Symposium. I believe that the Platonic myth is significantly inspired by the Hesiodic mode of thought. My interpretation of Aristophanes’ myth as on e that commemorates the unavoidable experience of alterity in the love relationship harks back to Hesiod’s Works and Days. Aristophanes’ exhortation to base the love relationship on education and imit ation, in order to cr eate similar ity between lovers, can be in terpreted in light of the didactic program of Works and Days. Hesiod considers the lack of innate, harmonious bonding one of Iron Age’s greatest flaws. Hence, human relationships become a ma tter of education in Works and Days, requiring constant effort and attention. The poem’s ethical program compares th e ma intenance of human r elationships t o th e culti vation of land. Both require constant toil and attention, as a burning fire needs to be regularly fed with fuel. The need to foster human relationships implies that every relationship is governed by the principle of alterity. Hesiod believes, however, that proper treatment will lead to reciprocity, mutual consideration, and friendship. In this sense, Hesiod and the Platonic Aristophanes share th e beli ef that di fference un derlies ev ery h uman r elationship, and both welcome the possibilit y of turning differences into similarities. The transformational process of making the other a ben evolent conversant is fundamental t o th e dida ctic genr e an d t o th e philosophica l di alogue as well. In turning a h ostile brother and an a dversarial audience into compliant an d r esponsive li steners, Hesiod turns poetr y in to a language of communication that forges a di alogue between very different people. T D I: L  O The myth of the first w oman i s th e locus cl assicus for making di fference and a lterity th e elemen tary c oncepts of our being . Pandora marks th e feminine as an Oth er. She is the figure for th e ethical difference between masculinity and femininity. Yet I am less in terested here in this difference than in the wider significance of feminine otherness. I suggest that the myth of the first woman opens for us th e possibility of exploring the meaning of what is human. This makes the myth of the first woman etiological— albeit in an in direct manner—and in thi s s ense similar t o Aristophanes’

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myth of eros. Just as Aristophanes’ account of eros ultimately provides an account of sexual difference, so does the myth of Pandora open a window into the human condition. The myth of Pandora and the myth of the Five Ages are closely related, and their interrelationship determines how we interpret the myth of the first woman. More specifically, the myth of the Five Ages provides the narratological framework for interpreting the myth of Pandora. Together, the two myths r aise th e i ssue of gender di fference, which i s a c entral th eme in P andora’s m yth an d a dir ect out come of the m ythical split betw een “present” and “past” forms of life, the principal subject of the myth of the Five Ages. In thi s r espect, the cr eation of the first woman should not be understood solely w ithin the thematic boundaries of her story, merely as retribution for Prometheus’s theft. Reading her myth in the context of the end of the Golden Age enables us t o s ee her role as a sig nifier of difference. More to the point, the first woman represents the separation forced on men between their mythical status as demigods and their present position as lo wly mor tals. Pandora marks th e end of the sy mbiotic r elationship between men and gods and between men and the world. At the same time, she marks th e da wn of a n ew er a char acterized b y di sharmony in human relationships. Woman fills a cultur al role in Works and Days. She is a sig n of the unnaturalness of being embodied in labor, cultivation, and language. Woman represents th e r eality pr inciple tha t go verns th e cultur al w orld. The text uses her figure to commemorate what men have been deprived of—namely, a legendary lifespan saturated with pleasure and abundance, an unambiguous way of life reflected in th e transparency of language and morality.38 Yet the relationship of the Pandora episode to a didactic epic primarily concerned with farming and agriculture is not self-evident. What is therefore h er sig nificance for th e w orld of agriculture? How does sh e fit into the new r elationship between man an d the world? Hesiod’s depiction of his present age demonstr ates how men s eparated the natural world from its divine and pristine origins. In comparison with its cosmological beginning, the culti vated w orld n o longer r eflects th e v ividness of the di vine sphere. Now men perceive the land through their interests and needs: the land has bec ome a sy mbol of profits and us eful resources awaiting men. After the Golden Age, men can no longer comprehend the world as a natural integral part of their existence. As the world ceases to be on e with man, as man loos es his embr yonic bond with the world, otherness becomes a crucial part of man’s experience.

Pandora and th e Myth of Otherness

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His c ondition i s n o longer tha t of “being par t of ” but r ather of “standing in r elation to.” The structure of a relationship (between two external terms) r eplaces a pr imordial golden sy mbiosis. This i s wh ere th e first woman is needed. The feminine is not simply an external negation of men’s homology, but i s instead the grounds of a di alogical exi stence The feminine marks the form of a relationship as a crucial aspect of life. And thus, in Hesiod, the whole project of constituting for man a pr oper dwelling in the world is articulated under the sign of this relationship: the prescribed relationship between man an d his world receives its initi al thematization via the image of the response to the first woman. Nature no longer suppli es the embr yonic home of its own accord but is cultivated by men an d technica lly coerced into providing a h ome and nourishment. The n eed t o culti vate th e ear th i s stru cturally ana logous to the obligation to nourish and satisfy the woman. Hence, nature is the Other, as i s th e lan d, and lik ewise th e w oman. Sexual bon ding betw een men and women reveals the same problematics as the relationship between man an d na ture. Sexual bon ding i s n ot na tural an d spon taneous. The relationship betw een man an d w oman la cks na tural in timacy, and th eir initial interactions never run smoothly. Men and women struggle to overcome th e frustr ation tha t i ssues fr om being unable t o inst antly be c lose to one another.39 Hesiod’s didactic imperative is, hence, to know the Other.

chapter 

The Socratic Pandora

Pandora is at the center of an otherness that is omnipresent in the literary text.1 In Hesiod’s Works and Days her otherness is, first and foremost, a sign of a poetics tha t r ecognizes its finitude and embr aces its h uman or igins. Pandora marks th e unbr idgeable di stance that s eparates the human language from a pure language of sameness, the language of the gods. At the same time, the image of the first woman has another, somewhat opposed, meaning in th e H esiodic text. Pandora n ot only thr eatens th e c ohesiveness of poetic language; she a lso r epresents th e n eed t o domestica te, to cultivate, a dimension of otherness that w ill suppor t the very possibilit y of textuality. A text’s meaning is made possible by the existence of a tension between two opposing mo vements. On th e on e han d, the text must c ontain a dimension of otherness and difference that opens up its language t o new meanings. Without such difference a text r emains tautological and trivial, unable to car ve a uniq ue identity in th e space of language. On the other hand, otherness cann ot c onstitute th e g rounds for c onveying meaning . Rather, the communicability of a text—its leg ibility—depends on a r egulative pr inciple of sameness. A text i s a text only if it fun ctions w ithin shared horizons of language and meaning. This makes the text both singular and, at the same time, always part of a common field of textuality, always belonging to a f amily of texts. In Hesiod’s Works and Days these two opposing orientations are joined in the person of the first woman. The image of femininity thus assumes a dua l appear ance in th e dida ctic epic, being a sig n of both di fference and the overcoming of difference. The feminine, in other words, serves as a metaphor for two textual layers that are often at odds with one another 

The Socratic Pandora



but which gen erate a tension tha t i s ess ential t o th e forma tion of the didactic epic. These two aspects of the feminine find expression in two traits assigned to th e figure of Pandora: the dec eptive s educer an d th e v irginal br ide. While the image of woman as femme fatal e inspires the didactic project, its mir ror image i s cr itical for r ealizing the ethica l impuls e proposed by the epic. Whereas Pandora’s seductive force reflects men’s separation from the Golden Age and their banishment to an a lien world, the figure of the obedient bride points to the possibility of resolution and a symbolic homecoming. Hence, as Hesiod promotes the image of the silent and innocent maiden as a suit able candidate for mar riage, an alternative conception of the feminine emerges. As I sha ll sh ow, Works and Da ys issues fr om a tension betw een tw o poetic forms tha t I descr ibe as a “poetics of marriage” and a “poetics of eros.”2 These two poetic modes ar e the prototypes of two distinct generic discourses: the didactic and the philosophical. Described in a mor e schematic f ashion: the dida ctic text oper ates un der th e sig n of the obedi ent married woman; it pr esupposes a form of readership that fully c onsents to the text’s authority. The philosophical text, on the other hand, can never fully r eveal the source of its authority. Nevertheless, it tempts th e r eader to pursue an unkn own path that holds out a pr omise. In thi s chapter , the opposition betw een th e dida ctic an d th e philosophical text i s examined through the opposition betw een the poetics of marriage appear ing in X enophon’s Oeconomicus and th e poetics of eros appearing in Pla to’s Symposium. Against th e ba ckground of the dida ctic text, the chapter explores the unique ties between the poetics of the philosophical text and the feminine. My aim is to show that the heritage of the Hesiodic Pandora is intrinsic to the formation of the philosophical poetics of eros, and in par ticular to the Platonic figure of Socrates. W I  I L Preoccupied w ith th e fundamental exper ience of difference tha t plagu es the relationship between men and women, Hesiod inquires into the traits of an ideal wife. According to Hesiod, there is only on e way to enter into a good mar riage: “Marry a maiden so that you may teach her good manners, and better t o mar ry on e wh o i s y our n eighbor” (W&D –). Hesiod recommends a mar riage bas ed on a hi erarchical relationship between a mature, ethical husband and an innocently ignorant maiden who is to assume the role of an obedient disciple. And yet, because the woman



The Socratic Pandora

remains largely unknown to Hesiod, thereby possibly concealing a potential evil, he advises his readers to choose a n eighbor as a br ide. This will ensure a mor e successful match—that is, a marriage with a good w oman (agathe g yne, W&D –). Familiarity w ith h er f amily an d a c ommon social background, together with identical local interests, will further ease the couple’s initial estrangement and provide the ground for th eir future relationship. Establishing mutual interests in a marriage does not imply the existence of equality between the two partners. On the contrary, man and woman are integrated into a hierarchical relationship. The former assumes the role of educator an d est ablishes th e in terests tha t w ill be shar ed b y th e c ouple. Creating mutuality, then, entails no consideration of the feminine perspective—in fact, such consideration is dismissed out of hand by the husband because of his wife’s immaturity. Her perspective is acknowledged only after it has been integrated into his vision and merged within it. The unwritten marital contract Hesiod describes is not only betw een husband and wife, for it shapes th e poet’s understanding of the contract-like bond between the didactic author and his reader. The hierarchical connection between a husband and w ife thus s erves a poetic fun ction—namely, explicating the relationship between the didactic poet an d Perses, his intended audience. In what way is Hesiod’s audience—the fictional image of a listener that he c onstructs—analogous t o a br ide? Lik e tha t of the imma ture br ide, Perses’ perspective i s not truly in tegrated into the text. The didactic epic disciplines P erses an d silen ces him. He i s pr esent only in hi s abs ence. While Hesiod’s poetic ch oices are explicitly di scussed, Perses’ remain obscure.3 We assume, simply on the basis of the disparity between the brothers, that Perses takes a di stinct poetic st ance.4 And yet his actual views on poetry ar e never in f act r epresented. Works and Da ys thus pr ivileges the poet’s perspective over that of the listener. Nevertheless, despite the precedence a ccorded th e poet ’s v oice, Hesiod’s dida ctic poetr y s eeks t o o vercome the distance between the brothers. The didactic means of achieving that goal is certainly not founded on eq uality; the didactic epic does n ot acknowledge th e a utonomous pr esence of Perses. Rather, in w ishing t o transform P erses in to th e v ery image of himself, Hesiod ann ounces hi s paternalistic disposition toward his audience. “You have it, Perses, within your po wer t o bec ome a little bit lik e me ” seems t o be th e subtext of Hesiod’s poetry. Didactic poetry aspires to put Perses into Hesiod’s shoes. This means that the didactic epic’s ideal listener is a pliant figure ready to be assimilated into the author’s vision.5 By the same token, the ideal wife

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

is imagined to be a tabula rasa prepared to receive the mark of her husband’s education.6 The male ideal is to marry a w oman whose otherness does not yet pose a s erious obstacle to her assimilation into the world of her husband.7 Hesiod does n ot, however, offer a speci fic pedagog ical pr ogram for turning the woman into a ben eficial mate. This task was un dertaken and completed in the fourth century BCE by Xenophon, whose didactic Oeconomicus belongs to the Hesiodic tradition. Xenophon’s prose treatise employs and develops a variety of themes and images originating in Hesiodic poetry, but provides an impor tant complement. It addresses the problem of sameness in mar riage b y pr omulgating a systema tic edu cational pr ogram for a y oung w ife, based on c onversations w ith her husband. Xenophon’s text contributes to the poetics of marriage as it develops the notion, already present in Hesiod’s didactic epic, of an analogy between marriage and th e dida ctic text. More speci fically, by examining th e r elationship between an educating husband and his feminine disciple, Xenophon connects the figure of the newlywed wife to that of an ideal listener (reader). Consider, for example, the por trait of the young w ife as pr esented by the idea l h usband, Ischomachus, to Socr ates. His descr iption depicts a successful product of Ischomachus’s educational program: kai\ ti/ a)/n, e)/fh, w)= Sw/kratej, e)pistame/nhn au)th\n pare/labon, h(\ e)/th me\n ou)/pw pentekai/deka gegonui=a h)=lqe pro\j e)me/, to\n d' e)/mprosqen xro/non e)/zh u(po\ pollh=j e)pimelei/aj o(/pwj w(j e)la/xista me\n o)/yoito, e)la/xista d' a)kou/soito, e)la/xista d' e)/roito; ou) ga\r a)gaphto/n soi dokei= ei)=nai, ei) mo/non h)=lqen e)pistame/nh e)/ria paralabou=sa i(ma/tion a)podei=cai, kai\ e(wrakui=a w(j e)/rga tala/sia qerapai/naij di/dotai; e)pei\ ta/ ge a)mfi\ gaste/ra, e)/fh, pa/nu kalw=j, w)= Sw/kratej, h)=lqe pepaideume/nh: o(/per me/giston e)/moige dokei= pai/deuma ei)=nai kai\ a)ndri\ kai\ gunaiki/. (Xenophon, Oec. .–) [“What c ould sh e ha ve kn own wh en I t ook h er as m y w ife, Socrates? Sh e was not yet fifteen when she came t o me, and had spent her previous years under careful supervision so that she might see and hear and speak as little as possible. Don’t you think it was adequate if she came to me knowing only how t o t ake w ool an d pr oduce a c loak, and ha d s een h ow spinning t asks are a llocated t o th e s laves? And besides, she ha d been v ery w ell tr ained t o control her appetites, Socrates,” he said, “and I think tha t sort of training is most important for man an d woman alike.”—Trans. Sarah B. Pomeroy]8



The Socratic Pandora

Parents ha ve th e dut y of preparing th eir daughter t o be a r eceptive and compliant br ide. This means tha t she should be kn owledgeable of as little as possible. 9 It i s en ough tha t sh e kn ow on e kin d of craft: the ar t of weaving, considered essential to the bride’s preparatory education. Weaving tea ches th e br ide th e meaning of productivity an d in troduces h er (through the division of weaving labor) to the hierarchy between freeborn women and domestic s laves. According t o I schomachus, a w ell-brought-up y oung w oman of fifteen should already have a r estrained appetite. Such self-control over her abdomen s atisfies H esiod’s n otion of the good w ife ( W&D –). In both texts, physical s elf-restraint i s considered a feminin e v irtue, principally manifested in matters of food and sex.10 The first stage of her education is undertaken early in childhood, by the bride’s mother, who teaches her t o moder ate h er appetite. Only after thi s elemen tary st age of selfmoderation ( sophrosyne) has been fully in ternalized i s th e g irl r eady t o be un der th e super vision of her h usband an d t o a cquire s elf-control in the ar ea in which sh e i s destin ed t o bec ome an a uthority—namely, the household.11 Although th e br ide’s edu cation a t h er h usband’s hands r equires some degree of preparation b y h er par ents, she i s pr actically inn ocent of all knowledge when she enters marriage. Separated from the world during her childhood, the br ide has bar ely been expos ed t o th e soci al an d cultur al dimensions of life. The young woman is symbolically presented as blin d, deaf, and mute—that i s, as someone who has n ot experienced the world through her senses (Oec..). The husband’s task is thus to open h er eyes so tha t sh e s ees th e w orld, as w ell as t o make h er li sten t o th e voices of others. It i s impor tant to r eceive a w ife whose s ensory perception i s not yet developed. This will allow the husband to gradually construct her perspective so that it becomes tied to his. And having barely been exposed to the opinions of others, the young woman is considered deaf. Her deafness makes her eager t o hear her instructor’s voice, and she develops a speci al ear for h er h usband, becoming hi s a vid li stener. And as th e w ife i s furnished with the capacities of perceiving and listening, she is also allowed (within th e c onfines of convention) t o bec ome a speak er an d t o ga in a voice of her own (Oec. .–).12 In this respect, the husband creates his wife as a s elf-conscious subject by taming and instructing her. Paradoxically, as the didactic text su ccessfully completes the integration of the w ife into the husband’s world, she is a llowed t o r ecognize s exual di fferences. The w ife’s assimila tion of her

The Socratic Pandora



husband’s masculine worldview is a sig n that her otherness is no longer a threat. The process of taming the feminine culminates in the wife’s recognition of her distinctive feminine nature: dia\ de\ to\ th\n fu/sin mh\ pro\j pa/nta tau)ta\ a)mfote/rwn eu)= pefuke/nai, dia\ tou=to kai\ de/ontai ma=llon a)llh/lwn kai\ to\ zeu=goj w)felimw/teron e(autw=| gege/nhtai, a(\ to\ e(/teron e)llei/petai to\ e(/teron duna/menon. (Oec. .) [So, because th ey ar e n ot eq ually w ell en dowed w ith a ll th e s ame na tural attitudes, they ar e consequently mor e in n eed of each other, and the bond is m ore b eneficial t o th e c ouple, since on e i s capable wh ere th e oth er i s deficient.]13

According to Hesiod and Xenophon, the joining of male and female means facing th e ir resolvable di fferences tha t exi st betw een th em. Both w riters define a su ccessful mar riage as on e that bonds the two s exes around the ideal of sameness. At the same time, this very aspiration for identity reflects the reality of sexual difference that governs their union. Xenophon’s didactic treatise turns the woman into an ideal listener; her otherness is suppressed. In this sense, the didactic text is imbued with the violent and oppressive dimension of cultivation—that is, culture. In learning the ar t of listening, the woman i s forced to sur render her otherness. The husband’s language, like didactic poetry, entreats the wife to become more lik e him. It tea ches h er h ow t o embr ace th e h usband’s w orld. We cannot regard the husband’s language as s eductive.14 T N T   A L As is typical of the poetics of marriage, Xenophon’s didactic treatise is, in fact, a mi sogynist text. As we sha ll s ee, a eulog y for th e “decent woman” always impli es a def amation of the “deceitful woman.” Ischomachus, the ideal husband and Xenophon’s alter ego, is responsible for the misogynist subtext.15 The h usband’s dida ctic a ttempt t o est ablish c ommon g round between man and wife issues from deep prejudices concerning the inferior nature of women. According t o X enophon, the w oman’s fun damental character i s bas ed on h er inna te ins atiability, thus ech oing th e figure of Pandora in Theogony. But, more interestingly, his conception of women’s nature i s a lso r eminiscent of the figure of Pandora in Works and Da ys, where she i s constructed in terms of the opposition betw een nature and



The Socratic Pandora

artifact. The first w oman i s an ar tifact. There i s n othing na tural in h er figure; Pandora is foreign to nature. Yet, at the same time, it is natural for her to b e a rtificial. In a par adoxical mann er, the ar tificial an d a dorned belong to Pandora’s nature. Hence, in imply ing that there i s an in trinsic connection between the young girl and the archetypal woman, Xenophon is saying that the girl’s natural inclination is to become a seducer like Pandora, and that she can escape thi s predicament only if disciplined by the ideal principles of marriage. A good marriage and an instructive husband allow for a tr ansformation of the naturally artificial woman into a wholly “natural” one. In underscoring the importance of the passage, achieved in matrimony, from the artificial to the natural, the ideal husband, Ischomachus, represents Xenophon’s liter ary t aste. For Xenophon, the na tural w oman pr ovides an image of the idea l form of a text. This kin d of text, purist in essence, lacks adornments and consists of a self-transparent language. The instruction scene in Xenophon’s eulogy for the married couple celebrates a su ccessful encounter between the two s exes. Marriage cr eates a home, a pla ce wh ere di fferences ar e suppr essed an d harmon y an d similarity are sought after. Marriage thus becomes an institutional form of the human aspir ation for s ameness. According t o I schomachus, the idea l of sameness i s th e goa l of the ph ysical union betw een h usband an d w ife. However, eros and sameness are apparently incompatible terms. sunelhlu/qamen, w)= gu/nai, w(j kai\ tw=n swma/twn koinwnh/sontej a)llh/loij (“Wife, were we not joined in mar riage to share our bodies in intercourse w ith each other too?” Oec. .). With this rhet orical quer y Ischomachus opens the discussion of sex. To be sure, he does so with honesty and dir ectness. Yet (or should I sa y hence?) his er otic discussion is devoid of any seductive force. Why is that? Because the didactic tradition to which Xenophon’s text belongs v iews marriage as constituting an antidote to eros. Xenophon’s text thus strives to create a split between marriage and the erotic experience. Such a split is not always required: consider, for example, the biblical saying: “Therefore a man lea ves his father and his mother and cleaves to his wife, and they become one flesh” (Gen. .). The author of Genesis views marriage between man and woman as a corollary of their pr imal erotic discovery. In this sense, the di fference between the biblical text and X enophon’s didactic text is sig nificant. The biblical c onnection between husband and wife is essentially er otic in nature precisely because the text emphasizes the married couple’s corporeal union in the context of their betrayal of God.16 Sex is the forbidden fruit of marriage.

The Socratic Pandora



Moreover, the sexual innocence of paradise was marked by their nakedness. Now, after their expulsion from the Garden of Eden, man and woman are dressed for the first time in th e “garments of skins” that God has pr ovided them (Gen. .). That i s to s ay, the covered body, and not nudity, is the sign of their eroticism. Adam and Eve would fully discover the secret of their s exuality only wh en th e c orporeal sour ce of their shame ha d been covered in clothing. The biblical narrative constructs the dichotomy between s exual ig norance and s exual knowledge through the opposition between nudity and dr ess. While th e la ws of the Gar den of Eden ma intain sexual innocence, marriage tr ansgresses them and legitimizes sexual knowledge. The dichotomy between nudity and clothing is central to Ischomachus’s discussion and to Xenophon’s textual notions. Acting in a tradition of antierotic discourses, Ischomachus seeks to introduce the ethics of nudity into the sexual relationship with his wife. He wants, in other words, to retain sexual innocence within the framework of a sexual relationship. When his wife approaches him s eductively, wearing makeup and platform shoes, he reacts with disgust and begins to sermonize: w)= gu/nai, mh/te yimuqi/ou mh/te e)gxou/shj xrw/mati h(/desqai ma=llon h)\ tw=| sw=|, a)ll' w(/sper oi( qeoi\ e)poi/hsan i(/ppoij me\n i(/ppouj, bousi\ de\ bou=j h(/diston, proba/toij de\ pro/bata, ou(/tw kai\ oi( a)/nqrwpoi a)nqrw/pou sw=ma kaqaro\n oi)o / ntai h(d/ iston ei)n= ai: ai( d' a)pa/tai au(t = ai tou\j me\n e)c/ w pwj du/naint' a)\n a)necele/gktwj e)capata=n, suno/ntaj de\ a)ei\ a)na/gkh a(li/skesqai, a)\n e)pixeirw=sin e)capata=n a)llh/louj. h)\ ga\r e)c eu)nh=j a(li/skontai e)canista/menoi pri\n paraskeua/sasqai h)\ u(po\ i(drw=toj e)le/gxontai h)\ u(po\ dakru/wn basani/zontai h)\ u(po\ loutrou= a)lhqinw=j katwpteu/qhsan. (Oec. .) [I said, “Wife, you must understand that I too do not prefer the color of white powder and rouge to your own, but just as the gods have made horses most attractive t o h orses, cattle t o ca ttle, and sh eep t o sh eep, so h uman beings consider the human body most attractive when it is unadorned. These tricks might perhaps su cceed in dec eiving str angers w ithout being detected, but those who spend their whole lives together are bound to be found out if they try to deceive each other. Either they are found out when they get out of bed before they have got dressed, or they are detected by a drop of sweat, or convicted when they cry, or are revealed as they truly are when they take a bath.”]



The Socratic Pandora

Ischomachus conceives of the ideal relationship between husband and wife as on e of honesty an d openn ess. This mor al idea lization has a textua l significance. Adopting th e ideolog y of sameness, Ischomachus positions simplicity in opposition to extravagance. In teaching a wife how to rid herself of the allure of (feminine) beauty and how to adopt instead a plainer look, Xenophon tea ches hi s r eaders th e va lue of the una dorned st yle of writing.17 Simplicity helps Ischomachus to realize his ideal vision of physical union within matrimony: intimacy between two people who see each other strictly as they are. For Ischomachus, matrimonial sex should be governed by the principles of truthfulness and transparency.18 Only strangers use the s eductive t actics of lovers. As a c orollary, only lovers behave like strangers who are preoccupied with their external appearance. Developing mutual trust requires that the wife embrace the ethical codes of a natural appearance, which is the aesthetic goal of those who conceive of appearance as a mer e externa lity. Being th e unna tural outer skin of human na ture, appearance i s c onsidered a sig n of immorality. Ischomachus’s preference for th e unadorned human body i s typical of conservative morality. He belongs to a long tr adition that identifies naturalness, transparency, and nudity with truthfulness. The identification of the naked body w ith truth i s c losely ti ed t o th e G reek v isualization of gender difference. As Andrew Stewar t shows in hi s study of representations of the body in an cient G reece, men ar e usua lly nak ed in G reek ar t, whereas women are usually clothed.19 Nakedness is a differentiating device. It characterizes the “natural” masculine sex, while clothing is the sign of the constructed feminine sex.20 The didactic tradition aspires to create women according to the precept of the masculin e idea lization of nakedness. Instructors lik e H esiod an d Xenophon wish to remove women’s clothing and force on them the ethos of naturalness. This masculine aspiration lies at the root of the opposition between woman as w ife and woman as s educer. Hesiod, as we shall soon see, constructs the opposition betw een the two by means of the imager y of nakedness and dr ess. This opposition was en thusiastically adopted by Roman moralists, who labored to define feminine virtue through its na tural appearance. Plautus, for example, in a par ody of the Roman puritan ideology,21 reproduces the ethical standards that define feminine beauty in the following clichés: Pulchra mulier nuda erit quam purpurata pulchrior: poste nequiquam exornata est ben e, si morata est ma le.

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Pulchrum ornatum turpes mores peius caen o conlinunt. Nam si pulchr a est nimi s ornata est. (Mostellaria –) [A beautiful woman will be more beautiful naked than extravagantly dressed. Hence, if she is of bad moral character, she has in va in richly adorned herself. Ugly behavior defiles mor e than dir t an h onored beauty. Therefore, if a woman is beautiful she is already more than en ough adorned.]

Beauty manifests its elf more easily in th e naked body than in a body encumbered by clothing (contrasting nuda with purpurata). Nudity is, moreover, identified with mor al conduct. “Nude” implies simplicity and naturalness and high moral standards. As both t ypes of women—the morata, the w ell-behaved w oman, and th e immor al w oman, morata mal e—are adorned, the contrast between them i s bas ed on th e di stinction between internal and externa l kinds of adornments. While the morata is ador ned from th e inside, the a dornment of the exornata is s een as an in decent externality, a superfluity and, hence, a superficial addition.22 The Roman morata and the morata male are derivations of Hesiod’s two images of femininity. These are images of maidens who will soon become wives. While th e idea l (an onymous) br ide i s nak ed, the dec eitful br ide (Pandora) appears in a w edding dress.    ( –) Hesiod descr ibes th e in terior of a c ountry h ouse dur ing a c old w inter. His descr iption penetrates the undiscovered shadowy par ts of the house where the naked maiden, who “knows nothing of Aphrodite,” washes her body with oil. The naked maiden is domestic and is therefore hidden from the public eye. She is innocent of all erotic knowledge, a helpless and gentle cr eature who r equires ma le protection. She may be c onsidered to be, as Richar d H amilton has argu ed, a ci vilized impr ovement, a sublima ted version of the primordial woman.23 Contrasted with Pandora, the portrait of the nak ed g irl washing h erself provides an image of feminine inn ocence, which is recommended to men as th eir preferred object of desire. This gives the episode of the naked woman a specific role within Hesiod’s edifying text. The didactic author offers his male reader a gift in exchange for th e di vine g ift g iven t o men a t th e beg inning of his poem. Hesiod teaches that man can be released from the dangerous trap that is Pandora’s gift once h e finds a pr oper substitute: he n eeds t o r eplace Pandora w ith



The Socratic Pandora

a harmless nak ed maiden who promises innocence, loyalty, and s ecurity within the home. Our attention i s dir ected, however, to the antithesis of the naked woman, the clothed woman, the one who embodies the core of male anxiety.    Hesiod’s admonitions t o his r eader r egarding the dangers of feminine seduction are directly concerned with the coquettishly dressed woman. mh\de\ gunh/ se no/on pugosto/loj e)capata/tw: “Do not let the tightly dr essed [pugostolos] woman tempt your mind,” he warns (W&D ). This danger is, of course, signaled in the image of Pandora, clad as she is in g irdle and veil, decked out w ith jewelries and garlands —the appearance of a t ypical Greek bride. Why does this image of Pandora leave the r eader unsettled? Why does Pandora’s maidenhood connote danger rather than security? How can the innocent visage of a typical Greek maiden contain a danger? I suggest tha t Hesiod uses Pandora’s bridal costume as a v isual synecdoche of the feminine tr ap. It i s precisely the conventional costume that represents feminin e dec eit. In oth er w ords, Hesiod emplo ys th e br ide’s innocent appear ance as a means t o expos e th e first w oman’s r adical break betw een in teriority an d exter iority. Pandora’s c ostume does n ot refer t o h er r ole as th e futur e br ide of Epimetheus. Rather, it s erves as a met onymic sig n of her dua l na ture, of the dich otomous stru cture of her soul an d body. The c lothed woman manifests a di screpancy between the v isible an d th e in visible, a di screpancy tha t i s ess ential t o th e ar t of seduction. T S  P How does P andora impr ess h erself on our liter ary imag ination? How i s she r emembered? Does sh e str ike us as a ma iden r adiating th e bea uty of innocence, or does ev il domina te th e image w e ha ve of her? I ndeed, Zeus’s remarks to Prometheus already prefigure Pandora as evil. In warning Prometheus of his plan t o give humanity a kakon, an evil (W&D ), Zeus makes Pandora the sign of evil even before he creates her. At th e s ame time, it i s impor tant t o emphasi ze wha t w e have a lready underscored in our reading of Theogony—namely, that evil is not the only characteristic of the first woman. Pandora i s not just ev il. She manifests a hybrid form ca lled kalon kakon in Theogony (), a “beautiful evil.” In other words, feminine evil is never apparent. Its existence always remains ambiguous. In this respect, Pandora is, first of all, a duality.

The Socratic Pandora



Another way to say this is to note that Pandora’s evil character is simultaneously a source of delight for men, terpsis (). The pleasure she grants is ambiguous in the same way that Hesiod finds poetry ambiguous.24 This is first and foremost announced in th e description of Pandora’s creation: (/Hfaiston d' e)ke/leuse perikluto\n o(/tti ta/xista gai=an u(/dei fu/rein, e)n d' a)nqrw/pou qe/men au)dh\n kai\ sqe/noj, a)qana/th|j de\ qeh=|j ei)j w)=pa e)i/skein parqenikh=j kalo\n ei)=doj e)ph/raton: au)ta\r )Aqh/nhn e)/rga didaskh=sai, poludai/dalon i(sto\n u(fai/nein: kai\ xa/rin a)mfixe/ai kefalh=| xruse/hn )Afrodi/thn kai\ po/qon a)rgale/on kai\ guiobo/rouj meledw/naj: e)n de\ qe/men ku/neo/n te no/on kai\ e)pi/klopon h)=qoj (Ermei/hn h)/nwge, dia/ktoron )Argei+fo/nthn. w(\j e)/faq': oi(\ d' e)pi/qonto Dii\ Kroniwni a)/nakti. au)ti/ka d' e)k gai/hj pla/sse kluto\j )Amfiguh/eij parqe/nw| ai)doi/h| i)/kelon Kroni/dew dia\ boula/j: zw=se de\ kai\ ko/smhse qea\ glaukw=pij )Aqh/nh: a)mfi\ de/ oi( Xa/rite/j te qeai\ kai\ po/tnia Peiqw\ o(/rmouj xrusei/ouj e)/qesan xroi/+: a)mfi\ de\ th/n ge [Wrai kalli/komoi ste/fon a)/nqesin ei)arinoi=sin: pa/nta de/ oi( xroi\+ ko/smon e)fh/rmose Palla\j )Aqh/nh. e)n d' a)/ra oi( sth/qessi dia/ktoroj )Argei+fo/nthj yeu/dea/ q' ai(muli/ouj te lo/gouj kai\ e)pi/klopon h)=qoj [teu=ce Dio\j boulh=|si baruktu/pou: e)n d' a)/ra fwnh\n qh=ke qew=n kh=ruc, o)no/mhne de\ th/nde gunai=ka Pandw/rhn, o(/ti pa/ntej )Olu/mpia dw/mat' e)/xontej dw=ron e)dw/rhsan, ph=m' a)ndra/sin a)lfhsth=|sin… a)lla\ gunh\ xei/ressi pi/qou me/ga pw=m' a)felou=sa e)ske/daj':a)nqrw/poisi d' e)mh/sato kh/dea lugra/. mou/nh d' au)to/qi )Elpi\j e)n a)rrh/ktoisi do/moisin e)/ndon e)/mimne pi/qou u(po\ xei/lesin, ou)de\ qu/raze e)ce/pth: pro/sqen ga\r e)pe/llabe pw=ma pi/qoio ai)gio/xou boulh=|si Dio\j nefelhgere/tao. (W&D –) [He ordered far-famed Hephaestos at once to mix ear th with water, and to put into it human voice and strength, but to give her a f ace like an immor tal goddess, the charming , lovely shape of a ma iden. And h e t old Athena t o



The Socratic Pandora teach her women’s work, how to weave the intricate loom. And he told Aphrodite to pour golden g race upon h er head and painful desire and cares that weaken limbs. And he ordered Hermes, the Messenger, Slayer of Argos, to put into her the mind of a bitch and a treacherous nature. Thus he commanded, and th ey obe yed Lor d Zeus, son of Kronos. At on ce th e f amed Lame One molded out of earth the likeness of a modest ma iden as th e son of Kronos wished, and th e g ray-eyed god dess Athena g irded h er an d dr essed h er. Around her body the divine Graces and lady Peitho put chains of gold, and her head the fair-haired Hours wreathed with flowers of spring. And Pallas Athena fit all manner of adornment to her form. And the Messenger, Slayer of Argos, into h er h eart put li es and w ily w ords and a tr eacherous na ture according to the w ill of loud-thundering Zeus. And the herald of the gods gave her voice, and he named th e woman Pandora, because all of the gods who live upon Oly mpus gave her a g ift, a sorrow to men wh o eat bread. . . . But the woman, lifting the great lid of the jar with her hands, scattered them abroad, and wrought ruinous sorrows for men. Only hope remained within the jar , in its unbr eakable h ome, under th e r im, and did n ot fly out th e opening. Before that could happen the lid of the jar stopped her (by the will of aegis-bearing, cloud-gathering Zeus).—Trans. Jeffrey M. Hurwit]25

Pandora i s cr eated fr om c lay, which i s a mixtur e of two c omponents, water an d ear th ( W&D ). In shaping h er char acter, the gods cr eate a two-faced figure. On the one hand, she is given the virginal and innocent countenance of a beautiful young maiden. On the other hand, in contrast to th e t ypical image of the t aciturn, inexperienced ma iden, Pandora i s elaborately skilled in t alking and weaving, and i s equipped w ith a ll sor ts of erotic g ifts and s eductive techniques ( W&D –). This oxymoronic woman consequently becomes th e fer tile sour ce of deceits and illusions. The principal manifestation of her ambiguity is her shape. In becoming a container of voice, thought, and desire—a vase—Pandora is made into an exteriority that conceals unknown contents. In this respect the jar (or , in later versions, the inf amous box) is truly emblematic of her figure. It n ot only c onsists of the s ame ma terials as Pandora (ear th an d wa ter); it embodi es th e dua l inside-outside stru cture. Furthermore, the anecdote of the jar opens yet another question: did Pandora open th e jar lik e a th oughtless a utomaton, or did sh e open it deliberately, in a t ypical gesture of feminine curiosity? The jar’s ambiguous hidden content is exposed: a bittersweet mixture of sorrow and hope (W&D –).26 The first woman thus comes to embody this dichotomous

The Socratic Pandora



structure, the interplay between exteriority and interiority. In tr aditional thought thi s dua lity i s expr essed thr ough th e binar y r elationship of appearance and essence. But the gods ar e principally concerned with creating the first woman’s appearance. They ar e interested in h ow she looks. If Pandora’s impact i s mainly derived from the way she looks, how can she be blamed for doing evil? How can sh e be c onsidered a r esponsible agent if her g reatest f ault is a passi ve on e? H owever, the gods mak e P andora a r esponsible agen t. They conceive her to be an a ctive persona. She is not merely appearance. Her visibility is not only reflective of passivity; it has an active dimension. That is to say, Pandora’s appearance is not only something tha t is visible, but also something that conceals. Her appearance is thus a par adox, since it at once marks an d obfuscates the hidden space of inwardness. Feminine bea uty cann ot, then, be un derstood as a mer e externa lity. Feminine beauty always hints at something be yond itself, at the presence of something invisible. A w oman’s v isibility impli es tr anscendence—not a metaphysical transcendence aspiring toward an absolute, but a transcendence of appearance that points toward a dimension of the body that can never b e s een. Pandora’s beauty suggests th e pr esence of a soul. Her jarlike constitution and dua l na ture ar e indicative of what w e r ecognize t o be the structure of body and soul. Since for Hesiod Pandora is the bearer par excellence of this duality, since she embodies the discrepancy between external appear ance an d hid den in teriority, we ma y s ay tha t H esiod’s conception of the feminin e s erves as th e g rounds for un derstanding th e human link betw een body an d soul. As suggested, the feminine di screpancy between external appearance and invisible interiority contains a moral for the male beholder. Appearances lie: they are essentially divorced from truth; they st and in opposition t o truth; and women ar e the incarnation of this opposition. The sig nificance of women’s deceitful nature i s not just met aphysical, however. It has clear practical and ethical implications. It turns out that for Hesiod th e na ture of femininity—the feminin e as appear ance—is w hat generates and regulates erotic interaction between man an d woman. The field of Eros tha t i s, the er otic game —is ess entially feminin e beca use it is bas ed on th e unna tural feminin e en tanglement of showing an d c oncealing, of visible an d in visible. Pandora’s s eductions ar e sy mptomatic of her dual constitution of body and soul, which is her feminine essence. Her image go verns Hesiod’s understanding of the er otic pr edicament of humanity. The first woman is a sign of the tragic fact that men cannot be



The Socratic Pandora

the masters of their erotic life. They ar e thrown into the erotic situation whose modus oper andi is c oncealed, which r emains a s ecret t o th em—a modus operandi, in other words, that is regulated by woman. S  T Hesiod’s image of Pandora c ontains a ca thexis of the er otic and th e deceitful. Through the image of the first woman, eros becomes met aphysically and morally problematic. Yet, in the way that the image of Pandora gives rise to a new literary persona—the seducer—it concomitantly opens up th e possibilit y of rehabilitating eros, of articulating th e er otic as th e medium of wisdom and truth. This transformation of eros will specifically concern us in th e context of the figure of Socrates, the archetypal philosopher. Plato’s Socr ates i s our ma in c oncern. Socrates’ seductive figure is cru cial for our un derstanding of the feminin e dimension of the text because he embodies, as I will show, the heritage of the Hesiodic Pandora. Before we turn t o the Platonic image of Socrates, however, let us first consider th e figure of Socrates as it appears in a par ticularly in teresting episode in X enophon’s Memorabilia. In th e epi sode tha t c oncerns us, Xenophon portrays Socrates gazing a t and consequently reflecting on th e beauty of a well-known hetaera. This kind of situation is uncharacteristic of Socrates and clearly foreign to the ethos of the Platonic dialogue. This is not to say that beauty is irrelevant to Plato’s Socrates: on the contrary, beauty an d its r elationship t o th e form of the bea utiful i s a major c oncern in a var iety of Platonic dialogues. Yet whereas the Platonic Socr ates frequently r esponds to the corporeal and met aphysical manifest ations of beauty, his reflections on bea uty are never inspired by the appear ance of a beautiful woman.27 In Memorabilia . the Socratic discourse on beautiful appearance grows from the dazzling sight of Theodote, a hetaera.28 The passage that describes Socrates’ encounter w ith Th eodote i s a mir ror v ersion of the f amous Socratic en counter w ith an other w oman—the h oly Diotima —as r elated by Plato.29 Whereas in Pla to’s Symposium (d) Socrates pays homage to the wise priestess, presenting himself as her devoted student in th e art of love (ta erotica), in Xenophon’s Memorabilia Socrates assumes th e role of an erotic guide wh o teaches a w oman about a lo ve that is far from being metaphysical.30 In both a ccounts, however, the source of Socrates’ erotodidacticism is his encounter with a w oman. Theodote’s episode allows us to observe Socrates in a r are moment: he gazes at a beautiful woman and analyzes the visual effect of her appearance,

The Socratic Pandora



attempting t o deciph er its enig matic er otic for ce. As h e o vercomes hi s initial w onder, Socrates’ reflections on th e na ture of Theodote’s bea uty enable us t o c onsider th e tr ansfiguration of Hesiod’s P andora in to th e philosophical, Socratic context. The first detail we notice is that Theodote emulates P andora n ot only in h er ex quisite bea uty, but in h er name as well. Like Pandora, Theodote is “a divine gift.” In his Memorabilia Xenophon relates a s eries of Socratic conversations concerning the arts. Among them is the art of love. After visiting the ateliers of a painter, a sculptor, and a maker of armor, Socrates pays a visit— not typically noticed as connected with the other three calls—to the home of the famous hetaera Theodote.31 How does her art relate to that of Parrhasius, Cleiton, and Pi stias, the pa inter, sculptor, and armor -maker, respectively? What makes it possible to include Theodote’s erotic profession in the mimetic arts? Is the evocation of Theodote’s occupation meant only to provide a c ontrast with the sister arts? One way to understand the relationship between these four artists would be to compare the way each depicts th e human body. In considering the painter, sculptor, armor-maker, and h etaera, there i s a g radual decr ease in th e deg ree of separation betw een th e ar tistic medium an d th e body. Whereas the painter creates two-dimensional representations of the human body—that is, representations based on a visual illusionism that compensates for th e remoteness of his work from any actual body—the sculptor takes pr ide in cr eating thr ee-dimensional figures tha t, although di stinct from what they represent, occupy a similar position in spa ce. The maker of armor must a ddress th e a ctual n eeds of an iden tifiable body , while, finally, the hetaera’s art makes use of her own body as the ultimate source of pleasure. In evaluating these four arts through the criterion of distance from the corporeal, painting would seem to be the highest and most intellectual form, while the work of the hetaera appears t o be a t the bottom of the ladder. And yet, despite its appar ent infer iority, Theodote r eceives Socrates’ (or Xenophon’s) greatest attention. She is the only one of the four artists w ith wh om Socr ates dev elops a di alogue of considerable length. Does Socr ates va lue Th eodote’s ar t mor e than th e mimetic ar ts? Befor e examining her professional consciousness, Socrates discusses her appearance, which is fundamental to her professional success. Theodote’s bea uty a ttracts man y a dmirers. Their r eaction t o h er r ecalls the paradigmatic response to Pandora. In repeating the role assumed by th e or iginal s eductive w oman, Theodote a lso mak es appear ance h er emblem. She is lavishly adorned (polutelos kekosmemenen, ..)32 and is



The Socratic Pandora

fully aware of her beauty as a ma tter of presentation. The central role of appearance for Th eodote and her observers is described at the beginning of the episode: Gunaiko\j de/ pote ou)/shj e)n th=| po/lei kalh=j, h(=| o)/noma h)=n Qeodo/th, kai\ oi(/aj sunei=nai tw=| pei/qonti, mnhsqe/ntoj au)th=j tw=n paro/ntwn tino\j kai\ ei)po/ntoj o(/ti krei=tton ei)/h lo/gou to\ ka/lloj th=j gunaiko/j, kai\ zwgra/fouj fh/santoj ei)sie/nai pro\j au)th\n a)peikasome/nouj, oi(=j e)kei/nhn e)pideiknu/ein e(auth=j o(/sa kalw=j e)/xoi, 0Ite/on a)\n ei)/h qeasome/nouj, e)/fh o( Swkra/thj: ou) ga\r dh\ a)kou/sasi/ ge to\ lo/gou krei=tton e)s / ti katamaqei=n. kai\ o( dihghsa/menoj, ou)k a)n\ fqa/noit', e)f / h, a)kolouqou=ntej. ou(t / w me\n dh\ poreuqe/ntej pro\j th\n Qeodo/thn kai\ katalabo/ntej zwgra/fw| tini\ paresthkui=an e)qea/santo. pausame/nou de\ tou= zwgra/fou, ]W a)/ndrej, e)/fh o( Swkra/thj, po/teron h(ma=j dei= ma=llon Qeodo/th| xa/rin e)/xein, o(/ti h(mi=n to\ ka/lloj e(auth=j e)pe/deicen, h)\ tau/thn h(mi=n, o(/ti e)qeasa/meqa; a)r = ' ei) me\n tau/th| w)felimwte/ra e)sti+\n h( e)pi/deicij, tau/thn h(mi=n xa/rin e(kte/on, ei) de\ h(mi=n h( qe/a, h(ma=j tau/th|; ei)po/ntoj de/ tinoj o(/ti di/kaia le/goi, Ou)kou=n, e)f / h, au(t / h me\n h)d/ h te par' h(mw=n e)p / ainon kerdai/nei kai/, e)peida\n ei)j plei/ouj diaggei/lwmen, plei/w w)felh/setai: h(mei=j de\ h)/dh te w(=n e)qeasa/meqa e)piqumou=men a(/yasqai kai\ a)/pimen u(poknizo/menoi kai\ a)pelqo/ntej poqh/somen. e)k de\ tou/twn ei)ko\j h(ma=j me\n qerapeu/ein, tau/thn de\ qerapeu/esqai. kai\ h( Qeodo/th, Nh\ Di/', e)/fh, ei) toi/nun tau=q' ou(/twj e)/xei, e)me\ a)\n de/oi u(mi=n th=j qe/aj xa/rin e)/xein. (Mem. ..–) [There was a bea utiful ( kale) w oman in th e cit y, whose name was Th eodote, and who was th e sor t to keep company with whoever persuaded her. When on e of those wh o w ere pr esent men tioned h er an d s aid tha t th e beauty of the woman surpassed speech; and when he had said that painters, to wh om sh e di splayed as mu ch of herself as was n oble t o di splay, visited her in order to draw her likeness, Socrates said, “We must go t o behold her, for surely it i s not possible for th ose who have merely heard to learn wha t surpasses speech.” And the one who had described her said, “Hurry up and follow.” Thus th ey w ent t o Th eodote an d came upon h er st anding for a certain painter, and they beheld her. After the painter left o ff, Socrates said, “Men, should w e be mor e g rateful t o Th eodote for di splaying for us h er beauty, or she to us beca use we beheld? If the display is more beneficial to her, as is it for h er to be grateful to us, while if the beholding is more beneficial t o us, for us t o be g rateful t o h er?” And wh en someon e s aid tha t

The Socratic Pandora



what he said was just, he said, “She, then, already gains from our praise and will be th e mor e ben efited wh enever w e sh ould r eport it t o mor e people; while w e a lready desir e t o t ouch wha t w e ha ve beh eld an d w ill go a way rather excited and will long for what we have left behind. From these things it i s pla usible tha t it i s w e wh o s erve an d sh e wh o r eceives s ervice.” And Theodote said, “By Zeus, if this is so, then it i s I wh o should be g rateful to you for th e beholding.”—Trans. Amy L. Bonnette]33

Socrates’ encounter with Theodote revolves around her striking appearance. This pr ovokes r eflections on th e kinds of gaze t o which Th eodote is subjected. She is an object of at least thr ee: the gaze of lovers, the gaze of artists, and n ow, with Socr ates’ arrival, the gaze of the philosoph er. Theodote i s n ot simply captur ed in men ’s e yes; she i s a lso an object of imitation. While artists strive to capture her beautiful appearance in their respective visual forms of representation, the layman too struggles (even if vainly) to do the same thing with words. Socrates explains the desire to imitate the beauty of Theodote as an er otic r esponse. Her beauty a ffects those wh o look upon h er, inciting a desir e t o t ouch wha t i s s een. For Socrates this desire remains unfulfilled and so bec omes a long ing. Longing is precisely what causes those who have seen Theodote to return to her again and again. Longing is what makes her viewers regular customers, or, to use Theodote’s own language, friends, philoi (Mem. ..). Her appearance i s ph ysical, corporeal. And y et, paradoxically, her pr esence i s fundamentally unattainable. Her beauty, though physical, cannot be captured by th e hand tha t t ouches it. It cannot be h eld or poss essed b y oth ers. It remains a sour ce of longing, the source of the ar tistic dr ive to r epresent and capture the uncapturable. This invisible dimension of Theodote’s appearance links h er art to the other thr ee ar tistic forms tha t interest Socr ates. They ar e of interest because of their ability to represent the invisible. Socrates inquires into the painter’s ar t of imitating the char acter (ethos) of the soul in pa int. He i s interested in th e sculptor’s mode of representing emotions ( pathos), and in the armor-maker’s ability to create breastplates that imitate the body’s eurhythmia. Socrates is curious about these dimensions of the artists’ work because, for him, the criterion for ju dging the visual quality of a work of art is the artist’s ability to transcend the visual. In th e cas e of the pa inter an d sculpt or, it i s de finitely a q uestion of becoming aware of the role of the soul in endowing the body with meaning. Thus, Socrates gets Parrhasius to admit that his painted figures reflect



The Socratic Pandora

the invisible qualities of the psyche (Mem. ..), and he leads Cleiton to see that his art of representation must f ace up to the activities of the soul (..). According to Socrates, a good imitation succeeds in endowing an appearance w ith its o wn pr inciple of life. This pr inciple i s applicable t o the art of armor, which, in Socrates’ view, rests on a r epresentation of the body’s in ternal harmon y an d unit y. Socrates tea ches th e thr ee ar tists t o develop th eir capa city for obs ervation an d th eir abilit y t o r ead in visible meaning in to wha t th ey s ee and, correspondingly, to cr eate appear ances that embody hid den qualities. Theodote’s ar tistic st atus i s ex ceptional beca use h er ar t i s n ot r epresentational. She does n ot cr eate r epresentations as mu ch as sh e ena cts forms of self-representation. Theodote pr esents herself as a w ork of art. Her art is not mimetic, at least not in the ordinary sense. It does not refer to an ything but its elf. Her ar t i s on e of self-patterning, shaping th e s elf into th e form of a perfected object of desire.34 In order to e ffect thi s, Theodote not only has t o be c ompetent; she must poss ess true exper tise in what Socr ates understands to be th e di alectics of body and soul. This is also what makes her art, in his view, the highest of the aforementioned art forms. Theodote, however, seems to be unaware of her privileged position as an ar tist, and it i s only thr ough a Socr atic di alogue (in its X enophonic form) tha t she gains access to the possibility of self-knowledge. Xenophon’s Socr ates r eveals t o Th eodote a r eflective pa th tha t a llows her to come to terms w ith and assume r esponsibility for h er professional life. Two main themes recur in the questions Socrates poses to Theodote: the pla ce an d sig nificance of the gaze, and th e di alectics of the gaze, in which sh e i s a lways involved. “Should w e be mor e g rateful t o Th eodote for di splaying for us h er beauty, or she to us beca use we beheld?” Theodote cannot escape h er role as an object of desire, an object of sight, but Socrates i s nevertheless insi stent on lea ding h er t o a n ew understanding of herself. By means of his questioning, he draws her attention to the fact that her appearance is not something given in itself as much as it is something always dependent on th e gaze of a viewer. That is to say, Theodote has an appear ance, first and for emost, because sh e i s par t of a w orld of gazes, entangled in the human dynamics of looking and being looked at.35 This understanding has a liberating effect, according to Socrates. Theodote should n ot un derstand h erself as an object t o be desir ed or ig nored b y others, but as an a ctive agen t in a c omplicated h uman in teraction w ith those who see and are attracted by what they see. At the same time, those who see are always themselves being seen. This constitutes the second part

The Socratic Pandora



of the Socratic conversation with Theodote, which is concerned with the place and significance of skill and contrivance in h er professional life: o(/ ti a)\n le/gousa eu)frai/noij, kai\ o(/ti dei= to\n me\n e)pimelo/menon a)sme/nwj u(pode/xesqai, to\n de\ trufw=nta a)poklei/ein, kai\ a)rrwsth/santo/j ge fi/lou frontistikw=j e)piske/yasqai kai\ kalo/n ti pra/cantoj sfo/dra sunhsqh=nai kai\ tw=| sfo/dra sou= fronti/zonti o(/lh| th=| yuxh=| kexari/sqai: filei=n ge mh\n eu)= oi)=d' o(/ti e)pi/stasai ou) mo/non malakw=j, a)lla\ kai\ eu)noi+kw=j: (Mem. ..) [You learn both h ow you mig ht g ratify w ith a look an d delig ht w ith what you s ay; and that you must r eceive w ith g ladness one who i s attentive but shut out one who is spoiled; and that when a friend is sick, at least, to watch over him w orriedly, and when he does something n oble to be ex ceedingly pleased by it a long w ith him; and to g ratify w ith your whole soul th e one who worries about y ou exceedingly.]

The term “contrivance” (mechane) i s opp osed to lu ck ( tuche), which, in the er otic field, is ti ed t o th e doma in of instincts an d impulsi veness— the unpredictable and uncontrollable power of eros. In the context of the theatrical stage, mechane refers to the technological ability to produce the effect of a sudden godly appear ance. In an ana logous manner, mechane is what enables th e h etaera t o simula te th e e ffects of passion. At th e s ame time, the art of love becomes an ar t only through the artist’s skill in c oncealing the existence of the mechane behind a cur tain of appearances.36 In celebrating the impor tance of mechane for Theodote’s ar t, Socrates reproduces his own version of Pandora’s dual dolos: feminine existence is deceitful in having an external appearance that does not match its hidden interior; and it is again deceitful in hiding the difference between interiority and external appearance. Whereas the dolos of Pandora is manifest in the manner in which her beauty freezes the viewer’s gaze, allowing appearance to dominate essence, Socrates’ philosophical gaze liberates the structure of the feminine trompe l’oeil from its H esiodic stigma. For Socr ates, Theodote’s external appear ance is based on a mechane she must learn t o master. Her beauty is based on a form of self-knowledge. In guiding Theodote t oward a s elf-understanding tha t w ould a llow h er t o be in c ontrol of her appear ance, Socrates must mak e us e of the ess ential di stinction between body an d soul: “And in it [y our body i s] a soul thr ough which

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you learn both h ow you might gratify with a look an d delight with what you s ay” (Mem. ..). The soul i s the motivating force of the hetaera’s conduct, gestures, and appearance. Only by recognizing the invisible dimension of her being can sh e excel in an d profit from the art of love. Socrates’ deep un derstanding of the h etaera’s er otic ar t i s n ot c oincidental but i s tied to the nature of his philosophical practice: e)n de\ tou/tw| yuxh/n, h(=| katamanqa/neij kai\ w(j a)\n e)mble/pousa xari/zoio kai\ o(/ ti a)\n le/gousa eu)frai/noij. (Mem. ..) [And I also have female friends who will not allow me to leave them day or night, since they are learning lo ve charms an d incantations from me.]

Socrates’ irony sh ould n ot c onceal th e f act tha t in th e abo ve pass age h e proclaims both his authority in the field of eros and his own seductive presence. As Theodote well understands, the source of Socrates’ erotic knowledge i s philosophy. The Socr atic philosophica l pr actice i s thus linked by Xenophon to the art of love and more particularly to the art of the hetaera. With this connection in min d, we may turn n ow from Xenophon’s anecdotal Socrates to the figure who appears in th e Platonic dialogues. At the center of our concern is the connection between seduction and textuality in Plato. Socrates’ seductive side is very clear in Plato’s dialogues, and the presence of an intimate connection between Socrates’ erotic character and the nature of philosophy i s a lso a r ecurrent theme in r eadings of Plato. What I w ish to focus on i s the r elationship between the s eductiveness of Plato’s Socrates—Socrates’ eros—and Plato’s understanding of the workings of his own text. Examining the striking affinity between the figure of Socrates and the archetypal first woman, Pandora. I place particular emphasis on th e way in which Pla to reinterprets the Hesiodic image of the feminine in its r elation to eros. S  P In on e of the first appear ances of the Pla tonic Socr ates, in Apology b, Socrates asks hi s judges and audience to r ecall what hi s pr esence means for the Athenian city, and to consider whether he is “really the sort of person who would have been sent to this city as a gift from God” (dedostai).37 Socrates’ wish is to be r emembered as a di vine gift to a cit y that has declined an d forgotten its n oble or igins. But wha t an od d g ift h e i s, this

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annoying gadfly who har asses a large an d noble horse (e). This image of Socrates as ga dfly makes him in to an a ttachment (proskeimenon, e) inflicted upon th e s elf-indulgent cit y. Though Pla to was car eful n ot t o employ the word doron for “gift” in this context, his formulation in d, ten tou theou dosin, “god’s gift,” nevertheless recalls the epithet of Pandora in Works and Da ys , doron th eon, “the g ift of the gods.”38 Both texts, Hesiod’s Works and Da ys and Pla to’s Apology, celebrate th e c ensure of their protagonists by society, as well as th e collective refusal to recognize the value of the gift these protagonists bring. Nevertheless, the images of Pandora and Socrates are not compatible. The crux of the Hesiodic image of Pandora is the ambiguous nature of her gift. For Plato, condemnation of Socrates is indicative of society’s shortcomings. In other words, he presents Socr ates as a g ift tha t i s mi sunderstood an d mi sused. That h ostile, negative reception is not unconnected to an ambiguit y in Socr ates’ character and behavior. His alleged care for his interlocutors’ souls often causes them embarrassment. His goodness, that is, assumes the form of an annoyance. His w isdom t akes th e form of professed ig norance. The cit y was alarmed b y thi s r estless nuisance and c ould har dly find any good in hi s provocations. Socrates, according to Plato, is a gift whose utility remained concealed from the majority of Athenians because they could not understand that his annoying behavior was th e essence of his usefulness. Socrates’ duality is given its fullest elaboration in the Symposium, where the philosopher is portrayed as a s educer and a teacher of love. In searching for th e liter ary sources of this new liter ary persona, we should make note of a striking connection between the figure of Socrates and Hesiod’s Pandora. Pandora mig ht at first s eem to o ffer only a n egative model for the construction of the Socratic figure. Whereas she is known as the kalon kakon, the one whose exterior is beautiful and whose interior is evil, he is characterized by an unsightly exteriority and a beautiful inward goodness. She exemplifies the deceptiveness of appearance, while he r epresents the hidden nature of truth. And yet an affinity between the philosopher and the first woman exists, in spite of these appar ent di fferences. To beg in w ith, it sh ould be n oted that th eir externa l appear ances a ffect th eir v iewers in th e s ame mann er: both th e bea utiful w oman an d th e ug ly philosoph er str ike oth ers w ith wonder.39 In the Symposium this effect is apparent when Alcibiades turns to look a t Socr ates. As Alcibiades en ters Agathon’s h ouse, he i s unaware of Socrates’ presence. He is drunk an d wears a bea utiful wreath made of fresh flowers and r ibbons, with which, he ann ounces, he w ill cr own th e

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The Socratic Pandora

cleverest an d best-looking man ( e). He na turally turns t o th e han dsome Agathon, the acclaimed winner of the festival. But then he suddenly notices Socrates and cries out: ]W (Hra/kleij, touti\ ti/ h)=n; Swkra/thj ou(=toj; e)lloxw=n au)= me e)ntau=qa kate/keiso w(/sper ei)w/qeij e)cai/fnhj a)nafai/nesqai o(/pou e)gw\ w)/|mhn h(/kista/ se e)/sesqai. (Symp. c) [Good lord, what’s going on here? It’s Socrates! You’ve trapped me (katekeiso) again! You a lways do thi s t o me —all of a su dden y ou’ll turn up out of nowhere wh ere I least expect y ou!—Trans. Alexander N ehamas an d P aul Woodruff]40

Caught by surprise, Alcibiades once again experiences the erotic effect of the Socr atic pr esence an d a ccuses th e la tter of playing hi s old h unting game.41 How strange it must be to experience the same surprise, time after time, and at the hands of the s ame old a cquaintance. And yet Alcibiades is shocked to s ee Socr ates—so much so tha t he str ips Agathon’s he ad of the ribbons he has bestowed on him and places them instead on Socrates, declaring his to be the most wonderful of heads, thaumaste kephale (e).42 In so doing , he not only dethr ones Agathon by pronouncing Socrates the cleverest man on ear th, but unexpectedly calls the latter the most beautiful of men, kallistos, as well (e). Alcibiades’ response to the sight of Socrates is surprising in many ways. First, it i s dir ected t oward hi s ph ysical an d c orporeal pr esence. What’s more, Alcibiades c onsiders th e philosoph er’s ph ysical appear ance t o be beautiful, and he assigns him a str ong erotic appeal. ’  Since we are not accustomed to think of Socrates’ physical appearance in positive terms, Alcibiades surprises us. He declares what sensitive readers of Plato’s Symposium may have already sensed—Socrates has a body , and that body i s th e sour ce of charisma.43 This is not the conventional view of Socrates. Nor i s it th e wa y Socr ates s eems t o c onceive of himself. As Martha C. Nussbaum writes: Socrates has so di ssociated hims elf from hi s body tha t h e gen uinely does not feel its pa in, or r egard its su fferings as things gen uinely happening t o

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him. He i s f amous for dr inking w ithout ev er getting drunk, and w ithout the hangovers complained of by the others. . . . He really seems to think of himself as a being wh ose mind is distinct from his body, whose personality in no way identifies itself with the body an d the body’s adventures.44

Socrates’ indifference toward his body i s usually interpreted as a fun ction of his view of the relationship between body an d soul. 45 Socrates regards the soul as super ior t o th e body. According t o Phaedo and Gorgias, the soul and the body are detached from each other, the visible, corporeal, and mortal being ir revocably s eparated from the invisible, metaphysical, and immortal. Life forces these two opposing domains together, but the union between body and soul turns each into a prisoner, or a tenant, of the other. The Socr atic met aphors of the body as a t omb ( Grg. a) and a pr ison of the soul ( Phd. e) expr ess th e philosoph er’s desir e t o be r edeemed from the constraints of the body.46 Despite the forcefulness of these metaphors, the Platonic Socrates does not express uncompromising contempt for the body and its visual attractions.47 We sh ould note tha t Pla to never simply ig nores th e bodily pr esence of Socrates. His body i s a q uestion for Pla to, one that ar ises in th e description of Socrates’ idiosyncratic ph ysiognomy, and in hi s er otic, often corporeal, responses to the beauty of others.48 The question “Who is Socrates?” has, according to Nicole Loraux, a twofold answer: while for Socrates it i s c learly hi s soul, for others Socr ates i s ins eparable from hi s physicality.49 But what is the source of Socrates’ physical appeal? ’  Let us t ake Alcibiades’ response at face value. Can we seriously accept his reference to Socrates as the most beautiful of men? This is not easy, especially when we recall that this “most beautiful” man is also referred to as an ugly and grotesque Silenus or s atyr by Alcibiades himself (Symp. b, d). How i s it possible tha t th e stupefy ing e ffect of Socrates’ repulsive appearance i s so similar t o the stunning e ffect of the beauty of Pandora or Theodote? Ugliness remains exactly that, even if it belongs to a brilliant mind. Plato suppli es a good example in th e figure of Theaetetus, bright, young, but ugly. His teacher, Theodorus, introduces him t o Socrates:50 kai\ mh/n, w)= Sw/kratej, e)moi/ te ei)pei=n kai\ soi\ a)kou=sai pa/nu a)/cion oi(/w| u(mi=n tw=n politw=n meiraki/w| e)ntetu/xhka. kai\ ei) me\n h)=n kalo/j, e)fobou/mhn a)n\ sfo/dra le/gein, mh\ kai/ tw| do/cw e)n e)piqumi/a| au)tou= ei)n= ai. nu=n de/ -kai\

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The Socratic Pandora

mh/ moi a)x / qou- ou)k e)s / ti kalo/j, prose/oike de\ soi\ th/n te simo/thta kai\ to\ e)/cw tw=n o)mma/twn: h(=tton de\ h)\ su\ tau~t0 e1xei. a)dew=j dh\ le/gw. eu)= ga\r i)/sqi o(/ti w(=n dh\ pw/pote e)ne/tuxon -kai\ pa/nu polloi=j peplhsi/aka ou)de/na pw h)|sqo/mhn ou(/tw qaumastw=j eu)= pefuko/ta. to\ ga\r eu)maqh= o)/nta w(j a)/llw| xalepo\n pra=|on au)= ei)=nai diafero/ntwj, kai\ e)pi\ tou/toij a)ndrei=on par' o(ntinou=n, e)gw\ me\n ou)/t' a)\n w)|o/mhn gene/sqai ou)/te o(rw= gigno/menon: (Tht. e–a) [Yes, Socrates, I have met w ith a y outh of this cit y who certainly des erves mention, and you will find it worthwhile to hear me describe him. If he were handsome, I should be afraid to use strong terms, lest I should be suspected of being in lo ve w ith him. However, he i s not handsome, but—forgive my saying so —he r esembles y ou in being sn ub-nosed an d ha ving pr ominent eyes, though these features are less mark ed in him. So I can speak w ithout fear. I assur e y ou tha t, among a ll th e y oung men I ha ve met w ith—and I have ha d t o do w ith a good man y—I ha ve n ever foun d su ch a dmirable gifts. The combination of a r are quickness of intelligence w ith exceptional gentleness and of an incomparably v irile spir it w ith both, is a thing tha t I should hardly have believed could exist.—Trans. Francis Macdonald]51

Theaetetus is physically unattractive. Nevertheless, he makes a positive impression on hi s beholder through hi s conspicuous intelligence and intellectual gifts. Theodorus, his patron, introduces him with great enthusiasm. Theodorus is aware that his passionate presentation of the young Theaetetus might suggest an inflamed interest on the part of an older man. And yet Th eodorus i s n ot r eally tr oubled: he w ill n ot be suspected of being physically attracted to the boy because Theaetetus i s so ug ly—as ug ly as Socrates ( Tht. c; Statesman d). Nevertheless, despite th e str iking similarity, Theaetetus i s n ot Socr ates, but just a f aint c opy. How can Socrates’ ugliness be c onsidered bea utiful? What mak es hi s unappea ling appearance so a lluring? What is the secret of his erotic charm? ’  It is widely recognized that the figures of Socrates and Eros are symbolically ti ed together in th e Symposium. Socrates i s pr efigured in Diotima ’s mythic por trayal of Eros as a daimon—an image tha t is strengthened by Alcibiades’ autobiographical a ccount, which por trays Socr ates as a sy mbolic desc endant of Eros hims elf. Alcibiades n ot only a dopts th e term

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daimonion in a ddressing Socr ates ( d–d)52 but a lso depicts Socr ates’ physiognomy, personality, and philosophical disposition in a manner that recalls crucial aspects of the figure of Eros. Like Eros, Socrates is barefoot and is a lover of wisdom and beauty. Moreover, as a human embodiment of Eros, Socrates’ vocation as a tea cher of love i s r ealized in hi s (erotic) role as medi ator betw een th e human and th e di vine, the eph emeral and the eternal. In pr esenting Socr ates as its h uman embodimen t, Plato a dopted an d reinterpreted the Hesiodic genealogy of Eros. As we recall in Theogony the primordial cosmological stage is ushered in by an abstract presence of the erotic for ce. Only w ith th e ma turation of the s ensible w orld does Er os acquire its concrete, sensual manifestations. This first occurs in Aphrodite’s beautiful c ountenance. Finally, Eros i s embodi ed in th e image of Pandora—that i s, in th e appear ance of the ph enomenon par excell ence (see chapter ). Both Theogony and the Symposium conceive of their protagonists as dir ect descendants of Eros. Pandora and Socrates are two human manifestations of the divine, or the daimonic, Eros. In or der t o appr eciate Socr ates’ erotic dimension, one sh ould aga in look at him through the eyes of Alcibiades. Alcibiades’ gaze turns Socrates into a P andora. As he beholds Socrates, he undergoes a v isual experience similar to that of men who have gazed at Pandora: he faces a visibility that contains an in visible dimension, a figure that hides an in teriority: fhmi\ ga\r dh\ o(moio/taton au)to\n ei)=nai toi=j silhnoi=j tou/toij toi=j e)n toi=j e(rmoglufei/oij kaqhme/noij, ou(/stinaj e)rga/zontai oi( dhmiourgoi\ su/riggaj h)\ au)lou\j e)/xontaj, oi(\ dixa/de dioixqe/ntej fai/nontai e)/ndoqen a)ga/lmata e)/xontej qew=n. kai\ fhmi\ au)= e)oike/nai au)to\n tw=| satu/rw| tw=| Marsu/a|. (Symp. b) [Look a t him! I sn’t h e just lik e a st atue of Silenus? You kn ow th e kin d of statue I mean; you’ll find them in any shop in town. It’s a Silenus sitting, his flute or hi s pipes in hi s hands, and it ’s h ollow. It’s split do wn th e middle, and inside it ’s full of tiny statues of the gods. Now look a t him aga in! Isn’t he also just lik e the satyr Marsyas?]

As h uman embodimen ts of Eros, Pandora an d Socr ates shar e a similar structure: their selfhood rests on th e tension betw een exteriority and interiority, between appear ance an d being . Pandora an d Socr ates shar e a

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The Socratic Pandora

deceitful appear ance; their s eduction i s bas ed on a di screpancy betw een the v isible and the invisible. While Pandora tr aditionally exempli fies the deceptiveness of appearance, Socrates represents the hiddenness of truth. Yet the figures share a c ommon inner form. Their essential binding finds its expr ession in th e f act tha t Socr ates i s P andora’s mir ror image. Both figures know how to direct the desire of their beholders toward the hidden presence of their enigmatic inwardness. Hence, if beauty is the touch of transcendence in the phenomenal, if it is a visibility that carries within itself a promise of the invisible, then we may say that Pandora and Socrates are both, in their own ways, beautiful. The hidden interiority of Pandora and Socrates directs their beholders to tr anscend their appear ance in or der to unveil the truth. This interiority i s construed in both cas es as a r egulative idea an d not as an a ttainable c ontent. Socrates an d P andora pr ivilege th e v ery q uest for meaning over and against any actual grasp of a determinate content. In this respect, Plato liberates the Hesiodic image of Pandora from its ev il stigma. Plato’s ingenuity, in this context, lies in hi s ability to sublimate the anxiety associated with the Hesiodic image of hiddenness and to turn thi s image into a sign of passionate thought. Plato’s assumption of the legacy of Pandora, however, extends be yond the cr eation of the Socr atic persona. For Plato, her image, with her ir resolvable duality, becomes the sign of textuality as such. In the Symposium the Hesiodic image of Pandora acquires its fullest textua l sig nificance. It is n ot only So crates’ physical appear ance tha t r efers be yond its elf, but Socrates’ logoi as well (a).53 His utter ances, like hi s appear ance, operate through the tension betw een concealment and disclosure. In order to understand hi s logoi one n eeds, as Alcibiades informs us, “to go behin d the surf ace” of the text. This, of course, hints at Plato’s understanding of the char acter of his o wn w riting. A text, according t o Pla to, is an en tity that hides a dimension of depth that the text’s surface can never measure. A text i s a phenomenon whose visibility always carries a r esidue of invisibility, calling the reader to engage in the endless task of interpretation, in the eternal pursuit of meaning.

chapter 

Pandora’s Voice and the Emergence of Ovid’s Poetic Persona

P’ V Hesiod’s version of the myth of the first woman locates the origin of language in Zeus ’s deceitful g ift to men. Pandora, the archetypal woman, is known for her gift of seduction and her ability to manipulate her beholders. She i s the first human being t o be char acterized by language. She i s, in fact, a master of rhetoric whose divine patron is the god Hermes himself (W&D –). And y et, in spite of this m ythical associ ation of the feminine w ith rhetorical dexterity, ideal conceptions of woman prefer to envision her as silent. Traditional authors encourage women to keep quiet and li sten, to learn but n ever t o teach.1 This subor dination i s r easserted in Paul’s f amous denial of authority to women: “Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silen ce” ( Tim. :–). Pandora’s speech pr ovokes anxi ety. Men fear h er unr eliable language. They ar e afr aid of being sw ept up in th e s eductive po wer of her w ords. But P andora’s lingui stic t alent does n ot just pr ovoke ma le anxi ety; it i s also a char acteristic of feminine pr omiscuity. This means tha t P andora constitutes an an tithesis t o th e “good” female, the r estrained w oman. Symbolically, Pandora i s n ot mer ely a g ifted speak er. Her language i s a manifestation of the invincible force of eros. Never tr ansparent or di sciplined, Pandora’s language i s the language of multiplicity, always at play with concealments and dissimulations. Following Pandora, a woman’s language always bears th e potential of becoming the language of the femme fatale. Woman i s danger ous pr ecisely because sh e i s a master of speech, a rhetorician, a weaver of words that expose her immoder ate and lustful 

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Pandora’s Voice and th e Emergence of Ovid’s Poetic Persona

interiority. Feminine s eductive speech i s c onsidered danger ous beca use it c onveys po wer an d manipula tion, which ar e un wanted tr aits of the “second s ex.” This impen ding thr eat impli es illeg itimacy: the w oman i s inevitably an illeg itimate speak er. In thi s r espect, Pandora’s na ture can be found in an y woman who in speaking tr ansgresses the boundaries of her gender. This chapter focus es on th e manner in which th e feminine position in language i s in ternalized b y th e liter ary text. The pr evious chapter dea ls with the s eductive dimension of Socrates’ figure, emphasizing s eduction as a principle of Plato’s textuality. In the present chapter, I wish to explore the symbolic meaning assigned to Pandora as an illegitimate speaker. Shifting from the figure of the philosophical teacher of love to the poetic one, I shall examine the subversive character of feminine speech in the context of Roman love elegy. Ovid’s erotodidactic writing will be at the center of my discussion. Not only i s Ovid known for hi s fascination with the feminine experience, voice, and persona, but, as I w ill show, it i s Ov id, more than any other ancient author, who internalizes Pandora’s position as a speaker, elaborating that position as th e mark of his own form of textuality. This is t he first of two chapters dedica ted t o Ov id. While th e n ext chapter dea ls w ith th e stru cture of his er otodidactic w orks, the pr esent discussion considers the shaping of the Ovidian persona as a lo ve teacher. This w ill be don e b y deciph ering th e gen eric sig nificance of a f amily of terms—Musa proterva, levitas, and lascivia—whose derogatory connotations are rooted in the ancient construction of the feminine. Promiscuity, lightness, insincerity, and licentiousness ar e a ll feminine tropes. We need to understand the erotic force of the feminine voice in th e context of the various ways in which it i s heard: a voice that speaks aga inst the cultural norms tha t determin e th e pr opriety of what a w oman s ays, thinks, or desires. Pointing to the role of the feminine voice in shaping th e narratological c omplexity of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Patricia Sa lzman-Mitchell argues that “the female voice itself is felt as something both tr ansgressive and inadequate. A woman’s speech in its elf, regardless of what she says, is often a c laim to have a voice, a struggle for power.”2 I am concerned here with th e way in which th e th ematization of the feminine voice becomes intrinsic to Ovid’s own poetics. I shall argue that Ovid is a poet who internalizes these apparently problematic aspects of feminine speech in or der to create a n ew poetic e ffect. More specifically, he explicitly us es a terminology that is derived from the feminine in order to mark the illegitimate effect of his erotodidactic works.

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Before w e turn t o Ov id, however, it ma y be fruitful t o elabor ate first the conditions under which w omen’s language appears t o be sub versive. What is the paradigm in which a w oman’s speech ca lls attention to itself as that which requires restraint, limitations, external (masculine) control, and c ensorship? What i s th e a uthority of a w oman’s speech tha t br eaks the unwritten code of silence? In what sense can feminine silence and outspokenness be understood as literary phenomena? Three literary episodes will help me dr aw the connection between the assertive feminine speaker and the emergence of the subversive text. ’  Public appear ances of the vox fe minina belong to the Greek st age. Being produced by male actors, of course, they are not authentic expressions of feminine voices. How, then, is the feminine voice constructed?3 The dr amatic significance of the feminine persona li es in th e way it sub verts and breaks ancient conventions of femininity in th e Greek theater. Consider, for example, such exceptional heroines as Clytemnestra, Antigone, Medea, and Phaedr a. These figures oc cupy a c entral spa ce on st age, they dominate the dr amatic time, and they constantly dr aw attention toward their eccentric, unconventional and decisive actions. And yet almost every single aspect of their performan ce i s testimon y t o th e sub versive meaning of their dramatic role. More specifically, the very appearance of feminine figures on st age v iolates th e most fun damental conventions of Athenian society. These dramatic images of women are powerful, assertive, aggressive, and, moreover, active. They st and on st age, and in so doing th ey symbolically transgress the unwritten law that prescribes their Greek way of life. Here, on st age, the r epresentation of women i s n ot c onfined to the private domain of the home. Women are not hidden from the public eye as th ey ar e in n ormal G reek life. And so th e feminin e pr otagonist’s usurpation of the stage is important in appr eciating the gendered significance of her theatrical transgression. Even without acknowledging their violent passions, it is enough that these feminine figures are visible, that they speak and act in public, to turn them into powerful, authoritative women. These r epresentations of women wh o aspir e t o po wer an d a uthority, to kratos, are unconventional and provocative.4 Aeschylus’s Cly temnestra o ffers a par adigmatic cas e of such feminin e power, since she literally rules as queen of Argos in Agamemnon’s absence. In other words, she i s a leg itimate ruler in an abn ormal time an d situation. Nevertheless, in spite of the leg itimacy of her rule, 5 Clytemnestra’s

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Pandora’s Voice and th e Emergence of Ovid’s Poetic Persona

regency i s attacked mor e than on ce as v iolating every soci al code of behavior. The image of this authoritative woman clearly represents a dangerous phenomenon, a danger born of the unwanted hybridization of ideal images of masculinity and femininity, of activity and passivity, of the public and the private spheres. The anxiety caused by the authoritative female is ear ly on ann ounced b y th e Watchman, who descr ibes Cly temnestra at th e v ery beg inning of the tr ilogy: “This i s h ow th e manly min ded [androboulon] heart of a woman exercises power [kratei] while expecting [the signal of Agamemnon’s return]” (Ag. –). Typically for a w oman, Clytemnestra i s—as Denni ston and Page comment on “expecting” (elpizon)—“full of guilt, fear (beca use of her dea ling w ith Aegisthus) an d eagerness (to avenge the death of Iphigenia).”6 These strong passions and intrigues are not at all alien to the feminine archetype. Yet in c ontrast to the t ypical, or ev en th e idea l, image of woman, Clytemnestra i s doubly dangerous pr ecisely because her masculine position a llows her to r ealize secret (internal and hence feminine) intentions. Aeschylus’s tr eatment of her speech i s cru cial for un derstanding th e politica l sig nificance of her abnormal authority. In other words, the ancient theater inverted the sociopolitical conventions, giving dramatic expression to an instance of rhetorical barbarism: women speaking public ly. While in st andard language the term “feminine authority” is simply an empt y expression, it comes to life, albeit as a phan tasm, on the ancient stage. Clytemnestra’s transgression opens our discussion of the feminine voice to the liter ary aspect of her kratos, one that gives bir th to the unconventional expr essions feminina auctor (“female a uthor”) an d feminina auctoritas (“female authority”), and to its significance in patriarchal societies.7 What i s th e liter ary sig nificance of a w oman’s kratos? How does an cient poetry imagine a w oman’s literary position, concerns, and taste?   The first inst ance in which kratos is associ ated w ith the concept of literary authority—the first time it appears a t the intersection of power, art, and gender—is in Homer’s Odyssey. True, the episode (Od. .–) constitutes a r eenactment of the social order. It reorganizes male and female roles in their proper categories, and culminates in silencing the female by enforcing ma le expect ations. Nevertheless, this pass age i s th e locus cl assicus that g ives r ise t o feminin e liter ary deman ds. The epi sode r ecounts the conflict betw een Telemachos and Penelope o ver authority in liter ary

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matters. The question regarding the right to make a decision about household a ffairs ( kratos, Od. .) arises in th e c ontext of a liter ary di spute concerning th e performan ce of the h ouse bar d, Phemius. More speci fically, Telemachos and Penelope cha llenge each other’s authority to determine th e content of the bar d’s song . In th e c onfrontation th ey expr ess their di verging v iews about poetr y’s a im, sources, and va lues. This c onflict between a y oung man an d a w oman, between a son an d his mother, is connected to their respective positions as li steners, interpreters, and literary patrons. These literary positions are organized into male-female sets of oppositions. Telemachos makes it c lear to his mother that she belongs to the rear parts of the house, where she is expected to engage in h er traditional feminin e oc cupation, weaving. Mythos, which h ere speci fies th e field of poetry, remains a masculine activity performed and administered by men. Moreover, in thi s par ticular cas e r esponsibility for th e bar d’s performance belongs entirely to Telemachos. It should be noted, however, that Telemachos’s claim to an authorial position on poetic matters derives from his kratos—his claim to authority over household affairs. Before P enelope di sappears t o h er r ooms, before sh e sur renders t o silence, she r aises h er v oice an d expr esses h er desir es. The f act tha t h er son i s deaf to hi s moth er’s deman ds only in tensifies h er feminin e pr esence, a presence that is manifest despite her absence from the house’s public ha ll. Penelope illustr ates th e ambigu ous st atus of the feminin e voice. On the one hand, her voice is autonomous and clear. On the other hand, it is also illicit. 8 ’   Comedy gives voice to socially low figures. In particular, Plautine comedy grants freedom of speech to slaves.9 The scheming slave regulates the development of the plot and dominates the dramatic situation through his mastery of language. By means of metaphors, wit, and rhetorical invention, the slave creates illusionary situations. He has the capacity to lie and fabricate situations as r eal. The s lave’s c omic e ffect li es in th e wa y h e br eaks th e silence that is typically imposed on him. The slave speaks up: his language is provocative, his voice is illegitimate and hence the effect of his presence is fundamentally funny. As such, the s lave i s an example of metatheater: more than an y oth er comic char acter, this soci ally low figure re presents the playwright hims elf. But mor e impor tantly, it i s the s lave’s subversive form of speech act that mirrors the essence of Plautine comedy.10

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Pandora’s Voice and th e Emergence of Ovid’s Poetic Persona

In Miles Gloriosus, Plautus elaborates comedy’s attraction to subversive language. In a ddition t o th e language of the sch eming s lave, the a ct of linguistic tr ansgression i s associ ated w ith th e figure of a w oman. In th e beginning of the pla y, Palaestrio, the cunning s lave, presents befor e th e audience his most devious stratagem: the beautiful prostitute, Philocomasium. Unlike Clytemnestra and Penelope, Philocomasium is not a socially respectable female character. But like these two mythical figures, she opens up a sub versive textua l pa th. The depiction of Philocomasium bears a striking resemblance to the Hesiodic Pandora. She, like Pandora, operates at the tension between truth and illusion, essence and appearance, fact and fantasy, and, more par ticularly, sincere and insincere love. Yet, above a ll, it is in h er archetypal feminine speech tha t the promiscuous Philocomasium becomes Plautus’s version of Pandora: Os habet, linguam, perfidiam, malitiam atque audaciam, confidentiam, confirmitatem, fraudulentiam. qui arguatse, eumcontra vincat iureiurando suo: domi habet animum f alsiloquiom, falsicum, falsiiurium, domi dolos, domi delenifica facta, domi fallacies. (MG –) [She has ch eek, a lot of lip, loquacity, audacity, also perspicacity, tenacity, mendacity. someone accuses her, she’ll just outsw ear the man w ith oaths. She knows every phony phrase, the phony ways, the phony plays. Wiles she has, guiles she has, very soothing smiles sh e has.—Trans. E. Segal]11

Plautus speaks of Philocomasium’s language via a meditation on her physiognomy. For him, the feminine speech act is integral to Philocomasium’s professional ar t, the ar t of seduction. He th en focus es on th e w oman’s audacious speech. Her audacity is naturally related to her illegitimate status as a noncitizen and a prostitute; at the same time, however, her impropriety i s in dicative of the fema le kin d in gen eral. Reviving th e H esiodic image of the first w oman as th e figure of duplicity an d dec eit, Plautus establishes the fema le form of speech as emblema tic of the genr e of the comedy of errors. More speci fically, his mi sogynistic por trayal identifies the woman as the generic sign of comedy and thereby provides an exemplary case of an engendered genre.

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F  E E   F T In Latin literature we recognize a novel phenomenon that makes the illegitimacy of the feminine voice the mark of a new form of writing. In the first century BCE the genre of love elegy was born, a male discourse dedicated to women. It is concerned with their appearance, with their desire, and with their literary taste. Roman love elegy creates a new mode of writing that centers on the figure of the puella. Although Roman love elegists are mainly concerned with the dr amatization of their suffering ego, their discourse was considered provocative precisely because it (allegedly) gives voice to feminine concerns. Tibullus, Propertius, and Ov id dir ect their poetic en ergy toward their beloved, making the puella the object of their desire and the subject matter of their poetr y. The relationship of the elegiac poet an d his romantic partner is a main topic of elegiac love poetry. For the poet, the puella provides a case study that serves as the basis of his claim to authority in erotic matters.12 As Propertius explains: Quaeritis, unde mihi t otiens scribantur amores, unde meus v eniat mollis in or a liber. non haec Ca lliope, non haec mihi can tat Apollo: ingenium nobis ipsa puella facit. (..–) [You ask h ow it i s that my loves are so often tr anscribed, how it i s that my soft book i s on ev eryone’s lips. It is not Calliope, not Apollo that sings th ese things t o me. The girl herself creates my inspiration.]

The puella rivals the divine poetic authority of Calliope and Apollo.13 She dictates the mollis (“soft,” “effeminate”) character of Propertius’s book. In Amores, Ovid t oo associ ates hi s poetr y w ith a feminin e (mor tal) sour ce of inspiration.14 In a la ter poem h e distinguishes his didactic works from traditional didactic poetry whose paternalistic authority was grounded in divine inspiration: non ego, Phoebe, datas a te mihi men tiar artes, nec nos aeriae voce monemur avis, nec mihi sun t visae Clio Cliusq ue sorores servanti pecudes vallibus, Ascra, tuis. (AA .–)

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Pandora’s Voice and th e Emergence of Ovid’s Poetic Persona

[I sha ll n ot f alsely argu e tha t y ou, Phoebus, gave me m y “Arts”; nor am I informed b y th e v oice of the bir d in th e a ir, and Clio w ith h er si sters did not appear t o me while ten ding herds in y our valleys, Ascra.]

Ovid n ot only ex cludes hims elf from th e tr adition of didactic poetr y beginning w ith H esiod; he a lso di verges fr om P ropertius’s soft position and, as I sha ll show, grounds his didactic stance in th e provocative image of a fema le authority, an exper t in lo ve. Ovid’s novelty i s manifest on ce we locate hi s erotodidactic poetr y against the background of the e ffeminate discourse of Roman love elegy. In Remedia Amoris we find a c ollective term us ed for th e lo ve poets: teneri poe tae ().15 This q ualification, the lo ve eleg y’s gen eric softn ess, is part of the rich effeminate vocabulary utilized by Roman love poets, the gender-inverted rh etoric tha t marks th eir r ole as w ounded lo vers an d marginalized poets. One begins to see how, in specifying love elegy as tenera, Roman lo ve eleg y tr averses c onventions of masculinity an d a uthorship. More sp ecifically, the eleg iac s elf-understanding di stinguishes, for example, the superior epic form from the lower-status love elegy. This selfunderstanding sh ould be examin ed in eleg iac terminology as a di scrimination between the feminine and the masculine. That is why Propertius, who d efines lo ve eleg y in opposition t o epic, constructs th e dich otomy between these opposed genres in terms of a gender relationship. As D. F. Kennedy writes, “So, elegy is defined by means of mollis [soft], which discursively aligns itself with the feminine, whilst epic is by implication aligned with the masculine, and elsewhere is characterized as durus [hard].”16 It is important to r emember, however, that in th e Roman tr adition “soft di scourse” does not signify the essentially feminine. Soft discourse only articulates a s ense of femininity through a pa ternalizing perspective. Mollis is a term tha t per tains to a masculin e hi erarchy. In other words, conceived as mollis, love elegy is gendered as effeminate. But gendering love elegy as effeminate i s especi ally t ypical, in m y v iew, of Propertius.17 Only Ov id, among all the Roman love elegists, actually turns to femininity as a source of powerful inspir ation. It i s n o c oincidence tha t h e us es tener—a word with a less n egative connotation than Propertius’s mollis—to characterize love eleg y’s softness. Ovid i s th e first lo ve eleg ist t o r elease hi s feminine discourse fr om th e rule of masculine pr ejudices. He r ejects th e c onventional derogation of love elegy as e ffeminate and, instead, allows elegy to emerge as a dida ctic feminine form of discourse. Ovid, as I h ope to show, usurps feminine authority. On the f ace of it,

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his in tegration of the feminin e in to hi s w riting s eems t o belong t o th e effeminate discourse characteristic of love elegy. “Effeminacy” and “femininity” are culturally related terms based on gender dichotomies, but they are, nevertheless, distinct. The effeminate is an attribute of men, a derogative description of a form of masculinity that does not meet the ideal as defined by the norms of society. Effeminacy signifies a mixed, impure, infected form of masculinity whose flaw is derived from its a ffinity to femininity. Femininity, on th e oth er han d, is un derstood as an a ttribute of women, and it t ypically appears in th e context of the opposition between feminine and masculine natures. Tagging something as “feminine” can be derogatory or a ffirmative, and it can be don e b y eith er ma le or fema le speakers. Femininity i s h ence a di alectical c oncept wh ose meaning r ests on its r elationship with masculinity. In shaping his new persona as a didactic poet, Ovid redefines his poetic field, relating it t o a feminin e source and adhering to norms of feminine aesthetics. We should notice in particular how the effeminate discourse of mollitia so characteristic of Propertius is replaced in Ov id’s erotodidactic poetry by the boldness of feminine expression. How then, we should ask, is Ovid’s feminization of love elegy distinct from the effeminate discourse of his predecessor, Propertius? Studies of Roman lo ve eleg y sh ow us tha t gen der ca tegories ar e fr equently applied in order to characterize different forms of textualities. The feminine aspect of love elegy derives first of all from the love elegist’s inferiority c omplex an d th e genr e’s lo wly st atus. It i s c ommon kn owledge that the engendering of love elegy as effeminate is, in the Roman context, a mark of its inferior standing. But there is still much to be said about the kind of poetics created by the effeminate text. This is exactly the kind of work being done in recent postmodern and feminist readings that seek to unravel the textual significance of the effeminate text. In the ear ly s the study of Roman love eleg y was th e s etting for a discussion of the r elationship betw een lo ve and w riting—of gender and genre—a di scussion tha t has sin ce been elabor ated and extended.18 This ongoing discussion contains two important insights. The first asserts that Roman love eleg y i s not an ex clusively masculine form of writing,19 but, rather, a genre generative of a hybrid, or androgynous, form of textuality. The second insight posits that masculine and feminine elements are interwoven in the figure of the Roman love elegist, particularly in the cases of Propertius and Ovid.20 A prevailing opinion among readers of Roman love elegy is that, in Roman culture, the feminine aspects of the elegy’s ego—

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Pandora’s Voice and th e Emergence of Ovid’s Poetic Persona

for example, the soft form of its writing—are constructed through effeminate features. The tendency to label the male lover and his poetry as soft and servile implies that the love elegy’s speaker holds a mor ally depraved position, hinting at decadent failings in his Roman (patriotic) education.21 Modern r esponses to the effeminate persona of the Roman love eleg y are var ied, and y et a ll appr oaches shar e a per ception of the lo ve eleg y’s effeminacy. Interestingly, almost every attempt to decipher the poetic effect of the effeminate elegiac discourse is carried out using the poetry of Propertius. Duncan Kennedy, for inst ance, explains h ow th e s exual ambiguities of the Propertian male subject both r eflect and construct literary and political positions. According to Kennedy, the perverse masculinity of the effeminate ego sh ould be un derstood in lig ht of its cr eation of a vagu e form of textuality that resists consistency.22 This means, in particular, the construction of a discourse that can har dly be fitted into a uni fied political fr amework. Readers of the R oman lo ve eleg y ar e still ba ffled b y th e question the genre itself seems to foster: does the representation of weak masculinity reflect an anti-Augustan speaker, a subversive voice in a patriotic and conservative society,23 or a pr o-Augustan speaker? Is effeminacy the ground for and the backdrop of a performative kind of discourse that is a parody of a subversion of common values that it actually supports? Is this genre, in other words, intended to shock the educated Roman reader and post a warning about th e pitfalls threatening his world?24 For Kennedy, the ambiguous political position of the love elegy is especially r eflected in P ropertius’s eleg ies. Take, for example, his obs ervation that “what P ropertius w rote has a lways been open t o appr opriation t o serve different interests.”25 Here, and elsewhere as well, Kennedy sees Propertius’s politica l ambiguit y r everberating in th e textua l ambiguit y of his elegies. Maria Wyke has w ritten about the love elegy’s double meaning as an effect that “destabilizes traditional Roman gender categories.”26 As such, the sexually ambiguous ego propagates an ambiguous poetic discourse that defies conventional Roman categories of the feminine and masculine.27 In hi s r ecent tr eatment of this poetic ph enomenon, Paul Allen M iller seeks to redefine the meaning of Propertius’s use of gender ambivalence. He i s concerned w ith the nature of a di scourse that constantly blurs th e distinction between gender categories. Miller’s reading of Propertius’s elegies draws on femini st psychoanalytical theories and claims not only that the Roman love elegy plays with conventional gender categories, but that its main innovative force is in the circumscription of a third semantic space, a zone of meaning between the orthodox Roman categories of masculinity

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and femininity. Miller argues that the effeminate discourse of Roman love elegy positively marks a n ew form of textuality: “What we have in th ese poems i s a v ery in tricate language game in which th e poet, by oc cupying both sides of the opposition but n ever being wholly present on either side, inscribes the possibility of a third position that can only be expressed in terms of the simult aneous c ontradiction betw een an d eq uivalence of both sides.”28 The n egation of conservative masculinit y e ffected b y th e e ffeminate discourse of love elegy results in the creation of a third subjective form of expression, which, according to the Roman mind, is neither typically male nor female. Miller conceives of the elegy’s third option as “both radically critical and deeply c onservative, both inside an d outside th e system”—in other words, as feminine.29 Like Kennedy and Wyke, Miller refuses to read Propertius’s e ffeminacy in terms of the conventional binar y oppositions. He often pr efers the term “femininity” to “effeminacy.” For example, referring t o s everal of Propertius’s eleg ies in Book , he w rites tha t th ey “present P ropertius as speaking in th e feminin e, a di scourse tha t elu des the c onventional binar y oppositions of official an d sub versive, pro an d con, conscious and unconscious.”30 In his symbolic claim that “Propertius is a woman,” Miller attempts to avoid the derogative connotation attached to effeminacy in Roman culture, and instead to reload the term “woman” with a n ew textual dimension. 31 The mediation of postmodern feminist thought allows Miller to recognize the di scourse of Roman love eleg y as a feminin e phenomenon and, with the help of post-Lacanian feminists such as Clément, Cixous, Kristeva, and Irigaray, to construe Propertius’s feminine textuality.32 I agree that the effeminate discourse of Roman eleg y demonstr ates “the elegists’ rhetoric of ambivalence, oxymoron, and paradox,” and that this effeminate rhetoric “closely approximates that of Woman as defined by post-Lacanian feminists.”33 Yet I do n ot see how this reading escapes th e binar y fr amework in which th e eleg iac di scourse hi storically an d cultur ally r esides. In th e Roman context, the third discursive option opened up by the feminine discourse of Propertius remains an inh erent part of the derogative language of mollitia, or what was understood by the Roman reader as typical of the effeminate discourse. In this sense, Miller’s analysis of Propertius’s effeminacy does not rest on ancient conceptions of the feminine. Propertius does n ot allow the feminine any articulation that is independent of the masculine. His rhetoric of gender inversion is still informed by the powerful discourse of effeminacy

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Pandora’s Voice and th e Emergence of Ovid’s Poetic Persona

that officially constitutes the masculine ideal. Consequently, the problematics r aised b y P ropertius’s lo ve eleg y tha t femini st r eaders ti e t o th e genre’s mastery over the female remain unresolved. Despite its molli fication of the masculine, Propertius’s love elegy does not seem to name feminine subjecti vity as its explicit di scursive sour ce.34 Such an oppor tunity is pr esent, in m y v iew, in Ov id’s er otodidactic w riting, which explicitly adopts and elaborates the feminine presence. What female authority hides behind th e Ov idian persona of the praeceptor amor is? I suggest tha t w e search for h er in th e reading lists and the catalogues of authors provided by Ovid in hi s amatory poetry. T E P In a ddressing hims elf to a fema le a udience in Book  of Ars A matoria, Ovid offers the seductive docta puella a list of poets she ought to be familiar with. Among the Greek poets, he cites Callimachus, Philetas, Anacreon, Sappho, and Menander.35 The Latin poets he recommends are Propertius, Gallus, Tibullus, Varro, Virgil, and, of course, himself, calling a ttention to his Amores, Ars Amatoria, and Heroides. This li st of authors i s neither the first nor the last one he composed.36 He presented an initi al selection of canonical poets in hi s earlier Amores ., and a similar li st in Remedia Amoris –. The differences between the three lists seem minor. However, a comparison is revealing of a significant change reflecting, perhaps, a change in Ov id’s self-understanding as a lo ve poet. An obvious expression of this development i s hi s inclusion of a fema le author, the Lesbi an poet Sappho, in the lists found in Ars and Remedia. His recognition of the importance of a feminine poetic in fluence marks a pr ocess of change in Roman love elegy—a change that can be descr ibed as a w ithdrawal of the effeminate discourse in f avor of a feminine form of textuality. The reference to Sappho in Ars and Remedia is not a c oincidence. Her canonization h elps Ov id t o r edefine hi s poetic s elf-understanding as an elegist and as a love teacher. As we shall see, Sappho charges Ovid’s erotodidactic texts w ith feminine boldness. The first signs of the new Ovidian stance can be r ecognized in Amores. Ovid abandons the insecure position typical of his Roman love eleg y. He aspir es to the worldwide r eputation of those glorious poets li sted in Book : . . . mihi fama perennis quaeritur, in toto semper ut or be canar. (Am. .. –)

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

[I seek an enduring glory so that I may always be sung throughout the whole world.]

In this poem, which concludes Book  of Amores, Ovid returns to the literary dilemma that opened the collection (Am. .): the antithesis between lofty epic an d lig ht lo ve eleg y. Both eleg ies a ddress th e liter ary st atus of the love eleg y genr e. But the li st of valued poets in Amores . modifies the a uthorial st ance assumed in E legy ..37 Elegy . signals a turn in Ovid’s ideas c oncerning th e sour ces an d liter ary sig nificance of the lo ve elegy. While the introductory elegy reflects his poetic insecurities as a love elegist, Amores . attempts to cover up th ese insecurities by defying the inferior classification of the genre. Amores . is a mask ed recusatio poem in which Ov id camouflages the provocative nature of his decision to write a love elegy. Instead of declaring his opposition t o the canonical and well-established epic form, Ovid avoids r esponsibility for hi s pr oblematic ch oice of genre. The pr ogrammatic poem, rather, presents him as conflicted and embarrassed by Cupid’s intervention, which diverts the innocent poet from his initial plan of writing national poetry. Love elegy is thus the work of Cupid. This nar rative i s abandoned, however, toward the end of Book . And so, in Amores ., Ovid no longer appears as th e confused subject manipulated b y th e whimsica l C upid. He changes hi s nar rative str ategy as h e embarks on constructing a new poetic biog raphy. This transformation in the poet’s s elf-understanding i s not untypical of the genr e of love eleg y. The book of love eleg ies char acteristically in volves an explor ation of the r elationship between time an d desir e, and between time an d w riting about desire, and thereby makes it possible t o present seemingly incoherent “moments” of the poetic ego . However, the incongruity between Elegies . and . may nevertheless be interpreted in a lin ear way: they may be un derstood as di fferent poin ts on th e tr ajectory lea ding fr om Ov id’s initial apologetic position t o his provocative persona. 38 In Amores . Ovid adopts a literary biography inspired by the tension between c onservative an d liber al perspecti ves on lo ve eleg y. Swimming against the current, he follows neither the tr aditional career of a Roman soldier nor the prestigious profession of law. Furthermore, since he internalizes th e gaze of the c onservative r eader, Ovid kn ows tha t hi s poetic career i s considered mor ally flawed, and even attacked as par asitical: the pastime of a lazy an d idle y outh who r efuses to s erve the Roman public despite hi s suit able soci al an d ph ysical q ualifications ( Am...–). This



Pandora’s Voice and th e Emergence of Ovid’s Poetic Persona

typical Roman perspective is the background for Ov id’s self-presentation as a lo ve eleg ist, a nonconformist w riter who proudly cultivates hi s field of competence. And since he is assured of an appropriate, albeit unorthodox, audience, Ovid can pr onounce the following vision: Ergo etiam cum me supr emus adederit ignis vivam, parsque mei mult a superstes er it. (Am. ..–) [Thus when the final flame has ea ten me up , I shall nevertheless live on, and a g reat part of me will survive.]

Poetic desire finds ambitious expression here. By the end of his first book of love elegies, Ovid is heading toward canonization. In spite of the common prejudice against love elegy as “a work of an idle talent” (ingenii inertis opus, ..), he i s n onetheless c onfident of a g lorious futur e for hi s poetry. He therefore demands the s ame r espect and r ecognition for lo ve elegy tha t i s a ccorded th e g lorious epic (G reek an d La tin), tragedy, and comedy. Elegy . takes i ssue w ith two audiences, two potential r esponses. On the on e han d, Ovid an ticipates th e r esponse of a c onservative cr itic, a traditionalist r eader, a follo wer of the pa triarchal tr adition, mos pat rum (..). On the other hand, he welcomes the appreciative connoisseur, an open-minded reader whom he imagines as hi s ideal addressee. This ideal reader is the anxious lover.39 This means that the lover has a dual role: not only th e subject of love eleg y, but a lso its sophi sticated r eader. Ovid’s poetic persona i s thus ti ed to hi s conception of his audience. The poet’s confidence i s depen dent on an ex clusive a udience tha t w ill embr ace hi s poetry and on th e deg radation of his cr itics, whom he di scounts as vulgar (vulgus), impressed and entertained by cheap representations (vilia).40 The catalogue of authors in Amores ..– demonstrates Ovid’s high aspirations for th e genre. For him lo ve elegy should be can onized as on e of the distinguished traditional genres, on a par with the works of Homer, Hesiod, Callimachus, Sophocles, Aratus, Menander, Ennius, Accius, Varro, Lucretius, Virgil, Tibullus, and Gallus. In Ars Amatoria .–, however, he gives expression to more specific poetic concerns. At this later stage of his literary career the now-celebrated author of Amores, Heroides, and Ars Amatoria  and  is no longer pr eoccupied w ith th e r elationship of love elegy to the canon. By the time he comes to write Ars Amatoria, that generic

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

category i s a lready f ar mor e firmly est ablished an d r efined. Ovid s eems quite c omfortable iden tifying hims elf with a g roup of poets shar ing a common interest in lo ve. The li sts of poets in Amores and Ars Amatoria may be c ompared side b y side in t able .. It i s n otable tha t in Ars A matoria the li st of Greek a uthors c onsists mainly of love poets. Homer, Hesiod, Sophocles, and Aratus ar e left o ff the list, while three others are added: Philetas, Anacreon, and Sappho. This leaves th e G reek c ontingent w ith n o r epresentative epic or tr agic poets. Similarly, the n ew La tin li st pr esents a mor e uniform pictur e than th e one in Amores. Ovid leaves out Ennius, Accius, and Lucretius and creates instead a mor e uni fied g roup of love eleg ists. In iden tifying P ropertius, Gallus, and Tibullus as th e successors of the Greek love poets, Ovid gestures toward the emergence of a tr adition, or a liter ary history, of a new Roman genre. At the same time, his inclusion of Virgil’s Aeneid and Varro’s Argonautae is something of a surprise. As Roy Gibson has obs erved, Ovid ignores th e f amous amor ous epi sodes in th ese tw o epics an d str angely emphasizes the national element of the first and the mythical background of the second.41 He finishes off the list with his own amatory works, positioning them a longside Varro and Virgil and perhaps hin ting at hi s w ish to be immor talized together with the poets of this most acclaimed genre, the epic. We can un derstand this as eith er a F reudian slip or a gestur e of sheer oppor tunism. For despite hi s explicit e ffort t o make lo ve eleg y an T . Amores ..–

Ars Amatoria .–

 

Homer Hesiod Callimachus Sophocles Aratus Menander

Callimachus Philetas Anacreon Sappho (my emphasis) Menander

 

Ennius Accius Varro Lucretius Virgil Tibullus Gallus

Propertius Gallus Tibullus Varro Virgil Ovid



Pandora’s Voice and th e Emergence of Ovid’s Poetic Persona

autonomous genr e, Ovid n evertheless c ontinues t o c onceive of it in th e context of the domineering presence of the epic. In so doing, he arrogantly dissociates himself from the group of elegiac poets to whom he naturally belongs. While the gallery of poets in Ars Amatoria is a dida ctic gesture toward the education of woman as th e seducer, the list in Remedia Amoris is intended for lo vesick readers, who are inscribed as both ma le and female.42 Consequently, the earlier recommended reading list reappears in Remedia as a r egister of banned books . The t ype of reading th e lo vesick oug ht to avoid i s understood t o be c onstitutive of the genr e of love eleg y. The texts that were once considered to be effective in teaching the art of seduction become dangerous when one is recovering from love. Ovid therefore counsels hi s audience to avoid reading the poetr y he has c ommended in the third book of Ars Amatoria. But a lthough these two reading li sts are allegedly intended for di fferent audiences43 and divergent functions, they are a lso mir rors of each other, and as su ch contain the cr ystallization of Ovid’s conception of the genre of love elegy (see table .). Remedia’s c lassification of love eleg y i s f ar mor e concise. Ovid avoids associating love poetry (comprising elegy and lyric) with other genres and removes th e c omedian Menander fr om th e li st.44 Nor i s epic in cluded.45 In dismissing both Varro and Virgil, Ovid finally separates the Latin elegists from the epic poets. Earlier in Remedia, Ovid had underscored the autonomy of the love elegy genre by equating his own poetic achievement with that of Virgil: T . Ars Amatoria .–

Remedia Amoris –

 

Callimachus Philetas Anacreon Sappho (my emphasis) Menander

Callimachus Philetas Sappho (my emphasis) Anacreon

 

Propertius Gallus Tibullus Varro Virgil Ovid

Tibullus Propertius Gallus Ovid

Pandora’s Voice and th e Emergence of Ovid’s Poetic Persona



tantum se nobis elegi debere fatentur, quantum Vergilio nobile debet epos. (Rem. –) [All that noble epic o wes to Virgil, Elegy confesses to owe me.]

Virgil undoubtedly constitutes a considerable source of anxiety for Ovid, who had an extended and unsettled relationship with this celebrated poet. For Ovid, Virgil is the representative of a liter ary tr adition that relegates love eleg y t o th e st atus of a n egative example. Throughout hi s di verse literary career, Ovid engaged in an ongoing di alogue with Virgil’s poetr y that revealed his own admiration for and envy of (not to mention inferiority complex regarding) Virgil. It is interesting to note that Ovid’s most audacious and challenging statement about th e venerable master appears in Remedia Amoris. In thi s la te er otodidactic w ork, Ovid a llows hims elf to reestablish his relationship with Rome’s most distinguished poet. Here he overcomes hi s feelings of inferiority by crowning hims elf the g reatest master of love eleg y, and as th e one who has led th e genr e to full ma turity. This puts him on a par w ith Virgil. It i s no coincidence that at thi s stage of his career as a lo ve poet, Ovid wishes to seal the love elegy genre with his own signature. He knows that Remedia Amoris marks its Roman terminus, being both hi s last er otic elegiac work and, more generally, the last specimen of Roman love elegy.46 Even more singular in Ov id’s poetic stance and self-canonization is the way h e turns t o Sapph o as a means for impr egnating hi s poetr y w ith a feminine pr esence. Ovid i s the only R oman eleg ist who not only un derscores her contribution to the genre of love eleg y but a lso, more specifically, emphasizes her sig nificance to hi s own w riting. In introducing the seven love poets in Remedia Amoris, Ovid g ives each a gen eral attribute. Callimachus is labeled non est inimicus amori (), “not inimical to love.” Philetas is harmful (noces, ), while Anacreon “does not prescribe rigid morality” (nec r igidos mor es . . . dedit, ). Tibullus and P ropertius ar e able to affect the “indifferent” (tutus) reader (–); Gallus softens th e “tough” (durus) on e ( ). Yet as Ov id in troduces Sapph o, his language turns personal. He singles out the effect of her poetry as transformational: me certe Sappho meliorem fecit amicae (“certainly, Sappho made me better for my girlfriend,” ).



Pandora’s Voice and th e Emergence of Ovid’s Poetic Persona

In c ontrast t o hi s gen eral char acterizations of the lo ve poets, Ovid relates to Sappho as th e one who has left a persona l impr int on hi s love life.47 Reading Sappho made him meliorem—more loyal, more honorable, more gracious, or, rather, more desirable to his girlfriend. In other words, Sappho embodies the source of Ovid’s superiority and great success, both as a lo ve elegist and as a ma le lover. She is a feminin e role model for th e erotodidactic poet. S’ L Sappho’s symbolic presence in Ars and Remedia is intrinsic to Ovid’s selffashioning as a “lascivious” author. Adopting her illegitimate stance—her status as a fema le a uthor—allows him t o c onstruct hi s o wn un conventional dida ctic st ance. Sappho’s lascivia is first men tioned b y Ov id in Heroides, a text in which h er impor tance i s c onspicuous. In thi s c ollection of epistles, he shows his deep in terest in th e fictional persona of the female w riter. Ovid i s w ell kn own for hi s f ascination w ith th e feminin e experience, voice, and persona, which h e var iously assumes thr oughout the work. The letters pr esent a r ich cast of female figures whose unusual character i s shaped thr ough th eir appear ance as w riters. In r eferring t o Heroides as th e kin d of work unkn own t o oth ers ( ignotum ho c aliis ill e novavit opus, AA .), Ovid bases his claim to novelty not on the invention of a new genre, but rather on th e Heroides’ strangeness.48 The Heroides is a str ange textua l ph enomenon because it ascr ibes th e act of writing to women.49 For a Roman author, a woman’s text represents the poetic “other.” Writing like a w oman is, as Joseph Farrel notes, “a response to an attempt to impose silence.”50 What is the significance of this feminine tr ait for Ov id? H is w riting usur ps thi s form of anomaly an d makes the e ffect of strangeness ess ential for hi s poetic s elf-refashioning. Ovid’s persona l r apport w ith Sapph o goes ba ck t o Heroides , where he a dapts an d dubs h er v oice, reinventing th e st ory of her h eterosexual love affair w ith Phaon. Sappho’s singular st atus among th e women w riters in th e Heroides is c onspicuous, grounded in th e f act tha t sh e i s th e only one for wh om the ar t of writing i s an in tegral par t of her identity. Readers of the Heroides have shown how the identity of Sappho as a poet (poetria, .) merges w ith Ovid’s identity.51 The submersion of Sappho’s identity into Ovid’s lies behind the problem of authenticity that arises in the context of the reception of Epistle . In r ecent y ears th e old deba te r egarding Ov id’s authorship has been r eplaced with a discussion of the manner in which authenticity is tied to the

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

poem’s female voice.52 In what way does Ovid’s feminine voice correspond to the historical Sappho? Is there any way in which an Ov idian language could make a pla ce for Sapph o’s o wn voice? Can w e speak of a genuine Sapphic voice independent of its traditional representations? The di fficulties in i solating th e feminin e v oice fr om th e ma le a uthor are not only par t of the exper ience of reading Ov id’s Heroides; they a lso rise in th e c ontext of Sappho’s o wn r eception. Consider, for example, Page duBois’s description of the effect of Sappho’s poetr y on h er ancient readers: Her body an d its desir es [ar e] in tolerable, its speech t oo ly rical, too h ysterical, too ca ught up in th e ba ttles of love, scenes of marriage, physical longing for the beloved to participate in the sober work of philosophy, even an erotic philosophy like Plato’s.53

It i s d ifficult to i solate Sappho’s w riting from the way she was per ceived and read in antiquity. Her poetry, according to duBois, cannot be isolated from the readers’ responses, discourses, and values, all of which reconfirm and in tensify h er sub versiveness an d h er ir regularities as lasciva woman and poetess. Here, Sappho’s sub versive a uthority li es in h er ar chetypal position as a fema le author who, as duBois writes, transgresses the traditional boundaries of ancient poetics. Sappho is an outspoken and powerful figure who arouses intense desire among readers. This view—expressed more than once in the reception of her poetr y—can be detected in th e unique role her passionate di scourse plays in Western culture.54 Sappho’s eroticism is conceived as bolder an d more v iolent than tha t of Archilochus and oth er ma le poets. She tr ansgresses not only thematic boundaries (topics considered respectable), but also boundaries of femininity (speech considered decorous for a fema le). Sappho’s desir e was th e subject of fantasies for G reek and Latin comedy writers who referred to the story of her unrequited heterosexual love for Phaon. Plautus, for example, refers t o h er extr aordinary passion in Miles Gloriosus –: Nam nulli mor tali scio optigisse hoc nisi duo bus / tibi et Phaoni Lesbio, tam mulier se ut amaret. Wishing to convey the prostitute’s ex cessive desir e t oward th e soldi er, the s lave subtly r emarks tha t only Sappho could equal the prostitute in h er passionate intensity.55 For Ovid, therefore, Sappho is not just the name of the historical Greek poetess. He does not cite her name just to commemorate one of his poetic influences. In Heroides, and in Ars Amatoria and Remedia Amoris, the name



Pandora’s Voice and th e Emergence of Ovid’s Poetic Persona

“Sappho” epitomizes th e idea of a feminin e text. More speci fically, in Heroides .– Ovid uses the term lascivia in relation to Sappho’s traditional image as a w oman of insatiable desire. He depicts h er in th e act of recollecting th e pleasur e sh e ha d w ith Phaon, emphasizing h er uniq ue sexual appetite an d erotic knowledge: haec quoque laudabas, omnique a par te placebam, sed tum pr aecipue, cum fit amoris opus. tum te plus solit o lascivia nostra iuvabat, creberaque mobilitas aptaque verba ioco, quique, ubi iam amborum fu erat confuse voluptas, plurimus in lasso c orpore languor erat. (Her. .–) [And y ou us ed t o pr aise th ese things a lso; I was pleasing in ev ery aspect, but th en especi ally wh en th e t ask of love came ar ound. Then m y lasci viousness used to please you more than y ou were accustomed and my quick mobility, and my joking w ords, and the languor that was g reat in our tir ed bodies when the desire of both of us had already mingled together.—Trans. Sara H. Lindheim]56

Is there a connection between Sappho’s sexual and Ovid’s literary promiscuity? Can her “quick mobility” and “joking words” be read in ana logy to his rhetorical prowess? Is the commemoration of her promiscuity an Ovidian way of reflecting on, of refracting, his own image as a lasci vious poet? Ovid’s notion of Sappho should be appr oached through his use of the term lascivia. Not only does h e descr ibe h er as lasci vious in Ars, but, as we sha ll s ee, he hims elf is a lso r emembered as th e most lasci vious lo ve poet among the Roman elegists. We will first examine Sappho’s lascivia in the context of the didactic tr adition. The way the ancients identified her sexual preference with her authorial position is illuminating. Horace’s reference to her a s mascula (Epist...) was in terpreted b y Porphyrio in the following way: “‘Masculine Sappho,’ either because she is f amous for her poetry, in which men mor e often excel, or because she is maligned as having been a tr ibad.”57 Sappho’s po wer—that i s, her masculinit y—is manifested in h er prominent position as a liter ary authority as mu ch as in her active role as a lo ver of women. Porphyrio c onstrues Sapph o’s masculinit y as or iginating fr om a literary authority that is uncommon among w omen. But there is more to say

Pandora’s Voice and th e Emergence of Ovid’s Poetic Persona



about the bold image of Sappho as a liter ary persona. She is known as a didactic authoress, which is also an atypical position for a woman. What’s more, her irregular authority is derived from her role as a teacher of love. Sappho’s prominent st anding in th e erotodidactic tr adition explains why she has bec ome a pr ominent source of inspiration for Ov id. In Ars Amatoria and Remedia Amoris, Sappho’s impor tance as a lo ve poetess an d as an er otodidactic a uthority o ver Ov id i s emphasi zed. He canonizes h er n ot only as a ly ric poet, but a lso as a tea cher of love. In recommending her poetr y to lovers, he impli es the didactic va lue of her love poems, which is confirmed again by his personal experience in Remedia . In thi s s ense, Ovid’s deployment of Sappho echoes Socr ates’ use of a feminine persona—Diotima—to endorse his own erotic conceptions. Though Diotima does n ot a ctually par ticipate in th e f amous ga thering, she is introduced by Socr ates as th e mother (the feminine source) of his erotic di scourse. We mig ht detect in Tristia a similar image of poetic conception. In Tristia . Ovid expresses to an unnamed fr iend his deep concern for th e destiny of his works. He distinguishes, however, between his banned love-guides and the rest of his poetic c orpus. Ovid elaborates on thi s par ental met aphor, imagining hims elf not just as a car ing f ather to his erotodidactic books, but as a feminin e father by means of an analogy t o J upiter’s deli very of Pallas Athena: Palladis exe mplo de me sine matre c reata car mina sunt (“in Pallas f ashion were my verses born fr om me w ithout a moth er,” Tr. ..). This conversion of the physical act of giving bir th in to an image of masculine cr eation or iginates w ith Pla to. More specifically, the Symposium presents the most emblema tic feminine characteristic—giving birth—as the governing principle of the erotic field. And so Ov id, the erotic master, follows Plato in c onjuring thi s image of parenthood. In alluding to Jupiter’s motherless delivery, Ovid reproduces the Socr atic gestur e toward Diotima. Like Socr ates, Ovid points to himself as a masculin e mother replacing an abs ent feminine original. Sappho is the absent role model. She is the poetic mother of Ovid’s erotodidactic poetry. During Ov id’s time, “Sappho” was considered a m ythical name, associated with other mythical wise women such as Diotima and Aspasia, who achieved their authority as exemplar y teachers of love.58 Ovid has ch osen Sappho as a na tural erotodidactic role model pr ecisely because, as a lo ve poetess, she represents better than Diotima an d Aspasia the erotodidactic field of poetry.59 This group of women, however, is also associated with the philosophical male expert on lo ve, Socrates. Diotima and Aspasia appear



Pandora’s Voice and th e Emergence of Ovid’s Poetic Persona

as er otic teachers in th e Socr atic liter ature;60 “beautiful Sapph o,” Sappho kale, is in cluded in Phaedrus among th e an cient w ise men an d w omen (sophoi) wh o spok e an d w rote about lo ve. Sappho, “the ten th M use,” inspires Socr ates’ notion of love.61 But it i s the second-century Maximus of Tyre ( Orationes .) wh o suppli es an ar resting c omparison betw een the two and provides a Socr atic portrayal of Sappho: o9 de\ Lesbi/av ti/ a1n ei1h a1llo h1 au0to/, h9 Swkra/touv te/xnh e0rwtikh/; dokou~si ga/r moi th\n kaq 0 au9to\n e9ka/terov fili/an, h9 me\n gunaikw~n o9 de\ a0rre/nwn, e0pithdeu~sai. kai\ ga\r pollw~n e0ra~n e1legon, kai\ u9po\ pa/ntwn a9li/skesqai tw~n kalw~n: o3 ti ga\r e0kei/nw| 0Alkibia/dhv kai\ Xarmi/dhv kai\ Fai~drov, tou~to th~| Lesbi/a| Guri/nna kai\ 0Atqi\v 0Anaktori/a: kai\ o3 ti per Swkra/tei oi9 a0nti/texnoi Pro/dikov kai\ Gorgi/av kai\ Qrasu/maxov kai\ Prwtago/rav, tou~to th~| Sapfoi~ Gorgw\ kai\ 0Androme/da: nu~n me\n e0pitima~| tau/taiv, nu~n de\ e0le/gxei kai\ ei0rwneu/etai au0ta\ e0kei~na ta\ Swkra/touv. [What else could one call the love of the Lesbian woman than th e Socratic art of love? For they seem to me to have practiced love after their own fashion, she the love of women, he of men. For they said they loved many, and were captivated by all things beautiful. What Alcibiades and Charmides and Phaedrus were to him, Gyrinna and Atthis and Anactoria were to her; what the rival cr aftsmen Prodicus and Gorgias and Thr asymachus and Protagoras were to Socrates, Gorgo and Andromeda were to Sappho. Sometimes she censures them, at other times sh e cross-examines them, and she uses irony just like Socrates.—Trans. David A. Campbell]62

Although the writer creates a parallel between Sappho and Socrates based on th eir h omoeroticism, their similar a ttitude t oward th e techne er otike, or what is better known as the Socratic expertise in the art of love, is more important to him. Sappho i s considered an er otic exper t in th e Socr atic manner since she mainly practices love as a di scourse. She maintains love relationships using th e s ame techniq ues tha t Socr ates emplo ys wh en h e charms an d a llures hi s in terlocutors in to c onversations: the s eductive means of irony and refutation. Maximus’s Socratic portrayal of Sappho can help us draw out the genealogy of a family of mythical figures with a fundamentally erotic existence: Sappho, Diotima, Aspasia, Socrates, and Ov id. This g roup est ablishes a guild of teachers of love whose mythological patroness, I would argue, is

Pandora’s Voice and th e Emergence of Ovid’s Poetic Persona



Pandora. As already shown, Hesiod’s first woman is the human embodiment of Eros. Plato, following the example of Hesiod’s Pandora, also makes Socrates an embodiment of Eros. With her charming and deceitful ambiguities, Pandora (an d, likewise, Socrates) i s r esponsible for beq ueathing erotic knowledge to the world. The myth of the or igin of love i s, hence, tied t o th e m yth of femininity. This i s h ow I expla in Pla to’s deci sion t o credit feminine sources for Socr atic erotic teaching. Despite the privileging of masculinity and homoeroticism in Symposium, erotic knowledge is originally a ttributed b y liter ary tr adition t o w omen.63 And so th e er otic elements specified by Diotima as zeal (syntasis, b) and eagerness (spoude, b, b),64 characterizing as th ey do th e s earch for bea uty, goodness, happiness, and immor tality, also de fine th e most fun damental feminin e competence, which Diotima c onceives as th e ultima te goa l of desire— giving bir th. Love i s initi ally a feminin e power, which i s why knowledge of it is transmitted to Socrates by a woman.65 Plato’s understanding of the erotic field as fundamentally feminine explains the reputation of Socrates as a lo ve tea cher, midwife, and ma tchmaker—all feminin e char acterizations made by Plato and other ancient authors.66 Ovid associates himself with this Socratic erotodidactic tradition, already attributing in Amores .. the competence of the female procurer (lena) to th e eleg y. Although N ew C omedy pr ovides th e ma in sour ce for thi s stock figure, Ovid’s eleg iac lena should a lso be link ed to the philosophical tr adition tha t iden tifies th e Socr atic ar t as an ar t of matchmaking.67 In oth er w ords, there i s an in teresting c onnection betw een th e Ov idian image of love eleg y as a lena and the image of the philosopher as a pr ocurer. The image of Socrates as a philosophica l pr ocurer i s ins eparable from hi s image as th e h uman embodimen t of Eros. Being daemonic, in the same manner Eros is (Symp. d–d),68 Socrates’ philosophical drive is understood to be a medi ating one between the human and the divine. T L T The list of poets in Ars Amatoria establishes the category of love elegy. It is interesting to note that Ov id’s li st diverges s lightly from that of Propertius, whose roll of authors ( .) s erves as hi s model. First, Propertius (unlike Ov id) bas es th e liter ary hi story of the lo ve eleg y ex clusively on Latin liter ature. Beginning w ith Varro,69 he th en cites Ca tullus, Calvus, Gallus, and, finally, himself. As we have seen, Ovid’s list does n ot include Catullus or Ca lvus, and yet, despite these differences, it bears the mark of Propertius’s list, especially in the way in which Ovid’s evocation of Sappho

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Pandora’s Voice and th e Emergence of Ovid’s Poetic Persona

echoes Propertius’s nomination of Catullus, the only poet sing led out as lascivious: Haec quoque lascivi cantarunt scripta Catulli Lesbia quis ipsa notior est H elena. (Propertius ..–, my emphasis) [On these very topics the writings of lascivious Catullus sing, Through which Lesbi a has bec ome more famous than H elen.]

Although Catullus is not explicitly named on Ov id’s list, Propertius’s reference to him i s, in part, present. In characterizing Sappho as lasciva (AA .), Ovid is, in fact, echoing the inclusion of Propertius’s Catullus. Catullus’s r elationship w ith Sappho i s complicated. His f amous adaptation (poe m ) of her poem  presents a “corrected” version of her homoerotic expression. By replacing Sappho’s female gaze with a male one, Catullus succeeds in introducing a conventional love triangle.70 Moreover, his mor alizing en ding i s a pur e in vention, a for eign (R omanized) a ddition to the Greek source. Catullus attempts to translate Sappho according to Roman ethical standards, but his interest in h er goes be yond that. Catullus i s un deniably inspir ed b y, and in debted t o, Sappho’s er otic poetry. His love poems to Lesbia indicate a sy mbiotic relation to Sappho. By naming hi s object of desire Lesbia and identifying her as th e motivating force of his love poetr y, Catullus makes Sappho the Muse of his love poetry. Hence, she i s not simply an a dmired poet fr om a g lorious Greek past. She masks th e f ace of the beloved as mu ch as sh e hides behin d the beloved’s face.71 Catullus’s Sappho stands as a sy mbol for love poetry. The constitutive r ole h e assig ns h er as a fema le a uthor, his un conventional gesture of submitting hi s poetr y t o feminina a uctoritas, is, I think, what makes him lasci vious in th e e yes of Propertius. Borrowing from Propertius’s idiom, Ovid ascribes the sign of lasciviousness directly to Catullus’s Greek model, Sappho. In so doing , Ovid shifts th e emphasis from Catullus t o hi s pr edecessor. Nota sit e t Sappho (q uid e nim lascivious illa?), he writes (AA ., my emphasi s): “Let Sappho be a lso known (for wha t i s more lascivious than she?).” The inclusion of Sappho in Ov id’s canon is striking primarily because she i s the only fema le author in it. Moreover, she i s mentioned as a r ole model neither by Propertius72 nor by Tibullus.73 And in this respect, Ovid is th e first among th e R oman lo ve eleg ists t o pr esent h er as a c entral

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

authorial figure.74 Although it can be argued that her appearance on Ovid’s list stems fr om th e f act tha t Ars  is a ddressed t o fema le r eaders,75 this should not prevent us from appreciating the central role Ovid assigns her in creating the Roman love elegy. Following Catullus’s Romanized image of Sappho, Ovid turned her into an emblem, a constitutive element, or a generic sign, of his own erotic writing. As we have seen, in Roman culture Sappho’s name symbolizes excessive speech, an immoderate passion, an unofficial and subversive discourse. To write poetry under her influence, as Ovid does, is to commandeer an illegitimate fr eedom of speech, or, in oth er w ords, to bec ome a lic entious poet.76 Armed with this feminine attribute, Ovid asserts himself as the illegitimate love poet whose poetry is severed from the institutional consensus and the normative codes of moderate speech. Identifying itself with intense and unr estrained er otic di scourse, Ovid’s er otodidactic poetr y dec lares itself to be feminine. This does not mean that his erotodidactic discourse sacrifices th e idea of rationality. On th e contrary, it s eeks t o master an d perfect the logic and grammar of a distinctive erotic technique. However, since the grammar of eros is intrinsically tied to the expressions and performances of intense passion, it follo ws tha t Ov id c elebrates hi s dida ctic form of textuality b y a dopting a pr ovocative v ocabulary. This mak es his erotodidactic Muse no longer mollis but, rather, proterva, lasciva, and levis—all feminine attributes specify ing an unr estrained form of expression, whose effect is fundamentally designed to be sh ocking.    It is well known that the love elegy occupied a peripheral place in Roman culture.77 Quintilian’s response is representative of the institutional reception of this genr e pr ior t o an d dur ing th e time Ov id was w riting hi s erotodidactic w orks. In Book  of Institutio Or atoria, which a ddresses methodological q uestions c oncerning edu cation an d th us c omments on the authors and literary genres that should be studied, Quintilian devotes little a ttention t o eleg iac poetr y. In a gen eral r emark about th e eleg iac poets, he mentions Callimachus and Philetas, who were included in Ovid’s list as w ell (Rem. –). Quintilian treats them as s econd-rate poets: Sed ad illos i am perfecti s constitutisque v iribus r evertemur; quod in c enis grandibus s aepe f acimus ut, cum optimi s s atiati sumus, varietas t amen nobis ex v ilioribus g rata sit. Tunc et eleg iam va cabit in man us sumer e. (Inst. ..)

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Pandora’s Voice and th e Emergence of Ovid’s Poetic Persona

[But we must wa it till our po wers have been dev eloped and est ablished to the full befor e we turn to these poets, just as at banquets we take our fill of the best f are and then turn t o other food which, in spite of its comparative inferiority, is still attractive owing to its variety. Not until our taste is formed shall we have leisure to study the elegiac poets.—Trans. H. E. Butler]78

Quintilian’s culinary metaphor assigns love poetry a superfluous status. Its pla ce in th e poetic men u i s insig nificant, an o ffering to r eaders w ho are a lready s atiated and s atisfied. The r eader, he argues, must be ma ture before encountering elegiac poetry. That is, his personality must be cr ystallized an d hi s aesth etic an d in tellectual ju dgment must ha ve r eached full development. Interaction with elegiac poetry at this stage will neither harm n or tea ch th e r eader. Quintilian’s idea l r eader i s, thus, indifferent to th e illicit tea chings pr omised b y lo ve eleg y. According t o Quin tilian, one sh ould n ot t ake lo ve eleg y s eriously: one mig ht be captur ed b y its allure. Readers lik e Quin tilian assig n lo ve eleg y th e s ame thr eatening quality tha t a s eductive w oman mig ht pr esent for th e s exually in experienced man. He therefore stipulates the conditions for s afely reading promiscuous texts. But does Ov id pr omote su ch a r eading in Ars Amatoria and Remedia Amoris? He has n o desire to create a s afe and harmless text; nor does h e want to protect hi s readers. Ovid i s interested in liter ature that shocks.79 But if his lo ve eleg y i s in tended t o be sh ocking an d its idea l r eader, as Alexander Dalzell suggests, is someone who is willing to be shocked, then Ovid’s ideal reader is the very person wh o the love guide c laims is not its legitimate addressee. Alison Shar rock has sh own that a lthough Ov id excludes mar ried w omen fr om hi s cir cle of disciples ( AA .–),80 this exclusion has th e opposite e ffect.81 The s eductive a ct of denying lo ve’s pleasure to married women becomes doubly powerful. In addressing married women, the love guide both r ejects them and marks th em as potential r eaders. The didactic shock of Ars Amatoria is effected in th e book’s paradoxical a ddress t o an a udience of married w omen tha t it a lso di sallows. By excluding mar ried w omen fr om its leg itimate audience, Ovid ultimately converts respectable females into the guide’s ideal audience, an audience c omposed of promiscuous an d sub versive r eaders. These married women represent the readership for which he has created the promiscuous er otodidactic genr e. In oth er w ords, the liter ary a ct, according t o Ovid, is desig ned t o a ttack th e unsuspecting r eader, whose na iveté an d habitual complacency usua lly pr event any explor ation of nonconformist

Pandora’s Voice and th e Emergence of Ovid’s Poetic Persona



or individualistic experiences. The love guide, in fact, offers just su ch experiences within its imag inative didactic framework. Turning again to Quintilian’s di smissive attitude to eleg y, we can n ow examine his specific reference to Ovid as th e most lasci vious love poet of all.82 His remark contains a double reproach. First, it associates Ovid with the per ipheral genr e of love eleg y; then it emphasi zes tha t, within thi s genre, Ovid i s mor e pr eoccupied than th e oth ers w ith a ll tha t th e term lascivus connotes.83 In the classical and postclassical public consciousness, Ovid’s name i s often associ ated w ith lasci viousness an d lig htness. This perception i s a r esult of Ovid’s o wn w ork. He us es lascivia (and oth er terms) as a slogan, a programmatic phrase, and, inevitably, as a blueprint. It is little wonder that his critics recycled the stigmatizing expressions that Ovid provided them. What is the collective meaning of lascivia, levitas, and protervitas? Are they syn onyms, creating a f amily of terms tha t de fine th e er otodidactic genre? Ov id ca lls Sappho lasciva (AA .): “Let Sappho be a lso known (for what is more lascivious than she?)”; nota sit et Sappho (quid enim lascivius illa?). What does he mean by this? What does he want to say about Sappho? Is this a biographical remark that slanders her way of life as frivolous, playful, and mi schievous? I n oth er w ords, is it a dir ect r eference to wha t was c onsidered h er lic entious s exual life? Or , more pla usibly, is Ovid referring to her unrestrained, shameless literary style? In contrast to Quintilian’s lascivior, Ovid’s is not judgmental. He br ackets the connotations of moral degeneracy that certainly arise in readers’ minds and focuses instead on h er boldn ess as a lo ve poet. Her undisciplined image i s c onnected to her status as on e who breaks the norms of writing, being both a lover of women and a fema le writer. This blatant violation, which Ovid identifies with the mythical feminine position, is crucial to the literary act. In fact, it is crucial to art in general. Freedom of expression is apparently a gift that only a min ority can r eceive.     In Remedia – Ovid’s text dig resses to consider the criticism directed against his erotic writing. He accuses his opponents of literary envy (livor, , ). They are envious of his freedom of speech (licentia, ), which for Ovid is an in dispensable artistic virtue.84 For his detractors, however, and especi ally w ithin th e R oman cultur al c ontext, licentia is a sig n of immorality commonly associated with a la ck of sexual restraint. He thus

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Pandora’s Voice and th e Emergence of Ovid’s Poetic Persona

emphasizes hi s cr itics’ disgust a t th e pr omiscuously er otic dimension of his work: nuper enim n ostros quidem carpsere libellos quorum censura Musa proterva mea est. (Rem. –) [recently some people a ttacked my books; their criticism, however, is that my Muse (poetry) is shameless.]

Ovid’s tactic is striking. On one level, he cites th e critics who accuse him of creating a shameless poetr y. They s ay that hi s Muse i s proterva. Their “shameless Muse” is not far from Cicero’s description of the promiscuous feminine figure, the courtesan, proterva meretrix (Cael. ). But Ovid does not quote thi s s lander word for w ord; rather, he changes it in to the first person. The critics say that “my Muse is shameless,” he says. He not only repeats his accusers’ words but also reasserts them in the indicative. At the same time, while his accusers derogatively allude to his sexual licentiousness, he pr ovides a di fferent in terpretation of Musa pr oterva. The wa y in which h e conceives of his Muse cannot be eq uated w ith the way they conceive of her. His Muse i s proterva not beca use h e bla tantly di scusses sexual a cts: this a ccusation i s g roundless in lig ht of Ovid’s di sdain for explicit pornographic images (Rem. –). Ovid’s Musa proterva should be un derstood in terms of his us e of levitas and lascivia. These ar e th e attributes he uses to legitimize his decision to dedicate himself to the illegitimate field of eros. These terms ensure that his poetry will become what it pr oclaims its elf to be: shamelessly pa thbreaking. In thi s s ense, Ovid’s Musa pr oterva grows out of his conception of love eleg y as Venus’s procurer (lena, Am. ..). The love elegist is protervus because he mediates between the goddess of love and human beings, thus continuing the tradition of Socrates, Aspasia, Sappho, and Pandora, who all function as erotic intermediaries.

chapter 

Feminine Subjectivity and the Self-Contradicting Text

In chapter  I examine the emergence of Ovid’s unique authority within the tradition of Roman love elegy. My reading of his singularity as a love elegist focuses on his poetic persona, his adaptation of the feminine voice with its overtones of lasciviousness and transgression. The term Musa proterva marks Ovid’s understanding of the intimate relationship between poetr y, eros, and the feminine. The connection between eros and the feminine is already present in the m yth of the first woman. Specifying the domain of love as illogical and irrational, Hesiod presents Eros as an illicit cosmological element whose form of activity is the unconstitutional: Eros is an antithesis to good reasoning and thoughtful advice, da/mnatai e)n sth/qessi no/on kai\ e)pi/frona boulh/n (Th. ). This destructive force finds its embodiment, according to Hesiod, in the figure of Pandora whose charis (charismatic sexuality), endowed by Aphrodite, is the sour ce of erotic sorrows, po/qon a)rgale/on kai\ guiobo/rouj meledw/naj (W&D ). Subsequently, a woman’s language of love is traditionally understood as provocative and transgressive. By the same token, the ideolog y of silencing women may be understood in the light of the attempt to overcome the erotic by means of rationality. In the present chapter, I turn t o the different ways in which P andora’s image per vades an d stru ctures Ov id’s er otodidactic texts. In wha t s ense can a text be s aid to emulate Pandora? She i s ca lled a dec eit; she i s s aid to have a ly ing appearance. Her language i s never transparent. Instead of revealing h er inn er in tentions, it hides th em. It i s a lways ambigu ous, a medium of concealment. Language as simula tion i s a th eme c entral t o Ovid’s erotodidactic di scourse. Not only does h e focus on th e cr aftiness of language as cru cial to the art of love, but his own composition is also construed as a textua l conundrum, a mimesis of Pandora. 

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Feminine Subjectivity and th e Self-Contradicting Text

The tension betw een gen uine emotion an d emotiona l gestur es, inner passion and simulation of passions, is intrinsic to Ovid’s erotic teaching. Consequently, it is not surprising that responses to his didactic works have questioned again and again the text’s sincerity and integrity. In this sense, there i s a c lose a ffinity betw een th e figure of Pandora an d Ov id’s lo ve guides. The first w oman and th e erotodidactic text in cite similar cr itical responses—in fact, both encourage misogynistic readings. We shall see that Ovid makes woman’s self-contradicting character the constituting pr inciple of his Ars and Remedia. Hence my di scussion w ill focus on th e pa linodic structure that links th ese works. Plato’s Phaedrus tells us that the history of the literary palinode leads back to a woman. As Socrates turns hi s back on hi s first or ation aga inst lo ve and shifts t o an alternative speech in f avor of it, he points to the source of this rhetorical gesture. Punished by the gods for his defamation of Helen (he had blamed her for th e Trojan War), the poet Stesich orus is said to have composed a new poem of recantation in which h e completely purifies her. That i s to say: the text of contradiction or iginates as a r esponse t o th e c onflicting presence of a woman.1 In thi s r espect, the Platonic antecedent of Ovid’s antithetical tr eatment of love a lready elu cidates th e in trinsic c onnection between palinodic textuality and the mysterious figure of the femme fatale. A  R: M, L G,   P  S Composition of Ars Amatoria and Remedia Amoris brought Ovid’s career as a lo ve poet t o an en d. These works constituted something of a cul-desac for th e genr e of the Roman love eleg y. Explanations for th e death of the genre point to the Augustan political milieu, to Ovid’s own relationship with the emperor, and, most significantly, to Ovid’s unique standing among R oman lo ve eleg ists. But th ere i s an other r eason wh y Ars and Remedia led Latin love elegy to a point of self-exhaustion: the genre came to an en d once Ov id abandoned th e subjecti ve and persona l in f avor of the didactic. The impa ct of Ars and Remedia on th e lo ve eleg y ma y be lik ened t o Medusa’s gaze. Reading the love guides must have had a destructive—even castrating—effect on th ose who strove to write original love elegies. The guides’ metaliterary perspective blocked other poetic a ttempts:2 once the love elegy as a genr e turned into an object of inquiry, it lost its autonomy and generic authority. Whereas the form ha d served the amatory poet as a means of investigating th e er otic field, Ars and Remedia methodically

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explore the form itself. This methodological approach to the elegy’s erotic poetics affects the genre’s v itality and novelty. In systematically mapping the er otodidactic di scourse, Ovid’s inn ovation casts a long sha dow o ver the creative field for futur e elegiac poets. His work threatens to make all amatory contributions faint replicas, mere borrowings or imitations of the precepts established in Ars and Remedia.3 The destructive (or deconstructive) impact of Ovid’s systematization of love elegy is well described by Gian Biagio Conte: Ovid, before being th e author of elegiac texts, is the addressee of the passionate poetry of Catullus, Gallus, Propertius, and Tibullus. He has listened to their words, learned to understand how the system tha t programs them is constructed, discovered what contradictions invest it, deconstructed it by finding its n ecessary r elations; now h e kn ows h ow t o r econstruct it in hi s own way. Ovid’s text accepts the genre’s conventions; it places itself in a relation of intertextuality, indeed of continuation, with the lineage of elegy—a vista of citations, a mirage of structures that are déjà vu and déjà vécu. But at th e v ery momen t h e a cquires a super ior un derstanding of the liter ary characteristics of elegy (the way in which it “works out” reality), Ovid stops.4

Conte characterizes the transition from the “standard” Roman love elegy to Ars and Remedia as a n ew attempt “to look a t elegy instead of looking with th e e yes of elegy.”5 “Looking a t eleg y” implies a di stance fr om th e elegiac point of view. Furthermore, it impli es an in version of the poetic role undertaken by the elegist. The very attempt to articulate the field of eros as a form of Ars suggests an understanding of love according to which the eleg ist’s immersion in amor ous pa thos, suffering, and sickn ess n o longer provides any privileged access to the truth of the phenomenon he describes. In thi s r espect, Ovid’s shift fr om an expr essive t o a met alanguage of love marks more than a mere didactic transition. Ars Amatoria and Remedia Amoris signify the radicalization of the idea that language i s the inner form of the phenomenon of love. For Ov id, the impor tance of language exceeds its abilit y t o expr ess an d c ommunicate emotions, to ar ticulate and shape amorous experiences. Language, rather, is a condition necessary for entertaining emotions. In other words, love, according to Ov id, is an intrinsically textua l ph enomenon—one tha t, in its ess ence, is languagedependent. Hence, while his explicit subject of investigation is, of course, Amor, the primary focus of the lover’s handbook is the verbal dimension

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Feminine Subjectivity and th e Self-Contradicting Text

of erotic interaction. It is in the domain of language that love takes place, and it is precisely rhetorical competence that enables the lover to take part in and eventually master the love situation. As Ovid guides the student of love from naiveté to maturity, the criterion of progress is explicitly tied to his or h er developing capacity for mor e refined forms of verbal achievement. While still an indoctus, the lover unable to incite desire is described as a mute. For Ovid, this absence of articulation is the principal obstacle to aspiring, would-be lovers. Ovid’s c ourse beg ins w ith th e poten tial lo vers’ mutual a cquaintance. During this preliminary stage of the erotic relationship, verbal communication is based on th e respective social skills of the pair. These lovers are only able to engage in “small talk” that consists of publica verba (AA .). The establishment of a common discursive ground is, according to Ovid, necessary for proceeding to the next rhetorical phase, that of explicit persuasion. At this stage the lover will need to meet higher discursive demands, ones that require adequate preparation and learning. Disce bonas ar tes, moneo, Romana iuventus, non tantum trepidos ut tu eare reos: quam populus iu dexque gravis lectusque senatus, tam dabit eloq uio victa puella manus. (AA .–) [I advise you, young Roman man, learn the noble Arts, not only tha t you may defend trembling clients; a girl, like an a udience, a critical judge, or the select senate, will surrender, conquered, to eloquence.]

Since for Ov id the love relationship is textual at heart, he construes it in terms of the relationship between speaker and audience, between deliberate lingui stic a ctivity an d th e r eader’s r esponse. When h e instru cts men in the art of seduction, he conceives of the female erotic role as tha t of a reader. In corollary fashion, he presents a w oman’s readership as in its elf an art that can dev elop and reach maturation. The woman can g radually develop into a sophisticated interpreter, and Ovid thus describes her by an analogy using three distinct images taken from the field of public speech. The woman is comparable to populus, the crowd in a public meeting; to iudex gravis, a critical judge in a private case; and, finally, in her most elite form, lectus senatus.

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But the first, crudest stage in the development of feminine reading skills is the most telling . Comparing the woman to the Roman populus evokes Ovid’s first mention of the audience of Ars Amatoria: hoc populus: si quis in hoc ar tem popul o non nov it amandi (AA .). Ars opens by addressing any Roman who is ignorant of the art of love. In identifying the seduced woman as populus (AA .), Ovid analogically positions her in the same place as his intended readers, implying that women are, in fact, ideal readers of his erotic discourse. Likewise, this analogy positions the male reader of Ars . in the place taken up b y women in Ars ., implying that the readers of Ovid’s guide are expected to undergo a comparable hermeneutic development.6 Erotic ignorance is, according to Ovid, a preliminary stage that must be transcended. That transcendence depends on the development of sophisticated methods of reading. The ignorant reader (belonging to the populus) can, in pr inciple, become an exper t ( iudex g ravis, or e ven lectus se natus) in ma tters of love. In bec oming g reat lo vers, Ovid’s r eaders, by de finition, become masters of their master’s art. Once they turn into competent lovers, they become experts in lo ve, inheriting their master’s art, the language of love. They are made into poetic lo vers. Not all men are poets, but all true lovers are poets.7 An exemplary lover is, what’s more, a love poet, whom Ovid contrasts with seducers who lack a poet’s skills.8 The celebration of the poet as the ultimate lover has a strong performative va lue, highlighting hi s super ior techniq ues of seduction in comparison with those of his rivals. But Ovid is not simply a s educer. He is, first of all, a love instructor, teaching a us eful technique that i s applicable t o both men an d w omen. He tea ches th e ar t of love b y pr oviding the r eader w ith a di scursive model for imit ation: the language of love poetry. In so doing , he deni es that love poetr y belongs only t o the circle of Roman love eleg ists. Rather, he makes the erotic eleg iac form a ccessible to the average Roman. Ovid’s instructions for bec oming a s educer or for appear ing to be in a state of love were considered a c lear indication of the performativity that is t o be foun d a t th e h eart of his guides. Ars and Remedia were re ad a s rhetorical works in the negative sense, and romantic readers accused Ovid of making fun of “true” love. Such cr iticisms, which w ere r ecurrent in early responses to Ars and Remedia, have consistently stood in the way of accepting Ovid’s didactic intention at face value. Ovid c ertainly does n ot c onsider “love” to be a syn onym for h onest, consistent, and truthful a ffection. Indeed, emotions ar e n ot in tegral t o

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the natural constitution of a human being as f ar as he is concerned. They are n either inna te n or inborn but ar e, rather, social an d cultur al c onstructions created in and developed through our language, as well as being the s emiotics of gestures an d performa tive a ction. For Ov id, simulation and pr etending ar e not for eign to the phenomenon of love; in f act, they are in tegral t o it. The li e, in par ticular, is an in dispensable, constitutive component of the love relationship: Ovid explains the importance of lying at a lmost ev ery st age of the dev elopment of that r elationship. But su ch amorous li es ar e in dicative of neither an immor al soul n or a c orrupt mind. Since h e considers th e externa l manifest ations of love ess ential t o erotic experience, his teachings invite potential lovers to externalize their passions while bracketing questions about the actual existence of passion. The ar t of love tea ches r eaders t o per ceive th emselves as lo vers. That i s to s ay, it guides a person in a cquiring an externa l perspecti ve on hi s or her emotions. The externality of emotions is a c onception that also governs the deterioration of love. In Remedia, for example, the didactic tools initially suppli ed in Ars now a chieve th e opposite r esult. Emotions can develop or di sappear, but th ey do so in a ccordance w ith our simula tive capacities. Quod non es, simula, positosque imitare furores; sic facies vere, quod meditatus eris. saepe ego, ne biberem, volui dormire videri; dum videor, somno lumina v icta dedi. deceptum risi, qui se simulabat amare, in laqueos auceps decideratque suos. (Rem. –) [Pretend to be wha t you are not, imitate the appearance of being burned out: thus you will realize what you have been planning on doing . Often, in order not to drink, I wanted to seem to be s leeping: while seeming to sleep, my eyes were overcome by sleep. I have laughed at the self-deluding man wh o, while pretending to be in lo ve, fell like a bird-catcher into his own trap.]

We can s ay that Ovid’s theory of love is expressive. More precisely, it is a theory that recognizes the expressive. For Ovid, “what is latent is unknown” (quod latet, ignotum est, AA .). And there is no desire for wha t is unknown. This is illustrated by his visual depiction of Aphrodite:

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Si Venerem Cous nusquam posuisset Apelles, mersa sub aeq ureis illa la teret aquis. (AA .–) [If Coan Apelles had never created Venus, she would still be bur ied deep do wn in th e ocean.]

Aphrodite’s dependence on visualization is illuminating. Her beauty, which is ana logous to inner passion, remains futile an d ineffective as long as it is hidden from the public. In the Ovidian lexicon, love becomes a v itally meaningful ph enomenon only wh en it i s embodi ed in a r elationship. It then turns in to a dynamic feeling , a passion tha t i s in terwoven in to th e amorous fabric. Ovid’s interest in love is of a behaviorist type. He has no concern for the “inner” experience or for the “inner life” of love. Similarly, he di sregards th e tr aditional met aphysical aspects of love. In pr ivileging performance, Ovid’s psychological approach to love justifies the essential status of lies in lo ve relationships. Deceit in th e sphere of love is seen to be a kind of art. The erotic lie is a form of mimesis, functioning in a manner that is analogous to representation in painting, or to the effect of identification in poetic an d rhetorical language. The question of the lover’s authenticity or sincerity is consequently irrelevant for the instructor of love. The concept of sincerity rests on the opposition between private and public, between internal and external, between a person’s inside an d outside. 9 A sincere person i s one who appears t o be what he or she actually is. Authenticity then becomes the identity between appearance and reality. But Ovid rejects this opposition, since he regards the external as informing the intelligibility of internal life. For him, externalization determines who you are. Only through representation does the inner exper ience ful fill its ess ence. This a lso means tha t Ov id’s exclamation “Let your love and sincere devotion be visible to your girl” (tunc amor et pietas tua sit manifesta puell ae, AA .) cannot be assigned, as it commonly i s, to th e ca tegory of insincerity. That i s, Ovid speaks a language that defies the opposition betw een sincerity and insincerity. In his preoccupation with the discursive models that comprise the practice of love, Ovid may be said to foreshadow the kind of theoretical disposition we find, for example, in Roland Barthes’s poststructuralist Fragments d’un discours amoureux (). Like Ovid, Barthes studies love in a manner that is free from any essentialist concerns. His aim is not to understand the essence of love, but to decipher the “grammar” of the di scourse of love.

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In other words, Barthes tr eats love in a mann er that i s no longer dominated by the traditional question of what love is; like Ovid, he allows new questions to t ake its pla ce. How do w e speak of love? What i s the lover’s language? For Barthes, love and the lover both belong to a discursive field that is the object of his investigation. “What is proposed, then,” he writes, “is a por trait—but not a psy chological portrait; instead, a structural one which o ffers th e r eader a di scursive site: the site of someone speaking within hims elf, amorously, confronting the other (the loved object), who does not speak.”10 Barthes’s Fragments has exerted significant influence on in terpreters of Roman lo ve eleg y. Groundbreaking stu dies su ch as P aul Veyne’s L’èlégie érotique romaine: L’amour, la poésie et l’Occident (), Molly Myerowitz’s Ovid’s Games of Love (), and Duncan F. Kennedy’s The Arts of Love: Five Studies in the Discourse of Roman Love Elegy () have explored the poetic originality of the Roman elegiac discourse of love.11 In par ticular, they have led t o a r eassessment of the genr e’s aesthetic va lue by r edefining the concept of love as a lingui stic and liter ary phenomenon. Current scholarship has internalized a linguistic perspective in its r eading of Ovid and has, accordingly, made room for an understanding of Ars and Remedia as forms of metadiscourse whose field of inquiry is the discourse of love.12 Yet in th e context of the impor tant changes br ought about b y su ch di scursive approaches, the didactic claim of Ars and Remedia has been unable to ca ll for an y s erious a ttention. When Ov id’s guides ar e r ead in terms of the exemplar y semiotic matrix of speech acts and bodily gestur es that they pr esent, his pla yfulness an d lig htness ar e in deed in tegrated in to an apparently dida ctic fr amework.13 But wh en th e “teaching” of Ars and Remedia is read in terms of their abilit y to f ashion readers as masters of an erotic language game, speech act and performative-oriented interpretations of Ovid have r emained committed to a v ery nar row understanding of what th e dida ctic c ore of these w orks mig ht be. 14 In par ticular, might not openness to the centrality of language games in Ovid ultimately reproduce th e or thodox c onception of him as a fr ivolous an d insin cere poet?15 Can we, in other words, acknowledge the intrinsic role of language in th e Ov idian tr eatment of love w ithout lev eling th e dida ctic aspect of his project? In antiquity, the guides’ problematic didactic value was s een as der iving from their scandalous char acter.16 But why was it so di fficult to consider Ovid’s didacticism reliable? His debt to the Roman didactic tradition is unquestionable: Lucretius’s De Rerum Natura, Cicero’s rhetorical and ethical

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works, and V irgil’s Georgics are impor tant in fluences.17 And y et Ov id’s guides remain outside this traditional didactic Latin discourse, considered by most of their readers, ancient and modern a like, to be a gen eric transgression tha t begets “a subgenr e of the mock dida ctic.”18 Ovid’s didactic modus also generates an enig matic form of textuality that is full of paradoxes and self-contradictions. I will mention just a few of these. Ovid’s didactic framework abuses the classical opposition between virtue and pleasure, thus making utility the ethical core of the didactic genre, which tha t th en became first an d for emost a means of communicating immoral an d futile c ontent.19 More speci fically, since it was n otoriously dedicated t o n onmatrimonial lo ve, Ovid’s er otodidactic poetr y became, by de finition, anti-institutional.20 We can s ay tha t h e forma lly w rites a didactic work whose essence is decidedly antididactic. Taking into account the traditional hostility toward (vain) pleasures and passions, it is no wonder tha t Ov id i s a ccused of promulgating an empt y di scourse. It i s thi s kind of discourse that Cicero conceives as time-consuming—that is, consuming men’s precious time by turning it into otium. Reading love poetry thus becomes as c orrupting as a pleasur e-seeking life. 21 Cicero’s contempt for s elf-indulgence entails a condescending response toward liter ature that reflects it. His position i s typical of didactic works such as L ucretius’s E picurean epic. The fer ocious c ondemnation of love in Book  of De Rerum Natura turns out to be, as Martha Nussbaum has forcefully argu ed, a r enunciation of erotic poetr y as w ell. According t o Lucretius, liberation from the illusionary grip of love means that lovers are released from the spell of love poetr y. “Once the illusions of love are removed,” Nussbaum writes of the didactic message of this antierotic poem, “there is no love poetry to write.”22 We find a similar argument when we attempt to discover what is didactic in the erotodidactic. Conte points to the death of love elegy as the crux of Ovid’s dida ctics: “The Remedies against L ove present th emselves as a cure for those in love, but in fact they function as a remedy against a form of literature.”23 How does th e r emedy aga inst lo ve eleg y c orrespond t o the dida ctic pr oject of that genr e: that i s, the ars poe tica of love ele gy? What i s the va lue of an ars poe tica if the genr e it di scusses i s eventually condemned? The ambi valent st atus of Ovid’s dida ctic pr oject i s ti ed, of course, to the c omplexity of his poetic persona (s ee chapter ). Here, however, we are less c oncerned w ith Ov id’s s elf-understanding (e.g ., as a poet, as a teacher). Our focus, rather, is on the uniqueness of the textual form of Ars

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Amatoria and Remedia Amoris, which exemplifies well my understanding of what I call the feminine dimension of the text. Ovid’s Ars and Remedia function, as we have seen, at the intersection of the erotic, the didactic, and the highly discursive. This is what I mean by recognizing them as genuine erotodidactic works. Yet this textual intersection is a place of conflict. The sensual claims of eros, the ethical claims of “teaching,” and the theoretical claims of a language-or der tha t insi sts on its c onspicuity cann ot fully comply with one another. And this is precisely why Ars and Remedia provide such a good example of “Pandora’s textual heritage”: they allow us to see th e mann er in which th eir unfolding as texts depen ds on th ose unresolved tensions tha t characterize the first woman. T P S With thi s in min d, we may now turn t o what i s probably the most perplexing textual problem of Ars and Remedia. Both are guides that concern themselves with the lover’s art as it dev elops from the first signs of erotic attraction to the dissolution of the amorous relationship. In the first sections of Ars, Ovid instructs his reader to identify the proper object of love, to spread the amorous net, to pursue and seduce the object of one’s love, and then to successfully sustain an ongoing love relationship. In Remedia, the instruction has an en tirely different goal. The lover has now lost love, and the guide subs equently offers a wa y to come to terms w ith that loss. The means of this remedial process is renunciation: the lover will cure his or h er unhappin ess w ith th e understanding tha t lo ve its elf is a sickn ess. Only then will the former lovers learn to accept the superiority of an emotionally detached position t o the state of being in lo ve. But as the erotodidactic guide begins to disclaim the possibility of love, it seems to be turning aga inst itself and, in so doing , creating a puzzling literary form: a palinode, or a structure of contradiction. What, then, is the pedagogical value of Ars and Remedia if they are read together? No doubt, Ovid in tended for th e tw o par ts—the pursuit of and th en th e r ecovery from love—to be inseparable. Together the works create a unique reading experience, deriving from a textual paradox that, in turn, reflects the conflicted experience of love. Ovid begins Remedia with an explicit r eference to the contradiction generated by his two didactic poems: Legerat huius Amor titulum n omenque libelli bella mihi, video, bella parantur ait. (Rem. –)

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[Amor read the name an d title of this book an d said: I see that wars ar e prepared against me.]

The negotiation between Ars, which addresses passion as a cur rent experience, and Remedia, which addresses passion as a past exper ience, is not unproblematic for Ovid. He understands that this structure puts the value of Ars into question. Again and again he reassures his reader that reading Ars was not a poin tless exer cise. He promises tha t th e a dvice h e gave in the first work will not lose its meaning or va lidity in th e face of the ultimate curative antithesis of the second work. Both parts of his project, he assures the reader, both the “pro” and the “con,” can still be seriously read. Nec te, blande puer, nec nostras prodimus artes, nec nova praeteritum Musa retexit opus. (Rem. –) [I do n ot betray you or m y own arts; this new muse does n ot unravel my past w ork.]

Again, he assures the reader that Remedia does not threaten the status of Ars as a dida ctic text, or invalidate its a dvice: Naso legendus erat tum, cum didicistis amare; idem nunc vobis Naso legendus erit. (Rem. –) [Just as in th e past the reading of Naso was invaluable for you to learn how to love, so reading Naso now will be in valuable for y ou.]

But ev en su ch a uthorial r eassurances f ail t o a lleviate th e di fficulty tha t Ovid’s dualism generates. The juxtaposition of Ars and Remedia creates a literary puzzle that puts hi s reliability and sincerity in question. How can we interpret thi s double gestur e? Why should we abst ain from what had previously been en couraged? How can Ov id’s didactic position be t aken seriously if his text i s s elf-contradictory? H ow can th e r eader trust thi s author? And how can th e author claim authority for hi s writing? What is the significance of this textual contradiction? The contradiction between Ars and Remedia cannot be easily dismissed; it calls for reflection. And yet, in reflecting on this contradiction, we need to resist the natural temptation

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of doing away with the contradiction on which we reflect. In other words, the contradiction that surf aces in r eading Ars and Remedia is a real one and should be a ddressed as su ch. Any interpretation of these works must rest on a r eading that embraces the structure of contradiction as in tegral to them. At the same time, however, the fact of contradiction should not be understood as a liter ary cur iosity, an interestingly amusing ir regularity tha t just happens t o be par t of Ovid’s textua lity. Instead, we sh ould read the paradoxical structure of Ars and Remedia as reflecting a new textual awareness on his part, namely, his understanding of what a text is and how it functions. As I sha ll show now, these guides to love are themselves guided by the assumption that texts are intrinsically connected to forms of subjectivity, and tha t th ey cr eate forms of autobiographical understanding. What kin ds of subjectivity ar e r eflected in Ars and Remedia? What kind of self-knowledge can be der ived from these works? P  N Let us beg in to answer these questions by noticing first why it i s that we, as r eaders of these texts, come t o exper ience a c ontradiction. The s ense of contradiction ar ises wh en w e follo w th e dida ctic c laims of both Ars and Remedia and find ours elves f acing tw o c onflicting in terpretations, two mutua lly exclusive points of view on th e va lue of love. From a log ical point of view, it seems impossible t o treat love with both en thusiasm and di sdain. The law of noncontradiction finds its expr ession, as Aristotle explains, in the fact that “it is impossible for anyone to believe the same to be and not to be” (Metaph. a.–). And yet the gist of this principle, which is “most certain of all” and which “everyone must know who knows anything,” is not merely logical. The impossibility of contradiction is, according t o th e par adigmatic Aristotelian formula tion, not just an internal form of the way we think; it primarily belongs to the ontological structure o f things. That i s t o s ay, “it i s impossible tha t c ontrary a ttributes should belong a t the same time t o the same subject” (a.). In our context, this means tha t lo ve cannot be w orthy and va luable and at the same time also unworthy and valueless. So, what is Ovid saying? Is this student of the Roman schools of rhetoric simply showing his skills in th e art of the controversiae (cf. Seneca, Controv. .. ff.)? I s thi s mer ely an exercise in pr esenting both sides of an argument in order to demonstrate the speaker’s rhetorical virtuosity? The mere play of rhetorical argument cannot explain Ovid’s use of the palinode, which, in my v iew, must be ti ed t o hi s deep un derstanding of

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the relationship between language, love and contradiction.24 When thinking of contradiction, we typically deal with an essentially atemporal structure, one that is severed from the concreteness of temporal duration. This can be s een, for example, in the dependence of the Aristotelian definition of the law of contradiction on a pun ctual, self-identical “now” (“It is impossible that contrary attributes should belong at the same time to the same subject,” Metaph. a.). For Ov id, however, there i s n o su ch idea l— metaphysical—point in time. Contradiction, therefore, is a lready par t of our ordinary experience of temporality. In other words, the conflicting perspectives on love that he presents are not at all rooted in the unity of one and “the same time.” The pursuit and renunciation of love do not share a self-identical tempor al moda lity but sh ould be r ead, rather, in terms of the different temporal points of view that Ars and Remedia embody. To put this simply, I think that the palinode created by Ars and Remedia must be understood within the horizons of a narrative underlying Ovid’s articulation of the experience of love. Ars and Remedia are intertwined as parts of a narrative through which the narrator’s (and hence the reader’s) passage in time is construed. This is also the connection to the texts’ didactic dimension. Ars and Remedia develop a met anarrative tha t instru cts its r eaders on h ow t o shape th eir o wn lo ve nar ratives or, better, how t o understand themselves in lo ve within the horizons of a narrative. What kind of narrative is elicited by Ars and Remedia? What is the relationship of Ovid’s lo ve nar rative t o th e tw o c entral nar rative models in antiquity? Th e tw o t ypes of narrative a vailable for descr ibing th e dev elopment of an erotic relationship are the tragic and the comic. Tragic love tales conventionally end with a pa inful loss of love, most often expr essed in untimely death, as in th e stories of Phaedra’s and Dido’s suicides. The comic narrative, in contrast, adopts the “happy ending” that is characteristic of erotic comedies and the Greek novel. Conventional comic scenarios beg in b y imposing a s eparation on th e lo vers an d c onclude, after a series of adventures and complications, with their reunion, which signals the beginning of renewed love. In this context, it is not hard to recognize the innovative char acter of the narratological horizons of Ovid’s Ars and Remedia. For Ovid, the love story is opened up to the possibility of a new form of ending, a thir d nar rative option tha t forges a mid dle g round between th e poles of tragedy an d c omedy. On th e on e han d, he r ejects the terminal solution to the problem of love offered by tragedy’s literal or symbolic death. On the other hand, he dismisses comedy’s ultimate happy reunion of the loving couple. What he offers instead is a therapeutic shift,

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opening up th e possibilit y of a meaning ful life after lo ve’s demi se. By juxtaposing Ars and Remedia, he cr eates a r etrospective nar ratological framework within which a lover can escape the grip of the past. For Ovid, healing requires the rejection of a lover’s prior amorous experience. This renunciation i s a str ategy for c oping w ith the painful past. In thi s s ense, we may say that, when read together, Ars and Remedia constitute a narrative of transformation. Accordingly, they present a chronology of two fields of consecutive, albeit s eparate, experiences. Ars comes first, representing an er otic exper ience tha t ultima tely f ails. And Remedia provides a perspective by which the “now” of Ars can turn into a past. Remedia can serve as a r emedy for th e failures of Ars precisely by putting th e present of Ars into relief. But does the present of Remedia simply cancel the presence of Ars? Can the r elationship between Ars and R emedia be r ead in terms of the sublimation of the earlier poem by the later one? Clearly not. This would leave Ars bereft of any genuine significance. Furthermore, it would dissipate the sense of contradiction—Pandora’s sense—so central to the Ovidian text. While couching his treatises on love in a transformational narrative, Ovid explicitly resists any privileging of one temporal stage over the other. Ars and Remedia are both present to the reader as legitimate possibilities. Ovid is unwilling to grant the second part of his palinode any absolute pr iority. Unlike Diotima, who delineates in Plato’s Symposium the path by which a lover c ould tr anscend bodily lo ve an d ear thly desir e an d r each th e only stage where “man’s life i s ever worth the living”—that i s, the one wh ere he “has a ttained thi s v ision of the soul of the v ery beautiful” and h ence “will n ever be s educed aga in b y th e charm of gold, of dress, of comely boys, of lads just ripening to manhood” (Symp. d)—Ovid does not see in Remedia the cancellation of Ars.25 He is indeed concerned with the possibility of redeeming the sick lo ver from his predicament: Utile propositum est s aevas extinguere flammas, nec servum vitii pectus haber e sui. (Rem. –) [To quench savage flames is a us eful objective, also not to have a h eart subjected t o its o wn weakness.]

Yet his articulation of a place and time in which the lover is no longer enslaved by a painful love does not imply that the possibility of love should

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be f orsaken. Remedia is not meant as a cur e from a st age in h uman life that must be overcome and left behind forever. It denotes, rather, the possibility of freeing oneself from specific love episodes by allowing them to become part of the past. Grounded in a narrative of transformation, the lover’s passage from Ars to Remedia is n ot, however, conversional.26 Instead of a lin ear tr ansformation in which on e st age of life completely g ives way to another, Ovid presents a cyclical narrative that embraces both Ars and Remedia. In other words, he thinks of the life of the lover as a per petual oscillation between the two options. In this context, we may better understand Ovidian claims that mig ht oth erwise s eem a wkward w ithin th e fr amework of Remedia: “All love is overcome by a new love” (successore novo v incitur omnis amor, Rem. ); or “I’ve always loved, and should you ask what I am doing now, I love” (ego se mper amavi / e t si q uid fac iam, nunc quoque, quaeris, amo, –). We should understand in a similar wa y Ovid’s request to Remedia’s readers that they ultimately return to Ars: quaeris, ubi invenias? artes, i, perlege nostras: plena puellarum iam tibi na vis erit. (Rem. –) [You ask wh ere you can find a n ew love? Go r ead my Arts again: your ship w ill soon be full of women.]

Evoking a retrospective reading of Ars is a way to epitomize the essentially unresolved character of the lover’s life. Moreover, it is Ovid’s way of underscoring the need for a cy clical reading of his erotodidactic works. Reading Ars and Remedia as an un ending cy cle i s a manifest ation of the un derstanding that the contradiction between these texts is real and intrinsic to their constitution. P’ L I ha ve tr ied t o sh ow tha t th e mechani sm of contradiction i s th e modus operandi of Ars and Remedia. Contradiction, ambiguity, and incoherence are tr aditional signs of a woman’s language. Hence, in creating the space of his text in a mann er tha t deliber ately embr aces c ontradiction, Ovid is in ternalizing a c onception of textuality tha t i s in trinsically ti ed t o an understanding of feminine subjectivity. But how exactly i s contradiction tied to the nature of feminine experience and self-understanding? What is

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the c onnection betw een th e c ontradictory pr isms tha t Ars and Remedia present to their readers and the structure of a feminine autobiography? Let us begin to address these questions by recalling that one of the most important performative skills in the art of love is, according to Ovid, a competence in ly ing. For the mythical imag ination, the underlying structure of the li e i s th e dich otomy betw een a person ’s in wardness an d outwar d appearance, a dich otomy tha t i s tr aditionally associ ated w ith femininit y and found a lready in th e Hesiodic image of the first woman. While it i s interesting to notice that Hesiod’s Pandora never actually lies, Works and Days construes her archetypal image as dec eitful in ess ence. Reference to her deceitful character (epiklopon ethos) is made twice (W&D , ), reinforced b y men tioning th e li es implan ted in h er b y H ermes ( pseudea, W&D ). Beyond these specific attributions is a deeper stru ctural sense that iden tifies th e first w oman w ith th e or igin of lies an d dec eption. As suggested, Pandora, the first woman, is a lso the first human being—singular among the crowd of men—whose self is divided into an inside an d an outside. The first woman is a creature who is not one with herself. And this duality between what shows itself and what remains invisible implies concealment and thus renders her, by definition, dishonest. In other words, what makes Pandora’s image so troubling is not just the fact that she might be hiding specific contents from the eyes of men. It is the fact, rather, that she is, in principle, not transparent, that she has an in wardness that cannot be fully a ccessed. Pandora in troduces in to th e w orld th e dich otomy betw een an inn er nature and external appearance that foreshadows the distinction between soul and body. In this sense we find in th e image of the first woman the seed for what would be articulated in the Western tradition as the general form of the human. Should w e thus s ay tha t Pandora’s di sturbing e ffect has to do with the way she mirrors men, allowing them to recognize their own deceitful char acter and, consequently, their femininit y? For Hesiod, Pandora is kalon kakon, expressing the discrepancy between a stunning ly beautiful exteriority and an ev il soul. Yet in what sense should the female soul be understood as ev il? It would seem that Pandora’s greatest problem is having a soul in the first place. She desires. She wants and craves warmth, food, home, sex, and children. These desires, had they been of a moderate order, would have been acceptable. Nevertheless, they are seen as dubious and mor ally suspicious pr ecisely because th ey ar e invisible, because they thr eaten t o r emain c oncealed fr om th e ma le beh older. Women, the daughters of Pandora’s line, are accused of duplicity simply because their

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beauty i s th e mark of the opaq ueness of appearance, an externa lity tha t blocks direct insight into their psychology. The experience of looking at a woman i s n ecessarily a dev ious on e: nothing in h er delica te appear ance hints at her hidden w ishes and needs. The feminine illusion of externality is particularly effective in the case of virgins. Consider Pandora, whose maidenhood tr ansgresses the conventional Greek expectations for a pr enuptial v irgin. She i s en dowed w ith an in dependent min d despite th e common pr esupposition tha t inn ocently bea utiful v irgins la ck a w ill a t all. Pandora’s male beholders are shocked when they discover the vitality and autonomy of the virgin’s soul. They feel threatened and deceived. Pandora’s dec eit i s exper ienced ea ch time th e ma le beh older iden tifies th e existence of interiority. Recognizing that a virgin hides a soul i s an archetypal moment that extends far beyond Pandora, becoming part of the traditional image of the deceitful woman. Once we are familiar with this imagery, it will perhaps n ot be sur prising tha t Ov id ti es th e cr aftiness so cru cial for pr acticing his art of love to femininity. In Ars and Remedia the figure of the puella not only fun ctions as a unify ing pr inciple but, moreover, offers a c ore image for th e enigmatic stru cture of the tw o lo ve guides. While Ars initially construes the puella as charming, Remedia presents her as a danger ous illusion that men should shun. Whereas in Ars the puella enjoys the status of domina, encapsulating the peak of male desire, in Remedia she i s deprived of her majestic st ature. This double f ace i s emblematic of the dua l char acter of the Ovidian erotic text. As a figure of love, the puella teaches her lovers the importance of the play between appearance and reality. Ovid, instructing his readers on how to respond to her, develops their awareness of the value of appearance and its utility in shaping r eality. Such knowledge is necessary for both f alling into an d w ithdrawing fr om lo ve. The r eaders of Ars .– are th us advised to refrain from criticizing the girl’s imperfections and to call them virtues, while th e r eaders of Remedia – are a dvised t o r efrain from admiring the girl’s virtues and, instead, to call them imperfections. The perfection of the woman’s appear ance i s the leitmotif of all three books of Ars. In Books  and  Ovid concentrates on developing a s eductive language tha t w ould a llow hi s ma le r eaders t o c elebrate th e puella’s beauty. Book , which i s a ddressed t o w omen, focuses on th e wa ys in which the female reader can control and refine her seductive appearance. In contrast, Remedia denounces feminine appear ance and demagog ically seeks to empty it of its erotic appeal. This reduction of the woman to her

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appearance is, of course, typical of the misogynist tradition and is particularly characteristic of such didactic discourses against love as Book  of Lucretius’s De Rerum Natura. Discussing the impor tance of oaths in th e love r elationship, Ovid encourages his male reader to swear in bad faith. His startlingly deviant advice is mitigated by the pr emise that no harm i s done by cheating a ch eater: Ludite, si sapitis, solas impune puellas: hac magis est una fr aude pudenda fides fallite fallentes: ex magna parte profanum sunt genus: in laqueos quos posuere, cadant. (AA .–) [Take my advice: you may safely fool only g irls: honesty should be mor e shameful than thi s single deceit. deceive the deceivers; they are mostly an impious gen us. let them fall into the traps they have set themselves.]

Indeed, Ovid justifies his advice with the maxim tha t there is no f ault in wronging th e w rongdoers. What g rounds thi s r easoning i s th e un derstanding that women are, by their nature, deceivers; they are the profanum genus. This sh ould n ot be r ead as a mi sogynist s lip. Ovid r epeats himself more than on ce in hi s love guide. For example, when di stinguishing between th e tw o s exes, Ovid char acterizes w omen as kn owing h ow t o conceal th eir desir es—unlike men, who ar e ba d imposters. Likewise, his exhortation to the male reader to “let women suffer from the same wound they are known to inflict” identifies women as the initiators of lying in an amorous relationship. Ovid’s us e of this feminine ster eotype i s not, in my v iew, misogynist. For Ovid, who celebrates eros as intrinsic to human behavior, the feminine is a positi ve emblem tha t reflects his fascination with the erotic field. He has no reservations about th e use of the “feminine lie”; for him, its contribution to erotic life i s particularly important. Thus, he advises women to ar tfully lend th eir appear ance a na ive look. 27 While ascr ibing th e role of seducer to men, women should occupy the position of the seduced and play the role of the inhibited party. This distribution of active and passive roles to the amorous subjects un derscores the playful element that exi sts within the love relationship and points to its characteristic insincerity. But the question of inauthenticity becomes especially acute in th e case of the

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passive r ole tha t w omen ar e expected t o pla y a ctively. Since th e fema le partner must, by convention, appear to be shy, the naturalness of this presumably inna te q uality i s ultima tely lost. This a lso means tha t feminin e modesty is, at its h eart, false and inauthentic: Vir prior accedat, vir verba precantia dicat: excipiat blandas comiter illa pr eces. ut potiare, roga: tantum cupit illa r ogari; da causam voti principiumque tui. Iuppiter ad veteres supplex h eroidas ibat; corrupit magnum nulla puella Iovem. (AA .–) [Let the man first approach, let him speak w ords of entreaty: her role is to listen gracefully to his flattering biddings. To win her, ask her: all she desires is to be ask ed; tell her the cause and the origin of your desire. Jupiter courted the old h eroines as a suppli ant; no woman raped mighty Jove.]

Ovid r efers here to the manipulative quality of the innocent appear ance of the s educed w oman. Although sh e i s di sguised as a silen t an d in different partner, the girl’s passivity is interpreted in th e context of the love game as concealing an opposite meaning. Her silence hides her desire. Her silence, moreover, incites an d moti vates th e ma le’s first appr oach. Ovid finds suppor t for hi s cas e in m ythology: in th e st ock of Jupiter’s amor ous affairs, all tales of sexual violence in which the god sates his desire for feminine victims, usually virgins. Mention of the rape of virgins is not irrelevant to the love instruction. Ovid includes violence as a requisite component o f the s educer’s r epertoire. The log ic, dangerously f amiliar t o us from other contexts, is as follo ws: Quis sapiens blandis non misceat oscula v erbis? illa licet non det, non data sume t amen. pugnabit primo fortassis et “improbe” dicet; pugnando vinci se tamen illa v olet . . . vim licet appelles: grata est v is ista puellis: quod iuvat, invitae saepe dedisse volunt. quaecumque est v eneris subita violata rapina,

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gaudet, et inprobitas muneris instar habet. at quae, cum posset cogi, non tacta recessit, ut simulet vultu ga udia, tristis erit. (AA .–) [What wise man w ill not mix ki sses with flattering words? Though she does n ot allow it, yet take what she does n ot give. Perhaps she will struggle at first and cry “you rascal”; yet she wishes to be o vercome in th e battle . . . Though you might call it v iolence: girls like this violence: often they love to refuse what it pleas es them to grant. Happy is she who is violated unexpectedly by an amor ous rape, and this assault she considers as a g ift. And she who might have been har assed, but retreats untouched, might fake a happy f ace, while in f act she is sad.]

Girls, according to Ovid, enjoy being har assed. Following a long mythical tradition that equates love w ith v iolence, he proposes an argumen t f atal for women’s lives. His claim does not just concern feminine sexuality but also supports the traditional construction of women as li ars. He explains their deceitful nature in terms of the ambiguity immanent to the feminine. The question that r emained a m ystery for F reud—“What does a w oman want?”—points, according to Ovid, to the self-contradicting feminine persona.28 His claim that “they love to refuse what it pleas es them to grant” dismisses the veracity of female response. Although women suffer grievously from violent misinterpretations of their ambivalence, their ambiguity paradoxically constitutes the very existence of feminine subjectivity. A G ’ R   B  F S What does a w oman want? One would be r ight to consider this question anachronistic in th e ancient world. The Freudian inquiry addresses questions of subjectivity, self-identity, and s elf-consciousness tha t w ere a ll foreign to women in th e ancient world. But while it mig ht be di fficult to determine what these psychological concepts meant for an tiquity, we can nevertheless find cause for dir ecting the s ame question to the ma le subject. What does the ancient man want? He wants, for example, glory (Agamemnon), or he wants recognition (Odysseus). But when we address this question to Helen or Penelope, no answer readily presents itself. Our perplexity g rows when we attempt to decipher the hidden w ishes of virgins

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and newly wed women. Traditionally, women were not expected to desire anything be yond wha t was expected of them b y th eir f athers an d h usbands.29 The idealization of feminine silence reflects the general consensus that a good w oman is a w oman with no voice, and hence with no desires and aspirations. One way of exploring the question of subjectivity in a g irl’s life w ould be in terms of the momen t in which sh e a cquires h er v oice. From th e mythological point of view, the moment when a g irl’s voice is first heard constitutes the birth of her subjectivity. Where can we locate this mythical stage? Myth typically ties this foundational event to a woman’s first erotic encounter. In the various myths concerning virgins, the crucial event that brings female identity to light is rape or, alternatively, marriage, which is often perceived as a sublima ted form of rape. This tr adition, resting primarily on the myth of Demeter and Persephone, connects the birth of the female voice to the act of rape, which is consequently considered to be a formative event in the life of every woman. In numerous myths involving virgins, rape has a double meaning , creating a tension betw een rape as a destructive event and as a forma tive one. On the one hand, it is viewed as a tr aumatic in cident tha t cuts sh ort th e life of the v irgin. On th e oth er hand, it marks her emergence into the public sphere as a mature adult. In mythical accounts of the rape of virgins we thus find an ana logy between the ambiguity of the feminine voice and the rape’s dual meaning.30 The g irl’s ambivalent r elationship toward r ape finds expr ession in th e incredibility assigned to the girl’s voice. The victim’s voice i s often in terpreted as in coherent and unr eliable, precisely because of her ambivalent response to the r ape. As long as th e question of the girl’s desire remains open—does she resist the rape, does she consent to it as a n ecessary evil, or does sh e, as an an cient f allacy suggests, even w elcome it? —a trustworthy female voice cannot be produced.31 Thus, the mythic biography of the virgin is inseparable from the myth of the feminine voice. Myth constructs the rape of virgins as the moment when the feminine voice is heard for the first time w ithin the public (ma le) sphere. Paradoxically, then, the rape i s r esponsible for r eleasing th e fema le fr om h er psy chological an d social constraints. She speaks out, she screams, she cries. But this fragmentary s ense of freedom does n ot produce a mon olithic voice. It i s, rather, an unreliable voice that contradicts itself and is hiding a dim, concealed, pent-up desire. When v iewing the myth of Demeter and Persephone as th e par adigm of feminine biog raphy, we cannot help s eeing that r ape i s perceived as a

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necessary stage in the maturation of a woman. The Homeric Hymn divides the life of Persephone into two parts—before her abduction into the underworld an d immedi ately after ward. The h ymn’s poet marks thi s di vision through the symbol of the virgin’s name. In the first stage of her life, she is referred to by the nonspecific terms kore and pais (“maiden, daughter”); after her abduction she is released from this anonymity. For the first time the poet g ives h er a name: Persephone. According t o th e h ymn’s poetic logic, the abduction and rape justify the naming of the victim. They turn the previously anonymous figure into a named persona. In this sense, the Hymn to Demeter presents the rape of Persephone as the event that makes possible the formation of her independent identity.32 The Homeric Hymn to Demeter opens with a description of Persephone’s abduction that recalls in many aspects oth er mythological stories of rape and abdu ction, such as th ose of Daphne, Io, Europa, and th e da ughters of Danaos an d P syche. In th ese a ccounts th e term “virgin” applies t o young women approaching the age for marriage. The world of the virgins, often identified with the life of the nymphs, is described as closed off and threatened by the approaching requirement to marry, which is usually fulfilled through a brut al act of abduction and rape.33 Io, a maiden, was raped by Zeus while wandering in the woods. Europa was abducted by Zeus disguised as a bull while sh e played with her virgin friends in the meadow. According to Ovid, the wild nymph Daphne strenuously objected t o mar riage, for sh e w ished t o r etain h er v irginity an d devote herself to Diana, the virgin goddess of the hunt: Saepe pater dixit: “generum mihi, filia, debes,” saepe pater dixit: “debes mihi, nata, nepotes”; illa velut crimen taedas exosa iugales pulchra verecundo suffuderat ora rubore inque patris blandis haerens cervice lacertis “da mihi per petua, genitor carissime,” dixit “Virginitate frui! dedit h oc pater ante Dianae.” (Ovid, Met. .–) [Often her father said: “daughter you owe me a son-in-la w,” often her father said: “give me g randsons, my child.” But she, hating the matrimonial torch as if it were a cr ime, covered her beautiful face with blushing r edness. And clinging on h er father’s neck with persuading arms,

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she said: “Grant me, my dearest father, the joy of eternal virginity! Grant me wha t Diana’s father has a lready granted her.”]

A virgin’s resistance to marriage stems not only from her revulsion against men, who are perceived as an a lien, threatening force. It is also the result of her desire to preserve a life of unrestrained freedom. To live in the forest as a n ymph among th e other nymphs means n ot to be ens laved to a man an d hi s desir es but t o li ve an uninhibited life, outside th e cultur al order represented by marriage. A girl’s desire to stay close to her mother, to c ling to her virginity, or to play with her friends the nymphs can easily be interpreted as a threat to the culture, or as a disruption of the social order. The ideology of marriage was, among other things, aimed at satisfying the need to restrain the voices of women, which were likely to express desires incompatible with the existing order.34 The ancient medical attitude toward hysteria, as expressed in th e essay “On Virgins” from th e H ippocratic c orpus (da ted t o th e four th c entury BCE), identifies the condition with the unique physiological status of the virgin. The ess ay’s author c laims that a v irgin’s uterus ( hystera in Greek) accumulates blood, the root of the hysteria common to virgins. This condition is described as a form of insanity. Describing how dangerous the girl is t o h erself, the w riter a lludes t o hi s o wn fear tha t th e v irgin’s psy chic powers will grow in th e absence of male supervision: o9ko/tan de\ plhrwqe/wsi tau~ta ta\ me/rea, kai\ fri/kh cu\n puretw~| a0naai/s 5 sei: planh/taj tou\j puretou\j kaleu/ousin. e0 xo/ntwn de\ toute/wn w[de, u9po\ de\ th~j o0cuflegmasi/hj mai/netai, u9po\ de\ th~j shpedo/noj fona~|, u9po\ de\ tou~ zoferou~ fobe/etai kai\ de/doiken, u9po\ de\ th~j peri\ th\n kardi\hn pie/cioj a0gxo/naj krai/nousin, u9po\ de\ th~j kaki/hj tou~ a3matoj a0lu/wn kai\ a0dhmone/wn o9 qumo\j kako\n e0fe/lketai: e3teron de\ kai\ fobera\ o0noma/zei: kai\ keleu\ousin a3llesqai kai\ katapi/ptein e0j ta\ fre/ata kai\ a1gxesqai, a3te a0mei/nona/ te e0on/ ta kai\ xrei/hn e1xonta pantoi/hn: o9ko/te de\ a1neu fantasma/twn, h9donh/ tij, a9f 0 h[j e0ra~| tou~ qana/tou w3spe/r tinoj a0gaqou~. (Hippocrates, Virg. .–) [When these organs are full, shivering and fever set in. These fevers are called erratic. In this state the woman has a fit caused by the acute inflammation; she has murderous desires brought on by the putrid condition of her internal organs, fears and terrors when she sees shadows, and the pressure around

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her heart makes her feel that she wants to strangle herself. Her mind, which is confused and distressed because her blood has bec ome corrupt, becomes in its turn der anged. The patient says terrible things. She has v isions which tell h er tha t it w ould be better or w ould s erve some pur pose t o jump , to throw herself into a well, or to strangle herself. If she does not have visions, she feels a c ertain pleasure at the thought of death, which appears to her as something desirable.—Trans. Aline Rouselle]35

The cur e for thi s destru ctive situa tion i s c lear t o th e w riter. “I w ould advise young girls who suffer in thi s way to be mar ried as soon as possible; indeed, if they bec ome pr egnant th ey ar e cur ed.”36 Medical opinion thus a lso considered the loss of virginity a n ecessary st age in a w oman’s maturation, leading t o a pr ofound an d deci sive change in h er dev elopment as a w ife an d a moth er. Yet, as i s ev ident, this change in a y oung girl’s life is a way of silencing passions and desires that are perceived to be dangerous and violent. There is no explicit reference in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter to the power embodied in Persephone’s untamed virginal life. However, the fact that the marriage to Hades, her uncle-bridegroom, was arranged by Persephone’s father, Zeus, reveals how the marriage preserves the patriarchal order, thus reinforcing the status of both Zeus and Hades. From the feminine point of view, the situation is complex. The daughter’s rape in the Hymn to Demeter is accorded not only the metonymic meaning of marriage, but that of death as w ell. The image of Persephone’s “marriage” to Hades, god of the underworld, finds considerable r esonance in accounts of anxieties about marriage among virgins in Greek and Roman myths. The daughters of Danaos, for example, refuse to marry their designated husbands, preferring death to the deathbed of matrimony: a)/fuktoj d' ou)ke/t' a)\n pe/loito kh/r. kelaino/xrwj de\ pa/lletai/ mou kardi/a. patro\j skopai\ de/ m' ei(=lon: oi)/xomai fo/bw|. qe/loimi d' a)\n morsi/mou bro/xou tuxei=n e)n a)rta/naij, pri\n a)/ndr' a)peukto\n tw=|de xrimfqh=nai xroi/+. pro/par qanou/saj d' 0Ai/daj a)na/ssoi. (Aeschylus, Supp. –) [No flight no time t o hide

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inhuman cruelty leaves no escape my heart beats darker dashes like a sma ll trapped creature a father’s eye snares me, fear haunts me let my bondage to doom end in a s lip noose before a man I wish unborn can touch my flesh, O come husband me, Death.—Trans. Janet Lembke]37

The identification of marriage with death prevents the daughters of Danaos from discovering the additional meaning attached to the loss of virginity— the passage into a n ew stage of life. The function of rape as gen erator of an ess ential change in th e v irgin’s life i s g iven a v isual manifest ation in numerous accounts of bodily changes, or metamorphoses, since this is how the rupturing of the hymen is seen. Thus, for example, Io pays for her rape with a met amorphosis: she i s tr ansformed in to a c ow. Raped b y Zeus, she undergoes a change, the essence of which was losing her virginity and becoming pregnant, which can be s een as a (tempor ary) metamorphosis. In the mythological story, she loses her human form as well. Io’s story externalizes the breaking of the hymen by having her assume th e form of a domestic anima l. In Aeschylus’s Prometheus B ound, Io’s st ory t akes an autobiographical form as she relates it to Prometheus. The fateful turning point in h er life i s expressed in a major tr ansformation. The silent, retiring girl has n ow become the narrator of her life st ory: ou)k oi)=d' o(/pwj u(mi=n a)pisth=sai/ me xrh/, safei= de\ mu/qw| pa=n o(/per prosxrh/|zete peu/sesqe: kai/toi kai\ le/gouj' ai)sxu/nomai qeo/ssuton xeimw=na kai\ diafqora\n morfh=j, o(/qen moi sxetli/a| prose/ptato. ai)ei\ ga\r o)/yeij e)/nnuxoi pwleu/menai e)j parqenw=naj tou\j e)mou\j parhgo/roun lei/oisi mu/qoij “w)= me/g' eu)/daimon ko/rh, ti/ parqeneu/ei daro/n, e)co/n soi ga/mou tuxei=n megi/stou; Zeu\j ga\r i(me/rou be/lei pro\j sou= te/qalptai kai\ sunai/resqai Ku/prin

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qe/lei: su\ d', w)= pai=, mh\ 'polakti/sh|j le/xoj to\ Zhno/j, a)ll' e)/celqe pro\j Le/rnhj baqu\n leimw=na, poi/mnaj bousta/seij te pro\j patro/j, w(j a)\n to\ Di=on o)/mma lwfh/sh| po/qou.” (Aeschylus, Pr. –) [I don’t see how I can r efuse you. I’ll tell y ou all you want to know. although, even as I speak I’m ashamed, recalling the storm the God let loos e my lovely body ruined— and the one who drove it w inging down on me, wretched thing. Always at night, haunting soft-spoken dreams would wander into my bedroom (where no man ha d ever entered) whispering whispering “Happy, happy girl you could marry the greatest One of all why wait so long untouched? Desire’s spear has ma de Zeus burn for y ou. He wants to come together with you making love. Don’t, dear child, turn skittish against the bed of Zeus. Go out into the deep g rasses of Lerna, where your father’s cattle and sheep browse. Go, so the eye of Zeus will no longer be heavy lidded w ith long ing.”—Trans. James Scully an d C.J. Herington]38

Io does n ot w ish to submit t o Zeus, but she knows that to do so w ill be advantageous for her (a psychological reading would regard Io’s visions as the repressed expression of an erotic wish). Io’s compensation for Zeus ’s

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sexual c onquest i s union w ith th e supr eme god, or, in oth er w ords, her transformation into th e moth er of Zeus’s desc endants. But befor e sh e i s able t o enjo y h er n ew r ole as a moth er, she must t ake th e first step in separating from her virginal world, a step expr essed in h er willingness— though, paradoxically, a step taken against her will—to become the object of Zeus’s lustful gaze. Rape in these stories serves as a bridge to a woman’s psychic dev elopment, since it lea ds th e s exually ig norant, inexperienced girl to new insights about h erself. The v irgin’s n ew a wareness i s th e r esult of her s eparation fr om h er mother, as depicted in th e ancient tr adition’s nuptial poems. The young woman does n ot w ish to par t from her mother and her sheltered world. Her w edding i s usua lly for ced upon h er, as i s th e first nig ht of love.39 Ancient n uptial poems b y Sapph o, Catullus, and oth ers r eveal tha t th e ceremonies included an element of abduction.40 And despite th e fact that both mother and daughter resent the latter’s abduction, the Homeric Hymn to Demeter also reveals a hidden consent to the act on the daughter’s part. This brings about th e mother’s reconciliation with a deed tha t cannot be undone. Persephone’s consent to the act of rape i s r elated to the process of individuation she exper iences after h er s eparation from her mother.41 In th e m yth of Demeter an d P ersephone, the y oung w oman bec omes a subject; for th e first time sh e i s a ccorded an iden tity di stinct fr om h er mother’s. This happens only after sh e herself understands and accepts her place in th e world as an object of men’s desire (Hom. Hymn Dem. –). This ar chetypal momen t in which th e v irgin steps out in to th e public domain takes place at a relatively late stage in her life, with her first menstruation. Mythical thinking, in contrast to psychoanalytic theory, does not begin by constructing a w oman’s psychic development from infancy. The virgin’s biography begins only when she goes out to play with her friends— that is, with the first separation between girl and mother. The feminine psyche does not, in fact, exist prior to this stage. The fragility of the girl’s being can be observed in one of Sappho’s nuptial poems: oi]on to\ gluku/malon e0reu/qetai a1krw| e0p 0 u1sdw|, a1kron e0p 0 a0krota/tw|, lela/qonto de\ malodro/phej: ou0 ma\n e0klela/qont 0, a0ll 0 ou0k e0du/nant 0 e0pi/kesqai. (Sappho a) [As the sweet-apple reddens on th e bough-top, on th e t op of the t opmost boug h; the apple-ga therers ha ve forgotten it —

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Feminine Subjectivity and th e Self-Contradicting Text

no they have not forgotten it en tirely, but they could not r each it.—Trans. David A. Campbell]42

The apple, an obvious erotic symbol of mature femininity, represents the virginal feminine psyche, rounded, full, and immersed in th e final stages of its maturation—not red, but reddening. Similarly, the girl has n ot yet been chosen by her suitors; she is also forgotten on th e tree. Such forgetting is part of the traditional perception of the developing feminine psyche. As long as th e g irl has n ot developed an a wareness of herself being s een in the world, as long as she has yet to learn how to externalize herself, she does not exi st in th e consciousness of men. In f act, she does n ot exi st at all as a subject w ith di stinct emotions an d a w ill of her own. The young woman is transformed into a person with a will and a voice only after she enters the public ar ena, where she recognizes her place as a bea utiful and desirable object. This happens, in other words, at the moment when she experiences Pandora’s syndrome: her inward-outward structure. The girl’s development of a will is thus perceived to be the result of her exposure to and emergence as an object of masculine passion. The applepickers o verlook th e apple beca use th e embr yonic feminin e psy che has yet t o acquire th e abilit y t o be s een. The v irginal psyche i s hidden from view, and so it i s beyond the grasp of the apple-pickers. The intermediate stage—in which th e psy che ma tures an d i s th en pick ed o ff the t opmost bough of the tree and brought down to earth—finds expression in the virgins’ naive play in th e fields or mea dows (as in th e myths of Persephone, Io, and Europa). This play conceals knowledge and erotic curiosity as they exist in an initial, obscure state. By the logic of the myth, the girl is aware, even if only vagu ely, of the possibilit y of rape. This a wareness mak es it possible to portray her as being dr awn to the rape and accepting it while, at the same time, resisting it. On a sy mbolic level, rape motivates the feminine biography as it fr actures th e g irl’s sh eltered life, integrating th e ma le perspecti ve in to it. A twilight z one of virginal a wareness i s th e r esult. During h er abdu ction Persephone cr ies out, and h er voice i s h eard b y h er moth er. We can s ay that sh e explicitly r esists th e a ct: a(rpa/caj d' a)e/kousan e)pi\ xruse/oisin o)/xoisin h)=g' o)lofurome/nhn (“He sna tched th e un willing ma id in to hi s golden char iot and led h er o ff lamenting,” in Helene Foley’s tr anslation; Hom. Hymn Dem. –). This is, in fact, the first time in the mythical story that the voice of Demeter’s daughter is heard. That voice, the sound of the girl’s cry during her rape and abduction, is what tragically concretizes the

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new feminine consciousness. It signifies the birth of the woman out of the virginal body . It i s a v oice w ith performa tive momen tum, a v oice tha t declares, “I am h ere,” and so sig nifies th e emergen ce of a n ew feminin e identity into the world. The voice of the rape victim externalizes her new self-awareness. Her cr y i s testimony to a n ew awareness of her v isibility, and th ereby an ann ouncement of her sy mbolic bir th. This i s a cru cial moment when the girl expresses her will for th e first time in public. But this is an enig matic will, with two levels of meaning: one open and obvious, the other hidden and obscure. This feminine will is an in termingled expression of the c onscious an d un conscious. Persephone’s cr y belongs to the entangled meaning of the hated rape-marriage, which initiates her process of individuation, marking h er s eparation fr om h er moth er an d crowning h er as th e un derworld’s n ew q ueen. As su ch, it par adoxically implicates Persephone’s willingness to be r aped. Such a possibilit y i s in deed suggested in P ersephone’s speech t o h er mother. This oration comes at the zenith of Persephone’s process of maturation and acquisition of independence, presenting as it does th e former virgin in her new guise as a nar rator who has control over her voice. Following the r ape, she can put h er subjective experience into words. She is also able to describe her experience from a personal perspective informed by her own interests. She becomes a nar rator conscious of herself and of her needs—what is traditionally perceived to be a manipulative narrator.43 A critical reading of the myth of Demeter cannot ignore the positive use that th e poet mak es of rape. As in th e cas e of Aeschylus’s Io, the young girl us es her voice for th e first time as a c onsequence of the r ape. She i s called by her name in public an d is granted an identity separate from her mother’s.44 Her voice consequently conveys a strange, contradictory experience: the experience that destroys her as a v irgin is the one that revives her as a w oman. This s elf-contradiction c onstitutes feminin e subjecti vity. Persephone’s paradox i s cr eated by the c lash of two conflicting identities: the v irginal and the sexual, or the inhibited an d the uninhibited. These two feminine identities r emain v ital and active, although they forma lly per tain to two distinct temporal stages: the present and future (from the virgin’s perspective) or th e past and present (from the woman’s perspective). Girls, then, experience their s exual innocence as a lready tinted by anticipation of its destruction. And s exually mature women exper ience the v itality of their virginal consciousness as one of invisibility and voicelessness. Persephone, for example, wants to retain her innocent v irginal nature as sh e tells h er

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mother that she has been r aped and then forced to remain a third of each year in the underworld. But her wish to retain a modest appearance before her mother is already a sig n of the loss of that very innocence. Once she needs to appear inn ocent, she i s no longer th e v irgin she was. Under the gaze of the Other, the virgin is transformed into a sexual and, accordingly, a deceiving woman.45 Feminine exper ience i s thus destined to be an unceasing clash between two dimensions of being. This tension w ithin th e feminin e has a str ong textua l sig nificance. In the c ontext of Ovid, it finds its expr ession in th e wa y Ars and Remedia open up a reading experience that is cyclical and unending. In addition to the structure of contradiction, circularity is another feminine aspect of the Ovidian love guides. His circular love narrative reenacts the myth of Persephone, embracing its a ura of feminine temporality. In echoing nature’s rhythm, Ovid’s narrative revives the myth of the seasons. Ovid’s version of the myth of Proserpina in Metamorphoses allows us to underscore this point. He creates an archetypal feminine biography by focusing on P roserpina’s divided self. Her dual nature rests on h er mood swings an d on th e sy mbolic in terplay of life an d dea th, marriage an d maidenhood, and darkness and light: Nunc dea, regnorum numen commune duorum, cum matre est t otidem, totidem cum c oniuge menses. vertitur extemplo f acies et men tis et or is; nam modo q uae poterat Diti q uoque maesta videri, laeta deae fr ons est, ut sol, qui tectus aq uosis nubibus ante fuit, victis e n ubibus exit. (Met. .–) [Now the goddess, the common divinity of the two domains, spends half the months with her mother, and the other half with her husband. Her mental and physical countenance alternates successively: for she w ho only r ecently seemed sad even to D is has now a happy appear ance, like the sun, which once was c overed behind watery clouds, and now is out after th e clouds have been di spersed.]

In per petual oscilla tion betw een tw o opposing modes of being, Proserpina’s biog raphy i s a suit able candidate for th e Ov idian lo ve nar rative.46 The possibilit y of embracing the a lternating conditions of the death and the growth of love in a c easeless cycle is a c orollary of the feminine condition in gen eral.

chapter 

Pandora’s Tears The personal is like an old scar tha t, for the external viewer, is no more than a f act among f acts, yet one that, in the hands of the old ma id Euryclea, pulsates as th e very root of recognition: isn’t this you, Odysseus? The personal is the hidden face of language. —       , The Present Personal

F W: T, T, B, P Pandora is a w ork of art, molded by the divine hands of the god of artisanship, Hephaestus. She is a handmade figure. Pandora, the first work of art, signals the origin of art, and the origin of art as techne. However, she is mor e than an objet d’ar t s erving as a model for th e act of craftsmanship. She is herself a gifted artisan. As a seducer, she knows the art of love. As a rh etorician, she masters language. And finally, since “Athena taught her needlework and the weaving of the varied web,” Pandora is a w eaver, skilled in th e ar t of creating textiles ( W&D ). What i s the relationship between Pandora’s art, her weaving, and her femininity? How is the image of the female weaver related to the ancient notion of a text? And how does this image c ontribute to the formation of a text’s feminine sense? Textum originally meant something woven, a fabric or a textile. And although it was only a t a later stage that the term came to denote a text, 1 the images of textile, a woven object an d the act of weaving were commonly used in reference to the workings of language and the composition of texts. In Cratylus , for example, Socrates us es th e met aphor of weaving in criticizing the view that linguistic signs are completely arbitrary, making the point that a proper language use, instead of being a matter of convention, must depend on language ’s intricate underpinnings in r eality. Language (and in par ticular the act of naming) is “not relative to ourselves.” And lik e th e cr aft of weaving, the applica tion of language t o th e w orld must be don e “according to a na tural process, and w ith a pr oper instrument.” Hence, while it is clear to us that what “has to be woven or pierced 

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has t o be w oven or pi erced w ith something ,” it sh ould ana logously be understood that there is an intrinsic correspondence between language and the phenomena to which it r efers.2 For Socrates the metaphor of weaving can fruitfully guide our un derstanding of linguistic action, since it exemplifies w ell th e c orrelation an d in terdependence of act, instrument, and woven material, corresponding to the act of naming, the name its elf and the name’s reference in th e world. The origin of the weaving metaphor is much older, of course, and can be tr aced back to Homer. In Homer, there i s no thematic ar ticulation of the relationship between text an d textile. 3 Yet, again and again, these two forms of art—the making of texts an d of textiles—are in tertwined (in the Odyssey, for example) in th e image of women who accompany their weaving w ith a song .4 In other words, the intimate r elationship between weaving and textuality is regulated by a feminine image: the singing weaver. One of the most r emarkable singing weavers in the Odyssey is Calypso who accompanies h er w eaving w ith a v oice of unique beauty ( Od. .– ). Her s eductive appear ance casts su ch a str ong spell on h er beholders that even the wise Odysseus falls captive. Submerged in a deep forgetfulness, Odysseus turns hi s back on hi s duties as lor d, husband, and f ather, for which he is in no way reproached by the Homeric narrator. On the contrary, the Homeric depiction of Calypso is so mar velous that it f acilitates the reader’s empathy toward Odysseus and his submission to his hostess. Calypso has bec ome a w ell-known pr ototype of feminine s eduction. Yet it i s impor tant t o n otice tha t h er s eductive po wers ar e first oper ative precisely between the v isible ar t of weaving and the invisible web of her song. That is, the description of her powers echoes a predominant understanding of poetry’s effect, also illustrated by the divine effect of the Muses in Hesiod’s Theogony.5 Furthermore, Calypso’s image as a weaver not only reflects the effects of poetry but, more specifically, illuminates the intimate connection between femininity, textuality, and corporeality. Calypso’s song implies the presence of her voice, and her voice, in turn, cannot be imagined w ithout th e a ctuality of her body . Analogously, I suggest tha t w e should un derstand Ca lypso’s w eaving as th e pr oduction of a text(ile) whose center of gravity is the concreteness of the feminine body. I shall soon return to the question of the relationship of text and body, but let us first tie this metaphor to our di scussion of Ovid in the previous chapter. The imager y of weaving i s not just c entral to hi s understanding of poetry;6 it i s specifically oper ative at the place where he addresses the contradictory construction of Ars and Remedia: Nec nova praeteritum Musa

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retexit opus (“This new Muse does not unravel [unweave] my past work,” Rem. ).7 Completely a ware of the c omplex stru cture tha t bin ds hi s works, Ovid assures his readers that Remedia does not consist in a decomposition of Ars. Unlike Penelope’s cunning un doing of her w ork, Ovid’s Remedia is n ot an a ct of unweaving. Should it th erefore be un derstood as a c ontinued w eaving of Ars? The double meaning of the term retexo complicates Ov id’s gestur e. What i s th e r elationship betw een th e a ct of unweaving and the act of weaving again? Leaving this question open, it is sufficient for our pur pose to recognize that, for Ov id, what ti es together the texts of Ars and Remedia is, metaphorically, the working of the warp and woof. In Ov id’s Metamorphoses, the connection between textile an d text becomes more explicit an d turns in to a sig nificant theme. Books – present collections of feminine stories that are either told by weaving women or thr ough th e v ery medium of weaving. The t ypical feminin e a ctivity of weaving creates a c ommunity of storytellers and listeners. Particularly noteworthy in thi s context are the tales of two f amous weavers, Arachne (Met. .–) and Philomela ( Met. .–), whose textiles ar e r eflective of the character of Ovid’s own textuality. Mirroring the Ov idian text in which sh e appears, Arachne i s a w eaver who creates subversive and provocative tales in which the phenomenon of metamorphosis is central: virgins changed into women, mothers of divine children. Furthermore, Arachne’s depiction of the gods (lik e Ov id’s) emphasizes their sensual, violent, and immoral aspects: her gods are womanizers who brutally violate virgins. Her sentiments are f ar from respectful toward religious authority and tend toward the sensational and the blasphemous. And, finally, Arachne’s confrontation w ith the rule of Minerva and h er puni shment b y th e so vereign suggest a feminin e r eflection of Ovid’s own biography.8 The image of Philomela functions in a different manner, allowing Ovid to r ender explicit an other impor tant dimension of his poetics. 9 Unlike Arachne’s, Philomela’s w eaving has n o c oncern for th e c osmological or divine order. It i s str ictly autobiographical, consisting of a h orrific st ory of rape and mutilation. Philomela is a victim. She weaves the story of her misfortune with crimson threads on white—the symbolism is clear. From her place of confinement, she secretly sends her tapestry to her sister, her only h ope. Her w eaving i s a mess age fr om on e w oman t o an other. As she cannot write, her weaving consists of visual images that are nevertheless read (legere) by her sister. Adverting to the visual is, of course, not an

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aesthetic deci sion but a wa y t o c ompensate for illiter acy an d in Philomela’s case also a way of overcoming the loss of her human voice. Because the possibility of an immediate vocal articulation is no longer open to her, weaving becomes a medium of self-expression and a c ommunication. In this respect, we may say that her weaving takes place in a sph ere of intermediacy: in w eaving sh e a llows meaning t o unfold betw een th e spok en and th e w ritten, between th e na tural and th e c onventional, between th e sensitivity of the t ongue an d th e externa l rule of an objecti ve language. How does Philomela’s story reflect Ovid’s relationship to his own poetry? Philomela’s weaving i s not only th e mark of an individual silenced by the force of the sovereign, not only a sign of transgression against the sovereign’s a uthority, but a lso, and perhaps first of all, a form of representation suffused with a hid den, subliminal pain. That is, Philomela’s cloth is th e impr int of a permanent mark of pain tha t i s c learly not tr ivial in the c ontext of Ovid’s ostensible mann erism. In thi s r espect, Philomela’s weaving r eflects another impor tant feminine aspect of the Ov idian text. Weaving impli es here a di stinctive r elationship between author and text. The “woven” text is not merely a textua l object cr eated by the mind of its author; rather, it is a text tha t must be un derstood within the horizon of its a uthor’s body, the mo vement of the body, and its pa in. Another wa y to put thi s is to say that Pandora’s weaving is an image of the embodied text: a kind of textuality in which meaning is riveted to its materiality, resonating with the corporal presence of its author. Philomela’s w eaving i s ins eparable from h er cr ying. The f abric of her text i s soaked w ith the tears tha t have become the mark of the feminine presence of the corporeal within the textual. The presence of tears is the invisible tr ace of a movement by a body tha t has st ained the text w ith a dimension of opacity that cannot be integrated into the general semantics of the text. Hence, when Ovid’s Phaedra, for example, writes to Hippolytus, she makes it c lear that her text cann ot be un derstood only in terms of what it s ays: addimus his precibus lacrimas quoque; verba precantis qui legis, et lacrimas finge videre meas. (Her. .–) [These prayers I s eal with tears. When all is said And done, and you from end to end have read This letter, think what tears its a uthor shed.—Trans. Daryl Hine]10

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Phaedra’s text is made of a fabric that, in its materiality, testifies to—bears traces of—a dimension of signification that escapes any general or abstract understanding.11 Instead, it calls for a r eading that situates the text within the horizons of the pain of a particular writer.12 In thi s chapter I w ish t o explor e y et an other aspect of the feminin e character of the ancient text b y juxt aposing feminine tears an d feminine weaving, a mourner’s tears and a weaver’s tearful fabric. Employing terms developed in pr evious chapters, I w ish to suggest tha t the image of Pandora as a w eaver intrinsically ties femininity to the very idea of a text. If the w oven textile i s an image of a text, then it i s, first and for emost, an image of a feminine text. In other words, weaving should not be un derstood mer ely as a r epresentation of a marg inalized subcategory of feminine texts. Rather, the feminine is constitutive of the possibility of textual fabrication. The feminine i s r esponsible for th e text’s capacity t o appear before us as flesh and blood, to breathe and shed tears and speak to us. The feminine g ives th e text a body ; the feminin e i s th e memor y of this g iving, of the very hands that wove the text, of a text’s author. The feminine dimension of the text is never disinterested; it never takes the form of neutral representation. Instead, it is ever soaked in the tears of its maker and is intended to absorb the tears of its beholder.13 H’ W As we proceed to unravel the significance that the image of feminine weaving car ries for th e making of a text, it i s perhaps impor tant that we di stinguish between two kinds of weaving and, in corollary fashion, between two archetypal kinds of women weavers. Our primary concern is the form of weaving that is analogous to a text ’s form because of its ability to represent, tell stories, and evoke images. However, we should remember that alongside the “textual textile” there is a common practice of weaving that lacks representational qualities.14 This kind of nonrepresentational weaving, devoid of a figurative dimension, is typically associated with the feminine figure of the “home-dwelling” weaver.15 “Here lies Amymone wife of Marcus,” we read in a first-century BCE Roman epitaph (ILS .L), “best and most beautiful worker in wool, pious, chaste, thrifty, faithful, a stayerat-home.”16 Sitting a lone in fr ont of her loom w ith spin dle an d di staff, segregated from the public field of vision, this typical weaver has become the quintessential symbol of female chastity—faithful, obedient, diligent, submissive, and ultimately silent.

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In contrast to the figure of the nonrepresentational weaver, the “aura” of the mimetic weaver should be understood in terms of her fulfilled need for self-expression, her autonomy and ability to resist institutional authority. Mimetic weaving is, in this sense, a feminine form of transgressive art whose singularity I sha ll try to unpack now by considering the figure and act of the first representational weaver to be depicted in th e Iliad: Helen of Troy.17 In her chamber, Helen is weaving, while outside th e war i s raging. For the Homeric narrator, Helen’s weaving i s c learly not a c entral event, and yet the very f act of its mentioning is significant and should not be t aken for g ranted. In her weaving, Helen, like the Homeric nar rator, addresses the struggles of Trojans and Achaians. Yet whereas the poetic source of the Homeric epic i s explicitly di vine, Helen s eems r iveted t o th e doma in of the human. In her representation of the war, she neither responds to the Muses nor serves as a v ehicle for th e transmission of any absolute or external truth. Helen has n o access to a g lobal perspective on th e events of the war, and what she depicts stems fr om her private point of view. Hence, in depicting Helen depicting the war, the Homeric narrator has allowed for an antithetical perspective to announce its presence within the text of the Iliad. That is, a place is made within the Iliad for a perspective on the war that poses an alternative to the Homeric account. This perspective is feminine; it is expressed in a visual language;18 and since it is rooted in a personal form of experience, it never becomes part of the Iliad’s public sphere. In other words, the pr esence of Helen’s woven r epresentation is created by a double gestur e that renders the appear ance of that representation dependent on the condition that it be relegated to the very margins of public conspicuity. Helen’s r epresentation i s not a llowed to echo beyond the bounds of the domestic domain. No unique place is made for her expressive or ar tistic act, and the product of that act, the woven textile itself, is ultimately regarded as a private object whose specific contents remain unknown to either protagonists or readers of the Iliad. What is the meaning and function of Helen’s weaving? Is it simply a conventional feminine mode of whiling away the time? Should we understand her weaving as a th erapeutic activity, connected perhaps t o h er o wn ambi valence r egarding th e war, to an un derstanding of her past betr ayal? Can H elen’s weaving be c onsidered as an a ttempt at personal testimony? Homer does not pr ovide us w ith an y c lues on th ese poin ts. The ess ence of Helen’s weaving remains obscure, and that obscurity has been in terpreted in th e context of the tr aditional marg inalization of the feminine from the field

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of art. Does H elen’s lost perspecti ve on th e war sig nify th e ex clusion of the feminine voice from the ethical field of canonical literature?19 The Homeric description of Helen’s weaving is indeed very limited, and yet it seems to me that it succeeds, despite its brevity, in capturing an important dimension of Helen’s manner of representation. We read: th\n d' eu(=r' e)n mega/rw|: h(\ de\ me/gan i(sto\n u(/faine di/plaka porfure/hn, pole/aj d' e)ne/passen a)e/qlouj Trw/wn q' i(ppoda/mwn kai\ )Axaiw=n xalkoxitw/nwn, ou4j e3qen ei3nek 0 e1pasxon u9p 0 1Arhoj palama/wn: (I. .–) [She came on H elen in th e chamber; she was w eaving a g reat web, a red folding r obe, and working into it th e numerous struggles of Trojans, breakers of horses, and bronze-armoured Achaians, struggles that they endured for h er sake at the hands of the war god.— Trans. Richmond Lattimore]20

Indeed, we can hardly infer anything specific from the description of Helen’s “great web.” We can neither deduce the identity of the figures depicted nor construe any particular event or situation in which they are involved. The only par ticular feature of Helen’s depiction of the war tha t ca lls for our attention is the fact that her perspective on the war is completely personal. Her weaving does not involve any objective representation of a given state of affairs; it is a r epresentation of a war wh ose meaning, for her, is thoroughly autobiographical. It s eems that the Homeric nar rator i s s ensitive to Helen’s personal involvement in the web she creates: the war she depicts cannot be understood as the general story about the “struggles of Trojans, breakers of horses, and bronze-armoured Achaians.” Instead, it is her own story that she is engaged in depicting—the story of the “struggles that they [Trojans an d Achaians] en dured for her sake. ”21 Helen’s w eaving ar ticulates the external state of things—the events in th e world of men—while positing her own s elf as the (invisible) center of gravity, the foca l point, of the w orld sh e depicts. In thi s r espect, Helen’s pr esence in th e Iliad is subversive, as it ca lls in to q uestion th e absolute h egemony of the text ’s metaphysical origin, its emanation from the sacred rapport between poet and Muses. Her weaving marks, in other words, the presence of a hermetic dimension that also belongs to the text and that can easily pass unnoticed precisely because it appears as th e text’s texture—its handmade quality.

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Helen’s w oven textile i s an ear ly an tecedent of the a utobiographical text. However, this is not the only kind of text that ties her to the history of autobiographical w riting. In th e Iliad, she i s associ ated w ith th e cr eation of yet another kind of text that belongs t o the same tradition—her lament for H ector.22 Lamentation i s a kin d of speech act that tr aditionally o ffers women a unique oppor tunity for s elf-presentation an d s elf-expression w ithin th e public domain, the domain of men.23 In the Iliad, in par ticular, the conventions of lamentation both enable an d r egulate th e appear ance of the feminine voice in public. 24 It has been sh own that the Homeric representations of mourning w omen t ypically a llow for th e elabor ation of their specific personal circumstances and emotional responses.25 What i s th e char acter of Helen’s lament o ver th e dea d Hector? I n th e final book of the Iliad we read: (/Ektor e)mw=| qumw=| dae/rwn polu\ fi/ltate pa/ntwn, h)= me/n moi po/sij e)sti\n )Ale/candroj qeoeidh/j, o(/j m' a)/gage Troi/hnd': w(j pri\n w)/fellon o)le/sqai. h)/dh ga\r nu=n moi to/de ei)kosto\n e)/toj e)sti\n e)c ou(= kei=qen e)/bhn kai\ e)mh=j a)pelh/luqa pa/trhj: a)ll' ou)/ pw seu= a)/kousa kako\n e)/poj ou)d' a)su/fhlon: a)ll' ei)/ ti/j me kai\ a)/lloj e)ni\ mega/roisin e)ni/ptoi dae/rwn h)\ galo/wn h)\ ei)nate/rwn eu)pe/plwn, h)\ e(kurh/- e(kuro\j de\ path\r w(\j h)/pioj ai)ei/-, a)lla\ su\ to\n e)pe/essi paraifa/menoj kate/rukej, sh=| t' a)ganofrosu/nh| kai\ soi=j a)ganoi=j e)pe/essi. tw\ se/ q' a(/ma klai/w kai\ e)/m' a)/mmoron a)xnume/nh kh=r: ou) ga/r* ti/j moi e)/t' a)/lloj e)ni\ Troi/h| eu)rei/h| h)/pioj ou)de\ fi/loj, pa/ntej de/ me pefri/kasin. (.–) [Hektor, of all my lord’s brothers dearest by far to my spirit: my husband is Alexandros, like an immor tal, who brought me here to Troy; and I sh ould have died before I came w ith him; and here now is the twentieth year upon me sin ce I came from the place where I was, forsaking the land of my f athers. In thi s time I have never heard a harsh s aying from you, nor an insult. No, but when another, one of my lord’s brothers or si sters, a fair-robed wife of some brother, would say a harsh w ord to me in th e palace,

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or my lord’s mother—but his father was gen tle always, a father indeed—then you would speak an d put th em off and restrain them by your own gentleness of heart and your gentle words. Therefore I mourn for y ou in sor row of heart and mourn m yself also and my ill lu ck. There was n o other in a ll the wide Troad who was kin d to me, and my friend; all others shrank when they saw me.]

For whom does Helen weep? Does she weep for Hector, the intended reference of her text, or is her weeping reflexive, turning back onto her own forsaken life? Both, I beli eve—Helen mourns for h erself in mourning Hector. Or, in oth er w ords, she mourns “her” Hector. For H elen, losing Hector means losing h er sole fr iend and protector, the only guar dian she ever had in Troy. In confronting his death, she is lamenting her own miserable f ate. Her a ddress t o th e dea d H ector i s a form of self-disclosure. Thus, she replaces the internal addressee of her speech, “dear Hector,” with a s elf-referential turn, “I sh ould ha ve di ed.”26 Hector i s H elen’s mir ror image. His death is a reminder of her own fragility and of the presence of death in h er life. In a mann er tha t i s similar t o h er r epresentation, in w eaving, of the war, Helen’s language of lament does n ot s eek t o captur e th e objecti ve condition of Hector’s dea th. She i s c oncerned n either w ith hi s pa inful absence—the only pa in sh e can a cknowledge i s h er o wn—nor w ith th e effect of his dea th on hi s in timate an d gen eral sur roundings, his f amily and the city of Troy. Instead, she speaks w ithin horizons that are suffused with her own presence. Her shadow is cast over the domain of her speech. When she looks at the dead Hector, she sees herself. In this respect, Helen exemplifies wha t i s perhaps less c onspicuous in th e r epresentation of numerous other lamenting women in the Iliad. Her address to the dead is a channel for expressing her own grief,27 for giving voice to an absence that typically cannot register within the public order of men’s language. Lamentation cr eates an aper ture in th e order of discourse. It a llows women to address the world at the moment of a loss of world: to communicate meanings tha t belong t o th e w orld, while kn owing tha t thi s w orld w ill n ever be th eirs. In oth er w ords, lamentation i s an ev ent of meaning in which the feminine reveals its constant presence in the language of men through the disclosure of irresolvable tensions tha t are always inherent in th e act of language: the public and the private, the general and the utterly singular, the abstr act and the concrete, the hi storical or c osmological and the autobiographical.

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The examples of weaving an d lamen ting ar e mean t t o illumina te th e unique manner in which a feminin e text i s tied to its a uthor. Unlike predominant c onceptions of textuality tha t pr ivilege texts wh ose meaning is ultima tely s evered fr om and independent of the li ving br eath of their author, a feminine text i s one in which th e bodily, painful, idiosyncratic presence of an author is integral to what a text c ommunicates. This corporeal, opaque kind of presence may often seem untraceable in a text, yet this i s just beca use its in visibility i s similar t o th e in visible pr esence of an author’s tears tha t, with time, have dried in betw een her written lines. Consequently, we may say that the uniqueness of the relationship between a feminine text and its author lies in its radical singularity. In other words, the feminine dimension of a text (which as should be clear by now is part of any text as su ch) impli es that texts bear th e pr esence of their authors in a concrete manner. This is not to suggest, however, that a text i s necessarily reflective of the f acts of its author’s biog raphy or tha t our r eading should dir ect its elf to any speci fic biog raphical layer of the text. On th e contrary, I have suggested that the feminine dimension of a text resonates in the very impossibilit y of resolving certain constitutive tensions of the text. And I ha ve par ticularly emphasi zed th e mann er in which a text ’s meaning cannot free itself of its author’s body. But, here, it seems we have arrived at the question of reading. That is, how does the feminine dimension of the text—how does Pandora—show itself to a poten tial r eader? Does th e feminine ca ll for a speci fic kind of readership? We have seen that death, absence, loss of world, and mourning pr ovide th e h orizons w ithin which th e feminin e v oice tr aditionally reaches out for the possibility of articulation and expressivity. These same horizons—the horizons of lamentation—are a lso the site of a par ticular form of reading, a feminine form of listening. L L  W: P’ T In Odyssey ., Phemius performs befor e th e cr owd of suitors in th e palace of Odysseus his song about the Achaians’ bitter homecoming from Troy. Whereas the assembled men dr ink in hi s words in silence, there are two other responses to the bard’s song.28 These belong t o Penelope, who overhears the singing from her upper chambers, and Telemachos, who sits among th e suit ors. Mother and son r espond in th eir o wn ways, and th e Homeric poet emphasizes the opposition between these two poetical positions by placing them in di stinct locations within the palace. These locations are descriptive of the difference between the two kinds of listening,

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a di fference betw een pr ivate an d public, hidden an d open, intimate an d distant, and, finally, feminine and masculin e. The public pla ce of listening, the atrium, is where the male audience is gathered and expects to hear a n ew song . The public loca tion r eflects ma le expect ations of the bar d. The male audience is fascinated with the factual content of the song, with its informa tive q uality. They ar e a ttentive t o th e capa city of the song t o bring news from afar. In contrast to the public space, the hidden quarters of the women constitute the spatial symbol of domestic intimacy. This feminine space is reflective of the way women listen to poetry. The feminine response is deaf to th e song ’s c ollective sig nificance; its in terest in th e informa tion c ontained in th e song i s restricted to the personal meaning it mig ht have for the li stener. Penelope, sensitive to the persona l implications of this song about th e Achaians’ homecoming, is deeply a ffected b y it. She c onsequently appears in the hall in tears and asks the singer to “leave off singing this sad / song , which always afflicts the dear h eart deep inside me ” (Od. .–). We should remember that the song does n ot include the story of Odysseus’s homecoming. She weeps because the description of the suffering Danaans reminds her of her husband and intensifies her longing for him. Though it is not directly concerned with Odysseus, she identifies the shadow of her missing husband in the song. But Penelope’s personal mode of listening does n ot meet w ith Telemachos’s approval: soi/ d' e)pitolma/tw kradi/h kai\ qumo\j a)kou/ein: ou) ga\r )Odusseu\j oi)=oj a)pw/lese no/stimon h)=mar e)n Troi/h|, polloi\ de\ kai\ a)/lloi fw=tej o)/lonto. (Od. .–) [So let y our heart and let y our spirit be har dened to listen. Odysseus is not the only on e who lost hi s homecoming day at Troy. There were many others who perished, besides him.]

Telemachos aspir es t o li sten t o poetr y as a man—namely , with an ear attuned t o th e collective human exper ience. His mode of listening blurs the distinction between his personal grief over his father’s absence and his general concern for the miserable fate of the rest of the Greek leaders and armies. In this mode of listening, the listener’s desire for s elf-recognition and emotional identification is unimportant; the poem’s supposedly objective meaning i s supreme. How should we understand Penelope’s personal

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perspective? Does its uniq ueness li e in th e f act tha t it in volves an emotional r esponse t o th e depicted ev ents? I s th e feminin e char acter of the Homeric epic t antamount to the text’s emotional dimension (imply ing a readership based on emotiona l identification)? The q uestion of the emotiona l aspect of the epic an d its r elationship to forms of empathetic reading is clearly not new. Charles Segal, for example, discusses th e i ssue in th e c ontext of the H omeric r epresentation of listeners and their patterns of response, which, in hi s v iew, testify to the Homeric preoccupation with the conditions for creating an involved audience. According t o Sega l, the Homeric tr eatment of the ph enomenon of stirring emotions in a c ommunity of listeners should be r ead as a ba ckground for th e emergence of Athenian drama with its uniq ue patterns of audience response: There is a direct line between this function of song as a celebration of human solidarity in the face of suffering and the development of Attic drama, which in so man y oth er r espects o wes mu ch t o H omer. Drama, among oth er things, creates the community of the theater as a community of shared grief and compassion.29

Furthermore, Segal argu es tha t th e abun dance of Homeric st orytelling scenes—scenes that often involve a description of emotional responses to stories an d poetr y—enables th e epic t o c onstrue a model for its idea l reader: one who is capable of compassion and human solidarity.30 The crucial role of compassion and solidarity is indeed incontestable in this c ontext. Yet it sh ould not be c onflated w ith th e meaning ev ent tha t concerns us here, represented by Penelope and the feminine response that she epitomizes. More specifically, we need to distinguish between the kind of compassion and solidarity of which Segal speaks and the personal rapport with a text tha t I un derstand as feminin e. Whereas compassion and solidarity arise within the horizons of our shared universal forms of experience, I am more interested in the idiosyncratic dimension of experience as it echoes, for example, in Penelope. For Segal, texts, performances, and events may often elicit emotiona l r esponses. Yet in th eir abilit y to cr eate solidarity, they n ecessarily expr ess gen eral forms of human c oncern and call upon th eir listeners to participate in a “sharing” of these forms. The feminine trope functions in a di fferent manner, however. It is not directed at solidarity but circumvents the general form of the human voice. The feminine embodi es a meeting poin t, a f ace-to-face encounter where

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contact i s ma de betw een th e r eader as an in dividual an d a speci fic fictional figure. In other words, the feminine dimension of the text i s what opens up t o the emotiona l condition of a specific r eader; it dir ects its elf to the reader’s psychological experience and makes a place for her (or his) biography to resonate. The feminine dimension of the text c onsists of an invitation to s earch for the r eflection of the r eader’s o wn exper ience in the represented subject. The feminine provides the text with a capacity to touch, and a feminine reading is thus one that allows itself to be touched. O W L  W In exploring the option of a feminine mode of listening within the Homeric epic, it may be generally instructive to view the Odyssey as consisting, in itself, of a reading—and, more specifically, a reading response—to the masculine ethos of the Iliad.31 Doing so, we see that regardless of its traditionally pe jorative st atus, the feminine s ense i s, in f act, integral to thi s representative work of canonical liter ature, the heroic epic. 32 Despite the valorization of masculine ideals, Homeric poetry recognizes the necessity of a feminine poetical position. This becomes clear in the famous description of Odysseus w eeping in r esponse t o th e h eroic song of the bar d in Alkinoos’s palace. At the end of his journey, Odysseus reaches the land of the Phaeacians. Destitute, hopeless, exhausted, naked, and hungry, he i s nearing hi s final destination. For ten years he had fought the war in Troy and for ten mor e years he wandered along a tortuous route in the attempt to return home. Now, having r eached th e Phaea cians, who w ill ev entually br ing him t o Ithaka, Odysseus i s en tertained b y th e performan ce of Demodocus, the local bard, who sings of the Trojan War and specifically of Odysseus’s own heroic feats. Demodocus presents Odysseus as a divine hero, likening him to the god Ares, the ultimate personification of masculinity. Odysseus listens to the bard’s words incognito. His identity is concealed: he can only hear of the man he was, but cannot openly be th e man he is. And yet this scene pr esents a sig nificant shift fr om Odyss eus th e h ero of the past t o Odysseus the man of the present. The shift occurs as Odysseus the listener takes th e pla ce of Odysseus th e h ero—that i s, as th e H omeric nar rator focuses on hi s response to the heroic poetry of Demodocus: h)/eiden d' w(j a)/stu die/praqon ui(=ej )Axaiw=n i(ppo/qen e)kxu/menoi, koi=lon lo/xon e)kprolipo/ntej. a)/llon d' a)/llh| a)/eide po/lin kerai+ze/men ai)ph/n,

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au)ta\r )Odussh=a proti\ dw/mata Dhifo/boio bh/menai, h)u/t' )/Arha su\n a)ntiqe/w| Menela/w|. kei=qi dh\ ai)no/taton po/lemon fa/to tolmh/santa nikh=sai kai\ e)/peita dia\ mega/qumon )Aqh/nhn. tau=t' a)/r' a)oido\j a)/eide perikluto/j: au)ta\r )Odusseu\j th/keto, da/kru d' e)/deuen u(po\ blefa/roisi pareia/j. w(j de\ gunh\ klai/h|si fi/lon po/sin a)mfipesou=sa, o(/j te e(h=j pro/sqen po/lioj law=n te pe/sh|sin, a)/stei+ kai\ teke/essin a)mu/nwn nhlee\j h)=mar: h( me\n to\n qnh/skonta kai\ a)spai/ronta i)dou=sa a)mf' au)tw=| xume/nh li/ga kwku/ei: oi( de/ t' o)/pisqe ko/ptontej dou/ressi meta/frenon h)de\ kai\ w)/mouj ei)/reron ei)sana/gousi, po/non t' e)xe/men kai\ o)izu/n: th=j d' e)leeinota/tw| a)/xei+ fqinu/qousi pareiai/: w(\j )Oduseu\j e)leeino\n u(p' o)fru/si da/kruon ei)=ben. (Od. .–) [He sang then how the sons of the Achaians left th eir hollow hiding place and streamed from the horse and sacked the city, and he sang how one and another fought through the steep cit adel, and how in par ticular Odysseus went, with godlike Menelaos, like Ares, to find the house of Deiphobos, and there, he said, he endured the grimmest fighting that ever he had, but won it th ere too, with great-hearted Athene aiding. So the famous singer s ang his tale, but Odysseus melted, and from under his eyes the tears r an down, drenching his cheeks. As a w oman weeps, lying over the body of her great husband, who fell fighting for h er city and people as he tried to beat off the pitiless da y from city and children; she sees him dy ing and gasping for br eath, and winding her body about him sh e cries high and shrill, while the men behin d her, hitting her with their spear butts on th e back and the shoulders, force her up an d lead her away into slavery, to have hard work and sorrow, and her cheeks are wracked with pitiful w eeping. Such were the pitiful tears Odyss eus shed from under his brows, but they went unnoticed by all the others.]

Odysseus’s response is utterly private and remains altogether concealed. His response is nonverbal, and furthermore it i s unintentional. He is affected

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by the words he hears. Yet these words do n ot become a par t of a space of mental articulation. Their effect is registered, rather, at the level of the body: Odysseus weeps; he weeps like a w oman. In Homeric poetry both men an d women cry. Indeed, Homeric poetry is replete with loud weeping, spontaneous cries of anguish, and elaborate funeral or ations deli vered b y men an d w omen a like. Nevertheless, the analogy made between Odyss eus’s tears an d the tears of a woman i s r emarkable. Readers of the Odyssey have c onsistently w ondered about th e significance of this simile. Why is Odysseus, the virile hero, described here in terms of a woman lamenting over her dead husband?33 The fact that this Homeric analogy is clearly not meant to diminish the protagonist’s masculinity makes the question even more pressing. In the context of Homeric poetry, this is not a tr ivial rhetorical gesture.34 The analogy to a w eeping woman marks, as is often obs erved, a turning poin t in th e Homeric nar rative. It fun ctions as a tr ope tha t s ets th e stage for the dramatic climax of the hero’s self-recognition. Indeed, making a c onnection ma de betw een Odyss eus an d th e feminin e opens up a whole psy chological lan dscape tha t w ill be cru cial for hi s h omecoming. Yet the feminine figures here in yet another way: it is reflective, in my view, of the Homeric sensitivity toward the kinds of reading responses that the epic its elf elicits and, in par ticular, to the possibilit y of a feminine r eading experience.35 Odysseus’s representation as a w oman is unsettling. This effect is magnified by the specificity of the analogy: Odysseus is not compared to any ordinary lamen ting w oman, but t o a T rojan capti ve mourning h er dea d husband. This simile ca lls a ttention t o its elf, as an in terruption tha t th e reader of the Odyssey must c ome t o terms w ith, as a tension tha t must be resolved. This feminine simile ca lls for a r eading that could bridge the gap betw een th e g lory an d super iority of Odysseus th e G reek h ero an d his image as a r adical Other, a woman, a Trojan whose battle is lost. The meaning of “the weeping woman” unfolds as a ca ll to the reader to find a perspective from which the hero can be un derstood as a fema le victim of the war.36 It is precisely this conciliatory reading that is evoked by the feminine. The feminine is not merely “another aspect” of Odysseus’s character. Rather, it is a dimension of immanent di fference w ithout which s elf-identity an d alterity c ould not be medi ated. The feminin e i s a medi ating for ce operative in r econciling th e dich otomies c entral t o Odyss eus’s life, tensions that are, furthermore, central to any encounter with a text. The feminine

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is thus pr esented h ere as a form of experience tha t enables Odyss eus t o bridge the gap betw een hi s past an d hi s futur e, between action and passivity, between th e g lorious h ero of the Trojan war an d th e fug itive and survivor who finds himself at the mercy of his Phaeacian hosts. The feminine, in this context, is the intertwining of proximity and distance from home. It i s a for ce tha t cancels th e str ict opposition betw een h ome and the horrors of war. And finally, the feminine links, for Odysseus, interiority w ith exter iority, the hidden w ith th e public ly manifest—opening th e possibility of self-revelation.37 Putting thi s in a met apoetical perspecti ve, we ma y s ay tha t th e feminine n ot only fun ctions as an in terface betw een Odyss eus th e a ctor and Odysseus the spectator but fur thermore serves as th e principle of movement between listening and narrating. In the Homeric poem, it is precisely the feminine weeping of Odysseus that marks th e shift fr om a thir d- to a first-person narrative. The feminine allows the transformation of Demodocus’s song in to an a utobiographical nar rative in Books –.38 Consequently, we may understand the Homeric image of the lamenting woman as a pr ism that makes its elf available, beyond Odyss eus, to the r eader of the Odyssey. The image of the lamen ting w oman ev okes th e possibilit y of a reading that, as we have seen, embraces the text b y projecting into it one’s own persona l experience and by opening on eself up to its a ffective dimension. In this sense, this homecoming epic can c ertainly be read as a reflection on and a retrospective reading of the Iliad. Odysseus’s response to the song of the Phaeacian bard demonstr ates this liter ary function, as the scene provides embedded instructions for how to listen to poetry: crying is the mark of a listener who has the capacity to be personally affected by it. X’ T Homer was the first authority to make the connection between a personal response to poetr y and the feminine. This connection r ests on th e ana logy between the response to poetry and the response of a female mourner to the death of a beloved person. As we have seen, however, for the Homeric narrator, the appearance of the feminine voice is always shrouded with ambivalence. In oth er w ords, the Homeric gestur e tha t inscr ibes for th e feminine voice an a utonomous place i s a lso the one that ultimately contests the legitimacy of the feminine as a bearer of genuine poetic value. The history of Western thought is replete with this kind of ambivalence toward the feminine and its abilit y to participate in and contribute to the field of

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meaning. Ambivalence toward the feminine is a response whose structure ultimately reproduces the very trait that the feminine is so often charged with: ambivalence. (And it i s often ambi valence, rather than a c lear and explicit opposition, that harbors the seed of misogynism.) It i s par ticularly in teresting in thi s c ontext t o s ee h ow in cr iticizing Homer for his indecisiveness toward the (feminine) nature of the lamenting voice, Plato reproduces that same ambivalence. Plato’s criticism is the one leading to an internalization of the Homeric duality. In Plato’s Republic, the theme of feminine lamentation and its poetic r epresentation surfaces in th e context of a di scussion of the st atus of poetry in r elation to the educational character of the ideal polis. For Plato, the mimetic essence of poetry implies an ontological inferiority that becomes even more problematic because of the actual dangers that the structure of mimesis—and thus of identification—carries for th e healthy soul. Without venturing to enter here into the intricacies of that “ancient quarrel between philosophy and poetry,” we should notice that Plato’s reflections on the representation of lamentation ar e moti vated b y a pr oscriptive a ttitude t oward speci fic mimetic acts of poetry that might corrupt the souls of citizen readers. In focusing on th e epic, Plato’s Socr ates argu es tha t h eroes must be represented only if they can s erve as pr oper models for th e cit y’s youth. For Socr ates, the oth er side of this argumen t i s ar ticulated as a ca ll for removing from Homeric poetry all passages that seem to promote a f alse perception of death an d th e un derworld. This w ould be, according t o Socrates, the proper way to instill c ourage and a fighting spir it in a citizenry that is destined to be free and self-governing. Hence, as he criticizes Homer for his failure to determine clear ethical and educational standards for his readers, Socrates subsequently demands that episodes of lamentation so typical of Homer’s heroes be censored. Achilles, for example, should not be a llowed to cry. tau=ta kai\ ta\ toiau=ta pa/nta paraithso/meqa (/Omhro/n te kai\ tou\j a)l / louj poihta\j mh\ xalepai/nein a)n\ diagra/fwmen, ou)x w(j ou) poihtika\ kai\ h(de/a toi=j polloi=j a)kou/ein, a)ll' o(/sw| poihtikw/tera, tosou/tw| h(=tton a)kouste/on paisi\ kai\ a)ndra/sin ou(j \ dei= e)leuqe/rouj ei)n= ai, doulei/an qana/tou ma=llon pefobhme/nouj. (Rep. .b) [We will beg Homer and the other poets not to be ang ry if we cancel those and a ll similar pass ages, not that they ar e not poetic an d pleasing t o most

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hearers, but because the more poetic they are the less ar e they suited to the ears of boys and men wh o are destined to be fr ee and to be mor e afraid of slavery than of death.—Trans. Paul Shorey.]39

Plato is preoccupied with the management of emotions and the possibility of disciplining and controlling one’s irrational impulses, instincts, and desires. Yet he does not argue that these lower appetites must be ex cluded completely from the field of poetic representations. On the contrary, poetry, for Plato, must properly apportion pain and emotional expression in order to realize the delicate balance between the emotions and the ability to restrain them. According to him, readers of poetry may thus be expos ed to instances of emotional expr ession on th e c ondition tha t th ese inst ances are c learly associ ated w ith infer ior and minor figures and concomitantly accompanied by other figures who are exemplar y protagonists manifesting self-control. Furthermore, while Plato endorses censorship of emotional representations, he does not entirely purge lamentations from the literary text. Plato is willing to admit certain scenes of lament, but he does so, again, only on the condition that they are associated w ith unworthy c haracters, among them women: 0Orqw=j a)/r' a)\n e)cairoi=men tou\j qrh/nouj tw=n o)nomastw=n a)ndrw=n, gunaici\ de\ a)podidoi=men. (“Then we should be r ight in doing away w ith the lamentations of men of note and in att ributing them t o women,” Rep. .e). Platonic censorship of emotional representation may thus be said to consist of a shift in the inner structure of the poetical field. Instead of eliminating emotions altogethe r, Plato is concerned with shifting the intensity of emotions fr om the c enter to the very margins of epic poetry. The literary agent that allows him to bring about such a shift is the figure of the w oman: she can be r epresented in lamentation sinc e her lament does not genuinely upset the emotional balance of listeners. This dua l r ole ascr ibed t o th e feminin e v oice of lamentation—to th e feminine as a n ecessary figure of difference and alterity—continues to be operative in attitudes such as the one we find, for example, in Plutarch. In a letter t o a g rieving friend, Plutarch elaborates a masculin e ideal of selfcomposure that he explicitly c ontrasts with the exaggerated emotionality more typical of human mourning.40 In this context, Plutarch shows specific interest in th e peculi arities of Lycian custom: “The law g iver of the Lycians orders his citizens, whenever they mourned, to clothe themselves first in women’s garments and then to mourn, wishing to make it clear that mourning is womanish and unbecoming to decorous men wh o lay claim

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to the education of the free born.” For Plutarch Lycian practice reflects the true nature of excessive emotions: qh~lu ga\r o1ntwj kai\ a0sqene\j kai\ a0genne\v to\ penqei~n: gunai~kej ga\r a0ndrw~n ei0si filopenqe/sterai kai\ oi9 ba/rbaroi tw~n 9Ellh/nwn kai' oi9 xei/rouj a1ndrej tw~n a0meino/nwn. (Plutarch, Letter to Apollonius .) [Yes, mourning is verily feminine, and weak, and ignoble, since women are more given to it than men, and barbarians more than G reeks, and inferior men more than better men. —Trans. Frank Cole Babbitt] 41

Plutarch sees the feminine as a mark er for th e soul’s lower faculties. This somewhat odd anecdote about Lycian mourning customs merely reaffirms his own understanding of the nature of women. What Plutarch seems less prone to admit is that legislating mourning in female disguise means that the feminine not only functions as a way of releasing the Lycian men from their pain; it becomes the model for th e exposure of masculine emotionality. Despite the exclusion of the feminine from the core of men’s world, the Lycians s eem t o be depen dent on it in or der t o f ace an d exper ience one of the most crucial dimensions of that world—death. In this respect, Plutarch’s an ecdote c ontains mor e than it a dmits. Plutarch r egards th e Lycian custom as a demonstr ation of women’s inferior public stature, but doesn’t s eem t o r ecognize tha t hi s an ecdote exempli fies a public sph ere that, in fact, functions under the sign of the feminine. Whereas for Plutarch the dialectical relationship between masculine and feminine seems to pass unnoticed, the Platonic text displays its awareness of this dialectics, turning it in to one of the most di stinctive marks of the Socratic dialogue. Here, Plato’s Phaedo, with its strong emotional impact, provides a good case in point. “I was there, Echerates,”42 says Phaedo, opening the dialogue named after him (Phd. a). He was there “with Socrates on the day he drank the poison in th e prison,” and he is intent on telling “everything from the beginning” (c). This beginning, the dialogue’s first dramatic sc ene, consists of the ar rival of Socrates’ friends an d di sciples at hi s pr ison c ell. “On en tering,” they find “Socrates just fr eed fr om hi s chains, and X anthippe . . . sitting beside him . . . holding hi s bab y son” (a). The dialogue ends with the dramatic scene of Socrates drinking the poison, his friends weeping, Socrates’ last words, his death, “the end of our friend, the first man . . . of all whom we came to know in hi s generation; the wisest too, and the most r ighteous” (a).

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What unfolds between Phaedo’s beginning and end, between the image of Socrates’ baby son (birth) and the image of his own dying, is, as is usual for Plato, a conversation. Emotionally Phaedo is clearly one of Plato’s most moving w orks, but th e di alogue’s philosophica l c ontent s eems t o poin t in th e opposite dir ection. The c ore of the c onversation i s dedica ted t o the immortality of the soul, the liberation of the soul fr om the body, the philosopher’s commitment to that liberation, and finally an explication of Socrates’ tranquility, perhaps even joy, in the f ace of death. In these intimate and sorrowful of moments, Socrates engages his disciples in a discussion that is meant to explain the sense in which, for the true philosopher, life is a training for death and death the place in which the soul can finally celebrate its freedom from the burdens of the body. Phaedo focuses on the immortal nature of the soul and the philosophical possibility of emancipation from the world of appearance, but it is just as much a dialogue about mourning. Indeed, it presents an exemplar y form of mourning. In thi s context it i s par ticularly impor tant to notice that the feminine explicitly figures here in two ways. We have already mentioned Xanthippe, who i s pr esent in th e c ompany of Socrates an d fr iends. But befor e di scussing her actual role in th e di alogue, let us turn first to another feminine figure whose function i s more met aphorical. As Socr ates elabor ates on the philosophical task of delivering the soul from its bodily pr ison, he alludes in passing t o the figure of Penelope. a)ll' ou(/tw logi/sait' a)\n yuxh\ a)ndro\j filoso/fou, kai\ ou)k a)\n oi)hqei/h th\n me\n filosofi/an xrh=nai au)th\n lu/ein, luou/shj de\ e)kei/nhj, au)th\n paradido/nai tai=j h(donai=j kai\ lu/paij e(auth\n pa/lin au)= e)gkatadei=n kai\ a)nh/nuton e)/rgon pra/ttein Phnelo/phj tina\ e)nanti/wj i(sto\n metaxeirizome/nhj, a)lla\ galh/nhn tou/twn paraskeua/zousa, e(pome/nh tw=| logismw=| kai\ a)ei\ e)n tou/tw| ou)=sa, to\ a)lhqe\j kai\ to\ qei=on kai\ to\ a)do/caston qewme/nh kai\ u9p 0 e0kei/nou trefome/nh. (Phd. a) [The soul of a philosopher will reflect as we have said, and will not suppose that, while it i s the task of philosophy to secure its r elease, it should thwart that t ask b y sur rendering its elf to pleasur es an d pa in, and so r elapse in to its old imprisonment, like Penelope at the interminable task of undoing her web; rather will it abate the storm of desire by taking reason as its guide and constant companion, by contemplating the utter c ertainty of divine reality and finding sustenance therein.]

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Penelope serves Socrates as a negative example. The philosopher and Penelope share an impor tant similarity: for both th e act of untying is crucial. But thi s i s wh ere th e r esemblance en ds. In th e c ourse of a lifetime, the philosopher pr actices a g radual r elease of the soul fr om th e body . His training t akes th e form of a c ontinual un tying tha t w ill r each tru e fruition w ith th e dea th of the body. Yet, according t o Socr ates, one of the clear dangers t o a philosoph er’s progress i s s lipping back into the world of the body, relapsing into the world of “pleasures and pain.” This is what Penelope s eems t o sig nify, at least stru cturally, as th e on e wh o w eaves again what she has un woven. For the philosopher it i s impor tant not to renew those ties with the corporeal world that, with effort, have been unknotted. The true philosopher is presented in opposition to Penelope, who is engaged in an a ction that constantly cancels its own effects. The philosopher must exhibit determina tion in t aking a c onsistently linear path in one direction. This Pla tonic image of Penelope i s c entral t o Adriana Ca varero’s In Spite of Plato: A F eminist R ewriting of Ancient Phil osophy. For Ca varero, Plato’s ev ocation of Penelope i s a c lear mi suse of the feminin e figure. Penelope, just like the figures of Diotima or the Thracean maidservant, is an example of the mann er in which “feminine figures [ar e] st olen fr om their c ontexts.”43 Examining th e pr esuppositions underlying Pla to’s a llusion to Penelope, Cavarero argues against the manner in which Pla to violently, and uncritically, disvalues a wh ole ethics of the s elf that Penelope and, more generally, the feminine stand for. According to Cavarero, Plato’s use of the figure of Penelope is based on a wh olesale misconstruction of the feminine at the center of which li es “a s emantic di splacement of the concept of life.”44 This misconstruction allows Plato to operate within, and take completely for granted, a field of conceptual oppositions that are hierarchically ordered in c orrelation with the gender opposition. In this conceptual field, the figure of the woman is the systematic marker for inferior metaphysical categories. Penelope’s existence, in particular, is identified with the “hesitations of the imperfect philosopher.” Yet, as Cavarero shows, the figure of Penelope can do philosophica l w ork for Pla to only beca use h e has c ompletely in verted th e sig nificance of her t ale. “The scan dal i s n ot that Penelope undoes what she has don e, but that she reweaves what she has already unwoven.”45 Cavarero’s analysis illuminates the Platonic oppositions by showing how these binar isms ar e depen dent on th e deva luation of the feminin e. Yet, should we, in the first place, understand Plato’s conceptual oppositions to

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be dichotomous, as Cavarero claims? I ha ve tried to show that this is not the cas e. Whereas the spir itual, for example, is ar ticulated in c ontrast to the corporeal, there is no way to imagine or un derstand the spiritual independently of the sentient body. The spiritual and the corporeal (just like the r ational an d th e emotiona l) ar e n ot simply tw o mutua lly ex clusive domains but dimensions of human reality that are dialectically related. I think it i s c lear that Plato does n ot beli eve in th e possibilit y of a r adical transcendence of the body. Not ev en th e philosoph er can fully lea ve hi s body behind. The philosopher too must ultima tely return to the Platonic cave, thus forsaking the possibility of a constant and direct view of the sun (the form of the good). The world whose center i s the body—the world of appearance, of the s enses, emotions, temporality, and perspecti ve— cannot be wh olly n egated beca use it i s an in trinsic, albeit pr oblematic, dimension of who we are as humans. And thus, the form of the philosophical emancipation of the soul fr om th e body i s a di alectical sublima tion that ma y, at best, bracket th e dominion of the body while r etaining its presence in the form of the negative. Does Plato believe that there is a real option of living a philosophical life that does not include constant relapses into the domain of “pleasures and pain”? Can the living philosopher commit himself only to a pr actice of untying, or is he ineluctably forced—by the fact of having a body—into moments of weaving what he has labored to unweave? In other words, is Plato’s image of Penelope weaving and unweaving really opposed to the image of the true philosopher? A similar dialectics is characteristic, in my view, of Plato’s presentation of Xanthippe, the wife of Socrates. Xanthippe is the feminine counterpart of Socrates, his dialectical opposite. As the dialogue begins, she is already there, in the prison, sitting with her baby beside Socrates. At first sight, her role s eems v ery limited, consisting of a few w ords, said a loud, that immediately sing le h er out as a persona n on g rata. Present a t th e meeting between Socrates and his friends, Xanthippe is described as crying out and saying “the sor t of thing tha t w omen a lways s ay.” What s he sa ys is : “Socrates, this is the last time your dear friends will speak to you and you to them” (Phd. a). She is clearly empathetic, sensing the anguish of separation and the pain of an approaching loss, and she seems to understand the singularity of this last gathering of friends. Yet the manner in which she expresses herself does not resonate well w ith the Socr atic ear. Xanthippe speaks, but her saying remains unanswered, as if it were an incomprehensible s eries of noises. For Socr ates, Xanthippe’s s aying does n ot s eem t o carry any logos that des erves a r esponse. His only wa y of acknowledging

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that he has heard her is to turn to a friend: “Crito,” he says, “someone had better t ake her hom e.” Xanthippe leaves the room “sobbing and lamenting” (a ). Why i sn’t Xanthipe’s speech a llowed into the space of dialogue so important for th e Socr atic eth os? I n wha t s ense does h er s aying belong t o “the sor t of thing tha t w omen a lways s ay”? H ow does h er speech di ffer from th e speech of men? Does it di ffer from th e language of men? And, finally, why is Xanthippe excluded from the last gathering of Socrates and friends? Xanthippe’s w ords car ry an a ir of sentimentality tha t ir ritates—that seems too loud—for the manly bonding of philosophers. Perhaps it is her insistence on th e finality of the philosophical dialogue, her acceptance of the finitude of the human conversation, that a ttracts th e h ostility of the philosopher who believes in the eternal journey of the soul and the afterlife of words. How should we understand her role in thi s scene? Xanthippe i s a figure wh ose ex clusion marks th e opening a ct of the dialogue. It i s only wh en she leaves “sobbing and lamenting” that an exploration of true—philosophical—mourning can beg in. Her exclusion is not an arbitrary turn in the Platonic narrative, but rather a literary gesture that carries symbolic value. But what exactly is the value of that exclusion? Should we understand Xanthippe as a feminine image of the antiphilosophical that, as such, must be excluded as a condition for a philosophical beginning? Is she merely a negative example for Plato? This is how Cavarero, for example, seems to read her figure: Xanthippe serves Plato in demarcating the place of the “bad philosoph er” who oper ates w ithin a pictur e of the world tha t i s ess entially feminine. “For Xanthippe,” she w rites, “Socrates simply di es: he i s no mor e. She knows nothing of the split betw een soul and body, and simply st ays w ithin th e exper ience of her in dividual life where mind and body ar e joined indissolubly together.”46 Indeed, Xanthippe’s sole utter ance in th e di alogue s eems focus ed on the “here an d n ow” without an y a cknowledgment of a possible h orizon of transcendence. But is she simply an example of a feminine worldview, a language, a kin d of speech tha t th e tru e philosoph er sh ould a void? I f Xanthippe’s perspecti ve i s un educational, why doesn ’t Pla to follo w hi s own advice in Republic and free his text from her feminine presence in the first place? We may begin answering these questions by recalling that exclusion is a common strategy in Plato.47 More specifically, we may want to recall that the beginning of the philosophical conversation on love in Symposium e

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is also marked by the exclusion of a feminine figure: the female flute-player. The flute-player expresses herself in a manner that does not convey a logos. Her music communicates only through tonality and rhythm, and this sensual senselessness seems improper within the space of genuine philosophical di alogue. However, while the flute-player’s pr esence s eems to denote an unwanted sensual effect, her exclusion does n ot diminish the sensuality of the di alogue. On the contrary, her depar ture only a ccentuates thi s sensual aspect of the male discourse on love. And, indeed, it is Alcibiades’ arrival that serves as th e occasion for th e flute girl’s return. In a similar mann er, although X anthippe i s ma de t o lea ve th e sc ene of philosophy, the affect she embodies continues to be c entral to Phaedo. Furthermore, the f act tha t sh e has been ex cluded only un derscores th e inevitability of the emotional spectrum—as well as the corporeal point of view—that sh e embodi es. Once sh e t akes h er leave, the di alogue i s supposedly fr ee t o dev elop its o wn c ourse in a pr oper manly mann er. But this does n ot happen. Instead of keeping a c lear and s afe di stance fr om Xanthippe’s example, Phaedo develops through a continual tension between the emotional and the rational. And as the dialogue proceeds, we see that a clear choice has not been made between the need to follow the Socratic imperative of self-composure and the need to weep over Socrates, to mourn the loss of a singular person an d a belo ved fr iend. This tension betw een the t ormenting pa in of loss and th e idea l of self-possession (a t th e level of the dialogue’s participants), between the strength of rational argumentation and the effect of literary description (at the level of readers), is explicitly accentuated in th e dialogue’s ending scene. Phaedo and his friends had “more or less contrived to hold back [their] tears,” but as they see Socrates “put the cup to his lips,” it “became impossible” (Phd. c). As Phaedo descr ibes hims elf weeping, his language clearly voices tha t r eflexive stru cture which w e have ear lier iden tified as typical of feminine lamentation. “For myself, despite my efforts the tears were pouring down my cheeks, so that I ha d to cover my f ace; but I was weeping not for him, but for my own misfortunes in losing such a friend” (Phd. c). Phaedo i s n ot th e only on e wh o cr ies in thi s sc ene. “Crito had got up an d withdrawn already, finding that he could not restrain his tears; as for Apollodorus, he had even before this been w eeping continuously, and in this last moment he burst into sobs, and his tears of distress were heartbreaking to all of us.” It is only at So crates’ explicit request that Phaedo and his friends put an en d to their crying:

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oi(=a, e)/fh, poiei=te, w)= qauma/sioi. e)gw\ me/ntoi ou)x h(/kista tou/tou e(/neka ta\j gunai=kaj a)pe/pemya, i(n/ a mh\ toiau=ta plhmmeloi=en: kai\ ga\r a)kh/koa o(/ti e)n eu)fhmi/a| xrh\ teleuta=n. a)ll' h(suxi/an te a)/gete kai\ karterei=te. (Phd. d) [My dear good people, what a wa y to behave! Why, it was chi efly to avoid such a laps e that I s ent the women away; for I was a lways told that a man ought to die in peace and quiet. Come, calm yourselves and do not give way.]

Socrates’ logos is effective. The crying stops. Yet his explicit request to stop the cr ying, just like the need to exclude Xanthippe, is a manifest ation of a fun damental dimension of human exper ience tha t i s a lways a lready there and tha t cannot be for ced out of the space of reason. This i s pr ecisely wh y th e figure o f women re surfaces h ere, and X anthippe ret urns. “It was chiefly to avoid such a lapse that I sent the women away,” Socrates explains. But hi s explana tion s eems t o w ork aga inst its elf, since it only underscores the constant reverberation of the feminine in th e dialogue. Socrates puts an end t o crying. His g aze functions as a mir ror for his disciples, opening a course of reflective transformation. Seeing Socrates see them, seeing themselv es in his e yes, his disciples embr ace the imperativ e of overco ming the lo wer p owers of the ag itated soul. T he immediate impact of the Socratic gaze is—as reported also by Alcibiades in the Symposium—shame: kai\ h(mei=j a)kou/santej h)|sxu/nqhme/n te kai\ e)pe/sxomen tou= dakru/ein. (“We felt ashamed and c eased t o weep,” Phd. e). The momentary silence may well testify to the manner in which Phaedo and friends have internalized Socrates’ ethical demand. At the same time, however, we should also notic e that the silenc e imposed on Socrates ’ fr iends carries a distincti ve literar y e ffect. A literar y de vice is needed to achieve the closure of the dialogue in a mesmer izing serenity, following Socrates’ process of dying. For the dialogue ’s participants the end of weeping ma y imply the possibilit y of overco ming their emotions; for the r eader, it demonstrates the impossibility of releasing the literar y text from its emotional underpinnings. The absence of the feminine nevertheless leaves an irremovable imprint of pain in th e text. The tr agedy of losing Socr ates has a ph ysicality tha t is r egistered in th e body. Well a ware of this feminin e dimension, Plato makes a pla ce for it in th e tears hi s text simult aneously forbids and welcomes. In other words, at the moment when Socrates’ disciples succeed in suppressing th eir tears, the pa inful a ffect of the text i s wh olly deposited

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in the hands of the r eader, for whom tears bec ome the most na tural r esponse. The tension between the two states—incontinent, feminine weeping and reflective, philosophical self-possession—is never resolved in thi s dialogue. When Phaedo an d fr iends cease to weep, it i s the r eader’s turn to begin.

Epilogue

“We r emain th e only s amples of humankind,” says Deu calion t o Py rrha in Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Yet in their very first step to restore the human race after th e flood, the di fference betw een man an d w oman manifests itself. When they turn to the oracle for advice, the goddess responds with an imperative: “Leave my temple, cover your heads, unfasten your girdled garments, and throw behind you the bones of your great mother.” Pyrrha attends to the s acred words and r eacts w ith horror to their liter al s ense. But th e or acle’s meaning can be captur ed, as Deu calion kn ows, only through a sy mbolic in terpretation. “From thr own st ones,” he expla ins, “the sy mbolic bon es of Mother E arth, a n ew gen eration of mankind i s born” (Ovid, Met. .–). For Ov id, the m yth of the first man an d w oman c onveys a m ythical insight into the origins of hermeneutics. The question of sexual difference involves the opposition betw een two modes of interpretation: the liter al and the symbolic. Ovid is, of course, not alone here; he gives voice to an opposition that is deeply r ooted in th e ancient hermeneutic tradition. At its heart we find the essential distinction between the literal and the allegorical, between a superficial and a thoroughly penetrating form of readership. And as th e Ovidian version of the origin of the sexes discloses, this is, in fact, a gendered distinction based on th e pairing of the literal sense with a fema le reader and the symbolic sense with a ma le one. The history of ancient liter ary criticism is replete with exemplars tha t associate the feminine with superficial and insignificant layers of the text’s meaning. In a cultur e that devalued the ethos of femininity, the figure of the feminine commonly served as a negative and subsidiary category for designating literal, sensual, personal, incoherent, and even self-contradictory 

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Epilogue

meanings. The understanding of the feminine as a s econdary sense is tied to th e emergence of allegory in th e four th c entury BCE. For a llegorists, the feminin e i s in trinsically ti ed t o th ose ma terial an d c oncrete dimensions of the text that must be transcended in order to arrive at the abstract truth constitutive of the text’s genuine core of meaning. The feminine i s thus a metaphor for the text’s surface, the specificity of its sense, which in the case of literature is usually equated with its nar rative aspects. This ancient in tersection of gender and textua lity finds its expr ession in two ways. On the one hand, conceptions of the text ar e often ma de to rely on metaphors of sexual difference; on the other hand, the distinction between the s exes i s often ar ticulated in terms of the difference b etween two textua l di spositions. In Achilles Tatius’s Leucippe and Clitop hon, for example, the di fference betw een th e tw o lo vers i s ma de explicit b y describing their response to a painting of Philomela’s rape. While Clitophon discusses the painting’s meaning w ith a ma le companion, Leucippe finds herself silently absor bed in th e v isual exper ience of the work. According to the men, the painting should be understood as a prefiguration of a terrible future event. Their interpretation is derived from the methodological principles of professional interpreters: Interpreters of signs tell us t o consider the story [ muthos] of any painting we chance to see as w e set out on busin ess, and to plot th e outcome of our action by analogy [logos] with that story’s plot. (.)

The aim of masculine interpretation is to draw the logos from the muthos. Therefore, once the men capture the painting’s hidden meaning, they lose interest in th e painting itself. This is c learly not the case with the female viewer, Leucippe, who insi sts on embr acing wha t sh e s ees an d making sense of precisely wha t meets th e e ye. She does n ot par ticipate in th e men’s game of interpretation, but she is nevertheless intensely involved in the exper ience of looking. As sh e tr ies t o understand wha t sh e s ees, she turns t o h er lo ver w ith a r equest for informa tion about th e st ory in th e painting. Achilles Tatius characterizes Leucippe’s gaze as motivated by the desire for a v ivid an d c oncrete nar rative. And, according t o him, this i s completely t ypical: “For there i s something in th e nature of women that clearly loves a t ale” (philomuthon gar po s to ton gunaikon ge nos, ..). Pandora’s Senses is an investigation of a dimension of the text that seems to have been marginalized in antiquity because of its association with the category of the feminine. However, in focusing on the construction of these

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allegedly insubstantial, feminine, aspects of the ancient text, my intention was n ot a dir ect cr itique of their mi sogynist pr esuppositions. Instead, I have tried to show that those prototypical feminine metaphors associated with textuality were, in fact, much more influential in shaping the ancient text than mig ht be ga thered from the canon of ancient literary criticism. This study began w ith the conviction that the feminine cannot be so easily relegated to the margins of the literary text. The contribution of the feminine is, and has always been, far too crucial for the question of meaning. The senses of the feminine were richer and played more intricate roles than the ones assigned to them by misogynist categories. Tracing the irreducible, albeit implicit, presence of Pandora in the space of ancient literature, I have tried to show why and how she is essential to the possibility—the formation—of the ancient text. In particular, I have focused on the dialectics between the visible and the invisible so central to Pandora’s image (e.g., beauty/evil, body/soul) showing the role of this di alectics in shaping th e complexity of a text as a wh ole. In this respect, Pandora’s Senses seeks to move beyond a cr itical anatomy of ancient binary thought, beyond a cr itique of misogynist cultur e. It aspir es t o di smantle mi sogynist language by demonstr ating tha t th e n otion of a text ’s meaning fulness w ould be meaningless without the presence of the feminine.

   

I 1. Berger, “The Latest Word from Echo,” –. 2. Salzman-Mitchell, A Web of Fantasies, . 3. Bergren, “Helen’s Web,” –; Bergren, “Language and the Female in Early Greek Thought,” –. 4. DuBois, “Sappho and Helen,” –. 5. DuBois, “Sappho and Helen”; Winkler, “Gardens of Nymphs.” 6. Worman, “The Body as Argument,” ; see also Austin, Helen of Troy and Her Shameless Phantom. 7. Doherty, “Putting the Woman Back into the Hesiodic Catalogue of Women,” . 8. Richlin, Pornography and R epresentation in G reece and R ome, . 9. Richlin, “The E thnographer’s Dilemma an d th e Dr eam of a Lost Golden Age,” . 10. Plato, Phaedrus, trans. R. Hackforth, in The Collected Dialogues of Plato, ed. Hamilton and Cairns. 11. Cavarero, In Spite of Plato: A F eminist R ewriting of Ancient Phil osophy; Kofman, L’enigme de l a femme; Gallop, The Father’s Seduction. 12. Zajko and Leonard, Laughing with Medusa, . 13. Spentzou and Fowler, eds., Cultivating the Muse. 14. Spentzou, Readers and Writers in Ovid’s Heroides; Salzman-Mitchell, A Web of Fantasies. 15. E.g., Loraux, The Childr en of Athena; Bassi, “Helen an d th e Di scourse of Denial in Stesich orus’ Palinode”; Zeitlin, Playing the Other. 16. “The figure of Pandora combines all the tensions an d ambivalences.” Vernant, Myth and So ciety in Ancient Greece, . 17. Pucci, Hesiod and th e Language of Poetry.





Notes to P ages –

18. Cantarella, Pandora’s Daughters; Warner, Monuments & Maidens; Lefkowitz, Women in G reek Myth; Reeder, ed., Pandora: Women in Cl assical Greece. 19. Sharrock and Morales, eds., Intratextuality, –. C . P’ L 1. Semonides of Amorgos, who a ddresses th e cr eation of different t ypes of women, does not refer directly to Pandora. 2. The m yth of Pandora has a ttracted th e a ttention of many think ers an d artists, particularly since the end of the Middle Ages. See Panofsky and Panofsky, Pandora’s B ox, –. A  anthology on th e myth of Pandora collects pass ages from poets, prose writers, and critics from antiquity to our own time: Renger and Musäus, eds., Mythos Pandora. The an thology c onfirms Er vin an d Dor a P anofsky’s claim that treatments of Pandora in an tiquity were sparse. The small number of ancient authors and commentators on Pandora deal with her mostly in the context of explicating Hesiod’s myth. 3. In the Catalogue of Women (fr. ) a figure named P andora appears as th e first w oman t o mak e lo ve t o Zeus. M. L. West an d oth ers s ee thi s P andora as different from the first woman of Theogony and Works and Da ys. See West, The Hesiodic Catalogue of Women, –. The question of how to reconstruct the relationship of the Catalogue’s P andora t o th e H esiodic image of the first w oman remains open. See Osborn, “Ordering Women in Hesiod’s Catalogue,” –, –. On the date of the final version of the catalogue see Hunter, ed., The Hesiodic Catalogue of Women, . 4. Ancient visual representations of the creation of Pandora typically comply with th e H esiodic v ersion. For a ca talogue an d ic onographic ana lysis of vases featuring her, see Reeder, ed., Pandora: Women in Cl assical Greece, –. Ellen D. Reeder examines the volute krater in the Ashmolean Museum as an exceptional representation of Pandora: ibid., . The Oxford vas e shows Epimetheus looking at Pandora and carrying a hammer, a feature not described by Hesiod. Some scholars suggest that it reflects the influence of a lost satyr play by Sophocles entitled Pandora or The Hammerers. See Simon, “Satyr-Plays on Vases in the Time of Aeschylus,” –. The st ory of the cr eation of Pandora must ha ve ha d a g reat cultural sig nificance for Athens. According t o P ausanias .. the epi sode was part of the w est pedimen t of the Parthenon. Locating Pandora w ithin th e or bit of the Athenians’ gaze ma y in dicate, as N icole Lor aux has demonstr ated, the central role of the first woman in shaping the Athenian autochthonous male identity. The artificial construction of the first woman by Hephaestus was set in opposition t o th e r epresented bir th of the first Athenian citizen, Erichthonios, from earth fertilized by Hephaestus’s sperm. See Loraux, The Children of Athena, –,  n. . 5. I do n ot c laim tha t H esiod in vented th e st ory of Pandora; rather, he adapted the story of the first woman in a most original manner, and subsequently

Notes to P ages –



his idiosyn cratic tr eatment of the m yth became a uthoritative. The P andora of Theogony and Works and Da ys is uniq uely Hesiod’s. A similar cas e i s Apuleius’s tale of Amor and Psyche in The Golden Ass, of which no other versions in an tiquity ar e known. Although the story bears w ell-known mythological and folkt ale patterns, it is nevertheless identified as Apuleius’s. 6. Vernant, Myth and So ciety in Ancient Greece. 7. Ibid., –. See th e comprehensive r eappraisal of Vernant’s stru cturalist reading of Hesiod’s myth of Pandora in Csapo, Theories of Mythology, –. Vernant returns to the figure of the first woman in a r ecently published collection of essays: “Pandora,” in Lissarrague and Schmitt, eds., Ève et Pandora, –. 8. Vernant, Myth and So ciety in Ancient G reece, –. Vernant does n ot address the interesting dissimilarities between the two Hesiodic versions in c onnection w ith th e P andora epi sode. As N icole Lor aux has sh own, in Works and Days Pandora almost gains human status by means of the dichotomy between her body and soul; in Theogony, she r emains a st atic v isual image. This difference i s significant in determining th e meaning tha t each of these Hesiodic w orks s eeks to expr ess through the figure of Pandora. See the r elevant di scussion in Lor aux, The Children of Athena, . 9. For example, Irigaray, Speculum of the Other Woman. 10. Vernant, Myth and So ciety in Ancient Greece, . 11. See Derrida, “Différance.” 12. Pucci, Hesiod and th e Language of Poetry, . 13. Ibid., –. Pucci’s ana lysis i s bas ed on th e two versions of Pandora in the Hesiodic corpus. 14. Reprinted in Zeitlin, Playing the Other, . “Travesties of Gender and Genre in Aristophanes’ Thesmophoriazousae” was first published in Foley, ed., Reflections of Women in Antiquity, –. 15. Zeitlin, Playing the Other, –. 16. Zeitlin di scusses th ese c onventions of the mi sogynist tr adition in “The Dynamics of Misogyny,” in Playing th e Oth er, –; it was first publi shed in Arethusa  (): –. 17. See Zeitlin, Playing the Other, especially –. 18. Ibid., . 19. Loraux, The Children of Athena, –. 20. Recent interpretations examine the Pandora epi sode in th e larger c ontext of the hi story of the n otion of images in an tiquity. See, for example, Sharrock, “The Love of Creation,” –; Steiner, Images in M ind, –, –. 21. DuBois, “Eros and the Woman,” . 22. All translations in thi s book ar e mine unless oth erwise noted. 23. M. L. West r emarks on lin es –: “These tw o lin es ar e ig nored b y Pl. Symp. B and Arist. Metaph. a”; he argues for their authenticity in his edition of Theogony, –.



Notes to P ages –

24. For a di fferent interpretation of the primordial Eros, see Vernant, “One . . . Two . . . Three: Eros,” –. 25. While Eros denotes the general notion of desire, Himeros conveys a mor e specific, irresistible, and strong sexual desire. 26. And s ee Claude Ca lame’s tr eatment of the r elationship between Eros and Aphrodite in The Poetics of Eros in Ancient Greece, –. 27. At this cosmological stage, Eros’s association with Aphrodite suppresses its primordial meaning as th e formless sour ce of beauty. As a subject of Aphrodite, Eros comes to signify the attraction to beauty. 28. On the general di stribution of feminine powers among th e gods in Theogony, see Arthur, “Cultural Strategies in Hesiod’s Theogony,” – and specifically  on the “feminized” form of Eros. 29. In a ddition t o Ga ia as a feminin e pr inciple of motherhood, the figure of Hecate i s no less impor tant ( Th. –). Hecate, like Gaia, represents a gen erative power, though a c ompletely di fferent one. On Hecate’s function as a kourotrophos, a nurse of the young, see Zeitlin, Playing the Other, –. Gaia and Hecate represent the maternal aspect of femininity, which Theogony denies the figures of Aphrodite and Pandora, thus establishing the traditional opposition betw een the figure of the mother and the figure of the s eductive woman. On the cr eation of feminine identities b y canonical ma le authors s ee Gilber t and Gubar, The Madwoman in th e Attic. 30. Oaros is essentially feminine talk, as the meaning of oar (“wife”) indicates. 31. See, for example, Semonides’ logoi aphrodisioi (.–), characterizing feminine talk. 32. In Works and Da ys Aphrodite plays a sig nificant role in shaping P andora’s beauty. Yet even in that version Pandora is, first and foremost, the result of a male conceptualization. 33. On th e r elationship betw een Aphrodite an d P andora as di srupting th e primal harmony that reigns among men in H esiod’s Theogony, see duBois, “Eros and th e Woman,” – and especi ally . A. S. Brown sh ows h ow P andora’s visuality in H esiod’s works manifests an in tentional resemblance to the figure of the golden Aphrodite, as pr incipally di splayed in P andora’s golden di adem. See Brown, “Aphrodite and the Pandora Complex,” –. 34. On the structural similarity between the bir th of Aphrodite and the bir th of Pandora, see Schwabl, Hesiods Theogonie: Eine unitar ische Analyse, . 35. This feminin e lin e i s suggested b y Ann L. T. Bergren in “The H omeric Hymn to Aphrodite,” –. 36. Examining th e st ory of Pandora as th e or igin m yth of misogyny, Jens Holzhausen asks: “Warum hat Zeus es zugelassen, da? Prometheus in dieser Weise den gewünschten Ausgleich w ieder aufhebt? Warum hat er s einem Gegenspi eler, den ihn betrogen hat, nicht sofort gefesselt und bereits nach seiner ersten List unschädlich gemacht?” Holzhausen points out that since Zeus knew of Prometheus’s

Notes to P ages –



manipulation of the di stribution of meat, he c ould ha ve pr evented th e wh ole sequence of events lea ding t o th e cr eation of the first w oman. In a llowing Prometheus to help mankind, Zeus s et the st age for puni shing Prometheus and creating P andora. Ultimately Zeus ’s plan was t o s eparate th e h uman fr om th e divine. Holzhausen, “Das ‘Übel’ der Frauen,” . 37. Cf. Works and Da ys, –, where a similar dec laration pr efaces th e cr eation of Pandora, and the account of the creation itself underscores the negative properties the divine makers have given her. 38. See Zeitlin, Playing the Other,  and n. . 39. Brown, trans., Theogony, . 40. This break in th e Hesiodic narrative has been n oticed by several scholars, who consider it a br each of the poem’s initial aim. “By this time [lin e ] Hesiod had lost in terest in c osmogony, and says no more of the way in which things came to be. The r emainder of the poem i s concerned to explain the world as it is r ather than t o iden tify st ages in its dev elopment.” Barron, “Hesiod,” . Cf. Solmsen, Hesiod and Aeschylus, . The structure of the poem has inspired numerous searches for the “original” Hesiodic text and efforts to distinguish it from later interpolations. In a ddition t o textua l cr iticism of this sor t, other sch olars ha ve attempted to solve the hermeneutic difficulties that any reader of Theogony confronts by introducing different structural divisions into the work. Richard Hamilton sur veys s everal structural ana lyses: The Architecture of Hesiodic Poetry, –. 41. On these last dev elopments see Clay, “The World of Hesiod,” –. 42. The N ereids an d th e Oc eanids ar e ex ceptions t o thi s gen eralization, two feminine groups distinctive for their beauty and their beneficial impact on humanity. However, these ar e par ticular elements in th e universe; descriptions of them do not refer to the beauty of the world as a whole. Other aspects of beauty, meanwhile, coincide with the sense of terror that characterizes the appearance of female monsters such as th e Harpies, the Graiae, and Ceto. 43. Commenting on lin es – in his edition of Theogony, . 44. The same passage as –. 45. Cf. Vernant, Myth and So ciety in Ancient Greece, , in a r eference to Palladas of Alexandria, who, commenting on P andora as a substitute for fire, provides the cliché that feminine fire is inextinguishable. 46. In H omeric poetr y, as Ra ymond Adolph P rier has sh own, stipulating a powerful appearance for both objects and heroes requires the presence of fire. See Prier, Thauma Idesthai, –. 47. Prier, ibid., , on th e v isible for ce of charis that i s r ecurrent in H omeric poetry: “The gods, in f act, are exper t at sur rounding the human being w ith the necessary ‘grace’ to induce sight-wonder.” See the Homeric examples: ibid., –. 48. Thauma idesthai, , ; thaumasia, ; thauma, . 49. Translated b y F . M. Cornford, in The C ollected D ialogues of Plato, ed. Hamilton and Cairns.

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Notes to P ages –

50. Thaumasia refers to the many wild creatures. The visual emphasis is on the diadem’s motifs, which ar e descr ibed as s eeming lik e ( eoikota) cr eatures w ith voices (zooisin phoneesin). 51. Thauma thnetoisi brotoisi (“a wonder for mor tal human beings”). 52. Ann L. T. Bergren and Froma Zeitlin note the connection between the sema and P andora. Bergren, “Language an d th e F emale in E arly G reek Th ought,” ; Zeitlin, Playing the Other, . 53. Cf. West, ed., Theogony. 54. See ibid. on thi s line and the ana logous example fr om the Homeric epic. 55. This fea ture i s a lso cru cial t o th e descr iption of Pandora in Works and Days. Considering the di fferent st ages of her cr eation there (–), we s ee that the gods’ concern i s to arouse the consciousness of men toward the mechani sm of their human senses, especially seeing and hearing. 56. Loraux, The Children of Athena, , examines the ancient Greek notion of autochthony by juxtaposing the myth of Pandora and the myth of Erichthonios. “Pandora and E richthonios—the couple, whether well or ba dly matched, that declares the Athenian asymmetry between citizens, andres Athenaioi, and ‘women.’” 57. On Pandora’s role in separating men from gods, see Holzhausen, “Das ‘Übel’ der Frauen,” –. 58. Bachelard, The Poetics of Reverie, . 59. As Loraux observes, after Pandora men are no longer ca lled by the general term for h umankind, anthrophoi; now they are individual men, andres. “She separates th em fr om th emselves, since sh e in troduces s exuality, that asy mmetry of self and other . . . the dreaded effects of woman and the word gyne: the woman is no sooner named than th e anthropoi are transformed into andres. And so th ey remain.” See The Children of Athena, . C . P   M  O 1. George Steiner connects the myth of Pandora to the myth of the Tower of Babel. He identifies the “accidental release of linguistic chaos” in the story of Babel with the f atal opening of Pandora’s box and the resulting dispersion of diseases. According to Steiner, both myths articulate the human fall in terms of a linguistic catastrophe: the loss of one tongue, Eden’s Ur-Sprache. See Steiner, After Babel, ; see a lso Litt au, “The P rimal Sca ttering of Languages.” Reading th e m yth of Pandora as a m yth about language, Karin Littau does n ot see it as a st ory of the loss of a primal tongue. As an image of multiplicity, according to Littau, Pandora poses a r adical a lternative t o th e Ur-Sprache myth: the possibilit y of mother tongue that, like the feminine sex, was never one. 2. Simone de Bea uvoir’s pioneering study has sh own that hierarchical oppositions betw een masculin e s ameness an d feminin e oth erness ha ve ha d a dir ect impact on w omen’s lives and hi story. In the introduction to The Second Sex, she attacked th e tr aditional engendering of women as Oth er on th e g rounds tha t it

Notes to P ages –



reproduces the “assertion of masculine privilege.” Women’s otherness results from the wa y men per ceive th em. De Bea uvoir c ontended tha t w omen n eed t o cha llenge men’s point of view by asking wh y woman has been de fined as th e Other and rejecting this identification. De Beauvoir, The Second Sex, xx n. , xxxv. 3. Early feminist approaches to classical scholarship in the s needed, first of all, to c ome t o terms w ith th e abs ence of serious stu dies of the hi story of women in an tiquity, a lacuna that was its elf indicative of the status of women as Other, not only w ithin th e ancient w orld but in cur rent c lassical sch olarship as well. Early gender studies in th e field of classics began b y devoting themselves to the important fieldwork of mapping the various gender codes that were contained in the ancient dichotomies of center and per iphery. In di scussing r epresentative early scholarly works on gen der divisions in an tiquity, Kathryn J. Gutzwiller and Ann N orris M ichelini n ote: “What th ese sch olars ha ve don e i s simply t o shift attention from the masculine half of the gender code, which has pr ivileged such masculine-gendered a ctivities as warf are an d politica l life, to th e feminin e ha lf, which pr ivileges s exuality, marriage cust oms, and f amily life. ” Gutzwiller an d Michelini, “Women and Other Strangers,” . 4. Woman, as Lor aux puts it in The Childr en of Athena, , “separates men from gods. Better y et, she s eparates th em from th emselves, since sh e introduces sexuality, that asymmetry of self and other.” 5. See, for example, Page duBoi s’s ana lysis of the figure of Medea as epit omizing the notion of the Other: “By the very fact of her presence in the city, by her violence, her female, bestial, barbarian nature, Medea exemplifies the eruption of difference w ithin th e f amily, within th e polis, among th e H ellenes. Difference i s represented by Euripides as internal rather than external, omnipresent in the body of the G reeks. The oth er, bestial, foreign, most of all fema le, is for E uripides a marginalized marked figure who is nonetheless at the center of the tragic drama. Her difference results from internal conflict, from forces within the oikos and the polis which do ba ttle with one another.” DuBois, Centaurs and Amazons, . 6. “In th e Theogony, the first w oman is her a dornments—she has n o body.” Loraux, The Children of Athena, . 7. One of the in teresting poin ts on which Works and Da ys differs fr om Theogony is in its g iving a name t o the first woman. 8. In thi s s ense m y in terpretation goes be yond th e a ttempt t o map th e tw o epics’ different conventions and authorial stances. For a different approach that explains Hesiod’s personal dimension in terms of a generic convention, see Griffith, “Personality in H esiod,” –. 9. Pucci, Hesiod and th e Language of Poetry, . 10. Ibid., . 11. “Certainly when Hesiod speaks of a similarity between the false discourse of the Muses and truth he implies a distortion, a deviation. We have denoted this distortion, invention, and deflection by the word ‘difference,’ and thus far we have



Notes to P ages –

used the word in its usua l meaning; but we will show that this ‘difference’ operates in the text as ‘difference and deferral’ in the special sense elaborated by Derrida. We have a lready hin ted a t thi s s ense wh en w e demonstr ated tha t Hesiod’s statement impli es th e abs ence of an ‘original’ signified. Truth, which a ccording to Hesiod should be th e source of his song, appears in r eality to be wh olly contained within his logos, inscribed in it: it is like a dubbing w ithout original track, like an imitation of that which is forever absent, like assimilation of an ‘original.’” Ibid., . 12. Or it is also the inspiration of the kings who, with sweet and straight words, address their subjects ( Th. –). 13. Hesiod in f act de fines th e tw o kin ds of poetry as ca tegorically di fferent from ea ch oth er. Pucci’s un derstanding of a lost di vine sour ce of truth tha t inspires di fferent h uman a ttempts a t r eproduction s eems t o be c loser t o Pla to’s hierarchical series of inspired reproductions. As suggested by the metaphor of the magnet in Ion, there i s a hi erarchical relationship between the highest poetr y of the M uses, the inspir ed poetr y of the epic poets, and, finally, the inspir ed performance of the rhapsodes ( Ion d–e). In my view, however, Hesiod’s poetic notion in Theogony cannot r eflect su ch a hi erarchy. As I w ish t o sh ow, Hesiod does not present divine and truthful poetr y with its mer e pale human imitation. Rather, in the preface of Theogony, he elaborates two distinct kinds of poetics. 14. Although H esiod r emains r espectful of the M uses, his a ddress t o th em (W&D –) i s r ather sh ort an d forma l. He a cknowledges th eir in fluence o n human creativity and dedicates to them the tripod he won in th e poetry contest, but hi s gratitude i s ceremonial and religious (W&D –). In thi s poem h e i s a devotee of the Muses, but he does n ot confuse their divine patronage w ith hi s own poetic a uthority. 15. Compare, for example, poetry that aspir es to the divine omnipotent perspective. See Iliad .–. 16. We should notice that Theogony and Works and Days present two different pictures of the r elationship betw een poetr y an d tempor ality. In Theogony, the Muses are associated with the knowledge of the present, leaving the past an d the future for human poetry (Th. –). In Works and Days, Hesiod rivals the Muses’ competence by a llowing human poetr y to dwell in th e present. Nevertheless, we also need to notice that the “present” dealt with by human poetry is different from the one serving as th e subject of divine poetr y. For divine poetr y, the present is, in essence, eternal. It is not part of what appears t o humans as a chr onology, but encapsulates harmonious ly th e di fferent aspects of temporality. In c ontrast, the human poetical form of Works and Da ys is based on th e common identification of the present with the experience of the “now.” 17. Moses Finley, in an ar ticle examining ancient and modern Utopias, distinguishes between Utopia and the myth of the Garden of Eden. While Utopia posits “a goal towards which one may legitimately and hopefully strive,” the myth of the

Notes to P ages –



Garden of Eden pr oduces “various pr imitivistic images which la ck a c oncrete institutional cr iticism.” Accordingly, Finley r eads th e H esiodic Golden Age as sheer fantasy devoid of any reality principle. At the same time, he points to a view shared b y th e m yths of the Golden Age an d U topia—namely, the idea tha t “a world w ithout ev il i s n ot ev en c onceivable.” Finley, “Utopianism Ancient an d Modern,” –. 18. Jean-Pierre Vernant substitutes a structural reading of Hesiod’s myth of the Five Ages for th e chronological one and accordingly argues that the r elationship between the Golden an d Silver Ages i s not di achronic. Rather, “the r ace of silver which is inferior to the race that preceded it exi sts and is defined only in r elation to it. It is on th e same plane as th e race of gold, and is its exa ct counterpart and opposite. Pious rule i s oppos ed by impious rule, and the figure of the king wh o shows respect for dike is contrasted with that of the king who has committed himself to hubris. What s eals th e doom of the r ace of silver i s, in e ffect, their ‘mad immoderation.’” Vernant, “Hesiod’s Myth of the Races,”  (originally publi shed in French in ). His reading, which radically diverges from the usual one, was criticized by J. Defradas in “Le mythe hésiodique des r aces.” However, there is no question that for both Vernant and his critics who read the myth diachronically, the Golden Age represents a perfect an d exemplary mode of being. 19. Criticism of the human tendency to perceive the world as th eir own possession i s a c ommon theme in la ter versions of the Five Ages: e.g., Ovid’s Metamorphoses .–. 20. The Five Ages are the Golden, Silver, Bronze, Heroic, and Iron. The fourth age, that of the g reat h eroes, repeats th e char acteristics of the Golden Age. Like the latter, whose exclusivity is expressed in the nature of its inhabitants and in its limited temporality, the Heroic Age represents an elite club that is temporally and spatially out of reach. 21. Finley, “Utopianism Ancient and Modern,” –. 22. Pierre Vidal-Naquet c ompares H esiod’s m yth of the h uman r aces w ith Homer’s Phaea cia in “Land an d Sa crifice in th e Odyssey” (), reprinted in Schein, ed., Reading the Odyssey, –. 23. In the utopian city of justice, women bear children who are similar to their fathers (W&D ). See Pucci, Hesiod and th e Language of Poetry, , on the resemblance of children to the father as th e mark of the Golden Age. 24. Differences emerge out of disputes between people, but also out of ambiguities of meaning. Consider, for example, the dua l appear ance of the god dess Eris (W&D –). Hesiod distinguishes between a bad Eris and a good on e. The first r epresents the str ife whose or igins ar e envy and g reed; the other r epresents a positive rivalry that encourages creativity, excellence, and prosperity. The double meaning of Eris is not only an example of how human language w orks; it is also crucial t o un derstanding h ow ambiguit y an d di fference ar e inh erent in h uman nature.



Notes to P ages –

25. This is the oppositional characterization that Maria S. Marsilio employs in her discussion of the brothers Hesiod and Perses. See Marsilio, Farming and Poetry in Hesiod’s Works and Da ys, –. 26. This pa ir of oppositions i s suggested an d ana lyzed in Ed wards, Hesiod’s Ascra. 27. Edwards continues (ibid., ): “It is in thi s sense that Works and Days is a didactic poem an d offers instruction.” 28. Polynices and Eteocles are typical rival brothers, but it is not clear whether they ar e tw ins. The q uestion of their di stinctive or iden tical char acter ar ises in Aeschylus’s Seven against Thebes. See especially the way the chorus regards them as having an identical nature: orgen homoios (). In Statius’s Thebaid, the theme of twining i s stru cturally fun damental t o th e epic an d i s th erefore emphasi zed in the context of the brothers’ rivalry. See the introduction and commentary by Charles Stanley Ross in Publius Papinus Statius’s Thebaid. In the following examples I am c oncerned only w ith myths involving identical twins. 29. In Duckworth, ed., The Complete Roman Drama. 30. For a di scussion of the en counter betw een iden tical tw ins as a meeting between c onsciousness an d th e un conscious, see E leanor Winsor Lea ch, “Meam quom formam noscito: Language and Characterization in the Menaechmi.” See also McCarthy, Slaves, Masters, and the Art of Authority in Pl autine Comedy, . 31. But, in f act, the ar rogance of these perfect h uman beings puts th eir Golden Age self-sufficiency in q uestion. Arrogance i s, after a ll, a sig n of human imperfection. 32. Allen, The Dialogues of Plato, vol. , The Symposium. 33. The position of the genitals is made clear from the description in Symposium b–c. 34. The closest human equivalent is probably the experience of being pregnant. 35. For example, Allen, The D ialogues of Plato, :–; Dover, Plato: S ymposium, –. 36. For a psychoanalytical discussion of Aristophanes’ myth that places particular emphasis on th e desire for a lost object, see Brenkman, “The Other and the One,” –. 37. I follo w R. E. Allen’s tr anslation w ith some modi fications. In r egard to paidikon (gen. pl.), I have a ltered Allen’s “beloved” to the mor e specific “darling boy.” For pephukoton, I have changed hi s “who is naturally” to “who would naturally become.” 38. In Works and Da ys the appear ance of the first w oman epit omizes a ll th e new baneful sorrows (kedea lugra, ) by means of which Zeus turns th e blissful human c ondition in to a w retched on e. In a ddition, Hesiod r efers t o th e first woman as a calamity (pema, ), and thereby underscores her transformative role in the history of mankind. Her novel presence in the world marks a crisis: human life ceases to be wha t it ha d been befor e her appearance.

Notes to P ages –



39. This th esis w ould be elabor ated b y Longus in Daphnis and Chl oe, which portrays a lo ve r elationship that r equires the medi ation of techne, since the two lovers di scover themselves to be unable t o function w ithin the instinctive world of nature. C . T S P 1. See the analysis of the Hesiodic female figure in Pucci, Hesiod and the Language of Poetry, –. 2. David K onstan’s stu dy of sexuality in an cient liter ature has sh own h ow conceptions of eros are a lways ti ed to the generic fr amework of the text dea ling with eros. See Konstan, Sexual Symmetry. 3. Hesiod, we should r emember, composes loca l poetr y that i s addressed to a loca l a udience. Moreover, his r efusal t o lea ve hi s o wn f arm for long v oyages cannot be di vorced from his refusal to sing th e praises of heroic navigations, for such themes ar e not a par t of his persona l exper ience (W&D –). The r elationship between sailing and heroic poetry is noted in Rosen, “Poetry and Sailing in Hesiod’s Works and Da ys,” –. 4. On th e poetic di spute betw een H esiod an d Perses, see M arsilio, Farming and Poetry in H esiod’s Works and Da ys, –. 5. Mark G riffith r emarks tha t “the char acter an d beha vior of Perses var y according to the rhetorical point that Hesiod wishes to make.” See Griffith, “Personality in H esiod,” . 6. On the writing tablet as an image of virginity see duBois, Sowing the Body, –. Examining the metaphor of inscription in Aeschylus’s Suppliants, duBois writes (ibid., ): “It i s about th e production of wives from the r aw material of girls. Girls are wild animals, untamed, raw, almost undifferentiated sexually. And they ar e still th eir f ather’s property, that i s, inscribed by their f ather. The proper end of a ‘girl’ is marriage and reproduction, that is, inscription by the husband.” 7. Pucci, Hesiod and th e Language of Poetry, , refers to lines  ff. as aiming t o est ablish c ontrol of the w oman as a figure of difference: “The w oman i s taken inside a man’s house to be changed from an ‘other’ into something like man himself. For teaching her good ways means making h er like man, that is, without any difference.” 8. All translations from Oeconomicus are by Sarah B. Pomeroy; see Pomeroy, Xenophon, Oeconomicus. 9. Pomeroy, ibid., , comments in r egard to this passage that “most upperclass women could probably sing and dance as r equired at religious ceremonies.” She also remarks that Ischomachus’s wife had some kn owledge of reading (.) and of nursing and pharmacology (.). 10. An example of feminine self-moderation, sophrosyne (Oec. .–). 11. Pomeroy, Xenophon, Oeconomicus, , observes that Xenophon is the first to connect female sophrosyne with good a dministration of the household.



Notes to P ages –

12. The husband’s goa l i s likewise achieved, since the educated w ife i s r ecognized as ha ving attained a masculin e understanding (andrike dianoia, Oec. .). Having a masculine understanding does not mean, however, that Ischomachus has created a doubled self or that his wife has turned into a male. She has, rather, partially assimila ted, or bec ome f amiliar w ith, the va lues of masculinity. And w ith this familiarization she is granted a v oice of her own. 13. Ischomachus teaches his wife that man, in contrast to woman, works outside: “I think the god, from the very beginning, designed the nature of woman for the indoor work and concerns and the nature of man for the outdoor work” (Oec. .). The opposition betw een male and female is explained through the opposition betw een outside an d inside, and th en thr ough man’s physical str ength and woman’s complementary weakness. Furthermore, motherhood and the instinctive care of children str engthen th e associ ation of the w oman w ith th e h ome, while the abs ence of such instin cts t ogether w ith ma le agg ressiveness w ould s eem t o corroborate his natural place outdoors (Oec. .). 14. Yet we might regard the marital promise of endowing the wife with responsibility over the household as seductive, much as Hades’ promise that Persephone would bec ome th e q ueen of the un derworld ma y be in dicative of his appea l t o her. 15. The reference to Ischomachus as Xenophon’s alter ego is made by Pomeroy, Xenophon, Oeconomicus, . 16. This betr ayal i s sy mbolically r eenacted in mar riages b y th e depar ture of man and woman from their parents’ homes. 17. Consider tr aditional judgments that associ ate Xenophon’s st yle of writing with simplicit y, purity, honesty, and la ck of artifice: Pomeroy, Xenophon, Oeconomicus, –. 18. See Michel Foucault on thi s passage in The Use of Pleasure, –. 19. Stewart, Art, Desire, and the Body in Ancient Greece, . 20. Stewart (ibid., ) argues that nakedness i s the exclusive sig n of the ma le from the late eighth century on. 21. To Pla utus’s a udience th ese i ssues r eflected a cur rent public deba te o ver the Oppi an la w (  BCE), which r estricted th e luxur y of women’s c ostumes, forbidding th em t o o wn mor e than ha lf an oun ce of gold jew elry an d/or w ear purple-dyed clothing (purpura). See Livy, History of Rome, .. 22. See the discussion of the “Anti-Cosmetic” tradition and the bibliography in Gibson, Ars Amatoria Book , –. 23. Hamilton, The Architecture of Hesiodic Poetry, –. 24. Pandora i s an image of poetry; specifically, her dua lity may be c ompared to the dual effects of poetry—pain and pleasure, memory and forgetfulness—that characterize the voice of Hesiod’s Muses and Homer’s Sirens. On the relationship between Pandora and the Muses, see Pucci, Hesiod and the Language of Poetry, .

Notes to P ages –



On the relationship between the Sirens and the Hesiodic Muses, see Segal, Singers, Heroes, and Gods in th e Odyssey, –. 25. Hurwit, “Beautiful Evil,” –. 26. The jar represents Pandora’s feminine body, and specifically her uterus and genitalia. For a di scussion of the semantic relationship between Pandora and the jar, see Sissa, Greek Virginity, –. 27. Although Aspasia, Pericles’ famous concubine, inspires Socrates to memorize and deliver her funerary speech in Menexenus, it i s not her physical beauty that inspires him so mu ch as h er rhetorical capacity. Yet in h er discussion of the role of the hetaera in classical Athens as an idea l metaphor for epideictic or atory, Laura K. McClure shows how Socrates connects Aspasia’s bodily gestures precisely to her seductive rhetoric. See McClure, Courtesans at Table, . 28. Xenophon’s Socrates, as McClure notices (ibid., ), undermines the goals of the epideictic di scourse by succumbing to the allure of the beautiful. 29. Simon Goldhill n otices th e similar ity betw een th e tw o names, both of which carry a di vine significance: Diotima means a di vine honor, while Theodote means a di vine gift. Goldhill, “The Seduction of the Gaze,” . 30. Archibald A. Day mentions this episode among others that refer to Socrates’ role as an er otic instructor. See Day, The Origins of Latin Love Elegy,  n. . 31. For example, J. J. Pollitt sees Memorabilia . as introducing fourth-century art th eories, but o verlooks th e aesth etic sig nificance of the c onversation w ith Theodote. See Pollitt, The Ancient View of Greek Art, –. Vivienne J. Gray, however, presents the conversation as an integral part of a series of conversations with artists: Gray, The Framing of Socrates, –. See a lso Goldhill, “The Sedu ction of the Gaze,” –. 32. Patricia A. Rosenmeyer ties Theodote’s seductions to her adornments. She emphasizes th e f act tha t it i s Th eodote’s a ttire r ather than h er nak ed body tha t attracts the gaze of others: “It is unclear whether we are meant to imagine her posing nude: she is said to show the painters ‘as much of herself as was right’ [hosa kalos echoi], but Socrates notes that she is polutelos kekosmemenen (..): either ‘sumptuously dressed,’ or ‘adorned [only] with jewelry.’ At the very least, we may imagine her dressed to attract, to seduce.” Rosenmeyer, “(In-)Versions of Pygmalion,” . 33. All translations from Xenophon’s Memorabilia are by Amy L. Bonnette; see Bonnette, Memorabilia. 34. Rosenmeyer, “(In-)Versions of Pygmalion,” , writes that Theodote’s feminine s eductive skill i s the abilit y “to control her own image . . . invent a self to be remembered and admired.” 35. For a di scussion of the politics of the gaze in th e c ontext of Socrates’ encounter with Theodote, see Goldhill, “The Seduction of the Gaze.” 36. Socrates uses conventional hunting metaphors to illuminate the need for an invisible contrivance in th e erotic profession. The f abrication of an undetectable



Notes to P ages –

trap is essential to a su ccessful hunt. By the same token, the amorous net should be craftily designed so that its s eduction will appear to the future lover as a ma tter of sheer impulse or chan ce (..–). 37. Translation by Hugh Tredennick in E. Hamilton and H. Cairns, eds., The Collected Dialogues of Plato. 38. The H esiodic m yth i s pr esent in s everal di alogues. See, for example, the imagery in Philebus of the craftsman’s mixing of pleasure with thought (e), and the associ ation of the cr aftsman w ith Hephaestus (c), which I r ead as a dir ect allusion to the creation of Pandora in Works and Da ys. 39. This point is elaborated in chapter , where I di scuss the wonder Pandora inspires in Hesiod’s Theogony. Plato explicitly acknowledges his debt to Theogony in Phaedrus’s speech in Symposium b. 40. All tr anslations from the Symposium are by Alexander Nehamas and Paul Woodruff; see Nehamas and Woodruff, Plato’s Symposium. 41. See th e opening of the Protagoras (a), where Socr ates i s descr ibed as hunting after th e bea uty of Alcibiades. On th e h unting met aphor in Pla to, see Nussbaum, The Fragility of Goodness, . 42. Alcibiades addresses Socr ates as a w onderful man in Symposium c and refers to his wonderful interiority in a. 43. As Socr ates en ters th e r oom Agathon en treats him: “Socrates, come li e down n ext t o me. Who knows, if I t ouch you, I may ca tch a bit of the w isdom that came t o you under my neighbor’s porch” (Symp. d). 44. Nussbaum, The Fragility of Goodness, . 45. Of course, Platonic dialogues present a diverse picture of this relationship: see Robinson, Plato’s Psychology, . 46. Examining th e sig nificance of Socrates’ body in Phaedo, Nicole Lor aux reads the dialogue “against the grain of the text, or at least its appar ent content.” Loraux, The Ex perience of Tiresias, . Her conclusion i s tha t “Plato i s simult aneously playing on two levels when he proclaims that the body i s nothing, yet he uses the language of the body to speak of the soul.” According to Loraux, the body is the means thr ough which th e immortality of the soul, its ultimate superiority, is commemorated. Although the body s erves the ideology of the soul, it remains in itself an empty sign. 47. “Socrates has appar ently s een, first, that an y t alk of the s elf or person involves talk about both body and soul, and, second, that the relationship between the two is not the crude one of numeral addition and subtraction, but the philosophically mor e r espectable on e of entailment.” Robinson, Plato’s P sychology, . Socrates a cknowledges th e impor tance of bodily bea uty in th e c ontext of his discussion of the philosophica l eros. See N ussbaum, “Eros and E thical N orms,” –. 48. Socrates’ response to the beautiful body of Charmides is strongly physical; see Charmides b, d–e.

Notes to P ages –



49. “His soul, according t o him. In th e flesh-and-blood di scussion, however, Socrates’s s elf has a lot t o do w ith hi s body.” Loraux, The Ex perience of Tiresias, . 50. As Hugo Koning noted to me in a c onversation, the names Theodorus and Pandora are c losely r elated. Introducing th e y oung Th eaetetus, Theodorus r ealizes the act of giving signified by his own name an d the first woman’s. 51. In Hamilton and Cairns, The Collected Dialogues of Plato. 52. See the introduction in N ehamas and Woodruff, Plato’s Symposium, xxiii. 53. David H alperin c onnects Pla tonic eros and ir onic forms of textuality in “Love’s Irony,” –. C . P’ V   E  O’ P P 1. See my analysis of Xenophon’s portrayal of the ideal bride in chapter . 2. Salzman-Mitchell, A Web of Fantasies, . 3. See Goldhill, Language, Sexuality, Narrative. 4. In “The Dynamics of Misogyny: Myth an d M ythmaking in Aeschylus’s Oresteia” and in “The Politics of Eros in th e Danaid Trilogy of Aeschylus,” both reprinted in Playing th e Oth er, –, Froma Zeitlin a ddresses th e q uestion of feminine power in Aeschylus’s trilogies. “The two trilogies, the Oresteia and that of the Danaids, complement one another as var iations on a sing le theme, involving the institution of marriage in Argos and the slaying of husbands in r esponse to the di smissal of woman’s concerns and rights. I have underlined the affinities between Cly temnestra an d th e Dana ids, both of whom deman d kratos for the female.” Playing the Other, . 5. As Zeitlin r emarks (ibid., ): “The por trait of Clytemnestra in th e Agamemnon specifically links h er independence of thought and action w ith a desir e to rule, . . . Clytemnestra begins, in f act, as w oman in charge; as th e ch orus remarks, she i s entitled to rule in th e abs ence of the husband-king ( Ag. –, cf. .).” 6. Denniston and Page, Agamemnon, . 7. Note the affinity of auctor and auctoritas, especially in the context of medieval sch ooling, where an y can onization of a pagan or Chr istian a uthor an d hi s inclusion in the monastic schools’ curricula was a pr oclamation of his auctoritas. 8. See Doherty, Siren Songs, –. I discuss the confrontation between Penelope and Telemachos further in chapter . 9. McCarthy, Slaves, Masters, and the Art of Authority in Pl autine Comedy, . 10. On th e cha in of illusions in Miles Gl oriosus, see Lev K enaan, “Truth an d Appearance in R oman Comedy,” –. 11. Slavitt and Bovie, eds., Plautus: The Comedies, vol. . 12. Sharon L. James w rites: “Thus we can s ay not only tha t the puella herself is elegy but that she creates it, for without her specific yet generic character (named



Notes to P ages –

or n ot), Roman lo ve eleg y cann ot exi st. The puella herself is th e eleg iac Muse.” James, Learned Girls and M ale Persuasion, . 13. The image of the woman as th e poet’s source of inspiration is part of the process of the secularization of the Muse in Roman literature. See Spentzou, “Secularizing the Muse,” –. 14. See Alison Shar rock on th e image of the Muse as a wh ore and a god dess in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, and specifically her reference to Ovid’s amatory poetry: “In th e ama tory poetr y, the M use i s a s exy an d passi ve eleg iac puella, who i s courted, desired, fought, and rejected.” Sharrock, “An A-musing Tale,” . 15. Catullus a ddresses th e poet Caecilius as tener poe ta (.), while Ov id names Propertius tener (AA .); cf. Martial .., teneri Catulli. Ovid also uses tener to characterize love poetry: teneri modi (Am. ..), teneri versus (AA .); and in Tristia . he us es tener to r efer t o both th e form an d c ontent of love poetry: denique composui teneros non s olus amores (“moreover, I was not alone in composing tender loves”). 16. Kennedy, The A rts of Love, . See a lso Wyke, “Reading F emale Flesh: Amores .,” –; Miller, Subjecting Verses, –. 17. On the effeminate persona of Propertius, see Jasper Griffin’s discussion of the resemblance between his persona an d that of the effeminate Antony: Griffin, Latin Poets and Roman Life, –; see also Gold, “‘But Ariadne Was Never There in the First Pla ce,’” –. 18. Maria Wyke provides a stimulating analysis of the development of the study of gender play in Roman love elegy by pointing to changes in feminist approaches to the genre: Wyke, “Taking the Woman’s Part,” –. 19. In contrast to those treatments that completely identify Roman love elegy with the traditional male rhetoric of desire. Paul Veyne, in Roman Erotic Elegy, , analyzes the genre as the discourse of the egocentric male lover; Alison Sharrock, in “Womanufacture,” –, argues that the Ovidian Pygmalion narrative, the story of the creation of a woman as th e male artist’s object of desire, offers a par adigmatic myth for th e discourse of love elegy. See also Wyke’s discussion in “Taking the Woman’s Part,” –. 20. Wyke, “Taking the Woman’s Part,” ; Kennedy, The Arts of Love, –. 21. An ana lysis of the di scourse of effeminacy in R oman cultur e w ith an emphasis on the various uses of mollitia (“softness”) is provided by Edwards, The Politics of Immorality in Ancient Rome, –; Corbeill, “Dining Deviants in Roman Political Invective,” –; Williams, Roman Homosexualities, –. More relevant to our discussion are the treatments of effeminate rhetoric in the Roman love elegy; cf. Wyke, “Taking the Woman’s Part,” –. 22. Kennedy, The Arts of Love, –. 23. As Judith Hallett argues in her seminal article: “The amatory elegists, or at least th eir liter ary personae, speak on beha lf of the people wh ose ic onoclastic actions ultimately struck Augustus as threatening. They constitute what present-day

Notes to P ages –



social historians would call a ‘counter-culture.’” Hallett, “The Role of Women in Roman Elegy,” . 24. As Wyke remarks in “Taking the Woman’s Part” (): “The self-presentation of elegy’s male ego as a mor ally depraved effeminate could be r ead, for example, as leg itimating the mor al programme of Augustus by marking out pr ecisely the kind of behaviour which was th ought to require reform.” 25. Kennedy, The Arts of Love, . 26. Wyke, “Taking the Woman’s Part,” . 27. In Wyke’s words (ibid., –): “At the very least, the first-person confession of the effeminacy of both elegy’s erotics and poetics k eeps the conventional gender categories of Augustan Rome constantly in pla y in thi s genre.” 28. Miller, Subjecting Verses, . 29. Ibid., . Elsewhere () he describes Propertius’s discourse as feminin e. 30. The reference i s to ., ., ., and .; see Miller, Subjecting Verses, . 31. “Propertius i s a w oman beca use hi s subject position cann ot be pr ecisely located in an y one spot w ithin conventional Roman ideological space.” Ibid. 32. Ibid., . 33. Ibid., , . 34. Frustrated by the absence of female subjectivity in the effeminate discourse of Propertius’s eleg ies, Wyke un derscores th e positi ve pr esentation of the feminine in hi s four th book, which, compared w ith the first thr ee, is mor e attentive to the feminine for its o wn sake. More specifically, Wyke mentions the elegies in which th e speak er t akes a feminin e r ole an d assumes a feminin e v oice: “Taking the Woman’s Part,” –. 35. Although Ovid does not mention Menander by name in Ars  (cuive pater vafri luditur ar te Getae; “or [let him be kn own to you] whose Father i s deceived by the crafty Geta’s art”), the name “Geta” is typical of a Roman comic role, and the reference to comedy should be speci fically understood in r elation to Menander. As his characterization in Amores ..– shows, Ovid sees Menander as the main influence on Roman comedies: dum fallax servus, durus pater, improba lena vivent et meretrix blanda, Menandros erit (“As long as th e cunning s lave, the firm father, the indecent procuress, and the blandishing lover ar e a live, so i s Menander”). For the relevant text and commentary, see Gibson, Ars Amatoria Book , . 36. Philip Hardie comments on Ovid’s exceptional fondness for catalogues: “of all La tin poets, Ovid i s th e most persi stent an d th e most in ventive in hi s us e of lists of various kinds.” Hardie, “The H esiodic Catalogue of Women and La tin Poetry,” . 37. It is interesting that Amores is introduced by a pr efatory epigram carrying a s elf-derogatory mess age: “Nowhere els e in th e Amores, or in an y oth er w orks written befor e hi s exile, does h e [Ov id] expr ess su ch a depr eciatory opinion of his poetic t alent, even in hi s obviously ironic way.” McKeown, Ovid, Amores, vol. , A Commentary on B ook One, .



Notes to P ages –

38. Richard Tarrant seems to support the argument that Amores reflects Ovid’s poetic development. He writes that “if . originally concluded the fifth book of Amores by celebrating Ovid’s achievement as a love elegist, its less prominent place in th e thr ee-book r evision r eflects th e g rowth of Ovid’s poetic ambitions. ” Tarrant, “Ovid and Ancient Literary History,” . 39. Amores ..: atque a s ollicito multus amante l egar (“and may I be often read by the anxious lo ver”). 40. Amores ..–: vilia miretur vulgus; mihi flavus Apollo / po cula Castalia plena minister aqua (“Let the crowd admire what is useless; for me, however, may Apollo serve cups filled with Castalian water”). 41. Gibson, Ars Amatoria Book , –. 42. Rem. , , , . 43. The fact that both men and women are told in Remedia to keep away from the poetr y recommended exclusively for w omen in Ars  suggests that this reading list applies equally to men. 44. Comedy an d tr agedy mig ht ha ve a danger ous e ffect on br oken-hearted viewers, as Ovid suggests in hi s counsel to avoid the dr amatic shows (Rem. – ): illic adsidue ficti saltantur amantes: / q uid caveas, actor, quid iuvet, arte docet (“There fictitious lovers are all the time portrayed in dance. The actor teaches you how pleasing is the thing you must avoid”). A. A. R. Henderson understands lines – to refer exclusively to pantomime. However, singing, dancing, and instrumental music were typical of other kinds of performances as well. Moreover, love stories were not restricted to pantomime; they were also part of the stock of tragic and comic themes. Henderson, P. Ovidi Nasonis Remedia Amoris. 45. Episodes c oncerning aban doned an d mi serable h eroines ma y ha ve been thought to belong t o that category of dangerous poetr y that the lovesick should shun. Readers consumed by extreme passions mig ht identify with the experience of Virgil’s Dido an d Varro’s Medea. 46. Ovid di scloses hi s in tention t o mo ve on t o explor e oth er kin ds of writing (Rem. ): et capiunt animi car mina multa mei (“my thoughts contain many poems”). On Ovid and the end of the Roman love elegy, see Gian Biagio Conte’s remark tha t “a w ork su ch as th e Remedia, teaching h ow t o h eal oneself of love, represents th e extr eme dev elopment of love poetr y an d br ings t o a sy mbolic close th e br ief period of its in tense exi stence.” Conte, Latin Liter ature: A H istory, . 47. Consider the way Horace di stinguishes Sappho’s love poetr y from that of Alcaeus in Ode ..–. Her uniqueness li es in h er extr emely v ivid form of expression (.): spirat adhuc amor / v ivuntque comissi cal ores / Aeoliae fidibus puellae. (“her love still br eathes and the passions of the Aeolic g irl live on en trusted to her Lyre”). See the discussion of Horace ..– in Ancona, “The Untouched Self,” . 48. See Tarrant, “Ovid and Ancient History,” ; Jacobson, Heroides, –.

Notes to P ages –



49. “In order to make sense of this fact, we must first realize how strange it is. Of course, real women in Ov id’s day obviously did w rite letters an d some ev en wrote poetr y; but the woman w riter was n ot a v ery w idespread phenomenon in ancient liter ary cultur e, certainly n ot on e tha t w e c ould r egard as n ormative or paradigmatic.” Farrel, “Reading and Writing the Heroides,” . 50. Ibid., . 51. In this respect, the relationship between Ovid’s and Sappho’s literary identities i s especi ally per tinent t o th e r eading of her letter. For di scussions of this question s ee H arvey, “Ventriloquizing Sapph o, or th e Lesbi an M use,” –; Rimell, “Epistolary Fictions,” ; Lindheim, Mail and F emale, –. 52. Lindheim, Mail and F emale, –. 53. DuBois, Sappho Is Burning, ; see also Joan DeJean’s interpretation of the passage in Longinus in which she discusses Sappho’s poetics: DeJean, “Fictions of Sappho,” –. 54. Greene, ed., Re-Reading Sappho. 55. On Athenian comedy’s interest in Sapph o as an ins atiable lover, see Most, “Reflecting Sappho,” . 56. See her discussion of this passage in Mail and F emale, . 57. Text and tr anslation in Campbell, Greek Lyric, vol. , Sappho and Alcaeus, –. 58. Henry, Prisoner of History, . 59. Ibid., –. 60. On this tradition, see Kahn, Plato and th e Socratic Dialogue, –. 61. Plato, Phaedrus b–c. DuBois, Sappho Is Burning, –, persuasively shows how Socrates’ description of erotic symptoms echoes Sappho’s poetry. 62. Campbell, Greek Lyric, :–. 63. See Holt N. Parker’s di scussion of the fema le authorial voice tr aditionally associated with ancient sex handbooks: “Love’s Body Anatomized,” –. 64. Diotima’s vocabulary converts the Hesiodic terminology for sexual longing (pothos, W&D ; himeros, Th. ). 65. Halperin, “Why Is Diotima a Woman?” –. Note Halperin’s prefatory statement ( ): “Plato c learly means us t o notice tha t Diotima’s conceptualization of eros derives from a speci fically ‘feminine’ perspective.” See also Cavarero, In Spite of Plato, –. 66. Henry, Prisoner of History, –. 67. See, for example, Socrates an d C ritobulus’s di scussion of friendship in Xenophon’s Memorabilia ..–, where Socr ates remarks (..) that knowing what a good ma tchmaker is makes Aspasia a philosophica l source of wisdom. 68. See my discussion of Socrates’ eros in chapter . 69. In r eference t o Varro’s f amous tr eatment of Jason and Medea in th e Argonautae, not to mention his neoteric love elegies: Propertius ..–. 70. Wills, “Sappho  and Catullus ,” –; Itzkowitz, “On the Last St anza



Notes to P ages –

of Catullus ,” –; Segal, “Otium and Eros,” –; O’Higgins, “Sappho’s Splintered Tongue,” –. 71. See R onnie Ancona’s in tertextual r eading of Horace’s Ode ., in which she shows how both Sappho and Catullus function as Horace’s “Muses”: Ancona, “The Untouched Self,” –. 72. Propertius has only one allusion to Sappho (..): a reference to Cynthia’s poetic talents describes her as pla ying the “Aeolian lyre” (aeolio plecto). He refers to Sapph o w ithout a ctually naming h er. His a llusion impli es a s ecluded fema le discourse: she i s, in oth er w ords, a fema le a uthor wh ose a udience i s c omposed exclusively of women. Sappho i s h ence in cluded w ith oth er fema le poets, like Corinna and Errina, who inspire his Cynthia. 73. Ovid’s homage to Sappho is characteristic of Hellenistic culture and atypical of the Roman poets. In the latter literary tradition, Sappho has not been canonized. She is absent, for example, from Quintilian’s list of recommended authors in Book  of his Institutio Oratoria. 74. Even Catullus, who emulates, translates, and Romanizes Sappho, does not mention h er dir ectly b y name, except in .–: Sapphica puell a Musa do ctior. Here, too, Sapphica Musa is mentioned in th e context of female education. 75. Sappho is often pr esented as an inspir ing model for edu cated women who read or w ish to compose poetry. See Hemelrijk, Matrona Docta, –. 76. The elder Seneca refers to Ovid’s lack of self-restraint (Controv. ..). See Lowell Edmunds’s comment on thi s passage in Intertextuality and th e Reading of Roman Poetry, . 77. Disrespect t oward lo ve poetr y i s c ommon among R oman a uthors. Discussing Cicero’s reading habits, Seneca (Ep. .) attributes to him th e following statement: “Even if his lifetime were doubled he would not have time to read the lyric poets” (Negat Cicero, si duplicetur sibi ae tas, habiturum se te mpus, quo l egat lyricos). Horace’s Ars P oetica provides an argumentum ex sil entio for th e lo wer status of love eleg y. On thi s v ery i ssue s ee N iall Rudd’s c omment tha t “looking back over the literary discourse one notices that when it speaks of specific genres it mentions tr agedy, comedy, epic, and choral poetr y, but not love eleg y.” Rudd, Horace: Epistles and Epistl e to th e Pisones (Ars Poetica), . 78. Butler, The Institutio Oratoria of Quintilian. 79. Alexander Dalzell uses this term as w ell: “What this means is that the ideal reader of the Ars is someone who is prepared to be sh ocked, or at least someon e who will take delight in th e thought that other readers will be sh ocked.” Dalzell, The Criticism of Didactic Poetry, . I agree with Dalzell () that Ovid’s desire to shock does not align him with Propertius’s anti-Augustan tendencies. Ovid’s shocking style, which is also apparent in his epic, Metamorphoses, is not strictly political. It emerges first of all from an aesth etic intention—one that has a politica l effect. 80. “Ovid mak es hi s poem s afe b y s ending r espectable w omen a way. That’s all right: once the virgins and matrons have gone we can get on w ith the fun. But

Notes to P ages –



real and implied readers are not so easily divided. Do the critics who accept these disclaimers a t f ace va lue r eally think tha t an y r espectable w oman r eading th e poem would now put it do wn as instructed? Of course not.” Sharrock, “Ovid and the Politics of Reading,” . For a different view of the identity of the love elegy’s puella, see James, Learned Girls and Male Persuasion, which argues that the elegist’s beloved is an in dependent courtesan. 81. Many pass ages in Ars Amatoria clearly r efute Ov id’s dec laration tha t hi s guide is not intended for mar ried women or tha t it does n ot encourage adultery. See Dalzell, The Criticism of Didactic Poetry, . 82. Ovidius ut roque l ascivior, says Quin tilian ( Inst...), comparing Ov id with Propertius and Tibullus. 83. Edmunds pr ovides a di fferent ana lysis of this term, based ma inly on th e ancient reception of the Metamorphoses. According to him, Quintilian and other Roman a uthors c onceive of Ovid’s lasci viousness as an expr ession of a st ylistic weakness—in this case the poet’s love of diversity in matters of genre and theme: see Edmunds, Intertextuality and th e Reading of Roman Poetry, –. 84. But Ovid has hi s own limitations. For example, he does not consider himself impudent or immun e to shame. If indecency is evidenced in hi s erotic writing, it is certainly not on th e level of the explicitly s exual or pornographic. Thus, the passage from Remedia Amoris that addresses his critics is actually a digression that occurs befor e Ov id commences a di scussion on s exual aversion techniques. Ovid suggests that this discussion embarrasses him (Rem. –): Multa quidem ex illis pudor est mihi dicer e; sed tu / I ngenio verbis conc ipe p lura me is (“About much of these, though, I am ashamed t o speak; therefore, use y our in telligence and imagine more than I s ay”). C . F S   S-C T 1. Karen Bassi explores the significance of the figure of Pandora for the palinode in “Helen and the Discourse of Denial in Stesich orus’ Palinode,” –. 2. The first cha llenge t o Ov id’s lo ve eleg y ar ises in th e c ontext of medieval poetry an d, in par ticular, the poetr y of Baudri of Bourgueil. Studies b y P eter Dronke and Gerald A. Bond have shown that the medieval Ovidian tradition was in no way restricted to an allegorical form of thought. Assuming an Ovidian persona enabled Ba udri to make a pla ce for th e erotic that was oth erwise forbidden in leg itimate liter ary w riting. See Dr onke, Medieval Writers of the M iddle Ages, –; Bond, “Composing Yourself,” –; Bond, The Loving Subject, –. 3. One can expla in the r elationship between Ov id’s erotodidactic works and the Latin love elegy by means of an analogy to the effect of Aristotle’s Poetics on Greek tragedy. Aristotle’s treatise attempts to capture, and hence permanently fix, the very essence of the tragic form. Such aspirations obstruct the generic flexibility necessary to the continuation of the tragic genre.



Notes to P ages –

4. Conte, Genres and R eaders, . 5. Ibid., . 6. Alison Shar rock, in Seduction and R epetition in O vid’s Ars Amatoria II, specifically for egrounds the levels of seduction in Ov id’s guides, finding var ious levels of readerships being gen dered by Ovid’s writing. See also J. C. McKeown’s  commentary on Amores ., in which Ov id explicitly st acks up di fferent categories of reader for hi s elegies. 7. Ovid en courages hi s r eaders t o w rite lo ve letters in th e st yle of Heroides (AA .–). 8. In Amores . Ovid demonstr ates th e poet ’s hig h pr estige as a lo ver b y means of a c onfrontation betw een eques and poeta. In Book  of Ars Amatoria, the figure of the poet is again thrust into competition with other professional men over who i s the better lo ver. The var ied professional options in clude the ster eotypes of the wealthy man, the lawyer, and the rhetorician (AA .–). 9. For a di scussion of sincerity see Lionel Trilling, Sincerity and Authenticity. 10. Barthes, A Lover’s Discourse, trans. Richard Howard, . 11. Veyne, Roman Erotic Elegy (), is a translation of L’èlégie érotique romaine. 12. See, for example, Conte’s chapter on Ov id’s erotodidactic works in Genres and Readers, –; Sharrock, “Ovid and the Discourses of Love,” –. 13. Ovid’s amatory poetry has thus remained levis, “light.” His self-description in Amores is no less r esponsible for impr inting the playful and insincere char acter of his amatory poetry (Am. ..–): sum levis, et mecum l evis est, mea cura, / non sum mater ia for tior ipsa mea. / r ustica sit sine me l ascivi mater Amoris. (“I am light, and Cupid, my poetic concern, is light as well; / I myself am not stronger than my own subject ma tter. / But, without me, the mother of lascivious Amor would be rustic”). 14. Exceptional tr eatments of Ovid’s dida cticism ar e Do wning, “AntiPygmalion,” –; Kennedy, “Bluff Your Way in Dida ctic,” –. 15. See Conte’s cr itical r esponse to Veyne’s work on eleg y: “But it i s certainly extreme, and in th e final ana lysis mi staken, to s ay that eleg y ‘is a pleas antry’ (p. ), ‘a playful li e, that everything in it i s a pla yful s emblance w ithout a tr ace of irony or harshn ess’ (p. ), that ‘only one thing i s lacking: emotion’ (p. ), that it is a ‘playful paradox’ (p. : if so, then just as a ll literature is).” Conte, Genres and Readers,  n. . 16. Consider, for example, A. S. Hollis’s obs ervation on th e hi storically poor reputation of Ars Amatoria: “Until r ecently th e Ars Amatoria has been mor e or less taboo, and conspicuously absent from school and university classical courses. As a r esult man y liter ate n on-specialists c onsider it a v ery na ughty poem; they cannot be blamed for thi s opinion wh en pr ofessional sch olars have thr own out such c omments as ‘shameless c ompendium of profligacy’ or ‘va de mecum in wantonness.’” In th e ear ly s, Hollis’s c omplaint about c onservative r eadings was not entirely mi splaced. Hollis, “The Ars Amatoria and Remedia Amoris,” .

Notes to P ages –



See also Malcolm Heath’s statement in “Hesiod’s Didactic Poetry,” –, that “no one suppos es that Ov id r eally w rote hi s poem in or der to instruct the youth of Rome in tha t art” (). 17. See Kenney, “Nequitiae poe ta,” –; Leach, “Georgic I magery in th e Ars Amatoria,” –; Henderson, P. Ovidi Nasonis Remedia Amoris. 18. Dalzell, The Criticism of Didactic Poetry, , see also –. For treatments of Ovid’s ama tory dida ctic poetr y as “pseudo-didactic par odies” or as “didactic jokes,” see for example A. S. Hollis, Ovid: Ars Amtoria I, xvi. Cf. Hollis, “The Ars Amatoria and Remedia Amoris,” ; and Otis, Ovid as an Epic P oet, . 19. The dich otomy betw een th e us eful an d th e pleasur able i s w ell a ttested— for example, in the demand for an absolute s eparation between voluptas and honestas raised by Cicero’s didactic treatise De Officiis .: Nam ut utilitatem nullam esse docuimus, quae honestat i esse t cont raria, sic omnem voluptate m dic imus honestati esse cont rariam (“I ha ve t aught tha t th ere i s n othing us eful in tha t which is c ontrary t o th e h onorable, similarly I s ay tha t a ll pleasur e i s c ontrary t o th e honorable”). And see Seneca’s De Vita Beata ., which defines pleasure, in opposition t o th e sublime v irtue, as something lo wly ( humile), servile ( servile), weak (imbecillum), and perishable (caducum) that dwells in br othels and taverns. 20. One long-time controversy within Ovidian scholarship concerns the specific nature of Ovid’s field of instruction: extramarital relationships and wanton loves. Do the love guides address the love affairs of married women, or of socially inferior unmarried ones—for example, courtesans? Either way, Ovid seems, by Roman standards, to ha ve been dea ling w ith a marg inal, if not illicit, topic. Gordon Williams was th e first t o argu e tha t th e lo ve eleg y’s w omen ar e of some soci al standing, and most pr obably married. See Williams, Tradition and Or iginality in Roman Poetry, , and, specifically on Ars, his Change and Decline, –. Sharon James, in Learned Gir ls and M ale Persuasion, returns to the identification of the elegiac women as pr ostitutes. 21. For the full r eference to Cicero’s view, see chapter , n. . 22. Nussbaum, The Therapy of Desire, . 23. Conte, Genres and R eaders, . 24. Conte, ibid., , considers the view of Remedia as a form of palinode to be the most typical misunderstanding shared by Ovid’s readers. And see Peter Green, who argues that Ov id’s c laim not to be w riting a pa linode (Rem. –)—nec te, blande puer, nec nostras prodimus ar tes, / nec nova pr aeteritum Musa retexit opus (“I do n ot betr ay y ou n or m y o wn ar ts; / thi s n ew M use does n ot unr avel m y past w ork”)—means tha t h e expected hi s cr itical r eaders “to t ag him w ith th e ‘palinode th eory.’” In G reen, “Commentary of Ovid,” in The Erotic Poems (New York: Penguin, ), . 25. While Diotima c onstructs the metaphysical goal as th e climax of the philosopher’s erotic biography, that endpoint is governed by the same principle regulating the entire course of the lover’s life. In this sense, Ovid is influenced by the



Notes to P ages –

Platonic lo ver wh ose r eadiness t o un dertake th e ultima te met aphysical st age i s conditioned by hi s f amiliarity w ith the form of transcendence underlying a su ccession of erotic exper iences delin eated b y th e la dder of love. See Lev K enaan, “Platonic Strategies in Ov id’s Ars Amatoria and Remedia Amoris.” 26. This poin t ma y bec ome c learer if we think of the uniq ueness of Ovid’s transformational narrative in contradistinction to the paradigmatic neo-Platonic, Christian narrative of conversion that we find, for example, in Augustine’s Confessions. The Confessions is the narration of a self whose present becomes meaningful only through a critical review of the past—and specifically through a recognition of one’s past as flawed. This happens on ce the tr ansition from past t o present i s perceived t o be a pr ocess of repair and mending of old wa ys. In thi s s ense, the Augustinian biog raphical nar rative assumes th e form of an ass ertion—a mor al assertion, primarily—of the pr esent o ver, and aga inst, the past. See Vered Lev Kenaan, “The Contribution of Ars and Remedia to the Development of Autobiographical Fiction.” 27. Ovid i s f amiliar w ith th e tr aditional image of the s eductive, modest maiden. An earlier textual example tha t explores the ambiguity and deception of the seductive virgin is the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite, in which Aphrodite plays the par t of a h elpless ma iden in or der t o s educe Anchises, since thi s image i s appealing to men. Ann Bergren ties Aphrodite’s disguise to the image of Pandora in par ticular an d t o feminin e s exuality in gen eral. See Berg ren, “The H omeric Hymn to Aphrodite,” –. 28. Freud, Letter t o M arie Bonapar te, quoted in J ones, The Life and Work of Sigmund F reud, . For a di scussion of Freud’s f amous q uestion, see F elman, What Does a Woman Want? 29. See J. H. Blok, “Sexual Asymmetry, –; Lardinois and McClure, eds., Making Silence Speak, –. 30. “For the feminine, the act of defloration represents a truly mysterious bond between end and beginning, between ceasing to be and entering upon real life. To experience ma idenhood, womanhood, and nasc ent moth erhood in on e, and in this tr ansformation to plumb th e depths of her own existence: this is given only to woman, and only as long as it r emains open t o the archetypal background of life.” Neuman, Amor and P syche, . 31. The thir d option, which pr esents r ape as th e hid den aspir ation of its victim, is a ha ckneyed timew orn ma le pr ejudice tha t can be tr aced ba ck t o Herodotus. Relating the Persian view of relations between the sexes, the historian mentions the kidnapping (that is, the rape) of the virgins Io, Europa, and Medea: “Up t o thi s point it was only r ape on both sides, one from th e oth er; but from here on, say th e Persians, the G reeks w ere g reatly t o blame. For th e G reeks, say they, invaded Asia befor e ev er th e P ersians in vaded E urope: It i s th e w ork of unjust men, we think, to carry off women at all; but once they have been car ried off, to take seriously the avenging of them is the part of fools, as it i s the part of

Notes to P ages –



sensible men t o pa y n o h eed t o th e ma tter: clearly, the w omen w ould n ot ha ve been carried off had they no mind to be.” The History ., trans. David Grene. 32. “The poem ma y be marking a change of identity or K ore’s acquisition of new powers as goddess of the underworld by using the name Persephone,” Helen P. Foley suggests: see her commentary and tr anslation in The Homeric Hymn to Demeter, . 33. In G reek m ythology th e n ymphs r epresent elemen ts of nature, such as rivers, springs, and for ests. One of the de finitions of the G reek w ord nymph is “virgin,” or, in other words, a g irl r ipe for mar riage. In Latin, nymphe is r elated to th e v erb nubere, “to mar ry.” For mor e on th e r ole of the n ymphs in G reek mythology see Dowden, The Uses of Greek Mythology, –. 34. A comprehensive di scussion of this subject can be foun d in Zeitlin, “The Dynamics of Misogyny,” and “The P olitics of Eros in th e Dana id T rilogy of Aeschylus,” both in h er Playing the Other. 35. For a di scussion of virginity from the perspective of ancient medicine, see the stu dy b y Aline R ousselle, who cites th e pass age fr om H ippocrates q uoted above: Rousselle, Porneia: On D esire and th e Body in Antiquity, –. 36. Ibid., . 37. Aeschylus, The S uppliants, trans. Janet Lembk e; Dowden, Death and th e Maiden, examines the concept of the death marriage in G reek mythology. 38. Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound, trans. James Scully an d C.J. Herington. 39. The mother-daughter intimacy serves only as a backdrop for the narrative’s main action, which i s the break, or s eparation, that i s forced upon both moth er and daughter, and w ill ultimately compel both of them to r epress their or iginal relationship in f avor of a new one. See also Catullus .–. 40. This is also the source of the traditional custom of carrying the bride over the thr eshold of the young couple’s h ome, symbolizing h er abdu ction from h er parents’ home. Plutarch anchors thi s custom in R oman cultur e and interprets it as a memor ial gestur e t o th e abdu ction of the Sabine w omen in an cient Rome. “And it c ontinues to be th e custom down to the present time tha t the bride shall not of herself cross the threshold into her new home, but be lifted up an d carried in, because the Sabine women were carried in by force, and did not go in of their own accord.” Plutarch, Romulus ., in Plutarch’s Lives, trans. Bernadotte Perrin. 41. On th e moth er-daughter r elationship s ee F oley, The H omeric H ymn to Demeter, –. 42. Campbell, Greek Lyric, vol. , Sappho and Alcaeus. 43. Her narrative, for example, is not identical with the story we heard in th e narrator’s first v ersion. Thus, the poet descr ibes in – how H ades g ives h er the pomegranate seed that guarantees her return to the underworld, while Persephone’s account at – provides a di fferent emphasis: the husband forced her to ea t th e pomeg ranate s eed aga inst h er w ill. She wan ts h er moth er t o per ceive her as an inn ocent and victimized virgin. See also Foley, ibid., .



Notes to P ages –

44. Foley w rites in h er c ommentary (ibid., ): “In thi s pass age P ersephone acquires an ar ticulate voice (be yond a cr y for h elp) in th e nar rative for th e first time; this may affirm that she has a cquired an a dult role and a par tial independence from both H ades and her mother.” 45. Feminist r eaders s ee P ersephone’s duplicit y as a dir ect c onsequence of her dua l role as da ughter and w ife: “For Irigaray, Persephone r epresents divided femininity only partially captured by patriarchy, a paradoxical being who is never alone, ‘immortally and never mor e a v irgin but inhabits tw o mutua lly exclusive domains as h er moth er’s da ughter as w ell as h er h usband’s w ife. Hence, Persephone bec omes an inscrut able, potentially dec eptive figure, never fully kn own, who inhabits, insofar as sh e has a s elf, an ambiguous space between two powerful presences.” Foley, The Homeric Hymn to D emeter, . 46. The Ov idian P roserpina r ecalls an other feminin e ar chetype, Semonides’ woman of the s ea. Among th e ten t ypes of women, the s ea w oman i s di stinguished by her double na ture; like the sea, she is tossed from calm to storminess and v ice v ersa. This duplicit y ti es h er t o Persephone/Proserpina an d in turn t o Pandora. As Nicole Loraux writes: “With her affability and rage, the woman of the sea r eminds us of the double na ture of Pandora, made of deceitful s eduction.” Loraux, Children of Athena, –. C . P’ T 1. For met aphors of weaving as text in th e G reek an d R oman w orld, see Scheid and Svenbro, The Craft of Zeus, –. 2. Trans. Benjamin Jowett. In Hamilton and Cairns, eds., Statesman, b–e. Plato emplo ys th e met aphor of weaving t o explica te th e pr inciples of various activities, such as instru ction in r eading, the ar t of interpretation, and politica l activity. 3. Homer never presents his own poetry as an ar t (techne), and certainly not as weaving. See Finkelberg, The Birth of Literary Fiction in Ancient Greece, . 4. Bergren, “Language and the Female in Early Greek Thought,” –; Snyder, “The Web of Song,” . 5. See Whitman, Homer and th e Heroic Tradition, . 6. See Salzman-Mitchell, A Web of Fantasies. 7. The rhetorical significance of unweaving is also employed by Cicero (Acad. .) and Virgil (Aen. .). 8. Arachne pr ovides Ov id w ith an image of an illeg itimate ar tist. I w ill mention only a few in terpretations of this much-discussed epi sode, focusing on Arachne’s weaving as standing in for Ovid’s poetics: Albrecht, Roman Epic, –; Lev K enaan, “Silent I mages,” –; Oliensis, “The P ower of Image-Makers,” –. 9. On Philomela’s weaving see Joplin, “The Voice of the Shuttle Is Ours,” – ; Marder, “Disarticulated Voices,” –; Heffernan, Museum of Words, –.

Notes to P ages –



10. Hine, Ovid’s Heroines. 11. Linda Kauffman writes: “Through such signs, the heroine transmits a par t of herself, the corporeal, to the textual. . . . Tears thus indicate the disproportion between wha t i s sig nified an d th e means of signifying. Throughout amor ous discourse, the h eroine g lorifies h er tears, her h eart, her t ongue, her body as authentic registers of her emotions. . . . Writing comes to signify her life’s blood, illustrating her identification of her body w ith the text.” Kauffman, Discourses of Desire, –. 12. This th eme became par t of a long liter ary tr adition in which th e n otion of a text t akes on a bodily form an d appears, typically in th e c ontext of love literature, as a persona l object. Hence, the letter, the book, or the diary becomes an animate object tha t personifies the w riter’s suffering. In thi s context, we may briefly r ecall th e in teresting example of Boccaccio’s La dy Fi ammetta, who explicitly continues the Ov idian tr adition, addressing her own book in th e following manner: “O dear little book of mine, snatched from the near bur ial of your lady, here it i s tha t y our en d has c ome mor e q uickly than tha t of our mi sfortunes, as i s m y w ish; therefore, just as y ou ha ve been w ritten b y m y o wn han d and in many places damaged by my tears, present yourself to women in love. . . . You sh ould be g lad t o sh ow y ourself similar t o m y di sposition, which i s so very unhappy tha t it c lothes you in mi sery, as it does me. ” Causa-Steindler and Mauch, eds. and tr ans., The El egy of Lady Fiam metta, . Fiammetta’s book i s a c ontainer of tears and emotions. It i s a mir ror of her soul. At th e s ame time, the w ork’s pla inly dr essed and uncombed appear ance r eflects La dy Fi ammetta’s own body. The text i s stru ctured as a s elf, tied, as it i s in Ov id, to Boc caccio’s conception of the feminin e na ture of writing. For Boc caccio, the iden tification between a uthor an d text i s ess entially feminin e. In cr eating a pr otagonist wh o is a fema le w riter, he i s, in f act, creating a w ork tha t bears th e char acter of its writer. I suggest that Boccaccio’s debt to Ovid goes beyond generic form and even beyond the specific choice of writing under a feminine guise. In my view, the ingenuity of both Ov id an d Boc caccio does n ot li e simply in cr eating sophi sticated female personas but, rather, in acknowledging the feminine character of the text— any text. 13. Lev Kenaan, “Fabula Anilis,” –. 14. On plain weaving as oppos ed to figured weaving, see Heffernan, Museum of Words, . 15. The plain weaver symbolizes a conformist type of femininity that complies with gen der c onstraints. Andromache in th e Iliad (.–) an d P enelope in the Odyssey (.–) ar e both n onrepresentational w eavers wh ose w eaving i s metaphorically ti ed t o th eir f aithfulness as w ives. Penelope’s cas e i s mor e in teresting and illuminating, for while she is a cunning weaver, as the etymological pun on her name suggests, she nevertheless preserves the image of the ideal wife. She is not a mimetic ar tist; she is a pla in weaver; and in thi s sense her artisanship in



Notes to P ages –

itself does not make her an ar tist. On Penelope as a cunning w eaver, see FelsonRubin, “Penelope’s Perspective,” –, esp. –. 16. Trans. Mary Lefk owitz an d M aureen F ant, Women’s Life in G reece and Rome, . 17. On H elen’s w eb s ee Berg ren, “Helen’s Web,” –; Zeitlin, “Travesties of Gender an d Genr e in Aristophanes’ Thesmophoriazousae” (), reprinted in Playing the Other, –; Kennedy, “Helen’s Web Unraveled,” –; Suzuki, Metamorphoses of Helen, –. 18. In c ontrast t o th e H omeric v erbal nar rative, the w eaver’s st ory i s bas ed on th e v isual image. The f act tha t H elen w eaves h er st ory in pictur es i s indicative of an ess ential di fference betw een h er an d th e H omeric nar rator. Does th e Homeric text imply tha t thi s difference i s ev idence of her limited a uthority as a narrator? 19. Sappho courageously reconstructed Helen’s lost perspecti ve by presenting the latter’s unforg ivable des ertion in a n ew lig ht in F r. . Although Sappho follows the words that Homer puts in H elen’s mouth ( Il. .–), her Helen deviates fr om th e H omeric on e in h er unapologetic s elf-assurance. See th e ana lysis of Fr.  by Page duBoi s in Sappho I s Bur ning, –. Sappho ar ticulates wha t Helen c ould n ot expr ess openly an d w ithout shame in th e H omeric epic. For duBois, Sappho’s r einterpretation est ablishes Helen “as subject, as a h ero of her own time” (). 20. All tr anslations fr om th e Ili ad an d Odyss ey ar e b y Richmon d La ttimore. 21. Charles Sega l mak es a similar poin t in Singers, Heroes, and Gods in th e Odyssey (): “Even wh en sh e en visages th e war as ev entually par t of a t otal heroic tradition, her primary interest is in what she is actually undergoing.” At the same time, Segal’s general di stinction betw een aesth etic di stance and emotiona l involvement in H omeric poetry does n ot take into account the relevance of gender difference. 22. On lamen tation as a feminin e genr e, see Alexiou, The R itual Lame nt in Greek Tradition; Holst-Warhaft, Women’s Lame nts and G reek Liter ature; Stears, “Death Bec omes Her,” –; Murnaghan, “The Poetics of Loss in G reek E pic,” –. 23. Foley, “Poetics of Tragic Lamentation,” . 24. For example, women mourn P atroclus in .–; Andromache mourns Hector in .–. 25. See, for example, Murnaghan, “The Poetics of Loss in Greek Epic,” : “In general, the concern of lamenting women for their own suffering means that they have no use for wha t concerns a war rior most.” 26. Her death wish is inspired by the death of Hector. 27. Achilles’ lament in .– contains similar elements: () a death wish; () memories of his absent father and son; () self-pity. Achilles’ emotional response is follo wed b y th e elders ’ lament for P atroclus, which i s a lso domina ted b y a

Notes to P ages –



personal perspecti ve: “So h e spok e, mourning, and th e elders lamen ted ar ound him / remembering each those he had left behind in his own halls” (Il. .–). Lamentations ar e, of course, not sung only b y w omen. Yet pr ecisely beca use of the tension betw een th e persona l an d th e public embodi ed in th e form of a lament, I see it as a feminin e modality. In this sense, we may say that masculine figures can also give voice to the feminine. Achilles’ response to the death of Patroclus, for inst ance, is a ma le lamen t of great emotiona l po wer, but it sh ould be understood as feminine at heart. The feminine perspective is not limited to female figures. 28. Segal, Singers, Heroes, and Gods in the Odyssey, –, discusses the divided audience for Phemius ’s song but only br iefly mentions Penelope’s response. 29. Ibid., . On the epic’s creation of “a community of shared mourners,” see Greene, “The Natural Tears of Epic,” –. 30. See Segal, Singers, Heroes, and Gods in th e Odyssey, –. 31. See Thalmann, Conventions of Form and Thought in Early Greek Epic Poetry, , –, –; Doherty, “Gender an d I nternal Audiences in th e Odyssey,” –. 32. Charles F. Ahern similar ly argu es tha t th e feminin e eth os i s incorporated into the Homeric ethical framework. “Grieving, even if it is ‘womanly’ and therefore an object of suspicion, is an abiding , even a c entral fea ture in th e psy chological and ethical landscape of human experience. This the poet shows strikingly by ascr ibing it, in th e speci fic form of comparison w ith a w oman, to th e tw o greatest of heroic figures. Womanly grief becomes heroic grief. That Odysseus and Achilles should then, in reflecting on their own grief and that of others, come each to s ee hims elf in decidedly ambi valent terms w ill testify t o th e hig h deg ree of moral c omplexity w ith which H omer has in vested th e w orld of heroic a ction.” Ahern, “Two Images of ‘Womanly Grief ’ in Homer,” –. 33. This in triguing simile has a ttracted th e a ttention of many sch olars, who have o ffered a var iety of interpretations. See, for example, Mattes, Odysseus be i den Phäake n, –; Podlecki, “Some Odyss ean Similes,” –; Foley, “Reverse Similes and Sex R oles in th e Odyssey,” , ; Lloyd, “Homer on Poetry,” –. 34. Patroclus is compared to a sobbing bab y girl in Iliad .–. 35. Interpreters ha ve r ecently str essed th e sig nificance of this sc ene in illustrating the mor al force of poetry. See, for example, Crotty, The Poetics of Supplication, –. Segal’s comments on th e psychological and ethica l sig nificance of the simile in this episode are valuable. See Singers, Heroes, and Gods in the Odyssey, –, and specifically his remark on the Homeric aesthetic conception of empathetic identification (): “The scene of Odysseus’ weeping, then, articulates two very different modes of response: the aesthetic distance of Alcinoos that can treat poetry ( fiction) as a sour ce of pure pleasur e ( terpsis), and th e in tense, painful involvement of Odysseus as h e par ticipates, through memor y, in th e su fferings that are the subject ma tter of the song.”



Notes to P ages –

36. Odysseus’s self-revelation has been appropriated in an interesting fashion by literary descriptions of Christian repentance. At the height of this tradition is Jean Valjean’s religious moment of self-discovery in Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables. On the road, having betrayed the beneficent hospitality of the bishop and stolen a coin from a little bo y, Valjean, like Odysseus, sees himself and weeps for th e first time after nineteen years of exclusion from society: “Jean Valjean wept for a long time. He wept burning tears, he sobbed with more weakness than a woman, with more fright than a child” (ch., “Little Gervais”). One can see here the commonalities between the pagan c onception of homecoming and the Chr istian conception of a r eturn to God. Both involve self-revelation through an experience of becoming Other to oneself. Self-reflection produces contradictory feelings of estrangement and intimacy v is-à-vis on eself. In our c ontext, this means r ecognizing on e’s feminin e aspect. Odysseus’s mode of listening provides a par adigmatic model for tr ansformational narratives. The song intertwines Odysseus’s distance from and proximity to home, his wandering and his homecoming, just as Jean Valjean’s vision bridges his past estr angement from God an d hi s pr esent r ecognition of God. This r evelatory experience is thematized in both cases by the image of the weeping woman. 37. Interpretations of this epi sode ha ve focus ed on thi s momen t of selfrevelation by considering what the enslaved woman symbolizes. The body of the dead husband could symbolize Odysseus’s heroic past. Her refusal to part from her husband stands for Odysseus as he is now, grieving for a pr esent life that is bereft of significance. Segal, Singers, Heroes, and Gods in the Odyssey, –, for instance, sees her as an instrument used by the Homeric narrator to extend the boundaries of the war beyond Odysseus’s own private and personal experiences. According to Segal, Homer us es the image of the woman as a sy mbol of conquest and suffering in or der t o sh ow h ow th e song pr ovides Odyss eus w ith sour ces of inner strength tha t di verge fr om th e s afe perspecti ve of the v ictor an d enable him t o experience suffering from a di ametrically opposite perspecti ve. The figure of the weeping woman can also be linked to Penelope: as Odysseus listens in tears to his own story, he can iden tify with his wife, who has been sust ained only b y rumors about him an d wh o, like Odyss eus n ow, is li stening t o songs about h er abs ent husband. His tears enable him t o exper ience h er humiliation and th e thr eats t o her freedom, so that he will finally be able t o complete his journey home. These varied interpretations show us tha t the confrontation between Odyss eus as h ero and Odysseus as w itness to his own heroism bridges the gap betw een conflicting though c oexisting aspects of Odysseus: conqueror v ersus c onquered, self versus other, the self divided among di fferent layers of time. These conflicting elements in H omeric poetr y ar e most fully expr essed in thi s c onfrontation betw een Odysseus’s masculine and feminine aspects. See Lloyd, “Homer on Poetry,” –. 38. Karl Reinhardt connects the switch from third-person to first-person narrative to the “transformation from jesting an d dr eadful wonders to the persona l experience of a hero of the Iliad.” Reinhardt, “The Adventures in the Odyssey,” .

Notes to P ages –



39. In Hamilton and Cairns, eds., The Collected Dialogues of Plato. 40. On the pejorative sense of feminine grief in Greek and Roman culture, see Loraux, Mothers in M ourning; Richlin, “Emotional Work,” –. 41. Plutarch, Moralia, trans. Babbitt. 42. All translations from Phaedo are by R. Hackforth. 43. Adriana Cavarero, In Spite of Plato, . 44. Ibid., . 45. Ibid., . 46. Ibid. 47. See Loraux, Mothers in M ourning, .

          

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Abel,  Accius,  Achilles, –, –n Achilles Tatius,  Actaeon,  Adam, ,  Aegisthus,  Aeschylus: feminine power in tr ilogies of (Danaids), n; : Agamemnon, –; Prometheus Unbound, –; Seven against Thebes, n; Suppliants, n. See also Io Agamemnon, – Agathon, – Ahern, Charles F., n Alcaeus, n Alcibiades: beauty of, n; flute girl’s return and, ; on shame, ; on Socrates and Eros, –; Socrates’ appearance and, – Alkmene, sons of, – allegory, emergence of,  Allen, R. E., n alterity. See difference; Other and otherness ambiguities: of femininity, ; of identity, –; of jar (pithos),

–; of language, –; of love elegy, –; of meaning, disputes about, n; of Pandora, –, –, –; of truth, –; of virgin, n Amores (Ovid): catalogue of authors in, , , –; on female procurer (lena), ; feminine source of inspiration for, –, –; Ovid’s poetic dev elopment evidenced in, –, n; Ovid’s self-description in, n; on poet as lover, n; prefatory epigram of, n Amphitryon, sons of, – Anacreon, , , ,  Ancona, Ronnie, n Andromache, –n Antigone,  Aphrodite: Eros and, –, ; femininity created by, –; genealogy of, –; as helpless maiden, n; Ovid’s visualization of, –; Pandora’s creation and, , ; Philomeidea and, , ; in Works and Da ys, n. See also Venus Apollo, 





Index

Apollodorus,  apple as sy mbol,  Apuleius, n Arachne,  Aratus,  Archilochus,  Ares, ,  Aristotle, , , , n Ars Amatoria (Ovid): absence from courses, n; audience and ideal readers of, , –, n; catalogue of authors in, , –; context of writing, –; didactic value of, –; figure of the female lover, –; language privileged in, –; palinodic structure of, –, –, ; as part of transformative, cyclical narrative, –, ; performativity privileged in, –; on poets an d lovers, n; puella figure in, ; reference to c omedy in, n; Sappho’s presence in, –, , ; weaving metaphor in, –; woman’s perfect appear ance in, – Aspasia, –, n, n Athena, , –, –,  Augustine, n Augustus, , –n, n autobiographical text, –,  Babel, Tower of, n Bachelard, Gaston,  Bakhtin, Mikhail, – Barthes, Roland, – Bassi, Karen, n Baudri of Bourgueil, n beauty: of Alcibiades, n; evil linked to, –, –, –, –; of feminine and of universe, –; as opaque and duplicitous, –;

Ovid’s visualization of, ; Roman standards of, –; sense of terror and, n; of Socrates’ appearance, –; Socrates’ encounter with, –; as source of danger, ; transcendence implied in, –; visibility of, – Beauvoir, Simone de, –n Berger, Anne-Emmanuelle,  Bergren, Ann L. T., , n, n Bible. See Eden, Garden of; Genesis Boccaccio, Giovanni, n body: language of, n; of Socrates, –, , n, n; as source of charisma, –; textuality and femininity linked to, –, , – body and soul stru cture: Hesiod’s conception of feminine in understanding of, –; interior/ exterior of Pandora as for eshadowing, –; Odysseus’s tears an d, –; Plato’s view of, –; Socrates’ encounter with Theodote and, –; Socrates’ view of, – ; Xanthippe’s voice in c ontext of, – Bond, Gerald A., n box, Pandora’s. See Pandora’s j ar (pithos) Brown, A. S., n Caecilius, n Cain,  Calame, Claude, n Callimachus, , , , , – Calliope,  Calvus,  Calypso,  Cantarella, Eva, 

Index Castor,  Catullus, , , , , n, n Cavarero, Adriana, , –,  Ceto, n Chaos, ,  Charmides, n Christianity, n, n Cicero, , –, n, n, n classical canon: dichotomies of, , , n; love elegy in, –; Ovid’s lists of, , –, –; Propertius’s list of, –, ; Quintilian’s list of, n; rewriting of, –; sexuality studied in, n; woman and idea of text connected in,  Cleiton, ,  Clio, – Clitophon,  clothing and appearance: eroticism and immorality linked to, –; as opaque and duplicitous, –; of Pandora, described, , –, – ; Pandora’s diadem and, , – ; Roman debate on, n; of Theodote, –, n Clytemnestra, –, nn– comedy and comic tradition: love narrative in, ; mistaken identity theme in, –; Ovid’s catalogue of authors and, –; Sappho’s desire in, –; subversive language in, – Conte, Gian Biagio, , , n, n, n contradiction: Aristotle on, , ; in feminine subjectivity and meanings of rape, –; feminine subjectivity linked to, –; in interpretations of eros, –; in



Pandora’s duality, –, , –, –, , , –, , , , –, , n, –n; of Persephone, –; of simulation, –. See also palinodic structure conversion narrative, n cosmic unity concept,  cosmological development: Aphrodite’s role in, –; cosmic unity concept and, ; from darkness to illumination in, ; divine genealogies and, –, – , ; Eros’s role in, ; erotic and visible in, –; hierarchy of gods in, –; Pandora’s role in, , – , – cosmological epic, . See also Theogony (Hesiod) cosmos/universe: creation accounts, compared, –; erotic structure of, –; Pandora as image of, –. See also physical/sensual/ sensible world (world of phenomena) Crito, ,  Critobulus, n culinary metaphor, – Cynthia, n daimon, – Dalzell, Alexander, , n Danaos, daughters of, , – Daphne, – Day, Archibald A., n death, , . See also lamentation; tears and crying Demeter, –, , ,  Demodocus, – Denniston, J. D.,  Derrida, Jacques, , –, –n desire: absence and, –; for overcoming inherent difference, –;



Index

desire (continued) Sappho’s arousal of, –; as textual phenomenon, –; of unattainable object, –, –. See also eros; male desire Deucalion, – dialogic relationships: Aphrodite’s responsibility for, –; Pandora as first woman and, –; possibilities of, in poetry, – Diana,  didactic epic: cosmological epic c ompared with, ; dressed woman in, ; dual appearance of femininity in, –; Hesiod’s invention of, –; “I” and “Other” fundamental to, ; ideal audience of, –; learning about Oth er in, –; love elegy distinguished from, –, , –; marriage and, –; misogyny of, –; philosophical text compared with, ; subjectivity abandoned for, –. See also marriage; Works and Da ys (Hesiod) Dido, , n difference: Derridean notion of, , –, –n; desire to overcome, –; as feminine, , –, – n; inherent in h umanity, –, –; marriage and, –; myth of identities and, –, –; sameness linked to, , –; use of term, –n. See also Other and otherness; sameness Diotima: on Eros as daimon, –; erotic vocabulary of, ; on intellectual vs. physical spheres, xi; meanings of name, n; mentioned, ; misuse of, ; Pandora compared with, –; patroness of, –; Sappho’s name linked to, –; sensual

dimension of text and, x; Socrates’ encounter with, ; transcendence and, ,  Doherty, Lillian,  doppelgänger,  drone (bee) simile, –,  Dronke, Peter, n duBois, Page: on difference, ; on Helen, ; on Hesiod, –; on inscription metaphor, n; on Medea, n; on Sappho, , n Echo,  Eden, Garden of, , –, –n Edmunds, L., n Edwards, Anthony,  effeminacy: of love elegy, –; of Propertius, –, n; in Roman culture, n emotions: censorship of, –; community solidarity vs. personal in, ; genuine vs. simulated, ; tension of rationality with, –; as textual phenomenon, –. See also lamentation; love; tears and crying Ennius,  Ephialtes,  Epimetheus, –, , n epiphany, ,  Er,  Erasmus of Rotterdam, – Erichthonios, n, n Eris, n Eros: as emotive force, –; genealogy of, –, ; Himeros compared with, n; Pandora as embodiment of, –, , , ; Pandora’s creation and, ; powers of, –; Sappho as tea cher of,

Index –; Socrates linked to, –, ; in Theogony, –; visibility and,  eros: contradictions and interpretations of, –; the erotic and, –, , –, ; feminine and poetry linked to, –; femininity as regulating, –; hunting metaphors and, –n; love poets’ authority on, –; luck (tuche) in, ; marriage as an tidote to, ; Pandora’s language as manifestation of, –; poetics of, ; rehabilitation and transformation of, ; rhetorical stages in, –; Socrates as stu dent and teacher of, –, –; theory of, , –,  erotodidactic tradition: as antiinstitutional, ; cyclical (re)reading of, –; as feminine, ; ideal readers of, –; instruction’s goals in, –; Ovid’s response to critics of, – ; Ovid’s understanding of, –; Pandora’s presence in, –; Sappho’s presence in, , –; systematic approach to, –. See also palinodic structure Esau,  Eteocles, n Euripides, n Europa, , –n Eve, ix–x, ,  evil: beauty linked to, –, –, – , –; Pandora liberated from stigma of, –; signification of, in gaze, – fall, myths of, , . See also Eden, Garden of Farrel, Joseph, 



feminina auctor and feminina auctoritas: Catullus’s submission of poetry to, ; fictional persona of, ; norms broken by, ; power and independence and, ; sex handbooks and, n. See also feminine voice (vox feminina) feminine: absent presence of, – ; ambivalence toward, –; beauty of, –; clothing linked to, ; derogatory tropes of, ; as difference, , –, –n; eros and poetry linked to, –; erotic integrated into, –; erotodidactic poetry as, ; listening and, – ; love as po wer of, ; marginalization of, –; as marker of inferior, –, –; meanings of, –; as mediating force, – ; as metaphor for tw o textual layers, –; norms broken by, ; repetition in, ; the sensible in relation to, ; taming of, –; text’s intersection with, –, –; Theogony as eulogy of, ; visibility as mark of,  feminine dimension of text: ancient literary criticism and, –; bodily presence in, , –; concepts underlying, –, ; contributions of, –; Homeric poetry as r ecognizing, –; mediating force in, –; personal element in, –, n; weaving linked to, – feminine subjectivity: contradiction linked to, –; origin of, –; Sappho as exemplar,  feminine voice (vox feminina): in comic tradition, –; emergent at moment of rape, , –; exclusion of, –; as illegitimate,



Index

feminine voice (continued) –, ; as marker of lower faculties, ; Ovid’s adaptation and dubbing of, –; as provocative and transgressive, –, –; signs of, –; silencing of, –; as subversive, –, –; weaving accompanied by, ; woven text as overcoming lost, –. See also feminina auctor and feminina auctoritas; lamentation femininity: ambiguities of, ; Aphrodite’s creation of, –; culture’s internal conflicts reflected in, ; dialectical nature of, ; dual appearance of, –; erotic interaction regulated by, –; irresolvable tension of, ; maternal aspect of, n; myth of love’s origin and, ; as Ovid’s source of inspiration, –; Pandora as archetype of, , –; poetry and mystery of meaning linked in, , –; “riddle” of, ix–xi, –; Sappho as tr ansgressing, –; sexuality and visibility linked to, –; textuality and body link ed to, –,  Finley, Moses, –n Five Ages myth, –, –, n, n Foley, Helen P., , n, n fraternal relationships, – Freud, Sigmund, ix, ,  Gaia (Mother Earth), , –, , , , n Gallop, Jane,  Gallus, , , , ,  gaze: evil signified in, –; female replaced by male, ; of gods, as light source, ; of Medusa, ;

methodological distancing of, ; possibility of cosmic unity in, ; of sensual world, –; shame in response to, ; Theodote as object of, –; wonder evoked in, –. See also visibility gender: ambivalence about, –; male identity and autochthony, n, n; mankind’s origin and autochthony, ; masculine/ feminine opposition in an tiquity, ; masculine interpretation of, –; naked vs. clothed bodies and, ; Pandora’s creation and myth of autochthony, ; subversion of conventions of, –; textuality and (auctor and auctoritas), , , n gender difference: interpretation’s role in, –; in masculine vs. feminine listening, –; Pandora’s beauty as inst antiation of,  gender studies: intertextuality intersected with, –; lacuna addressed in, n; political implications of, –; of Roman love elegy, n Genesis, , – Gibson, Roy,  gift and giving: of enlightenment, –; Pandora as, –, , , ; Socrates as, –; Theodote as,  Golden Age: genealogy of, –, –, ; kingdom in, –; myths about tw ins linked to, ; symbiosis of men with gods in, – Goldhill, Simon, n Graiae, n Gray, Vivienne J., n Green, Peter, n

Index Griffin, Jasper, n Griffith, Mark, n Gutzwiller, Kathryn J., n Hades,  Hallett, Judith, –n Halperin, David, n, n Hamilton, Richard,  Hardie, Philip, n Harpies, n Heath, Malcolm, n Hecate, n Hector, – Helen of Troy: defamation of, ; lament of, –; Pandora compared with, ; released from paternalistic constructions, ; Sappho’s reconstruction of, n; weaving of, , –,  Helicon, Mount, – Henderson, A. A. R., n Hephaestus, , –, n Herakles, – Hermes, , ,  Herodotus, –n Hesiod: disruption in st yle of, ; divine vs. human poetry, –; entangled perspective of, –; fraternal relationship of, ; on ideal woman and marriage, –; on Muses and truth, –n; on nature of women, , –; in Ovid’s catalogue of authors, ; poetic authority of, –, n; poetics of, development, , –, –; refusal to leave farm, n; : Shield of Herakles, –. See also Hesiodic Pandora; Theogony (Hesiod); Works and Days (Hesiod) Hesiodic Catalogue of Women, –, n



Hesiodic Pandora: beasts on di adem of, , –; bridal costume of, ; cosmic unity concept and, ; duality (contradiction) of, –, , –, –, , , –, , , , –, , n, – n; as embodiment of Eros, –, , ; enlightenment of, –; etiological nature of, –; genealogy of, –, ; as jar, –, n; jar (pithos) of, –; misogynist responses to, –, –n; naked maiden juxtaposed to, –; origin of language linked to, ; otherness of, –; in Plautus, ; radiance and illumination of, –, , –; in Socratic context, –; structural role of, –; theme of fall in, ; traits associated with, –; voice of, –, –; wonder evoked by, – heterosexuality, – Himeros, –, n Hippocratic corpus, – Hippolytus,  Hollis, A. S., n Holzhausen, Jens, –n home and household: kratos and conflict over, –; public and private space in, –; redefined in Works and Da ys, ; return to, responsibility and nostalgia linked to, – Homer: emotional responses described by, ; feminine and poetry linked by, –, n; in Ovid’s catalogue of authors, ; rereading of, from Helen’s perspective, ; visible force of charis and, n; weaving metaphor of, , , –, , –n;



Index

Homer (continued) : Iliad, , –, , ; Odyssey, , –, , –, –, –n Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite, , , , , n homoeroticism: corrected version of, ; loss of sameness and, –; of Socrates and Sappho,  homoia (similar, same, identical), connotations of, –, – homoios, definition of,  Horace, , n, n, n Hugo, Victor, n hysteria, – intertextuality, –, – intratextuality,  Io, , –, , –n Iphigenia,  Iphikles, – Iphimedeia, sons of,  Irigaray, L., n Iris, – Iron Age, , , ,  Ischomachus: as ideal husband, – , nn–; on natural/naked vs. artifact/clothed woman, –; as Xenophon’s alter ego, , n Jacob,  James, Sharon L., –n, n Jupiter, ,  Kauffman, Linda, n Kenaan, Hagi,  Kennedy, Duncan F., , ,  knowledge and learning: of farming, , , ; of otherness, –; sources of,  Kofman, Sarah,  Koning, Hugo, n

Konstan, David, n kratos (power and authority), – Kristeva, Julia, – Kronos, –, , –, ,  Lacan, Jacques,  lamentation: elements of, –n; as feminine genre in public/ma le domain, –, n; men’s use of, –, ; poetic representation linked to, – language: as condition for emotions, –; metadiscourse and, –; Pandora as m yth about or igin of, –, , n; as simulation, –; textile linked to, –; Xenophon’s ideal of, . See also names and naming; poetry and language of poetry; rhetoric lascivia: of Catullus, ; context of, ; of Ovid, –, , n; of Sappho, –, , ; of text, – law of noncontradiction, ,  Leda, sons of,  Lefkowitz, Mary R.,  Lesbia,  Leucippe,  levitas: context of, ; of Ovid, , n licentia, implications of, – light sources,  Littau, Karin, n Longus, n Loraux, Nicole: on autochthony, n, n; on Hesiodic Pandora, , n; on men as individuals, n; on men vs. gods, n; on sea woman, n; on Socrates’ body, , n, n; on woman as epit ome of difference, 

Index love: author and reader in, –; in comic and tragic traditions, ; as current vs. past experience, ; deceit in, ; deterministic belief in, ; Diotima’s view of, –; myth of origin of, ; Ovid’s view of, –; possible narratives of, –; Socratic view of, ; teachers of, –, , , n; as textual phenomenon, –, – ; woman’s actively passive role in, –. See also desire; eros; Roman love elegy love poets: as authorities on eros, – ; as counter-cultural, –n; erotodidactic persona of, –; illegitimate voice and, , –; as lovers, , n; medieval, n; Ovid’s list of, –; Ovid’s self-presentation as, –; Sappho as, –; terms for,  Lucretius, , , ,  male desire: awakening of, –; Freud on, ix; Theodote’s effect on, –; woman as object of, and female identity, – marriage: analogy of didactic text an d, –; as cure for h ysteria, –; death identified with, ; eros split from, –; ideal woman for, –, –, –n; poetry about, –; resistance to, –, –; Roman customs in, n. See also rape Mars, sons of,  Marsilio, Maria S., n Marsyas,  masculine: art interpreted via, –; mythos and, ; nakedness linked to, ; as sameness, –n; Sappho linked to, –



masculinity: effeminacy and, , –; feminine difference from, –; ideal wife’s familiarity with, n; personification of, , ; as sameness, –n Maximus of Tyre, – McClure, Laura K., n, n McKeown, J. C., n mechane (contrivance), – Medea, , n, n, –n Medusa,  men: anxieties of, , ; as author in love relationship, –; autochthonous origin of, ; censorship of tears of, –; Freudian question about, ; humans as only, –; as husbands/educators, –; as individuals, n; Pandora as delight for, –; symbiosis between gods an d, –; symbiosis between world and, –; woman as separating gods fr om, n Menander, , , , n Metamorphoses (Ovid): archetypal feminine biography in, ; on difference, –; Muse as wh ore and goddess in, n; role of feminine voice in, ; secondary naming in, –; style of, n; weaving metaphor in, – Michelini, Ann Norris, n Miller, Paul Allen, – mimesis: imitation and, –; poetic representation and, –; theory of, – Minerva,  misogynism: dismantling of, , ; elements of, –; Pandora as origin myth of, –n; in Plautine version of Pandora, ; in poetics of marriage, –; in



Index

misogynism (continued) responses to Pandora’s creation, – ; woman’s appearance and, – Mnemosyne,  mollis (soft) character: as derogatory, ; Ovid’s move from, ; of Propertius, , ,  motherhood and maternity, x–xi, –,  Murnaghan, S., n musa proterva, context of,  Muses: ambiguity of, ; Hesiod and, –n, n; in Hesiod’s Theogony, –, –, , , n; of Horace, n; as invisible, ; of Ovid, ; as poetic inspiration, ; puella figure as, , –n; Sappho as, ; secularization of, n; temporality transcended by, –; truth and lies of, – Myerowitz, Molly,  mythology: feminist rewriting of, –; foundational types of, –; love and violence in, –; nymphs in, n; rape and female voice in, – mythos, . See also poetry and language of poetry names and naming: concretization of world and, ; as narratological function, –; rape as justify ing woman’s, , ; release of, from previous interpretations, –; visibility of Pandora and, ; woman given first, among humans,  Narcissus,  Nereids, n Neuman, E., n nostos, didactic version of, –

nudity, – Nussbaum, Martha C., –, , n nymphs, , n Oceanids, n Odysseus: homecoming of, –, ; naming of, ; tears of, – Olympians: birth of, –, –; Titans’ battle with, , . See also Golden Age Oppian law ( BCE), n Other and otherness: of audience, ; desire to become one with, –; in fraternal relationships, –; learning about, –; masculine sameness juxtaposed to feminine, –n; Medea as epit ome of, n; Odysseus as, –; Pandora as, –, –; poetics of, –; taming (and recognition) of, – ; woman’s text as, . See also difference; sameness Otos,  Ovid: approach to, ; authorial reassurances of, –; authors catalogued by, , –, –; erotic limits of, n; erotodidactic persona of, –, ; feminine authority usurped by, –; feminine voice and, , , –; figures of readers, –; freedom of expression in, , – ; influences on, –, –; lascivia of, –, , n; love guides and, –, –, ; love guides and circular narrative, – , ; masculine creation concept and, ; medieval tradition influenced by, n; musa proterva and, , , ; on myth of first man and woman, –; patroness

Index of, –; Pygmalion narrative of, n; relationship with Virgil, ; response to critics, –; Sappho’s erotodidactic authority over, –; self-understanding of, –; on simulation, –; teacher of love figure and, –, , , n; tener used by, n; : Heroides, –; Tristia, , n. See also Amores (Ovid); Ars Amatoria (Ovid); Metamorphoses (Ovid); Remedia Amoris (Ovid) Page, D.,  Palaestrio,  palinodic structure: in Ars and Remedia, –; Pandora and, n; Plato on,  Palladas of Alexandria, n Pandora: ambiguity and complexity of, –, –, –; ancient reception of, n; beasts linked to, , –; as deceptive seducer and as virginal bride, ; Erichthonios compared with, n; eros and, –; gift of enlightenment for humanity, –; as misogynist cultural symptom, ; as misogyny’s origin myth, –n; palinode and, n; as patroness of teachers of love, –; Penelope compared with, , ; releasing name of, –; role in cr eation of humanity, , ; seductions of, –; Socrates compared with, –; as textual principle, –, ; of virgins, n; as weaver, , ; as work of art, techne, –, , , , . See also Hesiodic Pandora; Pandora as first woman; Socratic Pandora



Pandora as first woman: active dimension of, ; as artifact, ; as calamity, n; constructive dimension of, –; cosmic unity concept and, ; dialogic relationship and, –; as feminine Other, –, –; misogynist responses to, –; as origin of deceit, –; as patroness of teachers of love, ; role model for, –; structural role of, –; wonder evoked by, – Pandora’s jar ( pithos): box substituted for, –; Pandora as, –, n Panofsky, Dora, –,  Panofsky, Erwin, –,  pantomime, n Parker, Holt N., n Parrhasius, , – Patroclus, –n, n Paul (biblical),  Pausanias, n Peitho,  Penelope: Pandora compared with, , ; silencing of, –; Socrates’ allusion to, –; tears of, –; weaving and reweaving of, , –n performativity, in Ovid’s works, –,  Pericles, n Persephone: feminist readers on, n; paradox of, –; power in virginal life of, ; rape and female voice of, –, , – Perses, , , n Phaeacia, island of, –, – Phaedra, , , – Phaon, , ,  phenomena. See physical/sensual/ sensible world (world of phenomena)



Index

Philetus, , , , , – Philocomasium,  Philomela, –,  philosophers: exclusions of, –; linear paradigm of, –, ; as source of Socrates’ erotic knowledge,  philosophical text, –, . See also eros; knowledge and learning Phoebus, – physical/sensual/sensible world (world of phenomena): battles in development of, ; changing human relationship to, –; concretization of, –; femininity, sexuality, and visibility linked to, –; as giving mother vs. stingy father, –; Helen’s articulation of, –; human gaze dir ected to, –, –; ideal wife’s characteristics and, –; language applied to, –; men’s seeing of and separation from, –; Pandora’s embodiment of, –; symbiosis of men with, –. See also cosmos/universe pictorial vs. literary text, –n, n Plato: on anamnesis, ; censorship of tears and crying, –; deconstruction of, ; on eros, , , –, ; exclusions of, –; genealogy of Eros adapted by, ; on himeros, ; on Homer, ; language of body used by, n; masculine creation concept of, ; on mimesis, –; on palinode, ; Pandora liberated from evil stigma by, –; on properly balanced poetry, ; on reproductions, n; on seeing and wonder, – ; Socrates’ body and, –, ;

spherical creatures and, –; on Theogony, n; weaving metaphor of, n; : Apology, –; Cratylus, , –; Gorgias, ; Ion, n; Phaedo, , –, –, n; Phaedrus, , , ; Republic, , ; Timaeus, , . See also Socrates of Plato; Symposium (Plato) Plautus: on feminine beauty, –; on Sappho’s desire, ; slave’s comic effect used by, –; version of Pandora by, ; : Amphitryon, ; Menaechmi, –; Miles Gloriosus, ,  Plutarch, –, n poetics: of effeminate text, –; of eros, ; of marriage, , –, –; of Other and otherness, – poetry and language of poetry: analogy between Pandora and, –, –; desire aroused by, –; dialogic possibilities of, –; divine and human, distinguished, –; dual effects of, – n; eros and feminine linked to, –; femininity and mystery of meaning linked in, , –; as masculine activity, ; masculine vs. feminine listening to, –; as moral force, n; Pandora as image of, –n; Plato on proper balance in, ; temporality’s relationship with, –, n Pollitt, J. J., n Pollux,  Polynices, n polyphony, –. See also Babel, Tower o f Pomeroy, Sarah B., n, n Porphyrio, –

Index Poseidon, sons of,  Prier, Raymond Adolph, n, n Prometheus: attempt to help mankind, , –n; fraternal relationship of, ; Io’s voice and, –; Pandora in c ontext of, – ; Zeus’s relationship with, –,  Propertius: allusion to Sappho, n; authors catalogued by, –, ; effeminacy of, –, n; feminine inspiration for, ; gender ambivalence used by, –; Ovid and, , ; in Ovid’s catalogue of authors, , , ; as tener, n Proserpina,  proterva and protervitas, , ,  Psyche, ,  Pucci, Pietro, , –, –, n puella figure: as Muse, , –n; Ovid’s lists of reading for, , –; two versions of,  Pyrrha, – Quintilian, –, , n, n rainbow phenomena,  rape: as bridge to psychic development, –; as cure for h ysteria, –; as destructive and as forma tive, –; feminine subjectivity and, –; mythical tradition equating love with, –; response to painting of, ; weaving text of, – rationality: linear paths of, –, ; silence and, ; tension of emotions with, – reading: audience response in dr ama in, ; emotional responses and, –; female lover as r eader,



–; as feminine form of listening, –; feminine readership, –; ideal wife as, –; intertextual, –; listening and, –; lovesick readers, , n; political implications of, –; Quintilian’s reading response, – ; reader as Oth er, ; reader’s tears, –; as transformational, cyclical, –; of women in lo ve relationship, – Reeder, Ellen D., , n Reinhardt, Karl, n Remedia Amoris (Ovid): catalogue of authors in, , –; didactic value of, –; erotic limits in, n; ideal readers of, –; language privileged in, –; as last love elegy, , n; on love poets (teneri poetae), ; on Ovid’s critics, –; palinodic structure of, –, –, ; as part of transformative, cyclical narrative, –, ; performativity privileged in, –; puella figure in, ; Sappho’s presence in, –, ; on simulative capacities, –; on Virgil, ; weaving metaphor in, – Remus,  retexo,  Rhea (vestal priestess),  Rhea (Zeus’s mother),  rhetoric: misogynist remark as strategy in, –; Pandora as marking emergence of, ; Pandora as master of, –; of unweaving, n Richlin, Amy,  Robinson, T. M., n Roman love elegy: death of genre, , , , n; didactic epic



Index

Roman love elegy (continued) distinguished from, –, , –; as effeminate, –; literary status of, –, –, – , n; male ego of, n; as object of inquiry, –; Ovid’s response to critics of, –; Ovid’s vs. Propertius’s lists of, – ; Sappho as sy mbol for, ; studies of, . See also love poets Romulus,  Rosenmeyer, Patricia A., n, n Rossetti, Dante Gabriel,  Rousselle, Aline, n Rudd, Niall, n Sabine women, n Salzman-Mitchell, Patricia, , ,  sameness: difference linked to, , – ; feminine otherness juxtaposed to masculine, –n; loss of, –, n; in marriage, –; meaning of life devoid of idea of, –; of men and gods, –; of men and world, –; unadorned bodies and, –; woman’s disruption of, –. See also difference; Other and otherness Sappho: Alcaeus distinguished from, n; Catullus’s relationship with, ; as exemplar of female writing and reading, ; on Helen of Troy, n; lascivia of, –, , ; name of, –, ; nuptial poem of, –; Ovid influenced by, –, –; in Ovid’s catalogue of authors, , , ; as role model, , n; Socratic portrayal of, – seeing and vision: blinding lightning vs. bright light for, ; foreseeing

identified with, ; Pandora as foundational myth for, –; Pandora’s gift of enlightenment in, – Segal, Charles, , n, n, n Semonides of Amorgos, n, n Seneca the Elder, n Seneca the Younger, n, n sexuality: in classical canon, n; femininity and visibility linked to, –; handbooks of, n; marriage as leg itimizing, –; motherhood vs., –; search for twins and, –; three types of, – Sharrock, Alison: on intratextuality, ; on Ovid’s ideal reader, ; on Ovid’s love elegy, n; on Ovid’s Pygmalion narrative, n; on seduction and readers, n; on strategy of releasing,  silence and silencing: as hiding dec eit, –; of Penelope, –; of Perses, ; rape as, of woman’s desire, ; rationality and, ; of women, idealized, , , –; writing like a w oman as,  Silenus,  Silver Age,  slave voices, –,  Socrates of Plato: Aspasia’s funerary speech by, n; beauty and, –, –; body of, –, , n, n; death of, –, –; Diotima and, –; duality of, –; on eros, , –; feminine persona of, ; genealogy of, ; logoi of, ; on myth’s value, ; palinode and, ; Pandora linked to, –; on proper

Index heroes, –; weaving metaphor of, –; on wonder, – Socrates of Xenophon, –n, n Socratic Pandora, –, – Sophocles,  sophrosyne (self-moderation),  Spentzou, Efrossini,  Statius, n Steiner, George, n Stesichorus,  Stewart, Andrew,  structuralism, reading Pandora in context of, – symbiosis: end of, –; of men and gods, –; of men and world, – Symposium (Plato): Diotima in, , ; on eros, –, , ; Eros in, –; exclusions in, –; masculine creation concept in, ; Pandora’s significance in, ; on shame, ; Socrates in, – tabula rasa, , , n Tarrant, Richard, n Tartaros, , , ,  tears and crying: exclusion of, –, –; as feminine response, – ; of Jean Valjean (Les Miserables), n; of Odysseus, –; of Patroclus, n; weaving linked to, – Telemachos: Penelope’s conflict with, –; Penelope’s response compared with, – temporality: demise of Golden Age and, –; of divine vs. human poetry, –, n; Pandora’s invocation of, ; of transformative, cyclical narrative, – tener, , n



text: author’s bodily pr esence in, ; feminine linked to, –, – ; as lascivious, –; meanings of, ; narrative options in, – ; Pandora’s presence as ess ential to, –, ; picture vs., – n, n; Plato’s definition of, ; sensual dimension of, x; subjectivity linked to,  textile: language linked to, –; text linked to, –. See also weaving textuality: feminine attributes of, , ; femininity and body link ed to, –, ; feminist questions of, ; gender’s intersection with, –, –; otherness and, ; Pandora’s duality as sig n of, . See also palinodic structure textum, – thauma idesthai (wonder to see), –. See also wonder Thaumas, – Theaetetus, – Thebaid (Statius), n theeton, – Theodorus, – Theodote: appearance of, –, n; meanings of name, n; self-representation of, n; Socrates’ encounter with, – Theogony (Hesiod): as concealed eulogy of feminine, ; as cosmological epic, , –; divine genealogies in, –, –, ; Eros in, –; evil signified in, –; homoios used in, –; illumination in, –; Muses’ role in, –, –, , , n; Pandora’s place in c enter of, –, , –; structural break in, n; truth and falsehood in, – ; wonder in, –; Works and



Index

Theogony (Hesiod) (continued) Days compared with, –, –, n. See also Hesiodic Pandora Tibullus: feminine inspiration for, ; Ovid on, ; in Ovid’s catalogue of authors, , , ; Sappho and,  Titans, –, ,  tragedy and tragic tradition: Aristotle’s Poetics and, n; love narrative in, ; Ovid’s catalogue of authors and, – truth and falsehood: ambiguities of, –; Hesiod’s view of, –; in love relationship, –; of natural/naked vs. artifact/clothed woman, –; Ovid’s view of, –, –; Socrates’ duality and, –,  tuche (luck),  twins: myths about, –; sexuality and search for, – Tyndareus, sons of,  Typhoeus, , – Uranos, –, ,  Ur-Sprache myth, n Utopia, –n Varro, , , ,  Venus, . See also Aphrodite Vernant, Jean-Pierre, , –, n Veyne, Paul, , n, n Virgil, , , –, , n virgins: ambiguity of, n; apple as symbol of, ; Greek expectations for, ; marriage anxieties of, – ; rape of, –; separation from mothers, –. See also nymphs visibility: active dimension of, ; in cosmological development, – ; in creation accounts, –;

femininity and sexuality linked to, –; implications of, –; naming linked to, ; in Ovid’s love guides, –; Pandora’s diadem and power of, , –; transcendence implied in, – voice: illegitimate, –, –; transgressive hearing of, ; as visual icon, –. See also feminine voice (vox feminina) Warner, Marina,  weaving: of Helen, ; of ideal wife, –; kinds of (plain vs. representational), –, –n; of Pandora, –, , ; undoing and reweaving of, , n weaving metaphor: Cicero, n; Homer, , , –, , – n; Ovid, –; Plato, n; rhetoric and, –; Socrates, –; Virgil, n webs, , – West, M. L., , n, n Williams, Gordon, n Winkler, Jack,  woman as object: of male desire, ix, –; Pandora as exp erience of, ; Theodote as, – woman/women: archetypal biography of, ; as beauty and as ev il, –; as danger, –; as deceptive seducer and as v irginal bride, ; Freudian question about, –; ideal type of, –, , , –, –, n, –n; as image and copy, –; listening as, – ; lover of, norms broken by, ; married, as ideal readers, –; natural/naked vs. artifact/clothed, –; Odysseus as, –; as opaque and deceitful, –;

Index origin of race of, ; Propertius as, –; rape and psychic development of, –; as reader in love relationship, –; Sappho as role model for, n; of sea (Semonides), n; as separating gods from men, n; writing and reading poetry as, . See also feminine; Other and otherness wonder: blinding lightning vs. bright light in, ; of Pandora’s diadem, , –; recurrent uses of, –; role in philosoph y, –; of Socrates’ appearance, – Works and Da ys (Hesiod): Aphrodite’s role in, n; audience of, ; awakening human senses in, n; censure of protagonists and, ; context of writing, ; dressed woman in, ; fraternal relationships in, –; goals of, , , ; on ideal wife, –; on learning about Oth er, –; naked maiden in, –; Pandora’s significance in, –, –; poetic authority in, –; on relationship between men an d world, , –; skepticism about Fi ve Ages in,



–; textual tensions in, –; Theogony compared with, –, –, n. See also Hesiodic Pandora Wyke, Maria, , n, n, n Xanthippe, –, – xeinos (guest-friend),  Xenophon: alter ego of, , n; educational program of, –; influences on, ; on relationship among arts, –; : Memorabilia, –, n, n; Oeconomicus, , –. See also Socrates of Xenophon Zeitlin, Froma, –, n, nn– Zeus: blinding lightning of, , ; hegemony of, –, , , , n; Muses’ singing for, ; Pandora’s creation and, , , –, –n; Prometheus’s relationship with, , –, ; rapes by, –, –; sons of, –; Typhoeus’s challenges to, –

W        S        C      William Aylward, Nicholas D. Cahill, and Patricia A. Rosenmeyer, General Editors E. A. T       Romans and B arbarians: The Decline of the Western Empire J       T     R    Accountability in Athenian Government H. I. M     A History of Education in Antiquity Histoire de l’Educat ion dans l’A ntiquité, translated by George Lamb E   S    Festivals of Attica: An Archaeological Commentary G. M      W     Roman Cities: Les v illes romaines by Pierre Grimal, translated and edited by G. Michael Woloch, together with A Descriptive Catalogue of Roman Cities by G. Michael Woloch W     G. M   , editor Ancient Greek Art and I conography K       D    M   Greek Footwear and th e Dating of Sculpture J   K   N    The Classical Epic Tradition J     V  C   , E    P    , B      S       R   , and T      S    , editors Ancient Anatolia: Aspects of Change and C ultural Development A  N     M        Euripides and th e Tragic Tradition W   J. R, editor The Archaeology of the Olympics: The Olympics and Other Festivals in Antiquity

P  P   Wit and th e Writing of History: The Rhetoric of Historiography in Imperial Rome B     H     F    The Hellenistic Aesthetic F. M. Cl   and R. S. H     , editors Tradition and I nnovation in Late Antiquity B      S       R    Hellenistic Sculpture I: The Styles of ca. – B.C. B     H     F    , editor and translator Hellenistic Poetry: An Anthology K    J. G         Theocritus’ Pastoral Analogies: The Formation of a Genre V     B    and R       D     D P   , editors Rome and I ndia: The Ancient Sea Trade R     B  Hans H. Wellisch, translator Kallimachos: The Alexandrian Library and th e Origins of Bibliography D   C Myth, Ethos, and Actuality: Official Art in Fifth C entury B.C. Athens B     H     F    , editor and translator Archaic Greek Poetry: An Anthology J   H. O    and R       H. S    The Wedding in Ancient Athens R      D     D P   and J      P    S    , editors Murlo and th e Etruscans: Art and So ciety in Ancient Etruria J     L   S    and L       B      , editors The World of Roman Costume J       L     Greek Heroine Cults

W     G. M   , editor Polykleitos, the Doryphoros, and Tradition P  P   The Game of Death in Ancient Rome: Arena Sport and P olitical Suicide M     S. D   Flinders Petrie: A Life in Archaeology S    B. M      Polygnotos and Vase Painting in Cl assical Athens J      N    , editor Worshipping Athena: Panathenaia and Parthenon P     A. W   Hellenistic Architectural Sculpture: Figural Motifs in Western Anatolia and th e Aegean Islands B      S       R    Fourth-Century Styles in G reek Sculpture L   G       and C        M     , editors Ancient Goddesses: The Myths and th e Evidence J -M    C   Displaced Persons: The Literature of Exile from Cicero to B oethius B      S       R    Hellenistic Sculpture II: The Styles of ca. – B.C. P G  -G     Personal Styles in Ear ly Cycladic Sculpture C     David Mulroy, translator and commentator The Complete Poetry of Catullus B      S       R    Hellenistic Sculpture III: The Styles of ca. – B.C. A       K          The Iconography of Sculptured Statue B ases in th e Archaic and Cl assical Periods

Sa r a H. L       Mail and F emale: Epistolary Narrative and D esire in O vid’s Heroides G     Z     Modes of Viewing in H ellenistic Poetry and Art A       A  C     Discs of Splendor: The Relief Mirrors of the Etruscans T     S. J      A Symposion of Praise: Horace Returns to L yric in Odes IV J   - R   J    Religion in Ancient Etruria Devins, Dieux et Démons: R egards sur l a religion de l’E trurie antique, translated by Jane K. Whitehead C       S       Satire and th e Threat of Speech: Horace’s Satires, Book  C       A. F     and L    K. M C   , editors Prostitutes and C ourtesans in th e Ancient World P     John Henderson, translator and commentator Asinaria: The One about th e Asses P     D. R      Ulysses in Bl ack: Ralph Ellison, Classicism, and African American Literature P  R    John G. Younger, editor Imperium and C osmos: Augustus and th e Northern Campus M artius P      J. J      Ovid before Exile: Art and P unishment in th e Metamorphoses V    L K    Pandora’s Senses: The Feminine Character of the Ancient Text