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At first, I was most interested in the rebuttal of the idea that God made man in his image. Here was someone pointing out what seemed to me a much more plausible scenario: we create gods that reflect us and the way we see ourselves.
Homeric gods are petty, aggressive, and routinely obnoxious. They are immortal, hugely powerful, and have the emotional range and sense of proportion we might expect to find in a toddler deprived of a favourite toy.
Not only did the ancient Greeks seem to have modelled gods in their mortal image, but they apparently chose their worst selves as the template.
Why – if we create gods in our own image – didn’t the Greeks design nicer ones? My answers to this question vary, but in essence I think that Greek gods are capricious and destructive because they are connected with the natural world, which can often be the same – more so in prescientific times than now.
We also need to remember that worshipping a god doesn’t necessarily require approval of that god.
But – at least for some worshippers – they may have been simply acknowledging a figure who had power over them, in the same way that one might pay taxes to a despot or tithes to a corrupt church, because of fear or social obligation rather than approval or love.
Zeus is considered the ariston kai dikaiotaton – the best and most just – of the gods, he says.
Are we speaking of the same guy?
if you have multiple gods who disagree, how do you know what is right? Two equally powerful deities could make equally strong cases for opposing actions. So we might find ourselves at a loss for what the most pious or godly behaviour is, even before Xenophanes confuses us further by telling us we’re responsible for creating such chaotic deities.
Xenophanes asks us to imagine what would happen if those animals had hands and could draw, if they could make works of art like people do.
In the autumn of 1941, All Star Comics gave us Wonder Woman. But you’d have to buy the issue to find out, because she isn’t on the cover.
Sexist BS.
To be a male superhero means to be powerful in brute physical strength, or to approximate that with your Batmobile.
Heroes need villains, though Greek gods were often capable of being both at once: supporter of one mortal and destroyer of another.
I suppose we might wonder just why mental illness has so often been connected with villainy.
My point isn’t that men create deficient art, it’s that if we only have art created by men, we might want to bear that in mind when we respond to it.
Women can now make art, and we require no one’s permission. We can create our own stories of all those gods and monsters and – if we choose – make them in our image.
When women make art like men do, their goddesses look divine.
Five is an unusual number for Muses – according to the second-century geographer Pausanias, the earliest writers (now lost) claimed three Muses, then four. By the time of Hesiod in the eighth or perhaps seventh century BCE – and our earliest source – there were nine.
Calliope, Muse of epic poetry; Clio, Muse of history; Thalia, Muse of comedy; Terpsichore, Muse of dance; Melpomene, Muse of tragedy.
Perhaps it’s a little reminder that the word museum means ‘home of the Muses’.
Not only that, but the Muses have continued in a tradition which began in Hesiod’s poem the Theogony. This introduces us to the idea of a set of beautiful goddesses who tell us in song about the earliest gods.
The Theogony tells the origin story of the gods, the very beginning of Greek myth. Hesiod details the creation of the earliest powers – Chaos, Heaven, Earth – and then the gradual arrival of more familiar divinities: nymphs, giants, Titans.
This isn’t just about the unknowability of the primordial gods; it’s about the reliability of our narrator.
They are the Muses of Mount Helicon,1 he explains, in Boeotia, in central Greece. It is a large and sacred mountain, according to Hesiod (who lives nearby), and the Muses dance around a flower-bright stream and an altar to Kronos. They bathe in one of several rivers, then dance their fine dances on the high reaches of Helicon.
Until his meeting with these goddesses, Hesiod was no poet, no singer. Rather, he was a shepherd, tending to his flock at the foot of the sacred Mount Helicon. This lovely poetic device offers validation in two ways. Firstly, we must accept that Hesiod really knows what he’s talking about when he describes the Muses dancing or being swathed in mist and moving through the dark night.
In fact, they criticize him: shepherds, they claim, are awful, just bellies. Lucky these Muses will never need woolly socks. But then they reveal something that is genuinely troubling, for those who might seek certainty in Hesiod’s account of how the world begins.
Music is not just a gift from goddess to mortal; it is also a way to celebrate the divine, another kind of temple.
His subject – never in doubt – must be the blessed race of immortal beings. But first thing and last, he must sing of the Muses themselves.
So memory was a crucial skill for a poet like Hesiod or Homer, who would perform his work rather than publish it.
The ability to remember was recognized as crucial in the fourth century BCE by no less a writer than Plato, in his dialogue Phaedrus
But though Theuth makes his case for writing, claiming it will improve memory and wisdom, he can’t find any takers.
Have you heard of this new thing called writing?
However reactionary we might tend to find Plato, he does seem to have a point here: great feats of memory do ebb once writing becomes commonplace.
Reading might open our minds, but it doesn’t do much for our memories.
Mnemosyne gives birth to her nine daughters on Mount Olympus, so the Muses can also claim two lofty sacred homes: Olympus, where they were born, and Helicon, where they showed themselves to Hesiod. They are – from the day of their birth – homophronas,8 of one mind.
Poets need Muses or they can’t compose anything. As Homer says in the Iliad,9 these goddesses are always present and know everything. No poet could hope to have witnessed all these events that span across vast reaches of time and space, mortal and immortal worlds. So if the Muses don’t share things with him, he won’t have a story at all.
It is characteristic of their relationship that even after both men have died, Agamemnon still feels that Achilles has all the luck.
Clio and Euterpe and Thalia and Melpomene and Terpsichore and Erato and Polymnia and Ourania and Calliope, who is the most important: she accompanies kings, he adds. In this list, the Muses have not yet been allotted their specialisms – something that doesn’t happen until later accounts – but eventually they will come to cover everything from history writing to sacred hymns, dance to epic poetry.
In other words, no one can claim to have produced any work without their help: the very fact that it exists proves they smiled on us. If they don’t accede to our request, there is nothing to bear witness to the refusal.
Convinced of his prowess at singing, he claims he would beat the Muses in a music competition.
Bad idea ®.
But poor Thamyris has not learned this basic lesson, and the payback is instant. Angered, Homer tells us, they paralysed him, took away his sweet-sounding song, and made him forget how to play the cithara (a stringed instrument, like a lyre).
In this version, the beautiful Thamyris again challenges the Muses to a musical contest.
Contests in Greek myth – and to an extent, in Greek history – are often fought for glory rather than material gain.
Thamyris, however, has set his sights both higher and lower than marriage with the ideal wife of the Odyssey. The prize he chooses to be at stake in his contest with the Muses is the opportunity to have sex with all nine of them.
Men *eyeroll*
Apparently blind to the risk he is taking, he accepts their terms: yes, if he proves the better musician, he can have sex with them all (the Greek doesn’t specify whether this would happen singly or collectively). But if he turns out to be less good than they are, they can deprive him of whatever they choose.
Terrible idea.
Thamyris has exhibited archetypal hubris, believing himself superior to goddesses.
These poets depicting the Muses in their work are relying on those same Muses for their writing skill and their performing ability, and the loss of either would be disastrous.
The Muses were going to their temple on Mount Parnassus, which meant travelling through land Pyreneus controlled. He approaches them fallaci . . . vultu – literally with a false face.
When the wind changes and the rain stops, the Muses try to leave. But Pyreneus locks them in and vimque parat19 – prepares to use force, i.e., to attempt rape. The Muses use their wings to escape him.
And the Muse describes him as vecors – mad. He obviously cannot pursue nine winged goddesses, separately or together.
He hits the ground and, as he dies, stains it with his wicked blood.
Even at this unspecified time after the event, the memory of it keeps the Muses from having a wholly blessed existence.
