Something of a classic summation of a few of the more common fields of esoteric study, this text approaches the subject matter with a serious but skepSomething of a classic summation of a few of the more common fields of esoteric study, this text approaches the subject matter with a serious but skeptical attitude. It provides introductory presentations of numerology, kabbalah, tarot, alchemy, astrology, sorcery, and witchcraft. What's interesting is how they all overlap and reach into each other. Each of them, further, is very credulous, accepting all manner of unfalsifiable propositions; all of them accept the reality of most religious ideas--even Satanism, to the extent it exists independently as a doctrine rather than as the dream-nemesis of inquisitionists, is presented as accepting Christianity's fundamental allegations.
We might therefore conclude that there's a supplemental logic at work here--each item substitutes in for more establishment supernaturalisms, but also adds something, too. It's a marvel that anyone got sufficiently excited about any of this stuff to kill or die for it, considering that these ideas are just as inept as establishment theology. Plenty of great details here, historical and otherwise, stretching back through the renaissance and medieval period into the ancient world. Despite the philosophical abstractions and theological minutiae under discussion in each of these bodies of thought, however, it often seems very crude in objective. Alchemy's philosopher's stone has for instance the objective to create gold, and enlisting supernatural creatures as servants is often intended to locate valuables or exploit them directly as laborers. Most of the bodies of knowledge, despite being oriented toward the spiritual or the afterlife, furthermore find expression in the coarsest of rituals, often descending into ideologically unadorned orgies. Far be it from me to criticize anyone's aesthetics, but the insistence on sexual matters, in the orgiastic direction as here or the celibate direction as in establishment religion, strikes me as well beyond the core competence of doctrines allegedly dealing with things spiritual. Perhaps leave the sarkic to the worldly philosophers?
Primary texts, grimoires such as the Key of Solomon, alleged to have been written by the Hebrew monarch but likely composed in early modern Europe, demonstrate a laudable cosmopolitanism, insofar as the manuscript tradition traces a course through most European languages. When the Key was reduced to print in the 1840s, the first edition laid out a reasonably thorough manuscript history, noting variant readings and translation problems. In some ways, however, to standardize the manuscript tradition in print is to defang it--dispel the benjaminian aura through mass commercial publication. These traditions certainly seem more dime store than diabolical if they sell on Amazon, and I recall the tarot cards that I played with as a kid having a copyright mark on them. I suspect that these indicia of bourgeois orderliness impaired their prophetic capability. For my damnable sortilege, give me therefore dusty untranslated manuscripts any day....more
A worthwhile exercise. Focusing on Oedipus at Colonus (as per the title--sorry about spoilers for a text over two thousand years old?), the argument pA worthwhile exercise. Focusing on Oedipus at Colonus (as per the title--sorry about spoilers for a text over two thousand years old?), the argument proceeds from the point that "while there have been tragedies since the sixth century BCE, the tragic has existed for barely two centuries." Whereas the noun is fairly uncontroverted, the adjectival abstraction is a matter of modern doctrine, which is not in itself a bad thing.
Furthermore, "ancient tragedy is the only real kind: from a purely historical point of view, the only tragedies are Greek." I am a fan of limiting ancient concepts to their local facts--tyranny and dictator, for instance, are ruinously decontextualized in modern discussions; we should add tragedy to the list of terms to use cautiously. It's definitely not a text that argues for cancelling tragedy, by contrast. (Is there someone who wants to cancel Oedipus or Sophocles?)
The argument breezes through the famous theories of tragedy (Aristotle, Hegel, Nietzsche, et al.) that seek to generalize, normally from one play, demonstrating that it is difficult to draw these sorts of broad conclusions--in part because the surviving sample is so small, and perhaps not representative. The text includes a lovely argument about katharsis doctrine--locating it precisely in medical writings about the body, up to and including Freud, and finishes with discussion about Greek religion, which is always a mystifying pleasure.
Recommended for those who suspect that tragedy may have nothing to do with Dionysos....more
Pretty cool. This text assumes "some degree of cultural unity" for the areas covered by the Roman empire, even after it splits into Moslem and ChristiPretty cool. This text assumes "some degree of cultural unity" for the areas covered by the Roman empire, even after it splits into Moslem and Christian halves (1). Much reference to Roman writers, such as Vitruvius, but also many Arab writers are included within the study, both for their original contributions to the learned arts discussed, but also for their sometimes solitary preservation of prior knowledges, otherwise lost in the European dark ages.
The Romans for their part are not considered important originators, but "learnt much of their civil engineering from other peoples" (52). Contrary to Virgil's estimation of their arts, we find that "if we take all the Romans' public works together--roads, bridges, aqueducts, docks, harbours and public buildings--we must conclude that civil engineering absorbed a major part of the resources of the State" (84). We see their character for patience and caution in how "the best practice is to allow [bricks] to dry for two years; indeed, Vitruvius says that the citizens of Utica (about 25 miles from Carthage) used no bricks for building walls unless the magistrate had approved them as being dry and made five years before" (102). Bloody Romans, what have they ever done for us?
Plenty else, including express ex oriente lux (such as certain mathematics ideas, sanitation, and paper-making). Not much on military engineering--that is reserved specifically as a separate subject--and author does make the case for the history of technology as its own discipline....more
Just lovely. Even though it is not obvious that Diogenes understood or even read the persons under discussion, a recitation of their ideas is less impJust lovely. Even though it is not obvious that Diogenes understood or even read the persons under discussion, a recitation of their ideas is less important to his project than the biographical examinations, which are full of fascinating detail (which, of course, we are cautioned might be fictional). Great set pieces on Socrates, Plato, Aristippus, Diogenes, Epicurus, Zeno--but many writers are considered. Much humor and pathos. Totally worth the time required....more
A reasonably competent contribution, including a broadside against conservatism in the teaching of classics, an analysis of Greek epic, an assessment A reasonably competent contribution, including a broadside against conservatism in the teaching of classics, an analysis of Greek epic, an assessment of Greek historians, a lively essay about the usage of the stoics and the epicureans, a snipe at Caesar, a recitation about both guys named Pliny, a lengthy discourse on Roman satire, and some thoughts on translation in general via Aeschylus. Even though this is not a marxist presentation, it does seem consistent with cultural materialist method (especially as evident in Gary Taylor's Reinventing Shakespeare) in how it traces later usage in academic and mass culture of the writers at issue. The essay on Roman satire is very effective, tracing its lineage from rightwing pastoral grievances against the sin-city, which is a numbnut complaint that echoes through Burke into the Teabaggers and beyond--except they don't understand satire.
Recommended for those with a strange obsession with castration and readers who must have met men who remembered the Republic....more
The object of Pyrrhonian skepticism is ultimately aesthetic, “a standstill of the intellect, owing to which we neither reject nor posit anything. TranThe object of Pyrrhonian skepticism is ultimately aesthetic, “a standstill of the intellect, owing to which we neither reject nor posit anything. Tranquility [ataraxia—from taratein, to trouble] is freedom from disturbance or calmness of soul” (5). The ‘aim’ of the skeptic here is “tranquility in matters of opinion and moderation of feeling in matters forced upon us” (11)—which should remind us of Epictetus and the stoics. Important in the effort is the recognition of the ‘standard,’ or ‘criterion’ of judgment (9), by which evidence might be evaluated, and which turns out to be the main problem.
To get to the point of ataraxia, the skeptic adopts the discipline of “modes of suspension of judgment” (4), in which an ‘aporetic’ accounting is developed (id.)—regarding "equipollence in the opposed objects and accounts” (id.), such that “the chief constitutive principle of skepticism is the claim that to every account an equal account is opposed” (6). We might regard this principle as lacking suspension of judgment, of course (insofar as it assumes without rigor or warrant the existence and salience of equality of accounts), and we might furthermore regard it as toothing upon an argumentum ad populum. The skeptics do have a fairly kickass manner of handling seemingly unanswerable arguments:
Before the founder of the school to which you adhere was born, the argument of the school, which is no doubt sound, was not yet apparent, although it was really there in nature. In the same way, it is possible that the argument opposing the one you have just propounded is really there in nature but is not yet apparent to us; so we should not yet assent to what is now thought to be a powerful argument. (12)
So, slick in the way of weaseling out of the responsibility for adjudication of claims. Ultimately, it is revealed that intellectual dissension is anepikritos--‘undecidable’ (24), which extends a key agambenian concern across all knowledge claims (recall the etymology: from Latin decidere 'to decide, determine,' literally 'to cut off,' from de 'off' + caedere 'to cut'). Particular claims will be undecidable because the decision is taken by a person, and the person is in a context: “one will not be an unbiased judge of external existing objects because one will have been contaminated by the conditions he is in” (30)—basic ideology theory, really (Mannheim's paradox, maybe). (Of course this principle of undecidability does not appear to be consistent with epoche, i.e., suspension.) Sextus contends that
If undecidable, we have it that we must suspend judgment; for it is not possible to make assertions about what is subject to undecidable dispute. But if decidable, we shall ask where the decision is to come from. (42)
An important point, the identity of the authorized decision-maker--skepticism seems to defer to the status quo at times. But someone like Agamben might use undecidabilities as the basis of argument—bringing two apparently opposed theses to the point of coinciding without remainder means that there is no dissension in fact. The skeptics of course do this when they become adherents to the status quo; Diogenes declined to die because life and death are undecidable, so why take the effort to change? It is an aesthetic end, after all. The skeptic might rely upon “guidance by nature, necessitation by feelings, handing down of laws and customs, and teaching of kinds of expertise” (63) for pragmatic concerns of everyday life—so, not a radical doctrine at all.
Pyrrhonians are permitted to speak about things without necessarily adopting any positions (6), which means also that “they say what is apparent to themselves and report their own feelings without holding opinions, affirming nothing about external objects”(7)—so, an internal/external split in the epistemology here. The operation is “when we investigate whether existing things are as they appear, we grant that they appear, and what we investigate is not what is apparent but what is said about what is apparent” (8).
They have several overlapping methods to hold adjudication in suspension: the Ten Modes (12 ff), the Five Modes (40 ff), and the Two Modes (43 ff) (I know, right)—these are different sorts of rhetorical objections to various genres of claims. Some of these things are useful, and some not so much. Some of the modes are contingent upon a linguistic metaphor: “some existing things are clear, others unclear, as they themselves say, and what is apparent is a signifier while what is unclear is signified by something apparent” (36). The Ten Modes are very precise and accordingly have limited utility, whereas the Five Modes are bit more generic: undecidable dissension, infinite regress, relativity, hypotheticals, reciprocation of premise and conclusion.
At times it seems like a Sith/Jedi dispute, when Sextus worries about “being seduced by the Dogmatists into abandoning” aporetic investigation (52).
The remainder of the text (Books II and III) are skeptical arguments against specific ideas of the Stoics, the Epicureans, the Aristotelians, the Platonists, and so on. The comments are interesting for a number of reasons, but often the local arguments are bad. The general techniques make the point effectively enough—there seems to be quite simply an insuperable obstacle to achieving a reliable certitude. Arguments to the contrary fail to persuade.
Toward the end (205 ff), he is interested in whether there can be an “expertise in living,’ which is plainly a consideration of the eidos zoe. Sextus will disavow it, of course:
We should say, then, that if it is not agreed that things good, bad, and indifferent subsist, and if expertise in living perhaps does not subsist and—if we grant its subsistence as a hypothesis—brings no benefit to its possessors but on the contrary instills in them the greatest of troubles [i.e., not ataraxia but rather a solicitation?], then in vain do the Dogmatists preen themselves in the so-called ethical part of what they call philosophy. (216)
Perhaps a bit uncharitable here, in assuming that everyone just naturally desires ataraxic quiescence; some of us by contrast may want the solicitation.
I like to think of Old Comedy as something like Monty Python and New Comedy as more Three's Company. Aristophanes is our best evidence of the former tI like to think of Old Comedy as something like Monty Python and New Comedy as more Three's Company. Aristophanes is our best evidence of the former type: emphasis on topical political debate, direct attacks on persons in the polis, an uncensored scatological and sexual interest, handling of unreal and mythological settings and characters.
The most abiding interest here is protest against the Peloponnesian War, which shows up in all eleven plays in one way or another. Other interests are the distribution of wealth (Ecclesiazusae and Plutus), developments in arts & learning (Clouds and Frogs), law (Wasps), gender and the rights of women (Thesmophoriazusae, Lysistrata, Ecclesiazusae), and the establishment of a utopia of sorts (Birds).
Plenty might be said about these texts individually. Aristophanes is kinda a crotchety jerk: too pious, too patriotic, too intolerant of difference. He has a roll call of standard victims to abuse, such as cowards in battle, political informants, demagogues, other playwrights, philosophers and rhetoricians, persons of whose sexual practices he disapproves, stereotypical foreigners, and so on.
One of the most salient things for me--and this occurs while reading Plato, too--is the relentless reference to texts that no longer exist--these plays are in a sense an inventory of loss, so much that was burned in the warfare against which Aristophanes lodged his unsuccessful protests, whether it was the Spartans or the Persians or the Romans or the Christians or the Nazis. Whoever burned up all the ancient works--fuck those guys....more
As with the others, a requirement of classical literacy. The plays in this volume are more or less tremendous. The Bacchae needs no introduction; it iAs with the others, a requirement of classical literacy. The plays in this volume are more or less tremendous. The Bacchae needs no introduction; it is the ne plus ultra presentation of nihilism that arises out of religious belief. The Elektra is also well known, and should likely be compared closely with the Sophoclean and Aeschylean variants of the same story, the manifestation of mutual assent to matricide.
Less well known are the Orestes, the Iphigenia in Aulis, and the Phoenician Women. The first is something else, set in the time between the Choephoroi and the Eumenides, Orestes and Elektra must make their way when all Argives hate them. Their only ally is Menelaus, visiting with Helen, freshly recovered from Egypt. Orestes, post-matricide, is reduced to Agamben's zoe, the bare life of "but for a little breath, a corpse is what he is" (l. 83), which makes sense, as they have been confined to the oikos, removed from the life of the polis; she opines "we are the living dead" (200). Orestes, for his part, is stirred from the apolitical when "three women, black as night" (407) appear, the Furies. Their case is pending in the legislature (again, democratic attainder), even while they recognize ananke: "Necessity is legislator here. Under compulsion, no man on earth is free" (488-89). In the end, the result is a deus ex machina--with the curious development that Helen becomes a constellation ("she sits enthroned forever, a star for sailors" (1636)) and Apollo admits that the Olympians "by means of Helen's loveliness drove Trojans and Greeks together in war and made them die, that earth might be lightened of her heavy burden of mortality" (1639-42).
The Iphigenia in Aulis is horrific, as might be expected. Menelaus drives his brother to kill the latter's own daughter, for purported religious reasons. Agamemnon is not normally the adult in the room--but here it is he who intones that "Greece, like yourself, some god has driven mad" (l. 412). Very affective otherwise--the rage of Klytemnestra, the fear of Iphigenia and her overcoming of it through abject patriotism, the unexpected virtue of Achilles in offering to make a rescue, based on "reason can wrestle and overthrow terror" (1013).
In The Phoenician Women, we have more meditation on the Seven Against Thebes, perhaps not completely consistent with other Euripidean comments on this story. Very much a presentation of the Stasis, working over the same space as Aeschylus. Interesting notes by the bye, such as "men do not really own their private goods; we simply care for things which are the gods" (555-56), and "Strife [Eris] is a terrible god, who has planned these sufferings for our rulers" (799-800), both oddities. The root of all the strife, though, seems to be "Cadmus' crime," for which they must appease the wrath of Ares (934)--which is nasty, the descendants of Cadmus receiving punishment for something he did in clearing the world of chthonic monsters (does Oedipus really need to kill his father and fuck his mother as a punishment for his ancestor?).
Recommended for vile human beauty corrupting everything it touches, readers who like the whole race of prophets are a curse upon the earth, and those who come as bacchants, celebrating death....more
Our notes on the Agamemnon and Thyestes are appended to Aeschylus.
Hercules Oetaeus
The longest remaining senecan play, responding to Sophocles' TrachinOur notes on the Agamemnon and Thyestes are appended to Aeschylus.
Hercules Oetaeus
The longest remaining senecan play, responding to Sophocles' Trachiniae. Hercules opens by asking his father, even though he “crushed all who merited thy bolts,” “is heaven still denied?” (6-7). Through his efforts against the chthonians, “the anger of the gods hath been set at naught” (29). He boasts “how trivial Perseus’ deeds compared to mine” (50), noting the nietzschean point that “beasts are at end: tis Hercules now begins to hold the place of monster” (55)—by which he “freed the race of men from fear” (6). The chorus for its part displays a roman cosmopolitanism (as opposed to an ancient Greek provincialism) in describing Hercules as “Sharp spear points would not pierce him, no Scythian arrows shot from bended bow, nor darts which cold Sarmatians wield, or the Parthians who, in the land of the rising sun, with surer aim than ever Cretan’s was, direct their shafts against the neighboring Arabians” (155-61).
Deianira as “monstrous, dire, horrible” (260)—another chthonian? Despite her beastiality, she is on the same page as her husband regarding the debt owed to him: “though thou didst bear the heavens up, though the whole world owes its peace to thee, a worse pest than Hydra waits thee” (283)—“in the place of beasts has come the hated harlot [in locum venit ferae / invisa paelex]” (289). She is certainly jealous: “if Iole from my Hercules has conceived a child, with mine own hands will I tear it forth untimely” (345-6). Stoicism from her nurse: “what is forbidden we love; if granted it falls from our desire” (357). Spectre of Othello: “out of pity, perchance, he loves her very woes” (362). Nurse is a witch, advising “by magic arts and prayers commingled do wives oft hold fast their husbands” (452), and she explains how “the sea, land, heaven and Tartarus yield to my will, and naught holds to law against my incantations” (461). Deianira wants “if Iole’s beauty hath kindled fires in the breast of Hercules, extinguish them every one, and of my beauty let him deeply drink” (556-7). Stoicism from chorus: “for greed, all nature is too little” (631). His son reports how Hercules “a mysterious plague is wasting” (751), from the robe, but “Clotho has thrown aside her very distaff from her trembling hand, and is afraid to complete the fates of Hercules” (769-70). The son reports his father’s claim: “Peace has been given to earth, to sky, to sea; all monsters have I subdued” (794-5). After being told that “striving to tear the robe he tears his limbs as well” (830), Deianira realizes that “to the world he must be restored” (844). The problem is that “now with impunity shall cruel kings wield scepters; yea, with impunity now fierce monsters shall be born” (874-5). Indeed, “I have exposed you to tyrants, kings, monsters, wild beats and cruel gods, by slaying your avenger [ego vos tyrannis regibus monstris feris / saevisque rapto vindice opposui deis]” (878-80). Reversing roles from Sophocles, Deianira demands that Hyllus kill her: Wilt thou not do as bidden, wilt not crush monsters, and so be like thy sire?” (998-9); “the Eumenides themselves will acquit thy hand” (1000) because “the whole world comes rushing ‘gainst me, on every side the nations rage and the whole universe demands of me its savior” (1017-19). Orpheus had apparently predicted an apocalypse, which Seneca identifies with the loss of Hercules: “The overthrow of Hercules bids us believe the Thracian bard. Soon, soon, when to the universe shall come the day that law shall be overwhelmed, the southern skies shall fall upon Libya’s plains and all that the scattered Garamantians possess; ;the northern heavens shall overwhelm all that lies beneath the pole and that Boreas smites with withering blasts. Then from the lost sky the affrighted sun shall fall and banish day. The palace of heaven shall sink, dragging down east and west, and death in some form and chaos shall overwhelm all gods in one destruction; and death shall at last bring doom upon itself” (1100-17). Hercules for his part prays “so may no land produce savage monsters more when I am dead, and let the world ne’er ask for aid of mine; if any evils rise, let avenger rise as well” (1329-31). The chorus is just happy that “now has thy manhood place amongst the stars” (1564). Philoctetes comes from the funeral to advise that “The one enemy on earth which he had not overcome, e’en fire, is vanquished; this also has been added to the beasts; fire has taken its place midst the toils of Hercules” (1614-16); “his gaze was of one who seeks the stars” (1645).
Phoenissae
A short unfinished thing, comprising narratives congruent with the Seven against Thebes, the Phoenician Women, and the Oedipus at Colonus. It opens with Oedipus lamenting that “Laius rages yonder wearing the blood-stained badge of his ravaged kingdom” (40-1). While the son-brothers fight, Antigone understands “the best part of my father’s mighty kingdom is my own, my father’s self” (55-6), an odd property, surely. She attempts to preserve him, over his objection that “thou dost but protract my burying, and prolong the funeral rites of a living sire” (95), part of his stoic anachronism that “tis the same as killing to forbid death to him who wants it” (99), a sort of an ancient wrongful life claim. But he’s also thoroughly modern in the conception that “the right to live or die is in my own hands” (103). He regards himself as a “greater monster” (122) than the Sphinx (on account of the incest/patricide); though he thinks he can be placed “deeper than Tartarus” (145), Antigone reminds him that “he whose misfortunes can no further go, is safely lodged” (199). It’s unclear whether Oedipus is dumb, or his society, insofar as he admits “dread crimes which I committed, though in innocence” (218)—very much an absurdity. He recognizes, as part of this recitation, that “even in my infancy I was doomed to death” (243). “a trivial sin is my father’s murder; my mother, brought to my marriage chamber, that my guilt might be complete conceived—no greater crime than this can nature brook” (270-3). His sons “have no scruple where passion drives them [NB] headlong; impiously born, they count nothing impious” (298-300). Not sure if he is ironic in “no trivial, no common crime can such high birth perform” (335). “I long for some crime more dreadful than what the causal madness of young men attempts. Not enough for me is war that as yet is between citizens; let brother rush on brother” (351-3). Jocasta for her part thinks “Tis but a trivial thing that I am guilty” (367). “Ignorance till now against our will hath made us guilty; the whole crime was Fortune’s, who sinned against us” (450 ff). She notes that fraternal war is a “crime new even to Thebes” (549): “let Oedipus stand before you now, in whose judgment even for error is penalty demanded [quo iudice erroris quoque / poenae petuntur]” (554-5). Polynices: “a wife’s mere chattel” (594) and “to fall from a king’s estate to slavery is hard” (597). “Kingdoms won by crime are heavier than any exile” (624); “heavy penalty shall he pay; he shall reign. That is the penalty”” (646). Eteocles: “to reign he hath no will who feareth to be hated; the god who made the world set those two things together, hatred and sovereignty. This is the part of a great sovereign, I think, to tread e’en hatred under foot. A people’s love forbids a ruler many things; against their rage he has more rights” (655); “sovereignty is well bought at any price” (664).
Octavia
Bona fide Roman history, regarding the Roman imperial house, “under whose rule the whole world was brought” (39). It also concerns how “incestuous passion burns” (50). Nero as “tyrant of a world [orbis tyrannus] he burdens with his shameful yoke” (250). Seneca appears as a character—his apologia, perhaps—assuming that he is in fact the author. His character argues against Nero’s “A Caesar should be feared” with “but more loved” (449)—a plain echo of the agon in the Phoenissae and a proto-machiavellianism. Cf. Virgil: “Tis glorious to tower aloft, amongst great men, to have care for father-land, to spare the downtrodden, to abstain from cruel bloodshed, to be slow to wrath, give quiet to the world, peace to one’s time” (471-5). “Greatest from highest ever the state exacts” (576). Another ghost, here of Agrippina: “through the rent earth from Tartarus have I come forth [Tellure rupta Tartaro gressum extuli], bringing forth in bloody hand a stygian torch to these curst marriage rites” (593-7). Seneca loses this debate, as Nero demands “let Rome’s roofs fall beneath my flames” (830)....more
An irresistible jeremiad against the victors in war, and uncompromising condemnation of imperialism, this text must've pissed off all the right peopleAn irresistible jeremiad against the victors in war, and uncompromising condemnation of imperialism, this text must've pissed off all the right people when originally performed just before the Sicilian Expedition, but after Athens had crushed out the revolt on Mytilene and forcibly annexed Melos, killing off half the populations, with a snap of their fingers, as it were.
As with other plays, potentially atheistic Euripides opens with a theophany, wherein Athena and Poseidon, enemies of Troy, "throw [their] hate away / and change to pity now its walls are black with fire" (59-60). At this point immediately prior to the departure of the thousand black ships from Anatolia, they resolve to destroy the Greeks during their voyages home.
Hecuba is on stage the entire text, lamenting repeatedly the "disaster" that has occurred (144, 164, 173, 473, 694, 798), echoed by the chorus of captive Trojans (303, 406). The premise is that the victorious Greeks are allocating the survivors by lot. Andromache attempts to convince herself that "they say one night of love suffices to dissolve / a woman's aversion to share the bed of any man" (665-66), whereas Hecuba contents herself that "there may still be another Troy" (705)--hoping that Hektor's son will be the foundation of the new polis. This hope is dashed when the Greeks declare that infant Astyanax is to be cast from the top of a tower: "Greek cleverness is simple barbarity" (764).
At this point, the survivors turn on each other. After Cassandra laments being reduced to Agamemnon's slave, she establishes that Helen "went of her free will, not caught in constraint of violence" (372-73). Hecuba takes up with Menelaus when he charges that Alexander "like a robber carried the woman from my house" (866), demanding "Kill your wife" (890), and "the price of adultery is death" (1032). Helen's defense at her trial by Menelaus is nasty:
Alexander was the judge of the goddess trinity. Pallas Athene would have given him power, to lead the Phrygian arms on Hellas and make it desolate. All Asia was Hera's promise, and the uttermost zones of Europe for his lordship, if her way prevailed. But Aphrodite, picturing my loveliness, promised it to him. (923-30)
Though Apollodorus, in recounting Eris' apple and the judgment of Paris (Bibliotheka E.3.2), is not as precise as Euripides' Helen here, Hesiod by contrast gives some context to the significance of the judgment:
Now [i.e., contemporary to the oath of Tyndareus] all the gods were divided through strife [i.e., Eris]; for at that very time Zeus who thunders on high was meditating marvelous deeds, even to mingle storm and tempest over the boundless earth, and already he was hastening to make an utter end of the race of mortal men, declaring that he would destroy the lives of the demi-gods, that the children of the gods should not mate with wretched mortals, seeing their fate with their own eyes; but that the blessed gods henceforth even as aforetime should have their living and their habitations apart from men. But on those who were born of immortals and of mankind verily Zeus laid toil and sorrow upon sorrow. (Catalog of Women, 68 II 2-13)
A divine genocide, not through flood this time, but through war. The depopulation plan that followed upon the Judgment for Aphrodite certainly would have been effected through Judgment for Athene or for Hera, as all disjuncts returned the ground to war. Helen is accordingly a strong proponent of the atheist, or perhaps misotheist, position that gods themselves forced imperialism and war on Troy.
When this text gets to Seneca, he makes it even more awful, even though it does not seem possible. As normal, Seneca dispenses with the theophany; though characters refer to deities and religious ideas, the agency is always presented as in human hands. No god, after all, made the Greeks sacrifice Polyxena on Achilles' tomb (to "unlock the sky [resaras polum]" (l. 354))--which Euripides presents as an incidental (having taken it up in his Hecuba specifically--which Seneca handles herein also), but upon which Seneca concentrates all available adjudicatory fire, along with the assassination of juvenile Astyanax. He takes time to note that "This great overthrow of nations [clades gentium], this widespread terror, all these cities wrecked as by a tornado's blast, to another could have been glory and the height of fame; to Achilles they were but deeds upon the way [...] great wars he waged while but preparing for war [tanta gessit bella, dum bellum parat]" (ll. 229-33). Agamemnon recognizes that conquest is one thing, "overthrown and razed to the ground" (ll.278-79) quite another--for which he acknowledges command responsibility: "The blame of all comes back on me; he who, when he may, forbids not sin, commands it" (l. 291).
The principal agon is between Neoptolemus (who is the sensible one in the Philoktetes, recall) and Agamemnon (who is sufficiently crazy otherwise to sacrifice his own fucking daughter for the war effort). Whereas Agamemnon urges some restraint ("What the law forbids not, shame forbids be done" (l. 333)), Achilles' son is crazier than a shithouse rat here: "No law spares the captive or stays the penalty" (l. 332). The murder of Astyanax falls to Ulysses, who fears "the crushing weight of his noble birth" (l. 490). Ulysses acts in representative capacity to bring "the voice of all the Grecian chiefs" who "mistrust of uncertain peace" (526 et seq.). For his part, Astyanax goes to his death with stoic composure, whereas Andromache's maternal grief is heartbreaking. Pragmatic Ulysses tires of it all: "There is no limit to her weeping--away with this hindrance to the Argive fleet" (l. 812). (Andromache: "what Colchian, what Scythian of shifting home e'er committed crime like this, or what tribe to law unknown by the Caspian sea has dared it? No blood of children stained the altars of Busiris" (ll. 1104 ff.).)
Despite the genocide and the horror of mass child murder and the sexual enslavement of the survivors, we take solace as proper Trojan sympathizers in two things. First, the unhindered Argive fleet will mostly go down in ruin, and those who return to their homes will usually not find them as they left them. Second, Aeneas escapes, as we know, to found Rome with the remnant of Troy, and through the City's historical development will redress this mythical crime, for, according to Seneca's predecessor Virgil, Rome's arts are "to pacify, to impose the rule of law, to spare the conquered, battle down the proud." Though Aeneas is not mentioned in the Troades, Seneca's recitations run parallel to Virgil. We can rest assured that the indictment drafted by Euripides is brought to conclusion in Seneca....more
Required reading, of course. Four of the plays are part of the post-war apocalypse at Troy; these make difficult reading. I have written about the TroRequired reading, of course. Four of the plays are part of the post-war apocalypse at Troy; these make difficult reading. I have written about the Troades separately; suffice to say it is one of the great protests of the ancient world.
The Helen uses the same eidolon device as Iphigenia at Tauris, whisking the obscure object of desire away to Egypt, reducing the stated casus belli to a nullity. In the play, the old hesiodic genocide thesis is made manifest: Zeus "loaded war upon the Hellenic land and on the unhappy Phrygians, this to drain our mother earth of the burden and the multitude of human kind" (ll. 37-39). Even though these ideas are known, losers, such as Teucer here, still as yet blame Helen, "that woman who destroyed all the Achaeans" (73). That the Egyptians treat her like meat parts should not be surprising--though the Greeks conceive of the Egyptian ruler as a "tyrant" (817)--an anachronism, but pointed. Helen weirdly also thinks that "God hates violence" (903), despite articulating the genocide thesis, supra. Menelaus demands in this connection that Hades return the dead to life, as "you are paid your price in full" (971). Though there is a technical eucatastrophe, the ending is not happy--though Helen be rescued and 'chaste,' Troy "was uptorn from its foundations" (1652).
The Hecuba is more or less nihilistic. The queen of Troy is "shorn of greatness, pride, and everything but life" (l. 57), Agamben's bare life, zoe, the life that is not of the polis, confined to the oikos--and so it is here, as she has been reduced to forced servitude. The main action here is the ritual sacrifice of Polyxena to satisfy some trifling religious caprice. What is gross is that is accomplished "by majority vote" (220)--the Athenian polis reduced to a mechanism for the slaughter of children. Reveals the abject worthlessness of regal authority (64) and noble birth & 'blood' (353). Atheist insofar as "the gods are strong, and over them there stands some absolute, some moral order or principle of law more final still" (799-801). Affirms the common Euripidean principle that even monarchs are bound by ananke: "no man on earth is truly free" (864). Death, we find, "is the debt of life" (1024).
The Andromache is also no picnic; taken as a slave by Neoptolemus, Hektor's widow lives under fear of execution by Hermione ("murder clears the way in family squabbles" (l. 175)--a matter of the oikos, rather than the polis, apparently!), and later Menelaus, who holds her child captive (after they had already killed Astyanax in Troades, recall). For his part, he is neither archon nor despotes here--and can only menace them as "condemned by a separate vote" (517)--again, the critique of democracy. Unlikely rescue from Peleus on the one hand, and Orestes in his wanderings on the other: "Let reprobates expect nothing by havoc from heaven above" (1007). Some loss of dramatic unity in the text, however, in losing track of the title character and focusing on others, perhaps.
Other texts include the Ion, which involves, yet again, an attainder, the force of which is curiously disregarded when the cradle trick plays itself out. Also, the Rhesus an episode from the war, wherein Diomedes and Odysseus might kill Alexander, but Athene stops them: "there is no authority for you to kill this man" (l. 635)--which is an oddity when the setting also requires a divine genocide. Likewise, The Suppliant Women, a Seven Against Thebes fallout story, starring Theseus, again mediating a dispute. Noteworthy for a class critique:
The classes of citizens are three. The rich are useless [cf. Agamben], always lusting after more. Those who have not, and live in want, are a menace, Ridden with envy and fooled by demagogues; their malice stings the owners. Of the three, The middle part saves cities [NB]: it guards the order A community establishes. (ll. 238-46)
Recommended for those who believe that the sky is all men's together, readers whose verdict is war, and persons who wrestle fate alone....more
The play opens with the agon of Apollo and 'Death' (Atropos, maybe, or Thanatos?), regarding how Lachesis had allotted a specific amount of time to AdThe play opens with the agon of Apollo and 'Death' (Atropos, maybe, or Thanatos?), regarding how Lachesis had allotted a specific amount of time to Admetus, monarch of Pherae, but Apollo, in recompense for kindness shown to him during his own punishment, persuaded Hades to permit Admetus "to escape the moment of his death / by giving the lower powers someone else to die" (ll. 13-14). The text acknowledges that this practice sets up a fungibility of persons that, assuming normal market mechanisms, will "favor the rich" (l. 57) insofar as "Those who could afford to buy a late death" (l. 59) may escape the allotment of Lachesis.
Alcestis agrees to become her husband's representative when Atropos arrives to collect the life that is owed, for which the chorus of Pheraean citizens very predictably finds that "as she dies, there dies / the noblest woman underneath the sun" (ll. 150-51), with which we should compare the choral responses to Medea and Phaedre on the one hand (i.e., dismissal as monstrous) and Jocasta and Macaria on the other. For her part, Alcestis does not sell her life dearly, asking only
in recompense, what I shall ask you--not enough, oh never enough, since nothing is enough to make up for a life, but fair, and you yourself will say so, since you love these children as much as I do; or at least you should. Keep them as masters in my house, and do not marry again and give our children to a stepmother. (ll. 299-305)
Admetus is a jerk about all of it, blaming his parents for her death because they very reasonably decline to represent him and thereby become his apotropaic contra Atropos--and then having buyer's remorse--and then proclaiming a year's public mourning, inclusive of "there shall be no sound of flutes within the city, / and no sound of lyre" (ll. 430-31).
Meanwhile, Heracles shows up in town, on the way to Thrace for his 8th labor, the anthropophagic mares of Diomedes, for whom humans are equally fungible, as it happens, as they are for Atropos (or for Admetus, if we get down to it). Because he is friends with Admetus, he takes it upon himself to wrestle Atropos ("Beside the tomb itself. I sprang and caught him in my hands" (ll. 1141-42)), and recover Alcestis. Yay, stunningly silly eucatastrophe!...more
Runs parallel to the Medea insofar as it involves exiles (aside from Athens, "the rest of Greece is banned to us" (l. 31)). Easy to discern the PelopoRuns parallel to the Medea insofar as it involves exiles (aside from Athens, "the rest of Greece is banned to us" (l. 31)). Easy to discern the Peloponnesian War influences in how Athens is set against Argos (a Spartan ally in the war); the Argive ambassador is 'Copreus,' which I assume signifies that he is dungy or a coprophiliac or speaks in a coprolaliac manner or whatever.
The text lays out a legal agon between Argos, demanding extradition, and the Heraclids, demanding asylum. The extradition request boils down to "recovering / These Argive nationals who've run away" (ll. 139-40), which is absolutely inadequate under modern extradition rules--here, it is contended that the defendants are "legally condemned at home" and "we have a perfect right to carry out / The laws we make for our own sovereign land" (ll. 141-42). Normally, we will want some evidence that the persons to be extradited have committed a crime, and that this crime is criminalized in both jurisdictions (so-called 'double criminality'). Argos' abject claim lacks all this, and is supported merely by threats of "total war" (l. 160) if they don't get their way. It is in this regard very similar to how the US handled the Afghanistan War in 2001--demanding extradition without a treaty and without evidence but under threat of total war. Good job, US.
Heracles' proverbial friendly friend Iolaus argues against extradition and for political asylum; his arguments are also very bad. He begins with flattery and recognized that he shouldn't overdo it (ll. 203-4). He contends that they are no longer subject to Argive jurisdiction because they have been exiled (ll. 185 ff.), which is reasonable, but not an argument for asylum. He next avers that there is a family connection that warrants asylum (ll. 205 ff.), and then that Athens owes the children of Heracles recompense because Heracles hauled Theseus' sorry ass out of Hades (ll. 218 ff.).
By some upside-down miracle, the Athenian monarch agrees to grant asylum--until the priests reveal that Persephone demands "as victim a / Young lady of respectable descent" (ll. 409-9) in order to defeat the imminent Argive punitive invasion. The Athenians are about to tumble into stasis (l. 419) debating the issue, and the monarch, while claiming not to be "a tyrant over savages" (l. 423), declines to sacrifice his own kid or require any Athenian citizen to sacrifice theirs on behalf of the refugees--because policy must of course be formed through consultation with oracles and seers and diviners and sorcerers; that's what makes an effective polis.
The dilemma is resolved when Heracles' daughter decides to "consent to use / Me of yourselves" (l. 549-50), a perfectly agambenian moment in the 'use of bodies.' After that, it's war and retribution and ugly handling of prisoners of war, wherein the Athenians again make a good initial showing as to the rights of vulnerable persons and then again, perhaps, fail to remain steadfast, caving in to the normative impositions of a conservative theological pragmatism. Fugly, the reliance on human sacrifice to resolve political questions. The ultimate comparison on this point is the variant outcomes of Agamemnon/Iphigenia vs. Abraham/Isaac....more
As with the Herakles, we start with the basic recitation of mythological lore, as passed along in Apollodorus:
They went to Corinth, and lived there h
As with the Herakles, we start with the basic recitation of mythological lore, as passed along in Apollodorus:
They went to Corinth, and lived there happily for ten years, till Creon, king of Corinth, betrothed his daughter Glauce to Jason, who married her and divorced Medea. But she invoked the gods by whom Jason had sworn, and after often upbraiding him with his ingratitude she sent the bride a robe steeped in poison, which when Glauce had put on, she was consumed with fierce fire along with her father, who went to her rescue. But Mermerus and Pheres, the children whom Medea had by Jason, she killed, and having got from the Sun a car drawn by winged dragons she fled on it to Athens. (Bibliotheka I.9.28 (Frazer, trans.))
Fairly straightforward. The euripidean version adheres fairly closely to this--or, perhaps, Euripides is the primary source for Apollodorus, who wrote centuries later.
Euripides retains Medea’s objection that Jason has broken an oath by taking up with Creon’s daughter (“Do you hear what she says, and how she cries / On Themis, the goddess of Promises, and on Zeus, / Whom we believe to be the Keeper of Oaths?” (ll.168-70)). He also presents a slick agon between them, wherein it is revealed that not only does Jason not deny the oathbreaking, but he defends it as economically and politically expedient:
What luckier chance could I have come across than this, An exile to marry the daughter of a king? It was not –the point that seems to upset you—that I Grew tired of your bed and felt the need of a new bride; Nor with any wish to outdo your number of children. We have enough already. I am quite content. But—this was the main reason—that we might live well. (ll. 553-59)
Jason apparently does not lack bravery, as he had prior to action in this text witnessed Medea’s capabilities on the voyage of the Argo, during which time she was the crew’s heavy artillery. Consider just one episode from Apollonius’ Argonautica, the confrontation with Talos:
Then, with incantations, she invoked the Spirits of Death, the swift hounds of Hades who feed on souls and haunt the lower air to pounce on living men. She sank to her knees and called upon them, three times in song, three times with spoken prayers. She steeled herself with their malignity and bewitched the eyes of Talos with the evil of her own. She flung at him the full force of her malevolence, and in an ecstasy of rage she piled him with images of death. (loc. cit. at IV. 1660 ff.)
Reckless beyond measure, therefore, to piss her off.
For his part, however, Jason may have understood that she thought that he has a “lack of manliness” (Euripides at l. 466) and is a “false man” (l. 519), and thus is not subject to the hounds of Hades who feed on ‘living men.’ She nevertheless is perfectly agambenian in her intention to “make dead bodies” (l. 373) of her enemies. She is perhaps irrational in this--not simply in wanting the deaths of several persons over a divorce, but also misconstruing her host’s fear of her art as “envy and ill will” (l. 297)—which is incidentally what Ayn Rand thought about her colleagues at school when they hated her for being an abrasive jerk.
Here, the host monarch reasonably fears her as a walking artillery piece who makes corpses (i.e., in order to ‘pay back’ (l. 268) her husband in a marriage gone sour, and thus “leave that account paid” (l. 790)). That said, her position is that it is no mere divorce, but is an abandonment during exile from her home, after having killed her brother and then killed the monarch of the first place of asylum. Jason knows all of this, as he was there and was a beneficiary of these killings—and yet he still uses these events against her:
A traitress to your father and your native land. The gods hurled the avenging curse of yours on me. For your brother you slew at your own hearthside, And then came aboard that beautiful ship, the Argo. […] A monster, not a woman, having a nature Wilder than that of Scylla in the Tuscan Sea. (ii.1332-42)
Significant that he acts like an antisocial nihilist here--this may well be his hamartia, warranting is own tragic result in aristotelian terms--along with the nasty failure to consult her about his marry-rich/take-half plan (“If you were not a coward, you would not have married / Behind my back, but discussed it with me first” (l. 586-87), indicating a certain reasonable pragmatism in Medea). It is likewise important both that Jason says she is not a ‘woman,’ as this is not an indictment of women (that is more Euripides’ Hippolytus), and that she is rather distinguished as a ‘monster,’ which makes her more like Euripides’ Herakles, the fighter of monsters who becomes monstrous in the process (and also killed his own children). And, indeed, she is noted as furens several times (ll. 1014, 1079)—but also she has a “plan” (l. 772), marked by instrumental rationality, but manifestly lacking in objective reasonableness (to use Frankfurt Marxist terms), as there shall be no objectively reasonable set of facts wherein one savagely slaughters one’s own minor children to cause pain (e.g., l. 1399) to one's party opponent in a divorce case.
To her, however, it is ananke, a “necessary wrong” (l. 1243), arising out of all the hardship of double exile, abandonment, and, even, the original childbirths:
What they say of us is that we have a peaceful time Living at home, while they do the fighting in war. How wrong they are! I would very much rather stand Three times in the front of battle than bear one child. (ll. 248-51)
A proto-feminist perspective, perhaps—but also we must recall that Medea is something of a cross between the Angel of Death and the Terminator; warfare for her would accordingly (and will, as it happens) be almost trifling in ease.
When Seneca gets a hold of this text (and we knew he would, as it has dead children, similar to the Hercules Furens, the Troades, the Thyestes, the Hippolytus), he keeps the general outline of the narrative, but makes several deft inversions for the Roman world. First, whereas Euripides has Jason as the primary topos of Medea’s rage, in Seneca the locus of anger is Corinth’s monarch: “The fault is Creon’s, all, who with unbridled sway dissolves marriages [coniugia solvet], tears mothers from their children, and breaks pledges bound by straightest oath; on him be my attack, let him alone pay the penalties” (ll. 143-47). In Euripides, Creon banishes her as a preemptive measure, which she therein regarded as arising out of Jason’s infidelity; here, she regards Creon as the principal offender—converting euripidean drama of the oikos into a matter of the polis here. We shall recall MacIntyre’s point that the function of the Oresteia is to transform certain sets of problems for the oikos into matters for the polis--so, mission accomplished. Creon decides that he needs to “purge my kingdom [purge regna]” (l. 269), which is the language used in the Hercules Furens to describe how monsters are exterminated (op. cit. at 1279).
Second, the voyage of the Argo, while traditionally the first of its kind within the legend, is not emphasized in Euripides as something special insofar as it is a voyage; but for Seneca, the Chorus of conservative Corinthians regards it as a moment when “The lands, well separated before by nature’s laws, the Thessalian ship made one” (ll. 335-36); previously, Trump voters might’ve rest assured that--
Unsullied the ages our fathers saw, with crime banished afar. Then every man inactive kept to his own shores and lived to old age on ancestral fields, rich but with little, knowing no wealth save what his home soil yielded. Not yet could any read the sky and use the stars [stellisque quibus pingitur aether / non erat usus]. (ll. 329-333)
--so, yeah, obviously Medea is just an alien criminal seeking to use anchor babies to do whatever it is alien criminals do in the febrile imaginations of right populist white nationalist scum--and it's all her fault for seducing the captain of the voyage.
Seneca’s chorus accommodates to the Real of the Roman world, however: “Now, in our time, the deep has ceased resistance and submits utterly to law” (l. 364) and “All bounds have been removed, cities have set their walls in new lands, and the world, now passable throughout, has left nothing where it once had place” (ll. 369-372). And then it prophesies: “There will come an age in the far-off years when Ocean shall unloose the bonds of things, when the whole broad earth shall be revealed, when Tethys shall disclose new worlds and Thule not be the limit of the lands” (375-79)—and thank the Argo for this, the modern world, approximately two thousand years prior to Marx & Engels when they stated that “The need of a constantly expanding market for its products chases the bourgeoisie over the entire surface of the globe” (Communist Manifesto, I).
Ovid, for his part, will make the similar equation of the Argo with the Empire and the world proto-market in his note that “And Jason won the famous Golden Fleece / And proudly with his prize, and with her too, / His second prize, who gave him mastery, / Sailed home victorious to his fatherland” (Metamorphosis, VII.55-58): foreign goods and foreign persons to be imported via successful maritime adventure. And of course it's all consistent with Virgil's ideological project of "Roman, remember your strength to rule / Earth's peoples [sic]--for your arts are to be these: / To pacify, to impose the rule of law, / To spare the conquered, battle down the proud" (Aeneid VI, 1151-54) (emphasis added). This is definitely not Euripides' project, by contrast.
Otherwise, same crisis, same denouement, same dreadful violence—but with Seneca’s normal emphasis on visceral horror. And Medea is still a nuke:
Nurse: The Colchians are no longer on thy side, thy husband’s vows have failed, and there is nothing left of all thy wealth [nihilique superest opibus e tantis tibi].
Medea: Medea is left [superest]—in her thou beholdest sea and land [mare et terras vide], and sword and fire and gods and thunder [ferrumque et ignes et deos et fulmina]. (ll. 164-67)
That’s genuinely badass. After the catastrophe, in both versions she hops on her magical flying dragon chariot and zips away, giving the survivors the middle finger. Afterward, Apollodorus (Bibliotheka I.9.28) reports that she ends up in Athens for a bit, had a thing with the monarch, fell out with Theseus, escaped to Persia and took over some towns there, and then returned to Colchis to set things upright. Her ultimate result is given in Apollonius, as part of the incentive to Thetis to help the Argo: “And there is something else that I must tell you, a prophecy concerning your son Achilles, who is now with Cheiron the centaur and is fed by water-nymphs though he should be at your breast. When he comes to the Elysian Fields, it has been arranged that he shall marry Medea the daughter of Aeetes; so you, as her future mother-in-law, should be ready to help her now” (loc. cit. IV 791-97).
“Who profits by a sin has done the sin” (Seneca, l. 500)—who profits by a reading has done the reading, so go read....more
An odd set of inversions here. The ancient mythology is straightforward:
Now it came to pass that after the battle with the Minyans Hercules was drive
An odd set of inversions here. The ancient mythology is straightforward:
Now it came to pass that after the battle with the Minyans Hercules was driven mad through the jealousy of Hera and flung his own children, whom he had by Megara, and two children of Iphicles into the fire; wherefore he condemned himself to exile, and was purified by Thespius, and repairing to Delphi he inquired of the god where he should dwell. The Pythian priestess then first called him Hercules, for hitherto he was called Alcides. And she told him to dwell in Tiryns, serving Eurystheus for twelve years and to perform the ten labours imposed on him, and so, she said, when the tasks were accomplished, he would be immortal. (Apollodorus, Bibliotheka II.4.12 (Frazer, trans.))
Euripides, accused by some (with some justice perhaps) of being an atheist, reverses the chronology here by having the twelve labors completed before the murders of Megara and their children, as Heracles enters the text to his still living family and has “brought the triple-headed dog” (l. 611), Cerberus of Hades, which is generally accounted the 12th labor (Bibliotheka II.5.12). Normally, the labors were conceived as part of the atonement for the crime, but here, the crime occurs after the labors are finished. It’s a nice setup for some anti-traditionalist views, such as Lycus’ suggestion that overcoming the Lernean Hydra and the Nemean Lion is overstated (l. 151 ff.) or that “his reputation fighting beasts” (l. 158) with a bow is nothing compared to real warfare as part of a phalanx of hoplites. Heracles' quasi-father Amphitryon articulates the contrary view that fighting in a phalanx is not so big a deal, and that Heracles is slick for using a bow & arrow: “This is best in war: to preserve yourself and to hurt your foe” (l. 201).
The text further lays out an impious presentation, first by suggesting that “the gods are nothing / and men prevail, if this one man escape” (ll. 841-42). (view spoiler)[He escapes, and even asks Theseus, after accommodating to the Real of “I must serve necessity [ananke]” (l.1357), “Help me take to Argos the monstrous dog” (l. 1387) (i.e., because tricephalous Cerberus is just hanging around on a leash the entire time), which is probably the best line in the play. (hide spoiler)] Heracles himself is presented as monstrous in his madness:
He thought Eurystheus’ father Had come, trembling, to supplicate his hand; pushed him away, and set his bows and arrows Against his sons. He thought he was killing Eurystheus’ children. Trembling with terror, They rushed here and there; one hid beneath His mother’s robes, one ran to the shadow. (ll. 967-72)
Though killing one's own minor children is awful, if it is your enemy’s children, killing them is of course perfectly reasonable and acceptable. Insofar as this is a treatise on natalism, he will later place his own children into juxtaposition with the chthonic beasts that he purged from the earth: “And now my last worst labor has been done: / I slew my children and crowned my house with grief” (ll. 1279-80)--parenting as the ne plus ultra of heraclean labors (this appears in the labors of Theseus, too—it has been pointed out to me that the Minotaur is the ultimate presentation of a difficult child).
The heresy, however, of this text is the anagnorisis:
all this has no bearing on my grief; But I do not believe the gods commit Adultery, or bind each other in chains. I never did believe it; I never shall; Nor that one god is a tyrant of the rest. If god is truly god, he is perfect, Lacking nothing. These are poets’ wretched lies. (ll. 134046)
So, there it is, the great hero as anti-theist ideological weapon.
This presentation develops curiously when picked up by Seneca, in his Hercules Furens. He retains the reversed chronology, but loses the interest in making an atheist’s or anti-traditionalist’s argument. Rather, Hercules in Seneca is cast as a cosmopolitan defender of the earth (l. 249), “peace has been gained by his hand” (l. 442). In the course of this work, he has “seen places unapproached by any [vidi inaccessa omnibus]” (l. 606); the labors are listed in detail several times. After the madness hits, it is unclear at first whether it is classical hubris or not; it is consistent with Euripides insofar as the children, as they are being murdered, are perceived as monsters (l. 1019).
In the anagnorisis, however, he understands that “if I keep to life, I have wrought wrong” and therefore is “in haste to purge the earth” of his own “monstrous form” (ll. 1278-80): he is Nietzsche’s fighter of monsters who has become monstrous in the process and accordingly seeks to complete the task of making the world safe for civilization. Though there is window dressing regarding Juno’s wrath, the linkage here is plain between the warfare and madness arising out of it: PTSD, shellshock, furens. Because he is “known in every land, I have lost my place for exile” (l. 1330), and resolves to go with Theseus in refuge. Very plainly the euripidean concern with offending traditionalist prejudice is replaced with the stoic concern to perfect humanity, inclusive of self-discipline and world peace.
Effective katabasis from Theseus in Seneca (l. 658 ff.); plenty of great stoic aphorisms; no shortage of senecan gore (including brains being bashed out).
Overall, go forth and read more Euripides and Seneca: “now no fear remains [iam nullus superset timor]; naught lies beyond the underworld [nil ultra iacet inferos]” (l. 891)....more
Much concern here with natalist biopolitical management, evident in the choice of subject matter: person kills his own children while crazed, person kMuch concern here with natalist biopolitical management, evident in the choice of subject matter: person kills his own children while crazed, person kills others' children because of fear, person kills her own children while jealous, person kills own child as judgment, person causes own children's uttermost loss through intentional acts based on faultless ignorance. Good stuff. I've commented on specifics in the notes, and in reviews of the Greek originals, with which Seneca was in close colloquy.
These Loeb editions are of course kickass: small, durable, facing page. Seneca is as expected--the unlikely mix of irredeemable gore & violence with irreproachable stoic sententiae and wit. ...more
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