Voodoo Trickster

I think I have mentioned before, but I'm in a course called TransAtlantic Voodoo this semester. A trickster spirit has been mentioned before but in the book we're reading now, the description is just perfect:

"The divine trickster, ruler of the crossroads, controlled access to the spirit world and served as messenger between human beings and the other deities; he also governed chance and could be persuaded to alter a person's fate"

From the Book Spiritual Merchants: religion, magic, and commerce" by Carolyn Morrow Long

I just thought the connection with a more modern culture/religion was interesting and thought I would share.

J. C. Abbot, Literary Sleuth

It was a dark and stormy night. I was working late at the office. Knock knock. Apparently someone was knocking at my door.

"Who's there?" I didn't look up. I was working, like I already said.

"Help!"

"Help, who?" Then I thought better of that. "I mean, help whom?"

It was seven women. Students, they said. They had a problem, they said, and they needed a detective.

"You're students. You have a problem. You need a detective."

They were astounded at my extraordinary powers of deduction. They hired me on the spot.

"So, you said something about a problem?"

Petronius was their problem. Seems this guy wrote a book. Satiricon, Sityrica, whatever.

"So what's it about? This, er, Sit. . . Sat . . . book?

Nailed it. THAT was their problem. They wanted to know what the book was about.

"Hard to say." I was stalling. Maybe it would come to me. Maybe I could take a peek at the cover and, you know, make a judgment. Or maybe not. 

A week later, they came back. By then I had read the book.

I opened the file. Then I opened my mouth. "Death," I said. I shut the file. I stood up to show them to the door . . .

They didn't budge. They were tough, these seven students. They wouldn't take death for an answer. Explain, they said. I opened the file again.

"Does this guy Trimalchio have a clock and a bugler in his dining room, and does this bugler blow his horn every hour to remind him that time is passing?

Yes, they said.

"And does this same guy order a silver skeleton to be brought into the dining room and arranged in various poses?"

What choice did they have? Yes again.

"And does one of the freedmen guests say he's just come from a funeral? And does the wizened Sibyl in a bottle say that she just wants to die? And does Trimalchio say he has silver bowls with Cassandra's dead children depicted on them? And is Trimalchio's witch story about a man whose insides are stolen by witches? And does the late-arriving guest Habinnas say he's just come from a funeral, too? And does Trimalchio read his will aloud? And does he make his guests pretend like he's dead? And do they all conduct a mock funeral?"

Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, and yes. They were very agreeable, these students.

"Plus, I'm leaving out other morbid stuff. So there's your answer: the book's about death."

But why? they asked. Agreeable . . . and curious, too, it seemed. A powerful combination.

"Look," I said. They looked. "Look, you paid me to tell you what the book's about. I gave you an answer. The answer, I mean. Plus, I threw in this nifty picture of a skeleton from Pompeii, gratis. Now you want to know why? How about you tell me."

They looked at each other. Evidently they were thinking. About what? And then one of them piped up and said, "Well . . . ." 

To be continued in person

Heard this one?

A Jungian, a structuralist, a feminist, a post-structuralist, a Bakhtinian, and a reception theorist walk into a bar. The bartender is Wakdjunkaga.

"What'll it be?" asks Trickster.

"A shadow figure?" asks the Jungian.

"A culture hero?" asks the structuralist.

"A challenger of orthodoxy and agent of cultural transformation?" asks the feminist.

"A metaplayer, dissolving order in the depth of open-ended play?" asks the post-structuralist.

"A situation-inverter, mocking but not changing the order of things?" asks the Bakhtinian.

"I'm not sure," says the reception theorist. "What do you think?"

It's Kind of a Funny Story

Jim, if only I could read your mind
And learn the torture that's tormenting you,
I'd gladly spare two men a lot of bother:
I wouldn't need to ask, or you to answer.
Now, since that's impossible, necessity
Compels me to question you. Answer me this:
Why have you been acting half-alive
These last few days, t---

Plautus, enough, enough. You forget that I've read your Pseudolus.

A hero's act enshrined in fame,
That will perpetuate my name.

Just stop it. You flatter yourself. The truth is that I do feel a bit depressed.

 Oh, dear!

I've been neglecting our blog.

 Oh, dear!

And when I do post something, sometimes it's like dropping a stone into a bottomless well. It never seems to hit bottom. 

 Oh, dear!

Finally, I feel as though my students and I did not do right by you. There was so much more to say about Pseudolus. 

OH, DEAR!!!

Do you really think that helps? I suppose I could do something to help myself -- maybe a blog post on your play?

It's stupid to entrust a plan
To a weak or wishy-washy man;
For all endeavors must depend
On how much effort you expend.

Ouch, that hurts. But okay, I accept the challenge. What shall I write about?

 "Phoenicium to her darling Calidorus . . ."

Yes, I see where you're headed. That letter from Rosie to her lover boy. I do find that bit interesting, for several reasons. Why did you write the play this way? Calidorus could simply have told Pseudolus about his predicament. Strictly speaking, there is no need for a letter. 

When the time is ripe, I'll let you know.
I don't want to repeat myself:
That's how blog posts become too long.

(deep sigh, accompanied by eye rolling) And then there's the other letter, the one from the Macedonian soldier to Ballio. Strictly speaking, that one is not necessary either. All that's required is for Harpax to present the ring, the one that made the wax impression the soldier left with Ballio, along with the rest of the purchase price. 

Yea, yea, forsooth.

So what's up with these letters? Why include them in the play?

Go ahead and ask.
Treat my knowledge as your Delphic oracle.

I'm struck by what Phoenicium writes at the end of her letter: "Everything I know I've tried to tell you clearly: / Now I'll put you to the test. One question, merely: / Are you in love or just pretending." Pretending? OF COURSE Calidorus is pretending: he's an actor on the stage, for goodness sake, playing a role!

So help me Pollux, I do declare
I've gone on a simply spectacular tear!

I mean, at some point this all becomes a bit ridiculous. Here's an actor playing a Latin-speaking Greek slave in a comedy set in Athens but staged in Rome before a largely illiterate audience, purporting to read aloud a barely legible letter written by a courtesan who speaks in verses replete with rhyming, alliterative, whacky language, e.g. teneris labellis molles morsiunculae, / papillarum horridularum oppressiunculae. And she is supposed to be asking Calidorus if this is all just pretense?

But look at the poet; when he starts to write,
He seeks what doesn't exist, and then he finds it;
He makes invented fiction look like truth.

Yea, I remember that part from the play. Anyway, I guess what I'm suggesting is that by introducing the letter, you bring to the audience's attention the idea of a sign. In simple terms, a sign is something that stands for something: I've used the example "red means stop, green means go" in an earlier blog to illustrate this. So here, in this play, Pseudolus draws attention to the function of letters and words as signs. He does this in various ways, but nowhere more tellingly than when he tells Calidorus that he sees Phoenicium "stretched out upon the boards, relaxed in wax." It's her name, obviously, the woman's sign that he sees on the wax tablet, not Phoenicium herself. He's confusing signifier and signified. It's silly, but it's telling.

Get moving,
Won't you?

Okay, okay, I know that I need to get to the point. The point is that whenever we draw attention from what is signified to the sign itself, we're pulling a Toto.

 ???

Toto is the little dog in the Wizard of Oz who pulls aside the curtain to reveal the sad little man at the controls of a machine that creates the mere image, the specter of a terrible, angry wizard that is frightening Dorothy and her friends. In other words, whenever we focus on the sign itself instead of what it signifies, we highlight the arbitrary nature of signs and the illusory quality of what we take for "reality." Or to put it another way, why shouldn't green mean stop, and red mean go?

I suspect that you're suspicious of me now.

Yes, I am. I get the feeling that with this play, you've constructed a world made of the finest tissue paper, and there you are, standing behind it, so that your own face is visible to us through the gauze. The letter at the beginning of the play is so obviously an "invented fiction" -- please, a literary Greek courtesan writing a verse letter in Latin for her favorite client with made-up words like oppressiunculae? -- that it draws attention to the fact that the entire play, too, is invented fiction.

Well, I won't back down.

I don't expect you to.  I don't expect you to be any less cunning than your creation Pseudolus. You're having some fun with us, and it is fun. Elsewhere in the play, you create a series of doubles to further amuse us and to underline (again) the playfulness of the play. The doubles for Pseudolus (Simia), Calidorus (Charinus), Simo (Callipho), and Harpax (Simia) suggest to me nothing so much as two universes that you have arranged to collide. It's as though you're saying: You think an old guy has to be crabby? Well, what about this fellow Callipho? You think Pseudolus is one of a kind? Well, what about this fellow Simia? You think identities are fixed, the world is stable, what you see is what you get? What are you, a dunce?

All the world's a stage.

That's Shakespeare, my flat-footed, clownish friend. Come on, let's go read some Ovid together. I think you'll like him.

Clouds, Chaos and Tongue

The trickster themes that are prominent within "Clouds" are fundamental ambiguity and boundary crossing. These themes make themselves known through Strepsiades's denounciation of the gods as well as Socrates who claims that the only gods who exist are the Clouds, the tongue, and Chaos. This claim alone shows that there is a lack of what is seen as traditional order within the play.Chaos shows that the world within the play is distorted. Whereas the mortal tongue is responsible for manipulation of mortals within the play. The Clouds are the polar opposite of Chaos and remain the voice of reason throughout the story.

However, the clouds themselves are acknowledged by Socrates and Strepsiades as ever-changing " So.: Have you ever gazed up there and seen a cloud shaped like a centaur, or a leopard, wolf, or bull? St.: Yes, I have... So.: They become anything they want..." (lines 445-450). Even though the clouds are the stability throughout the play they are also part of that instability.

While Chaos and the Clouds are the only two representatives of immortality the tongue represents a shiftiness among the mortals. At the beginning of the play Strepsiades seeks to be a student of the Thinkery in order to convince his creditors that he does not have to pay them back. While Strepsiades is a student he changes his belief in the gods when Socrates skillfully questions him. Later, Strepsiades changes his view of gendered and non-gendered words (mortar, fowl, etc.). When the Thinkery does not benefit Strepsiades he sends his son instead who masters the art of arguing. However, these are turned against as punishment for him denouncing the gods and not being an honest individual.

The Chorus Leader: the Meta-Trickster

I'm focusing on the speech of the Chorus-Leader where he addresses the spectators of the play directly. In this speech, the leader conflates a series of dichotomies, as tricksters are wont to do, and also creates dichotomies that were not apparent before.

• Firstly, the difference between playwright and play is collapsed. The Chorus Leader talks in the first person about producing the play. Though he does not discuss literally writing the play, his words indicates an awareness of the constructs of the competitions, the staging, etc., and a choice to be apart of the production. Though this reflects some theatrical conventions of the time, I still think it is important to note.
• Within the audience there are those who are worthwhile to produce plays for, supposedly those who supported another play by Aristophanes. Here, the Chorus Leader divides the audience not by class, gender, citizen status or intelligence, but on their appreciation of his plays.
• Then, the Chorus Leader notes the difference between his play and others that make his play stand out. This includes the lack of cheap gags, or false drama. But also, the Chorus Leaders seeks "newness" and originality.
• A final conflation is that between the stage and world and once again with the Chorus Leader and Aristophanes. With references to singular plays and playwrights, the speech moves away from defending what is being performed concurrently with the speech and instead refers to other plays, which expands the reaches of his speech beyond the singular event.

With the switch in subject of the Chorus Leader's speech from the play he is in, to the politics of the age, specifically Cleon's power and the new calendar, he switches positions of authority and knowledge and effectively tricks the audience. With the conflation of the dichotomy between play and real world, the Chorus Leader can transition from condemning the audience within the theater, to condemning plays that were once performed in a theater, to condemning politics that have nothing to do with theater. He has performed an argument from the inferior position and effectively tricked his audience as Strepsiades hopes to do.

The Chorus Leader appears again when the Better Argument and the Worse Argument are arguing. He again suggests that the audience get to here both arguments that these associates represent. This leads to the Better Argument looking out at the audience and realizing that so many of the leading Athenians fall into the pleasure seekers category of the Worse Argument. Here again, the Chorus Leader, though indirectly, indicts the audience, who probably pride themselves on their rationality (The Better Argument).

The Younger surpasses the Elder-ADD

In the story of the clouds there is an incident between Strepsiades and Pheidippides that demonstrates three themes of Trickster literature: 1)confusing polarities, 2)situation inversion, and 3) the confusion of categories. Towards the ending of the play, Pheidippides beats his father Strepsiades and tries to justify it. He argues that if a parent can beat a child to instruct it, than the inverse of that should be allowed as well. This is a confusing and subversive inverse since it really doesn’t make sense for a child ever to discipline in a parent for the means of teaching that parent a lesson. Pheidippides also argues that old men are actually in their second childhoods. While there is some truth in arguing that old people become childlike again, it still does not justify the right to beat your father. Pheidippides seems to have the role of father and some severely mixed up in his mind. Yet he continues with his convoluted argument by declaring that if the old are beaten in front of the younger, then the younger will also learn. In my opinion, this is an absurd conclusion, which still does not justify the beatings/ “discipline” of his father. Pheidippides then makes a reference to the animal kingdom where the son usually avenge themselves against their father. Pheidippides seems to have this gift of gab and argument. I think it’s even hilarious that he’s continuing to justify hitting his father by presenting this reference to animals.

Eventually gullible Strepsiades submits Pheidippides. Pheidippides takes it one step even further by suggesting he should also be able to beat his mother. At this point, I’m not sure whether Pheidippides is still serious. Pheidippides flips the role between child and parent and blurs the lines of who really “wears the pants.” In this scene the younger surpasses the elder, and the elder is tricked in an indirect way by the younger.

Unraveling the 'Cloak'

In my reading of the play I was intrigued by the multiple and transforming roles of the “cloak.” It is used to highlight aspects of people’s character, designate victims and victimizers and underlines the theme of trickery and shape shifting in the play. There are several very interesting uses of the cloak in the play and I want to examine them each with a close reading with a lens of the some the plays major themes previously mentioned.

The cloak is first used to showcase negative aspects of Strepsiades’ wife’s character.

STREPSIADES: As for her,


she smelled of perfume, saffron, long kisses,


greed, extravagance, lots and lots of sex.*


Now, I’m not saying she was a lazy bones.


She used to weave, but used up too much wool.


To make a point I’d show this cloak to her


and say, “Woman, your weaving’s far too thick.”

A wife weaving a cloak for her husband could easily be seen as an a gift but this expectation is refuted by Strepsiades who instead turns this act of gift giving into thievery. Yes, she makes him a cloak but with too much wool! Therefore Strepsiades implies she is not being economical enough and costing him money as suggested by his previous descriptions of her as greedy and extravagant. In this light her gift of a cloak is a way of thieving. What could have been viewed as generous nature instead through Strepsiades eyes is twisted into a greedy one. Thus the two binaries of generosity and greed are left questionable and unstable.

The next usage of the word is a very significant because it addresses gift giving and thievery of a cloak in the small story by the same character.

STREPSIADES: Well, well. What did Socrates come up with,


to get you all some food to eat?

STUDENT: He spread some ashes thinly on the table,


then seized a spit, went to the wrestling school,


picked up a queer, and robbed him of his cloak,


then sold the cloak to purchase dinner.*

Socrates steals a cloak but that that same cloak is turned into a gift to his students when he sells it to provide them with food. The idea of the cloak seems to be a shape shifter in itself being a stolen item and a gift. And likewise Socrates in just a four-line story shifts from being a thief and a generous provider. No wonder he’s such a good debater he can shift words’ meanings and connotations from one thought to the next.

This is a very minor example but I believe it does show support for the cloak as a shape-shifting symbol throughout the play.

STREPSIADES: [lifting his cloak to cover his head]


Not yet, not yet. Not ‘til I wrap this cloak


like this so I don’t get soaked. What bad luck,


to leave my home without a cap on.

In this case the cloak becomes more a physical shape shifter from a cloak to a cap instead of the more metaphorical or symbolic roles in carries throughout the rest of the play.

SOCRATES: All right, take off your cloak.

STREPSIADES: Have I done something wrong?

SOCRATES: No. It’s our custom


to go inside without a cloak.

STREPSIADES: But I don’t want


to search your house for stolen stuff.

SOCRATES: What are you going on about? Take it off.

Strepsiades then removes his cloak and shoes. This was a section where I think it’s very valuable to read the foot note: “Legally an Athenian who believed someone had stolen his property could enter the suspect’s house to search. But he first had to remove any garments in which he might conceal something which he might plant in the house.”

This is a great example of trickery! Strepsiades is prevented from being able to steal from the students of Thinkery, by entering with a garment to conceal, and yet the same students steal this cloak (presumably). The custom is transformed in a tricky ploy and the possible victimizer is transformed into a victim.

But of course binaries are not stable in this play and the flip is again switched when Strepsiades turns his possible victimizers into victims by lighting their school on fire. Overreaction?

STREPSIADES: Yes, it is—


and lots more, too. But everything I learned,


I right away forgot, because I’m old.

PHEIDIPPIDES: That why you lost your cloak?

STREPSIADES: I didn’t lose it—


I gave it to knowledge—a donation.

The cloak (presumably stolen since it is never given it back) is transformed, in Strepsiades’ opinion, from stolen cloak to a donation or gift. But this opposition is not even allowed to be stable. The oppositions collapse as shown in the end of the play.

STUDENT: Help! Who’s setting fire to the house?

STREPSIADES: It’s the man
 whose cloak you stole.

STUDENT: We’ll die. You’ll kill us all!

Strepsiades now decides that he cloak was in fact stolen and not a donation as he stated previously. Even in the same individual’s outlook binaries are not fixed but constantly shifting to whichever side will benefit him most in the moment. Just like Socrates he is learning to shift the meanings of words to better his case, maybe he has hope as an arguer after all.

The cloak becomes a very useful tool in the play to highlight the tricky nature of its characters and undermine the stability of oppositions. The polarities of giving and stealing are not just confused but absolutely destroyed and in a way ridiculed. The cloak is able to shift its way back and forth as a symbol of generosity and greed throughout the play. It breaks down the boundaries between the victims and the victimizers allowing the characters to easily jump from side to side.

I’m on the wife’s side; a cloak this widely used would need to be pretty thick!

Strepsiades AND Pheidippides... Tricksters After all?

One of the most important and over-riding trickster themes of Aristphanes' The Clouds is boundary-crossing and transgression. Strepsiades, and his son Pheidippides are able to cross these boundaries and transgress the norms of society to such a degree that it is easy to see how and why these characters are considered tricksters. Physical and social boundaries are both crossed within the course of the play.

Strepsiades crosses physical boundaries almost constantly throughout The Clouds. Whether it be from his home to the Thinkery or the threshold itself of the Thinkery, Strepsiades emerges from these boundary crossings unscathed, unharmed and unchanged. Pheidippides, on the other hand, does not remain unchanged from crossing the threshold of the Thinkery. He returns to the outside world pale and hunched. The Thinkery has been able to change him into a sophist. The ability to shape-shift is, as we've discussed in class, one of the fundamental attributes of a trickster. But, as Dr. Abbot asks in Georgia's blog post, does it matter that Pheidippides had no real control over this change and what does that mean in the greater understanding of the play? What does it mean that although Strepsiades wishes to shape-shift, or change, into a sophist, he is unable to? I'm not sure of the answer to these questions. Maybe we can discuss it further in class.

Pheidippides also crosses social boundaries. After being fetched from the Thinkery, Pheideippides is able to present a rational argument about why it is correct and moral for sons to beat their fathers. This inversion of the traditional Greek family life crossed many social boundaries, but it is not until Pheidippides uses the same reasoning to argue that it is okay for sons to beat their mothers, that he has crossed an uncrossable boundary. To borrow a popular phrase, that is the straw that breaks the camel's back. Strepsiades curses Pheidippides and asks if it would not be better if Pheidippides threw himself, Socrates and the Worse Argument into the execution pit.

Shapeshifting

Clouds by Aristophanes contains elements of shapeshifting/skin changing that is parallel to the trickster character. We first see this when Strepsiades sees into the Thinkery for the first time and sees the many pale, emaciated students who attend Socrates' teachings. Also, some have their bottoms facing the skies while their heads are closer to the ground.

STREPSIADES: Why are their arse holes gazing up to heaven?

STUDENT: Directed studies in astronomy.

I found this another sign for shapeshifting. Usually, the head is seen as the most intellectual part of the body and is revered in Greek society. However, here they have switched their heads with their bottoms, which is the one of the dirtiest parts of the body. The Student tells Strepsiades that they are studying astronomy through their bottom. How is this possible? How could they be studying astronomy through such a body part? It seems like another brilliant satire Aristophanes created.

The reason these students underwent the changes was because they were convinced the mind was more important than the body. In coming into the Thinkery, Strepsiades gives his cloak and his shoes as "a donation" even though later on in the play, the student acknowledges he stole it. The cloak and the shoes are very important articles of clothing. To abandon it was to knowingly give up all care for his body and focus on his mind only.

Now when Strepsiades undergoes his induction into the Thinkery, he is powdered with flour to gain a pasty complexion. He goes from being a country bumpkin to taking steps to develop his argumentative skills through this physical change that is required of all the students. His son takes on the same physical change.

STREPSIADES: Ah ha, my lad—

what joy. What sheer delight for me to gaze, [1170]

first, upon your colourless complexion,

to see how right away you’re well prepared 1490

to deny and contradict—with that look

which indicates our national character

so clearly planted on your countenance—

the look which says, “What do you mean?”—the look

which makes you seem a victim, even though

you’re the one at fault, the criminal.

I know that Attic stare stamped on your face.

Now you must rescue me—since you’re the one

who’s done me in.

Strepsiades sees now that his son resembles the other students, he is successful in his studies and can relieve him of his debts. When a trickster has this ability, he uses it to his advantage. Although Pheidippides has the ability to argue, he doesn't. It is Strepsiades that has to drive his debtors away, not his son. Instead Pheidippides beats his father and contributes nothing to society. Pheidippides changed, but his morals didn't. Now instead of being an idiot with a gambling problem, he's arrogant and believes himself above the usual social rules.

STREPSIADES: By god, my lad,
I really did have you taught to argue
against what’s just, if you succeed in this—
and make the case it’s fine and justified

for a father to be beaten by his son.

In this way, Pheidippides embodies one of the more prominent features of a trickster beautifully.

Strepsiades: Tricked

To me, the entire play seems to play on the trickster’s quality of constructing and eluding traps. Strepsiades’ whole purpose in the play is to learn how to avoid the “trap” of loans that his son has brought upon him. In order to do this, he wishes to learn how to construct a sort of counter-trap with words from the sophists at the Thinkery. While he is in the Thinkery, he strives to come up with clever ruses but only ends up with buffoonish solutions like burning the court records with a magnifying glass, hanging himself, and getting a witch to bring down the moon.

However, it seems that some of the other characters are better tricksters than Strep in this area. Socrates is introduced with a story about how he caught (trapped?) a queer to steal his cloak and then, later, does the same thing to Strep. Pheidippides is eventually the one to learn the ways of the sophists and uses this knowledge to lure his father into agreeing with his own beating. Furthermore, at the end of the play, the Cloud/Chorus leader tells Strep “You’re the one responsible for this./ you turned yourself toward these felonies.” And “That’s what we do each time we see someone/ who falls in love with evil strategies,/ until we hurl him into misery,/ so he may learn to fear the gods.” These lines lead me to believe that the entire play is a clever trap set for Strep by the Clouds (who are gorgeous women-a stereotype about women’s deceiving nature perhaps?). They didn’t like his avoidance of his debts through dishonesty and therefore taught him a lesson by letting him think his scheme would succeed (for the Clouds seemed to agree with his ideas up until this point) only to have him end up in a worse position, with debts going to court and a son who beats him. This line is also interesting because, here, the Clouds acknowledge the presence of the gods and their superiority when earlier Socrates had touted the Clouds themselves as the only gods.

The play ends with the one trap Strep succeeds in setting. After his plans fall apart and he his left with nothing, Hermes, the ultimate trickster and trap artist “tells” Strep to burn down the Thinkery with Socrates, all his students, and perhaps even his son inside. Strep does this to punish them for their impiety, which makes me think that the trap set by the gods was for the sophists as well. This would make sense considering that Socrates and his students not only deny the existence of the gods (a big no-no) but Socrates even commits an act of hubris when he makes his entrance in a way reminiscent of the divine (an even bigger no-no).

Neologism

A neologism is a new word or phrase that has not yet gained full acceptance as standard vocabulary. At one time, "blog" was such a word. More recently, we got "blogosphere," which may still belong to the category of neologism.

We need a neologism!

In class on Wednesday, I suggested that we need a word to describe that quality of being able to maneuver in such a way as to pass by degrees from outside to inside or from the periphery to the center.

Hermes does this in the Hymn to Hermes. He divides the sacrificial portions of the cow into twelve, not eleven, portions. He argues with Apollo in such a way that they end up taking their dispute to Zeus on Olympus -- exactly where Hermes wants to be. He uses his lyre to ingratiate himself with his half-brother. Finally he joins the pantheon.

The character Paul (played by Will Smith) in the film Six Degrees of Separation attempts something similar. Pretending to have suffered an attack in Central Park, Paul arrives in false distress at the apartment of the wealthy couple Ouisa and Flan Kittredge. In a buttoned-down shirt and blue blazer, he looks as though he could in fact know the couple's children from boarding school. In fact, he's a trickster, a flimflam artist, a con man. But through ingenuity and charm -- including a spellbinding monologue on J. D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye -- he almost succeeds in joining the pantheon, which for him is the elite social class that the Kittredges represent.

So we need a new word. What is the combination of chutzpah or audacity and finesse or subtlety? 

Maybe "tricksterism"? 

Fool Me Once, Shame on You; Fool Me Twice...

Bright-eyed Athena smiled and stroked him with her hand . . .
"You're bold, with subtle plans, and love deceit." 

Zeus laughed aloud at the sight of his scheming child
so smoothly denying his guilt about the cattle. 

My wife's early childhood was spent amid her father's Italian-American family in western Pennsylvania. Her uncles, aunts, and mostly older cousins were always around. Her grandmother even lived in their house for a time.

She tells a story about what it was like to grow up in such a household. Again and again, one of her uncles would say to her, when she entered the room where the adults had gathered, "Hey, I brought a present for you today! I left it in the kitchen. Why don't you go in there and get it!"

On the first and maybe the second of these occasions, she ran into the kitchen to discover . . . pots and pans. No present. And when she walked out of the kitchen, she was met with boisterous laughter.

From a tearful child's perspective, however, not quite so humorous. What in the world were those men thinking?

Anthropologists have made a close study of lying and trickery among modern-day Greeks. Juliet du Boulay, in Portrait of a Greek Mountain Village, John Kennedy Campbell, in Honour, Family and Patronage: A Study of Institutions and Moral Values in a Greek Mountain Community, and Ernestine Friedl, in Vasilika: A Village in Modern Greece, all remark on the early training of children in the arts of secrecy and lying. Du Boulay describes lying as “a practice so prevalent in this society as to be an institution” and as a talent “almost universally possessed,” while the villagers are said to possess “an extreme ingenuity in deceit” (172-73). Campbell remarks that among Sarakatsani men lying is a matter of both habit and principle (283), and Friedl makes the observation that “[o]lder children who have learned to turn the tables on their parents and try to deceive them are admired even as they are scolded” (80).

Here, I think, we have an opportunity to delve a little deeper into the trickster phenomenon.

In class, we pondered the fact that Athena and Zeus take such delight in the trickery of Odysseus and Hermes, respectively, even though the goddess and god are the intended victims of the deceit. Why aren't they more indignant?

Imagine that you live on a remote island. There are two clans living on the island: the shore clan and the mountain clan. You are a member of the shore group. A cousin of yours, a fellow clansman, tricks you into buying a sick horse. The horse dies shortly after the sale.

Now imagine the same scenario, except that you buy the horse from a member of the mountain clan.

Clearly, being duped by an insider is not the same as being deceived by an outsider. In the first scenario, you will probably have a chance at some point to turn the tables on your roguish cousin. Not only that: you can also feel some grudging respect for your cousin's wiliness. The important thing, the factor that trumps everything else, is that he's your cousin, he's "one of us." Next time, maybe, it'll be one of those mountain people he'll trick, and then you and the rest of your clan will have a good, long laugh. Together.

In the second scenario, though, where the deceiver is an outsider, you can see yourself only as a victim, unfairly treated. Your deep resentment is not mitigated by any other considerations. You cannot shift perspective, even a little bit, to see the incident through the eyes of the deceiver.

So much depends on perspective, doesn't it? When my wife's uncles played their trick on her -- we might call it a heartless trick -- they were thinking like those Greek villagers that anthropologists have studied. By tricking her, they did not seek to exclude her from their group. They did not imagine that they were preying on a gullible and naive child. Their laughter was not meant to be cruel.

Instead, they were saying, "This is what we do. This is who we are. To defend the boundaries that define us and exclude them, we do this." And, as with Athena, Zeus, and the people of Vasilika, those uncles would have been thrilled if one day in the future, my wife had convinced one of them that there was a present in the kitchen, just for him.

 

My Dearest Husband

 

From Calypso's Cave on Ogygia 

Dearest Odysseus,

Calypso insists that I write you. I am entrusting this letter to a Phoenician vessel that put in here yesterday to water. They say that they will deliver it or give it to someone who can.

I arrived here two months ago, after an arduous journey. No one I consulted had ever heard of this place. In the end, I had to go to Aeaea and get advice from Circe. That took some time. For one thing, she seldom has visitors and kept begging me to stay a bit longer. Also, there was an accident with a potion . . . Well, it's a long story, but I actually like the way my nose looks now, much better than before. A snout can be very useful, you know.

Then, after setting out from Aeaea for Ogygia, someone on my ferry recommended this wonderfully palatial hotel in Scheria. She said that the mother-daughter proprietors -- yes, your very own Arete and Nausicaa! -- had only been in business for a year, but that she'd heard wonderful things. So, another detour. They send their love, by the way. I did get a glimpse or two of Alcinous as well. He's doing about as well as can be expected, after the divorce.

I hope you found my note, pinned to the olive-tree post of our bed.

I wish I had never come across that book about heroes! The Hero With a Thousand Faces. I thought it was your own memoir!

I did read it, as you know. I read all about the hero's journey, how you're supposed to have gained wisdom on your journey. And then I thought to myself, "But he's not changed at all!"

I even memorized this part of the book: "The individual, through prolonged psychological disciplines, gives up completely all attachment to his personal limitations, idiosyncrasies, hopes and fears, no longer resists the self-annihilation that is prerequisite to rebirth in the realization of truth, and so becomes ripe, at last, for the great at-one-ment."

Oh, that sounded so . . . wonderful. (I think: I'm not sure about that "at-one-ment" part.) Yes, let him leave home a man too pleased with himself by far, a braggart at times, a glory hound, prone to outbursts, a husband who rarely speaks his true mind even to his dutiful wife. Then let him come home changed, chastened and enlightened, far wiser. More like . . . well, more like me, if I may say so myself.

But did you? Did you come back a new man? In a word, no.

The same old Odysseus. I've talked this over ad nauseum with Circe, Arete, Nausicaa, and Calypso. They all agree that you are, by your very nature, incorrigible. That the very quality that enabled you to survive all your adventures means that you will never change. Only Athena disagrees. (Naturally. She always takes your side . . .)

I don't know whether I'll ever come home. Remember: Telemachus likes light starch in his chiton, and Eurycleia has to be reminded to dust the men's quarters.

Love,
Penelope

P.S. Calypso says you left your toothbrush here. I'm enclosing it in this package.

Loyal Nausicaa

Nausicaa is old enough to be married. Although, her parents have not yet found anyone. The only potential husband that Nausicaa has in story is Odysseus. When she first meets him she is not fazed by his nakedness whereas her handmaids are. When initially meeting him she clothes him and feeds him in the same way a wife would tend to her husband. Nausicaa even washes clothing in order to flirt with Odysseus. This notion of Odysseus as a potential husband for Nausicaa is so much that her father, Alcinuous even offers to Odysseus that he should marry her.

Nausicaa is essentially a younger Penelope who is the potential loyal and dutious wife. She works within the confines of societal expectations that she is still learning to understand.

-- Victoria

Sirens you say...er...sing?

We hear about the Sirens before either reader or Odysseus is introduced to them formally. Circe explains to Odysseus how the Sirens beguile men so that they will never want to return to their families.

This sounds really familiar...

1. Like Circe, the Sirens trick men.

2. Like Circe, the Sirens gain their power from how they can keep men.

3. Like the lotus-eaters, their magic makes the men apathetic about returning home.

4. Like Calypso, the promise of some sort eternity. Calypso promises eternal life, while the Sirens promise eternal knowledge.

There are things that are unique about the Sirens.

1. They come in a pair.

2. Odysseus' awareness of possible torment and doom, but his insistence that he listen to them

3. The Sirens calling out to him specifically make them more aware then say, the Cyclops or the suitors, who Odysseus can easily hide he identity from

4. The use of sound, instead of sight, stimulation to attract Odysseus

Sight is really important is the Odyssey. There is the foresight that everyone knows that Odysseus is destined to go to home to Ithaca, and lose his crew, but gain his family back. The poignant scene of when Odysseus can see Ithaca, but he is blow back away from his home. How Odysseus takes the Cyclops' sight for his own advantage.

But, the Sirens entice people with their sounds and language. Though not described as such in Homer, Sirens were half-bird, half-women, and could be sexualized or really really scary. But it doesn't matter which because it is their voices that entice and distract men.

Another but. The Sirens don't trip up Odysseus. There is this supernatural force that could so easily ruin every hope he has of getting home. And finally, Odysseus proves that he can actually be the great tactician and doing something right without first doing a bunch of things to wrong so that he has to do something right. What does this mean?

Maybe we have to look at the form of the poem. It is in the oral tradition, like the sirens' song. Maybe the siren scene is the bard saying "Hey look how entranced you are with me and my story! But remember, at the end of the poem, you have to sail back to Ithaca and slay your own suitors because this is not real life!"

Another point about the sirens' failure to capture Odysseus: girl don't mind, no big deal. Instead of getting hung up on the great and wonderful Odysseus like Circe and Calypso, the Sirens just go back to being Sirens. It is clear they've trapped men before and will do it again. This aspect could serve as a reminder that Odysseus is just one guy. We're reading an epic poem named after him, but all the basic story really is a guy trying to get home. The epic nature of it, is constructed first by our perceptions of this fantastical world as inherently epic and in the form in which we are hearing the story, epic poetry.

-- Emma

Circe - In case you haven't heard enough!

The first mention of Circe or her home is through the image of smoke rising from her house. Smoke is definitely something visual but not necessary tangible it is not something that can be controlled by man’s touch or force. This is a very telling first sign for Circe and the episode to come. She has the same alluring but slippery quality of smoke. And also smoke implies fire and thus cooking, a typically domestic chore associated with women. And what I find most interesting about Circe is that although she does fit this gender expectation of cooking for men what she cooks and feeds to the soldiers (barley, cheese and wine) also includes a potion that turns them into pigs. She is a strong female character because here she is subverting the stereotype of providing for men because she is a woman instead she is using the men to provide herself with livestock. Also there is another subversion of this idea of the female providing for the male when she not only ‘feeds’ them as human males but also as male pigs with barley, ilex and cornel buds. I find this humorous and ironic. She is mocking this expectation in my opinion.

Circe is physically described as having glorious hair and a sweet singing voice. These are physical attributes that are praised in women by men but she uses them to her advantage (luring the men into her home to transform them into animals) against these same men. Again she uses stereotypes and expectations of men for women ultimately against them to aid their downfall.

Another female expectation that is ascribed to Circe is that she is weaving at the time when the men come to her house. “...she went up and down a great design on a loom, immortal / such as goddesses have, delicate and lovely and glorious their work...” This takes away her individuality as a person and as women since it is something that all women and goddesses are expected to do and the quality of all the weaving of immortals is described in the same terms. It is expected that she weave and that is will be delicate and feminine.

I found the ‘showdown’ between Circe and Odysseus to be very problematic in a feminist reading of the text. Circe at first uses her potion against him but it is her ‘long wand’ that is the tool for final domination. In my opinion this is an undeniable subverting the stereotype that women are more emotional phallic image.

Odysseus then counteracts with his own phallic symbol, ‘drawing from beside my thigh the sharp sword.’ This confrontation becomes nothing more than a, for lack of a less crude phrase, a competition of whose is bigger. The only way Circe can dominate a man and have power over him if she has a phallic tool just as they do. Odysseus does win the ‘competition’ however but Circe does show her great intelligence by discerning that his identity instead of waiting for him to give her this information. But I did also find Hermes’ recounting of what would happen next in this confrontation problematic. Hermes tells Odysseus, “...she will be afraid, and invite you to go to bed with her.” I interpreted this line to literally be saying she will save herself by offering her body. Why does she have to sacrifice her body and sexuality to a man in order to save herself?

Another thing I found interesting about his book and the Circe episode is that men are often lamenting and weeping in great emotion. Excessive displays of emotion is a stereotype traditionally applied to women but this also is subverting with the character of Circe. The men are often weeping around her and she eventually ‘calls them out’ for this by telling yes she already knows all the pain they have suffered but they can’t move on unless they suck it up. As Circe’s states it, “I too / know all the pains you have suffered on the sea where the fish swarm, / and all the damage done you on the dry land by hostile / men. But come now, eat your food and drink your wine, until / you gather back again into your chests the kind of spirit / you had in you when first you left the land of your father / on rugged Ithaka.”

Though I found some aspects of the Circe episode problematic I thought she ultimately was portrayed as a strong female character for all the of the stereotype subversions she employs.

-- Marian

Circe the Enchantress

Odysseus first encounters Circe on the island of Aeaea; she is a minor goddess but most of all an enchantress, who lures Odysseus’ men with a feast of honey and wine, and turns them into pigs. Circe is founded in her elaborate mansion weaving at her loom, surrounded by wild animals that were on the contrary friendly and tame—probably other unfortunate man who had been drugged by the same potion. Although Odysseus, guided by Hermes, is able to ward off her magic drugs and bring his men back to their human state from their animalistic form, he and his men still spend a year in luxury on Circe’s island, and Odysseus “unwillingly” becomes Circe’s lover.

Circe is known for her extravagant beauty and bewitching power over men. With her sensuality and mesmerizing voice, she lures helpless men into her wooded lair. It’s interesting how she emasculates men by changing their form to bestial creatures. Circe breaks all the norms of a patriarchic society. She is not oppressed by men and is even crafty enough to convince Odysseus to be her lover. However, Circe’s power derives from her ability to manipulate and use her body to seduce. Unlike Achilles or Odysseus who use their strength or tactfulness, Circe is simply a harlot-like witch.

-- Anjelica

Circe the Superwoman! (AKA Character Sketch)

Circe, friend or foe? Honestly, neither. Circe is a power-driven woman who seems bent on breaking the usual objectification of women by making men her victims and turning them into animals. In Circe’s world, the women rule and the men are at their mercy. Talk about role reversing. Though what struck me were the animals she chose to turn the men into. The poem speaks of the men coming across lions guarding (or more like purring) at the doors to Circe’s home and later of the men turning into swine. Was this some sort of way of Circe showing men’s true nature through the animals she turns them into? Seeing as how the men came into Circe’s home and feasted without a second thought, the idea seems plausible. Also, how the language in which Homer uses to describe how Circe continues to feed them add to this visual of the powerful Circe. “In front of them Circe threw down feed,
acorns, beech nuts, cornel fruit, the stuff
pigs eat when they are wallowing in mud,” (Bk 10, lines 242-244).

When Odysseus confronts her and frightens her like Hermes tells him to, Circe cowers. Is she really cowering, though? Or is she using her feminine allusion to stop Odysseus from attacking her and convince him to share her bed? In a small world consisting of only women and animals, Circe must not get many men worthy enough to share her bed. In this way, Circe is a trickster. Granted, Odysseus persuades her to swear not to harm him, but I don’t think that was an ulterior motive for Circe. I believe she wanted a bed warmer and the simple joy of company. All the while, however, Circe maintains the upper hand. Her tool? Her femininity. How does she trick the men at first? By being a proper lady and offering them food and wine. How does she trick Odysseus? By acting like a weak woman in need of mercy. But besides all that, Circe still maintains full control. For example, she doesn’t allow Odysseus and his men to simply leave her household. They must perform the daunting task of traveling to the underworld. Convincing them to travel to the world of the dead? Is this some how a projection of Circe’s ideas of men? Perhaps.

In other words, Circe wants the men to know she is the only thing keeping them alive at this point in their adventure. You want to leave? Fine. Travel to the underworld and speak with the dead first. Also (to go off of a point made in class), when the drunken Elpenor left Circe’s protective inner circle of her home, he fell from the roof and died. None of the men had before left her home after convening together. Circe always has the power and the control.

Even when the men go to the underworld, Circe still controls the situation. She gives them the two animals needed for the sacrifice for their excursion to be a success. Also, she tells them where they need to go to speak with Teiresias. Without Circe’s interference, they would have failed.

-- Georgia

Circe Character Sketch

Book 10 of The Odyssey introduces the goddess Circe who lives in a mansion on Aeaea. When a group of Odysseus’s men come to investigate her homestead, she welcomes them into her home and feeds them lavishly. Little do they know that the food is drugged and after eating, Circe transforms them into pigs. Odysseus comes to save his men and escapes her tricks with the help of Hermes. After sharing Circe’s bed, Odysseus and his mean live in a life of luxury in Circe’s home for a year. Odysseus and his men finally leave, with Circe’s blessing and help.

I got the impression that, because she is a woman, Circe is somewhat marginalized. Not only is she divine and a sorceress but she seems to go against the norms of her patriarchal society when she captures and transforms men into animals. Although she is a powerful goddess, the men seem astounded that she would have the gall to keep men to do her bidding. On the other hand, she engages in the traditional “woman’s work” of weaving and caring for the man’s body (she dresses Odysseus in his preparation to leave). She doesn’t really fit into any category completely: she’s a goddess yet isn’t allocated complete power over mortals like the major deities have, but she’s not completely mortal either (despite her pretenses).

When Odysseus comes in, I get the distinct impression that Circe must be put into her “place” by this man. I think that the fact that she is neither completely divine nor completely mortal enables Odysseus to do this. Her trickery is no worse than what Odysseus has done, yet she must be returned to her proper place as a subordinate to a man. Furthermore, I found it interesting that when Odysseus threatens to kill her, she reconciles and says that she and Odysseus should find a “mutual trust” (line 10.308 in my translation) and yet, Odysseus still distrusts her enough to make her swear an oath to not harm him. Despite his distrust, Odysseus must still be granted permission by Circe for he and his men to leave. Again, I find a sort of liminality/marginality that could be extended to other strong female characters in the Odyssey: she is not completely subordinate but she is not an equal either.

~Kaitlyn

Calypso Character Sketch

Although only mentioned in one book (Book 5), Calypso plays an incredibly important role in The Odyssey. It is on her island that Odysseus lives for eight years, and it also her island that provides the natural resources to make the raft that takes him almost all the way to the land of the Phaecians. Although abundant with resources and beautiful plants (check out the description in V.63-74 and V.237-242), Odysseus has grown tire of this paradise. Calypso loves Odysseus deeply and expresses regret when she learns that the gods disapprove and cannot condone her love for a mortal man. Calypso offers Odysseus immortality, if he will only stay on Ogygia. Odysseus, of course, chooses to return to Ithaca and Penelope. Odysseus seems to acknowledge what a privilege it would be to remain on Ogygia with Calypso, but knows that as a mortal, he must choose a mortal life, even if it promises more sorrow and pain.

For Odysseus to accept this offer of conditional immortality, he would need to forgo his previous identity. Odysseus is unwilling to give this identity up, especially for a woman. Until Hermes visits Calypso, Calypso is clearly taking on a dominant role in the relationship, providing sustenance, shelter, and companionship (even if that last bit is not wholly welcome). It seems to me that Odysseus must reject Calypso's offer if he wants to retain his masculinity and rightful role as war hero and man.

-Rebecca

Odysseus Bourne

In the second half of the Odyssey, Odysseus tells elaborate lies to the goddess Athena, to the pigkeeper Eumaeus, to his wife Penelope, and to his father Laertes. He provides himself with a different identity for each audience.

He is a murderer in flight from Crete. No, he is the illegitimate son of a wealthy Cretan. No, he is Aethon, brother to the renowned Cretan warrior Idomeneus. No, he is Eperitus, son of Polypemon of Alybas. (Try saying that three times fast.)

The real Odysseus pretends to be someone he's not. What if the opposite were the case, though? What if someone had come to Ithaca claiming to be Odysseus but was in fact an imposter?

In this you may recognize the plot outline of a film called The Return of Martin Guerre (Le Retour de Martin Guerre), which Hollywood remade as Sommersby, with Jodie Foster and Richard Gere. It's also been made into a musical. You may not know, however, that these productions are based on a true story of false identity from 16th century France.

Martin Guerre was a peasant. He was accused of stealing grain and ran off, abandoning his wife Bertrande and their child. Eight years later he -- or someone claiming to be Martin Guerre -- returned. Bertrande accepted him as her long-lost husband. They lived together for three years and had more children.

An uncle became suspicious, though. Then a soldier turned up saying that the true Martin Guerre had lost a leg in battle. There was a trial. Guerre was acquitted, with Bertrande affirming his identity. But the uncle persisted and initiated a new trial. He claimed to have proof that the man was really a scoundrel named Arnaud du Tilh, known also as Pansette.

At the second trial, this man was able to relate intimate details of his early married life with Bertrande, before he disappeared for eight years. In addition, many witnesses claimed that he was indeed Martin Guerre, with many others disagreeing or expressing uncertainty. Bertrande, finally, although she had changed her mind about this man, refused to swear an oath that he was an imposter. Still, he was convicted and sentenced to death.

"Martin" appealed the verdict. Bertrande and the uncle were arrested on charges of perjury. The accused submitted to detailed questioning about his past and made no misstatements. It looked as though he would convince the judges and win his case on appeal.

And that's when the real Martin Guerre turned up. With one leg. Even though he could not remember details of his own past as well as the imposter, his entire family confirmed without a doubt that he was the genuine Martin Guerre. The imposter -- yes, the notorious Arnauld du Tilh -- confessed and was hanged in front of the Guerre home.

Incroyable, n' est-ce pas? Which raises this question: what if Odysseus had come home and immediately presented himself to Penelope as her long-lost husband? Do you get the sense that in Book 19, when Penelope interviews the beggar, she already suspects that this man may be her husband? But that this elaborate charade is somehow necessary for them both? 

Here's another question: is there a sense in which Odysseus -- the man who during his travels lost everything and became "Nobody"-- has to reconstruct his identity when he reaches home? Is that what he's doing in his so-called Cretan tales? Playing around with his identity, sorting out who he will now be?

Hmmm. Maybe, after all, this is what we mean by "identity." We tell a story about ourselves, and if it sounds good, that's who we decide to be.  

My name is Jim. To all appearances, I am a mild-mannered professor at a liberal arts college for women. In fact, I am a highly trained CIA operative on a mission to brainwash students into becoming classics majors and minors . . . 


-- Abbot

Dear Tiresias: An Advice Column

Tiresias, are you out there somewhere?

(quavery voice from the Great Beyond) Yyyessss . . .

I’ve been thinking about some advice you gave Odysseus, way back when.

(slight hesitation) You mean, that he should pick up something nice for Penelope on the way home?

No, not that.

           

The tip about the Dark Age, suggesting he rebalance his portfolio and invest in basic commodities?

No, no, I mean that bizarre comment about carrying his oar inland until he reaches a people who know nothing of the sea and don’t salt their food.

Oh, that. Honestly, sometimes I have no idea where that stuff comes from.

You gave him a sign. You said that when someone calls his oar a fan to winnow grain, he would know that he had reached the spot to plant his oar and sacrifice to the gods.

I did? How odd. I’m not even sure I know what “winnowing” involves. Do you?

I do, but that’s not why I’ve summoned you from the House of Hades. I just have this suspicion that the bit about the oar and the winnowing fan is important somehow.

You may be right. I do have a reputation for saying important things. You know – and this is a good story, really great stuff – there was this fellow named Oedipus who married . . .

What interests me is the idea of a sign. You told him you were giving him a sure sign. And the crux of the incident is all about signs: the stranger thinks that the wooden object that Odysseus carries signifies a winnowing fan, not an oar. In other words, you required Odysseus to travel to a place so remote that he left his own sign-system for a completely different one: a place where “oar” and “ship” and “sea” have no meaning at all, where they signify nothing.

I know I’m supposed to be clairvoyant, but I have no idea what you’re talking about.

Odysseus is the epitome of cunning intelligence, of mētis. His skill at deception depends on his ability to manipulate signs. Disguised as a beggar in Ithaca, for example, he signifies weakness and submissiveness. Therefore, the suitors do not recognize that they are in imminent danger. Masters of trickery rely on this ability, the ability to use X to signify Y and mask Z.

Yes, I begin to see . . . er, I mean, understand what you mean. If Odysseus travels out of his own sign-system into a completely different one – where up might be down and black could be white, so to speak – then he could hardly be wily Odysseus. He would not understand the signs in this place; in other words, he would not be able to play with people’s minds, because he would have no idea how they think.

Precisely. And so my question is, why did you require a trickster to travel to a place where he could not possibly be a trickster?

            No earthly idea. Now tell me one more time: what is a “blog”?

--Abbot

Hey, There's a Huge Wooden Horse in Our Front Yard!

Last week, in connection with Hesiod's Theogony, we talked about deceptive gifts, the sort of gifts that confer -- or appear to confer -- a benefit but also act as a trap. The Trojan horse is the classic (and classical!) example. Pandora is such a gift. Another that we did not discuss in class can be found in the myth of Demeter and Persephone.

You remember that one. The god Hades, lord of the underworld, rapes Persephone and kidnaps her. Persephone's mom is Demeter, goddess of agriculture. Demeter is furious, not least because Hades' brother Zeus permitted this to happen. Demeter leaves the company of the gods and calls herself Doso*, a mortal woman. Abandoning her agricultural role, she hides the seeds of crops in the ground, people starve, the gods and goddesses receive no sacrifices of first fruits. Zeus commands Hades to return Persephone to her mother. But first Hades gives her pomegranate to eat. She accepts the gift and consequently has to spend a portion of every year in the underworld as Hades' wife.

I never understood why eating some pomegranate fruit -- or just one seed, as the Hymn to Demeter has it -- means that Persephone has to spend at least part of the year with Hades.

Now I do understand. It's simple, really. The rape establishes no bond between Hades and Persephone. The gift-giving does.

It's like when someone says to another, "I'm sorry, I can't accept that." The basic idea is that by accepting a gift from a person -- someone, say, that you would prefer not to have in your life -- you are linked to that person.

So, in this sense, ALL gifts are deceptive. Every gift, even a mere seed, conceals something of monumental importance: human relationship.

--Abbot

*The name Doso is based on the Greek verb "to give." Interesting, huh?

Savvy?

All right, confession time. There are a lot of reasons I took the Trickster Themes class. I love classics, I missed Latin, I couldn't take any of the English classes I wanted...but there is one big, fat, non-academic reason: Jack Sparrow.

What can I say? I love the pirate. And I totally think he fits into our discussion of tricksters. Using the list that Babcock-Abrahams, the author of my article, came up with I found that conniving Sparrow fits a lot of the characteristics that she sets up: exhibits an independence from temporal and spatial boundaries, tends to inhabit crossroads/thresholds, have an enormous libido without procreative outcome, follow the motley of principle in dress,

generally amoral-especially defiant of authority, privileged in the case of social norms, and how we just don't know if he is good or bad.

First, exhibits an independence from temporal and spatial boundaries. Did you see the third movie? Hopefully you did. But so he gets eaten by a Kraken in the second one (you don't come back from that easily) and then ends up on this weird island/desert that is supposed to be Davy Jones' Locker. Which is supposed to be the bottom of the ocean.

But the ocean would way too comfortable and easy for Jack because...

He loves crossroads! Granted, his crossroads are tides and winds, but what is more transitional and mediating than the ocean.

And even though Jack Sparrow looks like he probably smelled like salt, W.H. Auden, rum and the most vile dirty hair smell ever, the ladies still love him. He even gets Elizabeth (Keira Knightley) to question her feelings for Will (Orlando Bloom). And Will looks like he at least showered in the last month.

My favorite, and probably least intellectual, reason for loving Jack Sparrow is his clothes. They are adorably insane. And it is a characteristic of being a trickster! (who knew!?) (probably Dr. Abbot...) Did you know that no one else in the series is allowed to wear a leather tricorne? I also love that they are decidedly not like typical pirate wear that we think of before the movies came out, but now that's one of the first things we think of when we talk about pirates!

Also in reference to the possibility of female tricksters, in the new movie, Penelope Cruz is supposed to play a woman who can pull one over on Jack Sparrow!

Trickster Tale in 'Things Fall Apart'

In my Postcolonial Literature class we just read the novel Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, which is amazing and I recommend it of course. In my favorite (and Khwaja agree it is the most powerful/important) chapter of the book one of the main character's wives, Ekwefi and her daughter Ezinma are taking turns telling stories and it is Ekwefi's turn to tell a story. The story she tells is of a trickster character, Tortoise! Also, an important note is that the book is set in an Ibo village in Nigeria. The story tells of Totoise who wants hear of a great feast all the birds have been invited to in the sky by the sky people. Of course, he just after the food but he convinces the birds to let him come and each give him a feather so he can fly by convincing them he is a changed man. On the day that are leaving for feast Tortoise tells them that there is an age-old custom they must follow that when you go to a great feast you make up a new name for yourself. They have never heard of this custom but they still agree. Tortoise chooses the name 'All for you.' When they arrive at the feast and about to eat Tortoise asks the sky people who they made this feast for. A man replies, "For all of you." So Tortoise since he told them that was his name declares that of course all the food was made for him so the birds can only eat after he has eaten his fill. The birds in anger do not from the few scraps that are left and leave Tortoise in the sky taking each of their feathers with him so he cannot fly home. Tortoise asks Parrot to tell his wife to put everything soft that they own outside but Parrot in revenge tells her that Tortoise asked her to put everything hard they own outside. Tortoise saw his wife doing this but didn't know from the view that they were hard things so he jumped and broke his shell when he landed. He survived but that is why the tortoise's shell is not smooth.

I am still exploring the significance of this Trickster tale in context of the novel but if anyone has read the novel (or not) and would like to offer interpretations feel free! I just had to share!

Humans and the belly

After class today, I keep on thinking about the human condition. It is fascinating how because Zeus chose the appealing looking meat with the bones underneath, the human race was alloted the belly. The belly being symbolic for work and always having to toil to satisfy our hunger. Had Zeus chosen the other pile, would humans have been immortal? Why is it that we humans are cursed with always wanting and never being satisfied?

Another enlightening point in last night's reading was this idea of women being a "thieving" fire. How women not only have a physical hunger for food, but also an erotic hunger/sexual desire.

--Anjelica

Those Wascally Gweeks

Muse on this -- you may find it amusing!

The Greeks just loved mind games. A guy named Epimenides, who lived in the sixth century, is supposed to have said, "Cretans are always liars." Okay, fine, thanks for letting me know! But wait . . . Epimenides himself is a Cretan? So he's lying about always being a liar. So maybe Cretans aren't always liars? And if they don't always lie, then maybe Epimenides is telling the truth. Which means they are always liars. Good gracious.

Epimenides is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg, when it comes to Greeks who love to think about thinking about thinking. There's also Heraclitus, called Heraclitus the Obscure even by other brainy Greeks. This is the guy who said you can't step in the same river twice. Here are some of his zingers: "Mortals are immortals and immortals mortals, these living the death of those, those dead in the life of these." Huh? What about this priceless bit of wisdom: "Wisdom is one thing. It is to know the thought by which all things are steered through all things." Okay, so wisdom is to know the thought . . . Oh, I give up.

"Epistemology" is what you do when you're trying to become knowledgeable about knowledge. No surprise, that's based on Greek: episteme, "knowledge," and logos, "word, reckoning, thought." "Metaphysics"? Also Greek. And "paradox"? Yep, you guessed it.

I thought about all this when I read that line from Hesiod. Cue the Muses:

"Field-dwelling shepherds, ignoble disgraces, mere bellies, we know how to say many false things similar to genuine ones, but we know, when we wish, how to proclaim true things" (G. Most, tr.).

Let's put aside the fact that this is really odd way to greet somebody. What the heck does it mean? Is Heraclitus available for a consultation? What makes this even more complicated is that the Greek words for "genuine" and for "true" are different. (That's why my old college professor Glenn Most uses different words in his translation.) "Genuine" is etumoisin and "true" is alethea.

Louise Pratt, a classics professor at Emory, has thought about all this. She believes that etuma for the Greeks indicates truth in the sense of a correspondence between the speaker's words and the reality he or she describes. It's true in an objective sense, I guess. The word alethea, in contrast, has a subjective component. The speaker has fully in mind what really happened and wishes to speak it forth honestly and fully, without deception, truthfully.

Hmm, where does that get us? Nine radiant goddesses ambush a poor guy stumbling around Mt. Helicon, chasing sheep when he'd rather be composing poetry. They insult him and then tell him that they can do either of two things, depending on how they're feeling at the moment: (1) they can say false things that sound like objectively true things or (2) they can say things that are true and which they mean to be taken as true.

I'm hopelessly confused (Pandora, I need you). The Muses say they know how to say non-genuine things that sound like genuine things: so, is that true, or is that statement itself not true . . . er, I mean not genuine? Can they "really" tell lies, or are they lying about that?

And why would they want to utter falsehoods? And does it matter if what they say is false, if something not true can so convincingly resemble the truth? (Maybe this is what Stephen Colbert means by "truthiness"?)

I feel as though I've had a visit from Wadkjunkaga. Which is the point of this post: in what could be the oldest Greek literary work we have, at the very beginning of the poem, the reader encounters a fictional character (Hesiod) created by an actual author (also Hesiod), one or both of whom had a real or imagined encounter with Muses who are capable of telling him the truth, only he can never be sure whether it's really true or merely genuine or only seemingly true.

I promised you trickster themes, didn't I?

--Abbot