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

Loki

Wakdjunkaga, Loki, Tortoise, Hare: already, early in the course, we've met several tricksters of myth and folklore.

But for one reason or another, we did not have a chance to talk about Loki, the trickster figure of Norse mythology.

I wonder what thoughts you have on Loki? You know what caught my eye and intrigued me? When he was in hiding from the gods and goddesses, after having instigated the death of Baldur, he was taking the form of a salmon. But in the evenings, he worked on constructing a net or weir for the capture of fish, and it was the remains of this very contraption that the gods found in the fire (where Loki had thrown it, as he escaped) when they arrived at Loki's hiding place. They concluded that such a net would be the very thing to catch Loki, in his transfigured form.

Loki is the author of his own undoing? How strange. I'm also interested in the concept of the trap as something closely associated with tricksters. 

By the way, there's a fish company that calls itself Loki Fish, which I think is pretty clever. (www.lokifish.com)

--Abbot

A Conversation with C. G. Jung

Jim: Carl, did you know that I am teaching a course at Agnes Scott College on your old friend Trickster?

Carl: As it happens, I did not.

Jim: Well, it's true. To be accurate, the course is on trickster themes in classical literature. We've spent the last couple of weeks becoming familiar with interpretations of Trickster by several people, including your eminence.

Carl: I'm flattered. And what do you and your students think of my theory of archetypes? Surely you agree that Trickster is simply a manifestation of the Shadow archetype, that he is (if I may quote myself) the "epitome of all the inferior traits of character in people"?

Jim: I confess that I am intrigued with your approach, Herr Jung. For my part, I know that I have been overtaken, at one time or another in my life, by trickster-like impulses and behaviors. For example, when I was in college, I was walking with a group of my roommates and friends. We were approaching a chain hanging low across the road, blocking cars from entering the campus on that street. As my friends were about to step over the chain, some mischievous, devilish impulse caused me to lift the chain with my foot. Two of them tripped over the chain, and I immediately felt awful. Was my Trickster-Shadow, the one that we all have inside of us, asserting itself?

Carl: Yes, well, perhaps you should make an appointment at my office, Jim, and we should, er, discuss this?

Jim: Maybe another time. But to get back to theories about the trickster: after hearing all my students report, I must say that I cannot call myself a Jungian.

Carl: Surely you are joking! It cannot be that any of these other theories has the explanatory power . . . the genius . . . the simple yet profound insight of my extraordinary theory of psychic archetypes! It was good enough for Paul Radin, but it's not good enough for you, eh?

Jim: Hold on there, Carl. Don't get too excited. It's just that there are some other good ideas out there.

Carl: Preposterous! Surely you are not about to say that you are a Freudian!

Jim: No, I'm not. But what about this? You say that everyone everywhere, regardless of his or her social and cultural circumstances, has this same innate Shadow figure in his or her psyche. And that Trickster is an objectification of the inner psychic disposition. We tell and listen to stories featuring Trickster because we want to hold the earlier low intellectual and moral level before the eyes of the more highly developed individual. Right?

Carl: Precisely.

Jim: Well, what bothers me is that with your approach, we have to pass over and explain away so much. There's a guy named Grottanelli, for example, who has analyzed a Roman trickster story in Phaedrus. He points out that this trickster figure illustrates the role that daring can play in a society. Without at least one person who is willing to take risks, we stagnate, we lose the chance to grow and maybe even to save ourselves. 

Carl: Hmmm.

Jim: And a woman named Doueihi points out that in your approach to the myths about Trickster, we treat discourse -- a particular text, specific words arranged in a particular way -- as mere story, that is, just a plain old set of events. We lose the nuance and particularity of a single instance of storytelling. We don't see the way that the discourse raises questions and doubts, the way it plays with language to make the reader aware of just how ambiguous, open-ended, and indeterminate these tales really are. Doueihi says that a Trickster discourse is one that celebrates creativity, the endless possibilities of finding meanings in life.

Carl: Bah!

Jim: There's more. Other people focus on Trickster as a boundary-crosser, whose transgressions (far from being merely evil) can provide a society with the means to recognize those boundaries, maybe alter them, and at a minimum feel less burdened by them. So, with these and other approaches, instead of seeing this figure as merely "ridiculous," as you put it, we have a chance to see other aspects of Trickster. Positive aspects.

Carl: Well, yes, even I have said that Trickster contains the seeds of conversion into his opposite. That Trickster is the forerunner of the Savior.

Jim: I remember that. That's how you ended your essay on Trickster. I wonder if you ended your essay where you might have started it?

Carl: You may be right. Hmmm, the only one who dares, eh? Discourse that celebrates creativity and meaningfulness, you say? Boundary-crossing that revitalizes a society? Very interesting! Might I attend this class of yours at Agnes Scott College? I'd love to meet your students!

Jim: Sorry, Carl, there's something I forgot to mention about this particular college...

 --Abbot