May 7, 2024 • 44 mins
Revisiting past episodes featuring myths born of the cultural memory of the Bronze Age. Find the full Bronze Age playlist here.
CW/TW: far too many Greek myths involve assault. Given it's fiction, and typically involves gods and/or monsters, I'm not as deferential as I would be were I referencing the real thing.
Sources: See the individual episodes' descriptions for sources.
Attributions and licensing information for music used in the podcast can be found here: mythsbaby.com/sources-attributions.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:40):
Hello, this is let's talk about mits baby, and I
am your host live here with an episode to save
my soul. That's a little dramatic, but like not really.
Today I am here with one of two episodes today
(01:02):
and Friday's episode, which will be collections of past episodes
as I am sometimes wont to do when I need
to survive. And in this time, we are looking at
myths from the Bronze Age, or rather myths not from
the Bronze Age, but which tell us something about how
(01:25):
the cultural memory of the Bronze Age manifested in the
later myths. So today we have actually, now that I
say all of that, we have one one bit of
the episode is absolutely a myth from the Bronze Age,
and that is we are starting out with a little
bit of the epic of Gilgamesh. I covered that back
(01:46):
I don't even know when, but over two episodes, and
this is just a little taste of those two episodes
covering that myth from ancient Iraq. And then we are
going to create of course, and looking at the myths
of crete like Europa and Zeus and the sort of
the mythological memory of creating from the levant the same
(02:10):
people who would go on to help the Greeks invent
their alphabet, those Phoenicians. Then, of course we are moving
to the mainland to the myths of Mycenie and my
favorite cursed family, those Tantalids and their horrifying familial relationships,
(02:33):
and then of course the most famous woman of Sparta, Helen.
We're gonna look at a little bit of that myth
from a past episode, and of course some of the Iliad,
because who doesn't want to listen to Patrick Less really
and Hector, you know, everyone's favorite characters from the Iliad.
(02:54):
These sections from past episodes were picked out by Michaela
because she's an absolute gem who wants me to be
able to continue to function and thus help me put
together a couple of episodes that will allow me to
take a little bit of a rest. If it hasn't
been clear in past episodes. I'm really struggling. And while
I loved the Bronze Age series so very much, it
(03:17):
definitely didn't help the struggle as it was not remotely
in my field of expertise. But it was a joy
and I'm very glad we did it. In any case,
today we're just looking at these past episodes. Some of
them are from a very long time ago, some not
quite so long ago. All of them are from much
larger episodes featuring much more of these myths that do
(03:39):
tell us something about this cultural memory of the Bronze Age.
There is a Spotify playlist listed in the episode's description,
and that has all of the original full length episodes.
If you want to keep listening, if you want to
return to the whole of the epic of Gilgamesh or
my favorite cursed family, maybe a little bit, want to
(04:00):
return to the Iliad, the most famous bit of cultural memory.
All of that is available in the episode of description.
If you are so inclined, this is episode two sixty.
(04:28):
Archaic myth says cultural Memory of the Bronze Age Gilgamesh
(04:48):
is a king of Uruk, a godly king, part god
and part human. It's believed that the story is indeed
based on a real king. That I suppose we have
to assume that king was all human. You never know,
though the Mesopotamians were far more advanced. Perhaps they did
have a god king too. Gilgamesh, king of Uruk, is
said to be blessed. He's in the style of Heracles,
(05:12):
He's strong, wise, beautiful. He's everything you want a king
to be and more. He's also a dick, another standard
king trait. I would argue Gilgamash is becoming tyrannical, and
his people are attempting to rise up against him in
whatever way they can. Gilgamesh is oppressive. He's forcing the
(05:33):
men to take part in games of strength of forced labor.
It's not entirely clear which, but they're being oppressed and
forced into something, and the women well as per mythology,
Gilgamesh is forcing all the women to have sex with him,
usually on their wedding nights, before they have sex with
their new husband, but after they're married. He's an incredibly
classy man, and I would say that the Greeks likely
(05:55):
found some inspiration in Old Gilgamesh when they were developing
their own mythologies. There's some similarities there. In answer to
these actions by Gilgamesh, the people of Uruk call upon
their god to help them against this tyrannical king. They
call to the goddess Aruru, the goddess who created humankind
to begin with. They ask her to create something that
(06:18):
could stand up to Gilgamesh, as he is two third's god.
The people themselves don't stand a chance against him, and
so a Ruru creates a man, a wild man named Enkidu,
much like the creation story of the Greeks. Aruru creates
this new man from a lump of clay, and Kidu
(06:39):
rivals Gilgamesh in size and strength, but he begins his
life living wildly amongst the animals and not among the
other humans of Uruk. And Kidu is discovered by a
young man, a trapper. He doesn't live in the city
of Uruk, but in the countryside. His livelihood is trapping
and hunting animals, but in Kidu is preventing him from
(07:01):
doing this, and Kidu releases the trapped animals and keeps
them safe from hunters. But the trapper can see from
a far that in Kidu is no match for him.
He's enormous and so strong the man doesn't dare approach
him himself. The trapper tells all of this to his father,
who suggests he go find Gilgamesh in Uruk. Gilgamesh himself
(07:24):
is enormous and strong, and so if anyone can stop
this wild man from freeing all the animals and causing
all this trouble, it's Gilgamesh. So the trapper visits Gilgamash
in Uruk, and the king has a plan. The plan
may also have originated with the trapper's father, but a
work that's thousands of years old and also translated from
a very ancient language and was originally written in verse
(07:45):
on clay tablets means following along is sometimes left to
the imagination. So Gilgamesh has a plan to lure in Kidu,
this mysterious wild man from the forest where he's been
causing real trouble for this trapper man. Take Shamhat with you,
he tells the trapper. She'll be able to lure this
(08:06):
man from the forests. You see, sham Hat is what
we would now politely refer to as a sex worker,
but as we all know, it's the oldest profession in
the world. Get yours, ladies, So sham Hat is the
real savior here. Sham Hat goes with the trapper back
to where he's been seeing in key Do, and she
approaches this enormous, super strong wild man to entice in
(08:28):
key Too, And on the instruction of the trapper, Shamhat
legit just strips down to nothing and walks up to
him like Hi, I'm a naked woman. And that's really
all you need to know, and it is she walks
up to him naked and in key do is basically
just like, yep, let's do this, And so they have
a lot of sex. It's said that Shamht here does
(08:49):
the work of a man. I think that basically just
means she takes control of the sex they're having, which
really is just refreshing. Would you look at this, a mathware,
A woman is all, let's have some wild, consensual sex
in the forest, you hairy, unwashed, wild man. They do
this for six days and seven nights. Yeah, six days
(09:10):
and seven nights, and not on and off. No, because,
as it's translated here, m hm and Kedu is erect
for six days and seven nights. And after all that,
Shamhat very easily convinces and Ketu to return to Uruk
with her. She tells him about the gods of the
(09:30):
city Anu and Ishtar, and of Gilgamesh, the big strong king.
And Ketu is keen. He's gotten the taste of living
amongst humans and he's down for more of it. I
will absolutely come along with you, he tells Shamhat, and
I will roll up to the city of Uruk and
make very clear that I am stronger and mightier than Gilgamesh,
(09:52):
and I'll just mix things up in the city, keep
it fresh. Shamhat tries to tone down in Ketu's plans. Here, Nah,
Gilbleish is pretty impressive. She tells him he's blessed by
the gods and you really shouldn't fuck with him. Shamhat
sen Kido to come back to Uric with her, but
she doesn't want him to die the moment he gets there.
(10:31):
Europa was, of course, originally from Venetia, where she was
a princess, daughter of the King of Tyr and sister
to my beloved hero Cadmus. Like so many victims of Zeus,
Europa was minding her business one morning, out picking flowers
by the shore with some of her friends and servants.
According to the Alexandrian poet Moshus, retold by Edith Hamilton,
(10:54):
Europa had woken from a dream that she couldn't shake.
She dreamt of two continents, each shaped as a woman
possessed by a woman, and they both tried to claim
Europa as their own. One Asia said she had berthed
Europa and so owned her. The other was nameless and
told Europa that Zeus would give her to this nameless continent.
(11:17):
She was shaken and didn't want to try to sleep again,
so she and her friends and servants wandered off to
find themselves. Where they were then when Zeus came picking
flowers by the shore. There, he sees her and he
wants her. He will take her. But Zeus is, you know,
both creative and utterly horrible, So he comes to Europa
as a beautiful, mesmerizing white bull. Apollodorus tells Us that
(11:44):
its breath smelled of roses. If you want to understand
just how appealing Zeus made himself to this young girl.
The bull catches Europa's attention right along the seashore, and
she climbs aboard its back in an almost trance like state.
In an instant before Europa could even blink, let alone
(12:05):
any of her friends or servants could do anything to
stop what was about to happen, or to help her
at all, Zeus, as this sparkling white bull, leapt into
the sea and swims off. He swims and swims across
the Mediterranean until he comes upon an island. By the
time they reach the island, Europa is well aware that
(12:27):
she is not riding on the back of a real bull.
It's simply not possible. No, she is certainly on the
back of a god in disguise. She isn't stupid. She
knows what that means. Women of greeg mythology learned fast
on that front. Zeus finally drops Europa on the island
of Crete, a large island north of Egypt. He doesn't
(12:47):
choose this island randomly, It's quite intentional, whether it's for love,
as this poet retold by Edith Hamilton, or simply Zeus's desires,
which we all know well of. He brings her to
the island on which he was raised, away from Kronos's
prying eyes. You see, Zeus was raised on Mount Ida
on Crete, secreted away from his father, who was, you know,
(13:10):
in the habit of eating his children another of my
favorite stories. Obviously, He brings her there to found a
dynasty on the island, and in order to do that,
as is Zeus's constant and terrific way, he rapes her.
This poet would have you believe it's romantic. I beg
to differ.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
The Minoans. The term Monoans came from this ancient king Minos,
and he was mythologically the son of Zeus and Europa.
Zeus and Europa had three sons, and Minos was kind
of in competition with his two brothers on who would
be the king of Crete. I guess Minos did officially
ascend the throne, but his brothers were basically like we
(14:08):
all know, and they try to take it from him,
you know how brothers can be always stealing kingships. Minus
decides that in order to defeat his brothers, or I
guess just sort of, he has already kings so we
basically get rid of his brothers. I don't know. He's
against them in some way, and he asks Poseidon for
help in defeating his brothers in whatever way he needs to.
(14:30):
Poseidon is of course the god of the sea. He's
also the god of horses, but don't ask me why. Anyway,
Minus asks Poseidon for help. He prays to Poseidon asking
him to send a snow white bull as a show
of support. Let's ride another bull. A white bull is,
of course, how his father seduced his mother, which I
think makes this a hint creepier. So Minus asked for
(14:53):
this bull, and Poseidon is a nice guy, and he
sends it to him along with a show of support
for the king, or I guess this bull kind of
is the show of support. So now there's this fancy
white bull hanging around canasas. Minus is then expected to
kill the bull to show that he's honoring Poseidon for
this super pointless and pretty creepy gift. Needless animal death
(15:17):
if I've ever seen one but spoilies. Minos doesn't kill
the bull. He thinks it's just too damn pretty. He's
a sucker for a beautiful bull. I think it runs
in the family. Poseidon is not psyched by this pretty
obvious betrayal, and he's basically like, well, fuck you then, Minos,
I'm gonna totally fuck up your life now. And he
(15:40):
does a little godly magic and he makes Minus his
wife Pacife fall truly, madly, deeply in love with this bull,
and Godly magic is pooned as fuck my friends, because
boy does she fall in love. Meanwhile, in the lives
(16:01):
of people not in love with bulls, Minos also has
his own personal inventor. This is a fellow by the
name of Daedalus, and he lives on the island of
Crete with his son Icarus. Daedalus is awesome. He's basically
the king of fucking crazy, incredible inventions. So Daedalus, this
(16:21):
resident inventor, is called to see Pacife. See, she's been
hanging out with her new love lately, this white bull,
and she's been feeling kind of frustrated. See as much
as she is truly, madly, deeply in love with this
rando animal, the animal just doesn't seem to be into
her unrequited love. She's pretty worked up about it, you know,
(16:45):
she's feeling forlorn, melancholy. She's walking around the palace just
houghing in sadness and frankly in sexual frustration. Finally, she
turns to Daedalus. He's called in to see her, and
she asks him for a simple, totally normal and not
at all creepy invention. She wants him to make her
(17:06):
a wooden cow, Yes, a hollow wooden cow. Do you
see where I'm going with this, because I will tell
you where I'm going with this. Pascife wants Daedalist to
make her a hollow, wooden cow that she can hide in.
Mm hmm, And boy does Daedalist deliver. He creates a
cow that is realistic enough to convince the bull that
(17:29):
it is indeed a real cow. The bull is suddenly
super interested, because you know, he's into other cows, unlike someone,
or I guess too much like someone.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
Where we return to our cursed family, Pelops has been
ruling the king of Olympia quite happily for a long time.
For a while, he was thinking, maybe there isn't really
a curse at all, Maybe it's just the ramblings of
a guy he threw off a cliff and it won't
actually have any effect. Then one day he learns from
yes an oracle that a son of Pelops should be
(18:36):
king of my scene. The trouble is, Pelops has two sons,
Atreus and Thiastes, on the order of their father and
the hope that they will be king. Atreus and Thiistes
travel to the city of Mycenae, both expecting to claim
the throne, and that's when things go really downhill for
(18:57):
the family of Pelops. Hermes, hell bent on implementing the
curse issued by his dying son, sends a shepherd to
my scene. The shepherd brings with him a golden lamb
that he says has apparently been miraculously born that way.
According to the Mycenaeans, the lamb is an obvious sign
(19:19):
of the kingship of the region. For some reason, gold
livestock guys watch out for it. It means they're going
to be the ruler of the land. Atreus quickly claims
that he is the rightful ruler of Mycenae because the
shepherd has given him the golden lamb personally, obviously, he says,
that's what it meant. Obviously. Atreus, entirely certain that he
(19:40):
is now meant to be king, begins preparing for the
coronation golden lamb after all, but his brother Thiestes isn't
giving up so easily. Thiestes seduces Aeropay, Atreus's wife. He
convinces her to give him the golden lamb, And so
when all the important people of the region get together
(20:02):
for the ceremony to choose their new king, it's Thiistes
that rolls up with the gold, gold and lamb, not Atreus.
And so it's Thiistes that is crowned king of my scene.
Dont dun, duh. But it isn't over yet, Because this
is Greek mythology, and it's called the curse on the
house of Atreus and not peel Ups. For a reason,
(20:26):
see Zeus wants Atreus to be the king of my scene.
He doesn't much care for Thiastes, though I'm not sure why.
So Zeus, now working to make Atrius the king, causes
the sun to move in the wrong direction. This, as
you might imagine, causes people down on Earth to freak
out a little bit. I mean, big, very high profile
(20:47):
change in the way the world operates. Anyway, they were
worked up. Continuing on with his plan, Zeus sends Hermes
to whisper in Atrius's ear. Following Hermes's instructions, Atreus then
tells the people of my scene that the rightful king
will be shown by a sign from the gods that's
much more impressive than some weirdly golden animal, and with that,
(21:12):
Zeus causes the sun to return to its rightful root
through the sky. The people are, of course relieved by
this development. They also recognize that this is obviously what
was meant by that earlier foretelling, and obviously that means
that Atreus should in fact be king of Mycenae. Obviously,
it's all very obvious so Atreus becomes king, but the
(21:37):
madness isn't over yet. Diestes is banished from the kingdom
for what he's done, seducing Atreus's wife and stealing the
precious golden livestock bad news. Atreus is, of course angry
with his brother and his wife. Shit has gone down,
and so the immediate obvious thing to do is to
(21:57):
drown his wife air Opay, you know, as you do
when you're mad. Best solution murder, But that's not enough.
Atreus is still pissed. Becoming king is apparently all he
cares about in the world, because he's really willing to
function up because his brother and white Pad you know,
prevented him from being king. He so that's like a
real great guy. Atreus tells his brother that he's been forgiven,
(22:18):
so Thiistes returns to my cnae thinking it's all good.
No news on whether it's red flag to Thistes that
Aeropay has been drowned, but all the same, Atreus invites
Thiistes to a reconciliation celebration feast in honor of these brothers.
Burying the hatchet. How sweet? Right for dinner, Atreus kills Thiistes' sons,
(22:40):
cuts them up, cooks them, and feeds them to his brother.
There's a really pleasant theme in this family. Now we
all remember how the gods feel about cannibalism, particularly when
it's a family member, big big no no, thankfully unknown
in most polite societies, but the gods particularly found this
to be the worst of the worst. We're told that
(23:01):
the sky darkens as Atreus commits this crime, that the
sun hides from the site. Thiastes is feeling particularly famished,
and he eats the food, happily filling himself right up. Finally,
he wonders aloud, where are my son's Atrius then lifts
the lid on a serving dish that has gone unnoticed
(23:25):
in it where Thiistes' sons hands and feet and heads.
Thistes leaps from the table, losing his damn mind. He
(23:45):
yells a curse at Atreus, asking that his house may fall.
So we all know that Helen eventually goes with Paris,
(24:06):
whether she likes it or not, as you'll hear in
this Friday's Reading episode, and as you all well know,
this is because of the judgment of Paris. The silly
contest between Athena Aphrodite and hera about who is the loveliest,
a contest that is adjudicated by Paris for some reason.
But does Helen go with Paris willingly or is she taken?
(24:29):
That is the age old question of the Trojan War.
How much say did she actually have? Of course, regardless,
I don't think anyone could have guessed that it would
spawn quite the war that it did, so I'm not
placing any blame here, but the question of her agency
in the matter is deeply fascinating and deeply up for debate.
So let's dive into what we do and do not
(24:51):
know about Paris and Helen's departure from Sparta. First, according
to most tellings of it, Menelais was away at the time.
He was called off to some business on crete, leaving
the pair alone. Of course, not actually alone. They would
have had loads of other people the Spartan house both
free and enslaved, but Helen was left to be the
(25:13):
head of the house in whatever way women were allowed,
and thus she was the person determining the xenia of
it all. Remember, xenia is the rule of hospitality that
was vital in the ancient Greek world, particularly in stories
from their mythology, everything comes down to Xenia, whether the
guest was a good guest and the host was a
(25:34):
good host. It's very much a give and take relationship,
but when you fuck it up, you're in real trouble. Paris,
just by visiting Sparta with this secret desire to run
off with Helen, is breaking Xenia, though no one knows
it until the truth comes out. And not only is
he about to spit in the face of his hosts
(25:54):
by running off with Helen, but they also steal a
huge amount of Spartan treasure. One thing I noticed when
researching this is often Helen is described in the Iliad
alongside the wealth of menelaus As though she is part
of that wealth, but also that there is a hell
of a lot of gold and other treasure that is
at stake in addition to a wife. The two go
(26:18):
off while Menelaias is away, taking with them so much
of the Spartan treasure, and they sail off into the sunset.
I mean, we don't know what time of day it was,
but it certainly sounds better if they're sailing off into
the sunset. Off they go, No matter the time of day,
stopping en route on an island where we are told
they have sex again consensual tough to say. It's not
(26:43):
clear one way or the other, but like so many
instances like these, that could very well just be because
the men writing the stories down or telling them in
songs didn't much care how the women felt. The purpose
was to explain the origins of the war to exemplify
Helen and Paris's betrayal of Menilaus. Some say they went
straight to Troy, Others that they wandered around Phoenicia for
(27:06):
a while. Still more that suggests that in the time
it took them to reach Troy, Helen had already given
birth to a child of Paris's. That would certainly be
a long wander. No one seems quite certain how long
it took, but it seems to me the most logical
timeline is a fairly quick arrival in Troy with no
child of the two. But still we're asking the big question.
(27:27):
Did Helen want to go? Did she fall in love
with Paris and leave with him happily? Was this some
kind of epic love story for the ages? Did Paris
convince her to go that she would have had a
better life with him off in Troy. Did Paris seduce her,
(27:48):
using his handsomeness that seems equal to Helen's beauty to
draw her in in an almost purely sexual encounter. Did
that happen? Maybe Helen was willing to have sex with
him before realizing that this meant she would have to
leave with him, because if anyone in Sparta found out,
she'd be well and truly fucked. Or was it a
(28:09):
straight up abduction, a story of a horrible kidnapping and
eventual assault by Paris. Like so much of Greek myth,
it really depends on who you ask. In most of
the very oldest sources on this topic, the question of
why any of this happened typically comes down to simply
(28:30):
divine intervention. Paris picked Aphrodite in the judgment of Paris,
and that was the end of it. She promised him
the most beautiful woman in the world, and she followed through.
According to the work called the Kippris or the Kypria,
which is one of the lost epics surrounding the story
of the Trojan War, it was as simple as that
(28:52):
Aphrodite brought the two together and off they went. The Kippris,
though lost is talked about enough that we know it's
basically about the origins of the Trojan war. It's named
for Aphrodite, the Kyprian goddess. Meanwhile, well in the Iliad itself,
it remains pretty vague, with Helen only lamenting that it
(29:14):
ever happened at all, rather than much of anything about
her own choices in the matter. There's a moment where
she's speaking with the Trojans, particularly Priam, and they're looking
down upon the battlefield, taking note of the Greeks laying siege.
Priam asks her to speak of her old husband, Menelaeus,
(29:35):
and asks her to tell him about the other Greeks
that are assembled there, to which Helen replies, quote, Sir,
father of my husband, dear and reverend in my eyes,
would that I had chosen death rather than to have
come here with your son, far from my bridal chamber,
my friends, my darling daughter, and all the companions of
(29:58):
my girlhood. But it was not to be, and my
lot is one of tears and sorrow. As much as
Helen's phrasing here could suggests that she's taking some kind
of accountability, it's actually in direct response to Priam telling
her that he knows it isn't her fault, that none
of this is her fault, and that the gods are
(30:20):
to blame. Meanwhile, the Greeks during and after the war
do love to blame Helen. So what about the idea
that Paris took her quite literally by force, a violent
abduction that would then ultimately lead to a violent assault,
That too, is never really explicit. The idea of that
(30:42):
kind of encounter has certainly emerged, but it didn't necessarily
exist in the ancient world, or at least in the
ancient sources.
Speaker 2 (30:48):
That we have.
Speaker 1 (30:51):
Okay, what about Helen leaving quite willingly, happily by her
own explicit choice, That in fact does exist, and at
least one fragmentary source that survives. It's a fragment attributed
to al Caius, but I'm reading it quoted in Betany
Hughes's book on Helen. It's noted in the end episode's description.
So the fragment of this poem goes quote and fluttered
(31:14):
the heart of our give. Helen in her breast, maddened
with passion for the man from Troy, the trader guest,
she followed him over the sea in his ship, leaving
her child at home and her husband's richly covered bed,
her heart persuaded by desire. This is a notable fragment,
(31:37):
but to me it sounds a lot more like the
blame that we hear placed on Helen in the place
like Eschylus's Agamemnon, or even just in the references to
her by the Greeks and the Iliad who are always
going on about how much better a husband Menelaus. Was
this idea that she just up and left her husband
on a whim because a hot guy rolled into town.
These suggestions are certainly meant to place more blame on her,
(31:59):
but they can also obviously be read as simply a
woman doing what she wanted. If you imagine Helen's marriage
to Menelaus to be less than ideal, to not have
any love in it at all, then why wouldn't she
want to leave her home with this stranger, this beautiful
man from the east who's come professing his love. Could
she have foreseen a war that brought all the Greeks
(32:19):
together against Troy? Certainly not, because the idea of all
the Greeks coming together to do something like this was
unheard of. It's part of what makes the Eliot notable
in the first place. This idea that Helen went quite
willingly and sometimes quite maliciously gets taken up by later
poets too. Apollodorus describes her as quite callously leaving behind
(32:43):
her much better husband and child. And of course then
there's Avid. His heroities include a letter from Paris to
Helen and a letter from Helen to Paris. I won't
say too much about these because you just know I'm
reading them to you on Friday's episode Who, but Avid
certainly takes his idea of Helen to another level. Yes,
he makes her leave willingly, but he does add a
(33:05):
bit more depth to it, and a bit more humming
and hawing and calling out Paris for his failure to
adhere to Xenia, to his insult on Menelais for even
showing up there in the first place. But well, honestly,
the letter from Paris to Helen is the one that's
the really good stuff. It's it's truly something else.
Speaker 2 (33:20):
You're going to love it.
Speaker 1 (33:22):
So sure, we do have all these varying notions on
why Helen left and just how much agency she had
or didn't have, But if we're sticking to the sources
from those earliest days, those that surround the Iliad and
the Odyssey, and those works themselves. The main answer for
all of this mess is quite simply the gods. It's
(33:43):
all Aphrodite's fault, because regardless of anything else, Aphrodite controls love.
One could really blame Aphrodite for any messes that they
make when it comes to love. But in this case
we have explicit evidence that Aphrodite instructed Paris to go
take Helen, that she may have even made him love her,
(34:05):
and that she at least in part convinced Helen to
go with him, have made Helen outright love Paris, but
she certainly made her go with him. Patrickless, disguised as Achilles,
(34:30):
and the Mermidons swarm the battlefield, startling everyone there. No
one thought they'd see Achilles fighting in this battle. It's
been too long and there's been too much death already.
But now the Trojan spot Achilles is shining armor as
he rages towards them on his chariot, Mrmadons streaming behind him.
(34:52):
The Trojans are terrified. They realize that Achilles must have
finally let go of his anger, probably because of how
close they've gotten to the Greek ships, having set one
on fire just moments before Achilles came after them. They
look around wildly, hoping to find means of escaping. Patrick
Less himself is full of energy. Appearing as he is
(35:15):
in Achilles' armor. It makes him feel powerful, like he
can do anything Achilles can. He throws his spear and
it draws blood. He kills countless Trojans in his wake
as he thunders through the battlefield, killing so many in
his path. Patrickluss finally reaches the gates of Troy with
(35:35):
the Mirmidons, but the gods can't let him get that close,
and Apollo appears hell bent on ending Patrickluss's life before
he can defeat the Trojans. First, he yells down to him,
telling Patrickluss that he isn't faded to defeat the Trojans.
Now he should turn back. The Trojans must fall to
a greater man than he. Hearing this, Patrickless hesitates a little.
(36:00):
Apollo meanwhile, now goes to Hector. He transforms himself into
a powerful man known to Hector, and he riles in
my mind up, telling him to go straight at Patrickless.
Hector's motivated by this and He brings all his men
with him as he goes at Patrickless, ignoring all other
Greeks in his path. He knows who he wants to kill,
(36:22):
and he doesn't much care if others escape in the process.
Patrickluss sees Hector coming and he throws his spear, but
it doesn't hit Hector. It misses him and instead hits
(36:43):
another Trojan with him. It hits him between the eyes,
shattering his skull and sending his eyeballs flying. Patrickluss continues
charging at the Trojans, killing more men every time. He's
full of adrenaline and the success he's had so far
is bolstering him. Still, he feels as powerful as Achilles.
(37:03):
The armor is giving him confidence. He knows the power
of Achilles, his closest friend and his boyfriend, and he
knows how powerful he too is. In the armor alone
for hours, he and the Mermidons continue their success against
the Trojans, killing countless men as they go. But as
the sun begins to set and Patricluss charges at the
(37:24):
Trojans once more, the narration of the Iliad switches. Now
the narrator directs everything as if he's speaking to Patroclus himself.
It has the effect of dramatizing the forthcoming events far
more than before. It's powerful. We're speaking directly to Patriclus
as everything begins to crumble around him. Apollo meets you
(37:45):
on the battlefield, covering himself in a mist so that
he's unseen by you. He appears and knocks off the
glittering helmet of Achilles that you're wearing. It falls to
the ground, now covered in blood and dirt. Zeus gives
the helmet to Hector to wear, signaling even more trouble
for you as the gods gang up against you. Now,
(38:09):
your spear shatters in your hand, and your shield falls
from your shoulders. Apollo comes up and unfastens your breastplate,
letting it fall to the ground and exposing your bare flesh.
From behind. You're stabbed by a trojan in the shoulder.
You're wounded, but you survive. You're now without armor and
(38:32):
stabbed in the shoulder, and you try to retreat. You
try to flee, to get away, but you know the
end is coming, and Hector sees you too. Hector charges
at you, and he drives his spear into your stomach,
pushing it all the way through into the other side.
(38:53):
You fall to your knees, clutching your belly where the
spear is driven through. Hector stands over you as you die,
telling you it's too bad. Not even your precious Achilles
can save you. Now he tells you that a Calles
must have given you orders to not come back until
you've wounded Hector. Of course, you know this isn't true.
(39:17):
You know you went farther than Achilles ever wanted you to.
Achilles wanted you to drive the Trojans away from the ships,
nothing further. He didn't want you going at Hector. Achilles
knew it wouldn't go well, but you didn't listen to
Achilles though. You just wanted it all to end. You
wanted an end to the violence. And as soon as
(39:41):
you'd put on Achilles' armor and his helmet, you knew
that you were powerful. You wanted to do what you could,
and you took it too far. And now, with your
dying breath, you tell Hector that he can boast all
he wants, but you know the truth. You're only dying
now because Zeus and Apollo wanted you to. It's them
(40:05):
who made this happen, not Hector and not only that,
you tell him, but death will come for you too, Hector,
sooner than you think. So you die in the bloody
sand the feet of Hector. It's Menilaus that first sees
(40:37):
that Patroclus has fallen, and he rushes over to him
to defend the body. He stands over patrick Less, holding
his spear and threatening to kill whoever comes near. But
more and more Trojans, led by Hector, come at Menilaus
as he tries to defend the fallen Patrickless, and finally
he's forced to move away from the body. Quickly, Hector
(40:58):
strips patrick Less and takes the remaining armor, as well
as that that had been removed by the gods. He
begins to try to pull Patrickless away. He wants to
cut off his head and feed it the dogs, which
is where I begin to dislike Hector bit more than
I had before. It's a bit of overkill, don't you think,
Hector pun unfortunately intended. Ajax, though, sees what Hector is
(41:20):
trying to do, and he comes up immediately to protect
the body. Along with Menelaus. He places his shield over
patrick Cless and stands above it, daring anyone to get closer. Meanwhile,
Zeus watches as Hector replaces his own armor with that
of Achilles, which he's just stripped off the poor dead
body of beloved Patroclus. Zeus watches Hector and notes that
(41:41):
before long, death will reach him too. Even though he
may be wearing such a powerful man's armor, it was
a mistake, Hector, taking that armor and wearing it yourself
won the ill regret. Thank you all so much for listening.
(42:10):
As always, I will be back on Friday with another
of these revisiting episodes, but looking at conversations I've had
about these myths that have origins in these very real
Bronze Age people, So stay tuned for that, and I
will be back soon with new episodes. We're gonna look
at a Euripides play, you guys, because I want to
(42:30):
return to my my real roots, my love of loves,
just so that I can really get back into it.
Speaker 2 (42:37):
I am.
Speaker 1 (42:38):
I'm looking forward to that. Who doesn't love a good
visit with Euripities. Let's talk about mis Baby is written
and produced by me Live Albert MICHAELA. Smith is the
Hermes to my Olympians, the assistant producer who put together
all of these clips for you because she is an
absolute star. Laura Smith is the production assistant and audio
engineer who works on so many of the conversation episodes
(43:00):
and is creating something really great about the website. Check
it out now. We have opened up some new pages
listing episodes, going into a bit more detail, just kind
of laying things out because I have over five hundred
episodes and it turns out it's like really hard to
figure out what to listen to when there's that many,
so we're trying to help select music in. This episode
(43:21):
was by Luke Chaos. The podcast is part of the
iHeart Podcast Network. Listen on Spotify or Apple or wherever
you get your podcasts, and I then live and I
do love this shit
Hello, this is let's talk about mits baby, and I
am your host live here with an episode to save
my soul. That's a little dramatic, but like not really.
Today I am here with one of two episodes today
(01:02):
and Friday's episode, which will be collections of past episodes
as I am sometimes wont to do when I need
to survive. And in this time, we are looking at
myths from the Bronze Age, or rather myths not from
the Bronze Age, but which tell us something about how
(01:25):
the cultural memory of the Bronze Age manifested in the
later myths. So today we have actually, now that I
say all of that, we have one one bit of
the episode is absolutely a myth from the Bronze Age,
and that is we are starting out with a little
bit of the epic of Gilgamesh. I covered that back
(01:46):
I don't even know when, but over two episodes, and
this is just a little taste of those two episodes
covering that myth from ancient Iraq. And then we are
going to create of course, and looking at the myths
of crete like Europa and Zeus and the sort of
the mythological memory of creating from the levant the same
(02:10):
people who would go on to help the Greeks invent
their alphabet, those Phoenicians. Then, of course we are moving
to the mainland to the myths of Mycenie and my
favorite cursed family, those Tantalids and their horrifying familial relationships,
(02:33):
and then of course the most famous woman of Sparta, Helen.
We're gonna look at a little bit of that myth
from a past episode, and of course some of the Iliad,
because who doesn't want to listen to Patrick Less really
and Hector, you know, everyone's favorite characters from the Iliad.
(02:54):
These sections from past episodes were picked out by Michaela
because she's an absolute gem who wants me to be
able to continue to function and thus help me put
together a couple of episodes that will allow me to
take a little bit of a rest. If it hasn't
been clear in past episodes. I'm really struggling. And while
I loved the Bronze Age series so very much, it
(03:17):
definitely didn't help the struggle as it was not remotely
in my field of expertise. But it was a joy
and I'm very glad we did it. In any case,
today we're just looking at these past episodes. Some of
them are from a very long time ago, some not
quite so long ago. All of them are from much
larger episodes featuring much more of these myths that do
(03:39):
tell us something about this cultural memory of the Bronze Age.
There is a Spotify playlist listed in the episode's description,
and that has all of the original full length episodes.
If you want to keep listening, if you want to
return to the whole of the epic of Gilgamesh or
my favorite cursed family, maybe a little bit, want to
(04:00):
return to the Iliad, the most famous bit of cultural memory.
All of that is available in the episode of description.
If you are so inclined, this is episode two sixty.
(04:28):
Archaic myth says cultural Memory of the Bronze Age Gilgamesh
(04:48):
is a king of Uruk, a godly king, part god
and part human. It's believed that the story is indeed
based on a real king. That I suppose we have
to assume that king was all human. You never know,
though the Mesopotamians were far more advanced. Perhaps they did
have a god king too. Gilgamesh, king of Uruk, is
said to be blessed. He's in the style of Heracles,
(05:12):
He's strong, wise, beautiful. He's everything you want a king
to be and more. He's also a dick, another standard
king trait. I would argue Gilgamash is becoming tyrannical, and
his people are attempting to rise up against him in
whatever way they can. Gilgamesh is oppressive. He's forcing the
(05:33):
men to take part in games of strength of forced labor.
It's not entirely clear which, but they're being oppressed and
forced into something, and the women well as per mythology,
Gilgamesh is forcing all the women to have sex with him,
usually on their wedding nights, before they have sex with
their new husband, but after they're married. He's an incredibly
classy man, and I would say that the Greeks likely
(05:55):
found some inspiration in Old Gilgamesh when they were developing
their own mythologies. There's some similarities there. In answer to
these actions by Gilgamesh, the people of Uruk call upon
their god to help them against this tyrannical king. They
call to the goddess Aruru, the goddess who created humankind
to begin with. They ask her to create something that
(06:18):
could stand up to Gilgamesh, as he is two third's god.
The people themselves don't stand a chance against him, and
so a Ruru creates a man, a wild man named Enkidu,
much like the creation story of the Greeks. Aruru creates
this new man from a lump of clay, and Kidu
(06:39):
rivals Gilgamesh in size and strength, but he begins his
life living wildly amongst the animals and not among the
other humans of Uruk. And Kidu is discovered by a
young man, a trapper. He doesn't live in the city
of Uruk, but in the countryside. His livelihood is trapping
and hunting animals, but in Kidu is preventing him from
(07:01):
doing this, and Kidu releases the trapped animals and keeps
them safe from hunters. But the trapper can see from
a far that in Kidu is no match for him.
He's enormous and so strong the man doesn't dare approach
him himself. The trapper tells all of this to his father,
who suggests he go find Gilgamesh in Uruk. Gilgamesh himself
(07:24):
is enormous and strong, and so if anyone can stop
this wild man from freeing all the animals and causing
all this trouble, it's Gilgamesh. So the trapper visits Gilgamash
in Uruk, and the king has a plan. The plan
may also have originated with the trapper's father, but a
work that's thousands of years old and also translated from
a very ancient language and was originally written in verse
(07:45):
on clay tablets means following along is sometimes left to
the imagination. So Gilgamesh has a plan to lure in Kidu,
this mysterious wild man from the forest where he's been
causing real trouble for this trapper man. Take Shamhat with you,
he tells the trapper. She'll be able to lure this
(08:06):
man from the forests. You see, sham Hat is what
we would now politely refer to as a sex worker,
but as we all know, it's the oldest profession in
the world. Get yours, ladies, So sham Hat is the
real savior here. Sham Hat goes with the trapper back
to where he's been seeing in key Do, and she
approaches this enormous, super strong wild man to entice in
(08:28):
key Too, And on the instruction of the trapper, Shamhat
legit just strips down to nothing and walks up to
him like Hi, I'm a naked woman. And that's really
all you need to know, and it is she walks
up to him naked and in key do is basically
just like, yep, let's do this, And so they have
a lot of sex. It's said that Shamht here does
(08:49):
the work of a man. I think that basically just
means she takes control of the sex they're having, which
really is just refreshing. Would you look at this, a mathware,
A woman is all, let's have some wild, consensual sex
in the forest, you hairy, unwashed, wild man. They do
this for six days and seven nights. Yeah, six days
(09:10):
and seven nights, and not on and off. No, because,
as it's translated here, m hm and Kedu is erect
for six days and seven nights. And after all that,
Shamhat very easily convinces and Ketu to return to Uruk
with her. She tells him about the gods of the
(09:30):
city Anu and Ishtar, and of Gilgamesh, the big strong king.
And Ketu is keen. He's gotten the taste of living
amongst humans and he's down for more of it. I
will absolutely come along with you, he tells Shamhat, and
I will roll up to the city of Uruk and
make very clear that I am stronger and mightier than Gilgamesh,
(09:52):
and I'll just mix things up in the city, keep
it fresh. Shamhat tries to tone down in Ketu's plans. Here, Nah,
Gilbleish is pretty impressive. She tells him he's blessed by
the gods and you really shouldn't fuck with him. Shamhat
sen Kido to come back to Uric with her, but
she doesn't want him to die the moment he gets there.
(10:31):
Europa was, of course, originally from Venetia, where she was
a princess, daughter of the King of Tyr and sister
to my beloved hero Cadmus. Like so many victims of Zeus,
Europa was minding her business one morning, out picking flowers
by the shore with some of her friends and servants.
According to the Alexandrian poet Moshus, retold by Edith Hamilton,
(10:54):
Europa had woken from a dream that she couldn't shake.
She dreamt of two continents, each shaped as a woman
possessed by a woman, and they both tried to claim
Europa as their own. One Asia said she had berthed
Europa and so owned her. The other was nameless and
told Europa that Zeus would give her to this nameless continent.
(11:17):
She was shaken and didn't want to try to sleep again,
so she and her friends and servants wandered off to
find themselves. Where they were then when Zeus came picking
flowers by the shore. There, he sees her and he
wants her. He will take her. But Zeus is, you know,
both creative and utterly horrible, So he comes to Europa
as a beautiful, mesmerizing white bull. Apollodorus tells Us that
(11:44):
its breath smelled of roses. If you want to understand
just how appealing Zeus made himself to this young girl.
The bull catches Europa's attention right along the seashore, and
she climbs aboard its back in an almost trance like state.
In an instant before Europa could even blink, let alone
(12:05):
any of her friends or servants could do anything to
stop what was about to happen, or to help her
at all, Zeus, as this sparkling white bull, leapt into
the sea and swims off. He swims and swims across
the Mediterranean until he comes upon an island. By the
time they reach the island, Europa is well aware that
(12:27):
she is not riding on the back of a real bull.
It's simply not possible. No, she is certainly on the
back of a god in disguise. She isn't stupid. She
knows what that means. Women of greeg mythology learned fast
on that front. Zeus finally drops Europa on the island
of Crete, a large island north of Egypt. He doesn't
(12:47):
choose this island randomly, It's quite intentional, whether it's for love,
as this poet retold by Edith Hamilton, or simply Zeus's desires,
which we all know well of. He brings her to
the island on which he was raised, away from Kronos's
prying eyes. You see, Zeus was raised on Mount Ida
on Crete, secreted away from his father, who was, you know,
(13:10):
in the habit of eating his children another of my
favorite stories. Obviously, He brings her there to found a
dynasty on the island, and in order to do that,
as is Zeus's constant and terrific way, he rapes her.
This poet would have you believe it's romantic. I beg
to differ.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
The Minoans. The term Monoans came from this ancient king Minos,
and he was mythologically the son of Zeus and Europa.
Zeus and Europa had three sons, and Minos was kind
of in competition with his two brothers on who would
be the king of Crete. I guess Minos did officially
ascend the throne, but his brothers were basically like we
(14:08):
all know, and they try to take it from him,
you know how brothers can be always stealing kingships. Minus
decides that in order to defeat his brothers, or I
guess just sort of, he has already kings so we
basically get rid of his brothers. I don't know. He's
against them in some way, and he asks Poseidon for
help in defeating his brothers in whatever way he needs to.
(14:30):
Poseidon is of course the god of the sea. He's
also the god of horses, but don't ask me why. Anyway,
Minus asks Poseidon for help. He prays to Poseidon asking
him to send a snow white bull as a show
of support. Let's ride another bull. A white bull is,
of course, how his father seduced his mother, which I
think makes this a hint creepier. So Minus asked for
(14:53):
this bull, and Poseidon is a nice guy, and he
sends it to him along with a show of support
for the king, or I guess this bull kind of
is the show of support. So now there's this fancy
white bull hanging around canasas. Minus is then expected to
kill the bull to show that he's honoring Poseidon for
this super pointless and pretty creepy gift. Needless animal death
(15:17):
if I've ever seen one but spoilies. Minos doesn't kill
the bull. He thinks it's just too damn pretty. He's
a sucker for a beautiful bull. I think it runs
in the family. Poseidon is not psyched by this pretty
obvious betrayal, and he's basically like, well, fuck you then, Minos,
I'm gonna totally fuck up your life now. And he
(15:40):
does a little godly magic and he makes Minus his
wife Pacife fall truly, madly, deeply in love with this bull,
and Godly magic is pooned as fuck my friends, because
boy does she fall in love. Meanwhile, in the lives
(16:01):
of people not in love with bulls, Minos also has
his own personal inventor. This is a fellow by the
name of Daedalus, and he lives on the island of
Crete with his son Icarus. Daedalus is awesome. He's basically
the king of fucking crazy, incredible inventions. So Daedalus, this
(16:21):
resident inventor, is called to see Pacife. See, she's been
hanging out with her new love lately, this white bull,
and she's been feeling kind of frustrated. See as much
as she is truly, madly, deeply in love with this
rando animal, the animal just doesn't seem to be into
her unrequited love. She's pretty worked up about it, you know,
(16:45):
she's feeling forlorn, melancholy. She's walking around the palace just
houghing in sadness and frankly in sexual frustration. Finally, she
turns to Daedalus. He's called in to see her, and
she asks him for a simple, totally normal and not
at all creepy invention. She wants him to make her
(17:06):
a wooden cow, Yes, a hollow wooden cow. Do you
see where I'm going with this, because I will tell
you where I'm going with this. Pascife wants Daedalist to
make her a hollow, wooden cow that she can hide in.
Mm hmm, And boy does Daedalist deliver. He creates a
cow that is realistic enough to convince the bull that
(17:29):
it is indeed a real cow. The bull is suddenly
super interested, because you know, he's into other cows, unlike someone,
or I guess too much like someone.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
Where we return to our cursed family, Pelops has been
ruling the king of Olympia quite happily for a long time.
For a while, he was thinking, maybe there isn't really
a curse at all, Maybe it's just the ramblings of
a guy he threw off a cliff and it won't
actually have any effect. Then one day he learns from
yes an oracle that a son of Pelops should be
(18:36):
king of my scene. The trouble is, Pelops has two sons,
Atreus and Thiastes, on the order of their father and
the hope that they will be king. Atreus and Thiistes
travel to the city of Mycenae, both expecting to claim
the throne, and that's when things go really downhill for
(18:57):
the family of Pelops. Hermes, hell bent on implementing the
curse issued by his dying son, sends a shepherd to
my scene. The shepherd brings with him a golden lamb
that he says has apparently been miraculously born that way.
According to the Mycenaeans, the lamb is an obvious sign
(19:19):
of the kingship of the region. For some reason, gold
livestock guys watch out for it. It means they're going
to be the ruler of the land. Atreus quickly claims
that he is the rightful ruler of Mycenae because the
shepherd has given him the golden lamb personally, obviously, he says,
that's what it meant. Obviously. Atreus, entirely certain that he
(19:40):
is now meant to be king, begins preparing for the
coronation golden lamb after all, but his brother Thiestes isn't
giving up so easily. Thiestes seduces Aeropay, Atreus's wife. He
convinces her to give him the golden lamb, And so
when all the important people of the region get together
(20:02):
for the ceremony to choose their new king, it's Thiistes
that rolls up with the gold, gold and lamb, not Atreus.
And so it's Thiistes that is crowned king of my scene.
Dont dun, duh. But it isn't over yet, Because this
is Greek mythology, and it's called the curse on the
house of Atreus and not peel Ups. For a reason,
(20:26):
see Zeus wants Atreus to be the king of my scene.
He doesn't much care for Thiastes, though I'm not sure why.
So Zeus, now working to make Atrius the king, causes
the sun to move in the wrong direction. This, as
you might imagine, causes people down on Earth to freak
out a little bit. I mean, big, very high profile
(20:47):
change in the way the world operates. Anyway, they were
worked up. Continuing on with his plan, Zeus sends Hermes
to whisper in Atrius's ear. Following Hermes's instructions, Atreus then
tells the people of my scene that the rightful king
will be shown by a sign from the gods that's
much more impressive than some weirdly golden animal, and with that,
(21:12):
Zeus causes the sun to return to its rightful root
through the sky. The people are, of course relieved by
this development. They also recognize that this is obviously what
was meant by that earlier foretelling, and obviously that means
that Atreus should in fact be king of Mycenae. Obviously,
it's all very obvious so Atreus becomes king, but the
(21:37):
madness isn't over yet. Diestes is banished from the kingdom
for what he's done, seducing Atreus's wife and stealing the
precious golden livestock bad news. Atreus is, of course angry
with his brother and his wife. Shit has gone down,
and so the immediate obvious thing to do is to
(21:57):
drown his wife air Opay, you know, as you do
when you're mad. Best solution murder, But that's not enough.
Atreus is still pissed. Becoming king is apparently all he
cares about in the world, because he's really willing to
function up because his brother and white Pad you know,
prevented him from being king. He so that's like a
real great guy. Atreus tells his brother that he's been forgiven,
(22:18):
so Thiistes returns to my cnae thinking it's all good.
No news on whether it's red flag to Thistes that
Aeropay has been drowned, but all the same, Atreus invites
Thiistes to a reconciliation celebration feast in honor of these brothers.
Burying the hatchet. How sweet? Right for dinner, Atreus kills Thiistes' sons,
(22:40):
cuts them up, cooks them, and feeds them to his brother.
There's a really pleasant theme in this family. Now we
all remember how the gods feel about cannibalism, particularly when
it's a family member, big big no no, thankfully unknown
in most polite societies, but the gods particularly found this
to be the worst of the worst. We're told that
(23:01):
the sky darkens as Atreus commits this crime, that the
sun hides from the site. Thiastes is feeling particularly famished,
and he eats the food, happily filling himself right up. Finally,
he wonders aloud, where are my son's Atrius then lifts
the lid on a serving dish that has gone unnoticed
(23:25):
in it where Thiistes' sons hands and feet and heads.
Thistes leaps from the table, losing his damn mind. He
(23:45):
yells a curse at Atreus, asking that his house may fall.
So we all know that Helen eventually goes with Paris,
(24:06):
whether she likes it or not, as you'll hear in
this Friday's Reading episode, and as you all well know,
this is because of the judgment of Paris. The silly
contest between Athena Aphrodite and hera about who is the loveliest,
a contest that is adjudicated by Paris for some reason.
But does Helen go with Paris willingly or is she taken?
(24:29):
That is the age old question of the Trojan War.
How much say did she actually have? Of course, regardless,
I don't think anyone could have guessed that it would
spawn quite the war that it did, so I'm not
placing any blame here, but the question of her agency
in the matter is deeply fascinating and deeply up for debate.
So let's dive into what we do and do not
(24:51):
know about Paris and Helen's departure from Sparta. First, according
to most tellings of it, Menelais was away at the time.
He was called off to some business on crete, leaving
the pair alone. Of course, not actually alone. They would
have had loads of other people the Spartan house both
free and enslaved, but Helen was left to be the
(25:13):
head of the house in whatever way women were allowed,
and thus she was the person determining the xenia of
it all. Remember, xenia is the rule of hospitality that
was vital in the ancient Greek world, particularly in stories
from their mythology, everything comes down to Xenia, whether the
guest was a good guest and the host was a
(25:34):
good host. It's very much a give and take relationship,
but when you fuck it up, you're in real trouble. Paris,
just by visiting Sparta with this secret desire to run
off with Helen, is breaking Xenia, though no one knows
it until the truth comes out. And not only is
he about to spit in the face of his hosts
(25:54):
by running off with Helen, but they also steal a
huge amount of Spartan treasure. One thing I noticed when
researching this is often Helen is described in the Iliad
alongside the wealth of menelaus As though she is part
of that wealth, but also that there is a hell
of a lot of gold and other treasure that is
at stake in addition to a wife. The two go
(26:18):
off while Menelaias is away, taking with them so much
of the Spartan treasure, and they sail off into the sunset.
I mean, we don't know what time of day it was,
but it certainly sounds better if they're sailing off into
the sunset. Off they go, No matter the time of day,
stopping en route on an island where we are told
they have sex again consensual tough to say. It's not
(26:43):
clear one way or the other, but like so many
instances like these, that could very well just be because
the men writing the stories down or telling them in
songs didn't much care how the women felt. The purpose
was to explain the origins of the war to exemplify
Helen and Paris's betrayal of Menilaus. Some say they went
straight to Troy, Others that they wandered around Phoenicia for
(27:06):
a while. Still more that suggests that in the time
it took them to reach Troy, Helen had already given
birth to a child of Paris's. That would certainly be
a long wander. No one seems quite certain how long
it took, but it seems to me the most logical
timeline is a fairly quick arrival in Troy with no
child of the two. But still we're asking the big question.
(27:27):
Did Helen want to go? Did she fall in love
with Paris and leave with him happily? Was this some
kind of epic love story for the ages? Did Paris
convince her to go that she would have had a
better life with him off in Troy. Did Paris seduce her,
(27:48):
using his handsomeness that seems equal to Helen's beauty to
draw her in in an almost purely sexual encounter. Did
that happen? Maybe Helen was willing to have sex with
him before realizing that this meant she would have to
leave with him, because if anyone in Sparta found out,
she'd be well and truly fucked. Or was it a
(28:09):
straight up abduction, a story of a horrible kidnapping and
eventual assault by Paris. Like so much of Greek myth,
it really depends on who you ask. In most of
the very oldest sources on this topic, the question of
why any of this happened typically comes down to simply
(28:30):
divine intervention. Paris picked Aphrodite in the judgment of Paris,
and that was the end of it. She promised him
the most beautiful woman in the world, and she followed through.
According to the work called the Kippris or the Kypria,
which is one of the lost epics surrounding the story
of the Trojan War, it was as simple as that
(28:52):
Aphrodite brought the two together and off they went. The Kippris,
though lost is talked about enough that we know it's
basically about the origins of the Trojan war. It's named
for Aphrodite, the Kyprian goddess. Meanwhile, well in the Iliad itself,
it remains pretty vague, with Helen only lamenting that it
(29:14):
ever happened at all, rather than much of anything about
her own choices in the matter. There's a moment where
she's speaking with the Trojans, particularly Priam, and they're looking
down upon the battlefield, taking note of the Greeks laying siege.
Priam asks her to speak of her old husband, Menelaeus,
(29:35):
and asks her to tell him about the other Greeks
that are assembled there, to which Helen replies, quote, Sir,
father of my husband, dear and reverend in my eyes,
would that I had chosen death rather than to have
come here with your son, far from my bridal chamber,
my friends, my darling daughter, and all the companions of
(29:58):
my girlhood. But it was not to be, and my
lot is one of tears and sorrow. As much as
Helen's phrasing here could suggests that she's taking some kind
of accountability, it's actually in direct response to Priam telling
her that he knows it isn't her fault, that none
of this is her fault, and that the gods are
(30:20):
to blame. Meanwhile, the Greeks during and after the war
do love to blame Helen. So what about the idea
that Paris took her quite literally by force, a violent
abduction that would then ultimately lead to a violent assault,
That too, is never really explicit. The idea of that
(30:42):
kind of encounter has certainly emerged, but it didn't necessarily
exist in the ancient world, or at least in the
ancient sources.
Speaker 2 (30:48):
That we have.
Speaker 1 (30:51):
Okay, what about Helen leaving quite willingly, happily by her
own explicit choice, That in fact does exist, and at
least one fragmentary source that survives. It's a fragment attributed
to al Caius, but I'm reading it quoted in Betany
Hughes's book on Helen. It's noted in the end episode's description.
So the fragment of this poem goes quote and fluttered
(31:14):
the heart of our give. Helen in her breast, maddened
with passion for the man from Troy, the trader guest,
she followed him over the sea in his ship, leaving
her child at home and her husband's richly covered bed,
her heart persuaded by desire. This is a notable fragment,
(31:37):
but to me it sounds a lot more like the
blame that we hear placed on Helen in the place
like Eschylus's Agamemnon, or even just in the references to
her by the Greeks and the Iliad who are always
going on about how much better a husband Menelaus. Was
this idea that she just up and left her husband
on a whim because a hot guy rolled into town.
These suggestions are certainly meant to place more blame on her,
(31:59):
but they can also obviously be read as simply a
woman doing what she wanted. If you imagine Helen's marriage
to Menelaus to be less than ideal, to not have
any love in it at all, then why wouldn't she
want to leave her home with this stranger, this beautiful
man from the east who's come professing his love. Could
she have foreseen a war that brought all the Greeks
(32:19):
together against Troy? Certainly not, because the idea of all
the Greeks coming together to do something like this was
unheard of. It's part of what makes the Eliot notable
in the first place. This idea that Helen went quite
willingly and sometimes quite maliciously gets taken up by later
poets too. Apollodorus describes her as quite callously leaving behind
(32:43):
her much better husband and child. And of course then
there's Avid. His heroities include a letter from Paris to
Helen and a letter from Helen to Paris. I won't
say too much about these because you just know I'm
reading them to you on Friday's episode Who, but Avid
certainly takes his idea of Helen to another level. Yes,
he makes her leave willingly, but he does add a
(33:05):
bit more depth to it, and a bit more humming
and hawing and calling out Paris for his failure to
adhere to Xenia, to his insult on Menelais for even
showing up there in the first place. But well, honestly,
the letter from Paris to Helen is the one that's
the really good stuff. It's it's truly something else.
Speaker 2 (33:20):
You're going to love it.
Speaker 1 (33:22):
So sure, we do have all these varying notions on
why Helen left and just how much agency she had
or didn't have, But if we're sticking to the sources
from those earliest days, those that surround the Iliad and
the Odyssey, and those works themselves. The main answer for
all of this mess is quite simply the gods. It's
(33:43):
all Aphrodite's fault, because regardless of anything else, Aphrodite controls love.
One could really blame Aphrodite for any messes that they
make when it comes to love. But in this case
we have explicit evidence that Aphrodite instructed Paris to go
take Helen, that she may have even made him love her,
(34:05):
and that she at least in part convinced Helen to
go with him, have made Helen outright love Paris, but
she certainly made her go with him. Patrickless, disguised as Achilles,
(34:30):
and the Mermidons swarm the battlefield, startling everyone there. No
one thought they'd see Achilles fighting in this battle. It's
been too long and there's been too much death already.
But now the Trojan spot Achilles is shining armor as
he rages towards them on his chariot, Mrmadons streaming behind him.
(34:52):
The Trojans are terrified. They realize that Achilles must have
finally let go of his anger, probably because of how
close they've gotten to the Greek ships, having set one
on fire just moments before Achilles came after them. They
look around wildly, hoping to find means of escaping. Patrick
Less himself is full of energy. Appearing as he is
(35:15):
in Achilles' armor. It makes him feel powerful, like he
can do anything Achilles can. He throws his spear and
it draws blood. He kills countless Trojans in his wake
as he thunders through the battlefield, killing so many in
his path. Patrickluss finally reaches the gates of Troy with
(35:35):
the Mirmidons, but the gods can't let him get that close,
and Apollo appears hell bent on ending Patrickluss's life before
he can defeat the Trojans. First, he yells down to him,
telling Patrickluss that he isn't faded to defeat the Trojans.
Now he should turn back. The Trojans must fall to
a greater man than he. Hearing this, Patrickless hesitates a little.
(36:00):
Apollo meanwhile, now goes to Hector. He transforms himself into
a powerful man known to Hector, and he riles in
my mind up, telling him to go straight at Patrickless.
Hector's motivated by this and He brings all his men
with him as he goes at Patrickless, ignoring all other
Greeks in his path. He knows who he wants to kill,
(36:22):
and he doesn't much care if others escape in the process.
Patrickluss sees Hector coming and he throws his spear, but
it doesn't hit Hector. It misses him and instead hits
(36:43):
another Trojan with him. It hits him between the eyes,
shattering his skull and sending his eyeballs flying. Patrickluss continues
charging at the Trojans, killing more men every time. He's
full of adrenaline and the success he's had so far
is bolstering him. Still, he feels as powerful as Achilles.
(37:03):
The armor is giving him confidence. He knows the power
of Achilles, his closest friend and his boyfriend, and he
knows how powerful he too is. In the armor alone
for hours, he and the Mermidons continue their success against
the Trojans, killing countless men as they go. But as
the sun begins to set and Patricluss charges at the
(37:24):
Trojans once more, the narration of the Iliad switches. Now
the narrator directs everything as if he's speaking to Patroclus himself.
It has the effect of dramatizing the forthcoming events far
more than before. It's powerful. We're speaking directly to Patriclus
as everything begins to crumble around him. Apollo meets you
(37:45):
on the battlefield, covering himself in a mist so that
he's unseen by you. He appears and knocks off the
glittering helmet of Achilles that you're wearing. It falls to
the ground, now covered in blood and dirt. Zeus gives
the helmet to Hector to wear, signaling even more trouble
for you as the gods gang up against you. Now,
(38:09):
your spear shatters in your hand, and your shield falls
from your shoulders. Apollo comes up and unfastens your breastplate,
letting it fall to the ground and exposing your bare flesh.
From behind. You're stabbed by a trojan in the shoulder.
You're wounded, but you survive. You're now without armor and
(38:32):
stabbed in the shoulder, and you try to retreat. You
try to flee, to get away, but you know the
end is coming, and Hector sees you too. Hector charges
at you, and he drives his spear into your stomach,
pushing it all the way through into the other side.
(38:53):
You fall to your knees, clutching your belly where the
spear is driven through. Hector stands over you as you die,
telling you it's too bad. Not even your precious Achilles
can save you. Now he tells you that a Calles
must have given you orders to not come back until
you've wounded Hector. Of course, you know this isn't true.
(39:17):
You know you went farther than Achilles ever wanted you to.
Achilles wanted you to drive the Trojans away from the ships,
nothing further. He didn't want you going at Hector. Achilles
knew it wouldn't go well, but you didn't listen to
Achilles though. You just wanted it all to end. You
wanted an end to the violence. And as soon as
(39:41):
you'd put on Achilles' armor and his helmet, you knew
that you were powerful. You wanted to do what you could,
and you took it too far. And now, with your
dying breath, you tell Hector that he can boast all
he wants, but you know the truth. You're only dying
now because Zeus and Apollo wanted you to. It's them
(40:05):
who made this happen, not Hector and not only that,
you tell him, but death will come for you too, Hector,
sooner than you think. So you die in the bloody
sand the feet of Hector. It's Menilaus that first sees
(40:37):
that Patroclus has fallen, and he rushes over to him
to defend the body. He stands over patrick Less, holding
his spear and threatening to kill whoever comes near. But
more and more Trojans, led by Hector, come at Menilaus
as he tries to defend the fallen Patrickless, and finally
he's forced to move away from the body. Quickly, Hector
(40:58):
strips patrick Less and takes the remaining armor, as well
as that that had been removed by the gods. He
begins to try to pull Patrickless away. He wants to
cut off his head and feed it the dogs, which
is where I begin to dislike Hector bit more than
I had before. It's a bit of overkill, don't you think,
Hector pun unfortunately intended. Ajax, though, sees what Hector is
(41:20):
trying to do, and he comes up immediately to protect
the body. Along with Menelaus. He places his shield over
patrick Cless and stands above it, daring anyone to get closer. Meanwhile,
Zeus watches as Hector replaces his own armor with that
of Achilles, which he's just stripped off the poor dead
body of beloved Patroclus. Zeus watches Hector and notes that
(41:41):
before long, death will reach him too. Even though he
may be wearing such a powerful man's armor, it was
a mistake, Hector, taking that armor and wearing it yourself
won the ill regret. Thank you all so much for listening.
(42:10):
As always, I will be back on Friday with another
of these revisiting episodes, but looking at conversations I've had
about these myths that have origins in these very real
Bronze Age people, So stay tuned for that, and I
will be back soon with new episodes. We're gonna look
at a Euripides play, you guys, because I want to
(42:30):
return to my my real roots, my love of loves,
just so that I can really get back into it.
Speaker 2 (42:37):
I am.
Speaker 1 (42:38):
I'm looking forward to that. Who doesn't love a good
visit with Euripities. Let's talk about mis Baby is written
and produced by me Live Albert MICHAELA. Smith is the
Hermes to my Olympians, the assistant producer who put together
all of these clips for you because she is an
absolute star. Laura Smith is the production assistant and audio
engineer who works on so many of the conversation episodes
(43:00):
and is creating something really great about the website. Check
it out now. We have opened up some new pages
listing episodes, going into a bit more detail, just kind
of laying things out because I have over five hundred
episodes and it turns out it's like really hard to
figure out what to listen to when there's that many,
so we're trying to help select music in. This episode
(43:21):
was by Luke Chaos. The podcast is part of the
iHeart Podcast Network. Listen on Spotify or Apple or wherever
you get your podcasts, and I then live and I
do love this shit
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