Cultural Mythology: Myth, culture, and consciousness

True love

The myth of Orpheus and Eurydice revolves around their deep love for each other. They were supremely happy together and when Eurydice dies, so suddenly and so young, Orpheus cannot bear to live without her. Guided by his love for his wife, and armed with his extraordinary music, Orpheus undertakes the perilous journey to the Underworld and pleads his case before Persephone and Hades. When he kneels before them and asks Hades to lend Eurdyice to him just a little while longer, my heart aches.I know that longing, don't you? The longing to go back to happier times, to turn back the tide, to escape, just this once, from the inevitable. Have you ever reached deep into the well of your sincerity and made a solemn vow to gods or a fate or the great unknown that you swear that you'll never (fill in the blank) or always (fill in the blank) if only, if only, he/she/it will grant you this one wish? If only everything could be right again?

I have. But is this love? Plato thought that Orpheus was a fool and a coward. A fool to try to negotiate with the inevitable and a coward for not joining his beloved in the Underworld. His love wasn't deep enough for that sacrifice. The theme of whom is willing to die for whom appears in other stories from Greek mythology. They thought, as many of us do, that being willing to die for your spouse or children or friend was the ultimate statement of loyalty and devotion. But even this sacrifice may contain a kernel of resistance don't you think, to the hard truth? Paradoxically perhaps, extreme courage and fear may mingle.

In the last story, the myth of Persephone and the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, we concluded that transformation is the rule and that profound change will involve loss. We like to connect this process to a vision of something better, happier, more successful or satisfying. We like to imagine that suffering always leads to a reward or has meaning beyond the common fact of its occurrence. But Orpheus doesn't go on to enjoy much of anything after he loses his wife. In fact, in the most common ending he gets torn apart by angry women. It's not heroic or glorious. But it is life.

Hadestown by Anais Mitchell

If you want to treat yourself to a gorgeous, provocative re-working of the myth of Eurydice and Orpheus, check out The Folk Opera "Hadestown" by Anais Mitchell. I'm wild about it. Bought my copy from Ani DiFranco, one of her collaborators, at Righteous Babe Records.

 

Orpheus and Eurydice Part 2 of 2

It was a long, long walk down, down into the gloomy realm of the dead. The air was cold and dry. Nothing stirred. There was no sign of life.

Finally Orpheus came to the river Styx, the river of hatred, upon which the Gods made their most solemn oaths. When Charon the ferryman saw Orpheus he held up his hand. “You may not cross,” he said. “This is not a ride for the living. Go back to the sun-lit world where you belong and wait until our lord summons you. That day will come soon enough, you can rest assured.”

Orpheus began to sing. He sang of Eurydice’s beauty, her sweetness, and their love. He sang of his grief. As he sang, he got onto the boat and Charon silently poled them both across the dark waters. The ferryman may have felt a flush of warmth in the cavity that once held his heart.

When the ferry reached the far bank, Cerberus, the three-headed hound of hell, was waiting. It was said that Cerberus  wagged his tail in greeting at those meant to arrive on this shadowy shore. He might even nuzzle your bloodless hand. But he was vicious to all interlopers. Cerberus snapped his strong jaws at Orpheus and lashed his tail. But Orpheus’s sweet voice could subdue every form of wildness and it calmed the savage dog. In a few moments Cereberus lay down and rested his three heavy heads on his paws.

Orpheus walked on, plucking a simple melody and humming softly to bolster his courage.  Phantom forms, the dim images of the dead, came near and shuffled along behind him, listening,  hearts full of yearning.

At last Orpheus came to the shadowy hall where Hades and his Queen Persephone sat on their mighty thrones. Here they gave orders, received offerings, welcomed the new arrivals, and oversaw the final judgment of all souls.

When he saw Orpheus Hades said, “Who are you and how did you get down here? Someone will have hell to pay for this!”

Orpheus knelt down on trembling legs before the pair. “I seek my wife,” he said. “She stepped upon a viper and was killed in her youth, long before her rightful time. I love her dearly and cannot go on without her, try as I might. Love has won.”

Then Orpheus started to sing. He sang about the meadows and the moment he first saw his bride. He sang about her smile and the sweet scent of her hair. And he sang about his grief, about what it is like to suddenly be alone, in a desolate world reduced to mists and shadows, without purpose or meaning or hope or love. Without love, the force that makes the world go round.

His haunting song filled the great hall and echoed throughout the underworld.  Sisyphus sat down on his stone. Tantalos forgot hunger and thirst. The Furies were awe-struck and the judges of the dead wept. Everyone who heard the song was deeply moved. Some say the great queen even shed a tear and that Hades himself had to turn his face away lest he betray the contents of his heart.

Orpheus’s song was complete and the last note hung in the air. “We all shall take this way,” he said, “Our final home is here; the great and mighty, the small and pitiful, the virtuous and the evil. This is the end for all that is mortal… for me, and for Eurydice. I ask you only this great lord: lend her to me for awhile longer.”

Hades was silent. Persephone took his hand and squeezed it ever so slightly, her eyes on the face of Orpheus. Perhaps she could still hear his melody echoing in her heart. “You may have your wife” Hades said at last, “on one condition. You will go first and she will follow behind. You must not turn around. You must not look back until you are both above ground in the bright light of the sun or she will fall back into the depths once again, for good. At these words Eurydice emerged from the dark depths of the hall and Orpheus wept at the sight of her sweet face.

The two lovers set off at once with Orpheus in the lead and the pale Eurydice following behind. Several times he thought he heard her stumble--their upward path was dark and steep. But he dared not look. The pair trudged along in unbroken silence through the mists. It was a very long way and after a while it seemed to Orpheus that he heard and sensed nothing from the woman following. No one, Orpheus knew, returned from the Underworld. Hades was not known for his mercy. Was it possible that he had been duped? What if, what if, Eurydice his beloved, was not walking behind him after all?

Orpheus thought he could just make out the first glimmers of sunlight ahead. The end of the journey was so near and yet he could not bear it if he had come all this way alone. Doubt seized his heart and squeezed it, filled it, until he had to turn so slightly… just a quick glance over his shoulder to be sure…

“Orpheus, I love you,” cried Eurydice as he reached out to grab her arm, to clasp her to him. But she slipped beyond his grasp into the abyss and was gone. Some say that he tried to find his back into the depths again, to make another plea. But it was no use. Orpheus lived out the rest of his days with only the memory of Eurydice.

(Painting by George Frederick Watts RA (1817-1904)),

Orpheus and Eurydice Part 1 of 2

A story is like a river. You can wade into the flow at any point and emerge at another, upstream or down. The river of story is different every time you dive in. And who is to say which drop of water is the first, or the last?

When did this story of Orpheus and Eurydice begin? Was it the day that Orpheus and Eurydice first met? Or maybe the moment Orpheus sang his first song and charmed every being within the sound of his voice. With the invention of the lyre perhaps, or the birth of Calliope, the Muse of epic poetry, whom many say was Orpheus’s mother.

Orpheus was the most famous poet and musician who ever lived. He was called the “father of songs” and it was said that although the god Hermes invented the lyre, Orpheus perfected it. When Orpheus lifted up his voice, flocks of birds flew about over his head and the fish leaped high from the dark-blue sea. His songs set the trees and stones in motion. He grew up in Pieria, the land of the Muses, and some say that Apollo, the god of music (who first put the lyre into human hands), was his teacher.

Orpheus was one of the Argonauts, who rowed with Jason and the other Greek heroes on the fleet ship Argo to the land of Colchis, to steal the Golden Fleece. They were successful. But on their way home the men passed near the Sirens. Those man-eating harpies were horrible to look at but they had silver tongues and sang golden honey melodies. The Siren’s song was bewitching and no one who heard it could resist coming fatally close. But when the ship Argo approached the Sirens perched on their sharp rocks, Orpheus also sang, loudly and more beautifully. His glorious music drowned out the Siren’s call. Orpheus brought the Argo and its crew through safely.

When he returned from this journey, Orpheus settled in Thessaly. There he met the enchanting Eurydice. She was an oak nymph, graceful and slender as a sapling. She had a beautiful face and lovelier heart. Orpheus loved her deeply and she was equally enamoured of Orpheus.

They were a happy couple without a care or need in the world. On the day that they were married, Orpheus sang joyful songs to his bride while she danced through the meadows full of flowers. The birds joined in and the trees bowed down their branches and showered them with sweet fruit. But not long after, some say it was on their very wedding day, the beautiful Eurydice was accosted by a lusty satyr. Her love was solely for her husband and the young woman ran away through the tall grass.

She didn’t see the viper until it struck on her the heel. The poison sped quickly to her heart. Within moments, Eurydice was dead.

Friends found the body in the tall grass. At first Orpheus did not believe them, could not believe them, would not believe them. But when he saw his beloved still and cold he understood that he was now alone. Eurydice was gone. Orpheus sat down and wept. He lamented and played such sad and mournful songs that the nymphs urged him to follow her, to go down into the underworld. “Appeal to Persephone and her lord.” they counseled, “surely your music will melt their hearts.”

Orpheus picked up his lyre, a faint glimmer of hope in his heart. He went to a deep cave, a crack in the earth that was known to be one of the ways down.

(Painting by Jean-Baptiste Corot)

Gold and mud

As we've seen, the Homeric Hymn to Demeter and the myth of Persephone's abduction to Hades can be imagined many different ways. There are multiple themes and metaphors and right answers. But there is one overarching idea--- transformation. Whether you focus on the cycles of the seasons and crops, the shift from daughter to mother to crone, or the necessary loss of innocence that propels us towards maturity, the myth tells us that transformation is the rule and that profound change will involve loss.

Persephone was changed forever. She could go home again but not as the girl that she once was, picking flowers with her girlfriends. How much did she mind this? We don't know. But it's significant that we don't have any other stories that involve her homecoming or the designated months in the sunshine. Mythologically, Persephone is always with Hades and the Greeks couldn't imagine the underworld without her. 

I'm fascinated by Persephone, Hades, and the implications of a queen in such an underworld. We need to assume a feminine perspective to understand death and we need to make meaningful contact with the presence of death in life. In The Long Journey Home Christine Downing observes, "To start with death, with the underworld, as a given is to see life in an entirely different way." I think Downing is talking about value, about being able to distinguish what matters from all the rest of it.

We'll continue looking for clues about Persephone, Hades, and the underworld in the next story that I'll post, "Orpheus and Eurydice." In the meantime, I think this quote from Hesse is right on point: "You say yes to the sunlight and your pure fantasies, so you have to say yes to the filth and the nausea. Everything is within you, gold and mud, happiness and pain, the laughter of childhood and the apprehension of death. Say yes to everything, shirk nothing, don't try to lie to yourself." Hermann Hesse, "Wish Jar"

Yearning for depth

In the poem "Persephone Leaving" we find the image of a Persephone who was easily tempted by a dark stranger and found her place, her power, in that other world.  The image of her willingly climbing into the chariot stands in stark contrast to the more common image of abduction and rape and may come as a bit of a shock. But this change in attitude merely emphasizes the theme of maturation and individual development in the myth. Persephone was ready to move past her mother and her mother's cloistered world. She gave up her innocence, as we all must. This is the metaphorical meaning of getting into the chariot.

Once she was Queen, Persephone was loathe to leave. She had authority and she had Hades. She wasn't pining away for home, and here the poem makes another interesting deviation from the Homeric Hymn. Persephone wants to stay in the underworld all of the time and Hades prevents her. He doesn't let her eat the whole fruit. Balance must be maintained, a certain order, and he takes responsibility for seeing that it is not overthrown. Persephone has made an important move towards maturity but she is still, as I read this, not her own woman. She has transferred allegiance from her mother and the world of flowers to a husband and the world of shadows. But ultimately that kind of loyalty is central to one's relationship with one's self, yes? The poem ends on an open note; the poet doesn't tell us whether or not an older Persephone achieves this.

There is something else here, in that "ravenous hunger." A yearning for depth, a desire to connect with what is below the surface. The flowers in the meadows that Persephone picks have their roots in the dark earth. They spring from seed that incubates and disinegrates underground. To really know the flower, one must know the seed.

Persephone Leaving

She's picking flowers, meadows goldenrod
and belladonna, sometime near noon.
Do you see her? Hugging the shade

at the meadow's edge. And comes Pluto
from Hades in his golden chariot
heart full of flung arrows from cupid's bow.

Sees her and knows for certain this one,
her, Persephone but can't say why.
It only takes a single Trust me

and she climbs inside. She would kiss him
but he says, It isn't done
like that where I come from. And who to know

better than a man with many names.
Black horses paw the ground impatient
and it begins to rain, so they leave.

In Hades she is Queen. Her subjects, shadows.
She doesn't mind: so much the better,
they don't talk back much.

She cries, but only later---when she has to leave,
retract her adoration from him
at the door, temple statue with gleaming feet

where hands have enacted a litany of touch,
and he? He feels an arrow break free:
a brief moment of difficulty

as it navigates an arterial narrowing.
She had wanted to eat the whole fruit.
Knowing there would be hell to pay upstairs,

he stopped her. Heart-sick, she refuses
to look at him---seven pomegranate seeds clutched
in her hand and the always ravenous hunger.

---Mary Jo Bang, from Orpheus and Company, Contemporary Poems on Greek Mythology

 

The cereal goddess

I love Greek mythology and the power these stories have to illuminate human psychology. Their resonance and strength doesn't hinge on belief. We live the triumphs and tragedies and feel the forces they describe in our own lives. But I don't love all of the stories equally. I have my favorites. And I've always found Demeter dull. She is the goddess of grain and agriculture. Her Roman name is Ceres, as in "cereal."

So until recently, I spent little time with this goddess. That mother Demeter is the most visible figure in the myth of Persephone's abduction to the underworld bugged me. You have to get past her to catch a glimpse of the beautiful and fascinating Persephone. But you can't have a daughter without a mother. And the Eleusinian mysteries, the ritual integrally bound up with this story, unites them. They are two and they are One. They are both lost and transformed. They initiate each other into the mysteries of life and death. The metaphorical/psychological parallels between their experiences in the myth are at the heart of it. But while this union challenges and intrigues me, it doesn't bring me closer to the mother goddess.

My estrangement from this earth mother, a key player in the myth that many consider to be "the" myth for women, has bothered me. Would I understand Demeter better if I was a mother I wondered, if I had ever given birth? And how many of my feelings about her reflect the complications of my relationship with my own mom, which is not as close as I would like? I feel the ways that I am stuck in the role of daughter and continue to take that position in my relationships with other women. Something was missing.

Last year we nailed a little wooden box up under the eaves on the south side of our cabin to encourage house finches to nest there. It's just a few feet from our kitchen window and we've had a delightful couple there for several months. For days and days I watched the little mother bird diligently sitting on her nest.  The weather this spring has been unusually cool and I often worried about the birds. Early one cold and very windy morning I stood, coffee cup in hand, watching the bird. She was alone in the whistling wind and I felt that I knew about that nest, the eggs, the sitting, the effort.

I admire this mother's perseverance and stamina, her devotion and tenderness. My interest in her enables me to see these qualities in myself as part of my mothering of the people, creatures, and places that I protect and nurture. I can also connect the process of incubating and birthing my many ideas and projects with an urge to create that comes from the Demeter mother in me. The Demeter mother energies are cyclical, connected with the darkness as well as the light. They are directed towards sustenance, relationships, and ties that bind. There is devotion, fierceness, and a certain amount of narcissism. Loss looms large. It's hard to know when to let go.

Seeing my life through the archetypal lens of Demeter, mother goddess of the grain, creates new opportunities in my relationships with all that I love and allows me to make new connections with the deeper mysteries. I never thought of myself as one-who-mothers in any way before. But the abundance of Demeter, giver of good and complicated gifts, isn't limited to literal mothers with flesh and blood daughters. A little birdie told me so.

 (Now there are babies and it's a marvel to watch the parents feed and tend them).

 

High Desert Mythological RoundTable (R) Group

Tuesday May 31st, 7-9PM at the Red Arrow Gallery on Hwy 62 in Joshua Tree

"Underworld Journeys: The Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice." Last month we told the story of Demeter and Persephone's abduction by her uncle Hades. In the end, the lovely Persephone eats a few pomegranates seeds-- seeds that seal her fate. Now she must spend four months of each year in the Underworld! But is this tragic? What is the underworld, who journeys there, and what stories are told about it's queen?

Free. Donations appreciated, as are cookies and other goodies. The High Desert Mythological Round Table meets the last Tuesday of every month at the Red Arrow. Painting of Orpheus and Eurydice by Peter Paul Rubens.

The Greek myth of Persephone Part 3 of 3

When the goddess Demeter retired, the earth slowly became dry and brown. Seeds would not sprout. Nothing would grow and the human beings were hungry. That meant no offerings for the gods on Olympus, and they missed the sweet smell of burning meat and wine. Zeus sent a message to Demeter and asked her to return to Mt Olympus and restore the fertility of the earth. But Demeter refused.

So Zeus agreed to get Persephone back, on one condition, that she hadn't eaten anything while she was in the Underworld. If she had anything to eat, she has to spend four months out of the year with Hades. Demeter agreed to these terms and Zeus sent Hermes down to talk to Hades. Hermes, the trickster and messenger of the gods, can pass freely over the boundaries that separate the realms.

"Hades," Hermes said, "you have to give up the girl, orders of Zeus. Demeter is no longer dispensing her good gifts and everyone on earth is starving. No offerings are being made." Hades always obeyed his brother. He went to Persephone and told her the news. "You are going back to your mother" he said. " But I hope you don’t think so badly of me. I love you, you know, and when you are here with me in the Underworld you are Queen, receiving offerings and collecting respect from all."

Persephone was overjoyed and wanted to see her mother. But Hades gave her a sweet pomegranate to eat before they mounted his chariot. He did not want to lose her completely, after all. Hermes took them to Demeter in her temple.

The mother and daughter greeted each other joyfully with hugs and tears. It was a blissful reunion. But Demeter suddenly felt some misgivings. She pulled back, looked her daughter in the eyes and asked, “Did you eat anything while you were in the Underworld? Because if you did, you cannot stay here with me all the time. Tell me, did he trick you?”

To which Persephone answered, “Mother, I tell you truly. When Hermes came I was so excited at the news. I missed you so much. I sprang up for joy but Hades secretly put in my mouth a sweet food, a pomegranate seed, and forced me to taste it against my will. He stole me away you know, from the flowery meadows of Nysa where I was playing with my friends, although I cried and cried.It's hard for me to talk about it.”

"So we won't" her mother answered. The two embraced again and were happy in the time that they shared. Demeter made the earth fruitful once again. There was green, green grass, and ripe fields of grain and flowers until Persephone returned to Hades. When Persephone is away the earth is allowed to turn brown again, during the time that we mortals call "winter."