Key to All Mythologies

Book Ten begins with the familiar story of Orpheus and Eurydice. Orpheus, famous bard, uses his songs to re-claim his new bride Eurydice from the Underworld, only to lose her to death once again when he looks back at her too early as they are leaving the land of the dead. The rest of the book is a series of stories told by Orpheus to illustrate, perhaps, the dangers of marriage, and what a world without marriage would be like. Better or worse? We spent most of our time thinking through this question, using the story of Pygmalion, deluded craftsman who fashions an “ivory-girl” for himself, and the story of his granddaughter Myrrah, who lusts after her father Cinyras, with disastrous results.

What is the meaning of Orpheus glance back at Eurydice? Why does this glance cause her to die again? Are the stories which follow her second death a series of broadsides against marriage and romantic love? If so, why do the themes of incest, artifice, pederasty appear so prominently within them? Do the gods do us any favors when they make us beautiful, or is physical beauty in fact one of their most subtle and diabolical curses?

On this bonus episode of the Key, we have a very off-the-cuff, very free-ranging discussion of Auden’s short poem “The Fall of Rome,” which you can listen to the man himself reading in his great, mid-century baritone here. (Or you can listen to us read it in our nasally, 21st century rasp to start the episode, but it is not as impressive). What is the fall of Rome, as Auden chronicles it? Something that actually happened in history? Something that is happening to the West now? Or something that is always happening – some part of civilization falling away, as another rises?

Hercules takes center stage in book nine, but we spend most of our time discussing the story of Byblis, who pines for her brother Caunas. Byblis has a long monologue where she weighs the pros and cons of confessing her feelings to her brother, eventually deciding to write them out on a tablet, which Caunas then reads and hurls angrily aside. Byblis, sick with the rejection, is eventually transformed into a fountain. We consider the difference between writing and speaking as means of communication, and the role of writing in the Metamorphoses. Could Byblis have confessed if her only choice had been to speak? Would things have gone better or worse for her (whatever those terms mean here)? We also consider the meaning of the reverse aging of Iolaus, a miracle enacted by the recently deified Hercules. Why does the transformation of a man back into a child upset all the other gods? Jove says that Fate allowed Hercules to rejuvenate Iolus, and that Fate ultimately rules all the gods, himself included. What is the meaning of Fate here? Does it represent some higher natural order? Narrative tradition? The hand of the poet? Or the final, intractable victory of time and decay over all things?

We begin and end with a consideration of the myth of Erysichthon. Herein Erysichthon, a man with no reverence for the gods, mutilates the sacred grove of Ceres, the goddess of agriculture. His punishment is to be cursed by Famine, so that no matter how much he consumes, he is never full. His final act, after eating whole forests and rivers, among other things, is to eat himself. For such a rich symbol and story, Erysichthon is almost unknown, compared to figures like Narcissus and Echo, who are features of everyday speech and thought. We try to think through the twists and turns of this story, and relate it the dominant concerns of the Metamorphoses as a whole. We consider again the meaning of piety in the poem, what Proteus has to tell us about poetry, how Icarus relates to ambition, and what difference it makes, if any, that the stories in book VIII are being told to the hero Theseus. Is Ovid using a playful style to mask a careful structure, or is he like the drunken barfly, leaping from one story to the next by any careless association?

In this episode we mainly discuss two complicated love stories: Jason & Medea, and Cephalus & Procris. Both these stories begin with happiness for the lovers, but end with madness, violence, and death. What does this say about the place of love in the Metamorphoses? The overwhelming power of desire is a constant in this poem, but those possessed by desire rarely (never?) come to good ends. There is a sensuousness and a romantic quality to the poetry in the Metamorphoses, but the arcs of the individual characters often involved them being punished, somehow, for their pursuit of their beloveds? Love produced envy and jealousy, even insanity, along with a host of other bad consequences. Yet it also motivates and ennobles human action (and generates poetry). How should we understand this? What does Ovid think about love?

Book VI contains three stories of horrific violence, each somehow more horrific than the last. First, the goddess Athena beats Arachne almost to death with a weaving tool, then transforms her into a spider. Them, Niobe’s 14 children are systemically murdered by Apollo and Artemis. Finally, most horribly of all, Tereus rapes and mutilates Philomela, sister to his wife Procne; whereupon Procne murders their son and feeds him to his father Tereus in a stew. As unpleasent as these stories are, they were all common tales in the world of Greek mythology. How does Ovid use them? By bringing out the sheer absurdity of the violence, and by dwelling with some of the psychological forces at play, how are the stories changed? In some sense, does the violence work to sever the story from it’s traditional, banal meaning (i.e mortals shouldn’t compete with gods)? Could there be a satisfying conclusion to a story like Philomela’s, in a world where everything is transformed and nothing lasts? Could there be one in any world? What is the purpose or meaning of piety and devotion in a world where the gods are capable of such savagery? Does Ovid hate nature? Does he see nothing but decay and death, wherever he looks? It may sound bleak, but it’s actually one of our most fascinating episodes yet. If you don’t want Athena to pluck out your eyes and turn you into a bedbug, then you had better listen up.

In Book V the narrative veers away from Bacchus and tells the story of Perseus, who escapes an angry mob by using the head of Medusa to turn them all to stone. Then we fly with Minerva to visit the Muses, who relate the tale of the human sisters who challenged them to a story-telling contest, lost, and were transformed into magpies as punishment. Is there any connection between all these events? Or are we listening to some elevated version of bar-talk, where one rambling story segues into the next with only the loosest symbolic or emotional attachment? This is one of the many questions we ask ourselves here. We also engage in a long discussion about the voice of the rape-victims – does the story of one such victim, who relates her plight in heart-rending language, reveal the fundamental violence of Ovid’s gods in some new way? And we consider the character of the Ovidian world more generally; a world made up of endless stories, without a clear through-line or central theme. Too post-modern for you? Take it up with James Joyce.

We continue to discuss the meaning of the worship of Bacchus among the women of Thebes. The few women who hold out against the new cult are punished for their impertinence by being transformed into bats. What about the stories they tell merits the punishment they receive? Is the Bacchanalian revelry about sexual desire, a more literal desire to possess or merge with another being, chaos overtaking order, an illustration of the fear Rome felt at the possibility of women liberated from household chores, or something else altogether? We also spend some time discussing the central importance of speech, and the power of human speech, to the world of the Metamorphoses. This leads to a very interesting series of digressions about the history of Christianity, Heidegger, modern disenchantment, and evolutionary biology. It’s great! Give it a listen.

Book III contains the story of Narcissus, the beautiful boy who falls in love with own reflection, and then drowns himself because he will never be able to possess the object of his desire. This is easily the most famous image from the entire Metamorphoses. We spend almost no time discussing it. Instead we spend most of the hour discussing the arrival of the “new god” Bacchus. Even in a book about transformation and chance, a new god is unusual. What is the meaning of Bacchus, the beautiful boy who shambles about drunk on wine and transforms sailors into dolphins, and whose followers dismember their own families? What does it mean that he was born from Jove’s thigh? Is he destined to replace Jove as the central god, as Jove replaced his father Saturn? Given that Jove appears drunk on wine in this book, has Bacchus already weakened him, or even possessed him somehow? Why, in a very amoral world, do the Bacchanalian orgies need to be held in secret, deep in the forests? Why not the town square?

We again consider the question of Jove and his behavior. Sometimes he behaves like a great and noble king, other times like a petulant child, and other times like an unrepentant rapist and criminal. What are we to make of this? Do Jove’s actions have any special moral meaning, or are they simply one more example of a world where everything, very much including morality, is always shifting and uncertain? We also spend a fair bit of time discussing the character of Envy and her meaning in the poem. Why, of all the rape and violence depicted so far, does Envy come in for a special condemnation? Why is the final punishment for the very envious that they are transformed into statues? If you want your past self to envy your future self, break out of your slough of ignorance and listen to this episode of the Key.