Key to All Mythologies

On this episode we discuss the meaning of the funeral games Aeneas hosts to honor his father Anchises. The funeral games are a trope of Epic poetry, appearing in both the Iliad and the Odyssey, and were obviously rituals of great importance to ancient peoples. We try to think about why this was. Is some quality of Aeneas’ leadership displayed here? Is there something distinctly “Roman” about these games, as compared to the games in those other Epics? We also consider the strange scene which ends this book, where the Trojan woman, left to mourn on the beach while the men compete in the funeral games, are driven into a frenzy by the appearance of the goddess Iris, and attempt to burn the ships. Is this more than just another example of the poem’s unsubtle linking of women and femininity to irrationality, passion, and chaos?

On this episode we discuss the doomed romance of Aeneas and Dido, and her subsequent tragic suicide. We continue to consider the major themes of this book – the destiny of Rome, Aeneas as a hero, fate and the gods, the conflict between Eros and the State, sources of meaning and order – as they relate to the very captivating and articulate character of Dido. Why is a woman-ruler (a fact which comes in for some heavy-handed, very Roman, stereotyped criticism) of a civilization fated to be destroyed by glorious Rome, who takes her own life in a seemingly meaningless melodramatic pique, given the most compelling character, and all the best lines?

In which we discuss the third book of the Aeneid. Book three has Aeneas relating the tale of the Trojans as they journey from the shores of burning Troy to their arrival at Carthage, where they are hospitably and warmly received by Dido, the Carthaginian queen. (As the next book will reveal, this hospitality will not ultimately be reciprocated by Aeneas, to say the least). Because this book follows the path of Odysseus’ journey in the Odyssey so closely, we spend much of our time comparing and contrasting these two journeys, giving particular attention to the very different encounters with Polyphemus, the monstrous cyclops blinded by Odysseus. What kind of leader is Aeneas? What kind of a leader was Odysseus? What kind of leadership is held up by the poem as ideal and why? We also consider some murkier, more metaphysical, depths about the nature of meaning and truth. How do morals and meanings exist? Where do they come from and what grounds them? The Trojans, being literal (but not, perhaps, especially literary) seem to be seeking a literal piece of ground on which to built a nation, and from which to emanate a moral order. Sometimes we say “the history determines the metaphysics of the poem,” and sometimes we say “the metaphysics determines the history of the poem.” Join us on our own journey of trying to understand just what we mean by all those words.

We continue to consider the essential questions posed by the Aeneid. Chief among them, perhaps, is an ancient question central to the epic tradition as a whole. What is the relationship between the individual and fate? Another way to say it: is the true hero acting in pursuit of their own glory, or are they carrying the weight of a family, a nation, even a destiny? Another way: can exemplary people stand against the direction of history, or is history driving human affairs, while single people – even the great ones – are merely stones swept before it? (If they can stand against history, should they?) And another: who destroyed the great city of Troy? Ulysses and the Greeks, Venus, Jupiter, and the other deities, or vast, impersonal fate itself? We consider such questions as these, as well as connected topics, such as wondering if the suffering of the defeated people at Troy is justified by the eventual triumph of the Roman empire. We also discuss the meaning of the famous Trojan Horse, and the many signs and omens surrounding it, as the Trojans take the horse inside the city walls, thus sealing their fate. Or perhaps their fate was already sealed? All depends on how you look at it.

We begin our discussion of the Aeneid by considering the nature of Aeneas as a hero. Compared to the previous heroes of the epic tradition, such as Odysseus, Achilles, or Hector, Aeneas seems to lack some of their heroic excellences. Of course, Vergil is writing from a very different historical and cultural position – he is composing his poem many centuries further from the events of the Trojan war than the Odyssey and the Iliad were composed, and he writes from within the Roman empire at the moment of its greatest triumph. How does this change the nature of what Vergil attempts in his epic? Why did he chose Aeneas, a loser, as his hero, and as the mythic founder of Rome, and of the lineage of Julius Caesar? We also consider the poem’s treatment of Dido, the queen who founds Carthage (a city which Rome will eventually defeat in battle and destroy). Are we meant to feel empathy with her? What is the relationship between the poem’s depictions of Carthage, and the prophecy of Jupiter that the Romans are fated to become the eternal masters of the world?

Continuing our discussion of the Bhagahvad Gita. We spend much of the episode trying to understand how the metaphysical, ethical, and epistemological claims of the Gita can be understood together, rather than as being fundamentally at odds. Is the proper interpretation of Krishna’s teachings dualist or monist? Each option seems to solve some puzzles while presenting us with new ones. How are we to think about a religious text which gives us a very thoroughgoing pantheist account of reality – all is one, the individual self is an illusion – while also containing specific, ethical guidelines for correct action, and promising that said correct action will ultimately result in the liberation of the individual from the suffering of being trapped in the cycle of death and rebirth? Or is this way of approaching the Gita borrowing far too much from the Western tradition? We end by emphasizing the central importance of practice and direct experience to any possible understanding of Krishna’s words.

As we are not, by any stretch, experts in the history or theology of Hinduism, we spend a fair bit of time just trying to find our footing in this beguiling and mysterious book. We discuss what to make of the seeming paradox that a text which encourages readers to abandon all attachments to the material world is also a dialogue taking place in a specific time and place, with a material and historical setting and, not only this, while encouraging non-attachment, also encourages direct, violent engagement with that concrete world. Is this a paradox? We discuss the ethical and political implications of a religious philosophy of non-attachment. Finally, we consider how the centrality of non-attachment to the material world of desires and change ends up also making ritual, habit, social duty, and most importantly, direct experience, equally central or perhaps even more so. Is this a paradox?

On this episode we discuss the first half of 2nd Samuel, which chronicles David’s rise to power, his famous sin with Bathsheba, and the beginnings of the violence and strife within his family which will characterize the rest of his life. We spend most of the episode talking about David, Bathsheba, and her husband Uriah, whom David murders in order to try and hide his assignation with her. His assignation? Dalliance? Infidelity? Rape? Trying to understand the nature of the event, and the nature of David’s resulting guilt takes up a good bit of our energy here. As with our previous discussion of 1st Samuel, we try and consider things in their spiritual, moral, political, and personal dimensions, while avoiding any undo anachronism as we read about this ancient culture; one very far from us in some ways, and in other ways quite near. Closer to the end we discuss chapter 13, which begins the story of the fallout from David’s downfall with the shocking rape of Tamar by her half-brother. Is this event a direct parallel with David and Bathsheba?

On this episode we discuss “First Samuel,” the eighth book of the Old Testament. We mostly focus on the distinction between Saul and David. Why did the former fail to hold on to God’s blessing and establish himself as a successful king, while the latter succeeded? What does it say about the nature of God and God’s relationship to the Hebrew chosen people that they are allowed to have the king they are clamoring for even though God and the prophets clearly regard kings as a bad idea? Is the best way to approach the bible as theology, politics, or literature, and can those approaches even be separated? We also spend a fair bit of time trying to think through the meaning of the Israelite tribe establishing a proto-monotheisic theology among a group of polytheistic tribes, most whom (especially the Philistines) are more powerful than they are, at least until King David comes along.

We begin by discussing whether Aristotle is attempting to explain how to write good poetry, or merely classifying what tragedians and other poets have done. What is the point of such classification, if not to help future poets write good poetry? We move from this to a discussion of his, surprisingly expansive, definition of metaphor. After a brief detour about the meaning of literary genius and its relationship to nature and public appreciation, we end by talking about Aristotle’s conclusion that tragedy is superior to epic.