tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2382184804747180588.post8204399537034290107..comments2024-03-27T09:04:12.454-07:00Comments on Baring the Aegis: PBP: Cupid's earlier incarnation: ErosElani Temperancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05611003885755154591noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2382184804747180588.post-711859223127069672014-02-17T02:44:25.024-08:002014-02-17T02:44:25.024-08:00Lovely quotes - and I hope you had a great Valenti...Lovely quotes - and I hope you had a great Valentine's Day, too!<br /><br />It's good that you provide sources for all the quotes, too, since rather than provide a blanket 'this is what myth said' statement about Eros, it allows your readers to determine for themselves which quotes are the most trustworthy! I know in Hellenism that people place varying degrees of reliability on myth, some disregarding almost altogether as just stories, others (like me) regarding them as important illuminations of the gods, albeit one's that need considerable scrutiny.<br /><br />Personally, I worry about the use of later, particularly AD sources but even tragedian and post-tragedian sources for myths. There's a worry tendency (one the later Greeks themselves were prone to) to synthesise everything together to create one story, regardless of when the original stories were written, who wrote them and so on. Indeed, people now seem to think that if a story is<br /><br />1) Old<br />2) Written about the gods<br /><br />That makes it a myth and necessarily a descriptor of the gods!<br /><br />So with Nonnus, who lived in Egypt in either the 4th or 5th century AD, was a Christian (although he may have only converted to Christianity while he was writing The Dionysiaca) is very unreliable as a source. Indeed, HJ Rose says the Dionysiaca is "interesting as the longest and most elaborate example we have of Greek myths in their final stage of degeneracy," but cautions that "anyone who uses Nonnos as a handbook to any sort of normal and genuinely classical mythology will be grievously misled".<br /><br />Equally, Apuleius was a Roman writer and although there is definitely <i>a story</i> involving Psyche and Eros attested to from as early as the 4th century BC in Greek art, the version in the Golden Ass is the first literary version we have and obviously involves Cupid and Psyche, not Eros and Psyche, and probably isn't in any sense the same as the the story of Eros and Psyche. Pausanias, of course, was a Greek travel writer of the 2nd century AD and while he's very useful in some senses, particularly in terms of what he records on his travels of ritual and worship, he also tends to get things wrong a lot about myths.<br /><br />Personally, I usually prefer to look to Gantz's Early Greek Myths first, since that tells us who said what and when, rather than trying to synthesise everything into an equally valid whole. Indeed, on the subject of Eros, he usefully points out that "In Symonides, we first find his familiar role as the offspring of Aphrodite and Ares, but this is not as commonly agreed upon as we might suppose: Sappho makes him the child of Ouranos and Gaia according to one source, of Ouranos and Aphrodite according to another, while Alkaios calls him the offspring of Zephyr and Iris, Akousilaos that of Erebos and Nyx or Aither and Nyx, and the undatable 'Olen' the child of Eileithuia… the bows and arrows with which we are so familiar do not appear in literature until the late fifth century, when Euripides speaks of them as the god's weapon of love in the Medeia and the Iphigenia at Aulis as producing good and bad effects; previously, Sappho had used the notion of being shaken when she discusses his power.' Indeed, in 5th century vase art, the Erotes in the earlier fifth century wield either a whip or a goad!<br /><br />However, there's also the rather good <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0415890330/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1634&creative=19450&creativeASIN=0415890330&linkCode=as2&tag=thewordisnote-21" rel="nofollow">Aphrodite and Eros: The Development of Erotic Mythology in Early Greek Poetry and Cult</a>, which discusses in a lot more detail the evolution of Eros as a god in Greek culture, in both literature and vase art, which I recommend, albeit somewhat belatedly for Valentine's Day… ;-)Rob Buckleyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12161472800655115351noreply@blogger.com