It's all Greek to you
I'm reading a book at the moment that explores the literary origins of female characters in Greek myth. The line up is pretty legendary: Pandora, Jocasta, Helen, Medusa, the Amazons, Clytemnestra, Eurydice, Phaedra, Medea and Penelope. It's called Pandora's Jar; it's by Natalie Haynes, who wrote A Thousand Ships. I wasn't sure how much I liked that (the voices felt a bit of a muchness after a while, though I appreciated the clutch of more obscure female characters); here she's on much firmer territory, and I'm enjoying it a lot. It's on my Bookshop.org affiliate list with some other great stuff.
I was reading it last night. My daughter heard me say "Oh boy, Clytemnestra, this should be fun". She asked me to explain. "Well, she killed her husband after the Trojan War, because he killed their daughter to get to the Trojan War." Somehow, because I am perhaps not an ideal parent, we got onto the subject of Medea after that. It didn't take long before she asked me why on earth I liked something that was so horrible. Indeed.
Greek myth is endlessly, brutally, inventively bloody. This is not reserved for the stories about men. Women, feminists especially, are fascinated by it. We know that the actual society of the time was incredibly repressive: wealthy women were cloistered, poor women were either owned or valueless. Yet there's a rich tradition of utter terror at the thought of what women, given just once inch of power, could do. Medusa's gorgon glare and hissing hair speaks for every survivor of assault. Medea is a terrifying reminder of how oppression and abandonment can foment violent delusion. And Clytemnestra, that hall-of-mirrors reflection of Penelope, the woman who wouldn't let it lie; in the end, even her surviving children can't take her rage, and son finishes mother - prompting divine intervention to bring a multi-generational cycle of violence to a close.
These stories reveal a terror of women. A queasy fear of what they might do if unrestrained or pushed too far. The bloodiness is the balance. We exist in the dirty work.
It's a theme I come back to a lot. Before Christmas I caught site of a lovely, witchy piece of Greek folk art on Etsy, and sent it to a friend. It was a beautifully decorated plate, with a deer on it. I don't know why a deer in particular, but these seem to be a popular theme in Greek art. I can't really think of deer without thinking of a specific story - which takes us back to Clytemnestra again. So this piece is what I wrote while thinking about deer and daughters and mothers and violence.
The Killing of a Sacred Deer
Before there was Isaac, there was Iphigenia.
It will surprise no-one that the crime was a man’s, but the price, a woman. Agamemnon kills a deer; Artemis demands a daughter. He dangles Achilles as a prize for the girl - some prize; the whole first section of the Iliad is devoted to his childish spat over who gets to own and use a woman - and, when she arrives, puts a knife to her throat.
Artemis is the virgin goddess of childbirth, and the hunt. Imagine, for a moment, being the deity of bloody business. When we say ‘women’s work’ we picture a cloth and a bucket and a needle, but those are as readily used in a surgical theatre as a drawing room.
In some versions of the story, Artemis is appeased by Agamemnon’s intent, and substitutes another deer for the girl. In others, Pan steps in, goat-formed, ready for a bit of unholy BDSM. In a third take, Iphigenia is transported to another world, where at last she is united in matrimony with Achilles, both physically dead but spiritually immortalised. In yet one more, she is whisked away and goes to find Orestes, her brother, who has killed their mother, Clytemnestra; the same Clytemnestra who never forgave, never forgot the sight of her husband wielding a dagger at their daughter’s throat. The same Clytemnestra who welcomed home Agamemnon the conquering hero, to butcher him like one of Circe’s pigs.
Odysseus, it is said, disapproved of Agamemnon’s choice. But still held Agamemnon’s daughter down on the altar.
Is being finished quickly, with sun-flecked steel, a swift exchange for a fair wind, really so much worse than being sold to a hero whose only respectful fuck is with his own kinsman? If they’d lived and died together, would anyone have thought to mingle Achilles’ bones with Iphigenia’s?
Perhaps Artemis never replaced her at all. The gods have form for this: to escape the burning lust of Apollo, Daphne was preserved forever as a laurel tree. Maybe what Artemis took from Iphigenia was her pain and her betrayal. There she still is, in some sense, but released from sense and governed by instincts: to feed, to breed. But still the males clash with pointed weapons, and still someone leads her to the slaughter.
Iphigenia means ‘strong-born’ or ‘born to strength’ or ‘she that bears strong offspring’ and these are three different things. Her mother avenged her. The plot uncovered, she walked to her fate with dignity. Her story, entwined forever with the sexless goddess, birthed a thousand retellings, each of them bloodier and stranger and sadder than the last. We still like ‘em doe-eyed and fragile.
Yet Artemis did give something back. As the blade flashed, and the mother cried, and the smooth-skinned daughter of the general took on the velvet hide of a beast, Artemis allowed a single gift. Athena wore Medusa’s righteous rage as armour, but Artemis, mistress of prey, had no time for a fighting spirit. She blessed the girl instead with the ability to run, to jump, to disappear behind the leaves. She cloaked the sacrifice with reinvention. She rusted the hinges of a terrible trap. Yes, Artemis did what the gods always do, and saved the best for last: hope.
Last month, I compiled a great list of indie bookshops - especially, but not exclusively, children's book specialists - for Film Stories. It's a great resource to bookmark if you're looking for alternatives to Amazon. The Australian ones in particular sound amazing (and ship internationally).