Transcript Ways of Interpreting Myth

Interpreting Amazons:
Ancient vs. Modern
Amazonomachy
relief of a
sarcophagus
(ca. 180 BC),
found in
Salonica, 1836
Pseudo-Hippocrates
• Amazon women dislocate the joints of their male children at birth…some at
knees, some at hips ... to make them lame … so that the male race might not
conspire against the female race.
• And in Europe there is a Scythian race, dwelling round Lake Maeotis, which
differs from the other races. Their name is Sauromatae. Their women, so long as
they are virgins, ride, shoot, throw the javelin while mounted, and fight with their
enemies. They do not lay aside their virginity until they have killed three of their
enemies, and they do not marry before they have performed the traditional sacred
rites. A woman who takes to herself a husband no longer rides, unless she is
compelled to do so by a general expedition. They have no right breast; for while
they are yet babies their mothers make red-hot a bronze instrument constructed for
this very purpose and apply it to the right breast and cauterise it, so that its growth
is arrested, and all its strength and bulk are diverted to the right shoulder and right
arm.
A-Mazon: A Folk Etymology
WORD HISTORY
In classical legend the Amazons were a tribe of warrior
women. Their name is supposedly derived from Greek amazos, “without a breast,” because according to the legend
they cut off their right breasts so as to be better able to shoot
with a bow and arrow. This folk etymology, like most folk
etymologies, is incorrect, but the Amazons of legend are not
so completely different from the historical Amazons, who
were also warriors. The historical Amazons were Scythians,
an Iranian people renowned for their cavalry. The first
Greeks to come into contact with the Iranians were the
Ionians, who lived on the coast of Asia Minor and were
constantly threatened by the Persians, the most important of
the Iranian peoples. Amazōn is the Ionian Greek form of the
Iranian word ha-mazan, “fighting together.” The regular
Greek form would be hamazōn, but because the Ionians
dropped their aitches like Cockneys, hamazōn became
amazōn, the form taken into the other Greek dialects.
Herodotus 4.116-117
It is reported of the Sauromatae, that when the Greeks fought with the Amazons, whom the
Scythians call Oior-pata or "man-slayers," as it may be rendered, Oior being Scythic for "man,"
and pata for "to slay"- It is reported, I say, that the Greeks after gaining the battle of the
Thermodon, put to sea, taking with them on board three of their vessels all the Amazons whom
they had made prisoners; and that these women upon the voyage rose up against the crews, and
massacred them to a man. As however they were quite strange to ships, and did not know how to
use either rudder, sails, or oars, they were carried, after the death of the men, where the winds and
the waves listed. At last they reached the shores of the Palus Maeotis (Sea of Azov) and came to a
place called Cremni or "the Cliffs," which is in the country of the free Scythians. Here they went
ashore, and proceeded by land towards the inhabited regions; the first herd of horses which they
fell in with they seized, and mounting upon their backs, fell to plundering the Scythian territory.
The Scyths could not tell what to make of the attack upon them- the dress, the
language, the nation itself, were alike unknown whence the enemy had come even, was a
marvel. Imagining, however, that they were all men of about the same age, they went out against
them, and fought a battle. Some of the bodies of the slain fell into their hands, whereby they
discovered the truth. Hereupon they deliberated, and made a resolve to kill no more of them, but to
send against them a detachment of their youngest men, as near as they could guess equal to the
women in number, with orders to encamp in their neighbourhood, and do as they saw them dowhen the Amazons advanced against them, they were to retire, and avoid a fight- when they halted,
the young men were to approach and pitch their camp near the camp of the enemy. All this they
did on account of their strong desire to obtain children from so notable a race.
Herodotus 4.116-117
So the youths departed, and obeyed the orders which had been given them.
The Amazons soon found out that they had not come to do them any harm; and so they
on their part ceased to offer the Scythians any molestation. And now day after day the
camps approached nearer to one another; both parties led the same life, neither having
anything but their arms and horses, so that they were forced to support themselves by
hunting and pillage. At last an incident brought two of them In the middle of every day
the Amazons used to split up into ones or twos and go some way apart from one another
in order to relieve themselves. When the Scythians noticed this, they did the same thing.
One of them approached one of the women who was all alone and the Amazon did not
repulse him, but let him have intercourse with her. She could not speak to him because
they did not understand each other, but she used gestures to tell him to return the next
day to the same place and to bring someone else with him; she made it clear to him that
there should be two of them, and that she would bring another woman with her too. The
young man returned to his camp and told the others the news. He kept the appointment
the next day, taking someone else along too, and found another Amazon there as well,
waiting for them, When the other young men found out, they joined in and tamed the
remaining Amazons. After that the two sides joined forces and lived together, forming
couples consisting of a Scythian and the Amazon with whom he first had sex.
Herodotus 4.116-117
The two camps were then joined in one, the Scythians living with the
Amazons as their wives; and the men were unable to learn the tongue of the women, but
the women soon caught up the tongue of the men.
When they could thus understand one another, the Scyths addressed the Amazons in
these words- "We have parents, and properties, let us therefore give up this mode of life,
and return to our nation, and live with them. You shall be our wives there no less than
here, and we promise you to have no others." But the Amazons said- "We could not
live with your women- our customs are quite different from theirs.To draw the
bow, to hurl the javelin, to bestride the horse, these are our arts of womanly
employments we know nothing. Your women, on the contrary, do none of these
things; but stay at home in their wagons, engaged in womanish tasks, and never go
out to hunt, or to do anything. We should never agree together. But if you truly wish
to keep us as your wives, and would conduct yourselves with strict justice towards us,
go you home to your parents, bid them give you your inheritance, and then come back
to us, and let us and you live together by ourselves."
Herodotus 4.116-117 Cont.
The youths approved of the advice, and followed it. They went and got the portion of goods
which fell to them, returned with it, and rejoined their wives, who then addressed them in
these words following:- "We are ashamed, and afraid to live in the country where we now
are. Not only have we stolen you from your fathers, but we have done great damage to
Scythia by our ravages. As you like us for wives, grant the request we make of you. Let us
leave this country together, and go and dwell beyond the Tanais (River Don)." Again the
youths complied. Crossing the Tanais they journeyed eastward a distance of three days'
march from that stream, and again northward a distance of three days' march from the Palus
Maeotis. Here they came to the country where they now live, and took up their abode in it.
The women of the Sauromatae have continued from that day to the present to observe
their ancient customs, frequently hunting on horseback with their husbands, sometimes
even unaccompanied; in war taking the field; and wearing the very same dress as the
men. The Sauromatae speak the language of Scythia, but have never talked it correctly,
because the Amazons learnt it imperfectly at the first. Their marriage-law lays it down
that no girl shall wed till she has killed a man in battle. Sometimes it happens that a
woman dies unmarried at an advanced age, having never been able in her whole
lifetime to fulfil the condition.
Achilles killing the Amazon Queen
Penthesilea
Greek, about 540-530 BC
Made in Athens, Greece; found at
Vulci (now in Lazio, Italy)
The Amazon Penthesilea killed by Achilles (a love story). Athenian Cup from
Vulci, around 460 BC
Munich / Germany, Antikensammlungen 2688. Penthesilea in a Greek dress (due
to her emotional bond with Achilles), while the other Amazon is shown with a
non-Greek dress.
Heracles fighting with the
Amazons, detail from a volute
krater attributed to Euphronius,
c. 500 bc; in the Archaeological
Museum, Arezzo, Italy.
Hippolyta
Theseus
Hippolyta
Hippolytus
Euripides’ play
Did Amazons Really Exist?
http://www.stoa.org/diotima/essays/wilde.shtml
Tennyson’s “Princess”
Tennyson’s “Princess”
http://classiclit.about.com/
library/bletexts/atennyson/bl-atenprincess.htm
Alfred Tennyson,
6 August 1809 – 6 October 1892)
Gilbert and Sullivan’s
“Princess Ida”
Our statues! —not of those that men desire,
Sleek Odalisques, or oracles of mode,
Nor stunted squaws of West or East; but she
That taught the Sabine how to rule, and she
The foundress of the Babylonian wall,
The Carian Artemisia strong in war,
The Rhodope, that built the pyramid,
Clelia, Cornelia, with the Palmyrene
That fought Aurelian, and the Roman brows
Of Agrippina. Dwell with these, and lose
Convention, since to look on noble forms
Makes noble thro’ the sensuous organism
That which is higher.
Thereupon she took
A bird's-eye-view of all the ungracious past;
Glanced at the legendary Amazon
As emblematic of a nobler age;
Appraised the Lycian custom, spoke of those
That lay at wine with Lar and Lucumo;
Ran down the Persian, Grecian, Roman lines
Of empire, and the woman's state in each,
How far from just;
Ingres .Grande Odalisque
Louvre, Paris 1814
Charter Myths
belief-systems set up to authorize
and validate current social customs
and institutions.
Bronsilaw
Malinowski
(1884-1942)
Selected Bibliography:
http://www.vanderbilt.edu/An
S/Anthro/Anth206/malinowski
.htm
War and Gender
http://www.warandgender.com/
http://www.warandgender.com/wgamazon.htm
Internalist Theories: Myths as Products of the Mind
Individual Mind
Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)
Laistner (1889) All monsters of myth
originated in nightmares.
Roheim (1952) disguised version of the
Oedipus complex
Collective Mind
Carl Jung (1875-1961)
Feminist Approaches to Myth
Marija Gimbutas (1921-1994)
Marija Gimbutas was an archaeologist with a
scholarly background in folklore and linguistics,
making her uniquely qualified to synthesize
information from science and myth into a
controversial theory of a Goddess-based culture in
prehistoric Europe. Joseph Campbell said that, if her
work had been available to him, he would have held
very different views about the archetypes of the
female Divine in world mythology.
Primacy of Matriarchy
Lefkowitz Study Questions
1. Who is Princess Ida and what is her relationship to Amazons?
2. What does Lefkowitz think is the purpose of myth?
3. What does Lefkowitz mean when she says that “every feature of Amazonian society
has a direct antithesis in ordinary Greek practice”?
4. Does Lefkowitz think that Aeschylus’ Eumenides can be used to claim that the
discovery of paternity was a key factor in the shift from matriarch to patriarchy? Why or
why not?
5. Does Lefkowitz think that the myths of Amazons and other wild destructive women
can be used as examples of the psychological conflict imposed by the customary
segregation of the sexes in Athenian society and men’s apprehensions about female
sexuality? Why or why not?