Love is in the air and, whether you're feeling cat-heart-eyes emoji or sick-mask emoji about it, I thought I would share the love with some basic guidelines if you're looking for love lessons in the world of Greco-Roman myth.
1) Do: Learn about Cupid
Feel free to choose whichever parentage you like for Cupid - I prefer to think of Cupid as the child of Love and War, and it's my blog so that's what we're going with.
As we all know, whoever is shot with Cupid's bow and arrow is filled with uncontrollable lust for the first person they see.
It's Cupid's arrows behind some of the most famous couplings in myth. Apollo and Hyacinthus; Apollo and Daphne; Hades and Persephone; Dionysus and Ariadne; Perseus and Andromeda; Jason and Medea... the list goes on. You’ll notice I chose to say “coupling” there, rather than “romances”, but more on that later. Eros is even cited as the reason for Pasiphaë’s lustful madness. She inexplicably finds a bull very sexy, enlists the help of inventor Daedalus to make her a cow costume, *fades to black*, and then she’s pregnant with the half-bull, half-human Minotaur. Actually, forget “*fades to black*”... She fucked a bull.
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| Daedalus presents cow disguise to Pasiphaë, fresco from Pompeii |
Even the king of the gods, Zeus, isn't safe. Eros shot Zeus with one of his arrows as he looked upon the mortal Semele - the arrow grazed Zeus’ thigh, a foreshadowing of Dionysus’ birth.
Cupid isn't immune to his own magic either. There was once a princess, Psyche, who had incurred the ire of Aphrodite for being too beautiful; Aphrodite sent her son Cupid to make Psyche fall in love with the ugliest person he could find. Instead, Cupid accidentally scratched himself with his own arrow and he fell immediately in love with her. He takes her to his palace and they fall in love, but he only visits her by night and will not reveal himself to her. Her jealous sisters tell her that he must be evil and convince her to betray his one rule - that she can't look upon him. Angry at her betrayal, he casts her out, whereupon she wanders the earth looking for her lost love, and ends up in the service of Aphrodite. The goddess gives her a series of seemingly impossible tasks, but upon their completion she is reunited with her love, who forgives her, and they get married and she becomes the immortal goddess of the soul, and lends her name to the human mind in later science.
I have to assume Cupid and Psyche is what Cheryl Cole was singing about in 'Fight For This Love'.
Not everyone was vulnerable to Cupid’s charms, though. Artemis, Athena, and Hestia (that is, the virgin Olympian goddesses) are immune to him: ‘Eros, loosener of limbs, never approaches her [Artemis]’ (Sappho fr. 34, trans. Campbell); ‘Athene who smilingly replied: “Sprung as I am from Zeus, I have never felt the arrows of the Boy’ (Apollonius Rhodius Argonautia 3.28).
2) Do: Celebrate myth as a space for queer romance
Long-time readers of TheShelbiad will know of my 'Queer Myth' series (See here for parts i: Iphis & Ianthe; ii: Ancient Greek Society; iii: Gay Heroes) that draw upon my PhD chapter on queer myths.
Whether you're looking to Sappho for some lesbian yearning, or to Heracles and Achilles for a heroic bisexual/gay heroes, or to Iphis or Caeneus for trans narratives, Greek myth has the story for you. But why look to ancient myths for stories that narrate your queerness, here and now?
Ancient stories that fit, however debatably, into our LGBTQ+ frameworks give us a sense of history.
As Hannah Clarke’s survey and wider research has demonstrated, ‘The largest reason that research participants seem to be interested in the Classics as young queer people is that Classics remedies, to a certain extent, anxieties of feeling culturally temporary’ (Clarke 2019: np.). The visibility of queer figures in ancient myths, such as Heracles and Hylas, Achilles and Patroclus, Sappho, and Bilitis, provides a sense of queer history and community for ‘contemporary Classics-loving queer youth’ (Ibid., np.). Clarke’s research found that LGBTQ+ youths turn to the Classics for a legitimacy for queer personhood and a desire for queer inheritance. Clarke acknowledges that ‘Twenty-first century identities don’t map onto easily ancient figures, [labelling] Greeks and Romans as “gay” is not useful, and it is likewise useless to depict them as “straight”’ (Ibid., np.), but Queer Classics has generative potential for both research and researchers alike.
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| Sappho with women (source) |
3) Do: Find a myth that represents your romance and say 'aww'
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| N.C. Wyeth 'Odysseus and Penelope reunited' (1929) |
Maybe yours is a romance that celebrates the fluidity of gender and sexuality, and you look to Iphis and Ianthe for a representation of your relationship. If you're also into environmental activism, check out Ali Smith's adaptation of this myth, Girl Meets Boy.
Maybe you and your significant other are really into fitness and competitive sport. In that case, the myth of Atalanta - devotee of Artemis and equal to any heroic man remembered for the Calydonian Boar Hunt or for being an Argonaut - might be the one for you. She said that any man who could beat her in a footrace could marry her, confident as she was in her own abilities. Many men raced her and she beat all of them, until Hippomenes asked Aphrodite for help. Aphrodite was feeling petty because of Atalanta's obvious preference for Artemis, so she gave Hippomenes golden apples that he threw ahead of himself during the footrace. Spellbound, Atalanta chased each of the three golden apples - despite this, she still very nearly won the race, but Hippomenes managed to beat her at the last minute. Despite her original reticence, Atalanta and Hippomenes actually had a happy marriage... until they got turned into lions for having sex in a temple.
Maybe you would do anything for your love, and you see Orpheus and Euridice's story as a truly beautiful tale. Orpheus was a demi-god whose godliness came in the form of music. When he and Euridice were newlyweds, she was bitten by a venomous snake and died. He journeyed to the Underworld and petitioned to get his lover back, and sang a song so tragic and played the lyre so beautifully that Persephone, Queen of the Underworld, cried. She said he could guide Euridice out of the Underworld, but her husband Hades added the addendum that he couldn't look back at her until they were both out, or else she would be returned to the afterlife forever. Lo and behold, Orpheus, unable to control himself, looked back at the last second and Euridice was pulled back to hades.
Or maybe you're like me (and also like H.D. & Carol Ann Duffy) in thinking that Orpheus was an IDIOT who was SO CLOSE to getting EVERYTHING HE WANTED. P.S. it's hilarious that Orpheus never remarried and the local women, in a fit of jealous rage, tore him limb from limb, and then his disembodied head was an immortal soothsayer for a while until the gods took pity on him and reunited him with Euridice in the afterlife.
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| Eurydice and Orpheus in SuperGiant Games' Hades (2020) |
Or maybe the love you're celebrating isn't romantic this year. Maybe you're having a Galentine's Day and you're looking to Greek myth for some sisterhood. In that case, why not look to the Pleiades, the seven sisters - daughters of Atlas and companions to Artemis; or you could look at the long list of Muses and see which ones you and your Gals are.
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My point is: There is a myth for any romantic moment, and what romantic moment isn't made better by a myth? There are, however, some things you should be wary of...
1) Don't: Perpetuate Rape Culture
Firstly, what I mean by 'rape culture' is a society in which prevailing attitudes normalise or trivialise sexual assault and abuse. See here for more information.
Almost all mythological systems have stories of women / youths being "taken" as punishment or conquest. Always be wary of terms like "seduced", "entranced", "took", "ravished", and so on - they are, more often than not, euphemisms for rape.
Sometimes it is very, very explicit. With Poseidon and Caenis, for example: Poseidon raped Caenis, then, feeling guilty, he offered her a gift - they chose to become a man, Caeneus. Or Cassandra, who was cursed by Apollo to never be believed in her accurate prophecies because she spurned his advances, and she was later raped in Athena's temple during the sacking of Troy.
Then you've got myths that are pretty explicitly about sexual assault, but which don't seem to be remembered that way. Any time a nymph is pursued, and turned into something to escape the god chasing them, that is a case of attempted sexual assault. Actually, almost any story involving a nymph is suspect, as their primary function in myth is to be mated with, either to explain why something is the way it is today (Aetiological myths) or to account for the parentage of a certain god or hero. It's basically every other story in Ovid's Metamorphoses.
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| Bernini's 'Apollo and Daphne' 1622-1625 |
Perhaps the most famous example of this is Apollo and Daphne, where Apollo "pursued" Daphne - that is, chased her as she ran from him - until she called upon her father, a minor river god, to help her. He turned her into the laurel tree, and Apollo forever wore a laurel crown in her honour. Yet, the only thing we tend to remember from this myth is a woman turning into a tree, and that laurels are often associated with the god Apollo. If you want an example of the pervasiveness of rape culture, look no further than the fact that we still use laurel wreaths to crown medallists in the Olympics.
2) Don't: Take dating advice from Zeus
Related to the above is... every single sexual encounter that involves Zeus ever. Any Olympian, minor deity, or demigod hero that is a child of Zeus is, you have to assume, the product of rape. There are literally hundreds of myths that involve Zeus pursuing, molesting, raping, and/or otherwise violating women in Greek myth. One that always springs to mind is Io, who was a priestess of Hera and therefore would have refused Zeus when he tried to seduce her. He raped her, then to "protect" her from the wrath of Hera, he turned her into a cow. Somehow, Hera is then portrayed as the most villainous in this story when she jealously sends a gadfly to torment Io, who is still IN THE FORM OF A HEIFER WITHOUT HER CONSENT. Io desolately wandered across the earth, giving her name to the Ionian Sea, until she landed in Egypt, was returned to her human form, and gave birth to a child who was conceived from her "union" with Zeus.
If you want another example of the pervasiveness of rape culture today that comes directly from Greek myth, cast your eye out to the solar system. The planet Jupiter is named for Zeus (whose Roman name is Jupiter or Jove), and all of its 79 moons are named after his conquests (read: victims).
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| Io, source: NASA |
3) Don't: Romanticise Grooming
Okay, I know not everyone is going to agree with me here, but Hades and Persephone is a myth in which two grown men (Zeus and Hades) collude to abduct an underage girl, for Hades to take her as his child bride. It is only when her mother, Demeter, brings a global famine to petition for her return that a compromise is reached wherein her mother and her forced husband share custody.
And I don't want to hear anything about how, later, she becomes the Dread Queen of the Underworld, the only one with the power to overturn Hades' rulings, the only wife of an Olympian god who is not constantly cheated on. I don't want to hear angsty poetry about Hades recognising a sexy darkness in Persephone (looking at you, Nikita Gill) and I don't want to hear you crushing on Hades' portrayal in the webcomic Lore Olympus, or describing Persephone in it as "thicc" - just to remind you, in that adaptation, she is 19, he is thousands of years old; he us essentially the CEO of hades, she is his intern; she is a victim of sexual assault and inexperienced, and he grooms her.
Please do not misunderstand. As someone who studies contemporary myth adaptations, I am not saying there is one right way to tell a myth, nor am I saying that only established, well-reputable people can adapt myth. On the one hand, there is Nikita Gill's statement in defence of her Persephone interpretation: 'This is MYTHOLOGY, not HISTORY' and she's right there - there is no correct way to tell myths and adaptations are as fundamental a part of myth history as, say, Hesiod or Homer - except, as Aimee Hinds puts it: 'Nikita Gill is right [...] But her take on Persephone is wrong':
'Although Persephone's abduction might have been unproblematic in Ancient Greece, to tell it as a romance today erases the experiences of both ancient and modern women' (Hinds 2019: np.).
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| Bernini's 'Rape of Proserpina' (1621-2) |
To sum up what has been a long and meandering blog post, relationships in myth are complicated - and we can use them to narrate the beautiful variety of loves that we experience in our lives, but we can't do that without meaningfully engaging with the troubling recurrence of sexual assault in myths.
Oh wait! I said 4 Do's and Don'ts-
4) Remember... DO give the gift of myths this Valentine's Day by supporting independent artists such as these (Mythsntits; Mythsbaby; Neo-Classicist; CuteClassics; artistfuly) and DON'T forget to share this blog post with your valentine!
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