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Post by LMV's Old Account on Nov 20, 2006 20:43:43 GMT -6
i know i know *grins*
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Post by xenavirgin on Nov 21, 2006 2:00:49 GMT -6
Hey hey there LmV
2 lambs back in the fold.
XV
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Post by Phalon on Nov 21, 2006 23:45:55 GMT -6
I love that movie. It was my first real big break into the Hollywood scene though I didn't realize it at the time. Whose gam to you think was wearing that lampshade? I had a bit too much to drink that night. And dang it, I didn't even show up in the credits. Pfft.
And that is because I am straight....or in a straight jacket. Whichever.
Oooo, more on the circular calendars? It sounds interesting. And I've still got to comment on all the work you did posting about Delphi and the oracles. It has not gone unappreciated; I just haven't had time here recently.
Hhmmm...I was thinking the opposite; she is trying to make the reader think too much. Or maybe that's just me reading too much into it. Or her style of flip-flopping from one subject to the next with only small details to tie one subject to another. Know much about Pandora? I'd love to get opinions on the author's take on her; they are so removed from anything I've ever heard, but make sense in an abstract, symbolic sort of way. And because you mention it, yes, I wonder if it is a "reinvention" of myth.
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Post by xenavirgin on Nov 27, 2006 13:34:49 GMT -6
Hey there kids. I'm well buzzed at the minute, I've just got back from an absolutely brilliant lecture. The subject was "Engendering Archaeology", and it was fanflippintastic. ;D
I'd not heard this particular professor before, although he was instrumental in my application for the degree I'm taking, so I was looking forward to the class today. Lots of interesting ideas bounced around, which I do want to share with you kids, and I will. But I'm snowed under with three essays due in the next week, it will have to wait a bit.
I hope you all had a great Turkey Day.
XV
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Post by Phalon on Dec 4, 2006 0:34:00 GMT -6
I'll respond later, Jung lady. It's late and I have to go dream of predisposed dwarves or something.....like my mother did, and her mother before her, and hers before hers, and hers before that....
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Post by Phalon on Dec 4, 2006 22:00:20 GMT -6
Ok Maeve - I've reread your last post a few times, and was crusing right along, nodding my head, and understanding....until you got to Jung.
Ya lost me there - it is my stubborn refusal to comprehend his theories; I was never a fan of the Jung and Restless, and don't care if Nicki and Victor were watched over by a bunch of evil dwarves in their dreams while they were predisposed doing more soap operaorical things. Like what? That is a soap operhetorical question.
Freud and his phallushood ornaments too - I just don't get it. Or rather, have a hard time believing.
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Post by Phalon on Dec 15, 2006 0:07:52 GMT -6
Oh, oh, oh Maeve!
That's all I have time for now - the bell just rung, and my next period is Sleep 101.
I'll be ready for class tomorrow.
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Post by mabd on Dec 15, 2006 15:13:48 GMT -6
Hey fearless Phalon,
No rush -- I'm drowning in a sea of over 125 papers, about 750 years of history to finish, and to make up and grade a couple hundred finals. Sigh.
your fipper
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Post by Phalon on Dec 15, 2006 17:46:45 GMT -6
Whew. <wipes brow> Thanks for the extension, Maeve, because the cat ate my Pandora notes. You buy that? <searches desk frantically for what I know is here somewhere; gazes at cat suspicously, Nah; resumes search>
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Post by Scrappy Amazon on Dec 28, 2006 22:42:00 GMT -6
As Madam P well knows...this is my all time favorite thread. Can't believe it's been so long since I popped in. *grabbing popcorn, waiting for next installment*
If you don't mind...I may have a few things to say about the male/female dichotomy regarding religion.
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Post by Phalon on Dec 29, 2006 13:09:28 GMT -6
Thanks for bringing this up again, Mophead; I'd almost forgotten about it. Actually, I was still looking for my Pandora notes somewhere on the mess of my desktop. Did I just type that aloud? Sshhhh, I'm trying to keep up the appearance that I'm semi-organized, (eye-roll). And pfft to you for asking if anyone minds; when has it ever been minded that someone jumps in with intelligent conversation?
As opposed to the following reply to something Maeve pointed out...
Yes, Jung's gargling with motor oil; hope it doesn't get in his Carlburetor - is that possible? Motoring, what's your price for flight? Oil get back to you on that. Come on, baby, drive my Carl.
Ah...uhm...yeah, anyway....I'm getting the premise - dreams are hereditary in a collectively ancestral sense - way too simplistically put - but still not getting what it has to do with Pandora and her goody box.
Oh, and I did find my notes....just gotta try and decipher them.
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Post by Phalon on Jan 1, 2007 8:02:07 GMT -6
…and it all begins to make sense….
...and how it relates to Pandora and her adora-ble little forbidden box.
Way back when, Maeve wrote:
and
Will the rhea Earth Mother please stand up? Pandora is Rhea? The book “Heroines” says the same. But I thought Rhea’s family herstory went something like this: Rhea was married with edible children to her brother, Cronus of scythe wielding fame, who used it against their father, Uranus and the big lost member floating in a frothy ocean of sperm wails mourning the loss of the dearly departed family member among the semen…uhm..seaman gathered ‘round. Uranus was married to Gaia, who commissioned her son, Cronus, to chop off daddy’s penis. Just one big gaia and happy family. Maybe I mythed the boat here, but I thought Gaia was Earth Mother – in a Titanic sort of way. I shore am confused now.
But it’s happened before. On to Pandora.
The author of “Heroines”, Norma Lorre Goodrich – or maybe Lorie; I cannot say for sure because deciphering the scrawl of my notes is as confusing to me as deciphering which mother is earth; my ‘r’’s tend to look like ‘i’’s….anyway Norma somewhat subscribes to a theory Maeve mentioned:
Pandora is Earth and her “box” is the womb – she opens it and gives birth – life: her sole purpose. The womb of Pandora – her symbol - is represented in art as a jar, an urn – shaped like a uterus – or less graphically accurate, as a box-like container. And because she gives birth, with it she releases from her box, sickness and disease, decay…and death. With life comes all the ills of life that plague mankind. Not to mention those “bad seeds” that occasionally are born: the truly evil. Every time she gave birth, there was the possibility that chaos would result.
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Post by Phalon on Jan 1, 2007 22:59:07 GMT -6
But Maeve of Pedantically Perversion - that's what gators like best, to splash in muddy waters.
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Post by Gabbin on Jan 18, 2007 23:16:41 GMT -6
Hiya Maeve. I don't want to Pithos you off in your wonderful string theory (related to physics and all) but I am a skimmer and need to know where Pandora came from or where? Ha ha.
Gams, can I write the intro on that Fractured Myths book? Nothing but the fracturals, please. I too get so darned confused by all of the relationships which always end up with Kevin Bacon.
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Post by Gabbin on Jan 18, 2007 23:20:54 GMT -6
And speaking of Pandora's womb with a wiew....the 7 deadly sins must all be things that came out of her. Hee hee. Those would be um...help me out...gluttony, envy, lust, sex, sex, sex. If you list them all (I have never paid attention to the list, I just went for it). I can relate them to the things birthed. Yick.
Oh, and may I be defense lawyer for Pandora and go ahead and say she didn't wish to release them but the baby did it and whomever fathered it did it. She was just the deliverer so to speak. Sheesh. Did any of that make sense?
Explain Gams.
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Post by Mini Mia on Jan 20, 2007 1:29:05 GMT -6
I found this link at the Cherry Forum and thought you guys might find it interesting:
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Post by Phalon on Jan 20, 2007 23:19:05 GMT -6
Thanks, Joxie. Worth a look, if just to read the name of one of the authors: Worderella. BOLL, dang, that's good.
Me explain? Hhmmm....this make take me a while; I'm out of practice. Just a quick glance and I'd say you either went for sex, sex, sex, or got hung up on sex, and want to get Pandora's charges reduced on the grounds of "don't blame her; she's just the deliverer".
And something about the Seven Deadly Sins of Kevin Bacon. Rest your case; it's all his fault.....it always comes back to Bacon; let him fry.
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Post by Gabbin on Jan 21, 2007 23:26:28 GMT -6
Fry him? Okay, but just a quickie, or a fry by night stealth deal.
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Post by Phalon on Apr 4, 2007 21:33:14 GMT -6
Hubs asked today what bunnies and colored eggs have to do with Easter. Wait, wait, I know.....all I know I learned from Whoosh and the two-minute drill. Posted this in this thread way back in 2003; didn't think I could retain things that far back, did ya? Wishing I didn't, aren't ya?
Easter gets its name from the Anglo Saxon Goddess of Dawn, Eoster. Her holiday is celebrated near the Spring Equinox, and because spring, in ancient times, was usually the start of the new year, and the dawn of a rebirth in vegetation, she is also a spring goddess.
Eoster had the ability to change into a hare, for a hare is the most fertile of animals, and fertility symbols were sacred to her.
In spring, the wild birds of the forest lay their colorful eggs and people would “hunt” for them, bringing them back in nest-like baskets as an offering to the goddess, Eoster.
And so, I leave you with a little Eoster song to celebrate the dawn of the holiday …
This is the dawning of the eggs of a-hare-ius, eggs of a-hare-ius. A-HARE-ius. A-Hare-I-us….
Happy Easter.
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Post by Phalon on Sept 8, 2007 19:36:34 GMT -6
Just a drive-through having nothing to do with mything this thread, or threading this myth. Watch the orange cones; fines in contruction zones are double.
What cooking shows do both Joxie and Wildmaven watch?
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Post by Phalon on Jan 12, 2010 7:42:42 GMT -6
Oh, oh, oh...I almost forgot, (wouldn't any readers be so lucky). Bumping this to the top so I remember.
Was poking around in here the other day, looking for something I'd written that I wanted to use in Unraveling the Scrolls...or whatever the story is called. Got me to thinking about the other story being written here involving vampires and werewolves and the like.
Shrugs, why not? We've never covered any of those mythical creatures. Two-minute drilling lead me to a famous clan of werewolves with quite an interesting history, which can be fractured beyond repair if I try hard enough.
I haven't done that yet, but here's something to ponder....
If the werewolf is in sheep's clothing does that make him a wearsheep?
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Post by Phalon on Jan 18, 2010 23:29:31 GMT -6
So, as threatened, here's the story of a clan of werewolves I found during a two minute drill.
This fang gang hailed from Italy during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. They were the "Benandanti"...this was during the time when Ben and Anti were actually a couple. Then Jerry came along, broke them up, and they then became Benandjerry and sold ice cream instead of doing werewolfie things.
"Benandanti" (regardless of their status as a couple) is an Italian term that roughly translates into "good walkers" or "those who go well". Go well with what, I wonder? A nice full-bodied red wine? In the case of these Benandanti, they left (went from) their bodies, and walked as wolves. Instead of doing the typical werewolf night-on-the town stuff like howling at the moon and causing general mayhem, they descended into hell to battle witches. They were do-gooder werewolves.
An interesting case involving a Benandanti was tried in 1692 near the Baltic Sea, an area rich in werewolf lore. Thiess, an 80-year old man, was on trial. He confessed to being a werewolf, but instead of being the assailant, he claimed he was the victim. A man named Skeistan had broken his nose. Thiess claimed Skeistan was a witch, and had struck him across the nose with his broomstick because Thiess had tried to stop Skeistan and other witches from ruining crops in the area. The would-be crop ruiner witch, Skeistan, was dead at the time of the striking. I'm not sure of the relevance of that last fact in this bizarre case, but it was mentioned on in the site I landed on in my two minute drill, so why not include it in here? <shrugs> Why the hell not?
The dead witch and his cavorting cohorts (didn't all witches of the time cavort? I dunno - I just like the word) were carrying the grain crop into hell. Thiess and the other Benandanti descended into hell to fight the witches and get back the grain. It was during this time, Thiess said in his testimony, that he got whacked with the broom.
This war between the do-gooder werewolves and the evil crop-stealing witches took place on four nights each year, during the seasonal changes. If the werewolves weren't fast enough charging into hell, the gates would be locked, and crops, livestock, and fish would be lost. The werewolves' weapon of choice were iron bars; the witches used broomsticks. Let it be noted, none of them wielded fish.
This, of course, astounded the judges during the trial. After all, how can you try a dead witch? What kinda punishment is going to be handed down. Death? HA! Gotcha! Already dead...na, na, na, na, boo boo. Actually, the judges were confused about the testimony Thiess gave that was contradictory to everything they knew about werewolves. Werewolves were supposed to be in cahoots with the Devil, not fight him. Werewolves went to heaven when they died, Thiess asserted, not hell; he called his 'brothers' "Hounds of God", and they were also in Germany and Russia fighting to save those lands from witches.
Thiess was so adamant in his testimony, never wavering once during his confession, that finally the judges threw up their hands, and sentenced him to ten lashes with an al dente noodle, (this was Italy after-all, and a wet, limp noodle just wouldn't do), for committing idolatry and having superstitious beliefs.
There is actually evidence that a fertility cult, the Benandanti, existed in the late 1500s. They thought of themselves as defenders or harvests and fertility of the fields. Four times a year, during holidays and rituals of the planting and harvesting of crops, the Benandanti were called. This was when major battles took place between the fennel-stalk carrying Benandanti, and the sorghum wielding "Malandanti". (I'm not making any of this up, by the way; they fought with fennel stalks and sorghum. I wonder when it changed to iron bars and broomsticks?). The Malandanti were "evil doers" - this was probably because Anti was two-timing Ben with Mal. (that part I made up; can you tell? eye-roll).
During the Inquisition, the stories of Benandanti began to shift, just like their shape. Instead of being known for crop-protecting witch fighters, they started associating with them. By the late 1600s, the Benandanti themselves, were known as witches.
They made some damn good ice cream though. Oops...no. That was Benandjerry.
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Post by scamp on Sept 22, 2012 15:41:22 GMT -6
Be careful of what you encourage. I won't make another this long -- but I thought seeing the problems of a living literature being sustained by a living culture would make understanding both the fluidity of myths and how important it is to control any collective history (factual or not), especially as all collective history/literature's meaning is always being contested. The name Pandora ( Πανδώρα), came from the words πᾶς "all" and δῶρον "gift." This has led to some confusion about her: had she been "all-gifted" by the other gods or was she the "all-giving" woman. Note this: Pandora was made out of clay. Hesiod wrote that the gods created her by giving her unique gifts. But Hesiod also wrote that Zeus ordered Hephaestus to mold her out of earth as part of the punishment of mankind for Prometheus' theft of fire, and all the gods gave Pandora gifts to be used to “seduce” and, therefore weaken men. Conflicting stories already. Pandora had another name, Anesidora, found inscribed against her figure on a white-ground kylix in the British Museum. Anesidora, means "she who sends up gifts." According to the earlier myths, Pandora opened a jar (pithos) and let out all of the evils of mankind, although Hesiod only names two: plagues and diseases. Possibly because Pandora had not opened the jar with evil intent, only hope remained within the jar. That was the easy part. The myth of Pandora appears in several distinct Greek versions, and has been interpreted in many ways. In all literary versions, however, the myth is a kind of theodicy, questioning why there is evil in the world to begin with. Our old buddy Hesiod mentions Pandora in both the Theogony and in Works and Days, which is the earliest literary version of the Pandora story. But in the far older work, Homer’s Iliad, there is a mention of jars which held the blessings and evils given to humans. Hesiod fleshes out the basic myth of Pandora in Theogony, though she is un-named. Evidently, after Prometheus gave humans fire, Zeus had a snit and decided man would receive a punishing gift to compensate for the advantage they had been given. Zeus orders Hephaestus to mold from earth the first woman, a "beautiful evil" whose descendants would torment the race of men. After Hephaestus does so, Athena dresses her in a silvery gown, an embroidered veil, garlands and an ornate crown of silver. This woman has no name in the Theogony, but when she pops up in Hesiod’s Works and Days, she is Pandora. According to Hesiod, when Pandora is first seen, both gods and mortals were filled with “wonder.” Hesiod immediately states that Pandora was "sheer guile, not to be withstood by men." He continues: From her is the race of women and female kind: of her is the deadly race and tribe of women who live amongst mortal men to their great trouble, no helpmates in hateful poverty, but only in wealth. (590-93) In his Works and Days, Hesiod crafts a more elaborate Pandora myth. Here, Hesiod really piles it on Pandora and the misery she will cause. More gods are involved in her creation: Athena taught her needlework and weaving; Aphrodite "shed grace upon her head and cruel longing and cares that weary the limbs"; Hermes gave her "a shameful mind and deceitful nature"; Hermes also gave her the power of speech, putting in her "lies and crafty words"; Athena provided the clothes; then she, Persuasion and the Charites adorned Pandora with necklaces and other finery; and the Horae adorned her with a garland crown. Ultimately, Hermes gives this woman a name: Pandora – "All-gifted" – "because all the Olympians gave her a gift." In this version, Pandora's deceitful feminine nature becomes the least of mankind's worries because Pandora’s jar now holds "burdensome toil and sickness that brings death to men," diseases, and "a myriad of other pains." Prometheus, ever paranoid, warned his brother Epimetheus not to accept any gifts from Zeus. But Epimetheus, a lusty bloke, was offered Pandora, gladly took her. Pandora, suddenly once again of a “shameful mind,” promptly scattered the contents of her jar leaving "the earth and sea full of evils." Only hope (elpis) remained contained. ****** First interpretations. Pandora was cast as the cause of man's lust and was charged with controlling it as the men, overcome with “wonder” were not responsible for their actions. Placing women in this role still exists – we have words like temptress, etc. Nifty move by the men: since women cause sexual desire in men, it is the woman’s role to take responsibility for it. Men, who actually were the hegemonic force, could claim to be powerless and, in doing so, could do as they wished with their sexual desire as the women and not the individual male were responsible for all things sexual. And then came Eramus, in the sixteenth century, and corrupted Pandora’s jar into a box with all the sexual loading that word still carries. There is the image of Pandora, the first woman (Rhea or Gaia) as cause of all worldly evils. Since Pandora was the first woman, all women were, at least symbolically, her descendants, ultimately all women were equally responsible for unleashing evil into the world. This should ring a bell, maybe? I find it odd that almost no-one knows the myth of Prometheus stealing fire to give it to men and Zeus’ punishment for that but most people know about Pandora and her evil box. To be fair, a guy in the 6th century BC named Theognis supports an alternative myth in which the jar contained blessings rather than evils. In this, he appears to follow a possibly pre-Hesiodic tradition, preserved by Babrius, that the gods sent a jar containing blessings to humans. This myth held that a "foolish man" (not Pandora) opened the jar, and most of the blessings were lost forever. Only hope remained, "to promise each of us the good things that fled." And then there is the material culture. Here is a different Pandora tradition. The text, in this case, is a large group Attic red-figured vases which depicts the upper part of Pandora is visible rising from the earth, "a chthonic goddess like Gaia herself." Often, but not always, this figure she is labeled Pandora. Historic interpretations of the Pandora myth are a mess. The pre-Hesiodic tradition found in the Catalog of Women states that the jar, at least, at one point, contained only good things for humans. There seems to have been a major shift in societal thinking which caused a “mythic inversion” – that is, Epimetheus and Pandora and their roles were transposed in the pre-Hesiodic myths. It is a curious correlation that Pandora was made out of earth in Hesiod's story, while the Bibliotheca states that Prometheus created man from water and earth. This is big deal and illustrates how unstable culture oppositions are. But to recast the acts of men onto women is indicative of massive social change. Still the interpretive crux of the Pandora myth has endured: is the existence of hope inside a jar full of evils good or bad? There are cogent arguments on each side: does hope increase or decrease human misery? The answer depends on two related questions: First, how are we to render elpis, the Greek word usually translated as "hope?"? Does the jar preserve elpis for men, or keep elpis away from men? The first question might be confusing. But as with most ancient Greek words, elpis can be translated a number of ways. A number of scholars prefer the neutral translation of "expectation." But expectation of what? Classical authors use the word elpis to mean "expectation of bad," as well as "expectation of good." Statistical analysis demonstrates that the latter sense appears five times more than the former in all of ancient Greek literature. What does this say about Pandora and, by extension, all women? Linguistics support a positive image of Pandora. So why the negative image? In other words, should we interpret the jar to function as a prison, or a castle? The jar certainly serves as a prison for the evils that Pandora released – they only harm mankind once outside the jar. Some have argued that logic dictates, therefore, that the jar acts as a prison for elpis as well. But another view is possible. If elpis meant expectant hope, then the myth's tone is pessimistic: all the evils in the world were scattered from Pandora's jar, while the one potentially mitigating force, hope, remains locked securely inside. This interpretation muddies the water: do we mean hope in an absolute sense, or in a narrow sense? The jars contained only evils, is hope evil? As hope is stuck in the jar, does this mean that human existence is utterly hopeless? A slightly less pessimistic view holds that the myth’s moral is this: despite countless evils unleashed by fled Pandora's jar; the hope that we might be able to master these evils remains. In this case, life is not hopeless, but we are hopelessly human. Hesiod argued that hope was simply one of the evils in the jar, the false kind of hope, and was no good for mankind, since all it did was make mankind lazy by taking away his industriousness, making him more prone to evil. Nietzsche took this even further saying that hope was the most evil of evils because it tormented humans. **** Second interpretative issue. If the jar, whoever it belong to, is full of evils, what is good thing doing being in the same jar? My thoughts are that life would be unbearable if hope was nothing but a continuous expectation of further evil. Point two. Was Pandora herself a mythic inversion? Pandora’s other name is Anesidora, a name more commonly applied to Gaia or Demeter. This connection of Pandora to Gaea and Demeter through the name Anesidora suggests how Pandora evolved as a mythic figure. Classicists generally agree that -- for female deities especially -- one or more secondary mythic entities sometimes break off from a primary entity, assuming aspects of the original in the process. The most famous example of this is the putative division of all the aspects of the so-called Great Goddess into a number of goddesses with more specialized functions—Gaea, Demeter, Persephone, Artemis and Hecate among them. Pandora appears to be just such a product of this process. It seems likely that in a myth now lost to us, Pandora/Anesidora would have taken on aspects of Gaea and Demeter. She would embody the fertility of the earth and its capacity to bear grain and fruits for the benefit of humankind. And in Hesiod’s own work, this inversion can be seen: Athena and the Seasons bring wreaths of grass and spring flowers to Pandora, indicating that Hesiod was conscious of Pandora's original "all-giving" function. But the mythic inversion of Pandora mirrored the shift from matriarchy to patriarchy in Greek culture: the life-bringing goddess Pandora must be eclipsed, the death-bringing human Pandora reign. The brilliant Robert Graves asserted that Pandora is not a genuine myth but an anti-woman fable created to facilitate this change. The change in Greek society was made clear in 5th-century Athens. Pandora made a prominent appearance in what, at first, appears an unexpected context, in a marble relief or bronze appliqués as a frieze along the base of the Athena Parthenos, the most important temple on the Acropolis. Pandora’s presence may have been a way to demonize Athena. Both Athena and Pandora were motherless, both had held incredible power which warred with the civic ideologies of patriarchy and the highly gendered social and political realities of fifth-century Athens. Interestingly, Athena and Pandora represented opposing threats to the new social order: Athena endangered the social order by being capable of rising above her sex to defend the culture – by being more powerful than men. Pandora, by embodying the need for sexual expression, also posed a threat – her ability to attract and seduce men undermined the new models of power by making men weak. Neither stance was acceptable and like the frieze of the Amazons battling the Centaurs, the representations of Pandora and, to a lesser extent, Athena, were products of revisionism. After that wad o'verbiage, who wants homework? Phalon? Okay, here’s yours: were the Greeks aware of the revisionist thinking the shift to patriarchy necessitated? Do you think the Greeks cared even if they did notice? Scrappy Amazon, didn’t you say you had things to say about gender in religion? Want to tackle this: how was Pandora like Eve of Genesis? How was she different? And an open question: as Hesiod was writing, Greece had recently emerged from its Dark Age, largely because of trade. Did this shift in the economic basis of the culture make the shift to patriarchy necessary? you can now kill me.
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Post by scamp on Sept 22, 2012 15:45:59 GMT -6
Yes. And most history is myth which is why it constantly changes. See, I can write a short post.
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Post by Phalon on Sept 23, 2012 8:02:59 GMT -6
Homework?! Uhm....er....uh....The Chimera ate it? Xena took it behind the bushes with her when Gabrielle ran out of scrolls. It might have read something like:
I guess that the shift didn't take place overnight. At first maybe there were some rumblings around the water-cooler in the Parthenon: "Hey, did you hear what the patriarchs are trying to do?" Grumble, grumble. "It'll never happen."
Then there were door-to-door Hesiodians; upon refusal of entry into people's homes, "Let me just leave you with this Patriarch Tower Newsletter". Groups of them also hung around chariot stations, playing tambourines and handing out pamphlets.
It was a slow underground movement that no one really gave much attention. It gained speed gradually, until "Wham Bam, thank you, Ma'am - there's the door, and don't let it hit you in the @ss on the way out."
No wonder Xena took it behind the bushes; it was a p!ss-poor, cr@ppy answer.
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Post by stepper on Sept 23, 2012 10:33:56 GMT -6
BOLL! I'm so glad you're here! I'm also glad I wasn't drinking anything when I ran into "Let me just leave you with this Patriarch Tower Newsletter".
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Post by scamp on Sept 24, 2012 3:04:13 GMT -6
Homework?! Uhm....er....uh....The Chimera ate it? Xena took it behind the bushes with her when Gabrielle ran out of scrolls. It might have read something like: I guess that the shift didn't take place overnight. At first maybe there were some rumblings around the water-cooler in the Parthenon: "Hey, did you hear what the patriarchs are trying to do?" Grumble, grumble. "It'll never happen." Then there were door-to-door Hesiodians; upon refusal of entry into people's homes, "Let me just leave you with this Patriarch Tower Newsletter". Groups of them also hung around chariot stations, playing tambourines and handing out pamphlets. It was a slow underground movement that no one really gave much attention. It gained speed gradually, until "Wham Bam, thank you, Ma'am - there's the door, and don't let it hit you in the @ss on the way out." No wonder Xena took it behind the bushes; it was a p!ss-poor, cr@ppy answer. Actually, Phalon, that's a damn good answer. Aristophanes’ play, Lysistrata (from the word Λυσιστράτη meaning one who disbands the army) turned women’s grumbling about “manly” things into a comedy that, incidentally, also reinforced the idea that women used sex to weaken men. The play serves us well in understanding social change (summary is below, which you can certainly skip but the play is truly funny). Certainly there were guys hanging out at the Agora, the shopping mall at the foot of the Acropolis, handing around new scrolls and yammering about the new understanding of the ancient myths: between the time his Theogony and his Works and Days were written, Hesiod reinvented the Pandora myth. Other guys did similar stuff. New theories were put into practice: women were not allowed to participate as actors in the theaters, could only play music in private or, if in public, could only play things like harps, and had many of their rights taken away by redirection. For example, except for playing a role in oracle predictions, women's proper religion became that of the Vestal Virgin which was a big step down from the cult of Isis and, as Athens move towards a representative democracy, women were excluded from the population count that determined how many seats each polis got in the government – the women were told that it was far more important that they devote their energy to raising sons fit to run the republic. This was a tricky move; women liked it because they didn’t have to deal with both squabbling children and squabbling men at the same time but it’s hard to raise leaders of the republic when you are excluded from it. So, again, you’re right about the Newsletters, guys hanging out and yakking about the new scrolls while banging on the heavy metal tambourines. And is surely involved a lot of Wham Bam, thank you, Ma’am. And everyone grumbled. You know why you got it right? You got that people don’t act much differently just because you’re talking about “history.” And using the analogy of the Watchtower folks was not only funny but an excellent example of how propaganda and proselytizing are often combined to create social change. Just because something is complicated and is more readily written about rather formally doesn’t mean that its explanation has to dry, boring, and serious to be right. Great answer. Here’s the summary of Lysistrata. The woman, Lysistrata, calls for a meeting between all of the women of Greece, especially Sparta, to discuss how to end the Peloponnesian War. Lysistrata’s strategy is to ask the women to refuse sex with their husbands until there is peace and to use the older women of Athens (the Chorus of Old Women) to seize the Acropolis so that women literally and metaphorically have the high ground as well as control over Athens’ treasury. Her plan works: the women pledge to withhold sex and the older women capture the Acropolis. Interestingly, the play Lysistrata has two choruses—the Chorus of Old Men and the Chorus of Old Women. The Chorus of Men, looking old and bedraggled, first appears on stage heading for the Acropolis and struggling with carrying the wood and pots of fire they plan to use to smoke out the women. The Chorus of Old Women also approaches the Acropolis, carrying jugs of water to put out the men's fires. The Chorus of Old Women defeats the old men and triumphantly pours the remaining jugs of water over the men’s heads. Then a Commissioner shows up seeking funds for the naval ships. The Commissioner is surprised to find the women at the Acropolis and orders the cops to arrest them. In a silly battle with almost no physical contact, the cops are scared off. The Commissioner turns on the men of Athens saying that this whole mess is the result the men being too generous and allowing too much freedom to the women. The Commissioner and Lysistrata start arguing about the war. Lysistrata argues that the war is a concern for women because they lose husbands and sons. She then uses an amazing analogy to prove that Athens (the government) should be structured as a woman would spin wool. Given Athena’s identification with weaving, the analogy works on many levels. The sex strike starts. And it begins to effect on the men. Various guys show up with full erections and are desperate. The women play the men, saying they will have sex and leading the guys on only to keep running back to the Acropolis to fetch things to make the couple more comfortable. All of the men are abandoned, somewhat worse off than they were before the women played them. The Spartans are in equal discomfort. Finally delegations from both states meet at the Acropolis to discuss peace. At this point, all of the men have full erections. Lysistrata comes out of the Acropolis with her naked handmaid, Peace. While the men are fully distracted by Peace, Lysistrata lectures them on the need for reconciliation between the states of Greece. Lysistrata reasons that because both Athens and Sparta are of a common heritage and because they have previously helped one another and owe a debt to one another, the two sides should not be fighting. Using Peace as a map of Greece, and greatly heightening the sexual tension, the Spartan and Athenian leaders decide the land rights that will end the war. Having won, Lysistrata lifts the ban on sex and there’s a great party. The play ends with a song sung in unison by the Chorus of Old Men and the Chorus of Old Women while everyone dances. The kicker to Lysistrata, of course, is that all the roles were played by men. The idea of the naked woman, Peace, being played by a guy always makes me LOL.
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Post by Phalon on Sept 25, 2012 6:25:35 GMT -6
Thanks for all the info, Scamp. I'll have to read later though - right now I've got to get to work, and deal with one of the highest-ranking matriarchs of all time: Mother Nature.
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Post by scamp on Sept 28, 2012 8:09:46 GMT -6
Thanks for all the info, Scamp. I'll have to read later though - right now I've got to get to work, and deal with one of the highest-ranking matriarchs of all time: Mother Nature. Ah, Mother Nature...would that be Gaia, a Greek goddess of earth; Rhea, (aka, Cybele) inescapable mother of all life (earth mother); Anaitis, an Asiatic goddess who represented the creative powers of nature; the Charities (or the Graces), named: Aglaia (Splendor); Euphrosyne (Mirth); and Thalia (Good Cheer) -- in pre-classical mythology, they were goddesses of fertility and nature and were much more closely associated with the underworld and the Eleusinian mysteries; Eurynome (cf Pelasgian myth) was the goddess of everything (aka, the earth) born from Chaos; Rhea, (aka, Cybele) inescapable mother of all (earth mother); or Oya, the Yoruba goddess of sky, weather, seas, storms, change, ie, nature? So many goddesses of Mother Nature.... so many myths...
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