Quarantine entry #112 - July 11

Obligatory disclaimer: real life is something…so we will be talking about Edith Hamilton today. Pause.

Let us try again. Edith Hamilton was a complex and multifaceted human being, so we are talking about her ‘Mythology’ book. It is a book about Greek myths – actually, it is a book practically about all of the Greek myths – and?

And here is the thing. Greek myths are a very flexible…fandom. They contain dozens of subjects, and consist of several, mmm, layers of culture. There are the works of Homer, especially the ‘Iliad’ and the ‘Odyssey’. There are works of later Greek authors, mostly playwrights, which have survived until our times, (and there are not too many). There are works of the Romans, especially the ‘Aeneid’ of Virgil – and that is really enough, especially for the late Ms. Hamilton and her ‘Mythology’ work. What next?

To elaborate, whereas Rick Riordan did something original with all of the Greco-Roman, Egyptian, and Norse myths, Edith Hamilton… did not. Instead, she just retold them, using the various sources, including the ones mentioned above, to further prove her point…whatever it is. Her take on the Greek myths is bland and impartial… usual. Sometimes, it slips. With the Sirens, for example, as she claims something along those lines: “Since no one who had met the Sirens survived, no one knows how they really looked like”. It is a lie. Ovid in his ‘Metamorphoses’, (which were also quoted in the various parts of the ‘Mythology’), told plain and simple that originally the Sirens were either human maidens or nymphs, (aka divine spirits that usually looked like maidens also), who used to be Persephone’s handmaidens/attendants/entourage/etc., who had failed to save her when she was kidnapped by Hades. …Actually, according to the same ‘Metamorphoses’, there was a nymph who tried to stand up to Hades as he was kidnapping Persephone and even told him no…so he turned her into a freshwater spring instead. Fun!

…The Sirens, on the other hand, were transformed into half-human half-bird entities by Demeter, either so that they would look for Persephone better, or as a punishment; their arms and feet became bird wings and claws, but the rest of them remained human. This is how they were depicted in the Classical period, though later on they became known and depicted as mermaids instead. …Or you could go the other way and depict Sirens as completely ordinary human women instead. Where were we?

Oh yes, Ms. Hamilton and her take on Greek myths. She did her best to be impartial, but she came off as bland instead. Practically boring too, to everyone who doesn’t get a hard-on from Homer and Virgil. Oh yes, they’re the great Classical authors, but as the Sirens episode above showed, even Edith Hamilton herself sometimes couldn’t keep up the intentially neutral tone of voice and instead spoke of her own opinions, however rarely, whether it was about the Sirens, or about Tereus, Procne and Philomela.

…The latter, incidentally, is a love tragedy, and a very dark one: everyone in it dies or becomes a bird instead – Procne a swallow, her sister a nightingale, and Tereus a hoopoe, even though Ms. Hamilton suggested that it was a hawk instead. Fair enough. Ms. Hamilton was a person, after all, and of an earlier age than ours, (i.e. the mid-20^th century), when women were treated much more harshly than they are now, so she had to uphold and surpass certain merits, and given how her ‘Mythology’ is so popular in some circles still, I guess that she did. Good for her. She still made Greek myths bland and boring though.

…Well, this is it for now. See you all later!