Gendered Politics in Sophocles' Trachiniae

Gesthimani Seferiadi

• Editorial: Bloomsbury Academic
• Año: 2022
• ISBN:
  9781350260337
• Edición: 1
• Categoría: History
• Categoría: Greek Ancient History

This is the first book-length examination of the notion of gendered politics in Sophocles' Trachiniae. Making use of feminist theory and tackling the political nature of the categories of identity, culture and sexuality, Seferiadi brings the interpretation of Sophocles' play up-to-date with the most recent scholarly developments. She discusses the play in the light of its Amazonian and monstrous background and touches upon topics such as marriage and the exchange of women; reciprocity within a corroded system of gift-exchanges; and the dynamics of female silence and the 'impaired' hegemonic masculinity. Contributing to the topic of rape in the ancient world, this book focuses on sexual violence and the intertwinement of marriage and rape from the perspective of tragedy. With an Amazon being placed within the civilized arrangement of an oikos, the play negotiates the position of the female and advocates the need to expel the monstrous sexualities from the polis. Differing from previous analyses, this study is a reminder that female subjectivity was less foreclosed than is often tacitly assumed.

1

An Amazon in Athens: Monsters, Gender and the Polis

In the first part of this chapter, I deal with the question of Deianeira’s origin, with a view to repositioning her on the stage of the Dionysian theatre, just at the exact moment when she comes out of the palace to introduce herself and expose the present situation to the Athenian spectators. This discussion enables us to retrieve this mythical figure from the distant past and unravel the connotations that it invoked within the Athenian imaginary, so that we will better approach the perspective of the polis and the expectations of the audience as far as the question of ‘Who is Deianeira?’ is concerned, precisely as a new reinterpretation of the myth is introduced. In the second part, I discuss Deianeira as opposed to the remote and monstrous un-political setting of the play, a world that is defined by disclaimers of marriage and illicit sexualities, namely Herakles and his monstrous competitors (Acheloos, Nessos), and is juxtaposed to the social sustainability that is ensured through the well-being of the oikos. With its scenery bounded by an Amazonian background on one side and a monstrous foreground on the other, it is concluded that rather than fostering systemic sexism, the play invests in a complete reversal of the fundamental principles of gender and kinship by presenting an unstable ground of blurred and dislocated gender symbols.

The Amazon in the polis

Deianeira’s prehistory reveals a dark and heinous family story from descending both from her maternal and paternal mythical genealogies. Following this paradigm, Deianeira herself, being engaged in a cycle of kinship violations that appears to be inherent in her family, could have been perceived as an Amazon-like figure who deliberately acts as the murderer of her husband. Her mythical existence, however, as can be documented on the basis of the available sources, does not extend beyond the scope of the Herculean narrative and her involvement in the death of Herakles.¹ Yet, evidence, albeit scarce, allows us to infer that pre-Sophoclean mythology had established an independent female figure of an old Aetolian legend, conceived on the basis of a template for a bold-hearted and aggressive woman with an Amazonian origin.²

The etymology of Deianeira’s name predicts a heinous and murderous aspect of her character, which classifies her as a ‘femme fatale’ of the class of Clytemnestra. Δηιάνειρα (δήιος: ‘destructive’ and ἀνήρ: ‘man’), following the linguistic form of the adjective ἀντιάνειραι that typically describes the Amazons, is initially explained to mean ‘the slayer of men’.³ This meaning is narrowed to denote ‘the destroyer of a husband’, when Deianeira becomes known for the legend of Herakles’ death. A number of later sources also give evidence to an Atalanta-like prehistory. Apollodorus provides us with a narrative on a warlike figure that ‘drove a chariot and practiced the art of war’ (αὕτη δ’ ἡνιόχει καὶ τὰ κατὰ πόλεμον ἤσκει; Bibl. 1.8.1). Diodorus Siculus speaks of her as one of the Amazons that Herakles fought against during his ninth labour to gain Hippolyta’s belt (4.16.3). These descriptions fully agree with a scholium on Apollonius Rhodius’ Argonautica (Schol. Ap. Rhod. 1.1212 = 288W), referring to a lost poem of Archilochus which recounted that Deianeira was injured in the chest when Herakles recruited her in the battle with the Dryopes, while they are also consistent with the account of the same incident made by Nonnus (Dion. 35.89–91).⁴

Likewise, in Deianeira’s genealogy we can also find traces that bear witness to the etymology of her name, and which can lead us towards a dark and remote mythical past that alludes to a female destroyer of kinship. From her mother’s side, she originates in a mythical world, related to well-known narratives, which, among others, includes the famous Calydonian Boar hunt. Geographically speaking, the myths about Deianeira are placed in Aetolia while at some point, not safely specified, they are incorporated into the Herculean mythology – and, in particular, into the part that refers to the last years of Herakles’ lifetime as a mortal, his death and his restoration through the abolition of his mortality. The latter part is placed in Thessaly and refers to Trachis and Mount Oita as its focal points.

Calydon, the reign of Deianeira’s father Oineus, is a city situated beside the river Evenus in south-west Aetolia. Pleuron, the city of Althaia’s father Thestios, was situated west of Calydon, in the plain between the rivers Acheloos and Evenus, at the foot of Mount Curium, from which the Curetes, the traditional inhabitants of Pleuron, are said to have derived their name. These neighbouring towns were the two chief loci of Aetolia in the heroic age and their inhabitants, the Curetes of Pleuron and the Aetolians of Calydon, were engaged in frequent wars (Hom. Il. 9.529). Although Calydon was usually taken as Oineus’ location,⁵ Sophocles, as early as the prologue of Trachiniae (7), preferred Pleuron instead of Calydon as Deianeira’s parental home. This may be an indication that he is tracing descent through the female line of her family, thereby directing the audience towards Deianeira’s matrilineal genealogy and the stories connected with the brutal death of Meleager.⁶

The genealogical legend originating from her mother documents a history of exemplary domestic violence and a tendency to promote the prosperity of the parental oikos at the expense of the conjugal oikos. According to the most widespread account of Meleager’s death,⁷ Deianeira’s mother, Althaia, is charged with the intentional murder of her own son because he killed her brothers during the Calydonian Boar hunt. Myth had it that it was destined for Meleager to meet death, when a torch, burning in the family hearth, was consumed by fire. Although initially Althaia secured her son’s survival by hiding the torch in a box, after the death of her brothers, she herself lit the torch, causing his sudden death.⁸ The Homeric account of the incident, however, which is probably adapted to offer a parallel in favour of the argument put forward by Phoenix, omits the torch motif and only refers to Althaia calling the Furies and cursing her son. Yet the description underlines Althaia’s fieriness, the intensity of her anger and the cruelty of her request to inflict death upon her own child (Il. 9.561–72)

τῇ ὅ γε παρκατέλεκτο χόλον θυμαλγέα πέσσων

ἐξ ἀρέων μητρὸς κεχολωμένος, ἥ ῥα θεοῖσι

πόλλ’ ἀχέουσ’ ἠρᾶτο κασιγνήτοιο φόνοιο,

πολλὰ δὲ καὶ γαῖαν πολυφόρβην χερσὶν ἀλοία

κικλήσκουσ’ Ἀΐδην καὶ ἐπαινὴν Περσεφόνειαν

πρόχνυ καθεζομένη, δεύοντο δὲ δάκρυσι κόλποι,

παιδὶ δόμεν θάνατον· τῆς δ’ ἠεροφοῖτις Ἐρινὺς

ἔκλυεν ἐξ Ἐρέβεσφιν ἀμείλιχον ἦτορ ἔχουσα.

By her side lay Meleager nursing his bitter anger, wroth because of his mother’s curses; for she prayed instantly to the gods, being grieved for her brother’s slaying; and furthermore instantly beat with her hands upon the all-nurturing earth, calling upon Hades and dread Persephone, the while she knelt and made the folds of her bosom wet with tears, that they should bring death upon her son; and the Erinys that walketh in darkness heard her from Erebus, even she of the ungentle heart.⁹

In the Hesiodic Catalogue of Women, the part of the papyrus describing the fate of Meleager is mostly lost (F25 MW);¹⁰ thereby, it does not allow us to attribute to Althaia any responsibility for the death of her son. Yet the use of the adjective κυα[ν]ῶ̣[π]ις (‘dark-eyed’, F25.14 MW), albeit formulaic, may be taken as an indirect indication of a ‘dark’ figure, one that is consistent with her presentation in Bacchylides Ode 5, which clearly refers to Althaia as a murderous son-slayer. This Olympic victory ode, composed in 476 BC, reports an encounter between Herakles and the shade of Deianeira’s brother when the former visits the Underworld on his way to fetch Kerberos. Meleager’s heinous past provides a narrative model of crime within kinship that informs Deianeira’s and Herakles’ future story. While Meleager tells the story of his death by his own mother, Herakles expresses his pity and says that he would like to marry the sister of such a hero. Deianeira is introduced as a sister worthy of her great brother, Meleager (σοὶ φυὰν ἀλιγκία; ‘resembling your appearance’, 168), and consequently as a pote...

Índice

• Cover
• Half-Title Page
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Notes on Texts
• Introduction
• 1 An Amazon in Athens: Monsters, Gender and the Polis
• 2 Three Weddings and a Funeral: Marriage and Sexual Violence
• 3 Beware of Monsters Bearing Gifts: Exchange and Reciprocity
• 4 Crime and Punishment: Guilt, Justice and Silence
• 5 Absent in the Exodos: Authority and Masculinity
• Notes
• References
• Index Locorum
• General Index
• Copyright