On a Mission: Heroic Quests

Annabel Orchard

Perseus and Medusa: Script and Animated by Square I for the Australian Broadcasting Coorporation: www.wingedsandals.com. Image from Uninews, University of Melbourne, UniNews Vol. 13, No. 21 15 - 29 November 2004 : http://archive.uninews.unimelb.edu.au/news/1923/ RECAP: Themes and patterns in heroic biography

• Close to the gods • Living on the margins • Quest pattern • Rite of passage • Confrontation with death Types of quest narratives

Individual, e.g. • Perseus’s quest to behead Medusa • Telemachus’ quest to learn about his father Collective • Jason and the Argonauts • The Trojan War RECAP: The quest pattern

• Typical element of hero myth • Journey over land or sea/ journey into unknown • Often sent on journey so that they will be killed • Face danger, monsters etc. • Bring back object, person, knowledge Perseus

• Prophecy

• Unusual conception

Danae & the Golden Shower, Athenian • Son of a god red-figure krater C5th BCE, State (Homer, Iliad Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg. Cat. No. ST 1723: 14.319-20) http://www.theoi.com/Gallery/K1.12.html

Perseus

• Threatened in infancy • Sent on quest

Danae and Perseus set adrift in a chest. Attic Red Figure Hydria Attributed to the Gallatin Painter. ca 490 BCE, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, USA, Cat. No.: Boston 13.200: http://www.theoi.com/ Gallery/H1.4.html

Perseus: divine accoutrements * Winged sandals * Cap of invisibility * Pouch *Adamantine sickle- unbreakable

Perseus beheads Medusa. Attic Red Figure Hydria Attributed to the Pan Painter, ca 500 - 450 BCE, British Museum, London, UK, Cat. No.: London E181: http://www.theoi.com/Gallery/P23.7.html Perseus: rite of passage

• Rescues, marries Andromeda

Andromeda, chained up as a sacrifice to the sea monster, the ketos. Perseus fights the ketos, here ridden by Eros.

Apulian Red Figure amphora ca 325 BCE, J Paul Getty Museum, California, USA, Cat. No.: Malibu 84.AE.996: http://www.theoi.com/Gallery/P28.3.html The Quest of Perseus

• Perseus and the Gorgon

• http://www.abc.net.au/arts/ wingedsandals/storytime1.htm

Collective quest narratives

Jason boarding the Argo with the Argonauts, Attic krater, 5th c. BCE, Museo Jatta, Ruvo di Puglia, Italy: http://www.mlahanas.de/Greeks/ images/ArgoShip.jpg

Suggested literary source: Apollonius of Rhodes, Argonautica: for the Sirens, see Argonautica 4. 892 ff

Rite of passage?

A narrative representation of a ‘coming of age’?

• Heroes usually young males

• Hero faces death, overcomes it: death to childhood, rebirth as adult

• Sexual maturity: hero rescues/ abducts/ destroys females Rite of passage?

• Homer’s Odyssey • A return, or homecoming tale , a nostos (pl. nostoi) e.g. Nostalgia • Also a journey through life? • The ‘Telemachy’, books 1-4: a rite of passage or coming of age story Telemachus and the ‘rite of passage’ • Paideusis=transition form childhood to manhood

Penelope and Telemachus await Odysseus' return to Ithaca. Detail of an Attic Red-figure skyphos, 440 BC, from Chiusi, by the Penelope Painter.

IMAGE SOURCE: http://www.utexas.edu/courses/mythmoore/imagefiles19/images19/telemachus.jpg Telemachus and the ‘rite of passage’ • Books 1-4 and Book 15 • Athena = ‘Mentes’ (at house) • Athena = ‘Mentor’ (on voyage)

Athena (in the form of Mentor) and Telemachus. IMAGE: http:// www.mlahanas.de/ Greeks/Mythology/ Images/ FlMentorTelemachus.jp g Telemachus in Pylos

• Nestor and his son Pisistratus • The practice of xenia • Building his own guest-friendships and reputation • Travels to Sparta with Pisistratus

Telemachus (left) arrives at the house of Nestor( centre), Red-figure South Italian vase of 3rd or 4th century BCE. http://www.angelfire.com/art/archictecture/odyssey/images/telemachusnestor.jpg

Telemachus in Sparta

• Preparations for a wedding feast (cf. Ithaca) • News of Odysseus • The tale of Melelaus Jean-Jacques Lagrenee, Helen • The tale of Helen Recognising Telemachus, Son of Odysseus (1795) http://www.arthermitage.org/Jean-Jacques-Lagrenee/ Helen-Recognising-Telemachus-Son-of-Odysseus.jpg

Coming up

• Next lecture: The Underworld Quest

• Next week: The Quest of Odysseus