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Comments on Comparative Mythology 7, Finding a Cure for the Anger of Hērā Comments on Comparative Mythology 7, Finding a Cure for the Anger of Hērā The Harvard community has made this article openly available. Please share how this access benefits you. Your story matters Citation Nagy, Gregory. 2020, April 3. Comments on Comparative Mythology 7, Finding a Cure for the Anger of Hērā. Classical Inquiries. Published Version https://classical-inquiries.chs.harvard.edu/comments-on- comparative-mythology-7-finding-a-cure-for-the-anger-of-hera/ Citable link http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:42660032 Terms of Use This article was downloaded from Harvard University’s DASH repository, and is made available under the terms and conditions applicable to Other Posted Material, as set forth at http:// nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:dash.current.terms-of- use#LAA Classical Inquiries Editors: Angelia Hanhardt and Keith Stone Consultant for Images: Jill Curry Robbins Online Consultant: Noel Spencer About Classical Inquiries (CI ) is an online, rapid-publication project of Harvard’s Center for Hellenic Studies, devoted to sharing some of the latest thinking on the ancient world with researchers and the general public. While articles archived in DASH represent the original Classical Inquiries posts, CI is intended to be an evolving project, providing a platform for public dialogue between authors and readers. Please visit http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hul.eresource:Classical_Inquiries for the latest version of this article, which may include corrections, updates, or comments and author responses. Additionally, many of the studies published in CI will be incorporated into future CHS pub- lications. Please visit http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hul.eresource:CHS.Online_Publishing for a complete and continually expanding list of open access publications by CHS. Classical Inquiries is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 In- ternational License. Every efort is made to use images that are in the public domain or shared under Creative Commons licenses. Copyright on some images may be owned by the Center for Hellenic Studies. Please refer to captions for information about copyright of individual images. Citing Articles from Classical Inquiries To cite an article from Classical Inquiries, use the author’s name, the date, the title of the article, and the following persistent identifer: http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hul.eresource:Classical_Inquiries. For example: Nagy, G. 2019.01.31. “Homo Ludens at Play with the Songs of Sappho: Experiments in Comparative Reception Teory, Part Four.” Classical Inquiries. http://nrs.harvard.edu/ urn-3:hul.eresource:Classical_Inquiries. Classical Inquiries Studies on the Ancient World from the Center for Hellenic Studies Home About People References The CI Poetry Project Home » By Gregory Nagy » Comments on comparative mythology 7, finding a cure for the anger of Hērā Comments on comparative mythology 7, Share This finding a cure for the anger of Hērā April 3, 2020 Posted By Gregory Nagy listed under By Gregory Nagy Comments off 2020.04.03 | By Gregory Nagy §0. In a previous essay, Classical Inquiries 2020.03.20, I highlighted some ancient artwork picturing the hero Hēraklēs being breast-fed by the goddess Hērā after he was brought back to life after death. In the present essay, I will analyze the mythological background, showing that the ultimate benevolence of Hērā toward Hēraklēs, as manifested in the act of breast-feeding, had to be preceded by the malevolence of the goddess during the hero’s lifetime before his death. That malevolence, as I will also show, takes the form of a special kind of anger, which to my mind bears an uncanny resemblance to the anger of Mozart’s Queen of the Night in The Magic Flute (première 1791, Vienna)—especially as visualized by Ingmar Bergman in his Swedish-language film version of the opera, Trollflöjten (1975). Classical Inquiries (CI) is an online, rapid-publication project of Harvard’s Center for Hellenic Studies, devoted to sharing some of the latest thinking on the ancient world with researchers and the general public. Editor Keith DeStone kdestone at chs.harvard.edu Editor: Poetry Project Natasha Bershadsky nbershadsky at chs.harvard.edu Assistant Editor Angelia Hanhardt Web Producer Noel Spencer Consultant for Images Jill Curry Robbins Search Subscribe Now! Subscribe to this site to receive email updates about the latest research—just one or two notices per week. EU/EEA Privacy Disclosures Now Online §1. In another posting, Classical Inquiries 2017.10.26, I already drew attention to an aria sung by the soprano Birgit Nordin in her role as Queen of the Night in the film by Bergman. The aria can be viewed here (at 1:17:11). In that posting, I commented on the wide range of emotions re-enacted in the singing and in Top Posts & Pages the visualization of the singing. In the posting for now, by contrast, I sharpen the focus, commenting only on the emotion of anger as shown in the singing of the aria. This emotion is I think both terrifying and at the same time beautiful. The pictures that I have freeze-framed from the Queen’s aria in the film capture both the terror and the beauty. But my thinking takes me further. In what follows, as we consider the malevolence as well as the benevolence of the goddess Hērā toward the hero Hēraklēs, we can find not only Seven Greek tragedies, seven the essence of this divine Queen’s malevolent anger but also, hidden within that essence, a benevolent simple overviews cure. The Last Words of Socrates at §2. In my search for such a finding, I start with a passage in Rhapsody 18 of the Homeric Iliad, verses the Place where he Died 107–126. The hero Achilles is speaking here, angrily speaking, and I follow the careful analysis of his angry words by Thomas R. Walsh in his book about anger in Homeric poetry (2005:218). As Walsh shows, these Comments on comparative verses are a masterpiece of poetic self-expression by Achilles, where the hero rivals in his poetic mastery mythology 7, finding a cure for the great Homer himself, that ultimate culture hero credited with the composition of that ultimate poetic the anger of Hērā creation about anger, the Iliad (Walsh is following here the insights of Richard Martin 1989:223 about the Homeric representation of Achilles as a master poet in his own right). I now quote the thirteen most relevant verses in the cited passage, verses 107–119, where we see the primary hero of the Iliad in the act of expressing anger at his own anger by cursing it, putting a curse on it: From Our Friends . ὡς ἔρις ἔκ τε θεῶν ἔκ τ’ ἀνθρώπων ἀπόλοιτο καὶ χόλος, ὅς τ’ ἐφέηκε πολύφρονά περ χαλεπῆναι, ὅς τε πολὺ γλυκίων μέλιτος καταλειβομένοιο ἀνδρῶν ἐν στήθεσσιν ἀέξεται ἠΰτε καπνός· Troy: Myth and Reality, The British Museum | ὡς ἐμὲ νῦν ἐχόλωσεν ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν Ἀγαμέμνων. Part 1: The judgment of Paris, ἀλλὰ τὰ μὲν προτετύχθαι ἐάσομεν ἀχνύμενοί περ, signs, and the role of Helen θυμὸν ἐνὶ στήθεσσι φίλον δαμάσαντες ἀνάγκῃ· νῦν δ’ εἶμ’ ὄφρα φίλης κεφαλῆς ὀλετῆρα κιχείω Ἕκτορα· κῆρα δ’ ἐγὼ τότε δέξομαι ὁππότε κεν δὴ Ζεὺς ἐθέλῃ τελέσαι ἠδ’ ἀθάνατοι θεοὶ ἄλλοι. Most Common Tags οὐδὲ γὰρ οὐδὲ βίη Ἡρακλῆος φύγε κῆρα, ὅς περ φίλτατος ἔσκε Διὶ Κρονίωνι ἄνακτι· ἀλλά ἑ μοῖρα δάμασσε καὶ ἀργαλέος χόλος Ἥρης. So may strife [eris], leaving the gods, leaving mortals, go to perdition, Achilles Aphrodite Ariadne Aristotle and so may anger [kholos] as well, the kind of anger that pushes even a sound-thinking Artemis Athena Athens Catullus man into harshness, the kind of anger that is much sweeter to the taste than honey as it pours down Commentary in the breasts of men, the kind of anger that billows out like smoke from a fire, —that is what happened to me now, angered [verb of kholos] as I have been by the king of Comments on men, Agamemnon. Those things, though… They are in the past. Done. I should let go of them, full of sorrow Comparative Mythology though I am. I will overcome that spirit of mine in my breast. I just have to. Delphi Diodorus of Sicily Dionysus And now I will go off, chasing after the one who destroyed that near-and-dear head-to-be- etymology Eurystheus Georges Dumézil hugged, I will catch up with that one, I mean, Hector. And then I will be ready to accept the fate-of-death [kēr], whenever it will Gregory Nagy H24H HAA travel-study be—I now see it— Helen Hera Herakles that Zeus wishes to make happen, together with the other immortal gods. I say this because not even the might of Hēraklēs could escape his own fate-of-death Herodotus Hippolytus Homer [kēr]. Even if he was most near-and-dear to Zeus, son of Kronos, the lord. Homeric epic Iliad Still, fate [moira] overcame him, and so too did the painful anger [kholos] of Hērā. Indo-European Library of Apollodorus Iliad 18.107–119 mimesis Minoan-Mycenaean civilization Mycenae Mycenaean Empire Odysseus §3. In the next three paragraphs, I interpret these verses as the hero’s own poetry about anger, inside a poem that is all about anger. Odyssey Olympia §3A. So, the anger of Hērā caused the death of Hēraklēs. Achilles himself, main hero of the Homeric Iliad, says it here. And he says it at the very moment when he decides, once and for all, to accept his own death. Pausanias Phaedra Pindar Plato Achilles was talking about such an impending decision already at verses 410–416 in Rhapsody 9, but he finally gets to decide only now, in Rhapsody 18.
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