So Hard On a Woman

I have taught Euripides' Medea to my AP students for several years, because I love her passion as well as her willingness to destroy Jason in retribution for cavalierly tossing her aside for political expedience. I also find myself drawn to Medea because of the power she possesses by way of her connection to Hecate and so I am as equally wary as I am enthralled. Jason, completely seduced by Medea when he needed her, now diminishes her by discounting her contributions; a bit of revisionist history that my students astutely noted. Yet even worse, he damns her "cleverness," an insult that resonated with students of both genders. Medea's journey from exaltation to condemnation is swift and devastating, and derives as much from Jason's--and society's--misogyny as it does from Medea's penchant to ride the crest of her emotions. Medea is seductive and I and my students are drawn to this cthonic woman who summons the power of the dark arts. I hope that, unlike Jason, we will remember how easy and destructive it is to lose our "zugos," the Greek's word for the beam that balances the yoke or a pair of scales, should we choose to deny the incredible power we possess.


From Medea to “dumb blond” stereotypes, women have been vilified for using their intelligence and wit. Zeus swallowed Metis, whose name means “cunning intelligence,” because she would bear his successor. Instead of a male usurper, Zeus and Metis’ sole offspring was Athena, who, although sagacious, could never equal to her father in power or influence; instead she balances his overweening emotions with her (sometimes) overweening logic and reason. Medea, living among the mortals rather than on rarified Olympus, acknowledges that a clever female invites trouble and that to succumb to the marriage yoke is a wife's safest path; but she cannot resign herself to the rule of intolerant and self-satisfied men such as Jason and Creon. Thus the play teaches us to never become too comfortable in our power nor so sure of ourselves that we become oblivious to the obvious. Shame a woman for her cleverness and she will prove herself the man's better in her machinations. Allow passion to usurp all logic and reason and risk regret and resentment.

I introduced my students to Medea in the usual way, reviewing the culture in which Medea lived, one in which human life was not valued, and emphasized that Euripides was rather sympathetic towards women and the powerless. The initial class discussion proceeded along a predictable trajectory, with some students unable to look beyond the obviously inexcusable infanticide. But looking beyond is essential, for if classical drama illuminates any truth it is that the horrors of exceeding boundaries leads to epic disasters. My students clearly realized the flaws inherent in the ongoing relationship between the genders. My young ladies were distraught that nothing had seemingly changed since Medea flew out of Corinth on a dragon-drawn chariot, that the men who run around are still glorified as "players" and the women are still seen as whores. They also acknowledged that while children born out of wedlock today are not shunned as Medea’s sons would have been, their mothers are still judged in ways their fathers are not. They noted that "childbirth was dangerous on so many levels and that men are not at risk." While some students continued to deny the possibility of love or rage so enveloping they might consume a person, others began to understand the inherent danger in becoming lost to a relationship. They pointed to Briseis, fought over by Agamemnon and Achilles until she no longer seemed to exist except as their political football. And not one of them believed either warrior's claims to have not known her in the carnal sense.

There are eight young women and four young men in my class, and while they were all somewhat sympathetic to Medea, students of both genders seemed to excuse Jason. No one thought it was a good idea for him to leave Medea for Glauce, yet after the first reading some still felt Jason had tried to do the right thing in a difficult situation. Medea’s stalwart supporters were outraged. So I asked them to redirect their focus towards Jason--leaving Medea and the infanticide for the moment--and the discussion shifted toward the double standard. It was one of the moments teachers live for: when we do not have to interject a breath, let alone a syllable, as the students defended, jockeyed, jostled and retrenched their positions. It was a beautiful moving picture of what true learning looks like and once the passion receded, students acknowledged and respected each other’s positions.

My inspired students had more to say than a 67 minute period could hold, so they continued their discussion online in an artful weaving of classical threads on a contemporary loom, shuttling back and forth in despair that gender inequality has persisted for at least 3000 years--yet they wanted to hope something might change in their lifetime. Comparisons of Medea with Hilary Clinton, Sarah Palin, Penelope and Hecuba brought both optimism and resignation. They mused whether fairy tales and romance films perpetuate the concept of a woman's inability to live contentedly without a man. They returned again and again to that archetypal tragic flaw, hubris, which condemns so many to a prison or grave constructed by overreaching emotions--the failure to yoke oneself to both reason and passion.

I wonder if we respond to Medea on a visceral level, that in admitting we possess the power to ruin our creations--those that are most precious to us-- we must admit to our destructive potential. Medea cannot simply eliminate Glauce, Creon, or even Jason, for all three characters deserve their fates for their arrogance, hubris, cruelty and selfishness. She annihilates her old life in order to gain a new one; there is no integration, no balance, of the old and the new.

My students have learned from Medea's losses and inflexibility. One young man wrote that Jason's problem was his inability to view Medea as his equal. He recognized that relationships thrive when both parties are in balance. I would like to think this young man is not an anomaly. What I do know for sure is that the discussions we begin will not end in my classroom, and that all of us will be more conscious of ourselves and the ways in which we interact—ever mindful that we possess the power of our emotions to create or destroy.

Invocation

Daughters of Mnemosyne, Muses of Heliconian, I cannot claim to be descended, in body or spirit, from Hesiod or Homer, whose songs weave the ancients' tales so tightly their sheen illumes the modern world.  Yet I dare to hope for a fragment of the gifts you lavished on them.  Shower me with your inspiration, that as your mother, Mnemosyne, imbued you with the songs that unlock deepest memory of past, present, and what will be, instill my psyche with the sounds that evoke words which may speak across all times to this day. Muses, guide my spindle to smoothly weave the disparate threads that form patterns that can be heard, felt and seen.  May I, and my students, remember all that has gone before as we weave the tapestry that wraps us all in the beauty of ancient wisdom.

The Daughters of Mnemosyne

The nine Muses are commonly referred to as the goddesses of inspiration--how mundane and, well, uninspiring for those credited with the creativity inherent in human development of the arts and sciences that forms the basis of culture and civilization!  Thus it is inconceivable that I would mention the Muses without considering their lineage.  Fathered by Zeus, like so many Olympian offspring, it is their mother whose attributes imbue them with power.  Mnemosyne is the goddess of memory and we must delve beneath the surface to find what she embodies beyond her appellation.  Mnemosyne, pronounced ne-mos' e ne, engenders remembrance, or mindfulness in that she calls us to live in the moment, conscious of all the prior knowledge through which we tend to process our present experiences.   Classical thought and literature evoke the past in our present and facilitate our weaving of our personal and humanity's experiences.

As my class officially begins its journey September 7, I am well aware that we all bring our histories with us and that C.J. Jung's belief that humans are born possessing a consciousness of humanity's communal past--what he termed the collective unconscious--should be interwoven with Socrates' assertion that humans possess all knowledge and that questioning will allow the necessary information to rise to the surface.  I will begin today's first lesson with Theogony, in which Hesiod invokes the Muses and further devotes many lines to their influence on him and on the immortals whom he extols.  Likewise, Homer begins The Odyssey, and The Iliad with invocations to the Muse--albeit in very different ways--and so I have my foundation as I model for students the myriad ways to integrate the past through Classical literature and identifying its DNA in our historical, social, and cultural framework.

When the student is willing the teacher appears.

I've been thinking about the ways in which my students will integrate classic literature and its overarching themes. My students are a rather willing group since they chose our Classics Academy, but that doesn't mean this is going to be as easy as a pleasure cruise across the Mediterranean.  Homer, Virgil, Aeschylus, Shakespeare, O'Neill--their writings are dense, complex, and will test all our patience and willingness; enthusiasm will wane--but hopefully wax again.  On the one hand, it is not fair to expect them to be excited about working as hard as the men sculling those black ships over the wine dark sea, but I do not want them to feel their efforts are a series of Trojan War skirmishes.  I want them to understand our work will help them discover treasures far more beautiful than Achilles' view of Breseis or those hammered gold and silver tripods.  So during this morning's yoga practice, while trying to clear my mind, I instead kept returning to the concept of creating relevance for these 21st century students as they explore the origins of western intellectual thought.  And I realized that each student will have a different journey and that is exactly how true understanding develops.  In many cases I will not even be opening doors for them; rather, I might simply be encouraging them to stray from their comfort zones, their own movements parting the mist to reveal doors to consider.  Only then might they contemplate lifting a latch, nudging a door open a crack, or throwing caution to the wind and barreling through.  I will try to remember it is always their choice to integrate these wonderful, and often challenging, experiences, and that the knowledge might not be what they expect--at that point I hope someone will bring up Oedipus.   The more we mortals learn, the more we realize that we are unlike the deathless gods whose lives are unchanging.  We bear the cost of life's lessons in the ebb and flow, the yin and yang of experience.  Sometimes we must leave that which we love so dearly that we fear death in its absence.  We learn that clenching our fist takes much more energy than relaxing our palm and opening our fingers to the world and that if we do not let go we will die.

Aeneas had to leave Dido in order to fulfill his destiny.  Patroclus had to die before Achilles would rejoin the battle and ensure Greek victory, which in turn sealed Achilles' fate.  I am convinced after my most recent reading that Achilles' knowledge of his fate made him mad and that madness drove him to gruesomely desecrate Hector's body, one of the most horrific scenes in a text dripping with the blood of mutilated men.  Unwelcome knowledge can do that to a man.  Yet Odysseus, no happier to possess the truth of two decades away from Ithaca to fight a war over a stolen bride, ventured to the Underworld to learn the most wrenching truth: he would arrive home, but only after losing his men, his ships and the man he had been up until that point.  Odysseus was ready for that existential knowledge even if he did not want to be.  I hope I am willing to be open to that which I am destined to learn as I help my students be ready for their truths.

Achilles' Rage

"You talk of food?
I have no taste for food--what I really crave
is slaughter and blood and the choking groans of men!"

It is easy to view Achilles' rage as a spectator.  Inexorably waiting by his ships while the Argives die in droves, Achilles personifies the spoiled brat who creates havoc to feed his self-righteousness.  Fully conscious of his absence's impact, he clearly expresses his desire to wait for enemy forces to reach the Hellespont before he'll re-engage Hector and the Trojans. Only the loss of his dear friend Patroclus stirs him to action.  From this angle, it is difficult to see how mass destruction of both Greek and Trojan forces bolsters Achilles or either warring faction.  I say this while believing in, although not willingly embracing, the concept of regenerative destruction as a means to attain grace.  There is no serenity in the Iliad--even the reconciliation between Achilles and Priam in Book XXIV holds more resignation than acceptance.  Thus it's easy to point fingers at Achilles--and Agamemnon in his own ego-centric destruction--because no matter my proclivity to clench my anger in my belly or bite my nose to spite my face, my behavior cannot possibly be as bad as that of these "heroes." 

Yet in judging Achilles, I am projecting my rage on him.  I am able to deflect my destructive tendencies in much the same way as a petty thief discounts her culpability by comparing her pilfering of a trifle to the charlatans who trick senior citizens out of their life savings.  And so the study of Achilles' rage demands introspection rather than projection: why is rage, which destroys, so fulfilling that it overwhelms the desire for food, which nurtures? 

Achilles is a far more complicated persona than the warrior who allows his comrades to die because he lost his girl to a man so self-serving he sacrificed his daughter so he could take up sword and shield.  Achilles repeatedly tells those who beg his return to battle that "The same honor waits/for the coward and the brave.  They both go down to Death,/the fighter who shirks, the one who works to exhaustion."  And he echoes those words in the Underworld, when he tells Odysseus he'd rather be a slave on earth than king of the dead.  Fully aware of his fated glorious death, Achilles' anger is valid.  But can his actions, or mine or anyone else's, also be justified?  In many ways, life is a series of losses and how we deal with them, whether the timely death of an aged parent or friend, or the sudden losses that seem particularly unfair, defines us.  Our rage seems to fulfill us but, perhaps, we are not so unlike Achilles, as we willing encourage our anger's potential to blot out the pains of life's vicissitudes, especially those that force us to face our mortality. 

Hospitality

They reached out for the good things that lay at hand
and when they had put aside desire for food and drink,
Ajax nodded to Phoenix.

In Book 9 of The Iliad, in the midst of a battle in which the Greek forces have suffered their worst losses, sharing a meal takes precedence over resolving conflict. Sitting and eating together can reduce tension and encourage conversation--after all, Socrates engaged his fellows at banquet--and I am most interested in how creating a more intimate setting for my classics students might engender greater enthusiasm for and deeper understanding of the literature.
The first time I read The Odyssey as an adult, I was struck by the consistent references to and ritualized nature of eating.  This resonated because food has always been an important element in my family and other relationships.  Holidays still revolve around food--more of it in the past than present and I cringe when remembering how much we consumed in the celebration of Christmas, Thanksgiving, birthdays and anniversaries.  No matter the financial constraints or feuding family members, the feasts were sacrosanct.

In The Odyssey, all conversation and inquiry must wait until the food has been served.  Neither Nestor nor Menelaus inquire as to Telemachos' identity before sacrificing the oxen, making offerings to the gods, then serving the meat with bread and wine.  The "breaking of bread" has had a long tradition and the hearth fire was the primary concern when setting up a new community.  The hearth fire, or hestia--named for the goddess--was brought from the town from which the Greeks migrated and a central fire supplied the new town.  This reverence even extended into batte, where the military leaders would bring coals from their home hearths into the encampments.  This makes particular sense in a tangential way, as Hestia, the goddess, embodied by her hearthfire, is also representative of the funeral pyre that was also so carefully tended.  Shaped like the earth and raked into a mound to keep the embers alive, the hestia fire juxtaposes birth and death, the most elemental aspects of life.  The innumerable funeral pyres are what forces Agamemnon to send Odysseus with an offer of amends to Achilles. 

The above passage above from The Iliad preceeds Odysseus' plea to Achilles to rejoin his comrads in battle before they are all slaughtered or retreat in shame to their black-hulled ships.  Although Achilles is aware of Odysseus' intentions and that he will not yield his ego to Agamemnon's, he prepares the feast and does not entertain the offer until all parties have been satisfied.  It is difficult to remain hostile in this situation. 

As for my students, I have always subscribed to the concept that "if you feed them, they will come."  I learned this from my mentor, Vicky Willson, and it is true.  A box of graham crackers, crate of clementines, or any nourishment, no matter how seemingly trivial, builds a bond among the group.  In 2004-2005, I was blessed with the most wonderful class of 14 students and rarely did a period go by without a meal.  They kept a drawer filled with their favorite treats and as we shared food and ideas we nourished our bodies, our minds, and, through the sheer act of sharing, our souls.  The ones who've stayed in touch--Meera, John, Joey, Sarah and Judah--have all expressed the impact of our unconventional classroom on their ability to think creativly and to engage with others. 

At the conclusion of the meal Achilles serves Odysseus, the contentious issue at hand is debated; despite the gathering's convivial nature Achilles' anger and resentment rule the moment.  Yet when Odysseus later meets with Achilles in Book XI of The Odyssey, there is no residual conflict between these two men who had differnt priorities in another place and time.  This time, Odysseus takes to heart Achilles' admonition that he'd "rather be a slave on earth for another man--/some dirt poor tenant farmer who scrapes to keep alive--/than rule down here over all the breathless dead."

I would like to think that despite conflicts among individuals, the repeated offering of hospitality will bring us closer together, enabling the shared nourishment of our bodies, minds and souls, to lead us to take risks that unlock new levels of understanding.  These are the memories that can last a lifetime.

Athena

Then Athena, child of Zeus whose shield is thunder,
letting fall her supple robe at the Father's threshold--
rich brocade, stitched with her own hands' labor--
donned the battle-shirt of the lord of lightening,
buckled her breastplate geared for wrenching war
and over her shouldres slung her shield . . .
Then onto the flaming chariot Pallas set her feet
and seized her spear--weighted, heavy, the massive shaft
she wields to break the battle lines of heroes
the mighty Father's daughter storms against.

This passage from the Iliad struck me like Athena's aegis and I remember again why I am so enamored of Homer.  He manages to imbue with beauty the preparations for the fight.  The Aeneid's battle scenes horrified me and so I let myself become inured to them.  Homer's rendition is different--there is a humanity in his characters that draws me in despite the violence.  Perhaps I see my own potential for violence; I understand that is part of my human nature.  And I do admire Athena's confidence, misguided and overwhelming as it sometimes is and perhaps I wish for that as well.  What might my aegis look like?  That is an interesting question for my scholars come September. 

In Book V, "Diomedes Fights the Gods," the mortals are truly at the mercy of the deities who are supposed to be their protectors and it is impossible for me to not draw parallels to the current political situation.  Congress and corporations jockey for position, sacrifice one group or play one against the other--even against their peers--in the same way Zeus, Ares, Athena, Hera and Aphrodite attempt to shape the battle for their own gain or to diminish another.  Those sacrificed and those spared are at the mercy of powers that should be benevolent, but instead orchestrate the violence for personal gain.  In The Iliad the mortals are grand and glorious for they risk death; the gods have nothing to lose.  Perhaps that is why I would wear Athena's robe and shield.

Conversation and creation.

This creation began with a conversation, a discussion of the shared belief in the wisdom contained in the original texts and historical experiences of the Classical Period.  The primordial literature speaks to the archetypal nature of human existence, revealing the ways in which the arts and sciences evolved from common sources, and the wisdom of the poets who recognized collective human proclivities, strengths and frailties. 

The Classics Academy consists of three academic courses, English, Latin/Vergil, History of Mathematics and a symposium, which will provide an opportunity for students to synthesize their new and past understandings as they imagine new connections among their past and present experiences.  What will be most important for their growth, as well as mine and that of the other teachers, is conversation.  The most satisfying exchanges I have with former students center on the ways in which they have come to recognize arcetypal themes in the their current studies and in the world outside of academia.  I hope those who read this blog will contribute their realizations and become part of this conversation.