Pandora’s Senses

Publication of this volume has been ma de possible

in part through the generous support and enduring vision of
W G. M.
Pandora’s Senses
The Feminine Character of the Ancient Text

V    L K   

    

The University of Wisconsin Press
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Lev Kenaan, Vered.
Pandora’s senses : the feminine character of the ancient text /
Vered Lev Kenaan.
p. cm. — (Wisconsin studies in c lassics)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
 --- (cloth : alk. paper)
. Pandora (Greek mythology) in liter ature. . Femininity in liter ature.
. Classical literature—History and criticism. I. Title. II. Series.
. 
.´—dc 
 I   ,
the wonder of my life
      

Preface ix
Introduction 

. Pandora’s Light 
P, O A 
T G  P 
M R  P 
P’ W 

. Pandora and the Myth of Otherness 

F M H   P  O 
T F  S  M  G 
A  I: T C  B 
T L  S   B  E 
T D I: L  O 

. The Socratic Pandora 

W I  I L 
T N T   A L 
T S  P 
S  T 
S  P 
. Pandora’s Voice and the Emergence of Ovid’s Poetic Persona 
P’ V 
F  E E   F T 
T E P 
S’ L 
T L T 

. Feminine Subjectivity and the Self-Contradicting Text 

A  R: M, L G,  
P  S 
T P S 
P  N 
P’ L 
A G’ R   B  F S 

. Pandora’s Tears 

F W: T, T, B, P 
H’ W 
L L  W: P’ T 
O W L  W 
X’ T 

Epilogue 
Notes 
Bibliography 
Index 
     

“Throughout hi story people ha ve kn ocked th eir h eads aga inst th e r id-

dle of femininity.” Thus Freud introduced the subject of his f amous lec-
ture of . He turn ed t o th e a udience an d di stinguished betw een th e
meanings of this r iddle for hi s ma le and fema le li steners: “Nor w ill you
have escaped w orrying o ver thi s pr oblem—those of you wh o ar e men;
to those of you who ar e women thi s w ill not apply—you ar e yourselves
the problem.”
The enig ma of femininity stimula tes men ’s cur iosity. Freud ha d n o
doubt that each of his male listeners knew what it was like to struggle with
that m ystery. Indeed, throughout hi story femininit y has been deemed a
secret lega cy, inciting a masculin e desir e t o deciph er th e meaning of
woman and to explain, and thus put an en d to, this insoluble r iddle.
Some femini sts have cr iticized F reud’s s eemingly ster eotypical notion
of woman as th e object of male desir e. Because h e v iewed w oman as a
riddle, he considered male desire to be a desire for knowledge—or for the
unknown. This turn ed w oman in to a sor t of terra incog nita. While sh e
continued to play a tr aditionally passive role, men were the inheritors of
a metaphysics of desire.
In writing Pandora’s Senses, I found myself thinking through and revis-
ing Freud’s gendered response to “the problem” of femininity. Being myself
“the riddle,” as Freud would have it, I nonetheless find myself sharing the
responses of Freud’s ma le li steners to the mysteries at hand. Ever since I
can remember, I have been kn ocking my head against the riddle of femi-
ninity. One of my most sig nificant memories from early life i s connected
to the figure of Eve. Our teacher called in sick on e day, and there seemed

ix
x Preface

to be n o on e a vailable t o t ake c ontrol of our w ild and n oisy c lass. Sud-

denly a y oung woman teacher appeared and began t o tell us th e story of
the apple from the book of Genesis. Imitating Eve’s seductive gestures, she
offered a w onderful r ed apple t o her make-believe par tner. We were im-
mediately captivated by this powerful figure. The woman in front of us—
that is, Eve—instantly turned us in to silent listeners, stupefied beholders.
My early fascination with Eve, and my subsequent captivation with the
wonder of Pandora, constituted a fun damental textua l interaction in m y
biography. As I s ee it, it i s in tha t m ysterious momen t, the momen t in
which woman captures the reader’s imagination, the archetypal moment
in which th e reader is struck by the beauty of feminine appearance, that a
text di scovers its multif arious s enses. My ear ly r eadings of Eve and Pan-
dora were connected to the text’s sensual dimension—that is, to its abil-
ity to evoke the actual t aste of biting into an apple, or to simulate a r eal
sense of the danger of gazing at the dazzling P andora. But thi s was only
one dimension of a text tha t i s w ritten un der th e feminin e spell. Like
Diotima’s er otic c onstruction, the s ensual e ffect of reading thi s text i s
inseparable fr om its tr anscendental for ce. In w riting Pandora’s S enses I
wanted to locate the mysterious image of woman right at the center of the
history of the reading experience.
I am composing this preface at Ginzburg’s Café, which is located close
to my home. This is where I w ill bring the writing of Pandora’s Senses to
a close. But this last st age of writing is where, I hope, the book w ill begin
for you. You might be interested to know that my first ruminations about
writing thi s text began dur ing strolls a long the Yarkon River in Tel Aviv.
These morning wa lks on the banks of what is, in reality, not much bigger
than a cr eek were a tr emendous joy. At first, they provided me w ith pre-
cious momen ts for w ondering about a possible title while, at th e s ame
time, searching for a name for m y expected bab y g irl. And wh en I la ter
became deeply engaged in writing Pandora’s Senses, Renana’s beautiful eyes
were already gazing up at me from her stroller as she accompanied me on
these walks. The creation of Pandora’s Senses is thus biographically inter-
twined w ith being pr egnant. I a llow myself to tell y ou thi s even th ough
that elementary feature of femininity—that is, giving birth—plays no part
in the following analysis of feminine character in the ancient text. And yet
maternity is certainly integral to the riddle of femininity.
The conventional academic curriculum vitae bears w itness only t o our
intellectual pr ogeny. It has n o pla ce for descr ibing th e sig nificance of
our biological offspring. We are allowed only t o record the merits of our
 Preface xi

published ideas. This per petual s eparation betw een on e’s childr en an d
one’s ideas i s a pa inful r eminder of Diotima’s obs ervation r egarding the
severing of an intellectual sphere of “giving birth in beauty” from a phys-
ical on e. Diotima’s r eference t o th e infer ior st atus of women as simple
(earthly) bir th-givers pr ovides an impor tant insig ht in to th e deep par a-
doxical ess ence of femininity. This par adox un derlies th e v ery exi stence
of both men an d w omen. That i s wh y th e ir resolvable tension betw een
being a n urturing mother and a dev oted w riter r everberates in so man y
other par adoxical stru ctures tha t go vern our exper ience. The r iddle of
femininity i s n ot di fferent fr om th e r iddle of eros with its s ensual an d
transcendental dua lity, or the folds of meaning that the par adox of alle-
gory conceals beneath its dec eitful surface of signification.


This book i s infused with the spirit of friendship of many people wh ose
presence in m y life i s indispensably significant. I am c ertain that without
them m y exper ience of writing w ould ha ve been lon ely an d anxious. I
wish t o expr ess m y lo ve t o Gor don an d J ay Williams, whose gen erosity
and encouragement are outstanding. My studies with Gordon Williams at
Yale University have t aught me tha t the work of deciphering should not
take for g ranted th e possibilit y of an immedi ate un derstanding; it must
always pr oceed under a h ermeneutics of suspicion. Gordon’s teaching i s
as dear an d fundamental to me as hi s friendship. David Konstan’s analy-
sis of philia and emotions in antiquity reflects a most amicable soul. I am
grateful for his extraordinary friendship, wisdom, and kindness. I wish to
thank Froma Zeitlin, Alison Sharrock, Sheila-Marie Flaherty-Jones, Andrew
Laird, Jonathan Bernstein, Jane Barry, and Michael Zakim, who read parts
of my manuscript or th e whole work. Their own work, acute r esponses,
and exper ience enr iched me an d thi s book. Special thanks t o P atricia
Rosenmeyer, the coeditor of the Wisconsin Studies in Classics, who wel-
comed this book and made its publication possible. I acknowledge with ap-
preciation her crucial and constant support. Thanks to Raphael Kadushin,
the h umanities edit or of the University of Wisconsin P ress, and M aggie
Hilliard, the a cquisitions assi stant, for th eir h elp. I w ish t o thank m y
friends and c olleagues in th e F aculty of Humanities a t th e University of
Haifa, and in particular Nitza Ben-Dov and Gabriel Zoran of the Depart-
ment of Hebrew and Comparative Literature. I am g rateful to Yossi Ben-
Artzi; Benjamin Isaak, whose encouragement was vital; and also Ayelet Peer,
Ittai Weinryb, and my r esearch assi stants, Sharon Meyer and Yael Nezer.
xii Preface

My mother and father, Ester and Dov Lev, did everything to make this
period o f reflection an d w riting possible. The memor y of their dev oted
nurturing of my baby in the first months of her life w ill be ever fresh. To
my second mother, Nurith Kenaan-Kedar, I want to say that her uncom-
promising st ance on a ll fr onts of life, her lo ve of art, and h er outst and-
ing wa y of giving a ccompany me ev erywhere an d for ev er. The br ight
thinking and tenderness of Lior Levy illuminate my life. My sisters, Ariela
Levy and Racheli Bar-Lev, and their daughters, Lior, Efrat, Yael, and Tami,
create the loveliest possible manifest ation of sisterhood. I w ish to thank
Benjamin Z. Kedar, whose immaculate erudition is exemplary and whose
originality i s enlig htening. Thanks t o J onathan Cana an, whose amazing
musical creations are a source of joy and reflection. My close friends who
read, commented, and raised excellent questions have cheered me all along
the way: Yaron Senderowicz, Eli Friedlander, Noa Naaman-Zauderer, and
Eli Stern; my a dmired an d belo ved fr iend Lior a Bilsky, whose w ork on
feminism an d nar rative has been inspir ational an d wh ose in vigorating
rhythm is always enticing; my beloved friend Michal Grover Friedlander,
whose ar tistic an d th eoretical cr eations mak e life ev en mor e in triguing.
Thanks to Ariel Meirav from the philosophy department at the University
of Haifa, as dear t o me as a br other, whose per ceptive understanding in
matters personal and intellectual alike is one of the most pr ecious things
I have.
The fruits of my passiona te di alogue w ith H agi Baru ch K enaan ar e
present in ev ery page of this book. His f ace, a home to me, makes w rit-
ing an a ct of addressing. I dedica te thi s book t o our first da ughter, Ilil
Lev Kenaan, who was born tw elve years ago while w e were both w riting
our theses at Yale University. Her beauty, wisdom, and fr iendship ar e an
integral part of my investigation of Pandora’s Senses.
Pandora’s Senses
 Introduction

The title Pandora’s Senses: The Feminine Character of the Ancient Text fol-
lows a w ell-known c onvention in a cademic w riting. This i s a stu dy tha t
presents itself under a double title: a main title and a subtitle. What is the
connection between Pandora and “the feminine char acter of the ancient
text”? How can the particularity of a specific mythical figure bear on our
understanding of the ancient text? What i s th e r elationship betw een th e
enigmatic image of the first woman and the enigma lying at the heart of
every text, an enigma that marks our desir e for th e text’s meaning?
But first, what i s th e r elationship betw een a title an d its subtitle? I s a
subtitle subjected to its title? I n what ways does a subtitle oper ate under
its governing title? Is a subtitle merely an additional, subsidiary elaboration
of a given meaning, or is it a supplemen t in a Der ridian sense? Although
Odysseus bears th e name Outis, “Nobody,” in the cave of the Cyclops, he
would not ultimately sail away before naming hims elf again. In the epic,
the r epetitive act of naming has a nar ratological function. The q uestion
of identity is a temporal one, and in this sense the hero’s two names never
overlap. Secondary naming i s n ever a mer e supplemen t. In th e cas e of
Odysseus, it signifies a tr ansition from the indistinctiveness of a name t o
a name tha t embodies an in dividual distinction.
Similarly, while q ualifying th e first title, a subtitle ma y a lso r adicalize
it an d put it in motion. In its defer ral of a title ’s meaning , a subtitle i s
the pla ce for an after thought. How does s econdary meaning a ffect an
“original” meaning? Or, to put th e question in th e context of this book’s
central image, how does th e feminin e (wh ose meaning fulness i s tr adi-
tionally understood as der ivative and secondary) affect the already estab-
lished or der of texts? I n Metamorphoses, the supplemen tary fun ction of


 Introduction

secondary naming i s examin ed in th e c ontext of one of Ovid’s major

treatments of the feminine voice. On the face of it, Echo epitomizes a rep-
etition compulsion, a recurrence of the s ame through time. Yet, as read-
ers of Ovid have observed, Echo is not a simple principle of reproduction.
Anne-Emmanuelle Berger poin ts t o th e descr iption of Narcissus’s utter-
ances as soun ds ( sonos), while Ech o’s r esponse t akes th e form of words
(verba): “She is ready to await the sounds to which she may give back her
own word s” (illa par ata est / ex pectare s onos ad q uos sua verba r emittat,
Met. .–).1 Feminine repetition transposes the said into a new order.
It locates the immediacy of self-expression within a sph ere of reflexivity.
The said meets its elf in the form of that which i s heard. Echo allows the
speaker to identify the utterance as hi s own, but in objectify ing the act of
expression, she makes it c lear that the utter ance no longer belongs t o its
original owner. Hence, in the exchange between Narcissus and Echo, the
repetition scene constitutes a locus of self-enlightenment. Narcissus asks,
“Is anyone here? And ‘Here’! Answered she” (equis adest? et ‘adest’ respon-
derat, Met. .). Echo transforms Narcissus’s question into a declaration.
The puzzlement in his “adest?” is resolved by her repetition. Yet the repet-
itive gestur e tha t pr ovides a positi ve answ er t o N arcissus c oncomitantly
complicates the original narcissistic utterance. Being echoed, the solipsis-
tic h orizons of his language br eak open on to an ir resolvable dimension
of otherness. The spoken i s ins eparable from what i s heard; the “I” can-
not be un derstood w ithout a “you,” and th e masculin e i s depen dent on
the feminine.

The subtitle of this book, The Feminine Character of the Ancient Text, is
meant t o ech o th e s enses of Pandora in a mann er tha t w ill r elease h er
name from its c onventional misogynist horizons. In feminist readings of
the classics, the term “releasing” has taken a meth odological turn. It des-
ignates a r eading that is contrasted with a str ategy of critically “resisting”
the masculine presuppositions that tr aditionally govern the formation of
the an cient text. The str ategy of releasing, as P atricia Sa lzman-Mitchell
puts it (following Alison Sharrock), is a reading that will “essentially allow
women’s voices to speak despite th e author. It i s a r eading of the fema le
voice in male-authored texts as independent from the male authorial inten-
tion.”2 Using the term in a similar s ense, my aim is to open up Pandora’s
Senses beyond th e contours of the tr aditional image of the first w oman,
and to do so b y relocating the myth of Pandora at the intersection of two
perspectives on the field of classics: gender studies and intertextuality. This
 Introduction 

study seeks to create a new place for Pandora in the current feminist dis-
cussion of the ancient text. By rearticulating the significance that she car-
ries for a femini st r eading, I w ish t o fr ee h er image fr om its der ogatory
connotations and from the marks of patriarchal construction, and show
how Pandora can appear as a po werful source of inspiration.
In thi s s ense, the pr esent stu dy i s par t of a s eries of current femini st
readings. For these r eadings the path to the sig nificance of the feminine
does not remain within the bounds of a negation, a critique, or a dec on-
struction of the mythical constructions of gender. Yet thi s r elatively new
point of view on th e ancient text c ould not have become par t of classics
without a feminist tradition whose initial goal was to resist the masculine
framing of the ancient text.
In th e last deca des, feminist in terpreters, as w ell as w omen ar tists,
poets, and novelists, have brought about a rewriting of the classical works
of the Western can on. In th eir r eadings femini sts str ive t o mak e v isible
and to fill in th e lacunae of the feminine voice, perspective, position, and
identity, all of which ar e t ypically obscur ed in r elation t o masculin e
agency in th e ancient text. Ann Bergren’s rereading of Homer, for exam-
ple, emphasizes th e pr ecedence of Helen’s perspecti ve.3 This impli es th e
need to release Helen from paternalistic constructions by which her figure
becomes meaning ful only on th e basi s of her r ole as eith er th e cause of
the war or an object of exchange between two armies. Hence, today Helen
is read, as Page duBois puts it, as an “‘actant’ in her own life, the subject
of a choice, exemplary in her desiring.”4 As Page duBois and Jack Winkler
have independently shown, this form of autonomous subjectivity, the access
to a distinctively feminine experience, was already available to writers and
readers in antiquity.5 Both duBois and Winkler exemplify th e presence of
feminine subjectivity in an tiquity by focusing on th e work of the famous
poetess and refined reader of Homer, Sappho. In their respective readings
of Sappho’s r eading of Homer, duBois an d Winkler un cover a feminin e
perspective thr ough which th e a ffective dimension of Helen’s subjecti v-
ity can sh ow its elf. Sappho’s H elen s ees things di fferently than H omer’s
Helen. And in thi s r espect th e q uestion of “what a w oman wan ts” calls
for an un derstanding tha t cann ot r emain w ithin th e boun ds of a man’s
field of vision. In a c orollary manner, we may a lso s ee why Sappho pro-
vides an exemplar y model for wha t it means t o write and read poetr y as
a woman.
The impact of gender stu dies has n ot been limited t o a r ecovering of
hidden feminine perspectives within classical literature, but has altogether
 Introduction

changed the character of the classical canon. The canonical corpus of clas-
sical liter ature has lost th e pur ity of its masculin e iden tity. Again, the
figure of Helen i s a c entral foca l point in th e femini zation of the canon.
When th e sig nificance of Helen’s w eaving of the Iliad was r ecognized as
“a narration of Helen’s own story,” the distinctiveness of feminine forms
of representation became c entral t o th e deciph ering of the epic. 6 While
mentioned by the Homeric narrator, Helen’s work of art i s never turned
into an object of the authorial ar t of description. Yet once it i s obs erved
that Helen’s figurative weaving provides an alternative to the authoritative
perspective—an antithetical perspective—it can n o longer be ig nored. In
presenting an uncompromising point of view on the war, one that haunts
the hegemony of the authoritative narrator, Helen’s woven text mak es its
way into the classical corpus.
Lillian Doh erty’s Siren Song s: Ge nder, Audiences, and N arrators in th e
Odyssey () is a good example of how the symbolic presence of Helen
as a w riter of the Iliad becomes a gen eral pr inciple of interpretation.
Reading the Odyssey as an “open” and “plural” text impli es, according to
Doherty, that a pla ce must be ma de for th e roles of female char acters in
the stories and for th eir interest in h earing stories told. In a r ecent study,
Doherty focus es on th e Hesiodic Catal ogue of Women, traditionally r ead
as “a text c omposed by men for men. ”7 Examining the masculine r ecep-
tion of this text, she shows how the conventional understanding of it as a
genealogy of heroes covers up th e pr esence of women in th e Catalogue’s
title and neglects the fact that the text itself—albeit in a fr agmentary con-
dition—specifically takes issue with women and their desires.
Furthermore, pointing t o a possible or al feminin e tr adition, Doherty
suggests that the genealogy is a liter ary form tha t historically reflects the
concerns of women. Such th emes as amor ous r elationships, seduction,
rape, and giving birth are just as central to the form of genealogies as they
are t o w omen’s biog raphy. Since w omen ar e a ctive par ticipants in th e
creation of genealogies, it is plausible to see them as active also in the nar-
ration of genealogies. But i s the feminine ti ed to the genr e of genealogy
only thematically?
The idea of a genealogy, with its c lear teleolog ical linearity, may s eem
to emerge from a masculine, logocentric perception of the world. Yet once
we c onsider gen ealogies as texts, the par adigm of linearity f ails t o cap-
ture th e r ichness of the gen ealogical di scourse, which ten ds t o dig res-
sions, allusions t o marg inal a ffairs, and un expected ex cursions. Can th e
feminine be s een as a textua l pr inciple embedded in th e di scursive form
 Introduction 

of genealogy? And, more generally, in what ways can a di scourse be s aid

to reflect a woman’s logos? This question brings forward the intrinsic con-
nection between gender and textuality and leads us t o a cur rent develop-
ment in femini st c lassical scholarship of which the present study is par t.
One of the di stinctive fea tures of the cur rent femini st pr oject i s tha t
it goes be yond the quest of recovering feminine voices, perspectives, and
identities in th e ancient text an d s ets for th a di fferent sor t of ambition.
How can th e an cient c onstruction of woman r eveal th e (oth er) na ture
of the ancient text? How is the feminine operative in shaping th e space of
ancient literature? What is the role of the feminine figure in determining
the character of the intersection of myth and writing? And, finally, is fem-
inism only a pr ism for un derstanding myth, or can it a lso turn t o myth
as a guiding sour ce of inspiration?
Whereas feminist research has ma de fruitful us e of classical myth as a
means for sorting out the mechanisms of patriarchal hierarchies and cul-
tural anxieties behind the historical exclusion of women, it has only grad-
ually become aware of the empowering potential of myth for a femini st
self-understanding an d s elf-determination. This first of all ca lls for an
elaboration of an ethical and political agenda envisioned, for example, in
Amy Richlin ’s po werful w riting. For Richlin, “the old st ories a wait our
retelling,” yet the significance of such a retelling is ultimately political, part
of the “battle for c onsciousness.”8 Or, put in a s lightly di fferent p erspec-
tive, “the future of feminist theory lies in pr oving what the connection is
between the scholarly journals and the streets.”9
Bracketing th e di scussion of the politica l implica tions of a femini st
approach to classics, we may point to yet another political dimension in-
trinsic to a feminist reading of myth. Reading is a crucial activity for rais-
ing consciousness. And in thi s respect the Socr atic position on the va lue
of myth, stated in Phaedrus (c–b), provides an impor tant reminder.
For Socr ates, myth can be in teresting only un der the sign of the Delphic
imperative, only if it ultimately enables us t o di scover whether we r eally
are “a more complex creature . . . than Typhon, or a simpler, gentler being
whom h eaven has bless ed w ith a q uiet, un-Typhonic na ture.”10 As m yth
provides a mir ror for s elf-exploration, we may s ee how in r eading myth
we also write ourselves.
As suggested, the r ewriting of myth i s not only a wa y of deconstruct-
ing masculine perceptions or s aving fractions of lost feminine experience
from within the bounds of a masculine order. We not only need to release
the mythical enig ma of the feminine from the g rip of our f athers in th e
 Introduction

way Adriana Cavarero ( ) does t o Plato or Sar ah Kofman ( ) and
Jane Gallop () do to Freud.11 Rather, we may explore how retelling the
old myth enables mythical writing to mirror our concerns and thus serve
as a sour ce for c onstructing a tr adition for femini st thinking. Hence, for
example, the announced aim of the recent Laughing w ith Medusa ()
is “to explore how classical myth has been c entral to the development of
feminist thought.”12
Moreover, beyond th e enig ma of mythical femininit y li es th e mor e
specific femini st explor ation of the q uestion of textuality, one tha t ca lls
for an ar ticulation in terms of the relationship between the figure of the
woman an d th e enig ma of the poetic utter ance, between a text an d its
meaning. This i s wh ere th e cur rent focus on th e m ythical figuration of
poetic inspiration as w oman or god dess becomes indispensable for femi-
nists. Why does the primal voice of poetry spring from a woman’s mouth,
a Muse or a Siren? How is the divine feminine voice related to the essence
of poetry? In Cultivating the Muse (), these questions are raised against
the background of different literary genres.13 In this context, the secular-
ization of the Muse in Roman love elegy and the complex matrix of fem-
inine narrators in the diverse corpus of Ovid’s poetry provide, as Efrossini
Spentzou () and Patricia Salzman-Mitchell () show, an exemplary
framework for ar ticulating the centrality of a feminine poetics. 14 It i s i n
this feminist context of reading classical myth that I w ould like to intro-
duce the book’s title: Pandora’s Senses.

The myth of Pandora, the first woman, presents one of the most in trigu-
ing figures of femininity. The discrepancy between Pandora’s beauty and
her ev il domina tes a long tr adition of images of women fr om H elen t o
Circe an d Ca lypso, Delilah an d Sa lome, and on t o th e modern femme
fatale, Bizet’s Carmen, Wedekind’s L ulu, and M ann’s R osa F röhlich. It
also r esonates, perhaps in mor e c omplicated wa ys, in su ch figures as
Madame Bovary and Anna Karenina. But while it i s clear to us as r eaders
why a Medea or a Circe is regarded as morally problematic, the evil nature
associated w ith th e pr ototypical w oman r emains vagu e an d i s a lways
dependent on th e ju dgmental perspecti ves of her an cient an d modern
interpreters. Is it because of Pandora’s opening of the jar tha t Hesiod de-
nounces her as ev il? Is it h er sexuality, her seductiveness, or the deceptive
nature of her sweet language? I ndeed, these tr aits of Pandora illuminate
her bad reputation. But since they are traditionally left unspeci fied, these
traits do not allow us to fathom her evil, beyond the general understanding
 Introduction 

that what makes Pandora evil is the very structure of sexuality, seduction,
and language.
Pandora embodi es an ir resolvable tension tha t i s tr aditionally under-
stood as constitutive of femininity—the tension between an outer appear-
ance an d a c oncealed in teriority. Pandora i s th e epit ome of the tw ofold
manner in which the feminine lends itself to the masculine gaze. While her
seductive beauty displays itself as that which is seized by the eye (of men),
her true nature constantly remains elusive. This elusiveness is essential to
her being, yet her beauty is rendered superficial. With Pandora, appearance
can n o longer be a simple expr ession of inner na ture; beauty i s s evered
from th e good. In oth er w ords, Pandora’s ev il i s ti ed t o a n ew stru cture
of meaning that she introduces into the world of men. Pandora hides b y
showing. Her appearance is a form of concealment.
This study is an attempt to decipher the enigmatic image of Pandora and
to do so b y framing the riddle of her femininity in a n ew way. Our starting
point is the understanding that ancient conceptions of femininity do n ot
provide a su fficient context for in terpreting the unsettling portrait of the
first woman. Furthermore, the key to Pandora is to be found not in the Hes-
iodic image its elf, but rather in its tr ansformations and variations, in the
refractions of Pandora’s image w ithin the liter ary di scourse of antiquity.
Pandora’s Senses traces the profound impact of Hesiod’s Pandora on the his-
tory of literature by deciphering the significance of this myth for interro-
gating the meeting point of gender and textuality in antiquity. Uncovering
the strong connection existing in an tiquity between images of femininity
and different forms of poetics, the book argues that the fascinating figure
of Pandora g rounds th e var ious ancient conceptions of the liter ary text.
For the important work done at the intersection of feminism and clas-
sical studies, Pandora is a c lear symptom of ancient misogynist culture.15
Feminist sch olars ten d t o think of the H esiodic P andora as a blig ht: a
painful reminder of the feminine condition in an tiquity. Pandora’s Senses
takes a different route. While clearly building on this feminist groundwork,
it articulates a new framework for studying the prototypical character of the
first woman. Pandora’s Senses moves beyond a feminist critique of mascu-
line hegemony, and does so in the first place by challenging the reading of
Pandora as an embodimen t of the misogynist vision of the feminine. The
first original contribution of this study is the manner in which it liber ates
the myth of Pandora from the fetters of a critical focus on its misogynism.
As suggested, the figure of Pandora, as it appears in H esiodic poetr y,
is often associ ated w ith tr aits tr aditionally denig rated as feminin e: a
 Introduction

troubling beauty, otherness, seductiveness, lasciviousness, and deception.

Without denying the traits attributed to her, this book shows how the sig-
nificance of Hesiod’s Pandora belies a one-sidedly negative interpretation.
Pandora bin ds t ogether th e dich otomies tha t un derlie th e most fun da-
mental aspects of the Western liter ary canon: beauty and ev il, body and
soul, depth and superficiality, truth and lie. Far more than a Hesiodic dia-
tribe against the female sex, Pandora is first of all a sig n of complexity.
Influenced b y th e w ork of Jean-Pierre Vernant an d Pi etro P ucci, I
develop th e suggestion tha t P andora embodi es “a pr inciple of ambigu-
ity”16 and, as such, is tied to the Hesiodic notion of poetry.17 In Pandora’s
Senses I elaborate this insight by showing how, starting with Hesiod, Pan-
dora’s complexity becomes a met aphor for th e space of literature. Focus-
ing on H esiod and th en on Pla to, Xenophon, and Ov id, I sh ow tha t h er
central feminine traits are transformed into key images of the mechanisms
and effects of their writing. My main thesis is that Pandora embodies the
very idea of the ancient literary text. She speaks in multiplicit y. She is the
enigma of the tension between interiority and exteriority (e.g., sign/mean-
ing, literal/allegorical). She is the temptation of opening a mysterious con-
tainer on to th e depth of meaning, which, in its elf, remains in trinsically
elusive. In thi s r espect, Hesiod has g iven us a r adical c onception of the
feminine, one that identifies femininity with the mystery of meaning and,
more importantly, understands the feminine as the grand power of signi-
fication: the movement of creation and manipulation of sense.
While studying Pandora I have often wondered why we so seldom read
of her after H esiod. Why didn’t the ancient poets a ttempt to r ewrite the
Hesiodic myth? Isn’t Pandora excellent material for an Ov idian spectacle,
for example? The apparent occlusion of this figure after Hesiod raises the
question of how su ch a po werful m yth can di sappear fr om an tiquity’s
imagery. One could look for th e traces of Pandora by means of a histori-
ography of the representations of women, as Eva Cantarella (), Marina
Warner ( ), Mary R. Lefkowitz (), and Ellen D. Reeder do ().18
In Pandora’s S enses, however, I look for P andora in pla ces tha t ha ve n o
explicit connection to the feminine. I show that her legacy was never for-
gotten and that her figure was very much alive at the very heart of canon-
ical w riting. Pandora w ill be pr esented h ere as th e ma ternal ar chetype
of a genealogy of writings that traditionally do not seem to belong to the
same textual f amily. Her figure will thus be sh own to be pr esent in su ch
central genr es as th e c osmological an d dida ctic epic, the philosophica l
dialogue, and the Roman love elegy.
 Introduction 

Through a s eries of excursions in G reek an d R oman liter ature, this

investigation w ill r eveal the central role played by the image of Pandora
in shaping th e idea of a text, its meaning , and its r eadership. Moreover,
this stu dy br ings t o lig ht th e mann er in which m ythological figures of
femininity—the feminine voice, body, craft, biography—ground the text’s
mechanism an d e ffects. Pandora’s S enses seeks t o un cover a c onstitutive
dimension of the ancient liter ary text tha t r emains hidden pr ecisely be-
cause it emerges from a feminine sensibility. But how is this dimension to
be approached? Where in the text is it located? What kind of reading does
the feminine call for?

Uncovering Pandora as a textual principle calls for an intertextual method-

ology. As the hi story of her image sh ows, the enig ma of her char acter i s
never r esolved b y on e de finitive w ork of interpretation. This i s a t least
partly beca use h er s ecret i s n ot foun d in the image its elf. It i s foun d,
rather, in the relationships, links, networks, refractions, echoes, and effects
through which th e image of Pandora continues to show itself in the tr a-
dition—in th e mann er in which thi s image k eeps on cr eating ev er-new
enigmas. To be mor e speci fic: as a textua l pr inciple, Pandora cann ot be
seen if we search for her by trying to arrive at the essential kernel—what-
ever tha t mig ht be—of any g iven text. And, again, this i s because sh e i s
not pr esent in th e unit y of specific texts—in an y speci fic text as a g iven
unity. Instead, her pr esence should be look ed for in th e r esonance of an
intertextuality or in th e mirror play of what Sharrock terms an in tratex-
tuality: “Reading in tratextually means looking a t th e text fr om di fferent
directions (backwards as well as forwards), chopping it up in various ways,
building it up again, contracting and expanding its boundaries both within
the opus and outside it.” This kind of reading is based on th e hypothesis
that “a text’s meaning g rows not only out of the readings of its parts and
its whole, but also out of readings of the relationships between the parts,
and the reading of those parts as par ts, and parts as r elationships (inter-
active or r ebarbative): all thi s both forma lly (e.g ., episodes, digression,
frame, narrative line, etc.) and substantively (e.g., in voice, theme, allusion,
topos, etc.)—and teleologically.”19
In r eading in tertextually, we suspen d th e appar ent s elf-sufficiency of
texts as substantive unities. Instead, we respond to texts primarily through
the prism of the relational matrixes underlying both th e internal organi-
zation and the differential individuation of these texts. Following Bakhtin
and Kristeva, an intertextual reading i s one that circumvents the kind of
 Introduction

hermeneutical space in which th e act of reading is governed by the claim

of an autonomous s elf-contained text. Intertextuality does n ot deny that
texts t ake th e form of unities, but it insi sts tha t th e appar ent unit y of a
text is already part of a differential matrix in which texts bec ome mean-
ingful thr ough th e pla ce th ey oc cupy in th e c omplex n et of differential
relations between other texts, scenes, images, and figures. As such, an inter-
textual reading often challenges traditional notions of authorial boundaries
fixed w ithin an in dividual liter ary corpus as w ell as w ithin conventional
generic categories. In the context of the present study, intertextuality opens
up the possibility of exploring certain tr ajectories leading from Greek to
Latin an d th en ba ck fr om La tin t o G reek liter ature b y br eaking up th e
traditional c onstruction tha t for ces th ese tw o fields of texts in to a pr e-
given hierarchical relationship based on the opposition between original-
ity and imit ation. But it i s first of all th e char acter of the feminin e tha t
calls for an in tertextual appr oach. Pandora’s in fluence cann ot be r ecog-
nized in a doma in of fully objectified texts beca use it belongs t o the very
shaping of the liter ary space within which texts t ake on th eir form. Pan-
dora’s traces should be look ed for in th e threads of the textile of which a
text is made.
One str iking example of her in tertextual char acter i s foun d in h er
emblem—in the box, Pandora’s box, that remains so v ivid in our liter ary
and pict orial imag inations. As w e c onsider th e sig nificance of this per-
sonal object, as depicted, for example, in Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s famous
paintings, it i s impor tant that we r ecall that the box was n ot par t of the
“original” Hesiodic representation of Pandora. What the first woman opens
in Hesiod’s version of the myth is a jar, a pithos.
The substitution of box for jar occurred ages later, in the sixteenth cen-
tury, as Dora and Erwin Panofsky show in th eir important Pandora’s Box
(). In f act, it was Er asmus of Rotterdam who conflated the two con-
tainers in hi s Adages (.). According to Erasmus, the box was g iven as a
gift to Pandora, herself a gift, by Zeus. As a beautiful and fallacious object,
the box clearly provides a v isual analogy to the feminine figure. Erasmus
construed it as a feminin e object wh ose beauty is deceptive, but why was
it specifically a box that he associated with Pandora? Was “Pandora’s box”
merely th e r esult of a mi stake, a textua l in tervention? What i s th e r ea-
soning behind Erasmus’s forgetfulness of Hesiod’s pithos, and how can the
repression of the jar be c onnected with the surfacing of the pyxis? Erwin
and Dor a P anofsky expla in th e s lip as a c onfusion betw een th e G reek
Pandora an d Apuleius’s P syche. Erasmus’s mi stake n ot only c overs up
 Introduction 

Hesiod’s jar; it also uncovers an interesting family resemblance that binds

together tw o di fferent figures, a ca thexis. But i s thi s ca thexis c ompletely
coincidental? Pandora and Psyche belong t o very different hi storical and
cultural ba ckgrounds, yet th ey ha ve mu ch in c ommon, as i s r evealed,
albeit unintentionally, by Erasmus. In attributing Psyche’s box to Pandora,
Erasmus i s, in f act, tying th e for bidden opening of the c oncealed t o th e
promise of eternal beauty. His mistake illuminates an in teresting yet un-
noticed textua l r elationship: the deeper truth of the c onfusion betw een
Pandora and Psyche is the inner connection, alive in both Greek and Latin
literature, between woman and the idea of a text.

My first two chapters are dedicated to the Hesiodic Pandora. These chap-
ters ana lyze th e tw o v ersions of the m yth as th ey appear in Theogony
and Works and Da ys, aiming to uncover the manner in which P andora’s
feminine tr aits s erve H esiod in stru cturing th e gen eric char acter of his
poetics.
Chapter  explores the v isual sig nificance of the feminine for th e cos-
mological epic. Pandora is not simply an object in th e world, a beautiful
thing in a g iven v isual field. She i s ma de t o be s een, and h er iden tity i s
thus defined by her beholders. At the same time, she is the very force that
structures th e field of the v isual. Her bea uty stimula tes th e first v isual
experience that men ha ve. In f act, she initiates men’s capacity as beh old-
ers. The appear ance of the first w oman th us marks a turning poin t in
human consciousness. The shocking effect of her sig ht r eleases mankind
from its unr eflecting existence in the world, opening up the possibility of
a standing vis-à-vis the world and allowing humanity to differentiate itself
from the universe. As I argu e, Pandora’s ultimate g ift to humanity i s the
gift of wonder. And in Theogony she serves as th e modus operandi for the
cosmological meditation.
The textua l significance of Pandora li es in th e way she grounds a n ew
kind of gaze, one that is equally necessary for r eading a cosmogony. Here
the meaning of her beauty is fundamental, since it i s precisely her beauty
that enlivens w ith r adiance the murky an d dark beg inning of the world.
Her central role is evident. As a miniature manifestation of the world, she
helps to establish its aesthetic dimension. Pandora is the medium through
which men can per ceive the conglomeration of divine, natural, and con-
ceptual elemen ts as c onstituting th e par ts of one wh ole: the uni verse.
Concomitantly, the focalizing force of her image is also significant for per-
ceiving Theogony as a wh ole. Pandora’s image pr ovides a v isualized an d
 Introduction

encoded picture of Theogony, one that contains the possibility of reading

it as a textua l unity in th e Aristotelian sense of the term.
Pandora’s effect is immortalized as thauma idesthai, “a wonder to see.”
Yet th e w onderful v isual exper ience pr ovoked b y h er appear ance i s n ot
only pleasing; it is also shocking. Her mysterious—some would say mon-
strous—exterior stimulates the imagination of her beholders. Men fear her,
inflamed as th ey ar e by her s eductive look. I argue that thi s r esponse to
Pandora’s threatening presence is fundamental to the reading of the didac-
tic epic, Works and Da ys. The anxiety provoked by Pandora’s appear ance
is ti ed to her st atus as an a lien in a h omogeneous community of males.
Chapter  concentrates on H esiod’s understanding of the feminin e as
a form of otherness. In being Oth er in a w orld of men, Pandora is com-
monly perceived as disruptive of a harmony typical of the original human
condition. In contrast to such views, I argue that with the introduction of
alterity, Pandora not only ruptur es the revered homogeneity of mankind
but, in fact, creates a h eterogeneity that is necessary for th e possibility of
meaning. In developing this claim I examine several myths of the Golden
Age—myths that, I contend, withstand the ideal of identity and sameness
typically associ ated w ith th em. Once w e un derstand tha t su ch an idea l
has no place in th ese or igin myths, we can t ake a n ew look a t Pandora’s
otherness. In a corollary manner, we need to understand how Hesiod’s use
of the myth of the ar chetypal w oman enables him t o loca te a n otion of
alterity at the heart of his ethical and poetic agen da. And so, for Hesiod,
the image of the feminin e s erves as a r egulating sy mbolic pr inciple: the
principle of dialogue. That is to say, otherness is the intrinsic condition of
a dialogic relationship. It informs th e communication between a speak er
and li stener, teacher an d di sciple, and, of course, poet (namely, Hesiod)
and audience.
In Works and Days, which seeks to regulate the ethical life by means of
the marriage ideal, the dangers associ ated with Pandora are the motivat-
ing force of the didactic text. In the liter ary context of Hesiod’s didactic
epic and Xenophon’s Oeconomicus, men are advised to meet the feminine
threat through marriage. Analogously, Pandora’s threat constructs reading
as a pr ocess of familiarization b y which th e r eader bec omes a cquainted
with th e ethica l deman ds of the text an d subject hims elf to th e text ’s
authority. Pandora th us suppli es th e c ontractual r elationship betw een a
text’s author and its r eader. The latter, who is the text’s mysterious object
of desire, is r emolded an d hi s an onymity i s dem ystified as h e g radually
becomes, in the process of reading, the text’s faithful lover.
 Introduction 

Chapter  interweaves the dimensions of wonder and otherness devel-

oped in the previous chapters to show how these feminine traits are trans-
posed into the archetypal image of the philosopher: Socrates. But what is
the r elationship of Pandora, the first woman, to Socr ates, the exemplar y
philosopher? Thi s chapter r eveals th e str iking c onnection betw een th ese
two figures. In response to Hesiod, Plato construes the figure of Socrates
as a mir ror image of Pandora: Pandora an d Socr ates shar e a dec eptive
appearance, and th eir s eduction i s bas ed on a di screpancy betw een th e
visible and the invisible. But while P andora is known as th e kalon kakon,
the on e wh ose exter ior i s beautiful and in terior i s ev il, Socrates i s char-
acterized by an ugly exteriority and a beautiful and good inwardness. That
is, Pandora exempli fies th e dec eptiveness of appearance while Socr ates
represents th e hid denness of truth. I argu e tha t th ese tw o s eductive fig-
ures embody a tension tha t is intrinsic to what a text—an y text—is. And
this i s because the interiority of both Socr ates and Pandora i s construed
as a r egulative idea an d not as an a ttainable, given, content. Socrates and
Pandora ar e images tha t pr ivilege th e v ery q uest for meaning o ver an d
against any actual grasp of a determinate content.
Chapters  and  examine how the philosophica l figure of the teacher
of love r eemerges in th e c ontext of Roman lo ve eleg y, and in par ticular
in Ovid’s amatory writing. At the center of the move from Plato to Ovid,
from a met aphysical t o a pr agmatic di scourse on lo ve, lies, again, the
question of the didactic r ole of the liter ary text. Under th e sig n of Pan-
dora, both teachers, the philosopher and the poet, create texts tha t oper-
ate in a mann er to which a n otion of seduction is central.
Chapter  offers a new reading of Ovid’s singularity among the Roman
love eleg ists b y focusing on h ow h e de fines th e in trinsic r elationship
between femininit y, love, and textua lity. For Ov id, love i s n ot in tegral
to the natural constitution of a human being. Love i s neither innate nor
inborn but is, rather, a social and cultural construction created and devel-
oped in and through language and its extension into the semiotics of ges-
ture and performative action. Ovid understands the phenomenon of love
as a field of appearances tha t i s ess entially textua l. But thi s understand-
ing is also what traditionally subjects hi s teaching to moralistic criticism,
echoing the common response to Pandora. How does Ovid’s poetry come
to terms w ith the accusations—also commonly directed against feminine
language—of insincerity and superficiality, and even illegitimacy? I argu e
that th e n egotiation of these a ccusations i s c entral t o th e Ov idian text.
Ovid i s an a uthor wh o speci fically elabor ates th e feminin e tr aits of his
 Introduction

writing. Moreover, he internalizes these char acteristics, making them the

emblem of his poetry. Ovid rejects the conventional effeminate persona of
the Roman love elegist, adopting, instead, as I argu e, a feminine authorial
stance influenced by the heritage of Pandora. This i s done by embr acing
the m ythical figure of Sappho as hi s Musa pr oterva. In R oman cultur e,
Sappho stands for a subversive mixture of immoderate passion and exces-
sive language. To write poetry under the influence of Sappho, as Ovid does,
is to commandeer a fr eedom of speech that is, by definition, licentious.
Chapter  focuses on Ovid’s Ars Amatoria and Remedia Amoris and aims
to decipher the enigma of their palinodic structure. While Ars teaches its
readers h ow t o c onstruct a lo ve life, Remedia calls for a r enunciation of
love that is based on an understanding of love as a malaise. The juxtaposi-
tion of Ars and Remedia creates a literary puzzle that, again, brings Ovid’s
reliability an d sin cerity in to q uestion. How can Ov id’s dida ctic position
be taken seriously if his text is self-contradictory? I argue that in order to
understand the Ovidian treatment of love, we need to embrace the struc-
ture of contradiction as in tegral to his text. More specifically, we need to
understand the palinodic structure as a textua l str ategy that allows Ovid
to elabor ate a n ew conception of subjectivity by adopting a stru cture of
contradiction, one c ouched in forms of narrativity tha t ar e feminin e a t
heart and are found in myths of virginity. Pandora’s paradoxical presence
as a s eductive ma iden thus o ffers th e key for deciph ering th e text ’s s elf-
contradicting effect.
Chapter  ties together the central themes developed in previous chap-
ters by concentrating on th e mythical image of the weaving woman, the
origin of which i s Pandora. The image of the w eaver connects text, tex-
tile, and femininity in a mann er that sheds light on wha t I ca ll the femi-
nine sense. What does feminine weaving signify? Myths of female weavers,
such as th e Homeric Helen or th e Ov idian Philomela, depict weaving as
intrinsic to the personal and autobiographical dimensions of women’s art.
The woven textile i s a feminin e text. It i s not a di sinterested r epresenta-
tion but i s soaked w ith the tears of its maker and intended for th e tears
of its beholder. Traditionally marginalized by ancient literary and herme-
neutic conventions, the text’s feminine sense nevertheless remained at the
heart of the an cient textua l exper ience. I sh ow tha t th e v ery a ttempt t o
exclude th e feminin e fr om th e inn er w eb of a text ’s “essential” meaning
betrays the dependence of the ancient text on th e s ense of the feminine.
It is only by recognizing the autonomy of the feminine sense in the ancient
text that we can appr eciate its v itality and didactic-therapeutic force.
 chapter 

Pandora’s Light

P, O A

In the beginning there were only men. Then came one woman. That is how
Hesiod, epic poet of the eighth century BCE, conceived of the creation of
humanity. In introducing Pandora, the first woman, Hesiod g rounds hi s
history of humanity in th e di stinction betw een th e on e an d th e man y.
Before Pandora the world i s inhabited b y a gen eric crowd of males who
remain nameless an d wh olly unspeci fied. Despite th e us e of the term
“male,” we need to notice that until Pandora’s arrival humanity was essen-
tially c omposed of asexual an d in distinguishable beings. As th e ar che-
type of femininity, she introduces the very dimension of difference into a
homogeneous regime of sameness. This, in turn, means that Pandora was
the first real individual. Her legacy is manifest in h umanity’s transforma-
tion from a uniform mass into a community of gendered individuals. The
present chapter explores this aspect of Pandora’s heritage, which was prin-
cipally developed by Hesiod in Theogony. More specifically, I wish to show
that while Pandora may have been a puni shment—a device conceived by
Zeus in r evenge for P rometheus’s theft of fire—she nonetheless plays an
essential r ole in th e dev elopment of the c osmos. Perceived as a na tural
descendant of the erotic heritage that began with the primordial Eros and
was follo wed b y Aphrodite, Pandora embodi es th e ultima te st age in th e
development of the sensual world, the world of phenomena.
Hesiod has left us w ith two liter ary versions of the myth of Pandora.
The first appears in the middle of his cosmological poem, Theogony (–
), while th e s econd v ersion opens hi s dida ctic epic, Works and Da ys
(–). These are singular tr eatments of Pandora that are unique in the


 Pandora’s Light

history of ancient liter ature.1 As th e s eminal stu dy b y Dor a an d Er win

Panofsky has sh own, Hesiod’s two versions of Pandora have no r ivals in
the ancient texts w e poss ess.2 This abs ence of other Pandoras i s su rpris-
ing, particularly in lig ht of the profound in fluence the myth has ha d on
the misogynist tradition, on the history of images, and, as I argu e in thi s
book, on the history of literature and philosophy in gen eral.
In thi s r espect, Pandora i s notably di stinct from other mythical femi-
nine figures such as Helen and Penelope, who, like Pandora, relate back to
a (lost) or al tr adition, but wh o ha ve bec ome kn own t o us thr ough an
abundance of written versions. Their stories were frequently reshaped and
retold, not only b y Homer but a lso b y numerous oth er ancient authors.
Pandora is also to be di stinguished from her mythical feminine counter-
parts in terms of narrative dimension. While the narratives of Helen and
Penelope i ssue fr om th e c omplexities of their life exper iences, the m yth
of Pandora o ffers only an a ccount of her cr eation an d her deliv ery to
Epimetheus. But th e cru deness of her biog raphy does n ot s eem t o be a
result of Hesiod’s n eglect of other epi sodes in h er life. Such epi sodes
simply do n ot exist.3
Pandora’s r ole i s th e in vocation of new times. Her ess ence li es in th e
way she signals the arrival of a new form of present. Pandora’s narrative
constitutes a strategy for creating this new form of temporality. Her figure
is a temporal marker that distinguishes an ideal past (human society with-
out w omen) fr om a less benig n pr esent (of sexuality an d pr ocreation).
Pandora is, thus, a figure that symbolizes origin rather than one that imi-
tates a speci fic woman’s life st ory.
This symbolic role reflects Hesiod’s idiosyncratic interpretation of the
myth of the first woman, and it mig ht explain why the figure of Pandora
was n eglected b y hi s an cient su ccessors. But sh e i s n ot just a m ythical
figure for H esiod. She i s a lso an in dex tha t a llows him t o c onstrue hi s
two poems under the sign of two generic categories. Pandora serves as the
unifying principle of Theogony and Work and Da ys, one that, at the same
time, assigns these works their generic splendor. In Theogony she appears
as the image of the cosmos, integrating many of the cosmological themes
and thus providing the means for deciphering them. In Works and Days her
figure is again a key to understanding the overarching structure and mean-
ing of the didactic epic. This occurs as H esiod uses the image of the first
woman as a basi s for ar ticulating hi s notion of a di alogic relationship—
one that i s ess ential to the didactic genr e. Consequently, we may under-
stand Pandora’s central role in Hesiod’s poetics as the very thing that may
 Pandora’s Light 

have discouraged the ancient poets fr om revising or r ewriting her story.4

Pandora was far too Hesiodic and far less a mythical product of oral poetry.
Rewriting her would have been t oo blatant a cha llenge, unlikely to result
in anything better than a duplica tion of Hesiod. This was something th e
ancient poets r efused t o do , just as th ey r efused t o s ee in th e Pla tonic
Diotima or Er st andard mythical figures waiting to be r evived in liter ary
reproductions. Hesiod’s P andora r emains in an tiquity pur ely H esiodic,
just as Diotima an d Er r emain purely Platonic.5
In beginning my analysis, it is first important to situate my reading in
relation t o four of the major (modern an d postmodern) in terpretations
of Hesiod’s Pandora. In so doing , I hope to explain why a n ew interpre-
tation of Pandora i s n eeded, and t o a lso a cknowledge th e in fluence o f
earlier studies on m y work. A r adical change in th e r eception of Hesiod
occurred in th e early s, born of two impor tant f actors: the influence
of structuralist th ought on th e stu dy of Greek m yth an d th e impa ct of
feminist thought on c lassical studies. Jean-Pierre Vernant was th e first to
argue tha t P andora was a k ey figure in th e c onstruction of the m yth’s
logic.6 In his seminal “The Myth of Prometheus in Hesiod,” Vernant reads
her story as an inherent part of a sequence of episodes: the sacrifice of the
ox, the hidden celestial fire, and the hidden grain.7 He shows that Pandora
does n ot simply happen t o be th e final link in th e nar rative cha in; she
actually manifests intrinsic structural relationships with the other episodes
in the myth of Prometheus. After Vernant, the myth of Pandora could no
longer be read in isolation (in and of itself) as an autonomous myth. In ex-
ploring the differences between the two Hesiodic versions, Vernant offered
another inn ovation: his focus on th e ana logies betw een th em.8 Insisting
on reading both Pandoras as complementary episodes, he emphasized the
semantic levels common to both texts. This str ategy reveals the complex
mythological network created by Hesiod’s two poems an d, more specifi-
cally, the interrelated functions of the two Pandoras in construing a myth-
ical picture of the human condition.
Vernant’s inn ovative appr oach t o P andora i s n ot dir ectly inspir ed b y
feminist thinking, but his interpretation is clearly not foreign to the con-
cerns that were characteristic of contemporaneous feminist approaches to
the feminin e.9 Vernant was th e first t o explica te P andora’s dich otomous
nature, emphasizing th e cru cial s et of tensions sh e embodi es: between
body and soul, outside and inside, lies and truth, human and bestial, as well
as divine and human. Pandora for Vernant is “the symbol of the ambigu-
ity of human existence.”10 In this respect, his article paves the way for later
 Pandora’s Light

interpretations that expand our understanding of both the role of Pandora

in Hesiodic poetics and her contribution to our understanding of the Greek
notion of gender differences.
At the same time, however, Vernant’s structuralist method cannot make
room for th e uniq ue poetic sig nificance of each of Hesiod’s P andoras,
and he ultimately ignores the specificity of their contributions to the two
poems. Vernant’s primary concern with the “essence” of the mythical seems
to cover up th e important differences between Hesiod’s two liter ary rep-
resentations of Pandora. In oth er w ords, for Vernant sh e r emains a lin-
guistic or s emiotic elemen t tha t has a n ecessary fun ction in uph olding
the coherence of the complex mythological matrix to which Hesiod gives
voice. In this sense, her absence from the article’s title is telling, as it repro-
duces the traditional relegation of the feminine to the realm of the insig-
nificant, the nonessential. Dealing with Pandora under the title “The Myth
of Prometheus in Hesiod” testifies clearly that in Vernant’s eyes the essen-
tial core of Hesiod’s myth is its ma le protagonist.
As Vernant showed, the two versions of Pandora in Theogony and Works
and Da ys are c losely r elated an d t ogether c onstitute th e sig nificance of
“woman” as the difference between humans and gods, and as the difference
between humans and beasts. Yet I think tha t the figure of Pandora carries
a richer meaning. The first step tha t needs to be t aken in r eclaiming her
full sig nificance i s to di sentangle the two Pandoras from the compelling
perception of them as ess entially similar manifest ations of the m ythical
conception of the human condition. By allowing ourselves to distinguish
between the two versions, we make room for seeing that this figure of the
feminine oper ates di fferently w ithin th e tw o kin ds of texts in which it
appears: the cosmological epic an d the didactic epic.
The s econd cru cial momen t in th e r eception of Pandora was Pi etro
Pucci’s Hesiod and the Language of Poetry (). While following Vernant
in hi s rendering of Pandora as a tr ope of ambiguity, Pucci elabor ates on
this understanding by making th e analogy between Pandora and the lan-
guage of poetry. He focus es on th e ambigu ous s elf-presentation of the
Muses in the beginning of the Theogony: their ability to express both truth
and lies. As poetry develops, the polarity between origin (Muses) and re-
production (poet) i s established. Pucci argues that the first woman oper-
ates in a similar wa y: subverting the uni fied and s elf-transparent or igins
of mankind. With Der rida’s n otion of “différance” in th e ba ckground,11
Pucci analyzes the figure of Pandora in terms of a principle of difference
and negativity that generates an in tricate matrix of oppositions:
 Pandora’s Light 

We have s een tha t Pandora c onstitutes th e tr ansition fr om th e golden age

to our o wn c orrupt time; thus, it i s un derstandable tha t th e text sh ould
heighten h er t otal n egativity. Like th e cr ooked, deflecting, false, imitative
logos, she stands at the opposite pole of what is straight, identical, and good.
But here again, this separation and opposition suits only th e edifying force
and meaning of the text. As we have s een, Pandora functions as a “figure”
and an impersona tion of that imit ative pr ocess which lea ds t o s ameness
through di ffering, protracting, and defer ring mo vement. She i s, therefore,
that which a llows the est ablishment of oppositions, and in f act appears t o
us as both or igin and the non-origin.12

Pandora, according t o P ucci, marks a turning poin t in th e hi story of

humanity, one tha t “initiates th e bea utifying, imitative, rhetorical pr o-
cess.”13 She marks, in other words, the emergence of rhetoric. Pucci inter-
prets Pandora as the figure of rhetoric, underscoring her centrality to the
history of writing.
A thir d inn ovative perspecti ve on P andora tha t has been cru cial for
the pr esent w ork i s foun d in F roma Zeitlin’s  “Travesties of Gender
and Genr e in Aristophanes’ Thesmophoriazousae.” According t o Zeitlin,
Pandora sh ould be pr imarily un derstood as a par adigmatic figure of
femininity. Focusing on th e r elationship betw een th eatrical imit ation
and femininity, Zeitlin examines a f amily of great feminine figures of the
ancient w orld (including Ech o and H elen), arguing tha t Pandora st ands
first in the lineage of those heroines central to Greek theatricality and the
Greeks’ notion of imitation:

The eidolon [i.e., image] as a seductive objet d’art cannot be separated from
the generic image of the feminine. For the “real” woman could be de fined
as a “real” eidolon, created as su ch fr om th e beg inning in th e person of
the first woman, Pandora. . . . Pandora is from the outset, in Hesiod’s text
of the Theogony, a fictive object, a c opy, not an or iginal. Fashioned a t th e
orders of Zeus as puni shment for P rometheus’s deceptive theft of celestial
fire for men, the fema le i s the first imit ation and the living counterpart to
that original deception.14

Pandora, according to Zeitlin, is an emblem of femininity that underlies

the Greek conception of imitation and mimesis. She develops this insight
further in “The Case of Hesiod’s Pandora,”15 analyzing two elements that
are c onstitutive of Greek mi sogyny: first, the unbr idgeable dich otomy
 Pandora’s Light

between feminine sexuality and motherhood, and, second, the prioritiza-

tion of fatherhood o ver moth erhood.16 In thi s c ontext Zeitlin pr ovides
a r eading of Hesiod’s Theogony in which sh e suggests tha t th e f act tha t
Pandora i s depr ived of procreative po wers i s sy mptomatic of masculine
anxiety r egarding thi s na tural a dvantage of women.17 Yet in depr iving
the archetypal image of femininity of the dimension of motherhood, the
Hesiodic text un dermines, according to Zeitlin, the very essence of femi-
ninity. This gesture of emptying the feminine of its essence is underscored
by the fact that the Pandora of Theogony is left as a mer e substitute, “only
a composite imitation” of a goddess.18
Zeitlin’s interpretation finds confirmation in Nicole Loraux’s Les enfants
d’Athena (), which presents the Theogonic Pandora as an antithesis to
the myth of the creation of man. Moreover, according to Loraux, Hesiod
should be understood as making us e of the myth of Pandora precisely in
order to endorse the autochthonous origin of mankind:

In the Theogony, the first woman i s her adornments—she has n o body. At

least, everything happens as if the text were reluctant to give her one. What,
then, is woman? “The likeness of a chaste virgin” (partheno aidoie ikelon). Is
she a “false w oman”? No; rather, she i s a w oman because sh e r esembles a
woman—or, to be mor e pr ecise, because sh e r esembles th e pr oblematic
parthenos. The w oman i s a c opy of herself. An ikelon: the w oman i s an
image.19

These ar e a ll compelling r eadings of the Hesiodic image tha t force us t o

ask the question Loraux raises: “What, then, is woman?” There is no doubt
but that Hesiod’s text invites nonessentialist readings. Zeitlin and Loraux
both show that Pandora stands for an image, a mimesis that frustrates its
beholders for la ck of an or iginal, an image tha t can be lik ened to a peel
without its fruit. 20 Such interpretations show that the Hesiodic construc-
tion of the feminine derives from strong antifeminine concerns that have
(justifiably) appa lled man y of Hesiod’s r eaders. Take, for example, Page
duBois’s response to Hesiod:

But n o ma tter h ow I think about th e cultur al object den oted b y th e c las-

sical tradition as “Hesiod,” I find myself uncomfortable. And it is, of course,
because I am a w oman, and H esiod s eems, on th e f ace of it, to despi se
my kind.21
 Pandora’s Light 

Is there a wa y to redeem the Hesiodic text fr om its o wn misogynist con-

straints? I w ould suggest tha t the reading of Pandora as a c opy, an image
without an original, legitimate and important as it is, obfuscates other tex-
tual interests that are conjured up b y Theogony’s version of Pandora.
This chapter th erefore seeks to uncover the constructive dimension of
the image of the Hesiodic first woman. Pandora, as I will show, is not just
a sy mbolic image. She i s r ather a v ital an d in fluential pr esence wh ose
effect is transformational: through her, the world gains its sig nificance as
an object of reflection, and again, it is through her that the human is born
as a homo spectator. Consequently, in this chapter I argue that Pandora has
a crucial role in shaping the poetics of Hesiod’s cosmological poem. As we
shall see, she helps to establish the aesthetic dimension of the world, and
as such she may be un derstood as th e cosmological poem’s main protag-
onist. The chapter presents the Pandora of Theogony as a source of enlight-
enment, as th e par adigmatic ph enomenon b y v irtue of which th e w orld
of appearances i s born. In so doing , I w ish to think of Pandora’s role in
Theogony as analogous to the role of Diotima in the Symposium. What has
Diotima t o do w ith Pandora? On th e f ace of things, these tw o feminine
figures seem to be opposites. However, their roles in their respective texts
contain in teresting similar ities. The pr iestess fr om M antinea i s a g reat
authority on th e mysteries of love. As such, she fills the role of an erotic
apostle r epresenting the genealogy and va lues of Eros. Pandora’s role c an
also be conceived of as apostolic in nature. Since, as I argue, she descends
from a speci fic f amily lin e, one per taining t o th e gen ealogy of Eros, her
presence embodi es th e c oncept of primordial Er os. Theogony’s P andora
marks a final stage in the evolution of the erotic principle that first emerged
with the primordial Eros and continued with the birth of Aphrodite. Pan-
dora’s affiliation with the cosmic and divine family of Eros and Aphrodite
is a manifest ation of Eros in th e h uman r ealm. This i s wh ere Pandora’s
illuminating force is similar to the didactic role of Diotima. Nevertheless,
Pandora and Diotima ha ve distinct ways of illustrating the erotic.
Diotima’s is an outsider’s voice—sacred and feminine—that penetrates
the intellectual male sphere and, through the mediation of Socrates, con-
structs a th eory of love that g rounds Western thought. If Diotima i s the
figure wh o dir ects th e human gaze a way from ph enomena t o pur e con-
cepts, to the Platonic Idea, I would argue that Pandora employs a similar
philosophical force, although, teleologically, an opposite on e. In contrast
to Diotima, Pandora turns the human gaze downward, toward herself, and
 Pandora’s Light

toward the phenomenon. The Pandora who appears in Theogony inaugu-

rates the visibility of the sensible world, while she is herself the first phe-
nomenon and the last (h uman) descendant of the divine erotic line.
Taking into account her deep a ffiliation w ith the v isual world—being
herself the human tr ansformation of the erotic pr inciple and the pr inci-
pal element of the sensible world—Pandora is no deviation from an orig-
inal. She i s no imit ation lacking an or igin. As I w ill sh ow, the emphasi s
on Pandora’s visibility does not make her into a mere externality. Nor does
the f act that the Theogonic Pandora lacks a body mark h er as a simula-
crum. Pandora’s visibility is directly linked to the essence of phenomena,
to tha t which mak es th e s ensible w orld wha t it i s—namely, the v isible
world. At this point we must s ay more about th e correlation between the
feminine and the sensible.

T G  P

tau=ta/ moi e)/spete Mou=sai 0Olu/mpia dw/mat' e)/xousai
e)c a)rxh=j, kai\ ei)/paq' o(/ti prw=ton ge/net' au)tw=n.
2Htoi me\n prw/tista Xa/oj ge/net': au)ta\r e)/peita
Gai=' eu)ru/sternoj, pa/ntwn e(/doj a)sfale\j ai)ei\
a)qana/twn oi(\ e)/xousi ka/rh nifo/entoj 0Olu/mpou,
Ta/rtara/ t' h)ero/enta muxw=| xqono\j eu)ruodei/hj,
h)d' )/Eroj, o(\j ka/llistoj e)n a)qana/toisi qeoi=si,
lusimelh/j, pa/ntwn te qew=n pa/ntwn t' a)nqrw/pwn
da/mnatai e)n sth/qessi no/on kai\ e)pi/frona boulh/n.
(Th. –)

[Tell me thi s, Muses, who have your Olympian homes,

from the beginning. Tell me which of the gods first came in to being.
First of all, Chaos came in to being. Next
broad-breasted Gaia, always a st able seat of all
the immortals, who live on th e peaks of snowy Olympus,
then dark Tartaros in th e innermost part of the spacious earth.
And then Eros, who is the most bea utiful of the immortal gods,
The limb-loosener, who subjugates the mind and the good c ounsel
in the breasts of all gods an d humans.]22

Eros’s first appearance in Theogony signals the beginning of cosmological

development, which is thematized as an imma terial entity, a transforma-
tive po wer, and a pr imordial elemen t of the uni verse. Theogony ascribes
 Pandora’s Light 

to Eros an ambiguous status. It is at once an inherent and an extrinsic ele-

ment in th e universe. Although Eros is ranked high in th e cosmic hierar-
chy—introduced as th e four th (masculine) element, after Chaos (chasm
and void), Gaia (earth), and Tartaros (the inner part of the earth)23—it has
an outsider ’s appear ance. The first thr ee elemen ts ar e r elated b y f amily
resemblance: Chaos, Gaia, and Tartaros are dark and chthonic. Eros, how-
ever, is neither dark nor chthonic. Devoid of the material character of earth
and of the spatial dimension of a void, Eros assumes a str ange position in
the cosmic beginning. It i s a ph ysical element of the world, but one that
as yet has n o bearing on th e world. It is a pr imal, cosmic element whose
contribution to the world is yet to be made.
This point, the future aspect of Eros, is a most fun damental one. As is
discernible in its por trayal ( Th.–), Eros i s destin ed t o be a c ontro-
versial an d mer ciless for ce. However, there i s n o manifest ation of erotic
power at thi s pr imordial st age. Eros w ill r ealize its po wer only a t a la ter
stage of the world’s development. Lacking par ental lineage, itself barren,
Eros is erotically ineffectual at the primordial phase. Certainly, its existence
is less s elf-evident than Ga ia’s, for inst ance, at thi s point. In char acteriz-
ing Eros as “the most beautiful of the immortal gods, / the limb-loosener,
who subjugates the mind and the good counsel / in the breasts of all gods
and humans,” Hesiod foreshadows what Eros is to become but i s not yet.
More specifically, Eros’s superior beauty has no validity at this early stage
of the w orld’s dev elopment, since th e bea utiful gods ha ve n ot y et been
born. Eros’s domination over gods and humans is likewise not yet proven.
Hesiod thus creates an abstract, intangible concept that, at best, vaguely
contributes to the impregnation of the first cosmic creatures. That is why
Eros i s initi ally det ached from th e r ealm of the s ensual, which means it
has no erotic manifestation at all.24 Eros’s place in th e world will become
established as th e world’s future subjects—gods and humans—are born.
But the dangerous powers ascr ibed to it —its abilit y to weaken the body
and threaten the sound mind—reinforce its ear ly subversive image as an
outsider, a stranger in its o wn world.
The world acquires its er otic dimension only w ith the birth of Aphro-
dite ( Th. –). Aphrodite’s position in th e di vine gen ealogy i s a lso
unusual, for she was born after th e family of physical gods had come into
being. Gaia gave birth to Uranos (sky), and together they conceived twelve
children, the futur e T itans. Since Uranos soug ht t o pr event th e deli very
of the children by physically blocking th eir bir th, Gaia asked her young-
est child, Kronos, to castr ate hi s f ather. In performing thi s t ask, Kronos
 Pandora’s Light

brought about the separation between Gaia and Uranos as well as the de-
sired birth of the Titans. Uranos’s sexual organs were thrown into the sea,
where Aphrodite was born from the mixture of sea foam (aphros) and the
god’s seed. She is, consequently, of divine descent, but not at all a conven-
tional one.

mh/dea d' w(j to\ prw=ton a)potmh/caj a)da/manti

ka/bbal' a)p' h)pei/roio poluklu/stw| e)ni\ po/ntw|,
w(\j fe/ret' a)\m pe/lagoj poulu\n xro/non: a)mfi\ de\ leuko\j
a)fro\j a)p' a)qana/tou xroo\j w)/rnuto: tw=| d' e)/ni kou/rh
e)qre/fqh: prw=ton de\ Kuqh/roisi zaqe/oisin
e)/plht', e)/nqen e)/peita peri/rruton i(/keto Ku/pron.
e)k d' e)/bh ai)doi/h kalh\ qeo/j, a)mfi\ de\ poi/h
possi\n u(/po r(adinoi=sin a)e/ceto: th\n d' )Afrodi/thn
a)frogene/a te qea\n kai\ e)uste/fanon Kuqe/reian
kiklh/|skousi qeoi/ te kai\ a)ne/rej, ou(/nek' e)n a)frw=|
qre/fqh: a)ta\r Kuqe/reian, o(/ti prose/kurse Kuqh/roij:
Kuprogene/a d', o(/ti ge/nto perilu/stw | e)ni\ Ku/prw?
h0de\ filommhde/a, o(/ti mhde/wn e)cefaa/nqh.
th=| d' )/Eroj w(ma/rthse kai\ (/Imeroj e(/speto kalo\j
geinome/nh| ta\ prw=ta qew=n t' e)j fu=lon i)ou/sh|.
tau/thn d' e)c a)rxh=j timh\n e)/xei h)de\ le/logxe
moi=ran e)n a)nqrw/poisi kai\ a)qana/toisi qeoi=si,
parqeni/ouj t' o)a/rouj meidh/mata/ t' e)capa/taj te
te/ryin te glukerh\n filo/thta/ te meilixi/hn te.
(Th. –)

[But the sexual organs, when Kronos first cut th em off with his steel
and threw them from the mainland into the stormy sea—
for a long time th ey drifted on th e sea, and white foam
started circling around the immortal flesh. And in it a y oung woman
began to grow. First she came t o sacred Kythereia,
then she reached the sea-washed Kyprus,
and there she stepped out, a respectful and beautiful goddess.
And around her slender feet th e grass grew. And Aphrodite,
the aphros-foam goddess, and the beautifully garlanded Kythereia,
gods and men name h er, because she was born fr om the aphros.
And Kythereia, because she had come to Kythereia.
And Kyprogeneia, because she was born in s ea-washed Kyprus.
 Pandora’s Light 

And sex-loving Philomeidea, because she appeared from the sexual organs.
Eros accompanied her and beautiful Himeros attended her
when she was born an d as sh e joined the community of the gods.
From the beginning she has thi s sphere of influence and responsibility
over men an d the immortal gods:
maidens’ conversations, smiles, tricks,
sweet delight, and gentle love.]

Aphrodite is the first divine figure to realize the worldly destiny of the
cosmological Er os. She i s th e first among th e gods t o expos e th e w orld
to its o wn erotic structure. Not only i s Eros invoked at Aphrodite’s birth,
but it a lso n ow los es its r emote st atus, being immers ed in th e di vine
appearance of the erotic goddess. Eros’s reappearance in Theogony marks
the midpoin t in th e dev elopment fr om th e er otic c oncept (pr imordial
Eros and its embodiment in th e divine figure of Aphrodite) to the erotic
phenomenon (P andora). In or der t o bec ome a pr oductive an d s ensual
power, Eros needs the persona of Aphrodite. The abstract beauty of Eros
needs t o be r eflected in th e c oncretely bea utiful form of the god dess in
order to emanate through her. Aphrodite is a medium for th e ineffectual
primordial Eros. As a god dess belong ing t o th e r eign of the Oly mpians,
Aphrodite’s divine duty is to specify th e erotic field of experience, mark-
ing it as h er own area of expertise and responsibility. She thus earns h er
divine authority as a personi fication of the primordial Eros, just as Zeus
comes to manifest and represent the heavenly realm (Uranos) and Hades
the underworld (Tartaros). With the distribution of the divine parts of the
world among them, the Olympian gods determine the ethical function of
the primordial cosmic elements, which then, under the Olympic tutelage,
become signifiers of values and of other aspects of human life.
Aphrodite spurs a c oncretization of the w orld an d c ontributes t o its
maturation as a s ensual being . When thi s happens, Eros assumes a n ew
position, losing its indifferent, abstract appearance in r esponse to Aphro-
dite’s divine form. The erotic pr inciple thus becomes integrated into the
feminine doma in of Aphrodite. As w e sha ll s ee, the cr eation of the first
woman w ill br ing to its c onclusion thi s process of associating the erotic
with the feminine. Let us first, however, focus on Eros’s second appearance
and its r elation to Aphrodite. Following her birth, Aphrodite is accompa-
nied by two subordinates, Eros and Himeros.25 By means of an alliteration,
Hesiod presents the two subordinates as a pa ir whose role i s to resonate
and accentuate the meaning of Aphrodite. Being thus duplicated, Eros and
 Pandora’s Light

Himeros together create the emotive force. This collaboration is reflective

of the change tha t Er os’s former ec centricity has un dergone; it i s n ow a
part of the family of affects. Aphrodite’s other names, Kyprian or Kytherea,
and the sex-loving Philomeidea, similarly manifest a manifold appearance
(Th. –). The various names of the goddess and her attendants gen-
erate a family of terms that display the variegated significance of the erotic
field. This speci fication and naming of the di fferent divine forces i s a lso
indicative of the concretization the world has un dergone.
But how are Eros and Himeros related to Aphrodite? In Cratylus b
Plato suggests tha t the erotic terms eros and himeros stem from the s ame
verbal ro ot, rhei, meaning “flowing.”26 Plato’s r eference to the fluidity of
eros and himeros recalls th e subst ances of which th e Hesiodic Aphrodite
is made. One might think of her three engendering liquid elements—the
seawater, sea foam, and semen—as the matter that the fluidity of Eros and
Himeros, as Plato understands them, puts into motion. But regardless of
how fancifully Plato plays with etymology, his linguistic game converts eros
and himeros to th e H esiodic image of Aphrodite an d th us r eestablishes
their f amily r esemblance. Eros an d H imeros ar e n ot, consequently, the
same as Aphrodite; rather, they are her driving forces. They are related to
Aphrodite as passion i s to beauty.27
As noted above, the liquid materiality that is Aphrodite does not remain
formless. Not only does she grow up to become a radiantly beautiful young
woman, a koure (Th. , ), but she also locates her two masculine com-
panions in a n ew semantic field: the field of femininity.28 The world had
already been expos ed t o on e impor tant feminin e manifest ation befor e
the bir th of Aphrodite. This was th e figure of Mother E arth, Gaia, the
first personi fied c osmic pr inciple.29 She bec omes ang ry a t h er o ffspring-
husband, Uranos, who prevents the delivery of their children. The wish to
rescue her children from her dark belly c oincides with her will to power.
This leads to the scheme of castrating Uranos, which is carried out by her
youngest child, Kronos. Gaia’s conniving and castrating methods are a con-
spicuous celebration of the way she performs moth erhood. But it i s only
with Aphrodite that the erotic facet of womanhood begins to develop.
Aphrodite cr eates the field of femininity by specify ing feminine char-
acteristics and behavior. This prepares the way for the creation of woman.
In light of the description of Aphrodite’s divine authority (Th. –), she
is also understood to be th e divine role model for h er future descendant,
the first woman. Aphrodite is granted precedence “over maidens’ conver-
sations [ oarous],30 smiles [ meidemata], tricks [ exapatas], / sw eet delig ht
 Pandora’s Light 

[terpsin te glukeren], and gentle love [philoteta meilichien].” All these seduc-
tive features are characterized by Aphrodite as ess entially feminine. Their
linear order schematizes the outlines of feminine erotic behavior. Female
conversations are centered on s ecret passions. 31 As these passions ar e ex-
changed and exposed, they intensify, inciting a desire to fulfill them. Smiles,
tricks, and delig ht ar e th e meth ods of feminine s eduction. The w oman
communicates her passion through facial gestures (smiles), verbal gestures
(tricks), and a beautiful appearance (sweet delight). This is then followed
by th e final st age of the er otic endeavor, which i s fully a ccomplished b y
soft intercourse (gentle love).
This ph enomenology of gentle er otic c onduct i s r adically s eparated
from the violent and merciless characterization of the primordial Eros. It
thus marks the transition from the abstract Eros that pertains to the aus-
tere cosmic beg inning t o th e feminine embodiment of Eros and its n ew
position in th e cultur ally sublimated world. Although born of the inhu-
manly v iolent a ct of castration, Aphrodite’s gen tle figure obliter ates an y
signs of this brut al or igin. Her feminin e persona pr ovides a di vine pr e-
figuration of human s exuality. More pr ecisely, Aphrodite hands over the
primary responsibility for h uman sexuality to women.
Aphrodite underlines the dependence of the feminine erotic presence on
interpersonal relationships. Feminine sexuality operates within the inter-
personal field, the spa ce cr eated betw een th e on e wh o s ees an d th e on e
who is seen, between the seducer and the seduced. In emphasizing Aphro-
dite’s responsibility for di alogic relationships, Hesiod establishes the con-
nection between femininit y, sexuality, and v isibility. Aphrodite promotes
the feminine figure into a sexual being because she defines feminine erotic
existence through interactions with others: smiling at, seducing, and touch-
ing men. Thus, Aphrodite in troduces s eeing an d being as c onstitutive
elements of sexuality. In other words, she shows that visibility is an indis-
pensable feature of the erotic field.
The c onnection betw een th e er otic an d th e v isible i s impor tant for
understanding cosmic development. The r elationship betw een th e erotic
and the visible was vagu ely alluded to earlier in th e poem in its r eference
to the beauty of primordial Eros. This was only a vagu e allusion because
the pr imordial er otic pr inciple i s formless an d, consequently, invisible.
Only th e bea utiful form of Aphrodite mak es v isibility an aspect of the
erotic and thus marks a n ew stage in th e cosmological development. Her
birth introduces beauty and visibility into the world. Her divine influence
is manifest in making v isibility a par t of life. With her birth, the world is
 Pandora’s Light

ready to make the passage from the intangible stage of the cosmos to the
sensual stage of appearances. The divine contribution of Aphrodite to the
sensual aspect i s followed by the appearance of the first woman. Primar-
ily understood as a feminine asset, sexuality assigns women predominance
over the r ealm of phenomena—that is, the visible sphere. Since the femi-
nine, being under the divine influence of its beautiful patroness, Aphrodite,
represents the visible world more than th e masculine does, femininity is,
in fact, the pronunciation of the erotic phenomenon. And so the ultimate
stage of the erotic process that began w ith the invisible force of Eros and
culminated in the maturation of the sensible world is marked by the cre-
ation of the ultimate phenomenon, the first woman.
Although Aphrodite is not directly responsible for Pandora’s creation,32
she is certainly expected to be her patroness, being the goddess of that sex-
uality sh e has c onstructed as ess entially feminin e. While Aphrodite thus
serves as P andora’s r ole model, Pandora’s appear ance i s a r ealization of
the erotic codes established by her divine patroness.33 Shared features show
that, on a semantic level at least, Pandora is a direct descendant of Aphro-
dite.34 Both are young and beautiful feminine figures chiefly characterized
by their sexuality rather than by motherhood. Moreover, Pandora is a nec-
essary extension of Aphrodite beca use, without h er, the god dess cann ot
fulfill her divine responsibility. Together they initiate the genealogy of the
feminine r ace. Each, however, has a di stinct role. One is the patroness of
sexuality an d femininit y. The oth er i s th e a ctual model for a ll w omen,
defining the essence of the feminine existence. Pandora is, in this sense, a
bridge, for sh e continues th e line from th e di vine Aphrodite t o w oman-
kind.35 Her sig nificance i s born of the in tersection betw een femininit y,
sexuality, and v isibility, this being th e par adigmatic feminin e ph enome-
non. Pandora appears as th e final link in th e er otic dev elopment of the
cosmos, which begins with the primordial erotic principle and continues
with its c oncretization in th e divine Aphrodite. Pandora brings the erotic
genealogy to its culmina tion, providing a human embodiment of Aphro-
dite. Following in th e footsteps of her di vine pa troness, she mak es h er
contribution to the matu ration of the phenomenological world.
This signal contribution by Pandora to the cosmic order is not openly
acknowledged b y th e text of Theogony. On th e c ontrary, Hesiod mak es
an effort to prove the opposite—namely, that Pandora is a sign of human
degeneration. Moreover, although th e log ic of erotic dev elopment sug-
gests that her creation should immediately follow the birth of Aphrodite,
Hesiod ch ooses instea d t o ins ert th e Pandora epi sode in a la ter st age of
 Pandora’s Light 

the cosmological nar rative. This postponement, in f act, leads t o another

role an d meaning for P andora. Indeed, one of the c omplexities char ac-
teristic of this poem i s its simult aneous suggestion of varied st orylines.
Our interpretation of Pandora as an in dispensable element of the s ensi-
ble world will have to grapple, for instance, with the more common view
of her as a superfluous addendum, a blemish, whose purpose is to remind
the human race of its own imperfection an d inferiority.
My argument is that Theogony creates a double role for Pandora. She is
at once an inh erent part of the erotic development that brings the sensi-
ble world to full ma turation and, at the same time, an artifice: a cunning
device and a divine punishment. Although neither of these roles ultimately
precludes the other, their coexistence demands an explanation. The poem
consequently c ontains tw o lev els of expression. On th e on e han d, the
text constitutes an outspok en expression of traditional misogynist forms
of thought. On the other hand, it produces a r eversed notion of the fem-
inine. Hesiod’s mi sogynist pr esentation of Pandora, in oth er w ords, is
rivaled by an a lternative and pathbreaking notion of the feminine that is
concomitantly developed by Hesiod’s text. Theogony allows us t o s ee the
destructive image of Pandora as simult aneously the source of humanity’s
transformation from indistinguishable beings in to self-reflecting individ-
uals. This is the sense in which I r ead Theogony as a c oncealed eulogy of
the feminine. How does a text pr oduce two radically different pictures of
the same phenomenon?

M R  P

Ignoring th e log ic of erotic dev elopment, as n oted abo ve, Hesiod dela ys
Pandora’s creation until the middle of the poem (Th. –). Following
Aphrodite’s birth, Theogony provides accounts of numerous divine births
and gen ealogies tha t c ollectively r esult in th e cr eation of the Oly mpian
family (–). In enumerating the various gods and their descendants,
the text explica tes the development of the cosmos, following the process
by which th e world became a c oncrete place. After the birth of Zeus and
his Olympian siblings, however, the successive births come to a ha lt, and
the text n ow focuses instead on th e glories of Zeus’s rule an d on hi s cos-
mic r esponsibilities. A turning poin t in th e text oc curs when Zeus o ver-
rules hi s f ather, Kronos. This dev elopment i s follo wed b y a descr iption
of the r elationship between Zeus an d Prometheus ( –). Prometheus
seeks to defend the standing of humans under Zeus’s regime, while Zeus
responds by making their condition harsher. Zeus conceals from men the
 Pandora’s Light

fire that is their source of light and warmth, leading Prometheus to steal
a flaming g rain fr om th e hid den fire an d br ing it ba ck t o th em. Zeus,
enraged, immediately responds by creating the first woman.36
At this point, Hesiod intensifies his poetic st yle. The description of the
Pandora figure diverges from his earlier descriptions—the static, detached
portrayal of Eros or the solemn account of Aphrodite. The new and strik-
ing embodiment of Eros in th e human r ealm inspir es a subjecti ve form
of expression. More t o th e poin t, the pass age follo wing P andora’s cr ea-
tion (–) signals a disruption in Hesiod’s austere, condensed style. The
language bec omes emotiona l and excited ( –). Clearly, the det ailed
construction of the er otic field as par t of this n ew fema le figure i s n o
longer detached from the narrator’s own life exper ience. Indeed, this ten-
der maiden, newly introduced to the world, causes the narrator to embark
upon a bitter lamentation about the miserable condition of humanity. The
Pandora epi sode consequently consists of two par ts, which w e w ill con-
sider separately: the making of Pandora and the responses to her creation.
“At once, in return for th e fire, he produced an ev il thing for h uman-
kind,” the narrator ominously remarks (). Nevertheless, the succeeding
depiction of Pandora’s creation (–) does not elaborate on the mean-
ing of the afor ementioned ev il. In f act, this pass age, which r ecounts th e
creation of the female, makes no connection between the newly fabricated
female image and its di sastrous implications for the world of men. As we
shall s ee, Hesiod’s mi sogynist r emark fun ctions as par t of a rh etorical
strategy, catching th e r eader b y sur prise. In its elf, the di vine cr eation of
the beautiful ma iden does n ot r eveal th e tr agedy th e author has a lready
inscribed for th e ma le r eader’s life. The depiction of her cr eation lea ves
open the question of the origin of evil, making those who respond to her
image (including the readers) responsible for resolving it. In other words,
the image of Pandora its elf is blameless. Rather, it i s th e in terpretations
of and r esponses t o thi s inn ocent image tha t charge it w ith ev il. Tradi-
tional mi sogyny i s c onsequently r eproduced an ew ea ch time b y r eaders
who in terpret th e bea utiful image of the first w oman as a har binger of
evil. We n eed t o ask ours elves, then, why r esponses t o th e first fema le
image assigned it such evil connotations. We need also to inquire into the
meaning of the term “evil” (kakon) intended by the text. Here is the first
part of the Pandora episode:

Au)ti/ka d' a)nti\ puro\j teu=cen kako\n a)nqrw/poisin:

gai/hj ga\r su/mplasse perikluto\j 0Amfiguh/eij
 Pandora’s Light 

parqe/nw| ai)doi/h| i)/kelon Kroni/dew dia\ boula/j.

zw=se de\ kai\ ko/smhse qea\ glaukw=pij )Aqh/nh
a)rgufe/h e)sqh=ti: kata\ krh=qen de\ kalu/ptrhn
daidale/hn xei/ressi kate/sxeqe, qau=ma i)de/sqai:
a)mfi\ de/ oi( stefa/nouj, neoqhle/oj a)/nqesi poi/hj
i(mertou\j peri/qhke karh/ati Palla\j )Aqh/nh.
a)mfi\ de/ oi( stefa/nhn xruse/hn kefalh=fin e)/qhke,
th\n au)to\j poi/hse perikluto\j )Amfiguh/eij
a)skh/saj pala/mh|si, xarizo/menoj Dii\ patri/.
th=| d' e)ni\ dai/dala polla\ teteu/xato, qau=ma i)de/sqai,
knw/dal', o(/j' h)/peiroj deina\ tre/fei h)de\ qa/lassa,
tw=n o(/ ge po/ll' e)ne/qhke -xa/rij d' e0pi\ pa~sin a1hto-
qauma/sia, zw/|oisin e)oiko/ta fwnh/essin.
(Th. –)

[At once, in r eturn for th e fire, he produced an ev il thing for h umankind.

For the f amous lame god molded out of earth the image of an honorable
maiden as th e son of Kronos w illed. And th e g ray-eyed god dess Athena
girded and adorned her w ith a sil very dr ess, and down from her head she
spread with her hands an embroidered veil, a wonder to see; and around her
head Pallas Athena laid desirable garlands, flowers of a fresh-budding field.
Around her head she put a golden cr own that the famous lame god elabo-
rately ma de hims elf with hi s o wn han ds t o pleas e hi s f ather, Zeus. On it
he lavished many car efully w rought things, wonderful to s ee: terrible w ild
creatures reared up on land or sea, wonderful things, like living beings with
voices, and upon a ll of them he breathed charm.]

Hesiod’s pr ogrammatic st atement ( ), which pr efaces thi s descr iption

and ann ounces tha t w e ar e t o w itness th e c onstruction of “our” human
destruction, is f ar less c learly elabor ated here than it i s in hi s other ver-
sion of Pandora in Works and Da ys.37 In Theogony, the cardinal moment
in which Pandora is identified with evil occurs as the female image is gazed
upon. That i s, the a ctual pr ocess of creation does n ot r eveal ev il in ten-
tions on th e par t of her makers. Only once th e feminine model i s com-
pleted and the image i s r evealed to the divine and human ass embly i s it
given a sig nification:

Au)ta\r e)pei\ dh\ teu=ce kalo\n kako\n a)nt' a)gaqoi=o,

e)ca/gag', e)/nqa per a)/lloi e)/san qeoi\ h)d' a)/nqrwpoi,
 Pandora’s Light

ko/smw| a)gallome/nhn glaukw/pidoj o)brimopa/trhj.

qau=ma d' e)/x' a)qana/touj te qeou\j qnhtou/j t' a)nqrw/pouj,
w(j ei)=don do/lon ai)pu/n, a)mh/xanon a)nqrw/poisin.
(Th. –)

[But after h e ha d completed thi s beautiful ev il, in r eturn for th e good, he

led her out to where the other gods and men were, adorned with the apparel
of the gray-eyed daughter of the mighty father. Wonder seized the immor-
tal gods an d mor tal men as th ey s aw the f atal deceit, for which men ha ve
no remedy.]

This pass age depicts n ot only th e cr eation of the first w oman, but th e
creation of the first work of art as w ell. The presentation of the image t o
the public weds the two actions of seeing and condemning. How does this
happen exactly? Does th e r esponse mean tha t beauty, simply by appear-
ing, must a llure, seduce, and di vert us fr om goodn ess? Does thi s text
advance a conception of sinful beauty? We will postpone this question for
now. Instead, we notice that Hesiod identifies seeing with foreseeing. Gods
and men both look a t something c ompletely new, grasping it (as i s char-
acteristic of this proleptic text) as a sig n of what is not yet there. That is,
they see what they see as if they were already in the future. Before further
examining the spectator’s mode of seeing, let us briefly attend to the nar-
rator’s entangled perspective:

e)k th=j ga\r ge/noj e)sti\ gunaikw=n qhlutera/wn,

th=j ga\r o)lw/io/n e)sti ge/noj kai\ fu=la gunaikw=n:
ph=ma me/ga qnhtoi=si met' a)ndra/si naieta/ousin,
ou)lome/nhj peni/hj ou) su/mforoi, a)lla\ ko/roio.
w(j d' o(po/t' e)n smh/nessi kathrefe/essi me/lissai
khfh=naj bo/sk ousi, kakw=n cunh/onaj e)/rgwn:
ai(\ me/n te pro/pan h)=mar e)j h)e/lion katadu/nta
h)ma/tiai speu/dousi tiqei=si/ te khri/a leuka/,
oi(\ d' e)/ntosqe me/nontej e)phrefe/aj kata\ si/mblouj
a)llo/trion ka/maton sfete/rhn e)j gaste/r' a)mw=ntai:
w(\j d' au)/twj a)/ndressi kako\n qnhtoi=si gunai=kaj
Zeu\j u(yibreme/thj qh=ke, cunh/onaj e)/rgwn
a)rgale/wn: e(/teron de\ po/ren kako\n a)nt' a)gaqoi=o:
o(/j ke ga/mon feu/gwn kai\ me/rmera e)/rga gunaikw=n
mh\ gh=mai e)qe/lh|, o)loo\n d' e)pi\ gh=raj i(/khtai
 Pandora’s Light 

xh/tei ghroko/moio, o(/ g' ou) bio/tou e)pideuh\j

zw/ei, a)pofqime/nou de\ dia\ zwh\n date/ontai
xhrwstai/: w(=| d' au)=te ga/mou meta\ moi=ra ge/nhtai,
kednh\n d' e)/sxen a)/koitin a)rhrui=an prapi/dessi,
tw=| de/ t' a)p' ai)w=noj kako\n e)sqlw=| a)ntiferi/zei
e)mmene/j: o(\j de/ ke te/tmh| a)tarthroi=o gene/qlhj,
zw/ei e)ni\ sth/qessin e)/xwn a)li/aston a)ni/hn
qumw=| kai\ kradi/h|, kai\ a)nh/keston kako/n e)stin.
(Th. –)

[For from her comes the r ace of women and fema les. From her comes the
destructive r ace, the tribes of women, a great ca lamity to mor tals; they do
not dwell with men as companions in times of cursed poverty, but in plenty.
As in vaulted hives bees feed th eir drones, partners in ev il things—the bees
work hard all day long from dawn to setting sun and lay down white combs,
while the drones st ay in th e sheltered hives and collect the labor of others
for their own bellies—even so Zeus th undering on hig h created women as
an evil for mor tal men, doers of grievous works. And he gave another evil,
as the pr ice of good: whoever, avoiding mar riage and the troubles women
cause, does not marry, he reaches deadly old age w ithout anyone to care for
him, and though he does not lack means while h e lives, his kinsmen di vide
up his property when he dies. But for him wh ose lot i s marriage, and who
has a dutiful w ife suited t o his ways, evil ceaselessly fights with good in hi s
life; if he should get pestilent children, the grief in his heart and soul is un-
remitting throughout life: this evil has n o cure.]

Pandora is made to carry the feminine responsibility for human misery.

Yet thi s harsh H esiodic c onclusion cann ot be infer red fr om h er initi al
appearance as an inn ocent and inexperienced maiden. In order to bridge
the gap between the benign origin and the present state of things, we need
to establish a r elationship between the narrator’s response to women and
the mythical response of the immediate audience to the first female image.
It is significant that Theogony’s denunciation of women is grounded in a
chain of horrified responses toward the female. In fact, in a cunningly grad-
ual process, the text loads the feminine image with different meanings. We
can trace this progress of signification, together with the intensification of
the metaphoric reactions toward her stunning image.
First, the initially innocent expression, “image of an honorable maiden”
(partheno aidoie ikel on, ), is r eplaced in th e v iewer’s r esponse t o th e
 Pandora’s Light

female image w ith th e danger ous c onnotation of “beautiful ev il” (kalon

kakon, ) and “fatal deceit” (dolon aipyn, ). Next, Hesiod’s moralizing
account adds another collection of dreadful meanings: “destructive r ace”
(oloion ge nos, ), “a g reat ca lamity” (pema me ga, ), and th e c om-
plex drone simile ( –). Addressing the feminine model met aphori-
cally r eenacts the dr essing of the first woman w ith beautiful c lothes and
adornments. It is only at this point, and for the first time in Theogony, that
Hesiod names thi s object of art as liter ally th e first w oman. This i s th e
origin of the race of women, genos gynaikon ().
The naming of the first w oman oc curs while th e spect ators an d th e
readers are gazing a t her. The name “Pandora” is thus tied to her visibil-
ity, indicating that visibility is the essence of woman. Visual appearance is
the mark of the feminine. The appear ance of the first woman incites r e-
sponses that turn to metaphorical language in or der to capture its mean-
ing. In other words, the meaning of the word “woman” derives from the
idiomatic and imagistic responses that Pandora’s beauty invokes.
As a lready n oticed b y numerous r eaders, Pandora i s th e first w ork of
art, the first product of manufacture, and the first manifestation of techne,
as opposed to phusis. Even more importantly, Theogony introduces through
the making of Pandora th e v ery exper ience of objectification. The pr es-
entation of Pandora as an object of art r esults in an ekphr asis, which,
by virtue of its rhetorical quality, creates two portraits: that of the object
(the creation of Pandora), and that of the act of gazing at the object (th e
responses to Pandora). Hesiod delineates the object’s visibility and thereby
allows us to encounter a phenomenon in its pur e essence, through its ap-
pearance. This confrontation with appearance has a c entral role in est ab-
lishing the meaning of the cosmological poem as a wh ole.

P’ W
One of the more conspicuous elements in th e Pandora episode is the re-
current use of thauma, “wonder.” The term appears first in the section that
describes the creation of the first woman and then reappears in th e pas-
sage that focuses on th e audience’s response to her:

At on ce, in r eturn for th e fire, he pr oduced an ev il thing for h umankind.

For the very famous lame god molded out of earth the image of an honor-
able maiden as the son of Kronos willed. And the gray-eyed goddess Athena
girded an d a dorned h er w ith sil very dr ess, and do wn fr om h er h ead sh e
spread with her hands an embroidered veil, a wonder to see; and around her
 Pandora’s Light 

head Pallas Athena laid desirable garlands, flowers of a fresh-budding field.

Around her head she put a golden cr own that the famous lame god elabo-
rately made himself with his own hands to please his father Zeus. On it h e
lavished many carefully wrought things, wonderful to see: terrible wild crea-
tures r eared up on lan d an d s ea, wonderful thing s, like li ving beings w ith
voices, and upon a ll of them he breathed charm.
But after he had completed this beautiful evil, in return for the good, he
led her out to where the other gods and men were, adorned with the apparel
of the gray-eyed daughter of the mighty f ather. Wonder seized the immor-
tal gods an d mor tal men as th ey s aw the f atal deceit, for which men ha ve
no remedy. (Th. –, my emphasis)

As w e ha ve a lready n oted, the crux of this epi sode i s en capsulated in

the response to it. In this case, the primordial spectator’s response to the
image is the most r evealing. The audience is said to be s eized by wonder.
This r esponse c ould be expla ined in terms of an aesth etic exper ience
evoked by looking at a beautiful masterpiece. However, Hesiod makes “won-
der” a synonym for “fear.” The audience is seized with wonder because it
sees a f atal deceit. In other words, gods and men a like are shocked by the
effect of charming bea uty, which th ey r ecognize as a sour ce of danger.
Why i s thi s bea uty danger ous? First of all beca use it i s n ew: the first
feminine model sig nals a br eak with routine; it announces an en d to old
times. Gods and men r espond as if they were old-fashioned country folk
encountering a modern in vention for th e first time. New technologies, as
we kn ow, provoke anxi ety an d r esistance, even ha tred. But wh y was th e
first woman so foreign to the human world? Why was this beauty so alien
to the human world? In order to understand the significance of Pandora’s
striking bea uty, we n eed t o think about it in r elation t o oth er str iking
phenomena in Theogony. As we will see, Pandora’s uniq ue sig nificance
is related to the structure and design of the specific narrative strategy that
positions her story precisely in th e middle of Theogony.

  ’ 

The Pandora episode divides the cosmological poem into two parts.38 This
is an in teresting editorial choice. The complicated narrative of successive
births creates what one interpreter has called “a structureless mess.”39 And
yet thi s mess has an or der of sorts, one tha t enables us t o dr aw out a
linear nar rative. That nar rative i s th e hi story of the h egemony of Zeus.
The gen eral outlin es of this st ory ar e a lready kn own befor e P andora’s
 Pandora’s Light

appearance ( –): Zeus’s supr emacy i s est ablished w ith th e castr a-

tion of his g randfather, Uranos, which i s then followed by Zeus’s ascen-
dance over his father, Kronos. The poem celebrates the victory of the son
over his father when Rhea, Zeus’s mother and Kronos’s wife, replaces baby
Zeus with a st one. Zeus, who was oth erwise destined to be swa llowed by
Kronos, grows up s afely under hi s grandmother Gaia’s care. Deceived by
his w ife’s tr ick, Kronos swa llows th e st one an d th en v omits it up a long
with his previously swallowed children. When Zeus eventually ascends to
the throne on Olympus, he commemorates the event by turning the stone
that saved his life into a sema, a sign signifying the victory over his father
(–).
Though th e st ory mig ht ha ve en ded h ere, having expla ined Zeus ’s
ascendancy,40 it continues with a grave intermezzo on the conflict between
Zeus and Prometheus, culminating in the creation of the first woman (–
). The next section, the second half of the poem ( –), includes,
among oth er ev ents, two cru cial epi sodes descr ibing th e in tensification
of Zeus’s po wer: the ba ttle betw een th e Oly mpians an d th e T itans, and
Zeus’s combat with the monstrous Typhoeus. Both episodes are digressive
because they recount events leading to the supremacy of Zeus, which has
already been est ablished in th e poem. The battle between the Olympians
and the Titans is a par ticularly conspicuous digression, since it i s already
mentioned in th e account of the sema that Zeus inst alled in Delphi as a
monument to his supremacy.
However, the second half of the poem i s not simply an exten ded post-
script. In this part of the poem, the physical world reaches its final stages
of development speci fically thr ough th ese tw o impor tant ba ttles in dica-
tive of Zeus’s a uthority.41 But if the final form of the ph ysical w orld i s
not established until the second half of the poem, why are the Prometheus
intermezzo and the Pandora episode placed in the middle of the text, rather
than in their rightful (later) place in the chronology? Pandora, as we know,
was not created until after the succession of various divine births and strug-
gles, and only after th e bir th of men. Why i s thi s g limpse of the human
world inserted into the account of the still-incomplete physical world? Al-
though Theogony consistently treats the subject of cosmogony in r elation
to human experience, the centrality of the first woman in the text requires
more than a chronological explanation. How, then, can we explain the cen-
tral position of her story? As we shall see, the episode of the first woman
plays a c entral role in determining th e poetical ambitiousness of the text
and its ethica l function.
 Pandora’s Light 

       

To appr eciate th e sig nificance of Pandora’s ins ertion in to th e mid dle of
the poem, we n eed n ow t o r eturn t o th e beg inning of the c osmological
narrative. The initial state of the physical world is a meager one. Four ele-
ments c onstitute an in conceivable exi stence, a uni verse tha t i s dark an d
largely intangible. The physical development that follows br ings the cos-
mological picture into focus. The world begins to look lik e the world we
know, crossed w ith rivers and mountains, sea, a sky o verhead, a sun an d
a moon. During the s eries of births giving rise to the s ensible world, we
do not grasp the cosmic outcome as a wh ole. Nor are we told that it i s a
beautiful or a good thing . We ar e hardly g iven any notion of the beauty
of the universe’s par ticulars.42 Contrast the abs ence in th e Hesiodic cos-
mology of any uni fied pictur e of the universe w ith the biblica l and Pla-
tonic a ccounts of creation. In th e book of Genesis an d in Timaeus, the
world has a di vine cr eator, a demiurge or a car ing f ather, who desir es
that hi s w orld be good. The God in Gen esis r ejoices upon v iewing hi s
world, as infer red from the Hebrew formulaic idiom c oncluding each of
the six da ys of creation: “And h e s aw tha t it was good ” (va-yar ki tov ).
God’s final evaluation, made on the sixth day, refers to the “all,” the whole
of his cr eation: “And go d s aw all he has don e an d tha t it i s v ery good ”
(Gen. ., my emphasis). In Timaeus, this unnamed “all” is called cosmos:
“For the world is the best of things that have become, and he [the demi-
urge] i s the best of causes” (Tim. ). Although good ( tov) in Gen esis i s
grasped through a di vine e ye, emphasis i s placed on th e v isibility of the
world, which satisfies its beholder and maker. In Timaeus, too, the world’s
goodness i s r elated t o, and ev en der ives fr om, its pleas ant appear ance
(cf. Tim.  and c).
Hesiod’s poem, in contrast, emphasizes the terrible and gloomy aspects
of the cosmos. Toward the end of the poem, and in anticipation of the last
stage of evolution, the first elements of the cosmos are once again invoked,
this time in or der t o cr eate a pictur e of the wh ole w orld for which, as
M. L. West remarks, “no single expression yet existed.”43

e)/nqa de\ gh=j dnoferh=j kai\ Tarta/rou h0ero/entoj

po/ntou t' a)truge/toio kai\ ou)ranou= a)stero/entoj
e(cei/hj pa/ntwn phgai\ kai\ pei/rat' e)/asin,
a)rgale/' eu)rw/enta, ta/ te stuge/ousi qeoi/ per:
(Th. –)44
 Pandora’s Light

[There dark ear th and gloomy Tartaros, barren sea and starry sky, all have
their r oots and f arthest edges, side b y side in or der. It i s a g loomy r egion
that even gods abh or.]

While thi s pictur e i s link ed t o th e descr iption of the despicable un der-

world, it is distinctive in the way it conveys, for the first time in Theogony,
a notion of cosmic unity. And yet this call for a unit y—an invocation to
recognize an object as a wh ole—is to be foun d earlier in th e text as w ell,
when the first woman is presented before the assembly of gods and men.
In contrast to the physical world, Pandora has a cr eator, and her creation
is teleological. She is, first of all, the product of the thoughts of Zeus, who
is otherwise not directly responsible for forming the cosmic elements. But
while thus differentiated from the world, she is also related to it.
The P andora epi sode c onstitutes a mini ature v ersion of the w orld a t
large. The epi sode has th us a syn ecdochical r elation t o th e o verall st ory
told in Theogony. The Pandora episode incorporates the cosmological ele-
ments. Moreover, the epi sode i s about cr eation: Pandora i s composed of
earth, her h ead w reathed in g rass and flowers. Her c lothing an d a dorn-
ments shine by v irtue of the ear th’s gold an d silver. The creatures repre-
sented on her diadem not only populate the world but also are themselves
metonymic of earth, sea, and sky. Eros, the fourth primordial element, is
represented by a r eference to P andora’s erotic charm ( charis). In lig ht of
this ama lgamation of diverse ear thly elemen ts, the Th eogonic P andora
can be s aid to mirror the world. As such, she mediates between men an d
the world.
Seen as a mini ature of the world, the didactic role of the myth of Pan-
dora bec omes ob vious. Nowhere els e does th e text of Theogony present
the w orld t o th e r eader as an object of meditation or a dmiration. Only
with th e appear ance of the first w oman i s it possible for us t o br eak
from th e flux of phenomena. This epi sode th erefore marks a turning
point in th e cosmogony. It undergirds a pr ovisional substitute, function-
ing as a v isual reflection of the untitled cosmos. Although the poem does
not name or de fine the cosmos, the story of Pandora’s creation neverthe-
less seems to satisfy an un conscious desire for su ch terminology. The ex-
perience of gazing a t Pandora c ompensates for th e la ck of any unify ing
conception of the cosmos; her depiction pa ves the way for th e possibility
of grasping the poem as a wh ole. Reflecting the unit y of the cosmologi-
cal p oem, Pandora’s image manifests met onymically th e uni fied appear-
ance of the world.
 Pandora’s Light 

 
Pandora i s the first object t o impr ess upon th e human mind the under-
standing that what it perceives is the world of phenomena. This is the con-
text for recalling that Pandora is characterized as a substitute for fire ().
Interpreters who are guided b y the ancient notion of female insatiability
conceive of her as a symbol of women’s unquenchable passion.45 Yet while
fire signifies heat, the primary symbolic sense it conjures is light.46 In fact,
one of the distinctive features of the feminine image is its radiance. Given
that th e appear ance of the uni verse in Theogony is ge nerally m urky and
dark, the feminine provides a moment of illumination, of enlightenment.
Pandora pours for th str eams of light that ar e der ived from two sources.
The first i s the fire that melted gold an d silver into her shiny finery. The
second is the divine charm breathed into her, which grants her visibility.47
And sin ce h er figure gi ves o ff light, the gods an d men n earby n ot only
behold h er, but a lso s ee b y h er th e w orld. In thi s s ense, the cr eation of
Pandora i s an etiolog ical myth addressing the or igin of seeing. It can be
regarded as a foundational myth for the kind of scientific inquiry into the
mechanism of seeing envisaged in Timaeus, where the “fiery e ye” theory
of vision is formulated. Plato explains that the mechanism of seeing con-
sists in a c oalescence of the external fire of daylight with the internal fire
of the eye (Tim. b–a). Although we cannot assume tha t Hesiod sub-
scribed to even a pr imitive version of the theory of vision, the mythical
encounter of the human eye with the glimmering appearance of Pandora
nevertheless provides a met aphorical space for th e sci entific ar ticulation
of vision.
Pandora’s r adiant appear ance i s, as th e text tells us mor e than on ce,
thauma idesthai, “a w onder t o s ee.”48 She i s a sour ce of wonder, and w e
cannot help but think of the place assig ned to wonder by another tr adi-
tion—namely, philosophy. Philosophy has its or igin, as the Greeks saw it,
in wonder. Aristotle, following his teacher Plato, observed that philosophy
began w ith wonder (Metaph. A, b–). Wonder i s the feeling, or the
mood, or the kind of experience that presents the world to us in a mann er
calling for our r eflection. At the same time, this is a r eflection that is not
governed by rationality. “This sense of wonder is the mark of the philoso-
pher,” Socrates explains to the young Theaetetus. “Philosophy indeed has
no oth er or igin” (Tht. d).49 Wonder, moreover, seems t o be in trinsi-
cally tied to and powerfully present in th e realm of the visible. “Philoso-
phy indeed has n o other or igin,” Socrates continues, “and he was a good
genealogist wh o ma de I ris th e da ughter of Thaumas” (d). Thaumas,
 Pandora’s Light

the di vine figure of wonder, is th e f ather of Iris. And so , for Pla to, Iris,
the v ision of the r ainbow, is th e embodimen t of wonder in th e doma in
of the visual. The rainbow is a na tural phenomenon that not only str ikes
the eye with its bea uty but ca lls for an explana tion as w ell. And yet even
when an explana tion i s a t hand and w e understand h ow th e r ainbow i s
created, there r emains a s ense of wonder, of the un explainable. Wonder
is th e appear ance of a w orld wh ose m ystery cann ot be r educed t o our
(human) understanding.
Under thi s philosophica l sig n of wonder w e can r eturn t o Theogony,
which presents several instances of wonder, among which the example of
Pandora is the most conspicuous. In what way does the wonder of Pandora
foreshadow the origin of philosophy? That i s to s ay, in what way i s Pan-
dora’s wonder a sour ce of reflection? Thi s i s an oppor tunity to examine
the interconnections between the cases of wonder presented in Theogony.

  

The shocking, or terrifying, aspect of Pandora has been commonly under-
stood as related to her bestial nature. Hesiod’s commentary on the nature
of women s eems t o associ ate th e dev ouring belly of the fema le—that
which n ever finds s atisfaction, from s ex or fr om food —with th e besti al
representation w rought on P andora’s di adem. In f act, however, the only
explicit reference to Pandora’s appearance as frightening is in the descrip-
tion of the diadem:

Around her head she put a golden cr own that the famous lame god elabo-
rately made himself with his own hands to please his father Zeus. On it h e
lavished many carefully wrought things, wonderful to see: Terrible wild crea-
tures r eared up on lan d or s ea, wonderful thing s, like li ving beings w ith
voices, and upon a ll of them he breathed charm. (Th. –, my emphasis)

Pandora i s human. But she looks lik e a y oung woman as r adiant as a

goddess, which means that she also has a divine part. In addition, the orna-
ments on h er di adem accord her a besti al dimension. Pandora i s in thi s
sense a h ybrid, bringing together the human, the divine, and the besti al.
Such a tr iadic nature might, furthermore, be understood to be ana logous
to the Platonic soul, composed of logic, emotion, and appetite. This, how-
ever, is not the cas e. Pandora i s not besti al in th e s ame s ense that she i s
divine or human. Her association with the world of beasts is not the same
as h er r elationship t o h umans an d gods. She r esembles h umanity an d
 Pandora’s Light 

carries a di vine aura in ways that are distinct from the ways in which sh e
resembles a beast. According to the description in Theogony, she does not
look lik e an anima l an d exhibits n o anima l-like q ualities. The besti al
aspect is limited to the adornment on her diadem. The animal decoration
does not qualify her persona; it sy mbolizes, rather, another figure, exter-
nal t o Pandora, an inversion of Pandora. Rather than r eflecting h er, her
diadem pr efigures h er in version: the monstr ous Typhoeus. The anima l
representation on th e diadem, I would argue, is a c ondensed reference to
the figure of Typhoeus.
The monstrous Typhoeus, about whom we hear in th e s econd par t of
Theogony, is the last creature born to Gaia, through a union with Tartaros.
This last bir th has been un derstood as r epresenting Gaia’s final and un-
successful attempt to challenge Zeus’s authority. The diadem is a manifold
thing, portraying a di verse ga llery of beasts wh ose li veliness i s a chieved
by their vocal verisimilitude. Analogously, Typhoeus’s monstrosity lies in
its multifarious visual and sonorous manifestation. It exhibits a h undred
snakeheads w ith ter rifying fiery t ongues an d e yes. But th e crux of its
savageness is found in its multiplicity of voices. This creature is able simul-
taneously to utter every sound. The divergence of the voices it so mimet-
ically pronounces gives the creature its multif arious visual verisimilitude.
Typhoeus challenges Zeus by virtue of the great power embodied in its
deadly g lowing t ongues an d in th e spark of its e yes. The monster ’s fire
represents a h eathen antithesis to Zeus’s lightning. Moreover, it threatens
Zeus’s rule beca use it c onspires aga inst th e uni vocal v oice char acteristic
of Zeus’s institutionalized order. The poet mak es it c lear that Typhoeus’s
polyphony i s danger ous wh en h e r efers t o its o verwhelming e ffect: a
wonder to hear (thaumat’ akousai, .) In f act, he has a lready identified
this danger ear lier in hi s text wh en descr ibing Hephaestus’s work of art.
For Pandora’s di adem i s a v isual c ommemoration, encoded in th e v ivid
portrayal of the anima ls, of Zeus’s subjuga tion of Typhoeus’s stunning
voice. The di adem r epresents th e momen t wh en th e sub versive besti al
voices are silenced by Zeus’s overwhelming power, the power of visibility.
In thi s wa y, Pandora’s di adem sublima tes Typhoeus’s v ocal monstr osity
by sub verting it in to a charming sig ht. The r epression of the danger ous
voices i s c omplete on ce th e e ffect inscr ibed b y th e idiom “a won der to
hear,” thaumat’ akousai () is abandoned in f avor of the visual effect, “a
wonder to see,” thauma idesthai () and thaumasia ().50
Pandora’s di adem tr ansforms voice into a v isual icon. As such, it pr e-
figures Zeus’s defeat of Typhoeus. At the same time, its resplendent figures
 Pandora’s Light

are testimony to the new status the monstrous voice has acquired through
the ekphrasis: a dead, or silent, voice is made visible by divine artisanship
and th en b y poetr y. Pandora’s splen dor r efers th e spect ator t o an other
sema, to be interpreted analogously to the stone sema established by Zeus
as a memor ial in Delphi. The stone, originally served to Kronos as a sub-
stitute for bab y Zeus an d th en v omited up fr om K ronos’s dark en trails,
was granted the glorious appearance of thauma by Zeus ().51 Pandora’s
illuminating power r esides, therefore, in her capacity to elucidate mean-
ings buried deep w ithin the cosmic beginning.52

’    ’  

The f act tha t th e sig ht of Pandora sh ocks an d dazzles i s n ot, in its elf,
an indication of her destructiveness. This is especially notable in contrast
with Zeus, whose thunder and lightning blind. Zeus’s lightning is poten-
tially dangerous for th e f aculty of seeing. And, indeed, it i s by means of
thunder an d lig htning tha t Zeus pr oves hi s omnipoten ce in th e ba ttle
against the Titans. After a long , unremitting struggle, Zeus finally shoots
flashes of lightning upon the earth and sea that ignite the whole universe
with burning fire a nd fill th e a ir w ith unbear able h eat. Surprisingly, the
act results not in total destruction but, rather, in Zeus’s victory. The divine
fire does n ot manifest its tru e power in th e blaze, but in its lig ht, which
blinds the Titans’ eyes (). This epiphany—this manifestation of Zeus’s
power in th e appear ance of a most r adiant lig ht—is a f atal sig n for th e
Titans, whose consequent blindness deli vers th em into th e cha ins of the
three Gi ants. The w onder ig nited b y P andora’s sig ht, however, does n ot
involve ph ysical destru ction. Her br ight appear ance does n ot blin d. On
the contrary, it shar pens the sig ht. The v isual f aculty of her beholders i s
enhanced. The presence of Pandora as a thauma idesthai opens our eyes to
the visual field. Men are no longer caught randomly in the visual field; as
Pandora’s beholders they perceive, they become engaged in what they see.

’   ’ 

On the occasion of his initi ation at the hands of the Muses ( Th. –),
Hesiod r efers to a w onderful sig ht: “And they gave me a flourishing lau-
rel staff, plucking the branch, wonderful to gaze on [theeton].” Translators
tend to read theeton as a pr edicate modifying the laurel br anch, one that
qualifies it as ha ving a pleas ant appear ance.53 Theeton is appli ed t o tha t
which is gazed a t in w onder. Yet Hesiod experiences the staff as a sy mbol
of his poetical inauguration, and, more specifically, of his transformative
 Pandora’s Light 

encounter with the Muses. It seems to me, therefore, that theeton qualifies
not the laurel branch specifically, but the initiation scene more generally.
In oth er w ords, the w ondrous en compasses th e wh ole en counter w ith
the Muses, beginning as Hesiod’s herd is pasturing at the foot of Helicon,
continuing as th e M uses in troduce th emselves t o him, and c oncluding
with hi s initi ation w ith th e la urel br anch ( –). The wh ole ev ent i s a
wonder to behold.
When on e r eads th e poem fr om th e beg inning, this appear ance i s
indeed celebrated dr amatically. Hesiod descr ibes the divine performance
of the Muses as th ey sing an d dance, assigning precedence to their beau-
tiful v oices; the Muses can be h eard but cann ot be s een. As th e pr eface
states, they perform in th e dark of the night. The poet, however, does not
focus on scan t, faint, dim figures bar ely v isible in th e g loom. He r ather
accentuates the murkiness of the nocturnal scene, describing the Muses as
hidden in a thick c loud (Th. ), an epic formula tion for s aying they were
invisible.54
Theogony begins in a st ate of total darkness, murkiness, and invisibil-
ity. Not only i s the beginning dark: its general outlook upon th e world is
no less g loomy. Life is lived in th e dimness of night. But the night is also
characterized b y v itality, for thi s i s wh en di vine poetr y i s t o be h eard,
indicative of the in tangible pr esence of the gods, and wh en sh epherds
like Hesiod pasture their herds. Night—which plays a most important role
within the cosmogony as the parent of all hidden thoughts, intentions, and
passions, as well as death, sleep, and dreams—dominates human life (Th.
–). Hesiod’s poem insistently portrays darkness as the regulative prin-
ciple go verning th e w orld. Light, brought b y its di vine sig nifier, Zeus,
and by the Muses, is the sign of irregular events. In Greek mythology, the
gaze of gods upon h umanity i s a sour ce of light. For poets lik e H esiod,
the en counter w ith th e M uses i s th erefore a w onder t o s ee. It marks a
transformative moment when the poet i s granted illumination. Through
this encounter with the Muses, the poet c eases to be an ig norant inhabi-
tant of caliginous darkness, occupied pr imarily w ith the appetites of his
belly. Their radiant presence allows him to see, even if for just a moment,
beyond hi s dr eary exi stence. This i s n ot b y an y means a met aphysical
moment. It is not the kind of enlightenment that issues from the wonder-
ful (thaumaston), sudden vision that Diotima associates with the epiphany
of the tr anscendental world (Symp. e–). This i s, rather, a lightning-
brief clarification of what there i s, a sudden illumination of what i s reg-
ularly kept in th e dark.
 Pandora’s Light

Whereas th e Muses’ gift i s a uniq ue kind of enlightenment for poets,

Pandora symbolizes the gift of enlightenment for common people. She is
the first figure to endow men w ith a perspecti ve a llowing them a r eflec-
tive di stance fr om th e w orld. In thi s s ense sh e pr edicates th ought on
visibility. She then preconditions visibility, marking the distance between
man and world. This distance is a pr erequisite for s eeing. With Pandora,
visibility becomes an in dispensable element of being in th e world.55 Her
crucial r ole in determining th e exper ience of seeing can be detected in
relation to the figure of Eros. Incorporating one of the principles of visi-
bility in an ear ly stage of Theogony, Eros is said to be “the most beautiful
[kallistos] of the immortal gods” (). However, such beauty is senseless
in the dark state of the primordial world. Because Pandora’s beauty shines
in br ightness, it liber ates men fr om their pr imordial condition of blind-
ness. Accentuating her visibility by means of her erotic charm and beauty,
the gods open men t o th eir s enses. The la tter n ow r esemble Adam an d
Eve, whose eyes are wide open.
With the appear ance of Pandora, the world of men has been r adically
changed; it is no longer the domain of nature. Once Pandora is introduced
into the world, that world los es its na iveté. The wonder of Pandora pro-
duces in those who behold her a moment of self-realization. She leads her
beholders to revise their past vision. Now dissatisfied with their own senses,
men are deprived of the privileges granted them by their autochthonous
nativity.56 Since th e cr eation of the first w oman, men ar e n o longer th e
world’s autochthonic offspring. Men are denied their status as the world’s
naive inhabit ants as th ey beg in t o a cquire th e capa city t o objectify th e
world, to per ceive th eir o wn being as di stinct fr om both th e w orld an d
the gods wh o embody it. 57 In thi s wa y, Hesiod s eems t o be s aying tha t
Pandora’s wonder is what expels men fr om the dreamland of nature. The
world described in Theogony is a godly realm, for its nature is the creation
of the gods and is indistinguishable from them. Prior to Pandora’s appear-
ance, humanity’s primordial existence led h umans to perceive themselves
as a na tural continuation of the anthropomorphic cosmology. Pandora’s
sight strikes the human mind with the realization that men are to be found
outside, in front of, or in th e world—they can n o longer solely think of
themselves as in distinguishable from it. The Hesiodic effect of wonder is
not at all romantic—in contrast, for example, to Gaston Bachelard’s view
of wonder as tha t wishful moment in which w e melt in to the world.58 In
Bachelard’s a ccount, cosmic bea uty i s wha t a llows us t o r eturn t o th e
world from which P andora’s wondrous appearance separated us.
 Pandora’s Light 

Surprised by this discovery, men can n o longer per ceive themselves as

an intrinsic part and extension of the world. They can no longer perceive
the world as a given. In wondering about the nature of their world through
Pandora’s estr anging e ffect, they a lso bec ome desir ing men. The in tro-
duction of beauty to the human domain constitutes existence (the world)
and demar cates on e being fr om th e oth er. Pandora’s bea uty, therefore,
instantiates difference. Hence, men not only alter their disposition toward
the world. Wonder at Pandora brings desire, whereby men ar e reborn as
sexual beings.
The end of the age of innocence r esults in h umanity’s tr ansformation
from the unmarked and undifferentiated mass t o a c ollection of individ-
uals.59 Pandora’s enlig htening for ce i s dark ened b y H esiod’s outburst of
misogynist clichés. Yet her wonder-full image cannot be ignored. Hesiod’s
bitter den unciation of the fema le gen us has in deed shaped th e h eritage
of Pandora, and yet it still leaves open an a lternative, unapologetic way of
reading her complex figure. This kind of reading approaches Pandora by
bracketing—not forgetting, but methodologically suspending—Theogony’s
misogyny. Once we release our r eading from the impact of Hesiod’s anti-
feminist di atribe, we can s ee th e in trinsic ti es c onnecting th e figure of
Pandora, and the ways in which sh e echoes the wonder of poetry and of
insight in gen eral, to the very splendor of Theogony.
 chapter 

Pandora and the Myth

of Otherness
toi=j d' e)gw\ a)nti\ puro\j dw/sw kako/n, w(=| ken a(/pantej
te/rpwntai kata\ qumo\n e(o\n kako\n a)mfagapw=ntej.''...
w(\j e)/fat', e)k d' e)ge/lasse path\r a)ndrw=n te qew=n te.
ei)j )Epimhqe/a pe/mpe path\r kluto\n )Argei+fo/nthn
dw=ron a)/gonta, qew=n taxu\n a)/ggelon: ou)d' )Epimhqeu\j
e)fra/saq' w(/j oi( e)/eipe Promhqeu\j mh/ pote dw=ron
de/casqai pa\r Zhno\j )Olumpi/ou, a)ll' a)pope/mpein
e)copi/sw, mh/ pou/ ti kako\n qnhtoi=si ge/nhtai:
au)ta\r o(\ deca/menoj, o(/te dh\ kako\n ei)=x', e)no/hse.
Pri\n me\n ga\r zw/eskon e)pi\ xqoni\ fu=l' a)nqrw/pwn
no/sfin a)/ter te kakw=n kai\ a)/ter xalepoi=o po/noio
nou/swn t' a)rgale/wn, ai(/ t' a)ndra/si Kh=raj e)/dwkan.
—      , W&D –

[I will give men as th e price of fire an ev il, in which a ll men w ill

delight in th eir hearts, an evil they will warmly embr ace. . . . But when
he finished this sheer trick, without remedy, the father sent the famed
Slayer of Argos, swift messenger of the gods, to take her to Epimetheus
as a g ift. And Epimetheus did n ot think h ow Prometheus had told him
never to accept a g ift from Olympian Zeus, but to send it ba ck, lest it
prove to be an ev il for men. But when he took the gift, when he had the
evil, he understood. Before this the races of men lived upon th e earth
free from evils, free from hard work, and without painful diseases that
bring fates down upon men.
—Trans.  . ]

In th e beg inning th ere w ere only men. Then came th e first w oman and
disrupted th e s elf-sameness tha t g rounded th e harmonious c ondition of
humanity.1 Pandora appears in the world and immediately takes the form
of the ultima te Oth er. But th e f act tha t sh e bears th e mark of otherness
is due not only to her femininity or to her sexuality as such. Pandora is a


 Pandora and th e Myth of Otherness 

gift. Her appear ance in th e w orld i s th e appear ance of something g iven

to men. She i s n ot an inh erent elemen t of the w orld, not a da ughter of
nature. The first w oman la cks th e a utochthonic r oots of men. Pandora
presents a n ew mode of being in th e world that st ands in opposition t o
the natural being of men. Within a s etting in which th e world gives itself
to mankin d in a na tural an d spon taneous mann er, Pandora in troduces
a new form of giving. She is a work of art, an artificial product contrived
by th e gods. She i s a for eign elemen t in a w orld of men, embodying a
dimension of otherness that threatens the natural and self-sufficient rap-
port between men an d their world.
In thi s chapter, I am c oncerned w ith th e implica tions tha t P andora’s
otherness carries for our understanding of Hesiod’s Works and Days. Pan-
dora’s otherness has in deed been dea lt with in th e context of critiques of
misogynist cultur e, and speci fically in th e c ontext of feminist c lassical
scholarship exploring the complexities of the relationship between femi-
ninity an d oth erness.2 Feminist tr eatments of woman as an Oth er ha ve
first tended to map the concept of femininity in terms of the sets of oppo-
sitions tha t go vern an cient binar y th ought. They ha ve th us sh own h ow
ancient culture relegates the feminine, in opposition t o the masculine, to
a secondary and inferior domain of otherness consisting of such categor-
ies as th e barbarian and the bestial.3
More r ecent tr eatments of femininity in an cient liter ature ha ve n ot
only dealt with the exclusion of otherness but have also tried to show that
the v ery opposition betw een th e masculin e an d th e feminin e, the s ame
and the other, is already constitutive of ancient culture, society, and sub-
jectivity. For feminist scholars such as Nicole Loraux and Page duBois, for
example, women ar e th e epit ome of the very idea of difference. Women
are no longer un derstood as a simple form of an excluded Other but ar e
taken to be, in themselves, the mark of the idea of gender difference.4 Con-
sequently, femininity reflects internal conflicts contained within a culture.
The feminine, according to such readings, is not only marginalized but is,
at th e s ame time, operative in cr eating a di alectical r elationship, a r ela-
tionship of mutual in terdependence betw een s ameness an d oth erness.5
Building on thi s groundwork, I wish to examine the significance of Pan-
dora’s otherness in lig ht of its contribution to the formation of Hesiod’s
didactic epic. In par ticular, I sha ll show that Pandora’s tr ait as an Oth er
governs the Hesiodic text an d grounds its mechani sm and effects.
Works and Da ys provides a det ailed an d c omplex por trayal of Pan-
dora and comes much closer than Theogony to a concrete representation
of the first w oman as a h uman being .6 Her det ailed por trait g ives bir th
 Pandora and th e Myth of Otherness

to a uniq uely specific persona. In f act, through Pandora a w orld of face-

less inhabit ants r eceives its first human por trait. Before her ar rival, men
had no distinctive identity, and no particular features. Moreover, the first
woman i s th e first h uman in H esiod’s poetr y t o be g iven a name. 7 Yet
Pandora’s otherness cannot be understood simply in terms of her foreign
appearance in a w orld of men. She i s in deed externa l t o th e masculin e
community, but h er oth erness i s ev en mor e fundamental: it stems fr om
the f act of her uniqueness, her singularity, which i s the di stinctive mark,
the essence, of being human. What makes Pandora the ultimate Other is
not her aberration from humankind but precisely her all-too-human qual-
ity. In thi s r espect, she br ings to Hesiod’s text a bon ding of the f amiliar
and the strange. Pandora is the familiar stranger, an image of an estranged
familiarity tha t, in m y v iew, epitomizes th e ess ence of the dida ctic epic.

F M H   P  O

Hesiod’s Works and Days presents us with a new form of poetics, radically
different from his Theogony. The invention of the didactic epic testifies to
a poetica l tr ansformation in H esiod’s work, and mor e speci fically to the
emergence of a new form of poetic consciousness. The background for the
composition of Works and Da ys is a n ew c onception of the language of
poetry that Hesiod must have developed after Theogony—a new picture of
the place of sameness and otherness in poetry, of the relationship between
language, meaning, and truth. The gist of this picture lies, in my view, in
Hesiod’s recognition of an unbridgeable gap betw een hi s poetr y and the
divine utterance, so that the poet cann ot evade a dimension of otherness
that is always present in his language. I am concerned here, therefore, with
the ethica l dev elopment impli ed b y th e tr ansition fr om th e poetics of a
theological cosmogony (Theogony) to the poetics of a didactic epic (Works
and Da ys).8 In or der t o un derstand thi s n ew dev elopment, however, we
first need to return to Theogony, and specifically to its forma tive poetical
experience: Hesiod’s encounter with the Muses on M ount Helicon.
Famous for its dr amatic st aging, this initi ation scene pictur es Hesiod,
the ig norant shepherd, as chosen by the Muses to become their inspir ed
poet. But it a lso gives voice to the Muses’ uncanny self-presentation:

poime/nej a)/grauloi, ka/k' e)le/gxea, gaste/rej oi)=on,

i)/dmen yeu/dea polla\ le/gein e)tu/moisin o(moi=a,
i)/dmen d', eu)=t' e)qe/lwmen, a)lhqe/a ghru/sasqai.
(Th. –)
 Pandora and th e Myth of Otherness 

[Shepherds of the fields, poor fools, mere bellies!

We know how to say many lies similar (or iden tical)
To true things, but if we want, we know how to sing th e truth.—Trans.
Pietro Pucci]9

The Muses know how to sing th e truth, and at times th ey may actualize
this kn owledge. More c ommonly, however, and mor e a ccessibly t o th e
human mind, they tell li es. These li es ar e perceived by the human audi-
ence as truth, a f act tha t does n ot mak e th em any less un truthful. They
remain li es because their r elationship to truth i s bas ed on di stortion, or
alteration. “The Muses,” Pucci w rites, “are th e only sour ce of truth, and
since th e poet w ill for ever be unable t o c ompare th eir song w ith ‘the
things as th ey are,’ he cannot be aware of the distortions, deflections, and
inventions that draw the poetic di scourse into falsehood and fiction.”10
To un derstand th e M uses’ phrase “lies similar [or iden tical] t o tru e
things,” the term homoia is crucial. Pucci’s tr anslation leaves the deliber-
ation between “similar” and “identical” unresolved. This double s ense of
homoia is also impor tant for un derstanding the ambiguity of the Muses’
song. They know that their song is identical to true things (“we know how
to sing the truth”), but they also know how to sing it in a wa y that would
appear t o H esiod t o be similar t o tru e things. In oth er w ords, Hesiod
refers to two poetical options associated with the Muses: a kind of poetry
in which truth i s tr anscribed, and a poetica l mode tha t is similar t o, but
nevertheless r emains di stinct fr om, truth. Inspired b y Der rida’s w ork,
Pucci ascr ibes t o H esiod th e beli ef that th e or iginal truth (t o which th e
Muses’ song r efers) i s for ever abs ent, remaining ina ccessible for h uman
imitation.11
Pucci’s ana lysis of the en counter betw een H esiod an d th e M uses i s
guided by both Platonic and postmodern r eadings of Hesiod. Plato’s the-
ory of mimesis, on th e one hand, and Der rida’s notion of différance, on
the other, enable Pucci to argue that Hesiod does not accept the traditional
polarity betw een truth an d f alsehood. Pucci per ceives th e encounter be-
tween th e M uses an d H esiod as th e site wh ere th e opposition betw een
truth an d f alsehood c ollapses. Since truth i s for ever lost, all w e can s ay
about the pr evaricating nature of human mimesi s i s that it i s a w ork of
simulation. And in this sense Pucci reads Theogony in a manner that fore-
shadows the postmodern idea of the absence and inaccessibility of truth.
What in m y v iew r emains unn oticed in P ucci’s in terpretation i s a di s-
tinction central to Hesiod’s poetry. That is, Theogony is a text tha t makes
 Pandora and th e Myth of Otherness

a c lear distinction between truth an d f alsehood. In par ticular, it is a text

that celebrates the essential difference between divine and human poetry.
Pucci’s failure to see this polarity is the result of the emphasis (and per-
haps even the overemphasis) he puts on Theogony –. A car eful look
at th e pass ages tha t pr ecede an d follo w th e initi ation sc ene r eveals an
entirely different picture of the twofold nature of poetry. Poetry has both
divine and human roots. Its source can be eith er divine or human. In the
programmatic preface of Theogony, Hesiod creates a place for divine poetry.
Divine poetr y i s th us performed an d h eard ( Th. –), just as h uman
poetry is, through the mouth of Hesiod. The distinction is between divine
utterance, spoken solely among th e gods, and the human-directed utter-
ance b y which th e M uses in fluence an d guide h uman poetic di scourse.
“True poetry” is the Muses’ poetry, addressed exclusively to the gods an d
performed in their abodes. “False poetry” is transmitted to inspired poets
like H esiod an d a ccordingly a ddressed t o h uman ears. 12 In c ontrast t o
Pucci’s conclusion, the distinction is not that of an original and a c opy.13
Rather, the distinction between divine and human poetry is based on th e
difference between the two a udiences.
We w ill n ow c onsider H esiod’s c onception of the di fference b etween
divine song ( Th. –, –) an d h uman poetr y ( Th. –, –).
Human poets sing about the past and the future, as Hesiod testifies. “They
breathed an inspir ed voice into me, so that I c ould tell of things to come
and things of the past ” (). The Muses, however, whose di vine song i s
introduced once again in lin e  (mousaon archometha), sing not only of
past and future events but about the present as well: “They tell of the pres-
ent, the future and the past and they fit them together with voice” (–).
The accessibility of the pr esent to the Muses st ands in opposition t o the
fact that the present is not central to Theogony. The cosmogonical poem,
according to Hesiod’s conception of inspired human poetry, is concerned
with th e m ythical past. Accordingly, human poetr y i s en dowed w ith an
oracular capacity that uncovers the buried past an d reveals the unknown
future. This functional dimension does n ot hold, however, in the cas e of
divine poetr y, for the divine recipients do n ot live according to the rules
of human tempor ality. While the di fferent categories of time—past ( pro
t’eonta), present (ta t’eonta), and future (t’essomena)—reflect the subjuga-
tion of humanity to change an d constant movement, the st able realm of
immortality identified with the rule of Olympian Zeus i s free of temporal
categories. This explains why the Muses’ song effects a harmonious relation-
ship between the three temporal conditions (homereusai, ). In contrast
 Pandora and th e Myth of Otherness 

to h uman poetr y, which appr oaches th e subject of the di vine gen ealogy
from a h uman perspecti ve, divine poetr y r eflects th e di vine exper ience
of time, one that is unattainable to humanity. In divine poetr y, the pres-
ent i s th e most sig nificant of the thr ee dimensions of time—not only
because th e pr esent pr ovides an insig ht in to th e meaning of being, but
also because divine beings live in a tempor al continuance, an unchanging
present. This harmonious ly c ontinuous form of temporality r eflects th e
idea of eternal time.
Unbound by human temporal constraints, divine poetry is lighter than
human poetry: “They [the Muses] delight [terpousai] the mighty mind of
father Zeus ” (Th. ). Divine poetr y i s id entified w ith jo y, pleasure, and
delight, which correspond to the superiority of the gods (cf. , , , and
). The emotional force of human poetry, in contrast, has an ambiguous
form, creating an o xymoron of painful jo y. More speci fically, human
poetry pla ys out in th e spa ce betw een ga in an d loss. It g ives an d t akes
concomitantly. It can assuage an d change th e spir it, temporarily r emov-
ing pain and grief. It is simultaneously a reminder (of a remote past) and
a suppressor (of an impoverished present). Human poetry creates painful
joy because its capa city to cause forgetfulness does n ot cause pain to dis-
appear. Pain is merely bracketed, or hidden in th e depth of memory rep-
resented by Mnemosyne, the Muses’ mother, who i s the maternal source
of the poem (–).
Hesiod i s w ell a ware of the infer iority of his poetica l deli verance in
comparison w ith the Muses’ divine ar t. He emphasi zes the f ailure of his
inspired poetr y to reach the superior level of divine poetr y in hi s recur-
rent a ttempts (thr ee in a ll) t o captur e th e la tter’s perfection. Theogony
describes thr ee ev ents in which th e pur e song of the Muses i s deli vered
to the gods. In the first scene (–), the Muses sing and dance on Mount
Helicon. In the second (–), they sing in Zeus’s abode on Mount Olym-
pus. The final scene (–) occurs on th eir way from Pieria, their birth-
place, to M ount Oly mpus. These thr ee oc casions ar e s et apar t fr om th e
composition of Theogony as a whole because the cosmological poem is an
example of inspired poetr y medi ated by a h uman poet ( Th. –). On
all three occasions the Muses’ intended audience i s exclusively divine. As
a consequence, the content of their last two songs i s only br iefly sketched
by Hesiod. This absence might have led us to accept the general notion of
the inaccessibility of the Muses’ true poetry, except that, through Hesiod,
we become witnesses to their song on Mount Helicon (–) and are thus
granted partial access.
 Pandora and th e Myth of Otherness

The Muses’ performance on M ount H elicon i s ex ceptional beca use it

stays in th e memor y of a h uman w itness despite its s acred na ture. Like
Actaeon, Hesiod has transgressed the boundaries that mark off the sacred
space and has h eard the divine voice that he is not supposed to hear. But
Hesiod’s transgression is less a cute than Actaeon’s. While the latter views
a for bidden sig ht, Hesiod only h ears a v oice. A mi sty nig ht conceals th e
divine (forbidden) view, yet the shepherd senses the holy presence of the
goddesses. We know this because the specification of time and place makes
their pr esence cr edible an d c oncrete. Although th eir tru e song i s v eiled
by the screen of darkness, it is not unavailable to human experience. It is
heard and, consequently, partially revealed to the human auditor.
Under th e M uses’ tutelage, Hesiod aspir es t o c ompose poetr y tha t i s
similar or identical (homoia) to their song. However, this aspiration toward
identity is futile, since time and again, as we have seen, Hesiod brings out
the inherent differences between divine and inspired human poetry. At the
same time, the c omposer of Theogony does n ot aban don th e desir e t o
draw close to the divine song and even to assimilate its di vine principles.
Theogony records Hesiod’s memory of being struck by the revelatory and
inspirational power of the Muses, being utterly spellbound by the mysti-
cal experience on M ount Helicon. His cosmological poem i s, as a r esult,
suffused with a naive, forceful desire to produce poetry that will be indis-
tinguishable from that of the Muses.
This moti vation i s char acteristic of a y oung poet ’s first w ork; it w ill
weaken in H esiod’s dida ctic poem. In Works and Da ys he aban dons an
alleged Golden Age char acterized b y th e desir e t o cr eate poetr y tha t i s
similar to divine poetr y. As a ma ture and di sillusioned poet, he s eeks to
explore the meaning of a life dev oid of the idea of sameness.
The meanings of the a djective homoios, which r ange fr om “identical”
and “same” to “similar,” reveal the problematic r elations between things.
Homoios carries tw o pr incipal c onnotations. On th e on e han d it speci-
fies th e kin d of resemblance of one thing t o an other tha t pr oduces th e
illusion tha t th ey ar e in distinguishable. On th e oth er, it char acterizes
the r esemblance of one thing t o an other un der th e un derstanding tha t
they ar e two di fferent entities. While Theogony carries mor e ambiguiti es
in regard to the relation between similar things, Works and Days is closer
to th e idea tha t a ll similar things ar e in ess ence di fferent. In Theogony
Hesiod’s use of homoios is ambivalent, since he both perceives the Muses’
song as di stinct fr om hi s o wn an d dec lares tha t hi s poetr y stems fr om
a di vine sour ce. Theogony expresses th e poet ’s aspir ation t o imbibe th e
 Pandora and th e Myth of Otherness 

Muses’ poetic power. The young Hesiod wanted his poem to be similar to
the Muses’ song.
Works and Da ys expresses a di fferent poetic fr ame of mind. Here Hes-
iod gives up on the goal of sameness and even becomes disillusioned with
his ear lier poetic ambition. He s eems to r evise the meaning of homoios,
which n ow c onnotes a t otally una ttainable iden tity. Hesiod n o longer
contends that his poetry can achieve even an apparent identity with divine
poetry. He wants it t o contain di vine va lues su ch as justic e, but h e does
not think of it as similar t o a di vine utter ance. Works and Da ys interior-
izes the essential difference between divine and human utterances.
As an epic, Works and Da ys stands in c ontrast to Hesiod’s ear lier cos-
mological poem in tha t it car ries c lear pr agmatic and ethica l goa ls. The
poem i s addressed to a speci fic, nonexpert audience whom Hesiod s eeks
to teach how to cultivate the land. His didactic program i s guided b y an
ethical view that equates knowledge of farming with the quest for a good
and just life. We ar e n ot dea ling h ere w ith a guide t o better f arming so
much as w ith a w ork whose focus i s the educational process itself. What
occupies the center of Works and Days is the dynamic relationship between
the poet and his student, a relationship that serves as an ethica l prism for
understanding the world of farming. In contrast to Theogony, Works and
Days is immers ed in th e soci al an d cultur al dimensions of human life,
and its poetics i s governed by the principle of otherness. Hence, in com-
parison w ith Theogony, Hesiod dev elops th e a utonomy of, and g rants
autobiographical depth to, the figures of poet and listener. The poetics of
didactic poetry is grounded, as we shall now see, on the difference between
these two figures.
As we have already noticed, Hesiod’s revision of the myth of sameness
begins with his relationship with the Muses. In Works and Days he severs
the composition of his poetry from their tutelage.14 Works and Days differs
from Theogony in that it i s pr esented as H esiod’s own cr eation. It i s not
inspired poetr y. Nor i s it a kin d of poetry that der ives dir ectly from the
Muses’ original voice. Rather, Hesiod’s didactic epic establishes clear distinc-
tions between the divine and human realms. As human discourse, Works
and Days emphasizes the author’s presence by means of didactic and auto-
biographical elemen ts. The ma in n ovelty of Hesiod’s dida ctic epic i s its
abandonment of an externa l di vine pr ovenance in f avor of the a uthor’s
personal an d mor al exper ience. Hesiod marks hi s poetica l speech w ith
his o wn sig nature. He emphasi zes hi s fears an d beli efs an d a dds bits of
biography and personality, thereby creating a form of poetics that is based
 Pandora and th e Myth of Otherness

on human perspective.15 In contrast to Theogony and to Homeric poetry,

Hesiod’s dida ctic poetr y s eeks t o c oncretize th e figures of speaker an d
intended listener, both of whom play distinctive roles in the poem. As the
first didactic literary creation in G reek literature, Works and Da ys is par-
ticularly concerned with grounding the ethical function of human poetry.
The poet ’s dida ctic a uthority i s first of all a chieved thr ough hi s un der-
taking to scrutinize the distinction between the human and the divine.

T F  S  M  G

The “secular” poetics of Works and Days also suggests that its worldview is
not the one suggested by the cosmological picture presented in Theogony.
The w orld has dev eloped since its initi al appear ance in Theogony. It has
acquired a hi storical dimension, in par ticular as a r esult of the m yth of
the Five Ages (W&D –). As noted above, Hesiod insists on recount-
ing the myth of human history from a human point of view. He does not
inculpate the Muses in questions concerning the credibility of his didactic
authority or the veracity of the myths he narrates. Moreover, he explicitly
denies the existence of a divine source for his narrative by introducing the
myth of the Five Ages with skeptical remarks.

ei) d' e)qe/leij, e(/tero/n toi e)gw\ lo/gon e)kkorufw/sw

eu)= kai\ e)pistame/nwj: su\ d' e)ni\ fresi\ ba/lleo sh=|sin.
(W&D –)

[And if you wish, I will outline for y ou another story (heteron logon),
Well and skillfully st ore it up in y our mind.]

The story Hesiod refers to is the myth of the Five Ages. He presents it here
as heteron logon, another tale, a different version. It is his second attempt
to describe the power of Zeus over human affairs. His first logos was the
myth of Pandora ( W&D –). These tw o su ccessive m yths shar e an
interest in exploring the meaning of the present through a pivotal event—
the cr eation of Pandora or th e demi se of the Golden Age. Both ev ents
explain the significance of the present time on the basis of the past, which
serves to highlight the present and make it perceptible. By focusing on the
present h uman c ondition, Hesiod on ce aga in c onfines hi s poetr y t o th e
human domain.16
The theme of the fall, the end of the blissful condition of humanity, is
told first in th e myth of Pandora and then again in th e myth of the Five
 Pandora and th e Myth of Otherness 

Ages. Both m yths, thus, present a pr istine per iod wh en “from th e s ame
source [ homothen], gods and mor tals came in to being” (W&D ). But
Hesiod’s strategy of providing two versions of the same story raises ques-
tions about their validity and, more particularly, about their shared argu-
ment. Using two versions destabilizes the notion of identity and reinforces
the f antastical, skeptical, and eph emeral dimension of human poetr y.
Whereas th e depiction of the Golden Age c elebrates th e in tercourse be-
tween gods an d men, the follo wing s ection—on th e en d of that age—
reverses course and is devoted to disillusionment:

Deu/teron au)=te ge/noj polu\ xeiro/teron meto/pisqen

a)rgu/reon poi/hsan )Olu/mpia dw/mat' e)/xontej,
xruse/w| ou)/te fuh\n e)nali/gkion ou)/te no/hma:
(W&D –)

[Next after th ese the dwellers upon Oly mpus cr eated a s econd generation,
of silver, far worse than the other. They were not like the golden ones either
in shape or spir it.—Trans. Richmond Lattimore]

The myth of the Golden Age is always a commemoration of the demise of

that age, of the transition from the first (golden) to the second (silver) gen-
eration. How is this transition explained? Why did the Olympians choose
to create an inferior generation once the Golden Age had passed? Can this
version of the end of the Golden Age be un derstood as a m yth r ecount-
ing humanity’s fall? There is no clear answer to these disturbing questions.
Human exi stence in th e Golden Age i s par adoxical. How can th e perfect
become imperfect, dissolving into a lesser (silver) human generation? And
why does th e divine way of life of the Golden Age suddenly st art behav-
ing like humanity? Did th e perfect Golden Age actually conceal a mor al
flaw? Were there faults in the ideal (divine) human condition that required
divine punishment—namely, creation of an inferior humanity?17
I suggest that the Golden Age’s defect is to be detected in the erroneous
human assumption—which is equivalent to the notion of human preten-
sion (hubris)—that humanity i s identical to divinity. In other words, the
transition fr om th e Golden Age t o th e Sil ver Age i s a pr ocess of disillu-
sionment in relation to an idealistic, unreal (that is, erroneous) picture of
an ancient past. Whereas in th e Silver Age human insolence is dominant,
as manifested in sacrilegious behavior, the moral failing of the Golden Age
lies in h umanity’s mi sconception of itself as shar ing the s ame or igins as
 Pandora and th e Myth of Otherness

the gods. 18 The myth of the Golden Age is therefore not about a lost per-
fect human condition, but about th e human mi sconception of its divine
identity.
The identification of gods and humans is an old dr eam: the radicalism
of Works and Da ys is to be foun d in its a ttempt to delimit tha t dream to
the una ttainable m ythic r ealm. Hesiod r efers t o s ameness as a f antastic
phenomenon confined to the Golden Age. In succeeding ages, as we shall
see, the possibility of sameness cannot even be an object of fantasy. In addi-
tion, the inherent asymmetry between humans and gods a ffects relation-
ships between humans as well. When the Golden Age is lost, dissimilarity
increases: humans come to be not only dissimilar to the gods (as they were
in the Golden Age), but a lso to one another. The loss of the Golden Age
consequently represents the impossibility of maintaining a r ange of inti-
mate affiliations, communalities, and solidarities. But how did the fantas-
tic identification of gods and men come into being, and how do Theogony
and Works and Da ys reflect Hesiod’s attitude toward that fantasy?
The genealogy of the gods pr esented in Theogony does not include the
origins of the human species. Theogony does not make a place for men in
the genealogical map of the gods. It would appear, then, that the account
of a shared origin is a product of wishful thinking, expressed in the form
of human needs, ambitions, and desires. More specifically, the human fan-
tasy of being iden tical t o th e gods i s ins eparable fr om th e aspir ation t o
make human existence an integral part of the world. By fantasizing about
its di vine or igins, humanity c laims poss ession o ver th e w orld. Indeed,
Hesiod’s theological discourse does not posit an acute dichotomy between
the gods an d th e w orld. The gen ealogy of the gods tha t i s r ecounted in
Theogony is also an account of the development of the cosmos in general.
Theogony conceives of the gods as w orldly elemen ts an d th e w orld as a
manifestation of their divine realm. When reading Works and Days in light
of Theogony, one cannot help but s ee that Hesiod has r evised his previous
account of the relationship between men and the world. He separates gods
and men, which entails the latter’s expulsion from an imma ture image of
the world. Men ar e no longer a llowed to perceive themselves as in tegral
to the world. But humanity failed to internalize this separation—accord-
ing to Hesiod, men ig nore it beca use they t ake humanity’s poss ession of
the w orld for g ranted.19 The or igins of this a ttitude t oward th e w orld
are to be found in the primal human condition as descr ibed in Theogony.
In that cosmological poem, men lack a perspecti ve on th e world and are
blind t o its a utonomous appear ance. In Works and Da ys this p erceptual
 Pandora and th e Myth of Otherness 

limitation develops into a g rievous moral weakness. Men’s relation to the

world is instrumental. The world was han ded to men an d has been han-
dled b y men. Men li ve an d t oil in it. And so th e na tural w orld, being
used and abused by men, has, in men’s minds, become inseparable from
the social and ethical dimension of human life. It has bec ome a h uman-
ized world.
The myth of the Five Ages can thus be s aid to tell of the symbiosis be-
tween men and the world.20 This symbiosis has two stages. The first belongs
to the mythical time of the Golden Age; the second pertains to the histor-
ical er a tha t follo wed. The Golden Age sy mbolizes an er a wh en h uman
and divine were considered synonymous. That affinity between gods an d
humans was possible beca use of humanity’s state of being: a life of fabu-
lous wealth where needs were perfectly fulfilled, one in which the earth was
a place of total, spontaneous fecundity (W&D –). In such blissful con-
ditions human needs were not recognized as needs at all. Men of the Golden
Age were, as a result, trapped in an illusion of being identical to the gods.
The end of the Golden Age did not, however, mark the end of this sym-
biosis. Instead, a new kind of symbiosis developed—this time between man
and world. The Silver, Bronze, and Iron Ages experienced a steady decline
in every aspect of life with each succeeding generation. The wealth of the
Golden Age was lost. Religious duties were unfulfilled, which showed dis-
respect for the gods (W&D –). And since these three generations have
proven to be morally inferior to that of the Golden Age, they have encoun-
tered pain, illness, and a miserable death. The waning of religious devotion
implies a severing from the divine. Yet in undoing their ties to the gods, men
did not divorce themselves from the world. In other words, the symbiosis
between men and gods has continued, but with a slight semantic difference.
This a ltered attitude on th e par t of humanity found expression in men ’s
instrumental relationship to the earth. The generosity of the earth was now
taken for granted; men no longer conceived of it as an autonomous entity
(W&D –, –). Blind to its a utonomy, failing to recognize that it
exists in dependently of humans, humanity does n ot s ee th e w orld qua
world. It r educes or r estricts th e meaning of the w orld t o tha t which i s
representative of humanity. This per ception of the w orld as something
identical to them is an expr ession of men’s megalomaniac nature:

xeirodi/kai: e(/teroj d' e(te/rou po/lin e)calapa/cei.

ou)de/ tij eu)o/rkou xa/rij e)/ssetai ou)/te dikai/ou
ou0d0 a)gaqou=, ma=llon de\ kakw=n r(ekth=ra kai\ u(/brin
 Pandora and th e Myth of Otherness

a)ne/ra timh/sousi: di/kh d' e)n xersi/ kai\ ai)dw\j

ou)k e)/stai, bla/yei d' o( kako\j to\n a)rei/ona fw=ta
mu/qoisi skolioi=j e)ne/pwn, e)pi\ d' o(/rkon o)mei=tai.
(W&D –)

[Strong of hand, one man ( heteros) shall seek the city of another (heterou).
No man who keeps his oath would be ca lled charismatic, nor the righteous
or the good man. Rather they shall respect the violence of the evildoer. Right
will be in th e arm. Shame w ill not be. The v ile man w ill crowd hi s better
out and attack him with twisted accusation and swear an oath to his story.—
Adapted from Lattimore translation]

Absent from this description of the Iron Age is any reference to the nat-
ural elements of the physical world. Whereas the account of the Golden
Age mentions the grain-giving land (zeidoros aroura, W&D ), later allu-
sions to the natural elements refer to materials—silver, bronze, and iron—
only outside their natural setting, emphasizing instead their new artificial
function, their service to humanity. As each generation successively discov-
ers these elements, they become mer e tools in men ’s hands. And so th ey
come to represent human desires and ambitions (power and wealth). That
is how the world’s elements have come to be identified as human qualities.
Hesiod tells of the r esult of humanity’s active ig norance of the w orld
in th e I ron Age in hi s descr iption of its ur ban lan dscape an d char acter.
We now have a w orld of cities: “One man [ heteros] sha ll s eek the cit y of
another [heterou].” Men conceive of the world as an en tity that provides
a place for cr eating their own communities. Once these communities are
established in th e form of cities, they are made into human places. They
rarely bear th e signs of their original natural character. These communi-
ties divide the world and create new methods of living that culminate in
war and other forms of aggression. Life in the cities thus encourages hos-
tile relationships between different peoples, just as it accentuates the differ-
ences among men. Heteros does not simply distinguish one party from the
other. It raises the idea that there is no place in the Iron Age for harmoni-
ous and equal groups.
Men dev elop a mir ror r elationship v is-à-vis th e w orld: they s ee in it
a reflection of themselves, while their behavior in turn a ffects the world.
Following thi s interpretation, the pass ages concerning the Silver, Bronze,
and Iron Ages disclose a tight-fisted world that is no longer identified with
the benevolent and generous image of Mother Earth, as in the Golden Age,
 Pandora and th e Myth of Otherness 

but, rather, reflects a v iolent an d sting y f ather. Since th e w orld mir rors
the human condition, it comes to appear as a fr ightening place full of evil
ambition and dreadful death, a world that i s mi serable and dark, like its
inhabitants.
Hesiod conceives of the Golden Age, and of the Silver, Bronze, and Iron
Ages that follow, as reflecting two misconceptions about the place of man
in th e w orld: a f alse iden tification w ith th e gods, and a f alse iden tifica-
tion with the world. He does n ot endorse a n ostalgic return to a Golden
Age in which men an d gods w ould aga in bec ome iden tical, but n either
does he approve of the tendency to humanize the world. Works and Da ys
offers a dida ctic pr ogram for men t o est ablish an appr opriate pla ce for
themselves in the world. Hesiod is determined to reform the relationship
between men an d th e w orld b y tea ching th e former t o dev elop a s ense
of humility in r elation to both na ture and the gods. In thi s s ense, Works
and Days is dedicated to an un derstanding of a world that i s other than
human. Hesiod wishes to return to a world that is familiar to the farmer.
Familiarity, achieved through sweat and toil, reveals the division between
man and the world and a llows the latter to r eceive the honor it des erves
as man learns its idiosyn cratic ph enomena, functions, and r egularities.
Interestingly, this learning became possible in the most horrible of human
generations, the Iron Age, Hesiod’s generation, when nature was no longer
seen t o be a spon taneous ph enomenon an d an in finite pr ovider ( W&D
). Hesiod consequently teaches men to become aware of their needs and
assume responsibility for their own well-being. The ability to satisfy one’s
own needs depends on a f amiliarity with, a close observation of, nature’s
laws. In order to enjoy the earth’s productivity, in order to keep the fire alive,
men need to acquaint themselves with the order of the natural elements.
Even then, however, Hesiodic knowledge will not make the world an en-
tirely f amiliar pla ce, absolutely on e an d th e s ame w ith men. As H esiod
remarks: “Yet still, the mind of Zeus of the aeg is changes w ith chang ing
occasions, and it is a hard thing for mor tal men to figure” (W&D –,
trans. Lattimore).
In many ways Works and Da ys is a tr agic epic tha t mourns th e loss of
innocence. But what is so tragic about losing something we never had? The
nostalgic v iew of the Golden Age does n ot s eriously encourage a r eturn
to it. In what way, then, is the mythical memory of the coexistence of gods
and men vital to the human experience? Works and Days constructs a com-
plicated notion of this imaginative world. On the one hand, it locates the
realm of the Golden Age within a fantastic framework. On the other hand,
 Pandora and th e Myth of Otherness

it does not conceive divine and human coexistence as a utopian moment.21

This means that the Golden Age represents an unattainable object of desire,
the emphasis being on its unattainability. What, then, is the aim of poetry,
which apparently arouses a futile long ing in its a udience?
Homer’s version of the Golden Age is illuminating in thi s respect. The
description of the island of Phaeacia in Book  of the Odyssey renders it
as a Golden Age kingdom. 22 The pa lace of Alkinoos shimmers w ith gold
and sil ver. The r oyal gar den i s di sconnected fr om th e chang ing of the
seasons, producing a g reat variety of fruits that grow abundantly without
requiring culti vation. The gods join th e Phaea cians a t s acrificial mea ls
and dine with them. And yet this ideal way of life is carried on under the
shadow of an old di vine curse that threatens the Phaeacians with a mor-
tal r ebuke for th eir h ospitality. They expr ess th eir outst anding kin dness
toward Odysseus by taking their guest back home in th eir magical ships,
an act for which th ey are eventually punished. Odysseus is the last mor tal
man to be a llowed into their land, and with his departure this ideal place
becomes for ever o ff limits t o str angers. Lost in th eir g lorious ex clusive-
ness, the Phaea cians ar e doomed t o obli vion. Such an unhappy destin y
brings the ideal image of this land into question, for it turns out that even
such a perfect soci ety as tha t of the Phaea cians ev entually su cceeds in
offending the gods. Their consequent expulsion from the human world is
an indication of how they abused their close relationship with the divine
realm (th ey ar e ca lled ankhitheoi, “relatives of the gods,” at Od. .) b y
mistaking it for a sig n of their complete identity with the gods.
Nostalgic poetr y su ch as tha t found in th e Odyssey calls upon its li s-
teners to know their place in the world and use it in or der to gain ethical
knowledge. Arousing a y earning for an idea lized world, nostalgic poetr y
entices its li steners t o tr anscend th eir habitua l exi stence an d aspir e t o a
better life. It can gen erate a form of escapism (which w ould be manifest,
for example, if Odysseus remained with the Phaeacians and forgot about
his homeland). Or it can en courage a r econciliation with one’s condition
(his deci sion t o r eturn t o I thaka). Acknowledgment of the imperfection
of the human condition is essential for ethica l responsibility. If life is im-
perfect, it i s our r esponsibility to make it w orthy. Odysseus’s deci sion to
return home reflects such an un derstanding. Home i s where he assumes
responsibility for hi s life, despite the inexorable presence of death. I read
Works and Days as a didactic version of nostos, an epic homecoming that,
in the manner of the Odyssey, strives to bring a lost farmer back to his land
and endow him with a better understanding of the world. Works and Days
 Pandora and th e Myth of Otherness 

is n ot n ostalgic t oward th e idea lized Golden Age; it aspir es t o r edefine

the idea of a home, and of making one’s own home in th e world. In the
Odyssey one of the major factors in making the homecoming successful is
the marital relationship. The homecoming depends on th e way Penelope
reacts t o th e str anger and r ecognizes him as h er lost h usband. This im-
portant f actor i s a lso dominan t in th e r ole tha t th e w oman plays in th e
construction of the notion of home in Works and Da ys.
If we think of Works and Days as a kind of homecoming poem, the eth-
ical significance of a face-to-face encounter between a man and a woman,
between a h usband and a w ife, as in th e Odyssey, is a lso necessary h ere.
Hesiod’s poem, as we shall see, encourages its reader to turn Pandora into
a Penelope. The poet’s ethical demand from his reader therefore requires
a reconciliation with the woman. We shall return to this point at the end
of this chapter.

A  I: T C  B

ou)de\ path\r pai/dessin o(moi/ioj ou)de/ ti pai=dej
ou)de\ cei=noj ceinodo/kw| kai\ e(tai=roj e(tai/rw|,
ou)de\ kasi/gnhtoj fi/loj e)/ssetai, w(j to\ pa/roj per.
(W&D –)

[Father i s n ot a t on e ( homoiios) w ith hi s childr en, nor ar e th e childr en a t

one w ith him. The guest i s not at one w ith hi s host, and the fr iend i s not
at one with his friend. And the brother is no longer th e friend as h e was in
the past.]

The long ing for a Golden Age i s an expr ession of an ess ential abs ence
that i s inh erent in th e human c ondition. (The in terdependence betw een
longing and absence is significant to Plato’s theory of eros, which we will
discuss belo w.) I n Works and Da ys the long ing for a Golden Age r epre-
sents th e abs ence of sameness, or th e pr esence of an appar ent di ssimi-
larity an d a lterity. It i s q uite c lear fr om hi s descr iption of the pr esent
condition of humanity tha t H esiod r egards th e idea of absolute h uman
homogeneity (relative to one another) to be sheer fantasy. A human same-
ness bas ed on iden tical in terests an d a t otal s ense of affinity i s for eign
to th e post–Golden Age w orld. Reconciling w ith th e h uman c ondition
means finding a way to live with alterity. That is why such a considerable
part of Hesiod’s guide t o f arming addresses varieties of human relation-
ships that suffer from differences, whether they involve neighbors, friends,
 Pandora and th e Myth of Otherness

artisans, old people, or youth. Human discord belongs to Hesiod’s didac-

tic pr ogram, which s eeks t o h elp r eaders a ccommodate di ssimilarity in
their relationships.
The H esiodic pr esent, the I ron Age, is mark ed b y a tr agic n otion of
alterity that characterizes the relationships between parent and child an d
between siblings. In all cases, a natural bonding that was once inherent in
human experience is absent. The golden principle of human relationships,
that of being at one with each other, Hesiod calls homoios.23
The current structure of the social world has been di srupted: the most
basic human relationships have proven to be unstable and unreliable. The
guest and the friend remain str angers. Hospitality and friendship do n ot
create grounds for shar ed interests and mutual trust. Blood relations are
not characterized by intimacy and warmth but mor e closely resemble the
intercourse between strangers. Each human connection involves a cautious
interaction and arouses suspicions on both sides regarding the other’s true
interests. This is especially so in th e case of xeinos, a guest-friend (), a
term that contains within it th e duality between remoteness and affinity.
Xeinos is not, strictly speaking, a stranger. He is, rather, a stranger who is
potentially a fr iend. Likewise, he i s not str ictly a fr iend, since h e r etains
his primal aggressiveness as an outsider . As is typical of the Iron Age, the
ambiguous meaning of “friend” and “guest” remains unresolved.
Disputes occupy a central place in Hesiod’s didactic poetry.24 He chooses,
however, to r aise th e pr oblem of difference in h uman r elationships b y
means of the ph enomenon of brothers. This i s beca use of the h ybrid
nature of that r elationship. Brothers ar e a t once th e s ame and di fferent.
They shar e th e s ame or igins an d th e s ame par entage, but th ey g row up
to b e d ifferent people. They ma y be in compatible, and th ey sometimes
become bitter rivals. The ambiguity of the fraternal relationship is indica-
tive of what is so problematic about the nature of human relationships in
general: the tension betw een similar ity (th e uni versality of the h uman
phenomenon) and alterity (the concrete differences—cultural, gender, eco-
nomic, and others—that distinguish one person from another). In my view,
Hesiod begins Works and Days with a representation of a specific fraternal
dispute pr ecisely because thi s r elationship i s par adigmatic of all human
relationships. Moreover, considering th e poetic fun ction of the fr aternal
disparity, it seems that this disputative relationship is the backbone of the
didactic epic. In other words, the didactic structure of the poem is neither
tied to nor inspired by the Muses. It is formulated and provoked by a dis-
agreement between two brothers.
 Pandora and th e Myth of Otherness 

The uniqueness of the didactic mode i s manifest in its being bas ed on

a conflictual relationship between instructor and disciple. This makes the
relationship betw een “I” and “other” fundamental t o th e liter ary exper i-
ence created in Works and Days. Otherness grounds the communicability
of the dida ctic epic, binding th e r eader t o th e a uthor, and Perses t o hi s
brother, Hesiod. Works and Da ys expounds on th e di fferences b etween
Hesiod and his brother. The two brothers represent a series of oppositions
between diligent and lazy farmer, between poet and beggar,25 and between
one who is faithful to his village’s values and another who is attracted to
the city’s litigious institutions.26 Hesiod and Perses are not the only broth-
ers t o be foun d in Works and Da ys. Hesiod un derscores th eir polar ity
by referring to a di vine instance of a fraternal dispute, that between Pro-
metheus and Epimetheus. The pairing of intelligent and fooli sh brothers
exemplifies the difference between counselor and counseled and between
speaker an d li stener. As su ch, the r elationship betw een P rometheus an d
Epimetheus fills th e s ame dida ctic r ole as th e di alogue betw een H esiod
and P erses, a r ole tha t, according t o Anthony Ed wards, is in tended “to
transform Perses from an achreios into an esthlos, from a man wh o keeps
no counsel to a man wh o follows the good c ounsel of another.”27 Hesiod
and Perses, just like Prometheus and Epimetheus, create a stru ctural pat-
tern on which th e dialogic relationship between the didactic poet and his
addressee i s modeled. The didactic epic emphasi zes the hi erarchical di s-
tinction between poet and listener and, in Hesiod’s case, specifically marks
the addressee as th e Other.
A fr aternal r elationship imbu ed w ith dua lity an d di fference i s n ot
unique t o Works and Da ys. It i s common t o oth er mythical and liter ary
treatments of brothers, particularly tw in brothers: for example, Herakles
and his twin, Iphikles.28 They are the sons of Alkmene, who delivered them
together but conceived them on two successive nights, the first shared with
Zeus, and the second with her human husband, Amphitryon. Herakles was
born fr om th e di vine in tercourse an d I phikles fr om th e h uman. Hesiod
depicts thi s pair of twins in th e Shield of Herakles (–) by emphasi z-
ing their differences:

h(\ de\ qew=| dmhqei=sa kai\ a)ne/ri pollo\n a)ri/stw|

Qh/bh| e)n e(ptapu/lw| diduma/one gei/nato pai=de,
ou)keq' o(ma\ frone/onte: kasignh/tw ge me\n h)/sthn:
to\n me\n xeiro/teron, to\n d' au)= me/g' a)mei/nona fw=ta,
deino/n te kratero/n te, bi/hn (Hraklhei/hn,
 Pandora and th e Myth of Otherness

to\n me\n u(podmhqei=sa kelainefe/i Kroni/wni,

au0ta\r )Ifiklh=a dorusso/w| 0Amfitru/wni:
kekrime/nhn geneh/n, to\n me\n brotw=| a)ndri\ migei=sa,
to\n de\ Dii\ Kroni/wni, qew=n shma/ntori pa/ntwn.

[And th e la dy, submitting t o th e god, and t o th e man f ar best of men in

Thebes of the seven gates, bore twin sons whose hearts and spirits were not
alike; it i s tru e th ey w ere br others, but th e on e was a less er man, and th e
other a man f ar g reater, a dr ead man an d str ong, Herakles th e po werful.
This one she conceived under the embr aces of Zeus, the dark c louded, but
the oth er on e, Iphikles, to Amphitryon of the r estless spear, seed tha t was
separate; one ly ing w ith a mor tal man an d one w ith Zeus, son of Kronos,
marshal of all the immortal.—Trans. Richmond Lattimore]

As a rule, myths concerning twin brothers reveal a deep disparity that turns
their apparent similarity into a sig n of the tr agic quality of fraternity. In
the case of Herakles and Iphikles, their mutual maternal (superficial) ori-
gin makes them formally twins, but the inherent difference between divine
and h uman s emen dict ates a di stinctive char acter an d s eparate destin y.
The stories of Herakles and Iphikles, as well as Otos and Ephialtes, Castor
and Pollux, and Remus and Romulus, all involve a h uman mother and a
divine father. The examples are also a testament to the ancient conception
of twins as constituting a tragic hybrid of the divine and the human. Otos
and Ephialtes, the sons of Poseidon and the human Iphimedeia, acciden-
tally kill ea ch oth er. The Diosk ouri, Castor an d P ollux, are s aid in on e
version of their tale to be of mixed origin. Both are the sons of Leda, but
Castor is the son of Leda’s human husband, Tyndareus, whereas Pollux is
the son of Zeus (Pindar, Nem. :–). Although th e immor tal Pollux
persuades Zeus t o grant his mortal brother immortality, the two of them
alternate th eir r esidence on Oly mpus and c onsequently n o longer meet.
Remus and Romulus are the twin sons of Mars and the vestal priestess
Rhea. Despite their similar ity, they develop a g reat hostility and become
political rivals. The element of rivalry and jealousy is also typical of bib-
lical twins such as Cain and Abel and Jacob and Esau. The dissimilarity of
biblical tw ins does n ot involve di vine and h uman f athers; in th e mono-
theistic v ersion, the fr aternal di fference emerges thr ough th e opposition
of the blessed son an d the cursed one.
Whereas the theme of similarity in a tr agic context works through the
difference between divine and human, the comic tradition focuses on the
 Pandora and th e Myth of Otherness 

phenomenon of mistaken iden tity. Plautine c omedy dea ls w ith th e c on-

fusion of a god an d a man in Amphitryon. But th e in teraction betw een
identical tw in brothers i s of particular interest, allowing a psy chological
analysis of the mi sguided human tendency to s ee similar things as iden-
tical. The par adigmatic comedy of errors, Plautus’s Menaechmi, is struc-
tured around the tension betw een identity and difference. Its twins—not
identical, but physically similar—were separated in childh ood and raised
in different cities. The inevitable encounter between them provokes a pri-
mal anxiety, the fear of the doppelgänger. The play contrives a c ontinual
source of confusion for both br others and their c lose companions, none
of whom r ealize tha t th ere ar e a ctually tw o M enaechmi in E pidamnus.
The plot develops out of the conflict between Menaechmus of Epidamnus,
who tries to arrange a day off from his busy routine, and his twin brother,
who is visiting from Syracuse and is free of responsibilities. Since Menaech-
mus of Syracuse looks exa ctly like hi s tw in brother from Epidamnus, he
undeservedly enjo ys th e pleasur es meticulous ly pr epared b y hi s br other
in advance. At the end of the play the confusion is resolved by the inevita-
ble meeting betw een the two, which enables r elatives and companions to
acknowledge in astonishment the brothers’ striking similarity. Here is the
slave Messenio’s response:

illic homo aut sycophanta aut geminus est fr ater tuos.

nam ego h ominem hominis similiorem numquam vidi alterum.
neque aqua aquae nec lacte est la ctis, crede mi, usquam similius
quam hic tui est, toque huiius autem; poste eandem patriam ac patrem
memorat.
(Men. –)

[That man i s either a sw indler or y our tw in brother! I n ever s aw two men

look so mu ch a like. You’re as har d t o tell apar t as tw o dr ops of water or
two dr ops of milk. And besides, he c laims th e s ame f ather an d th e s ame
country.—Trans. E. C. Weist and R. W. Hyde]29

The episode describes a s elf-realization scene: the brothers who were be-
lieved to be one are revealed to be two. The significance of this discovery
is manifest in th e f act tha t th e r evelation of similarity—the r ealization
of the tw ins’ almost iden tical appear ance—is a ctually th e appear ance,
and th e pr oof, of the di fference betw een th em. In oth er w ords, the di s-
covery of the similar ity betw een on e and th e oth er i s on e and th e s ame
 Pandora and th e Myth of Otherness

event as th e discovery of the difference between the two. The slave strug-
gles w ith the common er ror of mistaking both of them for on e and the
same person. The play moves from a false conception of one and the same
person (numerical identity) to a c orrect conception of a perfect similar ity
between two different people. Recognizing the tw ins’ identicalness leads,
at th e s ame time, to a r ecognition of them as tw o di fferent persons. In
fact, the sur prising mess age of this r ecognition sc ene i s n ot th e iden tity
between th e brothers but, rather, their nonidentity despite th eir similar-
ity. The pla y explor es th us th e impossibilit y of perfect iden tity betw een
two personalities. Moreover, it privileges the value of dissimilarity between
the tw in br others. This pr ivileging i s an ess entially ethica l st ance, since
only recognition of their difference allows the twins to meet f ace to face,
to become acquainted with each other, and to learn from each other’s life
experiences.30

T L  S   B  E

All m yths c oncerning tw ins emphasi ze th eir di fferences. In thi s s ense,
these myths are related to the myth of the Golden Age, which negates the
perfect iden tity of gods an d men. The ph enomenon of identical tw ins
likewise r epresents an impossibilit y: the desir e for tw o t o bec ome on e.
Consider, for example, the erotic connotation of Plautus’s metaphoric lan-
guage r egarding th e br others’ similarity. The imager y of two iden tical
drops of water or milk tha t h e us es t o descr ibe th eir c lose r esemblance
is t ypical of descriptions of lovers’ desire t o bec ome on e an d th e s ame.
Such erotic aspir ations are essential to Plato’s theory of love in th e Sym-
posium. The lovers’ desire grows from a fun damental human experience:
the exper ience of absence, the other side of which i s a long ing for iden-
tity with another. In Plato this form of desire is rooted in n ostalgia for a
Golden Age.
In th e Symposium Aristophanes first r aises th e r elationship betw een
eros and the exper ience of loss and abs ence, a r elationship t aken up an d
elaborated philosophica lly b y Socr ates. Aristophanes c ontributes t o th e
discussion by inquiring into the mythological meaning of eros. And so his
speech offers a var iation on th e Hesiodic myth of the Golden Age.

dei= de\ prw=ton u(ma=j maqei=n th\n a)nqrwpi/nhn fu/sin kai\ ta\ paqh/mata
au)th=j. h( ga\r pa/lai h(mw=n fu/sij ou)x au(th\ h)=n h(/per nu=n, a)ll' a)lloi/a.
(Symp. d–)
 Pandora and th e Myth of Otherness 

[We need first to learn h uman nature and what it has su ffered. Since once
upon a time our na ture was n ot as it i s now, but of another kind.]

The “once upon a time” pattern by which Aristophanes begins his mytho-
poetic speech i s t ypical of a m ythological nar rative. It marks a poin t of
departure in the history of humanity. The Golden Age formula signifies a
drastic transition—a decline—from the fantasy of the perfect human con-
dition that i s t ypical of other Golden Age myths (compare, for inst ance,
the expulsion fr om par adise in th e book of Genesis and th e cr eation of
the first woman in H esiodic poetry).
Aristophanes’ mythopoesis is etiological. Wondering “how we all came
to be what we are today” leads to an examination of the nature of eros. In
other words, the origin of eros can explain our own nature as erotic human
beings. Aristophanes’ rhetorical strategy is to tie eros to human nature by
positing two inseparable questions. Explaining the meaning of eros, then,
tells us what a human being is, and vice versa. According to Aristophanes,
humanity’s or igins were completely di fferent from its pr esent condition.
In contrast to the current division into male and female genders, ancient
humans had three sexes. Each of these three different kinds of human was
a dua l being; that i s, each had a doubled bod y. They were s elf-sufficient,
perfect. However, this human perfection, so char acteristic of the Golden
Age, provoked arrogance, which was ultimately punished by Zeus.31 To r e-
duce the power of humans, Zeus decided that each would be split into two
separate beings. This explains the present state of things, with two sexes,
male an d fema le, but thr ee var ieties of sexuality—two kin ds of homo-
erotic and one heterosexual love, all determined by one’s spherical origins.
Aristophanes does n ot say much about th e state of mind of the spher-
ical creatures. Did they conceive of themselves as one or as a couple? Were
they a di vided or a uni vocal s elf ? I t i s har d t o tell, especially beca use
Aristophanes’ description focus es on th e cr eatures’ physical exper ience.
However, his depiction of their extraordinary physical competence reveals
a perfect c ontrol over bodily gestur es and a singular mo ving force.

e)/peita o(/lon h)=n e(ka/stou tou= a)nqrw/pou to\ ei)=doj stroggu/lon, nw=ton
kai\ pleura\j ku/klw| e)/xon, xei=raj de\ te/ttaraj ei)=xe, kai\ ske/lh ta\ i)/sa
tai=j xersi/n, kai\ pro/swpa du/' e)p' au)xe/ni kukloterei=, o(/moia pa/nth|:
kefalh\n d' e)p' a)mfote/roij toi=j prosw/poij e)nanti/oij keime/noij mi/an,
kai\ w)=ta te/ttara, kai\ ai)doi=a du/o, kai\ ta)=lla pa/nta w(j a)po\ tou/twn
a)/n tij ei)ka/seien. e)poreu/eto de\ kai\ o)rqo\n w(/sper nu=n, o(pote/rwse
 Pandora and th e Myth of Otherness
j r r r , r
boulhqei/h: kai\ o(po/te taxu\ o(rmh/seien qei=n, w(/sper oi( kubistw=ntej kai\
ei)j o)rqo\n ta\ ske/lh perifero/menoi kubistw=si ku/klw|, o)ktw\ to/te ou)=si
toi=j me/lesin a)pereido/menoi taxu\ e)fe/ronto ku/klw|.
(Symp. e–a)

[Again, the form of each human being as a whole was round, with back and
sides forming a cir cle, but it ha d four arms an d an eq ual number of legs,
and two faces exactly alike on a cylindrical neck; there was a sing le head for
both f aces, which f aced in opposite dir ections, and four ears an d tw o s ets
of pudenda, and on e can imag ine a ll th e r est fr om thi s. It a lso tr aveled
upright just as now, in whatever direction it wished; and whenever they took
off in a sw ift run, they brought their legs around straight and somersaulted
as tumblers do , and then, with eight limbs t o suppor t them, they rolled in
a swift circle.—Trans. R. E. Allen]32

Close obs ervation of the ph ysiognomic stru cture of the thr ee sph erical
beings r eveals a dditional ambiguiti es. Two fea tures ar e cru cial t o our
investigation: the two f aces were turned in opposite dir ections, and their
genitals f aced outwar d.33 This means, first, that th ese cr eatures ha d n o
idea what their other face looked like, and, second, that they could not see
the other’s genit als. The latter point i s of special interest for th e androg-
ynous pair, for there was n o s exual difference in th e cas e of the doubled
male spherical creature or the doubled female. Although the androgynous
being exhibited a heterosexual pair of genitals, the male and female halves
could not be aware of their sexual difference, since their eyes could never
fix on th e other’s front.
It i s interesting to note that the androgynous cr eature i s the only on e
of the thr ee m ythical h uman kin ds t o r eveal an y sig n of divergence in
what w ere oth erwise ph ysically iden tical doubled beings. Aristophanes
accentuates the heterogeneous nature of the androgynous genus, the male-
female creature, when he considers the material origins of the three beings.
Whereas th e ma le-male cr eature or iginated in th e sun, and th e fema le-
female creature in th e earth, the androgynous creature was der ived from
the moon, which has a shar e in both th e sun and the earth. Although the
man-woman genus is considered to be the weakest and lowliest of the three
(Symp. d–e), its sexual nature, its heterosexuality, is the most pr eva-
lent kind, more common than th e tw o forms of homoerotic passion. In
other w ords, the h eritage of sexual di fference inh erited fr om th e ma le-
female cr eature, rather than th e s exual s ameness of the ma le-male an d
 Pandora and th e Myth of Otherness 

female-female creatures, has become the most typical form of human sex-
uality. Another wa y of saying thi s i s t o obs erve tha t Aristophanes pr ivi-
leges homoerotic eros over heterosexual eros precisely because homoerotic
love retains the memory and fantasy of sameness more than heterosexual
love does.
For Aristophanes it is important to underscore the identity between the
two halves of the primordial human creatures. The theme of identity ex-
tends also to the most idiosyncratic physiognomic element of the human
body, the face. Hence, the two faces of these spherical beings are described
by Aristophanes as homoia pante, “the same in ev ery way” (Symp. a).
This means tha t ea ch of the thr ee sph erical cr eatures ha d tw o iden tical
faces. But were they conscious of this identity? It is most lik ely that they
were not. For, as obs erved above, the location of their doubled f ace pr e-
vented them from engaging in a face-to-face encounter, making it unlikely
that the doubled humans were at all aware of their sameness. In contrast,
awareness of their similarity became possible in th e dramatic recognition
scene that followed their separation. This was th e first time in th e life of
the sph erical cr eatures tha t th ey f aced each oth er and ast onishingly r ec-
ognized th eir ph ysical iden tity. One can s ee tha t th eir ph ysical iden tity
contributed to their s elf-realization as n ew s exual beings, inciting a va in
desire t o merge in to th e oth er and aga in become th e One tha t th ey ha d
once been.
Aristophanes mak es a di stinction betw een th e er otic na tures of the
ancient split beings an d pr esent-day h umans. Unlike our an cestors, we
have n o v isual r ecollection of our lost oth er. We a lso ha ve n o ph ysical
experience of what it means t o be a wh ole made of two separate beings. 34
Lovemaking, as Aristophanes argu es, is an enig matic and r emote r eflec-
tion of the perfect sph erical c ondition tha t has been lost. Nevertheless,
we do search in love for a lost twin. In our life, too, eros still means a long-
ing for a lost ha lf, a desir e to become whole: tou hol ou oun te e pithumia
(Symp. e). It would s eem, then, that to love in th e pr esent context of
human experience is to desire to overcome the inherent difference between
two beings. To put it an other wa y, in a lo ve r elationship w e wan t t o be
accepted an d be r ecognized for wha t w e la ck, and w e w ish tha t la ck t o
be complemented by the other. In thi s s ense, the erotic condition of the
present world acknowledges and legitimates the ineluctable difference that
exists in each coupling. This is not a conventional interpretation, however.
Aristophanes’ myth i s mor e commonly understood to be a ru dimentary
introduction t o r omantic an d met aphysical c onceptions of love.35 It i s
 Pandora and th e Myth of Otherness

traditionally conceived by aspiring romantic lovers as a validation of their

union, underlining th eir beli ef in th e met aphysical dimension of their
relationship—that i s, the determini st nature of their encounter. Platonic
anamnesis, or the theory of recollection, provides a theoretical support for
such typical expressions as “We were meant for each other and fell in love
at first sight.” And so th e myth of the origin of eros is open t o two inter-
pretations. One s eeks t o culti vate iden tity in th e c ouple’s lo ve life. The
other acknowledges the significance of difference in th e love relationship.
The f act tha t Aristophanes’ myth can be r ead in su ch opposing wa ys
suggests that our erotic experience is by nature a contradictory one. Being
in love means both tha t we aspir e to exper ience an ultima te s atisfaction
(symbiosis with the other) and that we accept the futility of such a desire.36
This makes Aristophanes’ speech a tr agicomic tr eatment of love. On the
one hand, he expresses skepticism about the lovers’ doomed aspiration to
merge into a wh ole. On the other hand, he rather optimistically assumes
that a lthough w e ar e incapable of merging and making on e out of two,
we can nevertheless grow similar t o each other over time. This allows the
comedian Aristophanes to forge a c omic ending to a tr agic myth, provid-
ing a pr agmatic solution t o a pr oblem that i s tr agically unsolvable. Eros,
according to Aristophanes, is a relationship that needs time and cultivation:

le/gw de\ ou)=n e)g

/ wge kaq' a(pa/ntwn kai\ a)ndrw=n kai\ gunaikw=n, o(/ti ou(t / wj
a)n\ h(mw=n to\ ge/noj eu)d/ aimon ge/noito, ei) e)ktele/saimen to\n e)/rwta kai\ tw=n
paidikw=n tw=n au(tou= e(/kastoj tu/xoi ei)j th\n a)rxai/an a)pelqw\n fu/sin.
ei) de\ tou=to a)/riston, a)nagkai=on kai\ tw=n nu=n paro/ntwn to\ tou/tou
e)gguta/tw a)/riston ei)=nai: tou=to d' e)sti\ paidikw=n tuxei=n kata\ nou=n
au)tw=| pefuko/twn:
(Symp. c)

[But I’ m s aying about ev eryone, men an d w omen a like, that thi s i s h ow

our r ace would become happy, if we should fulfill our lo ve and each meet
with his own darling boy, returning to his ancient nature. If this is best, then
necessarily what is nearest to it under present circumstances is also best: that
is, to meet a dar ling boy who naturally would become likeminded.]37

In the epilogue to the myth of eros, Aristophanes reexamines the question

of how t o s atisfy (ev en par tially) th e inborn desir e t o bec ome on e w ith
the other. This is done through education and play: love is about learning
and assimila ting th e na ture of the oth er. In lo ve w e learn t o be lik e th e
 Pandora and th e Myth of Otherness 

other. And in lo ve we teach our dar lings to “become likeminded.” Aristo-

phanes approaches love in a mann er that ultimately ridicules the f antasy
of a mir aculous, spontaneous f alling in lo ve. Rather, he ca lls on us t o
choose as lo vers th ose wh o w ould be in clined t o r ealize th eir f antasy of
sameness in us.
At this point I r eturn to Hesiod’s Works and Da ys in order to examine
the poem’s influence on the Symposium. I believe that the Platonic myth is
significantly inspired by the Hesiodic mode of thought. My interpretation
of Aristophanes’ myth as on e that commemorates the unavoidable expe-
rience of alterity in the love relationship harks back to Hesiod’s Works and
Days. Aristophanes’ exhortation to base the love relationship on education
and imit ation, in order to cr eate similar ity between lovers, can be in ter-
preted in light of the didactic program of Works and Days. Hesiod consid-
ers the lack of innate, harmonious bonding one of Iron Age’s greatest flaws.
Hence, human relationships become a ma tter of education in Works and
Days, requiring constant effort and attention. The poem’s ethical program
compares th e ma intenance of human r elationships t o th e culti vation of
land. Both require constant toil and attention, as a burning fire needs to be
regularly fed with fuel. The need to foster human relationships implies that
every relationship is governed by the principle of alterity. Hesiod believes,
however, that proper treatment will lead to reciprocity, mutual consider-
ation, and friendship. In this sense, Hesiod and the Platonic Aristophanes
share th e beli ef that di fference un derlies ev ery h uman r elationship, and
both welcome the possibilit y of turning differences into similarities. The
transformational process of making the other a ben evolent conversant is
fundamental t o th e dida ctic genr e an d t o th e philosophica l di alogue as
well. In turning a h ostile brother and an a dversarial audience into com-
pliant an d r esponsive li steners, Hesiod turns poetr y in to a language of
communication that forges a di alogue between very different people.

T D I: L  O

The myth of the first w oman i s th e locus cl assicus for making di fference
and a lterity th e elemen tary c oncepts of our being . Pandora marks th e
feminine as an Oth er. She is the figure for th e ethical difference between
masculinity and femininity. Yet I am less in terested here in this difference
than in the wider significance of feminine otherness. I suggest that the myth
of the first woman opens for us th e possibility of exploring the meaning
of what is human. This makes the myth of the first woman etiological—
albeit in an in direct manner—and in thi s s ense similar t o Aristophanes’
 Pandora and th e Myth of Otherness

myth of eros. Just as Aristophanes’ account of eros ultimately provides an

account of sexual difference, so does the myth of Pandora open a window
into the human condition.
The myth of Pandora and the myth of the Five Ages are closely related,
and their interrelationship determines how we interpret the myth of the
first woman. More specifically, the myth of the Five Ages provides the nar-
ratological framework for interpreting the myth of Pandora. Together, the
two myths r aise th e i ssue of gender di fference, which i s a c entral th eme
in P andora’s m yth an d a dir ect out come of the m ythical split betw een
“present” and “past” forms of life, the principal subject of the myth of the
Five Ages. In thi s r espect, the cr eation of the first woman should not be
understood solely w ithin the thematic boundaries of her story, merely as
retribution for Prometheus’s theft. Reading her myth in the context of the
end of the Golden Age enables us t o s ee her role as a sig nifier of differ-
ence. More to the point, the first woman represents the separation forced
on men between their mythical status as demigods and their present posi-
tion as lo wly mor tals. Pandora marks th e end of the sy mbiotic r elation-
ship between men and gods and between men and the world. At the same
time, she marks th e da wn of a n ew er a char acterized b y di sharmony in
human relationships.
Woman fills a cultur al role in Works and Days. She is a sig n of the un-
naturalness of being embodied in labor, cultivation, and language. Woman
represents th e r eality pr inciple tha t go verns th e cultur al w orld. The text
uses her figure to commemorate what men have been deprived of—namely,
a legendary lifespan saturated with pleasure and abundance, an unambig-
uous way of life reflected in th e transparency of language and morality.38
Yet the relationship of the Pandora episode to a didactic epic primarily
concerned with farming and agriculture is not self-evident. What is there-
fore h er sig nificance for th e w orld of agriculture? How does sh e fit into
the new r elationship between man an d the world? Hesiod’s depiction of
his present age demonstr ates how men s eparated the natural world from
its divine and pristine origins. In comparison with its cosmological begin-
ning, the culti vated w orld n o longer r eflects th e v ividness of the di vine
sphere. Now men perceive the land through their interests and needs: the
land has bec ome a sy mbol of profits and us eful resources awaiting men.
After the Golden Age, men can no longer comprehend the world as a nat-
ural integral part of their existence.
As the world ceases to be on e with man, as man loos es his embr yonic
bond with the world, otherness becomes a crucial part of man’s experience.
 Pandora and th e Myth of Otherness 

His c ondition i s n o longer tha t of “being par t of ” but r ather of “stand-

ing in r elation to.” The structure of a relationship (between two external
terms) r eplaces a pr imordial golden sy mbiosis. This i s wh ere th e first
woman is needed. The feminine is not simply an external negation of men’s
homology, but i s instead the grounds of a di alogical exi stence The femi-
nine marks the form of a relationship as a crucial aspect of life. And thus,
in Hesiod, the whole project of constituting for man a pr oper dwelling in
the world is articulated under the sign of this relationship: the prescribed
relationship between man an d his world receives its initi al thematization
via the image of the response to the first woman.
Nature no longer suppli es the embr yonic home of its own accord but
is cultivated by men an d technica lly coerced into providing a h ome and
nourishment. The n eed t o culti vate th e ear th i s stru cturally ana logous
to the obligation to nourish and satisfy the woman. Hence, nature is the
Other, as i s th e lan d, and lik ewise th e w oman. Sexual bon ding betw een
men and women reveals the same problematics as the relationship between
man an d na ture. Sexual bon ding i s n ot na tural an d spon taneous. The
relationship betw een man an d w oman la cks na tural in timacy, and th eir
initial interactions never run smoothly. Men and women struggle to over-
come th e frustr ation tha t i ssues fr om being unable t o inst antly be c lose
to one another.39 Hesiod’s didactic imperative is, hence, to know the Other.
 chapter 

The Socratic Pandora

Pandora is at the center of an otherness that is omnipresent in the literary

text.1 In Hesiod’s Works and Days her otherness is, first and foremost, a sign
of a poetics tha t r ecognizes its finitude and embr aces its h uman or igins.
Pandora marks th e unbr idgeable di stance that s eparates the human lan-
guage from a pure language of sameness, the language of the gods. At the
same time, the image of the first woman has another, somewhat opposed,
meaning in th e H esiodic text. Pandora n ot only thr eatens th e c ohesive-
ness of poetic language; she a lso r epresents th e n eed t o domestica te, to
cultivate, a dimension of otherness that w ill suppor t the very possibilit y
of textuality.
A text’s meaning is made possible by the existence of a tension between
two opposing mo vements. On th e on e han d, the text must c ontain a
dimension of otherness and difference that opens up its language t o new
meanings. Without such difference a text r emains tautological and trivial,
unable to car ve a uniq ue identity in th e space of language. On the other
hand, otherness cann ot c onstitute th e g rounds for c onveying meaning .
Rather, the communicability of a text—its leg ibility—depends on a r egu-
lative pr inciple of sameness. A text i s a text only if it fun ctions w ithin
shared horizons of language and meaning. This makes the text both sin-
gular and, at the same time, always part of a common field of textuality,
always belonging to a f amily of texts.
In Hesiod’s Works and Days these two opposing orientations are joined
in the person of the first woman. The image of femininity thus assumes
a dua l appear ance in th e dida ctic epic, being a sig n of both di fference
and the overcoming of difference. The feminine, in other words, serves as
a metaphor for two textual layers that are often at odds with one another


 The Socratic Pandora 

but which gen erate a tension tha t i s ess ential t o th e forma tion of the
didactic epic.
These two aspects of the feminine find expression in two traits assigned
to th e figure of Pandora: the dec eptive s educer an d th e v irginal br ide.
While the image of woman as femme fatal e inspires the didactic project,
its mir ror image i s cr itical for r ealizing the ethica l impuls e proposed by
the epic. Whereas Pandora’s seductive force reflects men’s separation from
the Golden Age and their banishment to an a lien world, the figure of the
obedient bride points to the possibility of resolution and a symbolic home-
coming. Hence, as Hesiod promotes the image of the silent and innocent
maiden as a suit able candidate for mar riage, an alternative conception of
the feminine emerges.
As I sha ll sh ow, Works and Da ys issues fr om a tension betw een tw o
poetic forms tha t I descr ibe as a “poetics of marriage” and a “poetics of
eros.”2 These two poetic modes ar e the prototypes of two distinct generic
discourses: the didactic and the philosophical. Described in a mor e sche-
matic f ashion: the dida ctic text oper ates un der th e sig n of the obedi ent
married woman; it pr esupposes a form of readership that fully c onsents
to the text’s authority. The philosophical text, on the other hand, can never
fully r eveal the source of its authority. Nevertheless, it tempts th e r eader
to pursue an unkn own path that holds out a pr omise.
In thi s chapter , the opposition betw een th e dida ctic an d th e philo-
sophical text i s examined through the opposition betw een the poetics of
marriage appear ing in X enophon’s Oeconomicus and th e poetics of eros
appearing in Pla to’s Symposium. Against th e ba ckground of the dida ctic
text, the chapter explores the unique ties between the poetics of the philo-
sophical text and the feminine. My aim is to show that the heritage of the
Hesiodic Pandora is intrinsic to the formation of the philosophical poet-
ics of eros, and in par ticular to the Platonic figure of Socrates.

W I  I L

Preoccupied w ith th e fundamental exper ience of difference tha t plagu es
the relationship between men and women, Hesiod inquires into the traits
of an ideal wife. According to Hesiod, there is only on e way to enter into
a good mar riage: “Marry a maiden so that you may teach her good man-
ners, and better t o mar ry on e wh o i s y our n eighbor” (W&D –).
Hesiod recommends a mar riage bas ed on a hi erarchical relationship be-
tween a mature, ethical husband and an innocently ignorant maiden who
is to assume the role of an obedient disciple. And yet, because the woman
 The Socratic Pandora

remains largely unknown to Hesiod, thereby possibly concealing a poten-

tial evil, he advises his readers to choose a n eighbor as a br ide. This will
ensure a mor e successful match—that is, a marriage with a good w oman
(agathe g yne, W&D –). Familiarity w ith h er f amily an d a c ommon
social background, together with identical local interests, will further ease
the couple’s initial estrangement and provide the ground for th eir future
relationship.
Establishing mutual interests in a marriage does not imply the existence
of equality between the two partners. On the contrary, man and woman are
integrated into a hierarchical relationship. The former assumes the role of
educator an d est ablishes th e in terests tha t w ill be shar ed b y th e c ouple.
Creating mutuality, then, entails no consideration of the feminine perspec-
tive—in fact, such consideration is dismissed out of hand by the husband
because of his wife’s immaturity. Her perspective is acknowledged only after
it has been integrated into his vision and merged within it. The unwritten
marital contract Hesiod describes is not only betw een husband and wife,
for it shapes th e poet’s understanding of the contract-like bond between
the didactic author and his reader. The hierarchical connection between a
husband and w ife thus s erves a poetic fun ction—namely, explicating the
relationship between the didactic poet an d Perses, his intended audience.
In what way is Hesiod’s audience—the fictional image of a listener that
he c onstructs—analogous t o a br ide? Lik e tha t of the imma ture br ide,
Perses’ perspective i s not truly in tegrated into the text. The didactic epic
disciplines P erses an d silen ces him. He i s pr esent only in hi s abs ence.
While Hesiod’s poetic ch oices are explicitly di scussed, Perses’ remain ob-
scure.3 We assume, simply on the basis of the disparity between the broth-
ers, that Perses takes a di stinct poetic st ance.4 And yet his actual views on
poetry ar e never in f act r epresented. Works and Da ys thus pr ivileges the
poet’s perspective over that of the listener. Nevertheless, despite the prece-
dence a ccorded th e poet ’s v oice, Hesiod’s dida ctic poetr y s eeks t o o ver-
come the distance between the brothers. The didactic means of achieving
that goal is certainly not founded on eq uality; the didactic epic does n ot
acknowledge th e a utonomous pr esence of Perses. Rather, in w ishing t o
transform P erses in to th e v ery image of himself, Hesiod ann ounces hi s
paternalistic disposition toward his audience. “You have it, Perses, within
your po wer t o bec ome a little bit lik e me ” seems t o be th e subtext of
Hesiod’s poetry. Didactic poetry aspires to put Perses into Hesiod’s shoes.
This means that the didactic epic’s ideal listener is a pliant figure ready to
be assimilated into the author’s vision.5 By the same token, the ideal wife
 The Socratic Pandora 

is imagined to be a tabula rasa prepared to receive the mark of her hus-

band’s education.6 The male ideal is to marry a w oman whose otherness
does not yet pose a s erious obstacle to her assimilation into the world of
her husband.7
Hesiod does n ot, however, offer a speci fic pedagog ical pr ogram for
turning the woman into a ben eficial mate. This task was un dertaken and
completed in the fourth century BCE by Xenophon, whose didactic Oeco-
nomicus belongs to the Hesiodic tradition. Xenophon’s prose treatise em-
ploys and develops a variety of themes and images originating in Hesiodic
poetry, but provides an impor tant complement. It addresses the problem
of sameness in mar riage b y pr omulgating a systema tic edu cational pr o-
gram for a y oung w ife, based on c onversations w ith her husband. Xeno-
phon’s text contributes to the poetics of marriage as it develops the notion,
already present in Hesiod’s didactic epic, of an analogy between marriage
and th e dida ctic text. More speci fically, by examining th e r elationship
between an educating husband and his feminine disciple, Xenophon con-
nects the figure of the newlywed wife to that of an ideal listener (reader).
Consider, for example, the por trait of the young w ife as pr esented by
the idea l h usband, Ischomachus, to Socr ates. His descr iption depicts a
successful product of Ischomachus’s educational program:

kai\ ti/ a)/n, e)/fh, w)= Sw/kratej, e)pistame/nhn au)th\n pare/labon, h(\ e)/th me\n
ou)/pw pentekai/deka gegonui=a h)=lqe pro\j e)me/, to\n d' e)/mprosqen xro/non
e)/zh u(po\ pollh=j e)pimelei/aj o(/pwj w(j e)la/xista me\n o)/yoito, e)la/xista
d' a)kou/soito, e)la/xista d' e)/roito; ou) ga\r a)gaphto/n soi dokei= ei)=nai, ei)
mo/non h)=lqen e)pistame/nh e)/ria paralabou=sa i(ma/tion a)podei=cai, kai\
e(wrakui=a w(j e)/rga tala/sia qerapai/naij di/dotai; e)pei\ ta/ ge a)mfi\
gaste/ra, e)/fh, pa/nu kalw=j, w)= Sw/kratej, h)=lqe pepaideume/nh: o(/per
me/giston e)/moige dokei= pai/deuma ei)=nai kai\ a)ndri\ kai\ gunaiki/.
(Xenophon, Oec. .–)

[“What c ould sh e ha ve kn own wh en I t ook h er as m y w ife, Socrates? Sh e

was not yet fifteen when she came t o me, and had spent her previous years
under careful supervision so that she might see and hear and speak as little
as possible. Don’t you think it was adequate if she came to me knowing only
how t o t ake w ool an d pr oduce a c loak, and ha d s een h ow spinning t asks
are a llocated t o th e s laves? And besides, she ha d been v ery w ell tr ained t o
control her appetites, Socrates,” he said, “and I think tha t sort of training is
most important for man an d woman alike.”—Trans. Sarah B. Pomeroy]8
 The Socratic Pandora

Parents ha ve th e dut y of preparing th eir daughter t o be a r eceptive and

compliant br ide. This means tha t she should be kn owledgeable of as lit-
tle as possible. 9 It i s en ough tha t sh e kn ow on e kin d of craft: the ar t of
weaving, considered essential to the bride’s preparatory education. Weav-
ing tea ches th e br ide th e meaning of productivity an d in troduces h er
(through the division of weaving labor) to the hierarchy between freeborn
women and domestic s laves.
According t o I schomachus, a w ell-brought-up y oung w oman of fif-
teen should already have a r estrained appetite. Such self-control over her
abdomen s atisfies H esiod’s n otion of the good w ife ( W&D –). In
both texts, physical s elf-restraint i s considered a feminin e v irtue, princi-
pally manifested in matters of food and sex.10 The first stage of her educa-
tion is undertaken early in childhood, by the bride’s mother, who teaches
her t o moder ate h er appetite. Only after thi s elemen tary st age of self-
moderation ( sophrosyne) has been fully in ternalized i s th e g irl r eady t o
be un der th e super vision of her h usband an d t o a cquire s elf-control in
the ar ea in which sh e i s destin ed t o bec ome an a uthority—namely, the
household.11
Although th e br ide’s edu cation a t h er h usband’s hands r equires some
degree of preparation b y h er par ents, she i s pr actically inn ocent of all
knowledge when she enters marriage. Separated from the world during her
childhood, the br ide has bar ely been expos ed t o th e soci al an d cultur al
dimensions of life. The young woman is symbolically presented as blin d,
deaf, and mute—that i s, as someone who has n ot experienced the world
through her senses (Oec..). The husband’s task is thus to open h er eyes
so tha t sh e s ees th e w orld, as w ell as t o make h er li sten t o th e voices of
others. It i s impor tant to r eceive a w ife whose s ensory perception i s not
yet developed. This will allow the husband to gradually construct her per-
spective so that it becomes tied to his. And having barely been exposed to
the opinions of others, the young woman is considered deaf. Her deafness
makes her eager t o hear her instructor’s voice, and she develops a speci al
ear for h er h usband, becoming hi s a vid li stener. And as th e w ife i s fur-
nished with the capacities of perceiving and listening, she is also allowed
(within th e c onfines of convention) t o bec ome a speak er an d t o ga in a
voice of her own (Oec. .–).12
In this respect, the husband creates his wife as a s elf-conscious subject
by taming and instructing her. Paradoxically, as the didactic text su ccess-
fully completes the integration of the w ife into the husband’s world, she
is a llowed t o r ecognize s exual di fferences. The w ife’s assimila tion of her
 The Socratic Pandora 

husband’s masculine worldview is a sig n that her otherness is no longer a

threat. The process of taming the feminine culminates in the wife’s recog-
nition of her distinctive feminine nature:

dia\ de\ to\ th\n fu/sin mh\ pro\j pa/nta tau)ta\ a)mfote/rwn eu)= pefuke/nai, dia\
tou=to kai\ de/ontai ma=llon a)llh/lwn kai\ to\ zeu=goj w)felimw/teron
e(autw=| gege/nhtai, a(\ to\ e(/teron e)llei/petai to\ e(/teron duna/menon.
(Oec. .)

[So, because th ey ar e n ot eq ually w ell en dowed w ith a ll th e s ame na tural

attitudes, they ar e consequently mor e in n eed of each other, and the bond
is m ore b eneficial t o th e c ouple, since on e i s capable wh ere th e oth er i s
deficient.]13

According to Hesiod and Xenophon, the joining of male and female means
facing th e ir resolvable di fferences tha t exi st betw een th em. Both w riters
define a su ccessful mar riage as on e that bonds the two s exes around the
ideal of sameness. At the same time, this very aspiration for identity reflects
the reality of sexual difference that governs their union.
Xenophon’s didactic treatise turns the woman into an ideal listener; her
otherness is suppressed. In this sense, the didactic text is imbued with the
violent and oppressive dimension of cultivation—that is, culture. In learn-
ing the ar t of listening, the woman i s forced to sur render her otherness.
The husband’s language, like didactic poetry, entreats the wife to become
more lik e him. It tea ches h er h ow t o embr ace th e h usband’s w orld. We
cannot regard the husband’s language as s eductive.14

T N T   A L

As is typical of the poetics of marriage, Xenophon’s didactic treatise is, in
fact, a mi sogynist text. As we sha ll s ee, a eulog y for th e “decent woman”
always impli es a def amation of the “deceitful woman.” Ischomachus, the
ideal husband and Xenophon’s alter ego, is responsible for the misogynist
subtext.15 The h usband’s dida ctic a ttempt t o est ablish c ommon g round
between man and wife issues from deep prejudices concerning the inferior
nature of women. According t o X enophon, the w oman’s fun damental
character i s bas ed on h er inna te ins atiability, thus ech oing th e figure of
Pandora in Theogony. But, more interestingly, his conception of women’s
nature i s a lso r eminiscent of the figure of Pandora in Works and Da ys,
where she i s constructed in terms of the opposition betw een nature and
 The Socratic Pandora

artifact. The first w oman i s an ar tifact. There i s n othing na tural in h er

figure; Pandora is foreign to nature. Yet, at the same time, it is natural for
her to b e a rtificial. In a par adoxical mann er, the ar tificial an d a dorned
belong to Pandora’s nature. Hence, in imply ing that there i s an in trinsic
connection between the young girl and the archetypal woman, Xenophon
is saying that the girl’s natural inclination is to become a seducer like Pan-
dora, and that she can escape thi s predicament only if disciplined by the
ideal principles of marriage. A good marriage and an instructive husband
allow for a tr ansformation of the naturally artificial woman into a wholly
“natural” one.
In underscoring the importance of the passage, achieved in matrimony,
from the artificial to the natural, the ideal husband, Ischomachus, repre-
sents Xenophon’s liter ary t aste. For Xenophon, the na tural w oman pr o-
vides an image of the idea l form of a text. This kin d of text, purist in
essence, lacks adornments and consists of a self-transparent language.
The instruction scene in Xenophon’s eulogy for the married couple cel-
ebrates a su ccessful encounter between the two s exes. Marriage cr eates a
home, a pla ce wh ere di fferences ar e suppr essed an d harmon y an d simi-
larity are sought after. Marriage thus becomes an institutional form of the
human aspir ation for s ameness. According t o I schomachus, the idea l of
sameness i s th e goa l of the ph ysical union betw een h usband an d w ife.
However, eros and sameness are apparently incompatible terms.
sunelhlu/qamen, w)= gu/nai, w(j kai\ tw=n swma/twn koinwnh/sontej
a)llh/loij (“Wife, were we not joined in mar riage to share our bodies in
intercourse w ith each other too?” Oec. .). With this rhet orical quer y
Ischomachus opens the discussion of sex. To be sure, he does so with hon-
esty and dir ectness. Yet (or should I sa y hence?) his er otic discussion is
devoid of any seductive force. Why is that? Because the didactic tradition
to which Xenophon’s text belongs v iews marriage as constituting an anti-
dote to eros. Xenophon’s text thus strives to create a split between marriage
and the erotic experience. Such a split is not always required: consider, for
example, the biblical saying: “Therefore a man lea ves his father and his
mother and cleaves to his wife, and they become one flesh” (Gen. .). The
author of Genesis views marriage between man and woman as a corollary
of their pr imal erotic discovery. In this sense, the di fference between the
biblical text and X enophon’s didactic text is sig nificant. The biblical c on-
nection between husband and wife is essentially er otic in nature precisely
because the text emphasizes the married couple’s corporeal union in the
context of their betrayal of God.16 Sex is the forbidden fruit of marriage.
 The Socratic Pandora 

Moreover, the sexual innocence of paradise was marked by their naked-

ness. Now, after their expulsion from the Garden of Eden, man and woman
are dressed for the first time in th e “garments of skins” that God has pr o-
vided them (Gen. .). That i s to s ay, the covered body, and not nudity,
is the sign of their eroticism. Adam and Eve would fully discover the secret
of their s exuality only wh en th e c orporeal sour ce of their shame ha d
been covered in clothing. The biblical narrative constructs the dichotomy
between s exual ig norance and s exual knowledge through the opposition
between nudity and dr ess. While th e la ws of the Gar den of Eden ma in-
tain sexual innocence, marriage tr ansgresses them and legitimizes sexual
knowledge.
The dichotomy between nudity and clothing is central to Ischomachus’s
discussion and to Xenophon’s textual notions. Acting in a tradition of anti-
erotic discourses, Ischomachus seeks to introduce the ethics of nudity into
the sexual relationship with his wife. He wants, in other words, to retain
sexual innocence within the framework of a sexual relationship. When his
wife approaches him s eductively, wearing makeup and platform shoes, he
reacts with disgust and begins to sermonize:

w)= gu/nai, mh/te yimuqi/ou mh/te e)gxou/shj xrw/mati h(/desqai ma=llon h)\ tw=|
sw=|, a)ll' w(/sper oi( qeoi\ e)poi/hsan i(/ppoij me\n i(/ppouj, bousi\ de\ bou=j
h(/diston, proba/toij de\ pro/bata, ou(/tw kai\ oi( a)/nqrwpoi a)nqrw/pou
sw=ma kaqaro\n oi)o / ntai h(d/ iston ei)n= ai: ai( d' a)pa/tai au(t
= ai tou\j me\n e)c/ w
pwj du/naint' a)\n a)necele/gktwj e)capata=n, suno/ntaj de\ a)ei\ a)na/gkh
a(li/skesqai, a)\n e)pixeirw=sin e)capata=n a)llh/louj. h)\ ga\r e)c eu)nh=j
a(li/skontai e)canista/menoi pri\n paraskeua/sasqai h)\ u(po\ i(drw=toj
e)le/gxontai h)\ u(po\ dakru/wn basani/zontai h)\ u(po\ loutrou= a)lhqinw=j
katwpteu/qhsan.
(Oec. .)

[I said, “Wife, you must understand that I too do not prefer the color of white
powder and rouge to your own, but just as the gods have made horses most
attractive t o h orses, cattle t o ca ttle, and sh eep t o sh eep, so h uman beings
consider the human body most attractive when it is unadorned. These tricks
might perhaps su cceed in dec eiving str angers w ithout being detected, but
those who spend their whole lives together are bound to be found out if they
try to deceive each other. Either they are found out when they get out of bed
before they have got dressed, or they are detected by a drop of sweat, or con-
victed when they cry, or are revealed as they truly are when they take a bath.”]
 The Socratic Pandora

Ischomachus conceives of the ideal relationship between husband and wife

as on e of honesty an d openn ess. This mor al idea lization has a textua l
significance. Adopting th e ideolog y of sameness, Ischomachus positions
simplicity in opposition to extravagance. In teaching a wife how to rid her-
self of the allure of (feminine) beauty and how to adopt instead a plainer
look, Xenophon tea ches hi s r eaders th e va lue of the una dorned st yle of
writing.17 Simplicity helps Ischomachus to realize his ideal vision of phys-
ical union within matrimony: intimacy between two people who see each
other strictly as they are. For Ischomachus, matrimonial sex should be gov-
erned by the principles of truthfulness and transparency.18 Only strangers
use the s eductive t actics of lovers. As a c orollary, only lovers behave like
strangers who are preoccupied with their external appearance.
Developing mutual trust requires that the wife embrace the ethical codes
of a natural appearance, which is the aesthetic goal of those who conceive
of appearance as a mer e externa lity. Being th e unna tural outer skin of
human na ture, appearance i s c onsidered a sig n of immorality. Ischo-
machus’s preference for th e unadorned human body i s typical of conser-
vative morality. He belongs to a long tr adition that identifies naturalness,
transparency, and nudity with truthfulness. The identification of the naked
body w ith truth i s c losely ti ed t o th e G reek v isualization of gender dif-
ference. As Andrew Stewar t shows in hi s study of representations of the
body in an cient G reece, men ar e usua lly nak ed in G reek ar t, whereas
women are usually clothed.19 Nakedness is a differentiating device. It char-
acterizes the “natural” masculine sex, while clothing is the sign of the con-
structed feminine sex.20
The didactic tradition aspires to create women according to the precept
of the masculin e idea lization of nakedness. Instructors lik e H esiod an d
Xenophon wish to remove women’s clothing and force on them the ethos
of naturalness. This masculine aspiration lies at the root of the opposition
between woman as w ife and woman as s educer. Hesiod, as we shall soon
see, constructs the opposition betw een the two by means of the imager y
of nakedness and dr ess. This opposition was en thusiastically adopted by
Roman moralists, who labored to define feminine virtue through its na t-
ural appearance. Plautus, for example, in a par ody of the Roman puritan
ideology,21 reproduces the ethical standards that define feminine beauty in
the following clichés:

Pulchra mulier nuda erit quam purpurata pulchrior:

poste nequiquam exornata est ben e, si morata est ma le.
 The Socratic Pandora 

Pulchrum ornatum turpes mores peius caen o conlinunt.

Nam si pulchr a est nimi s ornata est.
(Mostellaria –)

[A beautiful woman will be more beautiful naked than extravagantly dressed.

Hence, if she is of bad moral character, she has in va in richly adorned her-
self. Ugly behavior defiles mor e than dir t an h onored beauty. Therefore, if
a woman is beautiful she is already more than en ough adorned.]

Beauty manifests its elf more easily in th e naked body than in a body en-
cumbered by clothing (contrasting nuda with purpurata). Nudity is, more-
over, identified with mor al conduct. “Nude” implies simplicity and natu-
ralness and high moral standards. As both t ypes of women—the morata,
the w ell-behaved w oman, and th e immor al w oman, morata mal e—are
adorned, the contrast between them i s bas ed on th e di stinction between
internal and externa l kinds of adornments. While the morata is ador ned
from th e inside, the a dornment of the exornata is s een as an in decent
externality, a superfluity and, hence, a superficial addition.22
The Roman morata and the morata male are derivations of Hesiod’s two
images of femininity. These are images of maidens who will soon become
wives. While th e idea l (an onymous) br ide i s nak ed, the dec eitful br ide
(Pandora) appears in a w edding dress.

   ( –)

Hesiod descr ibes th e in terior of a c ountry h ouse dur ing a c old w inter.
His descr iption penetrates the undiscovered shadowy par ts of the house
where the naked maiden, who “knows nothing of Aphrodite,” washes her
body with oil. The naked maiden is domestic and is therefore hidden from
the public eye. She is innocent of all erotic knowledge, a helpless and gen-
tle cr eature who r equires ma le protection. She may be c onsidered to be,
as Richar d H amilton has argu ed, a ci vilized impr ovement, a sublima ted
version of the primordial woman.23 Contrasted with Pandora, the portrait
of the nak ed g irl washing h erself provides an image of feminine inn o-
cence, which is recommended to men as th eir preferred object of desire.
This gives the episode of the naked woman a specific role within Hesiod’s
edifying text. The didactic author offers his male reader a gift in exchange
for th e di vine g ift g iven t o men a t th e beg inning of his poem. Hesiod
teaches that man can be released from the dangerous trap that is Pandora’s
gift once h e finds a pr oper substitute: he n eeds t o r eplace Pandora w ith
 The Socratic Pandora

a harmless nak ed maiden who promises innocence, loyalty, and s ecurity

within the home. Our attention i s dir ected, however, to the antithesis of
the naked woman, the clothed woman, the one who embodies the core of
male anxiety.

  

Hesiod’s admonitions t o his r eader r egarding the dangers of feminine
seduction are directly concerned with the coquettishly dressed woman. mh\de\
gunh/ se no/on pugosto/loj e)capata/tw: “Do not let the tightly dr essed
[pugostolos] woman tempt your mind,” he warns (W&D ). This danger
is, of course, signaled in the image of Pandora, clad as she is in g irdle and
veil, decked out w ith jewelries and garlands —the appearance of a t ypical
Greek bride. Why does this image of Pandora leave the r eader unsettled?
Why does Pandora’s maidenhood connote danger rather than security? How
can the innocent visage of a typical Greek maiden contain a danger?
I suggest tha t Hesiod uses Pandora’s bridal costume as a v isual synec-
doche of the feminine tr ap. It i s precisely the conventional costume that
represents feminin e dec eit. In oth er w ords, Hesiod emplo ys th e br ide’s
innocent appear ance as a means t o expos e th e first w oman’s r adical
break betw een in teriority an d exter iority. Pandora’s c ostume does n ot
refer t o h er r ole as th e futur e br ide of Epimetheus. Rather, it s erves as
a met onymic sig n of her dua l na ture, of the dich otomous stru cture of
her soul an d body. The c lothed woman manifests a di screpancy between
the v isible an d th e in visible, a di screpancy tha t i s ess ential t o th e ar t of
seduction.

T S  P

How does P andora impr ess h erself on our liter ary imag ination? How i s
she r emembered? Does sh e str ike us as a ma iden r adiating th e bea uty
of innocence, or does ev il domina te th e image w e ha ve of her? I ndeed,
Zeus’s remarks to Prometheus already prefigure Pandora as evil. In warn-
ing Prometheus of his plan t o give humanity a kakon, an evil (W&D ),
Zeus makes Pandora the sign of evil even before he creates her.
At th e s ame time, it i s impor tant t o emphasi ze wha t w e have a lready
underscored in our reading of Theogony—namely, that evil is not the only
characteristic of the first woman. Pandora i s not just ev il. She manifests
a hybrid form ca lled kalon kakon in Theogony (), a “beautiful evil.” In
other words, feminine evil is never apparent. Its existence always remains
ambiguous. In this respect, Pandora is, first of all, a duality.
 The Socratic Pandora 

Another way to say this is to note that Pandora’s evil character is simul-
taneously a source of delight for men, terpsis (). The pleasure she grants
is ambiguous in the same way that Hesiod finds poetry ambiguous.24 This
is first and foremost announced in th e description of Pandora’s creation:

(/Hfaiston d' e)ke/leuse perikluto\n o(/tti ta/xista

gai=an u(/dei fu/rein, e)n d' a)nqrw/pou qe/men au)dh\n
kai\ sqe/noj, a)qana/th|j de\ qeh=|j ei)j w)=pa e)i/skein
parqenikh=j kalo\n ei)=doj e)ph/raton: au)ta\r )Aqh/nhn
e)/rga didaskh=sai, poludai/dalon i(sto\n u(fai/nein:
kai\ xa/rin a)mfixe/ai kefalh=| xruse/hn )Afrodi/thn
kai\ po/qon a)rgale/on kai\ guiobo/rouj meledw/naj:
e)n de\ qe/men ku/neo/n te no/on kai\ e)pi/klopon h)=qoj
(Ermei/hn h)/nwge, dia/ktoron )Argei+fo/nthn.
w(\j e)/faq': oi(\ d' e)pi/qonto Dii\ Kroniwni a)/nakti.
au)ti/ka d' e)k gai/hj pla/sse kluto\j )Amfiguh/eij
parqe/nw| ai)doi/h| i)/kelon Kroni/dew dia\ boula/j:
zw=se de\ kai\ ko/smhse qea\ glaukw=pij )Aqh/nh:
a)mfi\ de/ oi( Xa/rite/j te qeai\ kai\ po/tnia Peiqw\
o(/rmouj xrusei/ouj e)/qesan xroi/+: a)mfi\ de\ th/n ge
[Wrai kalli/komoi ste/fon a)/nqesin ei)arinoi=sin:
pa/nta de/ oi( xroi\+ ko/smon e)fh/rmose Palla\j )Aqh/nh.
e)n d' a)/ra oi( sth/qessi dia/ktoroj )Argei+fo/nthj
yeu/dea/ q' ai(muli/ouj te lo/gouj kai\ e)pi/klopon h)=qoj
[teu=ce Dio\j boulh=|si baruktu/pou: e)n d' a)/ra fwnh\n
qh=ke qew=n kh=ruc, o)no/mhne de\ th/nde gunai=ka
Pandw/rhn, o(/ti pa/ntej )Olu/mpia dw/mat' e)/xontej
dw=ron e)dw/rhsan, ph=m' a)ndra/sin a)lfhsth=|sin…
a)lla\ gunh\ xei/ressi pi/qou me/ga pw=m' a)felou=sa
e)ske/daj':a)nqrw/poisi d' e)mh/sato kh/dea lugra/.
mou/nh d' au)to/qi )Elpi\j e)n a)rrh/ktoisi do/moisin
e)/ndon e)/mimne pi/qou u(po\ xei/lesin, ou)de\ qu/raze
e)ce/pth: pro/sqen ga\r e)pe/llabe pw=ma pi/qoio
ai)gio/xou boulh=|si Dio\j nefelhgere/tao.
(W&D –)

[He ordered far-famed Hephaestos at once to mix ear th with water, and to
put into it human voice and strength, but to give her a f ace like an immor tal
goddess, the charming , lovely shape of a ma iden. And h e t old Athena t o
 The Socratic Pandora

teach her women’s work, how to weave the intricate loom. And he told Aphro-
dite to pour golden g race upon h er head and painful desire and cares that
weaken limbs. And he ordered Hermes, the Messenger, Slayer of Argos, to put
into her the mind of a bitch and a treacherous nature. Thus he commanded,
and th ey obe yed Lor d Zeus, son of Kronos. At on ce th e f amed Lame One
molded out of earth the likeness of a modest ma iden as th e son of Kronos
wished, and th e g ray-eyed god dess Athena g irded h er an d dr essed h er.
Around her body the divine Graces and lady Peitho put chains of gold, and
her head the fair-haired Hours wreathed with flowers of spring. And Pallas
Athena fit all manner of adornment to her form. And the Messenger, Slayer
of Argos, into h er h eart put li es and w ily w ords and a tr eacherous na ture
according to the w ill of loud-thundering Zeus. And the herald of the gods
gave her voice, and he named th e woman Pandora, because all of the gods
who live upon Oly mpus gave her a g ift, a sorrow to men wh o eat bread. . . .
But the woman, lifting the great lid of the jar with her hands, scattered them
abroad, and wrought ruinous sorrows for men. Only hope remained within
the jar , in its unbr eakable h ome, under th e r im, and did n ot fly out th e
opening. Before that could happen the lid of the jar stopped her (by the will
of aegis-bearing, cloud-gathering Zeus).—Trans. Jeffrey M. Hurwit]25

Pandora i s cr eated fr om c lay, which i s a mixtur e of two c omponents,

water an d ear th ( W&D ). In shaping h er char acter, the gods cr eate a
two-faced figure. On the one hand, she is given the virginal and innocent
countenance of a beautiful young maiden. On the other hand, in contrast
to th e t ypical image of the t aciturn, inexperienced ma iden, Pandora i s
elaborately skilled in t alking and weaving, and i s equipped w ith a ll sor ts
of erotic g ifts and s eductive techniques ( W&D –). This oxymoronic
woman consequently becomes th e fer tile sour ce of deceits and illusions.
The principal manifestation of her ambiguity is her shape. In becoming a
container of voice, thought, and desire—a vase—Pandora is made into an
exteriority that conceals unknown contents.
In this respect the jar (or , in later versions, the inf amous box) is truly
emblematic of her figure. It n ot only c onsists of the s ame ma terials as
Pandora (ear th an d wa ter); it embodi es th e dua l inside-outside stru c-
ture. Furthermore, the anecdote of the jar opens yet another question: did
Pandora open th e jar lik e a th oughtless a utomaton, or did sh e open it
deliberately, in a t ypical gesture of feminine curiosity? The jar’s ambigu-
ous hidden content is exposed: a bittersweet mixture of sorrow and hope
(W&D –).26 The first woman thus comes to embody this dichotomous
 The Socratic Pandora 

structure, the interplay between exteriority and interiority. In tr aditional

thought thi s dua lity i s expr essed thr ough th e binar y r elationship of ap-
pearance and essence.
But the gods ar e principally concerned with creating the first woman’s
appearance. They ar e interested in h ow she looks. If Pandora’s impact i s
mainly derived from the way she looks, how can she be blamed for doing
evil? How can sh e be c onsidered a r esponsible agent if her g reatest f ault
is a passi ve on e? H owever, the gods mak e P andora a r esponsible agen t.
They conceive her to be an a ctive persona. She is not merely appearance.
Her visibility is not only reflective of passivity; it has an active dimension.
That is to say, Pandora’s appearance is not only something tha t is visible,
but also something that conceals. Her appearance is thus a par adox, since
it at once marks an d obfuscates the hidden space of inwardness.
Feminine bea uty cann ot, then, be un derstood as a mer e externa lity.
Feminine beauty always hints at something be yond itself, at the presence
of something invisible. A w oman’s v isibility impli es tr anscendence—not
a metaphysical transcendence aspiring toward an absolute, but a transcen-
dence of appearance that points toward a dimension of the body that can
never b e s een. Pandora’s beauty suggests th e pr esence of a soul. Her jar-
like constitution and dua l na ture ar e indicative of what w e r ecognize t o
be the structure of body and soul. Since for Hesiod Pandora is the bearer
par excellence of this duality, since she embodies the discrepancy between
external appear ance an d hid den in teriority, we ma y s ay tha t H esiod’s
conception of the feminin e s erves as th e g rounds for un derstanding th e
human link betw een body an d soul. As suggested, the feminine di screp-
ancy between external appearance and invisible interiority contains a moral
for the male beholder. Appearances lie: they are essentially divorced from
truth; they st and in opposition t o truth; and women ar e the incarnation
of this opposition.
The sig nificance of women’s deceitful nature i s not just met aphysical,
however. It has clear practical and ethical implications. It turns out that for
Hesiod th e na ture of femininity—the feminin e as appear ance—is w hat
generates and regulates erotic interaction between man an d woman. The
field of Eros tha t i s, the er otic game —is ess entially feminin e beca use it
is bas ed on th e unna tural feminin e en tanglement of showing an d c on-
cealing, of visible an d in visible. Pandora’s s eductions ar e sy mptomatic
of her dual constitution of body and soul, which is her feminine essence.
Her image go verns Hesiod’s understanding of the er otic pr edicament of
humanity. The first woman is a sign of the tragic fact that men cannot be
 The Socratic Pandora

the masters of their erotic life. They ar e thrown into the erotic situation
whose modus oper andi is c oncealed, which r emains a s ecret t o th em—a
modus operandi, in other words, that is regulated by woman.

S  T

Hesiod’s image of Pandora c ontains a ca thexis of the er otic and th e de-
ceitful. Through the image of the first woman, eros becomes met aphysi-
cally and morally problematic. Yet, in the way that the image of Pandora
gives rise to a new literary persona—the seducer—it concomitantly opens
up th e possibilit y of rehabilitating eros, of articulating th e er otic as th e
medium of wisdom and truth. This transformation of eros will specifically
concern us in th e context of the figure of Socrates, the archetypal philo-
sopher. Plato’s Socr ates i s our ma in c oncern. Socrates’ seductive figure
is cru cial for our un derstanding of the feminin e dimension of the text
because he embodies, as I will show, the heritage of the Hesiodic Pandora.
Before we turn t o the Platonic image of Socrates, however, let us first
consider th e figure of Socrates as it appears in a par ticularly in teresting
episode in X enophon’s Memorabilia. In th e epi sode tha t c oncerns us,
Xenophon portrays Socrates gazing a t and consequently reflecting on th e
beauty of a well-known hetaera. This kind of situation is uncharacteristic
of Socrates and clearly foreign to the ethos of the Platonic dialogue. This
is not to say that beauty is irrelevant to Plato’s Socrates: on the contrary,
beauty an d its r elationship t o th e form of the bea utiful i s a major c on-
cern in a var iety of Platonic dialogues. Yet whereas the Platonic Socr ates
frequently r esponds to the corporeal and met aphysical manifest ations of
beauty, his reflections on bea uty are never inspired by the appear ance of
a beautiful woman.27
In Memorabilia . the Socratic discourse on beautiful appearance grows
from the dazzling sight of Theodote, a hetaera.28 The passage that describes
Socrates’ encounter w ith Th eodote i s a mir ror v ersion of the f amous
Socratic en counter w ith an other w oman—the h oly Diotima —as r elated
by Plato.29 Whereas in Pla to’s Symposium (d) Socrates pays homage to
the wise priestess, presenting himself as her devoted student in th e art of
love (ta erotica), in Xenophon’s Memorabilia Socrates assumes th e role of
an erotic guide wh o teaches a w oman about a lo ve that is far from being
metaphysical.30 In both a ccounts, however, the source of Socrates’ eroto-
didacticism is his encounter with a w oman.
Theodote’s episode allows us to observe Socrates in a r are moment: he
gazes at a beautiful woman and analyzes the visual effect of her appearance,
 The Socratic Pandora 

attempting t o deciph er its enig matic er otic for ce. As h e o vercomes hi s

initial w onder, Socrates’ reflections on th e na ture of Theodote’s bea uty
enable us t o c onsider th e tr ansfiguration of Hesiod’s P andora in to th e
philosophical, Socratic context. The first detail we notice is that Theodote
emulates P andora n ot only in h er ex quisite bea uty, but in h er name as
well. Like Pandora, Theodote is “a divine gift.”
In his Memorabilia Xenophon relates a s eries of Socratic conversations
concerning the arts. Among them is the art of love. After visiting the ate-
liers of a painter, a sculptor, and a maker of armor, Socrates pays a visit—
not typically noticed as connected with the other three calls—to the home
of the famous hetaera Theodote.31 How does her art relate to that of Par-
rhasius, Cleiton, and Pi stias, the pa inter, sculptor, and armor -maker, re-
spectively? What makes it possible to include Theodote’s erotic profession
in the mimetic arts? Is the evocation of Theodote’s occupation meant only
to provide a c ontrast with the sister arts?
One way to understand the relationship between these four artists would
be to compare the way each depicts th e human body. In considering the
painter, sculptor, armor-maker, and h etaera, there i s a g radual decr ease
in th e deg ree of separation betw een th e ar tistic medium an d th e body.
Whereas the painter creates two-dimensional representations of the human
body—that is, representations based on a visual illusionism that compen-
sates for th e remoteness of his work from any actual body—the sculptor
takes pr ide in cr eating thr ee-dimensional figures tha t, although di stinct
from what they represent, occupy a similar position in spa ce. The maker
of armor must a ddress th e a ctual n eeds of an iden tifiable body , while,
finally, the hetaera’s art makes use of her own body as the ultimate source
of pleasure. In evaluating these four arts through the criterion of distance
from the corporeal, painting would seem to be the highest and most intel-
lectual form, while the work of the hetaera appears t o be a t the bottom
of the ladder. And yet, despite its appar ent infer iority, Theodote r eceives
Socrates’ (or Xenophon’s) greatest attention. She is the only one of the four
artists w ith wh om Socr ates dev elops a di alogue of considerable length.
Does Socr ates va lue Th eodote’s ar t mor e than th e mimetic ar ts? Befor e
examining her professional consciousness, Socrates discusses her appear-
ance, which is fundamental to her professional success.
Theodote’s bea uty a ttracts man y a dmirers. Their r eaction t o h er r e-
calls the paradigmatic response to Pandora. In repeating the role assumed
by th e or iginal s eductive w oman, Theodote a lso mak es appear ance h er
emblem. She is lavishly adorned (polutelos kekosmemenen, ..)32 and is
 The Socratic Pandora

fully aware of her beauty as a ma tter of presentation. The central role of

appearance for Th eodote and her observers is described at the beginning
of the episode:

Gunaiko\j de/ pote ou)/shj e)n th=| po/lei kalh=j, h(=| o)/noma h)=n Qeodo/th, kai\
oi(/aj sunei=nai tw=| pei/qonti, mnhsqe/ntoj au)th=j tw=n paro/ntwn tino\j
kai\ ei)po/ntoj o(/ti krei=tton ei)/h lo/gou to\ ka/lloj th=j gunaiko/j, kai\
zwgra/fouj fh/santoj ei)sie/nai pro\j au)th\n a)peikasome/nouj, oi(=j e)kei/nhn
e)pideiknu/ein e(auth=j o(/sa kalw=j e)/xoi, 0Ite/on a)\n ei)/h qeasome/nouj, e)/fh o(
Swkra/thj: ou) ga\r dh\ a)kou/sasi/ ge to\ lo/gou krei=tton e)s / ti katamaqei=n.
kai\ o( dihghsa/menoj, ou)k a)n\ fqa/noit', e)f / h, a)kolouqou=ntej. ou(t
/ w me\n dh\
poreuqe/ntej pro\j th\n Qeodo/thn kai\ katalabo/ntej zwgra/fw| tini\
paresthkui=an e)qea/santo. pausame/nou de\ tou= zwgra/fou, ]W a)/ndrej,
e)/fh o( Swkra/thj, po/teron h(ma=j dei= ma=llon Qeodo/th| xa/rin e)/xein, o(/ti
h(mi=n to\ ka/lloj e(auth=j e)pe/deicen, h)\ tau/thn h(mi=n, o(/ti e)qeasa/meqa; a)r = ' ei)
me\n tau/th| w)felimwte/ra e)sti+\n h( e)pi/deicij, tau/thn h(mi=n xa/rin e(kte/on,
ei) de\ h(mi=n h( qe/a, h(ma=j tau/th|; ei)po/ntoj de/ tinoj o(/ti di/kaia le/goi,
Ou)kou=n, e)f / h, au(t / h me\n h)d/ h te par' h(mw=n e)p
/ ainon kerdai/nei kai/, e)peida\n
ei)j plei/ouj diaggei/lwmen, plei/w w)felh/setai: h(mei=j de\ h)/dh te w(=n
e)qeasa/meqa e)piqumou=men a(/yasqai kai\ a)/pimen u(poknizo/menoi kai\
a)pelqo/ntej poqh/somen. e)k de\ tou/twn ei)ko\j h(ma=j me\n qerapeu/ein, tau/thn
de\ qerapeu/esqai. kai\ h( Qeodo/th, Nh\ Di/', e)/fh, ei) toi/nun tau=q' ou(/twj
e)/xei, e)me\ a)\n de/oi u(mi=n th=j qe/aj xa/rin e)/xein.
(Mem. ..–)

[There was a bea utiful ( kale) w oman in th e cit y, whose name was Th eo-
dote, and who was th e sor t to keep company with whoever persuaded her.
When on e of those wh o w ere pr esent men tioned h er an d s aid tha t th e
beauty of the woman surpassed speech; and when he had said that painters,
to wh om sh e di splayed as mu ch of herself as was n oble t o di splay, visited
her in order to draw her likeness, Socrates said, “We must go t o behold her,
for surely it i s not possible for th ose who have merely heard to learn wha t
surpasses speech.” And the one who had described her said, “Hurry up and
follow.” Thus th ey w ent t o Th eodote an d came upon h er st anding for a
certain painter, and they beheld her. After the painter left o ff, Socrates said,
“Men, should w e be mor e g rateful t o Th eodote for di splaying for us h er
beauty, or she to us beca use we beheld? If the display is more beneficial to
her, as is it for h er to be grateful to us, while if the beholding is more bene-
ficial t o us, for us t o be g rateful t o h er?” And wh en someon e s aid tha t
 The Socratic Pandora 

what he said was just, he said, “She, then, already gains from our praise and
will be th e mor e ben efited wh enever w e sh ould r eport it t o mor e people;
while w e a lready desir e t o t ouch wha t w e ha ve beh eld an d w ill go a way
rather excited and will long for what we have left behind. From these things
it i s pla usible tha t it i s w e wh o s erve an d sh e wh o r eceives s ervice.” And
Theodote said, “By Zeus, if this is so, then it i s I wh o should be g rateful to
you for th e beholding.”—Trans. Amy L. Bonnette]33

Socrates’ encounter with Theodote revolves around her striking appear-

ance. This pr ovokes r eflections on th e kinds of gaze t o which Th eodote
is subjected. She is an object of at least thr ee: the gaze of lovers, the gaze
of artists, and n ow, with Socr ates’ arrival, the gaze of the philosoph er.
Theodote i s n ot simply captur ed in men ’s e yes; she i s a lso an object of
imitation. While artists strive to capture her beautiful appearance in their
respective visual forms of representation, the layman too struggles (even
if vainly) to do the same thing with words. Socrates explains the desire to
imitate the beauty of Theodote as an er otic r esponse. Her beauty a ffects
those wh o look upon h er, inciting a desir e t o t ouch wha t i s s een. For
Socrates this desire remains unfulfilled and so bec omes a long ing. Long-
ing is precisely what causes those who have seen Theodote to return to her
again and again. Longing is what makes her viewers regular customers, or,
to use Theodote’s own language, friends, philoi (Mem. ..). Her appear-
ance i s ph ysical, corporeal. And y et, paradoxically, her pr esence i s fun-
damentally unattainable. Her beauty, though physical, cannot be captured
by th e hand tha t t ouches it. It cannot be h eld or poss essed b y oth ers. It
remains a sour ce of longing, the source of the ar tistic dr ive to r epresent
and capture the uncapturable.
This invisible dimension of Theodote’s appearance links h er art to the
other thr ee ar tistic forms tha t interest Socr ates. They ar e of interest be-
cause of their ability to represent the invisible. Socrates inquires into the
painter’s ar t of imitating the char acter (ethos) of the soul in pa int. He i s
interested in th e sculptor’s mode of representing emotions ( pathos), and
in the armor-maker’s ability to create breastplates that imitate the body’s
eurhythmia. Socrates is curious about these dimensions of the artists’ work
because, for him, the criterion for ju dging the visual quality of a work of
art is the artist’s ability to transcend the visual.
In th e cas e of the pa inter an d sculpt or, it i s de finitely a q uestion of
becoming aware of the role of the soul in endowing the body with mean-
ing. Thus, Socrates gets Parrhasius to admit that his painted figures reflect
 The Socratic Pandora

the invisible qualities of the psyche (Mem. ..), and he leads Cleiton to
see that his art of representation must f ace up to the activities of the soul
(..). According to Socrates, a good imitation succeeds in endowing an
appearance w ith its o wn pr inciple of life. This pr inciple i s applicable t o
the art of armor, which, in Socrates’ view, rests on a r epresentation of the
body’s in ternal harmon y an d unit y. Socrates tea ches th e thr ee ar tists t o
develop th eir capa city for obs ervation an d th eir abilit y t o r ead in visible
meaning in to wha t th ey s ee and, correspondingly, to cr eate appear ances
that embody hid den qualities.
Theodote’s ar tistic st atus i s ex ceptional beca use h er ar t i s n ot r epre-
sentational. She does n ot cr eate r epresentations as mu ch as sh e ena cts
forms of self-representation. Theodote pr esents herself as a w ork of art.
Her art is not mimetic, at least not in the ordinary sense. It does not refer
to an ything but its elf. Her ar t i s on e of self-patterning, shaping th e s elf
into th e form of a perfected object of desire.34 In order to e ffect thi s,
Theodote not only has t o be c ompetent; she must poss ess true exper tise
in what Socr ates understands to be th e di alectics of body and soul. This
is also what makes her art, in his view, the highest of the aforementioned
art forms. Theodote, however, seems to be unaware of her privileged posi-
tion as an ar tist, and it i s only thr ough a Socr atic di alogue (in its X eno-
phonic form) tha t she gains access to the possibility of self-knowledge.
Xenophon’s Socr ates r eveals t o Th eodote a r eflective pa th tha t a llows
her to come to terms w ith and assume r esponsibility for h er professional
life. Two main themes recur in the questions Socrates poses to Theodote:
the pla ce an d sig nificance of the gaze, and th e di alectics of the gaze, in
which sh e i s a lways involved. “Should w e be mor e g rateful t o Th eodote
for di splaying for us h er beauty, or she to us beca use we beheld?” Theo-
dote cannot escape h er role as an object of desire, an object of sight, but
Socrates i s nevertheless insi stent on lea ding h er t o a n ew understanding
of herself. By means of his questioning, he draws her attention to the fact
that her appearance is not something given in itself as much as it is some-
thing always dependent on th e gaze of a viewer. That is to say, Theodote
has an appear ance, first and for emost, because sh e i s par t of a w orld of
gazes, entangled in the human dynamics of looking and being looked at.35
This understanding has a liberating effect, according to Socrates. Theodote
should n ot un derstand h erself as an object t o be desir ed or ig nored b y
others, but as an a ctive agen t in a c omplicated h uman in teraction w ith
those who see and are attracted by what they see. At the same time, those
who see are always themselves being seen. This constitutes the second part
 The Socratic Pandora 

of the Socratic conversation with Theodote, which is concerned with the

place and significance of skill and contrivance in h er professional life:

o(/ ti a)\n le/gousa eu)frai/noij, kai\ o(/ti dei= to\n me\n e)pimelo/menon a)sme/nwj
u(pode/xesqai, to\n de\ trufw=nta a)poklei/ein, kai\ a)rrwsth/santo/j ge
fi/lou frontistikw=j e)piske/yasqai kai\ kalo/n ti pra/cantoj sfo/dra
sunhsqh=nai kai\ tw=| sfo/dra sou= fronti/zonti o(/lh| th=| yuxh=| kexari/sqai:
filei=n ge mh\n eu)= oi)=d' o(/ti e)pi/stasai ou) mo/non malakw=j, a)lla\ kai\
eu)noi+kw=j:
(Mem. ..)

[You learn both h ow you mig ht g ratify w ith a look an d delig ht w ith what
you s ay; and that you must r eceive w ith g ladness one who i s attentive but
shut out one who is spoiled; and that when a friend is sick, at least, to watch
over him w orriedly, and when he does something n oble to be ex ceedingly
pleased by it a long w ith him; and to g ratify w ith your whole soul th e one
who worries about y ou exceedingly.]

The term “contrivance” (mechane) i s opp osed to lu ck ( tuche), which, in

the er otic field, is ti ed t o th e doma in of instincts an d impulsi veness—
the unpredictable and uncontrollable power of eros. In the context of the
theatrical stage, mechane refers to the technological ability to produce the
effect of a sudden godly appear ance. In an ana logous manner, mechane is
what enables th e h etaera t o simula te th e e ffects of passion. At th e s ame
time, the art of love becomes an ar t only through the artist’s skill in c on-
cealing the existence of the mechane behind a cur tain of appearances.36
In celebrating the impor tance of mechane for Theodote’s ar t, Socrates
reproduces his own version of Pandora’s dual dolos: feminine existence is
deceitful in having an external appearance that does not match its hidden
interior; and it is again deceitful in hiding the difference between interior-
ity and external appearance. Whereas the dolos of Pandora is manifest in
the manner in which her beauty freezes the viewer’s gaze, allowing appear-
ance to dominate essence, Socrates’ philosophical gaze liberates the struc-
ture of the feminine trompe l’oeil from its H esiodic stigma. For Socr ates,
Theodote’s external appear ance is based on a mechane she must learn t o
master. Her beauty is based on a form of self-knowledge. In guiding Theo-
dote t oward a s elf-understanding tha t w ould a llow h er t o be in c ontrol
of her appear ance, Socrates must mak e us e of the ess ential di stinction
between body an d soul: “And in it [y our body i s] a soul thr ough which
 The Socratic Pandora

you learn both h ow you might gratify with a look an d delight with what
you s ay” (Mem. ..). The soul i s the motivating force of the hetaera’s
conduct, gestures, and appearance. Only by recognizing the invisible dimen-
sion of her being can sh e excel in an d profit from the art of love.
Socrates’ deep un derstanding of the h etaera’s er otic ar t i s n ot c oinci-
dental but i s tied to the nature of his philosophical practice:

e)n de\ tou/tw| yuxh/n, h(=| katamanqa/neij kai\ w(j a)\n e)mble/pousa xari/zoio
kai\ o(/ ti a)\n le/gousa eu)frai/noij.
(Mem. ..)

[And I also have female friends who will not allow me to leave them day or
night, since they are learning lo ve charms an d incantations from me.]

Socrates’ irony sh ould n ot c onceal th e f act tha t in th e abo ve pass age h e

proclaims both his authority in the field of eros and his own seductive pres-
ence. As Theodote well understands, the source of Socrates’ erotic knowl-
edge i s philosophy. The Socr atic philosophica l pr actice i s thus linked by
Xenophon to the art of love and more particularly to the art of the hetaera.
With this connection in min d, we may turn n ow from Xenophon’s anec-
dotal Socrates to the figure who appears in th e Platonic dialogues.
At the center of our concern is the connection between seduction and
textuality in Plato. Socrates’ seductive side is very clear in Plato’s dialogues,
and the presence of an intimate connection between Socrates’ erotic char-
acter and the nature of philosophy i s a lso a r ecurrent theme in r eadings
of Plato. What I w ish to focus on i s the r elationship between the s educ-
tiveness of Plato’s Socrates—Socrates’ eros—and Plato’s understanding of
the workings of his own text. Examining the striking affinity between the
figure of Socrates and the archetypal first woman, Pandora. I place partic-
ular emphasis on th e way in which Pla to reinterprets the Hesiodic image
of the feminine in its r elation to eros.

S  P

In on e of the first appear ances of the Pla tonic Socr ates, in Apology b,
Socrates asks hi s judges and audience to r ecall what hi s pr esence means
for the Athenian city, and to consider whether he is “really the sort of per-
son who would have been sent to this city as a gift from God” (dedostai).37
Socrates’ wish is to be r emembered as a di vine gift to a cit y that has de-
clined an d forgotten its n oble or igins. But wha t an od d g ift h e i s, this
 The Socratic Pandora 

annoying gadfly who har asses a large an d noble horse (e). This image
of Socrates as ga dfly makes him in to an a ttachment (proskeimenon, e)
inflicted upon th e s elf-indulgent cit y. Though Pla to was car eful n ot t o
employ the word doron for “gift” in this context, his formulation in d,
ten tou theou dosin, “god’s gift,” nevertheless recalls the epithet of Pandora
in Works and Da ys , doron th eon, “the g ift of the gods.”38 Both texts,
Hesiod’s Works and Da ys and Pla to’s Apology, celebrate th e c ensure of
their protagonists by society, as well as th e collective refusal to recognize
the value of the gift these protagonists bring. Nevertheless, the images of
Pandora and Socrates are not compatible. The crux of the Hesiodic image
of Pandora is the ambiguous nature of her gift. For Plato, condemnation
of Socrates is indicative of society’s shortcomings. In other words, he pres-
ents Socr ates as a g ift tha t i s mi sunderstood an d mi sused. That h ostile,
negative reception is not unconnected to an ambiguit y in Socr ates’ char-
acter and behavior. His alleged care for his interlocutors’ souls often causes
them embarrassment. His goodness, that is, assumes the form of an annoy-
ance. His w isdom t akes th e form of professed ig norance. The cit y was
alarmed b y thi s r estless nuisance and c ould har dly find any good in hi s
provocations. Socrates, according to Plato, is a gift whose utility remained
concealed from the majority of Athenians because they could not under-
stand that his annoying behavior was th e essence of his usefulness.
Socrates’ duality is given its fullest elaboration in the Symposium, where
the philosopher is portrayed as a s educer and a teacher of love. In search-
ing for th e liter ary sources of this new liter ary persona, we should make
note of a striking connection between the figure of Socrates and Hesiod’s
Pandora. Pandora mig ht at first s eem to o ffer only a n egative model for
the construction of the Socratic figure. Whereas she is known as the kalon
kakon, the one whose exterior is beautiful and whose interior is evil, he is
characterized by an unsightly exteriority and a beautiful inward goodness.
She exemplifies the deceptiveness of appearance, while he r epresents the
hidden nature of truth.
And yet an affinity between the philosopher and the first woman exists,
in spite of these appar ent di fferences. To beg in w ith, it sh ould be n oted
that th eir externa l appear ances a ffect th eir v iewers in th e s ame mann er:
both th e bea utiful w oman an d th e ug ly philosoph er str ike oth ers w ith
wonder.39 In the Symposium this effect is apparent when Alcibiades turns
to look a t Socr ates. As Alcibiades en ters Agathon’s h ouse, he i s unaware
of Socrates’ presence. He is drunk an d wears a bea utiful wreath made of
fresh flowers and r ibbons, with which, he ann ounces, he w ill cr own th e
 The Socratic Pandora

cleverest an d best-looking man ( e). He na turally turns t o th e han d-

some Agathon, the acclaimed winner of the festival. But then he suddenly
notices Socrates and cries out:

]W (Hra/kleij, touti\ ti/ h)=n; Swkra/thj ou(=toj; e)lloxw=n au)= me e)ntau=qa

kate/keiso w(/sper ei)w/qeij e)cai/fnhj a)nafai/nesqai o(/pou e)gw\ w)/|mhn
h(/kista/ se e)/sesqai.
(Symp. c)

[Good lord, what’s going on here? It’s Socrates! You’ve trapped me (katekeiso)
again! You a lways do thi s t o me —all of a su dden y ou’ll turn up out of
nowhere wh ere I least expect y ou!—Trans. Alexander N ehamas an d P aul
Woodruff]40

Caught by surprise, Alcibiades once again experiences the erotic effect of

the Socr atic pr esence an d a ccuses th e la tter of playing hi s old h unting
game.41 How strange it must be to experience the same surprise, time after
time, and at the hands of the s ame old a cquaintance. And yet Alcibiades
is shocked to s ee Socr ates—so much so tha t he str ips Agathon’s he ad of
the ribbons he has bestowed on him and places them instead on Socrates,
declaring his to be the most wonderful of heads, thaumaste kephale (e).42
In so doing , he not only dethr ones Agathon by pronouncing Socrates the
cleverest man on ear th, but unexpectedly calls the latter the most beauti-
ful of men, kallistos, as well (e).
Alcibiades’ response to the sight of Socrates is surprising in many ways.
First, it i s dir ected t oward hi s ph ysical an d c orporeal pr esence. What’s
more, Alcibiades c onsiders th e philosoph er’s ph ysical appear ance t o be
beautiful, and he assigns him a str ong erotic appeal.

’ 
Since we are not accustomed to think of Socrates’ physical appearance in
positive terms, Alcibiades surprises us. He declares what sensitive readers
of Plato’s Symposium may have already sensed—Socrates has a body , and
that body i s th e sour ce of charisma.43 This is not the conventional view
of Socrates. Nor i s it th e wa y Socr ates s eems t o c onceive of himself. As
Martha C. Nussbaum writes:

Socrates has so di ssociated hims elf from hi s body tha t h e gen uinely does
not feel its pa in, or r egard its su fferings as things gen uinely happening t o
 The Socratic Pandora 

him. He i s f amous for dr inking w ithout ev er getting drunk, and w ithout

the hangovers complained of by the others. . . . He really seems to think of
himself as a being wh ose mind is distinct from his body, whose personality
in no way identifies itself with the body an d the body’s adventures.44

Socrates’ indifference toward his body i s usually interpreted as a fun ction

of his view of the relationship between body an d soul. 45 Socrates regards
the soul as super ior t o th e body. According t o Phaedo and Gorgias, the
soul and the body are detached from each other, the visible, corporeal, and
mortal being ir revocably s eparated from the invisible, metaphysical, and
immortal. Life forces these two opposing domains together, but the union
between body and soul turns each into a prisoner, or a tenant, of the other.
The Socr atic met aphors of the body as a t omb ( Grg. a) and a pr ison
of the soul ( Phd. e) expr ess th e philosoph er’s desir e t o be r edeemed
from the constraints of the body.46
Despite the forcefulness of these metaphors, the Platonic Socrates does
not express uncompromising contempt for the body and its visual attrac-
tions.47 We sh ould note tha t Pla to never simply ig nores th e bodily pr es-
ence of Socrates. His body i s a q uestion for Pla to, one that ar ises in th e
description of Socrates’ idiosyncratic ph ysiognomy, and in hi s er otic,
often corporeal, responses to the beauty of others.48 The question “Who
is Socrates?” has, according to Nicole Loraux, a twofold answer: while for
Socrates it i s c learly hi s soul, for others Socr ates i s ins eparable from hi s
physicality.49 But what is the source of Socrates’ physical appeal?

’ 
Let us t ake Alcibiades’ response at face value. Can we seriously accept his
reference to Socrates as the most beautiful of men? This is not easy, espe-
cially when we recall that this “most beautiful” man is also referred to as
an ugly and grotesque Silenus or s atyr by Alcibiades himself (Symp. b,
d). How i s it possible tha t th e stupefy ing e ffect of Socrates’ repulsive
appearance i s so similar t o the stunning e ffect of the beauty of Pandora
or Theodote? Ugliness remains exactly that, even if it belongs to a brilliant
mind. Plato suppli es a good example in th e figure of Theaetetus, bright,
young, but ugly. His teacher, Theodorus, introduces him t o Socrates:50

kai\ mh/n, w)= Sw/kratej, e)moi/ te ei)pei=n kai\ soi\ a)kou=sai pa/nu a)/cion oi(/w|
u(mi=n tw=n politw=n meiraki/w| e)ntetu/xhka. kai\ ei) me\n h)=n kalo/j, e)fobou/mhn
a)n\ sfo/dra le/gein, mh\ kai/ tw| do/cw e)n e)piqumi/a| au)tou= ei)n= ai. nu=n de/ -kai\
 The Socratic Pandora

mh/ moi a)x / qou- ou)k e)s

/ ti kalo/j, prose/oike de\ soi\ th/n te simo/thta kai\ to\
e)/cw tw=n o)mma/twn: h(=tton de\ h)\ su\ tau~t0 e1xei. a)dew=j dh\ le/gw. eu)= ga\r
i)/sqi o(/ti w(=n dh\ pw/pote e)ne/tuxon -kai\ pa/nu polloi=j peplhsi/aka -
ou)de/na pw h)|sqo/mhn ou(/tw qaumastw=j eu)= pefuko/ta. to\ ga\r eu)maqh=
o)/nta w(j a)/llw| xalepo\n pra=|on au)= ei)=nai diafero/ntwj, kai\ e)pi\ tou/toij
a)ndrei=on par' o(ntinou=n, e)gw\ me\n ou)/t' a)\n w)|o/mhn gene/sqai ou)/te o(rw=
gigno/menon:
(Tht. e–a)

[Yes, Socrates, I have met w ith a y outh of this cit y who certainly des erves
mention, and you will find it worthwhile to hear me describe him. If he were
handsome, I should be afraid to use strong terms, lest I should be suspected
of being in lo ve w ith him. However, he i s not handsome, but—forgive my
saying so —he r esembles y ou in being sn ub-nosed an d ha ving pr ominent
eyes, though these features are less mark ed in him. So I can speak w ithout
fear. I assur e y ou tha t, among a ll th e y oung men I ha ve met w ith—and I
have ha d t o do w ith a good man y—I ha ve n ever foun d su ch a dmirable
gifts. The combination of a r are quickness of intelligence w ith exceptional
gentleness and of an incomparably v irile spir it w ith both, is a thing tha t I
should hardly have believed could exist.—Trans. Francis Macdonald]51

Theaetetus is physically unattractive. Nevertheless, he makes a positive im-

pression on hi s beholder through hi s conspicuous intelligence and intel-
lectual gifts. Theodorus, his patron, introduces him with great enthusiasm.
Theodorus is aware that his passionate presentation of the young Theae-
tetus might suggest an inflamed interest on the part of an older man. And
yet Th eodorus i s n ot r eally tr oubled: he w ill n ot be suspected of being
physically attracted to the boy because Theaetetus i s so ug ly—as ug ly as
Socrates ( Tht. c; Statesman d). Nevertheless, despite th e str iking
similarity, Theaetetus i s n ot Socr ates, but just a f aint c opy. How can
Socrates’ ugliness be c onsidered bea utiful? What mak es hi s unappea ling
appearance so a lluring? What is the secret of his erotic charm?

’ 
It is widely recognized that the figures of Socrates and Eros are symboli-
cally ti ed together in th e Symposium. Socrates i s pr efigured in Diotima ’s
mythic por trayal of Eros as a daimon—an image tha t is strengthened by
Alcibiades’ autobiographical a ccount, which por trays Socr ates as a sy m-
bolic desc endant of Eros hims elf. Alcibiades n ot only a dopts th e term
 The Socratic Pandora 

daimonion in a ddressing Socr ates ( d–d)52 but a lso depicts Socr ates’
physiognomy, personality, and philosophical disposition in a manner that
recalls crucial aspects of the figure of Eros. Like Eros, Socrates is barefoot
and is a lover of wisdom and beauty. Moreover, as a human embodiment
of Eros, Socrates’ vocation as a tea cher of love i s r ealized in hi s (erotic)
role as medi ator betw een th e human and th e di vine, the eph emeral and
the eternal.
In pr esenting Socr ates as its h uman embodimen t, Plato a dopted an d
reinterpreted the Hesiodic genealogy of Eros. As we recall in Theogony the
primordial cosmological stage is ushered in by an abstract presence of the
erotic for ce. Only w ith th e ma turation of the s ensible w orld does Er os
acquire its concrete, sensual manifestations. This first occurs in Aphrodite’s
beautiful c ountenance. Finally, Eros i s embodi ed in th e image of Pan-
dora—that i s, in th e appear ance of the ph enomenon par excell ence (see
chapter ). Both Theogony and the Symposium conceive of their protago-
nists as dir ect descendants of Eros. Pandora and Socrates are two human
manifestations of the divine, or the daimonic, Eros.
In or der t o appr eciate Socr ates’ erotic dimension, one sh ould aga in
look at him through the eyes of Alcibiades. Alcibiades’ gaze turns Socrates
into a P andora. As he beholds Socrates, he undergoes a v isual experience
similar to that of men who have gazed at Pandora: he faces a visibility that
contains an in visible dimension, a figure that hides an in teriority:

fhmi\ ga\r dh\ o(moio/taton au)to\n ei)=nai toi=j silhnoi=j tou/toij toi=j e)n
toi=j e(rmoglufei/oij kaqhme/noij, ou(/stinaj e)rga/zontai oi( dhmiourgoi\
su/riggaj h)\ au)lou\j e)/xontaj, oi(\ dixa/de dioixqe/ntej fai/nontai e)/ndoqen
a)ga/lmata e)/xontej qew=n. kai\ fhmi\ au)= e)oike/nai au)to\n tw=| satu/rw| tw=|
Marsu/a|.
(Symp. b)

[Look a t him! I sn’t h e just lik e a st atue of Silenus? You kn ow th e kin d of

statue I mean; you’ll find them in any shop in town. It’s a Silenus sitting, his
flute or hi s pipes in hi s hands, and it ’s h ollow. It’s split do wn th e middle,
and inside it ’s full of tiny statues of the gods. Now look a t him aga in! Isn’t
he also just lik e the satyr Marsyas?]

As h uman embodimen ts of Eros, Pandora an d Socr ates shar e a similar

structure: their selfhood rests on th e tension betw een exteriority and in-
teriority, between appear ance an d being . Pandora an d Socr ates shar e a
 The Socratic Pandora

deceitful appear ance; their s eduction i s bas ed on a di screpancy betw een

the v isible and the invisible. While Pandora tr aditionally exempli fies the
deceptiveness of appearance, Socrates represents the hiddenness of truth.
Yet the figures share a c ommon inner form. Their essential binding finds
its expr ession in th e f act tha t Socr ates i s P andora’s mir ror image. Both
figures know how to direct the desire of their beholders toward the hid-
den presence of their enigmatic inwardness. Hence, if beauty is the touch
of transcendence in the phenomenal, if it is a visibility that carries within
itself a promise of the invisible, then we may say that Pandora and Socrates
are both, in their own ways, beautiful.
The hidden interiority of Pandora and Socrates directs their beholders
to tr anscend their appear ance in or der to unveil the truth. This interior-
ity i s construed in both cas es as a r egulative idea an d not as an a ttaina-
ble c ontent. Socrates an d P andora pr ivilege th e v ery q uest for meaning
over and against any actual grasp of a determinate content. In this respect,
Plato liberates the Hesiodic image of Pandora from its ev il stigma. Plato’s
ingenuity, in this context, lies in hi s ability to sublimate the anxiety asso-
ciated with the Hesiodic image of hiddenness and to turn thi s image into
a sign of passionate thought.
Plato’s assumption of the legacy of Pandora, however, extends be yond
the cr eation of the Socr atic persona. For Plato, her image, with her ir re-
solvable duality, becomes the sign of textuality as such. In the Symposium
the Hesiodic image of Pandora acquires its fullest textua l sig nificance. It
is n ot only So crates’ physical appear ance tha t r efers be yond its elf, but
Socrates’ logoi as well (a).53 His utter ances, like hi s appear ance, oper-
ate through the tension betw een concealment and disclosure. In order to
understand hi s logoi one n eeds, as Alcibiades informs us, “to go behin d
the surf ace” of the text. This, of course, hints at Plato’s understanding of
the char acter of his o wn w riting. A text, according t o Pla to, is an en tity
that hides a dimension of depth that the text’s surface can never measure.
A text i s a phenomenon whose visibility always carries a r esidue of invis-
ibility, calling the reader to engage in the endless task of interpretation, in
the eternal pursuit of meaning.
 chapter 

Pandora’s Voice and the Emergence

of Ovid’s Poetic Persona

P’ V
Hesiod’s version of the myth of the first woman locates the origin of lan-
guage in Zeus ’s deceitful g ift to men. Pandora, the archetypal woman, is
known for her gift of seduction and her ability to manipulate her behold-
ers. She i s the first human being t o be char acterized by language. She i s,
in fact, a master of rhetoric whose divine patron is the god Hermes him-
self (W&D –). And y et, in spite of this m ythical associ ation of the
feminine w ith rhetorical dexterity, ideal conceptions of woman prefer to
envision her as silent. Traditional authors encourage women to keep quiet
and li sten, to learn but n ever t o teach.1 This subor dination i s r easserted
in Paul’s f amous denial of authority to women: “Let the woman learn in
silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp
authority over the man, but to be in silen ce” ( Tim. :–).
Pandora’s speech pr ovokes anxi ety. Men fear h er unr eliable language.
They ar e afr aid of being sw ept up in th e s eductive po wer of her w ords.
But P andora’s lingui stic t alent does n ot just pr ovoke ma le anxi ety; it i s
also a char acteristic of feminine pr omiscuity. This means tha t P andora
constitutes an an tithesis t o th e “good” female, the r estrained w oman.
Symbolically, Pandora i s n ot mer ely a g ifted speak er. Her language i s a
manifestation of the invincible force of eros. Never tr ansparent or di sci-
plined, Pandora’s language i s the language of multiplicity, always at play
with concealments and dissimulations. Following Pandora, a woman’s lan-
guage always bears th e potential of becoming the language of the femme
fatale. Woman i s danger ous pr ecisely because sh e i s a master of speech,
a rhetorician, a weaver of words that expose her immoder ate and lustful


 Pandora’s Voice and th e Emergence of Ovid’s Poetic Persona

interiority. Feminine s eductive speech i s c onsidered danger ous beca use

it c onveys po wer an d manipula tion, which ar e un wanted tr aits of the
“second s ex.” This impen ding thr eat impli es illeg itimacy: the w oman i s
inevitably an illeg itimate speak er. In thi s r espect, Pandora’s na ture can
be found in an y woman who in speaking tr ansgresses the boundaries of
her gender.
This chapter focus es on th e manner in which th e feminine position in
language i s in ternalized b y th e liter ary text. The pr evious chapter dea ls
with the s eductive dimension of Socrates’ figure, emphasizing s eduction
as a principle of Plato’s textuality. In the present chapter, I wish to explore
the symbolic meaning assigned to Pandora as an illegitimate speaker. Shift-
ing from the figure of the philosophical teacher of love to the poetic one, I
shall examine the subversive character of feminine speech in the context of
Roman love elegy. Ovid’s erotodidactic writing will be at the center of my
discussion. Not only i s Ovid known for hi s fascination with the feminine
experience, voice, and persona, but, as I w ill show, it i s Ov id, more than
any other ancient author, who internalizes Pandora’s position as a speaker,
elaborating that position as th e mark of his own form of textuality.
This is t he first of two chapters dedica ted t o Ov id. While th e n ext
chapter dea ls w ith th e stru cture of his er otodidactic w orks, the pr esent
discussion considers the shaping of the Ovidian persona as a lo ve teacher.
This w ill be don e b y deciph ering th e gen eric sig nificance of a f amily of
terms—Musa proterva, levitas, and lascivia—whose derogatory connota-
tions are rooted in the ancient construction of the feminine. Promiscuity,
lightness, insincerity, and licentiousness ar e a ll feminine tropes. We need
to understand the erotic force of the feminine voice in th e context of the
various ways in which it i s heard: a voice that speaks aga inst the cultural
norms tha t determin e th e pr opriety of what a w oman s ays, thinks, or
desires. Pointing to the role of the feminine voice in shaping th e narrato-
logical c omplexity of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Patricia Sa lzman-Mitchell
argues that “the female voice itself is felt as something both tr ansgressive
and inadequate. A woman’s speech in its elf, regardless of what she says, is
often a c laim to have a voice, a struggle for power.”2 I am concerned here
with th e way in which th e th ematization of the feminine voice becomes
intrinsic to Ovid’s own poetics. I shall argue that Ovid is a poet who inter-
nalizes these apparently problematic aspects of feminine speech in or der
to create a n ew poetic e ffect. More specifically, he explicitly us es a termi-
nology that is derived from the feminine in order to mark the illegitimate
effect of his erotodidactic works.
 Pandora’s Voice and th e Emergence of Ovid’s Poetic Persona 

Before w e turn t o Ov id, however, it ma y be fruitful t o elabor ate first

the conditions under which w omen’s language appears t o be sub versive.
What is the paradigm in which a w oman’s speech ca lls attention to itself
as that which requires restraint, limitations, external (masculine) control,
and c ensorship? What i s th e a uthority of a w oman’s speech tha t br eaks
the unwritten code of silence? In what sense can feminine silence and out-
spokenness be understood as literary phenomena? Three literary episodes
will help me dr aw the connection between the assertive feminine speaker
and the emergence of the subversive text.

’ 
Public appear ances of the vox fe minina belong to the Greek st age. Being
produced by male actors, of course, they are not authentic expressions of
feminine voices. How, then, is the feminine voice constructed?3 The dr a-
matic significance of the feminine persona li es in th e way it sub verts and
breaks ancient conventions of femininity in th e Greek theater. Consider,
for example, such exceptional heroines as Clytemnestra, Antigone, Medea,
and Phaedr a. These figures oc cupy a c entral spa ce on st age, they domi-
nate the dr amatic time, and they constantly dr aw attention toward their
eccentric, unconventional and decisive actions. And yet almost every sin-
gle aspect of their performan ce i s testimon y t o th e sub versive meaning
of their dramatic role. More specifically, the very appearance of feminine
figures on st age v iolates th e most fun damental conventions of Athenian
society. These dramatic images of women are powerful, assertive, aggres-
sive, and, moreover, active. They st and on st age, and in so doing th ey
symbolically transgress the unwritten law that prescribes their Greek way
of life. Here, on st age, the r epresentation of women i s n ot c onfined to
the private domain of the home. Women are not hidden from the public
eye as th ey ar e in n ormal G reek life. And so th e feminin e pr otagonist’s
usurpation of the stage is important in appr eciating the gendered signifi-
cance of her theatrical transgression. Even without acknowledging their vio-
lent passions, it is enough that these feminine figures are visible, that they
speak and act in public, to turn them into powerful, authoritative women.
These r epresentations of women wh o aspir e t o po wer an d a uthority, to
kratos, are unconventional and provocative.4
Aeschylus’s Cly temnestra o ffers a par adigmatic cas e of such feminin e
power, since she literally rules as queen of Argos in Agamemnon’s absence.
In other words, she i s a leg itimate ruler in an abn ormal time an d situa-
tion. Nevertheless, in spite of the leg itimacy of her rule, 5 Clytemnestra’s
 Pandora’s Voice and th e Emergence of Ovid’s Poetic Persona

regency i s attacked mor e than on ce as v iolating every soci al code of be-

havior. The image of this authoritative woman clearly represents a danger-
ous phenomenon, a danger born of the unwanted hybridization of ideal
images of masculinity and femininity, of activity and passivity, of the pub-
lic and the private spheres. The anxiety caused by the authoritative female
is ear ly on ann ounced b y th e Watchman, who descr ibes Cly temnestra
at th e v ery beg inning of the tr ilogy: “This i s h ow th e manly min ded
[androboulon] heart of a woman exercises power [kratei] while expecting
[the signal of Agamemnon’s return]” (Ag. –). Typically for a w oman,
Clytemnestra i s—as Denni ston and Page comment on “expecting” (elpi-
zon)—“full of guilt, fear (beca use of her dea ling w ith Aegisthus) an d
eagerness (to avenge the death of Iphigenia).”6 These strong passions and
intrigues are not at all alien to the feminine archetype. Yet in c ontrast to
the t ypical, or ev en th e idea l, image of woman, Clytemnestra i s doubly
dangerous pr ecisely because her masculine position a llows her to r ealize
secret (internal and hence feminine) intentions. Aeschylus’s tr eatment of
her speech i s cru cial for un derstanding th e politica l sig nificance of her
abnormal authority. In other words, the ancient theater inverted the socio-
political conventions, giving dramatic expression to an instance of rhetor-
ical barbarism: women speaking public ly. While in st andard language the
term “feminine authority” is simply an empt y expression, it comes to life,
albeit as a phan tasm, on the ancient stage.
Clytemnestra’s transgression opens our discussion of the feminine voice
to the liter ary aspect of her kratos, one that gives bir th to the unconven-
tional expr essions feminina auctor (“female a uthor”) an d feminina auc-
toritas (“female authority”), and to its significance in patriarchal societies.7
What i s th e liter ary sig nificance of a w oman’s kratos? How does an cient
poetry imagine a w oman’s literary position, concerns, and taste?

 
The first inst ance in which kratos is associ ated w ith the concept of liter-
ary authority—the first time it appears a t the intersection of power, art,
and gender—is in Homer’s Odyssey. True, the episode (Od. .–) con-
stitutes a r eenactment of the social order. It reorganizes male and female
roles in their proper categories, and culminates in silencing the female by
enforcing ma le expect ations. Nevertheless, this pass age i s th e locus cl as-
sicus that g ives r ise t o feminin e liter ary deman ds. The epi sode r ecounts
the conflict betw een Telemachos and Penelope o ver authority in liter ary
 Pandora’s Voice and th e Emergence of Ovid’s Poetic Persona 

matters. The question regarding the right to make a decision about house-
hold a ffairs ( kratos, Od. .) arises in th e c ontext of a liter ary di spute
concerning th e performan ce of the h ouse bar d, Phemius. More speci fi-
cally, Telemachos and Penelope cha llenge each other’s authority to deter-
mine th e content of the bar d’s song . In th e c onfrontation th ey expr ess
their di verging v iews about poetr y’s a im, sources, and va lues. This c on-
flict between a y oung man an d a w oman, between a son an d his mother,
is connected to their respective positions as li steners, interpreters, and lit-
erary patrons. These literary positions are organized into male-female sets
of oppositions. Telemachos makes it c lear to his mother that she belongs
to the rear parts of the house, where she is expected to engage in h er tra-
ditional feminin e oc cupation, weaving. Mythos, which h ere speci fies th e
field of poetry, remains a masculine activity performed and administered
by men. Moreover, in thi s par ticular cas e r esponsibility for th e bar d’s
performance belongs entirely to Telemachos. It should be noted, however,
that Telemachos’s claim to an authorial position on poetic matters derives
from his kratos—his claim to authority over household affairs.
Before P enelope di sappears t o h er r ooms, before sh e sur renders t o
silence, she r aises h er v oice an d expr esses h er desir es. The f act tha t h er
son i s deaf to hi s moth er’s deman ds only in tensifies h er feminin e pr es-
ence, a presence that is manifest despite her absence from the house’s pub-
lic ha ll. Penelope illustr ates th e ambigu ous st atus of the feminin e voice.
On the one hand, her voice is autonomous and clear. On the other hand,
it is also illicit. 8

’  

Comedy gives voice to socially low figures. In particular, Plautine comedy
grants freedom of speech to slaves.9 The scheming slave regulates the devel-
opment of the plot and dominates the dramatic situation through his mas-
tery of language. By means of metaphors, wit, and rhetorical invention, the
slave creates illusionary situations. He has the capacity to lie and fabricate
situations as r eal. The s lave’s c omic e ffect li es in th e wa y h e br eaks th e
silence that is typically imposed on him. The slave speaks up: his language
is provocative, his voice is illegitimate and hence the effect of his presence
is fundamentally funny. As such, the s lave i s an example of metatheater:
more than an y oth er comic char acter, this soci ally low figure re presents
the playwright hims elf. But mor e impor tantly, it i s the s lave’s subversive
form of speech act that mirrors the essence of Plautine comedy.10
 Pandora’s Voice and th e Emergence of Ovid’s Poetic Persona

In Miles Gloriosus, Plautus elaborates comedy’s attraction to subversive

language. In a ddition t o th e language of the sch eming s lave, the a ct of
linguistic tr ansgression i s associ ated w ith th e figure of a w oman. In th e
beginning of the pla y, Palaestrio, the cunning s lave, presents befor e th e
audience his most devious stratagem: the beautiful prostitute, Philocoma-
sium. Unlike Clytemnestra and Penelope, Philocomasium is not a socially
respectable female character. But like these two mythical figures, she opens
up a sub versive textua l pa th. The depiction of Philocomasium bears a
striking resemblance to the Hesiodic Pandora. She, like Pandora, operates
at the tension between truth and illusion, essence and appearance, fact and
fantasy, and, more par ticularly, sincere and insincere love. Yet, above a ll,
it is in h er archetypal feminine speech tha t the promiscuous Philocoma-
sium becomes Plautus’s version of Pandora:

Os habet, linguam, perfidiam, malitiam atque audaciam, confidentiam,

confirmitatem, fraudulentiam.
qui arguatse, eumcontra vincat iureiurando suo:
domi habet animum f alsiloquiom, falsicum, falsiiurium,
domi dolos, domi delenifica facta, domi fallacies.
(MG –)

[She has ch eek, a lot of lip, loquacity, audacity, also perspicacity, tenacity,
mendacity.
someone accuses her, she’ll just outsw ear the man w ith oaths.
She knows every phony phrase, the phony ways, the phony plays.
Wiles she has, guiles she has, very soothing smiles sh e has.—Trans.
E. Segal]11

Plautus speaks of Philocomasium’s language via a meditation on her phys-

iognomy. For him, the feminine speech act is integral to Philocomasium’s
professional ar t, the ar t of seduction. He th en focus es on th e w oman’s
audacious speech. Her audacity is naturally related to her illegitimate sta-
tus as a noncitizen and a prostitute; at the same time, however, her impro-
priety i s in dicative of the fema le kin d in gen eral. Reviving th e H esiodic
image of the first w oman as th e figure of duplicity an d dec eit, Plautus
establishes the fema le form of speech as emblema tic of the genr e of the
comedy of errors. More speci fically, his mi sogynistic por trayal identifies
the woman as the generic sign of comedy and thereby provides an exem-
plary case of an engendered genre.
 Pandora’s Voice and th e Emergence of Ovid’s Poetic Persona 

F  E E   F T

In Latin literature we recognize a novel phenomenon that makes the ille-
gitimacy of the feminine voice the mark of a new form of writing. In the
first century BCE the genre of love elegy was born, a male discourse ded-
icated to women. It is concerned with their appearance, with their desire,
and with their literary taste. Roman love elegy creates a new mode of writ-
ing that centers on the figure of the puella. Although Roman love elegists
are mainly concerned with the dr amatization of their suffering ego, their
discourse was considered provocative precisely because it (allegedly) gives
voice to feminine concerns.
Tibullus, Propertius, and Ov id dir ect their poetic en ergy toward their
beloved, making the puella the object of their desire and the subject mat-
ter of their poetr y. The relationship of the elegiac poet an d his romantic
partner is a main topic of elegiac love poetry. For the poet, the puella pro-
vides a case study that serves as the basis of his claim to authority in erotic
matters.12 As Propertius explains:

Quaeritis, unde mihi t otiens scribantur amores,

unde meus v eniat mollis in or a liber.
non haec Ca lliope, non haec mihi can tat Apollo:
ingenium nobis ipsa puella facit.
(..–)

[You ask h ow it i s that my loves are so often tr anscribed,

how it i s that my soft book i s on ev eryone’s lips.
It is not Calliope, not Apollo that sings th ese things t o me.
The girl herself creates my inspiration.]

The puella rivals the divine poetic authority of Calliope and Apollo.13 She
dictates the mollis (“soft,” “effeminate”) character of Propertius’s book. In
Amores, Ovid t oo associ ates hi s poetr y w ith a feminin e (mor tal) sour ce
of inspiration.14 In a la ter poem h e distinguishes his didactic works from
traditional didactic poetry whose paternalistic authority was grounded in
divine inspiration:

non ego, Phoebe, datas a te mihi men tiar artes,

nec nos aeriae voce monemur avis,
nec mihi sun t visae Clio Cliusq ue sorores
servanti pecudes vallibus, Ascra, tuis.
(AA .–)
 Pandora’s Voice and th e Emergence of Ovid’s Poetic Persona

[I sha ll n ot f alsely argu e tha t y ou, Phoebus, gave me m y “Arts”; nor am I

informed b y th e v oice of the bir d in th e a ir, and Clio w ith h er si sters did
not appear t o me while ten ding herds in y our valleys, Ascra.]

Ovid n ot only ex cludes hims elf from th e tr adition of didactic poetr y

beginning w ith H esiod; he a lso di verges fr om P ropertius’s soft position
and, as I sha ll show, grounds his didactic stance in th e provocative image
of a fema le authority, an exper t in lo ve. Ovid’s novelty i s manifest on ce
we locate hi s erotodidactic poetr y against the background of the e ffemi-
nate discourse of Roman love elegy.
In Remedia Amoris we find a c ollective term us ed for th e lo ve poets:
teneri poe tae ().15 This q ualification, the lo ve eleg y’s gen eric softn ess,
is part of the rich effeminate vocabulary utilized by Roman love poets, the
gender-inverted rh etoric tha t marks th eir r ole as w ounded lo vers an d
marginalized poets. One begins to see how, in specifying love elegy as ten-
era, Roman lo ve eleg y tr averses c onventions of masculinity an d a uthor-
ship. More sp ecifically, the eleg iac s elf-understanding di stinguishes, for
example, the superior epic form from the lower-status love elegy. This self-
understanding sh ould be examin ed in eleg iac terminology as a di scrim-
ination between the feminine and the masculine. That is why Propertius,
who d efines lo ve eleg y in opposition t o epic, constructs th e dich otomy
between these opposed genres in terms of a gender relationship. As D. F.
Kennedy writes, “So, elegy is defined by means of mollis [soft], which dis-
cursively aligns itself with the feminine, whilst epic is by implication aligned
with the masculine, and elsewhere is characterized as durus [hard].”16 It is
important to r emember, however, that in th e Roman tr adition “soft di s-
course” does not signify the essentially feminine. Soft discourse only artic-
ulates a s ense of femininity through a pa ternalizing perspective. Mollis is
a term tha t per tains to a masculin e hi erarchy. In other words, conceived
as mollis, love elegy is gendered as effeminate. But gendering love elegy as
effeminate i s especi ally t ypical, in m y v iew, of Propertius.17 Only Ov id,
among all the Roman love elegists, actually turns to femininity as a source
of powerful inspir ation. It i s n o c oincidence tha t h e us es tener—a word
with a less n egative connotation than Propertius’s mollis—to characterize
love eleg y’s softness. Ovid i s th e first lo ve eleg ist t o r elease hi s feminine
discourse fr om th e rule of masculine pr ejudices. He r ejects th e c onven-
tional derogation of love elegy as e ffeminate and, instead, allows elegy to
emerge as a dida ctic feminine form of discourse.
Ovid, as I h ope to show, usurps feminine authority. On the f ace of it,
 Pandora’s Voice and th e Emergence of Ovid’s Poetic Persona 

his in tegration of the feminin e in to hi s w riting s eems t o belong t o th e

effeminate discourse characteristic of love elegy. “Effeminacy” and “femi-
ninity” are culturally related terms based on gender dichotomies, but they
are, nevertheless, distinct. The effeminate is an attribute of men, a derog-
ative description of a form of masculinity that does not meet the ideal as
defined by the norms of society. Effeminacy signifies a mixed, impure, in-
fected form of masculinity whose flaw is derived from its a ffinity to fem-
ininity. Femininity, on th e oth er han d, is un derstood as an a ttribute of
women, and it t ypically appears in th e context of the opposition between
feminine and masculine natures. Tagging something as “feminine” can be
derogatory or a ffirmative, and it can be don e b y eith er ma le or fema le
speakers. Femininity i s h ence a di alectical c oncept wh ose meaning r ests
on its r elationship with masculinity.
In shaping his new persona as a didactic poet, Ovid redefines his poetic
field, relating it t o a feminin e source and adhering to norms of feminine
aesthetics. We should notice in particular how the effeminate discourse of
mollitia so characteristic of Propertius is replaced in Ov id’s erotodidactic
poetry by the boldness of feminine expression. How then, we should ask,
is Ovid’s feminization of love elegy distinct from the effeminate discourse
of his predecessor, Propertius?
Studies of Roman lo ve eleg y sh ow us tha t gen der ca tegories ar e fr e-
quently applied in order to characterize different forms of textualities. The
feminine aspect of love elegy derives first of all from the love elegist’s in-
feriority c omplex an d th e genr e’s lo wly st atus. It i s c ommon kn owledge
that the engendering of love elegy as effeminate is, in the Roman context,
a mark of its inferior standing. But there is still much to be said about the
kind of poetics created by the effeminate text. This is exactly the kind of
work being done in recent postmodern and feminist readings that seek to
unravel the textual significance of the effeminate text.
In the ear ly s the study of Roman love eleg y was th e s etting for a
discussion of the r elationship betw een lo ve and w riting—of gender and
genre—a di scussion tha t has sin ce been elabor ated and extended.18 This
ongoing discussion contains two important insights. The first asserts that
Roman love eleg y i s not an ex clusively masculine form of writing,19 but,
rather, a genre generative of a hybrid, or androgynous, form of textuality.
The second insight posits that masculine and feminine elements are inter-
woven in the figure of the Roman love elegist, particularly in the cases of
Propertius and Ovid.20 A prevailing opinion among readers of Roman love
elegy is that, in Roman culture, the feminine aspects of the elegy’s ego—
 Pandora’s Voice and th e Emergence of Ovid’s Poetic Persona

for example, the soft form of its writing—are constructed through effem-
inate features. The tendency to label the male lover and his poetry as soft
and servile implies that the love elegy’s speaker holds a mor ally depraved
position, hinting at decadent failings in his Roman (patriotic) education.21
Modern r esponses to the effeminate persona of the Roman love eleg y
are var ied, and y et a ll appr oaches shar e a per ception of the lo ve eleg y’s
effeminacy. Interestingly, almost every attempt to decipher the poetic effect
of the effeminate elegiac discourse is carried out using the poetry of Prop-
ertius. Duncan Kennedy, for inst ance, explains h ow th e s exual ambigui-
ties of the Propertian male subject both r eflect and construct literary and
political positions. According to Kennedy, the perverse masculinity of the
effeminate ego sh ould be un derstood in lig ht of its cr eation of a vagu e
form of textuality that resists consistency.22 This means, in particular, the
construction of a discourse that can har dly be fitted into a uni fied polit-
ical fr amework. Readers of the R oman lo ve eleg y ar e still ba ffled b y th e
question the genre itself seems to foster: does the representation of weak
masculinity reflect an anti-Augustan speaker, a subversive voice in a patri-
otic and conservative society,23 or a pr o-Augustan speaker? Is effeminacy
the ground for and the backdrop of a performative kind of discourse that
is a parody of a subversion of common values that it actually supports? Is
this genre, in other words, intended to shock the educated Roman reader
and post a warning about th e pitfalls threatening his world?24
For Kennedy, the ambiguous political position of the love elegy is espe-
cially r eflected in P ropertius’s eleg ies. Take, for example, his obs ervation
that “what P ropertius w rote has a lways been open t o appr opriation t o
serve different interests.”25 Here, and elsewhere as well, Kennedy sees Prop-
ertius’s politica l ambiguit y r everberating in th e textua l ambiguit y of his
elegies. Maria Wyke has w ritten about the love elegy’s double meaning as
an effect that “destabilizes traditional Roman gender categories.”26 As such,
the sexually ambiguous ego propagates an ambiguous poetic discourse that
defies conventional Roman categories of the feminine and masculine.27
In hi s r ecent tr eatment of this poetic ph enomenon, Paul Allen M iller
seeks to redefine the meaning of Propertius’s use of gender ambivalence.
He i s concerned w ith the nature of a di scourse that constantly blurs th e
distinction between gender categories. Miller’s reading of Propertius’s ele-
gies draws on femini st psychoanalytical theories and claims not only that
the Roman love elegy plays with conventional gender categories, but that
its main innovative force is in the circumscription of a third semantic space,
a zone of meaning between the orthodox Roman categories of masculinity
 Pandora’s Voice and th e Emergence of Ovid’s Poetic Persona 

and femininity. Miller argues that the effeminate discourse of Roman love
elegy positively marks a n ew form of textuality: “What we have in th ese
poems i s a v ery in tricate language game in which th e poet, by oc cupy-
ing both sides of the opposition but n ever being wholly present on either
side, inscribes the possibility of a third position that can only be expressed
in terms of the simult aneous c ontradiction betw een an d eq uivalence of
both sides.”28
The n egation of conservative masculinit y e ffected b y th e e ffeminate
discourse of love elegy results in the creation of a third subjective form of
expression, which, according to the Roman mind, is neither typically male
nor female. Miller conceives of the elegy’s third option as “both radically
critical and deeply c onservative, both inside an d outside th e system”—in
other words, as feminine.29 Like Kennedy and Wyke, Miller refuses to read
Propertius’s e ffeminacy in terms of the conventional binar y oppositions.
He often pr efers the term “femininity” to “effeminacy.” For example, ref-
erring t o s everal of Propertius’s eleg ies in Book , he w rites tha t th ey
“present P ropertius as speaking in th e feminin e, a di scourse tha t elu des
the c onventional binar y oppositions of official an d sub versive, pro an d
con, conscious and unconscious.”30 In his symbolic claim that “Propertius
is a woman,” Miller attempts to avoid the derogative connotation attached
to effeminacy in Roman culture, and instead to reload the term “woman”
with a n ew textual dimension. 31
The mediation of postmodern feminist thought allows Miller to recog-
nize the di scourse of Roman love eleg y as a feminin e phenomenon and,
with the help of post-Lacanian feminists such as Clément, Cixous, Kristeva,
and Irigaray, to construe Propertius’s feminine textuality.32 I agree that the
effeminate discourse of Roman eleg y demonstr ates “the elegists’ rhetoric
of ambivalence, oxymoron, and paradox,” and that this effeminate rheto-
ric “closely approximates that of Woman as defined by post-Lacanian fem-
inists.”33 Yet I do n ot see how this reading escapes th e binar y fr amework
in which th e eleg iac di scourse hi storically an d cultur ally r esides. In th e
Roman context, the third discursive option opened up by the feminine dis-
course of Propertius remains an inh erent part of the derogative language
of mollitia, or what was understood by the Roman reader as typical of the
effeminate discourse.
In this sense, Miller’s analysis of Propertius’s effeminacy does not rest on
ancient conceptions of the feminine. Propertius does n ot allow the femi-
nine any articulation that is independent of the masculine. His rhetoric of
gender inversion is still informed by the powerful discourse of effeminacy
 Pandora’s Voice and th e Emergence of Ovid’s Poetic Persona

that officially constitutes the masculine ideal. Consequently, the problem-

atics r aised b y P ropertius’s lo ve eleg y tha t femini st r eaders ti e t o th e
genre’s mastery over the female remain unresolved. Despite its molli fica-
tion of the masculine, Propertius’s love elegy does not seem to name fem-
inine subjecti vity as its explicit di scursive sour ce.34 Such an oppor tunity
is pr esent, in m y v iew, in Ov id’s er otodidactic w riting, which explicitly
adopts and elaborates the feminine presence. What female authority hides
behind th e Ov idian persona of the praeceptor amor is? I suggest tha t w e
search for h er in th e reading lists and the catalogues of authors provided
by Ovid in hi s amatory poetry.

T E P

In a ddressing hims elf to a fema le a udience in Book  of Ars A matoria,
Ovid offers the seductive docta puella a list of poets she ought to be famil-
iar with. Among the Greek poets, he cites Callimachus, Philetas, Anacreon,
Sappho, and Menander.35 The Latin poets he recommends are Propertius,
Gallus, Tibullus, Varro, Virgil, and, of course, himself, calling a ttention
to his Amores, Ars Amatoria, and Heroides. This li st of authors i s neither
the first nor the last one he composed.36 He presented an initi al selection
of canonical poets in hi s earlier Amores ., and a similar li st in Remedia
Amoris –. The differences between the three lists seem minor. How-
ever, a comparison is revealing of a significant change reflecting, perhaps,
a change in Ov id’s self-understanding as a lo ve poet. An obvious expres-
sion of this development i s hi s inclusion of a fema le author, the Lesbi an
poet Sappho, in the lists found in Ars and Remedia. His recognition of the
importance of a feminine poetic in fluence marks a pr ocess of change in
Roman love elegy—a change that can be descr ibed as a w ithdrawal of the
effeminate discourse in f avor of a feminine form of textuality.
The reference to Sappho in Ars and Remedia is not a c oincidence. Her
canonization h elps Ov id t o r edefine hi s poetic s elf-understanding as an
elegist and as a love teacher. As we shall see, Sappho charges Ovid’s eroto-
didactic texts w ith feminine boldness. The first signs of the new Ovidian
stance can be r ecognized in Amores. Ovid abandons the insecure position
typical of his Roman love eleg y. He aspir es to the worldwide r eputation
of those glorious poets li sted in Book :

. . . mihi fama perennis

quaeritur, in toto semper ut or be canar.
(Am. .. –)
 Pandora’s Voice and th e Emergence of Ovid’s Poetic Persona 

[I seek an enduring glory so that I may always be sung throughout the whole
world.]

In this poem, which concludes Book  of Amores, Ovid returns to the lit-
erary dilemma that opened the collection (Am. .): the antithesis between
lofty epic an d lig ht lo ve eleg y. Both eleg ies a ddress th e liter ary st atus of
the love eleg y genr e. But the li st of valued poets in Amores . modifies
the a uthorial st ance assumed in E legy ..37 Elegy . signals a turn in
Ovid’s ideas c oncerning th e sour ces an d liter ary sig nificance of the lo ve
elegy. While the introductory elegy reflects his poetic insecurities as a love
elegist, Amores . attempts to cover up th ese insecurities by defying the
inferior classification of the genre.
Amores . is a mask ed recusatio poem in which Ov id camouflages the
provocative nature of his decision to write a love elegy. Instead of declar-
ing his opposition t o the canonical and well-established epic form, Ovid
avoids r esponsibility for hi s pr oblematic ch oice of genre. The pr ogram-
matic poem, rather, presents him as conflicted and embarrassed by Cupid’s
intervention, which diverts the innocent poet from his initial plan of writ-
ing national poetry. Love elegy is thus the work of Cupid.
This nar rative i s abandoned, however, toward the end of Book . And
so, in Amores ., Ovid no longer appears as th e confused subject manip-
ulated b y th e whimsica l C upid. He changes hi s nar rative str ategy as h e
embarks on constructing a new poetic biog raphy. This transformation in
the poet’s s elf-understanding i s not untypical of the genr e of love eleg y.
The book of love eleg ies char acteristically in volves an explor ation of
the r elationship between time an d desir e, and between time an d w riting
about desire, and thereby makes it possible t o present seemingly incoher-
ent “moments” of the poetic ego . However, the incongruity between Ele-
gies . and . may nevertheless be interpreted in a lin ear way: they may
be un derstood as di fferent poin ts on th e tr ajectory lea ding fr om Ov id’s
initial apologetic position t o his provocative persona. 38
In Amores . Ovid adopts a literary biography inspired by the tension
between c onservative an d liber al perspecti ves on lo ve eleg y. Swimming
against the current, he follows neither the tr aditional career of a Roman
soldier nor the prestigious profession of law. Furthermore, since he inter-
nalizes th e gaze of the c onservative r eader, Ovid kn ows tha t hi s poetic
career i s considered mor ally flawed, and even attacked as par asitical: the
pastime of a lazy an d idle y outh who r efuses to s erve the Roman public
despite hi s suit able soci al an d ph ysical q ualifications ( Am...–). This
 Pandora’s Voice and th e Emergence of Ovid’s Poetic Persona

typical Roman perspective is the background for Ov id’s self-presentation

as a lo ve eleg ist, a nonconformist w riter who proudly cultivates hi s field
of competence. And since he is assured of an appropriate, albeit unortho-
dox, audience, Ovid can pr onounce the following vision:

Ergo etiam cum me supr emus adederit ignis

vivam, parsque mei mult a superstes er it.
(Am. ..–)

[Thus when the final flame has ea ten me up ,

I shall nevertheless live on, and a g reat part of me will survive.]

Poetic desire finds ambitious expression here. By the end of his first book
of love elegies, Ovid is heading toward canonization. In spite of the com-
mon prejudice against love elegy as “a work of an idle talent” (ingenii iner-
tis opus, ..), he i s n onetheless c onfident of a g lorious futur e for hi s
poetry. He therefore demands the s ame r espect and r ecognition for lo ve
elegy tha t i s a ccorded th e g lorious epic (G reek an d La tin), tragedy, and
comedy.
Elegy . takes i ssue w ith two audiences, two potential r esponses. On
the on e han d, Ovid an ticipates th e r esponse of a c onservative cr itic, a
traditionalist r eader, a follo wer of the pa triarchal tr adition, mos pat rum
(..). On the other hand, he welcomes the appreciative connoisseur, an
open-minded reader whom he imagines as hi s ideal addressee. This ideal
reader is the anxious lover.39 This means that the lover has a dual role: not
only th e subject of love eleg y, but a lso its sophi sticated r eader. Ovid’s
poetic persona i s thus ti ed to hi s conception of his audience. The poet’s
confidence i s depen dent on an ex clusive a udience tha t w ill embr ace hi s
poetry and on th e deg radation of his cr itics, whom he di scounts as vul-
gar (vulgus), impressed and entertained by cheap representations (vilia).40
The catalogue of authors in Amores ..– demonstrates Ovid’s high
aspirations for th e genre. For him lo ve elegy should be can onized as on e
of the distinguished traditional genres, on a par with the works of Homer,
Hesiod, Callimachus, Sophocles, Aratus, Menander, Ennius, Accius, Varro,
Lucretius, Virgil, Tibullus, and Gallus. In Ars Amatoria .–, however,
he gives expression to more specific poetic concerns. At this later stage of
his literary career the now-celebrated author of Amores, Heroides, and Ars
Amatoria  and  is no longer pr eoccupied w ith th e r elationship of love
elegy to the canon. By the time he comes to write Ars Amatoria, that generic
 Pandora’s Voice and th e Emergence of Ovid’s Poetic Persona 

category i s a lready f ar mor e firmly est ablished an d r efined. Ovid s eems

quite c omfortable iden tifying hims elf with a g roup of poets shar ing a
common interest in lo ve. The li sts of poets in Amores and Ars Amatoria
may be c ompared side b y side in t able ..
It i s n otable tha t in Ars A matoria the li st of Greek a uthors c onsists
mainly of love poets. Homer, Hesiod, Sophocles, and Aratus ar e left o ff
the list, while three others are added: Philetas, Anacreon, and Sappho. This
leaves th e G reek c ontingent w ith n o r epresentative epic or tr agic poets.
Similarly, the n ew La tin li st pr esents a mor e uniform pictur e than th e
one in Amores. Ovid leaves out Ennius, Accius, and Lucretius and creates
instead a mor e uni fied g roup of love eleg ists. In iden tifying P ropertius,
Gallus, and Tibullus as th e successors of the Greek love poets, Ovid ges-
tures toward the emergence of a tr adition, or a liter ary history, of a new
Roman genre. At the same time, his inclusion of Virgil’s Aeneid and Varro’s
Argonautae is something of a surprise. As Roy Gibson has obs erved, Ovid
ignores th e f amous amor ous epi sodes in th ese tw o epics an d str angely
emphasizes the national element of the first and the mythical background
of the second.41 He finishes off the list with his own amatory works, posi-
tioning them a longside Varro and Virgil and perhaps hin ting at hi s w ish
to be immor talized together with the poets of this most acclaimed genre,
the epic. We can un derstand this as eith er a F reudian slip or a gestur e of
sheer oppor tunism. For despite hi s explicit e ffort t o make lo ve eleg y an

T .
Amores ..– Ars Amatoria .–
  Homer Callimachus
Hesiod Philetas
Callimachus Anacreon
Sophocles Sappho (my emphasis)
Aratus Menander
Menander
  Ennius Propertius
Accius Gallus
Varro Tibullus
Lucretius Varro
Virgil Virgil
Tibullus Ovid
Gallus
 Pandora’s Voice and th e Emergence of Ovid’s Poetic Persona

autonomous genr e, Ovid n evertheless c ontinues t o c onceive of it in th e

context of the domineering presence of the epic. In so doing, he arrogantly
dissociates himself from the group of elegiac poets to whom he naturally
belongs.
While the gallery of poets in Ars Amatoria is a dida ctic gesture toward
the education of woman as th e seducer, the list in Remedia Amoris is in-
tended for lo vesick readers, who are inscribed as both ma le and female.42
Consequently, the earlier recommended reading list reappears in Remedia
as a r egister of banned books . The t ype of reading th e lo vesick oug ht
to avoid i s understood t o be c onstitutive of the genr e of love eleg y. The
texts that were once considered to be effective in teaching the art of seduc-
tion become dangerous when one is recovering from love. Ovid therefore
counsels hi s audience to avoid reading the poetr y he has c ommended in
the third book of Ars Amatoria. But a lthough these two reading li sts are
allegedly intended for di fferent audiences43 and divergent functions, they
are a lso mir rors of each other, and as su ch contain the cr ystallization of
Ovid’s conception of the genre of love elegy (see table .).
Remedia’s c lassification of love eleg y i s f ar mor e concise. Ovid avoids
associating love poetry (comprising elegy and lyric) with other genres and
removes th e c omedian Menander fr om th e li st.44 Nor i s epic in cluded.45
In dismissing both Varro and Virgil, Ovid finally separates the Latin elegists
from the epic poets. Earlier in Remedia, Ovid had underscored the auton-
omy of the love elegy genre by equating his own poetic achievement with
that of Virgil:

T .
Ars Amatoria .– Remedia Amoris –
  Callimachus Callimachus
Philetas Philetas
Anacreon Sappho (my emphasis)
Sappho (my emphasis) Anacreon
Menander
  Propertius Tibullus
Gallus Propertius
Tibullus Gallus
Varro Ovid
Virgil
Ovid
 Pandora’s Voice and th e Emergence of Ovid’s Poetic Persona 

tantum se nobis elegi debere fatentur,

quantum Vergilio nobile debet epos.
(Rem. –)

[All that noble epic o wes to Virgil,

Elegy confesses to owe me.]

Virgil undoubtedly constitutes a considerable source of anxiety for Ovid,

who had an extended and unsettled relationship with this celebrated poet.
For Ovid, Virgil is the representative of a liter ary tr adition that relegates
love eleg y t o th e st atus of a n egative example. Throughout hi s di verse
literary career, Ovid engaged in an ongoing di alogue with Virgil’s poetr y
that revealed his own admiration for and envy of (not to mention inferi-
ority complex regarding) Virgil. It is interesting to note that Ovid’s most
audacious and challenging statement about th e venerable master appears
in Remedia Amoris. In thi s la te er otodidactic w ork, Ovid a llows hims elf
to reestablish his relationship with Rome’s most distinguished poet. Here
he overcomes hi s feelings of inferiority by crowning hims elf the g reatest
master of love eleg y, and as th e one who has led th e genr e to full ma tu-
rity. This puts him on a par w ith Virgil. It i s no coincidence that at thi s
stage of his career as a lo ve poet, Ovid wishes to seal the love elegy genre
with his own signature. He knows that Remedia Amoris marks its Roman
terminus, being both hi s last er otic elegiac work and, more generally, the
last specimen of Roman love elegy.46
Even more singular in Ov id’s poetic stance and self-canonization is the
way h e turns t o Sapph o as a means for impr egnating hi s poetr y w ith a
feminine pr esence. Ovid i s the only R oman eleg ist who not only un der-
scores her contribution to the genre of love eleg y but a lso, more specifi-
cally, emphasizes her sig nificance to hi s own w riting. In introducing the
seven love poets in Remedia Amoris, Ovid g ives each a gen eral attribute.
Callimachus is labeled non est inimicus amori (), “not inimical to love.”
Philetas is harmful (noces, ), while Anacreon “does not prescribe rigid
morality” (nec r igidos mor es . . . dedit, ). Tibullus and P ropertius ar e
able to affect the “indifferent” (tutus) reader (–); Gallus softens th e
“tough” (durus) on e ( ). Yet as Ov id in troduces Sapph o, his language
turns personal. He singles out the effect of her poetry as transformational:
me certe Sappho meliorem fecit amicae (“certainly, Sappho made me better
for my girlfriend,” ).
 Pandora’s Voice and th e Emergence of Ovid’s Poetic Persona

In c ontrast t o hi s gen eral char acterizations of the lo ve poets, Ovid

relates to Sappho as th e one who has left a persona l impr int on hi s love
life.47 Reading Sappho made him meliorem—more loyal, more honorable,
more gracious, or, rather, more desirable to his girlfriend. In other words,
Sappho embodies the source of Ovid’s superiority and great success, both
as a lo ve elegist and as a ma le lover. She is a feminin e role model for th e
erotodidactic poet.

S’ L
Sappho’s symbolic presence in Ars and Remedia is intrinsic to Ovid’s self-
fashioning as a “lascivious” author. Adopting her illegitimate stance—her
status as a fema le a uthor—allows him t o c onstruct hi s o wn un conven-
tional dida ctic st ance. Sappho’s lascivia is first men tioned b y Ov id in
Heroides, a text in which h er impor tance i s c onspicuous. In thi s c ollec-
tion of epistles, he shows his deep in terest in th e fictional persona of the
female w riter. Ovid i s w ell kn own for hi s f ascination w ith th e feminin e
experience, voice, and persona, which h e var iously assumes thr oughout
the work. The letters pr esent a r ich cast of female figures whose unusual
character i s shaped thr ough th eir appear ance as w riters. In r eferring t o
Heroides as th e kin d of work unkn own t o oth ers ( ignotum ho c aliis ill e
novavit opus, AA .), Ovid bases his claim to novelty not on the inven-
tion of a new genre, but rather on th e Heroides’ strangeness.48
The Heroides is a str ange textua l ph enomenon because it ascr ibes th e
act of writing to women.49 For a Roman author, a woman’s text represents
the poetic “other.” Writing like a w oman is, as Joseph Farrel notes, “a re-
sponse to an attempt to impose silence.”50 What is the significance of this
feminine tr ait for Ov id? H is w riting usur ps thi s form of anomaly an d
makes the e ffect of strangeness ess ential for hi s poetic s elf-refashioning.
Ovid’s persona l r apport w ith Sapph o goes ba ck t o Heroides , where
he a dapts an d dubs h er v oice, reinventing th e st ory of her h eterosexual
love affair w ith Phaon. Sappho’s singular st atus among th e women w rit-
ers in th e Heroides is c onspicuous, grounded in th e f act tha t sh e i s th e
only one for wh om the ar t of writing i s an in tegral par t of her identity.
Readers of the Heroides have shown how the identity of Sappho as a poet
(poetria, .) merges w ith Ovid’s identity.51
The submersion of Sappho’s identity into Ovid’s lies behind the prob-
lem of authenticity that arises in the context of the reception of Epistle .
In r ecent y ears th e old deba te r egarding Ov id’s authorship has been r e-
placed with a discussion of the manner in which authenticity is tied to the
 Pandora’s Voice and th e Emergence of Ovid’s Poetic Persona 

poem’s female voice.52 In what way does Ovid’s feminine voice correspond
to the historical Sappho? Is there any way in which an Ov idian language
could make a pla ce for Sapph o’s o wn voice? Can w e speak of a genuine
Sapphic voice independent of its traditional representations?
The di fficulties in i solating th e feminin e v oice fr om th e ma le a uthor
are not only par t of the exper ience of reading Ov id’s Heroides; they a lso
rise in th e c ontext of Sappho’s o wn r eception. Consider, for example,
Page duBois’s description of the effect of Sappho’s poetr y on h er ancient
readers:

Her body an d its desir es [ar e] in tolerable, its speech t oo ly rical, too h ys-
terical, too ca ught up in th e ba ttles of love, scenes of marriage, physical
longing for the beloved to participate in the sober work of philosophy, even
an erotic philosophy like Plato’s.53

It i s d ifficult to i solate Sappho’s w riting from the way she was per ceived
and read in antiquity. Her poetry, according to duBois, cannot be isolated
from the readers’ responses, discourses, and values, all of which reconfirm
and in tensify h er sub versiveness an d h er ir regularities as lasciva woman
and poetess. Here, Sappho’s sub versive a uthority li es in h er ar chetypal
position as a fema le author who, as duBois writes, transgresses the tradi-
tional boundaries of ancient poetics.
Sappho is an outspoken and powerful figure who arouses intense desire
among readers. This view—expressed more than once in the reception of
her poetr y—can be detected in th e unique role her passionate di scourse
plays in Western culture.54 Sappho’s eroticism is conceived as bolder an d
more v iolent than tha t of Archilochus and oth er ma le poets. She tr ans-
gresses not only thematic boundaries (topics considered respectable), but
also boundaries of femininity (speech considered decorous for a fema le).
Sappho’s desir e was th e subject of fantasies for G reek and Latin com-
edy writers who referred to the story of her unrequited heterosexual love
for Phaon. Plautus, for example, refers t o h er extr aordinary passion in
Miles Gloriosus –: Nam nulli mor tali scio optigisse hoc nisi duo bus /
tibi et Phaoni Lesbio, tam mulier se ut amaret. Wishing to convey the pros-
titute’s ex cessive desir e t oward th e soldi er, the s lave subtly r emarks tha t
only Sappho could equal the prostitute in h er passionate intensity.55
For Ovid, therefore, Sappho is not just the name of the historical Greek
poetess. He does not cite her name just to commemorate one of his poetic
influences. In Heroides, and in Ars Amatoria and Remedia Amoris, the name
 Pandora’s Voice and th e Emergence of Ovid’s Poetic Persona

“Sappho” epitomizes th e idea of a feminin e text. More speci fically, in

Heroides .– Ovid uses the term lascivia in relation to Sappho’s tradi-
tional image as a w oman of insatiable desire. He depicts h er in th e act of
recollecting th e pleasur e sh e ha d w ith Phaon, emphasizing h er uniq ue
sexual appetite an d erotic knowledge:

haec quoque laudabas, omnique a par te placebam,

sed tum pr aecipue, cum fit amoris opus.
tum te plus solit o lascivia nostra iuvabat,
creberaque mobilitas aptaque verba ioco,
quique, ubi iam amborum fu erat confuse voluptas,
plurimus in lasso c orpore languor erat.
(Her. .–)

[And y ou us ed t o pr aise th ese things a lso; I was pleasing in ev ery aspect,

but th en especi ally wh en th e t ask of love came ar ound. Then m y lasci vi-
ousness used to please you more than y ou were accustomed and my quick
mobility, and my joking w ords, and the languor that was g reat in our tir ed
bodies when the desire of both of us had already mingled together.—Trans.
Sara H. Lindheim]56

Is there a connection between Sappho’s sexual and Ovid’s literary promis-

cuity? Can her “quick mobility” and “joking words” be read in ana logy to
his rhetorical prowess? Is the commemoration of her promiscuity an Ovid-
ian way of reflecting on, of refracting, his own image as a lasci vious poet?
Ovid’s notion of Sappho should be appr oached through his use of the
term lascivia. Not only does h e descr ibe h er as lasci vious in Ars, but, as
we sha ll s ee, he hims elf is a lso r emembered as th e most lasci vious lo ve
poet among the Roman elegists. We will first examine Sappho’s lascivia in
the context of the didactic tr adition. The way the ancients identified her
sexual preference with her authorial position is illuminating. Horace’s ref-
erence to her a s mascula (Epist...) was in terpreted b y Porphyrio in
the following way: “‘Masculine Sappho,’ either because she is f amous for
her poetry, in which men mor e often excel, or because she is maligned as
having been a tr ibad.”57 Sappho’s po wer—that i s, her masculinit y—is
manifested in h er prominent position as a liter ary authority as mu ch as
in her active role as a lo ver of women.
Porphyrio c onstrues Sapph o’s masculinit y as or iginating fr om a liter-
ary authority that is uncommon among w omen. But there is more to say
 Pandora’s Voice and th e Emergence of Ovid’s Poetic Persona 

about the bold image of Sappho as a liter ary persona. She is known as a
didactic authoress, which is also an atypical position for a woman. What’s
more, her irregular authority is derived from her role as a teacher of love.
Sappho’s prominent st anding in th e erotodidactic tr adition explains why
she has bec ome a pr ominent source of inspiration for Ov id.
In Ars Amatoria and Remedia Amoris, Sappho’s impor tance as a lo ve
poetess an d as an er otodidactic a uthority o ver Ov id i s emphasi zed. He
canonizes h er n ot only as a ly ric poet, but a lso as a tea cher of love. In
recommending her poetr y to lovers, he impli es the didactic va lue of her
love poems, which is confirmed again by his personal experience in Reme-
dia . In thi s s ense, Ovid’s deployment of Sappho echoes Socr ates’ use
of a feminine persona—Diotima—to endorse his own erotic conceptions.
Though Diotima does n ot a ctually par ticipate in th e f amous ga thering,
she is introduced by Socr ates as th e mother (the feminine source) of his
erotic di scourse. We mig ht detect in Tristia a similar image of poetic
conception. In Tristia . Ovid expresses to an unnamed fr iend his deep
concern for th e destiny of his works. He distinguishes, however, between
his banned love-guides and the rest of his poetic c orpus. Ovid elaborates
on thi s par ental met aphor, imagining hims elf not just as a car ing f ather
to his erotodidactic books, but as a feminin e father by means of an anal-
ogy t o J upiter’s deli very of Pallas Athena: Palladis exe mplo de me sine
matre c reata car mina sunt (“in Pallas f ashion were my verses born fr om
me w ithout a moth er,” Tr. ..). This conversion of the physical act of
giving bir th in to an image of masculine cr eation or iginates w ith Pla to.
More specifically, the Symposium presents the most emblema tic feminine
characteristic—giving birth—as the governing principle of the erotic field.
And so Ov id, the erotic master, follows Plato in c onjuring thi s image of
parenthood. In alluding to Jupiter’s motherless delivery, Ovid reproduces
the Socr atic gestur e toward Diotima. Like Socr ates, Ovid points to him-
self as a masculin e mother replacing an abs ent feminine original. Sappho
is the absent role model. She is the poetic mother of Ovid’s erotodidactic
poetry.
During Ov id’s time, “Sappho” was considered a m ythical name, asso-
ciated with other mythical wise women such as Diotima and Aspasia, who
achieved their authority as exemplar y teachers of love.58 Ovid has ch osen
Sappho as a na tural erotodidactic role model pr ecisely because, as a lo ve
poetess, she represents better than Diotima an d Aspasia the erotodidactic
field of poetry.59 This group of women, however, is also associated with the
philosophical male expert on lo ve, Socrates. Diotima and Aspasia appear
 Pandora’s Voice and th e Emergence of Ovid’s Poetic Persona

as er otic teachers in th e Socr atic liter ature;60 “beautiful Sapph o,” Sappho
kale, is in cluded in Phaedrus among th e an cient w ise men an d w omen
(sophoi) wh o spok e an d w rote about lo ve. Sappho, “the ten th M use,”
inspires Socr ates’ notion of love.61 But it i s the second-century Maximus
of Tyre ( Orationes .) wh o suppli es an ar resting c omparison betw een
the two and provides a Socr atic portrayal of Sappho:

o9 de\ Lesbi/av ti/ a1n ei1h a1llo h1 au0to/, h9 Swkra/touv te/xnh e0rwtikh/;
dokou~si ga/r moi th\n kaq 0 au9to\n e9ka/terov fili/an, h9 me\n gunaikw~n o9 de\
a0rre/nwn, e0pithdeu~sai. kai\ ga\r pollw~n e0ra~n e1legon, kai\ u9po\ pa/ntwn
a9li/skesqai tw~n kalw~n: o3 ti ga\r e0kei/nw| 0Alkibia/dhv kai\ Xarmi/dhv kai\
Fai~drov, tou~to th~| Lesbi/a| Guri/nna kai\ 0Atqi\v 0Anaktori/a: kai\ o3 ti
per Swkra/tei oi9 a0nti/texnoi Pro/dikov kai\ Gorgi/av kai\ Qrasu/maxov
kai\ Prwtago/rav, tou~to th~| Sapfoi~ Gorgw\ kai\ 0Androme/da: nu~n me\n
e0pitima~| tau/taiv, nu~n de\ e0le/gxei kai\ ei0rwneu/etai au0ta\ e0kei~na ta\
Swkra/touv.

[What else could one call the love of the Lesbian woman than th e Socratic
art of love? For they seem to me to have practiced love after their own fash-
ion, she the love of women, he of men. For they said they loved many, and
were captivated by all things beautiful. What Alcibiades and Charmides and
Phaedrus were to him, Gyrinna and Atthis and Anactoria were to her; what
the rival cr aftsmen Prodicus and Gorgias and Thr asymachus and Protago-
ras were to Socrates, Gorgo and Andromeda were to Sappho. Sometimes she
censures them, at other times sh e cross-examines them, and she uses irony
just like Socrates.—Trans. David A. Campbell]62

Although the writer creates a parallel between Sappho and Socrates based
on th eir h omoeroticism, their similar a ttitude t oward th e techne er otike,
or what is better known as the Socratic expertise in the art of love, is more
important to him. Sappho i s considered an er otic exper t in th e Socr atic
manner since she mainly practices love as a di scourse. She maintains love
relationships using th e s ame techniq ues tha t Socr ates emplo ys wh en h e
charms an d a llures hi s in terlocutors in to c onversations: the s eductive
means of irony and refutation.
Maximus’s Socratic portrayal of Sappho can help us draw out the gene-
alogy of a family of mythical figures with a fundamentally erotic existence:
Sappho, Diotima, Aspasia, Socrates, and Ov id. This g roup est ablishes a
guild of teachers of love whose mythological patroness, I would argue, is
 Pandora’s Voice and th e Emergence of Ovid’s Poetic Persona 

Pandora. As already shown, Hesiod’s first woman is the human embodi-

ment of Eros. Plato, following the example of Hesiod’s Pandora, also makes
Socrates an embodiment of Eros. With her charming and deceitful ambi-
guities, Pandora (an d, likewise, Socrates) i s r esponsible for beq ueathing
erotic knowledge to the world. The myth of the or igin of love i s, hence,
tied t o th e m yth of femininity. This i s h ow I expla in Pla to’s deci sion t o
credit feminine sources for Socr atic erotic teaching. Despite the privileg-
ing of masculinity and homoeroticism in Symposium, erotic knowledge is
originally a ttributed b y liter ary tr adition t o w omen.63 And so th e er otic
elements specified by Diotima as zeal (syntasis, b) and eagerness (spoude,
b, b),64 characterizing as th ey do th e s earch for bea uty, goodness,
happiness, and immor tality, also de fine th e most fun damental feminin e
competence, which Diotima c onceives as th e ultima te goa l of desire—
giving bir th. Love i s initi ally a feminin e power, which i s why knowledge
of it is transmitted to Socrates by a woman.65 Plato’s understanding of the
erotic field as fundamentally feminine explains the reputation of Socrates
as a lo ve tea cher, midwife, and ma tchmaker—all feminin e char acteriza-
tions made by Plato and other ancient authors.66
Ovid associates himself with this Socratic erotodidactic tradition, already
attributing in Amores .. the competence of the female procurer (lena)
to th e eleg y. Although N ew C omedy pr ovides th e ma in sour ce for thi s
stock figure, Ovid’s eleg iac lena should a lso be link ed to the philosophi-
cal tr adition tha t iden tifies th e Socr atic ar t as an ar t of matchmaking.67
In oth er w ords, there i s an in teresting c onnection betw een th e Ov idian
image of love eleg y as a lena and the image of the philosopher as a pr o-
curer. The image of Socrates as a philosophica l pr ocurer i s ins eparable
from hi s image as th e h uman embodimen t of Eros. Being daemonic, in
the same manner Eros is (Symp. d–d),68 Socrates’ philosophical drive
is understood to be a medi ating one between the human and the divine.

T L T

The list of poets in Ars Amatoria establishes the category of love elegy. It
is interesting to note that Ov id’s li st diverges s lightly from that of Prop-
ertius, whose roll of authors ( .) s erves as hi s model. First, Propertius
(unlike Ov id) bas es th e liter ary hi story of the lo ve eleg y ex clusively on
Latin liter ature. Beginning w ith Varro,69 he th en cites Ca tullus, Calvus,
Gallus, and, finally, himself. As we have seen, Ovid’s list does n ot include
Catullus or Ca lvus, and yet, despite these differences, it bears the mark of
Propertius’s list, especially in the way in which Ovid’s evocation of Sappho
 Pandora’s Voice and th e Emergence of Ovid’s Poetic Persona

echoes Propertius’s nomination of Catullus, the only poet sing led out as
lascivious:

Haec quoque lascivi cantarunt scripta Catulli

Lesbia quis ipsa notior est H elena.
(Propertius ..–, my emphasis)

[On these very topics the writings of lascivious Catullus sing,

Through which Lesbi a has bec ome more famous than H elen.]

Although Catullus is not explicitly named on Ov id’s list, Propertius’s ref-

erence to him i s, in part, present. In characterizing Sappho as lasciva (AA
.), Ovid is, in fact, echoing the inclusion of Propertius’s Catullus.
Catullus’s r elationship w ith Sappho i s complicated. His f amous adap-
tation (poe m ) of her poem  presents a “corrected” version of her
homoerotic expression. By replacing Sappho’s female gaze with a male one,
Catullus succeeds in introducing a conventional love triangle.70 Moreover,
his mor alizing en ding i s a pur e in vention, a for eign (R omanized) a ddi-
tion to the Greek source. Catullus attempts to translate Sappho according
to Roman ethical standards, but his interest in h er goes be yond that.
Catullus i s un deniably inspir ed b y, and in debted t o, Sappho’s er otic
poetry. His love poems to Lesbia indicate a sy mbiotic relation to Sappho.
By naming hi s object of desire Lesbia and identifying her as th e motivat-
ing force of his love poetr y, Catullus makes Sappho the Muse of his love
poetry. Hence, she i s not simply an a dmired poet fr om a g lorious Greek
past. She masks th e f ace of the beloved as mu ch as sh e hides behin d the
beloved’s face.71 Catullus’s Sappho stands as a sy mbol for love poetry. The
constitutive r ole h e assig ns h er as a fema le a uthor, his un conventional
gesture of submitting hi s poetr y t o feminina a uctoritas, is, I think, what
makes him lasci vious in th e e yes of Propertius. Borrowing from Proper-
tius’s idiom, Ovid ascribes the sign of lasciviousness directly to Catullus’s
Greek model, Sappho. In so doing , Ovid shifts th e emphasis from Catul-
lus t o hi s pr edecessor. Nota sit e t Sappho (q uid e nim lascivious illa?), he
writes (AA ., my emphasi s): “Let Sappho be a lso known (for wha t i s
more lascivious than she?).”
The inclusion of Sappho in Ov id’s canon is striking primarily because
she i s the only fema le author in it. Moreover, she i s mentioned as a r ole
model neither by Propertius72 nor by Tibullus.73 And in this respect, Ovid
is th e first among th e R oman lo ve eleg ists t o pr esent h er as a c entral
 Pandora’s Voice and th e Emergence of Ovid’s Poetic Persona 

authorial figure.74 Although it can be argued that her appearance on Ovid’s

list stems fr om th e f act tha t Ars  is a ddressed t o fema le r eaders,75 this
should not prevent us from appreciating the central role Ovid assigns her
in creating the Roman love elegy. Following Catullus’s Romanized image
of Sappho, Ovid turned her into an emblem, a constitutive element, or a
generic sign, of his own erotic writing.
As we have seen, in Roman culture Sappho’s name symbolizes excessive
speech, an immoderate passion, an unofficial and subversive discourse. To
write poetry under her influence, as Ovid does, is to commandeer an ille-
gitimate fr eedom of speech, or, in oth er w ords, to bec ome a lic entious
poet.76 Armed with this feminine attribute, Ovid asserts himself as the ille-
gitimate love poet whose poetry is severed from the institutional consensus
and the normative codes of moderate speech. Identifying itself with intense
and unr estrained er otic di scourse, Ovid’s er otodidactic poetr y dec lares
itself to be feminine. This does not mean that his erotodidactic discourse
sacrifices th e idea of rationality. On th e contrary, it s eeks t o master an d
perfect the logic and grammar of a distinctive erotic technique. However,
since the grammar of eros is intrinsically tied to the expressions and per-
formances of intense passion, it follo ws tha t Ov id c elebrates hi s dida c-
tic form of textuality b y a dopting a pr ovocative v ocabulary. This mak es
his erotodidactic Muse no longer mollis but, rather, proterva, lasciva, and
levis—all feminine attributes specify ing an unr estrained form of expres-
sion, whose effect is fundamentally designed to be sh ocking.

  

It is well known that the love elegy occupied a peripheral place in Roman
culture.77 Quintilian’s response is representative of the institutional recep-
tion of this genr e pr ior t o an d dur ing th e time Ov id was w riting hi s
erotodidactic w orks. In Book  of Institutio Or atoria, which a ddresses
methodological q uestions c oncerning edu cation an d th us c omments on
the authors and literary genres that should be studied, Quintilian devotes
little a ttention t o eleg iac poetr y. In a gen eral r emark about th e eleg iac
poets, he mentions Callimachus and Philetas, who were included in Ovid’s
list as w ell (Rem. –). Quintilian treats them as s econd-rate poets:

Sed ad illos i am perfecti s constitutisque v iribus r evertemur; quod in c enis

grandibus s aepe f acimus ut, cum optimi s s atiati sumus, varietas t amen
nobis ex v ilioribus g rata sit. Tunc et eleg iam va cabit in man us sumer e.
(Inst. ..)
 Pandora’s Voice and th e Emergence of Ovid’s Poetic Persona

[But we must wa it till our po wers have been dev eloped and est ablished to
the full befor e we turn to these poets, just as at banquets we take our fill of
the best f are and then turn t o other food which, in spite of its comparative
inferiority, is still attractive owing to its variety. Not until our taste is formed
shall we have leisure to study the elegiac poets.—Trans. H. E. Butler]78

Quintilian’s culinary metaphor assigns love poetry a superfluous status.

Its pla ce in th e poetic men u i s insig nificant, an o ffering to r eaders w ho
are a lready s atiated and s atisfied. The r eader, he argues, must be ma ture
before encountering elegiac poetry. That is, his personality must be cr ys-
tallized an d hi s aesth etic an d in tellectual ju dgment must ha ve r eached
full development. Interaction with elegiac poetry at this stage will neither
harm n or tea ch th e r eader. Quintilian’s idea l r eader i s, thus, indifferent
to th e illicit tea chings pr omised b y lo ve eleg y. According t o Quin tilian,
one sh ould n ot t ake lo ve eleg y s eriously: one mig ht be captur ed b y its
allure. Readers lik e Quin tilian assig n lo ve eleg y th e s ame thr eatening
quality tha t a s eductive w oman mig ht pr esent for th e s exually in experi-
enced man. He therefore stipulates the conditions for s afely reading pro-
miscuous texts.
But does Ov id pr omote su ch a r eading in Ars Amatoria and Remedia
Amoris? He has n o desire to create a s afe and harmless text; nor does h e
want to protect hi s readers. Ovid i s interested in liter ature that shocks.79
But if his lo ve eleg y i s in tended t o be sh ocking an d its idea l r eader, as
Alexander Dalzell suggests, is someone who is willing to be shocked, then
Ovid’s ideal reader is the very person wh o the love guide c laims is not its
legitimate addressee. Alison Shar rock has sh own that a lthough Ov id ex-
cludes mar ried w omen fr om hi s cir cle of disciples ( AA .–),80 this
exclusion has th e opposite e ffect.81 The s eductive a ct of denying lo ve’s
pleasure to married women becomes doubly powerful. In addressing mar-
ried women, the love guide both r ejects them and marks th em as poten-
tial r eaders. The didactic shock of Ars Amatoria is effected in th e book’s
paradoxical a ddress t o an a udience of married w omen tha t it a lso di s-
allows. By excluding mar ried w omen fr om its leg itimate audience, Ovid
ultimately converts respectable females into the guide’s ideal audience, an
audience c omposed of promiscuous an d sub versive r eaders. These mar-
ried women represent the readership for which he has created the promis-
cuous er otodidactic genr e. In oth er w ords, the liter ary a ct, according t o
Ovid, is desig ned t o a ttack th e unsuspecting r eader, whose na iveté an d
habitual complacency usua lly pr event any explor ation of nonconformist
 Pandora’s Voice and th e Emergence of Ovid’s Poetic Persona 

or individualistic experiences. The love guide, in fact, offers just su ch ex-

periences within its imag inative didactic framework.
Turning again to Quintilian’s di smissive attitude to eleg y, we can n ow
examine his specific reference to Ovid as th e most lasci vious love poet of
all.82 His remark contains a double reproach. First, it associates Ovid with
the per ipheral genr e of love eleg y; then it emphasi zes tha t, within thi s
genre, Ovid i s mor e pr eoccupied than th e oth ers w ith a ll tha t th e term
lascivus connotes.83 In the classical and postclassical public consciousness,
Ovid’s name i s often associ ated w ith lasci viousness an d lig htness. This
perception i s a r esult of Ovid’s o wn w ork. He us es lascivia (and oth er
terms) as a slogan, a programmatic phrase, and, inevitably, as a blueprint.
It is little wonder that his critics recycled the stigmatizing expressions that
Ovid provided them.
What is the collective meaning of lascivia, levitas, and protervitas? Are
they syn onyms, creating a f amily of terms tha t de fine th e er otodidactic
genre? Ov id ca lls Sappho lasciva (AA .): “Let Sappho be a lso known
(for what is more lascivious than she?)”; nota sit et Sappho (quid enim las-
civius illa?). What does he mean by this? What does he want to say about
Sappho? Is this a biographical remark that slanders her way of life as friv-
olous, playful, and mi schievous? I n oth er w ords, is it a dir ect r eference
to wha t was c onsidered h er lic entious s exual life? Or , more pla usibly, is
Ovid referring to her unrestrained, shameless literary style? In contrast to
Quintilian’s lascivior, Ovid’s is not judgmental. He br ackets the connota-
tions of moral degeneracy that certainly arise in readers’ minds and focuses
instead on h er boldn ess as a lo ve poet. Her undisciplined image i s c on-
nected to her status as on e who breaks the norms of writing, being both
a lover of women and a fema le writer. This blatant violation, which Ovid
identifies with the mythical feminine position, is crucial to the literary act.
In fact, it is crucial to art in general. Freedom of expression is apparently
a gift that only a min ority can r eceive.

   

In Remedia – Ovid’s text dig resses to consider the criticism directed
against his erotic writing. He accuses his opponents of literary envy (livor,
, ). They are envious of his freedom of speech (licentia, ), which
for Ovid is an in dispensable artistic virtue.84 For his detractors, however,
and especi ally w ithin th e R oman cultur al c ontext, licentia is a sig n of
immorality commonly associated with a la ck of sexual restraint. He thus
 Pandora’s Voice and th e Emergence of Ovid’s Poetic Persona

emphasizes hi s cr itics’ disgust a t th e pr omiscuously er otic dimension of

his work:

nuper enim n ostros quidem carpsere libellos

quorum censura Musa proterva mea est.
(Rem. –)

[recently some people a ttacked my books;

their criticism, however, is that my Muse (poetry) is shameless.]

Ovid’s tactic is striking. On one level, he cites th e critics who accuse him
of creating a shameless poetr y. They s ay that hi s Muse i s proterva. Their
“shameless Muse” is not far from Cicero’s description of the promiscuous
feminine figure, the courtesan, proterva meretrix (Cael. ). But Ovid does
not quote thi s s lander word for w ord; rather, he changes it in to the first
person. The critics say that “my Muse is shameless,” he says. He not only
repeats his accusers’ words but also reasserts them in the indicative. At the
same time, while his accusers derogatively allude to his sexual licentious-
ness, he pr ovides a di fferent in terpretation of Musa pr oterva. The wa y
in which h e conceives of his Muse cannot be eq uated w ith the way they
conceive of her. His Muse i s proterva not beca use h e bla tantly di scusses
sexual a cts: this a ccusation i s g roundless in lig ht of Ovid’s di sdain for
explicit pornographic images (Rem. –). Ovid’s Musa proterva should
be un derstood in terms of his us e of levitas and lascivia. These ar e th e
attributes he uses to legitimize his decision to dedicate himself to the ille-
gitimate field of eros. These terms ensure that his poetry will become what
it pr oclaims its elf to be: shamelessly pa thbreaking. In thi s s ense, Ovid’s
Musa pr oterva grows out of his conception of love eleg y as Venus’s pro-
curer (lena, Am. ..). The love elegist is protervus because he mediates
between the goddess of love and human beings, thus continuing the tradi-
tion of Socrates, Aspasia, Sappho, and Pandora, who all function as erotic
intermediaries.
 chapter 

Feminine Subjectivity and the

Self-Contradicting Text

In chapter  I examine the emergence of Ovid’s unique authority within the

tradition of Roman love elegy. My reading of his singularity as a love elegist
focuses on his poetic persona, his adaptation of the feminine voice with its
overtones of lasciviousness and transgression. The term Musa proterva marks
Ovid’s understanding of the intimate relationship between poetr y, eros,
and the feminine. The connection between eros and the feminine is already
present in the m yth of the first woman. Specifying the domain of love as
illogical and irrational, Hesiod presents Eros as an illicit cosmological ele-
ment whose form of activity is the unconstitutional: Eros is an antithesis to
good reasoning and thoughtful advice, da/mnatai e)n sth/qessi no/on kai\
e)pi/frona boulh/n (Th. ). This destructive force finds its embodiment,
according to Hesiod, in the figure of Pandora whose charis (charismatic
sexuality), endowed by Aphrodite, is the sour ce of erotic sorrows, po/qon
a)rgale/on kai\ guiobo/rouj meledw/naj (W&D ). Subsequently, a woman’s
language of love is traditionally understood as provocative and transgressive.
By the same token, the ideolog y of silencing women may be understood in
the light of the attempt to overcome the erotic by means of rationality.
In the present chapter, I turn t o the different ways in which P andora’s
image per vades an d stru ctures Ov id’s er otodidactic texts. In wha t s ense
can a text be s aid to emulate Pandora? She i s ca lled a dec eit; she i s s aid
to have a ly ing appearance. Her language i s never transparent. Instead of
revealing h er inn er in tentions, it hides th em. It i s a lways ambigu ous, a
medium of concealment. Language as simula tion i s a th eme c entral t o
Ovid’s erotodidactic di scourse. Not only does h e focus on th e cr aftiness
of language as cru cial to the art of love, but his own composition is also
construed as a textua l conundrum, a mimesis of Pandora.


 Feminine Subjectivity and th e Self-Contradicting Text

The tension betw een gen uine emotion an d emotiona l gestur es, inner
passion and simulation of passions, is intrinsic to Ovid’s erotic teaching.
Consequently, it is not surprising that responses to his didactic works have
questioned again and again the text’s sincerity and integrity. In this sense,
there i s a c lose a ffinity betw een th e figure of Pandora an d Ov id’s lo ve
guides. The first w oman and th e erotodidactic text in cite similar cr itical
responses—in fact, both encourage misogynistic readings.
We shall see that Ovid makes woman’s self-contradicting character the
constituting pr inciple of his Ars and Remedia. Hence my di scussion w ill
focus on th e pa linodic structure that links th ese works. Plato’s Phaedrus
tells us that the history of the literary palinode leads back to a woman. As
Socrates turns hi s back on hi s first or ation aga inst lo ve and shifts t o an
alternative speech in f avor of it, he points to the source of this rhetorical
gesture. Punished by the gods for his defamation of Helen (he had blamed
her for th e Trojan War), the poet Stesich orus is said to have composed a
new poem of recantation in which h e completely purifies her. That i s to
say: the text of contradiction or iginates as a r esponse t o th e c onflicting
presence of a woman.1 In thi s r espect, the Platonic antecedent of Ovid’s
antithetical tr eatment of love a lready elu cidates th e in trinsic c onnection
between palinodic textuality and the mysterious figure of the femme fatale.

A  R: M, L G,

  P  S
Composition of Ars Amatoria and Remedia Amoris brought Ovid’s career
as a lo ve poet t o an en d. These works constituted something of a cul-de-
sac for th e genr e of the Roman love eleg y. Explanations for th e death of
the genre point to the Augustan political milieu, to Ovid’s own relation-
ship with the emperor, and, most significantly, to Ovid’s unique standing
among R oman lo ve eleg ists. But th ere i s an other r eason wh y Ars and
Remedia led Latin love elegy to a point of self-exhaustion: the genre came
to an en d once Ov id abandoned th e subjecti ve and persona l in f avor of
the didactic.
The impa ct of Ars and Remedia on th e lo ve eleg y ma y be lik ened t o
Medusa’s gaze. Reading the love guides must have had a destructive—even
castrating—effect on th ose who strove to write original love elegies. The
guides’ metaliterary perspective blocked other poetic a ttempts:2 once the
love elegy as a genr e turned into an object of inquiry, it lost its autonomy
and generic authority. Whereas the form ha d served the amatory poet as
a means of investigating th e er otic field, Ars and Remedia methodically
 Feminine Subjectivity and th e Self-Contradicting Text 

explore the form itself. This methodological approach to the elegy’s erotic
poetics affects the genre’s v itality and novelty. In systematically mapping
the er otodidactic di scourse, Ovid’s inn ovation casts a long sha dow o ver
the creative field for futur e elegiac poets. His work threatens to make all
amatory contributions faint replicas, mere borrowings or imitations of the
precepts established in Ars and Remedia.3
The destructive (or deconstructive) impact of Ovid’s systematization of
love elegy is well described by Gian Biagio Conte:

Ovid, before being th e author of elegiac texts, is the addressee of the pas-
sionate poetry of Catullus, Gallus, Propertius, and Tibullus. He has listened
to their words, learned to understand how the system tha t programs them
is constructed, discovered what contradictions invest it, deconstructed it by
finding its n ecessary r elations; now h e kn ows h ow t o r econstruct it in hi s
own way. Ovid’s text accepts the genre’s conventions; it places itself in a rela-
tion of intertextuality, indeed of continuation, with the lineage of elegy—a
vista of citations, a mirage of structures that are déjà vu and déjà vécu. But
at th e v ery momen t h e a cquires a super ior un derstanding of the liter ary
characteristics of elegy (the way in which it “works out” reality), Ovid stops.4

Conte characterizes the transition from the “standard” Roman love elegy
to Ars and Remedia as a n ew attempt “to look a t elegy instead of looking
with th e e yes of elegy.”5 “Looking a t eleg y” implies a di stance fr om th e
elegiac point of view. Furthermore, it impli es an in version of the poetic
role undertaken by the elegist. The very attempt to articulate the field of
eros as a form of Ars suggests an understanding of love according to which
the eleg ist’s immersion in amor ous pa thos, suffering, and sickn ess n o
longer provides any privileged access to the truth of the phenomenon he
describes.
In thi s r espect, Ovid’s shift fr om an expr essive t o a met alanguage of
love marks more than a mere didactic transition. Ars Amatoria and Reme-
dia Amoris signify the radicalization of the idea that language i s the inner
form of the phenomenon of love. For Ov id, the impor tance of language
exceeds its abilit y t o expr ess an d c ommunicate emotions, to ar ticulate
and shape amorous experiences. Language, rather, is a condition necessary
for entertaining emotions. In other words, love, according to Ov id, is an
intrinsically textua l ph enomenon—one tha t, in its ess ence, is language-
dependent. Hence, while his explicit subject of investigation is, of course,
Amor, the primary focus of the lover’s handbook is the verbal dimension
 Feminine Subjectivity and th e Self-Contradicting Text

of erotic interaction. It is in the domain of language that love takes place,

and it is precisely rhetorical competence that enables the lover to take part
in and eventually master the love situation. As Ovid guides the student of
love from naiveté to maturity, the criterion of progress is explicitly tied to
his or h er developing capacity for mor e refined forms of verbal achieve-
ment. While still an indoctus, the lover unable to incite desire is described
as a mute. For Ovid, this absence of articulation is the principal obstacle
to aspiring, would-be lovers.
Ovid’s c ourse beg ins w ith th e poten tial lo vers’ mutual a cquaintance.
During this preliminary stage of the erotic relationship, verbal communi-
cation is based on th e respective social skills of the pair. These lovers are
only able to engage in “small talk” that consists of publica verba (AA .).
The establishment of a common discursive ground is, according to Ovid,
necessary for proceeding to the next rhetorical phase, that of explicit per-
suasion. At this stage the lover will need to meet higher discursive demands,
ones that require adequate preparation and learning.

Disce bonas ar tes, moneo, Romana iuventus,

non tantum trepidos ut tu eare reos:
quam populus iu dexque gravis lectusque senatus,
tam dabit eloq uio victa puella manus.
(AA .–)

[I advise you, young Roman man, learn the noble Arts,

not only tha t you may defend trembling
clients; a girl, like an a udience, a critical
judge, or the select senate, will surrender, conquered, to eloquence.]

Since for Ov id the love relationship is textual at heart, he construes it in

terms of the relationship between speaker and audience, between deliber-
ate lingui stic a ctivity an d th e r eader’s r esponse. When h e instru cts men
in the art of seduction, he conceives of the female erotic role as tha t of a
reader. In corollary fashion, he presents a w oman’s readership as in its elf
an art that can dev elop and reach maturation. The woman can g radually
develop into a sophisticated interpreter, and Ovid thus describes her by an
analogy using three distinct images taken from the field of public speech.
The woman is comparable to populus, the crowd in a public meeting; to
iudex gravis, a critical judge in a private case; and, finally, in her most elite
form, lectus senatus.
 Feminine Subjectivity and th e Self-Contradicting Text 

But the first, crudest stage in the development of feminine reading skills
is the most telling . Comparing the woman to the Roman populus evokes
Ovid’s first mention of the audience of Ars Amatoria: hoc populus: si quis
in hoc ar tem popul o non nov it amandi (AA .). Ars opens by addressing
any Roman who is ignorant of the art of love. In identifying the seduced
woman as populus (AA .), Ovid analogically positions her in the same
place as his intended readers, implying that women are, in fact, ideal read-
ers of his erotic discourse. Likewise, this analogy positions the male reader
of Ars . in the place taken up b y women in Ars ., implying that the
readers of Ovid’s guide are expected to undergo a comparable hermeneu-
tic development.6
Erotic ignorance is, according to Ovid, a preliminary stage that must be
transcended. That transcendence depends on the development of sophisti-
cated methods of reading. The ignorant reader (belonging to the populus)
can, in pr inciple, become an exper t ( iudex g ravis, or e ven lectus se natus)
in ma tters of love. In bec oming g reat lo vers, Ovid’s r eaders, by de fini-
tion, become masters of their master’s art. Once they turn into competent
lovers, they become experts in lo ve, inheriting their master’s art, the lan-
guage of love. They are made into poetic lo vers.
Not all men are poets, but all true lovers are poets.7 An exemplary lover
is, what’s more, a love poet, whom Ovid contrasts with seducers who lack
a poet’s skills.8 The celebration of the poet as the ultimate lover has a strong
performative va lue, highlighting hi s super ior techniq ues of seduction in
comparison with those of his rivals. But Ovid is not simply a s educer. He
is, first of all, a love instructor, teaching a us eful technique that i s appli-
cable t o both men an d w omen. He tea ches th e ar t of love b y pr oviding
the r eader w ith a di scursive model for imit ation: the language of love
poetry. In so doing , he deni es that love poetr y belongs only t o the circle
of Roman love eleg ists. Rather, he makes the erotic eleg iac form a ccessi-
ble to the average Roman.
Ovid’s instructions for bec oming a s educer or for appear ing to be in a
state of love were considered a c lear indication of the performativity that
is t o be foun d a t th e h eart of his guides. Ars and Remedia were re ad a s
rhetorical works in the negative sense, and romantic readers accused Ovid
of making fun of “true” love. Such cr iticisms, which w ere r ecurrent in
early responses to Ars and Remedia, have consistently stood in the way of
accepting Ovid’s didactic intention at face value.
Ovid c ertainly does n ot c onsider “love” to be a syn onym for h onest,
consistent, and truthful a ffection. Indeed, emotions ar e n ot in tegral t o
 Feminine Subjectivity and th e Self-Contradicting Text

the natural constitution of a human being as f ar as he is concerned. They

are n either inna te n or inborn but ar e, rather, social an d cultur al c on-
structions created in and developed through our language, as well as being
the s emiotics of gestures an d performa tive a ction. For Ov id, simulation
and pr etending ar e not for eign to the phenomenon of love; in f act, they
are in tegral t o it. The li e, in par ticular, is an in dispensable, constitutive
component of the love relationship: Ovid explains the importance of lying
at a lmost ev ery st age of the dev elopment of that r elationship. But su ch
amorous li es ar e in dicative of neither an immor al soul n or a c orrupt
mind. Since h e considers th e externa l manifest ations of love ess ential t o
erotic experience, his teachings invite potential lovers to externalize their
passions while bracketing questions about the actual existence of passion.
The ar t of love tea ches r eaders t o per ceive th emselves as lo vers. That i s
to s ay, it guides a person in a cquiring an externa l perspecti ve on hi s or
her emotions. The externality of emotions is a c onception that also gov-
erns the deterioration of love. In Remedia, for example, the didactic tools
initially suppli ed in Ars now a chieve th e opposite r esult. Emotions can
develop or di sappear, but th ey do so in a ccordance w ith our simula tive
capacities.

Quod non es, simula, positosque imitare furores;

sic facies vere, quod meditatus eris.
saepe ego, ne biberem, volui dormire videri;
dum videor, somno lumina v icta dedi.
deceptum risi, qui se simulabat amare,
in laqueos auceps decideratque suos.
(Rem. –)

[Pretend to be wha t you are not, imitate the appearance of being burned
out: thus you will realize what you have been planning on doing .
Often, in order not to drink, I wanted to seem to be s leeping: while
seeming to sleep, my eyes were overcome by sleep. I have laughed at
the self-deluding man wh o, while pretending to be in lo ve, fell like a
bird-catcher into his own trap.]

We can s ay that Ovid’s theory of love is expressive. More precisely, it is a

theory that recognizes the expressive. For Ovid, “what is latent is unknown”
(quod latet, ignotum est, AA .). And there is no desire for wha t is un-
known. This is illustrated by his visual depiction of Aphrodite:
 Feminine Subjectivity and th e Self-Contradicting Text 

Si Venerem Cous nusquam posuisset Apelles,

mersa sub aeq ureis illa la teret aquis.
(AA .–)

[If Coan Apelles had never created Venus,

she would still be bur ied deep do wn in th e ocean.]

Aphrodite’s dependence on visualization is illuminating. Her beauty, which

is ana logous to inner passion, remains futile an d ineffective as long as it
is hidden from the public. In the Ovidian lexicon, love becomes a v itally
meaningful ph enomenon only wh en it i s embodi ed in a r elationship. It
then turns in to a dynamic feeling , a passion tha t i s in terwoven in to th e
amorous fabric. Ovid’s interest in love is of a behaviorist type. He has no
concern for the “inner” experience or for the “inner life” of love. Similarly,
he di sregards th e tr aditional met aphysical aspects of love. In pr ivileging
performance, Ovid’s psychological approach to love justifies the essential
status of lies in lo ve relationships. Deceit in th e sphere of love is seen to
be a kind of art. The erotic lie is a form of mimesis, functioning in a man-
ner that is analogous to representation in painting, or to the effect of iden-
tification in poetic an d rhetorical language.
The question of the lover’s authenticity or sincerity is consequently irrel-
evant for the instructor of love. The concept of sincerity rests on the oppo-
sition between private and public, between internal and external, between
a person’s inside an d outside. 9 A sincere person i s one who appears t o be
what he or she actually is. Authenticity then becomes the identity between
appearance and reality. But Ovid rejects this opposition, since he regards
the external as informing the intelligibility of internal life. For him, exter-
nalization determines who you are. Only through representation does the
inner exper ience ful fill its ess ence. This a lso means tha t Ov id’s exclama-
tion “Let your love and sincere devotion be visible to your girl” (tunc amor
et pietas tua sit manifesta puell ae, AA .) cannot be assigned, as it com-
monly i s, to th e ca tegory of insincerity. That i s, Ovid speaks a language
that defies the opposition betw een sincerity and insincerity.
In his preoccupation with the discursive models that comprise the prac-
tice of love, Ovid may be said to foreshadow the kind of theoretical dispo-
sition we find, for example, in Roland Barthes’s poststructuralist Fragments
d’un discours amoureux (). Like Ovid, Barthes studies love in a manner
that is free from any essentialist concerns. His aim is not to understand the
essence of love, but to decipher the “grammar” of the di scourse of love.
 Feminine Subjectivity and th e Self-Contradicting Text

In other words, Barthes tr eats love in a mann er that i s no longer domi-

nated by the traditional question of what love is; like Ovid, he allows new
questions to t ake its pla ce. How do w e speak of love? What i s the lover’s
language? For Barthes, love and the lover both belong to a discursive field
that is the object of his investigation. “What is proposed, then,” he writes,
“is a por trait—but not a psy chological portrait; instead, a structural one
which o ffers th e r eader a di scursive site: the site of someone speaking
within hims elf, amorously, confronting the other (the loved object), who
does not speak.”10
Barthes’s Fragments has exerted significant influence on in terpreters of
Roman lo ve eleg y. Groundbreaking stu dies su ch as P aul Veyne’s L’èlégie
érotique romaine: L’amour, la poésie et l’Occident (), Molly Myerowitz’s
Ovid’s Games of Love (), and Duncan F. Kennedy’s The Arts of Love:
Five Studies in the Discourse of Roman Love Elegy () have explored the
poetic originality of the Roman elegiac discourse of love.11 In par ticular,
they have led t o a r eassessment of the genr e’s aesthetic va lue by r edefin-
ing the concept of love as a lingui stic and liter ary phenomenon. Current
scholarship has internalized a linguistic perspective in its r eading of Ovid
and has, accordingly, made room for an understanding of Ars and Remedia
as forms of metadiscourse whose field of inquiry is the discourse of love.12
Yet in th e context of the impor tant changes br ought about b y su ch di s-
cursive approaches, the didactic claim of Ars and Remedia has been unable
to ca ll for an y s erious a ttention. When Ov id’s guides ar e r ead in terms
of the exemplar y semiotic matrix of speech acts and bodily gestur es that
they pr esent, his pla yfulness an d lig htness ar e in deed in tegrated in to an
apparently dida ctic fr amework.13 But wh en th e “teaching” of Ars and
Remedia is read in terms of their abilit y to f ashion readers as masters of
an erotic language game, speech act and performative-oriented interpre-
tations of Ovid have r emained committed to a v ery nar row understand-
ing of what th e dida ctic c ore of these w orks mig ht be. 14 In par ticular,
might not openness to the centrality of language games in Ovid ultimately
reproduce th e or thodox c onception of him as a fr ivolous an d insin cere
poet?15 Can we, in other words, acknowledge the intrinsic role of language
in th e Ov idian tr eatment of love w ithout lev eling th e dida ctic aspect of
his project?
In antiquity, the guides’ problematic didactic value was s een as der iving
from their scandalous char acter.16 But why was it so di fficult to consider
Ovid’s didacticism reliable? His debt to the Roman didactic tradition is un-
questionable: Lucretius’s De Rerum Natura, Cicero’s rhetorical and ethical
 Feminine Subjectivity and th e Self-Contradicting Text 

works, and V irgil’s Georgics are impor tant in fluences.17 And y et Ov id’s
guides remain outside this traditional didactic Latin discourse, considered
by most of their readers, ancient and modern a like, to be a gen eric trans-
gression tha t begets “a subgenr e of the mock dida ctic.”18 Ovid’s didactic
modus also generates an enig matic form of textuality that is full of para-
doxes and self-contradictions. I will mention just a few of these.
Ovid’s didactic framework abuses the classical opposition between vir-
tue and pleasure, thus making utility the ethical core of the didactic genre,
which tha t th en became first an d for emost a means of communicating
immoral an d futile c ontent.19 More speci fically, since it was n otoriously
dedicated t o n onmatrimonial lo ve, Ovid’s er otodidactic poetr y became,
by de finition, anti-institutional.20 We can s ay tha t h e forma lly w rites a
didactic work whose essence is decidedly antididactic. Taking into account
the traditional hostility toward (vain) pleasures and passions, it is no won-
der tha t Ov id i s a ccused of promulgating an empt y di scourse. It i s thi s
kind of discourse that Cicero conceives as time-consuming—that is, con-
suming men’s precious time by turning it into otium. Reading love poetry
thus becomes as c orrupting as a pleasur e-seeking life. 21
Cicero’s contempt for s elf-indulgence entails a condescending response
toward liter ature that reflects it. His position i s typical of didactic works
such as L ucretius’s E picurean epic. The fer ocious c ondemnation of love
in Book  of De Rerum Natura turns out to be, as Martha Nussbaum has
forcefully argu ed, a r enunciation of erotic poetr y as w ell. According t o
Lucretius, liberation from the illusionary grip of love means that lovers are
released from the spell of love poetr y. “Once the illusions of love are re-
moved,” Nussbaum writes of the didactic message of this antierotic poem,
“there is no love poetry to write.”22
We find a similar argument when we attempt to discover what is didac-
tic in the erotodidactic. Conte points to the death of love elegy as the crux
of Ovid’s dida ctics: “The Remedies against L ove present th emselves as a
cure for those in love, but in fact they function as a remedy against a form
of literature.”23 How does th e r emedy aga inst lo ve eleg y c orrespond t o
the dida ctic pr oject of that genr e: that i s, the ars poe tica of love ele gy?
What i s the va lue of an ars poe tica if the genr e it di scusses i s eventually
condemned?
The ambi valent st atus of Ovid’s dida ctic pr oject i s ti ed, of course, to
the c omplexity of his poetic persona (s ee chapter ). Here, however, we
are less c oncerned w ith Ov id’s s elf-understanding (e.g ., as a poet, as a
teacher). Our focus, rather, is on the uniqueness of the textual form of Ars
 Feminine Subjectivity and th e Self-Contradicting Text

Amatoria and Remedia Amoris, which exemplifies well my understanding

of what I call the feminine dimension of the text. Ovid’s Ars and Remedia
function, as we have seen, at the intersection of the erotic, the didactic, and
the highly discursive. This is what I mean by recognizing them as genuine
erotodidactic works. Yet this textual intersection is a place of conflict. The
sensual claims of eros, the ethical claims of “teaching,” and the theoretical
claims of a language-or der tha t insi sts on its c onspicuity cann ot fully
comply with one another. And this is precisely why Ars and Remedia pro-
vide such a good example of “Pandora’s textual heritage”: they allow us to
see th e mann er in which th eir unfolding as texts depen ds on th ose un-
resolved tensions tha t characterize the first woman.

T P S

With thi s in min d, we may now turn t o what i s probably the most per-
plexing textual problem of Ars and Remedia. Both are guides that concern
themselves with the lover’s art as it dev elops from the first signs of erotic
attraction to the dissolution of the amorous relationship. In the first sec-
tions of Ars, Ovid instructs his reader to identify the proper object of love,
to spread the amorous net, to pursue and seduce the object of one’s love,
and then to successfully sustain an ongoing love relationship. In Remedia,
the instruction has an en tirely different goal. The lover has now lost love,
and the guide subs equently offers a wa y to come to terms w ith that loss.
The means of this remedial process is renunciation: the lover will cure his
or h er unhappin ess w ith th e understanding tha t lo ve its elf is a sickn ess.
Only then will the former lovers learn to accept the superiority of an emo-
tionally detached position t o the state of being in lo ve.
But as the erotodidactic guide begins to disclaim the possibility of love,
it seems to be turning aga inst itself and, in so doing , creating a puzzling
literary form: a palinode, or a structure of contradiction. What, then, is the
pedagogical value of Ars and Remedia if they are read together? No doubt,
Ovid in tended for th e tw o par ts—the pursuit of and th en th e r ecovery
from love—to be inseparable. Together the works create a unique reading
experience, deriving from a textual paradox that, in turn, reflects the con-
flicted experience of love. Ovid begins Remedia with an explicit r eference
to the contradiction generated by his two didactic poems:

Legerat huius Amor titulum n omenque libelli

bella mihi, video, bella parantur ait.
(Rem. –)
 Feminine Subjectivity and th e Self-Contradicting Text 

[Amor read the name an d title of this book an d said:

I see that wars ar e prepared against me.]

The negotiation between Ars, which addresses passion as a cur rent expe-
rience, and Remedia, which addresses passion as a past exper ience, is not
unproblematic for Ovid. He understands that this structure puts the value
of Ars into question. Again and again he reassures his reader that reading
Ars was not a poin tless exer cise. He promises tha t th e a dvice h e gave in
the first work will not lose its meaning or va lidity in th e face of the ulti-
mate curative antithesis of the second work. Both parts of his project, he
assures the reader, both the “pro” and the “con,” can still be seriously read.

Nec te, blande puer, nec nostras prodimus artes,

nec nova praeteritum Musa retexit opus.
(Rem. –)

[I do n ot betray you or m y own arts;

this new muse does n ot unravel my past w ork.]

Again, he assures the reader that Remedia does not threaten the status of
Ars as a dida ctic text, or invalidate its a dvice:

Naso legendus erat tum, cum didicistis amare;

idem nunc vobis Naso legendus erit.
(Rem. –)

[Just as in th e past the reading of Naso was invaluable for you to learn how
to love,
so reading Naso now will be in valuable for y ou.]

But ev en su ch a uthorial r eassurances f ail t o a lleviate th e di fficulty tha t

Ovid’s dualism generates. The juxtaposition of Ars and Remedia creates a
literary puzzle that puts hi s reliability and sincerity in question. How can
we interpret thi s double gestur e? Why should we abst ain from what had
previously been en couraged? How can Ov id’s didactic position be t aken
seriously if his text i s s elf-contradictory? H ow can th e r eader trust thi s
author? And how can th e author claim authority for hi s writing? What is
the significance of this textual contradiction? The contradiction between
Ars and Remedia cannot be easily dismissed; it calls for reflection. And yet,
in reflecting on this contradiction, we need to resist the natural temptation
 Feminine Subjectivity and th e Self-Contradicting Text

of doing away with the contradiction on which we reflect. In other words,

the contradiction that surf aces in r eading Ars and Remedia is a real one
and should be a ddressed as su ch. Any interpretation of these works must
rest on a r eading that embraces the structure of contradiction as in tegral
to them. At the same time, however, the fact of contradiction should not
be understood as a liter ary cur iosity, an interestingly amusing ir regular-
ity tha t just happens t o be par t of Ovid’s textua lity. Instead, we sh ould
read the paradoxical structure of Ars and Remedia as reflecting a new tex-
tual awareness on his part, namely, his understanding of what a text is and
how it functions. As I sha ll show now, these guides to love are themselves
guided by the assumption that texts are intrinsically connected to forms of
subjectivity, and tha t th ey cr eate forms of autobiographical understand-
ing. What kin ds of subjectivity ar e r eflected in Ars and Remedia? What
kind of self-knowledge can be der ived from these works?

P  N

Let us beg in to answer these questions by noticing first why it i s that we,
as r eaders of these texts, come t o exper ience a c ontradiction. The s ense
of contradiction ar ises wh en w e follo w th e dida ctic c laims of both Ars
and Remedia and find ours elves f acing tw o c onflicting in terpretations,
two mutua lly exclusive points of view on th e va lue of love. From a log i-
cal point of view, it seems impossible t o treat love with both en thusiasm
and di sdain. The law of noncontradiction finds its expr ession, as Aristo-
tle explains, in the fact that “it is impossible for anyone to believe the same
to be and not to be” (Metaph. a.–). And yet the gist of this prin-
ciple, which is “most certain of all” and which “everyone must know who
knows anything,” is not merely logical. The impossibility of contradiction
is, according t o th e par adigmatic Aristotelian formula tion, not just an
internal form of the way we think; it primarily belongs to the ontological
structure o f things. That i s t o s ay, “it i s impossible tha t c ontrary a ttri-
butes should belong a t the same time t o the same subject” (a.). In
our context, this means tha t lo ve cannot be w orthy and va luable and at
the same time also unworthy and valueless. So, what is Ovid saying? Is this
student of the Roman schools of rhetoric simply showing his skills in th e
art of the controversiae (cf. Seneca, Controv. .. ff.)? I s thi s mer ely an
exercise in pr esenting both sides of an argument in order to demonstrate
the speaker’s rhetorical virtuosity?
The mere play of rhetorical argument cannot explain Ovid’s use of the
palinode, which, in my v iew, must be ti ed t o hi s deep un derstanding of
 Feminine Subjectivity and th e Self-Contradicting Text 

the relationship between language, love and contradiction.24 When think-

ing of contradiction, we typically deal with an essentially atemporal struc-
ture, one that is severed from the concreteness of temporal duration. This
can be s een, for example, in the dependence of the Aristotelian definition
of the law of contradiction on a pun ctual, self-identical “now” (“It is im-
possible that contrary attributes should belong at the same time to the same
subject,” Metaph. a.). For Ov id, however, there i s n o su ch idea l—
metaphysical—point in time. Contradiction, therefore, is a lready par t of
our ordinary experience of temporality. In other words, the conflicting per-
spectives on love that he presents are not at all rooted in the unity of one
and “the same time.” The pursuit and renunciation of love do not share a
self-identical tempor al moda lity but sh ould be r ead, rather, in terms of
the different temporal points of view that Ars and Remedia embody.
To put this simply, I think that the palinode created by Ars and Remedia
must be understood within the horizons of a narrative underlying Ovid’s
articulation of the experience of love. Ars and Remedia are intertwined as
parts of a narrative through which the narrator’s (and hence the reader’s)
passage in time is construed. This is also the connection to the texts’ didac-
tic dimension. Ars and Remedia develop a met anarrative tha t instru cts
its r eaders on h ow t o shape th eir o wn lo ve nar ratives or, better, how t o
understand themselves in lo ve within the horizons of a narrative.
What kind of narrative is elicited by Ars and Remedia? What is the rela-
tionship of Ovid’s lo ve nar rative t o th e tw o c entral nar rative models in
antiquity? Th e tw o t ypes of narrative a vailable for descr ibing th e dev el-
opment of an erotic relationship are the tragic and the comic. Tragic love
tales conventionally end with a pa inful loss of love, most often expr essed
in untimely death, as in th e stories of Phaedra’s and Dido’s suicides. The
comic narrative, in contrast, adopts the “happy ending” that is character-
istic of erotic comedies and the Greek novel. Conventional comic scenar-
ios beg in b y imposing a s eparation on th e lo vers an d c onclude, after a
series of adventures and complications, with their reunion, which signals
the beginning of renewed love. In this context, it is not hard to recognize
the innovative char acter of the narratological horizons of Ovid’s Ars and
Remedia. For Ovid, the love story is opened up to the possibility of a new
form of ending, a thir d nar rative option tha t forges a mid dle g round
between th e poles of tragedy an d c omedy. On th e on e han d, he r ejects
the terminal solution to the problem of love offered by tragedy’s literal or
symbolic death. On the other hand, he dismisses comedy’s ultimate happy
reunion of the loving couple. What he offers instead is a therapeutic shift,
 Feminine Subjectivity and th e Self-Contradicting Text

opening up th e possibilit y of a meaning ful life after lo ve’s demi se. By

juxtaposing Ars and Remedia, he cr eates a r etrospective nar ratological
framework within which a lover can escape the grip of the past. For Ovid,
healing requires the rejection of a lover’s prior amorous experience. This
renunciation i s a str ategy for c oping w ith the painful past. In thi s s ense,
we may say that, when read together, Ars and Remedia constitute a narra-
tive of transformation. Accordingly, they present a chronology of two fields
of consecutive, albeit s eparate, experiences. Ars comes first, representing
an er otic exper ience tha t ultima tely f ails. And Remedia provides a per-
spective by which the “now” of Ars can turn into a past. Remedia can serve
as a r emedy for th e failures of Ars precisely by putting th e present of Ars
into relief.
But does the present of Remedia simply cancel the presence of Ars? Can
the r elationship between Ars and R emedia be r ead in terms of the subli-
mation of the earlier poem by the later one? Clearly not. This would leave
Ars bereft of any genuine significance. Furthermore, it would dissipate the
sense of contradiction—Pandora’s sense—so central to the Ovidian text.
While couching his treatises on love in a transformational narrative, Ovid
explicitly resists any privileging of one temporal stage over the other. Ars
and Remedia are both present to the reader as legitimate possibilities. Ovid
is unwilling to grant the second part of his palinode any absolute pr iority.
Unlike Diotima, who delineates in Plato’s Symposium the path by which a
lover c ould tr anscend bodily lo ve an d ear thly desir e an d r each th e only
stage where “man’s life i s ever worth the living”—that i s, the one wh ere
he “has a ttained thi s v ision of the soul of the v ery beautiful” and h ence
“will n ever be s educed aga in b y th e charm of gold, of dress, of comely
boys, of lads just ripening to manhood” (Symp. d)—Ovid does not see
in Remedia the cancellation of Ars.25 He is indeed concerned with the pos-
sibility of redeeming the sick lo ver from his predicament:

Utile propositum est s aevas extinguere flammas,

nec servum vitii pectus haber e sui.
(Rem. –)

[To quench savage flames is a us eful objective,

also not to have a h eart subjected t o its o wn weakness.]

Yet his articulation of a place and time in which the lover is no longer en-
slaved by a painful love does not imply that the possibility of love should
 Feminine Subjectivity and th e Self-Contradicting Text 

be f orsaken. Remedia is not meant as a cur e from a st age in h uman life

that must be overcome and left behind forever. It denotes, rather, the pos-
sibility of freeing oneself from specific love episodes by allowing them to
become part of the past.
Grounded in a narrative of transformation, the lover’s passage from Ars
to Remedia is n ot, however, conversional.26 Instead of a lin ear tr ansfor-
mation in which on e st age of life completely g ives way to another, Ovid
presents a cyclical narrative that embraces both Ars and Remedia. In other
words, he thinks of the life of the lover as a per petual oscillation between
the two options. In this context, we may better understand Ovidian claims
that mig ht oth erwise s eem a wkward w ithin th e fr amework of Remedia:
“All love is overcome by a new love” (successore novo v incitur omnis amor,
Rem. ); or “I’ve always loved, and should you ask what I am doing now,
I love” (ego se mper amavi / e t si q uid fac iam, nunc quoque, quaeris, amo,
–). We should understand in a similar wa y Ovid’s request to Remedia’s
readers that they ultimately return to Ars:

quaeris, ubi invenias? artes, i, perlege nostras:

plena puellarum iam tibi na vis erit.
(Rem. –)

[You ask wh ere you can find a n ew love? Go r ead my Arts again:
your ship w ill soon be full of women.]

Evoking a retrospective reading of Ars is a way to epitomize the essentially

unresolved character of the lover’s life. Moreover, it is Ovid’s way of under-
scoring the need for a cy clical reading of his erotodidactic works. Reading
Ars and Remedia as an un ending cy cle i s a manifest ation of the un der-
standing that the contradiction between these texts is real and intrinsic to
their constitution.

P’ L
I ha ve tr ied t o sh ow tha t th e mechani sm of contradiction i s th e modus
operandi of Ars and Remedia. Contradiction, ambiguity, and incoherence
are tr aditional signs of a woman’s language. Hence, in creating the space
of his text in a mann er tha t deliber ately embr aces c ontradiction, Ovid
is in ternalizing a c onception of textuality tha t i s in trinsically ti ed t o an
understanding of feminine subjectivity. But how exactly i s contradiction
tied to the nature of feminine experience and self-understanding? What is
 Feminine Subjectivity and th e Self-Contradicting Text

the c onnection betw een th e c ontradictory pr isms tha t Ars and Remedia
present to their readers and the structure of a feminine autobiography?
Let us begin to address these questions by recalling that one of the most
important performative skills in the art of love is, according to Ovid, a com-
petence in ly ing. For the mythical imag ination, the underlying structure
of the li e i s th e dich otomy betw een a person ’s in wardness an d outwar d
appearance, a dich otomy tha t i s tr aditionally associ ated w ith femininit y
and found a lready in th e Hesiodic image of the first woman. While it i s
interesting to notice that Hesiod’s Pandora never actually lies, Works and
Days construes her archetypal image as dec eitful in ess ence. Reference to
her deceitful character (epiklopon ethos) is made twice (W&D , ), re-
inforced b y men tioning th e li es implan ted in h er b y H ermes ( pseudea,
W&D ). Beyond these specific attributions is a deeper stru ctural sense
that iden tifies th e first w oman w ith th e or igin of lies an d dec eption. As
suggested, Pandora, the first woman, is a lso the first human being—sin-
gular among the crowd of men—whose self is divided into an inside an d
an outside. The first woman is a creature who is not one with herself. And
this duality between what shows itself and what remains invisible implies
concealment and thus renders her, by definition, dishonest. In other words,
what makes Pandora’s image so troubling is not just the fact that she might
be hiding specific contents from the eyes of men. It is the fact, rather, that
she is, in principle, not transparent, that she has an in wardness that can-
not be fully a ccessed.
Pandora in troduces in to th e w orld th e dich otomy betw een an inn er
nature and external appearance that foreshadows the distinction between
soul and body. In this sense we find in th e image of the first woman the
seed for what would be articulated in the Western tradition as the general
form of the human. Should w e thus s ay tha t Pandora’s di sturbing e ffect
has to do with the way she mirrors men, allowing them to recognize their
own deceitful char acter and, consequently, their femininit y? For Hesiod,
Pandora is kalon kakon, expressing the discrepancy between a stunning ly
beautiful exteriority and an ev il soul. Yet in what sense should the female
soul be understood as ev il? It would seem that Pandora’s greatest problem
is having a soul in the first place. She desires. She wants and craves warmth,
food, home, sex, and children. These desires, had they been of a moder-
ate order, would have been acceptable. Nevertheless, they are seen as dubi-
ous and mor ally suspicious pr ecisely because th ey ar e invisible, because
they thr eaten t o r emain c oncealed fr om th e ma le beh older. Women, the
daughters of Pandora’s line, are accused of duplicity simply because their
 Feminine Subjectivity and th e Self-Contradicting Text 

beauty i s th e mark of the opaq ueness of appearance, an externa lity tha t

blocks direct insight into their psychology. The experience of looking at a
woman i s n ecessarily a dev ious on e: nothing in h er delica te appear ance
hints at her hidden w ishes and needs. The feminine illusion of external-
ity is particularly effective in the case of virgins. Consider Pandora, whose
maidenhood tr ansgresses the conventional Greek expectations for a pr e-
nuptial v irgin. She i s en dowed w ith an in dependent min d despite th e
common pr esupposition tha t inn ocently bea utiful v irgins la ck a w ill a t
all. Pandora’s male beholders are shocked when they discover the vitality
and autonomy of the virgin’s soul. They feel threatened and deceived. Pan-
dora’s dec eit i s exper ienced ea ch time th e ma le beh older iden tifies th e
existence of interiority. Recognizing that a virgin hides a soul i s an arche-
typal moment that extends far beyond Pandora, becoming part of the tra-
ditional image of the deceitful woman.
Once we are familiar with this imagery, it will perhaps n ot be sur pris-
ing tha t Ov id ti es th e cr aftiness so cru cial for pr acticing his art of love
to femininity. In Ars and Remedia the figure of the puella not only fun c-
tions as a unify ing pr inciple but, moreover, offers a c ore image for th e
enigmatic stru cture of the tw o lo ve guides. While Ars initially construes
the puella as charming, Remedia presents her as a danger ous illusion that
men should shun. Whereas in Ars the puella enjoys the status of domina,
encapsulating the peak of male desire, in Remedia she i s deprived of her
majestic st ature. This double f ace i s emblematic of the dua l char acter of
the Ovidian erotic text.
As a figure of love, the puella teaches her lovers the importance of the
play between appearance and reality. Ovid, instructing his readers on how
to respond to her, develops their awareness of the value of appearance and
its utility in shaping r eality. Such knowledge is necessary for both f alling
into an d w ithdrawing fr om lo ve. The r eaders of Ars .– are th us
advised to refrain from criticizing the girl’s imperfections and to call them
virtues, while th e r eaders of Remedia – are a dvised t o r efrain from
admiring the girl’s virtues and, instead, to call them imperfections.
The perfection of the woman’s appear ance i s the leitmotif of all three
books of Ars. In Books  and  Ovid concentrates on developing a s educ-
tive language tha t w ould a llow hi s ma le r eaders t o c elebrate th e puella’s
beauty. Book , which i s a ddressed t o w omen, focuses on th e wa ys in
which the female reader can control and refine her seductive appearance.
In contrast, Remedia denounces feminine appear ance and demagog ically
seeks to empty it of its erotic appeal. This reduction of the woman to her
 Feminine Subjectivity and th e Self-Contradicting Text

appearance is, of course, typical of the misogynist tradition and is partic-

ularly characteristic of such didactic discourses against love as Book  of
Lucretius’s De Rerum Natura.
Discussing the impor tance of oaths in th e love r elationship, Ovid en-
courages his male reader to swear in bad faith. His startlingly deviant advice
is mitigated by the pr emise that no harm i s done by cheating a ch eater:

Ludite, si sapitis, solas impune puellas:

hac magis est una fr aude pudenda fides
fallite fallentes: ex magna parte profanum
sunt genus: in laqueos quos posuere, cadant.
(AA .–)

[Take my advice: you may safely fool only g irls:

honesty should be mor e shameful than thi s single deceit.
deceive the deceivers; they are mostly an impious gen us.
let them fall into the traps they have set themselves.]

Indeed, Ovid justifies his advice with the maxim tha t there is no f ault in
wronging th e w rongdoers. What g rounds thi s r easoning i s th e un der-
standing that women are, by their nature, deceivers; they are the profanum
genus. This sh ould n ot be r ead as a mi sogynist s lip. Ovid r epeats him-
self more than on ce in hi s love guide. For example, when di stinguishing
between th e tw o s exes, Ovid char acterizes w omen as kn owing h ow t o
conceal th eir desir es—unlike men, who ar e ba d imposters. Likewise, his
exhortation to the male reader to “let women suffer from the same wound
they are known to inflict” identifies women as the initiators of lying in an
amorous relationship.
Ovid’s us e of this feminine ster eotype i s not, in my v iew, misogynist.
For Ovid, who celebrates eros as intrinsic to human behavior, the feminine
is a positi ve emblem tha t reflects his fascination with the erotic field. He
has no reservations about th e use of the “feminine lie”; for him, its con-
tribution to erotic life i s particularly important. Thus, he advises women
to ar tfully lend th eir appear ance a na ive look. 27 While ascr ibing th e role
of seducer to men, women should occupy the position of the seduced and
play the role of the inhibited party. This distribution of active and passive
roles to the amorous subjects un derscores the playful element that exi sts
within the love relationship and points to its characteristic insincerity. But
the question of inauthenticity becomes especially acute in th e case of the
 Feminine Subjectivity and th e Self-Contradicting Text 

passive r ole tha t w omen ar e expected t o pla y a ctively. Since th e fema le

partner must, by convention, appear to be shy, the naturalness of this pre-
sumably inna te q uality i s ultima tely lost. This a lso means tha t feminin e
modesty is, at its h eart, false and inauthentic:

Vir prior accedat, vir verba precantia dicat:

excipiat blandas comiter illa pr eces.
ut potiare, roga: tantum cupit illa r ogari;
da causam voti principiumque tui.
Iuppiter ad veteres supplex h eroidas ibat;
corrupit magnum nulla puella Iovem.
(AA .–)

[Let the man first approach, let him speak w ords of entreaty:
her role is to listen gracefully to his flattering biddings.
To win her, ask her: all she desires is to be ask ed;
tell her the cause and the origin of your desire.
Jupiter courted the old h eroines as a suppli ant;
no woman raped mighty Jove.]

Ovid r efers here to the manipulative quality of the innocent appear ance
of the s educed w oman. Although sh e i s di sguised as a silen t an d in dif-
ferent partner, the girl’s passivity is interpreted in th e context of the love
game as concealing an opposite meaning. Her silence hides her desire. Her
silence, moreover, incites an d moti vates th e ma le’s first appr oach. Ovid
finds suppor t for hi s cas e in m ythology: in th e st ock of Jupiter’s amor -
ous affairs, all tales of sexual violence in which the god sates his desire for
feminine victims, usually virgins. Mention of the rape of virgins is not ir-
relevant to the love instruction. Ovid includes violence as a requisite com-
ponent o f the s educer’s r epertoire. The log ic, dangerously f amiliar t o us
from other contexts, is as follo ws:

Quis sapiens blandis non misceat oscula v erbis?

illa licet non det, non data sume t amen.
pugnabit primo fortassis et “improbe” dicet;
pugnando vinci se tamen illa v olet . . .
vim licet appelles: grata est v is ista puellis:
quod iuvat, invitae saepe dedisse volunt.
quaecumque est v eneris subita violata rapina,
 Feminine Subjectivity and th e Self-Contradicting Text

gaudet, et inprobitas muneris instar habet.

at quae, cum posset cogi, non tacta recessit,
ut simulet vultu ga udia, tristis erit.
(AA .–)

[What wise man w ill not mix ki sses with flattering words?
Though she does n ot allow it, yet take what she does n ot give.
Perhaps she will struggle at first and cry “you rascal”;
yet she wishes to be o vercome in th e battle . . .
Though you might call it v iolence: girls like this violence:
often they love to refuse what it pleas es them to grant.
Happy is she who is violated unexpectedly by an amor ous rape,
and this assault she considers as a g ift.
And she who might have been har assed, but retreats untouched,
might fake a happy f ace, while in f act she is sad.]

Girls, according to Ovid, enjoy being har assed. Following a long mythical
tradition that equates love w ith v iolence, he proposes an argumen t f atal
for women’s lives. His claim does not just concern feminine sexuality but
also supports the traditional construction of women as li ars. He explains
their deceitful nature in terms of the ambiguity immanent to the feminine.
The question that r emained a m ystery for F reud—“What does a w oman
want?”—points, according to Ovid, to the self-contradicting feminine per-
sona.28 His claim that “they love to refuse what it pleas es them to grant”
dismisses the veracity of female response. Although women suffer griev-
ously from violent misinterpretations of their ambivalence, their ambigu-
ity paradoxically constitutes the very existence of feminine subjectivity.

A G ’ R   B  F S

What does a w oman want? One would be r ight to consider this question
anachronistic in th e ancient world. The Freudian inquiry addresses ques-
tions of subjectivity, self-identity, and s elf-consciousness tha t w ere a ll
foreign to women in th e ancient world. But while it mig ht be di fficult to
determine what these psychological concepts meant for an tiquity, we can
nevertheless find cause for dir ecting the s ame question to the ma le sub-
ject. What does the ancient man want? He wants, for example, glory (Aga-
memnon), or he wants recognition (Odysseus). But when we address this
question to Helen or Penelope, no answer readily presents itself. Our per-
plexity g rows when we attempt to decipher the hidden w ishes of virgins
 Feminine Subjectivity and th e Self-Contradicting Text 

and newly wed women. Traditionally, women were not expected to desire
anything be yond wha t was expected of them b y th eir f athers an d h us-
bands.29 The idealization of feminine silence reflects the general consensus
that a good w oman is a w oman with no voice, and hence with no desires
and aspirations.
One way of exploring the question of subjectivity in a g irl’s life w ould
be in terms of the momen t in which sh e a cquires h er v oice. From th e
mythological point of view, the moment when a g irl’s voice is first heard
constitutes the birth of her subjectivity. Where can we locate this mythical
stage? Myth typically ties this foundational event to a woman’s first erotic
encounter. In the various myths concerning virgins, the crucial event that
brings female identity to light is rape or, alternatively, marriage, which is
often perceived as a sublima ted form of rape. This tr adition, resting pri-
marily on the myth of Demeter and Persephone, connects the birth of the
female voice to the act of rape, which is consequently considered to be a
formative event in the life of every woman. In numerous myths involving
virgins, rape has a double meaning , creating a tension betw een rape as a
destructive event and as a forma tive one. On the one hand, it is viewed as
a tr aumatic in cident tha t cuts sh ort th e life of the v irgin. On th e oth er
hand, it marks her emergence into the public sphere as a mature adult. In
mythical accounts of the rape of virgins we thus find an ana logy between
the ambiguity of the feminine voice and the rape’s dual meaning.30
The g irl’s ambivalent r elationship toward r ape finds expr ession in th e
incredibility assigned to the girl’s voice. The victim’s voice i s often in ter-
preted as in coherent and unr eliable, precisely because of her ambivalent
response to the r ape. As long as th e question of the girl’s desire remains
open—does she resist the rape, does she consent to it as a n ecessary evil,
or does sh e, as an an cient f allacy suggests, even w elcome it? —a trust-
worthy female voice cannot be produced.31 Thus, the mythic biography of
the virgin is inseparable from the myth of the feminine voice. Myth con-
structs the rape of virgins as the moment when the feminine voice is heard
for the first time w ithin the public (ma le) sphere. Paradoxically, then, the
rape i s r esponsible for r eleasing th e fema le fr om h er psy chological an d
social constraints. She speaks out, she screams, she cries. But this fragmen-
tary s ense of freedom does n ot produce a mon olithic voice. It i s, rather,
an unreliable voice that contradicts itself and is hiding a dim, concealed,
pent-up desire.
When v iewing the myth of Demeter and Persephone as th e par adigm
of feminine biog raphy, we cannot help s eeing that r ape i s perceived as a
 Feminine Subjectivity and th e Self-Contradicting Text

necessary stage in the maturation of a woman. The Homeric Hymn divides

the life of Persephone into two parts—before her abduction into the under-
world an d immedi ately after ward. The h ymn’s poet marks thi s di vision
through the symbol of the virgin’s name. In the first stage of her life, she
is referred to by the nonspecific terms kore and pais (“maiden, daughter”);
after her abduction she is released from this anonymity. For the first time
the poet g ives h er a name: Persephone. According t o th e h ymn’s poetic
logic, the abduction and rape justify the naming of the victim. They turn
the previously anonymous figure into a named persona. In this sense, the
Hymn to Demeter presents the rape of Persephone as the event that makes
possible the formation of her independent identity.32
The Homeric Hymn to Demeter opens with a description of Persephone’s
abduction that recalls in many aspects oth er mythological stories of rape
and abdu ction, such as th ose of Daphne, Io, Europa, and th e da ughters
of Danaos an d P syche. In th ese a ccounts th e term “virgin” applies t o
young women approaching the age for marriage. The world of the virgins,
often identified with the life of the nymphs, is described as closed off and
threatened by the approaching requirement to marry, which is usually ful-
filled through a brut al act of abduction and rape.33
Io, a maiden, was raped by Zeus while wandering in the woods. Europa
was abducted by Zeus disguised as a bull while sh e played with her virgin
friends in the meadow. According to Ovid, the wild nymph Daphne stren-
uously objected t o mar riage, for sh e w ished t o r etain h er v irginity an d
devote herself to Diana, the virgin goddess of the hunt:

Saepe pater dixit: “generum mihi, filia, debes,”

saepe pater dixit: “debes mihi, nata, nepotes”;
illa velut crimen taedas exosa iugales
pulchra verecundo suffuderat ora rubore
inque patris blandis haerens cervice lacertis
“da mihi per petua, genitor carissime,” dixit
“Virginitate frui! dedit h oc pater ante Dianae.”
(Ovid, Met. .–)

[Often her father said: “daughter you owe me a son-in-la w,”

often her father said: “give me g randsons, my child.”
But she, hating the matrimonial torch as if it were a cr ime,
covered her beautiful face with blushing r edness.
And clinging on h er father’s neck with persuading arms,
 Feminine Subjectivity and th e Self-Contradicting Text 

she said: “Grant me, my dearest father, the joy of eternal

virginity! Grant me wha t Diana’s father has a lready granted her.”]

A virgin’s resistance to marriage stems not only from her revulsion against
men, who are perceived as an a lien, threatening force. It is also the result
of her desire to preserve a life of unrestrained freedom. To live in the for-
est as a n ymph among th e other nymphs means n ot to be ens laved to a
man an d hi s desir es but t o li ve an uninhibited life, outside th e cultur al
order represented by marriage. A girl’s desire to stay close to her mother,
to c ling to her virginity, or to play with her friends the nymphs can eas-
ily be interpreted as a threat to the culture, or as a disruption of the social
order. The ideology of marriage was, among other things, aimed at satisfy-
ing the need to restrain the voices of women, which were likely to express
desires incompatible with the existing order.34
The ancient medical attitude toward hysteria, as expressed in th e essay
“On Virgins” from th e H ippocratic c orpus (da ted t o th e four th c entury
BCE), identifies the condition with the unique physiological status of the
virgin. The ess ay’s author c laims that a v irgin’s uterus ( hystera in Greek)
accumulates blood, the root of the hysteria common to virgins. This con-
dition is described as a form of insanity. Describing how dangerous the girl
is t o h erself, the w riter a lludes t o hi s o wn fear tha t th e v irgin’s psy chic
powers will grow in th e absence of male supervision:

o9ko/tan de\ plhrwqe/wsi tau~ta ta\ me/rea, kai\ fri/kh cu\n puretw~|
a0naai/s
5 sei: planh/taj tou\j puretou\j kaleu/ousin. e0 xo/ntwn de\ toute/wn
w[de, u9po\ de\ th~j o0cuflegmasi/hj mai/netai, u9po\ de\ th~j shpedo/noj
fona~|, u9po\ de\ tou~ zoferou~ fobe/etai kai\ de/doiken, u9po\ de\ th~j peri\ th\n
kardi\hn pie/cioj a0gxo/naj krai/nousin, u9po\ de\ th~j kaki/hj tou~ a3matoj
a0lu/wn kai\ a0dhmone/wn o9 qumo\j kako\n e0fe/lketai: e3teron de\ kai\ fobera\
o0noma/zei: kai\ keleu\ousin a3llesqai kai\ katapi/ptein e0j ta\ fre/ata kai\
a1gxesqai, a3te a0mei/nona/ te e0on/ ta kai\ xrei/hn e1xonta pantoi/hn: o9ko/te de\
a1neu fantasma/twn, h9donh/ tij, a9f 0 h[j e0ra~| tou~ qana/tou w3spe/r tinoj
a0gaqou~.
(Hippocrates, Virg. .–)

[When these organs are full, shivering and fever set in. These fevers are called
erratic. In this state the woman has a fit caused by the acute inflammation;
she has murderous desires brought on by the putrid condition of her inter-
nal organs, fears and terrors when she sees shadows, and the pressure around
 Feminine Subjectivity and th e Self-Contradicting Text

her heart makes her feel that she wants to strangle herself. Her mind, which
is confused and distressed because her blood has bec ome corrupt, becomes
in its turn der anged. The patient says terrible things. She has v isions which
tell h er tha t it w ould be better or w ould s erve some pur pose t o jump , to
throw herself into a well, or to strangle herself. If she does not have visions,
she feels a c ertain pleasure at the thought of death, which appears to her as
something desirable.—Trans. Aline Rouselle]35

The cur e for thi s destru ctive situa tion i s c lear t o th e w riter. “I w ould
advise young girls who suffer in thi s way to be mar ried as soon as possi-
ble; indeed, if they bec ome pr egnant th ey ar e cur ed.”36 Medical opinion
thus a lso considered the loss of virginity a n ecessary st age in a w oman’s
maturation, leading t o a pr ofound an d deci sive change in h er dev elop-
ment as a w ife an d a moth er. Yet, as i s ev ident, this change in a y oung
girl’s life is a way of silencing passions and desires that are perceived to be
dangerous and violent. There is no explicit reference in the Homeric Hymn
to Demeter to the power embodied in Persephone’s untamed virginal life.
However, the fact that the marriage to Hades, her uncle-bridegroom, was
arranged by Persephone’s father, Zeus, reveals how the marriage preserves
the patriarchal order, thus reinforcing the status of both Zeus and Hades.
From the feminine point of view, the situation is complex. The daughter’s
rape in the Hymn to Demeter is accorded not only the metonymic meaning
of marriage, but that of death as w ell. The image of Persephone’s “mar-
riage” to Hades, god of the underworld, finds considerable r esonance in
accounts of anxieties about marriage among virgins in Greek and Roman
myths. The daughters of Danaos, for example, refuse to marry their des-
ignated husbands, preferring death to the deathbed of matrimony:

a)/fuktoj d' ou)ke/t' a)\n pe/loito kh/r.

kelaino/xrwj de\ pa/lletai/ mou kardi/a.
patro\j skopai\ de/ m' ei(=lon: oi)/xomai fo/bw|.
qe/loimi d' a)\n morsi/mou
bro/xou tuxei=n e)n a)rta/naij,
pri\n a)/ndr' a)peukto\n tw=|de xrimfqh=nai xroi/+.
pro/par qanou/saj d' 0Ai/daj a)na/ssoi.
(Aeschylus, Supp. –)

[No flight
no time t o hide
 Feminine Subjectivity and th e Self-Contradicting Text 

inhuman cruelty leaves no escape

my heart beats darker
dashes like a sma ll trapped creature
a father’s eye snares me, fear haunts me

let my bondage to doom

end in a s lip noose
before a man
I wish unborn
can touch my flesh, O come
husband me, Death.—Trans. Janet Lembke]37

The identification of marriage with death prevents the daughters of Danaos

from discovering the additional meaning attached to the loss of virginity—
the passage into a n ew stage of life. The function of rape as gen erator of
an ess ential change in th e v irgin’s life i s g iven a v isual manifest ation in
numerous accounts of bodily changes, or metamorphoses, since this is how
the rupturing of the hymen is seen. Thus, for example, Io pays for her rape
with a met amorphosis: she i s tr ansformed in to a c ow. Raped b y Zeus,
she undergoes a change, the essence of which was losing her virginity and
becoming pregnant, which can be s een as a (tempor ary) metamorphosis.
In the mythological story, she loses her human form as well. Io’s story ex-
ternalizes the breaking of the hymen by having her assume th e form of a
domestic anima l. In Aeschylus’s Prometheus B ound, Io’s st ory t akes an
autobiographical form as she relates it to Prometheus. The fateful turning
point in h er life i s expressed in a major tr ansformation. The silent, retir-
ing girl has n ow become the narrator of her life st ory:

ou)k oi)=d' o(/pwj u(mi=n a)pisth=sai/ me xrh/,

safei= de\ mu/qw| pa=n o(/per prosxrh/|zete
peu/sesqe: kai/toi kai\ le/gouj' ai)sxu/nomai
qeo/ssuton xeimw=na kai\ diafqora\n
morfh=j, o(/qen moi sxetli/a| prose/ptato.
ai)ei\ ga\r o)/yeij e)/nnuxoi pwleu/menai
e)j parqenw=naj tou\j e)mou\j parhgo/roun
lei/oisi mu/qoij “w)= me/g' eu)/daimon ko/rh,
ti/ parqeneu/ei daro/n, e)co/n soi ga/mou
tuxei=n megi/stou; Zeu\j ga\r i(me/rou be/lei
pro\j sou= te/qalptai kai\ sunai/resqai Ku/prin
 Feminine Subjectivity and th e Self-Contradicting Text

qe/lei: su\ d', w)= pai=, mh\ 'polakti/sh|j le/xoj

to\ Zhno/j, a)ll' e)/celqe pro\j Le/rnhj baqu\n
leimw=na, poi/mnaj bousta/seij te pro\j patro/j,
w(j a)\n to\ Di=on o)/mma lwfh/sh| po/qou.”
(Aeschylus, Pr. –)

[I don’t see how I can r efuse you.

I’ll tell y ou
all you want to know.
although, even as I speak
I’m ashamed, recalling
the storm the God let loos e
my lovely body
ruined—
and the one who drove it w inging down
on me, wretched thing.

Always at night, haunting soft-spoken dreams

would wander into my bedroom
(where no man ha d ever entered)
whispering whispering
“Happy, happy girl
you could marry the greatest One of all
why wait so long
untouched?
Desire’s spear has ma de Zeus
burn for y ou. He wants to come
together with you
making love.
Don’t, dear child, turn skittish
against the bed of Zeus. Go out
into the deep g rasses of Lerna, where your father’s
cattle and sheep
browse. Go,
so the eye of Zeus will no longer
be heavy lidded w ith long ing.”—Trans. James Scully an d C.J. Herington]38

Io does n ot w ish to submit t o Zeus, but she knows that to do so w ill be

advantageous for her (a psychological reading would regard Io’s visions as
the repressed expression of an erotic wish). Io’s compensation for Zeus ’s
 Feminine Subjectivity and th e Self-Contradicting Text 

sexual c onquest i s union w ith th e supr eme god, or, in oth er w ords, her
transformation into th e moth er of Zeus’s desc endants. But befor e sh e i s
able t o enjo y h er n ew r ole as a moth er, she must t ake th e first step in
separating from her virginal world, a step expr essed in h er willingness—
though, paradoxically, a step taken against her will—to become the object
of Zeus’s lustful gaze. Rape in these stories serves as a bridge to a woman’s
psychic dev elopment, since it lea ds th e s exually ig norant, inexperienced
girl to new insights about h erself.
The v irgin’s n ew a wareness i s th e r esult of her s eparation fr om h er
mother, as depicted in th e ancient tr adition’s nuptial poems. The young
woman does n ot w ish to par t from her mother and her sheltered world.
Her w edding i s usua lly for ced upon h er, as i s th e first nig ht of love.39
Ancient n uptial poems b y Sapph o, Catullus, and oth ers r eveal tha t th e
ceremonies included an element of abduction.40 And despite th e fact that
both mother and daughter resent the latter’s abduction, the Homeric Hymn
to Demeter also reveals a hidden consent to the act on the daughter’s part.
This brings about th e mother’s reconciliation with a deed tha t cannot be
undone. Persephone’s consent to the act of rape i s r elated to the process
of individuation she exper iences after h er s eparation from her mother.41
In th e m yth of Demeter an d P ersephone, the y oung w oman bec omes a
subject; for th e first time sh e i s a ccorded an iden tity di stinct fr om h er
mother’s. This happens only after sh e herself understands and accepts her
place in th e world as an object of men’s desire (Hom. Hymn Dem. –).
This ar chetypal momen t in which th e v irgin steps out in to th e public
domain takes place at a relatively late stage in her life, with her first men-
struation. Mythical thinking, in contrast to psychoanalytic theory, does not
begin by constructing a w oman’s psychic development from infancy. The
virgin’s biography begins only when she goes out to play with her friends—
that is, with the first separation between girl and mother.
The feminine psyche does not, in fact, exist prior to this stage. The fra-
gility of the girl’s being can be observed in one of Sappho’s nuptial poems:

oi]on to\ gluku/malon e0reu/qetai a1krw| e0p 0 u1sdw|,

a1kron e0p 0 a0krota/tw|, lela/qonto de\ malodro/phej:
ou0 ma\n e0klela/qont 0, a0ll 0 ou0k e0du/nant 0 e0pi/kesqai.
(Sappho a)

[As the sweet-apple reddens on th e bough-top,

on th e t op of the t opmost boug h; the apple-ga therers ha ve forgotten it —
 Feminine Subjectivity and th e Self-Contradicting Text

no they have not forgotten it en tirely, but they could not r each it.—Trans.
David A. Campbell]42

The apple, an obvious erotic symbol of mature femininity, represents the

virginal feminine psyche, rounded, full, and immersed in th e final stages
of its maturation—not red, but reddening. Similarly, the girl has n ot yet
been chosen by her suitors; she is also forgotten on th e tree. Such forget-
ting is part of the traditional perception of the developing feminine psyche.
As long as th e g irl has n ot developed an a wareness of herself being s een
in the world, as long as she has yet to learn how to externalize herself, she
does not exi st in th e consciousness of men. In f act, she does n ot exi st at
all as a subject w ith di stinct emotions an d a w ill of her own. The young
woman is transformed into a person with a will and a voice only after she
enters the public ar ena, where she recognizes her place as a bea utiful and
desirable object. This happens, in other words, at the moment when she
experiences Pandora’s syndrome: her inward-outward structure.
The girl’s development of a will is thus perceived to be the result of her
exposure to and emergence as an object of masculine passion. The apple-
pickers o verlook th e apple beca use th e embr yonic feminin e psy che has
yet t o acquire th e abilit y t o be s een. The v irginal psyche i s hidden from
view, and so it i s beyond the grasp of the apple-pickers. The intermediate
stage—in which th e psy che ma tures an d i s th en pick ed o ff the t opmost
bough of the tree and brought down to earth—finds expression in the vir-
gins’ naive play in th e fields or mea dows (as in th e myths of Persephone,
Io, and Europa). This play conceals knowledge and erotic curiosity as they
exist in an initial, obscure state. By the logic of the myth, the girl is aware,
even if only vagu ely, of the possibilit y of rape. This a wareness mak es it
possible to portray her as being dr awn to the rape and accepting it while,
at the same time, resisting it.
On a sy mbolic level, rape motivates the feminine biography as it fr ac-
tures th e g irl’s sh eltered life, integrating th e ma le perspecti ve in to it. A
twilight z one of virginal a wareness i s th e r esult. During h er abdu ction
Persephone cr ies out, and h er voice i s h eard b y h er moth er. We can s ay
that sh e explicitly r esists th e a ct: a(rpa/caj d' a)e/kousan e)pi\ xruse/oisin
o)/xoisin h)=g' o)lofurome/nhn (“He sna tched th e un willing ma id in to hi s
golden char iot and led h er o ff lamenting,” in Helene Foley’s tr anslation;
Hom. Hymn Dem. –). This is, in fact, the first time in the mythical story
that the voice of Demeter’s daughter is heard. That voice, the sound of the
girl’s cry during her rape and abduction, is what tragically concretizes the
 Feminine Subjectivity and th e Self-Contradicting Text 

new feminine consciousness. It signifies the birth of the woman out of the
virginal body . It i s a v oice w ith performa tive momen tum, a v oice tha t
declares, “I am h ere,” and so sig nifies th e emergen ce of a n ew feminin e
identity into the world. The voice of the rape victim externalizes her new
self-awareness. Her cr y i s testimony to a n ew awareness of her v isibility,
and th ereby an ann ouncement of her sy mbolic bir th. This i s a cru cial
moment when the girl expresses her will for th e first time in public. But
this is an enig matic will, with two levels of meaning: one open and obvi-
ous, the other hidden and obscure. This feminine will is an in termingled
expression of the c onscious an d un conscious. Persephone’s cr y belongs
to the entangled meaning of the hated rape-marriage, which initiates her
process of individuation, marking h er s eparation fr om h er moth er an d
crowning h er as th e un derworld’s n ew q ueen. As su ch, it par adoxically
implicates Persephone’s willingness to be r aped.
Such a possibilit y i s in deed suggested in P ersephone’s speech t o h er
mother. This oration comes at the zenith of Persephone’s process of mat-
uration and acquisition of independence, presenting as it does th e former
virgin in her new guise as a nar rator who has control over her voice. Fol-
lowing the r ape, she can put h er subjective experience into words. She is
also able to describe her experience from a personal perspective informed
by her own interests. She becomes a nar rator conscious of herself and of
her needs—what is traditionally perceived to be a manipulative narrator.43
A critical reading of the myth of Demeter cannot ignore the positive use
that th e poet mak es of rape. As in th e cas e of Aeschylus’s Io, the young
girl us es her voice for th e first time as a c onsequence of the r ape. She i s
called by her name in public an d is granted an identity separate from her
mother’s.44 Her voice consequently conveys a strange, contradictory expe-
rience: the experience that destroys her as a v irgin is the one that revives
her as a w oman.
This s elf-contradiction c onstitutes feminin e subjecti vity. Persephone’s
paradox i s cr eated by the c lash of two conflicting identities: the v irginal
and the sexual, or the inhibited an d the uninhibited. These two feminine
identities r emain v ital and active, although they forma lly per tain to two
distinct temporal stages: the present and future (from the virgin’s perspec-
tive) or th e past and present (from the woman’s perspective). Girls, then,
experience their s exual innocence as a lready tinted by anticipation of its
destruction. And s exually mature women exper ience the v itality of their
virginal consciousness as one of invisibility and voicelessness. Persephone,
for example, wants to retain her innocent v irginal nature as sh e tells h er
 Feminine Subjectivity and th e Self-Contradicting Text

mother that she has been r aped and then forced to remain a third of each
year in the underworld. But her wish to retain a modest appearance before
her mother is already a sig n of the loss of that very innocence. Once she
needs to appear inn ocent, she i s no longer th e v irgin she was. Under the
gaze of the Other, the virgin is transformed into a sexual and, accordingly,
a deceiving woman.45 Feminine exper ience i s thus destined to be an un-
ceasing clash between two dimensions of being.
This tension w ithin th e feminin e has a str ong textua l sig nificance. In
the c ontext of Ovid, it finds its expr ession in th e wa y Ars and Remedia
open up a reading experience that is cyclical and unending. In addition to
the structure of contradiction, circularity is another feminine aspect of the
Ovidian love guides. His circular love narrative reenacts the myth of Per-
sephone, embracing its a ura of feminine temporality. In echoing nature’s
rhythm, Ovid’s narrative revives the myth of the seasons.
Ovid’s version of the myth of Proserpina in Metamorphoses allows us
to underscore this point. He creates an archetypal feminine biography by
focusing on P roserpina’s divided self. Her dual nature rests on h er mood
swings an d on th e sy mbolic in terplay of life an d dea th, marriage an d
maidenhood, and darkness and light:

Nunc dea, regnorum numen commune duorum,

cum matre est t otidem, totidem cum c oniuge menses.
vertitur extemplo f acies et men tis et or is;
nam modo q uae poterat Diti q uoque maesta videri,
laeta deae fr ons est, ut sol, qui tectus aq uosis
nubibus ante fuit, victis e n ubibus exit.
(Met. .–)

[Now the goddess, the common divinity of the two domains,

spends half the months with her mother, and the other half with her husband.
Her mental and physical countenance alternates successively:
for she w ho only r ecently seemed sad even to D is
has now a happy appear ance, like the sun, which once was c overed
behind watery clouds, and now is out after th e clouds have been di spersed.]

In per petual oscilla tion betw een tw o opposing modes of being, Proser-
pina’s biog raphy i s a suit able candidate for th e Ov idian lo ve nar rative.46
The possibilit y of embracing the a lternating conditions of the death and
the growth of love in a c easeless cycle is a c orollary of the feminine con-
dition in gen eral.
 chapter 

Pandora’s Tears
The personal is like an old scar tha t, for the external viewer, is no more
than a f act among f acts, yet one that, in the hands of the old ma id
Euryclea, pulsates as th e very root of recognition: isn’t this you,
Odysseus? The personal is the hidden face of language.
—       , The Present Personal

F W: T, T, B, P

Pandora is a w ork of art, molded by the divine hands of the god of arti-
sanship, Hephaestus. She is a handmade figure. Pandora, the first work of
art, signals the origin of art, and the origin of art as techne. However, she
is mor e than an objet d’ar t s erving as a model for th e act of craftsman-
ship. She is herself a gifted artisan. As a seducer, she knows the art of love.
As a rh etorician, she masters language. And finally, since “Athena taught
her needlework and the weaving of the varied web,” Pandora is a w eaver,
skilled in th e ar t of creating textiles ( W&D ). What i s the relationship
between Pandora’s art, her weaving, and her femininity? How is the image
of the female weaver related to the ancient notion of a text? And how does
this image c ontribute to the formation of a text’s feminine sense?
Textum originally meant something woven, a fabric or a textile. And al-
though it was only a t a later stage that the term came to denote a text, 1 the
images of textile, a woven object an d the act of weaving were commonly
used in reference to the workings of language and the composition of texts.
In Cratylus , for example, Socrates us es th e met aphor of weaving in
criticizing the view that linguistic signs are completely arbitrary, making
the point that a proper language use, instead of being a matter of conven-
tion, must depend on language ’s intricate underpinnings in r eality. Lan-
guage (and in par ticular the act of naming) is “not relative to ourselves.”
And lik e th e cr aft of weaving, the applica tion of language t o th e w orld
must be don e “according to a na tural process, and w ith a pr oper instru-
ment.” Hence, while it is clear to us that what “has to be woven or pierced


 Pandora’s Tears

has t o be w oven or pi erced w ith something ,” it sh ould ana logously be

understood that there is an intrinsic correspondence between language and
the phenomena to which it r efers.2 For Socrates the metaphor of weaving
can fruitfully guide our un derstanding of linguistic action, since it exem-
plifies w ell th e c orrelation an d in terdependence of act, instrument, and
woven material, corresponding to the act of naming, the name its elf and
the name’s reference in th e world.
The origin of the weaving metaphor is much older, of course, and can
be tr aced back to Homer. In Homer, there i s no thematic ar ticulation of
the relationship between text an d textile. 3 Yet, again and again, these two
forms of art—the making of texts an d of textiles—are in tertwined (in
the Odyssey, for example) in th e image of women who accompany their
weaving w ith a song .4 In other words, the intimate r elationship between
weaving and textuality is regulated by a feminine image: the singing weaver.
One of the most r emarkable singing weavers in the Odyssey is Calypso
who accompanies h er w eaving w ith a v oice of unique beauty ( Od. .–
). Her s eductive appear ance casts su ch a str ong spell on h er beholders
that even the wise Odysseus falls captive. Submerged in a deep forgetful-
ness, Odysseus turns hi s back on hi s duties as lor d, husband, and f ather,
for which he is in no way reproached by the Homeric narrator. On the con-
trary, the Homeric depiction of Calypso is so mar velous that it f acilitates
the reader’s empathy toward Odysseus and his submission to his hostess.
Calypso has bec ome a w ell-known pr ototype of feminine s eduction. Yet
it i s impor tant t o n otice tha t h er s eductive po wers ar e first oper ative
precisely between the v isible ar t of weaving and the invisible web of her
song. That is, the description of her powers echoes a predominant under-
standing of poetry’s effect, also illustrated by the divine effect of the Muses
in Hesiod’s Theogony.5 Furthermore, Calypso’s image as a weaver not only
reflects the effects of poetry but, more specifically, illuminates the intimate
connection between femininity, textuality, and corporeality. Calypso’s song
implies the presence of her voice, and her voice, in turn, cannot be imag-
ined w ithout th e a ctuality of her body . Analogously, I suggest tha t w e
should un derstand Ca lypso’s w eaving as th e pr oduction of a text(ile)
whose center of gravity is the concreteness of the feminine body.
I shall soon return to the question of the relationship of text and body,
but let us first tie this metaphor to our di scussion of Ovid in the previous
chapter. The imager y of weaving i s not just c entral to hi s understanding
of poetry;6 it i s specifically oper ative at the place where he addresses the
contradictory construction of Ars and Remedia: Nec nova praeteritum Musa
 Pandora’s Tears 

retexit opus (“This new Muse does not unravel [unweave] my past work,”
Rem. ).7 Completely a ware of the c omplex stru cture tha t bin ds hi s
works, Ovid assures his readers that Remedia does not consist in a decom-
position of Ars. Unlike Penelope’s cunning un doing of her w ork, Ovid’s
Remedia is n ot an a ct of unweaving. Should it th erefore be un derstood
as a c ontinued w eaving of Ars? The double meaning of the term retexo
complicates Ov id’s gestur e. What i s th e r elationship betw een th e a ct of
unweaving and the act of weaving again? Leaving this question open, it is
sufficient for our pur pose to recognize that, for Ov id, what ti es together
the texts of Ars and Remedia is, metaphorically, the working of the warp
and woof.
In Ov id’s Metamorphoses, the connection between textile an d text be-
comes more explicit an d turns in to a sig nificant theme. Books – pres-
ent collections of feminine stories that are either told by weaving women
or thr ough th e v ery medium of weaving. The t ypical feminin e a ctivity
of weaving creates a c ommunity of storytellers and listeners. Particularly
noteworthy in thi s context are the tales of two f amous weavers, Arachne
(Met. .–) and Philomela ( Met. .–), whose textiles ar e r eflec-
tive of the character of Ovid’s own textuality.
Mirroring the Ov idian text in which sh e appears, Arachne i s a w eaver
who creates subversive and provocative tales in which the phenomenon of
metamorphosis is central: virgins changed into women, mothers of divine
children. Furthermore, Arachne’s depiction of the gods (lik e Ov id’s) em-
phasizes their sensual, violent, and immoral aspects: her gods are woman-
izers who brutally violate virgins. Her sentiments are f ar from respectful
toward religious authority and tend toward the sensational and the blas-
phemous. And, finally, Arachne’s confrontation w ith the rule of Minerva
and h er puni shment b y th e so vereign suggest a feminin e r eflection of
Ovid’s own biography.8
The image of Philomela functions in a different manner, allowing Ovid
to r ender explicit an other impor tant dimension of his poetics. 9 Unlike
Arachne’s, Philomela’s w eaving has n o c oncern for th e c osmological or
divine order. It i s str ictly autobiographical, consisting of a h orrific st ory
of rape and mutilation. Philomela is a victim. She weaves the story of her
misfortune with crimson threads on white—the symbolism is clear. From
her place of confinement, she secretly sends her tapestry to her sister, her
only h ope. Her w eaving i s a mess age fr om on e w oman t o an other. As
she cannot write, her weaving consists of visual images that are neverthe-
less read (legere) by her sister. Adverting to the visual is, of course, not an
 Pandora’s Tears

aesthetic deci sion but a wa y t o c ompensate for illiter acy an d in Philo-

mela’s case also a way of overcoming the loss of her human voice. Because
the possibility of an immediate vocal articulation is no longer open to her,
weaving becomes a medium of self-expression and a c ommunication. In
this respect, we may say that her weaving takes place in a sph ere of inter-
mediacy: in w eaving sh e a llows meaning t o unfold betw een th e spok en
and th e w ritten, between th e na tural and th e c onventional, between th e
sensitivity of the t ongue an d th e externa l rule of an objecti ve language.
How does Philomela’s story reflect Ovid’s relationship to his own poetry?
Philomela’s weaving i s not only th e mark of an individual silenced by
the force of the sovereign, not only a sign of transgression against the sov-
ereign’s a uthority, but a lso, and perhaps first of all, a form of represen-
tation suffused with a hid den, subliminal pain. That is, Philomela’s cloth
is th e impr int of a permanent mark of pain tha t i s c learly not tr ivial in
the c ontext of Ovid’s ostensible mann erism. In thi s r espect, Philomela’s
weaving r eflects another impor tant feminine aspect of the Ov idian text.
Weaving impli es here a di stinctive r elationship between author and text.
The “woven” text is not merely a textua l object cr eated by the mind of its
author; rather, it is a text tha t must be un derstood within the horizon of
its a uthor’s body, the mo vement of the body, and its pa in. Another wa y
to put thi s is to say that Pandora’s weaving is an image of the embodied
text: a kind of textuality in which meaning is riveted to its materiality, res-
onating with the corporal presence of its author.
Philomela’s w eaving i s ins eparable from h er cr ying. The f abric of her
text i s soaked w ith the tears tha t have become the mark of the feminine
presence of the corporeal within the textual. The presence of tears is the
invisible tr ace of a movement by a body tha t has st ained the text w ith a
dimension of opacity that cannot be integrated into the general semantics
of the text. Hence, when Ovid’s Phaedra, for example, writes to Hippoly-
tus, she makes it c lear that her text cann ot be un derstood only in terms
of what it s ays:

addimus his precibus lacrimas quoque; verba precantis

qui legis, et lacrimas finge videre meas.
(Her. .–)

[These prayers I s eal with tears. When all is said

And done, and you from end to end have read
This letter, think what tears its a uthor shed.—Trans. Daryl Hine]10
 Pandora’s Tears 

Phaedra’s text is made of a fabric that, in its materiality, testifies to—bears

traces of—a dimension of signification that escapes any general or abstract
understanding.11 Instead, it calls for a r eading that situates the text within
the horizons of the pain of a particular writer.12
In thi s chapter I w ish t o explor e y et an other aspect of the feminin e
character of the ancient text b y juxt aposing feminine tears an d feminine
weaving, a mourner’s tears and a weaver’s tearful fabric. Employing terms
developed in pr evious chapters, I w ish to suggest tha t the image of Pan-
dora as a w eaver intrinsically ties femininity to the very idea of a text. If
the w oven textile i s an image of a text, then it i s, first and for emost, an
image of a feminine text. In other words, weaving should not be un der-
stood mer ely as a r epresentation of a marg inalized subcategory of femi-
nine texts. Rather, the feminine is constitutive of the possibility of textual
fabrication. The feminine i s r esponsible for th e text’s capacity t o appear
before us as flesh and blood, to breathe and shed tears and speak to us. The
feminine g ives th e text a body ; the feminin e i s th e memor y of this g iv-
ing, of the very hands that wove the text, of a text’s author. The feminine
dimension of the text is never disinterested; it never takes the form of neu-
tral representation. Instead, it is ever soaked in the tears of its maker and
is intended to absorb the tears of its beholder.13

H’ W
As we proceed to unravel the significance that the image of feminine weav-
ing car ries for th e making of a text, it i s perhaps impor tant that we di s-
tinguish between two kinds of weaving and, in corollary fashion, between
two archetypal kinds of women weavers. Our primary concern is the form
of weaving that is analogous to a text ’s form because of its ability to rep-
resent, tell stories, and evoke images. However, we should remember that
alongside the “textual textile” there is a common practice of weaving that
lacks representational qualities.14 This kind of nonrepresentational weav-
ing, devoid of a figurative dimension, is typically associated with the fem-
inine figure of the “home-dwelling” weaver.15 “Here lies Amymone wife of
Marcus,” we read in a first-century BCE Roman epitaph (ILS .L), “best
and most beautiful worker in wool, pious, chaste, thrifty, faithful, a stayer-
at-home.”16 Sitting a lone in fr ont of her loom w ith spin dle an d di staff,
segregated from the public field of vision, this typical weaver has become
the quintessential symbol of female chastity—faithful, obedient, diligent,
submissive, and ultimately silent.
 Pandora’s Tears

In contrast to the figure of the nonrepresentational weaver, the “aura”

of the mimetic weaver should be understood in terms of her fulfilled need
for self-expression, her autonomy and ability to resist institutional author-
ity. Mimetic weaving is, in this sense, a feminine form of transgressive art
whose singularity I sha ll try to unpack now by considering the figure and
act of the first representational weaver to be depicted in th e Iliad: Helen
of Troy.17
In her chamber, Helen is weaving, while outside th e war i s raging. For
the Homeric narrator, Helen’s weaving i s c learly not a c entral event, and
yet the very f act of its mentioning is significant and should not be t aken
for g ranted. In her weaving, Helen, like the Homeric nar rator, addresses
the struggles of Trojans and Achaians. Yet whereas the poetic source of the
Homeric epic i s explicitly di vine, Helen s eems r iveted t o th e doma in of
the human. In her representation of the war, she neither responds to the
Muses nor serves as a v ehicle for th e transmission of any absolute or ex-
ternal truth. Helen has n o access to a g lobal perspective on th e events of
the war, and what she depicts stems fr om her private point of view.
Hence, in depicting Helen depicting the war, the Homeric narrator has
allowed for an antithetical perspective to announce its presence within the
text of the Iliad. That is, a place is made within the Iliad for a perspective
on the war that poses an alternative to the Homeric account. This perspec-
tive is feminine; it is expressed in a visual language;18 and since it is rooted
in a personal form of experience, it never becomes part of the Iliad’s pub-
lic sphere. In other words, the pr esence of Helen’s woven r epresentation
is created by a double gestur e that renders the appear ance of that repre-
sentation dependent on the condition that it be relegated to the very mar-
gins of public conspicuity. Helen’s r epresentation i s not a llowed to echo
beyond the bounds of the domestic domain. No unique place is made for
her expressive or ar tistic act, and the product of that act, the woven tex-
tile itself, is ultimately regarded as a private object whose specific contents
remain unknown to either protagonists or readers of the Iliad. What is the
meaning and function of Helen’s weaving? Is it simply a conventional fem-
inine mode of whiling away the time? Should we understand her weaving
as a th erapeutic activity, connected perhaps t o h er o wn ambi valence r e-
garding th e war, to an un derstanding of her past betr ayal? Can H elen’s
weaving be c onsidered as an a ttempt at personal testimony? Homer does
not pr ovide us w ith an y c lues on th ese poin ts. The ess ence of Helen’s
weaving remains obscure, and that obscurity has been in terpreted in th e
context of the tr aditional marg inalization of the feminine from the field
 Pandora’s Tears 

of art. Does H elen’s lost perspecti ve on th e war sig nify th e ex clusion of

the feminine voice from the ethical field of canonical literature?19
The Homeric description of Helen’s weaving is indeed very limited, and
yet it seems to me that it succeeds, despite its brevity, in capturing an im-
portant dimension of Helen’s manner of representation. We read:

th\n d' eu(=r' e)n mega/rw|: h(\ de\ me/gan i(sto\n u(/faine
di/plaka porfure/hn, pole/aj d' e)ne/passen a)e/qlouj
Trw/wn q' i(ppoda/mwn kai\ )Axaiw=n xalkoxitw/nwn,
ou4j e3qen ei3nek 0 e1pasxon u9p 0 1Arhoj palama/wn:
(I. .–)

[She came on H elen in th e chamber; she was w eaving a g reat web,

a red folding r obe, and working into it th e numerous struggles
of Trojans, breakers of horses, and bronze-armoured Achaians,
struggles that they endured for h er sake at the hands of the war god.—
Trans. Richmond Lattimore]20

Indeed, we can hardly infer anything specific from the description of Helen’s
“great web.” We can neither deduce the identity of the figures depicted nor
construe any particular event or situation in which they are involved. The
only par ticular feature of Helen’s depiction of the war tha t ca lls for our
attention is the fact that her perspective on the war is completely personal.
Her weaving does not involve any objective representation of a given state
of affairs; it is a r epresentation of a war wh ose meaning, for her, is thor-
oughly autobiographical. It s eems that the Homeric nar rator i s s ensitive
to Helen’s personal involvement in the web she creates: the war she depicts
cannot be understood as the general story about the “struggles of Trojans,
breakers of horses, and bronze-armoured Achaians.” Instead, it is her own
story that she is engaged in depicting—the story of the “struggles that they
[Trojans an d Achaians] en dured for her sake. ”21 Helen’s w eaving ar ticu-
lates the external state of things—the events in th e world of men—while
positing her own s elf as the (invisible) center of gravity, the foca l point,
of the w orld sh e depicts. In thi s r espect, Helen’s pr esence in th e Iliad is
subversive, as it ca lls in to q uestion th e absolute h egemony of the text ’s
metaphysical origin, its emanation from the sacred rapport between poet
and Muses. Her weaving marks, in other words, the presence of a hermetic
dimension that also belongs to the text and that can easily pass unnoticed
precisely because it appears as th e text’s texture—its handmade quality.
 Pandora’s Tears

Helen’s w oven textile i s an ear ly an tecedent of the a utobiographical

text. However, this is not the only kind of text that ties her to the history
of autobiographical w riting. In th e Iliad, she i s associ ated w ith th e cr e-
ation of yet another kind of text that belongs t o the same tradition—her
lament for H ector.22
Lamentation i s a kin d of speech act that tr aditionally o ffers women a
unique oppor tunity for s elf-presentation an d s elf-expression w ithin th e
public domain, the domain of men.23 In the Iliad, in par ticular, the con-
ventions of lamentation both enable an d r egulate th e appear ance of the
feminine voice in public. 24 It has been sh own that the Homeric represen-
tations of mourning w omen t ypically a llow for th e elabor ation of their
specific personal circumstances and emotional responses.25
What i s th e char acter of Helen’s lament o ver th e dea d Hector? I n th e
final book of the Iliad we read:

(/Ektor e)mw=| qumw=| dae/rwn polu\ fi/ltate pa/ntwn,

h)= me/n moi po/sij e)sti\n )Ale/candroj qeoeidh/j,
o(/j m' a)/gage Troi/hnd': w(j pri\n w)/fellon o)le/sqai.
h)/dh ga\r nu=n moi to/de ei)kosto\n e)/toj e)sti\n
e)c ou(= kei=qen e)/bhn kai\ e)mh=j a)pelh/luqa pa/trhj:
a)ll' ou)/ pw seu= a)/kousa kako\n e)/poj ou)d' a)su/fhlon:
a)ll' ei)/ ti/j me kai\ a)/lloj e)ni\ mega/roisin e)ni/ptoi
dae/rwn h)\ galo/wn h)\ ei)nate/rwn eu)pe/plwn,
h)\ e(kurh/- e(kuro\j de\ path\r w(\j h)/pioj ai)ei/-,
a)lla\ su\ to\n e)pe/essi paraifa/menoj kate/rukej,
sh=| t' a)ganofrosu/nh| kai\ soi=j a)ganoi=j e)pe/essi.
tw\ se/ q' a(/ma klai/w kai\ e)/m' a)/mmoron a)xnume/nh kh=r:
ou) ga/r* ti/j moi e)/t' a)/lloj e)ni\ Troi/h| eu)rei/h|
h)/pioj ou)de\ fi/loj, pa/ntej de/ me pefri/kasin.
(.–)

[Hektor, of all my lord’s brothers dearest by far to my spirit:

my husband is Alexandros, like an immor tal, who brought me
here to Troy; and I sh ould have died before I came w ith him;
and here now is the twentieth year upon me sin ce I came
from the place where I was, forsaking the land of my f athers. In thi s time
I have never heard a harsh s aying from you, nor an insult.
No, but when another, one of my lord’s brothers or si sters, a fair-robed
wife of some brother, would say a harsh w ord to me in th e palace,
 Pandora’s Tears 

or my lord’s mother—but his father was gen tle always, a father

indeed—then you would speak an d put th em off and restrain them
by your own gentleness of heart and your gentle words. Therefore
I mourn for y ou in sor row of heart and mourn m yself also
and my ill lu ck. There was n o other in a ll the wide Troad
who was kin d to me, and my friend; all others shrank when they saw me.]

For whom does Helen weep? Does she weep for Hector, the intended ref-
erence of her text, or is her weeping reflexive, turning back onto her own
forsaken life? Both, I beli eve—Helen mourns for h erself in mourning
Hector. Or, in oth er w ords, she mourns “her” Hector. For H elen, losing
Hector means losing h er sole fr iend and protector, the only guar dian she
ever had in Troy. In confronting his death, she is lamenting her own mis-
erable f ate. Her a ddress t o th e dea d H ector i s a form of self-disclosure.
Thus, she replaces the internal addressee of her speech, “dear Hector,” with
a s elf-referential turn, “I sh ould ha ve di ed.”26 Hector i s H elen’s mir ror
image. His death is a reminder of her own fragility and of the presence of
death in h er life.
In a mann er tha t i s similar t o h er r epresentation, in w eaving, of the
war, Helen’s language of lament does n ot s eek t o captur e th e objecti ve
condition of Hector’s dea th. She i s c oncerned n either w ith hi s pa inful
absence—the only pa in sh e can a cknowledge i s h er o wn—nor w ith th e
effect of his dea th on hi s in timate an d gen eral sur roundings, his f amily
and the city of Troy. Instead, she speaks w ithin horizons that are suffused
with her own presence. Her shadow is cast over the domain of her speech.
When she looks at the dead Hector, she sees herself. In this respect, Helen
exemplifies wha t i s perhaps less c onspicuous in th e r epresentation of
numerous other lamenting women in the Iliad. Her address to the dead is
a channel for expressing her own grief,27 for giving voice to an absence that
typically cannot register within the public order of men’s language. Lamen-
tation cr eates an aper ture in th e order of discourse. It a llows women to
address the world at the moment of a loss of world: to communicate mean-
ings tha t belong t o th e w orld, while kn owing tha t thi s w orld w ill n ever
be th eirs. In oth er w ords, lamentation i s an ev ent of meaning in which
the feminine reveals its constant presence in the language of men through
the disclosure of irresolvable tensions tha t are always inherent in th e act
of language: the public and the private, the general and the utterly singu-
lar, the abstr act and the concrete, the hi storical or c osmological and the
autobiographical.
 Pandora’s Tears

The examples of weaving an d lamen ting ar e mean t t o illumina te th e

unique manner in which a feminin e text i s tied to its a uthor. Unlike pre-
dominant c onceptions of textuality tha t pr ivilege texts wh ose meaning
is ultima tely s evered fr om and independent of the li ving br eath of their
author, a feminine text i s one in which th e bodily, painful, idiosyncratic
presence of an author is integral to what a text c ommunicates. This cor-
poreal, opaque kind of presence may often seem untraceable in a text, yet
this i s just beca use its in visibility i s similar t o th e in visible pr esence of
an author’s tears tha t, with time, have dried in betw een her written lines.
Consequently, we may say that the uniqueness of the relationship between
a feminine text and its author lies in its radical singularity. In other words,
the feminine dimension of a text (which as should be clear by now is part
of any text as su ch) impli es that texts bear th e pr esence of their authors
in a concrete manner. This is not to suggest, however, that a text i s neces-
sarily reflective of the f acts of its author’s biog raphy or tha t our r eading
should dir ect its elf to any speci fic biog raphical layer of the text. On th e
contrary, I have suggested that the feminine dimension of a text resonates
in the very impossibilit y of resolving certain constitutive tensions of the
text. And I ha ve par ticularly emphasi zed th e mann er in which a text ’s
meaning cannot free itself of its author’s body.
But, here, it seems we have arrived at the question of reading. That is,
how does the feminine dimension of the text—how does Pandora—show
itself to a poten tial r eader? Does th e feminine ca ll for a speci fic kind of
readership? We have seen that death, absence, loss of world, and mourn-
ing pr ovide th e h orizons w ithin which th e feminin e v oice tr aditionally
reaches out for the possibility of articulation and expressivity. These same
horizons—the horizons of lamentation—are a lso the site of a par ticular
form of reading, a feminine form of listening.

L L  W: P’ T

In Odyssey ., Phemius performs befor e th e cr owd of suitors in th e
palace of Odysseus his song about the Achaians’ bitter homecoming from
Troy. Whereas the assembled men dr ink in hi s words in silence, there are
two other responses to the bard’s song.28 These belong t o Penelope, who
overhears the singing from her upper chambers, and Telemachos, who sits
among th e suit ors. Mother and son r espond in th eir o wn ways, and th e
Homeric poet emphasizes the opposition between these two poetical posi-
tions by placing them in di stinct locations within the palace. These loca-
tions are descriptive of the difference between the two kinds of listening,
 Pandora’s Tears 

a di fference betw een pr ivate an d public, hidden an d open, intimate an d

distant, and, finally, feminine and masculin e. The public pla ce of listen-
ing, the atrium, is where the male audience is gathered and expects to hear
a n ew song . The public loca tion r eflects ma le expect ations of the bar d.
The male audience is fascinated with the factual content of the song, with
its informa tive q uality. They ar e a ttentive t o th e capa city of the song t o
bring news from afar.
In contrast to the public space, the hidden quarters of the women con-
stitute the spatial symbol of domestic intimacy. This feminine space is re-
flective of the way women listen to poetry. The feminine response is deaf
to th e song ’s c ollective sig nificance; its in terest in th e informa tion c on-
tained in th e song i s restricted to the personal meaning it mig ht have for
the li stener. Penelope, sensitive to the persona l implications of this song
about th e Achaians’ homecoming, is deeply a ffected b y it. She c onse-
quently appears in the hall in tears and asks the singer to “leave off singing
this sad / song , which always afflicts the dear h eart deep inside me ” (Od.
.–). We should remember that the song does n ot include the story
of Odysseus’s homecoming. She weeps because the description of the suf-
fering Danaans reminds her of her husband and intensifies her longing for
him. Though it is not directly concerned with Odysseus, she identifies the
shadow of her missing husband in the song. But Penelope’s personal mode
of listening does n ot meet w ith Telemachos’s approval:

soi/ d' e)pitolma/tw kradi/h kai\ qumo\j a)kou/ein:

ou) ga\r )Odusseu\j oi)=oj a)pw/lese no/stimon h)=mar
e)n Troi/h|, polloi\ de\ kai\ a)/lloi fw=tej o)/lonto.
(Od. .–)

[So let y our heart and let y our spirit be har dened to listen.
Odysseus is not the only on e who lost hi s homecoming
day at Troy. There were many others who perished, besides him.]

Telemachos aspir es t o li sten t o poetr y as a man—namely , with an ear

attuned t o th e collective human exper ience. His mode of listening blurs
the distinction between his personal grief over his father’s absence and his
general concern for the miserable fate of the rest of the Greek leaders and
armies. In this mode of listening, the listener’s desire for s elf-recognition
and emotional identification is unimportant; the poem’s supposedly objec-
tive meaning i s supreme. How should we understand Penelope’s personal
 Pandora’s Tears

perspective? Does its uniq ueness li e in th e f act tha t it in volves an emo-

tional r esponse t o th e depicted ev ents? I s th e feminin e char acter of the
Homeric epic t antamount to the text’s emotional dimension (imply ing a
readership based on emotiona l identification)?
The q uestion of the emotiona l aspect of the epic an d its r elationship
to forms of empathetic reading is clearly not new. Charles Segal, for exam-
ple, discusses th e i ssue in th e c ontext of the H omeric r epresentation of
listeners and their patterns of response, which, in hi s v iew, testify to the
Homeric preoccupation with the conditions for creating an involved audi-
ence. According t o Sega l, the Homeric tr eatment of the ph enomenon of
stirring emotions in a c ommunity of listeners should be r ead as a ba ck-
ground for th e emergence of Athenian drama with its uniq ue patterns of
audience response:

There is a direct line between this function of song as a celebration of human

solidarity in the face of suffering and the development of Attic drama, which
in so man y oth er r espects o wes mu ch t o H omer. Drama, among oth er
things, creates the community of the theater as a community of shared grief
and compassion.29

Furthermore, Segal argu es tha t th e abun dance of Homeric st orytelling

scenes—scenes that often involve a description of emotional responses to
stories an d poetr y—enables th e epic t o c onstrue a model for its idea l
reader: one who is capable of compassion and human solidarity.30
The crucial role of compassion and solidarity is indeed incontestable in
this c ontext. Yet it sh ould not be c onflated w ith th e meaning ev ent tha t
concerns us here, represented by Penelope and the feminine response that
she epitomizes. More specifically, we need to distinguish between the kind
of compassion and solidarity of which Segal speaks and the personal rap-
port with a text tha t I un derstand as feminin e. Whereas compassion and
solidarity arise within the horizons of our shared universal forms of expe-
rience, I am more interested in the idiosyncratic dimension of experience
as it echoes, for example, in Penelope. For Segal, texts, performances, and
events may often elicit emotiona l r esponses. Yet in th eir abilit y to cr eate
solidarity, they n ecessarily expr ess gen eral forms of human c oncern and
call upon th eir listeners to participate in a “sharing” of these forms.
The feminine trope functions in a di fferent manner, however. It is not
directed at solidarity but circumvents the general form of the human voice.
The feminine embodi es a meeting poin t, a f ace-to-face encounter where
 Pandora’s Tears 

contact i s ma de betw een th e r eader as an in dividual an d a speci fic fic-

tional figure. In other words, the feminine dimension of the text i s what
opens up t o the emotiona l condition of a specific r eader; it dir ects its elf
to the reader’s psychological experience and makes a place for her (or his)
biography to resonate. The feminine dimension of the text c onsists of an
invitation to s earch for the r eflection of the r eader’s o wn exper ience in
the represented subject. The feminine provides the text with a capacity to
touch, and a feminine reading is thus one that allows itself to be touched.

O W L  W

In exploring the option of a feminine mode of listening within the Home-
ric epic, it may be generally instructive to view the Odyssey as consisting,
in itself, of a reading—and, more specifically, a reading response—to the
masculine ethos of the Iliad.31 Doing so, we see that regardless of its tra-
ditionally pe jorative st atus, the feminine s ense i s, in f act, integral to thi s
representative work of canonical liter ature, the heroic epic. 32 Despite the
valorization of masculine ideals, Homeric poetry recognizes the necessity
of a feminine poetical position. This becomes clear in the famous descrip-
tion of Odysseus w eeping in r esponse t o th e h eroic song of the bar d in
Alkinoos’s palace.
At the end of his journey, Odysseus reaches the land of the Phaeacians.
Destitute, hopeless, exhausted, naked, and hungry, he i s nearing hi s final
destination. For ten years he had fought the war in Troy and for ten mor e
years he wandered along a tortuous route in the attempt to return home.
Now, having r eached th e Phaea cians, who w ill ev entually br ing him t o
Ithaka, Odysseus i s en tertained b y th e performan ce of Demodocus, the
local bard, who sings of the Trojan War and specifically of Odysseus’s own
heroic feats. Demodocus presents Odysseus as a divine hero, likening him
to the god Ares, the ultimate personification of masculinity. Odysseus lis-
tens to the bard’s words incognito. His identity is concealed: he can only
hear of the man he was, but cannot openly be th e man he is. And yet this
scene pr esents a sig nificant shift fr om Odyss eus th e h ero of the past t o
Odysseus the man of the present. The shift occurs as Odysseus the listener
takes th e pla ce of Odysseus th e h ero—that i s, as th e H omeric nar rator
focuses on hi s response to the heroic poetry of Demodocus:

h)/eiden d' w(j a)/stu die/praqon ui(=ej )Axaiw=n

i(ppo/qen e)kxu/menoi, koi=lon lo/xon e)kprolipo/ntej.
a)/llon d' a)/llh| a)/eide po/lin kerai+ze/men ai)ph/n,
 Pandora’s Tears

au)ta\r )Odussh=a proti\ dw/mata Dhifo/boio

bh/menai, h)u/t' )/Arha su\n a)ntiqe/w| Menela/w|.
kei=qi dh\ ai)no/taton po/lemon fa/to tolmh/santa
nikh=sai kai\ e)/peita dia\ mega/qumon )Aqh/nhn.
tau=t' a)/r' a)oido\j a)/eide perikluto/j: au)ta\r )Odusseu\j
th/keto, da/kru d' e)/deuen u(po\ blefa/roisi pareia/j.
w(j de\ gunh\ klai/h|si fi/lon po/sin a)mfipesou=sa,
o(/j te e(h=j pro/sqen po/lioj law=n te pe/sh|sin,
a)/stei+ kai\ teke/essin a)mu/nwn nhlee\j h)=mar:
h( me\n to\n qnh/skonta kai\ a)spai/ronta i)dou=sa
a)mf' au)tw=| xume/nh li/ga kwku/ei: oi( de/ t' o)/pisqe
ko/ptontej dou/ressi meta/frenon h)de\ kai\ w)/mouj
ei)/reron ei)sana/gousi, po/non t' e)xe/men kai\ o)izu/n:
th=j d' e)leeinota/tw| a)/xei+ fqinu/qousi pareiai/:
w(\j )Oduseu\j e)leeino\n u(p' o)fru/si da/kruon ei)=ben.
(Od. .–)

[He sang then how the sons of the Achaians left th eir hollow
hiding place and streamed from the horse and sacked the city,
and he sang how one and another fought through the steep cit adel,
and how in par ticular Odysseus went, with godlike
Menelaos, like Ares, to find the house of Deiphobos,
and there, he said, he endured the grimmest fighting that ever
he had, but won it th ere too, with great-hearted Athene aiding.
So the famous singer s ang his tale, but Odysseus
melted, and from under his eyes the tears r an down, drenching
his cheeks. As a w oman weeps, lying over the body
of her great husband, who fell fighting for h er city and people
as he tried to beat off the pitiless da y from city and children;
she sees him dy ing and gasping for br eath, and winding her body
about him sh e cries high and shrill, while the men behin d her,
hitting her with their spear butts on th e back and the shoulders,
force her up an d lead her away into slavery, to have
hard work and sorrow, and her cheeks are wracked with pitiful w eeping.
Such were the pitiful tears Odyss eus shed from under
his brows, but they went unnoticed by all the others.]

Odysseus’s response is utterly private and remains altogether concealed. His

response is nonverbal, and furthermore it i s unintentional. He is affected
 Pandora’s Tears 

by the words he hears. Yet these words do n ot become a par t of a space

of mental articulation. Their effect is registered, rather, at the level of the
body: Odysseus weeps; he weeps like a w oman.
In Homeric poetry both men an d women cry. Indeed, Homeric poetry
is replete with loud weeping, spontaneous cries of anguish, and elaborate
funeral or ations deli vered b y men an d w omen a like. Nevertheless, the
analogy made between Odyss eus’s tears an d the tears of a woman i s r e-
markable. Readers of the Odyssey have c onsistently w ondered about th e
significance of this simile. Why is Odysseus, the virile hero, described here
in terms of a woman lamenting over her dead husband?33 The fact that this
Homeric analogy is clearly not meant to diminish the protagonist’s mascu-
linity makes the question even more pressing. In the context of Homeric
poetry, this is not a tr ivial rhetorical gesture.34
The analogy to a w eeping woman marks, as is often obs erved, a turn-
ing poin t in th e Homeric nar rative. It fun ctions as a tr ope tha t s ets th e
stage for the dramatic climax of the hero’s self-recognition. Indeed, mak-
ing a c onnection ma de betw een Odyss eus an d th e feminin e opens up a
whole psy chological lan dscape tha t w ill be cru cial for hi s h omecoming.
Yet the feminine figures here in yet another way: it is reflective, in my view,
of the Homeric sensitivity toward the kinds of reading responses that the
epic its elf elicits and, in par ticular, to the possibilit y of a feminine r ead-
ing experience.35
Odysseus’s representation as a w oman is unsettling. This effect is mag-
nified by the specificity of the analogy: Odysseus is not compared to any
ordinary lamen ting w oman, but t o a T rojan capti ve mourning h er dea d
husband. This simile ca lls a ttention t o its elf, as an in terruption tha t th e
reader of the Odyssey must c ome t o terms w ith, as a tension tha t must
be resolved. This feminine simile ca lls for a r eading that could bridge the
gap betw een th e g lory an d super iority of Odysseus th e G reek h ero an d
his image as a r adical Other, a woman, a Trojan whose battle is lost. The
meaning of “the weeping woman” unfolds as a ca ll to the reader to find a
perspective from which the hero can be un derstood as a fema le victim of
the war.36
It is precisely this conciliatory reading that is evoked by the feminine. The
feminine is not merely “another aspect” of Odysseus’s character. Rather, it
is a dimension of immanent di fference w ithout which s elf-identity an d
alterity c ould not be medi ated. The feminin e i s a medi ating for ce oper-
ative in r econciling th e dich otomies c entral t o Odyss eus’s life, tensions
that are, furthermore, central to any encounter with a text. The feminine
 Pandora’s Tears

is thus pr esented h ere as a form of experience tha t enables Odyss eus t o

bridge the gap betw een hi s past an d hi s futur e, between action and pas-
sivity, between th e g lorious h ero of the Trojan war an d th e fug itive and
survivor who finds himself at the mercy of his Phaeacian hosts. The fem-
inine, in this context, is the intertwining of proximity and distance from
home. It i s a for ce tha t cancels th e str ict opposition betw een h ome and
the horrors of war. And finally, the feminine links, for Odysseus, interior-
ity w ith exter iority, the hidden w ith th e public ly manifest—opening th e
possibility of self-revelation.37
Putting thi s in a met apoetical perspecti ve, we ma y s ay tha t th e femi-
nine n ot only fun ctions as an in terface betw een Odyss eus th e a ctor and
Odysseus the spectator but fur thermore serves as th e principle of move-
ment between listening and narrating. In the Homeric poem, it is precisely
the feminine weeping of Odysseus that marks th e shift fr om a thir d- to a
first-person narrative. The feminine allows the transformation of Demo-
docus’s song in to an a utobiographical nar rative in Books –.38 Conse-
quently, we may understand the Homeric image of the lamenting woman
as a pr ism that makes its elf available, beyond Odyss eus, to the r eader of
the Odyssey. The image of the lamen ting w oman ev okes th e possibilit y
of a reading that, as we have seen, embraces the text b y projecting into it
one’s own persona l experience and by opening on eself up to its a ffective
dimension. In this sense, this homecoming epic can c ertainly be read as a
reflection on and a retrospective reading of the Iliad. Odysseus’s response
to the song of the Phaeacian bard demonstr ates this liter ary function, as
the scene provides embedded instructions for how to listen to poetry: cry-
ing is the mark of a listener who has the capacity to be personally affected
by it.

X’ T
Homer was the first authority to make the connection between a personal
response to poetr y and the feminine. This connection r ests on th e ana l-
ogy between the response to poetry and the response of a female mourner
to the death of a beloved person. As we have seen, however, for the Home-
ric narrator, the appearance of the feminine voice is always shrouded with
ambivalence. In oth er w ords, the Homeric gestur e tha t inscr ibes for th e
feminine voice an a utonomous place i s a lso the one that ultimately con-
tests the legitimacy of the feminine as a bearer of genuine poetic value. The
history of Western thought is replete with this kind of ambivalence toward
the feminine and its abilit y to participate in and contribute to the field of
 Pandora’s Tears 

meaning. Ambivalence toward the feminine is a response whose structure

ultimately reproduces the very trait that the feminine is so often charged
with: ambivalence. (And it i s often ambi valence, rather than a c lear and
explicit opposition, that harbors the seed of misogynism.)
It i s par ticularly in teresting in thi s c ontext t o s ee h ow in cr iticizing
Homer for his indecisiveness toward the (feminine) nature of the lament-
ing voice, Plato reproduces that same ambivalence. Plato’s criticism is the
one leading to an internalization of the Homeric duality. In Plato’s Repub-
lic, the theme of feminine lamentation and its poetic r epresentation sur-
faces in th e context of a di scussion of the st atus of poetry in r elation to
the educational character of the ideal polis. For Plato, the mimetic essence
of poetry implies an ontological inferiority that becomes even more prob-
lematic because of the actual dangers that the structure of mimesis—and
thus of identification—carries for th e healthy soul. Without venturing to
enter here into the intricacies of that “ancient quarrel between philosophy
and poetry,” we should notice that Plato’s reflections on the representation
of lamentation ar e moti vated b y a pr oscriptive a ttitude t oward speci fic
mimetic acts of poetry that might corrupt the souls of citizen readers.
In focusing on th e epic, Plato’s Socr ates argu es tha t h eroes must be
represented only if they can s erve as pr oper models for th e cit y’s youth.
For Socr ates, the oth er side of this argumen t i s ar ticulated as a ca ll for
removing from Homeric poetry all passages that seem to promote a f alse
perception of death an d th e un derworld. This w ould be, according t o
Socrates, the proper way to instill c ourage and a fighting spir it in a citi-
zenry that is destined to be free and self-governing. Hence, as he criticizes
Homer for his failure to determine clear ethical and educational standards
for his readers, Socrates subsequently demands that episodes of lamenta-
tion so typical of Homer’s heroes be censored. Achilles, for example, should
not be a llowed to cry.

tau=ta kai\ ta\ toiau=ta pa/nta paraithso/meqa (/Omhro/n te kai\ tou\j

a)l/ louj poihta\j mh\ xalepai/nein a)n\ diagra/fwmen, ou)x w(j ou) poihtika\
kai\ h(de/a toi=j polloi=j a)kou/ein, a)ll' o(/sw| poihtikw/tera, tosou/tw|
h(=tton a)kouste/on paisi\ kai\ a)ndra/sin ou(j
\ dei= e)leuqe/rouj ei)n= ai, doulei/an
qana/tou ma=llon pefobhme/nouj.
(Rep. .b)

[We will beg Homer and the other poets not to be ang ry if we cancel those
and a ll similar pass ages, not that they ar e not poetic an d pleasing t o most
 Pandora’s Tears

hearers, but because the more poetic they are the less ar e they suited to the
ears of boys and men wh o are destined to be fr ee and to be mor e afraid of
slavery than of death.—Trans. Paul Shorey.]39

Plato is preoccupied with the management of emotions and the possibil-

ity of disciplining and controlling one’s irrational impulses, instincts, and
desires. Yet he does not argue that these lower appetites must be ex cluded
completely from the field of poetic representations. On the contrary, poetry,
for Plato, must properly apportion pain and emotional expression in order
to realize the delicate balance between the emotions and the ability to re-
strain them. According to him, readers of poetry may thus be expos ed to
instances of emotional expr ession on th e c ondition tha t th ese inst ances
are c learly associ ated w ith infer ior and minor figures and concomitantly
accompanied by other figures who are exemplar y protagonists manifest-
ing self-control.
Furthermore, while Plato endorses censorship of emotional representa-
tions, he does not entirely purge lamentations from the literary text. Plato
is willing to admit certain scenes of lament, but he does so, again, only on
the condition that they are associated w ith unworthy c haracters, among
them women: 0Orqw=j a)/r' a)\n e)cairoi=men tou\j qrh/nouj tw=n o)nomastw=n
a)ndrw=n, gunaici\ de\ a)podidoi=men. (“Then we should be r ight in doing
away w ith the lamentations of men of note and in att ributing them t o
women,” Rep. .e). Platonic censorship of emotional representation may
thus be said to consist of a shift in the inner structure of the poetical field.
Instead of eliminating emotions altogethe r, Plato is concerned with shift-
ing the intensity of emotions fr om the c enter to the very margins of epic
poetry. The literary agent that allows him to bring about such a shift is the
figure of the w oman: she can be r epresented in lamentation sinc e her
lament does not genuinely upset the emotional balance of listeners.
This dua l r ole ascr ibed t o th e feminin e v oice of lamentation—to th e
feminine as a n ecessary figure of difference and alterity—continues to be
operative in attitudes such as the one we find, for example, in Plutarch. In
a letter t o a g rieving friend, Plutarch elaborates a masculin e ideal of self-
composure that he explicitly c ontrasts with the exaggerated emotionality
more typical of human mourning.40 In this context, Plutarch shows spe-
cific interest in th e peculi arities of Lycian custom: “The law g iver of the
Lycians orders his citizens, whenever they mourned, to clothe themselves
first in women’s garments and then to mourn, wishing to make it clear that
mourning is womanish and unbecoming to decorous men wh o lay claim
 Pandora’s Tears 

to the education of the free born.” For Plutarch Lycian practice reflects the
true nature of excessive emotions:

qh~lu ga\r o1ntwj kai\ a0sqene\j kai\ a0genne\v to\ penqei~n: gunai~kej ga\r
a0ndrw~n ei0si filopenqe/sterai kai\ oi9 ba/rbaroi tw~n 9Ellh/nwn kai' oi9
xei/rouj a1ndrej tw~n a0meino/nwn.
(Plutarch, Letter to Apollonius .)

[Yes, mourning is verily feminine, and weak, and ignoble, since women are
more given to it than men, and barbarians more than G reeks, and inferior
men more than better men. —Trans. Frank Cole Babbitt] 41

Plutarch sees the feminine as a mark er for th e soul’s lower faculties. This
somewhat odd anecdote about Lycian mourning customs merely reaffirms
his own understanding of the nature of women. What Plutarch seems less
prone to admit is that legislating mourning in female disguise means that
the feminine not only functions as a way of releasing the Lycian men from
their pain; it becomes the model for th e exposure of masculine emotion-
ality. Despite the exclusion of the feminine from the core of men’s world,
the Lycians s eem t o be depen dent on it in or der t o f ace an d exper ience
one of the most crucial dimensions of that world—death. In this respect,
Plutarch’s an ecdote c ontains mor e than it a dmits. Plutarch r egards th e
Lycian custom as a demonstr ation of women’s inferior public stature, but
doesn’t s eem t o r ecognize tha t hi s an ecdote exempli fies a public sph ere
that, in fact, functions under the sign of the feminine.
Whereas for Plutarch the dialectical relationship between masculine and
feminine seems to pass unnoticed, the Platonic text displays its awareness
of this dialectics, turning it in to one of the most di stinctive marks of the
Socratic dialogue. Here, Plato’s Phaedo, with its strong emotional impact,
provides a good case in point. “I was there, Echerates,”42 says Phaedo, open-
ing the dialogue named after him (Phd. a). He was there “with Socrates
on the day he drank the poison in th e prison,” and he is intent on telling
“everything from the beginning” (c). This beginning, the dialogue’s first
dramatic sc ene, consists of the ar rival of Socrates’ friends an d di sciples
at hi s pr ison c ell. “On en tering,” they find “Socrates just fr eed fr om hi s
chains, and X anthippe . . . sitting beside him . . . holding hi s bab y son”
(a). The dialogue ends with the dramatic scene of Socrates drinking the
poison, his friends weeping, Socrates’ last words, his death, “the end of our
friend, the first man . . . of all whom we came to know in hi s generation;
the wisest too, and the most r ighteous” (a).
 Pandora’s Tears

What unfolds between Phaedo’s beginning and end, between the image
of Socrates’ baby son (birth) and the image of his own dying, is, as is usual
for Plato, a conversation. Emotionally Phaedo is clearly one of Plato’s most
moving w orks, but th e di alogue’s philosophica l c ontent s eems t o poin t
in th e opposite dir ection. The c ore of the c onversation i s dedica ted t o
the immortality of the soul, the liberation of the soul fr om the body, the
philosopher’s commitment to that liberation, and finally an explication of
Socrates’ tranquility, perhaps even joy, in the f ace of death. In these inti-
mate and sorrowful of moments, Socrates engages his disciples in a discus-
sion that is meant to explain the sense in which, for the true philosopher,
life is a training for death and death the place in which the soul can finally
celebrate its freedom from the burdens of the body. Phaedo focuses on the
immortal nature of the soul and the philosophical possibility of emancipa-
tion from the world of appearance, but it is just as much a dialogue about
mourning. Indeed, it presents an exemplar y form of mourning.
In thi s context it i s par ticularly impor tant to notice that the feminine
explicitly figures here in two ways. We have already mentioned Xanthippe,
who i s pr esent in th e c ompany of Socrates an d fr iends. But befor e di s-
cussing her actual role in th e di alogue, let us turn first to another femi-
nine figure whose function i s more met aphorical. As Socr ates elabor ates
on the philosophical task of delivering the soul from its bodily pr ison, he
alludes in passing t o the figure of Penelope.

a)ll' ou(/tw logi/sait' a)\n yuxh\ a)ndro\j filoso/fou, kai\ ou)k a)\n oi)hqei/h
th\n me\n filosofi/an xrh=nai au)th\n lu/ein, luou/shj de\ e)kei/nhj, au)th\n
paradido/nai tai=j h(donai=j kai\ lu/paij e(auth\n pa/lin au)= e)gkatadei=n
kai\ a)nh/nuton e)/rgon pra/ttein Phnelo/phj tina\ e)nanti/wj i(sto\n
metaxeirizome/nhj, a)lla\ galh/nhn tou/twn paraskeua/zousa, e(pome/nh
tw=| logismw=| kai\ a)ei\ e)n tou/tw| ou)=sa, to\ a)lhqe\j kai\ to\ qei=on kai\ to\
a)do/caston qewme/nh kai\ u9p 0 e0kei/nou trefome/nh.
(Phd. a)

[The soul of a philosopher will reflect as we have said, and will not suppose
that, while it i s the task of philosophy to secure its r elease, it should thwart
that t ask b y sur rendering its elf to pleasur es an d pa in, and so r elapse in to
its old imprisonment, like Penelope at the interminable task of undoing her
web; rather will it abate the storm of desire by taking reason as its guide and
constant companion, by contemplating the utter c ertainty of divine reality
and finding sustenance therein.]
 Pandora’s Tears 

Penelope serves Socrates as a negative example. The philosopher and Pene-

lope share an impor tant similarity: for both th e act of untying is crucial.
But thi s i s wh ere th e r esemblance en ds. In th e c ourse of a lifetime, the
philosopher pr actices a g radual r elease of the soul fr om th e body . His
training t akes th e form of a c ontinual un tying tha t w ill r each tru e fru-
ition w ith th e dea th of the body. Yet, according t o Socr ates, one of the
clear dangers t o a philosoph er’s progress i s s lipping back into the world
of the body, relapsing into the world of “pleasures and pain.” This is what
Penelope s eems t o sig nify, at least stru cturally, as th e on e wh o w eaves
again what she has un woven. For the philosopher it i s impor tant not to
renew those ties with the corporeal world that, with effort, have been un-
knotted. The true philosopher is presented in opposition to Penelope, who
is engaged in an a ction that constantly cancels its own effects. The philos-
opher must exhibit determina tion in t aking a c onsistently linear path in
one direction.
This Pla tonic image of Penelope i s c entral t o Adriana Ca varero’s In
Spite of Plato: A F eminist R ewriting of Ancient Phil osophy. For Ca varero,
Plato’s ev ocation of Penelope i s a c lear mi suse of the feminin e figure.
Penelope, just like the figures of Diotima or the Thracean maidservant, is
an example of the mann er in which “feminine figures [ar e] st olen fr om
their c ontexts.”43 Examining th e pr esuppositions underlying Pla to’s a llu-
sion to Penelope, Cavarero argues against the manner in which Pla to vio-
lently, and uncritically, disvalues a wh ole ethics of the s elf that Penelope
and, more generally, the feminine stand for. According to Cavarero, Plato’s
use of the figure of Penelope is based on a wh olesale misconstruction of
the feminine at the center of which li es “a s emantic di splacement of the
concept of life.”44 This misconstruction allows Plato to operate within, and
take completely for granted, a field of conceptual oppositions that are hier-
archically ordered in c orrelation with the gender opposition. In this con-
ceptual field, the figure of the woman is the systematic marker for inferior
metaphysical categories. Penelope’s existence, in particular, is identified with
the “hesitations of the imperfect philosopher.” Yet, as Cavarero shows, the
figure of Penelope can do philosophica l w ork for Pla to only beca use h e
has c ompletely in verted th e sig nificance of her t ale. “The scan dal i s n ot
that Penelope undoes what she has don e, but that she reweaves what she
has already unwoven.”45
Cavarero’s analysis illuminates the Platonic oppositions by showing how
these binar isms ar e depen dent on th e deva luation of the feminin e. Yet,
should we, in the first place, understand Plato’s conceptual oppositions to
 Pandora’s Tears

be dichotomous, as Cavarero claims? I ha ve tried to show that this is not

the cas e. Whereas the spir itual, for example, is ar ticulated in c ontrast to
the corporeal, there is no way to imagine or un derstand the spiritual in-
dependently of the sentient body. The spiritual and the corporeal (just like
the r ational an d th e emotiona l) ar e n ot simply tw o mutua lly ex clusive
domains but dimensions of human reality that are dialectically related. I
think it i s c lear that Plato does n ot beli eve in th e possibilit y of a r adical
transcendence of the body. Not ev en th e philosoph er can fully lea ve hi s
body behind. The philosopher too must ultima tely return to the Platonic
cave, thus forsaking the possibility of a constant and direct view of the sun
(the form of the good). The world whose center i s the body—the world
of appearance, of the s enses, emotions, temporality, and perspecti ve—
cannot be wh olly n egated beca use it i s an in trinsic, albeit pr oblematic,
dimension of who we are as humans. And thus, the form of the philosoph-
ical emancipation of the soul fr om th e body i s a di alectical sublima tion
that ma y, at best, bracket th e dominion of the body while r etaining its
presence in the form of the negative. Does Plato believe that there is a real
option of living a philosophical life that does not include constant relapses
into the domain of “pleasures and pain”? Can the living philosopher com-
mit himself only to a pr actice of untying, or is he ineluctably forced—by
the fact of having a body—into moments of weaving what he has labored
to unweave? In other words, is Plato’s image of Penelope weaving and un-
weaving really opposed to the image of the true philosopher?
A similar dialectics is characteristic, in my view, of Plato’s presentation
of Xanthippe, the wife of Socrates. Xanthippe is the feminine counterpart
of Socrates, his dialectical opposite. As the dialogue begins, she is already
there, in the prison, sitting with her baby beside Socrates. At first sight, her
role s eems v ery limited, consisting of a few w ords, said a loud, that im-
mediately sing le h er out as a persona n on g rata. Present a t th e meeting
between Socrates and his friends, Xanthippe is described as crying out and
saying “the sor t of thing tha t w omen a lways s ay.” What s he sa ys is :
“Socrates, this is the last time your dear friends will speak to you and you
to them” (Phd. a). She is clearly empathetic, sensing the anguish of sep-
aration and the pain of an approaching loss, and she seems to understand
the singularity of this last gathering of friends. Yet the manner in which she
expresses herself does not resonate well w ith the Socr atic ear. Xanthippe
speaks, but her saying remains unanswered, as if it were an incomprehen-
sible s eries of noises. For Socr ates, Xanthippe’s s aying does n ot s eem t o
carry any logos that des erves a r esponse. His only wa y of acknowledging
 Pandora’s Tears 

that he has heard her is to turn to a friend: “Crito,” he says, “someone had
better t ake her hom e.” Xanthippe leaves the room “sobbing and lament-
ing” (a ).
Why i sn’t Xanthipe’s speech a llowed into the space of dialogue so im-
portant for th e Socr atic eth os? I n wha t s ense does h er s aying belong t o
“the sor t of thing tha t w omen a lways s ay”? H ow does h er speech di ffer
from th e speech of men? Does it di ffer from th e language of men? And,
finally, why is Xanthippe excluded from the last gathering of Socrates and
friends?
Xanthippe’s w ords car ry an a ir of sentimentality tha t ir ritates—that
seems too loud—for the manly bonding of philosophers. Perhaps it is her
insistence on th e finality of the philosophical dialogue, her acceptance of
the finitude of the human conversation, that a ttracts th e h ostility of the
philosopher who believes in the eternal journey of the soul and the after-
life of words. How should we understand her role in thi s scene?
Xanthippe i s a figure wh ose ex clusion marks th e opening a ct of the
dialogue. It i s only wh en she leaves “sobbing and lamenting” that an ex-
ploration of true—philosophical—mourning can beg in. Her exclusion is
not an arbitrary turn in the Platonic narrative, but rather a literary gesture
that carries symbolic value. But what exactly is the value of that exclusion?
Should we understand Xanthippe as a feminine image of the antiphilosoph-
ical that, as such, must be excluded as a condition for a philosophical begin-
ning? Is she merely a negative example for Plato? This is how Cavarero, for
example, seems to read her figure: Xanthippe serves Plato in demarcating
the place of the “bad philosoph er” who oper ates w ithin a pictur e of the
world tha t i s ess entially feminine. “For Xanthippe,” she w rites, “Socrates
simply di es: he i s no mor e. She knows nothing of the split betw een soul
and body, and simply st ays w ithin th e exper ience of her in dividual life
where mind and body ar e joined indissolubly together.”46
Indeed, Xanthippe’s sole utter ance in th e di alogue s eems focus ed on
the “here an d n ow” without an y a cknowledgment of a possible h orizon
of transcendence. But is she simply an example of a feminine worldview,
a language, a kin d of speech tha t th e tru e philosoph er sh ould a void? I f
Xanthippe’s perspecti ve i s un educational, why doesn ’t Pla to follo w hi s
own advice in Republic and free his text from her feminine presence in the
first place?
We may begin answering these questions by recalling that exclusion is
a common strategy in Plato.47 More specifically, we may want to recall that
the beginning of the philosophical conversation on love in Symposium e
 Pandora’s Tears

is also marked by the exclusion of a feminine figure: the female flute-player.

The flute-player expresses herself in a manner that does not convey a logos.
Her music communicates only through tonality and rhythm, and this sen-
sual senselessness seems improper within the space of genuine philosoph-
ical di alogue. However, while the flute-player’s pr esence s eems to denote
an unwanted sensual effect, her exclusion does n ot diminish the sensual-
ity of the di alogue. On the contrary, her depar ture only a ccentuates thi s
sensual aspect of the male discourse on love. And, indeed, it is Alcibiades’
arrival that serves as th e occasion for th e flute girl’s return.
In a similar mann er, although X anthippe i s ma de t o lea ve th e sc ene
of philosophy, the affect she embodies continues to be c entral to Phaedo.
Furthermore, the f act tha t sh e has been ex cluded only un derscores th e
inevitability of the emotional spectrum—as well as the corporeal point of
view—that sh e embodi es. Once sh e t akes h er leave, the di alogue i s sup-
posedly fr ee t o dev elop its o wn c ourse in a pr oper manly mann er. But
this does n ot happen. Instead of keeping a c lear and s afe di stance fr om
Xanthippe’s example, Phaedo develops through a continual tension between
the emotional and the rational. And as the dialogue proceeds, we see that
a clear choice has not been made between the need to follow the Socratic
imperative of self-composure and the need to weep over Socrates, to mourn
the loss of a singular person an d a belo ved fr iend. This tension betw een
the t ormenting pa in of loss and th e idea l of self-possession (a t th e level
of the dialogue’s participants), between the strength of rational argumen-
tation and the effect of literary description (at the level of readers), is ex-
plicitly accentuated in th e dialogue’s ending scene.
Phaedo and his friends had “more or less contrived to hold back [their]
tears,” but as they see Socrates “put the cup to his lips,” it “became impos-
sible” (Phd. c). As Phaedo descr ibes hims elf weeping, his language
clearly voices tha t r eflexive stru cture which w e have ear lier iden tified as
typical of feminine lamentation. “For myself, despite my efforts the tears
were pouring down my cheeks, so that I ha d to cover my f ace; but I was
weeping not for him, but for my own misfortunes in losing such a friend”
(Phd. c). Phaedo i s n ot th e only on e wh o cr ies in thi s sc ene. “Crito
had got up an d withdrawn already, finding that he could not restrain his
tears; as for Apollodorus, he had even before this been w eeping continu-
ously, and in this last moment he burst into sobs, and his tears of distress
were heartbreaking to all of us.” It is only at So crates’ explicit request that
Phaedo and his friends put an en d to their crying:
 Pandora’s Tears 

oi(=a, e)/fh, poiei=te, w)= qauma/sioi. e)gw\ me/ntoi ou)x h(/kista tou/tou e(/neka
ta\j gunai=kaj a)pe/pemya, i(n/ a mh\ toiau=ta plhmmeloi=en: kai\ ga\r a)kh/koa
o(/ti e)n eu)fhmi/a| xrh\ teleuta=n. a)ll' h(suxi/an te a)/gete kai\ karterei=te.
(Phd. d)

[My dear good people, what a wa y to behave! Why, it was chi efly to avoid
such a laps e that I s ent the women away; for I was a lways told that a man
ought to die in peace and quiet. Come, calm yourselves and do not give way.]

Socrates’ logos is effective. The crying stops. Yet his explicit request to stop
the cr ying, just like the need to exclude Xanthippe, is a manifest ation of
a fun damental dimension of human exper ience tha t i s a lways a lready
there and tha t cannot be for ced out of the space of reason. This i s pr e-
cisely wh y th e figure o f women re surfaces h ere, and X anthippe ret urns.
“It was chiefly to avoid such a lapse that I sent the women away,” Socrates
explains. But hi s explana tion s eems t o w ork aga inst its elf, since it only
underscores the constant reverberation of the feminine in th e dialogue.
Socrates puts an end t o crying. His g aze functions as a mir ror for his
disciples, opening a course of reflective transformation. Seeing Socrates see
them, seeing themselv es in his e yes, his disciples embr ace the imperativ e
of overco ming the lo wer p owers of the ag itated soul. T he immediate
impact of the Socratic gaze is—as reported also by Alcibiades in the Sym-
posium—shame: kai\ h(mei=j a)kou/santej h)|sxu/nqhme/n te kai\ e)pe/sxomen
tou= dakru/ein. (“We felt ashamed and c eased t o weep,” Phd. e). The
momentary silence may well testify to the manner in which Phaedo and
friends have internalized Socrates’ ethical demand. At the same time, how-
ever, we should also notic e that the silenc e imposed on Socrates ’ fr iends
carries a distincti ve literar y e ffect. A literar y de vice is needed to achieve
the closure of the dialogue in a mesmer izing serenity, following Socrates’
process of dying. For the dialogue ’s participants the end of weeping ma y
imply the possibilit y of overco ming their emotions; for the r eader, it
demonstrates the impossibility of releasing the literar y text from its emo-
tional underpinnings.
The absence of the feminine nevertheless leaves an irremovable imprint
of pain in th e text. The tr agedy of losing Socr ates has a ph ysicality tha t
is r egistered in th e body. Well a ware of this feminin e dimension, Plato
makes a pla ce for it in th e tears hi s text simult aneously forbids and wel-
comes. In other words, at the moment when Socrates’ disciples succeed in
suppressing th eir tears, the pa inful a ffect of the text i s wh olly deposited
 Pandora’s Tears

in the hands of the r eader, for whom tears bec ome the most na tural r e-
sponse. The tension between the two states—incontinent, feminine weep-
ing and reflective, philosophical self-possession—is never resolved in thi s
dialogue. When Phaedo an d fr iends cease to weep, it i s the r eader’s turn
to begin.
 Epilogue

“We r emain th e only s amples of humankind,” says Deu calion t o Py rrha

in Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Yet in their very first step to restore the human
race after th e flood, the di fference betw een man an d w oman manifests
itself. When they turn to the oracle for advice, the goddess responds with
an imperative: “Leave my temple, cover your heads, unfasten your girdled
garments, and throw behind you the bones of your great mother.” Pyrrha
attends to the s acred words and r eacts w ith horror to their liter al s ense.
But th e or acle’s meaning can be captur ed, as Deu calion kn ows, only
through a sy mbolic in terpretation. “From thr own st ones,” he expla ins,
“the sy mbolic bon es of Mother E arth, a n ew gen eration of mankind i s
born” (Ovid, Met. .–).
For Ov id, the m yth of the first man an d w oman c onveys a m ythical
insight into the origins of hermeneutics. The question of sexual difference
involves the opposition betw een two modes of interpretation: the liter al
and the symbolic. Ovid is, of course, not alone here; he gives voice to an
opposition that is deeply r ooted in th e ancient hermeneutic tradition. At
its heart we find the essential distinction between the literal and the alle-
gorical, between a superficial and a thoroughly penetrating form of reader-
ship. And as th e Ovidian version of the origin of the sexes discloses, this
is, in fact, a gendered distinction based on th e pairing of the literal sense
with a fema le reader and the symbolic sense with a ma le one.
The history of ancient liter ary criticism is replete with exemplars tha t
associate the feminine with superficial and insignificant layers of the text’s
meaning. In a cultur e that devalued the ethos of femininity, the figure of
the feminine commonly served as a negative and subsidiary category for des-
ignating literal, sensual, personal, incoherent, and even self-contradictory


 Epilogue

meanings. The understanding of the feminine as a s econdary sense is tied

to th e emergence of allegory in th e four th c entury BCE. For a llegorists,
the feminin e i s in trinsically ti ed t o th ose ma terial an d c oncrete dimen-
sions of the text that must be transcended in order to arrive at the abstract
truth constitutive of the text’s genuine core of meaning. The feminine i s
thus a metaphor for the text’s surface, the specificity of its sense, which in
the case of literature is usually equated with its nar rative aspects.
This ancient in tersection of gender and textua lity finds its expr ession
in two ways. On the one hand, conceptions of the text ar e often ma de to
rely on metaphors of sexual difference; on the other hand, the distinction
between the s exes i s often ar ticulated in terms of the difference b etween
two textua l di spositions. In Achilles Tatius’s Leucippe and Clitop hon, for
example, the di fference betw een th e tw o lo vers i s ma de explicit b y de-
scribing their response to a painting of Philomela’s rape. While Clitophon
discusses the painting’s meaning w ith a ma le companion, Leucippe finds
herself silently absor bed in th e v isual exper ience of the work. According
to the men, the painting should be understood as a prefiguration of a terri-
ble future event. Their interpretation is derived from the methodological
principles of professional interpreters:

Interpreters of signs tell us t o consider the story [ muthos] of any painting

we chance to see as w e set out on busin ess, and to plot th e outcome of our
action by analogy [logos] with that story’s plot. (.)

The aim of masculine interpretation is to draw the logos from the muthos.
Therefore, once the men capture the painting’s hidden meaning, they lose
interest in th e painting itself. This is c learly not the case with the female
viewer, Leucippe, who insi sts on embr acing wha t sh e s ees an d making
sense of precisely wha t meets th e e ye. She does n ot par ticipate in th e
men’s game of interpretation, but she is nevertheless intensely involved in
the exper ience of looking. As sh e tr ies t o understand wha t sh e s ees, she
turns t o h er lo ver w ith a r equest for informa tion about th e st ory in th e
painting. Achilles Tatius characterizes Leucippe’s gaze as motivated by the
desire for a v ivid an d c oncrete nar rative. And, according t o him, this i s
completely t ypical: “For there i s something in th e nature of women that
clearly loves a t ale” (philomuthon gar po s to ton gunaikon ge nos, ..).
Pandora’s Senses is an investigation of a dimension of the text that seems
to have been marginalized in antiquity because of its association with the
category of the feminine. However, in focusing on the construction of these
 Epilogue 

allegedly insubstantial, feminine, aspects of the ancient text, my intention

was n ot a dir ect cr itique of their mi sogynist pr esuppositions. Instead, I
have tried to show that those prototypical feminine metaphors associated
with textuality were, in fact, much more influential in shaping the ancient
text than mig ht be ga thered from the canon of ancient literary criticism.
This study began w ith the conviction that the feminine cannot be so eas-
ily relegated to the margins of the literary text. The contribution of the fem-
inine is, and has always been, far too crucial for the question of meaning.
The senses of the feminine were richer and played more intricate roles than
the ones assigned to them by misogynist categories. Tracing the irreduci-
ble, albeit implicit, presence of Pandora in the space of ancient literature,
I have tried to show why and how she is essential to the possibility—the
formation—of the ancient text. In particular, I have focused on the dialec-
tics between the visible and the invisible so central to Pandora’s image (e.g.,
beauty/evil, body/soul) showing the role of this di alectics in shaping th e
complexity of a text as a wh ole. In this respect, Pandora’s Senses seeks to
move beyond a cr itical anatomy of ancient binary thought, beyond a cr i-
tique of misogynist cultur e. It aspir es t o di smantle mi sogynist language
by demonstr ating tha t th e n otion of a text ’s meaning fulness w ould be
meaningless without the presence of the feminine.
    

I
1. Berger, “The Latest Word from Echo,” –.
2. Salzman-Mitchell, A Web of Fantasies, .
3. Bergren, “Helen’s Web,” –; Bergren, “Language and the Female in Early
Greek Thought,” –.
4. DuBois, “Sappho and Helen,” –.
5. DuBois, “Sappho and Helen”; Winkler, “Gardens of Nymphs.”
6. Worman, “The Body as Argument,” ; see also Austin, Helen of Troy and
Her Shameless Phantom.
7. Doherty, “Putting the Woman Back into the Hesiodic Catalogue of Women,”
.
8. Richlin, Pornography and R epresentation in G reece and R ome, .
9. Richlin, “The E thnographer’s Dilemma an d th e Dr eam of a Lost Golden
Age,” .
10. Plato, Phaedrus, trans. R. Hackforth, in The Collected Dialogues of Plato, ed.
Hamilton and Cairns.
11. Cavarero, In Spite of Plato: A F eminist R ewriting of Ancient Phil osophy;
Kofman, L’enigme de l a femme; Gallop, The Father’s Seduction.
12. Zajko and Leonard, Laughing with Medusa, .
13. Spentzou and Fowler, eds., Cultivating the Muse.
14. Spentzou, Readers and Writers in Ovid’s Heroides; Salzman-Mitchell, A Web
of Fantasies.
15. E.g., Loraux, The Childr en of Athena; Bassi, “Helen an d th e Di scourse of
Denial in Stesich orus’ Palinode”; Zeitlin, Playing the Other.
16. “The figure of Pandora combines all the tensions an d ambivalences.” Ver-
nant, Myth and So ciety in Ancient Greece, .
17. Pucci, Hesiod and th e Language of Poetry.


 Notes to P ages –

18. Cantarella, Pandora’s Daughters; Warner, Monuments & Maidens; Lefkowitz,

Women in G reek Myth; Reeder, ed., Pandora: Women in Cl assical Greece.
19. Sharrock and Morales, eds., Intratextuality, –.

C . P’ L

1. Semonides of Amorgos, who a ddresses th e cr eation of different t ypes of
women, does not refer directly to Pandora.
2. The m yth of Pandora has a ttracted th e a ttention of many think ers an d
artists, particularly since the end of the Middle Ages. See Panofsky and Panofsky,
Pandora’s B ox, –. A  anthology on th e myth of Pandora collects pass ages
from poets, prose writers, and critics from antiquity to our own time: Renger and
Musäus, eds., Mythos Pandora. The an thology c onfirms Er vin an d Dor a P anof-
sky’s claim that treatments of Pandora in an tiquity were sparse. The small num-
ber of ancient authors and commentators on Pandora deal with her mostly in the
context of explicating Hesiod’s myth.
3. In the Catalogue of Women (fr. ) a figure named P andora appears as th e
first w oman t o mak e lo ve t o Zeus. M. L. West an d oth ers s ee thi s P andora as
different from the first woman of Theogony and Works and Da ys. See West, The
Hesiodic Catalogue of Women, –. The question of how to reconstruct the rela-
tionship of the Catalogue’s P andora t o th e H esiodic image of the first w oman
remains open. See Osborn, “Ordering Women in Hesiod’s Catalogue,” –, –.
On the date of the final version of the catalogue see Hunter, ed., The Hesiodic Cat-
alogue of Women, .
4. Ancient visual representations of the creation of Pandora typically comply
with th e H esiodic v ersion. For a ca talogue an d ic onographic ana lysis of vases
featuring her, see Reeder, ed., Pandora: Women in Cl assical Greece, –. Ellen
D. Reeder examines the volute krater in the Ashmolean Museum as an exceptional
representation of Pandora: ibid., . The Oxford vas e shows Epimetheus look-
ing at Pandora and carrying a hammer, a feature not described by Hesiod. Some
scholars suggest that it reflects the influence of a lost satyr play by Sophocles enti-
tled Pandora or The Hammerers. See Simon, “Satyr-Plays on Vases in the Time of
Aeschylus,” –. The st ory of the cr eation of Pandora must ha ve ha d a g reat
cultural sig nificance for Athens. According t o P ausanias .. the epi sode was
part of the w est pedimen t of the Parthenon. Locating Pandora w ithin th e or bit
of the Athenians’ gaze ma y in dicate, as N icole Lor aux has demonstr ated, the
central role of the first woman in shaping the Athenian autochthonous male iden-
tity. The artificial construction of the first woman by Hephaestus was set in oppo-
sition t o th e r epresented bir th of the first Athenian citizen, Erichthonios, from
earth fertilized by Hephaestus’s sperm. See Loraux, The Children of Athena, –,
 n. .
5. I do n ot c laim tha t H esiod in vented th e st ory of Pandora; rather, he
adapted the story of the first woman in a most original manner, and subsequently
 Notes to P ages – 

his idiosyn cratic tr eatment of the m yth became a uthoritative. The P andora of
Theogony and Works and Da ys is uniq uely Hesiod’s. A similar cas e i s Apuleius’s
tale of Amor and Psyche in The Golden Ass, of which no other versions in an tiq-
uity ar e known. Although the story bears w ell-known mythological and folkt ale
patterns, it is nevertheless identified as Apuleius’s.
6. Vernant, Myth and So ciety in Ancient Greece.
7. Ibid., –. See th e comprehensive r eappraisal of Vernant’s stru cturalist
reading of Hesiod’s myth of Pandora in Csapo, Theories of Mythology, –. Ver-
nant returns to the figure of the first woman in a r ecently published collection of
essays: “Pandora,” in Lissarrague and Schmitt, eds., Ève et Pandora, –.
8. Vernant, Myth and So ciety in Ancient G reece, –. Vernant does n ot
address the interesting dissimilarities between the two Hesiodic versions in c on-
nection w ith th e P andora epi sode. As N icole Lor aux has sh own, in Works and
Days Pandora almost gains human status by means of the dichotomy between her
body and soul; in Theogony, she r emains a st atic v isual image. This difference i s
significant in determining th e meaning tha t each of these Hesiodic w orks s eeks
to expr ess through the figure of Pandora. See the r elevant di scussion in Lor aux,
The Children of Athena, .
9. For example, Irigaray, Speculum of the Other Woman.
10. Vernant, Myth and So ciety in Ancient Greece, .
11. See Derrida, “Différance.”
12. Pucci, Hesiod and th e Language of Poetry, .
13. Ibid., –. Pucci’s ana lysis i s bas ed on th e two versions of Pandora in
the Hesiodic corpus.
14. Reprinted in Zeitlin, Playing the Other, . “Travesties of Gender and Genre
in Aristophanes’ Thesmophoriazousae” was first published in Foley, ed., Reflections
of Women in Antiquity, –.
15. Zeitlin, Playing the Other, –.
16. Zeitlin di scusses th ese c onventions of the mi sogynist tr adition in “The
Dynamics of Misogyny,” in Playing th e Oth er, –; it was first publi shed in
Arethusa  (): –.
17. See Zeitlin, Playing the Other, especially –.
18. Ibid., .
19. Loraux, The Children of Athena, –.
20. Recent interpretations examine the Pandora epi sode in th e larger c ontext
of the hi story of the n otion of images in an tiquity. See, for example, Sharrock,
“The Love of Creation,” –; Steiner, Images in M ind, –, –.
21. DuBois, “Eros and the Woman,” .
22. All translations in thi s book ar e mine unless oth erwise noted.
23. M. L. West r emarks on lin es –: “These tw o lin es ar e ig nored b y Pl.
Symp. B and Arist. Metaph. a”; he argues for their authenticity in his edi-
tion of Theogony, –.
 Notes to P ages –

24. For a di fferent interpretation of the primordial Eros, see Vernant, “One . . .
Two . . . Three: Eros,” –.
25. While Eros denotes the general notion of desire, Himeros conveys a mor e
specific, irresistible, and strong sexual desire.
26. And s ee Claude Ca lame’s tr eatment of the r elationship between Eros and
Aphrodite in The Poetics of Eros in Ancient Greece, –.
27. At this cosmological stage, Eros’s association with Aphrodite suppresses its
primordial meaning as th e formless sour ce of beauty. As a subject of Aphrodite,
Eros comes to signify the attraction to beauty.
28. On the general di stribution of feminine powers among th e gods in Theo-
gony, see Arthur, “Cultural Strategies in Hesiod’s Theogony,” – and specifically
 on the “feminized” form of Eros.
29. In a ddition t o Ga ia as a feminin e pr inciple of motherhood, the figure of
Hecate i s no less impor tant ( Th. –). Hecate, like Gaia, represents a gen era-
tive power, though a c ompletely di fferent one. On Hecate’s function as a kouro-
trophos, a nurse of the young, see Zeitlin, Playing the Other, –. Gaia and Hecate
represent the maternal aspect of femininity, which Theogony denies the figures of
Aphrodite and Pandora, thus establishing the traditional opposition betw een the
figure of the mother and the figure of the s eductive woman. On the cr eation of
feminine identities b y canonical ma le authors s ee Gilber t and Gubar, The Mad-
woman in th e Attic.
30. Oaros is essentially feminine talk, as the meaning of oar (“wife”) indicates.
31. See, for example, Semonides’ logoi aphrodisioi (.–), characterizing fem-
inine talk.
32. In Works and Da ys Aphrodite plays a sig nificant role in shaping P andora’s
beauty. Yet even in that version Pandora is, first and foremost, the result of a male
conceptualization.
33. On th e r elationship betw een Aphrodite an d P andora as di srupting th e
primal harmony that reigns among men in H esiod’s Theogony, see duBois, “Eros
and th e Woman,” – and especi ally . A. S. Brown sh ows h ow P andora’s
visuality in H esiod’s works manifests an in tentional resemblance to the figure of
the golden Aphrodite, as pr incipally di splayed in P andora’s golden di adem. See
Brown, “Aphrodite and the Pandora Complex,” –.
34. On the structural similarity between the bir th of Aphrodite and the bir th
of Pandora, see Schwabl, Hesiods Theogonie: Eine unitar ische Analyse, .
35. This feminin e lin e i s suggested b y Ann L. T. Bergren in “The H omeric
Hymn to Aphrodite,” –.
36. Examining th e st ory of Pandora as th e or igin m yth of misogyny, Jens
Holzhausen asks: “Warum hat Zeus es zugelassen, da? Prometheus in dieser Weise
den gewünschten Ausgleich w ieder aufhebt? Warum hat er s einem Gegenspi eler,
den ihn betrogen hat, nicht sofort gefesselt und bereits nach seiner ersten List un-
schädlich gemacht?” Holzhausen points out that since Zeus knew of Prometheus’s
 Notes to P ages – 

manipulation of the di stribution of meat, he c ould ha ve pr evented th e wh ole

sequence of events lea ding t o th e cr eation of the first w oman. In a llowing
Prometheus to help mankind, Zeus s et the st age for puni shing Prometheus and
creating P andora. Ultimately Zeus ’s plan was t o s eparate th e h uman fr om th e
divine. Holzhausen, “Das ‘Übel’ der Frauen,” .
37. Cf. Works and Da ys, –, where a similar dec laration pr efaces th e cr e-
ation of Pandora, and the account of the creation itself underscores the negative
properties the divine makers have given her.
38. See Zeitlin, Playing the Other,  and n. .
39. Brown, trans., Theogony, .
40. This break in th e Hesiodic narrative has been n oticed by several scholars,
who consider it a br each of the poem’s initial aim. “By this time [lin e ] Hes-
iod had lost in terest in c osmogony, and says no more of the way in which things
came to be. The r emainder of the poem i s concerned to explain the world as it
is r ather than t o iden tify st ages in its dev elopment.” Barron, “Hesiod,” . Cf.
Solmsen, Hesiod and Aeschylus, . The structure of the poem has inspired numer-
ous searches for the “original” Hesiodic text and efforts to distinguish it from later
interpolations. In a ddition t o textua l cr iticism of this sor t, other sch olars ha ve
attempted to solve the hermeneutic difficulties that any reader of Theogony con-
fronts by introducing different structural divisions into the work. Richard Hamil-
ton sur veys s everal structural ana lyses: The Architecture of Hesiodic Poetry, –.
41. On these last dev elopments see Clay, “The World of Hesiod,” –.
42. The N ereids an d th e Oc eanids ar e ex ceptions t o thi s gen eralization, two
feminine groups distinctive for their beauty and their beneficial impact on human-
ity. However, these ar e par ticular elements in th e universe; descriptions of them
do not refer to the beauty of the world as a whole. Other aspects of beauty, mean-
while, coincide with the sense of terror that characterizes the appearance of female
monsters such as th e Harpies, the Graiae, and Ceto.
43. Commenting on lin es – in his edition of Theogony, .
44. The same passage as –.
45. Cf. Vernant, Myth and So ciety in Ancient Greece, , in a r eference to Pal-
ladas of Alexandria, who, commenting on P andora as a substitute for fire, pro-
vides the cliché that feminine fire is inextinguishable.
46. In H omeric poetr y, as Ra ymond Adolph P rier has sh own, stipulating a
powerful appearance for both objects and heroes requires the presence of fire. See
Prier, Thauma Idesthai, –.
47. Prier, ibid., , on th e v isible for ce of charis that i s r ecurrent in H omeric
poetry: “The gods, in f act, are exper t at sur rounding the human being w ith the
necessary ‘grace’ to induce sight-wonder.” See the Homeric examples: ibid., –.
48. Thauma idesthai, , ; thaumasia, ; thauma, .
49. Translated b y F . M. Cornford, in The C ollected D ialogues of Plato, ed.
Hamilton and Cairns.
 Notes to P ages –

50. Thaumasia refers to the many wild creatures. The visual emphasis is on the
diadem’s motifs, which ar e descr ibed as s eeming lik e ( eoikota) cr eatures w ith
voices (zooisin phoneesin).
51. Thauma thnetoisi brotoisi (“a wonder for mor tal human beings”).
52. Ann L. T. Bergren and Froma Zeitlin note the connection between the sema
and P andora. Bergren, “Language an d th e F emale in E arly G reek Th ought,” ;
Zeitlin, Playing the Other, .
53. Cf. West, ed., Theogony.
54. See ibid. on thi s line and the ana logous example fr om the Homeric epic.
55. This fea ture i s a lso cru cial t o th e descr iption of Pandora in Works and
Days. Considering the di fferent st ages of her cr eation there (–), we s ee that
the gods’ concern i s to arouse the consciousness of men toward the mechani sm
of their human senses, especially seeing and hearing.
56. Loraux, The Children of Athena, , examines the ancient Greek notion of
autochthony by juxtaposing the myth of Pandora and the myth of Erichthonios.
“Pandora and E richthonios—the couple, whether well or ba dly matched, that de-
clares the Athenian asymmetry between citizens, andres Athenaioi, and ‘women.’”
57. On Pandora’s role in separating men from gods, see Holzhausen, “Das ‘Übel’
der Frauen,” –.
58. Bachelard, The Poetics of Reverie, .
59. As Loraux observes, after Pandora men are no longer ca lled by the general
term for h umankind, anthrophoi; now they are individual men, andres. “She sep-
arates th em fr om th emselves, since sh e in troduces s exuality, that asy mmetry of
self and other . . . the dreaded effects of woman and the word gyne: the woman
is no sooner named than th e anthropoi are transformed into andres. And so th ey
remain.” See The Children of Athena, .

C . P   M  O

1. George Steiner connects the myth of Pandora to the myth of the Tower of
Babel. He identifies the “accidental release of linguistic chaos” in the story of Babel
with the f atal opening of Pandora’s box and the resulting dispersion of diseases.
According to Steiner, both myths articulate the human fall in terms of a linguis-
tic catastrophe: the loss of one tongue, Eden’s Ur-Sprache. See Steiner, After Babel,
; see a lso Litt au, “The P rimal Sca ttering of Languages.” Reading th e m yth of
Pandora as a m yth about language, Karin Littau does n ot see it as a st ory of the
loss of a primal tongue. As an image of multiplicity, according to Littau, Pandora
poses a r adical a lternative t o th e Ur-Sprache myth: the possibilit y of mother
tongue that, like the feminine sex, was never one.
2. Simone de Bea uvoir’s pioneering study has sh own that hierarchical oppo-
sitions betw een masculin e s ameness an d feminin e oth erness ha ve ha d a dir ect
impact on w omen’s lives and hi story. In the introduction to The Second Sex, she
attacked th e tr aditional engendering of women as Oth er on th e g rounds tha t it
 Notes to P ages – 

reproduces the “assertion of masculine privilege.” Women’s otherness results from

the wa y men per ceive th em. De Bea uvoir c ontended tha t w omen n eed t o cha l-
lenge men’s point of view by asking wh y woman has been de fined as th e Other
and rejecting this identification. De Beauvoir, The Second Sex, xx n. , xxxv.
3. Early feminist approaches to classical scholarship in the s needed, first
of all, to c ome t o terms w ith th e abs ence of serious stu dies of the hi story of
women in an tiquity, a lacuna that was its elf indicative of the status of women as
Other, not only w ithin th e ancient w orld but in cur rent c lassical sch olarship as
well. Early gender studies in th e field of classics began b y devoting themselves to
the important fieldwork of mapping the various gender codes that were contained
in the ancient dichotomies of center and per iphery. In di scussing r epresentative
early scholarly works on gen der divisions in an tiquity, Kathryn J. Gutzwiller and
Ann N orris M ichelini n ote: “What th ese sch olars ha ve don e i s simply t o shift
attention from the masculine half of the gender code, which has pr ivileged such
masculine-gendered a ctivities as warf are an d politica l life, to th e feminin e ha lf,
which pr ivileges s exuality, marriage cust oms, and f amily life. ” Gutzwiller an d
Michelini, “Women and Other Strangers,” .
4. Woman, as Lor aux puts it in The Childr en of Athena, , “separates men
from gods. Better y et, she s eparates th em from th emselves, since sh e introduces
sexuality, that asymmetry of self and other.”
5. See, for example, Page duBoi s’s ana lysis of the figure of Medea as epit o-
mizing the notion of the Other: “By the very fact of her presence in the city, by her
violence, her female, bestial, barbarian nature, Medea exemplifies the eruption of
difference w ithin th e f amily, within th e polis, among th e H ellenes. Difference i s
represented by Euripides as internal rather than external, omnipresent in the body
of the G reeks. The oth er, bestial, foreign, most of all fema le, is for E uripides a
marginalized marked figure who is nonetheless at the center of the tragic drama.
Her difference results from internal conflict, from forces within the oikos and the
polis which do ba ttle with one another.” DuBois, Centaurs and Amazons, .
6. “In th e Theogony, the first w oman is her a dornments—she has n o body.”
Loraux, The Children of Athena, .
7. One of the in teresting poin ts on which Works and Da ys differs fr om
Theogony is in its g iving a name t o the first woman.
8. In thi s s ense m y in terpretation goes be yond th e a ttempt t o map th e tw o
epics’ different conventions and authorial stances. For a different approach that ex-
plains Hesiod’s personal dimension in terms of a generic convention, see Griffith,
“Personality in H esiod,” –.
9. Pucci, Hesiod and th e Language of Poetry, .
10. Ibid., .
11. “Certainly when Hesiod speaks of a similarity between the false discourse
of the Muses and truth he implies a distortion, a deviation. We have denoted this
distortion, invention, and deflection by the word ‘difference,’ and thus far we have
 Notes to P ages –

used the word in its usua l meaning; but we will show that this ‘difference’ oper-
ates in the text as ‘difference and deferral’ in the special sense elaborated by Der-
rida. We have a lready hin ted a t thi s s ense wh en w e demonstr ated tha t Hesiod’s
statement impli es th e abs ence of an ‘original’ signified. Truth, which a ccording
to Hesiod should be th e source of his song, appears in r eality to be wh olly con-
tained within his logos, inscribed in it: it is like a dubbing w ithout original track,
like an imitation of that which is forever absent, like assimilation of an ‘original.’”
Ibid., .
12. Or it is also the inspiration of the kings who, with sweet and straight words,
address their subjects ( Th. –).
13. Hesiod in f act de fines th e tw o kin ds of poetry as ca tegorically di fferent
from ea ch oth er. Pucci’s un derstanding of a lost di vine sour ce of truth tha t
inspires di fferent h uman a ttempts a t r eproduction s eems t o be c loser t o Pla to’s
hierarchical series of inspired reproductions. As suggested by the metaphor of the
magnet in Ion, there i s a hi erarchical relationship between the highest poetr y of
the M uses, the inspir ed poetr y of the epic poets, and, finally, the inspir ed per-
formance of the rhapsodes ( Ion d–e). In my view, however, Hesiod’s poetic
notion in Theogony cannot r eflect su ch a hi erarchy. As I w ish t o sh ow, Hesiod
does not present divine and truthful poetr y with its mer e pale human imitation.
Rather, in the preface of Theogony, he elaborates two distinct kinds of poetics.
14. Although H esiod r emains r espectful of the M uses, his a ddress t o th em
(W&D –) i s r ather sh ort an d forma l. He a cknowledges th eir in fluence o n
human creativity and dedicates to them the tripod he won in th e poetry contest,
but hi s gratitude i s ceremonial and religious (W&D –). In thi s poem h e i s
a devotee of the Muses, but he does n ot confuse their divine patronage w ith hi s
own poetic a uthority.
15. Compare, for example, poetry that aspir es to the divine omnipotent per-
spective. See Iliad .–.
16. We should notice that Theogony and Works and Days present two different
pictures of the r elationship betw een poetr y an d tempor ality. In Theogony, the
Muses are associated with the knowledge of the present, leaving the past an d the
future for human poetry (Th. –). In Works and Days, Hesiod rivals the Muses’
competence by a llowing human poetr y to dwell in th e present. Nevertheless, we
also need to notice that the “present” dealt with by human poetry is different from
the one serving as th e subject of divine poetr y. For divine poetr y, the present is,
in essence, eternal. It is not part of what appears t o humans as a chr onology, but
encapsulates harmonious ly th e di fferent aspects of temporality. In c ontrast, the
human poetical form of Works and Da ys is based on th e common identification
of the present with the experience of the “now.”
17. Moses Finley, in an ar ticle examining ancient and modern Utopias, distin-
guishes between Utopia and the myth of the Garden of Eden. While Utopia posits
“a goal towards which one may legitimately and hopefully strive,” the myth of the
 Notes to P ages – 

Garden of Eden pr oduces “various pr imitivistic images which la ck a c oncrete

institutional cr iticism.” Accordingly, Finley r eads th e H esiodic Golden Age as
sheer fantasy devoid of any reality principle. At the same time, he points to a view
shared b y th e m yths of the Golden Age an d U topia—namely, the idea tha t “a
world w ithout ev il i s n ot ev en c onceivable.” Finley, “Utopianism Ancient an d
Modern,” –.
18. Jean-Pierre Vernant substitutes a structural reading of Hesiod’s myth of the
Five Ages for th e chronological one and accordingly argues that the r elationship
between the Golden an d Silver Ages i s not di achronic. Rather, “the r ace of silver
which is inferior to the race that preceded it exi sts and is defined only in r elation
to it. It is on th e same plane as th e race of gold, and is its exa ct counterpart and
opposite. Pious rule i s oppos ed by impious rule, and the figure of the king wh o
shows respect for dike is contrasted with that of the king who has committed him-
self to hubris. What s eals th e doom of the r ace of silver i s, in e ffect, their ‘mad
immoderation.’” Vernant, “Hesiod’s Myth of the Races,”  (originally publi shed
in French in ). His reading, which radically diverges from the usual one, was
criticized by J. Defradas in “Le mythe hésiodique des r aces.” However, there is no
question that for both Vernant and his critics who read the myth diachronically,
the Golden Age represents a perfect an d exemplary mode of being.
19. Criticism of the human tendency to perceive the world as th eir own pos-
session i s a c ommon theme in la ter versions of the Five Ages: e.g., Ovid’s Meta-
morphoses .–.
20. The Five Ages are the Golden, Silver, Bronze, Heroic, and Iron. The fourth
age, that of the g reat h eroes, repeats th e char acteristics of the Golden Age. Like
the latter, whose exclusivity is expressed in the nature of its inhabitants and in its
limited temporality, the Heroic Age represents an elite club that is temporally and
spatially out of reach.
21. Finley, “Utopianism Ancient and Modern,” –.
22. Pierre Vidal-Naquet c ompares H esiod’s m yth of the h uman r aces w ith
Homer’s Phaea cia in “Land an d Sa crifice in th e Odyssey” (), reprinted in
Schein, ed., Reading the Odyssey, –.
23. In the utopian city of justice, women bear children who are similar to their
fathers (W&D ). See Pucci, Hesiod and th e Language of Poetry, , on the re-
semblance of children to the father as th e mark of the Golden Age.
24. Differences emerge out of disputes between people, but also out of ambi-
guities of meaning. Consider, for example, the dua l appear ance of the god dess
Eris (W&D –). Hesiod distinguishes between a bad Eris and a good on e. The
first r epresents the str ife whose or igins ar e envy and g reed; the other r epresents
a positive rivalry that encourages creativity, excellence, and prosperity. The double
meaning of Eris is not only an example of how human language w orks; it is also
crucial t o un derstanding h ow ambiguit y an d di fference ar e inh erent in h uman
nature.
 Notes to P ages –

25. This is the oppositional characterization that Maria S. Marsilio employs in

her discussion of the brothers Hesiod and Perses. See Marsilio, Farming and Poetry
in Hesiod’s Works and Da ys, –.
26. This pa ir of oppositions i s suggested an d ana lyzed in Ed wards, Hesiod’s
Ascra.
27. Edwards continues (ibid., ): “It is in thi s sense that Works and Days is a
didactic poem an d offers instruction.”
28. Polynices and Eteocles are typical rival brothers, but it is not clear whether
they ar e tw ins. The q uestion of their di stinctive or iden tical char acter ar ises in
Aeschylus’s Seven against Thebes. See especially the way the chorus regards them
as having an identical nature: orgen homoios (). In Statius’s Thebaid, the theme
of twining i s stru cturally fun damental t o th e epic an d i s th erefore emphasi zed
in the context of the brothers’ rivalry. See the introduction and commentary by
Charles Stanley Ross in Publius Papinus Statius’s Thebaid. In the following exam-
ples I am c oncerned only w ith myths involving identical twins.
29. In Duckworth, ed., The Complete Roman Drama.
30. For a di scussion of the en counter betw een iden tical tw ins as a meeting
between c onsciousness an d th e un conscious, see E leanor Winsor Lea ch, “Meam
quom formam noscito: Language and Characterization in the Menaechmi.” See also
McCarthy, Slaves, Masters, and the Art of Authority in Pl autine Comedy, .
31. But, in f act, the ar rogance of these perfect h uman beings puts th eir
Golden Age self-sufficiency in q uestion. Arrogance i s, after a ll, a sig n of human
imperfection.
32. Allen, The Dialogues of Plato, vol. , The Symposium.
33. The position of the genitals is made clear from the description in Sympo-
sium b–c.
34. The closest human equivalent is probably the experience of being pregnant.
35. For example, Allen, The D ialogues of Plato, :–; Dover, Plato: S ympo-
sium, –.
36. For a psychoanalytical discussion of Aristophanes’ myth that places partic-
ular emphasis on th e desire for a lost object, see Brenkman, “The Other and the
One,” –.
37. I follo w R. E. Allen’s tr anslation w ith some modi fications. In r egard to
paidikon (gen. pl.), I have a ltered Allen’s “beloved” to the mor e specific “darling
boy.” For pephukoton, I have changed hi s “who is naturally” to “who would natu-
rally become.”
38. In Works and Da ys the appear ance of the first w oman epit omizes a ll th e
new baneful sorrows (kedea lugra, ) by means of which Zeus turns th e blissful
human c ondition in to a w retched on e. In a ddition, Hesiod r efers t o th e first
woman as a calamity (pema, ), and thereby underscores her transformative role
in the history of mankind. Her novel presence in the world marks a crisis: human
life ceases to be wha t it ha d been befor e her appearance.
 Notes to P ages – 

39. This th esis w ould be elabor ated b y Longus in Daphnis and Chl oe, which
portrays a lo ve r elationship that r equires the medi ation of techne, since the two
lovers di scover themselves to be unable t o function w ithin the instinctive world
of nature.

C . T S P

1. See the analysis of the Hesiodic female figure in Pucci, Hesiod and the Lan-
guage of Poetry, –.
2. David K onstan’s stu dy of sexuality in an cient liter ature has sh own h ow
conceptions of eros are a lways ti ed to the generic fr amework of the text dea ling
with eros. See Konstan, Sexual Symmetry.
3. Hesiod, we should r emember, composes loca l poetr y that i s addressed to
a loca l a udience. Moreover, his r efusal t o lea ve hi s o wn f arm for long v oyages
cannot be di vorced from his refusal to sing th e praises of heroic navigations, for
such themes ar e not a par t of his persona l exper ience (W&D –). The r ela-
tionship between sailing and heroic poetry is noted in Rosen, “Poetry and Sailing
in Hesiod’s Works and Da ys,” –.
4. On th e poetic di spute betw een H esiod an d Perses, see M arsilio, Farming
and Poetry in H esiod’s Works and Da ys, –.
5. Mark G riffith r emarks tha t “the char acter an d beha vior of Perses var y
according to the rhetorical point that Hesiod wishes to make.” See Griffith, “Per-
sonality in H esiod,” .
6. On the writing tablet as an image of virginity see duBois, Sowing the Body,
–. Examining the metaphor of inscription in Aeschylus’s Suppliants, duBois
writes (ibid., ): “It i s about th e production of wives from the r aw material of
girls. Girls are wild animals, untamed, raw, almost undifferentiated sexually. And
they ar e still th eir f ather’s property, that i s, inscribed by their f ather. The proper
end of a ‘girl’ is marriage and reproduction, that is, inscription by the husband.”
7. Pucci, Hesiod and th e Language of Poetry, , refers to lines  ff. as aim-
ing t o est ablish c ontrol of the w oman as a figure of difference: “The w oman i s
taken inside a man’s house to be changed from an ‘other’ into something like man
himself. For teaching her good ways means making h er like man, that is, without
any difference.”
8. All translations from Oeconomicus are by Sarah B. Pomeroy; see Pomeroy,
Xenophon, Oeconomicus.
9. Pomeroy, ibid., , comments in r egard to this passage that “most upper-
class women could probably sing and dance as r equired at religious ceremonies.”
She also remarks that Ischomachus’s wife had some kn owledge of reading (.)
and of nursing and pharmacology (.).
10. An example of feminine self-moderation, sophrosyne (Oec. .–).
11. Pomeroy, Xenophon, Oeconomicus, , observes that Xenophon is the first
to connect female sophrosyne with good a dministration of the household.
 Notes to P ages –

12. The husband’s goa l i s likewise achieved, since the educated w ife i s r ecog-
nized as ha ving attained a masculin e understanding (andrike dianoia, Oec. .).
Having a masculine understanding does not mean, however, that Ischomachus has
created a doubled self or that his wife has turned into a male. She has, rather, par-
tially assimila ted, or bec ome f amiliar w ith, the va lues of masculinity. And w ith
this familiarization she is granted a v oice of her own.
13. Ischomachus teaches his wife that man, in contrast to woman, works out-
side: “I think the god, from the very beginning, designed the nature of woman for
the indoor work and concerns and the nature of man for the outdoor work” (Oec.
.). The opposition betw een male and female is explained through the opposi-
tion betw een outside an d inside, and th en thr ough man’s physical str ength and
woman’s complementary weakness. Furthermore, motherhood and the instinctive
care of children str engthen th e associ ation of the w oman w ith th e h ome, while
the abs ence of such instin cts t ogether w ith ma le agg ressiveness w ould s eem t o
corroborate his natural place outdoors (Oec. .).
14. Yet we might regard the marital promise of endowing the wife with respon-
sibility over the household as seductive, much as Hades’ promise that Persephone
would bec ome th e q ueen of the un derworld ma y be in dicative of his appea l t o
her.
15. The reference to Ischomachus as Xenophon’s alter ego is made by Pomeroy,
Xenophon, Oeconomicus, .
16. This betr ayal i s sy mbolically r eenacted in mar riages b y th e depar ture of
man and woman from their parents’ homes.
17. Consider tr aditional judgments that associ ate Xenophon’s st yle of writing
with simplicit y, purity, honesty, and la ck of artifice: Pomeroy, Xenophon, Oeco-
nomicus, –.
18. See Michel Foucault on thi s passage in The Use of Pleasure, –.
19. Stewart, Art, Desire, and the Body in Ancient Greece, .
20. Stewart (ibid., ) argues that nakedness i s the exclusive sig n of the ma le
from the late eighth century on.
21. To Pla utus’s a udience th ese i ssues r eflected a cur rent public deba te o ver
the Oppi an la w (  BCE), which r estricted th e luxur y of women’s c ostumes,
forbidding th em t o o wn mor e than ha lf an oun ce of gold jew elry an d/or w ear
purple-dyed clothing (purpura). See Livy, History of Rome, ..
22. See the discussion of the “Anti-Cosmetic” tradition and the bibliography in
Gibson, Ars Amatoria Book , –.
23. Hamilton, The Architecture of Hesiodic Poetry, –.
24. Pandora i s an image of poetry; specifically, her dua lity may be c ompared
to the dual effects of poetry—pain and pleasure, memory and forgetfulness—that
characterize the voice of Hesiod’s Muses and Homer’s Sirens. On the relationship
between Pandora and the Muses, see Pucci, Hesiod and the Language of Poetry, .
 Notes to P ages – 

On the relationship between the Sirens and the Hesiodic Muses, see Segal, Singers,
Heroes, and Gods in th e Odyssey, –.
25. Hurwit, “Beautiful Evil,” –.
26. The jar represents Pandora’s feminine body, and specifically her uterus and
genitalia. For a di scussion of the semantic relationship between Pandora and the
jar, see Sissa, Greek Virginity, –.
27. Although Aspasia, Pericles’ famous concubine, inspires Socrates to memo-
rize and deliver her funerary speech in Menexenus, it i s not her physical beauty
that inspires him so mu ch as h er rhetorical capacity. Yet in h er discussion of the
role of the hetaera in classical Athens as an idea l metaphor for epideictic or atory,
Laura K. McClure shows how Socrates connects Aspasia’s bodily gestures precisely
to her seductive rhetoric. See McClure, Courtesans at Table, .
28. Xenophon’s Socrates, as McClure notices (ibid., ), undermines the goals
of the epideictic di scourse by succumbing to the allure of the beautiful.
29. Simon Goldhill n otices th e similar ity betw een th e tw o names, both of
which carry a di vine significance: Diotima means a di vine honor, while Theodote
means a di vine gift. Goldhill, “The Seduction of the Gaze,” .
30. Archibald A. Day mentions this episode among others that refer to Socrates’
role as an er otic instructor. See Day, The Origins of Latin Love Elegy,  n. .
31. For example, J. J. Pollitt sees Memorabilia . as introducing fourth-century
art th eories, but o verlooks th e aesth etic sig nificance of the c onversation w ith
Theodote. See Pollitt, The Ancient View of Greek Art, –. Vivienne J. Gray, how-
ever, presents the conversation as an integral part of a series of conversations with
artists: Gray, The Framing of Socrates, –. See a lso Goldhill, “The Sedu ction
of the Gaze,” –.
32. Patricia A. Rosenmeyer ties Theodote’s seductions to her adornments. She
emphasizes th e f act tha t it i s Th eodote’s a ttire r ather than h er nak ed body tha t
attracts the gaze of others: “It is unclear whether we are meant to imagine her pos-
ing nude: she is said to show the painters ‘as much of herself as was right’ [hosa kalos
echoi], but Socrates notes that she is polutelos kekosmemenen (..): either ‘sump-
tuously dressed,’ or ‘adorned [only] with jewelry.’ At the very least, we may imagine
her dressed to attract, to seduce.” Rosenmeyer, “(In-)Versions of Pygmalion,” .
33. All translations from Xenophon’s Memorabilia are by Amy L. Bonnette; see
Bonnette, Memorabilia.
34. Rosenmeyer, “(In-)Versions of Pygmalion,” , writes that Theodote’s fem-
inine s eductive skill i s the abilit y “to control her own image . . . invent a self to
be remembered and admired.”
35. For a di scussion of the politics of the gaze in th e c ontext of Socrates’
encounter with Theodote, see Goldhill, “The Seduction of the Gaze.”
36. Socrates uses conventional hunting metaphors to illuminate the need for an
invisible contrivance in th e erotic profession. The f abrication of an undetectable
 Notes to P ages –

trap is essential to a su ccessful hunt. By the same token, the amorous net should
be craftily designed so that its s eduction will appear to the future lover as a ma t-
ter of sheer impulse or chan ce (..–).
37. Translation by Hugh Tredennick in E. Hamilton and H. Cairns, eds., The
Collected Dialogues of Plato.
38. The H esiodic m yth i s pr esent in s everal di alogues. See, for example, the
imagery in Philebus of the craftsman’s mixing of pleasure with thought (e), and
the associ ation of the cr aftsman w ith Hephaestus (c), which I r ead as a dir ect
allusion to the creation of Pandora in Works and Da ys.
39. This point is elaborated in chapter , where I di scuss the wonder Pandora
inspires in Hesiod’s Theogony. Plato explicitly acknowledges his debt to Theogony
in Phaedrus’s speech in Symposium b.
40. All tr anslations from the Symposium are by Alexander Nehamas and Paul
Woodruff; see Nehamas and Woodruff, Plato’s Symposium.
41. See th e opening of the Protagoras (a), where Socr ates i s descr ibed as
hunting after th e bea uty of Alcibiades. On th e h unting met aphor in Pla to, see
Nussbaum, The Fragility of Goodness, .
42. Alcibiades addresses Socr ates as a w onderful man in Symposium c and
refers to his wonderful interiority in a.
43. As Socr ates en ters th e r oom Agathon en treats him: “Socrates, come li e
down n ext t o me. Who knows, if I t ouch you, I may ca tch a bit of the w isdom
that came t o you under my neighbor’s porch” (Symp. d).
44. Nussbaum, The Fragility of Goodness, .
45. Of course, Platonic dialogues present a diverse picture of this relationship:
see Robinson, Plato’s Psychology, .
46. Examining th e sig nificance of Socrates’ body in Phaedo, Nicole Lor aux
reads the dialogue “against the grain of the text, or at least its appar ent content.”
Loraux, The Ex perience of Tiresias, . Her conclusion i s tha t “Plato i s simult a-
neously playing on two levels when he proclaims that the body i s nothing, yet he
uses the language of the body to speak of the soul.” According to Loraux, the body
is the means thr ough which th e immortality of the soul, its ultimate superiority,
is commemorated. Although the body s erves the ideology of the soul, it remains
in itself an empty sign.
47. “Socrates has appar ently s een, first, that an y t alk of the s elf or person
involves talk about both body and soul, and, second, that the relationship between
the two is not the crude one of numeral addition and subtraction, but the philo-
sophically mor e r espectable on e of entailment.” Robinson, Plato’s P sychology, .
Socrates a cknowledges th e impor tance of bodily bea uty in th e c ontext of his
discussion of the philosophica l eros. See N ussbaum, “Eros and E thical N orms,”
–.
48. Socrates’ response to the beautiful body of Charmides is strongly physical;
see Charmides b, d–e.
 Notes to P ages – 

49. “His soul, according t o him. In th e flesh-and-blood di scussion, however,

Socrates’s s elf has a lot t o do w ith hi s body.” Loraux, The Ex perience of Tiresias,
.
50. As Hugo Koning noted to me in a c onversation, the names Theodorus and
Pandora are c losely r elated. Introducing th e y oung Th eaetetus, Theodorus r eal-
izes the act of giving signified by his own name an d the first woman’s.
51. In Hamilton and Cairns, The Collected Dialogues of Plato.
52. See the introduction in N ehamas and Woodruff, Plato’s Symposium, xxiii.
53. David H alperin c onnects Pla tonic eros and ir onic forms of textuality in
“Love’s Irony,” –.

C . P’ V   E 

O’ P P
1. See my analysis of Xenophon’s portrayal of the ideal bride in chapter .
2. Salzman-Mitchell, A Web of Fantasies, .
3. See Goldhill, Language, Sexuality, Narrative.
4. In “The Dynamics of Misogyny: Myth an d M ythmaking in Aeschylus’s
Oresteia” and in “The Politics of Eros in th e Danaid Trilogy of Aeschylus,” both
reprinted in Playing th e Oth er, –, Froma Zeitlin a ddresses th e q uestion of
feminine power in Aeschylus’s trilogies. “The two trilogies, the Oresteia and that
of the Danaids, complement one another as var iations on a sing le theme, involv-
ing the institution of marriage in Argos and the slaying of husbands in r esponse
to the di smissal of woman’s concerns and rights. I have underlined the affinities
between Cly temnestra an d th e Dana ids, both of whom deman d kratos for the
female.” Playing the Other, .
5. As Zeitlin r emarks (ibid., ): “The por trait of Clytemnestra in th e Aga-
memnon specifically links h er independence of thought and action w ith a desir e
to rule, . . . Clytemnestra begins, in f act, as w oman in charge; as th e ch orus
remarks, she i s entitled to rule in th e abs ence of the husband-king ( Ag. –,
cf. .).”
6. Denniston and Page, Agamemnon, .
7. Note the affinity of auctor and auctoritas, especially in the context of medi-
eval sch ooling, where an y can onization of a pagan or Chr istian a uthor an d hi s
inclusion in the monastic schools’ curricula was a pr oclamation of his auctoritas.
8. See Doherty, Siren Songs, –. I discuss the confrontation between Pene-
lope and Telemachos further in chapter .
9. McCarthy, Slaves, Masters, and the Art of Authority in Pl autine Comedy, .
10. On th e cha in of illusions in Miles Gl oriosus, see Lev K enaan, “Truth an d
Appearance in R oman Comedy,” –.
11. Slavitt and Bovie, eds., Plautus: The Comedies, vol. .
12. Sharon L. James w rites: “Thus we can s ay not only tha t the puella herself
is elegy but that she creates it, for without her specific yet generic character (named
 Notes to P ages –

or n ot), Roman lo ve eleg y cann ot exi st. The puella herself is th e eleg iac Muse.”
James, Learned Girls and M ale Persuasion, .
13. The image of the woman as th e poet’s source of inspiration is part of the
process of the secularization of the Muse in Roman literature. See Spentzou, “Sec-
ularizing the Muse,” –.
14. See Alison Shar rock on th e image of the Muse as a wh ore and a god dess
in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, and specifically her reference to Ovid’s amatory poetry:
“In th e ama tory poetr y, the M use i s a s exy an d passi ve eleg iac puella, who i s
courted, desired, fought, and rejected.” Sharrock, “An A-musing Tale,” .
15. Catullus a ddresses th e poet Caecilius as tener poe ta (.), while Ov id
names Propertius tener (AA .); cf. Martial .., teneri Catulli. Ovid also uses
tener to characterize love poetry: teneri modi (Am. ..), teneri versus (AA .);
and in Tristia . he us es tener to r efer t o both th e form an d c ontent of love
poetry: denique composui teneros non s olus amores (“moreover, I was not alone in
composing tender loves”).
16. Kennedy, The A rts of Love, . See a lso Wyke, “Reading F emale Flesh:
Amores .,” –; Miller, Subjecting Verses, –.
17. On the effeminate persona of Propertius, see Jasper Griffin’s discussion of
the resemblance between his persona an d that of the effeminate Antony: Griffin,
Latin Poets and Roman Life, –; see also Gold, “‘But Ariadne Was Never There
in the First Pla ce,’” –.
18. Maria Wyke provides a stimulating analysis of the development of the study
of gender play in Roman love elegy by pointing to changes in feminist approaches
to the genre: Wyke, “Taking the Woman’s Part,” –.
19. In contrast to those treatments that completely identify Roman love elegy
with the traditional male rhetoric of desire. Paul Veyne, in Roman Erotic Elegy, ,
analyzes the genre as the discourse of the egocentric male lover; Alison Sharrock,
in “Womanufacture,” –, argues that the Ovidian Pygmalion narrative, the story
of the creation of a woman as th e male artist’s object of desire, offers a par adig-
matic myth for th e discourse of love elegy. See also Wyke’s discussion in “Taking
the Woman’s Part,” –.
20. Wyke, “Taking the Woman’s Part,” ; Kennedy, The Arts of Love, –.
21. An ana lysis of the di scourse of effeminacy in R oman cultur e w ith an
emphasis on the various uses of mollitia (“softness”) is provided by Edwards, The
Politics of Immorality in Ancient Rome, –; Corbeill, “Dining Deviants in Roman
Political Invective,” –; Williams, Roman Homosexualities, –. More rele-
vant to our discussion are the treatments of effeminate rhetoric in the Roman love
elegy; cf. Wyke, “Taking the Woman’s Part,” –.
22. Kennedy, The Arts of Love, –.
23. As Judith Hallett argues in her seminal article: “The amatory elegists, or at
least th eir liter ary personae, speak on beha lf of the people wh ose ic onoclastic
actions ultimately struck Augustus as threatening. They constitute what present-day
 Notes to P ages – 

social historians would call a ‘counter-culture.’” Hallett, “The Role of Women in

Roman Elegy,” .
24. As Wyke remarks in “Taking the Woman’s Part” (): “The self-presentation
of elegy’s male ego as a mor ally depraved effeminate could be r ead, for example,
as leg itimating the mor al programme of Augustus by marking out pr ecisely the
kind of behaviour which was th ought to require reform.”
25. Kennedy, The Arts of Love, .
26. Wyke, “Taking the Woman’s Part,” .
27. In Wyke’s words (ibid., –): “At the very least, the first-person confes-
sion of the effeminacy of both elegy’s erotics and poetics k eeps the conventional
gender categories of Augustan Rome constantly in pla y in thi s genre.”
28. Miller, Subjecting Verses, .
29. Ibid., . Elsewhere () he describes Propertius’s discourse as feminin e.
30. The reference i s to ., ., ., and .; see Miller, Subjecting Verses, .
31. “Propertius i s a w oman beca use hi s subject position cann ot be pr ecisely
located in an y one spot w ithin conventional Roman ideological space.” Ibid.
32. Ibid., .
33. Ibid., , .
34. Frustrated by the absence of female subjectivity in the effeminate discourse
of Propertius’s eleg ies, Wyke un derscores th e positi ve pr esentation of the femi-
nine in hi s four th book, which, compared w ith the first thr ee, is mor e attentive
to the feminine for its o wn sake. More specifically, Wyke mentions the elegies in
which th e speak er t akes a feminin e r ole an d assumes a feminin e v oice: “Taking
the Woman’s Part,” –.
35. Although Ovid does not mention Menander by name in Ars  (cuive pater
vafri luditur ar te Getae; “or [let him be kn own to you] whose Father i s deceived
by the crafty Geta’s art”), the name “Geta” is typical of a Roman comic role, and
the reference to comedy should be speci fically understood in r elation to Menan-
der. As his characterization in Amores ..– shows, Ovid sees Menander as the
main influence on Roman comedies: dum fallax servus, durus pater, improba lena
vivent et meretrix blanda, Menandros erit (“As long as th e cunning s lave, the firm
father, the indecent procuress, and the blandishing lover ar e a live, so i s Menan-
der”). For the relevant text and commentary, see Gibson, Ars Amatoria Book , .
36. Philip Hardie comments on Ovid’s exceptional fondness for catalogues: “of
all La tin poets, Ovid i s th e most persi stent an d th e most in ventive in hi s us e
of lists of various kinds.” Hardie, “The H esiodic Catalogue of Women and La tin
Poetry,” .
37. It is interesting that Amores is introduced by a pr efatory epigram carrying
a s elf-derogatory mess age: “Nowhere els e in th e Amores, or in an y oth er w orks
written befor e hi s exile, does h e [Ov id] expr ess su ch a depr eciatory opinion of
his poetic t alent, even in hi s obviously ironic way.” McKeown, Ovid, Amores, vol.
, A Commentary on B ook One, .
 Notes to P ages –

38. Richard Tarrant seems to support the argument that Amores reflects Ovid’s
poetic development. He writes that “if . originally concluded the fifth book of
Amores by celebrating Ovid’s achievement as a love elegist, its less prominent place
in th e thr ee-book r evision r eflects th e g rowth of Ovid’s poetic ambitions. ” Tar-
rant, “Ovid and Ancient Literary History,” .
39. Amores ..: atque a s ollicito multus amante l egar (“and may I be often
read by the anxious lo ver”).
40. Amores ..–: vilia miretur vulgus; mihi flavus Apollo / po cula Castalia
plena minister aqua (“Let the crowd admire what is useless; for me, however, may
Apollo serve cups filled with Castalian water”).
41. Gibson, Ars Amatoria Book , –.
42. Rem. , , , .
43. The fact that both men and women are told in Remedia to keep away from
the poetr y recommended exclusively for w omen in Ars  suggests that this read-
ing list applies equally to men.
44. Comedy an d tr agedy mig ht ha ve a danger ous e ffect on br oken-hearted
viewers, as Ovid suggests in hi s counsel to avoid the dr amatic shows (Rem. –
): illic adsidue ficti saltantur amantes: / q uid caveas, actor, quid iuvet, arte docet
(“There fictitious lovers are all the time portrayed in dance. The actor teaches you
how pleasing is the thing you must avoid”). A. A. R. Henderson understands lines
– to refer exclusively to pantomime. However, singing, dancing, and instru-
mental music were typical of other kinds of performances as well. Moreover, love
stories were not restricted to pantomime; they were also part of the stock of tragic
and comic themes. Henderson, P. Ovidi Nasonis Remedia Amoris.
45. Episodes c oncerning aban doned an d mi serable h eroines ma y ha ve been
thought to belong t o that category of dangerous poetr y that the lovesick should
shun. Readers consumed by extreme passions mig ht identify with the experience
of Virgil’s Dido an d Varro’s Medea.
46. Ovid di scloses hi s in tention t o mo ve on t o explor e oth er kin ds of writ-
ing (Rem. ): et capiunt animi car mina multa mei (“my thoughts contain many
poems”). On Ovid and the end of the Roman love elegy, see Gian Biagio Conte’s
remark tha t “a w ork su ch as th e Remedia, teaching h ow t o h eal oneself of love,
represents th e extr eme dev elopment of love poetr y an d br ings t o a sy mbolic
close th e br ief period of its in tense exi stence.” Conte, Latin Liter ature: A H is-
tory, .
47. Consider the way Horace di stinguishes Sappho’s love poetr y from that of
Alcaeus in Ode ..–. Her uniqueness li es in h er extr emely v ivid form of ex-
pression (.): spirat adhuc amor / v ivuntque comissi cal ores / Aeoliae fidibus puel-
lae. (“her love still br eathes and the passions of the Aeolic g irl live on en trusted
to her Lyre”). See the discussion of Horace ..– in Ancona, “The Untouched
Self,” .
48. See Tarrant, “Ovid and Ancient History,” ; Jacobson, Heroides, –.
 Notes to P ages – 

49. “In order to make sense of this fact, we must first realize how strange it is.
Of course, real women in Ov id’s day obviously did w rite letters an d some ev en
wrote poetr y; but the woman w riter was n ot a v ery w idespread phenomenon in
ancient liter ary cultur e, certainly n ot on e tha t w e c ould r egard as n ormative or
paradigmatic.” Farrel, “Reading and Writing the Heroides,” .
50. Ibid., .
51. In this respect, the relationship between Ovid’s and Sappho’s literary iden-
tities i s especi ally per tinent t o th e r eading of her letter. For di scussions of this
question s ee H arvey, “Ventriloquizing Sapph o, or th e Lesbi an M use,” –;
Rimell, “Epistolary Fictions,” ; Lindheim, Mail and F emale, –.
52. Lindheim, Mail and F emale, –.
53. DuBois, Sappho Is Burning, ; see also Joan DeJean’s interpretation of the
passage in Longinus in which she discusses Sappho’s poetics: DeJean, “Fictions of
Sappho,” –.
54. Greene, ed., Re-Reading Sappho.
55. On Athenian comedy’s interest in Sapph o as an ins atiable lover, see Most,
“Reflecting Sappho,” .
56. See her discussion of this passage in Mail and F emale, .
57. Text and tr anslation in Campbell, Greek Lyric, vol. , Sappho and Alcaeus,
–.
58. Henry, Prisoner of History, .
59. Ibid., –.
60. On this tradition, see Kahn, Plato and th e Socratic Dialogue, –.
61. Plato, Phaedrus b–c. DuBois, Sappho Is Burning, –, persuasively shows
how Socrates’ description of erotic symptoms echoes Sappho’s poetry.
62. Campbell, Greek Lyric, :–.
63. See Holt N. Parker’s di scussion of the fema le authorial voice tr aditionally
associated with ancient sex handbooks: “Love’s Body Anatomized,” –.
64. Diotima’s vocabulary converts the Hesiodic terminology for sexual longing
(pothos, W&D ; himeros, Th. ).
65. Halperin, “Why Is Diotima a Woman?” –. Note Halperin’s prefatory
statement ( ): “Plato c learly means us t o notice tha t Diotima’s conceptualiza-
tion of eros derives from a speci fically ‘feminine’ perspective.” See also Cavarero,
In Spite of Plato, –.
66. Henry, Prisoner of History, –.
67. See, for example, Socrates an d C ritobulus’s di scussion of friendship in
Xenophon’s Memorabilia ..–, where Socr ates remarks (..) that knowing
what a good ma tchmaker is makes Aspasia a philosophica l source of wisdom.
68. See my discussion of Socrates’ eros in chapter .
69. In r eference t o Varro’s f amous tr eatment of Jason and Medea in th e Arg-
onautae, not to mention his neoteric love elegies: Propertius ..–.
70. Wills, “Sappho  and Catullus ,” –; Itzkowitz, “On the Last St anza
 Notes to P ages –

of Catullus ,” –; Segal, “Otium and Eros,” –; O’Higgins, “Sappho’s
Splintered Tongue,” –.
71. See R onnie Ancona’s in tertextual r eading of Horace’s Ode ., in which
she shows how both Sappho and Catullus function as Horace’s “Muses”: Ancona,
“The Untouched Self,” –.
72. Propertius has only one allusion to Sappho (..): a reference to Cynthia’s
poetic talents describes her as pla ying the “Aeolian lyre” (aeolio plecto). He refers
to Sapph o w ithout a ctually naming h er. His a llusion impli es a s ecluded fema le
discourse: she i s, in oth er w ords, a fema le a uthor wh ose a udience i s c omposed
exclusively of women. Sappho i s h ence in cluded w ith oth er fema le poets, like
Corinna and Errina, who inspire his Cynthia.
73. Ovid’s homage to Sappho is characteristic of Hellenistic culture and atyp-
ical of the Roman poets. In the latter literary tradition, Sappho has not been can-
onized. She is absent, for example, from Quintilian’s list of recommended authors
in Book  of his Institutio Oratoria.
74. Even Catullus, who emulates, translates, and Romanizes Sappho, does not
mention h er dir ectly b y name, except in .–: Sapphica puell a Musa do ctior.
Here, too, Sapphica Musa is mentioned in th e context of female education.
75. Sappho is often pr esented as an inspir ing model for edu cated women who
read or w ish to compose poetry. See Hemelrijk, Matrona Docta, –.
76. The elder Seneca refers to Ovid’s lack of self-restraint (Controv. ..). See
Lowell Edmunds’s comment on thi s passage in Intertextuality and th e Reading of
Roman Poetry, .
77. Disrespect t oward lo ve poetr y i s c ommon among R oman a uthors. Dis-
cussing Cicero’s reading habits, Seneca (Ep. .) attributes to him th e following
statement: “Even if his lifetime were doubled he would not have time to read the
lyric poets” (Negat Cicero, si duplicetur sibi ae tas, habiturum se te mpus, quo l egat
lyricos). Horace’s Ars P oetica provides an argumentum ex sil entio for th e lo wer
status of love eleg y. On thi s v ery i ssue s ee N iall Rudd’s c omment tha t “looking
back over the literary discourse one notices that when it speaks of specific genres
it mentions tr agedy, comedy, epic, and choral poetr y, but not love eleg y.” Rudd,
Horace: Epistles and Epistl e to th e Pisones (Ars Poetica), .
78. Butler, The Institutio Oratoria of Quintilian.
79. Alexander Dalzell uses this term as w ell: “What this means is that the ideal
reader of the Ars is someone who is prepared to be sh ocked, or at least someon e
who will take delight in th e thought that other readers will be sh ocked.” Dalzell,
The Criticism of Didactic Poetry, . I agree with Dalzell () that Ovid’s desire to
shock does not align him with Propertius’s anti-Augustan tendencies. Ovid’s shock-
ing style, which is also apparent in his epic, Metamorphoses, is not strictly political.
It emerges first of all from an aesth etic intention—one that has a politica l effect.
80. “Ovid mak es hi s poem s afe b y s ending r espectable w omen a way. That’s
all right: once the virgins and matrons have gone we can get on w ith the fun. But
 Notes to P ages – 

real and implied readers are not so easily divided. Do the critics who accept these
disclaimers a t f ace va lue r eally think tha t an y r espectable w oman r eading th e
poem would now put it do wn as instructed? Of course not.” Sharrock, “Ovid and
the Politics of Reading,” . For a different view of the identity of the love elegy’s
puella, see James, Learned Girls and Male Persuasion, which argues that the elegist’s
beloved is an in dependent courtesan.
81. Many pass ages in Ars Amatoria clearly r efute Ov id’s dec laration tha t hi s
guide is not intended for mar ried women or tha t it does n ot encourage adultery.
See Dalzell, The Criticism of Didactic Poetry, .
82. Ovidius ut roque l ascivior, says Quin tilian ( Inst...), comparing Ov id
with Propertius and Tibullus.
83. Edmunds pr ovides a di fferent ana lysis of this term, based ma inly on th e
ancient reception of the Metamorphoses. According to him, Quintilian and other
Roman a uthors c onceive of Ovid’s lasci viousness as an expr ession of a st ylistic
weakness—in this case the poet’s love of diversity in matters of genre and theme:
see Edmunds, Intertextuality and th e Reading of Roman Poetry, –.
84. But Ovid has hi s own limitations. For example, he does not consider him-
self impudent or immun e to shame. If indecency is evidenced in hi s erotic writ-
ing, it is certainly not on th e level of the explicitly s exual or pornographic. Thus,
the passage from Remedia Amoris that addresses his critics is actually a digression
that occurs befor e Ov id commences a di scussion on s exual aversion techniques.
Ovid suggests that this discussion embarrasses him (Rem. –): Multa quidem
ex illis pudor est mihi dicer e; sed tu / I ngenio verbis conc ipe p lura me is (“About
much of these, though, I am ashamed t o speak; therefore, use y our in telligence
and imagine more than I s ay”).

C . F S  

S-C T
1. Karen Bassi explores the significance of the figure of Pandora for the palin-
ode in “Helen and the Discourse of Denial in Stesich orus’ Palinode,” –.
2. The first cha llenge t o Ov id’s lo ve eleg y ar ises in th e c ontext of medieval
poetry an d, in par ticular, the poetr y of Baudri of Bourgueil. Studies b y P eter
Dronke and Gerald A. Bond have shown that the medieval Ovidian tradition was
in no way restricted to an allegorical form of thought. Assuming an Ovidian per-
sona enabled Ba udri to make a pla ce for th e erotic that was oth erwise forbidden
in leg itimate liter ary w riting. See Dr onke, Medieval Writers of the M iddle Ages,
–; Bond, “Composing Yourself,” –; Bond, The Loving Subject, –.
3. One can expla in the r elationship between Ov id’s erotodidactic works and
the Latin love elegy by means of an analogy to the effect of Aristotle’s Poetics on
Greek tragedy. Aristotle’s treatise attempts to capture, and hence permanently fix,
the very essence of the tragic form. Such aspirations obstruct the generic flexibil-
ity necessary to the continuation of the tragic genre.
 Notes to P ages –

4. Conte, Genres and R eaders, .

5. Ibid., .
6. Alison Shar rock, in Seduction and R epetition in O vid’s Ars Amatoria II,
specifically for egrounds the levels of seduction in Ov id’s guides, finding var ious
levels of readerships being gen dered by Ovid’s writing. See also J. C. McKeown’s
 commentary on Amores ., in which Ov id explicitly st acks up di fferent cat-
egories of reader for hi s elegies.
7. Ovid en courages hi s r eaders t o w rite lo ve letters in th e st yle of Heroides
(AA .–).
8. In Amores . Ovid demonstr ates th e poet ’s hig h pr estige as a lo ver b y
means of a c onfrontation betw een eques and poeta. In Book  of Ars Amatoria,
the figure of the poet is again thrust into competition with other professional men
over who i s the better lo ver. The var ied professional options in clude the ster eo-
types of the wealthy man, the lawyer, and the rhetorician (AA .–).
9. For a di scussion of sincerity see Lionel Trilling, Sincerity and Authenticity.
10. Barthes, A Lover’s Discourse, trans. Richard Howard, .
11. Veyne, Roman Erotic Elegy (), is a translation of L’èlégie érotique romaine.
12. See, for example, Conte’s chapter on Ov id’s erotodidactic works in Genres
and Readers, –; Sharrock, “Ovid and the Discourses of Love,” –.
13. Ovid’s amatory poetry has thus remained levis, “light.” His self-description
in Amores is no less r esponsible for impr inting the playful and insincere char ac-
ter of his amatory poetry (Am. ..–): sum levis, et mecum l evis est, mea cura,
/ non sum mater ia for tior ipsa mea. / r ustica sit sine me l ascivi mater Amoris. (“I
am light, and Cupid, my poetic concern, is light as well; / I myself am not stronger
than my own subject ma tter. / But, without me, the mother of lascivious Amor
would be rustic”).
14. Exceptional tr eatments of Ovid’s dida cticism ar e Do wning, “Anti-
Pygmalion,” –; Kennedy, “Bluff Your Way in Dida ctic,” –.
15. See Conte’s cr itical r esponse to Veyne’s work on eleg y: “But it i s certainly
extreme, and in th e final ana lysis mi staken, to s ay that eleg y ‘is a pleas antry’ (p.
), ‘a playful li e, that everything in it i s a pla yful s emblance w ithout a tr ace of
irony or harshn ess’ (p. ), that ‘only one thing i s lacking: emotion’ (p. ), that
it is a ‘playful paradox’ (p. : if so, then just as a ll literature is).” Conte, Genres
and Readers,  n. .
16. Consider, for example, A. S. Hollis’s obs ervation on th e hi storically poor
reputation of Ars Amatoria: “Until r ecently th e Ars Amatoria has been mor e or
less taboo, and conspicuously absent from school and university classical courses.
As a r esult man y liter ate n on-specialists c onsider it a v ery na ughty poem; they
cannot be blamed for thi s opinion wh en pr ofessional sch olars have thr own out
such c omments as ‘shameless c ompendium of profligacy’ or ‘va de mecum in
wantonness.’” In th e ear ly s, Hollis’s c omplaint about c onservative r eadings
was not entirely mi splaced. Hollis, “The Ars Amatoria and Remedia Amoris,” .
 Notes to P ages – 

See also Malcolm Heath’s statement in “Hesiod’s Didactic Poetry,” –, that “no
one suppos es that Ov id r eally w rote hi s poem in or der to instruct the youth of
Rome in tha t art” ().
17. See Kenney, “Nequitiae poe ta,” –; Leach, “Georgic I magery in th e Ars
Amatoria,” –; Henderson, P. Ovidi Nasonis Remedia Amoris.
18. Dalzell, The Criticism of Didactic Poetry, , see also –. For treatments
of Ovid’s ama tory dida ctic poetr y as “pseudo-didactic par odies” or as “didactic
jokes,” see for example A. S. Hollis, Ovid: Ars Amtoria I, xvi. Cf. Hollis, “The Ars
Amatoria and Remedia Amoris,” ; and Otis, Ovid as an Epic P oet, .
19. The dich otomy betw een th e us eful an d th e pleasur able i s w ell a ttested—
for example, in the demand for an absolute s eparation between voluptas and hon-
estas raised by Cicero’s didactic treatise De Officiis .: Nam ut utilitatem nullam
esse docuimus, quae honestat i esse t cont raria, sic omnem voluptate m dic imus hon-
estati esse cont rariam (“I ha ve t aught tha t th ere i s n othing us eful in tha t which
is c ontrary t o th e h onorable, similarly I s ay tha t a ll pleasur e i s c ontrary t o th e
honorable”). And see Seneca’s De Vita Beata ., which defines pleasure, in oppo-
sition t o th e sublime v irtue, as something lo wly ( humile), servile ( servile), weak
(imbecillum), and perishable (caducum) that dwells in br othels and taverns.
20. One long-time controversy within Ovidian scholarship concerns the specific
nature of Ovid’s field of instruction: extramarital relationships and wanton loves.
Do the love guides address the love affairs of married women, or of socially infe-
rior unmarried ones—for example, courtesans? Either way, Ovid seems, by Roman
standards, to ha ve been dea ling w ith a marg inal, if not illicit, topic. Gordon
Williams was th e first t o argu e tha t th e lo ve eleg y’s w omen ar e of some soci al
standing, and most pr obably married. See Williams, Tradition and Or iginality in
Roman Poetry, , and, specifically on Ars, his Change and Decline, –. Sharon
James, in Learned Gir ls and M ale Persuasion, returns to the identification of the
elegiac women as pr ostitutes.
21. For the full r eference to Cicero’s view, see chapter , n. .
22. Nussbaum, The Therapy of Desire, .
23. Conte, Genres and R eaders, .
24. Conte, ibid., , considers the view of Remedia as a form of palinode to be
the most typical misunderstanding shared by Ovid’s readers. And see Peter Green,
who argues that Ov id’s c laim not to be w riting a pa linode (Rem. –)—nec te,
blande puer, nec nostras prodimus ar tes, / nec nova pr aeteritum Musa retexit opus
(“I do n ot betr ay y ou n or m y o wn ar ts; / thi s n ew M use does n ot unr avel m y
past w ork”)—means tha t h e expected hi s cr itical r eaders “to t ag him w ith th e
‘palinode th eory.’” In G reen, “Commentary of Ovid,” in The Erotic Poems (New
York: Penguin, ), .
25. While Diotima c onstructs the metaphysical goal as th e climax of the phil-
osopher’s erotic biography, that endpoint is governed by the same principle reg-
ulating the entire course of the lover’s life. In this sense, Ovid is influenced by the
 Notes to P ages –

Platonic lo ver wh ose r eadiness t o un dertake th e ultima te met aphysical st age i s

conditioned by hi s f amiliarity w ith the form of transcendence underlying a su c-
cession of erotic exper iences delin eated b y th e la dder of love. See Lev K enaan,
“Platonic Strategies in Ov id’s Ars Amatoria and Remedia Amoris.”
26. This poin t ma y bec ome c learer if we think of the uniq ueness of Ovid’s
transformational narrative in contradistinction to the paradigmatic neo-Platonic,
Christian narrative of conversion that we find, for example, in Augustine’s Confes-
sions. The Confessions is the narration of a self whose present becomes meaningful
only through a critical review of the past—and specifically through a recognition
of one’s past as flawed. This happens on ce the tr ansition from past t o present i s
perceived t o be a pr ocess of repair and mending of old wa ys. In thi s s ense, the
Augustinian biog raphical nar rative assumes th e form of an ass ertion—a mor al
assertion, primarily—of the pr esent o ver, and aga inst, the past. See Vered Lev
Kenaan, “The Contribution of Ars and Remedia to the Development of Autobio-
graphical Fiction.”
27. Ovid i s f amiliar w ith th e tr aditional image of the s eductive, modest
maiden. An earlier textual example tha t explores the ambiguity and deception of
the seductive virgin is the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite, in which Aphrodite plays
the par t of a h elpless ma iden in or der t o s educe Anchises, since thi s image i s
appealing to men. Ann Bergren ties Aphrodite’s disguise to the image of Pandora
in par ticular an d t o feminin e s exuality in gen eral. See Berg ren, “The H omeric
Hymn to Aphrodite,” –.
28. Freud, Letter t o M arie Bonapar te, quoted in J ones, The Life and Work of
Sigmund F reud, . For a di scussion of Freud’s f amous q uestion, see F elman,
What Does a Woman Want?
29. See J. H. Blok, “Sexual Asymmetry, –; Lardinois and McClure, eds., Mak-
ing Silence Speak, –.
30. “For the feminine, the act of defloration represents a truly mysterious bond
between end and beginning, between ceasing to be and entering upon real life. To
experience ma idenhood, womanhood, and nasc ent moth erhood in on e, and in
this tr ansformation to plumb th e depths of her own existence: this is given only
to woman, and only as long as it r emains open t o the archetypal background of
life.” Neuman, Amor and P syche, .
31. The thir d option, which pr esents r ape as th e hid den aspir ation of its
victim, is a ha ckneyed timew orn ma le pr ejudice tha t can be tr aced ba ck t o
Herodotus. Relating the Persian view of relations between the sexes, the historian
mentions the kidnapping (that is, the rape) of the virgins Io, Europa, and Medea:
“Up t o thi s point it was only r ape on both sides, one from th e oth er; but from
here on, say th e Persians, the G reeks w ere g reatly t o blame. For th e G reeks, say
they, invaded Asia befor e ev er th e P ersians in vaded E urope: It i s th e w ork of
unjust men, we think, to carry off women at all; but once they have been car ried
off, to take seriously the avenging of them is the part of fools, as it i s the part of
 Notes to P ages – 

sensible men t o pa y n o h eed t o th e ma tter: clearly, the w omen w ould n ot ha ve

been carried off had they no mind to be.” The History ., trans. David Grene.
32. “The poem ma y be marking a change of identity or K ore’s acquisition of
new powers as goddess of the underworld by using the name Persephone,” Helen
P. Foley suggests: see her commentary and tr anslation in The Homeric Hymn to
Demeter, .
33. In G reek m ythology th e n ymphs r epresent elemen ts of nature, such as
rivers, springs, and for ests. One of the de finitions of the G reek w ord nymph is
“virgin,” or, in other words, a g irl r ipe for mar riage. In Latin, nymphe is r elated
to th e v erb nubere, “to mar ry.” For mor e on th e r ole of the n ymphs in G reek
mythology see Dowden, The Uses of Greek Mythology, –.
34. A comprehensive di scussion of this subject can be foun d in Zeitlin, “The
Dynamics of Misogyny,” and “The P olitics of Eros in th e Dana id T rilogy of
Aeschylus,” both in h er Playing the Other.
35. For a di scussion of virginity from the perspective of ancient medicine, see
the stu dy b y Aline R ousselle, who cites th e pass age fr om H ippocrates q uoted
above: Rousselle, Porneia: On D esire and th e Body in Antiquity, –.
36. Ibid., .
37. Aeschylus, The S uppliants, trans. Janet Lembk e; Dowden, Death and th e
Maiden, examines the concept of the death marriage in G reek mythology.
38. Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound, trans. James Scully an d C.J. Herington.
39. The mother-daughter intimacy serves only as a backdrop for the narrative’s
main action, which i s the break, or s eparation, that i s forced upon both moth er
and daughter, and w ill ultimately compel both of them to r epress their or iginal
relationship in f avor of a new one. See also Catullus .–.
40. This is also the source of the traditional custom of carrying the bride over
the thr eshold of the young couple’s h ome, symbolizing h er abdu ction from h er
parents’ home. Plutarch anchors thi s custom in R oman cultur e and interprets it
as a memor ial gestur e t o th e abdu ction of the Sabine w omen in an cient Rome.
“And it c ontinues to be th e custom down to the present time tha t the bride shall
not of herself cross the threshold into her new home, but be lifted up an d carried
in, because the Sabine women were carried in by force, and did not go in of their
own accord.” Plutarch, Romulus ., in Plutarch’s Lives, trans. Bernadotte Perrin.
41. On th e moth er-daughter r elationship s ee F oley, The H omeric H ymn to
Demeter, –.
42. Campbell, Greek Lyric, vol. , Sappho and Alcaeus.
43. Her narrative, for example, is not identical with the story we heard in th e
narrator’s first v ersion. Thus, the poet descr ibes in – how H ades g ives h er
the pomegranate seed that guarantees her return to the underworld, while Perse-
phone’s account at – provides a di fferent emphasis: the husband forced her
to ea t th e pomeg ranate s eed aga inst h er w ill. She wan ts h er moth er t o per ceive
her as an inn ocent and victimized virgin. See also Foley, ibid., .
 Notes to P ages –

44. Foley w rites in h er c ommentary (ibid., ): “In thi s pass age P ersephone
acquires an ar ticulate voice (be yond a cr y for h elp) in th e nar rative for th e first
time; this may affirm that she has a cquired an a dult role and a par tial indepen-
dence from both H ades and her mother.”
45. Feminist r eaders s ee P ersephone’s duplicit y as a dir ect c onsequence of
her dua l role as da ughter and w ife: “For Irigaray, Persephone r epresents divided
femininity only partially captured by patriarchy, a paradoxical being who is never
alone, ‘immortally and never mor e a v irgin but inhabits tw o mutua lly exclusive
domains as h er moth er’s da ughter as w ell as h er h usband’s w ife. Hence, Perse-
phone bec omes an inscrut able, potentially dec eptive figure, never fully kn own,
who inhabits, insofar as sh e has a s elf, an ambiguous space between two power-
ful presences.” Foley, The Homeric Hymn to D emeter, .
46. The Ov idian P roserpina r ecalls an other feminin e ar chetype, Semonides’
woman of the s ea. Among th e ten t ypes of women, the s ea w oman i s di stin-
guished by her double na ture; like the sea, she is tossed from calm to storminess
and v ice v ersa. This duplicit y ti es h er t o Persephone/Proserpina an d in turn t o
Pandora. As Nicole Loraux writes: “With her affability and rage, the woman of the
sea r eminds us of the double na ture of Pandora, made of deceitful s eduction.”
Loraux, Children of Athena, –.

C . P’ T

1. For met aphors of weaving as text in th e G reek an d R oman w orld, see
Scheid and Svenbro, The Craft of Zeus, –.
2. Trans. Benjamin Jowett. In Hamilton and Cairns, eds., Statesman, b–e.
Plato emplo ys th e met aphor of weaving t o explica te th e pr inciples of various
activities, such as instru ction in r eading, the ar t of interpretation, and politica l
activity.
3. Homer never presents his own poetry as an ar t (techne), and certainly not
as weaving. See Finkelberg, The Birth of Literary Fiction in Ancient Greece, .
4. Bergren, “Language and the Female in Early Greek Thought,” –; Snyder,
“The Web of Song,” .
5. See Whitman, Homer and th e Heroic Tradition, .
6. See Salzman-Mitchell, A Web of Fantasies.
7. The rhetorical significance of unweaving is also employed by Cicero (Acad.
.) and Virgil (Aen. .).
8. Arachne pr ovides Ov id w ith an image of an illeg itimate ar tist. I w ill
mention only a few in terpretations of this much-discussed epi sode, focusing on
Arachne’s weaving as standing in for Ovid’s poetics: Albrecht, Roman Epic, –;
Lev K enaan, “Silent I mages,” –; Oliensis, “The P ower of Image-Makers,”
–.
9. On Philomela’s weaving see Joplin, “The Voice of the Shuttle Is Ours,” –
; Marder, “Disarticulated Voices,” –; Heffernan, Museum of Words, –.
 Notes to P ages – 

10. Hine, Ovid’s Heroines.

11. Linda Kauffman writes: “Through such signs, the heroine transmits a par t
of herself, the corporeal, to the textual. . . . Tears thus indicate the disproportion
between wha t i s sig nified an d th e means of signifying. Throughout amor ous
discourse, the h eroine g lorifies h er tears, her h eart, her t ongue, her body as
authentic registers of her emotions. . . . Writing comes to signify her life’s blood,
illustrating her identification of her body w ith the text.” Kauffman, Discourses of
Desire, –.
12. This th eme became par t of a long liter ary tr adition in which th e n otion
of a text t akes on a bodily form an d appears, typically in th e c ontext of love
literature, as a persona l object. Hence, the letter, the book, or the diary becomes
an animate object tha t personifies the w riter’s suffering. In thi s context, we may
briefly r ecall th e in teresting example of Boccaccio’s La dy Fi ammetta, who ex-
plicitly continues the Ov idian tr adition, addressing her own book in th e follow-
ing manner: “O dear little book of mine, snatched from the near bur ial of your
lady, here it i s tha t y our en d has c ome mor e q uickly than tha t of our mi sfor-
tunes, as i s m y w ish; therefore, just as y ou ha ve been w ritten b y m y o wn han d
and in many places damaged by my tears, present yourself to women in love. . . .
You sh ould be g lad t o sh ow y ourself similar t o m y di sposition, which i s so
very unhappy tha t it c lothes you in mi sery, as it does me. ” Causa-Steindler and
Mauch, eds. and tr ans., The El egy of Lady Fiam metta, . Fiammetta’s book i s
a c ontainer of tears and emotions. It i s a mir ror of her soul. At th e s ame time,
the w ork’s pla inly dr essed and uncombed appear ance r eflects La dy Fi ammetta’s
own body. The text i s stru ctured as a s elf, tied, as it i s in Ov id, to Boc caccio’s
conception of the feminin e na ture of writing. For Boc caccio, the iden tification
between a uthor an d text i s ess entially feminin e. In cr eating a pr otagonist wh o
is a fema le w riter, he i s, in f act, creating a w ork tha t bears th e char acter of its
writer. I suggest that Boccaccio’s debt to Ovid goes beyond generic form and even
beyond the specific choice of writing under a feminine guise. In my view, the inge-
nuity of both Ov id an d Boc caccio does n ot li e simply in cr eating sophi sticated
female personas but, rather, in acknowledging the feminine character of the text—
any text.
13. Lev Kenaan, “Fabula Anilis,” –.
14. On plain weaving as oppos ed to figured weaving, see Heffernan, Museum
of Words, .
15. The plain weaver symbolizes a conformist type of femininity that complies
with gen der c onstraints. Andromache in th e Iliad (.–) an d P enelope in
the Odyssey (.–) ar e both n onrepresentational w eavers wh ose w eaving i s
metaphorically ti ed t o th eir f aithfulness as w ives. Penelope’s cas e i s mor e in ter-
esting and illuminating, for while she is a cunning weaver, as the etymological pun
on her name suggests, she nevertheless preserves the image of the ideal wife. She
is not a mimetic ar tist; she is a pla in weaver; and in thi s sense her artisanship in
 Notes to P ages –

itself does not make her an ar tist. On Penelope as a cunning w eaver, see Felson-
Rubin, “Penelope’s Perspective,” –, esp. –.
16. Trans. Mary Lefk owitz an d M aureen F ant, Women’s Life in G reece and
Rome, .
17. On H elen’s w eb s ee Berg ren, “Helen’s Web,” –; Zeitlin, “Travesties of
Gender an d Genr e in Aristophanes’ Thesmophoriazousae” (), reprinted in
Playing the Other, –; Kennedy, “Helen’s Web Unraveled,” –; Suzuki, Meta-
morphoses of Helen, –.
18. In c ontrast t o th e H omeric v erbal nar rative, the w eaver’s st ory i s bas ed
on th e v isual image. The f act tha t H elen w eaves h er st ory in pictur es i s indica-
tive of an ess ential di fference betw een h er an d th e H omeric nar rator. Does th e
Homeric text imply tha t thi s difference i s ev idence of her limited a uthority as a
narrator?
19. Sappho courageously reconstructed Helen’s lost perspecti ve by presenting
the latter’s unforg ivable des ertion in a n ew lig ht in F r. . Although Sappho fol-
lows the words that Homer puts in H elen’s mouth ( Il. .–), her Helen devi-
ates fr om th e H omeric on e in h er unapologetic s elf-assurance. See th e ana lysis
of Fr.  by Page duBoi s in Sappho I s Bur ning, –. Sappho ar ticulates wha t
Helen c ould n ot expr ess openly an d w ithout shame in th e H omeric epic. For
duBois, Sappho’s r einterpretation est ablishes Helen “as subject, as a h ero of her
own time” ().
20. All tr anslations fr om th e Ili ad an d Odyss ey ar e b y Richmon d La ttimore.
21. Charles Sega l mak es a similar poin t in Singers, Heroes, and Gods in th e
Odyssey (): “Even wh en sh e en visages th e war as ev entually par t of a t otal
heroic tradition, her primary interest is in what she is actually undergoing.” At the
same time, Segal’s general di stinction betw een aesth etic di stance and emotiona l
involvement in H omeric poetry does n ot take into account the relevance of gen-
der difference.
22. On lamen tation as a feminin e genr e, see Alexiou, The R itual Lame nt in
Greek Tradition; Holst-Warhaft, Women’s Lame nts and G reek Liter ature; Stears,
“Death Bec omes Her,” –; Murnaghan, “The Poetics of Loss in G reek E pic,”
–.
23. Foley, “Poetics of Tragic Lamentation,” .
24. For example, women mourn P atroclus in .–; Andromache mourns
Hector in .–.
25. See, for example, Murnaghan, “The Poetics of Loss in Greek Epic,” : “In
general, the concern of lamenting women for their own suffering means that they
have no use for wha t concerns a war rior most.”
26. Her death wish is inspired by the death of Hector.
27. Achilles’ lament in .– contains similar elements: () a death wish; ()
memories of his absent father and son; () self-pity. Achilles’ emotional response
is follo wed b y th e elders ’ lament for P atroclus, which i s a lso domina ted b y a
 Notes to P ages – 

personal perspecti ve: “So h e spok e, mourning, and th e elders lamen ted ar ound
him / remembering each those he had left behind in his own halls” (Il. .–).
Lamentations ar e, of course, not sung only b y w omen. Yet pr ecisely beca use of
the tension betw een th e persona l an d th e public embodi ed in th e form of a
lament, I see it as a feminin e modality. In this sense, we may say that masculine
figures can also give voice to the feminine. Achilles’ response to the death of Patro-
clus, for inst ance, is a ma le lamen t of great emotiona l po wer, but it sh ould be
understood as feminine at heart. The feminine perspective is not limited to female
figures.
28. Segal, Singers, Heroes, and Gods in the Odyssey, –, discusses the divided
audience for Phemius ’s song but only br iefly mentions Penelope’s response.
29. Ibid., . On the epic’s creation of “a community of shared mourners,” see
Greene, “The Natural Tears of Epic,” –.
30. See Segal, Singers, Heroes, and Gods in th e Odyssey, –.
31. See Thalmann, Conventions of Form and Thought in Early Greek Epic Poetry,
, –, –; Doherty, “Gender an d I nternal Audiences in th e Odyssey,”
–.
32. Charles F. Ahern similar ly argu es tha t th e feminin e eth os i s incorporated
into the Homeric ethical framework. “Grieving, even if it is ‘womanly’ and there-
fore an object of suspicion, is an abiding , even a c entral fea ture in th e psy cho-
logical and ethical landscape of human experience. This the poet shows strikingly
by ascr ibing it, in th e speci fic form of comparison w ith a w oman, to th e tw o
greatest of heroic figures. Womanly grief becomes heroic grief. That Odysseus and
Achilles should then, in reflecting on their own grief and that of others, come each
to s ee hims elf in decidedly ambi valent terms w ill testify t o th e hig h deg ree of
moral c omplexity w ith which H omer has in vested th e w orld of heroic a ction.”
Ahern, “Two Images of ‘Womanly Grief ’ in Homer,” –.
33. This in triguing simile has a ttracted th e a ttention of many sch olars, who
have o ffered a var iety of interpretations. See, for example, Mattes, Odysseus be i
den Phäake n, –; Podlecki, “Some Odyss ean Similes,” –; Foley, “Reverse
Similes and Sex R oles in th e Odyssey,” , ; Lloyd, “Homer on Poetry,” –.
34. Patroclus is compared to a sobbing bab y girl in Iliad .–.
35. Interpreters ha ve r ecently str essed th e sig nificance of this sc ene in illus-
trating the mor al force of poetry. See, for example, Crotty, The Poetics of Suppli-
cation, –. Segal’s comments on th e psychological and ethica l sig nificance of
the simile in this episode are valuable. See Singers, Heroes, and Gods in the Odyssey,
–, and specifically his remark on the Homeric aesthetic conception of empa-
thetic identification (): “The scene of Odysseus’ weeping, then, articulates two
very different modes of response: the aesthetic distance of Alcinoos that can treat
poetry ( fiction) as a sour ce of pure pleasur e ( terpsis), and th e in tense, painful
involvement of Odysseus as h e par ticipates, through memor y, in th e su fferings
that are the subject ma tter of the song.”
 Notes to P ages –

36. Odysseus’s self-revelation has been appropriated in an interesting fashion by

literary descriptions of Christian repentance. At the height of this tradition is Jean
Valjean’s religious moment of self-discovery in Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables. On the
road, having betrayed the beneficent hospitality of the bishop and stolen a coin from
a little bo y, Valjean, like Odysseus, sees himself and weeps for th e first time after
nineteen years of exclusion from society: “Jean Valjean wept for a long time. He
wept burning tears, he sobbed with more weakness than a woman, with more fright
than a child” (ch., “Little Gervais”). One can see here the commonalities between
the pagan c onception of homecoming and the Chr istian conception of a r eturn
to God. Both involve self-revelation through an experience of becoming Other to
oneself. Self-reflection produces contradictory feelings of estrangement and inti-
macy v is-à-vis on eself. In our c ontext, this means r ecognizing on e’s feminin e
aspect. Odysseus’s mode of listening provides a par adigmatic model for tr ansfor-
mational narratives. The song intertwines Odysseus’s distance from and proximity
to home, his wandering and his homecoming, just as Jean Valjean’s vision bridges
his past estr angement from God an d hi s pr esent r ecognition of God. This r eve-
latory experience is thematized in both cases by the image of the weeping woman.
37. Interpretations of this epi sode ha ve focus ed on thi s momen t of self-
revelation by considering what the enslaved woman symbolizes. The body of the
dead husband could symbolize Odysseus’s heroic past. Her refusal to part from her
husband stands for Odysseus as he is now, grieving for a pr esent life that is bereft
of significance. Segal, Singers, Heroes, and Gods in the Odyssey, –, for instance,
sees her as an instrument used by the Homeric narrator to extend the boundaries
of the war beyond Odysseus’s own private and personal experiences. According to
Segal, Homer us es the image of the woman as a sy mbol of conquest and suffer-
ing in or der t o sh ow h ow th e song pr ovides Odyss eus w ith sour ces of inner
strength tha t di verge fr om th e s afe perspecti ve of the v ictor an d enable him t o
experience suffering from a di ametrically opposite perspecti ve. The figure of the
weeping woman can also be linked to Penelope: as Odysseus listens in tears to his
own story, he can iden tify with his wife, who has been sust ained only b y rumors
about him an d wh o, like Odyss eus n ow, is li stening t o songs about h er abs ent
husband. His tears enable him t o exper ience h er humiliation and th e thr eats t o
her freedom, so that he will finally be able t o complete his journey home. These
varied interpretations show us tha t the confrontation between Odyss eus as h ero
and Odysseus as w itness to his own heroism bridges the gap betw een conflicting
though c oexisting aspects of Odysseus: conqueror v ersus c onquered, self versus
other, the self divided among di fferent layers of time. These conflicting elements
in H omeric poetr y ar e most fully expr essed in thi s c onfrontation betw een
Odysseus’s masculine and feminine aspects. See Lloyd, “Homer on Poetry,” –.
38. Karl Reinhardt connects the switch from third-person to first-person nar-
rative to the “transformation from jesting an d dr eadful wonders to the persona l
experience of a hero of the Iliad.” Reinhardt, “The Adventures in the Odyssey,” .
 Notes to P ages – 

39. In Hamilton and Cairns, eds., The Collected Dialogues of Plato.

40. On the pejorative sense of feminine grief in Greek and Roman culture, see
Loraux, Mothers in M ourning; Richlin, “Emotional Work,” –.
41. Plutarch, Moralia, trans. Babbitt.
42. All translations from Phaedo are by R. Hackforth.
43. Adriana Cavarero, In Spite of Plato, .
44. Ibid., .
45. Ibid., .
46. Ibid.
47. See Loraux, Mothers in M ourning, .
           

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 
Abel, 
Accius, 
Achilles, –, –n
Achilles Tatius, 
Actaeon, 
Adam, , 
Aegisthus, 
Aeschylus: feminine power in tr ilogies
of (Danaids), n; :
Agamemnon, –; Prometheus
Unbound, –; Seven against
Thebes, n; Suppliants, n.
See also Io
Agamemnon, –
Agathon, –
Ahern, Charles F., n
Alcaeus, n
Alcibiades: beauty of, n; flute
girl’s return and, ; on shame,
; on Socrates and Eros, –;
Socrates’ appearance and, –
Alkmene, sons of, –
allegory, emergence of, 
Allen, R. E., n
alterity. See difference; Other and
otherness
ambiguities: of femininity, ; of
identity, –; of jar (pithos),

–; of language, –; of love
elegy, –; of meaning, disputes
about, n; of Pandora, –,
–, –; of truth, –; of
virgin, n
Amores (Ovid): catalogue of authors
in, , , –; on female
procurer (lena), ; feminine
source of inspiration for, –,
–; Ovid’s poetic dev elopment
evidenced in, –, n; Ovid’s
self-description in, n; on poet
as lover, n; prefatory epigram
of, n
Amphitryon, sons of, –
Anacreon, , , , 
Ancona, Ronnie, n
Andromache, –n
Antigone, 
Aphrodite: Eros and, –, ;
femininity created by, –;
genealogy of, –; as helpless
maiden, n; Ovid’s visualiza-
tion of, –; Pandora’s creation
and, , ; Philomeidea and, , ;
in Works and Da ys, n. See also
Venus
Apollo, 
 Index
Apollodorus, 
apple as sy mbol, 
Apuleius, n
Arachne, 
Aratus, 
Archilochus, 
Ares, , 
Aristotle, , , , n
Ars Amatoria (Ovid): absence from
courses, n; audience and ideal
readers of, , –, n;
catalogue of authors in, , –;
context of writing, –; didactic
value of, –; figure of the
female lover, –; language
privileged in, –; palinodic
structure of, –, –, ; as
part of transformative, cyclical nar-
rative, –, ; performativity
privileged in, –; on poets an d
lovers, n; puella figure in, ;
reference to c omedy in, n;
Sappho’s presence in, –, ,
; weaving metaphor in, –;
woman’s perfect appear ance in,
–
Aspasia, –, n, n
Athena, , –, –, 
Augustine, n
Augustus, , –n, n
autobiographical text, –, 
Babel, Tower of, n
Bachelard, Gaston, 
Bakhtin, Mikhail, –
Barthes, Roland, –
Bassi, Karen, n
Baudri of Bourgueil, n
beauty: of Alcibiades, n; evil
linked to, –, –, –, –;
of feminine and of universe, –;
as opaque and duplicitous, –;
Ovid’s visualization of, ;
Roman standards of, –; sense
of terror and, n; of Socrates’
appearance, –; Socrates’
encounter with, –; as source of
danger, ; transcendence implied
in, –; visibility of, –
Beauvoir, Simone de, –n
Berger, Anne-Emmanuelle, 
Bergren, Ann L. T., , n,
n
Bible. See Eden, Garden of; Genesis
Boccaccio, Giovanni, n
body: language of, n; of
Socrates, –, , n,
n; as source of charisma,
–; textuality and femininity
linked to, –, , –
body and soul stru cture: Hesiod’s
conception of feminine in
understanding of, –; interior/
exterior of Pandora as for eshadow-
ing, –; Odysseus’s tears an d,
–; Plato’s view of, –;
Socrates’ encounter with Theodote
and, –; Socrates’ view of, –
; Xanthippe’s voice in c ontext of,
–
Bond, Gerald A., n
box, Pandora’s. See Pandora’s j ar
(pithos)
Brown, A. S., n
Caecilius, n
Cain, 
Calame, Claude, n
Callimachus, , , , ,
–
Calliope, 
Calvus, 
Calypso, 
Cantarella, Eva, 
 Index
Castor, 
Catullus, , , , , n,
n
Cavarero, Adriana, , –, 
Ceto, n
Chaos, , 
Charmides, n
Christianity, n, n
Cicero, , –, n, n,
n
classical canon: dichotomies of, ,
, n; love elegy in, –;
Ovid’s lists of, , –, –;
Propertius’s list of, –, ;
Quintilian’s list of, n;
rewriting of, –; sexuality studied
in, n; woman and idea of text
connected in, 
Cleiton, , 
Clio, –
Clitophon, 
clothing and appearance: eroticism
and immorality linked to, –; as
opaque and duplicitous, –; of
Pandora, described, , –, –
; Pandora’s diadem and, , –
; Roman debate on, n; of
Theodote, –, n
Clytemnestra, –, nn–
comedy and comic tradition: love
narrative in, ; mistaken identity
theme in, –; Ovid’s catalogue
of authors and, –; Sappho’s
desire in, –; subversive
language in, –
Conte, Gian Biagio, , , n,
n, n
contradiction: Aristotle on, , ;
in feminine subjectivity and
meanings of rape, –; feminine
subjectivity linked to, –; in
interpretations of eros, –; in

Pandora’s duality, –, , –,
–, , , –, , , ,
–, , n, –n; of
Persephone, –; of simulation,
–. See also palinodic structure
conversion narrative, n
cosmic unity concept, 
cosmological development:
Aphrodite’s role in, –; cosmic
unity concept and, ; from
darkness to illumination in, ;
divine genealogies and, –, –
, ; Eros’s role in, ; erotic and
visible in, –; hierarchy of gods
in, –; Pandora’s role in, , –
, –
cosmological epic, . See also
Theogony (Hesiod)
cosmos/universe: creation accounts,
compared, –; erotic structure
of, –; Pandora as image of,
–. See also physical/sensual/
sensible world (world of
phenomena)
Crito, , 
Critobulus, n
culinary metaphor, –
Cynthia, n
daimon, –
Dalzell, Alexander, , n
Danaos, daughters of, , –
Daphne, –
Day, Archibald A., n
death, , . See also lamentation;
tears and crying
Demeter, –, , , 
Demodocus, –
Denniston, J. D., 
Derrida, Jacques, , –, –n
desire: absence and, –; for over-
coming inherent difference, –;
 Index
desire (continued)
Sappho’s arousal of, –; as
textual phenomenon, –; of
unattainable object, –, –.
See also eros; male desire
Deucalion, –
dialogic relationships: Aphrodite’s
responsibility for, –; Pandora
as first woman and, –;
possibilities of, in poetry, –
Diana, 
didactic epic: cosmological epic c om-
pared with, ; dressed woman in,
; dual appearance of femininity
in, –; Hesiod’s invention of,
–; “I” and “Other” fundamental
to, ; ideal audience of, –;
learning about Oth er in, –; love
elegy distinguished from, –,
, –; marriage and, –;
misogyny of, –; philosophical
text compared with, ; subjectivity
abandoned for, –. See also
marriage; Works and Da ys (Hesiod)
Dido, , n
difference: Derridean notion of, ,
–, –n; desire to overcome,
–; as feminine, , –, –
n; inherent in h umanity, –,
–; marriage and, –; myth
of identities and, –, –;
sameness linked to, , –; use
of term, –n. See also Other
and otherness; sameness
Diotima: on Eros as daimon, –;
erotic vocabulary of, ; on
intellectual vs. physical spheres,
xi; meanings of name, n;
mentioned, ; misuse of, ;
Pandora compared with, –;
patroness of, –; Sappho’s
name linked to, –; sensual
dimension of text and, x; Socrates’
encounter with, ; transcendence
and, , 
Doherty, Lillian, 
doppelgänger, 
drone (bee) simile, –, 
Dronke, Peter, n
duBois, Page: on difference, ;
on Helen, ; on Hesiod, –; on
inscription metaphor, n; on
Medea, n; on Sappho, ,
n
Echo, 
Eden, Garden of, , –,
–n
Edmunds, L., n
Edwards, Anthony, 
effeminacy: of love elegy, –; of
Propertius, –, n; in
Roman culture, n
emotions: censorship of, –;
community solidarity vs. personal
in, ; genuine vs. simulated, ;
tension of rationality with, –;
as textual phenomenon, –. See
also lamentation; love; tears and
crying
Ennius, 
Ephialtes, 
Epimetheus, –, , n
epiphany, , 
Er, 
Erasmus of Rotterdam, –
Erichthonios, n, n
Eris, n
Eros: as emotive force, –;
genealogy of, –, ; Himeros
compared with, n; Pandora as
embodiment of, –, , , ;
Pandora’s creation and, ; powers
of, –; Sappho as tea cher of,
 Index
–; Socrates linked to, –,
; in Theogony, –; visibility
and, 
eros: contradictions and interpreta-
tions of, –; the erotic and,
–, , –, ; feminine and
poetry linked to, –; femininity
as regulating, –; hunting
metaphors and, –n; love
poets’ authority on, –; luck
(tuche) in, ; marriage as an tidote
to, ; Pandora’s language as mani-
festation of, –; poetics of, ;
rehabilitation and transformation
of, ; rhetorical stages in, –;
Socrates as stu dent and teacher of,
–, –; theory of, ,
–, 
erotodidactic tradition: as anti-
institutional, ; cyclical
(re)reading of, –; as feminine,
; ideal readers of, –;
instruction’s goals in, –;
Ovid’s response to critics of, –
; Ovid’s understanding of, –;
Pandora’s presence in, –;
Sappho’s presence in, , –;
systematic approach to, –.
See also palinodic structure
Esau, 
Eteocles, n
Euripides, n
Europa, , –n
Eve, ix–x, , 
evil: beauty linked to, –, –, –
, –; Pandora liberated from
stigma of, –; signification of,
in gaze, –
fall, myths of, , . See also Eden,
Garden of
Farrel, Joseph, 

feminina auctor and feminina
auctoritas: Catullus’s submission of
poetry to, ; fictional persona of,
; norms broken by, ; power
and independence and, ; sex
handbooks and, n. See also
feminine voice (vox feminina)
feminine: absent presence of, –
; ambivalence toward, –;
beauty of, –; clothing linked
to, ; derogatory tropes of, ; as
difference, , –, –n; eros
and poetry linked to, –; erotic
integrated into, –; erotodidactic
poetry as, ; listening and, –
; love as po wer of, ; marginal-
ization of, –; as marker of
inferior, –, –; meanings
of, –; as mediating force, –
; as metaphor for tw o textual
layers, –; norms broken by, ;
repetition in, ; the sensible in
relation to, ; taming of, –;
text’s intersection with, –,
–; Theogony as eulogy of, ;
visibility as mark of, 
feminine dimension of text: ancient
literary criticism and, –;
bodily presence in, , –;
concepts underlying, –, ;
contributions of, –; Homeric
poetry as r ecognizing, –;
mediating force in, –; personal
element in, –, n; weaving
linked to, –
feminine subjectivity: contradiction
linked to, –; origin of, –;
Sappho as exemplar, 
feminine voice (vox feminina): in
comic tradition, –; emergent
at moment of rape, , –;
exclusion of, –; as illegitimate,

feminine voice (continued)
–, ; as marker of lower
faculties, ; Ovid’s adaptation and
dubbing of, –; as provocative
and transgressive, –, –;
signs of, –; silencing of, –;
as subversive, –, –; weaving
accompanied by, ; woven text
as overcoming lost, –. See
also feminina auctor and feminina
auctoritas; lamentation
femininity: ambiguities of, ;
Aphrodite’s creation of, –;
culture’s internal conflicts reflected
in, ; dialectical nature of, ;
dual appearance of, –; erotic
interaction regulated by, –;
irresolvable tension of, ; maternal
aspect of, n; myth of love’s
origin and, ; as Ovid’s source of
inspiration, –; Pandora as
archetype of, , –; poetry and
mystery of meaning linked in, ,
–; “riddle” of, ix–xi, –;
Sappho as tr ansgressing, –;
sexuality and visibility linked to,
–; textuality and body link ed
to, –, 
Finley, Moses, –n
Five Ages myth, –, –, n,
n
Foley, Helen P., , n, n
fraternal relationships, –
Freud, Sigmund, ix, , 
Gaia (Mother Earth), , –, , ,
, n
Gallop, Jane, 
Gallus, , , , , 
gaze: evil signified in, –; female
replaced by male, ; of gods, as
light source, ; of Medusa, ;
Index
methodological distancing of, ;
possibility of cosmic unity in, ;
of sensual world, –; shame in
response to, ; Theodote as object
of, –; wonder evoked in, –.
See also visibility
gender: ambivalence about, –;
male identity and autochthony,
n, n; mankind’s origin
and autochthony, ; masculine/
feminine opposition in an tiquity,
; masculine interpretation of,
–; naked vs. clothed bodies
and, ; Pandora’s creation and
myth of autochthony, ;
subversion of conventions of,
–; textuality and (auctor and
auctoritas), , , n
gender difference: interpretation’s
role in, –; in masculine vs.
feminine listening, –; Pandora’s
beauty as inst antiation of, 
gender studies: intertextuality
intersected with, –; lacuna
addressed in, n; political
implications of, –; of Roman
love elegy, n
Genesis, , –
Gibson, Roy, 
gift and giving: of enlightenment,
–; Pandora as, –, , ,
; Socrates as, –; Theodote
as, 
Golden Age: genealogy of, –,
–, ; kingdom in, –;
myths about tw ins linked to, ;
symbiosis of men with gods in,
–
Goldhill, Simon, n
Graiae, n
Gray, Vivienne J., n
Green, Peter, n
 Index
Griffin, Jasper, n
Griffith, Mark, n
Gutzwiller, Kathryn J., n
Hades, 
Hallett, Judith, –n
Halperin, David, n, n
Hamilton, Richard, 
Hardie, Philip, n
Harpies, n
Heath, Malcolm, n
Hecate, n
Hector, –
Helen of Troy: defamation of, ;
lament of, –; Pandora
compared with, ; released from
paternalistic constructions, ;
Sappho’s reconstruction of, n;
weaving of, , –, 
Helicon, Mount, –
Henderson, A. A. R., n
Hephaestus, , –, n
Herakles, –
Hermes, , , 
Herodotus, –n
Hesiod: disruption in st yle of, ;
divine vs. human poetry, –;
entangled perspective of, –;
fraternal relationship of, ; on
ideal woman and marriage, –;
on Muses and truth, –n; on
nature of women, , –; in
Ovid’s catalogue of authors, ;
poetic authority of, –, n;
poetics of, development, , –,
–; refusal to leave farm, n;
: Shield of Herakles, –.
See also Hesiodic Pandora;
Theogony (Hesiod); Works and
Days (Hesiod)
Hesiodic Catalogue of Women, –,
n

Hesiodic Pandora: beasts on di adem
of, , –; bridal costume of, ;
cosmic unity concept and, ;
duality (contradiction) of, –,
, –, –, , , –, ,
, , –, , n, –
n; as embodiment of Eros,
–, , ; enlightenment of,
–; etiological nature of, –;
genealogy of, –, ; as jar,
–, n; jar (pithos) of, –;
misogynist responses to, –,
–n; naked maiden
juxtaposed to, –; origin of
language linked to, ; otherness
of, –; in Plautus, ; radiance
and illumination of, –, ,
–; in Socratic context, –;
structural role of, –; theme of
fall in, ; traits associated with,
–; voice of, –, –; wonder
evoked by, –
heterosexuality, –
Himeros, –, n
Hippocratic corpus, –
Hippolytus, 
Hollis, A. S., n
Holzhausen, Jens, –n
home and household: kratos and
conflict over, –; public and
private space in, –; redefined
in Works and Da ys, ; return to,
responsibility and nostalgia linked
to, –
Homer: emotional responses
described by, ; feminine and
poetry linked by, –, n;
in Ovid’s catalogue of authors,
; rereading of, from Helen’s
perspective, ; visible force of charis
and, n; weaving metaphor of,
, , –, , –n;

Homer (continued)
: Iliad, , –, , ;
Odyssey, , –, , –,
–, –n
Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite, , ,
, , n
homoeroticism: corrected version of,
; loss of sameness and, –; of
Socrates and Sappho, 
homoia (similar, same, identical),
connotations of, –, –
homoios, definition of, 
Horace, , n, n, n
Hugo, Victor, n
hysteria, –
intertextuality, –, –
intratextuality, 
Io, , –, , –n
Iphigenia, 
Iphikles, –
Iphimedeia, sons of, 
Irigaray, L., n
Iris, –
Iron Age, , , , 
Ischomachus: as ideal husband, –
, nn–; on natural/naked
vs. artifact/clothed woman, –;
as Xenophon’s alter ego, , n
Jacob, 
James, Sharon L., –n, n
Jupiter, , 
Kauffman, Linda, n
Kenaan, Hagi, 
Kennedy, Duncan F., , , 
knowledge and learning: of farming,
, , ; of otherness, –;
sources of, 
Kofman, Sarah, 
Koning, Hugo, n
Index
Konstan, David, n
kratos (power and authority), –
Kristeva, Julia, –
Kronos, –, , –, , 
Lacan, Jacques, 
lamentation: elements of, –n;
as feminine genre in public/ma le
domain, –, n; men’s
use of, –, ; poetic
representation linked to, –
language: as condition for emotions,
–; metadiscourse and, –;
Pandora as m yth about or igin of,
–, , n; as simulation,
–; textile linked to, –;
Xenophon’s ideal of, . See also
names and naming; poetry and
language of poetry; rhetoric
lascivia: of Catullus, ; context of,
; of Ovid, –, , n;
of Sappho, –, , ; of text,
–
law of noncontradiction, , 
Leda, sons of, 
Lefkowitz, Mary R., 
Lesbia, 
Leucippe, 
levitas: context of, ; of Ovid, ,
n
licentia, implications of, –
light sources, 
Littau, Karin, n
Longus, n
Loraux, Nicole: on autochthony,
n, n; on Hesiodic
Pandora, , n; on men as
individuals, n; on men vs.
gods, n; on sea woman, n;
on Socrates’ body, , n,
n; on woman as epit ome of
difference, 
 Index
love: author and reader in, –; in
comic and tragic traditions, ; as
current vs. past experience, ;
deceit in, ; deterministic belief
in, ; Diotima’s view of, –;
myth of origin of, ; Ovid’s view
of, –; possible narratives of,
–; Socratic view of, ;
teachers of, –, , , n;
as textual phenomenon, –, –
; woman’s actively passive role
in, –. See also desire; eros;
Roman love elegy
love poets: as authorities on eros, –
; as counter-cultural, –n;
erotodidactic persona of, –;
illegitimate voice and, , –;
as lovers, , n; medieval,
n; Ovid’s list of, –; Ovid’s
self-presentation as, –; Sappho
as, –; terms for, 
Lucretius, , , , 
male desire: awakening of, –;
Freud on, ix; Theodote’s effect on,
–; woman as object of, and
female identity, –
marriage: analogy of didactic text an d,
–; as cure for h ysteria, –;
death identified with, ; eros split
from, –; ideal woman for,
–, –, –n; poetry
about, –; resistance to, –,
–; Roman customs in, n.
See also rape
Mars, sons of, 
Marsilio, Maria S., n
Marsyas, 
masculine: art interpreted via, –;
mythos and, ; nakedness linked
to, ; as sameness, –n;
Sappho linked to, –

masculinity: effeminacy and, ,
–; feminine difference from,
–; ideal wife’s familiarity with,
n; personification of, , ;
as sameness, –n
Maximus of Tyre, –
McClure, Laura K., n, n
McKeown, J. C., n
mechane (contrivance), –
Medea, , n, n, –n
Medusa, 
men: anxieties of, , ; as author
in love relationship, –;
autochthonous origin of, ;
censorship of tears of, –;
Freudian question about, ;
humans as only, –; as
husbands/educators, –; as
individuals, n; Pandora as
delight for, –; symbiosis
between gods an d, –; symbiosis
between world and, –; woman
as separating gods fr om, n
Menander, , , , n
Metamorphoses (Ovid): archetypal
feminine biography in, ; on
difference, –; Muse as wh ore
and goddess in, n; role of
feminine voice in, ; secondary
naming in, –; style of, n;
weaving metaphor in, –
Michelini, Ann Norris, n
Miller, Paul Allen, –
mimesis: imitation and, –; poetic
representation and, –; theory
of, –
Minerva, 
misogynism: dismantling of, , ;
elements of, –; Pandora as
origin myth of, –n; in
Plautine version of Pandora, ;
in poetics of marriage, –; in

misogynism (continued)
responses to Pandora’s creation, –
; woman’s appearance and, –
Mnemosyne, 
mollis (soft) character: as derogatory,
; Ovid’s move from, ; of
Propertius, , , 
motherhood and maternity, x–xi,
–, 
Murnaghan, S., n
musa proterva, context of, 
Muses: ambiguity of, ; Hesiod and,
–n, n; in Hesiod’s
Theogony, –, –, , ,
n; of Horace, n; as
invisible, ; of Ovid, ; as poetic
inspiration, ; puella figure as,
, –n; Sappho as, ; secu-
larization of, n; temporality
transcended by, –; truth and
lies of, –
Myerowitz, Molly, 
mythology: feminist rewriting of, –;
foundational types of, –; love
and violence in, –; nymphs in,
n; rape and female voice in,
–
mythos, . See also poetry and
language of poetry
names and naming: concretization of
world and, ; as narratological
function, –; rape as justify ing
woman’s, , ; release of, from
previous interpretations, –;
visibility of Pandora and, ;
woman given first, among
humans, 
Narcissus, 
Nereids, n
Neuman, E., n
nostos, didactic version of, –
Index
nudity, –
Nussbaum, Martha C., –, ,
n
nymphs, , n
Oceanids, n
Odysseus: homecoming of, –, ;
naming of, ; tears of, –
Olympians: birth of, –, –;
Titans’ battle with, , . See also
Golden Age
Oppian law ( BCE), n
Other and otherness: of audience, ;
desire to become one with, –;
in fraternal relationships, –;
learning about, –; masculine
sameness juxtaposed to feminine,
–n; Medea as epit ome of,
n; Odysseus as, –; Pandora
as, –, –; poetics of, –;
taming (and recognition) of, –
; woman’s text as, . See also
difference; sameness
Otos, 
Ovid: approach to, ; authorial
reassurances of, –; authors
catalogued by, , –, –;
erotic limits of, n; eroto-
didactic persona of, –, ;
feminine authority usurped by,
–; feminine voice and, , ,
–; figures of readers, –;
freedom of expression in, , –
; influences on, –, –;
lascivia of, –, , n; love
guides and, –, –, ; love
guides and circular narrative, –
, ; masculine creation concept
and, ; medieval tradition
influenced by, n; musa proterva
and, , , ; on myth of first
man and woman, –; patroness
 Index
of, –; Pygmalion narrative of,
n; relationship with Virgil,
; response to critics, –;
Sappho’s erotodidactic authority
over, –; self-understanding of,
–; on simulation, –;
teacher of love figure and, –,
, , n; tener used by,
n; : Heroides, –;
Tristia, , n. See also Amores
(Ovid); Ars Amatoria (Ovid);
Metamorphoses (Ovid); Remedia
Amoris (Ovid)
Page, D., 
Palaestrio, 
palinodic structure: in Ars and
Remedia, –; Pandora and,
n; Plato on, 
Palladas of Alexandria, n
Pandora: ambiguity and complexity of,
–, –, –; ancient recep-
tion of, n; beasts linked to, ,
–; as deceptive seducer and as
virginal bride, ; Erichthonios
compared with, n; eros and,
–; gift of enlightenment for
humanity, –; as misogynist
cultural symptom, ; as misogyny’s
origin myth, –n; palinode
and, n; as patroness of teachers
of love, –; Penelope compared
with, , ; releasing name of, –;
role in cr eation of humanity, , ;
seductions of, –; Socrates
compared with, –; as textual
principle, –, ; of virgins,
n; as weaver, , ; as
work of art, techne, –, , ,
, . See also Hesiodic Pandora;
Pandora as first woman; Socratic
Pandora

Pandora as first woman: active
dimension of, ; as artifact, ; as
calamity, n; constructive
dimension of, –; cosmic
unity concept and, ; dialogic
relationship and, –; as feminine
Other, –, –; misogynist
responses to, –; as origin of
deceit, –; as patroness of
teachers of love, ; role model for,
–; structural role of, –;
wonder evoked by, –
Pandora’s jar ( pithos): box substituted
for, –; Pandora as, –, n
Panofsky, Dora, –, 
Panofsky, Erwin, –, 
pantomime, n
Parker, Holt N., n
Parrhasius, , –
Patroclus, –n, n
Paul (biblical), 
Pausanias, n
Peitho, 
Penelope: Pandora compared with,
, ; silencing of, –; Socrates’
allusion to, –; tears of, –;
weaving and reweaving of, ,
–n
performativity, in Ovid’s works,
–, 
Pericles, n
Persephone: feminist readers on,
n; paradox of, –; power
in virginal life of, ; rape and
female voice of, –, , –
Perses, , , n
Phaeacia, island of, –, –
Phaedra, , , –
Phaon, , , 
phenomena. See physical/sensual/
sensible world (world of
phenomena)

Philetus, , , , , –
Philocomasium, 
Philomela, –, 
philosophers: exclusions of, –;
linear paradigm of, –, ; as
source of Socrates’ erotic
knowledge, 
philosophical text, –, . See also
eros; knowledge and learning
Phoebus, –
physical/sensual/sensible world
(world of phenomena): battles in
development of, ; changing
human relationship to, –;
concretization of, –; femininity,
sexuality, and visibility linked to,
–; as giving mother vs. stingy
father, –; Helen’s articulation
of, –; human gaze dir ected
to, –, –; ideal wife’s
characteristics and, –; language
applied to, –; men’s seeing of
and separation from, –;
Pandora’s embodiment of, –;
symbiosis of men with, –. See
also cosmos/universe
pictorial vs. literary text, –n,
n
Plato: on anamnesis, ; censorship
of tears and crying, –;
deconstruction of, ; on eros, , ,
–, ; exclusions of, –;
genealogy of Eros adapted by, ;
on himeros, ; on Homer, ;
language of body used by, n;
masculine creation concept of, ;
on mimesis, –; on palinode, ;
Pandora liberated from evil stigma
by, –; on properly balanced
poetry, ; on reproductions,
n; on seeing and wonder, –
; Socrates’ body and, –, ;
Index
spherical creatures and, –;
on Theogony, n; weaving
metaphor of, n; :
Apology, –; Cratylus, , –;
Gorgias, ; Ion, n; Phaedo, ,
–, –, n; Phaedrus,
, , ; Republic, , ;
Timaeus, , . See also Socrates of
Plato; Symposium (Plato)
Plautus: on feminine beauty, –;
on Sappho’s desire, ; slave’s
comic effect used by, –;
version of Pandora by, ; :
Amphitryon, ; Menaechmi, –;
Miles Gloriosus, , 
Plutarch, –, n
poetics: of effeminate text, –; of
eros, ; of marriage, , –,
–; of Other and otherness,
–
poetry and language of poetry:
analogy between Pandora and,
–, –; desire aroused by,
–; dialogic possibilities of,
–; divine and human, distin-
guished, –; dual effects of, –
n; eros and feminine linked to,
–; femininity and mystery of
meaning linked in, , –; as
masculine activity, ; masculine
vs. feminine listening to, –; as
moral force, n; Pandora as
image of, –n; Plato on proper
balance in, ; temporality’s
relationship with, –, n
Pollitt, J. J., n
Pollux, 
Polynices, n
polyphony, –. See also Babel,
Tower o f
Pomeroy, Sarah B., n, n
Porphyrio, –
 Index
Poseidon, sons of, 
Prier, Raymond Adolph, n, n
Prometheus: attempt to help
mankind, , –n; fraternal
relationship of, ; Io’s voice and,
–; Pandora in c ontext of, –
; Zeus’s relationship with,
–, 
Propertius: allusion to Sappho,
n; authors catalogued by,
–, ; effeminacy of, –,
n; feminine inspiration for,
; gender ambivalence used by,
–; Ovid and, , ; in Ovid’s
catalogue of authors, , , ; as
tener, n
Proserpina, 
proterva and protervitas, , , 
Psyche, , 
Pucci, Pietro, , –, –, n
puella figure: as Muse, , –n;
Ovid’s lists of reading for, ,
–; two versions of, 
Pyrrha, –
Quintilian, –, , n, n
rainbow phenomena, 
rape: as bridge to psychic development,
–; as cure for h ysteria, –;
as destructive and as forma tive,
–; feminine subjectivity and,
–; mythical tradition equating
love with, –; response to
painting of, ; weaving text of,
–
rationality: linear paths of, –, ;
silence and, ; tension of emo-
tions with, –
reading: audience response in dr ama
in, ; emotional responses and,
–; female lover as r eader,

–; as feminine form of listen-
ing, –; feminine readership,
–; ideal wife as, –; inter-
textual, –; listening and, –;
lovesick readers, , n;
political implications of, –;
Quintilian’s reading response, –
; reader as Oth er, ; reader’s
tears, –; as transformational,
cyclical, –; of women in lo ve
relationship, –
Reeder, Ellen D., , n
Reinhardt, Karl, n
Remedia Amoris (Ovid): catalogue of
authors in, , –; didactic
value of, –; erotic limits in,
n; ideal readers of, –;
language privileged in, –; as
last love elegy, , n; on love
poets (teneri poetae), ; on Ovid’s
critics, –; palinodic structure
of, –, –, ; as part of
transformative, cyclical narrative,
–, ; performativity
privileged in, –; puella figure
in, ; Sappho’s presence in,
–, ; on simulative
capacities, –; on Virgil, ;
weaving metaphor in, –
Remus, 
retexo, 
Rhea (vestal priestess), 
Rhea (Zeus’s mother), 
rhetoric: misogynist remark as
strategy in, –; Pandora as
marking emergence of, ; Pandora
as master of, –; of unweaving,
n
Richlin, Amy, 
Robinson, T. M., n
Roman love elegy: death of genre,
, , , n; didactic epic
 Index
Roman love elegy (continued)
distinguished from, –, ,
–; as effeminate, –;
literary status of, –, –, –
, n; male ego of, n; as
object of inquiry, –; Ovid’s
response to critics of, –;
Ovid’s vs. Propertius’s lists of, –
; Sappho as sy mbol for, ;
studies of, . See also love poets
Romulus, 
Rosenmeyer, Patricia A., n,
n
Rossetti, Dante Gabriel, 
Rousselle, Aline, n
Rudd, Niall, n
Sabine women, n
Salzman-Mitchell, Patricia, , , 
sameness: difference linked to, , –
; feminine otherness juxtaposed
to masculine, –n; loss of,
–, n; in marriage, –;
meaning of life devoid of idea of,
–; of men and gods, –; of
men and world, –; unadorned
bodies and, –; woman’s
disruption of, –. See also
difference; Other and otherness
Sappho: Alcaeus distinguished from,
n; Catullus’s relationship
with, ; as exemplar of female
writing and reading, ; on Helen of
Troy, n; lascivia of, –, ,
; name of, –, ; nuptial
poem of, –; Ovid influenced
by, –, –; in Ovid’s
catalogue of authors, , , ;
as role model, , n; Socratic
portrayal of, –
seeing and vision: blinding lightning
vs. bright light for, ; foreseeing
identified with, ; Pandora as
foundational myth for, –;
Pandora’s gift of enlightenment in,
–
Segal, Charles, , n, n,
n
Semonides of Amorgos, n,
n
Seneca the Elder, n
Seneca the Younger, n, n
sexuality: in classical canon, n;
femininity and visibility linked to,
–; handbooks of, n;
marriage as leg itimizing, –;
motherhood vs., –; search for
twins and, –; three types of,
–
Sharrock, Alison: on intratextuality, ;
on Ovid’s ideal reader, ; on
Ovid’s love elegy, n; on Ovid’s
Pygmalion narrative, n; on
seduction and readers, n; on
strategy of releasing, 
silence and silencing: as hiding dec eit,
–; of Penelope, –; of
Perses, ; rape as, of woman’s
desire, ; rationality and, ; of
women, idealized, , , –;
writing like a w oman as, 
Silenus, 
Silver Age, 
slave voices, –, 
Socrates of Plato: Aspasia’s funerary
speech by, n; beauty and,
–, –; body of, –, ,
n, n; death of, –,
–; Diotima and, –;
duality of, –; on eros, ,
–; feminine persona of, ;
genealogy of, ; logoi of, ; on
myth’s value, ; palinode and, ;
Pandora linked to, –; on proper
 Index
heroes, –; weaving metaphor
of, –; on wonder, –
Socrates of Xenophon, –n,
n
Socratic Pandora, –, –
Sophocles, 
sophrosyne (self-moderation), 
Spentzou, Efrossini, 
Statius, n
Steiner, George, n
Stesichorus, 
Stewart, Andrew, 
structuralism, reading Pandora in
context of, –
symbiosis: end of, –; of men and
gods, –; of men and world,
–
Symposium (Plato): Diotima in, ,
; on eros, –, , ; Eros in,
–; exclusions in, –;
masculine creation concept in, ;
Pandora’s significance in, ; on
shame, ; Socrates in, –
tabula rasa, , , n
Tarrant, Richard, n
Tartaros, , , , 
tears and crying: exclusion of, –,
–; as feminine response, –
; of Jean Valjean (Les Miserables),
n; of Odysseus, –; of
Patroclus, n; weaving linked
to, –
Telemachos: Penelope’s conflict
with, –; Penelope’s response
compared with, –
temporality: demise of Golden Age
and, –; of divine vs. human
poetry, –, n; Pandora’s
invocation of, ; of transformative,
cyclical narrative, –
tener, , n

text: author’s bodily pr esence in, ;
feminine linked to, –, –
; as lascivious, –; meanings
of, ; narrative options in, –
; Pandora’s presence as ess ential
to, –, ; picture vs., –
n, n; Plato’s definition
of, ; sensual dimension of, x;
subjectivity linked to, 
textile: language linked to, –; text
linked to, –. See also weaving
textuality: feminine attributes of, ,
; femininity and body link ed to,
–, ; feminist questions of,
; gender’s intersection with,
–, –; otherness and, ;
Pandora’s duality as sig n of, .
See also palinodic structure
textum, –
thauma idesthai (wonder to see),
–. See also wonder
Thaumas, –
Theaetetus, –
Thebaid (Statius), n
theeton, –
Theodorus, –
Theodote: appearance of, –,
n; meanings of name, n;
self-representation of, n;
Socrates’ encounter with, –
Theogony (Hesiod): as concealed
eulogy of feminine, ; as cosmo-
logical epic, , –; divine
genealogies in, –, –, ;
Eros in, –; evil signified in,
–; homoios used in, –;
illumination in, –; Muses’ role
in, –, –, , , n;
Pandora’s place in c enter of, –,
, –; structural break in,
n; truth and falsehood in, –
; wonder in, –; Works and
 Index
Theogony (Hesiod) (continued)
Days compared with, –, –,
n. See also Hesiodic Pandora
Tibullus: feminine inspiration for, ;
Ovid on, ; in Ovid’s catalogue of
authors, , , ; Sappho and,

Titans, –, , 
tragedy and tragic tradition:
Aristotle’s Poetics and, n; love
narrative in, ; Ovid’s catalogue
of authors and, –
truth and falsehood: ambiguities of,
–; Hesiod’s view of, –; in
love relationship, –; of
natural/naked vs. artifact/clothed
woman, –; Ovid’s view of,
–, –; Socrates’ duality
and, –, 
tuche (luck), 
twins: myths about, –; sexuality
and search for, –
Tyndareus, sons of, 
Typhoeus, , –
Uranos, –, , 
Ur-Sprache myth, n
Utopia, –n
Varro, , , , 
Venus, . See also Aphrodite
Vernant, Jean-Pierre, , –, n
Veyne, Paul, , n, n
Virgil, , , –, , n
virgins: ambiguity of, n; apple as
symbol of, ; Greek expectations
for, ; marriage anxieties of, –
; rape of, –; separation from
mothers, –. See also nymphs
visibility: active dimension of, ; in
cosmological development, –
; in creation accounts, –;
femininity and sexuality linked
to, –; implications of, –;
naming linked to, ; in Ovid’s
love guides, –; Pandora’s
diadem and power of, , –;
transcendence implied in, –
voice: illegitimate, –, –;
transgressive hearing of, ; as
visual icon, –. See also
feminine voice (vox feminina)
Warner, Marina, 
weaving: of Helen, ; of ideal wife,
–; kinds of (plain vs.
representational), –, –n;
of Pandora, –, , ; undoing
and reweaving of, , n
weaving metaphor: Cicero, n;
Homer, , , –, , –
n; Ovid, –; Plato, n;
rhetoric and, –; Socrates,
–; Virgil, n
webs, , –
West, M. L., , n, n
Williams, Gordon, n
Winkler, Jack, 
woman as object: of male desire, ix,
–; Pandora as exp erience of,
; Theodote as, –
woman/women: archetypal biography
of, ; as beauty and as ev il, –;
as danger, –; as deceptive
seducer and as v irginal bride, ;
Freudian question about, –;
ideal type of, –, , , –,
–, n, –n; as image
and copy, –; listening as, –
; lover of, norms broken by, ;
married, as ideal readers, –;
natural/naked vs. artifact/clothed,
–; Odysseus as, –; as
opaque and deceitful, –;
 Index
origin of race of, ; Propertius
as, –; rape and psychic
development of, –; as reader
in love relationship, –; Sappho
as role model for, n; of sea
(Semonides), n; as separating
gods from men, n; writing
and reading poetry as, . See also
feminine; Other and otherness
wonder: blinding lightning vs. bright
light in, ; of Pandora’s diadem,
, –; recurrent uses of, –;
role in philosoph y, –; of
Socrates’ appearance, –
Works and Da ys (Hesiod): Aphrodite’s
role in, n; audience of, ;
awakening human senses in,
n; censure of protagonists
and, ; context of writing, ;
dressed woman in, ; fraternal
relationships in, –; goals of, ,
, ; on ideal wife, –; on
learning about Oth er, –; naked
maiden in, –; Pandora’s
significance in, –, –; poetic
authority in, –; on relationship
between men an d world, , –;
skepticism about Fi ve Ages in,

–; textual tensions in, –;
Theogony compared with, –,
–, n. See also Hesiodic
Pandora
Wyke, Maria, , n, n,
n
Xanthippe, –, –
xeinos (guest-friend), 
Xenophon: alter ego of, , n;
educational program of, –;
influences on, ; on relationship
among arts, –; :
Memorabilia, –, n,
n; Oeconomicus, , –.
See also Socrates of Xenophon
Zeitlin, Froma, –, n,
nn–
Zeus: blinding lightning of, , ;
hegemony of, –, , , ,
n; Muses’ singing for, ;
Pandora’s creation and, , ,
–, –n; Prometheus’s
relationship with, , –, ;
rapes by, –, –; sons of,
–; Typhoeus’s challenges to,
–
 W        S        C     
William Aylward, Nicholas D. Cahill, and Patricia A. Rosenmeyer,
General Editors

E. A. T      
Romans and B arbarians: The Decline of the Western Empire

J       T     R   
Accountability in Athenian Government

H. I. M    
A History of Education in Antiquity
Histoire de l’Educat ion dans l’A ntiquité, translated by George Lamb

E   S   
Festivals of Attica: An Archaeological Commentary

G. M      W    
Roman Cities: Les v illes romaines by Pierre Grimal, translated and
edited by G. Michael Woloch, together with A Descriptive Catalogue of
Roman Cities by G. Michael Woloch

W     G. M   , editor
Ancient Greek Art and I conography

K       D    M  
Greek Footwear and th e Dating of Sculpture

J   K   N   
The Classical Epic Tradition

J     V  C   , E    P    ,
B      S       R   , and T      S    , editors
Ancient Anatolia: Aspects of Change and C ultural Development

A  N     M       
Euripides and th e Tragic Tradition

W   J. R, editor
The Archaeology of the Olympics: The Olympics and
Other Festivals in Antiquity
 P  P  
Wit and th e Writing of History: The Rhetoric of Historiography
in Imperial Rome

B     H     F   
The Hellenistic Aesthetic

F. M. Cl   and R. S. H     , editors

Tradition and I nnovation in Late Antiquity

B      S       R   
Hellenistic Sculpture I: The Styles of ca. – B.C.

B     H     F    , editor and translator

Hellenistic Poetry: An Anthology

K    J. G        
Theocritus’ Pastoral Analogies: The Formation of a Genre

V     B    and R       D     D P   , editors
Rome and I ndia: The Ancient Sea Trade

R     B 
Hans H. Wellisch, translator
Kallimachos: The Alexandrian Library and th e Origins of Bibliography

D   C
Myth, Ethos, and Actuality: Official Art in Fifth C entury B.C. Athens

B     H     F    , editor and translator

Archaic Greek Poetry: An Anthology

J   H. O    and R       H. S   
The Wedding in Ancient Athens

R      D     D P   and J      P    S    , editors
Murlo and th e Etruscans: Art and So ciety in Ancient Etruria

J     L   S    and L       B      , editors

The World of Roman Costume

J       L    
Greek Heroine Cults
 W     G. M   , editor
Polykleitos, the Doryphoros, and Tradition

P  P  
The Game of Death in Ancient Rome: Arena Sport and P olitical Suicide

M     S. D  
Flinders Petrie: A Life in Archaeology

S    B. M     
Polygnotos and Vase Painting in Cl assical Athens

J      N    , editor
Worshipping Athena: Panathenaia and Parthenon

P     A. W  
Hellenistic Architectural Sculpture: Figural Motifs in
Western Anatolia and th e Aegean Islands

B      S       R   
Fourth-Century Styles in G reek Sculpture

L   G       and C        M     , editors
Ancient Goddesses: The Myths and th e Evidence

J -M    C  
Displaced Persons: The Literature of Exile from Cicero to B oethius

B      S       R   
Hellenistic Sculpture II: The Styles of ca. – B.C.

P G  -G    

Personal Styles in Ear ly Cycladic Sculpture

C    
David Mulroy, translator and commentator
The Complete Poetry of Catullus

B      S       R   
Hellenistic Sculpture III: The Styles of ca. – B.C.

A       K         
The Iconography of Sculptured Statue B ases in th e Archaic and Cl assical Periods
 Sa r a H. L      
Mail and F emale: Epistolary Narrative and D esire in O vid’s Heroides

G     Z    
Modes of Viewing in H ellenistic Poetry and Art

A       A  C    
Discs of Splendor: The Relief Mirrors of the Etruscans

T     S. J     
A Symposion of Praise: Horace Returns to L yric in Odes IV

J   - R   J   
Religion in Ancient Etruria
Devins, Dieux et Démons: R egards sur l a religion de l’E trurie antique,
translated by Jane K. Whitehead

C       S      
Satire and th e Threat of Speech: Horace’s Satires, Book 

C       A. F     and L    K. M C   , editors

Prostitutes and C ourtesans in th e Ancient World

P    
John Henderson, translator and commentator
Asinaria: The One about th e Asses

P     D. R     
Ulysses in Bl ack: Ralph Ellison, Classicism, and African American Literature

P  R   
John G. Younger, editor
Imperium and C osmos: Augustus and th e Northern Campus M artius

P      J. J     
Ovid before Exile: Art and P unishment in th e Metamorphoses

V    L K   
Pandora’s Senses: The Feminine Character of the Ancient Text