Odyssey, 5. 333-35
But then Kadmos'daughter, slender-ankled Ino, saw him--
Leukothea, who once was
a mortal endowed with
human speech but now
deep in the sea, has a share
of honor among the gods.
Heroines have different relationship
to immortality than do heroes
Integration of heroines into our
view of Greek myth and cult
requires a new model of
divine/mortal relations
based as much on
reciprocity
as on antagonism.
Odyssey, 5. 333-35
But then Kadmos'daughter,
slender-ankled Ino, saw him--
Leukothea, who once was
a mortal endowed with
human speech
but now
deep in the sea, has a share
of honor among the gods.
Heroes are generally considered to be
those who have one or more of
following:
1. heroic or divine parentage
2. close relationship (erotic, hieratic,
antagonistic) with
divinity in a myth
3. ritual connection with a
divinity
(e.g. place in sanctuary or
role in cult
4. tradition or evidence of
a heroon
(hero-shrine) or tomb,
sacrificial offerings,
or other ritual observance
Both Herakles and Helen have
divine parentage and both
have ample
evidence of cult
Hyakinthos and Semele are
united erotically in myth with
divinities, and in each case there is
requisite cult evidence.
"Wives and daughters of
the best men"
whom Odysseys meets in the
Underworld, and mothers of heroes
whom Zeus lists among his
conquests, as well as women
of Hesiodic Catalogue are as much
heroines as Achilleus, Odysseus,
and Perseus are heroes.
that is given by the Arcadians, 
The Megarians say that there
is also a hero-shrine
of Iphigeneia;
for she too according to them
died in Megara.
Now I have heard
another account of Iphigeneia
and
I know that Hesiod,
in his poem A Catalogue of Women,
says that
Iphigeneia did not die,
but by the will of Artemis is Hecate...
Difficult to say when hero cult
ceased in antiquity, especially
since it can be seen
to reappear
in the form of
emperor cult and
there are those who would
even see its survival in the
Christian
cult of the saints.
Exemplary Heroines
She may rely too
long on Athena's gifts--
talent in handicraft
and a clever mind;
so cunning -- history c
annot show the like
among the ringleted ladies of Akhia,
Mykene with her coronet,
Alkemene, Tyro.
Wits like Penelope's
never were before...
Odyssey 2. 116ff.
In Sophocles' Antigone, when
the protagonist
is walled up in her
tomb, the women of the chorus
grope for previous
examples of others
so ill-treated, choosing two
heroines and one hero.
They recall the
fates of Danae (944),
Lykourgos (955) and finally Kleopatra, the
cast-off first wife of Phineus
who is ill-treated by his second
wife (966).
In the calendar of Erchia,
known as
Greater Demarkhia, in addition
to two sacrificess
"to the Heroines"
in the months of
Metageitnion
and Pyanopsion,
we find an offering of a goat
to Semele by a
college of women,
in the month of Elaphebolion.
Alkemene and Helen
also
received animal sacrifices
Not only do heroines like
Medea
or Ariadne have a
story and an
identity guranteed by names
that belong to no one else,
there are
also heroines with
no less than
two distinctive names.
These are
the ones whose stories
culminate
in apotheosis, and whose
transition
to immortality is marked
by a
change of name. Ino
becomes Leukothea,
Semele becomes Theyone,
Molpadia becomes
Hemithea,
and Iphigeneia becomes either Enodia,
Hekate, Molpadia or
Orsiloche.
When Herakles is transported to
Olympos and made immortal,
the
change is commemorated
not by a change of name but
of spouse.
Leaving Deianeira
to live up to
the etymology of her
name as the
"man-destroyer",
he marries Hebe (Youth),
whose name is a
transparent guarantor
of his new status as deathelss
and unaging.
Heroine Myth Pattern
"Io, the daughter of Inachos,
and Kallisto, the daughter of Lykaon,
who have exactly the same
story, to wit,
love of Zeus, wrath of
Hera, and metamorphosis, Io
becoming a cow
and Kallisto a bear"
(Pausanias I, 25.1)
Only Helen has a distinctive and
divine conception, and her birth
from an egg is the most
strikingly nonhuman among
heroes' births.
Helen is the only mortal daughter of Zeus.
So typically and completely
is the heroine's
story entwined with
the hero's that it is
coextensive with the
part of his career
beginning with his birth
and ending with
trials of prowess
that
mark his coming of age.
Story of Herakles, most typical
of heroes,
and his mother Alkmene,
conforms to this model.
Heroines whose story does not
conform to hero pattern are
frequently virgins who
for one
reason or another are prevented
from
embarking on an
adult female life.
They are shown at the moment
of
crisis, which takes the form
of parental opposition to marriage
(Hippodameia, the Danaids),
personal
aversion to marriage
(Atalante),
or the need for a sacrifice of some
sort which stands
in for marriage (Makaria,
Iphigeneia).(Brides of Hades)
In other cases crisis in heroine's
myth is collapse of marriage.
These myths, in which the heroine
is supplanted by another wife,
frequently involve infanticide,
as with Ino, Medea, and Prokne and
Philomele.
Compare Herakles and Ino
Both are descended from gods.
Herakles is son of Zeus and mortal
woman, while Ino is daughter
of Kadmos, a mortal but kingly father,
and Harmonia, herself the daughter
of Aphrodite and Ares, and
perhaps a goddess in her own right.
What is more, they each have a
close connection with another
divinity, for better or worse.
Herakles, as child of one of
Zeus' other loves, has support of his
father but enmity of Hera
throughout his life.
But the relationship
is ambivalent
and by time of his apotheosis,
Hera is no longer
hostile but gives Herakles
her daughter as a wife.
Ino, at death of
her sister, Semele, takes on nursing of baby
Dionysos and so incurs
animosity of Hera as well.
The theme of nursing occurs
in Herakles
material as well,
but there it is ostensible enemy
Hera who is
tricked into givng
her breast to the infant Herakles.
Here is an
example of the asymmetry
that biology creates
and custom enforces.
Heroines, as women, are so
consistently associated with the
naternal function that the mythic
material never shows them as
infants in need of sustinence.
Madness, at least in
some versions
of the Ino myth, is reason
for the murder or attempted
murder of her chidren.
Herakles' murder
of his children
while stricken with insanitiy sent
by Hera is an
ancient part
of his story.
Ino has no ponoi to carry out
but must
undergo difficulties
in her marital life.
Each is forced at some
point to assume role
of a social inferior. Herakles
must dress as
a woman and
play the servant for Omphale,
while Ino, banished from
her own house
by her divorce from Athamas,
returns in the guise of
a servant girl.
Her disguise allows her to enact
the revenge that
may
be purely an act of sexual jealousy,
or a way to save her
children.
Either she plots to kill the
second wife's children or
trick her into killing her own
instead of Ino's.
Herakles is driven
to violence
by erotic desire, the sacking
of Oichalia, and felled
by jealously
of his wife Deianeira.
Each experiences and inflicts
suffering because of eros,
though the violence of the heroine is
provided by jealousy, while
the hero uses violence as a m
eans to
satisfy his desire.
Each of these mortal figures dies under
ambiguous circumstances
that lead
to immortality.
Herkles dies on a mountain top,
and by
the purging effect of fire,
achieves immortalitiy on Olympos. Ino
plunges downward from a clif,
and through contact with water
suffers a sea change into
the marine goddess Leukothea.
Typical heroine is transgressed
against rather than
transgressing,
and that transgression usually
takes form of rape or
attempted
destruction of offspring.
Like heroes, however, heorines
may also commit terrifying crimes.
Klytemnestra and Medea,
paradigmatically evil women,
are no less heroines for all that.
Aphrodite's words in the Homeric Hymn 5 (198-99)
are most explicit
statement of the gods'
distress at contact with mortality:
His name will be Aineias,
because of the terrible (ainos) pain
which I felt, falling into
the bed of a mortal man.
Go to Judith
Zeus' erotic catalogue (Il. 14.313-28)
Hera, you may go there later,
but now come, let us turn to lovemaking.
For never did such desire for goddess or woman
ever flood over me, taming the heart in my breast,
not even when I loved Ixion's wife,
who bore Perithoos, the gods' equal in counsel;
nor slim-ankled Danae, daughter
of Akrisios, who bore Perseus,
most
renowned of men;
nor the daughter of far-famed Phoinix,
who bore Minos and godlike
Rhadamanthys; nor even
Semele or Alkmene
in Thebes --
one bore stoutheared Herakles;
the other, Semele, bore Dionysos,
joy for mortals;
not for Demeter,
the fair-haired queen
nor for glorious Leto, nor even for you
has such sweet desire ever taken me!
Examination of list reveals that
sons of Zeus stand out among
heroes in their relation to death,
progressing in pairs toward
immortality. Perithoos and Perseus,
though great heroes, do not
transcend barrier of mortality.
Minos and Rhadamanthys become m
ore
powerful in death than i
n life, as judges of the underworld.
Herakles is transported to Olympos
and immortalized, though he
never
quite ceases to be, simultaneously, a hero. Most notably
Dionysos
becomes a god, losing
all taint of mortality.
Extraordinary second birth from
thigh of Zeus is perhaps source of
ability to make the transition.
Though Perithoos and Perseus
are lowest on ladder to immortality,
some features of their myths
unite them in their relation to
mortality. The Odyssey (ll.631) seems
to provide earliest allusion
to Perithous' ill-conceived attempt,
abetted by Theseus, to steal
Persephone from Hades
to be his bride. Attempt fails
and Perithous
must stay in Hades while
Theseus returns.
Though Perseus never
attempts a katabasis,
his helmet of invisibility connects
him with
Hades, perhaps reflecting
original meaning of Hades,
"invisible
one".
Oh you vile gods, in jealousy supernal!
You hate it when we choose to lie with men--
immortal flesh by some dear mortal side.
Kalypso to Hermes (Od. 5. 118-20)
Odysseus is never made to pay for his proximity to a goddess,
perhaps because of her relatively
low status compared to the
Olympians.
Apollo's erotic encounters are
particularly ill-starred: Kassandra,
Koronis, Daphne, for example.
Kassandra, having agreed to
accept Apollo as a lover, thinks
better of it, and for this is cursed
with the disbelief of all who
hear her prophecies.
Koronis is killed for betraying
her divine lover for a mortal
husband
Daphne is willing to accept total loss
of humanity to avoid the union.
Heroines more likely to cross the
boundary from mortal to immortal
than male heroes. Consider Ariadne,
Ino and Semele. All possess
striking doubleness marking
mortal and divne aspects.
Ariadne has
two husbands,
a mortal one who abandons her
and an immortal one who
stays with her forever.
Ino and Semele each have a mortal name
and
an immortal one.
Above all, have two fates:
a human death and an
immortal life.
Are they immune to death because they
are under the
protection of Dionysos
or are they drawn into his sphere
because of
their ability to transcend death?
If the three were originallly goddesses,
how did they come to be
attached to cult of Theban-born Dionysos?
Iphegeneia combines many of the
characteristic heroine roles.
She
is a figure in epic, an illustrious dead person,
the daughter of a
hero,
a recipient of cultic honors.
She is also a sacrificed bride,
object of a miraculous rescue
with overtones of transforamtion,
a
priestess, and a cult founder.
In some versions of her story she is
also grandchild of Zeus
(as daughter of Helen), the wife of a hero
(Achilles), and ultimataely one
of those rare figures who transcend
the mortal/immortal distinction:
she is transformed into the
goddess Hekate.
As Iphigeneia is protegee of Artemis,
Helen is protegee of
Aphrodite.
In each case divine protection
is double-edged, bringing
with it enormous risks
for mortal partner. For a woman,
the moment
of crisis lies in
the successful transition from
virginity to
marriage (and ultimately
to childbearing).
This transition,
represented ritually
as a passage from the realm
of Artemis to that
of Hera,
is not successfully managed
by either.
Ipheigeneia, the
parthenos,
remains caught at this point in life,
achieving marriage
only in death.
Helen, on the other hand,
fails in marrying too
often.
The faithful wife, under the sign
of Hera, makes the
transition only
once, instead of circulating repeatedly,
like
Helen.
As a young victim of sacrifice, Iphigeneia falls into the chthonic category of the angry dead. As rescued victim, she stands for the mitigation of human sacrifice and becomes just the figure needed to negotiate the transition from actual to symbolic sacrifice. Various accounts of Iphigeneia lead to same conclusion: whether she becomes Einodia or Hekate or Orsilochia, Iphigeneia becomes an aspect of Artemis. In this way the goddess replicates herself. The connection with childbirth is also part of Iphigeneia's function at Brauron, where the offerings she receives clearly show her in full possession of this role. That Artemis, although herself a virgin goddess, has this jurisdiction over childbirth is explained by her role as potnia theron, mistress of animals. Her concern is for the young of all species. At same time she has power over women undergoing childbrith, and it is power not only to help but to harm. Iphigeneia important not only as an aspect of Hekate but as an analogue to Polyxene. Mirrored fates of these two figures serve as brackets to the Trojan War, in that the saacrifice of Iphigeneia allows the hostilities to go forward, while, the sacrifice of Polyxene appeases the spirit of Achilles and allows the hostilities to cease. Polyxene is, like Iphigeneia, a posthumous wife of Achilles. In the myth of Polyxene, the equation "marriage to Achilles" = sacrifice", which was only implicit in myth of Iphigeneia, is made explicit. As Hekate or Einodia, Iphigeneia is infernal double of Artemis, while as bride of Achilles ==or Hades==she becomes the double of the daughter of the Hekabe=Hekate figure. So Helen never went to Troy, Herakles is not really dead, but immortal, and Iphigeneia was not really sacrificed by her father. A common thread in all these myths is the theme of apotheosis. Iphigeneia experiences not metamorphosis but ritual substitution and is thereby saved for the biggest transformation of all, apotheosis. Examples chosen are not in every way typical -- Dionysos is anomalous among gods as Iphigeneia is among heroines. Nonetheneless they point to a central feature of Greek cosmology. Each member of the system, and each class of members, is absolutely dependent on the others for knowledge of its place. Thus mortals and immortals need one another for self-definition, and heroines and heroes, as the intermediate category, are necessary to both because they allow a working out of the tensions and ambiguities inherent in a system of anthropomorphic divinities worshiped by a society that glorified the works of human beings. The Greeks knew how much their gods depended on them and told their myths to prove it.