J. LaRae Ferguson

In his commentary on Book 5 of the Odyssey, J. B. Hainsworth notes that “the intervention of Leucothea has been condemned…on the grounds that it is ignored in the sequel….Moreover, Athena’s intervention at 382-7 renders that of Leucothea superfluous.” While he himself counters these complaints by focussing on the parallelism between the intervention scenes of Ino and of Athena—a tactic which he terms “the cumulative technique…characteristic of the epic”—such concrete objections to the integrity of the Ino episode must not be dismissed so lightly. Through an examination of the focal element of the scene between Ino and Odysseus—namely her veil or κρήδεμνον, which she offers to Odysseus as a talisman against drowning at sea—this paper will argue not only for the thematic coherence of the Ino episode, but also for its necessary role in the development of Odysseus as a character and in his reemergence, or even re-initiation, into the world of men.

Scholars’ multifarious attempts to interpret Hesiod’s tale of Pandora’s jar have become scarcely less well-known than the myth itself. Ten years ago, Jenifer Neils offered a concise summary of the four major positions over which scholars continue to battle: "(1) The first is the most positive reading, and in my opinion the most un-Hesiodic, namely, that Elpis is positive, that is, Hope, and is stored in the jar for mankind. (2) The second is that Elpis is good but is being kept from mankind as an additional punishment. (3) The third possibility is that Elpis is the last of the evils in the jar, that is, false hope, [and] is reserved for man or (4) from which man is being spared." While Neils herself espouses the fourth of these options—a position which I hold to be untenable when placed against the background of Hesiod’s characteristic “archaic Greek pessimism”—her simple outline does nevertheless provide a helpful starting point for thinking about the range of interpretations this passage of Hesiod’s Works and Days has inspired. In light of such a plurality of scholarly views on the subject, this paper will attempt to offer one possible reading of the way in which Hesiod’s myth of Pandora fits into the larger picture of his narrative as a whole. When his famous personification of ἐλπίς is read alongside her less well-known appearance in the middle of the Works and Days, and when both of these passages are placed within the context of the typical archaic Greek conception of ἐλπίς and its related verb ἔλπω, Hesiod’s myth of Pandora can be read as an artful, poignant expression of the fated plight of man, poised as he is forever between hope and disappointment.

In her set of interpretive essays on the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, Foley famously analyzed what she termed “the mother/daughter romance,” suggesting that “for ancient women, Demeter and Persephone may have represented the extraordinary endurance of the bond between women of different generations in the same family.” By contrast, Clay insists in her chapter on the hymn that “while the hymn-poet is by no means unaware of the psychological and sexual implications of his narrative, his attention remains fixed on the larger political and theological ramifications of his story.” Clay and Foley each bring out different points of emphasis in Demeter’s well-known hymn, but I believe there is a way to read these various elements as complementary to one another. In this paper, I argue that the hymnic poet places the bereaved mother’s intensely personal and even guilty anguish on an equal plane with the combined grief and anger of a Homeric hero derived of personal τιμή. With the rape of Persephone cruelly framed as a breach of the maternal protective-instinct—which is central to Demeter’s τιμή as the goddess of nurturing and fertility—Demeter’s subsequent grief and rage are brought into parallel with those of the tragically ironic mother-figure, Achilles himself.
Too often overlooked by those wishing to focus on the more “political” elements of the hymn, Demeter’s early period of mourning for her lost daughter shares numerous parallels with that of Achilles for Patroclus. Both Achilles’ grieving process, however, and his correspondence to the bereaved, anti-mother Niobe draw attention to his undeniable guilt in the death of his beloved. Demeter, on the other hand, can take no rational responsibility for the rape of her daughter. Rather, the hymnic poet parallels her mourning process to that of the shamed and guilty Achilles in order not only to place her personal grief on a level with that of the archetypal Homeric hero, but even more so to bring out her inviolable dedication to her maternal duty. In the mind of the hymnic poet, Demeter is such a paragon of Homeric motherhood that her sense of personal responsibility for the well-being of her child leads her to grieve in the very same manner as the pitiably failed mother-figures, Achilles and Niobe.
Throughout the body of her hymn, Demeter is consumed with the desire either to restore her personal τιμή as the goddess of nurturing and fertility or at least to avenge its deprivation. Her final success depends upon her effective manipulation of the aspect of her nurturing τιμή which has not been stolen from her—her patronage of human agriculture. By withholding her maternal care from the fields of men and threatening her fellow gods with a loss of all γέρα and θυσίαι, Demeter finally reasserts her own power as a maternal nurturing figure—a force absolutely necessary for the maintenance of Zeus’ cherished cosmic order. Nickel summarizes, “Her position in the Olympian community is thereby confirmed and even augmented. No longer having any reason to be angry, Demeter returns with her daughter to Olympus.”
As numerous scholars have pointed out, Demeter and Persephone act as mirror images for one another throughout the body of the hymn. Thus, with Zeus’ final redistribution of τιμαί at the hymn’s close, Persephone actually becomes an extension of her mother’s power into the realm of Hades. As mother and daughter return physically to Olympus, the primal maternal force which they together embody is stretched out over all three realms of the cosmos—Hades, earth, and Olympus. Paradoxically, the temporary break in the mother-daughter relationship of protection and care serves finally to extend and augment the power of that relationship and to reestablish its central importance for the solidarity of Zeus’ cosmos.

In the past fifty years and more, when studying and writing about Sophocles’ Ajax, classical scholars have focused much of their attention on drawing out some coherent understanding of justice propounded by the author in his drama of anger, vengeance, and suicide.  While Sophocles undeniably allows his remarkably humane Odysseus and eloquent Tecmessa to embody a new code of justice based on empathy and compassion, more central to his purposes, I argue, is his penetrating critique of the traditional heroic understanding of justice based on revenge and of the comfortable assumptions of his contemporary Athenian audience concerning their own city’s role as the moderate and just arbiter of the Hellenic world.  By paralleling in his characters Athena and Ajax their insulted statuses and consequent desire to humiliate their offenders, Sophocles highlights the terrifying consequences of an “eye for an eye” system of justice, which leaves the weaker (in this case, mortals) utterly at the mercy of the stronger (here, immortals).  Yet in this drama, mercy is just what neither goddess nor hero can understand.  By twice refusing her aid, Ajax gains the implacable hatred of the insulted Athena, just as the sons of Atreus gain that of Ajax by denying him the arms of Achilles.  Both goddess and hero view themselves as victims of the hubris of their offenders, and each is consumed throughout the play by a lust for vengeance, for the power to laugh at his humiliated enemy.  Ajax commits his tragic suicide, however, upon his own recognition of his utter helplessness as a mere mortal attempting to defy the power of an avenging deity.  His only recourse lies in the denial of the goodness of life itself, in the one absolute power reserved to a man: his own death.  Dramatically engendered by the ancient code of justice by vengeance, the terrifying conflict between Athens’ two central mythic patrons demanded that Sophocles’ Athenian audience reevaluate their own city’s ability to remain untainted by the tyranny of power into which such a moral code must inevitably degenerate.

This paper was presented as part of Eta Sigma Phi's undergraduate research panel at the January 2015 convention of the SCS.

Presented at the Inaugural Student Paper Conference organized by Hillsdale College's LIT honorary in March 2015, this paper attempts to offer one possible account of Ovid’s objective in writing Heroides 7, specifically in relation to the author’s role as a reader of Vergil, and focusing on the conclusion of the epistle, which, as will be shown, must be read back onto the earlier portions of the letter and onto the original Dido narrative of Aeneid 4 in order to grasp some sense of the meaning of the whole. Ovid uses the elegiac epistolary form to draw out details of the Vergilian plot which might otherwise be overlooked and which provide the necessary basis for a fully-nuanced understanding of the relationship between Dido and Aeneas. As Ovid’s Dido herself admits, she and her sister Anna are both guilty because of her breach of pudor first in forgetting her vow to Sychaeus and then in scheming to keep Aeneas with her at Carthage. While Dido is undeniably the victim of tragic fate, Ovid insists that his readers remember the active part which the queen plays in her own demise. Deceived, she deceives all. Aeneas provided the cause and the sword, but Dido fell by her own hand.

C. W. Gluck's decision to add the character Hercules to his French operatic adaption of Euripides' drama Alcestis has often been interpreted as an attempt to return to a more faithful rendering of the Greek original. Numerous scholars and audience members, however, have remained dissatisfied with the result. Published in the Spring 2015 issue of Valley Humanities Review, this paper examines the different characterizations of Euripides' Heracles and Gluck's Hercules, concluding that the speed with which the latter was inserted into his part left his character bereft of the complexity and beautiful mysticism inherent in his ancient Greek inspiration.