Part 5 (2/2)
Hermes then led her down to earth to present her to Epimetheus, whom his brother Prometheus had bidden never to receive any presents from Olympian Zeus. Epimetheus, however, was captivated by Pandora's beauty and received her, and only after the evil befell did he remember his brother's command. Until the advent of woman, men, it is said, had lived secure from trouble, free from wearisome labor, and safe from painful diseases that bring death to mankind. But now Pandora with her hands lifted the lid from the great jar with which the G.o.ds had dowered her, the great jar wherein these evils had been securely imprisoned, and let them loose upon the earth. With the sorrows, hope had been confined; but when they were loosed, hope flew not forth, for too soon Pandora closed the lid of the vessel. Hence, laments Hesiod, hopeless is the lot of humanity, while innumerable ills pa.s.s. .h.i.ther and thither among hopeless men. Such is the mythus of the fall of man, as imagined by the early Greeks. Man was punished for rebelling against the will of heaven. Woman is the instrument of his chastis.e.m.e.nt, thrust upon him by the angry deity. She possesses every charm, every allurement, but her very fascination is a chief cause of ill to man. He in his folly receives her, and thence befall him all the ills of life. The whole argument of Hesiod in this pa.s.sage indicates that he regarded woman as ”a necessary deduction from the happiness of life,” as ”the rift in the lute that spoils its music.” Contrasted with the Hebrew story, the Greek represents woman as closing the door of hope to man; while the Hebrew version sees in her seed the hope of the salvation that is to overcome the evils of the fall. Even stronger is Hesiod's invective against the female s.e.x in the _Theogony_, where he repeats the story of Pandora, and concludes with the following reflections:
”From her the s.e.x of tender woman springs; Pernicious is the race; the woman tribe Dwells upon earth, a mighty bane to men; No mates for wasting want but luxury; And as within the close-roofed hive, the drones, Helpers of sloth, are pampered by the bees; These all the day, till sinks the ruddy sun, Haste on the wing, 'their murmuring labors ply,'
And still cement the white and waxen comb; Those lurk within the covered hive, and reap With glutted maw the fruits of others' toil; Such evil did the Thunderer send to man In woman's form, and so he gave the s.e.x, Ill helpmates of intolerable toils.
Yet more of ill instead of good he gave: The man who shunning wedlock thinks to shun The vexing cares that haunt the woman-state, And lonely waxes old, shall feel the want Of one to foster his declining years; Though not his life be needy, yet his death Shall scatter his possessions to strange heirs, And aliens from his blood. Or if his lot Be marriage and his spouse of modest fame Congenial to his heart, e'en then shall ill Forever struggle with the partial good, And cling to his condition. But the man Who gains the woman of injurious kind Lives bearing in his secret soul and heart Inevitable sorrow: ills so deep As all the balms of medicine cannot cure.”
This pa.s.sage contains in brief Hesiod's general ideas concerning woman.
Pandora brought infinite ills to mortals, for from her sprang the tribe of woman, ”a mighty bane to men.” If a man marry, he will be sorry; and if he refrain from marriage, he will regret it. A wretched old age awaits the bachelor; and his possessions, at his death, are dissipated by indifferent kindred. Even if he marry, and get a good wife, sorrows and blessings are mingled in his lot; while if his wife be bad, ills so deep are his ”as all the balms of medicine cannot cure.” So woman is a being whose presence is a necessary evil; without her, man's destiny is not complete, but he must endure the ills she brings for the sake of the possible blessing that may come by sharing one's lot with her. A man, says the bard of Ascra, cannot be too cautious in choosing his helpmate, as the following sage counsel indicates:
”Take to thy house a woman for thy bride When in the ripeness of thy manhood's pride; Thrice ten thy sum of years, the nuptial prime; Nor fall far short nor far exceed the time.
Four years the ripening virgin shall consume, And wed the fifth of her expanding bloom.
A virgin choose: and mould her manners chaste; Chief be some neighboring maid by thee embraced; Look circ.u.mspect and long; lest thou be found The merry mock of all the dwellers round.
No better lot has Providence a.s.signed Than a fair woman with a virtuous mind; Nor can a worse befall than when thy fate Allots a worthless, feast-contriving mate.
She with no torch of mere material flame Shall burn to tinder thy care-wasted frame; Shall send a fire thy vigorous bones within And age unripe in bloom of years begin.”
The vein of contempt for woman which runs through the verses of Hesiod finds many echoes in later writers, which indicates that in this transition period, especially in Ionian Greece, evil influences were at work, causing men to rebel against the shackles of wedded life and to fail to realize the happiness they desired in the home and in the family. It seems strange that Hesiod, in describing farm duties, should not tell us more of the important function of the housewife. Yet in one pa.s.sage he merely emphasizes the importance of starting with ”a house, a wife, and an ox to plow,” and in other pa.s.sages speaks disparagingly of woman and her work. So that even in lines where he might well have commended her virtues the words of praise are left unsaid.
The two centuries of Greek history following Hesiod are chiefly known to us through the lyric poets, as epic poetry declined and the writing of history had not yet begun. Lyric poetry is an index to the hearts of the people: for in lyric poetry are expressed the thoughts and feelings of reflective man. Woman is the great mainspring of existence; she it is who is the general cause of man's thoughts, emotions, pa.s.sions, joys, and sorrows. Hence, as lyric poetry is the poetry of the heart, we find recorded in the verses of Grecian lyrists man's att.i.tude toward woman in this period of ”storm and stress” in the development of Greek nationality.
Archilochus is the father of iambic poetry, and he made it the medium of expression of personal pa.s.sion and satire. With all the ardor of his nature, he loved Neobule, daughter of Lycambes, of the island of Paros, where the poet had made his home. Certain fragments of his poems, still extant, indicate the intensity of the flame with which he was consumed.
Archilochus has left us an exquisite picture of his loved one, clad in all the beauty and grace a poetic lover could portray, with a rose and a myrtle branch in her hand, and her tresses falling caressingly over her shoulders. He sighed ”were it to touch but her hand,” and she seems at first to have returned his affection. The lovers were betrothed, but suddenly the father objected, and the match was broken off. Love immediately turned into hate, and pa.s.sion changed into rage. Thereupon, as Horace says:
_”Archilochum proprio rabies armavit iambo,”_
Archilochus used the iambic metre as his weapon of attack. As his love had been ardent, so, when betrayed, his rage was uncontrollable. Every possible taunt was cast at those who had deceived him. ”Each verse he wrote was polished and pointed like an arrow head. Each line was steeped in the poison of hideous charges against his sweetheart, her sister, and her father. The set of poems which he produced, and, as it would appear, recited publicly at the festival of Demeter, was so charged with wit and fire that the country rang with them. The daughters of Lycambes, tradition avers, went straightway and hanged themselves--unable to endure the flight of fiery serpents that had fallen upon them; for, to quote the words of Browning, Archilochus had the art of writing verse that 'bit into the live man's flesh like parchment,' that sent him wandering, branded and forever shamed, about his native fields and streets.”
Archilochus's verses indicate that, in the eighth century before our era, there was in Greece a certain freedom of intercourse between the s.e.xes, and that love was, at times at least, the basis for betrothal; it also shows the absolute control of the father over the hand of his daughter. The poet's story is also the earliest we have of love betrayed, and the name of Neobule is inextricably intertwined with the rise of satiric verse.
A different note is struck by Archilochus's contemporary, Semonides of Amorgus, who takes up and continues the tradition of Hesiod in speaking of woman in tones of contempt and disparagement. He composed a celebrated satire on woman, in which her various temperaments are ascribed to a kins.h.i.+p with different domestic animals,--the hog, the fox, the dog, the a.s.s, the mare, the ape,--or are compared to mud, sea water, and the bee.
Semonides first deals with the cla.s.s of women of the hog variety: ”G.o.d made the mind of woman in the beginning of different qualities; for one he fas.h.i.+oned like a bristly hog, in whose house everything tumbles about in disorder, bespattered with mud, and rolls upon the ground; she, dirty, with unwashed clothes, sits and grows fat on a dungheap.”
The woman like mud is thus satirized: ”This woman is ignorant of everything, both good and bad; her only accomplishment is eating: cold though the winters be, she is too stupid to draw near the fire.”
Here is the poet's picture of the woman who resembles the sea: ”She has two minds; when she laughs and is glad, the stranger seeing her at home will give her praise--there is nothing better than this on the earth, no, nor fairer; but another day she is unbearable, not to be looked at or approached, for she is raging mad. To friend and foe she is alike implacable and odious. Thus, as the sea is often calm and innocent, a great delight to sailors in summertime, and oftentimes again is frantic, tearing along with roaring billows, so is this woman in her temper.”
The woman who resembles a mare offers other disagreeable qualities: She is ”delicate and long-haired, unfit for drudgery or toil; she would not touch the mill, or lift the sieve, or clean the house out! She bathes twice or thrice a day, and anoints herself with myrrh; then she wears her hair combed out long and wavy, dressed with flowers. It follows that this woman is a rare sight to one's guests; but to her husband she is a curse, unless he be a tyrant who prides himself on such expensive luxuries.”
The ape-like wife is perhaps the worst of the lot: ”This one, above all, has Zeus given as the greatest evil to men. Her face is most hateful.
Such a woman goes through the city a laughing-stock to all the men.
Short of neck, with narrow hips, withered of limb, she moves about with difficulty. O wretched man, who weds such a woman! She knows every cunning art, just like an ape, nor is ridicule a concern to her. To no one would she do a kindness, but every day she schemes to this end,--how she may work some one the greatest injury.”
But at last we reach the bee: ”The man who gets her is lucky; to her alone belongs no censure; one's household goods thrive and increase under her management; loving, with a loving spouse, she grows old, the mother of a fair and famous race. She is preeminent among all women, and a heavenly grace attends her. She cares not to sit among the women when they indulge in lascivious chatter. Such wives are the best and wisest mates Zeus grants to men.”
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