The Homeric poet calls her
Iambe. By others, she is known as Baubo. We
know her only slightly from the few lines in the 7th
century B.C.E. Homeric Hymn to Demeter,
(2)
and in other scant ancient sources that fleetingly sing
her praises. Her history is somewhat obscured by the
strictest of prohibitions against revealing the ancient
mysteries of Demeter, of which she is an integral, albeit
outside, part. As a result of this secrecy, much of what
we do know of her has been invented by narrow-visioned
theologians whose irate anti-Pagan diatribes rail against
the "shameless" ritual of the pagan religions. These
wrong assumptions, in turn, have been amplified by more
contemporary scholars to fill in the gaps that have been
purposely left bare by the silence surrounding the
mysteries of Demeter and Persephone. The Hymn
provides the background story of these greatest Mysteries
of the ancient world whose celebrations began at Eleusis
in very primitive times, in about 1450 B.C.E.,
(3)
and continued for some two-thousand years until the
sanctuary was finally and completely obliterated by the
5th century Christians of the Common Era.
(4)
It is through the iconographically dense images of this
elusive character that we come to know her, and to make
an intimate acquaintance of her rich and humble self.
(5)
Iambe/Baubo stands before us, open-robed, echoing the
sacred gesture of the numerous goddesses of great
antiquity who have revealed their mysteries only to the
initiated. The gesture reveals her purpose in the deepest
sense of the word, that of quite literally 'drawing back
the veil' so as 'to make known something hidden or kept
secret'. (6)
In true iambic style, the emphasis has been placed on her
belly region, which is where she wears her face. This
hilarious juxtaposition of mouth and belly is an overt
reference to her rule over the food supply, a function
which has been entirely eclipsed by the puerile scholarly
musings that have focused only on her inferred sexually
lewd behavior. The fact of the matter is that, due to the
extreme sanctity of Demeter's rites, there is no record
whatsoever of the actual remarks or gestures of this
priestess who unveils herself to us. Such a transgression
would have been punishable by death. This momentary
lifting of the veil is a reminder to those who know. The
rest of us have been in the dark for thirty-five
centuries.
Lost in the excitement of their titillation, the most
respected scholars in the world have been diverted from
another overt clue. Iambe's crown, which loudly proclaims
her role in the mythology of the two goddesses, has never
received so much as a passing mention. What she dons, for
all the world to see, is a very prominent head-dress of
oversized double acorns. If, as is the case with all
other crowns, it announces the function of the wearer,
then we can say with absolute confidence that she is none
other than the archaic idol of a pre-agricultural
culture. We find more than a trace of that culture in the
region of Eleusis, some fourteen miles to the north and
west of Athens, where this acorn mother of the woodpecker
clan of Keleai is introduced to us in the Homeric
Hymn as a member of the household of the queen. As
we shall see, at the moment when Demeter crosses the
threshold of this royal house, there is a transfer of
power from Acorn Mother to Goddess of the Grain. It is at
this very moment that wise Iambe becomes Demeter's
Fool.
For countless millennia before the knowledge of planting
and harvesting introduced a more plentiful and palatable
food source, acorns were a primary food source.
(7)
The fruits of the field, however, were not entirely
substituted for those of the oak. That font of oak
wisdom, James G. Frazer, tells us that long after the
development of agriculture, acorns continued to play a
major role in the lives of the inhabitants of the early
lake dwelling settlements in Central Europe, the northern
Scandinavian countries, and the British Isles.
That the
inhabitants of these villages subsisted partly on the
produce of the oak, even after they had adopted
agriculture, is proved by the acorns which have been
found in their dwellings along with wheat, barley, and
millet, as well as beech-nuts, hazel-nuts, and the
remains of chestnuts and cherries.
(8)
In the Mediterranean region, acorns
continued to be eaten as a fall-back in hard times by
some, and as a delicacy by others. Although the writers
of the Classical period openly attest to the continuation
of the acorn as a primary food source long after the
introduction of agriculture,
(9)
their writings reflect an implicit level of snobbery
against their consumption. Because the acorn provided the
main sustenance of pigs, the fruit of the oak was viewed
as food suitable only for those who remained low to the
ground in their daily habits. The tree itself had roots
so deep that they were thought to pierce the earth all
the way into the dark underworld realm. A dark and
primordial connection was therefore established between
the acorns that littered the forest floor and the
earth-bound creatures who loitered there in the autumn,
gorging themselves on the mast which fell to the ground.
(10)
Instead of availing themselves of the still plentiful
supply of acorns, the agrarian populations of Greece and
Italy now feasted on the ubiquitous herds of nicely
fattened swine. The Italian pigs roamed the vast oak
forests in such numbers that
in order to sort
out the different droves when they mingled with each
other in the woods, each swineherd carried a horn, and
when he wound a blast on it all his own pigs came
trooping to him with such vehemence that nothing could
stop them; for all the herds knew the note of their
own horn. (11)
For obvious reasons, the esteem in
which the acorn was held in more primitive times is not
so readily apparent in the emphatically agrarian rites of
Eleusis, whose business it is to conceal their former
glory. However, the clues are everywhere to be seen in
the blatantly transparent names of those whose story is
told in the mythic literature that describes how the
rites themselves came to be. A comprehension of the
language and its multi-layered subtleties is of great
advantage to a full and spiritually rich understanding of
the implications of such myth. We know this to be true,
also, as far as the Mysteries themselves were concerned.
"Those who could not understand Greek were . . . excluded
. . . because they could not hope to understand and
appreciate the . . . sacred formulas pronounced in the
course of initiation."(12)
One of the most beautiful recitations detailing the
events of Persephone's violent abduction into the
underworld, and the untiring search by a mother whose
heart is filled with immeasurable sorrow at her loss, is
that which is sung in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter.
We shall begin at the point in the story when
. . . grief
yet more terrible and savage came into the heart of
Demeter. . . so . . . that she avoided the gathering
of the gods and high Olympus, and went to the towns
and rich fields of men, disfiguring her form for a
long while. And no one . . . knew her, until she came
to the house of wise Celeus who then was lord of
fragrant Eleusis. (13)
A Greek-speaking audience would
know that Celeus, or Keleos, is the name for the
green woodpecker (Picus viridis).
(14)
The barbarian must defer to the Latin poet, Ovid, who
offers a hilarious description of the true identity of
this aboriginal king that conveys a sense of the
primitive scene of the woodpecker's court for those who
do not get the Greek joke. He tells us that the aged
ruler "carried home acorns and blackberries, knocked from
bramble bushes, and dry wood to feed the blazing
hearth."(15)
And it is in this version of
the story that the woodpecker-king "halted, despite the
load he bore,"(16)
to greet the grieving "ancient
woman"(17)
at the well. We are told that for many days, she had sat
on what has come to be known as the "Sorrowful Stone" by
the Well of the Maidens, "motionless under the open sky,
patiently enduring the moonlight and the
rain."(18)
The arboreal green woodpecker is best known as a "weather
prophet,"(19)
and a "rain-bird,"(20)
because its loud cry is said to warn of rain. This sound
of forewarning has been described as a "ringing laugh,"
hence the bird's echoic English name of Yaffle;
(21)
or Nicker, which denotes "a suppressed laugh . . .
also used of horses'
neighing."(22)
The Greek name Celeus, or Keleos, literally means
'to cry', or 'call', sometimes with specific reference to
one who calls out orders, or commands, such as a god.
(23)
The erudite Robert Graves has described this aged king as
a "sorcerer"; (24)
a description much in keeping with
. . . an earlier
stratum of thought in which birds were regarded not
merely as portending the weather but as potencies who
actually make it, not, that is, as messengers but as
magicians. This early way of thinking comes out most
clearly in the case of a bird who never became the
'attribute' of any Olympian, the homely woodpecker.
(25)
This indigenous woodpecker-king,
then, is "predeistic"; (26)
never to become a god, only to be subsumed under an
all-powerful invading god of thunder and lightning, the
patriarchal sky-god, Zeus. (27)
It is this same invasive god who adopts the sacred oak as
his tree, thus obliterating Demeter's role as the goddess
of the oak, queen of the ancient woodlands. Demeter's
arboreal past is purposefully overshadowed, also, by her
more sophisticated and very powerful agrarian functions.
The memory of her earlier role is preserved in Ovid's
very moving telling of "The Sacrilege of Erysichthon" in
his Metamorphoses. (28)
The sacrilege, which causes the most ancient oak in
Ceres's (29)
sacred grove to tremble and groan, its leaves and acorns
to turn white, and its long branches to lose their color,
exemplifies the "might is right" behavior typical, also,
of the ever-encroaching Zeus. Long before our own
Eleusinian story begins, he has already raped Demeter,
and it is their child who is the subject of this mother's
"sorrowful wanderings."(30)
In the Homeric Hymn, he has secretly arranged for
their daughter, Persephone, to become the unwitting bride
of her Uncle Hades, or Pluton, the ruler of the
underworld. This succession of incestuous relationships
points to the rule of matrilineal descent, which requires
marriage into the female line in order to secure the male
god's power. The taking by force is a serious affront to
the matriarchal status-quo, and Demeter is furious. The
world as she has known it for countless aeons has just
been changed forever, and the storyteller allows us to
bear witness to her sorrow, her rage, and her
mourning.
Throughout the numerous variants of this mother-daughter
myth, the old ways are contrasted with the new at the
very moment of their change-over. In our Hymn to
Demeter, all of the more primitive archaic characters
exhibit a numinous relationship to the acorn and the
mother oak, and are generally represented as aged or
earthy, and therefore of the old order. Demeter's
mournful disguise allows us to feel her dark and ancient
roots.
. . . she was
like an ancient woman who is cut off from childbearing
and the gifts of garland-loving Aphrodite, like the
nurses of king's children who deal justice, or like
the housekeepers in their echoing halls.
(31)
She is addressed with the utmost
deference and respect as "old
mother"(32)
by the four young daughters of the king, the fruit of the
ancient rain-bird, who in stark contrast, were "like
goddesses in the flower of their
girlhood."(33)
They are enthusiastically welcoming to one whom they know
not, but who they instantly recognize as one of their
own; acknowledging her as an illustrious ancestor of
their stock. They "spoke winged
words"(34)
to the stranger at the well, the "old mother" oak who,
since time immemorial, had provided nourishment to their
acorn-eating totemistic clan. These flowers of youth,
have given their own old mother, Metaneira, 'she who
lives among maidens', her name.
(35)
The place-name of the daughters of Keleai has been
translated variously as both 'woodpecker-town'
(36)
and, in the context of a cult site, as the place of 'the
crying women'. (37)
The youthful maidens, whose bird ancestry is emphasized
by their "winged words," have come to the well "for
easy-drawn water, to carry it in pitchers of bronze to
their dear father's house."(38)
We know that the indigenous magician-kings made "thunder
and lightning with . . . rain-birds and water-pails and
torches."(39)
This would have been the archaic method by which Keleos,
the "old man,"(40)
supplied the plentiful amounts of rain needed to produce
bumper acorn crops. The presence of the ancient woman at
the water source hints that this primitive practice is
about to come to an end. She, too, will be
transformed.
"With her head veiled and wearing a dark
cloak,"(41)
she entered the "humble hut"(42)
of "heaven-nurtured Celeus"(43)
and his aged Queen, Metaneira, who "sat by a pillar of
the close-fitted roof, holding her son . . . in her
bosom."(44)
At the very moment that Demeter reached the threshold,
that liminal place of transformation, her light shone out
of the darkness, illuminating all in her presence. But
she, herself, remained wrapped in her silence until "a
certain old crone, Iambe, joked the goddess and made her
smile."(45)
. . . the
goddess walked to the threshold: and her head reached
the roof and she filled the doorway with a heavenly
radiance. Then awe and reverence and pale fear took
hold of Metaneira, and she rose up from her couch
before Demeter, and bade her be seated. But Demeter,
bringer of seasons and giver of perfect gifts, would
not sit upon the bright couch, but stayed silent with
lovely eyes cast down until careful Iambe placed a
jointed seat for her and threw over it a silvery
fleece. Then she sat down and held her veil in her
hands before her face. A long time she sat upon the
stool without speaking because of her sorrow, and
greeted no one by word or by sign, but rested, never
smiling, and tasting neither food nor drink, because
she pined with longing for her deep-bosomed daughter,
until careful Iambe --who pleased her moods in
aftertime also--moved the holy lady with many a quip
and jest to smile and laugh and cheer her heart.
(46)
Much has been written, but little
of substance said, about the words and actions of the old
crone, Iambe, who makes her all too brief appearance in
these lines of the Homeric Hymn. From these sparse
lines we know nothing whatsoever as to the content of her
performance before the goddess. We know only that "it was
a big hit."(47)
The Homeric poet has named her Iambe, thus
articulating her function as court jester at Keleai, and
"aftertime" as Demeter's personal Fool in the Mysteries
at Eleusis. She is, in fact, the first female Fool in
literature, and perhaps as old in oral tradition as "the
first court jester on record," Danga, (2325-2150 B.C.E.)
the Egyptian fool of Pepi II, "a pygmy . . . who could
'dance the God, divert the court and rejoice the heart of
the King'."(48)
Scholarly writers seem to have gone out of their way to
deny the connection between Iambe's name and the iambic
meter, which was used to the exclusion of all other
rhythms in the lambastic comic poetry of the Greek poets.
Even those sympathetic to Iambe have waivered, as for
example, Winifred Lobell, who allows an unsubstantiated
comment of another scholar to interfere with the truth.
She tells us that
Because of the
suggestive nature of Iambe's remarks to the goddess,
implying coarse or lewd humor, and because other
sources from Orphic literature and later commentaries
describe Iambe as lame and halting in her gait,
scholars once [italics mine]
thought that the comical character Iambe was the
original source of inspiration for the iambic meter of
Attic Greek poetry, used for satiric invective in
halting verses. (49)
The most recent and reliable
scholarship confirms that Iambe was, and is, the
progenitor of "satiric invective in halting
verses."(50)
N. J. Richardson, one of the world's most highly regarded
experts in these matters, states without reservation that
Iambe is the "eponym of the iambic
rhythm,"(51)
which is to say, that it derives its name from her. We
would argue that it is the Homeric poet's explicit intent
to show that very connection and, by so doing, to raise
the lowly status of the comedic form by immortalizing the
accomplishments of the fool who made a goddess smile.
Theirs is a relationship not unlike that of king and
fool, in which the insulting and abusive extemporaneous
pronouncements of the fool act as a mirror for the king.
After all, the term iambos refers, also, to 'the
person who is lampooned'. (52)
Aristotle had scant praise for this satiric form; the
iamb, being "considered by the ancient Greeks to
approximate the natural rhythm of
speech."(53)
In the Poetics he states that "the iambic is, of
all measures, the most colloquial";
(54)
comedy being reserved for "an imitation of characters of
a lower type."(55)
Francis M. Cornford, in his detailed analysis of the
ritual patterns and origins of Attic comedy, adds that
Aristotle was of the opinion that "the more frivolous and
worthless [poets] represented the actions of the
ignoble, and composed
invectives."(56)
He goes on to say that
The natural
metre for invective is the iambic--a term, indeed, the
use of which to describe this metre is derived from
these primitive invectives, for to 'iambize' a person
means to make him the object of abuse, satire, lampoon
. . . . (57)
To cheer the sorrowing Demeter's
heart, the Homeric text tells us only that Iambe employed
"many a quip and jest"; a "quip" being but 'a smart,
neatly turned jest'; a "jest" being 'a mocking or
bantering remark, a jibe, or taunt'. It is her name, and
all that it implies, which conveys the full sense of the
scene, complete with "invective", or 'violent verbal
attack'. The "object of abuse" becomes so in the truest
sense of being beaten until broken. The words "lambast",
and "lame," similarly rooted in the word lam,
which means 'to thrash, beat, flog; literally, to lame,
to break', are explicit in this regard. But, while "lame"
means simply 'to break', "lambast" expands the intent,
which is 'to beat soundly, thrash'; 'to scold or denounce
severely'. The physical violence is amplified by the
verbal with the addition of baste to lam,
which in the first sense, means 'to strike, or beat', and
in the second, 'to attack with words; abuse'.
The rhythm of iambic verse, with its pattern of a short,
followed by a long stressed syllable, itself imitates the
halting gait of the lame; taking a firm step with the
first foot forward, and then dragging the second foot to
meet the first--again and again--into a limping rhythm of
iambic "feet," or measured arrangement of syllabic
patterning. We should not, then, wonder why such a wise
poet as Robert Graves has interpreted Iambe's name as
'limping' to remind us of her former fame.
(58)
The Homeric bard has written unspoken volumes in his
choice of the appellation Iambe.
Most others call her Baubo, a name that has been
the subject of much rancorous debate among scholars.
Apollodorus calls her both "old crone" and
"Iambe"(59)
and, although we have no indication as to Baubo's age
anywhere in the Homeric text, we know her, or intuit her,
as a wise old crone. This, in fact, is the meaning of
Baubo. The name itself is long-lived. A source
attesting to the survival of Baubo's name into the early
twentieth century is found in the Thracian mummers's
plays, where "Babo ('a word in general local use
meaning an old woman') is the name of the old woman who
carries about a child in a basket-shaped cradle . . . .
"(60)
This same spelling of her name occurs also on ancient
inscriptions from Galatia in Asia Minor,
(61)
where some have sought Baubo's origin;
(62)
and from the Cycladic island of Paros,
(63)
where others argue for her beginnings.
(64)
Whether or not a linguistic connection exists, the
Russian word babushka, which in general usage
refers to the scarf, or shawl, worn on the head by
females of many ages, literally means 'grandmother', or
by inference, 'old woman'. Another coincidence of
similarity that should not be overlooked is found in the
name of Baba-Yaga, the famous witch of Russian folk-tale.
Her motto in the tale of The Beautiful Wassilissa
is, "To know too much makes one
old!"(65)
Deferring to the always illuminating lectures of
Marie-Louise von Franz, we learn thorough her analysis of
the archetypal elements of this tale that "one can see
clearly that the Baba-Yaga is the great Mother
Nature."(66)
She presents compelling evidence, equating the opposing
attributes of darkness and light that are exhibited in
this fascinating old witch with those same aspects of
Demeter.
So she is a
Goddess of day and night, of life and death, and the
great principle of nature. Also she is a witch, which
is why she has a broom . . . . She goes around in a
mortar with a pestle, which makes her resemble a great
pagan corn Goddess such as Demeter in Greece, who is
the Goddess of corn and also of the mystery of death.
The dead in antiquity were called demetreioi, those
who had fallen into the possession of Demeter, like
the corn falling into the earth.
(67)
Baubo's crone aspect is underlined
by her belated association with "the dread
Hekate,"(68)
a witch figure who is depicted as "the leader of the
women initiates" at the Eleusinian Mysteries on an early
5th century B.C.E. tablet. (69)
Of course, Hekate's place is unquestioned in the rites of
mother and daughter, for all three are goddesses of the
underworld, together representing the Maiden, Mother,
Crone aspects of the moon. We have a clear sense of who
she is from Sophocles's vision of her: "the moonlight was
her spear, and her brows were bound with oak-leaves and
serpents."(70)
Hekate, whose name signifies the 'far-off one',
(71)
a meaning encompassing both the dark phase of the moon
and the underworld all at once, is the helpful old crone
whom Demeter, "the bright
goddess,"(72)
encounters "on the tenth enlightening
dawn"(73)
of her search. It is unspoken, but understood, that their
place of meeting is at the crossroads. This is Hekate's
usual place of residence, where offerings are made to her
on the last day of the lunar month, and the place where
the women gather to cry to the invisible moon for its
return. (74)
The lunar aspects, themselves, tell the story of the
eternally returning cycle of nature, which is the
subject of the Demetrian rites at Eleusis. Through a
strange confluence of twists and turns, the old crone of
our study has not a little to do with the announcement of
this archetypal theme.
Ignoring the 'old woman' except as a perjorative, the
general consensus finds 'belly' to be the most proximate
translation of Baubo, which, while being strictly
intended as a euphemism for her sexual organs,
unknowingly points to her role as acorn mother. Prudish
Christian influences seem to have won out in favor of
this meaning, which, from their narrow point of view, is
designed to denigrate her sacred function by reducing her
to a crippled old crone possessed of a repertory of foul
jokes and lewd gestures. The untiring efforts of her
detractors have shifted the focus below her belly to
produce translations of Baubo such as "that which
the woman exhibited to Demeter, that is, the female
pudenda," a pronouncement made in 1893 that has become
the prevailing mantra of modern scholars.
(75)
Regardless of the accurate statements of other scholars
to the effect that the evidence is entirely lacking, the
phallocentrically-inspired obsession persists. Some of
this "thinking" has been fostered by Freudian
psychoanalytic theory, which is extreme in its views of
sexuality to begin with. We offer two such examples, one
of which would be considered extreme by any
standards.
All of our
testimony having to do with cult practices in Greece
mentions ritual jesting rather than exposure. . . .
The Baubo figurines from Priene in Asia Minor (fifth
century B.C.E.) provide further evidence of the
explicitly sexual content of the humor associated with
Baubo. The figurines are "personifications" of the
female genital organs: arms, facial features, and hair
molded to look like clothes drawn up, are added to the
lower abdomen and legs. (76)
A footnote to this statement cites
the view of another scholar whose egregious
interpretation is one that Karen Horney would describe as
a clear case of "womb envy," for we are expected to
consider that the terra-cotta images of Baubo "could be
interpreted as phalloi which have been decorated as
females by the addition of a face and genitalia beneath
the glans."(77)
This warped perspective brings us to a brief mention of
the linguistic associations of the word acorn with
the glans penis. Citing the connection in numerous
languages, the Jungian maverick, James Hillman, informs
us that many languages use the same word for both.
(78)
The influence of Zeus, and other thunderous Indo-European
gods who laid claim to the mother's sacred oak, is
recognizable in this linked etymology "because the acorn
was called the juglans, or glans penis of
Jupiter."(79)
There is a remarkable similarity between the Greek word
balanos, which serves this dual purpose, and words
in the very oak-identified ancient Celtic languages,
whose meanings are suggestive only of the acorn. "In
Irish and Scottish Gaelic . . . for example, there is the
word BaLlan, which means a natural cup-like hole
in a stone. . . . The word BeaLan means 'little
mouth' or 'mouthful' . . . There is also an Old Irish
word, BiLe (plural BiLeN), meaning 'sacred
tree', which clearly connects with tree
Ogham,"(80)
the secret Druidic Beith Luis Nion tree alphabet
upon which the modern Irish alphabet is based.
(81
The fact of the matter is, that the excesses of vulgar,
lewd, behavior are the very essence of the old comedic
form, which, in Aristotle's view, finds its basis in the
highly sacred ancient fertility rites.
(82)
This is his view, also, of the Phallika, or
Phallic Songs, that " 'iambic'
element"(83)
of aischrologia, or ritualized 'foul language and
abuse', (84)
later called "shameful language" by the moralizers, which
provides the sole basis and origin for the comedy of the
Attic stage. (85)
The improvised ridicule of the "extempore
speeches"(86)
performed "at the expense of individuals by
name,"(87)
became known as Iambi, a label "given both to the
performers and to their
compositions."(88)
We see Baubo, or her stand-in, in this exact role on the
bridge to Eleusis where she plays the role of Demeter's
Fool. Like all fools, Baubo is an outsider. The crucial
significance of her inclusion in the mysteries of the
mother-daughter pair, albeit outside the Sacred Gate, has
never been realized from the perspective of a transfer of
power from Acorn Mother to Goddess of the Grain. But that
is exactly what these mysteries purport to be about, at
least on the exoteric level. To make sure that this point
is not lost on the initiates, as it has been lost on us,
she is referred to by the name of Baubo, or
'Belly'. By her position outside the gates, we are meant
to understand, as Mylonas has so categorically stated,
that "the Eleusinian tradition has no place for Baubo
at the site of
Demeter."(89)
We find Baubo, therefore, on the outskirts of the
sacred ground of Eleusis, where, as the mother of the
older order she ceremoniously lambasts those arriving to
receive the Demetrian rites of the new.
As the initiates wended their way along the Sacred Road
from Athens to Eleusis, they arrived at a bridge, where
the procession halted for a rest.
If not for the
rule of secrecy, we should surely have explicit
descriptions of what happened when the river Kephisos
in Athens was crossed. . . . On the bridge the
procession was awaited by mockery and strange games,
the gephyrismoi, or "bridge jests." According
to one report, they were performed by a woman, a
hetaira; according to another, by a man masked as a
woman. In Aristophanes a comic old woman boasts of
having figured at the bridge, in a cart. She was
playing the role of Iambe, or rather of Baubo, who
with her jokes and obscene gestures moved Demeter to
laughter. This episode served also to relieve the
mourning of the mystai. It was the moment to drink the
kykeon which the women had brought along . . . .
(90)
The 'Jesting at the Bridge', as it
became known in the comedy of the Athenian stage,
(91)
"seems to have been apotropaic; piling insult on exalted
persons so that they would be humbled and would not be
visited with the jealous reactions of the evil
spirits."(92)
Of course, as we would expect, the vague and unspecified
jokes and inferred obscene "jestures" originally
addressed to Demeter by her Fool are re-enacted here in
an equally vague and unspecified way, paraphrased and
enlarged for a wider audience. The clitoral claim, which
insists on the specifics of her actions, must, then, have
its origin in a transference to Baubo of the later
experience of the phallophoric antics of the Attic stage
-- performances which, in turn, derive from the sacred
abuses that are so integral to the agricultural ritual of
all times. Sexually-charged words and actions have always
been central to these ritual enactments in the field, and
to the closely-held secret goings-on of women's rites.
When, in time, the phallocentric fool became the double
of the verile king, he became the ringleader of the merry
bands who roamed the countryside hurling insults at
everyone they met. (93)
Our Iambe, or Baubo, is the first female fool to perform
this sacred function -- and in front of God and
everyone.
Such ludicrous behavior as that exhibited at the bridge
was not to be tolerated by Christian proselytizers who,
seeking to undermine such ancient and holy practices,
deemed them "shameless." A millennium- and-a-half later,
the bishops of Medieval France were still issuing edict
upon edict banning such popular agrarian celebrations,
whilst simultaneously re-naming and adopting bland
versions of the same festivals into the Christian
calendar year. (94)
The excesses continued, regardless. It is not for nothing
that in the game of chess, the Bishop is called, in
French, fou, or 'fool'.
(95)
It is through fools' eyes that much of what we know about
these "obscene gestures" of Baubo have been revealed. To
begin with, the Orphic texts, from which much of the
material was gleaned, are fairly misogynistic. Reading
them through the overlayment of the prejudicial
judgements and purposeful misstatements of the anti-Pagan
fathers of the early church compounds the problem.
(96)
As Eleusinian archaeologist and scholar George Mylonas
has warned us, "we shall find that their testimony cannot
be trusted, that their statements do not correspond to
the facts."(97)
Most unfortunately, influential scholars have relied for
nearly twenty centuries on the words of Clement of
Alexandria (150- ca. 211 C.E.) as gospel. His purposeful
misinterpretations and misrepresentations of the Orphic
mysteries, which incorporate a particular reverence for
Baubo, take on a fever pitch when he gets to what he
perceives as the "sexy parts." Mylonas, who is quoting
Clement directly, calls it an "extraordinary
performance."(98)
In his usual scathing and arrogant style, Clement says,
"I will quote you the very lines of Orpheus, in order
that you may have the originator of the mysteries as
witness of their shamelessness:"
This
said, she drew aside her robes, and showed
A sight of shame; child Iacchos was there,
And laughing, plunged his hand below her
breasts
Then smiled the Goddess, in her heart she
smiled,
And drank the draught from out the glancing cup.
(99)
And this is the hard evidence in
the literature of Baubo upon which all later scholarly
claims are based. Well, the rites of fertility are a very
nasty business, and as T. S. Eliot has observed, "We
had the experience but missed the
meaning."(100)
Thus is the sacred Fool of Demeter transformed in the
written record, causing us to lose sight of her original
calling and status. Like all fools, Baubo is the butt of
many a nasty joke. That is the fate of fools. But fools
have a way of coming back at you. And "wise" Iambe, as
Andrew Lang rightly calls her in his translation of the
Hymn to Demeter, (101)
has done just that, not only in the few images of her
that have survived, but in the Orphic Fragments,
which when read without prejudice, reveal another side of
her.
In one of the Orphic versions of our acorn fool's
mythology, pieces of which date from the 6th century
B.C.E., (102)
we are introduced to a very earthy Baubo who is married
to a swineherd named Dysaules. His rather unfortunate
name means 'he who is poorly housed'. Theirs is not a
pretty picture. We are meant to feel the raw and
primitive life of the uncivilized barbarian. One is
reminded of King Lear's aside to his Fool as they enter
the hovel on the rain-drenched heath. With a well-placed
verbal kick at the mirrored image of himself, he says,
"You houseless poverty ,-- Nay, get thee
in."(103)
A visceral reaction is anticipated by Clement's
paraphrased and augmented version of the
Fragments, in which he denigrates the "primitive"
origin of the Eleusinian Mysteries. He tells us the
following:
At that time
Eleusis was inhabited by aborigines, whose names were
Baubo, Dysaules, Triptolemos, and also Eumolpos and
Eubouleus. Triptolemos was a herdsman
[cowherd], Eumolpos a shepherd, and Eubouleus
a swineherd. These were the progenitors of the
Eumolpids and of the Kerykes, who form the priestly
class at Athens
[Eleusis].
(104)
We do not rise to his occasion,
however, because the lowly status here envisioned is
unremarkable in the history of fools, both historical and
mythological, --- and sometimes they are the same. The
fool as former swineherd, shepherd, and cowherd is the
norm rather than the exception.
(105)
What we find here that is so
extraordinary, is the definitive proof that the tradition
is of such great longevity.
The varying "historical" traditions and local variants of
the story of the founding of the Eleusinian Mysteries
present a cornucopia of genealogies that are impossible,
and pointless to disentangle. In the end it hardly
matters whether, as some claim, Dysaules was the brother
of Keleos, and not the husband of Baubo,
(106)
or whether Baubo was the daughter of Keleos and
Metaneira, and not merely a respected woman of their
household. What is of far greater relevance to our
interests in exposing the truth about the mysterious
Baubo lies in the unravelling of their names, for in the
Greek language, one's name tells the whole story in one
word. It should be apparent from the start how
appropriate it is for a swineherd to be the son of the
acorn mother.
In this telling, the fortunate Eubouleus, whose name
means 'good counsel', witnesses Persephone's abduction by
the god who rules below the earth. As the story goes,
"Eubouleus was guarding his pigs when the earth was cleft
asunder and the path to the underworld opened. The pigs
disappeared into the chasm together with the
goddess."(107)
As Kerenyi warns us, however, "there is something more of
Eubouleus in the tale than his mere name: he had to do
with the path leading to the
underworld."(108)
His involvement with this path is so all-encompassing, so
layered under different guises, that it is the stuff of a
conspiracy theorist's dream. His collusion with the
underworld god, Hades, or Pluto, is revealed by Hesychios
of Alexandria in his highly regarded 5th century
Lexicon, where "it is expressly stated that Pluton
is Eubouleus"; (109)
"the god of the Underworld
himself."(110)
This keeper of pigs is a "mysterious divinity" among the
chief gods worshipped in the Mysteries at Eleusis.
(111)
He represents an aspect of Zeus which is not ouranian, or
heavenly, but subterranean and chthonic.
(112)
It should not come as a surprise that there are so many
chthonic elements in all of the stories of the
mother-daughter pair, after all, the myth is about the
tragic disappearance and happy return of Persephone from
the underworld realm. But, an accounting of the
dramatis personae produces an overwhelmingly
subterranean cast of characters. Persephone, the 'Bringer
of Destruction', and her mother have a very dark past.
They are already deities who are both feared and loved
long before their story begins. "Whenever she is
mentioned in the Iliad, she receives the title of
. . . 'awful', which implies praise and fear of her in
equal measure."(113)
The "She" here referenced is Persephone, but Demeter is
the "awful goddess" of whom the opening line of the
Homeric Hymn speaks, and to whom it is most
reverently addressed. (114)
They are the same, this pair. So, it is for her other
half that Demeter mourns and rages; and as Christine
Downing has so elegantly phrased it in her poignant essay
on "Persephone in Hades," "only a goddess could mourn so
extravagantly."(115)
And there is the dark Hekate, too, of whom it has been
said, "she seems to be the double of Demeter
herself."(116)
They are, all three, looked upon with absolute fear and
reverence, but it is fragrant, flower-like Persephone
who, as the officially installed Queen of the Dead,
becomes most visible "as the secret, hidden, ineffable
goddess, related to things beyond, not even to be named
except as Thea. She is, as Freud called her, the
silent goddess of death."(117)
It is this Persephone whom the initiate meets in the
underworld, and who reveals the darkest and the most
illuminating aspects of life. This is, after all, a story
about initiation.
Elsewhere, we have shown numerous instances in which the
initiate is directly associated with the pig in the
underworld. (118)
The sow was the preferential sacrifice in all of the
ancient rites of Demeter, but the presentation of pigs as
a sacrificial offering was nowhere more in evidence than
at the Eleusinian mysteries of this "awful
goddess"(119)
whose brilliance had "filled the doorway with a heavenly
radiance"(120)
as she crossed the threshold at Keleai.
. . . the pig
was something more than Demeter's favorite animal;
even the poorest mystai had to sacrifice pigs to her
before they could be initiated. The slaughtering of
the 'mystical pigs' was a true expiatory sacrifice.
The animals died in place of the
initiand."(121)
Each of the initiates, as they trod
the sacred path to Eleusis, carried with them a little
pig destined for sacrifice to the mother of the grain and
her underworld daughter; the 'Two Goddesses', as they
were called, who were but two halves of the same whole.
The initiates bathed in the sea with the piglets in their
arms, together purified by the cleansing waters. This was
followed closely by the slaughtering of the little animal
by the initiate herself, a ritual act through which "the
identification of the sacrificer with the sacrifice is
clearly expressed,"(122)
and which assured a further purification of the
initiand.
The blood of the
pig was considered a very potent agent of purification
with the power to absorb the impure spirit inhabiting
human beings. Each initiate, therefore, had to
sacrifice his [sic] pig for himself
[sic]. (123)
When this had been accomplished the
pig itself was again purified, this time by fire. The
mystical union of mystae and sacrificial victim thus
created an especially potent communion between the
goddesses to whom the sacrificial meal was proffered and
the initiate who shared the meal.
There is, in these most moving rites, a further unspoken
issue of blood, and that is the sacrosanct connection
between the pig and the blood rites of women. This is a
secret that the patriarchy did its best to keep silent,
for the mysteries of Demeter and Persephone at Eleusis
were originally women's mysteries, rites of passage that
reflected upon the phases of the moon in the life of the
woman as Maiden, Mother, and Crone. The nine days of
initiatory rites at Eleusis began in the last third of
the month, lasting, it may be presumed, until the new
moon showed its crescent in the sky. From the moment of
Persephone's disappearance, and echoing her on earth,
Demeter began her mournful wanderings, was aided by dark
Hekate of the crossroads, and arrived at Keleai, the
place of 'the crying women',
(124)
this has been a story about the disappearing and
wandering moon in thinly veiled gynomorphic disguise.
(125)
It is hard to imagine how men could have been included in
these lunar blood rites of women. That they became
something other than that which women had shared among
themselves and between themselves and their goddess, is
everywhere apparent in the very public mixed-sex rites.
These later celebrations purport to exclaim the glories
of the grain. But the elements of blood, and pigs, and
moon, and wanderings in the underworld, and a miraculous
return therefrom, except for the later with respect to
dying and reviving vegetation in general, seem rather
extraneous to such agrarian concerns. After the invention
of agriculture by women, who had been the gatherers of
edible plants, herbs, nuts, and fruits, it was their
goddess, Demeter, who revealed the secrets of planting
and harvesting, which she shared with all of the people.
Baubo's first-mentioned cowherding son, Triptolemos, "the
threefold warrior,"(126)
is the one chosen for the task of spreading the word, but
he is specifically excluded from the inner esoteric
mysteries. (127)
There is an explicit separation between "the gift of the
telete (of the Mysteries) and the gift of the fruits---of
the produce of the earth."(128)
If the later is Triptolemos's sole concern, then the
Mysteries of Mother and Kore are about something
else.
The Christians, who turned "the 'temenos of the world'
into a wasteland" at the end of the 5th century C.E.,
(129)
knew exactly what these Mysteries were about. After all,
they relied on the authority of the likes of Clement of
Alexandria, whose false testimony spewed nothing but
hatred, hysteria, and fear. They buried the evidence so
well that it took archaeologists one hundred and fifty
years to unearth the scattered remains.
(130)
These Demetrian Mysteries were, after all, the greatest
religion that the world had ever known; mysteries that
offered "a hope of immortality and a belief in the
eternity of life."(131)
The inspirations of the awesome rites, whose celebrations
mark not only the change from a harsh pre-agricultural
past, but which hold out the hope, also, of a "happy
arrival"(132)
in the underworld with Persephone leading the way, are
anything but lost. The secret of the Mysteries is in the
sky for all the world to see.
And it is to the moon, or at least, to the singing that
called the moon out of her darkness that we now turn our
attention. In the Orphic Fragments, we meet
another of Baubo's sons, Eumolpos, "'the sweet singer',
[in whom] one can recognise the officiating
priest of the Eleusinian
Mysteries."(133)
From the very beginning of the established cult, all of
the High Priests, or Hierophants, as they were
called, the 'revealers of the holy things', were of the
Eumolpidai, (134)
'they who sang beautifully' with "voices resounding in
the rights of the holy
nights."(135)
For over two thousand years, the sacred mystery of the
Mysteries "was transmitted orally from Hierophant to
Hierophant over so many
generations."(136)
The extraordinarily high regard in which this priesthood
was held, this holy order which claimed descent from
Baubo, is detailed by George Mylonas, the archaeologist
who devoted the better part of his life to the
excavations and documentation of Eleusis.
The
Hierophant was the High Priest of the Cult of
Demeter at Eleusis. He was from the family of the
Eumolpids and held office for life. He alone, at the
most solemn moment of the celebration, could show to
the worshippers the Hiera [Holy Things], the
revelation that completed the initiation. . . . He
alone could enter the Anaktoron [the Holy of
Holies]. In Roman times especially his personal
name could not be spoken; he was a hieronymos, and his
sanctity was paramount. His name headed the list of .
. . those maintained at public expense in the
Prytaneion of Athens. It was he who proclaimed the
holy truce and sent messengers . . . to the Hellenic
world inviting all Greeks to participate in the
celebration and to send tithes due to the Goddess. . .
. He was an impressive figure, wearing elaborate
vestments, and his sudden appearance, bathed in
brilliant light, in front of the opened doors of the
Anaktoron, filled the initiates with wonder and awe.
(137)
Similar honors were accorded the
two Hierophantides, the High Priestesses of
Demeter and Kore, who also claimed descent from Baubo's
illustrious line of Eumolpidai. Other claims say that it
was "the daughters of Keleus [who originally]
performed the holy rites of the two goddesses" with
Eumolpos. (138)
As an example of their power and privilege, we are told
that at the time when the Romans were flocking to the
Eleusinian initiations, one of these sacrosanct women
"had set the crown on the heads of Marcus Aurelius and of
Commodus."(139)
We are informed, also, that the office of the Priestess
of Demeter "was so exalted that occasionally she disputed
with the Hierophant the privilege and right of
celebrating certain
sacrifices."(140)
In addition to the exalted Hierophantides, there was an
ever-watchful all female presence in permanent residence
at the site. These were the famous Melissai, or
'honey bees' of Demeter, the "Priestesses
Panageis," or 'all-holy ones'; "ministrants of the
cult,"(141)
who, like the female worker bees for whom they were
named, "had no communion with
men."(142)
Although we are uncertain as
to whether their selection for service was "drawn
exclusively" on the basis of their ancestral Eumolpidaic
line, (143)
their title describes exactly who they were.
The honors and privileges, such as those bestowed upon
the family of Baubo, tell us one thing --- that she was
once a goddess in her own right before she entertained a
goddess greater than she. But it is as Demeter's Acorn
Fool that she earns her fame. Iambe anticipates, by many
generations, the wisdom tradition of the Celtic oak
priests, the Druidic magicians whose verbal skills were
so finely honed that they were said to be able to kill
with words. (144)
In spite of all the bad-mouthing, Iambe's consummate way
with words remains unchallenged. The enormous
seven-stringed harp that she so proudly displays in her
images alludes to her role as a singer of song. It is
Iambe, or Baubo of Keleai, who sings the goddess out of
her darkness and causes her to shine again.
NOTES: I AM BAUBO, THE ACORN
FOOL
1. Shakespeare, A
Midsummer-Night's Dream, IV,1, 89.
2. Hugh G. Evelyn-White, Hesiod The Homeric Hymns and
Homerica (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, The
Loeb Classical Library, 1914-1954), Intro., p. xxxvi
regarding establishment of dating.
3. George E. Mylonas, Eleusis and the Eleusinian
Mysteries (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969),
p. 14.
4. Ibid., pp. 8-9.
5. The statues are from Demeter's 5th century B.C.E. Temple
at Priene, on the Ionian coast of Asia Minor. Three of these
are reproduced in Erich Neumann, The Great Mother: An
Analysis of the Archetype (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, Bollingen Series XLVII, 1955), Plate
48.
6. Webster's New World Dictionary of the American
Language, College Edition, (Cleveland and New York: The
World Publishing Co., 1959) is used throughout this
article.
7. see: Tracy Boyd, "Diana of Willendorf: The Acorn Mother"
at www.sacredthreads.net
8. Sir James George Frazer, The Golden Bough: A Study in
Magic and Religion. Part I, The Magic Art and the
Evolution of Kings, Two Volumes (London: Macmillan and
Co., Ltd., 1922), Vol. II., p.353.
9. Ibid., Vol. II, pp. 354-56 cites numerous
Classical authors' references to acorn eating.
10. Ibid., Vol. II, p.354, citing historian Pylorus,
xii.4.
11. Ibid.
12. George E. Mylonas, op. cit., p. 248.
13. Homeric Hymn to Demeter, trans. Hugh G.
Evelyn-White, Hesiod The Homeric Hymns and Homerica,
op. cit., 90-97., p. 295.
14. A Greek-English Lexicon, Compiled by Henry George
Liddell and Robert Scott (Oxford: Oxford university Press,
9th ed., 1983), "Keleos", p. 936.
15. Ovid, Fasti, trans., Sir James George Frazer,
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, The Loeb
Classical Library, 1976), Book IV, 509-10., p. 227.
16. Ibid., Book IV, 515-16., p. 227.
17. Homeric Hymn to Demeter, op. cit., 101.,
p. 297.
18. Ovid, Fasti, op. cit., Book IV, 505-06.,
p. 227.
19. W. B. Lockwood, The Oxford Dictionary of British Bird
Names (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993),
"Woodpecker", p. 170.
20. Jane Ellen Harrison, Epilegomena to the Study of
Greek Religion and Themis: A Study of the Social Origins of
Greek Religion (New Hide Park: University Books, 1962),
p. 101.
21. John Pollard, Birds in Greek Life and Myth
(London: Thames and Hudson, 1977), p. 48; referencing
Aristotle, History and Animals, VIII, 593 A 8.
22. W. B. Lockwood, op. cit., "Nicker", p. 107.
23. A Greek-English Lexicon, op, cit.,
"Keleos", p. 936; and related words, p. 937.
24. Robert Graves, The Greek Myths (Harmondsworth,
Middlesex: Penguin Books Ltd., 1955, 1960), Two Volumes,
Index, "Celeus", Vol. II, p. 385.
25. Jane Ellen Harrison, op. cit., p. 100.
26. Ibid., pp. 108-09, Note 3.
27. Ibid., pp. 100-117, passim.
28. Portions of "The Sacrilege of Erysichthon", along with
my commentary, appear in the Appendix at the end of the
Notes to this article.
29. Ceres is Demeter's Latin name.
30. George E. Mylonas, op. cit., p. 290, quot.
Clement of Alexandria, Protreptikos, II, p. 12.
31. Homeric Hymn to Demeter, op. cit.,
101-105., p. 297.
32. Ibid., 113., p. 297.
33. Ibid., 107-08., p. 297.
34. Ibid., 112., p. 297.
35. Robert Graves, The Greek Myths, op. cit.,
Vol. II, Index, "Metaneira", p. 400.
36. Jane Ellen Harrison, op. cit., p. 101.
37. George Thomson, Studies in Ancient Greek Society: The
Prehistoric Aegean (NY: The Citadel Press, 1965), p.
129.
38. Homeric Hymn to Demeter, op. cit.,
106-07., p. 297.
39. Jane Ellen Harrison, op. cit., p. 109.
40. Ovid, Fasti, op. cit., Book IV, 515; 523.,
p. 227.
41. Homeric Hymn to Demeter, op. cit.,
181-83., p. 301.
42. Ovid, Fasti, op. cit., Book IV, 526., p.
227.
43. Homeric Hymn to Demeter, op. cit., 184.,
p. 301.
44. Ibid., 186-87., p. 303.
45. Apollodorus, The Library, trans., Sir James
George Frazer, (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press,
The Loeb Classical Library, 1921-1976), I.v.1., p. 37.
46. Homeric Hymn to Demeter, op. cit.,
188-205., p. 303.
47. Mel Brooks, "The 2000 Year Old Man", in which Mel Brooks
explains to Carl Reiner some of the occupations that he has
had through the years. This hilarious comment is about his
very lucrative switch from being a manufacturer of Stars of
David to becoming a manufacturer of crosses.
48. Beatrice K. Otto, Fools Are Everywhere: The Court
Jester Around the World (Chicago: The University of
Chicago Press, 2001), Appendix: Table of Named Jesters, p.
277.
49. Winifred Milius Lubell, The Metamorphosis of Baubo:
Myths of Woman's Sexual Energy (Nashville & London:
Vanderbilt University Press, 1994), p.15; italics
mine.
50. Ibid.
51. N. J. Richardson, "Iambe" in The Oxford Classical
Dictionary, 3rd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1999), p.741.
52. A Greek-English Lexicon, op. cit.,
"iambos", p. 815.
53. Encyclopedia Britannica.com, "iamb", article
7/0,5716,42807,00.html#article.
54. Aristotle, Poetics IV.14., in Aristotle's
Poetics, with an Introductory Essay by Francis
Fergusson, trans. S. H. Butcher, (New York: Hill and Wang,
1961), p. 57.
55. Ibid., V.1., p.59.
56. Francis Macdonald Cornford, The Origin of Attic
Comedy, ed. Theodore H. Gaster, (Garden City, NY: Anchor
Books/ Doubleday & Co., Inc., 1961), p.101.
57. Ibid., pp. 101-02.
58. Robert Graves, The Greek Myths, op. cit.,
Index, "Iambe", Vol. II, p. 396.
59. Apollodorus, The Library, op. cit.,
I.v.1., p. 37.
60. W. K. C. Guthrie, Orpheus and the Greek Religion: A
Study of the Orphic Movement (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, First Paperback printing, 1993), p. 135,
cit. R. M. Dawkins, in The Journal of Hellenic
Studies, 26.,1906.
61. Ibid., cit. CIG 4142.
62. George E. Mylonas, op. cit., p. 293.
63. W. K. C. Guthrie, op. cit., p. 135.
64. George E. Mylonas, op. cit., p. 293.
65. Marie-Louise von Franz, Shadow and Evil in
Fairytales (Zurich: Spring Publications, 1974), p.
160.
66. Ibid., p. 161.
67. Ibid., pp. 161-62.
68. W. K. C. Guthrie, op. cit., citing Hymn.
Mag., Abel, Orphica, p. 289, cp. O. F.
53.
69. C. Kerenyi, Eleusis: Archetypal Image of Mother and
Daughter, trans. Ralph Manheim, (New York: Schocken
Books, 1977), p. 79.
70. Lewis Richard Farnell, The Cults of the Greek
States, 5 Vols., (Chicago: Aegean Press Inc., 1971),
Vol. 2, p. 512, quot. Sophocles's 'root-gatherers'.
71. Ibid., Vol. 2, p. 501.
72. Homeric Hymn to Demeter, op. cit., 63.,
pp. 292-93.
73. Ibid., 51., pp. 292-93.
74. see: Tracy Boyd, "Singing the Moon" at
www.sacredthreads.net This is an article based on "The Queen
of the Underworld", a chapter from the author's unpublished
manuscript, The Death of Matriarchy, 1978-88.
75. George E. Mylonas, op. cit., p. 293 and note 11;
pp. 293-299 passim.
76. Marilyn Arthur, "Politics and Pomegranates: An
Interpretation of The Homeric Hymn To Demeter", in
The Homeric Hymn to Demeter: Translation, Commentary, and
Interpretive Essays, Helene P. Foley, editor,
(Princeton: Princeton University Press Mythos Series, 1999),
p. 229; for Arthur's explanation of the Freudian background
of her analysis of the Hymn, see also pp. 216-17, and
216, note 6.
77. Ibid., p. 229, note 26, citing C. Ruck, "On the
Sacred Names of Iamos and Ion", in Classical Journal
71:235-52.
78. James Hillman, The Soul's Code: In Search of
Character and Calling (New York: Random House, 1996),
pp. 276-281.
79. Ibid., p. 279.
80. Steve Blamires, Celtic Tree Mysteries: Secrets of the
Ogham (St. Paul, MN: Llewellyn Publications, 1997), p.
39.
81. Tracy Boyd, "The Fool's Hand" at www.sacredthreads.net
This is a chapter from the author's unpublished manuscript,
The Tarot Fool, 1990-95.
82. Francis Macdonald Cornford, op. cit., "The
Phallic Songs", p.102; for Cornford's entire discussion,
see: Para. 41-47, pp. 101-114.
83. Ibid., p. 106.
84. Liddell and Scott, A Lexicon Abridged from Liddell
and Scott's Greek-English Lexicon (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1977), "aischrologia", p. 22.
85. Cornford, op cit., p. 102.
86. Ibid., p. 107.
87. Ibid., p. 106.
88. Ibid., p. 107.
89. George E. Mylonas, op cit., p. 293.,
italics mine.
90. C. Kerenyi, Eleusis: Archetypal Image of Mother and
Daughter, op cit., p. 65, and note 68, citing
Hesychios of Alexandria, Lexicon, "gephuris";
and note 69, citing Aristophanes, Plutus 1014. George
E. Mylonas, in Eleusis and the Eleusinian Mysteries,
p. 256, notes the bridge as that which crossed the
Eleusinian Kephisos, not the Athenian.
91. Francis Macdonald Cornford, op. cit., pp.
105-06.
92. George E. Mylonas, op. cit., p. 256.
93. see: Tracy Boyd, "Some Notes and Thoughts on The Daunce
of Nine-Men's-Morris and the Boundaries Between Worlds" at
www.sacredthreads.net
94. see: E. K. Chambers, The Mediaeval Stage
(Mineola: Dover Publications, Inc., 1996, Two Volumes as One
unabridged republication of the 1903 edition.) Vol. I, pp.
89-390.
95. E. Cobham Brewer, The Dictionary of Phrase and Fable:
Giving the Derivation, Source, or Origin of Common Phrases,
Allusions and Words that Have a Tale to Tell (New York:
Avenel Books, Classic Edition Facsimile of 1894 rev. ed.,
1978), "Fool", p. 477.
96. George Mylonas, op. cit., pp. 288-305.
97. Ibid., p. 228.
98. Ibid., p. 292.
99. Ibid., quot. Clement of Alexandria,
Protreptikos II, pp. 16-18.
100. T. S. Eliot, Four Quartets, III. "The Dry
Salvages", line 93.
101. Andrew Lang, The Homeric Hymns: A New Prose
Translation and Essays, Literary and Mythological (New
York: Longman, Green and Co., 1915), p. 194, 'wise', from
the Greek 'kedn' eiduia'.
102. Fritz Graf, "Orphic literature", in The Oxford
Classical Dictionary, op. cit., p. 1078.
103. Shakespeare, King Lear, III.iv.26-27.
104. George E. Mylonas, op. cit., pp. 291-92.
105. Beatrice K. Otto, Fools Are Everywhere: The Court
Jester Around the World, op. cit., p. 4.
106. George E. Mylonas, op. cit., p. 41.
107. C. Kerenyi, Eleusis: Archetypal Image of Mother and
Daughter, op. cit., p. 171.
108. Ibid.
109. Ibid., p. 170; p. 213, note 167.
110. C. Kerenyi, The Gods of the Greeks, trans.
Norman Cameron, (London: Thames and Hudson, 1979), p.
243.
111. George E. Mylonas, op. cit., p. 238.
112. see: Ibid., p. 309; and C. Kerenyi, Eleusis:
Archetypal Image of Mother and Daughter, op.
cit., p. 170.
113. C. Kerenyi, "Kore", in C. G. Jung and C. Kerenyi,
Essays On a Science of Mythology: The Myth of the Divine
Child and the Mysteries of Eleusis, trans. R. F. C.
Hull, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, Bollingen
Series XXII, 1973, p. 125.
114. Homeric Hymn to Demeter, op. cit., 1., p.
289.
115. Christine Downing, "Persephone in Hades" in The
Goddess: Mythological Images of the Feminine (New York:
The Crossroads Publishing Co., 1981), p. 39.
116. C. Kerenyi, "Kore", op. cit., p. 110.
117. Christine Downing, "Persephone in Hades", op.
cit., p. 44.
118. Tracy Boyd, "Circe's Circle of Oaks At the Edge of the
World" at www.sacredthreads.net
119. Homeric Hymn to Demeter, op. cit., 1., p.
289.
120. Ibid., 188., p. 303.
121. C. Kerenyi, Eleusis: Archetypal Image of Mother and
Daughter, op. cit., p. 55. Kerenyi is here
referring to the expiation of blood-guilt for the likes of
Hercules, and Jason and Medea, but it applies equally to all
initiates.
122. Ibid., p. 56.
123. George E. Mylonas, op. cit., pp. 249-50.
124. George Thomson, op. cit., p. 129.
125. A full discussion of these subjects is explored in
Tracy Boyd, "Singing the Moon" at www.sacredthreads.net This
is an article based on "The Queen of the Underworld", a
chapter from the author's unpublished manuscript, The
Death of Matriarchy, 1978-88.
126. C. Kerenyi, The gods of the Greeks, op.
cit., p. 242.
127. George E. Mylonas, op. cit., p. 21.
128. Ibid., pp. 269-70, quot. Isokrates,
Paneg. 28.
129. Ibid., p. 8.
130. Ibid., p. 13.
131. Ibid., p. 283, quot. M. P. Nilsson, Greek
Popular Religion, p. 63.
132. C. Kerenyi, Eleusis: Archetypal Image of Mother and
Daughter, op. cit., p. 23; and pp. 92-93 re:
Demetreioi as "the folk of Demeter."
133. C. Kerenyi, The Gods of the Greeks, op.
cit., pp. 242-43.
134. C. Kerenyi, The Heroes of the Greeks, H. J.
Rose, trans., (London: Thames and Hudson, 1974), p. 289.
135. C. Kerenyi, Eleusis: Archetypal Image of Mother and
Daughter, op. cit., p. 23.
136. George E. Mylonas, op. cit.,p. 226.
137. Ibid., pp. 229-30.
138. Pausanias, Guide To Greece, trans. Peter Levi,
Two Volumes (Middlesex: Penguin Books Ltd., 1979), Vol. I.,
Central Greece, I.38.3, p. 107.
139. George E. Mylonas, op. cit., p. 231.
140. Ibid.
141. Ibid.
142. Ibid., p. 232.
143. Ibid.
144. Robert Graves, The White Goddess: A Historical
Grammar of Poetic Myth (New York: Farrar, Straus and
Giroux, 1974: 7th printing of Amended and Enlarged Edition
of 1966), p. 22.
APPENDIX
"THE SACRILEGE OF ERYSICHTHON"
AS TOLD BY OVID IN THE METAMORPHOSES
The memory of Demeter's
earlier role as the goddess of the oak, queen of the ancient
woodlands, is preserved in Ovid's very moving telling of
"The Sacrilege of Erysichthon" in his Metamorphoses.
This story of the mutilation and killing of the most sacred
oak in Ceres's (1)
ancient grove, a tree that some have regarded as the "Tree
of Life,"(2)
provides an extraordinarily graphic instance of the reading
of myth as history. Even with the fields heavy laden in the
foreground, the backdrop is a time of difficult transition
from acorn-gathering to agricultural harvesting; a time when
the world still imagined the oak tree as a goddess rather
than a god. This is a tale of unspeakable violence with an
equally violent message from the spirit of the trees. In its
telling is a dire warning for all time.
Among these
trees there stood a huge oak, which had grown sturdy and
strong in the course of years, a forest in itself, hung
round with wreaths and garlands and votive tablets,
tributes for prayers that had been granted. Under this
tree the dryads often held their festive dances, often
they joined hands in a circle and embraced its trunk,
whose circumference measured fifteen cubits. . . .
(3)
Yet this did not deter Erysichthon from wielding his axe
against it. He ordered his servants to cut down the
sacred tree and, when he saw them hesitate to carry out
his commands, the scoundrel snatched an axe from one of
the men, and shouted: "Should this tree be itself a
goddess, and not just a tree the goddess loves, still its
leafy top will be brought down to earth!" As he uttered
these words, he held his weapon poised, ready to strike
the trunk obliquely. The oak tree of Ceres trembled and
groaned: at the same time, the leaves and acorns began to
turn white, and the long branches lost their colour.
Then, when his impious hand had made a gash in its trunk,
blood flowed out where the bark was split open . . .
Everyone stood still in horrified amazement: out of all
the company, one man dared to try to prevent the
sacrilege, to stop the cruel axe. . . . Erysichthon
glared at him. . . and swung his axe against the man
instead of the tree, lopping off his head. Then he turned
again to the oak, and dealt it blow after
blow.
Meanwhile, from the
heart of the tree, a voice was heard saying: "I who dwell
within this tree am a nymph, whom Ceres dearly loves. I
warn you with my dying breath, that punishment for your
wickedness is at hand: that thought comforts me in
death." But Erysichthon persisted in his criminal action.
When the tree had at length been weakened by innumerable
blows, ropes were attached to the trunk, and it was
brought crashing down, creating havoc in the wood as it
fell, by reason of its great weight. All her sister
dryads, sorely distressed at the loss which the grove and
they themselves had suffered, dressed themselves in black
garments, and mournfully approached Ceres, begging that
Erysichthon should be punished. That most beautiful
goddess consented; nodding her head, she made the fields,
heavy with harvests, tremble, as she devised a
punishment. . . . She planned to torment him with deadly
hunger. (4)
But, as Ovid explains in his always
charming metaphoric language, "Since destiny does not allow
Ceres and Hunger to meet, (5)
Ceres conspires in a roundabout way with Hunger to starve to
death the wielder of the axe. The torturous punishment that
she metes out to Erysichthon is divine justice in the truest
sense, that in which the punishment quite justifiably fits
the crime. There can be no doubt among his fellow man as to
the nature of his crime, for no matter how much food and
drink he consumes, his appetite remains unsated.
. . . when in
the violence of his malady he had consumed all that was
offered and had thus merely aggravated his grievous
sickness, the wretch began to bite and gnaw at his own
limbs, and fed his body by eating it away.
(6)
This tale of sacrilege provides a
chilling example of how sacred power is removed from the
feminine realm. From an animistic point of reference, what
is here destroyed is nothing less than Ceres, herself.
Virgil's lines of 29 B.C.E. are a reminder to his fellow
Romans not to forget her.
. . . see that
no one puts
The sickle to the ripened corn before,
In Cere's honour, crowned with a wreath of oak,
He's trod a lumbering measure and uttered her hymns.
(7)
And as Virgil sings of the pleasures
of the combined gifts of grain and nut, he asks the Dryads,
the 'oak nymphs' who inhabit Ceres's acorn-laden trees, to
join in the dance.
......................................You
brightest lamps
That lead the year's procession across the sky;
Liber and nurturing Ceres, since your grace
Procured that earth should change Chaonia's acorns
For the rich ears of grain, and grapes be found
For lacing cups of Achelous' water;
You too, the present help of farmers, Fauns
(Come, Fauns and Dryad maidens, dance together:
Yours are the gifts I sing) . . . .
(8)
APPENDIX NOTES:
1. Ceres is
Demeter's Latin name.
2. See: E. O. James, The Tree of Life: An Archaeological
Study, (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1966), p. 33.
3. A Greek cubit = 18.3 inches, so the girth is about 22.875
feet.
4. Ovid, Metamorphoses, VIII, from The
Metamorphoses of Ovid, translated, with an introduction
by Mary M. Innes (Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books,
Inc., 1955), pp. 199-200.
5. Ibid., VIII, 785., p. 200.
6. Ibid., VIII, 856-57., p. 202.
7. Virgil, The Georgics, translated with Introduction
and Notes by. L. P. Wilkinson (Middlesex: Penguin Books
Ltd., 1982), i. 347-50., p. 68.
8. Ibid., i. 5-11., p. 57.
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