Helen of Troy

by Jack Lindsay

  A relief from Sousa in the Louvre has been interpreted as showing Nin-har-sag as goddess of birth; she spins before a table on which is set a fish; behind her is an attendant with a square fan on a staff. The latter has been taken to be raising the wind while the goddess, twirling her spindle, conjures up the vortex of the storm — flood or rain being represented by the fish. However that may be, we see the spindle as a magical source of power which belongs to women. Spindle and distaff appear on reliefs of the Great Mother or Kybele, together with mirrors, the same three articles are found on gravestones in Phrygia and Bithynia, near springs and elsewhere. In Ephesos was found a small statue of a goddess, interpreted as Artemis, who grasps her spinning equipment and presses it to her body with its stiffly-rounded robe. In the passage from the Odyssey where Helen comes out from her chamber to meet Telemachos, we saw her described as ‘like Artemis of the golden arrows’. But the term is chrysēlakatos, literally ‘golden-distaffed’. Hesychios glosses it as meaning ‘with beautiful bow; for ēlakatē is the arrow-shaft’ or reed. He may be correct, but hēlakatē normally means distaff or spindle-stalk, though it is used by botanists for the joint of a reed or cane, or for a reed. In whatever way the ēlakatē of Artemis came to be used for her arrows, the mixture of meanings is significant. The mother-goddess could operate with spindle or arrow; and we find in an inscription ‘the ēlakatē of old age’ meaning ‘the fate of old age’. Nine lines after the reference to Artemis in the Odyssey, ēlakatē appears in the sense of distaff as a servant-girl brings Helen her work materials. When Herakles is enslaved by Queen Omphale (Navel) in Lydia, he discards his maleness by spinning; nothing could more fully submit him to the domination of the female principle. And this point remains even if we see here a mythical reflection of the transvestism practised in several Greek marriage customs. When we recall the way in which the ritual thread is identified with the navel-string and spinning with both birth-throes and coition agitation, the name of the woman setting Herakles to distaff and spindle is surely significant. As the Navel she is the female centre, the core of spiralling life. In a sense she is the spindle personified.[369]

  The idea of weaving as a cosmic process, which involves the texture, pattern and length of human lives, is found in India. In the Vedas, the two sisters Night and Day, ‘like two weavers working in happy accord, weave the taut threads together’. Thus is woven the web of time. When the sacrifice is ‘stretched’, as in Satapatha Brahmana, that web is also stretched; this act amounts to making the world last yet another year. The Sun is the cosmic weaver, often compared with a spider. Sometimes the atman is the spider, sometimes the Imperishable, sometimes God. ‘As a spider comes out with its thread...so from the atman issue all breaths, all worlds, all gods, all beings’: Brihadaranyaka Upanishad. Post-Vedic texts identify the cosmic weaver with the atman or Brahman, or with a personal god like Krishna in the Bhagavad-gita. We also meet the image of the beaded necklace: ‘All this universe is strung upon me, as rows of gems on a thread,’ says Krishna. The idiom is common. In the Tripura Rahasya the Spirit (literally Migrant or Newcomer) states that without it the folk of a town ‘would be scattered and lost like pearls without the thread of the necklace’. Such ideas and images help us to realize the full scope of the labyrinthine thread-and-dance, and of the necklaces of Harmonia and Helen.

  The Greeks too saw the cosmic process in terms of weaving and spinning. Plato in the Timaios calls Lachesis the Law, Nomos, which accompanies the Physis or physical aspects of the universe. In the Phaidros she is the Thesmos (Law, ‘What is laid Down’) of Adrasteia the Inescapable. Some thinkers took Klotho to represent the present, Lachesis the future, Atropos the past, though in the Republic Plato gave past time to Lachesis and future to Atropos. In any event the spinning-weaving Fates were woven into the cosmic structure. Ploutarch saw the cosmos divided into three parts: the fixed, the planetary, the sub-planetary about the earth. Highest was the spinner Klotho; then Atropos who did not turn; lowest, Lachesis the Alloter who received the activities of her sisters and transmitted them to the earth regions. The imagery recurs in mystery systems. In the Mithraic relief at Osterburken we see Lachesis in the middle with a pair of scales; on her right, Atropos with a scroll; on her left, Klotho apparently with a whorl. Lachesis separates out the raw materials of life; Klotho spins the threads (combines the elements); Atropos provides the completed bodies whose fate is fixed in the web.[370]

  *

  Europa has come up in relation to the sacred marriage in the Gortyna tree and the big wreath of the Hellotia. Homer knew her as a carried-off heroine; Zeus, detailing his loves, includes ‘the daughter of far-famed Phoinix, who bore me Minos and god-like Rhadamanthys’, but says nothing of the bull-shape he took in raping her. The name of the father suggests that already she was connected with Phoinikia, as in the rationalized version of her myth given by Herodotos. She was also linked with Kadmos, of Phoinikian or Tyrian lineage in legend; it was indeed his quest for Europa, his sister, that led him to Crete and then to the Greek mainland, where the Delphic oracle bade him follow a certain kind of cow and build a city where she sank down in fatigue.

  Europa’s cult, we saw, certainly came from Crete to the mainland; and there were historical facts behind the tradition of Thebes’ connection with the Levant. Excavations in what is called the Palace of Kadmos there have turned up thirty-six oriental seals, one with a cuneiform inscription. The seals belong to the Kassite-Babylonian period of the fourteenth century, though a few are earlier, one is Mitannian and another is Syro-Hittite. An agate shows a god taming wild animals; two cylinders depict a griffin and a wild bull’s capture; a Babylonian cylinder shows a winged demon tamed by a seated deity, and above winged beasts is a winged Lady of Wild Things; some of the many beads are in the form of small figure-of-eight-shields. No cylinder is later than 1300 BC. Previously not more than eleven cylinders had been found in the whole Aegean area, and only two of those in Crete were certainly from Babylon.

  Europa was carried off by a bull come up from the sea; Kadmos in quest of her follows a cow to the spot destined for Thebes. There seems some link with the bull-cults and bull-games of Minoan Crete. Minos’s wife fell in love with a bull and bore the Minotaur; her bull, sent by Zeus or Poseidon, came up out of the sea and was also said to be Zeus himself. There was also the story that Daidalos made a cow-model, in which the queen inserted herself so as to mate with a real bull. Semele, daughter of Kadmos, bore Dionysos, the god who had a bull-form and was worshipped as Son of the Bull. We must add the myth of Io, turned to a cow by jealous Hera and driven on a far wandering. Hera had put her under the care of all-seeing Argos, who tied her to an olive tree in Hera’s grove at Mykenai; but Hermes, guided by a bird which was in fact Zeus, killed him. At Argos Io was said to head the chronological list of the priestesses of Hera, as Kallirhoe or Kalleithyia.

  As in other myths of the ravished earth-bride, Europa was picking flowers by the seashore when Bull-Zeus came. Poets said the bull’s breath smelt of crocus. Europa on vases appears as a goddess, winged or holding fish or flower, at times grape-laden vine-boughs or a hoop, a necklace said to be a wedding gift made by Hephaistos. She is thus linked with Helen, Harmonia, Ariadne. Her mating with Bull-Zeus was in the Diktaian Cave near Gortyna, where Zeus was also said to have been born, with bees, goat or doves as his nurses. But in art stress is laid on her passage, riding the Bull, over the seas; and the cow that guided Kadmos came from the herds of Pelagon (pelagos, sea), whose sister Aigina was carried off by Zeus. Both Helen and Ariadne also were taken across the sea. There may be in the motif a reflection of the journey to the otherworld; at Malekula the spirit voyage involves both labyrinth passage and water-crossing. And we recall the Minoan depictions of what seems a goddess embarking on a sea-voyage.[371]

  In the royal tomb of Dendra, dated round mid-fourteenth century, were found eight small worn plaques of blue glass, each with holes for two threads to fasten it to a helmet. Each plaque shows a woman seated on an animal that
may well be a bull, which is moving fast forwards. The woman sits on one side and seems to be dressed with kaunakes (Assyrian guannakka, frilled and flounced mantle). She has been taken for Europa, or an early form of the goddess who finally got that name. Certainly we seem to see the direct ancestress of Europa-Astarte on Sidonian coins (111 BC-AD 117), of Aphrodite-Ariadne on Cypriot coins, of Artemis Tauropolis, worshipped especially in Asia Minor, also in Macedonia, and put on coins, for instance of Amphipolis. We may recall also the cult of Aphrodite Epitragia, Goat-rider, or Pandemos, which at Athens was connected with Theseus’ voyage to Crete and may be of Cretan origin.

  But two seal-impressions from Hagia Triada in Crete suggest that we must not too confidently claim the Dendra beast as a bull. One impression shows a woman with kaunakes who rides a strange monster; the other shows the foreparts of two creatures of the same kind. The type belongs to the series of serpent-griffins of the Mesopotamian religion, which extend from early days into the Assyrian and neo-Babylonian periods. The Dendra animal may have been some similar sort of fantasy creature, though it is much more like a bull than the Hagia Triada monsters. The motif of a deity supported by an animal, actual or fabulous, has a long history in Mesopotamian art, though usually the deity stands on the animal. Still, we do meet the god enthroned on the animal’s back and then seated right on a lion-headed griffin. Deities also kneel on the animal, but are as well shown riding, gods astride, goddesses on one side. The Hittites took the motif over. In oriental examples we find a deity riding a bull; and in Greek archaic times a goddess appears as Lady of Bulls, a form of the Lady of Wild Things. Thus on two replicas of belt-clasps from Crete and Kolophon a goddess stands flanked by two bulls or in a bull-drawn chariot.

  Both the Hagia Triada seal and the Dendra plaques show the woman riding with graceful effect, her arms raised in a ritual gesture. ‘The suggestion occurs that not only Cretan-Mykenean imagery passed over to Greek art in the image of Europa on the bull, but that that form as well as its religious content persisted in the images of several special cults’ (Levi), as shown by the coins already cited.[372]

  On a Caeretan vase we see Europa holding a flower to her nose as she rides the bull over the sea, which is indicated by the dolphin leaping ahead. She is nearing land, shown by a hillock with three trees up which a hare is going. But the most interesting detail is that the bull is tricoloured. We are reminded of the story of Glaukos, son of Minos, who dies and is resurrected — an initiation myth. His body is found by the seer Polyidos, whose role in the story is linked with his ability to answer a riddle set by Apollo: ‘A portent has been born to you. He who can interpret it will also restore your son.’ The portent is a calf in Minos’ herds that changes colour three times a day (every four hours), first white, then red, then black. Polyidos shows that the changes compare with those of a mulberry as it ripens. (Agelai, herds, was the term used for the Cretan bands of youths who were initiated together. The threefold changes of the calf are triadic changes undergone by the initiate: the calf of the agela, the lad in his mimic death, the lad in his mimic rebirth.) The Souda tells us that the Woman-Cow Io was by turns white, black, violet; we surmise there was a link of Io with the three stages of the girl initiates of Hera. The triadic system appears in the Spinx’s riddle: man on four legs, two legs, three legs — three stages of growth. Perhaps the triple colours played some part in the rites of Demeter-Europa; otherwise it is hard to think how the Caeretan artist made his learned guess.[373]

  We saw earlier how Hera in her mysteries represented the threefold stages of growth in women; initiations in Crete showed three stages (the lad’s departure, his ordeal in seclusion, his return with a new status); on the mainland we find the same pattern (pompē or processional departure; agōn, ordeal or contest; kōmos, triumphant return). Through her connection with the sacred marriage or through some lost link with groups of girl initiates in Crete (as Glaukos was linked with the youth agelai), Europa has a bull who represents three states: perhaps maidenhood, copulation, emergence as a wife with adult status.[374]

  Europa, Ariadne, Helen — and we may add Harmonia — have thus many traits in common. They all seem ancient vegetation-goddesses, earth-mothers. The sacred marriage comes out most plainly with Europa; the cult of tree-goddess with Helen. Ariadne in terms of ritual myth is the most complex figure, dying reborn, wife of Dionysos, lady of the labyrinth of ordeal or spirit passage, of initiation and journey into the unknown. A relief on a tripod-leg from Olympia (about 600 BC) shows how easily she could merge with Helen or Harmonia. She and Theseus stand facing one another, as later on the Chest of Kypselos, holding out a garland and a lyre between them. Theseus fingers the lyre, a band with a plektron on his lower arm, while Ariadne holds out the wreath, which he grasps, raising his free hand in salutation. We are reminded of the reliefs from the shrine of Artemis Orthia, in which two figures hold a wreath or wreaths between them.[375]

  But Helen has one characteristic separating her from Europa, Ariadne, or any of the many heroines raped or carried off by gods. She is a married woman. In this aspect she does not seem to be a projection of the mysteries of marriage or girl initiation. Apart from the way in which Homer makes her a convincing person at the centre of a great historical conflict, she has claims to exist in her own right as a woman, however much at one level she merges with the plane-mother or the spirit leader of the Spartan girls dancing by the Eurotas.

  Chapter Twelve – Nemesis

  We still have Nemesis to consider. Our main interests are her bird-form in the sacred marriage and her place in the group of mother-deities become fates or life-controllers. In Idyll XV of Theokritos, Praxinoa cries, ‘Women know everything, yes, even how Zeus married Hera.’ The phrase is clearly proverbial and suggests that the tale of the marriage was once a secret bit of mystery lore in a woman’s cult-association. The scholiast explains, citing Aristotle’s treatise on the Sanctuary of Hermione: ‘Zeus planned to marry Hera. Wanting to be invisible and unseen by her, he changed his shape into a Cuckoo’s and perched on a mountain once called Thronax but now Cuckoo. And on that day he raised a mighty storm. Now Hera was walking alone and she came to the mountain and sat down on it.’ Thronax embodies thronos, throne. ‘She sat where the sanctuary of Hera Teleia now is. And the cuckoo was shivering and frozen from the storm, so it flew down and settled on her knees. And Hera had pity at the sight and covered it with her cloak. And Zeus at once changed his shape and grabbed hold of her...The image of Hera in the temple [at Argos] is seated on a throne, and she holds in her hand a sceptre and on the sceptre is a cuckoo.’ Teleia means Fulfilled: with the mystery of marriage consummated.

  Pausanias adds a point of correction. ‘There are two mountains and on their tops are sanctuaries: on Mt Cuckoo one of Zeus, on Prōn [Headland] one of Hera. At the foot of Mt Cuckoo is a temple, but there are no doors standing and I found it without roof or image inside. Not far off was a headland called Sparrow and a site called Twins.’[376]

  Two hawks rest on a sphere at the top of a fine gold sceptre found at Kourion in Cypros, dated eleventh century, probably part of the regalia of the local kings; it would have been mounted on a wooden or ivory staff. Birds and sphere are set with cells containing white, green and mauve enamel: note the three colours. Aristophanes treats the bird-sceptre as an emblem of royalty in The Birds: ‘They [birds] held so powerful a sway that if anyone was king in the cities of the Greeks, an Agamemnon or a Menelaos, a bird used to sit on his sceptre, sharing whatever bribe he got. — I didn’t know that. And indeed I used to gape with wonder when some Priam came out on the tragic stage with a bird.’ Hawks suggest some such god as Horos of Egypt, and are not likely to represent a goddess. But a female figurine with birdface from a Late Bronze-Age tomb in Cypros, with huge ears perforated for clay earrings, has been called a Dove Aphrodite; its type looks to Syria. The goddess holds her breasts. Another bird-headed figurine of about the same date holds her arms behind her back and wears a bracelet. The bird-head may represent a mas
k with magical functions, or the artist may have meant to show a goddess who was half a bird. A goddess who manifests herself as bird seems certainly shown in a Mykenean figure with three doves, one over her head, the others flying out at the sides in opposite directions. She holds her breasts and is naked: an unusual thing for art of this culture and suggesting oriental influence. The work is one of the cut-out ornaments of embossed gold sewn on the clothes of a woman buried in Shaft Grave III; other decorations show octopus and butterfly, common themes of Minoan art, as well as sphinx, griffin and an heraldic arrangement of cats, deer, birds.[377]

  The goddess of the archaic era, usually termed the Lady of Wild Things, often holds a pair of birds, with other wild animals around; and she herself is often winged. There are eastern analogies, but the roots seem to go vigorously back into the Minoan-Mykenean world. In a Cypriot work of the early sixth century (an advanced stage of orientalizing art) the goddess smells a flower and holds birds in both hands. The birds here are probably both manifestations of the goddess and her servants. We find Artemis as a Quail. Ortygia, a place-name near Delos, near Syracuse, near Ephesos, and in Aitolia, may be taken to mean the Place of the Quail-Goddess. Aristophanes in The Birds calls Leto mother of the Quail, that is, Artemis; and Sophokles says Artemis was called Ortygia in Euboian worship. At Tyre the quail was sacrificed for the yearly resurrection of Herakles. Agrotera, Wild Woman, was a cult-title of Artemis the Huntress at Agrai in Attika, at Sparta, and elsewhere.[378]

  The bird perched on the double-axe set on a cult-pillar painted on the limestone sarcophagus of Hagia Triada (about 1400 BC) represents a divine epiphany. The main scenes depict a trussed bull lying on a table, a priestess pouring a libation at an altar to pipe-music, and votive offerings being brought to the dead man, who stands before his own tomb in some sort of apotheosis; at the ends are two goddesses in chariots, one drawn by horses, one by griffins. The bird on the axe has been seen as a raven, a magpie, a woodpecker; but a good case can be made for the cuckoo, which, like the painted bird, perches with wings open. (The open wings may however merely represent the moment of alighting.) Hesiod tells us that the cuckoo, calling in the oak, signalled the spring moment for Zeus to rain. Aristophanes has perhaps some folklore in mind when he tells us: ‘A Cuckoo was king of Egypt and again of the whole of Phoinikia; and when the cuckoo cried cuckoo, all the Phoinikians used to reap the wheat and barley in their fields.’ And he invents the name Cloudcuckoobury for his fantasy realm of the Olympos-usurping birds. In any event the bird on the axe represents a divine epiphany, a union of heaven and earth, the cuckoo-moment that heralds or brings about the fertilizing rain. A passage from Aischylos’ Danaides, spoken by Aphrodite, sums up this aspect of the sacred marriage. ‘There is desire in the holy [agnos] sky to pierce the body of Earth and the Earth desires to be mated. Rain falling from the amorous Sky flows into the Earth, and she bears for men the fodder for their flocks and the sustenance belonging to Demeter [crops] and there comes too for trees the hour of moistening marriage fulfilment. I am the cause of all this.’ The Danaides, heroines of the play, were the water-bearers, the spring-nymphs for thirsty Argos.[379]