1 00:00:04,083 --> 00:00:10,046 We saw in an earlier lecture that Hesiod uses genealogy as a manipulable, flexible, 2 00:00:10,046 --> 00:00:15,053 very robust structuring device to try to piece together lots of different 3 00:00:15,053 --> 00:00:19,604 traditions that are around him. He knew in the Greek city states that, 4 00:00:19,604 --> 00:00:23,278 where his neighbors, lots of different ways of treating the divinities. 5 00:00:23,278 --> 00:00:27,085 And now, he was faced with a question of, well, how might they all fit together? 6 00:00:27,085 --> 00:00:32,001 So, he decides to turn to genealogy to try to find a place for all of them and an 7 00:00:32,001 --> 00:00:34,021 ordering system that can make them all fit. 8 00:00:34,021 --> 00:00:39,077 There's a wonderful example that I thought we'd start off our talk today with, drawn 9 00:00:39,077 --> 00:00:44,040 from the American magazine The New Yorker and a cartoonist named Roz Chast. 10 00:00:44,040 --> 00:00:49,052 Some years ago, she put together something called The Cosmology of Timmy in the New 11 00:00:49,052 --> 00:00:54,052 Yorker where we see the mind of a very young boy trying to figure out all the 12 00:00:54,052 --> 00:00:58,071 disparate, invisible, and powerful creatures in this person's life. 13 00:00:58,090 --> 00:01:03,053 We'll see Timmy try to string them together using genealogy as a system. 14 00:01:03,071 --> 00:01:08,264 His own immature brain, he knows that there's some powerful figure called God. 15 00:01:08,264 --> 00:01:13,004 There's also something called Santa, and the Boogeyman, and Heidi, and a Gremlin, 16 00:01:13,004 --> 00:01:15,652 and a Sandman. He's not sure how they all fit together. 17 00:01:15,652 --> 00:01:18,477 So, in his own mind, he starts to draw a family tree. 18 00:01:18,477 --> 00:01:23,035 If God is the highest one, well, the next one is probably going to be Santa because 19 00:01:23,035 --> 00:01:27,281 he knows that Santa the, the man in the red suit that bring, brings grifts, gifts 20 00:01:27,281 --> 00:01:31,886 at Christmas time is going to be someone who probably is very closely related to 21 00:01:31,886 --> 00:01:34,656 this highest being. So, he had Santa be the main, main 22 00:01:34,656 --> 00:01:38,018 offspring of God. He also knows that bad stuff happens in 23 00:01:38,018 --> 00:01:42,097 the world so in addition to this layer of Santa, there's this offspring of God 24 00:01:42,097 --> 00:01:46,052 called the Boogeyman. Well, when Santa is looking for a mate in 25 00:01:46,052 --> 00:01:51,024 life, Santa look's for someone that would have a good characteristics in his mate, 26 00:01:51,024 --> 00:01:54,917 so he looks for the tooth fairy. On the other hand, a Boogeyman gets, when 27 00:01:54,917 --> 00:01:58,781 a Bogeyman gets married, a Boogeyman is going to get married to some kind of 28 00:01:58,781 --> 00:02:01,691 witch. So, he's got good ones and bad ones, and 29 00:02:01,691 --> 00:02:04,784 they kinda find each other in this ordering way. 30 00:02:04,784 --> 00:02:10,024 There's a next generation as the tooth fairy and Santa have offspring. 31 00:02:10,024 --> 00:02:14,486 They produce things like Frosty, Frosty the Snowman. 32 00:02:14,486 --> 00:02:19,424 Now, from a famous American cartoon, Rudolph also from an American cartoon. 33 00:02:19,424 --> 00:02:24,125 The Easter Bunny seems to be someone that Santa would likely have as an offspring. 34 00:02:24,125 --> 00:02:28,598 The Easter Bunny would be married to someone named Heidi, who shows up in an 35 00:02:28,598 --> 00:02:32,934 old fashioned Hollywood film. Quite a lovely sprite who lives on the, on 36 00:02:32,934 --> 00:02:37,334 the hills in the rolling countryside. The Easter Bunny and Heidi then have a 37 00:02:37,334 --> 00:02:42,012 next generation of offspring, they have a sandman and some kind of a leprechaun. 38 00:02:42,012 --> 00:02:47,151 On the other side, the Boogeyman and some kind of witch have a Gremlin and alien is 39 00:02:47,151 --> 00:02:49,678 their offspring. And now, this whole family tree and 40 00:02:49,678 --> 00:02:55,043 Timmy's own, more immature mentality as a young boy, they fit together in a set of 41 00:02:55,043 --> 00:02:58,043 relationships that genealogy helps them structure. 42 00:02:58,043 --> 00:03:02,130 Now, in a way that's not entirely different from this, but, but I hope is a 43 00:03:02,130 --> 00:03:06,937 lot more mature and a lot more trenchant, Hesiod is going to try to piece together 44 00:03:06,937 --> 00:03:11,162 lots of disparate traditions around the Greek countryside and try to find places 45 00:03:11,162 --> 00:03:15,097 and relationships among all of them. You'll recall our story begins with a, a 46 00:03:15,097 --> 00:03:19,030 hymn to the Muses where Hesiod gives great praise to them. 47 00:03:19,047 --> 00:03:23,072 Talks to them about all the great characteristics and qualities that they 48 00:03:23,072 --> 00:03:26,037 have, and at the very end says goodbye to them. 49 00:03:26,037 --> 00:03:30,355 We're going to find, when we turn to the hymn that this is more than just hymn like 50 00:03:30,355 --> 00:03:35,607 that actually fits the many of the structuring elements of what makes a 51 00:03:35,607 --> 00:03:39,616 proper Greek hymn. After his opening, hymn to the muses, 52 00:03:39,616 --> 00:03:45,157 Hesiod now turns on page six to the production of order in the cosmos and to 53 00:03:45,157 --> 00:03:49,640 his genealogical template. We'll begin with his statement about how 54 00:03:49,640 --> 00:03:54,019 things all get started with the Chasm. First came the Chasm, and then 55 00:03:54,019 --> 00:03:59,480 broad-breasted Earth, secure a seat for ever of all the immortals who occupy the 56 00:03:59,480 --> 00:04:04,331 peak of snowy Olympus. The misty Tartara in a remote recess of 57 00:04:04,331 --> 00:04:08,461 the broad-path Earth. And Eros, the most handsome among the 58 00:04:08,461 --> 00:04:14,211 mortal, immortal gods, dissolver of flesh, who overcomes the reason and purpose in 59 00:04:14,211 --> 00:04:19,906 the breasts of all gods and all men. Out of the Chasm came Erebos and dark 60 00:04:19,906 --> 00:04:25,545 Night, and from Night in turn, came Bright Air and Day, whom she bore in shared 61 00:04:25,545 --> 00:04:30,091 intimacy with Erebos. In Hesiod's world, there's a kind of 62 00:04:30,091 --> 00:04:36,722 pre-beginning, there's a pre-genealogy where we have four prior existing 63 00:04:36,722 --> 00:04:40,007 entities, the Chasm, Earth, Tartara, and Eros. 64 00:04:40,007 --> 00:04:45,052 These have just been around for all time. It's not as though they emerged. 65 00:04:45,052 --> 00:04:48,246 They're just there as Hesiod begins his story. 66 00:04:48,246 --> 00:04:51,357 The Chasm is a very important figure for us. 67 00:04:51,357 --> 00:04:58,421 In Greek, the term that's being translated by our translator here as Chasm, the Greek 68 00:04:58,421 --> 00:05:02,724 is Xaos. Some translators will choose the English 69 00:05:02,724 --> 00:05:08,044 term Chaos to translate this because the letters match up quite well to the Greek 70 00:05:08,044 --> 00:05:12,061 word and there's an etymological connection between Xaos and Chaos. 71 00:05:12,061 --> 00:05:17,049 The problem is that the Greek doesn't really mean disorder, the ancient Greek 72 00:05:17,049 --> 00:05:20,787 term does not mean disorder at all. It means emptiness, empty space. 73 00:05:20,787 --> 00:05:24,179 So, your translator M.L. West has chosen the term Chasm to 74 00:05:24,179 --> 00:05:28,395 translate that Greek word Xaos and it's actually I think a much better 75 00:05:28,395 --> 00:05:32,429 translation. The Chasm is something that exists at the 76 00:05:32,429 --> 00:05:37,064 beginning, it's the empty space in which the rest of these reproductions happen. 77 00:05:37,064 --> 00:05:41,074 We turn to these other figures of Earth, Tartara, and Eros. 78 00:05:41,074 --> 00:05:47,039 Earth is someone that we'll see, we'll spend a lot of time focusing on in the 79 00:05:47,039 --> 00:05:50,520 coming discussions. She's a key character in Hesiod's 80 00:05:50,520 --> 00:05:55,259 genealogical structures. Tartara is a pluralized name Tartarus, a 81 00:05:55,259 --> 00:06:00,592 more familiar name of a underworld. And a, a region down below the regular 82 00:06:00,592 --> 00:06:06,403 upper world where the created a world that you and I might know, exists and it's very 83 00:06:06,403 --> 00:06:08,332 far down. It's a scary place. 84 00:06:08,332 --> 00:06:11,490 We're going to learn a little bit more about it. 85 00:06:11,490 --> 00:06:15,640 Then, there's this force Eros. Eros is an abstract sexual desire, but 86 00:06:15,640 --> 00:06:19,807 it's nothing like a kind of gentle, helpful love between people. 87 00:06:19,807 --> 00:06:25,638 It's a more violent, sometimes quite dangerous desire that can cause 88 00:06:25,638 --> 00:06:30,745 destruction and violence. Now, these creatures start in a first 89 00:06:30,745 --> 00:06:35,594 phase of creation. Out of Chasm, in any words, Chasm alone 90 00:06:35,594 --> 00:06:41,534 produces Erebos and Night. And then, Night alone produces Bright Air 91 00:06:41,534 --> 00:06:48,478 and Day, but we learn in the closing part of that line that Night after, when she 92 00:06:48,478 --> 00:06:54,253 produces Bright Air and Day, she does it in shared intimacy with Erebos. 93 00:06:54,253 --> 00:07:02,946 So, Chasm seems to be able to reproduce entirely on her own whereas Erebos and 94 00:07:02,946 --> 00:07:07,090 Night come together to produce the Bright Air and the Day. 95 00:07:07,090 --> 00:07:12,006 The next generations are required to have a shared intimacy in order for 96 00:07:12,006 --> 00:07:15,026 reproduction to happen. When reproduction happens all 97 00:07:15,026 --> 00:07:19,066 spontaneously on it's own, we're going to have to pay some attention to it. 98 00:07:19,066 --> 00:07:23,093 The normal way that things happen in Hesiod is by sexual reproduction. 99 00:07:23,093 --> 00:07:27,824 There are creatures that get together, those creatures have sexual relationships, 100 00:07:27,824 --> 00:07:31,023 and then there are offspring from those creatures. 101 00:07:31,023 --> 00:07:35,021 So, now that we've got started on our reproductive cycle, we can take a look at 102 00:07:35,021 --> 00:07:38,073 what happens during this first stage. Let's call it the alpha stage of 103 00:07:38,073 --> 00:07:41,470 generation. Drawing a term from those of the, those in 104 00:07:41,470 --> 00:07:45,062 our world that produce software. You, you remember the very first stage of 105 00:07:45,062 --> 00:07:49,466 software is called an alpha stage, after that comes the beta stage, and then you're 106 00:07:49,466 --> 00:07:53,027 ready for the real thing. So, during the alpha stage, we have 107 00:07:53,027 --> 00:07:58,005 generations that come out of Earth. Earth produces out of herself, in other 108 00:07:58,005 --> 00:08:01,853 words, in that same way that Chasm produces in the very first thing. 109 00:08:01,853 --> 00:08:07,080 She produces many things including sky. Sky then becomes her partner. 110 00:08:07,080 --> 00:08:13,041 She has sexual relations with Sky, and from her come a whole order of Titans, a 111 00:08:13,041 --> 00:08:17,884 whole order of Titans. These are scary creatures, Hesiod calls 112 00:08:17,884 --> 00:08:22,068 them fearsome children. They're not someone to be trifled with. 113 00:08:22,068 --> 00:08:27,479 Also, during this alpha stage of creation come monsters, famous ones. 114 00:08:27,479 --> 00:08:31,875 We know the cyclops and the hundred handers who show up here. 115 00:08:31,875 --> 00:08:37,075 The cyclopses are those who have only one eye in the middle of their forehead. 116 00:08:37,075 --> 00:08:42,677 The hundred handers are large, huge strangely giant creatures that have 100 117 00:08:42,677 --> 00:08:45,157 hands. It's, Hesiod is telling us that these 118 00:08:45,157 --> 00:08:49,817 early generations of create, of the creative process through reproduction that 119 00:08:49,817 --> 00:08:54,559 are happening with are figures like the titans and the monsters, they're not quite 120 00:08:54,559 --> 00:08:56,505 together. They're not quite right. 121 00:08:56,505 --> 00:09:00,079 Things in reproduction in the first cycle don't work quite well. 122 00:09:00,079 --> 00:09:02,569 There's an analogy for those of who make pancakes. 123 00:09:02,569 --> 00:09:06,740 Everyone knows that you've got to throw the first couple of pancakes out. 124 00:09:06,740 --> 00:09:09,348 You try your best, get the griddle just right. 125 00:09:09,348 --> 00:09:11,466 Add your baking soda, add your ingredients. 126 00:09:11,466 --> 00:09:15,599 And if they're not quite mixed just right, your pancake's not going to taste right. 127 00:09:15,599 --> 00:09:18,813 So, you've got to try one, test it out. After you do, you have to toss it. 128 00:09:18,813 --> 00:09:22,676 Just like our software engineers know that there's an alpha stage. 129 00:09:22,676 --> 00:09:28,108 Now, Sky and Earth have a intimate relationship and there's a reproduction as 130 00:09:28,108 --> 00:09:31,957 the Earth is reproducing and reproducing out of herself. 131 00:09:31,957 --> 00:09:36,655 At a certain point, though, in this process of sexual reproduction, Sky gets 132 00:09:36,655 --> 00:09:40,970 annoyed with her mate. I'm sorry, Earth gets annoyed with her 133 00:09:40,970 --> 00:09:46,141 mate, the Sky, and doesn't want Sky to be coming on top of her every evening. 134 00:09:46,141 --> 00:09:51,046 You can imagine in Hesiod's imagination, there's a, as the night is setting, Sky 135 00:09:51,046 --> 00:09:55,367 comes up over top of the earth. And, the Earth is upset by this, she 136 00:09:55,367 --> 00:09:59,325 doesn't want it to happen. So, she talks to her children and says, 137 00:09:59,325 --> 00:10:03,630 children, your father's awful. He keeps getting up on top of me every 138 00:10:03,630 --> 00:10:06,459 night. And when he does, he keeps pressing back 139 00:10:06,459 --> 00:10:10,641 inside of me all the creative things that are about to come out of me. 140 00:10:10,641 --> 00:10:15,133 So, what she's talking about is literally that Sky is pushing back into her what is 141 00:10:15,133 --> 00:10:20,239 trying to come out. He's clogging up her pathways so that none 142 00:10:20,239 --> 00:10:24,181 of her reproductive power is able to exhibit herself. 143 00:10:24,181 --> 00:10:29,623 This is an indication already that the male principal here, figured as Sky, Sky 144 00:10:29,623 --> 00:10:34,501 is definitely gendered male, and the female principal here, Earth, are having 145 00:10:34,501 --> 00:10:38,174 difficulties with this process of sexual reproduction. 146 00:10:38,174 --> 00:10:44,055 The Sky is also threatened by the produce that's coming out of his mate, the Earth. 147 00:10:44,055 --> 00:10:49,064 The male principle is, finds the female power of reproduction to be a little bit 148 00:10:49,064 --> 00:10:53,986 scary and wants to try to control it. He's trying to clog it up so that the 149 00:10:53,986 --> 00:10:57,801 power of reproduction is throttled and stopped, and he has a way to keep it in 150 00:10:57,801 --> 00:11:00,107 place. Now, this upsets of course, the Earth and 151 00:11:00,107 --> 00:11:04,666 she says, children, please gather around. I've got to announce to you something. 152 00:11:04,666 --> 00:11:07,560 Your father's awful. He's on top of me every night. 153 00:11:07,560 --> 00:11:10,611 I don't want him to be there. I've gotta make him stop. 154 00:11:10,611 --> 00:11:15,871 So please, children, let's find a way to make him stop and won't one of you take 155 00:11:15,871 --> 00:11:20,480 this very sharp knife, made out of Adamantine, the hardest substance that we, 156 00:11:20,480 --> 00:11:23,083 creatures know about, and hide behind a rock. 157 00:11:23,083 --> 00:11:28,078 And when he comes on top of me tonight, grab onto his genitals, cut them off, and 158 00:11:28,078 --> 00:11:32,092 throw them into the ocean. Can you imagine a mother saying that to a 159 00:11:32,092 --> 00:11:35,099 child? So, lo and behold, there is a child that 160 00:11:35,099 --> 00:11:38,097 says, yes, mother, I'll help. This little one Cronus. 161 00:11:38,097 --> 00:11:42,057 Cronus dives in and says, I'll do it. Cronus, in fact, does it. 162 00:11:42,057 --> 00:11:46,088 Hides behind a rock, the father comes up on top of the mother at night. 163 00:11:46,088 --> 00:11:51,054 He jumps out, grabs onto the genitals, hacks them off an hurls them into the sea. 164 00:11:51,080 --> 00:11:58,075 After Sky is castrated by his own son, we don't hear so much from him later on as 165 00:11:58,075 --> 00:12:03,072 the events unfold. This castration of Sky, ordered by Earth 166 00:12:03,072 --> 00:12:09,073 and executed by the son is deeply effective in dis-empowering the Sky. 167 00:12:09,073 --> 00:12:12,045 Now, from that moment lots of things happen. 168 00:12:12,063 --> 00:12:16,616 The Sky disappears, Earth then becomes extremely productive and lots of 169 00:12:16,616 --> 00:12:20,092 generations come out of her. We hear the reproduction of lots of evil 170 00:12:20,092 --> 00:12:24,752 beasts that come out of her. There's discussion of things like doom, 171 00:12:24,752 --> 00:12:28,021 and death, and cabal, and misery, and deceit, and strife. 172 00:12:28,039 --> 00:12:32,804 We have discussion of all these principles that come, come bursting out of her now 173 00:12:32,804 --> 00:12:35,091 the Sky's not on top of her every single night. 174 00:12:35,091 --> 00:12:41,037 We also hear that from the genitals themselves, important principles are born. 175 00:12:41,037 --> 00:12:46,089 As the genitals are hurled to the ocean, they drop blood into the Earth along the 176 00:12:46,089 --> 00:12:49,082 way. From that blood, grow up a series of 177 00:12:49,082 --> 00:12:55,563 creatures called the Erinyes, here in our first word in our list there, Erinyes. 178 00:12:55,563 --> 00:13:00,985 These are nasty creatures that exhibit revenge against anyone that has committed 179 00:13:00,985 --> 00:13:03,764 a blood murder. If someone has blood on their hands 180 00:13:03,764 --> 00:13:07,691 because of a murder, the Erinyes will chase them down, hunt them down, and 181 00:13:07,691 --> 00:13:11,346 punish them. They are blood avengers and they work via 182 00:13:11,346 --> 00:13:14,770 blood. You can see Hesiod's poetic connection 183 00:13:14,770 --> 00:13:21,144 between the savage crime that is committed of a son against the father perp, 184 00:13:21,144 --> 00:13:27,658 instigated by a mother, is now made to be the birth point, the birthplace of these 185 00:13:27,658 --> 00:13:31,077 blood avengers. Also, Aphrodite is said to grow up out of 186 00:13:31,077 --> 00:13:36,026 this, out of this moment. The, when the genitals are hurled into the 187 00:13:36,026 --> 00:13:39,033 ocean, there's a foam that comes up around them. 188 00:13:39,033 --> 00:13:44,034 And because of a connection between a Greek term, Aphros, and the idea of foam, 189 00:13:44,034 --> 00:13:49,056 Hesiod suggests that Aphrodite herself grows up out of the foam of the severed 190 00:13:49,056 --> 00:13:54,025 genitals of this guy. So, Aphrodite's birth is anything but a 191 00:13:54,025 --> 00:14:00,005 kind of gentle, loving one. Here, the goddess of love is born out of a 192 00:14:00,005 --> 00:14:05,466 very sharp violent act committed in a, with a sexual dimension, but a very sharp 193 00:14:05,466 --> 00:14:10,066 violent act built into the very earliest layers of the creative process. 194 00:14:10,066 --> 00:14:16,081 I've also brought up a term here called Parthenogenesis, which is necessary for us 195 00:14:16,081 --> 00:14:19,867 to lock into. This is the term that we're going to use 196 00:14:19,867 --> 00:14:24,069 to refer to creation by a single power, by single principle. 197 00:14:24,069 --> 00:14:29,191 When Earth creates all by herself, when the Chasm creates all by itself. 198 00:14:29,191 --> 00:14:34,336 And later, we'll see Zeus actually has the power to create all by himself, this term 199 00:14:34,336 --> 00:14:37,238 parthenogenesis is going to be important to us. 200 00:14:37,238 --> 00:14:42,271 Now, after the genealogies of the nasty beasts, we get a long list of monsters 201 00:14:42,271 --> 00:14:45,385 that come up. We hear famous ones like Medusa, and 202 00:14:45,385 --> 00:14:49,806 Echidna, and Typhae, Typhoeus, and Cerberus, and Hydra, and Chimera, and the 203 00:14:49,806 --> 00:14:53,050 Nemean lion. These are all things that come out of this 204 00:14:53,050 --> 00:14:58,033 very early stage of creation where one could expect that certain kinds of nasty 205 00:14:58,033 --> 00:15:02,703 monstrous creatures are going to come. You see, it connects them all back to 206 00:15:02,703 --> 00:15:07,083 that, prior alpha stage creation. We also get during this stage a long list 207 00:15:07,083 --> 00:15:11,001 of myths. You recall we talked about our lists and 208 00:15:11,001 --> 00:15:14,090 the importance in Hesiod's story of long catalogs of things. 209 00:15:15,010 --> 00:15:20,003 Here, the Nereid nymphs are listed and we get that really elegant many, many lines 210 00:15:20,003 --> 00:15:24,455 of proper names, we talked earlier about how that was, would have been amazing to 211 00:15:24,455 --> 00:15:27,962 see performed. Here, those don't seem to be connected 212 00:15:27,962 --> 00:15:31,991 with any kind of negativity or violence. The Nereid nymphs are generally happy 213 00:15:31,991 --> 00:15:34,700 creatures, and you're happy you have one around you. 214 00:15:34,700 --> 00:15:38,827 They're not thought of to be connected with evil, or inflected with any kind of 215 00:15:38,827 --> 00:15:40,792 that. Any, any of that kind of thing. 216 00:15:40,792 --> 00:15:45,496 So, the alpha generation is possible of reproducing nasty things and these are 217 00:15:45,496 --> 00:15:49,280 especially flagged after this Cronus crass, castration of Sky. 218 00:15:49,280 --> 00:15:53,756 But, there are also, in alpha stage generation where it's possible for us to 219 00:15:53,756 --> 00:15:59,310 produce some things that are pretty good. Next, we're going to tune in to the 220 00:15:59,310 --> 00:16:05,133 reproduction that happens around the next stage of things as Cronus and Rhea give 221 00:16:05,133 --> 00:16:21,080 their try at having a reproductive family themselves.