Perseus vs Atlas
This image was found here, and it was made by Edward Burne-Jones
I enjoy reading literature,
or at least tales, that are far removed from my era in order to get a sense of
what “right” and “wrong” meant at the time of the story. In this way, I can get
a view on the historical timeline of human morality. This is no different in
Ovid’s Metamorphoses, which happens in a time close to the AD/BC changeover:
while I know that these myths are made not to be entirely realistic, it still reflects
the values and mindset at the time they were written.
The most obvious and
overarching pillar of good and evil is the judgment of the Gods, despite how
flawed they might appear to someone of a more modern background. The impulsive
and brutal activities the Zeus visits on mortals is, on many occasions, nothing
short of monstrous. From what I have read, he really is a proverbial force of
nature that does anything he wants whenever he wants. This is the primary point
of the first tale, which details the flood Zeus used to wipe out most of
humanity because HE was not pleased with their behavior. Events like these do
surprise me momentarily on each occasion, but at the same time Zeus is as
random and whimsical as nature is in addressing the existence of life, and
nature is all-powerful as Jupiter is. Ultimately, his will is law (until it
involves the titans, but I won’t address that).
But as we leave the top
rung on the chain of justice, we start to see another theme: patriarchy. We don’t
even need to leave the circle of the Olympians to see this, because Hera does
not outright blame her husband (at least in the featured books) for
attacking/romancing mortal women or female magical beings (dryads and others).
These encounters usually result in the woman bearing child, and by this time
Hera has become aware. And she punishes these women, not only because she is a
God and has the means to, but she blindly assumes they had some power over the
matter. Or maybe she finds it easier to blame these women than to try and
change her husband’s ways (?). There’s no mistake that Zeus rapes some of these
women in some form. However, readers can take-heart in that amongst mortals,
rape is indeed a very serious crime. Despite the prevalence of patriarchy, there
are occasional exceptions like in the invocation of the amazon warriors (but
they are not mentioned in these books).
So, at the level of the
Gods at least, most anything they say or do is set in stone as “right.”
However, even when there are quarrels among the Gods themselves, like in the
tale of Mars and Venus, there is no point in the story that Ovid even hints at
the Gods reconsidering their actions or their intentions on their own. The way
the disputes among each other are solved is by action alone: only a God can
stop a God, but only by force of action. And this theme does follow what I said
before about Zeus, even pertaining to the lesser Olympians: they are elements
of nature itself, sometimes they clash, and one must win over the other. But
they do not have second thoughts about their intent.
As we go further down
the formalities of right and wrong in Ovid’s work, we approach the gray-ish
realm of mortal man and magical beings. This level of morality, crime and
punishment, is much more civilized, which is not surprising. Human disputes are
often settled by human action, and the same goes for the creatures and
monsters. However, there are clashes between humans and creatures, which is
where things can become a little messy. Examples of these kinds of interactions
can be seen in the tales of Narcissus, and Perseus and Medusa.
A trend that I have noticed
is that Ovid never really allows a pure-blooded human to hold will and
precedence over a God or Titan, but he will permit this on rare occasion when
it comes to half-mortals born from divine lineage. The most prominent example in
these books is that of Perseus. He was born to a mortal mother,
Danaë,
but she was got with child by Zeus who appeared to her as a ray of light.
Half-mortals like Perseus allow Ovid to create well-balanced man vs God disputes,
while still maintaining the real limitations that each character has. As a
testament to this, using Medusa’s head, Perseus transforms Atlas the titan into
stone in the form of a mountain. This comes after the fact that Atlas wanted
Perseus to leave his land, but the half-mortal refused. In fairness, Perseus
didn’t exactly react the most even-handedly by responding to a moderate retaliation due to trespassing with out-right murder.
The literature unit can be found here
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