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THE FEMALE VOICE OF JUSTICE IN ARATUS' PHAENOMENA*
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 March 2015
Extract
Aratus' striking mythical digression (96–136) in the Phaenomena on the constellation of the Maiden (Παρθένος), whom he identifies with the virginal Justice (Δίκη), stands out against the preceding technical description of star groups. The passage has unsurprisingly received the frequent notice of critics, with particular attention paid to the episode's relation to and refashioning of the Myth of Ages in Hesiod's Works and Days 106–201: one tale that circulates among men, so the narrator informs us (λόγος γε μὲν ἐντρέχει ἄλλος | ἀνθρώποις, 100–1), has the constellation qua Dike live among men and women in a Golden Age (101–14), withdraw to the mountains but still visit humans in a Silver Age (115–29), and then withdraw permanently to the sky (where, however, she is still visible) in a Bronze Age (129–36).
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Footnotes
*
I am grateful for the feedback of participants in a workshop held at the University of Waterloo in January 2014, in particular Ruby Blondell, Judith Fletcher, Allison Glazebrook, Christina Vester, Sheila Ager, and Riemer Faber. I am indebted also to Christos Simelidis and Athanassios Vergados, who commented on an earlier draft of the paper, as well as to the anonymous referee of Greece & Rome for constructive critiques.
References
1 Kidd, D., Aratus. Phaenomena (Cambridge, 1997), 216Google Scholar, goes so far as to call the digression ‘poetic relief’ from the specialized (albeit poetic) description of constellations.
2 See, with further bibliography, Fantuzzi, M. and Hunter, R., Tradition and Innovation in Hellenistic Poetry (Cambridge, 2004), 238–42Google Scholar; Fakas, C., Der hellenistische Hesiod. Arats Phainomena und die Tradition der antiken Lehrepik (Wiesbaden, 2001), 149–75Google Scholar; and Schiesaro, A., ‘Aratus' Myth of Dike’, MD 37 (1996), 9–26Google Scholar.
3 Translation from Kidd (n. 1). All translations of the Phaenomena are taken from this edition.
4 Direct speech is ubiquitous in the Homeric poems (45% of the Iliad and 67% of the Odyssey), on which see Griffin, J., ‘Homeric Words and Speakers’, JHS 106 (1986), 36–57CrossRefGoogle Scholar, but Hesiod's use of direct speech is drastically lower. Direct speech makes up less than 4% of the Theogony and 2% of the Works and Days: Zeus's rebuke of Prometheus (54–8), the hawk's address to the nightingale (207–11), and the imagined command to workers (503). On the characteristically curt nature of Hesiod speeches, see also West, M., Hesiod. Theogony (Oxford, 1966), 74–5Google Scholar.
5 Kidd (n. 1), 226, followed by Fakas (n. 2), 162 n. 50.
6 Translation from West, M., Hesiod. Works and Days (Oxford, 1978)Google Scholar. All translations of Works and Days are taken from this edition.
7 On Hesiod's Pandora, with references to essential bibliography, see recently Canevaro, L. G., ‘The Clash of the Sexes in Hesiod's Works and Days’, G&R 60 (2013), 185–202Google Scholar.
8 Cf. Kidd (n. 1), 217–18.
9 Cf. Kidd (n. 1), 220, ‘The balancing of ἀγορῇ and ἀγυιῇ, enhanced by the internal rhyme, recalls the Proem (2–3), and so brings out the relevance of this episode to the general theme of the poem’. For other links between the prologue and the Dike episode, see Schiesaro (n. 2), 18–19.
10 Fantuzzi and Hunter (n. 2), 240.
11 On Aratus' poem itself as a ‘speech act’ of Zeus, see Fantuzzi and Hunter (n. 2), 231.
12 See Kidd (n. 1), 167, who compares Hdt. 8.136.1. The verb ἀείδω used of Dike's indirect speech to humans of the Golden Age (ἤειδεν, 107), in this instance to ‘utter solemnly’, is also linked to prophetic speech; see also Hopkinson, N. (ed.), A Hellenistic Anthology (Cambridge, 1988), 141Google Scholar, who cites E. Ion 92.
13 See Fantuzzi and Hunter (n. 2), 241, and 231 on the possible alignment of Zeus's ‘speech act’ in the prologue with the Phaenomena itself. Gee, E., Aratus and the Astronomical Tradition (Oxford, 2013), 34CrossRefGoogle Scholar, suggests that the verb is an intertextual reference to Pl. Resp. 607a–608a, in which prose and poetry are compared and contrasted.
14 The female prophetic figure of Dike also shares characteristics with the Heraclitian Sibyl, a lonely figure (cf. μουνάξ, ‘all alone’; 119), outside time and particular geography, who gives advice to mankind as the mouthpiece of god (Heraclitus fr. 75 Markovitch = 22 B 92 D.–K. Σίβυλλα δὲ μαινομένῳ στόματι καθ' Ἡράκλειτον ἀγέλαστα καὶ ἀκαλλώπιστα καὶ ἀμύριστα ϕθεγγομένη χιλίων ἐτῶν ἐξικνεῖται τῇ ϕωνῇ διὰ τὸν θεόν, ‘The Sibyl, according to Heraclitus, with a raging mouth uttering grave, unadorned and rude things, through the god reaches across a thousand years with her voice’). See Lightfoot, J., The Sibylline Oracles (Oxford, 2007), 1–2Google Scholar.
15 See Fakas (n. 2), 161–2.
16 For the general connection of the two passages, see Schiesaro (n. 2), 11–12 and cf. Fantuzzi and Hunter (n. 2), 241.
17 With its positive vision of women's role in public discourse, this line contrasts with the openly misogynistic message of the similar τῆς [Πανδώρης] γὰρ ὀλώιόν ἐστι γένος καὶ ϕῦλα γυναικῶν (‘For from her [Pandora] derives the destructive race and the tribes of women, a great bane’) at Hesiod Th. 591. The Hesiodic verse is possibly an interpolation (see West [n. 4], 329–30), but may well have been known to Aratus. Cf. also γυναικῶν ϕῦλον (‘tribe of women’) at [Hes.] Sc. 4 and fr. 1.1: the latter parallel may be particularly relevant, as the scholiast to Phaenomena 104 cites the proem of the Hesiodic catalogue (fr. 1.6) for the idea that gods and humans once mingled.
18 See LSJ, s.v. τίκτω.
19 Verse 244 was suspected in antiquity but there is good reason to retain it as a counterpart to 235. See West (n. 6), 218. Apart from the theogonic statement that Eris bore Oath (Ὅρκον...τὸν Ἔρις τέκε, 804), these are the only two instances of the verb τίκτω in the Works and Days. It is, of course, a common verb, but, given the general importance of the Hesiodic model, Aratus' particular choice could be significant.
20 See West (n. 6), 216. Hesiod's Golden Age does not feature the toil of agriculture, but the abundance of agriculture is part of Aratus' Golden Age (100–13), an element which already recalls the advantages of the just in Hesiod. See also Fantuzzi and Hunter (n. 2), 240; Martin, J., Aratos. Phénomènes (Paris, 1998), 208Google Scholar.
21 As West (n. 6), 219, points out, the preceding passage is more a message for the kings than Perses.
22 Hes. Op. 235 ἐοικότα τέκνα (‘children resembling their fathers’) itself invokes the prophecy concerning the Iron Age at Op. 182 (οὐδὲ πατὴρ παίδεσσιν ὁμοίιος οὐδέ τι παῖδες, ‘Nor will father be like children nor children like father’), through the topos of sons resembling fathers.
23 Schiesaro (n. 2), 20.
24 See Diog. Laert. 7.33: καὶ ἐσθῆτι δὲ τῇ αὐτῇ κελεύειν χρῆσθαι ἄνδρας καὶ γυναῖκας καὶ μηδὲν μόριον ἀποκεκρύθϕαι (‘Furthermore, he calls upon men and women to wear the same clothing and to conceal no part of the body’); cf. 7.131. Cleanthes, according to Diog. Laert. 7.175, wrote a treatise entitled Περὶ τοῦ ὅτι ἡ αὐτὴ ἀρετὴ καὶ ἀνδρὸς καὶ γυναικός (Concerning the view that the virtue of a man and a woman is the same), and Lactantius at Div. Inst. 3.25 speaks of the Stoic view that women should philosophize); see also Chrysippus (ap. Philod. De pietate col. 5.11; cf. Antisthenes, Diog. Laert. 6.12). See P. A. Vander Waerdt, ‘Zeno's Republic and the Origins of Natural Law’, in Waerdt, P. A. Vander (ed.), The Socratic Movement (Ithaca, NY, 1994), 306Google Scholar; Schofield, M., The Stoic Idea of the City (Cambridge, 1991), 43Google Scholar.
25 Zeno's inclusion of both men and women in political activity follows Plato (Resp. 5), whose guardians are both male and female; in contrast to Plato, however, he seems to have accepted heterosexual as well as homosexual love as a binding force in his ideal city. See further Schofield (n. 24), 43–6.
26 Aratus' inclusion of agriculture in the Golden Age can also be linked to Stoic thought; see Kidd (n. 1), 222.
27 See Schiesaro (n. 2), esp. 11–12, who argues that Aratus reshapes ‘the myth of the ages as an atemporal moral paradigm which entails ethical choices still largely available to modern men’ (24). The verbal and thematic links suggested above support and extend Schiesaro's general argument that Aratus read lines 105–273 of the Works and Days (including the tale of the nightingale and Dike's role among mankind) ‘as an organic whole’. See also Fantuzzi and Hunter (n. 2), 241–2, on Aratus' ‘reading’ of Op. 252–5 and the optimistic outlook of the digression.
28 J. Kaibel, Review of Maass, E., Arati Phaenomena (Berlin, 1893)Google Scholar in Göttingische gelehrte Anzeiger n.s. 1 (1893), 950, offered tentatively against other conjectures.
29 Martin (n. 20), 211.
30 Kidd (n. 1), 226, on the grounds of comparison with θερείομαι (Nic. Ther. 124 and Alex. 567), a poetic form of θέρομαι (‘to become warm’).
31 The expression τέκνα τεκεῖσθε would also make more explicit that women are addressed by ὑμεῖς; cf. Od. 22. 324 and H.H. Dem. 136 of women bearing children to husbands.
32 The future form τεκεῖσθαι is itself a hapax, but has linguistic parallels and should be retained; see Faulkner, A., The Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite (Oxford, 2008), 202Google Scholar, with bibliography. The rarity of the form τεκεῖσθε could in fact explain corruption in the manuscript tradition, albeit to the similarly problematic τεξείεσθε.
33 See Gee (n. 13), 33–4, on the echo of and contrast with Hesiod's Muses.
34 Fr. 122 Inwood, B., The Poem of Empedocles (Toronto, 2001)Google Scholar: οὐδέ τις ἦν κείνοισιν Ἄρης θεὸς οὐδὲ Κυδοιμὸς | οὐδὲ Zεὺς βασιλεὺς οὐδὲ Κρόνος οὐδὲ Ποσειδῶν, | ἀλλὰ Κύπρις βασίλεια (‘For them there was no god Ares, nor Battle Dine, nor king Zeus, nor Kronos, nor Poseidon, but queen Kypris’). Ruby Blondell suggests to me that the speaking Dike of Aratus is perhaps also distantly reminiscent of Parmenides' On Nature, in which Dike receives and instructs the philosopher (fr. 1.22–3: καί με θεὰ πρόϕρων ὑπεδέξατο, χεῖρα δὲ χειρί | δεξιτερὴν ἕλεν, ὧδε δ' ἔπος ϕάτο καί με προσηύδα, ‘And the goddess received me kindly, took my right hand into hers, and spoke to me thus’). This seems to have influenced Virgil at Georgics 2.477 (accipiant ὑπεδέξατο) in his description of the departure of Justice (Iustitia) from the earth: see Nelis, D., ‘Georgics 2.458–542: Virgil, Aratus, and Empedocles’, Dictynna 1 (2004), 6Google Scholar; Hardie, A., ‘The Georgics, the Mysteries and the Muses at Rome’, PCPhS 48 (2002), 186–7Google Scholar.
35 On these parallels, see Gee (n. 13), 29–30, and Nelis (n. 34), 9–12; also Martin (n. 20) and Kidd (n. 1), ad loc. For the influence of Empedocles on Aratus more generally, see Gee (n. 13), 30–3, and Traglia, A., ‘Reminiscenze empedoclee nei Fenomeni di Arato’, in Miscellanea di Studi Alessandrini in memoria di Augusto Rostagni (Turin, 1963), 382–93Google Scholar.
36 On Dike as Empedoclean Love, see again Gee (n. 13), 30. Martin (n. 20), 203–4, points out that Dike's role as queenly dispenser of justice also takes over the public function of the just king in Hesiod. Cf. Nelis (n. 34), 15.
37 See Irwin, E., ‘The Invention of Virginity on Olympus’, in MacLachlan, B. and Fletcher, J. (eds.), Virginity Revisited. Configurations of the Unpossessed Body (Toronto, 2007), 18–21Google Scholar.
38 On the association of the Maiden and Demeter, see Fantuzzi and Hunter (n. 2), 240. For the fecund potential of the virgin constellation, cf. later Nonnus, Dion. 41.212–20 (a passage that recalls Aratus), in which the Maiden serves as nursemaid to Beroe, the daughter of Aphrodite (note in particular 214–17 Παρθένος ἀστραίη, χρυσέης θρέπτειρα γενέθλης, | ἔννομα παππάζουσαν ἀνέτρεϕεν ἔμϕρονι μαζῷ· | παρθενί ῳ δὲ γάλακτι ῥοὰς βλύζουσα θεμίστων | χείλεα παιδὸς ἔδευσε, ‘The Virgin constellation, nursemaid of the golden race, reared the infant girl lawfully with her sensible breast. Gushing forth streams of decrees, she wet the lips of the child with her virginal milk’).
39 For Aphrodite's connection to deception, see e.g. Hes. Th. 205; Hes. H.H. Aphr. 7.
40 See fr. 25. 22–4 [Φιλότης] ἥτις καὶ θνητοῖσι νομίζεται ἔμϕυτος ἄρθροις, | τῇ τε ϕίλα ϕρονέουσι καὶ ἄρθμια ἔργα τελοῦσι, | Γηθοσύνην καλέοντες ἐπώνυμον ἠδ' Ἀϕροδίτην·, ‘[Love] who is deemed even by mortals to be inborn in their bodies, and by whom they think loving thoughts and accomplish works of unity, calling her by the names Joy and Aphrodite’ (trans. adapted from Inwood [n. 34]). For an overview of the Empedoclean forces of Love and Strife and their cycles, see Inwood (n. 34), 42–55.
41 See Zeitlin, F., Playing the Other. Gender and Society in Classical Greek Literature (Chicago, IL, 1996), 82Google Scholar, and Bergren, A., ‘The Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite: Tradition and Rhetoric, Praise and Blame’, ClAnt 8 (1989), 11–12Google Scholar, comparing Pandora and Aphrodite disguised as a mortal woman in H.H. Aphr.
42 As Pandora (e.g. μεγὰ πῆμα καὶ ἀνδράσιν ἐσσομένοισιν, ‘A great calamity both for yourself and for men to come’; Op. 56).
43 Zeitlin (n. 41) 56–7, who underlines that Hesiod's myth is from a cross-cultural perspective ‘conspicuous in creating woman as a separate and alien being, the first exemplar of a race or species, the genos gunaikōn, who as the agent of separation between gods and mortal men remains estranged, never achieving a mediated partnership with man’.
44 105: ἀγειρομένη δὲ γέροντας (‘gathering together the elders’) seems to include at least the presence of sage women, given their explicit mention alongside men in the preceding sentence.
45 The phrase γένος ἀνδρῶν again evokes, and here inverts, the pejorative γένος γυναικῶν (‘race of women’) of Hesiod (Th. 590–1). See above n. 17 on Phaenomena 102–3.