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3 - The Tale of Two Gyges: Shame, Community, and the Public/Private Self

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 January 2010

Arlene W. Saxonhouse
Arlene W. Saxonhouse
Affiliation:
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
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Summary

Gyges the Lydian warrants two stories in the ancient corpus. In one he is a shepherd; in the other he is the bodyguard to a king. In both he kills the king and marries the queen. Plato has Glaucon in the Republic introduce the myth of the shepherd Gyges (or, to be more precise, an ancestor of Gyges), giving the shepherd a magical ring that grants him invisibility. Glaucon thus challenges Socrates to explore the question of why the shepherd in possession of this magical ring should not kill the king and marry the queen, that is, take what is not his and be unjust. In Herodotus' tale the queen commands the king's bodyguard Gyges to kill the king and marry her or be killed himself. It is Herodotus' tale that will help me introduce the concept of shame in this chapter and it is Plato's Gyges who will conclude the chapter.

HERODOTUS' GYGES

Candaules, the king of the Lydians, enthralled by and clearly proud of the beauty of his own wife, does not believe that his bodyguard Gyges fully appreciates the extent of that beauty, though the king has spoken to him of it often and with great enthusiasm. To convince Gyges, Candaules insists that Gyges see his wife naked. Gyges resists: “Master, why do you speak such unhealthy words, commanding me to see my mistress naked? When her clothes are set aside, a woman sheds also her shame (tên aidô).

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Free Speech and Democracy in Ancient Athens , pp. 57 - 82
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2005

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