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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 July 2014
The Theogony is a poem about the creation of a cosmos, that is, an order. This order is created through the interaction of sexual beings, and the essentially sexual nature of the creative act eventually comes to structure and organize the space of the universe. Sexuality, moreover, implies a fundamental source of tension or conflict between opposites. Paradoxically, conflict in the Theogony is not destructive; rather, conflict enhances and expands the creative potential of sexuality by ensuring that the end product of sexual interaction, new being, will be able to act upon the world.
Conflict arises in the first two divine generations when a divine being attempts to contravene the telos of sexual movement by preventing his already conceived and fully gestated offspring from coming into the world. Conflict thus works against the destructuring of the world. The consequence of each conflict is a world which is more ordered and structured, as the offspring first of Gaia and Ouranos, and then of Rheia and Kronos, are permitted to assume their appropriate places in it, or as Zeus is able to turn his attention from the suppression of his enemies to the establishment of a fixed moral order. Thus conflict decreases the entropy of the world and tends toward creation and new order.
1. Many writers in analysing the Theogony have perceived a dualistic or multiplex structure in Hesiod’s cosmos. See, for example, Philippson, Paula, ‘Genealogie als mythische Form’, Symbolae Osloenses Suppl. vii (Oslo, 1937Google Scholar); Solmsen, Friedrich, Hesiod and Aeschylus (Ithaca, 1949Google Scholar); Brown, Norman O., introduction to his translation of Hesiod, Theogony (Indianapolis and New York, 1953Google Scholar); Sale, William, ‘The Dual Vision of the Theogony’, Arion 4 (1965) 668–699Google Scholar; Prier, Raymond A., Jr, ‘Archaic Structuralism and Dynamics in Hesiod’s Theogony’, Apeiron 8.2 (1974) 1–12.CrossRefGoogle Scholar These books and articles differ widely in their interpretations of the nature and significance of Hesiod’s dualism. The analysis that most closely resembles the one to be presented here is that of Brown (cf. n. 21 below).
2. Omitting the probably spurious line 118 which would make Gaia the ‘seat’ (hedos 117) only of the immortals. Rzach (Stuttgart, 1913) brackets this line, remarking ‘non legit Chalcidius in Plat. Tim. 122’. Solmsen (Oxford, 1970) labels it ‘versus dubius’.
3. I do not think it is entirely clear at this point that Tartaros is below the earth, though this does become apparent later on. Cf. 720–721 and below p. 72.
4. For lusimelēs of sleep cf. Od. 20.57 and 23.343.
5. For damazō cf. Il. 3.183. It is interesting to note that in Homer damazō is used (like subigere in Latin) to describe an act of sexual violence: Il. 18.432.
6. West, M. L. in the commentary that accompanies his text of the Theogony (Oxford, 1966Google Scholar) remarks on the heterogeneity of this list of offspring (which includes Okeanos, Koios, Krios, Hyperion, Iapetos, Theia, Rheia, Themis, Mnemosyne, Phoebe and Tethys, lines 133–136) and suggests that ‘the identification of the Titans with this group of gods is secondary … their essential characteristics … are that they represent an older generation of gods’ (p. 200).
7. Later, as we shall see, Ouranos’ sexual movement toward Gaia brings darkness (176ff.), and Zeus will release Obriareos, Kottos and Gyes bringing them into the light (624–626).
8. Cf. 463, 475–476, 494 and 626 to be discussed below.
9. The objection might be made that Ouranos’ final creative potential is exhausted in the ‘bloody drops’ that fall upon the earth (183–184): For as many bloody drops as fell away, all of them Gaia received … But it seems to me that this might also be interpreted as saying that Gaia received all the drops that fell away at that time, that is, in Kronos’ act of flinging, and does not necessarily rule out the possibility of further ejaculation once the organs are in the water. Given the context and the imagery of 190–191, I think that a strong case can be made for interpreting aphros (191) as seminal fluid. In any case there seem to be few alternative explanations. West (above, n. 6) pp. 212–213 lists several interpretations which I find somewhat less than compelling. Moreover, he does include (p. 213) a list of passages which would tend to support the association of aphros with seminal fluid.
10. Line 463 suggests, in what seems to be a recurring formula (cf. 891) that he acquired his information from Ouranos as well as Gaia, but Gaia’s actions in saving Zeus and then forcing Kronos to regurgitate his other children make it clear that she is the predominant figure.
11. Later in the narrative she first provides the advice that enables Zeus to overpower the Titans and then almost immediately produces Typhoeus, forcing the conflict to be re-enacted.
12. ‘and as the years rolled on deceived by the well-thought-out suggestions of Earth great Kronos of the crooked counsels brought his progeny back up again’ (493–495).
13. Cf. ouk anieske (157) of Ouranos preventing his children from coming forth into the light (above, p. 62).
14. Along with other elements, such as the repeated intervention of Gaia on both sides of a conflict.
15. In the Prometheus episode (507ff.) which precedes the battle with the Titans, the constraint motif, though it does appear (520 and 615), is not a major structural element. It is interesting that in Hesiod’s version of the myth Zeus does not unbind Prometheus; only one pole of the dialectic is involved. In any case, the constraint-release motif does not structure the action of this conflict as it does the others of the Theogony. Rather, the Prometheus story introduces motifs which relate more to the human cosmos than to the divine. It functions as a bridge between the Theogony and the Works and Days and is best dealt with as the transition from the divine world of the one to the human world of the other.
16. ‘But these the son of Kronos and the other immortal gods … led up again into the light on the advice of Gaia’ (624, 626). Again we may compare 157, ‘he [Ouranos] hid them all away and did not send them forth into the light’. Here the equation between the constraint of non-birth and the inability to come out into the light is made explicit through the action of Ouranos.
17. How disconcerting this episode is, is reflected in the way the most recent editor of the Theogony deals with it; Solmsen (n. 2 above) prints it in brackets. As far as I can determine, the reasons for bracketing are not determined primarily by the manuscript tradition. They relate rather to such subjective criteria as ‘stylistic’ differences or to the editor’s feeling that the Metis episode is not congruent with the rest of the poem. This approach is exemplified in Solmsen’s text and receives a full exposition in Kirk ‘The Structure and Aim of the Theogony’ in Hésiode et son influence, Fondation Hardt, Entretiens, Vol. VII (Geneva, 1960Google Scholar). Here, as elsewhere, I have relied upon Rzach’s earlier and more conservative text (n. 1 above). Rzach prints the so-called ‘first’ Metis episode as part of his text, 886ff., and relegates the ‘second’ episode to his apparatus. Wade-Gery in the Loeb edition (London and Cambridge, Mass., 1970Google Scholar), which is based primarily upon Rzach, prints both episodes in the text.
18. For more about Metis or mētis, see Vernant, and Detienne, ‘La mètis d’Antiloque’ R.E.G. 80 (1967), 68–83.Google Scholar
19. Cf. Solmsen (above, n. 1), 37: ‘The inclusion of the Moirai among the offspring of Night seems to reflect a mood of despair, the abandonment of all hope for a rational and moral direction of man’s life. … As daughters of Zeus and Themis, on the other hand, the Moirai are agents of a stern but fundamentally just world order. The character of their parents imposes a restriction on the arbitrariness of their dispensations… . With the inclusion of the Fates among the children of Zeus, man’s life takes on a rational and moral aspect.’
20. Solmsen (n. 2 above) brackets all of 930–1022, remarking that it is difficult to recognize Hesiod in a catalogue of this sort and that many people have felt that the poem is missing its original conclusion. While I am inclined to agree at least with the latter part of his statement, my own remarks in this paragraph are based again on Rzach’s text.
21. A detailed analysis of the ambiguous nature of Zeus’ world order is Brown (above, n. 1), pp. 29–35. Throughout the poem Brown perceives a fundamental opposition between the offspring of the two primal powers Earth and Void (Chaos). Zeus absorbs the older forces of good and represses some of the forces of evil (29–31). Nevertheless, the polarity is not abolished. Zeus absorbs the antithetical forces of the world; he does not reconcile them (31). ‘The summation of the results of Zeus’ administrative reorganization shows that the ambivalent mixture of good and evil in the lot of mankind is carried over from the legacy of Night and Nereus into the dispensation of Zeus. In fact, since it is Zeus’ function to coordinate all the forces in the universe, the ambivalence in the human cosmos projected first into a contrast between antithetical powers (Night and Nereus), appears under the monarchy of Zeus as an ambivalence in the role of the monarch himself (32–33). This interpretation of the Zeus figure is fairly close to my own. It differs radically from that of Solmsen (above, n. 1), who sees Zeus as a figure of reconciliation (76) and somewhat less radically from that of Prier (above n. 1) who sees a final harmony ‘revealed as a tensioned stability’ (11).
22. The Prometheus episode is another.
