What Greek Mythology can teach us about perspective
Greek mythology, like most of its classical counterparts, is wild, wicked, and wonderful, filled with epic sagas of love, betrayal, and redemption, and stories of triumph, glory, and great loss. We, as readers, clap and relish at the heroism of little Perseus, as he defeats all odds when he slays snake-headed, fearsome Medusa (Fry, 2018). We feel Heracles’s anguish and despair as he murders his own beloved wife and children in a fit of insanity, followed by the subsequent joy and thrill of watching him redeem himself and transform into one of the most famed Greek heroes in history (Fry, 2018). From the shock and horror of Zeus making eagles eat Prometheus’s liver every day for eternity (Fry, 2017), to the triumph and victory of watching intelligent, infallible Theseus outsmart the minotaur and conquer the very labyrinth that executed the smartest and most agile of men (Fry, 2018)... You grow to love these characters, grieve with them, cheer with them, and marvel at their bravery, courage and determination.
Yet, Greek mythology, like many of the greatest literary texts, is laced with a subtle poison that begins to dull its marvellous, mystical spark. If you look closely between the large, lengthy conquests of heroes, it is difficult not to read these stories and flinch, when woman after woman is raped, assaulted, ostracised, punished and misunderstood, or worse, erased altogether. It is hard to cheer on the murder of Medusa when you consider she was punished and turned into an evil monster solely for being… raped? It is difficult to entertain Theseus’s gloats and boasts when you realise his feats would have been inconceivable without the help and wit of Ariadne, who received not an ounce of credit. The women of Ancient Greece are written with almost callous insignificance, scenes of violent rape and sexual assaults being described merely as instances of ‘seduction’ and ‘temptation’, (Levitan, 2019) whilst intelligent, sharp, powerful women are erased altogether and reduced to no more than ‘war bounty and ‘possessions’. It begs the question – what would Greek mythology have looked like from a woman’s perspective?
Fortunately for us, we have our answer. Unlike the poor women of Ancient Greece, who were represented by the works of those such as Hesiod, who nonchalantly declared women the root of all sin and evil and punishment for men, we are fortunate enough to be blessed with the retellings and translations that finally start balancing the scales.
Consider Circe, famed Greek witch and goddess. She throws herself desperately at Glaucus, a small fisherman, begging for him to lie with her, going so far as to grant him divinity for an ounce of his affections. Poor, pathetic Circe could not be loved by a man even when she turned him into a God! Of course, Glaucus chose the beautiful nymph Scylla, who was subsequently turned into a monster by the raging witch. How can you not hate this wretch, so detested by the Gods and humanity, that Zeus himself exiled her onto an island (Wells, 2021)? Madeline Miller thinks otherwise. She presents Circe, from the first time, from her own perspective. We get to see Circe not as isolated and desperate, but powerful. Where texts describe her powers as evil and unnatural, Miller presents them as the culmination of ruthless hard work and determination, and a relentless desire to learn (Wells, 2021). We see her acts of turning ‘innocent’ men into pigs not as cruelty, but as protection, defence against the many attempts to claim, rape, and defile her. This, single retelling alone, sparked an outpouring of love, understanding, and recognition for Circe and her story. It decimated her villainization and re-framed her as a misunderstood, ostracised, yet deeply powerful and admirable woman. Miller’s piece, alongside modern retellings and translations from many such as Emily Wilson, show the power and justice that can be brought to the women of Ancient Greece purely by implementing a female perspective. One might argue that Homer’s works, and existing translations, cannot possibly be ‘incorrect’ or ‘unjust’. They are the original; the canon! The culmination of years of oral traditions and story-telling, they are a direct time machine into the beliefs and cultures of the ancient Greeks, and should thus be preserved as they are! How is it possible for the canon, the original, to be missing something, or to be incorrect in any form? Let us look at the art of translating for answers.
Translating Ancient Greek to contemporary English is, well, a Herculean feat to say the least. Words with 20 different meanings, phrases that simply do not exist in the English language, and obtuse exclamations that sound like gibberish – it is certainly not for the weak. Something so purely objective, certainly translations should be excluded from the discussion of feminist perspectives in Greek mythology? Surely, there is not some great gender-political discrepancy between a man translating the word ‘horse’ from ancient Greek, versus a woman?
Consider a simple word, ‘maid’. To be a maid is an occupation; it is a choice, it implies willing, consensual work. Perhaps not the most glamorous, but what if you compared it to the word ‘slave’? What does slave connote? How does it compare to the word maid? Whilst almost every version and translation of the Odyssey will refer to Penelope’s attendants as maids, Wilson refused to gloss over such subtleties, and referred to Penelope’s maids in The Odyssey, as their accurate, yet not literal translation, of slaves (North, 2017). This was transformative; it revealed how encumbered and powerless these women were, and changed the perception and interpretation of them, even unconsciously, from giggling, gossiping girls to shackled, beaten, and disposable. It transformed the notion of them ‘sleeping’ with Penelope’s suitors and betraying Penelope to depict what most likely really occurred; not some scandalous moment of infidelity, but instead the brutal, savage rape of Penelope’s slaves. This ripple effect continues to their slaughter, where we, as readers, no longer feel gratification that these snobbish, backstabbing women were being deservingly hanged and served justice for their promiscuity, and instead feel the anguish and grief of watching innocent, invisible women pay the ultimate price for a crime that was not theirs. These are the implicit stylistic choices, acts of omission and emphasis, that changed Greek mythology and put an inescapable personal lens on the stories. It was Wilson’s difference of perspective and ability to empathise with these women that allowed her to pick up on this discrepancy, and conversely, the inability of the male translators before her to see the significance of this, that allowed the true horrors of Penelope’s women to be dismissed (North, 2017). By correcting a single word, so much was revealed, and so much was finally given a voice. If this is the influence of one word, imagine the change and power that could come from a woman interpreting an entire text.
However, it is important to address the question of whether such interpretations are canonical in nature. I would equally like to clarify that Wilson’s translation is not an explicitly, intentionally feminist piece of work – it is simply just a translation, done by a woman, which somehow inherently dubs it a ‘female-perspective’. The notion of a ‘female-perspective’ on classics and literature causes an uneasy feeling in some individuals. The idea that a ‘female’ take on literature would be ‘un-original’, whilst certainly modern and progressive, but no replacement for the original translations, is an idea that still arises. To assume that a woman’s take would be biasing and distorting the narrative, and lacking in the objectivity and factuality of its predecessors, would be a grave error. This idea lies on the assumption that the existing conditions, systems, and attitudes of the world are somehow already fair, unbiased and based in fact. In this case, this take incorrectly assumes male-centric translations are somehow free of bias (Brady, 2018). As classicist Mary Beard stated in 2005, "there was no such thing as a ‘straight’ version of Greek myth - every literary telling we have is already a reworking, a prequel, a sequel or a subversion, which then becomes ripe for reworking itself.” (Leu, 2018) Indeed, the sheer bias present in pre-existing translations can be seen in how most male translated versions needlessly and frequently incorporate the words “whore” and “slut” into their translations (Brady, 2018). The puzzling thing is, they do this, even when the original says nothing, and indicates nothing that would indicate the need to implement this strange, vulgar addition (Brady, 2018). If that is not bad enough, even when the original text clearly describes a woman as a good wife and as ‘faithful’, giving women a rare brownie point in Greek mythology, the woman still gets labeled a “whore” and a “slut” by the male translator (Brady, 2018).
As dastardly as some of these translations are, the point here is to realise that existing translated texts already have biased, male-perspectives embedded into them. The notion of them being objective is completely untrue – so how can these be deemed to be the default, original, gold-standards of Greek mythology? Which means – to the relief of those who may be dismayed about the canonical impacts of female perspective literature – that the retellings and translations by women are equally strong contenders in being considered as ‘original’ interpretation. In fact, I would argue that they are even better translations, as they unintentionally shed light on the stories of women otherwise erased, and bring justice and empathy to those improperly villainized and misunderstood, reversing decades of injustice.
This idea of perspectives and lenses being implicit in things we deem neutral is an important one, and one we can extend further. Take quotas, for example. The prevalent argument against gender-diversity quotas is that they obstruct merit-based hiring. The fallacy behind this argument is that it incorrectly assumes that current hiring processes are somehow already purely merit-based, i.e. deems them as already “correct”. How is it possible that various demographics can receive the same education, experiences, skills and qualifications for decades, yet only one is over-represented and dominant in positions of power across various industries and professions? Is that merit-based? Or is there already an implied quota doing the filtering? Consider a more trivial example - air conditioning. Air conditioners were designed with male metabolic rates in mind, which is why women are often shivering and shaking in the same office and building temperatures their male counterparts seem to be doing fine in (Bichell, 2015). Similarly, car seatbelts are tested and designed with men in mind – which is why women statistically die more and receive more serious injuries in car crashes as opposed to men (Fowler, 2019). The point with all these examples is the same - everything in the world around us, from small things like air conditioning to complex things like hiring, have an inescapable, male-centric lens placed on them that actively excludes women and other demographics. This is not accidental, it is the result of the world’s systems, processes, and attitudes being descended and formed from the same societies that intentionally worked to exclude and disempower women and other minority groups. This is why it is important to constantly be critical of the true equity and fairness of the world around us. The idea that the existing status quo of the world is the “right way” of doing things and is completely neutral, and equitable measures such as quotas are the ones introducing bias and unfairness, is the idea we must dismantle. Just as we must begin to question and be suspicious of the perspectives that underpin ancient Homeric poems, we must equally begin to be critical and conscious of the biases that silently influence almost every aspect of our modern lives.
Sources
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/dec/08/the-odyssey-translated-emily-wilson-review
https://web.sas.upenn.edu/discentes/2021/01/16/circe-a-human-witch-reviewing-madeline-millers-epic/
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/jul/07/women-classics-translation-female-scholars-translators
https://web.sas.upenn.edu/discentes/2021/01/16/circe-a-human-witch-reviewing-madeline-millers-epic/
https://www.thecollector.com/circe-sorceress-odyssey/
https://www.calloftheworld.com/circe-a-feminist-retelling-of-a-classical-myth/
https://chireviewofbooks.com/2018/01/16/how-emily-wilson-translated-the-odyssey/
https://www.ft.com/content/bc816102-93c3-4bd3-914b-8f00b3097dbc
https://talesoftimesforgotten.com/2019/06/07/ancient-greek-views-on-women/
https://www.mamamia.com.au/gender-inequality-in-australia/