No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
The Hunt and the Erotic
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 July 2024
Extract
No serious argument proves that mythology is only a by-product or a residue of history. On the contrary, a certain number of analyses and theoretical reflections on the myth suggest that different levels of meaning, covering the whole body of mythology, demonstrate a great autonomy and that if the hunt, for example, introduces a series of myths, in a society as fundamentally agricultural as Greece in the first millenium, it is not a distant echo but rather is faithful to the social means of production of a horde of hunters who had crossed the clearings of History some millenia before, but in a less diffuse manner because the cynegetic activity constitutes an excellent operative in the scheme of the myth. For a series of reasons: the hunt, a fundamentally masculine activity where the confrontation with wild animals results in bloodshed in order to procure a meat complement, contrasts with the cultivation of the land but is closely linked with warfare. If this is completely the privilege of the male, because it is a work of death, the production of cultivated foods, on the contrary, takes place on the level of gestation and reproduction, even if working the land in Greece is assumed by men.
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © 1976 Fédération Internationale des Sociétés de Philosophie / International Federation of Philosophical Societies (FISP)
Footnotes
*
Extract of a book to appear under the title “Dionysos mis à mort” (Paris, Gallimard).
References
1 The body of traditions on the origin of the ritual of the she-bear is examined by W. Sale, " The Temple Legends of the Arkteia ", Rh. Mus., no. 118, 1975, pp. 265-284.
2 In this manner the hare and the deer, on the Cotyle cup of Amasis: Lou vre, 479 (S. Karasou, The Amasis Painter, Oxford, 1956, p. 37, N. 71, pl. 13); hare and fox, on Socles' cup: private collection (K. Schauenburg, "Erastes und Eromenos auf einer Schale des Sokles," Archäologischer Anzeiger, 1965, pp. 849- 867, fig. 3).
3 Strabo, X, 483. Cf. H. Jeanmarie, Couroi et Courètes, Lille, 1939, pp. 450- 455.
4 Euripides, Hippolytus, 17.
5 Cf. J. Kambitsis, Minyades kaì Preitides, I, Jannina 1975.
6 Antoninus Liberalis, Métamorphoses, XXX. Desire for the bear is suggested to her by Aphrodite, who is outraged at the scorn shown her by Polyphontus.
7 Jardins d'Adonis, p. 130.
8 Schol. T. in Il., XXIV, p. 31.
9 Metamorphoses, X, pp. 520-576.
10 Op. cit., pp. 537-541.
11 Etruscan mirror from East Berlin (Staatliche Museen, Antikenabteilung, Inv. Fr. 146): J. D. Beazley, " The World of the Etruscan Mirror, " Journal of Hel lenic Studies, no. 69, 1949, pp. 12-13 (a good photograph of it was given by W. Attalah, Adonis dans la littérature et l'art grecs, Paris, 1966, fig. 5, p. 65).
12 Cf. R. Schilling, La religion romaine de Venus, Paris, 1954, pp. 165-167.
13 Contrary to the interpretation defended by Beazley.
14 Cf. Jardins d'Adonis, 130, N. 1. In his essay on Panyassis of Halikarnassos (Text and Commentary, Brill, 1974), 120-125, Victor J. Mattheis relates this trait to the version developed by Panyassis [F 25 k (b)].
15 Cf. "L'olivier, un mythe politico-religieux," Revue de l'Histoire des Reli gions, 1970, no. 3, pp. 18-19.
16 Metamorphoses, X, pp. 564-566.
17 Thus in Schol. Theocr. III 40 d; Schol. Eur. Phénic. 150; and the modern mythographs have confirmed the division (cf. W. Immerwahr, De Atalanta, Berlin, 1885).
18 Metamorphoses, VIII, pp. 317-430.
19 VIII, pp. 322-323.
20 Lilly G. Kahil, "Autour de l'Artémis attique," Antike Kunst, 1964, pp. 20-33.
21 Theocritus, Epithalamus of Helen.
22 Pausanius, V, 16, 2.
23 III, 9, 2.
24 Élien, Hist. Var., 13, 1; Anecdota graeca, I, 444, 30-445, 13, Bekker.
25 Apollodorus, III, 9, 2.
26 1289-1294.
27 In the space of 6 lines, the word télos appeared three times explicitly; a fourth, by way of its equivalent horaieh.
28 Cf. Jardins d'Adonis, pp. 218-219. There is a télos…gámoio (Od. 20, 74) or a gamelios télos (Aeschylus, Eumenides, 835).
29 1289. anainoménin gâmon andrôn/pheúgein 1294: télos d'égno kai mál' anainoméhe.
30 Hesiod, Works, 72; 76.
31 Pausanius, IX, 17, 3. Cf. Ch. Picard, "Athéna Zosteria," Revue des études anciennes, 1932, 245-253, The warriors are called Zosteres Enyoús; Callimachus, Hymne à Apollon, 85.
32 parthenìe xone: Od. XI, 245.
33 Paroemiegraphi graeci, II, 513, 5-8.
34 Zoster of Ares: Apollodorus, II, 5, 9; after having captured the queen of the Amazons, Hercules is going to offer her to Hera, sovereign power over matrimony in the temple at Mycene: Euripides, Hercules, 416-418.
35 Parmenides, 8, 4 and 8, 32; 42.
36 Kreobóroi: Aeschylus, Supplicants, 287.
37 The epithet is given here by Nonnos, Dionysiaca, 35, 82, but The Iliad attributes it to the Amazons (3, 189; 6, 186).
38 Apollodorus III, 9, 2.
39 III, 9, 2: kathoplisméne: Hygin, Fables, 185.
40 A. Minto, "La corsa di Atalanta e Hippomenes figurata in alcuni oggetti antichi", Asenia, no. 9, 1919, pp. 78-86.
41 Pausanias, III, 12, 4 sq.: 13, 6.
42 Pindar, Pythiques, 9, 105-124.
43 Metamorphoses X, 557-559.
44 Scholies à Lycophron, 831, ed. Scheer, 266, 4-21.
45 Apollodorus, III, 14, 4; Schol. Euripide, Hippol. 1421.
46 Scholies à Lycophron, 831; Nonnos, Diony., 42, 209-211. Cf. W. Attalah, Adonis, 320-321, where the bride who draws the vengeance of the seducer calls on Hephaïstos.
47 "Aphrodite und Adonis. Eine neuerworbene Pyseis in Würzburg." Antike Kunst, no. 15, 1972, pp. 20-26, pl. 5-7.
48 E. Langlotz, "Aphrodite in den Gärten," Sitzungsberichte der Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philos. Hist. Kl., 1953-54, 2, Heidelberg, 1954.
49 K. Schefold, Untersuchungen zu den Kertscher Vasen, Berlin, 1934, 103, fig. 41-42; W. Attalah, Adonis, 203-204, fig. 60.
50 E. Simon, op. cit., 22.
51 Aeschylus, Prometheus, 172.
52 E. Simon, op. cit., 22.
53 O. Keller, Thiere des Classischen Alterthums in culturgeschichtlicher Be ziehung, Innsbruck, 1887, pp. 154-157.
54 E. Simon, op. cit., 22.
55 E. Simon, op. cit., 22.
56 A. Greifenhagen, Griechische Eroten, Berlin, 1957, pp. 40-46.
57 The documents reproduced by E. Simon, op. cit., pl. 6 clearly show the difference with the pyxis towards the one they collected.
58 O. Keller, op. cit., pp. 154-157; 389, N. 81 (other documents).
59 A documentation largely based on the panther in H. Geret, see Panther, R. E. (1949), C. 767-776.
60 Fr. Wotke, see Panther, R.E. (1949), C. 747-767.
61 VI, 2.
62 His valor affirms itself in a Homeric comparison, Il. 21, 573-580, the only one where Hector's challenge is announced: it is then that all of the Trojans flee toward the city, Agenot meeting him. "Such is a panther, coming out of the deep thicket, who challenges the hunter. Her heart shows neither fear nor desire to flee, when she hears the dogs bark. If the first man touches her or reaches her, even piercing her with the javelin, she does not lose courage; she will attack first or perish."
63 Aesop, Fables 42; Plutarch, Moralia, 500, C-D.
64 Élien, Treatise on the Nature of Animals, V, 54.
65 Caus. Plant. 6, 17, 9; Pliny, Natural History, 8, 62; 21, 39.
66 XIII, 4, 907 b 35-7.
67 13, 6.
68 Aristotle, History of the Animals, IX, 6, 612 a 12-15. Cf. Theophrastus, Caus. Plant., VI, 5, 2; [Antigone], Mirabilia, 31, in Paradox. gr., 50-51 Giannini.
69 Natural History, 8, 62.
70 Op. cit., V, 40.
71 I, 16, ed. Sbordone, p. 60, 5 sq.
72 Nicole de Margival, Le dit de la panthère d'amors, éd. H. A. Todd, Paris, 1883. "Li vraie pantière… garist de se douche alains" the wounded or sick animals which come near him. Richard de Fornival, Li Bestiaire d'Amours, ed. C. Segre, Milan, 1957, 45, 1.
73 II, 1-2. Passage taken from the Bibliothèque of Photius, 324, a25, b18.
74 Cf. H. G. Horn, Mysteriensymbolik auf dem Kölner Dionysesmosaik, Bonn, 1972, 109 sq.
75 Cygenetica, IV, 320-353; Timothée de Gaza, 11 ed. M. Haupt.
76 Damascius, Vie d'Isidore, 97.
77 Aristophanes, F. 478 Kock; Lysistrata, 1014-1015.
78 Jardins d'Adonis, 121-122.
79 Xenophon, Memorable, III, 1, 1, 5 sq.
80 Hesychius, s.v. aphrodisia ágra; Paroemiographi graeci, II, 150, 6, Leutsch-Schneidewin.
81 Aristotle, History of the Animals, IX, 9, 614 a 26-28.
82 On the Cotyle d'Amasis (Louvre A 479), in the procession of presents and enamoured couples, a man on his knees has an upright, frisking panther on his left arm, the figurative context of which certifies its erotic value.