Greek Women

by Mitchell Carroll

With such brilliant pictures of domestic life--the queens Penelope, Helen, and Arete, exerting a womanly influence in the palaces, the goddess-lovers Circe and Calypso on their enchanted islands, the slave Euryclea tenderly caring for mistress and young master, and the maiden Nausicaa, engaged in occupation and in pastime with her girl friends--the Odyssey is a mirror reflecting the character of the Heroic Age of Greece.

V

THE LYRIC AGE

From the fascinating visions of the heroic past as they are presented in the Homeric poems, we must now prepare to descend to the actualities of life as they disclose themselves at the dawn of Greek history. Hesiod, the epic poet of Boeotia, constitutes the bridge, as regards social conditions, between the Heroic Age and the early historical periods of the various peoples and cities of Greece. He describes the actual conditions about him, and gives us glimpses of the life of the Greek people which prepare us for the great changes that have taken place through the overturning of monarchies, the spread of commerce and colonization, and the awakening of the common people to a sense of their rights and their power. Hence we may expect to find in his poetry much light on the status of woman in remote times.

Hesiod is usually ascribed to the second half of the ninth century before the Christian Era. He lived at Ascra, near Mount Helicon, in Boeotia, the original home of the Æolians. Amid agricultural surroundings the poet grew up. Defrauded by his brother Perses of part of his inheritance, he experienced hardships that quickened his sympathy for the plain people and led him to reflection on life and its problems. He was commissioned by the Muses, who appeared to him on Mount Helicon, to utter true things to men--a phrase which strikes the keynote to his poetry, for he dealt in realities and sought to alleviate the social conditions of his times. His principal works are the Works and Days and the Theogony; there was also a Hesiodic Catalogue of Women, attested by many allusions in classical writers, but, unfortunately for our purpose, altogether lost to us. Very probably in this work, Hesiod or his school told of the aristocratic women of Greek mythology, from whose union with gods had sprung heroes. Lacking this, Hesiod is to us "the poet of the Helots," and we gain from him only knowledge of the common people of Boeotia and their manner of life.

Hesiod's estimate of women is vastly inferior to that of Homer. Homer, who sang for aristocratic ladies at the court of kings, has introduced us into a society where women presided over their houses with grace and dignity, and softened and refined the rough, warlike manners of men. Hesiod, the poet of the plain people, is impressed with the hopelessness of the conditions about him. The people are oppressed by the nobles; it is impossible for them to obtain justice; the world seems all wrong. And in seeking the causes of existing evils, the poet traces them back to the one great evil which the gods have inflicted upon men; and that is--woman.

This indictment first finds expression in his version, of the myth of Pandora, the Mother Eve of Greek legend.

Hesiod tells us in this poem that in old days the human race had the use of fire, and in gratitude to the gods offered burnt sacrifice. But Prometheus had defrauded the gods of their just share of the sacrifices and had compelled Zeus to be content with merely the bones and fat; and, in return for this deception, Zeus devised grievous troubles for mortals by depriving them of fire. Prometheus then stole fire from heaven. Zeus, angered at being outwitted by the crafty Prometheus, determined to inflict on men a bane from which they would not quickly recover. He straightway commanded Hephæstus to mix earth and water, to endow the plastic form with human voice and powers, and to liken it to a heavenly goddess--virginal, winning, and fair. Athena was commanded to teach her the domestic virtues; Aphrodite, to endow her with beauty, eager desire, and passion that wastes the bodies of mortals; and Hermes, to bestow on her a shameless mind and a treacherous nature. All obeyed the command of Zeus, and in this manner was fashioned the first woman. Then Athena added a girdle and ornaments; the Graces and Persuasion hung their golden chains over her body, and the Hours wove for her garlands of spring flowers. The name given this fascinating creature was Pandora, because each of the gods had bestowed on her gifts to make her a fatal bane unto mortals.

Hermes then led her down to earth to present her to Epimetheus, whom his brother Prometheus had bidden never to receive any presents from Olympian Zeus. Epimetheus, however, was captivated by Pandora's beauty and received her, and only after the evil befell did he remember his brother's command. Until the advent of woman, men, it is said, had lived secure from trouble, free from wearisome labor, and safe from painful diseases that bring death to mankind. But now Pandora with her hands lifted the lid from the great jar with which the gods had dowered her, the great jar wherein these evils had been securely imprisoned, and let them loose upon the earth. With the sorrows, hope had been confined; but when they were loosed, hope flew not forth, for too soon Pandora closed the lid of the vessel. Hence, laments Hesiod, hopeless is the lot of humanity, while innumerable ills pass hither and thither among hopeless men. Such is the mythus of the fall of man, as imagined by the early Greeks. Man was punished for rebelling against the will of heaven. Woman is the instrument of his chastisement, thrust upon him by the angry deity. She possesses every charm, every allurement, but her very fascination is a chief cause of ill to man. He in his folly receives her, and thence befall him all the ills of life. The whole argument of Hesiod in this passage indicates that he regarded woman as "a necessary deduction from the happiness of life," as "the rift in the lute that spoils its music." Contrasted with the Hebrew story, the Greek represents woman as closing the door of hope to man; while the Hebrew version sees in her seed the hope of the salvation that is to overcome the evils of the fall. Even stronger is Hesiod's invective against the female sex in the Theogony, where he repeats the story of Pandora, and concludes with the following reflections: