!"#$"%"$&'()*+,%)")-&./"&01%23&4()5+%3&+6&7835/+)7&1#$&79+:+)7;,5/+%%,*"&9(#*+2#?+,%*"-&4()5+%3&+6&@"2(:(+#)A&B+2C&DEA&F+C&G&

Bruce Lincoln GENDERED DISCOURSES: THE EARLY HISTORY OF MYTHOS AND LOGOS

Today, as you may have anticipated, I will speak on behalf of radicalism in history of religions. That term, however, is sufficiently vague and evokes sufficiently varied responses that I probably should begin by un- packing it a bit. By "radicalism in history of religions" I mean the strain that runs from Xenophanes through Carneades, on to Montaigne, the Enlightenment, the Hegelian Left, Marx, Nietzsche, Robertson Smith, Durkheim, Gramsci, and many others. Within our discipline proper, in this century it has been most powerfully advanced by Italian scholars, including Raffaele Pettazzoni, Amaldo Momigliano, Eresto de Martino, Angelo Brelich, Vittorio Lanternari, Carlo Ginzburg, and Cristiano Grot- tanelli. Briefly, it is the strain that conscientiously resists accepting and reproducing the self-representations of the materials under study, taking its task to be the critical interrogation of such data. Consistent with this, it is the strain that focuses on history over religion, the contingent over the eternal, the social and material over the spiritual. And further still, it is that which in so doing challenges conventional assumptions and au- thorities, intervenes on behalf of have-nots against haves, seeks contro- versy, and pursues critical issues down to their very roots. This lecture is meant in that spirit.

This is the author's inaugural lecture as professor of history of religions at the Univer- sity of Chicago, delivered February 4, 1996.

? 1996 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved. 0018-2710/97/3601-0001 $01.00

Gendered Discourses

I In 1940, as the Wehrmacht rolled over France and the Luftwaffe pounded Britain, Wilhelm Nestle, then seventy-five and a towering figure in clas- sical studies, published a book the title of which has become the stan- dard shorthand version of a story the "Western tradition" never tires of telling itself about itself: Vom Mythos zu Logos: die Selbstentfaltung des griechischen Denkens von Homer bis auf die Sophistik und Sokrates.I Here, as had others before him, Nestle provided a creation account for Western civilization, focusing on the sixth and fifth centuries B.C.E. when-as he saw it-fables gave way to logic, anthropomorphism to ab- straction, poetry to dialectic, and religion to philosophy. In the chaotic time of beginnings Nestle set Homer, Hesiod, and the style of discourse Greeks called mythos and we know as "myth." Then, skillfully and pains- takingly, he showed how the heroic efforts of Socrates, Plato, and their immediate forebears brought about an ordered cosmos by replacing mythos with logos, the discourse of reasoned propositions. Given its relatively straightforward plot, appealing heroes, edifying message, and satisfying closure, this narrative has had great appeal. Many have iden- tified with it strongly, not least Nestle's contemporaries and country- men, whom he implicitly counseled to associate the Reich's victories with the triumph of reason and Kultur, not-as some of the most influential Nazi ideologists argued-with irrationalism and the resurgence of myth.2

To problematize this text by calling attention to its context and subtext does not in itself invalidate conventional understandings of "the Greek miracle" or progress "from mythos to logos." Nestle was not the first to tell this story, and surely he was not the last.3 At best, it might make

1 Wilhelm Nestle, Vom Mythos zu Logos: die Selbstentfaltung des griechischen Den- kens von Homer bis auf die Sophistik und Sokrates (Stuttgart: Kr6ner, 1940; 2d ed., 1942; reprint, Darmstadt: Scientia, 1966).

2 I have found little to indicate that Nestle had strong Nazi affiliations: He goes vir- tually unmentioned in Volker Losemann's Nationalsozialismus und Antike (Hamburg: Hoffman & Campe, 1977), for instance. Still, there are some jarring moments in his text, as when he mentions, with passing approval, the interest of epic, medical, sophist, and historic classical texts in the issue of race (pp. 70, 220, 252-53, and 509, respectively). This notwithstanding, I am inclined to understand Nestle's title, diction, and line of argu- ment as standing in an antithetical relation to the most widely read Nazi treatise after Mein Kampf, Alfred Rosenberg's Der Mythus der 20. Jahrhunderts: eine Wertung der seelisch-geistigen Gestaltenkampf unserer Zeit (1st ed., 1930; by 1944, it had gone through 247 editions, and 1,229,000 copies were in print). Nestle's attempt to write classical his- tory in a fashion that might help modulate Nazi excesses may also be seen in books he wrote immediately before and after the war: Der Friedensgedanke in der antiken Welt (Leipzig: Dieterich, 1938) and Griechische Weltanschauung in ihrer Bedeutung far die Gegenwart (Stuttgart: Hannsmann, 1946). 3 See, e.g., F M. Cornford, From Religion to Philosophy (New York: Longmans Green, 1912); Bruno Snell, The Discovery of the Mind (London: Blackwell, 1953),

2

History of Religions

us hesitate for a moment and ask whether this familiar narrative is really as persuasive as has habitually been assumed. During this moment of hesitation, I propose we consider what the key terms mythos and logos meant in the earliest Greek texts. The results are rather surprising.

Consider, for example, one of the most dramatic moments in Hesiod's Theogony, when Gaia (the primordial "Earth," mother of the Titans and grandmother of the gods) asks her children to castrate Ouranos (Sky), her abusive husband and their oppressive father. At first the young deities are speechless with dread.

Then, becoming bold, great Kronos Responded quickly with these mythoi: "Mother, I promise I will bring this deed to fulfillment. I have no regard for our father, he of the evil name, For he first contrived unseemly deeds."4

In the tense moment before Kronos speaks, we understand him to be re- flecting on his father's crimes, contemplating the outrage his mother sug- gests, calculating risks against gains, and comparing his strength to that of his adversary. When he finally speaks, he does so in a fashion the text designates mythos: a speech that is raw and crude, but forceful and true. This speech is, in effect, a key moment in the creation of his strength. Within it commingle vaunting self-assertion, denunciation of his enemy, prediction of triumph, and a solemn pledge of deeds to come. Nothing in our normal understanding of the term "myth" prepares us for such a usage.

W. K. C. Guthrie, A History of Greek Philosophy, I: The Earlier Presocratics and the Pythagoreans (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1962), pp. 1-3, 140-42; G. S. Kirk, J. E. Raven, and M. Schofield, The Presocratic Philosophers (Cambridge: Cam- bridge University Press, 1983), pp. 72-74; and Peter Schmitter, "Vom 'Mythos' zum 'Logos': Erkenntniskritik und Sprachreflexion bei den Vorsokratikern," in Geschichte der Sprachtheorie (Tiibingen: Narr, 1991), 2:57-86. Eric Havelock has added an important dimension to this discussion by stressing how important a role was played by the introduction of writing, but in many other ways the story he tells remains similar to that of his predecessors. See, e.g., his essay "Preliteracy and the Presocratics," in The Literate Revolution in Greece and Its Cultural Consequences (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1982), pp. 220-60, and "The Linguistic Task of the Presocratics," in Language and Thought in Early Greek Philosophy, ed. Kevin Robb (La Salle, Ill.: Monist Library of Philosophy, 1983), pp. 7-81. 4 Theogony 168-72:

OapoioaaS 6?8 pyaq Kp6voc d&yKU7Xo'qTr|TS al[r' auit( 3oa0otot tpool68a PlT?epa KE:SvfV- "p( Lrsp, ly6) KEV TO6TO y' DiooaXe6voq TEksoaiit1 :pyov, neii naxp6O y7s 8o(0OVUou oUK &Xayi.o fiTperipou' rp6Tpo S yap d&uct a PioaTro ;pya."

3

Gendered Discourses

In the opening scene of the Iliad, mythos also denotes a blunt and ag- gressive act of plainspeaking: a hardboiled speech of intimidation. Here, Chryses, priest of Apollo, attempts to ransom his daughter from Agamem- non, offering "gifts beyond number" and his prayers for Greek victory, if only his daughter be returned. All shout in favor of accepting his pro- posal, save Agamemnon.

Harshly he let fly, and proclaimed this powerful mythos: "Old man, don't let me find you by the hollow ships, Either tarrying now or coming back later. The god's scepter and fillets won't protect you. I won't free her until old age comes upon her In our house in Argos, far from her father's land, Where she will ply the loom and share my bed. Now go, and don't provoke me. That way, you'll get home safer." Thus he spoke, and the old man was frightened. Persuaded by this

mythos, He silently departed .. .

From these (and other) examples, one begins to perceive that in epic diction, mythos usually denotes the rough speech of headstrong men, who-for better or worse-are reckless in their power and determined to prevail. Agamemnon could accept Chryses' offer or could choose to deflect it in gracious fashion. Instead, he rebuffs the priest as harshly as possible, threatening him with violence, while trumpeting his lust for the old man's daughter. Far from incidental, his boorishness and vulgar- ity are vehicles of metacommunication, whereby Agamemnon announces himself a man whose rank and power are so great he has no use of politesse or circumlocution, for he need take no account of the feelings of others. Ultimately, the mythos he directs to Chryses is an attempt to establish relations of dominance and subordination through this bullying act of speech: a challenge and a claim of strength, issued to an adversary in front of an audience, which succeeds-or seemingly so-when Chry- ses slinks away in terror.

5 Iliad 1.25-34: aX&a KcaKC5 dcpiEt, KpacTpbv 6' ixti LUOov ?T?E'E "pJ Go, 'YpOV, Koi1n|tYv. ?YO 7tap& vTuai KtlXiO f] vav 6rI06vovT' i1 UoCrpov auzti it6va, lt v6 TOI oU XpaicrLIn oKfiTntpov Klt ozTLppa Oeoio.

Tlv 6' Ey6i o06 UGTo' * tpiv ptv Kait yipag n~rtStv ip?TeZ(p evi oiKp, Ev "Apysi, TzrX60ti r6Tprg,

iozTOV ?xoOlOXv?V TV Kai ?plbV XkXO% dVTtl6oXav- TOI' 0ot, p p' ?p?901E. eGac)T?pOS (6 KE V?Tat1."

"Q; ?cpaT', b66et1v ' 6 yipo)v Kait ?breie?o TOcp' fl 6' dKhov reapa Oiva toXu(pXoiCooto Oaxkdo(rlng

4

History of Religions

The important work of Richard Martin adds statistical support to these impressions. In his study of the Iliad, Martin found that in 155 of the 167 times the noun mythos or the related verb mytheomai appears (93 percent), the situation is one in which a powerful male gives orders, makes boasts, or does both at the same time. Mythos he sees as a speech redolent of power, performed at length, in public, by one in a position of authority.6 The same pattern is present in the works of Hesiod, where the term appears six times. Only once do females speak a mythos, and then it is not mortal women, but the divine Muses, who address Hesiod the shepherd abusively and contemptuously before giving him the gift that transforms him into a poet. Throughout the epic-Hesiodic as well as Homeric-mythos does not just reflect or express an authority that has prior and independent existence; rather, it is a prime moment in the con- stitution of that authority, being an act of speech that in its operation establishes the speaker's domination of interlocutor and audience alike.

In a society where relations of dominance and submission are char- acterized above all in sexual terms, the gendered nature of mythos is al- ways implicit. On occasion it is also thematized directly, as in Hesiod's fable of the hawk and nightingale (of which Nietzsche-no surprise- was exceedingly fond).7

Now I will tell a fable to the kings, and they will recognize themselves.

Thus the hawk said to the nightingale, she of the dappled throat, As he bore her high in the clouds after seizing her. Stuck in his claws, she piteously

6 Richard P. Martin, The Language of Heroes: Speech and Performance in the Iliad (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1989). 7 In his brief career as professor of classical philology, Nietzsche twice taught semi- nars on the Works and Days (1870 and 1878). He paraphrased the fable of hawk and nightingale in The Genealogy of Morals, first essay, sec. 13, eliminating all traces of sympathy for prey and critique of predation: "That lambs dislike great birds of prey does not seem strange: only it gives no ground for reproaching these birds of prey for bearing off little lambs. And if the lambs say among themselves: 'these birds of prey are evil; and whoever is least like a bird of prey, but rather is opposite, a lamb-would he not be good?' there is no reason to find fault with this institution of an ideal, except perhaps that the birds of prey might view it a little ironically and say: 'we don't dislike them at all, these good little lambs; we even love them: nothing is more tasty than a tender lamb.' To demand of strength, that it should not be a desire to overcome, a desire to throw down, a desire to become master, a thirst for enemies and resistances and triumphs, is just as absurd as to demand of weakness that it should express itself as strength" (trans. Walter Kaufmann). On the Hesiodic passage, see Annie Bonnaf6, "Le rossignol et la justice en pleurs," Bulletin de l'association Georges Bude (1983): 260-64; Jens Uwe Schmidt, "Hesiods Ainos von Habicht und Nachtigall," Wort und Dienst 17 (1983): 55-76; Steven Lonsdale, "Hesiod's Hawk and Nightingale (Op. 202-12), Fable or Omen?" Hermes 117 (1989): 403-12; and Marie-Christine Leclerc, "Le rossignol et 1'6pervier d'Hesiode: Une fable a double sens," Revue des etudes grecques 105 (1992): 37-44.

5

Gendered Discourses

Wept, and forcefully he spoke this mythos to her: "Good lady, why do you screech? One who is far your better has hold

of you. You will go where I take you, singer that you are. I will either make you my dinner or let you go, if I wish, But it is senseless to pit yourself against someone more powerful: You end up losing and suffer pain in disgrace."8

Does one need to be told that the name of the hawk (irex) is gram- matically masculine and that of the nightingale (aedon) feminine? Or are the other contrasts that structure this passage-predator/prey, high/low, strong/weak, arrogant and brutal/delicate and frightened-sufficient to make the point? Differences in the nature of their speech show the same contrast. Thus, the nightingale sings and weeps mournfully, while the hawk trumpets a mythos, the explicit goal of which is to silence his vic- tim. Speaking forcefully (epikrateos), without euphemism or grace, the hawk describes a harsh world, and the cruelty of his words matches that of his actions. In his tone and manner, he shows utter confidence, not just in his power, but in the right of the powerful to prevail. His my- thos, moreover is as much a part of that power as are the beast's wings, claws, and beak.

Within the epic, most mythoi are spoken in agonistic settings-above all, the battlefield and place of assembly. In the latter context, a distinction is evident, for the mythoi of assembly come in two types. Some, termed "straight," are the hard-hitting assertions and unvarnished truths through which honest men press their case. But there are also others, as Hesiod describes in his apocalyptic vision of the Iron Age just commencing.

There will be no favor shown to the person who is true to his oath, nor to him who is just,

Nor to the good man; rather, men glorify arrogance And the doer of evils. They take justice into their own hands, and

there is no 8 Works and Days 202-11:

Nuv 6' alvov PaiotXuoatv p@co (ppoveouat Kai aCLTOK' J6' iprq] ipoaiEuctv adtS6va rtotictKX66pov Uil pg6X' ev vcpQoaot (?po)v 6vOUcrat pieapnaxd' I] 6' UEX6v, yvaaTaotoict ncnap{?vr 4u(P' O6vUxoot,

pjp?TO' TxiV O Y' nltKpaTOx p6q npbOi pov Ec1usv' "8atltovli, Ti XXrlKaqC X' E? Vt Os 7oXXOv dpsiov' 6T 8' etq fi o' av y?6) nep ayc KOa adot6v eouaov' 6?stvov 6', ai K' c0Xko, notlilaola iA [?#CT(o. &app)v 6', o; K' eX n Ip KpSi CpovaS &dvTq(ppiEi1v' ViKrlS Ts OTepeTrat 7p6q T' aioEXscov &a'ya irCdosE1.

6

History of Religions

Shame. He who is evil will damage the better man, Speaking with crooked mythoi as he takes the oath.9

In this passage, the fundamentally amoral status of mythos becomes clear. In assembly, good men and just causes prevail by speaking straight; others, by speaking crooked. But mythoi of different kinds are available to all, mythos being an instrument of power, and not one of justice. In- evitably, the question arises: Does there not exist some discourse of the weak, through which they are able to triumph? Is there no speech with which nightingales overcome the mythoi of hawks?

II Here, let me recall a scene in the Homeric Hymn to Hermes, where Lord Apollo confronts the infant Hermes and accuses him of stealing his cattle. Since the text has earlier narrated this miraculous act of brig- andage in considerable detail, we know full well the charge to be true. The interest of the scene lies in the question of whether Apollo can make his case stick, and in the contrast between the half-brothers, which is also a contrast between two sets of capacities: elder versus younger, stronger (krateros) versus weaker, truthful versus duplicitous, respon- sible versus playful, ingenuous versus cunning, aristocrat versus scoun- drel. Physically, Hermes is no match for Apollo, but he is among the shrewdest of gods.10 When challenged, he knows how to respond.

With his crafts and seductive logoi, He wanted to trick the god of the silver bow.1

9 Works and Days 190-94: o06 xTt 66EupKcou XLpt aa earTat o066? 6tKaiou 0ou' dya0oi, aiX;Lov 6; KCaKOV p?KTCfpa Kti itptv avMpa T Lt0oouot- 6iK1C 6' kv Xspoi' Kai ai6S) OUK arTat, PXd&Wt {' 6 KCaK0 TOV dpsiova p0Ta pU0ot0at oKOXtoi;S VtiCOV, tCli 6' OpKOV 6Oetiat.

10 Within the Homeric Hymn, Hermes is referred to by a host of terms that play on the vocabulary of metis (cunning), haimulos (seduction), and dolos (snare, guile)-haimu- lometis (line 13), poikilometis (155, 514), dolophrades (282), polymetis (318), dolometis (405)-and his use of doloi is also mentioned at lines 66, 76, and 86. Regarding Hermes and the character he assumes in this hymn, the discussion of Norman O. Brown, Hermes the Thief (New York: Vintage, 1969 [originally published 1947]), retains its value. See also Giancarlo Croci, "Mito e poetica nell' inno a Ermes," Bolletino dell' Istituto di Filo- logia greca, Universita di Padova 4 (1977/78): 175-84; Laurence Kahn, Hermes passe, ou les ambigui'tes de la communication (Paris: Maspero, 1978); and H. Herter, "L'Inno a Hermes alla luce della poesia orale," in I poemi epici rapsodici non omerici e la tra- dizione orale, ed. C. Brillante et al. (Padua, 1981), pp. 183-201. 1 Homeric Hymn to Hermes 317-18:

ctTrp 6 TiXVnGiv TE Ktit aip.uioItot X6yo7otv fi0kXsv Eanaviav KuXXiVtO; Apyup6oTOov

7

Gendered Discourses

Ultimately Hermes succeeds in escaping his brother's wrath, although he does so by a path more circuitous than we can follow here. For the moment, let me observe that Hermes' logoi are characterized as "seduc- tive" (haimulioi), and associated with "craft" (tekhne) and trickery (ex- apatan). This is the only appearance of logoi in the Homeric Hymns, but the same associations recur in Hesiod, who uses the term six times, frequently in formulaic connection with pseudea ("falsehoods, decep- tions").12 Witness, for example, the culminating lines in Hesiod's account of Pandora, the prototype of all mortal women.

In her breast, Hermes shaped Falsehoods, seductive logoi, and a thievish character, According to the plans of deep-thundering Zeus. And now, the

herald of the gods Put a voice in her, and he named that woman Pan-dora ("All-gifts"), because all who dwell on Olympus Gave her a gift, and they gave her as trouble for men.13

This misogynist passage provides invaluable evidence of how Greeks of the eighth century regarded women and women's speech.14 Essen- tially, logoi are everything mythoi are not: soft, not harsh; ornamented, not crude or coarse; devious, not straightforward. And where powerful men use mythos, like their bodies and their weapons, to best their ad-

12 On the earliest uses of logos, the most thorough discussion to date is Herbert Boeder ("Der friihgriechische Wortgebrauch von Logos und Aletheia," Archiv fur Be- griffsgeschichte 4 [1959]: 82-112), who begins with this observation: "Im Epos ist dieses Wort [logos] noch wenig gebrauchlich. Die sparlichen Belege nennen es nur im Zusammenhang von Bezauberung, Ablenkung und Irrefiihrung" (p. 82). Also of interest are Henri Fournier, Les verbes "dire" en grec ancien (Paris: Klinckseick, 1946); and Claude Calame, "'Mythe' et 'rite' en Gr6ce: des cat6gories indig6nes?" Kernos 4 (1991): 179-204.

13 Works and Days 77-82: ;v 6' iapa ol oaT1e0aot t6iaKcopo; ApyEip6vT-r xej66?d 0' ailukiouSc TE Xyoui Kicai iKricXOnoV i06oo; TelU A6tb pfouXfot papuKT6igou- v 6' apa povfiv 0fcK? 0cov Kifput, 6v61orlve 6ei Tv6E yuvaLica rIavFcpriv, ozt navxTq 'Oupntma StpaT' oXVTzg 60ipov 56cprCTYav, n1Li' davpd6iav &(ploTfiotv.

14 Regarding the attitudes of Hesiod and his contemporaries toward women, see G. Ar- righetti, "II misoginismo di Esiodo," in Misoginia e maschilismo in Grecia e in Roma (Genoa: Istituto di filologia classica e medievale, Universita di Genova, 1981), pp. 27-48; Patricia A. Marquardt, "Hesiod's Ambiguous View of Women," Classical Philology 77 (1982): 283-91; Marilyn Arthur, "The Dream of a World without Women: Poetics and the Circles of Order in the Theogony Proemium," Arethusa 16 (1983): 63-82; and Jean Rud- hardt, "Pandora, Hesiode et les femmes," Museum Helveticum 43 (1986): 231-46. Note also the broader discussion of Ann Bergren, "Language and the Female in Early Greek Thought," Arethusa 16 (1983): 69-95.

8

History of Religions

versaries by provoking fear, so women use logos, like their bodies and instruments of allure, to win by arousing desire.

In point of fact, the Odyssey opens by acknowledging the power of logos and the problem it poses for men. The scene is Ogygia, fabled isle of the sorceress Calypso, where seven years earlier Odysseus had been washed ashore. Duty and destiny demand the hero complete his voyage home and battle for his wife and kingdom. Calypso, however, has other ideas.

Calypso restrained him from misery and lamentation; Ever with soft and seductive logoi She beguiled him in such a way he became forgetful of Ithaca.15

Calypso's blandishments immobilize Odysseus and the story alike, but Odysseus is powerless against them. Her logoi are playful and win- some, even flirtatious, but unscrupulous and manipulative nonetheless. Effective for the speaker, such words are correspondingly dangerous to the hearer, for with and through them, those who are weaker-women in particular, but others as well-repeatedly overcome those more gifted in physical strength. Ultimately, it takes the intervention of Zeus to free him from Calypso's linguistic and amorous charms, and it is only after this that the epic's hero is able to act like a hero once more.

The passage I have cited is the only one where the term logos appears in the Odyssey. Once overcome, the problem disappears. Usage in the Iliad is equally sparse but almost equally significant, for the sole occur- rence of logos is in a scene on which all action turns.16 The stage is set when the Ormenian hero Eurypylus falls wounded and Achilles, pouting by his ships, sends Patroclus to ask after him, a move the authorial voice calls "the beginning of evil" (kakou ... arkhe, 11.604). After reaching Eurypulus, Patroclus pauses to treat his wound (11.809-848), and Book 11 ends as he cuts the arrow from his thigh and stanches the blood with healing herbs. The epic then drops this narrative thread to dwell on the fury of the Trojan assault. Only toward the middle of book 15 does it return to Patroclus and Eurypylus.

15 Odyssey 1.55-57: TOb 0OuydTrlp 6UjTrVOV 68up6pEvov KaTCpUKsI, aie? 6Se LaXaKolta Kit aip.luiotot X6yotOlv

ikyset, nxt0S 'Id0aKniCrl; Em Elat 16 Logos also appears in a manuscript variant to Iliad 4.339 but, with that exception, nowhere else in Homer, save the two passages cited here. In Hesiod it is also rare (Theo-

gony 229, 890; Works and Days 78, 106, 789), and the associated verb legein even rarer (Theogony 27).

9

Gendered Discourses

As long as the Achaeans and Trojans Battled around the wall, beyond the shelter of the swift ships, Patroclus sat in the hut of kindly Eurypylus. He entertained him with logoi and on his baleful wound He sprinkled drugs to cure the dark pains. But when he perceived the Trojans rushing the wall, As shouts and panic rose among the Danaans, He cried out in distress and smote his thighs With the flat of his hands. Wailing, he uttered this speech: "Eurypylus, I can stay here no longer with you, Notwithstanding your need, for a great struggle has arisen."17

Initially, we behold a space of tranquility and companionship, where Patroclus's logoi soothe the spirit, much as his drugs (pharmaka) ease bodily pain. But when Trojan troops breach the Greeks' defensive wall, threatening annihilation, this island of calm cannot be maintained. With the hand that a moment before spread balm on Eurypylus's stricken thigh, Patroclus now bitterly smites his own. His pacific discourse of relaxation and entertainment now seems irresponsible, even effeminate, and so Patroclus assumes a more urgent, more active, more masculine voice: "Eurypylus, I can stay no longer.... A great struggle has arisen." From here, the story goes hurtling to its end. Patroclus hastens from Eurypylus to Achilles, and thence to battle. The healer becomes the war- rior, who will kill, be killed, and draw others after him in a brutal story we know too well.

It now should be clear that the most ancient texts consistently use mythos and logos to mark very different sorts of discourse: that of ag- gressive men and that of seductive women. Mythos is a blunt speech suited for assembly and battle, with which powerful males bludgeon and intimidate their foes. Logos, in contrast, is a speech particularly associ- ated with women, but available to the gentle, the charming, and the shrewd of either sex. It is a speech soft and delightful that can also deceive and entrap. While it may be heard in many places and contexts, it is absent from the battlefield and place of assembly, for it is the na-

17 Iliad 15.390-400: IndrpoKXog 6' oc5 p{v AXatoi re Tp);c T?e

TEiXsE; dllpECdlXovTo 0odov KZo0tI VICDV, T6(pp' 6 y' ?vi KXtoin dyYanivopor EpuiUn6oto jOT6O Te Kai v pTOV Tp X6yot;, ii7 6' ?XK?i Xuypfi

(padppaK' aKccciaxT' staaaooc pXaltvaov 6uvdov. auOrp ?Eti 6 zEitXo1 inaeoou?auvouS; 1v6]o? Tpioca, &Tap Aavacov yveTo XiaXI T e p6p6o xe, ftgo)V xv' &p' ap EtETa cKatl ) nsTc?Xnkyo pnilpo Xepai KaTarcprvoo', 6Xoopup61pEvoc 6' :og rb?a'- "EUp6cuX', o6UKcT Tot 6vtpvapat xaTrovTi 7up' pj7tirq Ev0e6& tapcvgLEV' b6i y&p lpya VEitKOcS opopEv

10

History of Religions

ture-indeed, the genius-of this discourse to outflank and offset the physical, political, and material advantages of those who are accustomed to prevail on just such combative terrain.

As a weapon of the weak-better, as a weapon of those whose strength is not of the conventional and hegemonic forms-logos is open to a wide variety of readings that reflect the interests and sympathies of those who observe and comment. The authorial voice of the epic gener- ally shows fear and treats it as something unprincipled and treacherous. But it can also be read as an effective instrument through which sym- pathetic figures struggle against serious obstacles to accomplish reason- able, even admirable goals, as when Hermes seeks to level an uneven playing field against Apollo or when Patroclus works to soothe Eury- pylus's pains.

III A revised understanding of these two words has considerable import for the way we understand the history of speech, thought, and knowl- edge/power-sufficient, I believe, that the first chapter in standard his- tories of Western philosophy will require modification. What Heraclitus championed as logos-"not simply language but rational discussion, calculation, and choice: rationality as expressed in speech, in thought, and in action," as one commentator puts it18 -is not what his pre- decessors took logos to be. Similarly, the mythos Plato devalued had little in common with what Hesiod and Homer understood by that term.

Rather than taking the usage of a Heraclitus or a Plato as normative, it is preferable to understand them in their proper context as nothing more (but also nothing less) than strategic-and ultimately successful- attempts to redefine and revalorize the terms in question. Accordingly, our view of the lexemes mythos and logos must become more dynamic. These are not words with fixed meanings (indeed, no such words exist), nor did their meanings change glacially over time, as the result of im- personal processes. Rather, these words and others were the sites of im- portant semantic struggles fought between rival regimes of truth.19

18 Charles H. Kahn, The Art and Thought of Heraclitus (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni- versity Press, 1979), p. 102. 19 The best treatment remains Eric Havelock, Preface to Plato (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap, 1963). For different approaches, see Stanley Rosen, The Quarrel between Phi- losophy and Poetry (New York: Routledge, 1988); Thomas Gould, The Ancient Quarrel between Poetry and Philosophy (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1990); and Bruce Lincoln, "Socrates' Prosecutors, Philosophy's Rivals, and the Politics of Discur- sive Forms," Arethusa 26 (1993): 233-46. Also relevant and important are the discus- sions of Marcel Detienne (The Creation of Mythology [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986]), Paul Veyne (Did the Greeks Believe in their Myths? [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988]), and Luc Brisson (Platon, les mots et les mythes [Paris: Mas- pero, 1982]).

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Gendered Discourses

The issues in these struggles were serious, and the stakes were high. Whose speech would be perceived as persuasive, and whose merely be- guiling? Who would inspire trust, and who arouse suspicion? Which discourses would be associated with "truth," and which (at best) with "plausible falsehoods"? Whose constructs would hold the status of knowledge, and whose superstition? Whose characteristic practices of analysis, explication, pedagogy, and the like would command respect, and whose inspire a snicker? Whose speech (and style of speaking) would be invested with authority? The connection of these to questions of power is not difficult to perceive: Who would attract students? Who counsel rulers? Whose words would be preserved, cited, and studied thereafter?

To give this vast topic the attention it deserves is hardly possible in the scope of this article. Still, I would suggest that the narrative of pro- gress "from mythos to logos" that begins with superstitious stories and ends in reasoned propositions is no longer tenable, if ever it was.20 Tempting though it is to renarrate that story as one in which male bluster gave way to female art and cunning, such a story, I fear, would be equally misleading. Rather, I am inclined to think that when aristocratic Greek males could no longer establish their dominance by force and a discourse of force (i.e., mythos in its epic sense), they adopted a dis- course of crafty, well-wrought persuasion (i.e., logos). In this moment, they shifted the basis for their claim to preeminence, emphasizing their intellect, education, sophistication, and speech, instead of their birth, rank, weapons, and brawn. To accomplish this project, Plato and others la- bored to revise the key terms, with the result that a sanitized, degendered logos became the favored discourse of philosophers, while a trivialized and emasculated mythos was consigned to nursemaids and children. It was not until the nineteenth century that these constructions and valu- ations would be called into question. But that is another story.

University of Chicago

20 Well into the fifth century, the meanings and values attached to mythos and logos remained unstable, contested, and the balance of power between them unresolved. Al- though Herodotus shows evidence for a positive use of logos against a negative use of mythos, Hecataeus began his history with the statement "I write those things that seem to me to be true, for the logoi of the Greeks, as they appear to me, are many and ridicu- lous" (fragment 1 Jacoby). Gorgias could entertain the possibility of absolving Helen from blame "if logos persuaded and deceived her soul" (fragment 82B11.8 Diels-Kranz). And although Heraclitus celebrated logos, while ignoring mythos, Parmenides introduced his discourse as follows: "Come, I will speak, and having heard my mythos you will carry it away" (fragment 28B2.1 Diels-Kranz).

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Issue Table of ContentsHistory of Religions, Vol. 36, No. 1 (Aug., 1996), pp. 1-83Front MatterGendered Discourses: The Early History of "Mythos" and "Logos" [pp.1-12]Sarah and the Hyena: Laughter, Menstruation, and the Genesis of a Double Entendre [pp.13-41]Saint Patrick, the Druids, and the End of the World [pp.42-53]Book Reviewsuntitled [pp.54-56]untitled [pp.56-58]untitled [pp.58-60]untitled [pp.60-64]untitled [pp.64-69]untitled [pp.69-72]untitled [pp.72-73]untitled [pp.73-76]untitled [pp.76-79]untitled [pp.79-81]untitled [pp.81-83]

Back Matter