Lincoln 1996 - Mythos and Logos

7/27/2019 Lincoln 1996 - Mythos and Logos

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Gendered Discourses: The Early History of "Mythos" and "Logos"Author(s): Bruce LincolnSource: History of Religions, Vol. 36, No. 1 (Aug., 1996), pp. 1-12Published by: The University of Chicago PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3176470Accessed: 30/05/2009 18:10

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Bruce Lincoln GENDEREDDISCOURSES: THEEARLY HISTORY OFMYTHOS AND LOGOS

Today,as you may have anticipated,I will speakon behalf of radicalismin history of religions. That term, however, is sufficiently vague andevokes sufficientlyvaried responses that I probablyshould begin by un-packing it a bit. By "radicalism n history of religions"I mean the strainthat runs from Xenophanes through Carneades, on to Montaigne, theEnlightenment, the Hegelian Left, Marx, Nietzsche, Robertson Smith,Durkheim, Gramsci, and many others. Within our discipline proper, inthis century it has been most powerfully advanced by Italian scholars,including RaffaelePettazzoni,Amaldo Momigliano, Eresto de Martino,Angelo Brelich, VittorioLanternari,CarloGinzburg,andCristianoGrot-tanelli. Briefly, it is the strain that conscientiously resists accepting andreproducing he self-representationsof the materials understudy,takingits task to be the critical interrogationof such data. Consistentwith this,it is the strainthat focuses on history over religion, the contingent overthe eternal, the social and materialover the spiritual.And furtherstill, itis 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 lectureis meant in that spirit.

This is the author's naugurallecture as professor of history of religions at the Univer-sity of Chicago, delivered February4, 1996.

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


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Gendered DiscoursesI

In 1940, as the Wehrmacht olled over Franceand the LuftwaffepoundedBritain,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 shorthandversion of a story the "Westerntradition"never tires oftelling itself aboutitself: VomMythoszu Logos: die Selbstentfaltungdesgriechischen Denkens von Homer bis auf die Sophistik und Sokrates.IHere, as had others before him, Nestle provided a creation account forWestern civilization, focusing on the sixth and fifth centuries B.C.E.when-as he saw it-fables gave way to logic, anthropomorphismo ab-straction,poetry to dialectic, and religion to philosophy. In the chaotictime of beginnings Nestle set Homer, Hesiod, and the style of discourseGreekscalled mythosand we know as "myth."Then, skillfully andpains-takingly, he showed how the heroic efforts of Socrates, Plato, and theirimmediate forebears brought about an ordered cosmos by replacingmythos with logos, the discourse of reasoned propositions. Given itsrelatively straightforwardplot, appealing heroes, edifying message, andsatisfying closure, this narrativehas 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'svictories withthe triumphof reason and Kultur,not-as some of the most influentialNazi ideologists argued-with irrationalismandthe resurgenceof myth.2Toproblematizethis text by calling attentionto its context and subtextdoes not in itself invalidate conventional understandingsof "the Greekmiracle" or progress "frommythos to logos." Nestle was not the first totell this story, and surely he was not the last.3 At best, it might make

1 Wilhelm Nestle, VomMythos 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, andhistoric classical texts in the issue of race (pp. 70, 220, 252-53, and 509, respectively).This notwithstanding, I am inclined to understandNestle's title, diction, and line of argu-ment as standing in an antithetical relation to the most widely read Nazi treatise afterMein Kampf, Alfred Rosenberg's Der Mythus der 20. Jahrhunderts: eine Wertungderseelisch-geistigen GestaltenkampfunsererZeit (1st ed., 1930; by 1944, it had gone through247 editions, and 1,229,000 copies were in print). Nestle's attemptto write classical his-tory in a fashion that might help modulate Nazi excesses may also be seen in books hewrote immediately before and after the war: Der Friedensgedanke in der antiken Welt(Leipzig: Dieterich, 1938) and Griechische Weltanschauungin ihrer Bedeutungfar dieGegenwart (Stuttgart:Hannsmann, 1946).3 See, e.g., F M. Cornford, From Religion to Philosophy (New York: LongmansGreen, 1912); Bruno Snell, The Discovery of the Mind (London: Blackwell, 1953),

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History of Religionsus hesitate for a moment and ask whetherthis familiar narrative s reallyas persuasive as has habitually been assumed. During this moment ofhesitation, I propose we consider what the key terms mythos and logosmeant in the earliest Greek texts. The results are rathersurprising.Consider, for example, one of the most dramaticmoments in Hesiod'sTheogony,when Gaia (the primordial"Earth,"mother of the Titans andgrandmother f the gods) asks her childrento castrateOuranos(Sky), herabusive husband and their oppressive father. At first the young deitiesare speechless with dread.

Then,becomingbold,greatKronosResponded uicklywiththesemythoi:"Mother, promise will bring his deedto fulfillment.I have no regardor ourfather,he of the evil name,For he first contrived unseemly deeds."4

In the tense momentbefore Kronosspeaks,we understandhim to be re-flecting on his father'scrimes, contemplatingthe outragehis mothersug-gests, calculatingrisksagainstgains, andcomparinghis strength o that ofhis adversary.When he finally speaks, he does so in a fashion the textdesignates 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 vauntingself-assertion,denunciationof his enemy,prediction of triumph,and a solemn pledge of deeds to come. Nothingin our normal understanding of the term "myth"prepares us for sucha usage.W. K. C. Guthrie,A History of Greek Philosophy, I: The Earlier Presocratics and thePythagoreans (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': Erkenntniskritikund Sprachreflexionbei den Vorsokratikern,"n Geschichte derSprachtheorie (Tiibingen: Narr, 1991), 2:57-86. Eric Havelock has added an importantdimension to this discussion by stressing how important a role was played by theintroduction of writing, but in many other ways the story he tells remains similar to thatof his predecessors.See, e.g., his essay "Preliteracyand the Presocratics," n The LiterateRevolutionin Greece and Its CulturalConsequences(Princeton,N.J.: PrincetonUniversityPress, 1982), pp. 220-60, and "The Linguistic Task of the Presocratics,"in Languageand Thought in Early Greek Philosophy, ed. Kevin Robb (La Salle, Ill.: Monist Libraryof Philosophy, 1983), pp. 7-81.4 Theogony 168-72:

OapoioaaS ?8 yaq Kp6voc d&yKU7Xo'qTr|TSal[r' auit( 3oa0ototpool68a PlT?epa KE:SvfV-"p(rsp, ly6) KEV O6TO' DiooaXe6voqTEksoaiit1:pyov, neiinaxp6O 7s8o(0OVUouUK&Xayi.ofiTperipou'p6TpoS yap &ucta PioaTro;pya."

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Gendered DiscoursesIn the opening scene of the Iliad, mythosalso denotes a blunt and ag-gressive act of plainspeaking:a hardboiledspeech of intimidation.Here,

Chryses, priestof Apollo, attempts o ransomhis daughter romAgamem-non, offering "gifts beyond number"and his prayers for Greek victory,if only his daughterbe returned.All shout in favor of accepting his pro-posal, save Agamemnon.Harshlyhe let fly,andproclaimedhispowerfulmythos:"Oldman,don't et me findyou by thehollowships,Either arrying ow orcomingback ater.Thegod'sscepterandfillets won'tprotectyou.I won't reeher until old age comesuponherIn ourhouse in Argos,far fromher father'sand,Where he will ply the loom and sharemybed.Now go, and don'tprovokeme.Thatway,you'llget home safer."Thushe spoke,and he old manwasfrightened. ersuadedythismythos,He silently departed.. .

From these (and other) examples, one begins to perceive that in epicdiction, mythos usually denotes the rough speech of headstrong men,who-for betteror worse-are reckless in theirpower and determinedtoprevail. Agamemnon could accept Chryses' offer or could choose todeflect it in gracious fashion. Instead, he rebuffs the priest as harshlyas possible, threateninghim with violence, while trumpetinghis lust forthe old man'sdaughter.Far from incidental, his boorishness and vulgar-ity arevehicles of metacommunication,wherebyAgamemnonannounceshimself a man whose rank and power are so great he has no use ofpolitesse or circumlocution, for he need take no account of the feelingsof others. Ultimately, the mythos he directs to Chryses is an attempttoestablish relationsof dominanceand subordination hroughthis bullyingact of speech: a challenge anda claim of strength, ssued to an adversaryin frontof an audience, which succeeds-or seemingly so-when Chry-ses slinks away in terror.

5 Iliad 1.25-34:aX&a KcaKC5cpiEt, KpacTpbv 6' ixtiLUOov T?E'E"pJ Go, 'YpOV, Koi1n|tYv. ?YO 7tap& vTuai KtlXiOf] vav 6rI06vovT'1 UoCrpov uzti it6va,lt v6 TOI UXpaicrLInKfiTntpov lt ozTLppa eoio.Tlv 6' Ey6i o06 UGTo'tpiv ptv Kaityipag n~rtStvip?TeZ(pvi oiKp, Ev "Apysi, TzrX60ti6Tprg,iozTOV ?xoOlOXv?VTV Kai ?plbV XkXO%dVTtl6oXav-TOI'ot,p p' ?p?901E.eGac)T?pOS6 KEV?Tat1.""Q; ?cpaT',b66et1v '6 yipo)v Kait?breie?oOcp'fl 6' dKhovreapa Oiva toXu(pXoiCootoOaxkdo(rlng

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History of ReligionsThe important work of Richard Martin adds statistical support tothese impressions. In his study of the Iliad, Martinfound that in 155 ofthe 167 times the noun mythos or the related verb mytheomai appears(93 percent), the situationis one in which a powerful male gives orders,makes boasts, or does both at the same time. Mythoshe sees as a speechredolent of power, performedat length, in public, by one in a position ofauthority.6The same pattern s presentin the works of Hesiod, where theterm appearssix times. Only once do females speak a mythos, and thenit is not mortal women, but the divine Muses, who address Hesiod theshepherd abusively and contemptuouslybefore giving him the gift thattransformshim into a poet. Throughoutthe epic-Hesiodic as well as

Homeric-mythos does not just reflect or express an authoritythat haspriorand independentexistence; rather, t is a primemoment in the con-stitution of that authority, being an act of speech that in its operationestablishes the speaker'sdominationof interlocutor and audience alike.In a society where relations of dominance and submission are char-acterized above all in sexual terms, the genderednature of mythosis al-ways implicit. On occasion it is also thematized directly, as in Hesiod'sfable of the hawk and nightingale (of which Nietzsche-no surprise-was exceedingly fond).7Now I will tell a fableto thekings,andtheywill recognizethemselves.Thusthe hawksaidto thenightingale, heof thedappled hroat,As he boreherhighin theclouds afterseizingher.Stuck n his claws,shepiteously

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 Worksand Days (1870 and 1878). He paraphrasedthe fable of hawk andnightingale in The Genealogy of Morals, first essay, sec. 13, eliminating all traces ofsympathyfor prey and critique of predation:"Thatlambs dislike greatbirds of prey doesnot seem strange:only it gives no ground for reproachingthese birds of prey for bearingoff little lambs. And if the lambs say among themselves: 'these birds of prey are evil; andwhoever is least like a bird of prey, but rather is opposite, a lamb-would he not begood?' there is no reason to find fault with this institution of an ideal, except perhapsthatthe 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.' Todemand 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 asabsurd as to demand of weakness that it should express itself as strength"(trans. WalterKaufmann).On the Hesiodic passage, see Annie Bonnaf6, "Le rossignol et la justice enpleurs," Bulletin de l'association Georges Bude (1983): 260-64; Jens Uwe Schmidt,"Hesiods Ainos von Habicht und Nachtigall," Wortund Dienst 17 (1983): 55-76; StevenLonsdale, "Hesiod's Hawk and Nightingale (Op. 202-12), Fable or Omen?"Hermes 117(1989): 403-12; and Marie-ChristineLeclerc, "Le rossignol et 1'6pervierd'Hesiode: Unefable a double sens," Revue des etudes grecques 105 (1992): 37-44.

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Gendered DiscoursesWept,andforcefullyhe spokethismythos o her:"Goodady,whydoyouscreech?Onewho is faryourbetterhasholdof you.Youwill go whereI takeyou, singer hatyou are.I will eithermakeyou my dinneror let yougo, if I wish,But it is senselessto pit yourself against omeonemorepowerful:Youenduplosingand sufferpain n disgrace."8

Does one need to be told that the name of the hawk (irex) is gram-matically masculine and thatof the nightingale (aedon) feminine? Or arethe other contrasts that structure his passage-predator/prey, high/low,strong/weak, arrogantand brutal/delicateand frightened-sufficient tomake the point? Differences in the nature of their speech show the samecontrast. Thus, the nightingale sings and weeps mournfully, while thehawk trumpetsa mythos, the explicit goal of which is to silence his vic-tim. Speaking forcefully (epikrateos), without euphemism or grace, thehawk describes a harshworld, andthe cruelty of his words matches thatof his actions. In his tone and manner,he shows utter confidence, notjust in his power, but in the right of the powerful to prevail. His my-thos, moreover is as much a partof thatpower as are the beast'swings,claws, and beak.

Within the epic, most mythoiare spoken in agonistic settings-aboveall, the battlefieldandplace of assembly.In the lattercontext, a distinctionis evident, for the mythoiof assembly come in two types. Some, termed"straight,"are the hard-hittingassertions and unvarnished ruthsthroughwhich honest men press their case. But there are also others, as Hesioddescribes in his apocalyptic vision of the IronAge just commencing.Therewill be no favorshown othepersonwhois true o hisoath,nor to him who is just,Nor to thegoodman;rather,menglorifyarroganceAndthedoerof evils.Theytake usticeintotheirownhands,andthere s no

8 Worksand Days 202-11:Nuv 6' alvov PaiotXuoatv p@coppoveouat Kai aCLTOK'J6' iprq]ipoaiEuctv adtS6vartotictKX66povUilpg6X' v vcpQoaot(?po)v 6vOUcrat pieapnaxd'I]6' UEX6v,yvaaTaotoictncnap{?vr 4u(P' O6vUxoot,pjp?TO' TxiVO Y'nltKpaTOx p6qpbOipov Ec1usv'"8atltovli, Ti XXrlKaqC' E? Vt Os 7oXXOvdpsiov'6T 8' etq fio' av y?6)nep ayc KOaadot6v eouaov'6?stvov 6', ai K' c0Xko,notlilaola iA?#CT(o.

&app)v6', o; K' eX n Ip KpSipovaS &dvTq(ppiEi1v'ViKrlSTs OTepeTratp6q T' aioEXscov &a'ya irCdosE1.

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History of ReligionsShame.He who is evil will damage he betterman,Speakingwith crookedmythoias he takestheoath.9

In this passage, the fundamentallyamoral status of mythos becomesclear. In assembly, good men andjust causes prevailby speaking straight;others, by speaking crooked. But mythoiof differentkinds are availableto all, mythos being an instrumentof power, and not one of justice. In-evitably, the question arises: Does there not exist some discourse ofthe weak, through which they are able to triumph?Is there no speechwith which nightingales overcome the mythoi of hawks?II

Here, let me recall a scene in the Homeric Hymn to Hermes, whereLord Apollo confronts the infant Hermes and accuses him of stealinghis cattle. Since the text has earliernarrated his miraculousact 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 canmake his case stick, and in the contrastbetween the half-brothers,whichis also a contrastbetween two sets of capacities: elder versus younger,stronger (krateros) versus weaker, truthful versus duplicitous, respon-sible versus playful, ingenuous versus cunning, aristocratversus scoun-drel. Physically, Hermes is no match for Apollo, but he is among theshrewdest of gods.10When challenged, he knows how to respond.Withhis craftsandseductive ogoi,He wanted o trick hegodof the silverbow.1

9 Worksand Days 190-94:o06 xTt66EupKcouLpt aaarTat o066? tKaiou0ou' dya0oi, aiX;Lov ; KCaKOVp?KTCfpaKti itptvavMpa TLt0oouot- 6iK1C ' kv Xspoi' Kai ai6S)OUK arTat,PXd&Wt'6 KCaK0TOVdpsiova p0TapU0ot0atoKOXtoi;SVtiCOV,tCli6' OpKOVOetiat.10Within the Homeric Hymn,Hermes is referredto by a host of terms thatplay on thevocabulary 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 Hermesand the characterhe assumes in this hymn, the discussion of Norman O. Brown, Hermesthe Thief (New York:Vintage, 1969 [originally published 1947]), retains its value. Seealso 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'tesde la communication (Paris:Maspero, 1978); and H. Herter, "L'Inno aHermes 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 X6yo7otvfi0kXsv Eanaviav KuXXiVtO;Apyup6oTOov

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Gendered DiscoursesUltimately Hermes succeeds in escaping his brother'swrath,althoughhe does so by a path more circuitous than we can follow here. For themoment, let me observe that Hermes'logoi are characterizedas "seduc-tive" (haimulioi), and associated with "craft"(tekhne) and trickery (ex-apatan). This is the only appearanceof 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").12Witness, for example, the culminating ines in Hesiod'saccountof Pandora,the prototypeof all mortalwomen.In herbreast,Hermes hapedFalsehoods, eductive ogoi, anda thievishcharacter,Accordingo theplansof deep-thunderingeus.Andnow,theherald of the godsPut a voice in her, and he named that womanPan-dora("All-gifts"), because all who dwell on OlympusGave her a gift, and they gave her as trouble for men.13

This misogynist passage provides invaluable evidence of how Greeksof 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 powerfulmen 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 HerbertBoeder ("Der friihgriechische Wortgebrauchvon Logos und Aletheia," Archiv fur Be-griffsgeschichte 4 [1959]: 82-112), who begins with this observation: "Im Epos istdieses Wort [logos] noch wenig gebrauchlich. Die sparlichen Belege nennen es nur imZusammenhangvon Bezauberung, Ablenkung und Irrefiihrung" p. 82). Also of interestare Henri Fournier, Les verbes "dire" en grec ancien (Paris: Klinckseick, 1946); andClaude Calame, "'Mythe' et 'rite' en Gr6ce: des cat6gories indig6nes?" Kernos 4 (1991):179-204.13Worksand Days 77-82:

;v 6' iapaol oaT1e0aot 6iaKcopo; pyEip6vT-rxej66?d0' ailukiouScTEXyoui KicaiKricXOnoV06oo;TelU A6tbpfouXfotpapuKT6igou- 6' apa povfiv0fcK?0cov Kifput, 6v61orlve 6ei Tv6E yuvaLicarIavFcpriv, ozt navxTq 'Oupntma StpaT' oXVTzg60ipov 56cprCTYav,1Li' davpd6iav &(ploTfiotv.14Regardingthe attitudesof Hesiod and his contemporariestowardwomen, see G. Ar-righetti, "II misoginismo di Esiodo," in Misoginia e maschilismo in Grecia e in Roma(Genoa:Istitutodi 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; MarilynArthur,"The Dreamof a WorldwithoutWomen:Poetics and theCircles of Orderin the TheogonyProemium,"Arethusa 16 (1983): 63-82; and Jean Rud-hardt, "Pandora,Hesiode et les femmes," MuseumHelveticum 43 (1986): 231-46. Notealso the broaderdiscussion of Ann Bergren, "Language and the Female in Early GreekThought,"Arethusa 16 (1983): 69-95.

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History of Religionsversaries by provoking fear, so women use logos, like their bodies andinstrumentsof allure, to win by arousingdesire.In point of fact, the Odyssey opens by acknowledging the power oflogos and the problem it poses for men. The scene is Ogygia, fabledisle of the sorceress Calypso, where seven years earlier Odysseus hadbeen washed ashore. Duty and destiny demand the hero complete hisvoyage home and battle for his wife and kingdom. Calypso, however,has other ideas.

Calypsorestrained imfrommiseryand amentation;Everwith soft andseductive ogoiShebeguiledhim in such a wayhe became orgetfulof Ithaca.15Calypso'sblandishments mmobilize Odysseus and the story alike, butOdysseus is powerless against them. Her logoi are playful and win-some, even flirtatious,but unscrupulousand manipulative nonetheless.Effective for the speaker, such words are correspondingly dangeroustothe hearer, for with and throughthem, those who are weaker-womenin particular,but others as well-repeatedly overcome those more giftedin physical strength.Ultimately, it takes the intervention of Zeus to freehim from Calypso's linguistic and amorous charms, and it is only afterthis 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 termlogos appearsin the Odyssey. Once overcome, the problem disappears.Usage in theIliad is equally sparsebut almost equally significant, for the sole occur-rence of logos is in a scene on which all action turns.16The stage is setwhen the Ormenianhero Eurypylusfalls wounded andAchilles, poutingby his ships, sends Patroclus to ask afterhim, a move the authorialvoicecalls "the beginning of evil" (kakou ... arkhe, 11.604). After reaching

Eurypulus,Patrocluspauses to treathis wound (11.809-848), and Book11 ends as he cuts the arrowfrom his thigh and stanches the blood withhealing herbs. The epic then drops this narrativethreadto dwell on thefury of the Trojanassault. Only toward the middle of book 15 does itreturnto Patroclusand Eurypylus.15Odyssey 1.55-57:

TOb 0OuydTrlp6UjTrVOV 68up6pEvov KaTCpUKsI,aie? 6Se LaXaKolta itip.luiotot X6yotOlvikyset, nxt0SId0aKniCrl;m Elat16Logos also appears in a manuscriptvariant 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; Worksand Days 78, 106, 789), and the associated verb legein even rarer(Theogony 27).

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Gendered DiscoursesAs longas the AchaeansandTrojansBattledaround hewall,beyond heshelterof theswift ships,Patroclus atin the hut of kindlyEurypylus.He entertained imwithlogoi andon his balefulwoundHe sprinkled rugs o curethedarkpains.Butwhenhe perceived heTrojans ushing hewall,As shoutsandpanicroseamong heDanaans,He cried out in distressand smotehis thighsWiththe flat of his hands.Wailing,he utteredhis speech:"Eurypylus, canstayhereno longerwithyou,Notwithstandingourneed,for a greatstrugglehas arisen."17

Initially, we behold a space of tranquilityand companionship, wherePatroclus'slogoi soothe the spirit, much as his drugs (pharmaka) easebodily pain. But when Trojan troops breachthe Greeks' defensive wall,threateningannihilation,this island of calm cannot be maintained.Withthe hand that a moment before spread balm on Eurypylus's strickenthigh, Patroclus now bitterly smites his own. His pacific discourse ofrelaxation and entertainmentnow seems irresponsible, even effeminate,and so Patroclus assumes a more urgent, more active, more masculinevoice: "Eurypylus,I can stay no longer.... A great strugglehas arisen."From here, the story goes hurtling to its end. Patroclus hastens fromEurypylusto Achilles, andthence to battle. The healer becomes the war-rior, who will kill, be killed, and draw others after him in a brutal storywe know too well.It now should be clear that the most ancient texts consistently usemythos and logos to markvery different sorts of discourse: that of ag-gressive men and that of seductive women. Mythos is a blunt speechsuited for assembly andbattle, with which powerful males bludgeon andintimidate their foes. Logos, in contrast, is a speech particularlyassoci-ated with women, but available to the gentle, the charming, and theshrewd of either sex. It is a speech soft and delightful that can alsodeceive and entrap.While it may be heardin 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' oc5p{v AXatoi re Tp);c T?eTEiXsE; llpECdlXovToodov KZo0tIICDV,T6(pp' y' ?vi KXtoindyYanivoporEpuiUn6oto

jOT6O Te Kai vTOV Tp X6yot;, ii7 6' ?XK?i Xuypfi(padppaK' aKccciaxT'staaaooc pXaltvaov 6uvdov.auOrp ?Eti 6 zEitXo1 inaeoou?auvouS;v6]o?Tpioca,&TapAavacovyveTo XiaXIT p6p6oxe,ftgo)V xv' &p'p EtETa cKatl ) nsTc?Xnkyo pnilpoXepai KaTarcprvoo',6Xoopup61pEvoc' :og rb?a'-"EUp6cuX', o6UKcTTot 6vtpvapataTrovTi 7up' pj7tirqEv0e6&tapcvgLEV'b6iy&p pya VEitKOcSpopEv

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History of Religionsture-indeed, the genius-of this discourse to outflank and offset thephysical, political, andmaterialadvantagesof those who areaccustomedto prevail on just such combative terrain.As a weapon of the weak-better, as a weapon of those whosestrength s not of the conventional andhegemonic forms-logos is opento a wide variety of readingsthatreflect the interests and sympathiesofthose who observe and comment. The authorialvoice of the epic gener-ally shows fear and treats it as something unprincipledand treacherous.But it can also be read as an effective instrumentthroughwhich sym-pathetic figures struggle against serious obstacles to accomplish reason-able, even admirablegoals, as when Hermes seeks to level an unevenplaying field against Apollo or when Patroclus works to soothe Eury-pylus's pains.

IIIA revised understandingof these two words has considerable importfor the way we understandthe history of speech, thought, and knowl-edge/power-sufficient, I believe, that the first chapterin standardhis-tories of Westernphilosophy will requiremodification. What Heraclituschampioned 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 hadlittle in common with what Hesiod and Homer understoodby 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 nothingmore (but also nothing less) thanstrategic-and ultimately successful-attempts to redefine and revalorize the terms in question. Accordingly,our view of the lexemes mythosand 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-personalprocesses. Rather,these words and others were the sites of im-portantsemantic struggles fought between rival regimes of truth.19

18 Charles H. Kahn, TheArt and Thoughtof Heraclitus (Cambridge:CambridgeUni-versity Press, 1979), p. 102.19The 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, TheAncient Quarrelbetween Poetry and Philosophy (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1990); andBruce Lincoln, "Socrates' Prosecutors, Philosophy's Rivals, and the Politics of Discur-sive Forms,"Arethusa 26 (1993): 233-46. Also relevant and importantare the discus-sions of Marcel Detienne (The Creation of Mythology [Chicago: University of ChicagoPress, 1986]), Paul Veyne (Did the Greeks Believe in their Myths? [Chicago: Universityof Chicago Press, 1988]), and Luc Brisson (Platon, les mots et les mythes [Paris: Mas-pero, 1982]).

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Gendered DiscoursesThe 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? Whichdiscourses would be associated with "truth,"and which (at best) with"plausible falsehoods"? Whose constructs would hold the status ofknowledge, and whose superstition?Whose characteristicpractices ofanalysis, 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 questionsof power is not difficult to perceive: Who would attractstudents? Whocounsel rulers? Whose words would be preserved, cited, and studiedthereafter?To give this vast topic the attention it deserves is hardly possible inthe scope of this article. Still, I would suggest that the narrativeof pro-gress "from mythos to logos" that begins with superstitiousstories andends in reasoned propositions is no longer tenable, if ever it was.20Temptingthoughit is to renarrate hatstory as one in which male blustergave way to female art and cunning, such a story, I fear, would beequally misleading. Rather,I am inclined to thinkthat when aristocraticGreek males could no longer establish their dominance by force anda 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 theirintellect, education,sophistication,andspeech, instead of theirbirth,rank,weapons, and brawn. To accomplish this project, Plato and others la-bored to revise the key terms,with the resultthat a sanitized, degenderedlogos became the favored discourse of philosophers, while a trivializedand emasculated mythos was consigned to nursemaids and children. Itwas not until the nineteenth century that these constructions and valu-ations would be called into question. But that is anotherstory.

University of Chicago20 Well into the fifth century, the meanings and values attached to mythos and logosremained 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 ofmythos, Hecataeus began his history with the statement "I write those things that seemto me to be true, for the logoi of the Greeks, as they appearto me, are many and ridicu-lous" (fragment 1 Jacoby). Gorgias could entertain the possibility of absolving Helen

from blame "if logos persuadedand deceived her soul" (fragment82B11.8 Diels-Kranz).And although Heraclitus celebrated logos, while ignoring mythos, Parmenides ntroducedhis discourse as follows: "Come, I will speak, and having heard my mythos you willcarry it away" (fragment 28B2.1 Diels-Kranz).

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Lincoln 1996 - Mythos and Logos

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