Greek and Egyptian Mythologies

300 Pages·1992·68.944 MB·English

by  Yves Bonnefoy (ed.)

Greek and Eg^mtian
COMPILED BY
BONNEFOY
YVES
X
TRANSLATED UNDER THE DIRECTION OF
WENDY DONIGER
BOSTOTSI
PUBLIC
UBRARY
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Greek and Egyptian
Mythologies
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Greek and Egyptian
Mythologies
Compiled by
BONNEFOY
YVES
Translated under the direction of
WENDY DONIGER
by Gerald Honigsblum,
Danielle Beauvais, Teresa Lavender Fagan, Dorothy Figuiera,
Barry Friedman, Louise Guiney, John Leavitt,
Louise Root, Michael Sells, Bruce Sullivan, and David White
The University of Chicago Press • Chicago and London
—
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YVES BONNEFOY,
a scholarand poetofworld renown, is
professorofcomparative poetics, CollegedeFrance.
Among his manyworks tohaveappeared in English, two
—
havebeen published by theUniversityofChicago Press
volumeofpoetry. In theShadow's Light(1991), and a work
ofcriticism. TheActandPlaceofPoetry(1989), both
translatedbyJohnT. Naughton.
WENDY DONIGER
is theMircea EliadeProfessorin the
DivinitySchool, and professorin theDepartmentofSouth
Asian LanguagesandCivilizations, theCommitteeonSocial
Thought, and theCollege, attheUniversityofChicago.
UnderthenameofWendy DonigerO'Flahertyshehaswritten,
amongotherbooks. Women, Androgynes,andOtherMythical
Beasts (1980), Dreams, Illusion, andOtherRealities(1984),
and TalesofSexand Violence:Folklore, Sacrifice, and
Dangerin theJaiminiya Brahmana (1985), allpublished
by the UniversityofChicago Press.
H
DUCl'sy 6*"^^^^*^ L'*brary | xhe university ofChicago Press, Chicago60637
RS V''"^r 1 ^^^ UniversityofChicago Press, Ltd., London
J-lQiUJUfyi "'^"^^^ ' '^' ^m © 1991, 1992byTheUniversityofChicago
All rights reserved. Published 1992
Printed in the United StatesofAmerica
01009998979695949392 54321
Thispaperbackisdrawnfrom Mythologies, compiledby
Yves Bonnefoy, translatedunderthedirectionofWendyDoniger,
and publishedbytheUniversityofChicagoPressin 1991.
Thatworkwasoriginallypublishedas Dictionnaire
des mythologiesetdesreligionsdessocietes traditionnelleset
du mondeantique, sousla direction deYvesBonnefoy
publieavecleconcoursduCentreNational
des Lettres, © 1981, Flammarion, Paris.
Thepreparation ofthecompleteEnglisheditionwas
supportedbygrantsfrom theFrenchMinistryofCulture,
theAndrewW. MellonFoundation, and the
National Endowment fortheHumanities.
Thisbookis printedon acid-freepaper.
Paperback ISBN: 0-226-06454-9
Library-ofCongressCataloging-in-Publication Data
Dictionnairedesmythologiesetdesreligionsdessocietes
traditionnellesetdumondeantique. English. Selections.
Greekand Egyptian mythologies/compiledbyYves Bonnefoy;
translated under the directionofWendyDonigerbyGeraldHonigsblum
. . . [etal.].
p. cm.
Includesbibliographical referencesandindex.
—
1. Mythology, Greek Encyclopedias. 2. Mythology, Egyptian
^ Enrycloppfiias I^onnefoy, Yves. II. Title.
v_BL782^477 1992^
292.1'3—ac20 92-15541
J CIP
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Contents
Preface to the Paperback Edition, by Wendy Doniger vii
Preface to the English Edition of the Complete Work, by Wendy Doniger ix
Preface to the French Edition of the Complete Work, by Yves Bonnefoy xv
Contributors xxi
PARTI INTRODUCTION:
THE INTERPRETATION OF MYTHOLOGY
Toward a Definition of Myth 3
The Interpretation of Myths: Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Theories 5
Myth and Writing: The Mythographers 10
Prehistoric Religion 11
"Nomadic Thought" and Religious Action 21
PART GREECE
2
Greek Mythology 25 The Powers of Marriage in Greece 95
The History, Geography, and Religion of Greece 29 Kinship Structures in Greek Heroic Dynasties: The
Crete and Mycenae: Problems of Mythology and House of Atreus and the House of Labdacus 103
Religious History 30 Death in Greek Myths 105
Myth in the Greek City: The Athenian Politics The Topography ofHell in Archaic and Classical
of Myth 40 Greek Literature 112
Philosophy and Mythology, from Hesiod to The Powers of War: Ares and Athena in Greek
Proclus 46 Mythology 114
Plato's Mythology and Philosophy 52 Heroes and Gods of War in the Greek Epic 115
The Neoplatonists and Greek Myths 60 Dolon the Wolf: A Greek Myth ofTrickery, between
Greek Cosmogonic Myths 66 War and Hunting 118
Theogony and Myths of Sovereignty in Greece 75 Heroes and Myths of Hunting in Ancient
Deities of Water in Greek Mythology 79 Greece 119
Gods and Artisans: Hephaestus, Athena, Sacrifice in Greek Myths 122
Daedalus 84 The Semantic Value of Animals in Greek
The Origins of Mankind in Greek Myths: Born Mythology 128
to Die 90
/
^.-
CONTENTS
Actaeon 133 Hestia 190
Adonis and the Adonia 134 lo 190
The Amazons 136 Iris 190
Apollo 137 Ixion 190
Argos 142 Marsyas 191
The Argonauts 142 Midas 191
Artemis 145 The Moirai 191
Asclepius 149 The Muses and Mnemosyne 192
Centaurs 151 Narcissus 192
Demeter 152 Nemesis 194
Dionysus 156 Odysseus 194
The Dioscuri 163 Oedipus 198
Eros 164 Orion 200
Europa 173 Orpheus and Eurydice 201
The Gorgons 173 Pan 202
The Graiae 173 Pelops 208
The Harpies 174 Perseus 209
The Cult of Helen and the Tribal Initiation of Women Phaethon 209
in Greece 174 The Pleiades 210
— —
Helios Selene Endymion 178 Rhadamanthys 210
Heracles: The Valor and Destiny of the Hero 178 Thetis 210
Hermes 185 The Winds 210
The Hesperides 190 Zeus, the Other: A Problem of Maieutics 211
PART EGYPT
3
Egypt: Foreword 215 The Cults of Isis among the Greeks and in the Roman
Egyptian Cosmogony 215 Empire 245
Egyptian Anthropology 219 Isis the Magician, in Greek and Coptic
The Divine and the Gods in Ancient Egypt 224 Papyruses 252
Egyptian Rituals 230 The Fate of the Egyptian Gods from the Middle Ages
Death in Egyptian Religion 235 to the Eighteenth Century 255
Meroitic Religion 239
Index 267
VI
Preface to the Paperback Edition
This is one of four paperback volumes drawn from the full, plinesofsemioticsandtextualcriticism, theirownnew theo-
clothbound, two-volume English-language edition of Yves ries ofcultural history and human symbolism.
Bonnefoy's Mythologies. These paperbacks are not an after- In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, it was
thought, but were part ofthe publication plan from the very BritishscholarsthatpioneeredthestudyofGreekmythology
beginning. Indeed, one of the reasons why we restructured and, more particularly, the use of Greek mythology to de-
the original French edition as we did was in order ultimately velop theirown universalizingtheories ofculture. The Cam-
to make these separate volumes available. For though there bridge school of myth-and-ritual, led by Lord Raglan, Jane
is of course a sweep and majesty in the full editions, both Ellen Harrison, and SirJames George Frazer, dominated the
French and English, a breathtaking scope that is the true scenefordecades, supplementedbyF. MaxMiiller'sworkon
raison d'etre of the work as a whole, there is also, in the comparativeIndo-European mythologyatOxford. Theinno-
Englishversion, apattern thatallowsreaders to focusonone vative translations, commentaries, and analyses by British
culture at a time. And it is with such readers in mind that scholars such as E. R. Dodds and RobertGraves are still part
the University of Chicago Press is issuing these paperbacks, ofour legacy, though a legacy that we now use with consid-
whichwillinclude(inadditiontothepresentvolume) Roman erable caution and criticism. But since World War II, it is
and European Mythologies, Asian Mythologies, and African and Frenchscholarshipthathasmadethegreatestcontributionto
American Mythologies. Each book draws from the full work the field of classics in both England and America. Some, in-
not only the culturally specific material but also the two cluding myself, would argue that they have entirely domi-
prefaces and the general introductory essays, which deal natedit. TheworksofVernant, Vidal-Naquet, and Detienne,
with methodological issues pertaining to all the cultures instead of (or, better yet, in addition to) Frazer and Graves,
discussed. are what students ofthe classics cut their teeth on now.
Since each culture poses differentproblems, and each sec- The work of these French scholars is available elsewhere,
tion of essays embodies the work of a different group of in French and in English, but for the most part only in the
French scholars, each has its own methodological flavor and form of long, rather difficult, often rather technical books.
its own contribution to make to the more culturally specific The great virtue of the present volume is that it presents a
study of mythology. This volume, on Greece and Egypt, is collection ofshortessays, each ofwhich assumes no special-
valuable, I think, not because (like some of the other vol- ized knowledge, by scholars who have written whole tomes
umes) it presents new data otherwise unavailable, but, on on many ofthese subjects. This is therefore thebest, indeed
the contrary, because it treats the most basic ofall mytholo- the only way to get in a condensed and nontechnical form
gies known to English-speaking readers, the mythologies whateach ofthem has written.
that most people think of when they think of mythology at A word about Egypt: We chose to include Egypt in this
all. One might therefore argue that its weakness isin simply volume, ratherthaninavolumeabouttheancientNearEast,
providing one more book on a subject that has been done to for several reasons. Greek mythology, as has been recently
death already, but such an argument does not apply here. argued by Martin Bernal and others, owes a great deal to
Greekmythology, morethananyother, continuestoprovide Egyptianmythology;andtheGreeksthemselves, fromHero-
the point d'appui for European scholars who wish to blaze dotus on, have always acknowledged this debt. Moreover,
new paths in new disciplines. Itis no accident, afterall, that Greekmythology in its interactionwith Egyptian mythology
SigmundFreudused themythofOedipusas the focusofhis (as in, forinstance, the mythologies ofAttis and Osiris) con-
revolutionary theory of psychosexual interactions in the tinued to exertan importantinfluence upon Roman and Eu-
nuclear family, and that Claude Levi-Strauss, many decades ropean mythologies. The nature of that influence becomes
later, took the same myth for his paradigmatic example of a furtherapparent in Roman and European Mythologies.
new method of mythological analysis. So, too, the great
scholars of the French school whose work is collected here WendyDoniger
have used the Greek myths to develop their own new disci-
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