Writers and storytellers

I wanted to make a few notes while our substantial discussion of the tale of Iphis and Ianthe today was still fresh in mind.

Clearly, Ovid placed this tale next and subsequent to the tale of Byblis and Caunus because he was interested in that juxtaposition. There are a few basic ways in which the two stories are, for all their apparent differences in tone, subject and style, intimately complementary.

The story of Byblis is the tale of a writer possessed by Eros. The tale is the gradual unfolding to consciousness -- first her own, then her brother's -- of her tabooed desire for her twin. The letter, despite elaborate efforts of argument and pathos, fails, and she laments the failure:

She grew pale, hearing that she had been rejected, and her body shook, gripped by an icy chill. But, when consciousness returned, so did the passion, and, she let out these words, her lips scarcely moving: ‘I deserve it! Well, why did I rashly reveal my wound? Why was I in such a hurry to commit things, which were secret, to a hasty letter? I should have tested his mind’s judgment before by ambiguous words. I should have observed how the winds blew; used other lesser sails, in case those breezes were not to be followed; and crossed the sea in safety, not as now, under full canvas, caught by uncertain gusts. So I am carried onto the rocks, swamped, overwhelmed by the whole ocean, and my sails have no means of retreat.’

If we were in doubt about her calling to the republic of letters, this revisionary view, and strategic rethinking of her way of revealing her heart, complete with elaborate Odyssean simile, should lay those doubts to rest. The failure to conquer her brother, her reader, only propels her to a more labored manner of grandiloquence. She now begins to conceive a theatrical encounter in which she would act out before his eyes the plot that failed as narrative. Essentially she's covered the poetic territory from lyric to epic to tragic drama in short order. Byblis of Byblos is nothing if not a producer of biblia.

Enter Isis

Ovid nears the realm of Egypt with his tale of Byblis, but when he returns to Crete to tell of Iphis and Ianthe, the gods of Egypt make their official entrance into the Metamorphoses.

Some myths and tales of Isis and Osiris are found in "an olde boke," as Chaucer might say, entitled The Mythology of All Races, by Gray, Moore, and MacCulloch. Published in 1918, this book is available free from Google Print.

Above: Isis and Harpocrates appear as though in a small temple. Isis wears her traditional lunar disk between two cow horns, with a lotus flower and ears of corn held in her right hand. On the head of Harpocrates is the crown of Lower and Upper Egypt. Temples to the ancient Egyptian goddess Isis were built throughout the Roman empire, including Rome itself. (Source)

A story about Isis:

Isis wasn't just a mother - she was also a great magician. She became one of the most powerful magicians in Egypt when she managed to trick Ra into revealing his secret name to her. 

Thus when she wished to make Ra reveal to her his greatest and most secret name, she made a venomous reptile out of dust mixed with the spittle of the god, and by uttering over it certain words of power she made it to bite Ra as he passed. When she had succeeded in obtaining from the god his most hidden name, which he only revealed because he was on the point of death, she uttered words which had the effect of driving the poison out of his limbs, and Ra recovered. Now Isis not only used the words of power, but she also had knowledge of the way in which to pronounce them so that the beings or things to which they were addressed would be compelled to listen to them and, having listened, would be obliged to fulfil her bequests. (Source)

Isis with lunar disc and horns (temple at Philae):

Philae, Temple of Isis

Words and Things

Telethusa and Isis

The Iphis and Ianthe tale can been seen as a pendant to that of Byblis and Caunus. For Byblis, the central task was to use all the powers of naming and persuasion to overcome a cultural convention that was the obstacle to her desire -- the taboo of incest.

Iphis has avoided death because of the holy lie (pia mendacia) that she is a man. But at the moment that she is to espouse Ianthe, she confronts the reality that no amount of feigning, no sleight of hand, words or dress, can change the truth:

Even now, no part of my prayers has been denied. The gods have readily given whatever they were able, and my father, her father, and she herself, want what I want to happen. But Nature does not want it, the only one who harms me, more powerful than them all.

Iphis is looking at the realm of human conventions and realities from a perspective beyond them -- from that of nature. Between the realm of words, what we call or style things, and the nature of things, there's a substantial gap.

A comment from a conversation with a physicist reminded me of the plight of Iphis:

Ms. Levin: . . . I have a hard time becoming obsessed with internal, um, social norms, how you're supposed to dress or wear your tie or … 

Ms. Tippett: OK. 

Ms. Levin: … who's supposed to — you know, for me, it's so absurd, because it's so small and it's so — this funny thing that this one species is acting out on this tiny planet in this huge, vast cosmos. So I think it is sometimes hard for me to participate in certain values that I think other people have. So in that sense, yeah, I guess there is a shift of what I think is significant and what I think isn't. And if I try to look at that closely, I would say the split is, things that are totally constructed by human beings, I have a hard time taking seriously, and things that seem to be natural phenomenon, that happen universally, I seem to take more seriously or feel is more significant. 

Ms. Tippett: Well, give me an example. I mean, I think sometimes it's hard to draw the line. Give me an example of something for you that would be totally humanly constructed and then the other one. 

Ms. Levin: Actually, this is going to sound really dangerous, but even things like who we elect as an official in our government. Of course, I take very seriously our voting process and I'm, you know, very, try to be politically conscious. But sometimes, when I think about it, I have to laugh that we're all just agreeing to respect this agreement that this person has been elected for something. And that is really a totally human construct that we could turn around tomorrow and all choose to behave differently. We're animals that organize in a certain way. So it's not that I completely dismiss it or don't take it seriously, but I think a lot of the things we are acting out are these animalistic things that are consequences of our instincts. And they aren't, in some sense, as meaningful to me as the things that will live on after our species comes and goes. Does that make any sense? 

Theoretical Physicist Janna Levin from On Being

Bonus link: An animated version of the tale of Iphis and Ianthe.