The Historical Enigma of the Snake Woman From Antiquity to the 21st Century 1527503054, 9781527503052, 9781527512139

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The Historical Enigma of the Snake Woman from Antiquity to the 21st Century

The Historical Enigma of the Snake Woman from Antiquity to the 21st Century By

Angela Giallongo Translated by Anna C. Forster

The Historical Enigma of the Snake Woman from Antiquity to the 21st Century By Angela Giallongo Original edition, La donna serpente. Storie di un enigma dall’antichità al XXI secolo, edited by Dedalo (Bari, Italia), 2013. Reproduced by kind permission of DEDALO This edition first published 2017 Cambridge Scholars Publishing Lady Stephenson Library, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2PA, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2017 by Angela Giallongo All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-5275-0305-4 ISBN (13): 978-1-5275-0305-2

For my mother

TABLE OF CONTENTS

List of Illustrations ..................................................................................... ix Introduction ................................................................................................. 1 Medusa and the “Things That Never Happened But Always Are” Chapter One ............................................................................................... 10 What Does Myth Teach Us? The Gorgons and the gorgoneia........................................................... 11 Venerable monsters.............................................................................. 15 A taste of the Classical Medusa myths ................................................ 18 A stroll with the bogey-woman—no walk in the park ......................... 26 Metamorphoses .................................................................................... 29 “My Name Is Red”............................................................................... 31 The Juice of Life .................................................................................. 34 Hypatia’s Curse.................................................................................... 37 “Two eyes hurt you but three eyes heal” ............................................. 44 Our Ladies of Serpents......................................................................... 50 Among the living Goddesses... ............................................................ 63 …and the Goddesses of Terror were born ........................................... 65 Medusa the Magistra ........................................................................... 66 The “Empire of Man” .......................................................................... 67 In the world of Telemachus ................................................................. 70 On the stage of infamy: an American nightmare ................................. 73 A ‘Wonder’ Gorgon ............................................................................. 75 Chapter Two ............................................................................................. 77 What an Ugly Face! Mirrors on the past ............................................................................... 82 From repellent to powerless ................................................................. 85 Identifying the Other ............................................................................ 98 Stereotypes ......................................................................................... 112 The Hybrids ....................................................................................... 121 The iconography of “mournful thoughts” .......................................... 128 Fear Itself ........................................................................................... 134 Monster-women on film .................................................................... 137

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Chapter Three .......................................................................................... 141 In the Nocturnal Regime of the Medieval Imaginary In the chaos of the night ..................................................................... 141 “With a terror similar to…” ............................................................... 146 “Medusa, come…!” ........................................................................... 149 The snake as the emblem of Otherness .............................................. 152 Women & snakes ............................................................................... 166 “And do you not know that you are each an Eve?” ........................... 167 Unclean .............................................................................................. 175 The Poison-Damsel ............................................................................ 184 Visual teachings ................................................................................. 199 Lessons at Court................................................................................. 205 L’Atelier des femmes .......................................................................... 213 Hildegard of Bingen ........................................................................... 213 Trotula de Ruggiero ........................................................................... 217 Christine de Pizan .............................................................................. 219 “A great beauty” ................................................................................ 223 Chapter Four ............................................................................................ 232 An Ongoing Dialogue with the Past Infinite Varieties ................................................................................ 235 Headhunters ....................................................................................... 239 Cold, serpentine art ............................................................................ 245 A vital spark ....................................................................................... 250 Conclusion ......................................................................................... 258 Select Bibliography ................................................................................. 262 Index ........................................................................................................ 275

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Cover: Masolino da Panicale’s Temptation of Adam and Eve (1424–1425)

Chapter One Figure 1: Eye idols representing the Mesopotamian goddess Ishtar. Eye Temple, Tell Brak, Syria, 3500–3300 BCE .................................. 48 Figure 2: Earthenware idol with human features and serpentine spiralling legs from Neolithic Crete, 6000 BCE .................................. 51 Figure 3: “Ladies in Blue”—a fresco in the palace at Knossos, approx. 1600–1550 BCE ................................................................................... 52 Figure 4: “La Parisienne” fresco; note the well made-up and wide-open eye, and the spiralling locks of hair that fall sinuously onto her ear and forehead, framing a serpent that is nonchalantly curled around her neck and across her shoulders like a necklace or boa from the palace at Knossos, 1400 BCE .............................................................. 58 Figure 5: A small ceramic figure of the Snake Goddess. Knossos, 1600 BCE............................................................................................. 60 Figure 6: Golden ring showing a picturesque ritual dance. Found in the tomb of Isopata at Knossos, 15th century BCE. The dynamic scene is ruffled by the flounces on the dancers’ elaborate skirts, and there is a large eye floating close to the skirts of the central figure, while snakes writhe at their feet ................................................................................ 62

Chapter Two Figure 1: A Roman Medusa head (2nd or 3rd century CE) with staring eyes, snake-like hair and wings. Sardonyx and silver cameo (Saint Petersburg, Hermitage Museum) ......................................................... 81 Figure 2: Head of a marine Medusa, probably an ornament decorating a box, about 50–75 CE, British Museum, London ............................... 86 Figure 3: Corinthian bowl with bearded Gorgon, 610–590 BCE, British Museum, London ................................................................................. 87 Figure 4: Perseus slaying the Gorgon in the guise of a hybrid hippomorph. Detail from a decorated amphora. Boeotia, 650 BCE .......................... 87

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List of Illustrations

Figure 5: “Perseus and Medusa”. Attican black-figure attributed to a disciple of the Theseus Painter. Archaic period, 510 BCE. J.P. Getty Museum, Malibu .................................................................................. 88 Figure 6: Attican black-figure of a running Gorgon with wings, a fixed gaze and protruding tongue. Detail from a vase of the Archaic period, 600–550 BCE. Louvre Museum, Paris ................................................ 89 Figure 7: Monumental head of Medusa, Hellenistic period, 3rd century BCE to 1st century CE. Traces of red pigment remain on the hair lips and tongue. Temple of Apollo, Didyma, Turkey ................................. 89 Figure 8: Example of a Proto-Italic Gorgon. Circa 4th to 5th century BCE. Potenza, Italy .............................................................................. 90 Figure 9: Coloured Gorgon relief in terracotta from the Temple of Athena, Syracuse, Italy, circa 570 BCE. “P. Orsi” Regional Archeology Museum. Traces of Corinthian iconography are discernible in this Archaic representation of the myth: wide eyes, curled serpentine tresses, crescent-shaped mouth, tusks, and lolling tongue. The robust, winged body is portrayed on one knee, but the head is face-on ........... 91 Figure 10: Gorgon with human body. Detail from an amphora of the late Archaic period, circa 490 BCE. Antikensammlungen, Munich, Germany .............................................................................................. 92 Figure 11: A ‘beautiful’ sleeping Medusa from the late Classical Age, attributed to the Sotheby Painter, 475–425 BCE, Louvre Museum, Paris ..................................................................................................... 93 Figure 12: A Gorgon with earrings and a crown of serpents encircling her entire face. Attican red-figure pottery from 440 BCE, as the Late Archaic turned to the Early Classical. British Museum, London ......... 94 Figure 13: The undeniably beautiful Medusa Rondanini from the late 1700s, a copy of Roman Medusa from the 1st-century CE, Munich Glyptotheck, Germany ......................................................................... 95 Figure 14: A ‘beautiful’ Medusa head mosaic with wings in her hair and head surrounded by snakes and serpent-like tresses, in the style of the Medusa Rondanini but with eyes that are open and visibly dynamic. Floor mosaic from the age of the Roman Empire, Archaeological Museum of Rhodes, Greece ................................................................. 96 Figure 15: Medusa head mosaic with face deformed by a corrupting crown of serpents. Detail from a Roman floor mosaic from the 2nd century CE, Madrid Archeological Museum, Spain ............................ 98 Figure 16: Bust of a massive Gorgon from the Temple of Artemides, 590–580 BCE, Corfu, Greece ............................................................ 100 Figure 17: The monstrous head of an Etruscan Gorgon ......................... 101

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Figure 18: Gorgoneion from the Archaic period, 525–475 BCE. The beard reveals the hybrid androgynous nature of the creature with the wide, unblinking eyes. Serpents are duly included as the handles of the Attican black-figure amphora, attributed to Nicosthenes, the BMN Painter. Louvre Museum, Paris .......................................................... 103 Figure 19: Caravaggio, Head of Medusa on a wooden shield, 1598. Uffizi Gallery, Florence ..................................................................... 106 Figure 20: Pieter P. Rubens, Head of Medusa, circa 1617–1618 ........... 107 Figure 21: Head of Medusa by an unknown Flemish artist from the early 1600s .................................................................................................. 108 Figure 22: Carlos Schwabe, Medusa, watercolour, 1895 ....................... 109 Figure 23: Arnold Böcklin, Medusa, 1878 ............................................. 110 Figure 24: Fernand Khnopff, The Blood of Medusa, circa 1895 ............ 111 Figure 25: The familiar head of Medusa with fearsome serpents and sinister, unsettling gaze fulfils its duties as the representation of Fright in the Iconologia del Cavaliere (Cesare Ripa) ........................ 115 Figure 26: Illustration from Francesco Maria Guazzo, Compendium maleficarum, 1608–1625 ................................................................... 119 Figure 27: Witches on the pyre. English print from 1682. As in the majority of representations of witches, this image carefully emphasises their most common characteristic: unkempt, snake-like tresses. This highlights the didactic intent of the scene, in which the Devil, in the form of a winged reptilian creature (also female), has sunk its claws into the condemned ............................................................................ 120 Figure 28: Dripping with serpentine symbolism, in this scene the Erinyes surround a cowering Orestes, Lucanian red-figure Nestoris, 4th century B.C., Naples National Archaeological Museum ................................ 125 Figure 29: Woodcut of the Gorgon transformed into a strange Libyan beast, the Catoblepas, recognisable for its snakelike tail and deadly gaze. From Edward Topsell, The History of Four-Footed Beasts and Serpents, 1658 ............................................................................. 126 Figure 30: Unlike the grotesque Gorgons used to frighten off evil spirits, there were also more benign and peaceful versions, like this from the 4th century BCE, which gave comfort to all visitors to the temple. From the Sanctuary of the Goddess Mephitis at Rossano di Vaglio, Museum of the Ancient People of Lucania, Italy ............................................. 129 Figure 31: A Gorgon “Mistress of the animals” on a pottery plate from Rhodes, 630 BCE. British Museum, London. In Archaic Greece the Gorgon was a type of demon—part woman, part animal. Sometimes she is represented with the body of a Minoan goddess, Potnia Theron (queen of the animals), whose features were later transposed onto

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List of Illustrations

Artemis, goddess of the hunt. Even the name Medusa, 'the lady', hints at her mysterious hold over wild beasts ............................................. 130 Figure 32: Head of Medusa on a tomb from the late Hellenistic period, second century BCE. From the necropolis at the archaeological site at Hierapolis, Turkey ............................................................................. 131 Figure 33: Travertine metope from a Greek temple at Selinunte, Sicily, mid-6th century BCE, Palermo National Archaeological Museum. Perseus, with the supportive figure of Athena at his right, plunges his sword into the neck of Medusa. Her newly-born son Pegasus rests his head in a safe place between the breasts of his dying mother. The jolly faces of all the figures are typical of Archaic art ............................... 134 Figure 34: Witches brewing up a hailstorm. Woodcut, Augsburg, Germany, printed in the 1508 version of Ulrich Molitoris’ De lamiis et pythonicis mulieribus (Of Witches and Diviner Women) ............... 135

Chapter Three Figure 1: The Dragon, the most fearsome serpent on Earth. 13th-century Medieval Bestiary, British Library, Harley MS 3244, folio 59r. Common features of such images included two or four limbs, a long tail, and at least one pair of wings...................................................... 143 Figure 2: The Sirens, mortal female creatures, could take on various guises. Copenhagen, Kongelige Bibliotek, Gl. kgl. S. 3466 8º, folio 37r ............................................................................................. 158 Figure 3: The Asp sticking its tail in its ears to elude its enchanter. German bestiary from the 13th century .............................................. 158 Figure 4: A mythological Medieval Dragon in the form of a winged and horned serpent ............................................................................. 159 Figure 5: The Basilisk in the guise of a rooster. Illustration from a 13thcentury Latin bestiary ........................................................................ 160 Figure 6: The Amphisbaenia pictured in the 13th-century Latin bestiaries starts to approach the scientific illustrations of the 1600s.................. 162 Figure 7: The Temptation of Adam and Eve, a fresco from the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, Michelangelo Buonarroti, Vatican Museum, Rome, Italy; note the sinuous limbs of the snake-woman coiled around the trunk of the Tree of Knowledge ......................................................... 163 Figure 8: A 14th-century illustration of Salamandra ............................... 164 Figure 9: The Serpent with the head of a woman. “The Temptation”, 13th century German illustration from The Life of Adam and Eve ..... 173 Figure 10: A suggestive personification of Evil—a long, violaceous serpent tails topped with the bust of a woman with diabolical horns

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sprouting from her head. Miniature from Horae Beatae Mariae Virginie, France, 15th century. Biblioteca Nazionale, Naples ........... 174 Figure 11: Forbidden pleasures and breaking taboos. Mélusine bathing. Jean d’Arras, Mélusine, 1478 ............................................................ 183 Figure 12: Humanoid with the head and torso of a woman, lizard feet and serpent tail. Miniature from a 15th-century English manuscript .. 190 Figure 13: The snake-woman with Adam and Eve at the entrance to NotreDame Cathedral, Paris; the snake from Genesis was often depicted in female form and/or in cahoots with Eve in Medieval art .................. 192 Figure 14: Mélusine bathing. From Jean d’Arras, Mélusine, 1478......... 193 Figure 15: Mélusine as a dragon flying over the Lusignan castle. Miniature from Les Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry illumination, circa 412–1415 ................................................................................... 194 Figure 16: An unconscious woman embraced by a monstrous being is reflected in the rear end of the devil, detail from ‘The Musician’s Hell’, The Garden of Earthly Delights by Hieronymus Bosch, 1505. Museo del Prado, Madrid .............................................................................. 195 Figure 17: Giotto’s Envy, 1306. Scrovegni Chapel, Padua, Italy ........... 196 Figure 18: A Siren with a mirror and comb. Church of Notre-Dame, Villefranche-de-Rouergue, France ..................................................... 197 Figure 19: Hans Baldung’s Eve, the Serpent and Death, 1510–1520. National Gallery, Ottawa ................................................................... 198 Figure 20: A beautiful Medusa in a parchment miniature accompanying a late-13th-century French edition of Boccaccio’s De mulieribus claris .................................................................................................. 226 Figure 21: “A great beauty”, in Persée et Méduse, 1402, miniature in Boccaccio’s De mulieribus claris. Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris ................................................................................................... 227

INTRODUCTION MEDUSA AND THE “THINGS THAT NEVER HAPPENED BUT ALWAYS ARE”

A fatal stare, a protruding tongue, a horde of slithering snakes and a rivulet of blood among petrified bodies—is this dark consternation not the very essence of our nightmares, something we all fear? Something we are powerless to look away from? Turn off the television, forget the pre-packaged figures you have seen on the screen, and imagine a mythological world in which an unexpected snake-woman could appear out of nowhere, overturning the natural order of things. And let yourself be tempted by a simple question: do the ancient myths have swift or broken wings? Especially in front of Medusa, surrounded by scattered wreckage and debris—witness to some remote shipwreck, do we delude ourselves that we belong to the worthy company of treasure hunters? Or are we faced with the looming doubt that we have actually joined a band of grave robbers? Whatever the case, the bleak sensation of being sucked into a bottomless vortex of questions is undeniable. Do the myths bubbling to the surface of literature and art reflect life? Human imagination? Or both? The trajectory of these myths throughout history is never linear—they transform, overlap, and veer off in countless directions, intersecting and entangling with each other until the task of unpicking their threads seems impossible. It is no coincidence that the Roman historian Sallust (Gaius Sallustius Crispus), in the mid-first century BCE, soberly suggested that such myths are among the strange “things that never happened but always are”. Indeed, how could we ever deny the traces of these “things that never happened” and yet were frequently devised, recounted, felt, learned, imagined and overheard by men and women throughout their individual and collective experiences?

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Introduction

These “things that never happened” stir the soul and collective unconscious; they live and die as symbols, myths, metaphors, images, emotions, fairy tales 1 and archetypes. And the archetype is no mere concept. It provides proof of humankind’s psychic structures, structures that their inventor Jung2 believed were ever-present in our inner worlds. Symbolic activity, a fundamental element of the idea of collective unconscious, conceals impulses that are decisive in shaping the development of our personalities, identities and socialisation processes. Although Jung postulated archetypes to be innate or inherited universal structures, they serve as a crucial nexus between the social and the individual. From the moment we are born, we, as individuals, proceed down the road of life through a forest of these particular types of “things” in a manner dependent upon, among other factors, our sex. Indeed, historians of mythology and religion, alongside anthropologists, have recognised that every group in each historical era has had its own symbolic language, a language that assumes various nuances depending on the social organisation and population in question. In particular, it is influenced by ethnic exchanges, the historical period, and the circumstances of the time. Archetypes posses a dual power, taking over the heart of both individuality and social life; without them it is impossible to discover the plot of an age, society, civilisation or paideia, or the inner life of a man or woman. Interpretations on symbolic thoughts warn us that age-old mythologies cannot be deciphered with the traditional tools of reason and explanation. Instead, they suggest that we explore myths as alternative forms of intelligibility. And so the exploration of the paideutic value of the myth provides a decisive point of departure, because the myth has met our emotional and intellectual needs since time out of mind. Take the case of Medusa. She became, among other snake-women, a prototype and archetype in the Western imagination—the earliest visual and written sources (Homer and Hesiod) painted her as the first female monster. Since then her awful gaze and poisonous tresses have been 1

For the representation of heroines and their archetypes in narratives according to the principles of Jungian analytical psychology, see Marie Louise von Franz, Problems of the Feminine in Fairy Tales (New York: Spring Publications, 1972). 2 Carl Gustave Jung, The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, [1948] in Collected Works of C.G. Jung, Volume 9 (Part 1) (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1969) 207–254.

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pervasive in art, religion and culture, and have therefore been the subject of much reflection in numerous fields of the humanities and social sciences (literature, philology, science, archaeology, art, philosophy, anthropology, sociology, psychology and psychoanalysis). Nevertheless, there has thus far been a lack of a thorough investigation from a historicaleducational perspective.3 In order to scrutinise public instruction on behaviours that have developed in parallel with stories and beliefs regarding Medusa’s destructive powers, therefore, we must look at how she has been portrayed in the stories passed down through the generations, focusing in particular on the idea of diversity, and the emotional dynamics in the history of gender. Historians of recent decades (especially women) have viewed Medusa, by virtue of her absolute and terrifying difference, as an emblematic symbol of Otherness—an allegory for the conflictual relationships between masculinity and femininity. We need to retrace how the myth of Medusa was used in the informal educational sphere in the Classical and Medieval periods. We must also focus on the literature of the sixteenth, seventeenth and nineteenth centuries, looking in particular at the works of Francis Bacon, François Fénelon, and Nathaniel Hawthorne. Although meandering, this path will reveal both the mutations and permanent features of the Western emotional tradition through a mythological figure that has long influenced social representations of womanhood. By following the tracks of this figure we will pursue many strands of inquiry—themselves evidence of the ongoing interest this icon has elicited across the humanities and social sciences4. This book, which has a thematic, rather than chronological approach, focuses on the various identities of the snake-woman, who, over the centuries has come to symbolise the sub-humanity of the female. Our attention will turn to the visual clichés employed to suggest the Otherness of the ‘second’ sex, and the symbolic sleight of hand that attributed powers 3

I made a brief foray into this topic in ‘Medusa e le «cose che non accaddero mai ma che esistono da sempre»’, in Franco Cambi (ed.), Archetipi del femminile nella Grecia classica (Milan: Unicopli, 2008) 4 The deconstruction of patriarchal symbolism was launched in the twentieth century through critical studies by Frazer, Harrison, Graves, Vernant, Marrou, Gimbutas, Durand and Knight, and produced a large body of research proposing explanations for the various phenomena associated with the Gorgon.

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Introduction

of petrifaction to the female gaze, in line with the contemporary and contextual theories on menstruation. My exploration of the metamorphoses of Medusa seeks to approach the social history of emotions in our vision of gender, and, among other issues, it raises a specific question: in the periods explored here, which social models did men and women learn from the snake-woman? The association of women with the legend of deadly gaze has gathered strength since the Archaic period, going on to become a consternation to Classical and Hellenistic societies, and a sort of fixation in the Middle Ages. The Western obsession with serpentine creatures, so distinctly embodied by the Gorgons, originated in the Greco-Roman myths and permeated the art and literature of the centuries that followed. The womanly gaze had been weighed down with varied and complex messages associated with magical and symbolic forces, and was portrayed as such in the visual and written sources. The reverberating alliances between women and reptiles went on to float on the dark surface of menstrual blood, and fuelled belief in Medusa’s signature power: the evil eye. European folklore has long been kept busy engaging with this belief, and many tales revolve around the peculiar affinity between women and snakes. Medusa’s glaring gaze is thus the leitmotif of a phenomenon that represented a wide variety of emotional threats to Medieval society; in keeping with the theological and moral framework of the time, Dante believed that her paralysing glance led to spiritual death, while she inspired terror in Walter Map’s stories of necrophilia, and aroused blind sensuality in Jean de Meun’s poetic impressions. There are many possible approaches to this topic, but most would have been unsuitable or even dully repetitive; I therefore opted to show how Medusa’s eye and snakes have shone oddly in the imagination of various societies of the past. By reflecting largely negative social emotions (fear, anger, scorn, shame), this bond has functioned to preserve the sexual hierarchy. In the first two chapters we will analyse the process behind these paideutic functions, combining narrative works on the Medusa mythology and scientific theories on physiognomy with archaeological evidence and artistic images from the Greco-Roman period. The long and complex history of the Medusa character, from the Neolithic to Classical Antiquity through to present-day Europe, has been incorporated into the imaginary of collective sensibilities. Anthropological, philosophical, psychological and scientific research, combined with the historical literature, therefore,

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can serve to clarify certain aspects of the association created in the Western mentality between the dangerousness of the female gaze, the malignitas of the snake, and the toxic powers of the menstrual cycle. Indeed, a brief examination of the emotional content of the visual arts reveals their implicit ethical duties. The ancient stereotype of the killing gaze, amalgamated with allusions to feral traits—conventionally correlated with reptiles—has slowly but surely converged into the modern, contemporary imaginary of artists and scientists, furthering the idea of female monstrosity. From its remote origins, this type of imagination has led historical and contemporary perspectives to explore the functions played by fear in societies. The thrilling history of female hybrids—from Echidna to Mélusine, from the Amazons to the Basilisk, from the Poison-Damsel to the Catoblepas, and from the Serpent-Fairy to Sadako/Samara—sheds light on the meanings of male fears. It explains conflict with Otherness, and how mental and artistic images join forces in the construction of stereotypes. Medusa herself first became depicted as a monstrous snake-woman in the visual and written sources from the turn of the seventh century BCE, and since then variants of this image have been cemented in the public consciousness. Indeed, art played an indispensable role in defining Otherness in Greek culture, and helped to guarantee that the Gorgon would remain prominent in European allegorical symbolism from the seventeenth (Cesare Ripa) to the nineteenth century. The endless telling and retelling of these stories ensured that this mythical creature would impregnate the educational ideas of the past, leaving substantial clues and traces. Fénelon, Bacon and Hawthorne provide obvious examples of the wealth of pedagogical messages that have been borrowed and re-adapted from the complex workings of the Western imaginary and ideology over the centuries. These three representative cases are enough to lead us into temptation: which educational needs did the snake-woman meet? And, therefore, what impact has the image of her hissing mane had on the educational processes that have transformed women into women and men into men in the Western world? Although the multiplicity of entangled threads make tracing a single coherent perspective of Medusa in the history of education seem difficult, or even impossible, I am not one to shirk her responsibilities or to shy away from a challenge; in any case a wave of curiosity has led me to pick my way, not without a certain degree of caution, through the fabric of her creation. I have chosen to follow—or rather chase—the educational

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Introduction

intentions of the Medusa myth, knowing full well that any story I might tell has already been told. However you read it, her head has reigned for centuries, offering a metaphorical pretext to anyone who needed it: from Homer to M.me de Staël—who held it up in 1818 as an effective prop for staging the upheaval of the ominous French Revolution, and from Hesiod to Dickens, who, unlike M.me de Staël, used Medusa to expose the nobility as a petrified and petrifying social class (A Tale of Two Cities, 1859). Thus this mythological creature became an archetypal virus that has left its mark on the West. Her legend provides a key for our interpretation of gender relations throughout the centuries, and brings within our grasp the compelling theme of a gaze that leads, inevitably and without hesitation, to the warm flow of menstrual blood. Following these lethal eyes is remarkably enlightening. In Chapter Three, for example, we dive into the Middle Ages, which brings us face to face with “the things that never happened but always are.” Here, we will take a look at the Medieval revisions of this legend, and the captivating paths that granted the weight of real, lived experience to the common belief in the dangers of the female gaze, dragging it into the hidden spiral of menstruation. In the nocturnal regime of the medieval imaginary, as proposed by Durand, water, the moon phases, flowing hair, snakes, the gaze and menstrual blood all became integral parts of stories featuring evil femininity. The teachings of the Christian tradition and the Medieval church contributed to increasing the fear of the female stare. With the emergence of the system endorsing witch-hunts in Christian Europe, theologians, physicians and clerics all agreed that the eyes of a woman, imbued with harmful poisons, had the power to impede knowledge, ruin health and sap the sentiments—in a word, to bring about physical and/or spiritual death. Perhaps this explains the ongoing appeal of the hidden dangers of the snake-women in British, German, French and Italian folklore. The implausible yet effective snakes—which quietly conceptualised natural and social hierarchies and moral conflicts in the ancient and JudeoChristian traditions—were likewise both admired and dreaded. The serpentine seduction of Eve in the Garden of Eden, the reptilian Beast of the Apocalypse, and the legion of hissing creatures—like the unsettling Basilisk—that slithered across the pages of the Medieval Bestiaries from the early twelfth century onward, were all dramatic embodiments of what Medieval societies perceived as Other.

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As such, the personification of a snake camouflaged as a female humanoid triumphed in the art of the Late Middle Ages (Hieronymus Bosch) and Renaissance (Michelangelo). During the thirteenth century, snakes underwent a medieval metamorphosis into womanly figures, and the fantastical descriptions of the Basilisk, Salamandra (the salamander) and Hydra began to overlap with those of menstruating and menopausal women. According to the language of the time, all of these creatures were stuffed to bursting with “the most deadly humours”. The conscious cultural spectres of the artistic, religious, literary and scientific imaginary included an ever-increasing aversion to feminine creatures perceived to have an alliance with reptiles, namely—Eve, Mélusine, the Poison-Damsel and menstruating women. This idea firmly established itself, and coincided quite effectively with the label of monster. Even the aesthetic ambition of the French courtly poets and romancewriters to know and love Otherness, along with their complete acceptance of the primacy of sight, was insufficient to make much of a dent in these picturesque psychological barriers that elevated men so far above women. However, three exceptional female writers, namely Hildegard of Bingen, Trotula of Salerno and Christine de Pizan, tried to provide an antidote to the corrupting phenomenological contamination of the snakewoman, and found some ingenious solutions to the problem. In the early fifteenth century, for example, de Pizan completely reinvented the murky Medusa, transforming her into a precious ray of light, whose splendour surpassed even that of the “beautiful” but doomed Medusas of Classical art. Ultimately, the Medusa myth forces us to confront these dead and living symbols, and in Chapter Four I ask whether this story, no longer so strongly resonating in the individual and collective consciousness of humankind, might not have taken refuge instead in the minds of psychologists, historians, archaeologists, literary authors, scholars of myth and philosophers.5 In an effort to successfully preserve this type of “things that never happened but always are” in the spheres of collective memory, it is likely that Sallust chose not to ignore those invisible models of behaviour that, century after century, have influenced the imagination of entire generations. 5

Jean Chevalier and Alain Gherrant, ‘Introduction’ to Dictionaire des Symboles (Paris: Seguers, 1973) Tome I, XXVI.

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Introduction

After all, is it not perhaps true that most of us whose scholastic learning about myths was standardised and dogmatic have found ourselves helpless and resigned in the face of traditional teachings, with their gender-based prejudice and intolerance in the face of the things that make people different? What impact have the thousands of artists eager to portray Medusa as a snake-woman had on our emotional lives? Even in this day and age many images of Medusa are all around us—engraved in marble, carved in stone, sculpted in clay, tessellated in mosaics, painted in oils or acrylics, or transformed into a cyborg. She glares down at us from ancient antefixes on the roofs of public and residential buildings. Among myriad examples, we can look to Etruscan Campania of the sixth century BCE, in which Medusa’s head was used to decorate and protect people’s homes. We may also happen across the merry and mischievous Medusas of Minoan art, and the disturbing Medusas made in the sixteenth century. Medusas big and small, colourful and golden. For one unconscious moment, we could cross the generations raised in the protective shadow of the Snake Goddess, and those who allowed themselves to be gripped by her supposed cruelty. The journey to Medusa’s lair that we are about to embark upon will not be easy or even pleasant, but it will be full of excitement and suspense. Like an underground river, her thrilling story disappears, only to suddenly resurface further on. Her myth testifies to untold transitions in social organisation, and inner transformations. At times Medusa fuelled an allegory of vitality, at other times an allegory of destruction. Even her gaze was manifold: sometimes welcoming, and at other times threatening, warlike or pained, sad or seductive, wise or painfully cynical. When she allowed it to be captured, this superior and eternal gaze ranged from primitive and deranged to beautiful and cruel, suave and dangerous, full of unbridled madness, alongside vast intelligence. These different versions of the Medusa are full of significance, reflecting as they do our interior radar, and raise a thousand hypotheses. The post-modern imagination strives to use the great oracle Google to reanimate the art of deciphering this elusive symbol on the public platform of information exchange.5 In the digital ether, Medusa has achieved star 5 See “Il sito di Medusa” website (University of Bergamo, Visual Arts Centre), which since 2006 has collated literary, iconographical and artistic contributions on this imaginary figure, providing a showcase for essays, authors, critical analyses and projects on the theme.

Medusa and the “Things That Never Happened But Always Are”

9

status. Her name and/or image have been appropriated by film companies, publishing houses, makers of eyeglasses, and many more commercial ventures. She even has her own websites, forums and blogs dedicated to preserving her memory. And so her shadow extends over electronic networks in which girls and young women—in a sort of national and international self-help project— set forth into the legendary labyrinth in search of a sense of their own identity. But Medusa seems to extend well beyond the ‘authorised personnel’ in question. Why is this ancient myth so appealing to the new generations? Why do these ghosts of the past still resonate with the “Daughters of Medusa”?6 They hold her up as a kind of guardian of the premenstrual phase, and celebrate her as a kind of sacred symbol of self-knowledge. Would it be right, therefore, for us to dismiss the snake-woman as a mere myth? Or would it be more fitting for us to attempt to trace the tangled threads of her history? Why struggle to understand “the things that never happened but always are”? Although it might seem foolish to concentrate on a primordial age and persist stubbornly to grasp an uncharted imaginary, although it may not seem worthwhile to search for something that appears out of thin air, these spectres of the past never cease to materialise. Sometimes fearsome shades and sometimes playful creatures, they are continuously resurrected, slipping in and out of time. And in any case, to paraphrase Oscar Wilde, it is our personal inalienable privilege to support the proper occupation of the historian—to provide an accurate description of what has never occurred.

6

The expression “Daughters of Medusa” (“Figlie di Medusa”) was coined by Barbara Coffari, in Medusa, 2007; http//www.ilcerchiodellaluna.it (now offline).

CHAPTER ONE WHAT DOES MYTH TEACH US?

Myths take us by the hand, suddenly drawing back the curtains on a scene that is familiar, but has long been forgotten. What is the ideal tension that gives mythical accounts their fascination and power? One of the factors in a long list—that which unites all the infinite versions of the story—is a collective experience. The telling and retelling of such tales meet unpredictable needs; they teach us important lessons, kindle emotions, and shape shared memory, guiding our history, science and nature, as well as our sacred sphere and the mysteries of the world, giving clues as to their origins and meaning. They also seduce and entertain, but myths are no mere pastimes; Giambattista Vico (1668–1774), in defence of the autonomy of myth with respect to logos in his New Science, interpreted them as a kind of metaphorical language that can tell us many things about the experiences and values of our primitive forefathers1. Many myths have been interpreted and classified in different ways throughout the centuries as a means of furthering our understanding, but it is the various renderings of the Medusa story which for me hold the most appeal. Through word-of-mouth teachings and shared rites of passage, tribal societies used such stories to guide their youth through the difficult transition into adulthood—a transition that would shape the rest of their lives. On the topic of the origins of behavioural models adopted in European education, the historian of religion Mircea Eliade considered how the real historical figures of ancient Greece strove to emulate their archetypes

1

Vico believed in “sweeping primitive fantasies”, arguing that they could not be interpreted on the basis of the logic of reason. See Book II of New Science, trans. David Marsh (Current edition, London: Penguin Classics, 1999), 35–145.

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(gods and mythological heroes), thereby becoming paradigms themselves.2 They modelled their gender self-image on examples from Greek- and Roman-era legends, and layer upon layer of these teachings of innumerable fantastical events and supernatural beasts forged the sexual and cultural identities of the ensuing generations, laying the foundations of the way in which men and women perceive and treat each other today. Throughout the ages, the ancient myths—conduits of wisdom rather than knowledge—have helped us make sense of themes that still frame how we see the world; they shape our views on life, death, the gods, interpersonal relationships, conflicts and gender identities. The myths passed down in the epic poems—codified accounts of tribal conflicts from human history—survive even today in our collective consciousness and memory; this living legacy functions as the fount of all our human emotions. In this fabric of our educational history, Medusa is a highly symbolic thread—a call to our primitive and instinctual selves, a mythological figure that still today resonates in every fibre of our imaginations and internal lives.

The Gorgons and the gorgoneia So, who exactly was Medusa? Well, Medusa was a strange hybrid creature known as a Gorgon. Today the word ‘gorgon’ is used in the Italian language to signify an ugly, unkempt and repellent woman; indeed, the Gorgon is the first, perhaps vague, but stereotypical notion we have of a female monster. The Greek word ‘gorgos’ (terrible) was pressed into service in the Iliad—the oldest masterpiece of Greek literature—to convey the idea of a repugnant creature, and even today it is difficult to imagine a more terrifying idea made flesh. At its inception the term ‘Gorgon’ referred to a single snake-woman, but she later found universal fame as one of the three hideous sisters with poisonous serpentine tresses who turned the unwary to stone in ancient Greek and Roman lore. Paradoxically, though her immortal sisters, Stheno 2

Mircea Eliade, Rites and Symbols of Initiation: The Mysteries of Birth and Rebirth, trans. Willard R. Trask (Current edition: Woodstock, Conn.: Spring Publication, 1995), 266.

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and Euryale, have all but faded from memory, Medusa (“queen” or “guardian”), who was mortal, still lives on. Her decapitated head, itself preserved as if in stone by the myth of Perseus, and continuously reproduced in monstrous form, has achieved its own type of eternal life. In this semblance her grisly countenance has endured not as a mere mask, nor the emblem of a terrifying story, but one of the most effective and firmly entrenched amulets of all time. Throughout history, Medusa’s head has been portrayed on coins (from the Eastern Asia of the 8th century BCE to the Roman empire of the 3rd century CE)3, ceramics, arms, and in stone, on public and private buildings. The so-called gorgoneion was a stone head portraying the face of the Gorgon, often surrounded by writhing serpents, which took on both decorative and apotropaic functions in ancient Greece (8th–6th century BCE). At the beginning of the past century, Jane Ellen Harrison4 hypothesised that this image was the mortal aspect of the cycle of the Great MotherGoddess, who had been worshipped in North Africa since Prehistoric times. Several decades after the publication of Harrison’s work, the early European traditions involving the Great Goddess were investigated by the archaeologist Marija Gimbutas. Delving into the various symbolic systems introduced by the Indo-European patriarchy, 5 Gimbutas unearthed the prototypes of gorgoneia with other meanings; decorating anthropomorphic vases, sculptures and terracotta masks, these testify to her worship in Neolithic Europe (7000/6000–3000 BCE). Like a corridor of fairground mirrors, the ‘Gorgonesque’ genre stretches back in time to that dim and distant past. Although distorted by the passage of time, the image has prevailed until the present day, and we can discern glimpses of the different stages of this journey—sometimes 3

See, for instance, Fiorenzo Catalli, Numismatica greca e romana (Rome: Libreria dello Stato. Istituto Poligrafico e Zecca, 2003). 4 Jane E. Harrison, Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion [1903], in particular Chapter V ‘The Ker as “Gorgon”’ (London: reprinted by Princeton University Press, 1991), 187. 5 Gimbutas preferred the term ‘Great Goddess’, as opposed to ‘Mother Goddess’, believing that it better explained the multiple facets of her significance as a custodian of not only birth, life and fertility, but also death, regeneration, and the harvest. See Marija Gimbutas, The Gods and Goddesses of Old Europe: 7000 to 3500 BC myths, legends and cult images (London: Thames & Hudson, 1974), 236– 37.

What Does Myth Teach Us?

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ordered and sometimes randomly scattered—that enable us to trace a rough outline of her history. Having originated as a male Assyrian deity, 6 the Gorgon was transformed by the vestiges of ancient female influences in Libya (which sources in Classical antiquity considered the homeland of the Amazons); she took on an entirely female guise on funeral masks, in apotropaic symbols, and, most famously, as the monstrous snake-woman of the ancient Greek literature (the Odyssey). She then took her place in the Attic tradition (Euripedes), and as the occasional alluring maiden in the work of artists from the fifth century BCE. Later on, in Sardinian legends from the Late Middle Ages, she made an even greater departure from the prevailing image of the times, being held up as an icon of liberty.7 After the chilling metamorphoses she underwent in the modern age, Medusa has now emerged as a feminist icon—the personification of rape, as well as female subversiveness and creativity. Although there are gaps and inconsistencies in the transformational history of the Gorgon, of her many faces, those adopted in the ancient Greek hierarchy of sacred imagery were particularly monstrous. Alongside her male counterparts, like centaurs and the Cyclops, she embodied a terrifying mix of animal species. These powerful figures, derived from oral accounts, had gradually taken on definite visual aspects, not to mention their own personalities and symbolic and educational roles. The Gorgons made their first appearance in ancient Greek art after the geometric period. Inspired by fantastical Egyptian and Syrian symbolism, which also spawned a colourful host of Sphinxes, Sirens and griffons, the gorgoniea assumed a separate identity from those that took hold in other places8 in the hands of ancient Greek artists.

6

Clark Hopkins, ‘Assyrian Elements in the Perseus Gorgon Story’, American Journal of Archaeology. Vol. 38, 3, July–September (1934), 341–358. Also see Marjorie Garber and Nancy J. Vickers, The Medusa Reader (New York and London: Routledge, 2003). 7 Various accounts have painted Medusa as a beautiful and courageous queen who fought for the freedom of the Sardinian people, who, after her death, raised her up as a goddess; see Dolores Turchi, Leggende e racconti della Sardegna (Rome: Lucarini, 1989), 30. 8 Cf. Humfry Payne, Necrocorinthia: A Study of Corinthian Art in the Archaic Period (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1931) and Thalia Phillies Howe, ‘The Origin and

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One of the oldest and most frightening of the Gorgons in Archaic Greek art was depicted in the eighth century BCE, and her dreadful appearance was consistently reproduced until the fifth century BCE, when her characteristic features were once more scrupulously detailed in the Shield of Heracles, an epic poem thought to have been written in 555 BCE—the post-Hesiodic period. Here her description is very similar to those depicted in the art of 7th- and 6th-century Greece; the surviving Gorgons (Stheno and Euryale) are pictured in pursuit of Perseus, after he has beheaded their sister, whose terrifying visage overlooks the scene, as follows: “And after him rushed the Gorgons, unapproachable and unspeakable, longing to seize him: as they trod upon the pale adamant, the shield rang sharp and clear with a loud clanging. Two serpents hung down at their girdles with heads curved forward: their tongues were flickering, and their teeth gnashing with fury, and their eyes glaring fiercely. And upon the awful heads of the Gorgons great Fear was quaking.” (Hesiod, The Shield of Heracles, 230–238)

Fervid imaginations have portrayed the Gorgons in numerous guises— with wings of gold, sharpened claws, long boar’s tusks or teeth—but the one unifying theme is the snake: the guardian of the Oracles and the source of our most primitive fears. Poets and artists alike were bewitched by these nightmarish sisters, whom Hesiod’s patient hand ascribed to the primordial generations of divinities in his Theogony. Daughters of marine deities Phorcys and Ceto, themselves the offspring of Pontus (a sea-god) and Gaia (the Earth), the Gorgons had, by virtue of their genealogy, been shaped by primitive forces. They were, however, overthrown by the second generation of the Olympic pantheon, which brought order to the universe and steadfastly defended patriarchal law. By the time of Diodorus Siculus (1st century BCE), the three Gorgon sisters had been relegated to the status of savage creatures or fantastic beasts, but in the fifth century BCE they underwent an unexpected transformation into deliciously nubile young blondes, adorning the occasional sculpture, painted vase and prose of the age (from Pindar to Ovid). In Classical times, it was sometimes Medusa alone of the three sisters that was portrayed as beautiful, providing more than sufficient motive for Function of the Gorgon-Head’, American Journal of Archaeology. Vol. 58, 3, July (1954), 209–221.

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arousing the rampant lust of Poseidon, who finally managed to have his way with her in the temple of Athena. This, at least, was the version of the story invented by Ovid, according to whom the Goddess of the temple was so affronted that she transformed the alluring young woman into a repulsive monster. Nevertheless, it was through the works of other celebrated writers and artists, from Leonardo da Vinci to Picasso (not to mention Fidia, Cellini, Rubens and Rodin) that the image of the three Gorgon sisters was cemented in the collective imagination, albeit in various guises. It comes as little surprise, therefore, that from their origins in the minds of the European Neolithic people, who worshipped them as deities, the Gorgons have made frequent but troubling apparitions in our pedagogical landscape as history has marched and meandered on.

Venerable monsters Imaginary monsters are assured a place in universal human history if they foment both fear and fascination—two sides of the same emotional coin. 9 From the tales of ancient Egypt to the films of today, such fantastical creatures have long enacted our relationships with Otherness— the non-human, the non-being—meeting some primal human psychological need and intertwining with our education throughout time and space. Indeed, the complex creation of monsters is common to all cultures, ensuring that children the world over have all felt that delicious thrill of fear that such figures provoke, and that the attraction of these ferocious anti-heroes persists in their minds even into their old age. However, unlike the mythological heroes, their monstrous adversaries received scant attention from scholars until the anthropological studies of David D. Gilmore, who broke through the invisible barriers and pronounced that monsters were a product of psychological and social symbolism. Although often larger than life, gratuitously violent, sexually sadistic or even cannibalistic, these super-human symbols are not alien entities or existential anomalies; rather they are the unfettered creations 10 of the 9

See, for instance, Stéphane Audeguy, Les Monstres. Si loin, si proches (Paris: Gallimard, 2007). 10 David Gilmore, Monsters, Evil Beings, Mythical Beasts and All Manner of Imaginary Terrors (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002), 6.

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deepest part of our individual and social imaginations, monstrous externalisations of all that is dangerous and frightening in our internal lives. It is may come as no surprise to some of us, therefore, that the bogey-men used to scare and control the behaviour of children in Archaic Greece (Lamia, Akko, Mormo, Baubo—similar to the Italian Babau— Gello, and, of course, Gorgo) were, in fact, predominantly women. 11 Children in ancient Athens were ‘educated’ by scaring them with the threat of being bitten, dragged off and/or swallowed by such entities, armed with serpents in their hands or at their belts; as if that weren’t terrifying enough, these Gorgonesque monsters were also ready to expose their disconcertingly ferine vulvas at the drop of a hat. Nursemaids, maidservants and mothers across the civilised world all regaled children with these terrifying tales; in the Libyan desert there lived seductive damsels whose lower bodies were buried under the sands to hide the fact that they were, in fact, half serpent. The captivating and inviting glances of these damsels would act as bait to draw in the unwitting passer-by, who would soon find himself devoured by the large-headed, sharp-fanged female reptile—gobbled up in a single bite.12 Plato set out to debunk these fairy tales, which in his opinion distorted the truth and unleashed obsessive fears (Republic, Book 2, 376 d). But pleasurable wallowing in fantasy and imagination did, in fact, trigger very real emotions and furnish convenient solutions to real-world problems. Analysis of the protagonists of the Greek fables has shown how they served to gradually mould children’s behaviour by inducing a spasmodic state of fear;13 the children's nightmares continued to be nurtured by the iconic narrative progenitors of the Wicked Witch of European folklore. “Don’t do that, otherwise the Gorgo will whisk you away and/or eat you up,” was an excellent counter-measure against wakefulness, lack of appetite, and all the other potential threats to the survival of infants. Even though the Gorgon was tailored to inculcate very adult fears, her sisters 11

Carla Mainoldi, “Mostri al femminile” in Renato Raffaelli, (ed.), Vicende e figure femminili in Grecia e a Roma (Ancona: Commissione per le pari opportunità fra uomo e donna della Regione Marche, 1995), 69–92. 12 Enzo Pellizer, ‘Lamia e Baubò. Figure di spauracchi femminili nella Grecia arcaica’ in Berliotz et al.: Jacques Berlioz, Danièle Alexandre-Bidon (éds), Le croquemitaines. Faire peur et éduquer (Grenoble: Le monde alpin et rhodanien, 24 trimestres, 1998), 141–151. 13 Enzo Pellizer, Favole di identità. Favole di paura. (Rome: Istituto Enciclopedico Italiano, 1982), 14–62.

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were always guaranteed to induce anxiety, repugnance, terror and tears in the smallest citizens of Athens. Thus, since time out of mind, Athenian children must have been cheering on their heroes, imagining that they could themselves walk in their shoes; like children everywhere they would perhaps allow themselves to be gripped by a fleeting chill of fear, and then, bewitched and breathless, dream of slaying their terrifying adversaries and thereby taking on the personas of the much-admired heroes and saviours from the familiar fairy tales. Indeed, what more powerful role-model than Hercules, who, while still in his cradle honed his heroic skills by strangling serpents, and grew into a warrior capable of defeating hideous hybrids such as the Hydra? In the mind of man, this was the inevitable destiny of the monster—to be subdued or slain by the valorous hero of the day. The message to every masculine citizen was to be like the hero—to overcome the monsters of sexuality, to believe that they would triumph over dangerous enemies, and to project this—the power of the founding virtue of civilisation. The myth of Perseus was the perfect vehicle for inflaming the hearts of generations of Greek males with the desire to do battle against the creature with a thousand snake-heads. Only by wiping out the fearsome beast would they find their way back to peace and harmony. The ancient, medieval, modern and contemporary myths all revolve around a central idea, that, despite their necessary contribution to the narrative, monsters are the very opposite of heroes, and must be defeated so as to restore order to the world. In his attempt to decipher the metaphysical role of the monster, Mircea Eliade explained that such creatures were symbols of primordial chaos,14 and as such were key to the cultural landscape of the earliest societies. Roger Caillois too concluded that killing monsters was a fundamental feature of the rites of passage from childhood to adulthood—Oedipus liberated Thebes from the absolute dominion exerted by the enigmatic Sphinx, forcing her to take her own life; Theseus, founder of democratic 14

In 1956, Mircea Eliade in The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion, trans. Willard R. Trask (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1957), says “The dragon is the paradigmatic figure of the marine monster, of the primordial snake, symbol of the cosmic waters, of darkness, night, and death–in short, of the amorphous and virtual, of everything that has not yet acquired a ‘form’.”, 48.

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governance, saved Athens from the menace of the Minotaur; Bellerophon, with the aid of the (male) winged horse Pegasus, had his victory over the Chimera; and Ulysses successfully flexed his muscles against a whole host of different monsters.15 Not for no reason were such creatures often born of the aquatic world—a primordial environment teeming with serpentine and tentacled horrors.16 The power of inventing monsters sprang from primitive repressed desires, aggressive refusals, and their ready parallels with primordial chaos. The Western obsession with snake-like creatures, perfectly incarnated by the Gorgons, dates back to before the Greek and Roman myths; later on, the medieval Christian derivations, step by step, assimilated them ever more convincingly with chaos and evil, and Medusa quickly became public enemy number one. She gave all of the heroes of the age a run for their money. However, the image of her severed head was more than a sufficient object lesson for those who might be harbouring desires to subvert the patriarchal order of things. Indeed, despite the lack of realism in their narrative, the epic poems dealt with extremely real external and internal themes. The stubbornly masculine hand that defeated Medusa also served to stay the wild desires, blind impulses and ancestral instincts that characterised human existence, while warding off the despondency of chaos.

A taste of the Classical Medusa myths Over the magical beings of Old Europe (7000–3500 BCE) presided the parthenogenetic Great Goddess. She featured heavily in the Mediterranean region throughout the late Palaeolithic, Neolithic and Bronze Ages, gracing countless stone heads, labyrinthian patterns, ceramics, statuettes, tombs, sanctuaries and temples; she consecrated woodland groves with her omnipresence. Her name, though transmuted by distance, was on 15 Alexandre Hougron, in La figure du monstre dans la littérature et au cinéma: monstre et intertextualité, discusses the monster as a keystone of the imagination, and outlines an interesting teaching strategy implemented in French high schools. Online: accessed July 19, 2016: www.lettres.ac-versailles.fr/spip.php/article28. 16 For information on animal phobias (octopi, snakes and spiders) and their metaphysical phallic symbols (tentacles) as a form of real or imaginary occult power, see Roger Caillois, La pieuvre. Essai sur la logique de l’imaginaire (Paris: la Table ronde, 1973).

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everybody’s lips: Medha in Sanskrit, Met or Maat in Egyptian, and Metis in Greek. Representations of such powerful female figures were often accompanied by animals, especially birds and serpents. The Libyan Snake Goddesses—worshipped as a holy trinity—and the priestesses of Minoan Crete (3000–1600 BCE) are just a few of the celebrated females venerated across Europe, from the British Isles to the Baltics.17 In their midst was Medusa, the destructive face of the Libyan sacred trinity; interestingly, she was also called Neith, Anath, Athena or Ath-enna in North Africa, and Athena in the Minoan Greece of 1400 BCE.18 Among all these symbols of female divinity—who often changed names and identities—the ones we are most familiar with are those from ancient Greece. Hence we must resist the urge to divine how our progenitors felt in the realm of the Great Goddess, and instead focus on the re-inventions passed down to us in the Greek and Roman myths. Reading the strange and seemingly infinite stories of Medusa (which intertwine with those of the Gorgons) it is easy to feel as if we are on a kind of pilgrimage back in time, towards the crucible of humanity and culture. However, if we throw ourselves at the feet of Homer and Hesiod, there is a sneaking suspicion that we will never be able to quench the unslakable thirst for knowledge raised by this enigma. The Gorgon made her first appearance in writing in the Iliad, which, like the Odyssey, was attributed to Homer—the greatest of the epic poets. In this work the Gorgon was described as a monstrous woman with snakes for hair, but the image of her head had risen to the status of a living memory long before; her intense, fixed gaze had adorned the doors and façades of temples and other buildings, as well as objects in daily use, since at least 600 BCE, as testified to by archeological finds in Corfu. Possessing all the protective power of an apotropaic symbol, she was sculpted on buildings and painted on shields to silence enemies and scare 17

Marija Gimbutas, The Language of the Goddess (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1989). The power of the Goddess “was in water and stone, in tomb and cave, in animals and birds, snakes and fish, hills, trees and flowers. Hence the holistic and mythopoetic perception of the sacredness and mystery of all there is on Earth”. 321. 18 Barbara G. Walker (ed.), the entry ‘Medusa’ in The Women’s Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets (New Jersey: Castle Books, 1983), 629.

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off demons. Indeed, the image of her that was originally used as a ritual mask in Archaic Greece was a truly terrifying sight—a lolling tongue, rolling eyes, and curved and sharpened boar’s tusks—sufficient to strike fear into even the bravest of hearts. The power to make men quail was fully exploited in the midst of furious battle; in the Iliad—the earliest work of Western literature, she adorned the shields of both Athena (Book 5, 738) and Agamemnon (Book 11, 36). She preserved this bellicose reputation until the time of Virgil, and beyond. She is also remembered in the Odyssey, where she makes a brief appearance in Hades, cementing the idea of her subterranean existence. Although Homer was considered by Plato as the father of Greek culture and education, his authorship of the Iliad and the Odyssey is the subject of some debate, as it is uncertain whether they date to the end of the ninth century or the beginning of the eighth century BCE. Despite this enduring controversy, the Gorgon’s fame grew and spread on the back of the success of these literary masterpieces. Later, in the eighth century BCE, in Hesiod’s Theogony the one became three; Medusa, together with her sisters Stheno and Euryale (the daughters of the sea-god Phorcys and a monster, Ceto) lived in the remote and cemeterial Hesperides, at the edges of the Earth and the Night (a place later identified by Herodotus to be situated in Libya, beyond Egypt—home of the female deity Neith, known in Greece as Athena). Among the countless tales told by Hesiod, the one about Medusa, “whose fate was a sad one”, stands out. The only mortal, the only woman capable of bearing children, and an unwilling participant when “Poseidon, he of the dark hair, lay with [her] in a soft meadow and among spring flowers” and when “Perseus had cut the head of Medusa sprang from her blood great Chrysaor and the horse Pegasus…” (Hesiod, Theogony, 275–283). These vivid scenes give the disorientating impression that in the presence of a male figure—whether man (Perseus) or god (Poseidon)— this singular woman was somehow struck dumb and helpless in her shame and fear. In fact, in Theogony there is no mention at all of her casting venomous gazes or raising her reptilian crest. Neither her slithering malevolence nor her deathly pupils get so much as a mention. Under the eternal threat of monsters, sometimes clumsy and sometimes diabolical, Hesiod’s contemporaries—the Boeotian farmers—were blithely able to proceed without the weight of the memory that destroyed life. Instead, they thought of Zeus, who had sent them—as men—the worst punishment that could ever be meted out—the beautiful but dangerous

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Pandora, whose famous box contained all the evils of the world. 19 Labouring under the shadow of this conviction, they did their best to teach their children that women were the instrument of all human tragedy, and even the most beautiful of goddesses, bestower of precious gifts and favours, herself possessed nothing to be desired or treasured. Buoyed up by Perseus’s heroic victory, they began to recount tales that were openly hostile to women, whether mortal, immortal or monstrous. Who knows whether Hesiod was satisfied with his work, with having divided men and women in a new, singular opposition, as if between day and night. Was he pleased with the fact that his teachings fanned the flames of distrust in the value of all that was the “weaker” sex? Likewise, who can say whether the other epic poets were happy with their contributions to the Medusa myth; in shreds of verses, Stasinus of Cyprus (8th or 7th century BCE) dreamed of her as a horrible monster, while Pindar (5th century BCE) was the first to see her with her “awful serpent-head”, wreaking “stony death” with her gaze, and to clearly hear the “dismal death-dirge” of her grief-stricken sisters (Pindar, Pythian 10, 44–46); the musical sound of their misery, intertwined with the hissing of their serpentine locks, sent Athena into such raptures that she invented the flute in order to be able to mimic the wailing clamour emitted by the strange, many-headed beast (Pindar, Pythian 12, 11– 21). In the fifth century BCE, Aeschylus, a genuine narrative talent of the Greek tragedy, regaled the citizens of the polis with a picturesque account of the apparition of “three winged sisters, the snake-haired Gorgons, loathed of mankind, whom no one of mortal kind shall look upon and still draw breath,” (Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound, 794). Aeschylus re-iterated this impression of the loathsome Gorgons in Eumenides (33–48), and one of his scholiasts made them even more spine-chilling, embellishing the description with wings, claws and enormous tusks—even longer than those of a boar. In the second century CE, the following portrait was painted—in one of the most comprehensive collections of ancient myths ever written—by Apollodorus of Athens:

19 The myth of Pandora appears in Theogony (II. 570–612) and in Works and Days (II. 53–105). See Hesiod, Works and Days. Theogony. The Shield of Herakles, trans. Richmond A. Lattimore (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1959).

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Chapter One “But the Gorgons had heads twined about with the scales of dragons, and great tusks like swine's, and brazen hands, and golden wings, by which they flew; and they turned to stone such as beheld them. Perseus stood over them as they slept, and while Athena guided his hand and he looked with averted gaze on a brazen shield, in which he beheld the image of the Gorgon, he beheaded her. When her head was cut off, there sprang from the Gorgon the winged horse Pegasus and Chrysaor, the father of Geryon; these she had by Poseidon.” (Apollodorus, The Library, 1. 6; 2. 40–43)

Two centuries before, however, Diodorus Siculus, like Herodotus, had been more persuaded by the Libyan version, which painted the Gorgons and Amazons, among the various tribes of female warriors battling for control of the land, with armour made of snakeskin. Although more prosaic, this portrait of the Gorgons as female warriors was no less terrifying than the fantastical version later set down by Apollodorus. Tales were told of violent clashes between the Amazons, led by their queen Myrina, and the Gorgons, spearheaded by their ruler, Medusa. Their struggles for dominion of the territory plunged the people into painful destruction, until, of course, they were saved by proud Perseus and hubristic Hercules. By killing both queens and defeating their armies, these brave warriors managed to avert the end of the world, and save the human race, “since he [Hercules] felt that it would ill accord with his resolve to be the benefactor of the whole race of mankind if he should suffer any nations to be under the rule of women” (Diodorus Siculus, The Library of History, Book III, 53–55). Reading this account by Diodorus Siculus—probably written between 60 and 30 BCE—one can almost sense the pride of he who announced, with a triumphant smile, the end of all worldly suffering at the hands of the conquering but benevolent hero. Among these latest written accounts from ancient Greece, there was a more rational attempt by Pausanias (110–180 CE) to record how and where the Gorgons had played a role in Greek art and literature. However, he reported two contrasting versions. In the first, the exciting, mythical version, Medusa returned as a warrior, queen of Libya and breathtakingly beautiful. In this scenario it would therefore be credible that Perseus, after having betrayed and slain her, would eagerly take her severed head for aesthetic reasons: to send the Greeks into ecstasy with this tangible evidence of the unparalleled beauty of the sovereign he had bested. “Not far from the building in the market-place of Argos is a mound of earth, in which they say lies the head of the Gorgon Medusa. I omit the

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miraculous, but give the rational parts of the story about her. After the death of her father, Phorcus, she reigned over those living around Lake Tritonis, going out hunting and leading the Libyans to battle. On one such occasion, when she was encamped with an army over against the forces of Perseus, who was followed by picked troops from the Peloponnesus, she was assassinated by night. Perseus, admiring her beauty even in death, cut off her head and carried it to show the Greeks.” (Pausanias, Description of Greece, Book 2.21.5)

But this flattering depiction was countered by the version that immediately followed, which was perhaps more acceptable to the prevailing taste of the time. In this, Medusa was described as a kind of vigorous but mentally challenged savage, daughter of some monstrous primordial race that haunted the Libyan desert. When this doomed creature came into accidental contact with more ‘civilised’ beings, they, irked by her presence, would not suffer her to live: “Among the incredible monsters to be found in the Libyan desert are wild men and wild women. Procles affirmed that he had seen a man from them who had been brought to Rome. So he guessed that a woman wandered from them, reached Lake Tritonis, and harried the neighbours until Perseus killed her; Athena was supposed to have helped him in this exploit, because the people who live around Lake Tritonis are sacred to her.” (Ibid., Book 2.21.6)

Reading these strange accounts, which would soon be lost in the mists of time, it is possible to discern some common denominators. Although the various Archaic and Hellenistic images of the Gorgons are sometimes wildly different, they all meet the needs of the collective sensibilities, whether conscious or unconscious, and were therefore taken on board and eagerly passed down from generation to generation. How people reacted to these versions is not hard to fathom; from the age of warriors and farmers, the Gorgon taught us a healthy reverence and fear of the dark unknown, whether in the form of the night, death, the kingdom of Hell, the indomitable force of nature, the Earth, the moon, or menstrual blood. About halfway through the Archaic Era (630 BCE), suggestions of homoerotic dalliances between heroes and the gods became ever more frequent and explicit. In fact, the collective Doric imaginary provided the female audience with no parallel accounts to those consecrated in the stories of deities who fell in love with their nubile young cup-bearers. Despite the admiration of her contemporaries (Alcaeus of Mytilene), not to mention the poets and philosophers of the Classical Age, for Sappho (7th– 6th century BCE), none of them would have been able to bring themselves

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to believe that the community the poetess belonged to possessed the same values as those of more masculine societies (at the most it would have been accepted as the expression of an aristocratic freedom which, in the Eolian culture of the age, was also granted to women20). In other words, the female thiasus and the priestess-poets of Lesbos did not shatter the Doric forma mentis, which was based on one principal certainty: only on the battlefield or in the gym, and subsequently in the school of philosophers, did the erotic exhortations between men meet the need for a higher education that would constitute an ulterior motive for appreciation of the superiority of the “stronger” sex. Among the studies that have attempted to pin down the role and spaces of pederasty in ancient societies (Crete, Sparta and Athens), one published over fifty years ago still stands out. Its author, Henri-Irénée Marrou, a French specialist in ancient Greek education in the polis—which had excluded women—was totally unfazed by the idea of an adolescent gaining sexual experience at the hands of an adult from the same social class. Even if the practice was the result of an initiatory tradition, associated with a rite of passage, it met the need for maturity to be attained through the exchange of strong passions. In fact, Marrou ably intuited the efficacious and implicit emotional foundation that upheld the “antifeminine ideal of complete manliness”. As the homoerotic relationship between males was based on a difference in age, its almost official acceptance in the Hellenic tradition was justified as an educational strategy—it helped the boy (theoretically aged between fifteen and eighteen) to break free from the world of women in which he had spent his first seven years of life, and to socialise and learn the “comradeship of warriors” that would be essential for his survival in the hyper-masculine world of the polis.21 In Plato’s opinion, the educational aims of pederasty helped the adolescent develop a deeper sense of solidarity than that linking parents to their child. In the Classical paideia, ‘philia’, meaning equality, reciprocality and symmetry, was only possible between men and men. Hence, in Classical literature, the word ‘eros’ (love) is seldom used to describe 20

See Bernard Sergent, L’homosexualité initiatique dans l’Europe ancienne (Paris: Payot, 1986). 21 Henri I. Marrou, History of Education in Antiquity, trans. George Lamb (Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin, 1956 specifically Part One, Chapter III, ‘Masculine love as a method of Education’, 22–30.

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relationships between males and females, and is instead mainly reserved for the homosexual bond.22 At the same time, no female influence was tolerated in the political sphere or the education of the future citizen.23 Thus, the sons of Greece were taught to nurture a sense of masculine pride, and to be highly offended if compared to a woman. In short, they learned to feel that their male superiority was a moral right. It is unlikely that any young man from the aristocracy failed to identify with Perseus in the scene in which he courageously beheaded his enemy, the terrible Medusa, as a means of selfaffirmation, of banishing the darkness with light, and defeating chaos with order. Plato, as a means of winning the hearts of the future governors and guardians of the ideal polis, not wanting to sully their developing young minds with mere facts or rational lessons (Republic, VII, 514a–517a), instead preferred to transmit to them the joy of listening to the myths.24 Even Aristotle, the father of logos, found in myth the enthusiasm of wisdom. 25 The more the powerful imaginations of the Greeks absorbed such philosophical ideas—and the more zealous became the efforts of school and university educators and textbooks along the centuries—the easier it was to let go of the legacy of the Great Goddess that had pervaded Prehistoric and Neolithic Europe. The lesson that was taught to even the youngest citizen—that Western society was founded upon Greek civilisation—was readily absorbed, along with its values.

22

See Robert Flacèliere, La vie quotidienne en Grèce au siècle de Périclès (Paris: Hachette, 1959). 23 In Rome, where a social system was in force in which the private was totally given over to the public, and where sexual initiation was no longer an aim of education, male children were taught by women; see Rosella Frasca, Educazione e formazione a Roma. Storia, testi, immagini (Bari: Dedalo, 1996). 24 Plato's Republic describes Socrates and his discussion with Adeimantos and Glaucon about the education of philosophical leaders and the constitution of the “city in words” as “playing” (VII, 536b-c), trans. Allan Bloom, (New York: Basic Books Inc., 1968). 25 For a Freudian analysis of the educational power of mythological narrative in the Classical paideia (for instance, the Greek story of Eros and Psyche) see Bruno Bettelheim, The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales (New York: Knopf, 1976), 291. See also David Konstan, The Emotions of the Ancient Greeks: Studies in Aristotle and Classical Literature (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2006) for a stimulating look at the ancient Greek concept of emotions as dynamic forces in social relations and ethical education.

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Hence it is especially surprising when, in our day and age, careful scholars of the Stone Age are able to convey their fascination with the culture and traditions of our Neolithic ancestors to the younger generations. Although a rare occurrence, after Gimbutas this was masterfully achieved by the author of The Chalice and the Blade;26 Riane Eisler viewed the history of humankind through fresh eyes, interpreting our cultural evolution in light of the two prevailing social organisational models—the androcratic, hierarchical, dominant approach (the blade), characterised by a violent and authoritarian education system; and the preceding gynocentric, symbolic, mutual and collaborative one (the chalice), which had been practiced by Prehistoric European societies. How is it possible then that many of us, who meticulously teach an entirely patriarchal set of ideas, still do not reach a singular sense of creativity in discovering that the category of contraposition may be replaced with one of transformation, and that it is possible to betray without fear an oppressive imagination and univocal vision of knowledge?27

A stroll with the bogey-woman—no walk in the park For Classical-Age Greeks, Perseus was an ancestral hero who had brought the head of a monster (or a ceremonial mask) to Athens in triumph. But for contemporary historians, anthropologists, archaeologists, philologists, mythologists, humanists and, especially, feminists, the story is difficult to take without a very large pinch of salt ideed. In the 1900s their growing interest in the real identity of the Gorgon spawned numerous hypotheses. One such example was that put forward by the humanist Robert Graves,28 who, inspired by James G. Frazer, identified the origins of the Gorgon as the Libyan Snake Goddess, an Amazonian symbol of “female wisdom”.29 26

Riane Eislier, The Chalice and The Blade: Our History, Our Future (New York: Harper & Row, 1987). 27 Susan Sellers, Myth and Fairy Tale in Contemporary Women’s Fiction (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002) provides an overview of the persistence of the Gorgon myth in contemporary feminist fiction and an analysis of new models of individual and social education. 28 Robert Graves, The Greek Myths (London: Penguin, 1955), vol. I, 17 and 224. 29 Robert Graves in The White Goddess: A Historical Grammar of Poetic Myth (London: Faber & Faber, 1948) identifies the primitive cult of the Great Mother, also known as the Moon Goddess, as the celestial symbol of fertility.

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Barbara G. Walker, on the other hand, painted her as a representative of the cycle of nature and time—an ever-changing rhythm of creation and destruction. Indeed, an inscription on her Temple at Sais in Egypt described her as “mother of all the gods, whom she bore before childbirth existed” i.e., the link between life, death and rebirth; as “all that has been, that is, and that will be”, she also represented the past, present, and future. So compelling was this idea, that early Judeo-Christians later attributed the phrase to their male God (Revelation 1:8).30 James G. Frazer, a Scottish anthropologist, agreed that the veiled Medusa was a prototypical representation of time, and, especially, the unknown, the hidden future, and a natural phenomenon: death. No mere human would be able to lift the veil that covered her, because if they looked her in the eyes they would immediately be turned to stone, i.e., a funerary statue. Indeed, covering the face, especially in the African countries where the Medusa myth originated, was a sign of both sacred sovereignty and a taboo against exposing the face to evil influences that might enter or leave the body, depending on what kind of person they belonged to.31 It was mainly this interpretation that evoked the central theme of the menstrual taboo, linking it to the evil eye. It is highly likely that this was how the popular (albeit not universal) belief amongst primitive peoples that the gaze of a menstruating woman was imbued with magical powers came about. Even as late on as the twentieth century, the Bushmen of southern Africa were dominated by the fear of being paralysed by a glance from a menstruating maiden, while in Lebanon, peasants were terrified of the bad luck brought by women on their periods, whose shadows had the power to paralyse even snakes.32 With this iron-clad symbolic association, passed down from generation to generation in opposing cultures and countries on different sides of the world (from Africa to Europe, and from farming hamlets to the first industrial cities), the irreducible and tremendously intense gaze of Medusa took hold. Although Polynesian communities, studied by Margaret Mead in the last century, were unafraid of the eyes of their menstruating women 30

Walker makes this point in her entry ‘Medusa’ in The Women’s Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets, 629. 31 James G. Frazer, The Golden Bough (3rd edition London: Macmillan, 1935), originally published in 1890, vol. II, 314, and vol. II, 838 and 930–933. 32 Ibidem.

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(despite being wary of them for other reasons),33 the entire Western world had got used to the idea that living beings and worldly goods could be afflicted by a malevolent, paralysing and/or contagious glance. In fact, traces of these beliefs are found in various social customs and educational practices even in today’s modern Europe. The reconstruction of Medusa’s history has been partially enabled by the humanist anthropological approach to the topic of blood, which has also created a mighty breach in the fortified walls of male-directed research. In fact, if we look closely at recent decades, reinterpretation of the Medusa figure seems to have run parallel to the growing focus on the many cultural uses of menstruation. Several anthropologists and sociologists in the United States have tackled the taboos regarding menstruating women that have persisted for centuries, showing how this category had been assumed as a prototype of female inferiority.34 Piecing together the values ascribed to menstrual blood has been indispensable for comprehending primitive mentalities, for whom this mysterious phenomenon generated a combination of fear, awe, and belief in its supernatural powers. Thanks to this magical fluid, identified in ancient Europe as the principal source of creative energy, female gods were worshipped and mortal women honoured. 35 The ancient tribal societies of the Mediterranean, as well as several Aryan peoples, maintained that royal blood flowed through the veins of women, but not of men; under this system, noblewomen and reigning princesses married men from other families or places, and shared with them their assets and rule. Indeed, a familiar theme in the fairy tales told to children in the nineteenth century involved a young, impoverished man setting off to find his fortune in the world, and, after various plot twists, successfully winning the hand 33

Margaret Mead, Coming of Age in Samoa. A Psychological Study of Primitive Youth for Western Civilization (New York: W. Morrow, 2001. Originally published in 1928) reports that, although it was believed that “menstruating women were contaminating and dangerous,” they were not considered capable of contaminating others with “their touch or look”. VI ‘The Girl in the Community’, 80–81. 34 See Jane Delaney, Mary J. Lupton and Emily Toth, The Curse: A Cultural History of Menstruation (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, revised edition 1988. Originally published in 1976). Also see: Elissa Stein and Susan Kim, Flow: The Cultural Story of Menstruation (New York: St. Martin’s Griffin Press, 2009); Thomas Buckley and Alma Gottlieb, Blood Magic: The Anthropology of Menstruation (Berkley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1988). 35 Graves, The Greek Myths, vol. I, 175.

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of the king’s daughter, and half the kingdom to boot. According to Frazer, this general outline was based on a real custom that was actually practiced in Greek and Latin tribes from the Archaic age.36 From time to time this theme also leaked into the Latin literature of late Antiquity, for example the Mythologies by Fabius Planciades Fulgentius (6th century CE), careful reader of Lucan, Ovid and the historian Theocnidus. In his version, King Phorcys had left his kingdom and wealth to his three daughters, of which Medusa, thanks to her administrative and land-management capabilities, became the most powerful. In fact, he tells us, the name “Gorgon” comes from the Greek ‘georgi’—farmer—while the princess’ long serpentine locks simply alluded to her metis, her great skill in governing goods and assets. The tone of this more reassuring story than we are familiar with may give us glimpses of the truth. Fulgentius, who was not exactly a great admirer of Perseus, described him as an unscrupulous treasure-seeker, happy to kill the poor girl to get his hands on her riches, lands and assets. Whether or not this is an accurate take, in Fulgentius’ opinion, the Greeks, with their love of “embroidery”, had shamelessly covered an ugly story with a “finely spun fabrication”.37

Metamorphoses “But Perseus, bringing back the wondrous trophy Of the snake-haired monster, through thin air was cleaning His way on whirring wings. As he flew over The Libyan sands, drops from the Gorgon’s head Fell bloody on the ground, and earth received them Turning them into vipers. For this reason Libya, today, is full of deadly serpents.” (Ovid, Metamorphoses, Book IV, 608–639)

36

Frazer, The Golden Bough, vol. I, 245. Fabius Planciades Fulgenius, Mitologiae, Book I, XXI. There is only one modern edition: Fabii Fulgentii Planciadi: Opera, Rudolf Helm, ed., Leipzig 1898. Fabula Persei et Gorgonorum explains in addition that the Greeks used the three Gorgons to represent three kinds of terror: the first (Sthenno) that weakens the mind; the second (Euryale) that fills with fear; and the third (Medusa) despair. For further details of works ascribed to Fulgentius, see: Fulgentius the Mythographer, trans. from the Latin, with Introductions by Leslie George Whitbread (Ohio: State University Press, 1971).

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This is Ovid. His verses make startlingly clear the power of the blood of Medusa—the most beautiful of the Gorgon sisters. Her severed head stands out above the kaleidoscope of faces and beings described by the Latin poet (43 BCE–18 CE) in his Metamorphoses, and the most striking image in this piece is of the “gory drops” of her blood. They are given such prominence in the story not because they are the most important detail regarding her death, but because they reassure the audience that the natural order of things—the cycle of life and death—has been restored. There is an almost palpable relief in the idea that the blood dripping from the head of the Gorgon, clutched firmly in the fist of an airborne Perseus, gave rise to new and numerous generations of hissing creatures. One of the venomous beasts spawned by this unstoppable mode of reproduction was the Amphisbaena, a mythical snake-like creature with two heads—one at each end. Like every self-respecting serpent, according to ancient and Medieval literature the Amphisbaena was born out of drops of Medusa’s blood as Perseus carried her head above the desert. The act of Medusa’s decapitation itself gave rise to the sons of Poseidon, who had raped her in the Temple of Athena: Pegasus, the winged stallion, and his brother Chrysaor, a giant who later faded out of the mythological landscape. “When their mother’s face touched the ground, out of same bloody drops, also germinated aquatic plants. Sea-nymphs, too, attempted to perform that phenomenon. The fresh plants, still living inside, and absorbent, respond to the influence of the Gorgon’s head, and harden at its touch, acquiring a new rigidity in branches and fronds. And the ocean nymphs try out this wonder on more plants, and are delighted that the same thing happens at its touch, and repeat it by scattering the seeds from the plants through the waves.” (Ovid, Metamorphoses, Book IV, 745–750)

This enchanting scene transmits great joy. Tender fronds of seaweed are gently crystallised into coral. The subtle message is never to pre-judge the ending, or to be afraid of transformation, change or decay. In the saga of Perseus and Medusa, from her tragically severed head, laid on the ground, spring all the wonders of the cosmos—human and divine— encompassing the animal, plant and mineral realms. Without reading Metamorphoses, it is difficult to comprehend the many ways in which, according to Ovid, destruction leads to rebirth. Among his many stories of transformation, just how such mutable beings stretch the boundaries of what we know to be materially possible is difficult for the modern mind to wrap itself around. His firm conviction

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that human beings can become flowers, trees, animals and minerals, and, vice versa—that inanimate objects, places and other types of corporeal entities can take on the human form, is breathtaking. One minute men and women are being transformed into statues, and the next stones are mutating into people (Deucalion and Pyrrha). Without referring to Ovid’s fantastical evolutionary tales, it would be all but impossible to grasp how the bloodiest of the Gorgon sisters attained such immortality. Her dripping head gifted the animal, human, and mineral kingdoms of the sea and land not only snakes and serpent-like creatures, but also a flying horse, a giant, and delicate corals. This bloody origin imbued corals with special powers; coral necklaces were used to protect newborns from the evil eye, and they were ground up as poultices to stem the flow of blood—filigreed pink coral that was so delicate that the sea-nymphs enjoyed causing it to multiply, while in their eyes shone the pale reflection of Medusa’s blood.

“My Name Is Red” Even the youngest of schoolchildren is aware that red is a primary colour. In many European and Asiatic countries, red is the colour of fire, of blood, of life.38 But it is also the colour of mystery, of things hidden in dark recesses or primordial waters. There are two types of red—one male and one female. In daylight, red is bright, sumptuous and impulsive; it has absorbed the luxuriant rays of the sun—a symbol both sacred and profane. A triumph of Eros, it is the colour of warriors, conquerers, generals and noblemen, Roman patricians, Byzantine emperors, the Holy Christian Spirit, choirboys, alchemists, the princes of Hell and the Church—the mark of supreme power. By night, however, red is deeper, darker, more profound. A colour in negative— funereal almost and tainted; in the pale light of the moon, red is the turbid, obscure hue of menstrual blood. However, it was this red that in ancient times provided the thrilling vehicle for creation and fecundity; in the tribal mindset, the great mystery of life resided in the blood of women, reflecting as it did the reassuring waxing and waning of the moon. 38

See the entry “Red” by Pierre Grison in Chevalier and Gheerbrant, Dictionnaire des symboles, 300.

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In Greece and Rome, however, this red was the colour of insolence and cunning—scoundrels in plays were easily recognised by their bloody appearance, as well as their physiognomy.39 That being said, Aristotle and Pliny the Elder agreed with the ancients that human life was generated out of coagulated menstrual blood. Native Americans, Hindus, pre-Islamic Arabs and ancient Mesopotamians saw in menstrual blood the Goddess of creation in all her forms. The primitive certainty that menstrual blood generated life was barely dimmed by the passage of time, 40 and even as late as the eighteenth century European physicians were convinced that blood had life-giving, reproductive powers. Red was the thread linking the Maoris and the African tribes with Greek philosophers, Roman physicians, and the Christian educators and scientists of the modern age. Despite the diversity of peoples, places, times and cultures, for all menstrual blood was a sign of the succulent mystery of procreation, and its colour a sublime hue that tinged their artistic output. Think of the Venus of Willendorf, the voluptuous statuette carved between 20,000 and 30,000 years ago—one of the oldest in central Europe; she was originally painted red, like the tribal stones venerated by the Australian Aborigines, the flaming symbolic representations of the vulva that adorned the temples of the Egyptian pharaohs, the vermillion prayer beads of the Arabs, the scarlet sacred objects of the Maoris, the sanguine amulets of the Andaman islanders, the ruby easter eggs of Greece and Russia, and the ruddy walls of Neolithic tombs. How many sacred stones, cups, drinks (wine for the Greeks, mead for the Celtic kings, and Yin juice for the Taoists), bones, fabrics, feathers, funeral goods, amulets, designs on walls and the body, hieroglyphs, and names throughout history have recalled the supreme claret of menstrual blood? Artefacts from tumultuous pre-Archaic Greek tribal societies, the primitive peoples of India, Africa and North America, and the philosophy and cultures of the ancient Middle East all bear witness 39

In Greco-Roman theatre, impudent and shameless characters were recognisable by their bloody appearance, and dishonest slaves by their flaming hair. See Giampiera Raina, ‘Il verosimile in Menandro e nella fisiognomica' in Diego Lanza and Oddone Longo, Il meraviglioso e il verosimile nell’antichità e nel Medioevo (Florence: Olschki, 1989), 173–185. 40 The scholar Walker has collated a fascinating body of evidence on the role played by women in cultural evolution, and included a specific entry dedicated to ‘Menstrual Blood’ in Walker, The Women’s Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets, 635.

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to the supernatural vigour of a fluid that was deservingly enthroned among the divine and cosmic energies. Even as recently as the nineteenth century, the Navajo tribe of North America held religious ceremonies to celebrate the arrival of a girl’s first period, with all its promise of new life. Similarly, the Tukuna—a hunting and fishing community from the Amazon rainforest—had the custom of ornamenting the heads of newly menarchal females with bright red feathers. Whereas crowns of macaw plumage were usually reserved for the village elders, clan fathers, holy men and shamans of South America, this honour was also bestowed on the females of the tribe upon their triumphant passage into womanhood. The macaw feathers they wore were impregnated with the vital power of the sun, and they gloried in belonging to the solar realm by colouring locks of their hair with red, harbouring dreams of soaring like birds, up to the gates of the heavens.41 The ethnographic documentation on this issue is further bolstered by a detail regarding pomegranate pips in the tales of Demeter and Persephone—another important Classical myth on the Elusinian Mysteries and the rites of female initiation. After her abduction and rape, Persephone was forced to obey the orders of Lord Zeus, and submit to the will of her abductor, Hades, king of the underworld. Reinterpreting the masculine idea of the metaphor of the pomegranate as a symbol of death, Károl Kerényi, a scholar of Greek mythology, also recognised feminine fertility in the symbolism of the Elusinian Mysteries, of which Persephone was surely the culmination. This interpretation makes it possible to imagine that in her imprisonment, away from the sunlight, young Persephone fed herself on pomegranates—not so as to be constrained to return periodically to the underworld, but to clandestinely reunite with her mother. In this scenario, she not only may have seen the pomegranate seeds as a delicious source of nutrition—more noble than any other fruit—but also divined their germinative and productive power. She may have intuited this from their rosy blush—the colour of life, evoking the flow of menstruation, defloration and childbirth. 41 For the similarities in the mythological and symbolic significance attributed to menstruation among different primitive populations, see Bruce Lincoln, Emerging from the Chrysalis: Studies in Rituals of Women's Initiation (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1981), 81 and 95–96.

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Persephone—bon vivant and ever ready for ecstasy, would have gobbled up the juicy jewelled pips with joy, recognising in them all the vitality of sunlight and nature.42

The Juice of Life Although unmentionable,43 menstruation was accorded an important place in history. In this regard, it is impossible to overlook, among others, the hypothesis put forward in 1991 by Chris Knight. 44 His interdisciplinary anthropological approach to the topic (combining sociology, sociobiology, mythology, palaeontology and ethnoarchaeology) pushed the envelope of all we had previously thought we knew about evolution—blood as a symbol of menstruation constitutes a new lens through which to view human social evolution and its constellation of symbolism. While it should be noted that, for archeologists, the human revolution began more than 400,000 years ago, when primitive peoples in South Africa began to decorate their bodies (a practice that later spread across Europe Asia, America, Australia and the entire planet), Knight proposed a different idea. For him, the first cultural message (as per the Geertz

42

According to Carl Kerényi, an explorer of Greek myths and their “Goddesses of Sun and Moon”, the bright red of the pomegranate evoked not only the mortal wounds of warriors, but also the vitality of menstrual blood, and the image of the pomegranate seed celebrated the fecundity of women. Most Greek sources credited Demeter with having taught mortals how to use seeds, among other agricultural secrets. In fact, practices in her temple at Eleusis linked pomegranate pips to a cosmic event, influenced by womanly fluids. For the significance of the pomegranate in the Elusinian Mysteries, see also Carl Kerényi Eleusis: Archetypal Image of Mother and Daughter, V. 4 (Bollington Series, trans. Ralph Manheim (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1967). The psychoanalytic approach to Greek mythology became clear in 1949, when Kerényi and Jung published together Essays on the Science of Mythology: the Myths of the Divine Child and the Divine Maiden, trans. R. C. Hull (NewYork and Evanston: Harper & Row, 1963). 43 In the United States, menstruation was the starting point of an important study by Delemay, Lupton and Toth, The Curse. See also Andrew Shail and Gillian Howie, Menstruation: A Cultural History. (USA: Palgrave McMillan, 2005). 44 Chris Knight, Blood relations: menstruation and the origins of culture. (New Haven Conn./London: Yale University Press, 1991).

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definition of culture as a collection of shared symbolism)45 was the result of the interaction of females with males; in this hypothesis, the decision of women to paint their bodies red was a deliberate attempt to direct male behaviour. This guiding role of women in human evolution was enacted by means of a long and complex series of practices carried out over a period of 100,000 to 300,000 years. It was expressed through the symbolic value assigned to the inchoate physiological phenomenon of the menstrual cycle: painting their faces and bodies red symbolised women’s desire to transform their monthly flows into a public emblem, rich in underscored messages. The most eloquent evidence in support of this interpretation comes from the many specific strategies invented by women to renew themselves through the visual impact of blood. A famous and clear case in point is the Venus of Willendorf, which, like the other female ‘goddesses’ of the Upper Palaeolithic, was painted in red ochre. Through ovulation and menstruation, women across space and time have found in themselves something quietly satisfying, a period in which they used every means at their disposal in the attempt to modify their bodies, sexuality and fertility. The discovery that the menstrual cycle coincided with the waxing and waning of the moon united occupational, social and emotional rhythms, and—if Knight is right—menstrual blood constituted the link between individuals in terms of sustainable socialisation (reciprocal aid was necessary for delivery and childcare). Hence, menstruation was in fact the driving force behind the transition from great ape to human, and this modern revision of the origin and development of culture is centred around women, who were able to plan and implement sexual restrictions on their partners during their infertile, menarchal period. It is no coincidence that the positive face of menstrual blood comes from cultures that have made it an integral part of their religious festivals, symbols and rites. The ancient goddesses of Mediterranean civilisations are incorporated in the sacred colour red—a symbol of life and fertility. The archeological interpretations of rufescent cave art and the five hundred female statues of Palaeolithic Europe suggest that women were seen as child bearers, and that the colour red, indicative of life, was imprinted in the cultural calendar of those societies. In the ancient 45

Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures (New York: Basic Books, 1973), 89.

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European tradition, traced by archeologists such as Gimbutas, menstruation was acclaimed as a potent and sacred symbol of creation. In these societies, blood was magical. This idea has been confirmed by the anthropologists who explored the symbolic perception of menstruation as blood, shedding new light on the role of women in the transition from the natural to the cultural.46 It detracts somewhat from the image—touted as scientific evolutionary theory in the twentieth century—of the tenacious hunter and toolmaker as the father of invention. If we put aside our obsession with male uniformity as the origin of culture, Palaeolithic women no longer seem so much like instruments of the physical strength and domineering will of their men (as classical theories of evolution would have it), but rather autonomous creatures, with their own ideas and skills, who somehow managed to regulate their own— and others’—behaviour. Beginning with the painting of their own bodies to represent menstrual blood, they were able to invest their actions with symbolism, and in so doing shape the destiny of humankind. At the end of the twentieth century, the new horizons opened up by the palaeontologists, archaeologists and anthropologists, by uncovering female reproductive strategies effectively debunked the overly simplistic idea that women had no real role in evolutionary change. Discussion on the symbolism of colours also restores another piece in the fragmented puzzle of primordial humanity. Cave art made by European hunter-gatherers in the Neolithic show that, besides black, they preferred and attached particular importance to the colour red, which was still used in the Neanderthal era when burying the dead, who were covered in pounds of ochre powder.47 Likewise, a historical analysis of colours provides proof that red was prized in ancient times, throughout the Middle Ages and up till the modern age. In Renaissance depictions of the Virgin Mary, she is often seen wearing flaming-red garments, like Roman brides. Indeed, it was not until the nineteenth century that the ecclesiastical authorities got the notion that

46

Buckley and Gottlieb, Blood Magic. Ernst E. Wreschner. ‘Red Ochre and Human Evolution: A Case for Discussion.’ Current Anthropology, 21:631–644 (October 1980). 47

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red was a sinful colour,48 and therefore decreed that white and celestial blue would be more fitting. A similar sanitisation strategy, albeit with different repercussions, is employed in today’s TV advertisements for female sanitary products— whose efficacy is implausibly but effectively alluded to by means of a synthetic blue fluid.49 This deliberate manipulation of colour is part of the current cultural plan, which, based on now obscure but determinant criteria, via some nobilitating alchemical process turns menstrual blood blue—a calming colour capable of quelling collective fears. Indeed, as Camporesi pointed out in the 1980s, according to current sensibilities and societal codes, the red “sauce”, from which all sacred and profane history sprang, is nothing more than a vehicle for the unknown, and our deepest, darkest fears. 50 In this day and age, the transgressive appearance of menstruation in the public sphere is only tolerated as long as it conforms to our fastidious standards of hygiene and good taste.51 Thus, that magical fluid—which thousands of years ago was an ardent symbol of vital energy—is reduced to a dangerous and dirty stain by the exclusion of red, and exorcised by a cold, inanimate and static wash of blue.

Hypatia’s Curse Out of the blue, this anecdote on sanitary towels leads us to Hypatia,52 a famous Alexandrian intellectual who was brutally stoned on church steps by Parabalani Christians—a kind of armed religious militia—in 415 CE (a form of judgement that tragically persists in some parts of the world, even 48

Amy Butler Greenfield, A Perfect Red. Empire, Espionage, and the Quest for the Color of Desire (New York: Harper Collins, 2005). 49 The journalist Raffaella Malaguti explores the recent tendency to use blue liquid in advertising, and the Italian attitude to menstruation in general, in Raffaella Malaguti, Le mie cose. Mestruazioni: storia, tecnica, linguaggio, arte e musica (Milan: Bruno Mondadori, 2005), 4. 50 Piero Camporesi, Il sugo della vita. Simbolismo e magia del sangue (Milan: Edizioni di Comunità, 1984) 54. 51 The British sociologist Sophie Laws points out our need to replace the traditional concept of taboo with that of etiquette in order to comprehend current cultural constructs regarding menstrual blood in Sophie Laws, Issues of Blood: The Politics of Menstruation (Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Macmillan, 1990). 52 Margaret Alic, Hypatia's Heritage: A History of Women in Science from Antiquity through the Nineteenth Century (Boston: Beacon Press, 1986) and Maria Dzielska, Hypatia of Alexandria (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1995).

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today). Hypatia’s assassination has recently been categorised as a “savage murder”, 53 but with her death, she has gradually become a symbol of reason54 in the face of religious fanaticism and Christian intolerance for Classical pagan culture (between 1509 and 1510, Raffaello Sanzio painted Hypatia in the School of Athens as beautiful yet thoughtful), and an iconic figure in the history of women.55 All across the world, feminist scientific and cultural centres have baptised their organisations in her name, which was also recently adopted by an international UNESCO project for the development of women in science. 56 Rather than adhering to the truth, however, the stories of Hypatia—mathematician, astronomer, musician, philosopher, inventor and mentor to the public—seem to have been written as exempla. Nevertheless, the facts of the case trace the outline of an essential chapter in human history—a discipline that requires us to understand which conjectures were used to interpret and evaluate events.57 Even though it is no easy task to uncover exactly what happened to Hypatia from the available Greek Patristic (and often vacillating) accounts, which have in any case been re-written several times, at least a rough sketch can be discerned. Despite the fact that her works are lost to humanity, we can to some extent console ourselves with an understanding of the climate in which her barbarous killing occurred. This also gives us a rare opportunity to reflect upon the unusual use that this luminary put her menstrual rag to, as well as a glimpse into the decline of the Roman Empire. Indeed, this is reflected in the decay of the city of Alexandria, a crucible of culture in which it was still possible to breathe the rarefied air 53

Cf. Dino Baldi, Morti favolose degli antichi (Macerata: Quodlibet, 2010). Luciano Canfora, Un mestiere pericoloso. La vita quotidiana dei filosofi greci. (Palermo: Sellerio, 2000) 196–203 tells us of Hypatia’s sense of scientific independence. 55 Cf. Silvia Ronchey, Ipazia. La vera storia, (Milan: Rizzoli, 2010). 56 See Rita Levi Montalcini and Giuseppina Tripodi, Le tue antenate. Donne pioniere nella società e nella scienza dall’antichità ai giorni nostri, (Rome: Ed. Gallucci, 2008). 57 For an analysis of the sources on Hypatia, see the online article by Michael A.B. Deakin The Primary Sources for the Life and Work of Hypatia of Alexandria. Online: accessed June 10, 2016. 54

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of tolerance, despite the growing influence of the Christian community— guided by the intransigent bishops Theophilus and Cyrillus. In Hypatia’s time, she, a woman, was granted the unusual privilege of a role as teacher in public institutions, and was allowed to participate in the rigorously masculine citizens’ assemblies. As the daughter of a respected member of the Museum (a kind of public library, founded in 283 CE, where biology, mathematics, medicine, philosophy, science, mechanics, literature, philology and geography could be studied), Hypatia had the good fortune to live in direct contact with the beating heart of ancient human knowledge. She was raised in the most intellectual city of the fourth century CE, and her father—an expert in the arts of geometry and astronomy—never stood in the way of her curiosity and education. In the same spirit, according to a coeval account by the Christian historian Socrates of Constantinople (around 439—450), she attracted disciples from far and wide, all eager to receive her teachings.58 In fact it is the writings of her pupils, as well as the account of Damascius, that depict her as a Neoplatonic philosopher. Both pagan and Christian authors, her contemporaries and heirs, paint her as a singular example of a female scientist and philosopher. Unfortunately, hers are some of the few remaining traces of female culture in the ancient world, with the exception of the colleges of women led by Sappho at Mytilene in the seventh century BCE, and the official recognition granted Diotima and Aspasia for their contributions to the intellectual life of the city of Athens in the fourth century BCE. Hypatia taught at the most prestigious scientific institution in the whole of the Classical world, and in the Alexandrian school acquired a reputation that was unheard of for a woman in her time. Her fame spread among her contemporaries and persisted for generations afterwards; reading the accounts, alongside the anecdotes written by ecclesiastical historians— who cast her as beautiful and chaste—triggers a shiver of admiration for this exceptional woman, whose love of knowledge was strong enough to grant her a platform in an almost exclusively male society. Echoing the Classical tradition (Latin, with Suetonius and Tacitus, and Greco-Roman, with Plutarch), between the first century CE and the Christian era, biographical literature retained an enthusiasm for recounting a salient, marginal or thought-provoking incident in the attempt to capture 58

Socrates Scholasticus, Historia Ecclesiastica. VII, 15 PG LXVII, 768. See footnote n° 62.

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the personality of the subject. This practice, which shone light on the private, intimate sphere of the biographee, generated the singular menstrual rag anecdote; this gave a personal touch to the accounts of Hypatia, and at the same time exposed the cultural bankruptcy of her society as regards ‘the curse’. Almost a hundred years after the death of Hypatia, Damascius, in his Life of Isidore, tells us that Hypatia, when confronted by a pupil who was overly enamoured of her, presented him with a bloody menstrual rag, saying: “You love this, o youth, and there is nothing beautiful about it” (77, 1–4). Even though Damascius’ (462–538) works have been lost, his Life of Isidore was reconstructed in the Suda (or Suidae Lexicon), a 10th-century Byzantine encyclopaedia. Although there are some glaring errors in this account (for example his belief that Hypatia was married to his fellow Neoplatonic philosopher and subject of the biography Isidore of Alexandria—who was, in fact, born at the end of the fifth century, long after the death of his purported wife). Nevertheless, the passage that follows the anecdote does convey the sense of horrified shock that her unusual ‘gift’ provoked, and, at the same time, a sort of reactive and tranquillising amnesia regarding the whole indecorous event. How, therefore, should we interpret this episode, which has served its function as a memorable exemplum across the centuries? Indeed, the compiler of the encyclopaedia was not born until five hundred years after Damascius’ death. Although he tried to remain faithful to the original text, it is not beyond the realms of possibility that he made some changes in order to conform to the tastes of the age. Nevertheless, Hypatia’s shocking gesture must have horrified her young disciple—so much so that he was immediately “brought to his right mind” when confronted with the “unpleasant sight”.59 According to the paralysing conventions of his time, 59

This episode of ‘The life of Hypatia’ (from Damascius's Life of Isidore, reproduced in The Suda Lexicon, trans. Jeremiah Reedy) is particularly significant: “In addition to her teaching, attaining the height of practical virtue, becoming just and prudent, she remained a virgin. She was so very beautiful and attractive that one of those who attended her lectures fell in love with her. He was not able to contain his desire, but he informed her of his condition. Ignorant reports say that Hypatia relieved him of his disease by music; but truth proclaims that music failed to have any effect. She brought some of her female rags and threw them before him, showing him the signs of her unclean origin, and said, “You love this, o youth, and there is nothing beautiful about it. His soul was turned away by shame and surprise at the unpleasant sight, and he was brought to his right mind”. See The

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his only possible avenue of escape from the menacing threat of contamination from Hypatia’s “unclean origin” was to recover his identity as a pure and intellectual being, thereby saving not only his earthly reputation, but also his soul. There are many theories on the function of this anecdote, 60 which embraces fact and fiction in equal measures, but in my opinion, the educational intent of the tale (which is not necessarily entirely made up) is clear. Hypatia’s gesture may be interpreted as a rebellious statement against the prejudices of the masculine world she inhabited. If that was indeed the case, it would be no surprise to discover that in Antiquity, at least according to the predominant Aristotelian theory, the menstruating woman was the prototype and the proof of the physical, and especially intellectual, inferiority of women. Hence, we could theorise that Hypatia, who was familiar with the Stagirite’s biological theories, wanted to categorically refute them, leaning on the authority of Plato, who foresaw intellectual and political equality among men and women as a feature of his ideal city. In other words, with that provocative gesture, Hypatia may have wanted to send a message to her numerous supporters, and, especially, her equally numerous detractors—albeit probably in a more refined manner than they would have us believe. Whatever occurred in reality, this episode captured the attention of director Alejandro Amenábar, who devoted his 2009 film Agorà to Hypatia. In the film, Amenábar imagines, with evocative camerawork, that the philosopher made her famous gesture and declaration in public, in full view of a classroom full of her disciples. The scene in which she hands the bloody rag over is preceded by one in which an orrery is displayed—the Suda On Line (SOL): Byzantine Lexicography. Online: accessed July 20, 2016. The Suda was critically edited by Danish scholar Ada Adler (Leipzig: 1928–1938) and reprinted (Stuttgart: Teubner, 1971) in 5 volumes. The Hypatia entry is on 644–646 of Volume 4 in this edition. 60 The position expressed by Benedetto Croce is exemplary: according to him, although anecdotes are not historical fact, they have helped shape history: “anecdotes also develop out of and feed on need, the need to keep alive and expand the experience of the most varied and diverse manifestations of the human soul”. Benedetto Croce, La storia come pensiero e come azione (Bari: Laterza, 1973–the current edition), 124. Francesco Adorno has also suggested that anecdotes, even if invented, still reflect historical aspects of the biography of the figure in question in Francesco Adorno, Introduzione a Socrate (Milan: Adelphi, 1976), 125.

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astronomical instrument used in Alexandria to calculate the positions of celestial bodies (via the Ptolemaic system); in this case it serves as a device to parallel the cyclic motion of the planets and the moon with the cycles of nature—and, more specifically, women’s menstrual flows. Far be it for me to attempt to speculate on such an allusive scene, but I cannot dismiss out of hand an alternative hypothesis. Could it be that through her behaviour and words, Hypatia was choosing a spectacular yet coherent way of rejecting not only marriage, but more precisely a bond that would have deprived her of the only passion that really fired her soul: a love of knowledge. In fact, it is said that she did not even deign to respond to a letter in which one of her former pupils, Sinesius, then a Christian bishop in Libya, expressed his interest in this regard.61 With this in mind, we can begin to see the anecdote from an opposing point of view, i.e., Hypatia’s. She must have known the great offence she would have caused by exposing her male students to the sight of her menstrual blood, but in order to prevent marriage and child-rearing from encroaching on her precious time, she may have felt it was necessary to say and do something that would discourage any attempt to court her. The disorientation provoked by her act, contradicted by the statement that, “there is nothing beautiful about it”, may have induced the gaze to avert not only from the proffered object, but also from she who proffered it. In fact, going by the words of Damascius and his 10th-century Byzantine commentator (who would have been unlikely to have encountered contrasting versions from earlier scholars), her would-be husband immediately dropped his suit. To sum up, Hypatia’s gesture is priceless, especially to the study of the historical cultural values of menstruation. The fact that it was described as an “unpleasant sight” confirms that it was not only a popular belief, but also a concise and indignant accretion of the attitudes to menstrual flows in both Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. To each her own hypothesis, but I personally am not swayed by the idea that Hypatia was convinced that she belonged to an impure sex. Indeed, as Socrates of Constantinople testifies, she was by no means timid or embarrassed, either when she faced down the political figures of 61

‘Letter from Synesius of Cyrene to the Philosopher (Hypatia)’ cited by Giovanni Costa, ‘Hypatia, la figlia di Theone’. Online: accessed August 5, 2016: http://www. enricopantalone.com/hypatia.pdf.

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Alexandria,62 or when she taught before an auditorium of exclusively male students, or paraded through the city in her “philosopher’s mantle”—a sign that she belonged among the Alexandrian intellectuals. In fact, there is nothing whatsoever in her demeanour to suggest that she felt in anyway overwhelmed or inadequate as a scientist or public mentor. Furthermore, she must have taken to heart, with great moral vigour, the conviction of Thales of Miletus and the other Greek philosophers who were firmly persuaded of the necessity of celibacy for those who had chosen to dedicate their lives to study and the furtherance of knowledge.63 Whatever the case, it is sure that Hypatia’s attitude drew the unwelcome attention of the city governors. Theophilus the bishop, and his nephew and successor Cyrillus had never been happy about the presence of Hypatia on Alexandria’s stage, and viewed her influence as a teacher as a serious threat to the culture she belonged to. In fact, Hypatia continued to irk the authorities and generate suspicion even after her death; in his 7thcentury Chronicle, the Coptic bishop John of Nikiû focussed his attention on Hypatia’s arts, correlating them with pagan magic and satanic practices, and concluding that she deserved everything she got. Thus, it is in the East that we uncover the first witch in the history of Christianity, which gradually grew ever more obsessed with purging the West of feminine wiles and philtres concocted with menstrual blood. Before we move on, I would like to add that Hypatia’s gesture was also indicative of a peculiar talent for ingenuity; this accords with Kristeva’s description of people able to find innovative solutions to vexing problems

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Socrates Scholasticus observed that Hypatia appeared in public in presence of the magistrates: “Neither did she feel abashed in coming to an assembly of men. For all men on account of her extraordinary dignity and virtue admired her more”. Although Christian, Socrates Scholasticus laid the responsibility for the assassination of Hypatia squarely at the door of church: “this affair brought not the least opprobrium, not only upon Cyril, but also upon the whole Alexandrian church. And surely nothing can be farther from the spirit of Christianity the allowance of massacres, fights, and transactions of that sort” (Ibid. Chapter 15), whose violent attitudes persisted even after her death. (Ecclesiastical History, Book VII, Chapter 15, ‘Of Hypatia the Female Philosopher. Online: accessed June 5, 2016: http://hypatianchronicle.net/16603/s/ writings-about-hypatia 63 Angela Giallongo, L’immagine della donna nella cultura greca (Rimini: Maggioli, 1982), 13.

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in a world that was not yet ready for a feminine genius. 64 However, Hypatia nevertheless gave her life great meaning, dedicating herself solely to the planets and the light of the stars.

“Two eyes hurt you but three eyes heal” “Don't take anything from a woman. Neither wine nor coffee; nothing to eat or drink. They would be sure to put a philter or love potion in it. The women here will certainly take a fancy to you and all of them will make you such philters. […] Do you want to know what they are made of? […] Blood, ca-ta-menial b-blood.”65

This was the piece of advice given by a doctor to a southern Italian town in 1944 in Carlo Levi’s book Christ Stopped at Eboli. The history of this region in the first half of the twentieth century was plagued with love potions—mixed with drops of menstrual blood—and magic spells (like the one in the title of this section) against the evil eye. 66 According to de Martino, the persistence of archaic behaviours in contemporary civilisations, especially among women, was a sign of the daily hardship caused by the painful precariousness of rural life.67 The invisible ramifications of the meanings attributed to menstrual blood become clear when linked to the belief in the evil eye—protections against which were often tinted red. Anthropological, archaeological and historical research into the evil eye have brought to light the ideas that have changed—and those that have stayed the same—throughout the history of superstition. Following the publication of his study on The Evil

64

See Julia Kristeva, The Feminine Genius trilogy: volume 1, Hannah Arendt; volume 2, Melanie Klein; and volume 3, Colette, trans. by Ross l. Guberman (New York; Columbia University Press, 2004). 65 Carlo Levi, Christ Stopped At Eboli: The Story Of A Year, trans. Francis Frenaye (New York: Farrar, Straus and Company, 1947), 14. 66 For a comprehensive look at Italian customs for warding off the evil eye, the monumental work by the anthropologist Giuseppe Pitrè, ‘La jettatura e il malocchio. Scongiuri, antidoti e amuleti’ in Biblioteca delle tradizioni popolari siciliane (Palermo: Libreria Internazionale Reber, 1871–1913), Vol. 25, 193–211 is essential reading. 67 A close look at this subject can be found in Ernesto De Martino, Magic: A Theory from the South, trans. Dorothy Zinn (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2015), particularly Part Two, 11 ‘Lucanian magic and magic in general’.

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Eye in 1895,68 Frederick Thomas Elworthy—widely accepted as a pioneer in the field—was struck by the sway that the belief in the evil eye had held over ancient peoples. For the Greeks and Romans, a glance from an envious or angry person had the power to infect through the air both animate and inanimate objects. And, according to calculations made by the historian Peter Walcott, more than one hundred authors from the Classical Age wrote about the study of the mechanisms of vision, expressing their concern regarding the fatal and infectious influence of the eye.69 The Greeks and Romans had inherited such beliefs from the tribal cultures of the Mediterranean, the ancient Mesopotamians (5000 BCE), Sumerians (3000 BCE), and other Middle-Eastern populations, in particular from Archaic and Protodynastic Egypt (3100–2600 BCE)—after the age-old Indo-European tradition, while the rest of the world (America, Asia, South Africa and Australia) received these practices from European colonialists and conquerors. 70 Among the first to transmit such ideas across the distances was Alexander the Great, who constructed his empire with the aid of Medusa, emblazoned on his armour. Charles V also used this device, displaying the Gorgon’s head on his shield to protect him from his enemies. In fact, the pitiless, unflinching gaze of the gorgoneia, together with painted eyes, were often charged with safeguarding buildings against the evil eye, from the Archaic Age to the Classical. Tobin Siebers explored the beliefs of the generations who had lived for centuries in a world saturated with malevolent stares—sometimes male and sometimes female. He associated such superstitions with “accusatory logic”, i.e., social strategies implemented by Archaic and present-day societies alike to re-establish social order in moments of crisis and conflict. Among the stereotypes subject to public accusation was the

68 See Frederick Thomas Elworthy, The Evil Eye. An Account of this Ancient & Widespread Superstition (London: J. Murray, 1895). Current edition: The Evil Eye: The Classic Account of an Ancient Superstition (New York: Dover Publications, 2004). 69 See, for instance, Peter Walcott, Envy and the Greeks. A Study of Human Behavior (Warminster: Aris & Phillips, 1978). 70 Alan Dundes, The Evil Eye. A Case Book (New York: Garland Pub., 1981), Preface, VII.

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paradoxical Medusa, who, like other such scapegoats, was invested with supernatural powers.71 For those who recognised in Medusa a monster with a deadly gaze, it was a deeply unsettling idea that, even though she had been slain, she still continued to wield her power through talismans carried reverentially to ward off and protect against the dangerous glance that generated them;72 they continued, and still today continue, to reproduce the blue amulets representing “the Eye of Allah” in Arabic-speaking countries, and “the Eye of Medusa” elsewhere. In Turkey, the gateway between East and West, an airline company protects its planes by emblazoning their wings with this symbol, and mothers make their children wear eye amulets, replacing them whenever they are lost or broken. In its bazaars, the eternal Eye of Medusa achieves a fleeting semblance of communion with tourists out hunting souvenirs. According to the ethnologist Ernest Crawley, the origin and power of such talismans can be traced to the periodic exclusion of menstruating women from the daily life of the tribe, due to the general conviction that the sight of blood was dangerous for men. 73 Although the idea of a negative influence transmitted by a simple glance has largely been lost in the mists of time, it should, however, be noted that the myths and legends spawned in ancient, medieval and modern times that connected this power to menstruation stubbornly persist to this day. The correlation between menstrual blood and the evil eye has been expressed in various ways, as demonstrated in several detailed and indepth investigations carried out into this topic since Frazer’s pioneering study. Graves, in 1958, and Vernant, in 1985, in particular, uncovered some precious clues, both identifying a revolution in gender relations that overturned the idea of the female as sacred life-giver in favour of that of the petrifying gaze—which would bring only death. They respectively analysed the psychological and cultural developments that, from the PreHellenic period onward, progressively honed the image of the female as a different, dangerous and deadly Other, and in which Medusa, a prime

71

Tobin Siebers, The Mirror of Medusa (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983), 78. 72 See Camille Dumoulié, ‘Méduse (La tête de -)’ in Pierre Brunel, (dir.), Dictionnaire des mythes littéraires (Monaco: Éditions du Rocher, 1988). 73 Ernest Crawley, cited by Delemay, Lupton, Toth, The Curse, 10.

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example, was painted by the patriarchal world as “a sort of incarnate Evil Eye.”74 The credit given to the magical powers of the gaze,75 already displayed in primitive cultures, followed a more general tendency to attribute the ability to cast spells to figures that were, more often than not, female. In different times and places it was assumed that such power was wielded by women, deities, monstrous creatures and witches, and in the Greek myths the majority of monsters were at least part woman. Sirens, Sphinxes, Scyllae, Chimeras and Gorgons became incredibly popular after the suppression of feminine cults, many of which had represented their goddesses with the symbol of a round eye. This emblem was prominent in apotropaic objects that were used in magical practices, and the artistic creations of the oldest, most distant civilisations demonstrate the surprising connection between the ‘eye’ cults and the deities of death and rebirth. The eye was an allegorical representation of the vulva of the goddess— a symbol of her procreational talents—and, according to Tracy Boyd, this belief was behind the advent of many bewitching and protective female deities, like Isis, Ishtar, Aphrodite and Artemis. A large majority of the hundreds of votive offerings left at Sumerian, Assyrian and Babylonian shrines were in the form of an eye, and numerous sacred ‘eye goddess’ idols (Figure 1) have been unearthed in Mesopotamia as was. This region was home to an even more ancient culture than the Minoan civilisation at Knossos, and bears witness to the fact that 3500 years before Christ, its people venerated female deities with large, comforting eyes.76 The first of the archaeologists to proffer an interpretation of the Eye deities was Waldemar Deonna, from Switzerland.77 His seminal research, published posthumously in 1965, linked together the many and pervasive

74

Harrison, Prolegomena, 196. According to Tommaso Campanella (1568–1639), for instance the evil eye “manifested many magical things” (translation author’s own), and especially that some people’s gaze possessed a light so powerful that they could “strike” others; (Tommaso Campanella. Del senso delle cose e della magia (Cosenza: Laboratorio Edizioni, 1987), Book IV, Chapter 15, 86–87. 76 See Tracy Boyd, The Eye Goddess and The Evil Eye (2008). Online: accessed April 4, 2016: www.sacredthreads.net. 77 See Waldemar Deonna, Le symbolisme de l‘oeil (Berne: Éditions Francke, 1965). 75

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Figure 1: Eye idols representing the Mesopotamian goddess Ishtar. Eye Temple, Tell Brak, Syria, 3500–3300 BCE.

representations of the eye in various religions and popular traditions. He traced the history of this symbol in the Greco-Roman world and before, and in doing so showed how human development was reflected in the eye—considered by homo sapiens to be the most precious sensory organ. Among numerous symbolic echoes of this sense—an instrument of learning and socialisation, Deonna highlighted the first taboos linked to vision, namely the sight of strangers, the evil eye and menstrual blood. By following this thread it is easy to deduce that the rageful, fixed stare of the Gorgon was not only a metaphor for the patriarchal society, but also a powerful means of keeping women under its thumb.

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Medieval societies in particular were obsessed with the notion, and forbade women from looking at men,78 who presided over their sense of shame (as we will go into in more detail in Chapter Three). This stemmed from the Greek and Latin theory that the eye was the reflection of the soul (the subject of Chapter Two), or at least gave indications as to disposition or temperament; according to this idea, women developed special powers during their cycle that were specifically related to their gaze; the evil influence of a woman’s gaze was described in detail in the first century CE by Pliny the Elder, in his Natural History, 79 one of the most important encyclopaedias on the natural world from ancient times. Aristotle had already provided an explanation of the magical and physiological connection between the eyes and menstrual blood in his treatise On Dreams. In his experience, mirrors would cloud over when a menstruating woman passed by80—a belief that later expanded to cover the contamination of other animate and inanimate objects (in Pliny the Elder’s case, steel and ivory). This bizarre idea, that a glance from a woman on her period could kill, was a very real fear in the gynophobic cultures of the Mediterranean; it was especially keenly felt during the Middle Ages, in which the image of the destructive power of Medusa—never look upon her 78

I have previously explored this theme, connecting it to the theme of social control, in L’avventura dello sguardo. Educazione e comunicazione visiva nel Medioevo (Bari: Dedalo, 1995), specifically Chapter V, on ‘Visual Behaviour’, 209. 79 The Elder Pliny on The Human animal, Natural History, trans. Mary Beagon (Oxford: Clarendon Press; New York: Oxford University Press, 2005): “Contact with the monthly flux of women turns new wine sour, makes crops wither, kills grafts, dries seeds in gardens, causes the fruit of trees to fall off, dims the bright surface of mirrors, dulls the edge of steel and the gleam of ivory, kills bees, rusts iron and bronze, and causes a horrible smell to fill the air. Dogs who taste the blood become mad, and their bite becomes poisonous as in rabies”. Book 28, Chapter 23, 70–80 and Book 7, Chapter 65. 80 Aristotle, On dreams in The complete works of Aristotle, trans. J.I. Beare (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1908) “Because it is natural to the eye to be filled with blood-vessels, a woman's eyes, during the period of menstrual flux and inflammation, will undergo a change, although her husband will not note this since his seed is of the same nature as that of his wife. The surrounding atmosphere, through which operates the action of sight, and which surrounds the mirror also, will undergo a change of the same sort that occurred shortly before in the woman's eyes, and hence the surface of the mirror is likewise affected. And as in the case of a garment, the cleaner it is the more quickly it is soiled, so the same holds true in the case of the mirror” (2, 459b–460a).

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or be looked upon by her—was magnified by that of another icon of fear and death: the Basilisk. According to Pliny, the Basilisk was the “king of serpents”, due to its ability to kill with its stare, and, according to other accounts, this fearsome monster was created from the blood dripping from the severed head of the Gorgon as it was carried by Perseus. From these origins, the picturesque but vicious cycle between the dangerous influences of menstrual blood and the toxic consequences of a deadly glance—saturated with all the paralysing powers of serpent venom—would be revisited throughout history; this was the mechanism that prompted the Greeks to depict Medusa as a frightening monster with a perilous gaze.

Our Ladies of Serpents Although belief in Snake Goddesses was extinguished across Europe, the ancient rites performed in their honour failed to die; their savage, viscid coils are still intertwined with modern-day customs in every part of the globe. For example, in Cocullo, a village in Abruzzo, Italy, people continue to dance with serpents to free themselves from evil, and to protect against rage and other torments. 81 Still today snakes are carried in a procession in honour of a Christian saint, San Domenico; hundreds are also coiled around the statues and arms of the faithful in a folkloristic reevocation of an ancient memory destined to fade. Even in TV classifications of people’s favourite animals, snakes come out on top. Perhaps this preference owes something to Eve’s sinful example, or their inherently phallic appearance, but their success in popular culture and nature documentaries is guaranteed by their unshakeable but exotic rapport with humans.82 If this once-sacred animal could speak, it would be able to boast to its fans and phobes alike how it was once inextricably linked with the Great Goddess of Palaeolithic and Neolithic times; only later, especially in the Christian age, was this interdependent connection severed, rendering the

81

Alfonso Maria Di Nola, ‘Quattro note sul culto cocullese di San Domenico abate’, Rivista Abruzzese, Vol. XXXIV, 3–4, 1981, 193. 82 Alessandra Comazzi, ‘Ma in tv i più amati sono i serpenti’, La Stampa, 6 August 2009, 37.

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snake superfluous, unpopular, and/or hated by humans (Figure 2). 83 It could also tell us that 5000 years before Christ, in Jerapetra and Kalo Chorio, on the island of Crete, and in 4200 BCE Romania and other parts of Europe, the goddesses called upon the serpents for position and for decoration. It could regale us with tales of Minoan Crete, where the most sophisticated ladies evoked its form, styling their hair with long, sinuous tresses (Figure 3). In more maudlin moments the serpent could also tell us of its fall from grace, following the thread of its memory through Classical Greece, in which it was shamefully exiled to the underworld, being confused with the deadly male deities Zeus and Agathodaimon. Even in this dark time, however, it could fondly remember Phidias, who carved it as a pet in a sculpture of Athena— peaceful patroness of the city that bears her name. Likewise, it could look back, perhaps with a certain satisfaction, at the Romans, who sent it slithering down below the belt as a phallic symbol of their virility and masculinity. It may even shed a nostalgic tear while thinking of the Roman women, who, during the time of the Empire, still held the snake up as a sacred totem, imploring female deities that had a touch of the reptilian: Hera, Athena, Britomartis, Velchanos and Eleuthia.

Figure 2: Earthenware idol with human features and serpentine spiralling legs from Neolithic Crete, 6000 BCE. 83

For the symbolism and predominance of the serpent in ancient European art, see Gimbutas, Gods and Goddesses of Old Europe (7000-3500 B.C.) 93.

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Figure 3: “Ladies in Blue”—a fresco in the palace at Knossos, approx. 1600–1550 BCE.

When all is said and done, the snake could rightfully claim a starring role in the history of European women, reliving with renewed pleasure the honour that it had been granted in the creative Minoan civilisation—the English archeologists of the late 1800s certainly took it seriously. For that matter, the female presence was highly visible throughout the Bronze Age (3300–1900 BCE), which was characterised by matrilineal descent—still the standard practice in certain coastal areas of Asia Minor in the fourth century BCE. In Lycia, on the Aegean coast, sons, unlike the Achaean heroes, regularly took the names of their mothers. But, by the time of the Iliad and the Odyssey, this form of succession had already disappeared, and everyone linked their origin to their fathers—with the exception of Eurytus and Cteatus, whom Nestor identified by the name of Molione, their mother.84 According to the archaeologist Hutchinson, the splendour of Cretan society, particularly in the time of the first palaces (1900–1700 BCE) and 84

Richard Wyatt Hutchinson, Prehistoric Crete (Baltimore: Pelican, 1962), 224.

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the six or seven centuries that followed, offered a representative glimpse into the social liberties afforded its female citizens. Indeed, it seems that they had considerably more freedom than women in Classical communities, thanks to the deity whom Arthur Evans, in 1903, dubbed the “Snake Goddess”. In the debate that ensued among archaeologists and historians in the century that followed (one which continues to this day), it emerged that one of the most characteristic features of Minoan society was the lack of particular regimes for segregating or separating the sexes. This leads us to deduce that there was no public or private aversion to women, and that there were no special prohibitions, controls or confines between males and females. In the absence of written texts, we must take the word of the architecture, art and sculpture, which often featured groups of women playing an active role in religious ceremonies. The box-shaped sarcophagus of Haghia Triada (1450–1400 BCE) shows the priestesses, more numerous than the priests, serving in functions dedicated to female deities, including the Snake Goddess. When such noblewomen were buried, they were richly adorned with necklaces, brooches, pendants and other jewellery, and accompanied to the afterlife by models of their folk customs, which show that they participated with gusto in festivals, public ceremonies, and taurokathapsia— the dangerous pastime of bull-leaping. The imagery shows that they were also very enthusiastic dancers, and, thanks to their gracefully sinuous and ecstatic movements, had carved themselves a niche in the spiritual life of the age.85 What is more, it is apparent that they went about their business without having to cover their heads or faces, and in their brighter moments experienced an enchanting perception of sensuality and freedom, fixing their hair in all manner of serpent-related styles. Other finds suggest that women from other social classes expressed their aesthetic sensibilities and devotion through magic snake amulets (1900–1700 BCE), which they deposited in public and domestic sanctuaries. There are astonishing earthenware models from the NeoPalatial period (1700–1450 BCE) representing honey ‘sandwiches’ with snakes in relief in the archaeological museum at Heraklion;86 these mini 85 Dance was a seemingly important aspect of the female Cretan way of life: frescos, seal-stones, and terracotta models depict them engaged in this womanly activity. See Gustave Glotz, La civilisation égéenne (Paris: Editions Albin Michel, 1937). Italian trans. La civiltà egea (Turin: Einaudi, 1975), 344. 86 Antonis Vassilakis, The Heraklion Archaeological Museum (Pergamos: Adam Editions, 2004), 81.

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culinary masterpieces, from which only the aroma is missing, were used as precious votive offerings. If we accept the evidence presented in their art, we must also accept that the entire community worshipped female deities who embraced serpents. Observing the figurines from the Palace of Knossos—with their fixed gaze, bared breasts, multi-coloured robes and sacred serpents entwined around their head, arms or bodies—we can imagine that these consoled, conquered and quelled the storms in the souls of yearning humans. It was the excavations by Arthur Evans at the turn of the twentieth century that prompted the theory of the Snake Goddess—interpreted as an aspect of the Great Mother—and suggested a matrilineal, or perhaps even matriarchal, succession in Minoan society. The Snake Goddess was therefore seen as an important manifestation of the community’s religious and artistic symbolism, which was devoid of the usual images of male domination. That being said, Christopher Witcombe causes us to reflect on the lack of sufficient archaeological proof that the Minoan society worshipped such a serpentine deity, and the fact that the real nature of this cult is unknown. Indeed, it has been postulated that female snake-charmers were part of the palace entertainment, although it is perhaps more likely that such displays were influenced by Egyptian religious practices. Whatever the case, the iconography of the time—with its insistent presence of the reptile and no sign of malign influences—is proof enough of the connections between women and serpents in the Minoan imagination. Furthermore, such precious clues lead us to correlate their lively rituals with menstruation, conception and breastfeeding. Indeed, despite the difficulties in establishing a direct link between the snake and menstrual blood in Minoan Crete, Witcombe does not dismiss this idea out of hand; instead he points to the evidence supplied by current archaeological research, which indicates that menstruation was ritually conceptualised through snakes in various human societies.87 Significant support to this theory is offered by the customs of Aboriginal Australians, and the cultural traditions of several populations in 87

Christopher L.C.E. Witcombe, Minoan Snake Goddess, 2000. Art history resources. Online: accessed April 4, 2016: .

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Africa, Asia and South America; these associated the onset of menstruation with copulation with a supernatural serpent—an event which conferred fertility. Moreover, in the majority of cultures the snake is recurrently identified with the process of renewal—another suggestive connection between menstrual blood and its vital role in rebirth. In European folklore, the coalition between women and serpents was the fulcrum of many stories, as noted in 1927 by Havelock Ellis, the father of the psychology of sexuality. In Portugal, for instance, women were thought to have been bitten by a lizard (like the crocodile, a close cousin of the snake) during their menstruation. Likewise, in 17th-century Germany, there remained a strange but persistent belief that if a menstruating woman buried her hair, it would subsequently morph into serpents. Despite the fact that the more advanced societies of the 1900s tended to dismiss the old stories of the mysterious, magical connection between woman and snake, Ellis, after Frazer, advised the necessity of delving into the influence that menstruation had exerted on the “emotional atmosphere” of relations between the sexes.88 If we take Ellis’ advice and Witcombe’s solid suppositions into account when analysing the art of Minoan Crete, the social effects of this “emotional atmosphere” are readily apparent. Eyes, serpents and other symbols (apes, bulls, butterflies, birds, vulvas, spirals, triangles, axes, menhirs and circles, etc.) are recurring themes in their frescoes, decorations, jewellery and seals, prompting us to reflect upon the ancient history between women and snakes. The sharpness of the details, the veracity of expressions on the Snake Goddesses’ faces—their gazes firmly fixed on the observer, even in the smallest of Faience statuettes—still today communicate the unexpected desire to hypothesise, without, however, the same degree of certainty. In American and Canadian museums, visitors can scrutinise, with or without enthusiasm, a Snake Goddess in gold and ivory from the Second Palace Period, as well as women in bull-leaping frescoes (both in Boston), and the figure known as “Our Lady of Sports” (in Toronto), who is dressed in masculine clothes and ready for combat in the arena. In Europe, on the other hand, after visiting the Heraklion Archaeology Museum, tourists rush to purchase Cretan souvenirs, statues and laminated images of the mythical Snake Goddess. 88

Henri Havelock Ellis, Man and woman: A study of human secondary sexual characteristics (London: Walter Scott, 1894, revised 1929) Chapter V, 106–111.

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In addition to many other finds unearthed on the island, the Museum houses the most remarkable ware produced by the ceramics industry at Knossos, site of the Minos palace.89 Statuettes of the Great Goddess and the little Snake Goddess have also been found during digs at the palaces of Festus and Malia, not to mention other Neo-Palatial sites and tombs (1700–1450 BCE). Among the many objects exhibited in the halls of museums worldwide, the surviving ceramic statuettes of goddesses, priestesses and female worshippers still hold the gaze of visitors, even today. In the 1960s, the archaeologist Hutchinson was struck by an imposing and rather Victorian-looking sculpture90 of the Goddess, and her unusual, far from chaste, garments: her long flouncy bell-shaped skirt, and her apron and fitted bodice, which showed to best advantage her pert, rounded breasts and bare forearms (rather too much nudity for the Victorian taste, which even dictated that piano legs should be modestly “dressed”). On her head she wears a high and stately tiara, nonchalantly encircled by a spotted snake, whose tail is intertwined with that of a second serpent, which serves as the Goddess’ belt; a third serpent is coiled around her shoulder, and its tail is boldly crossed with her right hand. This image, a recurrent theme in Minoan seals, had led Evans, Hutchinson’s mentor, to intuit that the Snake Goddess was one of the various aspects of the Great Goddess of Nature, and that Aeschylus, in his Prometheus Bound, had already discerned, via the words of the Titan, that his mother Themis, or Gaia, “though one form”, “had many names.”91 This is how Evans, at the beginning of the twentieth century, came to ‘baptise’ the female deity common to many Minoan temples as the Snake Goddess. Midway through the same century, archaeologists discovered more intriguing earthenware figures, with snakes coiled around their head and arms, from the Late Minoan (1600–1050 BCE), in the sanctuary at Gournia. Similarly, a dig at Koumasa sanctuary yielded several examples of so-called ‘snake tubes’—ritual artefacts that feature many-headed serpents with horns in relief—dating back to the Middle Minoan (2000– 1600 BCE). Earthenware female idols holding snakes aloft (perhaps priestesses) were also unearthed at the Minoan sanctuary at Gortyn. These statuettes 89

Vassilakis, The Heraklion Archaeological Museum. Hutchinson, Prehistoric Crete, 155 and 179. 91 Ibidem, 217–18. 90

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have conical hats partially covering slithering snakes, and were also found alongside snake tubes and other ritual equipment. Similar objects have been discovered in Late Bronze-Age sites in Cyprus and Palestine, and a stele from 1600 BCE—i.e., contemporary with the ceramic Snake Goddesses found at Knossos—unearthed at Tell Beit Mirsim, bears a carved figure of a female goddess with a serpent wrapped around her body. The Neolithic cults at Crete and other parts of the Mediterranean have also left us some interesting female sculptures to muse over. 92 Investigating such finds, Nilson suggested that they were expressions of the domestic worship of the Snake Goddess, which were customarily ‘fed’, pampered and venerated as a kind of pet or guardian angel. Even at the beginning of the twentieth century, it was the custom in the Cretan countryside to drop breadcrumbs or pour milk into gaps in the floor for “the Lady of the house”, or the “house genie”. Similar customs have been documented in Albania, Lithuania, Switzerland, Italy, India, and all the Slavic regions. Irrespective of whether the Snake-Goddess cult was domestic or statesanctioned, or whether other goddesses were venerated as personifications of fertility, both archaeologists and historians, in particular art historians, agree that the Cretans occupied a position (if not dominant, at least prominent) in the religious affairs of the Mediterranean region. This explains what led Witcombe to link the Snake Goddess, like the other female deities, with the real-world preoccupations of women— menstruation, conception and childcare, especially menstrual blood. None of the clues in our possession suggest that King Minos’ contemporaries viewed ‘the curse’ as anything to be afraid of, or, if they did, there are no hints of such a negative view in the iconography. In fact women, at least those from the upper classes, had no separate enclosure in the oikos, and were not excluded from public places as in Classical Greece. Instead, they were accorded means and spaces sufficient to guarantee their social autonomy, influence and control. The self-assurance they were allowed is evident in the confident, regal pose of the woman known as “La Parisienne” in a fresco from the palace at Knossos (1400 BCE) (Figure 4). Her large eye and ruby red lips, not to mention the serpent casually draped

92

Ibid.,179 and 193.

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across her shoulder, lend her the air of someone who is perfectly at ease outside the domestic context.93 If we follow the directions signposted by ethnographical research, therefore, we cannot exclude the idea that women in the Minoan culture, as in others, were the main protagonists of control over menstrual taboos.94 The imagery shows us that Cretan women demonstrated their power through the dizzy heights of dancing, the agility required to compete in public games, and the athleticism necessary to run with the bulls—all types of performance that could unveil their ‘secrets’.

Figure 4: “La Parisienne” fresco; note the well made-up and wide-open eye, and the spiralling locks of hair that fall sinuously onto her ear and forehead, framing a serpent that is nonchalantly curled around her neck and across her shoulders like a necklace or boa. 1400 BCE.

93 Tess Drahman, The Role of Women in the Minoan Culture Through Art. Online: accessed 20 April, 2015 at http://witcombe.sbc.edu/snakegodess/>.www.students .sbc.edu/drahman 08/paper.html 94 Buckley and Gottlieb, Blood Magic, 7, and Rita E. Montgomery, ‘A CrossCultural Study of Menstruation. Menstrual Taboos and Related Social Variable’, Ethos, 2:2, 1974, 137–70.

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Nonetheless, the courage, flexibility and skill displayed by the female stars of the bull-leaping frescoes at Knossos (the largest Bronze Age site, 1400 BCE) suggest that they faced sporting events and dangerous rituals or diverting games with the same acrobatic ardour as men. They show no fear of losing their lives, nor of inadvertently displaying anything that would cause affront to the public sensibilities. For upper class women, their period was a sacred time, a propitious opportunity to strengthen their bonds with other women, and to admire and be admired for their physical strength and spiritual power; this, according to Harrison, stemmed from their role as protectors and promoters of life. It is impossible to fully grasp the exceptional nature of Minoan art without a certain degree of enthusiasm for the resources of a female symbology developed in harmony with nature. Although this is by no means sufficient to break open the doors of the past, studies in this area have discerned in this society the influence of religious beliefs that taught the entire community of the continuity of life through female intervention. Moreover, the fact that women are not depicted doing household chores or in the idealised role of mothers lends considerable weight to the hypothesis, raised by the ethnographical documentation, that women interrupted their normal routine when on their period.95 This is suggested by the gorgeous frescoes that their artists have left us, especially those at the Palace of Knossos—the faces of the Ladies in Blue, with their breasts exposed and heads held high, exude nothing less than exuberant joy. Furthermore, the preferred garb of the Snake Goddess is no coincidence—her apron is artfully worn over her flounced skirt to draw attention to her pubic area, the hidden source of menstrual power and life (Figure 5). Following the thread of visual memories, we traverse scenes of dancing in the frescoes, Post-Palatial period (1400–1100 BCE) statuettes, and decorative urns, which even between 800 and 650 BCE still bore benedictory female figures with arms raised, embraced by serpents. We are unable to state which beliefs fuelled their invocation, or which stories their dances told—stories older than both Islam and Christianity—but one thing appears evident. We cannot discount the frequent presence of serpents, which, according to the written testimony left by the Egyptian 95

Barbara Ann Olsen, ‘Women, Children and the Family in the Late Aegean Bronze Age: Differences in Minoan and Mycenaean Constructions of Gender’, World Archaeology 29:3, 1998, 380–392.

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Figure 5: A small ceramic figure of the Snake Goddess. Knossos, 1600 BCE.

hieroglyphs, not to mention Indian statues and Middle-Eastern traditions, inspired their dance. The Greek myths recount that this dance was invented by the Cretan goddesses, and it is clear that the Minoan women

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were free to move as they wished, transforming their movements to evoke thought, perception and experience. Their undulating fluctuations sought the sense of a joyous connection with life, nature, other women and their own bodies, with no sign of embarrassment, weakness or fragility. Perhaps this is because they believed that their menstruations made them stronger, more attractive, and more agile. Indeed, to leap snorting and thrusting bulls they required a calm head and razor-sharp reflexes (unlike the cruder Spanish corrida). To run in the arena or stand perfectly motionless in front of such an imposing animal, facing it down without protection and somersaulting over its back and horns, they needed to be fearless and hardy. Revelling in the thrill of the game, they also prepared their muscles for the taxing throes of menstruation and childbirth. Frescoes depicting women gathering saffron are tangible proof of at least one method they used to ease period pains and promote conception, and it is likely that all the arching and contorting they did while dancing served the same end, as well as granting a sense of freedom from cyclerelated inhibition. The spiralling curls of their hair hint at the sensual swaying of the dancers’ hips, abdomens and arms—all fluid gestures that inspired visions of beauty and peace. The latest generation of scholars hypothesise that their dance was also an emblem of supernatural power or divine energy. 96 This idea is supported in particular, by a golden ring (1550–1450 BCE) found in the necropolis at Knossos. This splendid find, almost untouched by age, bears four ecstatic dancers twirling worshipfully before a floating eye in a flowering (but snake-infested) meadow (Figure 6). This was the time in which the names of the Snake Goddesses still crossed the lips of men (who were often portrayed with hands folded across their chest or their fists to their foreheads rather than in warlike poses or positions of command), as they chanted songs in exchange for their protection. Their words invoked the proud queens of creation, with serpents clutched in their hands. This goddess’ cult was still active in the Mycenaean age, and the images from Minoan and Mycenaean art suggest that the snake was an 96

C. D. Cain, ‘Dancing in the Dark: Deconstructing a Narrative of Epiphany on the Isopata Ring’, American Journal of Archeology, vol. 105, No. 1 (Jan., 2001), 27– 49.

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emblem of a goddess, rather than a phallic or godly symbol.97 However, this form of worship, which had persisted throughout the fourteenth century BCE and up to the sixth century BCE, came to an abrupt end when the island—and the religious life of the Mycenaean empire—was overturned by the conquest of the male-dominated Samothracean cults from the mainland.

Figure 6: Golden ring showing a picturesque ritual dance. Found in the tomb of Isopata at Knossos, 15th century BCE. The dynamic scene is ruffled by the flounces on the dancers’ elaborate skirts, and there is a large eye floating close to the skirts of the central figure, while snakes writhe at their feet.

Nevertheless, there is a suspicion that the Cretan women—resistant to the negative influences of the new cults and the accompanying barriers they interposed between the sexes—continued to dance on regardless. Like the above-mentioned inhabitants of Cocullo, perhaps they felt that the strange divine harmony they achieved in the dance was the only propitious opportunity for conserving the beauty and integrity of the precious idol 97

Hutchinson, Prehistoric Crete, 179.

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that the Greeks had smashed. And so they continued to dance to the ancient music, holding on to one another’s shoulders and forming a magic circle around the lyre player, who occupied its centre. The archaeological finds show that, before the Minoan civilisation was destroyed by natural and political forces, the female deities took refuge in the eastern part of Doric Crete, in domestic chapels, spring sanctuaries, and sacred caves and peaks—high places in which today we find chapels dedicated to Jesus or the Virgin Mary, who is often depicted crushing a snake beneath her heel. But that is another story…

Among the living Goddesses... While the wheel of history turned, creaking somewhat laboriously through the Prehistoric Era, the vanquished Snake Goddesses shimmied and swayed in the marshes of oblivion. In the early Iron Age, they came face to face with the first of the male idols—naked, ithyphallic and brandishing spears and shields. The infinite number of questions surrounding the destinies of the female deities aroused the interest of the archaeomythologist Gimbutas, who wrote up the results of her decades of research on the topic in her last book, The Living Goddesses (published posthumously). With no hint of ideological bent, and in calm and measured tones, she explained how archeological finds in the most representative sites of the Upper Palaeolithic and European Neolithic had led her to the “living goddesses” of early and pre-history, and the few that survived until the modern age. After chasing up previously ignored leads, and cataloguing and interpreting a wealth of finds, Gimbutas coined the term “Old Europe” to encompass the traces of those communities that had embraced earth, sky and vegetation as a single entity. In doing so she also brought to light another European history, dating it back for a couple of millennia, and broached the issue of historical veracity. She documented long-forgotten stone temples built by the farming communities of Central, Southern and Eastern Europe (before 4000 BCE). These cause us to reflect upon the primordial cults they served, which drew the sacred and profane, day and night, life and death, weakness and strength, pleasure and pain, and male and female into a coalescent, reverberating whole. The temples Gimbutas described housed sacred spaces dedicated to birth, death and the Goddess, as well as rooms used for more mundane activities such as baking bread and weaving, etc. Her descriptions breathe

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new life into shades of distant memory, ancestral female voices reaching out from the mists of time, and their empathetic rapport with daily activities (before they disappeared around 2500 BCE). The sacred and shapely ladies of the Neolithic idols, speaking in the unknown tongue of the Great Goddess—the merciless yet nurturing goddess of life, death and regeneration—give some small voice to the generations that preceded the Indo-European communities.98 In this polyphonic chorus of overlapping voices, which appear to surround the entire world that rotated around Goddess worship, the tenors and baritones that followed the primordial solo of the Great Mother got louder and more intrusive. Thus, by turns, the former—first intermittently, and then almost constantly—effectively drowned out the latter. The two choirs, one male and one female, sang diametrically opposing melodies— one high and one low, one bright and one dark; one sang of wild abandon and the other of an all-seeing spirit that constrained, controlled and corrupted the creative and destructive forces of the Goddess. Gimbutas raised an interesting and far-reaching question when she asked herself whether the job of the archaeologist is merely to catalogue and annotate statuettes, symbols and stones from buildings, or whether they should also discern in such artefacts something that cannot simply be defined as “strange”. In answer to her own question, she undertook a somewhat controversial line of “eco-logical” research, 99 unveiling the hidden realm of that world and our own, and beginning to unfurl a separate but not unknown dimension from the depths of our past. Under this lens, not only did the temples, statuettes and uterus-shaped subterranean grottoes began to take on a different life, breaking free of the constrictive masculine schemata, but also the minds of the archaeologists began to change; this hidden world transformed even their most personal and private thoughts, cementing itself in their consciousness. Thus, the primordial vibrations of the Goddess, which cannot be reduced to the basic delineations or dogmatic constraints of the discipline, were apprehended by Gimbutas, who pointed the spotlight of archaeological investigation and reflection onto other scenes—focussing the bright beam of science and awareness into the dark corners of nature and the unconscious. 98

See Gimbutas, The Language of the Goddess: Unearthing the Hidden Symbols of Western Civilization. 99 Martino Doni, Introduzione to Marija Gimbutas, Le Dee Viventi (Milan: Medusa 2005), 6.

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In the deepest layers of history and the soul, Gimbutas the scholar found reason to dwell, in full consciousness, on nature, emotional hues, and social relations between the sexes, on spiritual goods and interpersonal relationships. In the pages she dedicated to the Gorgon, who appeared in Europe in 6000 BCE in the form of ritual masks that balanced the power of terror with the force of regeneration, she traced a long sequence of events which, in Classical Greece, transformed such masks into Medusa, whose serpentine locks—like menstrual blood—held the potential for life, death and rebirth. While veneration of the Goddess and the snake eventually waned, traces of their symbolism survived in some cultures (on Crete) and religious rituals (e.g., the sanctuary at Delphi), transmuting into the pantheon of gods that violently ripped from memory the fragile traces of primitive female divinity. The Greek legends of abductions, kidnapping and rape that the female gods endured at the hands of the male, and the militarisation of the female deities speak to us still of social reorganisation and other ways of thinking. The similarities of Athena with the Snake Goddess mirrored the previous rhythms, but in some legends of her birth she sprang forth from the head of Zeus, fully armed and ready for battle; in others she was formed from coalescing black and grey darkness, which led to her association—alongside Demetra and Persephone—with death. Unfamiliar with those otherworldly melodies, the voices of the Classical Age neglected those that had gone before. What is more, they deliberately ignored the echoes of those songs that remained within them. Undeterred, however, the serpents lived on…

…and the Goddesses of Terror were born At the turn of the fifth century BCE, the tragic poets believed that snakes and the Gorgon were symbols of death, and insisted on bringing up this idea at every possible opportunity. According to Euripides, after slaying his mother, Orestes, pursued by Erinyes—terrible as Medusa— cried out to his sister, Electra, “Don’t you see this serpent from Hell, how keen it is on killing me, its gaping maw corked against me with hideous snake-women?” (Euripides, Orestes, 280–285). It was also thanks to Euripides that the Gorgon, between 424 and 422 BCE, became a “child of Night” with a “hundred hissing serpent-heads” (Euripedes, Heracles, 883– 884). Aeschylus, on the other hand, described the “winged” and “snakehaired” Gorgons as “loathed of mankind” (Prometheus Bound, 790–794).

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These acerbic voices tell us much about the values and interior life of the Athenians. If we stand by the testimony of Plato (Laws, II, 658b), the accounts of Homer were still performed publicly by rhapsodists in the fourth century. We can imagine, then, how the citizens of the polis vicariously experienced the scene of Hector in battle, revelling in the sight of blood, rolling his eyes like a Gorgon (Iliad, Book VIII, 480) to paralyse his enemies with fear; and that in which Ulysses, though steadfast, feared that Persephone could unsettle him by sending up the monstrous head of Medusa from the depths of Hades (Odyssey, Book XI, 630–635). Lining up behind Homer, magister of the population’s moral code, the authors of the sixth and fifth centuries BCE greatly admired the poet Hesiod; Aeschylus was captivated by his tale of Medusa, and Aristophanes, at the end of the fifth century BCE advocated it as an ethical model (The Frogs, 1033). Through the epic poems, recited century upon century, such images were instilled in the brains of numerous generations (young people, adults, teachers, pupils, essayists and scholars). However, these images had been constructed in an insular masculine environment, and their stories used rational but misogynistic arguments to encourage fear and hostility towards females. Indeed, the greatest fans of the myths were the philosophers—according to both Plato and Aristotle they were means of making citizens wiser.100 Thus, rather than being a luxury, the myths were essential educational capital, and the cautionary tale of Medusa, the snakewoman—the destroyer par excellence—represented a rich fount of symbolism for the gluttonous patriarchal appetite. All this emerges pitilessly from the surviving fragments of scholarly knowledge—things taught and remembered. Although we were not at that time in a position to properly evaluate their truth and value, perhaps now we should begin to ask ourselves whether or not we missed something important, even though we learnt our lessons well.

Medusa the Magistra Is the title of this section as contradictory as it appears? The subject indicates the destruction of human values, while the descriptor its direct opposite. What did the images of Medusa teach us? What human needs did 100

Bettelheim, The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales, 38.

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she fulfil? What emotive function did she perform in the educational literature? What exactly Bacon, Fénelon and Hawthorne, for example, teach us over the centuries? Generations of educators, preceptors, tutors and teachers have taught us of long-dead civilisations and their protagonists. High schools and universities charged with the task of instructing the future leaders of the world have been working under the conviction that ancient Greece and Rome held the key to civilisation. Even now, the ideas and gender roles they preach are difficult to shake. It is therefore entirely legitimate to ask just how and to what extent the myths and tales of Medusa have influenced our ruling classes. What emotions did these stories shape? Did they promote a sense of equality, or would they still have us believe that the woman is a barometer of male power? In other words, which public sentiments have determined our relationships with the other sex?

The “Empire of Man” Four hundred years ago, Francis Bacon (1561–1626) set out on a voyage of empirical discovery. His ambition was to drive progress by conquering the natural world (mirroring the male desire to subjugate the female), using his ‘new instrument of science’ (novum organum), perchance to discover hidden evidentiary treasure. His endeavour got off to a promising start, as his first task was to slay the phantoms of the ageold knowledge passed down by Homer and Aristotle—to dispense with those by now controversial teachings, muddied by metaphysical speculation, whose inherent prejudices were based on nothing approaching the real world. Indeed, the author of the Advancement of Learning (1605) is credited as being the prophetic authority on modern science and educational reform. 101 His lessons aimed to teach us that everything is rational and nothing is impossible; why then did he still advocate our huddling over the books to study the ancient Classical fables?

101

For Bacon’s ideas on the public functions of science, aimed at dominating nature and furthering progress, see Paolo Rossi, Francesco Bacone. Dalla magia alla scienza [1957] (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2004).

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Because, through narration of these myths, Bacon hoped to communicate the pathos necessary for noble undertakings—courage and steadfastness. Hence, The Wisdom of The Ancients (1609) did not leave behind those remote experiences; instead it catalogued and counted them in real terms (thirty-one stories, to be precise). In those accounts (of questionable taste and educational value) he discerned a kernel of truth, a gleaming treasure of intuition buried by the traditional sclerotic reasoning of ancient and medieval logic. His 17th- and 18th-century readers avidly devoured his new theories on the mythical “wisdom of the ancients”, and the book was accordingly printed, reprinted, translated, and distributed on a massive scale. In his eyes, the inebriating myths provided a golden opportunity to develop new knowledge. Through his meticulous rational calculations the myth of Medusa soared, before landing squarely on the battlefield. Indeed, the art of war was a very familiar topic in the 1600s, as their bloodthirsty inhabitants had a penchant for religious conflict. According to Lisa Jardin, Bacon used the myth of Perseus as a pretext for discussing fitness for battle, and the conditions and preparatory steps necessary to win one.102 In his eyes, princes and generals needed only verse themselves in the details of the myth to transform them into winning battle strategies. As allegories of war, the three Gorgons thus conveyed a touch of perfection on military ambition; since only Medusa was mortal, it was inevitable that only she possessed the ideal qualities to emulate, representing, as she did, a type of war that could only end in victory. This was the inspiration behind the modern political aim of preventing interminable wars. The times in which military leaders brought about their own demise by embarking on impractical and unattainable quests had been and gone; the new generations had to be ready to wage authentic wars— sure victory needed to be within their grasp. Bacon demanded that they reshape the symbols of myth into professional skills; like Mercury’s winged sandals, commanders had to be quick to act and fleet of foot; Pluto’s helmet was a call for stealth and cunning, and Pallas’ mirror-shield could expose the strengths and weaknesses of the enemy. For success to be assured, several precautionary measures had to be taken before going off to war—one of the most profitable enterprises of the modern age. In Bacon's mind, the myth of Medusa seems almost to 102

See Lisa Jardin, Francis Bacon: Discovery and the Art of Discourse (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1974).

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have been written as guide to the art of war. As Pallas advised, both the decision to declare war and deliberations on military strategy rest upon three fundamental precepts. The first of these was not to waste too much energy on subjugating bordering nations—this is not the way to accrue wealth and lands. Nearby riches may be tempting, but in order to expand your dominion, you must seize the opportunity rather than the treasure; the booty may be close at hand, but the ease and practicality of waging war must be carefully weighed. Bacon’s second piece of advice was that the reasons for war must be just and honourable, in order to persuade soldiers and the populace alike to accept the discomfort of going into battle. Such sound reasoning also paves the way to solid alliances, in addition to presenting numerous other advantages. In this regard, no cause is more popular than overthrowing a tyrant, under whose subjugation the people have slaved and suffered without hope—as if under the stony spell of Medusa. In order to keep the people on side, the enterprise must also be practicable and brought to rapid conclusion. Bacon’s third recommendation was that ambitious but poorly defined quests, however noble, be no longer considered de rigueur in the age of rationality. Indeed, out of the three Gorgons, Perseus prudently chose the mortal one to slay. The upshot of all this was victory—symbolised by the birth of Pegasus with wings outstretched—and the appropriation of Medusa’s severed head for protection; according to Bacon “a single brilliant and memorable exploit, happily conducted and accomplished, paralyses all the enemies’ movements, and mates malevolence itself”.103 That was the standard; only those who really knew the myths, who faced life as if in perennial military service, would become able fighters and be capable of realising their dreams of victory. In this way, the myth of Medusa found opportune use, drawing the male public engagingly on towards unusual feats of learning. But what, in fact, was Bacon’s ethical stance? Thirty years ago the historian of science Carolyn Merchant asked herself this question. Bacon saw nature as an inert organism, devoid of 103

Francis Bacon, ‘Perseus, or War’, Chapter VII in De Sapientia Veterum (Of the Wisdom of the Ancients), in Francis Bacon, The Essays, ed. John Pitcher (Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1985), 264–266.

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vital force—something to be subdued and exploited. She therefore concluded that such a worldview had the effect of broadening the gap between nature and culture, fostering oppression of the weak, and leading ultimately to the current ecological crisis.104

In the world of Telemachus While the roots of the scientific revolution were taking hold in the West, François Fénelon (1651–1715) was charged with educating the sons of the French aristocracy. He regaled his pupils with the ancient myths, shaping their imaginations and giving them a fascinating alternative to the view of the world they received at court. In the Grand siècle in particular—the full splendour of the reign of the Sun King—the myths were seen as a kind of learning pathway to Christian wisdom (as interpreted by Gallican France under the absolute dominion of the monarch). Fénelon composed his own didactic novel in 1694 for one of his royal charges; inspired by the old myths, The Adventures of Telemachus was a utopian sequel to the fifth book of the Odyssey, a tale of the eponymous son of Ulysses’ continuing search to find his father. This was how he imparted moral and political lessons to the then twelve-yearold Duke of Burgundy. Unfortunately for Fénelon (who lost his job as a result), the book was surreptitiously published in 1699. The preceptor later wrote to apologise to his pupil as follows: “I thought only of amusing the Duke of Burgundy, and of instructing him while I amused him with these tales, without ever obtruding the work before the public; and all the world knows that its appearance was occasioned by the infidelity of a copyist.”105

Although this heartfelt letter was not sufficient to get Fénelon reinstated, The Adventures of Telemachus did become a bestseller. The book appealed to the public’s taste for the sensational—as was typical for readers of the Baroque age, who had long been steeped in the Classics— and was reprinted and translated several times. Indeed, the refined court 104

Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology, and the Scientific Revolution (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1980), 294. 105 Letter cited by Gianni Marocco in his Introduction to Le avventure di Telemaco by François Fénelon. Italian trans. Giovanni Bonazzi (Naples: Guida Editori, 1982), 14.

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tutor’s ideal of civil and social harmony—religious, tolerant, and free from monarchical despotism106—seemed to strike a chord. For Fénelon, myths were founts of wisdom, they appealed to the childish imagination, and taught young people how to break free from the blindness of human desires. As a brother to Homer, Hesiod, Virgil, Horace and, especially, Jerome and Saint Augustine, Fénelon wanted to possess the art of recounting the exploits of the heroes most beloved of the Gods. This was a selfless gesture, an act of love for the ‘green’ years, guiding the quest for precious knowledge through the wisdom of the ancient myths.107 Indeed, in his book it is Minerva, in her occasional appearance in the guise of Mentor, who gives Telemachus renewed strength and faith; the goddess born of Jupiter’s head preaches the wisdom of the gods to teach the human race. 108 It is also Minerva who armed and protected the lad, who, eyes shining with the darkness of a warrior’s passion, later thanked her for having taught him to learn from his mistakes, curb his impulses, and be kind to his peers.109 In Book IV of The Adventures of Telemachus, Crete is portrayed as a promising ancient model of a pacific and frugal society. This model stands in stark contrast to the injustice and folly of the seventeenth century—a rational, Cartesian and civilised world that was, however, also false, ungenerous, and aristocratic. Nonetheless, from the enchanted isle of Crete, made fertile by the rich bounty of the goddess Ceres, and rendered powerful and happy by the just laws of King Minos, Fénelon drew inspiration for his ideas on public schooling and moral reform. 110 Among the fragments of myths that the French writer ‘borrowed’ for his book were the legends of monstrous reptiles bent on devouring young maidens: the story of Idomeneus, in which he, the grandson of Minos, sacrifices his own son to honour a pledge while under the influence of the infernal Furies (the Erinyes of Greek mythology); and an unflattering portrait of the perfidious Astarbe (wife of Pygmalian) who was responsible for terrible crimes, and who, like

106

See Carlo Pancera, Il pensiero educativo di Fénelon (Florence: La Nuova Italia, 1991). 107 Fénelon, Le avventure di Telemaco, Book XVI, 236, (see footnote n° 105). 108 Ibidem, Book VIII, 147. 109 Ibid., Book XVII, 277. 110 Ibid., Book XX, 320; Book IV, 101: Book VIII, 139.

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Medusa at the point of death, had eyes that “were turned hastily on every side, with a wild and unmeaning ferocity”. As his adventures were nearing their end, Telemachus descends into Hades in search of his father, and encounters several kings who have been condemned for their abuses of power in life. They are triumphantly set upon by the vengeful Furies—the goddesses of vengeance and heirs of the Erinyes and Eumenides, destructive deities who, despite the devastating nature of their name, had once been thought of as “benign”, and “charitable”. Nevertheless, after the tsunami that had swept away their original prestige, the daughters of the Earth (according to the Homeric poems and Hesiod’s Theogony) were represented as daughters of Night by Aeschylus in his Oresteia, and by Euripides in Orestes—implacable punishers and avengers of human injustices. In the Classical iconography, the Furies were often shown as winged creatures with snakes entwined in their hair and distilled blood dripping from their eyes. These fearsome deities, whose name was too terrible to pronounce, had nevertheless had been known by Alecto, Megaera and Tisiphone in the Greek and Latin literature. As custodians of divine and human law, they were too precious for Fénelon—the ingenious educator of modern Europe—to ignore. He also preserved many more of the gods, monsters (in particular the Chimera, with her reptilian tail, and the nineheaded Hydra) and heroes of the classics. In particular, he found educational worth in the consolatory image of the Roman Hercules, (descendent of the Greek Heracles), whose divine nature was manifested when he strangled two serpents with his bare hands while still in his cradle. For that matter, readers throughout Europe remained enchanted by tales of those other great slayers of female monsters, the heirs of Perseus. Thus, according to Starobinski, The Adventures of Telemachus had not only educated a king, but also shaped the political ideas of the cultured classes throughout Europe.111 But the future king was the public for whom Fénelon, with great style, had imagined the Furies—armed with mirrors, swooping down to punish men of power after their deaths. These terrible creatures held unjust and violent kings to account, showing them the decay of their inhuman deeds in their special mirrors—mirrors that reflected more inside than out. In one particularly powerful scene, Telemachus sees the “pale and ghastly” faces of these former rulers, shocked at the horror 111

See Jean Starobinski, Les enchanteresses (Paris: Seuil, 2005).

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of their own selves. Their conscience haunted their souls “like hideous spectres”, and deeds that they had not wished to see done in life became their torment. They could not tear their eyes away, and the dreadful sight divided them from themselves, settling into their viscera and leaving them without rest or comfort, for ever more “animated by no vital principle, but the rage” that kindled at their own misconduct, and “the dreadful madness that results from despair”.112 This extraordinary moral work sought to teach that where there are young people, there are stories to be told. The magic moments in the narrative can, and did, shape personalities, suppress unbridled impulses and make the air of an off-kilter world unbreathable. Women like Astarbe—destroyer of spiritual energy—were particularly appealing in the stifling atmosphere of court society, with its effeminate tastes, comedies behind closed doors, false masks, dissimulation, and emptiness within the luxury.

On the stage of infamy: an American nightmare In the modern age, European Christians and American Puritans also turned to that effective tool for moralising behaviour: the stage. Generally situated in the marketplace, not far from the church or prison, those judged guilty were made to face their bustling audience, thanks to a device that cruelly held their heads in a vice-like grip. This refined form of torture, often reserved for women, prevented those exposed to public condemnation from hiding their faces, and was a frequent sight for the 17th- and 18th-century inhabitants of Europe and the New World. It was so commonplace that only Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804–1864) was impressed enough to remark upon it in his famous novel, The Scarlet Letter, published in America in 1850. He alone reacted with lucidity to his generation’s inherited cultural baggage—unsettling stories of witches and monsters with which the past had coloured the darkest corners of the psyche. Looming large in his imagination was the menacing figure of the judge (a powerful member of the clergy) who achieved worldwide renown for having cruelly tortured and condemned ‘witches’ to death during the Salem trials of 1692. To Hawthorne, the terrifying ghosts of the Puritans, with their crisp, white collars and tall-crowned conical hats—austere ornaments of their austere authority—who had sentenced so many women 112

Fénelon, Le avventure di Telemaco, Book XVI, 236.

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to an inhumane punishment, were a sinister inheritance that needed exorcising. In The Scarlet Letter, he traced the labyrinthine psychological anxieties of the old world that had spilled into New England. The designated victim of this cruel legacy was the brown-haired Hester Prynne, who was condemned for adultery in Boston and sentenced to stand on the pillory for hours with a great red ‘A’ emblazoned on her chest—a scarlet letter (which she was forced to embroider herself) that effectively communicated the idea of unbearable shame, and fortified public condemnation. Hester’s suffering, shared by her daughter, Pearl, coddled and bolstered the violent spirit of the rigid Puritan moral code. The story of this woman, whose presence in public (like Medusa) provoked scorn and revulsion, is the story of the daily torment endured by other women, inflicted with eyes brimming with silent hostility. For seven years the adulteress—her own eyes emptied and glassy—was forced to endure this anguish for the satisfaction of the community. In the background, children played cheerless games, enacting religious ceremonies that involved the flogging of Quakers and the terrifying machinations of witchcraft. Pearl, on the other hand, suspected of unpropitious birth, was continually watched by the members of the New England colony as a “half-fledged angel of judgment” (in other words a miniature Fury).113 Indeed, since the advent of Christianity (and perhaps before) had it not been the case that demon spawn had been born out of the sins of earthly women? The widespread medieval belief of the demonic origin of some human creatures cast strong suspicion that Pearl, with her strange and mysterious gaze, was the daughter of the Devil, and only at the end of the tale would her mother be able to guarantee her her sacred right to happiness. But Hester, plagued on a daily basis for years by the holierthan-though stares of the matrons and the suspicious glances of the men “underwent an agony from every footstep of those that thronged to see her, as if her heart had been flung into the street for them all to spurn and trample upon”. Hawthorne’s liberal faith and democratic optimism for a world in which relations between men and women would be upheld by laws and, especially, by emotions, more propitious to reciprocal harmony had driven 113

Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter. Current Edition (Ware: Wordsworth Editions, 1992), 77.

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him to denounce the gloomy myths that had nurtured our human frailties. If there was a possibility of inventing the ‘American dream’ and opening new avenues to life, it would be necessary to throw away the nightmarish myths brought across the ocean by the European forefathers. This line of thinking led Hawthorne to write The Gorgon’s Head.

A ‘Wonder’ Gorgon From the tragic myth there arose an optimistic fable. Like Fénelon, Hawthorne believed that the best way to capture the attention of children was to give them moral instruction in the guise of an entertaining tale. In his little work A Wonder Book for Girls and Boys114, Hawthorne’s Gorgon tale was recounted alongside those of six other characters from the Greek classics, and plays a memorable part in the comedy of The Gorgon’s Head (1852). Indeed, her appearance was a marvellous device for cultivating the imagination, sensibilities and emotions of the very young. The attraction for the legend of Medusa, like others astoundingly unbound by the fashions and circumstances of the time, left Hawthorne free to lay aside the burden of the social and literary stereotypes, and re-shape them as he liked in his fable. He admired the involuntary enchantment that Medusa exerted on the public, regardless of age, and he luxuriated in the idea that her provocative head could give rise to a sentimental workshop of fantastical experimentation. Could there be a more thrilling spectacle than a severed head encircled by living snakes? To see it through Hawthorne’s story, even the most obtuse and impermeable child’s mind would be pervaded by a sentiment of communion with the remote past, in which bestiality and fascination walked arm in arm. Hawthorne painted Medusa with romantic and Gothic brushstrokes, his prose accompanied in 1893 by masterful illustrations in the Pre-Raphaelite style. Even two centuries ago, across the Atlantic, those unforgettable Gorgons—the strangest, most brutal beings of all time and all creation— had a special place at the heart of children’s fears, and in their delight in the joyful reassurances that were sure to follow. In The Gorgon’s Head, 114

Nathaniel Hawthorne, A Wonder Book for Girls and Boys. Current Edition (New York: Dover Publications, 2003).

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the three sisters are depicted with hands marked by a thick layer of brass, bodies covered with impenetrable ferrous scales, and a dark web of contortions and forked tongues, ever moving, surrounding their foreheads. They flew across the sky with burnished golden wings, rapid as scudding clouds. Through this cascade of contrasting images, the young readers were drawn into the dark, mysterious world of Scarecrow, Nightmare and Shakejoint, squabbling endlessly over possession of their single eye—like an enormous glittering jewel—that they took turns inserting into their otherwise empty sockets. Hawthorne’s narrator is an eighteen-year-old student from William’s College, who tells the story to a group of six- to ten-year-old children. At the heart of their collective discomfort was, of course, Medusa—in this account a savage beauty disturbed by restless dreams and a halo of reptilian weirdness. She upsets Perseus so much that he bursts into tears at the thought of having to explain to his mother how he managed to get himself turned to stone. Leaving the plot aside for a moment, however, and the vicissitudes of Perseus—heroic man-child and impeccable gentleman—and his helpers, the story deals with the theme of family betrayal: as soon as Perseus is born, he and his mother are left at sea by subjects of his grandfather, the king. It explores falsity and violence, but also courtesy and maternal love, as well as the ancient world and mutual aid. Most importantly of all, however, it teaches of the visible and invisible worlds, of fear, blindness, the night, the darkness of the soul, and the marvellous curiosities beyond the grasp of adult realism and their irrational power games. The crux of the tale can be discerned from a single scene, in which Medusa’s head is used by the young hero to triumph over the world of the grown-ups—the evil king, his diabolic advisers and perfidious courtiers are all turned to stone. Unsurprisingly, this outcome is greeted by raucous applause from its young audience, who had previously quaked and trembled at the thought of the strange, snake-headed Gorgons—more a terrifying mix of witch and dragon than identifiable as ladies—old, grey crones armed with a single, diamond-like eye.

CHAPTER TWO WHAT AN UGLY FACE!

In Xenophon’s (431–354 BCE) Memorabilia, Socrates has a conversation with three artisans—the painter Parrhasius, the sculptor Cleito, and the breastplate-maker Pistias—on the duty of artists to represent on the faces of their subjects the tumultuous effects of their passions—to rouse in the viewer a sense of their good cheer, or disconcert them with their hostility, especially through their “friendly or unfriendly look” (as the situation warranted). 1 Indeed, in the fourth century BCE, Greek artists were encouraged to use facial appearance to lay bare the invisible aspects of character. In the theatre, actors relied on theatrical masks with exaggerated facial expressions to convey the various human temperaments, and the grotesque grimace of Medusa was thus an essential feature of Roman theatre, even in the second century CE.2 The idea that external signs were indicative of inner, moral character inspired a kind of ‘science’ known to the ancient world as physiognomy. Although this discipline had in fact been around for millennia, having in all probability originated in the Paleo-Babylonian era, in the Athens of the end of the fifth century BCE, it began to be cultivated more as a type of theoretical knowledge rather than a mystical and divinatory form of art. In Classical Antiquity, it was popular among philosophers, orators, artists, teachers and physicians of the Hippocratic school in Greece and Rome alike,3 and experts in the subject were greatly revered. Indeed, the Greek Anthology (7, 661) tells us that the professional skills of the sophist Eusthenes in this field were so exceptional that he was even described on 1

Xenophon, Memorabilia, Xenophon in Seven Volumes Loeb Classical Library, Vol. 4, trans. E. C. Marchant (Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press, 1979), 3, 10, 1–5. 2 John Russell Brown, What is Theatre? An Introduction and Exploration (Boston and Oxford: Focal Press, 1997), 8. 3 Elisabeth Cornelia Evans, Physiognomics in the Ancient World (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1969), 59.

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his epitaph as “a reader of character, skilled in discovering our thought from our eyes”. The Attic Nights (V, 3) written by Latin author Aulus Gellius, also mentions physiognomy, as does Porphyry of Tyre (3rd century CE) in the Life of Protagoras (13 and 54), which lauded Protagoras for deciding which pupils to accept and refuse only after close observation of their facial features.4 Sorting through the studies on the ancient Greek theories of vision,5 their perception of the evil eye and the idea of physiognomy,6 it becomes clear that, rather than being separate phenomena, these were, in fact, different branches of the same tree of knowledge. In the Western tradition, the first branch represented the attempt to decipher the mysterious mechanisms behind the power of sight by mathematical (Euclid), philosophical (Plato) and/or biological approaches (Aristotle). The dominant theory that emerged was that the eye emitted rays that could interact with the object being viewed. Rather than being a recipient for external light that we know them to be today, the eyes were instead perceived as a sort of cold-fire furnace—emanating positive or negative influences on the world outside.7 This is reflected in the ‘bloody mirror’ theory—according to which mirrors would cloud over when a menstruating woman’s gaze fell upon them—first touted by the Aristotelian school and explored in depth three centuries later by Pliny the Elder. The second branch of this tree of knowledge—that pertaining to the evil eye (the topic discussed in Chapter One), reinforced the collective illusion that destructive magical and emotional powers (mainly envy and anger) were transmitted through the gaze, while the third, physiognomy, began to focus on the affinity between the look and personality from the fifth century BCE onwards. Despite differences in their methodologies and underlying theories, these three ‘fields’ were connected by one concrete certainty: that the eye was a special agent, an active envoy of the body, 4

Greek Anthology, trans. W. R. Paton, vol. 2 (London: William Heinemann Ltd. 1917). Aulus Gellius and Porphyry of Tyre are cited by Giampiera Raina in her Introduction to Anonimo latino, Trattato di fisiognomica. Pseudo Aristotele, Fisiognomica (Introduction, text, trad. and notes) (Milan: Rizzoli, 1994), 13. 5 Simon Ings, The Eye, a Natural History (London: Bloomsbury, 2007), in particular Chapter VI, 160. 6 Francesco Mallegni, ‘Physiognomic Interpretation in the Past’, Kos n. 205, October (2002), 52–57. 7 Simon Ings, The Eye, a Natural History. See Chapter VI, 152.

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personal character and the supernatural—acting as both predator and prey. In all three cases it was thought of as the most trustworthy part of the body and the animus, a conviction that is highlighted in a treatise on physiognomy written in Latin between the second and fourth centuries CE. Its anonymous author—in all likelihood a rhetor or physician, with a decidedly pedagogical bent, was fully convinced of the efficacy in learning of the “need to know” and “to memorise”. He was so entranced by this idea that he dedicated not one but twenty chapters to vision, which he considered the “the pivot of all physiognomy”.8 For this reason, he warned against eyes which had a penetrating “Gorgonian” stare, because, as the Greeks had said, they were entirely evil.9 Reading these ideas centuries later, we can see that, although farfetched, they were, in many respects, entirely practical. In the interests of this chapter, without doubt the most fascinating is the suggestion—made centuries before Xenophon—that facial expressions and the eyes were, in effect, useful tools for studying human character traits. This theory was given weight by the Aristotelian fascination with physiognomic signs, not to mention his idea that physical and psychological phenomena were connected, his analogies between the human and animal worlds, and his adherence to a method of promoting the dichotomy between men and women.10 Indeed, according to the Aristotelian school of thought on physiognomy, positive physical and psychological characteristics were associated with masculinity (think, for example, of kalos kagathos, which, in the ancient Greeks’ eyes embodied physical beauty and moral virtue), while negative traits were feminine in nature.11 This taught the artists of the fourth century BCE how to see and express the diverse natures (known as ethos by the Greeks, and habitus by the Romans) of the two genders through differences in colour, hirsuteness, toe- and figure-nails, hairstyles, head 8

Anonimo Latino, Trattato di Fisiognomica, 20 and 151 (see also Ian Repath, ‘Anonymous Latinus, Book of Physiognomy’, in Simon Swain (ed.) Seeing the Face, Seeing the Soul, Polemon’s Physiognomy from Classical Antiquity to Medieval Islam (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007) 549–635. 9 Anonimo Latino, Trattato di Fisiognomica, &, 12–13 141–42; &, 11 and 139; &, 35 and 171. 10 Raina, Introduction to Anonimo latino, 29. 11 Pseudo-Aristotle, Fisiognomica, 814 b, 120. For an English translation see: Aristoteles: Physiognomonica, trans. and comm. by Sabine Vogt (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1999).

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shape, stature, nerves, muscles, veins, and, especially, the size and shape of the eyes, whose colour, lids, lashes, brows and pupils were also telling indicators of personality. This revolutionary art, while still portraying the simple desires typical of archaic depiction, also inspired more psychological representations, and cemented the firm conviction and convention of demarcating the distinction between male and female traits—even if they were not necessarily linked to biological gender. In each instance the positive and negative were conveyed through allusions, attributes, situations and figures, and a wrathful and evil nature was physiognomically portrayed by ill-proportioned or flaming eyes,12 which revealed the deceitful reptilian soul within. Indeed, according to the Aristotelian school, reptiles were akin to treacherous human beings,13 and the anonymous author of the treatise on physiognomy mentioned above had diligently reported the visible signs of such a connection, having noted in the tiny pupils of serpents indications of the malignitas typical of a cruel and dangerous animal that was both relentless and terrible once it had made a decision.14 Whether by accident or design (I would tend to opt for the latter), this same evil nature—encompassing all that is sly, irascible, merciless, devious and quick to bear a grudge 15 —is remarkably similar to that conveyed in the anonymous author’s analysis of female character. Indeed, this treatise from the Aristotelian school of physiognomy would have us believe that it was good practice to associate physical traits with gender, as the distinction between the sexes was clear: males were demonstrably more righteous, courageous and, in short, superior to the female.16 Although purely speculative, this conviction was firmly entrenched in the minds of the artists throughout the generations. Emblematic of this idea is a sardonyx and silver cameo from the second or third century CE, by an anonymous Roman sculptor, of the head of Medusa—her inherently evil nature being conveyed by her twisted stare, and serpentine locks (Figure 1). 12

Ibid., 812b, 111 and 814 a, 120. Aristotle, Historia animalium, I, 488 b, 12 (for an English translation, see: Aristotle, History of Animals, trans. A. L. Peck (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Loeb Classical Library (Vol. VIII-X) Harvard University Press, 1984). 14 Anonimo Latino, Trattato di fisiognomica, 44, 181, 128 and 263. 15 Ibid., 4 and 129. 16 Pseudo-Aristotle, Fisiognomica, 814 b, 120 (trans. author’s own). 13

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Figure 1: A Roman Medusa head (2nd or 3rd century CE) with staring eyes, snake-like hair and wings. Sardonyx and silver cameo (Saint Petersburg, Hermitage Museum).

As mankind had learned over the course of a millennium, first by reading Xenophon and then the pseudo-Aristotelian author’s Physiognomics, the important thing was to avoid visual contact with evil people in general, and seductive women in particular. 17 Likewise, for any self-respecting artist it was of equal importance to demonstrate his skill at capturing such fleeting expressions of character at a glance and immortalising them for all to see.

17

Xenophon, Symposium (or The Banquet), Xenophon in Seven Volumes, Loeb Classical Library, vol. 2, trans. O.J. Todd (Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press, 1979): “For awhile ago he was like those who look at the Gorgons—he would gaze at Cleinias with a fixed and stony stare and would never leave his presence; but now I have seen him actually close his eyes in a wink.” Chapter 4:25.

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Mirrors on the past Gombrich pointed out that when images are assigned to art, they get trapped in a mesh of related ideas, touching the deepest parts of human sensibilities, and becoming part of the established order of things;18 if we look at the art produced over the centuries—from the Neolithic statuettes of the Snake Goddess, to the serpent-crowned head of Caravaggio’s 17thcentury Gorgon, from the fixed gaze of the gorgoniea of the Archaic Period to the medieval representation of Saint Lucia proffering her eyes on a plate—it is evident that there is no mere grain truth in this conviction. Roland Barthes19 explained clearly how 20th-century advertising harnessed the power of images to increase the sales of consumer goods, using persuasive human psychology as a means of boosting profit. From these examples it is clear that history would be nothing without images, which for the scholar represent indispensable guides to the emotional life of the past. Like a good bloodhound, trusting in our senses as well as serendipity, it is important for us to sniff out the faint—often barely perceptible—traces of past emotions that images such as Medusa, snakes and menstrual blood evoked (fear, scorn, disgust and other similarly negative reactions) in historical societies. In other words, we must set out on a journey up the river of iconography pertaining to the various historical eras, attempting to find some significant examples of art that serve as clues that can direct us in the search for the source of Western memory. Embarking on this journey of discovery, we must bear in mind the fact that in many stages of history visual representations were, for women, the main vehicle for transmission of learning—as literacy and intellectual pursuits were often reserved exclusively for males. The messages contained within these images were often rigidly controlled, particularly during the Christian era, by the reigning patriarchal authorities (in this case ecclesiastical), from Pope Saint Gregory I to his moral successor, the Blessed John Dominici (1357–1419). These powerful figures used iconography to conduct targeted educational campaigns for

18 Ernst H. Gombrich, Meditations on a Hobby Horse and Other Essays on the Theory of Art (London: Phaidon Press Limited, 1963), 66. 19 Roland Barthes, ‘Myth Today’ in Mythologies, trans. Annette Lavers (London: Paladin, 1972).

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the benefit of the illiterate, particularly women and children. 20 This practice was carried over from the Classical Greek paideia, which used images to shape human sensibilities, conscience, and collective identity. According to Pausanias, writing in the second century CE (Periegesis, I, XXII, 6–7) evidence of the particular importance of this communication strategy in Athenian education could once be found in the Pinacotheca of the Acropolis, whose walls, even in Hellenistic times, still bore a painted scene of the object lesson par excellence and eternal source of wonder: Perseus about to cut off Medusa’s head. Depictions and sculptures were used as a sort of picture book for the illiterate populace, who were, however, able to recognise the meaning behind the actions of the subjects, thanks to the way that their characters were portrayed through their features.21 Even before literature picked up on the idea, images were used shape collective memory through shared sentiments and symbols. In the second century BCE, it was to all intents and purposes a public system of training ‘set in stone’; strolling underneath the arches on the way to the theatre, citizens could admire the painted walls of the temples, as well as countless statues, vases, shields, public buildings and private dwellings which all reinforced the central idea that the father, male divinities and the values of virility were paramount. The severed head of the Gorgon was an established feature of Greek art in both Classical (5th–4th century BCE) and pre-Classical (7th–6th century BCE) times, and as such spread to the Greek colonies of southern Italy, which fed eagerly on myths from the Hellenic repertoire. Her decapitation, narrated by the red figures on the Proto-Italic and Attican kraters, unearthed from the hinterlands around Metapontum, was also a recurring motif on the Corinthian vases of this Eastern-inspired age. Her serpentdraped head was emblazoned on shields in order to terrify opponents in battle, and the Iliad tells us that even the mighty Agamemnon bore this device on his war-shield (“the Gorgon’s head, grim and glaring fiercely, was depicted at the top, with Terror and Rout on either side,” XI, 36–37). It also figured on Athena’s Aegis (Iliad V, 741 742), the breastplates of Roman emperors (Nero and Trajan), and the bronze shields of the gladiators of the first century CE. Her tortured face was still a motif of 20 For more on experiences shaped by images see Giallongo, L’avventura dello sguardo, in particular the second chapter, 45. 21 Roberto Terrosi, Storia del concetto d’arte: un’indagine genealogica (Milan: Mimesis, 2006), 131.

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choice for displaying on arms in 16th- and 17th-century Europe, and in 1598 graced a highly original parade shield painted by Caravaggio. This image was so powerful that it inspired his admiring contemporary, the poet Giambattista Marino,22 to write a poem on the subject (La testa di Medusa in una rotella di Michelangelo da Caravaggio). But it was in the seventeenth century that the allegorical symbolism of the Classical tradition became firmly cemented in the minds of the public at large, thanks to Cesare Ripa’s Iconology, which was printed for the first time in Rome in 1593 but translated and distributed all over Europe in the century that followed. Times had changed but the message was the same: Medusa’s head on a shield still served as a lesson on morality for male youths, reminding them to be pure in word and deed, and to set a good example for others less well-educated than themselves.23 The rich iconographical heritage on Medusa that survives to this day is therefore a springboard for learning something about the conventions governing the use of her image, and the changes that have taken place in this practice over the centuries. Indeed, by tracing the history of her face, scholars have stumbled onto a gradual shift in meaning, from bloodcurdling and terrifying, to moving and wistful, and then to cornered and listless. It is well worth immersing oneself in the fascinating language of these emotions, their artistic portrayals, and the implicit moral lessons within. As with other subjects, the laws of physiognomy governed her external 22 Verses by Giambattista Marino (“Non so se mi scolpì scarpel mortale, o specchiando me stessa in chiaro vetro, la propria vista mia mi fece tale”), alongside Caravaggio (Michelangelo Merisi), completely overturned the Classical myth– rather than petrifying her enemies with her gaze, the Gorgon accidentally turns herself to stone (marble), under the gaze of the spectators, by catching a glimpse of herself in a mirror; madrigal ‘La testa di Medusa in una rotella di Michelangelo da Caravaggio nella Galleria del Granduca di Toscana’, in Giuseppe Guido Ferrero (ed.), Marino e i marinisti (Milan-Naples: Ricciardi, 1954), vol. 37: 577. 23 “L’albore dell’Ulivo, con la testa di Medusa pendente da esso, dimostra la Vittoria che si ha de gli inimici che combattono l’huomo interiore, figurato secondo il corpo et la chiarezza di Christo, fa diventar gli huomini stupidi alle cose del senso, come la testa di Medusa faceva restar medesimamente stupidi quelli che la guardavano. Et leggiamo che Domitiano Imperatore la portava sempre scolpita nelle armature et nel sigillo, a fine di mostrarsi vittorioso”. Cesare Ripa, Iconologia, overo Descrittione dell’Imagini universali cavate dall’Antichità et da altri luoghi (Milan: Tea, 2002, based on the 1618 edition), 224.

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features and the rhythms of her soul, translating them into gestures, positions, attributes, expressions and glances. Founded on traditional iconography, Cesare Ripa’s conviction that the face was “a theatre of passions” set the tone for how vices and virtues would be represented in the Renaissance and the Counter-Reformation. The educated peoples of that age placed great faith in the Iconology, which was also a source of inspiration for artists across Europe. In order to arouse recognition in the public, was it sufficient to portray the Gorgon’s staring eyes and serpentine locks? What visual clichés accompanied her appearance? What chords did artistic representations of her image strike in the souls of those who looked upon her?

From repellent to powerless Medusa has long challenged the creativity of artists, and her permanence in historical iconography has prompted scholars to identify the solutions they found for depicting that which could not be portrayed. Taking the example of Xenophon, it is easy to see how the literature—in particular that on physiognomy—influenced the visual language of the Classical age, stimulating artists to illustrate the power of irrational and bestial passions. If we focus on artistic representations of reptiles and the significance of the eyes—two of the most terrifying powers of the monster—a similar trend emerges (Figure 2). Research into the iconographical transformations of Medusa, as both a full figure and in the gorgoneia, have provided other tantalising clues. Laying aside all the changes in artistic conventions that have occurred over the ages (an inexhaustible topic well beyond the scope of this book), for the purposes of this analysis it is enough to focus on the questions identified above, which can even be asked of Archaic art. Before being demonised in the myth of Perseus, recounted by Hesiod in the eighth century BCE, the Gorgon was a rather more decorative monster, and one that was not created in one fell swoop. As testified to by artistic attempts from different times and places, the Greeks had long sought the minutiae most suitable for conveying an impression of horror. They borrowed their first repellant images from Babylonian and Assyrian

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depictions of giants and demons,24 and among the most ancient monsters, those of the seventh century BCE often featured large heads, gaping mouths and wide, generally almond-shaped, eyes surmounted by prominent brows—all the hallmarks of a dangerous and bestial nature. The gorgoneia, which were first manufactured by the Corinthians (625–600 BCE) but became popular across the Mediterranean, also had extravagantly large, staring eyes, but this to serve a precise apotropaic function, namely to protect against the evil eye (Figure 3).

Figure 2: Head of a marine Medusa, probably an ornament decorating a box, about 50–75 CE, British Museum, London.

Among the first whole-body illustrations of Medusa, there is a singular depiction of her bearing the back-end of a horse. This image is found on a Boeotian amphora dating from 670 BCE, and it is this peculiarity, rather than her bared teeth and glaring eyes (which are more than amply rivalled by those of Perseus as he attempts to avoid her gaze) that makes of her a 24 Despite its age, it is always enlightening to consult Charles V. Daremberg and Edmond Saglio, Dictionnaire des Antiquités grecques et romaines d’après les textes et les monuments, contenant l’explication des termes qui se rapportent aux moeurs, aux institutions, à la religion, et en général à la vie publique et privée des anciens (Paris: 1877–1919). 10 volumes (re-printed in 1962–1963 and online at l’Université du Mirail-Toulouse); see the entry ‘Gorgones’, vol. 2, t. II, 1615.

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monster (Figure 4); not having yet embarked upon a career in caricaturing faces, the artist limited himself to portraying her as a hybrid.25

Figure 3: Corinthian bowl with bearded Gorgon, 610–590 BCE, British Museum, London.

Figure 4: Perseus slaying the Gorgon in the guise of a hybrid hippomorph. Detail from a decorated amphora. Boeotia, 650 BCE.

25

Susan M. Serfontein, Medusa: from Beast to Beauty in Archaic and Classical Illustrations from Greece and South Italy. Unpublished thesis presented in pursuit of a Masters at Hunter College of the City University of New York, 1991, 24.

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Through the legend of Perseus, Susan M. Serfontein traced a marked evolution in the image of the Gorgon on vases and other objects from the Archaic to the Classical age. Her analysis highlights the schema attributed to the visible behaviour of the ‘monster’, and the attempts to humanise her by means of pleasing aesthetic forms. However, an illustration on a vase by the Amasis Painter, which represents the zenith of the artistic output of the fourth century BCE, still shows the Gorgon in all her grotesque glory. To emphasise the triumph of Perseus, the terrible monster was portrayed by such artists as featuring an exceptionally muscular body, shielded by strong wings, and a massive head with large nose, repulsive lolling tongue and a fixed cruel stare (see Figures 5 and 6).

Figure 5: “Perseus and Medusa”. Attican black-figure attributed to a disciple of the Theseus Painter. Archaic period, 510 BCE. J.P. Getty Museum, Malibu.

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Figure 6: Attican black-figure of a running Gorgon with wings, a fixed gaze and protruding tongue. Detail from a vase of the Archaic period, 600–550 BCE. Louvre Museum, Paris.

Figure 7: Ornamental head of Medusa, Hellenistic period, 3rd century BCE to 1st century CE. Traces of red pigment remain on the hair, lips and tongue. Temple of Apollo, Didyma, Turkey.

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Her glaring eyes often protruded from their sockets and featured piercing black pupils. The wide eyes of the Gorgon, their penetrating immobility accentuated by thick lids and heavy and viscid serpentine brows— eternally furrowed—served to bewitch and unsettle the observer, who would be struck dumb by the negative force of that insinuating and twisted gaze (Figure 7). The menacing glance of the Gorgon, equipped with supernatural powers, had already been connected in the primitive mind with menstrual blood—the sight of which was also generally believed to be dangerous for men—and this idea seems to be reflected in the artistic interpretations of her gaze during the Archaic period. Furthermore, her protruding tongue, a feature that can be traced back to the Hindu goddess Kali (8th century BCE), as suggested by several psychoanalytical theories also seems to evoke menstrual blood, through a symbolic association between the mouth and the vulva (Figure 8).

Figure 8: Example of a Proto-Italic Gorgon. Circa 4th to 5th century BCE. Potenza, Italy.

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Finally, the fact that several societies conceptualised menstruation through rites featuring snakes—a recognised symbol of regality and female divinity in Minoan art—should not be overlooked. In fact, this trend is confirmed by the opposite significance given to serpents in Greek art of the seventh century BCE26—for the first time in history, reptiles had been given the official role of identifying any female in their company as a monster. Thus a pendulous tongue, a persistent stare and coiling snake-like tresses became the primary ingredients in a new repulsive recipe, a long iconographical tradition that warned against the greatest threat: that which awaited those who dared to look upon something forbidden (Figure 9).

Figure 9: Coloured Gorgon relief in terracotta from the Temple of Athena, Syracuse, Italy, circa 570 BCE. “P. Orsi” Regional Archeology Museum. Traces of Corinthian iconography are discernible in this Archaic representation of the myth: wide eyes, curled serpentine tresses, crescent-shaped mouth, tusks, and lolling tongue. The robust, winged body is portrayed on one knee, but the head is face-on.

26

Ibid., 34.

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Was it not a widespread belief that during their cycle women had special powers, and it was therefore dangerous to have any contact with them? The written sources tell us that among the Greco-Roman taboos was in fact this idea that contact with menstruating women could lead to disastrous consequences—mad dogs, hailstorms, powerful gusts of wind and the spoiling of wine, for example. Such belief was clearly stated in the Aristotelian theories on natural history from the fourth century BCE, and later re-iterated by Pliny the Elder. I personally believe that this menstrual taboo is fundamental for answering some of the countless questions and doubts surrounding the Medusa myth. On the one hand it explains her feral, often reptilian appearance and the power attributed to her gaze, while on the other it gives us a reason as to why she was demonised in art. Nevertheless, during the early Classical period in particular, the terrifying creature who lost her life in battle with Perseus began to morph into an altogether more passive creature. The new Gorgon was portrayed as more human in both body and face, and by these means the artists of the period rendered her not only more attractive and feminine, but far less frightening (Figure 10). Around the middle of the fifth century BCE, they began to eschew the frontal position in which she had traditionally been portrayed, and instead opted to show her from the side—peaceful, in repose, away from the heart of the action (Figure 11).

Figure 10: Gorgon with human body. Detail from an amphora of the late Archaic period, circa 490 BCE. Antikensammlungen, Munich, Germany.

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Distancing themselves even further from their Archaic predecessors, the vase painters of the Classical Age also set a new scene for Perseus’ slaying of Medusa. Rather than decapitating the fearsome creature in battle, Perseus often crept up on her dozing, turning him into the dominant figure. As the edges of her demonic aspect were blurred, the Gorgon, despite retaining traces of her monstrous nature—a grimace on her lips and her tongue poking out—began to take on a more appealing aspect. Even if her wings and serpentine features—scaly and hissing—gave away her more menacing side, with her eyes closed the petrifying power of her gaze was neutralised.

Figure 11: A ‘beautiful’ sleeping Medusa from the late Classical Age, attributed to the Sotheby Painter, 475–425 BCE, Louvre Museum, Paris.

According to Jocelyn M. Woodward, the representation of Medusa asleep is an indicator of a change in the Athenian tastes; they demanded

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new and different aesthetic criteria and thrills from their artists.27 Thus, the gorgoneia from the 5th century BCE were often depicted sporting diadems and/or earrings, which seemed to confer a greater sense of femininity and/or regality on her person (Figure 12).

Figure 12: A Gorgon with earrings and a crown of serpents encircling her entire face. Attican red-figure pottery from 440 BCE, as the Late Archaic turned to the Early Classical. British Museum, London.

A gorgeous Gorgon shield from Phidias is emblematic of this new tendency (Figure 13). In the fourth century BCE Medusa’s face was no longer hostile and frightening, but rather inviting and seductive. Despite her new beauty, however, she still on occasion retained traces of her sinister past, like a protruding tongue; also the habit of depicting her with snakes slithering across her brow or under her chin never died out. Nonetheless, as Serfontein supposes, portrayed as a sleeping beauty Medusa became, for the first time, admired and perceived as a vulnerable, human creature; Perseus no longer faced a strong, intimidating beast, but instead a graceful maiden, lost in dreams and totally ignorant of the fact that she would soon be cut down in the very prime of her life. Her drooping lids—now framed by delicate brows—were minor masterpieces that could be used to justify the loss of her powers. By cutting off the glare of her homicidal gaze, artists seemed instead to highlight her vulnerability. Her serpent pets do not always now come to her aid, and instead slither 27

Jocelyn M. Woodward, Perseus: A Study in Greek Art and Legend (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1937), 70.

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innocuously into the relegated role of decorative motifs. This was the spirit which moved an artist to portray her on one particular vase with her eyes raised imploringly to the heavens, in desperate but futile supplication for a divine saviour.

Figure 13: The undeniably beautiful Medusa Rondanini from the late 1700s, a copy of a Roman Medusa from the 1st-century CE, Munich Glyptotheck, Germany.

Examination of this kind of iconography also reminds us that the art of the fourth century BCE, by mixing human emotions with the crime, incited a new sense of pathos, conveying the bloodthirsty impatience of Perseus and the heady stillness of death. The dramatic decapitation scene, which had been so loved by Archaic artists, had been transformed into another mute funeral march, dedicated to an innocuous and defenceless sacrificial victim. She now merited recognition as a guileless human, and as such the

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literary descriptions that had sought to portray her as a monster at all costs were no longer tolerated.28 So, for a brief period in the fourth century BCE, Medusa was seen as a hapless, helpless, human woman. However, by the end of that century, this full-bodied image had totally disappeared, apparently overpowered by an absolute necessity to resurrect the nightmare of her decapitation. Although the humanised effigies of Medusa remained intact, and the gorgoniea of this time still retained their beauty and their great expressivity, more often than not the eyes of these severed heads would once more be open—their menacing and fatal power restored (Figure 14).

Figure 14: A ‘beautiful’ Medusa head mosaic with wings in her hair and head surrounded by snakes and serpent-like tresses, in the style of the Medusa Rondanini but with eyes that are open and visibly dynamic. Floor mosaic from the age of the Roman Empire, Archaeological Museum of Rhodes, Greece.

Thus, alongside the artists of the Classical Age who liked to hide the dangerous gaze of the Gorgon under firmly-closed lids but emphasise her thick, arching brows, there were also those, like the Mykonos Painter (on a plate from 430 BCE), who preferred to picture her with eyes wide open, 28

Serfontein, Medusa, 37.

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maximising the seductive potential of her glinting black pupils—ready to kill at a glance. For still others, these same eyes instead exhibited her desperation at her untimely end. Whatever the case, this gaze was more frequently animated by the desire to humanise the power and dignity of Medusa, and convey the pain of her premature death in all its silent sadness, evoking a moving sentiment of solidarity. In a Lucanian vase, attributed to the Choephoroi Painter (4th century BCE), Medusa’s head adhered to the new rules of the game; signs of her violent death are not evident in her graceful fairy-tale face, which instead transmits a sense of pained but calm resignation at having been deprived of life. Even her warrior’s stare has lost its aura of menace. In spite of their pleasing appearance, however, the gorgoneia of the fourth century BCE reveal that their creators were unwilling to deprive themselves of the intensely gratifying snake motif—an irreplaceable connection with the past—or the black brilliance of death in the eyes of the slain. According to Serfontein, the ugly gorgoneia triumphed over the artists’ attempts to humanise the monster, and thus their apotropaic endeavours continued as before. In the end, the artists were unable to overcome the impressions that had guided the hands of their mentors, and instead plumped for perpetuating, through gestures and situations, the myth of Medusa as an enemy in need of punishment. Hence the monstrous gorgoneia continued to prevail and, therefore, to guide the collective imaginary both during and after the Hellenistic period. This persistence of allusions to her perilous nature in portrayals of the ‘human’ Medusa is a fascinating aspect of this iconographic tradition; the enigmatic serpents and the dangerous force of her gaze are instructive intermediaries to the hidden world beneath the skin (Figure 15).

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Figure 15: Medusa head mosaic with face deformed by a corrupting crown of serpents. Detail from a Roman floor mosaic from the 2nd century CE, Madrid Archeological Museum, Spain.

Identifying the Other Art played a central role in defining Greek cultural identity. Depictions of heroic actions served to institutionalise behavioural models, and veto behaviour that did not fit the mould. During the seventh century BCE, there was a strong contrast between the proud Greeks and everyone else, and the story of Perseus and Medusa encapsulated this conflict. The repulsive aspect of the Gorgon visually represented and contextualised Otherness through female monstrosity and the demonisation of serpents (Figure 16). The French scholar of Ancient Greece, Jean-Pierre Vernant29 posed a question fundamental for our understanding the roots of our own culture, i.e., who we are, namely, “Who is the Other?” This question has prompted much investigation into the mysteries of alterity, leading us to talk of distant worlds and unknown figures, broadening the horizons and plumbing the depths of historical knowledge. From the time of Homer, the eighth century BCE, to the Hellenistic and Roman eras, there was a long period from which many visible traces of the Greeks’ attempts to construct

29

Jean-Pierre Vernant, L'individu, la mort, l'amour: soi-même et l'autre en Grèce ancienne (Paris: Gallimard, 1989).

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and preserve their own identity by banishing the outsider—whom they saw as a threat to their civilisation—remain. In the Classical period, from the fifth to the fourth century BCE, the idea of Otherness had driven the Athenian Greeks to stand in opposition to the Barbarians, the Thebans, foreigners in general, slaves and enemies. To be Greek was to be civilised, rational, human and masculine, and anything they considered to be degrading, uncivilised, chaotic, irrational, bestial, and, of course, feminine, was Other, and therefore detrimental to the cosmic order, or vice versa. The long series of ‘other’ qualities, dictated that the ‘self’ and Otherness formed kind of concentric circles, wherein Otherness was relegated to the outer fringes. In this way Vernant identified the Gorgon as the absolute Other— something unthinkable, unspeakable and unrepresentable. She was a conglomeration of all Otherness, the farthest limit from the comforting centre. Indeed, in the battle between ‘self’ and ‘otherness’, between male and female, the Gorgon was the essence of woman, the opposite of man. The instrument of complete Otherness is explicitly expressed by the idea of the petrifying gaze; what do we know that is still, cold, blind, tenebrous and opaque like stone? Death. This is what the glance of the Gorgon came to represent: the terror of death. In Vernant’s interpretation, which is not based entirely on psychoanalytical and anthropological theory, the Gorgon appears to be the outcome of a tortured mind-game without end, and reveals the relationship between men and women in the Classical idea through the ‘self’ and ‘other’.

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Figure 16: Bust of a massive Gorgon from the Temple of Artemides, 590–580 BCE, Corfu, Greece

But what have we learnt about this Other? Absolutely nothing. About sixty years ago, this nothingness began to prey on the mind of the French existentialist philosopher Simone de Beauvoir, who perceived in the story of Medusa the “strangeness” of the experience of women immobilised by the effort of seeking to identify with the ‘Otherly' role that

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they had been assigned.30 Indeed, the harsh lessons taught by the Greek myths emphasised the superiority of heroes such as Achilles, Heracles and Perseus, i.e, men, as a means of judging not only the world, but also beauty. Thus the Classical canons proudly established that the virtuous ideal of beauty was male. After all, what was the principal characteristic of the oldest Gorgons in Greek myths and visual sources? A monstrous ugliness (Figure 17).

Figure 17: The monstrous head of an Etruscan Gorgon.

In fact, it was the Greeks that began the practice of equating unsightliness with evil, 31 and they disseminated this idea across the 30

Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, trans. Constance Borde and Sheila Malovany-Chevallier (New York: Random House USA inc, 2010), vol. II. 353. 31 See Umberto Eco, On Ugliness, trans. from the Italian by Alastair McEwen (London: Harvill Secker, 2007).

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Archaic and Classical eras through their gorgoneia, vase paintings, and carvings. The designs painted on the drinking vessels and kraters used by the elite aristocrats of Athens in their boozy symposia show how keen they were to express their sense of identity, their degree of civilisation, and their concept of Other in everyday life—even in the midst of engrossing wine-fuelled discussions. In the Archaic era, these commonplace meetings represented opportunities for men to practice socially acceptable behaviour, and the strict rules that this was governed by gave them a sense of strength and security. They considered themselves and the Others as moving along totally different tracks, but with a healthy measure of personal vanity they observed and admired the representations of Otherness on their crockery—the Gorgon’s heads, the satyrs and Dionysian worshippers. Even Dionysus himself—a deity in the guise of an extravagant wine connoisseur—was located at the very outreaches of incivility, among other beings lacking in dignity and the ability to control themselves. For the Athenians, Others were therefore beneath contempt, and, while collegially imbibing their water and wine, they saw in such beings all that was ugly and degraded in the human and animal kingdoms—the polar opposite of what that they themselves represented. Thus the satyr was a symbol of the blind force of rampant sexuality, and the reptilian Gorgons took on half-human and half-animal traits that could not fail to provoke disgust. When they scrutinised the ugliness and deformity of these mythological figures, they further reinforced their belief in the positive promise of their ideal. In addition, as evidenced by a Nikosthenic drinking amphora, likely from the latter half of the sixth century BCE (Figure 18), they imagined that staring eyes with piercing pupils—like those of the Gorgon—could protect them from the irrational envy or enmity of their peers. This was the state of mind in which the most refined of aristocrats faced their fellow drinkers in the symposia. They believed that gracing the face of an inherently female Gorgon with a beard potentiated the negative primal energy of her gaze, which ultimately served to ward against all that could undermine their equilibrium and their existence.

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Figure 18: Gorgoneion from the Archaic period, 525–475 BCE. The beard reveals the hybrid androgynous nature of the creature with the wide, unblinking eyes. Serpents are duly included as the handles of the Attican black-figure amphora, attributed to Nicosthenes, the BMN Painter. Louvre Museum, Paris.

This detail of the beard, added by the artists of the sixth century BCE, not only magnifies the horror of the Gorgon’s face, but it also draws evercloser parallels with the naked Gorgon with legs akimbo used by the Etruscans to frighten their enemies, not to mention the dreaded Baubo— the crone with the exposed vulva. This is a surprising departure for the Greeks, for whom the beard was a symbol of male virility, decorum and wisdom—an essential attribute of gods, leaders, rulers and philosophers alike. The distinction between the sexes—a vital part of every ‘civilised’ culture—had led Greek males to define themselves as the polar opposites of their female counterparts, who were associated with ugliness and evil. The Gorgon had been evolving into the perfect symbol of female Otherness in the male imagination since the Archaic era, and despite the

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fact that the oral tradition and written sources—from the Iliad and the Odyssey to the tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripedes—had always stated that the Gorgon could not be looked upon, described or represented, she was a constant figure in the imagery from Greece and elsewhere from the seventh to the first century BCE, and well after. Her jolly face and gleeful smile (shared by the centaurs, heroes and gods of Archaic art—ever in search of happiness)—sometimes swathed in a bushy beard, sometimes fleetingly beautiful—was the very apotheosis of inferiority. Her serpent friends and features distastefully boasted of the sub-humanity of the female, and with these images the ancient Greeks— our far-reaching ancestors—effectively thwarted the development of the ‘second’ sex, taking entirely seriously the idea that women were irrational and destructive, and therefore something less than human. Thus the story of Perseus and Medusa is only a brief episode—albeit a seminal one—on a long trajectory of the process32 which led the Athenians to consider other peoples (Thracians, Egyptians, Ethiopians, Scythians, and northerners) to be as contemptible as the Barbarians.33 Several studies have shown that even in their art of the seventh century BCE, which was heavily influenced by non-Greek sources, the monstrous was embodied by the female—a being which harboured all the basest, most confused and predatory emotions: rage and aggressiveness, which were also characteristic of the animal kingdom. It was this idea that fuelled the persistence of Medusa’s face in art over the course of history. Indeed, artistic representations have often been swayed by fashions in philosophical thought and education, teaching us to delve into the body and soul of women and men. After all, the face used to be thought of as the mirror of the soul. Although fallacious, this belief was warmly embraced in the first treatises on physiognomy, which, in the fifth century BCE, as we have seen, based an entire ‘scientific’ discipline on this multifaceted and tortuous tradition; Aristotle and his disciples were firmly convinced that a person’s character could be divined by analysing their physical features and facial characteristics. 32

To understand the psychological role of “infrahumanisation” in Ancient Greek society, see the helpful observations in Gugliemo Bellelli, Le ragioni del cuore. Psicologia delle emozioni (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2008), 11. 33 In his Repubblica (IV, 435e), Plato uses physiognomy to justify his belief that the Barbarians were particularly irascible.

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In order to preserve this belief, Medusa’s decapitation at the hands of Perseus was reproduced continuously in art, alongside the demonisation of serpents, which over time became emblematic effigies of evil. These unbreakable associations continued throughout the Middle Ages, whose iconography was positively heaving with images of a medieval counterpart of Medusa: Eve, the mother of all sin. However, the malevolence encapsulated in the Gorgon’s slithering snakes and gaze that would turn to stone never went out of fashion, obsessing and tormenting artists throughout the ages. Hence, there was a seemingly endless parade of Medusas of every type. Raffaele Borghini provides us with the following description of a roundel of the Gorgon painted by Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519), which has unfortunately since been lost: “a terrible and frightening creature” with poisonous breath who “hurled fire from [her] mouth and eyes”. A giant among da Vinci’s commentators, Borghini was struck by the knotted tresses of serpents atop her head, remarking that it was impossible not to be terrified when faced with such a spectacle.34 Although history has deprived us of the opportunity to marvel at da Vinci’s Medusa, we can console ourselves with a later version by another undisputed master, Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571–1610). Caravaggio’s depiction of the Gorgon’s head, blood dripping from its stump, is also adorned with living serpents, and the staring eyes, puffy lids and arching brows, combined with the furrowed forehead and howling mouth, ingeniously convey her silent but nonetheless palpable fury (Figure 19).

34

“Un animalaccio molto horribile e spaventevole” which “gittava dalla bocca e dagli occhi fuoco”in Raffaello Borghini (author’s own translation) (Il riposo di Raffaello Borghini in cui della pittura e della sculture si favella, de’ più famose opere loro si fa menzione e le cose principali appartenenti a dette arti s’insegnano, Florence, 1584), whose Book III contains the following ‘Description of the Head of Medusa painted by Leonardo da Vinci’: “Lucertole, Ramarri, Grilli, Serpi, Farfalle, Locuste, Nottole, et altri strani animali; da’ quali tutti formò un animalaccio molto horribile, e spaventevole, il quale parea che avelenasse col fiato, e spargesse l’aria di fuoco, e finse che egli uscisse d’una pietra oscura spezzata, gittando dalla bocca, e dagli occhi fuoco, e fummo dal nasosì stranamente che non si potea rimirare senza terrore: e questa fu la pittura, che egli fece nella rotella”. See the anastatic reprint of Il riposo di Raffaello Borghin, ed. Mario Rosci (Milan: Edizioni Labor, 1967), 140.

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Figure 19: Caravaggio, Head of Medusa on a wooden shield, 1598. Uffizi Gallery, Florence.

As this exceptional study on physiognomy, which had also fascinated da Vinci, was doubtless designed to please its commissioner, who we can therefore discern wanted a symbol that would display his power and intimidate his enemies, true to the militaristic trend of the 16th- and 17thcentury Europe. An equally unsettling portrait of Medusa’s severed head was painted by the Flemish artist Pieter Paul Rubens between 1617 and 1618. This macabre image conveys in exquisite detail and colour all the horror of her death: pallid skin, bruised and protruding eyes, knotted brows, wizened grey lips and streaks of blood. Nevertheless, it is the restlessness of the living serpents writhing around her scalp, in their struggle to escape the inexorable clutches of death that dominate the scene, providing a contrasting but repellent sense of vitality (Figure 20).

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Figure 20: Pieter P. Rubens, Head of Medusa, circa 1617–1618.

Another Flemish but otherwise anonymous painter, working in the mid-17th century, painted an equally horrifying Medusa. Once erroneously (albeit not without reason) attributed to da Vinci, this work evoked similar shivers of sinister portent among the artist’s contemporaries, and even the poisonous breath emitted from the mouth is depicted. Indeed, the picture sets out to provoke disgust through all of the senses, transmitting an aura of reviled obscenity. It is impossible to even glance at this painting without a shudder of horror; Medusa’s severed head is wreathed in darkness, but towards the spectator slithers a roiling mass of viscid serpents. Their metallic scales reflect the light, and smears of vivid blood sully the ground, standing out in stark contrast to the surrounding murk. In the background lurks a bloodthirsty rat, drawn by the stink of carrion emanating from the severed head, which, placed three-quarters on, exudes the foul odour of decomposition, filling the air with its abhorrent fumes; from Medusa’s pallid lips escapes a menacing puff of vapour, giving even the most courageous of viewers a chill (Figure 21). This visible, almost tangible breath emphasises the association between the horrendous remains and the Gorgon and poison—an explicit nod to theories that had persisted since antiquity. Persistent too are the other repulsive mainstays of Medusa iconography, the slithering snakes and the

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fatal gaze. Is this by accident or design? Were these two features not the main characteristics associated by physicians and theologians in the Medieval and modern Ages with the toxicity of menstrual blood and the physical ‘imperfection’ of the female of the human species? Across the centuries, the theory of the four humours explained that a build-up of waste in women’s bodies was responsible not only for their illnesses, but also their menstrual cycle. It was a logical conclusion, therefore, that intimate coupling with women during menstruation would be dangerous for men. This wariness was extended to menopausal women, whose powers of contamination were believed to double during this time, and who therefore threatened the safety of even children.

Figure 21: Head of Medusa by an unknown Flemish artist from the early 1600s.

All the recurring faces of the Gorgons in art seem to be inextricably linked to these ideas, establishing an intermittent but concrete connection with the past. The sinister infective energies of the Medusas painted by Caravaggio, Rubens and the anonymous Flemish artist—and many others working in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries—provoke the same emotions as their Ancient Greek, Hellenistic and Roman sisters, namely horror, repulsion and disgust. Furthermore, at the end of the nineteenth century the unearthing of sculptures from Greece’s Archaic Era caused another dramatic and powerful resurgence in the fame of the gorgoneia

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and their meenacing superrnatural gifts. The Swiss p ainter Carlos Schwabe (1866–19266) painted his Manichean-st M tyle Medusa m making referen nce to the rich allegoriical repertoiree left by historry, conterposiing the forcess of Good and Evil, Matter and the Spirit, S Eros an nd Thanatos, and, clearly in nfluenced by Charcott’s studies onn hysteria, eagerly e seizeed the opporrtunity to accentuate thhe clenched and a crazed feaatures of the foorbidden face of horror (Figure 22).

F Figure 22: Carrlos Schwabe, Medusa, M watercoolour, 1895.

Again, loooking at the features of thee Medusa heaad by Arnold Böcklin B it is not difficcult to identiify the hallm marks of demoonism, sensu uality, the macabre, tuurbid chaos annd death (Fig gure 23). Thee same obsession with death hauntts the work of o the Symbo olist Fernandd Khnopff, whose The Blood of Meedusa (1896) bears b not a traace of that vitaal fluid. The im mage was created usinng only cool colours, c and might m well haave been entiitled ‘The Cold Blood of Medusa’; her lips are a knife-edge,, pressed togeether in a grim scowl,, and her eyess are empty and a vitreous— —an enigmaticc window onto the void within. The only apparen ntly living souuls in the pictu ure belong to the snakees creeping ouut of the shado ows around hher face, but ev ven those are devoid oof vitality (Figgure 24).

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Figure 23: Arnold Böcklin, Medusa, 1878.

Each of these visual adventures from the nineteenth century resembles hundreds of earlier, forgotten images—hundreds of similar quests that followed the bloody trail left by the menacing Archaic and Classical gorgoneia.

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Figure 24: Fernand Khnopff, The Blood of Medusa, circa 1895.

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Stereotypes What are stereotypes for if not to obviate diversity? Without a shadow of a doubt, this distinctive characteristic of stereotyping did not escape the social psychologist Serge Moscovici.35 He put us on the right track when he proposed that stereotypes were social representations which threw up barriers between groups—preventing them from establishing any form of collective feeling with the Other. The resulting system of values, notions and practices was useful not only in defending group identity, but also protecting it from Others, and prejudice was (and is) embraced with open arms.36 Together, stereotypes and prejudices perform essential social and psychological functions in community life. They provide stability, righteous certainty, reassuring symbolic values and comforting scapegoats. Although stereotypes are simple, soothing beliefs usually based on falsehoods rather than truth, as they tend to be shared by the majority of individuals in a group they can also reveal the warp and weft of prejudice running through their social relationships. Hence, if we are to imagine the past and present of gender-related educational affairs, it is vital that we spare more than a passing thought for stereotypes and clichés, aware of the schematic and repetitive nature of the products of these mental processes. Furthermore, as Peter Burke tells us, by analysing stereotypes we can forge historical links between mental and visual images, in spite of the many difficulties involved in interpreting them. Unlike authors, who can hide behind a handy façade of impersonality, artists are forced by their medium to take a stand, depicting peers, strangers and diversity as the Other.37 It was by means of this magic wand that Archaic art invented the emblematic symbol of the bearded gorgoneion; Medusa portrayed as a reflection of virility was somehow easier, more familiar, and more comprehensible. This thread could still be traced hundreds of years later, when Cesare Ripa wrote one of the most famous dictionaries of the Renaissance, the Iconologia (1593). In this work Ripa listed a whole host of vices and 35

Serge Moscovici and Gerard Duveen. English edition: Social Representations. Explorations in social psychology (Cambridge, United Kingdom: Polity Press, 2000). 36 See also Gordon Willard Allport, The Nature of Prejudice (Cambridge, Mass.: Addison Wesley, 1954). 37 Peter Burke, Eyewitnessing. The Uses of Images as Historical Evidence (London: Reaktion Books, 2001), 145.

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virtues, illustrating them through personifications that were, more often than not, female. Eloquence, Justice, Dialectic, Geometry, War, Military Architecture, Navigation and many other disciplines and issues (e.g., time, matrimony and nature) were rendered visible in womanly form. Even virility, or “Manhood”, was represented by Ripa as a woman “of mature age”, who, by some form of alchemy, he used to demonstrate “the perfect age of man”. Similarly, his memory of geographical locations, specifically Abruzzo, coincided with the mental image of a “robust and virile woman”. The tenacious tradition that since the Classical Age had constructed the convention of imagining in the visual arts the Muses as protectors of all fields of knowledge—the exclusive province of men—continued to hold sway until the end of the eighteenth century. In the seventeenth century, Bacon gave us his interpretation of male desires, turning the female form into symbols of nature—a sort of naked, passive object of science. But, in one of the last editions of the Iconologia, published in 1764, among the 374 images therein female icons were used to represent the seven cardinal sins. Thus “Anger”, Pride, Avarice, Envy, Gluttony, “Idleness”, and Lust (with Luxury and Vanity thrown in for good measure), were the answer to the most fervid of monastical and ecclesiastical prayers—the Church had ever been plagued by negative images of the daughters of Eve, who were inevitably led into temptation by the wiles of serpents. Hence, in 16th- and 17th-century Europe there was still considerable social pressure to denounce sin and the Prince of Darkness. And Cesare Ripa, with the accompanying woodcuts illustrated by the Cavalier d’Arpino, added in 1603, was totally convinced that the serpent, sported by the symbol of Grief, fulfilled its duties in this regard by highlighting its significance as a representation of “evil, destruction and human imperfection”. To be fair, he did on occasion raise the status of the snake, which, in line with the Classical tradition, was also an attribute of Prudence and Intelligence. However, he far more frequently associated it with negative traits, leaving the unequivocal impression of its connections with human degeneracy. Thus we easily recognise Idleness: a “woman with hollow eyes whose tongue vibrates like a snake”; Despair, in which “several serpents bite into the heart of a man to instil in him rage and rancour”; and especially Envy. This image is particularly eloquent: “an old, ugly woman with emaciated body, sinister eyes, and dishevelled serpents in place of hair”, whose “tongue brims with poison, and never feels any pleasure if not at others’ mourning”, and “sees well the other with a crossed eye”. Envy is portrayed as old due to her ancient enmity with virtue. She is

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gaunt because she is gradually eating herself up from the inside while “she feeds on the flesh of vipers”. She has snakes for hair due to her malicious thoughts and the poison she sows and spreads among mortals. Her “eagerness to feed on others’ goods” causes her to gnash her teeth, and she enjoys wandering between one door and another to mark her territory with “the savage odour of evil”. Willing readers were able to use this text to justify great works upon which humanity hung in the balance. The association between the head of Medusa and Reason could be used to reinforce a sense of Christian triumph over “the things of the senses” (the sensual and passionate sphere); its link with Knowledge would “end bad habits” in the young; and with Fury and Terror it encouraged appreciation of the destructive inebriation of warfare—and the fact that “in many occasions a furious and terrible woman was painted, perhaps out of remembrance of Medusa, whose head was borne on the breastplate of Domitian to strike terror and fear into those who beheld it” (Figure 25).38 The Iconology provides an exemplary display of the strong bond— noted by Burke—between mental and visible images, and their role in the construction of stereotypes. In it the author and illustrator, despite working at different times (d’Arpino’s plates were added ten years after the first publication, in 1603, and various other iconographic interventions were to follow), evidently both thought alike, and their words and images are in perfect harmony when they depict the sameness or Otherness of the female. In the first case they portrayed a mature woman as the emblem of virility—a reflection of manhood, while in the second case the opposite of masculinity was embodied in the seven capital sins. These were all associated with an irrational, unstable, passionate, poisonous, malicious (especially so in the brutal portrait of Envy), and sinful femininity. In other words the woman was the very antithesis of the male.

38

Cesare Ripa, Iconologia del Cavaliere Cesare Ripa perugino notabilmente accresciuta d’immagini, di annotazioni e di fatti dall’abate Cesare Orlandi...(Perugia: Stamperia di Piergiovanni Costantini, 1764–1767). Online: http://www.asim.it/iconologia/ICONOLOGIAlist.arp?start; see the entries for ‘Pigrizia’, ‘Affanno’, ‘Invidia’, ‘Ragione’, ‘Terrore’and ‘Spavento’.

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Figure 25: The familiar head of Medusa with fearsome serpents and sinister, unsettling gaze fulfils its duties as the representation of Fright in C. Ripa, Iconologia del Cavaliere Cesare Ripa).

At its extremes, this antithesis had been simplified and distilled in Antiquity into the image of Medusa—a product of male stereotyping of women. Her stand-in in the Middle and modern Ages was the witch— another “still more extreme case of the Otherness of the female.39 According to the German historian Joseph Hansen, writing at the beginning of the twentieth century, witchcraft was nothing more than a colossal selfdeception spawned by the pathological mental automatism of the Inquisitors,40 whose confused personal experiences had been coloured by a confluence of bible verses, Classical literature and both high and low forms of medieval culture. Their fevered and delusional interpretations of reality ultimately led to the system of collective persecution, particularly of women, that plagued the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The contemporary literature tells us that foremost among the accusations 39

Burke, Eyewitnessing, 158. Joseph Hansen is cited in Sergio Abbiati, Attilio Agnoletto and Maria Rosa Lazzati (eds), La stregoneria: diavoli, streghe, inquisizioni dal Trecento al Settecento (Milan: Mondadori, 1984), 24. 40

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hurled zealously at the ‘witches’ of the age was the brewing of lovepotions (whose main ingredient is all too easy to imagine), casting the evil eye, and various deviant sexual practices.41 Ecclesiastical law officially declared witchcraft a capital sin between the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries, 42 but the image of the witch had been cemented in the collective unconscious long before. Old, ugly, wild, diabolic and deceitful: these features echoed Ripa’s description of Envy— a sinister melding of middle age and reptilian traits, combined with unsettling grimaces and glances, and “the wild odour of maliciousness”. Such a combination evoked bewilderment and agitation, and this dark and disquieting vision of an alien being became enshrined in the mainstays of children’s education (for example the fairy tale of Hansel and Gretel (1812) by the Brothers Grimm, and Walt Disney’s Snow White (1937)). Thus their imaginations were shaped, and they learned to recognise the sub-human character of the Other. Without doubt Medusa was herself caught up in this capricious flow, which was only briefly interrupted in the late fifth and early fourth centuries BCE, as artists such as Phidias heroically attempted to portray the Other as almost human. Despite their efforts, however, a hundred years would pass before traces of a partially benevolent attitude in this monstrous icon of art re-emerged.43 However nonchalantly they metamorphosed in the visual arts across the centuries, the bestial traits used to indicate the appearance and character of the Other, at the expense of more human features, fomented negative, closed-minded, disdainful and, in the more extreme cases, cruel attitudes in public and private life. Through physical and/or moral ugliness, the Other was rendered ‘different’—an enemy, an outsider, something to be feared but which could be harmed because, in any event, it was incapable of feeling pain or suffering. In this way the images and debate taught us to prioritise our own needs and sentiments above those of others, and the social separation of the sexes was further exacerbated by an unsurmountable emotional barrier that reinforced male pride and 41

See Giovanni Grado Merlo, Streghe (Il Mulino, Bologna 2006). At the end of the 15th century, tales of witchcraft had already become the default explanation for any menacing or poorly understood event. 42 Italo Mereu, Storia dell’intolleranza in Europa (Milan: Bompiani, 2000). 43 For the significance attached to artistic representations of Medusa as a beauty in Ancient Greece see Janer Danforth Belson, “The Medusa Rondanini: a new look”, American Journal of Archaeology, vol. 84, 3, July 1980, 370.

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accentuated female shame. This mindset was rendered explicit through the crude but convenient idea of representing women as a different species— non-beings more at home in the animal kingdom. Thus, if expediency demanded, women could be transformed into bestial (let us not forget that since Antiquity and throughout the Middle Ages, the uterus was seen as a kind of animal blender)44, alien creatures that could be subdued without repercussions. Between 1450 and 1750, witch-hunting was a bloodthirsty obsession that unleashed wholesale slaughter across Europe. For three centuries women—usually poor and/or elderly—were accused of every evil, from bodily sins to food shortages.45 The idea that their “singularly fiery and baleful eyes” could harm others “by a mere look” (“especially young children”) was a recurring theme in the texts of that era.46 This belief in the power of their ‘evil’ eyes—founded on the poisonous stereotypes of the past—was the result of the patriarchal worldview that cast women, whether repellent or seductive, as the polar opposites of themselves. The union of these lamentable stereotypes and blood-curdling prejudices fuelled atrocities proportional to the level of dehumanisation conferred on the Other. On a postcard from 1894 England, the witch is still portrayed as a sinister, wizened old crone who sniffs out children through knotted knuckles. A ferocious black cat is perched menacingly on her shoulder, and her whiskered chin harks back to the bearded gorgonieon. An illustration in the Malleus Maleficarum (1486)—the essential handbook for those involved in the legal and ecclesiastical proceedings against witches in Central Europe—provides us with another telling detail; in it a woman thus accused, stripped bare, is brought backward before the court in order to prevent her making eye contact with those about to condemn her.47 44

It was the Hippocratic Corpus that defined the uterus as a “second body”, with its own needs to be met, especially if its host was infertile. For the Ancient Greek conception of female anatomy and physiology see Silvia Campese, Paola Manuli and Giulia Sissa, Madre Materia. Sociologia e biologia della donna greca (Turin: Boringhieri, 1983). 45 See Brian P. Levack, The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe (London: Longman, 1987). 46 Heinrich Kramer and Jacob Sprenger, The Malleus Maleficarum. English edition: The Hammer of Witches. Part One, Question 2). Online: accessed July 24, 2016: http://www.malleusmaleficarum.org/) 47 Ibidem.

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Thus the Malleus Maleficarum, drafted by two German Dominican Inquisitors, clearly shows that Church and lay magistrates were as afraid of looking these neo-Medusas in the eyes as Perseus was of facing the original version. The conjecture drawn by the ‘scientific’ theories circulating in the manuals used by the Inquisition was that “the eyes of anyone who by his glance attracts and fascinates another” could be used to wield great power over the souls of their victims.48 This attribute, together with the other distinctive features of witches (who were unfailingly ugly and/or old, with dirty, dishevelled hair reminiscent of snakes…) lent weight to the typical clichés, and convinced entire generations of their destructive powers. Centuries of discrimination, hatred, and ultimately persecution and violence were engendered by these unfortunate stereotypes, as witch-hunting reached a fever pitch not seen again in Europe until the outbreak of the Second World War. Leaving aside for the moment the historiographical debates regarding the finer points of interpretation of the data and statistics, the evidence shows that the witch-trials were ideologically similar to the mass extermination of the Jews by the Nazis, who were perceived in the Medieval German mindset as sub-human embodiments of the Devil. It is no mere coincidence that witches were accused of meeting on the Sabbath—the day deemed holiest by the Jews. 49 Indeed, a comparative study by Steven T. Katz on these widespread atrocities highlighted several such phenomenological characteristics shared by various genocides in Europe and beyond (beginning with the great 15th-century European invasions of the Americas).50 Nevertheless, it was the hysterical madness that was the witch-hunts— born of the age-old stigmatisation of women—that made the female of the species the sole depositories of an inexhaustible fount of negativity. The image of the witch as an abhorrent, haggard, old crone was fuelled by 48

Ibid. This idea was supported by a statement in the 3rd Chapter of S. Paul's Epistle to the Galatians, and by an affirmation made by Avicenna while expounding his theories on nature and the soul (Naturalism, II, 3). 49 Recent analysis has revealed the influence of the stereotype of the Jew on that of the witch. See, for example, Wolfgang Behringer, Le streghe. (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2008), 37, and Carlo Ginzburg, Storia notturna. Una decifrazione del sabba (Turin: Einaudi, 1989), 80 and 190. 50 Steven T. Katz, The Holocaust in Historical Context. The Holocaust and Mass Death before the Modern Age (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), Vol. I, 503.

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extensive written and visual propaganda—woodcuts, etchings and prints— which ensured that in short order she became a reviled figure in the public imagination. See, for example, the illustrations provided by the Italian priest and witchcraft ‘expert’ Francesco Maria Guazzo (or Guaccio) in his Inquisitorial treatise Compendium maleficarum, written and rewritten between 1608 and 1625, and much admired by his peers (Figure 26).

Figure 26: Illustration from Francesco Maria Guazzo, Compendium maleficarum, 1608–1625.

Another expert in all things satanic was the French jurist and philosopher Jean Bodin, who wrote an equally influential book, De la demonomanie des sorciers (Of the Demon-mania of the Sorcerers), which detailed all the repressive violence necessary for the physical elimination of this scourge of the land.51 In the most striking images of this time, the disciples of the devil pose naked with legs spread wide (just like the Greek Baubo and the Etruscan Gorgons) 52 or in other lewd positions. They 51

Francesco Maria Guazzo, Compendium maleficarum. (Turin: Einaudi, 1992). On De la demonomanie des sorciers (1580) by Jean Bodin see Ginevra Conti Odorisio, Famiglia e Stato nella République di Jean Bodin (Turin: Giappichelli, 1999). 52 A psychoanalysis of the Baubo myth as woman personified and her unsettling exhibitions is provided in Georges Devereux, Baubô, la vulve mistique. (Paris: Payot, 1983), 31.

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participate in orgies with wild abandon, and, surrounded by their familiars in the form of owls, crows, frogs and serpents,53 they devoured children, officiated at black masses, stirred their simmering cauldrons, and flew cackling through the night sky. Thus, female sexuality was portrayed to the public as something despicable, dark and dangerous—an affront to Christianity. Hence the routing of witches went on, following the Pilgrim Fathers across the Atlantic, and culminating in the bloody trials held at Salem in the Puritan colonies of the United States. This was the dreadful theatre of death whose curtain was sensitively raised by Nathaniel Hawthorne in his cathartic attempt to exorcise all the misery and pain that these women had endured.

Figure 27: Witches on the pyre. English print from 1682. As in the majority of representations of witches, this image carefully emphasises their most common characteristic: unkempt, snake-like tresses. This highlights the didactic intent of the scene, in which the Devil, in the form of a winged reptilian creature (also female), has sunk its claws into the condemned.

Albrecht Dürer, on the other hand, had no such qualms; he took a highminded, detached approach to anybody who bucked the trend by portraying The Secrets of the Witch Riding the Goat Backwards (1500– 53

Jacob de Weert’s Witch with a Serpent and Torch, an etching from 1569, held at Antwerp, bears witness to the common iconographical attributes of witches, which, like the Furies, were armed with serpents and torches.

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1505)—a woodcut that displays all his scorn for those who overturn the mental status quo and harness the chaotic disorder of nature. A repertoire of images such as this made it easy to coerce people into believing that the best thing that could happen to such an adversary—as the legend of Perseus taught—was to be wiped from the face of the Earth. So, this is precisely what they set out to do, as testified to by the horrific and memorable images that posterity has left us of the interrogation, torture and execution of witches by hanging them or burning them at the stake (Figure 27).

The Hybrids Across the boards of the Eastern and Western stages trod horrifying and distressing creatures that could be recognised by their particular mix of animal characteristics. This parade of horrors has been eagerly represented throughout history, and even today, stimulated by the endless imaginary possibilities offered by genetic engineering, hybrid creatures of every type—aliens, cyborgs, androids and mutants—populate a whole host of films, comics and video-games. Thus the bountiful monsters created by nature or human imagination have been replaced by hollow biotechnological shells. However, hybrids have never lost their impenetrable aura of Otherness—intrinsic to the idea of unholy union between human, animal and the inanimate. As Freud and, especially, Jung taught us, such creatures are born out of the land of dreams and the collective unconscious, where their supernatural powers have been steeped in the rituals of the huntergatherers, who incorporated them into the infinite kingdom of zoomorphic contamination.54 Cognitivist psychologists, on the other hand, recognise hybrids as impure but precise expressions of the processes of creativity. According to Jerome Bruner, they could simply be additions to the endless series of symbols and images that we, as humans, create, and to some extent allow ourselves to be conditioned by. For these reasons, among others, for many scholars hybrids are a powerful medium for proposing hypotheses on the

54

For the archetypal images of the human psyche see Mircea Eliade, Images and Symbols: Studies in Religious Symbolism, trans. Philip Mairet (Princeton New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1991).

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origin of human emotions.55 Over time, these extraordinary, portentous, monstrous and often divine creatures have slipped into our very souls. Their power resides in their ability to gift us unfathomable thrills and sublime fears. This they have been doing for at least 30,000 years, when the first drawings of Palaeolithic hybrids appeared in a cave in Chauvet, France, among other places. However, it was not until the first accounts of the Greek myths that we catch glimpses of the snake-woman—after her glorious past, cornered in her lair and numbered among the forces threatening to destroy the order of the cosmos. In the most ancient myths she took the form of the beautiful Echidna—half woman, half serpent. According to Hesiod, Echidna was a prototype of all the primordial monsters that lurked in the darkest recesses of the Earth. Her offspring by Typhon swelled the crowded ranks of the strange beasts recounted in the Greek myths (the many-headed dogs Cerberus and Orthrus, the Nemean lion, and Ladon, the dragon with a hundred heads, for example), and a whole host of troublesome feminine creatures—the Sphinx, the Chimera, the Harpies and the Lernaean Hydra—numbered among her daughters. All of these anti-heroes were methodically wiped out by the hero of the day—first and foremost those, like the Gorgons, related to the snake. Nonetheless, reptilian hybrids have never gone out of fashion, and their history is not difficult to trace throughout the centuries in the artistic and literary sources. Zooanthropomorphic carvings, gargoyles and grotesques adorn every major building erected in the Romano-Gothic period, and they filled the pages of the Medieval Bestiaries. After Physiologus (a protoChristian didactic text in Greek, probably compiled in Alexandria, Egypt),

55

Licia Filangieri tackles the problem of the origin of human expressivity by analysing the zooanthromorphic art of the Paleolithic in L’ibrido come simbolo di trasformazione, on the home page of the ‘Paleolithic Art Magazine’, website, Europa, 2000–2002. For creative expression in pre-history and the origins of symbolism see Gabriella Brusa Zappellini, Morfologia dell’immaginario. L’arte delle origini fra linguistica e neuroscienze, (Milan: Arcipelago Edizioni, 2009); for zooanthropology in the ancient world and the role played by representations of animals in the construction of gender identity, see also Cristiana Franco (ed.), Zoomania. Animali ibridi e mostri nelle culture umane, Catalogo scientifico dell’omonima mostra (Siena: Protagon, 2007).

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these books gave a Christian slant to the lamentable tradition of seeking affinities between women and serpents.56 It was upon the crest of this wave that Dante described the infernal Furies as “dire Erinyes" encircled by the “greenest hydras” (Inferno, canto IX, vv. 39–42); while their sister, Mélusine, direct heir of the Greek Echidna, was at home in any visual or narrative landscape in which she was placed. However, the combination of a proto-historic and Classical inheritance also produced an unpredictable consequence in the Middle Ages: the invention of the Serpent-Fairy. In this figure, Laurence Harf-Lancner, scholar of Medieval mythology, discerned the outline of the feudal imagination of the twelfth century, all the colours of folklore and the first ominous shadows projected by Christian philosophers onto the pagan fairies—which were eventually caught up in the yawning maelstrom of witchcraft.57 Fairies have therefore earned a legitimate place among the major female hybrids. Although they were able to take on human form in order to seduce mortal men, they still conserved vestiges of their primitive animal origins, whether it be snake, dragon or fish. Take for example the alluring serpent-lady of Langres described by the Cistercian monk Geoffrey d’Auxerre. This creature was also adopted by Jean d’Arras, who made her the founding mother of the noble House of Lusignan in the knightly romance (1393–1394) which he wrote for the moral and behavioural edification of aristocratic youths.58 This hybrid, which was transformed by popular French mythology into a fairy, is also a key character in Andersen’s fairy tale The Little Mermaid (1836), which was recently brought up to date in the famous Disney cartoon of the same name. Who would have thought that sweet little Ariel, like her ancestor, the beautiful Mélusine, came from the same primitive stock as the grotesque Gorgons? But the hybrid, origin of so many memorable images, has always been at the very heart of mythology, folklore, fairy tales, literature 56

Francesco Zambon, L’alfabeto simbolico degli animali. I bestiari del Medioevo, (Milan-Trento: Luni, 2001), 78. 57 Laurence Harf-Lancner, Les fées du Moyen Âge. Morgane et Mélusine. La naissance des fées (Paris: Champion, 1984). 58 Jean d’Arras, Mélusine ou la noble histoire de Lusignan, roman du XIVe siècle, Nouvelle édition critique d’après le manuscrit de la bibliothèque de l’Arsenal avec les variantes de tous les manuscrits, Introduction and notes by Jean Jacques Vincensini (Paris: Librairie générale française, 2003).

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and science fiction. Nevertheless, unlike the early stories of innocuous exchange between the human and animal worlds, later versions were careful to build a wall between these two kingdoms in order to perpetuate the Western educational tradition of branding bestial traits as a sign of dangerous Otherness.59 This idea was built upon the subterranean foundations and evocative representations of Otherness recounted by Homer and Hesiod, which were later developed in the myths of the third and second centuries BCE.60 This trend began with the enigmatic Chimera—a hybrid of goat, lion and snake—whom Hesiod described as a daughter of Echidna (whose name means ‘She-Viper’ in Greek) and Typhon (a monstrous giant with snakes for legs), and whom Homer sent Bellerophon to slay in the Iliad (VI, 180– 184). In Hellenistic and Roman art, the Chimera had lost some of her bestial attributes, and was sometimes portrayed as having the head of a human female, but she still retained her ready bite in the form of a snakeheaded tail. As mentioned above, the Erinyes also had an illustrious career among the ranks of the hybrids. These infernal creatures were often portrayed as winged—although not on the famous Delphic vase from 350–340 BCE, which provides spectators with a thrilling depiction of their revenge; in this image, a group of women (the Erinyes) with snakes entwined around their hands, arms and hair have cornered Orestes, who is desperately pleading with Athena for divine intervention (Figure 28). Another hybrid that played host to serpents was the Lernaean Hydra; she was destined to die at the hands of Heracles, who managed to escape the poisonous breath emanating from the mouths of her two serpentine heads. In the fifth century BCE, Hanno the Navigator—a Carthaginian explorer—made an expedition to Hesperides (modern-day Benghazi), and reported finding a hitherto undiscovered island that was populated by wild, ferocious and hairy female creatures, a myth later propagated by Pomponius Mela. Pliny the Elder, in his Natural History, made a

59

For an educational approach to the study of human relations with other animal species see Claudio Tugnoli (ed.), Zooantropologia. Storia, etica e pedagogia dell’interazione uomo/animale (Milan: Franco Angeli, 2003). 60 The idea of a woman as a source of ill luck was advanced in the myth of Pandora in Hesiod’s Theogony (vv. 520–612) and Works and Days (vv. 53–105).

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connection between these Gorillai and the Gorgons61—a mythical bond that survived up to the Middle Ages and beyond.

Figure 28: Dripping with serpentine symbolism, in this scene the Erinyes surround a cowering Orestes, Lucanian red-figure Nestoris, 4th century BCE, Naples National Archaeological Museum

In The History of Four-Footed Beasts (1607) and the History of Serpents and Insects (1608), the English cleric Edward Topsell (1575– 1625), dipping into a widening and apparently bottomless pool of bestial inspiration, ‘discovered’ the Amazons, and another strange Libyan creature (probably a gnu), the Catoblepas62 (Figure 29). In essence, the Catoblepas was close kin to da Vinci’s Gorgon—a horrid, fearsome beast with poisonous breath and a gaze that was fatal to any living creature:

61 Benedetto Bonacelli, L’Africa nella concezione geografica degli antichi (Verbania: Airoldi, 1942), 66. 62 Edward Topsell, The History of Four-Footed Beasts and Serpents. Online, accessed November 13, 2015: https://archive.org/details/ historyoffourfoo00tops. For a reprint see Edward Topsell, The History of Four-Footed Beasts and Serpents and Insects, 3 vol. (New York: Capo Press, 1967).

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This beast had the same powers attributed to the African Amazons led by Medusa; these monstrous warrior-women, who were related to the Scythians, also had snakes growing out of their hair—a trait that was later mirrored in the unkempt tresses of witches.

Figure 29: Woodcut of the Gorgon transformed into a strange Libyan beast, the Catoblepas, recognisable for its snakelike tail and deadly gaze. From Edward Topsell, The History of Four-Footed Beasts and Serpents, 1658.

The transformation of the Gorgon into the animal described in Topsell’s illustrated Bestiary is another example of distorted perception. Many of this plentiful series of creatures, like the Catoblepas and the 63

Ibidem, ‘Gorgon’, Book III, Chapter 7, 622–623.

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Basilisk,64 shared a deadly gaze and an inhuman ability to kill people with their eyes and/or breath. This stereotype, promoted by both Pliny the Elder65 and Apollodorus66 (2nd century CE), was therefore still alive and kicking in the seventeenth century. The scientific authorities of the day eagerly lapped up Topsell’s ‘realistic’ description of the Catoblepas— produced by a combination of Classical myth and a would-be scientific approach to natural history. Such standpoints indicate that one of the main functions of the hybrids was exactly that: to promote belief in the existence of creatures that could kill you just by looking at you or breathing on you. If we stretch our own imaginations, it should be possible for us to intuit the effect that such ideas had on our ancestors, both recent and more remote. The asphyxiating breath of the Hydra and the wizening glance of the Gorgon—lethal weapons of the eccentric beings created by the fantastical imaginations of Greek males—were certainly welcomed by the artistic, scientific and collective imaginations of the sixteenth century and even later. Bewitched by this spell, the majority of Europeans would have internalised the idea of the killing gaze, and taken that of inherent female monstrosity for granted. For our forefathers it was an unavoidable cultural duty to torment themselves (and their children) with the thought that a woman with snakes for hair (or in the place of lower limbs) could threaten their very lives with her fiery glance. This bizarre invention—an essential component of the history of fear 67 —continued to be embellished and expanded upon as history marched on. The benign figure of the snake-woman, depicted by the Minoans as a seductive lady worthy of ingratiation, was replaced in increments by the altogether more horrifying image of the dreadful Gorgon. In Hesiod’s Theogony, 68 this shameful icon of the relationship 64 Ibid., ‘Basilisk’. Here Topsell provides a careful analysis of the deadly powers of the Basilisk, which, in his opinion, were concentrated in the toxic vapours emitted in its breath, or perhaps from its entire body, and the bloodshot gaze, like that of the Gorgon, capable of infecting the air. He also makes reference to a Basilisk, found in a 9th-century church in Rome, which had allegedly been slain by the powerful prayers of Pope Leo IV, 119–125. 65 The Elder Pliny on The Human Animal, Natural History had already legitimised the lethal eyes of the Basilisk and Catoblepas (Book XIII). 66 Apollodorus, The Library, 1I. 67 Jean Delumeau, La Peur en Occident (xive- xviiie siècles), (Paris: Fayard, 1978). 68 Hesiod, Theogony, vv. 270–285, 326, 334–335.

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between humanity and bestiality was surrounded by more of her ilk— terrible sisters such as Echidna, the Hydra and the Sphinx, and a reptilian brother, and in Pindar’s Pythian Odes her snake familiars had now become fused to her head (X, 46–50). What can we, in this day and age, learn from the hybrids conscientiously constructed and depicted by painters, sculptors, poets and narrators across the centuries? Well, for a start we can pinpoint exactly what kind of creatures they abhorred, what they did not want to see or feel, and what failed to spark the merest hint of empathy or compassion in their souls (sentiments that were in any case poorly developed in Antiquity). The fascinating history of the female hybrid may also give us a clear idea of human misery throughout history, as well as the things that threatened the male status quo, and the frightening detritus that collected in their brains when the male citizens of the polis—creators of the modern world— stopped seeing women as metaphorical incarnations of the fertile earth, and instead began, with their composed and detached logic, to treat them as inferior beings. At the centre of this vortex of Otherness was the image of a hybrid monster—the snake-woman, Medusa—and Page duBois identified in her a distillation of the fear of women, specifically their generative power, selfsufficiency, and value in Archaic society.69

The iconography of “mournful thoughts” Thoroughly depressing are the “mournful thoughts” of the age of iron recounted by Hesiod in his Works and Days (vv. 174–201), where men and women suffered and succumbed to the vendettas and jealousies of the gods, the capricious quirks of fate, and the misfortune caused by the evil eye—all unpredictable and uncontrollable ills. In the West, a belief in the evil eye (which still persists to the present day in some parts of the world) and the fatal stare of the Gorgon were familiar, integral parts of both Greek religion and the more widespread rural mentality. In the precarious existence of the time, however, the Gorgon also served another purpose,

69

Page duBois, Sowing the Body: Psychoanalysis and Ancient Representations of Women (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988), 123.

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offering a protective antidote against the vagaries of life—after all, in Greek her name marked her out as a “queen” and “guardian”.70 Thanks to this flexibility of role, she was also depicted as a reassuring custodian of community life (Figure 30), and accordingly used to adorn roofs, doors, antefixes, ships, vases, cups, weapons, amulets, clothes and jewellery. She defeated numerous enemies of the city and the empire, and trod the borders between life and death, joy and pain, civility and incivility, subjects and citizens, adults and children, and, of course, men and women.

Figure 30: Unlike the grotesque Gorgons used to frighten off evil spirits, there were also more benign and peaceful versions, like this from the 4th century BCE, which gave comfort to all visitors to the temple. From the Sanctuary of the Goddess Mephitis at Rossano di Vaglio, Museum of the Ancient People of Lucania, Italy.

How did women themselves see the Gorgon? We are not the first to ask ourselves this question; Alyssa Hagen sought the answer among 70

See Alyssa Hagen, Gorgo: Apotropaism and Liminality. Unpublished thesis presented in pursuit of a Masters at School of Humanities, Arts and Cultural Studies, Hampshire College, Amherst 2007.

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archaeological finds, testament to the precious experiences that animated this relationship. According to her interpretation, women viewed the Gorgon as the assistant to Artimedes—a protectress of women in childbirth, infants and young people—not to mention as ‘Mistress of the animals’ (Figure 31). On their visits to their temples, women were heartened by scenes of the birth of Pegasus and the mortal giant Chrisaor,71 amongst other carvings. At the Temple of Athens at Syracuse, they were also conceded the fragile pleasure of embracing Pegasus as a foal—identified as an archetype of youth in Antiquity.

Figure 31: A Gorgon “Mistress of the animals” on a pottery plate from Rhodes, 630 BCE. British Museum, London. In Archaic Greece the Gorgon was a type of demon—part woman, part animal. Sometimes she is represented with the body of a Minoan goddess, Potnia Theron (queen of the animals), whose features were later transposed onto Artemis, goddess of the hunt. Even the name Medusa, ‘the lady’, hints at her mysterious hold over wild beasts.

71

For a thorough analysis of the ancient literary and artistic documentation on the birth of Pegasus and Chrisaor, and the connections between Medusa, the weasel, the horse, the underwater world and the underworld, see Igor Baglioni, ‘Nascere da Medusa. Studio sul parto di Gorgo e sulle caratteristiche dei suoi figli’, Antrocom, Online Journal of Anthropology, 2010, vol. 6, 2, 207–219.

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It appears therefore that at one time the image of the Gorgon did not provoke nightmares in the minds of women, but was instead to them a trusted protectress, who, in company with other female deities, facilitated childbirth and guided the development of the youngest citizens of the polis. Nevertheless, this benevolent attitude did not survive the Classical Age, in which Medusa suffered a humiliating relegation to a role as guardian of Hades (Figure 32).

Figure 32: Head of Medusa on a tomb from the late Hellenistic period, 2nd century BCE. From the necropolis at the archaeological site at Hierapolis, Turkey.

This was how she was received and portrayed by Dante, centuries later, in Canto IX of his Inferno. Her head, one of the most recognisable symbols of Greek, Roman and Hellenistic art, no longer calmed and soothed; instead, it became emblematic of the terrifying femininity that had become so feared in the traditional cultures of the Mediterranean and

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north-east. 72 In iconography, the link between the Gorgon and the underworld, death, dangerous sexuality, the superhuman, the unknown, and the twin mysteries of menstrual blood and serpents kindled real and imagined fears, rendering them indistinguishable one from the other. According to the tradition upheld by Lucan, Apollodorus and Ovid, the blood of the Gorgon—evil and deadly even after death—had gifted the world snakes and monstrous reptilian creatures like the Basilisk—the main heir of the fatal stare of its mother.73 From this imaginary space, real historical time absorbed the worst conception of death known to the Ancient Greeks. Indeed, aside from their desperation not to be forgotten by posterity, the most discomfiting idea for the Greek heroes was being dispatched to the great beyond at the hands of a mere female. This was the Achilles’ heel of the fragile male ego and the Classical view of morality, which had masculinised death by idealising the young warriors that had fallen in battle. According to Hagen, it was from this seed—buried in the fertile collective unconscious—that the sense of conflict between male and female grew. Indeed, in the minds of Greek men the omnipotent armour of Thanatos was far preferable to the inchoate and murky death inflicted by the Gorgon, who had come to represent more the mistress of death than of life. Inspired by Hesiod, artists made great spectacle of the Medusa’s own end (Figure 33), which was inextricably linked with the birth of her hideous offspring, both human and bestial. In doing so they blurred the lines between reality and imagination, and nurtured the shoots of social aversion and fear of the female, whatever form she may take on.

72

Hagen, Gorgo, 12. The finds exhibited here display the various ideas and influences, from both Europe and the East (Egypt, Mesopotamia, Anatolia and India), that contributed to the consolidation of this image of the Gorgon. 73 Baglioni, Nascere da Medusa, 209. Within the framework of the concept of physiology put forward in the Corpus hippocraticum, the close ties between menstrual blood, bleeding from the nose or mouth, and giving birth from the head or mouth can be discerned.

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Figure 33: Travertine metope from a Greek temple at Selinunte, Sicily, mid-6th century BCE, Palermo National Archaeological Museum. Perseus, with the supportive figure of Athena at his right, plunges his sword into the neck of Medusa. Her newborn son Pegasus rests his head in a safe place between the breasts of his dying mother. The jolly faces of all the figures are typical of Archaic art.

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Fear Itself What would fear become without monsters? And where would the Greek, Etruscan, Roman, Oriental and Egyptian iconography be without the Gorgons, the Furies, the Minotaur, Cyclops, Scylla, Charybdis and a thousand other nightmares made flesh? The fear of the unknown (what lurks at the bottom of the oceans, beyond the Pillars of Hercules, on the other side of India?), the dark, lightning, pain and death stirred primal tensions and breathed life into twisted insecurities. Indeed, collective fears can be forged in response to both real threats and insidious internal anxieties that themselves generate looming imaginary menaces. Seeking to get to the bottom of this phenomenon, Jean Delumeau postulated that Medusa was the object and symbol of an unmotivated fear of women.74 This was the nexus between alterity and evil, which has held firm over the centuries, driving the identification of the Other as a threat. It is certainly no coincidence that one of the accusations most commonly levelled at women during the witch-trials was depriving men of their virility75 (Figure 34). In this women-wary world, artists quickly and knowingly made themselves didactically indispensable, depicting monsters that were never far from people’s thoughts; between the seventh and first centuries BCE, master stone-carvers, painters and bronze-workers breathed life into every possible nightmare. The triumphal eruption of the Gorgon onto the artistic scene in this era was indicative of the transformation of all that had been rational, positive and promising into crazed, irrational destructiveness. In Mediterranean civilisations the figurines of stone, bone, horn and ivory celebrating the goddesses of fertility in primitive and Archaic art, and the Minoan and Mycenaean masterpieces honouring the Snake Goddesses lost their age-old power. The primordial forces of fecundity were overturned, and transformed into something pitiless and monstrous that stank of the fetid odour of blood and death. This was the path that Medusa was forced to tread, and how she ended up terrifying mere mortals century after century. From the Archaic era to the present day, her visage has been used to represent the shadows of imagination that scientific research has thus far failed to entirely illuminate. The mythological creatures that obsessed our ancestors gradually 74

Delumeau, Peur en Occident, XIVe–XVIIIe siècles, 105. Ibidem.

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snaked around the murky underpinnings of our collective sensibilities, refusing to let go.

Figure 34: Witches brewing up a hailstorm. Woodcut, Augsburg, Germany, printed in the 1508 version of Ulrich Molitor’s De lamiis et pythonicis mulieribus (Of Witches and Diviner Women).

From the classical monsters and the weird creatures described in the Medieval Bestiaries to today’s biotechnology, GMOs and genetic engineering of the human, plant and animal kingdoms, the hybrid has been ever present in our imagination; with no regard for the other or the passage of time, they have unwittingly become the yardstick by which we measure ourselves against nature, the animal kingdom, our own entrails, and all the spectres and archetypes that we welcome into our hearts.

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The hybrid, apparently destined to become a caricature of humanity or a caprice of nature, has always been obstinately bogged down in the swamps of Otherness, as demonstrated in the lively exhibition put on at the Rovereto Modern Art Museum, Italy, in 2004 by Lea Vergine and Giorgio Verzotti. This exhibition followed the footprints that hybrids have left in the art and literature of the past, from the Greco-Roman period to the present day. Inevitably the picturesque Medusa was one of the stars of the show, as a dramatic emblem of the relationship between humans and ‘lesser’ beasts. Walking through the displays, I reached the surprising conclusion that hybrids, after crossing the negative threshold of Otherness into the appealing but deadly terrain of instinctive violence and aggressiveness, abruptly did an unprecedented about-face, marching back in the opposite direction, towards proximity. Thus the exhibition provided an opportunity to reflect upon the history of hybrids, the subconscious, our internal lives and the need to take Otherness as a metaphorical critique of social realities.76 After the sun set on the idea of bestiality as Otherness, contemporary art and literature began to express a sense of closeness to new forms and meanings. The extraordinary influence of the snake-woman has crossed over into our internal or unconscious imaginings, and meets our need to look inside for the Other in order to reconnect with our lost animal instincts. She also offers a precious perspective on the world by repressing both human bestiality and the humanity within the beast. In this contrasting role, the enigmatic serpent-woman is the ideal figure-head for feminists determined to use metaphor as a means of creating a fundamental shift in the way in which reality and the world we live in is portrayed. In the 1970s, Hélène Cixous, with unprecedented creativity and autonomy of thought, discerned in Medusa—born in the fearful abyss of men’s minds and their worrying need to associate femininity with death77—a pleasing spark of vital tension and insouciance. Roughly forty years later, the body-art performances by Marina Abramoviü at the Rovereto exhibition showed themselves to be variations 76

See the catalogue for the exhibition ‘Il Bello e le bestie. Meditazioni sul divenire animale’ in Lea Vergine and Giorgio Verzotti (eds.), Metamorfosi, artifici e ibridi, dal mito all’immaginario scientifico (Genoa-Milan: Skira 2004), 8. 77 Hélène Cixous, ‘The Laugh of the Medusa’, trans. Keith Cohen and Paula Cohen, Signs, vol. 1, No. 4 (Summer, 1976), 875–893.

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on the same theme. Immobile and accepting, the artist allowed a python to slither over her face and head, thereby creating a fantastically energetic and heartening ‘living sculpture’. By these means the Rovereto Museum exhibition triumphantly highlighted the continued attempts in contemporary visual arts to savour— in full accord with the past—the multi-coloured kaleidoscope of images and the thousand man-made destinies of the bestial roots of humanity. A case in point is the golden sculpture of Medusa by Lucio Fontana (1948). In it her snake familiars are arrayed like the rays of the sun; at the height of their splendour, they disperse and dispel uncontrollable primordial fears.

Monster-women on film Why are female monsters such a popular trope in the movies? Because they still make us tremble with fear, and fear fascinates. Hence, following in the footsteps of the painters, sculptors, storytellers, historians and psychologists, since the dawn of the twentieth century it has been the job of film directors to titillate us with terror in their form of the visual arts. And I think we can all agree that there is no better medium for communicating the palpitating sensations of imminent doom, obscure evils, dastardly enemies, profound ugliness of spirit and cold, hard mirrors of the soul. Through celluloid (or megabytes) we see, hear and feel the warning signs that herald pain, sickness, death and the end of the world. But has this feeling of fear remained the same or been transformed over the course of history? Today it would be unthinkable that man could be killed by a malicious glance, which would appear to indicate our way of feeling fear has completely changed. However, if we are now gripped by different fears, why are horror films often based on an encounter with a fatal stare, even in today’s world of science? Indeed, one of the most terrifying productions of that which Erwin Panofsky defined as the “seventh art” is arguably The Ring.78 In it, the female protagonist—a young girl called Sadako—curdles the blood and chills the marrow, petrifying her audience by emerging from the screen 78

For a print version see the Japanese novel by Koji Suzuki, Ring (1991). On film see, for example, The Ring by Gore Verbinski; and the numerous forums and websites on the Ring-world.

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and fixing them with an icy stare from a single, deadly eye. This monstrous creature, having clambered up from the darkest recesses of the Archaic world, has enjoyed equal if not greater success in the post-modern age; she has featured in several Japanese and Korean films, many of which have been remade for the American audience. The intense debate that has arisen on the topic begs reflection on the emotive atmosphere thrown up by female monsters in cinematographic productions—horror film staples which provoke reactions that are, in all appearances, the same as those experienced by our most distant of ancestors. In The Ring cycle, the malign powers of the child—whose wild tresses reinforce her connections with Medusa—have a strong hold over the public. Her paranormal skills are even sufficient to impress her image on celluloid and enchant the devices used to play it. In the horror of The Ring, in which millennia-old fears meld with those of the present day, Sadako’s power to make people see and feel that which she has suffered influences not only the moving image, but others through her gaze, which heralds their imminent destruction. Her eye, the typical fruit of an ancient symbolic tree, has now turned its attention towards the tools of the Information Age—television, DVDs, YouTube and the internet—through which she astutely evokes chilling visions of female-orientated danger, often associated with motherhood. Thus the patriarchal subconscious appears to have found a new home in the cinematic imagination of horror films, which are seen by Jane Flax as a kind of seismograph of collective fears.79 And so the endless parade of female monsters marches on into the future. But how did these monsters, shaped so far back in the past as to seem redundant and old-fashioned nowadays, manage to reincarnate themselves so readily, drawing out the internal screams of these new generations of cinema-goers? Why are the post-Oedipal generations—who scoff at the idea of dying from a mere glance—nevertheless stricken with fear and angst when confronted by the descendants of the dreaded Medusa? In line with the Freudian concept of “the uncanny”, these torments seem to find a commodious refuge in the horrifying phantasms of 79

Jane Flax, ‘Political Philosophy and the Patriarchal Unconscious: A Psychoanalytic Perspective on Epistemology and Metaphysics’, in Sandra Harding and Merille B. Hintikka, Discovering Reality (New York, Boston, Dordrecht, London, Moscow: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1983).

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contemporary art and fiction. 80 Indeed the machinations of monstrous women and mothers of monsters in horror films are seemingly inexhaustible The age-old monster-women—easily identified by their sulphurous fumes, rivers of blood, vendettas, sorcery, and vampirous kisses—are now bolstered by new ranks of scaly alien women, and hybrids designed and perfected in the labs of the high-priests of science and technology. While exploring this phenomenon, Barbara Creed,81 and other feminist scholars like Rosi Braidotti, 82 have uncovered not only the imprints of male phobias, but also an emblematic symptom of the emotive hues of a confused social order—fearful and afraid of the post-modern crisis in paternal authority. As the power of technology casts its shadow over the world, the need to understand monstrous female beings like Sadako becomes ever more pressing. This search for answers has generated a considerable amount of discussion on The Ring cycle,83 whose terrifying female lead, for many, is indicative of how today’s society deals with the Otherness of women and the oneiric representation of motherhood. What if the icy gaze of Sadako were not a trigger for the metamorphosis of creatures with new meanings, nor merely an ephemeral pastime that chills the heart for an hour or two, but instead a kind of reverse Pandora's box, filled with all the ineffable fears of the public? In this case we would have to look again in more detail at Cixous’ idea in order to comprehend the meaning behind her deadly gaze. Naturally, all roads on the search to interpret any such a creature’s petrifying stare lead inevitably to the primordial incarnation of this horror, 80

For a feminist perspective, see Mary Douglas, Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo (London: Routledge, 2000, first published 1966); Julia Kristeva, Pouvoirs de l'horreur. Essai sur l’abjection. (Paris: Edition du Seuil, 1980); Barbara Creed, The Monstrous-Feminine: Film, Feminism, Psychoanalysis (London-New York: Routledge, 1993); Rosi Braidotti, In metamorfosi. Verso una teoria materialista del divenire (Milan: Feltrinelli, 2003). For a thorough critical analysis of female representations in horror, see Diana Sartori, Pericolo di riproduzione: Ring, il cerchio che non si chiude. Online, accessed October 13, 2016: httpp://diotima.filosofe.it/. And for more on the perceived association between maternity and danger, see ‘Con lo spirito materno’, in Diotima (eds.), L’ombra della madre (Naples: Liguori, 2007). 81 Creed, The Monstrous-Feminine. 82 Braidotti, In metamorfosi. 83 Sartori, Pericolo di riproduzione, 7.

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and the terrible face of another maligned woman: Medusa. It is no surprise, therefore, that researchers throughout the centuries have made the pilgrimage to the entrance of her cave, or that her severed head has been given prominence in a whole host of their interpretations. To cite a recent example, Erich Kuersten84 meditated on the insistent gloomy thoughts we carry inside, and the fact that no Perseus is waiting to save us from the unnameable lurking menace. There is no substitute for his gloriously triumphal decapitation of the monster to grant us relief from our fears. Like Kuersten, we must therefore reflect upon the idea that the darkest corners of our emotional and personal lives are still shaken by the thought that the patriarchy may not be indispensable after all. Indeed, this same affliction is easily recognisable in the “black Night” recounted by Hesiod in Theogony, when Gaia dared to raise her voice, urging her sons to punish the vile deeds of their father, “but fear seized them all, and none of them uttered a word” (vv. 161–167). In this ‘new age’ of equal opportunities and the insuppressible desire for renewal, what can we say about Medusa? Is she today a monument to the patriarchal status quo, or has she finally sounded its death-knell?

84

Erich Kuersten, ‘Looking through The Ring: Mecha-Medusa & the Otherless Child’, Academic Journal of Film & Media, Online, accessed April 12, 2016: http://academic.com/id63.html.

CHAPTER THREE IN THE NOCTURNAL REGIME OF THE MEDIEVAL IMAGINARY

In the chaos of the night French theorist Gilbert Durand described the imaginary as a dynamic system able to lend itself to the creation of cultural mythemes, symbols, schemas and archetypes.1 In his research, the inventor of the science of the imaginary correlated the concept of “regime” with a set of elements characterised by a combination of stratified groups of symbolic representations arranged in structures, in other words a kind of fluid glue or protocol for regulating the imaginary. Historical and social forces have orchestrated a flexible concatenation among similar groups into two polar regimes of images: the diurnal and nocturnal. The principal function of these regimes is to provide an explanatory framework for obscure phenomena—in particular death, which is experienced in all human societies as a source of primordial fear. Our ancestors were terrified of death and connected it with the night—the realm of darkness. This is clearly evident in the Jewish Talmud, in which Adam and Eve looked on in terror, with the horror of death seeping into their hearts, as night fell across the horizon. According to Durand, this pervasive sense of impending doom is equivalent to the “vespertine depression” that also wanders undisturbed throughout today’s post-modern society. In any case, its effects are readily apparent in traditional folklore, which filled the night with heart-stoppingly terrifying creatures, evil beasts and infernal monsters on the prowl—in search of souls and bodies to devour.

1

Gilbert Durand, The Anthropological Structures of the Imaginary, trans. Margaret Sankey and Judith Hatten (Brisbane: Boombana Publications, 1999), 53.

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Bernard of Clairvaux (1090–1153), too, assimilated this sense of desperation, comparing the chaos of the night to tenebrous hell. Indeed, Medieval symbolism in general was steeped in fear of the horned devil, the screeching, tumultuous filth of the shadows, and the darkness that could engulf the mind.2 This type of imaginary also provided the ideal medium for depicting the gloomy aspect of water, beneath whose surface lugubrious monsters often lurked.3 One creature associated with this desolate liquid was the theriomorphic dragon (Figure 1); in Celtic legends it was clothed in all the negative features of the nocturnal regime and, by mixing together the nefarious elements of darkness and water it effectively became—in psychological terms—the archetype of The Beast.4 This murky aquatic symbolism was also echoed in other series of schemas: e.g., flowing locks and menstrual blood—both labels of femininity. According to Durand, “the archetype of the dangerous aquatic element is menstrual blood”5—the perfect symbol of the dark waters, its physiological support. 6 Even the biblical myths connected water, the moon and the snake—this lunar animal was the herald of death and a powerful symbol of the Fall from Grace. In fact, several gynaecological prophecies came to pass in the Garden of Eden; although menstruation was not mentioned, the threats of punishment through the suffering of pregnancy and the pain of childbirth were very explicit. In many other religious and traditions, including Amerindian, Eskimo, Rhodesian and Melanesian, not to mention the well-known myth of Pandora's box, menstruation was more directly considered a kind of expiation for guilt. In the Christian tradition, on the other hand, the feminisation of original sin was officially incorporated, during the Middle Ages, into the misogynistic imagination that had formalised the similarity between dark waters and menstruation in its symbolic universe. Isomorphism, which associated menstrual flow, fluid, lunar rhythms and flowing hair,

2

Ibidem, 85. Gaston Bachelard, Water and Dreams: An Essay on the Imagination of Matter, trans. Edith R. Farrell (Dallas: Pegasus Foundation, 1983), Chapter 4, 133–151. 4 Durand, The Anthropological Structures of the Imaginary, 89. 5 Ibidem, 111–114. 6 Ibid.,122–124. 3

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had gradually been crystallised into a constellation of images that portrayed the female as an evil, nocturnal symbol.7 Across the world, the agrarian imaginary had forged a cast-iron link between the woman and the snake, and another between menstrual cycles and moon cycles.8 Through the lens of Durand’s interpretation, menstrual blood therefore found itself draped in this negative symbology.

Figure 1: The Dragon—the most fearsome serpent on Earth. 13th-century Medieval Bestiary, British Library, Harley MS 3244, folio 59r. Common features of such images included two or four limbs, a long tail, and at least one pair of wings.

Like the primitive superstitions, second-millennium sensibilities continued to associate snakes and menstrual blood with something lugubrious—a danger 7

Ibid., 113. Ibid., 118.

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that could be transmitted via touch or a look. In the first biblical example of disobedience, the story of Adam and Eve in The Book of Genesis, the woman allows herself to be tempted by the serpent after being entranced by the beauty of the ‘forbidden fruit’, “when she saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye…” (3, 6). As we shall see, the doctrine of the original sin that had thus been inherited by the Medieval church perpetuated the application of imperious control over the visual behaviour of women. It is therefore impossible to understand the medieval fear of the female gaze without making reference to the symbolic constellations of Durand’s nocturnal regime. The idea of all living creatures and worldly things being subjugated by the threat of a deadly glance is the current beneath the surface of many stories recounted in the great Western civilisations. As we touched on in Chapter One, Vernant was one of the first scholars to recognise the significance of the gaze in the Medusa myth, and my research has shown that the influence of this Greco-Roman idea was perhaps even magnified in the Middle Ages. However, in order to for us to be able to fully immerse ourselves in the archetype of the killing gaze, it is essential that we understand the precise social context in which it thrived. Hence we must seek to comprehend the myths that centred around this theme, the times and places in which they were told, and the social functions that they fulfilled. As the German social psychoanalyst Fromm taught us, we need to analyse the social unconscious, and how it has changed over the course of history—the different ways in which each culture expressed the same archetype. With respect to Jung’s primordial images and collective unconscious, Fromm’s concept of the social unconscious had the advantage of viewing archetypes in the light of behavioural models and commonly held beliefs that were embraced by society to guide and repress the collective psyche. The idea that archetypes are primarily social phenomena also lent weight to the correspondence between the different psychological features and behaviours displayed by individuals and the various types of society.9 In order to explore how myths coalesced and mutated over the epochs, and how they changed from place to place in response to social and cultural pressures, therefore, we need to examine a plentiful sample of different accounts. With this in mind it is particularly meaningful to 9

Erich Fromm, The Crisis of Psychoanalysis: Essays on Freud, Marx and Social Psychology (New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston 1970), 85.

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explore a variety of examples from the second millennium, which were influenced by the idea of the ‘natural’ difference between the sexes and a firm belief in the immutability of gender. These examples open a window onto a world in which the forces of Good and Evil were constantly at war, and the bloody conflicts between body and soul, matter and spirit, light and dark, hot and cold, reason and the senses, left and right, perfection and imperfection, life and death, and day and night were everyday concerns. In other words, we need to examine the different versions of the same myths told in an era in which the bipolarity between men and women was a common underlying theme. Indeed, a common feature of many Medieval stories is the woman cast in the role of scapegoat. It should also be noted that the battle to rid the world of malign forces was more often than not conducted in a very public forum. This was as true of the so-called civilised nations as it was of savage and barbarian populations;10 in Christian Europe, as in Antiquity, every possible weapon was employed in the fight against the pernicious female, encouraged by the almost universal belief in the powers of her evil eye. Saint Augustine, who outright denied any connection between the pagan myths and Christianity, was himself sorely afraid of the serpentine tresses of the Gorgon and her purported ability to turn a man to stone with a single glance (The City of God, Book XVIII). Walter Map, Welsh royal clerk and writer, also communicated the same fear in his De nugis curialium (Of the Trifles of Courtiers, 1182), in which he collected several accounts of fulminating and paralysing glances that were recounted in Celtic mythology.11 Likewise, Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun, in their Le Roman de la Rose (co-authored in different periods of the 13th century) accepted without question the deadly powers of Medusa’s glance, as well as the toxic effects of the corrupt serpent. Reading the contemporary literature, it becomes apparent that the idea that a glance from a woman could bewitch, stupefy and/or kill fuelled the fervour for witch-hunting in Christian Europe. Indeed, the authors of the theological, medical and literary texts of the age had all been seduced by this belief, and throughout the second millennium even added to the list of harms that the gaze of a menstruating woman could inflict. It is clear then why Durand grouped such phenomena—the singular relationships between 10

Frazer, The Golden Bough, vol. II, 838. Robert Levine, ‘How to read Walter Map’ in Mittellateinisches Jahrbuch, 23, 1991, 91–105.

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darkness and death, water and the snake, and menstrual blood and the evil eye—into a ‘nocturnal regime’, providentially giving them anthropological meaning, and at the same time relieving us of their burden. At least in principle, the symbolic trajectories of the collective imaginary can be traced as they shaped even Western Christianity, plunging it into a well of indelible nictomorphic representations of the female—images of all that was dark, nocturnal, frightening, unsettling and voracious.

“With a terror similar to…” Like in the more ancient stories, those recounted in the twilight hours of the 12th-century Plantagenet court of Henry II told of enchanting maidens, libidinous heroes and the severing of heads, gouging out of eyes and ripping off of genitals—in other words, of love and death. Walter Map, friend to both kings and saints, masterfully recounted such realworld events (past and present) in the guise of entertainment. The affairs of the kingdom, the undertakings of sovereigns and sultans, and the glorious deeds of princes, knights and warriors were all woven into his plots, as were the fantastical visions of saints, monks, abbots and pilgrims, not to mention the adventures of beautiful women cast in stone. As attractive as these female protagonists may have been, however, the vast majority remained nameless, and therefore soulless; only rarely were these seductive but scary women given an appellation, despite their deadly power. With his Latin prose, wrapped in the same bizarre taste for horror and macabre humour as Poe, Map smirked his way through stories rich in sadistic allusions. He gleefully recounted situations involving cannibalism (in the tale of Atreus, Thyestes and Pelops), vampirism, sex and violence, and—unexpectedly—the threatening cold wind of necrophilia also came to blow through the myth of the Gorgon. 12 This particular fabula ‘The Fantastical Shoemaker of Constantinople’ recounts the passion of an excellent shoemaker, who, catching sight of a charming, noble young lady, welcomed the “virgo pulcherrima” fondly into his heart, along with the

12 For the Medieval perception of a connection between Medusa and necrophilia, see Laurence Harf-Lancner and Marie-Noëlle Polino, ‘“La gouffre de Satalie”. Survivances médievales du mythe de Méduse’, in Le Moyen Âge, 94, 1988, 73– 101.

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“deadly poisons” of love.13 Swept into a vortex of desire, the shoemaker decided to take himself off in search of a new life, new adventures and, in particular, to elevate himself to a more deserving status. Although he had no small measure of success as a soldier, becoming in time a noble knight of some renown and then a most excellent pirate, he still pined for his beloved. When he heard of her demise, therefore, he rushed back to attend her funeral, and to take what had long ago been denied him. According to Map, in the dead of night the lovelorn shoemaker exhumed the deceased maiden and “lay with” her as if she were still alive.14 After having quenched his desire by profaning the corpse, the shoemaker-turned-pirate was then urged by a disembodied voice to return to the scene of the grave after an appropriate gestation period. Following this mysterious instruction to the letter, he found himself the owner of a human head from his entombed love, which he was instructed not to brandish before anyone but enemies whom he wished to slay. Still bitter, the former shoemaker “laid it up, very strongly fastened in a box, and trusting in its power forsook the sea and invaded the land”. He then set about using his unlikely offspring to lay waste to those around him, petrifying them with “a terror like Medusa”, thanks to her glazed stare. He was thereby able to appropriate their property and accrue sufficient riches to marry the late Emperor of Constantinople’s daughter. Intrigued by the secrets of the box, however, the imperial heiress destroyed her “wicked” husband with his own trick, killing him instantly by thrusting the perilous head into his face and forcing him to look upon it. She then rid herself of the evidence, throwing both the head and the fresh corpse into the deepest depths of Charybdis’ vortices, which were so wrathful as to be able to “absorb all that the sea in all its cruelty” could cast into them. Thus, the head of a Gorgon was responsible for catastrophes beyond the bounds of the imagination. The tumultuous currents of Charybdis reinforce the distressing impression of a link between femininity and dark, turbid and terrifying liquid events. Over all lingered the nauseating odour 13 Walter Map, De nugis curialium. Svaghi di corte. Introduction, text, trans. and notes: Fortunata Latella (Parma: Pratiche, 1990, 2 Vol.), vol. II, IV, 12, 503. English edition: De nugis curialium. Courtiers’ trifles, trans. from Latin text by C. N. L. Brooke, and R. A. B. Mynors, Oxford Medieval Text (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983). 14 Map, De nugis curialium (Svaghi di corte), vol. II, IV, 12, 505.

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of a desecrated corpse, shattered lives, destroyed city walls, pillaged settlements and profaned tombs and castles. Despite the evident echoes of the past, nothing like this had ever been heard before—the head of a Gorgon delivered after unlawful union with the horribly putrified body of a woman who had been underground for several days. Was this macabre event, which seems at first glance to be nonsensical, shaped by the norms in force according to which sex and death were embraced in a single, thrilling but destructive convulsion? This post-mortem love for an immobile woman, devoid of the juice of life and spirit (not no mention any say in the matter), reveals the profile of the aggressor. Surrounded by the miasma of death, Fromm would say that man was imprisoned by the stubborn, violent desire to eke out the last drops of passion, even at the end of life—a figure created by a belief system (perpetuated at court and in the Anglo-Saxon folklore) that had created negative associations between the dragon, the insidious snake-woman (Mélusine15) and the slimy head of the Gorgon—an unholy union between water, snakes and death. Milking the horrific potential of this association with all the tools at his disposal, Walter Map cemented the link between the face of the Gorgon and nocturnal serpents—immobile and compact but filled with menace16— elsewhere in the book, remarking upon the scintillating pupils, black as burning coals, of the perfidious Scythian matrons who, by the power of their gaze, led unsuspecting men into the world of shadows.17 Not content, he also dredged up the deplorable ecstasies of women dancing in the cold light of the moon;18 indeed it was in the strange density of the shadows that Map heard the “foul trailings of worms and vipers, of serpents all manner of creeping things”.19 It must also be said that the unfortunate object of the shoemaker’s desire was not the only one to undergo necrophilic acts in De nugis; indeed, another poor deceased lady was forced to accept her husband’s amorous advances after death and under the cover of darkness. Despite her decomposed state, the defiled deceased gave birth to new generations, and thus their father, a knight, overcame the inconvenience of death by 15

Ibidem, vol. II, IV, 9, 483. Ibid., III, 2, 361. 17 Ibid., III, 32, 367. 18 Ibid., IV, 9, 483. 19 Ibid. I, 10, 51. 16

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producing a long line of daughters and granddaughters. This operation was so successful that these unnatural offspring had to be given a new name, Map tells us with a self-satisfied sigh: filii mortuae: ‘children of the tomb’.20 Like the very first readers of De nugis, we can only remain stupefied by the vast array of creatures of the nocturnal realm described therein, not to mention the extent of the violence and aggression perpetrated by men on their powerless victims as they enacted their darkest fantasies on the ‘perfect’ woman 21 —a pliant, uncomplaining mass, silent as the grave, wreathed in shadows, and denatured by the total absence of desires.22

“Medusa, come…!” During his descent into the funereal abyss of the Inferno in the Divine Comedy, Dante is threatened by the Furies, who, with renewed arrogance, invoke Medusa to bury him under cold, moveless stone. They make their violent entrance onto a bitter scene populated by restless marshes, turbid mires, boiling rivers, hostile ravines, wild cliffs, inaccessible walls, smoking towers, burning sands and desolate ice-fields—themselves capable of freezing the blood at a single glance. Understandably the poet is somewhat disorientated by this foreign world and its dead air both “forever black” and “without a star” (Inferno, III, vv. 9–11); he is struck dumb with fear, horrified by the macabre torments which the sinners are forced to suffer, and terrified of the unformed powers of bestial figures. At the entrance to the city of Dis, engulfed in darkness and the fetor of the Stygian marshes, the three Furies appear at the summit of a “red-flaming” tower. Stained with blood and writhing with ire, akin to the choleric marshes below, they beat and scratch at their chests like grieving women at a funeral. “With the greenest hydras begirt”, and “grotesque serpents and cerastes (horned serpents)” entwined at their temples, they convey all the horror of 20

Ibid. Vol. I, II, 13, 223. The dream of the artificial woman, represented by the dead, which has existed since the ancient myths has been examined in Catherine J. Bruno, ‘Fabriquer la femme qui n’existe pas’, Psychanalyse, 14, 2009/1, 57–74. 22 In another sadistic episode with necrophiliac undertones, Map tells us of a knight who is strangely attracted to a young maiden sitting motionless like a statue, whom he feels compelled to violently rape; Map, De nugis curialium, vol. II, III, 337. 21

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the underworld. In Canto IX of the Inferno, fierce Megaera (hate), Alecto (breathlessness) and Tisiphone (the voice of rage) treat the unfortunate poet to the spectacle of nocturnal dread—a hopeless affliction that is accompanied by a savage wave of applause. The spectral light glints off the scales of their “greenest” snake familiars, and the venomous hydras writhing together with other reptiles—harbingers of doom, suffering, pain, remorse and discord. Shocked, Dante seeks refuge in Virgil. In this first movement he identifies the femininity of their bodies and behaviours (Inferno, IX, vv. 34–63), and the narrative tension is dramatically increased to great effect as the Furies hurl themselves at the intruders crying “Medusa come, so we to stone will change him!” (Inferno, IX, vv. 52). Virgil quickly warns Dante not to look, and he himself shields his pupil’s eyes, murmuring, “Turn thyself around, and keep thine eyes close shut, For if the Gorgon appear, and thou shouldst see it, No more returning upward would there be” (Inferno, IX, vv. 55–57). Although Virgil has already half frightened Dante to death by naming and displaying each of the Furies one by one, he now protects him from the deadly gaze of Medusa. This is the most he can do; there can be no greater or crueler threat than what would occur if the poet fixed his desperate gaze on the stony visage of the Gorgon. And Medusa—this time in the masculine form of the Gorgon—effectively raises the level of dark terror in the scene. The sudden appearance of her severed head, roiling with reptilian chaos, is the very emblem of danger; meeting her gaze would irrevocably extinguish all thought, and any desire for knowledge or salvation. Those eyes presage the indelible ugliness of sin, and if she were to capture the glance of the poet, she would effortlessly take over his thoughts and feelings, and take possession of all his spiritual assets. Every conscious effort to overcome evil, every desire for redemption, and every opportunity to reach spiritual harmony would be lost. It is impossible to find a better expression of the fear of Evil in the Medieval mindset; the force of Medusa’s gaze was able to wipe out even the most righteous and vital thoughts. And if that were not heinous enough, it should be remembered that, according to the religious teachings of the Medieval doctrines and dogmas, it was not acceptable to give in to despair voluntarily; if desperation managed to worm its way into your

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heart, you were automatically damned—consigned to the ranks of inveterate sinners who would never again raise their eyes to the heavens.23 As an educated man, Dante had wholly bought into this idea, as revealed by his spiritual guide Virgil (70 BCE–19 BCE), who shielded his gaze in order to protect him from the profound interior tumult that would have eclipsed his powers of self-determination had he looked into the Gorgon’s eyes.24 Virgil’s sensitive gesture, as befitting the mentor that he was, was prompted by the desire to safeguard the intellectual gifts of his pupil from the kind of obtuse spiritual blindness that Medusa’s glance would have thrust upon him. Indeed, Publius Vergilius Maro had himself written of Aeneas’ descent into the underworld and encounters with the daughters of the night—dripping with blood and serpents—including the seven-headed Lernaean Hydra and the terrifying Gorgon sisters (Aeneid, VI, vv. 415– 425). In the Augustan period, Latin literature had made the Greek mythology—complete with its array of monstrous females—its own. The Lamiae, Scyllae, the Harpies and the Gorgons were also diligently embraced by the ecclesiastical writers. Thereby, they became an integral part of the cultural baggage of a civilisation in which the Aristotelian theory of female imperfection was converted into one in which women were inferior beings with malicious leanings, i.e., disciples of the devil. Dante, at the height of his interior struggle, threw himself into a battle with the monster of a thousand heads.25 And, thanks to his poetic genius, 23

Mansfield drew our attention to the Medieval concept of despair, which was not perceived as an emotional disturbance, but rather a grave sin that shackled free will; Margaret Nossel Mansfield, ‘Dante and the Gorgon within’ in Italica, vol. XLVII, n. 2, 1970, 143–160. 24 For more on the Christian interpretation of the Roman poet in Dante, and the Medieval ideas on the ancient authors, from the 4th century CE onwards a study published in 1871 remains unsurpassed, namely: Domenico Comparetti. Virgilio nel Medio Evo, Reprint (Florence: La Nuova Italia, 1998). 25 On the hypothesis of the diachronic continuity between the Medieval stereotype of witches and the negative representations of female monsters in Greek mythology, see Linda McGuire, ‘From Greek myth to medieval witches: infertile women as monstrous and evil’, History of the Ancient Word, October, 2010. Online, accessed 24 June, 2016: http://inter-disciplinary.net/ati/Monsters/M6/mcguire%20paper.pdf

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the Erinyes and Medusa plunged to new diabolical depths. Dante wanted to gift his readers the singular experience of a fusion between human and beast, and to reveal the wild and destructive nature of the Furies by adorning them with snakes—the emblem of the indestructible community of Evil. In the same spirit he thought to portray them soaked in blood, and accompanied by tension, anxiety, pain and death. This is no surprise given the refined educational circles that Dante frequented at the cusp of the 13th century; he had avidly studied, at school and in the libraries, Homer, Ovid, Virgil and the great authority Aristotle, and his thirsty soul and enquiring mind were struck deeply by the insolent audacity of the beings they described. Those hideous creatures, secure in the knowledge of their visual powers, threw themselves wholeheartedly into dastardly diabolic affairs, with their faithful and inseparable serpents at their sides.

The snake as the emblem of Otherness The serpent had taken the most direct route to worldwide fame by way of several religions. It was able to disguise itself as a mere earthly snake, but preferred to travel in a more magical, divine or monstrous guise. It masterfully insinuated itself into the official canons of the most ancient civilisations (Cretan, Mycenaean, Egyptian, Chinese and Indian, etc.) and slithered through the folklore of Eastern Europe. It rendered itself indispensable by performing numerous essential tasks, like protecting the household, symbolising fertility and the female powers of creation, and representing the cyclical nature of life (in Celtic rites). It also served as a pseudo-phallus or divine attribute in ancient Roman society, and slowly the suspicion grew that it was capable of exhibiting human features. In Greek mythology, Echidna—half snake, half woman—was accused of promoting the fusion between reptile and human by giving birth to several types of dragon, amongst other bizarre hybrid creatures. In the Middle Ages, European Christians were entranced by stories of the Basilisk—a crested serpent with the body of either a dragon or a cockerel and the tail of a snake—and of Mélusine—part woman, part fish, part serpent. It was from the pulpits of the Judeo-Christian churches that the deathblow was dealt to the remaining vestiges of positivity that the serpents had once retained as emblems of rebirth and protection, and it was The Book of Genesis in particular that accentuated the fame of the perfidious snake that had led Eve, and then Adam, from the path of righteousness. Nevertheless, in some parts of Medieval Europe traces of the old beliefs could still be found; in Bulgaria, for instance, a snake amulet was

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still considered a reasonably (though not entirely) respectable means of safeguarding the health of humans and their livestock.26 However, on the whole, European societies tended to give in to their baser inclinations and were repulsed by any representations of Otherness; the animal trials held in the secular and ecclesiastical courts from the 1200s onwards give us a very clear idea of the crimes of which the Other could be accused, and any unfortunate beast to be found guilty of thievery, murder, vandalism or sexual perversion would be hanged, buried alive or sent to the pyre.27 The rich figurative and textual world of the Middle Ages was populated by all types of animals—large, small, ferocious, domestic, current, primordial, identifiable and fantastical—all shaped by the spiritual needs of the day. This has led historians to develop many theories on the Medieval uses of animals. 28 These creatures, although often unlikely in appearance, were nevertheless mysteriously convincing to medieval eyes. Among other ideas that Medieval scholars have unveiled are which exemplars—whether real or imaginary—were used to conceptualise and symbolise natural hierarchies, social differences and the contraposition between Good and Evil. At the very top of the list of animals associated with hell and the Devil was, of course, the serpent; whether in the form of the viper, the dragon, or something in between, the snake had a certain reputation in the Christian tradition. In fact, according to Pastoureau, there had not been much of a departure from the idea in Antiquity that the snake was synonymous with the Prince of Evil. The first biblical texts had crystallised the idea of the snake as the evil seducer of Eve and the serpent-dragon as the harbinger of the Apocalypse, thereby consigning all reptilian creatures to their lowly status as moral corrupters. 26

See Svetlana Tsonkova, ‘Pernicious and Poisonous Snake: The Malicious and Dangerous Other in Medieval Bulgarian Charms’ in Francisco de Asís García García, Mónica Ann Walker Vadillo and María Victoria Chico Picaza, Animals and Otherness in the Middle Ages: Perspectives Across Disciplines (Oxford: Archaeopress, 2013), 125–132. 27 See Piers Biernes ‘The law is an Ass: Reading E.P. Evans’ The Medieval Prosecution and Capital Punishment of Animals’ in Society and Animals, vol. 2,1, 1994, 27–46; and Peter Dinzelbacher, ‘Animals trials: a multidisciplinary approach’ in Journal of Interdisciplinary History, vol. 32, 3, 2002, 405–421. 28 This subject was investigated by de Asís García García, Walker Vadillo and Picaza, Animals and Otherness in the Middle Ages: Perspectives Across Disciplines.

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This was particularly applicable to the mythical Medieval dragon, an animal whose main characteristic was its volubility; like the devil it boasted the wings of a bat (another satanic creature), a long tail, scaly armour and terrible halitosis.29 Indeed, there were many parallels between the Medieval description of the dragon and the symbols of infernal bestiality. On the scale of repugnance, the educational Bestiaries placed the serpent right at the top; it had by that time become the symbol par excellence of depravity—condemned by the Creator in the Genesis to slither in the mud for the crime of having led the first human couple into temptation. Reams could be written on the fate of the serpent in the Middle Ages without fully covering the topic. Alongside other animals—real and imaginary—it had been granted a permanent place in the art and mindset of the period, as a vehicle for religious allegory, artistic inspiration and education, and as a popular heraldic emblem. 30 In the 12th-century De bestiis et aliis rebus, a hugely influential Bestiary that has been attributed to Hugh of Saint Victor (1096–1141), the serpent made itself a useful teaching tool for the instruction imparted by the religious institutions; familiarising their students with the art of mnemonic learning, its image demonstrated the nexus between Christological ideas and zoological reality; in the Bestiaries—guaranteed best-sellers in the Middle Ages—it animated countless bizarre accounts, lurking amongst the foliage and other animal motifs in the manuscript illuminations.31 In fact, the Bible, the Gospels, prayer books, sacred Latin texts and the Bestiaire divin (1210–1211) by William the Clerk were all ornamented by a rich assortment of creatures great and small. From the fifth to the fourteenth century, the profusion of undulating scaly and hissing beasts depicted in illuminated manuscripts—especially the Bestiaries, whose production intensified between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries— made the snake a mainstay of Medieval iconography. Readers were 29

Michel Pastoureau, Couleurs, images, symbols. Études d’histoire et d’anthropologie (Paris: Le Léopard d’or, 1986), see in particular the chapter on ‘Animaux et animalité’, 89. 30 See Henry Ansgar Kelly, ‘The Metamorphoses of the Eden Serpent during the Middle Ages and Renaissance’ in Viator, vol. 2, 1971, 301–328. 31 On the popularity of Bestiaries in 12th–14th-century England, and how they were received in the religious, secular, male and female spheres, see Debra Hassig, Medieval Bestiaries: Text, Image, Ideology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995).

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particularly fascinated by stories such as those found in Jacobus de Voragine’s (1228–1298) Golden Legend. A typical offering would be as follows: “A farmer, after a hard day working in the fields, fell asleep with his mouth open, and a serpent slithered in and nested in his insides. When the farmer awoke he felt nothing untoward and so he went home as normal. However, that evening he started to suffer atrociously, and begged Saints Cosmas and Damian to intervene in his aid. As the pain continued to worsen, the hapless farmer made his way to the Church of Martyred Saints, and suddenly fell asleep. The snake then left his body the way it had entered.” 32

The snake was a frequent companion of the saints, martyrs and apostles in de Voragine’s narrative tradition, which accorded perfectly in every respect with the artistic output up to the sixteenth century. The snake also acquired great fame in the symbolism entrenched in Aesop’s Fables and other animal epics, bolstered by the hermeneutic worth conferred on it by the Book of Genesis. In this Old Testament book, common to both the Jewish and Christian traditions, the wheel of fortune had taken a decidedly unlucky turn for the snake, transforming what was once a sacred symbol and emblem of healing into the very face of Evil. This fall from grace was cemented in the Christian texts, which had valorised the attempt of the Creator to populate the Earth only with creatures that would fulfil their divine functions. Nevertheless, the negative biblical symbolism failed to deter the authors of the Bestiaries, who spent many hours perfecting the image of the seductive serpent put forward in the Genesis. One of the first texts to develop this idea was the Physiologus, written in Alexandria, Egypt, in the second or third century CE. This popularised the religious quality, behaviour, character and sentiments of animals, and was so successful that its influence lasted for more than a thousand years. It was translated into Latin and the Oriental languages, and thus served as a potent source of inspiration for the figurative arts throughout the civilised world. Having appeared no fewer than a dozen times on the pages of the first edition of the Physiologus (of which an equally favoured

32

Jacopo da Varazze, Legenda aurea, (Milan: Einaudi, 2007) CXLIII. (See the English edition The Golden Legend of Jacobus de Voragine trans. Granger Ryan and Helmut Ripperger (New York: Longmans, 1941)

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protagonist was the viper),33 hosts of serpents, thanks to the long tradition at their backs, began to invade stone sculptures, 34 wall paintings and embroidered tapestries. The allegorical interpretation of this natural history book followed the rulers for a new form of symbolism that played upon the natural enmity between animals to emphasise the battles staged between the forces of Good and Evil, light and dark, and Christ and Satan. This was the scenario that saw the wise elephant pitted against the corrupt serpent,35 and with a little imagination real and invented animals were used as celestial teaching aids, as mirrors of unknown spiritual truths. One of the most prominent among these allegorical animals was the serpent, appearing in a variety of fantastical guises. These creatures colonised impervious realms and lands, they stirred the blood, and they were carefully crafted to instil ever more fear in the hearts of their audience. They came from distant lands like India, Araby and Ethiopia, and their bodies were created from an incoherent collage of marvellous beings. Take, for example, the Scylla—a deformed creature with two 33

Description of the Viper in the Physiologus: “John [the Baptist] said to the Pharisees when he said: “You brood of vipers!” [Matt. 3:7 and Lk. 3:7]. Physiologus said of the viper that the male has the face of a man, while the female has the form of a woman down to her navel, but from her navel down to her tail she has the form of a crocodile. Indeed, the woman has no secret place, that is genitals for giving birth, but has only a pinhole. If the male lies with the female and spills his seed into her mouth, and if she drinks his seed, she will cut off the male’s necessaries (that is, his male organs) and he will die. When, however, the young have grown within the mother who has no genitals for giving birth, they pierce through her side, killing her in their escape. Our saviour, therefore, likened the Pharisees to the viper; indeed, just as the viper’s brood kills its father and mother, so this people which is without God kills its father, Jesus Christ, and its earthly mother, Jerusalem. “Yet how will they flee from the wrath to come?” [Lk. 3:7] Our father Jesus Christ and mother church live in eternity while those living in sin are dead. Physiologus, A Medieval Book of Nature Lore, trans. Michael J. Curley (Chicago-London: University of Chicago Press, 2009). See XII ‘On the Viper’ and XIII ‘On the Serpent’. 34 For the double symbolism (positive and negative) of the snake in Medieval Italian cathedrals, see Felice Moretti, Specchio del mondo. I “bestiari fantastici” delle cattedrali (Fasano: Edipuglia, 1995). 35 Giorgio Scianchi, Il battistero di Parma: iconografia, iconologia, fonti letterarie (Milan: Vita e Pensiero, 1999); see in particular ‘Iconologia del programma iconografico del cantiere antelamico’, 201.

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dragon-heads—and the deadly Sirens—half woman and half fish or fowl, often with wings; these were described by Philippe de Thaon in Chapter XV of his Bestiaire (1120) 36 —the earliest to be written in French—as having huge chicken-feet and a fish-tail (Figure 2). For Isidore of Seville (560–636), on the other hand, the Sirens were venomous winged reptiles that lived in the Arab lands,37 and the Hydra was a fearsome water serpent. Among these ranks of impossible creatures was also the Asp—a singular serpent which, according to some, spent its time guarding a tree that secreted a highly sought-after balsam. For others it housed a precious stone—a carbuncle (a ruby)—in its skull. If you believed this, it would also be entirely reasonable that it would cleverly stop up its ear with its tail in order to prevent treasure-hunters from putting it to sleep with their hypnotic songs and music (Figure 3). Apparently, according to the Aberdeen Bestiary (around 1200), this creature also possessed a bite so dangerous that its victims would slide gently into a poisonous sleep while their bodies decayed in record time.38 Such new incarnations of the dreadful dragon (Figure 4)—the greatest serpent on Earth—were the sworn enemies of the elephant and, when required to be, the panther. They boasted crests, crowns, tiny mouths and deadly tails; they flew across the skies of India and Ethiopia like devils, leaving hordes of victims in their wake. In the learned opinions of the authors of encyclopaedic treatises, such as Isidore of Seville 39 and 36

This Bestiaire, the first written in French for the edification of laymen, was dedicated to King Henry I of England’s second wife, Adelizia of Louvain, is reproduced in Charles-Victor Langlois, La vie en France au Moyen Âge du XIIe au milieu du XIVe siècle, Tome 3: La Connaissance de la nature et du monde d’après des écrits français à l’usage des laïcs (Paris: Hachette, 1927), 143. See also Shannon Hogan Cottin-Bizonne, Une nouvelle édition du Bestiaire de Philippe de Thaon, (Thèse en histoire médiévale, École nationale des chartes, 2005). The main spokespeople for this type of moral eduction in France were: the Bestiaire divin by Guillaume le Clerc, that by Gervaise (1150 circa); the Latin Bestiaire, later translated into French, by Pierre de Beauvais (before 1218) and De animalibus by Alberto Magno (1260). 37 Isidoro di Siviglia, Etimologie o origini, A. Valastro Canale (ed.) (Turin: Utet, 2006), XI, 3, 30–31 (See English edition, trans. Priscilla Throop, Isidore of Seville's Etymologies (Vermont: MedievalMS, 2005). 38 See the Aberdeen Bestiary entry for “Asp”, in David Badke (ed.), Medieval Bestiary. Animals in the Middle Ages. Online, accessed June 24, 2016: http://bestiary.ca/ 39 Isidoro di Siviglia, Etimologie, XII, 4, 4–5.

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Bartholomeus Anglicus40, they were able to inject pride and trickery; in short, they were almost indistinguishable from the Devil himself.

Figure 2: The Sirens, mortal female creatures, could take on various guises. Copenhagen, Kongelige Bibliotek, Gl. kgl. S. 3466 8º, folio 37r.

Figure 3: The Asp sticking its tail in its ears to elude its enchanter. German Bestiary from the 13th century. 40

Bartholomeus Anglicus, De proprietatibus rerum (Italian Edition, Trento: La Finestra, 2008), vol. II, Book 18.

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Figure 4: A mythological Medieval Dragon in the form of a winged and horned serpent.

Pierre de Beauvais, while drafting his French Bestiary in around 1218, following the outline of the Latin Physiologus, was entirely convinced of the following physiological fact: the female Viper made the male put his head in her mouth during their coupling, eventually killing him by biting it off. Apparently such cannibalistic behaviour was shared by the young, who gobbled up their mother as soon as they were born.41 A perhaps even more despicable beast was the Basilisk, which was generally described as a either a crested serpent or a snake-tailed rooster with a deadly gaze. By some unnatural quirk of nature, this—male— creature apparently laid eggs, although Albertus Magnus (Albert the Great), author of the monumental treatise De animalibus (On Animals,

41

Aberdeen Bestiary: entry for “Viper”. See also Florence McCulloch, Medieval Latin and French Bestiaries (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1962).

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1260), was not sufficiently convinced that such a thing would be possible (although he was suitably petrified of its killing glance).42 In the time of Isidore of Seville (the end of the sixth century and the beginning of the seventh century CE) the Basilisk had been made the King of Serpents, thanks to the white marks on its head, which Pliny the Elder had already likened to a diadem. 43 This ungodly creature was usually depicted with the body of a reptile, the head of a rooster, and the wings and claws of an eagle (Figure 5), thereby manifesting its triple flouting of the divine laws of nature. Such a creature was therefore entirely repugnant in the eyes of Christian believers, like their ancestors from Antiquity; in fact, was it not the case that its gaze, its touch, its breath and its blood were toxic enough to burn grassland and bushes, to split the very rock beneath it and poison those men brave enough to try to run it through with their lances?44

Figure 5: The Basilisk in the guise of a rooster. Illustration from a 13th-century Latin Bestiary. 42

Albertus Magnus, De animalibus. Italian ed. and trans. Fernando Civardi and Roberto Ricciardi, Book XXXIII, 115–118. Online: accessed October 13, 2016. (See Albertus Magnus, On Animals: A Medieval Summa Zoologica, trans. Kenneth F Kitchell, Jr. and Irven Michael Resnick, (Baltimore; London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999). 43 Pliny the Elder on The Human animal, Natural History, vol. 5, Book VIII, 33. 44 Ibidem.

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During the Early Medieval period, this beast was also believed to have the power to secrete substances into water that would turn men rabid and demonic. Hence the Basilisk was considered to be a veritable poison factory that could even kill with a single hiss.45 In other words, the infernal creature was accused of poisoning mankind. As for its origins, during the thirteenth century Bartholomeus Anglicus postulated that it was of the same accursed race as the Sirens—those blatant ambassadors of Lust.46 In later times, thanks to the numerous iconographical representations of the Basilisk of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, it became clear that the beast was also able to spit pestilential fire. In addition, several Medieval legends promoted the idea that, although fearsome, it could be killed by using a mirror to force it to look upon itself—an evident borrowing from the tale of Perseus; this in itself should not astound, however, as the Basilisk was Medusa’s son—born from the blood of her severed head as it was flown over the desert. Another offspring of this singular means of reproduction was the Amphisbaenia, although the appearance of this reptilian brother of the Basilisk was even more outlandish: it had a head at each end of its serpentine body (Figure 6). According to some of the experts, it also had wings, and, as circumstance dictated, paws, horns and/or ears.47 While both the Basilisk and the Amphisbaenia wore their Medusean parentage on their scaly sleeves, so to speak, there were many other creatures in the Bestiaries that were not so evidently related. Nevertheless, with their strange and fantastical exteriors, they all contributed to reinforcing the sense of Otherness that pervaded Medieval society. Taking them as a template, the written and pictorial tradition effectively set this prototype of Evil in stone. These sinful anti-heroes even survived the dissolution of the Middle Ages, as the Bestiaries in Latin and the vernacular went on to influence the unconventional figurative imagination 45

Isidoro di Siviglia, Etimologie, Book II, 4, 6–9. For more on the fortunes of Bartholomeus Anglicus’ best-seller De proprietatibus rerum and other Western Latin encyclopaedic texts see: Baudouin Van den Abeele, L’allégorie animale dans les encyclopédies latines du Moyen Âge, in Jacques Berlioz and Marie Anne Polo de Beaulieu (eds.), L’animal exemplaire au Moyen Âge (Ve-XVe siècles) (Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 1999), 123–136. 47 The description of the Amphisbaenia provided by Pliny the Elder and Isidore of Seville is provided in Badke (ed), Medieval Bestiary. 46

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of Hieronymus Bosch (1453–1516), a contemporary of Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo and Raphael.

Figure 6: The Amphisbaenia pictured in the 13th-century Latin Bestiaries starts to approach the scientific illustrations of the 1600s.

The tortured soul of this Flemish painter was very well acquainted with the dark creatures of the nocturnal regime, and depicted Evil in all its conceivable forms. Bosch’s extraordinary paintings heave with sinners beings tormented by demons and other terrifying beings. He glories in his depiction of a surreal netherworld, which echoes those Italian hells of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The left-hand panel (perhaps obviously) of his 1482 Last Judgement tryptich depicted the Fall of Adam and Eve; here, in the Garden of Eden, this damned couple had their fateful encounter with temptation at the hands of a serpent disguised as a humanoid woman. Before this phase in iconography, the snake had merely appeared as itself, or lent its reptilian characteristics to a male devil. However, in this seminal work, while the snake’s tail and lizard’s feet of his beguiling envoy hint at the the bestial undercurrent of the creature, it is the combination of these features with the female bust that betray the new Late Medieval/Renaissance trend—the representation of original sin as a woman. Indeed, this is just one example of the occasional metamorphosis of the serpent into a human woman (fairies are often portrayed in such a fashion in Medieval art) and its crossover into the Judeo-Christian tradition, which had previously linked the feisty Lilith with Satan and the serpent; the misogynist

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Figure 7: The Temptation of Adam and Eve, a fresco from the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, Michelangelo Buonarroti Vatican Museum, Rome, Italy; note the sinuous limbs of the snake-woman coiled around the trunk of the Tree of Knowledge.

ideology underlying Medieval Christianity had well versed its believers in the links between women, temptation, and inevitably sin.48 A similar scene graces Michelangelo’s Last Judgement (1536–1541); this undisputed master, despite doing away with the reptilian claws of the Tempter (or rather Temptress) could not resist clothing her in the yellowish scales of the serpent (Figure 7). 48

According to the pertinent hypothesis by Alan Humm, ‘Lilith pictures: with Adam and Eve’, it was the Christian iconography, rather than the literature, that was progressively influenced during the Middle Ages by the Jewish myth that had demonised Lilith. Online: accessed November 13, 2016.

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Nonetheless, it is the surrealist imagination of Hieronymus Bosch that solidifies the Medieval idea of the hybrid of woman and serpent representing the Fall from Grace. The flora and fauna in his image are anthropomorphic and metallic-looking, adding to the unsettling tension that envelops the figures of the sinners.

In this, the autumn of the Middle Ages, both terrestrial and celestial law judged sinners as harshly as criminals; under Bosch’s sulphurous skies, they are man-handled and punished by hybrid monsters that devour and defecate their flesh with evident glee. These cryptic images, which narrate morality in the guise of threats, show bestial men and women that ooze wild sensuality from every pore, their baser instincts on full display. These scenes are truly breathtaking; it is rare for art to succeed in capturing so perfectly the ashes of faith destroyed. The figures are dreamlike, their faces completely devoid of humanity, but in this startling display of Otherness, it is the bestial nature of the feminine protagonists that seems most unforgivable.

Figure 8: A 14th-century illustration of Salamandra.

By that time, however, this idea had become an almost universal law. Indeed, it had been a full two centuries since Albert the Great (1206– 1280), German mentor to Saint Thomas Aquinas, knowledgeably stated that females were inherently defective, and naturally possessed moral

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deficiencies due to an excess of bodily fluid—a sure-fire trigger for evil beyond the wildest imaginings. Was it therefore not the sensible, and indeed righteous, thing for men to be as wary of them as they would of a devil or a snake? 49 Had not the theory of the four humours—the very keystone of Medieval medicine—established with the same degree of certainty the association between woman, water and phlegm? Did she not therefore possess the same gelid temperament as the snake and the salamander, so cold as to douse even the most vigorous of flames? (Figure 8). The enigmatic symbolism of Bosch took the ideas in the story of the Genesis (the birth of woman, original sin, the exile from Paradise), Physiologus and the Bestiaries to a whole new level—another world that brought to life even the most unthinkable of evils50.

49 Albert the Great said the following about women: “Women are more mendacious and fragile, more diffident, more shameless, more deceptively eloquent, and, in brief, a woman is nothing but a devil fashioned into human appearance […]. A female is less suited from proper behaviour than is a male, […] for a female’s complexion is moister than a male’s, but it belongs to a moist complexion to receive [impressions] easily but to retain them poorly. For moisture is easily mobile and this is why women are inconsistent and always seeking new things. Therefore, when she is engaged in the act under one man, at that very moment she would wish, were it possible, to lie under another. Therefore, there is no faithfulness in a woman […]. Wise men almost never disclose their plans and their doings to their wives. For a woman is a flawed male and, in comparison to the male, has the nature of defect and privation, and this is why she naturally distrusts herself. And this is why whatever she cannot acquire on her own she strives to acquire through mendacity and diabolical detections. Therefore, to speak briefly, one must be as mistrustful of every woman as of a venomous serpent and a horned devil [...]. A woman is more prudent, that is cleverer, than the male with respect to evil and perverse deeds. […] The woman falls short in intellectual operations, which consist in the apprehension of the good and in knowledge of truth and flight from evil. […] Sense moves the female to every evil, just as intellect moves a man to every good.” Albert the Great, Questions Concerning Aristotle's On Animals (The Fathers of the Church, Mediaeval Continuation, Volume 9), trans. Irven M. Resnick and Kenneth F. Kitchell Jr. (Washington: The Catholic University of America Press, 2008) XV, 11, 453–456. 50 See Larry Silver Hieronymus Bosch (New York: Abbeville Press Publishers, 2006).

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Women & snakes In this Medieval worldview, Lotman discerned a mindset that was closely structured around the symbolism (semanticisation) of humanity and reality; in the hierarchy of Creation, every living piece of the puzzle had a significance based on its equivalent relationship with corresponding sections.51 Hence, both the religious and secular authorities of the twelfth century ‘Renaissance’, like the physiognomists of Antiquity, sought out the subtle connections between the animal kingdom, phenomenology and human behaviour. Although, mirroring their predecessors, they had the tangible evidence of paintings and sculptures to rely on, they did not base their parallels with the natural world on empirical findings; instead, in a departure from the Hellenistic tradition, they looked to symbolism. This way of thinking sealed the serpent’s fate; its character was now understood through its potential parallels with humanity and morality. Hence, from the thirteenth century onwards, the Basilisk, Salamandra and Hydra were used as handy representations of the perfidy of menarchal or menopausal women. And, it appears that this hostile attempt to portray such creatures as a kind of living reservoir of “most deadly humours” met with no small degree of success.52 Several examples, although they do not provide the basis for sweeping generalisations, do enable us to discern—as Durand suggested—the intimate connection between things that would remain incomprehensible if considered as isolated phenomena. In the complex network of these equivalencies, two cases stand out from the crowd: the resonance between Eve and the serpent and the analogy of the Basilisk and its fatal stare, and the likening of other bizarre female figures with equally venomous powers with menstruating woman. These parallels helped forge new models for female identity in the Medieval West. Not content with Eve, they invented Mélusine, the 14thcentury serpent-fairy said to have given rise to the noble House of

51 Jurij M. Lotman and Boris A. Uspenskij (eds.), Ricerche semiotiche: Nuove tendenze nelle scienze umane nell’URSS. Italian Edition (Turin: Einuadi, 1973). 52 Take, for example the 13th-century Bestiario moralizzato di Gubbio (“Moralised Bestiary of Gubbio”), which attributed the poisonous Salamander, brimming with mostly deadly humours, with the capacity to annihilate the five senses (vision, smell, hearing, taste and touch); cited in Annamaria Carrega and Paola Navone (eds.), Le proprietà degli animali. Bestiario moralizzato di Gubbio. Libellus de natura animalism (Genoa: Costa & Nolan, 1983).

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Lusignan 53 —a figure that was obviously herself a direct descendent of Echidna, the bearer of her residual anger and a hint of nostalgia for a time when blood was not a negative force. However, these echoes of a more benign past would only add fuel to the fire of the Western collective imaginary, which dictated in no uncertain terms that menstruating women should be shunned, as their gaze— powerful like that of the Basilisk—was sure to bring on some natural catastrophe—a major threat to society, in other words. This is the message loudly transmitted by the symbolic, rather than scientific, references in the iconography, literature, religious and spiritual doctrines, philosophical and medical theories, and moral education of the Middle Ages. Not even the fervour for naturalistic investigation that began to wrest control of hearts and minds from the Church in the thirteenth century—a movement whose origins are clear from the French pedagogical work Placides et Timéo—was enough to disperse the aura of menace that surrounded relationships between men and women. It is therefore no surprise that dangerous women with their serpent side-kicks were among the longest-lasting cultural phantasms, and that this idiosyncrasy continued to influence the figurative, religious, scientific and pedagogical imaginary for centuries to come: especially Eve, the menstruating woman and the Poison-Damsel.

“And do you not know that you are each an Eve?” From Eve onwards, women began to have a serious issue with snakes. The obscure anti-hero of the Book of Genesis, 54 the archetype of the treacherous Serpent of the oral Rabbinical tradition (perhaps written down between 1440 and 1400 BCE, when Moses was said to have led the Israelites out of Egypt) and the biblical tales ensured that the story of mankind began with a terrified shudder. This religious myth, this fecund spiritual legend, although based on a series of imaginary events condemned the human race to eternal damnation. The disobedience of their forebears—their original sin—for the first time united all living 53

Towards the end of the 14th century, the French writer Jean d’Arras wrote La Noble histoire de Lusignan, known as the The Roman de Mèlusine, which claimed that the aristocratic genealogy of the House of Lusignan, according to ancient lore, descended from said serpent-woman. 54 For a historical and cultural review of the literature with a more positive slant on the Genesis in the first three centuries of Christianity, see Elaine Pagels, Adam, Eve, and the Serpent (USA: Random House Press, 1988).

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things on Earth with the fear of punishment and death. When Adam and Eve first set foot in the Garden of Eden, everything was bright, new and pristine, but they destroyed their own perfect, innocent existence by disobeying the command of their Heavenly Father. By eating the tempting fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, they consigned themselves to a life of guilt and pain, and on these foundations Western society has been shakily constructed. Thus the shadow of their sin falls over all of us, and, because it was Eve who Fell first, dragging Adam down with her, all women must take the lion’s share of the blame. The ignominious fate that would befall all future women was already apparent in Late Antiquity (155–245 CE), when Tertullian—founder of the Latin ecclesiastical approach to education—posed his seminal question: “And do you not know that you are (each) an Eve?” 55 From the very Genesis of the world, therefore, the shameful daughters of Eve were unable to unshackle themselves from her sin. No matter how loudly they protested that they had no contact with the Prince of Lies and of Lust, or how skilfully they played the game—quaking with fear when a serpent crossed their path—it was impossible for them to distance themselves from the idea that they were inextricably linked to original sin. Nevertheless, the women of the Judeo-Christian community continued to avow their repulsion for the snake with all their heart—and their blood. After all, did not the Lord God himself say to Eve, “What is this that you have done?”, did she not reply, “The serpent tricked me and I ate”, and did not the Lord God say unto the serpent, “Because you have done this, cursed are you among all animals and among all wild creatures; upon your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will strike your head, and you will strike his heel.” (Genesis, 3, 9–15)? With this condemnation, which still smarts today, women stopped identifying with the images of the past; their days of consorting with snakes in Roman Ophidia cult rituals of the second century CE were long over, and no longer would the Maenads dance entwined with serpents. The Pythia of the chthonic sanctuary at Delphi—who shared their oracular powers with pythons—began to fade from memory, and the practice of adorning the forehead with a cobra—a symbol of sovereignty and knowledge (started by the Egyptian goddess Isis)—fell out of fashion. In 55

Tertullian, On the Apparel of Women. Reprint (Whitefish, MT: Kessinger Publishing, 2004), trans. Rev. S. Thelwall, Book I, Chapter 1, 63.

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the goddess-worship of the Neolithic era and Mycenaean Crete, her association with the snake had been a potent symbol of life, and even before then, in Libya, the holy female trinity (Medusa included) had been the very emblem of wisdom, but this relationship was now doomed. However, here and there among the ashes of these ancient civilisations, the pale embers of goddess worship still burned. In Italy women could pray to an unusual Our Lady of Graces, seen casually petting a snake, or celebrate the martyrdom of Saint Christine of Bolsena at the serpent festival. Serpent lore was still rife in Medieval Italy, and a Basilisk was said to be holed up in a cave in Cevo, Lombardy—guarded by a witches coven. But, alas, the tide had definitely turned. In Cocullo, Aquila, the Great Mother Angizia was ousted from her rightful place in the cult festa dei serpari (‘festival of the snake-catchers’) at the end of the thirteenth century, in favour of the town’s patron saint, Dominic of Foligno, who, like the goddess, was invoked as a protection against snakebite. Kneeling before the increasingly judgmental religious imagery, women could do no more than disavow their ancient alliance; now images of the snake provoked in them a sense of bewilderment and fear. According to Émile Mâle, from the twelfth century onwards, religious art had fought tooth and nail to separate these age-old allies,56 eventually achieving its ends. Ultimately, the depressing story of female guilt recounted in Genesis, in the name of Jewish patriarchal prejudice successfully paralysed women, binding them in chains of wretchedness and narrow-mindedness. For two thousand years, religious and secular teachings were based on this unfortunately indomitable myth, which even theologians consider to have been profoundly damaging to society. Nonetheless, it was the duty of all good Christians, century after century, to pass on the message that—as so aptly demonstrated by Eve—all women were defective, far below the heights of masculine rationality and entirely without merit. Spiritual and educational authorities taught that to be female was to be impulsive, disobedient, disloyal, and false, and to easily give in to temptation, seduction and trickery. If this was not the case, how would the cunning serpent have been able to persuade Eve to err with just the following words, “You will not die; for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”? And did not the woman see “that the tree was good for food, and that it was a 56

Émile Mâle, L’art religieux du XIIe siècle en France (Paris: Colin, 1922).

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delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise,”? Did she not take its fruit and eat? Did she not also give “some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate”? And were not the eyes of both opened, “and they knew that they were naked”? (Genesis 3–18). The visual impressions transmitted and received by means of these scenes were not wasted.57 It was evident to all that the interaction between Eve and the serpent had an educational message. And with such a backdrop, it was inevitable that the accusation hurled at women by Christian teachers from the first three centuries of their ascendency would become progressively legitimised,58 i.e., that the female of the species was hellbent on catching the eyes of men in order, like reptiles, to fascinate59 and control them. Beginning with Tertullian, the educational remedies of the Patristic tradition aimed to repress sensorial impulses that would, through the gaze, unleash uncontrollable appetites. Throughout the Middle Ages the spiritual authorities, through moral texts and educational practices, multiplied their efforts to rein in the visual behaviour of women in order to neutralise its harmful effects. Entire generations of men and women listened in silence and solemnity to these and other repugnant sermons that corrupted not only the ancient traditions but also the teachings of Christ. The oppressive lessons touted by the Christian commentators of the Genesis (Saint Paul, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, Augustine, Jerome and Bernard of Clairvaux, for example) firmly established the gender hierarchy,60 and strictly prohibited 57

Elena Loewenthal, Eva e le altre. Letture bibliche al femminile (Milan: Bompiani, 2005) discusses sight and hearing in Genesis, highlighting in particular that the Hebrew language verbalises sight as an all-encompassing sense; the text states explicitly that the fruit, or rather a portion of it (the partitive is used), was ‘tasted’ by vision alone, and this solemn procession of sensations gradually gives rise to the premonition of what the woman will experience through its agency, namely that her eyes will be opened (106–107), an action that will coincide with humanity’s first conscious view of the world (13). 58 I have previously discussed the new standards of female visual conduct promoted by the Christian leaders of the 2nd and 3rd centuries CE in the first Chapter, ‘La custodia degli occhi’, of Giallongo, L’avventura dello sguardo. 59 In Tertullian’s opinion, ‘primping and preening’ was proof of women’s indecency–they were always ready to dress up, do their hair, and pay unhealthy attention to the appearance of their skin and other parts of their bodies, in order to attract the gaze of others; Tertullian, On the Apparel of Women, Book I, Chapter 4. 60 The authentic Pauline texts that promote the submission of women to their husbands are: Letter to the Ephesians 5, 22 and Letter to the Colossians 3, 18.

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intersex contact through the eyes, eventually coming to the conclusion that good Christian virgins only needed one.61 The daughters of Eve, now forever burdened with the guilt of their predecessor, were branded with the stigmata of the accusation of having precipitated the destruction of the entire human race. We should not be amazed, therefore, that not even the most charitable of spiritual men envied their fate, or thought for a second that women should be allowed to speak for themselves;62 it was important that they should be kept at least one rung below that of men on the hierarchical ladder, lest the latter be the victim of a furtive and perilous glance.63 These stereotypes were almost universally accepted, and shaped social behaviour for centuries; divinity, authority and responsibility were the sole province of men, and this dualist, anti-natural approach to education and ethics ensured that women paid a very high price throughout. Even today, Western society has not been able to shake itself free of the suspicion of women generated by the ambiguous relationship between Eve and the serpent. Hence, according to Witcombe, whosoever should dare to speak against this patriarchal fiction—and to read the Book of Genesis with eyes wide open—should not expect to achieve much in the face of the accumulated weight of the monumental laziness that has upheld the purported veracity of that legend over the centuries.64 And it is the artists, who acquired an extraordinary degree of influence over Western imagination and thought, that must share some of the blame for our ready assimilation of such slanderous untruths; in the gaping holes in our education left by the disappearance of our institutions, and thanks to their close links with oral history, it was the widespread diffusion of images that 61 For Jerome, the ability to keep one eye open only as much as was necessary to see where one was going was a distinguishing feature of the perfect Christian virgin in the 4th century CE. ‘Letter to Eustochium’ in Jerome, Le Lettere, S. Cola (ed.) (Rome: Città Nuova, 1961), XXII, 29. 62 In his first Letter to the Corinthians, Saint Paul, after having laid down strict regulations as to the way they styled their hair for prayer meetings (11, 2–16), ordered them to be silent in assembly (14, 33–35). 63 Clement of Alexandria (125–215 CE) maintained that educated Christian men should do everything possible to thwart the deleterious effects of women by avoiding their eyes: Clement of Alexandria The Paedagogus (The Instructor). Italian edition Il Pedagogo (Turin: SEI, 1971) I, III, capo VI. 64 Christopher L.C.E. Witcombe, Eve and the identity of women, 2000. Online, accessed July 24, 2016: http://witcombe.sbc.edu/7evelilith.html

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consolidated our new gender identities. The pedagogical power of the frescoes, mosaics and carvings in our public buildings—especially in German and French Gothic cathedrals—and the illustrations in the Bestiaries left us in no doubt as to the dangerous upheaval caused by women consorting with snakes. The overall sensation remains that the wise goddess of the Old world had most definitely left the building, and that poor, guilty Eve had taken her place. Thanks to the Book of Genesis, the temptation of the latter in the Garden of Eden became a recurring theme in the figurative arts, a transformation that culminated in the insuperable masterpiece that is the frescoed Sistine Chapel by Michelangelo (1508–1512). A close observer of this work will be able to make out numerous images of reptiles with human heads. As we have now come to expect, these were predominantly female figures (Figure 9), and not the only means of highlighting the godforsaken status of women, who were unfailingly portrayed to the left of men (Figure 10), i.e., on the side of imperfection, sin and the netherworld. Take too Masolino da Panicale’s Temptation of Adam and Eve (1424– 1425), pictured on the cover of this book. In it, the painter, clearly convinced of the above ideas, painted the serpent as an idealised blondehaired beauty with the body of a serpent, snaking tightly around the trunk of the Tree of Knowledge. Looking more closely, we can see that the Temptress’ body is arched like the arm of Eve, and it is surely no coincidence that they both have matching golden locks. By the fourteenth century, these two female figures had become so interchangeable that Eve even took the place of the serpent in some paintings. Even the Devil himself was occasionally pictured sporting women’s breasts, and, from the ninth century onwards, his hair had started to become suspiciously snake-like—an attribute that was directly inherited by the witches.65

65

Cf. Jeffrey Burton Russell, Lucifer: The Devil in the Middle Ages (Ithaca N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1986).

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Figure 9: The Serpent with the head of a woman. “The Temptation”, 13th century German illustration from The Life of Adam and Eve.

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Figure 10: A suggestive personification of Evil—a long, violaceous serpent tails topped with the bust of a woman with diabolical horns sprouting from her head. Miniature from Horae Beatae Mariae Virginie, France, 15th century. Biblioteca Nazionale, Naples.

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Thus the fable of the Garden of Eden became reality. This much we can glean from the work of Ulrich Molitor, 66 contemporary of the Dominican monks Sprenger and Krämer (of Malleus Maleficarum fame), which he entitled ‘Of Witches and Diviner Women’ (1489–1493); the dialogue and xylographs in this book leave us in little doubt as to the outcome of the singular complicity between women and snakes in Medieval Germany—the Tempter and the Evil Woman are both wreathed in hellfire.

Unclean Another emblem, the menstruating woman, was further proof of feminine degeneracy. The menstrual cycle and the menopause were undoubtably evidence of women’s ability to denature the very fabric of existence. Menstrual blood encompassed all that was deviant, and afflicted women were the custodians of something dark, shadowy and hostile—a hidden Other world. Clearly, menstruation was a mistake of nature, and, like other such discrepancies, could provoke only disgust. It was evidently an anomaly, something that opposed the laws of nature, and menstruating women were therefore rightfully branded with the mark of the monster. While the ancient world considered the monster as a product of divine interbreeding, by the Middle Ages it had taken on allegorical and moral overtones. Hence the menstruating woman, already a source of social concern and disquiet, became a kind of lodestone for all the haunting spectres associated with the mysterious phenomenon of their monthly bleed. Nevertheless, without fully understanding the Medieval mindset deep repugnance for menstrual blood, it would be impossible to shed light on the proliferation of monsters in the Middle Ages. Indeed, both Kappler and Durand revealed how the association between female impurity and an Otherness—fought using the same weapons employed to battle monsters—legitimised the indispensable function of the menstruating woman in the psychic landscape of the Christian era. 67 This figure, inseparable from the fears projected onto the other sex, catalysed all of male anxiety regarding a body poorly lived in. 66

Ulrich Molitor, De lamiis et phitonicis mulieribus, in the illustrated edition by Costanza from 1544. Online, accessed April 18, 2016: http://www.gla.ac.uk/ service/specialcollections/ 67 Claude Kappler, Monstres, démons et merveilles à la fin du Moyen Âge (Paris: Payot, 1980), 228 and 223.

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The monster, as a manifestation of disorder and image of Evil, began to appear more diabolical towards the end of the Middle Ages, leading to the advent of the witch—pure female malevolence made flesh.68 In the West, several factors had converged to create the stereotypical idea of the woman and her monthly flows, which was often used as proof of the imperfect nature of the daughters of Eve in the prevailing misogynist ideology. The seeds of misogyny that had been planted on fertile ground in the ancient world were flourishing by the eleventh to thirteenth centuries, and grew ever more vigorously in those that followed.69 In the shade of this mighty tree, menstrual blood was represented not as a natural bodily process, but rather a sinister and disgusting badge of shame. This concept, stimulated by the fantastical ideas of many myths, was also distorted by tormented assessments of menstruation that echoed those of pagan and biblical times. The less-than-exalted values passed down by the Jewish tradition in Leviticus had given rise to a host of suspicions regarding menstrual blood’s powers of contamination, and the segregation of women for these seven perilous days had rendered them all but invisible in the attempt to prevent their contact with men. Menstruating women were also forbidden to touch certain objects at such crucial times—clothes, beds and chairs—and prohibited from entering sacred spaces. Bathing for purification purposes was, of course, a must (Leviticus, 15, 1–15; 19–30). Various pre-Christian civilisations were also implicated in the rejection of menstruation. As we have seen in the preceding chapters, for Pliny the Elder the toxicity of menstrual discharge was a physical danger that could be transmitted to people, animals and nature by contact, and through the air via the gaze. As a consequence, great significance was given to the prohibition of sexual relations with menstruating women in the pagan and Jewish civilisations. This ban was adopted and observed by the Christian world too, and menstrual blood, invested with cultural and religious symbolism, flowed surreptitiously through the mental resources of the Patristic and ecclesiastical doctrines. This fuelled the hasty concerns of the pre-scientific concepts that rendered it unclean and infectious. The anthropologist Mary Douglas lit a fire under the staid discipline of biblical studies when, in 1966, she framed purity as the key to the heart of

68

Ibidem, 239 and 210. See R. Howard Bloch, Medieval Misogyny and Invention of Western Romantic Love (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991), 67. 69

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every society.70 In the wake of her pioneering study, a comparative approach was also used to evaluate the implications of the value that we invest in Leviticus’ ‘uncleanliness’, and the conceptual categories pertaining to the underlying religious and cosmological worldview. In this scenario, menstruation became the expression of all that was rejected by society’s shared values. The definition of the boundaries between pure and unclean reinforced social cohesion in real terms via the control, marginalisation or elimination of things considered ambiguous or anomalous. The phobia towards menstrual blood was a cardinal point in biblical culture. The imagined link between fluid loss and death has been demonstrated in several patriarchal contexts by the anthropological research, and these also had the nasty habit of excluding women from religious, political and military leadership. 71 In the end, therefore, the menstrual taboos became the expression of a group of social norms that today provide us with the opportunity to identify a system-wide concept of impurity (in biblical and other contexts). The Fathers of the Church (Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria, John Chrysostom, Origen Adamantius, Augustine, Ambrose and Jerome) and the Medieval theologians (Thomas Aquinas, Albert the Great and Duns Scotus) had incorporated these underlying rules into their influential musings, and not only condemned women who might dare to have intercourse during their period as perverts, but also prohibited them from taking communion at this sensitive time of the month. Indeed, the Penitentials of the Early Middle Ages—the most famous of which was Burchard of Worms’ Decretum, written between 1008 and 1012—came down especially hard on this practice72, which in their eyes was equivalent to a mortal sin. Furthermore, no-one was in any doubt that children conceived during menstruation would be born deformed. Hence, infants with congenital malformations, or those suffering from leprosy, hydrocephalus, epilepsy or any other disability, were clearly on a par with those possessed by the devil, and their souls could therefore not be saved, even if they somehow survived their physical afflictions. According to Jerome, before they were 70

Douglas, Purity and Danger. Jacob Milgrom cited in Tarja S. Philip, Menstruation and Childbirth in the Bible: Fertility and Impurity (New York: Peter Lang, 2005), 14 72 Much of Burchard of Worms’ Decretum is cited in Edmond Pognon, La vie quotidienne en l’an Mille (Paris: Hachette, 1981), 134. 71

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born their lives had been irrevocably besmirched by something repulsive;73 a theory that is also recognisable in Vincent de Beauvais’ 13th-century Speculum naturalis (XXX, I, 54), and De secretis mulierum by the pseudoAlbertus Magnus.74 In these texts, in order to adhere to the conventions of the age, it was also reiterated that burying a woman’s hair in the ground would cause a seed to sprout snakes and similar creatures during the summer season, and that children were susceptible to the venomous effects of menstrual blood or lack thereof. In particular, a mere glance from a menopausal woman—spilling over with infected humours—was capable of poisoning breastfeeding infants.75 According to the teratology scholar Cohen, the construction of Medieval monsters served to consecrate a certain concept of humanity, and to insinuate the idea of an identity opposed to all that was denied them.76 Indeed, Dante’s Medusa had more bestial than human features—the very antithesis of the spiritual and divine. The implied dualism in this black and white worldview, evident even in early Christianity, meant that several social groups were placed outside the boundaries of humanity; among them were women, who therefore became a legitimate target for the venting of collective social angst.77 In the Medieval imagination, the dreaded menstrual blood had become the prime ingredient for brewing up monsters. The distinction between the pure and the impure associated menstrual blood with the transmission of

73

For more on the prejudices surrounding the generation of monstrous offspring following copulation during the woman’s menstrual cycle, the ritual impurity of women, and the canon laws (the first of such documents, incidentally, was written by Saint Theodore of Canterbury in 690 CE) forbidding menstruating women from going to church and receiving communion, see: I Padri latini e il tabù delle mestruazioni. Online, accessed April 13, 2016: www.womenpriests.org 74 Danielle Jacquart and Claude Thomasset, Sexualité et savoir médical au Moyen Âge (Paris: PUF, 1985), 102. 75 Pseudo-Albertus Magnus, De secretis mulierum, 96, 129, cited in Jacquart, and Thomasset, Sexualité et savoir, 104. 76 Jeffery Jerome Cohen, ‘The Order of Monsters: Monster Lore and Medieval Narrative Traditions’ in Francesca Canadé Sautman, Diana Conchado and Giuseppe C. Di Scipio (eds.), Telling Tales: Medieval Narratives and the Folk Tradition (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1998). 77 Joyce E. Salisbury, ‘Human Beasts and Bestial Humans in the Middle Ages’ in Jennifer Ham, Matthew Senior (eds.), Animal Acts: Configuring the Human in Western History (New York & London: Routledge, 1997), 15.

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leprosy78, gigantism and various other forms of physical anomaly.79 In the great court libraries of the thirteenth century and beyond were consulted encyclopaedias that discussed complex theories on the subject, as demonstrated by the anonymous old French encyclopaedic treatise Book of Sydrac, which, in the vernacular language, provided a direct shortcut to existing scientific knowledge through the answers of the philosopher Sidrach to the questions posed by the pagan King Boctus. Various translations popularised this text throughout the Middle Ages, ensuring that the ideas within received maximum divulgation. Thus, alongside King Boctus, readers throughout Europe could learn the answers to hundreds of vital questions, including how a man goes about catching leprosy. Italian readers of the fourteenth century, for example, were informed that the answer was: from a woman; specifically, if a man were to find “flowers” that were both “hot” and “dry” inside her but lie with her anyway, he would be exposing himself to contagion, and if a child were to be born from such an unholy union, that child would be sure to suffer from leprosy or scabs. Indeed, according to Sidrach, menstrual blood bred leprosy and “scalle”, and it would therefore be pure folly to have any dealings with a woman at that time of the month.80 Another thing to be wary of in Sidrach’s Middle Ages was the eyes; although these organs were useful for identifying approaching danger, they also put a man at risk of bodily and spiritual harm. This was no laughing matter, as a glance from the wrong person (i.e., a woman) was able to cause fear, bad luck and disease. Furthermore, eyes were the windows through which covetousness, pride and ire could enter the heart,81 putting their owner at risk of eternal damnation. Sidrach was not the only Medieval author to warn against the dark powers of menstruation and the gaze; in the fourteenth century, the French 78 Susan Zimmermann, ‘Leprosy in medieval imaginary’, Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies, vol. 38, 3, 2008, 403–412. 79 See Jefferey Jerome Cohen, Of Giants: Sex, Monsters and the Middle Ages (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1999). 80 Il libro di Sidrach, Adolfo Bartoli (ed.), (Bologna: Gaetano Romagnoli,1868), Chapter LXX, 112–113. The Fontaine de toutes sciences or the Livre de Sydrac was written in the last third of the thirteenth century by an unknown author. Le livre de Sydrac fitted securely in the vernacular encyclopaedia tradition of the later Middle Ages. By the 1300s it had appeared in French, Provençal, Flemish, Italian, Middle Dutch and English. 81 Ibidem, Chapter CCXXXVIII, 264.

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surgeon Guy de Chauliac believed, like other physicians of the era, that the plague was transmitted by a look, and that menstrual blood was a fatal poison.82 The ability to emanate noxious vapours via the eyes, previously anticipated by the pseudo-Aristotelian theory of the bloody mirror, extended in Late Medieval times to infectious contagion. And, in the thirteenth century, translations of the Arabic and Classical medical texts began to appear, giving the establishment an opportunity to add new accusations to the educational literature.83 The shared repulsion for the menstruating woman was an integral part of a complex system aimed at overseeing and controlling public values and behaviours. Its leaders trumpeted their own truths and provided scapegoats as needed. The fear generated by menstrual blood gave rise to educational theories based on the strict control of visual behaviour. These were justified by religious (expressed perfectly in Canto IX of Dante’s Inferno, in which the author would have lost his spiritual vitality had he made eye contact with Medusa) and medical concerns. This notwithstanding, the symbolism relied upon by the pre-modern scientific imaginary, conceptualised in Thomas Aquinas’ Summa Theologiae, was influenced by the Aristotelian theory that menstrual blood was no big deal; it was merely an incongruous but innocuous version of male seminal fluid (De generatione animalium, 1,19, 1–20), despite the fact that Hippocratic authors had touted it as a natural means of disease prevention.84 Indeed, thanks to two Greek physicians, Soranus and especially Galen, science in the second century CE had accepted the theory of the humours; this would be the main point of reference for the medical community for fifteen centuries, and goes some way to explaining the preoccupation with all things related to blood. It also helps us to understand how the humoral paradigms and Hippocratic schema—based on the opposition between the contrasting elements of hot and cold, wet and dry—helped justify the biologically inferior role bestowed upon women by authorities such as Galen based on their excess of blood, as demonstrated by the otherwise

82

Kate Kelly, The History of Medicine. The Middle Ages (500-1450) (New York: Facts on File, 2009), 107–109. 83 Danielle Jacquart and Françoise Micheau, La médecine arabe et l’occident médiéval (Paris: Maissoneuve et Larose, 1990), 87–129. 84 Jacquart and Thomasset, Sexualité et savoir, 103.

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inexplicable phenomenon of menstruation.85 Women, being cold creatures, were also less active than men and therefore less than perfect. Furthermore, their reproductive apparatus was upside-down with respect to that of the male. Surely this was proof that, due to their lack of heat— which was, however, present in abundance in the male (like dryness for that matter)—their very secretions were toxic and possibly evil.86 Guillaume de Conches, a 12th-century French philosopher, bought whole-heartedly into in this idea, stating in his De philosophia mundi that the complexion of even the hottest woman was colder than that of the coldest of men.87 Indeed, the legends recounted in the moralistic Bestiaries ascribed a chilly complexion as well as a venomous nature to the Basilisk. This was clearly enough evidence to prove the hypothesis that menstruating women would have the same traits. Another legendary figure was instrumental to the justification of adding further strikes against women—Mélusine. This fairy/reptile hybrid was in fact the most celebrated woman in European folklore, and was elevated to French literary fame with Mélusin by Jean d’Arras88 and in the Roman de Mélusine (which appeared between 1401 and 1405) by Couldrette. 89 It was no coincidence that all but the last two of the ten children born of this snake-woman suffered from strange physical defects, at least according to d’Arras. Geoffrey de Lusignan, for instance, had an oversized tooth90—a canine like a boar’s tusk, while two of his siblings had the clawed foot of a lion attached to their cheek and a furry patch on their nose, respectively; no fewer than three exhibited ocular anomalies: Uranus had one blue eye with a green stripe and one red eye (in addition to 85

Galen, ‘Sull’utilità delle parti del corpo umano’, in Galeno, Opere Scelte. Ivan Garofalo and Mario Vegetti (eds.) (Turin: Utet, 1978) Introduzione, 17. 86 Ibidem, 612. 87 Guillaume de Conches as quoted in François-Olivier Touati, Maladie et société au Moyen Âge: la lèpre, les lépreux et les léproseries dans la province ecclesiastique de Sens jusqu’au milieu du XIVe siècle (Paris-Brussels: De Boeck université, 1998), 117. 88 D’Arras, Mélusine. 89 Couldrette, Le roman de Mélusine ou Histoire des Lusignan (Paris: Klincksieck, 1981). 90 See Sylvie Roblin, ‘Le sanglier et la serpente: Geoffroy La Grant’Dent dans l’histoire des Lusignan’, in Laurence Harf-Lancner (ed.), Métamorphose et bestiaire fantastique au Moyen Âge (Paris: École normale supérieure des jeunes filles, 1985), 247–285.

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his massive ears); one of the eyes of the third-born son was enormous, and the fifth-born had only one eye—although in his favour d’Arras did remark that it was extremely penetrating. The principal repercussion of this romance, as recounted for the edification of young princes and nobles of the fourteenth century—was that they learnt that, of the humoral factors, cold provoked chaos wherever it reared its ugly head; together with wet it was the the cause of monstrosity, as well as an unfailing indicator of death. Another lesson that d’Arras taught well was that Mélusine’s long serpent’s tail—apparently as wide as a barrel—was an unmistakeable sign of the woman’s impurity, which extended by association to all her less obviously deformed sisters.91 Thus the future princes, monarchs and regents of Europe were taught to despise women through a folk tale that had blended the universal perils of the aquatic element, femaleness, the moon, the snake, and that inauspicious fluid known as menstrual blood.92 They were left with the indelible impression that if by chance they—like Raymond, Mélusine’s husband (Figure 11)—were to come upon their future wives making their purificatory ablutions, or be tempted to look upon their hidden parts, they would be letting themselves in for some serious trouble. Indeed, such indiscretions would be akin to breaking an established taboo in many European and other cultures, which had long cautioned men against catching sight of a woman during her menstruation.93 If the profusion of images of Mélusine’s hideous tail protruding from her bath, or her escape in the guise of a malevolent dragon (a blatant clue as to her obstinately malign disposition), that they were exposed to was not enough to keep them on the straight and narrow in this regard, then surely nothing would be. During the concluding centuries of the Middle Ages, these were the most representative iconographical themes of the serpent-fairy. The obsessive repetition of the bath motif alluded incessantly to Mélusine’s attempts at ritual purification, 94 which had already been prescribed in Leviticus for menstruating women; this drew further attention to her 91

D’Arras, Mélusine, 230. Durand, The Anthropological Structures of the Imaginary, 110. 93 D’Arras, Mélusine, 326. 94 For more on the ritual precepts of physical cleanliness as a guarantee of spiritual purity see Denise Jodolet, ‘Imaginaires érotiques de l’hygiène féminine intime. Approche anthropologique’, Connexions, 87, 2007/1, 105–127. 92

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inherent impurity and was apparently designed to make the idea of sexual relations less appealing, even if they were not banned outright. Although the truth of such stories, like their beauty, is in the eye of the beholder, it must be noted that the medical establishment of the Late Medieval was fully on board. Irresistibly drawn to the fantastical idea that menstrual blood was a fluid that could be assimilated with the venomous secretions of other cold-blooded and dangerous beings like the snake. All this was very unfortunate for women, but we must remember that we are talking about a time in which evil humours were, for scrupulous physicians, the cause of not only disease and choleric states, etc., but also bad dreams, which were more often than not populated with monstrous and/or fearsome creatures such as devils, dragons, bears, dogs and snakes.95

Figure 11: Forbidden pleasures and breaking taboos. Mélusine bathing. Jean d’Arras, Mélusine, 1478.

95

Il Libro di Sidrach, Chapter CCXXVII, 262.

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The suspicion that eyes pregnant with venomous vapour could have lethal effects essentially put menstruating women on a level with the Basilisk and Medusa.96 Illuminated and guided by the teachings of Isidore of Seville,97 from the seventh century onwards young men had understood how to recognise monsters and their crude strengths. Thus they refined ancient emotions, made legendary by Euripides, who had seen that the drops of red blood falling from the right side of Medusa’s head had the beneficial power to resurrect the dead, while those falling from the left could kill, being full of the Gorgon’s serpentine venom (Ion, 1010–1015)

The Poison-Damsel The theories that menstrual blood was poisonous were subjected to apparently objective scrutiny in the 13th-century scientific texts written in both Latin and the vernacular. Initially put forward by Pliny the Elder98 and reiterated in the popular Aristotle-inspired treatise tentatively attributed to Albert the Great,99 De secretis mulierum, it reached an even wider audience in Li secrès as philosophes (The Secrets of the Philosophers). This work, known to intellectuals of the Middle Ages as Placidius and Timaeus, was so popular that it was printed thirteen times

96

Ibidem. Isidore of Seville, The Etymologies, ‘The human beings and portents’: “And there are the Gorgons, harlots with serpentine locks, who would turn anyone looking at them into stone, and who had only one eye that which that they would take turns using. But these were three sisters who had a single beauty, as if they had a single eye, who would so stun those be holding them that they were thought to turn them into stone.” (Book XI, 3, 29). 98 For this theory of Pliny the Elder’s, mentioned several times in this book, see his Natural History, Book VII, XV, 64–66 and 60–61. For the psychological consequences of these beliefs, which crystallised over time, see Claude Thomasset, ‘La femme au Moyen Âge: les composantes fondamentales de sa représentatione: immunité-impunité’, Ornicar, n. 22–23, 1981, 223–238 99 See the critical edition Helene Rodnite Lemay, Women’s Secrets: A Translation of Pseudo-Albertus Magnus’ “De secretis mulierum” with Commentaries (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992). 97

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before 1598. The unparalleled critical edition by Thomasset100 captured the scientific and educational atmosphere of the age, and enables us to comprehend the male view of females that held sway at court. In fact, the treatise itself provides a good sample of the opinions and cognitions circulating at court among the secular readers destined for political power. This was a public eager for an all-encompassing theory that was not strictly ecclesiastical or over-specialised which could replace the texts that they had been weaned on. This collective desire was what fuelled the widespread divulgation of the encyclopaedias of the age, most notably Placidius and Timaeus, in the second half of the thirteenth century. This treatise leant heavily on the theory that the balance between the four humours governed human temperament; it used a medical substrate to bolster its conclusions, which were posed in the form of questions. In it the two interlocutors of the title discussed a wide range of themes (astronomy, astrology, metaphysics, natural phenomena, sacred history, cosmography, meteorology, geometry and optics) focussing in particular on ethical and medical issues. Among their descriptions of the physiological and reproductive functions appeared an extraordinarily toxic young lady. This creature, the Poison-Damsel, spanned the gap between menstruation and the elimination of noxious humours. 101 In this encyclopaedia, in a style reminiscent of Classical works, Timaeus, a philosopher with a Platonic bent, instructs his pupil Placidius, to whom he chose to impart his wisdom despite his being the son of a minor king, because his choleric temperament, though not desirable, was preferable to the incurably melancholic demeanour of the imperial scion.102 100

Placides et Timéo ou Li secrès as philosophes in Charles A. Thomasset (ed.) (Genéve-Paris: Droz, 1980) or in Charles A. Thomasset, (ed.) Une vision du monde à la fin du XIIIe siècle. Commentaire du dialogue de Placides et Timeo (GenéveParis: Droz, 1982). See also Charles Victor Langlois, La vie en France au Moyen Âge de la fin du XIIe au milieu du XIVe siècle (Paris: Hachette, 1927), 315; Charles A. Thomasset (ed.), La connaissance de la nature et du monde d’après des écrits français à l’usage des laïcs, 276–334. 101 Thomasset, Placides et Timeo (1982): ‘Les menstruations’: “Pourquoi la femme connaît-elle ce phénomene plus fréquentement que les autre betes, alors que l’homme n’en est pas affecté? Chez l’homme se résout en polis et barbe. Chez les betes, plumes, poils, écailles, sont produit par ‘l’espurgement’ de ce sang. Le cycle des menstruations est en harmonie avec le cycle lunaire.”, 264. 102 Ibidem, ‘Le choix de Timeo’, 289.

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The humour theory of temperament, which in the Galenic view was linked to the concept of complexion (a mixture of the primary qualities of hot, dry, cold and wet), made successful incursions into the disciplines of physiognomic, astrology and educational literature in this period. 103 Indeed, Timaeus was very authoritative in his identification—following the Schola Medica Salernitana (Salerno Medical School) guidelines—of the sanguine, phlegmatic, choleric and melancholic temperaments, and their stereotypical physical and psychological characteristics. He makes clear how Placidius’ choleric temperament could be improved through learning, while the Emperor’s son was a melancholic, and therefore, “by nature and disease”104 reeked of the lowest element, the earth; he had too strong a bond with the irremediable cold, and was therefore unlikely to benefit from Timaeus’ teachings and was accordingly left to sink or swim on his own. In addition, the theory of the four humours also reinforced the opposition between the warm nature of man and the cold nature of women, who would, as a result of their temperature, be subject to imbalances in their humours and hence disease. Aristotle had laid the foundations of how to distinguish the relative superiority of these characteristics, stating that heat was a quality of the male. The translation of his works in the second half of the thirteenth century had a huge influence on the Western thinkers of the age, who went on to develop his theories in their own peculiar ways. These ideas were also influenced by the theories put forward by Galen (131–201 CE), who shaped the teaching of medicine not only in the Latin West, but also in the Islamic Arabic East. Galen hypothesised that every substance contained innate qualities, or the potential to express active hot and cold and passive dry and wet.105 Such yardsticks, which were often contradictory, did however give him an excellent opportunity to spout forth impeccable disquisitions on, among other pressing issues, the problem of female hirsuteness; in his view, the long hair sported by women was a kind of by-product of all the excessive residues that accumulated in their cold, imperfect bodies.106

103

Jean Claude Polet (ed.), Patrimoine littéraire européen. Anthologie en langue française, vol. 4a; Le Moyen Âge de l’Oural à l’Atlantique. Littératures d’Europe Occidentale (Bruxelles: De Boeck Université, 1993), vol. 4b. 125. 104 Thomasset, Placides et Timeo (1982), ‘Les tempéraments’, 283. 105 Jacquart and Micheau, La médecine arabe et l’Occident médiéval. 106 Galeno, Sull’utilità delle parti del corpo umano, 671–672.

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In the seventh century the association between temperament and specific humour had already infiltrated Isidore of Seville’s Etymologies107 and conquered the Schola Medica Salernitana, which, from the ninth century onwards, rapidly began to hold sway over the Arab, Greek and Latin worlds, continuing to be highly influential until the Renaissance. Thus the idea that a poor complexion resulting from an imbalance in the primary constitutional qualities was set in stone, and convinced the French anatomist and surgeon Ambroise Parè (1510–1590), for example, to stigmatise phlegmatic men; he lumped them in with other cold creatures, and condemned them to be surrounded by visions of serpents, sepulchres and corpses throughout their miserable lives.108 The association of heat with the idea of life, and cold with that of death made it obvious that women were more prone to violent decay; hence women were surrounded not only by the foul odour of sin, but also the stink of disease. After all, even as far back as Hippocrates the menstrual cycle had been assigned the job of expelling harmful humours, so it should be no surprise that, due to the accumulation of male fears over the centuries, this dripping red fluid began to be seen as a deadly menace produced by an organism brimming with the poison it produced. 109 According to Thomasset, the concept was clearly expressed in the Patristic and medical sources of the Middle Ages, whose misogynist worldview— driven by male anxiety about women’s presumed immunity to their own venom—gave rise to the 13th-century myth of the Poison-Damsel. Indeed, this tale was given credence not only by Albert the Great (who cited Avicenna as the authority on the topic), but also such luminaries as Thomas Aquinas and the anonymous author of Placides et Timeo.110 The father of the Poison-Damsel was an intellectual, seeking fortune at court, who reinterpreted the Classical world through the figure of Alexander 107

Isidore of Seville, The Etymologies, ‘The four humours of the body’, Book IV,

5. 108

Ambroise Paré, La chirurgie Introduction in Oeuvres complètes d’Ambroise Paré (Paris: J.B. Baillière, 1840), Vol. I, 46–48. 109 On the close relationship between witchcraft and accusations of poisoning see, among other studies on crime in the Middle Ages, the works of Franck Collard, ‘Veneficiis vel maleficiis’ in Le Moyen Âge vol. CIX, 1, 2003, 9–10, and Pouvoir et poison. Histoire d’un crime politique de l’Antiquité à nos jours (Paris: Seuil, 2007). 110 On the toxicity of menstrual blood see also Thomasset, La Femme au Moyen Âge, 224.

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the Great, who was often used as a device for conveying moralistic messages in the literature of the period. The story goes as follows: an Indian king, who did not want to miss the chance to rid himself of the powerful Macedonian Emperor—who had even added Persia to his empire, dreamt up an imaginative solution to his problem; in secret, he started to feed pure venom to a young girl (an ideal subject for such an experiment) until the very air she exhaled was toxic, and she could kill animals with a mere touch. The enterprising king had carefully devised his plan down to the smallest detail, and all he had now to do was choose the right moment to send this poisonous but irresistible maiden to the court of his enemy, and thereby achieve his aim. Despite his careful planning, only part of the scheme was successful—Alexander was immediately smitten, and soon turned every fibre of his being to the task of courting the Poison-Damsel and getting her into his bed. However, the burning fires of Alexander’s ardour were quickly dampened by Aristotle, here portrayed in the guise of a court cleric, and his mentor, Socrates, both of whom were determined to save the life of the incredulous and disgruntled Emperor from the perils of his own desires. The tension created by these specialists in the art of physiognomy is palpable as they focus on demonstrating the powers of their investigative gaze. In order to demonstrate the danger, they order two servants to embrace the Poison-Damsel, upon which they drop dead within seconds. Getting as carried away with their experiments as Alexander had been with his amorous pursuits, Aristotle and Socrates also sacrifice several animals (dogs and horses) to the cause of Truth, and it is only when these poor beasts have met their doom that Alexander shakes off the Poison-Damsel’s spell and understands the intelligence of his mentors.111 111 This is the scene recounted in Placides et Timeo (Thomasset, 1982), in the passage entitled ‘Nutrition’: “Et quand Alexandre eut reçu ce beau présent et qu’il vit les demoiselles (il s’agit des suivantes) et la belle jeune fille, plaisante et jouant parfaitement de la harpe, elle lui plut à merveille et c’est à grand-peine qu’il se retint d’aller l’embrasser; et sa tentation fut extrêmement vive. Mais Aristote, un clerc de la cour, et Socrate, son maître, décelèrent la présence du poison chez la jeune fille et ne voulurent pas permettre qu’Alexandre la touche. Et quand ils dirent cela à Alexandre, il ne put le croire, mais il redoutait Socrate, son maître, et n’osa pas le contredire. Socrate fit alors amener deux serfs en présence d’Alexandre et fit embrasser la jeune fille par l’un des deux qui tomba mort sur le champ; il fit faire la même chose à l’autre qui mourut de la même façon, de sorte qu’Alexandre

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In this way the story put in motion a resolute scientific theory that tended to liken the toxicity of blood to the acidity of wine. The secret that was alluded to was as follows: like good wine can become indigestible and corrosive when it spoils, so blood—in nature warm and vital—can mutate into its opposite: cold and deadly poison. It would be centuries before we got over this cultural hangover. And in the meantime the various physical imbalances caused by an excess of cold were solemnly dissected; according to the theory of the four humours, phlegm, which was produced in the brain, was accompanied by toxic vapours that could exit the body via the eyes and thereby wreak all sorts of havoc. In the Medieval mentality, the effects of this turbulent process were particularly evident in the Basilisk, and in menstruating and menopausal women. Later, however, despite the growing focus of the authors of encyclopaedias and Bestiaries on the theory of the poisonous gaze, the author of Placidius and Timaeus had other ideas, more in line with those of the classics, being more convinced that the breath was the agent of contamination. In any case, the slightest contact with the Poison-Damsel— embracing, shaking hands or merely brushing against her skin or her sweat—was sufficient to poison a man. There was one thing, however, upon which all of the authors could agree: sexual contact with a woman during her period was the worst possible idea. Giving in to such a temptation would expose a man to the risk of a terrible death or fathering a monster. The story of the PoisonDamsel thereby reinforced the number one rule of Medieval society by playing on the fears of its males. However, in order to preserve their breath, youth and strength, men had to learn an entire series of secrets. Their fervent search for knowledge potentiated the deceptive belief which, between the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, had hypothesised that women and snakes had complementary natures. Nevertheless, the different uses of the Eastern Poison-Damsel myth throughout the centuries challenged the creativity of the period. Thomasset’s research highlights the most common recurring themes in Europe; for example, in one of the Italian versions, the Damsel only ate snakes and fish from birth, while in another she was raised by a snake on reconnut que son maître disait vrai. Mais il n’en resta pas là et la fit encore toucher d’autres bêtes, chiens et chevaux, qui moururent sur le champ. C’est ainsi qu’Alexandre fut sauvé cette fois de la mort par son maître Socrate qui lui fut d’un très grand secours grâce à sa très grande intelligence.”, 292.

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whatever substances were used to suckle other serpents, which explained why she could only hiss. Both of these back-stories also provided a plausible explanation for why Aristotle was convinced that she was capable of poisoning anyone who attempted to couple with her. Furthermore, the fact that in a French version of the tale another toxic maid is hastily labelled like Lamia or Vampira, is not irrelevant.112 As we have seen, the affinity between women and snakes was an idea that was taken extremely seriously in Medieval iconography and sculpture, which urged women to conceal their toxic humours in shame—to hide those sinful residues and cold impurities that conveyed a whiff of scaly coils and death.

Figure 12: Humanoid with the head and torso of a woman, lizard feet and serpent tail. Miniature from a 15th-century English manuscript.

112

Thomasset in Une vision du mond à la fin du XIIIe siècle quotes Jean van Maerlant’s Geste de Alexandre (1257–1260), 286, Il Tesoro versificato, 288–290, and Un empuse prend la forme d’une femme, 293–294.

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Although menstruation has never been an explicit iconographic motif, artists came up with subtle strategies to evoke it. This is evident from the hosts of serpents of various shapes, sizes and colours that populate pictures of women and the numerous representations of a presumptuous Eve as she chats furtively with a humanoid reptile (Figure 12), which, according to the new rules of the game, appears in female form (Figure 13). Mélusine was also a very popular theme in art throughout the Middle Ages, whether splashing in her bath with her bottom half covered in heavy, bright-green scales (Figure 14) or escaping through the window clothed as a dragon (Figure 15) (i.e., a winged reptile—a symbol of poison and devilry). In this frenetic pantomime, the roles were easily reversed, and the snake, mother of all lies, was often portrayed in the guise of a woman, and viceversa. The Basilisk was another popular subject. Indeed, the moist but shadowy stare of this hideous beast was starkly reminiscent of the deadly gaze of Dante’s Medusa. Another motif often used to allude to menstruation without fear of causing offence was the mirror. 113 In fact, many allegorical meanings (mainly negative but also positive) were attached to a woman’s reflection. The mirror was generally used to reflect their moral disorder, but also on occasion their physical defects. The mirror was an allusion to sight in many pieces of religious and secular art, which positively heaved with allegory throughout the thirteenth century. As already proven in the battle of Perseus versus Medusa, the mirror was an effective means of defeating the monster. Guided by such success, Caravaggio ably portrayed Medusa in her death throes, which had been brought on by her catching sight of her own reflection in Perseus’ shiny shield; this lethal trap or weapon was also attributed to the snake-woman, the Basilisk, and the menstruating or menopausal woman. Thus the mirror alluded to sickness, poison and death, and thereby took on the toxic powers of menstrual blood. All these dangerous menaces profoundly occupied the best medical minds of the thirteenth century. After all, the text On Dreams, attributed to 113

For more on the iconographical theme of the woman in the mirror, see Evelyne Frankignoul, ‘La femme et le miroir: réflexion et réflexivité’, Memoires, September, 2002. Online, accessed April 22, 2016: http://www.artmemoires.com/lettre/lm2426/ 25ulgmiroir.htm

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Aristotle, had already taught them an important topical fact, namely that the noxious vapours emanating from women’s bodies could cloud and corrode mirrors, veiling them in blood at a single glance.114 In other words they spoiled them. The supposition that blood harboured magical properties explained how a pristine mirror could be damaged by a woman’s poisonous glance transmitted through the air, and how any person could also suffer the same fate as the mirror.

Figure 13: The snake-woman with Adam and Eve at the entrance to Notre-Dame Cathedral, Paris; the snake from Genesis was often depicted in female form and/or in cahoots with Eve in Medieval art. 114

Aristotle, On dreams, Book II, 459 b24 and 460 23a.

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Figure 14: Mélusine bathing. From Jean d’Arras, Mélusine, 1478.

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Figure 15: Mélusine as a dragon flying over the Lusignan castle. Miniature from Les Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry illumination, circa 412–1415.

But the mirror also possessed its own deadly properties—it could kill through an image alone. As demonstrated by numerous paintings, there was a widespread conviction that mirrors could reflect both the bestial and the divine. An example of just such a painting is The Garden of Earthly Delights by Bosch, in which the homicidal nature of woman is revealed while the observer can admire her naked image in the shiny buttock of a devil (Figure 16). Giotto also used the mirror motif in his portrait of Envy as a repellant old hag in the Scrovegni Chapel (1303–1305). A re-imagining of the same theme in Cesare Ripa’s Iconology, Giotto’s decrepit Envy seems more afflicted by a bodily sickness than a vice of the soul; she is adorned not only with horns and bestial eyes, but also a poisonous snake, which bursts through her head and out of her mouth, then turning back on itself to reflect its image in her eyes (Figure 17). Envy’s outstretched hand mimics the menacing mouth of the snake, and all the anguish of the scene is captured in her gaze—guilty of deforming the mind, body and the entire world. This is the point of conjunction in the Medieval mentality between the mirror and the eye—in their incessant symbolic references, both revealed the true nature of things. They showed even those things that were best left hidden, and both could be read as an instrument of knowledge or of death. Unlike the writers—who delved deeply into the excremental consistency and malodorous secrets of menstrual blood—artists merely hinted at its

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shadowy powers. They used the serpent as the go-to symbol, which was echoed in the flowing tresses and/or drooping and wrinkled appearance of women.

Figure 16: An unconscious woman embraced by a monstrous being is reflected in the rear end of the devil, detail from ‘The Musician’s Hell’, The Garden of Earthly Delights by Hieronymus Bosch, 1505. Museo del Prado, Madrid.

In the thirteenth century, artists turned their brushes to depicting reptiles and mirrors with the same zeal that they had dedicated to painting the Virgin in the twelfth. Serpents and mirrors were now used to represent the malicious nature of women, and for this reason, the Sirens were often depicted with long, undulating locks and a mirror in hand, in addition to a large fishy tail (Figure 18). And, whenever the universal symbol of vanity was employed, there were echoes of ‘Ariostle’s’ bloody mirror. This image also infiltrated Placidius and Timaeus. While its anonymous author did not appear to share the prevailing belief that contamination could occur through the eyes, he did buy into the other impetuous idea of

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Figure 17: Giotto’s Envy, 1306. Scrovegni Chapel, Padua, Italy.

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Figure 18: A Siren with a mirror and comb. Church of Notre-Dame, Villefranchede-Rouergue, France.

the speculum as a philosophical metaphor.115 Indeed, he would have easily been able to avail himself of specula principum—a kind of educational treatise or behavioural manual for kings and princes which had evolved over the course of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Like a political entrepreneur, therefore, he seized the opportunity to shape his educational relationship with his young pupil—finally, the son of a king raised by a philospher-preceptor—and thereby remodel governance according to the Classical ideal. He also weighed into the medical debate on the toxic link between menstrual blood and the serpent; indeed, his Poison-Damsel— enchanting though ready to slay anyone unlucky enough to approach her— oozed venom from every pore. In the guise of a self-satisfied expert in physiognomy, he wanted to make an important point with this story—not only for the benefit of his young charge, but also to the community as a

115

See Frédérique Lachaud and Lydwine Scordia (eds.), Le Prince au miroir de la littérature politique de l’Antiquité aux Lumières (Mont-Saint-Aignan: Publications des Universités de Rouen et du Havre, 2007).

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Figure 19: Hans Baldung’s Eve, the Serpent and Death, 1510–1520. National Gallery, Ottawa.

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whole;116 specifically, in order to discover the truth it was necessary to trust in the intellect—the true mirror of the world.117 With a large dose of personal vanity, he reminded young princes—the future sovereigns—that their power could be extinguished by a subtle, hidden and lethal trap, which they needed to be able to recognise if they were to avoid falling into it. The dangerous nature of this pitfall was obviously only comprehensible to those who had mastered the mysteries of reproduction and were able to thwart the wiles of a monstrous and deviant nature. In other words, only those who, like Socrates and Aristotle, had an extraordinary philosophical brain and knew how to safeguard the interests and objectives of young people who were destined to wield power would be able to unmask the secrets of women’s wickedness (Figure 19). Only such illustrious individuals would be able to prophesy, on behalf of the youthful generations, the new rules of a game devoid of imagination; there was only one way to protect against the reptilian nature of the subversive Damsel—chop off her head and throw her onto the pyre.118

Visual teachings The eyes were at the very heart of Medieval educational theory. The many models and counter-models that regulated the visual behaviour of the daughters of Eve—whether idealised or demonised—tell us something important regarding the mindset and gender relations of the era; they tell us that the identity attributed to Eve by Tertullian in the early third century CE persisted in Western culture and sensibilities until the twentieth century, permeating every social stratum. Although the inferiority of women was not a concept that had been invented in the Middle Ages, it was legitimised and consolidated during that time. This is apparent from the educational literature of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries—this drew from principles which reinforced the subordination and exclusion of women that had been one of the canons of early Christian philosophy. Based on the dictates of science, Thomas Aquinas would decree that women should not be allowed to teach, and still less govern. According to Delumeau, the Doctors of the Latin Church and celibate clerics

116

Thomasset, Une vision du monde à la fin du XIIIe siècle, 7–8. Placides et Timeo (Thomasset, 1982): “Et verité est que li clercs doit estre miroir a tout le monde”, 302. 118 Ibidem, 196. 117

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constructed an entirely black and white image of gender relations founded on the fear of women.119 Naturally, in this chiaroscuro worldview the white represented men and the black represented women. However, it was not only gender that defined social categories, but also ethnicity and religion. Indeed peasants, Jews, Moors, Muslims, heretics, lepers, cripples, gamblers, jugglers and prostitutes were also looked down upon as Other. As testified to by numerous examples found in the educational literature of the 1200s and 1300s, among the devices used to identify and denigrate these marginalised people, physical features, behaviours and gestures were preferred—presumably due to their superior powers of communication. It is therefore legitimate to wonder what strange guidelines inspired the construction of such stereotypes of diversity, and how such examples of otherness were viewed in various settings. The French medieval historian Jacques Le Goff studied the mental structures behind the Medieval imagination and attitudes to stigmatisation. He showed how these were forged in the fires of historical events, transmitted by tradition, and exchanged between different civilisations. For example, the Medieval image of Eve was designed to provide a kind of religious and theological compass for the largely illiterate populace, and proved rather convincing from an educational standpoint. This image, the perfect allegory of unassuageable guilt, was an integral part of both high-brow education and popular culture; by dragging the conventional wisdom towards an opposition between body and soul, and the consequent need for strict control of female sexuality—identified with original sin—reawakened other powerful mental attitudes. Driven by this and other ideas, the Medieval imagination engulfed the moral and political spheres, becoming an essential force in society.120 It was thus that the theme of the gaze, already a popular topos in Latin literature, spread from courtly society to the vernacular. Its popularity was likely due to the fact that it externalised the invisible, it dealt with collective experiences, and readily lent itself to being the keystone of various educational systems.

119

Delumeau, La Peur en Occident. XIV-XVIII siècles, 314–315. Jacques Le Goff, The Medieval Imagination. English edition: trans. Arthur Goldhammer (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1988), 6. 120

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Careful observation of visual behaviour was not unusual in Medieval art, whose creation relied on the use of accompanying signs and symbols; in other words it depended on emotive, ideological, political and fantastical variables. Although this aspect may seem to carry little weight to 21st-century eyes, it was of fundamental importance in both the construction of Otherness and the elaboration of sentimental values which, at least in theory, would break down the barriers between the sexes. The concept of emotional attachment—represented by “eyes within eyes”—was discovered in the second millennium as an emblem of selective and reciprocal love. There are many examples in art and literature that show us the importance of love between the sexes at this time and reiterate the lofty position that vision had already acquired in the Classical view of knowledge. Augustine had appropriated this idea, knowledgeably reformulating it as a new form of sensory hierarchy, and, thanks to him, the spiritual supremacy of seeing within—the so-called second sight—would be a lesson that would last for centuries. In all probability, the images that had invoked the concept of the eyes as a mirror of the soul, sensitivity and/or gestural expression between men and women also taught us another fundamental truth: the importance of bonds of affection and, in particular, an appreciation for an equal exchange of emotions. In fact, this idea of the gaze had a profound impact on the history of Western emotional development, having laid the foundations for the Medieval idea of ‘courtly’ love. On this somewhat ethereal theme, the latest generations of historians have considerably widened the scope of their research; they are using the emotional regimes of the past to explore ideological movements and social reforms, as well as the images and literature that influenced European sensibilities. The transformations in the various ideas of love, and their influence on the history of education has been investigated by Marrou,121 who was convinced that the experience at court had played a fundamental role in the development of Western sentimental values. Indeed, the association between love, the gaze and the heart was a recurring topos in

121

Henri-Irénée Marrou, Les Troubadours, (Paris: éd. du Seuil, 1961). See also Erich Kohler, Sociologia della fin’amor. Saggi trobadorici (Padua: Liviana, 1976). On the influence of the Arab Muslim civilisation and Latin literature on the courtly ideals of the Middle Ages see René Nelli (ed.), Écrivains anticonformistes du Moyen Âge occitan. La Femme et l’Amour (Paris: Phoebus, 1977).

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the courtly texts of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, when emotional principles accepted by both men and women evolved. Several scholars have suggested that this particular type of amorous game began to flower in Medieval France;122 in particular it was mainly through research by the Dutch cultural historian Huizinga123 and German sociologist of emotions Elias124 into numerous sources available at court that we can identify the changes in its frequenters’ sense of self and gender relations. These scholars explain how the sentimental imaginary of the court—itself conditioned by the rise of feudal society—was famously expressed in literature, the figurative arts and behavioural models.125 The interest in the gaze as a means of understanding the emotional regime at court helped to valorise the important symbolic function performed by sight in the amorous phenomenology of the twelfth century—the so-called ‘century of the Renaissance’. The romances, especially those disguised as didactic texts (think, for example, of Le Roman de la Rose, which was written in two parts, one by Guillaume de Lorris in 1235 and the other by Jean de Meun over forty years later) raised the issue of the individual and collective morality of the two sexes, and every now and again discussed the right gaze to adopt in various amorous circumstances. Even though these standards were not applicable to all, various contexts shared the relative importance placed on gestural communication with respect to the spoken word in the regulation of interpersonal relationships between men and women. That being said, this type of idealised communication was shown to be unreliable by Howard Bloch,126 who demonstrated that in actual fact the attitudes to women had not changed. Indeed, his careful examination of the topic of virginity in the Middle Ages reveals a certain continuity between the anti-feminism of early Christianity and the idealisation of women that 122

Michel Zink, Preface in Le Moyen Âge flamboyant: poésie et peinture. (Paris: Diane de Selliers, 2006), 12. 123 Johan Huizinga (1919), Waning of the Middle Ages. A Study in the Forms of Life, Thought and Art in France and the Netherlands in the 14th and 15th Centuries. English edition: 1924, trans. Frederik Jan Hopman. Reprint (London: Arnolds, 1995). 124 Norbert Elias (1939), The Civilizing Process. The History of Manners. English Edition: trans. Edmund Jephcott (New York: Urizen Books, 1978). 125 Daniela Romagnoli (ed.), La città e la corte. Buone e cattive maniere tra Medioevo ed età moderna (Milan: Guerini e Associati, 1991). 126 Bloch, Medieval Misogyny, 106.

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emerge in the courtly romances and poems of the 1100s and 1200s. The convincing examination by Bloch of the complex matrix behind the phenomenon of courtly love—through which flowed a current of theological and secular misogynistic attitudes—highlighted the fact that women were still being labelled as Other, and that all the other stereotypes which annihilated every trace of individuality were still in very much in evidence. From this perspective it becomes clear that the invention of romantic (courtly) love was in fact a usurpation and re-appropriation of all those situations from which women had benefitted in a world that was traditionally characterised by masculine ways of doing, thinking and imagining. This trend is particularly evident in the work of Walter Map (1135–1210), whose De nugis curialium, written in Latin, takes us back to the suspicious atmosphere of the Plantagenet royal household of the late twelfth century; here the social and affectionate exchanges between men and women did not incite particular interactions—a glance did not provoke reciprocal understanding, rather it was a warning sign of impending battle against beings that may possess powers akin to those of Mélusine’s bewitching gaze or Medusa’s petrifying stare.127 However, unlike the Italian authors of religious and secular didactic treatises (who remained faithful to the conventional wisdom, even up until the 14th century), from the 1170s onwards other writers did begin to encourage visual exchanges between men and women as a kind of affective glue. At least in literary relationships, therefore, getting to know the Other became an important educational topic—part and parcel of the amorous experience. For the author of the Romance of Flamenca it was impossible to suppose that an illiterate would be able to fully comprehend human sentiments, just as it would be unimaginable to understand affective relationships without savouring every drop of non-verbal communication. In his opinion, nobody could fathom or be successful in love if they doubted the joy of reciprocal glances.128 Contrasting with the impersonal relationships of feudal matrimony and the separation between the sexes urged by the Church, there arose therefore an idea that ‘eyes within eyes’ alluded to free will, individual 127

Map, De nugis curialium, vol. II, p. 483. On the mortifying power of images, the following is essential reading: Jean-Claude Schmitt, Le Corps des images. Essais sur la culture visuelle au Moyen Âge (Paris: Gallimard, Paris 2002), 122–131. 128 Le Roman de Flamenca (Genéve: Slatkine Reprints, 1974), 57.

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choice and personal experience—a new form of intimacy and equality between men and women. A man and a woman, who were generally unknown to one another, made eye contact, exchanged glances and became lost in each other’s gaze. This idea of love at first sight was very fashionable with the artists. In the four centuries in which courtly love was promoted (spanning the 12th to the 15th centuries), there appeared works of art that were highly charged with emotion. The miniatures reserved a place of honour for idyllic scenes, teeming with castles, gardens, fountains, flowers, hearts and amorous glances, as evidenced by a study of the iconography of two hundred images from (mainly French) 14th-and 15th-century manuscripts illuminated by artists from Italy to the Low Countries. 129 Analogous scenes began to appear in the profane art of the subsequent centuries, giving even the general populace an indelible education in the visual resources of the collective emotional language. The new need for reciprocal affection, testified to by the female authors and the feminine tastes of the age for love-laden romances, contrasted starkly with the feudal and ecclesiastical values that held sway. But neither the Church nor the feudal lords were slow to react to this presumptuous new trend. According to Solé, the push-back was particularly evident in the escalation of the Crusades against the Cathars (the last one being in 1229) and the Albigensians, and in the torrent of accusations of heresy that befell the authors of romantic literature (like Andreas Capellanus), not to mention whosoever frequented the cours d’amor or behaved in such a way as to raise the suspicion that they believed that human affection was as sacred as divine love.130 The concern, if not outright obsession, with the control of the female gaze that had developed through the ecclesiastical and penitential literature of the thirteenth century was eagerly welcomed by the authors of secular moral treatises in 14th-century Italy; it was used as an effective weapon to defend against the wave of innovation that had swept over the populace thanks to the endeavours of female representatives of the aristocracy. From that point onwards, the barriers between the sexes were re-erected for both penitents and the unashamed.

129

Zink (eds.), Le Moyen Âge flamboyant: poésie et peinture. Jacques Solé, ‘Les troubadours et l'amour-passion’ in Georges Duby, Jean Bottéro and Claude Mossé, L’amour et la sexualité (Paris: l’Histoire, 1984) 95. 130

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Beginning in the thirteenth century, the exempla proffered by Franciscan and Dominican preachers131 cemented the idea that, in order to preserve purity of the heart, women must avoid any contact with the world of men. No more gazes therefore, and certainly no smiles. As Marrou pointed out, faced with the opposition of a charge of heresy, the romantic interlude of courtly love did not last long. 132 The great success of the educational sermons and speeches on the virtues of keeping visual behaviour in check ended up distancing the Other from both the eyes and the heart; once more the lessons learned from the myth of Medusa and speculation on the snake-woman were front and centre of the Medieval mindset.

Lessons at Court From the eyes, pools of desire, love is born. This idea of ‘eyes within eyes’ grew out of the French literature from the end of the twelfth century. A particular proponent was Chrétien de Troyes, who wrote a romance, Cligés, which described falling love as being struck by a dart to the heart at first sight. Thus the eyes were like burning mirrors whose fires of love inflamed the heart. Chrétien de Troyes reiterated this theme in Erec and Enide, in which the two lovers of the title continually experiment with their visual powers, devouring each other with their eyes. The idea that love is something that is seen before it is felt was also apparent in Yvain: “My lady,” he says, “the impelling force comes from my heart, which is inclined towards you. My heart has fixed me in this desire.” “And what prompted your heart, my fair, sweet friend?” 133 “Lady, my eyes.”

Guillaume de Lorris, in his Roman de la Rose, also described a love-atfirst-sight scene in which the arrow that struck the heart through the eyes was actually visible. It was by such aggressive means that the passions of a willing victim were aroused.134 The violence of falling in love is increased 131

Felice Moretti, La ragione del sorriso e del riso nel Medioevo (Bari: Edipuglia, 2001) 57. 132 Marrou, Les Troubadours, 54. 133 Chrétien de Troyes, Yvain, the Knight of the Lion. English edition: trans. Burton Raffel (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1987), 30. 134 Guillame De Lorris, Le Roman de la Rose (Paris: A. Strubel, 1992), vv. 1690– 1700.

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in the Romance of Flamenca, which, alongside frequent eye contact, features a lover who laments that two of his senses had been afflicted: his hearing and his sight. 135 Nevertheless, the gaze was a more appealing mode of fomenting intimacy, and was put to work in several narratives. This theory was at the root of Andreas Capellanus’ comforting certainty that blindness impeded love; a blind man—being unable to see the source of his desire—would likewise be incapable of loving. This idea reached a wide audience in his De arte honeste amandi, known simply as De amore (1185). Despite Capellanus later being denounced as a heretic by the Bishop of Paris in 1277, this Latin work formed a point of reference for other romantic treatises from the same century and those that followed. The authors of these documents regurgitated Capellanus’ observations on love, especially his fifteenth rule—when a lover suddenly catches sight of his beloved, his heart beats wildly—and the thirtieth—the true lover is constantly and without intermission possessed by the image of his beloved.136 Similar viewpoints were expressed in the romance Parzival, written between 1203 and 1210 by German epic poet Wolfram von Eschenbach (1170–1220). This work imbued romantic relationships with shared glances, intense emotions, and the conviction that an educated gentleman would never offend a woman with hard stares.137 However, in one version of the poem Tristan (1210), a noteworthy German expounded on the theory of blind love, that is to say desire without love. Indeed, Gottfried von Strassburg explained that it was not love but desire that clouded the eyes, and the base sexual desires of Tristan’s uncle—the husband of Iseult—prevented him from recognising his own wife in bed. With this scene the author wanted to illustrate that it is only through candid glances—which nourish the body, soul, mind and heart—that total intimacy could be achieved.

135

Le roman de Flamenca, 57. Andreas Capellanus, De amore (Milan: SEI, 1996), Chapter V, 25. English edition Andreas Capellanus: The Art of Courtly Love, included in Joseph Black, et al., The Broadview Anthology of British Literature, vol. 1. (Toronto: Broadview Press, 2006). 137 Wolfram von Eschenbach, Parzival (Turin: Utet, 1981), Vol. II, 346. 136

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“They asked but rarely for other than the food which giveth to the heart its desire, to the eyes they delight; therewith had they enough.”138

Like the majority of his contemporaries in the first half of the thirteenth century, Richard de Fournival (1201–1260) exploited this principle, which was becoming a feature of romantic literature. In his prose Bestiare d’amour—a kind of reflection on the natural history of the emotional life—he supported his ‘observations’ with examples from the animal world, and the central idea of the primacy of the gaze was, unexpectedly, accompanied by a rehabilitation of the other senses; above all Fournival sought to provide a profane and erotic slant on the consolidated model of sacred wisdom on the topic, and he therefore gave visual supremacy (which was closely linked to memory via images and words) an additional role. In his view, rather than communicating the truth of faith, sacred stories or the deeds of hieratic saints, the eyes served to nourish burgeoning love, maintaining in the damsel the memory of her paramour intact and vigorous.139 Fournival also attempted to demonstrate that amorous sentiments—like intellectual conquests—despite being triggered by memory and its two main portals, sight and hearing, did in fact require the intervention of the entire sensory apparatus, in this order: smell, taste and touch. The sweet breath, the taste of a kiss, and the touch of a lover’s embrace were part and parcel of the experience of love.140 This is a liberating testament to the unquenchable necessity to valorise the quality of the other senses, even if the emotional wealth of sight still took centre stage. Indeed, “for at first encounters man is captured through his eyes, nor would Love have ever captured him if he had not looked at Love. For Love acts like the lion […] for Love attacks no man unless he looks at Love”.141 However, the fear of the destructive powers of the eyes of women began to coagulate around the bond between the gaze and amorous memory in 138 Gottfried von Strassburg, Tristan. English Edition, trans. Alan Federick (London: Penguin Classics, 1974), 111. 139 Francesco Zambon, ‘Introduction’, in Richard de Fournival, Bestiario d’amore (Parma: Pratiche Ed., 1987). 13. 140 Richard de Fournival, Bestiario d’amore, 51–53. English edition: trans. Jeanette Beer, Master Richard's Bestiary of Love and Response (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1986). 141 Ibidem, 8–9.

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Fournival’s Bestiary—like the sound of the voice of his beloved, her gaze could also imprison a man; “did sight help to capture me? Yes, I was more captured by my sight than the tiger in the mirror.”142 What dangers then did the man ensnared through his eyes face? Nothing less daunting than the loss of reason: “Man’s brain signifies intelligence. For as the spirit of life, which gives movement, resides in the heart, and as warmth, which gives nourishment, resides in the liver, so intelligence, which gives understanding, resides in the brain. And when man loves, no intelligence can avail him, rather he loses it altogether.”143

From these words the reader can infer the extent to which the male consciousness was tormented by the certainty that the sensory pathways of love would also lead to the destruction of memory and the intellect. Even for the supporters of this naturalistic supposition, the sacrifice of male intelligence at the altar of love was too high a price to pay. It would therefore be prudent to avoid the risks of such a scandalous and frightening possibility as the loss of reason by maintaining strict selfdiscipline in matters of the heart. It would be unreasonable and unjustifiable for a man to display a lack of self-control in this regard. Among the unsettling perplexities that plagued Fournival—caught on the horns of the dilemma between the loss of reason and the equally devastating absence of love—was the lingering doubt regarding the poisonous potential of the female gaze, and its ability to contaminate the seat of consciousness and cloud masculine judgement. To this was added the zealous anti-feminist stance of the moralistic didactic literature that had long worked on undermining the status of women by astutely invoking the authority of the Church Fathers, as well as philosophers, theologians and physicians. Satire also played a role, by legitimising such a viewpoint with frivolous jokes based on Latin sayings and verses that would adhere well beyond the lifetime of the publications themselves. In this vein, Walter Map, like Juvenal, Hieronymus and others before him, set out in 1180 to influence his male audience with his Dissuasio Valerii ad Rufinum philosophum ne uxorem ducat (A Dissuasion of Valerius to Rufinus the Philosopher that he should not take a Wife). In this misogynistic exchange, Map readily embarked on the road that led to the desire to create a world 142

Ibid., 14. Ibid., 9.

143

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protected from feminine wiles. With a subtle aura of self-satisfaction, he noted that his scribblings on the subject had been widely read and enjoyed, and had been transcribed with careful attention and amusement.144 With no embarrassment whatsoever he distances himself from the laws of the time by expressing the desire for immortality; nothing would please him more than to be remembered for his Dissuasio. In fact, if this were not to be the case, it would be as if he had never existed, and his own self-contentment would be nullified. Although satirical, this work was taken very seriously, and became extremely popular reading during the Humanist age. Numerous French, English and Italian manuscripts testify to its success,145 and it became one of the central pilasters of the anti-feminist literature of the European Middle Ages. Map was by no means the only voice in the chorus, but his most powerful legacy became his arguments for male superiority. Among the strategies he used to encourage Rufinus—inflamed by desire and blinded by his quest for pleasure—not to marry or, indeed, have any sentimental relationships, he urged him to “open thine eyes and see”.146 By exploiting the conceptual conflict between light and dark, which had never been a gentle abstraction, Map managed to give his readers the impression that their identity and their very soul was teetering on the edge of a precipice, and even the briefest contact with a female would send them tumbling over the edge. Unlike Augustine’s theory, Map seems to suggest that the gift of second sight should be used by men to realise that their own eyes were “bedazzled”,147 as otherwise they would be at risk of enchantment or other feminine deceptions. Indeed, should they throw themselves at the feet of Venus, no man would be spared pain or disappointment; unless they guarded against such amorous imaginings, they would undoubtedly be intoxicated by a “honeyed poison”, which would “bite as an adder, and inflict a wound that

144 Map, De nugis curialium: “I know what will happen when I am gone. When I have begun to rot, my book will begin to gain savour, my decease will cover all its defects, and the remotest generations my ancientness will gain me dignity: for then, as now, old copper will be of more account than new gold.”, IV, 5, 313. 145 See the Italian translation by Leon Battista Alberti, ‘Dissuasio Valerii’, in Leon Battista Alberti. Opere volgari, Cecil Grayson (ed.) (Bari: Laterza, 1966). 146 Map, De nugis curialium. IV, 3, 293. 147 Ibidem, IV, 5, 313.

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no antidote can cure”.148 The lettered gentleman knew that the desperate ambition for something valid, worthy and eternal should prompt men not to surrender to their emotions (like women), and instead to invoke their own incantation against this evil: “I would rather be mine than hers”.149 Thus the idealised worldview promoted by the 12th- and 13th-century literature once again placed the eye—the agent of female seduction—at centre stage, but its annihilation in the corresponding misogynist arguments led in a surprising new direction. The ‘visionaries’ of the age saw those that had succumbed to Venus as blind men—helpless and destroyed by a glance from a pernicious daughter of Eve; when the emotional flux of infatuation reached boiling point, its effects would be akin to those provoked by the bite of a venomous snake. If, therefore, young men wanted to eschew a life of religious study and prayer in favour of the type of seductive fantasies and erotic dreams offered by literature such as Le Roman de la Rose, they should nevertheless prepare themselves for the amorous adventures and pleasures of the flesh on offer at court by keeping both their inner and outer sight in check. This romance kept the discussion regarding the nature of love and sentimental relationships between men and women alive at the end of the thirteenth century. With more fervour than any thinker, philosopher, physician, author, court preceptor or poet, it defended the existence of a relationship between women and reptiles, taking the poisoning of the spirit that occurred in love as evidence of such. Although its authors, Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun, may have had differences of opinion as to what the ultimate truth of love was, both accepted without question the veracity of the idea that amorous passions intoxicated both the body and the soul. Guillaume de Lorris,150 like Petrarch in his Rime Sparse, felt that love carried a corrosive odour that could easily transform a man into a laughing-stock. This, however, was no new poetic device, being merely one in an endless series of repetitions of the same old story of Eve consorting with

148

Ibid., IV, 3, 289. Ibid., IV, 3, 301. 150 Guillaume de Lorris, Le Roman de la Rose, v. 95. 149

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the snake in the Garden of Eden. 151 For Jean de Meun too the obtuse nature of the reptile was the secret of the female enigma; woman was merely an animal—an irritable and wrathful, but ultimately inferior being. This idea was also borrowed from previous sources, and wise men such as Virgil—who had also been aware of this female predisposition, and Solomon would have approved of his stance. Their singular, univocal affiliation with the serpent made women highly undesirable; in any case the choleric temperament and innate wickedness of women152 made any loving, harmonious relationship with them impossible. Le Roman de la Rose reveals the rampant misogyny that pervaded these centuries. In Jean de Meun’s portrayal of women, they were on a par with the serpent that lurked on its belly in the grass to better attack unwary men with its poisonous bite. Put simply, snake, devil and woman were interchangeable, and these violent images conquered and educated the literate public, pointing an accusing finger at all things related to the mysterious world of the daughters of Eve. Likewise, the snake as temptress was reflected in the 12th- and 13th-century interpretation of love as poisoning. As the literary evidence of the association between women and serpents began to mount, the epilogue of the sentimental experience was written. Male authors honed their ingenuity by coming up with new interpretations of the ways in which these lowly creatures were aligned, and how they could affect otherwise healthy bodies and emotions. An

151

Véronique Adam in Images fanées et matières vives: cinq études sur la poesie Louis XIII (Grenoble: Ellug, 2003) explores the survival of these images and the myth of the venomous snake-woman, its reprisal by various poets (Abraham de Vermeil, Théophile de Viau, Pierre de Marbeuf, Gabriel Du Bois-Hus and Tristan L’Hermite) of the French Baroque, and the male anxieties reflected in the sentimental imaginary of the age. 152 Jean de Meun, Le Roman de la Rose: this is the description of Genius’ woman given in manuscripts (BN 12786 and BN 378): “Mais, sans aucun doute, il est vrai qu’une femme s’enflamme facilment de colère. Virgile lui-même, qui en savait beaucoup sur leur conduit, atteste qu’une femme n’aura jamais assez de stabilité pour echapper à l’inconstance et au changement. Par ailleurs, c’est un animal fort irritable: Salomon dit qu’il n’y eut jamais tête plus cruelle que tête de serpent, ni être plus irritable qu’une femme, et que jamais créature n’eut de disposition au vice. Bref, il y a tant de méchanceté dans la femme que nul ne porrait exposer en rime ou en vers ses moeurs perverouses.”, vv. 16320–16340.

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interpolation that appears in many Le Roman de la Rose 153 manuscripts from the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries—in a confluence of ideas from various sources—likens the image over the entrance to the Tower of Jealousy to the head of Medusa. From this lofty position she could strike the final blow to young men weighed down by the burden of love, and profane the vital and luminous image of the Garden of the Rose, extinguishing the flames of their ardour and the joy of loisir with a dead and empty gaze. The boisterous dreams of love briefly enjoyed in the age of chivalry were also punctured by likening women to another strange creature—the Cockatrice. Indeed, this Basilisk-type beast (by its description remarkably similar to a crocodile) was not only lacking in loyalty and possessing of a poisonous stare, but purportedly nurtured this power by stuffing itself with worms twice a year.154 This unflattering comparison was raised in the 13thcentury Book of Sidrach, which was widely circulated in the European courts (Provençal, English, Dutch, German and Italian), alerting their menfolk to the risks they ran should they lose their reason and succumb to womanly wiles and the flames of sexual desire. An Italian version of The Book of Sidrach from the fourteenth century did even more to drive a wedge between the sexes, urging men to look beyond the outward appearance of women and to be at pains to distinguish between a “maiden” and a “damsel”. It must be said that the original was much more interesting and appealing than this copy.155 Thus the hopes of even gentle maidens and ladies to finally establish an acceptable sentimental relationship, at least at court, were dashed. They had not taken into account the men of literature, science and philosophy, who, setting themselves up as teachers, had instilled in their disciples the 153

See Sylvia Huot, ‘The Medusa interpolation in the Romance of the Rose: Mythographic Program and Ovidian intertext’, Speculum: A Journal of Medieval Studies, vol. 62, 4, Oct. 1987, 865–877. 154 Il Libro di Sidrac: “For men shal neuer haue but folye of wyckyd womannys companye. Moch peryl and great blame, and amonge men eschap moch shame. Her maners are ful of vyce, moch lyke to a cocatryce” (which was described as an acquatic animal), Chapter LXXXVII, 219. 155 Ibidem: “La prima è assai più degna di pulzella, perché è pura nel corpo, nel pensiero, nella volontà e nella cogitazione e non è corrotta nei piedi, nelle mani, nel corpo, nella bocca, negli orecchi e negli occhi. La pulzella, invece, anche se non è corrotta nel corpo, può essere corrotta nei suoi membri, dai piedi agli occhi.”, Chapter CCLXXI, 302.

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fear of women and their proximity. They had taught their disciples that they should guard against the cold nature of the female, who was inherently unable to control or improve herself, and to shun the sight, thought and touch of a woman.156 This was the only lesson that needed to be learned.

L’Atelier des femmes How did the female writers feel about their inferiority, it being such a popular literary topic and social reality? Did they acknowledge the singular system of stereotyped concepts, practices and beliefs that had likened them to animals? As luck would have it, several exemplary female voices have filtered down from the Middle Ages, so we do have some information on their impressions of the misogynist theories on temperament, the nature of the daughters of Eve, and the myth of Medusa. Hildegard of Bingen, Trotula de Ruggiero and Christine de Pizan, who had all benefitted from, on average, three times the education of their peers, were three such remarkable but very different women who took up parchment, quill and inkhorn. Shining stars of women’s literature, they earned their place in cultural history, and spoke up loudly for the ‘second’ sex. All three defended the authority of women and sought to shelter their peers from the stigma of being female.

Hildegard of Bingen On the mount of Disibodenberg, in a small Benedictine monastery, one of the most charismatic visionaries of the twelfth century was cloistered at the age of eight years. This young girl, Hildegard of Bingen (1098–1179), later wrote copiously on theology, as well as musical compositions and treatises exploring moral, theological, scientific and medical themes. Numerous critical and bibliographical works have been written in the attempt to reconstruct the life and ideas of this female writer, and many have touched upon her insecurity and embarrassment at having been let into the restricted circle of male authors, and the reasons why she felt the need to stress that she belonged to the ‘weaker’ sex. In fact, in the Preface

156

Ibid., Chapter CCLXXIII, 357.

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to her Scivias, she laid out the humility of her efforts in black and white.157 Despite her apparent lack of self-esteem, however, the subsequent pages of the work are alive with astute ideas and joyful echoes of the world of women—surprising given the hostility towards them that was rife at that time, especially in the monasteries. Perhaps it was because of her close contact with that world that she sensed that the spiritual landscape was in dire need of a healthy dose of liberty and creativity to give her fellow sisters’ deeds and activities a sense of unearthliness and the eternal. By dedicating her life to the education and cultural development of religious women, 158 she shared with them her thirst for knowledge and harmony. Her visions, which she published in Latin, reveal her refusal to accept the status quo and the predominant male worldview; she tried with all her might to establish the link between body and soul, emphasising the benevolent nature of their union.159 She remained faithful to this dream, this aspiration, for her entire life, despite the powerful enemies rallied against it—the impurity, sickness, choler, melancholy, sin, lust, and poison of her inherently female body and soul. Despite her desire to promote a new worldview, in her portrayal of the different forms of impurity and lust, Hildegard availed herself of images that were familiar to the culture of the age; her Liber vitae meritorum (1150–1163) featured an illumination of a naked woman with noxious breath, poisonous saliva and legs akimbo sprawled lazily on a bed, suckling a dog at her right breast and a snake at her left.160

157

In the Preface to Scivias, Hildegard of Bingen said: “But although I heard and saw these things, because of doubt and a low opinion (of myself) and because of the diverse sayings of man, I refused for a loving time the call to write, not out of stubbornness but out of humility, until weighed down by the scourge of God, I fell onto a bed of sickness”. As quoted in Sabine Flanagan, Hildegarde of Bingen, 1098-1179: A Visionary Life (London and New York: Routledge 1990), 1, 4. For the critical edition of the Latin original text see Adelgundis Führkötter and Angela Carlevaris (eds.), Hildegardis Scivias (Turnhout: Brepols, 1978). 158 Regine Pernoud, Hildegarde de Bingen (Paris: Éditions du Rocher, 1995), 87. 159 Jérôme. Baschet, ‘Âme et corps dans l’Occident médiéval: une dualité dynamique, entre pluralité et dualisme’, Archives de sciences sociales des religions 112, October–December, 2000, 33. Online, accessed September 14, 2016. 160 Hildegard of Bingen, Liber vitae meritorum, III, 22, as quoted in Wighard Strelhov and Gottfried Hertzka, Hildegard of Bingen’s Medicine (Vermont: Bear & Company, 1987), 224–225.

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However, through half-closed lids Hildegard’s seer’s eyes—true to Augustine’s theory that these organs were windows looking onto the soul—also captured other rays of light from within. Take, for example, her antiphon O rubor sanguinis: “O red blood which flowed from on high, where divinity touched. you are a flower that the winter of the serpent's breath never harmed.”161

Although these verses may seem incomprehensible, a profound, charismatic symbolism runs through them—a singular and rousing call to the sense of sacred femininity, essential to the warmth and life of the cosmos. Hildegard also had her own ideas on medicine, and Liber vitae meritorum contains her fresh take on sickness and health, as well as the vices and virtues, reward and punishment, suffering and relief. However, her interpretations of the places where the damned were introduced to the torments of Purgatory followed the long-established academic line: they were arid, dark, malodorous and full of fiery thorns and stinking marshes where dwelt hideous creatures such as “horrible” worms, toads, scorpions and vipers.162 Her Secreta Dei also contains some of her medical and scientific works—although some suspect that these have been significantly added to by an unknown hand (or hands). Indeed, in contrast to her other writings, these exude decidedly more venom; the Basilisk, for instance, is described here as a member of the species of worm equipped with the same diabolical power as the toad, and the same potential for evil as the old

161

Hildegard of Bingen, Antiphon “O redness of the blood”. Online, accessed October 22, 2016: http://bartholomew.stanford.edu/ onmusichildegard/excerpt2.html 162 Hildegard of Bingen, Liber vitae meritorum (4, 43 and 5, 63), quoted in Flanagan, Hildegard of Bingen, 75–76.

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serpent.163 In the eighth book of her Physica, reptiles, dragons and slugs are meticulously consigned to the same category as toxic creatures. It is explained that these were brought into being after the original Creation; governed by corrupt residues, they arose again from the ruins left behind by the Great Flood with one goal: to contravene God’s will that everything on Earth exist for the good of humankind. As man had no conceivable use for such creatures, they must be evil—a threat. Being devoid of any medicinal properties, Hildegard placed these animals on the border between hot and cold, and in a bold and unprecedented move announced that the most venomous were, in fact, hot in nature.164 In another departure from the conventional wisdom, the abbess did not share the belief that women, being cold, were sexually voracious. Instead she raised a new idea, openly attributing a special power to the property of cold—being linked to the humidity of women, it was natural cold that made them fertile. Not only this, cold tempered ardour and therefore made women less likely to be enslaved by burning desire. 163

Hildegard of Bingen describes the Basilisk in her Physica, (available in the French critical edition, Le Livre des subtilités des créatures divines, les animaux (Paris: Millon, 1989), “Les arbres, les poissons, les oiseaux’ as follows: “Le Basilic naît d’autre espèces de vermines qui ont quelques choses de diabolique, comme le crapaud. Quand la femelle du crapaud est gravide et prête à mettre bas, si elle voit alors un oeuf de serpent ou de poule, elle s’en éprend, s’étend sur lui et le couve jusqu’à ce qu’elle mette bas les petits qu’elle avait normalement conçus; une fois qu’elle les a mis bas, ils meurent aussitôt. Quand elle voit qu’ils sont morts, elle s’installe à nouveau sur l’oeuf et le couve jusqu’à ce que le petit qui est en lui commence à vivre. Alors, sous l’effet de l’action diabolique, une force venue de l’antique serpent, qui se trouve dans l’Antéchrist, vient la frapper; ainsi, tout comme le diable résiste aux forces célestes, de même cet animal lutte-t-il contre les mortels en les tuant. Une fois que le crapaud a senti qu’il y avait de la vie dans l’oeuf, il est aussitôt frappé d’épouvante et s’enfuit. Le nouveau vivant brise la coquille de l’oeuf et en sort; puis, conformément à sa nature, il émet un souffle très puissant, avec le feu le plus brûlant et le plus puissant qui puisse être, à l’exception de celui de l’enfer semblable à la foudre et au tonnerre. Une fois sorti de l’oeuf, il fend le sol grâce à la puissance de son souffle, jusqu’à une profondeur de cinq coudées; il s’installe là dans le sol humide, jusqu’à ce qu’il ait atteint sa maturité. Puis il remonte sur la terre et, par son souffle, tue tout ce qu’il trouve en vie, car il ne veut ni ne peut supporter quelque chose de vivant. Quand il voit quelque chose qui vit, il se met en colère et envoie devant lui son froid et son souffle, tuant la créature sur laquelle il souffle: celle-ci tombe aussitôt, comme si elle était frappée par le tonnerre et la foudre.”, Chapter XI, t. II. 164 Hildegard of Bingen, Physica, quoted in Flanagan, Hildegard of Bingen, 88–89.

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This theory was in diametric opposition to the male ideas that prevailed during this period; 165 but, from the fragility of the female constitution, Hildegard envisioned a flourishing of beauty, manual skill and moral fortitude. With an understanding, participatory and unbiased air, she informed women that, thanks to their menstruation—which eliminated noxious humours—they were in fact spared certain maladies. 166 Being better able to maintain control of themselves, they were also less impulsive than men. Furthermore, their limpid desires and airy sexual pleasures made them shine like the sun, whereas men had to be content to burn with their ardour.167 While the prevailing stereotypes encouraged men to turn their backs on the world of women—a sub-human, sinful place—Hildegard nurtured her ardent desire to reinstate the links between women and the divine, and to enjoy their spiritual company. In the Preface to Scivias, she implied that she had been awakened by a bright celestial light which washed over her brain, filling her heart and her breast, and commanding her to write down her visions—a heavenly flame that did not burn, but warmed like the gentle rays of the sun.

Trotula de Ruggiero There are frequent cases of female healers in the stories of those centuries, but one of the most singular examples is that of Trotula de Ruggiero, who lived in the south of Italy at the turn of the eleventh century. As tradition would have it, this extraordinary physician was the author of several texts on women that would continue to influence medicine in Europe throughout the later Middle Ages. Although, it has been hypothesised that the name Trotula—often seen in its corrupted forms Trotta, Trocta or Trota—was a simple expedient for unifying manuscripts attributed to one or more male authors, it has also been supposed that Trotula herself taught at the Schola Medica Salernitana—a centre for cultural and scientific exchange that was free of Church control. Indeed, Salerno was a city renowned for the mulieres salernitanae (Salernitan women), who distinguished themselves in the arts of medicine,

165

Laurence Moulinier, ‘Conception et corps féminin selon Hildegarde de Bingen’ in Storia delle donne, 1 (Firenze University Press, 2005), 139–157. 166 Hildegard of Bingen, Les causes et les remèdes, 81–82. 167 Moulinier, ‘Conception et corps féminin selon Hildegarde de Bingen’, 149.

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obstetrics, gynaecology, hygiene and nursing arts. Even if Trotula did not write the works attributed to her,168 their profound influence is undeniable. It was precisely this indisputable, legendary popularity that makes her still more precious today, especially considering that it was garnered in an age in which the inventors of the Poison-Damsel and those who theorised that menstrual blood was a toxic fluid were adorned with wreaths of laurel. Trotula’s name began to emerge in medical and literary books from the thirteenth century onwards: for example the encyclopaedic dialogue Placides and Timéo169 (the very work that sowed the seeds of the PoisonDamsel myth), Rutebeuf’s 12th-century Le dit de l’herberie, and even Chaucer’s (1343–1400) Canterbury Tales. Indeed, in the story of ‘The Wife of Bath’ she is accredited with being the natural representative of the “secrets of women”. Thanks to the widespread fame of her superlative knowledge of the nature of women, Trotula has gone down in history as having furthered comprehension on the gynaecological mysteries, and for having educated her peers to take care of their own health and hygiene. At a time in which Christian women were condemned to suffer the pains of childbirth and shame of menstruation as penance for the sins of Eve, Trotula was a breath of fresh air, taking the unprecedented step of publicly declaring her designs for women’s health. Moreover, in an attempt to dispel the noxious fug of the traditional views on menstruation, she associated the “flower” with the promotion of women’s wholesome fertility, and therefore saw its regularity as a boon, rather than a curse. If women did not bleed regularly, it would be toxic, yes, but for them alone, and they should aim to restore their natural equilibrium by treatments involving blood-letting and medicinal herbs. 168

Ferruccio Bertini in ‘Trotula il medico’ (Medioevo al femminile, Rome-Bari: Laterza, 1989) focuses a wide-ranging bibliography and reconstructions of the editions of Trotula’s two collected works, De passionibus mulierum curandorum and De ornatu mulierum (97–119). For more on the tormented historical reflections on the subject see Jole Agrimi, ‘Autorità di un’autrice e delegittimazione del suo sapere: Trotula’ in Silvana Borutti (ed.), Memoria e scrittura della filosofia. Studi offerti a Fulvio Papi per il suo settantesimo compleanno (Milan: Mimesis, 2000), 147–56. For further details, see Monica H. Green, ‘In Search of an ‘Authentic’ Women’s Medicine: The Strange Fates of Trota of Salerno and Hildegard of Bingen,’ Dynamis: Acta Hispanica ad Medicinae Scientiarumque Historiam Illustrandam 19 (1999), 25–54. 169 Placides et Timeo, 291.

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In her writings on women’s diseases (De passionibus mulierum curandarum) 170 and beauty (De ornatu mulierum) there is no trace whatsoever of the dastardly kinship between the woman and the serpent. Rather women were now permitted the daily enjoyment of their physical beauty in a fresh sign of harmony with the Universe. Analysing the instructions within these works, one cannot help but be cheered by the idea that some sort of invisible threshold had been crossed; remedies against snakebite were proposed that would be efficacious for both men and women, together with laborious distillates for red and painful eyes, and inviting recipes designed to appeal to the female of the species. Many of these were repeated in later books on cosmetics, like, for example, a potion to make blonde hair shine like gold, which was made of “dragon’s blood”. If, however, a lady desired long black tresses—another indication that a sea change had occurred, as this look would be associated with no little suspicion—all she would have to do was chop the head and tail off a lizard, boil it in oil and anoint her hair with it. The most striking prescription (the 35th) in a 1547 Italian printed edition De passionibus mulierum, however, was aimed at women who, by misfortune or design, had lost their virginity: the hymen could be reconstructed by the careful application of a small piece of snakeskin.171

Christine de Pizan Serpents raised their worthy heads again in the writings of another extraordinary female Medieval author, Christine de Pizan (1364–1431). She dreamed of a City of Ladies (1405)—a world filled with the lively enterprise of women past, present and future. Among the female inhabitants of this pleasant city, born of the ardent desires and reformational efforts of its inventor, who used her imagination and actions to make her stand as a woman, Medusa and her reptilian echoes had their own place. De Pizan’s plan was to serve a good cause and teach the world something new using the prevailing literary trend: a lesson camouflaged in the robes of fiction. Embarking into a cultural field entirely dominated by males, she made a 170

The Trotula: An English Translation of the Medieval Compendium of Women’s Medicine, Monica H. Green (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002). 171 Pina Boggi Cavallo (ed.), Trotula de Ruggiero. Sulla malattie delle donne (Palermo: La Luna, 1994), 46.

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remarkably successful attempt to speak up for the morality and dignity of her sex. By means of subtle alchemy, she mixed real and legendary female characters with goddesses and female rulers, overturning the reputations of those who had, according to man, served to denigrate the daughters of Eve. Using a female perspective on mythology she was able to highlight the excellence of her sex, a strategy that had already proved effective in her Epître d’Othéa (an allegorical work first published around 1400).172 In this way she took a stand against the misogynistic stereotypes that dominated the culture of her time. She condemned the shocking arguments used by Ovid and his successors to paralyse reflection on the relationships between men and women in no uncertain terms, and she was particularly scathing about the opinions of Jean de Meun. In his Le Roman de la Rose, the French poet used spurious parallels with animal behaviour (lions, wolves and serpents, etc.) to stigmatise and defame women, making them a public object of blame. In Christine de Pizan’s opinion, however, these principles were both immoral and intolerable. The eloquent ideas and singular attitudes that had fuelled the fires of hostility and contempt towards women weighed heavily on her, and this is apparent in first pages of The City of Ladies. De Pizan opened the book with a sense of disgust and sadness, “head bowed as if in shame” and “eyes full of tears”.173 She was very unhappy. In the name of that congenital, indelible stain, she and all women were denied access to the pursuits of an intellectual life and the honour of public office. And she wished for nothing more fervently than to see herself and her peers shake off those shackles of shame and regain their lost respect on a social level, as well as in the personal and emotional spheres. This desire led her to speak out about the sadness she herself had experienced and discerned in the affairs of “countless” acquaintances (from princesses to women of the lower social classes) who had confided 172

Cristine de Pizan, Epître d’Othéa, Gabriella Parussa (ed.), (Genève: Droz, 2008), Introduction, 28. 173 Christine de Pizan, La città delle dame, ed. and trans. Patrizia Caraffi. (MilanTrento: Luni Editrice, 1997) I, 2, 6. According to the edition translated by Earl Jeffrey Richards, The Book of the City of Ladies. (New York: Persea Book 1982). Christine de Pizan, The Book of the City of Ladies ed. and trans. Rosalind BrownGrant (Harmondsworth: Penguin Classics, 1999). See also Rosalind Brown-Grant, Christine de Pizan and the Moral Defence of Women: Reading beyond Gender (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999).

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in her their most intimate thoughts.174 With obvious distress she wondered why women had, since the time of Aristotle, been viewed with disdain and suspicion as something Other, the opposite of man. 175 She made very careful observations, and indeed had had personal experience, of the influence exerted by the philosophical theories of Aristotle on the intellectuals and theologians of her age, and the price that women had to pay for their supposed inadequacy. These ideas were so deeply ingrained, that even women had become convinced that their physical impotence had direct effects on their mental capacity, as well as their will, behaviour and soul. As a consequence, there had been no dissent voiced by women; they stood by and, without protest, allowed themselves to be the subject of humiliating comparisons with animals. Profoundly ashamed of themselves, they silently put up with irreverent satirical attitudes and writings. No wonder de Pizan was so “sick at heart” that she was depressed with “perturbation” and “tristece”.176 Her resistance to the weight of all these negative emotions was expressed in her enthusiastic and encouraging vision of an ideal city—a place in which all the marvels of the feminine world would be welcome, whatever their critics might have to say on the matter. Thus the authoress of this Late-Medieval utopia imagined a public space—a whole city, not a cloister—where women would be the sun—not the moon, the light—not the dark. Women would be the first—not the last. Indeed they themselves had dipped into the well of creativity, and come up with glittering jewels of every form of art and knowledge: literature, poetry, painting, agriculture, textiles, and a thousand other disciplines and techniques. It was therefore up to ladies and women of worth to become the representatives of a new kind of feminine landscape, a land of milk and honey in which even the most modest of women would find an antidote for their desperation and frustration—a soothing balm for all the insults and injustices that they had suffered. Dreams have always offered a more attractive alternative to reality, a salve for the cruelties of life, and de Pizan’s were no exception. She 174

de Pizan, La città delle dame, I, I, 43. For an excellent historical reconstruction of the evolution in the concept of women as related to men in Western philosophy, see the pioneering study Sister Prudence Allen, The Concept of Woman. The Aristotelian Revolution, 750 B.C.– A.D.1250, (Canada: Eden Press, 1985). 176 De Pizan, La città delle dame, (ed. Caraffi), I, II, 55. 175

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herself wrote that her construction of this imaginary public space—which would shelter women and protect them from their attackers and assailants177—cheered her with “tres grant leece”178. She no longer felt bitter or weighed down by her gloomy thoughts, and instead felt stronger and lighter than before. Reading these passages, de Pizan’s masterful ability to pick apart her own mood and those of others (men and women alike) becomes obvious; she used it as a guide for her reflections and imagination. Her head was crowded with the images of women of quality who had demonstrated their powers, virtues and natural propensity to transform and improve their existence, and to meet the need for physical and spiritual wellbeing of other individuals and communities, despite the malicious lies spread by Jean de Meun and other women-haters. Aristotle's philosophy and On the Secrets of Women only analysed the physical defects of women at great length,179 neglecting to mention their merits—the numerous services that many unnamed women had rendered to the rest of humanity, as well as the heroines celebrated in literature and in legend.180 But men and books sang from the same hymn sheet, painting grotesque and malevolent pictures of the evil and deformed creature that was the female. Over the centuries a monumental pile of mistruths and misconceptions had accumulated, and had all but buried women entirely. Nevertheless, de Pizan was determined to dispel these defamatory aspersions using the force of reason.181 She therefore attempted to impose the following principle: that the misogynistic literature was overflowing with “outrageous lies” and “slander”, and therefore women should use their personal experience to form their own opinions. “Judging from the treatises of all philosophers and poets and from all the orators […] it seems that they all speak from one and the same mouth”. They all concur in one conclusion: that the behaviour of women is inclined to and full of every vice”.182

177

Ibidem, I, VII, 63 and I, II, 55. Ibid., I, VIII, 65. 179 Ibid., I, IX, 77. 180 Ibid., I, XXXVII, 169; I, XXXIX, 179; XXXVIII, 185. 181 Ibid., II, XLVII, 335; I, XXXVIII, 183 and 185; II; XIX, 269. 182 The Book of the City of Ladies (ed. Richards), 23. 178

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Based on her own reading of the literature, she pointed out that, although when she first approached the subject she “could scarcely find a moral work by any author which didn’t devote some chapter or paragraph to attacking the female sex”, and therefore “had to accept their unfavourable opinion since it was unlikely that so many learned men, who seemed to be endowed with such great intelligence and insight into all things, could possibly have lied on so many different occasions”, after some thought she realised that this was a fallacious way of thinking.183 This was the only reasoning that would allow her to introduce her version of Medusa—previously famed only for her serpentine tresses, fatal stare and tragic end—into the association of worthy females. In fact, rather than representing her as a frightening monster, she praised the daughter of Phorcys as a shining and precious ray of light.

“A great beauty” The main source of information for de Pizan’s surprising interpretation of Medusa was Boccaccio, and a brief account by the great man himself better explains the sea-change which led her to describe the Gorgon in a very different fashion to those serpent-women who had long been used to support the concept of female inferiority. Indeed, the Italian Humanists of the fourteenth century interpreted the ancient myths with a larger dose of allegory than their predecessors. Giovanni Boccaccio, in his Genealogia deorum gentilium184, written between 1351 and 1360, explained the legend of Medusa’s defeat at the hands of Perseus as a symbolic victory over vice—a direct parallel to Christ’s ultimate triumph over sin by ascending to heaven. In Book X of this tome, Boccaccio’s Medusa was still portrayed as the daughter of a marine creature—as testified to by ancient sources as reputable as Ovidio Pomponio Mela’s Cosmographia, and Fulgentius’ Mythologiarum libri tres. But, like other 14th-century Italian proponents of the humanae litterae he took considerable pains to demystify the fictional account. Hence, although he was careful to point out that Medusa was the daughter of the Dorcades Phorcys, rather than the Sardinian version, he also proclaimed the lack of factual basis for the myth that her and her sisters were the daughters of a sea-monster.

183

De Pizan, La città delle dame (ed. Caraffi), II, XLVII, 335 and I, I, 43. Giovanni Boccaccio, Genealogia deorum gentilium (Milan: Mondadori, 1996).

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Realistic by vocation, and thanks to his interest in treatises on nature, in a long passage dense with citations and references to the classical authors, he dismissed the old lies, adding that the “great beauty” of the daughters of Phorcys was simply comparable to the attraction exerted by the whale on other marine fauna. With unwavering conviction he claimed that the odour that emanated from this aquatic creature was so irresistible to fish that they flocked to be consumed by its insatiable mouth. Likewise, it was the enchanting good looks of the Gorgons that attracted men, just as fish were seduced by the whale; the three Gorgons turned those who saw them “to stone” by virtue of their provocative charms: men were struck dumb and immobile by their beauty. Boccaccio, acting as a philologist, interpreted the original significance of the Greek name for Gorgon, reinstating Medusa as ‘the governor of the lands’. In fact, she had inherited from her father a vast terrain that she was able to considerably expand thanks to the impressive management skills of her and her sisters. Following Ovid’s advice, and that of the Latin author writer Fulgentius, on the allegorical criteria185 and the mercantile spirit of education, Boccaccio also theorised that Medusa’s golden tresses were a symbol of earthly wealth. It was therefore likely that Neptune and Perseus were in fact blinded by the riches of the Gorgon’s empire, and pitted themselves against Medusa in order to gain control of her fortune—no divine entities these, just greedy gold-diggers. Similarly, the decapitation of Medusa was recognised by Boccaccio as an efficacious metaphor for those who lost their vital powers and desires through covetousness. Thanks to his direct access to the Greek and Latin sources, he scornfully dismissed the idea that serpents were born from the blood dripping from Medusa’s severed head, clutched in Perseus’ fist as he flew over the Libyan desert; instead, his interpretation dictated that this myth was merely a bizarre aside, with nothing whatsoever to teach its readers. 185

The Mythologiarum libri tres by Fabius Planciades Fulgentius, an erudite African (like Saint Augustine) who lived between the 5th and 6th century. In this encyclopaedic summary of the vast mythological and doctrinal heritage of Antiquity, Fulgentius proceeded, in a manner that appealed to the Medieval mind, to systematically apply an allegorical interpretation to each myth in order to discern their truth. An overview of this approach is provided by Claudia Terribili, ‘Variazioni sul tema delle Furie dalla concezione greca delle origini al pensiero rinascimentale’, in Bollettino Telematico dell’Arte, n. 560, April 2010. Online, accessed October 13, 2016: http://www.bta.it/ txt/a0/05/bta00560.html

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Subsequently, in his De mulieribus claris (1361–1362), the very authoritative Boccaccio traced the first map of famous women—celebrated either for their virtue or their wickedness—in European literature. Among the 106 brief biographies of female protagonists—real or imagined, praised or feared—there was a version of the story of Medusa that was rather more benevolent than we are used to: “If we can believe the ancients, Medusa was so astonishingly beautiful that she not only surpassed every other woman but, like something wondrous and supernatural, commanded the gaze of many men. Her hair was golden and abundant, her face was exceptionally attractive, and her figure was nobly tall and slender. Her eyes in particular had a power in them so lofty and tranquil that people she gazed upon favourably were rendered almost immobile and forgetful of themselves. Some sources also assert that her knowledge of agriculture explains why she acquired the name Gorgon. Thanks to this expertise, Medusa was able not only to preserve her father’s wealth with extraordinary shrewdness but immeasurably to increase—so much so that informed persons believed her to the richest of all Western rulers. Hence she acquired great fame even among far-off nations for her remarkable beauty as well as for her riches and sagacity. Reports of her fame reached, among other peoples, the Argives. When Perseus, the most eminent young man in Achaia, heard these reports, there was kindled in him the desire to see this beautiful woman and take possession of her treasure.”186

It therefore comes as no surprise that among the colour illustrations used to lend weight to the narrative interpretation of the various personages and the most salient events in their lives, there are enchanting pictures of the delectable daughter of Phorcys (Figure 20).187 To take just one example, a French illustration from a late-13th-century edition of De mulieribus claris highlights both her beauty and her wealth. Justifiably, before Athena thrust her into a world of terrifying monsters, Medusa is pictured as a contented and self-satisfied regal figure seated on a throne—a young, rich, and beautiful princess surrounded by an attentive male entourage. She is similarly portrayed in another edition of the book, richly 186

Giovanni Boccaccio, ‘Medusa, Daughter of Phorcus’ in Famous Women, ed. and trans. Virginia Brown, I Tatti Renaissance Library (Cambridge, MA, and London, England: Harvard University Press, 2003), Chapter XXII, 43. 187 For more on Boccaccio’s influence on the visual culture of the age, see Vittore Branca (ed.), Il Boccaccio visualizzato. Narrare per parole e per immagini fra Medioevo e Rinascimento, vol. I. (Turin: Einaudi, 1999).

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Figure 20: A beautiful Medusa in a parchment miniature accompanying a late13th-century French edition of Boccaccio’s De mulieribus claris.

dressed in sumptuous garments—the height of 13th-century fashion— seated placidly alone and radiantly crowned, as an armed Perseus—astride Pegasus—approaches menacingly aboard his warship in the middle distance, eager for the spoils of battle (Figure 21).

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These images, whose splendour and vividness far outstrip the beautiful Medusas of the Classical age—who were unfailingly branded with some sign of their feral nature (at the very least a tiny serpent under their chin or among their braids), did, however, need to withstand the onslaught of an avalanche of age-old memories. In many quarters the image of Medusa as an energetic emblem of the snake-woman persisted, as the tenebrous and less than alluring depictions of her in late-13th-century miniatures from the Ferrarese school and many other such illustrations in the coming centuries would show.

Figure 21: “A great beauty”, in Persée et Méduse, 1402, miniature in Boccaccio’s De mulieribus claris. Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris.

This notwithstanding, de Pizan, foreshadowing the magic moment in which Boccaccio painted Medusa with the benevolent brush of credibility, illuminated her with a shining ray of light. In de Pizan’s description, the daughter of Phorcys is bathed in the brightness of her beauty—a halo that

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bursts out of her entire body, surrounding her in a gentle but powerful aura. This Medusa is no longer the paralysing, reptilian terror of Dante’s imagination. Not even a trace of the lascivious seductress with a bewitching glance can be discerned; instead her gaze is pure, innocent— perhaps even divine—with an air of ecstatic contemplation: “Likewise Medusa (or the Gorgon) was famed for her great beauty. She was the daughter of the wealthy King Phorcys, whose vast kingdom was surrounded by sea on all sides. The ancient accounts of Medusa say that she was so incredibly beautiful that she surpassed all other women. What’s even more extraordinary and almost supernatural, she had such a charming gaze, coupled with her lovely face, body and long curly blonde tresses, that she held any mortal creature who glanced at her transfixed by her look. It was for this reason that the fables said she turned people to stone.”188

The “incredible” splendour that emanates from the gaze of this Medusa bathed those who looked upon her in a warm, benevolent light. This portrait stands in stark contrast to that provided by the majority of Medieval writers (Albert the Great, Walter Map, Dante, Richard de Fournival, the anonymous author of Placidius and Timaeus, that of Book of Sidrach, Jean d’Arras, and many others) and even differed from Boccaccio’s version. Although Boccaccio described Medusa in decidedly more friendly terms than his predecessors, he did label both her name and image as a representation of contorted and dangerous states of mind. In fact, in his old age, once his youthful enthusiasm for triumphant and provocative femininity had waned, the celebrated author of The Crow launched a tirade of livid and emotional invective and satire against the the Other sex, indicating that he too had been contaminated by the Medieval male affliction. This betrayal notwithstanding, de Pizan’s proud representation of Medusa—and indeed the whole of her sex—gave rise to a fragile but golden thread of hope. The brief scene in the City of Ladies in which Medusa raises her special bright gaze offers a soothing alternative to the misogynist fire lit by the authors and artists of Antiquity and the Middle Ages, not to mention many that would appear in the centuries to come. Her gaze was limpid; those who looked into her eyes experienced a gentle moment of stupor, and the impression that they had experienced something exciting and unique. 188

De Pizan, The Book of the City of Ladies (ed. Brown-Grant), Part II, 61, 187.

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For de Pizan, the long tradition of written and visual denigration of women was neither comprehensible nor credible. Whether calculated or stemming from male egotism, vanity and/or arrogance, the image of Medusa as a monstrous menace did not ring true to de Pizan, and she attempted to illuminate the shadows that this feral figure had cast over womankind. Rather than a nameless terror, she suffused the body, face and especially the tresses of the Gorgon—those long, luxuriant strands of gold—with an unclouded beauty that could be enjoyed as a kind of visual, living masterpiece which purified and delighted the mind as well as the eyes. This Medusa was the distilled essence of female identity, shining with a pure and vital glow. For the first time the existence of Medusa did not hinge merely on her assassination at the hands of Perseus, and neither were serpentine sleights of hand relied upon to mislead the viewer as to her sub-human status. Gone was her reptilian cast, which Boccaccio had interpreted as an allegory cautioning against the accumulation of riches. Instead, the far more sensitive and tasteful de Pizan pointedly neglected to make any mention of the serpents that had got tangled up in the Gorgon’s past, and even Perseus was dismissed as a minor figure of little import in the great scheme of things. For the joy and reassurance of the collective memory, she preferred to resurrect the resplendent figure of Minerva (the Roman version of Athena) as a virgin of exceptional intelligence, crediting her with considerable achievements. Minerva had been labelled in Antiquity as a goddess of wisdom, thanks to her extraordinary mind. She had also been renowned for her mastery of the art of war, which was emblemised by the decapitated head of the serpent known as Gorgon displayed on her shield. By re-evoking this image, de Pizan evidently wanted to remind her peers of the fact—often overlooked—that women too could hold their own as military leaders. At the same time she skilfully restored the reptile to its original, authentic status as a symbol of sagacity: “In the centre of this shield was the image of the head of a serpent known as a Gorgon, to suggest the idea that a knight must be cunning and stalk his enemies like a snake whilst a wise man must be wary of all the harm that others might do to him.”189

189

Ibidem, Part I, 34, 66.

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This type of female intelligence could recognise all the maliciousness heaped upon her sex, having experienced such prejudice herself. In another passage, de Pizan again harks back to tradition, describing the singular experience of a female saint, overcome and devoured by a “foul dragon”. But Margaret of Antioch (aka “Margaret the Virgin”) was possessed of a force well able to defeat evil. Using the graceful power of the sign of the cross, she not only broke out of the great reptile’s stomach, killing it in the process, but also bested another dark and diabolical figure, throwing it to the ground and placing her foot triumphantly on its neck.190 The female saints described by de Pizan never back down in the face of evil—they rise up to meet it head on, showing no signs of pain or fatigue. This brave willingness to fight is also displayed by her namesake, Saint Christine. In de Pizan’s redemptive tale, the young saint was forced to endure a seemingly endless series of cruel torments, but on every occasion—before she finally succumbed—came out of them unscathed with a smile on her face. She maintained this cheery disposition even after having survived three days burning on a pyre, when a judge ordered serpents to be brought, and Christine was set upon by two asps—a kind of snake that has a terribly poisonous bite—as well as by two enormous adders. However, the snakes just fell at her feet with their heads bowed and did her no harm whatsoever. Next, two horrible vipers were let loose, but they simply hung off her breasts and licked her in a moving gesture of extraordinary sensitivity. This alliance between woman and reptile was cemented in another provoked attack, in which the serpents thrown at Saint Christine, rather than killing their dear friend, instead turned on her attacker. “As everyone was too afraid of the serpents to go near them, she herself commanded them in the name of God to return whence they came without harming anyone, which they did.” 191 She then calmly asked God for the resurrection of her assassin, and humbly praised his name when this miracle was performed. There was not much more that de Pizan could do to restore the tarnished reputation of women to its former glory and protect the muchmaligned serpents—she offered us snakes that recognised the holiness of a

190

Ibid., Part III, 4, 206. Ibid.,Part III, 10, 218.

191

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female saint, whose name she was proud to bear.192 By means of this tale de Pizan sought to challenge the conventional imaginary, re-evoking the magic of the ancient alliance between women and serpents, and conveying the air of obedient devotion that existed between them—a flush of warm and comforting complicity. The image of snakes, vipers, adders and asps protectively safeguarding the life of a woman being threatened by the impossible cruelty of men is fascinating. And the way in which de Pizan depicts the special authority that all species of reptiles confer on a female voice is especially touching and pure (not to mention a decidedly singular event, the likes of which were seldom seen in the Middle Ages). In the long history of the imaginary relating to serpents, this account represented a breath of life, a change of direction in their relationship with women. The legend that created Medusa—sending her on a lonely journey through the centuries with only her serpentine tresses for company—was magically eclipsed. Thus the intangible links between women, their menstrual cycle, hair, gaze, and snakes—which had been supported by the fruits of countless malign imaginations throughout history—were broken. Serpents had not been annihilated, merely transformed. De Pizan’s account of the trials of Saint Christine gave them a new role in a parable of good will; they had returned to bestow a boundless regard on the world of women. Medusa herself, no longer a symbol of death, was restored to her former beauty—her hair shining like precious golden threads and her gaze triumphantly crystal clear. De Pizan preferred to promote Medusa as a personification of radiance and benevolence—a woman who transmitted beauty and peace. And, by focussing our attention on these images, their inventor hoped to warm the heart of every woman. She wisely seized the opportunity to cast Medusa among the denizens of her dream city of ladies, and in so doing confer on her a proud immortality.

192

Ibid.,Part III, 10, 223.

CHAPTER FOUR AN ONGOING DIALOGUE WITH THE PAST

But, centuries later, after countless social, political and cultural changes, which image of Medusa has won out? What subtle traces of her have influenced the contemporary worldview? Obviously many interpretations can be made of an archetype such as Medusa, which lends itself to various explanations of our civilisation and its origins. For instance, some researchers have approached Medusa as a theme useful for interpreting the history of art, hypothesising that her appearance was an indicator of turbulent times—times in which the pendulum swung away from rational thought and towards the seductive idea of man’s absolute dominion over nature.1 Indeed, the myth of Medusa, with its latent periods and revivals, provides a tempting tool for analysing the ideas and practices that have marked our social ‘evolution’. Even today Medusa can be considered a barometer of our imaginary, being an ever-present figure in our poetry, literature, 2 art, music, film, photography, psychology, psychoanalytical theory, advertising, internet, fashion, design, video-games, comics, cartoons and animated movies.3 Among the many reasons for the frequent reappearances of Medusa in modern times is the fact that she continues to fascinate and intrigue. It is, however, also possible to discern how the ‘reality’ of the Gorgon was shaped and added to by numerous ‘creators’ over the centuries that 1

Jean Clair, Méduse: contribution à une anthropologie des arts du visuel, (Paris: Gallimard, 1989). 2 For the female gaze in the poetic topoi, see Maria Ferroni, Medusa e le altre. Lo sguardo delle donne e l’occhio del poeta tra mito e letteratura. Online, accessed 12 April, 2016: www.griseldsonline.it/formazione 3 For “the Medusa syndrome” and its interpretation as a mirror on modernity, see Sara Damiani (ed.), Locus Solus 4, I volti di Medusa (Milan: Bruno Mondadori, 2006).

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preceded our own. Our journey so far has taken us through the history, or histories, of the most famous snake-woman, enabling us to identify the influence of various authors and artists (especially in the Classical period and Middle-Ages), and the precious contributions of scholars who have examined their output. This historical investigation has made it clear how these myths, stories and legends—closely correlated with certain social and emotional experiences (specifically the fear of death, violence, pain, choler, envy, and the other reactions provoked by diversity)—were used to publicly and successfully stigmatise all that was deemed feminine. The cases we have studied have led us to the concepts and value-judgements which, through their connections with the educational literature, have encouraged the negative emotional stereotyping of people, fictional characters and realworld social groups of females considered a dangerous threat to the community. However, our new familiarity with the most popular view of the snakewoman risks blinding us to the crucial difference between the modern and traditional meanings ascribed to her. From the seventh century BCE onwards, a vision of her as a monster triumphed; from the earliest gorgoneia to the Medieval images, this monstrosity was, however, beloved of the Greek and Roman religious and warrior elites, who harnessed the power of this strange symbol to protect themselves. Our modern-day vision of the snake-woman, on the other hand, has first and foremost been shaped by Judeo-Christian influences; after being identified with the diabolical dragon, the serpent came to personify Satan himself, who was represented in female form from the thirteenth century onwards. From that time, the snake was used to allude to evil, sin, paganism, chaos and death in various contexts. In the Late Medieval, though the prevailing cultural standards associated other female figures with the serpent, it was the snake-crowned head of Medusa and the central legend of Eve’s Fall that were used to define the nature of the female. The tales of women and venomous serpents explained to the public sphere the causes of human suffering, at the same time guiding the education of both sexes—shepherding them into the belief that women were naturally degenerate. Bearing in mind these different stages helps us to understand the legacy left by such myths. Nevertheless, given the complexity of their

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development over the ages, there still reigns a certain amount of confusion; what were the lessons learned from the stories of Medusa and the snake-women? What were the marks left by her angry eyes, hissing voice and toxic blood? Have they been cast aside by the modern mindset as outmoded or no longer relevant, or are there still echoes of those old stories resounding in today’s imaginary? By what means have the stories of the snake-woman reached our tender ears? Are they stories that still excite, or are we reluctantly forced to learn their lessons in the stultifying air of the classroom? Were we taught them by our literature teacher, desirous to engage us with Ovid’s account of a beautiful young woman violated by Poseidon in the Temple of Athens who paid for this blasphemy with her good looks? Or did we learn of her through the heroic exploits of Perseus, who used his shiny shield to avoid her deadly gaze as he severed her head? Did we first hear of her through the macabre myth told by Dante? Or, rather than enjoying such snippets of great literature, did we skip straight to film? If so, we likely encountered Medusa in reptilian dress uniform and full control of her lethal stare in films such as Clash of the Titans. In the 2010 remake by Louis Leterrier, she was portrayed as such, in a very free interpretation of the legend of Perseus and his battles against syncretic mythological monsters (cannibal witches included) and a growling Gorgon, submerged by a cascade of roiling snakes. Those who are fans of comics will have met her in another guise: that of a woman getting on in years, sitting idly before a mirror while she puffs on a cigarette and puts her hair up in serpents instead of curlers. In fact, if we look closely there are numerous hidden references to the Other as a snake-woman in this post-modern age, but these are not always easy to interpret.4 However, Italo Calvino, in 1980, urged the inhabitants of the impending millennium to preserve the sense of the old myths. In his view, without their regenerative power, it would be impossible to withstand the pressure of existential inertia. Indeed, imagining the opacity of a society impermeable to the creativity of storytelling—a standardisation process 4

See Silvia Bigliazzi, ‘Medusa’s Gaze: A.S. Byatt’s Unfinished Metamorphoses’, in Carla Dente, [et al.] (eds.), Proteus. The Language of Metamorphosis (Burlington: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2005), 234–37.

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transforming humanity, like Lot’s wife, into pillars of salt by the numbing effect of the media—Calvino perceived the “heavy” effects of the rationality that characterises the age of information technology; we are all being gradually turned to stone, “as if no one could escape the inexorable stare of Medusa”. With this observation he meant that we should not turn our backs on the creative power of myths, that there was in any case no escape from the incessant swinging to and fro of the pendulum of time,5 that we have a duty to shed new light on the distorted reality passed down to us by the writers of history. With his stand against the blind acceptance of pre-established, rational argument and pre-packaged emotions—which impoverish and suffocate the myths—Calvino was prevailing on us to safeguard the myths with a certain sense of “lightness”, because “with myths, one should not be in a hurry. It is better to let them settle into the memory, to stop and dwell on every detail, to reflect on them without losing touch with their language of images.”6 It is therefore essential to continue to experience them in order to feel closely in contact with the past, and to understand the effects of the past on the present. Indeed, it is only an intimate awareness of that which has gone before that will give us the courage to move forward.

Infinite Varieties What a strange thing. Although the adventurous performances of the snake-woman seem so remote in time, they echo both within and around us, depriving us of our right to clarity. Who among us with an unclouded mind would be able to reconcile the funereal Medusa much loved by the Decadent movement with the diametrically opposite version described in the nineteenth century by a Swiss classical scholar, Johann Jakob Bachofen? In 1861, he, as a historian of Roman law, with Mother Right: an investigation of the religious and juridical character of matriarchy in the Ancient World, for the first time showed that the initial period of human history was matriarchal.7 By following the tracks left by the myths, the imprints of real 5

Italo Calvino, Perché leggere i classici? (Milan: Mondadori, 1991), 13. Italo Calvino, Six Memos for the Next Millennium, trans. from Patrick Creagh, (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1988), 4. 7 George Boas, Preface to Selected Writings of J. J. Bachofen, trans. Ralph Manheim (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1973), xi. 6

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occurrences and the institutions, and by substituting maternal with paternal law, he explained the genealogy of Western cultures and highlighted the vital importance of the male gods’ subjugation, exploitation and moral ruination of the female chthonic deities. Likewise, who could believe that the precious but cold and oppressive mask of Otherness described by Vernant (1963) had anything in common with the warm smiling portrait depicted by Hélène Cixous?8 This feminist scholar, like Christine de Pizan (at the beginning of the fifteenth century), convinced us in the 1970s to look fearlessly into the eyes of Medusa, to admire her beauty, and perhaps learn something about her nature and exquisite perfection. And who would accept the idea that the serpentine tresses unwound by Freud were the very same as those taken up by Barbara Creed?9 This latter psychoanalyst, flying in the face of the accepted wisdom, argued that the female genitalia garlanded by snakes terrorised the male not because they appeared castrated, but rather due to their power to castrate. Viewed through this lens, even the mythical figures in Italo Calvino’s work could be seen anew. In fact, this Italian writer painted the value of “lightness” through Perseus, whom he perceived as an appealing allegory of poetry; conversely, he described “heaviness” through the stare of the grotesque Medusa, who, with her destructive power, could turn the world to stone. According to Ann Stanford, however, the poetic identity belongs solely to Medusa who, emerging from the shadows, displays all her rage, and the suffering she endured at the hands of her rapist, Poseidon.10 In turn, the Italian philosopher Adriana Cavarero,11 contributing to the debate on violence around the world, used the dramatic face of Medusa depicted by Caravaggio as a symbol of the horror associated with the process of dehumanisation and annihilation that still goes on in war-torn countries today. Indeed, that face reflects the complete lack of compassion 8

Cixous, ‘The Laugh of the Medusa’, 875–893. Barbara Creed analysed the fear of castration and the male fantasies associated with the female genitals in ‘Medusa’s Head: the Vagina Dentata and Freudian Theory’ in The Monstrous Feminine: Film, Feminism, Psychoanalysis, 105–22. 10 Ann Stanford, ‘Medusa. The Women of Perseus’, in Mediterranean Air (New York: Viking, 1977), 34–48; 11 Adriana Cavarero, Orrorismo (Milan: Feltrinelli, 2007). 9

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of the torturers of Abu Ghraib, the Chechen and Palestinian suicide bombers, and all the other merciless perpetrators of atrocities in the contemporary world. It also holds up a stark mirror upon the apathetic insensibility with which we observe the terrible sacrifice of all that is seen as Other. Over recent decades, other feminist research has been delineated by a tendency to make a lot more sense out of the disquieting female figures narrated in the myths (Harpies, Sirens, Gorgons, witches, and so on) that we have examined in the pages of this book. This has led to renewed discussion on the concept of women as a monolithic category, and, at the same time, the interpretation of their negative representations as expressions of the male unconscious. However, as noted in particular in Chapter Two, such a rigid codification of the social imagination relies on the close alliance between myths and stereotypes. Indeed, this was the position taken by Theodor W.L. Adorno and his Frankfurt School, which, in the 1950s—in the wake of the atrocities perpetrated by the totalitarian regimes—considered this to be a theme central to the analysis of social discrimination and the evaluation of authoritarian personalities; the hegemonising stereotyping of the patriarchal ideology occupies an important place in the imagination, promoting decidedly undemocratic tendencies towards social groups regarded as pernicious and/or abnormal through fantasy, prejudice and distorted emotions.12 At the same time, many strands of contemporary investigation have been drawn towards the symbolic and cultural significance of the gaze,13 which also promises to shed much-needed light on the visual adventures of the snake-woman throughout the ages.14

12

See the excellent analysis of stereotyping, and its departure from reality by basing itself on the “omnipotent magic” associated with preconceived ideas and generalised unpleasant emotions in Theodor W. Adorno et al., The authoritarian personality (New York: Harper and Row, 1950), II, 244. 13 Among others, see Alain Gauthier, Du visibile au visuel: anthropologie du regard (Paris: PUF, 1996); Umberto Curri, La forza dello sguardo (Turin: Bollati Boringhieri, 2004), and Claudio Franzoni, Tirannia dello sguardo. Corpo, gesti, espressione nell’arte greca (Turin: Einaudi, 2006). 14 Sara Damiani, La fascinazione irriducibile dell’altro (Bergamo: Sestante Edizioni, 2011).

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Among the different and often contrasting positions and schools of post-feminist thought in the US, the myth of Medusa has resounded with life, releasing new energy into the individual and collective consciousness. This is reflected, for instance, in the tentacle-covered volume Angry Women, published in Italy as Medusa Cyborg in 199715; this features a collection of interviews granted by fifteen female innovators from the US underground scene (artists, singers, poets, lesbian activists and writers), all aware that the digital revolution is destined to produce an evolution in the sexual and gender identity of individuals. The underlying idea is that the development of a cyber-culture and the increasing use of technology will make it increasingly easier to subvert and deconstruct the patriarchal status quo, which is based on a binary opposition of hierarchies (body/soul, nature/culture, matter/spirit, reason/emotion, natural/artificial, man/woman and self/other) that is no longer acceptable. In this context, the hybrid serpent-woman lends herself to representing the enigmatic figure of the cyborg (a cybernetic organism) as a symbol of future change, which science fiction has already foreshadowed.16 This is a sure road to victory for Medusa, as a new symbol of the lucidity, creative communication and representation of women’s rage. From the 1990s onwards, new generations of ‘Angry Women’ have been autonomously giving voice to their feelings through poetry, art, scientific research, philosophical reflection and active protest against the bars of bipolar sexuality that they have been caged in for millennia. This renewed fire has also been stoked by so-called ‘nomadic subjects’; in Italy, for example, intelligent women like Rosi Braidotti have eagerly stepped in to fill the spaces created in this fresh, technologically

15

Andrea Juno & V. Vale (eds.), Angry Women (New York: Re/Search Publication, 1991). 16 Francesca Guidotti,‘A.C. Clarke’s ‘A Meeting With Medusa’: the Cyborg Challenge to This World and the Next’ in R. Ambrosini, R. Colombo, A. Contenti, D. Corona, L.M. Crisafulli, F. Ruggieri (eds.), Challenges for the 21st Century Dilemmas: Ambiguities, Directions, Papers from the 24th AIA Conference, Vol. I. Literary and Cultural Studies (Rome: Edizioni Q, 2011), 447–454.

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advanced and ethnically heterogeneous world, developing new but fullyfledged subjective and ethical skills.17 This is the environment in which Medusa-cum-cyborg came into being—a veritable metaphor for the complexity of post-modern society; no longer enmeshed in the murky web of sexual identity18, she delineates the new corporeal forms inspired by technology, and her piercing gaze is free to focus on what is actually transpiring in both reality and fiction. At the dawn of the twenty-first century, the artificial cyborg hybrid reflected the fluctuating post-feminist imaginaries—in search of a ‘new sexual contract’, change, and adventurous, wilfully ambiguous forms of feminine subjectivity. Like the temple at Sais, dedicated to the ancient Egyptian goddess Neith, often depicted with the head of a serpent, this new imagination would be open to those “that are, that will be, and that have been”. As indicated by this ancient inscription, those brave enough to undertake the pilgrimage would not return empty-handed, and neither will we, as we discover, with a strange sense of satisfaction, that the name Neith means ‘I have come from myself’.

Headhunters Psychology can provide us with many possible interpretations on the unconscious meaning of the snake-woman in mythology and personal experience, and several important works from the psychological and psychoanalytical literature—past and present—have touched upon on the symbolic world of myths, fairy tales, dreams and archetypes. These have managed to maintain their allegorical power intact throughout the ages. And where would we be without the historical 17

On the range of mutations as expressions of female subjectivity, and the construction of a platform of nomadic feminist actions from a political, cultural and ethical perspective, see Rosi Braidotti, Nomadic Subjects: Embodiment and Sexual Difference in Contemporary Feminist Theory (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994). 18 For more on the cyber-feminism of the 1990s and its use of new technology to the benefit of women, a good starting point is Donna J. Haraway,’A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century’ in Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature (New York: Routledge, 1991), 149–181.

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interpretations of the female anima, the male animus, and all the other corresponding characters (Mother Earth, the Sage, the Witch and the Hero, etc.) from our narrative heritage? How have we been shaped by the decapitation-as-castration motif, the secrets of menstrual blood, deadly glances, phallic serpents, and all the other strategies of the subconscious still discussed by the disciples of Freud and Jung? It was in 1922 that Freud (1859–1939) wrote his short but singular profile of ‘Medusa’s Head’. Interpreting the painting by Caravaggio, its hissing tresses and peculiar look, he explained that decapitation was, in fact, a symbolic representation of castration. Thus her severed head was the maximum expression of male angst triggered by the revelation of the physical difference between the sexes. This unsettling discovery was explained in the infantile psyche via the initial impression that in the female the penis was not yet fully formed; this would later be supplanted by the conviction that a mutilation had occurred: “little girls too had a penis, but it was cut off and in its place was left a wound”.19 The unconscious fantasy and infantile impressions regarding a woman’s lack of a penis—which she had probably lost under the aegis of some paternal authority as punishment for the sin of onanism—were supported by numerous tales and myths from populations around the world. In the collective and individual psyche of both the East and West, these fantasies often featured goddesses in the company of serpents, and in the Western tradition the powerful association of women with the symbol conveniently used to represent biblical temptation was blindingly obvious. However, the subtlety of Freud’s portrait of Medusa was based on a syllogistic interpretation that relied entirely on the coincidence between decapitation and castration. Thus the terror caused by Medusa had a particular aim—to render the vision of female genitalia “picturesque” or “perturbing” by evoking the mobility of serpents and the fear of castration; this fear would lead inevitably to paralysis, not unlike a certain kind of gaze… Although Freud himself admitted that the art of interpretation of such symbolic creations was still in its infancy, he seemed to be very certain that the case of Medusa’s severed head had been solved: 19 Sigmund Freud, ‘Leonardo Da Vinci and a Memory of His Childhood’ in The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, trans. James Strachey, vol. 11, p. 95 (London: Hogarth Press and Institute of Psychoanalysis, 1953–74).

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“The terror of Medusa is thus a terror of castration that is linked to the sight of something. Numerous analyses have made us familiar with the occasion for this: it occurs when a boy, who has hitherto been unwilling to believe the threat of castration, catches sight of the female genitals, probably those of an adult, surrounded by hair, and essentially those of his mother. The hair upon Medusa’a head is frequently represented in works of art in the form of snakes, and these once again are derived from the castration complex. It is a remarkable fact that, however frightening they may be in themselves, they actually serve as a mitigation of the horror, for they replace the penis. […] Since the Greeks were in the main strongly homosexual, it was inevitable that we should find among them a woman as a being who frightens and repels because she is castrated.”20

Freud drew some of the courage behind his convictions from the sixteenth century—the century of Renaissance Humanism; for one, François Rabelais had justified and sympathised with the Devil’s cowering escape when a woman lifted up her skirts and showed him her vulva. This was a theme that had been so oft repeated that it had become self-evident: the sight of a woman’s sex would inevitably cause a man to flee in disgust and revulsion. Hence Medusa, transformed into a gruesome groin, became a theme in psychoanalytical theory. In the mirages of the unconscious, genitals replaced facial features—a chilling vision of the Mound of Venus encircled by snakelike phalluses. The strongest impressions left by the menacing snake-women also came with a certain sense of déjà vu—a faint echo of the terrible power wielded by the gloomy primordial Mother. In Ancient Greek society, the head of Medusa lent itself to the conservation of tribal memory, and the celebration of heroic masculine acts in initiation rites, but from this point on it would embody the phallic monstrosity of the female. However, despite the unexpectedness of this phenomenological occurrence, it was tempting ‘evidence’ for those who sought to unravel the hithertofore mysterious complexities of the infantile psyche—in turn essential for understanding the oneiric life of healthy adults and the psychology of neurotics. 20

Sigmund Freud, ‘Medusa’s Head’ in Sexuality and the Psychology of Love, (New York: Touchstone, 1997), 202–03. The Freudian use of this explanation of the myth of Medusa has been provided in Thomas Albrecht, ‘The Medusa Effect: Representation and Epistemology in Victorian Aesthetics’ in Cahiers victoriens et édouardiens, 72, Automne (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2009).

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Thus, over a century ago in 1905, the theory that (male) infants—who tended to be swaddled at all times—went through the early stages of their sexual development believing that women were also equipped with a penis emerged; subsequently, during the genital (Oedipal) phase, their libido would be drawn to the fantasy of excised female genitalia. This was way21 in which the serpent was given the odd role of representing the loss of the female penis. If one took for granted this line of thinking, it would be understandable that the infantile mind would be shocked and disturbed by the discovery of such a horrendous mutilation. However, the Israeli psychological historian Iacov Levi correctly pointed out that Freud himself had stated that the serpent was one of the least studied male phallic symbols, and that the snakes on the head of Medusa were meant to replace the female, rather than the male, member. In other words, it would be difficult to uncover the significance of the serpent as a symbol of the female phallus without taking into consideration that it was, in many mythological traditions, a reptile associated with female deities—not male gods or heroes.22 In his own right, Sándor Ferenczi, in line with the psychoanalytical approach to psychological processes, made a brief return to the subject in 1923 with his ‘On the Symbolism of the Head of Medusa’. However, in this essay he recognised that it was the analysis of his patients’ dreams that continually led him to his interpretation of the head of Medusa as a terrifying symbol of the female genital region, viewed “from below upwards”. “The many serpents which surround the head ought—in representation by the opposite—to signify the absence of a penis, and the phantom itself is the frightful impression made on the child by the penis-less (castrated)

21

Sigmund Freud, ‘The Infantile Genital Organisation of the Libido (A Supplement to the Theory of Sexuality)’ in Sexuality and the Psychology of Love, 161; ‘From a History of an Infantile Neurosis’ and ‘Three Essays on the ‘Theory of Sexuality’ in The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, 17, 1–122; and 7, 173–200, respectively. 22 Iakob Levi, Caravaggio and ‘The Madonna of the Serpent. Online, accessed April 24, 2016: http://www.geocities.ws/psychohistory2001/ madonnainglese.html

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genital. The fearful and alarming startling eyes of the Medusa head have also the secondary meaning of erection.”23

Unlike Ferenczi, Carl Gustav Jung considered Medusa as a product of the human imagination generated in response to an archetypal terror. In his works he maintained that mythology was a kind of repository infiltrated by the fantastical images dictated by the fears in the collective unconscious.24 However, Jung, who analysed the pathways of the archetypes in depth in a bid to interpret the various aspects of human personality, left little room for variation; the criticism levelled at the rigidity of his doctrine even accuses him of transforming the past into a warehouse of mythological templates that he used to mould gender roles. His critics also take issue with his view of archetypes as eternal and inevitable truths, rather than products of their time, class and gender. In short, he was reproached for adopting the male collective unconscious perception of women in Archaic and Classical Greece as a universal model. In 1984, the Junghian psychologist Jean S. Bolen, like Erich Neuman before her, opposed this reading, reconceptualising it from the point of view of feminist analysis. She examined the traditional theory of the animus, anima and predetermined psychological types, and began to use the powerful internal models and archetypes of Greek mythology as tools for shedding light on the “diverse” female personalities, and patients’ interpersonal and intrapsychological conflicts.25 It is interesting that psychologists of the unconscious worldwide continue to refer to famous female characters from the myths in their exploration of the present-day relational difficulties between men and women. Medusa in particular has recently been reincarnated as a metaphor for women’s negative approach to relations with men. Once again, she appears in the guise of “psychological death”, ready to destroy the development of a female personality by exerting an oppressive force on 23

Sandor Ferenczi, 'On the Symbolism of the Head of Medusa’ in Further Contributions to the Theory and Technique of Psycho-Analysis, ed. J. Rickman, trans. J.I. Suttie (London: 1926), 360. 24 Michael Vannoy Adams, Medusa. The Mythological Unconscious (New YorkLondon: Karnac, 2001), 25–6. 25 Jean Shinoda Bolen, Goddesses in Everywoman. Powerful Archetypes in Women's Lives (New York: Harper, 1984), in particular the passage ‘Goddesses as Inner Images ’ For more on the archetype of the Great Mother in the myths, rites and different traditions, see Erich Neuman, The Great Mother: An Analysis of the Archetype, trans. Ralph Manheim (New York: Princeton University Press, 1955).

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the soul, and unequivocally compromising any attempt to create even a weak bond with the Other.26 Medusa, therefore, like a capricious soap bubble, still influences our psyche. Her memory, conserved as if frozen from the versions from the Classical myths and gelid images of death, is slowly but surely melting and softening. As the fog of the patriarchal mindset dissipates, the snakewoman shines forth and acquires a new identity. After the small paradise granted to her by Christine de Pizan at the dawn of the 1400s, Medusa had a marvellous revival in 1974, thanks to Hélène Cixous, 27 who, like Luce Irigaray 28 and Julia Kristeva, 29 helped open our eyes to the impact of psychoanalysis and the arrogant symbolic categories that dominated the phallocentric system. The current psychoanalytical movement and post-modernism are also responsible for breathing life into a new Medusa, who, taking on one identity after another, has broken the bonds of her glacial Ophidian powers and acquired a new vitality. Indeed, owing to the feminist conscience that has influenced recent decades, the snake-woman has mutated into a magical being—joyful yet still unsettled. The functions of Medusa, as reawakened by Laura Mulvey, have nothing to do with the image of woman, but everything to do with the fragility of men. The narcissism of the male ego can only defend itself by means of a contemptuous grimace. The head of Medusa had been transformed by Freud and Ferenczi into a kind of paralysing visual fetish that enabled them to triumph over the fear of castration; as a kind of dark totem it had been circulated with a view to repudiating the difference between the sexes, while dominating it at the same time. Society’s patriarchal unconscious had held this treacherous and threatening idol close, her gaze the optimal justification

26

Aldo Carotenuto, L’anima delle donne. Per una lettura psicologica al femminile, (Milan: Bompiani, 2005) 12–13, 365, 368. 27 Cixous, ‘The Laugh of the Medusa’. 28 Luce Irigaray, An Ethics of Sexual Difference, trans. Carolyn Burke and Gillian C. Gill (Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1993). 29 For a Freudian reinterpretation of the myth of Medusa, see Julia Kristeva, Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection, trans. Leon S. Roudiez (New York: Columbia University Press, 1980).

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for gender inequality. Indeed, were not her glances the origin of a world in which woman was relegated to the status of a subordinate Other?30 In other words, the queen of all monsters was adopted by the patriarchal psyche as the necessary expression of their three worst fears, which the psychoanalytical literature tells us were (and are): mother, castration and death. Medusa, a disturbing mix of obscenity and excitement, counterbalanced boys’ unsettling discovery of moist female genitalia, providing a comforting if gruesome explanation for their obvious deficits. The shiver of delectable calamity accompanying her dark aura no doubt explains the popularity of her portrayal as a femme fatale in today’s mediators of unconscious desires: the theatre and the cinema.31 However, seeking high and low for some new discovery to reveal to the world, feminist analysts have channelled all their knowledge and creativity into unveiling the past to shed light on the present and future. And, over recent decades, they have begun to recognise and dedicate careful attention to the unpredictable prospects that have begun to dissolve the petrifying powers of Medusa, debunking the spectral phallic illusions. These efforts for deliverance and ‘depetrification’ are having a miraculous effect: they are restoring to women the colourful and joyful ability to become—in the Nietzschean sense—people with a will to be alive.32

Cold, serpentine art Our sensibilities in this century have been artfully shaped by curious and checkered images of Medusa, who made a triumphant and boisterously charming come-back in those just past. Using these appearances, the Italian literary critic Mario Praz traced the history of taste in Europe; in the nineteenth century in particular this 30

A psychoanalytical feminist interpretation of fetishism in the visual arts can be found in Laura Mulvey, Visual and Other Pleasures, (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1989), 6–13. 31 For the use of frightening female figures in film see Barbara Creed, The Monstrous Feminine, and Arlene Kramer Richards, ‘Woman as Medusa in Basic Instinct’, Psychoanalytic Inquiry 18, 1989, 269–280. 32 Joseph C. Smith and Carla J. Ferstman, The Castration of Oedipus: Feminism, Psychoanalysis, and the Will to Power (New York: New York University Press, 1996), in particular the ninth chapter, ‘Medusa Depetrified’, 232–234.

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exciting breeding ground for aesthetic impulses was enthralled by the bitter but seductive powers of death. Citing an illustrious example of this morbid fascination, Praz tells us of a visit to the Uffizi gallery in 1819 by the Romantic poet Shelley; before a painting of Medusa at dusk, swallowed up by a writhing mass of serpents (at that time attributed to Leonardo da Vinci), the poet was paralysed as if bewitched, and rendered speechless by its enchanting, marcescent beauty. Strongly influenced by the lyric poetry and art of the seventeenth century—which, thanks in particular to Caravaggio, was immersed in the febrile excitement provoked by the twin emotions of ecstasy and fear— European Romanticism also clamoured for the head of the Gorgon, in search of the same shiver of pleasure. Shelley’s snakes and Baudelaire’s worms satisfied these shadowy demands for thrills, just like Carlo Gozzi had titillated theatre-goers in 18th-century Venice, drawing on the dark ancient powers of the snake-woman under the protective aegis of amusement.33 Jean d’Arras’ indecorous Mélusine and her ilk had nothing on these new icons, tainted as they with the repugnant scales of the enchanting female protagonists of the Medieval fairy tales, the putrid fecundity of Walter Map’s serpent-women, Dante’s livorous Medusa and aggressive Furies, the Poison-Damsels, and even Hesiod’s long-ago “grim” and “fierce” Echidna.34 These shocking figures continued to stir up very different emotions; the ingenious iconographic invention that had, in the fourth century BC, painted Medusa as a suffering beauty appealed to the buoyant Romantic spirit of the age,35 but also led to the demand for the construction of an image of a sexually insatiable woman. Hence the voracious Hippolyte appeared in Gabriele D’Annunzio’s Triumph of Death (1894) as “incomparable in the art of tiring the loins of men”.36 She provided the fevered fantasies of the Italian author and others with the same, intense expectation of menacing eroticism as the eccentric Marchesa Luisa Casati—the Futurists’ favourite muse—who was nicknamed “the Medusa

33

Carlo Gozzi, ‘La donna serpente’ in Alberto Beniscelli (ed.), Fiabe teatrali (Milan: Garzanti, 1994), 217–292. 34 Hesiod, Theogony, 11, 295–305 35 Mario Praz (1930), La carne, la morte e il diavolo nella letteratura romantica (Florence: Sansoni, 1996), Chapter 1, ‘La bellezza medusea’, 5, 31–53. 36 Gabriele D’Annunzio Triumph of Death, trans. Arthur Hornblow (New York: George Richmond & Co., 1896).

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of the Grand Hotels” due to her unnerving habit of stepping out with live serpents draped around her neck.37 Thus, nineteenth century Europe was populated with another wave of femmes fatales. They were sensual, attractive and dangerous. And they pounced with surprising timeliness in their role as the heroines of numerous books and, eventually, equally numerous films. Their reward was the ability to threaten men and expose their every weakness by skilful use of their supercilious femininity. There is no more potent image in the literature, the visual arts or on screen than these ‘deadly women’. Their ability to conquer audiences was unprecedented, and they became ever more menacing. The new interest in authors and artists for the cruel, the diabolical, and the sanguine sadism of such women led them to squeeze the very last drops of menace from the quintessential emblems of unsettling female Otherness; these included the likes of Lilith and the Harpies, Gorgons, Sirens, Erinyes and Sphinxes, which had already been distilled into their purest essences by the Ancient Greek imaginary. The terrigenous and shocking anguilliform creatures from the primordial era now took on an air of aggressive sexual arrogance; sex was painted as the most vital act that a woman could aspire to. Nevertheless, the advance of these deadly beings, with their lingering odour of the Libyan desert—and all the blood, snakes, poison, death, and sensuality that it spawned—and their untamed nature dominated by violent passions and impulses, was conceived to fulfil the erotic desires of men. That being said, the femme fatale was no mere plaything, and would not disappear as readily as she had been summoned—indeed, even Eve, as far back as the Genesis, belonged to this exciting and vibrant category. All connaisseurs of such feminine icons can immediately recognise their distinguishing mix of seduction, unbridled sexuality and independence, and to those in the know there is no doubt that the mother of all women was so skilled in wrapping Adam around her little finger that she managed to bring about the destruction of the human race—even the word of God was no match for her feminine wiles. This, indeed, was the very essence of femininity, both a gift and a curse for those in her line. Bizet’s Carmen is the perfect example of this heady mix of expectation and anxiety—its heroine was so authentically demonic, witch-like and 37

Scott D. Ryersson and Michael O. Yaccarino, Infinita varietà. Vita e leggenda della marchesa Casati, (Milan: Corbaccio, 2003).

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seductive that she knew exactly how to transform her lover’s eagerness-toplease into an overwhelming desperation.38 These excellent qualities seemed pre-packaged in order to guarantee an otherworldly erotic experience that combined the dark forces of passion and death. However, the femme fatale and her daughters were not deliberate inventions or transitory fantastical creations, rather they were the product of collective experience. When all is said and done, their audacious air of superiority and smouldering gaze were the product of one of the most fruitful enterprises of the contemporary artistic and literary output; they seem to be cast from a mould that only a careful analyst of the male psyche could have designed—that is unless we choose to consider them a mere echo of the past, or a kind of nightmare made real. The cinema and its female stars have quickly capitalised on this need, remodelling wild feminine nature with their artificial charms. Nonetheless, the celluloid femmes fatales gazing out from under seductively lowered lids have been recognised as examples of Medusean beauty, and, constrained by the hidden rules of the age-old game, forced to wear funeral masks.39 During the last century, this golden pathway has been taken by many, and Medusa—like Eve—is now often portrayed as a perilous female trigger of sexual desire. This vision of her is in itself very illuminating; it focuses attention on her enigmatic air, and her ability to enchant, obsess and dominate men, rendering them unnaturally vulnerable. Take, for example, Sharon Stone in Paul Verhoeven’s 1990s thriller and box-office smash Basic Instinct; the sex appeal of her character was easily accessible to a metropolitan male audience—a distillation of all its ideas and ideals. She seems to have been designed specifically to show the modern man how easily a certain type of woman could destroy their virility. Faced with this scene, and driven by her curiosity and the desire to believe in a more radiant sense of femininity, the psychoanalyst Arlene 38

See Franco Fornari, Carmen adorata: psicoanalisi della donna demoniaca (Milan: Longanesi, 1985). 39 As maintained by Osvaldo D. Rossi, ‘Femmes fatales. La seduzione letale del meduseo dall’antichità a oggi’ in Lo sguardo di Medusa. L’orrido, il sublime e la morte negli occhi, Gorgon. Rivista di cultura polimorfa, Nov. 8, 2009. Online, accessed February 23, 2016: www.gorgonmagazine.com.

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Kramer Richards pondered the inexhaustible nature of the Medusa pantomime.40 Indeed, in the film, the seductive prime suspect, while being interrogated by investigators at the police headquarters, crosses her legs and offers them a disarming glimpse of her vulva, thereby compounding their lustful temptation. This image, and that of Medusa displayed on the television screen belonging to the investigating detective, makes the nexus between seduction, violent desires and destructive forces explicit, granting the viewer a dizzying primordial thrill. Of course the male audience is enthralled by the sensual, athletic blonde—just one of many such ‘ideal women’ to grace our screens 41 ; however, this public was also forced to experience the vertiginous sensation of being overwhelmed by dark and imperious forces—women that are too independent, too autonomous, too sure of themselves. It may seem, therefore, that this type of anxious reaction offers the viewer no incentive for promoting sexual equality in society; the film, drifting into a kind of cultural hibernation, clashed passively but decisively with the Western artistic and literary tradition by drawing on the idea of the perilous appeal of the femme fatale. Like the snake, she torments and coils sinuously around men, only to attack them and swallow them whole. Likewise, it appears that the enduring connection between menstruation and monstrosity has survived to the present day. Indeed, one must look no further than the Twighlight saga for confirmation of this suspicion. In both the books and the films, Stephanie Meyer’s plot reverberates with the echoes of the past; it resurrects the triumphant 19th-century belief that women can transform into vampires—thirsty for the blood they have lost through menstruation. Even at this late date, the sense of repugnance towards menstrual blood has lost none of the force of the teachings in the Book of Leviticus. In short, these fantastical stories are disciplined by an extremely pessimistic concept of the menstrual cycle: when all is said and done, a blood-stained woman is a terrifying nightmare. 42 Menstruation inevitably falls under the sweeping scythe of death.

40

Kramer Richards, Woman as Medusa. The persistent conceptual power of this type of figure in several cultural and historical contexts has been analysed in Helen Hanson and Catherine O’Rawe, The Femme Fatale: Images, Histories, Contexts (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010). 42 Creed, The Monstrous Feminine. 41

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In any case, if you haven’t seen these films or read the books, I suspect that you haven’t missed anything that you would not see elsewhere in the mass media. Adverts in particular are awash with aggressive, sexually disinhibited ‘dark ladies’ hawking products for the big brands. For example, it was undoubtedly a predominantly, if not entirely, masculine marketing team that came up with a recent campaign for the BMW Motorrad, which used more than a hint of Medusa and the Sirens to convey the power of motorcyclists. By far one of the most famous examples of this type of imagery is the Versace logo, which features a brilliant, pared-down version of the Medusa Rondanini, her winged head wreathed in serpents. This enterprising use of the first beautiful Gorgon by the Italian fashion brand shows the persistence of nocturnal imaginary in commercial visual messages. The logo is a paradigmatic example of how best to engage consumers—by using an enchanting emblem that can capture attention at a glance and modify that which it sets its eyes upon.43 However, by choosing to buy such products, the disquiet of their purchasers is laid bare; Versace’s well-to-do and powerful clients may not be consciously aware of it, but by sporting this logo they are mimicking the convivial customs of the Classical age—exploiting the apotropaic properties of their possessions. Furthermore, behind the aggressiveness of the female models in all forms of advertising, it is possible to discern the same silent echoes of the collective unconscious that fuelled the destructive dexterity of the ancient female demons and medieval witches.

A vital spark Menstruation’s tired and desolate past weighs on the shoulders of its present. Today’s menstrual flows, muffled by centuries of hostile silence, are dealt with by three prongs of attack: either dismiss them, control them or render them invisible (indeed, everybody prefers to ignore them, pretending that they cannot be seen). That being said, this closet farce has not been not sufficient to resist the combined force of our personal experience and the new exciting research on the topic; these have helped 43

Sara Damiani, La bellezza dell’incubo. Spettro e idolo della Gorgone dalla Medusa Rondanini all’impero Versace. Online, accessed May 5, 2015: www.gorgonmagazine.com/pagine/dedali/dedali_damiani_medusarondanini.html

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pave the way to a change in society, sexual identity and the tension between the intimate impressions/expressions of femininity, and frequent, threatening and humiliating public discussion. Menstruation has consistently served as a magic wand, able to determine a woman’s fate. Wave it once and women are buried under a mountain of negativity—a symbol of misadventure or failed conception— but wave it again and you confer on them an aura of divinity, thanks to their good fortune at being part of a creative process celebrated as proof of fecundity. Minoan Crete had many elegant teachings on this topic. However, despite their social, financial and political gains, women of the third millennium still have to contend with the menstrual taboo, and deal not only with the pains of menstruation itself, but also crude jokes; they themselves are encouraged to skirt or avoid such a ‘distasteful’ topic in polite society. Years of democratic education fall before the altar of the menstrual cycle, which is viewed as a malady or disturbance of the emotions and genitals. As such, it must be disciplined by strict rules of hygiene and products designed to dissemble. Although on the surface menstrual blood would appear an unlikely commodity, products for its containment are aggressively marketed by the pharmaceutical industry, which reaps proficuous rewards for its ingenuity. With their implicit promise to keep our primitive ‘secret’ under wraps, ads for feminine hygiene products often reach dizzying heights of absurdity. In Italy, for example, a popular brand shows a woman sleeping comfortably on a soft blue petal, while others float like butterflies or—with legs raised towards the heavens—mount vigorous horses; still others are portrayed wearing white garments like vain Olympian goddesses (who suddenly feel the need to comb their hair in virgin forests). Among these unlikely ranks there are also veritable wonder women with no evident parallels to the paradigm of impurity forged by the Bible. Rather than being indisposed at their time of the month, they freely give in to the urge to pursue extreme survival sports such as parachuting, freeclimbing, off-road cycling, running and other displays of athleticism. There is even a veejay, whose most arduous endeavours involve spinning the turntables, but who welcomes the phenomenology of discreet feminine hygiene products that will allow her to move through the world of men undetected, albeit with a somewhat desperate grin. In an other ad, two girls, determined to assert their femininity, find an ingenious solution to the problem of bad smells on a train: they place perfumed sanitary towels

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over the air-conditioning vents in order to dispel the plebeian miasma. Although bizarre, this image is not as strange as the choice of the colours used on tampon packaging—blue, green and white—designed to neutralise the power of the bright vermilion of a million drops of ruby liquid. So, how does the menstrual flow? Deep under cover. This is thanks to the imprint of centuries of tacit lessons. Day after day, women are forcing themselves to hide their ‘secret’ in a world in which equality is a battle that has not yet been won. Still the difference between the sexes remains: one is pure and the other is dirty. This handicap makes it unlikely that women will catch up any time soon—a thought that tormented Martha Nussbaum in her consideration of the politics of disgust; this she saw as a profound threat to societies inclined to plan real democracy and equality. As her studies on the emotions associated with disgust,44 and the means by which they are and have been exploited by the legal system—especially at the expense of vulnerable groups—reveal the innumerable occasions in which representatives of the Other (women, Jews, homosexuals, lesbians, African-Americans, ethnic minorities and the disabled) have been labelled as sub-human in order to justify their marginalisation. She showed us that the fact that Jews were thought to give off a repellent odour, often compared to that presumed to emanate from menstruating women,45 was the rule rather than the exception. The connections between misogynistic, racial, homophobic and social disgust clearly highlight the overbearing social norms used to crush people already burdened by perceived bestiality. Disgust is therefore a strategy— a social lesson and form of stigmatisation adopted by the dominant group to plunge the Other into a stinking and toxic corporeal mire. The launch of menstruation into the world of advertising faithfully reflects this construction of women as Others; their aspiration for social equality is dampened by the cheap misogynistic consensus and aggressive sneers of disgust towards bodily fluids—particularly if female in origin. Simone de Beauvoir’s view (1949) on the “second sex”, confined by the dominant ideology to a gregarious role as a double, has already 44

Martha Nussbaum, Hiding from Humanity: Disgust, Shame, and the Law (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004) 18–19, 32. 45 Ibid., 139.

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explained how women have been defined in terms of their correspondence with man—the real Subject.46 He is the One, and she is the Other; he is Pure while she is Unclean. The construction of menstruation as misadventure is therefore implicit in the dynamic that cast women as the Other. However, it is not their monthly bleeds that make women Other, rather women who make menstruation what it is by being Other. Over fifty years after de Beauvoir’s seminal work, her interpretation is still fresh, and the fact that menstruation reflects and reinforces the Otherness of women has been marked with a flaming brand on popular culture. Tolerant and reassuring messages regarding menstrual shame, and the enviable discreetness of tampons and sanitary towels are everywhere in the media. However, even if they apparently break the taboo, by promising to protect women from embarrassing and unsightly accidents—to keep their secret—they in fact perpetuate the endless myth of female uncleanliness. The insistence of advertising on the need to purchase products designed to shield women’s bodies and undergarments is just one example of the negative attitudes typically used to increase profits by the US-based mass media.47 In spite of their reassuring medical and sanitary packaging, menstruation has not been rid of its nauseating odour of corruption. Although this is something menstruation has in common with other quirks of nature, it is apparent that the clandestine queen has not been able to leave behind the disdain that shaped how we perceive her today. The survival of the distorted perceptions that painted menstruation as dangerous and offensive was explored by Buckley and Gottlieb in their anthropological analysis of related stereotypes.48 These formed a complex web of symbolism that was fully incorporated into the Western oral and written tradition, and it is evident from the preceding Chapter that the period in which they caused the greatest anxiety was the Middle Ages.

46

de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 230–233. For the construction of woman as the Other and the commercial exploitation of menstruation, perceived in Capitalist societies as a shameful illness, see Elisabeth Arveda Kissling, Capitalizing on the Curse: The Business of Menstruation (Boulder, Colorado: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2006), in particular ‘Introduction: From Rags to Riches’, 4–7. 48 Buckley and Gottlieb, Blood Magic: The Anthropology of Menstruation, 6. 47

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The entire phenomenology of those centuries was built around the certainty that the distinguishing feature of the secreta mulierum was the contagious toxicity of menstrual blood. This depressing theory, which had unfortunately been the prevailing one since the times of Aristotle, Pliny the Elder and Galen, left even more frightening impressions on women than those forced upon them by the biblical tradition. These authors also far outdid the later Patristic view in terms of depicting women as impure beings, hazardous to society. The centuries-long discussions on such matters were impregnated with all the virility that the Fathers of the Church, and all the male physicians, authors, philosophers and educators who voiced this opinion could summon; although their public message was at odds with that of gentle Jesus—who healed a haemorrhaging woman in an encouraging sign of solidarity 49 —the intellectuals and artists were not accustomed to such benevolence; for them women only had the role of Other. Indeed, the misogynist fantasies of the age had more readily absorbed the story of Eve—the woman and the snake, who was easily swept under the rug of Otherness (as we discussed in Chapter Three). Thus the connections between abnormality and menstruation were forged to banish women to the lowest rung of the existential ladder. And the theory that menstruating women were equivalent to reptiles ensured that they were seen as monstrosities par excellence in Medieval teratology. As such, the toxic reputation of menstrual blood was among the most popular and enduring ‘scientific’ theories conceived in the Middle Ages, and persisted well into the early modern age. Menstrual blood was a tangible demonstration of the poisonous, imperfect nature of the ‘second’ sex, and the social peril she represented. As we have seen, on the basis of this conviction physicians identified the very organ by which she could harm those around her: her eyes. According to their learned opinions, the eyes enclosed a corrosive vapour that mercilessly threatened to contaminate the surrounding air, after (as the

49

The Gospels of Matthew (9, 20-22), Mark (5, 25-29) and Luke (8, 43-48) mention Jesus’ miraculous healing of the woman with the haemorrhage: “As Jesus was on his way, the crowds almost crushed him. And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years, but no one could heal her. She came up behind him and touched the edge of his cloak, and immediately her bleeding stopped.”

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Aristotelean tradition would have it) having madly clouded and inflamed all the mirrors. When assaulted with the force of a woman’s gaze, men could only quail in fear of their defences crumbling entirely. In order to ward off certain ruin, therefore, they took it upon themselves to abhor and despise the grim monstrosity that was the female of the species. The thought that a Medusa could turn a man to stone with a single glance was a terrible threat, but that was nothing compared to the idea that all women had a gaze infiltrated by the poisonous powers of their blood— with all the vibrant destructive force of the snake. Hence, effective solutions had to be devised in order to prevent men falling in to the clutches of death. Among these would be the lack of mercy (in the form of indulgences) displayed to those who had intimate relations with menstruating women. Through this volatile means of deterring unclean relations, Medieval physicians, educators, authors and theologians joined their respective pedagogical forces to spread panic among their flock—despite the best efforts of Humanists such as Lorenzo de Medici (1449–1492) to buck the trend. Indeed, “Lorenzo the Magnificent”, in his ‘carnival songs’ invited women, with a captivating caricature of a smile, to ‘get busy’ when they were menstruating, provided that they avoided “impediments” or “stains”. That being said, he also advised men that the best way to get satisfaction with menstruating or menopausal women was to engage in ‘appealing’ acts of sodomy.50 However, such isolated advice was no match for the ancient fear of menstruation and the correlated power of the evil eye, which was still going strong, even in early modern times. The bizarre female monsters that populated this age—witches included—are testament to that. In fact, all the concerns, behaviours, canons and daily acts of indecency that painted menstruation in a negative light have a nasty habit of reappearing in Western culture. The concatenation of these associations has also conferred on them a funereal seal which lends itself to a range of emotions—from shame to a shiver of disgust. For a long time, therefore, being a woman—especially menstruating or menopausal—meant having to tread dark pathways governed by ungrateful negative influences that barred the doors to the intellect and imagination. Century after century were spent hiding the menstrual cycle 50

Lorenzo de Medici, ‘Canzone de’ confortini’ in Poesie, edited by Federico Sanguineti (Milan: Rizzoli, 1992) 161.

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in the sand like a vulgar and obscene secret, but a miracle was on the horizon. In the 1970s, a rising tide of female voices began to reassure us that our periods were not, in fact, a curse.51 With no fear of reprisals they set out to re-appropriate their own bodies, and fulfil their natural role as knowledgeable custodians of themselves. Standing on the shoulders of such remarkable thinkers as Hildegard of Bingen and Trotula, they began to restore dignity to the menstrual cycle; they triggered a new sense of congruence, a spirit that made it acceptable for them, like their Minoan fore-mothers—who would spend the days of their cycle together—to view menstruation as a positive force. They also encouraged women to revel in their unity—a harmony deriving from a state of tension generated when human beings, ripped from the rhythm of their daily lives, acquire a different perception of time, themselves and their bodies. When every gaze was freed from its brand of infamy and bathed in the energy required for renewal, menstruation was restored an optimistic spark of vitality. Grand designs were then conceived—the very essence of democracy, and the voices and plans of women began to be heard as they gathered cultural force. Their ‘secret’ was made very public through and pop songs like Period Pains and Menstruation Sisters, and the opening of the Museum of Menstruation, which was founded in Washington in the 1990s (thanks to the patience and dedication of a man). It has also been unveiled through a flourishing and exciting brand of Menstrual Art,52 which is much admired by those with their fingers on the pulse of societal change. Their subjects are many and varied, but all of these artists have rid themselves of the heavy burden of the stigma attached to menstruation, and the overwhelming influence it had on their ilk in centuries past. Connie Willis, 53 on the other hand, imagined a future in which gynaecological science would entirely eliminate menstruation. In her 1993 51

See Boston Women’s Health Book Collective (eds.), Our Bodies, Ourselves: A Book By and For Women (New York: Touchstone, 1971). This original guide to women’s health has influenced countless women’s lives across the world. 52 For example Vanessa Tiegs, in order to promote a positive image of menstruation, has dedicated all her pictures to the theme ‘Menstrala’. 53 Connie Willis, Even the Queen and Other Short Stories (United States: Wyrmhole Publishing, 1991).

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short story ‘Even the Queen’, this medical breakthrough would only be opposed by an ineffective group of radical feminists. In fact, the question of whether or not there is any more need for menstruation is even today being debated by doctors and gynaecologists across the Atlantic.54 Indeed, although Italian women, for example, remain rather protective of their cycles, some American women would apparently rather do without. Whatever the outcome of the debate, comparative studies that highlight the relevant social and democratic virtues enacted by each country would make it easier to live with. In any case, it is likely that this discussion, beyond any rational arguments that may be offered, will re-ignite our sense of inadequacy. Indeed, it runs the risk of making the menstrual cycle—alongside conception, delivery and breastfeeding—appear as a superfluous ancestral rite, a kind of nature morte—neither use nor ornament. It is not difficult to see how this would influence the public policies of neoliberal societies, but such a development would be entirely at odds with women’s social and existential planning. Hence, the monthly rhythm of the ages is still sparking battles over which the brooding clouds of defeat already hang from the outset. In other words, it is as if the discussion on the suppression of menstruation—itself the result of a previous concealment—is fuelling all those earlier Western attitudes that had rejected it as something disgusting in the past. Nevertheless, in this dynamic situation, menstruation triggers a vital desire to transform it into a prize worth fighting for; the audacious conviction appears to be that its visibility will give rise to a legitimate and shared sensation of appropriateness without reserve. Indeed, at the centre of the ideas and plans of female exponents of cultural and political movements,55 bloggers,56 writers, scholars and artists,

54

See Elsimar M. Coutihno and Sheldon J. Segal, Is Menstruation Obsolete? (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999). 55 Chris Bobel, ‘Our revolution has style: contemporary menstrual product activists ‘doing feminism’ in the third wave’, Sex Roles, 54, 5–6, 2006, 331–345. 56 Among the Italian websites dedicated to menstruation see: Le mie cose on www.nuvenia.it/il-ciclo-mestruale/tutto-sulle-mestruazioni and, by Livia Geloso, La ciclicità, available online on the blog self-helpriparliamone.blogspot.com

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not to mention women and girls57 in general, there is an outright rejection of hostile views on the menstrual cycle. In a game of contrasts, therefore, dreams and reflections have taken and can take shape. Now women are free to experience their menstrual flow as a perfectly natural ‘balm’,58 or even to delve into the heart of their own history and culture to bring to light the events and experiences that led to their social inequality, and how they became burdened by a lumbering sense of inadequacy and shame.59

Conclusion It looks like, for now at least, we have come to the end of the road. By tying together the individual threads here and there, and re-establishing contacts between the different traditions involving the snake-women (images, metaphors and ideas) that have survived over time, we have explored how these ‘impressions’ have shaped and overturned gender relations. Different cultures have had their curiosity aroused by this figure, while others have reeled back in horror. As we have seen, the invention of the snake-woman—who has by turns galvanised and stunned—has provided us with a good indicator of social concerns in past times. In the pages of this book we have connected the stories and histories regarding this enigmatic figure, and how they relate to the contemporary theories on menstruation. In Classical times through to the modern day, and particularly during the Middle Ages, these theories were built, in various ways, on the association between women and the animal kingdom (i.e. the serpent), and the primitive archaic nexus between menstrual blood and sight. Along this journey we have uncovered an issue very similar to that identified at the turn of the nineteenth century by Havelock Ellis in his considerations on ‘The Influence of Menstruation in the Position of

57

The new attitudes to menstruation are analysed and documented in interviews by Laura Fingerson, Girls in Power: Gender, Body, and Menstruation in Adolescence (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2006). Here the author shows how adolescent girls exploit their menstrual cycle, using it as a source of power in their dealings with male and female peers. 58 See Alexandra Pope, The Wild Genie: The Healing Power of Menstruation (Bowral, Australia: Sally Milner Publishing, 2001). 59 See Elissa Stein and Susan Kim, Flow: The Cultural History of Menstruation (New York, St. Martin’s Griffin Press, 2009).

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Women’,60 namely the devastating effect of the great imaginative machine behind ideas on menstruation on the emotional relationship between the two sexes. Even if we wanted to behave as if none of this had ever happened, or to criticise those who wallow in the malign influences of the past, we should not believe that the erroneous ideas and emotions as a legacy of history have been entirely eliminated by the march of time and progress; there is much still to be overcome before we can declare case closed, and still more light must be shed on all the requisites necessary to construct gender equality. There are other issues that, as of today, remain incomprehensible and confusing to our eyes. To believe that only the Present has any relevance is a fallacy—in order to understand the Present we need to fully comprehend the Past. Exploring and imagining the Past, therefore, is by no means a waste of time, and, without being too optimistic as to its outcomes, any effort expended to unravel the threads of our history is well spent. Indeed, by uncovering the cultural invention and changing fortunes of the snake-women, we have seen how the systems of communication and imagination that stigmatised women and promoted gender division are still firmly in place. In a similar vein, in my 1995 book L’avventura dello sguardo (‘The Adventure of the Gaze’), I analysed how public regulation of sight has shaped the complex relations between men and women in different historical contexts. This line of research demonstrated which social sentiments and teachings corresponded to the needs of the patriarchal mindset. For instance, in the nineteenth century, the books and manuals published on the education of women and girls show that the role of sight was highly valorised at that time. Great value was also afforded the gaze well into the early twentieth century, as reflected in famous novels like The Plumed Serpent by David H. Lawrence (1926), whose biblical overtones are obvious from the title. In that work, the British writer tells us of the guilt and distress experienced by an evolved and sophisticated

60

Havelock Ellis, ‘The Influence of Menstruation in the Position of Women’ in Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Appendix A (Vol. I), a reprint of the 1901 edition (Honolulu, Hawaii: University Press of Pacific, 2001), 284.

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woman in a primitive, instinctive and visceral Mexico due to the impurity of her vision: “The itching, prurient knowing eye, I am cursed with it, I am hampered up in it. It is my curse of curses, the curse of Eve. The curse of Eve is upon me, my eyes are like hooks, my knowledge is like a fish-hook through my gills, pulling me in spasmodic desire. Oh, who will free me from the grappling of my eyes, from the impurity of sharp sight! Daughter of Eve, of greedy vision, why don’t these men save me from the sharpness of my own eyes!”61

Her desolate words and shadowy thinking help us to better understand the lethal consequences of an education in a repressive society. There are other good reasons to think that the disciplina oculorum regulating the conduct of the eyes, mainly used in the second millennium, was religious in nature. Indeed, the Fathers of the Christian Church railed against the moral weakness of the gaze, among the other senses. The medical literature too undoubtedly had an influence, and this regulation was perceived to be a trustworthy guide for social behaviours; for a long time this form of discipline was aimed at certain social groups, specifically those at court and women, in particular. However, it is in the ecclesiastical texts that we find the most extreme attempts to suppress sight. Take, for example, Tertullian (155–200 CE), whose higher spiritual calling led him to author the first document in Latin Christian literature to plan for the education of women; in it he urged repression of sensory impulses which, through the faculty of sight, would trigger in them the same insatiable appetites as Eve and all her descendants. Such precautionary measures multiplied during the Middle Ages, in which many authoritative moral writings and educational practices sought to regiment the visual behaviour of women, with a view to neutralising its toxic effects. Throughout the history of Western civilisation, strict control has been exerted over the gaze, and, whether it was averted to prevent petrifaction or lowered to signal submission, it has always propped up the gender hierarchy; thus the predominantly negative symbolism of the snakewoman, a potent emblem of Otherness, has earned her place in history. 61

David Herbert Lawrence, The Plumed Serpent (Boston: Adamant Media Corp., 1992), 199.

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Taking a leaf out of Christine de Pizan’s book, therefore, it is still worth subverting not only the logical categories of a culture, but also those of its imaginary, which, as we have seen, can be used as an effective support for the dominion of one sex over another. Attempting to capture the historical imagination helps us fulfil the exciting desire to understand how myths have been used and transformed from the past to the present. In this vein, I have tried to make sense of the metamorphoses of the snake-woman, and her persistence and hostile dissemination in Western lore. As we saw in Chapter Three, one of the most profound and influential transformations that was forced upon her was in early Christianity at the hands of Tertullian, who asked all women “And do you not know that you are (each) an Eve?”. Posed in these terms, this question would reverberate down the centuries, not only for having conceptualised the connection between women, the gaze and the serpent, but also because it imposed on the descendants of Eve the insupportable weight of shame. Over a millennium later, it was precisely this demoralising, dramatic ambience that Christine de Pizan wanted to escape, both for herself and for the rest of her gender. All in all, despite their widespread acceptance, she was by no means convinced of the veracity of such tenets, and she was therefore unwilling to follow the path laid down for her. Afflicted with a deep sense of unhappiness and distress at the prospect of enduring an insignificant existence under the silent shadow of shame, she therefore imagined a new Medusa; she turned Boccaccio’s “marvellous beauty” into a vital momentum. In her subversive fiction, Christine de Pizan’s Medusa was the diametric opposite of that created by the fantastical Greco-Roman mind—that odious snake-woman who heralded the return of chaos and the black primordial abyss. Instead, for de Pizan, she was a luminous, serene, liberating, beneficial and entirely human creature—thus a dreamer’s thoughts from out of the blue became a fulfilling event in history.

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

The works listed here include most of the books and articles referred to in the previous chapters, and suggestions for further reading. It excludes references to films and websites, which are in any case reported in the Footnotes. In many cases there are, or have been, different editions, and I have cited the one that is most widely available, rather than the first or the latest. Adorno, Theodor W. et al., The authoritarian personality. New York: Harper and Row, 1950. Aeschylus. Prometheus. In Prometheus Bound, The Suppliants, Seven against Thebes, The Persians, trans. by Philip Vellacott. (1961; reprint Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1983. —. The Eumenides. In The Oresteian trilogy: Agamemnon, The Choephori, The Eumenides, trans. by Philip Vellacott (New York: Penguin Books, 1956). Albert the Great, Questions Concerning Aristotle's On Animals (The Fathers of the Church (Albertus Magnus), Mediaeval Continuation, Volume 9). Trans. Irven M. Resnick and Kenneth F. Kitchell Jr. Washington: The Catholic University of America Press, 2008, XV, 11, 453–456. —. On Animals: A Medieval Summa Zoologica, trans. Kenneth F. Kitchell, Jr. and Irven Michael Resnick. Baltimore; London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999. Alic, Margaret. Hypatia's Heritage: A History of Women in Science from Antiquity through the Nineteenth Century. Boston: Beacon Press, 1986. Allport, Gordon Willard. The Nature of Prejudice. Cambridge, Mass.: Addison Wesley, 1954. Anonimo latino. Trattato di fisiognomica. Pseudo Aristotele, Fisiognomica. Introduction, text and notes by Raina, Giampiera. Milan: Rizzoli, 1994. Apollodorus of Athens. Apollodorus, The library, [Loeb Classical Library]. Originally published in J. G. Frazer, trans. London: William Heinemann; New York: G.B. Putnam’s Sons, 1921. Aristotle. Generation of Animals, trans. A. L. Peck [Loeb Classical Library]. Cambridge, Mass., 1979, 82a-82b, 515b-517c.

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—. History of Animals, trans. A. L. Peck. [Loeb Classical Library] Vol. VIII-X. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1984. —. On Dreams in The complete works of Aristotle. Trans. J.I. Beare. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1908. —. Parts of Animals, trans. A.L. Peck [Loeb Classical Library] Cambridge, Mass, 1968. —. Physiognomics. in Minor Works, trans. W. S. Hett. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1963. Audeguy, Stéphane. Les Monstres. Si loin, si proches. Paris: Gallimard, 2007. Bachelard, Gaston. Water and Dreams: An Essay on the Imagination of Matter, trans. Edith R. Farrell. Dallas: Pegasus Foundation, 1983. Bacon, Francis. ‘Perseus or War’. In De Sapientia Veterum (Of the wisdom of the Ancients). Chapter VII. In Francis Bacon, The Essays, ed. John Pitcher. Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1985. Baldi, Dino. Morti favolose degli antichi. Macerata: Quodlibet, 2010. Barthes, Roland. ‘Myth Today’. In Mythologies. Trans. Annette Lavers. London: Paladin, 1972. Bartholomeus Anglicus, De proprietatibus rerum. Italian Edition. Trento: La Finestra, 2008. Bettelheim, Bruno. The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales. New York: Knopf, 1976, 291. Bigliazzi, Silvia. ‘Medusa’s Gaze: A.S. Byatt’s Unfinished Metamorphoses’. In Dente, Carla. [et al.] (eds.), Proteus. The Language of Metamorphosis. Burlington: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2005, 234– 37. Bloch, Howard. Medieval Misogyny and Invention of Western Romantic Love. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991. Boas, George. Preface to Selected Writings of J. J. Bachofen, trans. Manheim, Ralph. New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1973, xi. Boccaccio, Giovanni. ‘Medusa, Daughter of Phorcus’. In Famous Women. Ed. and trans. Brown, Virginia. I Tatti Renaissance Library. Cambridge, MA, and London, England: Harvard University Press, 2003. —. Genealogia deorum gentilium. Milan: Mondadori, 1996. Boggi Cavallo, Pina (ed.). Trotula de Ruggiero. Sulle malattie delle donne. Palermo: La Luna, 1994. Bolen, Jean Shinoda. Goddesses in Everywoman. Powerful Archetypes in Women's Lives. New York: Harper, 1984. Boston Women’s Health Book Collective (eds.), Our Bodies, Ourselves: A Book By and For Women. New York: Touchstone, 1971.

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Braidotti, Rosi. Nomadic Subjects: Embodiment and Sexual Difference in Contemporary Feminist Theory. New York: Columbia University Press, 1994. Brown, John Russell. What is Theatre? An Introduction and Exploration. Boston and Oxford: Focal Press, 1997, 8. Buckley, Thomas, Gottlieb, Alma. Blood Magic: The Anthropology of Menstruation. Berkley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1988. Burke, Peter. Eyewitnessing. The Uses of Images as Historical Evidence. London: Reaktion Books, 2001. Caillois, Roger. La pieuvre. Essai sur la logique de l’imaginaire. Paris: La Table ronde, 1973. Cain, C. D. ‘Dancing in the Dark: Deconstructing a Narrative of Epiphany on the Isopata Ring’. American Journal of Archeology, vol. 105, No. 1 (Jan., 2001), 27–49. Calvino, Italo. Perché leggere i classici? Milan: Mondadori, 1991. —. Six Memos for the Next Millennium. Trans. Creagh, Patrick. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1988. Campanella, Tommaso. Del senso delle cose e della magia. Cosenza: Laboratorio Edizioni, 1987, Book IV, Chapter 15, 86–87. Camporesi, Piero. Il sugo della vita. Simbolismo e magia del sangue. Milan: Edizioni di Comunità, 1984, 54. Capellanus, Andreas. De amore. Milan: SEI, 1996. English edition Andreas Capellanus: The Art of Courtly Love, included in Joseph Black, et al., The Broadview Anthology of British Literature, vol. 1. Toronto: Broadview Press, 2006. Carotenuto, Aldo. L’anima delle donne. Per una lettura psicologica al femminile. Milan: Bompiani, 2005. Cavarero, Adriana. Orrorismo. Milan: Feltrinelli, 2007. Chevalier, Jean, Gherrant, Alain. ‘Introduction’ to Dictionaire des Symboles. Paris: Seguers, 1973. Tome I, XXVI. Cixous, Hélène ‘The Laugh of the Medusa’, trans. Keith Cohen and Paula Cohen, Signs, vol. 1, No. 4 (Summer, 1976). Clair, Jean. Méduse: contribution à une anthropologie des arts du visuel, Paris: Gallimard, 1989. Clement of Alexandria. Paedagogus (The Instructor). Italian edition: Il Pedagogo. Turin: SEI, 1971. Cohen, Jefferey Jerome. Of Giants: Sex, Monsters and the Middle Ages. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1999.

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Ripa, Cesare. Iconologia, overo Descrittione dell’Imagini universali cavate dall’Antichità et da altri luoghi. Milan: Tea, 2002, based on the 1618 edition. Sellers, Susan. Myth and Fairy Tale in Contemporary Women’s Fiction. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002. Serfontein, Susan M. Medusa: from Beast to Beauty in Archaic and Classical Illustrations from Greece and South Italy. Unpublished thesis presented in pursuit of a Masters at Hunter College of the City University of New York, 1991. Sergent, Bernard. L’homosexualité initiatique dans l’Europe ancienne. Paris: Payot, 1986. Siebers, Tobin. The Mirror of Medusa. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983, 78. Stanford, Ann. ‘Medusa. The Women of Perseus’. In Mediterranean Air. New York: Viking, 197, 34–48. Starobinski, Jean. Les enchanteresses. Paris: Seuil, 2005. Stein, Elissa, Kim, Susan. Flow: The Cultural Story of Menstruation. New York: St. Martin’s Griffin Press, 2009. Tertullian. On the Apparel of Women, trans. Rev. S. Thelwall. Reprint Whitefish, MT: Kessinger Publishing, 2004. Topsell, Edward. The History of Four-Footed Beasts and Serpents and Insects, 3 vol. (New York: Capo Press, 1967). Tsonkova, Svetlana. ‘Pernicious and Poisonous Snake: The Malicious and Dangerous Other in Medieval Bulgarian Charms’ in Francisco de Asís García García, Mónica Ann Walker Vadillo and María Victoria Chico Picaza, Animals and Otherness in the Middle Ages: Perspectives Across Discipline. Oxford: Archaeopress, 2013. Tugnoli, Claudio (ed.), Zooantropologia. Storia, etica e pedagogia dell’interazione uomo/animale. Milan: Franco Angeli, 2003. Vergine, Lea, Verzotti, Giorgio, (eds.) ‘Il Bello e le bestie. Meditazioni sul divenire animale.’ in Metamorfosi, artifici e ibridi, dal mito all’imaginario scientifico. Genoa-Milan: Skira 2004. Vernant, Jean-Pierre. L'individu, la mort, l'amour: soi-même et l'autre en Grèce ancienne. Paris: Gallimard, 1989. Vico, Giambattista New Science, trans. David Marsh. Current edition, London: Penguin Classics, 1999. Book II, 35–145. Von Eschenbach, Wolfram. Parzival. Turin: Utet, 1981. Von Franz, Marie Louise. Problems of the Feminine in Fairy Tales. New York: Spring Publications, 1972. Von Strassburg, Gottfried. Tristan. English Edition, trans. Federick Alan. London: Penguin Classics, 1974.

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INDEX

A Abramoviü................................... 136 Abu Ghraib.................................. 237 adder........................................... 209 Adorno .................................. 41, 237 advertising ........ 37, 82, 232, 250-254 Aeschylus ....... 21, 56, 65-66, 72, 104 Aesop’s Fables ............................ 155 Africa 12, 19, 27-35, 45, 55, 126, 252 Agamemnon ............................ 20, 83 Akko.............................................. 16 Albert the GreatSee Albertus Magnus Albertus Magnus ... 159-60, 178, 184, 271 Alexander the Great .............. 45, 188 Allah.............................................. 46 Amazons .................. 5, 13, 22, 125-6 Amenábar ...................................... 41 Amphisbaena ................................. 30 amulets ................ 12, 32, 46, 53, 129 androcratic..................................... 26 anger .. 4, 45, 78, 104, 113, 150, 167, 185, 234 Angry Women .............................. 238 animals, uses of .................. 30, 153-4 Aphrodite ...................................... 47 Apocalypse .............................. 6, 153 Apollodorus ................ 21-2, 127, 132 apotropaic ... 12-3, 19, 47, 86, 97, 250 archetypes. 2, 10, 135, 141, 144, 167, 243 Argos ............................................. 22 Aristotelian school .... 41, 78-82, 92, 151, 180 Artemis .................................. 47, 130 artistic interpretations of snake women....See 'List of Illustrations' Asp (mythical creature) ............157-8 Aspasia .......................................... 39

Astarbe .......................................71-3 Athena ... 15, 19, 20-3, 30, 51, 65, 83, 91, 124, 133, 225, 229 Augustine ... 71, 145, 170, 177, 201, 209, 215, 224 Australia ............................ 34, 45, 54 B Babau ............................................ 16 Bachelard .................................... 142 Bachofen ..................................... 235 Bacon ............................... 67-70, 113 Barthes .......................................... 82 Bartholomeus Anglicus .......... 158-61 Basilisk.. 5-7, 50, 127, 132, 152, 159161, 166-8, 181, 184, 189-191, 212, 215 Baubo ............................ 16, 103, 119 Baudelaire ................................... 246 beauty14, 22, 101, 76, 96, 217-9, 223, 228 Beauvais ...................... 157, 159, 178 Bellerophon ........................... 18, 124 Bernard of Clairvaux ........... 142, 170 bestial nature ................... 86, 93, 164 Bestiaries 6, 122, 126, 135, 143, 15466, 172, 181, 189 Bettelheim ............................... 25, 66 Bloch ................................ 176, 202-3 bloody mirror ................ 78, 180, 195 blue.......................................... 37, 51 Boccaccio .................................223-9 Bodin ........................................... 119 Boeotia ................................. 20, 86-7 Bolen ........................................... 243 Book of Sydrac/Sidrach .... 179, 212, 228 Boyd .............................................. 47 Braidotti .............................. 139, 238

276 breath (venomous) 105-7, 124-8, 160, 189, 214-5 Bruner ......................................... 121 bull-leaping ..............................53-61 Buckley ....................................... 253 Burchard of Worms ..................... 177 Burke ........................................112-5 C Caillois .......................................17-8 Calvino .....................................234-6 Camporesi ..................................... 37 Capellanus ................................204-6 castration ................................236-45 Cathars ........................................ 204 Catoblepas ............................5, 125-7 Cavarero ...................................... 236 centaurs ................................. 13, 104 Ceto ......................................... 14, 20 Charybdis ............................ 134, 147 Chaucer ....................................... 218 childbirth ........ 27, 33, 61, 130-1, 142 Christ/Christianity ... 6, 18, 27, 31-2, 38-44, 50-1, 59, 70-74, 82, 114, 120-4, 142, 145-6, 152-63, 168-9, 171-2, 174, 176-9, 199-202, 218, 223, 233, 260-1 Christine, Saint ................. 169, 230-1 Chrysaor ............................ 20, 22, 30 Church Fathers .. See Fathers of the Church Cixous ................. 136, 139, 236, 244 Clair ............................................ 232 Cohen .......................................... 178 Clement of Alexandria ........ 171, 177 Cohen .......................... 136, 178, 179 cold (temperament) 145, 165, 180-90, 213, 216, 236, 245 collective unconscious..........2, 132-4 coral ...........................................30-1 Couldrette .................................... 181 courtly love ..............................201-8 Crawley ......................................... 46 Creed ................................... 139, 236 curse .................................. 35, 38, 57 cyborg .......................... 8, 121, 238-9

Index Cyclops ................................. 13, 134 D D’Annunzio................................. 246 d’Arras . 123, 167, 181-4, 193, 228, 246 Damascius ............................... 40, 42 dance/dancing....... 50, 53, 58-63, 148 Dante .. 4, 123, 131, 149-52, 178-80, 191, 228, 234, 246 de Beauvoir ...................... 100, 252-3 de Conches .................................. 181 de Fournival ..................... 207-9, 228 de Lorris .............. 145, 202, 205, 210 de Martino ..................................... 44 de Medici .................................... 255 de Meun . 4, 145, 202, 210-1, 220-2 de Pizan ... 7, 213, 219-31, 236, 244, 261 de Thaon...................................... 157 de Troyes..................................... 205 death . 4, 6, 11, 21, 23, 27, 30, 33, 38, 40, 46, 47, 50, 63-5, 72-3, 95, 97, 99, 108-9, 120, 129, 132, 134, 136-7, 141-2, 108-9, 120, 129, 132, 134, 136-7, 141-2, 145-8, 151, 168, 174, 182, 187, 189, 1901, 194, 233, 243-50 decapitation ... 30, 83, 95-6, 105, 140, 224, 240 Delaney ......................................... 28 Delphi............................ 65, 124, 168 Delumeau ............ 127, 134, 199, 200 Demeter ......................................33-4 Deonna .......................................47-8 Devil, the . 74, 118, 120, 142, 151-8, 162, 171, 177, 211, 233 Diodorus .................................. 15, 22 disgust . 102, 107, 147, 220, 241, 253 Disney ................................. 116, 123 Dominici ....................................... 82 Douglas ............................ 139, 176-7 dragon 17, 76, 122-3, 142, 148, 1524, 157, 159, 182, 191, 194, 219, 230, 233 Dubois ......................................... 128

The Historical Enigma of the Snake Woman from Antiquity to the 21st Century Dundes .......................................... 45 Duns Scotus................................. 177 Durand.... 3, 6, 141-5, 166, 175, 182 Dzielska......................................... 38 E Eco .............................................. 101 Echidna 5, 122-4, 128, 152, 167, 246 Egypt .. 13, 15, 20, 27, 32, 45, 54, 59, 104, 116, 154, 167, 239 Eisler ............................................. 26 Eliade ........................ 10, 11, 17, 121 Elusinian Mysteries ....................33-4 Elworthy ........................................ 45 emotions, social history of............... 4 envy ... 78, 102, 113-6, 194, 196, 233 epic poems.. 11, 14, 18-9, 21, 66, 206 Erinyes 65, 71-2, 123-5, 134, 150-2, 247 eros.................................. 24, 31, 109 Etruscan................ 8, 101-3, 119, 134 Euripedes......................... 13, 65, 104 European folklore ........ 4, 16, 55, 181 Euryale ........................ 12, 14, 20, 29 Evans ............................ 53-6, 77, 153 Eve 6, 7, 50, 105, 113, 141, 144, 1523, 162-3, 166-73, 176, 191-2, 198201, 210-3, 218, 220, 233, 247-8, 254, 260-1 evil eye .. 4, 27, 31, 44-8, 78, 86, 116, 128, 145-6, 255 F face 13, 27, 35, 53, 55, 59, 73, 77, 845, 92, 94, 98, 103-4, 133, 148, 225-30, 236-7 Faience .......................................... 55 fairy tale . 2, 16-7, 25-8, 66, 116, 123, 239, 246 Fathers of the Church .. 165, 177, 254 feathers .......................................32-3 fear 1, 4, 5, 6, 15, 16, 17, 20, 23, 26-8, 29, 49, 59, 66, 76, 82, 114, 126-8, 132, 134, 137-8, 140-2, 144-5, 149, 150, 156, 168-9, 179, 180,

277

191, 200, 207, 213, 233, 236, 240, 244, 246, 255, 256, 286 feminine hygiene ................. 218, 251 femme fatale .............................245-9 Fénelon......................... 3, 5, 67, 70-6 Ferenczi ....................................242-4 fertility 33, 35, 55, 57, 134, 152, 218 Fidia .............................................. 15 Flanagan ...................................214-6 Flax ....................................... 89, 138 "flowers" ..................................... 179 Fontana........................................ 137 Frankfurt School ......................... 237 Frazer ................. 3, 26-9, 46, 55, 145 French Revolution ........................... 6 Freud ........ 121, 138, 144, 236, 240-4 Fromm ................................. 144, 148 Fulgentius ........................... 29, 223-4 Furies ............................. See Erinyes G Gaia ................................. 14, 56, 140 Galen ........................ 180-1, 186, 254 Garden of Eden6, 142, 162, 168, 172, 175, 211 gender relations .. 6, 46, 199-202, 258 Geertz .........................................34-5 Gello.............................................. 16 Giallongo......................... 43, 83, 170 Gilmore ......................................... 15 Gimbutas . 3, 12, 19, 26, 36, 51, 63-5 Ginzburg ..................................... 118 Gombrich ...................................... 82 God.. 27, 126, 145, 156, 168-9, 214, 216, 230, 247 Gorgo ............................................ 16 gorgoneion ... 11-2, 45, 85-6, 94, 97, 102-3, 108, 110, 112, 233 Gorillai........................................ 125 Gozzi ................................... 246, 268 Graves ........................... 3, 26, 28, 46 Great Goddess/Mother .. 12, 18-9, 25, 50, 54, 56, 64, 169 Greenfield ..................................... 37 Greek mythology... 33-4, 47, 60, 71, 101, 122, 151-2, 243

278 griffon ........................................... 13 Guazzo ........................................ 119 gynocentric .................................... 26 gynophobic .................................... 49 H Hades................... 20, 33, 66, 72, 131 Hagen .................................. 129, 132 hair . 6, 19, 20, 32, 33, 51, 53, 55, 58, 61, 65, 72, 81, 89, 96, 113, 118, 124, 126-7, 142, 170-2, 178, 186, 219, 225, 231, 234, 241, 251 halitosis ....................................... 154 Hanno the Navigator ................... 124 Hansen......................................... 115 Haraway ........................................ 18 Harf-Lancner ............... 123, 146, 181 Harpies ............... 122, 151, 237, 247 Harrison............................. 12, 47, 59 Hassig .......................................... 154 Havelock Ellis .................... 55, 258-9 Hawthorne ............ 3, 5, 67, 73-6, 120 hearing......................................206-7 Heracles............. 14, 65, 72, 101, 124 Hercules .................... 17, 22, 72, 134 Herodotus ................................ 20, 22 Hesiod . 2, 6, 14, 19-21, 66, 71-2, 85, 122, 124, 127-8, 132, 140, 246 Hester Prynne .............................74-5 Hildegard of Bingen ... 7, 213-8, 256 Hippolyte..................................... 246 Homer 2, 6, 19-20, 66-7, 71, 98, 124, 152 homoeroticism ............................23-4 hot (temperament) 145, 180, 186, 216 Hugh of Saint Victor ................... 154 Huizinga ...................................... 202 humanoid, female ............ 7, 162, 191 humours. 7, 108, 165-6, 178-191, 217 Hutchinson .............................. 52, 56 hybrid 5, 11, 17, 87, 103, 121-8, 1357, 139, 152, 164, 182, 238-9 Hydra. 7, 17, 72, 122-4, 127-8, 14951, 157, 166 Hypatia .....................................37-44

Index I idol, female 47-8, 51, 58, 62, 64, 244 imagination ...1, 2, 5, 7-8, 11, 14-16, 25-6, 54, 70-1, 74, 103, 116, 119, 121, 123, 132, 134-5, 138, 142, 147, 156, 161, 164, 171, 178, 199, 200, 219, 228, 231, 237, 239, 243, 255, 259, 261 imperfect bodies . 108, 113, 145, 151, 172, 176, 186, 254 impure sex ............................. 43, 178 informal education .. 3, 5, 10, 11, 13, 15, 41, 66-76, 82, 83, 104, 116, 124, 154, 167-72, 180, 186, 197, 199-213, 224, 233 Ings................................................ 78 Inquisition ................................115-9 Ishtar ............................................. 48 Isidore .......... 40, 157, 160, 184, 187 Islam.............................................. 59 J Jacobus de Voragine ................... 155 Jardin ............................................. 68 Jerome ................ 71, 121, 170, 177-9 jewellery .......................... 53, 55, 129 Jews ... 118, 141, 155, 169, 176, 200, 252 John of Nikiû................................. 43 Jung ........... 2, 34, 121, 144, 240, 243 K Kerényi.................................... 33, 34 Kissling ....................................... 253 Knight ........................................34-5 Knossos .............................. 47, 52-62 Konstan ......................................... 25 Kramer Richards ................. 245, 249 Kristeva ................................. 44, 244 Kuersten ...................................... 140 L Lamia ............................ 16, 151, 190 Langlois............................... 157, 185 Lawrence ..................................... 259

The Historical Enigma of the Snake Woman from Antiquity to the 21st Century Laws .............................................. 37 Le Goff ........................................ 200 leprosy ......................................177-9 Levi ................................. 38, 44, 242 Levi Montalcini ............................. 38 Libya13, 17, 19-23, 26, 29, 42, 125-6, 169, 224, 247 Lilith................................. 162-3, 247 literacy........................................... 82 Lusignan .............. 123, 167, 181, 194 M Mâle ............................................ 169 Map ... 4, 145-9, 203, 208-9, 228, 246 Marchesa Luisa Casati ................ 246 Marrou....................... 3, 24, 201, 205 masks............. 12, 13, 65, 73, 77, 248 Mead ............................................. 27 Mediterranean 18, 28, 35, 45, 49, 57, 86, 131, 134, 236 Mélusine ... 5, 7, 123, 148, 152, 166, 181-4, 191, 193-4, 203, 246 memory 7, 9, 10-12, 19-20, 50-1, 645, 82-3, 113, 168, 207-8, 229, 235, 241, 244 Menstrual Art .............................. 256 menstrual blood/menstruation 4-9, 23, 27-37, 39-65, 78, 82, 90-92, 108, 132, 142-6, 166-8, 175-91, 195, 197, 217-8, 231, 240, 249-61 Merchant ..................................69-70 Mesopotamia .................. 32, 45, 47-8 Middle Ages ... 4, 6-7, 13, 36, 43, 49, 105, 117, 123, 125, 141-231, 2534, 258, 260 milk ....................................... 57, 221 Minerva ................................. 71, 229 Minoan .... 8, 19, 47, 51-63, 91, 127, 130, 134, 251, 256 mirror49, 68, 72, 78, 161, 180, 191-9, 205, 208, 234, 255 misogyny ... 176, 211, 213, 220, 222, 228, 252, 254 monstrous feminine 5, 14-9, 20-3, 26, 29, 46-7, 50-73, 91, 128, 137-9, 175-6, 232, 245, 255

279

Molitor ........................................ 175 Montgomery .................................. 58 moon 6, 23, 31-2, 35, 42, 142-3, 148, 182, 221 Mormo .......................................... 16 Mulvey ........................................ 244 Muses .......................................... 113 music ......... 21, 40, 63, 157, 195, 232 Myrina ........................................... 22 N Nazis ........................................... 118 necrophilia............................... 4, 146 Neith................................. 19-20, 239 Neuman ....................................... 243 Nilson ............................................ 57 nocturnal .................. 6, 141-231, 250 North America....... See United States Nussbaum .................................... 252 O O rubor sanguinis ....................... 215 Oedipus ................................. 17, 245 Old Europe .............................. 18, 63 Olsen ............................................. 59 Orestes ......................... 65, 72, 124-5 Otherness ..... 3, 5, 7, 15, 98-9, 102-3, 114-5, 121, 124, 128, 136, 139, 152-165, 175, 200-1, 236, 247, 253-4, 260 Ovid 14-5, 29-31, 132, 152, 220, 224, 234 P paideia .......................... 2, 24, 25, 83 Pallas ..........................................68-9 Pandora ................. 21, 124, 139, 142 Parè ............................................. 187 Pastoureau ................................... 153 patriarchal symbolism ... 48, 82, 177, 237, 244 passion . 24, 42, 71, 77, 85, 114, 146, 148, 205, 210, 247-8 Paul, Saint ................................... 170 Pausanias .............................. 22-3, 83 Pearl Prynne .................................. 74

280 pederasty ("paiedeutic") ................ 24 Pegasus . 18, 20, 22, 30, 69, 130, 133, 142, 226 penis/phallus 50-1, 62-3, 152, 240-5 Persephone ....................... 33-4, 65-6 Perseus ... 12-4, 17, 20-6, 29, 30, 50, 68-9, 72, 76, 83, 85-8, 92-3, 106, 121, 133, 140, 161, 191, 223-6, 229, 234, 236 Petrarch ....................................... 210 petrifaction .. 1, 4, 6, 46, 93, 99, 137, 139, 147, 203, 246 Phorcys ............................. 14, 20, 29 physiognomy .... 4, 32, 77-85, 104-6, 188, 197 Pindar .............................. 14, 21, 128 Placidius and Timaeus ... 167, 184-9, 195, 218, 228 Plantagenet .......................... 146, 203 Plato 16, 20, 24-5, 39-41, 66, 78, 185 Pliny the Elder ... 32, 49, 78, 92, 124, 127, 160-1, 176, 184, 254 poison 107, 113, 126, 160-1, 187-9, 191, 214 Poison-Damsel 5, 7, 167, 184-5, 1879, 197, 218 pomegranate ...............................33-4 Pomponius Mela.......................... 124 Pontus ............................................ 14 Porphyry of Tyre ........................... 78 Portugal ......................................... 55 Poseidon ...... 15, 20, 22, 30, 234, 236 Praz ..........................................245-6 pre-history ................ 12, 25, 52-3, 63 priestess ....................... 19, 24, 53, 56 Protagoras ..................................... 78 Purgatory ..................................... 215 Puritans .............................. 73-4, 120 purity ................................... 176, 205 R Raina ....................................32, 78-9 rape...................... 13, 30, 33, 65, 149 rebirth .................. 27, 47, 55, 65, 152 red 31-7, 45, 57, 74, 83, 89, 94, 181, 184, 187, 215

Index Repath ........................................... 79 Ripa .....................5, 84-5, 112-6, 194 rites of initiation ................... 33, 241 Rufinus .....................................208-9 S Sadako ................................ 5, 137-40 Sais ........................................ 27, 239 Salamandra ......................... 7, 164-66 Salernitan women ........................ 217 Sallust.......................................... 1, 7 Sappho .................................... 23, 39 Satan............................ See Devil, the scapegoat ............... 46, 112, 145, 180 scorn ............................ 4, 74, 82, 121 Scylla .................... 47, 134, 151, 156 self....................................... 202, 238 Sellers............................................ 26 Serfontein ....................... 87-8, 94, 97 serpent festival ............................ 169 Serpent-Fairy........... 5, 123, 166, 182 severed head ... 18, 22, 30, 50, 69, 75, 83, 96, 106-8, 140, 150, 161, 224, 240 sexual hierarchy .............................. 4 shame ... 4, 20, 49, 51, 74, 117, 127, 168, 176, 190, 210-202, 253, 255, 257, 261 Shelley ........................................ 246 shield 14, 19-22, 45, 63, 68, 83-4, 94, 106, 191, 229, 234, 253 shoemaker ................................146-8 Siebers ........................................45-6 sight 7, 20, 40, 42, 46, 48, 49, 66, 73, 78, 90, 146, 170, 182, 191, 201-13, 241, 248, 258-60 sin .. 105, 113, 116, 142, 144, 150-1, 156, 162, 163, 165, 167-8, 223, 233, 240 Sirens .. 13, 47, 157-8, 161, 195, 197, 237, 247, 250 Sistine Chapel ..................... 163, 172 Snake Goddess .. 8, 19, 26, 51-63, 65, 82, 134 snake tubes .................................56-7 snake-charmer ............................... 54

The Historical Enigma of the Snake Woman from Antiquity to the 21st Century Socrates ......................... 77, 188, 199 Socrates Scholasticus .............. 39, 43 Solé ............................................. 204 Soranus ........................................ 180 soul ... 2, 41-3, 49, 54, 65, 73, 76, 80, 85, 104, 118, 122, 137, 141, 145-6, 177, 194, 200-1, 206, 209-10, 2145, 221, 238, 244 Sphinx ....... 13, 17, 47, 122, 128, 247 Stanford ....................................... 236 Starobinski .................................... 72 Stasinus of Cyprus......................... 21 stereotypes ... 5, 46, 75, 112-21, 127, 171, 200, 203, 217, 220, 237, 253 Stheno ......................... 11, 14, 20, 29 sun ............... 31, 33, 136,-7, 217, 221 T tampon......................................... 252 Telemachus ................................70-2 temperament 49, 78, 165, 185-7, 211, 213 Tertullian ....168-70, 177, 199, 260-1 theatre............... 32, 77, 83, 85, 245-6 Thebes ........................................... 17 Theocnidus .................................... 29 Theophilus............................... 39, 43 Theseus ................................... 17, 88 Thomas Aquinas. 164, 177, 180, 187, 199 Thomasset .... 178, 180, 184-90, 199 Topsell......................................125-7 Tree of Knowledge .... 163, 168, 172 trial ........ 73, 118, 120, 134, 153, 231 Trotula .................. 7, 213, 217-9, 256 U uncanny ....................................... 138 uncleanliness .................... 176-7, 253 ugliness11, 77, 97, 101-3, 113, 116-8, 137, 150 Ulysses .............................. 18, 66, 70 underworld ... 33, 51, 130, 132, 150, 151 United States ................... 28, 33, 120

281

V Venus ............................. 209-10, 241 Venus of Willendorf ................ 32, 35 Vernant ............ 3, 46, 98-9, 144, 236 Versace........................................ 250 Vico ............................................... 10 viper ... 29, 114, 124, 148, 153, 156, 159, 215, 230-1 Virgil .................... 20, 71, 150-2, 211 Virgin Mary .................... 36, 65, 195 visual behaviour of women 144, 170, 180, 199, 205, 260 von Eschenbach........................... 206 von Franz ........................................ 2 von Strassburg ............................. 206 vulva .... 16, 32, 47, 55, 90, 103, 241, 249 W Walcott .......................................... 45 Walker ....................... 19, 27, 32, 153 war ............... 68-9, 83, 145, 229, 236 water 6, 19, 31, 102, 142-8, 157, 161, 165 Western imaginary 6-8, 18-20, 25, 44, 70, 78, 82, 121, 124, 144, 167, 171, 186, 199, 201, 240, 254-61 whale ........................................... 224 Wilde ............................................... 9 Willis ........................................... 256 wine ............. 32, 44, 49, 92, 102, 189 witch/witchcraft . 6, 16, 44, 47, 73-4, 76, 115-21, 123, 126, 187 Witcombe ..................... 54-5, 57, 171 women's "secrets".... 178, 182-4, 195, 218, 240, 251-6 X Xenophon .................... 77, 79, 81, 85 Z Zambon ............................... 123, 207 Zeus ............................. 20, 33, 51, 65