I've been pondering loss of speech as a symbol. Melanie's comment about Actaeon losing his identity because speech differentiates us from other animals is interesting. Diana's action has caused the hunter to know what it's like to be hunted. In this way she is able to use his company of friends and his own hounds to accomplish her revenge. His friends have urged the dogs on. (I think it's interesting to note that "company" is from the Latin com meaning "with" and panis meaning "bread." The root is "a group that shares bread.") In other words, those very close to him have killed him not knowing that he is Actaeon. What will they feel when they find him missing? Actaeon's loss of speech causes him to lose his identity, his power and his life.
T&G wonder why Diana "did not exact revenge on his eyes." That would seem the logical thing to do. However, he'd still have the power of communication since he retains his human mind even in his metamorphosis. And as T&G indicated, perhaps retaining thought but being unable to express any thought is a worse form of punishment. Another thing to consider is that when these myths and legends were evolving, the majority of people were illiterate. Not being able to speak or gesture would cause almost total isolation. An earlier audience may have been able to empathize even more than we can.
What Diana seems to fear is that Actaeon will tell what he has seen; that he will make what is private public. Common, community and communicate all have the same derivation. Latin communis means to share something. (Munus is "duty.") The opposite of communis is proprius or "one's own." In other words, in seeing her bathing (whether by accident or intention), Actaeon has appropriated something that belongs exclusively to the goddess: her identity. (To make the symbols even more interesting: What if Actaeon replaces Ovid and Diana replaces Julia, Augustus' granddaughter, or even Augustus himself?)
The last story I'd like to look at in Metamorphoses also includes loss of speech but with a different solution: "The Story of Tereus, Procne, and Philomela" in Book Six.
Well, it would certainly disprove that "A cat can look at a King" . . .
ReplyDeleteIn my untidy mind, full of connections that are lateral not linear, I found my mind going on about cats and kings after seeing your thought about replacing Actaeon and Diana with Ovid and Augustus. Looked the proverb up and discovered the saying in Alice's Adventrues in Wonderland and ended up reading the croquet game again.
How wonderful that the internet works with my mind.
Hi Melanie! Isn't it wonderful the connections that the mind can make. Thank you for making this one. I would never have thought of it.
ReplyDeleteI looked up the proverb on Wikipedia and, according to the Wordsworth Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, it was written down in a political pamphlet in 1652, and "refers to an impertinent comment made by someone of lower status (cat) to someone of higher status (king)." And Alice read it in a book!
I think of both Lewis Carroll's Alice series and Ovid's Metamorphoses as satires. The principle behind them is the inequality that is created by a dividing people into classes. What is actually traditional (a social construct such as the divine rights of kings) has come to seem to be the natural order. The Queen's "Off with their heads" and Diana's revenge are reactions rather than thought-out actions. They do it because they can. They have been given the power.
I think both Carroll and Ovid feel that the world would be a better place without such divisions of power. I agree!
This is actually Melanie at the downstairs computer.
ReplyDeleteThere was a documentary over ten years ago about the Queen of England. I remember watching it and thinking, "My lord, she really believes she is not only better than everyone else but that she is meant to be!"
A friend from Brazil happened to come by soon after that aired and he was of the same thought.
How very strange. Of course, now we find many people in the US, who have either inherited LOTS of money or made LOTS of money, thinking the exact same thing. Celebrities, sports people, business people and politicians abound in that category. There are always the exceptions but either there are more of them, or they are getting more press.
Weird.