So, the story of Daphne and Apollo.
The problem begins when Apollo, embodiment of all things masculine,
makes fun of Eros' ability as an archer. As revenge, Eros shoots
Apollo with an arrow that causes uncontrollable love.1 Meanwhile, Eros shoots Daphne,
daughter of the river-deity Peneus, with an arrow that kills any and
all romantic attraction or feeling. She just wants to be left alone
in the forest – don't we all? Why Daphne, though? Why does she –
or anyone else at all – have to be involved in Eros' plot against
Apollo?
Not taking no for
an answer, Apollo chases after Daphne, making this one of the
earliest stories in the West illustrating patriarchal denial of
women's sexual consent. They run through the forest until Daphne
tires and cries out to her father to save her, specifically, to take
away her beauty which, she thinks, is what provoked Apollo's lust.
Peneus hears her and transforms her into a laurel tree. But because
Apollo's insatiable desire has nothing to do with Daphne's appearance
– really has nothing to do with her at all, save that she's a woman
– he still seizes her, wrapping his arms around the tree trunk.
Ovid informs us that Apollo can feel Daphne's beating heart
underneath the bark, so not only is she still sensible and aware, as
a tree she is firmly rooted to the ground and can no longer get away
from her rapist. The story ends as Apollo claims the laurel tree for
his own and fashions laurel wreaths as his own personal symbol.
Three male gods,
all demonstrating a complete lack of regard for the lone woman in
their midst. Eros uses Daphne as part of his scheme to humiliate
Apollo, with no thought for Daphne's well-being. Also, it is not
entirely clear how this whole plot resulted in Apollo's humiliation.
Apollo personifies entitled male privilege that sees women only as
possessions to be seized and used however he wants. Peneus, who had
been lamenting his daughter's unwillingness to provide him with
either a son-in-law or grandchildren, in the act of “aiding” her
instead actually removes his daughter's agency and essentially throws
her into the arms of her rapist.
Gods, it seems, in
particular male gods, are reprehensible. Others have examined this
before, of course, the patriarchal privilege and oppression of women
found throughout the Greek mythic corpus, but it was not just the
Greeks. Similar tales can be found in the Rig Veda, for instance.
These myths did not cause misogyny so much as grant excuses for it,
provide justifications for it, normalize it as part of the natural
ways of the world. Interestingly, though, the Greeks themselves were
uncomfortable with their own mythology. They eventually came to view
their own gods as sociopathic. They knew the gods, as depicted by
Homer, Hesiod, and the other poets, were vile, loathsome beings.
However, these accounts by the poets, Homer and Hesiod especially,
were myths, that is, scripture, so they could not
simply abandon these tales. Their effort to rehabilitate the gods
involved reading the old stories in a new light, reading them not as
literal-if-mythic events but as allegories about the human condition
and our place in the cosmos.
But does allegory
actually provide a solution to the problem these myths raise?
Allegorical reading, pleading that the story is actually saying
something other than what it in fact is saying, is simply a poor
attempt at having one's cake and eating it, too. If there were a
lesson to be learned, a point to be made, an observation about
humanity, the cosmos, and the divine, why not simply say it rather
than couch it in an offensive and disturbing narrative? Another
problem with insisting on an allegorical mode of interpretation is
that it is all-too-easy for a reader to come to the wrong
conclusions about the meaning of a text, because many different
plausible arguments can be made about what the figures and events in
a myth are meant to represent.
But theologically
speaking, the greatest problem with allegorical approaches is they
transform sacred texts into some sort of puzzle for the faithful,
which makes of the gods a mystery. The gods themselves become
unknowable, their motives unreadable, our relationship to them
untenable. Any uncertainty in the compact between mortals and
gods is dangerous, because any mistake on our part is easily fatal,
or worse. For those who reflect on the consequences of allegorical
interpretation, faith must become a minefield.
1 But is it
really love? Or is this not
the mythic beginning of the patriarchal – and misogynist – belief
that men cannot
control themselves sexually?
