Poseidon Beyond the Sea (Part 2 of 2)

[endymions_bower]

Poseidon and Heroes

 

I think that in many cases the lives of heroes express the difficulty in reconciling the divine and mortal components in the soul. It’s important to remember that conflicts between the Gods are generally centered around heroes; therefore, we shouldn’t overestimate the significance of these conflicts for the Gods themselves, but rather attribute them to the nature of psychical being, where principles not in conflict on other planes come into conflict, a conflict which is productive, generative. As king of the realm of generation, therefore, it makes sense that Poseidon is involved in some high-level mythical conflicts which have to do with the limits of soul-being and its internal tensions. This often plays out through the problematic fates of Poseidonian heroes, and the separation of the narrative ‘hero’ from the theological status of being a ‘hero’ as such, i.e., the mortal child of a God or Goddess.

In the Argonautica, for example, it is actually Pelias who is the ‘hero’ according to the technical definition, for he is the son of Poseidon. Jason, despite being the ‘hero’ of the narrative, and the assistance he receives from Cheiron and Hera, is not a ‘hero’ in the technical sense. This is similar, in turn, to the Odyssey, which is determined by the wrath of Poseidon and the solicitude of Athena toward Odysseus. Odysseus, though a human like Jason, is often characterized in the text as diogenês, literally ‘born from’, or metaphorically ‘sprung from’, Zeus. There is something intriguing in Homer's deliberate use of this epithet in a context where Odysseus is frequently ranged against figures who are the very sons and daughters of deities.

 

It is not hard to see, however, that what Zeus and Athena favor in Odysseus is the latter's wit and powers of persuasion. Part of Zeus’ vision for the cosmos apparently transcends the strictly divine, so that reason will have, one might say, a divine grant of autonomy from revelation as well as from instinct. So the myth is delineating the space of human intelligence beyond—and thus, in a certain respect, against—the strictly divine, in delineating the border, so to speak, between the spheres of Zeus and of Poseidon, in addition to discriminating intelligence from its psychic foundation.

 

Jason, on the other hand, draws his assistance from Hera and, of course Medea. To Medea, we may compare Ariadne, who assists Theseus, a son of Poseidon, but whose ultimate destiny lies in being the paradigmatic Bacchant, symbol of the Bacchic salvation that supervenes upon the soul’s liberation from the labyrinth. Hera, herself the Queen of the soul in its ideal, that is, Zeusian, aspect, delivers to Jason (whose name means ‘healing’) the golden fleece, a skin, which as such symbolizes embodiment, but a shining body outside of time, for the Argo travels east, against the flow of time, to the birthplace of the sun, while the aged Pelias gets the illusory resurrection from Medea, the sorceress and granddaughter of the sun, in the cauldron of the image, just like his daughter Alcestis, who ventures into Hades’ realm, to be freed by Herakles.

 

These conflicts all concern the possibilities and limitations of the soul in its mortal vehicle and its relationship to various methods of transcendence. When Athena teaches Bellerophon the use of the bit in order to control Pegasus, she directs him to offer sacrifice to Poseidon in compensation. Marcel Detienne has a great quote about this moment: “Athena acts through the bit, she intervenes in the domain of the horse through the technical instrument which confers mastery; whereas Poseidon manifests himself through the ardour, the violence, the disquieting and uncontrollable power of the animal. Two potencies of the horse, of which however the one is, as it were, equine and the other is, instead, equestrian.” Athena’s intervention permits Bellerophon to transcend harnessing the power of the horse through the mediation of a chariot in order to ride him directly. With Athena’s help, Bellerophon achieves a new, more direct relationship between these two parts of the soul, and thus a new possibility for human consciousness, a more immediate and thus precise control over the powers in the psyche, and this is successful inasmuch as Bellerophon is victorious over the Chimaira, but not successful if the measure is Bellerophon's own happiness. Perhaps this is not a sustainable psychic disposition for a mortal?

Jason’s end has much to do with his breach of promise to Medea. She leaves, taking with her, it seems, everything that is divine about him, and he dies a belated victim of the Argo, that is, of his ‘vessel’ or ‘vehicle’, which seems like a way of affirming his very mortal status. In failing to honor his promise, he also fails to live up to his promise, in the sense of his potential, the potential of what is divine in him.

Comments

Part 2/2 (Poseidon's awesomeness)

[(Anonymous)]

This (from part 1) is one reason that Poseidon is so very gripping, and why your reminders of Poseidon’s role as the demiurge of unstable, uncontrollable, fluxy generation are vital. Poseidon is alleged to reside beyond the engineered world—your description of the spiritual significance of early sea voyages is wonderfully apt; one gets the sense with which to accompany this imagining when one recalls times spent feebly bobbing in the ocean, pulled by swelling waves and unable to reach shore or touch sand. Or when one’s been pulled by the undertow far from breath or control. One gets a foretaste in such moments of the vast, unthinkable hugeness of the sea and its movements, and I think this is the sense with which one must approach Poseidon. Yet again, the hitch: you can’t really take on the ever-moving sea. With some luck you dabble in it, you take something from its shallows, and you get into a vehicle and hope that it supports you. It seems to me that the uncontrollability and the tremendousness of this “other world,” as you’ve fittingly called it, is the fundamental characteristic of Poseidon’s power. Of course, we do get into boats, we do successfully take from the sea, and in between earthquakes and shipwrecks it makes sense to say that that realm has been incorporated into a coherent order. Or to follow the division you suggested: we have some experience of that other, chaotic and mutable world which poses such danger to our fragile bodies, but as soon as we’ve also poeticized this as part of ourselves—as our own psychic makeup—we’ve devised a vehicle with which to deal with it. Our name and our story, “Poseidon, King of Generation,” grants control and coherence. Our Poseidon plays along wherever he holds the trident, which amalgamates him into an articulate physical, psychical, and moral order (an essentially lawful, reasonable, Zeusean order). Yet again, one reason that Poseidon is so awesome is that he so obviously defies this mediating imposition. The overtly sexual Solstice rituals honoring Poseidon (which you mention via Noel Robertson’s article) continue to bear this out: here is a God who, like any God, must be grappled with in the immanent terms of human semiotic practices; yet this God threatens to overwhelm human measures entirely, which ritualistic observances must both acknowledge and, as such, transmute.

--Katie T