Nymphai et al. (Twitter)
Oct. 31st, 2014 11:13 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
endymions_bower@cole_tucker: Does the different outcomes for nympholepts point to their entering different daimonic orders? Tithonos odd relationship to time?
A proper Platonic treatment of nympholeptic myths would be useful. There are scattered remarks of Proclus' on nymphs. In at least one place, he adds them to the litany of angels, daimons, and heroes, indicating that that structure is flexible.
When I was reading Larson's book on Greek heroines, I noted there is a special proximity of heroines and nymphs. It occurred to me that this was related to a tendency for heroines, more so than heroes, to be associated with *places*. So I got to thinking that the nymphai might be an extension of the generically daimonic from time into space.
As for Tithonus, he has certainly one of the more anomalous hero myths. Here the "untimeliness" Nagy speaks of in the hero is thematic. I think that one ought to look at Tithonus' myth together with Endymion's. The myths where a Goddess takes a mortal lover are especially important because of their comparative rarity. One can discern very important structural elements in them. It's a valuable project, maybe I'll do something with it.
@cole_tucker: I'm reading A Moment's Ornament right now, which treats nymphs and Goddess taking mortal lovers as two modes of one phenomena. It all seems to tie very closely with the function of the Mistress of Beasts in the transition to a heroic state.
In general, I think that where we see animals appear directly with a deity, they are associated classes of daimons. (E.g., Hekate's dogs, Freyja's cats, Artemis' deer, and so forth.) By the same token, deities whom we often see with animals perhaps have a special daimonagogic function.
@cole_tucker: Just so, and Artemis and Actaeon pull all of these elements together. With the syncretism between Artemis and Hekate, now I'm wondering about the warning re:dog-faced daimons in the Chaldean Oracles [frags. 90, 91, 135, 156]. It seems that in the cases that a Goddess takes on the task of eliciting heroization, the mortal proceeds through a mania that is violent in the sense of producing a rupture, corresponding to the MoB function in a manner appropriate to the Goddess.
This mania might bear some relation to the distinction Proclus draws between heroes conceived by a God vs. by a Goddess. They come off the revolution of identity and the revolution of difference, respectively, in the intellective (Timaeus 36c sqq.) This has the effect of dividing heroes into activities of theoria and praxis, so that Achilles, e.g., is a praxis-hero.
The fragments about the dog-faced daimons would have made a nice addition to the paper I did on daimons and animal sacrifice. It seems a similar line of thought to Porphyry's.
A proper Platonic treatment of nympholeptic myths would be useful. There are scattered remarks of Proclus' on nymphs. In at least one place, he adds them to the litany of angels, daimons, and heroes, indicating that that structure is flexible.
When I was reading Larson's book on Greek heroines, I noted there is a special proximity of heroines and nymphs. It occurred to me that this was related to a tendency for heroines, more so than heroes, to be associated with *places*. So I got to thinking that the nymphai might be an extension of the generically daimonic from time into space.
As for Tithonus, he has certainly one of the more anomalous hero myths. Here the "untimeliness" Nagy speaks of in the hero is thematic. I think that one ought to look at Tithonus' myth together with Endymion's. The myths where a Goddess takes a mortal lover are especially important because of their comparative rarity. One can discern very important structural elements in them. It's a valuable project, maybe I'll do something with it.
@cole_tucker: I'm reading A Moment's Ornament right now, which treats nymphs and Goddess taking mortal lovers as two modes of one phenomena. It all seems to tie very closely with the function of the Mistress of Beasts in the transition to a heroic state.
In general, I think that where we see animals appear directly with a deity, they are associated classes of daimons. (E.g., Hekate's dogs, Freyja's cats, Artemis' deer, and so forth.) By the same token, deities whom we often see with animals perhaps have a special daimonagogic function.
@cole_tucker: Just so, and Artemis and Actaeon pull all of these elements together. With the syncretism between Artemis and Hekate, now I'm wondering about the warning re:dog-faced daimons in the Chaldean Oracles [frags. 90, 91, 135, 156]. It seems that in the cases that a Goddess takes on the task of eliciting heroization, the mortal proceeds through a mania that is violent in the sense of producing a rupture, corresponding to the MoB function in a manner appropriate to the Goddess.
This mania might bear some relation to the distinction Proclus draws between heroes conceived by a God vs. by a Goddess. They come off the revolution of identity and the revolution of difference, respectively, in the intellective (Timaeus 36c sqq.) This has the effect of dividing heroes into activities of theoria and praxis, so that Achilles, e.g., is a praxis-hero.
The fragments about the dog-faced daimons would have made a nice addition to the paper I did on daimons and animal sacrifice. It seems a similar line of thought to Porphyry's.
