The Ends of the Earth: Fathers, Ephebes and Wild Women in Nemean 4 and 5

Nemean 4 and Nemean 5 form a curious sort of diptych-in addition to being linked as Nemean odes for Aiginetan victors, they are alike in their prominent treatment of the myth of the exile of Peleus and his attempted seduction by his host's wife Hippolyte. Yet the two odes tell significantly different versions of the myth: in Nem. 4, Pindar depicts Peleus' rejection of the tainted offer in terms of cleverness and military prowess, while in Nem. 5 he emphasizes Peleus' piety and reverence for Zeus. Similarly, the treatment of Thetis varies from one ode to the next: in Nem. 4 she is conquered by Peleus in a wrestling match, while in Nem. 5 she is given to Peleus as a reward for his piety. In examining the two odes, we may learn much about Pindar's ability to select mythic variants to fit his particular epinician purposes, and also understand why a myth with such apparently limited potential for kleos-turning down a sexual advance being less obviously heroic than sacking Troy-represents in two different odes the pinnacle of Aiakid glory. We shall see that the myths of Nem. 4 and 5, far from being mutually exclusive, are in fact complementary treatments of the problems of gender, speech, and power, each selected and shaped to fit its ode's epinician program.

Hippolyte's attempt on Peleus, as an example of the well-known "Potiphar's Wife theme,"¹ is located at the intersection of Greek conceptualizations of gender, kinship, marriage, xenia, and exchange. In sorting out this complex tangle of associations, I will first briefly outline the ways in which the myth functions qua myth-i.e., as background or subtext for the ode-and then show the means by which Pindar has adapted his inherited thematic material. An individual, psycho-sexual reading of the myth is an obvious starting point, given the quasi-incestuous nature of the proposed liaison. In cases such as those of Hippolytos/Phaidra and Oedipus' sons/Astymedousa, a woman attempts to seduce her stepson(s); in the cases of Peleus/Hippolyte and Bellerophon/Stheneboia, the attempt is made on the xenos of the woman's husband.² The Potiphar's Wife mytheme is in fact an inversion of the story of Oedipus, as Edmund Leach and Kenneth Walters have pointed out.³ These two variants not only result from myth's natural tendency toward inversion, but present alternate ways of avoiding the problem of male incestuous desire: in the case of Oedipus the desire is removed by making the hero's actions unwitting (or, as we would say, unconscious), while in the Potiphar's Wife motif the desire is removed by projecting it onto the desired woman.⁴ In support of this view we may note the universality of retribution: such acts do not go unpunished, and the "intention" of the accused victim has no bearing on his treatment.⁵ Similarly, the hostility of the father-figure in the face of the son's innocence can be attributed to projection: given myth's strong founding in infantile fantasy, it is the anxiety and fear of the son which are at issue here.⁶

The second major aspect of the myth to be examined is its focus, via the societal projection of father-son rivalry, on issues of kinship and exchange. Hippolyte's attempt on Peleus violates marriage (the archetype of exchange, in Lévi-Strauss' terms, and the cornerstone of culture as opposed to nature),⁷ and is in many respects typical of those Greek myths which focus on the problems of exchange (whether between families or peoples). The Peleus version of the myth stems, as do some others, from an autochthonous tradition,⁸ and as such participates in the problems of the vegetally-based (and thus anti-sexual) fictive autochthonous society. Chief among these are closure and denial of exchange (marriage exchange in particular), a tendency toward diminished fertility, fratricidal strife, and intense father-son conflict.⁹ Peleus, exiled by his father for killing his...