The original Chinese of the Laozi does not make its grammatical subjects and objects explicit. Instead, the interpreter can read vastly different meanings from the same passage. By assuming different subjects, the Xiang’er and Wang Bi commentaries already appear to be from different interpretative traditions. What Xiang’er takes as a command to convert evil people to the ways of the Dao, Wang Bi supposes to be a sanction of rulers who force things rather than encourage them: “‘Those with even less knowledge — terrify them’ / When you observe evil persons… draw near to them and explain to them the admonitions of the Dao, terrifying them with the awesome might of heaven so that they will reform themselves” (Xiang’er, 103), versus “‘The next [highest] is he whom they fear.’ This one is no longer able to lead the people with mercy and benevolence but relies on the power of force.” (Wang Bi, 78). Wang Bi says the still higher ruler should do nothing at all and simply trust people to do the right thing: “If one tries to enhance the condition of the people but violates their authenticity, ill will and conflict will arise” (ibid). Xiang’er understands this trust to be directed to the Dao rather than to people (103), so in his eyes the good are excused for acting against their enemies — which are, of course, the enemies of the Dao.

Wang Bi encourages would-be sages to teach by example instead actively telling people what to do, and lead by influence rather than proselytizing and enforcing laws. “Avoid insisting that you are right, and your rightness will commend itself” (Wang Bi, 89). This is the wuwei practiced by the philosophers’ Dao. Since the Dao is non-discriminating, its followers should be so as well, and not allow their own goodness to separate themselves from others. So it is that “the good man relies on goodness to keep in order those who are not good; he does not rely on goodness to discard those who are not good. This is why men who are not good are included by the good man” (101). Xiang’er, on the other hand, encourages the good to “revile and disgrace” those who would not be reformed (103). But according to Wang Bi, if your virtue distinguishes you, then it is not true virtue; if your following of the Dao causes you to cast others aside as unworthy, then you do not follow the true Dao.

Xiang’er introduces a different version of wuwei: it is not unselfconscious, but simply selfless. In order to submit to the Dao and follow its precepts without faltering, you must act for the Dao rather than for your own personal, worldly benefit. A better reward awaits adherents than can be granted by earthly authorities — immortality. “The spirits of the Dao call that person to return” (Xiang’er, 135). The Dao is seen not as the complete universe, but as a distinct entity within the universe, which nonetheless has powers that transcend all earthly ones. Yet at the same time it is tied to Earth by its attachments and desires, specifically regarding humans’ well-being. “The Dao’s aspiration is to be without body. It wants to nourish the spirits; that is the only reason it has a ‘body.’ Desiring that people model themselves on this, the Dao expresses it” (94). In other words, its attachments prevent its complete transcendence until people cultivate their own bodily spirits and pneumas. Compare this to Wang Bi’s version of the Dao, which is formless and “brings things to completion thanks to its freedom from attachments” (86, emphasis added). Xiang’er’s anthropomorphic Dao manifests its will in the form of the Laozi and other teachings (113) in order to encourage people to perfect themselves through duty and faith.

Wuwei is directed non-action: action away from the self and towards the Dao. Xiang’er encourages the avoidance of bad behaviors, so that good behaviors will naturally follow. “‘What is hollowed out will become full.’ ['Hollowed out'] means self-effacing and vacant. When one does no evil, in its place is emptiness. That Dao might be compared to water; it delights in filling empty places. When [the Dao] occupies the place where evil was, the pneumas of goodness return to fill you” (Xiang’er, 115). Similarly, he advocates celibacy, saying that “those of higher virtue possess iron wills and are able to stop coupling for the purpose of reproducing” so that “beneficent” spirits will form (84). Usually willful action is called wei, which is admonished in the Laozi. For Xiang’er, wei is the pursuit of conventional rewards, like money, power, and personal security. Wuwei, by contrast, is a different kind of willful action. The Daoist must discard worldly honors and desires, which “carve away at one’s will” (126), and thus become receptive to even more powerful forces. This requires hard work and conscious effort to achieve: “The injunctions of the Dao are extremely difficult. The Transcendent nobility achieve the Dao only by virtue of their wills” (135). But once they do achieve it, the Dao takes a liking to them and “will benevolently seek to receive them” (118), preserving them from an earthly death and granting them eternal life.

The philosophical idea of wuwei is quite different. It is a passive acceptance of the nature of things, as they are, without trying to change them. The philosophical Daoist “should follow the nature of the people and not try to carve them into shapes according to forms external to them” (Wang Bi, 100). According to Wang Bi, the Dao is already fully transcendent and not dependent on human action, and so it is indifferent as to how people behave. “Heaven and Earth allow things to follow their natural bent and neither engage in conscious effort nor start anything, leaving the myriad things to manage themselves. Thus they ‘are not benevolent’” (Wang Bi, 60) and also practice wuwei. The Dao’s absolute universality is what allows it to be in harmony with anything and everything. Since the Dao is part of the world rather than apart from it, wuwei cannot be defined as active striving to be one with the Dao. Rather, the sage “follows the path of the Natural, neither formulating nor implementing, [and] thus things attain perfection without his leaving track or print on them” (100). He does not have “conscious desire” (66) and so he does not control things. He does not push and pull in an attempt to change what is.

The Dao, in its infinite infinity, encompasses even the most willful actions. But the person who is actually practicing wei is frustrated because in his attempt to create good, he creates evil right along with it. Wang Bi emphasizes that things will still happen even when there is no conscious action: “The one who does not act causes action, and he one who does not move causes movement” (98), like the Dao itself. Removing the ego from the equation allows the Dao to take its place — in a way parallel to the way the Dao takes the place of evil within Xiang’er’s Transcendent noble — and things will be harmonious. “With such impartiality, he [the true king] attains the state wherein he has universal peace” (76). For Wang Bi, emptiness is a function of removing the ego instead of removing evil. Wuwei is about not striving, since we have already achieved the Dao.

The Xiang’er and Wang Bi commentaries have completely contradictory notions of the Dao and how to accord with it. Wang Bi, a philosophical Daoist, imagines a Dao from which you cannot escape: “If the myriad things were to abandon it and seek a different master, where would such a master be found? … It becomes one with the very dust but does not compromise its authenticity” (57). Practicing wuwei means behaving like the Dao, and allowing all things to take their natural course. Xiang’er, representing the religious Daoist position, maintains that you should “strictly control yourself by means of the precepts of the Dao; urge yourself on with the [hope of] long life. By these means you will reach the desired state” (80). For him, wuwei is the complete opposite of Wang Bi’s wuwei: his Dao is prescriptive, and it requires conscious effort to not fall off the (not-) horse. Wang Bi’s wei is just this sort of goal-oriented and willful behavior, but for Xiang’er there are good goals and bad goals. Wuwei is seeking the good goals of emptying oneself of evil and attaining transcendence. Both agree that wuwei is the way of the Dao, but what they mean by ‘wuwei’ and ‘Dao’ are completely at odds.

This contradiction occurs without either side overtly attacking the other’s point of view, placing in doubt the idea that religious Daoism developed from the earlier philosophical tradition. Instead, given the vast discrepancies between the Wang Bi and the Xiang’er commentaries, it seems more likely that there were two independent discourses that each read the Laozi as a source of wisdom upholding their own prior beliefs. The original text is full of ambiguities and paradoxes as is, and how we sort out those ambiguities and answer those paradoxes reveals something about who we were before we came to the text, even as the very act of interpretation transforms these earlier thoughts into the symbols of the Laozi. Even though the two groups — philosophy and religion — had very different ideas about the Dao and wuwei, the fact that they molded themselves to the same text and adopted some of the same language creates the (perhaps) false impression that they were part of one larger movement from philosophy to religion. These two idea systems are just too incompatible to be understood as denizens of the same symbolic universe. If the true Dao transcends all divisions, then we have not yet found it.

The Mabinogi — that is, the first four branches of the Mabinogion — is surprisingly sympathetic towards women. Female characters play a central role: they make decisions that are important to the plot, voice their interests, and get justice in the end. Most of the women are positively portrayed, being competent, conversant noblewomen who speak out when they are wronged. Men, too, are often compliant with their wishes, and value them as mothers, wives, lovers, and companions. But as much as the Mabinogi proper is more feminist than one would expect (especially compared to the rest of the Mabinogion), it is far from egalitarian. Female agency is defined against a world dominated by men, and in the pursuit of their own interests women must negotiate with male power and be prepared to lose. Whether queens or pawns, their worth is measured against the king’s.

Rhiannon is the most prominent and multi-faceted female character in the Branches. No mere object of men, she takes matters into her own hands when she is promised to Gwawl. She seeks out the man she truly loves, Pwyll, and hatches a plan to defeat Gwawl. While it is true that Pwyll is the one actually carrying out the plan — that is, Rhiannon apparently does not have the authority to reject Gwawl outright — she is clearly competent at achieving her own ends in a man’s world. She even makes jokes at Pwyll’s expense: when he takes several days to ask her to stop, she says, “I will gladly wait… and it would have been better for your horse if you had asked that a while ago!” (p. 10) And when he offers to fulfill Gwawl’s request without first asking what the request is, she mocks, “Be silent for as long as you like… Never has a man been more stupid than you have been” (12). From the get-go, she is the one in control. Pwyll is described as following Rhiannon’s “orders” for getting revenge on Gwawl (13), for negotiating his bail conditions (15), and even paying the entertainment (15).

Yet as soon as she gets married, Rhiannon becomes perfectly meek. Pwyll is no longer under her control, but rather his noblemen’s, who practically command him to take a new wife who might be more prolific: “Although you may want to stay as you are, we will not allow it.” (16) He defends her status as his wife, but does little to protect her against the rumors that she ate her own child (17). This is not out of character for Pwyll, but Rhiannon, who earlier shows such gumption, now quietly accepts the punishment doled out by “wise and learned men” to give people piggy-back rides to the court (17). On the other hand, she is not being completely dominated by these men in power. The author depicts her as the decision-making agent, choosing to come quietly instead of putting up a fight. After all, it is Rhiannon herself who summons the wise men. She doesn’t comply because they are men of authority but because “she thought it better to accept her punishment than argue with the women” (17, emphasis added).

Rhiannon’s nobility is demonstrated by generosity (15-16) and by the fact that no one really believes that she is guilty, nor accepts the terms of her punishment. Even after she tells people that she ate her own baby, still “rarely would anyone allow himself to be carried” (17). In fact, people complain “about the wretchedness of Rhiannon’s misfortune” and Teyrnon is sad to see “a noblewoman as good as Rhiannon” have to suffer for something she did not do (19). The common people sympathize with her as much as the reader, but when her son is finally returned to her and the rumors reputed, she is the only one at court that expresses relief (20). There are no apologies. Pwyll takes charge for once in his life and sends his son off to a foster family just as soon as the boy receives the name his mother gave him — Pryderi. And when her son grows up and her husband dies, Pryderi marries her off to his best friend. “I will agree to that gladly”, she says, but it is not clear that she has a choice in the matter (36). As a maiden in her father’s household, Rhiannon takes charge of her own future, even going behind her father’s back to marry a different man. Once married, however, she relies on her reputation instead of her wiles. This good reputation of hers is founded upon modesty and subservience, so rather than accuse her women of lying, or complaining about the injustice of her punishment, she trusts others to do the right thing for her. Only the fact that she is portrayed as actively choosing a passive role hints at her latent power to affect change.

Branwen, from the Second Branch, also portrays the good characteristics of a noblewoman. She is generous, renowned, and delivers a male heir right on schedule (29). In constrast to Rhiannon, however, her character begins life as pawn being possessed and positioned by men, and then takes agency when she is unfairly punished. The people of her kingdom are unhappy that her husband is not avenging himself on her countrymen, so they Branwen is made to cook every day where she gets hit by the butcher (28). In response, she raises a starling, attaches “a letter telling of her punishment and dishonor” to its wings, and sends it to her brother as a cry for help (28). Compared to Rhiannon’s well-formulated scheme, this is a bit more reactionary. Perhaps a damsel-in-distress routine is the best she can pull off, considering she is treated merely as an object with enough value for men to exalt or diminish in the furthering of their own political agendas. Rhiannon’s character is strong enough that her status as a noblewoman remains intact despite her humiliation, but Branwen notes, “I am no ‘lady’” (29). Her fallen state is reversed only when her brother comes overseas to demand it.

On the other hand, the men in the Mabinogi do not always treat women as property. In a surprising turn of events, Math son of Mathonwy marries his foot-virgin after she is raped by his nephew, Gilfaethwy. She literally starts out as a footstool, for Math “could not live unless his feet were in the lap of a virgin” and she is just as much an object of Gilfaethwy’s lust (47). Like Branwen, this maiden — Goewin — is the source of strife in the sphere of men and kings. Gilfaethwy elicits the help of his brother Gwydion to start a war, the one condition under which Math can leave his foot-virgin. When Math returns, however, Goewin tells him pointedly to “look for another virgin to hold your feet now — I am a woman” (52). She reveals that she struggled and resisted, but though “everyone in the court knew about it”, no one came to her aid (52). Here is the spark we saw in unmarried Rhiannon, a spirit strong enough to resist domination, address those in power, and make accusations. In fact, she practically demands something be done about it.

In seeking sympathy, however, she emphasizes that Gilfaethwy “shamed you” and “in your very bed” no less (52). Instead of seeking retribution directly, she goes through the male channels through which power conventionally flows. Like Rhiannon, she acts decisively but indirectly. This could be indicative of her close relationship with Math, which does not at first appear to be romantic and may in the end be relatively platonic. This is revealed in his surprising response to her complaint: Math does not treat Goewin as a piece of furniture, but actually offers her marriage and power. “I will take you as my wife… and give you authority over my kingdom.” (52) What makes this so remarkable is that at the time, a non-virgin wife was liable to be cast out by her husband as damaged goods. Virginity is even more explicitly one of Goewin’s job requirements, but instead of firing her — which would surely ruin her by leaving her shamed and disqualified for wedlock — Math protects her by taking her as his own wife. Interestingly, they do not express affection for each other so much as respect. Pwyll may be following Rhiannon’s suggestions out of love, but Math seems to genuinely hold Goewin in high regard.

He even counters her maneuver to put his shame before hers: “I will arrange recompense for you first, and then I will seek recompense for myself.” (52) In the company of men, however, he takes a different approach: “Had it been my will,” he tells the villains, “I would not have lost all those men and weapon. You cannot compensate me for my shame, not to mention Pryderi’s death.” (52) Goewin’s dishonor is not an issue in the court, where she is viewed only as a servant. Her much greater value to Math is personal. Yet at the same time, the Mabinogi is not usually so subtle, and after all, a war was fought over Branwen’s dishonor. A more likely reason for his not bringing up the subject with the rapist is that Math has already fulfilled the first half of his promise: “I will arrange recompense for you first.” That recompense is marrying her and giving her the keys to his kingdom. The cruel and unusual punishment he bestows — that of turning Gilfaethwy and Gwydion into animals for three years and forcing them to mate with one another — is his own revenge, not Goewin’s. Indeed, the customary punishment for rape was a mere fine.

All the women so far have been unquestionably virtuous. If they get into trouble, it is unwarranted, and other (male) characters always restore their deserved status in the end. This is less clearly the case with the sorcerer’s wife from the Third Branch, who volunteers to be turned into a mouse so that she can help her husband wreak vengeance upon Pryderi (45). She is caught and held for ransom, but upon release is described as “the fairest young woman that anyone had seen” (46). This suggests an innocence on her part, and her pregnancy does her credit as a noblewoman, leaving most of blame to the sorcerer.

Blodeuedd takes matters into her own hands when she initiates an affair — you can tell she’s the one in control because her lover has to ask her permission to leave (59-60) — and this time the woman really is guilty. She tricks her husband into giving away the secret of how he can be killed, maneuvers her paramour to do the act (61), and in the end is punished for it by being transformed into an owl (63). It is permanent, as no one thinks the punishment unjustified. She has no one (no man) to turn to who values her enough to stick up for her.

Aranrhod is never punished or imprisoned, although she lies about her virginity and rejects her children. These are not exactly crimes equal to adultery and betrayal, however. Her comeuppance takes the form of having the curses she bestows upon her son be constantly evaded. She is cranky and ultimately ineffectual, serving mainly as a foil to Gwydion’s cleverness — not an insurmountable threat, yet also not an object to be pushed aside easily when desired. In truth, after she fails the virginity test (54) and renounces her son (55), she has little value to world of men. It is this very fact that gives her power to affect men’s destinies.

The world of the Mabinogi is a man’s world, but women with social currency — virginity, beauty, intelligence, fertility, generosity, and meekness — find themselves at the center of the narrative. They can swing things in their favor by taking advantage of their value to men and asking — or telling — them to act in their stead. Rhiannon and Goewin are given voices, sympathy, and respect because they push their own interests into the realm of male power-plays. In neglecting her interests, Branwen barely becomes a character, despite being central to the plot of the Second Branch. But as Rhiannon discovered, the very features of a noblewoman that gives her power also limits that power to specific arenas. She tries to play the game but gets hemmed in by the end, a frustrated pawn who realizes that she does not make the rules.

To understand what Heaven has to do with ethics in Mencius, we must first understand what Mencius means by Heaven. He does not mean it as a place or a state we hope to reach, but rather as a set of principles by which the world is governed. It is a force beyond the control of individuals: “When something is brought about though there is nothing that brings it about, then it is Heaven that does it” (V. A. 6). Yet Heaven is not a personified deity, for it speaks through people rather than to them. Mencius quotes the T’ai shih as saying, “Heaven sees with the eyes of its people. Heaven hears with the ears of its people.” (V. A. 5). He uses this to explain how Heaven accepted Shun as Emperor exactly when the people did. Heaven was thus embodied by the masses when they chose a True King to lead them, though this does not mean that Heaven controlled the masses like so many puppets. Heaven is more the force of society than any external divine force. Indeed, the very form of society is “due to Heaven” whether “men of small virtue serve men of great virtue” or “the weak serve the strong” (IV. A. 7).

That being said, Heaven definitely has a bias towards the good. Mencius speaks of the Way of Heaven as a path from which the irreverent deviate (IV. A. 12), and of a proper Destiny that can be dodged by straying from that path (VII. A. 2). The world as set up by Heaven resembles a board game that we can only win by being good. Each of us starts the game with the potential for sagehood — what Mencius calls the four germs (II. A. 6) — but this does not guarantee that we will always follow the Way. We must cultivate our innate morality so that what is second nature can express our original nature. For the great man, “the retention of his heart and the nurturing of his nature are the means by which he serves Heaven” (VII. A. 1).

Yet how can Heaven, as a societal force, be so deeply embedded in the individual? Society is composed of individuals, so the patterns it expresses on the large scale must originate somewhere in the small scale. Mencius says the key to social harmony is personal benevolence, the glue that binds people together. When we put benevolence into action, we follow the Way (VII. B. 16). Benevolence is one of the “honours bestowed by Heaven”, along with honesty and dutifulness, which contribute to stable, trustworthy relationships. As we recognize the kindness and respect of others and reciprocate with those we care about, the “honours of man” naturally follow these honours of Heaven (VI. A. 16). Additionally, since goodness is innate, expressing it outwardly by following the traditional roles and rites of society is being to true to oneself as much as it accords with the Way (IV. A. 12). “That is why a gentleman wishes to find the Way in himself” (IV. B. 14).

Because of our natural tendencies toward benevolence, it is both contagious and powerful. Once again, in the game that Heaven has set up, morality is more than just an expression of inner virtue. It is also a very effective force in the world. The game rules favor the benevolent: “The people turn to the benevolent as water flows downwards” (IV. A. 9). The people will follow the lead of benevolent people, for “there has never been a man totally true to himself who fails to move others” (IV. A. 12). This is true for any man, but it is especially true for kings. Heaven’s Mandate is given to the effective ruler, and he loses this seemingly ‘divine’ sanction the moment he fails to bring harmony to his kingdom. A malevolent prince may be able take power, but he can only maintain his rule by brute force. A benevolent prince gains his power from Heaven — which is to say, from the people — and brute force cannot easily take that away. “One who has the Way will have many to support him” (II. B. 1), so although other states “may be big in size… what is there to be afriad of” (III. B. 5)? Heaven’s approval comes in the form of enthusiastic and loyal subjects. Mencius speaks of kings, but even us commoners can appreciate the trust and support of friends that we foster through our own integrity. Ethical behavior gets us ahead in the game of life.

It is easy to see that if everyone were benevolent we would live in a utopia with no conflict or suffering. Benevolence is the seed planted by Heaven, and to bring it to fruition is the extend the power of Heaven — that is, the strength of a well-ordered society. The problem is that people are so often not benevolent, that it is difficult to see how the Way could ever be realized. But Mencius puts so much stress on family and rulership that these must be as fundamental to realizing his ethics as benevolence itself. His ethics concern those in power more often than not, because they are the ones in the best position to change society. “In obscurity a man makes perfect his own person, but in prominence he makes perfect the whole Empire as well” (VII. A. 9). The more relationships he participates in, the more people he can touch with his benevolence. He can lead the Way. A ruler is more than just a moral example, however, for he can also cultivate the seeds of Heaven among his people by removing the weeds of bad influence and strife. For example, he can reform (or fire) faulty feudal lords (V. B. 4) and provide plenty of food to the masses (VII. A. 23). This way people will not be distracted from their benevolent natures.

Since benevolence is indeed our true nature, and because integrity involves coordinating our habits of thought and action with this inner nature, to be true to ourselves we must be actively benevolent. This necessarily involves relationships — self-perfection cannot be done in isolation. Relationships are two-way streets, so as much as we can influence others, evil friends will help us to do evil and good friends will help us to do good (III. B. 6). That is why benevolent people should associate most closely with the good ones (VII. A. 46). They shouldn’t give up entirely on their evil acquaintances, though, because “if those who are morally well-adjusted and talented abandon those who are not, then scarcely an inch will separate the good from the depraved” (IV. B. 7). But Mencius also says benevolent people are justified in leaving when things get really bad (IV. B. 4). Now the source of benevolence is lost among evil friends and malevolent kings, and it is not clear how the seeds of Heaven, once they are found, could possibly flourish in a disordered society so overgrown with weeds that even the sages abandon it. This takes us back to the other fundamental source of ethical behavior: the family.

There is a most puzzling passage in which Mencius praises Shun for loving his brother Hsiang and his father the Blind Man, even though they keep trying to murder him (V. A. 2). His family members are the antithesis of benevolence and an active threat to a harmonious and well-ordered society, yet Shun does not try to escape from his familial relationships. In fact, he is pleased when Hsiang “came [to him] as a loving brother”, though all the while Hsiang was plotting against him. The seeds of our benevolence lie in our innate love for our kin. If we abandon our families, we abandon the roots of moral virtue. For Mencius, like Confucius before him, the relationships between parents and children, and younger siblings and older siblings, are the most fundamental relationships from which all others are based.

In the end, Shun is able both to love his brother and support his subjects. When he becomes Emperor, Shun gives Hsiang the land of Yu Pi, but then puts his own officials in charge of the actual government. “Hsiang was certainly not permitted to ill-use the people” (V. A. 3). Being a True King, Shun is probably better at this sort of compromise than other people, but Mencius makes it clear where our priorities should lie. If our heart is in order, then our family relationships will be in order, and only in then can our more peripheral relationships be made right (IV. A. 12). Indeed, when Shun finally pleases his father by being a dutiful son, the whole Empire “was transformed” (IV. A. 28). Using our Heaven-given hearts to focus on truly important matters, while not getting distracted by the less important concerns presented by our external senses, we, too, can achieve greatness (VI. A. 14).

Heaven is the course through which goodness flows. It is not a divine agency, though it is beyond human control. It is that which gives people the potential to be good, the seeds of benevolence that grow naturally toward kin and other morally virtuous people. It is the rules of life’s game, responsible for the real rewards that ethical behavior can bring in terms of self-fulfillment, supportive relationships, and kingly power. It is also the force of an ethical society to bring peace and unity to the Empire. Heaven can also bring destruction to those who do not follow the prescribed path, and its punishment does not come in the afterlife. Mencius saw the turmoil of his times as being caused by people rejecting their inner goodness. He saw the principles by which ethical and unethical behavior create emergent patterns of harmony and chaos in the larger society, and he called those principles Heaven.

Though he claims legitimacy by writing them as history, and a translation of an older historical work at that, there are hints that he doing something more overtly creative. Battles are fully narrated, with details of strategy and emotion. Arthur’s troops “arranged themselves into twelve wedge-shaped battalions of infantry” (192), and later in the fight “Bedivere’s nephew Hirelglas, grieving beyond measure at this uncle’s death, gathered three hundred of his men to him and, like a boar amid a pack of hounds, led a mounted charge straight into enemy lines” (193). This poetic language evokes the genre of epic more than bland fact-based history. The Britons are great heros of the past, not real threats to the present.

They are also presented as torch-bearers of the Christian faith, and it is Christianity that must eventually triumph over the invaders rather than the Welsh themselves. An angel tells Cadwallader “that the British people would regain the island through their great faith in days to come” (216). The fortunes of the Britons rise and fall with their faith, and as people turned to fornication and sin, Cadwallo explains in a speech, “they accepted Satan rather than the Angel of Light. Their kings were anointed not on account of God but because they were crueler than the others… God truly wanted to exact vengeance upon them, and he suffered foreign peoples to come and drive the Brtions from the lands of their ancestors” (209). Even King Arthur’s greatness is linked to Christianity. The Welsh Arthur was no more Christian than anyone, but Geoffrey’s Arthur builds churches wherever he goes, holds a shield depicting the Virgin Mary, and evokes the image of Christ for his soldiers (166). His actions lead to peace and prosperity, epitomized by Norman values of chivalry (176). But in battle faith leads to victory, great faith to great victory, and Arthur’s faith to the greatest victory of all — he conquers his way to very gates of Rome (196).

In fact, Christianity is the basis for most of the morality in Geoffrey’s work. Vortigern’s love for a pagan is the result of Satan (122), and it leads to the Saxons invading Britain. By contrast, Uther Pendragon’s love of Igerna, a married woman, is sanctioned because she is Christian — there is no indication that this love is problematic, and Uther attacks her husband Gorlois, a nobleman of his court, and rapes Igerna without plot-related or authorial condemnation. In fact, this is celebrated as the night Arthur was conceived (159). Meanwhile, the Welsh Mabinogi presents a very different ideal, where rape or even unrequited interest are severely punished. When Gilfaethwy rapes Goewin, Math marries her and turns Gilfaethwy into cross-gendered animals, and Rhiannon’s unwelcome suitor Gwawl gets tricked into a bag and beaten like a piñata.

Geoffrey is writing for a Norman audience, and he is not proselytizing Welsh virtues to them. Nor is he anti-Welsh, for he depicts the British as the heroes of the story, paragons of faith and fighting, the highest Norman virtues. The epic overtones and appeals to his audience’s aesthetics suggest that Geoffrey is not trying to promote a political agenda through the lens of historical fact — rather, he is telling a story through the lens of historical narrative.

My Family and Other Sheep

Sheep are very special to the Navajo. They are not a native species, but once introduced by Europeans in the 1600′s, the Navajo began breeding the sheep themselves and before long sheep herding was a way of life (“Churro Sheep History”). The introduction of domestic animals required a change in thinking, however, from traditional conceptions of animals as powerful spiritual beings. The Navajo believe that humans and animals “are products of the same act of creation and are essentially the same type of being”, therefore worthy of respect “both actual and ritual” (Downs 90). Game animals who are killed during a hunt are considered complicit, sacrificing themselves for the well-being of humans. This is not an uncommon belief in hunter-gatherer societies, and it is one that reinforces the close relationship between humans and nonhumans: “A hunt that is successfully consummated with a kill is taken as proof of amicable relations between the hunter and the animal that has willingly allowed itself to be taken” (Knight 3).

But the practical details of maintaining a herd of sheep come in conflict with this ideology. The rough treatment required of the herdsman — “sheep must be man-handled, killed when needed, earmarked, vaccinated, beaten, penned, shouted at, and so forth” (Downs 90) — meant that values of respect had to be compromised in order to adopt this lifestyle. The sheep became part of a new category, that of domestic animals. The animal kingdom was thus split between those with power over humans and those whom humans overpowered. “As domestic animals became more useful… their spiritual qualities evaporated” (Bulliet 42) and the Navajo developed a method for taking it away from them.

‘Marking’ is the process by which human owners assert their control over animals, removing their ‘natural’ powers. As one person explained it, “Us Navajo we say that a dog or a sheep or a horse ain’t really yours until he’s got your mark on him. Cut off his tail or ear or something. Then he’s yours” (Downs 91). Wild animals and humans maintain the same origin, but these introduced creatures have their own origin, one of artifice. Yet at the same time sheep can be substituted for wild animals in ceremonies (Wood 26), and there is always the danger of an unmarked animal remaining untamed and unmastered. The division is drawn uneasily for the Navajo, perhaps because the category of domestic animals is even more artificial than the sheep.

Sheep maintain a more distinctive position in Navajo culture than mere specimens of a shaky taxonomy, however. As the center of domestic life, they are potent symbols of family and identity. Of all livestock kept by the Navajo, sheep are one of the most labor-intensive (Wood 29). Many of the activities surrounding the herds are done communally, and some require the participation of the entire family (Downs 91). Sheep must be herded year-round, and most families keep their sheep near their homes (Wood 29). When Navajos start or expand their own herds, most “obtain their animals from relations as gifts” (26). These practices may increase people’s intimacy with their sheep, but they do more to increase intimacy among the humans involved.

Navajo say that sheep herding “keeps our family together” and provides a “sense of belonging” (Wood 26). Perhaps sheep are attributed value and respect after all, since “the word ‘love’ is used frequently to describe a Navajo’s feelings toward his sheep” (Downs 92) and a person might reasonably travel home simply because “I haven’t seen the sheep in a long time” (91). But love for one’s livestock is no more conducive to treating them like property — with the requisite marking and rough handling — than seeing them as spiritual equals. The sheep aren’t loved for their own sake, they are loved as a symbol of family solidarity. And when the family is falling part, the sheep get neglected as well (92). They become a tool for “expressing both affection and hostility towards one’s close relatives” (ibid), and their possession is a means of social interaction as much as it is an economic venture.

The sheep herds also become deeply tied to concepts of community identity. Just as the individual herd is a symbol of one family group, the Navajo-Churro breed itself is a symbol of Navajo culture. The Churros’ properties — their hardiness, the quality of their meat and wool — are held superior to those of “contemporary breeds”, and the Churro’s history parallels the struggles of the Navajo themselves (“Churro Sheep History”). This is not a fabrication, either: Since domesticated animals have been “constructed by people to fit into particular rural spaces” (Yarwood 99), they get intertwined with the places and ways of life specific to the people who bred them. As the people moved, the animals went with them; as the culture changed, the animals changed (100).

It was only in the 18th and 19th centuries that the development of more ‘scientific’ methods of selective breeding, for the purposes of improving efficiency and product quality rather than socialization, “led to the diffusion of livestock breeds across wider areas and diluted association with particular places” as well as the people who lived there (100). The contemporary breeds that the Navajo compare to their own to are not integrated into human society, nor are they icons of particular families or cultures. As purely economic commodities, they would seem to be especially unavailable for human-animal relationships. Yet the Navajos, with their intimate ties to their sheep herds, do not truly relate to their sheep at all. The sheep are used as an interface for building family relationships and community identity. They are physically maimed to symbolically strip them of their wild nature and place them solidly in the realm of human control. Any identities the sheep might have of their own, and whatever ‘natural’ functions they might have, are appropriated for sociocultural use.

It is not clear from this brief and selective ethnography whether the Navajo are dualistic or monistic with regards to the nature-culture divide, but it is clear that domestic animals are singled out as animals wholly encompassed by human social relations. The Navajo’s concern over marking them makes their default state ambiguous, however, as if without bringing them into the fold of humanity they would maintain some of the power of non-domestic animals. Thus they require constant vigilance to keep them as cultural symbols. They do not just bear the brands of their owners, they become them.

Pig Children, Pig Wealth

In Papua New Guinea, there are wide range of cultures, but pigs are important to most. Although pig-raising peoples may be said to keep domestic animals, the reality is that the relationships between people and pigs are much more variable and complex. As with Navajo sheep, domesticity is more meaningful as the integration of pigs into New Guinea societies than as a property of the pigs themselves.

Generally, there are three types of pig-raising cultures. The first is exemplified by the Kubo, who live in the lowlands where there are an abundance of wild pigs. Even so, the Kubo keep domestic pigs, which they catch as piglets and raise in the most intimate manner (Dwyer & Minnegal 39). A single woman acts as a piglet’s carer, supplanting its attachment to its actual mother (40). The piglet sleeps in her house, and is isolated from all other pigs until it is finally old enough to forage on its own (ibid). At this point the pig is moved away from the village — the pig has formed such a close attachment to its carer that it is actually dangerous to other humans (ibid). If the attachment is too great, the pig may return to the village and wreak havoc. In one case, a sow made her nest nearby, and “both the piglets and the sow were judged to be worthless. The former were killed by the carer when they appeared in the village and the latter dispatched soon after by fabricating a need to give gifts of pork” (41).

The bond between human and pig is apparently one-way. Indeed, women are not particularly disturbed when these pigs, whom they raised from two-week-old piglets, are slaughtered. “Kubo women do not cry at the time a pig with which they have been so intimately associated is killed… They soon return to the butchery site to issue directions concerning the distribution of portions of the carcass both before and after cooking” (52). It may only be in our postdomestic age that we are able to feel moral qualms when faced with the reality that domestic meat animals are destined to be killed and eaten (Bulliet 3). Such a practical outlook is also had by the Wola women, who tend herds of pigs for themselves and male relatives, but still give them individual names. Yet they assert that the names are for utilitarian purposes only, and that they have no “emotional attachments to the pigs in their charge. They do not hesitate on occasion to eat pork from animals they have kept” and only get upset when their pigs are traded without their consent or compensation (Sillitoe 250).

The Wola are thus placed in a second category, in between the extremes of the hunting-and-gathering Kubo and a third category, that of the pig-farming highlanders. The people living at higher altitudes do not have plentiful wild foods, such as the bananas that sustain the Kubo, so they — specifically the women — grow sweet potatoes in their gardens (Dwyer & Minnegal 49). This gives them less time to spend caring for pigs individually, and the pigs themselves pose a danger to the crops rather than humans. They are therefore fenced in where they associate primarily with each other (ibid). Fortunately there are also few wild pigs, so the domestic ones remain domesticated and tame without much human interaction (ibid). On the other hand, the greater division of labor between men and women creates more tension, especially surrounding the pigs.

Pigs are cared for by women, but they are owned and controlled by men. A Kubo woman’s pig is hazardous to anyone but herself, so it remains under her control. The close attachment it forms to its caregiver requires that any transactions involve her consent (53). Pigs are important entities of wealth and ceremony for New Guinea peoples, forming the glue of interpersonal and intercommunity relationships (Sillitoe 242). They also act as symbols for the women who raise them, granting respect for adept management (241). And when the women are slighted, they frame their discontent in terms of the pigs, crying over slaughtered animals and lamenting the deaths of those so close to their hearts — even though “the pigs they weep for may well be ones which they themselves did not feed as young animals” (Dwyer & Minnegal 53). These public displays of emotion among highland women do not represent actual attachments to the pigs, but are “public statement about the usurpation of the product of their sustained labor” (ibid). Even among the Wola, it is the men who control pig slaughters and exchanges, and it is the men whose social status depends on the success of these activities (Sillitoe 242). The pigs themselves are left as pawns.

In the middle category, occupied by the Etoro and the Maring as well as the Wola, pigs are treated neither as commodities nor as troublesome children. They are raised with an intermediate level of attention which makes them friendly with all humans (Dwyer & Minnegal 43). For the Maring, they become productive members of the community, weeding and aerating the gardens, eating garbage and waste, and of course providing pork for ritual occasions (Rappaport 57-58). The pigs are still kept by women, and a piglet “receives a great deal of loving attention — it is petted, talked to, and fed choice morsels. It shares the living quarters of the woman’s house with the humans until it is between eight months and a year of age,” at which time it left to forage during the day and to return at night for a ration of substandard tubers and a stall adjoined to the house (58). Although there are wild pigs around, this edible incentive and the bond between the pigs and their carers are enough to keep most of them coming back (59). “It is hardly facetious to say that the pig through its early socialization becomes a member of a Maring family” (59).

In fact, the life the Maring revolves so much around pigs that patterns of cultivation change to keep them all fed (63). In a large herd, the pigs might be eating more crops than the people, and as substandard tubers become insufficient for their rations, the Maring begin to spend extra time and labor cultivating food just for their animals (60). The pigs even affect residence patterns, as people space themselves far enough apart that their pigs don’t ruin each other’s gardens — and social relationships in the process (68). According to Rappaport, the reason for the ritual cycle of slaughter is to keep herds a manageable size, and the reason for keeping pigs in the first place is to convert “carbohydrates into high-quality protein and fat” (ibid). But given the social integration of pigs into Maring society, their value is more than just utilitarian. Since the pigs are theoretically free to wander off, they are not forced to play a part in human transactions but instead occupy a cultural position that they participate in themselves.

In the Highlands, domesticated pigs are livestock set apart from human life. They play a central role only as abstract entities with exchange values, as representatives of human relationships between different communities and between men and women. As animals per se they must be fenced off, away from gardens and also the wild spaces they might return to. For the Etoro, the Wola, and the Maring, pigs instead are brought into society, raised as members of the community where they provide services both utilitarian and ritual, and in return receive human services. And the Kubo, whose women raise piglets practically from birth, form the most intimate bonds with their pigs, so close that the pigs are actually excluded from the rest of human society. Kubo pigs only gain exchange value by becoming pork (Dwyer & Minnegal 48).

If the lowland women do not cry over their pigs, it is because they have control over them. Pigs in New Guinea must be domesticated on an individual basis since “the wild and domestic pig populations remain today genetically continuous” (Sillitoe 244). Domestic males are castrated for the purposes of making them docile (Rappaport 70), so all piglets haves a wild father. In the lowlands pigs are left to forage in the forest, meaning that they are only domesticated so long as they form attachments to their human caregivers. “They always remain potentially free and wild” (Sillitoe 334). This ambiguity is felt most keenly for highland women, for whom pigs are effectively wild animals who escape control and become effective social entities only in the hands of men. As with the Navajo and their sheep, domesticity is a measure of human domination; it is only with those animals slightly beyond our control, yet socialized to be within our grasp, that we can hope to relate, and not just use as tokens in our own human interactions.

Hunting Allies

The Achuar people of the Amazons do not keep sheep or pigs for meat, but instead hunt game in the forest. Despite the fact that once having met an animal, a hunter is unlikely to see it again alive, the Achuar conceive of their relationships with game animals as long-term and highly social affairs. “The hunter must establish with each game type a personal bond of unity that he must cultivate throughout his lifetime” (Descola 260). He pays respect to the animals he has killed by “reverently” keeping their skulls and mounting them on his house (258). The animals are even considered to be “very special ‘guests’ at human meals” in what Descola conceives of as “an extension of the domestic domain to include game” (268).

Game animals are indeed domesticated to the Achuar, but they aren’t their domestic animals. They are instead the possessions of “game mothers”, a variety of spirits who care for and consume wild animals, acting “as humans do towards their domestic animals” (258). It is through negotiations with the game mothers that hunters are able to take from what are essentially herds of livestock. Thus game animals are not conceived of as wild and beyond human control. Hunting is a cultural transaction with threatens to leave real animals out of the picture.

That said, hunters also negotiate with the animals, but still through a cultural lens. The Achuar are animistic, considering animals to have an interiority much like that of humans. In fact, as they see it, animals believe they are human. This allows human-animal relationships to become knowable in terms of social relations that already exist between people (267). For example, woolly monkeys are considered to be brothers-in-law and exemplars of the prescribed bilateral cross-cousin marriage law. Since the monkey’s supposed affinal relationship to the hunter makes his sisters potential spouses, in one anent — a magic song that hunters use to contact game mothers and the representatives of prey species — the hunter “must therefore convince the animal that it has to hand over its sisters to this man for a necessarily deadly union” (262). Although animals are “recognized as having a social existence” (268), that social existence is not their own. In this case the charming and cajoling is addressed not to the particular woolly monkey that the hunter hopes to kill, but an abstract entity constructed for the purposes of making wild animals understandable in human terms.

So we return to the predomestic Navajo conception of game animals as part of the same spiritual essence as humans, complicit in their deaths because they are part of productive relationships with hunters. These relationships are not between individual humans and individual animals, however, but rather imagined relationships between individual humans and whole species, or the guardians of those species. “Human sociality is based on a recognition of other human beings as individual persons, whereas hunter sociality with prey seems to be based on a view of empirical animals as substitutable tokens in a class” (Knight 4-5). This is true of commodified livestock as well. Though prey animals are not dominated by humans, they lack the closeness required for mutual social interactions to occur. The Achuar see ‘wild’ animals through cultural conceptions which may be informed by animal behavior, but which nonetheless claim intimate domestic relationships with them that do not exist for the animals.

Love Your Meat

Meat, and the animals that provide it, are central to social discourse. “Meat which was shared became a token of the group itself, of its identity, unity, and power” (Spencer 180), just as the sharing of sheep duties is for the Navajo and the exchanging of pigs is for the tribes of New Guinea. Achuar men say they must hunt because their wives crave meat, and “maintain that without meat life is hardly worth living” (Descola 250). They also differentiate between regular hunger and meat-hunger, as do other cultures around the world including the Canela of Amazonia and the !Kung of the Kalahari (Fiddes 13). The most salient and important thing about meat is that it comes from animals, and thus viscerally represents the power of humans over those animals. It is the final stage of domesticity, before which there is always the danger, however slight, that the animals will escape our limited conceptions of them.

We mark, bribe, and woo them, but rarely do we find the middle ground in which we come to know them in a framework that they also actively participate in. In modern postdomestic society, identities and interpersonal relationships do not feature domestic meat animals. There are no sheep to build families around, no pigs to mediate gender relations. Stripped of its sociocultural values, the posited human-animal relationship involved in eating meat disappears. Relating to animals directly through meat becomes awkward, as in the case of this humane farmer who raises lambs and loves every one: “Instead of being sad or upset at the lamb chop on my plate, I was overcome with gratitude. It wasn’t the sort of gratitude you feel when someone sacrifices something for you, since the animal I was eating had made no such choice; I’d made the choice for it” (Friend 252). In a similar case, an organic free-range meat vendor remarked, “‘Oh, yes, these animals are our dear friends.’ I responded, politely but seriously: ‘That’s an odd thing to say; I hope that you don’t treat your other “dear friends” this way.’ The vendor laughed. She thought I was joking” (Francione).

The close connection between farmers and their traditionally-raised animals is what makes this ‘happy meat’ so appealing. Yet perhaps it is not that factory-farmed animals are treated inhumanely, but rather that they are so disconnected from human society that they no longer make sense to us. People do not interact with animals, they interact through animals, and if meat “tangibly represents human control of the natural world” (Fiddes 2), then this control must be made clear through our ability to dominate in our relationships with those animals. Since humans are largely absent from factory farms, domesticity loses all intelligibility. At the same time, the relationships we perceive ourselves as having with our domestic animals are illusions. They require a reciprocity that for the most part does not exist outside of our cultural imagination. There may be a middle ground between domestic and wild, culture and nature, in which human and non-human animals can socialize each other, but that may involve giving up meat — and certainly giving up control.

Bibliography

Bulliet, Richard W. 2005. Hunters, Herders, and Hamburgers, Columbia University Press.

1. “Churro Sheep History”, Dine be iiná, http://www.navajolifeway.org/navajochurrosheep.htm.

Descola, Philippe. 1994. In the Society of Nature, Cambridge University Press.

Downs, James F. 1964. Animal Husbandry in Navajo Society and Culture, University of California Press.

Dwyer, Peter D. and Monica Minnegal. 2005. “Person, Place or Pig”, Animals in Person, Berg Publishers.

Fiddes, Nick. 1991. Meat: A Natural Symbol, Routledge.

Francione, Gary L. 21 Sep 2008. “These animals are our dear friends”, Animal Rights: The Abolitionist Approach, http://www.abolitionistapproach.com/?p=166.

Friend, Catherine. 2008. The Compassionate Carnivore, Da Capo Press.

Knight, John. 2005. “Introduction”, Animals in Person, Berg Publishers.

Sillitoe, Paul. 2003. Managing Animals in New Guinea, Routledge.

Spencer, Colin. 1995. The Heretic’s Feast: A History of Vegetarianism, UPNE.

Rappaport, Roy A. 1984. Pigs for the Ancestors, Yale University Press.

Wood, John, Walter Vannette, and Michael Andrews. 1982. “Sheep is Life”, Northern Arizona University Press.

Yarwood, Richard and Nick Evans. 2000. “Taking stock of farm animals and rurality”, Animals Spaces, Beastly Places (eds. Philo and Wilbert), Routledge.

Ah, the myriad tastes of wine. At once the drink of Bacchae and of Christians. Somehow the symbol of the blood of Jesus is also the source of so much debauchery. In ancient Christian texts, wine takes on roles both holy and unholy, fleshly and divine. This seeming contradiction is apparent in the Gnostic codices found at Nag Hammadi. Gnosticism is an early unorthodox Christian sect, with most of its scriptures dating from the first two centuries A.D. Gnostics believe that the way to salvation is through the attainment of hidden knowledge, or gnosis, which is often associated with fullness and “good” intoxication. At the same time the animal-like state of ignorance is also associated with intoxication, but of a different sort. Ancient Christian texts, including both Gnostic and more canonical works, differentiate between two kinds of wine: the mortal wine that causes a person to forget his divine nature, and the “true wine” that helps him shed the flesh and reunite with God the Father.

According to the Gnostics, the world we live in is essentially an illusion. It is the realm of the manifest, where the Father is revealed in a multiplicity of bodily forms. “The Holy Spirit is in the revealed: it is below. It is in the concealed: it is above” [Philip]. The Gnostic heaven, the Kingdom, is the true state of God in his completeness. He is hidden from us on the material plane, although our true selves, our souls, are actually part of the Father. “For who is it who exists if it is not the Father himself? All the spaces are his emanations. They knew that they stem from him as children from a perfect man” [Truth]. We relentlessly search for the true way to live, but many are misled by the revealed world, and “in their error, have committed sin.” [Truth]

There are actually three parts to every person in Gnostic metaphysics: the spirit, the soul, and the body. The spirit is the divine self, the part that is unified with the Father. The body is the bestial self, full of earthly desires and passions. The soul is the rational and psychological self that we most often identify as “ourselves,” and it is this part that connects the other two. “For without the soul, the body does not sin, just as the soul is not saved without the spirit” [James]. It is the soul that sins by choosing the flesh over the Father, and it is the soul that can be saved by looking inward and finding that spirit which is the little bit of God within him.

The trick, of course, is knowing how to find God in the first place. Christ solves this problem by learning the hidden knowledge of the Father and teaching it to others. He says, “I came to make the things below like the things above, and the things outside like those inside. I came to unite them in the place” [Philip]. Christ is sinless because his soul is united with the Father, and therefore he is the Father. What’s more, everyone who comes to fully understand his message will also become one and the same with the Father and with Christ. “He who will drink from my mouth will become like me. I myself shall become he, and the things that are hidden will be revealed to him” [Thomas 108]. In Gnosticism, Christ represents the human capacity to understand and become reunited with the Father.

Drinking, wine, and intoxication are often portrayed in a positive light in ancient Christian texts. There is, for instance, the well-known symbolism of wine as the blood of Christ: “Then he took a cup, and after giving thanks he gave it to them, saying, ‘Drink from it, all of you; for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins’” [Matthew 26:27-28]. In the Gnostic texts, however, the wine offered by Christ is meant to intoxicate and thereby reveal the hidden knowledge of the Father. “The cup of prayer contains wine and water, since it is appointed as the type of the blood for which thanks is given. And it is full of the Holy Spirit, and it belongs to the wholly perfect man. When we drink this, we shall receive for ourselves the perfect man” [Philip]. The wine that Christ gives his followers can lead them to transcend the manifest world.

The blood of Christ is not merely a drink, but a strong drink intended to intoxicate. Thomas, in the gospel attributed to him, is praised for being alone among the disciples to perceive the true nature of the Father revealed through Christ — that is, all-encompassing and therefore unutterable. “Thomas said to him, ‘Master, my mouth is wholly incapable of saying whom you are like.’ Jesus said, ‘I am not your master. Because you have drunk, you have become intoxicated from the bubbling spring which I have measured out’” [13]. Christ cannot articulate God any better than Thomas, but he has given Thomas a substance that is able to remove the inhibitions placed on his soul by the manifest world. Forgetting his separate nature via wine, he is able to grasp the “secret sayings which the living Jesus spoke” [Thomas].

It is strange that wisdom and knowledge can come from drunkenness. It is downright contradictory when one considers how closely wine is associated with the bestial nature of the manifest world, and how detested that aspect of humanity is. “That one then will fall into drinking much wine in debauchery. For wine is the debaucher. Therefore she does not remember her brothers and her father, for pleasure and sweet profits deceive her. Having left knowledge behind, she fell into bestiality” [Authoritative Teaching]. Ancient Christian texts are constantly warning against giving in to the desires of the flesh, which inevitably lead to ignorance, error, and sin. “It is better not to live than to acquire an animal’s life” [Silvanus], “for none of those who have worn the flesh will be saved” [James]. The soul must recognize its divine spirit, and wine only detracts from that goal by causing the body to rule.

In its search for truth, the soul encounters chiefly the revealed things of the manifest world. These things are false because everything is actually the Father, and believing in and following these earthly constructions is due to the soul’s ignorance of God. “O soul, persistent one, be sober and shake off your drunkenness, which is the work of ignorance. If you persist and live in the body, you dwell in rusticity” [Silvanus]. Sobriety is praised because it allows for clear thought. In a metaphorical sense, all mankind is drunk, for if it were to sober up it would see at once how foolish it is to believe in the images of the manifest world and not the source of everything — that is, God. “I say to you, be sober; do not be deceived” [James]! Also consider the words of Isaiah: “the priest and the prophet reel with strong drink, / they are confused with wine, / they stagger with strong drink; / they err in vision, / they stumble in giving judgement” [28:7]. Both the Gnostics and the authors of orthodox texts criticize wine for inspiring debauchery and distracting, even diverting, the soul from its ultimate goal of salvation.

Despite the contradictions apparent in these conflicting uses of wine as a Christian symbol, there is an easy way to reconcile them. Consider that there are two different wines being referred to. Silvanus the Gnostic gives the most weight to this idea: “Satisfy yourself with the true wine, in which there is no drunkenness nor error. For it (the true wine) marks the end of drinking, since there is usually in it what gives joy to the soul and the mind, through the Spirit of God.” This “true wine” is distinct from mundane wine: the former acts against the bestial nature of the soul and brings wisdom, the complete opposite of the latter. “Why do you drink stale water, though sweet wine is available for you? Wisdom summons you, yet you desire folly. Not by your own desire do you do these things, but it is the animal nature within you that does them” [Silvanus]. This concept of true wine proves useful in interpreting ancient Christian texts in their references to intoxication.

Just as mundane wine causes the soul to forget its spirit and leads it towards ignorance, true wine makes it forget its manifest form and leads it towards the Father. If intoxication means losing inhibitions, then the drunkenness brought about by the true wine is a state in which the false divisions between man and God are lost and the soul in uninhibited by the manifest world. “It as a person who, having become intoxicated, has turned from his drunkenness and having come to himself, has restored what is his own” [Truth]. The spirit is found and thereby the Father — unity and completeness are achieved. The Gnostic Jesus says, “Verily I say unto you, no one will ever enter the kingdom of heaven at my bidding, but (only) because you yourselves are full” [James]. Just as with Thomas, Christ can only offer the true wine. It is the disciple himself who must drink of it.

The Father cannot be expressed in revealed things because he is everything. Any attempted manifestation is only an incomplete representation, incapable of fully imparting gnosis. “Truth did not come into the world naked, but it came in types and images. The world will not receive truth in any other way” [Philip]. The irrationality of intoxication grants some release from the constraints of rationality, perhaps aiding in the comprehension of something as foreign to the mind and senses as God. This solves the problem of Christ being himself a manifestation of God: he can teach the knowledge of the Father indirectly by simply providing the true wine. “The steward tasted the water that had become wine, and did not know where it came from [...] Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him” [John 2:9-11]. What was once mere water is transformed into wine, and the primary symbol of debauchery is reappropriated as a symbol of salvation and wisdom. For the Gnostics, this new wine is a symbol of attaining gnosis, knowledge of God himself.

The fact that the Gnostic writings I have been referencing were found all together at Nag Hammadi suggests that their authors were part of a single community of practice. This community’s ideas, in addition bearing an understandable similarity to canonical works, is also heavily influenced by the Ancient Greeks. It is no coincidence that Gnostic metaphysics, with its distinction between a physical world of false images and a higher spiritual world from which everything else derives, bears a remarkable similarity to Plato’s cave allegory. In fact, a section of Plato’s Republic was found amongst the Nag Hammadi codices. Neo-Platonism was contemporary with Gnosticism, and many of their ideas feed into one another.

In Plato’s cave, there are people imprisoned and forced to watch shadows cast on the wall. Because this is all they know, they take the images to be the real things, and live their lives in ignorance. When one captive is taken outside, he sees the truth that lies behind the images, and the source of all images, the sun. “Finally, I suppose, he’d be able to see the sun, not images of it in water or some alien place, but the sun itself, in its own place, and be able to study it” [Plato VII:516b]. He returns to the cave, but is killed for trying to teach others what they cannot possibly comprehend. The parallels are clear: the cave is like the manifest world, the upper world the Kingdom, the sun God, and the freed prisoner Jesus. These connections were also apparent to the Gnostics:

“Woe to you, captives, for you are bound in caverns! You laugh! In mad laughter you rejoice! You neither realize your perdition, nor do you reflect on your circumstances, nor have you understood that you dwell in darkness and death! On the contrary, you are drunk with the fire and full of bitterness. … And the darkness rose for you like the light, for you surrendered your freedom for servitude!” [Contender]

The captives here, almost certainly a reference to Plato, are drunk with wine of the lesser sort and so fall into bestiality.

Wine is an important symbol for the Greeks as well. It is the drink of the symposium, an institution central to Socratic philosophy, as well as the trademark of Bacchus, god of wine and revelry. In the Euripedes’ play, The Bacchae, wine is simultaneously exalted, for “apart from wine, / there is no cure for human hardship” [356-357], and denounced, for from those who deny its powers Bacchus “removes intelligence, / their knowledge of true wisdom” [535-536]. It turns people into beasts, as it does Agave when she tears apart her son. Yet in the Bacchic rites, it also has the power of divine revelation. The Gnostics from Nag Hammadi were well versed in the Greeks — they were well aware of these traditional conceptions of wine and adapted them to their own purposes.

Jesus says, “I took my place in the midst of the world, and I appeared to them in flesh. I found all of them intoxicated; I found none of them thirsty” [Thomas 28]. The mundane wine can seem to fill the soul, temporary blinding it to the false life of ignorance and error it leads. “Empty they came into the world, and empty too they seek to leave the world. But for the moment they are intoxicated. When they shake off their wine, then they will repent” [ibid]. The only thing that can actually fill the soul is the true wine offered by Christ, which leads the soul to truth and knowledge. “Ignorance will result in death, because those who come from ignorance neither were nor are nor shall be. … Ignorance is a slave. Knowledge is freedom” [Philip]. Gnosis means freedom for the soul from the false images of the cave that is our material world.

Wine is a powerful symbol in Ancient Christianity. It can represent both the debauchery of the flesh and the transcendence of the soul. It is recognized in Ancient Greece for its transformative powers, creating animals out of men by blinding them to truth. Adapting Plato’s allegory of the cave, the Gnostics liken the manifest world to the world of false images, populated by drunkards who, in searching for the truth are deluded into thinking that what is false is real. These images are the revelations of God, a single completeness from which all souls arise. Souls must recognize their own divine nature, become sober from the blinding intoxication and drink from the true wine of Jesus until they are full. To be full is to reunite with the Father and attain the knowledge of truth, finding rest at last from that weary search and finally understanding how to live.

After all this talk of using a special wine from Jesus to escape this world, I wonder if abandoning the hedonistic bodily self for the divine and transcendent self is just as foolish as abandoning God for the flesh. Either path involves the intoxication of the soul and the loss of the one part of ourselves or another. It is God who chooses to reveal himself in the physical realm, so this world of the senses cannot be truly worthless. The divine nature is not disconnected from bestial nature, and drawing a line down the middle of the soul would seem to divide God’s utter unity. If wine for the Greeks could be both revelry and revelation, there do not need to be two different wines at all. The body and the spirit, the concealed and the revealed, must be embraced in order to embrace one’s true self, for surely completeness can only come when both realms are recognized as part of the divine whole.

Works Cited

• “Apocryphon of James.” Trans. Francis E. Williams. Nag Hammadi Library. 21 April 2006 http://www.gnosis.org/naghamm/jam.html.

• “Authoritative Teaching.” Trans. George W. MacRae. Nag Hammadi Library. 21 April 2006 http://www.gnosis.org/naghamm/autho.html.

• “The Book of Thomas the Contender.” Trans. John D. Turner. Nag Hammadi Library. 21 April 2006 http://www.gnosis.org/naghamm/bookt.html.

• Euripides. The Bacchae. Trans. Ian Johnston. July 2003. 21 April 2006 http://www.mala.bc.ca/~johnstoi/euripides/euripides.htm.

• “The Gospel of Philip.” Trans. Wesley W. Isenberg. Nag Hammadi Library. 21 April 2006 http://www.gnosis.org/naghamm/gop.html.

• “The Gospel of Thomas.” Trans. Thomas O. Lambdin. Nag Hammadi Library. 21 April 2006 http://www.gnosis.org/naghamm/gthlamb.html.

• “The Gospel of Truth.” Trans. Robert M. Grant. Nag Hammadi Library. 21 April 2006 http://www.gnosis.org/naghamm/got.html.

• The New Oxford Annotated Bible, New Revised Standard Version. Michael D. Coogan, editor. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.

• Plato. Republic. Trans. G.M.A. Grube, Revised C.D.C. Reeve. Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Co., Inc., 1992.

• “The Teachings of Silvanus.” Trans. Malcolm L. Peel and Jan Zandee. Nag Hammadi Library. 21 April 2006 http://www.gnosis.org/naghamm/silvanus.html.

Ovid’s Metamorphoses is a series of loosely connected tales, each describing the transformation of a human into an animal or element of nature. Two chapters stand out from the rest: The Ages of Man (and the related sections surrounding it) and The Doctrines of Pythagoras. Instead of detailing a single metamorphosis, these cover the much broader transformations of mankind. Since Ages opens the Metamorphoses and Doctrines closes it, it makes sense to view these narratives as framing the text as a whole. Through them we can interpret how metamorphosis is used to explore the relationships between the gods, mankind, and nature.The Ages of Man, along with The Creation, The Flood, and Deucalion and Pyrrha, trace the fall of mankind. Initially humans are created as god-like masters of the world, but through their misuse of Nature they become war-like and wicked. Humans are then recast as the children of the Earth, subject to Nature rather than masters of it. The metamorphoses in later chapters transform humans into animals and elements — components of Nature — demonstrating how powerless humans are against the chaotic and arbitrary will of the gods and the Earth.

Humans are partly divine, born with the potential to become godlike. In the beginning of the world, an unnamed god divides out the components of the universe and fills the Earth with gods and beasts. But “a holier creature, of a loftier mind, / Fit master of the rest, was lacking still. / Then man was made, perhaps from seed divine / Formed by the great Creator, so to found / A better world [...] And while the other creatures on all fours / look downwards, man was made to hold his head / erect in majesty and see the sky” (3). At first, in the Golden Age, men live in a veritable Eden. “The world untroubled lived in leisured ease. / Earth willingly, untouched, unwounded yet / By hoe or plough, gave all her bounteous store; / Men were content with nature’s food unforced” (4).

Things do not continue to go so well. The fall of mankind begins with Jove’s violent coup, as he overthrows his father Saturn to become ruler of the gods. He begins his reign by ending the endless spring and creating the harsher turn of seasons, forcing men to seek and build shelters. This is the Silver Age, in which men must coerce the Earth into giving them what they need: “in long furrows first were set the seeds / Of grain and oxen groaned beneath the yoke” (4). As men turn to warfare, the inferior Bronze Age begins, and in the Iron Age, they turn at last to vice. The Earth is raped, ravaged for gold that fills men’s heart with jealousy and hatred: “Nor did earth’s rich return of crops and food / Suffice; the bowels of the world were forced / And wealth deep hidden next the gates of Hell / Dug out, the spur of wickedness and sin” (5). At last even the gods are forced to flee from the Earth, to live instead on Mt. Olympus.

Despite the sins of men, the gods are unwilling to destroy the race completely. Jove floods the world, leaving only one man and one woman, Deucalion and Pyrrha, alive, to be “patterns of mankind” (12). “No man was better, none loved goodness more / Than he, no woman more devout than she.” (10). They name Earth as their mother and throw her bones — stones — behind them, thus giving rise to a new race. In this last age of Man, he is born of the Earth and no longer its ruler.

Humans are midway between animal and god. Man is mortal and lives on the earth, but he looks toward the sky. His fall is his own doing: as the ages progress, he chooses to become a vicious animal. At the same time he is worse than any animal, for his greater power over Nature lets him to do more harm. Man’s rape of the Earth for gold and food turns him into a being of sin. As in the Biblical tradition of Genesis, the gods must cleanse the world of Man’s evil with water, a flood, leaving alive only the most virtuous specimens to begin the race anew. Naturally the two chosen, Deucalion and Pyrrha, revere the gods as “worshippers” (10) and the Earth as their mother, forsaking the power given to them by the Creator. They lower their heads willingly, becoming docile oxen, for “in our lives of toil we prove out birth” (13).

Humans who do not lower their heads are punished by the gods. Arachne certainly holds her head high when she challenges Pallas’ weaving skills: she is transformed into a spider for it. Niobe, proud mother, asks, “why should her [Latona’s] / Shrine be revered, when my divinity / Lacks incense still?” (126) All her children are killed by Phoebus and Phoebe, Latona’s twins, and Niobe herself is turned to stone. Acteon, just for looking at Diana as she bathes — just for literally raising his head — is turned into a stag and killed by his own hounds. Man no longer undoes himself with pride: the gods do it for him.

The Doctrines of Pythagoras is similar in many ways to The Ages of Man. It begins by describing how mankind lived in paradise in days of yore. “In the Golden Age of long ago / The orchard fruits and harvest in the fields / Were blessed boon and no blood stained men’s lips” (355). Pythagoras also recounts a fall from grace and attributes this fall to the misuse of Man’s power over Nature. He seeks a return to the peaceful days before the fall on Man, when mankind used his power over Nature to live in harmony with it.

Pythagoras is different from Deucalion and Pyrrha. He does not live with head bowed, but “though the gods in heaven / Live far removed, he approached them in his mind, / And things that nature kept from mortal sight / His inward eye explored” (354). It is not that leads him to explore his potential to be godlike, but a desire to set things right. He proposes that immortal souls take on many forms over time, both human and animal. But mankind still has an edge: his power is his ability to make choices about how he should live. This ability has made Man wicked, but it also gives him the potential to redeem himself.

Implicit in Pythagoras’ doctrine is a difference between humans and animals. Animals aren’t wicked when they eat meat, but humans sin when they do. Unlike animals, mankind has the ability to choose his lifestyle. Freedom of choice makes mankind superior, but it also makes him responsible for his actions. “Peace filled the world — until some futile brain / Envied the lions’ diet and gulped down / A feast of flesh to fill his greedy guts, / And paved the way for crime” (355).

The reason eating meat is vile is reincarnation. Pythagoras (or at least Ovid’s representation of Pythagoras) believes that souls are immortal but continually transforming. “The soul / Roams to and fro, now here, now there, and takes / What frame it will, passing from beast to man, / From our own form to beast and never dies” (357). Eating flesh, wrenching away the living body from a kindred soul, rejects the gifts of understanding and choice and leaves Man undifferentiated from all unthinking creatures. It is unnatural, putting Man in conflict with the Earth: for “with all the bounteous riches that the earth, / Earth best of mothers, yields, can nothing please / But savage relish munching piteous wounds [...] ?” (354-355)

Both Ages and Doctrines make human beings responsible for their own transformations. Man’s pride, his stupidity and greed, bring about his downfall. It is not the gods who make humans into animals, and it is not the gods who can raise them up again. Only mankind, stuck between bestiality and divinity, has the power to choose his position. The man who fights the Earth, takes more than he needs, and spills the blood of kin and comrade — that the“futile brain” that chooses bestiality. He is yoked, forced to toil on the land he once plundered, forced to keep his head down in fear of retribution from the gods. Yet on the other hand is the man who understands the cycles of Nature and wishes to use his power of choice to live in harmony with the Earth — it is this man, the “loftier mind,” who will truly understand the divine. Whether or not Ovid, known for being witty and ironic, is truly trying to convey this message, this interpretation strives to make sense of his work as a coherent whole and might even inform our own lives.

Works Cited:

• Ovid. Metamorphoses. Trans. A. D. Melville. New York: Oxford University Press Inc., 1986.

Rome was an empire spread thin, its citizens drawn from many cultures and locations. The city was constructed from scratch by a random conglomeration of Latin peoples who added citizens over the years to grow in population and power. The problem, then, was the meaning of being Roman. Seemingly the only thing that held the city — indeed, the empire — together was shared traditions and beliefs. In short, the religion of the Romans provided a focus for Roman identity. A series of civil wars in the first century BC made it clear that the old traditions were not strong enough to hold the empire together. Lucretius, writing in the midst of this chaos, tried to instate Epicureanism, and Livy, writing in light of the Augustan reforms, tried to construct a new mythic past. Their works served as fresh foundations for Rome, cementing Roman identity by establishing a unified religion.

Lucretius appears to be denouncing the gods and replacing them with an empirical order in his work On the Nature of Things (1), but in the end he is just exchanging one religion for another. The traditions he condemns are those which brought chaos to Rome, and in the past to the Greeks as well. “This so-called religion has produced criminal and unholy actions” (Book I: line 83). In the shadow of Epicurus, a Greek philosopher, he rejects the possibility of a universe governed by the gods, and instead describes a world based on atoms. Starting from these fundamental elements, he builds up to more complex phenomena such as thunder and lunar phases. While this all sounds scientific, Lucretius is no scientist, as we shall see.

Initially, Lucretius invokes Venus as the mother of all Romans and the ultimate architect of nature — “you alone guide the nature of things” (Book I, line 21). He asks for her help in setting Rome in order, quelling the civil wars, but then immediately rejects that help: “for free from all anxiety, free from dangers / powerful in its own resources, having no need of us, / [the nature of the gods] is not won over by the good things we do nor touched by anger” (I: 47-49). For Lucretius, only the (false) ideas behind the gods have power over mortal man.

Epicurus, in freeing man from the fear of the gods, becomes a Prometheus figure for Lucretius. “It was a Greek man who first dared to raise his mortal eyes / against religion, and who first fought back against it” (I: 66-67). On the Nature of Things is written in the form of an epic poem, now with Epicurus as the hero in a battle for the readers’ perceptions. Epicurus’ theory increasingly wrests power from the gods — Lucretius writes 262 lines explaining lightning and thunderbolts, presumably to ‘defeat’ Jupiter. Epicurus himself eventually usurps Venus in the narrative, first as “our father, the discover of how things are,” (III: 9) and finally as “a god [...] who by his scientific method / rescued life from great waves and such great darkness” (V: 8-11).

Lucretius is not trying to rid Rome of religion altogether. He only wants to replace the old religion of Greek gods with a tradition based on the power of mortals. While the gods have no direct control over human lives, the ideas of a mortal man such as Epicurus have the potential to change how people think, feel, and live. The peace that Rome so desperately sought could not be achieved through the worship of distant gods, but by seizing control of their own destiny and following in the footsteps of mortals who had proven themselves great.

Livy, who wrote The Rise of Rome (2) after Augustus ended the civil wars, also constructs a new tradition based on the ‘worship’ of men. His massive history collects and retells the stories of Rome’s past, emphasizing the power of religion to keep the city strong and prosperous. At the same time, his work becomes a creation myth, establishing the very traditions to which Rome must ‘return.’

In Livy’s work, the times of greatest prosperity and success correspond to the times of greatest religious observance. Romulus, founder of Rome, “instituted religious rites in accordance with Alban ritual” (p. 11), and in his dedication of the first Roman temple, “the gods saw to it that these words of the temple’s founder concerning future dedications of the spoils did not go unfulfilled” (p. 15-16). The respect he pays to the gods is seen as securing Rome’s future military success. Numa, another leader of Rome, re-establishes the city based on “proper observances” (p. 24), creating an era of peace. “Since men on their own initiative patterned their conduct after the unique example of their king, even Rome’s neighbors [...] began to respect them so much that they considered it sacrilege to attack a state wholly devoted to the worship of the gods” (p. 26). In addition to gaining the gods’ favor, religion can have a direct effect on the minds of men.

Religion has the power to unify people. Shared enthusiasm for tradition helped Numa establish peace, and Servius’ “constant talk on the subject [of religion] finally led to the agreement that the Latin people would unite with the Romans in building a temple of Diana at Rome” (p. 53). Once again the focus is not on divine fortune, but on the ability of Romans to unite and create a successful community. Romulus, Numa, and Servius were successful because they invoked religion and established new traditions under which people could collaborate, not on force of action or words alone. “Do you think, my brother, that what you have said will make them fight? The gods will make them, by whom they swore” (p. 120).

Livy sometimes questions the direct role of the gods, making the human actors more preeminent. He doubts whether Mars is truly the father of Romulus and Remus, and debunks the myth that they were nursed by a she-wolf. These constructed stories nonetheless serve the fates which “ordained the founding of this great city and the beginning of the world’s mightiest empire, second only to the power of the gods” (p. 8). Romulus claims the right to kingship through augury, and Numa through divine visitation — although Livy disputes the validity of these claims, doubts about their right to rule are cleared away in light of their successes.

The direct correlation between religious observance and prosperity is clearly seen in the Gauls’ sack of Rome. The city has strayed from the traditions set down by Romulus and Numa, and when Marcus Cornelius replaces Gaius Iulius as censor, it is viewed “as a religious transgression because Rome was captured in this lustrum” (p. 316). Even after the Gauls are defeated, the plebs seek to relocate to Veii, leaving great-fated Rome in ruins. Earlier the senators had use entreaties that “frequently mentioned the gods” instead of resorting to force, and because “most people’s religious feelings were touched, [...] the bill was rejected” (p. 315). The dictator Camillus follows this tradition to convince the plebs to stay: “The power of the gods has been so clearly revealed in Rome’s affairs [...] that mankind, I believe, will never again disregard any aspect of their worship” (p. 336). After one final omen, the people are moved to unite under religion once again and rebuild Rome.

The religion Livy creates focuses on the leaders of Rome and their ability to fulfill Rome’s destiny rather than a more abstract worship of gods. The heroes of Roman history, like Hercules, are born mortal yet earn a worship-worthy status through their feats. They keep Rome on course and raise her up to greatness. Success determines the favor of the gods, not the other way around: unification under leaders and the traditions they invoke creates a sense of identity and purpose that leads Rome to triumph again and again in Livy’s mythic history.

Lucretius is not as successful as Livy in establishing a new Roman religion. We know that Rome was never overtaken by Epicureanism. Although he called for men to take control of their own destiny and leave the old gods behind, he replaces the Greek pantheon with an even more foreign Greek philosopher. He calls for Rome to abandon the only tradition binding the empire together, and even gives Epicurus primacy over Venus. Rome, with such a strong religious background, would never be able to unite under Lucretius’ radical departure from tradition.

Livy, on the other hand, speaks right to the proud Roman heart. He makes real figures from Rome’s past into mythic heroes and adapts Rome’s own legends for his purpose. The creation myth he constructs makes great leaders the dominant characters, questioning divine intervention to emphasize their triumphs. Augustus fashioned himself after these founders of Rome, using tradition as a precedent to rebuild and unify Rome after years of devastating wars. Note the parallels with Camillus: both seize power as dictators but by inspiring religious sentiment, unite the citizen body and bring peace and prosperity. While one might grant the gods some credit, Livy chooses to make such great rulers the driving force behind Rome’s fate. He shows the power of religion in uniting the far-flung peoples of the empire and strengthens the Roman identity by giving them a new focus for their worship. In this new religion Rome is at the center, and the binding force of that religion keeps Rome strong for centuries.

Works Cited:

1. Lucretius. On the Nature of Things. Trans. Walter Englert. Newburyport, MA: Focus Publishing, 2003.

2. Livy. The Rise of Rome: Books 1-5. Trans. T. J. Luce. New York: Oxford University Press Inc., 1998.

Socrates was feeling quite happy with himself. He had just finished constructing his perfect city — at least in the minds of his followers. “Perhaps,” he was saying to himself as he walked down the road, “a student of mine will one day construct a kallipolis. He would be a just and fine ruler, a true philosopher king.” Just then, Socrates felt a sharp pain shoot up his leg. “Ow! What was that?” Looking down, he saw a little flat creature lying in the middle of the path.

“Oh, I’m sorry Socrates,” said the little creature. “I didn’t see you there. I was just listening in on your conversation with Glaucon and the others. It was terribly interesting, you see.”

“I see. But you’re a stingray, aren’t you?”

“I am no such thing!” he puffed up indignantly. “I am a manta ray. Stingrays just know how to turn arguments upside-down and make fine prize-winning speeches. Manta rays know the art of dialectic and seek truth and understanding. Or do you think otherwise?”

“No, no. I agree with you completely. Manta rays and philosophers would seem to have much in common. Now, was there something you wanted to ask me?”

“Yes, I have something to add to your discussion. I don’t believe in philosopher kings, you see. I agree that they would make excellent rulers, but I don’t think they can ever really exist.”

“Oh? Why is that?”

“You say the kallipolis is a just city. It is ruled by the philosopher kings, who, ‘once they’ve seen the good itself, [...] must in turn put the city, its citizens, and themselves in order, using it as their model’ [540a]. However, it is not possible to know this ‘form of the good.’

“You state that there is ignorance, opinion, and knowledge. Opinion is ‘neither ignorance nor knowledge’ [478c], but something in between. Knowledge is by necessity true, for if it were false, it would only be opinion. But opinion can be right as well as wrong, can’t it?”

Socrates nodded thoughtfully. “But right opinion is not derived from knowledge. Even the person with right opinion fails to grasp the thing itself. A philosopher loves knowledge for this reason, and puts no stake in opinion. ‘We’d be right to call his thought knowledge, since he knows, but should call the other person’s thought opinion, since he opines’ [476d].”

“Indeed. In addition, the one with opinion may also have confidence in his opinions. If he has supreme confidence, he will not be swayed by what other people tell him or show him, not even if it is the truth. If he is right, he is right only insofar as he has right opinions.

“A person with no confidence, on the other hand, is convinced so easily that he will believe whatever anyone tells him. He will take in the false as easily as the true. Like the philosopher, he stakes nothing in opinion, but he has no knowledge, either.”

“He is certainly the most slavish and cowardly kind of person!”

“In fact, neither of these people can learn anything at all. Let me back up: knowledge is gained by learning, correct?”

“Of course. What in the world are you trying to get at?”

“Be patient. I’m getting to my point. First of all, a student obviously lacks knowledge while he is learning. Yet at the same time he is beyond ignorance. He cannot spontaneously go from knowing nothing to knowing everything! What the he has is opinion, since opinion lies between ignorance and knowledge. And as he learns, he invariably has many wrong opinions that he must discard in order to progress.

“Now I can come back to our two hypothetical figures, the one with supreme confidence and the one with no confidence at all. The first one cannot learn for he is unwilling to give up those wrong opinions he has while learning. You yourself said that such ‘people with stable characters, who won’t change easily [...] exhibit similar traits when it comes to learning: They are as hard to move and teach as people whose brains have become numb, and they are filled with sleep and yawning whenever they have to learn anything’ [503d]. The other one can’t learn either, for he refuses to risk building off of opinion. Knowledge cannot be reached without first passing through opinion, so his utter lack of confidence in his opinion prevents him from learning.”

“This has little to do with a philosopher king. Philosophers are thoroughly moderate, and will have neither too much nor too little confidence. ‘The one who readily and willingly tries all kinds of learning, who turns gladly to learning and is insatiable for it, is rightly called a philosopher, isn’t he’ [475c]?”

“He is. But what about the person with supreme knowledge, the knowledge of the good itself? Can he be swayed by anyone?”

“No, of course not. If he knows the form of the good, he knows all that is true, for ‘in the intelligible realm it controls and provides truth and understanding’ [517b]. Since he already knows what is true, anyone who would convince him of something else would be convincing him of something false. I shouldn’t have to tell you that philosophers ‘refuse to accept what is false’ [485c].”

“So a philosopher king, a person with supreme knowledge but no opinion, has supreme confidence. That’s not moderate at all!”

The mantra ray thought itself to have won the argument here, but Socrates thought differently. “Confidence is not applicable to the philosopher king. Once he has supreme knowledge, he no longer needs to learn. As a student he is moderate in his confidence — indeed, he is the best learner — but once he comes to know the good itself, he will have no opinion to be confident in. Opinion, by definition, can only exist where there is no knowledge.”

The manta ray had to think about this for a while. Several minutes later, however, he spoke again: “Socrates, a student may gain knowledge that is not knowledge of the good itself. What else does the form of good illuminate if not other objects of knowledge? As he comes to understand each of these, surely he has a better grasp of what is true and what is false, for he comes closer and closer to the source of truth. Thus his opinions prove increasingly right. Won’t his confidence also increase?”

“Why would it? ‘If we don’t know [the form of the good], even the fullest possible knowledge of other things is of no benefit to us’ [505a]. Remember also that philosophers stake nothing on opinion.”

“A philosopher must stake something on opinion if he is to learn. Otherwise he is like the person with no confidence at all. He must be able to use opinion, but still be willing to give it up. You say that knowledge is ‘the strongest [power] of them all’ [478a]. Gaining knowledge, then, increases the student’s power. He must also have confidence in his ability to use that power, or else he is slavish and cowardly. I say again, the more he learns, the more confident he gets.”

Socrates looked quite deflated at this.

“Now,” the manta ray continued, “as confidence increases, one’s ability to learn decreases. And ‘in the knowable realm, the form of the good is the last thing to be seen, and it is reached,’ as you say, ‘only with difficulty’ [517b]. Complete understanding, then, is attained once knowledge of the good itself is attained. At some point, the student knows everything except the form of the good. Since things he knows about but does not actually know are only opinions, he must have only an opinion of the good itself at that point. But the closer he gets to complete understanding, the greater his confidence, so he can never actually reach the point where he is willing to let go of this last opinion.

“We agreed earlier that the kallipolis can only exist when a philosopher king rules it, a philosopher king who knows the form of the good and therefore is able to establish true justice. ‘Unless someone can distinguish in an account of the form of the good from everything else, can survive all refutation, as if in a battle, striving to judge things not in accordance with opinion but in accordance with being, and can come through all this with his account still intact, you’ll say that he doesn’t know the good itself or any other good’ [534c]. If the form of the good is impossible to know, then no one can truly know justice, either. Not even the philosopher king.”

Socrates threw up his hands in anger. “You’re throwing back my own arguments against me! No matter. The kallipolis is the form of the city. The forms are more real and more perfect than any worldly echo. So-called real cities are merely shadows of the kallipolis.”

“In that case, philosophers are mere shadows of philosopher kings!”

This was the last straw for Socrates. He lunged toward the manta ray, but the manta ray just stepped aside and yanked off Socrates’ mask.

“Ah-ha!” he cried aloud in triumph. “You aren’t Socrates at all — you’re Plato!” And, of course, it was really Plato, not Socrates, who was standing there. He looked thoroughly flustered and embarrassed. “Shame on you, Plato. Imitating your master to get people to listen to your ideas. Tsk, tsk.”

“Now, see here! You haven’t done anything except turn my arguments upside-down and make fine prize-winning speeches. You are a stingray after all!”

“Yes, I am! Though I could never compare to the real Socrates. He was the best of us stingrays. But even the best need to be reminded that they aren’t perfect. Come now, Plato, you say you love learning above all else — isn’t being proven wrong only an opportunity to learn?”

Plato didn’t answer. He only scowled, and then stalked off, Socrates mask in hand. The stingray shrugged and headed down the road in the opposite direction. It was feeling quite happy with itself.

Works Cited:

• Plato. Republic. Trans. G.M.A. Grube, Revised C.D.C. Reeve. Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Co., Inc., 1992.

Antigone is not a tragic victim, but a willing martyr for the cause of the oikos. From the beginning, she declares herself to be “a criminal — but a religious one” (line 75). She knows the punishment, but still she is determined to be caught in the act (2). Antigone declares her beliefs proudly and publicly, first by burying her brother with the intent of being seen, and then by voicing them before Creon and the assembly. “It was not Zeus that made the proclamation; / nor did Justice, which lives with those below, enact / such laws as that, for mankind” (450-452). Only those traditional laws of the oikos are worthy of being followed. They are so important that Antigone is willing to die to prove their authority.

In order to impress her opinions on the assembly and the public, Antigone asks for pity. “No tears for me, no friends, no marriage” (877). This seems a sudden change in heart, considering how adamantly she was expressing her desire to die: “Why do you wait [to kill me], then?” she goads Creon. “Nothing that you say / pleases me; God forbid it ever should” (499-500). Such a shift in emotion makes sense if Antigone is simply trying to gain the empathy of the people, thereby making her death more poignant. “See what I suffer and who makes me suffer / because I gave reverence to what claims reverence” (942-943). She is not a victim at all. For the entire play, she is in control of her fate; from the moment she decides to bury her brother to the moment she hangs herself in the cave. Antigone uses her words and actions to make herself into a martyr.

The oikos that Antigone defends, however, is not capable of supporting society by itself. Her conception of the oikos is based on her own family, the Labdacids, whose familial bonds are so close that they have become incestuous. Her father, the famous Oedipus, is also her brother; her brother, Polyneices, is also her uncle. There are even hints of a sexual relationship between Antigone and Polyneices: “I myself will bury him. It will be good / to die, so doing. I shall lie by his side, / loving him as he loved me” (72-74). Love and marriage do not extend beyond the bounds of their original oikos, making it insular and incapable of sustaining itself over the generations. Though Antigone dies to save its superior traditions, the oikos that she advocates is just as dead as she. “What parents I was born of, God help me! / To them I am going to share their home” (864-865).

Antigone rejects marriage, the one way to save the oikos from collapsing in on itself, as an institution of the polis. She complains of dying a virgin, “unbedded, without bridal, without share in marriage and in nurturing of children” (917-918), knowing all the while that she is Haemon’s bride-to-be. As his fiancé, Antigone has not yet become part of his household, and stands midway between two oikoi. Hers is a conscious decision to reject marriage in favor of joining her own kin in death. In Ancient Greece, a wife becomes part of her husband’s oikos. The laws governing marriage are the established laws of the polis, however, and not the eternal traditional laws of kinship relations that Antigone advocates.

In getting married, Antigone would have to sever the bonds with her own kin and replace them with the weaker bonds of marriage. A husband is replaceable, but a brother is not:

Had I been a mother
of children, and my husband been dead and rotten,
I would not have taken this weary task upon me
against the will of the city. What law backs me
when I say this? I will tell you:
If my husband were dead, I might have another,
and child from another man, if I lost the first.
But when father and mother both were hidden in death
no brother’s life would bloom for me again. (904-912)

Antigone believes in the ultimate power of the oikos, and therefore prefers her own family to the artificial (and political) one created by marriage. Only by dying unwed can she make the point of refusing the institutions of the polis. The corruption of the oikos, its separation from the polis, prevents inheritance by replacing marriage with the bonds of existing kinship relations — it could not sustain itself if it were the governing social institution Antigone wishes it to be.

Creon rejects the oikos because it threatens the power structure of the polis. For him, the polis should be the governing social system because it establishes order in an otherwise chaotic world. “There is nothing worse / than disobedience to authority. / It destroys cities, it demolishes homes” (671-673). The people must follow the system of established law, yielding to a central authority. The oikos is inherently chaotic because it introduces its own set of loyalties that take power away from the polis. The individuals who compose the polis must serve it directly, “for he who is in his household a good man / will be found a just man, too, in the city” (661-662). Creon tries to construct a social system free of the familial complications introduced by the oikos, and he forces Antigone to submit to his authority rather than allow the following of tradition to go unpunished.

Yet Creon denies the very roots of the polis by refusing the oikos. His own power comes directly from familial bonds: “Now here I am, holding all authority / and the throne, in virtue with kinship with the dead” (171-172). The strength of the polis comes from the strength of its citizens, but the people themselves derive their strength from the bonds of family. Haemon, Creon’s own son, advocates the power of the oikos within the polis: “What greater distinction can a son have than the glory / of a successful father, and for a father / the distinction of successful children” (702-704)? The children of the polis are of necessity children of the oikos, for without the family, the city cannot sustain itself.

Creon loses his own family as a result of killing Antigone. Though Antigone “were my sister’s child or closer / in blood than all that my hearth god acknowledges / as mine, [she] should [not] escape / the utmost sentence — death” (486-489). Haemon then kills himself by her side, leaving his mother to commit suicide out of grief. By symbolically rejecting the oikos, Creon brings about the destruction of his own household. His control turns out to be empty — his power, the power of the polis, slips away as soon as the oikos is thrown out. “I am afraid it may be best, in the end / of life, to have kept the old accepted laws” (1113-1114).

Sophocles demonstrates the folly in establishing a pure social system, either under the law-driven polis or the tradition-driven oikos. The corruption of the ultimate oikos is seen in Antigone, who casts aside marriage and life itself for the incestuous bonds of family. Creon fares no better, shunning the family in exchange for a polis driven by order and authority, and as a result loses his own wife and son. Although Haemon and Ismene suggest using democracy as a compromise (3), the end of the play does not resolve the conflict between oikos and polis. We are left hanging, wondering how law and family can coexist peacefully in a single society. Sophocles does not resolve the issue entirely, hinting at solutions but ultimately forcing the citizens to decide the fate of their own city. Haemon gives his father some advice that we can all take to heart: “For a man, though he be wise, / it is no shame to learn — learn many things, / and not maintain his views too rigidly” (710-712). The extreme viewpoints held by Antigone and Creon cannot be maintained, but there is always hope that the open-minded can find peace in compromise.

Notes:

1. Sophocles. Antigone. Trans. David Grene. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991.

2. “Oh, oh, no! shout it out. I will hate you still worse / for silence — should you not proclaim it, / to everyone” (lines 86-88).

3. Haemon: “There is no city possessed by one man only” (line 737).
   Ismene: “But / to act in defiance of the citizenry, / my nature does not give me means for that” (lines 78-79).