The issue of November of Yareah magazine is dedicated to Ovid and Franz Kafka. You can read a lot of articles in

metamorphosis on Yareah magazine

English and Spanish. This one of Ann Timmermans is really interesting:

http://www.yareah.com/magazine/index.php/arts-arte/578-the-anti-authoritative-ironical-tone-of-franz-kafka

This other one is bilingual

http://www.yareah.com/magazine/index.php/literature-literatura/544-metamorphosis-metamorfosis

The theme of gender-changing, whether by one’s own hand or choice or by another’s, occurs frequently in Hellenic mythologies. It is accompanied, often, by gender-reversal; by gods and daimones acting as the opposite gender, rather than actually becoming the opposite gender. Part of this is undoubtedly due to the gender fluidity of the gods (and certain gods in particular), and part to the necessity of their act for their own gain, or for the gain of the entire kosmos. In this essay, I will be discussing, in-depth, the three most notable occurrences of gender-changing – Hermaphroditos’, Agdistis-Rhea-Kybele’s, and Attis’.

The most memorable case of gender-changing is that of Hermaphroditos, the god of hermaphrodites, effeminate men, masculine women, transsexuals, transgenders, etc. Hermaphroditos’ gender-change (or, more correctly, gender-merge) is also his primary mythology. He is rarely named in the literature that points to the Erotes, although he is numbered among them, both by his parentage and divine function; and even the mythology of his birth is short and barely-considered. His pre- and post-merge mythology is barely touched upon; despite his Olympic parentage, he seems to have been all but forgotten by the Classical writers, in all respects other than detailing his merge with the nympha Salmakis.
Hermaphroditos (or Atlantius, as he was once/otherwise known, according to Hyginus, Fabulae, 271), ‘whom in Mount Ida’s caves the Naiades nurtured’ (Ovid, Metamorphoses, 4.28ff), was a youth comparable in beauty only to Adonis, Ganymedes, Endymion, Hyakinthos, Narkissos, Hylas and Khrysippos. It is interesting to note, here, that several of these most beautiful youths–Adonis, Hyakinthos and Ganymedes and, to a lesser extent, Hylas–all experienced a gender reversal, which will be discussed in Gender-Reversal in Gods and Daimones.
When he was fifteen–’when thrice five years had passed’ (Met, 4.28ff)–Hermaphroditos ventured from Mount Ida, ‘eager to roam strange lands afar’ (Met, 4.28ff), and eventually came upon Salmakis’ ‘limpid shining pool’ (Met, 4.28ff). Salmakis, upon seeing the beautiful youth, declared her love for him. He, who ‘knew not what love was’ (Met, 4.28ff), rejected her as she ‘besought at least a sister’s kiss’ (Met, 4.28ff). Pretending to accept his rejection, the nympha Salmakis withdrew from sight; and Hermaphroditos, thinking himself alone, stepped into her pool and ’stripped his light garments from his slender limbs’ (Met, 4.28ff). Salmakis watched him until he dived into the pool; and that–in succumbing to the pull of her water–made him hers, seemingly, for she ‘flung aside her clothes and plunged far out into the pool and grappled him’ (Met, 4.28ff). Hermaphroditos struggled to free himself and, at last, she managed to gain such a hold on him that ‘her clinging body seemed fixed fast to his’ (Met, 4.28ff), and she beseeched the gods to never let their bodies part. The gods (though it is unknown which gods) accepted the prayer and ‘both bodies merged in one, both blended in one form and face . . . they two were two no more, nor man, nor woman–one body then that neither seemed and both.’ (Met, 4.28ff) Hermaphroditos, now merged with Salmakis, emerged from the pool, saw that ‘the waters of the pool, where he had dived a man, had rendered him half woman’ (Met, 4.28ff) and beseeched his divine parents, Hermes and Aphrodite, that ‘whoso in these waters bathes a man emerge half woman, weakened instantly’ (Met, 4.28ff). His parents agreed; and ‘drugged the bright water with that power impure’ (Met, 4.28ff).
Diodorus Siculus described Hermaphroditos, after the merging with the nympha: ‘Some say that this Hermaphroditos is a god and appears at certain times among men, and that he is born with a physical body which is a combination of that of a man and that of a woman, in that he has a body which is beautiful and delicate like that of a woman, but has the masculine quality and vigour of a man.’ (Diodorus Siculus, Library of History, 4.6.5.) Diodorus Siculus then continued to note that ‘there are some who declare that such creatures of two sexes are monstrosities, and coming rarely into the world as they do they have the quality of presaging the future, sometimes for evil and sometimes for good.’ (Library of History, 4.6.5.)

The above quote of Diodorus Siculus can be applied, in turn, to the monster-god Agdistis, born of the Phrygian Sky God and Earth Goddess–Ouranos and Gaia–who would later become Kybele, equated with Rhea as Rhea-Kybele, mother of the gods.
Agdistis was, according to Pausanias, born when Ouranos (or, rather, the Phrygian sky god – who Pausanias equates with Zeus, strangely), ‘let fall in his sleep seed upon the ground, which in course of time sent up a Daimon, with two sexual organs, male and female.’ (Pausanias, Guide to Greece, 7.17.8.) Fearing Agdistis–the bi-sexed, and therefore aggressively, and by some accounts, literally insanely, sexual god–the other gods ‘cut off the male organ’ (Guide to Greece, 7.17.8), thus effectively changing Agdistis, a bi-sexed god, to Rhea-Kybele, a solely female god. An almond tree grew from Agdistis-Kybele’s castrated organ, and a nympha daughter of the river-god Sangarios ‘took the fruit and laid it in her bosom, when it at once disappeared, but she was with child.’ (Guide to Greece, 7.17.8.)
The child born was the youth Attis; and as he grew, his beauty, which was ‘more than human’ (Guide to Greece, 7.17.8) drew Agdistis-Kybele’s eye. She fell in love with him; and he ‘conquered the towered goddess with pure love’ (Ovid, Fasti, 4.222). Attis swore to her that he would ‘desire to be a boy always’ and that if he ever cheated, the one ‘I cheat with [will] be my last’ (Fasti, 4.222). He cheated, either by having an affair with the nympha Sagaritis (Fasti, 4.222) or by an attempt at marrying a king’s daughter (Guide to Greece, 7.17.8).
Agdistis-Rhea-Kybele, in divine wrath and madness, either then killed Sagaritis–by cutting down the nympha’s tree; ‘her fate was the tree’s’ (Fasti, 4.222)–or showed up at the wedding of Attis and the king’s daughter, whilst ‘the marriage-song was being song’ (Guide to Greece, 7.17.8); either version, though, caused Attis to descend into instant madness. Attis ‘bolts to Dindymus’ heights’ (Fasti, 4.222) and ‘went mad and cut off his genitals’ (Guide to Greece, 7.17.8), until ‘no signs of manhood remained.’ (Fasti, 4.222.) According to Pausanias, she then ‘repented of what she had done to Attis, and persuaded Zeus to grant the body of Attis should neither rot at all nor decay’ (Guide to Greece, 7.17.8); effectively, then, immortalising him.
This myth–beginning with Agdistis’ conception and ending with Attis’ immortal rebirth–has several common themes. The first, of course, is gender-changing; Agdistis, the bi-sexed, became Rhea-Kybele, a mother goddess, and simultaneously impregnated Sangarios’ nympha daughter, and thus became a father goddess, too. Attis, the boy born of the nympha and Agdistis’ castrated genitals, castrated himself, in turn, and ‘became a model: soft-skinned acolytes toss their hair and cut their worthless organs’ (Fasti, 4.222), thus effectively changing his own gender - and although his gender was changed by his own hands, it was caused by Agdistis-Rhea-Kybele. The second important theme is accidental pregnancy: the Phrygian Sky God’s/Ouranos’ impregnation of Gaia, the Earth, creating the bi-sexed Agdistis; and then Agdistis’ castrated genitals’ impregnation of Sangarios’ daughter, creating the lovely Attis. The entire myth continues the theme of ‘creatures of two sexes are monstrosities’, as suggested by Diodorus Siculus; and is a reoccuring theme within Hellenic mythology. Perhaps the other gods are wary the raw, fertile, mad power of bi-sexed gods; or, perhaps it was simply the prejudices of Classical society, made into divine acceptance through the mythos.

In Gender-Reversal in Gods and Daimones, I will be further exploring the gender switches in the Greek mythos; including Zeus’ gender-switch into Artemis, Adonis’ androgynous nature, Ganymedes’ and Hyakinthos’ apparent femininity and feminine values; and others.

You have the option of setting up a personal account with the OvidSP databases.  When you are on the main page of an OVID database like PsycINFO you will see a “Personal Account” link in the upper right corner.  Click on this link and then click on the link that says “Create a new Personal Account”.  Once you have an account you will be able to save searches and set up email alerts or RSS feeds.

“Take rest; a field that has rested gives a bountiful crop.”

Ovid (Ancient Roman classical Poet and Author of Metamorphoses, 43 BC-17)

“Rest when you’re weary. Refresh and renew yourself, your body, your mind, your spirit. Then get back to work.”

John Lubbock (English Biologist and Politician, 1834-1913)

“‘Remember what Bilbo used to say: It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door.  You step onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no knowing where you might be swept off to.’” – J.R.R. Tolkien

“Simplicity and repose are the qualities that measure the true value of any work of art.” – Frank Lloyd

“Take rest; a field that has rested gives a bountiful crop.” – Ovid

Every three months at the Albergue we are aloted a week off for vacation, and this can be very important.  I am a firm believer in the concept of rest, that in order to do something well you have to be charged.  However, this also comes with the idea that that rest precedes time in hard work.  Anyway, in addition to a time of refreshment, when someone from the U.S.A. comes to Peru without a visa, they can receive 90 days and then exit the country to renew their time.  I have been in Peru for over 3 and a half months now, and it was time for a break and a fresh set of days.  So…I went to Ecuador!

My friend Juan is from Piura, a city about 6 hours north of Trujillo in Peru and a good launching point for reaching Ecuador.  The both of us first went to his home in said city.  Piura is a cool place, reminiscent of Trujillo but more concentrated, smaller, and hotter.  It is quite easy to walk where you need to go, and because of its smaller size taxi is a more common form of transportation (as opposed to the rampancy of micros in Trujillo).  We stayed there for a bit (and ate really well!)  Below is a pic of delicious ceviche as well as the Plaza de Armas de Piura.

Bueno, from there we traveled up to Ecuador, about three hours to the border.  Peru and Ecuador certainly are neighboring countries that are similar, but it is also evident right off the bat they are different.  On the Peruvian side the officials use their notebooks and pens and are a bit disorganized; however, 50 yards away on the Ecuadorian side, there are computers that print the immigration details on your passport and people professionally doing their job.  We got back on the bus and headed to our destination, and throughout the trip the cleanliness and order in comparison to Peru came into view.  The countryside is greener, void of the overflow of trash, and the road system is noticeably more pleasurable.   Peru is a wonderful country that has been my home, yet it was interesting for me to observe the comparisons between Peru, a developing country, and its neighbor up north that is noticeably more, for a lack of a better word, advanced.  A couple of other points: the food of Ecuador does not touch that of Peru, and I noticed that the people of Ecuador are very nice and kind, yet more reserved and quieter.

About three hours from the border we arrived in Cariamanga, a charming little city in what I would call the High Coast, not quite in the mountains but high up nonetheless.  We found a great hostal upon arrival for a great price (15$ each person for two nights) and explored a bit of the city.  There was also a carnival going on, finishing up its last night before leaving.

The highlight of the trip came the following day, when we did some hiking!  This turned out to be intense.  It took us about three hours or so to get to the top of this big hill, through some rough terrain.  Once up top, we decided to jump to neighboring mountain/hills on the path that was up there, but when we got further along we decided to head down.  However, we headed down on the opposite side of the hills, away from the city, and found ourselves in an area where there was no path.  We had two options:  retracing our steps and finding another way to head back down, and making our own way through.  We chose the latter.  This began with a trip down a mini cliff, where I grapped a root for support.  Well, as I began my descent, the root snapped and I went sliding down!  Gracias a Dios, a stopped at the bottom with nary a scratch!  We then, lost in the forest of Ecuador, made our way through the brush, over fences, and past the clearings to the city finally!  Overall we were out for about 6 hours, and it was an adventure!

The next day we headed back to Piura, where I once again experienced the hospitality of Juan and his family, and the day after that back to Trujillo.  So, obviously it was a short trip, but at the same time a great opportunity of refreshment and a lot of fun!  Adventures, ya gotta have em’!

There is quite a bit to say as far as what I have been up to as of late at the orphanage, but I’ll have a post with regards to that later on.  Enjoy the photos, y hasta la proxima!

Heard Sonia Paço-Rocchia doing fun stuff with bassoon and MAX last week at a Forum Composers London concert. There’s a certain something about the bassoon: ‘It has the medieval aroma…’ according to Frank Zappa: ‘I can easily understand why a person could get excited about playing a bassoon. It’s a great noise — nothing else makes that noise.’

I enjoy the particular way its timbre changes through the registers. Sometimes it has a peculiarly vocal quality: something I’m looking at in a forthcoming revision of The River Daughter, which deals with Ovid’s account of the transformation of Daphne. Zoey Pepper is the singing bassoonist who handles the nymph-to-laurel-tree scenario here: I’m revisiting the parts where the identities of voice and bassoon start to blur…

Hi All

Stumbled accross these OvidSP video tutorials from Cushing / Whitney Medical Library, Yale University Library. They’re short and sweet – give them a go if you need further help with using Ovid/Medline.

Happy searching!

Hi Everyone,

I apologize for forgetting to get this up.  Special thanks to Lindsay for reminding me.  If I ever forget again, please let me know!

This week’s reading, Pygmalion in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, on reserve, is short, which allows you extra time to read for next week. It is also available online.

Ovid (born March 20,  43 BC) was a Roman poet.  He re-told many of the classical Greek myths.

I will also screen a surrealist film.  It is about 45 minutes in length and references the myth of Pygmalion.  It’s a beautiful film, but a bit confusing if you don’t understand the basics of surrealism, so I’ll give a brief lecture at the beginning of class.

Next week we are discussing all of The Picture of Dorian Gray, so be sure to allow yourself plenty of time for reading.

October 20 — Pygmalion & Cocteau

• Ovid, “Pygmalion” in Metamorphoses. Reserve.
• Screening of Blood of a Poet, a film by Jean Cocteau, 1930.
  

October 27 — The Picture of Dorian Gray

• Oscar Wilde Picture of Dorian Gray, entire text.   In bookstore.

If you ever can’t find the readings here, take a look at http://3v96.wordpress.com/about-the-course

Please let me know if you have questions.

Ovid count…8!

I love the intersection of opera and other forms of art.  Take, for instance, Lully’s Persée. Having been to both Barcelona and Florence, I remember Dali’s and Cellini’s sculptures of Perseus with the decapitated head of everyone’s favorite gorgon, Medusa (a “head” joke is too easy).  I also had the grand plaisir of seeing a Lully opera (finally!) thanks to Toronto’s Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra.  Lully has begun to click, and re-listening to him in October for brush-up is kind of the perfect seasonal complement to riding the N train from Queens to Brooklyn in 40 degree, golden sunny, turning-leaves weather.  It’s a weather I missed for two years in LA.

It’s funny, though, to see the cross-cultural interpretations of one Ancient Roman poet.  The first time I saw Cellini’s Perseus was when I saw Benvenuto Cellini at the Met in the winter of 2003; it was the Playbill cover (or it was in a painted reproduction).  I all but forgot about it until I moved to Italy in 2005 and went to Florence in the wee weeks of 2006.  It reminded me of the constrained ruthlessness of the Berlioz opera (which, at this rate, I’ll hit by the time I’m 30), something violent in the Baroque curvatures.

And then there’s Dali.  His sculpture reminds me of his moustache, loose, flowing, and yet stylized.  On my bohemian budget in Barcelona, I still thought about splurging on a lobster so I could answer it like a telephone and say “Hello?…Hello?…It’s for you.”  But the big M’s head in this sculpture looks close enough to a cellular crustacean.  And I’m already a bad enough Jew that one absence of shellfish is probably not the worst thing in the world.

But despite the veritable bloodbath that Cellini conjures up in his beheading of Medusa and the controlled chaos of Dali’s meditation on the same theme, Lully’s opera is downright soothing.  I still have the Netflix Red Envelope from when I had the DVD sent over in July, and before sending it back the other week, I popped it in one morning.  It was 5:00 am, I couldn’t sleep, and I figured I may as well get some work done on the supertitles I’m translating for Florida Grand Opera.  It was still pitch-dark out in Queens, and I think that’s what Lully needs.  There’s too much glitter onstage to compete with natural sunlight.  And even though that makes it hard to see sculptures, the dark does well to illuminate JB.

Die beiden Datenbanken PSYNDEX und PsycInfo sind ab sofort freigeschalten. Dabei handelt es sich um Literaturnachweisdatenbanken für den Bereich Psychologie. Das heißt Sie können dort thematisch nach Zeitschriftenartikeln suchen und finden dann denn Nachweis in welcher Zeitschrift der Artikel erschienen ist. Die Datenbanken bieten in der Regel keinen Volltext.

Die PSYNDEX besteht aus:

• PSYNDEXplus Literature and Audiovisual Media
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In der PsycInfo finden Sie:

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I am going to my first real protest on Sunday.  I am visiting the nation’s capitol for the first time this Sunday.  I am waking up before 8am on the weekend–this Sunday.  I’m so excited!  I wonder if–and this is slightly narcissistic–my picture will show up in a national publication, my face mid-chant and passionate, my body charging forward, my arms beholding a sign about national equality for the LGBT community… First, this march has to actually make it into the papers.  Then we’ll see about this picture of mine.

I am writing in my blog right now because it is the most constructive way for me to avoid my homework.  I could be on Facebook, or playing Minesweeper (surprisingly addictive), but I am not because I am writing in my blog.  In fact, writing in my blog reminds me–since I write about school so much–that I have to get back to work.  I have to revise an essay (that I actually want to burn down to the ground to make room for new construction; I would rather not just paint over a structure about to collapse in on itself, but that’s what I have to do tonight).  I have to finish my lab report.  Oh god, I’m only halfway done with my lab report!  I have to read Ovid and some handouts about revising (painting over structurally unsound) essays.  And I should, I really should, get started on my Spanish homework, lab essay about the museum, the re-built version of my English essay, and about a million other things.

I have found out what midterms really are at Barnard: a series of a few weeks in which the workload becomes as intense as the overexaggeraters here make it seem.  Midterms aren’t the specific times of specific kinds of tests–you are tested on how well you can juggle classes (and life) and you are tested on this from now until the official end of midterms–October 22.  Then it starts all over with finals.

So this is why you need good grades in high school: you need to get used to feeling stressed.

Heute im Lehrerzimmer fragte mich einer der älteren Lehrer, was denn da bitte im 11. Jahrgang für Bilder an der Pinnwand seien.” Ähm, wir haben Ovid Amores 1,5 übersetzt und ich habe die Schüler gebeten die Elegie bildlich darzustellen.” “Aber das ist ja schon fast pornographisch!” “Ja, dann nehm ich die mal eben schnell ab!”

Gesagt getan, vier Werke musste ich leider von der Pinnwand entfernen. Warum? Nun ja, die Herren bezogen sich wohl auf den Satz Cetera quis nescit! Die Interpretation war etwas freier, das gelungenste der Bilder war dieses: Die anderen waren dann Varriationen des Motivs in weniger gelungenen Ausführung, besonders eindrucksvoll war ein “Ovid” dessen Geschlechtsteil doppelt so lang war wie sein Kopf und der hinter Corinna triumphiehrend beide Arme gen Himmel hob. Ich weiß gar nicht, was der Kollege hatte

Ovid, Foreground; Scarlett squeezing flower, background

I’ve currently reading Metamorphoses by Ovid. When I first started properly reading (post- university, 1998), I limited myself to the classics and modern classics (up to the mid 1970s), to gain a reasonable grounding in literature. In recent years I’ve been mostly reading modern fiction, but this caught my eye at a summer car boot sale.

I didn’t know anything about the Metamorphoses (I’m not like, square) other than it was old, probably a poem and probably in Latin. Well; it’s a Roman narrative poem from 8 AD and is a collection of ancient Greek myths around the theme of things turning into other things.

So far I’m finding it quite boring because it doesn’t have any central plot or characters; it’s just a mass of stories around the theme. When it’s good, it’s good though, full of fantastic happenings and exciting exploits.  It’s also depressing – almost every tale features one god or another disguised as someone/thing else and conning or seducing an unsuspecting human. Then, in order to punish the human or cover up his/her crime (as for example Jupiter who is always hiding his rapes from his wife like some horrible sitcom), the human gets turned into a tree/animal/stone for all eternity. The gods continually act in a petty, cruel manner, abusing their position. Just last night I read about the mortal Niobe who boasts about her superiority to the goddess Leto, since she has a big family and Leto only has two sons. Leto responds by sending her two sons Apollo and Artemis to murder all 14 of Niobe’s children. I mean; what?!

Niobe understandably upset

I read an exciting bit last week about Perseus. In the film Clash of the Titans (1981 version), Perseus kills Medusa then rescues Andromeda from the Kraken in return for her hand in marriage…happy ending. Wrong! It turns out Andromeda is already betrothed to Phineus, who doesn’t react well to the news that his girlfriend is now going to marry a complete stranger. Andromeda’s family side with Perseus; half because that’s part of the saving their daughter deal and half because Phineus wasn’t any help against the sea monster. Phineus goes round to Andromeda’s house with a small army and there’s a total, gory massacre…

Phorbas of Syene, the son of Metion, and Libyan Amphimedon, eager to commit to the fight, fell, having slipped on the ground, warm and drenched with blood on every side. Rising, they were stopped by the sword, piercing Phorbas’s throat, and Amphimedon’s ribs. But Perseus did not challenge Eurytus, son of Actor, who had a battle-axe, with his scimitar, instead, lifting a mixing bowl, embossed with decorations and very heavy in weight, high in the air, with both hands, he dashed it down on the man, who vomited bright red blood, and, lying on his back, beat the earth with his head. Then Perseus overthrew Polydegmon, born of the blood of Queen Semiramis, Abaris from Caucasia, Lycetus from the River Spercheos region, Helices with flowing hair, Clytus and Phlegyas, and trod on a mounting pile of the dying.

It carries on like that for a while until…

When Perseus saw indeed that, his efforts would succumb to the weight of numbers, he said ‘Since you plan it like this, I will ask help of the enemy. If there are any friends here, turn your face away!’ and he held up the Gorgon’s head.

Enough is enough

Both pictures from Wikipedia:
Niobe
Perseus

Quotation text from A. S. Kline’s Poetry Archive

Need an article on a specific topic?  Try searching the electronic databases.  For general academic research, we recommend the EBSCO collection of databases, especially Academic Search Premier.  Although there are several EBSCO databases worth investigating, Social Work Abstracts, PsycINFO, and ERIC are noteworthy for social sciences students, and CINAHL is beneficial for nursing students.  Health sciences students will want to use Ovid to access several medical databases, especially Medline.  For evidence based medicine articles, try searching DynaMed through EBSCO or EBM Reviews through Ovid.

Health sciences center students can access the databases by selecting E-Resources on the front of the OU-Tulsa Library webpage.  Students in other academic programs can access the databases by conducting a search for a database title in the Find Databases search box on the front of the Bizzell Library webpage.