#greek tragedy
“Clytemnestra’s language becomes overtly erotic in 1439ff. as F admits. She describes Agamemnon as ’the soothing thing (meiligma, used in Odyssey 10,217 of bits thrown to dogs) of the Chryseids (contemptuous plural) at Troy’. Then, with no justification — Cassandra had no choice, poor girl. — she lashes out at Cassandra’s reputation calling her, in a unique phrase ‘mast-rubber’ (histotribēs: attempts to emend this word are convincingly rejected by F, DP and R).
Several editors (see F) have assumed a sexual kakemphaton here, but they have generally, like F, held that the less said about that the better: Ll-J, DP and R, find the reference to a mast unintelligible. But the fact that the terms ‘mast’ and ‘rubbing’ have clear and obvious erotic implications elsewhere in Greek literature (See G. L. Koniaris, W. B. Tyrrell, and E. K. Borthwick, in AJP 101-2 (1980, 1981), 42-4, 44-6, and 1-2: also Henderson 49, 161-4, 176 and Young as cited on 1056: to their references add the testimony of the Archbishop of Thessalonica, Eustathius 1760, 24-7).”
– Stanford, W. B., (1983:155) Greek Tragedy and the Emotions
Ahahhahahah. Prudish classics scholars totallybaffled by term literally any teenager could explain to them. What could it mean? Gosh, who knows.
also, lol at the fact that scholars have been squeamish enough about this to actually try and “emend” (read: change the text to something they like better) the text.
if i were writing a feminist myth retelling centered around a female character mostly overlooked and denied interiority in the ancient texts that mention her, i would simply not throw helen under the bus to do so
rip to margaret atwood and madeline miller but i’m different
μηδ᾽ εἰς Ἑλένην κότον ἐκτρέψῃς,
ὡς ἀνδρολέτειρ᾽, ὡς μία πολλῶν
ἀνδρῶν ψυχὰς Δαναῶν ὀλέσασ᾽
ἀξύστατον ἄλγος ἔπραξεν.don’t turn your bitterness onto Helen,
as if she were the murderer, as if she and she alone
robbed so many Greek men of their lives
and dug you a bottomless despair.Clytemnestra in Aeschylus, Agamemnon 1464-7
οὐδέ κεν Ἀργείη Ἑλένη, Διὸς ἐκγεγαυῖα,
ἀνδρὶ παρ᾽ ἀλλοδαπῷ ἐμίγη φιλότητι καὶ εὐνῇ,
εἰ ᾔδη ὅ μιν αὖτις ἀρήϊοι υἷες Ἀχαιῶν
ἀξέμεναι οἶκόνδε φίλην ἐς πατρίδ᾽ ἔμελλον.
and nor indeed would Argive Helen, born of Zeus,
have shared herself (her love and her bed) with a stranger,
if she’d known that the warlike sons of the Achaeans
would feel themselves destined to bring her back home.
Penelope in the Odyssey, 23.218-21, agreeing with this