![]() It was on this island that the goddess impelled her guardian serpent to bite the hero, afflicting Philoctetes with the ordeal of a seemingly incurable poisonous wound. The island named Chryse, as we will soon see, was sacred not only to the goddess named Chryse but also, ultimately, to the hero Philoctetes himself. ![]() And the same myth was known also to Sophocles: in his tragedy named after the hero Philoctetes, the poet’s words refer both to the goddess Chryse (lines 1) and to an island by the same name, Chryse (line 270). The myth about Chryse and Philoctetes was known to vase painters in Athens during the classical period, that is, in the fifth century BCE. ![]() It will be easier for me to elaborate first on the inchoate answer formulated at §1B. And the same goddess Chryse, as we will also see, is relevant to an Aeolian version of a myth about the aforementioned primal ordeal suffered by the hero Philoctetes-which took place on an island that also had the same name, Chryse, that is, Khrūsē. The adjectival name of the goddess Chryse, as we will see, can be interpreted as an epithet of Aphrodite herself in Aeolian traditions, which were native to Sappho. In what follows, I start with two inchoate answers matching the two possibly relevant questions that I have just introduced: Drawing after Alexandre de La Borde, Collection des vases grecs de M. (B) What is the connection, if any, between the goddess Chryse and a primal ordeal-as I describe it in the title of my current essay-that is suffered by Philoctetes in the tragedy of Sophocles that is named after this hero?Īthenian red-figure painting, on bell krater, by the Kadmos Painter: close-up of the cult statue of Chryse. (A) What is the connection, if any, between Sappho’s Aphrodite and the goddess Chryse? The aim of my essay here is to find answers to two possibly relevant questions: But, this time, the adjacent lettering names the goddess as Chryse / Khrūsē (the lettering, faintly visible, can be restored: ΧΡΥΣΕ), which is a feminine adjective meaning ‘the golden one’. As for the cover image of the essay that I post here, we see once again a cult statue of a goddess wearing a strikingly similar pattern-woven dress. The cover image for the previous essay that I posted shows a cult statue of Aphrodite herself wearing a pattern-woven dress. ![]() And that is because the “dress” that is worn by the goddess represented in both cover images is clearly pattern-woven. Both these cover images, surviving from the visual art of ancient Greek vase painters working in the classical period of Athens, that is, in the fifth century BCE, picture the look and feel of the ‘dress’ of Aphrodite as pictured in the verbal art of Sappho’s Song 1. As for the second of the two personal communications, dated 2021.07.28, it has led to my choice of the image that we view as the cover illustration for the posting here. The first of these communications, dated 2021.07.20, led to my choosing the image for the cover of the previous essay I posted for Classical Inquiries (Nagy 2021.07.26, linked here). And my thinking here about this art of pattern-weaving-it really was a form of art, not just a technique-was inspired by relevant comments made in two consecutive personal communications from a colleague and friend, Natasha Bershadsky. My metaphor, “common thread,” is relevant: I am thinking here of an ancient technique of fabric work known today as pattern-weaving, a form of visual art that was ingeniously perfected over time through the material instrumentality of upright warp-weighted looms. ![]() But how is such a ‘dress’ to be imagined if we think of it only in terms of the multivalent English word ‘dress’? Such a blurry image of what the goddess of sexuality and love is wearing can be sharpened. The persona of Sappho is addressing the goddess there, and I now interpret the epithet-hardly for the first time-as ‘ who wear pattern-woven dress’. The common thread, as it were, for this essay is the meaning of the epithet poikiló-thronos gracing the goddess Aphrodite in line 1 of Sappho’s Song 1. ![]()
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