Story-telling
Story-telling

Content and Story: A Meditation

Detail of The Birth of Venus. Sandro Botticelli. 1483-1485. Uffizi Gallery, Florence. Wikimedia Commons.

A few days ago I was inspired by a friend who posted five artworks depicting women from five different time periods, three different cultures (though all but one of the artists was European), and in three different media (oils, ink, photography). In our discussion, he mentioned content, which made me ask myself what ‘content’ referred to.

When Botticelli used what looks like the same model for The Birth of Venus and the Madonna with Child and Four Angels and Six Saints, what is the content—the woman’s angelic face or all the other things in the paintings?

Detail of The Birth of Venus. Sandro Botticelli. 1483-1485. Uffizi Gallery, Florence. Wikimedia Commons.

Detail of the Madonna with Child and Four Angels and Six Saints (Pala di Barnaba). Sandro Botticelli. 1488. Uffizi Gallery, Florence. Wikimedia Commons.
Detail of the Madonna with Child and Four Angels and Six Saints (Pala di Barnaba). Sandro Botticelli. 1488. Uffizi Gallery, Florence. Wikimedia Commons.

I came to the conclusion that content is the ‘story’

The content—the story—of the two Botticelli paintings is in one case ancient myth and in the other the established religion of the time. The model, whomay or may not be Simonetta Cattaneo de Vespucci  (a fascinating, and controversial, story in itself) represents an ideal of beauty, but she is not the content.

I trained as a scientist and worked for years doing basic research

In the scientific endeavor, the content, the story, is the question being asked.

One might use observations, whether obtained from nature or within an experimental setup (in which the study system is controlled in some way), or a computer simulation, or a theoretical construct. But data, theory or models constitute simply the approach taken.

The question is what really matters. The scientist is expected to provide the best-reasoned answer to that question.

Now I spend my time writing stories

I’ve said that fiction is my preferred tool to ask questions.

Not to answer them.

What is the content then, what is the story? Again I believe it is the question being asked. But in fiction, the question is hidden, and that is in fact part of the appeal.

We’re told to write what we know

This makes perfect sense. A good story always is grounded in truth. The stories that grab you by the throat and don’t let go are always authentic stories.

But what defines what we know? Is it our direct experiences? Our biographies?

I hope not. Just imagine an editor speaking with Kafka:

But Franz, you’ve never actually been a cockroach. Perhaps Gregor’s ennui has led to a back spasm which prevents him from turning over or moving.

Where would we be if we wrote only from direct experience?

Direct experience is a truth 

But there is always more than one truth, just as there is always more than one story and more than one way to tell it.

The stories that draw me now are only vaguely recognizable, if at all, from my life. They’ve been through a crucible. A crucible which burns them and changes their outward appearance.

Carbon dioxide to plants. Plants to jungles. Jungles to humus. Humus to coal. Coal to diamonds. Diamonds to dust.

Or maybe the stories are the crucible…

My protagonists are weavers, botanists, sculptors, circus aerialists, spies, physicists, and priests. Some live in countries I’ve never seen; others carried out their adventures before I was born.

Thank god for libraries and old movies, for newspaper archives, for the internet

After all, I am a researcher by training. I like to search and read and think about things I don’t already know. The stories I tell are the ones I choose to tell.

They dance around the questions that have become obsessions, the questions that pull on me for reasons I cannot articulate.

Because if I could articulate the why, my stories would become science, or at least non-fiction. And I would feel compelled to provide my best attempt at an answer.

But in fiction, the reader gets to answer the questions

Perhaps that’s why I moved away from scientific research. By using fiction to ask a question—to tell a story—the answers depend on the reader.

In fact, the reader may even find that the question is not the one I thought I was asking.

And you know, that’s part of the fun.

Janus and attending the start of all things

In Fasti, Ovid’s poem about the Roman holidays, and consequently of Roman religion, he introduces Janus, or Ianus, the Roman god of doorways and gateways, with:

Two-headed Janus, source of the silently gliding year

Unlike most Roman gods, Janus has no direct Greek precedent. Joseph Campbell suggests that Janus may be rooted instead in the animistic forces of the home or lars.

It doesn’t take my books on symbol, myth, and art history, nor hours of searching through scholarly articles, to see the power of a deity of gateways.

But I looked through them anyway.

An as, a Roman coin made of heavy bronze from 240-225 BC. showing the head of bearded Janus on a raised disk. Source Classic Numismatic Group Inc. http://www.cngcoins.com/Coin.aspx?CoinID=100279. During the Roman republic, the as showed Janus on one side and the prow of a galley on the other.
An as, a Roman coin made of heavy bronze from 240-225 BC. showing the head of bearded Janus on a raised disk. During the Roman republic, the as showed Janus on one side and the prow of a galley on the other. Source Classic Numismatic Group Inc.  

And though the basics- gave the name to January, has two faces (sometimes four), beginnings and endings, Roman not Greek- were consistent, Janus turned out to be a somewhat cryptic deity.

Janus tells Ovid he was once called Chaos

This implies that he brings order from that Chaos. In Roman liturgy, he was honored before all other gods. He is the god of all that begins: day, month, or year.

By facing backwards, he holds in his hands the beginning and the ending of all things. Janus is reminder that nothing starts without something else ending, that no door opens unless another is closed.

Encyclopedia Britannica tells us that Rome had many ceremonial gateways with symbolic entrances and exits. The double doors of the Janus Geminus, mentioned in Ovid’s poem, were left open during times of war and closed during times of peace.

Open in war and closed in peace?

No, it doesn’t make much sense, and it’s a point of discussion for scholars. The most credible explanation, from Rabun Taylor, is that Janus read the auspices.

A sestertius (about 2.5 asses), a Roman coin of the time of Nero 54-68 CE. It says PACE P R TERRA MARIQ PARTA IANVM CLVSIT S C and shows the Temple of Janus with ornate roof decoration, latticed window on the left and with a garland hung across the closed double doors to the right. BNC 319. BN 73. Cohen 146. RIC 438. WCN 419. From the From the Patrick H. C. Tan Collection. Source Classic Numismatic Group Inc. http://www.cngcoins.com/Coin.aspx?CoinID=163662 via Wikimedia Commons.
A sestertius (about 2.5 asses), a Roman coin of the time of Nero 54-68 CE, showing the Janus Geminus with closed double doors. From the Patrick H. C. Tan Collection. Source Classic Numismatic Group Inc. via Wikimedia Commons.

Divination in Rome was based on signs from the gods as to whether an action should be performed or not on a given day. Corresponding to the etymology of the word auspice (which means to look at birds), it was through the flight of birds, and lightning, that the gods spoke most frequently.

Who better to observe the flight of birds than one who can look in both directions?

As Taylor notes, the taking of auspices was almost continuous in time of war, making it necessary to consult the shrine of Janus, the Janus Gemini.

Janus is a liminal deity

A god of transitions, he was consulted before all others precisely because he provides passage to the other gods and to the the omens and signs that allow future action. Taylor notes:

As an arbiter of spatial transitions, Janus was more than a mere gateway. He determined human endeavors as well as space.

At once he looks to the past and to the future- in time, and inward to the home and outward to the other- in space.

His function at the gateway is not to protect, as would an apotropaic figure, like the Medusa. Rather it is to observe and to know. Janus contains within the past and the future, the inside and the outside.

Our calendar starts in January, in midwinter

As Janus tells Ovid:

Midwinter’s the first of the new sun, last of the old

Janus means that beginnings are necessarily born of endings. The year doesn’t start in spring with new growth, trees budding, and birds hatching. The year begins in winter, when it is still cold and nature is dormant.

This choice of new year is not universal.  Calendars have been drawn from the sun and from the moon. The start of the year varies from autumn through spring. How we attempt to contain and label time into a calendar speaks of the world that formed our cultures, our religions, and, ultimately, to politics and the pace of an increasingly connected world.

And so the year starts

systematicwonder_auspices_janus
The augurs in Rome observed the flight of birds as auspices or omens.

We’re already entering the second half of the month. New Year’s resolutions lay behind us. Recaps of 2013 are even further in the past. As for me, I didn’t complete my overview. I haven’t set new goals.

But Janus is always present, at the beginning of every day, every week, every month.

So it is always day one, moment one. It is always time to look back. We can erect an imaginary gateway anywhere, a place to look inside and outside. It is always the right time and place to be alert to the signs, to the omens.

We can start every day, everywhere.

In fact, we have no choice but to do so.

Beauty or the beast: multiple faces of Medusa

589px-Mosaic_de_la_Medusa2
Mosaic from a Roman villa in Spain of ~250CE, now in the Tarragona Archeological Museum. Source: Ophelia2 via Wikimedia Commons.

The Gorgon, Medusa, was known for her petrifying gaze. That mortal power continued after Perseus beheaded her so Athena used Medusa’s head on her shield.

Of course, there are multiple versions of this story, which continues to evolve today

In some versions Medusa had two sisters who were immortal, though for some (undisclosed) reason she was not. Daughters of primordial sea gods, they had long claws, fangs or tusks, and hissing serpents for hair. Their bulging eyes could turn a person to stone.

For some scholars the Gorgons represent the ancient matriarchal religions which were overthrown by the Olympians

In other versions, Medusa was a mortal girl who consorted with Poseidon, in some stories willingly, whom Athena punished by turning her into a monster.

Perseus by Benvenuto Cellini. Bronze and marble (base), 1545–1554. Under the Loggia dei Lanzi, Florence, since 1554. © Marie-Lan Nguyen / Wikimedia Commons
Perseus by Benvenuto Cellini. Bronze and marble (base), 1545–1554. Under the Loggia dei Lanzi, Florence, since 1554. © Marie-Lan Nguyen / Wikimedia Commons

Enter Perseus

Her fatal run-in with Perseus occurred when a king who was courting his mother asked him to bring the Gorgon’s head as a banquet gift.

Though Perseus was a son of Zeus, he wasn’t known for any skill at that time, so Hermes and Athena took pity. Hermes gave him a curved sword and Athena a shiny reflecting shield.

They sent him to the Graea who knew the location of the Hesperides, nymphs from the western lands, who in turn knew where to find Medusa.

Lots of eyes in this story…

The Graea were three old women, sisters and daughters of the same primordial sea gods. They had one eye and one tooth between them- which they shared, like sisters do. When Perseus held the eye ransom, they told him what he wanted.

Detail of the pediment of the Temple of Artemis in Corfu (580BCE). The Gorgon in the center is flanked by lionesses and her sons, born from her blood when she was killed: on her right are the hind legs of her son Pegasus and on her left Chrysaor. In the Archeological Museum of Corfu. Source: Dr.K via Wikimedia Commons.
Detail of the pediment of the Temple of Artemis in Corfu (580BCE). The Gorgon in the center is flanked by lionesses and her sons, born from her blood when she was killed: on her right are the hind legs of Pegasus and on her left Chrysaor. In the Archeological Museum of Corfu. Source: Dr.K via Wikimedia Commons.

The Hesperides really set him up

They not only gave him directions to the faraway land of the Gorgons, they provided winged sandals for faster travel, a satchel to carry Medusa’s head, and a nifty cap of invisibility.

According to some stories, Medusa was asleep when Perseus arrived, which pretty much rendered her harmless. In any case, he didn’t look at her directly but used the shield to see and cut off her head.

Her sisters woke up and went after him, but Perseus donned his cap so they couldn’t see him. The sandals ensured a speedy exit.

According to some accounts, he rescued his future wife Andromeda on his way home, but others say it happened later.  But when he arrived to the court of the king, he pulled the Gorgon’s head out of his satchel and turned the pesky king and his guests to stone.

Then he gave Medusa’s head to Athena. She added it to her shield. Some say it was actually Zeus’s shield, but that she used it more than he did.

Apotropaic images and symbols ward off evil

By using Medusa’s face to defend herself, Athena appropriated her power.

Images of frightening animals or creatures have long been used  to protect from evil, especially at doorways and windows. The eye is often used as an apotropaic image.

And there are so many references to vision in this story: the look that petrifies, the shared eye, the use of a mirror to see safely, escaping by becoming invisible.

What better defense than Medusa’s eyes?

Relief of Minerva, and hypothetical reconstruction of upper half. Source: Arxiu Municipal Tarragona.
Relief of Minerva, and hypothetical reconstruction of upper half. Source: Arxiu Municipal Tarragona.

Beauty or the beast?

Medusa often appears in the guise of a monster, while in other cases, like in Cellini’s Perseus, her features are human.

One interpretation is that this corresponds to an evolution through  time, from monster to maiden.

However, as noted by Kathryn Topper, some vases from the 6th century BCE show Medusa as a sleeping maiden. She suggests that these depictions of Medusa are telling a slightly different story in which Perseus is no hero.

And sometimes the shield has a Medusa that isn’t a Medusa

An incomplete relief of Minerva (the Roman version of Athena) from 300CE is found on the Roman walls of my hometown. Minerva stands in profile, her large shield before her. The shield holds no Medusa, but a wolf’s head.

The wolf was a sacred animal for the Iberians that lived on the Mediterranean coast of Spain when the Romans arrived. It represented strength and valor.

The Romans knew all about appropriating the power of those that came before

More recently, fashion designer Gianni Versace chose an image of Medusa as the logo for his company.  

And thus throughout history, symbols are repurposed. Their meaning evolves, but more slowly than their power wanes.