Jupiter, Juno, Io // Teiresias, Narcissus, Echo
The beginning of the end of Monday Metamorphoses
So.
You might’ve read my message yesterday about ending this Monday Metamorphoses thing. To be honest, this story about Jupiter, Io, and Juno was the real culprit behind that decision. Not that its distasteful aspects convinced me on their own. After reading it and posting it, I scanned ahead and found at least 16 other stories about rape. That averages out to just over one a book, never mind the many other cases of misogyny in the poem.
Again, I’m not saying the poem shouldn’t be read. I’ll likely keep reading it myself. But the part of Monday Metamorphoses I got excited about the most was the responses—writing mine and reading yours. I know I would feel the need to acknowledge this issue, the sexism, every time it came up. And it’s just going to come up too often for this exercise to be any fun.
But for the sake of consistency, let’s take a quick look at this horrible story.
Major Harvey Weinstein vibes
The relationship between Jupiter and Juno seems like the archetype of an unhealthy marriage. Despite his occasional, reluctant submission to his wife’s demands, Jupiter ultimately has the dominating power between the two of them. Juno is constantly forced into a reactive position when it comes to his sexual betrayals and, as you’ll see later, emotional manipulation. But rather than direct her anger at her shitty husband, Juno always seeks vengence against his victims.
These two are supposed to be the ruling king and queen of the heavens, but Ovid never shows a good thing coming from their relationship. All their marriage ever does is destroy the people with the misfortune of crossing its path.
I don’t think Ovid means to discount marriage in general by doing this. In that scan of the poem I mentioned earlier, I saw examples of stories depicting true, longlasting love. In fact, later on in the poem, Ovid goes to extremes in his sympathy for those infected with the love bug (in fact, too far1).
I think it’s power he has in his satirical sights, not love. His portrayal of Io and her father offers good evidence of this, though Inachus’ monologue after recognizing his daughter in her new form isn’t without it’s own problems. Is her inability to find a human husband and continue his lineage really the part of the predicament that upsets him the most? Isn’t the fact that she was raped and turned into a cow the more horrific aspect of this situation?
Despite this modern disgust with Inachus’ response, Ovid clearly wants his readers to feel for Io. She’s the true victim in this situation, with both Jupiter and Juno inflicting their damage on her. That’s a lot of metaphysical force for one woman to handle.
A little research revealed heifers to represent fertility, purity, and other virgin-like themes that we could’ve assumed. Does this story use those connotations or did it create them? Chicken or the egg? Who knows.
Narcissus in the mirror
If you’ve followed along at all, you might’ve noticed Ovid’s use of the segue. He always finds a way to weave one story into another. The tale of Echo and Narcissus is no different, so you have to start with the story that comes before it to get the full sense of its depth. Let me get into that first.
Teiresias is another one of those mythological characters that gets a raw deal. His story starts when he interrupts two snakes copulating with a blow from his staff. He suffers an inexplicable consequence to this action: he’s turned into a woman. But seven years later, Teiresias runs into these two horny snakes again and thinks, ‘if hitting them can change my sex once, than hitting them again should switch me back.’ Applying logic to an illogical situation doesn’t usually work, but in this case, it does. Convenient!
But wait: there’s more.
Years later, he’s called up to Mount Olympus to settle a marital dispute. Jupiter, “flush with nectar” as my translation puts it (eww) bets that women experience more pleasure during sex than men do2. His spurned wife Juno disagrees. The only person able to confirm one way or another happens to be Teiresias, who sides with the one holding the lightning bolts. Feeling scorned, Juno curses Teiresias with blindness. As compensation, Jupiter offers him the gift of clairvoyence.
This Teiresias is the guy who, when Narcissus’ mother asks if her newborn boy will live a long life, answers, “Yes—so long as he never knows himself.”
The rest of the tale might be more well known. Narcissus grows up to be a handsome, self-involved man, desired by men and women alike but too proud to accept love from any of them. One such admirer is Echo, a nymph of Jupiter’s, tasked with distracting Juno in conversation while Jupiter philanders, consent be damned. Once onto this Chatty Cathy’s tricks, Juno curses her, too, making her unable to say anything except for the last few words spoken to her. Hence our modern use of her name.
In love/obsessed with Narcissus, Echo finds him alone in the woods. She uses her repetitive ailment to try to talk to him, but when she’s inevitably rejected, she runs off and withers away in a cave, eventually dwindling to nothing but her feedback loop of a voice.
Narcissus continues his cocky, allusive lifestyle until another rejected admirer, an unnamed male this time, prays for Narcissus to get a taste of his own medicine. The god Nemesis complies. But in keeping with his nature, Narcissus doesn’t end up falling for one of his groupies. He falls for himself.
Here’s how: Narcissus finds himself at an unperturbed pool of water. One look at his own reflection, and he’s transfixed, unable to turn away as much as he’s unable to grasp his new object of affection. Like Echo (ah, the irony), he too withers away, chained to his obsession, until all that’s left is a single flower.
Turning the daffodil
Reading this in 2023, you can’t help but compare that glassy pool of water to the screens we stare at all day. It’s almost eerie, too, how Echo and Narcissus suffer similar consequences to ours—our mental health crises and eating disorders, our eventual conformity to the pressures we feel society putting on us as we scroll, till our individuality fades away like Echo and Narcissus’ bodies.
But awhile back, I was introduced to this story through a completely different reading. In archetypal psychologist Thomas Moore’s book Care of the Soul, he presents Narcissus’ story in a much less tragic light. Rather than see Narcissus’ transformation into the flower that still bears his name as a punishment or failing, Moore sees his gaze into the pool as a moment of self discovery.
Because he’s the son of a river god and a nymph, Narcissus has a watery nature, Moore says. He doesn’t embody this part of himself as he harshly repels others’ attempts to love him. It’s this part of his life where we actually see him being “narcissistic.” He loves himself at this point, too, but he doesn’t know himself. It’s a vapid love that rejects any kind of intimacy.
This line from Care of the Soul is the real kicker:
“In narcissism, we take away the soul’s substance, its weight and importance, and reduce it to an echo of our own thoughts.”
For Narcissus, the way out of this echo chamber is, paradoxically, through his own reflection. By returning to his source (water), he discovers is own image, and only this softens him. Alone in the woods, he turns to the trees—the only moment of his life where he reaches outside of himself for help or comfort—another sign that he is changing. In the end, what does this experience transform him into? A flower: flexible and with roots.
Moore makes another good point:
“Narcissus becomes able to love himself only when he learns to love that self as an object.”
Here’s the difference between narcissism and self reflection. The narcissist doesn’t value anything outside himself. The only way out of that hard shell is to identify with something outside of himself, to see himself in the world and at the same time recognize his own limits.
At the end, just before the metamorphosis occurs, Narcissus recognizes that he’s dying. “Oh marvellous boy,” he says of himself, “I loved you in vain.” You could read this as a failing to recognize his own reflection, or you could see it as a confession, a realization that his life of pride got him nowhere. Either way, the story offers a lot more than anticipated.
We have one week left before Monday Metamorphoses dissolves. The last excerpt will arrive on Monday, and we’ll talk about it on March 4 before moving on to other things.
I want to take a second and thank the few readers that opened these emails and read along. I know you were out there, and I don’t take you for granted. I hope you’ll stick around for the ideas I have in mind for Ponytail Press moving forward. One thing I plan to keep doing is asking questions. I really am interested in your answers.
Speaking of which:
What do you make of Jupiter and Juno, Io and Inachus? Is there a way around the horror?
What do you make of the two readings of Echo and Narcissus? Does it make you think differently about echoes? Narcissism? Daffodils?3
Will you be sad to see Monday Metamorphoses go?
What kind of writing would you like to see more of from Ponytail Press?
See the stories of Byblis and Myrrha, as well as the many times love and rape are disgustingly/conveniently linked.
Here’s that emotional manipulation I was talking about earlier.
For those of you who don’t know your flower names, “daffodil” is the common name for narcissus.