Explanation: Read after story

I found it interesting the way the Cupid and Psyche story was told by someone so as to make it a frame story. The old woman begins her tale in order to make the young captive woman more at ease in such a terrifying and strange world. She brought the girl back to herself through story. My story starts out the same. I even use the same words for the opening paragraph. I only changed a few of them to update it a bit. The story is also told from another’s perspective. Her name is Jess. She is the young assistant to the Venus character, Sateen. From her position she witnesses the whole affair.
I wanted to make it as believable as possible. I used technology as the force that drives the lovers apart instead of the candle wax. But the evil sisters remain the malignant catalyst that leads to Olette’s, the Psyche character, curiosity. However, I did let the sisters off easy. Their only punishment is they have to live with each other at the end of the story. There are references to other mythologies, as well as the same feeling of a rushed happily ever after ending. All that is past possesses the present.
So the story goes, the big and bad Sateen is getting left behind in the archives while Olette’s career is sky rocketing. She asks her son, Aaron, to destroy Olette’s reputation or at least her heart, much in the same way Venus orders Cupid to make Psyche fall in love with a loser. But when Aaron meets Olette for the first time, under disguise, he is instantly attracted to her and finds himself in quite a bind. His overbearing mother is out of the country at the time, so Aaron decides to date Olette under the alias Logan Hayfield. Just as the night covers Cupid’s appearance so does a fake beard and colored contacts work for Aaron. Another significant difference is the couple does not get married. Trying to keep up with the times, I have them in a committed relationship living together when the jealous sisters scheme to pry the couple apart.
Olette seeks Sateen’s help in contacting Aaron. This is the start to Olette’s tasks. Given the length of the paper, I skipped ahead to the last task. In order to receive Sateen’s help, Olette must pick up a box of beauty products from an apothecary in the Village. Again, the theme of “don’t look” is tossed out there. Olette retrieves the box, but her curiosity is too strong. So for some reason or another, just as Orpheus looks back at Eurydice, Olette peeks into the box. Olette passes out. Aaron saves her just as Cupid comes to Psyche’s rescue.
The big news comes at the end. Aaron must stop his trickster ways, much like Cupid, and focuses on writing greeting cards. Olette stops competing with Sateen by switching careers. The same thing happens in the story when Psyche becomes a goddess so that her mother-in-law can come to respect her. All literature is displaced myth. Our narrator keeps insisting that life isn’t a fairy tale and that elements from the past have no business in the present. But she’s just fooling herself. The present can’t help but replay the past. This is what I have come to learn in my Classical Foundations class.

More literary connections

If Lucius was alive today, one would think he was a pretty well read guy. Not only do I see allusions to Frankenstein, but also to Don Quixote. (I do know, however that the references are not in The Golden Ass, but in the literature titles I just mentioned as the fact remains that The Golden Ass precedes them by many centuries. Still we must remember that all that is past possess the present!) It's interesting to note that Sancho Panza rode a donkey and Lucius is turned into a donkey. (As is Bottom's head from a Midsummer Night's Dream, but that's another story.) But the most fascinating connection between the two literary masterpieces is the practice of the scapegoat. "As I walked hesitantly towards the bush, a young man who must have been the owner of the vegetable patch ran angrily at me with a big stick. He beat me so hard in revenge for the damage I had done that he might have killed me if I had not had the sense to defend myself by raising my rump and letting out with my hind legs" (76). Scenes such as these riddle the 940 page monstrosity that is Don Quixote. Every other chapter depicts the brutal beating of either Don Quixote, his squire, or both. Someone is always running at the pair with a big stick for some offense that Don Quixote unknowingly committed. And as the reader continues to read The Golden Ass, Lucius does not go unscathed and without many beatings. Vale.

Mysteries

Fotis speaks to Lucius: "You come from a noble family, and you have a noble soul, and you are already initiated into various religious mysteries" (63). This line caught my eye and immediately brought the Eleusinian Mysteries to mind. It was important to have some kind of lineage and a good family background to be the privileged few to witness such mysteries. Festivals that centered around rites and ceremonies within the community were revelries to certain gods, but certainly not private. What was so secret about that? I'm not sure what Fotis speaks about. She is trying to talk herself into telling Lucius the secret of her mistress, but the standards she sets are unfamiliar to me. I guess that's why they call them mysteries.

Playing with fire

Our dear friend Lucius knows how to get himself into trouble. He is drawn to the very thing that is the object of so many of his woes later down the road. "But I was naturally adventurous, and as soon as Byrrhaena mentioned the black art, which always held a peculiar attraction for me, so far from feeling inclined to be on my guard against Pamphile I had an irresistible impulse to study magic under her, however much money it might cost me, and take a running leap into the dark abyss (mis-en-abym) against which I had been warned. My mind had taken fire" (29). This reminds me of another character that dabbled in practices that should be better left alone. Victor Frankenstein anyone? "What had been the study and desire of the wisest men since the creation of the world was now within my grasp. Not that, like a magic scene, it all opened upon me at once: the information I had obtained was of a nature rather to direct my endeavours so soon as I should point them towards the object of my search than to exhibit that object already accomplished" (38). What is most interesting, besides the ominous presence of magic in both passages, is the commonality of such foolish obsessions with the unknown, and the result of following such an obsession. While Lucius's story seems to take a comic path, while Frankenstein's is destined for the dark shade of tragedy, both men must suffer tribulations before the last word is written.

Have you ever?

Have you ever wanted something so badly that you went against your parent's wishes and did it anyway? The need was just too great. Their cautionary words never even penetrated your reckless thoughts. Maybe it was a dare or a purchase that was really out of your price range. And so, with a last look at the parent's worried face, Phaeton sets out to ride his father's sun chariot. Oh, wait, did you think I was really talking about you? But it doesn't matter because the old mantra of class is 'all that is past possesses the present.' This is a story that you can find in any newspaper in the country. Headline: teenager crashes car, 1 fatality. It is tragedy. An entire family is shaken. Now in Phaeton's case, his actions affect more than his immediate family, but the sorrow and grief are still there. His sisters turn into popular trees out of their grief. No word on how the parents take it. But we know the earth cries out as Phaeton's burning cargo scorches her face. She pleads to let her death end quickly. That's in today's headlines as well - Global Warming. Okay that was a stretch, but you get the picture. Story is everywhere. In last semester's class with Prof. Sexson our theme was all 'literature is displaced myth.' I see it in all of life. Equally beautiful, equally tragic.

Notes for April 6th Test

From Ovid...
Acteon - stag
Arachne - spider
Tiresias - man to woman to man
Atalanta - lion
Myrrha - tree (which gave birth to Adonis)
Pentheus - boar
Adonis - windflower
Narcissus - narcissus flower
Midos - ass's ears
Niobe - weeping stone
Calisto - bear constellation
4 Ages - Gold, Silver, Brass, Iron

1. flyting? - colorful verbal argument
2. Tally? broken coin from Plato's symposium and Aristophanes
3. Know story of Echo
4. What two characters models for Romeo & Juliet? - Pyramus & Thisbe
5. Name three symposium characters and their speeches on love.
6. Tragedy - goat song, comedy - revel song
7. metempsychosis? - transmigration of souls
8. catharsis? - purging of emotions (specifically pity and fear)
9. According to Trojan Women what is the worst? - sacrifice of a child
10. obscene? off stage
11. New comedy vs. Old comedy - marriage, feast, dancing
12. Animnesis? - Plato's theory of forgotten knowledge
13. According to Prof. Sexson reincarnation thought of as metaphor or poetic thought
14. What gift did Paris choose among those the goddesses offered? Helen/most beautiful
15. What character symbolizes reconciliation in Lysistrata? naked woman
16. Diff. between Sophocles and Euripides tragedy? formal truth vs. emotional truth
17. tragedy deals with individual, comedy centered around society/community
18. parabasis? - abuse of audience
19. What was the captured women's fate after a lost war? - slave or concubine
20. phallocentrism? domination of a culture by male point of view
21. Aristotle saw tragedy as perfect form of literature (not too short, not too long)
22. Plato - beauty - shoulder blade itches - wings
23. nostos? homecoming
24. once something said, can not be taken back (note gods and Tiresias story)

Ovid's Metaphors

"As he saw the sisters running./Now his bellow/Was as homicidal/ As it was anguished./ He came after them and they/ Who had been running seemed to be flying./ And suddenly they were flying." pg 228

It is important to note the metamorphosis, even when it is in the language. - when a simile becomes a metaphor. But why is this important? It is commonly known that a metaphor is more powerful. It makes a statement. It is the beautiful elegant sister compared to poor simile. Simile, the younger sister always living in metaphor's shadow. When Ovid transitions from simile to metaphor, he is constructing his world out of valuable material.

I found a passage out of Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being that was quite meaningful. "Tomas did not realize at the time that metaphors are dangerous. Metaphors are not to be trifled with. A single metaphor can give birth to love." pg 11

I liked this idea that metaphors give birth because that means they are life giving. Similes are restrained to the words like or as. But metaphors are bound by no two words. A metaphor can change one thing into another. The metaphor is at the heart of Ovid's Metamorphosis. It is the very thing that makes such remarkable transformations possible. That is why it is so vitally important.