Pirithous, Theseus, and that Ill-advised Trip to the Underworld (II)

Theseus merely went after a demigod when he abducted Helen, and while I won't say he didn't suffer for his share of the unfortunate agreement he made with Pirithous, he certainly did not suffer for it to the same extent that Pirithous did. It's said, however, that Pirithous went after Persephone because Zeus SENT him, for the sole purpose of seeing him punished.

When Jove saw that they had such audacity as to expose themselves to danger [kidnapping Helen], he bade them in a dream both go and ask Pluto on Pirithous’ part for Proserpine in marriage (Hyginus, Fabulae, 79).

another shot of Ceres/Demeter

So it wasn't even the pact to marry daughters of Zeus that provoked the gods, so much as how they went about kidnapping Helen herself. This isn't, like with Paris, an example of violating the laws of hospitality, though. It's their nerve which offends Zeus, their needless risk-taking -- and that sounds a lot more like Hubris, to me. Or like a father whose given up on bailing out his sons when they insist on going out and causing their own trouble.

Regardless, I have to wonder: would Pirithous have thought to abduct Persephone if it hadn't been for Zeus's influence and irritation with the pair of them? Granted, there aren't a lot of other daughters of Zeus for him to claim who aren't goddesses (according to Theoi, he only has two: Helen and Herophile of Libya), but might he have been more inclined to go on some less hazardous adventure elsewhere to find one?

Now, Hyginus also says that Heracles pulls them both back out of the underworld, but Apollodorus says otherwise in The Libraries:

And being come near to the gates of Hades he found Theseus and Pirithous, him who wooed Persephone in wedlock and was therefore bound fast. And when they beheld Hercules, they stretched out their hands as if they should be raised from the dead by his might. And Theseus, indeed, he took by the hand and raised up, but when he would have brought up Pirithous, the earth quaked and he let go.

Pirithous being Pirithous, I'm not sure it would surprise me all that much if he got it into his own head that Persephone wanted him, and it would be a good idea to go steal her, for which he would then deserve the punishment of being trapped in Hades for eternity. But if he only went after Persephone because of Zeus? Well, that changes things. Why shouldn't Pirithous follow the direction of the King of the Gods, with all hope of success in his venture? With Zeus' blessing, how could he fail?

It isn't all that different from Paris' motivations in stealing Helen, much later. Not that his excursion worked out any better, really. But it certainly changes things, either way. In this instance, even if Pirithous might have had the gall to go after Persephone on his own, would Theseus have had the audacity to go with him? Would he have leant his support to such a venture, pact or not? Would they have turned around and come home, halfway there?

Theseus might have returned before Helen's brothers arrived to steal her back, preserved his throne and his kingship, and Pirithous might have not spent the rest of eternity in the chair of forgetfulness. Perhaps they both would have gone on to Troy, forming a trio of cronies with Nestor, and lived or died there instead.

How many sins did the gods first impose upon their heroes, just for the excuse of punishing them? And was Pirithous a victim of his own Hubris, or the gods' desire to remind him just WHO exactly was boss? But one thing I don't wonder about when I read these stories is this: the gods matter to the outcomes, and neither the characters nor the stories themselves are the same when you strip them out.

Pirithous, Theseus, and that Ill-advised Trip to the Underworld (I)

Ceres/Demeter searching for Persephone

The story goes that Pirithous and Theseus made a pact that they should both marry daughters of Zeus, because they were demigods and as such deserving of marriage to women of divine lineage. Leaving aside the fact that a daughter of Zeus would also be Pirithous' half-sister and the marriage slightly incestuous, a demigod deciding he deserves some kind of honor or another for himself is never really a good idea. Hubris is never, ever, ever a recipe for success for any demigod or mortal. The gods just do not put up with it.

BUT, I can certainly see the appeal a demigod daughter of Zeus might have had for Pirithous and Theseus, both of whom suffered from a certain amount of bad luck when it came to their wives. Pirithous's wife, Hippodamia was assaulted during their wedding feast; and Theseus' lost his Amazon Queen, Antiope, to the war with the amazons, and his second wife, Phaedra to the curse of the gods, after she fell in love with his son, Hippolytus, accused him of raping her (which resulted in *his* death) and then killed herself. I could see Theseus and Pirithous both feeling that they'd like a wife who was a little bit more hardy -- of stronger stock, so to speak.

Just making off with Helen wasn't really such a terrible thing for the times. Abducting women was a pretty normal activity for demigods, and provided they didn't break the laws of hospitality by doing so, didn't normally result in any extreme consequences. At the time of her abduction by Theseus, Helen was still unpromised, and we know that even stealing wives isn't unheard of or unsurprising, because later on, Helen was so desired, that her suitors were required to swear an oath not to kill the man who won her, or steal her from her rightful husband after the fact. Raiding was an accepted part of life, be it for gold, goods, food, cattle, or women. And of course we can't forget that Hades himself carried Persephone off to the Underworld to be his bride in the first place, which resulted in Persephone spending 6 months in Hades, and Demeter's joy which results in the shift in season to spring when Persephone returns to the world and her mother's arms again. (To say nothing of Zeus and Poseidon's myriad woman-stealing adventures.)

A demigod stealing a demigod or a normal woman isn't news, just as a god stealing a woman isn't anything shocking, but when Theseus and Pirithous traveled to the Underworld for Persephone, they seem to have crossed the line. Not only were they stealing a goddess, they were stealing the consort of a god, and as we all know, those gods? They weren't all that forgiving.

It seems simple, then. A clear-cut case of a demigod overreaching -- of Hubris, even.

But the sources don't all agree and next week, we'll touch on why.

The Sins of Paris

Paris (from wiki commons)

And so Theseus rightly felt love’s flame, for he was acquaint with all your charms, and you seemed fit spoil for the great hero to steal away, [...] His stealing you away, I commend; my marvel is that he ever gave you back. So fine a spoil should have been kept with constancy. Sooner would this head have left my bloody neck that you have been dragged from marriage-chamber of mine. One like you, would ever these hands of mine be willing to let go? One like you, would I, alive, allow to leave my embrace? If you must needs have been rendered up, I should first at least have taken some pledge from you; my love for you would not have been wholly for naught. Either your virgin flower I should have plucked, or taken what could be stolen without hurt to your virgin state.

So Paris writes to Helen in the Heroides, by Ovid.

But here's the thing about Paris. Pop-culture always tries to make him into some kind of coward, probably because he steals another man's wife, certainly because of the passage in The Iliad where he challenges Menelaus and then Aphrodite whisks him off before he can see it through to the finish, and Helen herself expresses disgust for his heroic character, or lackthereof, and those readers who are paying attention will point out in their arguments that Paris' weapon of choice is the bow and arrow, the "weapon of cowards."

The truth is, though, that Paris doesn't do anything other heroes haven't done. Maybe Paris isn't a Theseus, but Ovid certainly shows us an Odysseus-like schemer. charismatic and brilliant, charming and wily. And it makes sense -- it takes an incredible amount of self-confidence and cunning to show up as a guest in another man's house and devise a plan to seduce said man's wife underneath the nose of his host with the sole purpose of stealing her. It takes nerve to challenge that man later on the field of battle, knowing his reputation as a warrior. And as for the bow and arrow, Heracles was known for employing one, too, and I don't know anyone who would consider him a coward.

What gets Paris into trouble is only the context of his actions. There's the oath of Helen's suitors, of course, where they all have sworn to protect Menelaus' possession of Helen, but even so, Paris' greatest and only real sin is breaking Xenia: the sacred laws of hospitality.

In the Heroides, Paris says:

My passion for you I have brought; I did not find it here. It is that which was the cause of so long a voyage, for neither gloomy storm has driven me hither, nor a wandering course; [...] It is you I come for – you, whom golden Venus has promised for my bed; you were my heart’s desire before you were known to me. I beheld your features with my soul ere I saw them with my eyes; rumour, that told me of you, was the first to deal my wound.

And then, later:

And do not fear lest, if you are stolen away, fierce wars will follow after us, and mighty Greece will rouse her strength. Of so many who have been taken away before, tell me, has any one ever been sought back by arms? Believe me, that fear of yours is vain. In the name of Aquilo the Thracians took captive Erechtheus’ child, and the Bistonian shore was safe from war; Pegasaean Jason in his new craft carried away the Phasian maid, and the land of Thessaly was never harmed by Colchian band. Theseus, too, he who stole you, stole Minos’ daughter; yet Minos called the Cretans ne’er to arms. The terror in things like these is wont to be greater than the danger itself, and where ‘tis our humour to fear, we shame to have feared too much.

Had Paris arrived in Sparta with a raiding party and made off with Helen in the night, it would have been just another day in the bronze age -- but because he stole her away AFTER he had accepted guest-friendship with Menelaus (falsely, I might add, because he knew why he was there from the start!), he had committed a grave, grave sin which would, without question, incite the wrath of the gods. In fact, if Paris had stolen her away in a raid, it's possible that the oath wouldn't have been enough to bind the suitors to his cause at all. Paris is an outside party, and the fact that Menelaus would not have been able to defend what was rightfully his in battle, his own wife and kingdom, no less, would almost certainly have shamed him, even if he'd known exactly who had taken Helen and where to wage a war to get her back, which would probably have been less likely in a raid-scenario.

The fact of the matter is, stealing Helen wasn't Paris' greatest crime, and it certainly wasn't the act which ruined his reputation. And Paris? He wasn't a coward. He just thought that because Aphrodite had given him the nod, he was within his rights to ignore sacred law to take what he believed was rightfully his.

That just sounds like regular old Hubris to me.

Same old, same old.