RE-AIR: Conversations: Charybdis, a Gaping, Hungry Hole; Fear of the Monstrous Woman w/ Cosi Carnegie
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Arguably, not arguably, definitely, absolutely the raciest episode I've ever recorded. And oh, what a joy.

It was. Today, I am joined by my friend, and I would like to clarify that we are friends. I did not inflict this upon a stranger. Kossi Carnegie. Kossi is a master's student at Cambridge and generally just an incredibly fun person. Being Australian helps, but it is also just Kossi.

who joined me to talk, oh my gosh, everything? Boob cups were the beginning and originally were supposed to make it into the episode title until we got to the concept of charybdis just being a gaping and hungry hole. Spoilers for some of the best parts of the episode. Oh my god, we had so much fun talking about the ways in which ancient male fear exists

manifested in how they spoke about and visualized and generally understood women. From things like the fear of paternity, like what it meant that women could hide who the father of a child was, oh, the horror stories.

All the way to Scylla and Cryptis. I mean, I've always been interested in them as women, but it had escaped me just how sexualized they are. Apparently, I need to be looking at everything with a slightly hornier eye. I have learned my lesson. Which is all to say, this episode has a lot of sexual content. For once, we don't talk about assault, I don't think.

So that's something. Basically, the ancient Greeks were super horny and simultaneously super afraid of the power that women held. Just biologically. You know, the power of the uterus, I should say. They were really afraid.

That thing. This was such a joy of an episode. If you can't already tell, I just re-listened to it again and we had such a great time. That said, I wish I'd let Kasi talk a little bit more, but

I was going through some stuff and this is how I handled it apparently as ADHD went wild. I also just want to add a couple of clarifications for things that come up in this episode. First, I did mention the Medusa book that I am working on and I said that it the call for short stories is still open. I don't believe that's true. But if you're interested in this Medusa book that is in the works by me and the reason I've been

having my brain explode even more than usual lately um and also is featuring a ton of short stories uh you can check that out it's on flame tree press uh it's still a ways out but i think you can look into it if you are at all curious i also want speaking of medusa to add a clarification uh there is a point where i talk about my least favorite greek myth retelling books uh

Like one of those anthology compendiums of like all quote unquote Greek myths. And the author says some really dumb stuff about Medusa that remains dumb and super patriarchal and super misogynist. But one thing that both Kosti and I thought was like completely made up technically is not. There is a reference here.

in Pseudo-Apollodorus. It's like this fucking final sentence. Literally, it's like the entire story of Medusa and it's like all of what we think and know, the normal stuff. And then the very end, he's like, you know, some people say that actually she said she was prettier than Athena and that's why she was cursed. And like, that's literally the whole of it. So it is still absurd to write that additional sentence into the actual plot structure of the Medusa myth. That is...

still absurd and contextually wrong and egregious, but it isn't technically coming out of nowhere. And on that note, let's just dive right in to the horniest episode of this podcast. Just in time to finish off Women's History Month, we are looking at the threat of a horny woman. Conversations, charybdis, a gaping hungry hole, fearing the monstrous woman with Kosti Carnegie,

Do you need me to do like an intro or are you just gonna like intro me in the recording and be like this is Cozzy she's Australian and swears a lot welcome to the fucking show I might cut that out and put it somewhere we we talked in Athens we met for the first time that was so fun uh even though we've known each other for like probably five or six years

oh my god what do you say oh my god i found i found one of the mugs or you sent me one mug i guess i forgot i even had it i like was going through my cupboards the other day and i pulled it down i was like oh this is so cute and it just it's like some goddess on the front and then it just says cozy's odyssey on the back but it was very cute i was like that was fucking years ago you would have sent me that one that was no that was the hestia mug that was three years ago yes that was three years ago that's insane i love it yeah

And then I still have like the little branded condoms that like sometimes just like pop up somewhere in my apartment because I'm just like, you've sent me enough that I've just kind of like snatched those places. People just send me unsolicited photos of the condoms in their hands, just in my DMs. I'm like, happy for you. Stay safe out there. Woo. I mean, I think that's the perfect introduction to generally having you on the show.

Though, of course, today's episode isn't about Cotabos. We'll leave that as just a little Easter egg for future episodes.

Oh, yes, please. Yes, please. But like, I feel like we were just sitting at dinner and I was like, you should come on my show. What could we talk about? And then you told me a whole thing that frankly, I've forgotten most of, but I just remember thinking I would like to talk to you about this on the show and I could fit it into Women's History Month. And that is the extent of my memory on the topic. But like, have you written something recently? I know it was sexy. Do you remember? Yeah.

This is a very casual conversation. I'm keeping all of this in. Okay, thank God. I do remember we were talking about what I wanted to write my thesis on and hopefully my PhD on. And so what I was blathering onto you about was the connection between

between the female body and drinking vessels and particularly like the way that they facilitate not only containment but also consumption and how there's a sort of connection between the female body's ability to disrupt boundaries and kind of mess with everything and that there's a sort of kind of appetite associated with the female body and

that can be kind of seen in the visual imagery and the vessels themselves. I think that is what got you excited. Heck yes. And...

So it was, I mean, this was off mic, I think, but I'm just going to point out that it was particularly relevant that I just showed you my little Cantharos that sits behind me while I record and which shows Cersei having transformed a man into a pig and he's like holding a cup, just waiting for more. And now it feels even more relevant. It's absolutely relevant. And I think what I wanted to talk to you about was, have you heard of Mastoy cups? Yes.

No, but based on the word, I've got an inkling and I would love to hear more. I love etymology. I feel like I can pick stuff out. I'm ready to be right. You know what's going on. So it is exactly what you think it is. It is this breast-shaped cup that they used to drink from. And it had a nipple on the bottom. Just a boob cup.

Just a boob cup. I don't know if the term boob cup has made it into scholarly journals, but if it hasn't, it should. Well, it's going to be in the episode's title, so we'll get it started. Okay, boob cups. So they were these sort of incredible things that they would hold them in their hands and they would drink from them. And I mean, whether you want to think of it as like a very kind of erotic thing

suggestive sensual thing or if it's just like calling dr freud i don't know which way you want to slice it i i'm not presuming to you know i'm not judging anyone i'm not what's that horrible phrase i'm not yucking anyone's yum but it's like i again i feel like i can't not address that just like a tiny bit yeah yeah yeah

Okay, I'm trying to picture it. So is it kind of like a right on in that you think you look at it and you think like, how would you set this down and have it not spill? Because now I'm thinking of like a nipple on the bottom of a cup just feels incredibly impractical for like...

I don't think this is gravity, but I don't do science. But you know what I mean? Sitting something down on the surface when it has a nipple on the bottom just feels like it's going to be a little unsteady, which reminds me of like, you know, when they drink out of like a goat's head in a red ton or something. And you're like, how do you set that down? Do you have to chug it all at once? What do you do?

I think, so just visually, it's similar to a skifos, and I don't know if you can add some images to this episode, but it's sort of this sort of size, and it does, you know, exactly as you were saying, have that sort of weird nippled bottom, which does make it really impractical, but...

Also, some kylixes had nippled bottoms. There's a whole thing with ancient drinking vessels where they would give them kind of body parts. So vases would have feet and lips and faces. They were very into the whole, the vase has a body thing.

but with the Mastoy cups and other cups where you couldn't really put them down, that sort of played into the drinking party or the symposium. So it was all part of the theater of it all and the kind of challenge of masculinity. And exactly as you said, would you have to chug the whole thing? I mean, probably. Yeah. Like realistically. Just practically speaking. Yeah. Yeah. Like where are you? Do you nestle it in some dirt in the Androm maybe? Yeah.

Are they keeping dirt in their androns? I cut you off from saying do you nestle it in another person. I mean, I don't presume. We know they all...

Got up to all kinds of shenanigans at the symposium, so God knows what they were capable of when it came to their drinking vessels. We have some harrowing visual images of Satyrs doing unspeakable things to cups and jars. Well, Satyrs, I mean. It's not out of the realm. Yeah, I know. Satyrs, what are you going to do? But it's not outside the realm of possibility. Yeah.

Yes, everyone listening at home, please Google Nastoy Cups. Yes. Oh, my God. Well, when we have a promo for this, Michaela will certainly find pictures. I know that by this point she will have already searched and found them. But, like, I mean, that's a joy. I love the drinking tradition, but I also am so fascinated by, like, these connections between,

With women in such like powerful ways, but then simultaneously and like, I don't know, you know, location wise, but I imagine so much of what we come from, what we have comes from Athens that like, so they're just like doing all these things kind of in seeming reverence to women. But then they're also like, you don't get to be people, though.

I think, I mean, I completely agree in that there are so many different ways to look at it, right? And you can look at it as a beautiful way of like enshrining the female body and worshipping the female body. But also if you flip that, isn't it just the most absurd form of objectification? Yeah.

Trust me, I want to believe that it was all this, oh, she's on a pedestal, she's on a pot, but it's like, no, you are not only an object in this way, we will drink wine from you. Welcome to ancient Greece. Yeah.

It's like doing a shot where like out of a belly button, but like ancient Greek style. Yeah, but worse and more extreme. Yeah, because also like if we're talking symposia, then there would be minimal to no women involved who weren't, you know, sex workers in some way.

So, like, and, you know, I mean, Hatera, I think, get a bad rap, but, like, are very fucking fancy, well-off ladies who, you know, just were companions for gifts. And, like, I think nothing wrong with that in a world like Athens. I feel like it's probably the only way I would want to live.

quite frankly. I would prefer to be at those parties rather than stuck at home. Yeah, exactly. Like I feel like if I had to pick a life, particularly specifically in ancient Athens, like a hundred percent, I want to be a Franny. I don't want to be just like a lady in the house, you know? A Franny would be, Oh, right. That would be a moment. That would be a moment. I'm not saying it's without complexes, but it would be. No, no, of course. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, ancient Greece, if anything, is complex as all shit. And sometimes we have to just find little joy in pretending that things can be simple and not quite so awful. Yes. Yes. We can just rose-colored glasses the whole situation. Exactly. Yeah.

So, okay, like, other than the boob cups, like, what have you looked at in terms of, like, women's bodies and drinking or, like, I mean, I just, I love this idea so much. I'm also not going to pretend I'm not getting ideas for my novel.

I know that makes me so happy. I mean, I think what sort of got me thinking about this was looking at all of the myths and the imagery that depicts female monstrosity and then, right, and then coupling those with all of the very, very explicit images we have of hetero in wild, wild,

unfathomable, seemingly physically impossible orgies and sexual situations from the symposium. And then I was sort of looking at those two sets of images and it got me thinking that there might actually be something similar happening

happening here and then I wondered what that was because the female monstrosity stuff has been looked at a lot you know we're talking about Medusa we're talking about Scylla and Charybdis we're talking about the Sphinx you know that's all sort of quite familiar stuff but then when it comes to scholarship oddly enough the fantasy professors haven't been rushing to look at the porn there's not just I know I know knock me down with a feather um and so

In looking at those two sets of images, I was trying to figure out, you know, what they might be telling us about the ancient sort of imaginary when it came to

the woman and the female body. And so then I was, I started thinking about appetites and sexual appetites and thirst and then actual physical hunger. So if you compare the sort of hyper-sexualized depictions of the hetero with Charybdis, the gaping forever hungry whirlpool. I've never thought of Charybdis this way.

She's my favorite. I think about her way too much. Me too. I actually wrote about her for a thing that I don't think is beneficially announced. I don't say it, but I got to write about her a little bit.

Like I was given a list and just like asked to pick and I was like fucking co-ribbed this, even though I was like, I don't know how I'm going to, you know, like there's not a lot to say. And now I realize I miss saying that, which was good. This is for kids, I think. Yeah, leave that one out. Yeah, but I love her. Like I think that she really is so interesting and

In that way of like, she is like nothing, but also fascinating. And also like a she, despite the fact that she is a gaping hungry hole, which now I'm thinking a lot more about. Like she's feminized. And then it's so, there are so many connections here where like,

the feeling of arousal and kind of erotic emotion is so closely associated with liquidity and Coryddis is in the ocean, right? And then you have Scylla who has dogs coming out of her waist. Women were called bitches a lot.

In ancient Greece, and that was associated with their, like, hypersexuality and their sexual appetite. So it's like, you have these two female monsters that men have to travel through, and they both have these kind of erotic, hungry, monstrous aspects. It's just, oh, blows my mind.

I yeah I love that I just so much um you've forever changed my two of my favorite monsters um because I don't really count them as a monster absolutely in a good way like I just think skill and cryptus are so interesting generally with that even without that that now I'm like oh I'm obsessed with you guys yeah because I also think

They're I mean, me too. Like they've always been my favorite because they're just like this fun little duo where you like always have to it's always Scylla and Charybdis. And Charybdis has always just been fascinating to me because it's just a fucking gaping whirlpool. But now, oh, now I have so many more thoughts.

I think in the Odyssey in a day, I literally call them like a toxic pair of female friends. Like teamwork makes the dream work. That's literally them. No, 100%. They work together to kill everyone. And I love it for them. And they're horny and they're scary. Yeah. And I love it. I never thought of them as horny and now I'll never forget it. And I...

I just think, yeah, they are so much more interesting. I think it's just when you read, I think it's Aeschylus who is talking about Clytemnestra or it's maybe Homer talking about Helen, but calling them dogface or bitches as like a clear reference. I think it's in Emily Wilson's introduction to The Odyssey where it's a clear, clear reference.

pulling on their sexuality as part of, you know, saying horrible things about them. And so then if you look at Skiller, it's like, ooh, what's all this then? Yeah. Okay. Now I need, I just want to know about all the horny women that I've never seen as horny because I've just been reading the wrong shit. Like...

yeah I I feel like you need some time to process you're like truly this happens a lot but it's rarely about something quite so joyfully weird um

So I'm working on writing. I forget when it's coming out, but there is a call out for short stories about or featuring Medusa, like of any kind, just fiction generally. It's by Flametree Press. You can go look for it if you want to submit anything. But I am writing the...

I forget what we're calling it, but it's kind of an introduction. It's almost 30,000 words, so it's going to be a good long introduction about Medusa as a character and her cultural history. Wow. Yeah, and I was thrilled to be asked to write it, not least because it means that my name is associated with Medusa in any kind of way. But I've been, at this point, just doing some really...

surface level looks into... Like, I obviously know the ancient sources pretty front and back when it comes to Medusa, but I don't have as great a grasp on, like, her, you know, over the last thousand years, say. And so I was, like, looking for more kind of contemporary understanding of her, and I found this video...

on YouTube by the History Channel. And it is terrifyingly hot garbage, like just incredibly wild. Like, you know, it's most egregious thing is just the conflation of Ovid with Greek myth and this like the thing that people love to do of like telling a story that only Ovid knows.

is evidenced for writing about and pretending like that's the greek myth and so there's all this talk of greek myth greek myth greek myth and then it's literally all the stuff that is exclusive to ovid and like there's nothing wrong with ovid as a source but it is you know cut and dry not greek myth we don't have any evidence that like parts of that story you know actually appeared in greek myth blah blah blah but like you know they also had all these like male talking heads

And one woman. Oh, well, a couple of women. So that, yeah, there are these all male talking heads who are just like going off.

about medusa and saying these things that just sound like freud like like they they sound like really freud's interpretation of medusa this idea that she was this you know this feared monster where you know men fear like a powerful woman i'm trying to remember all what it was i just i just remember being like shocked that it was like such psychologizing um for a character like medusa who like

objectively, and this is why I'm bringing it up because I'm so curious for thoughts, but like to me, the ancient Greek sources as we have them, and I would say like the visual representations as well, do not give us any indication that Medusa was like a creature that was actively feared by men. Like,

You know, in Hesiod, she's literally said to be like just, you know, the only mortal Gorgon. She suffered a woeful fate is the translation that I have completely memorized. And then, and, you know, Perseus killed her. But there's literally nothing about her being dangerous, causing any damage, even being monstrous or like literally really any details about her. And if you go through the surviving Greek sources, like there's really nothing in terms of

of her being a danger to anyone. Like the entirety of the story is that Perseus needed to bring back her head because, you know, Polydectes wanted him dead. And so it was like, go get me Medusa's head as a gift. And he just figured it would kill Perseus. Like that's the whole of it. It's not like, you know, like a lot of times,

people will talk about medusa and they'll be like well she you know was terrorizing the lands and so like she needed to die and i'm like there's literally not a single line in a surviving greek source that says she did any damage whatsoever like while her head was on her body like sure he used it as a weapon like that's not on her i don't know what people are you know it's just fascinating to me um but these these men talking about it who were scholars were like

They were definitely putting their own anxieties about women, like into this history channel piece about Medusa. Cause I was like, as somebody who knows the ancient sources, like absolutely not. Not to mention that a Gorgon was then used as a protective, like it's anthropic. Yeah. Well, that was exactly, I think.

Two points to what you're saying. And the first thing I think that complicates exactly what you're saying about the written sources is it was, you know, the Sybil, the Gorgonion, you know, it was a potropaic and it was protective.

And, and it's so difficult to trace back, like how exactly that visual would have functioned because it was frightening. It was supposed to be frightening. It's on Athena's shield. It was supposed to be scary. Yeah. You know, like that much we know that much is, you know, a part of it. So it's,

And then if we go into kind of the psychobabble world, which I personally love. So it's the Greeks taking something frightening and something scary and something that is feminine and feminized and putting it on their houses, on some of their drinking wear and kind of inviting a part of it in as a way of protecting themselves. So it's, it's a very complicated thing. I think anything that just says, well,

she was just a monster and that's that it's it's so one-dimensional yeah well and i'm really fascinated by the idea that like for all we have like everything you're saying about the gorgonion i never know how quite to pronounce it but like you know on the shield on the aegis like

Definitely meant to be scary like all those Gorgon faces with the tusks and the tongue out and the big eyes and all of this like you know absolutely meant to be scary and all of this and you know in addition to what you're saying about apotropaic but like.

for the most part, when it comes to those types of representations, like where it is explicitly a Gorgon, it's often not like, like obviously the shield has this kind of mythological backstory of being Medusa's head, you know, once off her body, but outside of the shield, like it is. And even like in Homer versus Hesiod, the shield is just a Gorgon. It's just a Gorgon, like the actual connection between,

to that scary gorgon face being medusa is not as explicit as people want it to be and we also have like lots of pieces of pottery where she is depicted as incredibly human with like little bits of of like divinity like the snakes for hair or wings but she like is otherwise completely anthropomorphic and i think the same for like the furies are like that too where they're like

terrifying but like if you actually see representation of them they're just nice ladies with snakes in their hair and on their arms like

You know, and maybe it's just the nature of like Greek art and stuff, but it is always fascinating to me that very, very often if a character on a piece of pottery is labeled as Medusa versus a Gorgon, she actually looks incredibly sympathetic from what I've seen. And like often considerably less scary than this concept of a Gorgon, which is so explicitly tied to both the just like a Gorgon and also her after character.

her head was removed from her body. And I think that that just opens up so many interesting questions about like what they could have seen her when she was alive, because we have almost nothing about that. I don't know. I'm obsessed with Medusa. I mean, she's incredible, but I think I have to confess some of my cynicism here when it comes to the sort of

more anthropomorphic depictions of her and there's that tiny little voice in my brain that's just like sexualizing monsters and like sexualizing women you know where it's like

like shifting the form from a kind of monstrous head or a monstrous body and turning it into something you can fuck, into something that you want to fuck. And, you know, the complexities of wanting to fuck a monster and there's all these horrible jokes about, oh yeah, Medusa will get you rock hard, all of that, blah, blah, blah. But, you know, the gaze of Medusa was supposed to be arresting. And so presenting that kind of visual test

where it's like, can you still pursue her? Can you still be attracted to her? Even when you're faced with the power of her gaze to, you know, stop you right where you're standing. So, I mean, I, I, I would love to have the generosity and the like open mind to be like, ah, yes, maybe it wasn't all horrible, but just like her having like a tight little body. I'm like, oh, poor Medusa. I like, I don't know.

It's just me being cynical. No, no. I think that's like, that's incredibly relevant.

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BetterHelp Online Therapy bought this 30-second ad to remind you right now, wherever you are, to unclench your jaw, relax your shoulders, take a deep breath in and out.

Feels better, right? That's 15 seconds of self-care. Imagine what you could do with more. Visit betterhelp.com slash random podcast for 10% off your first month of therapy. No pressure, just help. But for now, just relax. I think for me, like I get, I definitely, and I'm trying to

remember this when I'm writing this piece like I definitely do get too caught up in the textual sources because I'm also interested in the fact that the textual sources for the most part in terms of like the most ancient of like Greek ones don't actually describe her as anything they don't often even like use a word that that like suggests monstrosity like she's quite sympathetic particularly in Hesiod which is like funny because Hesiod's like a pretty objectively shitty guy but

Not a guy, but in terms of the poetry that we attribute to Hesiod. But like he literally is just like

She was the only mortal Gorgon. She suffered a woeful fate after Poseidon, like, quote-unquote, lay with her. But, like, it's a word that is rarely used for consensual sex. And then Perseus killed her. And, you know, and then she birthed children. And that's, like, basically it in terms of Hesiod. Like, the only thing he says is that the Gorgons were daughters of Forcus and Keto and that she was a mortal one. But, like, yeah, it's just interesting to me that there is also not, like, in the text sources that I'm, you know, most familiar with, there's not, like,

a suggestion that she should ever have been feared or, or like really even like a, a, an acknowledgement that her gaze was stony when her head was on her body, which I'm also just fascinated by. Like, and I think that it's just like a nature of like interpretation of like a broader thing, which is also what you're doing versus like, yeah, staying maybe two in the weeds in, in the tech sources that do survive. But I think there's something in between, you know, like,

I don't know. I think that she's just so... She's just so interesting because she has... Like, all these questions get opened up and she is so kind of complex and weird and...

And yeah, like I won't make this all about Medusa, even though I mean, we, because I want to, I want to broaden it out even more and then we can move on to something that's not Medusa. But I think, I mean, and this is where I, you know, I wish I knew more and I, I would, you know, really like to know more, but I mean, have you thought much about whether she's a sort of amalgam or reinterpretation of a Near Eastern woman?

or goddess or something like that. I mean, that, because that might help explain some of the, not like conflicting, but you know, we have the visual representations of her. We have her in the text. We have all these sort of different themes and different understandings of her that we're trying to understand at the same time. So like, where are the kind of roots of,

of her and her characterization because I mean the Greeks I'm not sure how much they invented completely off the bat themselves I don't think it would be the biggest reach that they were like no no but let's like add a little bit of pepper and salt on top and then call it ours I mean that that's absolutely what they did for most things let's be honest um and I think like I'm definitely gonna look into that because I could see that being

Like maybe the visuals. And I say that. That's exactly what I was thinking. Yeah. Like I could see it being the visual aspects because she also, the one of the only things that we do know about her is that she lived in the West, which they do tend to give associations like,

like often if, if, you know, if something is aware, a text, a source is aware of, of Eastern origins, like, or has like some kind of particular connection, like they'll often place them in that area. Like I think of, you know, like I just yesterday recorded just a straight reading of, of book two of Mrs. Roman, but Quintus of Smyrna's fall of Troy. And, and,

you know, it's all about Memnon, who's the king of the Ethiopians, and he's a child of Don. And so, like, he literally comes from, like, where Don kind of, they figured Don kind of, like, hung out. And it's, you know, like, Medea is the daughter of the sun, and so she is in the east where the sun comes up. And so it's interesting to me that, like, that Medusa is in the west, because she, like, is kind of explicitly near the Hesperides. So she is

Yeah, she's much more explicitly in the West, which I think Memnon, yeah, like they've got him kind of in like West Africa as well for that same reason. So yeah, I almost wonder maybe there's like a West African connection then too. And then maybe we have that kind of association with that location. I'm going to do some digging. That's fascinating. Please do. It was just something that came up in my mind. I was like, there's something here that I think would make it all make more sense. Well, I'm using this conversation to help me try to write this piece because I'm hitting a wall. So thanks all around us.

But I want to hear more about Monstrous Women and also Fuckable Women and the convergence of the two. It's a big topic. And I would recommend... Have you read... I think it's Anne Carson's Woman Dirt Desire? No, I haven't. But I'm going to find that chapter. Thank you. Now I'm obsessed with it. And that's what's going to stay in as a response to Have You Read It? Yeah, no. I mean, I've just never... It's weird. I've never...

I think it's just like access, right? Like I think because I am not in the realm of academia, all of my access to these ideas that are beyond like just the words on the page tend to come from just like what I encounter, like talking to you or talking to anyone else. And I don't, I think I am a little, I mean, I know that I am generally like a little too in the weeds with the ancient sources sometimes because I do, I'm so interested in them as these things that survive and like,

What they say, you know, literally what they say that I often have trouble kind of breaking down what might be beyond it, not because I'm not interested, but just because like I don't, you know, like I don't have that the sort of the things that come with studying that in that way.

uh of that just like i don't know like ideas beyond what is exactly surviving in the sources and i all to say i'm fascinated um and thrilled to be having this conversation because like i just i mean i'd never thought of charybdis as as horny and now it's so obvious um but there are so many things that you just can't unsee once someone pops that bubble you're like oh my god

Well, when it comes to sexuality and stuff, when like in terms of the ancient world, like, you know, the people that have been providing us with this information, the translations and the like, you know, just all of it for the last couple hundred years are just like boring old white men. And so like, obviously, that's changing now, thankfully, but it is still like a thing where, you know, what you're going to immediately find is going to be this like,

or worse, like anti-woman nonsense. And so it is often kind of hard to,

To see something that is so intentionally kind of, I guess, unmentioned. Because I can't believe that I've not heard of or thought of Scylla and Cribdus in that way before. Because, yeah, it's so obvious now and I fucking love it. What's that phrase? What's that quote? You'll know this quote. Where it's like the two worst kind of plights of men, like the sea and women.

Like, it's right there. It's right there. I can't remember. I'm sure we can find the quote, but it's right there. Yeah. The connection between them. Big dangers, man. Oh my god. Yeah, like, honestly, the main dangers to men. And then also, it

When thinking about charybdis, I just kept thinking about vagina dentata and all of those, you know. Yes! Like, honestly, and that's such a massive motif and symbol that, you know, isn't necessarily 100% present in Greek mythology. But, but, I mean. It's not not. They're kind of looking like cousins to me, like a little bit. Yeah. Like, they're not twins, but like, you know. Yeah.

I mean, it's not a coincidence that most of the monsters in Greek myth are women. Like it's right there. And, and I mean, yeah, Medusa having been sexualized over the years is fascinating. I do like in terms of what I, like I said, what I've seen, it's been, it's been more recent, like very much Freud level pathologizing. So I'm more curious about the ancient world, but like,

I mean, Scylla and Cribdus, Cersei being a temptress, Medea being a temptress, and those aren't even, like, the monsters. The fact that the Furies are women, the fact that even the Fates are women feels, like, monstrous in a different way. Like, that, like, oh, the fate of men is determined by women. Like, that's another horror kind of in itself. I've been thinking about this a lot. Yeah.

I good I hope it haunts you and I say that with all the love in my heart I hope it haunts you in the way that it haunts me it will it will excellent excellent um I think with a lot of sort of female monstrosity and this is just another um book recommendation for you but the monstrous feminine by Barbara Creed is another really good one um

But I think when we look at all of that and all of just sort of the examples you just listed, and even if we add sort of Helen of Troy, who looks out at the sort of field of battle and compares it to a sort of farm. And then we, you know, we're thinking about the earth and the consumption of the earth and the earth eating all these dead bodies. I think with female monstrosity, it's such an interesting kind of mirror or reflection of the female body's

productive power. And so you have women being the source of life. And then how do you reconcile that with patriarchal power when women are the ones that are giving you children, women are the ones that are sort of knowing and being able to determine paternity. And then there's this really interesting kind of

externalization of that reality into female monstrosity and you're sort of just watching the ancient Greeks kind of battle with it intellectually because it's so irreconcilable with their power structure.

Yeah. Well, I mean, there's a reason why they acknowledge that the world started with a woman and then she was immediately subjugated by a man. Immediately. Exactly. A man she created. But then also makes me think of, and I always forget what source this actually comes from, but there's that notion that the Trojan War took place because Gaia was like...

There was too much pressure on her, and so they needed a cataclysmic war. I know what you're talking about, but I can't remember where it comes from either. It was like she's too full or whatever. Yeah, exactly. It was too heavy on top of her, the number of humans that existed, and so they needed...

That kind of like that such a deadly war to like make it better. That is just such a messed up premise. Yeah, exactly. Like it's another it's like demonizing the woman. Right. Like like, well, the truth they they haven't blamed the Trojan War on another woman enough.

So like, let's add one. Like, it's not enough that it's fully Helen's fault, despite the fact that she had absolutely no agency in the whole thing. But let's also make it about Gaia. God, I don't even know what to say to that. That's just made me so sad.

I mean, it's why I have a career. So at least there's that. Talking about how demonized women are for absolutely no reason in the ancient world. Well, in ancient Greece, very specifically.

Hmm. I mean, and it hasn't gone away. It makes me think there's a, I'm sure I've mentioned this on the show before, but like I, one of the first books of myth that I picked up when I started the show, like, you know, I was like years out of my degree and I really hadn't done any research for a long time. Also, I did my degree like.

This is wild how fast things change, but like we really didn't get to use Google a lot because it was not early internet, obviously, but it was still a long time ago. And like, so I just feel like I didn't have a great grasp on like how to research and stuff when I picked up the podcast. And so I just like picked up a book that I found because it was just called the Greek myths. And it, at the time I didn't even really notice it, which was funny because I was using it to start my feminist podcast about Greek myth. But like,

There are parts in this book that was published in, like, 2005 that are, like, some of the most horrifically misogynist stuff I've ever read. Like, complete departures from the ancient sources in order to demonize both Medusa and Pandora. Those are the ones I always remember. Like, it's wild. Like, as if... Like, at one point, this guy, Robin Waterfield, who...

is credited on the cover and then the inside cover it's acknowledged that his wife helped him write it but she's not on the cover um and in his section on Medusa retelling the story like one not only does he in this book called the Greek myths does he use Ovid's story without acknowledging that it is not a Greek myth but he also in addition to using Ovid's which like has its own problems he introduces the idea that Medusa

That Athena was angry that Medusa was prettier than her or that Medusa bragged about being prettier than her. Oh my God. Yeah, exactly. Like you're shocked faces. Where is that? Exactly. It has absolutely no basis in the ancient sources. None. And it's just like this invention to make women even worse. Like this idea that like, oh, well, in order for Athena to want to curse her, she would have.

had to say that she was prettier because ladies care whether another girl is prettier than them. But also, this just drives me triple insane because it's like if you reduce the value of women to what they look like and then you get upset when they have feelings about what they look like. Right?

What is expected? What is expected here? I really wonder why women ever worry about whether they're pretty compared to other women. Like, it's not coming naturally. Right.

Like, you know, as somebody who was a teen, like 14 in 2002, I think is like an incredibly important date milestone. Like just the early 2000s and the pressure placed on young women at that time when Kate Moss is out there saying nothing tastes as good as pretty feels like, you know, this this stuff that we get blamed for. Like, it's just anyway, I think a lot about how broken I still am from just like

Being a teenager in the early 2000s. We had the whole thigh gap thing runs from high school when I was 16. That was fun. Right. Yeah. That's our little, yeah, that's our age gap, the thigh gap. And I do not envy you because I was old enough at that time. I was still definitely still influenced by,

But, like, yeah, I mean, we just, like, it was wild. And, like, the fat shaming on every single TV show that we had to watch. Like, there was just no way to get out of it, to get out of hating your body. Like, you're literally raised from the time that you're, like, eight years old to hate multiple things about your body. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Anyway, I respect all the women who have been able to get over it, but I am still trying and not going great. Probably most women are in the trenches with it. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

Fucking fascinating. Anyway, oh my gosh. I've just like, I mean, I think a lot about the fact that the ancient Greeks did turn women into monsters.

But I haven't thought about the sexuality involved. Well, I think just to speak about an earlier point you mentioned, which is when it comes to translation and when it comes to so many of the translations being as horrific and horrible as they are, it's like that on the one hand is so unequivocally true and needs to be addressed. But I think as well what I find, and I'm sure you really find this too,

when you're dealing with the ancient sources and when we're in the very privileged position of being able to engage with the literature and the visuals,

you know, that you do have to have an awareness, I think, of not projecting. I think we joked about rosy colored glasses before where it's, you know, I want to think it was this gorgeous utopia, but you also have to hold space for the reality. It was a patriarchal society. You know, we know enough, we know enough to know that women by and large were not having a great time. And so it's like, how do you kind of,

tread that line between reclamation and kind of looking at this stuff with a new more empowering lens whilst also not dismissing what we know of what was happening to these women and I mean and that's so difficult right oh yeah I mean it's just so many things at once

Because like all the complexities, all of them. Yeah. And I mean, it is what I love about looking at the ancient world and what I particularly love about like the point that my show is at now in speaking about this stuff, like the, the ability I have now to talk about the context that I didn't have before when I was just like a random woman picking up a book at a bookstore without any idea, like, you know, what I guess really goes into the,

men writing these myths and by that I mean like rewriting the myths because the book that I find to be so egregious is one of those ones where you know like it's just called the Greek myths because a man went and like took down notes on the sources and then rewrote them I mean granted he's doing what I'm doing but I'm really open about how fucking biased I'm being and the men are not you know and until you kind of realize what goes into the retelling of these kinds of stories like you really don't know

That what you're getting is nonsense compared to the ancient sources, but then at the same time it lacks this context of, like... It's wild, because it's, like... I feel like the modern pieces you pick up written by men tend to be... And obviously, like, you know, stuff in the last, like, five years. And certain men, obviously, it's not the case. But, like, by and large. Like, you think that it's going to be worse, and then it is. But then at the same time, like, the context...

then turns around and it's like well the context though is the women also had a shit time but the myths still weren't quite as bad as this modern man is making them out to be but we have to keep in mind that like you know the i mean especially when we're talking about athens like women had little to no freedom or agency at all and i don't know i mean it's just like kind of constant sort of reminders of all of the different bits and pieces going into this stuff but i also like to think about

like the stories that the women might have been telling amongst themselves or, you know, I like to joke a lot about all the sex they probably were having with each other because the men didn't consider it sex. And so weren't worried that, you know, yeah, exactly. Like, you know, they were just like keeping their wives locked up altogether in a house all day, not letting them do, you know, anything outside of it. Like,

You think they're not going to find ways of having fun? Like these women. Have you seen all those pots of women with bread dildos? Do you know the ones I'm talking about? The, um, Elizabeth, right? That's like the ancient word for dildo. Ancient Greek word. Elizabeth. Elizabeth. Elizabeth. It's like, O-L-I-S-B-O-S. If you just Google it, I know Google just says dildo real big.

But I also did learn it from Assassin's Creed Odyssey, I will clarify. That makes me so happy. Because at one point you do go get a dildo that Alcabiades left in somebody's house. At least it was in someone's house and not in someone. True. No, exactly. You don't have to go pull it out of somebody's house.

You never know. What's that medieval myth or whatever it is about the sword? Okay, wait, I digress. I digress. I always digress. That's the point. Yeah, no.

Oh, no, I was just thinking about your point on translation. And I think, and this being completely frank with you, I don't think I 100% have a grip on this. And I've been studying this stuff for seven years. But I think something that's so hard to grasp is that the myths themselves are being received and massaged and adapted over

over hundreds and hundreds of years. And that is something that does not get kind of foregrounded in the way that I think it needs to, because we're talking about, okay, the ancient stuff is over here and then the modern dudes are over here. And it's like, well, actually the ancient stuff, there was a whole,

whole bunch going on then when it comes to refracting and massaging these myths for different kind of cultural moments and different purposes. And that is such an important thing to understand, like how these myths were functioning over, you know, you can't just kind of point to ancient Greece and be like, that was all one thing. It happened over three years, whatever. It's like, that's so far from the case. And still it like,

honestly kind of breaks my brain a little bit whenever I try and like contemplate it too much but I feel like it's important to note when it comes to translation and different versions of mythology yeah no it's I'm so glad you brought that up because I've been I in the last couple of years I've I know that I've become annoying in the way that I bring that up I bring that up in like almost every episode though because I also like I can't guarantee that people have been listening to all of them they just might jump in and I'm like well then I have to remind you

That we are talking like minimum 800 years in between all of these stories. And when you just come at this from this casual viewpoint, yeah, you see ancient Greece as a concept. You see Greek myth as a concept. As if there is this like...

canon of stories and everything is decided i thought there was a canon people will use the word canon i thought i was like there's one version of every myth there was one version of every myth and everyone agreed and it was super chill and easy and straightforward are you glad that it wasn't you this time thrilled

and that you sounded just as like excited and annoyed um it is like it is always both it is so both and i think that yeah like unless you are deep in this stuff like you're not getting that context and it's so important and also again being like very candid with you just because you're deep in it doesn't mean it's the easiest thing to understand or hold in your mind it is so difficult

All I ever do is talk about how confusing and fascinating it is. Like, yeah, because it's both all the time. And I love it. All of the times. Truly. Instacart is on a mission to have you not leave the couch this basketball season.

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I want to know more about this so bad. So bad. So bad. So fear, I mean, it's such a big topic, right? Like fear of female sexuality. I'm like, can we have three hours? Are you wanting to...

Kind of talk about, I mean, I see mythology and like maybe visual. I'm just trying to, I'm trying to pick some points here because. Absolutely fair. I mean, I don't, I don't care necessarily to stick to mythology. I'm just fascinated by the idea, but like, you know, if you have like, I mean, I guess I always just like understood that it would have been a thing, but I've just never thought about like evidence for it other than, you know, just the general, you know,

distaste they seem to have for women. I mean, but yeah, like, yeah, there's a strong distaste. Right. But I think there's also a huge amount of distrust of women. And I think that,

And this is a very sort of one-dimensional view of it, but what I have read over the years is that, you know, patrilineal inheritance, when you can't be 100% sure of, you know, the paternity of your kid, that's going to be a problem. Like, that is an issue. Like, right? Enter Zeus. Literally, unfortunately, in most cases. Yeah.

So harrowing. And so there's this, there's this fear of how the female body can obscure paternity, right? Like they could have your, like a woman could have your brother's kid or, you know, a random neighbor's kid or whatever. And probably there would be no way of you knowing.

And so if your entire society is built on, you know, you will have sons and it will all be lovely and they will inherit your house. But your wife could be messing around on you and you almost certainly have no way of knowing. So how do you within society find a way to sort of curtail that or address that? And it's like just...

you know, beat the shit out of them culturally when it comes to their sexual expression and just like put them in their tiny little boxes and hide them away. All of that, like there was this huge societal pressure for the restriction of female sexuality. And I mean, for another bit of evidence, you have the separation between the wife and the hetairai, right? Like the hetairai are the fun that drunk ones who will...

you know, take part in orgies with you and your boyfriends at the symposium, but your wife is at home looking after the grain and the kids and the whatever. And there's so much sort of separation in the literature as far as how you think of, you know, ancient sex workers versus ancient wives. They were constituted and characterized completely differently. So there's little room left for the kind of eroticism of the wife and

And then if we take it back to like Helen of Troy or something, it's like we see what happens when a wifely person or, you know, the figure of a wife expresses their sexuality, you know, or even just is an object of sexual desire. Like it's seen to be a really dangerous, dangerous thing. It's I feel like I just threw such random broad examples at you.

No, I love it so much. I'm literally taking notes. I've just written down obscuring paternity. It's actually, it's a great bank form that apparently I'm turning into a notepad. No, I just, yeah, it's, I also made me think of, I'm trying to remember like the exact details, but I know that in Sparta, they kind of, for a time at least, like handled this fear of paternity by being like women,

can have kids with more than one man because they also were so obsessed with keeping it Spartan and like keeping their bloodlines pure. Sounds very Targaryen. I'm rewatching Game of Thrones at the moment. I mean, Targaryens are Spartans. Let's be honest. Actually, I feel like that works in ways. But like, no, and I, I've definitely,

I want to say I've thought about this idea of Enter Zeus, of the stories of the gods broadly fathering children.

by mortal women like that is just a uh it's like exemplifying there's a better word that's not it that's a good word it is but not for what i want but basically it's just like it's evidence for this fear right it's like well you know like if you have to worry whether the child is yours then at least you can think that maybe if it's not then it it it's zeus's

you know, like, so it gives you like a divine out. Exactly. Exactly. Like, you know, if this is like a big fear of theirs, then of course they're going to introduce these stories that they're

Explain that happening, but in a way that takes the fault away from the man, you know, like not that it's, you know, a man's fault broadly, but like, it's clearly their fear. When I imagine it's not a thing that's like happening all that often, like, but of course they're going to be afraid of it because they don't control that. And if you control everything, then the one thing you can't control becomes this like enormous boogeyman. Yeah.

To your point about that boogeyman, I would say that I think there might actually be another boogeyman in this instance. So it's not only about sort of paternity and issues of paternity, I think it might also be about the way female sexuality and feminine sexuality can prompt transgressive action on the part of the man.

So they're worried about what they'll do and their kind of loss of agency and not being in full control of themselves and starting a war or, you know, sleeping with someone they shouldn't or any of the other things that are so richly demonstrated in all of the mythology. And so if you have that kind of fear of there's this certain part of life and there's certain, this certain aspect of, um,

the woman and the female body and feminine erotic power. How do we deal with it? Because it poses this threat to civilization and stable order and family structure and political order and everything, everything, everything. What do we do? Oh, maybe we channel some of it into these wild feminized hungry monsters that are just eating everyone. It sounded unhinged when I said it, but I'm standing by it.

No, but I mean, like, yes, like, I mean, they're all they're almost all women. Like Typhon is an interesting example, but I think he pretty openly embodies like natural disasters. So the idea that like.

that all the monsters are either like natural disasters or women is like kind of amazing because even the gigantomachy like accounts for volcanoes and so it's like literally any of the big bad you know divine kind of of fears they are if they're men trying to think of a male

Minotaur. Minotaur. That's the only one I've got. Right, okay. But he doesn't actually count because he embodies the fear of paternity.

See, the rabbit hole just gets deeper. And so in the myths, what do you do with monsters? You defeat them. You overpower them. It is something that gets set up in the myths as something that can be thwarted or defeated. So you can defeat the temptation of the female body. You can defeat the monstrous feminine in all of this mythology. So all these lovely men can just sleep at night knowing that it's all going to be okay. Yeah.

I mean, okay, talking about the paternity stuff, like, it leads me to just think of all the weirdest ways that Zeus impregnated. Right? Like, you know, at first I thought of the swan. Every time I look at a swan, every time I look at a swan, I get upset. Every single time. Well, yeah, the swan's the first thought. But then I went to Zeus and Danae, you know, Perseus's mom, right?

shower of gold and like obviously you know golden shower is a different context now that's but what's really happening here because like you know the context for that story is that she's like locked in a tower because her father is worried you know there's an oracle that says her baby will defeat him

so she's locked away so that she cannot have a child and Zeus's form that he takes is this like gold falling from the ceiling and just going straight up her vag, you know, like it, I like to think of it. It's like, it feels like it has to be like a, like a real, like a, like a mood, like, like it has to be embodied in some kind of way. I don't know. I think, I think a lot about the shower of gold. Um,

But how that like, you know, this this thing that is like it sounds more like a like a fatherly fear in this patriarchal world of their daughter getting impregnated by some strange man. You know, it's like so regularly happening, but it's possible, you know, that like it embodies that. But then it's like, oh, but, you know, even if that happened, well, I guess it's not a great thing for a Christus, but like.

You know, it's Perseus in the end, this baby, and he still tries to... I mean, now I'm trying to think of... Basically, I'm just, like, thinking aloud with you right now, because now I'm like, okay, well...

You know, he's Perseus, so really ultimately he's a good thing, but like he does defeat Acrisius. And so I'm just, you know, I feel like there's so many, there's layers to this fear because sometimes it's obvious what they're fearing. Well, and then in that instance, right, isn't it the fear of violating the like virginal female? Because what that means for the social and financial standing of the family. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, but then it's interesting because it's like it works out so that that's where my question mark brain is going, you know, like obviously the story of Perseus is good for Perseus and Danae in the end. So it's just interesting to me because it's like, well, is it providing a moral that then is like contradictory to this this idea of being afraid for your daughter's virginity, you know?

It's just, I don't know. It's interesting. Or maybe it's like ultimately affirming it or kind of giving some comfort, like just like a bit of a nice myth. Right. Yeah. Sometimes it works out. It could be you probably won't. Probably won't, but maybe. I mean, I just, there's just so many layers. Like I do. People often ask me like,

To kind of, I guess, put myself into the character and like answer questions like what would they feel or what would they think and I, I fail at that always just miserably because I am I'm far too interested in the story itself and the purpose behind it and I think this is great evidence for that like this is what I want to talk about is like.

But what's the story and what does it mean? Not the characters. Like, I love the characters, but I don't feel the need to, like, be in their brains. But I also think you show an awareness of how difficult it is to ever get to anywhere remotely close to being in their brains. Yeah, because we don't know anything. No, and that's such a difficult thing. You know, there are so many sort of feminist retellings of Greek myths now that are doing exactly that, right? They're, you know, giving voices, they're providing insight and all of that. But if you're trying to do that...

entirely based on the ancient sources like you need yeah you're fucked you need a hell of a lot of imagination and creative license to begin to do that it's you know it's a very appealing thing but is it necessarily possible if you actually tie yourself to the ancient source material yeah i don't know again i want to believe it's true but i'm like

especially when every almost every sauce bar like two are coming from men well yeah yeah

No, and I, yeah, it's interesting because I, it is, it's interesting for me talking to authors and stuff sometimes because like, I understand that they have a version in their head of this character because you have to, you create a version, but that inherently untethers it from the ancient sources. And that's fine. That's the perfect verb choice. Like untethers it. That's, that's exactly what it is, right? Like you're lopping off some of what anchors you. It,

It's that's the perfect word for it. Yeah, you have to separate it. You have to make it a different thing. And I think, you know, like that if if you are writing this stuff and trying to pretend or if you believe that that you are keeping true to the characters, like I think you're doing a disservice to yourself and the book. Like, I do think you have to separate that.

Yeah. Oh, this is sad. And maybe it's a little bit more than what we need time wise. But I realized when we first talked about like how I barely remember it other than I just knew I wanted to talk to you about it on the show. But you were you were just like, just mentioned Medea and we'll go and I realized we've not talked.

even gone through Medea. We haven't spoken about Medea and we haven't spoken about Euripides Bacchae as far as fear of the female and female sexuality and female monstrosity. And if we're talking about the like kind of turning women into monsters because of their biological power I mean ding ding ding Medea who not only murders a whole bunch of people she murders her children.

So you have the complete arresting of feminine biological power. And that is why she is the most hated and the biggest monster. And it is just, and then I love that she just gets to ride off in a chariot. And I don't care what anyone says. I know a cannon isn't real, but her riding off on a chariot is canon to me. Well, I mean, it's, it is just as, it has the exact same level of legitimacy as her killing her children because both were invented by Euripides. Yeah.

So I know that's so true, which it was good. I was going to bring that up anyway, because I'm fascinated by the idea that, and I mean, it could, it could be a source that we're just, that we've lost. Like it could be that Euripides did not invent that detail. That's very possible. Same with the dragon chariot though. But like, yeah, the idea that like before Euripides,

We didn't necessarily have this idea that she killed her children. I think that's really interesting. And also is another good connection to the Bat guy because, I mean, I could talk about Euripides for hours, so I will try not to, but I like to think of kind of why he would put that stuff in because of all the playwrights I know. And I say this with confidence despite the fact that I'll never talk to him, but I know that he was interested in women as people and as complex characters.

And sympathetic and very real people, though, like flawed people. But yeah, I kind of I love that he kind of introduced that idea because I think it adds something more.

I think it definitely adds something more. And like, I, do you, do you think that him, you know, him being Euripides, shout out. Do you think Euripides, I know, I love him so much. But do you think him adding that detail? I mean, considering that women are,

were so often wildly reduced to their ability to create children. And, you know, motherhood was the whole thing. That was their entire sort of source of value and all of that. And so by Euripides adding that detail, it kind of is this horrific, monstrous assertion of motherhood.

individual agency of a woman but that's what it is it's like her own feelings of rage and sexual jealousy and violation and betrayal are big enough and strong enough that they actually supersede her role as mother and that is something we almost never see the only other myth that's jumping to mind is it uh phila phila mila and oh no prockney i'm thinking yeah me

That's the two of them. Yeah. They're sisters. Okay. So you've got both names. Okay, good. That makes me... I was like, am I about to say Thumbelina on the show? That doesn't... That's not correct. No, and I mean, yeah, that's... Yeah, they're another good connection, but they're interesting too because they also really only survive in Ovid, which is sort of like its own level of interest. Like...

like in terms of those details, but I absolutely do think, and now you've made me think it even more. I won't pretend that this was all my idea before you said all of that, but I've always seen, um,

And like, I've definitely spent a number of episodes on the show having to explain that I'm not saying that it's okay that she killed her children. Just that. No one is saying that. No one is saying that. Let's be really clear. We're not endorsing infanticide. No. No. But. No, but like, I do think that it is incredibly interesting because.

you can see that there is like an intention behind it because he makes her sympathetic while she's doing it. Like you, you understand her, you don't agree with her, but you understand why she feels like this is the thing she has to do. And that's what I find to be so fucking interesting about that play, but also just about Euripides broadly, because I think Euripides,

That argument, like it completely, it aligns with my thoughts on him and what I said earlier, which is just that like,

he makes women into people, flawed people, complex people, people who have thought processes that like we won't, not everyone would agree with. And maybe it's bad to kill your kids. Like, but at the same time, he, he's not introducing a villain in Medea. He's not introducing a boogeyman. He is introducing a, an interesting complex woman who makes a horrific decision and

But like, yeah, he doesn't make her this like caricature of an angry woman. I think that she has become that in pop culture in a lot of ways since then. Like before I really knew the play, all I'd ever known is like there's a woman in Madea who killed her kids. And you think, but like, I even feel like

Oh, I wish I could tell you what this is from, but there's definitely like a quote that lives in my head from a movie or something from the early 2000s where it's like she pulled a Medea.

And it was like a, basically the idea of her going crazy. Like, I think she became aligned with this idea of going crazy and killing her kids. When in fact the play makes very clear that she is in her right and rational mind and she is making this decision. And that's so much more interesting than this like caricature of a woman who goes mad and kills her children because it's the only way that women could do that. You know? Well, I think there's, you know, there might even be more kind of tension in that because,

In Euripides particularly, every single line that she delivers is so considered and it's so thoughtful. And she's wailing offstage and it's all there. She is very emotional. She's in a lot of emotional pain.

from everything that's happening and everything that's being done to her. But you're exactly right in pointing out that this doesn't, this isn't, what she does is a very considered act or, you know, a considered set of actions. And I think, you know, she is acting, um,

you know, from a place of emotional pain, but not from a place of temporary insanity because planning goes into every step of it. And I read this, this article a few years ago, which I found really fascinating, which was all about how Medea is kind of working within and drawing from this kind of outdated mode of Homeric honor and,

And it not only doesn't have a place necessarily in the time that Euripides was writing. So that's one kind of bit of separation, but it absolutely is not for women. That's not something for her to grab a hold of and then use. But in so much of the language she's talking about, she is Achilles. Her honor has been violated and she is going to rain down fury. And so then when you're looking at

the characterization of Medea and in kind of one hand you hold the sexual jealousy and the betrayal of the marriage bed and that you know which is in there and then in the other hand you have this kind of

She's this wounded, proud hero that, you know, wants justice and wants balance. And that, especially when you look at the language, and again, I will send you this article because it's such an awesome take on her that, you know, there's so much more richness in that interpretation rather than, oh,

She went batshit. It's like, no, no, no, no, she didn't. She is Achilles in the tent. She is Achilles dragging Hector's body around the wall of Troy. Like just going to say that one. Like that is Medea. Like that is so much more true to Euripides and true to, you know, all of the versions of her story. Yeah.

It seems like, and again, we have a woman being reduced and hugely oversimplified where when you look a bit deeper, there's something so much more interesting going on. I could talk about Medea for hours. Like, Euripides, he's just so interesting. Well, I mean, should we talk about the Bacchae? Do we have time? Yes, please. No, please, please. I want to talk about the Bacchae. Like,

I mean, we have sex, we have sexuality, we have Pentheus in all kinds of situations when it comes to his desire. We have the kind of bestial, hypersexual, animalistic, monstrous women, you know, ripping animals apart and ripping people apart on the hills, like,

All of that, it's just right there. It's just sensational. It's like, yes, you should all be scared of women because when they get drunk, they're going to rip your arm off. All of that, and I also think it's interesting that Dionysus is quite feminized. Like, you know...

Like he's, I mean, I know he's like very a he, but he's dressed like a manad, isn't he? Or like, yeah, like. Doesn't he dress as a manad and then Pentheus is like, oh, oh. Yes, kind of. And then also he has Pentheus dressed as a manad to be torn up. Right. So like.

Like I had a conversation years ago now on the show about like a non-binary reading of Dionysus in Bacchae, but it also included, this was with Emma Pauly and they had really interesting things to say from like a more dramatizing aspect of it. Like they're a dramaturg and I think a translator as well. So like just sort of everything going on there, but like,

The argument was basically that both Dionysus and Pentheus have these moments where they can be pretty easily read as non-binary. And I think, and it's really interesting because like Dionysus appears like that pretty openly, I think in the play, but there are these moments where you can kind of, if you're looking for it, like see Pentheus, like recognizing that in Dionysus and being really interested in it. And then that kind of transitions directly into Pentheus, you know, dressing as a woman to be torn apart and,

But I mean, yeah, there's so many layers in the back. Exactly. And there's like a peel of transgression and there's a peel of all of that. And then we're back to female monsters where it's like that which is simultaneously seductive and terrifying. That's the whole thing in my mind.

Well, and in that case, too, they're your family members, which is, like, adding a whole other level. Like, yes, ladies are monsters, but, like, even when they're your mom and your aunt. But also, if we want to get real psychoanalytical and weird with it, maybe especially when they're your mom. I don't know. I don't know. I mean...

Like the unpayable biological debt to the mother is something that patriarchy finds difficult to deal with. I mean, it's also like not, I mean, it's, I don't want to say coincidence because I don't think it's either a coincidence or not one, but like it is relevant that this is happening in the city. Yes.

That this is happening in the city that will go on to house Oedipus and Dracasta. Like just another few generations down the line. And of course, when it comes to the plays, there is something to be said for the fact that these are Athenians intentionally demonizing Thebes. But at the core, Thebes is the location of these myths.

regardless of whether they appeared in a play. So I just think it's interesting. Like Thebes is, I don't know. I have a soft spot for Thebes because I am deeply obsessed with Cadmus and Harmonia and the fact that like they are both incredibly important and like really lacking in a lot of detail. And like there, there's a lot of really, really interesting things about them that I'll never stop thinking about. But like the fact, the fact that this is like partly their family line is always really intrigued me too.

But this idea of like the unpayable debt to the mother, like I've never, I don't think a lot about procreation because I hate children. And the idea of pregnancy, I think is utterly revolting. But thinking about it this way is very interesting. Yeah.

I think for me it's something that comes up in a lot of psychoanalysis, especially later psychoanalysis. And I'm not a huge fan of Freud, but I'm a fan of some people that came 30 years later and some women that came 30 years later and looked at some of this stuff. And so there's this very spicy take on Freud

I don't know if you'll find this as fascinating as I do, but...

um someone wrote an article on the abject maternal in Aeschylus's Agamemnon and it was all about Clytemnestra and the kind of reversal of the sex act when she penetrates Agamemnon to murder him and then the red blood spurts up on her and like fertilizes her and I think that's where I was telling you about the word ganos oh yeah all those all those weeks ago but then

They focused on the image of the red rugs drawing Agamemnon back into his home, and they said it was like some sort of perverted umbilical cord dragging him back to a tomb. And so it's the whole womb-to-tomb thing. It's really cuckoo. I know it's really cuckoo. I hold my hands up. But, I mean...

It's interesting. It's interesting. I'm not sure it 100% holds up, but those kind of ideas of the female body and the connections drawn between the female body and the oikos or the household and how the household was kind of a site of a lot of these dangers and these dangers are embodied in the women that lurk within the house. It intrigues me. I mean, yeah, no, same. I definitely find that interesting.

super interesting but I also just immediately makes me think like that really gives a whole new meaning to the fact that we get the idea of rolling out the red carpet from that play is that where we get it from yeah oh

Yeah. Like, it's already a fucked up phrase by the fact that the idea of rolling out the red carpet, that phrase fully comes originally from Agamemnon being welcomed home to his death. Oh my god. But...

Yeah, I know. I've told that to other people and it's a really lovely revelation. Yeah. Because it is. But now made like so much less lovely by what I just told you. No, but like, I think that's way better. The idea that we can also then read rolling out the red carpet into being like,

Yeah, like this. Because I also started talking about it. I was like, I don't know. Are you going to go to like a period blood kind of situation? Like, I think that's not that far from it either. Like just a full or like just yeah, like just a full birthing kind of analogy. Like it's so unhinged. It is so unhinged. But when you think about the fact that Pantheus is ripped apart by his mother.

There's lots about issues of the maternal, whether it's Medea or, you know, is it Agave? Is that Pentheus' mom? Yeah. Or Agave, or, yeah. Let alone Jocasta, dear old Jocasta. Oh, Jocasta. I mean, it's so good.

I know. I'm just going to think about the fear of female sexuality and everything now, which is funny because I kind of already have, but like less specifically. I am like constantly a real thing. I love being scary. I just love finding like, I mean, anything that, you know, you know, we talked about like the complexity of anything being empowering for women in the ancient world.

But I think regardless of the poor women back then, it is empowering now to learn this stuff. Definitely. To just, like, look back and be like, fuck, you know, they were so afraid of women. And it remains today. Men are so afraid of women and, like...

power and agency and female emotion and rage and or also like the kind of literal objectification and fragmentation of the female body into vessels like yes turning the female body into stuff to drink from yes full circle please like

Oh my god. And to, like, store wine. And, like, the jars have nipples. Like, it's just the archaeological evidence, let alone, like, all of the votives of the female body and all of those figurines and all of that. There's just this huge kind of breaking down of the woman and even, like, the weird sort of compartmentalization between, you know, the wife and the hetero. Yes. They devoted a lot of time and energy to it. Yeah, well...

There's just so much. Like, I just, I want, I want to know it all, but it's just, I mean, you know, we didn't even get to like all like the full level of the detail of porn pots, porn pottery. Well, this is what I wanted to ask you is like how, because I have so many visuals. I have so many visuals, but it's like, how do we, I don't know.

I know. Yeah, I mean, there's only so many things I can do with social media and people rarely see it. But like, maybe we need to figure out something for our future. Maybe we do. I mean, I hate the idea of video, but we could try to do a video special. Or maybe we team up with Erica.

And the three of us do something. Do like a YouTube dream. Yeah. Cause I'm not, cause Erica's not afraid of video. Like I am. I just, oh my, it's just like, look, it's just so fucking interesting that this, I mean, I always knew they were afraid, but like, I love this extra level that you have bestowed upon me.

Through these drinking vessels Like You are so welcome And once you see the connection between Hypersexual women and monstrous women It is so hard to unsee Scylla and Charybdis My girls, my girls My ladies Just a gaping, swirling hole You can get lost in it You get lost in it Get eaten by it What a way to go

Oh my god. Okay, so I'm perpetually like kind of walking a line for how much I share about the novel that I've been working on like on the podcast because it's not done. And also like this is me trying to get used to the fact that I've written what I've written.

Um, but I am, I think I'm just going to like start wrapping this up by telling the listeners that when you and I met in person, I was like, I think you're the right person to help me with the fact that I really need an ancient Greek word. Uh, because I've been reading a lot of romance novels and I, I needed, I needed a more relevant one. And that's where this Gannos word that you mentioned earlier comes in this word used for like

The spurting of Agamemnon's blood when Clytemnestra stabbed him. And it's just so good. But I also love because I looked it up on Perseus. Liquid gladness. Liquid gladness. I forgot about that. I feel like, you know what? Perseus does not use that definition. And I'm glad that you reminded me of it. When I clicked on it in Perseus, it was like only Agamemnon. And it was just, I forget what it was, but.

I'm gonna go find it again. Either way, liquid gladness is getting written down right now. Yes. That fertilizes the planes. It's just so much. I love it so much. This episode is fucking perfect. I just... Okay. I knew I'd tell you something, but after I wrapped up on the microphone...

This was the greatest thing ever. Do you want to tell my listeners where they can hear and learn more from you? Please.

Thank you so much for having me. I am Cozzy's Odyssey on Instagram and Twitter and TikTok. And I have got this YouTube series that you can find over on Properlayer Productions. I've actually got a few more projects coming up this year. So keep your eyes peeled. I might rope linen to one. Yes, that's a threat. I'm down.

Yeah, so I'm on literally every platform. And thank you again for having me. This has been sort of as unhinged and joyful as I thought it would be. And somehow even more so. So thank you so much. Thank you. Agree entirely. I both saw this coming and did not. It exceeded expectations. But I will link to everything in the episode's description so they can follow you. And I'll just say that, yeah, like as Cosi's Odyssey, you followed me and messaged me like probably six years ago.

And we were both little babies. And it's just such a joy. It's so fun. And I mean, we didn't even talk that much in the in-between, but just to let the listeners know, we met in person in Athens a couple months ago. And it was just truly like we were just immediately old friends, which was very lovely. It was so comforting. I was like, yes, internet friend, real friend. For real. But it made this episode far more joyful than it could have been. So it worked out so well.

Oh, well, nerds, that was a joy. Just truly. Oh, my God. We had so much fun. So you can find more from Kossi on in the episode's description. I have linked to everything and check out Propoli Productions. They are doing some really cool stuff when it comes to video. And also the Erica that we mentioned is, of course, Erica Stevenson from Moen Inc., who is putting out some really awesome content on YouTube as

Hence the joke about her not being afraid of video. And she's also involved with Propoli Productions. So check out everything that Kossi has done because it's wonderful. And also, like, I think you probably want to follow somebody who talks about boob cups. Like, academically. You know? Thank you all so much for listening. Let's Talk About Myths, baby is written and produced by me, Liv Albert. Michaela Smith is the Hermes to my Olympians. Is that what I say? My brain has stopped working.

mckayle's the assistant producer laura smith is the audio engineer and production assistant the podcast is part of the iheart podcast network listen on spotify or apple or wherever you get your podcasts and just you know a big thank you on tuesday we should be starting the bronze age collapse series provided i can write enough of this medusa book in time if not it'll just be the week later

I guess you'll just have to wait and see. I am Liv, and I love this shit. Even if it means that I've... I don't know how I write so much. It's a thing. It's fun. But it is exhausting.

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