Fairy Tales in the Ancient Mediterranean World with Professor Debbie Felton

Returning to the program is Professor Debbie Felton. Dr. Dr. Felton is professor of classics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She is the editor of the journal Predature and has edited and authored several scholarly articles and books about monsters and the supernatural in antiquity. Dr. Dr. Felton's books include Monsters and Monarchs, Serial Killers and Classical Myth and History, as well as the edited volumes, the Oxford Handbook of Monsters and Classical Myth, and the volume which we'll be drawing um much of our discussion from today, uh, A Cultural History of Fairy Tales and Antiquity. I hope that comes out on the screen. I apologize if it doesn't. >> So, Debbie, welcome back to the program. >> Hi, thanks for having me back. having me back. >> Absolutely. It's so nice to have a chat again and uh um I thoroughly enjoyed our last discussion and uh I loved the preparation leading up to this talk. So I'm very excited. Um so fair fairy tales is uh at first glance it's it would seem that fairy tales are rather new development in narrative um and an intersection with classics should be dismissed or uh approached with caution. Um but you and other scholars who specialize in folklore and classics such as Graham Anderson and William Hansen um argue that there in there are indeed analoges to modern iterations of these tales found not only in the paned world um but also in China and India among other places. So can you tell us about this a bit further? Um, also what are some of the standard reference works scholars use in this cross-disciplinary approach? >> Oh, sure. Um, well, I think I should probably uh start with the disclaimer that I personally don't have any formal academic training in uh this folkloristics, you know, the study of of uh comparative folklore, that sort of thing. But Bill Hansen was uh, you know, my unofficial mentor. I was introduced to him when I was a grad student at a different university and uh he just was so uh generous with his time and information in uh telling me about these resources that you're asking about and so um and uh basically uh Bill Hansen was one of the first people uh to really combine the study of classics and folklore that is to look at folklore within classical literature um and uh Graeme Anderson has also done a huge amount of work in that area and there have been a few others like Alex Scobby and um but it's not you know the thing is uh that folklore you know when when people like like like Bill um started and and myself for that matter when when we started looking at folktales and classical literature you know we ran up against some skepticism I can't you know speak so much for Bellis for myself, but when I tried to say to um you know like like submit a paper on the topic to a journal, I would get back comments like folklore isn't serious scholarship. You know, you've got to be joking basically. So, yes, this this I bring this up because this has to do with pretty much the first thing you said, which is that at first you wouldn't think that, you know, these tales are present two and 3,000 years ago or more. Um they absolutely are. And um thanks to the study of comparative folkloristics, we can point to evidence for this. So a couple of the main resources that you know that you're asking me about there are there are two uh I would say two principal reference works that sort of help scholars uh you know with identifying you know whether you're dealing with a folktale of of some sort or at least with some folktale motifs. So there is um for example there is the tail type index there's a reference work called the tail type index and that is basically a study of like the narrative structure of of of tail types and so what it does is it collects tales that have you know a similar theme similar narrative structure and uh the other main work would be the uh the index of motifs folktale motifs and those are the smaller units uh within a folktale. So for example um if Cinderella is a folktale type, the specific a specific motif in there would be the shoe like she loses a shoe and is later identified by it. So there's the there's the whole plot where you know she sort of starts in a low position and ends up royalty. Uh so that's the the plot and then the details are the are motifs. And of course you mentioned William Hansen who is uh um I would argue the foremost expert on this topic um and his reference work as well is something that I can't recommend enough which is uh Ariadne's thread. Um this is a a wonderful work, you know, it's a guide to international tales found in classical literature and uh Bill just kind of breaks it down, you know, like he'll um he has them in alphabetical order and then he just kind of goes through the tail types and then he uh explains like oh this is these are the motifs that you find in say India or China or 18th century England or something like that and then he u applies it to the Mediterranean analog. So, um, highly recommend that one >> for sure. >> Yeah. I mean, and I should have mentioned it. I think I was thinking of the basic, um, reference work. I mean, that is for for classics and folktale especially. The two that I mentioned, the uh, the tail type index and the motif index are just the ones that comparative folkloristics use as like I don't want to say their bibles, but you know, basically their the um the that's where you sort of start with that. And uh in terms of uh say Graham Anderson for example, he um has done several books specifically on fairy tales in the ancient world. Yes, thank you foring that one. Uh and so excuse me. Um so basically um people like uh Bill Hansen and Graeme Anderson are are trying to make some distinctions between folktales generally and fairy tales which are a type of folk tale but maybe uh uh present slightly differently uh in terms of what is >> more of a fairy tale. >> Absolutely. So, so in your uh the volume that you edited um which Graham Anderson um did contribute to as well uh cultural history of fairy tales and antiquity >> um but uh in in that volume a cultural history of fairy tales um there are several characteristics and uh approaches to fairy tales that each of the essays uh focuses on. So, I'd like to get to some of these characteristics, >> these type types of tales. Um, and of course, um, I'd like to tackle them from the aspects of the wondrous, space, and power. Um, and we'll get into this further in the tales themselves, but could you kind of discuss these characteristics briefly? >> Oh, sure. Um well for example uh Graham Anderson's chapter which basically opens that volume covers the marvelous and the wondrous and so he focuses on that as uh a main aspect of fairy tales in particular folktales can have you know obviously marvels and wonders I mean if you talk if you think of a story like um the brave little Taylor right who somehow manages to uh if people end up thinking that he's somehow killed ogres because he's killed seven lies, you know, with a blow of his belt and he, you know, he just says seven with one blow. Um, so that that would be a folk tale. Um, there aren't really any magical elements in it. But, uh, the wonder aspect and the marvels is something you see more of in fairy tales as opposed to folk tales. Um, I mean, I was going to say, so if you take something like like Little Red Riding Hood, for example, for which there there does seem to be a medieval analog, it's, you know, we think of that as a Grim's fairy tale, but really the only, you know, magical element is a talking wolf. Uh, so in fairy tales, I mean, they don't necessarily have to have fairies literally in them, but there are us there's usually more magic going on or something more supernatural. So um so Glam Anderson's chapter for example talks about wondrous voyages uh for example and magical elements and then you asked about space and power. So the the chapter on space discusses I mean you know one of your things that you opened with was was liinal you know the idea of uh limonality in general which originally was an anthropological concept having to do with uh rights of passage in people's lives but has been used uh in literature to describe spaces and times that are sort of betw twixed in between others. So, for example, um you when you think of a lot of ghosts and ghost stories appear on stairways, well, they're that's because they're not on one floor or another. They're kind of in between. So, the staircase is considered a sort of liinal place. And so, the chapter on space talks about liinal spaces and times. A lot of supernatural events occur at noon in ancient literature and also midnight. at noon is there's no shadows at noon and it's between morning and afternoon. So, it's like a kind of a time when the veil can be pierced, you know, and dusk and dawn, too. And then power is something else that shows up in a lot of fairy tales in terms of power structures and dynamics and trying to overcome them. Like Cinderella again might be a sort of an example of that. there obviously a lot of others but being able to rise from a poor position overcome obstacles and end up with a higher social status is sort of an increase in in um I don't know if power is quite the right word for that in particular but the questioning of the social order and the social dynamics is is part of the power struggle. So I don't know if that's you know sort of what you were >> looking for there. >> Yeah, definitely right on the money. I think that it's important to point out especially with the concept the conceptualizations of power that these tales are used um also to prop up certain social systems much like myth right in the ancient Mediterranean world. So um they they um they present uh archetypes by which how people understand their social order and how power is negotiated and we won't talk about the esopic fables as much but there's a lot of uh that going on in there as well. Um so I wanted the audience to just keep those three conceptions in mind. Uh you know of course the wondrous is extremely important. Space and how space is negotiated and um the creations of distance and you know like these liinal spaces like W was talking about is important and power is extremely important in these um tales. So as we go through these stories um we're going to analyze them whenever possible through these lenses. the wondrous liinal space and power. Um, so let's kind of get into the uh ant the antique fairy and folktales proper. Um, let's focus on perhaps one of the earliest in our samplings. Um, and also a throwback to our first discussion on the monstrous actually since it involves a a dracon, a giant snake. Uh so uh this is a story from Egypt um during the Middle Kingdom roughly circa 20th to 18th centuries BCE. Um the shipwrecked the the shipwrecked sailor which is honestly a story that I was not familiar with until I started preparing for this discussion. So Debbie, tell us about the shipwrecked sailor. >> Okay. Um yeah, so I think it's usually referred to as the tale of the shipwrecked sailor. It's actually quite short. Um, one thing to keep in mind is that a lot of the earlier stories are relatively short in in part because sometimes, you know, the the papyrus or the manuscript was damaged, so we're missing a beginning or an ending. The tale of the shipwreck sailor, we do seem to have the um the whole thing. And um, as you said, uh, the shipwreck sailor comes from ancient Egypt. It dates to the middle kingdom which is around the uh oh 3rd to second millennium millennia uh BCE and it was found in a papyrus school you know that's which is pretty much where the Egyptian stories are all found and it's um it's the it's told as a sort of a flashback narrative by the shipwrecked sailor. Uh he's the only one of his crew who survives. It's a merchant ship. It's sailing around. It's supposed to be getting some goods for the king and bringing Pharaoh I guess is really the word we should use here. Um so it's it's traveling to to get some merchandise, but you know it hits a storm is shipwrecked and this one sailor survives and he washes up on an island. It turns out to be a magical island. He doesn't know this right away and the you know the beginning his initial shipwreck he's desparing. He just sort of lies there for a couple of days lamenting his fate, feeling guilty for surviving, thinking this is it. You know, he's going to die. But along comes this gigantic magical serpent that is probably a deity of some sort. It might even, you know, be some sort of an avatar of the sun god Raw. Um, I'm not sure people have decided on that or not, but it's this terrifying sight and the sailor is convinced he's going to be eaten. instead this this giant you know this Draco this this sort of dragon speaks to him and says don't worry as long as you tell me the truth and when you answer my questions I will treat you well and so the sailor does just that when the when the serpent asks who are you why are you here what are your intentions the sailor explains I was shipwrecked you know I I just want to go home um and the serpent tells the man his own story like how the serpent ended up there this serpent just basically the the prince of this island which is called Punt and he tells the sailor that he's the sole survivor of a similar disaster and he basically befriends the sailor and um you know the sailor is very grateful for the serpent helping him survive and he says when I get home I'll tell everybody about you and the serpent says oh no you won't okay you won't if you try to come back you won't find me or this island we're just going to disappear which is essentially what happens for reasons we can speculate about such as that, you know, they didn't want this magical place overrun with people trying to uh, you know, just ruin its resources and all that you among other things. But the the basic, you know, uh, moral of the story is, you know, behave with honesty and gratitude. Um, and consider the importance of family. uh because the sailor wanted to get home to his family and the serpent the magical serpent was also talking about his family and uh how they all survived. So, it's this friendship between a shipwreck sail and this magical serpent. The sailor does get back home. And the question is, is anyone gonna believe this story? >> And I I found that very fascinating as well in terms of uh again, you had the issues of space as well, right? and and uh yeah, it almost made me kind of think about um wonder if there's like a certain kind of uh >> ethnographic concern there as well >> that you find in um I don't know perhaps that's kind of reaching but just this concept of like a a distant uh kind of group of people or or snakes in this case who who lives in this mystical land uh far away. um kind of reminds me of these topsyturvy aspects that you would find later in writers like Herodotus. Um I don't know but that's just my own speculation about it. Very interesting. No, I think I think that's uh that's really good because there is this sort of uh you know a theme that the farther away you get from your home in antiquity the far well maybe nowadays too the farther you get from your home the stranger uh things are like they don't you know you always have like this sort of um you know centric view of of yourself and your culture and then everybody else's are are strange and really there is this sort sense in the story that one of the reasons the island is going to disappear is because they don't, you know, want to they don't want to be colonized. They don't want to be, you know, um, plundered for their resources and the sorts of things that men tend to to do, people tend to do. Um, and yes, in Heroditus later on, there's quite a lot of that. In Kesius and other authors who talk about the places on the farthest known fringes, you know, again, a space issue. When you're on the edges of the known world, things are strange. There are do-headed people, you know, the Kuno Keefily. There are people with no heads but eyes in their chests, later called the blemy, you know. So, the further you go, the weirder things get. uh this actually uh you know happens in Lucian's satire of this whole sort of you know ethnographic concern his true history where the people end up on the moon you know and the customs are even weirder than anything that Herodotus describes because Lucian is trying to satarize people's beliefs in that sort of thing so he goes as uh like weird as you can get really but that again it's a very long st long-standing idea that the farther you go, the uh odder things are. >> Absolutely. Um and uh I started in Egypt, but now we're going to get into uh the Greek and Roman iterations of these folktales. Um I wanted to start out with something that's very familiar to the audience. Uh so I chose Homer's Odyssey. >> Mhm. So, the outlines of the tale of Adysius returning home after 20 years abroad and the siren witch figure of Cersei are concepts and motifs that are familiar um in folktale um and also to audiences who are interested in Greek myth and the heroic age. Um, so I did take the liberty of creating a couple of slides um or a few slides for our talk here just to kind of bring this home. But uh Debbie, let's kind of just talk in general terms about the concept of the homecoming husband um which is one of the motifs in the Odyssey. There are others as well. Um, of course, Adysius and his uh encounter with Polyphimmas is another motif from Folktale. Um, but let's talk about this uh AT974 the homecoming husband for a bit. >> Okay. Yeah. So, this is a this is a tail type of uh I mean I have to say that it's the Odyssey is so extensive that you can actually find not just a lot of folktale motifs, the smaller units, but even you know some some larger ones. We've got the shipwrecked sailor here too. And people have sometimes questioned whether the Egyptian tale, the shipwrecked sailor had any influence on the Odyssey. Um it it doesn't it doesn't seem like there is any sort of really direct literary influence there. Stories of shipwrecks were common in antiquity because seafaring was dangerous. And um ultimately the story of Adishus can come under the tale type of the homecoming husband because you know he he is spending the entire the entire epic trying to get home. And we see not just his voyages, the most famous part being really books 9 through 12 where he has all his adventures like with Polyphimis and Cersei, but the before and after that when we we see reports, we hear reports from other people talking about a disuse like, "Did you see him in the Trojan War? Where where did he go? What happened to him?" And then, you know, when he uh does get back home to Ithaca, his his island kingdom, he has to be very careful. He's been gone for 20 years. He doesn't know what things are like. He's been warned not to just just, you know, waltz in there and say, "Hi, honey. I'm home." Because there could be hostile people, which in fact turns out to be the case. So, uh, so yeah, the homecoming husband is the overarching story there. Uh, and in the end, he does uh, you know, his wife, he convinces his wife that he's really who he says he is. She recognizes him because of a number of things that only the two of them could know and things that only he could do such as stringing and shooting that bow that's in your slide. But oddly uh you know the homecoming isn't the last thing that happens. The reconciliation between uh auditions and Penelopey isn't the last thing that happens. The last thing that happens is that there has to be some sort of an uh you know sort sort of a truce between Odysius and the families of all of the suitors of Penelopey that he is killed. Uh so it really ends with the okay everybody stop fighting the goddess Athena sort of comes down dayx not going to like and says come on make peace because otherwise this blood feud is going to go on forever. So, it doesn't really quite end with the dishes and Penelopey. It ends with this sort of let's settle the aftermath of the whole homecoming. >> Absolutely. And uh I thought that this was worth reading from um >> Bill Bill Hansen's Ariadne's thread about the homecoming husband. Um he uh he just writes in general, "The story of the man who returns home after a long abstence just as his wife is about to remarry is known to many peoples, sometimes as a folktale, often as a legend attached to an allegedly historical character. The story frequently takes the form of a ballad or epic song rather than a pros narrative." And then he goes on to discuss the various motifs that you find in international folktale about this story. Um and uh I think it's also worth noting for people who are interested that there is another motif um as well if you're interested. And that is motif um hold on let me find it. I apologize everybody. That is uh at 11137 the ogre blinded which is uh polyphimmis and odysius's encounter which is attested in Europe, the Middle East, North Africa and further a field. So yes, a lot of these concepts are um extremely ancient and you know very interesting. You know, I think it's uh I think it's uh worth checking out and realizing um and it's hard to say. I think a lot of scholars are divided on when exactly this these stories got attached to the the figure of Adysius, but you know, it's very interesting >> um these um intersections here. Um and of course uh briefly, you know, just cuz I love Cersei, she's our favorite here. Um let's kind of talk about her as like the siren. Graham Anderson talks about her in his anthology. Um you know, just uh let's talk about this concept for a bit. Sure. Um, I actually like to look at Cersei as more of the, you know, almost a prototype of like what you see in Hansel and Gretle, you know, one of the Grims fairy tales because what you've got is this this witch in her house in the woods and um maybe more of a palace in Cersei's case because she's a demigodess, but you know, her her house in the woods and it seems very inviting. Odysius and his men have landed on this unknown island. They see smoke curling up in the distance and uh dishes with his usual not so cautious you know decisions uh sends some men to uh investigate to see if it is any place that they can sort of take refuge or maybe find some food. So you know initially this sort of uh you know scouting party goes uh at to Cersei's place. One of them hangs back and just kind of watches through the window, but the rest of the men are welcomed in by Cersei with her musical voice. And, you know, she's offering them food and drink. And we get this description of how she, you know, mixes some a potion with maybe some, you know, mysterious ingredients. And after they drink this and she taps them with her wand, she has a freaking wand, you know. So, this is one of the earliest mentions of a of a a witch like figure having a wand. She turns them into into pigs um and and rushes them off to her her her pigs die. And so the one guy who was watching all this through the window goes back, you know, pretty upset, tells Odysius what's happened, and Odysishus then has to go and handle the situation. But so I don't I think of Cersei um less as a Siren, although she is a Sirenlike figure in terms of being enticing and drawing men to their doom, but she's also a witch with potions and a wand uh changing men, you know, the ability to change men and other beings into other forms. She's actually the one that uh at least in some versions of the story, she's the one that transformed Sila from a beautiful maiden into the hideous monster that Adysius later encounters. So, uh yeah. So, I think Cersei is a a wonderfully interesting figure who ends up helping Odysius and distracting him for about a year or two. His men have to say, "Um, hello, aren't we head at home? We've been here a year. It's nice and all, but we miss our families, too." So, >> yeah. And I do I do really love that u analogy you made to her as being like the you kind of like the witch in the woods and Hans Gretle. And um I I wanted to read this. This is from um Daniel Mendelson's wonderful Odyssey translation that just came out not too long ago. >> And this is from book 11. >> And uh of course the guy you're talking about who kind of like hangs back and looks looks through the window or sees everybody getting changed is Urilicus, right? Um and he's uh and he's like just kind of hanging out. But this is really great cuz when you're um when they kind of come upon uh Cersei's um you know kind of palace or whatever in the woods it it it really does kind of read like this like wicked witch living in the woods. It's like um in a woody in a wooded glade they found the dwelling of Cersei built of well smooth stones and sitted with sighted with views on every side. All around it were there were lions and mountain dwelling wolves which she herself had put under a spell by giving them sinister drugs. Nor did they attack the men. No, indeed. Instead, they stood up on their hind legs and started wagging their long tails. Um, and I'll skip ahead a little bit. So, even so, they still feared the dreadful beasts. They stood before the door of the goddess, she of the beautiful braids, and heard Cersei inside lifting her lovely voice in song as as she wo back and forth at her loom, an immense immortal thing. The weaving the weaving at goddess's work so fine, so delightful, so dazzling. Polites that captain of men began to speak his peace. And he's like, "Hey, somebody's weaving inside. Let's go inside." Right? Um and then she comes and invites them inside, right? And um um so she's like, "Well, come in." All all unaware they followed her. And uh then he starts to talk about how Yeah. she starts mixing this like concoction of like cheese and wine and all this stuff in, you know, uses her wine, puts them in the in the in the cage. So yeah, it's just wonderful. I I love that. I did I I don't know why I didn't draw that analogy, but now it's kind of stuck in my head. So thank you, Debbie. >> Well, I'm not I don't think it originated with me. I I seem to remember reading something somebody somewhere I think made the illusion if not specifically to Hansel and Gretle then uh to the witch in the woods you know kind of motif. Uh but yeah I mean I think it's uh you know there are obviously a lot of different ways to to look at at Cersei and not least of which is Maline Miller Cersei told from Cersei's point of view. >> Awesome. Yeah. Yeah. I'll have to look at the scholarship on that cuz uh I'd like to uh look further into that. Um so let's talk about um so these last two examples that I I I chose I grouped them together because they will be very familiar to the audience not only from folktale motifs but um specifically from the Disney movies. Uh, so these are the motifs of Cinderella and the Sorcerer Apprentice. Um, and Beauty and the Beast of all things. They're all here. Um, you know, thousand a few thousand years, a couple thousand years before, uh, we thought they were. So, let's talk about, uh, first off the story of Redus, uh, the Cortisan, which is the prototype for Cinderella. So, Debbie, tell us about this story. >> Okay. Um so this um this story we we have uh two different sources for information about this character Rodopus Heroditus uh back in the fifth century BCE doesn't really tell the Cinderella part of the story. He tells us that she was a curtisan and that she um well first she was a slave and then she gained her freedom and became a curtisan and was very good at her job and became wealthy. She also he also says that she she probably needs >> not just Debbie. Yeah. Yeah. I was gonna me sorry I didn't mean to interrupt you Debbie but I was just gonna mention Yeah. Not just any not just any slave but uh right slave with Esop >> with Esop who was also a slave according to you know legend. And so that's what Heratus tells us about about this character. The Cinderellike part comes from Strabo a bit later. These are both Greek sources even though the story of Rodopus is set in Egypt. And so the part that Strabo adds is that as you can sort of maybe see in the the picture in the slide, um, Mabus is is bathing one day, you know, in the local pond. And so she, you know, her clothing, her shoes, most of her clothing is is, uh, lying on the shore. An Eagle swoops down, takes one of her shoes, which you can, you can see that in the picture. It's actually a very finely wrought uh sandal in the story and the eagle flies it all the way uh to where the pharaoh is uh is that is you know hundreds of miles away drops the eagle drops the slipper in the pharaoh's lap and he is astonished by the intricate workmanship and you know rich detail on this sandal and he's determined to find the owner of the sandal. So he sends messengers throughout the kingdom looking for you know the person who the woman whose sandal is it was clearly you know a woman's sandal and you know he finds Rodopus and and marries her. So uh you know this is a has a lot of similarities to the Cinderella story. I think you know folklorists uh non-classics people who are in folklor who are not classicists seem kind of reluctant or at least some of them seem reluctant to say that this has any relation whatsoever to Cinderella. It can't possibly it's too old and too different. Cinderella is not a prostitute. Blah blah blah. But I can just give you a handful of uh similarities that really from my point of view make it hard to say that it's not a Cinderella analog. Um, so it is this sort of a story that's called a rise tale where the status of the protagonist improves from, you know, very low to very high. So, Rodopus starts off as a slave and then a prostitute, a high earning prostitute, but sure still a prostitute. And she becomes a queen. She has a generic name. Rodopus means rosy face. And generic names are what you tend to see a lot of in folktales and fairy tales. Cinderella just means little Cinderirl because she was forced by her stepmother to basically sleep in the fireplace and clean the ashes. Though there's the presence of a bird that's actually crucial to the narrative. That's not something you see in the Disney version other than the birds like helping her with her chores, you know. Um uh but in the Grimms version, the presence of a bird is like representative of the spirit of her mother. Um so the bird is is kind of important there. And um then of course there is the shoe or in this case a sandal that is unique to the heroine is the identifying part. There's royalty involved. In this case it's a king not a prince but it's royalty you know and there's a search for the owner of the shoe and the story ends in marriage. I I think it's very difficult to say that this is not somehow you know analogous like an early analog. we we we can't, you know, prove we don't want to say that this is definitely the story that influenced later Cinderella stories, but we can say it belongs in this tale type, you know, generally um and that it shares some of the very crucial narrative elements that you do see later. There's there's no step family. There's no um you know, forced labor. I mean initially there is this the slave part but you know I mean it's it's very odd that you would have I mean the shoe the shoe part alone is like how can that not and then as you um I think noted earlier um Bill Hansen in his arades thread you know discusses this story at length and he brings in a Chinese counterpart that's nearly as old um and that that story the Chinese version even has at least what two maybe three different versions um but again it als sort of hinges on the identification of the the shoe or a similar item. So, uh, so it's a fun story, but again, it's like, you know, a few sentences long like the strabo is like it's a paragraph, you know, so we're not we're not dealing with literary versions like the brothers Graham, which were or collected orally, but obviously embellished a bit. >> Yeah, absolutely. And just getting to the um chi Chinese counterpart. Um yeah, Bill says in the book, "Cinderella is sometimes told as a legend. In fact, it is as a legend that the story is first attested in its entirety in a Chinese work of the 9th century. Um so yeah, that's very old and >> you know um very interesting. Um, see Venus and Mercury. Um, he talks about uh yeah, it's the Chinese legend of Shenine. I'm I can't pronounce that. I apologize everybody. Um, but yeah, it's uh in both versions, the king is first moved to love. So, he's talking about the the Rodipus story and the Chinese story and the features they have in common. And Bill writes that in both versions, the king is first moved to love by the sight of her shoe rather than by the sight of her, >> which you know is very funny in retrospect. >> What does this guy have a foot fetish? >> Yeah. Both both narratives are cast as legends rather than as tales. And both legends were attached to a local tomb that was believed to be the burial place of the heroine or her stepf family which is very important in in um the recounting of uh I believe Heroditus right where he talks about um I believe when he's talking about Rodopus he's talking firstly about um the tomb that's attached to her name >> how she came to pay for it I believe so yeah that's a very interesting >> parallel yeah and it's in his Egyptian section too, you know, with the long section where he talks about Egypt. Um, we've been throwing around these these different terms like myth, legend, folktale, fairy tale. I think it's important to make sure people understand that there's a lot of overlap. You know, those these are not like discrete categories. You know, myth I mean when take something like the Odyssey, we usually call that, oh, that's a Greek myth, but is it legend because there's like a semi-historical basis or is it really just folk tale with some fairy tale elements in it, you know? So I I think it's um I I think it's good not to worry too much about the distinctions among categories like that. Um I mean there are definite things like like folktales and fairy tales tend to be set in a world that's more realistic than say the world of myth where it's like focused on the gods and you know a period of uh before known history. Whereas folktales are like, "Oh, this is the real world and it may be like once upon a time in a certain kingdom, but it's still like the world as we know it basically." And there might be gods in these stories, but they take a backseat to the human characters. And myth is more like the opposite of that, I think, in a lot of ways. Like there gods in the Odyssey. They do affect the action, but the focus is very much on its use as a human relatable character. >> And Debbie, I'm glad you brought up those distinctions. um for the purposes of what we're discussing here today. Yeah, it's important to understand that there's a lot of overlap and we're talking more in general terms, but it reminded me of um actually a very affordable and a wonderful book that um again by Bill Hansen. We're talking about a lot of pricey books today. I apologize, but a book that's very affordable and very wonderful um that I love to just kind of have around to like crack open because it's it's very um it's an anthology type book, but it's a a book called The Book of Greek and Roman >> uh folktales, legends, and myths. And um >> Bill has a really good introduction to different he he's really good at categorizing these different tales and um >> it gets a lot more complex. There's catch tales, there's heroic credence tales, things like that. So, it gets more complicated, but for the the purposes of our discussion today, we're being very general and and it's just best for the audience to keep in mind that um yeah, like Debbie said, there's a lot of overlap with these categories. >> Yeah. Yeah. And I I've actually got that book of bills also. And so, it's it's definitely, you know, possible to go into a lot more detail about the distinctions. Um, but I think yeah, for what we're talking about today, there's just sort of some fluidity um across the the stories and there the various elements, whether it's a tale type or motifs and all that. Yeah, >> absolutely. And I want to get into um probably my favorite of all of these tales today. Um but we're going to talk next about um the lover of lies the Philips Sudes uh the story of Pancrates and uh Eucharist um that Lucian of Samosetta tells in uh Philips Sudes 35 through 36. Um this is uh at 325 apprentice and ghost. So Debbie tell us about this story. >> Um sure I love this story. I think that um the version in Lucian more particularly this this story may be better known to audiences as the sorcerer's apprentice um does that sound um you know have you heard it called that also or >> Yes. Yes. Of course. >> Yeah. Because it's uh at least in the Lucian story um the pancreat story it's not so much a ghost as an animated inanimate object inanimate object being animated. Excuse me. Sorry, I just I need a sip of water here. Um, so, um, if the the Panker story, if if I understand the one you're referring to, um, it's, uh, Pancrates is an Egyptian. We've got a lot of Egypt running through this this uh, discussion. Um, so Lucian is a second century CE author, but you know, the stories are set all that he tells in the Philip Sud lover of lies. Uh, the stories come from all over. So, Pancot is an Egyptian uh magician, a wise man who can swim with the crocodiles, which impresses everybody that crocodiles don't try to eat him. He swims with them. He has magical ability over animals. >> Yeah, that was my favorite part. >> Yeah, >> the croc he's like swimming with them and he's they're like um being like really nice and loving. >> They're wagging their tails in the story, I think. So, but um and so then there's this uh this Greek character who was on a voyage to Egypt who wants I think it's uh >> oh shoot who was it? Was it Ecrates? I'm actually forgetting. Um >> yeah, it's it's Ucert. So, so the story >> the story is in of the lover of lies is this um it takes place in the house of this guy named Ecrates and he's an old man now but the tale he's recounting is when >> he was younger and he was in Egypt and he finds this theoser this holy man Hates who is >> loosely based on a historical character um or historical person um at least a kind of an assemblage of stories but that's another um tale I have a talk with Daniel Ogden coming out about that one. >> Oh, I bet. >> But um >> yeah, so I remember I remember the the story. I just couldn't remember which character was uh from the dialogue was tell. So because Ecertise also tells that story about his dead wife coming back, right? >> Yeah. >> Yeah. That's the story that's uh where Yeah. talks about the shoe and the dog and everything. >> Yeah. Losing a shoe is a thing in antiquity. there's like mono sandalism is actually a thing in uh anyway but yeah so so Ecrates um apprentices himself to pancrates like and he's basically just like the gopher right like he's you he's the servant the servant boy for pancratches and he's uh he says that pancratches was very generous with all of his spells and he was teaching me stuff but the spell I really wanted to know the most is the one he wouldn't tell me and this was that when they were traveling you you know, um, Pancrates said, you know, we're not we don't need to bring any servants with us because we'll have, you know, I'll I'll handle that. And so what Pancrais did everywhere they went was he would say this spell. Apparently it was like what was it? Three syllables or Yeah, I think it was just three syllables or something. Um and and he would animate like a pestle or the beam of a door or a broom and that inanimate object would become animate and it would be their household servant wherever they went and it would do the marketing and you know fetch the water and this and that. So um Ukrates really wants to know this spell but Pancrates doesn't want to share that one. Ucades overhears it one day and uh enacts it and he has um I think it's actually like a a doorbolt, but well, we're just going to call it a broom because people are probably more familiar with that version from Disney's the Sorcerers Apprentice episode of of Fantasia. >> Yeah, it's it's a pest. He he he he animates a pestl or like the door the door post a broom is a broom is one of the things that um could be um animated by this. mentioned in there. Yeah. Um so Ucrates animates this inanimate object and um you know they dresses it like they they dresses it like a person so it can go out and sort of be disguised and do the marketing and he tells it to fetch the water because Ucrates is tired of all this manual labor. It doesn't want to do it. So, the thing goes and it fetches water and uh then Eupcrates wants it to stop and realizes he didn't quite catch the end of the spell like how to stop it. And so this animated, you know, piece of of wood, keeps drawing water until the whole house is is flooded. And uh basically Pancrates comes back, stops, you know, says the the spell that ends it is furious and just leaves. He's like he's done with Ucretes for he's like forget about it. no more apprenticeship. So, and Yucati is um you know in the context of the dialogue because again this is like he's telling a story he's old now he's telling a story from when he was younger. So the people around him are saying so do you still know the spell and can you like show us and he's and Yuki says well yeah I still remember how to start it but I shouldn't do it because I still don't know how to stop it because I don't know how to turn it off. So yeah. Um >> yeah that's hilarious. And that is the earliest Yeah. >> I was just gonna say it's the earliest the earliest known version I think of the uh Sorcerers Apprentice story. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. And you know what's really interesting about this story is that it's tied into a story we talked about briefly last time and that everybody who watches this show knows that I'm a big fan of which is the story of Eric Nadis in the haunted house. Um so it turns out in the course of the story that Aragnotus and uh Ukrates both shared Pancrates as a master or a teacher at one point. So so it's very interesting. Um and uh Daniel Ogden points out in his wonderful commentary and translation of um the lover of lies which is called um in search of the sorcerer's apprentice >> um he points out that um >> yeah it's a wonderful book and he points out that um and uh one thing that he pointed out was that uh these books that >> um Arignotus has to expel the demon or the the diamond the ghost in the haunted house are the Egyptian books that he got from pancreat. So it's a very very f and then he he also draws attention to the concept of the in the Greek and Egyptian magical formula is the PGM of the pyadros the assistant the inanimate object that turns into a donic assistant. And uh he gives several selections of these uh of these spells to you know create an assistant to do you know to do to fetch to you know fetch uh >> fetch things like uh you know uh you know whatever you need to you know do whatever you want. It's I think it's like the first spell in Hans Deerbett's um translation of these texts. So it's very interesting these um these concepts and motifs in popular culture that were going on at the time. >> I mean was it like a hyperorean magician who animated a little thing and sent it away to it was part of an erotic spell I think or something like send a message to someone's lover or I can't quite remember but I you know there there are these spells in the Greek magical papyrie that suggest people believed you could really do this sort of thing. >> Yeah. creating um and I think that actually happens in the um >> that happens in the lover of lies as well. There's a section where >> um they hire a a Hyperorean mage. One of the because there's all these different characters, these different philosophers telling different stories. Um and of course Lucian is making fun of their respective viewpoints. Um and one of them tells a story about how he uh hired this this uh I believe it's the Hyperorean mage to uh create a an assistant to go fetch >> um this uh this girl that he was in love with. Yeah, that's the story I was saying. It's a longer story, but yeah, it's a great story. Um, and um, and of course, you have the story and a a related um, well, not related, but like another ancient narrative in Appalas's uh, metamorphoses or the golden ass where um, the witch Panilele um, animates the the the wines and Lucius when he's drunk coming home kills the or you know, stabs the wines skins and he think he's killed these robbers. Um so very >> interesting motifs. >> Um but yeah like the sorcerers apprentice is a extremely um interesting and influential story. Uh we don't get it directly from Lucian to Disney. Of course it goes through Gear first. >> Yes. >> And then um plays and things like that before it gets to Mickey Mouse but >> Yes. >> You know and eventually I think they made a movie with Nicholas Cage too. I can't remember. They did. >> That's right. Was it was Yeah. Um yeah, you know, you're right. I Yeah, I I think I saw it a while back, but I don't I don't you know, it's been a while. I don't quite remember the details, but Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. So, so Debbie, uh let's get to the kind of the to force um of these fairy tales today. Um sure. Uh it's hard to kind of top that one, but we're going to get into the most fairy tale of fairy tale stories in antiquity. And of course I'm talking about Cupid and Psyche um which is in book speaking of Appalas books four through six of the golden ass. So tell us about this tale, Debbie. Um, this conforms to AT425, the search for the lost husband, which is, and I want everybody to realize this, this is pretty much Beauty and the Beast as >> Yeah, this is, you know, I think this is the uh the earliest version of an analog for Beauty, the Beauty and the Beast uh tale type. Yeah, I think um yeah, it's a so uh there's this uh it's it's almost exactly in the middle of the the his metamorphosis too. And there's there's a larger context. Um an old woman is telling this story to a young girl who's been kidnapped by robbers um trying to you know distract her, keep her calm. But it's a very self-contained story and it literally starts off with um there was in a certain kingdom or sorry there were in a certain kingdom a a king and queen. So it's it's the closest thing to a once upon a time really although I think some of the Greek stories also start with like an indefinite like pot you know at one time. Anyway, so you know this the introduction is basically there's a kingdom, there's a king and queen. They have three daughters. The youngest daughter is the most beautiful. In fact, she's so beautiful uh that the goddess Venus gets jealous of her um envious of her and uh is kind of Venus is furious because people in the kingdom are worshiping the beauty of this youngest daughter instead of worshiping Venus and like Venus's altars are left neglected and cold and you know cold ashes and all that. Anyway, so um the Venus uh has her son Cupid. She she commands her son to make Psyche fall in love with the worst possible man in the entire world um as a punishment. Like she's so beautiful, let her marry the ugliest, most wretched, most you know, povertystricken guy ever. Um so Cupid is supposed to go and do this. I I guess I should preface this by saying, and I'll try not to go on too long, too. We call the story Cupid and Psyche now, but for the ancient audience, they don't find out until halfway through the story of that the husband is in fact Cupid because it's mysterious. It's meant to be mysterious. So, calling a Cupid and Psyche has kind of ruined it for posterity. But anyway, so uh Cupid, as far as we know, Cupid's going off and doing what his mom tells him to do. And so the next thing we know um there's this prophecy that um the youngest uh daughter whose name is Psyche uh is going to be uh her fate is to to meet you know a horrible monster and uh so they leave her up on a cliff. It's this very sort of ferial procession while she's being led to her wedding with this monstrous being you know whose uh characteristics happen to be very similar to Cupid. Uh anyway, uh so it turns out that instead of, you know, being devoured by some monster, which is what everybody thought was going to happen, they've left her up on this cliff and the West Wind wafts her gently down to a valley with this palace with invisible servants and uh basically a mysterious husband who comes and makes her his wife, which is kind of a euphemism for, you know, basically this strange man comes into her bedroom and has sex with her. So, I don't know how much of this you want in the in the chat. >> No, we're we're not we're not gonna we're not going to sugarcoat it. In my talk with Joel Rean, we just said that >> yeah, he he basically um I don't know I can't remember the exact words, but Appaloo says that >> um it became easier for her with time as he came to her bedroom every >> every night. So, in a sense, he rapes her. >> He does that very first night. She's freaking terrified. And I think, you know, I think Gabrielus says almost literally in in the Latin, he this the unseen, you know, husband came a man came into the bedroom which was darkened and made her his wife. So, he forced himself on her. But I part of what's going on there, um, not that this mitigates it at all, but there's a lot of reflection in there of, uh, how, you know, what Roman marriage would have been like. Um because the girls would have been 11, 12, 13. I mean, basically as soon as they start menstruating and therefore can have children, they are married off and they don't necessarily have a say in who they're married to, right? It's all a lot of it was arranged by families. So, there are some aspects of the story, particularly that so-called wedding night, that are pretty terrifying. Um but uh yeah, then Apilus says, "Well, this kept happening every night and she didn't see the husband cuz he would just come in at night in the dark and he would say to her, "Don't try to see me. You know, that's going to cause some serious problems. I need to know that I can trust you." And she's okay with that status quo for for a really long time. She gets pregnant and she's happy that she's going to have a child. And meanwhile she's being waited on by invisible servants and she gets accustomed to, you know, living that life. But she does get lonely and she, you know, sort of um she says to her, you know, unseen husband, she can feel him, right? He's got soft cheeks. He's got hair flowing hair and this and that. Um she can't see him, but she can feel him. And she says, you know, it's been a while. Uh my family think I'm dead. I'd really like to see my sisters. And you know, this is where things start to go very wrong. Uh, the unseen husband who has still not been named in the actual Latin in the story. Um, he says, "Well, I don't, you know, I do feel bad for you. I understand, but you can have them visit, but don't, you know, listen to anything they say. Don't let them try to convince you to see me. You know, don't break the rules, basically." So the sisters get to come visit the the same you know soft breeze the west wind the zephyr that brought psyche down also brings the sisters down and they when they see this amazing palace that their younger sister is living in and uh you know they see all the magical things happening there and all the jewels and this and that they are so envious. They were married off to princes but again married off is is kind of the key there. It's not like they had a lot of say and they're pretty envious. One of them says, "Oh god, my husband is like old and balding." And the other one says, "Mine's arthritic and I have to rub this stinky lotion on him." You know, so even though they've been, you know, settled well according to ancient um standards, uh they clearly don't have the sort of mystery and romance and uh in their lives that psyche now seems to have. So they're like, "Well, what's your husband like?" And she is, you got to remember, Psyche is very young and she's naive and she can't keep track of what she's saying. She keeps giving him different stories. Oh, he does this. Oh, no. Uh, but wait, he does that, too. And they get suspicious that she has no clue who her husband is. They come back for a second visit and they say, you know, we're we're really concerned about you. We think that your husband is not showing himself to you because he is in reality a giant monstrous serpent who just wants to eat you and your unborn child. and that's why he's fattening you up with all you know the ser the invisible servants giving you all these meals and all that and so they convince her to take a knife and cut off his head. So again, it's a very long elaborate uh story and even if it had some origins in oral tradition, it's being very told in a very leisurely and in a very literary style, lots of descriptive details. So despite the fact that Psyche has been able to feel her husband, she is convinced by her sisters that he's some sort of a monstrous serpent who sneaks out and eats the neighbors, you know, and their livestock along the river. Um, and so she she takes a knife, uh, you know, sort of hides it in her clothing, takes a lamp, goes into her husband's bedroom like with a knife in one hand and a lamp in the other and sees her husband for the first time and she's like, "What the, you know, basically because she recognizes that um, he's this beautiful god Cupid because he's got wings." Somehow those never came up in the previous descriptions of her feeling him. He's got wings. He's got his quiver with his arrows. And she's already basically enamored of the sight of him. But she accidentally, she's she's picking up his quiver with his arrows and looking at them, she accidentally pricks her finger on one of them. And that has the m the extra effect. And there's very famous line in a upon, you know, pricking her finger on one of his arrows, she fell in love with love. And uh then unfortunately uh she drops a bit of the oil from the lamp on his shoulder. He wakes up. He's furious and he he abandons her basically. Long story short, he leaves. That's where you get the search for the lost husband. So like you know the entire rest of the story except for a little you know sort of epilogue is Psyche pregnant by the way going on this very long arduous quest to find her lost husband who she now knows is Cupid and she despares a lot of the time you know kind of like Odysius in some ways so he gets a little you know despairing like what do you mean go to the underworld I don't want have to go to the underworld you know and Psyche goes through something uh even more serious in some ways cuz again she's pregnant. She doesn't have anybody a crew with not that Adishious crew was so helpful but but she does have you know various aspects of nature helping her along the way. So for example when she finally gets to Venus's palace where Cupid has retreated Venus says yeah you can't see him until you perform all these tasks for me. So one of the tasks for example is to have to sort this mix this pile of mixed grains before the end of the day. And that may sound familiar from some of the Grimm's fairy tales where similar things happen. You know, the protagonist is assigned, you know, the seemingly impossible tasks. This is sort of like in Jason and the Argonauts when he's got to somehow yoke these bronzefooted fire breathing bulls and sew some seeds in a field and can't do it without help from media. Well, Psyche gets help from a troop of ants. Psyche is so nice and gentle and young and naive that all these aspects, all these creatures kind of want to help her. So these ants help her sort the grain. Venus comes in at the end of the day and she's like, "Yeah, no way. Did you do that yourself, but you know, it did get done and I forgot to say you shouldn't have any helpers, you know, whatever." Anyway, so there are several more tasks that Psyche is able to get through thanks to help from people. But the very last task, maybe no surprise there, is that she has to go to the underworld. And uh in this case because it's you know sort of a female oriented story and tension between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law that again reflects a lot of what's actually going on in society. The >> yeah Venus Venus in this story is essentially the wicked stepmother. >> She is like the shuest shrewish um mother-in-law I would say even more then. Uh but yeah, exactly. Sort of almost like the stepmother in later stories and definitely sort of the stereotypical mother-in-law who, you know, is upset that she has a daughter-in-law that she didn't want because Psyche's immortal immortal and Cupid shouldn't have, you know, Cupid was supposed to make Psyche fall in love with some mortal wretch and not fall in love with her himself, which is what happened, you know. Um anyway, so the task is to fetch a box of Pphanie or Proerpin's beauty from the underworld. Um and uh so Psyche doesn't have to go fetch Cberus like Heracles did or go and talk to the ghosts of the underworld the way Odysius did. She has to basically fetch some cosmetics from the underworld or you know allegedly fetch uh fetch what are allegedly cosmetics. So, you know, she gets advice on her way like here have some barley cakes to give Cberus so that you can get past him and this and that. So, she she you know, Prerina gives her, you know, she says it's Psyche says it's for Venus. Preser is like, "Oh, sure. Here, here's the box." And of course, um, as Psyche with, you know, a female's curiosity and vanity thinks, "Oh, well, I need some of this like beauty, you know, magical beauty stuff myself cuz I've been on this really long quest and I'm sort of wrecked." She opens the box and turns out to be the sleep of death which you know I don't know if Venus and Pro had somehow arranged this but whatever. Uh so in fact despite having gone through all these this arduous quest succeeded on tasks she fails at this last one she falls into the deathly sleep and here it's kind of like sleeping duty. Cupid has to, you know, finally stand up for himself, tell his mom off and go find Psyche. And so he wakes her up. And then he goes to Jupiter, king of the gods, for some arbitration and mediation. And Jupiter says, "Let's see if we can arrange things so that all parties will be happy." And he says to Venus, "How about if we make Psyche an immortal?" And she's like, "Oh, I guess that would be fine." So it ends with this wonderful wedding ceremony and feast. And the very last thing that happens is that psyche gives birth to the child whose name is pleasure or lupas in Latin. Yeah. So that's absolutely very very long literary story there. But uh the you know again one of the reasons we saved this one for last is because it is so detailed um you know so long enough to really like sort of fit in with the you know French fairy tales the grims fairy tales in terms of of its intricacy >> right and for those in the audience who are familiar or who are interested in this motif uh this other motif of uh the task the tasks that Venus is assigning to psyche. Uh that is uh AT425B um the disenchanted husband the witch's tasks which is uh the heroine enters into the service of a witch who assigns her apparently impossible tasks. And again that is from um William Hansen's Ariadne's thread. Again um an invaluable resource if you're interested in the intersection of classics and folklores. Um, but yeah, Debbie, like you said, this is such an intricate story and I think that the reason why I wanted to end on it and why I think it's such a great example of fairy tales in antiquity or folk tales in antiquity is that um not only is it like Bill said the most fairale of fair >> Oh, you've sort of cut out it's um that um Oh, sorry. Did I >> You cut out on my end a little bit. I don't know if uh you've probably got the recording, but you you cut out on my end, so I can't quite hear. Sorry. >> Okay. Um Oh, >> yeah, it's out of sync and uh a little bit. >> Yeah, let me let me start that over. >> Okay, >> let me start that over then. I apologize and I'll I'll fix that. Um but I believe Cupid and Psyche is a great example of the cross-cultural um fluidity of these narratives in general. Um there's a lot of things going on in it. Um not only is it um is the sense in the sense of the Greek and Latin connections of the story. Um but is it has also been argued that several by several Appalian scholars that their north uh indigenous Berber folktale traditions from North Africa as as Appalas is um from North Africa. Um, so you know, um, but there's also a lot of things that Appalas is doing with this seemingly simple story of a girl's coming of age within the context of the book. >> Um, the book itself, uh, >> Psyche's story mirrors the journey of Lucius himself through her curiosity, her curiosity toss, and how that gets her into trouble just like it gets Lucius into trouble. Um, but there's also another aspect of it where um, Appalas is writing a Roman novel for a North African and an Alatin audience, but he's also incorporating the story that aside from all the fantastic elements would not be out of place in a text by somebody like Zenapon or Ker Ton. It's still a story of a boy and a girl who are in love who, >> you know, have to are separated and then they have to find some way to come back together. Um, and of course you have several >> 19th and 20th century psychological psychoanalytical and psychological interpretations of the story which I don't personally subscribe to, but it was it was very important for that Yungian kind of um interpretation of things. So, you know, like I said, um this is a great tale and a great example of cross-cultural fluidity. >> Yeah. Yeah. And um I mean the you know what you were just say the the name psyche I mean that that actually means soul or spirit in Greek. And so the whole you know psychological interpretation that you're talking about. Um I mean the the 19th and 20th century psychologists really did sort of get into it a little too much saying oh psyche is clearly the spirit and cupid is clearly the flesh and soul and body have to work together. But um you know psyche as representing the the spirit and its you know arduous quest and is I mean like you say there are different ways to interpret it but I think one thing that's worth noting is that even pretty early on uh psyche in art was represented with wings and uh sort of butterfly wings. And so even before 19th to 20th century psychology, there was this tradition of thinking of of psyche at least as kind of representing the soul or spirit, you know, being a bit allegorical there. Um, butterflies and moss also representing, you know, the the soul or spirit. And that's we've seen that in a bunch of movies, too, like uh Silence of the Lambs, for example. There's something more recent um the one with Hugh Grant and the Mormon I think the Mormon girls. What was that called? um heretic I think you know so uh yeah yeah yeah see what I'm talking about so the the use of these sort of butterfly like figures um as representing the solar spirit I think you know in some ways does trace back to to the concept of of psyche and not necessarily the Cuban psyche but the homeriic psyche which was you know in the Iliad you know the soul like flew out you know and departed from its body so that so there's I mean there definitely you can see where the allegorical interpretations could come from. But I I tend to agree with you. I think, you know, some people went a little too far with with that. Um, and then of course there's, you know, the Beauty and the Beast angle, which is, you know, the husband who seems monstrous is not. He's the opposite. Um, yeah. So, uh, although I mean, you know, his treatment of of psyche in some respects might seem monstrous to a modern audience, but like you say, her quest really is representing or her whole story is like these rights of passage. Leaving home, getting married, you know, with no say in it, having well, having a kid eventually, you know, the more formal marriage uh, at at the end uh, is a little different. So she's going into a different stage of her life at that point having the kid really becoming a mother fulfilling all her responsibilities is like a good Roman even though I should say also say with the once upon a time in a certain kingdom we don't even know where this is set it doesn't say Italy you know there is an oracle of Apollo over in Asia that they consult not Deli and so there so there are definitely some asiatic elements in there along with as you say these recent studies that are pointing to maybe some North African elements in the story as well. >> Yeah, absolutely. And anybody who wants to learn more about the uh North African elements of native Berber traditions in that text can refer to a wonderful volume um uh edited by Benjamin Todd Lee called um Appalas in Africa which is a bunch of wonderful essays about Appalas's North African connections and his uh his connection to his African audiences through his his epidemic speeches and in these stories. Um but actually Debbie you were talking about how uh actually before I get into this um the a good analogy to this story as a coming of age for a woman is um is actually the homeriic hymn to de meter. Um there's a similar story there where you know um deer uh Deita's uh daughter um is taken by Hades who's her uncle just out of the blue you know and uh you know basically taken to this lavish underworld palace and you know she's given everything but it's still weird. It's like you know when you read the Cupid and Psyche story it's like >> she has all these invisible servants doing everything for her but think about how terrifying that would be for like a young girl. like she's just in this place and she doesn't see anybody. Things are just happening. It's very weird. >> Well, yeah. And I mean the that whole scene in the home Kim deer, it's basically the rape of Pphanie. She's with her fellow maidens picking flowers symbolically, you know, picking in a meadow when suddenly this chasm opens up. Hades comes out with this chair and just grabs her, takes her down. And uh, you know, then Dean goes on a quest for the lost daughter. And um yeah, so Pphanie goes through these, you know, it's some of these stories are very harsh reflections of or maybe I should say reflections of how harsh things were for um girls growing, you know, in this the stages of life that they were expected to go through in a patriarchal society. >> Absolutely. And my take my take on Cupid is actually um a bit different because um I think that it's really interesting that she's taken up to the rock kind of like Andromeda um and uh my my conception of of um Cupid or OS in these texts, not only in the this text itself, this Latin novel, but also in the uh Greek novels like for instance something like the Ephesiaca of Zenapon is that Um, Cupid is almost like this terrifying force that even the gods are afraid of. >> Yes. And that's what that says in the Apiles. Yeah. >> He really is like the serpent like he's he's somebody that like even Jupiter or or Zeus fears. Um, you look at how he's portrayed in heid and you know the first things in uh existence that make everything go around is you know love and strife and empetedly right? So it's the same kind of concept. I would argue that, you know, uh, and especially how he's portrayed in in something like Zenapon of Ephesus, um, you know, Cupid is very changeable and very very like prone to, you know, these outbursts of, um, uh, anger. So, I I I would argue that he kind of is a serpent in a way, but that's a story for another talk. Um, yeah. No. Yeah. Wonderful. >> Oh, I'm sorry. I was going to I'm just going to add that at least in the epilus in some ways he also has to grow up and mature because he he is you know foreshadowed as this monstrous creature that you know Jupiter is afraid of and he's you know fickle irresponsible um terrifying in his own way but when we finally meet him um you know especially in regards to his uh relationship I mean well not we meet him early we just don't know that he's a husband necessarily aside from the title of the story, but his relationship with his mother, or rather her relationship with him, is very disturbing in a lot of ways. She does infantilize him, but she also gives him this big openmouth kiss at one point. And when he is wounded by the hot oil, he flies home to mommy and he pouts in his room and complains about how much pain he's in and he just he stays in his room and pouts. He's like a freaking teenager. Um and so you know it isn't and and towards the end of the story he finally has to start standing up for himself and standing up to his mother and kind of individuating right he has to kind of separate from his mother get his wife make it clear that this he wants to move on to this stage of his life so it's not just psyche who has to go through these kind of rights of passage as she grows up but Cupid in the story actually matures quite a bit as well in in some was in some realistic ways um we see less of him as this uh creature who can cause people to fall in love or hate, you know, and even the gods and more of him as the son and husband um uh figure which is kind of an interesting characterization. And then of course Venus is a shrewish mother-in-law. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. It's really interesting to see his uh his um his progression through the story. He's uh he starts out as like this yeah like you said this infantilized you know son with this doing mother almost like a um Norman Bates and his mom in a straight fun way. Um and he he kind of progresses into the the the prototypical um hero of the Greek novel who's like this young man who has to you know kind of grow up. Um so very interesting. Um Debbie, I know um we've covered a lot of ground and I want to give you this time to kind of emphasize anything you feel we missed. Uh plug anything you have going on. Um feel free to use this time. >> Oh, thank you. I think I um you know, I think I managed to to bring in, you know, you you gave me time already to sort of bring in things about the individual stories and some of the the themes that weren't necessarily at the for at the forefront of all of this. But um yeah, I um I think there's still a lot of work that people can do on fairy tales in the ancient world and it's it's really been fun to try to I I taught a class on the topic for the first time this this last spring and it was uh you one of the questions I liked to ask the students was you know what was the most interesting or surprising thing you learned this semester as opposed to asking them what they hated about the semester right anyway what's the most interesting or surprising And you know the the almost across the board the typical answer is I didn't realize that there were ancient versions of so many of these stories and we did talk about them as you know ancient analoges uh as opposed to definite versions that influence later ones that the idea being as Bill Hansen points out in Ariad's thread that we've got these variants we we've got these analoges like analogous tales and we call them that because we can't say that they definitely influenced later versions but they're out there maybe people heard them. A lot of the, you know, in in um when, you know, the French and German fairy tale um collections were being put together by people like the Brothers Grim and and um and others, uh they those people tended to have uh educations that were grounded in in uh classics like learning Greek and Latin was kind of typical for a long time. So maybe they did have some exposure to some of these stories. Um but uh you know we just can't say for sure which early versions influence later ones and it is I think also important to remember that for a lot of the ancient stories there is a definitely an oral tradition or oral transmission aspect to them and one of the things you said about the Odyssey for example was who knows when some of these elements were put in the story like the Polyphimas episode which you know is you know a very nice kind of almost separate episode in and of itself. So uh the oral uh the oral influence on a lot of the uh ancient stories is is very evident. But I mean that that said the brothers grim were collecting fairy tales. You know they were listening to people tell stories from you know their own country and they and the grim brim brothers were writing them down. So these were also you know originally oral or orally told stories. Some of the French stories, especially the earliest uh French version of Beauty and the Beast are very elaborate, more literary type stories like with a lot of elaboration along the lines of Appalas actually. And so it's uh the the story that Apilus tells is very literary literarily elaborate I guess is what I'm trying to say. But that doesn't mean it couldn't have come from various oral stories. ultimately he may put his own his own, you know, writing, you know, in his own details. Um, and there was a sort of a disjunction between the context of the story in epilas metamorphosis, which is this old woman's telling it to this young girl. Is this old woman really going to be this literary, you know, in her telling? But, uh, yeah, it's it's, you know, question. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. And there's a whole other issue there with that story in terms of what it uh foreshadows about that the woman the girl the young girl that it's being told to. But that's another discussion. You can see my talk with Joel Roan about that one. Um but Debbie, it's always wonderful to get to talk to you about all these >> interesting and crazy stories from antiquity, whether it be ghost or monsters or or um in this case fairy tales. I want to thank you so much for being so generous with your time and sharing your knowledge with the audience and with me. It's very much appreciated. >> Well, thanks again for having me. And you know, you you clearly know so much about all of these um stories. You're yourself. I mean, somebody should interview you. >> I'm just the guy who I'm just the dumb guy who talks to the smart people. So, you're bound to pick something up. bound to pick something up eventually if you pay attention. So, um I appreciate you being a part of a part of this. So, uh thank you so much, Debbie.