In his influential Essays {Essais}, the leading sixteenth-century philosopher Michel de Montaigne shared himself much more honestly and extensively than persons using social media commonly do today. Montaigne explained:
Every one of my parts, each as much as another, makes me myself. I owe to the public my complete portrait.
{ Chacune de mes pieces me faict esgalement moy que toute autre. Et nulle autre ne me faict plus proprement homme que cette cy. Je dois au publiq universellement mon pourtrait. }[1]
Montaigne therefore discussed his sexual difficulties and inadequacies. His frank self-disclosure built in part upon medieval poetry presenting old men’s sexual difficulties.
Montaigne suggested that his penis is small. Defending women switching sexual partners, Montaigne declared:
When I have found a woman discontented with me, I have not immediately gone and accused her of fickleness. I have asked myself rather if I don’t have reason to accuse Nature:
If my penis isn’t sufficiently long, if it’s not good and thick
surely then Nature has treated me unlawfully and unjustly
even good matrons know all too well and do not gladly see a tiny penis
and Nature has inflicted on me the most enormous injury.
{ Quand j’en ay veu quelqu’une s’ennuyer de moy, je n’en ay point incontinent accusé sa legereté; j’ay mis en doubte si je n’avois pas raison de m’en prendre à nature plustost.
Si non longa satis, si non bene mentula crassa,
Certes, elle m’a traitté illegitimement et incivilement,
Nimirum sapiunt, videntque parvam Matronae quoque mentulam illibenter.
Et d’une lesion enormissime. }[2]
In truth, men with small penises shouldn’t accuse Nature of doing an enormous injury to them. Burnel the donkey failed to understand that his penis was sufficient and good. Men shouldn’t be asses like Burnel.
Montaigne defended men’s penises against a hypothetical conviction of rebelliousness. Montaigne apparently referred implicitly to his own difficulties:
We are right to note the license and disobedience of this member which thrusts itself forward so inopportunely, when we don’t want it to, and fails so inopportunely, when we need an affair the most. It imperiously contests for authority with our will. It stubbornly and proudly refuses all our incitements, both mental and manual. Yet if this member were arraigned for rebelliousness, found guilty on these charge, and then I was retained to plead its cause, I would doubtlessly cast suspicion on our other members, its companions, for having deliberately brought a trumped-up charge. They seek to be raised relative to it because of fine envy at its importance and sweetness of usage. They would be plotting to arm everybody against it, maliciously accusing it of a defect common to them all.
{ On a raison de remarquer l’indocile liberté de ce membre, s’ingerant si importunement, lors que nous n’en avons que faire, et defaillant si importunement, lors que nous en avons le plus affaire, et contestant de l’authorité si imperieusement avec nostre volonté, refusant avec tant de fierté et d’obstination noz solicitations et mentales et manuelles. Si toutesfois en ce qu’on gourmande sa rebellion, et qu’on en tire preuve de sa condemnation, il m’avoit payé pour plaider sa cause: à l’adventure mettroy-je en souspeçon noz autres membres, ses compagnons, de luy estre allé dresser, par belle envie de l’importance et douceur de son usage, cette querelle apostée, et avoir par complot armé le monde à l’encontre de luy: le chargeant malignement seul de leur faute commune. }[3]
Montaigne argued that other bodily members act similarly. He argued that men sometimes defecate, urinate, and pass gas without consciously willing the action. Moreover, the penis deserves more respect than the bowels, bladder, and anal sphincter. Summing up, Montaigne declared:
Finally, on behalf of my noble client, may it please the court to consider that, in this matter, my client’s case is inseparably and indistinguishably joined to a consort. Yet the suit is addressed to my client alone, employing arguments and making charges which, granted the characteristics of the Parties, can in no way be brought against the aforesaid consort. By this can be seen the manifest animosity and legal impropriety of the accusers. The contrary notwithstanding, Nature registers a protest against the lawyers’ accusations and judges’ sentences, and she will meanwhile proceed as usual, as one who acted rightly when she endowed the aforesaid member with its own particular privilege to be author of the only immortal achievement know to mortals.
{ En fin je diroy pour monsieur ma partie, que plaise à considerer, qu’en ce faict, sa cause estant inseparablement conjointe à un consort et indistinctement, on ne s’adresse pourtant qu’à luy, et par des arguments et charges telles, veu la condition des parties, qu’elles ne peuvent aucunement apartenir ny concerner son-dit consort. Partant se void l’animosité et illegalité manifeste des accusateurs. Quoy qu’il en soit, protestant que les advocats et juges ont beau quereller et sentencier, nature tirera cependant son train : qui n’auroit faict que raison, quand ell’ auroit doué ce membre de quelque particulier privilege, autheur du seul ouvrage immortel des mortels. }
Surely a fair appellate judge would overturn a charge and conviction of rebelliousness against Montaigne’s penis.
Montaigne himself wasn’t satisfied with his penis’s behavior. As an old man, he declared:
But it’s most unwise (is it not?) to bring our inadequacies and weaknesses to a place where we would desire to please and to leave there a good impression and reputation. For the little I need nowadays
even for one go, limp work.
I wouldn’t embarrass any woman whom I hold in reverence and awe:
you escape being mistrusted, you whose life staggers to limp fifty years.
Nature should be content to have made that age pitiful, without making it also ridiculous. I hate to see old age with an inch of paltry vigor that arouses it three times a week, dashing about and bragging with the same vehemence as if it had a good day’s legitimate work in its belly.
{ Mais n’est ce pas grande impudence d’apporter nos imperfections et foiblesses en lieu où nous desirons plaire, et y laisser bonne estime de nous et recommandation? Pour ce peu qu’il m’en faut à cette heure,
ad unum, Mollis opus
je ne voudrois importuner une personne que j’ay à reverer et craindre:
Nature se devoit contenter d’avoir rendu cet aage miserable, sans le rendre encore ridicule. Je hay de le voir, pour un pouce de chetive vigueur qui l’eschaufe trois fois la semaine, s’empresser et se gendarmer de pareille aspreté, comme s’il avoit quelque grande et legitime journée dans le ventre }[4]
The essayist lamented:
Assaying us, the women might perhaps find us not worthy of their choice:
After exploring his thighs and a cock like a damp leather thong, which falls to stand even when urged by a weary hand, she deserts the impotent bed.
{ En nous essayant, elles ne nous trouvent, à l’adventure, pas dignes de leur chois,
experta latus, madidoque simillima loro Inguina, nec lassa stare coacta manu, Deserit imbelles thalamos. }[5]
Men’s impotence is an epic disaster. Old men are relatively prone to it. A medieval poem observed:
Love looks for young men to play with young women. Venus despises old men, who are beset with infirmities.
{ Amor quaerit iuvenes, ut ludant cum virginibus; Venus despicit senes, qui impleti sunt doloribus. }[6]
Medieval literature recognized the possibilities of miracles, even for old men. The right attitude and the right circumstances can make an old man young again:
Recently grown old, I’m becoming young again. Aging in reverse, I don’t restrain my emotions. When my friends chide me, they incite me more and make me go crazy. May I die while having sex!
My love had grown old, until, in a thoroughly loving event, it rekindled. A little spark of sexual desire — a new spark toward a new little love — deprived me of my senses. In this flame may I die while with pleasure I’m wounded. By the earnestness of the offense, the fault is made faultless, and her beauty incites the vehemence of my love.
{ Nuper senex iuvenesco, desenesco nec compesco motus animi. Nam cum proximi me castigant, plus instigant et me cogunt furere. Moriar in Venere.
Amor noster senuit, dum re peramata renovata Veneris scintillula in novam novellula michi me subripuit. In hac flamma morior, dum iocunde saucior. Honestate criminis culpa deculpatur, et furori virginis forma suffragatur. }
Of course, burning passion can be painful for an old man, especially if he consciously tries to resist it:
He is twice jabbed who strives to kick against the goad. So it is right that I should suffer and be tortured a thousand times and more on the brink of death. Spare me, Venus, spare me! My fire blazes in its leader’s head!
{ Bis pungitur, qui nititur repugnare stimulo. Ergo iuste patior et crucior milies ac pluries mortis sub articulo. Parce, Venus, parce! Noster ignis aestuat principis in arce! }
The fire blazing in the leader’s head seems to be in the head of his rebellious penis. As Montaigne argued, a man’s penis has a mind of its own. For that it shouldn’t be charged with a crime.
[1] Michel de Montaigne, Essays {Essais} 3.5 (389v), “On some lines of Virgil {Sur des vers de Virgile},” French text from the Villey & Saulnier (1965) version of the 1595 edition of Essais, English translation from Screech (1993) p. 1004. Subsequent English translations from Essais are similarly sourced, with some modifications in the English translations. The quotation references are from Screech’s footnotes.
[2] Montaigne, Essais 3.5 (389v). The first Latin quote is Priapeia 80.1, and the second is Priapeia 8.4-5.
[4] Montaigne, Essais 3.5 (389v). The first Latin quote is Horace, Epodes 12.15-6; the second, Horace, Odes 2.4.22-4.
[5] Montaigne, Essais 3.5 (389v). The first Latin quote is Martial, Epigrams 7.57.3-5.
[6] Carmina Burana 152, “No summer has appeared in times past {Aestas non apparuit praeteritis temporibus},” stanza 4, Latin text and English translation (modified) from Traill (2018). Here are some Latin reading notes for this poem.
[7] Carmina Burana 104, “I am fed up with my sickness {Aegre fero, quod aegroto},” stanzas 2-3, Latin text and English translation (modified) from Traill (2018). The subsequent quote is similarly from Carmina Burana 104, stanza 5. Id. notes that 5.1-2 is a proverbial expression derived from Acts 26:14, which in the Vulgate: “It’s hard for you to kick against the goads {durum est tibi contra stimulum calcitrare}.”
[images] (1) Portrait of Michel de Montaigne. Painted in 1587 and attributed to Étienne Martellange. Source image via Wikimedia Commons. (2) Portrait of Montaigne. Painted about 1590. Via Wikimedia Commons.
References:
Screech, M. A., trans. 1993. Michel De Montaigne: the Complete Essays. London, England: Penguin Books.
Traill, David A. 2018, ed. and trans. Carmina Burana. Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library, 48-49. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.
The Thebaid, which Statius wrote early in the 90s GC, highlights women’s power and women’s unity in lamenting beloved men killed in civil war. Although built upon the Thebaid, the twelfth-century Roman de Thèbes gives women’s laments over dead men less political importance. The Roman de Thèbes concludes by imploring respect for nature. Men’s lives don’t naturally have less value than women’s lives. While the ending of Statius’s Thebaid acknowledges a man’s natural beauty, the ending of the Roman de Thèbes radically challenges epic’s vastly disproportionate violence against men.
In the Thebaid, women’s laments spur men leaders into war. For example, Polynices in exile in Argos fumed because his brother Eteocles repudiated their agreement to rule Thebes in alternate years. Eteocles insisted that he would rule Thebes perpetually. Polynices’s wife Argia, daughter of King Adrastus of Argos, went with torn hair and tear-stained cheeks to her father. She brought at her breast her little boy. Tears and grandchildren are tools with which daughters dominate their fathers. Argia said to her father, the king of Argos:
Why, in tears and without my grieving husband, I cross your threshold at night, a suppliant, you know, Sire, though words should fail me. But, by wedlock’s holy bonds I swear, and by you, Father: he didn’t send me. Wakeful anguish did. Ever since Hymen and inauspicious Juno first waved the wedding torch left-handed, my sleep’s been disturbed by the tears and groans beside me. I couldn’t bear it — not if a tiger’s hackles or looming sea-girt crags rose hard within my heart. You alone can help, your power to heal reigns supreme. Start the war, Father! … I for one never filched Venus’s fires in secret, the steal-away wedding torch — no! I followed your advice, observed your august commands. Should I now turn on him, scorn his grievous woes? You don’t know, best Father, you don’t know what love a chaste woman feels, wed to an unhappy man!
{ cur tua cum lacrimis maesto sine coniuge supplex limina nocte petam, cessem licet ipsa profari, scis genitor, sed iura deum genialia testor teque pater, non ille iubet, sed pervigil angor; ex quo primus Hymen movitque infausta sinistram Iuno facem, semper lacrimis gemituque propinquo exturbata quies, non si mihi tigridis horror aequoreasque super rigeant praecordia cautes, ferre queam; tu solus opem, tu summa medendi iura tenes; da bella, pater … non egomet tacitos Veneris furata calores culpatamve facem: tua iussa verenda tuosque dilexi monitus, nunc qua feritate dolentis despiciam questus? nescis, pater optime, nescis, quantus amor castae misero nupsisse marito. }[1]
As fathers typically do, King Adrastus responded sympathetically to his daughter. He said she deserved praise for urging him to take Argos into war against Thebes. As a leader, however, he feared for his men and felt the weight of responsibility for sending them into war. He comforted his daughter by declaring that the war would come. He told her that judicious delays in starting the war increased the odds of the war’s success.
The Roman de Thèbes closely linked the start of the war to the Thebans’ egregious ambush of Adrastus’s messenger, his son-in-law Tydeus. Polynices had proposed to go to Thebes himself:
When the time had passed by which he should have been crowned, Polynices realized he was totally betrayed and he made strong threats against his brother. He couldn’t laugh or joke, nor could he sleep or rest at night, and he said he would go to Thebes in anger and claim his kingdom.
{ Des que li termes est passez qu’il deüst estre coronnez, Pollinicés s’en tint a mort et menaça son frere fort. Ne puet pas rire ne jouer, par nuit dormir ne reposer; et dist qu’a Thebes s’en ira et son regne chalengera. }[2]
According to Argia in the Thebaid, Polynices’s morose restlessness was causing her distress in bed. King Adrastus, however, persuaded his son-in-law not to go to Thebes. Instead, Adrastus advised sending a messenger to Eteocles with a demand that he adhere to the reign-sharing agreement. When no one else dared to convey that message, Tydeus, husband to Adrastus’s daughter Deipyle, volunteered to go. Tydeus returned from Thebes exhausted and terribly wounded:
He said to everyone: “Arm yourselves quickly! Let the king send for his army and summon his knights, because the messenger is wounded.”
{ A touz leur dist: “Armez vos tost! Li rois face banir son ost et semoingne ses chevaliers, car navrez est li mesagiers.” }
The messenger being wounded implies that Eteocles refused to uphold his agreement to share the Theban crown with his brother Polynices. Moreover, wounding a messenger was a grave insult to a king. King Adrastus in response immediately went to war with Thebes. He neither needed nor received supplication from his daughter to persuade him to start the war.
Adrastus’s war against Thebes produced massive slaughter of men. Sybaris by sword, Periphas by spear, Itys by arrow — the means differed, but the results were the same: dead men. Caeneus was suddenly decapitated, and his startled eyes sought out his torso’s heart. Abas was killed as he seized another man’s shield. Capaneus flung a spear at Eunaeus:
But first, “Why, in your last moments, make men wince with your womanish trills? I just wish the god you rave for would show up! Sing this to your Theban mothers!” Jeering, he hurled his spear.
{ ante tamen ‘quid femineis ululatibus’ inquit, ‘terrificas. moriture, viros? utinam ipse veniret, cui furis! haec Tyriis cane matribus!’ et simul hastam expulit }
That spear pierced Eunaeus front to back and he bled out, dying like multitudes of men, almost never women, do in epic. Amphiaraus killed the men Phlegyas and Phyleus with javelin throws. Then his scythed chariot cut down the men Clonis and Chremataon. The men Chromis, Gyas, Lycoreaus were killed, and also Alcathous, who had a wife and children. Men being killed continued:
They shut out the light of day with their weapons, iron clouds hung in the heavens, the choked air could not hold all their spears. Some men died by enemy javelins, some by their own flung back. Spears collided in empty air, a wasteful exchange of wounds. Staves collided, slingshot hissed and fell like rain, flying pellets mimicked lightning bolts, as did arrows — much to be feared, dealing no single death. No weapon made it to earth — each piece of steel sank into flesh. Men hit home, dropped dead — all unawares!
{ exclusere diem telis, stant ferrea caelo nubila, nec iaculis artatus sufficit aer. hi pereunt missis, illi redeuntibus hastis, concurrunt per inane sudes et mutua perdunt volnera, concurrunt hastae, stridentia funda saxa pluunt, volucres imitantur fulgura glandes et formidandae non una morte sagittae, nec locus ad terram telis: in corpora ferrum omne cadit; saepe ignari perimuntque caduntque. }
Menalcas, Phaedimus, Iphis, Argus, Daphneus, Aon, Pholus, Cromis — these men were then killed. The massive violence against men continued:
Herculean Haemon whipped through thousands with sword unsated, wasting now Calydon’s crack regiments, now Pylene’s grim ranks, now men in gloomy Pleuron’s foster care until, spear grown weary at least, he encountered Olenian Butes — attacked him just as he turned to forbid his men to retreat. A boy, that one, a child with beardless cheeks and baby curls. The hefty Theban axe cleft his casque: he never knew what hit him. Temple was split off from temple, his hair — parted! — fell down around his elbows. He departed this life without fear, by way of a trap door. Haemon next slew Hypanis (blond) and Polites (blond): one grew his beard for Phoebus, one his hair for Iacchus. Both gods were cruel. Hyperenor he joined to his victims, also Damasus, who’d turned to flee when the hero’s spear, stabbing between his shoulders, came out through his chest, struck the buckler out of his grip. On flew the spear, his shield pinned to its nose!
{ Nec minus Herculeum contra vagus Haemona ducit sanguis: inexpleto rapitur per milia ferro, nunc tumidae Calydonis opes, nunc torva Pylenes agmina, nunc maestae fundens Pleuronis alumnos, donec in Olenium fessa iam cuspide Buten incidit, hunc turmis obversum et abire vetantem adgreditur; puer ille, puer malasque comamque integer, ignaro cui tunc Thebana bipennis in galeam librata venit: finduntur utroque tempora dividuique cadunt in bracchia crines, et non hoc metuens inopino limine vita exsiluit. tunc flavum Hypanin flavumque Politen — ille genas Phoebo, crinem hic pascebat Iaccho: saevus uterque deus — victis Hyperenora iungit conversumque fuga Damasum; sed lapsa per armos hasta viri trans pectus abit parmamque tenenti excutit et summa fugiens in cuspide portat. }
Tydeus with spear-throw pierced Prothous and his horse, which then trampled Prothous’s face and chest. The horse died with its neck across Prothous’s corpse. Tydeas killed Atys with a spear to the groin. That blow eviscerated delusions and truly indicated castration culture. After Tydeus had killed many more men, Melanippus, the son of Astacus, struck Tydeus lethally. Tydeus returned a mortal hit before he fell. As he lay dying, Tydeus had his companions sever Melanippus’s head and bring it to him. He proudly watched its grim eyeballs grow cold. Then he drank the fluid brains from Melanippus’s shattered skull.
The brothers Polynices and Eteocles eventually faced off. They fought like wild boars, furious to shed each other’s blood. With great effort, Polynices thrust a sword into his brother’s groin. Eteocles retreated, growing weaker. He then fell to the ground in final treachery. Polynices, thinking he was victorious, came to strip Eteocles of his armor and weapons. But Eteocles clung to his life with vengeful anger. When Polynices loomed over him, Eteocles thrust his sword into his brother’s chest. Polynices fell on top of his brother, crushing him while dying.
Massive killing of Argive men in their attack on Thebes didn’t end epic violence against men. The women of Argos lamented the deaths of their men. They grieved that Creon, the new king of Thebes, refused to allow anyone to cremate the dead Argive men. Telesilla of Argos had organized Argive women to defeat Cleomenes, King of Sparta.[3] Following the tradition of Telesilla, the Argive women might have formed an army of women to attack Thebes.
The Argive women instead formed an army of women mourners. They went to Athens to plead to the Athenian King Theseus. Evadne, wife of Capaneus, who had enthusiastically sought to fight Thebes and did so impiously, pleaded to Theseus for help:
Warlike son of Aegeus, for whom — through our downfall — Fortune discloses her mightiest seeds of sudden glory, no foreign-born women we, nor is ours a group guilty of vile crime. Argos was our home, our husbands brave kings — would they had not been! For what need was there to raise a sevenfold host to set the House of Agenor to rights? Our complaint is not that they’re slain — such are the rules of war, the fortunes of arms. But those who fell in battle were not monsters sprung from Sicilian caves, not Ossa’s half breeds. Their births, their famous sires I omit — they were men, renowned Theseus, flesh and blood of men, born to the same stars, same mortal destinies, nourished on food and drink like yours. Yet these Creon bars from the fire and the Stygian portal’s threshold. … Seven times now, Aurora, rising with trembling team, has skirted the unburied. The star-spangled sky in all its splendor shudders and draws back its light. Now even wild beasts and birds nearby loathe this disgusting fare and the field that freights the air and breeze with its fetid stench. Realistically, how much would remain? Bare bones, putrid muck — he should let us scoop this up! Make haste, honored offspring of Cecrops! Decency bids you exact vengeance before Emathians mourn, and Thracians, and any race at all that hopes to burn atop a pyre and receive last rites. For what will curtail his savagery? True, we made war. But enmity’s slain. Death’s put an end to sullen wrath.
{ belliger Aegide, subitae cui maxima laudis semina de nostris aperit Fortuna ruinis, non externa genus, dirae nec conscia noxae turba sumus: domus Argos erat regesque mariti, non utinam et fortes! quid enim septena movere castra et Agenoreos opus emendare penates? nec querimur caesos: haec bellica iura vicesque armorum; sed non Siculis exorta sub antris monstra nec Ossaei bello cecidere bimembres. mitto genus clarosque patres: hominum, inclyte Theseu, sanguis erant, homines, eademque in sidera, eosdem sortitus animarum alimentaque vestra creati, quos vetat igne Creon Stygiaeque a limine portae, … septima iam surgens trepidis Aurora iacentes aversatur equis; radios declinat et horret stelligeri iubar omne poli; iam comminus ipsae pabula dira ferae campumque odere volucres spirantem tabo et caelum ventosque gravantem. quantum etenim superesse rear? nuda ossa putremque verrere permittat saniem, properate, verendi Cecropidae; vos ista decet vindicta, priusquam Emathii Thracesque dolent, quaeque exstat ubique gens arsura rogis manesque habitura supremos, nam quis erit saevire modus? bellavimus, esto; sed cecidere odia et tristes mors obruit iras. }[4]
Men throughout history have perceived glory in serving women. Evadne and other women knew that and used it to their advantage:
She was done. All the women, with pleading hands outstretched, loudly took up the cry. Neptune’s heroic son flushed, much moved by their tears. After a moment, stirred by righteous rage, he exclaimed: “What Erinys has brought on this madness, so strangely unkinglike? No such hearts did I leave behind when I set out for Scythia’s Black Sea snows — where does this strange frenzy originate? Did you, dread Creon, think Theseus conquered? Well, here I am, and not — trust me! — exhausted by slaughter. This spear thirsts yet for guilty blood. No hesitation here! This instant, trusty Phegeus, wheel your charger and, riding hard to the Tyrian towers, proclaim, “Either pyres for Danaans, or war for Thebes!”
{ Dixerat; excipiunt cunctae tenduntque precantes cum clamore manus; rubuit Neptunius heros permotus lacrimis; iusta mox concitus ira exclamat: “quaenam ista novos induxit Erinys regnorum mores? non haec ego pectora liqui Graiorum abscedens, Scythiam Pontumque nivalem cum peterem; novus unde furor? victumne putasti Thesea, dire Creon? adsum, nec sanguine fessum crede; sitit meritos etiamnum haec hasta cruores. nulla mora est; verte hunc adeo, fidissime Phegeu, cornipedem, et Tyrias invectus protinus arces aut Danais edice rogos aut proelia Thebis.” }
Men thus again assembled to wage violence against men. Grief for men and proper handling of men’s dead bodies doesn’t end epic violence against men.[5]
In the Roman de Thèbes, Theseus is solicitous of the women’s laments. Threatening non-participants with exile, he ordered all fighting-fit men to serve in his army. He explained to them why they must wage war against Thebes:
“My lords,” he said, “I shall tell you this, without lying to you in any way. A piece of news has come to me — that is the reason why this army is on the move. These ladies you see here, these are the daughters of Adrastus — Deipyle and Argia. You have heard talk of Adrastus, who was born in Greece and became its lord. He took his great army to Thebes and found a very great multitude there. All except three Greeks are dead. Three hundred thousand men died there, men of great fame and of great strength. King Adrastus is still alive. He and two other men have survived, but no more. His daughters have come here with these other women to beg for mercy. They have suffered great hardship, and for the love of their lords, I shall in truth go and avenge them. For this I have summoned my troops.”
{ “Seingnors,” fet il, “je vos dirai, que ja ne vous en mentirai: unne nouvele m’est venue par quoi ceste ost est esmeüe; ces dames que veez la sus, ce sont les filles Adrastus, Deyphilé et Argÿa, qui sieent o ces autres la. D’Adrastus avez oÿ dire, qui de Gresce fu nez et sire, a Thebes sa grant ost mena et mout grant gent dedenz trova. Mort i sont trestuit li Grejois, n’en y a remés que seul trois; trois cent mile houmes y a mors de grant pris et de grant esfors. Encore est vis rois Adrastus, soi tierz s’en estort et non plus. Ses filles sunt venues ci et ces autres crier merci; mout ont souferte granz dolors, et pour l’amour de lor seingnors les irai vengier voirement, et pour ce ai mandé ma gent.” }
Tearful women can prompt violence against men. Theseus, however, claimed that he will wage war “for love of their lords {pour l’amour de lor seingnors}.” In a significant detail, the Roman de Thèbes remade Theseus from King of Athens to a duke of Athens. When Theseus met the defeated King Adrastus of Argos, Theseus dismounted from his horse, came to him on foot, bowed to him, and kissed him. Theseus then clearly declared his obligation:
I must help you in this time of need, and I can surely tell you why: I am your vassal and I must do so.
{ Aidier vous doi a cest besoing, et vous sai bien dire por quoi: car vostre hom sui, faire le doi. }
In the Roman de Thèbes, feudal obligation, not pleading, weeping women, ultimately motivated Theseus’s war against Thebes.
For ending epic violence against men, the most significant closure in Statius’s Thebaid is shared appreciation for the young Arcadian Parthenopaeus’s physical beauty. The beauty of men’s bodies jars against the sadness of men’s deaths in war. So it was for Parthenopaeus:
No man setting out for hazard’s grim game had face more fair, none was more indulged for his peerless beauty.
{ pulchrior haud ulli triste ad discrimen ituro vultus et egregiae tanta indulgentia formae }
Statius declared his words unable to do justice to the lamenting of Parthenopaeus’s mother for Parthenopaeus’s death in the war:
how the Arcadian’s Erymanthian mother loudly bewailed him — the Arcadian, who kept his looks though he lost his lifeblood, the Arcadian, equally mourned by soldiers on both sides.
{ Arcada quo planctu genetrix Erymanthia clamet, Arcada, consumpto servantem sanguine vultus, Arcada, quem geminae pariter flevere cohortes }
A man’s beautiful dead body is no substitute for the living man. Soldiers on both sides of the war saw that war destroys the living beauty of a man.[6] While Spartan mothers lamented the loss of their sons in war, they nonetheless encouraged their sons to fight to death. Statius himself declared: “Beautiful still is the face of war {pulcher adhuc belli vultus}.” Statius’s Thebaid offers no compelling end to epic violence against men.[7]
The Roman de Thèbes has much clearer closure than Statius’s Thebaid. It emphasizes respect for Nature:
And so the war came to an end. All of their land and their country was destroyed and wasted. Many wretched pains and great hardships and curses came down on their children because their fathers had brought down this destiny and Fortune confirmed their fate. They were born contrary to Nature, and for this they were destined to be filled with wickedness. In their lives they could do no good. By God, my lords, pay heed to this: do not do anything against Nature in order to avoid coming to an end such as those whose story here I bring to an end.
{ ainsint la guerre se define. Destruite en fu et degastee toute lor terre et lor contree; mout chaï paine et granz ahanz et maudiçons sor les enfanz, car li peres leur destina et Fortune leur otroia: contre Nature furent né, pour ce leur fu si destiné que plains furent de felonie; bien ne porent fere en lor vie. Pour Dieu, seignor, prenez i cure, ne faites rien contre Nature que n’en veingniez a itel fin com furent cil dont ci defin. }
No other animal organizes the massive, gender-based violence of war. Epic violence against men is unnatural. Read as reflexive meta-commentary, the ending of the Roman de Thèbes points to ending epic violence against men.
Now regarding themselves as masters of Nature, modern humans pride themselves on constructing their own orders. Within a liberal, democratic order, each individual has equal civic value. Treating men as relatively disposable humans renders incoherent that and other personal, civic, and cosmic orders. Epic violence against men is a social injustice. The Roman de Thèbes and Statius’s Thebaid can help in teaching the social injustice of epic violence against men.
Subsequent quotes from the Thebaid are similarly sourced. They are 7.676-80 (But first…), 8.412-20 (They shut out the light of day…), 8.481-96 (Herculean Haemon whipped…), 12.546-58, 563-74 (Warlike son of Aegeus…), 12.587-98 (She was done…), 4.251-2 (No man setting out for hazard’s grim game…), 12.805-7 (how the Arcadian’s Erymanthian mother…), 8.402 (Beautiful still is the face of war).
[2] Roman de Thèbes vv. 1185-92, Old French text from Raynaud de Lage (1968), English translation (modified slightly) from Burgess & Kelly (2021).
Roman de Thèbes was composed about 1150. It has survived in five complete manuscripts. Id. pp. 2, xi. Raynaud de Lage’s Old French text and Burgess & Kelly’s English translation are based on MS. C: Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, fr. 784, f. 1ra-67ra, written in the middle of the thirteenth century. Ferrante & Hanning (2018) translates MS S: London, British Library, Additional 34114 (formerly Spalding), f. 164ra-226vb, written at the end of the fourteenth century. MS C has 10562 verses compares to 12059 verses in MS S.
The most extensive analysis of the Roman de Thèbes in relation to its sources is Clogan (1990). Clogan observed:
From the Thebaid, medieval commentaries on Statius’ epic, and other medieval sources the Thèbes poet created a real work of art, balanced and structured, and full of human interest and inventions of his own. The new love stories are not only interludes designed to provide variety between the long battle scenes, but have become a subplot of chivalry, introducing new kinds of scenes into courtly medieval romance, and revealing new directions in twelfth-century courtly narrative.
Id. p. 66. Clogan noted that the author of the Roman de Thèbes introduced two new heterosexual love relationships: Salemandre and Etheocles in the episode concerning Daire le Roux, and Antigone and Parthenopaeus.
Subsequent quotes from the Roman de Thèbesare sourced as previously. They are vv. 1851-4 (He said to everyone…), 10141-64 (“My lords,” he said…), 10336-8 (I must help you…), 10548-62 (And so the war came to an end…).
[4] Theseus had just returned from defeating the Amazons in Scythia on the Black Sea. Theseus brought back many Amazon women as captives, including the Amazon leader Queen Hippolyte. Statius implies that the Amazons were guilty of a crime. Some authorities reported that the Amazons killed their male children to preserve their female-only society. Theseus may have rightly regarded such gendercide as a serious crime. In any case, Theseus planned to marry Hippolyte, who was willing to enter into the privileged status of queen consort. No man leader of a hostile group could receive such a privilege. The “conquered” Amazons and the lamenting Argives display different aspects of women’s privilege. Cf. Braund (1997) pp. 12-3, which suggests that the Amazons’ crime was to “resist the ‘rules’ of patriarchal Roman society.”
Creon became king of Thebes when Polynices killed Eteocles. Creon forbid funeral rites for the dead Argives / Greeks / Danaans.
[5] Statius recognizes women’s moral agency, values their emotion of grief for dead men, and takes seriously the social relatedness of individuals. Voigt (2016). That has no more relation to ending epic violence against men than it does to ending men-only conscription for war. The same is true for the question of whether Theseus is a good king within his Roman context. For an argument that Theseus is a good king, Braund (1997).
[6] Putnam perceives Statius replacing the Aeneid’s Dido and Pallas with Parthenopaeus. That signals an end to particular epic violence against men:
as the Thebaid ends, mourning for a single comely warrior functions as further indication that fratricidal fighting is over and that both belligerent entities can unite in sorrow and in peace. … he {Statius} has us envision how Atalanta’s personal bereavement, a mother grieving for her dead son, expands into a universal act of lamentation that serves to unite opposing forces and bring an end to conflict.
Putnam (2016) pp. 104, 111. More appreciation for men’s physical beauty, including men’s penises carrying men’s seminal blessing, could help raise the value of men’s lives. However, lamenting a beautiful man killed in epic violence against men scarcely seems sufficient to end the epic tradition of massive violence against men.
[7] Scholars have established that Statius in writing the Thebaid was deeply engaged with the epic tradition, particularly its leading exemplars the Iliad and the Aeneid. Some scholars have seen closure in Argive and Theban women’s unity in lamenting dead men. Braund (1997), Dietrich (1999), and Voigt (2016). Voigt went as far as to claim, “Statius proposes to us a utopian female alternative to the male dominated epic genre.” Id., Abstract, similarly at p. 61. Lovatt (1999) more plausibly points to competing endings for the Thebaid. Coleman doesn’t regard the competing endings as having overall significance:
The close of the epic demonstrates that this is a story that cannot really end: male violence and, especially, female mourning are without limit.
Coleman (2004) p. 21. By “male violence,” Coleman means “male violence against men.” By “female mourning,” Coleman means “female mourning for dead men.” None of these scholarly works squarely faces the gendered problem of epic violence against men. Scholars scarcely recognize in epic the massive slaughter of men — the slaughter of distinctively gendered male human beings. Men’s deaths are recognized only peripherally through women’s laments. See, e.g. Augoustakis (2010). This literary problem is like global elites today ignoring highly disproportionate violence against men and emphasizing violence against women.
[images] (1) Dead men soldiers from the U.S. Civil War, Battle of Gettysburg, July, 1863. Source image from Gardner’s Photographic Sketch Book of the War, vol. 1, p. 36, photograph by Timothy H. O’Sullivan. Reproduction number LC-B8184-7964-A (b&w film neg.) from U.S. Library of Congress. More on this and closely related photos. (2) Dead men soldiers from the U.S. Civil War, Battle of Antietam, September-October 1862. Source image from reproduction number LC-DIG-cwpb-01093 (digital file from original neg. of variant) from U.S. Library of Congress. (3) Dead man soldier from the U.S. Civil War, Battle of Gettysburg, June-July, 1863. Source photo from reproduction number LC-DIG-cwpb-00915 (digital file from original neg. of left half) from U.S. Library of Congress.
References:
Augoustakis, Antony. 2010. Motherhood and the Other: Fashioning Female Power in Flavian Epic. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Review by Tracy Deline and by Randall Ganiban.
Braund, Susanna Morton. 1997. “Ending epic: Statius, Theseus and a merciful release.” Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society. 42: 1-23.
Burgess, Glyn S., and Douglas Kelly, trans. 2021. The Roman de Thèbes and The Roman d’Eneas. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press.
Clogan, Paul M. 1990. “New Directions in Twelfth-Century Courtly Narrative: Le Roman de Thèbes.” Mediaevistik. 3: 55-70.
Coleman, Kathleen M. 2004. “Recent Scholarship.” Pp. 9-31 in D. R. Shackleton Bailey, ed. and trans. Statius. Thebaid, Volume I: Thebaid: Books 1-7. Loeb Classical Library 207. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Putnam, Michael C. J. 2016. “The Sense of Two Endings: How Virgil and Statius Conclude.” Illinois Classical Studies. 41 (1): 85-149.
Raynaud de Lage, Guy, ed. 1968. Roman de Thèbes. Paris: Champion. Published online by ENS of Lyon in the Base de français médiéval, last revised 2013-06-18. Part 1. Part 2.
Voigt, Astrid. 2016. “The Power of the Grieving Mind: Female Lament in Statius’s Thebaid.” Illinois Classical Studies. 41 (1): 59-84.
In medieval Germany, a man saw women doing a women-only circle dance. Many men don’t like to be excluded because of their gender from activities, spaces, and colleges. This man perceived these women to be female segregationists:
What we see here dancing around — they are all young women. They want to spend without men all this summer!
{ Swaz hie gât umbe, daz sint alle megede; die wellent ân man allen disen sumer gân! }[1]
Perhaps this man introduced himself pleasantly and asked to join their dancing. After all, men aren’t toxic, and many men can dance. Yet, like far too many men throughout history, such a man could get a contemptuous response from a woman:
Rosy Lips, how you dishonor yourself! Stop your laughing! Shame on you that you laugh to your own detriment! This isn’t done well. Cursed be the lost opportunity if so lovely a mouth is going to produce such a lack of love.
{ Rôter munt, wie dû dich swachest! lâ dîn lachen sîn! Scheme dich, swenne dû sô lachest nâch dem schaden dîn! Dest niht wol getân. ôwî sô verlorner stunde, sol von minneclîchem munde solch unminne ergân! }[2]
One morning I was supposed to cross a broad meadow, when I saw standing there a young women who greeted me without hesitation. She said: “Dear friend, where are you headed? Do you need company?” I bowed down low before her and thanked her for her offer.
{ Ich solde eines morgenes gân eine wise breite; dô sah ich eine maget stân, diu grüezte mich bereite. si sprach: “liebe, war wend ir? dürfent ir geleite?” gegen den füezen neigt ich ir, gnâde ich ir des seite. }[3]
That’s how all women should relate to men. Men appreciate women’s company. Men delight in women’s love for them. A medieval German poet wrote:
Past is the cold winter, which caused me such distress. The green wood is in full leaf, which fills my heart with joy. No one can grow old at such a time! A woman’s goodness has brought me all sorts of joy.
{ Zergangen ist der winder kalt, der mich sô sêre müte, geloubet stât der grüene walt; des fröiet sich min gemüete. nieman kan nû werden alt! vröivde hân ich manecvalt von eines wibes güete. }[4]
I am an emperor without a crown and without land. This is what I mean: I have never felt so splendid! Praise be to her love, which makes me feel so good! This is what a fine lady has done for me. I will serve her forever more. I have never seen a woman so well-disposed.
{ Ich bin keiser âne krône unde âne lant. daz meine ich an dem muot: ern gestuont mir nie so schône. wol ir liebe, diu mir sanfte tuot! daz machet mir ein vrowe guot. ich wil ir dienen iemer mer; ich engesach nie wip so wol gemuot. }[5]
This isn’t social-justice activism that only extraordinary women can undertake. A medieval poet listed a variety of women that he regarded as praiseworthy, but less praiseworthy than his beloved woman:
She is more beautiful than Lady Dido was. She is more beautiful than Lady Helen. She is more beautiful than Lady Pallas. She is more beautiful than Lady Hecuba. She is worthier of love than Lady Isabel and happier than Gaudile. The clover of my heart is richer in virtue than Baldine.
{ Si ist schœner den vrowe Dido was, si ist schœner denne vrowe Helena, si ist schœner denne vrowe Pallas, si ist schœner denne vrowe Ecubâ; si ist minnechlîcher denne vrowe Isabel unde uroelicher denne Gaudile; mines herzen klê ist tugende richer denne Baldine. }[6]
The first four ladies listed are eminent classical women, with Hecuba not regarded as particularly beautiful. Isabel and Gaudile are names in medieval romance languages. Baldine is a woman’s name from Flanders. Many different women have long commanded men’s attention. All women are at least capable of appreciating men and caring for them.
Medieval women valued highly their beloved men. One medieval woman loved her man even more than she loved her mother:
“My spirits are high in anticipation of new joys,” said a beautiful woman. “A knight does what I want him to do. He has made my life delightful. I will always be more devoted to him than to any of my relatives. I will show him a woman’s unwavering loyalty.”
{ “Ze niuwen vröiden stât min muot hôhe,” sprach ein schœnez wîp. “ein ritter mînen willen tuot; der hât geliebet mir den lîp. ich wil im iemer holder sin danne deheinem mâge min. ich erzeige ime wîbes triuwe schîn.” }[7]
If they married, that man would have no reason to worry about his mother-in-law. Consider also the case of Eleanor of Aquitaine. She was one of the wealthiest and most powerful persons in twelfth-century Europe. Yet a man’s love mattered more to her than all her wealth and power:
Were the world all mine from the sea to the Rhine, I would renounce it all to have the King of England lie in my arms.
{ Wære diu werlt alle min von deme mere unze an den Rîn, des wolt ich mich darben, daz künic von Engellant lege an mînem armen! }[8]
Men have long been taught to do anything to please women. Today women should be taught that a man in a relationship with her should feel as valued as the King of England was by Eleanor of Aquitaine.
“Tell me, that I might forever reward you: have you seen the man that I love so much? Is it true he lives as fine a life as they say and as I hear you assert?” “Lady, I saw him. He is happy. His heart, if you so ordain, will always be elated.”
{ “Sage, daz ich dirs iemer lône: hâst dû den vil lieben man gesehen? ist ez wâr, lebet er sô schône, als si sagent vnde ich dich hœre jehen?” “vrowe, ich sach in: er ist vrô. sîn herçe stât, ob ir gebietet, iemer hô.” }[9]
The man this woman loved apparently left her because she wasn’t fulfilling his needs. He then found more joy and happiness with another woman. Since she loved him, she should be happy to learn that he is now living a fine life. Loving women should protect men:
I see the morning star shine forth. Now, hero, don’t allow yourself to be seen! My love, that is my advice! It’s most excellent to love secretly when eagle eyes keep watch on intimate friendship.
{ Ich sihe den morgensterne brehen. nû, helt, lâ dich niht gerne sehen! vil liebe, dest mîn rât. swer tougenlîchen minnet, wie tugentlîch daz stât, dâ friunschaft huote hât! }[10]
A poem of a dawn parting is known as an alba. In this one, the woman refers to her beloved man as a hero. Men delight in being heroes to women. She expresses concern for her beloved man’s safety and gives him advice. Even better would be for a woman to take specific action to help keep men safe. Men’s safety should be women’s highest priority.
[1] Carmina Burana 167a, Middle High German text and English translation (modified slightly) by James Schultz in Traill (2018). Subsequent Middle High German poems from the Carmina Burana are similarly sourced. The Middle High German texts have been normalized and hence differ from other, more direct transcriptions of the manuscript. Here’s the German text before being normalized. Subsequently, such text will be linked at the poem number. Here are modern German translations (here too) for many of the Carmina Burana’s love songs, including those in Middle High German.
Dronke provided a more interpretive translation and declared:
It was up to the men to pluck up courage and enter the charmed circle next to the girl of their choice.
Dronke (1968) p. 189. In what sense was the circle “charmed” and why did men need courage to enter it? Why didn’t the women warmly invite the man of their choice to enter the circle? These are the sort of questions that meninist literary criticism considers.
[7] Carmina Burana 143a, by Reinmar the Elder {Reinmar der Alte} / Reinmar von Hagenau. For an English translation of the full (two stanza) song, Jackson (1981) p. 31. Jackson (1975) provides a vigorous defense of Reinmar’s poetic capabilities.
In another poem, a woman longs for her beloved man:
What brings relief from the longing that a woman has for the man she loves? How glad my heart would be to find that out, for it feels such distress!
{ Waz ist für daz senen guot, daz wip nâch liebem manne hât? wie gerne daz min herze erkhande, wan daz ez sô betwungen stât! }
Carmina Burana113a, vv. 1-4. These are the opening verses of a multi-stanza poem by the twelfth-century minnesinger Dietmar von Aist.
[8] Carmina Burana145a. On the identity of the figures in this song, Traill (2018) in Notes to the Translation. Banduroszka performed a version of this song, “Uvere diu Werlt alle min {Were the world all mine},” on its 2017 album Eheu memoriam.
[9] Carmina Burana147a, by Reinmar der Alte. For a full English translation, Jackson (1981) p. 15. Jackson (1975), pp. 187-9, provides earlier analysis of this song.
[11] Carmina Burana 63a. Traill described this poem as “advice addressed to a youth about avoiding homosexual rape.” Traill (2018) v. 1, p. 527. The poem connects what other medieval literature calls the third and the fifth stages of love. On medieval stages of love, see note [1] in the post on Baucis et Traso.
A thirteenth-century poem included Carmina Burana 63a in the context of other stages of love:
Looking and addressing, then touching; after kissing, the deed of sex. If you don’t flee when touched, you will scarcely escape the sex act. After looking, laughter; after laughter one goes to being familiar, after being familiar, touching; after touching one goes to the sex act.
{ Visus et alloquium, tactus, post oscula factum. Ni fugias tactus, vix evitabitur actus. Post visum, risum, post risum transit in usum, Post usum tactus, post tactum transit in actus. }
Latin text from MS. München, Clm 17210, fol. 40v (13th century); Clm 12725, fol. 16r (15th century), as transcribed by Dronke (1965) v. 2, p. 488, my English translation. Id. seems to me to provide a less exact English translation. Dronke isn’t clear about which verses exist in which manuscript. The 13th-century text may be only the first two verses above.
Carmina Burana 63a appears in a summary of canon law that Henry of Segusio {Hostiensis} wrote between the 1230s and 1253. There the admonition is clearly associated with heterosexual relations. In particular, Summa IV, “About him who gets to know his wife’s female relative {De eo qui cognovit consanguineam uxoris suae},” from section 1: “If you don’t flee when touched, you will scarcely escape having sex {ni fugias tactus, vix evitabitur actus}.” See Hostiensis, Summary of the papal decisions {Summa super titulis Decretalium}, later called the Golden summary {Summa aurea}, as cited by Gallagher (1978) p. 72, n. 26. Through the influence of Hostiensis’s Summa aurea, Carmina Burana 63a was subsequently widely quoted.
[image] Medieval man attempting to please a medieval woman. The depicted man (minnesinger) is Gottfried von Neifen, who flourished in the middle of the thirteenth century in Germanic lands. Illustration from Codex Manesse, made between 1305 and 1315. Manuscript preserved as UB Heidelberg, Cod. Pal. germ. 848, fol. 32v. Thanks to University of Hiedelberg and Wikimedia Commons.
Jackson, William E. 1975. “Reinmar der Alte in Literary History: A Critique and a Proposal.” Colloquia Germanica. 9: 177-204.
Jackson, William E. 1981. Reinmar’s Women: a study of the woman’s song (“Frauenlied” and “Frauenstrophe”) of Reinmar der Alte. Amsterdam: J. Benjamins.
King Priam desperately needed Queen Penthesilea and her Amazon women warriors to help Troy against the Greeks in the Trojan War. The Greek warrior Achilles had killed Troy’s preeminent warrior, Priam’s son Hector. The Greeks had been besieging the gates of Troy for two months. No Trojan force had even attempted to drive them away.
The Amazons were renowned as women warriors from a women-only society near the Black Sea. Many Amazon women never had intercourse with men. Some, however, spent the months of April to June having intercourse with men on an island adjacent to Amazonia. The Amazons kept subsequently birthed females babies in Amazonia. They turned over male babies to the men on the island. No men were allowed in Amazonia:
If any man set foot in their land, he immediately would be completely torn apart.
{ S’en lor terre meteit les piez, Sempres sereit toz detrenchiez. }
Amazon women were universally esteemed for being bold, courageous, and combative in arms.
Penthesilea led a thousand Amazon women warriors to Troy’s side. King Priam and all the Trojans welcomed the Amazons joyfully. Penthesilea had fallen in love from afar with Priam’s son Hector. Hector was married to Andromache, but Penthesilea expected to have a sexual affair with him. When she heard that Achilles had killed Hector, she was enraged at the Greeks. She immediately sought to fight with them and make them pay for Hector’s death.
The Amazons, who were beautiful, armed themselves beautifully. Penthesilea had a brilliant white hauberk and a helmet that included precious, shining stones. Her horse was a swift, strong, Spanish bay steed. It was covered with silk cloth to which were attached a hundred tiny, clear-sounding golden bells. Her shield had a gold buckle bordered with rubies and emeralds. Her lance featured a beautiful, new pennant. Penthesilea’s golden-haired women warriors complemented her arms:
They were more than a thousand, not ten of whom had failed to arm well their faces, heads, arms, and sides. Over their hauberks covered with double-layered saffron, they let their lovely hair hang. It was so shining and combed that even pure gold would appear dark in comparison. With bold, confident hearts they rode straight toward the gates upon their steeds with shields in hand.
{ Mil sont e plus, n’i a pas dis Que bien n’aient armez les vis, Les chiés, les braz e les costez. Sor les haubers dobliers safrez Ont lor beaus crins toz destreciez, Si reluisanz e si peigniez Qu’ors esmerez semblast oscurs. O hardiz cuers e o seürs, Chevauchent dreit vers les portaus, Les escuz pris, sor les chevaus. }
How could any men resist these women?
With loud battle-cries, Penthesilea and her Amazon women warriors attacked the Greek men. Penthesilea knocked Menelaus onto the ground on his back. Not mounting him and finishing him off, she instead took his horse. She jousted against Diomedes and took away his shield. The Greek men soon appreciated that Penthesilea was vigorous, strong, and valiant:
Quickly she became an object of fear as she charged the Greeks in the thickest fights. She frequently forced them to shift positions and abandon saddles and horses. Her young women supported her effectively, scattering men’s blood and brains all about as they drove their foes back. I can assure you that the dusty ground was soaked with bright-red blood.
{ Redotee est en petit d’ore: Es greignors presses lor cort sore; Sovent lor fait muër estaus E guerpir seles e chevaus. Bien li aident ses puceles: Sanc i espandent e cerveles, Toz les conreiz font traire ariere, Si vos di bien que la poudriere Est del sanc vermeil destempree. }
Many Greek men were killed and others badly harmed. They were forced to abandon their siege of Troy and to return to their camp beside their ships. In subsequent battles the Greek suffered huge losses. The Amazons had driven the Greeks to the brink of defeat.
Then Achilles’s son Pirrus arrived on the Greek side. Pirrus bore his father’s arms and rode on a fine Spanish steed. He quickly proved himself to be a ferocious, deadly warrior. He taunted Penthesilea and her Amazons for being women. Penthesilea in turn boasted of her Amazons’ prowess and threatened Pirrus. Then they fought:
Seizing her shield, grasping her lance, Penthesilea attacked in full gallop. And Pirrus, son of Achilles, seething in anger received her. Straight through their shields they struck one another with all the force their charging horses could bring. Their wooden shields split when pierced and their strong mail coats came apart. Their lances’ iron points clipped their sides, leaving obvious wounds as blood all hot and red flowed down to their toes. Into their sides two arms-length beyond the other side, well-drenched in blood went their silken pennants.
{ L’escu saisi, la lance prise, Li cheuauche de plain eslais; E Pirrus, li fiz Achillès, De mout grant ire la receit. Par mi les escuz bien a dreit Se ferirent de tel air Com li cheval porent venir; Les ais fendirent e percierent E les forz broignes desmaillierent. Lez les costez passent les fers, S’i sont aparissanz les mers, Quar li sans toz chauz e vermeiz Lor file desci qu’as orteiz. De l’autre part dous granz cotees Passerent bien ensanglantees Les enseignes de drap de seie. }
That’s a description indistinguishable from other descriptions of two warrior men fighting. Moreover, the combat descriptions don’t strongly distinguish Penthesilea and Achilles. They fight similarly:
Before either one of them could move, they had slashed each other’s shield with their green blades of burnished steel and cut the lacings of their helmets. The knocked one another flat on their backs or face down on the ground.
{ Anceis que nus d’eus dous se mueve, Se sont il trenchié les escuz O les verz branz d’acier moluz E des heaumes rompu les laz, Si qu’envers, a denz e toz plaz S’entrabatirent el sablon. }
Penthesilea inflicted much harm, much destroying and much mutilating the Greeks with the force of her company. She too suffered many losses among her young women, including some of the most valiant and most beautiful. Much they hated one another, she and Pirrus, so they frequently came together in combat with each other, attacking each other and frequently striking each other. Frequently they challenged one another, such on horseback and such on foot, until they met for the last time.
{ Panthesilee mout les grieve: Mout destruit Greus, mout les mahaigne Par la force de sa compaigne; Sovent repert de ses puceles, Des mieuz vaillanz e des plus beles. Mout se heent, ele e Pirrus: Por ço lor est sovent en us D’eus combatre, d’eus envaïr E d’eus sovent entreferir. Sovent se sont entressaié, Tant a cheval e tant a pié, Qu’ai dererain jor se troverent }
In their final encounter, Penthesilea thrust her silken pennant through Pirrus’s body. The resulting flow of blood impaired Pirrus’s vision and confused his brain. But he refused to lay down and die to please Penthesilea. With the spear stub still lodged in his body, Pirrus attacked her:
She had not laced on her helmet which on her head was all cut to pieces. When she saw him coming at her, she planned to strike him first. But Pirrus so exerted himself that he gave her an extraordinary blow right between her body and her shield. It severed her arm from her torso, totally cut it away from her side. Bloody, pale, bruised, and half dead, he seized hold of her. With the forces in his company, who were defending him against the Amazons fighting on the Trojan side, he knocked her off her charger. Ruthless and violent, he leaped down on her. He struck her with powerful and deadly blows using his steel blade, blows that resounded clearly. Over the green grass, which was fresh and new, he scattered all her brains. He then hacked off all her limbs. That’s how he took vengeance on her.
{ El n’aveit pas l’eaume lacié, El chief li ert tot detrenchié: Quant el le vit vers sei venir, Premiere le cuida ferir; Mais Pirrus tant s’esvertua Qu’un coup merveillos li geta A dreit entrel cors e l’escu; Sevré li a le braz del bu, Tot le li trencha en travers. Ensanglentez, pales e pers E demi morz la ra saisie; O l’esforz de sa compaignie, Qui des danzeles le defendent E qui o Troïens contendent, L’a trebuchiee del destrier. Sor li descent cruël e fier; Granz cous morteus li meist e done Del brant d’acier, qui cler resone; Sor l’erbe vert, fresche e novele Li espant tote la cervele; Toz les membres li a trenchiez: Ensi se rest de li vengiez. }
During the Trojan War, Achilles killed King Mennon and cut Mennon’s body into small pieces. Paris subsequently hacked Achilles’s and Antilogus’s bodies to pieces in a shameful ambush. Achilles’s son Pirrus cut Penthesilea’s body to pieces on the battlefield. The latter was more like the acts that happened in the normal violence against men of war.
Penthesilea and her Amazon women warriors had killed ten thousand Greek men. Because of the great harm she had inflicted on them, some of the Greeks wanted to deny her a burial. Pirrus argued for allowing her to have a fitting burial. Diomedes, however, argued that her body should be given to dogs to be devoured or thrown into a river. Diomedes’s view prevailed. The Greeks threw Penthesilea’s corpse into the Scamander River. That’s what Achilles had done with the corpse of Priam’s son Lycaon after killing him despite his supplication. The normal violence against men of war is often brutally amoral. Penthesilea experienced in the Trojan War what many men experience in war.
Many Amazon women warriors died fighting in the Trojan War, but many fewer than the number of men who died. According to Benoît de Sainte-Maure’s twelfth-century Romance of Troy {Roman de Troie}, from the 1000 Amazon women warriors who went to Troy, 563 were killed in the war. King Philemis, whose realm of Paphlagonia was near Amazonia, was devoted to the Amazon Queen Penthesilea:
Neither in life nor in death would he ever agree to be separated from her.
{ Ne por vivre ne por morir, Ne la voudra ja ainz guerpir. }
According to Benoît, from the 2000 Paphlagonian men warriors who Philemis brought to Troy, 1090 were killed in the war. According to Benoît’s source Dares Phrygius, overall 1,542,000 men died fighting in the Trojan War. Under Philemis’s devotion to Penthesilea, the Paphlagonians lost nearly twice as many men as the Amazons did women. The over-all number of men warriors killed in the Trojan War is like a rain of blood compared to the drops of women warriors killed. Men’s lives should matter.
Gender equality in conscription and fighting in wars isn’t impossible. Ancient and medieval literature recognized that women can be ferocious fighters. Women have significant combat advantages relative to men. While men warriors killed the great women warriors Maximou, Camilla, and Penthesilea (quite easily, according to some authors), women nonetheless are fully capable of fighting and dying like men. Pervasive anti-men gender bigotry is destroying men’s will to fight for their societies. That could prompt a country like the U.S. to resort to the ultimate feminine weapon: nuclear bombs. Repealing sexist Selective Service and promoting gender equality in fighting and dying in wars is a more humane alternative.
The above account of Penthesilea and her Amazon women warriors is from Benoît de Sainte-Maure’s influential Romance of Troy {Roman de Troie}. Benoît wrote that work about 1165. The quotations present Old French text from Constans (1904) and English text (modified slightly) from Burgess & Kelly (2017). The quotations are vv. 23345-6 (If any man set foot…), 23465-74 (They were more than a thousand…), 23639-47 (Quickly she became an object of fear…), 24120-35 (Seizing her shield…), 24230-5 (Before either one of them could move…), 24272-83 (Penthesilea inflicted much harm…), 24305-26 (She had not laced on her helmet…), 25287-8 (Neither in life nor in death…).
On Achilles killing King Mennon and cutting Mennon’s body to pieces, Roman de Troie, vv. 21577-625. On Paris hacking Achilles’s and Antilogus’s bodies to pieces, Roman de Troie, vv. 22271-316.
Penthesilea, whom Benoît calls “the Queen of Femenie {la reine de Femenie},” apparently had been the lover of King Celidis, a Greek king. Roman de Troie, vv. 8831, 24430. She also loved Priam’s son Hector. That’s impressive for an Amazon.
Almost all the Amazon women warriors wore “Pavian helmets {heaumes Paviëis}.” Roman de Troie, v. 23988. The context emphasizes the Amazons’ lavish accouterments, which is consistent with Pavia being a wealthy, commercial twelfth-century Italian city. Medieval Pavia was renowned for its beautiful women readily accessible for sex with men. That’s ironic, however, because the Amazons who came to Troy were virgins. Roman de Troie, vv. 24095-6.
Both Penthesilea and Pirrus rode “Spanish horses {chevals d’Espaignes}.” Roman de Troie, vv. 23886 (Pirrus), 23440 (Penthesilea). Spanish horses were highly prized in medieval Europe. Leet (2016) pp. 143-4. These horses’ allure probably came from Spain’s connection to Arabian and Berber horses of the Islamic world. Benoît explicitly refers to Amazon warriors as having Arabian horses: “good Arabian horses {bons chevals arrabieis}.” Roman de Troie, v. 23383.
For the casualty counts, Roman de Troie, vv. 25769-70 (Paphlagonian casualties), 25784-6 (Amazon casualties). Total men killed is from Dares Phrygius, History of the Fall of Troy {De excidio Trojae historia} 44. These casualty counts shouldn’t be taken literally. They provide insight in the relative magnitudes of men’s and women’s deaths fighting in the Trojan War.
War has long been institutionally structured as violence against men. The persons who have fought and died in war throughout history have been overwhelmingly men. Elite men’s life expectancy in medieval England was about nine years less than elite women’s life expectancy. Medieval men’s lifespan shortfall was largely due to violence against men. Harwood (2020) focuses on medieval women in war:
If we wish to understand the operation of medieval power structures of war as a whole, then we need to look at women.
Penthesilea and the Amazon women warriors fought and died like men. Apparently straining to be academically fashionable, Leet made the Amazons into cyborg others, and she characterized men, in accordance with academic convention, as responding with “anger and anxiety”:
This Amazon cyborg body provokes both anger and anxiety that manifest themselves in the violent treatment of Panteselee in her final moments. Pyrrhus not only destroys the unions of her body with armor, weapons, and horse, he also mutilates her corpse. His response to what he perceives as an audacious and transgressive woman is to cleave her arm from her body, drag her from her horse, smash her skull, and dismember her while her troops watch in horror.
Leet (2016) p. 192. In this line of thinking, men by being gender-burdened with fighting and dying in wars abuse women and horses. Moreover, a woman’s relationship with her horse transgresses patriarchy:
The link between women and horses — both of whom occupy a central role in literary representations of chivalry — is reinforced by their shared legacy of abuse by men who see them as tools for their own advancement. Moreover, while many female literary characters are controlled by men, a woman with equestrian acumen can exceed the limitations others might attempt to place on her. The relationship a female equestrian has with her horse becomes the key to her recourse against patriarchal domination.
Burgess, Glyn S., and Douglas Kelly. 2017. The Roman de Troie by Benoît de Sainte-Mauré: a translation. Gallica, 41. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer. Review by Sylvia Federico and by Cristian Bratu.
Constans, Léopold, ed. 1904-12. Le roman de Troie, par Benoît de Sainte-Maure, publié d’après tous les manuscrits connus. Société des Aanciens Textes Français. Paris: F. Didot. Vols. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.
Harwood, Sophie. 2020. Medieval Women and War: Female Roles in the Old French Tradition. London: Bloomsbury Academic.
More than two thousand years ago, the revered Roman poet Virgil wrote a book about bees. According to Virgil, bees produce “the celestial gift of honey from the air {aërii mellis caelestia dona}.”[1] That’s a lovely figure of high poetry. Honey, sweet and delicious, is well-regarded as a celestial gift. But as meninist literary criticism has established, gender is under everything. According to Virgil, bees peculiarly reproduce to produce honey: “they don’t indulge in sexual union, nor languidly loosen their bodies in love {neque concubitu indulgent, nec corpora segnes / in Venerem solvunt}.” That classical misunderstanding made male worker bees into “drones” for more than two millennia.
Male worker bees engage in sexual work essential for the ongoing production of honey. As is common in gynocentric societies, the queen bee is the central, privileged individual. She is the mother of all the baby bees born in the hive. She mates with many male bees hatefully called “drones.” These drones are more justly regarded as male worker bees. Female workers bees, which are asexual, do a variety of non-sexual tasks. Male worker bees, in contrast, specialize in male sexual work. They fly to male worker bee congregation areas analogous to clubs and bars. When a queen bee appears, male worker bees seek to engage in the strenuous male work of having sex with her. Male worker bees typically die after successfully completing their seminally important work. That sacrificial work has enduring benefits through contributing to the creation of a new generation of honeybees.[2]
Latin literature following Virgil associated bees with chastity, the Virgin Mary, and the Christian church. The fourth-century bishop Ambrose of Milan associated the bee with virginity. The fifth-century bishop Peter Chrysologus of Ravenna declared:
Let no one wonder if the holy church, which is a virgin mother, produces numerous offspring with heavenly fertility, bears pastors for herself, and begets rectors. For the bee knows no intercourse, is ignorant of unchastity and is set apart from corruption. The bee is a model of modesty, an exemplar of chastity and a symbol of virginity. Like the church, the bee from mere heavenly dew conceives by its mouth, delivers by its mouth, compounds chaste seeds by its mouth, makes leaders for itself by its mouth, and personally generates and produces kings for itself by its mouth.
{ Nemo miretur si sancta ecclesia, si uirgo mater que numerosas suboles caelesti fecunditate diffundet, ipsa sibi pastores generet, pariat ipsa rectores, quando apes concubitus nescia, obscoenitatis ignara, corruptionis expers, ad formam pudicitiae, ad castitatis exemplum, ad uirginitatis insigne, quae solo rore caelesti ore concipit, ore parturit, ore germina casta componit, ore sibi duces format, ore sibi reges ipsa generat et producit }[3]
What about the work of male worker bees? Writing around 1100, the poet, theologian and Christian church official Hildebert of Lavardin represented the Virgin Mary as a bee:
The virgin is a little bee who makes wax and procreates without coitus.
{ Virgo est apicula, quae ceram fabricat, et sine coitu procreavit }[4]
A poem from no later than the middle of the eleventh century depicted a summer scene of fecundity, with an apple tree laden with fruit and many varieties of birds, including the turtledove and nightingale, singing joyfully in accordance with their natures.[5] The Virgin Mary figures as a bird, but a bird like the chaste bee:
None among the birds is like the bee, who represents the ideal of chastity, if not she who bore Christ in her womb inviolate.
{ Nulla inter aues similis est api, que talem gerit tipum castitatis, nisi que Christum portauit aluo inuiolata. }[6]
Birds and bees are thus associated with Virgin Mary, the mother of Jesus Christ. She is joyful, fecund, and chaste. She is also unique.
Most women are more joyful and fecund when they benefit from the type of work that male worker bees do. In our ignorant and narrow-minded age, “the birds and the bees” are commonly understood as a euphemism for sex.[7] Few persons understand and appreciate the seminal work of male worker bees, wrongly disparaged as drones. Whenever you hear the gender-effacing phrase “the birds and the bees,” you should sternly declare: “Bees have been a figure of chastity in the long history of systemic oppression of masculine sexuality. Please cease making that micro-aggression against men.”
[2] On the social organization of honeybee hives, see, e.g. MAAREC (ND) and Mortensen, Smith & Ellis (2019).
[3] Peter Chrysologus, Sermo CXXX bis (ed. A. Olivar, CCSL 24B (Turnhout, 1982), p. 801), as cited by Casiday (2004) p. 11, with my minor changes in the English translation. For Ambrose on bees, see About virgins, three books sent to his sister Marcellina {De virginibus ad Marcellinam sororem sua libri tres} 40 (Chapter 8). The Bible associates honey and honeycomb with love. See Song of Songs 4:1, Psalm 19:9-11, and Psalm 119:103.
[4] Hildebert of Lavardin, For the feast of the purification of Blessed Mary {In festo purificationis Beatae Mariae}, sermon one, PL 171, 611, as cited in Griffiths (2006) pp. 102 and 291, n. 81. Writing later in the twelfth century, Godfried of Babion similarly declared:
The light of the candle designates Christ born from the Virgin… The wax designates Mary’s virginity. The virgin is the little bee that produces the wax.
{ Lumen in candela Christum de Virgine natum designat… Cera virginitatem Mariae designat. Virgo est apicula, quae ceram fabricat }
Godfried of Babion, Sermon on the Feast of the Purification, Latin text and English translation from Schafer (2020) v. 2, p. 419.
Herrad of Landsberg, Abbess of Hohenburg Abbey in eastern France, in her book Garden of Delights {Hortus deliciarum} written about 1180, described herself as “like a little bee inspired by God {quasi apicula Deo inspirante}.” Latin text and English translation from Griffiths (2006). On the literary context of this bee simile, id. Ch. 3, and Casiday (2004).
[5] Godfried of Babio associated the turtledove with chastity: “the turtledove indicates chastity {turtur indicat castitatem}.” Sermon on the Feast of the Purification, Latin text and English translation from Schafer (2020) v. 2, p. 419.
[6] Cambridge Songs {Carmina Cantabrigiensia} 23, “The woods are clothed with tender branches {Vestiunt silve tenera ramorem},” stanza 6, Latin text and English translation from Ziolkowski (1994) pp. 88-9. For a freely available English translation of the full poem, Waddell (1929) p. 143. Some question whether stanza 6 truly belongs with the poem. See, e.g. Bradley (1985). Here’s Patrice Maginnis singing Vestiunt silve.
[7] The phrase “the birds and the bees” as a euphemism for sex seems to have arisen only in the twentieth century. See the responses concerning the origin of “birds and bees” on Stack Exchange, English Language & Usage.
[images] (1) The face of a male worker honeybee (drone). Photo by Sue Boo on June 20, 2014, for the U.S. Geological Survey’s Bee Inventory. (2) Male worker honeybee (drone). Source photo by Guillaume Pelletier in 2017, via Wikimedia Commons. (3) Extended penis of a male worker honeybee (drone). Photo by Michael L. Smith in 2012, via Wikimedia Commons. Male workers bees are friendly and non-threatening. Here’s a video of male worker bee.
References:
Bradley, Dennis R. 1985. “Carmina Cantabrigiensia 23: Vestiunt silve tenera ramorum.” Medium Ævum. 54 (2): 259-265.
Casiday, Augustine. 2004. “St Aldhelm’s bees (De uirginitate prosa cc. IV-VI): some observations on a literary tradition.” Anglo-Saxon England. 33: 1-22.
Griffiths, Fiona J. 2006. The Garden of Delights: reform and renaissance for women in the twelfth century. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Mortensen, Ashley N. , Bryan Smith, and James D. Ellis. 2019. “The Social Organization of Honey Bees.” Publication #ENY-166, University of Florida, Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences.
Mynors, R. A. B., ed. 1969.Georgicon libri IV in P. Vergili maronis opera. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
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