He shouted my name, and I ran to his side:
Lifting his cup, he dashed the wine —
Disgraceful! — into my face.
I knelt there dripping — this boy that I’d pampered and favored
defied me.
Silence. Then laughter.
I would have killed him —
beaten him senseless —
Who would have blamed me?
I would have taken the skin from his back,
but the rules of the feast forbade it.
He was saved by the power of custom and law
at the feast of Poseidon Petraios.
COUNTERTURN: RHASKOS
At the feast of Poseidon Petraios
we worshipped Poseidon, father of horses,
Hothead Poseidon, who stirred up the earth with his pitchfork,
split open the rock,
and freed the first stallion.
We honored the god with games,
so Menon could compete.
He’d been drunk every night
seven nights running.
I prayed he would win.
After the games, the feast —
which I dreaded. I knew there would be trouble.
Just as Poseidon
tosses the bottomless ocean
and makes the earth queasy —
the banquet turns upside down
the way of the world. The masters act like servants:
pretend to be meek
stupid and clumsy
make fools of themselves, and us.
I was hoping he’d leave me behind.
He tipped up my face between his hands;
He wanted to see if
my bruises were gone.
He didn’t want people to know
he’d broken my nose.
He’d been proud when they called me
a beautiful boy.
The day of the feast dawned fair.
Menon was hung over.
I rode behind him, clutching his waist,
his sweat and his breath fermented with wine.
He met with his friends, and they cheered him.
I stood beside them at the sidelines
shouting “Menon, Menon!”
When I saw him running, his long locks streaming,
swift as Akhilleus,
my pride in him swelled. I was spellbound
in spite of myself. When the race was over,
I scraped his skin clean,
and we went to witness the sacrifice.
Twelve fat bullocks, his father’s wealth,
a gift to please the god. They passed in parade;
their horns were golden, curved like the arms of a lyre.
I wanted to draw
their blackness against the sky:
their bulk, their strength,
and those lyre-shaped horns.
I felt a terrible pity —
but there was no time. They were stunned with clubs;
their throats cut, the blood dashed on the altar.
. . . The sweet aroma of meat . . .
Everyone there
looked on Menon with favor.
He gave the sacrifice. He wore the crown.
Then the banquet began. I had to lie down
as if I were the master. He’d given me a tunic to wear,
rust red and soft, bordered with leaves,
the work of skillful women.
I leaned on my left elbow,
and tried not to look like a fool,
He brought me food, and I ate:
Meat on a skewer,
dripping with richness
— Warm grease ran down my fingers —
salty cheese;
figs dipped in honey;
later on, cups of wine.
I drank. I was thirsty. All that rich food —
the skin on my belly felt tight.
The world spun round like a top,
and whenever I snapped my fingers
Menon came running. He knelt before my couch
and filled my cup to the brim.
I was tempted to giggle —
I got the hiccups —
some of the other slaves laughed.
We were tasting not wine, but freedom,
which was sweeter than wine.
Then I looked up. I saw him mocking me.
Squatting down, stick in hand —
I didn’t know he knew I drew.
He grinned an idiot grin.
He jabbed at the earth and batted his eyes,
mocking my drawing —
I didn’t know what he meant. Then I did.
I saw red. Like fog. I was blind with rage.
I shouted his name and he came.
I threw my wine in his face.
He flinched. I disgraced him; I shamed him; I swear by the gods
I was glad.
Silence. Then laughter.
I knew he’d beat me.
Maybe not then,
but he’d bide his time.
Both of us could have done murder that night —
but the rules of the feast forbade it.
We were bound to obey the decrees of the god
at the feast of Poseidon Petraios.
AFTERMATH
The worst thing Menon taught me was this:
When you’re beaten, surrender.
Cry out loud to the pitiless gods.
There’s no point trying to be brave. You can’t win.
When a man beats you, he wants to break your spirit;
he’ll keep on hurting you
until you knuckle under.
If you start crying right away,
you’ll rob him of something he wants —
a secret:
the exact moment when he breaks you.
Afterward he’ll taunt you:
Coward!
Slavish!
Womanish!
and you’ll be sick with shame.
But there isn’t a master alive
who’s going to say: Well, boy, you’re brave,
and that’s manly, so I’ll spare you.
No. If you try to hold out,
he’ll just keep beating you
till you beg him to stop,
so you might as well beg first thing:
abase yourself.
Say whatever you need to say.
Then he’ll stop,
because he’s proved it: you’re a coward,
slavish,
and womanish. All slaves are like that —
which warms the cockles of his heart.
You’ll hate yourself for crying,
but you’ll have fewer stripes
and smaller bruises,
and maybe you’ll have time to heal
before he beats you again.
That’s what I learned from Menon.
EXHIBIT 8
early fifth century BCE
This fragment from a black-figured krateriskos was found near the spring at the Sanctuary of Artemis in Brauron, where young Athenian girls served the goddess as “Little Bears.” This mysterious practice is mentioned, though not described, in Aristophanes’s play Lysistrata.
Two girls dance around an altar decorated with scrolls. The girl on the left wears a short chiton, which balloons around her legs as she leaps into the air. The girl on the right, whose head is missing, stands on one foot and kicks with the other. Though the painting is primitive, the general effect is one of joy and spontaneity.
Me again: Narrator. Next scene: Brauron.
Imagine a bit of broken pot
shaped like a crooked square: a faded background,
and two little figures in black: girls
leaping in midair
knees bent
exuberant
one girl wears a whirling dress —
the other one’s missing a head.
The pot came from Brauron
and it never looked lik
e much,
even before it was broken. These pots were small,
the size of juice glasses,
and crudely made.
They’re called κρατερισκοι:
that’s kra — as in crawfish
ter — as in rip and tear
ree — as in repeat (roll the r if you can)
and ski — as in skis. Krateriskoi.
You’ll find them near shrines to my half-sister Artemis.
Brauron was one of her shrines
— and it’s where we’re headed next.
(The B in Greek
is more like a V.) Vrauron:
a wild place; sea-girdled,
watered by a sacred spring. My sister Artemis likes marshes,
the way I like doorways, gates, and gyms.
At Brauron, little girls lived as bears
and served the goddess Artemis.
Why bears? The story goes
long ago
Artemis had a tame bear,
and a girl child played with it;
she teased it.
The bear, being a bear, killed her.
The girl’s brothers killed the bear.
My sister Artemis
— who’s a crackerjack archer —
let loose her arrows of plague
and started killing everyone. I’m fond of Artemis,
really, I am; I adore her. Who wouldn’t?
Goddess of sweet garlands,
guardian of young girls —
but let’s face it: she and Apollo
are a little too quick with their bows.
If you irritate them — and they’re touchy —
you’ve got plague on your hands,
and I’ve told you before,
I’m not wild about plague. I could do without it.
All those bodies,
all that misery;
and always, there’s a smell . . .
But I’ll say one thing for plague:
it gets everyone’s attention.
When people have plague,
they pray. Everyone prayed to Artemis,
and she relented. All she desired
were some little girls
to come to her shrine
and act like bears.
What could be more reasonable?
So the girls came to Brauron,
and acted like bears. How, you ask me?
I don’t know. Nobody knows.
A lot of that stuff happened at night,
and an active, mettlesome god like me
needs his sleep. It was women’s business;
I wasn’t supposed to know about it,
which isn’t to say
I didn’t peep.
The bear game was a mystery —
no one wrote anything down.
All we have are pots like these,
the krateriskoi,
and the guesses of scholars.
— Oh, those scholars!
what little ducks they are!
Dabbling into history:
truth-seekers,
archaeologists,
dippers and diggers.
They pore over bits of broken clay
and wonder what went on.
They drive themselves crazy:
What age are the girls on the pots?
Why do some have short hair
and others have long hair?
Why do some wear their hair in a bun?
Does it mean something if you wear your hair in a bun? And if it does —
what does it mean?
What’s the ritual
symbolic
reason
for wearing your hair in a bun?
According to a written source,
the bears wore crocus-colored robes —
that is, saffron yellow —
but on the pots
no one ever wears a yellow robe. It drives the scholars nuts!
What does it mean?
Was the yellow robe a bridal veil?
Or the pelt of a bear?
Every highborn Athenian girl
— or maybe just a few —
went to Brauron every year,
unless it was every four years.
They stayed at the shrine a few weeks —
maybe a year,
maybe four —
and they served the goddess.
They were five to ten years old,
unless
they were ten to fifteen years old,
(they might have been seven to eleven years old)
— but here’s what you can tell from the pots:
they raced each other,
or they chased each other;
they carried garlands. They burned incense.
We’re sure about that, because
the pots have traces of ash inside.
The girls danced. With them were people in bear masks —
or maybe they weren’t masks. Maybe they were people
changing into bears!
And sometimes the girls went naked.
. . . You know,
scholars
spend a lot of time sitting still:
working in libraries,
reading, taking notes,
so naturally
the idea of people
running around naked
is very exciting to them.
You can’t blame them if they want to know more.
Why were the little girls naked?
When were they naked?
Was there a ritual? Did they take off their clothes
at the beginning of the ritual?
Or at the end? Here’s what one woman writes:
The convergence between on the one hand
the profile of the rite,
and on the other
what on my hypothesis
would be the representation of a part of the rite,
provides some confirmation
for that hypothesis.*
Dear gods!
My point is: little is known.
What was meant to be a mystery
is still a mystery.
Except we’re going to lift the veil a little,
and peek. We’ll see Brauron
through Melisto’s eyes —
Melisto’s going to Brauron,
to serve as a Little Bear.
* Unlikely as it might seem, this quote is proof that Hermes has read Christiane Sourvinou-Inwood’s Studies in Girls’ Transitions: Aspects of the Arkteia and Age Representation in Attic Iconography. He characterized it as “no place to go for a laugh.”
full appeared the moon
and when they around the altar took their places . . .
(translation by Anne Carson)
The moon shone full
And when the maidens stood around the altar . . .
(translation by Julia Dubnoff)
The moon rose late,
and the breathless girls,
each taking her place
around the altar.
(translation by Sherod Santos)
This fragment may be the beginning of a
poem. Like many fragments from Sappho,
it teases the mind with questions: Who
are these nocturnal girls, and why are
they gathered around the altar?
1. THE YELLOW CHITON
On the day Melisto left for Brauron, the women of the household rose before dawn. In a sleepy procession they carried their water jars, not to the fountain house, but to the southeast bank of the Ilissos River. Once the city gates opened, they filled their jars at the sacred spring. Then they hauled the water back to the house of Arkadios.
Home again, the women dragged out the terra-cotta tub from the storeroom. They emptied their jars. Lysandra supervised as Melisto crouched in the icy water and sponged herself. Two of the slave women, Chresthes and Evnike, dippe
d cups into the water and poured it over Melisto’s head. Thratta knelt beside the tub, scrubbing the girl’s scalp with her fingertips.
Once purified, Melisto stepped out of the bath. Her teeth chattered as the slave women rubbed her dry. Droplets of water ran down her back as Thratta massaged scented oil into her hair. Evnike, the youngest of the slaves, brought fresh clothes down from the weaving room.
Melisto regarded her new tunic with interest: a pale-yellow chiton with a violet-colored sash. Artemis’s colors were purple and gold. There was also a saffron-colored himation, a cloak-like garment that symbolized the pelt of a bear. It was too heavy to wear on a spring day; it would be rolled into a pad and carried on her back.
Melisto was still shivering when Thratta plaited her hair, shaping a braid that circled her head like a crown. Sprigs of myrtle, violets, and willow leaves meandered between the sections of hair. Thratta’s skillful fingers smoothed and twisted, tugged and poked. Melisto stopped shaking, but from time to time she twitched.
She tried to imagine the world that lay ahead. She was going away to Brauron, which was near the sea: she had never looked upon the sea. She would serve the goddess Artemis: how, or for how long, she did not know. At least a year would pass before she came back home. Every four years, the priestess of Artemis Brauronia was blindfolded so that she could select her bear-servants from the daughters of distinguished men. The potsherd that bore Arkadios’s name had been picked. He was proud to offer his daughter to the goddess.
Melisto fastened upon that thought. Artemis had chosen her; it was an honor. No one had told Melisto that it would be shameful to weep when she left home. She had known without being told. She hadn’t cried last night, when she said goodbye to her father, though she clutched him tightly, hiding her face against his chest. Leaving her mother would be easier.
“Hold up your arms,” said Lysandra, easing the yellow tunic over her head. The slave women murmured approval. The short chiton was the work of Lysandra’s hands: expertly woven and bordered with stags’ heads. Lysandra had wet-folded it to set the pleats and pressed it under stones.
Now she bent to tie Melisto’s sash. When she straightened up, she looked at her daughter with surprise. “You are very passable,” she said, and consulted the slaves. “The goddess’s colors flatter her, don’t you think? And flowers are always becoming.” She held up a bronze mirror so that Melisto could see herself.
Melisto barely glanced at her reflection. She knew she was ugly when she was with her mother, and beautiful when she was with her father. The rest of the time, it didn’t matter: she was just herself. She studied her mother’s face. If Lysandra were beginning to like her, it was a pity to leave home.
“Put on your sandals, and we’ll see the whole effect.”