Amongst the inhabitants of Mount Olympus, love was boundless. Gods and goddesses of all sorts of tempers and charms shared their affections for one another regardless of their outward attributes. The potency of these affections in the deities was primarily due to ipaga, a dust-like herb which covers the city of gods. Of course, this concept was unbeknownst to humans. Those who could only dream to get a glimpse of Mount Olympus were only capable of seeking affection from others for their superficial needs. Men and women were accustomed to marry for land, money, and lengthening their family line.
After observing such artless devotion that humans held towards their significant others, Anteros and Eros, the god of requited love and sexual attraction respectively, devised a plan. The two brothers exhausted themselves with the pity they felt for humans and wanted to share their godly knowledge of boundless love with them. Aphrodite, Anteros and Eros’ mother, agreed to the terms. The two brothers were to find a human willing to spread love regardless of status or situation. If the human is successful in their test, all of mankind will be gifted the knowledge of affection that transcends physical and earthly forms. However, if the human fails, the inhabitants of the land will continue to be cursed with the ignorance of their true desires and full potential.
They spot their test subject, Aenbi, a promising adolescent amongst the cold-hearted crowds of mortal towns. For the first test, Anteros disguises himself as a young woman. He runs into Aenbi and cries out. “My aunt has just passed and I cannot cope with this pain. Will you spend the night with me to comfort this ache in my heart”. Aenbi willingly agrees. He brings Anteros to his home and searches for ingredients to prepare a warm meal for the woman. On his way home from the market with pork and bread in hand, Aenbi stumbles upon Eros, dressed as a beggar. Aenbi asks the poor man what is it that he needs. Eros, knowing the premise of the entire situation, deviously asks for the food in Aenbi’s hand.
Aenbi takes a step back, now conflicted between having to choose amongst a mourning woman and a penniless man. Undoubtedly the man on the road will starve if he does not get any food soon. However, the woman may fall sick from the suffering that comes with familial death if not handled with care. After hours of thought, Aenbi heads home to rest, he has failed.
Upset with the turnout of the challenge, Anteros barges into Mount Olympus’ collection of herbs and steals a bottle of ipaga. Before Aphrodite could question the enraged god, Anteros makes his way to the edge of Mount Olympus and releases a fistful of the herb into the mortal realm. A gust of wind carries the herb around the world, each speck finding its way to an unsuspecting individual. Fortuitously, Aenbi awakens from his slumber, his eyes filled with limitless love.
Analysis:
My aetiological myth focuses on the perception of sexual orientation and how it came to be in the modern day. Aenbi’s Awakening is a mythological story which follows Anteros and Eros, the gods of unrequited love and sexual attraction, in their short quest to share the knowledge of gods to humans. Their target of change, Aenbi, is set to unknowingly partake in love trials where he must decide whether he accepts the stranger into his home and share his wealth of food. If successful, humans will be gifted with the knowledge of boundless love, accepting everyone without prejudice to appearance nor status.
Although raised in a heteronormative society, Aenbi is a bisexual adolescent. Aenbi is both caring and welcoming to anyone regardless of their own origins. In Calame’s interpretation, there is mention of binary oppositions (Calame, The Semiotics. 508). I had incorporated this concept of contrasts with the use of male and female disguises. Anteros dressed as a mourning woman and Eros clothed in a poor man’s attire. The purpose of this contrast was to showcase an inner struggle between having to conform to society’s expectations versus being able to live as his true self. When he encounters Anteros asking for help, Aenbi immediately accepts the woman’s request. This is not only because of his hospitable personality but also due to his role in the community to provide for a potential wife. However, when he stumbles upon Eros disguised as a poor man he is stuck with a dilemma. Aenbi constricts himself with the preconceived notion that he must decide between the binary, man or woman.
With reference to Homer’s Iliad, the theme of choice and consequence is depicted when describing Achilles and Patroclus’ relationship. Similar to Aenbi, Achilles is confronted with a dilemma: to save his comrades or to let them suffer (Homer, Iliad 16.128-131). Achilles ultimately decides that he does not want to partake in the battle which results in Patroclus’ death. Likewise, Aenbi decides to withdraw from choosing between the man and the woman and rather, abandons them altogether. In Aenbi’s awakening, Aenbi parallels Achilles’ decisions, leading both characters to be filled with guilt. Aenbi, however, is consumed by a heteronormative environment in which instills the idea that he must only save damsels in distress. Although his moral compass was faulty, Aenbi simply could not choose one over the other because he had empathized equally with the both of them. Due to their actions, or rather the lack of action, both Achilles and Aenbi were unable to save those they cared for.
Penelope, the Queen of Ithaca, is described as a cordial and generous character in Homer’s Odyssey. Although accompanied with many rude suitors, Penelope welcomes these guests into her home while her husband is out fighting in the Trojan War (Homer, Odyssey 19.314-317). Homer’s character, Penelope, is used as the foundation for the creation of Aenbi. Though neither indebted nor obligated to these strangers, both Penelope and Aenbi are willing to go out of their way to cater to their guests. In Aenbi’s Awakening, he does not hesitate to welcome Anteros into his home to accompany them in their time of need. While Penelope had displayed her acts of loyalty to Odysseus by stalling her suitors, Aenbi failed in his attempts to support Anteros and Eros. He understood that both individuals were asking him for assistance and while Eros had met him first, Aenbi could not ignore a starving man. Out of wanting to do his best for both strangers, he ends up dismissing both quests and heads home.
Furthermore, the applications of disguises within the Homeric Hymns, though not thoroughly explored, sets up the approach of gods walking amongst mortals. The first encounter of disguises within the hymns occurs after Zeus rapes Persephone (Homer, Homeric Hymns 2. 110-112). Demeter, in an attempt to avoid the gods out of grief for her daughter, changes her appearance to wander amongst humans. In terms of my synthesis of an aetiological myth, gods taking on the appearance of humans serves to form a personal connection between these higher beings and the main character. Anteros and Eros could have easily willed for two mortals to take on the task of being the obstacles in Aenbi’s challenge. In spite of their abilities to use humans to complete the job, the two gods put themselves through the entire process. Anteros’ first-hand interaction with Aenbi opened his eyes to Aenbi’s kind nature. Under those circumstances, Anteros’ reaction to the outcome of the challenge is considerably reasonable. The god had high hopes that their test subject would be successful.
In addition to the use of Homeric Hymns for the intrinsic aspects of my myth, I had also used the concept of conditions. With regards to the resolution of Demeter’s hymn, Persephone eats Hades’ pomegranate and as a result must spend a portion of the year underground away from her parents (Homer, Homeric Hymns 2.398-400). The rest of the year was spent living with the gods. In Aenbi’s Awakening, I had used the idea of Anteros only using a handful of ipaga to provide to mankind. There is a stark contrast in the amount of ipaga available on Mount Olympus and that of which was used to spread the knowledge of the gods to humans. This is to parallel the acceptance of different sexual orientations today. There are still large groups of people who are against the views of the LGBTQ+ community. Thus, the handful of ipaga is a hyperbole used to represent the portion of individuals who accept sexual orientations outside the heterosexual norm. Of course, we have made some progress as a society to the awareness of these different sexualities but we are far from a utopia.
Meanwhile, Clytemenstra’s behaviour as well as the presence of the chorus from Aeschylus’ Agamemnon were subtly mirrored in the context of Aenbi’s Awakening. Initially, Anteros and Eros were excited to share their ideas and plans with their mother, Aphrodite. The myth progresses to the events in which Anteros has taken everything into his own hands, leaving Aphrodite and Eros out of his plans to spread ipaga. Anteros’ character mimics Aeschylus’ Clytemnestra in their ability to be self-sufficient. Both characters have a set belief of what is right and such driven characters will do just about anything to get what they want. Anteros’ goal was to spread godly love and knowledge to mere mortals, a concept which benefited everyone. Whereas, Clytemenestra planned to kill her husband, Agamemnon, to avenge her daughter’s death and to further entertain her affair with Aegisthus (Aeschylus, Agamemnon 1525-1527). The god of requited love simply wanted to spread positivity and goodness for all, while Clytemenestra intended to hurt Agamemnon as revenge for the pain she had felt for her daughter, Iphegneia. Ultimately, both Aphrodite and Aeschylus’ chorus were unable to prevent the actions of the previous two characters, leaving them with a sense of responsibility and awareness of the recent events. In Aenbi’s Awakening, Aphrodites lack of action was used to enhance Anteros’ persistence and resolve. Equally important, the chorus in Agamemnon were having trouble deciding their next steps after the deed of killing Agamemnon had already been done (Aeschylus, Agamemnon 1531-1532). Hence, similar to Anteros, Clytemenestra’s resilience towards her goal was enhanced by spotlighting the chorus’ inability to prevent her end goal. Aenbi’s Awakening applies a far more subtle parallel with respects to Aechylus’ Agamemnon.
Initially, Aenbi’s Awakening was meant to use Kearn's interpretation of myths. Kearn’s topics of divine interference in human affairs without the physical presentation of gods to humans is a great foundational basis for an aetiological myth (Kearn, The Gods 5). In the end, the deities in my myth wore human disguises as a segway for the incorporation of personification. Previously mentioned, my intentions for Anteros and Eros under the guise of humans were to serve as a personal connection between the deities and the mortals. The gods were able to blend in with the human crowds and have a first-hand interaction with Aenbi. Hence, Aenbi’s Awakening intends to portray the goal of obtaining divine knowledge of love as an attainable goal for mere mortals. Anteros’ bitterness due to the results of the challenge is one instance in which personification is evident in the deities of my myth. Owing to his connection with Aenbi and the mishaps of the challenge, Anteros impulsively throws ipaga into the mortal realm without consultation with Aphrodite nor Eros. Anteros’ act alone conveys the human attributes of feeling frustrated and angry when plans do not live up to the expectations.
Bibliography:
Aeschylus. 458 BC. Agamemnon.Translated by G. Theodoridis. Bacchicstage
Calame, Claude. “The Semiotics and Pragmatics of Myth,” in A Companion to Greek Mythology, Dowden, Ken and Niall Livingstone (eds.) Blackwell Publishing, 2011, New Jersey.
Homer. 2000. Iliad . Translated by S. Lombardo. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company.
Homer. 2009. Odyssey Translated by A. S. Kline. The Rijksmuseum.
Kearn, Emily. “The Gods in the Homeric Epics,” in The Cambridge Companion to Homer, Robert Fowler (ed.) Cambridge University Press, 2004, New York.
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