One evening, as Zeus was peering down from Olympus, he spotted a beautiful, young woman roaming the woods. Intrigued, he decided to get a closer look, appearing a short distance away from the woman, hidden behind a tree. He found she was even more beautiful up close, but her clothing and bow gave her away to be the nymph Callisto, a favoured hunter of Artemis. Entranced by her beauty, the god approached, startling the woman. He explained that he was the all powerful Zeus, and that he had come to claim her. Callisto, while flattered, softly rejected the god, stating that her heart belonged with her mistress. Insulted, Zeus quickly fled, hiding amongst the trees. Soon enough, an idea came to him for how he could have his prize. He transformed himself to have the appearance of the goddess of the hunt, and approached the woman again, asking her to lay with him. The nymph joyfully agreed to the request of her mistress. When morning came, Callisto awoke to find her mistress enraged, while another Artemis slept beside her. The sleeping Artemis awoke as well, and realizing he had been discovered, reverted back to his normal form and quickly returned to Olympus. Artemis, horrified that one of her hunters would break their vow of chastity, quickly shot the woman through the heart. Yet, her anger did not stop. If a hunter could be tempted by her own image, the divine form of chastity, then what was preventing them from being tempted by anyone else? Were there any mortals truly worthy of her favour if so flawed? As months went on, the goddess stewed in her anger, and her protection over humanity began to crumble. No hunter could hit their mark, leaving beasts to tear and destroy. Forest fires raged, frost ravaged crops, and no child was born alive. Humanity suffered as Artemis grieved. Zeus, in an attempt to end the devastation, went to Artemis and asked her to resume her duties. Furious, the goddess screamed at Zeus, asking how she was supposed to bless a people who could never truly honour her. Understanding that without intervention, Artemis would let all of humanity perish, Zeus quickly rushed to Hephaestus. Zeus demanded he build new humans, ones who would be free from the influence of the fire god’s wife. Hephaestus complied, and Zeus quickly showed the new humans to Artemis. He explained how these beings would never be tempted to break the vow of chastity, and would dedicate themselves to her. The goddess’ rage dissipated knowing she would now be honoured how she deserved, and balance returned to the realm of humans.
In this piece, I will be analyzing the short text I wrote which is an aetiological myth of sexual orientation. Specifically, this myth explains the emergence of asexuality, or in other words, the lack of sexual attraction. I chose this topic not only because I myself am asexual, but because asexuality is a confusing concept when being viewed from a biological perspective. Having members of a species who are not driven to procreate has no obvious benefit, in fact it could be considered a deficit, yet it exists. I find that having asexuality be the product of illogical gods rather than nature gives this mystery a simple and understandable conclusion, which is why it makes for the perfect subject for an aetiological myth. We have no obvious answer as to why something is the way it is, so we give it one, which is exactly how the actual ancient myths came to be. I chose Artemis to be the main character of this myth because as a virgin goddess who was the patron of virgin women, I feel she would not only support and seek out asexuals, but could possibly be interpreted as one herself. This analysis will be separated into three parts, each concerning one of the three major ancient influences. The first part will be focused on the setup and the story of Callisto. The second part will be about the conflict and the story of Demeter. Finally, the third part will be examining the solution and the story of Pandora.
The main basis for my myth is the story of Callisto, as depicted in book 2 of Ovid’s Metamorphoses (2. 405-490). The main thread of this story is that Zeus is attracted to a favoured hunter of Artemis, so he rapes her and she becomes pregnant. When she returns to Artemis, her pregnancy is discovered and she is cast out of the group, and later turned into a bear by Hera. I chose this specific story to be the basis because not only does it have Artemis directly dealing with someone who disobeyed her and lost their virginity (using the ancient and male definition of virginity) but also because the text specifies that Zeus “put on the features and dress of Diana” (Met. 2.425). This specific line was integral to my myth because it, at least as I interpret and use it, dissuades the common idea that Artemis and her followers were only against women having sex with men, that her followers were usually sapphic women. While the only women aspect is proven untrue in her favouring of Hippolytus (Eur. Hipp.), the sapphic interpretation has little evidence for or against as the ancients rarely acknowledged the idea at best. The way this specific story is set up allows for the interpretation that Callisto is attracted to the female goddess and that having sex with a female presenting being is still unacceptable once the rape aspect is taken out of the story. I make this interpretation very literal in my myth by having Callisto reject Zeus but accept Artemis, clarifying that attraction to any sexe is not accepted. One of two strong differences my story has compared to Ovid’s is that, like mentioned before, I removed the explicit rape aspect. To clarify, what Zeus does still is rape as the consent Callisto gave was not for the situation that actually happened and he is not punished for it as I still wanted the story to be in line with the classics. The reason I made Callisto at least partially consent is because asexuality is about attraction and attraction is displayed verbally through consent. If Callisto did not consent, the story would not be about what she wanted, but rather what happened to her. For Artemis to know Callisto was attracted, she had to actively display that fact, therefore Callisto must be an active force. The second major change was why Artemis was angry. As stated previously, asexuality concerns attraction, not necessarily action, so instead of making Artemis angry about the act itself, I made so that Artemis was angry about her follower being tempted to have sex. As shown in the myth, my Artemis believes that if one of her followers could be attracted to her, the symbol of virginity, then there is nothing preventing them from being attracted to, and therefore possibly having sex with, anyone else. It meant that the disregard and disrespect of a core part of Artemis’ identity came not only from actions but from the inner thoughts and feelings of all humans. This explains why the solution is not simply people who do not have sex, but people who do not feel sexual attraction. Any other changes made, such as the couple being discovered in bed and Artemis killing Callisto, were made to keep the story concise.
I designed Artemis’ reaction to be based off of Demeter’s response to the taking of Persephone in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter (300-331). Originally, I was going to make asexuality a creation of Artemis, but this did not make sense for the concept of an aetiological myth as it would not explain why asexuality was created separate from all other sexualities and rarely do these myths have solutions as simple as seeing a problem and immediately fixing it. After deciding instead that asexuality would be made for Artemis, I then needed a reason for the gift to be given. I chose to mimic the story of Demeter because it followed a similar formula of Zeus uncaringly disrespecting a goddess and someone being forced to give a gift to said goddess. The different side effects of Artemis not doing her job came from Callimachus’ Hymn 3 to Artemis as these were the aspects of the goddess that seemed like they would cause the most suffering to humanity (1, 20, 112, 115). Once again mimicking Demeter’s story, I have Zeus become concerned over the the suffering of humanity and go to the goddess to ask her to stop but she continues because it gives a reason for why Zeus would bother appeasing her, as well as giving me a chance to to fully explain to the audience why asexuality would be the solution.
The final part of the myth is based around the story of Pandora’s creation from Hesiod’s Works and Days (56-65). I chose to model the ending after this story because I needed a way for asexuality to be put into the world and Zeus having a person created with specific attributes perfectly suits that. I find it especially fitting since Hephaestus is the one to actually create Pandora given that he is the husband of the goddess of love, meaning he would understand how her power works, while also being unattractive to her so it almost becomes an act of revenge. The myth, and therefore the analysis, ends with Artemis pleased that there are humans who are like her, not attracted to anyone, and she resumes her work.
References:
Callimachus. Hymns & Epigrams. LYCOPHRON. ARATUS. Translation by Mair, A. W. & Mair, G. R. Loeb Classical Library Volume 129. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.
Euripides., and Gilbert Murray. Euripides . G. Allen, 1904.
Helene P. Foley. The Homeric “Hymn to Demeter”: Translation, Commentary, and Interpretive Essays. STU - Student edition, Princeton University Press, 2013.
Hesiod., et al. The Poems of Hesiod : Theogony, Works and Days, and The Shield . University of California Press, 2017.
Ovid, and Frank Justus. Miller. Metamorphoses . 3d ed. / rev. by G. P. Goold. --, Harvard University Press, 1976.
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