Ariadne's clew

[truepenny]

In the same entry which I mentioned in my previous post Teresa Nielsen Hayden wants to know, what's up with Daedalus and thread?

I can't answer that one, but it did start me off on a chain of associations that ended up somewhere interesting (at least to me), so I'm going to inflict it on y'all.

So, Daedalus. (And I want you people to appreciate the fact that I'm using standard English transliteration, instead of my preferred method which would make him Daidalos.) An artificer, who is associated not only with thread, but with one of the most famous cautionary tales regarding hubris, that quintessential booby-trap of Greek thought. The story of Icarus is all about hubris and its rewards. Daedalus is constantly being hoist by his own petards, constantly so entranced by his own cleverness that he brings about his own destruction, as in the story of the conch shell. And the other thread with which Daedalus is associated, the thread which defeats his labyrinth, was of course Ariadne's, who herself does not reap joy and fulfillment from her cleverness, as she is abandoned by Theseus on an island somewhere between Crete and Athens. (Somehow, I'm not sure Dionysus counts as a net gain in this scenario.)

The other character in Greek mythology who has this flaw of excessive self-esteem due to cleverness is Arachne. The weaver. (This far, I've got a tenuous connection with TNH's original question about thread, but the next link in the chain is going to lose it.) Arachne, like Daedalus, is so pleased with her own cleverness that she forgets to keep her head down, forgets to be polite to the gods. (This is also the mistake made by Marsyas the satyr.) Weaving, like Daedalus's various artifices, is a human technology which the Greeks seem to have felt threatened to impinge on the (metaphorical) precincts of the gods. It isn't humanity's place to go about being too clever. (Sisyphus is also punished for being a smartass.) It makes the gods jealous.

Which leads me to my final link in the chain: Prometheus. Who is punished for all eternity because he gave fire to humans. Now, there are all kinds of ways to read "fire" in that myth, but even on the most literal level, Prometheus's gift enables human beings to develop metal-working technology and kiln-fired pottery, lets them cook their food instead of eating it raw ... lets them, in other words, begin to be clever. (And if you read "fire" more metaphorically--creativity, curiosity, etc.--then its effects are even more obviously the first step along the road that leads us to Daedalus and Arachne.)

Odysseus was the cleverest among the Greeks at Troy, but never the happiest. And the other leaders tended to look at him just slightly askance. Cleverness was suspect in the culture which produced Greek mythology, and extremely clever people in the myths always come to grief and always deserve it.

Which still doesn't explain the thread thing. Although there's another thread connection, now that I think about it, with the Fates: Clotho, Lachesis, Atropos, who spin, measure, and cut the threads of life. So that, too, has ominous associations and the taint of Forces Beyond Humanity's Comprehension.

(I keep having to remind myself that no matter how much I love the Dalemark Quartet, the things Diana Wynne Jones does with weaving and godhood cannot actually by cited in support of an argument about ancient Greece.)

Spinning and weaving are mysteries in Greek mythology--probably not Mysteries in the Eleusinian sense, but definitely things, like Daedalus's mechanical marvels (the labyrinth, the wings, the cow in which Pasiphae hides to slake her lust for the bull) and Odysseus's Trojan Horse, which are ever so slightly god-like. And the last thing you want, as a human being trapped in Greek mythology, is to be like the gods.

Comments

Daedalus and thread

[owlfish]

Although I presume you're more interested in where the original Daedalus-thread connection occured, I had a look around some of the texts from the Medieval and Renaissance inventors genre, since I happen to have lots of them lying around. Of the ones I have handy, only one actually cited Daedalus in conjunction with thread, and that was a twelfth century source. Hugh of St. Victor writes (Didascalicon, Jerome Taylor's translation), "They tell that the practice of fabric making was first shown the Greeks by Minerva, and they believe too that she designed the first loom, dyed fleece, and was the inventress of olive-growing and of handicraft. By her Daedalus was taught, and he is believed to have practiced the handicrafts after her." (Taylor endnotes these lines, but I don't have my photocopies of those handy, I'm afraid. And I suspect the notes would point the trail back - maybe it's in Josephus or Remigius. Oh well.)

Many of the usual suspects only mention Daedalus in conjunction with sailing or woodwork, including Pliny, Isidore, and - for a later source - Polydore Vergil.

Re: Daedalus and thread

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

That's really cool. Thank you. I was originally thinking about the ancient sources, yes, but I'm perfectly happy to broaden the scope of my inquiry (to use some unbelievably pompous academic rhetoric).

And it suggests a link between Daedalus and Arachne, since Arachne was also taught weaving by Athena (according to at least one version of her myth--is that Ovid? or somebody else?). Which in turn heightens the original connection I was trying to make between techne and hubris. Neat.

Re: Daedalus and thread

[owlfish]

Polydore Vergil (since I hadn't put

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Polydore Vergil (since I hadn't put <i><On Discovery/i> away yet), trying to reconcile his sources, writes that Arachne discovered linen and invented hunting nets, while Minerva invented spinning and weaving. He says it's book 6 of Metamorphoses which tells how Athena turned Arachne into a spide after she challenged her. This, however, doesn't answer the question one way or another as to whether anyone taught Arachne. Ovid doesn't say - but he does tell us that Arachne was the daughter of a wool-dyer.

Techne and hubris go together well for antiquity since there's status in being trained or descended from gods and goddesses, or at least ancient, brilliant rulers of humankind for the euhemerists. The link doesn't last though, except historiographically (that word is far too long!), since the slave culture of ancient Greece and Rome meant cheap labor and - at least so the current history of tech mantra goes - less inherent status therefore for technological innovation.

Re: Daedalus and thread

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

This, however, doesn't answer the question one way or another as to whether anyone taught Arachne. Ovid doesn't say - but he does tell us that Arachne was the daughter of a wool-dyer.

Drat. Where did I read that then? I don't think I made it up entirely out of thin air.

That difference in valuation between Greece and Rome is interesting. It also fits in with the intensely practical mentality of Roman civilization; there's nothing divine about getting a job done properly--just good solid common sense.