And while many (justly, in most cases) decry the lack of creativity this displays, scenes like this are why we love them.
We love reboots, fanfiction, retellings, and remixes. I’ve said before that American pop culture is undergoing an Alexandrian phase. Here Circe truly is a goddess and, in typical Apollonian fashion, a irritated ‘maiden’ aunt who disapproves of all of Medea’s choices. This is not the playful and sexy sorceress of the Odyssey. It’s a fantastic scene, because while Circe performs the expiation, she does it unhappily and makes no effort to conceal her displeasure. But here comes her latest family crisis with blood on her hands. Those figures who aren’t related by blood are related by marriage or by ties of guest-friendship, a relationship taken so seriously that in the Iliad two heroes trade armor so that they will know each other and not commit the crime of slaying the grandson of their grandfather’s guest-friend.Ĭirce would much rather be tending her magic herbs or trying to lure in a new pet. Castor and Pollux, Jason’s shipmates, are also the brothers of Helen of Troy and Clytemnestra.Their cousin is Penelope, who will marry Odysseus. And not just because every second hero is a son of Zeus. It is very easy for us to forget as modern readers that every one of the famous Greek myths is at its root a family drama.
But they present themselves to her, on their knees, and beg for her assistance. This is how Medea ends up on Circe’s doorstep (and yes, it’s that Circe of Odyssean fame), asking her help. The one way to avoid this fate, as Medea and Jason are eager to do, is to receive expiation and ritual purification for the murder. Instead, they drove you to doing the job yourself. Terrible and terrifying chthonic goddesses, the Furies wouldn’t kill you. Murders within the family were not merely crimes they were foul sins that would result in immediate and crushing punishment by the Furies. It is, for a member of any of the ancient Mediterranean societies, an existential and religious threat. This murder is not only a horrific act in itself. Jason couldn’t find the brains of the operation. Well, technically, Jason murdered him, but Jason isn’t the brains of anyone’s operation. When we left off our discussion of the Argonautica, Medea had made the startling decision to murder her brother. Which makes this week’s topic – Medea’s visit to Circe – feel particularly apt.īear with me, that’s not as brutal a segue as it initially seems.
#PENELOPE ODYSSEY FAMILY TREE SERIES#
What I’ve gotten over the last month is a seemingly endless series of storms (not common in Wisconsin in June we go more for blizzards than twisters up here), obligations, shenanigans and chaos, and just when I think I’ve got twenty minutes to myself, a minor family crisis pops up. What I want to do is spend the time not tied up in other obligations writing or working in the garden. It has been a frustrating few weeks around here.
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