Motherhood in Homer

 

Motherhood in Homer

            An AI generated Google response concerning motherhood in ancient Greece tells us,

In ancient Greece, motherhood was a central and multifaceted role, encompassing both physical reproduction and the upbringing of children, though it was often intertwined with societal expectations and limitations. While women were primarily responsible for bearing and raising children, their lives were largely confined to the domestic sphere, particularly in Athens. Motherhood, however, was not a monolithic experience, with variations across social classes and city-states like Sparta and Athens.

            While we tend to view motherhood as a good and fulfilling role in all eras of history, being a mother during the time when Homer wrote the Iliad and the Odyssey was sometimes fraught with difficulties. For example, Spartan mothers faced several challenges. Their role in society was to bear and raise healthy children and they did this alone because their husbands lived in communal barracks and not in the family home. Girl children were reared and educated by their mothers at home, but boy children were taken from their mothers at the age of seven and were raised and educated in the agoge by the state. Though this practice was carried out for the good of the state and was no doubt supported by patriotic Spartan mothers, being separated from their sons at such an early age must have been difficult. Girls were educated in household tasks, as well as being introduced to the arts of music, dance and poetry. Boys were raised to be warriors. Spartan mothers reinforced the state ideology of militarism and bravery, and Plutarch tells us of one mother who, when handing her son his shield as he went off to war, told him to come back home “either carrying it or laying dead upon it.”

            Sometimes events beyond their control impacted Grecian mothers. Take Clytemnestra, the wife of King Agamemnon of Mycenae, for example. The king had offended the goddess Artemis by killing one of her sacred stags as he was preparing to sail to the Trojan War. The goddess retaliated by becalming the seas and making it impossible for the fleet to sail. The priest Calchas advised Agamemnon that the goddess could only be appeased if he were to sacrifice his daughter Iphigenia. The princess and her mother Clytemnestra traveled to Aulis under the impression that the girl was being taken there in order to be wed to Achilles. The father offered his daughter as a human sacrifice and the mother never forgave him this outrage. On the day of his return from the war ten years later, the still grieving mother and her lover Aegisthus slew the king in his bathtub as he was relaxing after his journey. They say that ‘hell has no fury like a woman scorned’, but in this case it was ‘hell hath no fury like a mother whose child has been taken away.’

            Helen is another example of a mother who has been denied her child. The Queen of Sparta was kidnapped by Paris of Troy and taken from her home. Some contend that Helen went of her own accord and was nothing more than a wanton adulteress, but it is difficult to fathom that a mother would abandon her child willingly. Helen, the grieving mother, had not seen her child in ten years and spoke to King Priam while standing on the walls of Troy.

“You are both friendly and fearful to me my father-in-law. I wish that a wretched death had been my destiny when I followed your son here, having left my marriage bed, my brothers, my blessed daughter now grown up and the lovely companions of my own age. But this did not come to pass and so I melt down in weeping.”

            The theme of motherhood is a recurring and prominent one in Homer’s epics. In her paper entitled ‘Maternal Genealogies in Homer’s Iliad’, Laura K. McClure of the University of Wisconsin argues that,

“Through religious ritual, polis affiliation, and kin ties, mothers play an important role in negotiating male identity in ancient Greece.”

McClure studies the incidence of citing maternal genealogies in the Iliad. There are well over 1,000 named characters in the Iliad and in most cases their lineage is traced through the paternal side. McClure says that it is surprising that so few characters are described by their maternal heritage since the relationship between mothers and their sons frames the entire work. Where the maternal line is shown, in her words:

“… the naming of the mother both enhances a hero’s status and yet underscores his mortal vulnerability.”

“The naming of mothers nay function honorifically, linking the son to a divine or heroic father…”

“Conversely, allusions to the mother can denote weakness and vulnerability…”

“Allusion to the mother just before a hero’s demise serves as a stark reminder that conception and death are closely bound.”

“Because the mother evokes weakness and even death, the hero seldom refers to her in recounting his ancestry.”

There are four mothers whose roles are highlighted by Homer and who play at centre stage in his stories. They are Thetis the sea goddess and mother of Achilles, Hecuba the wife of Priam and mother of Hector, Andromache the wife of Hector and mother of Astyanax, and Penelope the wife of Odysseus and mother of Telemachus. In addition to these four central characters, there are a number of other mothers who play lesser roles in the Iliad and the Odyssey. These include the goddess Aphrodite who is the mother of Aeneas, Hera the mother of Hephaestus, Anticleia the mother of Odysseus and Queen Arete, the wife of King Alcinous and the mother of Nausicaa.

The role that Thetis played as the mother of Achilles was complicated. She loved him dearly and used her powers to protect him as best she could. She shielded him from danger, advocated on his behalf and even coddled him. Achilles was the chief warrior of the Achaeans and was touted as their best fighter and yet we find him sobbing in the arms of his mother when Briseis was taken from him. He is like a child running to be comforted by his mother in a playground when another child has snatched his toy or has called him a mean name. I can hear it now, “Mommy, Mommy, I’ve got a boo-boo! Don’t worry Honey – Mommy will kiss it and make it all better.”

And stretching forth his hands, he prayed sincerely to his blessed mother. “Mother, you gave me life, short as it might be, so at least Olympian Zeus the mighty thunder-maker should give me some honour, but alas he grants me none. For indeed Agamemnon, the wide ruling son of Atreus dishonours me for he takes back for himself what was given to me.”

Thus he spoke shedding great tears and his sacred mother heard him while she sat in the depths of the sea near her ancient father. She emerged instantly from the foamy waves like a mist and sat before him weeping. She stroked him with her hand, spoke to him and called him by name. “My dear child, why do you weep so? Why has grief set upon your mind? Speak out so that we both might know your thoughts.”

                Two interesting interplays on Mount Olympus followed this conversation, both of which highlighted the role of motherhood. Acting as a mother advocating on behalf of her son, Thetis approached father Zeus as a daughter and begged him to intercede on behalf of her son Achilles. Doing so would place him in direct opposition to his own wife/sister Hera. Hera was furious that Zeus would contemplate such a thing and it took the intercession of her son Hephaestus to calm her down. Hera the mother listened to her son. Thus he spoke and the white-armed goddess Hera smiled and having done so, received into her hands the goblet from her child.

            The divine status that Thetis held allowed her to navigate between mortals and immortals and to act as an intermediary between the two worlds. This gave her the ability as a mother to work to guard the safety of her son, to protect him from harm and to shape events and alter outcomes in his favour. She did all this because she loved her son dearly and knew, with an impending sense of doom and helplessness, that he was destined for an early death and that she would suffer immense grief as a mother witnessing the suffering, death and mortality of her son. She often bemoaned the fact that she had been cursed to have given birth to one whose life would be so short. She knew full well that it was not part of the natural order for a child to die before its parent.

            Thetis, the mother of Achilles, is mentioned 47 times in the Iliad and as stated above, she played a central role in the story. In fact she was vital to the narrative even before the Trojan War began, for it was at her wedding to Peleus when the notorious beauty contest took place, which resulted in Paris being awarded Helen of Sparta, or Helen of Troy as we have come to know her, the face that launched a thousand ships. One of the chief events that she was connected with in the Iliad was the procurement of new armour for her son Achilles. His companion Patroclus had worn the hero’s armour in battle and had been slain by Hector, who then stripped him of his armour. As a concerned mother, Thetis shared her feelings about the sorrow that her dear son was experiencing and her own grief about the impending loss of her child.

“Listen to me my sister Nereids so that each of you may know all the sorrows that are in my heart. Woe is me who am so unhappy, me the unhappy mother of the son whom I bore, for after I had given birth to such a peerless and stalwart son, one who stood out amongst all others. He grew up quickly like a sapling and I had brought him up like a rich plant in a garden plot, I then sent him off in the curved-bow ships to Ilios to make war with the Trojans. But I will never receive him back into his house, the home of the son of Peleus. But while he is alive and can see the light of the sun, he is in sorrowful pain and I cannot help him in any way regardless of my going to him. But I will go and I will see my dear child and listen to what grief has come upon him while he keeps himself aloof from the fighting.”

            A tearful Thetis told Achilles what his fate would be when she said, “An early death will come to you as you say my child, for your own death will be right at hand following that of Hector.” Achilles knew that he had the choice of leaving the battle, returning home and living a long life in obscurity, or staying to fight, dying young and becoming famous forever for his valiant deeds. He chose the latter course of action but his mother convinced him not to return to the war until such time as she was able to secure a new and magnificent set of armour for him from the hands of the craftsman Hephaestus.

“But you must not return to the turmoil of Ares before you see me return with your own eyes, for come morning and the rising of the sun, I will come back bearing wondrous armour from Lord Hephaestus.”

Thetis the mother appealed to Hephaestus the son of Hera for his help and he was most happy to assist. In fact, from his comments, it would seem that Thetis had, at one point, acted as a surrogate mother to Hephaestus. She had adopted the disabled god when he had been cast out by his own mother and he had lived with Thetis and Eurynome for nine years.

“It is indeed a powerful and revered goddess who has come here for it was she who looked after me when I suffered from a heavy fall caused by my cruel mother’s anger, for she would have cast me off because I was lame.”

            Homer did not report the death of Achilles in the Iliad but made reference to his funeral in the Odyssey. As a result, we are not privy to the immense sorrow which Thetis must have endured when her son died, even though she knew far in advance that he was slated to die young. Achilles was considered invulnerable because his mother had dipped him in the River Styx in order to make him immortal. She had held her baby by the heel when she lowered him into the river and the place where her hand touched him was the only vulnerable place on his body. Legend tells us that Achilles was killed by the Trojan Paris, who struck him in the heel with an arrow that had been guided to the spot by the god Apollo. When Odysseus visited the underworld in the Odyssey, the ghost of Agamemnon reported that after his death, his proud mother held funeral games in his honour and offered rich prizes to the winners. Agamemnon told Achilles that his fame would live on forever. Legends go on to state that after Achilles’ death, Thetis spirited him away to the Island of Leuce in the Black Sea area and that a cult honouring the hero started up around 600 BCE and was still active in the 3^rd century CE. Thetis the mother was successful in immortalizing her son.

            The other goddess mother who played a role in the Iliad, but who was not featured strongly in the epic was Aphrodite, the mother of Aeneas. We could say that she was the one who started the whole mess in the first place by awarding Helen to Paris as a prize in the infamous beauty contest. In the Iliad we find her stepping into the fray of battle as she rescued her son Aeneas from certain death at the hands of Diomedes.

And there Aeneas the leader of men may have died had Aphrodite the daughter of Zeus not seen him, she being the mother who had bore him to Anchises the shepherd of flocks. She put her white arms around her dear son and covered him with her shining robe as a defense against missiles lest any of the swift-horsed Danaans might cast his bronze at his breast and take away his life. And so she secretly spirited her dear son away from the battle.

            Aphrodite herself was wounded on the hand by Diomedes in the altercation and fled to her father on Olympus for comfort. In retrospect, Aphrodite’s intervention and the saving of Aeneas was important from a historical point of view. Had Aeneas not been saved, the world would never have witnessed the founding of Rome, nor would we ever have had the pleasure of listening to Janet Baker or Jessye Norman sing ‘Dido’s Lament’, the closing aria from Purcell’s opera ‘Dido and Aeneas’.

            The second mother who was immortalized by Homer and very much highlighted in the Iliad was Hecuba, the mother of Hector. She begged her son not to return to the battlefield but to stay and fight within the walls where he would be safer. Fearful for the life of her son, she asked him not to return to battle but to wait until she was able to refresh him with wine.

She took him by the hand and calling out, she spoke to him. “O child of mine, why have you come away and left the battle? Indeed the hateful sons of the Achaeans distress you as they fight around the city but having come here, your spirit has forced you to raise up your hands to Zeus from the heights of the citadel. But hold back until I am able to bring you sweet wine so that you are able to make a libation to father Zeus and the other immortals. Then you may refresh yourself if you drink, because wine lifts the spirits of tired men and increases their strength and you are so tired out from defending your clansmen.”

            The noble son of Hecuba cast aside his mother’s entreaties and suggested that she and the matrons of Troy go to the temple of Athena and offer prayers for the success of the Trojans. Later she stood on the walls of the city and watched as her son engaged in mortal combat.

On the other side, his mother wailed and shed many tears and loosened her robe to reveal her breast and with many tears she spoke with winged words. “Hector my child, have pity on me and show me respect if ever I nursed you and banished your cares. Be mindful my dear child and ward off that enemy from the wall and do not make a stand against him, cruel man that he is, for he will slay you and I will not have a chance to lay you on a funeral bed and lament you, born of my own body, and neither will your dear wife be able to as well, for far away, near the ships of the Argives, their swift dogs shall devour your body.”

            When Hector was slain, Hecuba his mother wailed aloud in anguish.

Hecuba was at the forefront of the wailing of the Trojan women. “Woe is me my child. How shall I live in my sorrow now that you have died? I boasted about you night and day throughout the city and you were a boon to all the men and women of Troy who treated you like a god, for while you were alive you were a source of great glory for them but now death and fate have befallen you.”

And when the hero’s body was returned to the city of Troy, the mother could not contain her sorrow.

First Hector’s wife and the queen mother flung themselves on the well-wheeled wagon and clasped his head and wailed and wept and tore their hair as the people thronged about and cried.

“O Hector, you were the dearest in my heart of all my children and when you were alive you were dear to the gods and that is why they are caring for you in your death.”

            The third mother whom Homer features in the Iliad is Andromache, the wife of Hector and the mother of young Astyanax. In her appearances in the Iliad, she is portrayed as more of a loving wife than a mother, although her role as a mother is depicted in a very poignant way. At the gates of Troy, Andromache begged Hector, as both mother and wife, to withdraw from the fighting lest their son lose his father and she become a widow.

“O possessed one, your might will destroy you and you do not take pity on your infant child and destitute me who will soon become your widow.”

“But come now and pity me and stand fast in the tower, lest you make your child an orphan and your wife a widow.”

Having spoken thus, he placed his son into the hands of his beloved wife and she took him to her bosom with a tearful laugh.

            When Hector was killed, the sense of motherhood in Andromache was thrust to the forefront and in a lengthy speech, she talked about the impact that his father’s death would have on their son and revealed her deepest feelings about the future plight of her son.

“Now you are leaving to go under the depths of the earth to the house of Hades and you are leaving me a grieving widow in our palace and your son is just a baby, he who was born to you and me in our misery. You will be of no value to him Hector, since you are dying, nor will he be to you. Even if he were to escape the dreadful war of the Achaeans, his future will be one of hard work and sorrows for he will be stripped of his lands. The day that he is made an orphan is the day that a boy is severed from his friends and he hangs down his head and his cheeks are streaked with tears and in his time of need he approaches his father’s comrades and clutches at the cloak of one and at the tunic of another and one of them taking pity on him might moisten his lips with his cup but will not allow him to drink. One of those whose parents are still living will banish him from the feast with a swipe of his hand and reproach him with scathing words. “Get away from here for your father does not share in our feast!” Then with tears in his eyes, your child Astyanax will come back to his widowed mother, he who at one time on the knees of his father ate marrow and the rich fat of sheep and when sleep came upon him and his playtime was over, he would sleep in his soft bed in the arms of his nurse with his heart full of all good things. But now that he has lost his dear father, my Astyanax, as the Trojans call him, will suffer great evil, he on whose behalf you saved their gates and high walls.”

            Later, at Hector’s funeral, Andromache delivered a similar lament and addressed both her husband and her son. The loyal wife had become a widow but had remained a mother.

“O my husband, here you are dead now and still a young man and you have left me a widow in our palace and your son is still a baby, a son born to you and me in our misfortune and I do not believe that he will ever grow old because before that happens, this city will be utterly destroyed. For you who were its guardian have died, you who watched over it and kept its noble wives and children safe. All these will soon be sailing on the hollow ships and I will be among them and you my child shall accompany me and be put to toil at some unseemly work, slaving for some cruel master or else some Achaean will grab you by the arm and hurl you from the wall in a dreadful death, he being angry that Hector had killed his brother or his father or his son, seeing that so many Achaeans had bitten the dust at the hands of Hector, for your father certainly was not a gentle fighter.”

            There are three mothers whom Homer featured in the Odyssey, with two of them playing only minor roles. The first minor character was Queen Arete, the mother of Nausicaa and the wife of King Alcinous and the second was Anticleia, the mother of Odysseus whom he met during his visit to the underworld. The major mother role was held by Penelope, the wife of Odysseus and the mother of Telemachus and the entire story of the Odyssey revolves around her as much as it does the wandering hero Odysseus.

            Queen Arete was the mother of Nausicaa and the wife of King Alcinous. Homer portrayed her as wise, compassionate, influential and very caring. She acted as a loving and caring mother to her daughter and almost seemed to adopt Odysseus as a well-cared-for son in her treatment of him. But we are left wondering about her ability as a mother when the flashing –eyed Athena took on the role of the daughter of Dymas, a friend of Nausicaa, and in this role chided the princess.

“Nausicaa, how did your mother make you so careless? Your beautiful garment is sitting there uncared for and you marriage is coming soon when you have to be clothed in nice things as well as provide the same for those who accompany you. It is from things like this that your reputation is secured among men and you father and honourable mother rejoice. Let us go and wash them at daybreak and I will follow along and help you so that you can quickly get ready for you will not remain a maiden for long.”

Nausicaa’s mother Arete was described as follows:

“She is so highly honoured and has always been, by her children and by Alcinous himself and by the people who look upon her as upon a goddess and greet her as she goes through the city. For she, in no way lacks good understanding and she helps the women that she knows make an end to any strife that they have with their husbands.”

            Queen Arete treated Odysseus as more than a guest-friend in her home. She warmed to him greatly and even contemplated with her husband the possibility of him marrying their daughter. Arete treated Odysseus much like an adopted son and her sense of motherhood shone forth through her actions. She told her people,

“Phaeacians, how does this man appear to you in stature, looks and the balance in his heart? He is indeed my guest though each of you has a share in his reverence. Do not be in such a hurry to send him off and do not, any of you, stint with your gifts for one who has such needs, for many are the treasures that are stored up in your homes through the favour of the gods.”

            Odysseus expressed great gratitude to her for the way that she had cared for him during his stay among the Phaeacians. As he departed from her he said,

“Rejoice and be glad O queen, for all your days to come until old age and death come to you, as is the lot of mankind. But I go now and as I do so, I wish for you in this house that you have joy in your children, your people and in your king Alcinous.”

            Anticleia, the mother of Odysseus, played only a minor role in the Odyssey, but one that again positioned the role of motherhood at the centre of the story. The hero descended to the underworld and met various characters, including his mother. She is portrayed by Homer as a loving and caring mother and one who desperately missed her child. She told Odysseus about how his father Laertes was living in sorrow as an abject recluse, grieving over the loss of his son and awaiting his return. In answer to her son’s question about her own death, his loving mother explained,

“There he lies in sorrow and harbours great grief in his heart as he awaits your return as difficult old age descends upon him. In like manner did I meet my own fate and die. The sharp-sighted archer goddess did not attack me in the palace with her gentle missiles and kill me nor did any dread disease come upon me, the kind that often through terrible wasting takes the spirit from the limbs. No, it was longing for you and your counsel, radiant Odysseus, and you tender-heartedness, that robbed me of my honey-sweet spirit.”

            Penelope, the wife of Odysseus and the mother of Telemachus, played a major role in the Odyssey and was most often presented by Homer as the dutiful and faithful wife who eagerly awaited her husband’s return after his absence of twenty years, but it was her role as a loving mother that concerns us here in this paper. As a single mother, she raised her son Telemachus on her own and kept him safe from the arrogant suitors who wished to disinherit him and in fact kill him. For almost twenty years she kept them at bay and used her wisdom and cunning to safeguard her child from those who would harm him. She was a protective mother indeed.

            Telemachus decided to travel to Pylos and Sparta to seek news of his father, but he knew that his loving mother would be anxious about him going and he therefore contrived a plan to slip away without telling her.

“Take heart dear nurse for I do not act without a plan from the gods. But I swear that I will reveal none of this to my mother before the eleventh or twelfth day shall come or until she misses me or hears of my going so that her dear skin is not marred by her weeping.”

After Telemachus had been gone for some time, Medon broke the news to Penelope about his trip and the fact that the suitors were planning to ambush him and kill him when he returned. The loving mother was distraught.

Thus he spoke and her knees buckled and her dear heart broke. For a long time she sat there speechless and her eyes filled with tears and she was unable to speak. But finally she was able to talk and she answered him.

“Herald, tell me why has my son gone? It was not necessary for him to board a swift ship, which men use as horses to cross over the wide waters of the sea. Does he wish that even his name should be stricken from the memory of men?”

“And now my well-loved son has gone aboard a hollow ship, just a lad who knows little about the works and gatherings of men. For him I grieve, even more than for the other one and I fear and tremble in case something happens to him, either in the land where he has gone or upon the sea.”

            The loving mother Penelope was overjoyed when her son returned safely and showered him with the deepest affection,

Then from out of her inner room came the very thoughtful Penelope, she who was so much like Artemis and the golden Aphrodite and shedding tears, she wrapped her arms around her dear child and kissed him on the head and on both his beautiful eyes and wailing loudly, she spoke to him with winged words.

“You have returned Telemachus, sweet light of my eyes. I thought that I would never see you again, after you had gone secretly by ship to Pylos, against my will to seek news about your father. But come now and tell me what sight you have had of him.”

Mothers in Homer’s epics played significant roles, whether they were powerful divine mothers who could influence the turn of events and the fate of characters, or mortal mothers who were caring, loving and protective of their children. Mothers were highly regarded in ancient Greece, and while the freedoms and opportunities afforded to them might not have been as extensive as those available to women and mothers today, still they shaped the characters and the lives of those who depended upon them. Mothers played a central role in the development of their children and they had a profound impact on the family, especially when one considers that Greek wives were often, like Penelope, left to handle the affairs of the family by themselves, during the absence of their warring husbands. All of the mothers in the Iliad and the Odyssey presented to us by Homer were obviously held in high regard by him. They are critical to the story and for this reason the theme of motherhood is both recurring and prominent in Homer’s works.