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- Title
ORPHEUS' EROTIC MYSTERIES: PLATO, PEDERASTY, AND THE ZAGREUS MYTH IN PHANOCLES F 1.
- Authors
WATSON, SARAH BURGES
- Abstract
In his Ἔρωτɛς ἢ Kαλoί, Phanocles tells how Orpheus was decapitated by Thracian women because he ‘revealed’ homoerotic love and rejected women. Iconographic and literary evidence suggests that Orpheus is associated with homoeroticism and misogyny from the Classical period. Phanocles' poem also exploits Orpheus' ambivalent status: as founder of the Eleusinian mysteries, his authority was immense. But he was also seen as the guru of a countercultural fringe, who preached reincarnation and vegetarianism. The fact that Phanocles presents Orpheus' erotic predilections as mysteries points to Plato, who rejected the mainstream, Eleusinian Orpheus, and embraced the counter‐cultural (Pythagorean) one. Orpheus rejects generative love because he is associated with the transcendent, rather than earthly, realm. Plato re‐configures both Orpheus' mystical teachings and his music‐making as philosophy/philosophical love, benefiting from traditions of interpreting Orphic poetry allegorically.
- Subjects
ORPHEUS (Greek mythological character); GREEK mythology; CLASSICAL mythology; EURYDICE (Greek mythological character); GREEK religion
- Publication
Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies, 2014, Vol 57, Issue 2, p47
- ISSN
0076-0730
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1111/j.2041-5370.2014.00072.x