Danae rendered by Titian and Sophocles

While we've on hiatus we were fortunate to visit the National Gallery, which happened to have Titian's Danae on loan from Naples. It brought back the potent choral ode from Sophocles' Antigone which we'd looked at a short time ago:

Danae, Lycurgus and the strength of Fate

The next-to-last ode of Sophocles' Antigone immediately precedes the entrance of Tiresias. It speaks of three myths -- we'll look at the first two here.

Danae:

ἔτλα καὶ Δανάας οὐράνιον φῶς 
945ἀλλάξαι δέμας ἐν χαλκοδέτοις αὐλαῖς: 
κρυπτομένα δ᾽ ἐν τυμβήρει θαλάμῳ κατεζεύχθη: 
καίτοι καὶ γενεᾷ τίμιος, ὦ παῖ παῖ, 
950καὶ Ζηνὸς ταμιεύεσκε γονὰς χρυσορύτους.
ἀλλ᾽ ἁ μοιριδία τις δύνασις δεινά: 
οὔτ᾽ ἄν νιν ὄλβος οὔτ᾽ Ἄρης, οὐ πύργος, οὐχ ἁλίκτυποι 
κελαιναὶ νᾶες ἐκφύγοιεν.

[944] So too Danae suffered her beauty to take in exchange for the light of the sky
a brazen chamber; yoked in that hidden tomb and bridal suite;
And yet was she of esteemed lineage, O child,
and held in trust a deposit of the gold-flowing seed of Zeus.
But terrible is the strength of fate:
neither by wealth or by war, by towered city
or dark, sea-beaten ships can one go beyond it.

Lycurgus:

ζεύχθη δ᾽ ὀξύχολος παῖς ὁ Δρύαντος, 
Ἠδωνῶν βασιλεύς, κερτομίοις ὀργαῖς 
ἐκ Διονύσου πετρώδει κατάφαρκτος ἐν δεσμῷ. 
οὕτω τᾶς μανίας δεινὸν ἀποστάζει 
960ἀνθηρόν τε μένος. κεῖνος ἐπέγνω μανίαις 
ψαύων τὸν θεὸν ἐν κερτομίοις γλώσσαις. 

παύεσκε μὲν γὰρ ἐνθέους γυναῖκας εὔιόν τε πῦρ, 
965φιλαύλους τ᾽ ἠρέθιζε Μούσας.

[955] And yoked was Dryas's son -- the Edonian king swift to anger --
Dionysus closed him in rock-like bonds for his heart-cutting rages.
There the fierce and flowering force of his madness trickled away.
Raging terribly, that man came to know
the god whom his heart-cutting tongue had touched.
For he sought to silence the god-driven women and the sacred fire,
And angered the flute-loving Muses.

The first two strophes of this dark ode of inescapable fate engage in a complex symmetry of figures and agency, each mirroring the other in poetic form, and in more detailed ways -- verbal echoes, images, and so forth.

Danae is imprisoned by her father to prevent her impregnation, yet Zeus's golden sperm finds its way. Lycurgus seeks to silence young Dionysus and his Bacchae, but his heart-cutting mockery puts him in rock from which his madness "trickles out."

Both figures are said to be "yoked" (ζεύχθη), or bound, by forces stronger than they -- Danae by her father, King Acrisius, who learned from an oracle that that he'll die at the hands of Danae's son. Lycurgus is overwhelmed by Dionysus, who according to one version was still being nursed when the raging Lycurgus chased him into the sea, where Thetis protected the god.

Can these figures be seen as reflections, distorted perhaps, but nonetheless fractal images of Antigone and Creon? The parallels seem clear: A woman doomed to be barren, cut off from all future life in the form of a child; a king seeking to suppress the resuscitating powers of Dionysus, whom the opening chorus wanted to celebrate in victory dances. But there's more. Danae was buried in the bronze chamber by her father, the king. Indeed this reflection of Creon might be more apposite, since in fact Antigone experiences no revivifying rain.

Both strophes, then, recount stories of human kings attempting to control divine power, and divine power striking back, crushing them. Far from being avoided, Fate is fulfilled.

The language of the ode does still more. At first blush, Danae seems passively to endure a brazen failure to prevent a god's rape; yet she, or her beauteous form, is said to exchange -- ἀλλάξαι -- the light of the sky for the bronze chamber. ἀλλάξαι could also mean "to barter" -- it carried a connotation of commercial exchange. What first seemed the imposition of a cruel father can be read as a daring and savvy kind of transaction. This is subtly reinforced when Danae is described as ταμιεύεσκε, i.e., holding in trust a deposit, deriving from a noun meaning paymaster, treasurer, or controller, which lends a certain businesslike luster to the golden rainfall of Zeus's love.

If the apparent victim of kingly control can turn into a broker in a more complex "twist" of Fate, then the one who thought himself to be king might be nothing more than a pawn in another's game. Fate doesn't unfold like some natural, linear organic development; rather it seems to get uncorked in our efforts to avoid it. Had Acrisius not tried to avoid being killed by his grandchild . . . etc. Remind us of anybody?

The surprising turns of phrase continue with Lycurgus. He's huffing and puffing against the young Dionysus, but ends in rocky bonds while the blooming (ἀνθηρόν, from "flower") force of his madness "trickles out." The bloom of madness trapped in stone reminds us that Lycurgus was actively trying to chop at the grapevines of Bacchus when, depending on which version one chooses, he lethally mutilated his son, his father, or himself. The king who sought to control the god, to uproot his potent vine, is (like) a blooming flower that doesn't merely petrify, but oozes. The passage evokes Niobe in its curious blend of petrifaction and liquefaction.

The first two strophes of the ode thus offer a complex interplay of symmetries and reversals. A young girl yoked by a king; a king yoked by a god; one turns from bronze dungeon to divine rain, while a crazed king turns to stone, which trickles. The ode, already complex, devotes the next two strophes to the blinding of the sons of Phineus. The poetic dimensions of Antigone are too interesting to be ignored -- especially if one views the play as a meditation upon the relation of the political to the noumenal.

Navigating Fate

ἀλλ᾽ ἁ μοιριδία τις δύνασις δεινά: 

οὔτ᾽ ἄν νιν ὄλβος οὔτ᾽ Ἄρης, οὐ πύργος, οὐχ ἁλίκτυποι 

κελαιναὶ νᾶες ἐκφύγοιεν.

But dreadful is the strength of fate—no escaping it by wealth or by war, by towered city, or dark, sea-beaten ships. (Ant. 951-953)

From Encyclopedia Mythica:

The Symplegades are the "Clashing Rocks" through which the Argo had to pass in order to enter the Hellespont. They moved randomly about in the sea, crashing together and crushing ships between them. No humans had ever passed safely through them. Acting on the advice of the seer Phineus, Jason let a dove fly through the rocks to see if the passage was safe; the dove passed through, losing only its tail feathers as the rocks crashed together behind it. Jason and his Argonauts then rowed mightily through the passage, and the Argo made the hazardous trip safely, losing only a piece of her stern ornament. After the Argo's successful journey, the Symplegades stopped moving and became firmly rooted in the sea. 

Sophocles links three myths together with the image of the Clashing Rocks in the next to last choral ode (944 ff), which comes after the final speech and exit of Antigone: Danae, the mother of Perseus, whose father tried to prevent a prophecy from being fulfilled by locking her in a bronze underground prison; Lycurgus, whose hatred of Dionysus led to a variety of horrid deeds and to madness; and the sons of Phineus and Cleopatra, who were blinded by their stepmother, Eidothea, sister of Cadmus.

Once again we are led to ponder the relationships of the ode's wide range of mythic elements to the characters, themes and main action of the play. And perhaps to ponder the relation of these stories of inescapable Fate to the Clashing Rocks. Is it relevant that Jason was able to successfully negotiate the Rocks only with the help of the blind seer Phineus?

the two Cyanæan1 islands, by some called the Symplegades2, . . . stated in fabulous story to have run the one against the other; the reason being the circumstance that they are separated by so short an interval, that while to those who enter the Euxine opposite to them they appear to be two distinct islands, but if viewed in a somewhat oblique direction they have the appearance of becoming gradually united into one. Pliny.

Calais and Zetes help Phineus against the Harpies

Danae, Lycurgus, Phineus: Myths of the 4th stasimon of Antigone

Danae, reclining on a couch and grasping her hair ribbons, is impregnated by the god Zeus in the form of a golden shower.

Lycurgus of Thrace

On this vase, Lycurgus, armed with a sword, has slain Dionysos' companion, Ambrosia. Dionysos summons an Erinys to drive the King of Thrace to madness. The Erinys is depicted as a winged huntress, whose arms and hair are draped with poisonous serpents.

On the famous Lycurgus Cup, the King is tangled in vines as a Satyr, Pan, a panther, and Bacchus all avenge Ambrosia. Photos of the scenes on the cup, which turns blood red when backlit, can be seen here.

Lycurgus's story has several variants, but each has him driven mad by Dionysus.

Lycurgus Cup

The last two strophes of the ode contain a series of allusions to the story of Phineus, a king who was blinded because he shared his prophetic knowledge with the Argonauts, but whose sons by Cleopatra were also blinded because Phineus believed their stepmother, Idaea's lie. The Phineus story has many variations (see Sophocles frag. 704).

Phineus and the Harpies