Odysseus, a Deer?

October 1, 2023 ~ lawrencebenn ~ Leave a comment

Homer, Iliad 11.473-486.

They found Odysseus, dear to Zeus, swarmed
by Trojans, like when light-brown mountain jackals
crowd round an antlered deer a man’s struck
with an arrow. The deer bolted from him,
scooting while its blood was warm and knees limber.
But when the fast arrow does the deer in,
flesh-eating jackals snarf it down in a glade’s
shade. But a god leads a lion against them,
a hungry one: jackals scurry, lion sups.
Just so, round wise and deft Odysseus
many able Trojans swarmed, but the hero,
flashing his spear, saw off the cruel day.
Ajax with his tower-like shield came
and stood before him. The Trojans scurried pell-mell.

εὗρον ἔπειτʼ Ὀδυσῆα Διῒ φίλον· ἀμφὶ δʼ ἄρʼ αὐτὸν
Τρῶες ἕπονθʼ ὡς εἴ τε δαφοινοὶ θῶες ὄρεσφιν
ἀμφʼ ἔλαφον κεραὸν βεβλημένον, ὅν τʼ ἔβαλʼ ἀνὴρ
ἰῷ ἀπὸ νευρῆς· τὸν μέν τʼ ἤλυξε πόδεσσι
φεύγων, ὄφρʼ αἷμα λιαρὸν καὶ γούνατʼ ὀρώρῃ·
αὐτὰρ ἐπεὶ δὴ τόν γε δαμάσσεται ὠκὺς ὀϊστός,
ὠμοφάγοι μιν θῶες ἐν οὔρεσι δαρδάπτουσιν
ἐν νέμεϊ σκιερῷ· ἐπί τε λῖν ἤγαγε δαίμων
σίντην· θῶες μέν τε διέτρεσαν, αὐτὰρ ὃ δάπτει·
ὥς ῥα τότʼ ἀμφʼ Ὀδυσῆα δαΐφρονα ποικιλομήτην
Τρῶες ἕπον πολλοί τε καὶ ἄλκιμοι, αὐτὰρ ὅ γʼ ἥρως
ἀΐσσων ᾧ ἔγχει ἀμύνετο νηλεὲς ἦμαρ.
Αἴας δʼ ἐγγύθεν ἦλθε φέρων σάκος ἠΰτε πύργον,
στῆ δὲ παρέξ· Τρῶες δὲ διέτρεσαν ἄλλυδις ἄλλος.

From the Scholia:

Schol. ad Il. bT. 11.475a.

475. crowded round an antlered deer: Odysseus is likened to a deer, but he is not pathetic. The demonstrable force of the comparison is not that; rather, it is their similar suffering. It [the simile] likens him to the dying deer in order to emphasize the danger [he, Odysseus, is in].

475 α. άμφ’ ελαφον (κεραόν βεβλημένον): où δειλός ό Όδυσσευs, ότι έλάφω εϊκασται · où yàp Ισχύος δηλωτικὸν τό της παραβολής, άλλα των όμοιων παθημάτων. Θανούσῃ δέ αύτόν έλάφῳ εικάζει, Ινα αύξησῃ τον κίνδυνον.

Color photograph of an oil painting of a deer with antlers in its death throes — Edwin Henry Landseer
Dying Stag (ca.1830)
Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY.

Larry Benn has a B.A. in English Literature from Harvard College, an M.Phil in English Literature from Oxford University, and a J.D. from Yale Law School. Making amends for a working life misspent in finance, he’s now a hobbyist in ancient languages and blogs at featsofgreek.blogspot.com.

Lost Treasures Department: Mother with Baby Centaurs

August 21, 2023 ~ sententiaeantiquae ~ Leave a comment

Lucian, Zeuxis or Antiochus 4

“I want now to explain about this painter too. That Zeuxis was the best painter at the time and didn’t illustrate common and cliched things or did make heroes, gods, and wars as little as possible. Instead he was always trying to make something new and whenever he conceived of something different or odd, he demonstrated the brilliance of his skill in its execution. Among his many audacious images, that Zeuxis painted a female Hippocentaur and depicted her feeding twin Hippocentaur babies.

There’s a copy of that image precisely modeled on the original in Athens. The first copy, however, the general Sulla selected to send to Italy with other things, but I guess that the ship carrying it sank outside of Malea, destroying the painting and everything else.”

Ἐθέλω γοῦν ὑμῖν καὶ τὸ τοῦ γραφέως διηγήσασθαι. ὁ Ζεῦξις ἐκεῖνος ἄριστος γραφέων γενόμενος τὰ δημώδη καὶ τὰ κοινὰ ταῦτα οὐκ ἔγραφεν, ἢ ὅσα πάνυ ὀλίγα, ἥρωας ἢ θεοὺς ἢ πολέμους, ἀεὶ δὲ καινοποιεῖν ἐπειρᾶτο καί τι ἀλλόκοτον ἂν καὶ ξένον ἐπινοήσας ἐπ᾿ ἐκείνῳ τὴν ἀκρίβειαν τῆς τέχνης ἐπεδείκνυτο. ἐν δὲ τοῖς ἄλλοις τολμήμασι καὶ θήλειαν Ἱπποκένταυρον ὁ Ζεῦξις οὗτος ἐποίησεν, ἀνατρέφουσάν γε προσέτι παιδίω Ἱπποκενταύρω διδύμω κομιδῇ νηπίω. τῆς εἰκόνος ταύτης ἀντίγραφός ἐστι νῦν Ἀθήνησι πρὸς αὐτὴν ἐκείνην ἀκριβεῖ τῇ στάθμῃ μετενηνεγμένη. τὸ ἀρχέτυπον δὲ αὐτὸ Σύλλας ὁ Ῥωμαίων στρατηγὸς ἐλέγετο μετὰ τῶν ἄλλων εἰς Ἰταλίαν πεπομφέναι, εἶτα περὶ Μαλέαν οἶμαι καταδύσης τῆς ὁλκάδος ἀπολέσθαι ἅπαντα καὶ τὴν γραφήν.

A Plague of Caspian Rats

July 20, 2023 ~ sententiaeantiquae ~ Leave a comment

Aelian, On the Nature of Animals 17.17

“Amyntas in his work which he named Stages writes that in the Caspian land there are many herds of cattle and horses almost beyond counting. He adds this as well, that in some seasons an unconquerable plague of rats blights the land. He continues with evidence, saying that even though the rivers flow at that of year with a huge surge, the rats swim fearlessly and they even hold on to each other’s tales, biting down on one another, to form a bridge and they they cross the strait in this way.

After swimming into the farmland, he says, they grind down the roots of crops and swarm over trees and once they use their fruits for their meals they sever the branches too just because they are not able to eat them. For this reason, the Caspians—in order to ward off this invasion of rats and the ruin they bring—do not kill the predatory birds which come in turn, flying down from the clouds, and fulfill their nature by freeing the Caspians of this plague.

Caspian foxes are so numerous that they frequent both the sheepfolds in the country and they also appear in cities. By Zeus, a fox will show up in a house not to steal something or ruin it, but like some kind of pet. The Caspian foxes wag their tails just like pet dogs in our land.

The rats of the terrible plague afflicting the Caspians are almost the same in size when you look a them as the ikhneumenos of Egypt, but they are wild, and terrible, and they have teeth strong enough to cut and even eat metal. The rats in Teridon, Babylonia are like this too—and traders bring their skins to sell among the Persians. Indeed, these skins are soft and can be sewn together as a tunic to warm people. And they call them kandutanes, because it is dear to them.

Here is something amazing about these rats: if a pregnant female is caught and her fetus is removed, when the female fetus is dissected and examined, it also has a baby.”

᾽Αμύντας ἐν τοῖς ἐπιγραφομένοις οὕτως ὑπ᾽ αὐτοῦ Σταθμοῖς κατὰ τὴν γῆν τὴν Κασπίαν καὶ βοῶν ἀγέλας λέγει πολλὰς καὶ κρείττονας ἀριθμοῦ εἶναι καὶ ἵππων. ἐπιλέγει δὲ ἄρα καὶ ἐκεῖνο, ἐν ὡρῶν τισι περιτροπαῖς μυῶν ἐπιδημίας γίνεσθαι πλῆθος ἄμαχον· καὶ τὸ μαρτύριον ἐπάγει λέγων, τῶν ποταμῶν τῶν ἀεννάων σὺν πολλῶι τῶι ῥοίζωι φερομένων, τοὺς δὲ καὶ μάλα ἀτρέπτως ἐπινήχεσθαί τε αὐτοῖς καὶ τὰς οὐρὰς ἀλλήλων ἐνδακόντας ἕρμα τοῦτο ἴσχειν, καὶ τοῦ διαβάλλειν τὸν πόρον σύνδεσμόν σφισιν ἰσχυρότατον ἀποφαίνει τόνδε.

ἐς τὰς ἀρούρας δὲ ἀπονηξάμενοι, φησί, καὶ τὰ λήια ὑποκείρουσι καὶ διὰ τῶν δένδρων ἀνέρπουσι καὶ τὰ ὡραῖα δεῖπνον ἔχουσι καὶ τοὺς κλάδους δὲ διακόπτουσιν, οὐδὲ ἐκείνους κατατραγεῖν ἀδυνατοῦντες. οὐκοῦν ἀμυνόμενοι οἱ Κάσπιοι τὴν ἐκ τῶν μυῶν ἐπιδρομήν τε ἅμα καὶ λύμην φείδονται τῶν γαμψωνύχων, οἵπερ οὖν καὶ αὐτοὶ κατὰ νέφη πετόμενοι εἶτα αὐτοὺς ἀνασπῶσιν, καὶ ἰδίαι τινὶ φύσει τοῖς Κασπίοις ἀναστέλλουσι τὸν λιμόν. ἀλώπηκες δὲ αἱ Κάσπιαι, τὸ πλῆθος αὐτῶν τοσοῦτόν ἐστιν ὡς καὶ ἐπιφοιτᾶν οὐ μόνον τοῖς αὐλίοις τοῖς κατὰ τοὺς ἀγρούς, ἤδη γε μὴν καὶ ἐς τὰς πόλεις παριέναι. καὶ ἐν οἰκίαι ἀλώπηξ φανεῖται οὐ μὰ Δία ἐπὶ λύμηι οὐδὲ ἁρπαγῆι, ἀλλὰ οἷα τιθασός· καὶ ὑποσαίνουσί τε αἱ Κάσπιοι καὶ ὑπαικάλλουσι τῶν παρ᾽ ἡμῖν κυνιδίων <δίκην>.

οἱ δὲ μύες οἱ τοῖς Κασπίοις ἐπίδημον ὄντες κακόν, μέγεθος αὐτῶν ὅσον κατά γε τοὺς Αἰγυπτίων ἰχνεύμονας ὁρᾶσθαι, ἄγριοι δὲ καὶ δεινοὶ καὶ καρτεροὶ τοὺς ὀδόντας, καὶ διακόψαι τε καὶ διατραγεῖν οἷοί τε εἰσὶ καὶ σίδηρον. τοιοῦτοι δὲ ἄρα καὶ οἱ μύες οἱ ἐν τῆι Τερηδόνι τῆς Βαβυλωνίας (F 7) εἰσίν, ὧνπερ οὖν καὶ τὰς δορὰς οἱ τούτων κάπηλοι ἐς Πέρσας ἄγουσι φόρτον. εἰσὶ δὲ ἁπαλαί, καὶ συνερραμέναι χιτῶνές τε ἅμα γίνονται καὶ ἀλεαίνουσιν αὐτούς. καλοῦνται δὲ ἄρα οὗτοι κανδυτᾶνες, ὡς ἐκείνοις φίλον.

θαυμάσαι δὲ τῶν μυῶν τῶνδε ἄξιον ἄρα καὶ τοῦτο· ἐὰν ἁλῶι μῦς κύουσα, κἆιτα ἐξαιρεθῆι τὸ ἔμβρυον, αὐτῆς δὲ διατμηθείσης ἐκείνης εἶτα μέντοι καὶ αὐτὸ διανοιχθῆι, καὶ ἐκεῖνο ἔχει βρέφος.

Ste-Genevieve, MS 143 (Taken from Pinterest)There are not independent words for rat mouse in Ancient Greek.

μυόβρωτος: “mouse-eaten”

μυοδόχος: “containing mice”

μυοθήρας: “mouse-catcher”

μυοκτόνος: “mouse-killer”

μυομαχία: “a battle of mice”

μυοπάρων: “a small pirate boat”

μυόχοδον: “mouse dung”

Ignorance of Animals

June 22, 2023 ~ lawrencebenn ~ Leave a comment

In the world of Sophocles’s Antigone, birds and dogs are instruments of defilement associated with the corpse of Polynices:

Creon to the Chorus (203-206):

Regarding this man, it’s been proclaimed to this city
That no one honor him with burial or mourn him,
And his body be left unburied for the birds
And dogs, ravaged fare, and for all to see.

τοῦτον πόλει τῇδʼ ἐκκεκήρυκται τάφῳ
μήτε κτερίζειν μήτε κωκῦσαί τινα,
ἐᾶν δʼ ἄθαπτον καὶ πρὸς οἰωνῶν δέμας
καὶ πρὸς κυνῶν ἐδεστὸν αἰκισθέν τʼ ἰδεῖν.

Tiresias to Creon (1015-1018):

There’s plague in the city because of what you concocted.
All our altars and hearths are clogged
With the carcass scraps, carried by dogs and birds,
Of the ill-fated, fallen son of Oedipus.

καὶ ταῦτα τῆς σῆς ἐκ φρενὸς νοσεῖ πόλις.
βωμοὶ γὰρ ἡμῖν ἐσχάραι τε παντελεῖς
πλήρεις ὑπʼ οἰωνῶν τε καὶ κυνῶν βορᾶς
τοῦ δυσμόρου πεπτῶτος Οἰδίπου γόνου.

Wild animals can trouble corpses too, but in Antigone they are associated with corpses other than Polynices’. Wild animals are absent from Creon’s prescription for Polynices’ remains and absent from Tiresias’s account of what befell them.

Dogs and birds are certainly a threat to all unburied corpses, but the involvement of wild animals marks corpses as not-Polynices’:

Tiresias to Creon (1080-1083):

All the cities are vibrating with hate:
Bits and pieces of their dead have been hallowed
By dogs, wild animals, or some winged bird transporting
The unholy stench into the hearth-bearing city.

ἐχθραὶ δὲ πᾶσαι συνταράσσονται πόλεις,
ὅσων σπαράγματʼ ἢ κύνες καθήγνισαν
ἢ θῆρες ἤ τις πτηνὸς οἰωνός, φέρων
ἀνόσιον ὀσμὴν ἑστιοῦχον ἐς πόλιν.

If this is a plausible reading of dogs, birds, and wild animals, then something must be said about the guard.

The guard, a curious figure in many respects, speaks of Polynices’ corpse in relation to wild animals and dogs, a combination absent from the authoritative discourses of Creon and Tiresias:

The guard to Creon (253-258):

When the first watch of the day showed us,
Amazement hard to grasp came over us all:
The man could not be seen! He was not entombed,
But there was fine dust on him.
It was as if someone had done it to avoid pollution.
Also, there were no signs a wild animal
Or dogs had come and torn the body.

ὅπως δʼ ὁ πρῶτος ἡμὶν ἡμεροσκόπος
δείκνυσι, πᾶσι θαῦμα δυσχερὲς παρῆν.
ὁ μὲν γὰρ ἠφάνιστο, τυμβήρης μὲν οὔ,
λεπτὴ δʼ, ἄγος φεύγοντος ὥς, ἐπῆν κόνις·
σημεῖα δʼ οὔτε θηρὸς οὔτε του κυνῶν
ἐλθόντος, οὐ σπάσαντος ἐξεφαίνετο.

I’m going to suggest the guard’s invocation of animals is at odds with Creon’s and Tiresias’s precisely because the guard does not know the identity of his dead charge.

That is why the guard speaks of “the corpse” (τὸν νεκρόν), “he” (ὁ), “the man” (τὸν ἄνδρʼ), and “a body” (σῶμα). He never says “Polynices,” “the son of Oedipus,” or anything of the kind.

Consistent with that, the guard also does not know the identity of the woman he’s arrested. That is why he says “she” (ἦ), “this woman” (ταύτην), and “the girl” (ἡ παῖς). He never says “Antigone,” “the dead man’s sister,” or anything of the kind.

Contemplating the Pig-Man: Intuitions of our Shared Nature

June 9, 2023June 29, 2023 ~ kevinsolez ~ 1 Comment

People are much more closely related to pigs than we knew before. A surprisingly convergent evolution of humans and pigs lies behind recent medical advances in organ transplantation. These show that pig organs are viable in humans and can extend life. The first successful application of this procedure, called xenotransplantation, occurred in 2021, but the first xenotransplant into a human with a chance of survival occurred in 2022 and it extended the patient’s life by two months.

It may be surprising that xenotransplantation using pig organs is a major breakthrough happening now in the 2020s, which should save the lives of thousands of people experiencing organ failure in the next decade. We have heard more news about organs grown from a patient’s own stem cells or about bioartificial organs—the 3-D printing of transplantation medicine.

Maybe there is something less appealing about xenotransplantation since there are fewer dazzling technological advances involved in it. Pig-to-human transplants turn off people who are committed, for a variety of reasons, to the radical separation of human beings from other animals or who regard xenotransplantation as taboo.

Xenotransplantation works because of the convergent evolution of humans and pigs, which is another area of recent scientific advancement. Some scholars are advocating for a new classification of pigs, bringing them closer to primates in taxonomy. The underlying similarity between the species means that gene therapy can be applied to pigs, altering the organs so that human bodies won’t reject them as long as the patient adheres to a regimen of potent anti-rejection immunosuppressive drugs.

In recent years there has been a sustained movement encouraging people to extend their sense of humanity and human rights to other great apes, at least, and further to primates in general. Convergent evolution with pigs raises the question whether this sense of rights and dignity could or should be extended to swine, also.

Figure 1: Pig-Man by the author’s nine-year-old daughter.

The convergent evolution seems clearer the longer you think about it. By nature, humans and pigs are similar in many superficial and fundamental ways. Among the superficial, there is notable variety in skin pigmentation and hair coverage. Among the more significant, the omnivorous diet, relatively high intelligence, aggression, and the maximal size of a well-fed adult all point to obvious similarities. I wonder if and for how long humans have perceived the close relationship between the species.

In ancient cultures extending from India to Britain, including Syria-Palestine, horses are considered closer in nature to human beings than any other animal. In traditional stories, horses sometimes speak and have heroic genealogies like humans do, and in rituals they sometimes take the place of humans or are honoured in human-style burials. Scholars have referred to this as a human-horse ontological overlap. Looking at the body of traditional stories, can we find evidence of a human-pig ontological overlap and how precisely are pigs configured in their relationship to humanity? Could myths involving humans and pigs demonstrate a human intuition of the convergent evolution of the species?

The most famous example of humans becoming pigs comes from the Homeric Odyssey, usually dated to the beginning of the seventh century BCE. Odysseus, lost with his henchmen in an unknown world, visits the island Aiaia, ruled over by the goddess Circe. She is a deadly goddess, who uses her powers, in the form of drugs, to harm people. The adventure on Circe’s island is one of a series where Odysseus and his men encounter threats to their safe return to Ithaca. The threat here is not immediate death, but rather the insult of being turned into pigs, who are food animals, and being trapped forever on Aiaia, awaiting some future feast where they would be cooked and served.

The transformation is because of Circe’s divine power not because of an underlying homology between humans and pigs. It highlights the appropriateness of pork as human food and the horror of being transformed into a dietary staple. Pork is characteristic of ancient Greek foodways and the heroic diet of the Odyssey is an idealization of Late Bronze Age Mycenaean food culture, such as is depicted on this boar-hunting fresco from Tiryns and in numerous Mycenaean texts that mention pigs.

Figure 2: Detail of terracotta calyx-krater, ca. 440 BCE, showing Odysseus moving to attack Circe while his companions undergo transformation into pigs and other animals, and reach out to him in despair. Metropolitan Museum of Art 41.83. Public Domain.

Significant for us is that the text of the Odyssey contemplates the pig-man, as the vase-painting above also does. These works imagine a hybrid pig-human being and a shared nature between humans and pigs. The vase painter, working at least two hundred years later than the date of the Odyssey, innovates in the tradition of this story by having Circe transform men into pigs and horses.

Reading the Odyssey, we are horrified and disturbed by the detail that, once transformed, Odysseus’s companions retain their human intelligence and so can perceive their grim fate, rather than dying, intellectually, in the transformation (Od. 10.237-243).

αὐτὰρ ἐπεὶ δῶκέν τε καὶ ἔκπιον, αὐτίκ᾽ ἔπειτα
ῥάβδῳ πεπληγυῖα κατὰ συφεοῖσιν ἐέργνυ.
οἱ δὲ συῶν μὲν ἔχον κεφαλὰς φωνήν τε τρίχας τε
καὶ δέμας, αὐτὰρ νοῦς ἦν ἔμπεδος, ὡς τὸ πάρος περ.
ὣς οἱ μὲν κλαίοντες ἐέρχατο, τοῖσι δὲ Κίρκη
πάρ ῥ᾽ ἄκυλον βάλανόν τε βάλεν καρπόν τε κρανείης
ἔδμεναι, οἷα σύες χαμαιευνάδες αἰὲν ἔδουσιν.

Now, when she gave and they drank the cocktail, straightaway
she struck them with her magic wand and penned them up in the pigsty.
Then they took on the faces, voice, hair, and skin of pigs!
Their minds remained sound, however, as they had been before.
Thus were these men confined as they squealed,
and Circe tossed them acorn nuts and cherry fruit to eat,
such things as pigs are always eating, after rooting the ground.

A period of several hours elapses during which Circe becomes favorable towards Odysseus and we learn that the human nature of the pig-men is recoverable. Hinting at the importance of pork as food, Odysseus will not eat what Circe serves him until she restores the men to their humanity. When they are transformed back into men they grieve the trauma of their lives as pigs but they are younger, taller, more handsome and healthier than they were before. This is a typical way that Homeric epic communicates divine favour for mortals but it is a revealing detail for our present concerns.

Figure 3: Wall painting fragments with a representation of a wild boar hunt. From the later Tiryns palace. National Archaeological Museum, Athens. Photo by I, Sailko. Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Generic license.

Odysseus asks that the pigs have their humanity restored, but upon becoming men again their humanity is improved by the standards of the text, which values youth, height, and good looks as indices of well-being (Od. 10.388-396).

[…] Κίρκη δὲ διὲκ μεγάροιο βεβήκει
ῥάβδον ἔχουσ᾽ ἐν χειρί, θύρας δ᾽ ἀνέῳξε συφειοῦ,
ἐκ δ᾽ ἔλασεν σιάλοισιν ἐοικότας ἐννεώροισιν.
οἱ μὲν ἔπειτ᾽ ἔστησαν ἐναντίοι, ἡ δὲ δι᾽ αὐτῶν
ἐρχομένη προσάλειφεν ἑκάστῳ φάρμακον ἄλλο.
τῶν δ᾽ ἐκ μὲν μελέων τρίχες ἔρρεον, ἃς πρὶν ἔφυσε
φάρμακον οὐλόμενον, τό σφιν πόρε πότνια Κίρκη:
ἄνδρες δ᾽ ἂψ ἐγένοντο νεώτεροι ἢ πάρος ἦσαν,
καὶ πολὺ καλλίονες καὶ μείζονες εἰσοράασθαι.

[…] Circe stepped out of the palace
carrying her magic wand in her hand, and opened the doors
of the pigsty. She drove them out, in the appearance of fatted boars.
They then stood in front of her while she, approaching
one by one, anointed each with some other drug.
They shed the bristles from their limbs that the baneful
drug had caused earlier, which the goddess Circe gave them.
They turned back into men, younger than they had been before,
more handsome by far, and taller in appearance.

A human magically becomes a pig but full humanity, even improved human life, is possible after the ordeal. Through the intervention of magic drugs, human nature can become pig nature. Someone can be both pig (outside) and human (inside) and then their humanity can be enhanced after the porcine experience. The story reminds us of xenotransplantation since it promises improved health for some patients by bringing pig nature closer to human nature through gene therapy, and by compelling human nature to accommodate pig nature through anti-rejection drugs.

In the Odyssey the pig-man is an icon of the horror of losing one’s humanity and identity only to become food for men. Pork is very good food for humans that restores their strength but this connection between the species is idealized as one-sided, while failure and death are equated with becoming a pig. There is an unusual silver lining in this adventure, where the crew’s encounter with a deadly threat and with dehumanizing transformation leads ultimately to their improved condition through the magical and mundane interventions of Circe. In addition to the improved humanity of the crew, she hosts and feasts Odysseus and his men for a year before sending them on their way, at Odysseus’s request. Some good things come from this adventure but the audience’s overall impression is one of narrow escape from humiliating death, like in so many other stories in the Odyssey.

The Biblical story of the Gerasene demoniac, whose fullest and earliest account comes from the Gospel of Mark, ordinarily dated to the late first century CE, contains a contemplation of the relationship between the human mind and the porcine mind. The demons—minor deities in league with Satan—who call themselves ‘Legion’ in the story are causing great suffering to the man they possess. Jesus threatens to cast the demons out and they plead with him to be cast, rather, into a nearby herd of swine, and Jesus complies (Mark 5:11-13).

(11) Ἦν δὲ ἐκεῖ πρὸς τῷ ὄρει ἀγέλη χοίρων μεγάλη βοσκομένη· (12) καὶ παρεκάλεσαν αὐτὸν λέγοντες· πέμψον ἡμᾶς εἰς τοὺς χοίρους, ἵνα εἰς αὐτοὺς εἰσέλθωμεν. (13) καὶ ἐπέτρεψεν αὐτοῖς. καὶ ἐξελθόντα τὰ πνεύματα τὰ ἀκάθαρτα εἰσῆλθον εἰς τοὺς χοίρους, καὶ ὥρμησεν ἡ ἀγέλη κατὰ τοῦ κρημνοῦ εἰς τὴν θάλασσαν, ὡς δισχίλιοι, καὶ ἐπνίγοντο ἐν τῇ θαλάσσῃ.

(11) Now there happened to be a great herd of swine feeding on the hillside; (12) and the impure spirits called out to Jesus and said: “Send us into the swine so that we may enter them.” (13) So, he acceded to their request. And the impure spirits, leaving the man, entered into the swine, and the herd of about 2000 rushed down the steep hill into the sea, and they were drowned in the sea.

Jesus magically removes the demons from the man’s mind, freeing him from a horrific mental illness. He then places the demons in the minds of the pigs, who promptly commit suicide by running into the sea.

This well-known story suggests something new about the human-pig overlap. The minds of humans and pigs are similar enough to allow pigs to be possessed by demons the way humans are. One might think that there are Biblical stories about demons possessing all kinds of animals, but there aren’t. What do the demons want? It seems they want to torment the man to death, that is, until he commits suicide. Jesus saves the man from this fate. When Legion takes up residence in the herd of swine, the demons easily produce their desired result, which is death. Can the death of pigs satisfy the demons’ desire for death, presumably including the consignment of beings to their master, Satan? Apparently so. They want the pigs’ death as some kind of consolation prize. Does this mean pigs have souls that the demons can exploit for their purposes? Here we have come to an ontological overlap between the species. The story suggests that the metaphysical nature of humans and pigs is similar. We and they can similarly suffer possession by demons.

Ancient Celtic peoples have some positive associations between humans and pigs. Pigs were the most sought-after festive food in Celtic society, as many Iron Age middens of ritually butchered pig bones demonstrate (Aldhouse-Green 199). The Druids who oversaw these rituals were sometimes called ‘swine.’ The idea linking the priests and pigs is their shared dedication to oak trees. Acorns are a preferred food among pigs and the Druids considered oaks sacred and powerful. The diet of pigs rendered them sacred also, and it is this nature, the holy eater of acorns, that the priests invoke in their ‘swine’ titles. The connection between the species seems to be that, in religious devotion, some humans become more like pigs in a positive way. Pigs are religious, like humans, because they love oak trees.

Another pig-man worthy of attention is the spirit Zhu Bajie, ‘The Eight Precepts Pig,’ of Chinese and Taiwanese religion. He is a spirit honoured in this pantheon, but especially by people who practice trades thought to be morally dubious and on the margins of society, such as prostitution and gambling. He accepts offerings of liquor, flowers, food (but never pork), and displays of nudity in front of his statue.
While he is the patron god of vices and those who profit from them, he also appears in mainstream contexts where people risk over-consumption. An illustration of the mainstream recognition of Zhu Bajie is a nursery rhyme that warns children about over-eating.

豬掙大,
狗掙壞,
人仔掙成豬八戒!

Stuffed pigs get fat,
Stuffed dogs go bad,
Stuffed little kids become Mr. Horny Hog (Zhu Bajie)!

The tales of Zhu Bajie associate part of human nature with pigs. Human compulsion, addiction, lust, and fun-seeking are linked with the voraciousness of pigs, and personified by Zhu Bajie. Humans and pigs are not the same, but in our compulsive drive for pleasure, the human and the pig unite. Zhu Bajie’s pig-human hybridity is not the result of a temporary transformation, as in the ancient Greek story, but rather is the essence and appearance of Zhu Bajie. He’s a permanent pig-man.

This spirit features prominently as a dynamic, well-rounded, humanized character in the 16th-century Taiwanese novel Journey to the West by Wu Cheng’en, which has been adapted for film several times in the last twenty years. These have popularized Zhu Bajie beyond Taiwan and China, especially through toys associated with the films.

Figure 4: Custom made Zhu Bajie Lego toy by Loot A Brick, Singapore, reprinted with permission from Loot A Brick.

Some of the stories we’ve reviewed here are negative, frightening imaginings of the shared nature of humans and pigs, while others are affirmative, associating necessary aspects of human life, such as our drives for food or sex, with a piggish nature. The ones involving transformation or transference suggest an easy transit from human to pig and back again, while Zhu Bajie and the acorn-eating pigs of the Druids reveal a positive assessment of the shared habits of humans and pigs. All these stories lead us to a greater understanding of our real shared nature, our actual convergent evolution, which permits pigs to be viable organ donors to human patients.

Many cultures in the past seem to have recognized the kinship of people and pigs. The ancient Greek and Biblical stories are designed to create sympathy for the human victims and antipathy towards the magical figures who attack them—Circe and the demons. The Celtic and Chinese stories posit human sympathy and identity with the pig, as part of our nature. Maybe these ancient stories can prompt us to extend our modern sympathies to pigs, as those who can suffer like us, can desire like us, and who have suffered in the service of humanity for millennia. Now, the fact that we share so much of our nature with pigs is serving and saving us yet again, in an unexpected way.

Bibliography

Aldhouse-Green, M. Caesar’s Druids: Story of an Ancient Priesthood, New Haven, Yale University Press, 2010.

Australian Academy of Science. “The Similarities Between Humans and Pigs.” 12 April 2017. https://www.science.org.au/curious/people-medicine/similarities-between-humans-and-pigs

Platte, Ryan. Equine Poetics, Washington, D.C., Center for Hellenic Studies, 2017.

Recht, L. The Spirited Horse: Equid-Human Relations in the Bronze Age Near East. London: Bloomsbury.

Reardon, S. “First Pig-to-Human Heart Transplant: What Can Scientists Learn?” Nature 601, 14 January 2022. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-00111-9

Kevin Solez, PhD

Humanities Instructor, University Transfer, Portage College, Lac la Biche, Canada (kevin.solez@portagecollege.ca)

Ms. Sydney Yuen, M.A., provided the text and translation of the Zhu Bajie nursery rhyme.

Kevin Solez composed this essay in honour of the seventy-seventh birthday of his father, Dr. Kim Solez, M.D., Professor of Medicine at the University of Alberta and co-founder of the Banff Classification of Kidney Transplant Pathology.

Perfection and the Unhappiest Minds

June 6, 2023 ~ sententiaeantiquae ~ Leave a comment

Seneca, Moral Epistles 124.23-24

“What is this state? A refined and pure mind, a god’s rival, elevating itself beyond human matters and putting nothing of itself beyond itself. You are a rational animal. What, then, is the good in you? Complete reason. Can you call this to its very limit, to make it grow as far as possible?

Judge yourself to be happy when every part of your joy arises from this and when you discover nothing you want–I did not say prefer–after examining all the things that men grab for, pray for, and guard. I give you a short phrase by which you may text yourself, by which you may see that you are finished: you will possess your own when you understand that happy people are the most unhappy of all. BYE”

Quod est hoc? Animus scilicet emendatus ac purus, aemulator dei, super humana se extollens, nihil extra se sui ponens. Rationale animal es. Quod ergo in te bonum est? Perfecta ratio. An tu ad suum finem hanc evocas, in quantum potest plurimum crescere? Tunc beatum esse te iudica, cum tibi ex ea gaudium omne nascetur, cum visis, quae homines eripiunt, optant, custodiunt, nihil inveneris, non dico quod malis, sed quod velis. Brevem tibi formulam dabo, qua te metiaris, qua perfectum esse iam sentias: tunc habebis tuum, cum intelleges infelicissimos esse felices. Vale.

It’s Not the Hand You’re Dealt

May 2, 2023May 2, 2023 ~ sententiaeantiquae ~ Leave a comment

Seneca, Moral Epistle 85.40-41

“Phidias didn’t know how to make sculptures from only ivory! He used to craft them from bronze too. If he had been given marble or some simpler material, he would have created the best sculpture possible for that material.

So, a wise person will demonstrate virtue among wealth, if they can, or among poverty, if they cannot; in their homeland, or in exile; as a general, if not as a soldier. If they can, in health, or disabled. Whatever fortune they receive, they will make something memorable from it.

Animal tamers are skilled–they know how to accustom the most savage animals to obey human commands. But they are not happy merely with excising their wildness until they make them calm enough to sleep in their beds. The master puts his hand in lion’s mouths and the tiger is kissed by his keepers. A small Ethiopian orders an elephant to lower to its knees or to walk on a tightrope.

In the same way, the wise person is a master of taming evils. Grief, need, shame, prison, and exile should be feared; but meeting a wise person tames them.”

Non ex ebore tantum Phidias sciebat facere simulacra; faciebat ex aere. Si marmor illi, si adhuc viliorem materiam obtulisses, fecisset, quale ex illa fieri optimum posset. Sic sapiens virtutem, si licebit, in divitiis explicabit, si minus, in paupertate; si poterit, in patria, si minus, in exilio; si poterit, imperator, si minus, miles; si poterit, integer, si minus, debilis. Quamcumque fortunam acceperit, aliquid ex illa memorabile efficiet.

Certi sunt domitores ferarum, qui saevissima animalia et ad occursum expavescenda hominem pati subigunt nec asperitatem excussisse contenti usque in contubernium mitigant. Leonibus magister manum insertat, osculatur tigrim suus custos, elephantum minimus Aethiops iubet subsidere in genua et ambulare per funem. Sic sapiens artifex est domandi mala. Dolor, egestas, ignominia, carcer, exilium ubique horrenda, cum ad hunc pervenere, mansueta sunt. Vale.

Photograph o a carved elephant. On a pedastal, it is turned to the side looking forward with trunk moving laterally to face the viewer — Elephant by Bernini, in the Piazza della Minerva, Rome

Weird Uses of Weasels

April 7, 2023April 7, 2023 ~ sententiaeantiquae ~ Leave a comment

Pliny the Elder, Natural History, 39.16

“There are two kinds of weasels: one is wild and the two differ in size. The Greeks call this one ictis. The gall of both is useful against asps, but poisonous to others. The other weasel, however, wanders in our homes and, as Cicero explains, moves its young on a daily basis and changes its nest, chasing snakes. Its meat, preserved in salt is given in a weight of one denarius and mixed in three cyathi of liquid to those who have been bitten. Otherwise, its stomach is stuffed with coriander and, once dried, drunk with wine. A weasel kitten is even better for this than the weasel itself.”

XVI. Mustelarum duo genera, alterum silvestre; distant magnitudine, Graeci vocant ictidas. harum fel contra aspidas dicitur efficax, cetero venenum. haec autem quae in domibus nostris oberrat et catulos suos, ut auctor est Cicero, cottidie transfert mutatque sedem, serpentes persequitur. ex ea inveterata sale denarii pondus in cyathis tribus datur percussis aut ventriculus coriandro fartus inveteratusque et in vino potus, et catulus mustelae etiam efficacius.

Illustration from “Picture Natural History” – No 8 – The Weasel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weasel

Forget Wealth, I Know About Foxes

January 31, 2023January 31, 2023 ~ sententiaeantiquae ~ Leave a comment

Aelian, Animalia Epilogue

“However much my work, thought, and toil has added to learning and as much as the progressive consensus in those matters has sketched out and uncovered while men of repute and philosophers compete with each other in these fields, I have now articulated as much as I was able. I did not leave out anything which I knew because I was lazy, as if I looked down on or dishonored some wild beast without reason or speech.

No, here too that lust for knowledge which lives deep within me and is native there has set me afire. I am not ignorant of the fact that some of those who look keenly for money and are bewitched by honors, and power, and everything which gains a reputation may attack me if I spent my free time on these projects when I could have been primping myself and frequenting courtyards and courting wealth.

Instead, I have concerned myself with foxes and lizards and bugs and snakes and lions, with what a leopard does, how affectionate storks are to their young, how the nightingale singles sweetly, how wise an elephant is, the shapes of fishes, the migrations of cranes, the natures of serpents and the rest of the things which this carefully written composition contains and preserves.

It is not at all dear to me to be numbered among these wealthy men and to be compared to them. But if, instead, I would try and desire to join that crowd among whom wise poets and men clever at seeking out and examining the secrets of nature and the writers who approach the most extensive experience think it right to join, it is clear that I am a far better judge of the difference than these other people are. Or I would prefer to excel in a single school of knowledge than to gain the praised riches and possessions of your most wealthy people. Well, that’s enough about these things for now.”

Ὅσα μὲν οὖν σπουδή τε ἐμὴ καὶ φροντὶς καὶ πόνος καὶ ἐς τὸ πλέον μαθεῖν καὶ ἐν τοῖσδε ἡ γνώμη προχωροῦσα ἀνίχνευσέ τε καὶ ἀνεῦρε, δοκίμων τε ἀνδρῶν καὶ φιλοσόφων ἀγώνισμα θεμένων τὴν ἐπ᾿ αὐτοῖς ἐμπειρίαν, καὶ δὴ λέλεκταί μοι, ὡς οἷόν τε ἦν εἰπεῖν, μὴ παραλείποντι ἅπερ ἔγνων μηδὲ βλακεύοντι, ὡς ἀλόγου τε καὶ ἀφώνου ἀγέλης ὑπεριδόντι καὶ ἀτιμάσαντι, ἀλλὰ κἀνταῦθα ἔρως με σοφίας ὁ σύνοικός τε καὶ ὁ συμφυὴς ἐξέκαυσεν. οὐκ ἀγνοῶ δὲ ὅτι ἄρα καὶ τῶν ἐς χρήματα ὁρώντων ὀξὺ καὶ τεθηγμένων ἐς τιμάς τε καὶ δυνάμεις τινὲς καὶ πᾶν τὸ φιλόδοξον δι᾿ αἰτίας ἕξουσιν, εἰ τὴν ἐμαυτοῦ σχολὴν κατεθέμην ἐς ταῦτα, ἐξὸν καὶ ὠφρυῶσθαι καὶ ἐν ταῖς αὐλαῖς ἐξετάζεσθαι καὶ ἐπὶ μέγα προήκειν πλούτου. ἐγὼ δὲ ὑπέρ τε ἀλωπέκων καὶ σαυρῶν καὶ κανθάρων καὶ ὄφεων καὶ λεόντων καὶ τί δρᾷ πάρδαλις καὶ ὅπως πελαργὸς φιλόστοργον καὶ ὅτι ἀηδὼν εὔστομον καὶ πῶς φιλόσοφον ἐλέφας καὶ εἴδη ἰχθύων καὶ γεράνων ἀποδημίας καὶ δρακόντων φύσεις καὶ τὰ λοιπὰ ὅσα ἥδε ἡ συγγραφὴ πεπονημένως ἔχει καὶ φυλάττει, περιέρχομαι· ἀλλὰ οὔ μοι φίλον σὺν τοῖσδε τοῖς πλουσίοις ἀρίθμεῖσθαι καὶ πρὸς ἐκείνους ἐζετάζεσθαι, εἰ δὲ ὧν καὶ ποιηταὶ σοφοὶ καὶ ἄνδρες φύσεως ἀπόρρητα ἰδεῖν τε ἅμα καὶ κατασκέψασθαι δεινοὶ καὶ συγγραφεῖς τῆς πείρας ἐς τὸ μήκιστον προελθόντες ἑαυτοὺς ἠξίωσαν, τούτων τοι καὶ ἐμαυτὸν ἁμωσγέπως ἕνα πειρῶμαι ἀριθμεῖν καὶ ἐθέλω, δῆλον ὡς ἀμείνων ἐμαυτῷ σύμβουλός εἰμι τῆς ἐξ ἐκείνων κρίσεως. βουλοίμην γὰρ ἂν μάθημα ἓν γοῦν πεπαιδευμένον περιγενέσθαι μοι ἢ τὰ ᾀδόμενα τῶν πάνυ πλουσίων χρήματά τε ἅμα καὶ κτήματα. καὶ ὑπὲρ μὲν τούτων ἱκανὰ νῦν.

Bibliothèque Nationale de France, lat. 6838B, Folio 10v (from The Medieval Bestiary)

Loyal Hounds for the Charcoal Man

December 26, 2022December 6, 2022 ~ sententiaeantiquae ~ Leave a comment

Aelian, History of Animals 1.8

“A certain man named Nikias once went too far in front of his hunting party without knowing it and fell into a charcoal-burner’s furnace. His hounds who witnessed this event did not abandon him but first they lingered there whining around the kiln and howling.

Eventually, they dragged some people who were passing near to the accident by gently and bravely biting the edge of their clothes as if the dogs were summoning the people to be their master’s rescuers. One person, who witnessed what was happening, suspected the accident and followed them. He discovered Nikias burned completely in the furnace and figured out what had happened from his remains.”

Νικίας τις τῶν συγκυνηγετούντων ἀπροόπτως παραφερόμενος ἐς ἀνθρακευτῶν κάμινον κατηνέχθη, οἱ δὲ κύνες οἱ σὺν αὐτῷ τοῦτο ἰδόντες οὐκ ἀπέστησαν, ἀλλὰ τὰ μὲν πρῶτα κνυζώμενοι περὶ τὴν κάμινον καὶ ὠρυόμενοι διέτριβον, τὰ δὲ τελευταῖα μονονουχὶ τοὺς παριόντας ἠρέμα καὶ πεφεισμένως κατὰ τῶν ἱματίων δάκνοντες εἶτα εἷλκον ἐπὶ τὸ πάθος, οἷον ἐπικούρους τῷ δεσπότῃ παρακαλοῦντες τοὺς ἀνθρώπους οἱ κύνες. καὶ γοῦν εἷς ὁρῶν τὸ γινόμενον ὑπώπτευσε τὸ συμβάν, καὶ ἠκολούθησε καὶ εὗρε τὸν Νικίαν ἐν τῇ καμίνῳ καταφλεχθέντα, ἐκ τῶν λειψάνων συμβαλὼν τὸ γενόμενον.