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Nine months pregnant with five billion points of light
Something I wish to look into when I have more time and intelligence: the cult of Artemis Brauronia. I ran into mention of it a few nights ago, looking for some other festival.
ἑπτὰ μὲν ἔτη γεγῶσ᾽ εὐθὺς ἠρρηφόρουν
εἶτ᾽ ἀλετρὶς ἦ δεκέτις οὖσα τἀρχηγέτι
κᾆτ᾽ ἔχουσα τὸν κροκωτὸν ἄρκτος ἦ Βραυρωνίοις
κἀκανηφόρουν ποτ᾽ οὖσα παῖς καλὴ ’χουσ᾽
ἰσχάδων ὁρμαθόν
As soon as I was seven, I was a mystery-bearer [ἀρρηφόρος],
then at ten I was a grain-grinder [ἀλετρίς] for the Archegetis
and then, dressed in saffron, a bear [ἄρκτος] at the Brauronia
and once as a beautiful girl I was a basket-bearer [κανήφορος]
wearing a string of dried figs.
(Aristophanes, Lysistrata 641–647.)
Scholia I have not read in the original (I miss the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae) clarify that Athenian girls of pre-marriageable age were obliged to live at the temple of Artemis at Brauron for some set period of time, serving the goddess and celebrating a festival called the Arkteia by "playing the bear" for Artemis. It expiates the killing of a she-bear that had once lived at the temple: to placate the goddess for its loss, the Athenians send their daughters to be Artemis' bears instead. (And I think of Kallisto, Artemis' Zeus-raped follower who is now the bear-constellation currently wheeling low among the winter stars, but I can't find any evidence that she is part of the matrix of this myth.) Races and dances may have been part of the Brauronia; some fragments of vases depict girls being chased by bears. Probably not every Athenian girl served Artemis at Brauron, because the sanctuary's not that large, but some percentage—perhaps it was an honor—because we find the offerings they left. A similar bear-ritual was held at Mounychia and I can find even less information about that. I hope there is some. The idea of being a bear for Artemis is haunting me.
Russell Tovey was onscreen for about a minute in Pride (2014), which I saw on Tuesday night with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
derspatchel and gaudior and very much enjoyed—it hits all the beats of a crowd-pleaser, but within them it's full of non-conforming snags and sweetnesses and loose ends of real life; the lens character is an invention, but almost no one else is—and dammit, he would have made a good Turing. Maybe someone will write a new play for him.
ἑπτὰ μὲν ἔτη γεγῶσ᾽ εὐθὺς ἠρρηφόρουν
εἶτ᾽ ἀλετρὶς ἦ δεκέτις οὖσα τἀρχηγέτι
κᾆτ᾽ ἔχουσα τὸν κροκωτὸν ἄρκτος ἦ Βραυρωνίοις
κἀκανηφόρουν ποτ᾽ οὖσα παῖς καλὴ ’χουσ᾽
ἰσχάδων ὁρμαθόν
As soon as I was seven, I was a mystery-bearer [ἀρρηφόρος],
then at ten I was a grain-grinder [ἀλετρίς] for the Archegetis
and then, dressed in saffron, a bear [ἄρκτος] at the Brauronia
and once as a beautiful girl I was a basket-bearer [κανήφορος]
wearing a string of dried figs.
(Aristophanes, Lysistrata 641–647.)
Scholia I have not read in the original (I miss the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae) clarify that Athenian girls of pre-marriageable age were obliged to live at the temple of Artemis at Brauron for some set period of time, serving the goddess and celebrating a festival called the Arkteia by "playing the bear" for Artemis. It expiates the killing of a she-bear that had once lived at the temple: to placate the goddess for its loss, the Athenians send their daughters to be Artemis' bears instead. (And I think of Kallisto, Artemis' Zeus-raped follower who is now the bear-constellation currently wheeling low among the winter stars, but I can't find any evidence that she is part of the matrix of this myth.) Races and dances may have been part of the Brauronia; some fragments of vases depict girls being chased by bears. Probably not every Athenian girl served Artemis at Brauron, because the sanctuary's not that large, but some percentage—perhaps it was an honor—because we find the offerings they left. A similar bear-ritual was held at Mounychia and I can find even less information about that. I hope there is some. The idea of being a bear for Artemis is haunting me.
Russell Tovey was onscreen for about a minute in Pride (2014), which I saw on Tuesday night with
derspatchel and gaudior and very much enjoyed—it hits all the beats of a crowd-pleaser, but within them it's full of non-conforming snags and sweetnesses and loose ends of real life; the lens character is an invention, but almost no one else is—and dammit, he would have made a good Turing. Maybe someone will write a new play for him.
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Nine