The Two Goddesses
It was on May Day, feast of spring, that Eleanor first entered the tomb which later became known as the tomb of the two goddesses. Outside the hillside was green and golden, the sea below was sparkling in the sun, life in all its forms was burgeoning. As they carefully moved aside the first of the massive blocks of masonry that closed the entrance to the tomb Eleanor shivered, feeling for a moment reluctant to leave the living light and go into the damp dark space. Her colleagues, the students, the workmen all waited, silent. Eleanor gripped her torch, hesitated, then slipped in through the narrow opening. An earthy chill enveloped her. She could see nothing, then realised that this was because her eyes were tightly shut. She opened them.
The tomb has of course become famous for the richness and beauty of the grave goods found in it and for the stupendous quality of its frescoes. Much has been written about it, in the popular as well as in the scholarly press, and doubtless much more remains to be written. When Eleanor stumbled out of the tomb, shaken and pale, everyone assumed that this was because of the magnitude of her find. Yet although part of her mind recognised at once the importance of the fresco she had seen as she shone her torch against the back of the tomb, for Eleanor the shock was more personal than professional. As she gazed at the two goddesses, seated with the child between them, and as they gazed back at her, calm and remote, it was as if something fell into place, something that she had half apprehended but never clearly known. Eleanor found it rather hard to put what she felt into words, even to herself. If I say I had a religious experience in the tomb it makes me sound quite dotty, she thought, and if I say that I grasped the essential meaning of life and death it sounds even worse. Thus she spoke to no one of her experience.
So what was it that had at the same time terrified her and exulted her? Was she perhaps a bit dotty? After all, she was a single woman approaching her middle years, and society has traditionally been rather hostile to such creatures, either fearing them as witches or scorning them as spinsters. And throughout the previous winter she had been depressed and pessimistic, indicating perhaps a certain degree of imbalance. And anyway, we all know that people’s maiden aunts turn to religion, and although Eleanor did not in fact have any nieces or nephews she very well might have started on the lonely road to maiden aunthood had she lived a century earlier and not had a profession of her own.
Life and death, though, remain mysteries. In spite of the huge advances made year by year in the field of genetics, it is still true that no one knows what makes something be alive or what – if anything – happens when it ceases to be alive. And in the face of these impenetrable mysteries human beings seek comfort and reassurance that the poor, frail individual life bounded in time by non-life and by death matters, that it has some meaning. The reassurance takes various forms; most religions offer some kind of afterlife with which to draw the stings of death. Eleanor was always moved when she opened a grave, especially a child’s grave, and looked on the pathetic remains of humble objects intended to accompany their owner into the afterlife and thus to deny the significance of death.
The two goddesses were not in any immediate sense comforting. Earth Mother and Maiden, as depicted in the tomb, were uncompromising, powerful, absorbed in their own meaning, offering nothing. As she thought of her experience, Eleanor concluded that as civilisations become soft they tame and sweeten their gods until the myths no longer make sense, so saccharine have they become. It is the difference, she thought, between a pillar of fire and gentle Jesus meek and mild, or between Demeter and Kore – my two goddesses – and Ceres and Proserpine, or – come to that – between terrible, prodigal Dionysos and foolish, drunken Bacchus. I was frightened in the tomb, she thought, I felt all the hairs on my back stand up, and I had forgotten, no, I had never known, what the fear of god really means.
All that spring Eleanor had been thinking a lot about Dionysos as she watched, day by day, the profusion and prodigality of plants flourishing on the hillsides which by summer would be parched and bare. He is not the god of wine, she had decided, but the god of the vine, of growth untrammelled and wild, of frenzy and lack of measure, lack of mercy. These thoughts, however, had been of an intellectual kind. The experience in the tomb was something different.
Throughout the summer as she continued working in the tomb Eleanor was calm and happy. It was decided to remove the fresco of the goddesses for conservation and later display in the museum. Even when they were gone, though, their presence in some way seemed to continue vibrating.
Towards the end of the season Eleanor took time off from the site to visit the mainland and work in the library. She also took the opportunity to visit Eleusis, home of Demeter and Kore. Wanting to avoid other visitors, she got up early and was at the gate of the site when it opened. She wandered around through the dry grass and thought of the initiates and of the joy and comfort that the stern goddesses gave them. To a hierophant, she noted on a gravestone, they gave ‘death sweeter than sweet sleep’. To her, in the tomb, they had given the utter certainty that life and death were the parts of a whole, that there is no end and no beginning.
© Petrie Harbouri 2019
It was on May Day, feast of spring, that Eleanor first entered the tomb which later became known as the tomb of the two goddesses. Outside the hillside was green and golden, the sea below was sparkling in the sun, life in all its forms was burgeoning. As they carefully moved aside the first of the massive blocks of masonry that closed the entrance to the tomb Eleanor shivered, feeling for a moment reluctant to leave the living light and go into the damp dark space. Her colleagues, the students, the workmen all waited, silent. Eleanor gripped her torch, hesitated, then slipped in through the narrow opening. An earthy chill enveloped her. She could see nothing, then realised that this was because her eyes were tightly shut. She opened them.
The tomb has of course become famous for the richness and beauty of the grave goods found in it and for the stupendous quality of its frescoes. Much has been written about it, in the popular as well as in the scholarly press, and doubtless much more remains to be written. When Eleanor stumbled out of the tomb, shaken and pale, everyone assumed that this was because of the magnitude of her find. Yet although part of her mind recognised at once the importance of the fresco she had seen as she shone her torch against the back of the tomb, for Eleanor the shock was more personal than professional. As she gazed at the two goddesses, seated with the child between them, and as they gazed back at her, calm and remote, it was as if something fell into place, something that she had half apprehended but never clearly known. Eleanor found it rather hard to put what she felt into words, even to herself. If I say I had a religious experience in the tomb it makes me sound quite dotty, she thought, and if I say that I grasped the essential meaning of life and death it sounds even worse. Thus she spoke to no one of her experience.
So what was it that had at the same time terrified her and exulted her? Was she perhaps a bit dotty? After all, she was a single woman approaching her middle years, and society has traditionally been rather hostile to such creatures, either fearing them as witches or scorning them as spinsters. And throughout the previous winter she had been depressed and pessimistic, indicating perhaps a certain degree of imbalance. And anyway, we all know that people’s maiden aunts turn to religion, and although Eleanor did not in fact have any nieces or nephews she very well might have started on the lonely road to maiden aunthood had she lived a century earlier and not had a profession of her own.
Life and death, though, remain mysteries. In spite of the huge advances made year by year in the field of genetics, it is still true that no one knows what makes something be alive or what – if anything – happens when it ceases to be alive. And in the face of these impenetrable mysteries human beings seek comfort and reassurance that the poor, frail individual life bounded in time by non-life and by death matters, that it has some meaning. The reassurance takes various forms; most religions offer some kind of afterlife with which to draw the stings of death. Eleanor was always moved when she opened a grave, especially a child’s grave, and looked on the pathetic remains of humble objects intended to accompany their owner into the afterlife and thus to deny the significance of death.
The two goddesses were not in any immediate sense comforting. Earth Mother and Maiden, as depicted in the tomb, were uncompromising, powerful, absorbed in their own meaning, offering nothing. As she thought of her experience, Eleanor concluded that as civilisations become soft they tame and sweeten their gods until the myths no longer make sense, so saccharine have they become. It is the difference, she thought, between a pillar of fire and gentle Jesus meek and mild, or between Demeter and Kore – my two goddesses – and Ceres and Proserpine, or – come to that – between terrible, prodigal Dionysos and foolish, drunken Bacchus. I was frightened in the tomb, she thought, I felt all the hairs on my back stand up, and I had forgotten, no, I had never known, what the fear of god really means.
All that spring Eleanor had been thinking a lot about Dionysos as she watched, day by day, the profusion and prodigality of plants flourishing on the hillsides which by summer would be parched and bare. He is not the god of wine, she had decided, but the god of the vine, of growth untrammelled and wild, of frenzy and lack of measure, lack of mercy. These thoughts, however, had been of an intellectual kind. The experience in the tomb was something different.
Throughout the summer as she continued working in the tomb Eleanor was calm and happy. It was decided to remove the fresco of the goddesses for conservation and later display in the museum. Even when they were gone, though, their presence in some way seemed to continue vibrating.
Towards the end of the season Eleanor took time off from the site to visit the mainland and work in the library. She also took the opportunity to visit Eleusis, home of Demeter and Kore. Wanting to avoid other visitors, she got up early and was at the gate of the site when it opened. She wandered around through the dry grass and thought of the initiates and of the joy and comfort that the stern goddesses gave them. To a hierophant, she noted on a gravestone, they gave ‘death sweeter than sweet sleep’. To her, in the tomb, they had given the utter certainty that life and death were the parts of a whole, that there is no end and no beginning.
© Petrie Harbouri 2019
Narrated by Erin Standlee
Narrated by Erin Standlee
POST RECITAL
TALK
SFX: Interior coffee shop.
TN: Hi Brent.
BR: Hey. I’ll just get a coffee. Hold on.
BR: Er, do you have any change on you?
TN: Sorry, I’m out. You can have half my coffee. Get yourself a cup.
Sound of pouring liquid
TN: Here you go.
BR: So what are we going to do about this interview? The author lives in Greece and we’re obviously not going there right now... though it would be nice.
TN: Hmm... I’ve got an idea. Why don’t we just ask someone here if they’d read the story and talk to us about it.
BR: Yeah, the unknown... See that woman over there? She looks like she might be the type for a literary discussion.
TN: Who’s going to ask her? Should I?
BR: I’ll give it a shot… approaches her... Excuse me... Excuse me...
VS: I'm sorry, I’m not going to give you my seat.
BR: I wasn’t going to…
VS: No. I know I’ve been reading here for an hour or so but shoot me, because otherwise you're not getting a seat.
BR: I can see you’re a reader, so I just wanted to ask you a favor, that’s all.
VS: No scams, no pitches. Just... you know, if you're into that bug off.
BR: Look, this is just something for fun. I have this very short story that my friend and I are featuring on our podcast…
VS: Podcast... You do a podcast?
BR: Yes. So would you be willing to read it right now and talk with us about it? Just give us your thoughts in a conversation, and we’ll record it.
VS: Hmm… Well yes, I'd like to do that.
BR: Great! Okay. Here you go. And we’ll just drink our coffee while you read.
Sound of paper
TN: Good. I wonder what she's going to make of it.
BR: You never can tell.
***
VS: Okay guys, I've read it.
TN: Wow, that was quick.
BR: Yeah.
TN: Okay, so we’re recording now. First, please tell us your name.
VS: Victoria Sullivan.
TN: Well I’m Tom and this is Brent. Pleased to meet you.
BR: Yes.
VS: Pleased to meet you and I think I do have a few things to say about that story.
TN: Good, so what are your first thoughts?
VS: My first impression was the femaleness of it. You know, goddesses—I don't think we think about them enough. They're sitting there in that cave in Greece and they've been there so long, and they have so much power. I'm kind of blown away by goddesses I suppose—their role in nature etcetera, you know?
BR: Eleanor is apparently an archaeologist, a scientist, someone, you know, we might expect to react analytically to finding the fresco in the tomb. So when she has this epiphany that is almost religious in nature, I kind of see it as an important acknowledgment that both science and what we think of as “non-science”...
TN: Non-science sounds like nonsense.
BR: Yeah... science and non-science can actually be held in one’s mind simultaneously, like two sides of one coin. And by the way, I recently came across a good word for this kind of “both-and” thinking, as opposed to “either-or.” The word is “diunital.”
TN: It sounds vaguely medical or dental. You know, something you might hear from a proctologist.
VS: Right but that's hardly an epiphany... you know. I mean an epiphany is something that's really hard to discuss, I think, in languages, as the story suggests. You know, you're caught in a space in an epiphany where you're between things, and something occurs, something moves you—you have an experience, so it's really outside of time in a way, or it's the exact moment of time that you're in.
TN: Well the two goddesses here I think are Demeter and her daughter Persephone, who was also known as Proserpine in Roman mythology.
VS: Well in the story we have her called Kore. That's what she's called, but I think the thing about these goddesses is that they have this incredible power of being in charge of vegetation and this whole trip into Hades is the mother saving the daughter, so that the Spring can return.
TN: Demeter is perhaps the fecundity of the earth, and Persephone its seasonal manifestation. That's what occurs to me at any rate. She was abducted by the God of the Dead and has to spend six months in the underworld, and gets six months of happiness in the world above. Autumn and Winter. Spring and Summer. Death and rebirth. Life cannot be subdued.
VS: That's pretty much it, but you know I think when she's down there, it's not really clear utterly that it's all death down there. He is a god figure and I think it's sexuality as well when she's in the underworld.
TN: Yeah. Love and death.
VS: Which is something that isn't really mentioned in the story specifically but I think it's there as part of the mood.
BR: Yeah. I think that's a good point.
TN: What if the epiphany that Eleanor has is the visceral recognition of the mystery while also maintaining an existence in the modern world. The disruption she feels is a result of the conjunction of these two states perhaps.
BR: Diunital disruption.
TN: Okay, if you say so… but it’s triggered by looking on the two goddesses, who are completely lacking in sentimentality. Though the myth is told in human terms, the goddesses are forces of nature and they don't have any particular concern for humans one way or another.
VS: That's the great thing about them I think. The fact that the gods are actually, in Greek mythology, not that concerned with us. And I think it tells us something about our sentimentality—that we need to have gods take an interest in us.
BR: Yeah.
TN: The Greek gods take an interest in people but really as their playthings...
VS: Exactly...
TN: ...not for the sake of the people.
VS: Right. Not like in Shakespeare where we say “As flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods. They kill us for their sport.” That's a dark moment in Lear, when the gods are seen that way.
BR: In the story I really like the differentiation between those older, wilder gods and their newer, sort of tamer versions. Especially Bacchus, god of wine, which is actually the processed fruit of the vine, versus the more ancient Dionysus as god of the vine itself, like the fierceness of raw nature. Sort of as Dylan Thomas said, “the force that through the green fuse drives the flower.”
VS: Yes. That is such a great line of Thomas and it really gets at, I think, the Dionysus complexity—that he is a force of nature and a force of breaking through limitations, which is I think what happens to Eleanor in this story. You know, the dionysian is dangerous, and sometimes we want to remove that from religion and from art and you get a lot of great artists like D.H. Lawrence, who really deal with that same moment of truth that she has in the cave but he might have it out in a field with horses, or cattle, or something but it's that recognition of power.
BR: Yeah.
TN: So... so what's this movement towards the banal—where once great mysteries rise up from the depths and float on the surface like discarded plastic?
VS: That's a great line—'plastic', that's our culture. We want to make everything simple and disposable. And religion has become... you know, singing sweet little stories about Jesus in a flowing robe, and I think the mysteries are much more dangerous than that, and life and death... it's almost like we've removed death from the thing and it's all about life but we've got both sides, Yeah, In the story I think, it's at the... one of the things that interested me that we haven't talked about is, Eleanor is at the mid-point of her life. She's never married, she's single, she fears being a maiden aunt, and when she sees these two goddesses something changes for her, something changes utterly.
BR: And it's interesting that the literal translation of Kore is 'maiden'.
TN: You know there’s a good book that captures that raw beauty of Ancient Greek myth—The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony by Roberto Calasso, the Italian writer and polyglot. Have you read it?
BR: I have a faint memory of that coming out in the 90's during an important time in my life, and I wanted to read it, but you know...
VS: I never read it but I read Nietzsche on tragedy and he gets at it! It's a theme that people have thought about—you know...the power of Dionysus.
TN: Yeah. Apparently what concerns Roberto Calasso is the relationship between myth and the emergence of modern consciousness. His book has a swirling dreamlike ambiguity to it. And I think something similar is going on in this story, but in this case it’s not the emergence of consciousness from myth, but the meeting of the two..
VS: Hmm... Do you have any examples of that kind of ambiguity that he writes about?
TN: No I don't. I didn’t bring the book with me and I read it years ago, and I don't remember. All I know is that it's a book. You know what getting older does, right?
VS: I don't know at all. I'm like the goddess—I'm ageless.
BR: Right. That reminds me of the story’s last words: “there is no end and no beginning.” Our human minds have a lot of difficulty conceiving of infinity. So no wonder Eleanor is shaken by her epiphany. It’s a sort of enlightenment experience, a glimpse of some other level of reality beyond our comprehension, that reverberates through the rest of her everyday life.
VS: Yes and that's I think the desire to move into the timeless of possible but it's not a rational process.
TN: Well, I think we've got quite enough here for the podcast. It’s been a good conversation. Thank you, Victoria for agreeing to it.
BR: Yes, and I’m so glad you were so accommodating today, and now it's time for the sales pitch…
VS: Oh no! Come on!
BR: Just kidding! Thank you, Victoria.
VS: Well thank you. You've made me more aware of the mystery of life.
SFX: Interior coffee shop.
TN: Hi Brent.
BR: Hey. I’ll just get a coffee. Hold on.
BR: Er, do you have any change on you?
TN: Sorry, I’m out. You can have half my coffee. Get yourself a cup.
Sound of pouring liquid
TN: Here you go.
BR: So what are we going to do about this interview? The author lives in Greece and we’re obviously not going there right now... though it would be nice.
TN: Hmm... I’ve got an idea. Why don’t we just ask someone here if they’d read the story and talk to us about it.
BR: Yeah, the unknown... See that woman over there? She looks like she might be the type for a literary discussion.
TN: Who’s going to ask her? Should I?
BR: I’ll give it a shot… approaches her... Excuse me... Excuse me...
VS: I'm sorry, I’m not going to give you my seat.
BR: I wasn’t going to…
VS: No. I know I’ve been reading here for an hour or so but shoot me, because otherwise you're not getting a seat.
BR: I can see you’re a reader, so I just wanted to ask you a favor, that’s all.
VS: No scams, no pitches. Just... you know, if you're into that bug off.
BR: Look, this is just something for fun. I have this very short story that my friend and I are featuring on our podcast…
VS: Podcast... You do a podcast?
BR: Yes. So would you be willing to read it right now and talk with us about it? Just give us your thoughts in a conversation, and we’ll record it.
VS: Hmm… Well yes, I'd like to do that.
BR: Great! Okay. Here you go. And we’ll just drink our coffee while you read.
Sound of paper
TN: Good. I wonder what she's going to make of it.
BR: You never can tell.
***
VS: Okay guys, I've read it.
TN: Wow, that was quick.
BR: Yeah.
TN: Okay, so we’re recording now. First, please tell us your name.
VS: Victoria Sullivan.
TN: Well I’m Tom and this is Brent. Pleased to meet you.
BR: Yes.
VS: Pleased to meet you and I think I do have a few things to say about that story.
TN: Good, so what are your first thoughts?
VS: My first impression was the femaleness of it. You know, goddesses—I don't think we think about them enough. They're sitting there in that cave in Greece and they've been there so long, and they have so much power. I'm kind of blown away by goddesses I suppose—their role in nature etcetera, you know?
BR: Eleanor is apparently an archaeologist, a scientist, someone, you know, we might expect to react analytically to finding the fresco in the tomb. So when she has this epiphany that is almost religious in nature, I kind of see it as an important acknowledgment that both science and what we think of as “non-science”...
TN: Non-science sounds like nonsense.
BR: Yeah... science and non-science can actually be held in one’s mind simultaneously, like two sides of one coin. And by the way, I recently came across a good word for this kind of “both-and” thinking, as opposed to “either-or.” The word is “diunital.”
TN: It sounds vaguely medical or dental. You know, something you might hear from a proctologist.
VS: Right but that's hardly an epiphany... you know. I mean an epiphany is something that's really hard to discuss, I think, in languages, as the story suggests. You know, you're caught in a space in an epiphany where you're between things, and something occurs, something moves you—you have an experience, so it's really outside of time in a way, or it's the exact moment of time that you're in.
TN: Well the two goddesses here I think are Demeter and her daughter Persephone, who was also known as Proserpine in Roman mythology.
VS: Well in the story we have her called Kore. That's what she's called, but I think the thing about these goddesses is that they have this incredible power of being in charge of vegetation and this whole trip into Hades is the mother saving the daughter, so that the Spring can return.
TN: Demeter is perhaps the fecundity of the earth, and Persephone its seasonal manifestation. That's what occurs to me at any rate. She was abducted by the God of the Dead and has to spend six months in the underworld, and gets six months of happiness in the world above. Autumn and Winter. Spring and Summer. Death and rebirth. Life cannot be subdued.
VS: That's pretty much it, but you know I think when she's down there, it's not really clear utterly that it's all death down there. He is a god figure and I think it's sexuality as well when she's in the underworld.
TN: Yeah. Love and death.
VS: Which is something that isn't really mentioned in the story specifically but I think it's there as part of the mood.
BR: Yeah. I think that's a good point.
TN: What if the epiphany that Eleanor has is the visceral recognition of the mystery while also maintaining an existence in the modern world. The disruption she feels is a result of the conjunction of these two states perhaps.
BR: Diunital disruption.
TN: Okay, if you say so… but it’s triggered by looking on the two goddesses, who are completely lacking in sentimentality. Though the myth is told in human terms, the goddesses are forces of nature and they don't have any particular concern for humans one way or another.
VS: That's the great thing about them I think. The fact that the gods are actually, in Greek mythology, not that concerned with us. And I think it tells us something about our sentimentality—that we need to have gods take an interest in us.
BR: Yeah.
TN: The Greek gods take an interest in people but really as their playthings...
VS: Exactly...
TN: ...not for the sake of the people.
VS: Right. Not like in Shakespeare where we say “As flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods. They kill us for their sport.” That's a dark moment in Lear, when the gods are seen that way.
BR: In the story I really like the differentiation between those older, wilder gods and their newer, sort of tamer versions. Especially Bacchus, god of wine, which is actually the processed fruit of the vine, versus the more ancient Dionysus as god of the vine itself, like the fierceness of raw nature. Sort of as Dylan Thomas said, “the force that through the green fuse drives the flower.”
VS: Yes. That is such a great line of Thomas and it really gets at, I think, the Dionysus complexity—that he is a force of nature and a force of breaking through limitations, which is I think what happens to Eleanor in this story. You know, the dionysian is dangerous, and sometimes we want to remove that from religion and from art and you get a lot of great artists like D.H. Lawrence, who really deal with that same moment of truth that she has in the cave but he might have it out in a field with horses, or cattle, or something but it's that recognition of power.
BR: Yeah.
TN: So... so what's this movement towards the banal—where once great mysteries rise up from the depths and float on the surface like discarded plastic?
VS: That's a great line—'plastic', that's our culture. We want to make everything simple and disposable. And religion has become... you know, singing sweet little stories about Jesus in a flowing robe, and I think the mysteries are much more dangerous than that, and life and death... it's almost like we've removed death from the thing and it's all about life but we've got both sides, Yeah, In the story I think, it's at the... one of the things that interested me that we haven't talked about is, Eleanor is at the mid-point of her life. She's never married, she's single, she fears being a maiden aunt, and when she sees these two goddesses something changes for her, something changes utterly.
BR: And it's interesting that the literal translation of Kore is 'maiden'.
TN: You know there’s a good book that captures that raw beauty of Ancient Greek myth—The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony by Roberto Calasso, the Italian writer and polyglot. Have you read it?
BR: I have a faint memory of that coming out in the 90's during an important time in my life, and I wanted to read it, but you know...
VS: I never read it but I read Nietzsche on tragedy and he gets at it! It's a theme that people have thought about—you know...the power of Dionysus.
TN: Yeah. Apparently what concerns Roberto Calasso is the relationship between myth and the emergence of modern consciousness. His book has a swirling dreamlike ambiguity to it. And I think something similar is going on in this story, but in this case it’s not the emergence of consciousness from myth, but the meeting of the two..
VS: Hmm... Do you have any examples of that kind of ambiguity that he writes about?
TN: No I don't. I didn’t bring the book with me and I read it years ago, and I don't remember. All I know is that it's a book. You know what getting older does, right?
VS: I don't know at all. I'm like the goddess—I'm ageless.
BR: Right. That reminds me of the story’s last words: “there is no end and no beginning.” Our human minds have a lot of difficulty conceiving of infinity. So no wonder Eleanor is shaken by her epiphany. It’s a sort of enlightenment experience, a glimpse of some other level of reality beyond our comprehension, that reverberates through the rest of her everyday life.
VS: Yes and that's I think the desire to move into the timeless of possible but it's not a rational process.
TN: Well, I think we've got quite enough here for the podcast. It’s been a good conversation. Thank you, Victoria for agreeing to it.
BR: Yes, and I’m so glad you were so accommodating today, and now it's time for the sales pitch…
VS: Oh no! Come on!
BR: Just kidding! Thank you, Victoria.
VS: Well thank you. You've made me more aware of the mystery of life.
