Kassandra, the Prophetess on the Killing Floor… (Aeschylus’ Agamemnon Part 3)

Clytemnestra's fury gives way to Kassandra's prophesies, Agamemnon might as well not even speak... Just how we like it. Things are about to get bloody in the broken kingdom of Mycenae. Pre-order Liv's Odyssey adaptation (!!!), The Odyssey: a Modern Retelling. https://geni.us/TheOdysseyBook Submit your question for the next Q&A via email http://mythsbaby.com/questions or a voice note https://www.speakpipe.com/LTAMB. Get ad-free episodes and so, so much more, by subscribing to the Oracle Edition at patreon.com/mythsbaby http://patreon.com/mythsbaby. Enter ourpodcast guest https://www.mythsbaby.com/contact form if you'd like to be on the show as a conversation guest! CW/TW: far too many Greek myths involve assault. I try to provide direct warnings when there is reference to anything with overtly traumatic themes but be aware that Greek mythology regularly features assault, death, and many other potentially triggering events. Sources: Agamemnon by Aeschylus, primarily using translations by Anne Carson (from An Oresteia) and Sarah Ruden (from The Greek Plays); translation and original Greek from Perseus Project https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0004%3Acard%3D1; Early Greek Myths by Timothy Gantz; Topostext. Attributions and licensing information for music used in the podcast can be found here:mythsbaby.com/sources-attributions http://mythsbaby.com/sources-attributions. Learn more about Liv's next group trips https://travelbugxlivalbert.my.canva.site/ to GREECE! Application deadline is November 30 (Subject to change due to demand). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Liv Albert?

  Hey nerds, really quick note from me. I want to tell you that we now have the applications open for the next set of listener group trips. This is us going back to the original, the trips that we have held in the past that have been so much fun, so successful, and pretty affordable in terms of wandering around Greece with a bunch of nerds. So check out the details and get your applications in at mythsbaby.com/groups.

• 1:05Liv Albert?

  Oh, hi, hello. This is Let's Talk About Myths, baby, and I am your not at all obsessive host, Liv, back with part three of Aeschylus' Agamemnon. Obviously, it's gonna be four parts. I can't be brief with plays anymore, and I'm not mad about it. I'm not, I'm not changing it. I am so obsessed with, I mean, I'm obsessed with this play. I guess I'm being convinced that like, somebody other than Euripides is also amazing. To be clear, I did know that. I just have a real hard on for Euripides. But no, this Aeschylus play is art. I'm just so glad that I decided to cover it individually rather than the story, because it had been

• 1:47Liv Albert?

  far too long since I had actually read this play, and now, again, obsessed. I forgot how little Agamemnon actually speaks, like, how minor a character he ends up being despite being the titular character?

• 2:05Liv Albert?

  Still no spoilers. We will, we will return to that later. The point is, the real stars of this tragedy are not the men at all. They are not, the star is not Agamemnon, nor is it the chorus of Argive Elders. They might as well be side characters here. The real story is happening between these two women who barely speak to each other and yet who dominate this play entirely. Obviously, the title of this episode is a quote from the Carson translation, which we will get to. But speaking of quotes from the Carson,

• 2:45Liv Albert?

  "It's like watching a forest fire, big, violent, changing every minute, and the sound not like anything else." Remember, that is from Anne Carson's introduction to her translation of the Agamemnon from her work, Anne Orestia. And I want to return to that today a little bit because it is Cassandra that Carson really focuses on in her introduction because Cassandra is so many things. And so a reminder of where we find ourselves and what lies just beyond the events of this play. Cassandra is a Trojan princess and priestess and prophetess.

• 3:26Liv Albert?

  And now, after seeing her city razed to the ground, watching all of the men in her family die horribly, and all of the women be made into slaves to the very men who killed their men, she's brought to the house of this warlord, the top warlord of the war against her, the genocide of her people, this top warlord who has claimed her as his property.

• 3:54Liv Albert?

  And of course, his wife has just been waiting for him. And Cassandra knows everything that's going to happen.

• 4:04Liv Albert?

  And as her audience, Cassandra is going to tell us a bit more about her story, but for now, keep in mind what Carson talks about in her introduction. Cassandra has no reason to be able to speak Greek. She's a barbarian. She is non-Greek. That is a heavy, a major part of her character. But for Iskhalis, not only does Cassandra speak Greek, but as Carson says, quote, "She will turn out to command all registers of this alien tongue. Analytical, metaphoric, historical, prophetic, punning, riddling, plain as glass." Cassandra is foreign in this really unique way.

• 4:45Liv Albert?

  And in her own way, she is, as Carson says, ungraspable.

• 5:06Liv Albert?

  Cassandra: The Prophetess on the Killing Floor. Iskhalis' Agamemnon, Part 3.

• 5:28Liv Albert?

  The first words that Cassandra speaks are part sound, part exclamation, part cry of pain, part plea. She has two opening lines. The chorus can't comprehend them, but she repeats the same two lines once more. In Greek, this is what she says.

• 5:52Liv Albert?

  "Oto-to-toi, popoi da, opolon, opolon." And that's what Anchovy jumped up on to, the recording system.

• 6:07Speaker 01

  No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

• 6:12Liv Albert?

  This first line is nonsense. That's intentional. It's more sounds than words. But the second line, she doesn't say Apollo exactly. I want to make that clear. Not yet, at least. She says specifically, "O polon." A play on words that melds this cry of woe with the god's name. O polon. It has a long vowel and omega. It's oh, and then it's long. It's o polon. Carson translates it perfectly, in my opinion, as, quote, "Apollo, o Apollo, woe, Apollo, oh."

• 6:57Liv Albert?

  Ugh. The chorus, though, is just as confused as we are. They are shocked that Cassandra would think to mix this cry of sadness with their god Apollo. Quote, "This god does not ever near sorrow go." But that's when she makes the same plea again. "O polon, o polon." Again, the chorus is disturbed. Apollo is not a god they associate with pain or sadness, and certainly not grief.

• 7:26Liv Albert?

  So finally Cassandra speaks in a way that they can understand. But she's not speaking to the chorus, really. She's just speaking. Quote, "Apollo, Apollo, god of the ways, god of my ruin. Oh, yes, you destroy me. Oh, yes, it is absolute this time."

• 7:47Liv Albert?

  I love this Carson translation. She's really playing with the words here, just as Cassandra is playing with her own words. The chorus speculate among themselves, quote, "She looks about to prophesy and tell her side. The god is stretching a slave's mind wide." And the rhyming is really getting me. Cassandra, again, repeats herself. She calls out to Apollo again, but this time asks what house he's brought her to. The chorus tells her, "This is the house of Atrius," of course.

• 8:21Liv Albert?

  To which the prophetess, driven to madness by the apparently sympathetic god, replies, quote, "God hated, so, then, too, much-knowing-together self, murder man, chop-blood, slop-floor." Huh, Carson is, like I said, really playing with her translation. Now Sarah Ruden translates the same response from Cassandra as, quote, "A house that hates gods, a house in on the wicked murder of its own, of itself, a house full of nooses, a butchery men are driven into to spatter its floor with their blood."

• 8:59Liv Albert?

  "But what about the Greek?" you all collectively asked your podcast players. Thanks for asking, because I just can't resist telling you what I've learned.

• 9:09Liv Albert?

  Now, remember, my knowledge of Greek is super circumstantial. I poke around dictionaries to get an idea of word usage, translations, etc. So I cannot speak to the grammatical nature of Cassandra's speech, but, well, I can tell you that she uses very few words here. It's line 1090, according to the Perseus Reader, but some of those words translate to things like, like, single words in Greek, because this is how beautiful ancient Greek is, single words translate to things like "blood-spattered floor" and "god hated," "family killing," and, and my new favorite word, "Androsfagion."

• 9:47Liv Albert?

  Androsfagion. Man-slaughterhouse.

• 9:54Liv Albert?

  Like, a slaughterhouse explicitly for slaughtering human men.

• 10:01Liv Albert?

  You're welcome. Androsfagion. Ugh, and because I simply cannot resist quoting a bit more of Cassandra's beautiful ravings about this deadly murder house, she keeps telling us and the chorus all that she sees in this house. She can see its past, its present, and, well, for now, she's still seeing its past.

• 10:29Liv Albert?

  "And this house has seen some things." Quote, "Evidence, evidence, here, they shriek, children roasted on spits, uh, father, gorged, live, flesh feast."

• 10:46Liv Albert?

  And again, rude and translates those same lines as quote, "That's right, and here are the witnesses I trust, the babies wailing over the sacrifice and the roasted meat on which their father was fed." Ugh, cuz you all remember the story of Agamemnon and Manoleus's father, right? Atreus, their father, well, Atreus hated his brother Thyestes enough to murder his two nephews, butcher and roast them, and feed the roasted flesh to their own father.

• 11:23Liv Albert?

  It's no wonder this Androsfagion, the house of Atreus, is my favorite cursed family.

• 11:47Liv Albert?

  Cassandra has shown the Chorus who she really is, that she knows everything that's ever happened on this land. She can see it all, as if it's happening all around her, all the time. But, they say, quote, "We're not in the market for profits anymore." Ugh, good idea. They're not interested in Cassandra's prophecies, but they can't stop her from producing them. Cassandra now speaks in this way that's almost otherworldly. She is a prophetess, yes, but she is on another level than the others. She has a much different relationship with the god of prophecy, one that the Chorus of Argos would do well to

• 12:29Liv Albert?

  pay attention to. Particularly when Cassandra begins speaking and screaming about the new, big, enormous evil that's spreading through this house of Atreus, one that is as big as the house of Atreus.

• 12:49Liv Albert?

  The chorus might as well not hear her at all. She tells them, screaming, "Woman, will you wash your man in the bath? How can I? Soon it will." There she goes, hand over hand, is reaching out.

• 13:05Liv Albert?

  The chorus is lost. She's speaking in riddles. Cassandra screams and screams. "What is this appearing? A net of hell? No, the wife is the net. He's married to murder here comes insatiable violence, howling the sacrifice into place."

• 13:27Liv Albert?

  This time, the chorus's attention is caught. "Who is this god you're calling to? This spirit of vengeance?" "Your words make me falter. It raises my heart, the yellow fear, as when death is near." Still, Cassandra isn't really speaking to them. She isn't really speaking to anyone. She's just speaking about everything and nothing. "Look, there, look, there, keep. The bull from the cow, she nets him. She gores him with her deadly black horn. He falls, he's down, he bathes in death. Are you listening to me?"

• 14:11Liv Albert?

  I am obsessed with this Cassandra and this meter that she's speaking in. And this chorus, they're listening to her, but they still aren't really hearing her. "It sounds grim," they say, "but then, do prophets ever bring anything but negativity?" "They tinge with terror, the simplest thing."

• 14:34Liv Albert?

  To which Cassandra yells, without hearing anyone else, "Evil life, evil luck, evil I am just this sound. Look, the cup of my pain is already poured out. Why did you bring me? Here was it for this? Was it for this? Was it for..." And now the chorus thinks she's well and truly mad. Quote, "God struck, God swept, God nonsensical." They compare her to a nightingale that cries for its lost child. Cassandra says, "No, the nightingale was given wings for her loss." Quote, "But for me waits schismos of the double edged sword." Schismos means a cleaning, a cutting, a splitting, a chopping in two.

• 15:33Liv Albert?

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• 16:17Liv Albert?

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• 17:03Liv Albert?

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• 17:38Liv Albert?

  "The girl is being hysterical," the chorus says. "She's panicking and acting rash, rushing, so like a woman to be hysterical." Have I told you lately that the word hysterical literally means of the uterus? We love to learn of language used as a means of patriarchal control and belittlement.

• 18:00Liv Albert?

  But Cassandra isn't being hysterical, not that it would matter if she was. "I'm bleeding from the uterus right now. Go ahead and call me hysterical, just try it."

• 18:09Liv Albert?

  Cassandra has bigger concerns, anyway. She speaks as though she only vaguely understands what's around her, as though she lives in another world, one where the past and the present and the future are all colliding at once.

• 18:24Liv Albert?

  She speaks of the deadly marriage of Paris, how much death it caused. She speaks of her homeland of Troy, its famed river Scamandros, where she'd lay dreaming, quote, "Now, soon enough, back and forth on the banks of the river of hell, I will walk with my song torn open."

• 18:44Liv Albert?

  "I will walk with my song torn open."

• 18:51Liv Albert?

  "What, now you can speak sense?" the chorus asks, baffled at the sudden clarity in this woman who's otherwise only spoken what they saw as nonsense because they're not paying attention. Cassandra screams. She screams, quote, "For my ruined city, for the offerings my father made to save its towers, he killed animal after animal. It did no good, we suffered anyway, and I am soon to hit the ground, I with my thermonos." Thermonos means hot soul, burning mind, brain on fire.

• 19:28Liv Albert?

  Some spirit is coming for you now, the chorus all agrees. There's some spirit of death. But Cassandra isn't finished speaking since. She's lucid now. She knows everything. Clarity comes rushing from her. Quote, "No more riddles. Bear me witness. I know that smell. Evils, evils long ago. A chorus of singers broods upon this house. They never leave. Their tune is bad. They drink cocktails of human blood and party through the rooms."

• 19:58Liv Albert?

  "This evil will never leave," Cassandra tells the chorus. Quote, "They are kin to the furies and sing of original evil. Marriage beds that stink of life gone wrong."

• 20:09Liv Albert?

  "What?" Cassandra says, seeming to speak to the chorus now, like she's seen them this whole time, but now only now cares to address them. "What, do you think I'm lying? That I'm just babbling? Or can you admit that I might just be right?" Quote, "Bear me witness. I see this place. I see its ancient sins."

• 20:28Liv Albert?

  So finally, the chorus seems to take her prophecies seriously-ish? Finally, the chorus seems to pay attention-ish? They're amazed by her. Cassandra tells them they can thank Apollo for her skills. "Did he desire you?" they ask. "I was ashamed to say it before," she answers. "They had sex," she concedes. Quote, "I said yes, but defaulted," she adds, or, as Ruden translates it, quote, "No, I gave in, but then tricked Loxius." Another name for Apollo. "And you could already prophesy?" they ask. "Yes," Cassandra says. Quote, "I was the local prophet." "Did the god punish you then?" they ask.

• 21:11Liv Albert?

  "He made it so I wouldn't be believed," she admits. "But we believed you?" they start to say, but Cassandra cuts them off. Cassandra screams, quote, "I lose my screams. They find me again. The dread work of prophecy buckles me down to its bam bam bam. Do you see them there, those young ones who nest by the door? Like shapes in dreams, like children murdered. They hold their own flesh in their own hands, and the entrails drip where their father tasted deep."

• 21:40Liv Albert?

  There is a curse on the house of Atreus, all right. Again, Cassandra is reminding the chorus, reminding us, everyone, about the crimes that have been committed in this house. This whole family line is cursed, but there isn't even the need to go back further than the most recent crimes. When King Atreus killed his own nephews, fed them to their own father. Cassandra can't stop seeing it, these crimes committed by Agamemnon's father, and they are proud, you know, to be the sons of Atreus.

• 22:14Liv Albert?

  But it's not just the past that Cassandra is seeing now, it's not just the crimes of Atreus, but the ones being plotted inside that very house at that very moment.

• 22:25Liv Albert?

  Now Cassandra sees the crimes of a woman, the woman who welcomed her husband home. Quote, "She has the nerve, she is a killer, female against male. What should I call her? A kind of snake, a skilla, a plague, a mother who breathes out war against her own loved ones? How she shrieked with joy to see that man on her doorstep."

• 22:47Liv Albert?

  Cassandra pauses, maybe she rolls her eyes. "It doesn't matter if you believe me," she tells the chorus, "it doesn't make a difference either way." Quote, "The future is coming. Soon enough you'll pity me, you'll say I was a true prophet."

• 23:02Liv Albert?

  "Well, I recognize the bit about Thiestes feasting on his children," the chorus all agree, nodding uselessly at each other. "Yeah, we all remember that." "But, but after that one, you lost us," they say. Maybe they even shrug.

• 23:17Liv Albert?

  So Cassandra says it as clearly as she can. Quote, "I say you will see Agamemnon dead." "Be quiet, girl," the chorus says. "But there's no being quiet now," she tells them instead. "Pray all you want, they are preparing to kill him now." "What? Who?" the chorus responds. Quote, "What man do you mean?" Again, I like to think Cassandra rolls her eyes at this. "Have you listened to anything I've said?" she asks. "Just tell us what you mean," the chorus says, frustrated at their own stupidity, their own inability to listen to the woman in front of them. The woman who's trying to warn them of every terrible thing that's about to happen.

• 24:01Liv Albert?

  It turns out that elder patriarchs have a hard time recognizing women for what we are. But that's fine. It's their funeral. Rather, their kings.

• 24:40Liv Albert?

  The chorus of Argive elders still doesn't seem to understand Cassandra's utterings. She's found clarity now, but they can't see past their own bullshit. She screams at Apollo, screams at the chorus, screams of what's coming. "Don't you see?" she asks them. "Don't you see the lioness who's taken a wolf to her bed while the lion was away? Don't you see, quote, 'She's wetting her sword on her husband's head. She'll make him pay for bringing me home.'" Furious, Cassandra tears at what she calls her costume. Quote, "These prophetic symbols, the stick, the crown, be gone, be damned. Enrich someone else's life with doom."

• 25:26Liv Albert?

  Cassandra screams to Apollo now. The god is watching her shame, mocking her plight. Quote, "He watched them mock me in my little prophet's dress, my little prophet's hat. They called me gypsy beggar, starveling. I put up with that. And now the prophet forces his prophetess down to the killing floor? Instead of my father's altar, a butcher's block awaits me and a hot rip of blood."

• 25:51Liv Albert?

  I am an animal awaiting sacrifice, Cassandra announces, but I will be avenged. She speaks of the son that will come to kill his mother to repay his father's debt. She speaks of Orestes, everything that he will bring with him when he returns to avenge his father, returns to take hold of his kingdom. The gods have promised it all, she says. Quote, "So I call for pity. I saw Troy fall. I see Troy's victors falling. Now I go to die. Hello, gates of Hades. I pray for an easy death. One clean stroke and then I close my eyes."

• 26:33Liv Albert?

  That was an awfully long and dramatic speech, the chorus remarks when Cassandra is finished. But if you know death is coming for you, why are you walking to it with open arms? I can't escape, Cassandra tells them, even though it's obvious. But they remain oblivious. They'll say it's because Cassandra was cursed not to be believed.

• 26:58Liv Albert?

  But was it a curse or was she just a woman? We have no other prophetesses to compare her to.

• 27:06Liv Albert?

  Was that the curse?

• 27:09Liv Albert?

  I mean, you still have time, the chorus comments, because still, they don't get it. There's no point in my running away, Cassandra tells them. They call her brave for it. Idiots. They ask her, quote, "What about the glamour of a noble death?" Cassandra replies, quote, "Alas for my glamorous father and his noble children."

• 27:35Liv Albert?

  What's wrong with you, the chorus asks, shocked. Cassandra has now started to shake, to scream. She leaps back as though she can see things that they can't. Why are you screaming, they ask. The house is reeking blood, she tells them. Yeah, they're sacrificing animals in there, the chorus tells her as if she's the one who's stupid, as if she's the one who's ignorant and not paying attention.

• 28:05Liv Albert?

  That smell isn't animals, she tells them. Is it incense then, they ask.

• 28:13Liv Albert?

  Cassandra says, just quote, "Here I go to raise a funeral song for me and Agamemnon."

• 28:21Liv Albert?

  The chorus still just keeps placating her. It's insipid and infantilizing and only adds to the dramatic irony of it all. The audience knows exactly what's happening inside of the palace. The audience, we know exactly what's coming next. We know that Cassandra is right, that she sees all, even as the chorus treats her like a useless child, a useless woman.

• 28:49Liv Albert?

  She doesn't need their pity, though. She doesn't need anything from them. Cassandra has one last speech to give before she goes knowingly to her own murder. Quote, "One thing left. I want to sing my own dirge. I pray to the sun, to this last minute of life. Let my enemies pay with blood for what they did to me. I'm just a killed slave, easy fistful of death. But you, oh humans, oh human things, when a man is happy, a shadow could overturn it. When life goes wrong, a wet sponge erases the whole picture. You, you, I pity."

• 29:35Liv Albert?

  And with that, Cassandra enters the palace. The chorus watches uselessly. They're only there to witness everything they weren't ready to believe when it came from a woman's lips.

• 29:53Liv Albert?

  Still, they see now, at least a little bit, that maybe she's right.

• 30:02Liv Albert?

  The chorus sings, quote, "Agamemnon won from gods the right to capture Priam's city. If he must shed his blood to pay for others in the past, and then by dying pass the debt to others in the future, who in the world can say that he is safe?"

• 30:21Liv Albert?

  Men. Inside the palace, Agamemnon begins to scream, but not just scream. Agamemnon calls, cries out, hollers that he has been struck, that he is being killed.

• 30:43Liv Albert?

  We don't hear Cassandra inside the palace. She knew exactly what she was walking into.

• 31:05Liv Albert?

  Oh, nerds. Okay, I, I'm gonna, I'm gonna make a little request because I am absolutely loving this series. It is filling me with exactly the like return to scripting and this return to to all of this that I really needed. I'm really, really proud of this uh, series and I would like to know if you all like it. So comment on Spotify if you're listening, please. I mean, also like anywhere, send me a message, whatever. I'm really happy with this one. It's been so long since I've felt really good about writing scripts and I would like to know that you all appreciate it. Um, if you don't, too bad because I'm still gonna do this, but like,

• 31:49Liv Albert?

  if you do, tell me. Um, this one specifically, oh my God, I'm obsessed with this play. I don't know, should we also let me know, should I? I mean, not, not immediately, but soon, should I go, should I cover the other plays in this trilogy? Because remember, this is the only surviving like real trilogy from Ancient Greek tragedy. This is the only surviving trilogy of plays where we know that, that not only are there three that are all in the same storyline, but also that they were performed as a trilogy. That's what makes it so unique. So you know, of course, it's this play. And then the next play is Orestes coming back to avenge his father and to with Electra to kill Clytemnestra.

• 32:31Liv Albert?

  And then the following, the last play is Orestes being tried kind of by the Furies actually for the murder of his mother. And it's this whole tie in with like Athenian politics and like the Athenian criminal code, which is really interesting. So let me know if you want me to cover those plays too. When we're done, obviously we have one more episode of this and I'm really excited by it. This has been so much fun. I have a new obsession that I kind of started hinting at, but didn't have a chance to go into in any like real detail this episode. But now I want to see about finding more information, but like, one of the things that's really always caught me.

• 33:14Liv Albert?

  And, and which I mentioned in the first episode of this series is that like, this idea that Cassandra is cursed not to be believed. It's incredibly widespread and like you will find classicists just using it. Um, interchangeably or like just without, like as if it's common knowledge, like without a source. And that is fine, obviously, like it's a, it's an acknowledged like storyline, I guess. But I have always been really interested by the lack of explicit ancient sources that actually like, clarify the curse.

• 33:55Liv Albert?

  Because like even, even here, right? We, we know that, you know, that Apollo had sex with Cassandra. It's a little unclear. You know, what level of consent was given revoked at any point. It is obviously like a, a generally traumatic experience. We know this because of kind of how Cassandra frames it, right? And like she is also this one character who is not speaking of Apollo in any positive way, right? She, whoa, Apollo. Um, and that's really interesting. So, so we know that like she has this negative taste in her mouth. It's like, obviously trauma associated with this experience from Apollo.

• 34:39Liv Albert?

  But, but all she says in this play is, yeah, is, is that, you know, her prophecies aren't believed.

• 34:50Liv Albert?

  Right? All we know, like, you know, I've just looked back to the Sarah Ruden, just for a less stylistic translation, um, for clarity. And, and yeah, I mean, we, we, we just know from Cassandra that after she offended Apollo is how Ruden translates it. After she offended Apollo, no one believed her.

• 35:14Liv Albert?

  And to me, that doesn't sound like an explicit curse, like this intentional thing that Apollo did to punish her. What this feels like to me, and now I'm obsessed with learning more, is like, can this be drilled down to her being a woman? And, and you know, like, is it too woo woo of me to think back to, you know, I've done so much work lately on the ways that the surviving sources kind of have this echo

• 35:52Liv Albert?

  of, of an intentional, like, um, putting down of women, right? Like this intentionally, the, the, so much of the surviving mythos seems to work to make women less important in lots of different ways, just from the nature of, you know, um, gods consistently, you know, assaulting them, forcing them to have their children, all of these things, right? Women are subjugated through the surviving sources. And that's not to say that, like, all mythos was intentionally done that, but like, so much of what survives kind of ends up having that tinge to it, right? And I, I'm just so curious about that now. And, and, you know, like, again, I'm not talking like this was all so

• 36:36Liv Albert?

  intentional, but that, like, it was sort of this natural evolution of this particular patriarchal society. Because what this screams to me is that, is that she wasn't believed after she had sex with a god, not from some, like, I mean, they always make it seem like some magical divine curse, right? Like, there's so many things like that. Some magical divine, divine curse is like, why a woman was traumatized by a god. But is it some magical divine curse? Or is it simply that her being with this god made her invaluable? Right? Because

• 37:17Liv Albert?

  She is not a quote unquote maiden, a quote unquote virgin after. And so was it that that allowed her to prophesy prior? Like, is it, you know, what is it that's a curse? Is it simply that she, you know, it, it, there's so much about women who quote unquote lay with gods, particularly as priestesses, right? And so like, is the curse simply that she was assaulted? Like, is it just simply that she was made invaluable by a god's trauma? Rather than this like, oh, you made me mad, so I'm gonna make it so that you're not believed. Like, to me, it's this more idea that just women are not believed.

• 37:58Liv Albert?

  Because also, and like, someone, correct me if I'm wrong, but I can't think of another female prophet. There's, I can't think of another.

• 38:10Liv Albert?

  Yeah, specifically mortal, like even in terms of goddesses, you know, the only, the, and before people want to say the oracles, I think the key point with an oracle is that it's not actually the woman who is credited. Like, she is credited, but like, it is the god talking through a woman. And it is only the men, these priests, who get to actually interpret her and say what she said. Like, to the people actually hearing this woman, they hear her speaking nonsense. And then it's men who say, this is what she said, and also came through the god, right? So she is just like a vessel. And obviously, that's terrible, like the patriarch and all, but like, that is why she, like, the oracle doesn't even really count.

• 38:55Liv Albert?

  That's Apollo. So what it is seeming to me is that, like, she was a prophetess, and maybe we're even thinking about, like, maybe I should even be thinking about this. This is all a thought process, by the way, if you can't tell, not scripted at the end here. But like, maybe it's all, it's also something to think about the fact that she is a foreign goddess. Like, did, or a foreign priestess princess, right? Like, did she have the right, the ability to prophesy to her people before the Greek gods came in? And fucked with everything? Like, what, what made her believable before? And because, you know, I think that the-

• 39:37Liv Albert?

  The biggest, the biggest harm that, that like we as, as mythographers, as like mythologists, I don't even know what to call like this realm in this way, but I think one of the biggest mistakes that we have all made historically is, is this like very surface level reading of the mythology without, and particularly when it comes to just like popular, you know, interpretations of myths. It's so surface level that it doesn't leave room for everything that's going on beneath the surface, which when it comes to Greek myth is, is so much

• 40:20Liv Albert?

  subjugation of women. And like instead, we're just like, oh, the gods just love to make babies with all these ladies and oh, Cassandra said no, or she revoked her consent from Apollo and so she was punished. It's like, is it this, this whole like, you know, this mythical, fantastical story where these things just magically happen? Or is this the story of the rise of patriarchal culture and the slow devaluation of women's work, women's words, like everything? And so anyway, all to say now, I'm completely obsessed with this curse

• 41:04Liv Albert?

  of Cassandra and like what it really means because the more I think about it, the more I'm just like, oh, I think it's just that, I mean, like all of, of these, these things that keep coming to me, like in the same vein of Medusa, I know I've said this into a microphone so many times now, ever since writing that Medusa introduction, that like, I think one of the biggest, the biggest things that we don't talk about enough in mythology is all of the ways that these women are like demonized, like monsterized. Purely because they won't allow men to fuck them. You know, like, that's what made the Gorgons scary.

• 41:49Liv Albert?

  It wasn't anything else about them because they actually posed no harm or risk to anyone. What made them scary is that men didn't want to fuck them. Or they were unfuckable. Right? Like, that's the sirens too. Like, literally, the only thing the sirens do is enchant men with their songs. Like, literally, all they do is sing. They just sing, right? And men are like, I have to go hear this pretty lady and I have to see her and I have to do that even if it causes my death. And then somehow, though, the sirens are to blame. Like, and they're bird women, right? And, and, but they're literally bird women.

• 42:32Liv Albert?

  And then throughout the course of like 2,000 years, the story, like, men couldn't imagine going to their deaths just for a woman's voice and having her be like a bird. And so these characters of the sirens become these like sexy, seductive, very fuckable mermaids. Despite that being so beyond the realm of Greek mythos and like, I mean, there are no, literally no mermaids in Greek myth. But also, like, like, how did the sirens? Like, it's literally, it's just palatability for the male gaze and male, like, sexuality.

• 43:16Liv Albert?

  And now I can't unsee it, so you all get to live with it, um, with me. And now I guess Cassandra is my latest obsession, so join me on that. And if anyone has any sources to recommend or scholars that have done work on Cassandra's curse.

• 43:36Liv Albert?

  Um, like, let's talk, let's talk. Ooh, actually, I'm just realizing now, maybe you're all getting a little hint. I've had a past guest, um, who we've chatted about maybe, um, them coming back to talk Apollo. And now I'm like, ooh, that's my myth, that's my myth person. This might be perfect. This might, we might be, we might be making this work. We might be making a conversation out of this, out of my latest obsession. Oh, my God. Um, yeah, I don't know. Uh, suggest things to me, maybe. Please tell me, um, that you're liking this series because I love it and I just, I need that validation. I mean, again, I'm going to keep it happening, but like, I would love to know that it is coming across. Because I am having so much fun with it. I am so happy to be scripting again, and I'm happy to say too, that

• 44:19Liv Albert?

  this is helping me get some creativity into some other nonfiction writing projects that I've been trying to work on, but have just been really, you know, broken down by this late-stage capitalistic patriarchy. It's so good.

• 44:35Liv Albert?

  Anyway, um, let's talk of this video is written and produced by me, Liv Albert. Michaela Pangwais is the Hermes to my Olympians, my incredible producer. And Michaela will be bringing you some very fun episodes next month as we trade off again, and she returns to Herodotus and the Hellenistic period. We've got very fun things in store and we are planning a huge ass series on the Odyssey because it is Odyssey summer, baby. Um, and so if there are Odyssean topics you would like to hear about, I'm going to talk about characters specifically in episodes, concepts, basically if there is like an Odyssey thing that you think that I would love, that I would like to cover or that you'd like me to cover, please submit it.

• 45:18Liv Albert?

  Um, you can always submit things through, uh, the Q and A form on our website. Same thing for Q and As. I'd love to do an up, upcoming Q and A soon. Um, so if you have some things you'd like me to talk about, or if you'd like answered, or literally anything. I mean, it's fun, you know, it's fun when these kind of go off the rails and, and you all get to just really pick my brain and, and allow me to, to. Develop all of these new ideas and thoughts that always come out of these Q and A episodes. So I would love that. Um, but either way, I will be back next week with part four of Eusculis's Agamemnon. Shit's about to get bloody.

• 46:00Liv Albert?

  Oh, there's a fucking curse on the House of Atreus. If you all haven't listened to my series on Seneca's Thiestis, what are you even doing? I think I re-aired it this past October and if not, it was October 2023. Um, if you want to listen, because that's one of the most viscerally violent and delightfully gory and fucked up plays that I've ever read in my life. Um, and I, you know, I love that cursed house. You know, I love it. Select music is by Luke Chaos. The part, pu pu pu podcast is part of the Memory Collective Podcast Network. We have so much fun stuff. Now, have you listened to Ancient History 101 yet? Or have you listened to You Are Odysseus?

• 46:45Liv Albert?

  We're, we're making good stuff and also obviously check out all of the other shows that are part of the collective and creators that are part of the collective. We eventually will have more. Um, you know, but life's life and uh, there's no money in that. So baby steps, baby steps. I am Liv and I fucking love the curse on the House of Atreus. Like in this way that, I don't know, I guess I want all the stories of men fucking over other men.

• 47:23Liv Albert?

  I am Liv and I love this shit. I do, I do, I do. I'm having a good time. Free Palestine, free Iran, free Sudan, free Congo. Down with late-stage capitalism and the American Israeli empire. And a final bonus of Andros Vagion.

• 47:44Liv Albert?

  Andros Vagion.

• 47:49Liv Albert?

  It's so good.

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