Pod Insights Let's Talk About Myths, Baby! | Greek Mythology & the Ancient Mediterranean Liv Reads Statius: The Thebaid (Part 11) About this episode Liv reads (the first half) of Book 11 of Statius' Thebaid, translated by JH Mozley. It's the beginning of the end... The brothers, Eteocles and Polynices, are about fight each other. But first, rants, raves, and pleas from the women in their lives... Furies, Jocasta, and Antigone. Submit to the quarterly Q&A at mythsbaby.com/questions http://mythsbaby.com/questions and get ad-free episodes and so, so much more, by subscribing to the Oracle Edition at patreon.com/mythsbaby http://patreon.com/mythsbaby
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.
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Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Liv 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.
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1:39 Liv Albert? Hello, this is Let's Talk About Myths, baby, and I am your host, Liv, here with a reading episode. I'm so excited to actually have an episode. Is it normally a day when I would have a reading episode? No, but am I just excited to be able to at least record something new for you all? Why, yes, yes, I am. And that something is, we are getting so close to the end of Statius's
2:10 Liv Albert? They buy it and so I'm bringing you more of that. But first, just like a couple little pieces of information. Because at this point, I just feel like I like a trauma dump all of my inability to function as a human being like into this microphone. So I guess I might as well keep it up. So a little another note about I am. I am so keen to get back to actually working in this podcast and like bringing you new episodes. Honestly, I mean, writing this children's odyssey has been so incredible, so much more work than I expected.
2:46 Liv Albert? But it has been also something that's given me so much inspiration for like things I can do when I have more time. And so much of that is coming in the form of female rage and feminine rage. And I mean, I think that that's one of the few things that I'm personally able to channel my feelings into right now. The world is on fire. It's honestly wild like I. I I always want to to be able to kind of comment on things that are happening or bring awareness or all of this. But I have found there's so much horror and I. I have trouble. I mean, I'm paying so much attention to it that I'm like then have trouble just like talking about it more.
3:33 Liv Albert? But I also just. It's all so wild like holy shit. You gotta kind of scream. But what I've been feeling is really like channeling all of these like horrible. Feels, I guess, this like the horror I've experienced watching everything. And I'm channeling it into feminist rage. And if I'm frank, it's a bit of misandry. I just think at this point, I just want, at this point, how could we not? Honestly, because late-stage capitalistic patriarchy is, you know, it's not serving us.
4:11 Liv Albert? It's not. It's not. Um, and so I, I say all of that because I, once I can actually devote like my whole being back into the podcast, um, rather than just, you know, finding all of the, the time to be doing everything else. I, I really hope to channel it in that way and, and I don't know, find more ways of looking at Greek myth and Greek history through this kind of lens, examining the other, I don't know. Well, it starts with on next Friday, um, the 14th, yes. The 14th, we'll be dropping an episode I recorded a couple of months ago with, oh my God, this incredible woman. I have been kind of following her name for a long time.
4:56 Liv Albert? Amazing friend of the show, Joel Christensen, has name dropped her a couple of times to the point where I was like, oh my God, she's got to come on my show. And we finally, we made it happen. I'm like holding off on her name because I'm so obsessed with her name. Anyway, uh, she is a, a professor, obviously, a, an expert in, in not, oh my God, and I, I don't even know how quite to describe it. Like what we ended up talking about was women weaving primarily, but what her first book that I was, have been reading, um, or not first, but one of them that I've been reading is all about is like about women's work songs. And like how they sang while they worked and just like women's work broadly.
5:37 Liv Albert? And so we, we talked about women's work in the ancient world and, um, now I'm just like not, not saying it on purpose. No, um, the guest for next Friday is, is an incredible expert in this field. Her name is, if I'm gonna do it in the Greek correctly, Andromache Karameke, hopefully. Andromache Karameke. I'm just obsessed that I could talk to a woman whose name is literally Andromache about women working. Have I mentioned lately that Andromache means like fighter of men? Anyway, um, that is an episode that I've been so excited to share with you. So that will be coming on next Friday on the 14th, but this coming Friday is something silly and different.
6:16 Liv Albert? I don't, um, know what will happen with the introduction. Normally I would record an introduction separately, but frankly, I'm also tomorrow, from the time I'm recording this, I'm actually taking a week off of like everything. Like literally, I'm not going to check my email at all. Michaela's going to handle things and like Michaela's going to do. The episodes, I'm so excited. I li- I have not not checked like work email or like been on when it comes to this career. I've literally not taken any time off, any time, like at all. I don't, I li- I don't think I've ever done it successfully, I should say. So we're trying this time. I'm actually taking a week off to help recover my burnout so that I can tie off all the ends of the Odyssey and then bring you back all of this. But that is all to say that on Friday,
7:01 Liv Albert? we will be having an episode that might just drop in randomly, or I'll get Michaela to record an intro, whatever it is. I want you to know now that I have teamed up once again with the lovely podcast Historical Homos, because Bash sent me this email was like, you know, we kinda, we kinda hinted at it when we last chatted, but like, what if we do an episode talking about Disney's Hercules?
7:25 Liv Albert? So if you need some lightness in the current world, on Friday, you will hear an absolutely delightfully unhinged episode going through why I stand by the fact that I believe that Disney's Hercules is one of the most mythologically accurate representations on screen of the last hundred years, AKA, I guess, since we've had screens. And but also then simultaneously Bash is arguing that it's also like gay as hell. And oh, my God, we had, we had so much fun. And it is gay as hell. Ridiculous, gayer than I thought, frankly. It was incredible. So you will have that to look forward to on Friday. And then we got more coming soon. The Odyssey is slowly
8:10 Liv Albert? lightening up. And I'm, oh, I want to bring you all so much of my, the rage, the rage that I've been building up. We're gonna channel it. We're gonna channel it together. It is coming. Until then, I'm gonna read more of the Thebaid to you because we only have two books left. Things are getting wild. I mean, it's probably gonna be pretty, pretty gory as we try to wrap up this war between brothers and just, just another example from the ancient world of a universal truth, which is that most wars are just about men and their anger issues and their perpetual grasp for power at the cost of everyone else.
8:55 Liv Albert? It's definitely not still relevant. It's not still relevant. So we're about to start book 11. So I'm going to remind you what happened last time. As usual, this is me reading some of Wikipedia's just synopsis of the book to remind you. So last time, at Argos, a group of women prayed to Juno to come to their army's help. The goddess sends her messenger Iris to the Cave of Sleep, where she asks Sleep himself to intervene. He obliges and casts deep sleep onto the Thebaid army. Led by Theodamas, a band of Argives invade the Thebaid siege camp and commit a massacre. Two youths, Demas and Hoplius, attempt to retrieve the bodies of Tidias and Parthenopaeus. Apprehended by the Thebans, they die on top of those bodies. The
9:40 Liv Albert? Argives now mount a full-on assault on the fortress of Thebes. Within the city, Tyresius, we all know him, consults the gods, gives an omen, Menichus, the son of sort of the temporary head of Thebes because the brothers are fighting. I don't know. It's kind of confusing. Creon, we know him from the plays. He is, oh, this is phrasing it poorly. Anyway, Creon, of course, he is from the Oedipus mythos and the plays. And his son, Menichus, has to be sacrificed in order for all of this, you know, to go well. And he does, he's like, kind of happy to go along
10:18 Liv Albert? with this. And then this other guy, the other guy on the Argive side, Copanias, climbs the walls of Thebes in an excess of hubris, as Wikipedia says, vows to challenge Jupiter, Zeus himself, who in turn strikes him down with a thunderbolt. And that's where we are returning. And let me just a sneak peek of what's to come because I read ahead in Wikipedia and I'm so excited. So, and this, I'll use this as a reminder for you all that the Thebaid is written by Statius, who is a Roman from, you know, centuries and centuries later. And so what he is kind of working with is likely this lost Greek epic that we don't have, that was also about this war between
11:02 Liv Albert? the brothers of Thebes because they were crazy famous. But what he's also So doing by writing this so many hundreds of years later is he's incorporating later things that get added to this potential lost epic, right? The plays, all of the mythos surrounding Thebes that, you know, is being solidified over the course of that, like centuries with those plays and with the mythos itself. And what that means is that you know who's going to come in and save the day? Theseus. Can't wait. But that's for next time. This time, I don't know, we're opening with, uh, one of the Furies, I guess.
11:44 Liv Albert? A reminder that when you hear names like Tissiphony and Magera, those are the Furies.
12:18 Liv Albert? This is The Thebaid by Statius, Book 11, translated by J. H. Mosley. When great-souled Capanius had spent the fury of his unrighteous valor and gasped forth the leavened fire that lodged within him, and when the long track of avenging flame that marked his fall to earth had left its brand upon the walls, victorious, jove and his right hand composed the shaken vault, and with his countenance restored the light of heaven. The gods welcomed him, as though he were breathless and weary after Phlegra's fight, or had piled smoking etna upon Encaladus.
13:01 Liv Albert? Grasping the fragment of a shattered tower, the hero lies with a scowl yet upon his face, and leaving deeds for all the world to tell of, deeds that even the thunderer might praise. As vast as in Avernus lies outstretched the defiler of Apollo's mother, whom even the birds behold aghast when they emerge from his cavernous breast and view his huge extended limbs while the wretched fibers grow again to feed them.
13:33 Liv Albert? So burdens he the earth flung prostrate, And scars the hostile fields, And the plain that gasps with the heavenly sulphur. Thebes draws breath once more, And the bowed suppliants rise in the temples. Vows and desperate wailing have an end, And the mothers dare to put down their little ones. But the Achaeans are swept over the plain In scattered, aimless rout. No more do they fear the squadrons of the foe, Or mortal steel. All have the anger of Jove before their eyes; All in their terror see their armour blazing, And hear his thunder ringing in their helmets. Jove himself seemed to pursue
14:18 Liv Albert? And to oppose his fires to their flight; The warriors of Agonore press hard upon them And use the tumult of the sky. As when upon Messilian Meads A lion has crushed within his mighty jaws The untamed monarchs of the herd, And departs, his hunger sated. Then growling bears draw nigh, And greedy wolves, and with abated rage Cowardly lap the blood of an alien prey. Here Eurymidon pursues, With armour rustic and uncouth, And rustic weapons in his hands, And native skill to arouse panic terrors. His father was Pan; There goes Elatrius forth, Tender in years for such empries;
15:02 Liv Albert? And though a boy, matching his youthful father, Fortunate both; But happier he who delights in such progeny. Nor is it easy to discern Whose weapons ring the louder, From whose arm more mightily flies the spear. The ramparts are thronged with a dense mass of fugitives. What changes do you bring, Ares? But lately the Pelasgians were climbing Cadmus's walls; Now they defend their own. Even so, the clouds return, so when the south winds are blowing field after field is swept by the blast, so the surge now uncovers, now clothes with its white foam, the thirsty sand.
15:45 Liv Albert? Far and wide perish the Turinthean soldiery that counterfeit the spoils of their native god. The stern sun of Amphitryon mourns from the stars above to see the Nemean skins and the clubs and quivers like his own, all drenched in blood. Upon the iron-clad summit of the Argive Tower stood Ennes, foremost to cheer to prosperous battle with the trumpet, but then he was giving welcome signal to the distressed and urging their flight and safe retirement to the camp. When, suddenly through the air, fell a sidelong blow, and as he sped, the sound his hand, just as it was, was fixed to his left ear.
16:30 Liv Albert? Already his spirit flies forth upon the empty breeze, already his frozen lips are silent. The trumpet completed its call alone. And now, Tisiphony, having wrought her crimes and weary of the bloodshed of two peoples, seeks to conclude the fight with the brothers' conflict, nor trusts she her own strength for so dire a fray, unless she can rouse, from her infernal abode, her companion, Magira, and her kindred snakes to battle. Therefore she withdrew to an empty vale afar, and dug into the ground her stygian blade and muttered into the earth the name of the absent one.
17:14 Liv Albert? And a sign indubitable to the Elysian realm raised aloft a horned serpent from her hair with long-drawn hisses. He was the prince of her Kyrulean tresses, and straightway, hearing him, earth shuddered, and sea and sky and the father glanced again at his Etnian fires.
17:40 Liv Albert? The others heard the sound. By chance, she was standing near her father, while Copanius was belotted by the whole train of Hades, and refreshed his glorious shade in the stygian streams. Forthwith she broke through the massive earth and stood beneath the stars. The ghosts rejoice, and as the nether darkness grows less thick, so wanes the light above.
18:07 Liv Albert? Her fell sister receives her, and clasps her hand and speaks: "Thus far, my sister, have I been able to sustain our stygian father's dread commands and the frenzy laid upon me? Alone upon the earth and exposed to a hostile world, while you in Elysium constrain the unresisting ghosts. No mean reward is mine for my pains, my labors are not vain. This deep-drenched battlefield, these waters that reek with blood, the countless swarms that gladden Lethy's bank, these are the tokens of my power, my signs of triumph. But what care I for these? Let Mars enjoy them, let Enyo boast and spread the story.
18:51 Liv Albert? You saw manifest, surely was he in the stygian shades, the chief whose jaws were fouled with blood, whose face dripped black corruption. Insatiable, he ate the head of his hapless foe, which I did give him. Just now, was it not so, the sound of a terrible din came down to you from the stars? Me did that awful storm assail, it was I who, mingling with the hero's fury-stricken arms, laughed at the warring gods and the levin's mighty wrath. But now, sister, long toil, I confess it, has wearied out my spirit and my arm is slow. The infernal you languishes in the air of heaven,
19:35 Liv Albert? and the too-strong influence of the stars drowses my unaccustomed snakes. You, who still has all your rage, whose tresses are still riotous and fresh from Coctus's fount, join your strength to mine. It is no common fray or Martian battle that we prepare for, but brothers." Though kindly faith and duty resist, they will be overcome. Yes, brothers, shall draw the sword in combat, hand to hand. A noble work, gird we ourselves with deadly hate, with armed discord. Do you hesitate? No, choose which banner you will bear. Both are compliant and will do our will.
20:19 Liv Albert? But the mob is double-minded, and I fear his mother's words and Antigone's persuasive tongue, lest they somewhat hinder our design. Yes, even he who is wont to weary us with his entreaties, and calls upon the furies to avenge his eyes, Oedipus, already feels his fatherhood. Already, they say, he weeps alone, far from the haunts of men. Yes, verily, I like not to invade Thebes and the abode I know so well without your succour. Command you, the impious exile, incite the argives to the crime, see that the mild Adrastus prevails not, nor the Lernaean host delays you.
21:04 Liv Albert? Go, and return to the mutual fray, my foe. Their duties thus assigned, the sisters went their different ways. As from the two poles of the world, south wind and north make war, one nurtured on Repian snows, the other in Libyan sands. Rivers, seas, clouds, and woods resound, and soon is the ruined scene. The husbandmen lament their losses, yet pity the sailors whelmed upon the deep. When from Olympus's top the exalted father beheld them pollute the air, and saw Hyperion's frightened orb beflect and tainted, with stern utterance he thus began:
21:47 Liv Albert? "You heavenly ones, we have seen armed fury pushed to the uttermost bound of right, and a war that yet was lawful, though one man engaged in impious conflict and dared to fall by my right hand. But now a duel unspeakable approaches, a combat yet unknown to miserable earth. Look not upon it, let no gods countenance such a crime; let it be hid from Jove. Enough is it to have seen the deadly feast of Tantalus, and the guilty altars of Lycan, and Mycenae bringing the stars in hurried train upon the sky." Now, once again, must day be troubled.
22:28 Liv Albert? Accept, O earth, these baleful clouds, and let the sky be veiled. It is my will to spare heaven and my own deities. Let not at least the star of the kindly maid behold such deeds, nor the Ladainian brethren. So spoke the omnipotent father, and turned his gaze away from the guilty fields, and the earth lacked its joyous light serene. Meanwhile, the daughter of Erebus hastes on the track of Polynices through the argolic cohorts, and finds him even at the gate, uncertain whether to avoid so many horrors by death or flight.
23:09 Liv Albert? Omens too had troubled his doubting mind, wandering by the rampart in the hours of darkness, distressed at heart and brooding in deep despair. He had seen the phantom of his wife, Argia, with tresses torn and a doleful torch in her hand. A sign from heaven, yes, that was her intent, such were the torches she was to bring her spouse. So, when he asked why she was come, and what her grief what meant these emblems of woe, she did but weep and hide the flame in silence. He knows it was but a mental vision of ill. For how could his spouse have come from Mycenae and draw nigh the wall without anyone knowing?
23:51 Liv Albert? But he is aware of fate's admonishing, and his approaching doom and fears to be aware. But when the fury of yawning Asheron thrice smote her lash against his corsetlet, he raged without restraint, and yearned not to be seated on his throne but for crime, and carnage, and to expire in his slaughtered kinsman's blood. And suddenly, he accosts the drastis. Late though it be, O father, in our extremity, I am at length resolved, who am the last survivor of my comrades and the folk of Argos. Then had been the time, when the Aeolian blood was yet unshed, to step boldly forth
24:31 Liv Albert? and venture single combat, nor to expose the Danian flower and the sacred lives of princes, that I might crown me with a glory that was the woe of mighty cities. But now, since the stern hour of valor is past, now at least let me be allowed to pay what I deserve. For well you know, Father, though deep you do hide your wounds, and do revere your son-in-law's misery and shame, I am he who, while you were ruling in peace and justice, ah, wretch that I am, some other city had been my host, exiled from country and throne. But exact your punishment last. I challenge my brother. Why do you start? I am resolved to the death.
25:15 Liv Albert? No, hinder me not, nor will you be able to. Not if my sad mother and unhappy sisters were to fling themselves between our weapons, not even if my father were to oppose me as I rushed to battle and cast his sightless orbs upon my helm, should I give way. Shall I drink all that remains of Anakiian blood, and even yet draw profit from your deaths? I saw the earth yawn and gape on my account, nor went I to the rescue. I saw Tydeus dead and caused his guilt, defenseless Tegia demands of me her prince, and his bereaved mother cries out against me in Parassian caves. I had not the spirit to scale Ismenis's banks
25:59 Liv Albert? while Hippomedon stained its streams with gore, nor the Tirrian towers amid the thunder, and join my rage to yours, oh, Capanius! Why such craven fear for my own life? But I will make due recompense, let all the Pulaskian brides and mothers and aged fathers assemble, all whom I have robbed of so many joys, and whose homes I have despoiled. I fight my brother. What more remains to do? Let them look on, and pray for a Theocles's victory. And now farewell, my wife, and farewell, sweet Mycenae! But you, beloved father, for mine is not all the blame for these ills,
26:42 Liv Albert? but fate and the gods share the guilt with me. Be gentle to my ashes. Rescue my body after the battle, and shield it from birds and from my brother, and bring home my urn. It is all I ask, and, for your daughter, unite her in worthier wedlock.
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29:19 Liv Albert? They fell to weeping, as when with returning spring the Bistonian snows are warmed, and mighty Hymus melts, and Rhodope is all dissolved into the straightened rivers. And the aged king had begun to soothe his rage with gentle words. But the cruel fury broke off his speech with new terrors, and straightway, in the shape of anachian Pharikles, brought his swift wing-footed steed and fatal arms, and with his helmet closed his ears to trusty counsels. Then, "Haste!" she cried, "Delay not, he too, so they say, is marching on the gates."
29:58 Liv Albert? Thus, all scruples overcome, she seizes him and sets him upon his steed, ashen pale, he scours the open plain, and glances back to describe the looming shadow of the goddess. The Tyrian chieftain was offering in vain to Jove the sacrifice that his lightning-stroke had won, thinking that the Danians were disarmed, but neither the celestial father nor any of the gods were at his altars. But baneful to Siphon, mingling with the affrighted attendants, stand near, and to the infernal thunderer turned aside his prayers. Supreme of gods, to whom my Thebes owes its origin, though accursed Argos and angry
30:43 Liv Albert? Juno be jealous, since you, as a ravisher, did break up the revels on the Sidonian shore, and deign to bear on your back a maiden of our race, and to utter feigned lowings over the tranquil seas. Nor vainly do we believe that you, a second time, did enjoy cadmeian wedlock and invade the Tyrian dwellings in overpowering might. At length, at length, you do gratefully regard your kinsmen and the walls you loved, and send myth, your thunder, to avenge, as though the heavenly palace had suffered assault. We saw you rolling cloud on cloud to succor our lofty towers, and gladly we recognize
31:27 Liv Albert? your kindly brand, and the lightnings that our fathers once heard of old.
31:33 Liv Albert? Receive now our flocks and high piled incense and our votive bull, worthy recompenses not in mortal power. Let our own Bacchus and Alcides strive to repay you, for them you do preserve these walls. He spoke, but the murky flame leapt forth against his face and cheeks and seized and burnt the diadem on his locks. Then, still unsmitten, the angry bull befleck'd the shrine with bloody foam, and dashed wildly through the opposing concourse bearing the altar upon his frenzied horns. The ministers scatter, and the soothsayer strives to console the king.
32:15 Liv Albert? Faint-heartedly he commands the rite to be renewed and carried through, and with feigned countenance screens his anxious fears. As when the Turinthean felt the fire unwrap his bones and the Italian robe cling to his limbs, he continued the offering he had begun and poured the incense, still resolute and enduring the agony. Soon beneath the stress he groaned aloud, while triumphant Nessus raged through his vitals. Epitus, in excited, breathless haste, comes running with news to the king. His post by the gate abandoned and scarcely understood pants out these words to the anxious prince.
33:00 Liv Albert? Break off your pious worship and the untimely sacrifice, O king! Your brother rides threatening round your walls, and with spear and bridle assails your hindering gates, and flinging many a challenge calls you, you alone, to battle. Behind him his sorrowing comrades weep, each echoing the speaker with their groans, while the host clash arms and rage against the foe. The monarch prays. Now is the time, most righteous father of the gods, what did Caponeus deserve? A thrill of profound hatred shook the king, yet he rejoices in mid rage, as when a chieftain
33:41 Liv Albert? bull, after the repose of his rival's exile, hears with ear alert the bellow of his enemy, and knows his challenge. He stands consumed with mighty wrath before the herd. And pants forth his valor in hot foam, Now fiercely tearing the ground with his hoof, Now the air with his horns, The meadows quake and the affrighted veils await the conflict. Nor are his friends less moved, Let him batter the walls in vain, Can he dare so far with shattered forces? It is madness prompts wretches to court danger, Ways no fear and detest safety. Stay you assured upon your throne, We will repulse the foe, Bid us make war. So spoke those near him,
34:26 Liv Albert? But lo, Creon was at hand, A flame with grief and claiming for his tongue, A warrior's silence. Manichaeus galls his heart to fierceness, No peace does the father know, Him he seeks and clutches, Him he beholds, Panting the bloody stream from his breast And ever falling from the cruel tower. And when he saw Atiochles, In doubt and shrinking from the fight, "You shall go," he cries, "Not villain shall we unavenged endure you longer, You, the brother and the prince, Made powerful by your country's tears and suffering, Guilty of heaven's furies and the war." Long enough have we atoned your perjuries to the angry gods,
35:10 Liv Albert? This city, once full of arms and wealth And thronged with citizens, Have you, like a heaven-sent pestilence Or plague of earth, drained to nothing? Get cast your tall shadow over its emptiness? Folk are lacking to be your slaves, Some lie on earth unburnt, Others their native stream has already borne down to the sea, Some seek their limbs, others tend anxious wounds. Come, restore to our wretched people Their brothers, fathers, sons, Restore husbands to their homes and farmsteads. Where now is mighty Hypsius? Where is our neighbor Drius? Where are the arms of echoing Phocas And the Euboean chiefs?
35:56 Liv Albert? Get them the impartial fate of war has slain, but you, my son, oh shame, lie the victim, yes, the victim of the throne, like some mute beast of the herd, alas, sprinkled with the first fruits at the altar's unhallowed right, and biden die. And does he still waver, and now, at least when summoned, refuse the challenge? Or does the wicked Tyresius bid another go to battle, and devise a second oracle to bring me woe? Yes, why is Hymon alone left to his unhappy father? Command him to go, and sit you on a lofty tower to watch the spectacle. Why do you rage and look round upon your retinue?
36:41 Liv Albert? These would have you go, yes, and pay the penalty. Even your mother and your sisters hate you. Your brother hotly threatens you with the sword and death, and rends the stern barriers of your gates, do you not listen? Thus spoke Creon, the father, gnashing his teeth in transports of misery and rage. Eteocles replied, "You do not fool me, nor are you moved by your son's renowned death. That song of woe, those vaunts, did but befit a father. But ambition lurks beneath those tears, ambition and concealed desire. You are making his death a mask for your mad hopes,
37:26 Liv Albert? and you depress me hard, as though succeeding to the vacant throne. Nor so utterly has fortune left the Sidonian city that the sceptre should fall to you, oh most unworthy of so brave a son. Nor would revenge be difficult, even now. But first, arms, arms, my servants, let the brothers meet in battle. Creon would have some balm for his sorrow. Take advantage of my rage, when I am victorious, you shall pay me all." Thus for a while he puts off the quarrel, and thrust back the sword that wrath put in his hand. As a serpent, struck at a venture and wounded by a shepherd, lifts up its coils erect, and from all its length of body
38:11 Liv Albert? draws the poise into its mouth. But should the foe bend his course but a little? The threats abate, the vainly swollen neck subsides, and it swallows back the venom of its own anger.
38:26 Liv Albert? But when his mother heard the first news of the calamity in appalled dismay, nor was she slow to believe it, she went with face and tresses torn and naked, blood-stained breast, reckless of sex and dignity, just as the mother of Pentheus climbed the heights of the frenzied mount to bring the promised head to fierce Lias. Neither her maidens nor her devoted daughters can keep pace with her; such strength does despair lend to Jocasta, the unhappy woman; her enfeebled years grow vigorous with grief. And already the chief was fastening on him the glory of his helm
39:09 Liv Albert? and taking his sharp javelins and regarding his steed that rejoiced in the trumpets, nor feared the bugle's blast, when on a sudden his mother appeared mighty to behold; and he and all his company grew pale with fear, and his squire took back the spear that he was offering. What madness is this? From where has returned the evil spirit of this realm, restored again to life? Must you then fight each other at the last? Is it too little to have led rival hosts and given the word for slaughter? And afterwards, what home awaits the victor? These arms of mine? Oh, my dread spouse, blessed hereafter in your blindness? Now, pay you the penalty, my guilty eyes,
39:53 Liv Albert? must I then see this day? Whether ruthless one turn your threatening gaze, why do you flush and pallor alternate on your countenance, and your clenched teeth stifle angry mutterings? Ah, woe is me, you will prevail! Yet first must you test your arms at home. I will stand in the threshold of the gate, a baneful omen and dread image of calamity; these hoary locks, these breasts must need be trampled by you, accursed one, and over your mother's womb your horse be driven. Ah, spare! Why do you repel me from your path with shield and sword? No solemn curses have I uttered against you to the stygian gods,
40:38 Liv Albert? nor invoked the furies with sightless prayer. Hear me in my distress, it is your mother, not your father entreats you, cruel one. Stay your guilt and take the measure of such madness. But your brother, do you say, beats at the walls and raises impious war against you? Ay, for no mother, no sister does prevent him, but you, all beseech, here, all make lament. Yonder scarce a drastis alone dissuades from battle, or perchance does urge it. Will you leave your ancestral gate and the gods, and from my very embrace go forth against your brother?
41:20 Liv Albert? But in another region Antigone glides silently by stealth through all the tumult, nor does maidenly chastity delay her, all in haste, in eagerness, to climb to the summit of the Ogagian Wall. Old Actor follows close behind, though his strength avails not to reach the tower's height. While she hesitated at the sight of the host afar, then recognized him. Alas, as with proud taunt and javelin, he assailed the city. First her wailings fill the air, then, as though about to leap down from the wall, she cries,
41:58 Liv Albert? "Put up your weapons, and look but a moment at this tower, my brother, and turn your bristling crest to my face and eyes." Is it enemies you find? Is it thus we demand good faith and yearly pact? Is this an innocent exile's just complaint and righteous cause? But your argive home, oh, brother, for your Tyrian home comes slight. By you, by any joy you have therein, be softened. Lo, both the armies, either folk, entreat you. Antigone, faithful to her kinsman's sufferings and suspected by the king, and sister but to you, hard-hearted one, entreats you.
42:39 Liv Albert? Remit at least your frowning looks; let me, perchance, for the last time, behold the face I love, and see whether you do weep at my lament. Him even now does our mother urge with suppliant tears, and does put back, they say, his naked blade. Are you still stubborn to me, to me who night and day weep for your wandering exile? And have oftentimes appeased your father's wrath, even as it rose against you? Why do you free your brother of guilt? Verily, he broke faith in his scorn word. Guilty is he and cruel to his own, yet lo, he comes not to your challenge.
43:35 Liv Albert? Oh, nerds. Well, that was not all of Book 11. I'll be honest with you. That was only half of it.
43:43 Liv Albert? Because I have been working since 7:30 this morning and my brain said, "No more reading allowed. We're finished today." And so I will finish the second half of this Book 11 on the next reading. But I also just was happy to kind of end it here because it's badass. Like, the fact that we get these speeches from Jocasta and then Antigone just like tearing these men apart. They're like, "This is the dumbest, most violent thing you've done for no good reason." Like, "There's no reason to have this war. You don't need to be fighting. We're all family. It's not that big a deal. It's not that deep."
44:26 Liv Albert? Um, and I just think that's awesome. We just have these women in the room being reasonable, but also like emotional and rightly so. And like, I don't know, this Antigone scene, so far, so good. I don't always love the way she's portrayed by men, but she's, she's feeling wordy and angry now, and I love that for her. Um, so we will return to spoilers. The brothers are gonna kill themselves or kill each other. It's not a spoiler. It's the whole premise of this entire story. Um, but I'm really interested to see how it goes because I really enjoy the way that they are weaving in a character like Jocasta, who is, but in a lot of other versions of this late in the myth, she's already dead.
45:10 Liv Albert? Uh, so I love that she's still alive and being a badass. And Antigone too, and the fact that they are both willing to like make these epic speeches about how stupid and irrationally violent the men are being. Like, good for them. Good for them. Because, I mean, what, we're now at 2,000 years, just since this. So I don't know how many thousands of years of intense human suffering, almost entirely based in...
45:42 Liv Albert? Men's unquenchable desire for power at the cost of everyone else.
45:55 Liv Albert? I don't know. Uh, set fire to the patriarchy. Let's watch it burn. Cast those ashes into the wind and just put an end to this existence we have that is only for this tiny subset of people. Fuck billionaires. You know what? Fuck them all. Fuck them all. Even that one. She's out now. Fuck billionaires. Fuck ICE. Fuck Israel. They're just genociding again and no one's talking about it. They're just, they're, they're fucking bombing the shit out of Palestine and we're all just supposed to be like, oh, ceasefire. That's not a ceasefire. And I just want to scream all the time. Um, ICE is the Gestapo, like literally in every
46:39 Liv Albert? possible objective way. Hey y'all, did you know, um, that Hitler built a bunker under a ballroom that he also built? Like one day he was like, I think I need to build a ballroom. Under it was the bunker where he eventually had to kill himself. So that's pretty chill and maybe history's gonna repeat itself there too. That part wouldn't be so bad.
47:02 Liv Albert? Anyway, fuck fascism. Why do we, it all comes from the patriarchy. Literally all of it. Literally all of it. Let's talk about Miss Baby is written and produced by me, Liv Albert. Michaela Vanquishes the Hermes to my Olympians, my incredible producer. Both of us are filled with so much female rage that, I mean, maybe I'll just set fire to the patriarchy all on my own. You know who's gonna help? Florence and the Machine. Do you wanna feel some really joyous female rage right now? Just listen to Florence and the Machine. I don't know, for right now, I'm not a... I don't like celebrities. I don't want to put anyone on a pedestal anymore because they always fall off of it dramatically, but I'm pretty keen on Florence.
47:47 Liv Albert? I think we all, you know, just, this is the time. Everybody scream. Everybody scream. For ad-free content and additional bonus stuff, and also in a desperate attempt to help us keep this podcast going and not relying on American advertising dollars, check out the Patreon. Patreon.com/MythSBaby, or the link in the episode's description. It is literally all because of the patriarchal rule that the West has placed on us against our will.
48:32 Liv Albert? I'm Liv and I love this shit, and I hate fascism. It's weird.
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