The Fabric of Their Lives

Final paper for my graduate course on Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, & Aristophanes.

Theatre is draped with the metaphor of material, fabric, and clothing woven into the storytelling. In this visual performing art form, cloth becomes props, costumes, and even parts of the set to make the story and characters materialized and fully realized. As the story is woven through script and blocking, textiles can stitch deeper meanings or unveil a truth beyond the words alone to the audience. In Ancient Greek culture, the weaving of fabric, clothing, and home items was women’s work, while weaving stories, plays, speeches, and acting on stage belonged to the men. In Aeschylus’ play Seven Against Thebes, the Chorus tells Eteocles, “Listen to women though you like it not” (34). In a culture not known for including women in many spaces, women’s wailing, weaving, wisdom, and working is ironically the central plot line for many of their plays. Though all these theatrical works were written by men, acted by men, and presented to audiences comprised mostly of men, there are surprising opportunities to “listen to women” and learn from women’s workings and weavings. Within these plays from the hands and imaginations of men, we unravel mythical stories of women fabricating their destinies with fabric, telling truths through textiles, making material matter, and craftily showing how cloth makes the man or woman or woman into a man.

In Aeschylus’ first play of the Oresteia, Agamemnon, there are two prominent uses of material as metaphor. First, fabric is used as a particularly visually visceral set dressing; for the second reference, fabric is used to set up Agamemnon’s murder. In the Greek tragedy staging, the violence using fabric is only seen through speech, told but not shown. However, both uses are metaphoric and striking. First to welcome (or perhaps to curse or prophesize) Agamemnon’s homecoming, the unfaithful and vengeful wife Clytemnestra has her maidens spread a dark red, blood-colored carpet of tapestries for him to walk over to enter his home. She says this is “where Justice leads him in a crimson path” (64). She will be the hands (and fabric) of Justice once he enters his home for this fate filled last time. This crimson swash creates quite the image for the audience as Agamemnon arrives home and must walk on what appears to be a river of blood, eerily reminiscent of the way he left this very home, the seas dyed red with his daughter’s sacrificial blood spilling. These tapestries/robes would have been the handiwork of women. Indeed, the entire Trojan War and the reason for his absence has also been a river of blood taken from the material of women, their husbands, and their sons. Agamemnon removes his shoes as he does not want to crush these robes, taking more care of this fabric than he did for his daughter. As the story continues, this very visual image of a river of blood leading up to the front door will become a symbolic river of blood pouring back out of the house. The next time there is a surfeit of tapestried robes, they will not be crushed under Agamemnon’s feet but coiled around his person, crushing him. Clytemnestra tells of how she entrapped Agamemnon after his bath, “as fishermen cast their huge circling nets, I spread a deadly abundance of rich robes and caught him fast. I struck him twice. In two great cries of agony he buckled at the knees and fell” (71). Clytemnestra finally repays Agamemnon for his fabricated lies. These lies began with Iphigeneia in a wedding dress, ready to give her life in marriage. Iphigeneia's wedding robe was stained with blood at the hands of her father, so Clytemnestra also handily spreads the richest of robes, tightly hemming him in to be murdered on this very day of his homecoming. She has used the work and weaving of women to repay her husband for his filicide. The robes’ crewel work becomes cruel work in her act of cold-blooded revenge.

Aeschylus gives the audience one final fabric moment cloaked in significance at the ending of The Eumenides, the last of his Oresteia trilogy. This final scene will signify the ending of the curse on the House of Atreus. Athene, who through a shrewd bit of political weaving has appeased the Furies, instructs her temple women to dress in blood-colored (deep purple) robes akin to the crimson robes spread for Agamemnon’s fateful homecoming. Athene directs, “…women whose high privilege it is to guard my image. Flower of all the land of Theseus, let them issue now, grave companies, maidens, wives, elder women, in processional. In the investiture of purple stained robes dignify them” (107). This time, the handiwork of women will end the familial lineage of violence. The river of blood flows off stage as the Furies, now renamed the Eumenides, become the protectors of Athens. Red tapestries wrap the beginning and the ending of the Oresteia, the handiwork of women sewn into the very fabric of these stories at each seam.

Sophocles uses a robe from a faithful wife, Deianira, in The Women of Trachus to bring about the downfall of her heroic husband, Hercules. Who could imagine that the dyeing of a robe (in the poisoned blood of a centaur fatally wounded by Hercules) would lead to the dying of one of mythology’s most remarkable men? Deianira, wanting to retain her husband’s love, believes that the centaur’s last words, “so he will never look at another woman and love her more than you” (224) mean that his blood will be a charm over the heart of Hercules. She dips a robe she has lovingly made for her husband in this blood. It turns out Hercules will never look at another woman as the fabric dipped in the centaur blood poisons him. Ashamed and guilt ridden the gullible and desperate Deianira kills herself. After her innocent intent is revealed, Hyllas says of Deianira, “In all that she did wrong, she had intended good” (231). Sometimes, the meant-for-good things women weave do not go according to their plans in Greek mythology or modern-day life, especially when a garment becomes tinged and tainted from someone with a debt to repay. Another lesson is to always consider the words of a vengeful centaur carefully, his blessing may prove to be a curse.  

Another place where women's work is unknowingly used for revenge is in Euripides’ play The Bacchae. Euripides uses the imagery of women’s quiet and productive at-home weaving work to contrast with their activities in this play. In The Bacchae, the women have left home and are in the forest dancing and drinking for “the throng of women waits, driven from shuttle and loom, possessed by Dionysus” (474)! Indeed, only a mad, possessed woman would leave her shuttle and loom and venture into the forest for a good time. The handiwork of women becomes furious and ferocious as the women rip apart Agave’s son, Pentheus, at his seams and throw around the scraps of his body. This is no demure and domesticated sewing circle. These party hearty women have unwittingly brought about the revenge that Dionysus was seeking. Women who leave home and shuttles cannot be trusted. Of course, Clytemnestra or Deianira remained at home weaving up their plans for better or for worse. The work of women can cause death, intentionally or by accident in these tragedies.

A more joyful recognition of women’s crafting is in Euripides’ play Ion, where an orphan boy is reunited with his mother because of a remnant of embroidered cloth. This material joins mother and son in a beautiful moment as Creusa recognizes the piece of material Ion has as “The loomwork of a girl—so long ago” (403). Fabric stitches together Ion and Creusa’s stories after they were ripped apart years before. In Ion, Euripides himself gives credence to the stories woven by women who sit in more private spaces as the Chorus says, “Our legends, our tales at the loom, Never tell of good fortune to children Born of a god and a mortal” (389). Looms can tell tragedies just as public performances acted out on stages do. The storied artwork of women may be in smaller spaces and staged on looms, but it is not all that far removed from the more theatrical performances put on by men.

The last Greek playwright's material imagery to consider is Aristophanes. His more comedic commentary on the social and political issues of the day also uses wool and weaving to define and refine his characters and themes. This is seen most directly in two plays that feature women with big ideas, brilliant exploits, and bold costume choices. In The Assemblywomen, the women dress as men, don fake beards, and take over the government by voting (as men) the women into power. The Second Woman is a multitasker and almost gives up the ruse when, in the Assembly, she brings out her wool and comb, “I’ve brought these along, I thought I might as well get on with a bit of wool-combing while the Assembly fills up” (868). Praxagora tells her to hide those womanly things because if the men see the items or even the hands of the women, they will be on to them. In the most revealing use of fabric yet, in the play Lysistrata, the titular character plans to stop the war with a minimal amount of fabric. “But don’t you see, that’s exactly what I mean to use to save Greece. Those saffron gowns and slippers and see-through dresses” (825). If Clytemnestra used too many robes for murder, can too few robes (or see-through ones) bring about peace for Greece? Lysistrata believes that women’s work in fabric is more than just utilitarian. In discussion with the Magistrate, her ideas for unraveling the war and sewing the country back together are based on the process of preparing wool for weaving (833-834) and her analogy is thoughtful and wise. Finally, she lays it all bare in the end when she brings out a beautiful and unclothed woman named Reconciliation. Her nude body (well, actually it would have been a man in a costume that resembled a naked woman) is treated as land pieces to create a peace treaty that ends the war and sends everyone home to bed. Lysistrata and the women have won their war with some flirty fabrications.

One of the more casual and caustic dismissals of the worth of women happens at the end of Euripides’ Eumenides. In defense of Orestes’ matricide, the god Apollo claims that women contribute nothing but womb space in the birth process, stating, “The mother is no parent of that which is called her child, but only nurse of the new-planted seed that grows. The parent is he who mounts. A stranger she preserves a stranger’s seed” (99). He sees mothers as strangers to their children, not even a parent, just a holding vessel during gestation. The Ancient Greeks were wise in many ways, but perhaps genetics and knowledge of human conception were their finest area of expertise. The Latin word for mother is “mater,” and the word “material” comes from this Latin root. Perhaps that is because one day, human beings will learn that the very material of humanity has half its origin in women. Women are not only a private space for holding a story and weaving it onto fabric. Mothers contribute half of a child's DNA as their child is knit together over the nine months of connection. Women matter. They are not immaterial but the flawed, fate-filled, and fantastical fabric of all these Greek plays and myths. When Lysistrata is questioned about what women have contributed to the war, she says (or maybe shouts), “We’ve contributed to it twice over and more. For one thing, we’ve given you sons, and then had to send them off to fight” (834). Even without a seat in the Assembly, a place on the stage, or a voice to vote, women show up in these stories; they contribute “twice over and more,” embroidered seamlessly and, at times, shamelessly into the stories. Whether the men want to listen to women or not, the women speak, sew, and, in many cases, are the stitches holding the pieces together or ripping them apart when they feel it is necessary. Women and the materials they make create a rich tapestry throughout these Greek plays.

my 2023 word of the year...

lea’s letter 

(un-artifical and not so intelligent. but slightly more real)…

wow. slow clap here for AI (artificial intelligence) which has really made our holiday greeting easy and pain/brain free. i feel like chatGPT nailed it. HOW DID IT KNOW US SO WELL? and the visuals? so. many. dogs. we are empty nesters with no dog, why AI? however, you are free to think of us exactly like those people in the computer generated letter & stop reading now. but if you know that AI might not be spitting out the whole truth, onto the REAL story of this year…

my L word of the year could be london. it was unbelievable to be back (after a brief 35 year hiatus) in cities (stratford-upon-avon, london, & oxford) that forged my love of theatre. shakespeare. history. architecture. afternoon tea/scones/clotted cream/lemon curd. c.s. lewis. & the tube. my fanaticism for TFL (transport for london) was rekindled quickly as tube riding lea is lea at her logistical best. 

my most profound theatre moment (out of 23 shows) was in punchdrunk’s immersive theatre experience, the burnt city. it’s a very different type of theatre event. first, you walk around & explore the entire warehouse “set”, & then you stand and watch the wordless performance, all whilst wearing a plague doctors mask. it isn’t for everyone. there are two performances going on at the same time, one downstairs and one upstairs. & i had to choose only one story to watch. both acts seemed very intriguing. both involved nudity (whoops) and both were greek tragedy retellings, which you know is my JAM (and grad school concentration.) but i could only choose ONE. & here’s the kicker, i wanted to be content with my choice, even though i was aware i was missing another compelling story. you know i like BOTH &. but at that moment i had to find joy in the one story i was watching, knowing i was missing another story (also a tragedy) downstairs. (in case you wondered, i chose the upstairs tale of agamemnon arriving home to a banquet with a bloody ending.) i think that might be indicative of my life right now (not the agamemnon and his final fatal shower part), but choosing to love the story i am in & not missing the story that isn’t mine right now. i delighted in every day of my london story in june. with family/friends/students from many chapters of my life joining me in london, the city of dreams. making it a dreamy month indeed. (though my facebook account was hacked & deleted & i had to start completely over. so if you haven’t seen me there recently, re-friend me, if you miss my wordiness. i, like immersive theatre, am not for everyone.) but london is not my word of my year.

turns out there is one tiktok trend that i have been unknowingly participating in for years… the NEVER USE THE BIG LIGHT trend. the BIG LIGHT is a british term (of course) for the large overhead light in a room. turns out there are lots of people, JUST LIKE ME, who hate the big light and prefer small lamp lights in a room. i (much to adam’s chagrin) leave various lamps on ALWAYS, so that i never walk into a dark room. i also leave lamps on in our kids’ vacated bedrooms. as a way to say that we are still open. we are still here. you can come back home anytime. we’ve left a lamp on for you. so my word of the year is LAMP. a lamp is a smaller light. only lighting a tiny part of a room. or a story. not blindingly bright. just warm & welcoming. 

author sarah bessey agrees with me about small lamps (which thrills me to no end). she says, “I’ve learned to love a gentler light when I’m in the dark months. No harsh overhead florescent lamps, not for these long months. We filled the house with lamplight and candles. We light them almost every night, making something special and beautiful and homey out of the darkness outside.”

the world may be dark. but we can always light a lamp. or look for someone who is holding one out for us.

the etymology of the word comes from the greek word lampad- ‘torch’. in homer’s odyssey (which i was thoughtfully working my way  through in london), we find the first mention of a lamp in all of greek literature. a golden lamp is held by athena (goddess of wisdom, craft, and warfare. she’s such a multi-tasker.) to help odysseus and his son, telemachus, find a way forward in their story to retake their home. 

“Athena stood by them with a golden lamp; she made majestic light. Telemachus said, ‘Father, my eyes have noticed something very strange. The palace walls, the handsome fir-wood rafters and crossbeams and the pillars high about are visible, as if a fire were lit. Some god from heaven must be in the house.’” {the odyssey, book 19, lines 35-39, translation by emily wilson}

seems you don’t need an overhead huge light to travel by. a lamp will suffice. there are so many times i want to see the entire course, the ending of an arduous journey, but i only get lamp light. which is enough (as telemachus says) to know there is a God in this with you. a lamp is ample to see the next step or moment. a detail. a tiny way God is with us in the dark. it’s not a full vision of His Glory. not all of the story. maybe it is just the next word to say. or hear. all around may be dark. but there is a glimmer. a small glow of goodness & mercy.

a brief search reveals that lamps, lights, & torches in a work of literature can represent many things: anger, desire, sadness, anxiety, fear, hope, joy, enthusiasm, triumph, & knowledge. ALL of those i have felt this last year. even this very day. it’s been a different season with none of our children home for the holidays. but even that has had its moments of warmth & clarity. light is complicated. it shows us things we don’t always want to see. it dispels the darkness. but sometimes in a way that is too harsh. too intense. too much. occasionally a small lamp is better to show us something lovely when the overhead BIG LIGHT’s overwhelming glare blazes too radiant. a lamp light is enough right now. for me. & i bet enough for you too in this season. 

“I don't want to be swallowed by the darkness. Nor do I want to be blinded by the beautiful facade. No, I want to be part of a people who see the darkness, know it's real, and then, then, then, light a candle anyway. And hold that candle up against the wind and pass along our light wherever it's needed from our own homes to the halls of legislation to the church pulpit to the kitchens of the world.” 

{also sarah bessey, from her book out of sorts: making peace with an evolving faith}

a few weeks ago, i walked into incarnation, our sweet little anglican church, & our lead pastor, jon hall, had put up beautiful new wall lamp sconces. that he had designed and constructed. his wife says creating & crafting with his hands is how he processes through difficult days, that is why he and i are friends. well, that and his british accent. the lamps will be lit on christmas eve. each with a small, steady, satisfying glow. showing us just enough beauty to keep moving into a new year. the Light has come. in the smallest of lamp-like ways on both the most ordinary & the darkest of days. a torch bearing God must be with us.

can we step into all that’s unknown and dark holding a light that comes from knowing we aren’t alone? a tiny light doesn’t just invade darkness, it vanquishes it. & it can be shared. thank you for all who shared moments of loving lamp light with us (or anyone) this year. let’s share more as we scatter darkness in small ways, together…

We're not drowning in our tears

Oh but there sure have been enough to drown in

It's hard to face the day from here

Where it looks like the night has it surrounded

But sometimes all this pain and sadness

Is more than a heart can handle

But I'm tired of cursing at the darkness

I'm gonna light a candle      

{from the song i’m gonna light a candle by andy gullahorn) 

or in my case, i am going to leave a lamp on. i hope you do too. 

lea noblin marshall    12.24.2023

She senses that her gain is good;   

Her lamp does not go out at night.  proverbs 31:18 

Weaving

Weaving is an essential part of Greek life and storytelling. All of their lives are literally hanging by a thread since the three Fates are the weavers of all human destinies. One of the three goddesses spins the threads of a life, one measures it to the allotted time and space, and one cuts it off when it is the predetermined time for one’s life to end. Even the gods cannot stop this fatalistic crafting from the three Destinies. We see this as Alkinoös speaks of Odysseus fate, “he shall endure all that his destiny and the heavy Spinners spun for him with the thread at his birth, when his mother bore him.” (370) There is only so much thread until a story is over, endings are inevitable and unstoppable. The weaving of the three Fates is a lesson in Stoicism, accept your fate and the time given to you, for it is all held and knotted up in the hands of the sisters three. But in these Homeric epics we see weaving and spinning as moments of well-crafted agency and action for the characters. Weaving is storytelling in private and public ways, and it becomes one way to slow the spinning of a seemingly out of one’s hands destiny.

This theme of spinning and weaving looms large in The Iliad and The Odyssey. The skillful handicraft with wool is woman’s work. Queens, goddesses, and servant girls all spin and weave. In contrast, the spinning and weaving of words is the work of men. Odysseus, Menelaus, and the poet laurate of the Phaiakians weave fantastical tales to entertain crowds. The word “spin” indicates a turning around, over and over repeatedly, a dizzying state occurring. Women spin fibrous yarn to create, commiserate, and celebrate. Men spin fanciful yarns to craft a story to entertain, explain, and clear any shame on their name. The very word “weaving’ contains the figurative language roots of devising and arranging, and these are skills that are used by both sexes to tell one’s story throughout Homeric literature. Women do their weaving in private rooms, unseen by crowds, and typical of the gendered norms of the time, men are more public in the proclivities of proclamating their devising. Yet, both sexes spin and weave, showing us the importance of storytelling in every season and space. Through words or images, whether in the public square or the private quiet moments, humans spin and weave to create, literally and figuratively.

In The Iliad both Helen and Adromache are shown weaving. Helen’s is weaving the story in which she finds herself a catalyst character. She is weaving in scenes from the Trojan War onto her blood colored fabric. “She came on Helen in the chamber; she was weaving a great web, a red folding robe, and working into it the numerous struggles of Trojans, breakers of horses, and bronze-armoured Achaians, struggles that they endured for her sake at the hands of the war god.”(32) Perhaps this is the only way Helen can make sense of the story she finds herself such an integral part of, perhaps this is the only way she believes she will have a chance to tell her side of the story, or maybe she is using the weaving as a way to distract herself while waiting for the latest daily death count. The listener doesn’t know. What is clear is that Helen is storytelling with her weaving on a background dyed the color of blood.

Andromache is weaving on her own blood colored cloth while waiting for Hektor to come home to her. “So she spoke in tears but the wife of Hektor had not yet heard: for no sure messenger had come to her and told her how her husband had held his ground there outside the gates; but she was weaving a web in the inner room of the high house, a red folding robe, and inworking elaborate figures. She called out through the house to her lovely-haired handmaidens to set a great cauldron over the fire, so that there would be hot water for Hektor’s bath as he came back out of the fighting; poor innocent, nor knew how, far from waters for bathing, Pallas Athene had cut him down at the hands of Achilleus.” (271) Adromache drops her shuttle when she receives news of his death. Does she realize that her story is over at this point? That she and her son may not live to weave another day? Certainly, her social status will change, her life spinning out of her control. If she does live, she will weave for another kingdom, not one where she is royalty. Whatever she was weaving will remain unfinished and unused. Its story and hers have been forever changed, both threadbare.

Readers do have a chance to see Helen with some yarn again in The Odyssey. Back home in Sparta she is now able to again spin yarn, this time on a golden spindle given to her by Polybus’ of Thebes wife, Alcandre. “…(H)er maidservant, now brought it in and set it beside her (Helen) full of yarn that had been prepared for spinning. The distaff with the dark-colored wool was laid over the basket.”(336) Helen is restored to her queen status, but she isn’t weaving. She is preparing dark colored yarn for others to weave. Has she too been downgraded to only telling the stories of others? Or does she not feel the need to tell her story anymore? Will no one listen to her stories?

Before dinner Helen presents Telemachus with a robe she has woven and stored. “Helen went to stand by the storing boxes, where there were elaborately wrought robes. She herself had made them. And Helen, shining among women, lifted out one of them, that which was the loveliest in design and the largest and shone like a star.” (448) Could this be the weaving of telling the story of the Trojan War from The Iliad? Perhaps it features the likeness of Odysseus and that is why Helen is giving it to his son. “Helen of the fair cheeks stood by, holding the robe in her hands, and spoke to him and named him, saying: “I too give you this gift, dear child: something to remember from Helen’s hands, for your wife to wear at the lovely occasion of your marriage. Until that time let it lie away in your palace, in your dear mother’s keeping; and I hope you come back rejoicing to your own strong-founded house and to the land of your fathers.” (448)  Telemachus is to wear the robe in a joyful celebration yet to come. Helen’s focus is toward the future and telling stories of redemption. Andromache doesn’t get that chance, wherever she is there is probably not a golden spindle in her hands.

Earlier in the evening a crafty Helen weaves with her words a dinner story for Telemachus. This is after she has plied them with some herbs to soothe their sadness. She spins a tale of Odysseus coming to tell her of the plans of the Greeks. “Sit here now in the palace and take your dinner and listen to me and be entertained. What I will tell you is plausible. I could not tell you all the number nor could I name them, all that make up the exploits of enduring Odysseus, but here is a task such as that strong man endured and accomplished in the Trojan country where you Achaians suffered miseries.”(338) She ravels this story to her benefit revealing  herself a good and faithful confidant of the Greek army. Was this a truthful telling? Or a crafty recreation? Like all of Helen’s motives, this is left unclear by Homer. There is no one to validate this private memory except Odysseus. The mere fact that Helen has emerged from weaver of her story into cloth to public speaker is quite impressive, even if Menelaus’ next dinner story unknits her true motives. In this tale telling instance Helen has crossed into the weaving as a man, in the same way her leaving of her marriage (forced or willingly) was a departure from her gendered role as a faithful wife.

Menelaus does his own weaving and crafting. In a way reminiscent of Penelope’s weaving and unweaving, he unravels Helen’s story with one of her trying to trick the Greek soldiers in the Trojan horse. “Then you came there, Helen; you will have been moved by some divine spirit who wished to grant glory to the Trojans…” (339) His story would have many more witnesses than Helen’s story, though all of the men would back Menelaus whether his tale is true or not. The audience is left to wonder who is weaving by day and who is unraveling in the night in Sparta.

Back in Ithaca, Penelope is spinning in every way trying to save her kingdom. Penelope is the anti-Helen as she weaves and waits. She twists plans not to desert her marriage but to support it in the direst and darkest of circumstances. Helen was once the bride that all fought over and when she had a husband, she left town with Paris. Loyal Penelope avoids all the competing suitors weaving while she waits for her husband’s return.

At the start of the Odyssey Penelope’s weaving deception has fallen to pieces. For years she fooled the suitors with a never-ending funeral cloth project for her father-in-law. She would productively weave by day and precariously unravel by night, a condition many a woman has metaphorically felt in her soul since ancient times. A woman’s work/weaving is never done. Penelope’s weaving of a funeral cloth symbolizes the potential ending of Laertes’ lineage as rulers in Ithaca. If she finishes the cloth, Laertes’ dies, she remarries, then a new family rules. As long as the funeral and marriage haven’t happened, she is “safe”. Her circumspect, thinking all around, nature weaves for her a web of safety as she spins thoughts and plans. But all good weavings, like stories and lives, have an ending. She has avoided the decision by weaving around the suitors with her plan for as long as she could. She is unraveled by one of the servant girls, who believes the whispered words of a suitor spinning tales of love and faithfulness in the dark night as Penelope takes apart her daily work one final time.

In a strange parallelism, Penelope’s weaving and unweaving mirrors the journey her husband is on. Odysseus will come close enough to see Ithaca’s shore and then be blown back again. He will leave one goddess’ web only to land in with another who desires him to stay. His back and forth is metaphorically like the very act of weaving his wife is engaged in day and night. Both delay the time of homecoming, for Odyssey making it longer to return and for Penelope a stay in her choice of the suitors is gained by her craft. Even the adjectives used to describe each of these heroes is related in some way to the act of weaving and spinning. Odysseus is a man of twists and turns, and Penelope is circumspect, thinking of all the possible angles. “These men try to hasten the marriage. I (Penelope) weave my own wiles.” (489) Her mind spins and he physically weaves around the world to get back home where they will wind each other in a loving embrace and spend an extraordinarily long night weaving and spinning their stories for each other. “When Penelope and Odysseus had enjoyed their lovemaking, they took their pleasure in talking, each one telling his story. She, shining among women, told of all she had endured in the palace, as she watched the suitors, a ravening company, who on her account were slaughtering many oxen and fat sheep, and much wine was being drawn from the wine jars. But shining Odysseus told of all the cares he inflicted on other men, and told too of all that in his misery he had toiled through, She listened to him with delight, nor did any sleep fall upon her eyes until he had told her everything.” (529-530)

 Odysseus, “the man of many ways” (307), spins his way home weaving around every obstacle whilst crafting tales of such bravery and bad timing one wonders how much of his storytelling is truth and what has been twisted to suit his honor and chances to arrive home in one seamless piece. He spins lies to protect himself and does it with such ease that all wonder when the spinning stops and the story isn’t a fantastical fictional fabrication. Penelope fools the suitors with her weaving and re-weaving, Odyssey may be doing the exact same thing in a more public manner to save his own reputation, honor, and chance of a happy homecoming.

If the story on the front of a woven piece only tells half the story, the unseen side tells the other half. The backside is where the weaver’s skills and their mistakes can be seen. The front may look perfect, but the back tells the truth. In both The Iliad and The Odyssey, the back side of the story’s fabric shows us the two things happening in the gendered roles of weaving. Women use private quarters to weave, usually surrounded by other women. If weaving yarn is women’s work, for the home, it is best done in the home, far away from the action. Men are allowed, and even encouraged, to spend their days away from home in adventurous action, and to spin the tales of these journeys in front of a predominantly male crowd. The women privately and quietly weave their own lives into the fabric while Odysseus publicly fabricates his own lies, sometimes to save his life.

The audience hears these stories knit together on a Greek hillside and unravels them in their own minds, recreating the ancient pieces anew in their own storytelling. Perhaps all storytellers are circumspect Penelope, daily discovering a new way to spin and weave on old cloth, finding something fresh and exciting in every well-worn story they tell. Perhaps we also contain the “many ways” of Odysseus, twisting and turning every tale to show us in our best light and help us on our journey toward home and the person who will bind themself to us and stay up all night listening until we have told it all. Either way, humans weave webs of words or images onto the fabric of our lives. Unafraid, or maybe un-a-frayed, we are knit together by whatever is before or behind us with the power of a well spun story.

BarbenHomer

i was smack dab in the middle of my graduate class on Homer reading through The Iliad and the Odyssey when Barbenhiemer weekend happened. i saw both movies on separate days but they hype and the storylines reminded me so much of Homer’s classic epic that i used them both in my final essay for my class on Homer. seems there is nothing new under the sun. or in the darkness of a movie theater…

HUM 503: BarbenHomer

       Thousands of years ago, a skilled poet entranced an audience on a Grecian hillside. They were in for an afternoon of epic storytelling as a performing artist wove mythical yarns from The Iliad and The Odyssey. All heard tales of heroes seeking honor and heroines watching for homecoming. Included was humor, a great deal of hubris, and hopefully, everyone left the hillside, understanding more about what it means to be a human enduring suffering and setbacks, still able to forgive and forge a meaningful life. A few weeks ago, audiences gathered at movie theaters to spend the day entertained by two newer and just as epic tales, Barbie and Oppenheimer. It became a full day of movie watching, quickly dubbed Barbenheimer on social media. Proving audiences still hunger for stories of heroes and will trade a day for a skilled narrator to take them on a journey on sunny hillsides and darkened movie theaters to examine the questions of the ages.

        Christopher Nolan's film about J. Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb, mimics The Iliad in exploring the two issues at the heart of creating a radioactive weapon. Nolan separates his film into two sections, woven seamlessly together in a jagged back-and-forth timeline throughout the film. Moreover, he gives those sections nuclear names, fission and fusion. Fission divides an unstable nucleus into two parts, and those scenes are the political and personal battle between two powerful men, Oppenheimer and Strauss, much like the disagreement that is the focus of The Iliad between Achilles and Menelaus. All four characters are unstable, not at home, and in wartime. This fission involves bickering, backstabbing, and revenge plots. Political power makes the personal vendettas more unstable (as it always seems to happen). Strauss is a modern Menelaus in his pursuit to have the upper hand and maintain control of his honor and status at any cost.

        Meanwhile, Achilles, with all his physical strength, is a weapon in waiting; he is a literal ticking time bomb throughout the story and is unleashed late in the story. Oppenheimer, with his mental genius, also contains a weapon within the recesses of his brilliant and tortured mind. Oppenheimer and Achilles' are both technically perfect. However, strengths and subsequent victories come with regrets and recriminations. Both men have the power to end a war, but at what cost? Entering the war will cost Achilles his life soon after The Iliad closes, and the audience watches Oppenheimer lose his psychological peace and, eventually, his career and honor. Once unleashed, the weapons cause destruction and devastation upon the humus and humans of other nations. There are scenes of intense patriotism as the visiting team cheers from the sidelines after the pyrrhic victory of Hektor's death and the bomb dropped on Japan but lurking closely behind those cheers are the cries of terror and sorrow from the losing side. Winning a battle has uncalculatable costs to humanity and main characters. The danger is within and beyond us. The devastation is private and public. The destruction is personal and national.

        Are these men heroes? Or are they just humans with the curse of hubris? Are they playing God or do the gods play with them? The audience, hillside or in movie theaters, must follow the creation of celebrities and witness that the higher the pedestal, the more potential to destroy, both personally and publicly, on small and large scales. They watch how infidelity creates fissures in friendships and working relationships. There is nothing new under the sun in the breaking of trust between brethern. Wounded egos still drive humanity to unspeakable acts.

        The Iliad and Oppenheimer are larger-than-life stories of national war, and war is always a story of power. Who has it? Who can take it away? What will end it? Fusion is the storyline driving the larger war narrative of both epics. Combining two powerful entities releases vast amounts of energy at home and abroad. Nations at a nervous standstill waiting for news of their soldiers. Individuals fighting and dying in these wars for ideals. Moral quandaries are inside the heart of each character and action. War is always the most devastating on the home team; that is where the earth will be scorched, void of humanity. At the end of The Iliad, the war is not over. Neither do all wars cease because countries have nuclear weapons. Oppenheimer ends with an image of ripples in a pond. Wars and weapons create these endless ripples. Ask Agamemnon; he will tell Odysseus all about it in Hades. The final scenes with Einstein and Oppenheimer are mirror reflections and refractions of Achilles and Priam's last moments of connection as characters and audience experience the painful cost of war for all involved. Personal psychological effects of fission occur, as well as destruction through the fusion of powerful nations clashing. It is a nuclear explosion. The audience is left to examine their hearts for answers to the questions of the cost of private and public wars and the overwhelming suffering and death both bring to humanity.

        If The Iliad and Oppenheimer represent the war and wrathful side of our human experience, perhaps the other half of this storytelling equation leads to a brighter dream homecoming experience. Director Greta Gerwig's Barbie movie begins, shockingly, with nary a speck of pink; it is a graphic grayscale scene of smashing baby dolls which seems oddly reminiscent of the ending of the Trojan War. A female narrator states that Barbie has solved all women's problems, or so they think. Barbie starts her day on a beach, and the first sight of Odysseus in The Odyssey is also on a beach. The Trojan War ending favorably for the Greeks does not mean that all of Odysseus' (Menelaus' or Agamemnon's) problems are in the past. Barbie and Odysseus will take journeys filled with twists and turns to find their true home and discover what it means to be a human amid the epic questions of death and suffering.

        Both heroes start on pedestals for the audience. Barbie is the perfect and unattainable ideal for femininity physically and in the myriad opportunities afforded her (as Doctor Barbie, President Barbie, Grad School Essay Writing Barbie). Odysseus is the epitome of the wisest and bravest man, superior in his physical, adventures, and crafty successes. However, soon into their tales, both realize they have flat feet (Odysseus' are metaphorically tied by Calypso's obsession and Poseidon's revenge plots) and thoughts of death they cannot escape. Barbie falls from grace instead of floating from her dream house, and Odysseus has his graceless flaws with a lack of hubris in kicking a blind Cyclops when he is down and napping when he most needs to be monitoring his crew. Not every day is the “best day ever” for either of these characters. Eventually, both heroes at low points of introspection existentially question their purpose as they talk with two seemingly different goddesses. Athene is the beautiful goddess of war and wisdom, and Weird Barbie is the always-in-the-splits goddess of being played with too much (a type of war), leading her to an understanding and wisdom beyond other Barbies. These goddesses can only partially answer questions presented and help the questioners along their journeys with some maps and a small amount of protection along the way. The journey is essential to being human and can’t be missed.

        How do these two wandering and wondering heroes show what it means to be human? Perhaps in their wandering and wondering. They are always searching for their people and their home. Odysseus can't be fully Odysseus on Calypso's island. He is a shell of a man, passive and trapped. A man who can't be happy on an island with a goddess is akin to a stereotypical Barbie with existential angst surrounded by all the ideals of feminism. Odysseus won a war, and Barbie cured gender inequality toward women in the utopian Barbieland, yet both are unfulfilled. They aren't settled, even in a dream house. Home, for both our wayward heroes, is a place where one is fully human and loved. So, if The Iliad is about wrath and war taking away the spark of humanity in its fissions and fusions of power, then The Odyssey is about how finding a witness to listen and love us through our stories gives us home, humanity, and hope beyond our sufferings.

        Both Odysseus and Barbie must travel to the underworld on their journeys. In Barbie's case, it is a penthouse view board room at Mattel, filled with men in suits who want to put her back in a box and take away any humanness she is experiencing. She has a moment of clarity and makes a run for it. Odysseus is in the mythical Hades. He faces his demons, regrets, mistakes, and warnings about his future. He leaves Hades will his mind set homeward armed with information from Tiresias, a blind seer. Barbie meets up with her ghost guide in Mattel. Ruth, her creator, gives her a cup of tea (much nicer than the blood offered to Hades' guests) and a way out of this fresh hell. Barbie grabs a ride with her “owner”, Gloria, who will accompany her back to Barbieland. Eventually, the Phaiakians gracefully bring Odysseus home and lay him on Ithaca's shore.

        Once they finally arrive home, Barbie and Odysseus must deal with rude men/Ken taking over in their absence. Leave the dream house for a few days or twenty years; one may not like what fills the void. Squatters have wrecked the place and claimed it as their own. There are even not-so-subtle reminders of the Trojan War throughout Kendom as he is obsessed with horses, and horse imagery is the primary décor trend in the “Kendom”. It seems that men from ancient times to the modern day are constantly reminding themselves of “honor” filled victories over enemies in trophies, tales, or a substantial tacky mural of horses. There is a difference between telling one's story and lording a conquest over enemies (a lesson Achilles learns in The Iliad.) Barbie and Odysseus must use tricks and disguises to fool these gatecrashers and bad decorators. While The Odyssey does not feature a huge dance number for the suitors, the beach war of the Kens does hold a bit of what it might have been like in Ithaca for those moments of terror, without all the blood and guts. The Barbies end up ruling the kingdom again through a democratic vote back into power, and on a hopeful note that Ken will find himself apart from Barbie and realize his worth as more than just Barbie-and-Ken. The suitors are not given a second chance, and Ithaca must endure the loss of two generations of men. Barbie extends humanity towards Ken in a way reminiscent of Achilles' humane extension towards Priam in returning Hektor's body at the end of The Iliad. Barbie welcomes the outsiders (Kens and Weird Barbie). In killing both suitors and a dozen of the women servants, Odysseus still does not see how revenge creates the cycle of hatred afresh. Watch out for those ripples, Odysseus. It seems Barbie contains both Odysseus' polytropic (wandering widely) and Penelope's peripheral (circumspect, thinking all around) in ways that show even more complete human hope. Perhaps Odysseus will now rule his kingdom in partnership with circumspect Penelope, using their strengths to create a more perfect union.

        Is there a happy ending after homecoming? Barbie ends by starting on another journey, a very uniquely human and feminine journey; she goes to the gynecologist. Odysseus will also be heading off with his oar (no additional commentary here) to an unknown destination. Barbie embraces being fully human, even with unanswered questions about gender, purpose, sorrow, and death. Odysseus is dealing with the ripples of his revenge, and Athene must stop the never-ending fighting this time. Both endings fully encompass humanity. There is a positive fusion of growth and change that heals and the cyclical nature of fissuring faults that remain. So, there is a hopeful and human ending. There is a beautiful reunion of Odysseus and Penelope finally holding each other and telling their stories in the bed Odysseus built for Penelope. So also does Ruth, the creator, tells Barbie her story and lovingly grasps Barbie's hands to convey to her the feelings and beauty of being human. These visuals and emotions come crashing on Barbie precisely as is described in the moment of Odysseus and Penelope's tearful touching reunion moment. This is the happiest endings we can hope for as humans, someone to fully listen to our stories. Humans need someone who will listen through the long night and let us feel what it is to connect. We need someone to hold us through our homesick journeys toward healing, even though they are filled with twists and turns.

        "Do you guys ever think about dying?" asks Barbie at the beginning of her exploration of humanness. Yes, Barbie, as evidenced by The Iliad, The Odyssey, Oppenheimer, and Barbie, humans think about and tell stories about dying. We constantly explore what it means to live from one breathtaking moment to the next. The modern films contain moments where all the audience hears is human breath. At Oppenheimer’s explosive moment of the testing of the first atomic bomb, the only sound heard was breathing. As Ruth, the creator character, imparts the realness of true human womanhood, we hear Barbie take a singular breath. Ruth tells Barbie, “Humans only have one ending. Ideas life forever.” Being human means living from the most horrific moments where every breath is a struggle and beautiful moments where one catches their breath on the sheer wonder of life. These ideas of war, wrath, fission, fusion, home, hope, and humanity are still worth our breath in the living and the telling. While “the Destinies put in mortal men the heart of endurance”  to keep breathing and asking questions of life's meaning amidst the ever-present reality of death and sorrow, the Destinies have not answered those questions. Whether on a hillside in Greece or a movie theatre in Florida, humans give breath, breadth, and depth to the questions in their hearts, communities, and art. Furthermore, as Homer, Christopher Nolan, and Greta Gerwig show, part of the human experience is the journey through one’s actions and agency, the experiences of holding on and letting go, wandering and wondering, destruction and construction, loss and gain, holding someone’s hands and showing them something beautiful, and in the joy of finally being held and loved through all our breathtaking stories.

LEA’S (always too LONG) LAST WORDS OF 2022

hey friends and family, we made it through this not quite hallmark movie of a year. YAY US! i want to thank my yoga pants, who have been with me through thick and thicker, & my new tattoo (sorry, dad). in case you missed my tattoo announcement or saw it on my lower arm, it is an ampersand (the & symbol) tattoo. i have a LONG love of ampersands for holding two different ideas together. plus the "yes, &" first rule of improv (and this year was a lot of improvisation). ampersands also represent the messy middle of a story. somewhere after once upon a time & LONG before a happy ending. keeping our stories going, even when we don't see all LONGINGS fulfilled. & yet, He is good & the story is not over. i am finding that my stories never end the ways i envision. it takes LONGER, is 1000% more difficult, & requires me to trust more & talk less, but i know everything sad will come untrue & be more beautiful for the tears that rinsed clean my vision & washed away my foolish pride. we live in the ampersand of it all. saying "yes, &" to all that comes our way. knowing it will all be made well.

my word of the year is LONGING. it comes from old english, 'dwell in thought, yearn'; related to the dutch langen, 'present, offer' and german langen, 'reach, extend.' how often i have yearned to reach beyond the present offerings. i don't think i am alone in LONGING for all to be made new, for glimpses of goodness in the land of the living, & to know all will end well on the LONG road we are traveling.  can we live, love, laugh, & LONG together? all the most interesting stories are stories of LONGING & searching. the joy of being seen & found in that searching.

"We search for a good self to be and for good work to do. We search to become human in a world that tempts us always to be less than human or looks to us to be more. We search to love and to be loved. And in a world where it is often hard to believe in much of anything, we search to believe in something holy and beautiful and life-transcending that will give meaning and purpose to the lives we live." {from The Longing for Home: Reflections at Midlife by Frederick Buechner}

2022 was a year of learning to sit in the present uncomfortable dark moments, LONGING for glimpses of a bright future. trusting in a God who has been my very present help for half a century to show up strong & loving. & He has shown up. in every plot twist. filling my every LONGING with sure & steady hope. with constant & comforting friends. & surprising me with joy. i am not brave or non-complaining in my LONGING, but i have been confident that no story He writes ends with ashes. there is beauty everlasting ahead. we never LONG in vain. He binds up the brokenhearted, shines in the darkness, and instead of magically whisking us out of all sorrows (which would always be my preference), He walks with us through the shadows. the road is LONG, but we are not alone. our LONGING for Home and wholeness was answered by a Savior who left His home to come and be Emmanuel, God making His home WITH us in our LONGINGS.

"He comes to us in the brokenness of our health, in the shipwreck of our family lives, in the loss of all possible peace of mind, even in the very thick of our sins. He saves us in our disasters, not from them. He emphatically does not promise to meet only the odd winner of the self-improvement lottery. He meets us all in our endless and inescapable losing." {robert farrar capon}

each passing year gives me more to worry about. but as i am learning (& sharing with anyone willing to listen), "worry is an investment, of two of my most precious resources: time and energy, in a future that i do not want." this has helped curb some of my fretting. another help is a $20 bluetooth sleep mask & good audiobooks playing to keeps my mind from racing when i lay my head down (at promptly 9 pm on school nights.) i highly recommend these audibles: everything sad is untrue by daniel nayeri, this tender land by william krueger, bomb shelter by mary laura philpott, and anything greek mythological by stephen fry. 

one decades LONG LONGING (see what i did there?) is on the calendar for june 2023. I AM GOING TO LONDON. alert the new monarchy. after three decades of mortgages, moving, babies, too many books bought, braces, summer camps, teenagers' cars, and a 1960's house falling apart around us thwarting any overseas traveling, it is happening. thanks to some additional work writing plays and modules for theatre teachers for the past few years (plus, i am reasonably sure adam has padded my "get lit in london" savings account). i plan to see ALL THE PLAYS, drink all the teas, and do a c.s. lewis oxford tour or two. if you have any more suggestions, please let me know.

in the pursuit of alliteration, i had a second sinus surgery at shands in september. so, we have reached the age when surgery updates come in holiday cards. sigh. i was told the medical students watching were impressed with the amount of stuff in my head. i took that as a compliment and a sign  of a lifeLONG commitment to educating young people. sadly, my sinuses continue to be, in the words of my LONG-suffering ENT, "a shakespearean tragedy." i LONG for a day of no more coughing. the past three years haven't been a good time to be a chronic cougher. as you can imagine.

nadia bolz-weber, founder of the house for all sinners & saints in colorado, says she loves the carol o, holy night. especially this line: long lay the world in sin and error pining. pining means failing gradually in health or vitality, especially from grief, regret, or LONGING. i often feel this regret, failing, & pining heavily. the following line is till He appeared and the soul felt its worth. my soul doesn't feel very worthy these days when i look at my incomplete to-do list, resume, bank account, unclosed rings on my apple watch, image in a mirror, or when i say or do all the wrong things. epic failures, endless pining. nadia continues, "My soul can never feel its worth if it has to earn it." His appearing means failings, weakness, and mistakes can be where God enters in. lowliness & despair is when He can work in us. we feel our worth best when (as the song continues) "we fall to our knees." in humility. in desperate "i just can't do this anymore. i need help" moments. when LONGING seeps in from our own (or someone else’s) foibles and failures, let's be grace-full to our own souls (& everyone’s soul) and celebrate being beloved humans in whom God's grace is always at work.

another hymn for this LONGING season is by charles wesley…

come, thou LONG expected Jesus, born to set thy people free;

from our fears and sins, release us; let us find our rest in Thee.

israel's strength and consolation, hope of all the earth Thou art;

dear desire of every nation, joy of every LONGING heart.

i find that i need a constant release from my fears & sins. perhaps because most of my sins are from fear. afraid that i won't get/be/have enough when there is love enough & overflowing grace for us all. i've been trying to have "gracious assumptions" as a default this year. assuming that others are trying their best, not against me, or winning the race of life as i struggle for last place. everyone needs the same care/mercy/hope i LONG for. EVERY. ONE. 

i hold on to worry when i don't trust God. i hold on to anger when i don't trust God. i hold onto envy or feel threatened when i'm insecure, & i am insecure when i don't trust God (shocker). choosing to trust God gives me gracious assumptions to listen to others and understand before trying to be understood. trusting God to redeem and make all things right in His time and ways. it is a lifeLONG process of releasing and unclenching my hands and heart. knowing my LONGINGS are answered & filled by & in Him.

i also love the line, "let us find our rest in Thee." rest has become a necessity this year (i’ve ignored it far too long). i have a "slight" addiction to getting things done (hello, my name is lea, here is my infinite to-do list.) this year health concerns made me sabbath for a season. sabbath has several meanings: "stop," "rest," "worship," & "delight." slowing down my racing pace is the only way i have time to love God, those around me, and myself well. "hurry is incompatible with love, joy, & peace." {john mark comer} i need sabbath time to find & savor the goodness, to bring my best & kindest self into each day. a slow pace & margins in my days, weeks, years is a work in progress for this hurry addict. "Rest and laughter are the most spiritual and subversive acts of all. Laugh, rest, slow down." {anne lamott} i do love to be subversive. & sabbath rest has soothed some LONGINGS in good ways. sabbath is ultimately about trusting that God is at work, so i can rest. 

many of you have brought joy into my LONGING heart this year. you have prayed for us, mailed cards, sent food and provisions, cleaned our house, mowed our lawn, or just listened to me through the phone or text feed. we are grateful. life is hard & our LONGINGS are not in vain. 

c.s. lewis said this about LONGINGS, "For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited…. At present we are on the outside, the wrong side of the door. But all the pages of the New Testament are rustling with the rumor that it will not always be so. Someday, God willing, we shall get 'in'… We will put on glory… We want to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become part of it."

One Day we will LONG no more. we will be a part of all the beauty, the glory, finally united forever. we will “get in” because Christ came to us. He LONGS for us & with us. His Light breaks through the LONG darkness. 

LONG on, my friends. we beLONG to each other here, to Him eternally, & i am glad to be in such company now & forever. 

lea noblin marshall  december 2022

O Lord, all my longing is before You, and my sighing is not hidden from You.  psalm 38:9