i don't know, in all the mythology i've read, she's never seemed particularly wild, at least not in her earthern form. free, certainly, but not like, dangerous wild. certainly she could be cruel, but then, it's hard being a woman in a man's world (attolia!), especially if she's fulfilling a role tradition deems for men (attolia! ;D). she was a huntress, certainly, but she was also protector of the wild, and she was said (according to wikipedia; as much as i love mythology, my memory in that area does not extend to names and myths i can't relate to -- i called oedipus orpheus once) to have tamed a bear and sent it to the athenians, until one day someone killed it, and she sorta kinda overreacted.
and i don't know if that's wildness, precisely (well, it is, but she's easily one of the tamest gods), because hera's been known to do some pretty mean things to the girls her husband slept with and even girls he didn't -- echo, for one.
but i love artemis, whatever her character. of all the gods and goddesses, i feel like she's the only one that's considered really an equal of the males. hera's considered a bitter, jealous, whiny -- for a lack of a better word -- bitch, athena's like, miles above everyone, aphrodite sleeps with everyone and is generally feared because even zeus cannot resist the power of love, hestia is barely mentioned, and when she is she's always the epitome of what a married woman should be like, and demeter -- well, i haven't read much about her, but she's sidelined, too. but artemis is like, fierce without having to sacrifice her femininity -- because even though she's not aphrodite, she is shown to be able to fall in love -- orion, in some versions, and endymion (though selene is to artemis as helios is to apollo -- in some accounts they're the same, in others, the former are titans and the latter are gods, so), and she may be ruthless (bouphagos), but rarely unjustly so (actaeon? seriously? not like he could help it that he stumbled upon you and you were bathing).
and with the whole unmarried woman thing -- i don't think they had particular freedoms outside of sparta. basically they had to learn how to keep house with their mothers and listen to their fathers. no education, little rights...as forward as the greeks were with most things, that's the one thing that is quite disappointing, i admit. the only difference after they were married was that they now had to listen to their husbands rather than their fathers, wasn't it?
and unfortunately, crazy is not the new black in my school. :C we were reading catcher in the rye, and i was talking about how the naming of phoebe could be a reference to artemis (who was sometimes called phoebe to apollo's phoebus), and the whole childhood/innocence thing and holden's desire to protect that, etc. and my class looked at me like i belonged in an asylum. it's a good thing my teacher loves me! ;D
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Re: Crazy is the new black.
Date: 1/16/11 09:45 pm (UTC)and i don't know if that's wildness, precisely (well, it is, but she's easily one of the tamest gods), because hera's been known to do some pretty mean things to the girls her husband slept with and even girls he didn't -- echo, for one.
but i love artemis, whatever her character. of all the gods and goddesses, i feel like she's the only one that's considered really an equal of the males. hera's considered a bitter, jealous, whiny -- for a lack of a better word -- bitch, athena's like, miles above everyone, aphrodite sleeps with everyone and is generally feared because even zeus cannot resist the power of love, hestia is barely mentioned, and when she is she's always the epitome of what a married woman should be like, and demeter -- well, i haven't read much about her, but she's sidelined, too. but artemis is like, fierce without having to sacrifice her femininity -- because even though she's not aphrodite, she is shown to be able to fall in love -- orion, in some versions, and endymion (though selene is to artemis as helios is to apollo -- in some accounts they're the same, in others, the former are titans and the latter are gods, so), and she may be ruthless (bouphagos), but rarely unjustly so (actaeon? seriously? not like he could help it that he stumbled upon you and you were bathing).
and with the whole unmarried woman thing -- i don't think they had particular freedoms outside of sparta. basically they had to learn how to keep house with their mothers and listen to their fathers. no education, little rights...as forward as the greeks were with most things, that's the one thing that is quite disappointing, i admit. the only difference after they were married was that they now had to listen to their husbands rather than their fathers, wasn't it?
and unfortunately, crazy is not the new black in my school. :C we were reading catcher in the rye, and i was talking about how the naming of phoebe could be a reference to artemis (who was sometimes called phoebe to apollo's phoebus), and the whole childhood/innocence thing and holden's desire to protect that, etc.
and my class looked at me like i belonged in an asylum.
it's a good thing my teacher loves me! ;D