ART HISTORY ADVENT CALENDAR - DAY 10

 Week of Love

10th of December - Hermaphroditus and Salmacis

SALMACIS AND HERMAPHRODITUS
I was always the odd one out
I only had a shawl for a clue
alone among all of my kindred
in the end, the yearning was too strong
liquid mirror, who's the fairest one of all?
I've walked through ice and fire, through storm and flood
but I still haven't found what I seek
but I still haven't sought what to find
a sprig of lavender would be nice in my hair
my head swims, my throat's seared, flames dance before my eyes
this clump of lavender bushes will be fine, won't it?
the sound of rushing freshwater smites upon my ears
braiding, with lithe and gentle fingers, these scented stalks
I bend the knees, cup both my hands, and quaff liquid crystal
the corsage fits my right wrist perfectly
it tastes like this refreshing spearmint, that grows all around
gulp, gulp, there must be a thirsty stranger at the spring
coursing down my throat, this draught quenches the inner flame
a stripling or a maiden? A young person, seen from behind...
splashing on my face, the perspiration is washed off
I tie my hair back in a golden sun of a chignon
now a rest in the shade until the afternoon falls
those sharp features... that dark shade on his lip... it's a he!!
the chirp of cicadas lulls me off to sleep
Now I stand right before you; you're in for a surprise!
GASP!!
Fair stranger, I have been waiting for you!!
She's popped up like a traitor, without forewarning!!
If not as a sweetheart, as a sister or a friend...
Flustered, I turn my head to the left as she clasps me!
At least I've kissed his right cheekbone! Shy pretty boy...
L-leave me al-lone, or I will l-l-leave this pl-lace!
He turns to the pond, not seeing me saunter behind him...
At last alone... ready to have a swim in peace...
this mastic bush provides the perfect hiding place to watch
my right foot, refreshed, shivers pleasantly; the left one plunges in
now he casts off his cloak... such dazzling white shoulder blades!
undressed, I wade until I stand up to the waist
his shapely legs cleave the water like a frog's
so free and so fresh I have never felt on land
this blaze sears me like a raisin in the sun
so fresh and so free I have never felt on land
only he can quench my insides, that no longer can hold this flame...
even the remembrance of my quest has dissolved
I WIN!!
she clasps me around the waist, plunging me underwater
he kicks, and writhes; I hold him even tighter
my lips are sealed to keep precious air within me
his shut lips constantly turn away from mine
at last all my limbs falter, my lips part, my lungs are flooded...
precious diamonds of air rise to the surface as he grows pale...
is this the way things should end?
is this the way things should end?
I make a wish to live through this icy, liquid darkness
I make a wish to give my own life to save his own
and the wish comes true, indeed
and the wish comes true, of course
both male and female, both dead and alive, and neither
both female and male, both alive and dead, and neither
and all who touch this spring may share our fate
and all who touch this spring will share our fate

SALMACIS AND HERMAPHRODITUS - An astrological interpretation

 

image: Hermaphroditus und die Nymphe Salmakis, Bartholomeus Spranger (1546 - 1611). Wikimedia commons (link).

Salmacis and Hermaphroditus

 

It is probably safe to say that there is no actual fountain on earth which literally possesses the power to cause any man who sets foot in it to emerge from the waters half-man and half-woman.

And yet Ovid, in the fourth book of his Metamorphoses, relates the story of the son of Hermes and Aphrodite whose fateful encounter with the nymph Salmacis imparted this power to the waters of the spring, as though the location and effects of that place were actually well-known in his day.

Ovid actually tells the story as a "story-within-a-story" in his poem, during an extended episode in which the daughters of Minyas refuse to set aside their work and join in the rituals of the god Dionysus, but instead continue weaving -- and as they do so, they relate stories of various interactions with the divine realm, debating amongst themselves as they do so whether or not the gods could really perform all the wonders described (a question which is answered at the end of the tale, when the impious sisters who failed to recognize the divinity of Dionysus are transformed into chittering bats).

The final story they tell before this fate befalls them is the story of Samacis and Hermaphroditus. Alcithoe, one of the Minyeides, begins:

I will explain the way in which the fountain
of Salmacis, whose enervating waters
effeminate the limbs of any man
who bathes in it, came by its reputation,
for though the fountain's ill effects are famous,
their cause has never been revealed before. Metamorphoses 4. 396 - 401.

Thus in the excellent translation of Charles Martin published in 2005 and available here and elsewhere where books are sold; many earlier translations are available on the web. 

I find that very literal translations can be the most helpful for examining Star Myths for the celestial clues that may have been included in the original but which may have been "lost in translation" if the translator does not pick them up and bring them across into the new language. With literal translations, the clues are usually carried over, because the translator is trying to render the words of the original as closely as possible into the new language, even if the result sounds a little unusual.

Here is a link to such a version, from the nineteenth century scholar Roscoe Mongan. The account of the encounter between Salmacis and Hermaphroditus at the pool which ever after bore its unique powers (and ever after was named after the nymph herself, becoming "the fountain,") is translated there as follows (Alcithoe is speaking as she and her sisters weave at their loom):

Learn, then, from what cause Salmacis became notorious, and why, with its enfeebling waters, it unnerves the limbs bathed in it. The cause lies hid, but the power of the spring is very well known. The Naiads nursed, in the caves of Ida, a boy, born to Mercury from the Cytherean goddess, whose face was of that kind in which both father and mother might be recognised; he also obtained his name from them. As soon as he had completed thrice five years, he forsook his native mountains and, leaving Ida, that had been his nurse, he loved to wander about in unknown places, and to see unknown rivers, his curiosity lessening the fatigue. He proceeds to the Lycian cities also, and to the Carians that border upon Lycia. He sees here a pool of water, clear even to the very ground below. There are not here any fenny reeds, nor barren sedges, nor rushes with sharp points. The water is transparent, yet the borders of the pool are fringed with fresh turf, and with plants perpetually blooming. A nymph dwells there, but one who is not suited either for the chase, nor one who is won't to bend the bow, nor one who is to compete in the foot-race, and she alone, of all the naiads, was not known to the swift Diana (Artemis). The report is, that her sisters often said to her: "Salmacis, do take either a javelin, or a painted quiver, and combine they leisure time with the toilsome chase." She does not take either a javelin or a painted quiver, and she does not combine her hours, spent in leisure, with the toilsome chase; but at one time she bathes her beautiful limbs in her own fountain; often she smooths down her tresses with a comb of Cytorian boxwood; and consults the waters which she looks into [to see] what is most becoming to herself [i.e., she looks into the pool to see which way of arranging her hair is the most beautiful on her]. And, at another time, having her person enveloped in a transparent garment, she reclines either upon the soft leaves, or upon the soft grass. She often gathered flowers, and now, also, by chance, she was gathering them when she saw the youth, and wished to possess him as soon as she beheld him. However, although she was hastening to approach him, she did not actually approach to him until she had arranged herself, and until she had looked at her raiment, and had assumed her [most captivating] aspect, and deserved to appear beautiful.

Then thus she began to speak: "O boy most worthy to be believed to be a god! if thou art a god, thou mayst be Cupid; or, if thou art a mortal, happy are they who gave thee birth. [. . .] If thou hast any spouse, let my pleasure be secretly enjoyed; or, if thou hast none, let me be [thy consort], and let us enter the same bridal chamber." After these words the naiad became silent. A blush suffused the features of the young. He knows not what love is, but even the very act of blushing was becoming to him. Such a colour is in apples hanging upon a tree exposed to the sun, or in painted ivory, or in the moon blushing beneath her brightness, when he auxiliary brazen cymbals resound in vain.

To the nymph soliciting, without cessation, at least such kisses as he might give to a sixte, and to her now advancing her arms to his neck, as white as ivory, he says: "Wilt thou cease? or must I fly and leave these places, along with thyself also?" Salmacis was alarmed, and said: "I surrender these places free to thee, O stranger!" and, with a retreating step, she pretends to depart. But then, also looking back and being concealed in a thicket of shrubs, she lay hid, and placed on the ground her bended knees. But he, as being only a boy, and as if being unobserved, goes hither and thither on the lonely sward, and dips in the playful ripples [first] the soles of his feet, and [afterwards] his feet as far as the ankles. Nor is there any delay; being delighted with the temperature of the gentle waters, he throws off from his tender person his soft garments. But then, indeed, Salmacis was amazed, and became excited with desire for his unrobed beauty; the eyes, too, of the nymph burn, no otherwise than the sun, when shining most brilliantly with a clear disk, it is reflected from the opposite image of a mirror. With difficulty can she endure delay; and now with difficulty can she defer her joy. Now she desires to embrace him; and now, distracted with love, she can scarcely restrain herself. He, striking his body with his hands bent inwards, swiftly plunges into the stream, and throwing out his arms alternately, shines in the clear waters, just as if any one were to enclose ivory figures, or white lilies, within clear glass.

"We have conquered!" exclaims the naiad, "lo, he is mine!" and, throwing all her garments far away, she plunges into the midst of the waters, and seizes him, resisting her, and snatches kisses in the struggle, and puts down her hand and touches his breast much against his will; and clings around the youth, sometimes in one direction, sometimes in another. Finally she entangles him struggling hard against her, and anxious to escape from her, like a serpent, which the royal bird takes up and carries away aloft it, as it hangs suspended, holds fast his head and feet and entangles his expanded wings with its tail.

And [she clung to him as closely] as the tendrils of the ivy are wont to entwine themselves around the tall trunks of trees, and as the polypus, but letting down his sucker on all sides, grasps his enemy captured beneath the water. The descendant of Atlas persists, and denies to the nymph her hoped-for joy. She presses him closely, and as she was clinging to him with her entire person she said: "Although thou mayest struggle, O thou obstinate being! notwithstanding this thou shalt not escape. May ye so ordain it, O ye gods! and let no length of time separate him from me or me from him!" These supplications obtained the favour of the [lit. their own] deities, for the persons of these two, becoming incorporated, are united together, and one form includes both of them, just as if anyone should see from beneath a bark formed over both of them, branches to become united in their growth and to spring up equally. Thus, after their bodies were united in a firm embrace, they are no longer two bodies; but yet the form of them is two-fold; so that it could be called neither woman nor boy; it seems to be neither, and yet both.

Wherefore, when Hermaphroditus sees that the clear waters, into which he had descended as a man, had rendered him only half a male, and that his limbs were becoming softened in them; holding up his hands, he says, but now not with the voice of a man: "O both father and mother! grant this favour to your son who has the name of you both. Whosoever comes as a man to these streams, let him go out thence as half a man, and let him suddenly become effeminate in the waters that he touches." Both parents being moved, confirmed the words of their double-shaped son, and tinged the fountain with a drug that renders sex ambiguous. 11 - 14.

Where is this famous fountain, whose properties were apparently well-known? Is it possible that it actually existed in ancient times, or that its waters still possess such properties to this day?

I believe in fact that this fountain actually does exist -- but that it is located in the celestial realms, and not on earth. The pool is found at the widest, brightest section of the Milky Way band, where the two zodiac constellations of Scorpio and Sagittarius are stationed on either side (visible during the evening hours during the summer months of the northern hemisphere). 

The clearest indication that this is the section of the night sky to which this myth is giving reference is the extended metaphor in which the poet compares the clinging of Salmacis to the person of Hermaphroditus to a serpent being carried upwards by an eagle, and twisting and wrapping about the bird of prey. This metaphor clearly points to the two Milky Way constellations of Aquila (Eagle) and Scorpio or Serpens, the Eagle of Aquila being located above the Scorpion and the Serpent in this brightest portion of the Milky Way band. Furthermore the Eagle is a paranatellon of Scorpio and may replace it, as in the Christian tetramorph. Serpens is another paranatellon of Scorpio.

In fact, I believe that from the clues in the ancient poem itself (the best extant version of this particular myth, although it is also referenced by the earlier historian Diodorus Siculus, and obviously has an origin much earlier in the mythology of ancient Greece rather than Rome or the Etruscans, since the boy's name is a combination of the Greek names of the god Hermes and goddess Aphrodite, rather than the Latin versions of the same, although Ovid of course uses the Latin name for him Mercury, and calls her by paraphrase "the Cytherean goddess"), the youth who dips his feet into the waters is played by the constellation Ophiucus, which is flanked by serpents on either side -- just as Salmacis is described as clinging to him with her entire body, like a serpent, first on one side and then on the other.

In the diagram below, you can see that Ophiucus is "dipping his feet" into the pool (the widest and brightest part of the Milky Way band):

The nymph Salmacis is probably Scorpio, crouching in a thicket before she rushes out to wrap herself around Hermaphroditus, although earlier in the poem some of the description suggests Virgo (particularly the part about gathering flowers when she first spies Hermaphroditus -- can you see what celestial features might play a role in this part of the account?)

The struggle that ensues contains an extended metaphor involving an eagle ("the royal bird") and a snake -- again, this probably refers to Aquila and Scorpio or Serpens, and is a pattern found in many myths and traditions involving this part of the sky (see below for our interpretation of the Mexican coat of arms).

After Hermaphroditus emerges from the pool, now merged with Salmacis and sharing the gender of both man and woman, the waters from then on have the power of effecting the same change upon those with whom they come in contact. 

The constellation Sagittarius, which in ancient Greek myth frequently plays characters of either male or female sex (as you will see if you examine the evidence discussed in Star Myths of the World and how to interpret them, Volume Two) may play the role of Hermaphroditus emerging from the stream, now changed. 

Thus, the "action" of the myth can be said to commence on the right of our screen as we look at the star chart above (the west) and proceed towards the east -- a very significant direction of movement, from a spiritual point of view (this is also discussed in the latest book). The two figures of Hermaphroditus and Salmacis begin on the right side of the sky (as we look towards the south in the northern-hemisphere view above), then they go into the fountain and there is a struggle (described in terms of a serpent entwining about an eagle) and emerge on the other side as one hermaphroditic figure (Sagittarius).

From the above analysis, we can be confident that the above encounter never actually took place on this earth between literal, historical figures who merged into one being. 

But that does not mean that the myth itself is "not true."

In fact, I believe the myths are actually true, and on many profound levels (perhaps not just "many levels" but rather infinite levels, descending deeper and deeper without end).

One of the ways that they are true is that they describe the experience of our human soul, "plunged down" into this material realm, a realm characterized by the "lower elements" of earth and water (as opposed to the "upper elements" of air and fire).

When our invisible spirit takes on a material body, we become for a time a "blended being" composed of both divine soul and physical form.

Myths having to do with the "plunge" into the waters of incarnation often do involve the constellation Virgo, who stands at the edge of the "lower half" of the year, at the point of autumnal equinox (see discussion in this previous post).

But the plunge down into matter often involves (at first) the loss of awareness of our spiritual or divine inner spark, as we sink more and more into sensual enjoyment of the flesh (and Salmacis is described as basically spending all of her time in such enjoyment, looking at her reflection in the water, combing her hair and bathing her limbs, and lying around in the grass wearing diaphanous garments). At a certain point, there is a "spiritual turn" at which we begin to have an awakening of awareness of our spiritual nature -- and I believe that this myth actually depicts that very point of awakening, when Salmacis sees the child of Hermes and Aphrodite and exclaims that he must be of divine origin, and that she must have him.

The integration of the two natures is actually the point of this famous incident, I believe -- portrayed here in the frank sexual imagery sometimes employed in ancient myth, but actually using the sexes as a way of expressing spiritual concepts in allegorical or metaphorical form: to "clothe" the truths of the invisible reality in the physical forms of nature, to better convey them to our deeper understanding.

As we begin to understand how to interpret the myths in the language which they are actually speaking, the language in which they actually ask us to listen to them, we can begin to hear a message that we might otherwise have totally missed.

Each and every ancient myth is worthy of deep and careful contemplation, and the above explication of the myth of Salmacis and Hermaphroditus may serve as an example of the sort of examination and meditation we can profit by applying to the myths of the portions of the corpus of ancient wisdom which draws each of us most strongly (some will perhaps find themselves drawn to the myths of ancient Greece, others to the myths of ancient India or ancient Japan, or of the cultures spread across the vast Pacific, or the continents of Africa or Australia or the Americas, and so forth).

In fact, the above discussion only barely ripples the surface (so to speak) of the deep pool of the fountain of Salmacis: one could meditate upon this tiny portion of the stories in Ovid's work, and in the wider context of the Minyeides, for years on end and probably never exhaust the amazing lessons that it might hold for him or her.

image: an engraving by Magdalena van de Passe (1600 - 1638)

PS. Deeper down the rabbit hole (or into the pool of Salmacis)... the Mexican crest

This is the official coat of arms of Mexico. It appears in the middle of the flag.

It is also the sign the Aztecs took for founding their capital Tenochtitlan (the Venice of the New World).

Here we find also an eagle struggling with a serpent, in this case a rattlesnake, atop a prickly-pear cactus. The cactus could symbolize the humanoid Ophiuchus.

SALMACIS AND HERMAPHRODITUS - Nina McLaughlin

 SALMACIS AND HERMAPHRODITUS

  S: All the women of the woods they told me. Pick up the bow. Run the paths. Hunt with us. I saw them. Sweaty. Bruised. Snarled hair stuck with burrs. Animal blood below their nails, dried like ashes on the private part of their wrists. No thank you. It’s good to challenge yourself, said the naiads. Rest feels better when you work for it, they said. I worked for it. The women of the woods chased animals. I had a different hunt.

  H: I was fifteen years old.

  S: While they chase boar, deer, rabbit, beaver, bear, while their skin is snagged on prickers, while their muscles burn from crouching silent and unmoving so not to startle a stag, I lounge by my spring. I comb my hair. I touch myself. I wait.

H: I’d never kissed a girl.

  S: I positioned myself in the morning on moss. My robe ate the dew. My breasts are big as beehives, not like the other naiads, who sweat and run all day, who end up with little lemon breasts. Lying on my side, the softness of my belly dropped, the wide roundness of my hip rising as result. My right-hand fingers in my hair, my left-hand fingertips on moss, sunlight through the trees dancing on my body. Pure allure. The birds and small soft creatures look upon me. They don’t get close. The eyes of the squirrels are black. The nervous birds’ bones I could crush in my palm, crack their little twig ribs and mash the air right out. They don’t get close enough. My body rises and falls slowly with my breath. I watch the sky move on the spring.

S: And then he arrived. He came through the trees into the morning sun by the spring, tentative as a fawn, and I liked this. Son of Aphrodite, son of Hermes, are you lost? Let me help you feel at home, beautiful boy. Let me distract you from your fears. I looked at him and oh, this beautiful young man, this meat. All verge. All cusp. Any minute he would fall from the high ledge of boyhood and land in the bristled plain of being man.

And I liked this, too, this almost there but not all the way, this in-between. Long legs with muscle bulge above the knee. The bones of his ankles like arrowheads. The spread of his chest and its smoothness, I imagined no hair yet on this young man. His clavicles across his shoulders like sticks to bang a massive drum. The juicy swell of his lower lip, that bulge, the perfect seagull M of his upper lip. Eyes not black like the squirrels but pristine as my spring, and revealing him right away untouched. Already I was too excited. I needed calm. I smoothed my robe, positioned it off my left shoulder, pulled my long hair over my right. I bit and wet my lower lip.

H: There was a lady at the edge of the water. Her legs were thick, a lot of her beneath a robe. I was seeing too much of her. She did not look like my mother. There was something hungry in her eyes.

  S: Your mother is lucky to have had you inside her, I said.

  H: I don’t remember what that was like.

S: Your brothers and sisters are lucky, too, if you have them, to be able to look upon you as their sibling.

  H: I don’t have them.

  S: And very lucky was the nursemaid whose tits you tongued and sucked, whose breasts you emptied. And here I moved my hand down and absently touched my own, felt my nipple firm against my palm, just the way I wanted it. And I saw his eyes follow my hand, just the way I wanted it.

  H: I don’t remember—

  S: Luckiest of all is your girlfriend or your bride-to-be, because I can only assume you have one. It’s all right. Oh, it’s all right. Don’t worry. We can love each other secretly. No one will know except the birds and the squirrels and the leaves, and they’re voiceless when it comes to this sort of thing, I promise.

  H: This sort of thing?

  S: The blood rose to his cheeks. And I suspected that blood was gathering elsewhere as well. And my stomach dropped into my hips in that expectant throb, that heated pulse that precedes the best thing.

H: I watched my mother butcher a rabbit once. She punched its head to break its neck and the lights went out of its eyes, and then she knifed it open and tugged out all its guts, all those dark wet interior parts. She tossed them to the dogs. They lapped the floor for so long. I didn’t like it. I was seeing more than I should see. I didn’t want to know. I had a queasy feeling. Now I felt this way again.

  S: Here. Don’t worry. Here. Just a small kiss.

  H: I hadn’t seen looks before like the ones she gave. They reached into my guts with fingers on the inside that tickled. It didn’t feel right. And also at the same time it felt like something I’d been approaching, maybe since the beginning, and I had a sense somehow that this is what I faced, this was what was coming for me, this new realm was opening to me, these looks and swells and smells. But I wasn’t ready.

 S: Like this. Here. Just a small kiss. Like a sister or a friend. Like this.

  H: I don’t think I—

  S: Here. Just quiet. You don’t have to worry. Like this.

  H: I took steps back.

S: He took steps back. Though the hunt had begun as soon as he stepped into the clearing, now in earnest it began. They don’t know it, and I don’t tell them, but the naiads’ pleasure in the hunt is the same as mine—tension and the release of it. That’s all I’m ever after. They chase and stalk and aim and shoot and if they do it right, they catch their game and kill it dead. Thrill born out of effort. If in the woods you were to pause on the path and a deer emerged from the trees and instead of leaping away in frighted flight, it walked toward you, brown dew eyes glittering all fearless, and it offered itself to you, displaying its flank in easy range—where would be the challenge? And therefore, the satisfaction? Better to leave the eager deer standing there offering itself and try to find one that will make you earn your pleasure. I’ve never wanted the ones that offer themselves up to me, who beg to touch my beehive breasts, who tell me they want to lose themselves in my soft thick curves. Too easy. No eventual moment of surrender when the fight leaves them and they’re yours. This is what I live for. I do not need a quiver or a bow.

 H: I kept stepping backward away from her touching and kissing.

  S: Those steps back, that resistance, it heated me and made me juiced more than any sort of beauty, more than any sort of sculpted form or shining smile or brains or smell.

  H: She just kept coming.

  S: He stepped back and I felt the wet between my legs. You don’t want it? I will make you want it. Here. Just let me—doesn’t it feel good? There? Doesn’t that feel good? Like this? So gentle, so slow. Let me—

  H: Listen, if you don’t stop I’m going to leave.

  S: Okay, okay, okay. I stepped back.

  H: She stepped back.

  S: It’s all yours. Enjoy the spring. I leave you to it. I slipped away. He thought me gone. He couldn’t see me and that was fine. I crouched like the naiads do, my knees on the leaves, waiting for my meat the way they wait. I opened my robe and felt the weight of my breasts in my hands. I peered between the leaves. He paced the lip of the spring.

  H: I paced the lip of the spring. I tried to calm down. She left. I was glad when she left.

  S: He paused, dipped his foot into the water, I could feel him feel it.

  H: I touched the water with my toes. I wanted to be in it.

  S: He wanted to be in it.

  H: I pulled off my shirt.

  S: He pulled off his shirt and folded it and placed it on a stump. A pimple on his right shoulder, raised and red. Young men, their oils.

  H: I felt the sun on my shoulders. I missed my mother.

  S: He bent and he undid his pants and he slipped out of them and I saw all of him.

  H: I took off my breeches.

  S: My teeth clenched to trap the moan.

  H: I dove in.

  S: He’s in! His whole naked self. Now was the time. I let my robe fall and dashed waterward and slipped in.

  H: There’s a rippling in the water.

  S: I swam quickly.

  H: What’s there?

  S: I wrapped myself around him.

  H: She’s wrapped herself around me. All at once all around me. I didn’t want it. Get away. I tried to get away.

  * * *

  S: He was everywhere against me, and he was trying to get away. I moaned to feel all his muscles tensed against me, fighting me off, trying to swim. I wrapped round tighter. Like this, just still, like this, I’m yours, be calm.

  H: She’s all around me and I felt sick. It’s too animal. I didn’t want to know. It’s as though she’s all tentacles, some massive octopus, some kraken pulling at me, tugging me in toward her, her legs knot themselves around my legs and she opens herself and is rubbing all over me. I don’t want this. STOP.

S: STOP, he said, and I held him tighter. I pressed myself into him. We both breathed heavily. I knew any second would come the surrender. I have to hang on a little longer, a little tighter. I’ve been here before. They always surrender. They always give in. Like this, like this. Just relax. You’re going to like it. I know you’ll really like it. Trust me, you can trust me. Relax, it’s all right. Just give it to me.

  H: No no no no no. Stop. STOP.

  S: I rubbed and rubbed myself on him and I was so close, I was so so close, and his arm was pressed against my breast and trying to push me off and I opened and tightened and all the muscles in my hips were tight and clenching and it was almost I can feel it almost there there there there oh god, I cried out, oh gods of Olympus please, let us be joined forever, please let us never be apart.

  H: What’s happening?

  S: Oh he’s in he’s in. I’m all around him.

 S: Oh he’s in he’s in. I’m all around him.

  H: She’s everywhere.

  S: He’s in. I’m in. He’s entered me I’ve entered him, the gods gave exactly what I’d wanted. We’re swimming in each other now.

  H: I’ve entered her. She’s entered me. Some strange combining.

  S: Entwining.

  H: And entwined.

  S: Our bodies joined in the deepest way.

  H: We’re one.

  S: We’re both.

  H: This changed home, two forms one body. A she becomes me. Becomes him. I a he become her.

  S: We fondle ourselves

  H: Our self

  S: Like this

  H: Wait I like that

  S: Just like this

  H: Touch me

  S: There

  H: Keep touching

  S: My beehive breasts. His waist-down manhood.

  H: We are both,

  S: Blurred and joined,

  H: And neither.

FINIS

HERMAPHRODITUS AND SALMACIS IN POMPEII

 

Fresco depicting two figures, identified as Hermaphroditus and Salmacis (and Cupid in the middle). From Room 10 of the House of Venus in the Shell, Pompeii. 1st Century CE.

These old acquaintances from Olympus wish you all from all of us: HAPPY PRIDE MONTH!!! 🏳️‍🌈🌈

The legend of Hermaphroditos

The legend of Hermaphroditos

Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love and beauty, was usually considered female, but, on the island of Kypros (Cyprus), she was worshipped in a male form under the masculine name Aphroditos. In Greek art, Aphroditos is typically portrayed as an androgynous figure; he wears a kind of dress that the Greeks traditionally regarded as feminine, but yet he is lifting up the dress to show everyone his erect penis. In some depictions, he is also shown with a beard to further emphasize his male aspect.

ABOVE: Photograph from Wikimedia Commons of an ancient Greek marble herma of Aphroditos, the male form of the goddess Aphrodite, now held in the Nationalmuseum in Stockholm

Aphroditos was sometimes known by the name “Hermaphroditos,” which means “Aphroditos in the form of a herma,” since hermai were a kind of statue that was commonly used in ancient Greece to mark boundaries. Eventually, however, Hermaphroditos became seen not as a form of Aphrodite, but rather the son of Aphrodite and the god Hermes.

The cult of Aphroditos was apparently introduced to Athens by at least around the late fourth century BCE. The Greek historian Philochoros of Athens (lived c. 340 – c. 261 BCE) wrote a work titled Atthis, in which he apparently described, among many other things, the cult of Aphroditos in Athens at this time. A fragment of the work that has been preserved through quotation by the Roman antiquarian Macrobius Ambrosius Theodosius, who lived in around the early fifth century CE, in his Saturnalia 3.8.2 records that men made sacrifices to Aphroditos wearing women’s clothing and women made sacrifices to him wearing men’s clothing.

 In Book Four of his Metamorphoses, Ovid tells a story about Hermaphroditos. According to Ovid, Hermaphroditos was raised by naiads in the caves underneath Mount Ida in Phrygia, but, when he turned fifteen, he left Mount Ida to visit Asia Minor. In the middle of the woods in the land of Karia, he found a beautiful pond filled with the clearest water and was tempted to take a bath in it.

There was, however, a nymph named Salmacis who lived near the pond. She saw him and was instantly overcome with mad lust for him. She went to him and attempted to seduce him, but he spurned her advances, so she pretended to leave. Thinking that she was really gone, Hermaphroditos stripped himself naked and went into the pool to bathe. Then Salmacis sprang out from where she was hiding behind a tree and tried to take him by force, wrapping herself around him, kissing him, and pressing her skin against his.

Hermaphroditos tried to fight back, but Salmacis prayed to the deities that she and him would become one flesh. Her prayer was granted and their bodies blended into one. Hermaphroditos was horrified to discover that he had the body and voice of a woman, but the penis and testicles of a man. Therefore, he prayed to his mother Aphrodite and his father Hermes to curse any man who tried to swim in the pool he had tried to bathe in and to make him effeminate like him.

This myth has had particularly great cultural influence; there are a large number of surviving ancient statues of Aphroditos/Hermaphroditos—some of which are very famous—and the word hermaphrodite was widely used until very recently to refer to the people we now describe as “intersex.”

A HONEYCOMB FOR SALMACIS

There are the fascinating transformations of sexuality (in the Metamorphoses). Iphis (Book IX:764) and Caeneus (Book XII:146), are girls who become boys: Salmacis and Hermaphroditus merge bodies (Book IV:346): and Tiresias, experiences life as a woman and then is transformed back into a man, making him uniquely qualified to testify to the superior pleasure women derive from sexual intercourse (Book III:316). Ovid subversively both attests to the fluidity of sexuality, and to the possibilities of female erotic delight, even self-sufficiency.

'Salmacis and Hermaphroditus’

Ovid evokes nature constantly through pastoral description, sheer visual charm that prompted later a wealth of Renaissance landscape imagery. 

Salmacis entwines Hermaphroditus in the pool ‘clear to its very depths’, clasping his ivory-white neck (Book IV:346). 

The son of Hermes by Aphrodite is Hermaphroditus, with whom Salmacis falls in love and begs to be joined to him eternally. The gods grant her prayer and the two form a bi-sexual product of mind and beauty (Book IV:274). 

Hermes himself is mental dexterity and cunning. He achieves his ends by seductive speech, and the swiftness of his mental passage on winged feet. He gained his herald’s staff with the entwined snakes, the caduceus that brings sleep and healing, on the boundaries of wakefulness and illness. The tales of his early life reveal a strong link between him and Apollo, with echoes of Phoebus’ medicine, oracular power, and musical arts.

As god of communication he punishes betrayal by speech: so he turns informers to stone, that dead medium, the opposite of living speech (Book II:676), and as a god of paths, doorways and agreements, he petrifies the envious Aglauros, whose sister Herse he is in love with, turning her own words into a form of punishing contract (Book II:812). He transmits the power of language, eloquence, and negotiation, to the world, in the force of speech and persuasiveness.

Aphrodite is not merely lust, no mere sexuality. Though she is the prostitute and the goddess of prostitutes, she is the deeper movement of love also. She is committed passion that dies of love for its object: she is a tenderness that stirs the god to pity, and the goddess to heart-broken mourning. She is the betrayed and the betrayer but also the faithful and the entangled. She is the body’s remorseless stirring, but she is also the mind and spirit’s sweet embrace. So Echo wasted away with love for Narcissus (Book III:359) ‘the more she followed the closer she burned’: and Salmacis fused with Hermaphroditus (Book IV:346) ‘hanging there’, twined round his head and feet.

If woman is exceptionally fortunate she will find love and affection, rescued like Andromeda (Book IV:753), finding long-lasting marriage like Harmonia (Book IV:563), or fused like Salmacis with her lover (Book IV:346).

TV Tropes on Salmacis and Hermaphroditus

 TV Tropes page on The Metamorphoses, pages on Hermaphroditus and Salmacis

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Bishōnen: Half the male cast really, the most well known being: Narcissus, Hermaphroditus, Hyacinth, Ganymede and Adonis, ...

• Romantic Fusion: A nymph named Salmacis lusts after a young boy named Hermaphroditus, but he fights back when she tries to force herself on him, prompting her to wish that they could never part. The gods, who side with Salmacis, respond by merging their bodies into one.

Nightmare Fuel / The Metamorphoses

• Ovid's take on Hermaphroditus' origins—originally, Hermaphroditus was a young boy, born to Hermes and Aphrodite (hence his name), but one day, a nymph fell in uncontrollable lust with him. Hermaphroditus wanted nothing to do with her, but she refused to take no for an answer. Eventually, she called out for the gods to let them be together forever. What did the gods do? Well, they decided to answer the request...by merging them together into a single entity. So now, poor Hermaphroditus is forced to share a body with his attempted rapist...forever. Did we mention Hermaphroditus was underage when this was happening?