The Storyteller

Over the course of the semester, we have talked many times about C. G. Jung’s idea of the collective subconscious. Each of us has a subconscious that is connected to everyone else’s. This goes hand in hand with the idea that we don’t learn anything, we just remember. The moment we come into this world, we already have all the knowledge we could ever want. We simply need to be reminded of what we have forgotten.

“Talking the way a storyteller talks means being able to feel and live in the very heart of that culture, means having penetrated its essence, reached the marrow of its history and mythology, given body to its taboos, images, ancestral desires, and terrors . . . That my friend Saul gave up being all that he was and might have become so as to roam through the Amazonian jungle, for more than twenty years now . . . is something that memory now and again brings back to me . . . and it opens my heart more forcefully than fear or love has ever done.” (Llosa, pgs. 244-245)

As we go through life, we hear things and take in our surroundings, interactions, feelings and ideas and these shape the individuals we become. Our collective subconscious regulates what we remember and what we re-forget as we grow up; steering us in the direction we were meant to go.

Saul Zaratas is an exemplary case of this happening. He doesn’t fit in anywhere; he is constantly labeled as different, an outsider, a foreigner, because of his appearance. Our collective subconscious led him down the path where he would hear and experience the right things, he wouldn’t learn but he would remember a precise combination of pieces of knowledge, unique and different from everyone else. All of which would lead him to the Amazonian jungle where he would find his place.

Each person has their own path which is set for us the minute we come into this world. The collective subconscious of humankind influences what we remember, what we re-forget, and what never remember. Our paths are already laid out for us, we just have to be the ones unique enough to experience them in the right way.

Pederasty

In parts of ancient Greece, not all of it, there were certain things to do, hoops to jump through, before marriage was an option for you.

Just coming into adulthood, at about seventeen or eighteen, it was time to prove your manhood. The best option was to do the obvious. Go on a hunt, by yourself, and heroically kill an animal of significant size. Not a rabbit or squirrel, but something like an elk or large deer.

The other option was pederasty.

Pederasty is the consensual intimate relationship between a teenage boy and an older man. Yes, it was public and yes, it came with consequences if one opted out.

For whatever reason, being publicly raped by a senior citizen was considered to prove your manhood to the women who would be marrying you in a few years.

If, however, you chose NOT to do this and couldn't find any luck hunting, you were ridiculed publicly. You would be forced to grow your hair out, and wear dresses, like a girl. People would refer to you as a woman and you would not be able to marry in the future.

Apollo and The Sibyls

Page 143 in The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony begins talking about Herophile, who is a Sibyl of Delphi. Sibyls were granted the power of prophesy by Apollo, son of Zeus and Leto.  Herophile was also born from Zeus, although her mother was Lamia not Leto, which is why she claims to be the twin sister of Apollo. She would sometime refer to herself as Artemis, who actually is the twin sister of Apollo.

Artemis is the goddess who caught Actaeon looking at her naked body as she was bathing and turned him into a stag. He was then devoured by the hounds he had brought with him, as they only saw another stag to be eaten.

As the Sibyl of Delphi, Herophile prophesied the coming of Helen; which in turn caused the Trojan War, the destruction of Asia and Europe, etc. 

The other Sibyl mentioned, Demophile, is also known as the Sibyl of Cumae. She was granted the power of prophesy from Apollo, just as Herophile was, but she was given another gift. Apollo allowed her to live as many years as grains of sand she could hold in her hands. Apollo eventually tried to seduce her and she rejected him, so Apollo let her youth slip away and she became so old and disgusting that she began begging to die.

The story of these two Sibyls give just another of the infinite insights into the many sides of Apollo, one of the main gods throughout The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony.