Divine Might Quotes

“Perhaps it’s a little reminder that the word museum means ‘home of the Muses’.”
― Natalie Haynes, Divine Might: Goddesses in Greek Myth

“As is always the way with Ovid, his capacity for irony is so subtle and comprehensive that it is difficult to know how sincere or cheeky he is being at any given moment.”
― Natalie Haynes, Divine Might: Goddesses in Greek Myth

“The distinction that only sciences are useful and only arts are spirit-enhancing is a nonsensical one. I couldn't write much without scientists designing my computer. And some of them must want to read about Greek myth after a long day at work. These Muses always remind me that scientists and artists should disregard the idiotic attempts to separate us. We are all nerds, in the end.”
― Natalie Haynes, Divine Might: Goddesses in Greek Myth

“Actually, he says, the opposite is true. People will come to depend on writing, which is external, and stop using memory, which is internal. In fact, writing will make us forgetful. It is typical of Plato–using the character of his tricksy mentor, Socrates–to construct a written argument dismissing the value of writing.”
― Natalie Haynes, Divine Might: Goddesses in Greek Myth

“The poem is probably Ovid’s smutty guide to urban adultery, the Ars Amatoria–Art of Love–in which he tells his readers how to flirt with smart young city women, and how to take things quite a bit further than that. This jokey guide was at odds with the ostensible morality reforms which Augustus had ushered in after becoming emperor.”
― Natalie Haynes, Divine Might: Goddesses in Greek Myth

“But even if his sympathies are not with Arachne in this moment, he can still imagine that from her perspective these gods are nothing but rapists. She has been described to us as excessively arrogant about her own skills, even if her confidence is well-founded. And she has been shown to be short-tempered with an interfering old woman. But these aren’t the characteristics of a fantasist or a fool. She isn’t out of her mind, like poor Ajax. We can’t simply dismiss her opinions as those coming from a disordered mind. Whether Ovid shares her views is unimportant. What matters is that he is perfectly aware of her feelings about the pain inflicted by these gods in their cruelty, and his version of Arachne is given the space to express it. Look at the great gifts the gods have given you, Athene’s tapestry proclaims. Arachne’s response is very detailed in its execution, but very simple in its message: the price is too high.”
― Natalie Haynes, Divine Might: Goddesses in Greek Myth

“But I can’t help wondering if there is some sort of recognition for the idea that female gods–who held power and autonomy that female humans were not permitted to have–might well not want a male partner.”
― Natalie Haynes, Divine Might: Goddesses in Greek Myth

“Among other attendees is Priapus, a minor fertility god with an enormous erection. Ovid can’t tell us much about the gods’ banquet. It’s not allowed, he says. They spent the whole night drinking. 24 This is another reason I love Ovid: bored by poets bleating on about divine banquets? Just tell the audience that you’re not allowed to say much, but everyone drank a lot, and move on.”
― Natalie Haynes, Divine Might: Goddesses in Greek Myth

“And she asked the god about a husband and the god replied, no need of a husband for you, Atalanta. Avoid the very idea of husbands!”
― Natalie Haynes, Divine Might: Goddesses in Greek Myth

“According to Hesiod's Theogony, Rhea gives birth to the following children in this order: Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Hades, Poseidon, and Zeus. Kronos swallows each of the first five deities, and Rhea is understandably consumed with grief. She consults her parents - Gaia and Ouranos, Earth and Heaven. They tell her to go to Crete to give birth to Zeus, the youngest of her children. Rhea gives birth and then plays a trick on Kronos: instead of giving him their youngest child to consume, she give him a rock, disguised as a baby. The inability to even register the difference between a god and a rock suggests that Kronos was not just a terrible father, but also an inattentive eater.”
― Natalie Haynes, Divine Might: Goddesses in Greek Myth

“the temptation is to conclude that Ovid may have taken his interest in urban adultery all the way to the top. Just to add to your confusion, some scholars don’t accept that Ovid was banished at all, but argue that the whole thing was merely a literary conceit. The problem with analysing writing full of irony and misdirection is that you can never really be sure if you’ve got the joke or missed the point.”
― Natalie Haynes, Divine Might: Goddesses in Greek Myth

“Ancient societies have some constants which horrify us, like the total acceptance of slavery. Very few ancient writers or thinkers questioned it; most assumed it was the natural order of things. And yet–though in the abstract slavery was considered natural for some people–no one wanted to be a slave, and even slaves might cling to a status that marks them out as essentially unslavish. So in the Odyssey, we see a distinction being made between those who were born into slavery and those who were just unlucky–on the losing side in a war, say–who were enslaved after an early life of freedom. Eumaeus the swineherd wants Odysseus to know that he was the son of a king until he was kidnapped by his nanny (herself a woman of high status enslaved by pirates) when she ran away with sailors. 58 In other words, he is not a slave by disposition, just by ill fortune. So where are the slaves who were just born for that life and no other? It seems that while ancient writers and thinkers could believe in an abstract sense that such people existed, there aren’t many of the enslaved–historical or imagined–jumping up to claim that status.”
― Natalie Haynes, Divine Might: Goddesses in Greek Myth

“It’s fascinating that fully half of these six major goddesses have sworn off sex and marriage, given that they were worshipped during times when ordinary women had little choice about marriage, and almost no opportunity to reject it as a way of life. Perhaps the only thing we can read into this mismatch is that gods occupy a different plane from mortals and so would live unimaginable lives, and that being unmarried is as natural for a goddess (and unnatural for a mortal)”
― Natalie Haynes, Divine Might: Goddesses in Greek Myth

“It can be rather bracing for twenty-first-century readers to discover just how badly behaved ancient gods were: raping, murdering, demanding child sacrifice, and more. I’m often asked to explain why and how people would worship such immoral (or even amoral) deities. Why–if we create gods in our own image–didn’t the Greeks design nicer ones?”
― Natalie Haynes, Divine Might: Goddesses in Greek Myth

“Look at any picture of Priapus from antiquity, and you will see why he might have had trouble focusing on anything beyond his own anatomy. One fresco in Pompeii shows him fully occupied with the task of weighing his gigantic erection on scales. 25 He raises his filthy hopes, Ovid continues, and tries to sneak up on her, heart racing, on tiptoe (I find myself wondering how he doesn’t tip up,”
― Natalie Haynes, Divine Might: Goddesses in Greek Myth

“goddess who is barely mentioned in any ancient source, who makes no dent on the Renaissance, who has inspired virtually no classical composers, no modern artists, nor even any philhellenic sci-fi writers to create work inspired by her?”
― Natalie Haynes, Divine Might: Goddesses in Greek Myth

“the trope of the jealous husband is less pervasive in Greek myth than that of the jealous wife.”
― Natalie Haynes, Divine Might: Goddesses in Greek Myth

“The word lathrēi–secretly–is extremely important in this telling of the Persephone story. We tend to know this myth rather differently, thanks to the way children’s books often make Persephone responsible for her own imprisonment. She chooses to eat the pomegranate seeds, and often does so knowing that she must stay in Hades for a month for each seed consumed. This is a modern cleansing of the story. In most ancient versions of her myth, Hades force-feeds her the pomegranate seed. In this version, he does so in secret. The upshot is the same, either way: having robbed her of consent when he brought her to the Underworld, he continues to do so now. He will always do so.”
― Natalie Haynes, Divine Might: Goddesses in Greek Myth

“It’s not even that he is a serial rapist that makes me hate him so much here, although that certainly contributes the largest part of my contempt. But the finishing touch is the way he is so needy for the approval of a young woman he’s kidnapped and then assaulted. He has all the power in this relationship–he is literally king of the whole netherworld–and yet he is still wheedling and whining for approval. He’s the real victim here, don’t you see? Give me strength.”
― Natalie Haynes, Divine Might: Goddesses in Greek Myth

“But I can’t even begin to think how a sculpture like this is created–where Bernini must have started, how he proceeded to capture these bodies in motion. I almost find it easier to believe he used real people and somehow turned them to stone.”
― Natalie Haynes, Divine Might: Goddesses in Greek Myth

“So memory was a crucial skill for a poet like Hesiod or Homer, who would perform his work rather than publish it. The ability to remember was recognized as crucial in the fourth century BCE by no less a writer than Plato, in his dialogue Phaedrus. 7 Socrates attributes the invention of writing to an Egyptian god, named Theuth (his”
― Natalie Haynes, Divine Might: Goddesses in Greek Myth

“So memory was a crucial skill for a poet like Hesiod or Homer, who would perform his work rather than publish it. The ability to remember was recognized as crucial in the fourth century BCE by no less a writer than Plato, in his dialogue Phaedrus. 7 Socrates attributes the invention of writing to an Egyptian god, named Theuth”
― Natalie Haynes, Divine Might: Goddesses in Greek Myth

“So memory was a crucial skill for a poet like Hesiod or Homer, who would perform his work rather than publish it.”
― Natalie Haynes, Divine Might: Goddesses in Greek Myth

“Calliope, Muse of epic poetry; Clio, Muse of history; Thalia, Muse of comedy; Terpsichore, Muse of dance; Melpomene, Muse of tragedy. Clio holds a scroll to represent history, and Melpomene carries a tragedy mask.”
― Natalie Haynes, Divine Might: Goddesses in Greek Myth

“The Theogony tells the origin story of the gods, the very beginning of Greek myth. Hesiod details the creation of the earliest powers – Chaos, Heaven, Earth – and then the gradual arrival of more familiar divinities: nymphs, giants, Titans. Gaia and Ouranos—Earth and Heaven – produce many children, including Kronos, who will be father to Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Hades, Poseidon, and Zeus. Their mother, the goddess Rhea, helps Zeus to overthrow Kronos, just as the latter had overcome Ouranos.”
― Natalie Haynes, Divine Might: Goddesses in Greek Myth

“My favourite by far is Pamphagus – eats everything.”
― Natalie Haynes, Divine Might: Goddesses in Greek Myth