The Sex God
On Mount Olympus they must
be laughing at Bill Clinton's pleas for privacy, and at our attempts to explain
his impulses. For about 3,000 years, since the Greek gods first appeared in
mythology, they've been dropping their tunics, because that's what gods
do . In fact, the parallels among the inhabitants of Olympus and the
participants in the drama playing out at the White House are striking.
Bill:
Zeus. The king of the gods, Zeus is the most powerful in the pantheon. He
wields the thunderbolt, which is useful both as a weapon and as a way of
extracting himself from the sticky situations he often finds himself in. For
all his power and brilliance, he has a few overwhelming character flaws. At
times his "pride and petulance" became intolerable, writes classicist Robert
Graves in The Greek Myths . In Mythology , Edith Hamilton writes,
"He is represented as falling in love with one woman after another and
descending to all manner of tricks to hide his infidelity from his wife."
Graves even reports that the god's mother, "foreseeing what trouble his lust
would cause, forbade him to marry." But what young god ever listens to his
mother?
Hillary: Hera. When Hera first appeared
in mythology as Zeus' wife, she was also his co-sovereign, writes Graves, but
as the millenniums marched on, she became subservient to him. Think of starting
out heading health care reform and ending up supervising the Millennium
Project. As Ovid wrote in Metamorphoses in the first century, Hera says
of herself, "Great indeed are my achievements, and mighty my strength." So she
was incensed at finding herself humiliated repeatedly by Zeus' philandering and
reduced to being his sexual parole officer. Hera is--Lord have mercy--the
goddess of marriage. As for her own, writes Graves, she and Zeus "bickered
constantly," mostly over his infidelities. "Though he would confide his secrets
to her, and sometimes accept her advice, he never fully trusted Hera." The
feeling was mutual.
Monica:
Io. According to Ovid, when Zeus first saw this nymph, he said, "Maiden,
you are fit for [Zeus] himself to love, and will make someone divinely happy
when you share his couch." (Ovid does not say if the couch was in Zeus' private
study.) Zeus spread a cloud over the Earth to conceal the dalliance, which had
the unintended consequence of alerting Hera. According to Ovid, "When she could
not find him in the sky, 'Unless I am mistaken,' she said, 'he is doing me some
wrong.' " She was right. When she confronts him, in Graves' telling, he simply
lies: "I have never touched Io." It's clear now that a better translation from
the Greek would have read, "I have never touched that nymph , Miss Io."
Never one to confess voluntarily, Zeus then silences Io by turning her into a
cow.
Kathleen Willey: Semele. One clear
lesson from the Greeks is that mortals pay a heavy price for being desired by a
god. After the mortal Semele had an affair with Zeus, Hera, consumed by
jealousy, encouraged her to ask Zeus to display to her all the power he
possessed. He did--and Semele was burned to ashes by the flame from his
thunderbolt.
Paula
Jones: Nemesis. This goddess's name means, according to Hamilton,
"Righteous Anger." Graves writes that she became the embodiment of "divine
vengeance on proud kings." In his telling, Zeus pursued the goddess, who fled
from him. To keep him at bay, she "constantly changed her shape," apparently
the Hellenic equivalent of a makeover and nose job.
Linda Tripp: Eris. Tripp is not just
like you, but she is just like Eris, a minor goddess who helped spark a huge
conflagration. Eris, as Graves writes, "is always stirring up occasions for war
by the spread of rumour and the inculcation of jealousy." Hamilton describes
her as the "evil goddess of Discord." She was hugely unpopular and always being
left out of things. "Resenting this deeply, she determined to make trouble--and
she succeeded very well indeed," writes Hamilton. When she was not included at
an important wedding banquet, she threw into the hall a golden apple marked
"For the Fairest." The scramble for possession of the apple was the event that
ignited the Trojan War.
Mike
McCurry: Hermes. This god got the job of Zeus' messenger after Zeus heard
of his clever escapades. As Graves writes of the job interview, Zeus said, "You
seem to be a very ingenious, eloquent, and persuasive godling." "Then make me
your herald, Father," the young Hermes answered, adding that he would "never
tell lies, though I cannot promise always to tell the whole truth." "That would
not be expected of you," said Zeus, with a smile.
Ken Starr: Typhon. Typhon is, according
to Graves, "the largest monster ever born. ... His brutish ass-head touched the
stars, his vast wings darkened the sun, fire flashed from his eyes, and flaming
rocks hurtled from his mouth." When he appeared, the gods fled Mount Olympus to
hide. Finally, though, Zeus overcame his cowardice and grappled with the
monster. It did not go well. Typhon cut the sinews in Zeus' hands and feet. As
Graves writes, "Now he could not move a finger." But Zeus, like the presidency,
if not individual presidents, has immortality. Eventually his power was
restored, and he threw Mount Aetna on top of the independent counsel, ah,
monster.
Finally, the only deities
possibly more powerful than the Olympians--the three goddesses who literally
measure out the course and length of a person's life--are the Fates. Zeus, not
surprisingly, fancies himself their leader. That's always a dangerous fancy. As
Aeschylus wrote of Zeus in Prometheus Bound , "He cannot fly from
Fate."
