Page 15 - GALIET THESMOPHORIAS AND EUPHORIAS: Of Eyes and Funnels, Of Tracks and Traces IV

Galiet & Galiet
fasting, but fasts because she is angry. More than likely, Iambe’s obscenities were exclaimed and directed, in frustrated rage, towards Zeus or the fates for the unfair apportioning of fate, the fragility of life with its ephemeral, meaningless and burdened nature. Iambe perhaps was so pessimistic that, in swearing and rebelling against Zeus or the gods, she reached the point of laughter at the absurdity and helplessness of it all. This type of Greek-like pessimism, frustration and reaction is a quotidian experience in third and fourth world areas in the world today, even within wealthy nations, where many are poverty- stricken and outcasts. Iambe’s thought is not too far, probably, from Callidice’s reflection: “what the gods send us, we mortals bear perforce, although we suffer; for they are much stronger than we.”20 Neither it is distant from Theognis, Pindar and Sophocles who proclaim that the best fate for human beings is not to be born or if born, to die as soon as possible. Mimnermus of Colophon is also aware of this: “there is not a man to whom Zeus does not send a thousand ills.” At Demeter’s crossroad, tragedy and comedy, fortune and misfortune collide, and laughter is the only remedy that cures her ill fortune. In tears and laughter, Demeter is consoled and resuscitated from her sorrow and grief by Iambe, if albeit temporary. Perhaps the morotton, woven bark which women used to whip each other “for Demeter”, is equally symbolic of lamentation and whipping of the soul experienced by Demeter and Persephone.
Other topics debated by Dillon and Burkert constitute (1) the sacrifice of pigs, (2) whether women killed them, (3) the significance of phallic artefacts found in megara, and (4) the location, number and social status of participants. Both suggest that dead piglets, rather than living ones, were sacrificed (Antletriai). The Bailers, after maintaining sexual abstinence for three days, descended noisily into the pit to frighten the snakes. Bailed out decayed pig and old dough
20 Words of daughter of Celeus. Verse 145. West, Martin. Homeric Hymns. Homeric Apocrypha. Hymn to Demeter. Lives of Homer. London: Harvard University Press, 2003.
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