Checking robert graves' accounts

fibi ducks

Active Member
I was reading Robert Graves' account of how Apollo persued Daphne and her escape from him. I checked his sources as I have a copy of Apollodorus and also Hygnus here. And not all of what he says is there in the source texts. Perhaps some of it was direct revelation? But I find his account has less to offer than Hyginus'.

Graves says that mother earth spirited Daphne away to Crete to save her from Apollo, where she became Pasiphea (and so later on the mother of the Minotaur I suppose). In her Daphna's place she put a laurel tree, which is what Apollo found in front of him, and he broke off a branch and wore it on his head.

But Hyginus tells a simpler story: that other earth transformed her into a laurel bush so as to save her. And that Apollo too a branch from her and wore it as Graves says.

But Daphne is supposed to mean 'the Bloody One' and I imagine a drop of blood dripping form the torn stem of the branch.
And laurel is cooked with meat, so it is fitting that is is associated with blood.

These are my musings - any additions?
 

Alejandro

Active Member
According to his list of Notes on his account of this particular story, Graves is also referencing Plutarch, Pausanias, Parthenius and Tzetzes. Graves, as elsewhere throughout The Greek Myths, combines all the information he has collected on each myth and creates [or attempts to create] a unified story-form of the material. In this instance the information he has collected includes the fact that there was an oracular goddess named Pasiphæ who was worshipped at Thalamai in Lakonia. Pasiphæ means "All-Shining" or "Shining Upon All," and Pausanias reports of a tradition that the Trojan prophetess princess Kassandra died at Thalamai and posthumously became this goddess, who was called Pasiphæ because she declared her oracles to all.

There are three different versions of the paternity ascribed to Apollon's Daphne. In one her father is the Arkadian River Ladon, in another he is the Thessalian River Peneios, but Parthenius' account would make Daphne a Lakedaimonian since, according to him, her father was King Amyklas of Lakedaimonia. Lakonia was in Lakedaimonia, and it is this Lakedaimonian princess [version of] Daphne who, like Kassandra [or rather, instead of Kassandra], is said to have become the Thalamaian goddess Pasiphæ. This in itself seems to come from a confusion of our Daphne with another nymph Daphnis, also associated with Apollon because, as Pausanias tells us, before Apollon took over the oracular seat at Delphi, it belonged to Gaia, who had made Daphnis her prophetess. Neither Apollodorus nor any of the other aforementioned mythographers referenced by Graves seem to have made any connection between the Cretan Pasiphæ (who herself was an immortal goddess) and the Thalamaian divinity. In fact Pausanias says that "Pasiphæ is a title of Selene [the moon-goddess], and is not a local goddess of the people of Thalamai."

Daphne actually just means "Laurel"; it is evidently via Graves' inventiveness that there is a connection between this and Daphoine [or Daphoene], which is what means "Bloody." (In a book on what he calls Jungian mythology he further claims that Daphne is a contraction of Daphoine.) That comes from his apparently not-well-received view of the origin of this myth, which view has nevertheless generated quite a bit of scholarly discussion in the past. In 2005 Scott Michael Potter wrote an article "The Re-Telling and Re-Visioning of Daphoene/ Daphne/ Pasiphae," which you might like. See here: http://www.cosmosandlogos.com/category/000051.php There's also a lengthy poem in there (dunno if it's by him too), sort of in prose format, spoken in the first-person by this character, entitled I, Daphne (Laurel) am Daphoene am Pasiphae.
 

RLynn

Active Member
Let's just say that Graves was very creative. :cool: I enjoy dipping into his material now and then, but I'm not usually a stickler for strict accuracy.
 

Caburus

Active Member
I don't agree with your Classics teacher. His references are checkable, but his own theories of how they fit together or his own ideas on the origins of the myths are his own personal musings, and, like those of Frazer, Campbell, Mead or Mann, subject to fashion and personal agendas.
 

LegendofJoe

Active Member
I don't agree with your Classics teacher. His references are checkable, but his own theories of how they fit together or his own ideas on the origins of the myths are his own personal musings, and, like those of Frazer, Campbell, Mead or Mann, subject to fashion and personal agendas.
Good point.
 
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