In Greek mythology, Andromeda (; or ) is the daughter of Cepheus, the king of Aethiopia, and his wife, Cassiopeia. When Cassiopeia boasts that she (or Andromeda) is more beautiful than the Nereids, Poseidon sends the sea monster Cetus to ravage the coast of Aethiopia as divine punishment. Queen Cassiopeia understands that chaining Andromeda to a rock as a human sacrifice is what will appease Poseidon. Perseus finds her as he is coming back from his quest to decapitate Medusa, and brings her back to Greece to marry her and let her reign as his queen. With the head of Medusa, Perseus petrifies Cetus to stop it from terrorizing the coast any longer.
As a subject, Andromeda has been popular in art since classical antiquity; rescued by a Greek hero, Andromeda's narration is considered the forerunner to the "princess and dragon" motif. From the Renaissance, interest revived in the original story, typically as derived from Ovid's Metamorphoses. The story has appeared many times in such diverse media as plays, poetry, novels, operas, classical and popular music, film, and paintings. A significant part of the northern sky contains several named after the story's figures; in particular, the constellation Andromeda is named after her.
The Andromeda tradition, from classical antiquity onwards, has incorporated elements of other stories, including Saint George and the Dragon, introducing a horse for the hero, and the tale of Pegasus, Bellerophon's winged horse.
Etymology
The name is Greek (), perhaps meaning 'mindful of her husband': from the noun 'man'; and either the verb 'to be mindful of', from , 'to protect, rule over', or the verb 'to deliberate, contrive, decide'. These verbs are related to 'plans, cunning', the likely origin of the name of
Medea, the
Goetia.
Classical mythology
Central story
In
Greek mythology, Andromeda is the daughter of Cepheus and Cassiopeia, king and queen of the kingdom of Aethiopia. Her mother Cassiopeia foolishly boasts that she is more beautiful than the
Nereids,
[Both Catasterismi 16 (Hard 2015, p. 19) and De astronomia 2.10 cite Sophocles' lost play Andromeda as their source for this. According to Hyginus, Fabulae 64 Cassiopeia boasts of her daughter Andromeda's beauty rather than of her own.] a display of
hubris by a human that is unacceptable to the gods. To punish the queen for her arrogance,
Poseidon floods the kingdom's coast and sends a
sea monster named Cetus to ravage its inhabitants. In desperation, King Cepheus consults the
oracle of
Amun, who announces that no respite can be found until the king
human sacrifice his daughter, Andromeda, to the monster. She is thus stripped naked and chained to a rock in
Jaffa by the sea to await her death.
Perseus is just then flying near the coast of Aethiopia on his
winged sandals or on Pegasus the winged horse, having slain the
Gorgon Medusa and carrying her severed head, which instantly petrifies any who look at it. Upon seeing Andromeda bound to the rock, Perseus falls in love with her, and he secures Cepheus's promise of her hand in marriage if he can save her. Perseus kills the monster with the Medusa's head, saving Andromeda. Preparations are then made for their marriage, in spite of her having been previously promised to her uncle, Phineus. At the wedding, a quarrel between the rivals ends when Perseus shows Medusa's head to Phineus and his allies, turning them to stone.
Carl Kerenyi (1997). 050027049X, Thames & Hudson. 050027049X
[Hard 2004, pp. 240, 242; Apollodorus, Library 2.4.3; Ovid, Metamorphoses 4.663–5.235; Marcus Manilius, Astronomica, 5.538–618 (pp. 344–51).]
Andromeda follows her husband to his native island of Serifos, where he rescues his mother, Danaë from her unwanted wedding to the king of that island.[Hard 2004, p. 242; Apollodorus, Library, 2.4.3.] They next go to Argos, where Perseus is the rightful heir to the throne. However, after accidentally killing his grandfather Acrisius, the king of Argos, Perseus chooses to become king of neighboring Tiryns instead.[Apollodorus, Library, 2.4.4.] The mythographer Apollodorus states that Perseus and Andromeda have six sons: Perses, Alcaeus, Heleus, Mestor, Sthenelus, Electryon, and a daughter, Gorgophone. Their descendants rule Mycenae from Electryon down to Eurystheus, after whom Atreus attains the kingdom. The Greek hero Heracles is also a descendant, as his mother Alcmene is the daughter of Electryon.[Hard 2004, p. 243–244; Apollodorus, Library, 2.4.5. The Catalogue of Women ( fr. 241 Most, pp. 346–349) likely listed their children as Alcaeus, Sthenelus and Electryon (Hard 2004, p. 634 n. 113 to p. 243), while Herodorus ( FGrHist 31 F15) adds Mestor to these three.]
According to the Catasterismi, Andromeda is placed in the sky by Athena as the constellation Andromeda, in a pose with her limbs outstretched, similar to when she was chained to the rock, in commemoration of Perseus' bravery in fighting the sea monster.[Smith, s.v. Andromeda; Catasterismi 17 (Hard 2015, p. 18); see also Hyginus, De astronomia 2.11.1. The Catasterismi cites Euripides' lost play Andromeda as the source of this account.]
In classical art
The myth of Andromeda was represented in the art of ancient Greece and
Roman art in media including red-figure pottery such as
pelike jars,
,
and
.
Depictions range from straightforward representations of scenes from the myth, such as of Andromeda being tied up for sacrifice, to more ambiguous portrayals with different events depicted in the same painting, as at the Roman villa in Boscotrecase, where Perseus is shown twice, space standing in for time.
Favoured scenes changed with time: until the 4th century BC, Perseus was shown decapitating Medusa, while after that, and in Roman portrayals, he was shown rescuing Andromeda.
File:Corinthian amphora, Andromeda, Perseus, Cetus, 575-550 BC, Berlin F 1652, 141650.jpg|Perseus defends Andromeda from the monster Cetus by pelting it with stones. amphora, 575–550 BC
File:Cratere a volute con la liberazione di Andromeda, inv. 19.M325-1.6 - Marta -Mitomania (9).jpg|Andromeda being tied for sacrifice. Apulian red-figure vase,
File:Perseus and Andromeda MAN Napoli Inv8995.jpg|Perseus holds up Medusa's head so Andromeda may safely see its reflection in the pool below. Fresco, 1st century AD, Pompeii
File:Persée et Andromède, Boscotrecase, Italie.jpg|Roman wall painting of Perseus and Andromeda from Boscotrecase, late 1st century BC
File:Gaziantep Zeugma Museum Andromeda mosaic 4170.jpg|Detail of Andromeda mosaic from 'House of Poseidon' in Zeugma, Turkey, 2nd–3rd century AD
Variants
There are several variants of the legend. In Hyginus's account, Perseus does not ask for Andromeda's hand in marriage before saving her, and when he afterwards intends to keep her for his wife, both her father Cepheus and her uncle Phineas plot against him, and Perseus resorts to using Medusa's head to turn them to stone.
[Hyginus, Fabulae, 64.] In contrast, Ovid states that Perseus kills Cetus with his magical sword, even though he also carries Medusa's head, which could easily turn the monster to stone (and Perseus does use Medusa's head for this purpose in other situations). The earliest straightforward account of Perseus using Medusa's head against Cetus, however, is from the later 2nd-century AD
Satire Lucian.
[Lucian, The Hall 22 (pp. 200, 201).]
The 12th-century Byzantine writer John Tzetzes says that Cetus swallows Perseus, who kills the monster by hacking his way out with his sword.[Tzetzes on Lycophron, 836 (pp. 820–1).] Conon places the story in Joppa (Iope or Jaffa, on the coast of modern Israel), and makes Andromeda's uncles Phineus and Phoinix rivals for her hand in marriage; her father Cepheus contrives to have Phoinix abduct her in a ship named Cetos from a small island she visits to make sacrifices to Aphrodite, and Perseus, sailing nearby, intercepts and destroys Cetos and its crew, who are "petrified by shock" at his bravery.[Conon, Narrations, 40 (Trzaskoma, Smith and Brunet, p. 88).]
Constellations
Andromeda is represented in the Northern sky by the
constellation Andromeda, mentioned by the astronomer
Ptolemy in the 2nd century, which contains the
Andromeda Galaxy. Several constellations are associated with the myth. Viewing the fainter stars visible to the naked eye, the constellations are rendered as a maiden (Andromeda) chained up, facing or turning away from the
ecliptic; a warrior (Perseus), often depicted holding the head of Medusa, next to Andromeda; a huge man (Cepheus) wearing a crown, upside down with respect to the ecliptic; a smaller figure (Cassiopeia) next to the man, sitting on a chair; a
whale or sea monster (
Cetus) just beyond Pisces, to the south-east; the flying horse Pegasus, who was born from the stump of Medusa's neck after Perseus had decapitated her; the paired fish of the constellation Pisces, that in myth were caught by
Dictys the
fisherman who was brother of
Polydectes, king of
Seriphos, the place where Perseus and his mother Danaë were stranded.
In literature
In poetry
George Chapman's poem in
Andromeda liberata, Or the nuptials of Perseus and Andromeda,
was written for the 1614 wedding of Robert Carr, 1st Earl of Somerset and Frances Howard. The wedding, which led to a "train of intrigue and murder and executions, was the scandal of the age."
Scholars have been surprised that Chapman should have celebrated such a marriage, and his choice of an
allegory of the Perseus-Andromeda myth for the purpose. The poem infuriated both Carr and the Earl of Essex, causing Chapman to publish a "justification" of his approach. Chapman's poem sees human nature as chaotic and disorderly, like the sea monster, opposed by Andromeda's beauty and Perseus's balanced nature; their union brings about an
astrological harmony of Venus and Mars which perfects the character of Perseus, since Venus was thought always to dominate Mars. Unfortunately for Chapman, Essex supposed that he was represented by the "barraine rocke" that Andromeda was chained up to: Howard had divorced Essex on the grounds that he could not consummate their marriage, and she had married Carr with her hair untied, indicating that she was a virgin. Further, the poem could be read as having dangerous political implications, involving King James.
Ludovico Ariosto's influential epic poem Orlando Furioso (1516–1532) features a pagan princess named Angelica who at one point is in exactly the same situation as Andromeda, chained naked to a rock on the sea as a sacrifice to a sea monster, and is saved at the last minute by the Saracen knight Ruggiero. Images of Angelica and Ruggiero are often hard to distinguish from those of Andromeda and Perseus.
John Keats's 1819 sonnet On the Sonnet compares the restricted sonnet form to the bound Andromeda as being "Fetter'd, in spite of pained loveliness".[Hopkins, Gerard Manley (1879) Andromeda] (1879) has invited many interpretations.[Mariani, Paul L. "Hopkins' "Andromeda" and the New Aestheticism," Victorian Poetry, Vol. 11, No. 1 (Spring, 1973), pp. 39-54]
File:Chapman Andromeda Liberata 1614.jpg|Title page of George Chapman's Andromeda Liberata, 1614, allegory celebrating the tumultuous marriage of Robert Carr, 1st Earl of Somerset and Frances Howard
In novels
In the 1851 novel
Moby-Dick,
Herman Melville's narrator Ishmael discusses the Perseus and Andromeda myth in two chapters. Chapter 55, "Of the Monstrous Pictures of Whales," mentions depictions of Perseus rescuing Andromeda from Cetus in artwork by
Guido Reni and
William Hogarth. In Chapter 82, "The Honor and Glory of Whaling," Ishmael recounts the myth and says that the Romans found a giant whale skeleton in Joppa that they believed to be the skeleton of Cetus.
included what Knutson calls "a remarkable satirical adaptation",
"Andromède et Persée", in his 1887 Moralités Légendaires. All the traditional elements are present, along with elements of fantasy and lyricism, but only to allow Laforgue to parody them.
The romance, crime, and thriller writer
Carlton Dawe's 1909 novel
The New Andromeda (published in America as
The Woman, the Man, and the Monster) offers what was called at the time a "wholly unconventional"
retelling of the Andromeda story in a modern setting.
Robert Nichols's 1923
short story Perseus and Andromeda satirically retells the story in contrasting styles.
[Nichols, Robert. "Perseus and Andromeda", Fantastica: being the smile of the Sphinx and other tales of imagination, Macmillan, 1923. The variant tales are on pages 75ff, 87ff, and 95ff respectively.] In her 1978 novel
The Sea, the Sea,
Iris Murdoch uses the Andromeda myth, as presented in a reproduction of
Titian's painting
Perseus and Andromeda in the Wallace Collection in London, to reflect the character and motives of her characters. Charles has an LSD-fuelled vision of a serpent; when he returns to London, he becomes ill on seeing Titian's painting, whereupon his cousin James comes to his rescue.
File:Guido Reni - AndromedaFXD.jpg|Herman Melville's 1851 novel Moby-Dick mentions Guido Reni's 17th century painting of Andromeda.
In the performing arts
| + Timeline of Andromeda's appearance in different art forms |
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| Clash of the Titans 1981, its 2010 remake, and the 2012 Wrath of the Titans |
In theatre
The theme, well suited to the stage,
was introduced to theatre by
Sophocles in his lost
Greek tragedy Andromeda (5th century BC), which survives only in fragments.
Euripides took up the theme in his play of the same name (412 BC), also now lost, but
Parody by
Aristophanes in his comedy (411 BC) and influential in the ancient world. In the parody, Mnesilochus is shaved and dressed as a woman to gain entrance to the
Thesmophoria, held in honour of the fertility goddess
Demeter. Euripides swoops mock-heroically across the stage as Perseus on a theatrical crane, trying and failing to rescue Mnesilochus, who responds by acting out the role of Andromeda.
The legend of Perseus and Andromeda became popular among playwrights in the 17th century, including Lope de Vega's 1621 El Perseo,
Pedro Calderón de la Barca's 1653 Las Fortunas de Perseo y Andrómeda was also inspired by Corneille,
File:Set design Act2 of Andromède by P Corneille 1650 - Gallica 2010.jpg|Set design for Pierre Corneille's 1650 Andromède, noted for its stage effects: Act 2, where Aeolus and eight winds lift Andromeda into the clouds, with thunder and lightning
The Andromeda theme was explored later in works such as Muriel Stuart's closet drama Andromeda Unfettered (1922), featuring: Andromeda, "the spirit of woman"; Perseus, "the new spirit of man"; a chorus of "women who desire the old thrall"; and a chorus of "women who crave the new freedom".
In music and opera
The Andromeda theme has been popular in classical music since the 17th century. It became a theme for
opera from the 16th century, with an
Andromeda in Italy in 1587.
This was followed by Claudio Monteverdi's
Andromeda (1618–1620).
Benedetto Ferrari's
Andromeda, with music by Francesco Manelli, was the first opera performed in a public theatre,
Venice's Teatro San Cassiano, in 1637.
[ L'Andromeda, Antonio Bariletti, Venice, 1637, p. 3.] This set the pattern for Italian opera for several centuries.
Jean-Baptiste Lully's Persée (1682), a tragédie lyrique in 5 acts, was inspired by the popularity of Corneille's play.
Other classical works have taken a variety of forms including Andromeda Liberata (1726), a pasticcio-Serenade on the subject of Perseus freeing Andromeda, by a team of composers including Antonio Vivaldi,
File:Benedetto Ferrari Andromeda 1637.jpg|The world's first publicly performed opera, Benedetto Ferrari's Andromeda, 1637
File:Teatro San Cassiano reimagined.jpg|Reconstruction of the inauguration of Venice's Teatro San Cassiano in 1637 with Andromeda
File:Jean-Baptiste Lully - Persée - title page of the score - Paris 1682.png|Title page of Jean-Baptiste Lully's 1682 Persée in 5 acts
In the 19th century, Augusta Holmès composed the symphonic poem Andromède (1883). In 2019, Caroline Mallonée wrote her Portraits of Andromeda for cello and string orchestra.
In popular music, the theme is employed in tracks on Weyes Blood's 2019 album Titanic Rising and on Ensiferum's 2020 album Thalassic.[Archived at Ghostarchive and the
]
target="_blank" rel="nofollow"> Wayback Machine:
In film
The 1981 film
Clash of the Titans is loosely based on the story of Perseus, Andromeda, and Cassiopeia. In the film the monster is a
kraken, a giant squid-like sea monster in
Norse mythology, rather than the whale-like Cetos of Greek mythology. Perseus defeats the sea monster by showing it Medusa's face to turn it into stone, rather than by using his magical sword, and rides Pegasus.
The 2010 remake with the same title, adapts the original story. Andromeda is set to be sacrificed to the kraken but is saved by Perseus.
The historian and filmmaker Henry Louis Gates Jr. criticizes both the original film and its remake for using white actresses to portray the Ethiopian princess Andromeda. The 1981 film uses the blonde Judi Bowker; the 2010 remake uses the brunette Alexa Davalos. Gates, noting that Andromeda was a black Aethiopian, writes that "their Andromedas appear to satisfy Hollywood's idea for a perfect match for Perseus".[ Hesiod, The Catalogues of Women] The Greek root can mean (sun) burnt face as a noun or red-brown as an adjective.
In art
Merged traditions
The legend of Saint George and the Dragon, in which a courageous
knight rescues a princess from a monster (with clear parallels to the Andromeda myth), became a popular subject for art in the Late Middle Ages, and artists drew from both traditions. One result is that Perseus is often shown with the flying horse
Pegasus when fighting the sea monster, even though classical sources consistently state that he flew using
winged sandals.
File:I.7.7 Pompeii. 1968. West wall of triclinium with wall painting of Perseus freeing Andromeda. Photo by Stanley A. Jashemski.jpg|Classical Roman fresco from Pompeii (before 79 AD) of Perseus, wearing winged sandals, flying in to free Andromeda
Idealized beauty to realism
Andromeda, and her role in the popular myth of Perseus, has been the subject of numerous ancient and modern works of art, where she is represented as a bound and helpless, typically beautiful, young woman placed in terrible danger, who must be saved through the unswerving courage of a hero who loves her. She is often shown, as by Rubens, with Perseus and the flying horse Pegasus at the moment she is freed.
, in contrast, shows a suffering Andromeda, frightened and alone. She is depicted naturalistically, exemplifying the painter's rejection of idealized beauty.
Frederic, Lord Leighton's Gothic style 1891
Perseus and Andromeda painting presents the white body of Andromeda in pure and untouched innocence, indicating an unfair sacrifice for a divine punishment that was not directed towards her, but to her mother. Pegasus and Perseus are surrounded by a halo of light that connects them visually to the white body of the princess.
File:Peter Paul Rubens - Perseus and Andromeda (Hermitage Museum).jpg|Peter Paul Rubens, Perseus and Andromeda, , showing the moment that Perseus and Pegasus free Andromeda
Varied materials and approaches
Apart from oil on canvas, artists have used a variety of materials to depict the myth of Andromeda, including the sculptor
Domenico Guidi's marble, and François Boucher's etching. In
modern art of the 20th century, artists moved to depict the myth in new ways. Félix Vallotton's 1910
Perseus Killing the Dragon is one of several paintings, such as his 1908
The Rape of Europa, in which the artist depicts human bodies using a harsh light which makes them appear brutal.
Alexander Liberman's 1962
Andromeda is a black circle on a white field, transected by purple and dark green
crescent arcs.
File:Andromeda and the Sea Monster MET DP248138.jpg|Domenico Guidi, marble statue Andromeda and the Sea Monster, 1694
File:François Boucher - Andromeda (Andromède) - 2016.7 - Cleveland Museum of Art.tif|François Boucher, etching print Andromeda, 1732
File:Félix Vallotton Persée tuant le dragon 1910.JPG|Félix Vallotton, Perseus Killing the Dragon, 1910, in a deliberately harsh light. Oil on canvas
Analysis
Ethnicity
Andromeda was the daughter of the king and queen of Aethiopia, which
Ancient Greece located at the edge of the world in
Nubia, the lands south of Egypt. The term
Aithiops was applied to peoples who dwelt above the equator, between the
Atlantic Ocean and
.
says the Ethiopians live "at the world's end, and lie in two halves, the one looking West and the other East".
[Homer, Odyssey 1.22–24; Homer established a long-standing literary tradition that Ethiopia was an idyllic land of plenty where the gods attended feasts. ] The 5th-century BC historian
Herodotus writes that "Where south inclines westwards, the part of the world stretching farthest towards the sunset is Ethiopia", and also included a plan by Cambyses II of Persia to invade Ethiopia (Kush).
[Herodotus, Histories 3.114, 3.94, 7.70.]
By the 1st century BC a rival location for Andromeda's story had become established: an outcrop of rocks near the ancient port city of Jaffa, as reported by Pomponius Mela,[Pomponius Mela, 1.64.] the traveller Pausanias,[Pausanias, 4.35.9.] the geographer Strabo,[Strabo, 1.2.35, 16.2.28.] and the historian Josephus.[Josephus, Jewish War 3.9.3.] A case has been made that this new version of the myth was exploited to enhance the fame and serve the local tourist trade of Joppa, which also became connected with the Bible story of Jonah and yet another huge sea creature.[Harvey, Paul Jr., "The death of mythology: the case of Joppa", Journal of Early Christian Studies, January 1994, Vol. 2 Issue: Number 1 p. 1-14]
The art historian Elizabeth McGrath discusses the tradition, as promoted by the influential Roman poet Ovid, that Andromeda was a dark-skinned woman of either Ethiopian or Indian origin.[ Greek Anthology, 5.132 ( English translation; Greek text).] In his Heroides, Ovid has Sappho explain to Phaon: "If I'm not pale, Andromeda pleased Perseus, dark with the colour of her father Cepheus's land. And often white pigeons mate with other hues, and the dark turtledove's loved by emerald birds";[Ovid, Heroides, 15.35–38.] the Latin word fuscae Ovid uses here for 'dark Andromeda' refers to the colour black or brown. Elsewhere he says that Perseus brought Andromeda from "darkest" India[Ovid, Ars Amatoria 1.53.] and declares "Nor was Andromeda's colour any problem to her wing-footed aerial lover"[Ovid, Ars Amatoria 2.643–644.] adding that "White suits dark girls; you looked so attractive in white, Andromeda".[Ovid, Ars Amatoria 3.191–192.] Ovid's account of Andromeda's story[Ovid, Metamorphoses 4.665 ff.] follows Euripides' play Andromeda in having Perseus initially mistake the chained Andromeda for a statue of marble, which has been taken to mean she was light-skinned; but since statues in Ovid's time were commonly painted to look like living people, her skin could have been of any colour.[Philostratus, Imagines 1.29.] Heliodorus of Emesa follows Philostratus in describing Andromeda as light-skinned in contrast to the clearly dark-skinned Aethiopians; in his Aethiopica, Queen Persinna of Aethiopia gives birth to an inexplicably white girl, Chariclea. Heliodorus states that this happened because the queen had gazed at a picture of Andromeda in the palace. The scholar of literature John Michael Archer calls this an example of "how African space is defined by European reference points".
Artworks in the modern era continue to portray Andromeda as fair-skinned, regardless of her stated origins; only a small minority of artists, such as an engraving after Abraham van Diepenbeeck, have chosen to show her as dark. The journalist Patricia Yaker Ekall comments that even this work depicts Andromeda with "European features". She suggests that the "narrative" of white superiority took precedence, and that "the visual of a white man rescuing a chained up black woman would have been too much of a Trauma trigger".
File:Tableaux du temple des muses - tirez du cabinet de feu Mr. Fauereau, conseiller du roy en sa Cour des aydes, and grauez en tailles-douces par les meilleurs maistres de son temps, pour representer les (14586798939).jpg|Engraving after Abraham van Diepenbeeck, The Rescue of Andromeda (1632–1635), from M. de Marolles, Tableaux du Temple des Muses (Paris, 1655), is exceptional in showing Andromeda as dark-skinned.
Bondage and rescue
The imagery of Perseus and Andromeda was depicted by many artists of the
Victorian era, including Edward Burne-Jones
and Frederic Leighton.
Adrienne Munich states that most of these choose the moment after the hero Perseus has killed Medusa and is preparing to "slay the dragon and unbind the maiden".
In her view, this transitional moment just precedes "the hero's final test of manhood before entering adult sexuality".
Andromeda, on the other hand, "has no story, but she has a role and a lineage", being a princess, and having "attributes: chains, nakedness, flowing hair, beauty, virginity. Without a voice in her fate, she neither defies the gods nor chooses her mate."
Munich comments that given that most of the artists were men, "it can be thought of as a male myth", providing convenient gender roles. She cites Catherine MacKinnon's description of the gender differences as "the erotization of dominance and submission": the male gets the power and the female is submissive. Further, the rescue myth provides a "veneer of charity" over the themes of aggression and possession.
Munich likens the effect to John Everett Millais's 1870 painting The Knight Errant, where the knight, "errant like Oedipus", finds a man sexually assaulting a bound and naked woman, which she calls a Freudian "primal scene". The knight kills the man and frees the woman. She asks whether Millais's knight is hiding from the woman's body, or demonstrating self-control, or whether he has "killed his own more aggressive self".
As for the bondage, Munich notes that the Victorian critic John Ruskin attacked male exploitation of what she calls "suffering nudes as subjects for titillating pictures."
Further, Munich writes, Andromeda's name means 'Ruler of Men', hinting at her power; and indeed, she can be seen as "the good sister" of the monstrous female, the Medusa who turns men to stone. In psychological terms, she comments, "by slaying the Medusa and freeing Andromeda, the hero tames the chaotic female, the very sign of nature, simultaneously choosing and constructing the socially defined and acceptable female behavior."
In the view of Marilynn Desmond and Pamela Sheingorn, Christine de Pizan's Ovide moralisé presents the bound Andromeda in a miniature image as "the object of desire". The image of "her white body silhouetted against the dark rock and the ropes visibly outlined against her flesh, Andromeda's bondage encodes her exposed vulnerability."
The scholar of literature Harold Knutson describes the story as having a "disturbing sensuality", which together with the evident injustice of Andromeda's "undeserved sacrifice, create a curiously ambiguous effect".
Knutson writes that a similar pattern is seen in several other myths, including Heracles' rescue of Hesione; Jason's rescue of Medea from the hundred-eyed dragon; Cadmus's rescue of Harmonia from a dragon; and in an early version of another tale, Theseus's rescue of Ariadne from the Minotaur. He comments that all of this points to "the richness of the story's archetypal model", citing Hudo Hetzner's analysis of the many stories that involve a hero rescuing a maiden from a monster. The beast may be a sea-monster, or it may be a dragon that lives in a cave and terrifies a whole country, or the monstrous Count Dracula who lives in Castle Dracula.
See also
-
Hesione – saved by Heracles from a sea monster
-
Cleostratus – saved by Menestratus from a dragon
-
Alcyoneus – saved by Eurybarus from a cave-dwelling monster
-
Iphigenia – sacrificed to the goddess Artemis (or rescued, depending on the version)
Sources
-
Apollodorus, Apollodorus, The Library, with an English Translation by Sir James George Frazer, F.B.A., F.R.S. in 2 Volumes, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, 1921. . Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
-
Hard, Robin (2004), The Routledge Handbook of Greek Mythology: Based on H.J. Rose's "Handbook of Greek Mythology", Psychology Press, 2004. . Google Books.
-
Hard, Robin (2015), Eratosthenes and Hyginus: Constellation Myths, With Aratus's Phaenomena, Oxford University Press, 2015. . Google Books.
-
Herodotus, Histories, translated by A. D. Godley, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press, 1920. . Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
-
Hesiod, Catalogue of Women, in Hesiod: The Shield, Catalogue of Women, Other Fragments, edited and translated by Glenn W. Most, Loeb Classical Library No. 503, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press, 2007, 2018. . Online version.
-
Hyginus, Gaius Julius, De astronomia, in The Myths of Hyginus, edited and translated by Mary A. Grant, Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1960. Online version at ToposText.
-
Hyginus, Gaius Julius, Fabulae, in The Myths of Hyginus, edited and translated by Mary A. Grant, Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1960. Online version at ToposText.
-
Lucian, Phalaris. Hippias or The Bath. Dionysus. Heracles. Amber or The Swans. The Fly. Nigrinus. Demonax. The Hall. My Native Land. Octogenarians. A True Story. Slander. The Consonants at Law. The Carousal (Symposium) or The Lapiths, translated by A. M. Harmon, Loeb Classical Library No. 14, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press, 1913. . Online version at Harvard University Press.
-
Marcus Manilius, Astronomica, edited and translated by G. P. Goold, Loeb Classical Library No. 469, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press, 1977. . Online version at Harvard University Press.
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Ovid, Metamorphoses, edited and translated by Brookes More, Boston, Cornhill Publishing Co., 1922. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library. Online version at ToposText.
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Pausanias, Pausanias Description of Greece with an English Translation by W.H.S. Jones, Litt.D., and H.A. Ormerod, M.A., in 4 Volumes, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd., 1918. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
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Smith, William, Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, London (1873). Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
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Strabo, Geographica, edited and translated by H.C. Hamilton, Esq., W. Falconer, M.A., London, George Bell & Sons, 1903. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
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Trzaskoma, Stephen M., R. Scott Smith, and Stephen Brunet, Anthology of Classical Myth: Primary Sources in Translation, Hackett Publishing Company, 2004. . Google Books.
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John Tzetzes, Scolia eis Lycophroon, edited by Christian Gottfried Müller, Sumtibus F.C.G. Vogelii, 1811. Internet Archive.
Further reading
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Edwin Hartland, The Legend of Perseus: A Study of Tradition in Story, Custom and Belief
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Daniel Ogden, Perseus (Routledge, 2008)
