11 hours ago
The dangers of toxic femininity
The American critic and classicist Daniel Mendelsohn has just published a new translation of The Odyssey. In his superb introduction, Mendelsohn also does something that many modern translators and critics avoid, which is to point to the oddness and different-ness of Homer's world. For that and many other reasons, reading Mendelsohn's fresh and clear translation was a counterweight to one of the great imperatives of our time: 'Let us look at this long-ago thing only in order to see if it can shed any light on the glorious us and now.'
Yet a timeless work remains timeless both because we marvel at the different nature of the world described and because it occasionally tells us things we have forgotten.
Which brings me to the Sirens. Every schoolchild knows the story. Odysseus is warned by the goddess Circe of the challenges he will meet on the way home to Ithaca. Among them are the Sirens, whose cry is so beguiling that Odysseus must order his men to stop up their ears with wax as they row past. Odysseus himself must be tied to the mast as they navigate the waters so that while he alone can hear the Sirens, he will not encourage his men to row towards them.
Like everyone, I supposed I knew the story, but there is something in the clarity of Mendelsohn's translation which brought a fresh thought to me.
The Sirens get only eight lines, but they are enough to make Odysseus risk everything and need tying even more firmly to his ship's mast. I'd never given much thought before to why the song of the Sirens should be so beguiling. I think I imagined their song was merely beautiful, like Wagner's Rhinemaidens. But there is something else. Here is how Mendelsohn renders their song:
O Odysseus, rich in praise, great glory of the Acheans,
Come hither now, halt your ship and hear the sound of our voice!
For no one has ever rowed past us aboard his black-hulled ship
Before he's heard the voice from our lips with its honeyed harmonies,
But once he has taken his pleasure, he returns knowing so much more.
For well we know all the hardships that there, in Troy's sprawling plains,
Both the Argives and the Trojans endured through the will of the gods.
And we know whatever happens on the earth, which nourishes all.
That's it, but enough to make Odysseus lose his self-control. As I read it, I thought of several happenings on our own island.
This month parliament debated two pieces of society-changing legislation. One was the decision to extend the date at which women can terminate life in the womb. The other was legislation that means that from now on we may choose the day on which we die.
These are interesting priorities for a country. But the debates on extending abortion limits and the introduction of euthanasia came like a pincer movement. On the one hand a woman will be able to abort a child after six months of pregnancy. Meaning that a life that is viable out of the womb may be killed inside it. I happened to be with a friend this week who is six months pregnant, and was horrified that the child she and her husband were already caring for would be deemed good to abort in England and Wales. And while the proposer of the amendment, Tonia Antoniazzi MP, was content with simply allowing women to abort a baby at any point during pregnancy, Stella Creasy MP tried to use the opportunity to enshrine abortion at any stage as a 'human right'.
At the other end of the life spectrum, MPs spent the same week voting – and approving – a bill to finally make euthanasia (or 'assisted dying') into another 'human right' in this country. Kim Leadbeater seems to have made it her life mission to retract our lives at the opposite end from Antoniazzi and Creasy. As I have said for many years, there is no country into which euthanasia has been introduced in which the slope from the arena of palliative care has not slipped into the killing of the mentally ill, the young and those who feel they have become a burden on their families or the state. And if anyone in this country thinks the state will be competent to decide who does or does not feel compelled to end their life, they should look at how easy it is just to get a GP appointment.
But never mind, because in all these cases the argument and rationale has each time been reduced to 'compassion' and 'understanding'. Leadbeater and Creasy are masters at making speaking and emoting the same thing. Both present their moral arguments – such as they are – in a way in which their faces crumple and voices crack with empathy at all times. Everything is about 'understanding', 'listening', 'speaking for' and 'alleviating' the suffering of others.
Which brings me back to the Sirens. Because what is so compelling to Odysseus is that the Sirens' song tells him that on their island, alone, he will be understood. The Sirens promise that they, uniquely, appreciate what he has been through at Troy. They will listen to him and understand him. He, for his part, will achieve one of the greatest of all human desires: to be understood.
At risk of making more enemies, let me point out that while we have heard plenty about 'toxic masculinity', there is also such a thing as 'toxic femininity'. This includes the idea that we will be saved and our problems resolved by compassion and empathy, all other judgments and rationales being put to one side.
In recent days the meaning, depth and value of life in this country contracted at both ends. Not for any rational reason, but because if we did not we would be lacking understanding and kindness. But the calls are a mirage, and the promises a lie. We'll see who hits the rocks first.
