Not a “charming little tale”: Teaching the Pygmalion Myth Ethically
The story of Pygmalion is a story of rape. Hedging around this issue is irresponsible and damaging to our students.
In light of the recent National Junior Classical League’s decision to offer Pygmalion and Galatea as the ‘couples’ option for the costume contest and the reaction that has been met with (unfortunately a reaction that includes apathetic acceptance), I have been reflecting a lot on the ethical responsibilities we as educators have, either as teachers in the classroom or as members of an educational organization. When discussing or teaching sensitive materials, such as the narrative in the Pygmalion story featured in Ovid’s Metamorphoses (Metamorphoses X.238–297), we have a lot of work to do. This is frequently framed as a love story or fairy tale in educational resources, and so it is no wonder that the horrors of this episode have been omitted from classroom discussions and that a body such as the NJCL has made the ill-advised decision to offer this pair as part of a contest for entertainment. It speaks to a larger problem within the culture of Classics, one of not engaging with the root causes of racism, sexism, and white supremacy that abound in our field.
Let’s not accept stories as they were taught to us, rather let’s bring our modern lens and energize a future generation to join us in fighting for a discipline we can be proud of.
The story of Pygmalion is a story of rape. Hedging around this issue is irresponsible and damaging to our students, many of whom will pick up on the disturbing aspects of the narrative and need our support in acknowledging them or avoiding them. I have no doubt that there are many teachers who do engage with the horrors of this text and potential triggers for students if they teach this narrative, while others, afraid of difficult conversations (as we all are), avoid engaging with those issues if that is part of the curriculum unless a student raises them. But engage with these issues we must, unless our silence be read as acceptance or even validation. We are primed as Classics teachers to enact change through difficult conversations and through challenging the status quo within our field. Let’s not accept stories as they were taught to us, rather let’s bring our modern lens and energize a future generation to join us in fighting for a discipline we can be proud of. And there are plenty of resources that exist to help teachers discuss texts that involve scenes of sexual assault and rape to help frame those discussions and highlight the problems with the classroom materials we have at our disposal, both of which need to happen if we are going to teach our students to think critically about ALL sources. It cannot be emphasized enough that this story is about rape and the power dynamic of the creator (father) attacker and absolute powerlessness of the voiceless and nameless victim.
Most classroom readings of Pygmalion begin at the end of the previous episode with the punishment of the Propoetides by Venus, because it was once a part of the AP curriculum and most available resources still reflect the AP Board’s choice of lines. This narrative introduction represents another group of women debased by someone more powerful, here Venus, who subjects them to involuntary prostitution, essentially sex trafficking, until they finally turn to stone having lost all ability to feel as a result of their horrific punishment. The adjective that is used to describe them, obscenae (238), is associated with impurity related to sexual behaviour and perhaps even excrement, but here because the passage describes their fate, the adjective suggests that they were made to pollute themselves rather than that they were inherently indecent to begin with.
Looking at this text more critically, the statue is not an object of lust, but rather of repeated sexual assault and violent rape.
It is at this point, however, that the Pygmalion narrative actually begins, and we learn that because he had seen them leading their lives shamefully (243–4: aevum per crimen agentis viderat), he was living alone and that his marriage bed lacked a partner for a long time. This passage seems to justify Pygmalion’s choice to carve his ideal woman out of ivory, but his disgust should instead be directed towards the goddess Venus, whom he venerates. There is a big contradiction at play here, Pygmalion honoring Venus in the story, while rejecting women because of what he believes are their innate vices (244–5: offensus vitiis, quae plurima menti femineae natura dedit, offended by the very many vices which nature has given to the female mind) that have instead been forced upon them by the goddess. At this point, commentaries suggest that Pygmalion waits a few years to sculpt the statue, but the use of diu with carebat (246: a progressive tense with a temporal adverb showing that he had been doing something for quite some time and at that present moment still was) suggests that he had up until that time been alone, while the interea (247) indicates he carves the woman soon after the event. Despite his aversion to women, Pygmalion sculpts a woman, formamque dedit, qua femina nasci nulla potest, operisque sui concepit amorem, (248–9: and gave it beauty, with which no (ordinary) woman is able to be born, and he conceived a love for his own work.) The use of the noun amorem here is often read as genuine love, but the noun and the verb can also refer to lust and sexual passion, and the use of ignes (253: passion) in the same line position four lines later suggests the latter identification, as does the phrase rursus amans (288) later in the passage as Pygmalion is raping the newly vivified statue.
Pygmalion has now carved his ideal woman and the next two lines (250–251) seem focalized through Pygmalion’s eyes, that she was virginal and loyal (virginis est verae facies), and that you could almost believe that she was not only alive but wanting to be touched if it weren’t for her reverentia, meaning a timidity that can arise from respect, but also fear.
It is at this point that the narrative of sexual assault picks up. The section from 254–269 is described by LaFleur as “the artist’s elegiac (and to some extent ritualistic) courtship of his ivory maiden” (76) and by Perkins and Davis-Henry as a scene in which “he begins to treat [the statue] as a love object: he kisses and caresses it, brings it gifts, dresses it, and places it in a beautifully draped bed” (93). Looking at this text more critically, the statue is not an object of lust, but rather of repeated sexual assault and violent rape. The first two lines of this passage start off seemingly tamely, although the use of temptantes (touching) to describe his hands with the adverb saepe (often) as well as the spondaic temptantes in an otherwise dactylic line suggest a ferocity, as does the alignment of the verb later in the passage (282–3) with the adjective tractata (285: pulled about, dragged) in the simile. At line 256, he begins his sexual assault with giving kisses (oscula dat), and the following clause reddique putat (he imagines they are being returned) starts to frame for the audience that this statue is an object of his fantasy, moving clearly into the realm of a sex object (as opposed to Perkins and Davis-Henry’s “love object”) and, more accurately, a sex toy. The scene turns violent in the discussion of his groping of the object, which is so forceful, metuit pressos veniat ne livor in artus, he feared that bruising would appear on the grasped arms. Sally Davis discusses this line in her 1995 The Classical Journal article “Bringing Ovid into the AP Latin Classroom: Pygmalion” in response to a SWIMTAG classroom exercise prompt “4. What do you find the most humorous in the story?” (276) with part of the response being “4…..lest he bruise her” (277).
After a lengthy description of gifts and clothing that he has given to the statue, Ovid juxtaposes it with a description of rape. It begins with nec nuda minus formosa videtur (266: nor did she appear less beautiful naked), standing in stark contrast to the cuncta decent (everything was as it should be) at the beginning of the line. He lays the statue out on a bed with rich, purple sheets, calls her the tori sociam, companion of his bed, and lays her back on soft pillows as if she could feel. In conjunction with the description of the gift-giving, Pygmalion appears like an agalmatophiliac, and that desire for statues often leads to a desire for sexual contact.
Explicit contact is the most disturbing part of this already uncomfortable narrative, because it takes place as the statue is brought to life by the goddess Venus. After making his offering to Venus at her festival, he returns and takes his statue to bed, once again kissing it, noticing visa tepere est, it seemed warm to the touch. This is a passage that is woefully described in the commentary by LaFleur, who writes that “the ivory maiden grew warm with life and passion…Pygmalion here plays the handsome prince to his Sleeping Beauty, as his kiss brings her to life” (84). This commentary entry reads as a male fantasy written into the text, with the woman willingly submitting to her Prince Charming, but that is not the context in this passage. Rather than be shocked at this point, Pygmalion doubles down on his assault, kissing her again and feeling her breasts with his hands, like someone working and reworking wax until it is malleable. The simile ends with ipsoque fit utilis usu, and is made fit for its use, which in the context of the statue is as the object of Pygmalion’s lust, first as a sex toy and then as a rape victim. After realizing that she is now alive, and afraid that he was being deceived (287: fallique veretur), he furiously continues the sexual assault, rursus amans rursusque manu sua vota retractat (288: raping her again and again pulling at the object of his prayers with his hand). He in fact holds her so fiercely that he can feel the veins pulse under his thumb (289: saliunt temptatae pollice venae). Rather than address the now-woman that he is interpreted as loving he thanks Venus with the most abundant praise and then resumes raping the girl, pressing his face to her now not false face (292–3: oraque tandem ore suo non falsa premit).
So what of the newly created woman, who woke to find a man raping her as her first sensations as a sentient being? Well, we do get her perspective mentioned by the author (292–294): “The virgin felt the kisses that were being given to her and she blushed, and raising her fearful eyes to his eyes/the lights of the room, she saw the man raping her at the same time as she saw the sky.” Of this passage, LaFleur writes of erubuit, she blushed, that “Pygmalion’s creation had the sense of shame and modesty which the Propoetides lacked” (86), and, while the implication does not lie beneath LaFleur’s words, her sense of shame and modesty are surely a cover for her terror at awakening to this degradation. Of the final phrase, LaFleur adds that “as Pygmalion’s creation opens her eyes, she raises them upward like a newborn child into the light of day and then, in the very same instant, like a blushing maiden, she gazes into the eyes of her lover” (87). This makes the scene seem almost tender and consensual, but note that the participle associated with the kisses the ironically-named virgin feels is passive (data), i.e. she does not reciprocate these kisses, while the participle of the person ‘loving’ is active and her role in this activity is ignored.
As the final insult, Venus, the indirect agent in this sexual assault coniugio, quod fecit, adest, was present at the wedding which she organized (295), and then nine months later, the woman was forced to bring to term the child of her rapist (297: illa Paphon genuit, de qua tenet insula nomen, and she bore Paphos, from whom the island gets its name).
This narrative is particularly disturbing, but, again because it was part of an old AP curriculum that have supporting teaching materials, is also often taught together with the rape of Apollo and Daphne. So students exposed to this story will likely be exposed to two stories of rape, one by a god and the other by a regular human being. The story of Pygmalion is perhaps more disturbing, because the perpetrator in this episode is not an omnipotent god, but rather a regular, otherwise powerless man. Consider the audience of this story in the ancient world, mostly elite, mixed gender, especially in private performances. Now imagine you are a young girl, recently married to an older man, because of an arranged contract negotiated by your parents with the man in question. You join his household and are forced to have sex with him, forced to bear his children, forced to endure your nightmare day after day. And then you hear the story of Pygmalion (one of many rape narratives in the Metamorphoses and countless other texts) and it reinforces your lack of agency in countless sexual encounters and that you have to endure it, and triggers your terror of the marriage bed. Maybe that’s a hard image to conjure. So bring it to the present.
A. Everett Beek wrote an excellent article on Ovid’s afterlife and the issue of sexual assault and reading Ovid’s rape narratives. This text addresses the potentially dangerous effects reading Ovid can have on students if the issues of sexual violence are not addressed. And this is very much the case. And one I urge you all to engage with deeply. But we also need to examine the teaching materials we use. We have only limited teaching materials, and there are only a few books on the market that target Ovid for high school students.
Two of the most popular are texts I have already mentioned, LaFleur’s Love and Transformation: an Ovid Reader and Perkins and Davis-Henry’s Ovid: A Legamus Transitional Reader. These texts avoid the problems with the Pygmalion story and the Daphne and Apollo story and so it is no wonder that when our classroom materials do not address the problems with these stories that these stories are still taught without a critical eye.
In discussing Ovid’s Ars Amatoria, Richard LaFleur calls it “a witty, occasionally risque “manual of seduction”” (xv) and adds, in reference to Ovid’s exile that “while the more sexually explicit sections of his work were probably no more offensive to the Roman intelligentsia than they are to most Americans of the 1990s” (xvi) Augustus also did not love it. In his discussion of the Apollo and Daphne story LaFleur states that “from a different perspective…Apollo is a tyrant, arrogant, insensitive, a stalker, a would-be rapist” (4) and that the next story of Io is “another story of a woman raped by a god” and that “each is characterized by an ambiguity, an ambivalence between the frivolity and machismo of the gods’ amorous adventures and the darkness of rape and victimization” (5). When it comes to the Pygmalion story the Propoetides are accused of “profligacy” (76), the story is described as “so sensuous and sentimental” (76), Pygmalion is “a creative genius”, and that when the statue is brought to life, she “gazes heavenward at her creator as at a god.” LaFleur also offers an apology for Pygmalion’s behavior, stating that the misogyny should be attributed rather to the narrator Orpheus and that “Pygmalion’s religious devotion to Venus is remarkable…and, in the intensity of his reverence for his beloved, he is clearly nearer to Pyramus than to Ovid’s Apollo” (77). The only attempt at engaging with the problem of Pygmalion comes with a question on page 89: “On the surface level of this narrative, Pygmalion may seem to be some kind of pervert with a bizarre fetish for his female statue” (89) which diminishes the horrors of the story and makes them comical to teenage readers (as I have learned from experience).
To this point, NJCL decided to offer Pygmalion and Galatea (a woman not named by Ovid, only named in later myths) as the couples costume contest without thinking about the devastating baggage this story carries with it.
Perkins and Davis-Henry rarely engage with the text because of the style of Legamus publications, but the first section of the Pygmalion story is called “A Wondrous Creation” which inculcates the readers to assume the creation of the statue is a good thing. There is very little additional commentary, but introducing the second section, entitled “Another Happy Ending” they write that “Pygmalion is amazed and, not quite believing his senses, he touches the statue, which again stirs to life….Theirs is a happy ending. They marry and in due course a child is born” (101).
The Davis article referenced above does not deal with the rape narrative at all, asking “On the other hand, is Pygmalion prudish and anti-social? Is he a misfit who lives in a fantasy world?…Are the gods really smiling on mortal love for a change?” (274) and then discusses an exercise that in her example answers, one of which was shared above, show a total lack of engagement with the problems with this story. Question 10 even presupposes admirable qualities in the rapist in our story: “Does Ovid admire Pygmalion as a man? What are his admirable characteristics?” (276) and the answer to this is that he is “humble…modest before Venus…grateful and dutiful…also dedicated to his art” (277).
The Pygmalion narrative is not the only problematic narrative we as Latin and Greek teachers have to confront. The foundation of Rome and Zeus’ rape of multiple mortals are two of the most common examples of sexual assault which arise in secondary classrooms and which are often sanitized. To this point, NJCL decided to offer Pygmalion and Galatea (a woman not named by Ovid, only named in later myths) as the couples costume contest without thinking about the devastating baggage this story carries with it. The costume contest is part of the entertainment of the convention, and the story of Pygmalion is romanticized in class because the teacher resources maintain the romanticism of the encounters. As teachers, we deserve better resources. As publishers, proofread your publications and think about the effects of the material on impressionable minds.
But most importantly, we as a discipline need to stand up, to be critical of our texts, to address them with students, and enact change through activism. Our students are the future activists in our discipline, but we too can raise our voice, especially secondary educators, and say that our leaders and our materials are failing us. There is a benefit to teaching the Pygmalion story, but it is not, as Davis writes, a “charming little tale” (273).
