Ananke

Last updated • 7 min readFrom Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia
Ananke as represented by a modern illustration of Plato's Republic. Ananke by Platone.jpg
Ananke as represented by a modern illustration of Plato's Republic .

In ancient Greek religion, Ananke ( /əˈnæŋkiː/ ; Ancient Greek : Ἀνάγκη), from the common noun ἀνάγκη ("force, constraint, necessity"), is the Orphic personification of inevitability, compulsion, and necessity. She is customarily depicted as holding a spindle. One of the Greek primordial deities, the births of Ananke and her brother and consort, Chronos (the personification of time, not to be confused with the Titan Cronus), were thought to mark the division between the eon of Chaos and the beginning of the cosmos. Ananke is considered the most powerful dictator of fate and circumstance. Mortals and gods alike respected her power and paid her homage. She is also considered the mother of the Fates, hence she is thought to be the only being to overrule their decisions [1] (according to some sources, excepting Zeus also). According to Daniel Schowalter and Steven Friesen, she and the Fates "are all sufficiently tied to early Greek mythology to make their Greek origins likely." [2]

Contents

The ancient Greek traveller Pausanias wrote of a temple in ancient Corinth where the goddesses Ananke and Bia (meaning force, violence or violent haste) were worshiped together in the same shrine. Ananke is also frequently identified or associated with Aphrodite, especially Aphrodite Urania, the representation of abstract celestial love; the two were considered to be related, as relatively unanthropomorphised powers that dictated the course of life. [3] [4] [5] [6] Her Roman counterpart is Necessitas ("necessity"). [7]

Etymology

"Ananke" is derived from the common Ancient Greek noun ἀνάγκη (Ionic: ἀναγκαίηanankaiē), meaning "force, constraint or necessity." The common noun itself is of uncertain etymology. [8] Homer refers to her being as necessity, often abstracted in modern translation (ἀναγκαίη πολεμίζειν, "it is necessary to fight") or force (ἐξ ἀνάγκης, "by force"). [9] In Ancient Greek literature the word is also used meaning "fate" or "destiny" (ἀνάγκη δαιμόνων, "fate by the daemons or by the gods"), and by extension "compulsion or torture by a superior." [10] She appears often in poetry, as Simonides does: "Even the gods don't fight against ananke". [11]

The pre-modern is carried over and translated (by reduction) into a more modern philosophical sense as "necessity", "logical necessity", [12] or "laws of nature". [13]

Mythology

In Orphic mythology, Ananke is a self-formed being who emerged at the dawn of creation with an incorporeal, serpentine form, her outstretched arms encompassing the cosmos. Ananke and Chronos are mates, mingling together in serpent form as a tie around the universe. Together, they have crushed the primal egg of creation of which constituent parts became earth, heaven and sea to form the ordered universe. [14] Ananke is the mother (or another identity) of Adrasteia, the distributor of rewards and punishments. [15]

In the Orphic Hymns , Aphrodite Urania is described as the mother of Ananke and ruler of the three Moirai:

Ourania, illustrious, laughter-loving queen, sea-born, night-loving, of an awful mien;
Crafty, from whom Ananke first came, producing, nightly, all-connecting dame:
'Tis thine the world with harmony to join, for all things spring from thee, O pow'r divine.
The triple Moirai are rul'd by thy decree, and all productions yield alike to thee

— Orphic hymn LIV. [16]

Mother of the Moirai

The Greek philosopher Plato in his Republic discussed the parentage of the Moirai or the Fates in the following lines: [17]

And there were another three who sat round about at equal intervals, each one on her throne, the Moirai (Moirae, Fates), daughters of Ananke, clad in white vestments with filleted heads, Lakhesis (Lachesis), and Klotho (Clotho), and Atropos (Atropus), who sang in unison with the music of the Seirenes, Lakhesis singing the things that were, Klotho the things that are, and Atropos the things that are to be . . . Lakhesis, the maiden daughter of Ananke (Necessity).

Ananke the personification of Necessity, above the Moirai, the Fates. Ananka i Mojre.JPG
Ananke the personification of Necessity, above the Moirai, the Fates.

Aeschylus, the famous tragedian, gave an account in his Prometheus Bound where the Moirai were called the helmsman of the goddess Ananke along with the three Erinyes: [18]

Prometheus: Not in this way is Moira (Fate), who brings all to fulfillment, destined to complete this course. Only when I have been bent by pangs and tortures infinite am I to escape my bondage. Skill is weaker by far than Ananke (Necessity).
Chorus: Who then is the helmsman of Ananke (Necessity)?
Prometheus: The three-shaped (trimorphoi) Moirai (Moirae, Fates) and mindful (mnêmones) Erinyes (Furies).
Chorus: Can it be that Zeus has less power than they do?
Prometheus: Yes, in that even he cannot escape what is foretold.
Chorus: Why, what is fated for Zeus except to hold eternal sway?
Prometheus: This you must not learn yet; do not be over-eager.
Chorus: It is some solemn secret, surely, that you enshroud in mystery.

Here Prometheus speaks of a secret prophecy, rendered ineluctable by Ananke, that any son born of Zeus and Thetis would depose the god. (In fact, any son of Thetis was destined to be greater than his father.)

In philosophical thought

In the Timaeus , Plato has the character Timaeus (not Socrates) argue that in the creation of the universe, there is a uniting of opposing elements, intellect ('nous') and necessity ('ananke'). Elsewhere, Plato blends abstraction with his own myth making: "For this ordered world (cosmos) is of a mixed birth: it is the offspring of a union of Necessity and Intellect. Intellect prevailing over Necessity by persuading (from Peitho, goddess of persuasion) it to direct most of the things that come to be toward what is best, and the result of this subjugation of Necessity to wise persuasion is the initial formation of the universe". [19] In Victor Hugo's novel Notre-Dame of Paris , the word "Ananke" is written upon a wall of Notre-Dame by the hand of Dom Claude Frollo. In his Toute la Lyre , Hugo also mentions Ananke as a symbol of love. In 1866, he wrote:

Religion, society, nature; these are the three struggles of man. These three conflicts are, at the same time, his three needs: it is necessary for him to believe, hence the temple; it is necessary for him to create, hence the city; it is necessary for him to live, hence the plow and the ship. But these three solutions contain three conflicts. The mysterious difficulty of life springs from all three. Man has to deal with obstacles under the form of superstition, under the form of prejudice, and under the form of the elements. A triple "ananke" (necessity) weighs upon us, the "ananke" of dogmas, the "ananke" of laws, and the "ananke" of things. In Notre-Dame de Paris the author has denounced the first; in Les Misérables he has pointed out the second; in this book ( Toilers of the Sea ) he indicates the third. With these three fatalities which envelop man is mingled the interior fatality, that supreme ananke, the human heart. Hauteville House, March, 1866. Victor Hugo, Toilers of the Sea, 1866, p. 5 [20]

— Victor Hugo

Sigmund Freud in Civilization and Its Discontents (p. 140) said: "We can only be satisfied, therefore, if we assert that the process of civilization is a modification which the vital process experiences under the influence of a task that is set it by Eros and instigated by Ananke — by the exigencies of reality; and that this task is one of uniting separate individuals into a community bound together by libidinal ties."

Wallace Stevens, in a poem of the 1930s, writes: "The sense of the serpent in you, Ananke, / And your averted stride / Add nothing to the horror of the frost / That glistens on your face and hair." [21] This connects with Stevens's sense of necessity or fate in his later work, especially in the collection The Auroras of Autumn.

Robert Bird's essay "Ancient Terror", [22] inspired by Léon Bakst's painting Terror Antiquus, speculates on the evolution of Greek religion, tracing it to an original belief in a single, supreme goddess. Vyacheslav Ivanov suggests that the ancients viewed all that is human and all that is revered as divine as relative and transient: "Only Fate (Eimarmene), or universal necessity (Ananke), the inevitable 'Adrasteia,' the faceless countenance and hollow sound of unknown Destiny, was absolute." Before the goddess, who is both indestructible Force of Love and absolute Fate the Destroyer, Life-Giver and Fate-Death, as well as incorporating Mnemosyne (Memory) and Gaia (Mother Earth), masculine daring and warring are impotent and transient, and the masculine order imposed by Zeus and the other Olympian Gods is artificial. [23]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Erinyes</span> Chthonic female deities of vengeance in Greek mythology

The Erinyes, also known as the Eumenides and commonly known in English as the Furies, are chthonic goddesses of vengeance in ancient Greek religion and mythology. A formulaic oath in the Iliad invokes them as "the Erinyes, that under earth take vengeance on men, whosoever hath sworn a false oath". Walter Burkert suggests that they are "an embodiment of the act of self-cursing contained in the oath". They correspond to the Dirae in Roman mythology. The Roman writer Maurus Servius Honoratus wrote that they are called "Eumenides" in hell, "Furiae" on Earth, and "Dirae" in heaven. Erinyes are akin to some other Greek deities, called Poenai.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Leto</span> Greek goddess and mother of Apollo and Artemis

In ancient Greek mythology and religion, Leto is a goddess and the mother of Apollo and Artemis. She is the daughter of the Titans Coeus and Phoebe, and the sister of Asteria.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Persephone</span> Greek goddess of spring and the queen of the underworld

In ancient Greek mythology and religion, Persephone, also called Kore or Cora, is the daughter of Zeus and Demeter. She became the queen of the underworld after her abduction by her uncle Hades, the king of the underworld, who would later also take her into marriage.

<i>Theogony</i> Poem by Hesiod

The Theogony is a poem by Hesiod describing the origins and genealogies of the Greek gods, composed c. 730–700 BC. It is written in the Epic dialect of Ancient Greek and contains 1022 lines. It is one of the most important sources for the understanding of early Greek cosmology.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hestia</span> Greek goddess of the hearth

In ancient Greek religion and mythology, Hestia is the virgin goddess of the hearth and the home. In myth, she is the firstborn child of the Titans Cronus and Rhea, and one of the Twelve Olympians.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Titans</span> Order of divine beings in Greek mythology

In Greek mythology, the Titans were the pre-Olympian gods. According to the Theogony of Hesiod, they were the twelve children of the primordial parents Uranus (Sky) and Gaia (Earth), with six male Titans—Oceanus, Coeus, Crius, Hyperion, Iapetus, and Cronus—and six female Titans, called the Titanides or Titanesses—Theia, Rhea, Themis, Mnemosyne, Phoebe, and Tethys.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rhea (mythology)</span> Ancient Greek goddess and mother of the gods

Rhea or Rheia is a mother goddess in ancient Greek religion and mythology, the Titan daughter of the earth goddess Gaia and the sky god Uranus, himself a son of Gaia. She is the older sister of Cronus, who was also her consort, and the mother of the five eldest Olympian gods and Hades, king of the underworld.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Aglaea</span> Grace in Greek mythology

In Greek mythology, Aglaea or Aglaia is a goddess, one of the Graces (Charites), also called the Gratiae in Roman mythology.

In ancient Greek religion and mythology, Adrasteia, also spelled Adrastia, Adrastea, Adrestea, Adastreia or Adrasta, originally a Phrygian mountain goddess, probably associated with Cybele, was later a Cretan nymph, and daughter of Melisseus, who was charged by Rhea with nurturing the infant Zeus in secret, to protect him from his father Cronus. By at latest the fifth century BC, she became identified with Nemesis, the goddess of divine retribution.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Themis</span> Greek goddess of divine law

In Greek mythology and religion, Themis is the goddess and personification of justice, divine order, law, and custom. She is one of the twelve Titan children of Gaia and Uranus, and the second wife of Zeus. She is associated with oracles and prophecies, including the Oracle of Delphi. Her symbol is the Scales of Justice.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Moirai</span> Personifications of fate in Greek mythology

In ancient Greek religion and mythology, the Moirai —often known in English as the Fates—were the personifications of destiny. They were three sisters: Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos. Their Roman equivalent is the Parcae.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Clotho</span> One of the Fates of Greek Mythology

Clotho or Klotho, is a mythological figure. She is the youngest goddess of the Three Fates or Moirai. In ancient Greek mythology, she spins the thread of human life, her sisters draw out (Lachesis) and cut (Atropos) the thread. Her Roman equivalent is Nona. She also made major decisions, such as when a person was born, thus in effect controlling people's lives. This power enabled her not only to choose who was born, but also to decide when deities or mortals were to be saved or put to death. For example, Clotho resurrected Pelops when his father killed him.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Atropos</span> One of the Fates of Greek mythology

Atropos, in Greek mythology, was the third of the Three Fates or Moirai, goddesses of fate and destiny. Her Roman equivalent was Morta.

In Greek mythology, the Keres were female death-spirits. They were the goddesses who personified violent death and who were drawn to bloody deaths on battlefields. Although they were present during death and dying, they did not have the power to kill. All they could do was wait and then feast on the dead. The Keres were daughters of Nyx, and as such the sisters of beings such as Moirai, who controlled the fate of souls, and Thanatos, the god of peaceful death. Some later authorities, such as Cicero, called them by a Latin name, Tenebrae, and named them daughters of Erebus and Nyx.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Phanes</span> Ancient Greek deity of procreation

In Orphic cosmogony Phanes or Protogonos is a primeval deity who was born from the cosmic egg at the beginning of creation. He is referred by various names, including Erikepaios "Power" and Metis "Thought".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lachesis</span> One of the Fates of Greek Mythology

Lachesis, in ancient Greek religion, was the middle of the Three Fates, or Moirai; the others were her sisters, Clotho and Atropos. Normally seen clothed in white, Lachesis is the measurer of the thread spun on Clotho's spindle, and in some texts, determines Destiny, or thread of life. Her Roman equivalent was Decima. Lachesis was the apportioner, deciding how much time for life was to be allowed for each person or being. She measured the thread of life with her rod. She is also said to have chosen a person's destiny after a thread was measured. In mythology, it is said that she appears with her sisters within three days of a baby's birth to decide the baby's fate.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Aether (mythology)</span> Personification of the upper sky in Greek mythology

In Greek mythology, Aether, Æther, Aither, or Ether is the personification of the bright upper sky. According to Hesiod, he was the son of Erebus (Darkness) and Nyx (Night), and the brother of Hemera (Day). In Orphic cosmogony Aether was the offspring of Chronos (Time), and the brother of Chaos and Erebus.

In Greek mythology, the primordial deities are the first generation of gods and goddesses. These deities represented the fundamental forces and physical foundations of the world and were generally not actively worshipped, as they, for the most part, were not given human characteristics; they were instead personifications of places or abstract concepts.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fates</span> Characters in mythology

The Fates are a common motif in European polytheism, most frequently represented as a trio of goddesses. The Fates shape the destiny of each human, often expressed in textile metaphors such as spinning fibers into yarn, or weaving threads on a loom. The trio are generally conceived of as sisters and are often given the names Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos, which are the names of the Moirai, the version of the Fates who appear in Greek mythology. These divine figures are often artistically depicted as beautiful maidens with consideration to their serious responsibility: the life of mortals. Poets, on the other hand, typically express the Fates as ugly and unwavering, representing the gravity of their role within the mythological and human worlds.

Pepromene is a goddess and being of fate/destiny in Greek mythology. The ancient perception of her being gives the name as belonging within other Greek ideas for destiny and fate.

References

  1. ↑ Abril Cultural, ed. (1973). Dicionário de Mitologia Greco-Romana (in Portuguese). Editora Victor Civita. p. 134. OCLC   45781956.
  2. ↑ Schowalter, Daniel N.; Friesen, Steven J. (2005). Urban Religion in Roman Corinth: Interdisciplinary Approaches Issue 53 of Harvard theological studies. Harvard Theological Studies, Harvard Divinity School. p. 147. ISBN   9780674016606.
  3. ↑ Papaioannou, Sophia; Serafim, Andreas; Demetriou, Kyriakos (25 October 2021). Rhetoric and Religion in Ancient Greece and Rome. Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. ISBN   978-3-11-069970-8 . Retrieved 10 April 2024.
  4. ↑ Ivanov, Vi͡acheslav Ivanovich; Bird, Robert; Wachtel, Michael (2001). Selected Essays. Northwestern University Press. p. 154. ISBN   9780810115224.
  5. ↑ Portmann, Adolf; Ritsema, Rudolf (Jan 1, 1977). Avenir Et Devenir Des Normes. Brill Archive. p. 100. ISBN   9789004048805.
  6. ↑ Stroud, Ronald (Sep 30, 2013). The Sanctuary of Demeter and Kore: The Inscriptions XVIII.6. American School of Classical Studies at Athens. p. 84. ISBN   9781621390138.
  7. ↑ Dräger, Paul (2006). "Ananke". Brill's New Pauly. doi:10.1163/1574-9347_bnp_e119980.
  8. ↑ Beekes, R. S. P. (2009). Etymological Dictionary of Greek, p. 97. Brill.
  9. ↑ Iliad 4.300, Odyssey 4.557: Lidell, Scott: A Greek English Lexicon: ἀνάγκη
  10. ↑ E.Ph.1000, Xenophon, Hiero 9.4
  11. ↑ Simonides Fr. 4.20 Diehl: C. M. Bowra (1958), The Greek Experience. W. P. Publishing company, Cleveland and New York, p. 61
  12. ↑ Aristotle, Metaph. 1026.b28, 1064.b33: Lidell, Scott: A Greek English Lexicon: ἀνάγκη
  13. ↑ Xenophon, Memorabilia 1.11.1: Lidell, Scott: A Greek English Lexicon: ἀνάγκη
  14. ↑ The Uroboric Serpent: Water and Being and the Mythos Unthought in Metaphysics. 2008. ISBN   9780549685210.
  15. ↑ Jonte-Pace, Diane; Parsons, Jr., William B.; Gómez, Luis O. (2002). Religion and Psychology: Mapping the Terrain. Routledge. p. 220. ISBN   9781134625352.
  16. ↑ Mierzwicki, Tony (2018). Hellenismos: Practicing Greek Polytheism Today. Llewellyn Worldwide. p. 93. ISBN   9780738743752.
  17. ↑ Plato, Republic 617c (trans. Shorey) (Greek philosopher C4th B.C.):
  18. ↑ Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound 510 ff
  19. ↑ 48a, trans. John M. Cooper
  20. ↑ Victor Hugo, Toilers of the Sea, 1866, p. 5
  21. ↑ Stevens, Wallace (1990). Collected Poems. Alfred A. Knopf. p. 152. ISBN   9780679726692.
  22. ↑ Bird, Robert (2007). The Russian Prospero: The Creative Universe of Viacheslav Ivanov. Univ of Wisconsin Press. p. 154. ISBN   9780299218331.
  23. ↑ Ivanov, Vi͡acheslav Ivanovich; Bird, Robert; Wachtel, Michael (2001). Selected Essays. Northwestern University Press. pp. 153–159. ISBN   9780810115224.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.