Hermaphroditus: Two Views of Merging Masculine and Feminine

Chthonia

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This week's podcast looks at the figure of Hermaphroditus, son of Hermes (Mercury) and Aphrodite (Venus), and his encounter with the aggressive nymph Salmacis, her prayer turning them into a single being that is both male and female and neither at the same time. While Salmacis is often viewed as an aggressive woman attacking an innocent boy, an inscription at Salmacis' pool in Halicarnassus suggests a very different view of the myth. We explore the idea of the Hermaphrodite as representing the bonds of marriage and ideas about marriage, as well as its connection to Plato's myth of the proto-human in the Symposium.
The articles referenced in the podcast were:
Kelly, Peter. "Intersex and Intertext: Ovid's Hermaphroditus and the Early Universe," Exploring Gender Diversity in the Ancient World, Allison Surtees and Jennifer Dyer, eds. Edinburgh University Press, 2020.
Romano, Allen T. "The Invention of Marriage: Hermaphroditus and Salmacis at Halicarnassus and in Ovid," The Classical Quarterly, Vol. 59, No. 2 (Dec. 2009), pp. 543-561.