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Danaids begin the invocation of Zeus: "Lord of lords, most blessed of the blessed, etc." (524526). In the first antistrophe, they call upon Zeus as the lover of Io, and in the second strophe they refer to Io as their "mother" (539). After an account of the ordeals of Io, the stasimon returns to Zeus as father and begetter (592) and ends, as it began, with praise of Zeus as the greatest of gods, effortlessly omnipotent (595599). |
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The fact that Zeus was the lover of Io is, of course, the ultimate cause of the entire action of the play and is present throughout, either explicitly or implicitly. As R. Murray points out, "At times Zeus is approached in general terms in his varied but more traditional aspects; more frequently, he is invoked as Io's lover and savior, or as ancestor of the Danaids" (1958: 19). |
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If Zeus is a substitute for the oedipal father, how does Io, a rather remote ancestress,19 fit into the oedipal situation? By the same process of projection whereby the oedipal father was connected with Zeus, Io becomes, in the structure of the play and in the minds of the Danaids, their fantasy mother. She, the object of their substitute father's love, becomes in their fantasy a substitute for the never-mentioned real mother. Instead of being an obstacle to such an identification, the gulf of generations separating Io from the Danaids enables them fully to identify themselves and their situation with her, thereby avoiding the risk and taboo of attempting to usurp the mother's place in the father's affection.20 |
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The Danaids themselves indicate in a key passage both their identification with Io and the representation of Io as fantasized mother. After Danaos and Pelasgos have left them (503, 523), the Danaids' thoughts immediately turn, as we have seen, to Zeus. The initial strophe of the stasimon (524530) demonstrates well how an intense oedipal attachment precludes the growth of love for other men. No mere mortal can hope to compare with the overvaluation of the oedipal father, an over-valuation in fantasy which is necessary if incestuous wishes are to be kept in a state of repression. For a man to attempt to usurp the position of one who is "Lord of lords, most blessed of the blessed" is truly an act of hybris, and the Danaids call upon Zeus to avert from them the  (528). The 'hybris of men' is for the Danaids not a particular flaw of the Aigyptids, but rather the necessary attribute of anyone who would dare to threaten the position of the cherished |
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19 Io is the great-great-great-grandmother of the Danaids, by their own reckoning (313321). |
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20 Rank and Sachs (1964) 4445 discuss the manner in which incestuous myths tend to be distorted by the splitting of characters and the multiplication of generations, whether through a single creative act or through a long and gradual process under the impact of cultural and ethical advancement. |
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