Mense Maio malae nubent

I need to check on this, but I think Sir Orfeo comes the closest of all our sources to giving us a date for the abduction of Eurydike:

It befell, at the beginning of May when the sun’s heat banishes all memory of winter and everybody is good-humoured – and every field is full of flowers and the blossom covers every bough and there is joy everywhere – it happened during this season that Eurydice took two maidens with her one morning and walked into an orchard. The sun was high in the sky and she wanted to listen to the birds and to look at the flowers and to find some shade from the sun. So she sat beneath an apple tree. And it was not long before Eurydice fell asleep. The two maidens dared not wake her but let her lie.

The fact that she’s out with her maiden companions when she’s abducted is an interesting variation from the account in Ovid where Eurydike is bitten by a snake and dies alone while attempting to flee her would-be rapist the rustic god Aristaeus. It brings it more into line with the myth of Kore-Persephone which was marked in Sicily and Southern Italy by the Anthesphoria festival:

ANTHESPHO′RIA (ἀνθεσφόρια), a flower-festival, principally celebrated in Sicily. It consisted of gathering flowers and twining garlands, because Persephone had been carried off by Pluto while engaged in this occupation (Pollux, I.37). Strabo (VI p256) relates that at Hipponium the women celebrated a similar festival in honour of Demeter, which was probably called anthesphoria, since it was derived from Sicily. The women themselves gathered the flowers for the garlands which they wore on the occasion, and it would have been a disgrace to buy the flowers for that purpose. Anthesphoria were also solemnized in honour of other deities, especially in honour of Hera, surnamed Ἀνθεία, at Argos (Paus. II.22 § 1), where maidens, carrying baskets filled with flowers, went in procession, whilst a tune called ἱεράκιον was played on the flute (comp. Etym. Gud. p57). Aphrodite, too, was worshipped at Cnossus, under the name Ἀνθεία (Hesych. s.v.), and has therefore been compared with Flora, the Roman deity, as the anthesphoria have been with the Roman festival of the Florifertum, or Floralia. (William Smith, D.C.L., LL.D.: A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, 1875)

I’ve always assumed that this festival took place in the month Anthesterion because of the name and this interesting passage by Pope Innocent XII concerning the origins of the Christian feast of Candlemas:

We carry candles at this feast because the Gentiles dedicated the month of February to the infernal gods, and as at the beginning of it Pluto stole Proserpine, and her mother Ceres sought her in the night with lighted candles, so they, at the beginning of the month, walked about the city with lighted candles. Because the holy fathers could not extirpate the custom, they ordained that Christians should carry about candles in honor of the Blessed Virgin; and thus what was done before in the honor of Ceres is now done in honor of the Blessed Virgin.

But then I got thinking – what if I did something in May along the lines of the Anthesphoria solemnizing Orpheus’ loss of Eurydike? Then that could lead into a period of forty days commemorating his suffering and wandering in the wilderness, culminating in the Feast of the Nativity of Saint John the Baptist since there’s some intense Johannine and Orphic syncretisms, to say the least.

This would be an interesting parallel to the alétides I normally honor:

Aletis, wanderer: Some say that she is Erigone, the daughter of Ikarios, since she wandered everywhere seeking her father. Others say she is the daughter of Aigisthos and Klytemnestra. Still others say she is the daughter of Maleotos the Tyrrhenian; others that she is Medea, since, having wandered after the murder of her children, she escaped to Aigeus. Others say that she is Persephone, wherefore those grinding the wheat offer some cakes to her. (Etymologicum Magnum 62.9)

At first I thought about doing it on May 1st or Beltaine since marriage to death is one of the central mysteries of Magna Graecian Bacchic Orphism but the timing wasn’t right, nor was counting back 40 days from June 24th which got me May 16th. However I remembered that passage from Ovid which discusses Aristaeus seeking oracular guidance in order to atone for his crimes and it connected it to the rising of Sirius, which is linked to the constellation Procyon that is named after Erigone’s faithful companion Maera.

On his right hand hung a napkin with a loose nap, and he had a bowl of wine and a casket of incense. The incense, and wine, and sheep’s guts, and the foul entrails of a filthy dog, he put upon the hearth–we saw him do it. Then to me he said, ‘Thou askest why an unwonted victim is assigned to these rites?’ Indeed, I had asked the question. ‘Learn the cause,’ the flamen said. ‘There is a Dog (they call it the Icarian dog), and when that constellation rises the earth is parched and dry, and the crop ripens too soon. So this dog is put on the altar instead of the starry dog.’ (Ovid, Fasti 4.901ff)

On a lark I decided to count back 40 days from the Summer Solstice which got me May 13th – the final day of the Roman Lemuria:

Lemuria was a feast in the religion of ancient Rome during which the Romans performed rites to exorcise the malevolent and fearful ghosts of the dead from their homes. The unwholesome spectres of the restless dead, the lemures or larvae were propitiated with offerings of beans. On those days, the Vestals would prepare sacred mola salsa, a salted flour cake, from the first ears of wheat of the season. Ovid notes that at this festival it was the custom to appease or expel the evil spirits by walking barefoot and throwing black beans over the shoulder at night. It was the head of the household who was responsible for getting up at midnight and walking around the house with bare feet throwing out black beans and repeating the incantation, “I send these; with these beans I redeem me and mine (haec ego mitto; his redimo meque meosque fabis)” nine times. The household would then clash bronze pots while repeating, “Ghosts of my fathers and ancestors, be gone!” nine times. Because of this annual exorcism of the noxious spirits of the dead, the whole month of May was rendered unlucky for marriages, whence the proverb Mense Maio malae nubent (“They wed ill who wed in May”).

That has some really interesting implications, especially when you consider some of the taboos shared by Orphic and Pythagorean communities in Southern Italy.

But it goes much deeper than a prohibition on beans, as Walter Burkert explains:

There were codes for worship: to enter the sanctuary barefoot; not to dip one’s hands in the water vessel at the entrance of the temple; to pour out libations at the handle of the vessel where human lips have not been placed; to straighten the bed when rising from it and to eliminate all traces of one’s presence; not to poke the fire with a knife; not to step over a broom or a yoke; not to sit down on a measure of corn; not to look into a mirror by light; not to speak without light; not to break bread; not to pick up what has fallen from the table ‘because it belongs to the heroes.’ Outstanding among the purely moral prescriptions is that in contrast to normal practice the husband is forbidden extramarital sexual intercourse. (Greek Religion, pg 302)

So it looks like I’ve got a minor Orphic festival cycle brewing.

* May 13th – abduction of the Maiden by the King Below in the Field of Flowers.
* Which begins 40 days of fasting, austerity and strict adherence to purity codes in remembrance of Orpheus’ wandering in the wilderness for his lost love.
* Brought to a close on the Summer Solstice with rites of atonement and purification by fire.
* Which will lead into the Nativity of John the Baptist on June 24th and the Feasts of Saints Peter and Paul on the 28th and 29th, my big Tarantism festival where I swing for Spider as I swing for Erigone during Anthesteria:

With regard to the astonishing and complex agitation of the entire body, not long ago I personally saw a woman stricken with the poison who, although prey to the delirium of a violent fever, and her mind possessed with horrible phantasms – or rather, she was assaulted by a host of insolent demons – at the sound of the musical instruments she nonethless abandoned herself to a dance that was so excited, to such a frenetic agitation of her limbs and whirling her head, that my own head and eyes, enthralled by the same agitation, suffered from dizziness. This woman had suspended a rope from the ceiling of her humble dwelling, the end of which, just touching the floor in the middle of the room, she tenaciously squeezed between her hands; throwing herself upon it, she abandoned herself with the weight of her whole body, her feet planted on the floor, turning her head to and fro, her face glowing, with a surly look. I was deeply astonished, not being able to explain why the dizziness provoked by that rapid and violent head shaking did not make her reel and fall to the ground. Due to this agitation and the incredible exertion borne, the woman’s whole body and above all her face were covered with abundant perspiration; reddened by such strenuous agitation, she ran gasping to a great tub full of water prepared at her request, and she completely submerged her head in it, whence the cold water gave her some relief from the heat with which she blazed. (Ludovico Valletta, De Phalangio Apulo 76)

Funny. The Italian word taranta refers to any poisonous creature, including scorpions and snakes as well as the more common spider.

Snakes, like the one that bit Eurydike.

The description of Heurodis in Sir Orfeo sure sounds like a tarante or maenad:

She slept until the sun had passed its height. And when she woke – God! She screamed and started doing some terrible things! She beat with her hands and her feet and scratched her face with her fingernails so badly that the blood ran down her cheeks. She tore at her frock, ripping the costly material into shreds, and behaving for all the world as though she had gone stark staring mad. Her two maidens were frightened out of their wits! They ran to the palace and urged everyone to go and restrain her. Knights made their way as quickly as they could to the orchard, and ladies and damsels also, more than sixty I think. They arrived at the orchard, took the Queen up in their arms and brought her into the palace and to her bed, where they kept a tight hold on her to prevent her from injuring herself further.

Circles and circles and circles, oh my!