Baubo
{{Short description|Female character from Greek mythology}}
File:Terracotta Baubo figurine.jpg of the Priene type, holding a lyre. From Priene, Anatolia.]]
Baubo (Ancient Greek: Βαυβώ) is a minor figure in Greek mythology who does not appear in surviving sources before the fourth century CE.Halliwell 2008: 165. A fragment from Asclepiades of Tragilus states that she is the wife of Dysaules, who was said to be autochthonous; that they had two daughters, Protonoe and Misa; and that the couple welcomed Demeter into their house.Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker 12 F4.Karaghiorga-Stathacopoulou 1986: 87.
The fifth century CE Greek grammarian Hesychius recorded the name Baubo in his lexicon, stating that she was the nurse of Demeter. He gives the meaning of the word as 'hollow' or 'stomach' (κοιλίαν, koilian), citing the fifth century BCE philosopher Empedocles as a source.s.v. Βαυβώ 1.318Rosen 2007:50 n16.
Eleusinian Mysteries
Baubo was worshipped along with Demeter and Persephone on the island of Paros.Richardson 1974: 82. Evidence from inscriptions indicates that she had cult status at Naxos and in Dion (Macedonia) as well as in Paros in connection with Demeter and Kore.O' Higgins 2003:52.
Baubo is also mentioned in two Orphic fragments – fragments 52 and 49 – relating to the Elusinian mysteries and specifically the cheering of Demeter during her stay at Eleusis as she mourns the loss of her daughter.Fr. 52 & 49 Kern. In fragment 49, Baubo is the name of the mother of Demophon — a mortal child whom Demeter unsuccessfully attempts to turn immortal by anointing him with ambrosia and placing him nightly in the fire. In other sources Demophon is the son of the King of Eleusis, Celeus, and his queen, Metanira. This suggests that in fragment 49 Baubo is the queen of Eleusis.O' Higgins 2003:52. In this fragment, when Baubo sees what Demeter is doing, she cries out in fear. In response Demeter burns the child to death.Richardson 1974: 80-1.
In fragment 52, Demeter stays at Eleusis and mourns the loss of her daughter Persephone, who had been abducted by Hades, and Baubo makes her laugh through an act of anasyrma.Marcovich 1986: 294. In other sources such as the Homeric Hymn to Demeter the role of cheering Demeter up is filled by a slave named Iambe, who does so by making jokes.Homeric Hymn to Demeter 195-205.
Fragment 52 is preserved in the Protrepticus of Clement of Alexandria, written in the second century CE, who presents the fragment as proof of the depravity of the Eleusinian Mysteries and Greek religion more generally.Protrepticus 20.1-21.1 The context he provides for the quote is that Demeter had rested at Eleusis during her search for her daughter, and Baubo, treating her as a guest, had offered her food and wine. Demeter refused these due to her mourning; the rejection of hospitality was perceived as a slight by Baubo who responded by showing her genitals.Exhortation to the Greeks Chapter 11. However, Baubo's actions are usually interpreted as an attempt to cheer Demeter up, rather than a response to a slight, based on the corresponding scene in The Homeric Hymn to Demeter. Ralph Rosen sees the act as an attempt to cheer Demeter up specifically by mocking her, as is also the case with Iambe.Rosen 2007: 50. Rosen also notes, however, that no one would have understood this as serious, or contemptuous mockery of the goddess.Rosen 2007: 56.
Function and role
It is very likely that, as with the myth of Iambe, the story of Baubo is an etiological myth explaining certain rites and rituals of the Eleusinian Mysteries.Rosen 2007: 56.
Baubo figurines
The name Baubo is given to several different types of figurine, most of them terracotta.Karaghiorga-Stathacopoulou 1986: 88. The oldest type of figurine given this label is the Priene type, so named because of examples found at the Sanctuary of Demeter and Kore at Priene. These date from the third to second century BCE and depict the naked lower part of a female body with a face where the abdomen should be, with the curve of the chin merging into the vulva. The arms are placed at ear level and carry attributes (torches, lyre, basket of fruit carried on the head).Karaghiorga-Stathacopoulou 1986: 89. These were probably votive offerings, and were made locally.
The second type of Baubo figurine comes from Egypt, and is split into two groups. The first group depicts a woman seating frontally on a large pig, whilst holding a musical instrument. In some of these figurines her right hand is touching her genitalia. The second group depicts a woman crouching on the ground, holding her legs apart. The genitalia are always very apparent, and many of these figurines were used as amulets.
Elements that appear on some of the figurines of this type, such as a lotus crown and sistrum, along with the fact that they were produced in Egypt, has led scholars to suggest that these are votive offerings to Isis from women asking for fertility or from pregnant women wanting to give birth soon. Thus, despite the name, there is no reason to assume that these figures are supposed to depict the Baubo from Greek myth, though the connection cannot be ruled out.Karaghiorga-Stathacopoulou 1986: 90.
See also
References
{{Reflist}}
Bibliography
- {{cite book |author=Clement of Alexandria |title=The Exhortation to the Greeks |translator-last= Butterworth |translator-first= G. W. |date=1919 |ref = CoA | publisher=Harvard University Press}}
- {{cite encyclopedia |title=Baubo |encyclopedia=Brill's New Pauly|year=2011 |last=Graf |first=Fritz |publisher=Brill}}
- {{cite book|title=Greek Laughter: A Study of Cultural Psychology from Homer to Early Christianity |last=Halliwell|first=Stephen |year=2008| ref=SH08 | publisher=Cambridge University Press}}
- {{cite book|title= Lexicon|author= Hesychius |year= 1867|publisher= Sumptibus Hermanni Dufftii | location = Jena, Germany |url=https://archive.org/details/hesychiialexand00schmgoog/page/n171/mode/2up}}
- {{cite book|title=Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker |last=Jacoby |first=Felix |year=1957 |publisher=Brill.|url=https://archive.org/details/Jacoby-FGrH/1A/page/n1/mode/2up}}
- {{cite encyclopedia |title=Baubo |encyclopedia=Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae III-1 Atherion-Eros|year=1986 |last=Karaghiorga-Stathacopoulou |first=Théodora |ref=TKS | publisher=Artemis & Winkler Verlag |url=https://archive.org/details/limc_20210516/Lexicon%20Iconographicum%20Mythologiae%20Classicae/LIMC%20III-1%20Atherion-Eros/page/n55/mode/2up}}
- {{cite book|title=Orphicorum fragmenta |last=Kern |first=Otto |year=1922 |publisher=Weidmann.}}
- {{cite journal |last1=Marcovich |first1=M. |title=Demeter, Baubo, Iacchus, and a Redactor |journal=Vigiliae Christianae |date=1 January 1986 |volume=40 |issue=3 |pages=294–301 |doi=10.2307/1583904|jstor=1583904 }}
- {{cite book|title=The Homeric Hymn to Demeter|last=Richardson |first=Nicholas |year=1974| publisher= Clarendon Press.}}
- {{cite book|title=Making Mockery: The Poetics of Ancient Satire |last=Rosen |first=Ralph |year=2007 |publisher= Oxford University Press.}}
- {{cite book|title=Women and Humor in Classical Greece|last=O' Higgins|first=Laurie|year=2003|publisher=Cambridge University Press|location=Cambridge, UK; New York}}
External links
- [http://www.beyond-the-pale.org.uk/zxBauboBeset.htm Examples of Baubo figurines]
- [https://web.archive.org/web/20021111161745/http://mkatz.web.wesleyan.edu/cciv110x/hhdemeter/cciv110.Iambe.html Baubo figurines from the temple of Demeter at Priene, Turkey] Face-in-body Baubo figurines.
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