Rebecca RESINSKI  Monsters, Wondrous Objects, and the Theogony's Anonymous First Woman

The Theogony's first woman is anonymous and largely inanimate, and in order to flesh out an understanding of her, scholars often compare her with other Hesiodic females.  I propose another set of juxtapositions: Hesiod presents the first woman as akin to both wondrous objects and monsters. Such resemblances further define the first woman's particular, peculiar place in the Hesiodic cosmos.

Hesiod emphasizes wondrousness in his account of the first woman in the Theogony: her veil and diadem are each called a thauma to behold, the diadem's depictions of beasts are wonder-inspiring (thaumasia), and the sight of the first woman transfixes her viewers with thauma. Only two other things are called wondrous in the Theogony: the stone substitute for Zeus and the voices of Typhoeus. These thaumata coincide with Prier's observations that thauma in Homer often refers to "geometric phenomena" or "quasi-archaeological objects" and that the phrase thauma idesthai is applied to wrought objects which occupy an intermediary space between gods and humans or are visual symbols of power (Prier 1989). Like Homeric things of wonder, the first woman and her adornments are crafted objects and, created by gods to be sent among mortals, they bridge the human and the divine. Through the first woman, Zeus gains the upper hand over Prometheus and humans; the first woman is thus a visual manifestation of Zeus' cosmic power. The stone stand-in for the baby Zeus, displayed as a testament to Zeus' supremacy, similarly straddles human and divine spheres, bespeaks Zeus' authority, and is treated as a "quasi-archaeological" object. Although the thaumata of Typhoeus' voices operate through sound, the voices are imitations akin to the wondrous beasts on the first woman's diadem. The manufactured first woman becomes identified with significant objects and astounding artificiality. Indeed, her value, meaning, and effect as a wondrous thing are more essential to her identity than is physical vitality.

A further comparison can be made between the first woman and monsters such as Typhoeus. Clay (1993) collates the monsters' salient characteristics: they are hybrids, combining contradictory elements; their births are anomalous and they often remain unnamed; and they exist contrary to universal ordering processes.  As such, they are unmanageable, amêkhanos. The first woman is similarly a hybrid of opposites (a kalon kakon), a creature of odd origin, an unnamed being who threatens disorder. She is also called amêkhanos. The first woman mirrors the monsters' defining characteristics on all counts except one. While the monsters are eventually conquered or marginalized, the first woman is not subdued: from her comes the race of women, a constant disruptive force in the lives of men. Hesiod transfers the characteristics of the monsters who oppose Zeus' order to the first woman, who is Zeus' own creation.

Although we may be tempted to call the Theogony's first woman Pandora, Hesiod does not name her, and Pandora in Works and Days is not identified with wondrous objects or monsters. The namelessness of the Theogony's first woman cooperates with her wondrousness and monstrousness. Objects rarely merit proper names; the first woman's anonymity, together with her inanimateness, supports her connection to the Theogony's other marvelous things. She also shares her namelessness with some members of the monster family.  Hesiod renders the first woman radically different by emphasizing her status as a manufactured, marvelous object and a monstrous, disorderly force planted by Zeus within the mortal cosmos. Thing and monster as well as female, the anonymous first woman is a universal other.