6

On the “Hero” and the “Woman”

As everybody knows, the doctrine of the Golden Age is part of the doctrine of the four ages, which testifies to the progressive spiritual involution unfolding in the course of history since very ancient times. All of these ages also have a morphological meaning and express a typical and universal form of civilization. Following the Golden Age, we encounter the Silver Age, which corresponds to a priestly and feminine rather than regal and virile type of spirituality: I have called it lunar spirituality, since the symbols of gold and silver have traditionally been in the same relationship as that between sun and moon. In this context, such correspondence is particularly revealing: the moon is the feminine star that, unlike the sun, no longer has in itself the principle of its own light. Hence the shift to a spirituality conditioned by mediation, namely, an extrovert spirituality characterized by an attitude of submission, of abandonment, of loving or ecstatic rapture. Here we find the root of the “religious” phenomenon, from its theistic-devotional forms to its mystical ones.

Any insurgence of a wild and materialized virility against such spiritual forms characterizes the Bronze Age. This age is characterized by the degradation of the warriors’ caste and by its revolt against him who represents the spirit, insofar as he is no longer the Olympian leader but only a priest. The Bronze Age is also marked by the unleashing of the principle proper to the warriors’ caste, namely, pride, violence, war. The corresponding myth is the Titanic or Luciferian revolt, or the Promethean attempt to steal the Olympian fire. The age of “giants,” or of the Wolf, or of the “elemental beings,” is an equivalent figuration found in various traditions and in their fragments preserved in legends and epics of various peoples.

The last age is the Iron Age, or, according to the corresponding Hindu term, the Dark Age (Kali Yuga). This age includes every deconsecrated civilization, every civilization that knows and extols only what is human and earthly. Against these forms of decadence there emerged the idea of a possible cycle of restoration, which Hesiod called the heroic cycle or age of heroes. Here we must employ the term heroic in a special, technical sense distinct from the usual meaning. According to Hesiod, the “generation of heroes” was created by Zeus, that is to say, by the Olympian principle, with the possibility of reattaining the primordial state and thus to give life to a new “golden” cycle.¹

But in order to realize this, which is only a possibility and no longer a state of affairs, it is first necessary to overcome both the “lunar” spirituality and the materialized virility, namely, both the priest and the mere warrior or the Titan. These archetypes are found in the “heroic” figures of almost every tradition. In the Hellenic-Achaean tradition, for instance, Heracles is described as a heroic prototype precisely in these terms; his perennial nemesis is Hera, the supreme goddess of the lunar-pantheistic cult. Heracles earns Olympian immortality after allying himself to Zeus, who is the Olympian principle, against the “giants”; according to one of the myths of this cycle, it is through Heracles that the “titanic” element (symbolized by Prometheus) is freed and reconciled with the Olympian element.

While, on the one hand, the Titan represents one who does not accept the human condition and who wants to steal the divine fire, on the other hand, only a small difference separates the hero from the Titan. Thus Pindar exhorted people not to “yearn to become like gods”; also, in the Hebrew mythology, the symbol of Adam’s curse acted as an analogous warning and indicated a fundamental danger. The titanic type—or, in another respect, the warrior type—is, after all, the prime matter of which heroes are made. But in order to implement a positive solution to the dilemma, that is, to attain an Olympian transformation as the reintegration of the primordial state, it is necessary to fulfill a double condition.

First of all, it is necessary to show the proof and the confirmation of the virile qualification; thus in the epic and knightly symbolism we find a series of adventures, feats, and fights. This qualification should not become a limitation, a hubris, a closure of the “I,” and it should not paralyze the capability of opening oneself up to a transcendent force, in function of which alone can the fire really become light and free itself. Second, such liberation should not signify a cessation of the inner tension; thus a further test consists in adequately reaffirming the virile quality on the supersensible plane. The consequence of this is the Olympian transformation or the achievement of that dignity which in initiatory traditions has always been designated as “regal.” This is the decisive point that differentiates the heroic experience from every mystical evasion and from every pantheistic confusion; among the various symbols that may refer to this point is the symbolism of the woman.

In the Indo-Aryan tradition, every god—that is, every transcendent power—is joined with a bride, and the term śakti, “bride,” also means “power.” In the West, Wisdom (Sophia) and sometimes even the Holy Spirit were represented as a royal woman, while in Greek mythology, Hebe, the perennial Olympian youth, was given in marriage to Heracles as a wife. In Egyptian figurations, divine women offer to the kings a lotus, which is a symbol of a rebirth and the “key of life.” Like the Iranian fravashi, the Nordic Valkyrie are a figuration of transcendental parts of warriors, the forces of their destinies and victories. The Roman tradition knew of a Venus Victrix who was credited with generating an imperial stock (Venus Genitrix); the Celtic tradition mentioned supernatural women who take warriors to mysterious islands to make them immortal with their love. Eve, according to an etymology of the name, means “Life,” or “the Living One.” Thus, without proceeding further with similar examples, which I have discussed elsewhere, I wish to emphasize that a very widespread symbolism has seen in the woman a vivifying and transfiguring power, through which it is possible to overcome the human condition.

What is the foundation of the feminine representation of this power? Since every symbolism is based on specific relationships of analogy, it is necessary to begin with the possible relationships between man and woman. These relationships can be either normal or abnormal. They are abnormal when the woman dominates the man. Because the symbolism of the woman connected to this second case does not concern the issue I am discussing here, I will not dwell on it. I will only say that these are instances of gynecocratic (matriarchal) views that must be regarded as residues of the cycle of the “lunar” civilization, in which we find a reflection of the theme of man’s dependency and passivity toward the spirit conceived under a feminine guise (Cosmic Mother or magna mater, Mother of Life, etc.); this is a characteristic theme of that cycle.

However, the more general idea of the woman as the dispenser of the sacrum and as a vivifying principle, or as the bearer of a life that liberates, animates, and transforms mere being,² does not necessarily fall in this category; rather, such an idea may be (and indeed often was) considered a part of a spirituality that I have characterized as “heroic.” In this instance, it is necessary to refer to the normal relations between man and woman as the basis of the analogy and of the symbolism; hence the fundamental concept of a situation in which the virile principle retains its own nature. The spirit, vis-à-vis the masculine, is the “woman”: the virile principle is active, the spirit passive. Even before the power that transfigures it and vivifies the hero, the virile principle retains the character that man has as the lord of his woman. In passing, we must note that this is exactly the opposite of the bridal symbolism prevalent in religious and especially in the Christian mysticism, in which the soul is attributed a feminine role, namely, that of the “bride.”

Having said that, and remembering what has been said about the “signs” of the center, we find mixed symbols: the Woman of the Island; the Woman of the Tree; the Woman of the Fountain; the Woman or Queen of the Castle; the Queen of the Solar Land; the Woman hidden in the Stone; and so forth. More particularly, as the widow the woman expresses a period of silence, that is, a period in which the tradition, the power, or the strength is no longer possessed, has lost her “man,” and awaits a new lord or hero.³ Analogous is the meaning of the imprisoned virgin who waits to be freed and married to a preordained knight. On this basis, everything that in epic legends and in many chivalric romances is described in terms of adventures and heroic struggles undertaken in the name of a woman is almost always susceptible to interpretation as a symbol of the tests of the virile quality, tests that are assigned as a premise for a transcendent integration of the human personality. And if in this type of literature we also find women who are seductive and who represent a potential danger for the hero, this should not be understood solely in a primitive and direct manner, that is, in terms of a mere carnal seduction. Rather, this should be understood on a higher plane as a reference to the danger that a heroic adventure can lead to a titanic fall. In this case, the woman represents the seductiveness of transcendent power and knowledge when its possession means Promethean usurpation and the sin of prevaricating pride. Another, opposite aspect may be related with what someone has called “the death which comes from a woman,” referring to the loss of the deeper principle of virility.