Speaker 1: Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of iHeartRadio and Grim
Speaker 1: and Mild from Aaron Manky. Listener discretion advised.
Speaker 2: One brief content note before I begin, I talk about
Speaker 2: sexual violence and suicide in this episode, so if those
Speaker 2: themes are something that you are particularly sensitive to, this
Speaker 2: might be an episode to skip. The story of Medusa,
Speaker 2: like many ancient legends, plays out differently depending on which
Speaker 2: version you're reading. It was Avid, in his Greek mythology
Speaker 2: fan fiction Metamorphoses, who introduced the version of Medusa's story
Speaker 2: that most listeners are probably familiar with today. In that version,
Speaker 2: Medusa was the daughter of a sea god who grew
Speaker 2: up to be a beautiful young priestess of Athena or Minerva,
Speaker 2: as the goddess would have been known to Avid and
Speaker 2: the Romans. Medusa tragically caught the attention of Poseidon or Neptune,
Speaker 2: who proceeded to rape her in Minerva's temple. Avid uses
Speaker 2: the brutal word vitiace injure, defile, or damage to describe
Speaker 2: the act. You might know what happens next in the story.
Speaker 2: It's not Neptune who's punished, but Medusa herself. Her hair
Speaker 2: is transformed into snakes by her own goddess. There is
Speaker 2: a feminist reading of that outcome, in which some see
Speaker 2: Minerva giving Medusa a means to protect herself against future assault.
Speaker 2: That's a generous reading, as classic scholar Natalie Haynes reminds
Speaker 2: us Minerva wasn't exactly a girl's girl, but it's also
Speaker 2: a fairly depressing reading. In my view. Protected may be,
Speaker 2: but Medusa's fate is also sealed. She will be a
Speaker 2: monster to be hunted, and her severed head will later
Speaker 2: be turned into a weapon for another's use. Avid's Metamorphosies
Speaker 2: is far from a light read, both in terms of
Speaker 2: its length and content. Sexual violence is pervasive throughout many
Speaker 2: of its stories. Jokingly calling Metamorphoses Greek mythology fan fiction
Speaker 2: is not really inaccurate, but it's also not fully painting
Speaker 2: the whole picture. The text was meant to serve as
Speaker 2: a history of the world from creation to the death
Speaker 2: of Caesar. Just as it's pervasive in the pages of
Speaker 2: the text, sexual violence is also pervasive in the history
Speaker 2: of the world. Avid followed Metamorphosies with Fasti, which, instead
Speaker 2: of focusing on Greek legends, finished wishes what the last
Speaker 2: three books of Metamorphoses began turning the lens to Roman history, religion, culture,
Speaker 2: and figures. Because both books blend genre, and because of
Speaker 2: the time they were written, much of the content in
Speaker 2: both Metamorphoses and Fosti fall somewhere in between myth and history.
Speaker 2: The noble woman Lucretia and the famous story of the
Speaker 2: rape she suffered at the hands of Sextus Tarquinius, who
Speaker 2: is also known as Tarquin, is one such mythohistory found
Speaker 2: in the pages of Avid's Fasti. Some historians take an
Speaker 2: extreme view on Lucretia's story, claiming that it was a
Speaker 2: complete fabrication, but the more widely accepted understanding is that
Speaker 2: the legend probably grew out of real events, but that
Speaker 2: it was later shaped or metamorphosed over time to create
Speaker 2: a poignant, symbolic narrative. Though Medusa and Lucretia hail from
Speaker 2: different cultures and different Ovid poems, their stories say a
Speaker 2: lot in conversation with one another. They were both daughters
Speaker 2: of powerful fathers, both hailed for their beauty and purity,
Speaker 2: both were raped by men with more power than they had,
Speaker 2: and in death they both became weapons to be yielded
Speaker 2: by yet more powerful men. But where Medusa's head was
Speaker 2: quite literally wielded by Perseus, who used it to turn
Speaker 2: his own enemies to stone, Lucretia's body became more of
Speaker 2: a symbolic weapon. After her rape and subsequent suicide, her
Speaker 2: body was displayed on the streets by revolutionaries to incite rebellion.
Speaker 2: Lucretia's suicide after her assault is known as the catalyst
Speaker 2: that led to the fall of the Roman monarchy, the
Speaker 2: reason that the Roman Empire no longer had kings. The
Speaker 2: story of the ideal Roman woman driven to take her
Speaker 2: own life because of the actions of a man drunk
Speaker 2: on his own power became itself a powerful enough narrative
Speaker 2: to be, as the French philosopher Pierre Bale put it, quote,
Speaker 2: one of the hinges on which the history of the
Speaker 2: Romans turns. Perhaps more critically, we can look at Lucretia
Speaker 2: through the words of Simone de Beauvois, who wrote that
Speaker 2: it is through women that quote certain historical events have
Speaker 2: been set off, but the women have been pretexts rather
Speaker 2: than agents. The suicide of Lucretia has had value only
Speaker 2: as symbol. But where did the story and the symbol
Speaker 2: come from? What role has it played in different moments
Speaker 2: and history? And is it possible to know who Lucretia
Speaker 2: was really or will she always be in the hands
Speaker 2: of men using her for their ends. I'm Dana Schwartz,
Speaker 2: and this is noble blood. Just as with the myth
Speaker 2: of Medusa, the story of Lucretia will differ from historian
Speaker 2: to historian, storyteller to storyteller. The first recorded account of
Speaker 2: Lucretia's story comes from the Roman historian Livy in his
Speaker 2: History of Rome, written nearly five hundred years after the
Speaker 2: event described. Before Livy, the story existed in oral tradition,
Speaker 2: and after him it would continue on in the hands
Speaker 2: of other writers and historians like Dionysus of Halikarnassis, Dio,
Speaker 2: Cassius Avid, and eventually Shakespeare, Machiavelli, and Rousseau, each with
Speaker 2: their own interpretation and agenda in their tellings. The scholar
Speaker 2: ian Donaldson, in his book Rapes of Lucretia, A Myth
Speaker 2: and Its Transformations, reconstructs the earliest versions of the story
Speaker 2: to give a composite picture of what might have been
Speaker 2: the quote historic event. It goes like this. In five
Speaker 2: hundred and nine BC, the Roman King Tarquinis Superbus was
Speaker 2: attempting a siege of the town of Ardea. One night
Speaker 2: during the siege, a group of noblemen, the king's son
Speaker 2: among them, were having a wife off, boasting about whose
Speaker 2: wife was the most virtuous, the most beautiful, the most exemplary.
Speaker 2: One nobleman, Calatinus, insisted that his wife, Lucretia, daughter of
Speaker 2: the magistrate Lucretius, was second to none, her virtue the
Speaker 2: most virtuous, her beauty the most beauteous. When the boasting
Speaker 2: turned competitive, it was suggested that the group would make
Speaker 2: the twenty somethingter mile trip back to Rome to assess
Speaker 2: each wife themselves. Most of the wives were found together
Speaker 2: chatting and engaging in idle pastimes, but Lucretia hashtag not
Speaker 2: like other girls, was found at home alone spinning wool
Speaker 2: homemaking while her husband was away on the front lines.
Speaker 2: Lucretia won the contest of best and most wife. Though
Speaker 2: the story begins light and even a little bit silly
Speaker 2: to our modern ears, the story takes a dark turn.
Speaker 2: In Livy's words in translation, the king's son quote Sextus
Speaker 2: Tarquinius was seized with a wicked desire to debauch Lucretia
Speaker 2: by force. Not only her beauty, but her proved chastity
Speaker 2: as well provoked him. The men returned to Ardia, but
Speaker 2: Tarquin later returned alone. Lucretia courteously received the king's son
Speaker 2: as anyone would be expected to, giving him food and
Speaker 2: a room to stay in for the night, but when
Speaker 2: the household was asleep, he entered her bedroom in the
Speaker 2: middle of the night with a sword on his person.
Speaker 2: Tarquin first attempted to seduce Lucretia with promises to marry
Speaker 2: her and make her queen, but when that didn't work,
Speaker 2: he turned to threats. If he couldn't have her, he
Speaker 2: would kill her. She continued to deny him, and so
Speaker 2: he came up with another plan. He threatened to kill
Speaker 2: not only her but also one of his slaves, and
Speaker 2: to place their naked bodies in her bed together and
Speaker 2: then claim he found them together and killed them in outrage.
Speaker 2: The posthumous shame of that final threat was too much
Speaker 2: for Lucretia. She stopped resisting, and Tarquin proceeded to rape her.
Speaker 2: The following morning, Lucretia summoned her father, Lucretius and her
Speaker 2: husband Calatinus, to their home, and she asked each of
Speaker 2: them to bring a trusted friend. Calatinus brought Lucius Junius Brutus,
Speaker 2: not the A two guy, to be very clear, but
Speaker 2: a nephew of King Superbus, a nephew and not a fan.
Speaker 2: Brutus was generally thought of as an idiot, but he
Speaker 2: was in reality putting on an act of ignorance, waiting
Speaker 2: for his moment to get revenge on the king who
Speaker 2: murdered his father and brother. And so with those four
Speaker 2: men gathered, Lucretia told the story of what happened the
Speaker 2: night before, and when she was done telling the story,
Speaker 2: she revealed a knife beneath her garments, which she used
Speaker 2: to stab herself and die. Brudus removed the knife from
Speaker 2: her body and swore an oath by the blood of
Speaker 2: Lucretia none more chaste. Tell a tyrant wronged her that
Speaker 2: he would drive the Tarquins from Rome. With that, a
Speaker 2: revolution began to form. Lucretia's body was displayed at the
Speaker 2: Forum in Rome, where Brudus rallied the Romans by showing
Speaker 2: them the tyranny of the Tarquins and its consequences. It
Speaker 2: was a successful publicity campaign and the people drove the
Speaker 2: royal family out of Rome, vowing to have no more kings.
Speaker 2: Brudus and Lucretia's husband Calatinus were installed as the first
Speaker 2: consuls of the Roman Republic. The end or is it?
Speaker 2: That is the SparkNotes version of events, but technically yeah.
Speaker 2: The last mention of Lucretia in her story is that
Speaker 2: of her body on display while she was alive. However,
Speaker 2: she does get a bit more characterization in other versions
Speaker 2: of her story. In Livy's telling, Lucretia has a poignant
Speaker 2: rallying speech before she takes her life, quote, my body
Speaker 2: alone has been violated. My heart is guiltless, as death
Speaker 2: shall be my witness. But pledge your right hands and
Speaker 2: your words that the adulterer shall not go unpunished. Her
Speaker 2: death is than heroic, even masculine in a sense, as
Speaker 2: death by night was not traditionally associated with women at
Speaker 2: the time, It's portrayed as a morally virtuous death. Lucretia
Speaker 2: is killing herself, she explains, so that promiscuous women cannot
Speaker 2: use her as an example to justify their own actions. Avid,
Speaker 2: for his part, gives Lucretia more dialogue in the story's
Speaker 2: beginning when she laments the danger her husband may be
Speaker 2: in on the front lines, and when she joyously throws
Speaker 2: herself into his arms upon his return, even in front
Speaker 2: of all of his comrades. Lucretia is portrayed as devoted
Speaker 2: and tender, while also sheltered and a little naive. Avid
Speaker 2: also gives us a physical description for the first time.
Speaker 2: Her complexion is snowy, she uses no cosmetics, her hair
Speaker 2: is golden and flowing freely. It's this physical Lucretia that
Speaker 2: we will most often see in artistic depictions to come.
Speaker 2: Her appearance was a feminine ideal. By Avid's time, most
Speaker 2: Roman women had dark hair and an olive complexion to
Speaker 2: imitate the desirable German beauty standard. Sex workers were actually
Speaker 2: known to wear blonde wigs, while women across classes wore
Speaker 2: chalk on their faces to appear paler. Lucretia's characterization through
Speaker 2: her words, actions, and appearance, then all serves to portray
Speaker 2: her as an ideal in every sense. But what happens
Speaker 2: when you kill an ideal? Avid's telling takes an arguably
Speaker 2: more human approach when compared to Livy. His Lucretia does
Speaker 2: not die grandly, calling for revenge. Instead, the morning after
Speaker 2: the horrific event, she's visibly disheveled and wearing a morning gown.
Speaker 2: She's distraught and finds herself having trouble telling her father
Speaker 2: and husband what has happened. This Lucretia is overcome by
Speaker 2: grief and cannot find her heart guiltless. Instead, her last
Speaker 2: words are quote, though you forgive me, I cannot forgive myself.
Speaker 2: Only through death does Lucretia believe that she can preserve
Speaker 2: her virtues. But her death becomes far bigger than that.
Speaker 2: In the end, she doesn't just die for what she
Speaker 2: saw as her sins, she also dies for the birth
Speaker 2: of the republic. As the ideal woman of the Roman Republic,
Speaker 2: Lucretia's death both literally and metaphorically expunged the tyrant and
Speaker 2: his lineage from Rome, literally because she might have been
Speaker 2: pregnant with the son of the son of the king.
Speaker 2: Lucretia's role in Roman history is not completely dissimilar from
Speaker 2: that of an earlier woman in Roman mythology, one of
Speaker 2: the famed Vestal virgins, Raya Silvia, who according to legend,
Speaker 2: was raped by Mars and gave birth to Ramus and Romulus.
Speaker 2: The wolf raised twins, whose battle for divine favor is
Speaker 2: remembered as the traditional founding story of Rome. Both stories
Speaker 2: were that of a chaste woman. One would bring about
Speaker 2: the Kingdom of Rome and the other the Roman Republic.
Speaker 2: If we remember Simon de Beauvoir's words here quote, women
Speaker 2: have been pretexts rather than agents. Livy states in his
Speaker 2: history that his writing is not just intended to be
Speaker 2: a history lesson, but also moral instruction, hoping Roman readers
Speaker 2: of the day could learn from Romans of the past,
Speaker 2: which probably explains Lucretia's inspirational speech. Ofvid was less concerned
Speaker 2: with the morality of the average Roman. His Lucretius story
Speaker 2: was actually written during his exile from Rome by the
Speaker 2: Emperor Augustus. The reasons for this exile were never actually documented,
Speaker 2: but do not worry, the city of Rome did revoke
Speaker 2: his exile in twenty seventeen, only two thousand years later.
Speaker 2: Both Avid and Livy had a vested interest in portraying
Speaker 2: the corruption of power, emphasizing in their stories the inherent
Speaker 2: wickedness and immorality of the son of the king, Sextus Tarquinius.
Speaker 2: This is how the story would be understood for many years,
Speaker 2: with Tarquin as a monster and Lucretia as both a
Speaker 2: victim and a martyr. It wasn't until Augustine, the bishop
Speaker 2: and theologian, who wrote on the City of God against
Speaker 2: the Pagans, that Lucretia's role would be altered in the
Speaker 2: public consciousness. Regarded today as a cornerstone of Western thought.
Speaker 2: Augustine's work was written between four hundred and thirteen and
Speaker 2: four hundred and twenty six a d. In the context
Speaker 2: of the ongoing conflict between Christians and Pagans. After the
Speaker 2: sack of Rome by the Goths in four hundred and ten,
Speaker 2: Pagans were beginning to fear that Christianity and the abandonment
Speaker 2: of Roman gods was the cause of their suffering, and
Speaker 2: with City of God, Augustine, from the Roman province in
Speaker 2: North Africa, was seeking to counter those arguments and bolster
Speaker 2: the faith of Christians. The title comes from the idea
Speaker 2: that even if earthly empires fall, the City of God
Speaker 2: will ultimately prevail. When it comes to Augustine's writing on Lucretia,
Speaker 2: he begins quote they, as in Pagans, will certainly bring
Speaker 2: out Lucretia with great praises for her chastity. If that
Speaker 2: feels a little mocking, it's because it was. Augustine goes
Speaker 2: on to question why Lucretia killed herself if she was
Speaker 2: truly guilty of nothing. He argues that she actually killed
Speaker 2: herself because even though she was attacked, she eventually consented,
Speaker 2: and her consent, rather than being out of fear of
Speaker 2: the consequences as in the original tellings, was in Augustine's
Speaker 2: mind because she secretly desired Tarquin Eleanor Glendinning writes in
Speaker 2: her analysis that quote, a person committed to the Christian
Speaker 2: faith could suffer any bodily suffering and emerge with an
Speaker 2: even stronger mind and conviction in the existence of God.
Speaker 2: By doing so, Augustine's City of God also laid the
Speaker 2: foundations for early Christian beliefs surrounding suicide. In general. Augustine
Speaker 2: believed that thou shalt not kill also referred to oneself.
Speaker 2: Augustine is disparaging a pagan hero using a Christian narrative,
Speaker 2: and the Western world will of course only continue to
Speaker 2: move further from paganism and towards Christianity as time marches. On.
Speaker 2: The other change, Augustine makes here is distancing Lucretia from
Speaker 2: the revolutionary narrative. Augustine does not care about the Tarquins
Speaker 2: or Brutus. He has just focused on Lucretia as an
Speaker 2: unworthy pagan martyr figure. It's important to discuss Augustine because
Speaker 2: his words will have permeated the culture of every writer
Speaker 2: that tells the story of Lucretia going far forward, whether
Speaker 2: they agreed with him or not. Disconnecting her from politics
Speaker 2: also gave way to new narratives want about chastity, lust,
Speaker 2: and temptation. There are many Renaissance paintings of Lucretia, but
Speaker 2: most are domestic, not political scenes, domestic scenes with her
Speaker 2: in various states of undress, either fending off her attacker
Speaker 2: or pointing the knife at her own chest. There's also
Speaker 2: an eroticism to these paintings that can arguably be traced
Speaker 2: back to Augustine. All of this brings me to Shakespeare.
Speaker 2: Shakespeare's main source for his narrative poem The Rape of
Speaker 2: Lucrece wasn't Augustine, but actually the originals Avid and Livy.
Speaker 2: There are, though, a number of ways in which Shakespeare's
Speaker 2: poem depart arts from its source material. But one in
Speaker 2: particular is shockingly different. Lucretia's suicide in Shakespeare's poem does
Speaker 2: not lead to a revolution. In fact, there is no
Speaker 2: mention of the Roman Republic at all. Late in the poem,
Speaker 2: Lucretia has a lengthy speech reflecting back on her rapist's crime. Quote,
Speaker 2: thou seemest not what thou art a god? A king?
Speaker 2: For kings, like gods, should govern everything. How wilt thy
Speaker 2: shame be seated in thine age? When thus thy vices
Speaker 2: bud before thy spring? If in thy hope thou darst
Speaker 2: do such outrage? What darst thou not? When once thou
Speaker 2: art a king? Right off the bat? We are in
Speaker 2: a very different political atmosphere than the world of Livy
Speaker 2: and Avid. Maybe it's obvious Shakespeare lived in England under
Speaker 2: a monarchy. His Lucretia is comparing kings and gods in
Speaker 2: a positive way, going so far as to say that
Speaker 2: they should govern everything. The message is not that absolute
Speaker 2: power corrupts absolutely. It's that Tarquin is corrupted absolutely. One
Speaker 2: bad apple. Shakespeare's Lucretia continues, quote, this deed will make
Speaker 2: thee only loved for fear. But happy monarchs are still
Speaker 2: feared for love with foul offenders, Thou perforce must bear
Speaker 2: when they in thee the like offenses prove, if but
Speaker 2: for fear of this, thy will remove. For princes are
Speaker 2: the glass, the school, the book where subjects, eyes do learn,
Speaker 2: do read, do look. Lucretia is speaking with more political
Speaker 2: language than she has in any other version of her story,
Speaker 2: but it is a far cry from what the original
Speaker 2: political purpose of her story was. Shakespeare is instead working
Speaker 2: within the genre of mirrors for Princes, a literary genre
Speaker 2: that was popular throughout the Middle Ages and the Renaissance,
Speaker 2: which sought to, as the title implies, provide advice and
Speaker 2: examples for rulers to give advice on how to be
Speaker 2: a good prince. Shakespeare's The Rape of Lucrece ends with
Speaker 2: Brutus declaring to avenge her death, but this is done
Speaker 2: by banishing Tarquin from Rome, not starting the republic. The
Speaker 2: poem ends quote, when they had sworn to this advised doom,
Speaker 2: they did conclude to bear dead Lucrece, thence to show
Speaker 2: her bleeding body through Rome, and so to publish Tarquin's
Speaker 2: foul offense, which being done with speedy diligence, The Roman
Speaker 2: plausibly did give consent to Tarquin's everlasting banishment. Lucretia's body
Speaker 2: is still a political weapon, but as a symbol she
Speaker 2: carries much less weight when Tarquin is simply banished, as
Speaker 2: opposed to he and his family being forever removed from
Speaker 2: power and the entire system of government of Rome changing forever.
Speaker 2: Shakespeare is much more focused on the actions of the individual,
Speaker 2: and make no mistake, he thinks Tarquinius is corrupt. Though
Speaker 2: he is writing in a post Augustine world. It is
Speaker 2: clear that what Lucretia feels towards her attacker in Shakespeare's
Speaker 2: poem is fear she is not consenting. Shakespeare uses a
Speaker 2: metaphor of Tarquin as a predator, the wolf hath seized
Speaker 2: his prey, the poor lamb cries. Compared to Augustine, Shakespeare
Speaker 2: also displays a far greater understanding of the reality of
Speaker 2: the physiological repercussions of rape. While Lucretia's family believes quote
Speaker 2: her bodies stain, her mind untainted clears, he writes that
Speaker 2: quote with a joyless smile. She turns away the face
Speaker 2: that map, which deep impression bears of hard misfortune carved
Speaker 2: in it with tears. Her suicide is not the result
Speaker 2: of her secretly being unchased. In Shakespeare's version, it is,
Speaker 2: as it was in the beginning, a preservation of her chastity.
Speaker 2: We know this because Shakespeare has her tell us quote
Speaker 2: for me, I am the mistress of my fate, she
Speaker 2: states as she contemplates what to do in the aftermath
Speaker 2: of her assault. She's given more dialogue, more of an
Speaker 2: inner life here than in any other telling, aligning her
Speaker 2: more with Shakespeare's other tragic heroines. Shakespeare's telling of Lucretia
Speaker 2: may appear to be removed from key points of its
Speaker 2: original context, but again, it fits quite nicely in Elizabethan England.
Speaker 2: It's not a stretch to draw parallels between the virgin
Speaker 2: queen who proudly sacrificed marriage for her country, and Lucretia,
Speaker 2: who was so chaste that she died for hers. The
Speaker 2: poem was written around the same time Shakespeare would make
Speaker 2: another reference to the virgin Queen in A Midsummer Night's Dream,
Speaker 2: when Oberon speaks of quote a fair vestal throned by
Speaker 2: the west. Shakespeare's flattery also appears in Richard the Third,
Speaker 2: in which the mad villainous hunchbacked king is overthrown not
Speaker 2: by a revolution but by combat with the next king,
Speaker 2: who have to be Elizabeth's great grandfather. But for a
Speaker 2: prospective on Lucretia's story that returns to the original revolutionary sentiments,
Speaker 2: let's go where else to France or more specifically, Geneva.
Speaker 2: As Jean Jacques Rousseau bounced between European countries throughout his life,
Speaker 2: His unfinished tragic play LaMonte de Lucrece was composed around
Speaker 2: seventeen fifty four seventeen fifty six, still early years in
Speaker 2: Rousseau's career. Seventeen fifty four was the same year he
Speaker 2: wrote his foundational Discourse on the Origin and Basis of
Speaker 2: Inequality among Men, in which he argued that moral inequality
Speaker 2: is not innate to humans, rather a product of quote, wealth,
Speaker 2: nobility or rank, power, and personal merit. Given Russeau's lofty
Speaker 2: Enlightenment ideals, his play does, as you might imagine, return
Speaker 2: Lucretia's story to its Republican roots, the roots that we're
Speaker 2: lacking in Shakespeare's telling. But like in Shakespeare's a number
Speaker 2: of details have been changed for storytelling purposes. Lucretia begins
Speaker 2: Russeau's story engaged to sexist Tarquinius, but her father breaks
Speaker 2: it off despite the wishes of the king, and Lucretia
Speaker 2: instead marries the less powerful Calatin for different political reasons.
Speaker 2: There may have once been something between the two, but
Speaker 2: Lucretia tells her handmaiden that she prefers quote the constant
Speaker 2: and peaceful love of Coltan to the fiery passions of Sextus.
Speaker 2: Referring to Tarquin still, she prays, quote, O God who
Speaker 2: sees my heart, clarify my judgment. Guarantee I do not
Speaker 2: cease to be virtuous. You know that although I want
Speaker 2: to be, I will always be if you want it
Speaker 2: as well. So in this version there is a temptation
Speaker 2: to return to Tarquin, but Lucretia fights against it. Because
Speaker 2: this is theater, we're given a story that's a more
Speaker 2: dramatic and be an introduction to a number of additional
Speaker 2: moving parts that weren't present in any other version. In
Speaker 2: Rousseau's version, Tarquin has promised that he'll arrange a marriage
Speaker 2: between two lovers, his servant and Lucretia's handmaiden, if the
Speaker 2: two of them can arrange a secret meeting between him
Speaker 2: and his ex fiancee, Lucretia. Lucretia's maid is wary, believing
Speaker 2: her lady is quote not capable of feeling anything but
Speaker 2: for her spouse and her duty. But Tarquin's servant argues
Speaker 2: that Lucretia only puts up appearances of virtue, and no
Speaker 2: one would ultimately but virtue above personal passions. While all
Speaker 2: of that is going on, Brutus is already plotting his
Speaker 2: revolution to overthrow the Tarquins. He tries to persuade Colton
Speaker 2: to join his cause by telling him about how Tarquin
Speaker 2: is in love with his wife, but Coltan simply tells
Speaker 2: him quote, I know the virtues of Lucretia's heart. On
Speaker 2: top of that, Colton fears war and the possibility of anarchy, slavery,
Speaker 2: and civil strife after the monarchs are driven out. Lucretius,
Speaker 2: his father in law, accuses him of being childish, taking
Speaker 2: the easy way out by continuing to live in comfort
Speaker 2: under tyrants rather than fighting for the greater good of
Speaker 2: liberty and equality. The rest of Rousseau's play is only
Speaker 2: available to us in fragments. Tarquin laments that Lucretia's quote
Speaker 2: virtue deserving of adoration by the gods has been soiled
Speaker 2: by him quote the violist of mortals, before in a twist,
Speaker 2: he kills himself. It's unclear in this version whether rape
Speaker 2: or consensual sex happened, but Lucretia ultimately kills herself as well.
Speaker 2: In Rousseau's autobiographical work Confessions, he describes his reasoning for
Speaker 2: writing about Lucretia quote, I planned a prose tragedy on
Speaker 2: no less a subject than Lucrece, with which I had
Speaker 2: some hope of overcoming derision, even though I ventured to
Speaker 2: bring that unfortunate woman back to the stage when she
Speaker 2: had become an impossible subject for the French theater. He
Speaker 2: was referring to two failed productions by French playwrights, first
Speaker 2: Jean Francois Rignard and Charles de Francais, who had produced
Speaker 2: comedies of the story, notes, which I have to imagine
Speaker 2: is probably why they didn't work. Rousseau instead believed Lucretia
Speaker 2: could be a quote useful heroine with whom Parisian audiences
Speaker 2: could identify. Melissa M. Mathis, in her book The Rape
Speaker 2: of Lucretia and the Founding of Republics, writes that quote.
Speaker 2: For Rousseau, the story of the rape of Lucretia is
Speaker 2: in part an apt encapsulation of deterioration and renewal, an
Speaker 2: allegory for the loss and potential rebirth of the Republic.
Speaker 2: And for Rousseau, women are the perfect emblem of both
Speaker 2: corruption and the possibility of renewal. Who else in eighteenth
Speaker 2: century French society has fallen further than women, specifically the
Speaker 2: bourgeois women of the salons. Yet upon whom else can
Speaker 2: the possibility for renewal be placed? Even the wretched can
Speaker 2: be redeemed, made into the virtuous nursemaids of the republic.
Speaker 2: Surely there is still reason to believe in the possibility
Speaker 2: of a Republican rebirth.
Speaker 1: That is why.
Speaker 2: Rousseau's Lucretia struggles with temptation, not because she is ultimately sinful,
Speaker 2: but because she is virtuous but human. Rousseau isn't as
Speaker 2: obsessed with innocence as other Enlightenment figures. He believes that
Speaker 2: redemption and rebirth can come from places of corruption. This
Speaker 2: Lucretia's world is one of scheming fathers and maids and servants,
Speaker 2: all using her as a pawn in their larger games.
Speaker 2: Even Calatinus, her husband, is corrupt here, fitting the model
Speaker 2: of the nouveau bourgeois that Rousseau detested. He, like the bourgeois,
Speaker 2: is absorbed in his own comfort, reluctant to give up
Speaker 2: his privileges even for the greater good. In Rousseau's version,
Speaker 2: we don't see Lucretia's body weaponized as literally as in
Speaker 2: the others, but it's still used as a tool, only
Speaker 2: this time for Tarquin's redemption. Tarquin is so horrified by
Speaker 2: what he has done, whether it was tempting Lucretia or
Speaker 2: assaulting her, that he is driven to kill himself, as
Speaker 2: she usually exclusively is. In the wake of his transgression,
Speaker 2: he realizes that he is the vilest of mortals, reaching
Speaker 2: a quite literal moment of enlightenment, his violation of Lucretia
Speaker 2: was his path to redemption. Lucretia, for her part, kills
Speaker 2: herself in one part to preserve her virtue, but also
Speaker 2: because of Quote having shared in the crime. Because these
Speaker 2: parts of the play are only available to us as fragments,
Speaker 2: it's hard to do a complete analysis, but it does
Speaker 2: present an interesting contrast with Augustine. Augustine believed Lucretia killed
Speaker 2: herself because she was guilty of desiring Tarquin, and therefore
Speaker 2: she was unworthy of pagan admiration. Rousseau believes that she
Speaker 2: potentially killed herself for the same reasons, but he presents
Speaker 2: it as heroic. There's not a sense that killing herself
Speaker 2: is purifying her body and her country, as there was
Speaker 2: in the original version, but rather the larger idea that
Speaker 2: the republic can still be born from an imperfect mother.
Speaker 2: But no matter which narrative we look at from any date, place,
Speaker 2: or time, Lucretia is always the pretext rather than the agent.
Speaker 2: Her value is mostly that of symbol. In some of
Speaker 2: these tellings, she's given a greater inner life, a richer carecterzation,
Speaker 2: but it's always to serve the ultimate goal of saying
Speaker 2: something about the place and time in which her story
Speaker 2: is being retold. It's difficult to answer the question I
Speaker 2: posed at the beginning of this episode, who is Lucretia really?
Speaker 2: Because she's something different to every writer that she's been
Speaker 2: the subject of. Maybe there isn't even a real Lucretia
Speaker 2: at all. But that's also a question that's impossible to
Speaker 2: answer ultimately. For better or for worse, Lucretia exists, but
Speaker 2: she exists as legend. That's the story of Lucretia and
Speaker 2: the many, many ways she's been interpreted over the course
Speaker 2: of history. But keep listening after a brief sponsor break
Speaker 2: for a very important artistic interpretation of Lucretia by a woman.
Speaker 2: Artemisia Gentileschi was a Baroque painter, the first woman to
Speaker 2: become a member of the Academia in Florence, perhaps best
Speaker 2: known for her paintings of Judith, the Jewish heroine. Not
Speaker 2: only did several of her paintings focus on Judith, but
Speaker 2: Lucretia was also a subject that Artemisia returned to multiple times.
Speaker 2: Her sixteen twenty five portrait of Lucretia, fittingly entitled Lucretia,
Speaker 2: shows a well known scene with new nuance. Lucretia is
Speaker 2: moments from suicide, her left hand clutching the knife and
Speaker 2: her right hand clutching her breast. She's disheveled in the
Speaker 2: aftermath of her assault, but the painting doesn't feel erotic
Speaker 2: as it sometimes does in the hands of other masters.
Speaker 2: She is not fair haired or flawless. Her brow is
Speaker 2: tightly wrinkled and The distress is evident on her face,
Speaker 2: and she looks up in contemplation. We see the defined
Speaker 2: muscles of her legs and the strength in her hands.
Speaker 2: There is clear pain, but there's also clear strength. When
Speaker 2: Artemisia was seventeen, she herself was raped by another Italian painter,
Speaker 2: Agostino Tassi, and when the case went to trial on
Speaker 2: the grounds of Tossi dishonoring her family, Artemisia was subjected
Speaker 2: to torture during her testimony to prove she was telling
Speaker 2: the truth. Her experiences have affected the way art historians
Speaker 2: view her paintings, and while many have believed she sought
Speaker 2: to portray vengeance, a newer school of thought argues that
Speaker 2: what Artemisia was actually interested in was showing strength in
Speaker 2: her female heroines. There are even some art historians who
Speaker 2: see similarities between Artemisia's self portraits, one entitled quite Poignantly
Speaker 2: Self Portrait as a Female Martyr, and her sixteen twenty
Speaker 2: five portrait of Lucretia. I encourage you to look at
Speaker 2: these works for yourself, along with Artemisia's other masterful compositions.
Speaker 2: She is wonderful both as an artist and just a
Speaker 2: name that we get to say Artemisia Gentileschi, who ultimately
Speaker 2: whether or not Artemisia Genta Leschi's past influenced her future
Speaker 2: decision to paint Lucretia, her perspective introduced a new depth
Speaker 2: that was lacking amongst her peers.
Speaker 1: Noble Blood is a production of iHeartRadio and Grim and
Speaker 1: miniled from Aaron Manke. Noble Blood is created and hosted
Speaker 1: by me Dana Shwarts, with additional writing and researching by
Speaker 1: Hannah Johnston, Hannah Zwick, Mira Hayward, Courtney Sender, and Lori Goodman.
Speaker 1: The show is edited and produced by Noemi Griffin and
Speaker 1: rima Il Kahali, with supervising producer Josh Thain and executive
Speaker 1: producers Aaron Manke, Alex Williams, and Matt Frederick. For more
Speaker 1: podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
Speaker 1: wherever you listen to your favorite shows.