Gender and the Body in Greek Love Magic

The spells collected by Davis belong to a wider class of Greek magic the ancient handbooks sometimes called agogai, or “leading” spells. Accord­ing to Christopher Faraone, this type of magic sought “to bind a female victim and force her to come and make love to the practitioner” and, more specifically, “to force young women from their homes” to that end.^[760] As is clear from Davis’s analysis, a discourse of “remembering” and “forget­ting” reminiscent of the mnemonikai had become part of a “standardized spell script”^[761] in at least some agoge-spells, specifically in connection with a victim “forgetting” present familial relationships in favor of a singular, totalizing relationship to the spell-giver.

Rather less clear, though, is whether the use of such language necessari­ly connotes attempts, analogous to the mnemonikai, to manipulate memory per se. Were these spells actually intended to make the victims literally forget that they had parents, children, and lovers? Or is the language of “remembering” and “forgetting” used here in a more a more colloquial sense, as expressions of relative regard and disregard? For his part, Petropolous highlights Sappho’s account of how Helen left her husband for Troy, stating that the passage “treats of the consequences of passion on the memory.”^[763] But the fragment says only that Helen left “with never a thought for her daughter and dear parents” (κωυδ[ε πα]?δο$ ουδέ φίλων το[κ]ηων πα[μπαν] έμνασθη) - a characterization that is perhaps better taken as an expression of single-mindedness than actual memory loss.^{[764] [765]} Similarly, in the case of at least one of the spells cited by Davis, “forget” (επιλανθανομαι) seems to connote something more or less synonymous with “hate” or even simply “leave behind” rather than a literal failure of memory:

Seize Euphemia and fetch her for me, Theon, to love me with mad love, and bind her with indissoluble, strong adamantine fetters to love me, Theon; and do not let her eat, or drink, or find sleep, or have fun, or laugh; but make her run away from every place and from every house, and leave father, mother, brothers, sisters, until she comes to me....

It is difficult at any rate to see how the victim could hate a person she has literally forgotten.

Still less clear is a significant correlation between this discourse and the sometimes detailed anatomical interests of these spells, let alone any as­sumption of a special link between memory and the female body in partic­ular. The central basis for the latter conclusion would seem to be the con­trast Davis observes between the attention typically given to female bodies in the spells cast by men and the reference to the mind (νοΰ$) of the male victim in the lone example of a spell cast by a woman.^[766] The contrast is no doubt interesting; but the sample is small. And consideration of additional spells makes it plain at any rate that such interest in the female body also occurs in agoge-spells quite apart from any discourse about “forgetting,” as in this spell cast against one Allous:

Burn, torch the soul [or: genitals, την ψυχήν]^{[767] [768] [769] of Allous, her female body [τό γυναικΐον σώμα], her limbs [τα μέλη], until she leaves the household of Apollonius. Lay Allous low with fever, unceasing sickness, incomprehensible sickness.}

That such anatomical focus need not correlate either with memory or even with the female body at all is also clear from an ancient curse that seeks not to bind a female to a male, but to separate one male from another:

I turn away Euboles / from Aineas, from his / face, from his eyes, / from his mouth, / from his breasts, / from his soul / from his belly, from / his penis, from / his anus, / from his entire body.

Perhaps more significant than ancient assumptions about the intersection of body and memory for understanding these spells, then, is simply the an­cient understanding of erotic desire itself. In his analysis of Greek love magic, Faraone has highlighted the fact the Greeks generally perceived erotic passion “as the onset of a pathological disease” - a disease, indeed, that could be described not only as an affliction of the mental faculties of heart and mind, but in quite physical terms of a loosening of one’s limbs, burning fever, and buzzing ears.^[770] Faraone goes on to make the intriguing observation that “on a strictly formal basis... the techniques of many forms of erotic magic are quite indistinguishable” from ancient curses - the main exception being that the latter “torture their victims with fever or pain until they die” while the former “do so only until they yield.”^[771] Users of agoge-spells, in other words, attempted to inflict on their victims an un­bearable physical discomfort, a sickness whose only remedy would be sex­ual contact with the spell-giver.

Faraone points out that one magical handbook identifies “a special sub­set of agoge-spells” as “in-the-fire” (empuron) spells designed specifically “to burn the victim and thereby force her from her home.”^[772] It is particular­ly noteworthy, then, that a discourse of sickness in general and of burning in particular is found repeatedly in these spells. It is quite explicit, for ex­ample, in the case of the above-cited spell against Allous, whose “female body” (το γυναικών σώμα), “limbs” (τα μέλη), and perhaps especially genitals (την ψυχήν) were to “burn” (καΰσον, πυρωσον) while she suf­fered from sickness (νοσώ) and fever (πυρετώ ).^{[773] [774] Indeed this language frequently occurs, as here, precisely as particular parts of a victim’s anat­omy are enumerated with the specific intention of making them “burn” un­til she should submit herself to the spell-giver.}

Burn, set on fire, inflame the soul [genitals?], the heart, the liver, the spirit [καΰσον, ποίρω φλέξου την ψυχήν, την καρδίαν, το ήπαρ, τό πνεύμα] of Gorgonia, whom Nilogenia bore, with love and affection for Sophia, whom Isara bore; drive Gor­gonia herself, torment her body [βασανίσατε αυτή? το σώμα] night and day; force her to rush forth from every place and every house, loving Sophia.

Also to be included in this category are some of those identified as “forget- me-not” spells by Davis, such as the one cast by Theon against Euphemia, which again makes specific reference to το γυνεκιον σώμα in this con­nection:

Burn her members, her liver, her female parts, until she comes to me (καύσατε αυτή? τά μέλη, τό ήπαρ, τό γυνεκΐον σώμα, έως- ελθη προ? εμέ), longing for me and not disobeying me.^{[775] [776] [777]}

Such listing of body parts can in fact become quite extensive in this con­nection.

I am sending you to her NN, whose mother is NN... so that you may attract her to me... Do not enter through her eyes or through her side or through her nails or even through her navel or through her frame, but rather through her ‘soul.’ ³

The spell continues:

And remain in her heart and burn her guts, her breast, her liver, her breath, her bones, her marrow, until she comes to me NN, loving me, and until she fulfills all my wishes.... As I burn you up and you are potent, so burn the brain of her, NN, whom I love. Inflame her and turn her guts inside out, suck out her blood drop by drop, until she comes to me [και έμμεινον αυτή? εν τη καρδία και καύσον αυτή? τα σπλάγχνα, το στήθος-, το ήπαρ, το πνεύμα, τά οστά, τους μυελούς, έως ελθη προς εμε, τον δείνα, φιλουσά με και ποίηση πάντα τά θελήματά μου... ώς εγώ σε κατακάω και δυνατή εΐ, ουτω ής φιλώ, τής δείνα, κατάκαυσον τον εγκέφαλον, εκκαυσον και έκστρεψον αύτής τά σπλάγχνα, έκσταξον αύτής το άιμα, έως ελθη προς εμε].

A Demotic spell, whose complex ritual process also includes putting myrrh on a flame, enters into still more detailed parsing of the victim’s anatomy in this context:

You [i.e., a ritually manipulated scarab] should go... on account of NN, whom NN bore, until fire is put after her heart, the flame after her flesh, until she goes to NN, whom NN bore, at every place in which he is... I am casting fury against you today... in or­der that every burning, every heat, every fire in which you are today, will make them in the heart, the lungs, the liver, the spleen, the womb, the large intestine, the small intes­tine, the ribs, the flesh, the bones, in every limb, in the skin of NN, whom NN bore, until she goes to NN, whom NN bore, at every place in which he is... make a flame in her body, flame in her intestines. Put madness after her heart, fever after her flesh.

The lack of anatomical interest in the spell cast by the woman Capitolina takes on quite a different significance when seen in this context. Interest­ingly, what makes this spell stand out from the others Davis has collected is not merely its lack of attention to its victim’s body, but also its relative lack of interest in sex. While it does seek, to be sure, to inspire a “divine passion” (θειον έρωτα) in its victim, the sexual dimension of the spell remains entirely undeveloped; it is, at any rate, nowhere near so emphatic as in the male spells, which are routinely quite explicit about their pursuit of carnal stimulation.^{[778] [779] Indeed, the primary “love” that Capitolina is after when she takes aim at the nous of Nilos seems more a singular, unswerv­ing obedience than physical gratification:}

You will love me... with a divine passion, and in every way you will be for me an es­cort, as long as I want, that you might do for me what I wish and nothing for anyone else, and that you might obey no one save only me... and that you might forget your parents, children and friends.

In fact, of all the so-called “forget-me-not spells” cast by men that Davis cites, the one that makes no explicit reference to sex also turns out to be the least interested in its female victim’s anatomy.^{[780] [781] Conversely, the one with the most obsessive attention to the female body - that which requires the ritual insertion of needles in strategic places on a female figurine - is also the one with the most sustained and graphic sexual references.[782] If anything, then, one might suggest that the relative focus of a given spell on the body of its victim correlates primarily with the extent of the spell­giver’s erotic intentions; that is, it simply reflects the extent of the spell­giver’s interest in the victim’s actual body. The fact that this also happens to correlate with gender may thus tell us more about the social aims typical of ancient male and female spell-givers respectively than about some broad cultural construction of memory relative to the female body in particular.[783] Indeed, to the extent that a discourse of remembering and forgetting can be further correlated with anatomical interest at all - and assuming, of course, that literal memory loss is actually in view when such language does occur - it may be considered simply another (if in context particularly useful) symptom of erotic “illness.”[784]}

B.