Natalie Haynes stopped off on her UK tour to treat Marlborough LitFest audience to an entertaining, roller coaster romp through Goddesses in Greek Myth who appear in her new book Divine Might. As well as being a Cambridge classicist, author, journalist and broadcaster, with eight series of Natalie Haynes Stands Up for the Classics on BBC Radio 4, she was a stand-up comic for 12 years – and it shows.
Making the Greek Goddesses accessible to a twenty-first century audience, some of whom were A-level Classics students, Haynes’s fast-paced performance – she hardly stops to take a breath – had plenty of sex and violence, with witty asides and innuendoes, but also displayed her phenomenal knowledge having minute details of the myths at her finger-tips.
Just some of the topics covered included: the muses, “pretty nice, constructively beautiful, but can be cheeky and mean”; Sirens, “who are the high water mark of destructive singing”; Ovid, who is “a sex-pest but understands consent”; Aphrodite, “Goddess of sex, love, desire and beauty, fascinating and terrifying”; Athene, who is “born fully formed. Her father impregnates an earlier sexual partner and then hears a prophesy that any child they have could overthrow him so he swallows her whole and consumes her. Next Athene is born from his head.”
She also creates vivid and humorous pictures of the appearances of various Goddesses. In a poem by Sappho, Aphrodite arrives in a chariot pulled by sparrows! Haynes asks – “Is this adorable with lots of little sparrows, or shades of Hitchcock with zillions of sparrows coming at you? Or are the sparrows some kind of mega sparrows, now extinct?”
Haynes delves into the various horrific punishments many Greek figures undergo for misdeeds. Parents are turned into magpies, eyes are gouged out. Actaeon sees Artemis bathing naked and immediately feels “something horrible happening to him. He turns into a stag like the creatures he had been chasing that day. He makes a wordless cry for help. If you lose your voice you lose your power.” The hunting dogs see him and tear him apart and the other hunters call this the best kill of the day, not realising it was a false stag. The moral is, Haynes says, “Don’t watch women having a bath unless they ask you nicely.”
There were also topical current day references. After the political upheaval of the last few years with politicians lying, being presented with evidence that they had lied and then showing no shame, Haynes commented, “If politicians can’t show shame in a Christian context, I’m perfectly fine with the Greek context.” And presumably the punishments that would ensue.
“A lot of mortal men are rubbish” in the Greek myths, says Haynes. However, referring to a particular Trojan prince who was also a cowherd she pointed out that this was a useful job and that “I would prefer the Royal family if they did that instead of cutting ribbons!”
Natalie Haynes’s new book, Divine Might: Goddesses in Greek Myth is available in The White Horse bookshop. Eight series of her show, Natalie Haynes Stands Up for the Classics, have been broadcast on Radio 4: all series are available now on BBC Sounds. Series 9 is already being made.
Charlotte Mendelson at Marlborough LitFest 2023
