Previously: The many abductions of Helen of Troy.
[Ganymedes] was the loveliest born of the race of mortals, and therefore
the gods caught him away to themselves, to be Zeus’ wine-pourer,
for the sake of his beauty, so he might be among the immortals.
— Homer, Iliad, Book XX, lines 233-235.
So, right-ho, Ganymede’s abduction has been, as you can imagine, a rich source of material for painters throughout the centuries, many of whom had significantly different ideas of what male beauty and also “wine-pouring” means. Most of the earlier versions of the story play up Ganymede’s beauty in the Greekiest sense of the word. He was the only one of Zeus’ lovers to become immortal, he’s a sexy shepherd who gets whisked away to Heaven to be God’s bartender, and is only mildly surprised; it’s a story we can all feel good about.
Ahh! But, right, various dudes since the time of Plato have had varying opinions on whether or not siphoning up beautiful male youths to be your cupbearer-and-lover was a good idea! So their solution (because no one, apparently, was willing to NOT paint Zeus turning into an eagle to steal boys) was to make Ganymede a baby. Just a normal baby that the gods sought to make their cupbearer despite having no fine motor skills. Why? Great question.
So you have dozens of paintings all titled The Abduction of Ganymede that run the gamut from “pleasantly startled college-aged babe” to “squalling infant about to be eaten by a giant bird.” Here are some of these efforts, ranked in order of abduction.
This is the least abductive abduction I have ever seen, from his swanlike scissor kicks to his flower garland to the fact that he has gently fallen asleep. This painting is picking up what you’re putting down, or vice versa.
This is…pretty good fanart of some hairless uke with his giant eagle boyfriend. I see it getting close to, but certainly not more than, 100 notes on Tumblr.
It’s just a boy who loves a bird, and it’s normal, and it’s none of your business what they do in their sky kingdom.
The look on Ganymede’s face is not “Help, I’m being raptured by a lascivious god,” so much as “This is not a phase, MOM, this is who I am and you need to RESPECT our RELATIONSHIP.”
Gentle candlelit caressing is not a function of abduction. They haven’t even made it to Olympus yet! They took a detour to a honeymoon cave!
The title of this painting is “No, Don’t Set Me Back Down Yet…Give Me A Minute To Explore This.”
It’s a deeply uncomfortable kiss, I’ll grant you that. Everyone’s eyes are far too open, for starters. But it’s just a bad first make-out session; Ganymede seems more suspicious than afraid of Zeus’ monstrous head.
It’s close! We’re definitely getting somewhere, abduction-wise and Ganymede is slightly clothed in this version, which is something. At least he doesn’t look like he jumped into Zeus’ ready talons and purred, “Take me anywhere, sailor.”
THIS is an abduction. He’s waving a bunch of arrows around, his dog is upset, and his face looks genuinely chagrined.
Who steals a baby? This squalling infant is no comely youth, and his hands would be comically useless at grasping and pouring chalices of any kind. This is what happens to the Ganymede myth when you remove homoeroticism from the equation, Rembrandt.
[Images via]
Rembrandt.
There’s always that one dude who doesn’t get it, Rembrandt.
If there was a sitcom about 17th century painters, Rembrandt would be the “wacky” neighbor.
That baby is totally peeing. Another reason not to abduct babies, Rembrandt.
oh my god
At least abduct a properly diapered baby, Zeus. Come on!
I noticed that as well. And giggled.
“he’s a sexy shepherd who gets whisked away to Heaven to be God’s bartender, and is only mildly surprised; it’s a story we can all feel good about.”
So, Bryan Fuller is heading the new American Gods series and there’s talk about including the Greco-Roman pantheon on the idea that North America had *some* nominal contact with the Mediterranean and African empires and now, what I want, more then anything in the world, is a surly, bored twink bartender who leads powerful men to thier doom .
Put the gay back in Ganymede I say.
And ofc he is to be played by Hugh Dancy and his eternal youthfulness.
your ideas intrigue me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter
I have way too many feelings about what gods should be added into the tv version of American Gods, mostly based on my desire to see certain actors get to play those gods.
I get the sense you have been waiting most of your life to use the phrase “put the gay back in Ganymede”.
Oh my God, I hadn’t heard (or I’d forgotten) that BRYAN FULLER is in charge of the American Gods series! Let’s hope he hires a lighting guy this time.
“what I want, more then anything in the world, is a surly, bored twink bartender who leads powerful men to thier doom”
Well THAT story just erupted full-blown into my head at once.
Huh! I wasn’t aware the gay had ever been removed from Ganymede myself. Did I mention that in Greece, our more common word for genitals is “bird” so no way this eagle is not one huge innuendo?
That baby, like so many art babies, is utterly hideous. Throw it back, Zeus Eagle.
I understand the butt dimples, ’cause it’s a squishy baby butt, but why is its back dimpled? That does not happen…
He has the portly legs of a pale, sun starved English Duke, and it’s hideous.
Ugh, art babies
At least it looks like the artist has, in fact, seen what a human baby looks like? But team Grown up Ganymede all the way, babies are bad at pouring things!
“Hmm… I’m worried that making Ganymede into a baby doesn’t quite un-sexify this story enough. What else could I do…? I know – I’ll make him a baby that’s pissing himself. No one likes pissing babies!”
I assume that was Rembrandt’s thought process, anyway.
What I have learned from this is that the physics of eagles abducting people really doesn’t work.
I was about to say that I was really impressed (non-abductionyness being set aside) with the Eagles because if someone told me to draw a person being abducted by an eagle it would go like this:
Me: k so the eagle picks him up like a fish?
Art director: no the eagle picks him up sexily
Me: so like the end of lotr with the big eagles…
Ad: NO nothing about that is sexy. The eagle has to pick him up in a way which clearly says “we are gonna do it”
Me: ugh how am I supposed to do that
And yet eagle three is caressing him how?
painting 3 seems confused about both how eagles carry things and what they look like – that head to wingspan ratio can’t be good for flying even without a sexy passenger.
I think Zeus #8 is with you. He’s just got Ganymede in the air and he’s really rethinking this “carrying a human” plan.
Number 8 looks to me like the Ganymede has actually abducted the eagle.
Two monks explain eagle abductions.
It’s not a question of where he grips it, it’s a simple matter of weight ratios.
<3
10/10
“Nonono, the eagle is carrying him bridal style in his strong and manly…talons. Look, just go with it.”
I don’t understand how eagle-Zeus can flap his wings without unbalancing everything. If Ganymede had more clothes to sink talons into I feel like it would be more straightforward. He could just dangle underneath.
like a coconut
I have to say I am far less impressed with the artistic skills in these abductions than those of the artists depicting the Sabine women. Though #5 has managed to drape his crotch-cloth in such a way as to depict the ghost of an uncircumcised peen, which I guess is a better use of the artist’s time than actually giving his Ganymede an expression.
I dunno, my reaction to that one was: why take all that time to paint a physics-defying wang covering when it does not even cover the wang?
sevens crotch cloth is my favourite though, because he needs to have an erection for that to work at all.
In “No, Don’t Set Me Back Down Yet…Give Me A Minute To Explore This” does anyone else feel like the pink covering looks like an adult diaper?
this is not my favorite Gustave Moreau but still incredible that he painted Zeus as Avenger from Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law like a century before that show even aired.
look at the face!
He’s a sexy shepherd who gets whisked away to Heaven to be God’s bartender: he’s a giant eagle going through an identity crisis. Together, they’ll change Olympus forever!
Oh, so that’s why the Eagle and Child is called that! I thought it was a weird name for a pub.
it’s no Virile Divinity and Handsome Youth that’s for sure.
(there is nothing NOTHING less erotic than a bird. unless it be a baby. I am not saying a middle aged man with a long beard and no shirt on is so great but some people like that okay Zeus, don’t mess with what probably has like a 40 percent success rate. I picture him as a very slow learner, like: eagle, nobody likes the claws and beady eyes, OK, leda didn’t like the swan suit so much, OK, probably that was the wrong KIND of bird! that’s it. next time I’ll be a partridge.)
I’ve always suspected that the Earendil story was suggested by the ol’ Bird and Baby. There’s just something so “*nudge* *nudge* Get it?” about the name Elwing that it kinda screams “I came up with this down at the pub while drinking away my sorrows over the fact that no one appreciates my elves like I do, but also, let’s make it a girl because otherwise I have yet another very homoerotic moment.”
Adding the Ganymede element takes that story to uncomfortable new heights, is what I’m saying.
uncomfortable new heights
*Ba-dum-TISH*
lol ‘heights’
That’s slightly better than the pub name that Jez and Super Hans come up with in Peep Show (“The Swan and Pedo”).
Super Hans’s reasoning in that conversation for why the opinion of the public is irrelevant (“People like Coldplay and voted for the Nazis”) is quoted by me perhaps more often than it should be.
Yes, I use that one quite a bit in real life as well…
(Also a favorite: “I’m just a normal functioning member of the human race, and there’s no way anyone can prove otherwise”).
The waterfront in Zurich is graced with this statue of Ganymede inviting Zeus to dance a sensual tango with him:
OMG, I never knew I wanted to see a naked (over-the-age-of-consent!) youth dance a sensual tango with a giant bird until this very minute. I think I need to lie down.
where is that??? (tram stop?) I live there and I never noticed
Is he fear-peeing in the last one? That’s definitely terror induced pee. Happens to the best of us, Ganymede.
That’s the pep talk my boyfriend and I always give each other before job interviews, etc. “Remember, don’t pee “.
I see it getting close to, but certainly not more than, 100 notes on Tumblr.
Way harsh.
Honestly though that “deeply uncomfortable kiss” is the rapiest.
Probably because Ganymede has that vacant, drugged look in it.
it’s like he just figured out what’s going on and also realized he can’t get out of it :(:(
Yeah, that one gave me the mildly disturbing feelings, too.
And the bird and the lion look, respectively, aghast and mildly uncomfortable.
And the amphora is simply aghast.
I have that problem with mine, too. Judgmental bastards!
Oh my God, that amphora! Thank you for prompting me to go back and look at it.
I count two upset dogs. ZEUS YOU MONSTER.
I know! Poor doggie in number 2.
What about Michelangelo’s full frontal?
That was then copied into plates, because everyone loves eating off of rape scenes
Or my personal favorite, riding the eagle (giggle)?
Oh I forget Ganymede casually wooing Jupiter with a bowl of wine
I love that statue because it’s like his friends are yelling for him to run but he’s like “hold up, hold up…..we might have something here….”
He also looks like he’s about to give a disapproving onlooker a feisty backhand.
I’ll always remember Ganymede for being the central metaphor in one of my favorite Sirius/Remus fanfics I read in high school. So yeah, definitely no homoeroticism there. Nope.
GOD, I love over-the-top srs bzns fanfic that reaches the level of literature.
How can you post something like that without linking the fic???
God, I wish I could. I was never very good about saving that stuff and so much of it has simply disappeared completely. I THOUHT LIVEJOURNAL WOULD LAST FOREVER. I WAS SO NAIVE.
C’mon, though, the eagle chalice that Gany’s holding while thinking “uuuuh…”? Would totally buy it (but at a discount, Zeus doesn’t get my full price cash because he’s God Garbage). And I firmly suspect commenting has been disabled on the Link Roundup because of GHOSTS….! ✨
IDK, even the wine jug looks appalled in the uncomfortable kiss one.
The dude in the green (?) tunic in the second to last one seems hilariously unperturbed. “Oh, right. Yeah, my arms are up although my feet stay firmly planted. Totally want to save you, bro,”
DICK RIBBONS EVERYWHERE
AS FAR AS THE EYE CAN SEE!
6 years of art history (classical no less) and I never heard that term. So perfectly descriptive. What is the female equivalent?
This is off-topic for this post, but why was commenting disabled on today’s Link Roundup? (There are about 140 comments so it must have been turned off a while after the post went up.)
Also curious about this. Maybe they got some spammers?
Well, there is a subthread talking about how nice it is that Toast commenters are good at disagreeing with each other politely and not getting into fights – maybe Mallory and Nicole don’t want to tempt fate and are actively preventing us from ruining the nice dynamic.
It was a glitch! We fixed it!
No idea why it happened, none of us turned comments off!
Operating theory; the gnomes who run the internet were just staring at the self-congratulatory nature of the comments, and one said to the other, ‘what’s the most ironic way we could destroy that thread? Think we could get a petty argument started there and make them hate each other?’
‘God, no,’ sighed the other gnome. ‘MALLORY.’
‘Mallory,’ agreed the first. ‘Well, I’ll disable the comments, anyhow. That’ll throw them for a loop.’
The second gnome didn’t stop him, but he did give him a look of infinite sorrow. A look that said ‘Mallory will find it and turn it right back on, you dope.’
But some lessons you have to learn on your own.
Ohh, it was disabled? I thought IntenseDebate was just malfunctioning.
Is it just me or is that last baby a little Donald Trump-y around the face?
Portraying Ganymeade as a baby upsets me the same way that portraying the Indian boy in A midsummer Night’s Dream as an actual boy upsets me. The story makes NO sense if Titania and Oberon are fighting over some little kid instead of a handsome young man.
my wings are REAL wings and they are attached to the powerful shoulders(?) of my majestic eagle god-boyfriend ANNNNNNNND I look better in a salmon pink dick ribbon anyway ICARUS so maybe just get back to waxing your nipples or whatever and let someone else be raptured to heaven
Speaking as “Jove’s own page” myself, I really hope the original Ganymede was a robust young man who was eager to explore new possibilities and really enjoyed being a cup-bearer. Otherwise the whole notion is just too unhappy-making.
*raptor-ed to heaven.
thank you. thank you for this article. fuck rembrandt, for he is not you.