Jermaine R.G. Bryant (Princeton University)
The first and last major narratives of Metamorphoses VI feature women depicting rape through tapestries: Arachne portrays eighteen of the gods’ infamous encounters and Philomela relates her experience of rape by her brother-in-law, Tereus. Both women create physical documents of sexual violence and weave transgressive narratives that threaten established hierarchy. These episodes speak anew when paired with media theoretical conceptions of the archive as put forth by Derrida and Ernst, and when examined as stories of women creating women-centered narratives through weaving.
Derrida defines the collection and public housing of signs as the essential characteristics of the archive. Similarly, Ernst notes that Foucault defines the archive “as a system that governs not only the emergence of such statements but also their current functioning.” The control of these archives is a privilege of power, and the mastery over what signs come together—and how they are presented—lies at the core of how those in power form what Ernst terms “hegemonic histories.” This paper asks: “what if we viewed Arachne and Philomela as archivists, whose collection and publicizing of signs constitute rogue archives?”
When Minerva sees Arachne’s tapestry, she cannot fault the work (non illud Pallas, non illud carpere Livor | possit opus, 6.129-130) but resents the outcome of the competition (doluit successu flava virago, 6.130), destroying the tapestry and its heavenly crimes (rupit pictas, caelestia crimina, vestes 6.131). Some argue that Minerva is angered by Arachne’s scandalous depiction of the gods (Rosati, Johnson); others emphasize that the tapestry’s offense is found in Minerva’s perception of it (Leach, Oliensis). Archive theory bridges these interpretations by highlighting the threat to hierarchy presented by a subversive collection of signs. Such a threat is realized when Philomela weaves a tapestry containing signs (purpureasque notas filis intexuit albis | indicium sceleris, 6.577-578) understood by her sister (germanaeque suae fatum miserabile legit, 6.582), which immediately prompt Procne to conspire against Tereus.
The fact that both women depict stories of rape on tapestries is hardly coincidental. To borrow McLuhan’s “the medium is the message,” the medium of weaving, through which Ovid’s women work, is inseparable from the content it conveys. Arachne’s and Philomela’s archives encode narratives legible as violence against women, through a gendered medium that poses a threat to the patriarchal systems that govern them.
Ovid, like Arachne and Philomela, plays the role of rogue archivist. On the tapestries, Ovid himself portrays illicit sexual activity by the gods, during the time when Augustus is enforcing moral legislation and building new temples. The Metamorphoses as a whole features many narratives, including Arachne’s, that can be read as anti-authoritarian or irreligious. Ironically, the accident of the survival of Ovid’s archive over those containing more sedate mythic narratives has canonized the poet’s once radical narratives, an accident that enabled the rogue archive to outlive the orthodox ones.