Showing posts with label mythology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mythology. Show all posts

Wednesday, February 29, 2012

The Seduction of Scent: The Myth of The Scented Panther & Iunx

The ancient Greeks knew how to sprinkle fantasy and poetry into their fragrant tales: The poplars wept amber tears for the fall of the sun; Tantalus is bereft of tantalising fruits of exquisite scent forever out of his reach; and upon every tale of hero or heroine transformed into some fragrant plant or material (like Daphne, Narcissus or Myrrha), trying to escape the ever amorous advances of some god or lesser deity, reigns the fascinating myth of the scented panther.

“The panther exudes an odour that is pleasing to all other animals, which is why it hunts by staying hidden and attracting them with its scent.”


According to the myth, of all the animals, the panther was the only one that smelled naturally good. This Greek myth teaches us a thing or two about the seduction of scent, if only in how it has captured the imagination of people for milennia. The classical writers write that the panther calls on its prey. Rather different than the hidden in ambush, squating its back down onto the long grass feline, keeping an eye on its prey unwatched. The mythical panther just exudes its scent and “the fawns, gazelles and wild goats are attracted 
to this fragrance by a sort of iunx.”

This elusive word, a strange transliteration that even inpired a fragrance house by the same name conceived by perfumer Olivia Giacobetti (Iunx), is actually derived from the Greek for "to call, to cry out" and it makes sense in the sense of it working like a calling card for the panther ~or anyone using a means to an end; for our purposes that would be scent. Latin transformed it to "iynx" from which "lynx" isn't too far away (and neither is "jinx" which is also derived from it, the calling of bad luck).
Panther on the other hand literally means "all beast", from the Greek παν (pan, i.e. all) and θηρίο (thereeo, i.e. beast). The panther is a symbol, a mythical creature with the looks of an αίλουρος/ailuros, a feline and a power multiplied tenfold, only belied by its suave movement.

As he paces in cramped circles, over and over,
the movement of his powerful soft strides
is like a ritual dance around a center
in which a mighty will stands paralyzed.
 ~from R.M.Rilke's The Panther(1902)

For the Greeks, the leopard, λεοπάρδαλη or πάρδαλη (pardalis), symbolizes the beautiful courtesan. But the latter is also designated by the same term, even as late as the 20th century; I well recall women referring to other women with a shady reputation in their erotic ethos describing them by this term (παρδαλή), which also denotes eccentricity and being sui generis in Greek! Βoth creatures make use of scented wiles therefore, of mysterious spells and the advantage of ambush, basing their power on things you can't really control. The smell of the cat has tcome to symbolise seduction, capitulation to an erotic pull, love conquest and the mystery of femininity. Let's not forget how the Greeks changed the Sphinx, a creature with a woman's head, a feline's body and a serpent's tail (her name coming from the Greek "to pull, to strangle"), from a solar deity in ancient Egypt to a lunar deity, thus tieing the feminity of the symbol with the regular tide that also rules a woman's cycle. (The Greeks viewed Bast as the lunar deity Artemis, who is also accompanied by ailuri, ie. big cats)

The "iunx", although a term transfigured by metaptosis in other languages, still stood for something tangible all the same; a love charm. In erotic magic, the seductress made use of a small wheel attached to a piece of string. This little instrument produced a whirring sound which caught the ear as much as the motion caught the eye: the pull was almost mysterious.
Iunx came to transpose the object on the subject who yielded it; it came to refer to the love potion maker, intextricably linking perfume with magic and eros. Indeed in classical iconography Eros is shown as holding an iunx. In the image off a red-painted vase by the Meidias painter (410 B.C.) Adonis and Himeros (the winged god of sexual desire) are playing with an iunx.


The god Dionysos, the god of transformative mirth, of wine and of abandon to sensuous desires, is often seen riding on a panther while his priests wore panthers' skins. Athenaeus in Deipnosophistae 2. 38e writes:
"From the condition produced by wine they liken Dionysos to a bull of panther, because they who have indulged too freely are prone to violence . . . There are some drinkers who become full of rage like a bull . . . Some, also, become like wild beasts in their desire to fight, whence the likeness to a panther."
Doesn't the panther also hide in itself the power of man-eater? The violent connotation of the dangers of getting too close to a vicious force of nature? Like love can be? In the 1942 film Cat People by Jacques Tourner, a Serbian immigrant fears that she will turn into the cat person of her homeland's fables if she is intimate with her American spouse.

Dionysos  was keen on transformation, often completing the task with a smattering of perfume. Witness Nonnus, Dionysiaca 14. 143 ff (trans. Rouse) (Greek epic C5th A.D.) :
"[The infant] Dionysos was hidden from every eye . . . a clever babe. He would mimic a newborn kid; hiding in the fold . . . Or he would show himself like a young girl in saffron robes and take on the feigned shape of a woman; to mislead the mind of spiteful Hera, he moulded his lips to speak in a girlish voice, tied a scented veil on his hair. He put on all a woman's manycoloured garments: fastened a maiden’s vest about his chest and the firm circle of his bosom, and fitted a purple girdle over his hips like a band of maidenhood."
Western European tradition reinforced the magical aspect of the panther in the medieval Bestialities: After feasting, the panther will sleep in a cave, its rest lasting 3 long days & nights. After this period ends, the panther roars, in the process emiting a sweet smelling odour. This odour draws in any creature who will smell it (the dragon being the only creature immune), upon which it feeds; and the cycle begins again.
It was the advent and domination of Christianity that finally turned the "man-eater" beast or seductive woman into the fragrantly sweet word of the redeemer: the magic allure of the scented panther who lies in the den for 3 days serves as parallelism with the stay of the Messiah in the grave for 3 days before his ressurection. The scent of sanctity henceforth became the alluring pull that draws men into a different kind of seduction: That of the spirit.

Painting of the Meidias vase via http://lib.haifa.ac.il, photo by Lydia Richter via gardenofeyecandy.com

thanks to Annick Le Guérer for her help

Saturday, March 20, 2010

Greenwitch and Tethys for Spring Awakenings


Fire on the mountain shall find the harp of gold
Played to wake the Sleepers,
oldest of the old;
Power from the green witch,
lost beneath the sea;
All shall find the light at last, silver on the tree.
The eternal return of spring and the regeneration of nature are deeply ingrained in this side of the world: A glimpse of the wild nature that bursts forth with renewed vigour is enough to understand how ancient Greeks sanctioned it in several myths. Some of them tied to the sea involve Tethys, the Greek aquatic goddess, and the sea-creatures she protects.

For the occassion of the Spring or Vernal Equinox, Roxana Villa of Roxana Illuminated Perfume came up with GreenWitch, an all-natural perfume, dedicating it to Tethys. She was inspired by the GreenWitch novel by Susan Cooper (1974), part of the authors Dark is Rising Series. The characters Simon, Jane, and Barney return to Cornwall with their Uncle Merry after learning that the grail they had found in Over Sea, Under Stone (Harcourt, 1966) has been stolen from the British Museum. Soon they are joined by Will Stanton and his American uncle. Older local women are preparing a celebration creating a doll from sticks and leaves which they toss into the sea as an offering to the White Lady or Tethys, goddess of the sea, "for the greeting summer and charming a good hearvest of crop and fish". Jane's unselfishness in the ritualistic wishing process wins her the favours of the effigy and thus the secret to the manuscript that will enable her to decipher the Grail's writing later on.
Tethys (also known as "The White Lady" in Celtic lore) daughter of Gaia and Uranus according to Hesiod, is one of the Titans in Greek mythology. Wed to her brother Oceanus ~obviously the family relationships of classic mythological figures supervenes any modern notion [sources: Callimachus, Hymn 4.17, and Apollonius, Argonautica 3.244] ~ she became the mother to the rivers known to the ancients and thousands of daughters called the Oceanids.

GreenWitch as a perfume follows the formula of a traditional Chypre where oakmoss and labdanum in the base are balanced with bergamot in the top and where seaweed enters to render the sea accord. It's interesting to see such a "sea/marine" accord in a natural setting as I wouldn't be able to conjure it in my mind besides the expected ambergris. And yet, it can be done. Green Witch has some facets of deep blue in there! What I liked was the contrast between the marine and the earthy, as if brown algae were dancing in front of my eyes. Another novelty enterting the perfume is Africa Stone, the fossilized excrement of a small animal called the rock hyrax (providing an animalic edge and longevity)
A complete breakdown of the ingredients and the composing process is included on this link. Balance is one of the main themes of Meán Earraigh (the Celtic spring equinox) as the light is evenly matched with the dark, as in this fragrance. A percentage of the profits from purchasing the flacon support GreenPeace. The perfume is available in the quarter ounce flacon pictured in the photo, 1 gram vials and in sample packs here. (stock is regularly replenished, according to demand)

Please visit the rest of the participating blogs at the following links:
Ida at BitterGrace Notes
The Non Blonde
Tom at Perfume Posse
Portland Examiner
Scent Hive
The Windsphere Witch
Roxana Illuminated Journal

Painting Les Océanides (Les Naiades de la mer) by Gustave Doré, French, 1832 - 1883 via ArtMagick. Bottle photo and illustration by Greg Spalenka.

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