Xanthippe
Xanthippe (/zænˈθɪpi/; Greek: Ξανθίππη [ksantʰíppɛː]; fl. 5th–4th century BCE) was an ancient Athenian, the wife of Socrates and mother of their three sons: Lamprocles, Sophroniscus, and Menexenus. She was likely much younger than Socrates, perhaps by as much as 40 years.[1] In Xenophon's Symposium, she is described by Antisthenes as "the most difficult, harshest, painful, ill-tempered" wife; this characterisation of Xanthippe has influenced all subsequent portrayals of her.[2]
Life
[edit]Little is known about the life of Xanthippe.[3] The ancient sources that mention her do so primarily to illustrate something about the character of Socrates, rather than provide any biographical information about Xanthippe.[4] She was probably born around 440 BC,[5] making her around 30 years younger than Socrates, who was born c. 470.[6] Xanthippe's father may have been called Lamprocles, and Socrates and Xanthippe's eldest son been named after him; this may have been the Lamprocles mentioned by Aristophanes in the Clouds, who was a well-known musician in fifth-century Athens.[7]
Xanthippe and Socrates apparently married after 423 BC, as in Aristophanes' Clouds Socrates seems to be unmarried.[8] She bore Lamprocles around 415 or 414 BC.[9][10] She may have been the mother of Socrates' other two children, Sophroniscus and Menexenus.[11] Athenaeus and Diogenes Laertius both report versions of a story that Socrates married twice, once to Xanthippe and once to Myrto, the daughter or granddaughter of Aristides the Just. This story has generally not been believed by modern scholars, though some have accepted it – for instance J. W. Fitton, who argues that Myrto was Socrates' wife whereas Xanthippe was a citizen pallake ("concubine").[12][13]
On the basis of her name (a compound of hippos, "horse", which often indicated a noble background)[14] and the fact that her eldest son was, contrary to the usual Athenian practice, not named after Socrates' father, some scholars have suggested that she was from an aristocratic family.[15] Fitton however notes that non-aristocratic Athenians with "hippos" names are known, and argues that though Xanthippe was an Athenian citizen she was not from an especially aristocratic family.[16]
Character
[edit]
Plato's portrayal of Xanthippe in the Phaedo suggests that she was a devoted wife and mother;[17] this is the sole mention of her in Plato's works.[18] Xenophon, in his Memorabilia, portrays her in much the same light. However, he does make Lamprocles complain of her harshness.[19] It is only in Xenophon's Symposium where Socrates agrees that she is (in Antisthenes' words) "the hardest to get along with of all the women there are."[20] Nevertheless, Socrates adds that he chose her precisely because of her argumentative spirit:
It is the example of the rider who wishes to become an expert horseman: "None of your soft-mouthed, docile animals for me," he says; "the horse for me to own must show some spirit" in the belief, no doubt, if he can manage such an animal, it will be easy enough to deal with every other horse besides. And that is just my case. I wish to deal with human beings, to associate with man in general; hence my choice of wife. I know full well, that if I can tolerate her spirit, I can with ease attach myself to every human being else.[21]
Perhaps this picture of Xanthippe originated with the historical Antisthenes, one of Socrates' pupils, since Xenophon initially puts this view into his mouth. Aelian also depicts her as a jealous shrew in his description of an episode in which she tramples underfoot a large and beautiful cake sent to Socrates by Alcibiades.[22] Diogenes Laërtius tells of other stories involving Xanthippe's supposed bad attitude.[23]
It seems that Xenophon's portrayal of her in his Symposium has been the most influential: Diogenes Laërtius, for example, seems to quote the Symposium passage, though he does not mention Xenophon by name,[23] and the term "Xanthippe" has now come to mean any nagging scolding person, especially a shrewish wife.
Later writers, such as Diogenes Laërtius who cite Aristotle as the earliest source, say that Socrates had a second wife called Myrto.[23] Plutarch tells of a similar story, reporting that it comes from a work entitled On Good Birth, but he expresses doubt as to whether it was written by Aristotle.[24] In Plutarch's version of the story, Socrates, who was already married, merely attended to Myrto's financial concerns when she became a widow, which does not entail marriage; there is no other evidence on the matter.[25]
A different account of Xanthippe and Myrto is given in Aristoxenus's Life of Socrates written in the latter part of the fourth century BC that Aristoxenus asserts is based on first-person accounts by his father. This claims that Myrto was his legitimate wife and Xanthippe his mistress, whose child became legitimate.[26]
An unconfirmed anecdote purports that Xanthippe was once so enraged with her husband that she took a chamber pot and poured it out over Socrates' head, which – according to the tale – the philosopher accepted with the allegory: "After thunder comes the rain."
The widely cited quote from Socrates about Xanthippe, is "By all means, marry. If you will get for yourself a good wife, you will be happy forever after; and if by chance you will get a common scold like my Xanthippe — why then you will become a philosopher." is misattributed.[27]
Literary references
[edit]In William Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew, Petruchio compares Katherina "As Socrates' Xanthippe or a worse" in Act 1 Scene 2. (Read here)
Addison discusses matrimony in The Spectator no. 482, dated Friday 12 September 1712:
An honest Tradesman, who dates his Letter from Cheapside, sends me Thanks in the name of a Club, who, he tells me, meet as often as their Wives will give them leave, and stay together till they are sent for home. He informs me, that my Paper has administered great Consolation to their whole Club, and desires me to give some further Account of Socrates, and to acquaint them in whose Reign he lived, whether he was a Citizen or a Courtier, whether he buried Xantippe
The novelist Henry Fielding describes the shrewish Mrs. Partridge thus:
She was, besides, a profest follower of that noble sect founded by Xantippe of old; by means of which she became more formidable in the school than her husband; for, to confess the truth, he was never master there, or anywhere else, in her presence.
... for she continued longer in a state of affability, after this fit of jealousy was ended, than her husband had ever known before: and, had it not been for some little exercises, which all the followers of Xantippe are obliged to perform daily, Mr Partridge would have enjoyed a perfect serenity of several months.
—The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, Book II, Chapters iii & iv.
The English Victorian poet Amy Levy wrote a dramatic monologue called "Xantippe".[28]
In his poem "An Acrostic", Edgar Allan Poe makes references to her although he (allegedly purposely) misspells her name and instead writes 'Zantippe'.
Frank Osbaldistone, the first-person narrator of Rob Roy by Sir Walter Scott (1817), records this event: "While I trembled lest the thunders of their wrath might dissolve in showers like that of Xantippe, Mrs Flyter herself awoke, and began, in a tone of objurgation not unbecoming the philosophical spouse of Socrates, to scold one or two loiterers in her kitchen." (Book 2, Chapter 7)
In Doctor Thorne by Anthony Trollope, the author says of wives 'There may possibly have been a Xantippe here and there, but Imogenes are to be found under every bush.'
Salomon Maimon refers to a woman's "Xanthippe-like character" in Chapter 10 of his autobiography. ("A widow, celebrated for her superior talents, as well as for her Xanthippe-like character, kept a public house at the extremity of one of the suburbs. She had a daughter who yielded to her in none of the above-mentioned qualities, and who was indispensable to her in the management of the house. [...]"
In episode 9 of James Joyce's Ulysses ("Scylla and Charybdis") John Eglinton asks Stephen Dedalus, ″What useful discovery did Socrates learn from Xanthippe?″[29]
In his essay "The Case for Xanthippe" (1960), Robert Graves suggested that the stereotype of Xanthippe as a misguided shrew is emblematic of an ancient struggle between masculinity (rationality, philosophy) and femininity (intuition, poetry), and that the rise of philosophy in Socrates' time has led to rationality and scientific pursuit coming to exercise an unreasonable dominance over human life and culture.
In Academic Graffiti (1971), the poet W.H. Auden memorialized Xanthippe in a clerihew:
Whenever Xantippe
Wasn't feeling too chippy,
She would bawl at Socrates:
'Why aren't you Hippocrates?'[30]
In The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer, "The Tale of the Wyf of Bathe" states:
No-thing forgat he the penaunce and wo
That Socrates had with hise wyves two;
How Xantippa caste pisse up-on his heed;
This sely man sat stille, as he were deed;
He wyped his heed, namore dorste he seyn
But "er that thonder stinte, comth a reyn."[31]
In popular culture
[edit]- Xanthippe has a fairly important role in Maxwell Anderson's 1951 play Barefoot in Athens. In the 1966 Hallmark Hall of Fame television production, she was played by Geraldine Page opposite Peter Ustinov as Socrates.
- A fictional account of Xanthippe's relationship with her husband is presented in the play Xanthippe by the British author and playwright Deborah Freeman. Xanthippe was first produced at the Brockley Jack Theatre, London, in 1999.
- Xanthippe plays a minor role in the 2018 videogame Assassin's Creed: Odyssey, in which Socrates states that her argumentative nature is what attracted him to her, rather than her looks.
Honours
[edit]Asteroid 156 Xanthippe is named in her honour.
In 1995, P. Naskrecki and R.K. Colwell[32] gave the patronym Xanthippe to a genus of flower mite that inhabits flowers of palms of the genus Socratea and is probably phoretic on the beetles that pollinate the palm.
A species of African white-toothed shrew was described by Wilfred Hudson Osgood in 1910 as Crocidura xantippe, common name "Xanthippe's shrew."
See also
[edit]References
[edit]- ^ She must have been young enough to give birth to their three children Plato describes in his writings: In the Apology 34d, the sons are described as quite young: two of them "children", the other a "lad"; in Plato's Phaedo 60a, one of them is small enough to be held in his mother's arms. Both dialogues take place when Socrates is supposed to have been 70 years old.
- ^ Saxonhouse 2018, p. 613.
- ^ Saxonhouse 2018, p. 611.
- ^ Saxonhouse 2018, p. 612.
- ^ Nails 2002, p. 299.
- ^ Strobl 2015.
- ^ Nails 2002, p. 183.
- ^ Woodbury 1973, p. 12.
- ^ Bicknell 1974, p. 1.
- ^ Fitton 1970, p. 66.
- ^ e.g. Woodbury 1973, pp. 12–13 believes that Xanthippe was the mother of Sophroniscus and Menexenus; Fitton 1970, p. 57 accepts Diogenes Laertius's claim that their mother was Myrto.
- ^ Nails 2002, p. 209.
- ^ Fitton 1970.
- ^ Fitton 1970, p. 64.
- ^ Brickhouse & Smith 1990, p. 15.
- ^ Fitton 1970, pp. 60–64.
- ^ Plato. Phaedo, 60a–b, 116b
- ^ Xanthippe does receive mention in two short, apocryphal pieces within the literature ascribed traditionally to Plato but considered generally by scholars to be inauthentic. These come in the Halcyon and the Epigrams.
- ^ Xenophon, Memorabilia, 2.2.7–9
- ^ Xenophon, Symposium, 2.10
- ^ Xenophon, Symposium 17–19 [= 2.10]
- ^ Aelian, Varia Hist. XI.12
- ^ a b c Diogenes Laërtius 2.36–37
- ^ Plutarch, Aristides xxvii. 3–4
- ^ For the relevant quotes from Diogenes and Plutarch, see The Complete Works of Aristotle, edited by Jonathan Barnes, vol. 2, p. 2423.
- ^ Huffman, Carl (2012). Aristoxenus of Tarentum. New Brunswick, N.J: Transaction Publishers. ISBN 978-1-315-08215-8. OCLC 777330122.
- ^ "Socrates - Wikiquote".
- ^ "Xantippe, and Other Verse". indiana.edu.
- ^ Ulysses, James Joyce, p. 170. Wordsworth Classics edition. Notes for James Joyce's Ulysses, Don Gifford with Robert J Seidman, Revised and Expanded edition, University of California Press, 1988.
- ^ Auden, W.H. (1971). Academic Graffiti. New York: Random House. p. 60.
- ^ Chaucer, Geoffrey, p. 325. The Modern Library New York, 1994
- ^ Naskrecki, P. and R.K. Colwell. 1995. A new genus and two new species of Melicharini from Venezuela (Acari: Mesostigmata: Ascidae). Annals of the Entomological Society of America 88:284–293.
Works cited
[edit]- Bicknell, Peter (1974). "Socrates' Mistress Xanthippe". Apeiron. 8.
- Brickhouse, Thomas C.; Smith, Nicholas D. (1990). Socrates on Trial. Clarendon Press.
- Fitton, J. W. (1970). ""That was no lady, that was..."". Classical Quarterly. 20 (1). JSTOR 637508.
- Nails, Debra (2002). The People of Plato: A Prosopography of Plato and Other Socratics. Hackett. ISBN 978-0-87220-564-2.
- Saxonhouse, Arlene (2018). "Xanthippe: Shrew or Muse". Hypatia. 33 (4). JSTOR 45153718.
- Strobl, Wolfgang (2015). "Xanthippe". Brill's New Pauly Supplements II Online: Volume 7. doi:10.1163/2468-3418_bnps7_SIM_004786.
- Woodbury, Leonard (1973). "Socrates and he Daughter of Aristides". Phoenix. 27 (1). JSTOR 1087907.
External links
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