thoughts on Leucothea/Nausicaa?
HI LEYNA!!!!! This is a post (an old post of mine, now with some changes and ADDS) about Ino/Leucothea. I'll respond in an another post with my thoughts about Nausicaa with some surprises🤩 These two are one of my favourites😍 (It may take a while for me to post about Nausicaa🙂)
Attic red figure neck amphora, attributed to MUNICH 2335, P OF by BEAZLEY, ca. 450-400 BC. Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Naples, Italy.
Comments on the painting and also thoughts about Ino/Leucothea:
When I saw this vase painting for the first time (the coloured one), I thought it was Helle falling from the golden ram, but looking closer, I saw that she is not in a position to fall. It also bothered me greatly that I didn't found a better image out there is of this vase, because the poor quality was preventing me from seeing what she is holding on to or what she is carrying in her hand. I thought it was the continuation of Phrixus's crook, but I also thought it was a stick to beat him with?
Then I did some more digging and finally found an image of the complete vase. I was honestly so happy to see it whole, because seeing Ino holding a double axe is just… so interesting.
Getting into the whole axe thing reminded me of some depictions of Clytemnestra, it just popped into my head: Ino is basically Clytemnestra without any “morally understandable” reason for what she does (two sides of the same coin). That if we follow the tradition of Iphigenia’s sacrifice, but if we don’t follow that version, their reasons end up being the same anyway: killing out of fear of losing power. Clytemnestra’s fear is tied to herself and her adulterous relationship, while Ino’s is also purely selfish but projected onto her children.
Going full back to the scene 🤣 I started thinking how interesting it would be if there actually existed a version where Ino personally tries to kill Phrixos, like, not just plotting his sacrifice, but literally going for it herself. Maybe I’m just delulu, and it’s only a visual representation of her wanting Phrixos dead LOL.
Anyway, it got me thinking a lot. I have this feeling that Ino was especially invested in Phrixos’s death. He was the heir, the main obstacle for her own sons to inherit the throne of Orchomenos. Helle, in this case, could be seen either as collateral damage or as a direct victim (if Ino wanted both of them gone). I’m not trying to sugarcoat Ino with the first, because honestly, it’s not that far-fetched to think she was also getting rid of another potential problem if Helle died. Still, what I think is that the plan wasn’t aimed at Helle; it was meant for Phrixos. Then maybe Ino would’ve dealt with Helle later if she’d considered her a threat (kind of like Clytemnestra with Electra).
I mention this because a lot of adaptations and explanations of the Golden Fleece myth say that Helle was also going to be sacrificed alongside Phrixos, but that’s not really the main tradition in the mythological sources. It does appear, though, in two pretty famous sources: Ovid’s Fasti and Pausanias. So maybe that’s where the idea comes from for these adaptations. I'm of course not against, but it is curious.
It’s kind of a meme at this point that Ovid does weird stuff, but I’m not really mad at him 😭 because in the Heroides he suggests that Ino might be stirring up the waters of the Hellespont out of pure beef with Helle (just to say to Ovid: JAJAJAJAJA).
Another thing I noticed while doing more research is that in some Roman-influenced poetry, the sea gods seem to have a lot of sympathy for Helle, which honestly cracks me up. Like, imagine: even though Ino was deified as Leucothea, living among the sea gods and basically treated as an adopted Nereid, some of them still side with the girl who fell into the sea because of Ino's fault. That dynamic totally makes Leucothea feel like an outsider in what should be her own home.
And that outsider vibe fits perfectly with how she appears in the Odyssey. When she shows up to help Odysseus, she’s completely alone with no sea nymph entourage.
If we think of her as someone who doesn’t exactly have everyone’s love among the sea gods, it suddenly makes sense: she acts alone because she’s on the margins. And even knowing that Poseidon has a major beef with Odysseus, she still helps him, which makes me think there’s something fishy going on between Poseidon and her, or a certain part of the Nereid crowd. Thetis, for example, is said to go to Helle’s rescue in Statius’ Achilleid, so clearly there’s some messy underwater politics happening.
Another thing I’ve already mentioned in previous posts is the consequences of Leucothea going directly against Poseidon’s plans. Even though the Odyssey makes it clear several times that Odysseus isn’t meant to die, being disobedient toward her king is not a good situation. And also worth to mention she didn’t even try to hide it! Poseidon is actively torturing Odysseus and she there in plain sight LOL. For an example, look at the Phaeacians, they helped Odysseus according to fate and still got punished. So yeah… that’s what makes me think she definitely has some beef with Poseidon.
Finally, going back to the vase itself, I love how they depict Phrixus. He’s shown as a young adult, and I like his partially curved posture. And the way he clings to the ram’s horns is just so funny. I still don’t know why the golden ram or fleece is usually shown with spots. Maybe it’s to show that it’s curly? If that’s the case… it’s so cute.
Among the few representations of Ino that exist, I believe (if I am not mistaken) that this is the only one that relates her to the myth of the Golden Fleece, and of course it could not be missing from this house.
If you are asking my opinion on her, Leucothea is kind of nice saving Odysseus. So for me is like I like her cameo in the Odyssey, in a form of a shearwater (seabird) appearing getting out of the water and getting on the raft of Odysseus she gives her immortal headdress ("kredemnon") as a life-jacket and saves him from being drowned. I don't know if Homer invented it or who thought of it, but for me, the scene gets a 10/10 (of the scenes that I would love for someone to recreate in a film or animation).
Explanation of the colouring in this post (also some hc about her): Leucothea preserving Ulysses by John Flaxman.
I don't know if is it because of him (or more precisely by Homeric influence) that is known as the saviour of sailors or as I just read in a post of @aliciavance4228 that she did it many times so previously she was known for that.
I have to say also that Odysseus does not trust her during her appearance. He says that he is being deceived by some god, but I do not know if he really means that a god is deceiving him with the appearance of a well-known goddess or that the fact that someone is helping him and giving him hope is what he means by deception. Either way, he sees it as torture, which is why he does not take off his clothes until, while he is lamenting, Poseidon alone does not break his raft in a crash of waves.
For me if she did it many times my thoughts are okay with it, she is doing her job or at least her way of acting as a goddess, but if not don't really have thought either is purely a good or bad action. She is nice for saving him, but she definitely betrayed her king in front of him (it's funny to see this as a reader). Also if is it her first time, we can go up in the first thoughts about her and taking the conclusion she is going to be scolded for going against her king's wishes but not necessarily scolded for saving a man that has shipwrecked. The gods are saving people constantly in Greek mythology, so if that man wasn't Odysseus and was a random man with no beef with a deity it would have been okay.
However, some later sources say that Ino was made Leucothea, goddess of sailors, the moment she died and her apotheosis took place, which is why I specified the Homeric influence earlier. These are just ramblings on what if.
I find Ino to be a very unpleasant and annoying person, but at the same time fascinating and very necessary for the Argonautic narrative. Everything I discover about his actions is increasingly worse, but he balances things out, for example, with Dionysus, whom we haven't talked about because otherwise the post would be very long, LOL.
INO/LEUCOTHEA AS A CHARACTER: YES, A THOUSAND TIMES YES.🤗
INO AS A HUMAN BEING: NO, RUN🏃♀️💨
Hope that this helps you on her view!
