Cavorting in the Elysian Fields

Warning: do not let your 3 year old read this, as the material is suitable for a slightly more mature audience, of the age that might safely watch Shrek without getting grossed out by the opening scene. My 9 and 13 year old nephews are certainly ready for what follows (cuz I watched Shrek with them, and all three of us split our guts open laughing through the whole thing). Of course, many adults got grossed out by the opening scene, so maybe only 9 to 13 year olds should be reading this.

Classical Greek mythology is a big hit with the French. Napoleon considered himself to be the true descendant of Julius Caesar (but then so did the German Kaiser and the Russian Czar, both of whose titles come from the word Caesar), and much earlier than that, during the Renaissance, French scholars, artists, and writers pretty much threw aside the religious themes of the Middle Ages and rediscovered the Greek myths. French museums are full of art depicting Heracles (Hercules to us), Zeus, Diana, themes from the Odessey and the Iliad, Theseus, and Paris. Oh yes, Paris--he's the one that started the Greek-Trojan war when he stole Helen of Troy--who was actually not from Troy at all, but fell in love with Paris, a Trojan, and left her Greek husband to run away to Troy, thus being the "face that launched a thousand [Greek] ships. And you thought is was Jackie O. all this time!

Greek mythology is pretty blunt and straightforward as far as descriptions of violence, romance, and deception are concerned. They certainly wouldn't make our G pr PG ratings, Disney animations notwithstanding. The Greek playwrights of the 5th century BC perfected the idea of "catharsis," in which a tragedy of such epic proportions is visited upon the protagonist that, when viewed in comparison with one's own paltry problems, one could leave the theater feeling positively good about oneself.

The house of Atreus was condemned all the way from his Grandfather Tantalus, through his father Pelops, and until his son, Agamemnon, was murdered by his wife Clytemnestra, the sister of Helen. Sounds complicated? It gets worse: first comes Tantalus, who stole ambrosia from the gods and also revealed secrets of the gods to men. To compound matters, he invited the gods to feast at his table, and just for fun took his son Pelops, killed him, cut him up, cooked him, and served him up to the gods. Being somewhat sharp, they were on to his joke right away, and put the pieces back together and brought Pelops back to life (obviously, because he grew up and had bad kids like Atreus).

The gods decided that Tantalus' punishment would consist of an eternity standing in knee-deep water, cool and tasty, with pears hanging within reach from a tree branch above his head. Not a bad punishment, except that whenever he bent down to scoop some water to slake his thirst, the pool suddenly drained dry; whenever he reached for a succulent pear to satisfy his extreme hunger, a breeze came to blow the bough out of reach. Thus comes our word "tantalizing."

Pelops and his son Atreus' sins are too complicated and too onerous to enumerate, but suffice it so say that they both suffered and died appropriately for their indiscretions. Agamemnon seemed better: he organized thousands of Greek warriors to sail to Troy, destroy it, and bring Helen back to his brother Menelaus. Angry at the calm weather that delayed their sailing for many months, he decided to sacrifice his daughter Iphigeneia to appease the gods. It worked, and the Greeks sailed to Troy, fought for 10 years to try to take the city, and finally wheeled the Trojan horse to the gates of the city and snuck away to wait. Sure enough, the Trojans were happy to see the Greeks gone, and wheeled the huge horse into the city. Little did they know the horse was filled with Greek soldiers armed to the teeth, and when the sun set, they snuck out and burned the city to the ground, ending the Trojan war.

Agamemnon was one of the few to make it back to his home (some of the gods had been cheering for the Trojans, and made sport of sinking all the Greek ships in new and different ways). Unfortunately for Agamemnon, 10 years away from home was too much for his wife Clytemnestra, especially when she found out that he had killed one of their daughters for good luck. He barely got home, shouted, "I'm home honey!" and she ran him through with a sword. The boyfriend was waiting in the shadows to make sure she got the deed done. If memory serves me right, this ended the curse of the house of Atreus, although I'm quite sure Clytemnestra got hers as well. The Greek gods were not ones to let a good opportunity for revenge to go by.

All that to say that one of the biggest boulevards in Paris is called the Champs-Elysees, or the Elysian Fields, the place where the gods cavorted, and where, if you were a really good mortal, you too could run around, eating ambrosia and doing whatever else one can do in the Greek concept of heaven.

That's where the comparisons with modern-day France ends. The Champs-Elysees is, in reality, a wide boulevard that goes from the Tulleries gardens, winds in a giant traffic circle around the Arc du Triomphe, and crosses the Seine to the northwest into La Defense, a large suburb of Paris that is a huge business hub.

So, instead of being an idyllic heavenly field of pleasure, the "Elysian Fields" in Paris is actually a deathtrap of speeding buses, taxis, businessmen late for work, and hordes of little scooters weaving in and out in an effort to make some progress. Anyone brave enough to sally forth into the road is either as strong a Hercules, as clever as Odesseus (Ulysses), or as unlucky as Atreus.

Fortunately, we had a guide (sort of like Dante's Virgil who guided him through the circles of hell). Our French teacher, Marguerite, fresh from an altercation on her bike (a car slammed on its brakes in front of her and she ran into the back of it, unhurt), helped us get from the Grand Palais to the Tuileries where we held our lesson. I saw no signs of ambrosia, but we had a tasty chocolate crepe in the park. I guess I'll leave the Greek gods to Homer, and try to avoid getting flattened by any modern-day Cyclops (aka tour buses)...