So, here we
are again, tackling the question, why does Artemis need Zeus to ensure her
continued virginity?
Before we
address the question directly, we need to examine the nature of gods and their
ages. They do not follow human standards. After all, Athena emerged fully-grown
and armored (we mustn’t forget the armor!) out of Zeus’s skull. Artemis,
immediately after being born, helped her mother move to Delos and acted as a
midwife. Clearly, physically, she is not an infant. Even when asking Zeus for
these favors as a three year-old child, there’s the sense that child is not
referencing her physicality. I have been around a lot of kids, and I can say
with some authority that a toddler is not much help as a midwife, and would be
no help in helping a pregnant mother move around.
Further, we
have to consider the bow and arrows that Artemis asks for. She is the goddess
of the hunt, so it’s in her nature, but bows don’t come in sizes for three
year-olds, even when made by NERF. She also completely knows and understands
the nature of sex at this age, knowing where children come from and how they’re
made. It seems as if the gods either age rapidly to physical maturity, or are
born as physical adults.
The Greeks
are not entirely consistent with this as the stone masquerading as Zeus was
wrapped in swaddling, just as a baby would be. However, Aphrodite emerged from
the sea fully grown. Apollo, Artemis’s twin, asked for bow and arrows “when the
fourth day dawned” after he was born (Graves 76). Clearly, Artemis does not
possess the body of a normal three year-old child when she’s making her
requests. She would be, at the very least, a teenage girl, if not a grown woman
by this point.
However,
her mannerisms are that of a child. When making her requests, she “reache[s] up
for Zeus’s beard” (Graves 83) exactly as a child would on Santa’s lap. The
desire to remain a virgin appears to be part of this nature. Out of all of
Zeus’s children (and there are many), Artemis is being indulged as daddy’s
little girl. Zeus dotes on her by giving her more than she asks for. By asking
forever to remain a virgin, she’s admitting her own childish nature,
essentially declaring that “boys have cooties.”
She dislikes the idea of women in
labor calling on her because she truly wants nothing to do with children. She
doesn’t even want them around as she requires all of her attendants to remain
virgins, as well—and a grim fate awaits the one who violates this rule. Her
attendant Callisto suffers from Zeus’s attentions. After becoming pregnant by
him, Artemis hunts down her and her child. It is only through Zeus’s
intervention that mother and child are spared Artemis’s wrath. So even though
Callisto is not at fault, and had been raped by Zeus, Artemis cannot overlook
the violation of the oath to remain a virgin. (I’ll cover this myth in more
depth as one of Zeus’s)
Like
Athena, Artemis is unchanging, but she embraces this, wanting to forever remain
a little girl. Reminders of adulthood displease her, for she would rather be
out in the wilderness with her nymphs and playing (hunting), indulging in her
childish delights.