Abstract
A long time ago, in a time when ancient gods roamed the earth, there lived a young Greek man named Actaeon from the city of Thebes. He was a handsome, talented and skilled hunter. One day, after a success- ful hunt in the forest, he came by accident upon a small river pond near a cave where to his great amazement he saw the goddess Artemis (Latin Diana) bathing with her company of nymphs in the cool waters. Artemis, a virgin goddess, patron of wild animals and small children, mistress of hunting and a major deity connected with initiation rites, noticed his forbidden gaze. First she blushed in embarrassment “as clouds bright-tinted by the slanting sun, or purple-dyed Aurora, so appeared Diana’s countenance when she was seen,”1 then she executed a punishment: she turned Actaeon into a stag and set his pack of fifty dogs to hunt and devour him.2
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Filmography
Black Sun. Dir. G. Tarn. Perf. H. de Montalembert and L. Pherson. Passion Pictures/ Cactus Three, 2000.
Dancer in the Dark. Dir. L. von Trier. Perf. B jörk, C. Deneuve and D. Morse. Zentropa Entertainments/Trust Film Svenska/Film i Väst/Liberator Productions, 2000.
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© 2014 Rachel Gottesman
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Gottesman, R. (2014). The Unpardoned Gaze: Forbidden Erotic Vision in Greek Mythology. In: Padva, G., Buchweitz, N. (eds) Sensational Pleasures in Cinema, Literature and Visual Culture. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137363640_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137363640_2
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