The curse of unfulfilled desire in Greco-Roman myths
In the last essay, I alluded to the theme of unfulfilled desire in the myth of Narcissus and Echo.
For Narcissus, his unfulfilled desire is particularly a curse of irony. For Echo, she was just another victim of Narcissus’ self-absorption. But her curse was also a fitting narrative for her nature as an echo: to forever chase after, repeat, and return to the voice of a speaker. This, in contrast to Narcissus, is “other-obsession.” One desires oneself, and is unfulfilled; the other desires the “other” and is likewise unfulfilled.
Narcissus and Echo by Joseph Solomon
Many of the ancient myths were developed to provide insight into the human psyche and its relationship with the cosmos. We often find ourselves in these stories as both god and man struggle with the same afflictions we are all too familiar with. One such affliction is unfulfilled desires.
Unrequited love is peppered throughout these myths because of its common human experience, and they clearly, and dramatically, portray the crumbling and incapacitating experience of a heart that has been scorned.
So torturous is this experience that many bearers of heartache over the millennia have called it a cosmic injustice. Surely the gods have transpired to crush us this way; and if they have not, we beg for their pity and assistance, whether to fulfill said desire or to numb us to it.
Oh that I may stop loving, that my heart may grow cold and calloused, unfeeling, if only I may be rid of this fire that burns unending!
"Clytie" by Filippo Parodi
Not all cases of unfulfilled desire in Greco-Roman myths are results of a divine curse (as in the stories of Clytie and Byblis), but many are, and there seems to be an understanding that unfulfilled desire is among the worst of all punishments.
The idea of unfulfilled desire being a type of curse extends its application beyond the realm of eros. There are desires for wealth, fame, and power. Pursue these passions inappropriately, however, especially as a challenge to the gods’ sovereignty, and you will incur their wrath. And what might be a just sentence for such a sin?
The ancients have conceived of punishments that utilize this painful reality of unfulfillment and also reflect the problem of human desire. They thought the punishment to be so terrible that they associated it with the worst sinners of mythology.
"Tantalus" by Gioacchino Assereto
Tartarus, the deepest place in the Underworld where the worst offenders against the gods are condemned to the worst punishments, is filled with famous names of men and women who populate cautionary tales. What is interesting is that almost all of them suffer curses of unfulfillment of some kind.
Sisyphus—forced to roll a boulder to the top of a mountain, only for the rock to roll back down just before reaching it.
Tantalus—cursed to stand in a pool of water beneath a fruit tree. Whenever he stoops to drink, the water recedes from him; whenever he reaches for the fruits above him, the branches pull away out of his reach. Thus, to “tantalize” is to incite desire and refuse to satisfy.
Ocnus—forever weaving a rope of straw, while behind him it is eaten by his donkey as quickly as it was made.
The Danaides—the forty-nine sisters who were promised that if they could fill a vessel to the brim with water, they would be released from their punishment. However, the vessel is full of holes, thereby condemning them to an eternal task of futility.
Phlegyas—entombed in a rock and starved in front of an eternal feast.
These stories tell of the idea that physical torture is not the worst of all punishments. Not the laceration of the back, not the burning at the stake, not the dismemberment of limbs. The worst punishment is the pursuit of the unobtainable.
"The Danaides" by John William Waterhouse
Here we see unfulfilled desire tied with the broader concept of purposeless labor. Related to the painful experience of unrequited love or insatiable hunger is the soul-sucking world of unachievable goals. It is the curse of futility.
And what makes the unachievable so much worse is the promise that it could be:
For Sisyphus, the worst pain isn’t in the rolling of the boulder up the mountain, but in the promise of the crest. If he were given a mountain with no peak, his punishment (while still terrible) would be reducible to unending physical toil, which one can learn to accept. But the promise of a goal, ever in his sights, adds a psychological torture that one can argue is worse than the purely physical. The mountain top, you could say, is tantalizing.
Speaking of tantalizing, such is the case with Tantalus, where the entire point of his curse is the stimulating of his hunger and thirst—with the promise of fruit and water—and his ultimate deprivation. If he were merely thrown into a cave with no food and drink, it would have been more tolerable.
"Pandora" by John William Waterhouse
Deprivation with desire is worse than mere deprivation with no hope for—or worse, knowledge of—something better to be desired. When Pandora opened her infamous box (more accurately, a jar) out of curiosity, she released diseases, death, toil, and many other evils into the world. In her haste to close the jar again, she trapped the last thing within it—Hope.
On initial reading, we may despair that hope remained trapped in Pandora’s jar. But with what we have been considering today, maybe there is another way to look at it. This Greek word for hope, elpis, could be translated more generally as “expectation.” So here’s a question for you to ponder: did Pandora deprive the world of the one good thing that could have come out of that jar? Or did she actually save the world from what might be a worse evil?
Ultimately, unfulfilled desires and unachievable goals speak to the existential torture of meaninglessness. In some of the Nazi concentration camps and city ghettos during WWII, various pointless tasks were assigned to prisoners. In one example, prisoners were instructed to move bricks by hand from one end of a factory to the other—only to carry them back again.1 It is one thing to afflict someone with physical labor; it is another thing to afflict them with meaningless ones. One crushes the body; the other crushes the soul. The stories of Sisyphus and the Danaides recognize this truth.
What makes unfulfilled desires feel particularly torturous and hopeless is the fact that we can’t actually choose our desires. We can’t choose who we are attracted to, the stirring of hunger when the aromas float from the kitchen, or the quiet wishes for wealth and status. We are just as much shaped by our desires as they are shaped by us, if not more so.
If you have ever been in love when you would rather not be, surely you understand how impossible the task is of merely choosing to stop the heartbeat of eros. You have been struck by Cupid, and that’s that.
So what can we do? Are we forever bound to desires we can’t control? The good news is: although you can’t control them, you can shape them. Your desires are highly influenced by your lifestyle and environment. A person is unlikely to desire owning a Bugatti if he has no exposure to it. Conversely, you are more likely to develop a drive for wealth if you spend time around wealthy people. If you grew up in Alabama, you will likely have had a desire to attend a football game at one point. And if you hang around ice cream lovers, you would likely develop a taste for ice cream as well.
Christian theologians call this the “formation” of the heart. One is either being “formed” toward God or “deformed” away from Him by our liturgy (literally, “work of or for the people”). In other words, the things we participate in—with our words, actions, and associations—shape our desires, for better or for worse.
"Saint Augustine" by Philippe de Champaigne
For some among us, this curse of unfulfilled desire is especially poignant when one’s desire is, in fact, for the highest Good—namely, God. It’s hard to believe sometimes, but there are individuals who would absolutely love to know God personally, if He exists, and are looking for Him every way they know how. But He remains hidden. No amount of logic and philosophical reasoning in the world can satiate the hunger for a true experience of the divine, and yet, they are left wanting. How painful it must be to be told that God, whoever He is, is all-loving while He seems to have chosen to be absent, distant, or hidden. It is unsurprising that such a seeker would turn bitter, as a lover would when scorned, at the apparent hiddenness of the divine. They would be tantalized, as Tantalus was, at what seems like God’s revelation in other people’s lives, and the denial of such an experience in their own can feel very much like Echo’s wasting away. And just like the Danaides who will forever attempt to fill a basin full of holes, so all the works of piety in an attempt to connect with the divine feel frustratingly futile. As the writer of Proverbs states, “Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.” (13:12)
So here’s my takeaway:
Desires are a necessary, and beautiful, part of the human experience, even if they also cause much suffering. While love has inspired many fables of heartbreak, it has also sung countless tales of bliss. The human heart is made to desire what is good, and to desire it eternally.
But our desires do go astray. So keep these two principles in mind:
We cannot control our desires, but we can influence them by shaping our words, actions, and associations. Craft a lifestyle that points you to what is good, and your desires will follow.
A form of distorted desire is to desire too much, or in the wrong direction. We have a tendency to attach to less-than-helpful things or prospects. Learning to detach from them, or surrender them, is a tool for dealing with wayward desires.
Be aware of the cravings of your heart. That is a step toward living more intentionally.
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