![]() When she wakes, she begins to wonder if she is dead or alive and then immediately expresses her desire to die. In the opening scene, Ariadne is asleep on Naxos but she is crying in her sleep. Richard Strauss’ 1916 opera Ariadne auf Naxos begins in a time-frame after Ariadne has learned of Theseus’ departure. Her eyes are closed tight, and she will not awaken as Theseus departs, for the figure of Hypnos, Sleep, sits on her head with legs drawn up as he sleeps. In contrast to the morning after, when Ariadne in her Bacchic frenzy will come undone, the picture of Ariadne in the present is eerily peaceful:Īriadne faces us directly, an unusual pose that points to her oblivion to what is happening behind her as well as allowing us a clear view of the peaceful contentment registered on her face. And it is this same Bacchic frenzy, signaled by her disheveled hair, that will now attract Dionysus to her. I recall here the verse in Catullus 64.63 where the headdress that had held the hair of Ariadne together has now come undone, and she looks like a bacchant, a frenzied devotee of Bacchus, that is, of the god Dionysus. I interpret this figure as a prefiguring of Ariadne herself at a later moment, the morning after, when she wakes up to find that she has been abandoned by Theseus. I note that the small female figure who is “flying into the night” is disheveled, with her hair flying in the wind and with her clothing in disarray. In the upper left hand corner is a small female figure flying into the night. ![]() Athena tries to quiet him as he stretches out his arm, a gesture of remonstration or inquiry. Athena has just wakened Theseus, and as she bends over him he begins to rise, bending one leg and sitting up from the pillow on which he has lain next to Ariadne. Here we see the couple at the moment of separation. The details have been described this way: The couple has fallen asleep after the lovemaking, but Athena awakens Theseus, gently gesturing for him to be quiet and not to awaken Ariadne, who is held fast in her sleep by a little figure of Hypnos perched on top of her head. ![]() This picture captures the moment when Athena appears to Theseus after he has made love with Ariadne. Lekythos attributed to the Pan Painter, dated around 470 BCE (Taranto IG 4545). In “ Virgil’s verse invitus, regina … and its poetic antecedents,” Gregory Nagy discusses an important multiform as it appears on a lekythos from 470 BCE. Many versions of the Ariadne myth focus on her sleeping while Theseus departs on his ship. What a sleep, Dionysus, and how sweet the breath! Whether it smells of apples or grapes, after making love you will tell. Her left hand lies upon her cloak, lest a breeze shame her. Her breasts are bare to her navel, her neck is back and her soft throat, and her armpit, the right one, is all visible. In a recent post we shared a description of Ariadne as offered by Philostratus the Elder:īut look at Ariadne, or rather her sleep. And when you do need it, the hood comes with extra fabric so you’re not walking around looking like the Marshmallow Man.The Sleeping Ariadne in Naxos by John Vanderlyn (Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain) ![]() If you’re not in need of an on-the-go pillow, you can let out the air to make the hood look totally normal. ![]() The neutral tones and sleek design look like something you might find on Everlane or Urban Outfitters’s site. While a lot of functional fashion tends to fall behind in the style department, the Hypnos seems to finally break that mold. The genius garment, which is currently undergoing a crowdsourcing campaign on Kickstarter, looks just like a normal hoodie until you inflate the hood by blowing into the hood’s built-in tab. Introducing Hypnos, the inflatable hoodie you can sleep in. But if you’re constantly on the move and in desperate need of some zzzs, there might just be a way to get the best of both worlds. Even if you’re on a plane with a full travel relaxation kit, it’s only a matter of time before you wake up with that dreaded kink in your neck. As determined as you may be to make it work, having to sleep somewhere that isn’t your bed usually proves to be a rather unsuccessful task. ![]()
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