Feeling Bearish about Callisto

One of the things Boehringer points out in the earlier discussion of the Callisto myth (in the Greek chapters) is that pre-Ovid sources tend to include only fragments of the story. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that one of Ovid's goals was to create "definitive" versions of the myths he includes (as well as combining them into a connected and unified whole). In a previous podcast (though I forget which one at the moment) I call attention to how much of our modern view of Greek mythology comes filtered through Ovid, whereas the Greek sources--in addition to often being fragmentary--are much more diverse and contradictory.

While the image of f/f desire is at the core of the Callisto myth, that doesn't mean that any specific version of the story includes the concept of spontaneous, self-knowing desire by a woman for a woman. This is particularly true in later retellings, where Callisto may be depicted as needing to be coaxed into accepting Zeus/Artemis's embraces, or where Zeus uses the transformation only to approach Callisto and the erotic/sexual activity occurs after he returns to his male form. Or, as Boehringer notes, the entire episode of the rape may be skipped over and the story dwells only on the consequences once Callisto's pregnancy is discovered.

So it is not a stretch to see meaning in the specific version that Ovid presents, where Callisto is shown as engaging willingly and mutually in erotic kisses with someone she believes to be the goddess Artemis. They may exist in a nebulously mythic past, but they do exist in Ovid's imagination.

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