ATTITUDES TO WOMEN: Classical & Medieval
            “split” image of women: negative and positive

Classical mythology:  siren

        Hecate, goddess of magical arts, underworld, night
                      mother of Circe:  siren who traps Ulysses
                                   & Medea: kills her children

Purgatory 19: Dante’s dream

         “dolce sirena” – sweet siren whose singing lures men at sea
          the other woman – honest, good, calls for Virgil
          Virgil reveals the siren as putrid stinking hag
          “antica strega” = old witch: strega as Italian word for witch

          from Latin: strix, striga = screech owl, witch
          late Roman (Ovid, Apuleius) and medieval belief in striga:
                 old woman who becomes a screech owl by night,
                 flies into open windows, cannibalizes infants :)

                 Striga = “nightmare” version of the European witch
                      and classical siren both show up in Dante’s dream
                     
         Misogyny --  both classical and Christian
                             fear or dislike of women, sex, marriage
         
               versus (but also combined with or alternating with) :

         Romanticization or Idealization of Women

               Cult of Virgin Mary:  
                       Virgin Birth & Immaculate Conception
                        
               Courtly Love Tradition (12-13th C. France)

                Dante’s Beatrice as actual woman in Florence
                             transformed into mediator of his salvation,
                             combination of Christ & Virgin Mary