Wikipedia

Bident

Abidentis a two-pronged implement resembling apitchfork.InGreek mythology,the bident is a weapon associated withHades(Pluto), the ruler of the underworld.

Pluto holding a bident in a woodcut from theGods and Goddessesseries ofHendrick Goltzius(1588–1589)

Likewise, the three-prongedtridentis the implement of his brotherPoseidon(Neptune), god of theseasandearthquakes,while the lightning bolt, which superficially appears to have a single main point or prong, is a symbol of their youngest brother,Zeus(Jupiter), king of the gods and the sky.

Etymology

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The word 'bident' was brought into the English language before 1871,[1]and is derived from the Latinbidentis,meaning "having two teeth (or prongs)."[2]

Historical uses

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Ancient Egyptiansused a bident as a fishing tool, sometimes attached to a line and sometimes fastened with flight feathers.[3]Two-pronged weapons mainly ofbronzeappear in the archaeological record ofancient Greece.[4]

InRoman agriculture,thebidens(genitivebidentis) was a double-bladeddrag hoe[5]or two-prongedmattock,[6]although a modern distinction between "mattock" and "rake" should not be pressed.[7]It was used to break up and turn ground that was rocky and hard.[8]Thebidensis pictured onmosaicsand other forms ofRoman art,as well astombstones to mark the occupation of the deceased.[9]

In mythology

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Roman-eramosaics show the bident forharehunting (Villa Romana del Casale,Sicily,c. 300AD)

The spear ofAchillesis said by a few sources to be bifurcated.[10]Achilles had been instructed in its use byPeleus,who had in turn learned from the centaurChiron.The implement may have associations withThessaly.Ablack-figuredamphorafromCorneto(EtruscanTarquinia) depicts a scene from thehunt for the Calydonian boar,part of a series of adventures that took place in the general area. Peleus is accompanied byCastor,who is attacking the boar with a two-pronged spear.[11]

A bronze trident found in an Etruscan tomb atVetuloniaseems to have had an adaptable center prong that could be removed for use as a bident.[12]Akylixfound atVulciin ancient Etruria was formerly interpreted as depicting Pluto (Greek: ΠλούτωνPlouton) with a bident. A black-bearded man holding a peculiarly two-pronged instrument reaches out in pursuit of a woman, thought to bePersephone.The vase was subjected to improper reconstruction, however, and the couple are more likely Poseidon andAethra.[13]OnLydiancoins that showPloutonabducting Persephone in his four-horse chariot, the god holds his characteristicscepter,the ornamented point of which has sometimes been interpreted as a bident.[14]Other visual representations of the bident on ancient objects appear to have been either modern-era reconstructions, or in the possession of figures not securely identified as the ruler of the underworld.[15]

TheCambridge ritualistA.B. Cooksaw the bident as an implement that might be wielded byJupiter,the chief god of the Roman pantheon, in relation to Romanbidentalritual, the consecration of a place struck by lightning by means of a sacrificial sheep, called abidensbecause it was of an age to have two teeth.[16]In the hands of Jupiter (also known as Jove, EtruscanTinia), the trident or bident thus represents a forked lightning bolt. In ancient Italy, thunder and lightning were read as signs of divine will, wielded by thesky godJupiter in three forms or degrees of severity (seemanubia). The Romans drew onEtruscan traditionsfor the interpretation of these signs. A tile found atUrbs SalviainPicenumdepicts an unusual composite Jove, "fairly bristling with weapons": a lightning bolt, a bident, and a trident, uniting the realms of sky, earth, and sea, and representing the three degrees of ominous lightning (see alsoSummanus).[17]Cook regarded the trident as the Greek equivalent of the Etruscan bident, each representing a type of lightning used to communicate the divine will; since he accepted theLydian origin of the Etruscans,he traced both forms to the sameMesopotamia source.[18]

The later notion that the ruler of the underworld wielded a trident or bident can perhaps be traced to a line in theHercules Furens( "Hercules Enraged" ) ofSeneca.Dis(the Roman equivalent of GreekPlouton) uses a three-pronged spear to drive offHerculesas he attempts to invade Pylos. Seneca also refers to Dis as the "Infernal Jove"[19]or the "dire Jove",[20]the Jove who gives dire or ill omens(dirae),just as in the Greek tradition,Hadesis sometimes identified as a "chthonicZeus ". That the trident and bident might be somewhat interchangeable is suggested by a Byzantinescholiast,who mentions Poseidon being armed with a bident.[21]

In art

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Council of the gods from theLoggia di Psiche,Villa Farnesina, with Pluto holding a bident and Neptune a trident

InWestern artof theMiddle Ages,classical underworld figures began to be depicted with a pitchfork.[22]Early Christianwriters identified the classical underworld with Hell, and its denizens as demons or devils.[23]In theRenaissance,the bident became a conventional attribute of Pluto in art. Pluto, withCerberusat his side, is shown holding the bident in the mythological ceiling mural painted byRaphael's workshop for theVilla Farnesina(theLoggia di Psiche,1517–18). In a scene depicting a council of the gods, the three brothers Jove, Pluto, and Neptune are grouped closely, with a Cupid standing before them. Neptune holds the trident. Elsewhere in theloggia,aputtoholds a bident.[24]

Perhaps influenced by this work,Agostino Carraccihad depicted Pluto with a bident in a preparatory drawing for his paintingPluto(1592), in which the god holds insteadhis characteristic key.[25]

InCaravaggio'sGiove, Nettuno e Plutone(ca. 1597), a ceiling mural based onalchemicalallegory, Pluto – with his 3-headed dog, Cerberus – holds a bident. (Immediately beside him, Neptune is shown with a trident. Some writers have confused the two figures; Neptune's identity is confirmed by his embrace of the Hippocamp – the "sea horse" with fins for forelegs, and whose markings appear to repeat the trident in a stylized, perhaps symbolic, form.)

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  • In the game,Hades,"Gigaros" (Γίγαρος)is the name of Hades's Bident-Spear, which he wields during his Boss Fight outside of the "Temple of Styx", the final Biome zone of the game, after his son,Zagreus,gets pastCerberus.Not to be mistaken with "Varatha, the Eternal Spear" (Βαράθα), one of the "Infernal Arms" Zagreus can choose from, and the specific weapon formally wielded by Hades-himself back during the events of theTitanomachy.

See also

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References

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  1. ^"Bident".The Cabinet Dictionary of the English Language.Glasgow:William Collins, Sons, and Company.1871. p. 56.
  2. ^American Psychological Association (APA)."Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary".Dictionary.com.www.reference.com. Archived fromthe originalon July 31, 2012.RetrievedMay 18,2012.
  3. ^Wilkinson, John Gardner (1837).Manners and customs of the ancient Egyptians: including their private life, government, laws, arts, manufacturers, religion and early history: derived from a comparison of the painting, sculptures and monuments still existing with the accounts of ancient authors, Volume 3.Murray. pp. 60, 61.bident was a spear with two barbed points... thrust at the fish... fish spears of the South Sea Islanders... same manner... as the bident by the ancient Egyptians
  4. ^Arthur Bernard Cook,Zeus: A Study in Ancient Religion(Oxford University Press, 1924), vol. 2, p. 799.
  5. ^K.D. White,Roman Farming(Cornell University Press, 1970), p. 239.
  6. ^K.D. White,Agricultural Implements of the Roman World(Cambridge University Press, 1967, 2010), p. 11.
  7. ^White,Agricultural Implements,p. 12.
  8. ^Pliny,Natural History17.54;White,Agricultural Implements,p. 19.
  9. ^White,Agricultural Implements,pp. vii, viii, 11, 51.
  10. ^By Lesches of Lesbos (7th century BC) in theLittle Iliad(Ilias parva),frg. 5 in the edition of Kinkel, as preserved by thescholiasttoPindar,Nemean Ode6.85 and the scholiast to theIliad16.142. Also in theClassical periodbyAeschylusin the fragmentaryNereids(Nereides),frg. 152 in the second edition of Nauck; and bySophoclesin theLovers of Achilles(Achilleos erastai),frg. 156 (Nauck2= 152 in the edition of Jebb), as cited by Cook,Zeus,vol. 2, p. 799.
  11. ^Cook,Zeus,vol. 2, p. 799.
  12. ^Cook,Zeus,vol. 2, pt. 2,p. 1225,with images of Zeus wielding lightning bolts, and citing Milani,Studi e materiali di archeologia e numismatica(Florence, 1905), (vol. 3, p. 85.
  13. ^Cook,Zeus,vol. 2, pp. 800–801. The kylix from the workshop ofBrygos.
  14. ^Cook,Zeus,vol. 2, p. 801.
  15. ^Cook,Zeus,vol. 2, p. 802.
  16. ^Cook,Zeus,vol. 2, pp. 805–806.
  17. ^Cook,Zeus,vol. 2,p. 803,with image on p. 804.
  18. ^Cook,Zeus,vol. 2, p. 806.
  19. ^Inferni Iovis(genitivecase),Hercules Furensline 47, in the prologue spoken byJuno.
  20. ^Diro Iovi,line 608 ofHercules Furens;compare Vergil,Aeneid4.638,Iove Stygio,the "Jove of theStyx".Fitch,Seneca's Hercules Furens,p. 156.
  21. ^Codex Augustanus, note toEuripides'Phoenician Women,line 188, as cited by Cook,Zeus,vol. 2, p. 806, note 6.
  22. ^Cook,Zeus,vol. 2, p. 803.
  23. ^Friedrich Solmsen,"The Powers of Darkness in Prudentius'Contra Symmachum:A Study of His Poetic Imagination, "Vigiliae Christianae19.4 (1965), pp. 238, 240–248et passim.
  24. ^Richard Stemp,The Secret Language of the Renaissance: Decoding the Hidden Symbolism of Italian Art(Duncan Baird, 2006), p. 114; Clare Robertson et al.,Drawings by the Carracci from British Collections(Ashmolean Museum, 1996), p. 78.
  25. ^Robertson et al.,Drawings by the Carracci from British Collections,pp. 78–79.
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