Ethan Jarvik
July 29, 2023
Curators Remarks
Originally premiering in 2006 before receiving a rework in 2012 and premiering again in 2016 and eventually reaching Broadway in 2019, Hadestown is a modern retelling of the classic myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. Framing the underworld as a literal industrialized hellscape going by the name Hadestown. The story follows Eurydice’s coaxing into the service of Hadestown to avoid the cold and poverty of life, Orpheus’ pursuit of her, and the shoddy relationship between Hades and Persephone. However throughout the story the audience is directly addressed by a narrator, silver tongued and silver suited Hermes fulfills his classic Greek role as the messenger of the gods by narrating the story for the audience, indeed the shows opening song “Road to Hell” is Hermes immediately breaking the 4th wall and addressing the audience as he describes and introduces all the main players in the story. As the messenger of the gods in classical myths Hermes serves a role as a sort of bridge between the mortal world and the divine world of the gods, here in the musical he serves a similar purpose by connecting the audience directly with the show that is happening before them.
Hermes has more of a role in the story than just its narrator however, the show is a retelling of a story by Hermes but Hermes himself is involved in said story. Hermes has two moments that heavily impact the story both of which involve him being a guide to get the characters to Hadestown, once again filling in a classic mythological job of his, that being guiding souls to the underworld. He is the one who suggests the starving and cold Eurydice go to Hadestown, and it is also Hermes who tells Orpheus a way to sneak into Hadestown to get Eurydice back. Even within his narrating Hermes’ goes above and beyond, adding not just narration but commentary to the characters he presents. Something worth noting is that while Hermes is incredibly knowledgeable as an immortal deity, his insights are not necessarily objective. Like any storyteller, he may inject his own perspective and emotions into the narrative, which could influence how certain events are portrayed or interpreted.
As the god who guides souls to the underworld in classic Greek mythology, and one of the few beings who can freely traverse being the mortal and dead realms it’s understandable that Hermes has a relationship with Hades himself in the musical. Hermes is extremely loyal to Hades, despite his almost tyrannical disposition and generally unpleasant demeanor Hermes is careful to treat Hades the same as any other character in his narration, explaining the nuance of Hades’ situation. Overall despite his modernized appearance, Hermes continues to fulfill his classical duties both in relation to the story and the audience.
Sources For Ethan:
“The Local Story of Hadestown: From Vermont to Somerville to Broadway.” WERS 88.9FM, 6 Jan. 2022, wers.org/the-local-story-of-hadestown/.
Fierberg, Ruthie. “How Michael Krass Used Fashion to Make Hadestown’s Players into Singular Characters.” Playbill, 20 May 2019, playbill.com/article/how-michael-krass-used-fashion-to-make-hadestowns-players-into-singular-characters.
Elias Scott De Martinville
Hermes
Hermes Hermeticus
Hermeticism is a religious, esoteric, and philosophical movement connected to an ancient collection of writings and their supposed Author, Hermes Trismegitus. It is a tradition that dates back to late antiquity in a Greco-Egyptian environment but has influenced various cultures, religions, and esoteric communities since then.
Hermes, the central figure behind this movement, is an elusive figure to whom several different legends and mythical stories are attributed. But we can be sure that Hermes Trismegitus, in this particular manifestation, and the movement and literature we usually refer to as Hemertic originates in Egypt during Hellenistic and Roman occupation. Roughly between the conquest of Alexander the Great in the later 4th century BC and the 4th century CE or AD, depending on your preference. This was an element within which the Hellenistic culture (originating in Greece) mingled and interacted with the native Egyptian culture. While the native Egyptians were often hostile and used to religious and cultural syncretism, the influence of Greek language, philosophy, and religion became an inescapable reality. The Hellenistic leaders themselves often chose to syncretize their religious background with the cults of Egypt, and this created some exciting developments. In this process, many gods from the Greek context were merged with Egyptian deities. Gods who shared attributes or functions could be seen as the same god but with Different names. One such synthesis was made between the Greek god Hermes and the Egyptian Toth. Toth was one of the most popular deities in the Egyptian pantheon. He was associated with the Ibis bird and is usually depicted with an Ibis’s head. Toth served many different functions; the god of lightning, the scribe, and messenger of the gods, the god of wisdom, the one who invented the art of writing and hieroglyphs, the composer of sacred literature like the Book of the Dead, and the source of all occult and esoteric knowledge. Hermes served a quite similar role, and the two quickly started to become associated with each other, eventually resulting in the merged character of Hermes Trismegistus, meaning “Thrice Great”, most likely originating from the epithet for Toth. The following legends paint him as a human and often with significant roles; the teacher of Moses, Pythagoras, etc.
The Corpus Hermeticum was heralded as the uncorrupted font from which flowed not only the biblical teachings of Moses but also Greek philosophy. In Hermes Trismefistus, as previously mentioned, Greece and Jerusalem had a common parent. In the modern day, scholars divide the hermetica into two camps. On the one hand, there is the technical hermetica; a wide range of literature, including Alchemy, astrology, botany, magic, and so forth. This literature survived through the Greco-Egyptian and Islamic, and medieval European periods. On the other hand, there is the philosophical hermetica; Facino rendered fourteen brief track tapes, and the original 1471 edition was so slim that it could be bound with other texts. The philosophical hermetica are typically structured as discourses between Hermes and his pupils. Corpus Hermeticum 1 is a discourse between the noose (mind) and Hermes Trismegistus himself. The content of the discourses ranges enormously, despite their relative brevity. From the nature of the cosmos to the origins and nature of evil, to the process of change, the nature of the mind and the soul, the very origins of the cosmos itself, and most importantly, the process by which one can achieve salvation. Sometimes, a single tractate may only cover several of these topics in a couple of pages. The best theory we have as to the text's origins is that they began as brief sentences, much like the wisdom literature of the indigenous Egyptian culture, and around these sentences grew a history of learned exposition.
Trismégiste, H., & Ramelli, I. (2006). Corpus hermeticum. Bompiani.