Jordaens

Jacob Jordaens
Christ as Gardener with the Three Marys
(Noli me tangere)
ca. 1616
oil on canvas
Gemäldegalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Jacob Jordaens
Daughters of Cecrops discovering the infant Erichthonios
1617
oil on canvas
Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp

Jacob Jordaens
Daughters of Cecrops discovering the infant Erichthonios
ca. 1640
oil on canvas
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Jacob Jordaens
Christ carrying the Cross
ca. 1657
oil on canvas
Bonnefantenmuseum, Maastricht

Jacob Jordaens
Holy Family
ca. 1616-17
oil on panel
National Museum, Warsaw

Jacob Jordaens
Holy Family with St Anne and young St John the Baptist
ca. 1620-25
oil on canvas
Staatsgalerie Flämische Barockmalerei im Schloss Neuburg

Jacob Jordaens
Holy Family with young St John the Baptist
ca. 1660
oil on canvas
Brukenthal National Museum, Sibiu, Romania

Jacob Jordaens
Summer
1623
oil on paper, mounted on panel
Brukenthal National Museum, Sibiu, Romania

Jacob Jordaens
Study Heads
ca. 1620-23
oil on paper, mounted on panel
Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp

Jacob Jordaens
Mother and Child
ca. 1638-40
drawing
Morgan Library, New York

Jacob Jordaens
The King Drinks (Feast of Epiphany)
ca. 1638-40
drawing, with added watercolor
(study for painting)
Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam

Jacob Jordaens
Christ among the Doctors
ca. 1663
drawing, with added watercolor
(study for painting)
Morgan Library, New York

Jacob Jordaens
Temptation of Mary Magdalen
ca. 1640
oil on panel
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Carcassonne

Jacob Jordaens
The Thinker, or, Faun in Meditation
ca. 1640
oil on canvas
Musée Ingres Bourdelle, Montauban

Jacob Jordaens
St Peter
ca. 1640-43
oil on canvas
Staatsgalerie Flämische Barockmalerei im Schloss Neuburg

Jacob Jordaens
Abduction of Europa
1643
oil on canvas
Palais des Beaux-Arts de Lille

Herald:  I shall go and report this to the sons of Aegyptus.

Pelasgus:  That does not cause my mind any concern.

Herald:  Well, so that I can speak to them with more definite knowledge – for it is right that a herald should bring back a full and clear report – when I go back without this band of women who are their close cousins, by whom and by what right should I say I was deprived of possession of them?  Ares will be the judge of this matter, and not on the basis of witnesses' evidence; he does not settle quarrels by a payment of silver – no, before that many men must fall to the ground and end their lives in convulsions.

Pelasgus:  Why need I tell you my name?  You will learn it and know it in time, you and your fellow-travellers.  You may take these women so long as they consent with friendly heart, if pious words of yours should persuade them; but you may not take them against their will.  That is the unanimous vote that has been passed and enacted by the people of the city, never to surrender this band of women by force.  This decision has been nailed down with a nail that has pierced right through, so that it stays fixed.  These words are not written on tablets, nor sealed up in a folded sheet of papyrus: you hear them plainly from the lips and tongue of a free man.  Now get out of my sight at once.

Herald:  You take pleasure in provoking an outbreak of war.  May victory and mastery go to the males!

Pelasgus [as the Herald and his men depart]: Well, I tell you, you'll find that the inhabitants of this land are masculine all right – they don't drink barleycorn brew!   [To the Chorus] Now, all of you, take courage and go, with a friendly escort, to our well-fortified city, enclosed by high, well-crafted walls.  There is plenty of public housing, where you can live in well-prepared accommodation with many others; or, if it pleases you better, you may also live in separate dwellings,* since I myself too am housed on no mean scale.  Choose from these options whatever is best and pleases you most.  I am your patron, as are all the citizens who have made and enacted this decree.  Why need you wait for anyone with more authority than these?

– Aeschylus, from Suppliants (ca. 470-460 BC), translated by Alan H. Sommerstein (2008)

*Pelasgus is offering a choice between non-exclusive accommodation in public dwellings, or exclusive accomodation in the palace or another building owned by the king.  No doubt we will discover, later in the trilogy, that Danaus has chosen the latter, which will minimize contact between his daughters and ordinary Argives and, in due course, facilitate the wedding night murders.