Ok, I admit it—that was a tease. But I like to think it’s a tease with a purpose. If you watched to the end—you did watch to the end, right? 😄—what reaction did you have? No, don’t tell me. 😉 That’s personal and not at all the point.
The point is to think about it, and think about where those reactions come from and what expectations (if any) we have about how a guy is likely to react in those circumstances.
To add some background, this is a story from the Caucasus and the people of the Caucasus are famous for being proud and warlike (the resistance of the Chechens and Dagestanis to invaders is legendary), and that applies to both women and men. Feuding and raiding were accepted and acceptable parts of everyday life and, as John Colarusso points out in his awesome book Nart Sagas: Ancient Myths and Legends of the Circassians and Abkhazians, they engaged in what he calls a kind of “sporting theft” that was so common that it was a major way goods circulated in society, partly taking the place of trade which tended to be limited to certain clans and their enclaves.
So, given all that, what might we think Pataraz has in mind when he looks out his door after catching his wife cheating on him?
If I had to guess what a common reaction has frequently been in our culture, I might turn to the example of Othello (I’m a big fan of Shakespeare) as one archetype. (Am I using that right? I’m never sure?)
Othello has some things in common with Pataraz. He’s a noble who’s well-liked and respected. He has a beautiful, virtuous and dutiful wife, Desdemona. But there’s jealousy and bad-blood over his marriage, which was done in secret, and a weaselly little shit, Iago, who feels slighted and wants revenge.
He suggests that Desdemona isn’t as dutiful and virtuous as she “pretends” to be. Othello totally falls for it, flips his shit and everybody dies, except Iago, whose fate is (more or less) left to our imagination.
It’s considered to be one of Shakespeare’s best and most popular plays, and one of his greatest tragedies. The heart of the play is pretty much jealousy run amok.
It seems to me the play’s status as one of our culture’s great works and its enduring popularity says a lot about our relationship with jealousy, sexual and otherwise. Outside of Shakespeare, modern romance also has a lot to say about jealousy.
So what does this have to do with Pataraz and the end of my video?
To explain that, I should explain the whole story, or I should say, saga. It’s from the Circassian corpus in Colarusso’s book: How Khimishuquo Pataraz won the Three Magical Whetstones.
The nearly unpronounceable name (to me) preceding Pataraz is a patronymic that refers to his father Khimish (or Kamisha) who’s a shepherd. (We tend to think of shepherds as low on the social scale, but it’s worth noting that Homer often calls kings “shepherd of the people” so that idea can be kinda misleading.) He’s the one who taught Pataraz and plays a big role in the saga.
The three magical whetstones belonged to Warazmamaj, who seems to be a variant of Setenaya’s husband. He decided to hold a gathering where he and the Elders would decide who was worthy of being awarded the whetstones.
Each whetstone had a different property. The first would sharpen a sword (magically, I assume since that’s pretty much what whetstones are for, anyway). The second provided food. The third—and this is the interesting one—would help the owner find the perfect wife (I’m paraphrasing).
Anybody who was anybody was invited to the gathering and to explain why they deserved the whetstones. Pataraz attended with Khimish.
But when it was Pataraz’s turn to speak, he didn’t say anything. Colarusso explains that boasting was looked down on, so rather than explain his own deeds, Khimish spoke for him. Pataraz would then fill in the details if asked.
The first whetstone was to be given to the man who was most courageous. As it turns out, I think this is a bit of a misnomer, but never mind. All present talked about the great stuff they’d done that showed off their courage.
When they asked Pataraz, Khimish said he deserved it because he’d defeated 100 enemy horsemen singlehanded.
The Elders asked how he accomplished that. Pataraz explained he led them on a wild-goose chase and when they had become separated and straggled all over the countryside, he turned on them and defeated them, one by one. To me, that shows craftiness and good tactics more than raw courage, but let’s not split hairs.
Pataraz further explained he was inspired by his hunting dog, who’d been chased by a large pack of other dogs. His dog ran until some of the pursuing dogs had started to slow down while others were still running fast and still others couldn’t run at all. Then his dog turned around and took them all out one at a time.
The Elders gave Pataraz the first whetstone.
The second whetstone was to be awarded to the man “with the best belly” (Colarusso’s translation). When I first read that, the first thing I thought of was when I was a little kid and older people would talk about things like hotdog eating contests at the county fair. (Do they still do that? I’d be surprised.)
I also thought about this restaurant some of my older co-workers at my first job told me about. I think it might’ve been near Boston? Anyway, its specialty was Maine lobster and they had this deal that if you could finish a certain number of lobsters, your meal was free. Otherwise, you had to pay for them all.
I’ll bet they suckered a ton of wannabe gluttons who came up a claw or two short! 😆
But that’s not what the saga meant at all by the “best belly.” It actually meant the guy who could be happy with the least food.
So again, Khimish stood up when the time came and said Pataraz was that guy. He told a story of how Pataraz was at a feast that lasted seven days, and was happy and jovial the whole time, but never ate or drank while everyone else was gorging and getting hammered. At the end of the feast, he took one bite of food and left.
The Elders asked how he managed that.
Pataraz answered that when he was young, he went on an expedition and the Elders leading it sent him off to fill up a goatskin bag with water. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t fill the bag full. Goatskin is porous so the bag kept seeping water. Finally, he had to give up and come back with a bag that was half empty (or half full?) by the time he returned.
He asked why they’d sent him off with a bag that couldn’t be filled up.
The Elders explained that it was human nature not to be satisfied. We are like the goatskin bag: no matter how much we try to get our fill of what we crave, we never do.
This, of course, relates to Teez’s post about chastity and my related post. Also, the ancient Greeks and their abhorrence of out-of-control appetites.
Pataraz took the lesson to heart and trained himself to be happy with very little food.
They gave him the second whetstone.
Now the third whetstone is where I think it gets super-interesting, and it’s really why I made the video (aside from the fact that was really fun!) and wrote all this.
The third whetstone was to go to the man who had the greatest respect for women!
Now how often do we see that in sagas, myths and legends? All too much of the time, it’s some douche-canoe deity who can’t keep it in his pants! (If not worse? Zeus, anyone?)
Once again, Khimish got up and said there was no one present who was more respectful of women than Pataraz. And he told the story in my video:
Pataraz had been long away on a journey and when he returned one night, he found his wife in flagrante delicto with another man (to use the fancy colloquial phrase 😉).
Instead of interrupting, Pataraz quietly when back into his courtyard, wrapped himself in his burka (in this case, a heavy sheepskin cloak) and went to sleep.
The next morning, he woke up, greeted the man who’d had sex with his wife like a proper guest and sent him on his way “with care” (as the translation says).
Then he went to see his wife and laughed and joked with her to show they were all good.
Colarusso’s translations says “to force his heart to forget the insult” which makes it clear that Pataraz wasn’t entirely cool with his wife fucking around (to use the not-so-fancy phrase). But he loved and respected her a great deal so he wasn’t going to hold it against her either.
When asked how he came by this attitude, Pataraz told the following story.
Once on a journey, he and his companions became lost in a treeless, waterless desert. Without food or water, the situation was becoming dire, but finally they ran across two small earthen huts with nothing else nearby. A girl and her mother lived in them and they took in Pataraz and his company, gave them water, fed them, and made room for them to sleep in the huts. There were 19 of them in total.
That night, Pataraz heard the girl and her mother arguing. The mother said they’d been alone a long time, their men being gone and who knew when or if they would return. They’d endured great hardship. An opportunity to “know such bliss” might never come again in her lifetime.
Therefore, the mother was going to enter the hut with the men.
Her daughter vehemently disagreed. She argued that her mother had already enjoyed “great bliss” and she, being younger had not. She said death knows no difference between youth and age; she might just as easily be carried off, without ever having an such opportunity to “know bliss” as this one.
Pataraz said the two women argued all night (and I guess nobody got any). But, he said, it made him understand how much women had to endure, how often they were subject to terrible loneliness; how they also had desires and yearnings, just as men did, and he resolved thereafter to always treat them graciously and with great respect.
The Elders awarded him the third whetstone.
The peoples of the Caucasus have been known for their egalitarian societies since early antiquity. As Colarusso notes, women “enjoy considerable sexual freedom and choice.” This was first encountered by outsiders among the Circassians.
There are reasons for this, of course, which some scholars have explored. I have my own thoughts, too.
But those are gonna have to wait for another post! 😉 For the time being, I’ll just note the contrasts made in this ancient story from and ancient people:
Wiliness over brute force.
Controlled appetites over gluttony and the insatiable need for stuff.
Patience and empathy over jealousy and possessiveness.
In some ways, we might call Pataraz the anti-Othello. But I don’t think that’s quite right? Maybe it’s better to say Othello is the anti-Pataraz?
So until next time, I hope you liked this story and if you’re a paid subscriber, enjoy the video! The link is below!
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Thank you so much for stopping by! 😊
Hello!
First of all, here’s the link to the full video!
Next, yup—I wanted to tell this story of Pataraz because it’s one of my favorites and it’s also a really important, I think! 😊
But it also gave me a chance to work on another video, this time all with a voiceover where the last one was all dialogue. Between the two, hopefully I’ll figure out how to pull Dreams of Summer together in ways I hadn’t imagined before! 😄
Anyway, let me know your thoughts, as always!
That’s all so far! I hope you like the video!