Last week we had the absolute pleasure of listening to the wonderful interview between our Drawing Down the Moon MD, Mary Balfour and the classicist Edith Hall on ‘A History of Ideas’, BBC Radio 4.
A lovely chat of 11 minutes where Mary Balfour explains how the name Drawing Down the Moon had its origins in Greek mythology and the gods Glaukias and Chrysis:
“Edith Hall – I believe the name of your agency draws on a Greek myth?
Mary – Indeed it does… Drawing Down the Moon, and it’s from a Greek myth about Glaukias and Chrysis. He was besotted with her, she didn’t reciprocate so he went to the moon goddess who wove a magic spell which she had embedded in a statue in the image of Glaukias and when Chrysis touched it she fell passionately in love with Glaukias and the two of them were combined in the fire of eternal passion.
Edith – Wow, that sounds wonderful. So this is what you offer to your clients?
Mary – We can’t quite manage the Greek drama bit but we do try our very best”
As well as expressing her own opinion on why humans need a love partner…
“Edith – What do you think about the story that Aristophanes made about finding our other half?
Mary – Yes, that in fact we were originally made of two people… I think it’s a very modern idea in a way because his story incorporates people being gay and all aspects of modern sexuality, I think it’s wonderful.
Edith – It’s got huge modern relevance because he divides humans into three different sorts: men who love men, women who love women and women who love men. This could not be more 21st century
Mary – But this looking for your other half business, well in one sense I say you shouldn’t be looking for your other half, you should be self sufficient and all of that. You shouldn’t go into a relationship until you are a complete and happy person, because happy people make happy relationships. On the other hand of course we are looking for another half and it comes up also in lots of different languages and in Spanish you talk about, my other half of the orange ‘mi media naranja’ and I love that too because of all the segments in the orange and each bit of the orange could be some different segment of you.”
Download the podcast on the BBC Radio 4 website or Click the play button below to listen to the full interview.
