Editing Gordian Knot

{{Short description|Greek myth; metaphor for tangled problem}}
{{other uses}}
[[File:Alexander cuts the Gordian Knot.jpg|thumb|250px|''Alexander the Great cuts the Gordian Knot'' by [[Jean-Simon Berthélemy]] (1743–1811)]]
[[File:Jean-François Godefroy Alexandre et le noeud gordien.JPG|thumb|''Alexander the Great Cutting the Gordian Knot'' (1767) by Jean-François Godefroy]] [[File:Alexander cutting the Gordian knot by Andre Castaigne (1898-1899).jpg|thumb|''Alexander the Great Cutting the Gordian Knot'' by [[André Castaigne]] (1898–1899)]]

The cutting of the '''Gordian Knot''' is an [[Ancient Greece|Ancient Greek]] [[legend]] associated with [[Alexander the Great]] in [[Gordium]] in [[Phrygia]], regarding a complex [[knot]] that tied an oxcart. Reputedly, whoever could untie it would be destined to rule all of Asia. In 333 BCE, Alexander was challenged to untie the knot. Instead of untangling it laboriously as expected, he dramatically cut through it with his sword. This is used as a [[metaphor]] for using brute force to solve a seemingly-intractable problem.
{{poemquote|
Turn him to any cause of policy,
The Gordian Knot of it he will unloose,
Familiar as his garter
| author=[[William Shakespeare|Shakespeare]]
| title=''[[Henry V (play)|Henry V]]''
| source=Act 1 Scene 1. 45–47
}}

==Legend==
The [[Phrygians]] were without a [[king]], but an [[oracle]] at [[Telmissus]] (the ancient capital of [[Lycia]]) decreed that the next man to enter the city driving an ox-cart should become their king. A peasant farmer named [[Gordias]] drove into town on an ox-cart and was immediately declared king.{{efn|The ox-cart is often depicted in works of art as a [[chariot]], which made it a more readily legible emblem of power and military readiness. His position had also been predicted earlier by an eagle landing on his cart, a sign to him from the gods.}} Out of gratitude, his son [[Midas]] dedicated the ox-cart<ref>[[Arrian]], ''[[Anabasis Alexandri]]'' (Αλεξάνδρου Ανάβασις), Book ii.3): "{{lang|grc|καὶ τὴν ἅμαξαν τοῦ πατρὸς ἐν τῇ ἄκρᾳ ἀναθεῖναι χαριστήρια τῷ Διὶ τῷ βασιλεῖ ἐπὶ τοῦ ἀετοῦ τῇ πομπῇ.}}" which means "and he offered his father's cart as a gift to king Zeus as gratitude for sending the eagle".</ref> to the Phrygian god [[Sabazios]] (whom the Greeks [[Interpretatio graeca|identified with Zeus]]) and tied it to a post with an intricate knot of [[European Cornel|cornel]] bark (''Cornus mas''). The knot was later described by Roman historian [[Quintus Curtius Rufus]] as comprising "several knots all so tightly entangled that it was impossible to see how they were fastened".<ref name="Andrews">{{cite web|url=http://www.history.com/news/ask-history/what-was-the-gordian-knot|title=What was the Gordian Knot?|last1=Andrews|first1=Evan|date=3 February 2016|website=[[History (U.S. TV Network)|History]]|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190121160806/https://www.history.com/news/what-was-the-gordian-knot|archive-date=21 January 2019|url-status=live|access-date=30 May 2017}}</ref>

The ox-cart still stood in the palace of the former kings of Phrygia at [[Gordium]] in the fourth century BCE when Alexander the Great arrived, at which point Phrygia had been reduced to a [[satrap]]y, or province, of the [[Achaemenid Empire|Persian Empire]]. An oracle had declared that any man who could unravel its elaborate knots was destined to rule over all of Asia.<ref name="Andrews"/> Alexander the Great wanted to untie the knot but struggled to do so before reasoning that it would make no difference ''how'' the knot was loosed. Sources from antiquity disagree on his solution. In one version of the story, he drew his sword and sliced it in half with a single stroke.<ref name="Andrews"/>  However, [[Plutarch]] and [[Arrian]] relate that, according to [[Aristobulus of Cassandreia|Aristobulus]],{{efn|Arrian and Plutarch are secondary sources; Aristobolus' text is lost.}} Alexander pulled the linchpin from the pole to which the yoke was fastened, exposing the two ends of the cord and allowing him to untie the knot without having to cut through it.<ref>{{Cite book|title=[[The Anabasis of Alexander#Modern editions|The Campaigns of Alexander]]|last=Arrian|publisher=Penguin Group|year=1971|edition=Revised, Enlarged|pages=105|translator-last=de Sélincourt|translator-first=Aubrey|author-link=Arrian|orig-year=1958|translator-link=Aubrey de Sélincourt}}</ref><ref>{{cite Plutarch|Alexander|18}}</ref> Some classical scholars regard this as more plausible than the popular account.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Fredricksmeyer|first=Ernest A.|date=July 1961|title=Alexander, Midas, and the Oracle at Gordium|journal=[[Classical Philology (journal)|Classical Philology]]|volume=56|issue=3|pages=160–168|doi=10.1086/364593|jstor=265752|s2cid=162250370 }} citing Tarn, W.W. 1948</ref> Literary sources of the story include [[Arrian]] (''[[Anabasis Alexandri]] ''2.3), [[Quintus Curtius]] (3.1.14), [[Justin (historian)|Justin]]'s epitome of [[Pompeius Trogus]] (11.7.3), and [[Claudius Aelianus|Aelian]]'s ''De Natura Animalium'' 13.1.<ref>The four sources are given in [[Robin Lane Fox]], ''Alexander the Great'' (1973) 1986: Notes to Chapter 10, p. 518; Fox recounts the anecdote, pp. 149–151.</ref>

Alexander the Great later went on to conquer Asia as far as the [[Indus]] and the [[Oxus]], thus partially fulfilling the prophecy.

==Interpretations==
The knot may have been a religious knot-cipher guarded by priests and priestesses. [[Robert Graves]] suggested that it may have symbolised the ineffable name of [[Dionysus]] that, knotted like a cipher, would have been passed on through generations of priests and revealed only to the kings of Phrygia.<ref name="Graves">{{cite book |url=http://www.24grammata.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Robert-Graves-The-Greek-Myths-24grammata.com_.pdf |title=The Greek Myths |last=Graves |first=Robert |publisher=Penguin Books |year=1960 |edition=Revised |pages=168–169 |chapter=Midas |author-link=Robert Graves |orig-year=1955 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180127100650/http://www.24grammata.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Robert-Graves-The-Greek-Myths-24grammata.com_.pdf |archive-date=27 January 2018 |url-status=live}}</ref> 

{{quote|Unlike popular [[fable]], genuine [[mythology]] has few completely arbitrary elements. This myth taken as a whole seems designed to confer legitimacy to [[dynastic]] change in this central [[Anatolia]]n kingdom: thus Alexander's "brutal cutting of the knot … ended an ancient dispensation."<ref name="Graves" />}}

The ox-cart suggests a longer voyage, rather than a local journey, perhaps linking Alexander the Great with an attested origin-myth in [[Macedonia (ancient kingdom)|Macedon]], of which Alexander is most likely to have been aware.<ref>"Surely Alexander believed that this god, who established for Midas the rule over Phrygia, now guaranteed to him the fulfillment of the promise of rule over Asia", (Fredricksmeyer, 1961, p&nbsp;165).</ref> Based on this origin myth, the new dynasty was not immemorially ancient, but had widely remembered origins in a local, but non-priestly "outsider" class, represented by Greek reports equally as an [[eponym]]ous peasant<ref>Trogus ''apud'' Justin, Plutarch, ''Alexander'' 18.1; Curtius 3.1.11 and 14.</ref> or the locally attested, authentically Phrygian<ref>Arrian</ref> in his ox-cart. Roller (1984) separates out authentic Phrygian elements in the Greek reports and finds a folk-tale element and a religious one, linking the dynastic founder (with the cults of "Zeus" and [[Cybele]]).<ref>{{cite journal |last=Roller |first=Lynn E. |date=October 1984 |title=Midas and the Gordian knot |journal=[[Classical Antiquity (journal)|Classical Antiquity]] |volume=3 |issue=2 |pages=256–271 |doi=10.2307/25010818|jstor=25010818 }} Both Roller and Fredricksmeyer (1961) offer persuasive arguments that the original name associated with the wagon is "Midas", "Gordias" being a Greek back-formation from the site name ''Gordion'',  according to Roller.</ref>

Other [[Greek mythology|Greek myths]] legitimize dynasties by right of conquest (compare [[Cadmus]]), but in this myth the stressed legitimising [[oracle]] suggests that the previous dynasty was a race of priest-kings allied to the unidentified oracular deity.

==See also==
{{columns-list|
* [[Aporia]]
* [[Archimedean point]]
* [[Egg of Columbus]]
* [[Endless knot]]
* [[Gödel's Loophole]]
* ''[[Kobayashi Maru]]''
* [[Ouroboros]]
* [[Sovereignty]]
* [[Trefoil knot]]
* [[Yoke and arrows]]
* [[Wicked problem]]
* [[World riddle]] ({{langx|de|Welträtsel}})
}}

==Explanatory notes==
{{notelist}}

==References==
{{reflist}}

==External links==
* {{Commons category-inline|Gordian Knot}}
* {{Wiktionary-inline|Gordian knot}}

{{Authority control}}

[[Category:Alexander the Great in legend]]
[[Category:Culture of Phrygia]]
[[Category:Greek myths]]
[[Category:Metaphors]]
[[Category:Mythological knots]]
[[Category:Objects in Greek mythology]]
[[Category:Philosophical analogies]]
[[Category:Puzzles]]