TFBT: *Updated* The Ten Greatest Mythologists of our Age

“Mythologist” is sort of an old fashion word. These researchers of the Iliad and Greek Mythology might be called Philologists, Classicists, Latinists or professors, scholars, researchers or lecturers of Classical Studies. And yes, this is only my uncredentialed opinion.
1) Aaron J. Atsma 

Aaron J Atsma of Auckland, New Zealand is the creator and web-master of http://www.theoi.com/  This is a magnificent site I visit all the time. It is well written and well organized. All articles include the source material in common translation. As the name implies, Atsma’s research centers on the Greek divinities. His interpretation of myths, particularly in correspondences is often lacking a classical reference, but they induce that intuitive “Aha!” that helps make so much sense of the topic at hand.
2) Jenny Strauss-Clay 

Jenny Strauss-Clay is the William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Classics at the University of Virginia she received degrees from Reed College, the University of Chicago and the University of Washington I find her writing clear, concise and thought provoking. I revisit her works constantly. Her works includ; Hesiod's Cosmos Cambridge University Press, 2003. Which I refer to constantly and think is a requirement for anyone wanting to understand one of the foundation documents of Classical Studies. · The Wrath of Athena: Gods and Men in the Odyssey. Princeton University Press, 1983. Reprint, Rowman and Littlefield, 1996. · The Politics of Olympus: Form and Meaning in the Major Homeric Hymns. Princeton University Press. 1989. Her articles include; The Dais of Death Transactions of the American Philological Association (1974-), Vol. 124, (1994), pp. 35-40 · The Generation of Monsters in Hesiod Classical Philology, Vol. 88, No. 2 (Apr., 1993), pp. 105-116 She has a website at http://classics.virginia.edu/people/profile/jsc2t

3) NS Gill 

N.S. Gill blogs on tangents to Ancient History, Latin, and Mythology at https://ancthisttangents.wordpress.com/   . N.S. Gill has a B.A. in Latin and an M.A. in linguistics at the University of Minnesota.  Her site is well linked and covers a broad range of classical topics.  

4) Ian C. Johnston 

Ian Johnston is a retired instructor (now a Research Associate) at Vancouver Island University (the new name for Malaspina College), Nanaimo, British Columbia, Canada. He received a BS from McGills in Geology and Chemistry, BA from Bristols in English and Greek and MA from Toronto in Engineering. Johnston has written about almost everything and translated books on the rest of everything. His books include The Ironies of War: An introduction to Homer’s Iliad University Press of America (1988) His articles include as brilliant series of essays on Homer’s Iliad · Essay 1: Homer's War · Essay 2: Homer's Similes: Nature as Conflict
· Essay 3: The Gods
· Essay 4: The Heroic Code
· Essay 5: Arms and the Men
· Essay 6: Hector and Achilles
· Essay 7: Homer and the Modern Imagination
· Essay 8: On Modern English Translations of the Iliad

Ian Johnston’s website is at http://records.viu.ca/~johnstoi/ It is designed to provide curricular material for various courses in literature and Liberal Studies. Johnston writes on myriad topics in addition to classical studies and all the articles at his website are thought provoking and professional.
5) Deborah Lyons 

Deborah Lyons is an Associate Professor in the Department of Classics Miami University, her education was at Princeton University -- M.A. 1983; Ph.D. 1989. Her books include · Gender and Immortality: Heroines in Ancient Greek Myth and Cult. Princeton University Press (1997). She covers a wide range of topics and is thought provoking. Her articles include;
· The Sexual Life of Satyrs by F. Lissarrague and “One, Two, Three...Eros” by J.-P. Vernant in Before Sexuality, Princeton University Press, 1990. Her website is http://miamioh.edu/cas/academics/departments/classics/about/faculty-staff/lyons/index.html

6) Gregory Nagy  

Gregory Nagy is a professor of Classics at Harvard University, and the director of the Center for Hellenic Studies, a Harvard school in Washington DC. He is the Francis Jones Professor of Classical Greek Literature and Professor of Comparative Literature at Harvard, and continues to teach half-time at the Harvard campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He studied at Indiana University and Harvard receiving his PhD in Classical Philology and Linguistics in 1966. I find Professor Nagy inspiring! The handful of his books I’ve read from the library which is his total writings, are approachable, readable, instructive and full of insights. Nagy’s books include; The Best Of The Achaeans; Concepts Of The Hero In Archaic Greek Poetry Johns Hopkins University Press (1981) This is another book I refer to constantly and found quite enlightening. Greek Mythology and Poetics Cornell University Press (1992) His articles include; · Phaethon, Sappho's Phaon, and the White Rock of Leukas Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, Vol. 77, (1973), pp. 137-177 Homeric Questions Transactions of the American Philological Association (1974-), Vol. 122, (1992), pp. 17-60

Professor Nagy is also the lead instructor of “The Ancient Greek Warrior in 24 Hours” a free massive online open classroom sponsored by Harvard and EdX Other websites include The Center for Hellenic Studies, Harvard's Classics department under faculty profiles  and Hour 25
7) Carlos Parada 

Carlos Parada is a former lecturer in Classics at Lund University in Sweden. His books include Genealogical Guide to Greek Mythology Coronet Books (1993) His website is Greek Mythology Link This is an incredible well organized, heavily linked depository of everything dealing with Greek mythology. The complexity and thoroughness of his efforts are unbelievable and incredibly valuable.
8) Ruth Scodel 

Ruth Scodel is the D. R. Shackleton Bailey Collegiate Professor of Greek and Latin at the University of Michigan. She studied at Harvard University 1973-1978, Ph.D. June 1978 University of California, Berkeley 1969-1973 A.B. June 1973. I’ve found her writing refreshing and offering unique perspectives. Her books include
Listening to Homer University of Michigan Press (2009)
Her articles include; Apollo's Perfidy: Iliad ω 59-63 Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, Vol. 81, (1977), pp. 55-57 · The Gods' Visit to the Ethiopians in "Iliad" 1 Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, Vol. 103, (2007), pp. 83-98 The Suitors' Games The American Journal of Philology, Vol. 122, No. 3 (Autumn, 2001), pp. 307-327 The Word of Achilles Classical Philology, Vol. 84, No. 2 (Apr., 1989), pp. 91-99 The Wits of Glaucus Transactions of the American Philological Association (1974-), Vol. 122, (1992), pp. 73-84 · The Achaean Wall and the Myth of Destruction Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, Vol. 86, (1982), pp. 33-50 Her website can be found at http://www-personal.umich.edu/~rscodel/home.html

9) Laura Slatkin 

Laura Slatkin is a professor at New York University (Gallatin School). She is also currently visiting professor on the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago. She was educated with B.A. Classics, Harvard University, 1968, M.A. Classics, University of Cambridge, 1970, Ph.D. Classical Philology, Harvard University, 1979. I find her writing clear, concise and convincing. Her articles include; Gender and Homer Epic (with Nancy Felson) in the Cambridge Companion to Homer, Robert Fowler editor. I loved that line “men, women, gods and goddesses, working out their very different fortunes in a universe win which kleos (glory) is the highest value." I like how this article takes a different prespective on Homer’s two greatest poems by contrasting the relationships of the genders in each. “Notes on Tragic Visualizing in the Iliad” also. I appreciate your insights into seeing, particularly the thought that the mist that veils the divinities from mortals correlates to the final mist that covers the eyes of us. You really piqued my interest with the discussion on Achilles' sight. . Her books include; The Power of Thetis University of California Press (1995). I simply adore this book and think it gave me a greater understanding of The Iliad and swift-footed Achilles than any other book I read.

10) Vanessa James 

Vanessa James is associate professor and chair of theatre arts at Mount Holyoke College. She was educated at University of Bristol, England, C.I.D and Wimbledon College of Art, Dip. AD James is another author who writes on myriad topics. Her books include; The Genealogy of Greek Mythology: An Illustrated Family Tree of Greek Mythology from the First Gods to the Founders of Rome Penguin Group, USA (2003) This accordion-style book, includes a full genealogy as well as color illustrations and stories about Greek gods. It perfect for those of us who need handy visual and textual materials when studying relationship amongst mythological characters. Of course, I am one of those people who can read a genealogy table. Her website is at http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/facultyprofiles/vanessa_james.html

 

TFBT:Nagy and the Epigoni

Agamemnon in Iliad 2.115 complains "go ingloriously back to Argos with the loss of much people. Such is the will of strong Zeus, who has laid many a proud city in the dust"

In Iliad 4.405 Sthenelos brags "We boast ourselves as even better men than our fathers; we took seven-gated Thebes, though the wall was stronger and our men were fewer in number, for we trusted in the omens of the gods and in the help of Zeus, whereas they perished through their own sheer folly;"

Gregory Nagy in a recent article (A Sampling of Comments on Iliad Scroll 2). Says "The words of this challenge directed against the over-king Agamemnon by Sthenelos, charioteer of Diomedes, recall the epic traditions of the Epigonoi = Sons-of-the-Seven-against Thebes. Since Sthenelos figures as a character in two epic traditions, both the Iliadic and the Epigonic, his wording here can be seen as a cross-reference from the Iliadic tradition to the Epigonic. The cross-reference sets up a rivalry between the two epic traditions: the question is, are the Epigonoi as heroic characters superior to the heroic characters of the Iliad? "

For those who don't recall the Thebaid, the Epigoni conquered Thebes in a relatively short time.  The Achaeans took ten years to conquer Troy.  I don't believe they suffered the wrath of the gods afterwards

So what do you think?  We're the Epigoni or the Army of Agamemnon the best of the Achaeans? 

I 

TFBT: Posidippus Epigram 55

I am a little disappointed in Professor Nagy’s latest “Classical Inquiries”  Posidippus Epigram 55  According to Nagy this epigram is about a girl named Nikomakhe who dies unwed. Nagy’s translates the opening of the poem as follows:  

“Everything about Nikomakhe, all her pretty things and, come dawn, as the sound of the weaving pin is heard, all of Sappho’s love songs, songs sung one after the next, are all gone, carried away by fate, all too soon, and the poor girl  is lamented by the city of the Argives…But then, ah, there came the time when all her would-be husbands, pursuing her, got left behind, with cold beds for them to sleep in.” 

(I removed the required line about the local goddess raising the young person in question like a tender sapling.)   My disappointment with Nagy’s interpretation is that it is so specific that I found it unsatisfying.  I thought the purpose of poetry was to have several layers of meaning.  After all didn’t her mother Demeter loudly lament the wedding of Persephone to Lord Hades?  Can’t the Argive’s likewise lament the loss of their daughters when “carried away” by their husbands?  Can’t the age-group maiden’s lament the disappearance of their numbers one after the next as they are taken to their husbands’ homes? Can’t Nikomakhe and the Argives dread her becoming a spinster?  Only to leave behind all the would-be husbands when carried away by her own husband.  Here is another layer of meaning to the poem that should be addressed in any interpretation.  Maybe it is obvious  to people smarter than I and that’s why it was included.   

The phrase “weaving pin” is now the one used by Nagy instead of ‘weaving shuttle’ thanks to a friend.  The reason for the change should have been in the footnotes instead of taking up so many inches in the paper.   

After his new found insights on weaving pins, Nagy compares “weaving pins” to swallows at dawn.  [i]I expected at this point a discussion about how the battle before Troy stops when Helen stops weaving about it (Iliad 3.151-154).   Or how as long as Penelope day by day  wove Laertes’ shroud, and then by night would unravel it[ii]…Odysseus could not come home and the moment she finished he arrived at her front door.  Surely comparing the actions of young maidens to the dancing swallows that summon the sun, should have given rise to notions about the Fates weaving the fabric of destiny. [iii]  Disappointingly Nagy does not address this traditional interpretation of woman weaving either.

 Somewhat confused the intent of the rest of the paper slipped away from me.  I’m disappointed I am not smart enough to grasp the technicalities of this paper. 

 

---

[i] (Antipater of Sidon Greek Anthology 6.160.1–2  & Philippos Greek Anthology 6.247.1) 

[ii] Od. 19. 149)  

[iii] Greek Lyric V Anonymous, Fragments 1018 (from Stobaeus, Anthology) (trans. Campbell) :

TBFT: Part I, Notes from “The Best of the Achaeans”

With delight,  many other times before I read “The Best of the Achaeans” by Gregory Nagy .  This time through I turned the post and am headed back.  (Halfway along.)  Here are some random notes from my reading.

 

Through out Homeric Epic metis and bia are contrasted; that is brains vs. brawn.  One of Nagy premises is that the wily Odysseus and mighty Achilles contended for the title of “Best of the Achaeans”, that is the Best of the Greeks at Troy.  One of the most famous episodes of the Iliad is Book IX, called the Embassy.  The Greeks fear that the Trojans will over run their defences in the near future.  Their only solution is to beg Achilles for help.  Nestor orchestrates the meeting.  Nagy points out at  3.7 “Ironically, Nestor's later stratagem, to send the Embassy to Achilles, is also designated in the narrative as mêtis. Ironically too, Odysseus is the one who is pleading for what the Achaeans most sorely need at this point, the might of Achilles.” In response to Odysseus’ arguments, Achilles says,

 

“Let him [Agamemnon], Odysseus, along with you and the other kings devise a way to ward off the destructive fire from the ships.” ( Iliad  IX 346) 

 

Nagy points out “In effect, the words of Achilles defiantly and ironically challenge Odysseus, Agamemnon, "and the other kings"  to rely on artifice at the very moment when they are desperately in need of his might… For the moment, the mêtis 'artifice' of Odysseus (and Nestor) is at a loss, and the biê 'might' of Achilles is implicitly vindicated.”

 

An observation I never noticed before, Nagy points out in Chapter10§14 concerning a running pun in Achilles destiny.  If you don’t know the story; Achilles for various reason knew his future.  He could either die young in Troy remembered as forever young and attaining unfailing glory, kleos aphthiton or go home to Phthia and live to a ripe old as an obscure king of the place losing his kleos.  Since we are still talking about Achilles three thousand years later, he clearly chose to die young.  Here is the pun; a-phthiton means “un-failing” so Phthia would means “failing”.  Nagy explains, “Achilles himself says that the way for him to achieve this kleos aphthiton is to die at Troy, and that the way to lose kleos is to live life as a mortal, at home in Phthîê’

 

 “Whenever the gods are away at such a (feast) with the remote Aithiopes, the efficacy of a sacrifice by the heroes in the here-and-now of the epic narrative is in question.”  Chapter 7.18  Really, so if the god isn’t in Olympus, watching from afar, at the temple or just doesn’t want to accept it, your sacrifice is for nothing.  Hm

 

“Achilles and Memnon respectively--are similarly transported after death into a state of immortality by their respective divine patronesses, Thetis and Eos”  Chapter 9.23 (Best of the Achaeans)  Is this another example of the animosity between the children of Hyperion and children of Nereus?

 

Give, friend! For you seem to be not the worst of the Achaeans, but the best, since you seem like a king.  (Odyssey xvii 415-416)  Nagy says at chapter 2.15, “Noblesse oblige, but Antinoos crudely refuses. Later on in the Odyssey, he is the very first suitor to be shot dead by the arrows of an angry Odysseus  

 

At 5. 19 he argues, “we cannot expect any given composition within the tradition to require any alterations or modifications in the inherited phraseology of its hexameters for the purpose of accommodating the composition's sense of its own unity…The genius behind our Iliad's artistic unity is in large part the Greek epic tradition itself.”

 

6.9 ” the narrative of Demodokos is interrupted, before it draws to a close, by the weeping of Odysseus. The action stops just when various Achaean heroes are performing their various grisly feats during the destruction of Troy, such as …”  I would suggest the killing of Astyanax by Odysseus.  

Hector

• Nagy points out that “Hektor is the only Trojan  who is described as "equal to Zeus in wisdom"  
• “Hektor used to call him his son Skamandrios, but the others called him Astuanax; for Hektor alone protected Ilion. This passage is the clearest example of a traditional convention in the naming of heroes: the son is named after one of the father's primary heroic characteristics.”
• “Hektor, who was a god among men; and he seemed to be the child not of a mortal but of a god. ..the women of Troy are described as  praying to Hektor.  This is the only place in all the Homeric corpus … not a god or a collection of gods."

 

Demi-Gods and Heroes

• “In the entire Works and Days, the word “heroes”  is in fact restricted to the Fourth Generation”
• “…where many cowhide-shields and helmets fell in the dust--as also a generation of demigods… (XII 22-23) This passage marks the only Homeric attestation of not just demigods but also boagria; cowhide shields”.
• the word demigods occurs also at Hesiod fr. 204.100MW; the is that Zeus plans the Trojan War in order that mortals may die and thus be separated from the immortal gods .
• the Will of Zeus also entails the permanent separation of gods and men. The crucial lines read as follows: “but so that the blessed gods ... , as before,may have their way of life and their accustomed places apart from men”

 

“immortal and unaging, just as the gods are. .. These words are the "correct" formula for immortalization; when the words are "incorrect," as in the myth of Eos and Tithonos, then the immortalization is ruined by the failure of preservation.  

 

 

TFBT: Footnotes from the Best of the Achaeans

In May participants at Hour 25 will be studying  “The Best of the Achaeans” and speaking with the author Dr. Gregory Nagy. As you probably know, Nagy is my hero and I have read the book several times.  The book rambles far beyond which was the greatest of the Greek heroes at Troy.  (Hint: Achilles!)  In hopes of adding something to the conversation that I haven’t offered before, I opened my cherished copy and began reviewing the footnotes and my personal notes in the margins.  (I remember hours of delight as a child, lost in the footnotes in the glossy pages of “Classic Myths” by Gayley!) 

So, below for you amusement are quotes and insights from the footnotes to “The Best of the Achaeans.”  Page numbers reflect the electronic version available at Hour 25. 

At preface footnote  2, the author is explaining the insertion of a new foreword in the 20^th anniversary addition.  “My present Foreword is a substitute for the original 1979 foreword written by James M. Redfield, which I will treasure forever. I have exchanged here the old gold for new bronze, which I need as armor for restating my own case.”  Isn’t that an incredibly gracefully explanation!  For those to don’t recognize the classical reference here, it is about Diomedes and Glaucas.  They met on the battlefield before Troy, Diomedes for the Achaeans, Glaucas ally to the Trojans.  In the usually bragging and macho displays prefacing a duel, they discovered that their fathers were friends.  In honor of the friendship, they switched armor and promised to avoid one another hence forth.  Homer and all his audience think Glaucus was crazing for giving away golden armor.  But, for the two warriors the relationship was more important concerns of  greed.

“ areas not included in the world of the Pythian Apollo correspond to the areas not included in the Homeric Catalogue of Ships in Iliad II"  “The Best of the Achaeans: Intro footnote 22.

Page 129 “2§11. In the First Nekuia of Odyssey xi, when Odysseus meets the shade of Achilles, he addresses Achilles as ‘best of the Achaeans’ . But the Odyssey then has Achilles saying that he would rather be alive and the lowliest of serfs than to be dead and the kingliest of shades ". Kevin McGarth  points out in class, (Section #7 at Harvard Extension School’s Open Learning Initiative, )   that seventy to eighty percent of the Odyssey is told by Odysseus.  Hence Homer is not reporting Achilles comment but rather that liar Odysseus.

If you are not familiar with the “duals” argument in the Embassy scene, here is a short explanation.  In English we have the word “you” it is used for the second person, singular and plural.  Sometimes for the plural, we say, “you all”.  In the Greek they had singular, dual and plural, as in “you two”.   When the two heralds and three emissaries enter the tent, he only speaks to “you two”.  On page 203 Nagy states, “Thus I am still bound to understand the dual constructions of Iliad IX 192 as referring to Ajax and Phoinix.”  I follow Nagy in this particularly in light of Achilles use of philo and presumed animosity with Odysseus. As to the heralds I would point out that in a "classed" society one does not include the "help".  For a better understanding of Achilles'/Homer's use of the dual form, try it! Talk to a group of people and by body language, eye contact and word choice  exclude someone from the conversation.
Page 283, footnote 17 “It is traditional for an archaic poem to begin with a word that names the main subject of the narrative in the manner of a title (in this case, mênis at Iliad I 1), followed by an epithet and a relative clause setting forth the relationship of the title word to the main subject (in this case, how the mênis of Achilles was baneful and caused devastation for the Achaeans, at Iliad I 2–5). Consider also the openings of the Odyssey, Theogony, Works and Days, Little Iliad, and nearly all the Homeric Hymns.” 

818 “15§2. In the heat of battle, the Trojan hero Deiphobos suddenly finds that he needs help from his ally Aeneas, and he goes to look for him: ""And he found him standing hindmost in the battle for he had mênis always against brilliant Priam, because he [Priam] did not honor him [Aeneas], worthy that he was among heroes." Iliad XIII 459–461 There is a striking thematic parallelism here between Aeneas and Achilles, who likewise had withdrawn from battle because he had mênis against Agamemnon . The king had not given the hero tīmḗ 'honor'—even though Achilles is not just "worthy among heroes" but actually the "best of the Achaeans" These themes of mênis/withdrawal/ tīmḗ/excellence are not only” “present in the Iliad; they are in fact central to it, permeating the composition in its monumental dimensions.”

Menis is generally translated as wrath.  Primarily, Homer’s usage is restricted to the gods and Achilles.   Page ??? footnote 18. The only exception is the mênis of Aeneas against King Priam  which must have been the central theme of another epic tradition—this one featuring Aeneas as its prime hero.”  Generally speaking menis is anger with cosmic consequences.  Of what possible consequence to priam could Aeneas' anger be ? Priam was destined to lose everything.  How could Aeneas sitting out a battle screw that up? On the other hand how could arguing with priam screw up Aeneas' destiny as ancestor of Rome?  I didn’t see the cosmic consequences here until I realized that Aeneas being angry at Priam kept him away from the front lines and therefore alive to fulfill his destiny later on.

Page 289 “. In other words, it is untraditional, since whatever runs counter to the traditional plot of the narrative is conventionally designated as ‘beyond destiny’:”.  Page 284 foot note 6, “Poseidon personally tells Aeneas that his death at this point in the narrative would have been hupèr moîran 'beyond destiny'. In effect, then, it would be untraditional for the narrative to let Achilles kill Aeneas in Iliad XX, since there is a poetic tradition that tells how Aeneas later became king of Troy; accordingly, Poseidon intervenes in the narrative and keeps Aeneas alive for further narratives about his future.”. I love how, over reaching; going beyond your destiny, not knowing your place is being a "hyper-moron".

 

Achilles about to duel with Aeneas points out (page 822) “Priam will not place the géras [honorific portion] in your hand on that account. He has children,"  Nagy calls this, "An ironic understatment"

Page 436. “Moreover, the melíē functions as the word for both ‘ash tree’ (e.g., Iliad XVI 767) and "ash spear”.  Hence Hesiod Theogony 180 “all the bloody drops that gushed forth Earth received, and as the seasons moved round she bare the strong Erinyes and the great Giants with gleaming (bronze?) armour, holding long spears in their hands and the Nymphs whom they call Meliae all over the boundless earth.”

Page 523 “The Bronze Men are nṓnumno i 'nameless' in that their deeds cannot be glorified by poetry;”. I have no Greek, but I wonder if in addition to "nameless" nonumno could mean "unsung"?   

Page 526 footnote 38.” Note in particular that the area by the Hellespont is explicitly smoothed over by the flooding rivers . I suspect that this volunteered detail is consciously offered as a variant of the tradition that tells how the Achaeans had made a funeral mound for the dead Achilles by the Hellespont ). There is then an ironic fulfillment of the dire threat made by the river Xanthos/Skamandros to bury Achilles under a mound of silt, as if the funeral mound of Achilles were to be in the end simply a natural formation adorning the landscape of the Troad. I draw attention to the irony that the River calls this mound the sêma 'tomb' of Achilles  from which the Achaeans will not even be able to recover the hero's bones I would argue that this not irony, but an example of a divine oath being non-revocable.  For example page 501 footnote 48 “Athena was about to confer immortality upon Tydeus, father of Diomedes, as he lay dying from wounds inflicted in his duel with the Theban hero Melanippos, who had also been mortally wounded. What stopped the goddess from fulfilling her initial design was her sheer disgust at what she saw: Tydeus was eating the brains of Melanippos. Here, then, is the grisly deed that deprived Tydeus of an immortality that could have been his—but was passed on to his son Diomedes. "

Page 542 “We recall the absence and presence of díkē in Generations II/III and I/IV respectively” 

Page 578 “that the waters of the Styx are an elixir of life. The lore about the cosmic stream Styx applies commensurately to the actual stream Styx in Arcadia, and in fact the belief prevails to this day that whoever drinks of that stream's waters under the right conditions may gain immortality. ” 

 

Page 581 footnote 60 “We are immediately reminded of the poetic tradition that tells how Semele became immortalized as a direct result of dying from the thunderbolt of Zeus ).”   Well more specifically Dionysius rescues  Semele from Hades and snuck his mom into Olympus under the name Thyone. But that doesn't negate the law of lightning and immortality.

Page 587 “immortal and unaging, just as the gods are. (Hymn to Aphrodite 214)”.  Page 649 footnote 70. “These words are the "correct" formula for immortalization; when the words are "incorrect," as in the myth of Eos and Tithonos, then the immortalization is ruined by the failure of preservation.”

Page 690 “Here is my tentative list, surely incomplete, of alternative ways for the hero to achieve immortality:
1.Being struck by the thunderbolt of Zeus
2.Plunging from a white rock into the deep”.

(I personally would add;
3. Descendant of Gorgophone or Telephassa
4. Married to Helen or Harmonia or Calypso
5.  Defeat death

Page 657 “We may note that heroes who have been immortalized attract the epithet xanthós 'blond': e.g., Rhadamanthys in Elysium and Ganymedes in Olympus . Menelaos is the hero who attracts this epithet by far the most frequently in the Iliad and the Odyssey —and he is the only Homeric hero”

Page 677 “1. Memnon's immortalization is actually unique, to the extent that the realm in which he lived before his death as a hero is also appropriate as the setting for his afterlife. For Memnon, the afterlife is by implication a homecoming.”

 

TFBT: The Hymn to Dionysus and 24.CB22.1x

This happy morning, I give thanks as the smell of baking turkey drifts through our home and wait anxiously for Santa Claus to appear at the Macy Day Parade.  This happy morning; this twilight moment between what was and what will be, I finished the final session of The Ancient Greek Hero in Twenty Four Hours. 

 In this session we studied among other things the Homeric Hymn to Dionysus.  It begins with the god apparently looking for a ride standing on “a jutting headland by the shore of the fruitless sea…his rich, dark hair was waving about him, and on his strong shoulders he wore a purple robe.”   Back then only the wealthy could afford purple fabric.   Conveniently, a crew of pirates came upon him and “they thought that he was the son of a line of kings nurtured by the sky god.”  They snatch the young god up in hopes of a great ransom. 

Immediately the helmsman yells out “What kind of daemon possesses you all! What kind of god is this that you seized and tried to tie up…?  Elsewhere, I pondered the helmsman’s second sight.  I wondered if his hand on the rudder could sense the weight of the god affecting the boat.  Professor Nagy says of the helmsman’s clarity and vision; “…you have to have the mentality to get this.  And if you have the right mentality, then you're saved.”  The rest of the crew clearly doesn’t have the helmsman’s pious perspective.  The skipper over rules his arguments and tells him to keep to his work.  Immediately weird things started happening.  Dionysus turns into a lion, grapevines start growing up the mast and line, a bear appears on deck and the “fruitless sea” turns to wine, hence Homer’s wine-dark sea.  Naturally, “The men, terrified, were fleeing toward the stern of the ship, crowding around the steersman.”  Apparently, a bear on deck was the final straw and the crew leaped over board.  Dionysus turned them into the first dolphins.    The helmsman at his post till the end was about to follow them into the deep when the god saved him from doing so.  Dionysus said “Have courage, you radiant man, reached by a force that works from far away.   You have achieved beauty and pleasure   for my heart.” As Nagy explains in the textbook at 24.16 “Since Dionysus caused it to happen that the steersman ‘became the most blessed of all men’, I interpret this divine action as the transforming of a man into a cult hero.”

I had a different perspective this time while reading the textbook, studying the source material and listening to the lectures.  You see the federal government “furloughed” me.  Consequently, I was working at a local cannery located upon “a jutting headland by the shore of the fruitless sea”.  My comrades were not a crew of pirates but neither were they sons “of a line of kings nurtured by the sky god.”  That is to say they did not live in the “rarified air” they believed I did.   One day while we trimmed fillets of salmon, we got some good news about our progress.

 “Praise God!”  I shouted.  “Oh, are you religious?” one of the guys asked innocently.  In the federal government if I began discussing my faith, the boss would have yelled at me and told me to keep to my work.  My cheeks blushed as though I’d drank too much red-wine.  I hesitantly answered, yes.  My comrades showered me with questions about my faith and church.  Then the conversation passed on to other things. 

At break my comrades would stand on the dock at the back overlooking the water.  That day as the afternoon break wound down and our comrades leapt back to work, one of them fled toward the stern of the cannery where I stood and crowded up to me.  He had a question about lying.  Being experienced in dialogue from this class and familiar with Odysseus I helped him work through the ethics of a bummed cigarette. As we returned to work he seemed satisfied with the conclusion we’d drawn, as though he had “achieved beauty and pleasure for (his) heart.”

This concludes my current adventure with version CB22.1x of The Ancient Greek Hero in Twenty Four Hours.  I have” turned the post” as we say.  But the race goes on forever.  After the holidays I will race with other graduates in “Hour 25” and God willing, I and my winged steads will race with others during version CB22.3x during the Summer of 2014.

   

 

 

TFBT: 23.CB22.1x, Phaedo and St. John

This wonderful week in the Harvardx online class called “The Ancient Greek Hero in 24 Hours” Gregory Nagy led us in dialogue on another book concerning the death of Socrates; The Phaedon.

The plot of Phaedon consists of a dialogue between two characters, Phaedo a disciple of Socrates and Echecrates of the town of Philius.  Echecrates ask about the death of Socrates and why it took place so long after his conviction.  He says no one visited Athens anymore and that “has been a long time since any guest from there has visited here.” (57b)  It is an interesting phrase used in conjunction with Death because lately in class we’ve been discussing the esoteric nature of “there” compared to the here and now of “here”.  Eschecrates is right, not too many people from there come back to visit here.

Phaedon explains that the “ship of state” must sail to Delos every year for the great celebration and that the ship was “garlanded” that day. In the textbook  at “23§16 Nagy explains that “… the garlanding of objects or of persons is a way of delineating a ritual framework.” (That explains why tourists in Hawaii and people at Marti Gras wear leis and beads.) Phaedon explains that during this ritual period “they have a custom at this time of the year to purify the city and to refrain from publicly executing anybody before the ship goes to Delos and then comes back from there.” 

Nagy reminds us that Socrates good friend (Can we say therapon?) Chaerephon went to Delphi as a private person to determine, “whether there existed anyone more sophos or ‘wise’ than Socrates.”    I was about say that Socrates wasn’t too wise in the spiritual sense if he didn’t know that such hubris (vanity) was a big Bozo no no according to the gods.  Then I recalled other heroes that got the lightning bolt for their vanity; Capaneus upon the walls of Thebes, saying that not even Zeus could stop him from conquering the city now and Salmoneus who trailed bronze pots behind his chariot and threw firebrands at his subject. ) Both of whom got blasted and instant immortality.  So maybe Socrates lack of sensitive is just further evidence of his effort to go out with a bang.  See The Apology of Socrates” and 22.CB22.1x

Phaedo tells how all the disciples came to the prison and spent long days discussing philosophy.  Many topics are debated in grand style considering their host circumstance.  The day arrives when the boat has returned, so Socrates downs the hemlock.

As to that final moment Echecrates ask if Plato (the author of this two-man play) was in attendance, to which Phaedo replies; “.As for Plato, I think he was not feeling up to it.” (59b).   Off-handedly I thought about Peter denying the Lord three times for the cock crowed. (Matthew 26:75)  At which point I began noticing odd correlations with Jesus and his disciples.  Hey, speaking of which, at the very end Socrates asks one of his disciples to sacrifice a cock on his behalf.

As my Lord had four gospels written about him, so Socrates had two disciples write about his end; The Apology.  One by Xenophon and the other by Plato.  “Then he (Socrates) smiled and said, “It seems just now that I am speaking as an author of some piece of writing Still, what I am saying does hold, I think.” Plato Phaedo 102d.   But in reference to Socrates comment, Nagy concludes, at 23.24 “So, the dialogues that Socrates is having with his students in Plato’s Phaedo, for example, are really mediated by the writings of Plato. That is why Plato has to suppress himself as a writer. ” So should we assume that the red text in the Gospels are really the words of the Gospel writers rather than the Lord?

{Phaedo:} I will tell you. You see, I happened to be seated close to him, at his right hand. I was sitting on a kind of stool, while he was lying on a couch that was quite a bit higher than where I was. So then he stroked my head and fondled the locks of hair along my neck - he had this way of playing with my hair whenever he had a chance.   So this scene, the favorite seated on the right, the honored leader demonstrating his affection for his favorite sort of reminded of  the last Supper with Chris and the Apostle John.  John wrote of himself in the third person, I wonder if Plato did too.  In his Memorabilia Xenophon does not include Phaedon as one of the "true companions" of Socrates.   I wonder if “Phaedon” isn’t just a literary device as was St. John’s “the one whom Jesus loved best”.  (John 13:23) 

We’ve talked in this class about some of the requirements  to attain the status of “Hero” in order to attain heroic honors and the Isle of the Blest after death.  There’s one!  You got to be dead. You have to be larger-than-life, your existence has to have cosmic significance, it helps to have a little ichor in your veins and a god/hero antagonistic relationship with a god that is real similar to you.  In the New Testament Jesus does odd little things now and again in order to fulfill prophecy in the Old Testament, in other words to fulfill the requirement to be the Messiah to the Jewish People.  Maybe at the same time he is consciously fulfilling the requirement listed in The Ancient Greek Hero in 24 Hours in order to be the Savior of the Greeks too.

TFBT: Ripped Apart and Eaten by Dogs

We are entering the final week of The Ancient Greek Hero in 24 Hours an excellent on line class from Harvardx, hosted by my personal hero Gregory Nagy.

 

A “bacchae” is a frenzied female follower of the god Bacchus, also known as Dionysus.  It is also a famous Greek tragedy by Euripides.  One of the major characters in the play ends up dressed like a bacchae. This is King Pentheus of Thebes. 

Pentheus had an aunt named Semele.  Semele use to brag that she was the consort of the king of the gods; Zeus.  For her boast she got blasted with a thunderbolt.  Well at least that is what the Thebans believed.  One day a “man” arrives on the scene with a chorus of women from Asia Minor.  He looks remarkable like Pentheus.  This should have been a clue to the king.  In fact, this man was  Dionysus; the thrice-born god of wine and Pentheus’ first cousin.  The deceased Aunt Semele was in fact the consort of Zeus.  Dionysus’ embroyic body survived the fire that consumed his mother and survived. 

 

Things get really confusing at this point in the play. I will try to explain what comes next, meanwhile be aware that by the end of the play Pentheus is ripped to pieces by his frienzied mother and surviving aunts.  (As an aside,  legend says that at the end of his life the playwright Euripides was ripped to pieces by his patron’s dogs.)

 

Here is what happens between Dionysius’ arrival and Pentheus’ death.  Pentheus refuses to recognize Dionysius as prodigal cousin or as a god.  As a consequence the women of the royal household, go crazy and run off into the wild.  Professor Nagy point out in Chapter 21 of  “The Ancient Greek Hero in 24 Hours” at section 31 that the women of Thebes, the Theban bacchae “have lost control of themselves. But that does not mean that they are “out of control…. They are still under control, but the controller is now the god.”   At 21§32 he adds, “So, the possession of a woman’s mind by Dionysus is a positive experience when the woman possessed is performing a ritual”.

 

Greek Myths are often associated with particular rituals.  Ancient Greek tragedies are often based on myths. So plays often explain rituals.   Hence The Eumenides explains the trial by juror system.  Hippolytus explains initiation rituals in a town on the outskirts of Athens and Oedipus at Colonus explains rituals in the suburbs of Athens. So the Bacchae is explaining rituals too. What wasn't clear to me and unfortunately wasn't clear to Pentheus ; is that the Bacchae is demonstrating two rituals at once.

 

The Ancient Greeks staged tradegies with a handful of actors (if that ) and a chorus.  The chorus could represent the old men of a city, a group of woman concerned for the heroine or any other sort of homogenous peoples.  The chorus interacted with the actors and often voiced the questions they audience might have.  If you are a “Frankie Fan”; if you ever saw “The Rocky Horror Picture Show”  you know how a chorus works because the entire audience is the chorus for that film.

 

The women who came from Asia Minor with  Dionysus are the chorus for the play.  This play, this myth explains the orgins of the annual festival where the tragedies were performed.  This is the first Greek tragedy.  To use Nagy phraseology the women; “ are in a mental state of equilibrium or balance when they participate in the rituals of Dionysian theater by performing the myth that motivates these rituals.” ( 21.33)

 

With Dionysus help, Pentheus dresses like a bacchae, so he can observe their rituals.   His mind befuddled by the god, Pentheus  some how doesn’t realize that the chorus of  women he is going to spy on . “ is not the chorus of the Bacchae. It is not the chorus of Asiatic women who have followed Dionysus to Thebes - and who are the ritually correct chorus of the drama. Rather, this would-be chorus consists of all the women of Thebes. They have left the urban civilization of Thebes and have relocated themselves in the wilderness of the mountains,”

 

The women on the mountain are reinacting another myth and another much darker ritual.  Long ago Dionysus was called Zagreus.  He was the son of Zeus and heir to the throne of the universe.  The Titans, the elder gods enticed the child away from safety ripped him to pieces and ate his flesh.  This is the ritual that Pentheus sees reinacted upon Mt Cithaeron.  When the women see him, the result is common to the uninitiated that trespass on the mysteries; death.  Pentheus is ripped apart on the exact same spot his Uncle Acteon was ripped apart and eaten by his own hunting hounds. 

 

The play ends with the Pentheus’ mother accompanied by the other women proudly marching into town to show off  “this lion's head, my booty from the chase.”  As the frenzy fades, it is left up to Pentheus and Dionysus’ grandfather to explain the will of the gods.