This week we turn to the less often read Trachiniae by Sophocles (or, “The Women of Trachis“). This play focuses in particular on the last moments of Herakles’ life, when he is unintentionally poisoned by his wife Deineira. Involved in the mix: Herakles’ new ‘wife’, Iole, and his son with Deineira, Hyllus. The play contemplates what happiness is, how long it can last, and the choices we make based on bad information that change our lives.
441-445
“Whoever gets in the ring with Lust
Like a boxer with his hands up is stupid.
That one rules even the gods the way he wants.
And me too. How could he not rule a woman like me?”
There’s a proverb attributed to the Spartan Aristodemus–but also to the poet Alcaeus– “a man is [his] money and no one poor is noble or honored” (χρήματ᾿ ἄνηρ, πένι-/ χρος δ᾿ οὐδ᾿ εἴς πέλετ᾿ ἔσλος οὐδὲ τίμιος; Alcaeus, fragment 360, 3). The line deserves some glossing for those who don’t know a lot of Greek. The ancient word for money here is khrêmata, the plural of the word for “thing”. If we could imagine that this might not mean money the way we imagine it, we could translate this more as “a man is his stuff”, or, more broadly, “you are what you own”.
We don’t actually get this line directly from Alcaeus or Aristodemus, however. It shows up in the epinician poet Pindar and is recording in the scholia to that poet as being proverbial
“Thrasyboulos: people in the past Used to climb onto the chariot Of the gold-crowned Muses Armed with a fame-bringing lyre. Then they would quickly aim their sweet-voiced hymns At the boys–whoever was cute and in that sweetest summer season Of well-throned Aphrodite.
That’s because the Muse wasn’t yet Too fond of profit nor yet A working girl. And sweet songs From honey-voiced Terpsichore Weren’t yet sold as pricey tricks.
So now she invites us to remember The word of the Argive that’s closest To the truth: “Money, A man is his money”– As someone claims when he’s lost His possessions along with his friends.”
Here’s the scholion to this poem that explains the repetition χρήματα χρήματ᾿ ἀνήρ.
Schol. Pind. Isthm. 2. 17 (iii 215–16 Drachmann)
“Money, money is the man.” This is counted among proverbs by some, but it is a saying of Aristodemus as Chrysippus reports in his work On Proverbs. Pindar does not name this Aristodemus, but instead makes it clear when he says where he is from, he says only his country, that he is Argive. But Alcaeus names both the man and his country, not Argos but Sparta. For he says that Aristodemos said it smartly in Sparta when he explained, “money is the man, no one poor is noble nor honored”
I want to linger for a minute on the fragment while thinking about Homer. The words χρήματ’ ἀνήρ· πενιχρὸς δὲ οὐδεὶς πέλετ’ ἐσλὸς οὐδὲ / τίμιος provide a way for thinking about the elision of character and attributes in the epic’s first book and, by doing so, for reconsidering how the Iliad invites audiences to think about material wealth, identity, and the obligations between individuals and their communities
Let’s start with the first two words, a nominal sentence χρήματ’ ἀνήρ. Today, we translate it as “money is the man,” or” man is money” when it could also mean something like “a man is his things–so no one poor is noble nor honored”. As a Homerist, I cannot help but hear these lines and think of Iliad 1 where the value statements of esthlos (“noble, good”) and timios (“honored”) are asserted and reinterpreted during conversations Agamemnon complains that Calchas’ speech is never “good” (esthlon, 1.08) and the gods worry about the feast being disrupted by strife, depriving them of “noble pleasure” (1.576). Achilles accuses Agamemnon of expecting the Achaeans to “gather up honor [timê]” for him and Menelaos (1.159), while Agamemnon points out that others will honor him (timêsousi, 1.175) and Nestor later asserts that the two men are not of the same honor (timês, 1.278) and Achilles asks Thetis to ensure that Zeus will provide honor for him (timên, 1.353) to make up for his lost esteem.
Focusing on just the terms translated here as “noble” and “honor” leaves out an essential metaphorical step in the fragment. The slight to Achilles’ timê is concrete–he, the narrator, and others point to the removal of his prize possession (geras), the captured woman Briseis, as an alteration of his esteem. A way to rephrase the situation in book 1 might be: a man is his things [geras]: and no one poor is noble or honored. So, by depriving Achilles of a thing, Agamemnon has undermined his social standing as well as his esteem.
The social standing part probably needs a little more attention. To gloss this with one more step, the word for poor, penikhros, is derived from a verbal root that has to do with toil and work. The semantic range is likely that people who have to labor are not already worth the goods that would qualify them for a specific class and a level of honor. (Or, more generously, if you don’t have wealth, you need to work; there’s also the additional resonance of ponos as suffering to consider.)
But wait, there’s more: it isn’t just that a person is their money, it is a gendered man who is defined by his possessions and in the world of the Iliad, possessions include other people, especially women. It would, then, not be an unfair reading of the Iliad’s view of the Trojan War that, just as Achilles loses honor by being deprived of Briseis, so too Menelaos lost honor when Helen departed.
Origins, Thoughts
So, what happens in Iliad 1 is, to my taste, crystallized in the fragment attributed to Alcaeus. I can phrase what I think is important in this in two ways: first, I posed this as an elision between a metaphorical esteem (timê) and its concrete representation (geras), both of which are additional symbolic indications of a person’s value and class (i.e., whether or not they need to work). The second way to put it is that there is a collapse of signifier and signified and then a subsequent replacement of the thing itself by its symbolic representation.
In these moves, the money/things cease to be a symbol of a person’s value or worth and end up becoming first a representation of the person and then the persons in fact.. The shifting is not insignificant for the plot of the Iliad: one way to read Achilles’ speeches in book 9 is as a probing of that very collapse between esteem (fame, reputation, social position) and the things that are supposed to represent it. His rejection of the gifts promised by the embassy is in part a rejection of the proposition that, regardless of what you do in the world, your worth is defined by the possessions other people permit you to have.
This interpretive thread interests me for two reasons: first, it provides, as I start to indicate above, a slightly different way of reading Achilles’ alienation and the Iliad’s reflection on heroism, politics, and human communities. The second reason resides in the history of ideas, or, perhaps better, a notional genealogy of the values explored in Homer and how they are selected and received in subsequent generations.
I have been inspired by scholars who have recently explored the origins of certain aspects of modern culture in epic. Edith Hall has argued that the Iliad’s extractive and consumptive relationship with the environment foreshadows and informs modernity’s destruction of the environment. Similarly, Jackie Murray and Patrice Rankine have traced modern approaches to race and enslavement back to ancient epic, in its casualization of class violence, proto-racialization with races of heroes and demigods, and the implicit cultural structure that facilitates the domination of one person over another based on gender, class, and race.
Contemporary copper alloy copy of a silver Greek Owl Type A tetradrachm, with head of Athena on obverse and owl on reverse, minted in Athens c.454-431 BC.
When I look at the extreme inequality of late-stage capitalism, its subverting of participatory systems of governance, and the casual violence it perpetuates both domestically and internationally, I can’t help but follow the model of these scholars and look for the history of the values that enable and encourage our current march toward self-destruction. There is a symbolic harmony as well between a system of human value that equates persons with things and downgrades actual human labor and the extractive and exploitative systems of oppression and environmental devastation. One could argue that the Iliad contains the structures and ideas that have led to the rampant inequality and extractive expansion characteristic of modern, state-abetted capitalism.
The Structures of Poems and (mis)Reading
The final sentence of the last paragraph, however, is not the whole story. It would be simplistic to say that epic is the root of modern capitalism. It would be better, but still insufficiently nuanced, to say that epic reflects the roots of our modern world. Instead, I would return to what I have written before that Homeric epic is both a product and producer of culture. It reflects and embeds a system of values in its own narrative, but not without pressing on them, questioning them, and asking audiences to do the same.
In an article in the Yearbook of Ancient Greek Epic (2018), I argue that early Greek epic both embeds a thematic pattern in its narratives and is shaped by the basic aesthetics of that pattern. Homer and Hesiod both provide themes of strife (eris, neikos) issuing from conflicts over the division or distribution of goods (dasmos), and requiring a judgment or resolution (krisis) that also expects audiences to make additional determinations through the act of interpretation. The conflict of Hesiod’s Theogony is in part resolved by the stabilization and concretization of divine timai and gerai when Zeus assigns rights and spheres of influence to the gods.
The problem is that stability is not possible for human communities because we are constantly in a process of change. There is death-cult aspect to what is on offer in the Iliad that relates to this problem. Achilles, as he famously articulates it, is offered the choice of a long life in ignominy or a short one with kleos aphthiton. The vegetal aspect of the adjective “imperishable” here is important: this kind of kleos cannot wither and die like the mortal substance it is linked too. The transformation from a moneyed-man who can lose the tokens of esteem that become that esteem itself into an eternal tale strives in part to face the challenge of the continual redistribution of human life. Yet, as I have suggested elsewhere (most recently, Storylife, chapter 4), Achilles doesn’t make that choice and no one in the Iliad seems to support such a vision for kleos, with the exception of figures who have no other option (like Hektor).
The discussion of kleos, however, is something of an aside. What early Greek poetry shows is that the distribution of things creates conflict that leads to the need for human beings to make judgment about the world, both in terms of the division of goods and the meaning of human life relative to that distribution. If we follow the thematic arcs of both epics, they challenge a simplistic approach to wealth–that man is indeed his possessions–but they do not fundamentally question whether or not a human being can and should be a possession contributing to someone else’s honor; or whether it is right to commit violence and end human lives for excess wealth (although the Iliad shows that’s pretty stupid).
Each epic does ask us to think about the tension between how someone is valued in a community for their wealth and power and what they actually do in the world. This doesn’t undercut the notion that a person is what they possess; instead, it acknowledges the structure of a world where many accept that definition and asks audiences to see the fundamental limitations of attaching a person’s worth to the things they own.
A few thins to read
Brown, Adam. “Homeric talents and the ethics of exchange.” The Journal of Hellenic Studies, vol. 118, 1998, pp. 165-172. Doi: 10.2307/632237
Christensen, Joel P. “Eris and Epos: Composition, Competition and the ‘Domestication’ of Strife.” YAGE 2: 1–39.
De Cristofaro, Luigi. “Reading the raids : the sacred value of the spoils : some considerations on Il., 2, 686-694, Il., 9, 128-140 and Il., 19, 252-266.” Rivista di Cultura Classica e Medioevale, vol. 61, no. 1, 2019, pp. 11-41. Doi: 10.19272/201906501001
Murray, Jackie. 2021 “Race and Sexuality: Racecraft in the Odyssey” in Denise McCoskey, ed., Bloomsbury Cultural History of Race. Volume 1: Antiquity. 137-156
Mark Peacock, Introducing Money. Economics as social theory 33. London; New York: Routledge, 2013. xii, 212. ISBN 9780415539883. $45.00 (pb).
Rankine, Patrice. “Odysseus as Slave: The Ritual of Domination and Social Death in Homeric Society,” in Reading Ancient Slavery, eds. Richard Alston, Edith Hall, and Laura Proffitt. New York: Bristol, 2011: 34-50.
Ready, Jonathan L. (2007). “Toil and Trouble: the acquisition of spoils in the « Iliad ». TAPA, 137(1), 3-43.
Seaford, Richard, Money and the Early Greek Mind: Homer, Philosophy, Tragedy, Cambridge University Press, 2004, 382pp, $28.99 (spbk), ISBN 0521539927.
Wealth/Economy in Homer
Adamo, Sara. “ un posto per Omero ?.” Incidenza dell’Antico, vol. 20, 2022, pp. 221-233.
Brown, Adam. “Homeric talents and the ethics of exchange.” The Journal of Hellenic Studies, vol. 118, 1998, pp. 165-172. Doi: 10.2307/632237
Christensen, Joel P.. “Eris and Epos: composition, competition, and the domestication of strife.” Yearbook of Ancient Greek Epic, vol. 2, 2018, pp. 1-39. Doi: 10.1163/24688487-00201001
Fox, Rachel Sarah. Feasting practices and changes in Greek society from the Late Bronze Age to Early Iron Age. BAR. International Series; 2345. Oxford: Archaeopress, 2012.
Haubold, Johannes (2000). Homer’s people: epic poetry and social formation. Cambridge ; New York: Cambridge University Pr.
Jones, Donald W.. “The archaeology and economy of Homeric gift exchange.” Opuscula Atheniensia, vol. 24, 1999, pp. 11-24.
Karanika, Andromache. Voices at work: women, performance, and labor in ancient Greece. Baltimore (Md.): Johns Hopkins University Pr., 2014.
Kolb, Frank. “ a trading center and commercial city ?.” American Journal of Archaeology, vol. 108, no. 4, 2004, pp. 577-613.
Korfmann, Manfred. “ archaeological evidence for the period of Troia VI/VII.” Classical World, vol. 91, no. 5, 1997-1998, pp. 369-385.
Koutrouba, Konstantina and Apostolopoulos, Konstantinos. “Home economics in the Homeric epics.” Πλάτων, vol. 52, 2001-2002, pp. 191-208.
Lewis, David M.. “The Homeric roots of helotage.” From Homer to Solon : continuity and change in archaic Greece. Eds. Bernhardt, Johannes C. and Canevaro, Mirko. Mnemosyne. Supplements; 454. Leiden ; Boston (Mass.): Brill, 2022. 64-92. Doi: 10.1163/9789004513631_005
Lyons, Deborah J.. “ ideologies of marriage and exchange in ancient Greece.” Classical Antiquity, vol. 22, no. 1, 2003, pp. 93-134. Doi: 10.1525/ca.2003.22.1.93
Murray, Sarah C.. The collapse of the Mycenaean economy: imports, trade, and institutions, 1300-700 BCE. New York: Cambridge University Pr., 2017.
Olsen, Barbara A.. “The worlds of Penelope : women in the Mycenaean and Homeric economies.” Arethusa, vol. 48, no. 2, 2015, pp. 107-138.
Piquero Rodríguez, Juan. “« Blood-money » : la compensación por homicidio en la Grecia micénica.” Δῶρα τά οἱ δίδομεν φιλέοντες : homenaje al profesor Emilio Crespo. Eds. Conti Jiménez, Luz, Fornieles Sánchez, Raquel and Jiménez López, María Dolores. Madrid: Ed. de la Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, 2020. 221-229.
Rose, P. W.. Class in archaic Greece. Cambridge Books Online. Cambridge ; New York: Cambridge University Pr., 2012.
Scodel, Ruth. “Odysseus’ dog and the productive household.” Hermes, vol. 133, no. 4, 2005, pp. 401-408.
Seaford, Richard A. S.. Money and the early Greek mind: Homer, philosophy, tragedy. Cambridge ; New York: Cambridge University Pr., 2004.
Tandy, David W.. Warriors into traders: the power of the market in early Greece. Classics and contemporary thought; 5. Berkeley (Calif.): University of California Pr., 1997.
Thomas, Carol G.. “Penelope’s worth ; looming large in early Greece.” Hermes, vol. CXVI, 1988, pp. 257-264.
Van Wees, Hans (1992). Status warriors : war, violence and society in Homer and history. Amsterdam: Gieben.
This week we turn to Euripides’ Iphigenia at Aulis, a story of the sacrifice of a daughter so armies can go to war to fight for the return of Helen. Euripides asks us to consider what is like to be Agamemnon. What pressures eventuate in the sacrifice of his daughter? This play questions of who is in charge in a crisis and ends with a dim view of the Achaean army, which is compared to a mob screaming for the sacrifice of Iphigenia and threatening to stone Achilles if he gets in the way. Irrational mobs? Agitation to sacrifice one to preserve freedom of action for the many? There’s nothing here to resonate with current events at all.
559-567
“People have different natures;
They have different ways. But acting rightly
Always stands out.
The preparation of education
points the way to virtue.
For it is a mark of wisdom to feel shame
and it brings the transformative grace
of seeing through its judgment
what is right; it is reputation that grants
an ageless glory to your life.”
We will be discussing the play with special guests Adam Barnard and Mat Carbon and our actors:
Iphigenia – Evvy Miller
Clytemnestra – Eunice Roberts
Agamemnon – Michael Lumsden
Menelaus – Paul O’Mahony
Achilles – Tim Delap
Chorus – Tamieka Chavis
Messenger – Richard Neale
“It is light that is sweetest for humans to see
And the world below is nothing. Whoever prays for death
Is mad. Living badly is better than dying well.”
Over the past few years, while I have been working on this substack, my interests have fallen into three broad categories: how the whole of the epic we have integrates earlier performance traditions and forms into its capacious presentation; how the epic reflects an understanding of trauma and the importance of empathy; and how to recuperate the experiences and interpretive impact of diverse audiences through re-reading and interpretation today.
On many occasions, I have characterized a range of approaches to Homeric epic as “supply side poetics” for focusing on poetic intention or composition and structure without reference to audience engagement or influence on the shape of the performance. This problem is exacerbated by the history of Homeric scholarship which was, until the last quarter of the 20th century, dominated by men from rather specific backgrounds. Over the past few years, I have begun to think that methods for modeling how diverse audiences responded to Homeric epic.
In her book, Warriors’ Wives, Emma Bridges expresses some pessimism about being about to do so:
“A key point of context to note here is that the Homeric epics and Athenian tragic plays were produced by male authors and performed by men. The performers of epic poetry were rhapsodes–professional reciters who performed to the accompaniment of an instrument–and the action on stage in Athens were all male. Similarly, ancient evidence suggests the Athenian theatre audiences were predominantly, if not exclusively male….Therefore, although these texts depict a range of female experiences in wartime contexts, undeniably, they represent male perspectives on women’s behavior and associated assumptions about gender roles. As a result it is impossible to assert that we can access authentic female experiences and voices by reading these texts” (12)
Of course, one of the strengths of Emma’s book is that despite acknowledging this methodological difficulty, she goes on to show that we can talk about relationships, psychology, and the limited agency granted to women in epic poetry. In her Mythica: A New History of Homer’s World, Through the Women Written out of It, Emily Hauser takes a different approach to the problem by retelling the stories of the women in epic, centering their experiences.
Over the past two versions of my myth course, I have started given lectures on heroic women, shifting the way I talk about figures of myth, so I was really happy to see Emily’s book when it first came out. But Emily’s approach is deeper–she sees a connection between the depiction of Homeric women and historical women outside the poem. Her work, then, is broadly recuperative: ‘In looking at the women of the past, I am setting out to dig deeper, to keep challenging and refining the way we think, acknowledging that, in exploring the variety and complexity of women’s experiences, there will always be more to learn” (13).
She continues on her next page with an expansion
“I am bringing women to the foreground, but neither am I idealizing or generalizing them, pretending that they were always powerful or always extraordinary or always the same. Instead, I’m arguing, above all, that women’s experiences deserve to be examined in all their diversity, that every voice deserves to be heard. But I’m also suggesting that we can find interesting moments at the boundaries, where at some points ancient women were more powerful or more complex than we thought, and others where they came up against constraints– all the while exploring how the conversation around gender, the ebb and flow of power and the accounts that make it into the history books have echoed down the ages. In other words, what I’m arguing is that Homer’s women are the jumping-off point to investigate a bigger picture, that they’re ‘good to think with’ – that they can push us to reflect on gender, on ourselves, on how we’ve interpreted the past, in new ways”(14)
Emily’s book splits into two parts, combining readings of the epics, myth, and information from archaeology to tell stories about women in war (the Iliad) and women at home (the Odyssey). She focuses in each chapter on what we can say about individual heroines based on their social roles. Mythica is essential reading for anyone interested in myth, but even more so for those who want to start thinking about how our stories have been shaped by silence and exclusion.
Hauser’s book shares space with a growing body of scholarship and literature opening space in the past to restore the voices and bodies that we have lost. I think it works well with other scholarly books like Lilah Canavero’s Women of substance in Homeric epic (2018) or Cristina Franco’s Shameless: The Canine and the Feminine in Ancient Greece and Emma Bridges Warriors’ Wives. At the same time, Emily’s sensibility as a writer of fiction makes this work more creative and experimental, making it good to read alongside Margaret Atwood’ Penelopiad, Pat Barker’s The Silence of the Girls, and Madeline Miller’s Circe, or The Song of Achilles.
Aguilar Fernández, Rosa María. “Las mujeres de Odiseo.” Χάρις διδασκαλίας: studia in honorem Ludovici Aegidii = homenaje a Luis Gil. Eds. Aguilar, Rosa María, López Salvá, Mercedes and Rodríguez Alfageme, Ignacio. Madrid: Ed. de la Universidad Complutense, 1994. 199-207.
Arthur, M. B.. “The divided world of Iliad VI.” Reflections of women in antiquity. Ed. Foley, Helene Peet. New York: Gordon & Breach Science Publ., 1981. 19-44.
Beye, Charles Rowan. “Male and female in the Homeric poems.” Ramus, vol. III, 1974, pp. 87-101.
Bridges, Emma. Warriors’ Wives: Ancient Greek Myth & Modern Experience. Oxford. 2023
Canevaro, Lilah Grace. Women of substance in Homeric epic: objects, gender, agency. Oxford: Oxford University Pr., 2018.
Christensen, Joel P.. “Revising Athena’s rage : Cassandra and the Homeric appropriation of « nostos ».” Yearbook of Ancient Greek Epic, vol. 3, 2019, pp. 88-116. Doi: 10.1163/24688487-00301004
Cox, Fiona and Theodorakopoulos, Elena, editors. Homer’s daughters: women’s responses to Homer in the twentieth century and beyond. Classical Presences. Oxford: Oxford University Pr., 2019.
Davidson, Olga. “Women’s lamentations and the ethics of war.” Donum natalicium digitaliter confectum Gregorio Nagy Septuagenario a discipulis collegis familiaribus oblatum. Eds. Bers, Victor, Elmer, David, Frame, Douglas and Muellner, Leonard. Washington (D. C.): Center for Hellenic Studies, 2012. non paginé.
Delana, Alice & KATZ Phyllis B.. “Women in the worlds of Homer.” New England classical newsletter & journal, vol. 18, no. 4, 1990-1991, pp. 10-14.
Doherty, Lillian Eileen. “ a feminist narratological reading.” Texts, ideas and the classics: scholarship, theory and classical literature. Ed. Harrison, Stephen J.. Oxford ; New York: Oxford University Pr., 2001. 117-133.
Dué, Casey. “ similes and traditionality in Homeric poetry.” The Classical Bulletin, vol. 81, no. 1, 2005, pp. 3-18.
Farron, Steven. “The portrayal of women in the Iliad.” Acta Classica, vol. XXII, 1979, pp. 15-31.
Fletcher, Judith. “Women’s space and wingless words in the « Odyssey ».” Phoenix, vol. 62, no. 1-2, 2008, pp. 77-91.
Franco, Cristina. 2012. “Women in Homer.” In A Companion to Women in the Ancient World, edited by Sharon L. James and Sheila Dillon, 55–65. London.
———. 2014. Shameless: The Canine and the Feminine in Ancient Greece. Translated by Michael Fox. Berkeley and Los Angeles.
Fuhrer, Therese. “Teichoskopia : female figures looking on battles.” Women and war in Antiquity. Eds. Fabre-Serris, Jacqueline and Keith, Alison M.. Baltimore (Md.): Johns Hopkins University Pr., 2015. 52-70.
Fulkerson, Laurel. “ gender and transgression in Odyssey 22.465-72.” The Classical Journal, vol. 97, no. 4, 2001-2002, pp. 335-350.
Fulkerson, Laurel. “ remorse and the opacity of female desire.” Emotion, genre and gender in classical antiquity. Ed. Munteanu, Dana LaCourse. London: Bristol Classical Pr., 2011. 113-133.
Gaca, Kathy L.. “Ancient warfare and the ravaging martial rape of girls and women : evidence from Homeric epic and Greek drama.” Sex in antiquity : exploring gender and sexuality in the ancient world. Eds. Masterson, Mark, Rabinowitz, Nancy Sorkin and Robson, James. Rewriting Antiquity. London: Routledge, 2015. 278-297.
García Sánchez, Manel. Las mujeres de Homero. Monografías del SEMA; 1. Valencia: Pub. Universitat de València, 1999.
Ghiano, J.. “Las mujeres en la Iliada.”.
Heinrichs, Johannes. “« Royal » women in the Homeric epics.” The Routledge companion to women and monarchy in the ancient Mediterranean world. Eds. Carney, Elizabeth D. and Müller, Sabine. Abingdon ; New York: Routledge, 2021. 271-282.
Karanika, Andromache. Voices at work: women, performance, and labor in ancient Greece. Baltimore (Md.): Johns Hopkins University Pr., 2014.
Karanika, Andromache. “Materiality and ritual competence : insights from women’s prayer typology in Homer.” Women’s ritual competence in the Greco-Roman Mediterranean. Eds. Dillon, Matthew, Eidinow, Esther and Maurizio, Lisa. Routledge Monographs in Classical Studies. London ; New York: Routledge, 2017. 32-45.
Karanika, Andromache. “ perceptions of continuity and rupture in female temporality in Homer.” Narratives of time and gender in antiquity. Eds. Eidinow, Esther and Maurizio, Lisa. London ; New York: Routledge, 2020. 13-27.
Lesser, Rachel H.. “ Helen in the « Iliad » and Penelope in the « Odyssey ».” American Journal of Philology, vol. 140, no. 2, 2019, pp. 189-226. Doi: 10.1353/ajp.2019.0013
Lorimer, H. L.. “Defensive armour in Homer, with a note on women’s dress.” Annals of Archeology and Anthropology (University of Liverpool), vol. XV, 1928, pp. 89-129.
Lyons, Deborah J.. Dangerous gifts: gender and exchange in ancient Greece. Austin (Tex.): University of Texas Pr., 2012.
Mancilla, Cristian. “The gift of Aphrodite in Iliad 24.30.” Antichthon, vol. 54, 2020, pp. 18-31. Doi: 10.1017/ann.2020.8
Marquardt, Patricia A.. “Love’s labor’s lost : women in the Odyssey.” Daidalikon : studies in memory of Raymond V. Schoder. Ed. Sutton, Robert F.. Wauconda (Ill.): Bolchazy-Carducci, 1989. 239-248.
McHardy, Fiona. “ gossip as a female mode of revenge.” Revenge and gender in classical, medieval and Renaissance literature. Eds. Dawson, Lesel and McHardy, Fiona. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Pr., 2018. 160-172. Doi: 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474414098.003.0009
Minchin, Elizabeth. “ rebukes and protests.” Mediterranean Archaeology, vol. 19-20, 2006-2007, pp. 213-224.
Mossé, Claude. “La femme dans la société homérique.” Klio, vol. LXIII, 1981, pp. 149-157.
Mueller, Melissa. “ weaving for κλέοω in the « Odyssey ».” Helios, vol. 37, no. 1, 2010, pp. 1-21.
Murnaghan, Sheila. “Penelope’s ἄγνοια. Knowledge, power, and gender in the Odyssey.” Helios, XIII,2 Special Issue: Rescuing Creusa. New methodological approaches to women in antiquity. Ed. Skinner, M.. 1986. 103-115.
Murnaghan, Sheila. “Maternity and mortality in Homeric poetry.” Classical Antiquity, vol. XI, 1992, pp. 242-264. Doi: 10.2307/25010975
Nelson, Thomas J.. “ Penelope vs. the « Catalogue of women ».” Yearbook of Ancient Greek Epic, vol. 5, 2021, pp. 25-57. Doi: 10.1163/24688487-00501002
Nappi, Marella. “Women and war in the « Iliad » : rhetorical and ethical implications.” Women and war in Antiquity. Eds. Fabre-Serris, Jacqueline and Keith, Alison M.. Baltimore (Md.): Johns Hopkins University Pr., 2015. 34-51.
Nobili, Cecilia. “Female lyric voices in the « Odyssey ».” Philologia Antiqua, vol. 16, 2023, pp. 65-81. Doi: 10.19272/202304601006
O’Gorman, Ellen. “A woman’s history of warfare.” Laughing with Medusa: classical myth and feminist thought. Eds. Zajko, Vanda and Leonard, Miriam. Oxford ; New York: Oxford University Pr., 2006. 189-207.
Olsen, Barbara A.. “The worlds of Penelope : women in the Mycenaean and Homeric economies.” Arethusa, vol. 48, no. 2, 2015, pp. 107-138.
Pache, Corinne (2014). “Women after War: weaving « nostos » in Homeric epic and in the twenty-first century. In Meineck, Peter & Konstan, David (Eds.), Combat trauma and the ancient Greeks (pp. 67-85). New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Pantelia, Maria C.. “ ideas of domestic order in Homer.” American Journal of Philology, vol. 114, 1993, pp. 493-501.
Pantelia, Maria C.. “Helen and the last song for Hector.” TAPA, vol. 132, 2002, pp. 21-27.
Pedrick, Victoria. “The hospitality of noble women in the Odyssey.” Helios, vol. XV, 1988, pp. 85-101.
Redfield, James M.. “ the woman as a speaking sign.” Scripta Classica Israelica, vol. 40, 2021, pp. 1-13.
Sanz Morales, Manuel. “Were the Homeric poems the work of a woman ? : Ptolemy Chennus and the diverse faces of a theory.” More than Homer knew: studies on Homer and his ancient commentators. Eds. Rengakos, Antonios, Finglass, Patrick and Zimmermann, Bernhard. Berlin ; Boston (Mass.): De Gruyter, 2020. 217-234. Doi: 10.1515/9783110695823-012
Schein, Seth L.. “Female representations and interpreting the Odyssey.” The distaff side: representing the female in Homer’s Odyssey. Ed. Cohen, Beth. New York: Oxford University Pr., 1995. 17-27.
Skafte Jensen, Minna. “ a discussion of Homeric narrative from an oralist point of view.” Contexts of pre-novel narrative: the European tradition. Ed. Eriksen, Roy. Approaches to semiotics; 114. Berlin ; New York: De Gruyter Mouton, 1994. 27-45.
Skempis, Marios and Ziogas, Ioannis. “ etymology, « ehoie »-poetry and gendered narrative in the « Odyssey ».” Narratology and interpretation: the content of narrative form in ancient literature. Eds. Grethlein, Jonas and Rengakos, Antonios. Trends in Classics. Supplementary Volumes; 4. Berlin ; New York: De Gruyter, 2009. 213-240.
Slatkin, Laura M.. The power of Thetis and selected essays. Hellenic Studies; 16. Cambridge (Mass.): Harvard University Pr., 2011.
Thalmann, William G.. “Female slaves in the « Odyssey ».” Women and slaves in Greco-Roman culture: differential equations. Eds. Joshel, Sandra R. and Murnaghan, Sheila. London: Routledge, 1998. 22-34.
Zanetto, Giuseppe. “ Antikleia and her son.” Ο επάνω και ο κάτω κόσμος στο ομηρικό και αρχαϊκό έπος: από τα πρακτικά του ΙΓ’ Διεθνούς Συνεδρίου για την « Οδύσσεια » : Ιθάκη, 25-29 Αυγούστου 2017. Eds. Christopoulos, Menelaos and Païzi-Apostolopoulou, Machi. Ithaki: Kentro Odysseiakon Spoudon, 2020. 199-212.
Warwick, Celsiana. “ gender and « kleos » in the « Iliad ».” American Journal of Philology, vol. 140, no. 1, 2019, pp. 1-28. Doi: 10.1353/ajp.2019.0001
Wathelet, Paul. “Les femmes de Priam.” « Meta Trôessin »: hommages à Paul Wathelet, helléniste. Ed. Barbara, Sébastien. Collection Kubaba. Série Antiquité. Paris: L’Harmattan, 2020. 69-77.
Wohl, Victoria Josselyn. “ the creation of sexual ideology in the Odyssey.” Arethusa, vol. 26, 1993, pp. 19-50.
Worman, Nancy. “ Helen’s verbal guises in Homeric epic.” Making silence speak: women’s voices in Greek literature and society. Eds. Lardinois, André Pierre M. H. and McClure, Laura K.. Princeton (N. J.): Princeton University Pr., 2001. 19-37.
Ziogas, Ioannis. “Life and death of the Greek heroine in Odyssey 11 and the Hesiodic « Catalogue of women ».” Aspects of death and the afterlife in Greek literature. Eds. Gazis, George Alexander and Hooper, Anthony. Liverpool: Liverpool University Pr., 2021. 49-68. Doi: 10.3828/liverpool/9781789621495.003.0003
“We alone are right-minded; everyone else is wrong.”
μόνοι γὰρ εὖ φρονοῦμεν, οἱ δ᾽ ἄλλοι κακῶς.
Scenes to be Read
1-64
170-329
460-518
775-1024
1167-end
Euripides, Bacchae 386–401
The fate for unbridled mouths
And lawless foolishness
Is misfortune.
The life of peace
And prudence
Is unshaken and cements together
Human homes. For even though
They live far off in the sky
The gods gaze at human affairs.
Wisdom is not wit;
Nor is thinking thoughts which belong not to mortals.
Life is brief. And because of this
Whoever seeks out great accomplishments
May not grasp the things at hand.
These are the ways of madmen
And wicked fools, I think.
Dionysus – Tony Jayawardena
Agaue – Janet Spencer-Turner
Pentheus – Richard Neale
Kadmos – Vince Brimble
Tiresias – Paul O’Mahony
Chorus – Nichole Bird and Sarah Finigan
Euripides Bacchae, Fourth Chorus (862-912)
“Will I ever lift my white foot
As I dance along
In the all night chorus—
Shaking my head at the dewy sky
Like the fawn who plays
In a meadow’s pale pleasures
When she has fled the frightful hunt
Beyond the well-woven nets of the guard—
With a holler, the hunter
Recalls the rush of his hounds
And she leaps
With the swift-raced lust of the winds
Across the riverbounded plain,
Taking pleasure in the places free
Of mortals and in the tender shoots
Of the shadow grove?
What’s cleverness for? Is there any nobler prize
Mortals can receive from the gods
Than to hold your hand over the heads
Of your enemies?
Whatever is noble is always dear.
Scarcely, but still surely,
The divine moves its strength
It brings mortals low
When they honor foolishness
And do not worship the gods
Because of some insane belief
They skillfully hide
The long step of time
As they hunt down the irreverent.
For it is never right
To think or practice stronger
Than the laws.
For it is a light price
To believe that these have strength—
Whatever the divine force truly is
And whatever has been customary for so long,
This will always be, by nature.
What’s cleverness for? Is there any nobler prize
Mortals can receive from the gods
Than to hold your hand over the heads
Of your enemies?
Whatever is noble is always dear.
Fortunate is the one who flees
The swell of the sea and returns to harbor.
Fortunate is the one who survives through troubles
One is greater than another in different things,
He surpasses in fortune and power—
But in numberless hearts still
Are numberless hopes: some result
In good fortune, but other mortal dreams
Just disappear.
Whoever has a happy life to-day,
I consider fortunate.
Many are the forms of divine powers
Many are the acts the gods unexpectedly make.
The very things which seemed likely did not happen
but for the unlikely, some god found a way.
This turned out to be that kind of story.
One of the many questions about Homeric poetry that interests me is its engagement with other genres. There are some basic assumptions about how epic works in relation to other kinds of poetry that can restrict how we talk about epic, think about how audiences engaged with the poetry in performance, and how it influenced (and was influenced by) other kinds of song.
Before discussing some of these assumptions, it may be helpful to give some examples of what I mean. First, repeated language (words, formulae, even longer phrases) may not count as intergeneric engagement, since the genres of early Greek poetry really hail from a song culture that shared a special language. While some forms of Greek song are marked by dialectical differences (see Sappho or Corinna, e.g.), Greek poetry leaned on traditional forms and shared language as part of performance culture.
What I mean by intergeneric engagement is when we can see longer lines, motifs, or ideas at play within and across our evidence from Greek performance culture. Here are two examples from Homer and Mimnermus (a poet traditionally placed in the 6th century BCE). Homer, in describing the spirits of deaths has:
Homer, Iliad 12.326-8
“But now, since the spirits of death stand fast around us By the thousands, and there is no way any mortal can escape them, Let us go and offer a reason to boast to someone else, or take it for ourselves”
Mimnermus has language that is similar, using the same noun and verb in a combination that an Indo-Europeanist like Calvert Watkins would be “formulaic” in a way that would inform both composition and reception. That is, the noun-verb combination implies a sharing of an image/idea that attends a particular domain. Note, the traditionality of the image in Homer is expanded with more vivid personified language in Mimnermus.
Mimnermus, 2 [=Stobaeus 4.34.12]5-8
“The dark spirits of death are standing beside us. One holds eventual old age, in pain, The other has death. The fruit of youth is brief, As long as the sun’s light stretches across the earth.”
Another, more famous example, comes from Glaukos’ speech to Diomedes in Iliad 6 where he parries Diomedes’ question about lineage.
Homer, Iliad 6.146-149
The generations of men are just like leaves on a tree: The wind blows some to the ground and then the forest Grows lush with others when spring comes again. In this way, the race of men grows and then dies in turn.
these leaves don’t fall. Volute Zone Group – period / date: ripe / late archaic, ca. 540-510 BC
In this instance, the comparison is shared, but the language itself doesn’t necessarily lend itself to a formulaic comparison, unless we look at the core comparative word (οἵη/οἷά) + noun (φύλλων/φύλλα) + verb (φύει) sequence as indicative of a common articulation or a generative metaphor that is part of a traditional repertoire of ideas. This takes us right up to those assumptions I mentioned earlier. I’ll separate these into two categories I’ll call “priority trap” and the “generic fallacy”. Both of these categories are rooted in objections I have against supply side poetics–the tendency to privilege authorial intent/practice over what audiences do with poems (songs, etc.).
Let’s start with the priority trap. In my brief comments about Homer and Mimnermus I have operated on the assumption that Homer and Mimnermus draw on a shared corpus of language and image. This is what I would call a networked and non-hierarchical model of reading Greek poetry. It functions in contrast to hierarchical models that imagine Mimnermus “quoting”, “alluding to” or otherwise responding to an extant Homeric text.
Elton Barker and I started to think about these problems two decades ago in our article on the New Archilochus Fragment and Homer. In it, we emphasize that both Homer and Archilochus are likely drawing on shared traditions, using common language to produce different ‘takes’ on shared inheritance. While we believe that Homer was performed/composed prior to Archilochus, we don’t know for sure that the ideas presented within Homer and/or Archilochus were presented in the texts we have for the first time. Indeed, considering the iterative nature of performance culture, it is possible that the texts we have represent ideas that were explored many different times in many different forms. We have no way of actually knowing how the songs engaged with each other over time and how this influenced the final forms we have. This means that it is methodologically as important to ask if Homer is ‘responding’ to Archilochus as it is to invert the question or to consider if they are both responding to something else.
This takes me to another challenge: the generic fallacy. There’s an old and stubborn notion that the poetic genres of ancient Greece had firewalls between them and that there were restrictive rules about the contents and form. All of the imagined rules are eventually undermined: the New Simonides poems showed that elegy could in fact be historical; the new Archilochus demonstrated that elegy could contain narrative myth. (Prior to these publications, very respectable scholars insisted that these poems would not happen).
I have always found restrictions about interpretive flow between and across genres or restrictive use of genres to be suspect. Think of the way people use music today: I have often found myself listening to dance music while doing dishes, exercising, or driving the car. I think this is far from atypical. Song culture in ancient Greece was persistent and permeating, but the boundaries between kinds of songs and their occasions were not fixed and hard. Instead, they moved and were squishy, accommodating audience use and changing cultures over time.
I started thinking about this recently because I have been reading Stephen A. Sansom’s article “Achilles and The Resources of Genre: Epitaph, Hymnos, and Paean in Iliad 22.386-94”. In it, Sansom builds on an earlier article by Christopher Faraone, proposing that Homeric singers integrated other hexametric genres into their creations. Farone suggests that singers do this in order “to enhance a dramatic or narrative situation by fulfilling or upsetting the audience’s generic expectations.” Faraone uses literary theory (Bakhtin) to talk about embedded genres (similarly Melissa Mueller uses Eve Sedwick’s reparative reading to talk about Sappho and Homer). I am a big fan of theoretical approaches, especially when they undergird a pragmatic reality. In this case, I am not sure we need literary theory to make a very basic proposition: Greek singers used the full range of language, music, and ideas at their disposal in order to engage with their audiences. It is my belief that as a ‘master genre’ of Greek song, Homeric epic regularly absorbed and integrated features from other genres.
I first started thinking about this when working on my dissertation and reading A. P. Lardinois’ work on the integration of proverbs into Greek epic. If we can ignore questions of priority and disregard the restrictive definition of genre that posits that elegy and epic and lyric are different poetic universes, it is easier to imagine a performance context where an epic rhapsode would adapt or otherwise integrate words, sounds, and ideas from other forms that audiences would know.
There is an interpretive payoff for this at micro-and macro levels. Sansom shows that Achilles uses language akin to hymnic epitaphs in thinking about Patroklos, indicating a characterization of Achilles that shows a consciousness of other genres and a humanizing move: the hero reflects on death the way ancient audiences did with their funerary epitaphs. This has a reinforcing as well as reflective impact on the shared culture of audience and song. There are structural aspects to this as well indicating group and individual songs, the beginning and end of ritual, and the overall shape and arc of the poem. Here’s what Sansom says
Achilles’ call for the paean in Book 22 repeats most of line 1.473 (ἀείδοντες παιήονα κοῦροι Ἀχαιῶν, the only other instance in the epic corpus) and seeks to inspire a similar or perhaps the same group of Achaians to sing (υἷες Ἀχαιῶν, 22.369; κοῦροι Ἀχαιῶν, 22.391). Considering the generic qualities of Achilles’ recollection of Patroklos, hymnos also precedes and works in conjunction with both paeans. From a wider view, then, we can observe that the Iliad thus begins and initiates its ending with embedded hymns: the first, a hymn from local cult; the second, a hymnic epitaph that prototypes the hero-cult of Patroklos. In doing so, it makes use of two of the formal functions associated with hymns: that of preface or prooimion in the epichoric hymn of Book 1, and as a transitional device between songs, themes, or locales in Achilles’ hymn of Book 22.’
There’s a lot more detail to support his argument–the whole piece is certainly worth reading. This joins a growing body of work that acknowledges that Homeric poetry is in a way trans-generic, or, perhaps less clunkily, that the genre of epic poetry is actively engaged with other song genres. Of course, there is a less positive way to think about it as well. As Elton and I have argued in Homer’s Thebes, there is a leveling, almost imperial character to Homeric poetry as it exerts its force on other genres. Like the Star Trek’s Borg, Homeric epic seeks to integrate themes and ideas from other traditions into its song, which it means to make the final one. And, resistance can indeed be futile: Homeric poetry makes its meaning as much by silencing ideas as sampling them.
A Short Bibliography on Homer and Other Genres
Alexandrou, Margarita. “Mythological narratives in Hipponax.” Iambus and elegy : new approaches. Eds. Swift, Laura and Carey, Chris. Oxford ; New York: Oxford University Pr., 2016. 210-228.
Baratz, Amit. “The roots of divination in archaic poetry.” Classical Philology, vol. 117, no. 4, 2022, pp. 581-602. Doi: 10.1086/721576
Barker, Elton and Christensen, Joel. “ the new Archilochus fragment and its resonance with Homeric epic.” Materiali e Discussioni per l’Analisi dei Testi Classici, no. 57, 2006, pp. 9-41.
Blondell, Ruby. “Refractions of Homer’s Helen in archaic lyric.” American Journal of Philology, vol. 131, no. 3, 2010, pp. 349-391.
Currie, Bruno. Homer’s allusive art. Oxford: Oxford University Pr., 2016.
Dalby, Andrew. “ lyric and epic in the seventh century.” Archaic Greece: new approaches and new evidence. Eds. Fisher, Nick and Van Wees, Hans. London: Duckworth, 1998. 195-211.
Evans, Stephen. Hymn and epic: a study of their interplay in Homer and the « Homeric Hymns ». Annales Universitatis Turkuensis. Ser. B, Humaniora; 244. Turku: Turun yliopisto, 2001.
Faraone, Christopher A.. “On the eve of epic : did the Chryses episode in Iliad 1 begin its life as a separate Homeric « Hymn » ?.” Persistent forms : explorations in historical poetics. Eds. Kliger, Ilya and Maslov, Boris. Verbal Arts : Studies in Poetics. New York: Fordham University Pr., 2016. 397-419. Doi: 10.5422/fordham/9780823264858.003.0015
Griffith, Mark. “Man and the leaves, a study of Mimnermos fr. 2.” California Studies in Classical Antiquity, vol. VIII, 1975, pp. 73-88. Doi: 10.2307/25010683
Harden, Sarah J. and Kelly, Adrian. “Proemic convention and character construction in early Greek epic.” Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, vol. 107, 2013, pp. 1-34.
Hendricks, Amy N.. Approaching chorality : literary representations of the chorus in archaic Greek poetry. [S. l.]: [s. n.], 2020.
Janko, Richard (2016). the archetype of the Orphic gold leaves. Classical Quarterly, N. S., 66(1), 100-127. Doi: 10.1017/S0009838816000380
Kousoulini, Vasiliki. “Alcmanic Hexameter: Alcman’s poetry in its oral context.” Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies, vol. 53, no. 3, 2013, pp. 420-440.
Lardinois, André Pierre M. H.. “ the orality of Greek proverbial expressions.” Speaking volumes: orality and literacy in the Greek and Roman world. Ed. Watson, Janet. Mnemosyne. Supplements; 218. Leiden ; Boston (Mass.): Brill, 2001. 93-107.
Lardinois, André Pierre M. H.. “Characterization through gnomai in Homer’s « Iliad ».” Mnemosyne, vol. 53, no. 6, 2000 Ser. 4, pp. 641-661.
Lavigne, Donald. “Archilochus and Homer in the rhapsodic context.” Iambus and elegy : new approaches. Eds. Swift, Laura and Carey, Chris. Oxford ; New York: Oxford University Pr., 2016. 74-98.
Levaniouk, Olga Arkadievna. “« Αἴθων », Aithon, and Odysseus.” Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, vol. 100, 2000, pp. 25-51.
Lulli, Laura. “Elegy and epic : a complex relationship.” Iambus and elegy : new approaches. Eds. Swift, Laura and Carey, Chris. Oxford ; New York: Oxford University Pr., 2016. 193-209.
Martin, Richard P.. “ enigmas of the lyric voice.” Making silence speak: women’s voices in Greek literature and society. Eds. Lardinois, André Pierre M. H. and McClure, Laura K.. Princeton (N. J.): Princeton University Pr., 2001. 55-74.
Maslov, Boris. “The genealogy of the Muses: an internal reconstruction of archaic Greek metapoetics.” American Journal of Philology, vol. 137, no. 3, 2016, pp. 411-446.
Mueller, Melissa. “ Re-centering epic « nostos »: gender and genre in Sappho’s Brothers poem.” Arethusa, vol. 49, no. 1, 2016, pp. 25-46.
Mueller, Melissa. Sappho and Homer: A Reparative Reading. Cambridge. 2023.
Nobili, Cecilia. “ il nuovo Archiloco.” Maia, vol. 61, no. 2, 2009, pp. 229-249.
Nobili, Cecilia. “Female lyric voices in the « Odyssey ».” Philologia Antiqua, vol. 16, 2023, pp. 65-81. Doi: 10.19272/202304601006
Purves, Alex. “Who, Sappho ?.” Defining Greek narrative. Eds. Cairns, Douglas L. and Scodel, Ruth. Edinburgh Leventis Studies; 7. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Pr., 2014. 175-196.
Sbardella, Livio. “The Trojan War Myth: rhapsodic canon and lyric alternatives.” Submerged literature in ancient Greek culture: an introduction. Eds. Colesanti, Giulio and Giordano, Manuela. Berlin ; Boston (Mass.): De Gruyter, 2014. 61-75.
Strauss Clay, Jenny. “The new Simonides and Homer’s ἡμίθεοι.” The new Simonides: contexts of praise and desire. Eds. Boedeker, Deborah and Sider, David. Oxford ; New York: Oxford University Pr., 2001. 182-184.
Swift, Laura. “Negotiating seduction : Archilochus’ Cologne epode and the transformation of epic.” Philologus, vol. 159, no. 1, 2015, pp. 2-28.
Toohey, Peter. “Archilochus’ general (fr. 114 W). Where did he come from?.” Eranos, vol. LXXXVI, 1988, pp. 1-14.
Walsh, Thomas R.. “Some refractions of Homeric anger in Athenian drama.” A Californian hymn to Homer. Ed. Pepper, Timothy. Hellenic Studies; 41. Cambridge (Mass.): Harvard University Pr., 2010. 105-129.
Watkins, Calvert. “Let us now praise famous grains.” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, vol. CXXII, 1978, pp. 9-17.
Watkins, Calvert. How to Kill a Dragon: Aspects of Indo-European Poetics. 1995.
Węcowski, Marek. “Homer and the origins of the symposion.” Omero tremila anni dopo: atti del Congresso di Genova : 6-8 luglio 2000. Eds. Montanari, Franco and Ascheri, Paola. Storia e Letteratura; 210. Roma: Ed. di Storia e Letteratura, 2002. 625-637.
“Chamaeleon claims in his book On Stesichorus that it wasn’t only Homer’s poetry that was accompanied by music but also Archilochus’ and Hesiod’s too. He adds the work of Mimnermus and Phocylides to this as well.”
“Then Mimnermos, who discovered the sweet sound
And breath of gentle pentameter, after he suffered terribly,
Was burning for Nanno. With his lips often on the grey lotus
Pipe, he partied with Examyes.
But he was hateful to serious Hermobios and Pherekles.”
“Mimnermos, the son of Ligurtuades, from Kolophon or Smurnos or Astupalaios. An elegiac poet. He lived during the 37th Olympiad [ c. 632-629 BCE) and so lived before the Seven Sages. Some people say that he lived at the same time they did. He used to be called Liguastades because of his harmony and clarity. He wrote…those many books.”
“….but dear youth is like a short dream
Then suddenly hard and ugly old age
Drapes down over your head.
It makes a man hateful and unloved, even unknown
As it weakens his eyes and clouds his mind.”
So, I published Storylife: On Epic, Narrative, and Living Things in January. I promised not to make this substack about it, but I have been remiss in promoting it (except the note at the beginning of all the posts. I have done precious little, much to the chagrin, I imagine, of my publisher! With everything going on in the world, it is hard to focus on promoting a book, even if the book speaks directly to some of the reasons the world is so messed up.
And, yet. Part of what I explore in Storylife is how narrative takes on a life of its own and how it appeals to people, not through logic or reason, but by building upon closely held beliefs about the world. People believe in stories thanks in part to basic psychological needs like belonging and a sense of agency. Look at any cultural group believing things that seem incredible or doing things that seem horrible, and they likely have a narrative that casts them as the victim, the martyr, the hero, or the misunderstood good.
This is part of what I think we can learn from Homer. None of the heroes think they’re wrong; everyone has a story that makes their actions make sense to them. Communities live or die based on their ability to create composite narratives that bring them together; this togetherness, however, is often built on degrading, undermining, or dehumanizing others. The Iliad impresses upon its audience the dangerous cost of this by presenting the Trojans as human and depicting the precarious nature of the Achaean coalition, built around a specious claim to vengeance, an extractive approach to conquest, and a super-narrative prioritizing honor and glory over human life. In a complimentary way, the Odyssey individualizes the sailors and suitors and complicates Odysseus’ homecoming to motivate the end of the heroic age and prompt questions about balancing the needs of the people and the political framework that elides the wealth of its leaders with the health of the state. (An argument I make in the last few chapters of The Many-Minded Man.).
Over the past few weeks we have presented readings of Euripides’ Helen and Sophocles’ Philoktetes (in partnership with the Center for Hellenic Studies and the Kosmos Society and Out of Chaos Theatre). This week we turn to Euripides’ Herakles, a play which contemplates just how much one person should be alone and the cruel machinations of divine will. So, uplifting reading for everyone!
Euripides, Herakles 772-780
“The [gods] heed the unjust and
Hear the pious too.
Gold and good luck
Drive mortals out of their minds,
And pull unjust power together.
No one dares to glance back at time:
They pass by law to honor lawlessness
And break the dark chariot of wealth.”
Tim Delap – Tim has performed several times in leading roles at the National Theatre and in the West End. He recently played Rochester in the critically-acclaimed Jane Eyre
Evelyn Miller – just finished playing Bianca in The Taming of the Shrew at Shakespeare’s Globe. Other recent credits include leading roles at the National Theatre and RSC. Evvy is an associate director of Actors From The London Stage.
Richard Neale – associate director of Actor From The London Stage with whom he has toured the US playing leading roles in The Tempest, King Lear and Othello. A director and teacher, Richard has almost 20 years’ experience of performing in the UK.
Paul O’Mahony – artistic director of Out of Chaos with whom he created the award winning Unmythable. He recently toured the US in their production of Macbeth and is currently working on two productions inspired by ancient culture. He has twice been a visiting artist at the CHS.
Euripides, Herakles 1425-1426
“Whoever wishes to have honor or strength instead of
Good friends reckons badly.”
“In the same way, when some affair occludes the mind and impedes it from seeing the order of duties, it does no good in advising, “live this way with your father and this way with your spouse.” Examples like this are useless while error darkens the mind. When the mind is cleared, it will be obvious what should be done in each situation.
Otherwise, you are trying to teach someone what a healthy person should do, but you do not make them healthy! It is like you are showing a poor person how to act rich. How can this happen as long as poverty remains? You are trying to show a hungry person how to act then they are full. First, address the hunger in their stomach!”
Eodem modo ubi aliqua res occaecat animum et ad officiorum dispiciendum ordinem inpedit, nihil agit qui praecipit: sic vives cum patre, sic cum uxore. Nihil enim proficient praecepta, quamdiu menti error offusus est; si ille discutitur, apparebit, quid cuique debeatur officio. Alioqui doces illum, quid sano faciendum sit, non efficis sanum. Pauperi ut agat divitem monstras; hoc quomodo manente paupertate fieri potest? Ostendis esurienti quid tamquam satur faciat; fixam potius medullis famem detrahe.
A small Roman marble statue (54.1 cm with plinth) depicting Diogenes the Cynic, in the collection of the Met Museum
