Theano: Philosopher, Author, Wit

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These sayings are drawn from the Gnomologium Vaticanum. For other testimonia see below.

“Theano used to say “It is shameful to be silent on matters about which it is noble to speak and noble to be silent on those shameful to mention”

Θεανὼ ἔφη· ” περὶ ὧν λέγειν καλὸν περὶ τούτων σιωπᾶν αἰσχρὸν καὶ περὶ ὧν αἰσχρὸν λέγειν περὶ τούτων σιωπᾶν καλόν.”

“Theano the Pythagorean philosopher was asked how a man and woman might live together and said ‘if they learn to bear each other’s moods’.”

Θεανὼ ἡ πυθαγορικὴ φιλόσοφος ἐρωτηθεῖσα πῶς ἂν δύναιτο γυνὴ καὶ ἀνὴρ συμπεριφέρεσθαι ἀλλήλοις εἶπεν· ” ἐὰν μάθωσι τὰς ἀλλήλων ὀργὰς φέρειν.”

“Theano suggested that a woman coming to her husband should strip off her shame along with her clothes and put them all back on again when she left.”

Θεανὼ παρεκελεύσατο ἅμα τοῖς ἱματίοις καὶ τὴν αἰσχύνην ἀποτίθεσθαι τὴν πρὸς τὸν ἄνδρα βαδίζουσα<ν>, περιβαλλομένην δὲ πάλιν κομίζεσθαι.

“Theano, when asked what number of days a woman was clean from her husband and is was right for her to go to the temple, said ” ‘on the same day from her own husband, but never from another.’ “

Θεανὼ ἐρωτηθεῖσα ποσταία ἡ γυνὴ ἀπὸ ἀνδρὸς καθαρεύει καὶ εἰς ἱερὸν ἰέναι δεῖ αὐτὴν ἔφη· ” ἀπὸ μὲν τοῦ ἰδίου αὐθημερόν, ἀπὸ δὲ τοῦ ἀλλοτρίου οὐδέποτε.”

“Theano said ‘It is better to trust oneself to an unbridled horse than an illogical woman.’ “

Θεανὼ εἶπε· “κρεῖττόν ἐστιν ἵππῳ ἀχαλινώτῳ ἑαυτὸν πιστεύειν ἢ γυναικὶ ἀλογίστῳ.”

“While Theano was walking she showed her forearm and some youth when he saw it said “Nice skin”. She responded, “it’s not communal”.

Θεανὼ πορευομένη ἔξω εἶχε τὸν βραχίονα· νεανίσκος δέ τις ἰδὼν εἶπε· ” καλὸν τὸ δέμας·” ἡ δὲ ἀπεκρίνατο· ” ἀλλ’ οὐ κοινόν.”

“When Theano the Pythagorean philosopher was asked what eros is, she said ‘the passion of a soul with spare time.’ “

Θεανὼ ἡ πυθαγορικὴ φιλόσοφος ἐρωτηθεῖσα τί ἐστιν ἔρως ἔφη· ” πάθος ψυχῆς σχολαζούσης.”

Suda s.v. Theano (theta 83)

“Theano: from Metapontum or Thurii. A Pythagorean, daughter of Leôphrôn, wife of Karustos of Krotôn, or Brôtinos the Pythagorean. She wrote On Pythagoras, On Virtue to Hippodamos of Thurii, Advice for Woman, and Sayings of the Pythagoreans.”

Θεανώ, Μεταποντίνη ἢ Θουρία, Πυθαγορεία, θυγάτηρ Λεώφρονος, γαμετὴ δὲ Καρύστου ἢ Κρότωνος ἢ Βρωτίνου τοῦ Πυθαγορείου. αὕτη ἔγραψε περὶ Πυθαγόρου, Περὶ ἀρετῆς ῾Ιπποδάμῳ Θουρίῳ,  Παραινέσεις γυναικείας καὶ ᾿Αποφθέγματα Πυθαγορείων.

Diogenes Laertius, 8.42

“Pythagoras also had a wife, named Theanô, the daughter of Brontinus of Kroton. Others say she was Brontinus’ wife and Pyhtagoras’ student.”

[42] Ἦν δὲ τῷ Πυθαγόρᾳ καὶ γυνή, Θεανὼ ὄνομα, Βροντίνου τοῦ Κροτωνιάτου θυγάτηρ: οἱ δέ, γυναῖκα μὲν εἶναι Βροντίνου, μαθήτριαν δὲ Πυθαγόρου…

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Reading Tragedy Together When Sheltering Alone

~ Joel ~ 1 Comment

Greek Tragedy Readings, Week 1: Euripides’ Helen (Supported by the Center for Hellenic Studies and the Kosmos Society and Out of Chaos Theatre).

A week or so ago Paul O’Mahony pulled together a few people from the Center for Hellenic Studies (Lanah Koelle and Keith DeStone) with me and several members of the Kosmos Society (including Janet Ozsolak, Helene Emeriaud, Sarah Scott) with an idea: bringing together Hellenists and actors in isolation to do readings and discussions of Greek Tragedy during these strange times. We talked about how important it is to retain human contact and communication to stay sane, how the arts help us reflect on being human and how in these frightening times the humanities have no less a purchase on our imaginations and our needs than at any other.

We sketched out a basic plan to read a play a week and invite professional actors to read scenes together. And then we tried it out the next day. We recorded it rather than performing it live because we had no idea how well it would go. Here it is:

Actors: Evelyn Miller, Richard Neal, Paul O’Mahony, and Eunice Roberts

Questions and comments by Joel Christensen

Designed by Paul O’Mahony with consultation from the Kosmos Society and Joel Christensen (me!)

Scenes include: Helen’s opening speech Helen and Teucer (l. 68-164) Menelaos speech (l.386-438) Menelaos and Old Woman (l.437-484) Menelaos and Helen meet (l.528-661) Menelaos and Helen plotting (l.1031-1093)

I hope you take some time to watch this and read along (we use this text). The conversation was unscripted and mostly unplanned–some of the comments about seeming and being and living at the edge of things or through mediated experiences struck me pretty hard.

We plan to do this on a weekly basis and are looking for experts in tragedy and actors who would like to participate. Please reach out! We hope to give people a chance to spend time thinking about Greek tragedy, engaging with one another, and meeting new people, learning new things.

For next week, we will be running the show live and opening it up to the public:

Wednesday at 3 PM EST we are reading Sophocles’ Philoktetes (using this text) and will be joined by Howard University’s Norman Sandridge. Watch here and the Center for Hellenic Studies website for news.

Tragedy readings

Statius’ Medieval Celebrity

~ Erik ~ Leave a comment

C.S. Lewis, The Discarded Image:

“Statius, whose Thebaid appeared in the ‘nineties of the first century, ranked in the Middle Ages (as we have already seen) with Virgil, Homer, and Lucan. Like Lucan, he strained after the stunning phrase, less successfully, but also less continuously. He had a larger mind than Lucan, more true seriousness, more pity, a more versatile imagination; the Thebaid is a less tiring and a more spacious poem than the Pharsalia. The Middle Ages were quite right to accept it as a noble ‘historial’ romance. It was in many ways especially congenial to them. Its Jupiter was more like the God of monotheism than anyother being in the Pagan poetry they knew. Its fiends (and some of its gods) were more like the devils of their own religion than any other Pagan spirits. Its deep respect for virginity-with even the curious suggestion that the sexual act, however sanctioned by marriage, is a culpa which needs excuse (u, 233, 256)-appealed to the vein of asceticism in their theology. Finally, the vividness and importance of its personifications (Virtus, Clementia, Pietas, and Natura) brought it in places very close to the fully allegorical poetry in which they delighted. But I have shot my bolt about these matters elsewhere1 and at present Natura is my only concern.”

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Prostitutes and Pelts

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Varro, de Lingua Latina 7.84:

“In Terence we read:

He whores (scortatur), he drinks, he smells like perfume at my cost!

The verb to whore (scortari) means quite often to take a prostitute, which is so called from a pelt. For the ancients not only called a pelt a scortum, but even today we call those things which are made of hide and pelt scortea. In some sacred rites and sacrificial places we have it written:

Let not a prostitute (scortum) be admitted

meaning by this that nothing dead should be present. In Atellan farces one may observe that they brought home a little skin (pellicula) instead of a scortum.

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Apud Terentium:

Scortatur, potat, olet unguenta de meo.

Scortari est saepius meretriculam ducere, quae dicta a pelle: id enim non solum antiqui dicebant scortum, sed etiam nunc dicimus scortea ea quae e corio ac pellibus sunt facta; in aliquot sacris ac sacellis scriptum habemus:

Ne quod scorteum adhibeatur,

ideo ne morticinum quid adsit. In Atellanis licet animadvertere rusticos dicere se adduxisse pro scorto pelliculam.

Cleobulina’s Poetic Riddles

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The following is not really a single poem but rather a collection of lines cited in Athenaeus, Plutarch and others and attributed to Cleobulina

Cleobulina fr. 3.1

“I have seen a man fashioning bronze on another man with fire
Fitting it so well that he joined them in the blood.
I saw a man stealing and deceiving violently—
To accomplish this with violence is the most just thing.
A donkey corpse struck me on the ear with its horny shin.”

ἄνδρ’ εἶδον πυρὶ χαλκὸν ἐπ’ ἀνέρι κολλήσαντα
οὕτω συγκόλλως ὥστε σύναιμα ποιεῖν.
ἄνδρ’ εἶδον κλέπτοντα καὶ ἐξαπατῶντα βιαίως,
καὶ τὸ βίαι ῥέξαι τοῦτο δικαιότατον.
κνήμηι νεκρὸς ὄνος με κερασφόρωι οὖας ἔκρουσεν·

These lines are poetic riddles: the first one, according to Athenaeus, is about using a cupping glass to draw blood to the surface of the skin) the last one is about a Phrygian flute (which was made from a donkey bone)

Cleobulina 4bpblogspotcomk3VU9hBtRk0T5b6PfaiZzIAAAAAAA

Her Greek Has Made All Her Celebrity

~ Erik ~ Leave a comment

Frances Burney, The Diary and Letters of Madame D’Arblay

‘Streatham, Sunday, June 13. After church we all strolled the grounds, and the topic of our discourse was Miss Streatfield. Mrs. Thrale asserted that she had a power of captivation that was irresistible; that her beauty, joined to her softness, her caressing manners, her tearful eyes, and alluring looks, would insinuate her into the heart of any man she thought worth attacking.

Sir Philip declared himself of a totally different opinion, and quoted Dr. Johnson against her, who had told him that, taking away her Greek, she was as ignorant as a butterfly.

Mr. Seward declared her Greek was all against her, with him, for that, instead of reading Pope, Swift, or “The Spectator”—books from which she might derive useful knowledge and improvement—it had led her to devote all her reading time to the first eight books of Homer.

“But,” said Mrs. Thrale, “her Greek, you must own, has made all her celebrity:—you would have heard no more of her than of any other pretty girl, but for that.”

“What I object to,” said Sir Philip, “is her avowed preference for this parson. Surely it is very indelicate in any lady to let all the world know with whom she is in love!”

“The parson,” said the severe Mr. Seward, “I suppose, spoke first,—or she would as soon have been in love with you, or with me!”

You will easily believe I gave him no pleasant look.’

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Hippocrates: Unmarried Women are Sad Because of Periods

~ sententiaeantiquae ~ 1 Comment

Hippocrates of Cos, On Girls [Peri Parthenôn] 1

“Let’s talk first concerning the disease which is called sacred and paralyzed people and the many anxieties which frighten people seriously enough that they lose their minds and believe that they see evil spirits by night or even at times by die or sometimes on all hours. Many have hanged themselves before because of this kind of vision, more often women than men.

For a woman’s nature is more depressed and sorrowful. And young women, when they are at the age of marriage and without a husband, suffer terribly at the time of their menstruation, which they did not suffer earlier in life. For blood collects later in their uterus so that it may flow out. When, then, the mouth of the exit does not create an opening, the blood pools up more because of food and the body’s growth. When the blood has nowhere to flow, it rises up toward the heart and the diaphragm. When these organs are filled, the heart is desensitized and from this transformation it becomes numb. Madness overtakes women because of this numbness.”

Πρῶτον περὶ τῆς ἱερῆς νούσου καλεομένης, καὶ περὶ τῶν ἀποπληκτικῶν, καὶ περὶ τῶν δειμάτων, ὁκόσα φοβεῦνται ἰσχυρῶς ἄνθρωποι, ὥστε παραφρονέειν καὶ ὁρῆν δοκέειν δαίμονάς τινας ἐφ᾿ ἑωυτῶν δυσμενέας, ὁκότε μὲν νυκτός, ὁκότε δὲ ἡμέρης, ὁκότε δὲ ἀμφοτέρῃσι τῇσιν ὥρῃσιν. ἔπειτα ἀπὸ τῆς τοιαύτης ὄψιος πολλοὶ ἤδη ἀπηγχονίσθησαν, πλέονες δὲ γυναῖκες ἢ ἄνδρες· ἀθυμοτέρη γὰρ καὶ λυπηροτέρη ἡ φύσις ἡ γυναικείη. αἱ δὲ παρθένοι, ὁκόσῃσιν ὥρη γάμου, παρανδρούμεναι, τοῦτο μᾶλλον πάσχουσιν ἅμα τῇ καθόδῳ τῶν ἐπιμηνίων, πρότερον οὐ μάλα ταῦτα κακοπαθέουσαι. ὕστερον γὰρ τὸ αἷμα ξυλλείβεται ἐς τὰς μήτρας, ὡς ἀπορρευσόμενον· ὁκόταν οὖν τὸ στόμα τῆς ἐξόδου μὴ ᾖ ἀνεστομωμένον, τὸ δὲ αἷμα πλέον ἐπιρρέῃ διά τε σιτία καὶ τὴν αὔξησιν τοῦ σώματος, τηνικαῦτα οὐκ ἔχον τὸ αἷμα ἔκρουν ἀναΐσσει ὑπὸ πλήθους ἐς τὴν καρδίην καὶ ἐς τὴν διάφραξιν. ὁκόταν οὖν ταῦτα πληρωθέωσιν, ἐμωρώθη ἡ καρδίη, εἶτ᾿ ἐκ τῆς μωρώσιος νάρκη, εἶτ᾿ ἐκ τῆς νάρκης παράνοια ἔλαβεν.

Hippocrates should have consulted a woman physician like Trotula