A guest post by Bill Moulton It is odd, that a culture that seems to personify every river, creek, lake, spring, meadow, vale, city, region, and sea with a deity shows so little knowledge of the gods of the mountain peaks. The Hesiodic Theogony lists none of the mountains by name and expends only one line of poetry addressing this. By contrast, it names forty-one of the three thousand Oceanides in… Read more
A Hare one day ridiculed the short feet and slow pace of the Tortoise, who replied, laughing: ‘Though you be swift as the wind, I will beat you in a race.’ The Hare, believing her assertion to be simply impossible, assented to the proposal; and they agreed that the Fox should choose the course and fix the goal. On the day appointed for the race the two started together. The… Read more
Detail from Greek vase showing women preparing wool. Diosphos Painter [CC BY 2.5 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5)], via Wikimedia Commons A translation by Jack Vaughan Shuttles that sang at dawn like swallows, warp-smoothing shafts of Pallas Athena who works the loom; And hairdresser comb and fingertip-worn spindle that swam [i.e. moved rapidly forward in a horizontal plane, as a swimmer on water] with thread whirled by [the spindle’s] whorl; And woven reed basket… Read more
Cosmic anger and the poetic function of the mênis theme in Greek epic Community members who have enjoyed our past discussions with Professor Leonard Muellner will be happy to hear that the Center for Hellenic Studies has added Muellner’s The Anger of Achilles: Mênis in Greek Epic to its curated collection of free, online books. As in his first full-length volume, The meaning of Homeric εὔχομαι through its formulas, Muellner has focused this… Read more
We were pleased to welcome Susan T. Edmunds for our Open House discussion, about weaving and the weaver as hero. The following videos would be helpful in starting the conversation. Revealing of past: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYgHRwlXDX8 The Art of Making a Tapestry: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIbu-dJuEh0 To prepare for this event you may like to read the following focus passages below. The event was recorded, and you can watch this discussion in the frame below,… Read more