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
A guest post by Laura Ford Plutarch’s essay on Herodotus has been described as “the world’s earliest known book review.”[1] We all have seen examples of this type of writing: a scathing review by a reviewer whose negative comments reveal an underlying bias against the author or his work that seems to obviate any pretense of an objective appraisal. Such an approach is puzzling in this case in that it… Read more