Recent Book Club discussion prompted me to think about how human emotions were depicted in some of the readings from Greek antiquity. In the Trojan Women, Andromache’s reaction to her son’s fate—death by being thrown out of the battlements—is not physical, a loud, wailing lament, but a subdued, courageous reaction. To get a proper burial for her son, she does not fight back vehemently when the child is taken. The… Read more
Let us here deal with Poetry, its essence and its several species, with the characteristic function of each species and the way in which plots must be constructed if the poem is to be a success; and also with the number and character of the constituent parts of a poem, and similarly with all other matters proper to this same inquiry; and let us, as nature directs, begin first with… Read more
Even by the look of him it was plain that he was a son of Zeus; for his body measured four cubits, and he flashed a gleam of fire from his eyes; and he did not miss, neither with the bow nor with the javelin.[1] Apollodorus, among others, provides a number of stories about Hēraklēs in The Library (Book 2, chapters 4 and 5), and such stories provided inspiration for… Read more
Heracles’ tenth labor Figure 1: Hēraklēs sails across the sea in the cup-boat of the sun-god Helios. The hero wears a lion-skin cape and holds a club and bow in his hands.[1] During his numerous and formidable adventures Hēraklēs had to face the sea and to brave storms. In this post we are exploring some of Hēraklēs’ maritime journeys. He assembled large fleets for distant expeditions. While on one of… Read more
Members of the Spring Break trip 2019 Gregory Nagy will again be leading the Spring Break Trip in Greece for Students and Alumni of Harvard University. There may still be waiting-list places available for the next trip, March 13–March 21, 2020. For further details, please see the Harvard Alumni website, here. Whether or not you are able to attend yourself, you might like to read about the experiences of one… Read more