A guest post by Sarah Scott This month I’ve chosen a word that represents something that sounds very appealing: hēsukhos ‘serene’; hēsukhiā ‘state of being hēsukhos’.[1] My guess was that the word would not be very frequent. Although not shown in the Sourcebook[2], I did find it in Iliad: Πηλεΐδης δ᾽ ὁρμήσατ᾽ Ἀγήνορος ἀντιθέοιο δεύτερος: οὐδ᾽ ἔτ᾽ ἔασεν Ἀπόλλων κῦδος ἀρέσθαι, ἀλλά μιν ἐξήρπαξε, κάλυψε δ᾽ ἄρ᾽ ἠέρι πολλῇ, ἡσύχιον… Read more
This month’s Core Vocab word is phrēn, plural phrenes, [φρήν, φρένες] which is given the definition ‘physical localization of the thūmos‘.[1] As a reminder, the definition of thūmos is ‘heart, spirit’ (designates realm of consciousness, of rational and emotional functions); we have already looked at some passages relating to thūmos: you can find the post here. In modern English we refer to the mind as residing in the brain, and emotion is… Read more
A guest post by Sarah Scott With the Olympic Games coming up, this month’s Core Vocab word from H24H[1] and tracked in the associated Sourcebook[2] is āthlos (aethlos) [ἆθλος/ἄεθλος] ‘contest, ordeal; competition’; and āthlētēs [ἀθλητής], ‘athlete’ . In HeroesX Gregory Nagy introduces the word āthlētēs in a section about the Labors of Hēraklēs and the founding of the Olympic Games: Hēraklēs not only founded this major festival: he also competed in every athletic event… Read more
A guest post by Sarah Scott Our Core Vocab term this time is hubris [ὕβρις], defined as “‘outrage’; the opposite of dikē [δίκη].” We discussed dikē in an earlier forum thread when we touched briefly on hubris. But now it might be interesting to look at this word in more detail. For many English speakers, we think of the term in its modern usage, as given in this definition from the Concise Oxford… Read more
Our next exploration of Core Vocab terms is about thūmos [θυμός] ‘heart, spirit’ (designates realm of consciousness, of rational and emotional functions). Here Professor Nagy explains the meaning a little further: The word thūmos, which I translate here as ‘heart’, expresses in Homeric diction the human capacity to feel and to think, taken together. In some Homeric contexts, thūmos is used as a synonym of phrenes, which can also be… Read more