This time our Core Vocab exploration, taken from terms listed in H24H[1] and tracked in the associated Sourcebook[2], is about ainos [αἶνος] ‘authoritative utterance for and by a social group; praise; fable’; and the related word ainigma [αἴνιγμα] ‘riddle’. In H24H 2§60, Gregory Nagy says: Here is my working definition of this word: an ainos is a performance of ambivalent wording that becomes clarified once it is correctly understood and then… Read more
Both the Iliad and the Odyssey play a key role in our understanding of the ancient Greek ship, in her physical and her metonymic appearance. In this section we will consider the epithet korōnis [κορωνίς] that describes the form of the ancient Greek ship. The word in Greek that we translate as ‘form’ is ideā [ἰδέα]. There is also the word eidos [εἶδος]. In Plato there is no real difference… Read more
This time the Core Vocab word—taken from terms in H24H[1] and the associated Sourcebook[2] —is sōphrōn [σώφρων] ‘moderate, balanced, with equilibrium’; sōphrosunē [σωφροσύνη] ‘being sōphrōn’. In H24H, Gregory Nagy introduces the word as a metaphor describing the pilot of a ship in the Homeric Hymn (7) to Dionysus. Literally, this word is a compound adjective consisting of the elements sō- and -phrōn, meaning ‘the one whose thinking [phrēn] is safe’,… Read more
In the gloss provided by Gregory Nagy in H24H[1] and the associated Sourcebook[1], mēnis is summarized as “superhuman anger, cosmic sanction”. Following the Kosmos Society Book Club discussion about Leonard Muellner’s The Anger of Achilles: Mênis in Greek Epic (available online at CHS)[3], we became interested in finding out how the word was used in other texts, so it seems appropriate to choose this for the next Core Vocab discussion. Muellner… Read more
This next exploration of Core Vocabulary—taken from terms in H24H[1] and the associated Sourcebook[2] —features ponos [πόνος], glossed as ‘ordeal, labor, pain’. In Homeric Greek, Autenrieth[3] explains further: “labor, toil, esp. of the toil of battle,…frequently implying suffering, grievousness, ‘a grievous thing,’…hence joined with ὀιζύς [oizus “woe, misery”], κήδεα [kēdea “cares, troubles,, sorrows” ], ἀνιη [aniē/aniā, “grief, sorrow, distress, trouble; bane”]” In this first example, we pick up where Achilles… Read more