We are pleased to share this segment in the series on reading Homeric epic in ancient Greek. In each installment we read, translate, and discuss a small passage in the original Greek in the most accessible way. If you’ve ever wanted to read Homer in ancient Greek, here is your chance to do so with teachers who have spent a lifetime studying these works. Together they help even new readers… 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
This gallery will take you to Delphi in Greece. Plutarch, who was a priest of Apollo in Delphi for several years, wrote a book about the oracles. Here are two passages from his book. Plutarch describes “the shrine of Earth” τὸ τῆς Γῆς ἱερὸν. Accordingly we went round and seated ourselves upon the southern steps of the temple, looking towards the shrine of Earth and the stream of water, with the result that Boethus… Read more
We are pleased to share the latest video in the series on reading Homeric epic. In this episode Gregory Nagy (Harvard), Leonard Muellner (Brandeis), and Douglas Frame (CHS) read, translate, and discuss Odyssey 1.44–62 in an accessible and informal way. Specific topics of discussion include: the phrase γλαυκῶπις Ἀθήνη (sometimes translated as “grey-eyed Athena”) the mind of Odysseus and the heart of Athena associations between Kalypso and death the cosmic… Read more
~A guest post by Jacqui Donlon and the Oinops Study Group~ You may remember that at the end of our last post “Oinops, Sacrifice and Ritual,” we, the Oinops Study Group, decided to reach out to our Hour 25 Community for a mentor. We had discovered much, but fitting the pieces together to establish the system of oinops needed some help. We wanted to understand the use of oinops in… Read more