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
The Medea “Heroization” Workshop held at CHS, April 7–8, 2016 In 2014 members of Hour 25 shared a revised translation of Sophocles’ Antigone that matches and complements the Sourcebook of Primary Texts in Translation as used in HeroesX. Since then, community members have been using this “heroized” translation of Antigone to reach out to high school students in the US and abroad through through the medium of performance. This year Hour 25… 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
In the forum we have previously discussed the ancient Greek Moirai in comparison with the Nordic Norns, so for this month’s Core Vocab I thought it might be interesting to look at the word moira (plural moirai), defined in the Core Vocab as ‘portion; portion of meat divided at a sacrifice; lot in life, fate, destiny.’[1] Just that range of meanings in the definition is intriguing. I am curious to… Read more
What better way to celebrate the end of another year and the start of the next with a group singing and dancing together! So this month’s Core Vocab word is khoros [χορός] which Professor Nagy defines as “‘chorus’ = ‘group of singers/dancers’”[1] As usual, I will start with Homeric usage. [590] The renowned one [= the god Hephaistos], the one with the two strong arms, pattern-wove [poikillein] in it [=… Read more