The Core Vocab word this time is aretē [ἀρετή] which Professor Nagy translates as ‘striving for a noble goal, for high ideals; noble goal, high ideals’[1]. There are several passages in the Sourcebook[2] where we can find this word; for example, during the Embassy scene Phoenix says: “Now, therefore, I say battle with your pride and beat it; cherish not your anger for ever; the might [aretē] and majesty [timē]… Read more
Inspired by Joel Christensen’s CHS Open House on ‘Eris and Epos: Composition, Competition and the ‘Domestication’ of Strife’ which concentrated on Homeric and Hesiodic examples (passages which are available through the linked post), I thought it might be interesting to look at other texts and to compare uses of the word eris for this month’s Core Vocab discussion. The definition from Professor Nagy is ‘strife, conflict’[1]. The word appears in… Read more
Our previous Core Vocab discussion centered on alēthēs (adjective) ‘true, true things’; alētheia (noun) ‘truth’, and we had considered how this word can also be thought of as “being not mentally disconnected.”[1] So this month we will consider another ‘disconnected’ word: nēpios, plural nēpioi. In the Core Vocab, the definition is given as “‘disconnected’ (the disconnection can be mental, moral, or emotional).”[2] In this first example of the word, the… Read more
We continue our exploration of the Core Vocabulary terms with alēthēs (adjective) ‘true, true things’; alētheia (noun) ‘truth’.[1] We have looked at truth as a subject before. There was the recent Friday Café conversation with Kevin McGrath, about the truth of poetry, which he described as “truth that is so unlike the inferential truth of the natural sciences or the truths of mathematical demonstration.” In the Homeric epics, and in… Read more
For some time now we have been exploring the key Greek terms from H24H[a] and some of the Greek Core Vocabulary terms that are tracked in HeroesX, and in the Sourcebook[b]. You can find links to these forum discussions from the list at the Core Vocab page. This month we come to aitios [αἴτιος] ‘responsible, guilty’; aitiā [αἰτία] ‘responsibility, guilt; cause, case’. Where are these terms used? How might we visualize… Read more