Hesiod

Gallery: The Birth of Aphrodite

There has been much discussion in the forum about the birth of Aphrodite, taking as a starting point the account in the Hesiodic Theogony, after Kronos cuts off the genitals of his father Ouranos: But the genitals, as after first severing them with the steel, he had cast them into the heaving sea from the continent, 190 so kept drifting long time up and down the deep, and all around… Read more

Marriage | Part 1: Music

In this post we are going to examine some aspects of marriage, and its music which come traditionally with singing and dancing. In today’s marriages music, singing and dancing play an essential role in rituals and traditions. Music is played at the beginning of the ceremony, carefully chosen songs are sung during the ceremony, and people dance and sing during the feast. Were rituals and traditions related to music in… Read more

Performance of epic | Part 1: Aoidoi in epic poetry

In a dialogue of Plato, Ion, the character Ion is a famous rhapsode. He is just coming back from a famous festival in Epidaurus where he performed Homeric poetry. [1] Plato’s dialogue dates from the late 5th century BCE [2], but it is not easy to find specific information about rhapsodes from the archaic period. The word rhapsōdos [ῥαψῳδός] itself is not used in Homeric or Hesiodic poetry. The word used… Read more

Dialogues | Justice, Palm Trees, and the Transition to Prose

In this episode, Gregory Nagy and Keith Stone respond to comments and questions from the community about the relationships between: poetry and prose, Homeric and Hesiodic traditions, justice and vegetal images In particular they discuss an Attic red-figure column-krater (c. 450 BCE) that features Apollo, Artemis, and a sacred palm tree. Image: (from left to right) Artemis holding an oinochoe; Apollo holding a laurel branch and a phiale, about to… Read more

Book Club | August 2016: Pandora

Dear fellow readers, As you are enjoying the hot days of summer, you are invited to take a seat under the shade and read the Book Club selection and discuss it with your fellow readers to cool down! We will be reading Hesiod’s Works and Days, section: ‘Pandora’, lines 53–105; and Theogony, section: ‘Prometheus: Pandora and the Lineage of Women’, lines 570–616. Please join the discussion in the forum, here,… Read more