ponos

Core Vocab: ponos

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

In Focus: Iliad 9.599–606

|599 He [Nestor] was seen and noted by swift-footed radiant Achilles, |600 who was standing on the spacious stern of his ship, |601 watching the sheer pain [ponos] and tearful struggle of the fight. |602 Then, all of a sudden, he called to his comrade [hetairos] Patroklos, |603 calling from the ship, and he [Patroklos] from inside the tent heard him [Achilles], |604 and he [Patroklos] came out, equal [īsos]… Read more