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Part II: The Hellenization of Indo-European Myth and RitualChapter 4. Patroklos, Concepts of Afterlife, and the Indic Triple Fire, pp. 85–121

Chapter 4. Patroklos, Concepts of Afterlife, and the Indic Triple Fire The rituals occasioned by the Funeral of Patroklos, as narrated in Iliad XXIII, have been compared with the royal funerary rituals of the Hittites. [1] The parallelisms in details and in ideology suggest a common Indo-European heritage, in view of additional comparative evidence available from the Indic traditions. Read more

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Chapter 5. The Death of Sarpedon and the Question of Homeric Uniqueness, pp. 122–142

Chapter 5. The Death of Sarpedon and the Question of Homeric Uniqueness It has been argued often, and in many ways, that the poetry of Homer is unique, transcending his poetic heritage. The point of departure for this presentation is a confrontation with one such argument, concerning the meaning of the Homeric expression kléos áphthiton ‘fame…imperishable’ at Iliad IX 413, cognate with the Indic expression… Read more

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Chapter 6. The King and the Hearth: Six Studies of Sacral Vocabulary Relating to the Fireplace, pp. 143–180

Chapter 6. The King and the Hearth: Six Studies of Sacral Vocabulary Relating to the Fireplace In the Electra, of Sophocles, Clytemnestra dreams that Agamemnon has come back from the dead to the realm of light (417-419; ἐς φῶς 419). The king seizes the skêptron ‘scepter’ (σκῆπτρον 420) that had once been wielded by him, but which is now held by the usurper Aegisthus (420-421),… Read more

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Chapter 7. Thunder and the Birth of Humankind, pp. 181–201

Chapter 7. Thunder and the Birth of Humankind In the myth making traditions of a wide variety of societies, there is a convergent pattern of thought concerning the origin of fire: that a stroke of thunder can deposit fire into trees or rocks and that this fire of thunder is extracted whenever friction is applied to these materials. [1] Oftentimes… Read more

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Chapter 8. Sêma and Nóēsis: The Hero’s Tomb and the “Reading” of Symbols in Homer and Hesiod, pp. 202–222

Chapter 8. Sêma and Nóēsis: The Hero’s Tomb and the “Reading” of Symbols in Homer and Hesiod The word semiotic—and se mantic, for that matter—may be perceived in a new light if we look again at its Greek origins. The basic form in Greek is sêma ‘sign’, a neuter action-noun built on a root-verb that is no longer attested in the language. There is… Read more

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4. Euripides’ Hippolytos

Chapter 4. Euripides’ Hippolytos Many of the metaphors of illegitimacy we have already seen, along with the social forces and structures that inform them, come together in Euripides’ Hippolytos, a drama that confronts in turn a woman’s sexual desire and a young man’s transition to adulthood. But Hippolytos is not any young man, for his father is one of the primary heroes and “forefathers” of the fifth-century… Read more

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Conclusion

Conclusion Many of the concerns associated with illegitimacy cut across the narratives we have examined. The connection between legitimacy and reining in female desire is present not only in Euripides’ portrayal of Phaedra but also in the narratives about Danaë. [1] Both narratives in turn imply an ideology of marriage as a cultural control of the “natural” desires of women. As we… Read more

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Bibliography

Bibliography Barrett, W. S. 1964. Euripides’ Hippolytos. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Betts, J. H. 1977. Review of Corpus der Minoischen und Mykenischen Siegel, Journal of Hellenic Studies 97:228-229. Black, Max. 1962. Models and Metaphors: Studies in Language and Philosophy. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press. Blundell, Sue. 1998. “Marriage and the Maiden: Narratives on the Parthenon,”… Read more

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About the Author

About the Author Mary Ebbott is Assistant Professor of Classics at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts. She holds an A.B. degree from Bryn Mawr College and earned both the M.A. and Ph.D. degrees at Harvard University. Her previous publications have focused on Homer’s Iliad and the Persians of Aeschylus. … Read more

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Gregory Nagy, Poetry as Performance: Homer and Beyond

Originally published in 1996 by Cambridge University Press. Copyright, Cambridge University Press. Also available for purchase in printhere. Read more