Archive
“On Being a Gentleman Scholar”: A Personal and Professional Appreciation
back Deborah Beck I joined the Classical Philology Ph.D. program at Harvard University in 1992, in preference to the other programs to which I had been admitted, largely because everyone I talked to told me how hard Greg Nagy worked for his students. This turned out to be much more true than I could possibly have imagined. Twenty years later, Greg is as much my teacher – in all… Read more
Graveside Irony in the Iliad
back Mike Tueller I. The grave of a Homeric hero is marked by a σῆμα. Whatever its materials or construction, the purpose of a σῆμα is clear: to attract attention. This much we can discern from the word σῆμα itself, but Homer is sometimes even more clear. In the following passage Nestor does not use the word σῆμα, but clearly describes one when he speaks of a τύμβος: “ἀμφ᾽… Read more
A Piping Odysseus in Ptolemy the Quail
back Timothy Power, Rutgers University, New Brunswick A strange bird indeed Even in the odd company of Imperial mythographers, paradoxographers, antiquarians, and literary revisionists, Ptolemy the Quail (Ptolemaios Chennos), an Alexandrian writing around the turn of the first into the second century CE, qualifies as a fringe figure. [1] While the Quail was certainly not the only author of his time (or earlier) to… Read more
Picturing Homeric Weaving
back Susan T. Edmunds Introduction §1. In discussion of Homer and the lyric poets, Gregory Nagy has shown how “the idea of making song is expressed metaphorically through the idea of making fabric.” [1] The process of weaving would have been completely familiar to the average person in Greek antiquity, yet it is not generally familiar to us. We touch woven cloth almost constantly… Read more
Lying or Blaspheming? Problems in the Translation of Oral Epics
back Karl Reichl who translates literally is a liar, one who embellishes is a blasphemer. Talmud (Kiddushim 49a/b) The learned rabbi to whom this saying in the Talmud is due was no doubt thinking of the Bible and not of the Homeric epics or any other epic poem. But what he says is also true of the translation of secular works. If one translates literally one misses to… Read more
A Misunderstood Ancient Wedding-Song, or Two
back J.C.B. (Yiannis) Petropoulos, Democritean University of Thrace & CHS-Greece Given the special occasion for this collection of papers, I would like to preface mine with a few remarks—short reminiscences rather—that are necessarily (and a bit awkwardly) autobiographical. [1] I return to the fatefully formative year 1981, when I wrote my senior thesis at Harvard under Greg Nagy’s galvanizing guidance. This exercise concerned itself… Read more
On The Name of the Father: The Platonic Pollen in Orthodox Triadology
back Archbishop Demetrios of America, Ph.D., Th.D. It is well known that the early Christian theologians lived in a state of considerable tension with respect to the pagan world around them. [1] On the one hand, they deplored the sensuality and violence of the dominant culture and religion; on the other hand, they admired the rational achievements, unique in the ancient world, of Hellenic… Read more