A guest post by Sarah Scott
For this month’s Core Vocab exploration terms, Sarah Scott, Associate Producer for the HeroesX project and an active participant of the Kosmos Society, chose a term that we hold close to our hearts: philos ‘friend’ (noun); ‘dear, near-and-dear, belonging to self’ (adjective); philotēs or philiā ‘the state of being philos’
In exploring this word, Scott shares a number of passages from the Sourcebook and other “heroized” texts in Kosmos Society’s Text Library. One such instance of the word used is in this beautiful reunion between Helen and Menelaos:
Helen
[625] O Menelaos, dearest [most philos] of men, the time was long, but delight is just now ours.
With joy I have found my husband, friends [philai], I have embraced my dear one, after long days of blazing light.
Menelaos
[630] And I have found you; but I have many questions about those years; now I do not know what to begin with first.
Helen
I am so happy, the hair rises on my head and my tears run down. I fling my arms around your neck, [635] dear husband, to have my delight.
Menelaos
O dearest [most phila] sight! I have no fault to find: I have my wife, the daughter of Zeus and Leda; your brothers on their snow-white steeds [640] blessed you, blessed you at an earlier time, while torches blazed, but the god who took you from my home is driving us on to another fortune, better than this. An evil [kakon] that was good [agathon] brought you together with me, your husband [645] after a long time, but may I still benefit by my good luck.
Chorus
May you benefit indeed, and I join in the same prayer; for when there are two, it is not possible for one to be unhappy and the other not.Euripides Helen 625–647, Text Library
Read more on the Kosmos Society website.
In addition, find a list of key Greek terms and Forum threads in which our community members are holding continued discussions about passages that provide examples of these terms.
Featured Image: Eelco van der Waals (photo): Amicitia, Creative Commons CC BY-NC 2.0, via Flickr