Appetitive: Watching Medea

As I mentioned in a previous blogpost, Cerinthus gave me the most wonderful gift in the world: the production of Μήδεια in the original Classical Greek. We watched it tonight and it was absolutely fantastic. I love hearing the Greek spoken and because Herodotus II and I read about half of the Μήδεια in the original, I recognized many more of the words and phrases which was really exciting. It has also motivated me to study even harder for my Greek exam in late September. I am really nervous, but I am looking forward to it.

Appetitive: Greek History Review #9: Reading Herodotus

I have been enjoying the Berekeley podcasts I have been listening to so much that I started reading Herodotus. Professor Pafford discusses Herodotus often, and I became so excited about Herodotus that I decided to read it in, at least at the moment, in lieu of my other Greek History studying.

I am reading the Landmark Herodotus, edited by Robert Strassler. Cerinthus gave me this absolutely stunning a thorough volume for Christmas a few years ago. I read the introduction this morning out on the porch in between a desperate (and successful) attempt to salvage some badly-mangled pizza dough and an attempt to talk to Propertius II about Isocrates (sadly unsuccessful due to technical difficulties with skype). The introduction is written by Rosalind Thomas, and is a delightful and meandering introduction (divided into sections for easy reference by the text itself) and it goes through some of the big issues in Herodotus, such as his accuracy, in a way that provides new information to either a layman or someone with an undergraduate degree in classics. Her writing style is warm and accessible. More reviews on the volume as I continue.

Appetitive: Cerinthus and Homer on the iPad

I am going up to visit Cerinthus this week. Posting may be a bit spotty, but since he has midterms I may have some more time to work on my blogs.

In other news, the coolest iPad app I've ever heard of has just been released: you can now own your own copy of Venetus A, one of the preserved Homeric manuscripts. The Homer Multitext reports that the text has been fully digitized and can be downloaded from the iTunes store. Now that's a cool reason to get an iPad.

Reasoning: Hippolytus

Today I read Philip Vellacott's translation of Hippolytus. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Philip Vellacott is an odd scholar. I was introduced to his work when I was assigned his essay "Has the Good Prevailed?" (JSTOR) in my Agamemnon class. He has an unusual take on the ending of the Eumenides that I found intriguing (although I do not quite agree with it) and I became interested in his work. While Cerinthus was in New York, he bought a beautiful copy for me that he found at the Strand.

Hippolytus is the story of Hippolytus, Phaedra, and Theseus. Phaedra falls in love with her son-in-law, Hippolytus. Hippolytus spurns all human love and devotes himself entirely to Artemis. While Theseus is away, Phaedra begins to look sickly and worry her nurse. The nurse eventually discovers Phaedra's secret and tells Hippolytus who is very angry. The nurse makes Hippolytus promise not to tell anyone what he has heard. Phaedra hangs herself, claiming in her suicide note that Hippolytus raped her. Theseus, angry, sends Hippolytus into exile and curses him in Poseidon's name. Hippolytus, a man of moral standing, cannot correct the record because it would break his promise to the nurse, and dies in his chariot as he leaves. Only then does Artemis come down to reveal the truth to Theseus.

Although I enjoyed reading this translation of the play, I found that it lacked the compelling psychological drama of Μήδεια or the theatrical insanity of the Βάκχαι. The conflict seemed less real; instead of a conflict about human morals, religious values, or institutions depicted in Euripides' usual complex manner, the story forced a very black-and-white outlook on piety and moral value of truth. I look forward to reading some interesting scholarly criticism on the play.

Reasoning/Appetitive: Cerinthus Reports on the Dipylon Vase

A few days ago I posted a blog about the Dipylon Vase, or rather vases (the amphora and the krater). In the process of doing so I spent a long time looking for a close up of the burial scene. I eventually found one. What I did not realize was that one had arrived in my email a few days previous when Cerinthus posted his Athens pictures. He took this wonderful shot for me when he was standing right next to the Dipylon amphora. I am so incredibly jealous:

Cerinthus' photo: Dipylon Vase (amphora) close-up

Although the lights of the museum obscure two of the figures, the pictures shows the incredible detail of the patterns on the vase and the gestures of the figures. This photo inspires me to ask a few more questions that I could not see to ask in the smaller versions:

1. Who are the figures under the body? Are they the family of the deceased?
2. Are the two that are sitting on the ground (under the body) wearing skirts, and if they are, what does this this say about the gender of the mourners who are standing around the body. Should this indicate something about the gender composition of burials or this particular burial?
3. Why is one of the figures under the vase not in a typical mourning position? Who is he and what is his roll in this prothesis?

If anyone has an answer to these questions, whether a tentative answer or a solid one, please post a comment or email me.

Update 10/28/10

Cerinthus mentioned to me that not only are the figures under the table different from the rest of the figures, but the figures immediately on each side of the body are gesturing slightly differently than than those behind them. These two figures are lifting the sides of a canopy. The canopy is a common trope in the Geometric prothesis, according to the U Texas website. The Grove Encyclopedia of Classical Art and Architecture refers to it as "the chequered shroud is lifted to reveal the deceased on the bier" in the article on the Dipylon Master [1]. My assumption, is that the figures closest to the body are the family of the deceased, as they often are on these types of vases. However, if anyone wants to add to this information, or discuss these possibilities for my previous questions, comment or email me.

Endnotes

1. This link will only work for those of you who have access to the Grove Encyclopedia of Classical Art and Architecture or those of you who are accessing the web from a university or library that has this access.

Reasoning: Useful Internet Miscillany

Horatian Meter: I am still continuing on my quest to read Horace. Propertius II has finally succeeded in convincing me that meter is both awesome and useful, which has lead me to scan the poems I am reading. Horace employs a variety of lyric meters that he borrowed from Alcaeus and Sappho. Since I am a fairly new student to the study of meter (although I did some dactyllic hexameter in high school Greek), I do not tend to have a sense of what lyric meters go with which poem. However, I found a great page on Diotima which provides the background for and explanations of Horatian meter.

Digital Papyrology Navigator: A friend recently sent me a blogpost from AWOL: The Ancient World Online, which is a fabulous site that appears to compile vast amounts of classics data for online access. One of it's recent entries talks about the updated version of the Digital Papyrology Navigator, which allows classicists and friends to digitally search for information in papyri and suggest emendations. The blog by the people who run this awesome resource also will probably be pretty cool.

Art Index [1]: After stumbling across a semi-dormant blog called "What do I know...?," I realized that I should create a better system for organizing the art that I discuss on Platonic Psychology. So I created a new page, An Index of (Mostly) Art on Platonic Psychology, which organizes the art I have discussed by the period to which it belongs. The page is still in progress because I have not figured out a comprehensive system, but there is also a list of archaeological sites on the bottom, mostly with pictures from Cerinthus' adventures around Greece.

Endnotes

1. Placing a feature I created after these two fabulous resources is not trying to compare my work with that of greater digital monuments, it was just a convenient place to introduce the topic. No arrogance intended.

Appetitive: Octopus=Awesome (Cerinthus Reports)

This was originally featured on Fragments of Sulpicia III, but I updated it and have reposted it here. Enjoy, once again, this awesome jar.

Sulpicia Asks: Could you send me some awesome photos.

Cerninthus Answers: Look! An octopus!
(Just kidding. Cerinthus actually responded by sending 93 incredible photos from Crete but this one is totally my favorite)

 This is Minoan. Other than that I don't know. I think Cerinthus saw it in a museum on Crete. More information forthcoming.

Update (09/14/10):

This is known as the "Octopus Jar" and is from the late Minoan period. The Stanford Humanities lab website says: 

"At the end of the Middle Minoan era the Kamares style has been relegated to background and a new style stealing from wall paintings of this period was developed. This new style delt mainly with vivid representation of human and animal figures in dark colors on light colored clay. This trend of naturalism is extreamly short lived however. The return to the formulated decorative patterns and stylized plant forms returns and is the basis for future styles."

This jar was made circa 1500 BCE found at the palace at Knossos and now sits in the Herakleion Museam, Crete (Saskatewan University).

Appetitive: Snakes in a Temple (Cerinthus Reports)

This will be the first of a new feature called Cerinthus Reports. Cerinthus has been in Greece for about the last two weeks. He is flying to Rome today. I asked him while he was there to see if he could find out the answer to a number of questions and he has finally found internet access and emailed me the first of those answers.

Sulpicia's Question: Were/are there really snakes in the temple of Asklepios?
I have been wondering about this question for a long time. When I first started taking Greek the summer before my freshman year in high school, I used Athenaze:

Athenaze in general is a somewhat problematic but very silly and enjoyable textbook. In the textbook, Philippos, the son of the protagonist Dikaeopolis, is blinded by a blow to the head in a wrestling competition. Dikaeopolis, with the aid of his brother, takes his son to the temple of Asklepios at Epidaurus to heal. The scene I remember the most from translating the passage was the as Philippos fell asleep, the temple was full of the gentle hissing of snakes.

Cerinthus Reports: there were no snakes under the temple to Asklepios...that apparently was just a myth (according to his sources).
Wikipedia disagrees. I will have to find out who his sources were to determine the best information.

Reasoning: Greek History Review #1

History is the groundwork for classics. Understanding a work in its context is vitally important for understanding the work itself, because all of that work is situated within a culture that may only be gleaned from such study of the archaeological and textual evidence that remains.

I took a really fabulous Greek History class back in my sophomore year. Unfortunately, I did not give the class my full attention. That year was trouble in general and I was not on my game. As a consequence, writing both my qualifying paper and my thesis, had to do a lot of extra research to raise my knowledge on the eras and authors I was studying to a decent level.

For about two years I have been entertaining the idea of reviewing my Greek History intensively. A conversation with Cerinthus provided the impetus to make me start immediately. Before he goes to Italy, the school running his semester abroad provides an optional trip through Greece and Italy, based on a series of sites and texts. Each student does a presentation on one of the sites and texts, and Cerinthus picked to do Rome, which was paired with the latter half of the Aeneid. He and I were discussing the relationship between the Aeneid and Augustus. I realized that from my Roman History class and my reading of Virgil in second year Latin I could provide him with ample information about the period, I could not put a solid date on anything I was talking about. This in turn reminded me that my Greek historical knowledge was in even shabbier condition than that. So I decided to attempt to fill in the gaps in my history background, starting with the Greeks and moving to the Romans.


I took the syllabus from the Greek History class that I took. Although the pride of my wonderful professors teaching was the primary sources, but I'm going to start by reading through the secondary sources in order. I am sure that she would be unhappy with me for this. However, I have to finish up the last of the Plato dialogues I have not yet read (although I read 18 of the dialogues last summer).

This morning, I started reading Oswyn Murray's Early Greece, it being the first on the list. My professor assigned the first two chapters, "Myth, History, and Archaeology" and "Sources" in order to provide a basis for further study. Wish me luck.

Spirited: Translating Sulpicia I

This is the first of the Spirited section. "Spirited" in English is a kind of misleading translation: the word Plato uses is much more like "honor-loving." This part of the soul makes the soldier, but not the strictly-following-orders modern soldier, rather a soldier whose motivation comes from his love of state, but also his desire to win honor for himself in battle. This is the same motivation that drives an athlete.

In this case, the "Spirited" section will be "honor-loving" only in the way that it is all about my thoughts on the classical world. I will post my own translations (starting, I think, with the six poems in Sulpicia's cycle) and my own commentaries hoping that people will discover them, read them, and, if they so desire, comment, respond, or post their own ideas.

I translated the first of Sulpicia I's cycle of six poems. It is my favorite and in my opinion the most interesting. I have played around with some of the typical interpretation, but I think that I am sticking fairly close to the Latin. However, if I did torture some part of the translation I am happy to be corrected or to debate the point.

In this poem, Sulpicia introduces Cerinthus, both as her lover and as the theme which will unite her poetry, although she does not name him.

Sulpicia Elegedia I (1)
[Tibulli Lib. III XIII=IV. VII]

Tandam venit amor, qualem texisse pudori,
quam nudasse alicui sit mihi fama magis.
exorata meis illum Cytherea Camenis
attulit in nostrum deposuitque sinum.
exoluit promissa Venus: mea gaudia narret,
dicetur si quis non habuisse sua.
non ego signatis quicquam mandare tabellis
me legat ut (2) nemo quam meus ante, velim,
sed pecasse iuuat, uultus componere famae
taedet: cum digno digna fuisse ferar.

At last love has come, [love] of the sort which
rumor that it might have been covered up by someone
would have been more shameful to me than if it were exposed.
Having been persuaded by my Muses (3),
the Cytherian (4) brought him and deposited [him] in my lap.
He released Venus from her promise: she may recount my joy
if anyone might be said to to have had her [joy].
I would not wish to commit anything in a sealed tablet
in order that no one might read me before my [love],
but it delights me to offend (5); it is tiresome to compose my visage for the sake of rumor
I should be deemed worthy to have been with a worthy man (6).

Dinner with my family went a little longer than I expected tonight, so I do not have the time to do the extensive commentary that I originally intended. Maybe that will be my next. Hopefully the endnotes will help explain. I wanted to do a translation that was literal, but still poetic (which is why I added words in brackets). Enjoy!

Endnotes:

1. From Minor Authors of the Corpus Tibullianum. e.d. John Yardly. Bryn Mawr, PA: Bryn Mawr Commentaries, 1992. I also made reference to Anne Mahoney's notes on the Perseus entry of Sulpicia as well as to the electronic Allen and Greenough. As a random sidenote, I tried to use my copy of Allen and Greenough, but although I have the wonderful 1903 edition that I bought for $5 at a booksale, it is so imbued with dust that I had an allergy attack trying to use it and switched to the electronic version.
2. I used Yardly version of the text, which for reference is different than the text on the Persus entry of Sulpicia, in that the line 8 reads: "ne legat id nemo quam meum ante, velim." For the textual scholars out there, I am not well schooled in picking one text over another, so I just picked the one I liked better.
3. From Anne Mahoney's notes (and my Latin Love Elegy Class), I gather that these are Italian goddesses or demi-goddesses that were, like the muses, associated with music, and were later blended into the Greek tradition of the Muses.
4. From Anne Mahoney's notes, Venus was referred to as Cytherea because she was born on the island of Cythera in some mythic traditions. In others, she was born out of the foam of the castrated parts of Ouranous falling into the sea.
5. This word means "offend" (as in to offend a person) but also means to "sin." I thought "sin" sounded too religious, when it was really more of the idea of a severe social transgression. The term may be interpreted both as a sexual innuendo and as the return to the idea of the liberation of an incendiary rumor.
6. This last line is kind of a pun. It is difficult to render in English and I may not have translated it properly. "Dignus" which I translated as worthy to try and make the pun work is the term that would be used in Rome to describe a proper Roman gentleman, but also would only be applied to a Roman nobleman. The following ideas appear in this line: A) Sulpicia is a noblewoman, B) Cerinthus is a nobleman, C) Sulpicia is a worthy woman because she made a worthy choice of lovers, however social convention does not see her this way, and prevents her from being a "proper lady" because she kissed and told.