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#ancient greek literature
mournfulroses · 5 months
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Sophocles, from "Electra: A Tragedy," translated by Anne Carson
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bones-ivy-breath · 6 months
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Preface, Tragedy: A Curious Art Form by Anne Carson, from Grief Lessons
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wine-darktea · 8 months
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Sappho; Fragment 147
Translation by Anne Carson (If not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho)
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argetcross · 2 months
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The Homeric Question feat. Prince Zagreus
For further reading, please check out Martin West's "The Homeric Question Today".
Additional caveats and comic text after the cut:
Additional Caveats:
Writing in Greece existed during the Bronze Age in the form of Linear B (and other systems such as Linear A on Minoan Crete), but after the subsequent collapse of Bronze Age civilization, the system disappeared from Greece.
The first mention of Homer as the author of both poems comes from comes from 520 BCE, a century or more after the poems were created. Prior to this, there was much debate even in ancient times as to the poems' origins, some citing different authors, others saying the creators were anonymous.
Comic Text:
Title: Greek History 101 with Prince Zagreus
Subtitle: The Homeric Question
Written and drawn by Argetcross. Colors by Spleen.
[Panel 1]
NARRATION: Although he might not look it, the Prince is quite the avid reader.
NARRATION: Stuck in the Underworld, it's the only way he learns about the heroes of old. He particularly likes the Iliad and the Odyssey.
TEXT AROUND ACHILLES: The mistakes of my youth.... Embarrassing (<- A Hero of Old)
[Panel 2]
ZAGREUS: To create such a work, Homer must be a poet to rival Orpheus!
[Panel 3]
HERMES: Actually did you know Homer might have never existed?
ZAGREUS: Huh?
[Panel 4]
NARRATION (HERMES): Before the Phoenician alphabet came to Greece (~8th century BC), all the tales were sung by oral poets! They were the ones passing the story down.
NARRATION (HERMES): When the Iliad and Odyssey were written down, those writers certainly used the work of the poets before them. Scholars even believe the two epics were written at different times by different people!
HERMES: So you see, it really was the work of generations that made these poems. (Also there is no record of a man named Homer.)
[Panel 5]
ZAGREUS: You're a sly guy, putting your name on so many people's work...
(IN-GAME) NARRATOR: Stop looking at me like that!
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xjackxv · 6 months
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𝔩𝔦𝔤𝔥𝔱 𝔞𝔠𝔞𝔡𝔢𝔪𝔦𝔞 🕯️
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gwydpolls · 2 months
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Time Travel Question : Assorted Performances I
These Questions are the result of suggestions from the previous iteration.
This category may include suggestions made too late to fall into the correct grouping.
Please add new suggestions below if you have them for future consideration.
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desos-records · 4 months
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my favorite dumb thing that I know is that the term dog-face in the Iliad/Odyssey doesn't mean bitch. what it actually means is closer to slut
[dog-face is not an inherently sexual term, but it can be, Helen uses it that way. it just means someone who lets their base appetites control them, e.g. hunger, greed, lust, etc]
which means, in the opening pages of the Iliad, by the prompting of the goddess Athena, Achilles calls his commanding officer a slut not only to his face but in front of Everyone Else in the council of kings
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runocte · 4 months
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I was reading discourse on achilles yesterday and I'm still thinking about some people calling him a r*pist and others saying that other books they've read that are from a woman's perspective completely shifted the perception they have of TSOA's Achilles. And to me that makes little to no sense.
Here's what I come from: Achilles is a character from the Illiad, and the poem itself is pretty much fanfiction. I mean, the person and warrior that Achilles is based on probably existed, and it might have been called Achilles even, but i think we all agree that the rest is dubious.
Since the illiad is like the OG story, people tend to look at it as if it's canon and we'll go with that logic. You have the canon work and poets go off on their own versions of these characters writing tragedies, more epics, thesis, all sorts of stuff, and it goes on for centuries until we reach The song of Achilles and Percy Jackson and all the other 100s retellings coming out which are fanfiction of fanfiction.
And you're letting one fanfiction distort another fanfiction? It's bonkers to me because as someone who has to read the classics and grew up on fanfiction, I don't see that happening elsewhere. Between academics, if we're discussing a myth, we mention the different versions, and we can choose one to go on from, sure. But even so, I never saw someone sound so affected by different perspectives on the same character in class.
And if we're talking on the world of street fanfiction, I most definitely don't find people going "Oh this fanfiction of hermione betraying the order and marrying voldmort changed my perspective of Harry Potter's hermione" you know? -- if that sounds like a stupid example, it's because it is. It's just to show that my whole point is that it's insane to me to let a book ruin another book when the authors are creating different versions of the same characters, which basically turns them into different characters with the same names. Especially since you know, it's all made up. And this isn't real criticism to the people forming their opinions or the authors, respect to all of them.
But it’s a little maddening watching people roll into arguments to discuss what piece of fiction is more real and relevant when they're all in the same level of glorified AO3 works.
I hope this makes sense to someone else
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clairepatroclus · 4 months
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fan art of Achilles and Patroclus
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gemsofgreece · 1 month
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“People nowadays prefer modern music”
- Telemachus, ~1200 BC
(Actual verse in the Odyssey*)
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goldenpoison · 2 years
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r.i.p. odysseus you would’ve loved google maps
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mournfulroses · 5 months
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Sophocles, from "Electra: A Greek Tragedy," translated by Anne Carson
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bones-ivy-breath · 1 year
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Agamemnon by Aiskhylos (tr. Anne Carson)
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wine-darktea · 6 months
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The Iliad and some coffee to keep me awake till the last verse.
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liesmyth · 3 months
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...But the Odyssey is just as much the story of Telemachus, the son of Odysseus and Penelope. It is the story of his growing up and how over the course of the poem he matures from boy to man. That process starts in the first book of the poem when Penelope comes down from her private quarters into the great hall of the palace, to find a bard performing to throngs of her suitors; he is singing about the difficulties the Greek heroes are having in reaching home. She isn’t amused, and in front of everyone she asks him to choose another, happier number. At which point young Telemachus intervenes: ‘Mother,’ he says, ‘go back up into your quarters, and take up your own work, the loom and the distaff … speech will be the business of men, all men, and of me most of all; for mine is the power in this household.’ And off she goes, back upstairs. There is something faintly ridiculous about this wet-behind-the-ears lad shutting up the savvy, middle-aged Penelope. But it is a nice demonstration that right where written evidence for Western culture starts, women’s voices are not being heard in the public sphere. More than that, as Homer has it, an integral part of growing up, as a man, is learning to take control of public utterance and to silence the female of the species. The actual words Telemachus uses are significant too. When he says ‘speech’ is ‘men’s business’, the word is muthos – not in the sense that it has come down to us of ‘myth’. In Homeric Greek it signals authoritative public speech, not the kind of chatting, prattling or gossip that anyone – women included, or especially women – could do.
Mary Beard, Women and Power: A Manifesto
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xjackxv · 6 months
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𝔐𝔶 𝔣𝔞𝔳𝔬𝔯𝔦𝔱𝔢 𝔣𝔢𝔢𝔩𝔦𝔫𝔤 𝔦𝔰 𝔴𝔞𝔩𝔨𝔦𝔫𝔤 𝔬𝔲𝔱 𝔬𝔣 𝔞𝔫 𝔢𝔵𝔠𝔢𝔩𝔩𝔢𝔫𝔱 𝔈𝔫𝔤𝔩𝔦𝔰𝔥 𝔠𝔩𝔞𝔰𝔰 🪐
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