Tag Archives: Homer
On the Sometime Inscrutability of Divine Portents
In Iliad 4.78ff., Athene, at the behest of Zeus, comes down to earth to stir up the Trojans to break their oaths to the Achaians so that the war might be resumed and Troy might eventually be sacked (the outcome … Continue reading
Odyssey 18 and Iros
At the beginning of Odyssey 18, we meet the interesting character of Iros, a public beggar. ‘Iros’ is not his actual name, but it is what people call him: He had the name Arnaios, for thus the lady his mother called … Continue reading
Memory, Pleasure, and Suffering/Aeneas, Odysseus, and Eumaios
It is well known that Aeneas’ speech in Aeneid 1.198–207 draws on a speech of Odysseus in Odyssey 12.208ff. (see, e.g., R.D. Williams ad A.1.198f. Here is Aeneas’ speech (online text here): ‘O socii—neque enim ignari sumus ante malorum—O passi … Continue reading
Tagged Homer, Reception, Vergil
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Bad Guests in the Odyssey
(Lattimore’s translations again.) When we first come upon the estate of Eumaios in Odyssey 14 and receive a description of his property, it is noted that the suitors have been eating the best of the pigs: These werethe breeding females, but … Continue reading
Tagged Homer
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Pigs and Ships in the Odyssey (Updated)
(I use Lattimore’s translation in what follows.) As Odysseus approaches the home of the swineherd Eumaios in Book 14 of the Odyssey, we get a description of the property. One of the things we learn is the following: Inside the … Continue reading
Tagged Homer, Myth
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Lloyd Mifflin
I confess I’d never heard of the Pennsylvanian sonneteer Lloyd Mifflin until recently. He has a goodly number of poems on classical subjects. The following, called ‘The Ship’, is a nice little reflection on the effects that the reading of … Continue reading
Tagged Classical Tradition, Homer, Reception
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Artemis Comparisons in the Odyssey
A female figure is compared to Artemis in both books 4 and 6 of the Odyssey. The first one makes me chuckle. Here it is (Lattimore’s translation): While he was pondering these things in his heart and his spirit,Helen came … Continue reading
Epic vade mecum
The BMCR has gotten around to publishing its review of John Miles Foley’s A Companion to Ancient Epic (2005), and it’s a star-studded behemoth: nearly 700 pages by the likes of Gregory Nagy, Walter Burkert, Michael Putnam, and Craig Kallendorff. … Continue reading
Tagged Homer, Reviews, Vergil
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More on Gladstone
A couple of days ago I mentioned Burkert’s reference to William Ewart Gladstone’s noticing of the connection between the Enuma Elish and Homer in Burkert’s article ‘The Logic of Cosmogony’. His footnote to that passage directs the reader’s attention to … Continue reading
Tagged Homer, Myth, Quotable
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When Politicians Knew Homer
In his article called ‘The Logic of Cosmogony’, Walter Burkert writes, in a passage regarding how ancients attempted to tell the tale about ‘the beginning’ of ‘everything’ (pp. 92–3): The most common response…is: in the beginning there was Water. This is … Continue reading
Tagged Homer, Myth, Quotable
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