Shakespearean Solution

6

Then let not winter's ragged hand deface
In thee thy summer ere thou be distilled:
Make sweet some vial; treasure thou some place
With beauty's treasure ere it be self-killed:
That use is not forbidden usury
Which happies those that pay the willing loan;
That's for thyself to breed another thee,
Or ten times happier be it ten for one:
Ten times thyself were happier than thou art,
If ten of thin ten times refigured thee.
Then what could death do if thou shouldst depart,
Leaving thee living in posterity?
Be not self-willed, for thou art much too fair
To be death's conquest and make worms thine heir.

Sappho, Love vs. war

We talked briefly about Sappho's poem "To Anaktoria" in colloquium, but I don't think we lingered long enough on Kate's point about the comment it may give on the Iliad. That's something to revisit perhaps, in light also of our exploration of the Chorus' viewpoint on the Trojan war in Agamemnon. Does Sappho present the woman's point of view on war? I have a question too about her poem #149, and the sentiment she expresses in the line (more or less) "you helped the house of Atreus, now help me." How are we to read this? A conscious poetic juxtaposition of love and war? Critical? Ironic? None of the above?

Song of Solomon-Narrator

"The Song of Songs, which is Solomon's" (1:1).

How should we interprete Solomon's role in this poem. Is he narrator or is it a tribute to him? The mention of "queens and concubines" approving the female voice would point to a more royal heritage of the characters in the book. I also think it's worth mentioning that Solomon was a king renowned for his wisdom, bolstering the legitimacy of a section of the Bible devoted to pleasures of the heart (be it love for God or a mortal).

Homosexuality in Ancient Greece

In the article "Apostrophe and Women's Erotics in the Poetry of Sappho," Ellen Greene wrote a paragraph about the differences between the roles of female and male homosexual bonds. I think the brief discussion we began of this in class would be greatly aided by the introduction of this text to it.

In her study of the historical and cultural context of homosexuality in ancient Greece, Eva Cantarella (1992) points to a sharp contrast between the social roles of male and female homosexual bonds. The male pederastic model, with its distinct roles of dominance and submission, served as an instrument in the education and political development of young men. Sex between man and boy symbolized the transfusion of political power from the superior older man to his younger beloved (cf. Dover, Foucault 1985). By contrast, although homosexual erotic relations among women may also have had an educational and social role, these relations were not linked to the institutional structures of power as male pederastic relations were. As Cantarella puts it: "But what symbolic and social significance could be attached to the love between women? Sex between women takes place on an equal basis, it does not involve submission, it cannot symbolize the transmission of power (not even the power of generation, the only power held by women)"(83).

In the article, Greene discusses the way Sappho speaks of her beloved, and the way the beloved is often elevated from object to subject. Sometimes the beloved does this through dialog and calls out to Sappho, having a voice and so also a self and the ability to speak. Sometimes also the beloved is the subject of a sentence and so acts, rather than being an object, upon whom or in relation to whom Sappho acts. In fact, in the article, Greene stresses the difference between tradition sexual roles (active v passive) and a kind of sexuality that is specific to sex between two women, where there isn't as defined defined difference between the body which acts and the body which receives.

This doesn't speak at all to the issue of taboo, which we flirted with for a moment in class, but I do think it is an interesting point which we didn't discuss in class.

Song of Solomon--do not stir up love

Just an interesting note/my partial interpretation of the first excerpt that Andrew brought up in class:

When it appears in 3:5, it is preceeded by a passage in which her beloved is not answering her calls and she cannot find him. To me, when she "adjures the daughters of Jerusalem [to] not stir up or awaken love until it is ready" she is scared. She was previously "faint with love" (2:5) but now she is not sure, as he is not there. In Chapter 5, when again she goes searching for her beloved she adjures the daughters once more, but this time she is again "faint with love". It's as if before she was either warning or pleading to not fall in love because she wasn't sure if she was ready, and now she is in love, but is still issuing some type of warning, because his behavior was the same. And then, furthermore, the third time she "adjures" the daughters, she again tells them to not stir up love, possibly recognizing that she now has it, and it was good that she waited until she was ready.

This is a very...not religious...reading of the text, but I thought the contrast of her reactions to 2 similiar situations was worth pointing out.

Song of Solomon -- Interpretations

I'm posting a link to the Wikipedia entry on the Song of Solomon (also called Song of Songs). It contains links to some further sites with interpretations of the book, which was included in Jewish and Christian canons on the grounds of allegorical interpretations, in which the relationship of lovers is interpreted as a figure for God's relations with Israel or Christ's with the believer, respectively.

Sappho's songs -- sound files

I did a search to see if there were sound files of attempts to reproduce what Sappho's poetry might have sounded like. This link leads to one with accompaniment by lyre. (I'm not sure if Aeolian is one of the harmonic forms we have good information on, so this may be a very imaginative reconstruction or one that might really give the feel of it -- I'm not sure.)

Quick question

Just a quick question from the Sappho poems: in a footnote for poem 244 on page 92, the editor mentions that Atreidai is probably Menelaos. However, in poem 149 on page 74, Sappho writes: "The Atreidai accomplished many feats/first at Illium, and then on the sea/on their voyage back." Here Atreidai is plural, so I am skeptical about the possibility that it is Menelaos. Has anyone been able to find any information about Atreidai? Thanks!

Gods Like Mortals

For every household is ruled by its senior member, as by a king, and the offshoots too, because their blood relationship, are ruled in the same way. This kind of rule is mentioned in Homer: 'Each man has power of low over chilren and wives.' He is referring to scattered settlements, which were common in primitive times. For this reason the gods too are said to be governed by a king--namely because men themselves were originally ruled by kings and some are so still. Just as men imagine gods in human shape, so they imagine their way of life to be like that of men.

-from "Formation of the Village" in Politics by Aristotle

Thought that might be of some interest.

Sza

If Not, Check the library

Check out Anne Carson's "If Not, Winter" and her essay "Eros the Bittersweet" for more on Sapho and an alternative translation that takes as much liscence as it gives up in comparison to the Barnstone. For instance, I dont think Sapho actually titled her works as Barnstone has it (No?). Carson also shows how much is missing. Heres an example of a fragment where brackets denote lost or illegible material:

]
]
]
]thought
]barefoot
]
]
]
]

(pg. 12)

Kinda fun as a poetic prompt, huh?

History and Symmetry

The Roots of the Western Tradition cites the focus on history as something that sets the Jews apart. What sets this cosmology apart is the feeling of an eventual destiny-- a destiny of a people or of all of creation in contrast with the destiny of an individual in Greek mythology. Different gods can have different influences on their favored peoples (like the Achaians or the Trojans), but as long as they quarrel, history seems indeterminate. With the Jewish God much of this is eliminated in that he doesn't have to quarrel with other Gods. On the other hand, we do see some fickleness and vulnerability to persuasion with this God that distinguishes him from our perception of him now. For example: he's about to disown (or destroy) his chosen people when they make idols, but Moses calms him down and he reconsiders.
A significant literary device here: symmetry. My version of the study bible points out:
God questions man; man points to woman (3.11-12)
God questions woman; woman points to serpent (3.13)
[Serpent is silent]
God passes judgment on serpent (3.14-15)
God passes judgment on woman (3.16)
God passes judgment on man (3.17-19a)
The study bible also points out a longer symmetry in the entire garden story that I won't write out. What purpose does this symmetry serve? Maybe it makes the flow of the story, and so the flow of history, seem purposeful and directed. And the view of history inherited from Christianity (and perhaps inherited from Judaism, I'm not sure) seems to be symmetrical. There's the fall and then our slow progression through time that leads inevitably towards judgment/paradise/posthistory/reunification with God.

Fear of God

I just had some leftover thoughts after our discussion on Thursday. It seemed to me like we were treating the fear of God like we would treat the fear of spiders or some other phobia. We were saying how God had to "resort" to these underhanded tactics in order to get others to obey. I wasn't very satisfied with this reading. True, God is a little heavy handed at times. Frogs and locusts and flies aren't fun, and this would scare quite a few people. But it isn't for fear of these retributions that the Hebrews choose to worship Him above all others. Moses says "Do not be afraid; for God has come only to test you and to put the fear of him upon you so that you do not sin" (Ex 20:21). For me, the original sin, Eve's eating of the apple, was an example of not fearing God. She obeyed a snake before her Lord. God is not resorting to anything. He had this as rule number one the whole time: Fear me, obey me and you will be blessed above all others.

Harder to explain is the "hardening" of Pharaoh's heart. At times it seems that God is the one doing the hardening. "But I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and I will multiply my signs and wonders in the land of Egypt" (Ex 7:3). At other times it seems that the Pharaoh has a choice and that God has given him a window of opportunity, but he chooses not to listen (Ex 7:22). It does seem that he is showing off. But I wasn't sure for which side.

What about the afterlife?

I know we're supposed to post meaningful and thought-out (long) items on this (or are we?) but I just wanted to ask a question.. Does anybody know when the afterlife is first mentioned in the Bible... I would really like to dig deeper.. merci!

Genesis Leftovers

So I have to say that our first discussion on Genesis was pretty interesting. At first both Tressa and I were worried that the discussion about the first person plural would become this year's equivalent of the footnote discussion. For the most part we hovered around a singular part of the text--and I can't say that was a bad thing. In a way Tuesday's Colloquium was the reverse of Jesse's presentation. Where Jesse's presentation examined and linked several of the Iliad's overarching themes, our presentation unintentionally focused on a much scaler scale. As I've already said, I'm pretty happy with both. What do y'all think?

Here are some other things that I had in mind to discuss that we didn't get to:

Thus far, how have gods interacted with humans? What part do they play in the world? How is this God similar and different? (walking in Eden, sending messengers, Joyce quote: "The artist, like the God of creation, remains within or behind or beyond or above his handiwork, invisible, refined out of existence, indifferent, pairing his fingernails.")

Thus far, what are the dynamics of respect with gods? How does one respect these different gods? How is rebellion treated by each? Are the following linked in any way? The expulsion of Eve and Adam, the scattering of the language of the tower of Babel, Lot's wife being turned into a pillar of salt. (I think they are linked in that in each of these cases a mortal dares to equate oneself with god: respectively, by disregarding his warning and attempting to gain his knowledge, by creating a really big tower, and again by disregarding his warning.)

COL, alright!

Saeid

Feminist Interpretations of Genesis

Following up on a topic from today's Colloquium, I'd like to point those interested in feminist interpretations of the Bible to a few links.

The following chapter draft discusses three generations of feminist interpretations of Genesis 1-3.

http://www.shef.ac.uk/bibs/DJACcurrres/Eve/Eve1Eve.pdf

"First generation" feminist scholarship tends to dwell on the (perhaps obvious) patrarchal elements of the Bible. (Heck, the ancestors of Israel are CALLED "patriarchs"!)

The chapter spends a good deal of time on Phyllis Trible, a "second generation" feminist theologian, meaning one who takes themes from the Biblical texts themselves (such as use of femine language and imagery for God) and uses them to critique patriarchy. Here is a link to an article by Trible.

http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=1281

Were they vegetarians in Eden (and after)?

Follow-up to a suggestion made in class today:

It was suggested that the list of what WAS appointed for human food the beginning of Genesis also implies what was EXCLUDED, including the flesh of animals.

While it is never explicitly stated that eating of meat was ever forbidden, there IS a passage later in Genesis in which people are explicitly given permission to eat meat, lending some support to the suggestion that it was previously not on the menu. Extra glory for whoever can identify when this was! (Provocative hint: it is also at this juncture that the reported human lifespan decreases markedly!) Perhaps there's a hook here for marketing a vegetarian "Diet of Eden". :-)

(One might think that there is contrary evidence in the fact that Abel was a herdsman. But perhaps they just used the milk and wool...)

Reading Genesis

I admit that it's difficult not to hold a text accountable for the way it's been interpreted down through the millennia. Nevertheless we'll miss what's wierd and interesting about the creation story if we don't try to separate the history of interpretation (and use) of the text from what's on the page. Some of the questions that were raised in today's discussion that are worth revisiting are what is the serpent doing in the garden? What is so dangerous about knowledge of good and evil that man and woman shouldn't have it? There would be no narrative point to the expulsion from Eden if life was the same before and after. What is the image of the ideal life from which human beings were so quickly excluded? Eve thinks the fruit of the forbidden tree will make her wise. She eats it. Is she now wise? What is wisdom in this context? What did Adam and Eve do wrong? Is it right to punish them? Saeid and Tressa thought of several ways that the Lord God differed from the gods of Gilgamesh and the Iliad. It would be interesting to hear more about that.

The Historical Novel

This isn't particularly relevant to what we are reading in the Antiquity: Gods and Mortals colloquium, but I thought it was an interesting and important point that would have been helpful when we were discussing The Sun Also Rises and "The Wasteland" last semester.

I just read an article for another COL seminar with a section titled "Novel and Biography." While the article discusses the 19th century, and not the 20th century explicitly, it charts the emergence of the biographical and autobiographical novel. The passage comes from a book Galdós and the Art of the European Novel: 1867 - 1887 by Stephen Gilman. I will relate the most interesting passages here.

He begins this section with the question "Why was the nineteenth century so anxious to cater at first to historical novelists and later to novelist historians?"

The remarkable interaction of history and fiction, which was achieved in France by Balzac and Zola and in Spain by Galdós and Leopoldo Alas, was not made possible because Goethe showed the way but because something had happened to history that transformed it from the record of growth of a nation or the ascent of mankind as a whole toward the light for which it was esteemed, when it was esteemed, in the eighteenth century) into a form of personal experience. Looked at in this way but not yet in terms of the individual lives that experienced it), the answer is quite simple: history had suddenly changed its tempo. It had suddenly accelerated, and, as a result, a Balzac or Galdós, along with his characters and readers, was able to identify with the crises of the 1820s, the 1840s, or the 1860s, because in their century historical time seemed to be moving forward at roughly the same pace as biological time.
...
It is probably more enlightening to conceive of the mutation of sensibility generationally than collectively. Using the concept of the generation in the way those developing minds were beginning to use it themselves, i.e. as a shared awareness emerging from a common experience of major historical events, and ... seeking to communicate among themselves and eventually discovering together who and when they were.
...
There was the intuition of a new kind of time: historical time. Musset is even more expressive on this dimension: "Three elements segmented the life which offered itself to these young people: behind them a past forever destroyed; before them the dawn of an immense horizon, the first glimmerings of the future; and between these two worlds" a wasteland where past and future are intertwined and where "at every step one does not know whether he is treading on a seed or on a shard." (Musset, The Confession of a Child of the Century, p. 14)

I thought this might be a good thing to share because I remember more than a few people telling me that they didn't enjoy The Sun Also Rises and didn't understand why we spent so much time discussing it. I think it is a great example of what Gilman explains as a shift in the perception of history and how it could be recorded and transmitted in the personal histories of individuals as artifacts of and metaphors for the epoch at large.

I remember at the beginning of our current colloquium, we banished the word "novel," because it fails to describe any work we might discuss this semester. I suppose the birth of the novel happened not too long ago (especially when we remember that the written story of Gilgamesh is around 4000 years old), and the new novel as a fictional biography or autobiography, is an even more recent and interesting development.

Jesse's Experiment

All in all I'm very satisfied with Jesse's approach--for two reasons particularly. First, I appreciate the organization, and I think it does a good job of grounding the conversation. One of my main complaints about the Colloquium is that it can be an overwhelmingly expansive, an inundation of voices and ideas and attitudes and philosophies and literatures and histories. It's a great comfort to be able to see clearly--like actually see--topics written on the board. The visual element is pretty comforting. Second, having topics on the board is also helpful for my other main difficulty with the class: writing papers for the Colloquium. Granted that the discussions can be chaotic to begin with, and that my mind is no haven of clarity, I've often felt stranded with papers. Now, with some basic topics to work from, I already feel more comfortable. If I don't come up with any gripping ideas on my own, I can elaborate on one of Jesse's six points. Anyways, Tressa and I will be presenting Tuesday, and we'll see what happens.

Saeid

P.S. It was Tennyson, Andrew.

P.P.S. T.S. Eliot behind me!

Are there ANY good men among the Achaeans?

In class 2a (i.e., first class of week 2), I made the provocative suggestion that there are NO good (i.e., morally good) people among the Achaeans. No one, for example, that you would want your kids to hang around and adopt as a role model.

I was hoping to get a bit more argument, but since everyone who spoke up seemed to share the sentiment, let me try to provoke some thought in the opposite direction.

Sure, Agamemnon seems concerned only about expanding his influence, wealth and glory. Menelaus is out for revenge. (Though loss of Helen also arguably imperils his claim to the Lacedaemonian throne, as that throne passed matrilineally, and he was king because he married Helen, who was daughter of the former king.) You might even see Achilleus as either a selfish boy or a murderous psychopath who makes decisions based on voices he hears in his head. (Unfortunately, some of the bits where Achilleus comes off a bit better are not among those we're reading. But you may have a more nuanced view of him after the last book, in the scene with Priam.)

But there are others in the Achaean camp. How about Nestor? Odysseus? If you read Briseus' lamentation over the dead Patroklus, it sound like he was a pretty good guy. And among the Trojans, Priam seems pretty decent.

(I have a harder time finding any gods to like in the Iliad. Do you think they seem to be painted more one-dimensionally than the human protagonists? And if so, what might be the explanation for this?)

Images of death in The Iliad

On an unrelated note from the rest of the posts thus far: in class the other day, we talked briefly about the epithets as Lattimore discusses in the introduction. Lattimore writes that these descriptions were chosen in order to fit the meter of a particular line. I am wondering about the repetition of other lines in the text, particularly images of death and the process of dying. In Book Sixteen alone, the phrase "darkness drifted over his eyes" and other images of death as a covering of the eyes appear frequently. Are there just not that many ways of conveying the image of a man dying? Or is each description of death (and the repetitions thereof) also related to the meter of each line from the original text?

Iliad Considerations II

I think Chris's point about our expectation that gods support particular peoples (aka nations) is very helpful. With Homer's Iliad we have to step back in time to a historical epoch (1100-800 BCE) that long precedes the Greek polis (the city state which is the setting for the emergence of philosophy) and very long precedes the Greek nation (19th century?) Imaginatively the Iliad's world is a world of kings and their followers. So it's a good question to ask: what are the values of these little tribal chieftains, their fighting men and their poets? This is what the Iliad can help to reveal to us. Chris asks us to wonder why they are willing to fight, if they can't be assured of divine aid? It's a great question to use to excavate what is going in this epic. My own (uncensored) opinion is that the best way to sort out the nature of these gods is to look at the details of their personal relationships both with mortals and with each other, but I am bit of a softy when it comes to polytheism.
Laurie

Maybe Utnapishtim DID give Gilgamesh the means to immortality

Prof. Nussdorfer’s first question in our discussion of Gilgamesh had to do with why the story has had such incredible longevity. One possible factor that we did not address fully in class is that, in the end (or rather in the beginning, again as Prof. Nussdorfer pointed out), Gilgamesh is remembered as a good king. “[He] brought back the ancient, forgotten rights, / restoring the temples that the Flood had destroyed, / renewing the statues and sacraments / for the welfare of the people and the sacred land… What other king / has inspired such awe?” (p. 72)

Gilgamesh manages to evade death in the only way available to mortals, through memory and the retelling of his story. Interestingly, it is Utnapishtim who teaches Gilgamesh the “ancient, forgotten rights” whose restoration in Uruk will contribute greatly to Gilgamesh’s lasting fame. In this way, Utnapishtim actually does assist Gilgamesh in his quest for immortality, not by providing a quick and easy answer like the plant from the bottom of the sea, but by helping him to create a name for himself that people will remember and cherish for many years to come.

I’d be interested to hear if anyone else thinks this is a legitimate reading, so please comment.

Iliad Considerations

I was just thinking about the nature of the gods and the nature of war. I'm not sure what it tells us about the Greeks (it may be nothing at all), but I found it very odd that some of the gods, Zeus foremost among them, take an agressive and active stance against the Greeks while they are fighting the Trojans. This is such a break from what we are used to. What is the first reassurance that nearly every side in every war has taken? It is asserting that "God is on our side." I just thought it strange that Greek gods, who the Greeks presumably created, can go against their own people. Even in stories like Sodom and Gomorrah and Noah's Flood, God is always on the side of righteousness. I guess I'm just not sure what the ideals are that the Greeks are striving for. They're the society that created ethics, so what are the characteristics of a "good" man? Heroism? Physical beauty? Having the most attractive "prize?" Big question. I know.

Narrative frame in Gilgamesh

This is my first attempt to post something to a blog (what is the right verb?) so I'll be curious to see what happens. One thing we didn't get to discuss about Gilgamesh was the very interesting frame the narrative has with its opening prologue, then the beginning of Book 1, which turns out to be what happens after the story we are about to read ends, and then the abrupt switch to an earlier moment when Gilgamesh was abusing his power. 11 books later, at the end, he says, look, what have I accomplished with all this effort? How does this narrative frame affect us as readers?

Welcome to the blog!

Welcome to the weblog for our COL class. This is where we will continue our conversations from class and start new ones.

How should we use this blog? While we know discussion of requirements and expectations could itself fill a blog, actually using this blog is very easy.

• You will receive an email inviting you to be an author of the blog. When you register, use your first name and your last initial. This will keep us from getting confused by nicknames.
  
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Be sure to check your email for your invitation to this blog. The sooner we all start blogging, the sooner our discussion and understanding of the texts can expand!

We're looking forward to a great year.