Under the Spell of Latin

According to the New York Times, interest in the study of Latin among Middle and High School students is on the rise all across the U.S. The reason? It seems that the use of Latin in the spells of Harry Potter books has planted a seed of interest!

See the entire article here.

Knowing Latin might also help you if you're ever caught in the following situation:

Ken Schenck is the New Cat in the Hat

Ken Schenck, professor of New Testament and Philosophy at Indiana Wesleyan University and a scholar also fascinated with the Epistle to the Hebrews, posted this video on YouTube and on his own blog, Quadrilateral Thoughts, and I thought I would help disseminate it.

Indiana Wesleyan is a much more conservative counterpart to my alma mater, Illinois Wesleyan, which definitely leans left (and that's an understatement). As he notes on his site, he liked McCain a lot in the past (and perhaps still), but he does not like McCain's more recent choices and actions and does not think he will make a good President, something the following video makes very clear. He also notes that his position is not necessarily representative of his institution.





Theater, in many ways, captures issues better than dry analysis. I'm not sure if this is comedy or tragedy, however. Perhaps ultimately comedy and tragedy collapse into one another. (I'm thinking about this because I am about to teach the ancient Greek tragic poets.) Ken, you have far more time on your hands than I do, it seems!

Politics in the Pulpit

Churches and religious organizations from all points of view often endorse one candidate or party over another. My earlier post on Catholics and Dems versus Reps makes illustrates this point within a particular tradition.

But what does this say about the variegated philosophies of what separation between church and state actually means? Are they completely separate spheres, one caring for the soul and the other for the body, as the Lockean perspective suggests? Or, are things more complicated than that? Indeed, the Lockean perspective applies only if one thinks of religion as a completely private thing, but anyone who studies religion realizes this ultimately derives from a particular perspective of Christian Protestant belief, whereas other Protestants, Catholics, Orthodox, Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, Daoists, Taoists, etc., may disagree, saying that their "religion" encompasses an entire way of life, both private and public.

Whether we find evangelical groups supporting McCain (something that is highly ironic, as I have noted so many times--just follow the tags on "McCain" where they match up with "Evangelicals"), or, where I occasionally attend at the Riverside Church, where I have seen both Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton as guest speakers, although technically after the service was completed in a "town hall meeting" that happened directly after the benediction.

The interrelationships between church and state have been, are, and probably always will be convoluted, complicated, and labyrithine. But whether or not religious groups violate the wall of separation between church and state when the politick in the pulpit, they do violate the tax code! That's right! Under President Johnson, the tax code was revised to state that for a not-for-profit organization to maintain tax-exempt status, the organization, at least, may not support or oppose a political party or politician. But now many evangelical preachers are blatantly disregarding this to a degree unheard of before--they are actually sending the IRS a copy of their sermons that support John McCain and a copy of the tax code with that line crossed out. They are making a clear call for revision.

See full discussion in NYTimes here.

Catholics: Democrat or Republican?

In the NY Times today there is an article of the internal divisions among Catholics regarding political parties. Which party, Democrat or Republican, best represents the full panoply of teachings of the Catholic Church?

The debate comes down to respect for human life. Conservative Catholics, most prominently Catholic bishops, have focused on the issue of abortion, equating abortion with homicide, saying that "liberals" who say they are for social justice are ironically endorsing homicide.

In Scranton, Pa., every Catholic attending Mass this weekend will hear a
special homily about next month’s election: Bishop Joseph Martino has ordered
every priest in the diocese to read a letter warning that voting for a supporter
of abortion rights amounts to endorsing “homicide.”

This, of course, leaves only Republican candidates eligible for voting according to these conservative bishops. I am largely annoyed by politicking from the pulpit. But all sides actually do it. The other side, however, says this is just one of many teachings in the Catholic Church, and, in fact, when considering the wider teachings overall, the Democratic Party fits the bill. On issues like poverty, social justice, education, health care, immigration, racism, and the war in Iraq, the Catholic Church tends toward the position articulated by the Democratic Party. Does one issue of being pro-choice outweigh all of these others?

Scranton is an interesting place for this to occur. Since it is the childhood home of Joe Biden, himself a Catholic.

Scranton, the focus of disproportionate amount of attention because it was the childhood home of Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr., the Democratic vice-presidential candidate, has become a flashpoint in the battle playing out nationwide in weekly homilies, pastoral letters and diocesan newspapers. Scranton is also one of several heavily Catholic, working-class cities in swing states — like Pittsburgh, Erie, Pa.,
Cleveland, Cincinnati, Detroit and St. Louis — where a new network of liberal groups like Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good and Catholics United are trying to promote the church’s social justice teachings.

Catholics make up about a quarter of the electorate nationwide, and about a third in many of the most heavily contested states in the Northeast and Midwest, an increasingly central focus of both presidential campaigns.

The entire article just demonstrates how Catholicism is not just one thing. That there are many different forms it can take based upon local circumstances and emphases taken by different clergy, laity, and organizations. All of these "Catholicisms" focus on life, but they all see it differently. For the entire article, go here.

Election Drinking Games

I have recently heard that there is actually an election / debate drinking game. I can't remember all of the rules, but I do remember one of the rules was that people had to take a drink every time the word "maverick" was said during a debate. I bet these people were sauced last night!

I just googled it, and evidently this was quite widespread, with many different groups developing drinking games for the Vice Presidential Debate in particular.

See this page from ABC News.

Sarah Palin and Religion

I just watched this clip posted by James McGrath at Exploring Our Matrix, but I thought it raised some really important issues, and, therefore, should be reposted by any readers I may have that he does not (although he attracts far more readers than I do).





I might take issue with the unexamined overuse of the term "fundamentalist," although I was happy for the note that you can find Pentecostals throughout the spectrum of social and political issues--they are not just "fundamentalists" and the religious right. What clip failed to note, however, is that the Assemblies of God, which as a whole is quite conservative (although you will find more left-leaning folk at least among the laity here and there) is (or at least it used to be) the largest Pentecostal denomination in the world. It is a somewhat decentralized denomination (technically it is called a "cooperative fellowship"), but its decentralization creates a degree of flexibility that, in fact, works to its benefit, allowing for its continued expansion. A flexibility that allows it to use more modern methods and innovative ways to mobilize, such as the youth-oriented Masters Commission mentioned in the video. In sum, this is an effective system of dissemination of theology, ideology, interpretation, etc., including the issues of the "end times" that forms the focus of the clip.

But the "self-fulfilling prophecy" remark particularly caught my attention, looking at how particular, prominently 19th and 20th century, interpretations of Revelation could shape people's perspectives in terms of foreign policy, transforming very complex issues into apocalyptic binary terms of "good" and "evil" that create more misunderstandings of the dynamics of events, transforming the variegated groups in the Middle East into a monolithic "other." If such a perspective dominantly shapes U.S. foreign policy, then these "other" groups can never get a fair hearing...and if someone is not being heard, then they will find a way...feeding back into the self-fulfilling prophecy.

On a lighter note, for those of you who have seen Thomas Trask in the past, has he gained some weight in this clip? And, to be a televangelist these days, do you have to have a double-chin? Perhaps I need more Ben & Jerry's to get that job.

Strategic Misuse of Language?

One of the things I have been teaching my students this semester is to pay very close attention to the details of the text, how the details of a text can question, invert, and toy with broader themes. I especially force them to pay attention to repetitions and what is added and taken out, for example when Achilleus tells his mother Thetis about his interactions with Agamemnon? It appears highly repetitive, but when you look closely, he alters certain words to give different nuances, and he adds a little and omits a lot. We did the same with Persephone's personal account of her abduction by Hades and the narrative point of view of the same event. Both cases are children recounting events to their mothers, and manipulating their speech for different ends. In some ways, they may be playing a part, a role, in order to tell the other person what they want to hear or in order to get what one wants. Both Achilleus and Persephone did this.

What's this have to do with politics? (I have already pointed out to some students to pay close attention to representation, omissions, etc., in the debates, both by the candidates themselves and also by the commentators). How not only the candidates will engage in forms of rhetoric, but how the talking heads will omit, add, or shift to differently nuanced words when paraphrasing or even "quoting" the candidates.

Many people are speaking about Sarah Palin's use of "folksy" language. Let's just call it casual colloquial language for the moment. Some express bafflement. Others anger. Many talking heads think she is deliberately trying to connect with the "Joe Sixpack" voter (one of Palin's phrases last night) by being self-consciously improper in her speech patterns, the assumption being that speaking in a professional manner would be condescending, something that Democrats feared Biden would be, but, alas, was not.

What does this mean, though? What assumptions would be involved in such a strategic misuse of language? Is not such misuse of language itself condescending? Does it not send the message that the Republican Party ASSUMES that the average voter is uninformed or misinformed about the issues and therefore will connect with a candidate who is just as uninformed? Are we the only country in the world that wants non-professional leaders? Indeed, one of the biggest criticisms of Obama is that he is TOO professional, TOO much the professor. Oh, for shame! To have a professional sounding President who has facility with the English language...I mean, we haven't had one in a while.

This gets me to a previous post last night on "nuclear" versus "nucular." The mispronouncment of this word drives me crazy. We all know that George W. Bush mispronounces this word. And I commented last night that Palin consistently mispronounced it. BUT THEN I remembered something. Does everyone remember her acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention? I was watching that with someone, and I can distinctly recall that I said out loud, "At least she doesn't say 'nucular.'" I recall it because it was the only positive thing I could think to say. WHAT HAPPENED between then and now? While her use of colloquialisms has been rather consistent, there is something strange about this. This is rhetoric. In the words of Ecclesiastes, this too is vanity. This, too, is a form of condescension.

But is it a condescending rhetoric that works? It does have a certain track record, does it not? Think of the famously misinformed Dan Quayle. Or perhaps think of our current President. This seems like a general Republican strategy in the past 20 years. As far as polls indicate, which I don't necessarily trust, many people find that they connect with her, that they like her, BUT that she does not seem ready. They may not connect as well with Biden, but they feel like he is more skilled at dealing with the current crises of the economy, foreign policy, and the war in Afghanistan and Iraq. And that he understands the complexities of these issues more thoroughly.

We must be careful, therefore, with our language. We must realize how we create worlds with it. How we can build up and destroy with language. And how we can create a net with it and entrap people. We must be on guard against language, what language is revealing, and, much more importantly, what it is hiding. Once you get past the rhetorical positioning created by the strategic use of colloquialism and misuse of language, then we can assess what that language is designed to do (positively) and what it is meant to distract us from (negatively).

A Lesson in Pronunciation

I am watching the Vice Presidential Debate right now.

Just so Sarah Palin (and, by the way, George W. Bush) knows, you do not pronounce the word "nuclear" as "nucular."

First say "nu." Then "cle." And finally "ar." "Nuclear."

I just heard Joe Biden say it correctly. Do it the way he does.

Christ the Magician Coffee Mug

Ok...so I doubt it was used for coffee, but that is how I use cups that look like this. So, some people appear to be interested in this new find off the coast of Alexandria in an area that had fallen into the Mediterranean Sea. Underwater archaeological search has found many interesting finds in the area of Alexandria that has slid into the sea. This find is a fairly well-preserved cup that dates sometime between the second century BCE and the first century CE.

April Deconick has recently posted on it at Forbidden Gospels here. She has further links to others' posts there.

The cup says "diachrestou ogoistais." The "e" in the "diachrestou" is an "eta." One issue is how to divide the words. The first side is pretty easy: "dia chrestou." The second side is not so sure. But I tend to think it is "o goistais." Other word divisions are definitely possible, but I am not sure at the moment what they would be. The reason, now, this little cup is getting so much attention is that it has been interpreted as "by Christ the Magician." This reminds me of Morton Smith's theory argued in his book, Jesus the Magician (guess what his theory was). It would be the first mention of Jesus outside of the New Testament...and given the dating, to the first century!

But the dating is the first problem. The first century is the latest possible date. It could very easily be earlier, which would put quite a damper onthe whole "Christ" theory.

What does the inscription itself mean? Let's deal with the second side first. IF this word is divided as "o goistais," then "magician" is not far off, although it is probably not the best translation. The root word probably comes from goaw: "to enchant." The usual form of the noun form is "goes." Another form of this is "goates" and another is "goetes" (all the "e's" here are eta's). Since eta and iota, especially in diphthong form with the omicron would sound nearly indistinguishable, I have little problem with the spelling issues here. The combination of the sigma and the tau combines these many different forms together (particularly the first and the last).

It does not have to be "enchanter" however. The same verb goaw also means to wail, to weep, to lament. So, the person could be a mourner. The "enchanter" form actually seems to come from "to wail / howl out enchantments" (Liddell and Scott). So, it may mean "mourner" as much as "enchanter."

What about "dia chrestous"? As April has noted, this is probably overblown. While the eta / iota switch is possible, since this is so common in this period, Chrestos / Chrestus was a fairly common name in this period, especially among slaves since it means "useful one." So, perhaps this means, "through Chrestos the useful one, the enchanter / mourner."

Even so, do the two sides necessarily refer to the same entity? Probably, but nonetheless the useful one named Chrestos may not be the same person as the enchanter or mourner. So, perhaps you get to the enchanter through Chrestos, the useful one.

Of course, all of this is highly speculative and tentative. And, in fact, I doubt we can conclude much of anything from this little cup, which appears to have some connection to either "magical" or perhaps mourning rituals (or, perhaps mourning rites that include magical elements).

Although, who knows? Perhaps I would be amazed at what scholars two thousand years from now try to conclude from my fairly strange coffee mugs that I keep around should any of them miraculously survive. They may think my "Jesus Saves" coffee mug, which has a picture of Jesus cutting out coupons, was part of an important religious ritual. And they would be right...for what is more sacred than morning coffee? Other than brunch of course?

UPDATE: First of all, I have no idea why my paragraph breaks are not showing. Secondly, Jim Davila has a nice roundup of recent discussions of this "magic bowl" at paleojudaica, including a reference back to this very post. I must be moving up in the world... And despite my guesses above, I agree with Jim and others that no one really is sure about the meaning of "ogoistais." We are all guessing at this point.

Quote of the Day: Odyssey 15.69-71

Here is a little morsel that we discussed in my class, Literature Humanities:

I would disapprove of another
hospitable man who was excessive in friendship,
as of one excessive in hate. In all things balance is better.
(Odyssey 15.69-71; Trans. Lattimore)

This statement is made by Menelaos to Telemachos. My students know why I think this statement concerning hospitality or guest-friendship or xenia is significant. Xenia, or guest-friendship, was an extraordinarily important custom and ancient Greece and in the ancient Mediterranean and ancient Near East as a whole. It would have been especially important for itinerant bards who would rely very heavily on the institution. It follows certain procedures. Usually, when a stranger comes, the host will give them food and drink, perhaps a bath, perhaps a bed to sleep on, and then and only then will they ask who they are, where they come from, etc. In the end, if they are social equals, or both people of high rank, they will exchange gifts. This quote demonstrates the balance that the entire story of the Odyssey seeks to strike between the Phaeacians (Phaiakians) who are so excessive in friendship that they take it to absurdity. Firstly, at each point they are a bit excessive. But when it comes to the "gift," the king of Phaiakia offers his own daughter to a stranger he does not even know--at this point it is good to note that they are out of order: they have not learned who the stranger (happens to be Odysseus) is and are offering their daughter in marriage as a present. This pushes the limits of guest-friendship to absurdity.

On the other end is usually placed the Cyclops, Polyphemos. He is isolated and untrusting. While Odysseus breaches things a bit by going into the cave and beginning to eat Polyphemos' food uninvited, the Cyclops clearly has no respect for the institution of guest-friendship nor its patron, Zeus. He asks who they are before offering anything (although Odysseus and his men helped themselves). For the "meal" here, though, the Cyclops begins to eat Odysseus' men. His "gift" to Odysseus is that he will eat him last. This parody on guest-friendship demonstrates the opposite of the Phaeacians. But both positions are excessive. The Phaiakians are exceedingly trusting and hospitable, the Cyclops is exceedingly distrustful (he is afraid Odyssues is a pirate, and, well, he is not far off since Odysseus had just sacked a city) and inhospitable. Both groups, however, are somewhat naive, or, at least have a certain innocence about them. They both contrast Odysseus in their lack of cunning and guile. Whereas Odysseus is always cunning, resourceful, the "man of many ways (polutropos)."

The key to all of this, however, is that Odysseus is telling the Phaiakians the story about the Cyclops. He seems to relish in telling them, the most naive people imaginable, just how cunning and deceptive he is, and, yet, in the end, they refuse to believe that he is so deceptive (11.362-9). This puts things in a pickle, however. Since Odysseus is telling a story about how deceptive he is, if the king of the Phaiakians (Alcinous / Alkinoos) is right in saying that he cannot be so deceptive, Odysseus has been telling a deceptive story about being so devious. Or, if Odysseus' story is true, then his deceits throughout are true. Either way, he has been deceitful.

Do we believe anything that Odysseus says?

Quote of the Day: Eco on "Intertextual Irony"

I'm still reading, when I can, some essays by Umberto Eco, and here's a passage that caught my eye in his essay, "Intertextual Irony and Levels of Reading" in his collection, On Literature.

Intertextual irony provides an intertextual second sense for readers who have been secularized and who no longer have any spiritual senses to look for in the text. The biblical and poetic second senses stemming from the theory of the four meanings allowed the text to flower vertically, each sense allowing us to approach ever closer to some Afterlife. The intertextual second sense is horizontal, labyrinthine, convoluted, and infinite, running from text to text--with no other promise than the continual murmuring of intertextuality. Intertextual irony presupposes an absolute
immanentism. It provides revelations to theose who have lost the sense of
transcendence.

The four meanings, by the way, refers to the medieval strategies of reading the bible: literal, moral, allegorical, and anagogical levels of reading. Perhaps part of the irony is that the spiritual / transcendent / vertical senses of reading, at least traditionally, are limited to four levels, while the secular / immanent / horizontal senses are never-ending, infinite.

Humans Always (Wrongly) Blame the Gods: Odyssey 1.32-35

I have been immersed in the Odyssey as of late and probably will be for another week or so. I am teaching it directly after the Epic of Gilgamesh. Fitting, in some ways, since both feature a man who goes on many journeys, is, perhaps, "polutropos" or a man of "many ways" or "many turns." Yet, there is something else that has struck me in this reading of the Odyssey: the way the gods are depicted in contrast to how they are depicted in the Iliad.

Take, for example, Odyssey 1.32-35:

Oh for shame, how the mortals put the blame upon us
gods, for they say evils come from us, but it is they, rather,
who by their own recklessness win sorrow beyond what is given,
as now lately, beyond what is given....

Zeus is the one speaking to the assembled gods on Olympos. He is actually discussing the nostos, or return, of Agamemnon, in which he will be murdered by his wife and her lover and then avenged by his son. Yet, it has an interesting placement in the narrative. It is right at the beginning. Only 30 some lines into the entire epic. Zeus, in fact, complains that humans always blame the gods for what happens to them, but it is actually humans' own fault. This is in striking contrast to the beginning of the Iliad, in which we see a balance. We see the events of the Iliad unfold due to both the wrath of Achilleus and the "will of Zeus." The will of Zeus looms large in the Iliad in a way it does not in the Odyssey. I do think that the poet in the Iliad plays with the concept of Zeus' will, turns it, inspects it, tries to see it from every angle, interrogating it with relentlessness in order to see beyond the will of Zeus, what Zeus cannot do, or, better yet, even if Zeus desires something, what Zeus will not do. I have been playing with the idea of the Odyssey as a counter-Iliad, rewriting many concepts in the Iliad with a different result. I was very happy to attend a talk today by a Classicist who sees the Odyssey as a rewriting or even a parody of the Iliad in many ways. Perhaps extending the critical examination of Zeus' will to the point that Zeus' will plays little to no role in the epic. In the Odyssey, it is human actions, inactions, false actions, deeds and misdeeds that propel the narrative. The gods are present to some extent (far less than the Iliad, in fact), but they are responding to humans. Ironically, in the subsequent narrative, almost immediately, we see Telemachos especially as well as others constantly saying that this or that is happening because of the gods, the will of the gods, or the whim of the gods, yet, right out, we have a statement from Zeus saying this is all hogwash (see 1.234, 244). Blame yourselves for your own actions: you, yourselves, hold ultimate responsibility for your own actions. It is not fate. It is not Zeus' will, nor is it the collective decision of the gods (although that is there at times; see 1.76). In many ways, I think both poems play with the varying degrees of human responsibility and the failure for humans to take responsibility for their own actions. In both poems people blame the gods, whether Zeus' will for the whole event or when Agamemnon blames "Delusion" for his misjudgments rather than taking direct responsibility, but ultimately the Iliad leaves things highly ambiguous, while the Odyssey finally chooses human responsibility in order to play with other, ambiguous, questions of the human realm.

Quote of the Day: Epic of Gilgamesh, Tablet 1, lines 199-203

So, I'm sick of seeing Sarah Palin at the top of my page, so here's something from the earliest epic tradition in world literature...well, the end product of that tradition at least. So, here, from the Standard Babylonian Version of the Epic of Gilgamesh is the quote of the day:

Enkidu had defiled his body so pure,
his legs stood still, though his herd was in motion.
Enkidu was weakened, could not run as before,
but now he had reason, adn wide understanding.
(Epic of Gilgamesh, Tablet 1, lines 199-203; trans. Andrew George)

Enkidu, created directly from clay, a replica of the original human, was a wild, animal-like man. At the same time, he was powerful, the only match in strength for the two-thirds divine Gilgamesh (how he's two-thirds divine, I have no clue...and no specialist's answer has been satisfying to my mind). This replica of the original man is also Gilgamesh's mirror, his alter-ego, a second self. In this scene, the wild animalistic man, who communes peacefully with the animals, and even protects them from hunters and trappers, loses his communion with animals because he discovered sexuality. Shamhat from Uruk, the city ruled by Gilgamesh, has come out and through sexuality has civilized Enkidu. Sex as a civilizing force rather than a naturalizing force is particularly interesting here. But, by doing so, she has weakened Enkidu. He no longer has his animalistic power. Yet at the same time he remains Gilgamesh's equal in the later bout they have in the city. Moreover, this sexual experience, which lasted six days and seven nights by the way, has awakened Enkidu's mind. He now has reason. He has understanding--wow, this sounds familiar (anyone for some Gen. 2-3?). Yet, as line 214 tells us, he has not completely lost his INSTINCT. Understanding, reason, and instinct (as well as a powerful physique) appears to be an unbeatable combination. Yet, unfortunately, Enkidu will die. His death, in a way, foreshadows Gilgamesh's. Or, more accurately, it creates an awareness in Gilgamesh of his own mortality that he never had before. It creates a fear of death in Gilgamesh that forces him to look to the ends of the cosmos to find the one man who had gained immortality Uta-nipishti (sometimes Utnapishtim and other times Atrahasis). He is the Babylonian Noah, the man who survived the Deluge and was granted immortality. But those were unrepeatable conditions. No one else will other achieve immortality. And Uta-nipishti gives Gilgamesh a lesson he needs to hear. It is a lesson about how to be a good king and about how to accept one's mortal limits. One of the lessons of the epic, if not the central lesson, is that all must die, and coming to terms with one's own mortality is the foundation of human wisdom. It allows one to make the best of one's time on this earth, in this short lifespan (in antiquity, a much shorter lifespan). Ecclesiastes has a similar overall message.

Quote of the Day: Homeric Hymn to Demeter

She went to the kings who administer law,
Triptolemos and Diokles, driver of horses, mighty
Eumolpos and Keleos, leader of the people, and revealed
the conduct of her rites and taught her Mysteries to all of them,
holy rites that are not to be transgressed, nor pried into,
nor divulged. For a great awe of the gods stops the voice.
Blessed is the mortal on earth who has seen these rites,
but the uninitiate who has no share in them never
has the same lot once dead in the dreary darkness.
(Hymn to Demeter 473-82; trans. Foley)

I would tell you what this means, but "a great awe of the gods stops the voice."

Bracing for Hanna

As I sit here, looking out the window, drinking my morning coffee (as distinguished from my noon coffee, my afternoon coffee, my evening coffee, and my nightly coffee), I have also been checking the weather. Tropical Storm Hanna appears to be moving well up the Atlantic Coast and, at this moment, is ripping through Pennsylvania and has an arm swinging at the western side of New Jersey. And what I'm wondering is if I have enough time to get to brunch and back before the heavy rain hits.

I am also very glad that I don't drive...since the flash flooding is going to be very dangerous this weekend.

Quote of the Day: Umberto Eco's "On Style"

Ok...I love Umberto Eco. He has fantastic verve in his verbage. He can present some extraordinarily complex ideas in beautiful language that is, at the same time, succinct. He has this to say about some rather loquacious critics:

...those who are so orgasmic in words are in fact very unlibertine in reality, and abhor alterity, since in every one of their critical embraces they are simply making love to themselves. ("On Style" in On Literature, 173).

I'll remember that one, Umberto, when reviews of my work start rolling in! ;)

Quote of the Day: Iliad 3.172-80

One thing that I thought about bringing up with my students, but ended up not looking at due to time constraints, is the famous "teichoskopia" or "view from the wall" scene in Iliad 3. There is a particular section here to which I keep returning in lines 172-80:

Always to me, beloved father, you are feared and respected;
and I wish bitter death had been what I wanted, when I came hither
following your son, forsaking my chamber, my kinsmen,
my grown child, and the loveliness of girls my own age.
It did not happen that way: and now I am worn with weeping.
This now I will tell you in answer to the question you asked me.
That man is Atreus' son Agamemnon, widely powerful,
at the same time a good king and a strong spearfighter,
once my kinsman, slut that I am. Did this ever happen?

The primary actors in this scene are Priam and Helen. Priam picks more outstanding figures from the Achaians and asks Helen who they are. Firstly, the Lord of Men, the Shepherd, the great king, Agamemnon. He also points out the "ram" Odysseus and Aias (Ajax), the human wall. It is a strange scene. It feels out of place in the year 9 or 10 of the war. It seems like it should have happened in the first year!

Many people will fix upon the phrase "slut that I am," a self-disparaging remark. Her wish that she had died (or wish that she had wished for death) reminds me also of how Helen, later in the same book, wishes (and then takes it back) that Menelaos had killed Paris / Alexandros in their one-on-one combat (and that Aphrodite had not interfered) (see lines 428-36). Or, in Book 7, when the Trojan envoy to the Achaians, Idaios, says that he wished that Paris had perished before he committed his breach of proper guest-host relations with Menelaos. Throughout book 3, Helen seems to show regret for her past actions, but also that she cannot change them. She longs for her lost, previous life (lines 139-40). But that was long ago. Nonetheless, Helen's self-effacement, sorrow, and weeping is not what stops me in my tracks. What stops me are the haunting words, "Did this ever happen?" The past is a phantom memory. It has been so long ago, so much suffering has happened since then that a previous life is almost unfathomable. Memory, it is a tricky thing. So is time. There is a certain unreality about the past. It slips away from us. It is as difficult to grasp as the mist that pervades the imagery throughout the Iliad. "Did this ever happen?" I don't know.

Quotes of the Day : Iliad 20

As I continually reread and think through the Iliad as I teach it, I find myself continually stopped by a phrase, a word, or a paragraph here and there. Here are a few phrases that stopped me in my reading of the Iliad, Book 20, when Achilles (Achilleus) and Aineias are fighting (or giving speeches before they fight).

First is Achilles to Aineias, telling him to step back for fighting Achilles in his godlike rage is not a clear-sighted moment for Aineias:

"Once a thing has been done, the fool sees it." (20.198; trans. Lattimore)

Achilles, who does seem to have a good grasp of future events (he knows his own death, for example), claims that even a fool can see in retrospect. The wise can see at least the immediate consequences of their actions.

Then, Aineias, in response to all of the verbal exchange going back and forth before they begin to fight says something interesting:

"The tongue of man is a twisty thing, there are plenty of words there
of every kind, the range of words is wide, and their variance." (20.248-9)

Is this a way of telling the reader that throughout the poet has been playing with words, toying with us, twisting the story? Is the poet as manipulative as Zeus (and Agamemnon, for that matter) in Book 2?