Greek Epic

This chapter is concerned with writing, language, and traditional poetry, that is, the non-archaeological evidence pertaining to the Early Iron Age in Greece and the eastern Mediterranean. Nevertheless, it seems appropriate to begin with an object, the so-called Opheltas obelos (Figure 7.4), a late eleventh-or early tenth-century BCE bronze spit inscribed with the Arcado-Cypriot genitive form of the proper name Opheltas (o-pe-leta-u), which was discovered in a chamber tomb (Kouklia-Skales Tomb 49) at Palaeopaphos, Cyprus, in 1979. I see this object as emblematic of the concerns of the present chapter and not only because it is the only early Iron Age document at our disposal whose language is Greek. 1 To begin with, the Opheltas obelos is a representative of the Bronze Age tradition of syllabic writing in the only part of the Greek world where this tradition continued into the Archaic and Classical periods. Second, it testifies to the fact that the Arcadian dialect, to which the earlier Mycenaean and the later Cypriot dialects are closely related, was present on Cyprus already at the beginning of the Iron Age. Third, the evidence it provides is directly relevant to the issue of the Early Iron Age migrations that transformed the ethnic and political map of the eastern Mediterranean. Finally, it is suggestive of Greek epic tradition, for "Opheltas" is a heroic name, encountered both in Homer and elsewhere in traditional sources. 2 Let us then take a closer look at the interrelated issues embodied in the Opheltas obelos.

Why does Helen call herself “chilling,” “horrid,” and “dog-faced,” in situations where no one is blaming her? Why does Agamemnon accuse Odysseus of greed and enjoyment of wine without an apparent reason? Why do warriors in the Iliad exchange long lines of reciprocal accusations before fighting, instead of concentrating on the battle? Why is Paris called “archer” as an insult, while other characters of the Iliad are praised for their prowess with the bow? These long-standing issues can be solved only if seen as part of the larger question of what role insults play in Homer’s world.
This book concentrates on the various words that are used as insults in the two poems, with particular attention to the context in which they are used, not only in order to determine their individual meaning, but also to investigate the spoken and unspoken rules of Homeric society.
The result is a new portrait of the Homeric man (and woman), his values, his priorities, his sense of chivalry, as well as of the audience the poems were composed for and the society in which they lived.

In 1507, the Ferrarese poet Ercole Strozzi, closely connected to the duchess Lucrezia Borgia, composed a poem in Latin hexameters that commemorates the late Cesare Borgia’s achievements, directly addressed and dedicated to Lucrezia. Entitled Epicedium of Duke Cesare Borgia (Epicedium Caesaris Borgiae Ducis), Strozzi’s work is profoundly influenced by Vergil’s Aeneid not only in its language and narrative, but also its approach to political messaging. This paper explores this uniquely creative and largely unstudied example of Vergilian reception, in particular how it adapts the Aeneid’s strategies of political legitimation and iconography—originally applied to the emperor Augustus, his family, and other Roman elites—to defend the Borgias’ legacy and justify their short-lived dominance in Italian affairs.

This preprint presents a compelling dichotomy between two foundational systems of human knowledge. On one side, epics are positioned as the product of dialectical reasoning—a synthetic, collective process where contradictions of human experience (heroism and frailty, order and chaos) are woven into vast narratives. These stories achieve a conjugal consensus not through logical proof, but through a profound, unifying marriage of archetype, spectacle, and cultural memory. They narratively resolve societal tensions, embedding a profound, collective truth in the unconscious, which serves as a lasting, comprehensive episteme of myth and value. In contrast, the epistemic ensembles of science and formal philosophy seek conjugal consensus through a different kind of marriage: the logical and empirical alignment of discrete, divergent modes of inquiry. In this case, consensus is built analytically, not synthetically, by checking claims against evidence and structured argument. While epics use dialectical reasoning to absorb and resolve contradictions into a grand narrative whole, epistemic systems often employ dialectics to test and refine propositions, aiming for a consensus that is provisional and subject to revision. Thus, the epic embodies a dialectic of culture and soul, achieving a timeless consensus in myth, while epistemic ensembles pursue a dialectic of method and evidence, striving for a consensus that is systematic but inherently contingent.

Parafrasando Manzoni nell' esclamazione di Don Abbondio: "Carneade! Chi era costui?" (Promessi Sposi, cap. VIII), potremmo ugualmente cominciare col chiederci: Elpènore, chi era costui? Intanto, è probabile che, a chi abbia compiuto studi liceali classici, questo nome possa anche non suonare nuovo ed essere altresì rimasto un certo, magari nebuloso, ricordo di questa, in fondo più che secondaria figura omerica, fors'anche addirittura negativamente collegata con la indimenticabile "sfaticata" dell'apprendimento degli antichi autori classici greci. Davvero, tra tutti i personaggi dell'Odissea, strana la sorte di questo Elpènore, anche lui comunque rappresentativo di una tipica "natura" umana, un carattere esemplare e modello, come peraltro in Omero si riscontra nella maggior parte dei suoi reali o fantastici, storici o mitologici protagonisti o meno. E strana la sua sorte perchè dall'iniziale racconto omerico (tra il X e l'VIII sec. a.C.) e lungo un successivo silenzio di almeno 26 secoli, all'improvviso, nel primo quarto del 1900, il suo nome come per incanto riemerge e inizia, si direbbe, una seconda vita, una progrediente narrazione, stavolta estremamente ricca di sviluppi fin quasi al 2000, ma sporadicamente anche dopo, in più o meno impegnativi riferimenti, come eponimo attore o come personificazione, nelle opere letterarie di poeti e romanzieri europei e americani. Sicuramente è per lo meno singolare la reviviscenza proprio di un personaggio in fin dei conti assai ambiguo, di nessun particolare peso specifico a scapito di altri che, in entrambi i poemi omerici, si presentano forniti di ben altre qualità, oltre che di incomparabilmente maggior impatto emotivo ed attrattiva sentimentale. Tant'è. Notoriamente la figura di Elpenore fa la sua prima apparizione e trova spazio in tre Canti (Ραψωδίαι) dell'Odissea: nel X (vv.552-560), XI (vv.51-80) e XII (vv. 10-15), in una sequenza che va dalla circostanza della sua morte al suo incontro con Ulisse nell'Ade fino alla sua sepoltura in riva al mare, παρἀ θὶν' ἀλὸς. Tre menzioni precise di "un tale Elpenore", per complessivi 45 versi, sembrerebbero troppi, sproporzionati rispetto all'importanza del personaggio, se non si tenesse conto del fatto che l'episodio di Elpenore trova in pratica la sua piena giustificazione non solo nel significato dell'incontro di Ulisse con Circe, ma anche nella simbolizzazione della particolare ospitalità di quest' ultima e infine nel viaggio di Ulisse tra i morti (la prima Νέκυια). 1 È ovvio che senza Ulisse, senza Circe e senza il percorso negli Inferi Elpenore non avrebbe potuto esistere. Nella loro triplice interconnessione quindi Elpenore vive perfettamente "incastonato", acquisendo una propria storia compiuta, pur essa emblematica, nonostante la sua "scarsezza qualitativa" in sè e per sè in quanto essere umano. La partenza di Ulisse e compagni dall'isola di Circe non potrebbe effettuarsi se prima non avviene l'incontro nell'Ade con l'indovino Tiresia, che dovrà predire le circostanze del viaggio di ritorno ad Itaca. Cominciano i preparativi e Ulisse incita il suo equipaggio a por fine agli ozi nella reggia di Circe. E lì, allora, che

This article deals with the problem of studying politeness and codes of behaviour in ancient Greece, where the modern sociological notion of politeness—a fixed body of interrelational rules, of the kind later codified in Western "politeness manuals"—does not really apply, since the Archaic and Classical Greeks grouped such norms together with what we would call morality and never produced a manners literature of their own.

It argues that the dominant scholarly tools, especially Brown and Levinson's politeness model, are too narrowly linguistic and too universalist to capture historical change, and it proposes instead to combine their situational analysis with Norbert Elias's attention to a society's wider "system of beliefs." On this basis it advances the working hypothesis that Homer's Iliad and Odyssey—understood through an oralist, evolutionary view of the texts as an ever-readapted "encyclopaedic" archive of Greek values—can serve as the missing manual of ancient Greek politeness, since their paradigmatic scenes preserved norms of conduct that Greeks down to the fourth century BC still treated as edifying.

It illustrates this with the contrasting hospitality of Menelaus and Nestor toward Telemachus: both kings know the rules of host-guest etiquette, but Menelaus follows them to self-glorifying excess while Nestor applies them with genuine concern for his guest, showing that the "Homeric manual" offers not rigid rules but options for individual responses to particular situations.

NKUA * «Το έργο συγχρηματοδοτείται από την Ελλάδα και την Ευρωπαϊκή Ένωση (Ευρωπαϊκό Κοινωνικό Ταμείο) μέσω του Επιχειρησιακού Προγράμματος «Ανάπτυξη Ανθρώπινου Δυναμικού, Εκπαίδευση και Διά Βίου Μάθηση», στο πλαίσιο της Πράξης «Ενίσχυση του ανθρώπινου ερευνητικού δυναμικού μέσω της υλοποίησης διδακτορικής έρευνας» (MIS-5000432), που υλοποιεί το Ίδρυμα Κρατικών Υποτροφιών (ΙΚΥ)». 1 Θα ήθελα να συγχαρώ θερμά την Οργανωτική Επιτροπή για την οργάνωση του Συνεδρίου και επίσης να ευχαριστήσω ιδιαίτερα την Επιστημονική Επιτροπή, η οποία μου έδωσε τη δυνατότητα να συμμετάσχω στις εργασίες του Συνεδρίου.

The dissertation offers a new interpretative commentary on the first book of Vergil’s Aeneid, which coming after Austin’s commentary in the Oxford Reds series and that of Ganiban, is aiming to provide a full review of modern bibliography for the first book of the Vergilian epic and a new interpretation of its themes and topics. The dissertation in organized in four chapters, the Introduction, the Latin Text, its Translation into modern Greek and the Commentary. The dissertation is concluded with two Appendices (1. ll. 265-272 tertia ... terna ... triginta ... ter centum, where is offered a study of the repeated number three in Jupiter’s prophecy· 2. The verses Ille ego qui ... (1a-1d), an appendix in which in an introductory essay a review of the relevant bibliography is provided together with an aesthetic judgement of these. After the introductory essay, follows a detailed line-by-line commentary of the ille ego qui quondam verses) and the Index Locorum. The Introduction includes a presentation of the structure of the book and its main themes around of which it is centered. Furthermore, there follows an extended discussion of specific themes of the first book, such as a study of the programmatic proem and its literary models, the first appearance of the epic’s protagonist, Aeneas, and also the theme of the Golden Age as it makes its appearance in Jupiter’s prophecy and its relationship with other passages in the epic and the previous works of Vergil. The Introduction is concluded with a review of the manuscript tradition and a table of readings adopted in the Latin Text which receive full treatment in the commentary. The Commentary is line-by-line and follows the numbering of lines of the text; the beginning of each episode is preceded by an introductory essay, which provides a brief summary of the content of the episode, a review of the relevant bibliography, together with an interpretation and function of this episode within the plot of the book. Each introductory essay offers detailed discussion of the literary and antiquarian, if any, models of the episode, the characterization of its heroes and the relationship which is intentionally built by the poet with other similar episodes in the other books of the poem and, consequently, the meaning produced by this linking. In the line-by-line commentary the purpose of the comments is to cover every possible problem which arises from the text. For this purpose, are included comments on prosody, morphology, grammar, syntax, while particular emphasis is given to the Vergilian style and meter and the way it illustrates the meaning. In every case, numerous parallels from other passages of the epic are offered. Also, in lexical level, are detected and discussed elements of colloquial Latin and archaisms, focusing on the way these elements contribute to the speaker’s delineation. In many lines are discussed in depth problems of textual criticism and the different readings which are offered form the manuscript tradition, in each case many parallels are cited from Vergil himself and from other authors as well and arguments are put forth about the reading which is adopted in the Latin text and its possible alternatives. The line-by-line commentary provides extended interpretative comments, which are focused not only to the immediate context of each line and passage but also strive to align them with passages from other books of the epic and to offer an overall interpretation of the lines and episodes inside the Aeneid’s plot and its social, cultural and political atmosphere. More particular, Vergil’s intertextual relationship with his models (Homeric poetry and philology, Greek and Roman tragedy, Hellenistic poetry, historiography, Roman poetry and prose of the Republican Age) receives an in-depth treatment; also Vergil’s handling of epic themes and his innovations, such as we detect them in the poem’s proem, in the description of the storm and landscapes, in the ecphrasis of the murals of Carthaginian Juno’s temple, in the presentation of god delivered prophecies, in scenes involving gods, in the monologues, in similes, in omens and in the reception of the Trojans in Carthage and in the banquet offered by the queen Dido. Not least, the poet’s mythological references and innovations are illustrated, as they are represented in the myth of Aeneas, Dido, Antenor, Teucer, and others. Finally, in the commentary are highlighted possible allusions to political and historical events and persons, i.e. the recall of events or personalities from Rome’s Carthaginian wars or the multivalent relationship with Augustan Age and Augustan ideology.

Texto bilingüe comentado del canto 4 de Ilíada de Homero. Segunda edición, ampliada y corregida. Versión online en https://texto.iliada.com.ar/canto4.html. Con la colaboración de Huilén Abed Moure, Gastón Alejandro Prada, Luisina Abrach, Camila González Gramajo, Camila Sofía Davel, Candela Aylén Barón, Iara Navarrete, Kiwi Sainz, Mairea Grätz, Malena Pilar Gómez Margiolakis, María Mirta Lamarca, Víctor Arley Obando Acosta, Laura Rubé.

Student translation contests have become a productive form of training and assessment in Ukrainian translation programs: they combine clear rules, public discussion, and a strong motivational component, while also producing a corpus of comparable student translations for the same source text. In this sense, a poetic translation contest can be treated as an educational instrument that makes visible recurrent decision patterns, both successful and unsuccessful, across a cohort of student translators. This paper examines 21 English–Ukrainian translations produced in 2023 for a student translation contest, all based on Louise Glück’s contemporary poem “Poem.” The study applies qualitative error analysis supported by quantitative frequency counts of error types across the corpus of student translations. It proposes a heuristic typology, covering formal deviations, lexical-semantic errors, denotative errors, stylistic mismatch, unjustified gendering, and related shifts in voice and person, graphic–punctuation interventions, opposite-meaning shifts, interpretive additions, compression/omission, and cross-linguistic interference (Russianisms). The analysis indicates that the most recurrent problems cluster around lexical choice and collocation, interpretive changes that introduce meanings absent in the source, and formal domestication through rhyme, rhythm, and altered lineation that displaces the source text’s poetics. On this basis, the article formulates practical recommendations for Ukrainian students preparing for poetry-translation contests, emphasizing contextual reading, register awareness, careful handling of ambiguity, form-sensitive decision-making, and systematic checks against cross-linguistic interference.

This paper explores a repeated phenomenon in Homer and Sanskrit literature in which a narrative is copied and outfitted with modifications in order to create a new story with a different tone and outcome. After a discussion of the mechanisms of this technique and the advantages it presents to oral poets, a number of such tales are examined below. The paper then evaluates the motif structure of the Homeric Laestrygonia in comparison to that of the Phaiakis, and finds that on a structural level the Laestrygonia is likely a copy of the Phaiakis, albeit with a much darker ending.

** The Chronological Realignment of Sargon of Akkad and Perseus: A First-Millennium BCE Synthesis of Neo-Assyrian and Greek Foundation Myths "... Perseus himself was an Assyrian who became a Greek, which is a tradition I will not adopt."* >" (Herodotus, *The Histories*, 6.53-54) It is now provable that Herodotus should have accepted the view that Perseus was an Assyrian. The famous birth legend is not the one for Sargon I., however, it was written down only in the 7th century B.C: and, thus, could be found out about the birth of Sargon II.(see his reign chronology Appendix2.) , and could be compared to the Perseus' myths of Greece. by that, the refoundation of Mycanae could be explained by the orientalizational period of Greece and the Lydian Agamemnon could be the king of the 'Iron Age' Mycanae. Thus, his royal ancestors become real rooting back to the Greek Dark ages.

This study attempts to cast light on the mirroring between Hera and Helen in Euripides' Helen. While incorporating intertextual analysis, traditional myths and religious data, the research focuses primarily on the dramatic text to determine how these reflections harmonize with the central themes of the play, serve the plot, and highlight the poet's innovations.

Questo articolo propone una lettura simbolico-comparativa di alcuni motivi presenti nei poemi omerici alla luce di specifiche immagini religiose dell'Antico Egitto, con particolare attenzione ai temi della soglia, della memoria, del riconoscimento e della rigenerazione. Pur appartenendo a sistemi culturali e religiosi distinti, il mondo di Omero e quello egizio condividono alcune strutture immaginative profonde, nelle quali la parola, il nome e il rito assumono la funzione di sottrarre uomini, sovrani e defunti alla dispersione e all'oblio. L'analisi si concentra su due nuclei principali. Il primo riguarda la figura del cane Argo nell'Odissea, interpretato come custode della soglia domestica e della memoria identitaria di Odisseo. Attraverso il valore semantico del nome Ἄργος, associabile alla luminosità e alla rapidità, Argo viene accostato in chiave simbolica alla sfera del "cane luminoso" e della Stella del Cane, Sirio/Sothis, che nel calendario religioso egizio era connessa alla piena del Nilo e, in età tarda, alla figura di Iside. Tale accostamento non implica una derivazione storica diretta, ma permette di collocare Argo entro un più ampio campo simbolico fatto di luce, soglia, fedeltà e riconoscimento. Il secondo nucleo riguarda la Dea/Musa omerica, intesa non come semplice personificazione letteraria dell'ispirazione poetica, ma come potenza divina della memoria. La Musa custodisce ciò che l'uomo non può ricordare da solo, ordina i nomi, conserva le genealogie e impedisce che le imprese degli eroi vengano dissolte dal tempo. In questa funzione può essere accostata, sul piano simbolico, a Iside: non perché le due figure coincidano, ma perché entrambe agiscono contro la dispersione. Iside ricompone il corpo smembrato di Osiride e ne rende possibile la rigenerazione nell'aldilà; la Musa ricompone, attraverso il canto, i frammenti della memoria eroica e li consegna alla durata del poema. In questa prospettiva, il recente ritrovamento di un frammento dell'Iliade in un contesto funerario egizio di età romana assume un valore particolarmente significativo. Esso non dimostra un'origine egizia dei simboli omerici, né una diretta assimilazione della Musa a Iside, ma mostra come la poesia omerica potesse essere reinterpretata, in ambiente greco-egizio, come parola dotata di valore memoriale, protettivo e forse salvifico. Il confronto tra Argo, la Dea/Musa e Iside consente dunque di

A conversation with my former student, the journalist Stephanos Nikolaides, regarding the figure and interpretation of fair Helen in Christopher Nolan's forthcoming "Odyssey". We discuss, among others, the portrait of Helen in the Homeric epics and her role in the "Odyssey"; the ideas of the ancient Greeks concerning whiteness and blackness; the way that every artist adapts classical myths to the concerns and agonies of his/her own age; the perennial value of ancient mythical tales and their heroes, and their capacity to raise controversy even in the modern world; and our expectations from Nolan's much publicised film.

Before my appearance, the well-known Greek filmmaker Iannis Smaragdis speaks about Nolan's Helen (between 52.27΄ and 1.10.58΄ in the recording time). After Smaragdis, my conversation with S. Nikolaides extends from 1.17.12΄ to the end.

Listen to the radio show here: https://www.skairadio.gr/index.php/stigmiotypa/episode-2026-05-20

A new reading of the latest Star Wars instalment as a Homeric epic, traces Din Djarin and Grogu's journey as an Odyssean return shaped by myth, commerce, kleos, and the ethics of belonging in a fractured galaxy far, but not so far, away The Mandalorian and Grogu.  Neos Kosmos Recommends: Nostos, myth, and the heroic journey. A review of the new Star Wars movie and its connections to Greek Epic.

This technical note develops the concept of the Field of Access through a comparison between Genesis 22 and Iliad XXIV, in dialogue with the opening chapter of Erich Auerbach’s Mimesis. The comparison with Genesis 22 is not an ornamental addition to the theory, but a structural necessity: if the Field of Access emerges partly from a dialogue with Auerbach, it must confront both poles of his foundational comparison, Homer and the Bible.

Rather than treating Auerbach’s distinction between Homeric foreground and biblical background as a merely stylistic opposition, the note proposes to formalize it as a difference between regimes of access to presence. In Iliad XXIV, the encounter between Priam and Achilles makes presence available through visible articulation: gesture, body, tears, performative speech, and physical proximity. In Genesis 22, by contrast, presence is organized through withheld and deferred access: command, silence, distance, minimal objects, interrupted gesture, divine voice, and delayed revelation.

Particular attention is given to the Hebrew verb ראה (ra’ah, “to see”) as a structural device linking visibility, provision, and divine availability. The central claim is that Homer and Genesis do not differ because one has mediation and the other does not; they differ because they organize mediated presence through different Fields of Access. The Field of Access is therefore presented not only as an interpretive concept, but as a comparative methodology for analyzing how texts regulate the availability of presence.

Flore Kimmel-Clauzet, Définir l’épopée en Grèce ancienne: contribution à une histoire de l’idée d’épopée d’Hérodote à Tzetzès (Littérature & Linguistique 7). Lyon: MOM Éditions 2024. 273 pp. – ISBN 978-2-35668-089-1 (print), 978-2-35668-152-2 (online)

The paper examines Davide Carnevali’s Menelao (una tragedia contemporanea), premiered by Teatrino Giullare at the Teatro Arena del Sole in Bologna in February 2019. Drawing on the Homeric and tragic tradition, the study analyses how Carnevali, in sustained dialogue with antiquity, reshapes Menelaus into an eidolon of himself – a man struggling with the idealised image of who he wishes to be. Through his encounters with pivotal figures from his mythological past, such as Helen, Agamemnon, and Proteus, as well as with newly invented characters like the Rhapsode, Menelaus is gradually transformed into a symbol of the tragic condition of contemporary humanity.

Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact

Este estudio ofrece un análisis detallado de la forma θυσίαισι en el Himno homérico a Deméter (h.Cer. 368), destacando su inusual terminación en    -αισι para el dativo plural, que no se documenta en la épica homérica. Aunque se ha considerado un aticismo, esta interpretación choca con el hecho de que el ático arcaico utiliza -ᾱσι o -ησι. Otras propuestas sugieren enmendar la forma en θυσίῃσι o θυέεσσι, pero esta corrección no parece necesaria. La forma puede entenderse, más bien, como una variante poética influenciada por la tradición lírica arcaica, donde la terminación      -αισι es frecuente. La artificiosidad del lenguaje épico y las innovaciones lingüísticas en el himno, así como el uso del término θυσίη en lugar del épico θυός, sugieren una actualización estilística relacionada con el contexto religioso de la composición.

En el presente estudio se analiza cómo un conjunto de escritores ilustrados de Hispanoamérica se valieron de la figura y la obra de Homero, integrándolas en los debates sobre la cultura, el legado indígena y los acontecimientos históricos del Nuevo Mundo. En una época marcada por un renovado interés en la Antigüedad clásica, el aedo griego adquirió relevancia no solo en el ámbito literario, sino también en el discurso científico y político. Considerado símbolo de civilización, modelo literario y referente del heroísmo, Homero fue invocado tanto por defensores del orden virreinal como por partidarios de la emancipación y de los proyectos políticos que dieron forma a los nuevos Estados. Su obra se convirtió en un recurso de disputa erudita, capaz de articular visiones contrapuestas de la realidad americana.

La presente nota si sofferma su un problema testuale di P. Vindob. gr. 29788, fr. 3 Livrea = APHex I 45, 3 Perale, attribuito a Pamprepio di Panopoli, e propone una lettura del v. 79 che appare in linea con lo stile degli altri versi, improntato ad antitesi e parallelismi. Si conferma, così, la notevole  elaborazione stilistica del poemetto.

This thesis presents the relation between the gendered language of Nonnos and the ironic undertones he employs to describe two main plot points in the "Dionysiaka." I focus on Dionysos’ battle with Deriades, the Indian king, and Aura, the titan goddess of the breeze. In my first section, I argue that the irony employed to describe the death of Deriades is based on misperceptions of gender identity as he understands the world. Due to his fixity on the masculine extreme of the gender spectrum, Deriades has created a skewed view of the world which led to his demise by the gender-fluid Dionysos. His false perception is reflected in the text when Athena disguises herself as Morrheus, Deriades’ son-in-law, and comes to taunt him for fleeing the battle with Dionysos. Athena is herself a gender-fluid goddess as the masculine virgin goddess of Truth/Wisdom. Her disguise symbolises the loss of true understanding. For my second section, I examine the implications of the total loss of gender identity as experienced by Aura. Her identification as a masculine female skews her perception of the world and results in committing a crime of hubris against Artemis. Her masculinised persona leads her to become the voyeur of Artemis. Artemis herself is a gender-fluid goddess due to her masculine attributes as huntress. But she is mainly the goddess of female sexuality and its potential to produce life. Aura’s crime against Artemis is symbolically a crime against femininity itself. Her punishment for her voyeurism is to be raped by Dionysos and become a mother. Motherhood symbolises the realisation of femininity which Aura despises. Yet her rape is not the only punishment she receives. Indeed, I argue that her punishment also includes becoming the voyeur of herself and then becoming the object of voyeurism for eternity when she is turned into a spring.

This article argues that the Virgilian narrator's account of Juno's anger at the outcome of the Judgement of Paris at Aen. 1.25-7 contains an allusion, which seems to have gone unnoticed, to a prologue transmitted in some manuscripts of the Rhesus attributed to Euripides. It also discusses the problem of the origin of this prologue. Finally, it suggests some interpretative possibilities arising from recognition of the allusion.

Shivaji Sawant's Mrityunjaya: The Death Conqueror remains a seminal work in Indian literature, renowned for dissecting the Mahabharata through the dramatic soliloquies of its protagonists. While the novel primarily deconstructs the tragic life of Karna, the narrative devotes significant space to Kunti, offering a poignant exploration of her psyche. This paper analyzes Kunti's dramatic soliloquy, examining her transformation from the innocent Pritha to the burdened Queen Mother. It argues that Kunti is not merely a victim of circumstance, but a symbol of matriarchal sagacity and stoic endurance. By navigating the dichotomies of biological instinct versus social morality, and personal grief versus political duty, Kunti emerges as a complex figure who exercises agency within the rigid confines of a patriarchal order.

This essay examines the Homeric formula of “loosened knees and dear heart” as a structure of mediated bodily presence in Homeric epic. Focusing on Lycaon before Achilles in Iliad 21.114, Odysseus before the Phaeacian shore in Odyssey 5.406, and Penelope at the moment of recognition in Odyssey 23.205–206, it argues that the formula does not merely translate inward emotion into bodily language. Rather, it marks moments in which embodied stability is undone by an event that exceeds the subject’s command: fear, supplication, recognition, danger, or imminent death.

Building on oral-formulaic theory and Auerbach’s account of Homeric exteriority, the essay proposes that Homeric exteriority is not unmediated visibility, but formulaically mediated visibility. The formula is read as a field of access: a traditional verbal pattern through which bodily instability becomes visible, shareable, and narratable without being reduced to private psychological interiority.

Poseidone, conosciuto nel mondo romano come il dio Nettuno, è tradizionalmente associato al mondo marino. La questione che intendo affrontare oggi è se il dio sia principalmente legato all'acqua o se sia un motivo aggiunto. In altre parole, Poseidone era fin dall'inizio il signore delle acque? 1. Il nome di Poseidone L'etimologia del teonimo è stata molto dibattuta. Già Paul Kretschmer aveva notato che l'ipotesi ancora difesa da Pott e Hick, che interpretavano il nome del dio come "Colui che inonda" (Heranflutenden) era stata respinta da Solmsen, e che quest'ultimo non era originariamente un dio dei mari ma un dio della terra. Oggi possiamo ancora distinguere almeno tre teorie:-l'ipotesi classica scompone il nome in due termini: *Πότει/*Πότι > πόσις

Catalogue essay written for the Tel Aviv Biennale of Craft & Design 2026, held at MUZA – Eretz Israel Museum, Tel Aviv.

ABSTRACT
This essay examines the third edition of the Tel Aviv Biennale of Craft & Design, situating craft and design within a continuum spanning ancient myth, material knowledge, and contemporary practice. Anchored in Hesiod’s Works and Days, it reconsiders the notion of ergon as both a creative and ethical act, engaging theories of myth and allegory by Roland Barthes, Walter Benjamin, Craig Owens, and Glenn Adamson.

Through selected works, the text reflects on labor, memory, sustainability, and authorship, proposing making as a critical practice through which past and present, material and meaning are continually rearticulated. Staged within the context of a museum of material memory, the Biennale frames craft and design as active agents of cultural continuity and critical reflection, grounded in attentiveness, care, and resilience in a time of social and ecological urgency.

This essay develops the concept of perceptual misalignment as a framework for understanding mediated presence in archaic Greek poetics. It argues that presence in Homeric epic, archaic lyric, and inscribed or epigrammatic texts is not simply given, nor is it organized around an autonomous subject. Rather, presence becomes available through a field of access: a structured network of voices, bodies, gestures, objects, places, divine forces, inscriptions, and memories.

Perceptual misalignment occurs when an index of presence — such as an “I,” a “here,” a voice, a body, or a speaking object — remains active without fully coinciding with its source, support, occasion, or scene of reception. The essay traces this dynamic across several cases: Homeric epic distributes perception across gods, bodies, public speech, and heroic action; Sappho 31 concentrates this distributed field within the vulnerable body of the speaking “I”; Nestor’s Cup transfers heroic presence into a portable sympotic object; and the Midas epigram turns local deixis and commemorative duration into forms of displaced presence.

By redefining the perceptual as accessibility rather than mere sensation, the essay proposes a model of archaic Greek poetics in which perception is not possession, but mediated access to presence.

In the vast body of political studies on the Iliad, much attention has been paid to the role of rulers and their individual contributions. Agamemnon, Achilles, Nestor, Odysseus: heroes who personify virtue and an aspect traceable in the education of the aristocracy, which emerged as an emerging social and political group even before the eighth century BC, when Homer collected the numerous tales circulating in various Greek circles. However, these rulers established forums for discussion and decision-making, which never depended on the choice of a single man in command. The Assembly, and even more so the Council, represent political institutions of considerable importance in the overall context of the war at Ilium. These institutional bodies also offer historical insights that should not be underestimated.

The paper explores the nature and function of the Litai ("Prayers" or "Entreaties") in Phoenix's speech to Achilles. It places significant emphasis on the imagery of movement embedded in Phoenix’s words (a key-factor for understanding the scene) and highlights the Litai as divine agents whose interaction with humans is a dynamic and cosmic event. Phoenix's account is presented as a discursive strategy to give Achilles insight into the power of supplication and the potential for reconciliation.

The story of Achilles and other heroes in Homer's Iliad resonates with the story of David in 1 and 2 Samuel, and so does the first-person story of Haim Sabato in Adjusting Sights. All concern involvement in war and the relationship of warriors with God or the gods. They offer different but overlapping and mutually-illuminating perspectives on God or the gods and on polytheism or monotheism or mono-Yahwism, on the involvement of God or the gods in earthly events and on humanity's role in events, on the relationship between that divine involvement and human decision-making, on the nature of the human person, on relationships between humanity and God or the gods, on war, and on death and afterlife.

This paper argues that geographic structure in the Argonautica functions as a system of retrieval rather than narrative backdrop. By analyzing the sequencing of locations, the recurrence of place-names, and the patterned movement of the Argonauts, the study demonstrates how topography operates as an organized network through which encoded knowledge is accessed. Key sites within the voyage, including Lemnos, Cyzicus, Colchis, and the return passages, function as mnemonic loci that activate associations with genealogical, ritual, and historical information. The journey itself becomes a structured traversal in which movement across space triggers retrieval of knowledge embedded elsewhere in the text. In dialogue with prior work on genealogical and procedural encoding, the Argonautica emerges as a layered system in which structure stores relations, ritual preserves action, and geography governs access through ordered spatial progression.

This paper argues that ritual sequences in the Argonautica function as procedural encoding systems rather than narrative embellishment. Focusing on Medea's pharmakeia and related ritual actions, the study demonstrates how gesture, sequence, and repetition preserve operational knowledge within poetic form. These rituals do not merely signify magical practice; they encode structured methods of action, timing, and transformation. By examining the ordering, precision, and recurrence of ritual elements, the paper reveals a system in which procedural knowledge is embedded within narrative, allowing technique to persist in representational form. In dialogue with prior work on genealogical encoding, the Argonautica preserves not only cultural memory through lineage, but actionable knowledge through ritual design.

Abstract – The paper focuses on the function of the Titanid Astería, wife of Perseus and mother of Hecate in Hesiod, a virgin / fallen star and then a floating island in Pindar and Callimachus, finally becoming a stable island at the birth of Apollo. In most traditions she is the unhappy love of Zeus (even though in Musaeus she bears Zeus a daughter, Hecate); in Non- nus, instead, she is the unhappy love of Poseidon. An attempt is made to explain this latter tradition, where Astería is flanked to Euboia.

He was not defeated by Arjuna. He was not defeated by fate alone. Karna was defeated by the path life placed before him-a path he never chose, yet walked with more grace than most could manage with every advantage in the world. I. The Life Chakravyuha Abhimanyu knew how to enter the Chakravyuha but not how to exit. Karna knew how to be goodbut destiny never showed him the exit from suffering. The difference is that Abhimanyu's Chakravyuha lasted one day. Karna's lasted his entire lifetime. The rings of Karna's life Chakravyuha were constructed layer by layer: First Ring: Abandoned at birth-identity stolen before he even opened his eyes. Second Ring: Raised in a caste society deemed unworthy of his potential. Third Ring: Publicly humiliated at Rangabhoomi at his greatest moment of hope. Fourth Ring: Forced to lie to gain knowledge, setting the stage for future curses. Fifth Ring: Robbed of his divine Kavacha-Kundala through Indra's manipulation. Sixth Ring: Cursed by his own guru Parashurama at the moment of his deepest trust. Seventh Ring: Bound by genuine love to fight on the wrong side of dharma.