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Page 1 Zeus + Plouto 18. Zeus + Electra Teucros Tantalos Oinomaos
Pe ops + Nippodameir da!shte6 Asa.acos Ganymedes Anchhes + Aphrodite8i']? Cl a Cytios !:r€9!: Elethyia Ares 0,2 Hephaitlos m laoetos +Asiar A".' Zeus + l'1a a Eecrn 3 other daughters 308 ovrD OYID 309 50 I musr endlcssly feel rhe los ofan absenr husband. Or of Euryrmchus and -Arrinous' ever srabbins hands? The towes ofTroy havc been razed; for me alone, tliey still remair, O. all lhe re$ whom you in your absence are alLowing to grow fet rhoush a vlcrorious scrder plows dle l.nd willt a caprured ox. on fie trcdures won at rhe cos ofyour blood? Where Troy once stood rherei; onLy a fietd of grah. The canh flourishes, Your final huniliation? Add to your lose the beggr Irus and fenilized by Phrygim blood. arvaiting the harvesring sickle. Melanthius, who drives you. flock ro feed rhe suiros'bellies. Cu*ed plowshr* str;ke the half-buried bones ofnen, \tre fe only three in number, allunsuircd fo. war-a powerles wife, and rhe ruins orfallen houses lie hidden arrong rhe weeds. your old fatheq Laenes, and Telemachus, just a boy, md him r-c,. w .pr :iC Though victorious, you arc still sone, and I have no way of krowhg I rJrnor lo.r ,e,er .ly ro " hryou. rlo- - h. r o why the delay. or where your unfeeling hearr is hidirg. ro.ait ro fyto, "grir r rhe, olJt h,orh,.. Every srilor who turns a foreign ship to these shores leaves I pray rhn the gods preserye rhe ba ral order ofrhe Fares, rhar only aftet answering numetous questions aboutyou, he willclose borh my eyes and yous on our fina.lda1s. -
1 IPHIGENIA in TAURIS by Euripides Adapted, Edited, and Rendered Into
IPHIGENIA IN TAURIS by Euripides Adapted, edited, and rendered into modern English for the express purpose of dramatic performance by Louis Markos, Professor in English and Honors Scholar-in-Residence/Robert H. Ray Chair in Humanities Houston Baptist University (Houston, TX) Dramatis Personae IPHIGENIA, daughter of Agamemnon ORESTES, brother of Iphigenia PYLADES, friend of Orestes THOAS, King of the Taurians HERDSMAN MESSENGER ATHENA CHORUS of captive Greek women who serve Iphigenia SCENE Before the temple of Artemis in Tauris. (Iphigenia, dressed as a priestess, enters and stands before the altar.) IPHIGENIA From Asia Pelops came to the shores of Greece; His son was Atreus and from him came Two greater sons, skilled in the arts of war. The eldest, Agamemnon, rules Mycenae While Menelaus holds the throne of Sparta. For Helen’s sake they raised a mighty fleet And set their sails for Troy. But Artemis, Beloved sister of the god Apollo, Sent vexing winds to wrestle with their sails And strand them on the rocky shore of Aulis. Eager to conquer Troy and so avenge His brother’s bed, my father, Agamemnon, Ordered Calchas, prophet of the host, To seek the will of Zeus and to proclaim The cause of their misfortune–and the cure. “O King,” he spoke, “You must fulfill the vow You made to Artemis: to offer up The dearest treasure that the year would bring. 1 The daughter born to you and Clytemnestra— She is the treasure you must sacrifice.” I was and am that daughter—oh the pain, That I should give my life to still the winds! The treacherous Odysseus devised The plot that brought me, innocent, to Aulis. -
Provided by the Internet Classics Archive. See Bottom for Copyright
Provided by The Internet Classics Archive. See bottom for copyright. Available online at http://classics.mit.edu//Homer/iliad.html The Iliad By Homer Translated by Samuel Butler ---------------------------------------------------------------------- BOOK I Sing, O goddess, the anger of Achilles son of Peleus, that brought countless ills upon the Achaeans. Many a brave soul did it send hurrying down to Hades, and many a hero did it yield a prey to dogs and vultures, for so were the counsels of Jove fulfilled from the day on which the son of Atreus, king of men, and great Achilles, first fell out with one another. And which of the gods was it that set them on to quarrel? It was the son of Jove and Leto; for he was angry with the king and sent a pestilence upon the host to plague the people, because the son of Atreus had dishonoured Chryses his priest. Now Chryses had come to the ships of the Achaeans to free his daughter, and had brought with him a great ransom: moreover he bore in his hand the sceptre of Apollo wreathed with a suppliant's wreath and he besought the Achaeans, but most of all the two sons of Atreus, who were their chiefs. "Sons of Atreus," he cried, "and all other Achaeans, may the gods who dwell in Olympus grant you to sack the city of Priam, and to reach your homes in safety; but free my daughter, and accept a ransom for her, in reverence to Apollo, son of Jove." On this the rest of the Achaeans with one voice were for respecting the priest and taking the ransom that he offered; but not so Agamemnon, who spoke fiercely to him and sent him roughly away. -
Brothers Fighting Together in the Iliad
BROTHERS FIGHTING TOGETHER IN THE ILIAD I We find in the Iliad numerous pairs of brothers (or half brothers on the father's side, or first cousins on the father's side) fighting together on foot or in the combination of chario teer-paraibates 1). And this is not confined to the men who are said to have taken part in the Trojan war, but it embraces the "mythical world of the past" 2), that of the demigods 3), the rivers 4) and even the gods 5). Moreover, if we turn to the leaders of the various groups of Greeks and Trojans, as given in book 11, we find that a 1). Such for example are: Ajax Telarnonius and Teucer (the Atav'ts, cf. p. 291), Mynes and Epistrophus (II 692f.), Phegeus and Idaeus (V 10f.), Echemon and Chromios (V 159 f.), Krethon and Orsilochus (V 542 f,), Aesepus and Pedasus (VI 21 f.), Hector and Alexander (VI 514 f., cf. VII 1 f.), Ascalaphus and lalmenus (IX 82f., cf. II 512), Peisandrus and Hip polochus (XI 122 f.), Hippodamus and Hypeirochus (XI 328 f.), Charops and Socus (XI 426 f.), the Molione (XI 750, 709 f.; XXIII 638 f.), Polybus, Agenor and Akarnas (XI 59 f.), Helenos and Deiphobus (XII 94 f,), Archelochus and Akamas (XIV 463 f.), Hector and Cebriones (XII 86 f.), Deiphobus and Polites (XIII 533 f.), Podarces and Iphiclus (XIII 693 f,), Deiphohus and Helenos (XIII 780 f.), Ascanius and Morys (XIII 792 f.), Atymnius and Maris (XVI 317 f.), Antilochus and Thrasymedes (XVI 322; XVII 377 f.; XVII 705), Euphorbus and Polydamas (XVII 1 f.), Chromius and Aretus (XVII 492 f.), Aretus and Hector (XVII 516), Polydorus and Hector (XX 407 f,), Laogonus and Dardanus (XX 460 f.), or Deiphobus and Hector (XXII 226 f.). -
The Oresteia of Aeschylus
The Oresteia of Aeschylus The Libation Bearers Translated in verse by Robin Bond (2014) University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand The Oresteia of Aeschylus : The Libation Bearers by Robin Bond (Trans) is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Available at: http://hdl.handle.net/10092/10503 The Libation Bearers Dramatis Personae Orestes, son of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra Pylades, his friend Electra, his sister Chorus of foreign serving women A servant (doorkeeper) Clytemnestra, now wife of Aegisthus Cilissa the Nurse Aegisthus A follower of Aegisthus Various attendants (all silent) The Oresteia of Aeschylus : The Libation Bearers Page 2 Orestes Lord Hermes, guide to the dead and guardian of my father's realm be now my safeguard and companion in answer to my prayers. For I have come back home, returned to this land of mine Here at the mound of my father's tomb I speak aloud to him, that he may hear and mark my words... one lock of hair I dedicate to Inachus who reared me, and here a second lock to mark my grief... I was not here to grieve your fate in person, father, nor did I stretch out my hand to carry out your corpse. But what is this I see? What is this group of women 10 that hurries along all dressed in robes of black? What chance event should I imagine to have taken place? Or does some fresh disaster tyrannize the house? Perhaps these women bring my father gifts and offerings to pour for him as please the dead? That is the truth and nothing else; for there I do believe I see Electra. -
The Historical Background of the Trojan War
447 The Historical Background of the Trojan War. By John L. Myres and K. T. Frost. 1. Rameses III. and the Sea-Haiders. To give complete and accurate account of events in the Levant during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries B. C. is one of the most diffi- cult tasks presented by ancient history. It is also one of the most fasci- nating; for it must include not only a summary of what is known of the peoples of Asia Minor, Syria and Egypt, but also a survey of the My- cenean Age, and the Late Minoan "Sea-Raiders". It is moreover the historical background of the Trojan War. It was a time of great unrest, of fierce invasions and national migrations, whose effects lasted long. At the turn of the Century, in 1200 B. C. these are the main lines of the picture. From the Adriatic Sea to the Persian Gulf a large pro- portion of cities and tribes were independent of any great overlord. Knossos had been OTerthrown for some two centuries and although partly reinhabited it no longer ruled the waves, and the Mediterranean was swept by the Late Minoan sea-rovers. Egypt was powerless abroad and decadent at home. Babylon was just driving out the Kassites who had ruled for some centuries, and as yet the new native dynasty had little influence outside^). Assyria, whose power had greatly declined since the death of Tukulti-Ninib some forty years earlier, was beginning to reassert herseif but was still fully occupied in guarding her own frontiers. The empire of the Hittites was being finally overthrown by a fierce invasion of the Muski Phrygians who had crossed from Europe and were devastating Asia Minor. -
Sophocles' Electra
Sophocles’ Electra Dramatic action and important elements in the play, scene-by-scene Setting: Mycenae/Argos Background: 15-20 years ago, Agamemnon (here named as grandson of Pelops) was killed by his wife and lover Aegisthus (also grandson of Pelops). As a boy, Orestes, was evacuated by his sister Electra and the ‘Old Slave’ to Phocis, to the kingdom of Strophius (Agamemnon’s guest-friend and father of Pylades). Electra stayed in Mycenae, preserving her father’s memory and harbouring extreme hatred for her mother Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisthus. She has a sister, Chrysothemis, who says that she accepts the situation. Prologue: 1- 85 (pp. 169-75) - Dawn at the palace of Atreus. Orestes, Pylades and the Old Slave arrive. Topography of wealthy Argos/Mycenae, and the bloody house of the Atreids. - The story of Orestes’ evacuation. ‘It is time to act!’ v. 22 - Apollo’s oracle at Delphi: Agamemnon was killed by deception; use deception (doloisi – cunning at p. 171 is a bit weak) to kill the murderers. - Orestes’ idea to send the Old Slave to the palace. Orestes and Pylades will arrive later with the urn containing the ‘ashes’ of Orestes. «Yes, often in the past I have known clever men dead in fiction but not dead; and then when they return home the honour they receive is all the greater» v. 62-4, p. 173 Orestes like Odysseus: return to house and riches - Electra is heard wailing. Old slave: “No time to lose”. Prologue: 86-120 (pp. 175-7) - Enter Electra, who addresses the light of day. -
Thebaid 2: Oedipus Descendants of Cadmus
Thebaid 2: Oedipus Descendants of Cadmus Cadmus = Harmonia Aristaeus = Autonoe Ino Semele Agave = Echion Pentheus Actaeon Polydorus (?) Autonoe = Aristaeus Actaeon Polydorus (?) • Aristaeus • Son of Apollo and Cyrene • Actaeon • While hunting he saw Artemis bathing • Artemis set his own hounds on him • Polydorus • Either brother or son of Autonoe • King of Cadmeia after Pentheus • Jean-Baptiste-Camile Corot ca. 1850 Giuseppe Cesari, ca. 1600 House of Cadmus Hyrieus Cadmus = Harmonia Dirce = Lycus Nycteus Autonoe = Aristaeus Zeus = Antiope Nycteis = Polydorus Zethus Amphion Labdacus Laius Tragedy of Antiope • Polydorus: • king of Thebes after Pentheus • m. Nycteis, sister of Antiope • Polydorus died before Labdacus was of age. • Labdacus • Child king after Polydorus • Regency of Nycteus, Lycus Thebes • Laius • Child king as well… second regency of Lycus • Zethus and Amphion • Sons of Antiope by Zeus • Jealousy of Dirce • Antiope imprisoned • Zethus and Amphion raised by shepherds Zethus and Amphion • Returned to Thebes: • Killed Lycus • Tied Dirce to a wild bull • Fortified the city • Renamed it Thebes • Zethus and his family died of illness Death of Dirce • The Farnese Bull • 2nd cent. BC • Asinius Pollio, owner • 1546: • Baths of Caracalla • Cardinal Farnese • Pope Paul III Farnese Bull Amphion • Taught the lyre by Hermes • First to establish an altar to Hermes • Married Niobe, daughter of Tantalus • They had six sons and six daughters • Boasted she was better than Leto • Apollo and Artemis slew every child • Amphion died of a broken heart Niobe Jacques Louis David, 1775 Cadmus = Harmonia Aristeus =Autonoe Ino Semele Agave = Echion Nycteis = Polydorus Pentheus Labdacus Menoecius Laius = Iocaste Creon Oedipus Laius • Laius and Iocaste • Childless, asked Delphi for advice: • “Lord of Thebes famous for horses, do not sow a furrow of children against the will of the gods; for if you beget a son, that child will kill you, [20] and all your house shall wade through blood.” (Euripides Phoenissae) • Accidentally, they had a son anyway. -
Narrating Myth
9781405126342_4_001.qxd 23/01/2009 11:37 AM Page 10 1 Narrating Myth When Paris came, I let him in. What happened afterwards we all know – at least, we know the events, but some of us are at a loss to interpret them (Helen in John Erskine, The Private Life of Helen of Troy) To tell a story is to try to understand it (H. Porter Abbott, Narrative) Stories never live alone. They are branches of a family that we have to trace back and forward (Roberto Calasso, The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony) Whose Story? In her wide-ranging account of Helen of Troy as “goddess, princess, whore,” Bettany Hughes writes that “Helen found in Homer the most bril- liant of biographers,” a sentiment expressed more specifically elsewhere when she describes the Iliad as “Homer’s account of Helen” (2005: 343, xxxv). Hughes is but the most recent of many commentators who hold that the Trojan War is Helen’s story and that the Iliad is “about” Helen (e.g., West 1975: 3; Pollard 1965: 22). In fact what is noticeable about the Iliad is how little itCOPYRIGHTED has to do with Helen, or rather MATERIAL how little it has to say about Helen, who is confined to three episodes in books 3, 6, and 24. In book 3 she appears on the battlements with Priam, identifying the Greek war- riors for the Trojan king. In book 6 she criticizes Paris. In book 24 she is the third of the three female voices mourning Hector.1 But in another sense Helen is everywhere in the Iliad, for without Helen there would be no war; no war, no story. -
Pylades and Orestes in Pindar's Eleventh Pythian
Pylades and Orestes in Pindar’s Eleventh Pythian: The Uses of Friendship The relevance of the myth of Pindar’s P.11 to the ode’s encomiastic program has long been a crux. As Hubbard (2001, 2003) has shown, major poems may have had a pan-Hellenic audience from the earliest days, and were disseminated through networks of inter-state xenia for the purpose of re-performance before multiple audiences; O.6 and N.9 are particularly clear cases of odes intended for performance in at least two states. I will argue that P.11 must date to 454BCE (not 474) and that the aristocratic Theban family who commissioned it favored a Spartan alliance (see Bowra 1936) and planned to facilitate the ode’s performance at both Thebes and Sparta. I will further argue that Pindar consciously supports the Spartan version of the myth related by Stesichorus against the more recent and impressive Arive version of Aeschylus. This hypothesis explains several puzzling features of the ode. Few commentators have noticed that Pindar begins the myth not with Orestes or Clytemnestra, but Pylades (v.15) and then returns in ring-form to Orestes’ sojourn with Pylades’ father, characterized as xenia (vv.34- 36). Slater (1979) interprets this as a hint at Thrasydaeus’ enjoyment of Delphic xenia, but I would re-direct our attention to the links of xenia between Thebes and Sparta. Louis Gernet (1955) and Gabriel Herman (1987) have explored myths and historical practices of foreign fosterage (including Orestes’) as a xenia obligation among aristocratic families with inter-state connections. -
Iphigenia in Tauris.Intro
IPHIGENIA IN TAURIS In this introduction, I will 1) give an overview of the plot, 2) consider some of the unique features of the play, and 3) discuss the process I went through in adapting the play. Euripides’ Iphigenia offers a different take on the fall of the house of Atreus. Here is the story in its classic form as told in Aeschylus’ Oresteia. 1) The sons of Atreus, Agamemnon and Menelaus, become kings of Mycenae and Sparta and take as wives the sisters Clytemnestra and Helen. 2) Paris’s abducts Helen, igniting the Trojan War; the Greeks navy is led by Agamemnon. 3) Before they can sail for Troy, the fleet is grounded at the Port of Aulis, and Agamemnon is told that the goddess Artemis will not let him sail unless he sacrifices his daughter, Iphigenia. 4) Agamemnon instructs Iphigenia to come to Aulis where she will be married to Achilles, but when she arrives, he sacrifices her. 5) While the Greeks fight at Troy for ten years, Clytemnestra, enraged at Agamemnon’s murder of their daughter, takes a lover. 6) When Agamemnon returns from Troy, his wife kills him. 7) Many years later, Agamemnon’s son, Orestes returns home and, with the help of his sister, Electra (and the guidance of Apollo), kills his mother and her lover. 8) Because he is guilty of matricide, Orestes is chased by the Furies, but Apollo and Athena intercede for him, and he is declared innocent at a trial held in Athens. To this tragic plot, Euripides makes two important changes. -
A Dictionary of Mythology —
Ex-libris Ernest Rudge 22500629148 CASSELL’S POCKET REFERENCE LIBRARY A Dictionary of Mythology — Cassell’s Pocket Reference Library The first Six Volumes are : English Dictionary Poetical Quotations Proverbs and Maxims Dictionary of Mythology Gazetteer of the British Isles The Pocket Doctor Others are in active preparation In two Bindings—Cloth and Leather A DICTIONARY MYTHOLOGYOF BEING A CONCISE GUIDE TO THE MYTHS OF GREECE AND ROME, BABYLONIA, EGYPT, AMERICA, SCANDINAVIA, & GREAT BRITAIN BY LEWIS SPENCE, M.A. Author of “ The Mythologies of Ancient Mexico and Peru,” etc. i CASSELL AND COMPANY, LTD. London, New York, Toronto and Melbourne 1910 ca') zz-^y . a k. WELLCOME INS77Tint \ LIBRARY Coll. W^iMOmeo Coll. No. _Zv_^ _ii ALL RIGHTS RESERVED INTRODUCTION Our grandfathers regarded the study of mythology as a necessary adjunct to a polite education, without a knowledge of which neither the classical nor the more modem poets could be read with understanding. But it is now recognised that upon mythology and folklore rests the basis of the new science of Comparative Religion. The evolution of religion from mythology has now been made plain. It is a law of evolution that, though the parent types which precede certain forms are doomed to perish, they yet bequeath to their descendants certain of their characteristics ; and although mythology has perished (in the civilised world, at least), it has left an indelible stamp not only upon modem religions, but also upon local and national custom. The work of Fruger, Lang, Immerwahr, and others has revolutionised mythology, and has evolved from the unexplained mass of tales of forty years ago a definite and systematic science.