Poetry, Religion, History and Art
Here are two passages from Homer’s Odyssey featuring the common household bard of prehistoric Greece. The first poet, the description of which probably lent to the legend that Homer himself was blind, performs stories of the Trojan war before a disguised Odysseus, bringing him to tears. The second is the bard at Odysseus’ own home […]
One of the great characters in Greek myth who never actually speaks is Astyanax, the son of Hector and the grandson of the king and queen of Troy. Below are two stories: he first appears in the Iliad as an infant, terrified when he sees his father in full armor, in one of the great […]
Odysseus and friends land on the island “of the lawless outrageous Cyclopes,” one-eyed giants who know nothing of planting and harvesting, and who live in caves. They find their way to one of these caves: Lightly we made our way to the cave, but we did not find him there, he was off herding on […]
The cow came in from the field, and the companions of great-hearted Telemachos came from beside their fast black ship, and the smith came, holding in his hands the tools for forging bronze, his handicraft’s symbols, the anvil and the sledgehammer and the well-wrought pincers with which he used to work the gold, and Athene […]
Are poets today largely talking to themselves? Are many of them happy to do so, locked away in academia or whatever other cloister? Are the ones who want a wider public, and who want to take on larger subjects, just curating their shelf of books for future generations to find? I heard somewhere that after […]
