#me now: *quoting the Iliad in ancient greek* | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

loemius · 2 years

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so you want to improve your relationships with the theoi but dont know how...

here’s my advice on small things you can do in your day to day life. most of this is purely advice based on my experience/accumulated research over time and i am not an expert by any means. if there is a relevant primary source quote to support my advice, it will be stated and sourced. now that the disclaimer is out of the way, let’s get into actual tips.

-cleanse before offering. i’m serious about this one. here are two source quotes to back me up on this one [source: labyrs.gr/eng]: “ Never omit to wash your hands before you pour to Zeus and to the other Gods the morning offering of sparkling wine; they will not hear your prayers but spit them back. “ - Hesiod, Works and Days, lines 722-725 “ ...and with hands unwashed I would take shame to pour the glittering wine to Zeus; there is no means for a man to pray to the dark-misted son of Kronos, with blood and muck all splattered upon him.” - Homer's Iliad, 6.266-8 [2] cleansing can be done in a variety of ways -- i prefer to wash my hands or do a khernip if im not fresh out of the shower, but if i’m outside or in public or something and want to offer my food, for example, i’ll use hand sanitizer. if your hands get too chapped, use lotion instead. the gods want you to take care of yourself! -offer the steam or first bites of your food/drink. this is a very traditional offering, and here’s my advice on how i do it as a modern worshipper: if i’m cooking at home, i offer the steam of my food as i plate it with a verbal invocation and invitation to enjoy the food with me because i have appetite issues and live in an apartment, so physically setting aside first bites isn’t really possible for me. if i’m in public, i’ll whisper the invocation or say it mentally and give a minute or so pause to allow the theoi to enjoy first before i eat myself. i do the same kind of process with beverages. if i’m feeling up to it or doing a more formal ritual, i’ll pour the first sip into a separate cup for the theoi or into a specific glass i have dedicated for apollon. -water offerings. i’m not kidding on this one, if you live in an area that has clean, fresh water available, it is something to be grateful for and i strongly suggest you share it with the gods. back in the ancient greeks’ day, wine and beer were very common offerings over water because the water was contaminated and it was safer to drink alcohol. in my opinion, it is a celebration of the small comforts of modernity that often go taken for granted. pick your favorite cup. pour some water in it. put it on your altar and say a little prayer to indicate who it’s for and thank them for their gifts. bam! you did it. -say good morning/good night. this does not have to be a super formal thing. i certainly don’t have the energy to do intense formal ritual every morning, but at the very least, i can tell the theoi good morning and invite them to share my morning beverage with me. i personally have more energy at night, so i like to do goodnight prayers that are more formal. you have to find what works for you and fits your praxis the best, but regular prayers or even just acknowledgement by greeting the theoi helps a lot in my humble opinion. -listen to hymns of your gods. i see a lot of playlists/songs that remind me of x theoi and i’m not trying to shit on that! i have playlists of modern music that i invoke the gods to listen to with me. i do believe the theoi deserve modern comforts, as we live in a modern world and not ancient greece. that being said, i do not listen to modern music during formal ritual. if i listen to any music at all, it’s a recording of an ancient hymn or lyre music written in the style of ancient greek music. if you’re looking for music, i suggest michael levy on youtube or spotify, who makes lyre music in ancient cultures’ styles (greek, roman, and jewish mostly) or searching on youtube “hymn to [x deity].” for hellenistic deities, there is a lot out there. there’s something so special to me about going through my day listening to an ancient hymn to apollon, and i suggest it for anyone who worships the theoi. having access to music 24/7 is cool! being able to hear what ancient hymns would sound like at the touch of a button is even cooler! i like using that power to praise the theoi. -be resourceful and observant in your day to day life and offer them cool shit you find. it’s about the small things. one of the academic buildings at my university has a big statue of apollo and athena respectively; i go outside and pick flowers to leave as offerings on their statues. so much of the stuff i have on my altar is either gifted to me, found in nature, or made myself. i don’t actually buy much for the theoi; incense, candles, and occasionally ill splurge on a statue if i can afford it or go thrifting for a nice altar piece. i’m a broke college student, i simply cannot afford to go out and buy nice pretty stuff for them. don’t pressure yourself to do that. capitalism is more modern; hellenism is an ancient religion and things for the theoi were natural or made by hand because it’s not like they had machines or anything. tldr: involve the theoi in your day to day life. listen to traditional hymns on spotify on your way to do whatever. tell them good morning and good night. they’re probably thirsty! leave them out a cup of water. share your food with them. thank them for the small blessings in your life. a little goes a long way with the theoi. kharis isn’t necessarily this BIG GRAND GESTURE, it can also be small, feasible gifts and praise over time. you have a life time with the theoi. you don’t buy a friend’s love with grand gestures, you show them you care over time by small intimate gestures like sharing food or saying hello.

#helpol #hellenic reconstructionism #hellenic pagan #hellenic polytheism #witchblr #my posts

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human-still-developing · 1 year

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Beta Reading: A Guide

Hey everyone!

I'm Hics, your neighbourhood writer, editor and professional procrastinator <3 I realised my writing advice series has gone a little cold so I thought I might freshen it up with a quick guide on beta-reading!!!!

Now before we begin, I thought I might just state up front that BETA READING IS NOT THE SAME AS PROFESSIONAL EDITING...if you're looking for tips on the later, I do have a few guides on constructive criticism but am planning on doing one up for editing as well!

So lets jump straight into beta reading!

What's a Beta Reader?

In the publishing world, we usually roughly categorise our readers into two groups. 'Alpha' readers are generally your experienced reader who will look over unpolished/first drafts of a work to give opinions on direction, concepts and story progression. This allows an author to shift/refine their outlook over their own work before coming up with a polished piece of writing that they can present to an audience/publisher. 'Beta' readers are responsible for reading a POLISHED piece of work to give opinions on reader appeal, outreach to intended audience and provide a moral boost to the writer :) Their role is less to critique the impact/intent of a piece of writing and more to give a well-crafted opinion on how the writing holds on its own.

Often in more casual settings the roles of the above two readers can overlap!

What is the role of a Beta Reader?

If you are considering becoming a beta reader or looking for one, here is some of the key information a beta reader should provide:

A good understanding of the audience your work is suited for/ an idea of how well your work reaches to your target audience! (e.g. is your slow-burn fan-fiction really centred around the relationship or does it go off on a tangent?)

Feedback on places you can improve/edit your work (e.g. does your slipstream metafiction have too many recurring motifs for the audience to relate to?)

Some of the best features of your work/writing style!

Your beta-reader is often the last stop before your writing train reaches the big, wide world! At this point, you're all ready for your work to be released and they're just here to top up your supplies and give you a pat on the back before you set free <3

How do I become a good Beta Reader?

Read! The more exposure you have of writing and its genres (even ones that you don't usually beta for), the more tailored and specific your advice will be :)

Choose works to read in a form/style you are comfortable in! Don't read over someone's ancient greek play if you haven't heard of the Iliad :) Even though having a wide variety of skills and experiences are useful for a beta-reader, it is important that you provide relevant and valid advice to your writer!

Give personal and specific feedback! Something that I try and include in my beta reading are some of my favourite quotes from the text that really emulate that writer's message. Not only does this help the writer realise the most poignant parts of their writing, it also gives them a moral boost!

How do I choose a beta reader for my work?

Find someone who has experience in the type of writing you do! If you're writing fan-fiction for example, don't get a beta-reader who has never read/watched the original text before!

Pick an unbiased friend/person who you know will not be afraid to provide you with feedback/opinions AND will also not tear apart your work.

Trust your gut instinct. Often you already have an idea of who will provide the best advice for your writing!

So there it is folks, a quick and messy guide to beta-reading! Questions and comments are most welcome; my ask box and DMs are always open <3 If you're interested in beta-reading/looking for a beta-reader, hit me up and I'd love to help/scout around with you! I also do a bit of beta-reading here and there too (more editing outside of tumblr but I'd love to read your work) <3

Happy reading!

<3 Hics

#literature #creative writing #words #writers #writblr #writers on tumblr #inspiration #my writing #writing community #beta reading #writing advice #writing tips #writing resources

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hauntedbythenarrative · 2 months

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HI! Sorry for bothering you but i love your Alicent content and webweaving and i loved the quotes you use !.

Do you mind sharing some recs of the books you use for the Alicent web weaving?.

Have a good day!

hi🌸

not a bother at all!! actually the quotes I found aren't from me reading books but just following poetry and lit blogs here on tumblr. usually when I see something that makes me think of her I just save the quote. I have thought before of reading the whole book or poetry collection but I have a pretty long reading list and I try to read in english as much as possible, but I live in italy, so it's not always easy to find books translated or written in english.

if I can attempt to answer your ask. I might say some bullshit...but, in hs I studied ancient greek lit and italian lit pretty hard (it was kinda the point of the hs I attended) but it's been 8 years since I graduated, so my memory isn't perfect. I think alicent mainly gives off 3 vibes: greek tragedies, epic poems and religious writings (but ik nothing about those. there's a whole world of writing inspired by that tho). I feel like medea (for the vengeance theme, not the "kill your children" theme) and antigone would be a good start. I'd like to put the iliad in as well only bc it has range, but you need a lot of patience and focus. I'm kinda biased and I think everyone should know to some degree the iliad...said that, last year I read dead blondes and bad mothers. it doesn't directly link to alicent but it explores the figures of daughters, wifes and mothers (in horror) and sometimes I felt like ,,okay, that's why some people could hate alicent bc of this patriarchal concept. it's a pretty easy, and I my opinion, sometimes basic feminist essay, but I mostly read novels, so that's the most you can get from me (for now) when it comes to essays. I'd also like to throw shakespeare in but I haven't read him in such a long time. don't wanna say sth potentially wrong but alicent makes me think a lot of ophelia (it sounds basic, ik).

I'm really thankful for the love and I hope this answer isn't a bummer. I'd love to give book recs but what i've read last year and what I read this year isn't v alicent-coded. but I'm sure the more I'll get into classics (again) the more I'll find something that fits. I'm just not in the most intellectual mood rn lol.

so, yeah, sorry if it is disappointing :((

#i'm also pretty sure that when i'll publish this ask i'll remember other things to mention uuuugh #emma answers

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littlesparklight · 19 days

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"‘Amphimetores’ are groups of siblings born of the same father but different mothers.22 Such groups could never be at peace with each other in the Greek world (whereas full siblings almost always co-operate), and the different mothers and their respective sons’ interests were closely identified as they struggled for precedence and attempted to bastardize competing lines.

[...]

worse, the principle that one set of half-siblings may help and support another is a contradiction of the principle of amphimetric strife so prevalent in Greek culture." (Women and Bastardy in Ancient Greece and the Hellenistic World by Daniel Ogden)

Including the first quote for context, but it's the bolded I'm more concerned with.

It got me thinking of Ajax and Teucer, see.

Half-brothers, and it's not as if, in the myths especially attached to Teucer after Ajax's death, the idea of this sort of antithesis of cooperation wasn't there. It's expressed loud and clear in Sophocles' Ajax, in the imagined/and past words and actions of Telamon regarding Teucer.

It's right there in the mythic structure where Teucer coming home without Ajax gets him thrown under suspicion of having lacked in due diligence (intentionally). The illegitimate brother now in a position to usurp his legitimate brother.

And yet, mythwise? In the Iliad itself? There's clearly no conflict between Ajax and Teucer. They are a team, a cooperative unit. (I've even read some suggestion that earlier, "the Aiantes" was about Ajax and Teucer, not the two Ajaxes.) There's not a whiff of Teucer ever having any ambitions other than helping and supporting his brother!

And reading that quote up there, and, honestly, thinking of the more-than-zero myths where a half-brother is killed because they will, or are imagined to be, a threat to the other brother(s), you realize how rather special Ajax and Teucer's relationship is.

#the iliad #ajax the greater #teucer #greek myth thoughts

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maladaptedreader-writes · 6 months

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Mal's ramblings/sources for TGOE Ch 1

The quote at the top from (Pseudo-)Apollodorus 3.7.1, translated by Sir James George Frazer, F.B.A. can be found on the Tufts website, which is where I find most all my Greek/Roman texts. The website explicitly says Apollodorus, which is why I labeled it as such.

The Theoi Project has a lovely rundown on our titular Eleos, which is where I found the quote in the first place. (The Tufts translation had less parenthesis. Ironic that I put that in parenthesis?)

A supplicants branch sounds kind of obvious, but, like, what kinda branch? Well, I found this fancy PDF from something called "The Nature of the Act of Supplication" that specifies it's an olive branch, and now I feel a little silly for not coming to that obvious conclusion on my own.

Mycenaean Greek vs. Achaean Doric Greek I got from Wikipedia. Technically Achaean Greek is shorthand for Mycenaean Greek, but that seems really easy to mix up. And if I use "Mycenaean" if emphasizes the regional players in a way that Achaean doesn't (at least to me).

Can't remember where I read the thing about ancient Greek writers being able to muddle their way through a newspaper, but I've seen similar sentiments on other sites, so I'm just going to assume it's a thing people seem to think in academia in general.

We know thermopolium were a thing around 79 CE, and kapeleion in 400 BCE, but what about, like, 2700-1500 BCE? Were eateries a thing in bronze age Greece? While this lovely paper talks about food and its relation to class (to put it simply). Here's a quote from early in the paper: "...rural population of Greece used scarce ingredients and culinary elaboration to differentiate between daily meals within the household and commensality on ‘special’ occasions involving hospitality to ‘outsiders.’" The paper has nothing to do with eateries. But I'm looking at this quote and thinking a lot about Xenia and the stories and just how they're told and what they do and don't say. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. But, for now, we're gonna go with "eateries weren't a thing in bronze age Greece."

Oral stories are not generally considered fictional stories. Maybe they're cultural lessons, but it's important to remember that they're histories first and foremost. With Greek stories (among many others I'm sure), they were retold in ways that would relate to the listener. No one expected Jimmy down the block actually fought in that battle multiple city-states over, but it's more fun to hear about Jimmy than some rando. (Seriously, this paper talks about oral myths as memes, and it's super fascinating.) I'm personally on the side of (some) oral stories being like Klingon stories. Exaggeration is just part of the game.

I can't remember where I found the thing I did about possessives and Greek names, so I now refer to this debate about it on Stack Exchange as evidence of "rules? what rules?"

Oh wait! I found it. It has to do with syllables. Now, if I don't go back and fix all the things, I'll annoy me. (Note to self: Make offerings to the god of Ctrl+H)

I think it was FlaviaFulvia who pointed out that only Achilles and Helen use "I" in the Iliad. I want to read more discourse on that.

#the gift of eleos #sources

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deathlessathanasia · 1 year

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I’m once more attempting to Read Robert Graves’s The Greek Myths, and these are the passages that have most impressed me so far::

"I now believe that ‘ambrosia’ and ‘nectar’ were intoxicant mushrooms: certainly the amanitamuscaria; but perhaps others, too, especially a small, slender dung-mushroom named panaeolus papilionaceus, which induces harmless and most enjoyable hallucinations. A mushroom not unlike it appears on an Attic vase between the hooves of Nessus the Centaur. The ‘gods’ for whom, in the myths, ambrosia and nectar were reserved, will have been sacred queens and kings of the pre-Classical era. King Tantalus’s crime was that he broke the taboo by inviting commoners to share his ambrosia. Sacred queenships and kingships lapsed in Greece; ambrosia then became, it seems, the secret element of the Eleusinian, Orphic and other Mysteries associated with Dionysus. At all events, the participants swore to keep silence about what they ate or drank, saw unforgettable visions, and were promised immortality. The ‘ambrosia’ awarded to winners of the Olympic footrace when victory no longer conferred the sacred kingship on them was clearly a substitute" - ........

"In earlier Greek myth, however, the sun yields precedence to the moon (Source?)—which inspires the greater superstitious fear, does not grow dimmer as the year wanes, and is credited with the power to grant or deny water to the fields. The moon's three phases of new, full and old, recalled the matriarch's three phases of maiden, nymph (nubile woman) and crone. Then, since the sun's annual course similarly recalled the rise and decline of her physical powers—spring a maiden, summer a nymph, winter a crone—the goddess became identified with seasonal changes in animal and plant life; and thus with Mother Earth who, at the beginning of the vegetative year, produces only leaves and buds, then flowers and fruits, and at last ceases to bear. She could later be conceived as yet another triad: the maiden of the upper air, the nymph of the earth or sea, the crone of the Underworld—typified respectively by Selene (Why is Selene the maiden?), Aphrodite and Hecate (Why is Hekate the crone?). These mystical analogues fostered the sacredness of the number three, and the Moon-goddess became enlarged to nine when each of the three persons—maiden, nymph and crone—appeared in triad to demonstrate her divinity." - ......

"Again, Apollo’s destruction of the Python at Delphi seems to record the Achaeans’ capture of the Cretan Earth-goddess’s shrine; so does his attempted rape of Daphne, whom Hera (EXCUSE ME? Hera?) thereupon metamorphosed into a laurel. This myth has been quoted by Freudian psychologists as symbolizing a girl’s instinctive horror of the sexual act; yet Daphne was anything but a frightened virgin. Her name is a contraction of Daphoene, ‘the bloody one’, the goddess in orgiastic mood, whose priestesses, the Maenads, chewed laurel-leaves as an intoxicant and periodically rushed out at the full moon, assaulted unwary travellers, and tore children or young animals in pieces;" - I'm only on, like, page 8 and I already want to quit.

"Hephaestus’s three-legged workshop tables, for example, which ran by themselves to assemblies of the gods, and back again (Iliad), are not, as Dr Charles Seltman suggests in his Twelve Olympian Gods, anticipations of automobiles; but golden Sun-disks with three legs a piece (like the emblem of the Isle of Man), apparently representing the number of three-season years for which a ‘son of Hephaestus’ was permitted to reign in the island of Lemnos." - Huh?

"the so-called ‘Judgement of Paris’, where a hero is called upon to decide between the rival charms of three goddesses and awards his apple to the fairest, records an ancient ritual situation, outgrown by the time of Homer and Hesiod. These three goddesses are one goddess in triad: Athene the maiden, Aphrodite the nymph, and Hera the crone (Why is Hera the crone?)—and Aphrodite is presenting Paris with the apple, rather than receiving it from him. This apple, symbolizing her love bought at the price of his life, will be Paris’s passport to the Elysian Fields, the apple orchards of the west, to which only the souls of heroes are admitted."

"Eurynome and Ophion made their home upon Mount Olympus, where he vexed her by claiming to be the author of the Universe (says who?). Forthwith she bruised his head with her heel, kicked out his teeth, and banished him to the dark caves below the earth (according to whom?). Next, the goddess created the seven planetary powers, setting a Titaness and a Titan over each. Theia and Hyperion for the Sun; Phoebe and Atlas for the Moon; Dione and Crius for the planet Mars; Metis and Coeus for the planet Mercury; Themis and Eurymedon for the planet Jupiter; Tethys and Oceanus for Venus; Rhea and Cronus for the planet Saturn." - WTF? What does Atlas have to do with the moon? What do Dione and Krios have to do with each other? Don't all sources describe Eurymedon as one of the gigantes, not as a titan? What associations do Okeanos and Tethys have with the planet Venus?

"But when the Titan cult was abolished in Greece, and the seven—day week ceased to figure in the official calendar, their number was quoted as twelve by some authors, probably to make them correspond with the signs of the Zodiac. Hesiod, Apollodorus, Stephanus of Byzantium, Pausanias, and others give inconsistent lists of their names. In Babylonian myth the planetary rulers of the week, namely Samas, Sin, Nergal, Bel, Beltis, and Ninib, were all male, except Beltis, the Love—goddess; but in the Germanic week, which the Celts had borrowed from the Eastern Mediterranean, Sunday, Tuesday, and Friday were ruled by Titanesses, as opposed to Titans. To judge from the divine status of Aeolus's paired—off daughters and sons, and the myth of Niobe, it was decided, when the system first reached pre—Hellenic Greece from Palestine, to pair a Titaness with each Titan, as a means of safeguarding the goddess's interests. But before long the fourteen were reduced to a mixed company of seven." - WTF?! I’m so confused. Where does all this stuff come from?

"Uranus, whose name came to mean 'the sky', seems to have won his position as First Father by being identified with the pastoral god Varuna, one of the Aryan male trinity; but his Greek name is a masculine form of Ur-ana ('queen of the mountains', 'queen of summer', 'queen of the winds', or 'queen of wild oxen') — the goddess in her orgiastic midsummer aspect. Uranus's marriage to Mother Earth records an early Hellenic invasion of Northern Greece, which allowed Varuna's people to claim that he had fathered the native tribes he found there, though acknowledging him to be Mother Earth's son." - So the Greek word for sky is in actuality simply the masculine form of the name of "the goddess in her orgiastic midsummer aspect"? K.

"The later Greeks read 'Cronus' as Chronos, 'Father Time' with his relentless sickle. But he is pictured in the company of a crow, like Apollo, Asclepius, Saturn, and the early British god Bran; and cronos probably means 'crow', like the Latin cornix and the Greek corone. The crow was an oracular bird, supposed to house the soul of a sacred king after his sacrifice." - If you say so...

"They (the sisters and brothers of Zeus) sprang out unhurt and, in gratitude, asked him to lead them in a war against the Titans, who chose the gigantic Atlas as their leader; for Cronus was now past his prime." - So Kronos, one of the deathless gods, was to old to lead the war effort? All right.

"Melisseus ('honey—man'), Adrasteia and Io's reputed father, is really their mother — Melissa, the goddess as Queen—bee, who annually killed her male consort." - Oooookay.

"Thereafter, Athene is Zeus's obedient mouthpiece, and deliberately suppresses her antecedents. She employs priests, not priestesses." - Hear that world?! Athena employed priests, not priestesses. Everything you ever thought you knew about priestesses of Athena is a lie, there is no such thing.

"Aphrodite Urania (‘queen of the mountain’) or Erycina (‘of the heather’) was the nymph-goddess of midsummer. She destroyed the sacred king, who mated with her on a mountain top, as a queen-bee destroys the drone: by tearing out his sexual organs. Hence the heather-loving bees and the red robe in her mountain-top affair with Anchises; hence also the worship of Cybele, the Phrygian Aphrodite of Mount Ida, as a queen-bee, and the ecstatic self-castration of her priests in memory of her lover Attis." - ...

"Zeus claimed to be (Aphrodite's) father after seizing Dione's oracle at Dodona, and Dione therefore became her mother." - Source?

"The myth of Cinyras and Smyrna evidently records a period in history when the sacred king in a matrilineal society decided to prolong his reign beyond the customary length. He did so by celebrating a marriage with the young priestess, nominally his daughter, who was to be queen for the next term, instead of letting another princeling marry her and take away his kingdom." - How can you possibly know that?

"HERA, daughter of Cronus and Rhea, having been born on the island of Samos or, some say, at Argos, was brought up in Arcadia by Temenus, son of Pelasgus. The Seasons were her nurses. After banishing their father Cronus, Hera's twin—brother Zeus sought her out at Cnossus in Crete or, some say, on Mount Thornax (now called Cuckoo Mountain) in Argolis, where he courted her, at first unsuccessfully. She took pity on him only when he adopted the disguise of a bedraggled cuckoo, and tenderly warmed him in her bosom. There he at once resumed his true shape and ravished her, so that she was shamed into marrying him." - Why the fuck are you smashing all these different local traditions into one incoherent mess instead of, I dunno, picking one or presenting them all as distingt versions? Did the Samians or Argives believe that Hera was born on their respective territories but was raised in Arcadia? The Horai are called her nurses by the Lycian poet Olen, so why combine it with the Arcadian story of her rearing? And of course this book popularized the "Hera married Zeus out of shame" narrative, how surprising.

"though some say that Ares and his twin-sister Eris were conceived when Hera touched a certain flower (Yeah, "some say" as in Ovid, but he says nothing about Eris, nor does any other source call her the twin sister of Ares), and Hebe when she touched a lettuce (according to the first Vatican mythographer), and that Hephaestus also was her parthenogenous child — a wonder which he would not believe until he had imprisoned her in a mechanical chair with arms that folded about the sitter, thus forcing her to swear by the River Styx that she did not lie (source?). Others say that Hephaestus was her son by Talos, the nephew of Daedalus." Who exactly says that? According to Pausanias, the poet "Kinaithon made Hephaistos a son of Tallos, but with no mention of any mother.

"Hera's forced marriage to Zeus commemorates conquests of Crete and Mycenaean — that is to say Cretanized—Greece, and the overthrow of her supremacy in both countries. He probably came to her disguised as a bedraggled cuckoo, in the sense that certain Hellenes who came to Crete as fugitives accepted employment in the royal guard, made a palace conspiracy and seized the kingdom." - "(in the sense" that this makes no sense. Jeez man, it's like you were there.

"The wedding-night (of Zeus and Hera) on Samos lasted for three hundred years: perhaps because the Samian sacred year, like the Etruscan one, consisted of ten thirty—day months only: with January and February omitted (Macrobius). Each day was lengthened to a year. But the mythographers may here be hinting that it took the Hellenes three hundred years before they forced monogamy on Hera's people." - Yeah, perhaps that’s what the mythographers were hinting here. That was my first thought, too.

"A time came when Zeus's pride and petulance became so intolerable that Hera, Poseidon, Apollo, and all the other Olympians, except Hestia ("except for Hestia" says who?), surrounded him suddenly as he lay asleep on his couch, and bound him with rawhide thongs, knotted into a hundred knots, so that be could not move. He threatened them with instant death (because it makes perfect sense for him to threaten the deathless gods with death), but they had placed his thunderbolt out of reach and laughed insultingly at him. While they were celebrating their victory, and jealously discussing who was to be his successor (says who?), Thetis the Nereid, foreseeing a civil war on Olympus, hurried in search of the hundred—handed Briareus, who swiftly untied the thongs, using every hand at once, and released his master. Because it was Hera who had led the conspiracy against him (says who?), Zeus hung her up from the sky with a golden bracelet about either wrist and an anvil fastened to either ankle. The other deities were vexed beyond words, but dared attempt no rescue (Hephaistos would beg to disagree) for all her piteous cries. In the end Zeus undertook to free her if they swore never more to rebel against him (says who?); and this each in turn grudgingly did. Zeus punished Poseidon and Apollo by sending them as bond—servants to King Laomedon, for whom they built the city of Troy; but he pardoned the others as having acted under duress (says who?)."

"It is possible that the occasion on which the power of Zeus was saved only by Thetis and Briareus, after the other Olympians had conspired against him, was a palace revolution by vassal princes of the Hellenic High King, who nearly succeeded in dethroning him; and that help came from a company of loyal non—Hellenic household troops, recruited in Macedonia, Briareus's home, and from a detachment of Magnesians, Thetis's people. If so, the conspiracy will have been instigated by the High—priestess of Hera, whom the High King subsequently humiliated, as the myth describes." - Say what you will about Graves, but he definitely didn't lack in imagination.

"The Muses ('mountain goddesses'), originally a triad (Pausanias), are the Triple—goddess in her orgiastic aspect. Zeus's claim to be their father is a late one; Hesiod calls them daughters of Mother Earth and Air." - What Hesiod actually says is this: "Come thou, let us begin with the Muses who gladden the great spirit of their father Zeus in Olympus with their songs, ....... Them in Pieria did Mnemosyne, who reigns over the hills of Eleuther, bear of union with the father, the son of Cronos, a forgetting of ills and a rest from sorrow. For nine nights did wise Zeus lie with her, entering her holy bed remote from the immortals. And when a year was passed and the seasons came round as the months waned, and many days were accomplished, she bare nine daughters, all of one mind, whose hearts are set upon song and their spirit free from care".

"First, (Zeus) begat Hermes on Maia, daughter of Atlas, who bore him in a cave on Mount Cyllene in Arcadia. Next, he begat Apollo and Artemis on Leto, daughter of the Titans Coeus and Phoebe, transforming himself and her into quails when they coupled; but jealous Hera sent the serpent Python to pursue Leto all over the world, and decreed that she should not be delivered in any place where the sun shone." - WTF? On the basis of what source do you place the birth of Hermes before that of Apollon? Why are you using the version of Leto's pregnancy related by Pseudo-Hyginus instead of, I don't know, the one in the Homeric Hymn to Apollon or in Kallimachos' Hymn to Delos? Where does the quail stuff come from?

"One component in Apollo's godhead seems to have been an oracular mouse — Apollo Smintheus ('Mouse—Apollo') is among his earliest titles — consulted in a shrine of the Great Goddess, which perhaps explains why he was born where the sun never shone, namely underground (Why are you making it sound like him being born underground/where the sun doesn't shine is in any way a regular part of his mythology?). Mice were associated with disease and its cure, and the Hellenes therefore worshipped Apollo as a god of medicine and prophecy; afterwards saying that he was born under an olive-tree and a date-palm on the north side of a mountain. They called him a twin-brother of Artemis Goddess of Childbirth, and made his mother Leto — the daughter of the Titans Phoebe ('moon') and Coeus ('intelligence') (why ‘intelligence’?)— who was known in Egypt and Palestine as Lat, fertility—goddess of the date—palm and olive: hence her conveyance to Greece by a South Wind (in literally one source! Why are you making it sound like that is in any way a regular part of her mythology? And also wasn't it the north wind?). In Italy she became Latona ('Queen Lat'). Her quarrel with Hera suggests a conflict between early immigrants from Palestine and native tribes who worshipped a different Earth-goddess; the mouse cult, which she seems to have brought with her, was well established in Palestine. Python's pursuit of Apollo recalls the use of snakes in Greek and Roman houses to keep down mice. But Apollo was also the ghost of the sacred king (wtf?) who had eaten the apple — the word Apollo may be derived from the root abol, 'apple', (wtf!) rather than from apollunai, 'destroy', which is the usual view."

"Amphitrite bore Poseidon three children: Triton, Rhode, and Benthesicyme; but he caused her almost as much jealousy as Zeus did Hera by his love affairs with goddesses, nymphs, and mortals. Especially she loathed his infatuation with Scylla, daughter of Phorcys, whom she changed into a barking monster with six heads and twelve feet by throwing magical herbs into her bathing pool." - Interesting that he chooses to put emphasis on Amphitrite's supposed jealousy, when the account of Skyla's story that he mentions (which isn't even the most common version btw) is the one and only instance of her exhibiting any amount of jealousy.

"Thetis, Amphitrite, and Nereis were different local titles of the Triple Moon-goddess as ruler of the sea; and since Poseidon was the Father-god of the Aeolians, who had taken to the sea, he claimed to be her husband wherever she found worshippers. " - Stoooooooooop!

"Amphitrite’s children were herself in triad: Triton, lucky new moon; Rhode, full harvest-moon; and Benthesicyme, dangerous old moon. But Triton has since become masculinised." - ON WHAT FUCKING BASIS ARE YOU MAKING THIS ASSERTION DAMN IT?!

"But Halirrhothius can only be a synonym for Poseidon; and Alcippe a synonym for the mare-headed goddess. The myth, in fact, recalls Poseidon’s rape of Demeter, and refers to a conquest of Athens by Poseidon’s people and the goddess’s humiliation at their hands." - What? How? Why?

"The Maiden of the Silver Bow, whom the Greeks enrolled in the Olympian family, was the youngest member of the Artemis Triad, ‘Artemis’ being one more title of the Triple Moon-goddess; and had a right therefore to feed her hinds on trefoil, a symbol of trinity. Her silver bow (her bow is usually gold and Apollon's is silver, but we're ignoring that ok) stood for the new moon. Yet the Olympian Artemis was more than a Maiden. Elsewhere, at Ephesus, for instance, she was worshipped in her second person, as Nymph, an orgiastic Aphrodite with a male consort, and the date-palm, stag, and bee for her principal emblems. Her midwifery belongs, rather, to the Crone (why?), as do her arrows of death; and the nine-year-old priestesses are a reminder that the moon’s death number is three times three (Whaaaaat?)."

"One day, when nine years had passed, Hera met Thetis, who happened to be wearing a brooch of his (Hephaistos') workmanship, and asked: ‘My dear, where in the world did you find that wonderful jewel?’ (According to whom?) Thetis hesitated before replying, but Hera forced the truth from her. At once she fetched Hephaestus back to Olympus, where she set him upon a much finer smithy, with twenty bellows working day and night, made much of him, and arranged that he should marry Aphrodite (According to whom?)." - What about Hephaistos' revenge with the golden throne and his drunken return to Olympos? Surely that is the regular version of the story?

#robert graves

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frosk-langblr · 4 years

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hewwo i have an ancient greek keyboard now....for example: μῆνιν ἄειδε ἣ μυρίοις Ἁχαιοῖς ἄλγεα ἔθηκεν

#me two months ago: nah coronavirus isn't going to affect my life at all #me now: *quoting the Iliad in ancient greek*#moss.txt #ancient greek

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corainne · 2 years

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Don’t get me wrong, Nightingale’s name slaps on so many levels.

Calling your character who is defined by being a ww2 soldier who lost all his friends and family Thomas Nightingale, which you can literally translate from nerd into british soldier who is stuck in his grief and trauma about the things that happened to him, and what he did to others? Fucking iconic.

Him being known, now, as the Nightingale by everyone in the demi-monde? Girlboss move. You know he's being alienated by the dm, that those he was once friends with also other him, that he is still perceived the way he was during the war, just with that.

The Metamorpheses reference coupled with his own metamorpheses into the physical state he had during the war? Fucking galaxy brained.

That the nightgale's song is used throughout greek and roman literature as a lament, an expression of grief? Makes me want to scream my lungs out.

But who THE FUCK started that shit? Who thought that was an appropriate nickname for a friend? For anyone really?

We know it started within the Folly, bc Hugh Oswald tells us they called him the Nightingale ‘Because he was so singular, so extraordinary – or so the seniors said. Of course most of us didn’t believe a word of it, but we used it as a nickname – irony, or so we thought.’ That implies that it happened before the war because during the war Oswald and the rest would have seen how extraordinary Nightingale was, while their "seniors" wouldn’t have. It makes more sense to have happened while he was school and they had no point of reference ( there is a difference between being the best in your year and being singular) and likely wouldn’t be particularly bothered, because by the sound of it most members of the Folly went into mundane professions and being a wizard was more about tradition and maybe prestige. But what teenage boy gives his friend that sort of nickname, while also calling others Spotty and Lazy Arse Dance? Who reads - which they would have because Ovid is, alongside Cicero and Livius, one of the roman writers I would definitely have my students translate, just for the fucking archaisms, and Metamorpheses is one of the most influential works in the western canon, even if it’s fucked up in so many ways. (Romeo and Juliet? Stolen from Metamorpheses. Hermione in Winter's Tale? From Metamorpheses. Lavinia from Titus Andronicus? Straight out of fucking Procne and Philomela. And that’s just Shakespeare) Hugh Oswald can quote the Iliad, in ancient Greek, there is no way they didn’t read Ovid at Casterbrook – and thinks that is an appropriate nickname, even if meant in jest? That is horrible.

And it’s not even a proper nickname. Putting a definite article in front of his name would only make sense if there was another Nightingale who he had to be differentiated from, who would also need to be important enough during ww2 that the rest of the world started doing it as well (coincidentally the Nightingale (die Nachtigall) in German makes perfect sense because it works. I can say “this is the Julia” and have it make sense in German, even if its not exactly common, but English doesn’t work that way). Otherwise just calling him Nightingale would have sufficed. We don’t refer to Julius Caesar as the Caesar, to differentiate him from the actual Caesars that followed him, but call him Caesar and the rest by another – or their full name – because we know who is generally meant by Caesar. I cannot think of a single person in history with a definite article in front of their name. You either use a title e.g. Alexander the Great, or their name e.g. Shakespeare. You only use an article when talking about a group of people, e.g. the Bronte sisters, the Mann family; or if it’s a title.

And that’s what it sounds like. A title, or cognomen, not something that is part of his actual name. But one used so commonly that Hugh Oswald, who has to be 15 to 20 years younger than Nightingale, the demi-monde, as well as the Nazis and Americans, unanimously started using it, which makes very little sense in world considering there is very little contact between these groups and they are still doing it 70 years later even though Nightingale spent most of that time depression napping.

#rivers of london #i would say I'm sorry but I'm not #did David Mellenby talk about Nightingale so much the Nazis started calling him the Nightingale you know David Mellenby's Nightingale?#did the folly send a fucking memo? pls call him the Nightingale for the dramatics

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littletrouper · 2 years

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Happy Halloween, everyone!!! 🧛🎃🍁👻🌌 I hope you're all having a spooktacular night!

I'm sharing with you a Louistat couples costume for the Ancient Greek themed Halloween party at the Chateau de Lioncourt (which I totally made up lol).

Armand and Marius went as Ganymede and Zeus, of course.

Lestat and Louis have decided to go as Achilles and Patroclus from the Iliad - the star-crossed greek lovers (debatable, but still widely accepted). And I find that to be a pretty good match for them lol.

Here's a quote from the Iliad, when Achilles discovers Patroclus dead, cuz I just have to add feels to it lol

"But now you lie here torn before me, and my heart goes starved

for meat and drink, though they are here beside me, by reason

of longing for you. There is nothing worse than this I could suffer..."

Kinda reminds me of Merrick

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imsorryimlate · 3 years

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Specific references in Pomegranate Seeds, sorted by chapter

Title of work: Pomegranate Seeds

A reference to the myth of Persephone and Hades, where Hades is the god of the underworld who kidnaps Persephone – the daughter of Demeter, goddess of agriculture and harvest – and makes her queen of the underworld. He gives her a pomegranate to eat, and for every seed she swallows she has to spend a month with Hades in the underworld. During the months she is with Hades, she is gone from her mother, and that’s why autumn and winter exist (since Demeter is grieving the loss of her daughter). Spring and summer are the months when she is back with Demeter, and Demeter is once again happy. The myth has lots of interpretations, but my favourite is the one where it is said to be based on the trauma of both daughter and mother as they are separated when the daughter gets married and enters a new household.

Even though Giorno’s mother didn’t treat him well, her death was most likely traumatic to him. He enters the new household of Dio (Hades) and every time they touch each other in a way that isn’t befitting father and son, one could say that Giorno swallows another pomegranate seed, and it binds him to the underworld. In this case, the underworld would both represent the criminal world, but also the trap of their incestuous relationship that he then cannot leave, should he want to.

No specific references in chapters 1 & 2.

Chapter 3:

Demetra – Giorno’s mother doesn’t have a name in canon, so I made one up. Demetra is the Italian version of Demeter, which is the name of the Greek goddess of agriculture and harvest. The goddess is the mother of Persephone, and the title of this fic – Pomegranate Seeds – is a reference to the myth of Hades and Persephone.

The biblical paintings in the church – John the Baptist (martyr) was beheaded, and Judas (traitor) hung himself. The imagery around Eve, the snake and the red apple, well… depending on how you interpret the story in the Bible, this could mean that the scene doesn’t represent a fall from grace, but rather that it was God’s intention to have humanity step into the broader world.

Dio’s books – I mostly just had a look at my own bookshelf, but I purposely included Nabokov, Machiavelli, and Plato. Nabokov, of course, references his infamous novel Lolita. Machiavelli was an Italian politician and philosopher during the Renaissance, and he’s most famous for his book The Prince, where he gave rulers quite… devious advice, not shying away from unethical and corrupt means. Therefore Machiavelli and the derived term Machiavellian often denotes (political) deceit. And Plato, well, in his text The Symposium he speaks of the ancient practice of pederasty in a very positive manner, and claiming that it is the purest form of love.

Aniara – I picked the book because it’s my sister’s favourite. It is a book-length epic science fiction poem that narrates the tragedy of a large passenger spacecraft carrying a cargo of colonists escaping destruction on Earth veering off course, leaving the Solar System and entering into an existential struggle. This is the “space-travel” Giorno later reflects on while in the bath.

No specific references in chapter 4.

Chapter 5:

The next reference to Machiavelli – Giorno thinks about Machiavelli and the question if it is better to be feared or loved, which is something Machiavelli writes about in his book The Prince, where he states that it is better for a ruler to be feared than loved, if they cannot be both.

No specific references in chapter 6.

Chapter 7:

Reckless – Giorno notes that Dio wants him “recklessly, passionately”. This is one of the two times the word “reckless” is used in this story; the only other time being in the first chapter when Giorno’s mother dies after her car collides with a reckless truck. Dio’s desire for Giorno is tied together with that accident, as if it’s equally dangerous.

Jewel – “Yes, Giorno would like something like that; to show Dio that he was a prized jewel, cut to fit perfectly in the curve of his palm.” This line directly references the Song of Songs 7:1 “Your rounded thighs are like jewels, the work of a master hand.”

Eden – “How truly unfortunate, that the most tempting fruit should be found in the middle of Eden.” The garden of Eden, in the Bible, is where life is first created by God. It can therefore also symbolise family, where life also is created. So what Dio essentially says here is “what a shame the most fuckable person is found in my family”.

Draconic tendencies – Giorno having “draconic tendencies” is a reference to his earlier thoughts about Abbacchio hoarding Bucciarati like a jealous dragon.

Chapter 8:

Buttercups – Giorno picks a bouquet of buttercups for Dio, and buttercups have traditionally been associated with childhood. It is meant to express that Giorno, no matter how mature he himself is convinced that he is, still has a childish edge to his affection. As a fun aside, the Latin name for buttercups is Ranunculus, which means “little frog”.

Leda and the Swan – the painting Dio has in his study. It is, of course, an erotic yet controversial motif in itself, but there are some references to the Greek myth it is based on. In it, Zeus disguises himself as a swan and copulates with Leda. It is not entirely clear if it is by rape or seduction. Zeus, of course, is known for his sexual escapades, his violent temper and jealousy, but here he disguises himself as a swan, which is an animal that in European culture often has symbolised love and fidelity. This story of a shady person disguising himself as someone loving, to enter a relationship where consent is dubious at best, well… I think the implications are clear. As a fun aside, the name Zeus and the name Dio are directly connected.

Uneasy lies the head – the whole quote is “uneasy lies the head that wears a crown”, a saying from Shakespeare’s play Henry IV, Part 2, meaning that someone with great responsibilities won’t be able to rest properly.

The prodigal son – it’s a reference to a parable in the Bible, from Luke 15:11-32. The story goes that a son requests his inheritance early, spends it all irresponsibly, and then returns home to beg his father to let him work for him. His father, however, welcomes him home with open arms and throws a feast, which indicates that he has hopefully waiting for the son to return.

Nakedness – the scene in Giorno’s room, where he lowers his duvet to display his “nakedness”, the word choice here is important. Except for Genesis 42, all biblical occurrences of the common idiom ”to see the nakedness of” or “to uncover the nakedness of” are explicitly sexual, usually referring to incest. The Classical Hebrew word 'erwā is not “nudity” but “nakedness”, in the sense of something that is unseemly or improper to look at or expose; often used to denote forbidden sexual relations.

Chapter 9:

Wine-dark – Dio’s eyes are described as wine-dark, which is a reference to the use of “wine-dark sea” in Homer. It’s an epithet used in the Iliad and the Odyssey, of uncertain meaning. What exactly does it mean that the sea is “wine-dark”? Is it a reference to the stormy sea being unpredictable, like someone who’s drunk on wine? Or does it tell us something about how ancient Greeks perceived colours, where maybe depth and opacity levels were more important than hues?

Ambrosia – Giorno compares the taste of Dio’s seed to ambrosia, which is the food and drink of the gods in Greek mythology.

Lollipop – Giorno is sucking on a lollipop while he’s out shopping. This is a shameless reference to the most culturally recognised image of Nabokov’s Lolita, where Sue Lyon, the actress who portrayed the character Lolita in Stanley Kubrick’s film adaption of the novel, is sucking on a red lollipop while wearing heart-shaped sunglasses. It’s worth noting, however, that the character Lolita doesn’t eat a lollipop in the novel or Kubrick’s film, and the images were only used for promotion. Either way, the lollipop has nonetheless become a symbol for playful, youthful temptation.

No specific references in chapter 10.

Chapter 11:

Dio’s alarming beauty – Giorno reflects on how beautiful Dio is, that he is alarmingly beautiful. This is a reference to a quote from The Secret History by Donna Tartt: “Beauty is rarely soft or consolatory. Quite the contrary. Genuine beauty is always quite alarming.”

Chapter 12:

Kisses – there’s a lot of descriptions of kissing in the beginning of this chapter, and it is all a reference to the biblical book Song of Songs. “Honey-sweet kisses that melted his tongue” is a reference to Song of Songs 4:11 “honey and milk are under your tongue”. On a more complicated note… “those kisses, Giorno drank them from his mouth like they were life-giving water” is a reference to Song of Songs 1:2 that should be “I want to drink kisses from his mouth”, however, most translations will read “let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth”. It’s really complicated as to why I and others would translate it differently, but in general it has to do with the manuscript and the Masoretic editors’ vocalisation, which in turn has a lot to do with evaluating Classical Hebrew grammar and poetic conventions… I am going to spare you that lecture, but I still wanted to let you know that you won’t find that wording in most English translations of the Bible.

The garden, Eden, and juvenile sex – this all ties together. The garden of Eden is, in the Bible, where life is created and before “the fall of man”, it is a place of peace and innocence. Now, it might seem strange to refer to innocence in a story like this, but there still is a certain kind of innocence to their relationship, especially on Giorno’s end. They are described as “easy and unafraid, in full view of God”, which again is a reference to the biblical creation story; after “the fall of man”, when Adam and Eve have sinned, they are suddenly afraid of God and tries to hide from him, and for the first time shield their nudity, since they have now lost that innocence. So, Dio and Giorno being unafraid in full view of God is another reference to them being fairly innocent. At least that’s how Giorno conceptualises it.

Satyriasis – a word for excessive sexual desire, and an outdated term for hypersexuality. The word was developed in relation to the satyrs of Greek mythology, who were lustful woodland gods.

Nipple play – Giorno sucking on Dio’s tits, well… quite obvious reference, but if you missed it; it’s a reference to breastfeeding and nourishment.

Sunlight – in Stardust Crusaders, Dio tells Polnareff that he too has pain in his life because he can never see the sunlight, since he is a vampire. In this story, Dio isn’t a vampire, but I still wanted to include this pain. Dio’s love for the sunshine, and the depravation of it in his childhood, is my attempt to reconceptualise it.

Chapter 13:

Ice cream – elder flower sorbet has a tendency to taste like laundry detergent if you’re not careful, so Mista definitely picked the wrong flavour that time.

Know thy enemy – “know thy enemy” is a famous quote from The Art of War by Sun Tzu.

Chapter 14:

Paradise burning – more Eden references, they never truly stop.

Loins – in Classical Hebrew, one specifically emphasises that a child has sprung from someone’s loins to indicate that it is a biological child rather than an adopted one.

Deadly sins – Giorno notes that one of the seven deadly sins, sloth (that is, excessive laziness and indifference), doesn’t come as naturally to him as others would (such as lust or pride).

Know thy self – another reference to the famous quote of Sun Tzu’s The Art of War.

Companion – Giorno thinks about how the universe has blessed Dio with a companion that can keep up with him, which is a subtle reference to the creation myth in the Bible. There, God creates the first human, Adam. Adam attempts to find a companion amongst the other creatures, but cannot find an equal until God creates another human – incidentally, God creates another human from Adam (by his rib), which of course parallels with Giorno being created from Dio, since he is his biological child.

Clay – the dream Giorno has of Dio forming him out of clay and breathing life into him is another direct reference to the creation myth in the Bible, where God forms the first human out of clay/soil/dust from the ground and breathes life into his nostrils. Similar creation myths are found in several ancient Near Eastern religions. If you want a little more “fun” fact, the first human is named Adam, a name he gets from the Classical Hebrew word for “man” (as in human – not male), which is adam, and the word for “ground” is adamah, which ties to all together quite nicely.

Nakedness – Dio uncovers Giorno’s nakedness, and just like in chapter 8 it’s a biblical reference. Except for Genesis 42, all biblical occurrences of the common idiom ”to see the nakedness of” or “to uncover the nakedness of” are explicitly sexual, usually referring to incest. The Classical Hebrew word 'erwā is not “nudity” but “nakedness”, in the sense of something that is unseemly or improper to look at or expose; often used to denote forbidden sexual relations.

Chapter 15.

Cuddling – after having breakfast, they cuddle, and their position is described as Giorno resting his head on Dio’s left arm, and Dio draping his other arm over Giorno’s waist. This position is a reference to the biblical book the Song of Songs 2:6 “His left arm is under my head, and his right arm embraces me.”

Angel lust – Dio gets hard after Giorno chokes him, which he says is a perfectly natural reaction to being choked. Which it is! “Angel lust” or “death erection” refers to the phenomenon of men executed by hanging having an erection, because of the increased downward blood flow. After observing this, doctors in the 17th century started prescribing choking sex to men with erectile dysfunction, and that’s partly where erotic asphyxiation comes from.

England – the phrase “lie back and think of England”, alternatively “close your eyes and think of England” is an old-timey reference to unwanted sex that one doesn’t enjoy – specifically used for sex within a marriage, which at least back in the day was more of an economic arrangement than a love affair. Disgustingly, it means “just lie back and endure it”.

Bone of my bones, flesh of my flesh – this is another reference to the creation story in the Bible. The specific verse is Genesis 2:23, when God has created another human to be a worthy companion of the first one. Adam, the first human, has searched for a companion among the animals but been unsuccessful to find an equal. But when he meets the newly created Eve, the second human, he exclaims “At last! This is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh” (since she was created from his rib). That “at last!” is very sweet – and fits in this story too! Dio has finally found a worthy companion to share his highest highs and deepest lows with.

Chapter 16.

Roses – Giorno buys a bouquet of roses for Dio. This is intended as a contrast to the buttercups he picked for Dio in chapter 8, being that roses are a much more “mature” flower than buttercups, therefore showing that Giorno has matured. Also, the fact that he buys the bouquet of roses while he picked the buttercups indicate a certain loss of simplicity and naturalness in their relationship.

Fin.

#/#//#///#////#/////#just fanfiction stuff pls look away #i tried to make this a private post but tumblr be fucking with me #pomegranate seeds references

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littlesparklight · 3 years

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What is it about Zeus/Ganymede that you like so much?

I like them because I enjoy the dynamic (problematic I know 😬) and the fact that Ganymede was the only one who was given immortality, he must’ve been adored 🥰 instead of simply being a toy (which is my most dislike interpretation because it’s disrespectful to both parties imo)

Do you read fic of them (besides your own)? I remember reading a fic on live journal that I loved everything about but it’s gone R.I.P 😔

Ahh, anon. (guess who lost the original version because of clumsy fingers and now has to rewrite this...) First of all, yes, I do read fic other than my own! I’ve searched high and low for more to read, but I’m picky since a lot of it is with a negative/”realistic” take and I’m not here for that, so I never get to read as much of it as I’d like. And fic disappearing always sucks. :c

Second! Yeah, I plain enjoy the dynamic when spun in a positive way. Zeus must be completely besotted, because Ganymede is the only one that was taken to Olympus, and the only one who was given immortality! Any other relationship aside from Hera (and previous wives) last maybe a year or so at most? Clearly not so for Ganymede. How can I not like that? Not that I don’t understand why people would go with a negative/more “realistic” take, but honestly I am shamelessly going to go with the positive one, both because that pleases me and because that’s clearly what was intended from the ancients’ POV.

I also like both a bit of drama and kidnapping as a plot point, so the fact that things start with kidnapping is a feature not a bug for me. On top of that I like power differences, especially magical ones (extremely powerful beings having a squishy lover is catnip for me ok), and the other ones that comes with Zeus/Ganymede are great too.

Which, as a side point, leads into that any deity/human pairing is going to be incomprehensibly unequal. Any age differences is honestly the smallest issue when it comes to Z/G in specific or deity/mortal in general (considering that say, any Apollo ship for example is going to have them as well, even if he looks eternally nineteen). Ganymede could have been a 40 year old king and still would have been as powerless against and compared to Zeus as he was when he was taken as a teenager. A couple decades extra life experience isn’t going to change that (and, anyway, at some point Ganymede is going to be hundreds to thousands of years old, even if he’s still technically a youth.) If you’re into deity/human ships, this is just how it is. The options (in Greek myth) for mortals are to go “I’m into this, let’s go!!” or reject the god, and with rejection comes 1. it happens anyway, 2. turning/being turned into something else, 3. death. 2 or 3 are as bad as 1 when the mortal is unwilling, but there’s no really functional difference between rejection and consent when we’re talking about a being that is so massively powerful compared to a human. There’s not really any “ethical” way for a fictional relationship like this, and so, whatever. I’m into it, lol.

And with Zeus’ tendency of playing favourites, and the possibility of Ganymede basically having Zeus wrapped around his little finger? Yeah, all that power in service of spoiling his lover. ;)

Also, like. This is basically a bride kidnapping without the father’s permission. Zeus even pays a bride price!

In the end, like I’ve said before, Ganymede is going to be on Olympus either way. The Iliad’s version has not a whiff of the kidnapping being done for sexual reasons (the sexual element is old, but not as old as the oldest sources we have); the gods, all of them, decided “yeah that one is way too pretty to waste on a human life, get him up here” and took Ganymede for themselves. Why not add some HEA with love too?

Have some quotes below:

Valerius Flaccus, Argonautica 2. 414 ff (trans. Mozley) (Roman epic C1st A.D.) : "[Depicted on a tapestry of Hypsipyle queen of Lemnos :] This part showed the rape on leafy Ida and the famed flight of the boy [Ganymede]; presently he was standing joyfully at the table in heaven, nay, even Jove's [Zeus'] armour-bearer himself [Ares] quaffs the beguiling draught from the Phrygian's ministering hand."

Quintus Smyrnaeus, Fall of Troy 8. 427 ff (trans. Way) (Greek epic C4th A.D.) :

‘O Father Zeus, if of thy seed I am, if at thine best I left far-famous Troy for immortality with deathless Gods, O hear me now, whose soul is anguish-thrilled! I cannot bear to see my fathers' town in flames, my kindred in disastrous strife perishing: bitterer sorrow is there none! Oh, if thine heart is fixed to do this thing, let me be far hence! Less shall be my grief if I behold it not with these mine eyes. That is the depth of horror and of shame to see one's country wrecked by hands of foes.’ With groans and tears so pleaded Ganymede. Then Zeus himself with one vast pall of cloud veiled all the city of Priamos (Priam) world-renowned; and all the murderous fight was drowned in mist, and like a vanished phantom was the wall in vapours heavy-hung no eye could pierce; and all around crashed thunders, lightnings flamed from heaven . . . Then left they [the Greeks] that far-famous town, and turned from war, in awe of Zeus' threatenings."

Also, like, check out the opening scene of Christopher Marlowe’s Dido play, because it’s got some really funny exchanges between Zeus and Ganymede and Zeus basically promising Ganymede anything he might want for, uh... “hugs” /cough.

#greek mythology #zeus #ganymede

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otterskin · 3 years

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Lokabrenna - Loki & Fire & Swords, Part 2

This is a sequel to this post here

This is why I don’t mind trailing off in a post sometimes. People come by and give me new information to chase. Thanks to @whatyoufish4 for informing me of some more Loki-Fire facts. Because learning one simple word has taken me down a rabbit hole...

Lokabrenna translates as “Loki’s Torch” or “Loki’s Burning”.

Lokabrenna was the Scandinavian name for the North Star, AKA Sirius, AKA the Dog Star, AKA My Favourite Harry Potter Character.

It’s also, Google informs me, the name of a Black Metal album by Nawaharjan (meaning Corpse Army, which may be another reference to Loki, neat), released in February of 2020.

I’m not much of one for black metal, but I found the description of why the band chose to name their album after Lokabrenna good for our purposes as well:

“The album’s namesake, Lokabrenna is the Scandinavian name for the star Sirius...The star is associated with important destructive and liberating attributes in many cultures worldwide.

“Within the Brandawegiz tradition, Lokabrenna is associated with the liberating powers of Loki. It is also linked to the destruction of the cosmos that follows after the release of the flaming sword Lævateinn during Ragnarök and Loki’s transformation into his final, liberating aspect Hveðrungr.”

I’m not sure what or who “Brandawegiz“ is, I think it’s something to do with metal music and therefore very outside my knowledge - but now I’m beating myself over the head for failing to mention the sword Lævateinn! Because this is the sword forged by Loki himself in Norse Mythology! Although there’s some contention there - some think it’s more of a magic wand or staff, or maybe a dart or arrow, or perhaps even a shape-shifting weapon. Apparently that’s due to contention over how to translate the name. To quote Wikipedia:

To be fair, Lævateinn or læ-wand can have three possible senses of meaning,[11]...The three meanings of læ (the nominative case of læva) are: "cunning", "deception", and "injury".[12][13] The weapon's name is glossed as "wand of non deceit" in passing without further explanation by Einar Ólafur Sveinsson.[1][14]

Wand of non-deceit? Sounds a little like a thesaurus reworking of ‘Sword of Truth’. Probably a coincidence, but...when it comes to these posts, I make coincidence a three-course meal with an ice cream stopped for on the way home.

So, anyway - Lævateinn. It’s from a poem called the Fjölsvinnsmál, one of the youngest Eddic poems. And it has a great deal of fire in it.

To sum up a very old, partially corrupted and very confusing story and cut to what interests us today, there’s essentially a hero named Svipdagr, who’s got to kill the Rooster at the top of Yggdrasil as part of his quest to wed Menglöð, who is trapped inside a fortress made of fire. The only weapon that can slay the celestial cockerel is the flaming sword Lævateinn, forged by Loki.

This is interesting, because other than this I’d not much heard of Loki being connected to forging - that was always Thor, who has many ties to blacksmiths. Then again, Loki is around dwarves a lot - maybe he learned a thing or two after commissioning Thor’s hammer from them in the first place. How interesting that Marvel comics have Loki again forging his own weapons as well.

The poem also implies that the hall of flames was also constructed by Loki. How interesting. This poem leaves a lot of questions - why did Loki forge the cockerel-slaying blade, and construct the hall? Well, the cockerel is probably related to the one that raises Odin’s soldiers from the dead with his radio-clock-alarm call. And the hall contains Menglöð and will only open to a hero with the true name Svipdagr, but only if he kills the cockerel. So it would seem implied that this was Loki’s plan, or some sort of destiny driving everything towards Ragnarok and end of days.

(I’d like to recommend this post, which goes into much more detail about Loki’s role in this poem. It also gives more details on why some think Loki was originally a fire giant and his connection to Surtur, expanding what I touched on previously.)

Speaking of driving everything towards Ragnarok - what about this bit of that wonderful album write-up?

Loki’s transformation into his final, liberating aspect Hveðrungr.

Hveðrungr - A name meaning ‘Roaring’, as in the sound of an out-of-control conflagration, or that of a howling storm. It appears as a name for Loki in the Völuspa (incidentally, I’ve been using parts of that poem in Finnesang), which is a seer’s prophecy about Ragnarok. It’s the name used for Loki as an apocalypse-bringer.

I like what Nawaharjan are implying here when they say that Hveðrungr is a liberating aspect of Loki - I’ve always felt bad about Loki’s transformation into the world-destroyer Snorri Sturluson helped make him and considered it a character assassination of the lighter character I’d come to love in my Norse Mythology books as a child. Yet this different perspective is one to consider. The album cover depicts Loki’s flaming sword severing the chains that bound him to the rock, where he was tortured by acidic serpent’s venom by the Aesir, the people he both despised and desperately wanted to be loved by. In freeing himself and beginning Ragnarok, in unleashing all of his fury and pent-up destructiveness, maybe he did become someone else - a Roaring. After all that treachery, maybe it was cleansing.

I seriously want a copy of this LP now, and I’m positive I won’t really listen to the music too much, ha ha. It’s just so shiny!

To doubleback to where we all started with this, though - Lokabrenna, the star. Let’s get serious about Sirius for a second.

It’s the brightest star in the sky and used as North in navigation. Ancient Greeks believed it could make dogs behave strangely in summer (where the term ‘Dog days of summer’ comes from). It can be seen as a star of ill repute. Homer describes it in the Iliad as:

Sirius rises late in the dark, liquid sky On summer nights, star of stars, Orion's Dog they call it, brightest Of all, but an evil portent, bringing heat And fevers to suffering humanity.

Interestingly, many indigenous people in North America also associated the star with canines. The Cherokee believed it one of a pair of guardian dogs on either end of the Path of Souls. Some Inuit tribes called it the ‘Moon Dog’, while the Pawnee tribe called it Coyote Star (another famous trickster) or Wolf Star. Funnily enough, Chinese astronomy called it the ‘celestial wolf’ as well.

No matter where, though, Sirius is one of the most important celestial bodies there is thanks to its role in navigation. It’s odd that the Norse decided to name it “Loki’s Torch”, especially since Loki has a strange place in the pantheon, with few known worshipers. They could have called it Odin’s Eye, or Thor’s Toe-Nail Clipping, or Fenrir’s Spittle - but it’s called Lokabrenna. A guiding torch to lead people home or out into the unknown.

Loki with his torch, alternative cover for Lokabrenna (2020)

#loki #fire #meta #odin #ragnarok #thor #loki trailer theory #loki trailer #lokabrenna #sirius #sword

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gemsofgreece · 3 years

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Ancient Greek, the language of the future

by Eugenia Manolidou, conductor.

“I read with interest Mr Dimos’s article that was published in the “Opinions” column on October 17th 2020. Please allow me some comments regarding it.”

[GEMSOFGREECE NOTE: I have read both articles and many things stated by Mr Dimos had me disagreeing or straight out displeased. Eugenia Manolidou responded with an article of her own, apparently motivated by similar feelings. I think her article is an enjoyable read and I agree on many levels while on others I can’t have an opinion due to lack of sufficient knowledge. I thought some of you would be interested in it, so I am translating the article in English. The article is informative for both Greek speakers and people interested in the Greek language and culture as well as the pronunciation of Ancient Greek. In the link, you can find the sources she used at the end of the text. I must now add that I did not necessarily expect to enjoy an article written by Mrs Manolidou (she’s well known in Greece and married to a politician) but that’s a personal impression that perhaps shouldn’t influence you. Going on with the article under the cut.]

I’ll begin with its title, “Can a dead language live again?”, which clearly refers to our language, Ancient Greek. I call it “ours” because even though we don’t comprehend it very well when reading ancient texts, we however use it in our everyday speech, even without realizing it.

For example, we might not know that the word αὐδή (avdí) means voice but we say very often “έμεινα άναυδος” (émina ánavdos = I was left speechless / voiceless). We might not know the phrase «ξύλου ἅπτεσθαι» (= knock on wood) but we always search for wood to knock when trying to avoid a bad omen.

Of course, I should not even start with the vocabulary in sciences, arts and literature because the list is endless. The Greek language is a living language that has survived not because we say so but because it remains in the international vocabulary by enriching most European languages.

Every year, students of the Classical Studies abroad rush to acquire books, teaching methods for Ancient Greek from Oxford, Cambridge and the rest acclaimed publishing companies. I will refer to the publications POLIS Institute Press of the Jerusalem Institute of Languages and Humanities with the title «Λαλεῖν τῇ κοινῇ διαλέκτῷ τῇ ζῶσῃ» (=Speaking the common living dialect). Meaning, the Common Greek, the living.

It is known that almost all schools in Europe kindle interest and enthusiasm in kids to learn the Classical Languages - and not “dead” so as to condemn them in advance - Latin and Greek. And yes in most countries they are taught with the Erasmian pronunciation because it helps them understand the dictation. Just for that. Not because they think it’s the correct pronunciation. Not anymore.

The Erasmian being an accurate description of how the ancients talked is an outdated thesis which many of the intellectuals and professors in Europe have now understood and explained. I will try to add some arguments in favor of this statement in short.

For those who don’t know, Desiderius Erasmus Roterdamus (1466 – 1536) was a Dutch monk who invented a method that would help those who learned Ancient Greek to write it down correctly. So, where someone would say “Χαίρε” (hére) and write it as «χέρε» (because that’s how it sounds), Erasmus explained that they should think of it as “háire” in order to write it correctly. But he never urged people to pronounce it like that.

Besides, in his book Colloquia Familiaria in the chapter “Echo”, he explains how to pronounce the diphthongs -onis, ονοις / -kopi, κόποι / -lici, λύκοι / -logi λόγοι/ and so on. Erasmus never said this is how Ancient Greeks talked, he just urged his students to memorize the correct dictation by ear. No European language is spoken exactly as it’s written.

We all think of such tricks to write words correctly. For instance, we think “extra-ordinary” but no fluent speaker of English pronounces it like that. Unfortunately, during the Renaissance in Europe, when the arts and literature were greatly inspired by the Greek mythology, history and philosophy, Greece under the centuries-long Turkish occupation couldn’t be a match for the rest of Europe. So when the French, German and Italian aristocrats spoke Ancient Greek to each other, we spoke a mix of Greek, Turkish and Italian, a blended language that we would hardly comprehend nowadays. And thankfully, our language survived thanks to the Church and the Scripts, which are written in Ancient Greek.

Therefore we did not know the way Ancient Greek was spoken in Europe. Here in Greece, we didn’t know. There were Greeks who didn’t live in Greece during the Ottoman rule though who knew. One of them was the priest Konstantinos Economou of Economon (1780-1857) who in his work «Περὶ τῆς Γνησίας Προφορᾶς τῆς Ἑλληνικῆς Γλώσσης» (=Regarding the Authentic Pronunciation of the Greek Language), Saint Petersburg 1829, explains why there’s no way the Ancient Greeks separated the diphthongs.

First of all, they were called “diphthongs” which means “two sounds in one”. If they don’t mean that, then why call them this way? Just like Andrea Marcolongo says in her book «La lingua geniale» , which translates to “the genius language” and not “the wonderful language”, with the subtitle «9 ragioni per amare il Greco», meaning, “9 reasons to love Greek” (Ancient Greek clearly, that’s what they always mean by “Greek” in Europe), there is no language more rich, precise and well-studied than Greek. Otherwise we wouldn’t have diphthongs, let alone a need for a diacritic mark( mark used to indicate a vowel forms its own syllable). We say «αρχαιολογία» and in English it’s archaeology, «παλαιοντολογία» and it’s «paleontology». But we say «αρχαϊκό» (note the diacritic) and in English it’s «archaic».

Let’s examine some more words: We say «ατμόσφαιρα» which in Latin is atmosfera. We say αίνιγμα, in latin it’s enigma. We say ενέργεια, in latin “energia” / αιθήρ, in Latin etere / Aίγυπτος, Egitto / μυστήριο, mistero / φαινόμενο, phenomenon / εγκυκλοπαίδεια, enciclopedia. The list is long and if we get ourselves into the scientific vocabulary (ginecologo, ematologo, pediatro), we will never end with this. In short, Latin, a “sister” language to Greek, saved through itself the pronunciation of Ancient Greek.

One more argument: the Greek words can be stressed exclusively in three syllables: the ultimate, the penultimate or the antepenultimate. If we separate the diphthongs, the punctuation gets out of hand. So instead of “hérete”, we would say “háirete” which is obviously wrong. With the separation of the diphthongs, the Dactylic Hexameter (the rhythmic scheme of Ancient Greek epic poetry) would collapse. Perhaps you’ve heard the attempts of the Europeans to recite the Iliad or the Odyssey.

Homer’s poetic epic has a completely different sound due to the loss of the Hexameter. Besides, just like Erasmus said and Economou quotes in his book: «Conducendus aliquis, natione Graecus, licet alioquin parvum eruditus, propter nativum illum ac patrium sonum, ut castigate graeca sonari dicantur.» Meaning, “Call someone, Greek in nation, even with little or no education, for that native sound, so that you learn the exact and natural pronunciation of Greek.”

What’s truly pitiful in this situation is not how foreigners learn to speak Ancient Greek. The true shame is that such a beautiful, rich and living language, our language, is more appreciated, loved and respected abroad than in Greece. I admire the people who try so hard to learn a language for which they don’t even know the alphabet. And yet they try, they learn it, they speak it, they teach it and that’s why the big publishing companies still publish teaching methods for Ancient Greek.

In the foreign universities, most professors teaching Ancient Greek are foreign. Foreign professors tutoring foreign students. It’s them who come to Greece for vacation and crowd our monuments and museums, which are right on our feet and yet we consider a visit there as a nuisance. If we truly want to love our language, our history and culture, we should be taught Ancient Greek from a young age, as a living language, like they do abroad.

With simple, comprehensible texts, from the mythology, from Aesop, from simple sayings and delphic orders, our language is full of them. So instead of occupying ourselves with whether Homer’s sheep cried “vee” or “beh” and instead of trying to decode why the Greek rooster says kokoriko while the English rooster says Cock-a-doodle-doo - he does neither - let’s try to make our children understand the importance, the meaning and the symbolism of the Naval Battle of Salamís instead of a plain «ὦ παῖδες Ἑλλήνων, ἴτε» (= O children of the Greeks, arise), dry and withered.

#αρχαία ελληνικά #greece #europe #greek #ancient greek #erasmus #languages #greek language #langblr #greek culture

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