#classical lit meme

[obamakinnie]

let me have men that about me that are fat...yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look, he thinks too much: such men are dangerous

Julius Caesar by Shakespeare

soOO, Shakespeare says Caesar likes himbos. 

[classical-aesthetics-blog]

CLASSICAL LIT MEME (4/10) plays of books Oedipus the King by Sophocles

OEDIPUS Children, young sons and daughters of old Cadmus, Why do you sit here with your suppliant crowns? The town is heavy with a mingled burden of sounds and smells, of groans and hymns and incense; I did not think it fit that I should hear of this from messengers but came myself,-- I Oedipus whom all men call the Great.

Oedipus the King, known also as Oedipus Rex (Ancient Greek: Οἰδίπους Τύραννος, Oidipous Tyrannos) is one of the seven remaining tragedies written by Sophocles, the first of the so-called Theban Plays series (the other two are Oedipus at Colonus and Antigone). It tells the story of how Oedipus became aware of having killed his father and married his mother.

The play is set in Thebes and the main characters are Oedipus, Jocasta, Creon, Tiresias and the priest, while the other characters are two messangers and a herdsman. The chours is composed by old men of Thebes, while the characters of Antigone, Ismene and Tiresias helper stay mute. The play starts in medias res, as a terrible plague caused by a mysterious sin spreads through the city. Adviced by his brother-in-law, Creon, Oedipus goes to the Oracle of Delphi, where he discovers that the plague is caused by the fact that the murderer of the former king Laius, hasn’t been caught and remains unpunished. Oedipus then summons Tiresias, the blind prophet, which claims to know the answer to the Oracle’s riddle, but firmly refuses to tell it. The king enrages, so Tiresias reveals that he is the murderer ("You yourself are the criminal you seek") and, revealing further, he says that the criminal is a native citizen of Thebes, brother and father to his own children, and son and husband to his own mother . Oedipus can’t believe and accuses Creon to being plotting with Tiresias against him.  Jocasta, Oedipus’s wife, enters and tries to comfort him by saying that not all the prophecies are true: in fact she tells him the prophecy that her former husband, king Laius, had received, which told that he was meant to be killed by his own son, while everybody knows that he was killed by bandits.   At this point Oedipus freezes and starts to suspect that Tiresias was telling the truth: he summons one of the witnesses of Laius’s deadly attack, then explain to Jocasta that he left Corinth, the town he grew in, to escape a prophecy that said that he would’ve killed his father and laid whith his mother, and while he headed to Thebes, he killed a man on the road where Laius was told to be killed. A messanger comes to the palace and tells that Oedipus father in Corinth is dead. Oedipus seems relieved as the prophecy result to be half unaccomplished, but the messanger reveal that actually he wasn’t really a son of the king of Corinth, but he was given to him by a man from Laius’s palace. This man results to be also the witness of Laius’s death. This man arrives and reveals everything: Oedipus is Jocasta and Laius’s son. The king is in despair. Jocasta hangs herself in her bedroom after Oedipus curses his own descendants and himself. After discovering Jocasta’s corpse, Oedipus blinds himself with the pins of her dress. Oedpius then asks Creon to be sent in exile, but Creon convince him to consult the Oracles before. Oedipus then asks him to watch over his daughters and half sisters, Antigone and Ismene, and their brothers Polynices and Eteocles.  This is considered to be one of the most important tragedies of the whole ancient greek tradition. Not only it reflects the themes of despair and loneliness, favoured by Sophocles, but it also depicts with an incredible realistic attitude the fall from greatness to misery: Oedipus in his first line calls himself “Great”, people of Thebes love him and acclaim him for having killed the Sphynx. But then Oedipus results to be not only the ruin of his city Thebes, but also of his own family: better it would be if he didn’t come to life at all. The curse falls upon his children: we know from the other two plays of the series that Antigone goes to exile with the blind father, which dies in Clonus, Attics, just when the war for power between his sons Eteocles and Polynices has begun. The boys will kill each other in war, and the authority of Creon, the new king of Thebes, will lead to Antigone’s death. 

[classical-aesthetics-blog]

CLASSICAL LIT MEME: (3/10) plays or books

Prometheus Bound by Aeschylus

CRATUS We’ve come to the ends of the earth, to Scythia, barren and deserted. Now, Hephaestus, carry out the orders of your father Zeus: shackle our criminal here to this towering cliff, in unbreakable chains made of adamant. 

Prometheus bound (Ancient Greek: Προμηθεὺς Δεσμώτης, Promētheus Desmōtēs) is a tragedy, considered to be one of the seven remaining plays written by Aeschylus (although some scholars consider that it could have been written by someone else). It narrates the story of how Prometheus was chained to a mountain in the Caucasus as a punishment for stealing the fire from Zeus to give it to mankind.

The characters are Cratus (Power), Bia (Force), Hephaestus, Prometheus, Oceanus, Io and Hermes. The choir is composed by Oceanids, daughters of Oceanus. After being chained to the mountain by Cratus, Bia and Hephaestus, Prometheus is visited by the choir of Oceanids, which attempt to comfort him and he foresees his first prophecy: a potential marriage that could lead to Zeus’s end (the audience already knows that he is talking about Thetis, mother of Achilles). Oceanus, the ancient Titan, tries to convince him to make peace with the king of the gods, but Prometheus instead starts to list all the things he taught to humans (Catalogue of Arts). Prometheus is then visited by Io, one of Zeus’s unfortunate lovers: she’s been turned into a cow and chased by Zeus’s jealous wife, Hera. Prometheus prophetizes that she will bear Zeus’s sone Ephapus in Egypt and that one of his descendants will finally free him (referring to Heracles). At last appears Hermes, the gods’ messanger, which says that Zeus wants tp know what is the dangerous marriage the treathens him. After Prometheus’s refusal, he is casted into the abyss by a thunderbolt sent by Zeus. In this play Prometheus is very different from the one described by Hesiod: from a trickster he becomes a benefactor, a martyr. The play was meant to be the first of a trilogy composed by other two plays, Prometheus Unbound and Prometheus the Fire-Bringer, whom have survived just a few fragments. The variety of characters is the most incredible trait of this play: we have two personifications (Cratos and Bia), two titans (Prometheus and Oceanus), two gods (Hephaestus and Hermes) and one single mortal. This allowed Aeschylus to mix and intertwine many different myths. Other than focusing on Prometheus’s myth (there is no mention to Pandora or Epimetheus), he focuses on the future generation of heroes (Heracles and Achilles).  Also the presence of Oceanus and Oceanids recalls a mix of natural elements: typically, mountains mean air, height (the eagle that eats Prometheus’s liver belongs to this idea) while the presence of Oceanus and his daughters makes us think more about water.

[classical-aesthetics-blog]

CLASSICAL LIT MEME: (2/10) plays or books

The Odyssey by Homer

Sing to me of the man, Muse, the man of twists and turns driven time and again off course, once he had plundered the hallowed heights of Troy. Many cities of men he saw and learned their minds, many pains he suffered, heartsick on the open sea, fighting to save his life and bring his comrades home.

The Odyssey (in attic Greek Οδύσσεια, Odýsseia) is Homer’s second poem, following the time of the narration. It’s one of the many nostoi (that means “returns”) of all those greek warriors that returned from Troy after it was burnt to the ground.

The poem, divided into 24 books, narrates the ten-years-long return of Odysseus (also known with his latin name, Ulysses) and his crew back to the island if Ithaca. Given the fact that many gods sided with Trojans during the war, all the greek heroes had to be punished by those gods for their savagery and cruelty against Troy and his inhabitants. Also Odysseus attracted Poseidon’s anger for blinding his son, the cyclops Polyphemus. Odysseus (as his son Telemachus) is anyway constantly protected by the goddess Athena, which has been recognising his wit since the famous trick of the Trojan horse, which Odysseus had conceived. After a long travel all across the Mediterrean sea, always facing multiple dangers, such as the witch Circe, the monsters Scylla and Charybdis, syrens and many more, he arrives at home, alone and unaknoweledged, just to find out that suitors have invaded his castle on the island of Ithaca and have tried to marry his wife Penelope, which has managed to stay loyal to her husband with a trick. The narrative system follows multiple layers: the poem starts with the Telemachy, the search of Telemachus of his father all across Greece (books I-IV), then focus on Odysseus at the court of king Alcinous, as he tells the story of how he left Troy, lost direction multiple times, faced shipwrecks, and landed on the island of Ogygia, just to come back home (books V-XII).  The remaining books tell how he won over his suitors with his famous tricks and finally reunited with his family.

[classical-aesthetics-blog]

CLASSICAL LIT MEME: (1/10) plays or books

The Iliad by Homer

Sing, goddess, the anger of Peleus’ son Achilleus and its devastation, which put pains thousandfold upon the Achaians, hurled in their multitudes to the house of Hades strong souls of heroes, but gave their bodies to be the delicate feasting of dogs, of all birds, and the will of Zeus was accomplished since that time when first there stood in division of conflict Atreus’ son the lord of men and brilliant Achilleus. 

The Iliad (in ancient greek Ἰλιάς, Ilias) is the first epic poem of the author that is nowadays commonly known as Homer. Although we know very little about its author, the Iliad has been considered in the past millennias as the first greek poem of such a great importance.

The story takes place in Troy, during the last year of the ten-year war between Trojans and Greeks and develops around the figure of Achilles and its wrath, as the king Agamemnon has reclaimed his slave Briseis. This episode causes the refusal of the prince to fight again, until his closest friend and possibly lover Patroclus is killed in battle, a death that Achilles avenges by killing the murderer, the Trojan prince Hector. The poem, which is 24 books long, only deals with a small part of the entire war: in fact, many famous episodes, such as the death of Achilles and the trick of the Trojan horse, aren’t told. This probably hints to many other poems about this saga, which we can’t read anymore.

[classical-aesthetics-blog]

Classical lit meme

So here we have:

10 plays or books

9 female characters

8 male characters

7 pairings

6 places

5 quotes

4 villains

3 deaths

2 endings

1 author

[classical-aesthetics-blog]

Headings

Main headings of this blog: 

Greek literature

Roman literature

Gods and goddesses

Heroes and heroines

Authors

Requests

Classical lit meme

[currentlycryingaboutlancelot]

if you’re not ending your emails with “kill me! your slave and enemy,” then what are you doing with your life