ΣΩΦΡΟΣΥΝΗ

Ennius Project

2009-12-20T09:51:00.005-07:00

Since I'm getting into early Latin poetry, I have in mind to read a bunch of Ennius. I plan to post a few fragments, with a translation, and write up short comments on aspects that intrigue me. I follow the organization and numbering of the Skutsch commentary.

Ennius was born in Rudiae in 239 BC. He was Messapian by birth and perhaps partly Oscan; his sister's son's same is Pacuvius, a good Oscan name, and the name Ennius may itself be Oscan. Having served in the Roman Army, he earned his Roman citizenshp in 184 BC, and, perhaps while serving in the army, encountered Cato, who took him to Rome (Nepos, Cato 1.4). There, he made a living as a teacher (Suet. gramm. 1), and it was probably through Cato that he met M. Fulvius Nobilior, who became Ennius' patron. Ennius died around 169 BC.

The Annals consisted of eighteen books (Diom. 1.484) that are organized into groups of three: Books 1-3 treated the Regal Period, 4-6 covered the conquest of Italy and the Pyrric War, 7-9 went over the Punic Wars, 10-12 treated the affairs of Greece, 13-15 covered the Syrian War and Fulivius' triumph over the Aetolians, and 16-18 treated the recent wars.

Book 1

1. Musae, quae pedibus magnum pulsatis Olympum
'Muses, [you] who beat mighty Olympus with your feet'

This is generally assumed to be the first line of the poem. It comes to us from Varro LL VII, 19, who quoted it to show that 'caelum dicunt Graeci Olympum...'

Skutsch notes that there may be later echoes of this line; cf. Aen 10.216 curru...Phoebe medium pulsabat Olympum, Ovid Met. 6.487 equique pulsabant pedibus spatium decliuis Olympi. More interesting to me are the Homeric parallels. Dismissed out of hand is Il. 8.443 ...ὑπὸ ποσσὶ μέγας πελεμίζετ' Ὄλυμπος, '...under [Zeus'] feet, mighty Olympus quaked'. But, I think the interlocking word order A b C b that shows up in both the Ennius and the Homer is hard to ignore. Note also the alliterative parallel pedibus...pulsatis and ποσσὶ...πελεμίζετ'. But maybe I like this because I've read too much Calvert Watkins.

Mine Blog, bereft of life it is not

2009-12-19T13:17:00.002-07:00

Returned to the blogosphere I have; freed from the madness that was the fall semester.

Posts to follow shortly.

School Starts Tomorrow

2009-09-01T09:16:00.003-06:00

Well, my classes start tomorrow, and the year is shaping up to be a fascinating, but rather intense one. I'm taking two Greek classes; in one we're reading Lyric Poetry and the other is Book 24 of the Iliad. Also on the menu is a Latin class in which we're doing Seneca's play Thyestes as well as an independent study in Sanskrit. I'm also sitting in on another reading course and doing some Tacitus.

On top of all this I'm broke, so I'm looking around for a part time job but these aren't easy to come across in this booming economy of ours. Oh well. At any rate, expect some posts relating to my classes, especially the Greek and the Sanskrit.

Why Vladimir Horowitz is a badass.

2009-08-26T17:11:00.004-06:00

Horowitz is probably my favorite classical pianist; his interpretations are at one time fiery and have sort of a nervous energy about them, and at another soft and whimsical. This, however, is not what makes him a badass.

In 1988 Horowitz was nominated for (and won) a Grammy award for his recording of Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 23. However, he skipped out on the Grammys in favor of receiving the National Bow-Tie Wearers Association Award. And for that he earned my undying respect.

Mesomedes I

2009-08-22T16:22:00.005-06:00

In the standard numbering of Mesomedes' poems, the first two are joined. I think it's quite a beautiful poem.

ἄιεδε Μοῦσα μοι φίλη,
μολπῆς δ' ἐμῆς κατάρχου,
αὒρη δὲ σῶν ἀπ' ἀλσέων,
ἐμάς φρένας δονείτω.

Καλλιόπεια σοφά,
Μουσῶν προκαθαγέτι τερπῶν,
καὶ σοφὲ μυστοδότα,
Λατοῦς γόνε, Δήλιε Παιάν,
εὐμενεῖς πάρεστέ μοι.

Sing to me, beloved muse,
start up my song,
Let the breeze from your sacred grove
stir my mind.

O wise Calliope,
leader of the delightful muses,
and you, wise giver of mysteries,
son of Leto, Apollo from Delos,
kind ones: stand near me.

Note the internal rhyme in lines 2, 3, 4, and 6 as well as the rather uncommon 3rd person imperative in line 4.

Why Thomas Jefferson Was so Smart

2009-08-21T11:49:00.003-06:00

Thomas Jefferson's study regime when he was studying law was insane. He divided his day into five periods as follows:

From whenever he awoke to 8:00 AM-- Physical Sciences, Ethics, Religion, Natural Law

8:00 AM to 12:00--Law

12:00-1:00--Economics and Politics

1:00 to dusk--History (American, English, Greek [sources read in the original], Roman [again, sources read in the original])

dusk to midnight--Belles lettres, Oratory, Rhetoric, Criticism. Greek and Latin authors were (of course) read in the original.

It's no wonder he was probably the most learned and cultured President in American history.

Archilochus I

2009-08-21T08:40:00.004-06:00

εἰμὶ δ' ἐγὼ θεράπων μὲν Ἐνυαλίοιο ἄνακτος
καὶ Μουσέων ἐρατὸν δῶρον ἐπιστάμενος

A servant am I, of Ares, the Lord
and skilled in the gift that the Muses award.

Dative/Nominative/Ergative Subjects?!

2009-08-20T09:01:00.004-06:00

The case system of Georgian is a giant mess. Basically speaking, Georgian is an ergative language, meaning that it uses the ergative case for 'agents' (subjects of transitive verbs), and the absolutive case for 'intransitive subjects' and 'direct objects'. However, things are not quite this simple. Georgian makes a distinction between unergative and unaccusative subjects.

[Aside of explaination]
Intransitive verbs can be divided into two main classes. Fillmore (1968) posited two general formulas for these:

V + A (intransitive, active subject)

V + O (intransitive, inactive subject)

The first type came to be called unergative verbs (more 'agentive'), while the second were called unaccusatives. Perlmutter and Postal (1984: 98-99) wrote up a list of examples of both types:

Unergative Verbs:

Willed or Volitional Acts- speak, laugh, cry, walk
Manner of Speaking- whisper, mumble, bellow
Animal Sounds- bark, neigh, roar
Involuntary Bodily Processes- cough, sneeze, belch,

Unaccusative Verbs:

Affected Argument- burn, fall, dry
Inchoatives- melt, die, grow
Existing and Happening- exist, happen, arise
Involuntary Emission of Stimuli- shine, clink, stink
[End aside of explaination]

Now, unergative verbs require an ergative subject in Georgian, while unaccusative verbs do not. Moreover, the ergative case also shows up only in past tense constructions (unless it's an unergative verb, in which case it takes the ergative case in the present, past). In the present tense, the subject will appear in the nominative. Languages of this sort have, I believe, been called 'active' as opposed to 'ergative'. Another strange thing: in the perfect tense, the subject is in the dative, of all cases. How this situation arose I have no idea.

I Have Returned...

2009-08-14T15:44:00.002-06:00

..., freed from the chains of employment. Working 10-12 hours a day doesn't leave much time for blogging, so my posts have deteriorated in number over the summer (the final count is zero).

However, more are forthcoming on an oddity of the Georgian case system, some thoughts on Greek Lyric poetry, and most likely a rant about the GRE.

Why I'm a Masochist, or, My Summer Reading List

2009-04-21T19:36:00.004-06:00

Latin:

Cicero Pro Roscio Amerino (already started)
Cicero Phillipic I
Random Catullus Poems
Tibullus; all of his poems

Greek:

Euripides' Bacchae
Homer Iliad Book 24
A book of the New Testament

Other Stuff:

Learn German
Learn Old English or Old Norse

All this while working twelve hours a day six days a week so that I can pay for next year's schooling as well as have some money so I can pay for grad school.

Fun fun. I doubt much of it will get done.

Audio Recordings of Various Greek Texts

2009-04-09T21:26:00.004-06:00

Here are some websites on which there are recordings of various people reading various Greek and Latin texts.

There's a good collection on here, ranging from Cicero and Catullus to Herodotus.

Also, on this site are audio recordings of the entire Greek New Testament.

'Tis pretty cool stuff.

On Greek ἐυπάτωρ

2009-03-27T14:00:00.004-06:00

Can we derive Gk ἐυπάτωρ 'having a good father' straight from an IE root? The root would be a so-called nominal composite, that is, a noun formed from two elements, in this case an adverb and a noun. The first element of the compound is unproblematic *h1esu; it is the second part that may cause some troubles. The second nominal element is obviously derived from *ph2-tér-s (nom. sing), which is a standard hysterkinetic noun. The question becomes, then, can we derive an amphikinetic noun from a hysterokinetic one? The second element of the nominal composite would have to be *pá-tōr-s. The accent shift is interesting. From the root *ph2-tér-s, two methods of derivation are possible. First, the root with a syllabic laryngeal would have to hold the accent, so we would have *ph2-tōr-s. There are apparently roots which have accented syllabic resonants, but the roots (the ones for 'wolf' and 'bear') are a bit sketchy to being with, and to my knowledge there are no roots which have an accented syllabic laryngeal. So this, to me, seems unlikely. The second possibility is then the best one: namely that the accent shift occured after the 'loss' of the laryngeal and the creation of the 'a' vowel. Thus, in my view, we would have

*ph2-tér-s > *pa-tér-s > *h1esu-pá-tōr-s >ἐυ-πάτωρ.

and not

*ph2-tér-s > *ph2-tōr-s [with the accent on the root] > *h1esu-pá-tōr-s >ἐυ-πάτωρ.

Given all of this, it seems that whether ἐυπάτωρ comes from a 'true' IE root hinges upon when the shift from *h2 > α happened, which presumably was a post-IE-pre-Greek development. Thus, I would argue that the Greek word cannot be derived straight from an IE root, given that the shift from *h2 > a is a prerequisite of the derivation of the nominal element in the compound. To be fair, though, nominal composites such as this need much more work. Perhaps it's a future project for me.

Some IE Poetic Formulas from Watkins

2009-03-24T17:07:00.006-06:00

Here are some of the IE poetic formulas which Watkins reconstructs in How To Kill a Dragon. This is by no means an exhaustive list (yet...)

PROTECT (*pah2-) MEN (*ṷihxro-) (and) LIVESTOCK (*peƙu)

GRAIN and BARLEY (*ieṷo-)

COVENATED (*ṷṛh1-to-) RECOMPENSE (*misdho-)

TREE (*dru-) (and) ROCK

PROdat BE (*h1es-) FAME (*ƙleṷos) IMPERISHABLE (*ṇdgʷitom) EVER(LASTING) (*h2ai̯u-)

PROnom HAVE (seĝh-/*dheh1-) FAME (*ƙleṷos) IMPERISHABLE (*ṇdgʷitom) EVER(LASTING) (*h2ai̯u-)

HERO SLAY (*gʷhen-/*ṷedh-) SERPENT/MONSTER (with WEAPON/ with COMPANION)

HERO1 SLAY (*gʷhen-) HERO2

HERO OVERCOME (*terh2-) ADVERSARY

HERO OVERCOME (*terh2-) DEATH

The formulas related to the slaying of the monster/serpent can also be reversed, as in Beowulf, for example, where the monster kills the hero. For a full discussion of these and other formulas see Watkins (1995) How To Kill a Dragon. (New York: Oxford University Press)

Buck's Grammar of Oscan and Umbrian

2009-03-23T20:34:00.004-06:00

Here is a link where you can download Carl Buck's Grammar of Oscan and Umbrian in PDF format. 'Tis a decent grammar; it includes some inscriptions and a glossary as well.

Gibbon on the Conversion of Constantine

2009-03-17T20:01:00.003-06:00

Edward Gibbon hates Constantine. He sees Constantine's reforms as "the mortal wound which had been so rashly or so weakly inflicted...". Interestingly, though, he devotes a huge swath of his History to Constantine, more than any other period in Roman history. This is no doubt because he saw the main causes of the fall of the Roman Empire as barbarism and Christianity. He wrote, burned, and then rewrote this section; he writes,"it is difficult to arrange with order and perspicuity the various transactions of the age of Constantine: and so much was I displeased with the first Essay, that I committed to the flames above fifty sheets." (Memoirs, p. 159). Thus it seems he experienced some frustration when writing the section.

Serious issue is taken with the so-called conversion of Constantine; he regards the two main sources for the event, Eusebius and Lactantius, as next to worthless. The traditional tale runs as follows: prior to the battle of the Mulvian Bridge, Constantine saw a vision in the heavens, which was seen again in a dream of his. In this dream, the emperor was ordered to place the sign on his banner, and fight under the auspices of the Christian God. Constantine proceeded to win the battle.

Gibbon writes, "I shall endeavour to form a just estimate of the standard, the dream, and the celestial sign; by separating the historical, the natural, and the marvellous parts of this extraordinary story, which, in the composition of a specious argument, have been artfully confounded in one splendid and brittle mass." (Decline and Fall XX, 317) He begins first with Lactantius. Of his account Gibbon notes that it was published "at Nicomedia about three years after the Roman victory" which afforded "ample latitude for the inventions of declaimers, the credulity of party, and the tacit approbation of the emperor himself." (Decline and Fall XX, 321). Thus Gibbon seems to think that the account of Lactantius is mere fabrication and that Constantine perhaps had some hand in the creation of the story.

Turning his guns to Eusebius, Gibbon then proceeds to demolish the Church historian's account. He notes that Eusebius only makes mention of Constantine's conversion in his De vita Constantini, and not in his Ecclesiastical History, which was published earlier than the Life of Constantine; in his own words, "the silence of the same Eusebius, in his Ecclesiastical History, is deeply felt by those advocates for the miracle who are not absolutely callous. " (Decline and Fall XX, 323) He then argues that "the advocates for the vision of Constantine are unable to produce a single testimony from the Fathers of the fourth and fifth centuries." Indeed, Gibbon notes that there is no independent testimony from any witnesses of the event in Eusebius, or anywhere else, save Lactantius, and that the sources for both of these accounts was Constantine himself. He takes this to mean that the whole event is a sham, which was fabricated by Constantine.

Why, then, according to Gibbon, would Constantine create such a story? Because he “used the altars of the church as a convenient footstool to the throne of the empire,” (Decline and Fall XX, 314), that is to say, Constantine used the Church to further his position and this story of his conversion served as a propaganda tool. Christians, though a minority, were slowly becoming a powerful force in the Empire, and Constantine, according to Gibbon, recognized this and acted out of a sheer desire for practical advantage; “In the beginning of the fourth century the Christians still bore a very inadequate proportion of the inhabitants of the empire; but among a degenerate people, who viewed the change of matters with the indifference of slaves, the spirit and union of a religious party might assist the popular leader to whose service, from a principle of conscience, they had devoted their lives and fortunes.” (Decline and Fall, XX, 316). Gibbon states later that, “the same motives of temporal advantage which might influence the public conduct and professions of Constantine would insensibly dispose his mind to embrace a religion so propitious to his fame and fortunes.” (Decline and Fall XX, 325)

Thus, Gibbon regards the story of Constantine’s conversion as part of his shrewd operation to gain practical advantage from a conversion to Christianity, and does not hold any real historical weight.

Latin 'pasco'

2009-03-11T23:24:00.005-06:00

At first glance, the Latin verb pa:sco appears to be one of your usual *ske/o presents. This, however, is not the case; one can tell by the lengthened grade of the root. Normally the *-ske/o- suffix is added to the zero-grade of the root, which would thus yield pasco, with a short 'a' < *ph2-sko instead of *peh2-s- > pa:sco. According to the Etymological Dictionary of Latin by Michiel de Vann, the -sc- in the Latin verb is an "enlarged variant of the 's-present'", this s-present being formed from the root *peh2- 'to protect'. How this 'enlarged variant' comes about, I do not know.

s-presents usually have a desiderative meaning, that is, they express desire or intent. That -sc- is a desiderative suffix on the root *peh2- makes some semantic sense; *peh2-s- would mean 'to want/intend to protect', which leads us to the meaning of pasco in Latin, namely 'to feed, nurture, nourish'

Now I wonder how many other verbs which show this 'enlarged variant' there are.

As a random aside: this series is fantastic. I can't wait for the Greek one which Beekes is preparing to come out.

On the Demise of Classical Music

2009-03-09T09:18:00.004-06:00

It is a sorry fact that Classical music has seen its heyday come and go, and I would like to try and outline a few reasons why this occurred

In the 19th century, concert recitals became quite popular due to folks such as Liszt, Thalberg, and other composer-pianists. Normally, composers would merely perform their own works in concert, either at a premiere, or in subsequent performances. Liszt, however, really pioneered the piano recital, in which he would perform not only his own works, but also those of other composers (Beethoven, Chopin, etc). This, as its popularity increased throughout time, gave rise to the structure of modern recitals and performances that we know today.

Now, for a thought experiment. Imagine what would happen if there were around, say, 150 "pop" songs that were regularly performed. That is, artists have stopped creating their own music, and instead do covers of these 150 songs. Now, imagine that these artists were bound by a score, a score which they cannot deviate from, that is to say, they have to sound exactly like the original song. Would pop music not become stagnant and stale? It is for this reason that classical music has lost its mass appeal: artists are (1) not composing anymore (partly because, with the advent of the "recital", they can just perform other people's works), which leads to (2) the same pieces are performed over and over again, and (3) the score of these pieces is sacred, that is to say, it is blasphemous for an artist to tamper with the directions which the composer set forth. In other words, classical music has become stagnant and stale; there is little originality because there can be no originality given the framework which musicians must work under.

What, then, must we do? First, we must to some extent do away with the notion that the score cannot be deviated from. New criteria must be established to judge a "good" performance, for, according to some, a good performance can only be as such if the artist sticks closely with the score. We need more artists like Glenn Gould, who was not afraid to tamper with the score in favour of artistic expression and original interpretation. A good example is his recording of the first movement of Mozart's Sonata in A Major. It is a theme and variations, and, in the score the second to last variation is marked "adagio". Gould, however, plays it like an "allegretto". Lo and behold, it works, it doesn't sound "bad", and even fixes the architecture of the movement: the theme is slow, and, as the movement progresses, the speed and energy picks up, instead of being interrupted by an adagio in the second to last variation. What is needed is strikingly original interpretations such as this: artists must not be afraid to counter the composers intentions. If pop artists did covers which sounded exactly like the original they would not be terribly interesting; similarly, one can only hear so many renditions of Schubert or Chopin which sound robotic because they all follow the letter of the score.

Laryngeal Reflexes in Latin: Part II

2009-03-07T09:55:00.003-07:00

So Matt pointed out that the section in Sihler where he (Sihler, not Matt) goes over syllabic laryngeals may shed some light on why a laryngeal which stands in between two consonants fails to show the triple reflex in Latin. Apparently this is the reason: it's a syllabic laryngeal, which develops differently in Latin as well as Sanskrit, for that matter. (CHC > Lat. CaC, Skt. CiC)

I don't know if I like this explanation. I can't quite put my finger on it, but something seems fishy. I wonder whether Hittite shows any reflexes of these syllabic laryngeals. Off to Kloekhorst!

Laryngeal Reflexes in Latin

2009-03-04T16:20:00.004-07:00

So, apparently one can argue that there is a triple reflex of the laryngeals in Latin; I was looking through The Blackwell History of the Latin Language (2007)by James Clackson and Geoffrey Horrocks, and stumbled upon this. I was under the impression that it was only Greek that showed this triple reflex. I shall have to look into this further.

Here are some reflexes which Clackson & Horrocks use to support this conclusion:

*eh1 > Lat. e:, Gk. e:, Skt. a: Ex. *dheh1- > Lat. fe:-ci, Gk. ti-the:-mi

*eh2 > Lat. a:, Gk. a:, Skt. a: Ex. *peh2- 'pasture' > Lat. pa:-sco, Hitt. pahs-

*eh3 > Lat. o:, Gk. o:, Skt. a: Ex. *deh3 'give' > Lat. do:s, Gk. di-do:-mi, Skt. da-da:-mi

However, it seems that this only occurs under certain conditions. For example, when a laryngeal stands on its own between two consonants, it seems to always develop into Lat. 'a'; Greek, naturally, still shows the triple reflex. So, when a laryngeal is next to an 'e' in PIE, the reflexes seem to be the same as in Greek, namely 'e', 'a', and 'o'. Cf:

*h1esti > Lat. est

*h2ent- 'front' > Lat. ante

*h3ekw- 'eye' > Lat. oculus

but:

*sth2to- 'standing, stood' > Lat. status

*dh3to- 'given' > Lat. datus

Quite curious. I wonder why.

Aeneid Book 4

2009-03-03T10:04:00.002-07:00

Let us delve in and see what we can come up with.

At regina gravi iamdudum saucia cura
vulnus alit venis, et caeco carpitur igni.
multa viri virtus animo, multusque recursat
gentis honos; haerent infixi pectore vultus
verbaque, nec placidam membris dat cura quietem. (1-5)

postera Phoeba lustrabat lampade terras,
umentemque Aurora polo dimoverat umbram,
cum sic unanimam adloquiter male sana sororem: (6-8)

Note first all of the hard palatal sounds in the first five lines; this adds effect to the jarring, harsh state which Dido is in. Here Virgil is describing how the queen is completely consumed with love for Aeneas, and the palatals lend an air of harshness to the lines. Note also that there are many voiceless dental stops; the t's are also a harsh sound.

Note then how things change in the next three lines. In the description of the dawn breaking (6-7), we find mostly soft sounds: labials and liquids predominate, and we don't find nearly as many of the harsher sounds like in the first five lines. The lines sound softer and more gentle; the two sets of lines juxtaposed to one another create an interesting contrast between the soft dawn and the harsh passion which Dido is captured by.

More thoughts will be posted as they occur to me.

On Seneca

2009-02-11T08:40:00.005-07:00

I have, for a long time, purposely avoided Roman drama, believing it was merely a cheap knockoff of the Greeks. However, I recently picked up some Seneca and was pleasantly surprised. Although in some sense they are a rip off of Greek tragedy, insofar as he uses Greek myth as his subject matter, Seneca's tragedies are completely different in tone and focus from Greek tragedy as a whole. He seems to be more inward in focus, concentrating more on the psychology of characters rather than a mere retelling of a story in dramatic form. The closest parallel in Greek tragedy is perhaps Euripides, who also has a psychological bent to him.

Take Seneca's play 'Hercules', for example. The "plot" of the play is actually rather lame: Juno is angry that Hercules has managed to get Cerberus from the Underworld, so she decides to set the Furies on him. Hercules goes bonkers, kills his wife and children, and then takes up an offer from Theseus to go to Athens to be purified. It is simple and, in terms of pure action, rather boring. What is interesting is the mind and attitudes of Hercules throughout the play. He is actually rather naive and innocent, while still being a bit of a megalomaniac, even prior to his manic episode. His quest, generally, seems to be the promotion of law and order and the extinguishing of injustice. But, when he returns, he prays that there be no violent storms, or poisonous plants (l. 931-936) . A noble sentiment, but this shows an ignorance of the way the world really works. (Incidentally, I think that Juno should have given Hercules a quest such as this: destroying all the hemlock plants would probably be harder for Hercules than leading Cerberus around on a leash; it would be more comic as well. But then I suppose this isn't exactly what Seneca was going for.)

Hercules' descent into madness is fascinating. At first, we think it is merely his megalomania asserting itself; he says that, "non capit terra Herculem / tandemque superis reddit." This is perhaps understandable given that he has just completed his last labor, and should then receive his entry into heaven as was promised. However, we soon find out this is much more than his egotistical notions. Right around line 975 we start to realize that Hercules has gone completely insane. He says, "Gigantes arma pestiferi movent", 'the pestilential Giants are in arms". He is apparently having visions of the Giants being armed and ready to fight; he then goes on to describe them. Then, his madness is confirmed: he thinks that his children are those of Lycus, who usurped the throne of Thebes, and that his wife is Juno and proceeds to slaughter them, which is described in all its gory detail by Amphitryon, eg.

dextra precantem rapuit et circa furens
bis ter rotatum misit; ast illi caput
sonuit, cerebro tecta disperso madent. (1005-1007)

in coniugem nunc clava libratur gravis:
perfregit ossa, corpori trunco caput
abest nec usquam est. (1024-1026)

Donald Kagan Lectures on Greek History

2009-02-06T17:28:00.002-07:00

Here are a set of 24 video lectures delivered by Donald Kagan, who hails from Yale University, on Greek history. I have yet to watch them, but I imagine they can't be all that bad.

Kagan Lectures

Possible revised paradigm of the verb 'to be' in IE

2009-02-05T17:45:00.004-07:00

Here is possible paradigm of the verb 'to be' in PIE; I wonder if I can account for all the reflexes in the daughter languages.

*esmi
*esi
*esti

*smes
*ste
*senti

You will notice that there is no intial *h1; indeed, this is the point. Now then, on to some reflexes.

This paradigm accounts for the Latin forms quite nicely; *esi > es; *esti > est. For the 3rd person plural, Palmer's argument (see this post below) still holds; *s-enti > *s-onti > sunt. Then, the first person plural was created by analogy to the third person plural *smes > sumus and, from this, the first person singular was spawned by analogy *esmi > sum. The second person plural was created by analogy to 2nd person singular form. Palmer's account of the development of the paradigm in Latin remains unchanged.

The Sanskrit reflexes can also develop from these roots with ease.

*esmi > asmi
*esi > asi
*esti > asti
*smes > smas
*ste > stha
*senti > santi

No problems here. Same thing with the Germanic forms; in Gothic and Old English, for example, the plural forms lack an initial vowel.

Given this new paradigm, the odd forms out seem to be the Greek and Anatolian forms, which show an inital 'e' in the plural. This, I believe, can be accounted for through analogy; they came about through analogy to the singular. This is not as strange as it may sound. This exact thing (albeit with an 'a' instead of an 'e') happened in the move from Sanskrit to Pali. Cf.:

Skt. asmi > Pali amhi 'I am'
Skt. asi > Pali asi 'you are'
Skt. asti > Pali atthi 'he/she/it is'
Skt. smah > Pali amha 'we are'
Skt. stha > Pali attha 'you (pl.) are'

The third person plural remained without the initial 'a'.

I have yet to see if I can account for reflexes in Balto-Slavic from the new paradigm. More, perhaps, on this later.

Hurrian is Just Plain Weird

2009-02-04T20:42:00.001-07:00

That is all.

Sweet Gothic Grammar

2009-02-04T15:50:00.003-07:00

Anyone who is learning Gothic with a remote interest in Indo European (I can't imagine why else one would learn Gothic, except being interesting in Germanic generally) should buy this grammar. It includes graded exercises, as well as exercises which relate to the development of Gothic from IE. Fantastic stuff, and it's not terribly expensive either. We need more grammars like this, which go through the development from IE and provide exercises to reinforce the points.

Milton's Style: Brilliant Adaptation of a Latinate Style, or Tortured English?

2009-02-03T20:52:00.002-07:00

So I'm rereading Paradise Lost, and am finding that I'm more keenly aware of Milton's style now that I have a bunch of Latin under my belt. In Latin, the verb most often comes at the end and things can be shoved up to the front of a clause for emphasis; both elements are difficult to copy in English, as it is a language which is heavily dependant on word order. This doesn't stop Milton, though, and I'm having trouble deciding whether, on the whole, Milton's efforts at adapting Latin word order to English were entirely successful.

There are passages in which this works quite well. Take this famous passage from Book 1:

Him the Almightly power
Hurled headlong flaming from the ethereral sky...

The direct object is right up at the front, which is technically ungrammatical in English. But, one can make sense of it, and this move on Milton's part is on par with his attempt to render English in a manner similar to that of Latin. Another good example is from Book 7:

This also thy request with caution asked
Obtain...

From the point of view of standard English word order and syntax, this is hideous. We could normally say something like "Have your request, which was cautiously asked for..." or something to that effect. The words "This" and "thy request", which stand in apposition to each other, are separated by "also"; this is exactly paralleled in Latin, where you could have an "etiam" or something separating two things which go together. Note also that the verb comes at the end of the clause. Another one, for good measure:

For what god after better worse would build?

Again, from the point of view of standard English, this is tortured. I can't decide what to think of it; on the one hand Milton's style is a good attempt at rendering English poetry in a style like that of Latin, but on the other, English just doesn't lend itself well to constructions of the sort that Latin allows.

I suppose he's done the best with what he has.

The Verb 'to be' in Latin and IE

2009-02-02T15:36:00.004-07:00

It seems that in PIE the verb 'to be' had two different stems in the present, and e-grade as well as a zero grade. The conjugation proceeds as follows:

Singular
*h1esmi
*h1esi
*h1esti

Plural
*h1smes
*h1ste
*h1senti

The ablaut grade was posited mainly to account for the reflexes in Latin and Sanskrit, which show an initial sibilant in a few forms: Lat. sum, sumus, sunt; Skt. smas 'we are', stha 'you (pl) are', santi 'they are'. According to Palmer (The Latin Language. 1954.), the development of the Latin forms are as follows:

The second and third person singular forms seem regular; *h1esi > es, *h1esti > est. By analogy with the singular forms a full grade was introduced in the second person plural (*h1ste > *ste > *este > estis). *s-enti > *s-onti > sunt, for the third person plural, and this apparently had some analogical bearing on the first person singular *somos > sumus. This new first person singular form in turn created a new first person singular, from an original *esmi (*esmi > sum).

Conclusion: the paradigm is an analogical mess in Latin, one which must be sorted out if my paper on the first laryngeal in the PIE verb 'to be' is going to be resuscitated.

IE Loanwords in Fenno-Ugric

2009-01-28T08:45:00.004-07:00

Jorma Koivulehto has been working on some interesting stuff regarding largyngeals and loan words from Indo European into Proto Fenno-Ugric. According to Koivulehto, the reflex of the laryngeal in these loans is still apparent and, depending upon the position of the laryngeal in the word, as well as the time of borrowing, the laryngeal will develop into a number of phonemes. For example, we have PFU (Proto Fenno-Ugric) *k- from IE *H-: IE *h1es-en- 'harvest' > Fi. (Finnish) kesa 'summer'. Also, he argues that PFU *š is a reflex of any word-internal laryngeal; exx. IE *dheh1-ti- 'deed' > PFU *tešte > Est. teht.

Adam Hyllested has taken up this thesis, and, in a forthcoming paper which was recently presented at an IE Conference, has examined the tenability of some of Koivulehto's reconstructions. He finds that some are plausible, but takes issue with others. (All this is based upon an abstract for this paper). He seems to not take issue with Koivulehto's main conclusions, which, incidentally, are very interesting: (1) PIE *h1 was an aspirated fricative (and not a glottal stop, which it is traditionally assumed to be); (2) at the time of contact between IE and PFU, laryngeals were still around. I look forward to getting my hands on this paper when it is published.

Tis crazy stuffs.

So I've started learning Hindi...

2009-01-20T17:22:00.005-07:00

...and cannot believe that people can distinguish between aspirated and unaspirated stops. It blows my mind that people can pick up on the difference in rapid conversation. I suppose you have to grow up hearing it. Also, the number of compound letters, like in Sanskrit, is immense.

Oh well.

Thomas Aquinas writes bad Latin...

2009-01-18T10:09:00.004-07:00

...and should enroll in remedial courses immediately. I think it was he who came up with, or at least popularized, "a priori", one of the most often trotted out philosophical phrases. At any rate, he uses it with abundance.

It should be "a priore", with a short 'e'. In my opinion, everyone who writes Latin should write like Cicero; he's the hallmark of good Latin prose. His Latin, though convoluted on occasion in his speeches, is refined and impeccable. Aquinas should have read more of him. Or at least should have reviewed the declension of comparatives.

Augustus and the Maintaining of his position

2009-01-16T15:26:00.004-07:00

Augustus seems to me to be a master politician. He excelled at getting people to do what he wanted them to do voluntarily, and he managed to keep the facade of the Republic up and running for the length of his stint as emperor. The question I want to address is how he managed to keep the facade going? What was it that allowed him to maintain his position as emperor, and in essence work to establish a hereditary monarchy, while keeping the Republican flame flickering? In my opinion, there were a number of external factors, as well as a number of political masterstrokes which kept Augustus from being assassinated as well as allowing him to establish and consolidate the position of emperor, all the while under the guise of the Republic.

The first factor I would like to examine is the army. Having conquored Antony and his consort Cleopatra, Augustus was in control of a massive amount of men. What was he to do with all of them? Normally, soldiers who had completed their time of service were given a piece of land as compensation for their dutiful service. This policy was carried out by Augustus: upon conquoring Egypt, he acquired substantial amounts of money. Thus, he was able to buy land for the soldiers instead of merely dispossessing people of it. This would no doubt be more favourable to those people who gave up their land for the soldiers. Also, Augustus instituted a policy whereby soldiers were paid in cash, which was obtained through the Egyptian treasuries as well as taxation, instead of the usual allottment of land. With the advent of this policy, Augustus managed to fill the requirements that soldiers demanded after they had finished bashing people over the heads. Not only this, but Augustus kept some soldiers in service, and created the praetorian guard. This force of soldiers was to become essential if the emperor wished to retain his position; they came to have a great deal of power in that they could assassinate emperors whom they were disinclined towards, and, in one case, having done so, auction off the position of emperor. At any rate, the policy of Augustus kept the army happy. A second factor also related to the army was Augustus' familial connection with Caesar. The army would have no doubt remembered fondly the triumphs of Caesar, and Augustus, being his great nephew, would have had been held in a light of distinction by the army.

A second factor which contributed to the success of Augustus is the language in which he framed his titles and honors, as well as the positions which he chose to hold. For example, through the years of 27 to 23 BC, he held power through a series of consulships. However, he soon realized that this was making him unpopular with the senatorial class; for they all aspired to attain the highest position available to them: that of consul, and with Augustus continually holding one of the two offices, the chances for the senators to reach this esteemed position were reduced. So, he decided to give up this position and instead hold the powers of a tribune for life (these powers were of course granted by the Senate). With this this tribunicia potestas (to be sure, he wasn't actually elected tribune of the plebs, but instead was accorded the powers thereof), Augustus had the power to call assemblies and veto the actions of magistrates. Not only this, but he was also subsequently given a series of powers and titles, including maior imperium, pater patriae, princeps, and pontifex maximus. It is the names of the titles which are essential here: they are all framed in the language of Republican Rome. Imperium basically means the power to act on behalf of the Roman state, and could be granted to generals, for example, in Republican times. Augustus is merely the "greater imperium", meaning his ability to act on behalf of Rome extended throughout the Empire. Princeps comes from an office in the Republic, the princeps senatus, "first of the Senate". This was more of an honorary position and had no real powers, but, if one held it, they were recognized as being the go to person for disputes and advice. Pontifex maximus was the principal religious office, and dealt with issues of state religion. All of these come, in one way or another, from the Republic. Also important to note is the show of modesty Augustus put on when he recieved his powers. He appeared to accept the powers unwillingly, which most likely made a big impact on the Senate and the populace at large, if they knew what was going on at all.

In the words of Gibbon "he solemnly restored the senate and people to all their ancient rights; and wished only to mingle with the crowd of his fellow citizens, and to share the blessings which he had obtained for the country."

A poem of Ovid

2009-01-08T19:52:00.004-07:00

Given the weather today, with all the wind and the snow and the cold, I thought this poem we looked at in Latin class is rather appropriate:

nix iacet et iactam nec sol pluiaee resolvunt;

indurat Boreas perpetuamque facit.

ergo, ubi delicuit nondum prior, altera venit

et solet in multis bima manere locis.

tantaque commoti vis est Aquilonis, ut altas

aequet humo turres tectaque rapta ferat.

pellibus et sutis arcent mala frigora bracis

oraque de toto corpore sola patent.

saepe sonant moti glacie pendente capilli

et nitet inducto candida barba gelu.

-Ovid, Tristia

This is a description of the place to which Ovid was exiled. Apparently, it wasn't the most hospitible place for him to go, having lived in Italy for such a long time.

Wagner, Lacoue Labarthe, and Myth

2009-01-03T09:02:00.004-07:00

I'm back! My return was spurred on by the temperature outside: it's too cold to go to school right now and all my stuff is at school. So, I thought I would post something, finally. And because Matt told me to make a glorious return to the interwebz.

This is the text of an essay I wrote for a philosophy seminar. It's on Wagner and myth, framed within Lacoue Labarthe's views on myth. Myth, for Lacoue Labarthe, has the power to found a people; it gives them types to emulate and an ideal which grounds the people as a whole, at least in the case of the Greeks. I examine whether Wagner's Ring Cycle could found the German people in the same way Greek myths did for the Greeks.

Abbreviations:

HPP: Lacoue Labarthe. Heidegger and the Politics of Poetry.

NM: Lacoue Labarthe and Nancy, Jean Luc. The Nazi Myth

GI: Wagner, Richard. The Greek Ideal

To start off, I will examine “the mythic” in general, specifically what it does and what its character is. Plato is the best place to start in the examination of myth. In the Republic, Plato banishes most poets and forms of myth on the grounds that they are twice removed from the Forms and thus cannot hold a claim to truth. There is also a second argument Plato gives: that some poets present images of the gods and of heroes which are not “morally sound”, that is, they present stories which would be a bad influence on the people of his city. In other words, these mythological stories present unsound types for people to identify with; Plato wants to give the people of his utopian city examples of the best types to follow. Mythology, then, in its essence, is characterized by types/images. Moreover, the people of the city “look up” to these types that are presented through myth; they relate to them: in other words, they form themselves as a people by the “imitation” of the characters presented in mythology. In Heideggerian terms, a people are grounded as a historical people through mythology; mythos gives a people to themselves, such that they can exist historically. Due to the fact myth functions in this way, art (as mythos) has a close connection with the political (the polis/demos/Volk), insofar as it is myth which form the demos in the first place. Myth makes the political, insofar as it makes the demos, possible. The “aim” of myth is the bringing together of a people.

Turning now to Wagner, we will see how this plays itself out in his operas. I will show what Wagner inherits from the Romantic tradition, insofar as it is derived from a Greek tradition, how this plays itself out in his operas, and then examine whether Wagner’s Ring Cycle, insofar as it is “mythic” can contribute to the bringing together of the German people. The three points are drawn from Heidegger and the Politics of Poetry.

Lacoue Labarthe believes that Wagner inherits the idea that the work of art is founded upon myth, and that myth is the only thing which can ground a people, that is, give a people language and figures with which it can identify itself. This notion can be traced through the threads of Romanticism all the way back to a Greek origin. In the 18th century, the German people were without a real identity; there was nothing inherently German to which the German people could relate to. Part of the project of Romanticism was to find something to ground the German people and thus found the German people as such. The Romantics looked back to Greece in order to do this, however, they latched onto a different stream of Hellenism than, for example, the French did. Instead of taking up the Apollonian classicism of the French, which is characterized by sereneness, beauty, etc, they appropriated a more “primitive” Greece, the mythical Greece of secret rites and dark superstitions. In doing this, they were, in essence, looking for a “type” (re. Myth) to which the German people could relate and thus be founded as a historical people.

One can easily see how Wagner’s works are founded upon myth. In his magnum opus, Der Ring des Nibelung, Wagner pulls out threads from a myriad of Old Norse and German mythology in order to create a coherent, 17 hour long, whole. Tristan und Isolde is based upon a German myth, as are Lohengerin and Tannhauser. It is the Bayreuth Festival which was to be the medium through which these myths are presented, and consequently found the German Volk. Lacoue Labarthe notes that there is a parallel between the Bayreuth Festival and the City Dionisia in Athens, where the tragic plays were presented. (NM 303) Ideally, the presentation of the myths to the people would ground them historically, and they can thus exist as a historical people. The polis, as a work of art, would be partly created through these festivals, both Bayreuth and the City Dionisia.

I shall now turn to the “origin” of the Gestamkunstwerk, which Lacoue Labarthe thinks is Greek tragedy. Greek tragedy is composed of two main elements: the actors and the chorus. The chorus, within the context of the action of the play, was merely there as a comment on what was being done by the actors, and it did this through singing, dancing, and music. This is the “Dionysian” element in Greek tragedy that Nietzsche, as well as those German Romantics who sought an alternative to the “Apollonian” classicism of France, took hold of. In other words, the Greek tragedy was, in a way, a Gestamkustwerk, in the way that Wagner defines it: a total work of art, which incorporated music, action, and singing on stage. All these elements were required in order for a Greek tragedy to be as such; they are necessary conditions for a play.

How, then, do Wagner’s operas parallel the Greek tragedy in structure? As we have seen, the Greek tragedy is composed of a number of different elements which come together to form a coherent work. These are all present in Wagner’s operas, though some appear in a slightly different guise. It goes without saying that there is singing in opera. It is the music that appears in a different, though, related form. For, there is no “chorus”, conceived of as a group of people who dance and sing to music, in Wagner’s operas: instead, there is only music. The orchestra functions as the classical chorus instead of a group of actors on the stage who comment on the action. The function is the same, but the form it takes is different. Moreover, in some Greek tragedies, Aeschylus in particular, the chorus is always present, from basically the beginning of the play to end. The orchestra in Wagner, as the action unfolds on stage, provides a continual comment on what is going on; this comment is achieved through his use of Leitmotivs, which give us a musical “guide” to what is happening on stage. Given the action on stage, a particular Leitmotiv may take on a different guise: it may move into a major or minor key, be inverted, etc. All this gives us a running commentary regarding the appearance of characters, themes, and objects, or serves to “set the mood” of a particular scene. In the second section of the paper, we will say more regarding the function of the chorus/orchestra in Wagner and in Greek tragedy and thus will lay the matter aside until then.

Lacoue Labarthe lists the third thing Wagner inherited from the Romantics as the notion that Greek art is based upon the distinction between Apollo and Dionysus. Interestingly, in his writings Wagner has little to say about Dionysus, and instead focuses on the role Apollo plays. His work The Greek Ideal has some passages which sound rather like Lacoue Labarthe: “It was Apollo…who…had proclaimed to questioning man the fundamental laws of the Grecian race and nation, thus holding up to those involved in passionate action the peaceful, undisturbed mirror of their inmost, unchangeable Grecian nature…” (GI 78)6. He then moves to connect the tragic poet with Dionysus: “Thus, too, inspired by Dionysus, the tragic poet saw this glorious god…” (GI 78). He goes on to say that the “spontaneous” elements of art were “joined to speech”; these spontaneous elements being the Dionysian, and the speech being Apollonian “representation” . Given Wagner’s explicit indebtedness to the Greeks7, it would be conceivable that he thought of his own work as combining these two facets of the classical world, the Apollonian and the Dionysian, even though he didn’t explicitly state that he was doing this. To my knowledge, this is the extent of Wagner’s appreciation of the Apollo/Dionysus distinction in Greek tragedy.

Now that we have seen how Wagner’s project is has three main characteristics, that it hinges on the mythological, is Greek in structure, and carries on the same Romantic project of founding the German people. We will examine whether the Ring Cycle can ground the German peoples in the same way Greek myths did. I will follow Lacoue Labarthe in arguing that Wagner’s Ring cannot carry out the same mythic function as the Greek myths did, due to the privileged position music holds at the expense of poetry (myth) in his operas. Then, I will treat an objection, which will argue that in fact the orchestra is necessarily secondary to the music given its correlation with the classical chorus, and respond to it.

In The Nazi Myth, Lacoue Labarthe mention Wagner and how he “aims to unify the German people through celebration and theatrical” ceremonies. (NM 303) There is a parallel, which Lacoue Labarthe notes, between the Bayreuth Festival and the City Dionysia, the festival where Greek tragedies were performed in Athens. The function of the two is essentially the same: to bring people together in an experience of their mythology, such that they become (re)grounded, or “reminded of their roots”, so to speak. We have seen that Wagner’s Ring Cycle is a mythology, and is founded on a Greek model, so, can it ground the German people? In Lacoue Labarthe’s opinion: no. For, in Wagner’s works the music is subservient to the poetry (myth) and thus the myth cannot carry out its true function of grounding a historical people. (HPP, 32) Wagner explicitly states that the aim of his operas was a “communal fusion”, and that this fusion was to be brought about by music. He was trying to appeal to the “emotional” aspect through his music (HPP, 32), in order to bring people together in some sort of “aesthetic rapture”. Wagner is aiming to create a community of sorts, and this is laudable; however, he is going about it in the wrong way, for only myth can truly create a Volk. However, this fusion occurs through the music and not through the myth, like it should. He privileges the music at the expense of what is truly able to ground a historical peoples: myth.

An interesting counter-argument to can be based upon a point raised in the first section of the paper: Wagner conceives of the orchestra as a parallel to the classical choruses of Greek tragedy. The choruses served merely to comment on the action which was unfolding on stage, and thus did not over power the poetry, or the action onstage. They were always present, and always there for comment, but never took a main role. One could, by analogy, say that the orchestra could not possibly overpower the poetry, given its secondary status as a mere comment on the action. The Wagnerian orchestra is a comment, a guide to what is happening throughout the course of the opera: the same way the tragic chorus tells us what to think about the action, the Wagnerian orchestra gives us hints as to how to conceive of what is happening on stage though Leitmotivs and the reworking thereof. As a consequence, poetry is not secondary to music, and Wagner’s mythology can carry out its proper function.

In response I would say two things. First, that a problem arises when mythic types are imposed upon a people, instead of being “poetically” created by a people. Wagner, in essence, is imposing mythological types in his Ring Cycle. It was not the case that the Germans of the 19th century created the mythic characters of Siegfried and Sigmund, Brunhilde, the Nibelungs, Wotan and Loki. Instead, Wagner appropriated these myths from antiquity, reshaped them in order to create the story that became the Ring cycle, and then thrust them upon the Germans. Even though they are German myths (and what is more, the largest source of material for the Ring came from Scandinavian mythology, which was partly connected with the German myths) they are nonetheless being imposed upon the German people, instead of being created.

Secondly, I would say that, even if the orchestra qua chorus has a secondary status, this is still the central element to Wagner’s project of “communal fusion”. Given how Wagner has framed his discussion, it seems that the music is the only thing which can “bring people together”, since he is appealing to them on an “emotional” level. Wagner is not aiming for a founding in the true sense of the word and, even if he were, his operas could not carry this out due to the fact that his mythological elements are not really originary myths in the same way Greek ones were.

On the basis of the analysis of Wagner’s operas, I would come to the following conclusion. His operas are quite Romantic (re. Greek) in form, and given the project of Romanticism, namely founding the German people, it would seem prima facie that Wagner would be able to ground the Germans historically. However, due to the secondary status of saying (re. the mythic elements) in his operas, he is not able to fully carry out this project. For only myth can truly found a people and if something else holds a privileged position over it, the mythic loses some of its power.

If anyone takes the time to read my blog, sorry for not posting

2008-09-28T16:05:00.002-06:00

If there are any of you out there who read my blog, I apologize for the lack of posts this past month. I've been hella busy with school; 3 languages, a philosophy seminar, and two undergrad associations are alot to keep on top of.

More posts, though, will shortly be forthcoming.

PS- if you actually do read and like (or hate) my blog, post a comment here. I'm just curious to see how many people read it.

Hoffner and Melchert's Hittite Grammar

2008-08-27T18:59:00.006-06:00

A Grammar of the Hittite Language, 1: Reference Grammar
Part I: Reference Grammar
Languages of the Ancient Near East - LANE 1/1
by Harry A. Hoffner Jr. and H. Craig Melchert
Eisenbrauns, 2008
Pp. xxii + 468; CD-ROM, English
Cloth, 7 x 9 inches
ISBN: 1575061198
List Price: $59.50
Your Price: $53.55
www.eisenbrauns.com/wconnect/wc.dll?ebGate~EIS~~I~HOFGRAMMA

Above is the info for Hoffner and Melchert's new Hittite Grammar. My friend showed it to me today and it seems like the best resource out there for learning Hittite. There is a tutorial included in the CD which would be excellent for learning the language; it is also available separately. The only other ones I've seen are one called Beginning Hittite which, judging from the peer reviews and my experience with it, is the worst thing out there, and Johannes Friedrich's Hethitisches Elementarbuch which is only useful if you read German. Hoffner and Melchert's will no doubt be the standard English language grammar for a while. If you're crazy enough to learn Hittite, this is the best thing out there right now.

Homeric Hymn 20: To Hephestus

2008-08-24T19:29:00.005-06:00

Here's my hackneyed translation of the Homeric Hymn 20: To Hephaestus. The Greek text can be viewed here, at the Perseus site. If you don't have a Greek font, like SPIonic installed, I think you can still view the text in just plain Unicode.

Of Hephaestus, famously skilled, sweetly sing Muse,
who, with grey-eyed Athena, taught men to use
their shining art upon the Earth, men who used
to dwell in hill caves, like animals reduced.
But now, the shining skill having been learned through
Hephaestus, famous for his art, years renew
easily for men, at ease in their dwellings.
But, be gracious, Hephaestus; give us earnings
and most excellent virtue.

The translation is not completely literal; I translated some things as adverbs when they weren't, and in the 4th last line I translate sense, not words.

I think the last 2 lines are the most interesting. The poet has said that Hephaestus, along with Athena, gave men the "shining art". This, presumably, was a rather gracious measure, from men's point of view, on the part of Hephaestus. However, there is apparently a concern that Hephaestus will not continue to be gracious; there is some concern about a change of heart. Thus, the poet asks him to "be gracious"; the will of the gods was a rather shifty and thus the poet asks for graciousness. All that Hephaestus did does not necessarily entail his continuing to be well disposed towards the human race. These last two lines bring out a nice contrast between the graciousness of Hephaestus and Athena in giving men the "shining skill", and the ever-lurking possibility that his attitude could shift at any time. The poet can appreciate all men have, but is also aware of the transitory nature of all men have. Incidentally, this is a common theme in archaic lyric poetry; it's rather pessimistic stuff.

Origins of the Etruscans

2008-08-21T15:15:00.004-06:00

The Etruscans, from the time of the Romans to our own, have remained a rather enigmatic people. No one really knew, or knows, where exactly they came from. Hesiod, in the Theogony, says that the Etruscans were descended from the children of Odysseus and Circe:

"Circe, the daughter of Hyperion's child, the Sungod, loved Odysseus, famous for his endurance, and bore Agrius and Latinus, the strong man with no stain. This pair rules over all the famous Tyrrenians in their faraway retreat deep in the sacred islands" (Thg. 12, 101ff)

The 'sacred islands' are probably the Lipari islands, which are just north of the toe of the boot of Italy. Herodotus relates that the Etruscans were of Lydian descent, and both Virgil and Horace refer to the Etruscans as Lydian. The Lydians were a group of Greeks in Asia Minor and neighbors of the Ionian Greeks. For Herodotus this correlation fits well into the one of the thematic facets of his Histories: barbarian 'truphe', luxurious living. Both the Lydians and the Etruscans had a reputation among the Greeks for decadant living and morals, which is also attributed to the Persians and ties into the theme of hubris that runs through the Histories.

Dionysus of Halicarnassus also had a go at trying to place the origins of the Etruscans. Writing in 7 B.C., he claimed that the Etruscans were simply the 'natives' of Italy. In his work the Roman Antiquities, Dionysus attempts to show that the Romans were originally Greeks who migrated over to Italy by comparing Greek and Roman customs, institutions and rituals. If it is the case that the Romans were originally Greeks, then the Etruscans, according to Dionysus, must have been the "barbarians". Interestingly, though, he does analyze Herodotus' claim that the Etruscans were Lydians and more or less arrives at the same conclusion that most scholars now hold, namely that the Lydians and Etruscans are completely unrelated. He notes that the Tyrrhenians and the Lydians do not use the same language, do not worship the same gods, don't make use of similar laws or institutions. In short the Etruscans must be "a very ancient nation, and...agrees with no other either in its language or in its manner of living".

Lydian, being a dialect of Greek, is an Indo European language. Etruscan, however, is not. Thus, Herodotus' migratory theory does not work. Moreover, archaeological work in Lydia has failed to unearth anything that remotely resembles Etruscan pottery or the like. Over in Italy, archaeology has shown a clear continuity between the 7th century Etruscans and the prehistoric populations that preceded them in every major Etruscan center.

So, Dionysus' theory seems the most plausible, except that it still does not tell us where the Etruscans came from. It's possible we may never know; perhaps they were part of a prehistoric migration from somewhere that, due to its age, would bear no traces in the archaeological record. Nonetheless, it is interesting that the Etruscans were a pocket (and a rather powerful pocket at that) of non Indo European speakers in an area where every other tribe spoke an IE based language. This adds to the mystery, I think. Here we have a bunch of non IE speakers who settled in the middle of Italy on some of the best land there is in Italy. One can perhaps understand how the Basques in Spain, due to their being surrounded by high mountains and thus cut off from the rest of the world, could have developed a language unrelated to those surrounding them. But, this was not the case with the Etruscans. They were literally surrounded by people completely unrelated to them, with no natural barriers to isolate them. A rather curious state of affairs.

All we can really say is that linguistically the Etruscans influenced others, and were perhaps influenced by the Italian tribes around them. Latin picked up some Etruscan vocabulary and the Etruscans picked up their script from the Phoenicians. None of this can answer the real question, though: who were the Etruscans and from where did they come?

More on Spoken Latin

2008-08-13T17:00:00.004-06:00

A short while ago I wrote a little post on the benefits of spoken Latin. Today, as I was wandering through the library stacks, I came across a little book which was published in 1669 entitled A New Way of Teaching Children the Latin Tongue by Use Alone. Originally published in French under the title Examen de la Maniere d'Enseigner le Latin aux Enfans, it was translated into English or, as the title page says, "Englished out of French". I flipped it open and, lo and behold, he was arguing that spoken Latin was the best method of learning the language. The standard "grammar/translation" method, the author argues, is not the right way to go. He cites the example of a small child whom he met and who, at the age of about four, "knowing no other Language, but Latin, [used] the same as other Infants do their Mother-tong". The author apparently talked to him twice and found that "it hath ev'n the dexterity to vary the expressions, when it is oblig'd to say often the same thing. It commits no fault in the Inflexions, and is not only exact in what it speaks, but with a strange quickness taketh up and corrects those, that speak not right" Imagine having your Latin corrected by a four year old!

The author's point is basically that, this kid has a greater command of the language than those who learned Latin the standard way, and, since he [the kid] learned Latin through mere use and conversation alone, that this appears to be the best method. For, we learned our mother-tongue without being drilled on declensions and conjugations, moods and voices. Why not employ the same approach with second languages? Montaigne's first language was, apparently, Latin: he was only spoken to and could only respond in Latin when he was a child. Moreover, this in no way impaired him from learning French: he is considered one of the finest writers in the French language. Though, to be fair, we have to take Montaigne at his word in this; he relates this in one of his essays.

Languages were made not only to be read, but also to be spoken. I see no reason why Latin should be any different: using a language makes learning it a heck of a lot easier. Anyone who can find this little book should read it; rather humorously he treats some objections to his views, one of which is that "mothers shall not understand their own children"; the author thinks that one's first language should be Latin and their "vulgar" tongue learned later. To be fair, this is a bit extreme, perhaps. However, he does see the immense benefit of speaking the language, which is something I can definitely appreciate.

A Short Bit on Tacitus and a Translation of Some Tacitus

2008-08-09T18:59:00.004-06:00

Tacitus is probably the hardest Latin author you will ever read. His style is rather abbreviated and rather obscure, as will probably come through in the translation further on in the post. Most interesting, however, is Tacitus' views on the Roman Empire and how he presented them in his works. He was fervently opposed to Roman Imperialism, which is all fine and good (depending on which Emporer you lived under and how well you masked it). However, Tacitus wrote a biography of Agricola, who was a relative by marriage of Tacitus, and most famously took over Britian in the name of Roman Imperialism. How, then, does one be critical of Roman expansion whilst writing a complementary biography (because Agricola was a family member--and a famous one at that) of someone who played a role in Roman expansion? Simple: put your views in speeches of the enemy. Here is presented an excerpt from one such speech; one can only handle so much Tacitus at once.

Quotiens causas belli et necessitatem nostram intueor, magnus mihi animus est hodiernum diem consensumque vestrum initium libertatis toti Britanniae fore: nam et universi co[i]stis et servitutis expertes, et nullae ultra terrae ac ne mare quidem securum inminente nobis classe Romana. Ita proelium atque arma, quae fortibus honesta, eadem etiam ignavis tutissima sunt. Priores pugnae, quibus adversus Romanos varia fortuna certatum est, spem ac subsidium in nostris manibus habebant, quia nobilissimi totius Britanniae eoque in ipsis penetralibus siti nec ulla servientium litora aspicientes, oculos quoque a contactu dominationis inviolatos habebamus. Nos terrarum ac libertatis extremos recessus ipse ac sinus famae in hunc diem defendit: nunc terminus Britanniae patet, atque omne ignotum pro magnifico est; sed nulla iam ultra gens, nihil nisi fluctus ac saxa, et infestiores Romani, quorum superbiam frustra per obsequium ac modestiam effugias. Raptores orbis, postquam cuncta vastantibus defuere terrae, mare scrutantur: si locuples hostis est, avari, si pauper, ambitiosi, quos non Oriens, non Occidens satiaverit: soli omnium opes atque inopiam pari adfectu concupiscunt. Auferre trucidare rapere falsis nominibus imperium, atque ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant. (Tacitus, Life of Agricola, ch. 30)

How often do I contemplate the reason and our neccesity of war, I think that today, this very day, and your gathering together, will be the beginning of liberty for all of Britian: for you all came together, inexperienced in slavery, and no land beyond and not even the sea is secure, the Roman fleet being near. Thus, a battle and weapons, which are honorable to the brave, in the same way are safest for cowards. Prior battles, in which it was contested with varying success against the Romans, held hope and troops in our hands because we, positioned far inland, not gazing at the shore of servitude, had eyes unviolated from the contact of domination. The remote position itself and the land of rumor defends us of this land and of liberty to this day: now the limit of Britian lies open and every unknown thing is for the sake of a splendid thing; but, there are no tribes beyond, nothing except seas and rocks and the rather hostile Romans, whose arrogance you would flee in error through compliance and respect. Robbers of the earth, they are, when all of the earth falls short, being in emptiness, they search through the sea: if the enemy is rich, they are greedy, if they are poor, ambitious, neither East nor West have satisfied them: they alone out of all people covet wealth and poverty with the same disposition. Stealing, destroying, plundering are for the false name of an empire: and when they make desolation, they call it peace.

I've translated some parts of the passage rather literally to get across how obscure Tacitus can be sometimes. Remember that this is more or less Tacitus speaking though the mouth of a general of a coalition of Celtic/Scottish tribes who are fighting the Romans. In the first line, where I translated "I think that..." in the Latin is actually, "there is great mind to me...". He seems to personify the "prior battles", stating that they "held hope, etc"; this is extremely confusing at first glance at the Latin. The verb "to be" (esse) is often omitted. The passage "every unknown thing is for the sake of a splendid thing" is rather hazy in meaning. I think what Tacitus is trying to say is that the Romans greatly desired the "unknown", which, upon discovery, was for the sake of "glory" or the Empire, or what have you. Just a bit further on, the clause that starts "whose arrogance..."; I believe he is saying that fighting is the only option and that submission to the Romans is the wrong way to go.

One can also see the anti-Roman stance in this excerpt. Romans are called "robbers of the earth" and are portrayed as greedy, malicious conquorers. There are more "implicit" critiques of Romans in Tacitus' writings; I'll perhaps present them in another post and comment more fully.

Syria, Trade, & Near Eastern Influences on Greece

2008-08-07T17:11:00.004-06:00

Ancient Syria is an interesting place for me, primarily due to its cosmopolitan nature. Ugarit, for example, due to its being a major trade center, was host to a great number of different peoples, including native Syrians, Hittites, probably Egyptians, and perhaps merchants from Mesopotamia further west. All the major trade routes seemed, at one time or another, to convene in Syria. A merchant travelling west from Babylonia would start by going up the Euphrates to Emar, then over land to Aleppo, then south to Canaan; the journey south would be through Syria. Merchants going north would begin from Northern Syria, probably Ugarit, and then travel through the Amanus and Taursus mountains to the Anatolian plateau; Hittite merchants would make the journey in reverse. For Egyptians, the safest route would be by sea up the coast, making stops at Byblos, Tyre, and then most likely Ugarit, in northern Syria. Merchants from Crete would sail in a counter-clockwise direction (winds and currents generally favoured this direction); first they would stop in Egypt and then go up the coast following the route of the Egyptian traders.

There was, in a way, a circular trade route around the Aegean, with branches coming from the west, in Mesopotamia, and from the north, in the Hittite kingdom. M.L. West, in his book The East Face of Helicon, states that in the Neolithic Age, there were already established trade networks in the Near East though he argues that Greece had little influence and was influenced little during this period. I am inclined to agree. Around the 17th century BC, however, we begin to see objects of oriental manufacture on the Greek mainland. The Shaft Graves of Circle A at Mycenae sported Mesopotamian glass beads, tusks from Syria, an Egyptian jug and vase, and a gold pin from Anatolia. This obviously suggests the presence of a circular trade network around the Aegean Sea; it is most likely from this network that the so called “Near Eastern influences” of Greece came about. From the 15th century BC onwards, Mycenaean pottery was arriving in substantial quantities in Cyprus, Syria, and Palestine. West points out, quite correctly, that it was not necessarily the Greeks that carried it that far, however, it does attest to a wide ranging trade network that went both directions because of its circular nature.

The “Near Eastern influences”, however, did not directly follow the “circular” pattern; they more or less moved westward, not around. First, there was no where else for them to go; about 3/4 of the circle was comprised of places from which the influences would come. First, we see them on the island of Cyprus, then in Minoan Crete, and then finally on the mainland. The trade moved in a circle, but the influences moved linearly across the Aegean towards Greece. Influences are, for the most part, seen first in Minoan or Mycenaean civilization, which is obviously due to the fact they antedated significant settlements on the mainland. Take some aspects of religion, for example. In both Minoan and Mycenaean art many scenes of cultic worship are depicted taking place in the countryside, sometimes by a large tree; trees and groves were considered sacred. Here is a cult scene from Mycenae:

Note the tree on the left. There are parallels to this in the Near East. In the Old Testament it seems that Judaism had to combat tree worship. It was common in Near Eastern religions to hold trees, rocks, etc as divine, as idols to be worshipped; it is this that the Israelites had to contend with, for worship of idols in any form was deemed not appropriate. In the Old Testament itself, though, David received an omen from the rustling of the trees:

And let it be, when thou [David] hearest the sound of a going in the tops of the mulberry trees, that then thou shalt bestir thyself: for then shall the Lord go out before thee, to smite the host of the Philistines. (2 Sam. 5.24)

In a way, the trees become sacred insofar as they bear the sign of the divine.

A sacred stone or column was also a feature of Minoan and Mycenaean art. The god Hermes, incidentally, received his name from the Greek word for a cairn, ‘herma’. Again, if one looks in the Old Testament, a 'massebah' (stone pillar) was a feature of Canaanite sanctuaries. Also, Jacob sets up a stone pillar:

And Jacob rose up early in the morning, and took the stone that he had put for his pillows, and set it up for a pillar, and poured oil upon the top of it (Gen. 28.18)

And Jacob set up a pillar in the place where he talked with him [God], even a pillar of stone: and he poured a drink offering thereon, and he poured oil thereon. (Gen. 35.14)

The term for a cult site in older Canaanite religion is ‘bamah’, which means “high place”. The word could perhaps be connected with the Greek ‘bomos’, meaning altar.

Not the temples themselves, but the principle of the temple came from the Near East, via Cyprus. An interesting linguistic connection is the Greek world leskhai, which refers to a public dining hall, at Delphi, for example. This can be compared with the Hebrew 'lishkah', which means basically the same thing, though, there is no known Semitic etymology for the word.

All these influences passed westward, most likely brought along with the trade goods and were slowly integrated into the 'Greek' society we think of today. Along with the influences from Syria and Mesopotamia, there were perhaps Hebraic ones, as outlined above. For more detail see M.L. West's The East Face of Helicon

The Utility of Hebrew

2008-08-06T19:40:00.007-06:00

I've discovered that, if one wants to learn any ancient Near Eastern language, Hebrew is not only useful, but essential. First of all, it makes learning the languages easier; some grammatical points, as well as the phonetic equivalents for the scripts, can be related to Hebrew and thus make for easier comprehension. Secondly, most of the grammars for ancient NE languages presuppose knowledge of Hebrew for precisely the reason above. Often equivalents for constructions or cuneiform signs, etc will be given. Even examples will be given in Hebrew of certain constructions.

On that note, since I'm taking a course on Middle Egyptian next year, I've started looking at Hebrew. I at least want to have a handle on the script-- this will most likely make learning the "alphabetic" equivalents in Egyptian easier, leaving me only to worry about the Hieroglyphic (by which I mean the picture of water actually meaning "water") and phonemic (by which I mean a sign representing more than one letter; Consonant+Consonant, eg.) aspects. When I was learning Ugaritic, I found myself wishing I had knowledge of Hebrew; it would have made learning the cuneiform signs as well as verb structures easier. In short, not only is Hebrew a beautiful language, certainly worth learning in its own right, but it also makes learning other NE languages a heck of a lot easier.

A Recreation of Ciceronian Oratory

2008-08-01T16:49:00.003-06:00

Here's a link to a recreation of sections from some of Cicero's speeches produced and put together by UCLA.

http://cicero.humnet.ucla.edu/speech.htm

They're interesting to watch; I don't know enough about Ciceronian rhetoric to make a judgement regarding how historically accurate these modern attempts are, though, I wonder how "historically accurate" one can actually be when dealing with the spoken word. Rhetorical handbooks from the ancient world can only go so far, though, to be fair, they can take us a fair ways in terms of gesture, some aspects of delivery, and pacing. No doubt some nuances will be missed, however, these UCLA videos give, I would guess, a fairly accurate portrait of what Roman oratory was like.

On Spoken Latin

2008-07-28T18:51:00.005-06:00

Here is a link to a video produced by the University of Kentucky. One of the profs there runs a summer seminar in which, for the first day, you are allowed to converse in whatever language you choose, and then, for the next 8 or so days, you can only converse in Latin.

http://www.researchchannel.org/prog/displayevent.aspx?rid=19338

I think this would be immensely beneficial; it's a shame more people don't actively engage in spoken Latin. Pretentious as it may sound, the best way to learn a language is to use it. Merely reading the language won't ingrain the grammatical points and vocabulary in your head as well as actually using the language and, if one attends a spoken Latin seminar, immersing oneself in the language completely. The classic grammar/translation method perhaps makes learning Latin easier, but it doesn't mean you learn it well. To be fair, many people are quite good at Latin who have used the grammar/translation method, however, I seriously doubt the are as good with the Latin language as the professors who run the spoken Latin seminars.

At the very least, people should be doing more prose composition, whether it be an original work or a paraphrase of some poem or prose selection they read in class. Both Romans and Greeks used paraphrase, as well as other exercises such as translating from Latin into Greek or Greek into Latin, to improve their writing and, most importantly, their oratorical skills. If it worked for Cicero, why can't it work for you? For myself, at least, prose comp has been beneficial in terms of my Latin grammar and vocabulary, painful as it is at first. It reinforces concepts: if you can generate constructions, surely you would be able to recognize them in Latin. Actively using a language is the only way to learn it well, thus, speaking and writing Latin would be great ways to improve one's skills.

Catullus 5 Translation

2008-07-20T07:19:00.004-06:00

Vivamus, mea Lesbia, atque amemus
Rumoresque senum severiorum
Omnes unius aestimenus assis.
Soles occidere et redire possunt
Nobis, cum semel occidit brevis lux,
Nox est perpetua una dormienda.
Da mis basia mille, deinde centum,
Dein mille altera, dein secunda centum,
Deinde usque altera mille, deinde centum,
Dein, cum milia multa fecerimus
Conturbabimus illa, ne sciamus,
Aut ne quis malus invidere possit
Cum tantum sciat esse basiorum.

Let us live, my Lesbia, and let us love.
Let us reckon all the rumors
of harsh old men as worth a single penny.
Suns are able to sink and to return
But, when our brief light sets,
We must live in perpetual night.
Give me 1000 kisses, then 100,
then another 1000, then 100 again,
Then another 1000, then 100.
Then, when we have made many thousands of kisses
We will jumble those kisses together, lest we know how many there are
or lest any person with bad intent cast an evil eye
when he knows just how many kisses we have shared.

Catullus 51 Translation

2008-07-18T19:38:00.008-06:00

Ille mi par esse deo videntur,
ille, si fas est, superare divos,
qui sedens adversus identidem te
spectat et audit
dulce ridentem, misero quod omnis
eripit sensus mihi: nam simul te,
Lesbia, aspexi, nihil est super mi
[vocis in ore.]

Lingua sed torpet, tenuis sub artus
flamma demanat, sonitu suopte
tintinant aures, gemina teguntur
lumina nocte.

Otium, Catulle, tibi molestum est:
otio exsultas nimiumque gestis:
otium et reges prius et beatas
perdidit urbes.

This man seems to be an equal of the gods.
This man, if it is right, appears to surpass the gods:
He who, sitting opposite you,
gazes at you and listens to your
sweet laughter again and again. Those things
from my misery snatch my senses: indeed,
the instant I look at you, Lesbia,
nothing of my voice is left in my mouth.

My tongue is tied, a thin flame of love
flows down through my limbs,
my ears ring with their own sound and
my eyes are covered with the twin night.

Catullus, leisure for you is troublesome:
In leisure do you rejoice and delight too much:
Leisure has, in the past, ruined kings and beautiful cities.

Short Commentary [lines refer to the Latin text]:

Line 2: si fas est (if it is right); The sense here is really "if it is divinely sanctioned". That is, Catullus doesn't want to offend the gods in saying that he might even surpass them, thus he's being more polite about it.

Line 7: Lesbia; This is who Catullus addresses his love poetry and, after the relationship deteriorates, his hate poetry, to. The name is not a reference to her sexual orientation; instead, it is a poetic nod to Sappho, the Greek poet of the the 6th Century BC. She was from the island of Lesbos and addressed most of her love poetry to another woman (hence the word "lesbian"). Catullus makes use of Sappho's meters as well in some of his poetry. I think Catullus is trying to fit himself in with the lyric love poetry of the Greeks.

Line 8: [vocis in ore]; This line is missing in all the Catullus manuscripts. This is the "standard" reconstruction of what the line probably said

Lines 11-12: gemina teguntur/lumina nocte (my eyes are covered with the twin night); These lines, though incredibly good, are incredibly confusing in the Latin. I think the sense is that darkeness overwhelmes his two eyes.

Apology of Socrates Part II

2008-06-24T21:22:00.002-06:00

Socrates now proceeds to cross examine his formal accuser, Meletus. He uses his classic method of examination, the elenchus, which is concerned with two points: the first with regard to Meletus’ lack of concern for the upbringing of young men, and the second with regard to his accusation that Socrates doesn’t believe in any gods.

Concerning the first point, Socrates makes two arguments against Meletus. The first is from analogy. He first makes Meletus admit that everyone in the city has a refining effect upon young men and it is only Socrates that has a perverse impact. This, however, seems counterintuitive to Socrates. The analogy of raising horses is used; it is not the case that the whole of mankind has an improving effect upon horses and only one person has a negative effect on them, for only a select few individuals are able to raise horses properly and the rest of the population presumably has a somewhat negative effect on them, not knowing how to raise them properly. Thus, from analogy, it would be strange if only one person had a negative effect on young men (i.e. Socrates) and the rest of the population had a good effect on them. According to Socrates, this proves that Meletus has little knowledge of the upbringing of the young, which is one of the issues Meletus raised against Socrates. In essence, Socrates is arguing that Meletus had no idea what he was talking about when he charged Socrates with corrupting the youth.

The second argument isn’t laid out terribly well in the dialogue; one has to do a bit of work to bring it out. Socrates first establishes, through his elenchus method, a rather obvious point: that wicked people harm those with whom they are in close contact. Then, Socrates has Meletus state that he (Meletus) is charging Socrates with corrupting the youth intentionally. It is this point that the argument hinges on. It makes no sense, from Socrates’ point of view, to intentionally corrupt those around him for, by premise one, these people would then have a negative effect on him. Socrates states that, “am I so hopelessly ignorant as not even to realize that by spoiling the character of one of my companions I shall run the risk of getting some harm from him?” In other words, since Socrates isn’t stupid, he wouldn’t intentionally harm people because he could possibly incur some negative effects from them. Thus, if he did corrupt some youths, he must have done so unintentionally, in which case the proper course of action is not to bring him to court, but to “take him aside privately for instruction and reproof....”

Socrates now moves to the second point: the charge that he doesn’t believe in any gods. This argument, in my view, is rather dubious; I think the terms shift from the formal indictment that Socrates reads to the actual charge he argues against.

Meletus is made to say that Socrates “[disbelieves] in the gods altogether”. This can mean two things: (1) That Socrates doesn’t believe in any gods at all (i.e. he’s a complete atheist); and (2) That Socrates doesn’t believe in the gods sanctioned by the state (i.e. he believes in gods other than the ones in the Greek pantheon). If we go back to the “formal indictment” that Socrates read (see 24c), it states that he is charged with ‘believing in supernatural things of his own invention instead of the gods recognized by the state”. Thus, by Socrates’ own admission, he is charged with the second of the two meanings. However, Meletus then admits that Socrates is being charged with atheism, not just with believing in gods other than those sanctioned by the state (see 26b-26d). The charge, it seems, has switched from the second meaning to the first!

Thus, Socrates’ argument supposes that he is being charged under the first meaning, namely that he is a complete atheist, even though he read out that he was charged under the second meaning. Socrates once again argues from analogy. He begins by stating the fact that it is not the case that one can believe in musicians but not musical matters, or horses, but not believe in equine matters. By analogy, it doesn’t make sense to say that one can believe in supernatural matters but not in supernatural beings. Since Meletus then agrees that supernatural beings are either the gods or children of the gods, Socrates then must believe in the gods.

I think there is certainly something a bit shifty going on here: which meaning of the charge is Socrates being indicted under? One possibility is that there is actually something shifty going on that Plato hopes we don’t notice. A second is that the two meanings, in some sense, collapse into each other. It could be the case that atheism, for the Greeks, entails believing in gods other than those sanctioned by the state. I’m not sure how to call this; a rather pantheon-o-centric view, perhaps. This, however, could not be it, for two reasons. First, Socrates blatantly separates the two meanings in 26c, and Meletus chooses complete atheism as the one Socrates is charged under. Moreover, from a historical standpoint, the Greeks recognized other civilizations as being “religious” even though they didn’t believe in the gods of the Greek pantheon. A third possibility is that Socrates initially read out the charge wrong, and then, through questioning of Meletus, received further clarification as to the real nature of the charge. This is perhaps the most sympathetic reading. In my view, it is either the third or the first possibilities that make the most sense. I’m not entirely sure which is right.

I’ll skip over 28a to 30b rather arbitrarily. Basically Socrates is saying that he’s not afraid to die and that he is fully conscious of his ignorance, as opposed to others than claim to know things but it turns out, on the basis of Socrates’ questioning, that they really do not. Also, he puts his obligation to Apollo ahead of his supposed obligation to the city to stop philosophizing. I suppose he’s trying to buttress his claim that he’s not an atheist.

Starting in 30c, Socrates gives a rather egotistical argument: he should not be found guilty because he is a benefaction to the city; he states “if you put me to death, you will not easily find anyone to take my place”. He goes on to claim that it was God who “assigned” him to the city of Athens, which, like a horse “needs the stimulation of some stinging fly.” Socrates was sent by God to perform the function of the fly. Socrates, I think, is assuming a great deal here. First, I doubt horses like the “stimulation” of flies; getting a chunk of flesh taken out of you by a horse fly, while it certainly would be stimulating, would not be the most pleasant or the most beneficial experience to have. The only thing it would teach you is that flies should be avoided or done away with. Socrates could perhaps have found a better analogy.

“I am subject to a divine or supernatural experience....It began in my early childhood--a sort of voice which comes to me; and when it comes it always dissuades me from what I am proposing to do, and never urges me on. It is this that debars me from entering public life...” Was Socrates a schizophrenic? At any rate, this is his argument for never engaging in public affairs to any great degree. I wouldn’t want someone with a voice in their head telling them things having a hand in ruling the city either. His next point would have also made him unpopular with the judges; he states, “the true champion of justice...must necessarily confine himself to private life and leave politics alone”. In a rather democratic court, in which the judges are probably politicians, this would be an unpopular position. He goes on to make a better point with regard to the only office he ever held, the Council, in which he voted against a measure that was later found to be illegal. At the time of voting, it was presumably a popular one, as Socrates relates that there was much opposition to his vote. However, in the interest of justice, he voted against the illegal measure. Here he’s trying to show that he’s a good citizen and, consequently, would not and could not corrupt the youth: he’s a just man.

Skipping over 33a to 34b, and moving on to 34c, Socrates starts condemning the procedures of the Athenian courts. Remember at the beginning how Socrates stated that he wasn’t a good speaker? This is why. It’s generally not a good plan to rile against the court practices in which you are defending your right to live. He states that he shall forgo the usual practice of making a sob story to the judges, and does so on three grounds: it would be dishonorable, it would be inviting justice, and it would be impious. His basic position is that “it is [not] just for a man to appeal to the jury or to get himself acquitted by doing so; he ought to inform them of the facts and convince them by argument.” This, I think, is a fair point: the judges ought to stick to the facts when rendering a decision. Though, one could not say the same for Socrates: he has a habit of rambling and speaking of things that don’t directly relate to the matters at hand.

I'll deal with the "guilty" verdict in a third post.

The Apology of Socrates, Part I

2008-06-22T18:43:00.002-06:00

The Apology of Socrates (apologia Sokratous), from a “historical” standpoint, centers around the accusations brought against Socrates; it is his defense speech at his trial on charges of corrupting the youth. In this post I shall attempt to sketch out some of the relevant points of interpretation.

First, a brief note on the title. Socrates is not profusely apologizing the dialogue; the Greek word “apologia” has a slightly different sense. It means ‘defense’ or ‘a speech in defense of...’ This point should be obvious if one has read the dialogue.

Interestingly, this is the only Platonic dialogue that contains the name “Socrates” in its title. This, among other things, points to the central issue that the dialogue entertains: Who is Socrates? (John Sallis makes something of this point) Socrates has been called an atheist and a corrupter of the youth of Athens; it is his job to show that he is not. The dialogue centers on the being of Socrates—who he is, or, perhaps, who he should be. This issue is hinted at right at the beginning of the dialogue, when Socrates says “[he] nearly forgot who [he] was, they [his accusers] spoke so persuasively”. His identity has been questioned; he himself perhaps questioned his identity. Implicitly, he is drawing attention to himself and who he is. However, he points out “there was not a word of truth in what they said”. Socrates didn’t forget himself at all: he knows who he is and his accusers have attempted to cover it over in their speeches against him.

The word “truth” here is essential. The Greek word is aletheia, which, if one breaks down into its semantic and grammatical components, is a-letheia: unconcealment. Differing greatly from the commonplace concept of truth, which is correspondence; this is a more primordial concept which even underlies the everyday conception of it: something must be uncovered in order to be corresponded to something else. Heidegger makes a great deal out of this etymological deconstruction (see The Essence of Truth (the lecture course, not the essay) for a great discussion of this notion in relation to the Allegory of the Cave in the Republic, also see his lecture course Parmenides). There is no truth in the accuser’s speeches, that is, they covered up the identity of Socrates which Socrates now has to bring to light; he has to unconceal himself for all to see. This is, ultimately, the project of the Apology: Socrates unconvering himself for the jury in order to give a response to the question “Who is Socrates?”, a question that the prosecution has answered “falsely”. He goes on to say that, “you [the judges] shall hear from me the whole truth.” That is, he will attempt uncover himself completely from the untruth that has been hoisted upon him by his accusers.

I can’t say I know the ultimate significance of Socrates addressing the judges as “men of Athens” (o andres athenaioi) instead of the more standard “judges” (o andres dikastai). Perhaps because these men don’t know the entire picture he doesn’t think of them as proper “judges”—they don’t know the truth and cannot make a decent claim regarding his guilt or innocence. A classic Platonic point is that one is not a proper judge of things (or a proper philosopher for that matter) unless one knows the truth (Re. whatever is in question has been unconcealed). At this point in the dialogue nothing has been truly unconcealed for the judges and, consequently, they cannot claim the privileged position of judgment. I cannot say for sure.

Socrates, also at the beginning of his speech, states that “he doesn’t have great skill as a speaker--unless by a skillful speaker they mean one who speaks the truth...” There are two things going on here. First, it’s obviously a jab at his prosecutors, who he claimed right from the start to have spoken falsely about him; he goes on to say that he would agree with this point and would be an orator, and that he would be well out of their league when it came to speaking the truth. Second, it foreshadows some of the errors Socrates makes in his defense speech from the standpoint of classical rhetoric and, in some instances, common sense.

The first thing Socrates does after his introduction is introduce more charges against himself and proceed to defend himself against them. Why anyone in court would give the judges more crimes to brood over is rather strange, at least from a pragmatic point of view. However, Socrates was never much of a pragmatic man: he was always in search of the truth, and he has stated to the judges he will provide the whole truth. Providing the whole truth presumably entails doing away with the entire veil of lies that has settled over Socrates in his long life as a philosopher. This is why he treats charges that were never formally brought to bear upon him by the prosecution. “It is impossible for me [Socrates] to even know and tell you [the judges] their names...” , for there are too many of them; they are the invisible rumor-mongers. Socrates calls them his “dangerous accusers”, due to the fact they believe that anyone who inquires into the nature of things, that is, seeks a physical explanation for things, cannot believe in the gods. I think Socrates would call them dangerous due to their supposed ignorance: they don’t see (as Socrates does) that inquiry into “the heavens” or “things below the earth” does not necessarily entail atheism. For Socrates (Plato), ignorance is evil; knowledge, provided by truth (re. unconcealment) is everything. Inquiry, which provides such unconcealment, is thus in the service of truth and knowledge and, consequently, should not be stopped. The upshot of all this is that his critics fall into two camps: his immediate accusers, and “the earlier ones”, who propagated the rumors that probably played a large role in him being summoned to trial.

Socrates then begins to formally treat the charges brought upon him by the rumor-mongers. He states them as follows: (1) he inquires into things below the earth and in the sky; (2) he makes the weaker argument defeat the stronger (i.e. he’s just a sophist); (3) he teaches others to follow his example (that is, he convinces people that (1) and (2) are good things to do). His ultimate aim, as I have said above, is to provide an answer to the question “Who is Socrates”, and to end up with a totally unconcealed picture of himself for the judges. In order to do this, he must do away with all of the lies that concealed his true nature.

Socrates first denies that he is a professional teacher. By professional teachers he means sophists who would take young Greek men under their tutelage and charge a fee for teaching them rhetorical tricks and flourishes. Presumably Socrates is trying to do some work against charge (2); he doesn’t want to be lumped into the sophist camp right off the bat. Since sophists have a habit of charging for their teaching activities, and since Socrates works to establish that he doesn’t charge anything, it’s harder to put him in with the sophists.

He then states rhetorically, “Surely all this talk and gossip about you would never have arisen if you had confined yourself to ordinary activities, but only if your behaviour was abnormal...”. That is, one could object that the rumors about him would not arise for no reason at all: there must have been something that provoked them. He again reassures the judges that he will provide the “whole truth”; a common theme in the dialogue. A reason for his incessant questioning is now provided. Apparently his friend, Carephon, went to the oracle at Delphi and asked whether there was anyone wiser than Socrates. The answer of the oracle was no, there was not. Socrates then proceeded to test this claim by questioning people who apparently were thought to be wise and who were thought to know what they were talking about when they spoke of certain things. If you have read any other Socratic dialogues, where Socrates usually elenchuses the hell out of his interlocutors and gets them to admit they have no idea what they are saying, you can probably guess what Socrates will say next. He says that these so called “wise men” he talked to really had no idea what they were saying. His ultimate aim in doing this was to see if there was any hidden meaning in the god’s message; he says he “felt compelled to but the god’s business first” and that he “pursued [his] investigation at the god’s command...” Here he’s trying to do two things. First, he’s attempting to refute the claim that he’s an atheist by appealing to his “duty” to the gods and to his need to follow his command. Secondly, he’s providing an explanation for his “abnormal behaviour”; he went around questioning everybody because of the command of the god to pursue the meaning behind the oracular pronouncement.

The charge of corrupting the youth and inciting them to follow his ways comes last. In essence, he claims that those who charge him in this manner once again don’t really know what they’re talking about; if asked what Socrates teaches that has this negative effect, they say they don’t know and “fall back on the stock charges against any seeker after wisdom”. This, to me, seems a rather weak argument that sets up a rather nice red herring. The issue isn’t whether the accusers know what Socrates has taught, the issue is whether what he taught corrupted the youth--whether people know exactly what he teaches is a moot point which isn’t needed to establish corruption of the youth.

I’ll present the further defense of Socrates against the charges brought by his prosecution and the conclusion in another post.

Some Thoughts on Euripides

2008-06-21T14:27:00.002-06:00

Euripides, I believe, is the most underrated and underappreciated tragedian out of the three great ancient playwrights. This partly stems from the biographical information that has been handed down through the tradition and partly from his record in the City Dionysia, the festival in which tragedies were performed. Justina Gregory places the biographical details into three categories: (1) the comedies of Aristophanes. Aristophanes tells us that Euripides’ mother was a herb seller and repeats the joke no less than five times in his plays (Acharnians, Knights, twice in Women at the Thesmophoria, and in the Frogs). (2) those from the tragedies of Euripides himself. Euripides’ wives have been reported to be unfaithful; this probably stems from his heroine Phaedra. The details were again brought to the fore through Aristophanes (cf. Frogs 1043-44). (3) anecdotes regarding the “lore” of the three tragedians. Euripides is said to have been born on the day of the Battle of Salamis, Sophocles danced in a boy’s chorus to celebrate the victory, and Aeschylus apparently fought in the battle itself. From this, the tradition has it that the “torch of tragedy” passed from Aeschylus to Sophocles, to Euripides.

Another note that has tarnished the reputation of Euripides is his record at the Dionysia. He only won first prize at the festival four times, though he competed twenty two or twenty three times. Compare this with Sophocles, who won eighteen times in roughly thirty attempts. This would seem to support the notion that Euripides was somehow at odds with his viewing public. However, I find this last point rather dubious. Attaining third prize did not always entail a lack of appreciation and retention by the public. The fact that Aristophanes could parody Euripides’ Telephys thirteen years after its production seems to require that the audience have some knowledge of the play in order to get the jokes. It makes no sense to parody a play that wasn’t popular in some regard and that the audience had no recollection of. P.T. Stevens has also made the case that the measure of the success of a play or playwright was not winning first prize at the festival, but being allowed to compete at the festival in the first place by the archon—the “financer” and backer of the festival. Moreover, when orators such as Demosthenes or Aeschines wanted a dramatic excerpt to illustrate a point, they most often drew on Sophoclean or Euripidean tragedy. I think these three points serve to delegitimize the claim that Euripides was not a successful playwright.

Nietzsche, to some extent, also played a role in propagating the downplaying of Euripides in favor of Aeschylus or Sophocles. This is evidenced not only in The Birth of Tragedy, but also in his lecture courses he delivered as a Classics Professor. He only taught one course on Euripides, which focused exclusively on the Bacchae. This, however, was an anomaly: Euripides was never made the subject of seminars or more extensive lecture courses; he chose instead to focus on the other two tragedians when the subject of tragedy was treated. His ultimate position was presented in the Birth of Tragedy, the first of his books. The argument, in my view, seems to hinge on the inclusion or exclusion of the chorus in tragedy. Tragedy, in its “proto” form, was a dithyramb that celebrated Dionysus and was characterized by singing and dancing. Slowly, actors were introduced, and the original function of the dithyrambic dancers was supplanted by the chorus. Nietzsche, while recognizing that “the tragic” was made up of both Apollonian and Dionysian elements, clearly favors the Dionysian: his rantings against Socrates and Euripides attest to this. In Euripides, the chorus doesn’t play as large a role in the play as it does in the other tragedians, especially Aeschylus. Thus, the Dionysian element that is so essential to the construction of tragedy is being done away with: there is no longer the “communal” experience that the total work of art (re. proper tragedy which involves singing, dancing, music, and acting) brings.

On the surface this seems to be a more or less convincing position. I would agree with Nietzsche’s distinction between the Apollonian and the Dionysian, though I would disagree with how these distinctions are cashed out by Nietzsche. There is, in my view, more to the Dionysian element than just the chorus. The action in the play can also have such an element. Take Euripides’ Bacchae, for example. This is one of the most savage and grotesque of the Greek tragedies; people are ripped to pieces by stark raving mad women, and the head of the unfortunate Theban king is brought on stage for all to see. The subject material, in fact, involved Dionysus himself: it is he who pushing the women of Thebes into the Bacchic frenzy that they are enraptured in throughout most of the play. While the chorus is not a large player in the play (which, is bad according to Nietzsche: no longer is there music, et al, which is central to the Dionysian element), the events in the play are wild, savage, and certainly un-Apollonian. The Apollonian element is the acting; events are being represented by the actors. The Dionysian, along with the chorus, is the events the actors portray: this leads to the tragic. The Dionysian element, I would agree, is somewhat lost by the minimizing of the chorus, though, since this is not all there is to it, the minimizing does not spell the complete death of tragedy or the tragic: it’s merely sick. Euripides didn’t kill tragedy, “metaphysically” or historically: tragic plays continued to be produced after his death, albeit in a decidedly Euripidean guise.

I hope I have given some credence to an underrated and under appreciated figure who only in the last 75 years or so has started to be celebrated once more.

Grunewald's Crucifixion

2008-06-20T20:06:00.007-06:00

The German painter Matthias Grunewald's take on the crucifixion scene is interesting, given the time period in which he was painting (early 1500's or so). Here is the painting (which is, in fact part of a much larger work):

Now what, you may ask, is so different about this work when compared with others. First off, Grunwald does not idealize Christ: he's skinny, though muscular, he doesn't have that heavenly glow that pervades so many religious depictions, in short, he looks like someone who was arrested and abused by the Romans, dragged a cross for a couple of miles, then was nailed to it. It is one of the most human depictions of Christ I have ever seen. Here's a closeup of his face:

The color here is actually more accurate than the fuller sized reproduction above. His lips are blue (presumably from lack of oxygen), his face has a greenish tinge to it, and the blood is visible on his face. This, I believe, is a more powerful representation of Christ than some "idealized" counterparts. It explicitly draws attention to the suffering of Christ and reminds the viewer of what he went through for our sake. Idealizing the figure of Christ, which is a more 'orthodox' route to take, no doubt emphasizes the divine aspect of him. However, while this is important, it downplays what truly makes him a great figure that all people--religious or otherwise--can draw inspiration from, namely taking pain like a man (and preaching a moral code that can be appreciated by everyone who is sane). Here's a close up of Christ's body:

Note how it's not idealized in the least. One can see thorns in his chest and sides, blood from the deep gash in his right side, and dirt. In its horror, though, lies its power.

I, for one, am not religious. However, I can appreciate the power of this work and of the figure it represents precisely because of its more "human" elements. While he was divine, Christ was also a human being; he probably ate, slept, worked, sweated, and took shats like the rest of us. (I'm speaking not of the "historical" Jesus, who, since I'm not religious I don't believe could be divine, but of Jesus as presented in the Gospels) And, because of this, his suffering is made that much more powerful: if Christ were purely divine his suffering and subsequent crucifixion would have less of an impact because he would be wholly Other. On the other hand, if he were like us (maybe he got the runs once in a while from eating too many figs), at least in some respects, we can relate to him, to his cause, and to his pain.

Some may accuse me of trivializing this eminent and divine figure, particularly by saying he perhaps got the runs on occasion. I would disagree, for the reasons stated above; it is precisely this human element which makes Christ all that more powerful. He should not be revered because he's the son of God. He should be revered because he suffered like us and died like us in the name of goodness for mankind. Grunwald's work brings this element to the fore, which is why it is probably my favorite crucifixion scene ever painted.

For a comparison, here's a work by Signorelli, which was painted c. 1500:

The differences are clear. In this fresco, Christ is somewhat more divine and idealized: there are no thorns sticking out of his sides and no dirt on his body. His only article of clothing looks slightly more "regal" than in Grunewald's work and the general atmosphere of the Italian representation of the crucifixion is less brooding and dark on account of the brighter and more colorful pallate. In Signorelli's work, Christ is looking pretty good for having gone through all that he has. And, there is nothing inherently wrong with this. In my view, however, it lacks the power and force of Grunewald's: it portrays Christ the Divine and not Christ the sufferer.

Zizek and the Ecological Crisis

2008-06-19T18:18:00.006-06:00

In the midst of slightly misrepresenting Heidegger, Zizek brings up an interesting point, which he then critiques. I shall offer a critique as well. This is from his book The Ticklish Subject; I'll quote the passage here in full:

"...the moment we reduce it [the ecological crisis] to disturbances provoked by our excessive technological exploitation of nature, we silently already surmise that the solution is to rely again on technological innovations: new 'green' technology, more efficient and global in its control of natural processes and human resources.... Every concrete ecological concern and project to change technology in order to improve the state of our natural surroundings is thus devalued as relying on the very source of the trouble" (The Ticklish Subject, pp.11-12)

Alberta, the province in which I live, is rife with oil and, consequently, carbon spewing, forest destroying oilsands development; the problem Zizek addresses here is quite pertinent to my place of residence. I think there is both an element of truth and falsity in this claim. Zizek is right that most of us think the solution to a greener world is through cleaner technology; this is the main line that governments, etc are pushing to combat 'climate change' (Incidentally, I like how the rhetoric has changed from 'global warming' to 'climate change'). Greenpeace et al, presumably push a harder line; in Alberta, for example, they are pushing to cease oilsands development altogether.

I would take issue with the notion that the project of moving towards greener technology is (or rather, should be) devalued merely because it makes use of the (prior) instruments of destruction. I think the Greenpeacers would perhaps engage in this sort of argument. Technology is neither good or bad, only our relation to it and use of it is good or bad. Zizek moves down a Heideggerian path (though, perhaps ultimately to critique it given this is part of the project of the book) in the critique of the devaluation of technology. What should be at issue, which the devaluers pass over, is not technology itself, but man's relation to it: this is the decisive space where technology becomes 'good' or 'bad'. The ontological relation underlies the ontic manifestation of technological endeavors; they are shaped based upon the ontological 'mould' they are cast in. Thus, it should be the underlying stratum that is critiqued: it is this that is decisive.

Moreover, the pragmatic implications are hard to overlook. It seems the alternative to a shift towards greener technology is being a Luddite. In this case the best way to overcome the problem is from within, the same way Heidegger or Nietzsche purported to overcome metaphysics. This is also perhaps a quasi Derridian move; there is no outside system, thus, we are always forced to work within it for there can be no other way. In order to escape it we must work within it, and, in doing so, we never escape it. Technology shall never be transcended by us; the ecological crisis shall never be overcome without technology.

I'll perhaps expand on my ramblings later.

The Last Days of Ugarit

2008-06-19T07:36:00.004-06:00

The last days of Ugarit are difficult to reconstruct in full. Michael Astour has written a brilliant article on the subject, and most of the information presented here is drawn from his paper. (Astour, M. New Evidence on the Last Days of Ugarit. American Journal of Archaeology, Vol. 69 No. 3. 1965. pp. 253-258) Ugarit was destroyed by the Peoples of the Sea, as the Egyptian called them. They wreaked havoc all over the Mediterranean in roughly 1200 BCE; the Hittites, Mycenean Greeks, Ugaritians, and many more states were destroyed by the forces of the Sea Peoples. The Egyptians managed to weather the storm. There was no social, political, or economic decay that preceded the fall of Ugarit, so the invasion must have been swift and brutal. Ammurapi’s letter to the king of Alashia perhaps records the first stages of the invasion:

“My father, behold, the enemy ships came (here); my cities (?) were burned, and they did evil things to my country. Does not my father know that all my troops and chariots (?) are in the Hittite country, and all my ships are in the land of Lycia?...Thus the country is abandoned to itself. May my father know it: the seven ships of the enemy that came here inflicted much damage upon us”

On the basis of this letter, Astour supposes that the enemy forces are still in the Aegean, but, the intentions of the enemy seem to be well known: the fleet of Ammurapi has sailed west to Lycia to block their passage into the Mediterranean. The Syrian rulers also seem to have started to hastily hammer out mutual assistance treaties such as this:

“…when they servant delivered (?) (thy) word to me. Whatever is thy desire Which thou lackest—I will Provide for my brother, And I too, whatever I l[a]ck—my brother Will load it there. And let my brother not Squander it.”

Another letter written by Ammurapi attests to the increasing flood of enemy forces, and appeals to the Hittite king for assistance:

“The enemy [advances] against us And there is no number […] Our number is pure (?) Whatever is available, look for it And send it to me.”

However, it was of no avail. The armies of Ugarit and Hatti were forced to retreat all the way to the Syrian border from Anatolia, all of which was lost almost up to Amanus. A letter from Ewir-Sharruma to the mother of the Ugaritic king provides us with a poignant human element to the invasion:

“(27) And behold, the enemies oppress me (28) But I shall not leave my wife (and) (29) My children…before the enemy.”

One can imagine the terror the average citizen (and the royalty as well) must have felt in facing the incoming tide of the Sea Peoples; their swiftness of movement is astounding. At this point, the enemy has probably crossed the Amanus and is in Mukish—just north of Ugarit. Ammurapi, writing to his mother, seems to hope that the Hittites will send more reinforcements to check the torrent of the invaders:

“(16) And if the Hittites Mount, I will send a message To thee, and if They do not mount, I will certainly send A message…”

Presumably he feels that the arrival of Hittite reinforcements will strengthen his precarious position; the Sea Peoples now being just north of the city. Ugarit, however, could not withstand the invasion and the city was destroyed c. 1190/1185 BCE. A letter to a certain Zrdn states,

“Our food in the threshing floors Is sacked (or: burned). And also the vineyards are destroyed. Our city is destroyed And mayest thou know it.”

On account of the invasion, the people of Ugarit were either killed or, if they managed to escape in time, fled inland or down the coast in an effort to escape the destruction. It is in this state that the once grand city of Ugarit was discovered nearly 3000 years later, in 1928, by a farmer and his plough.

Mayan Glyphs are Insane

2008-06-19T07:31:00.002-06:00

That is all.

More on the insanity of Mayan glyphs later. Kudos to anyone who can read them; I don't even know where to start learning how on earth to do so.

On the Decipherment of Ugaritic

2008-05-24T08:09:00.005-06:00

Above is the sign list for the Ugaritic language. (Scanned from: Craigie, Peter C. Ugarit and the Old Testament. (Mich., Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company): 1983, pg. 47) How did scholars manage to decipher this unknown language?

The first person to make an attempt was Virolleaud, a French linguist who was given the tablets dug up at Ras Shamra. His method was as follows. He first noted that words were divided by a small vertical wedge (not on the sign list). This enabled him to recognize that the words were short; most were only three or four letters long. Thus, the language was unlike Greek. He then compared the inscription on an axe head and on a tablet, and found that they started with the same sign. Virolleaud deduced this must be a preposition, probably "to". The preposition "to" in Hebrew, Aramaic and Arabic is a single letter "l". Thus, he ascribed the letter "l" to the sign above.

He then began to look for the word "king"; it was known at the time that Ugarit had a monarchy. The word in almost all of the Semitic languages is spelled "mlk". So, Virolleaud looked for a word with "l" in the middle and two signs on either side. He successfully found a series of signs that fit the bill, and thus identified two other Ugaritic signs. He also found a word with a sign that was the same as the "m" at the beginning (mlkm). The suffix -m in some Semitic languages indicates the plural, just like adding -s in English does.

Virolleaud also identified the name "Baal", one of the gods in Ugarit. Another scholar, Hans Bauer, made great strides in the decipherment. His method was primarily statistical; he knew the common prefixes in the Semitic languages and, after compiling the prefixes in Ugaritic, made probable guesses as to which ones were which.

The question of vowels arises. Ugaritic only designates three vowels; the rest are left unexpressed. This would provide no problem for a native speaker of the language. Take this famous English sentence, sans vowels:

n smll stp fr mn n gnt lp fr mnknd

If you read Neal Armstrong's famous words, you were right. We can get around vowels due to our being a native speaker; we can make judgements regarding the probable vowels because we know the words already. The same held true for native speakers of Ugaritic, and other ancient Near Eastern languages. Hebrew is probably the best example of this; vowels weren't designated at all in writing for quite a long time. In the case of Ugaritic we can only make tentative guesses on the basis of comparative work with other Semitic languages. Scholars will look at cognate words in which the vowels are known and then reconstruct them in Ugaritic from there. Obviously there is room for debate here; ultimately we will never really know.

The Status of Herodotus as a Historian

2008-05-18T09:46:00.004-06:00

The mainstream opinion regarding Herodotus is that he is the "father of historical writing", or something to that general effect. I should like to examine this claim and see whether or not he should be lumped in with "modern" historians, or whether he is in another realm of historiography.

What does it mean to engage in historical writing? Most would argue that it entails looking at, and critically examining past events. This is what modern historians do; they research, then analyze the facts they have gathered and then proceed to record them. The sources they use to gather facts are usually primary one's; they are "nearer to the events". Does Herodotus fit this characterization? To some extent, yes. He certainly does think critically about some of the information he gathers as well as critiquing the prevailing views on the basis of information that he finds. "The Greek account of Heracles' birth", for example, "is far from being the only thoughtless thing they say". On some level, Herodotus is on par with the critical aspect of modern historiography; he seems to analyze the different accounts he comes across and then selects the one he feels he has the most evidence behind it. Moreover, he begins his history with a mythical starting point: the abduction of a woman by some Eastern traders. Herodotus then rejects this mythical starting point and proceeds to examine the "historical" ground for the tensions between Greeks and barbarians. This being said, he differs in other respects from modern historians. First of all, his sources for the history of the Persian War were probably second, third, or even fourth hand accounts; he was writing more than 50 years after the battles took place. "Facts" can easily be embellished or shift through time; the accounts he received were most likely oral, not written. One can perhaps imagine a Nestor-like veteran from the Persian Wars reminiscing and not quite telling things as they are. Also, even though he rejects the "mythical" starting point, he still includes many folk elements in his Histories. Herodotus loves a good story. Third, his history is not a straight narrative; the entirety of Book 2 is a massive digression concerning Egypt. Later in the Histories he has sections on the Scythians, as well as other peoples that don't directly connect with the narrative of the Persian Wars.

My point is that, though Herodotus may have been the father of modern historiography, this does not entail that he wrote a "modern history". There is a tension between his critical faculty and his factual sources/folk narrative elements. Herodotus is somewhere in between the mythic historian and the modern historian; he is on the cusp between what we call modern historiography and mere "story". Herodotus is certainly a historian, but he's not a modern one. Perhaps this will be evident from the sense of the Greek word for history: historia. The word doesn't have the sense of our modern word "history"; it literally means "inquiry". Herodotus is merely inquiring; one gets the sense he was quite curious about the world around him, regardless of whether the discussions fit into his history of the conflict between Greeks and barbarians. Thus, even the way Herodotus presumably understood "a history" differs slightly from ours; the boundaries and expectations of historiography differed from our modern conception of it.

Translation of an Ugaritic Letter

2008-05-14T15:43:00.004-06:00

Here's my translation of an Ugaritic letter. I first provide the Ugaritic in transliteration and then give the translation.

(1)thm.'iwdr
(2)l.plsy
(3)rgm
(4)yshlm.lk
(5)l.trgds
(6)w.l.klby
(7)shm't.ht'i
(8)nht'u.ht
(9)hm.'inmm
(10)nht'u.w.l'ak
(11)'my.w.yd
(12)'imy.p.kmtm
(13)'z.m'id
(14)hm.nthkp
(15)m'nk
(16)w.mnm
(17)rgm.d.tshm'
(18)thmt.w.sht
(19)b.spr.'my

As you can see, Ugaritic does not designate vowels, with the exception of 'a, 'i, and 'u. On the basis of a comparison with other Near Eastern languages, as well as looking at loan-words, etc, scholars have managed to come up with a tentative reconstruction of the vowels.

Translation [I have added punctuation]:

(1)Message of 'Iwridarri
(2)to Pilsiya
(3)speak!
(4)May [things] be well to you.
(5)From Targadassi
(6)and from Kalbiya
(7)I hear of the defeats
(8)[by which] they were defeated. Now
(9)if there is not [anything]
(10)we will be defeated so send
(11)to me. The hand
(12)of the gods [is] here [lit. of Death] like death
(13)[which is] very fierce.
(14)Since we await
(15)your reply,
(16)whatever
(17)the word which you hear
(18)there, put it
(19)in a letter to me!

Rilke and T.S. Eliot

2008-05-11T06:40:00.007-06:00

Whenever I read Rilke's first Elegy, I can't help but be reminded of T.S. Eliot's The Wasteland; some of the sentiments are the same. Both poets are concerned with the condition of modernity, though Rilke is more focused on the spiritual dimension (or lack thereof). Take these lines from Rilke:

It's said that the angels are often unconscious
of whether they're moving among the living
or the dead. (Tr. Graham Good)

What Rilke means by angels is NOT the Christian notion; they are more like impersonal spiritual entities who roam the universe. The angels don't know whether they move among the living or the dead: that is, there is no real difference between the living and the dead. The living are, in a way, dead. Rilke, I believe, would say spiritually dead; we've become spectators to the world and hide from authentic emotion and experience. Thus we are, in a way, "outside" of the world. This is evident from some lines in both the First and Second Elegies:

Angels are terrifying...

and

All we have left [in our interpreted world] is perhaps a certain tree on a slope
to look at day after day; or yesterday's streets,
or a steadfastly loyal old habit...

From the Second Elegy:

The days of Tobias are over...

and

But now, if the dreaded archangel took one step
in our direction from behind the stars,
our pounding hearts would kill us. (All tr. Graham Good)

Rilke seems to think we have lost touch with the spiritual world; spirits are terrifying and the days of the archangel Tobias are over. The fact that Tobias' days are over could be seen as a metaphor for spirituality generally; we would die if spirituality came too close (i.e. we can't handle it anymore). Moreover, all we have are old habits and routines; there is nothing new at all, only the same old drill day in and day out. One could argue there is something "inauthentic" about this; we don't seek anything new but remain stuck in our old habits.

Also, in connection with the inauthenticity theme, we have a habit of fleeing from "our Fate"; we do this through Love:

But they [lovers] only use each other to hide from their Fate.

Our fate is "the Night" which is made reference to a few lines before. The night is, death, solitude, etc; anything that individualizes us. Even the dead, for a time, need us and our comfort; Rilke tells us to be attentive to those who passed on early and who now live in a "strange world"; they want us to "correct the injustice that hinders their movement" (paraphrase).

Compare these lines of Rilke with some from The Wasteland:

He who was living is now dead
We who were living are now dying

or

A crowd flowed over London Bridge; so many,
I had not thought death had undone so many.

Eliot seems to be trying to collapse the distinction between the living and the dead; this is perhaps most apparent in the second quote. The living are somehow not really alive; they are dead to the world in some way, which seems to be a condition of modernity. Eliot is constantly making references to a world without water; water is needed for life and renewal and thus a lack thereof would mean one cannot be 'renewed' or even fully alive.

The general sentiment of Rilke and Eliot seems to be the same; both would say that the people of modernity are not quite alive, not living authentically. Rilke's criticism seems to be more focused; he is concerned with the lack of spirituality in modernity, while Eliot seems to paint with broad strokes and never really focuses on the root of the problem he addresses in the Wasteland. They both attempt a diagnosis of the modern world and both come up with a rather negative one. One last note on Rilke: if you're familiar with Heidegger, you can perhaps see why he would like him. One condition of modernity, according to Rilke, is that we flee from authentic emotion and experience: death included.

Personal Names in Homer

2008-05-09T17:00:00.001-06:00

Personal names in Homer are particularly interesting; etymologically they are quite close to the character of the figure they are ascribed to. Often names in Greek have both a short and a long form: Ekhlos and Ekhelawos, for example. The short form either has the suffix -os or -eus. On the basis of this observation, let us take a quick glance at some figures from the Iliad and the Odyssey.

Meneleus: This is obviously the short form of the name. The long form would thus be Menelawos. If we seperate these into their constituent parts Mene-lawos, two Pre-Greek words emerge. 'Mene' has the sense of 'standing fast' or 'abiding' and 'lawos' means 'the people. So, Meneleus is 'he who makes the people stand fast'.

Atreus: The 'a' at the beginning of the name is an alpha privative, which denotes negation. The root 'tres-' means 'panic striken flight'; in Sparta the word 'tresas' was a term for a deserter. Thus Atreus means, 'he who doesn't flee.'

Achilles (Gr. Akhileus): Same principle here; long form is Akhi-lawos. The word 'akhos' means 'pain', and 'lawos', people. Achilles is 'he who causes pain to the people'.

Odysseus: This one is a bit trickier. There is evidence for a Pre-Greek prefix 'o-' meaning 'on, onto, into'. Also, there is evidence for an ancient stem 'dukj-', meaning 'lead'. The original short form could be constructed as *odukjeus. In Linear B, the cluster 'kj' would be written as a 'z' series, thsu producing *oduzeu. The move into Attic/Ionic could be accounted for as follows: kj>ts>ss. (re. my post below where I discuss this shift.). Odysseus is 'he who leads (to home)'

For a more through discussion of this see Palmer's The Greek Language.

Some Thoughts on Cowper's Homer

2008-05-03T07:46:00.001-06:00

Cowper's translation of the Iliad is certainly poetic. But it's not Homer. He attempts to render Homer's dactylic hexameters in Miltonian blank verse, which, I think, is a verse form completely unsuited to Homer. Above all, Homer is direct and simple in his diction; he straightforwardly flows from one idea to the next. Milton's verse is exactly the opposite. Let's take the opening lines of the Iliad and the opening lines of Paradise Lost as a comparison:

Homer:
"Sing, goddess of the ruinous wrath of Achilles"
This is the first line of the Iliad. Already we know what the poem, generally, is going to be about. In Greek it is even more direct; the first words are "menin aieda, thea" which literally is "of wrath sing, goddess". Thus the first three words actually introduce the subject of the Iliad. This is what I mean when I talk about Homer's directness and simplicity in diction.

Milton:
"Of man's first disobedience, and the fruit
Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste
Brought death into the world, and all our woe,
With loss of Eden, till one greater man
Restore us, and regain the blissful seat,
Sing heavenly muse"
Compared to Homer, Milton is rather wordy; he tries to cram as much as he can into a line and, consequently, his verse moves rather slowly. Miltonian blank verse doesn't have the quickness or the directness of Homer's original Greek and thus fails to capture an essential element of Homer's poems. Cowper, in attempting to render the Iliad in Milton's blank verse, falls into this problem; it seems sluggish at times and, while it is very poetic, doesn't capture the spirit of the original. Take, for example, these lines where the horse of Achilles answers his reproaches for leaving Patroclus in battle. Cowper translates them thus:

"For not through sloth or tardiness on us
Aught chargeable, have Ilium's sons thine arms
Stript from Patroclus' shoulders; but a God
Matchless in battle, offspring of bright-haired
Latona, him contending in the van
Slew, for the glory of the chief of Troy"

The movement of the verse is entirely un-Homeric; it is too finely wrought and detailed to be Homer. The task of the translator, I believe, is to capture the spirit of the original: in this case, simplicity and directness. Cowper fails at this and, while it is a good translation, is not a great one.

Marlowe and the Persians

2008-05-02T23:22:00.000-06:00

Marlowe is a fantastic writer but he apparently knows next to nothing about the Persian empire and Persians in general. In his play Tamburlaine, he has the Persians constantly invoke Jove, "And Jove may never let me longer live..." (Act 1 Scene 1). In one part he has the Persian Cosroe invoke both Jupiter and a Christian concept of Hell

"What means this devilish shepherd to aspire
With such a giantly presumption
To cast up hills against the face of Heaven,
And dare the force of angry Jupiter?...
So will I send this monstrous slave to hell
Where flames shall ever feed upon his soul." (Act 1 Scene 6)

The Persians of this time would certainly not invoke Jove, nor would they have any concept of a soul burning in Hell. This jab against Marlowe, to be sure, does nothing to detract from the literary merit of his work; I'm merely pointing out slight historical inconsistencies.

Notes on the First Canto of the Inferno

2008-05-02T16:40:00.000-06:00

The first Canto of Dante's Inferno is essential for an understanding not only of the Inferno itself, but also of the whole trilogy of the Comedia. I shall try to outline some relavent points.
All English translations are by Laurence Binyon (the BEST translation of the Commedia) I skip some stanzas in my analysis.

Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita
mi ritrovai per una selva oscura
che la diritta via era smarrita

(Midway the journey of life I was 'ware
That I had strayed into a dark forest
And the right path appeared not anywhere)

I believe the first stanza can be interpreted in light of Plato's Cave allegory. One needs light in order to be guided correctly intellectually; those who have not escaped from the cave and have not seen the brilliance of the Sun cannot claim to have true knowledge (and thus be correctly guided). Thus, since Dante is in a dark forest the right path neccesarily cannot appear; there is no light to guide him. Now, Dante is also invoking Christian imagery (the Light as the light of God/the Word, etc). Given the blatent Platonic allusions, one could argue that the moral is a function of the intellectual. That is, one needs the intellectual vision provided by the light in order to be correctly morally guided.

Tied in with this is the Platonic (and Greek in general) concept of truth. Truth, I believe, meant something very different for the Greeks than it does for us. The Greek word is aletheia. This can be deconstructed eymologically as follows: lethe is literally translated as concealment, and the 'a' is the alpha-privative signifying negation (like the English un-). Thus, the word we usually translate as truth literally means unconcealment. The way must be true (that is unconcealed) for Dante given he is in a dark forest; this is only possible with light.

Io non so ben ridir com' io v'entrai
tant' era pieno di sonno a quel punto
che la verace vai abbandonai

(I cannot well remember in my mind
How I came thither, so was I immersed
In sleep, when the true way I left behind)

Dante states he was "in sleep". That is, he was in darkness; the true way was not revealed to him. The true way he left behind is, of course, the way to God/salvation. He has thus embarked on the path of error; the path that does not lead to God.

Ma poi ch' i' fue al pie d' un colle guinto,
la dove terminava quella valle
che m' avea di paura il cor compunto,
guardai in alto, e vidi le sue spalle
vestite gia de' raggi del pianeta
che mema dritto altrui per ogni calle.

(But when my footsteps had attained the first
Slope of a hill, at the end of that drear vale
Which with such terror had my spirit pierced,
I looked up, and beheld its shoulders pale
Already in clothing of that planet's light
Which guideth men on all roads without fail.)

Dante now arrives at the foot of a hill that is bathed in light. The imagery here should be obvious; the hill is the hill of Wisdom/Truth. In terms of Christian symbolism, it is the Hill of God which one must ascend in order to gain salvation. The Platonic interpretation sheds some light on this as well. The hill has been "unconcealed"; it shines forth from the dark forest that Dante has been plodding through.

Ed ecco, quasi al cominciar dell' erta
una lonza leggiera e presta molto,
che di pel maculato era coverta;
e non mi si partia d' innanzi al volto.
anzi impediva tanto il mio cammino,
ch' i' fui per ritornar piu volte volto.

(And at the ascent, as 't were on the first stair
Behold! A Loepard light and swift of limb
And covered with a hide of spotted hair.
And he would not depart, but still would trim
His pace in front of me, so that many a time
I turned me to go back, because of him)

The poet now makes an attempt at climbing up the hill, but encounters a leopard which impedes his way. However,

mosse di prima quelle cose belle;
si ch' a bene sperar m' era cagione
di quella fera alla geatta pelle

(When divine Love first motioned and enskied
Those beauteous things; so that a hope I caught
To evade that creature with the freckled hide)

Dante is able to evade the leopard; the "sun mounted up" and allowed him to do this. Once again, the Platonic/Christian imagery applies here.

l'ora del tempo e la dolce stagione;
ma non si che paura non mi desse
la vista che m' apparve d' un leone.

(The hour of time and the sweet season wrought
Thus on me; yet not so much, but when appeared
A Lion, terror to my heart he brought)

He now encounters a lion; I shall work out the imagery in due course.

Ed una lupa, che di tutte brame
sembiava carca nella sua margrezza,
e molte genti fe gia viver grame,

(And a she-Wolf, that in her famished fell
Looked all infuriate craving; she hath meant
To many ere now that they in misery dwell)

Along with the lion Dante comes upon a she-Wolf. What do these three animals (the Leopard, the Lion and the she-Wolf) all symbolize? The answer, I believe, can be found in the 1st Epistle of St. John. He states that the three things that impede one's way to beatitude are temptations of the flesh, pride in position of power, and cupiditas (ie. lust for more). The Leopard, being a beautiful, swift creature, symbolizes material pleasure, the Lion is pride in position of power, and the she-Wolf cupiditas. The she-Wolf imagery is the most striking; she has a "famished fell" and looks "all infuiate craving". This also plays into the imagery of sin "hollowing one out"; the she-Wolf is so famished that there is almost nothing left of her.

tal mi fece la bestia sanza pace,
che, venondomi incontro, a poco a poco
mi ripignova la dove 'l sol tace

(To such state brought me, in dread of his attack,
That restless beast, who by degress perforce
To where the Sun is silent drove me back)
[Binyon mistranslates "his" in the first line; it is la bestia and thus is feminine]

The she-Wolf (cupiditas) overpowers Dante and he is driven back to the dark forest of error. That is, Dante loses his way again on account of falling into the trap of "lust for more"; he can no longer reach the hill of Wisdom/Truth, having encountered cupiditas.

Dante, having attempted to ascend the hill on his own finds he cannot; he keeps encountering sin and is thus driven back into the wrong path. He needs help: Virgil's help. I will perhaps write another post on the encounter with Virgil.

In terms of the structure of the Comedia as a whole, the first Canto introduces the main theme: moving toward the "correct path". Dante cannot do this on his own; he must first take a journey. First, he travels through Hell. This is in order to develop a revulsion to sin. At the beginning of his journey, Dante feels great pity for those in Hell, but by the end he realizes that those in Hell should be in Hell and feels no more pity for them. After coming to this realization he travels through Purgatory which "cleanses" Dante (cf. the Fountain episode). Finally, after becoming cleansed and having no pity for sinners, Dante can begin his journey "up the hill" to salvation and the beautitude of God.

Phoenician Origin of the Word "Patasso"

2008-05-01T18:45:00.000-06:00

Gerald Leonard-Cohen, in an article published in the Journal of Indo European Studies (1979) examines the origin of the Greek word "patasso" (to strike; hit) and the Greek words derived from it (patagos, patageo, pataks). He hypothesizes that the word derives from the Phoenician word "patish", which is the word for a forgehammer. He reconstructs a verb based upon this noun, which comes out as *patash. Through a slight shift in meaning, the word came to mean strike or hit generally, without the specific connotations of metalsmithing.

The argument he presents to account for the differences in verbal forms, though, seems to me rather weak. He argues, from analogy, that the form "epataksa" (1st p. aorist) functions the same as the verb "arasso", whose aorist form is "eraksa". However, he fails to account for the shift from the -ss- to the -k-. I believe it can be accounted for as follows:

On the basis of the -ss- in the stem, I would reconstruct the proto-Greek stem of the verb as *patakjo. We shall see why in a moment. The phoneme structure -kj- was rather unstable; consequently it moved to -ts-, thus producing *patatso. From here, it is an easy move to either the Attic "patatto" or the Ionic "patasso". Thus, the form with the -k- in the stem is in fact the original one and is retained in the aorist forms. A similar shift can be seen in the word "phulatto" (to guard); *phulakjo>*phulatso>phulatto/phulasso.

Kumarbi Epic and Hesiod's Theogony

2008-05-01T07:05:00.000-06:00

One of the most obvious parallels between a Near Eastern and a Greek mythological story is between the Kumarbi Epic and Hesiod's Theogony. The Epic was recovered from the royal library of the Hittite emperors at Hattasus. It is written in Hittite, but interestingly the names of the divinites are mostly Hurrian, with some Babylonian. Thus, it is probably a translation of a Hurrian saga. First of all, they both have a succession story. In the Kumarbi, there were three generations of gods: The first was Alalu, who, after 9 years of rule, was driven out by Anu. Anu suffers the same fate; he is driven out by Kumarbi. This has a parallel in the Theogony; Zeus overthrows Kronos, who overthrew Ouranos, and becomes king of the gods and men.

However, the parallels run deeper. After Anu is deposed he escapes into the sky, with Kumarbi in hot pursuit. Kumarbi catches him and bites him with the intention of castrating him; he then spits out the seed which, in turn, impregnates the Earth. The children, he orders, should be brought to him when they are born so that he may eat them. They start to do this, but is apparently given a stone instead of the Storm-god to eat; the Storm-god is then safely born. The fragmentary epic then continues on another tablet. The Storm-god is fighting Luma, who is being depsed for apparent misrule. He is vanquished an the Storm-god rules for a time. This story is almost an exact copy of the story of Zeus' birth. Ouranos is castrated by his son Kronos, who in turn spits out the seed and impregnates the Earth; she gives birth to the Erinyes, the Giants and the Melian Nymphs. The legend of Zeus' birth runs as follows: Kronos orders that all his children be brought to him so he can eat them. He does this, but is given a stone instead of Zeus (the Storm-god) to eat. Zeus is then born safely and proceeds to depose Kronos.

There are obvious parallels here, however they are not exactly one to one. Mythology is a shifty business; as I've said in an earlier post, one can only really point out parallels and then work to establish influence. The exact reason for shifts in the stories are often obscure.

Heidegger on the Condition for The Possibility of Rhetoric: Comparison with Aristotle and Cicero

2008-04-30T20:10:00.000-06:00

This is the text of an essay I wrote for a Heidegger seminar. It's on the conditions for the possibility of rhetoric.

Rhetoric is a topic that has been discussed and explored from the Greeks onward. In this post I shall examine the question: what makes rhetoric possible? To do so I shall engage the thought of Heidegger with two key thinkers who all thought about and tried to characterise rhetoric:, Aristotle and Cicero. I will show that Heidegger’s notions of disposedness/moods and of discourse are the main conditions for the possibility of rhetoric. With regard to Aristotle and Cicero, I will show that they, according to Heidegger, started along the right path towards an explication of one of the conditions for rhetoric: moods. Both Aristotle, in Book Two of the Rhetoric, and Cicero in The Ideal Orator examine at some length emotions (pathe) and how the orator must be attentive to them in order to successfully convince the crowd. To be sure, this is far from the ontological analysis of Dasein that Heidegger is engaged in. Nonetheless, they recognised that moods were an essential component of Dasein’s Being within the context of rhetorical speech. Thus, to place Heidegger within the rhetorical tradition Aristotle and Cicero come close to recognising one of the fundamental components of rhetoric, (and, even if they didn’t explicitly realise it, the Being of Dasein) namely moods.

I shall now treat the views of both Aristotle and Cicero on moods/emotions (pathe). My aim is to demonstrate that both of them regard pathe as central to the art of rhetoric.
In Book 2 of his Rhetoric, Aristotle examines the emotions with regard to the practice of rhetoric. He states that, “by these, the emotions, are meant those states which are attended by pain and pleasure, and which as they change make a difference in our judgements [of the same thing]” (Italics mine) (R. 92). This is an essential point: without knowledge of the emotions, which influence one’s judgement of a situation or event, the orator cannot hope to provide a convincing argument. Swaying the emotion of the audience to one side or another is an effective method of persuasion for Aristotle, given the prominent place he seems to give them with regard to judgements. He goes on to state that there are three points the orator must keep in mind within the context of the examination of pa/qh; he uses anger as an example: (1) what the mental state of the angry person is (2) with whom they are wont to be angry (3) what the things are that commonly make them so. The speaker, in order to effectively arouse emotion, must be familiar with all three moments.

When speaking of fear, Aristotle writes that, “ the speaker must bring them into the right frame of mind so that they shall take themselves to be the kind of people who are likely to suffer.” (R. 110) In other words, the speaker must work to influence the state of mind of the audience such that they are swayed towards the position of the orator: if the orator is speaking of the fear of his client h/she should work to bring the audience into that state as well—this makes his argument all the more effective.

Cicero, in his treatise “On the Ideal Orator” takes this notion and runs with it. He focuses not only on the emotion state of the audience, but also of the orator. In Book 2, he writes, “the most desirable situation for the orator is when the jurors themselves come to the case in an emotional state of mind suited to what his own interests demand” (IO 172). In other words, if the jury has already been “pre-swayed”, it is much easier to provide a convincing argument: their emotional state is well suited to the task. However, “if…the jurors are unbiased and unemotional, more effort is required; for then, the given situation offers no help, and all feelings must be stirred by my speech alone” (ibid) To turn this around, the more emotionally pliable the jurors are, the easier it is the persuade them. Pathe thus play an essential role in rhetoric, as with Aristotle.

However, Cicero goes further than Aristotle in his examination of pathe, and looks at the role of the emotional state of the orator. The state of the orator is just as important as having a knowledge of the state of the audience, “for no material is so easy to kindle, that it can catch fire unless fire is actually applied to it; likewise, no mind is so susceptible to an orator’s power, that it can be set on fire unless the orator who approaches it is burning and all ablaze himself” (IO 173). Thus, in order to bring the audience into the state of mind the orator wants, the orator must himself be in that state; if h/she does not do this the attempt will seem false and fall flat. For a convincing argument to be convincing the speaker must bring the jurors to the emotional state that best suits his case—but h/she can only do this if they are in this state as well.

Both Aristotle’s and Cicero’s views could fall under the heading of “Grand Oratory”. This is so due to the emphasis on emotion: grand oratory thought the swaying of emotions were essential to rhetoric and did not shy away from engaging them. There was, however, another tradition of rhetoric which shied away from influencing the emotions of the audience. Those in this camp argued that one should merely stick to the facts, and only provide a rational argument, devoid of all emotion, regarding the case. Aristotle and Cicero (and, as we shall see, Heidegger) think this is misguided: moods play an essential role in judgements and therefore in rhetorical speech.

I shall now move to a discussion of Heidegger and, not only examine the conditions for the possibility of rhetoric, but also place Heidegger within the “rhetorical tradition”, that is, in relation to Aristotle and Cicero. In Division I, Heidegger examines and explicates three structures of disclosedness: disposedness, understanding, and discourse. Of these three I shall examine disposedness and discourse; they are the structures which are more explicitly connected with rhetoric. To be sure, however, all of the structures Heidegger goes through in Being and Time make possible rhetorical speech insofar as it is a possibility that Dasein can take up. Thus, although I am well aware that moods and discourse are only two structures among many and that these structures co-implicate others, I shall focus my discussion on these two; I will only mention the co-implication and not explicate it in any great detail.

Disposedness is one of the three structures of disclosedness Heidegger outlines; it is an existential structure of Dasein. The tripartite nature of disclosedness is examined in attempting to answer the question how are Dasein’s ways to be ontologically determined? In other words, what are the fundamental elements of Dasein that allow for concrete, factical existence? It is important to note here that Heidegger sees these structures as equiprimordial, that is, they necessarily arise together and co-implicate each other; disclosedness required all three of the structures in order to be disclosedness. Thus Heidegger turns to analysis of Being-in and the “there” of Dasein. Dasein’s “there” is equivalent to disclosedness; Dasein is its disclosedness (or, alternatively, Being-there is disclosedness). Heidegger thinks it is essential not to conceive of Being-In as being between: this is already framing the ontology in term of presence at hand, which is something Heidegger avoids like the plague. Rather, Being-In is an essential kind of the Being of Dasein. Dasein, in its there, is essentially disclosedness.

This means that disposedness is an essential “component” of Dasein’s existence insofar as it is one of the equiprimordial structures that make up disposedness. Ontically, that is, in terms of our everyday, factical experience of the world, it corresponds to moods (Stimmung). Now, it is essential that one does not take “having a mood” as a subjective feeling: Stimmung are neither objective nor subjective. Heidegger thinks they are remote from any psychical conditions: they come from neither outside nor inside, for they arise out of Being-in-the-world. This is the first important difference between the thought of Aristotle/Cicero and Heidegger regarding moods. Both Aristotle and Cicero, although they recognise that moods play an important role in rhetoric, they still conceive of them as psychological states of mind; Heidegger conceives of moods very differently. Instead, one could think of them as the tonality that one finds themselves in.

Heidegger then raises an essential point for our discussion of rhetoric: Dasein is always in a mood. Even the mood of tranquil tarrying alongside is, according to Heidegger, a mood; we are never free of moods. One can easily see a parallel move in Aristotle and Cicero, though they don’t explicitly conceive of moods as a fundamental element of the disclosedness of Dasein. This makes sense from the standpoint of disclosedness: if Dasein necessarily is always its there, and the structures that make up disclosedness all are required, then it follows that Dasein can never be without a mood: disclosedness would be in a faulty mode at that point. Moods are essential to the “there” of Dasein as well as any factical possibilities it takes up: including rhetoric. The orator always argues from a mood into a mood; Aristotle and Cicero both recognise the importance of understanding moods. Without this grasp of the audience, the orator cannot give an effective speech: they must realise that moods are always present and must shape their speech accordingly.

Moods/disposedness allow things to matter to Dasein through concern and solicitude. This is an essential point for our discussion. Concern is Dasein’s way of comporting towards entities in the world. We don’t merely stand and stare at entities as mere things present at hand; they are objects of our concernful circumspection. The hammer isn’t (essentially) a thing with a slender wooden handle and a metal top with a claw coming out the back: it is a thing used for hammering; it is ready to hand. In fact, Heidegger sees looking at something as if it were only present at hand as a privative mode of concern: concernful dealings with entities make possible the privative mode of presence at hand. Solicitude is more interesting for our purposes of examining rhetoric: this is mode of circumspection towards other Dasein. How one is disposed and how Other Dasein are disposed affect the solicitous actions carried out with them. Rhetoric is, in part, precisely working to influence the mood of other Dasein so as to sway them to the side of the orator. It could be seen as a mode of solicitude that aims to sway other Dasein to one side or another. The connection between moods and concern/solicitude is this: that the disclosure of the world permits entities within the world to be encountered in the first place, whether as present at hand or ready to hand. Letting something be encountered is fundamentally circumspective. Something which is circumspective has the character of Dasein being affected in some way. To be affected is possible only insofar as encounters within the world matter to Dasein. Thus the plight of the person the orator is arguing for can only matter to him/her on the basis of disposedness; the murderers who pursue a Roman senator are disclosed as fearful only on the basis of the “state of fear” of that senator, not the other way around.

In comparison with Aristotle and Cicero, we can see firstly that emotion (moods) play an important role in each of the two camps, though for slightly different reasons. Heidegger’s thinking could be said to underlie that of Aristotle and Cicero; it explains why they give such a prominent place to pathe in their respective theories of rhetoric. Aristotle and Cicero regard emotion as merely an ontic phenomena, that is, as merely a concrete, lived aspect of Dasein’s existence. Heidegger, however, analyses them on a deeper level: the ontological. He pulls out the primordial nature of moods in realising they are a fundamental component of the Being of Dasein; without them Dasein would not be Dasein. Though, both Aristotle and Cicero recognise that the orator always argues from a mood into a mood; Cicero goes so far as to argue that one must be all ablaze in order to set the audience on fire as well. Heidegger, however, realises the ontological import of this idea. Moods are disclosive and are not merely subjective states; they arise out of Being-in-the-world. Thus, given the importance of moods to Dasein, Heidegger would stand opposed to those who though engaging the emotions was an inappropriate tactic for the orator. Heidegger would say this is misguided: Dasein is always in a mood; one’s “emotions” are always already there, thus it makes no sense to speak of not playing to the mood of the audience.

In sum, then, how does disposedness make possible rhetoric? Firstly, moods are essential to the Being of Dasein. The orator, given that moods are a primordial facet of Dasein’s Being, always works to influence them: Aristotle recognises that judgements can be influenced in virtue of one’s emotional state. Heidegger, I believe, would agree with this in some respect; disclosedness is possible in virtue of disposedness. Thus, if one’s mood changes the manner in which things are disclosed changes as well. An orator always argues from a mood into a mood. Moods make possible rhetoric insofar as they provide the “backdrop” for the speech: the audience is always disposed in some way and the orator must either play upon this or sway it in another direction. Moreover, as Cicero recognises, orators must also be disposed in order to sway the audience to their side; if they were not then they could have no effect upon the crowd they are speaking to. Thus, disposedness is essential for rhetorical argumentation. The orator must influence the mood of the crowd in order to provide a convincing argument.

Discourse is the third structure involved in the disclosedness of Dasein. It is equiprimordial with understanding and disposedness, that is, the three necessarily arise together and co-imply each other. Discourse, though, occupies an ambiguous position in the tripartite structure: Heidegger argues it underlies understanding and therefore interpretation.
Most importantly, however, discourse underlies language. Heidegger refers to discourse as “the articulation of intelligibility” (BT 203). What is the nature of the intelligibility it articulates? Heidegger first describes it as “meaning”. Meaning is also an essential moment in the structure of the understanding: it is that within the projective understanding occurs. Heidegger then associates this intelligibility with the “totality of significations” [Bedeutungsganze]: the worldhood of the world. The world, for Heidegger, is not the sum total of entities within it, nor is it the proverbial “box” within which entities lie. Instead, he conceives it as a web of interrelations of entities. Dasein does not merely sit and stare at entities as if they were merely present at hand. Instead, Dasein primarily encounters entities in its dealings with them; to turn this around we deal with things because we are concerned. On the basis of our concernful dealings with entities, the totality of significations comes to be. Let us take a concrete example that Heidegger supplies to illustrate this point. A hammer, for instance, is not merely a thing with a slender wooden handle and a metal top with a claw coming out the back: it is something one uses for hammering. In other words, it is encountered as ready-to-hand— not present-at-hand. Now, a thing such as a hammer can only be ready to hand within a totality of equipment; it is only as such because of the other things that are co-implies along with it (nails, wood, etc). This totality has the character of “reference” (i.e. the in-order-to). This simply makes explicit what is stated above: one uses the hammer in order to hammer nails, which is in order to fasten pieces of wood together, etc.

Heidegger now goes deeper in his analysis of the character of references. The references that tie entities together must be related back to the Being of Dasein; they do not merely float about detached from us. References, on a “deeper” level, have the character of involvement. Involvement could be conceived of as the relation between the hammer and the actual act of hammering. In other words, Dasein can hammer with a hammer because the hammer is assigned to hammering (hammering nails, which is assigned to connecting wood, etc). What, then, makes this totality of involvements possible? Heidegger argues it is the for-the-sake-of-which, or, the meaningful assignments of Dasein. If hammering were not for-the-sake-of connecting wood, which is in turn for-the-sake-of building a house in which Dasein can dwell, there would be no totality of involvement. Dasein, if it did not assign itself to this totality, would not really be Dasein: this is one of the characteristics of its Being. In virtue of the nature of Dasein’s projects, then, the world (i.e. the totality of involvements) opens up. The world is the “backdrop” of Dasein’s self-assignment; it is that towards which the for-the-sake-of-which (Re. meaningful assignments) is directed.

Based on this, Heidegger then argues that there is one more “level” to references: they are significant. Or, to put it another way, meaningfulness is the reason for the involvements of things (activities, entities, etc). We have now arrived at the starting point of our discussion of discourse: it articulated the totality of significations.

Now that we have a grasp of what discourse articulates we can move to show its structure and interrelation with the other moments of disclosedness. It is essential to conceive of discourse as an existentiale phenomena. That is, it is a constitutive and indispensable facet of Dasein’s being. Discourse is in no way equivalent to what Heidegger calls “assertion” or even, in a way, discoursing or talking. “Talking” or “discoursing” are intimately connected with discourse as an existentiale; they are the ontic manifestation of it. Yet, they are not what Heidegger means when he talks of discourse as an existentiale structure; they are the “worldly” phenomena that accompany it. This is evidenced by two structures that Heidegger believes are essential to it, but do not involve language: hearing and keeping silent.

The way in which discourse is expressed is through language; it is through discoursing or talking that Dasein articulates the intelligibility of Being-in-the-world. Here Being-with makes an appearance. “Being-with belongs to Being-in-the-world...” (BT 204); this is apparent in discourse. Dasein is always already Mitdasein; Being-with-others. In Dasein’s concernful dealings there lies a reference to others—they are encountered in Dasein’s dealings. Thus, the world is always a with-world; there are other Dasein as well as my Dasein. Talking or discoursing is always talking-with or talking-to ; this is an essential moment of communication.
Communication is one of the constitutive moments of discourse. Heidegger implores us to think of communication as broadly as possible. It is not merely “assertion” (in Heidegger’s sense of the word). Instead, through communication, “Being-with becomes explicitly shared” (BT 205). That is, the co-state-of-mind and co-understanding that are manifest in Mitdasein are “taken hold of”. One can begin to see the connection between disposedness and understanding with discourse as well as the ambiguous position that discourse occupies in Heidegger’s thinking. Not only is discourse an essential point of the tripartite structure of disclosedness, but it also in a way underlies the other two insofar as it makes them “public” and explicitly shared. What is expressed in discourse is disposedness and understanding which, as we have seen, is necessarily a co-disposedness and a co-understanding.

There are three other moments along with communication that are constitutive for discourse: what the talk is about; what is said in the talk; and the making known. All these, in similar fashion to the structures of disclosedness, arise together and are necessary for the “complete” phenomenon of discourse. In what is said in the talk, Dasein has the character of expressing itself. What is expressed in the talk is Dasein’s disposedness; this is done through “intonation, modulation, the tempo of talk, ‘the way of speaking’” (BT. 206) We shall come back to this point later in the paper: orators spent a great deal of time fine tuning precisely these elements of their speeches in order to effectively convince their audience.

Neither Aristotle nor Cicero treat the issue of language (Discourse) as a condition for the possibility of rhetoric, though it is a constant theme of rhetorical handbooks. In a similar fashion to pa/qh, they conceive of it merely as an ontic phenomenon, and not as an existentiale. Moreover, Heidegger’s analysis of discourse underlies that of Cicero; one can only make a rhetorical display in virtue of discourse. Tied in with this is the notion that discourse (language) discloses Being-with; it makes the co-disposedness of Mitdasein explicit. None of the ancient thinkers hit upon this. This being said, Cicero and Aristotle do recognise the power of language to influence the mood of the audience and that one’s language must be properly suited to that which the orator wants to express. In other words, we could repeat Cicero’s quote that the orator must be all ablaze in order to set the audience on fire—their language must be fiery and powerful in order to properly sway the audience. On some level, then, Cicero recognises a connection between moods and language: language is a medium in which moods are disclosed. Heidegger has a similar notion in that moods are disclosed in language through the intonation, pace of the talk, etc.

Later in The Ideal Orator, Cicero begins a discussion of gesture, which is another central feature of an effective rhetorical display. He conceives of gesture as separate from language; it is something that is used to supplement one’s speech. Heidegger, however, would disagree with this characterisation: discourse is a broad phenomenon that does not necessarily hinge on language. That which is expressed in discourse does not necessarily become a theme for assertion. One communicates4 through gesture as one communicates through language (if one takes communication in Heidegger’s broad sense). Thus gesture is an ontic manifestation of discourse the same way language is and consequently carries out the same function language does. They are not totally separate phenomena: they spring from the same ground and carry out the same function in a rhetorical speech.

In sum, then, how does discourse make possible rhetoric? First, and most importantly, it is the condition for the possibility of language. Without language, oratory would be non existent. Moreover, in its ontic manifestation, it allows for the appropriation of disposedness (which is always co-disposedness) which the orator works upon in the course of his speech. Connected with this point is the issue of gesture, which orator also makes use of. Discourse is not necessarily made manifest in language: gesture is another mode by which understanding and disposedness are articulated. In short, discourse makes possible the ways by which the orator tries to convince the crowd of his point, whether it be through language, gesture, tempo of the talk, etc.

Although it seems on the surface that Heidegger is saying many of the same things as Aristotle, in fact they are quite different: Heidegger is working on another “level” (the ontological). In other words, Aristotle does not conceive of emotions as an essential feature of the disclosedness of Dasein, though he does give them a prominent place in his theory of rhetoric. Heidegger’s notion of moods/disposedness could be said to underlie that of Aristotle; it explains why Aristotle would give emotions such a prominent place. Heidegger is the only thinker of the two that truly examines the conditions for the possibility of rhetoric; the others hint at it, but never conceive of moods or discourse as a grounding phenomenon. Thus Heidegger would think that there can only be “grand oratory”: moods would always already implicated. Aristotle recognises the importance of moods, but never makes the move Heidegger does and state they are primordial structures of the Being of Dasein. Moreover, neither Aristotle nor Cicero treat discourse/language as a true condition for the possibility of rhetoric. Once again, Heidegger’s analysis of discourse underlies that of the two ancient thinkers. It provides the condition for the possibility of language, which, as we have seen, is the “medium” through which moods are made manifest. Both moods and discourse provide the conditions for the possibility of one of the most celebrated arts of the ancient world: oratory.

Middle English Alliterative Verse

2008-04-29T17:26:00.000-06:00

Middle/Old English verse is interesting in that it usually employs alliterative verse. That is, words in a line of verse will start with the same consonant. Take, for example the first 4 lines from Sir Gaiwan and the Green Knight; I've italicized the relevant words:

SIÞEN þe sege and þe assaut watz sesed at Troye,

Þe borȝ brittened and brent to brondeȝ and askez,

Þe tulk þat þe trammes of tresoun þer wroȝt

Watz tried for his tricherie, þe trewest on erthe

Wagner, in his Ring Cycle, copied this technique from the Niebelungenlied as well as the Icelandic Sagas that he used for sources; he used it to great effect. Take, for example, this passage from Das Rheingold, where Alberich is clambering up the rocks of the Rhine:

Garstig glatter
glitschriger Glimmer
Wie gliet ich auss!...
Feuchtes Nass
fullt mir die Nase
verfluchtes Niesen

This loses something in translation, but Dereyk Cooke makes an effort at retaining the alliteration:

Nasty slippery
slithery slate!
How I keep slipping!...
Clammy moisture
fills my nostrils;
curse this sneezing

If a translator chooses to ignore the alliterative verse something is certaintly lost. If you want to read Middle/Old English poetry, read it in the original; Middle English is close enought to Modern English that one shouldn't have too much trouble picking it up.

Some Roman Graffiti

2008-04-29T17:00:00.000-06:00

When one thinks of graffiti they usually call to mind some spraypainted tag on the side of a dilapidated brick building or bawdy scrawls in a bathroom stall. Believe it or not, the Romans had graffiti too; some of it is rather 'modern sounding' and one could imagine running into messages something like them in a random spot in a modern city. Here are some taken from Shelton's As the Romans Did 2nd Ed. These were in Pompeii and were preserved when it was buried by the volcano eruption.

Aufidius was here.

Marcus loves Spendusa.

I have screwed many girls here. (found in a brothel)

Albanus is a bugger.

I am amazed, O wall, that you have not collapsed and fallen, since you must bear the tedious stupidities of so many scrawlers.

On April 19 I baked bread.

Let anyone who invites me to dinner prosper.

History of the Word 'Barbaros'

2008-04-28T16:34:00.000-06:00

The English word 'barbarian' has apparent negative connotations. This, however, was not always the case. I shall examine the history of the word, both in terms of linguistics and of meaning.

First, linguistically. My starting point is the Greek word 'barbaros'. This is cognate to the Latin 'balbus blatero'. However, moving backwards, it is cognate to the Old Iranian 'balb'; Sanskrit 'balbalu'; Sumerian 'bar-bar'; and Babylonian 'barbaru'. What can this tell us about the meaning and subsequent deveopment of the Greek word? Take the Sanskrit word 'balbalu'; it means 'to stammer or studder'. The Babylonian 'barbaru' simply means 'foreigner or stranger'. The Greek word, in its original import, did not have a balatently negative connotation; it simply denoted a linguistic difference. Supposedly it was an onomatopoetic word denoting someone whose language just sounded like meaningless babble (incidenctally, our English word 'babble' probably derives from the same origin). The meaning I think is most clear if we pay attention to the Sanskrit 'balbalu'.

The Greek word took on more use and meaning as the 5th Century arrived. The word occurs only once in Homer, in the form of the compound 'barbarophonos'; it is used to describe some allies of the Trojans whose speech was foreign, hence "barbaric". Thus, at this point, the word has no negative connotations per se; it is merely used to denote a linguistic difference. However, after the Persian Wars, the word started to take on pejorative connotations. For example, look at one of Jason's speeches in Euripides' Medea. He states that Medea came from a "barbarian country", and that, as a result of her coming to Greece, she now "understands the workings of law and justice". Presumably, a "barbarian country" would not be the greatest of places in the minds of the Greeks watching the play; in Euripides' characterization it stands in stark contrast to the rule of law and rationality that pervaded the Athenian self-definition.

Some Notes on Pre-Epic Diction

2008-04-28T16:22:00.000-06:00

Gerald M. Browne makes a short study of some pre-epic diction in an article published in Mnemosyme (2000). He looks at Watkins' "How to Kill a Dragon", which, in one section, focuses on the Luwian phrase "alati Wilshati", meaning 'steep Wilusa'. Watkins then refers to the Greek "(w)ilios aipeine" (steep Ilios) and wonders if, in these two phrases, there is shared poetic convention in the form of a forumulaic utterance.

The Luwian "ali-" (high, lofty, steep) is also connected with the Latin 'al-tus'. Call to mind Virgil's phrase in the Aeneid, when he describes the walls of Rome as 'altae meonia Romae' (I.7); translated as the 'high/lofty walls of Rome'. Thus, if is is the case that there is a shared forumulaic convention running from the Luwian phrase (though, perhaps even earlier to an Indo-European forumula) to the Homeric, Virgil is also included in this. He (and perhaps Homer alike) could have hardly known that they were invoking a pre-epic formula; it is nonetheless present.

The Best Homer Translation EVER

2008-04-27T19:33:00.001-06:00

Anyone who has never read (or heard of) J. Henry Dart's translation of Homer's Iliad is missing something fantastic. There was only one publication (sometime in the 1860's I believe) and has not been reissued since. This is a shame, to say the least. Dart manages to render the entire Iliad in English hexameters; he follows all the metrical constraints that would bind a line of Greek hexameter. Quite a feat, though there are other original poems written in English hexameters (Longfellow's Evangeline, for instance).

Some other people have tried it; in 1847 a group of poets got together and attemped hexameter renderings. Dr. Thomas Hawtree chose a passage from Book III of the Iliad. Here's what he came up with:

Clearly the rest I behold of the dark-ey'd sons of Achaia;
Known to me well are the faces of all; their names I remember;
Two, two only remain, whom I see not among the commanders,
Kastor, fleet in the car--Polydeuces, brave with the cestus--
Own dear brethren of mine--one parent loved us as infants.
Are they not here in the host, from the shores of lov'd Lakedaimon?
Or, tho' they came with the rest of the ships that bound thro' the waters,
Dare they not enter the fight or star in the council of Heroes,
All for the fear of the shame and the taunts my crime has awaken'd?
So said she;--they long since in Earth's soft arms were reposing,
There, in their own dear land, their Father-land, Lakedaimon.

For those who don't know, hexameter meter is basically a long syllable followed by two shorts. In Greek this is determined by vowel lenth; it's a bit more shiftly in English as we don't really have designated long and short vowels the same way Greek does. The two shorts can be substituted for a long. This pattern is repeated 5 times, with the sixth time being a long followed by either a long or a short. Here I will use '-' for long and '+' for short. The first line would be scanned as follows:

- + +/- + +/- + +/ - - / - + +/ - -
Clearly the rest I behold of the dark eyed sons of Achaia

The 'ea' in clearly I take as a dipthong. The 'eye' of eyed I take as one vowel unit; it is pronounced this way and thus should be taken as one unit.

Anyone who doesn't read Greek but wants to get a sense of Homer's meter should try their hardest to find Dart's translation. It's the best one I've found.

History of the Flood Account: Sumerian

2008-04-26T19:55:00.000-06:00

I'm starting a series of posts on the history of the flood account. I'll start here with the Sumerian one. For those interested in reading it for yourselves I am using the text from ANET (Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament. 2nd Ed.)

Along with the Sumerian counterpart, the antediluvian Noah, this account is by far the closest to the Biblical account. The introductory passages are significant for those interested in Mesopotamian cosmology; there are statements concerning the creation of man, the origin of kingship, and the existence of at least 5 antediluvian cities. Unfortunately, only one tablet with the myth has been uncovered; of that tablet only about 1/3 survives. The account in some sections is therefore quite fragmentary, however there is enough extant material to allow the piecing together of a coherent narrative.

(Approx. the first 39 lines are destroyed)

Lines 28-50 (ANET 2nd Ed.):
A god, probably either Enki or Anul, is stating that he will save mankind from destruction; "I will return the people to their settlements..." (40). It is stated that men will build temples to the gods as a result; "Of the cities, verily they will build their places of (divine) ordinances, I will make peaceful their shade/ Of our houses, verily they will lay their bricks in pure places,/ The places of our decisions verily they will found in pure places" (41-43)

(Approx. 37 lines are destroyed)

Lines 88-100:
It is related that kingship was lowered from heaven and that five cities were founded. This provides us with information regarding the relation between the king and heaven; the ruler is conceived of as divine.

(Approx. 37 lines are destroyed):
The missing section probably dealt with the decision of the gods to bring about the flood. See analysis of subsequent lines below.

Lines 138-160:
Some gods appear to be dissatisfied with the decision to destroy mankind. "Then did Nin[tu weep] like a...[final word(s) missing]" (141)Nintu, incidentally, was the goddess of birth. The flood mentioned in line 138 (the word is, in fact, all we have of line 138), establishing that it is the flood which is talked about. It is also mentioned further down in line 151, "By our...[word(s) missing] a flood [will sweep] over the cult centers; to destroy the seed of mankind." In this section we are also introduced to Ziusudra, the Sumerian "counterpart" to Noah. He receives instructions from a sympathetic god regarding the building of a boat in order to be saved from the flood waters and is told to bring plants and animals onto the boat.

(Approx. 40 lines are destroyed)

Lines 201-261:
The flood rages for seven days and seven nights, until Utu (the sun god) finally comes forth and the deluge ceases. Ziusudra then sends out a bird in order to see if there is land. He tries this three times; the third time the bird does not return to the boat, thus signifying there is land to be found. He is called the "preserver of the name of vegetation and of the seed of mankind/ In the land of crossing, the land of Dilum, the place where the sun rises, they (Anu/Enil) caused to dwell". (260-261)

(The last 39 lines are destroyed)

I will place this in a historical context/analyze the account a bit later; the Sumerian account will, for the most part, be used as a sounding board to compare to subsequent accounts. Thus the analysis will be rather abridged; more will come out when I compare it to later accounts.

Analysis [still in progress]:
As stated in the beginning of the post, the Sumerian account of the flood offers the closest extant parallel to the Biblical account. I shall endeavor to bring these to light; though I will be treating the Biblical account in a later post. To be sure, there are important differences. For one, the desiscion to bring about the deluge was made by a number of gods in the Sumerian account; obviously there is only one Hebrew god who decides to flood the Earth. Moreover, as stated above, this desicion was not approved of by all the gods (cf. Nintu)

The name Ziusudra means something like "he who laid hold on life of distant days". This could be a reference to the immortality that was bestowed upon him following the flood.

Near Eastern Elements in the Cadmos Myth

2008-04-24T20:31:00.000-06:00

The figure of Cadmos stands out in Greek mythology as one who has a clear Near Eastern heritage; I shall try to bring out some of the Near Eastern elements in the myth.

The Greeks unanimously believed that Cadmos was Phoenician. This claim in itself lends weight to the claim that the myth is perhaps influenced by Near Eastern sources; the Phoenecians were a Semitic people. There are striking parallels between the figure of Cadmos and some Ugaritic deities. The name 'Cadmos' is a virtual copy of the Ugaritic word 'qdm', which means 'East'. 'Qdm' is an epithet for the god Shr, 'Dawn', who was the brother of Slm, 'Dusk'. Cadmos is the brother of Europa, whose name was explained by Hesychius as 'land of darkness or of sunset'. Thus, it would seem on some level that Cadmos/Europa parallel Shr/Slm: both sets of deities are associated with dawn and dusk and, given that one of the epithets of Shr (qdm) was directly appropriated by the Greeks (qdm>Cadmos), it would seem that the Greek myth parallels that of Ugarit.

There are, however, more parallels to be found. There was another god, Ningishzida, who is very similar to Cadmos. He (Ninigshzida) was a serpent god, the personification of sunrise, was the victor in a battle with a dragon, and founded cities and temples. The Cadmos of Greek mythology is almost a direct copy: as we have seen he is associated with sunrise, he fought and killed a serpent, founded Thebes, and was changed into a snake along with his wife. [Anyone who doesn't know the myth of Cadmos should read Ovid's version in Book 1 of the Metamorphoses. It's fantastic]

Other stories associated with the Cadmos myth also have Near Eastern elements. Cadmos' daughter was Semele, mother of Dionysus. In one version of the myth when Dionysus was born he was torn to pieces by the Titans. His heart was saved and given to Semele in the form of a drink; she drinks it and becomes pregnant with Dionysus a second time. However, she is killed by Zeus and Dionysus is taken from Semele and sewn into his thigh. Compare this with the myth of the Ugaritic god Sml. She swallows the remains of the hero Aqht, who was torn to pieces by eagles. The gods Baal and Darel pursue her, Baal breaks her wings and Darel extorts the remains of Aqht from her. There seems to be some parallel here. First the names of the two goddesses are basically identical (Sml>Semele). Moreover, the function of the two goddesses in the myth is also similar (they both swallow the remains of their children, who were torn to bits) and both Dionysus and Aqht were removed from the mother's bodies after they had been killed/injured.

The Acteon myth also shows Near Eastern parallels. Acteon was Cadmos' grandson. He incurred the wrath of Artemis for having boasted that his hunting skills surpassed hers; he was then devoured by his own dogs. Now, the cause of the wrath against Aqht was basically the same: he refused to give the hunting goddess a bow; he deemed it an unsuitable instrument for women. Thus he was devoured by the eagles. In term of mythological function these two characters seem very similar. Moreover, their names are possibly linguistically related. Many Ugaritic names have extended forms with the suffix -n or -yn. It is quite possible, then, that the Greek 'Aktaion' is derived from the name Aqht +suffix -iyyon (*Aqht-iyyon).

To be fair, establishing influence can be a bit shifty. The character Aqht figures in two unrelated myths (Semele and Acteon) in the Greek side, yet they are somewhat connected in the Ugaritic stories. How the two Greek stories were separated from the single Ugaritic I suppose we can't really know; all we really can do is point out the similarities and postulate possible influence.