Classical carry on

Now back at my desk, attempting to install a full working knowledge of Iliad 24. But enlivened by a few days at the Copenhagen Glyptotek, which is possibly the best museum of classical artefacts I’ve ever visited. While its collections don’t really rival the British Museum, the Louvre, or even Basel, it’s certainly the only museum I’ve seen with a palm lined atrium:

And its collections of Greek and Roman portraits are beautifully laid out in a succession of rooms with mosaic floors and trompe l’oeuil painting, and include a bust of Vespasian, my favourite emperor, looking exactly like Sid James:

And a very pleasing ’severed head in gigantic disembodied claw’ motif, apparently designed to keep intruders from Etruscan tombs:

Which strikes me as very effective – I could do with one by my desk at work.

A dance to the metre of time

I’m having lots of fun with metre at the moment – suddenly it’s all clicked and the rules seem intelligible and easy to use. I particularly like Porson’ Law of the Fifth Foot Spondee, as a pleasingly esoteric piece of knowledge.

Also spending a lot of time revising at the cafe – they’ve started bringing over coffee to me now so I don’t have to pack up every time, which makes me extremely happy. The sunny weather brings more people out to play giant chess:

Although at 4.30 prompt, whether mid-game or not, the lady in charge comes and takes the pieces:

But there’s always tomorrow.

Godlike reasoning

I love the bit in Iliad 24 when Achilles tells the story of Niobe:

καὶ γάρ τ’ ἠυκομος Νιόβη ἐμνήσατο σίτου,
For even fair-haired Niobe remembered food,

τῇ περ δώδεκα παῖδες ἐνὶ μεγάροισιν ὄλοντο
although twelve children were killed in her halls,

ἓξ μὲν θυγατέρες, ἓξ δ’ υἱέες ἡβώοντες.
six daughters, and six youthful sons.

τοὺς μὲν Ἀπόλλων πέφνεν ἀπ’ ἀργυρέοιο βιοῖο
Apollo killed the sons with his silver bow,

χωόμενος Νιόβῃ, τὰς δ’ Ἄρτεμις ἰοχέαιρα,
angered at Niobe, and Artemis shooter of arrows [killed] the daughters,

οὕνεκ’ ἄρα Λητοῖ ἰσάσκετο καλλιπαρῄῳ:
because she had likened herself to fair-cheeked Leto,

φῆ δοιὼ τεκέειν, ἣ δ’ αὐτὴ γείνατο πολλούς:
saying that [Leto] had borne two, while she herself had borne many:

τὼ δ’ ἄρα καὶ δοιώ περ ἐόντ’ ἀπὸ πάντας ὄλεσσαν.
for which, although they were only two, they destroyed them all.

It’s such a chilling story, particularly the godlike reasoning: ‘You have more children? Well, mine are better; and to show you how much better, they will kill all yours.’ It’s a very neat way of exemplifying the dangers of hubris. It reminds me of the Bacchae, in that the mortals have no idea what they are getting themselves into.

Isn’t it Ionic, don’t you think?

I’m currently having fun trying to distinguish different flavours of Greek dialect. The problem is that I need to be able to identify how they differ from standard Attic forms… which presupposes that I have a good grasp of standard Attic forms… but I’m getting there.

In the meantime, as seen at university: if in doubt, use more highlighters!

Done

Sorted, got that straight (for the moment at any rate). However, I’m with Rutherford in his Introduction to Odyssey XIX-XX, when he says:

‘Aesthetic evaluation of metrical features is a perilously subjective area, in which critics must generally steer an uneasy course between the self-evident and the entirely speculative.’

I’ll be happy if I can successfully identify the self-evident at present.

The poetry and the prosody

The words for today are elision, prodelision, hiatus, correption, crasis, and synizesis. Hopefully by the end of tomorrow I’ll have some idea what these mean, and how to apply them to a random chunk of epic.

The inside of your head is Greek

Greeks or Romans? I don’t think anyone could put it better than Edith Hall, in this TLS debate with Mary Beard:

“I would be prepared to concede that the Romans have left more physical marks that you can see. Great, you can really think about an aqueduct for a very, very long time. When it comes to the internal landscapes of your brain, though, all the contours are Greek. Whether it’s thinking imaginatively about literary and theatrical and emotional scenarios, reunions between husbands and wives like the Odyssey or the simple matter of the distinction between nature and culture, the building blocks of philosophy, the Greeks have done it, the inside of your head is Greek. So it’s really a matter of whether you’re an interior kind of person, or a person who likes looking at aqueducts.”

Cafe culture

The cafe proved highly productive, not least because of the lack of an internet connection – hence no temptation to browse a few dozen sites and lose a few hours. Books 4-19 of the Iliad duly revised. It was further enlivened by people playing giant chess outside:

Very cosmopolitan.

BlackBerry fool

Trying to work through the commentary to book 24 of the Iliad today, but keep getting distracted by work emails coming through on the BlackBerry. Funny how emails are never that urgent or fascinating when I’m at work, but when I’m supposed to be doing something else, they take on a new charm. Tomorrow I’m going to try working at the cafe – we’ll see whether interesting surroundings and the ready availability of coffee make it more or less easy to be productive.

Strange company

Visiting Leeds City Art Gallery yesterday, I was delighted to see a portrait of Homer on the wall of their newly refurbished Tiled Hall Cafe – admittedly no-one knows what Homer looked like, and the whole idea of ‘Homer’ is fraught with controversy anyway, but we’ll let that pass. His fellow luminaries were Horace (hooray!), Dante (fine), Goethe (OK), Macaulay (who?), Burns (why?), and Scott (oh please). A very Victorian list of worthies. I used to keep track of my ‘Top 10 Writers who Know’ and so on, but then saw the film of High Fidelity and was cured. (Reading How to Be Good cured me of actually reading Nick Hornby).