Euripides, Hecabe; A mothers sorrow

 

Well what a week, things have been crazy for my hubby at work so he has been pulling 12 hour days most days this week, so I haven't really seen much of him. I also ran myself out of energy Friday and had a lazier day, which was a nice change but at the same time I'm trying not to be annoyed at myself for taking a week day off. Other than that there hasn't been too much new, we did have some stunning days at the start of the week so I spent sometime outside in tee shirt and shorts, it was almost like summer. The rest of the week was cooler to remind me its only spring.

The Story
Hecabe starts with her son, Polydorus' ghost telling of the suffering to come. He tells of his death at the hand of Polymestor the king of Thrace where he had been sent for protection while Troy was under attack by the army of Agamemnon. Polymestor killed him for the gold he was sent with as a possible ransom for buying back his brothers in case the Trojans lost, his body was then thrown in the ocean. He also tells that his sister will be killed at the hands of the Achaeans as a sacrifice to the tomb of Achilles. And that his mother would see them both laid out dead the same day.
Hecabe enters with her daughter and is lamenting being taken into slavery. the chorus informs her that he has just come from the Achaean assembly and they have decided to sacrifice her daughter to Achilles, just as her brother ghost had predicted. Hacabe laments but her daughter laments only for Hacabe as she welcomes death as a princess to life as a slave.
Odysseus arrives to take her daughter to the tomb of Achilles. Hacabe pleads with him to go back and argue against this as repayment of her saving his life when he was spying on Troy. He argues that to do so would to be to not give Achilles his friendship in death and that is something he will not do. Hacabe then suggests her daughter pleads with him also but she replies that she is ready for death and will not oppose him and plead with her mother not to physically oppose him taking her away.
A messenger, Talthybius arrives and informs Hacabe that he daughter is dead and tells he of her noble death, and how she refused to be taken by force but gave herself to the priest, Achilles son, to be sacrificed. He also tells her how the Achaeans are preparing a tomb for her. Hacabe tells hims to go back and see that none of them touch her but leave her for her mother to prepare for burial. She also instructs her attendant to go and collect sea water for washing her daughters body and then head inside herself.
Hacabe's attendant returns with a body and calls Hacabe back outside. Initially Hacabe is confused as to why they have bought her daughters body to her but its is not long before they show her the body and she identifies her son.
Agamemnon comes looking for her as she has not arrived to bury her daughter and finds her distraught on the ground. she begs him to seek vengeance for her, at first he is hesitant because he will not avenge her daughter but once it transpires that her son has also been killed by the king of Thrace, he is much more sympathetic but will not raise a hand least his own Achaeans, who are also allies of Thrace be angered. Hacabe answer that with the help of the women she will take vengeance, all Agamemnon has to do is call Polymestor and his sons to come and see her at once.
Polymestor and his sons arrive and are quickly invited inside under the pretense of giving them hidden gold. Once inside the sons are killed and Polymestors eyes gouged out. He escapes the tent and calls for help from the Acheaens. Agamemnon arrives and wants to hear both  side to judge them. Polymestor confesses to killing Polydorus, but tries to argue that it was to please the Acheaen allies. Hacabe argues that he did it for the gold, Agamemnon agrees with her. Polymestor lists of some prophecies he has been given about Hacabes death and the death of her one surviving daughter Cassandra. Agamemnon has him taken away.

Reflections
It is interesting to me that Euripides found the need to have the Ghost of Polydorus at the start of the play as we do see the same information unfold as the play goes on, a modern writer would probably have let you find out those details as they came to light. that being said it does set the scene very clearly for what is about to transpire.
Agamemnon's slight about whether the woman/women could indeed reap vengeance upon a man in his prime is rather misguided but it is also a relic of his time, when woman were mainly seen in the softer side of the ledger. We wouldn't think too much about the idea that a woman might seek vengeance herself, but both the seeking vengeance and the feebleness of women has been put aside in this day and age. That being said Hacabes does give examples where a group of women have overcome in violence a group of men by sheer numbers, so it is not that woman is the more docile but rather the physically less capable without training to change that. I mean its why we still gender segregate most sports.
At first this seemed like it would be your average revenge story and then it would end abruptly after the violence, Euripides surprised me a little with continuing to have Agamemnon judge between the two and therefore show Hacabe's position as in the right and to condemn Polymestor to his fate without retribution. The play still ends abruptly with Agamemnon sending Polymestor away.
There is a tidbit about the battle of Troy that we have not yet seen in the texts to date, that is that Odysseus entered Troy as a spy, and not only that but was found out by a couple of the women. It would be very interesting to find out what he said, or is supposed to have said, to the women to get them to let him go free, hopefully we can see this in later texts.

Comparison
Unlike Medea we do have some context going into this story of revenge rather than the abrupt start of Medea. We know the outline of the Trojan war and that Troy lost so to find the queen of Troy as a slave of the Acheaens is a logical next step in the overarching story. That being said like Medea that play starts with an explanation of new wrongs committed against the mother figure Hacabe. Both stories are that of a woman in a compromised position reaching out and dealing vengeance to those who wronged her. the big difference being that Hacabe was judged as just following her violence where as the Medea just ends with Medea escaping. I wonder if this is because there is no taboo at the time against revenge killing, as we see in Hacabe, but there is a big taboo about killings ones own offspring, as we see in Meade.
In a way this story follows on from The Trojan Women though if it was a true sequel in the modern sense we would have expected some mention of Polydorus in the Trojan Women. In both plays Hacabe is lamenting being taken into slavery although The Trojan women is set before it has truly happened while the Medea is after they have been taken away by sea, if not very far. Both plays though deal with the death of children of the defeated faction, In Hacabe it is Hacabe's daughter and therefore the sister of Hector and in The Trojan women it is his son.

Have you read Hacabe? If so what did you think of it?

Want to read Hacabe but haven't? Hopefully this inspires you to take the time to do so.
Get a copy of Hacabe.

Augustine, City of God 2A; The nature of creation and story's up to the Promised Land

Today feels a little bit like summer is coming, the sun is out the birds are chirping and it's warm. That is one thing I have found since we have moved winter has felt a lot longer because its colder down/ up here. I should explain that Tokoroa is higher in altitude compared to Hamilton but it is south so in some senses it is both up and down. I do wonder if summer is going to be hotter though but I definitely expect it to be drier (Hamilton is in a swamp).

I continue to be glad that I split this book into four parts, even so it is continuing to be a mammoth task to get through although it is easier in writing style and content than The Histories, it is actually a larger book. 

The Story

Book XI

The main discussion of this book is around fallen angels. Augustine's conclusions are that they were created at the same time as the angels who have keep their focus on God rather than on their themselves. Their pride is the reason they turned away from God and were separated from God and the light and are now synonymous with darkness. He also proposes that the angels were created when light and darkness were created and refutes the idea that the angels were created with the separation of the water as some others have said. He also proposes that when the angels were created that God had foreknowledge of those that would turn away and as such he created both those that would be light and those that in time would be darkness. It is also posited that the "Good" and "Bad" angels are not the same but that although they both have the same knowledge, and eternal existence, that the "Bad" angels because they fell to their pride, they did not have the felicity of the eternal existence being with God who had created them.

Book XII
This book starts with continued discussion of the nature of the angels, both good and bad, and whether they are co-eternal with the father. Augustine counters this with the fact that the bible records them as being created beings even though they are not mentioned directly in the creation account as he discussed in the previous book. He then moves on to man and his place in creation as the greatest of the mortal beings. He wanders away from this point for a while to discuss whether God choose all of a sudden to create the world, or rather whether is had always been a part of his plan and being. Augustine chooses the latter as it is the only way God could be eternally unchanging. From this he launches off into a discussion about the foreknowledge God had about how humanity would fall to sin and that his saving move in the coming, dying and resurrection of Christ was all part of the original plan not a reaction to what happened. He comes back around to angels with a proof that they are not creators of the lesser beings in body, but not in soul, as the Platonist posit but rather that it is God the father who is creator of all including man body and soul.

Book XIII
We move on with this book to a discussion on the nature of mans souls and on the breath that God used to breath life into Adam. Augustine discusses both at length and concludes that mans soul is immortal and that the first death, that is the separation of the soul from the body, comes to all men through the fall to sin of Adam. That is to say that Adam before he sinned and walked away from God was immortal in both his body and his soul and that in the process of God punishing him for that sin his physical nature was changed and that all born through him, i.e. all humanity, now come to this first death. The second death he speaks of then is the judgment that is when the soul and the spiritual body are sent to their eternal punishment. That is to say that they are then separated permanently from God.
As part of his discussion the topic the breath given to Adam is much discussed raising ideas such as whether it was the Holy Spirit that was breathed out or whether it was just, as you and I would, a breath of air and whether it was the breathing into man a soul or whether he was already living having been formed by God. He also spends a little time discussing the differences in the method of creation between the animals and the personal focus we see in the creation of man.

Book XIV
This book deals mainly with lust and sex, mainly around the idea of whether there was the possibility of sex without lust before man first sinned. Augustine's position is that there would have still been sex for reproduction but that man would have had no lust towards eve and would have had full control of his reproductive parts rather than them "having a mind of their own" so to speak.

Book XV
This book starts with a quick out of sequence aside into the time of Abraham and Sarah and contrasts the child of promise, that is Sarah's child  Issac with, the natural child of Hagar, Ishmael. This is used as an example of the differences between the City of God and the City of Man.
We then jump back to the sons of Adam and Eve and their sacrifices to God. Cain, the elder, presents a sacrifice that is deemed unworthy and Able, the younger, presents a sacrifice that is worthy. Augustine spends a while discussing how the sacrifice was unworthy and how God had warned Cain not to step into sin. For those who don't know the story he then kills Able and is exiled by God. Adam and Eve have another son, Seth, who becomes the son through which their descendants are named  He follows from this into how the sons of Cain became the first city of man and how the sons of Seth became the first City of God on earth.
Augustine continues with exposition around the generations that are listed in Genesis and comes to the conclusion that they are not named for the first son but rather the sons named are the ones that lead in genealogy to Noah much like Matthews genealogy of Christ.
He finishes this book  by spending a little time on Noah and the Ark and defending their accuracy as historical fact as well as allegory.

Book XVI
This book covers from Noah to the promised land. Though it covers such a wide time span Augustine spends most of his time on the generations to Egypt with a tighter focus on the generations to Abraham. Augustine extrapolates the City of God in pilgrimage, as he calls the earthly City of God with those who are righteous through faith, to the two sons of Noah who covered his nakedness, that is Shem and Japheth. To these Noah pronounces blessings but to his middle son Ham he prophesy his offspring's conquest by those of his brother. Augustine sees Ham as the father of the city of man in this time period, with a belief that until the return of Christ there will be a city of man on the earth.
Augustine goes on to discuss the sons of Abraham first Ishmael, the son of the slave, then Issac, the son of the promise, and then the unnamed children that Abraham had with his new wife, which Augustine assumes to be younger, after Sarah's death. Again he spends sometime showing how they show the City of God and the city of man, he also spends sometime working through some of the allegory of the sons and how Issac can represent the church, that is Christians, as sons of the promise and of faith and how Ishmael can be seen as the Jews who are Abraham's descendants by blood. He also likens those who are heretics or otherwise mislead to the other children of Abraham in his late age, as they are a shadow of the promise without substance.

Reflections

Book XI

This book explores something I really hadn't thought much about. Did God know that the Devil and some other angels would break communion with him and fall to darkness? Well we know that God is omnipotent so he must have but Augustine hashes out the small details that go along with it. The other thing I had never noticed is that there is no mention of the angels in the Genesis account. We see them through the old testament and some even give their names so they clearly exist. Because of this Augustine spends some time on when they might have been created to show that they may not have been left out and that they could still have not been created before the creation story, and to in turn prove the completeness of the Genesis account.

Also rather surprisingly Augustine doesn't get around to declaring that the fallen angels are the demons of which he speaks of in earlier books though this seems self evident from the way he describes the fallen angels as darkness.

Book XII
This book, once you get past the meandering back and forward through topics, ends with a great discussion on God and his part in creating the world and how he chose to do it. Augustine points out that he created humanity from one man, but when he was creating other "beasts" the text suggests he created enough to fill the world all at once. What he doesn't point out but I think is worthy of note is the parallel between creating humanity through one man who sinned and therefore all die through one man, that Christ as one man defeats sin and death and brings life to all humanity.
Again I feel that having read the Platonists would give me more insight into some of his arguments against both the idea that the world is cyclic in that those who are born will be born again in physical bodies, that is to come back to struggle from felicity. Augustine refutes this with an argument again of how could man have eternal life in felicity if he must again come back to the struggle of life. It just means I have to trust Augustine's interpretations of the Platonist view. There is no remedy for that as I just haven't progressed far enough through the BC list to cover it and this was always the negative side of deciding to start one of my AD lists along side it.

Book XIII
I found the discussion on the breath given to Adam to be quite interesting, I had not put any thought previously into whether the breath of life given to Adam was indeed the Holy Spirit or just the breath of God. Augustine concludes that it is just the breath of God and that is also what I had automatically thought but it has been interesting to consider.
I also found the discussion on whether Adam was immortal in body before the fall interesting and another thing I had not thought about in my reading of the bible text. Augustine's conclusion that he must have been is both easy to accept and yet rather unnecessary to the general understanding of the text. Actually a lot of these later arguments are starting to fall into that category, but I guess without these answers there is many a way to fall into heresy.

Book XIV
Maybe it was just the subject matter but this book seemed to go over the same concept repeatedly without adding much. Augustine is clearly of the opinion that before that before the fall was without lust of the sexual variety but that sex for procreation was still possible even if all we know is that Adam and Eve didn't bear children before they first sinned. I think that sex was clearly designed for pleasure and as such there must still have been a depth of feeling and love involved with it before sin entered the human race. I think Augustine's idea of without lust is correct but I feel he takes it to far into the realm of lack of feeling.

Book XV
Augustine spends a fair bit of his time in this book discussing and then throwing out the idea that the years of the ages in the genealogies, and the heresy of the time, that the years in that ancient time were equal to 10 of our years. One of the problem with this is that it would make the fathers to young to be sexually mature when they are said to have had their son. This is a heresy that I had not previously heard of, but I am unsure whether this is because Augustine disputed it so well and the modern church has not returned to the heresy or rather if it is just because it was a little known heresy to start with.
Dovetailing with this is Augustine's point that the genealogy is of select people so that it comes to Noah rather than first sons. This again is something I had not really put any thought into but it does help to answer why they were so old when they had the listed sons and surely they were sexually mature before 100.
The other thing that came up that I was not aware of was that there were discrepancies between the Septuagint and the Vulgate translations. Augustine discusses the particular discrepancies between the ages when the sons were born between the texts and generally refers to the Vulgate as having come from the Jewish texts and the translated Greek Septuagint that he had previously been working from. I knew about both translations but had not realised that in writing the Vulgate there had been a return of fidelity in the text for the Latin reader.

Book XVI
I feel like I'm saying I hadn't considered an idea before a lot at this point. That being said when Augustine puts together the Allegory of Abraham's sons and the Jews, the Church and the Heretics it made me stop and think, I'm used to seeing prophecies of Christ and foreshadowing of his first(and second) coming through out the Old Testament, but I had never put any thought into the Allegory surrounding the Church as Christ's bride but also as a descendant of the promise through Issac. As it is in the Epistles I had considered that the Church were descendants of Abraham through faith but the idea that you could ascribe as allegory the Jews to Abraham's son Ishmael, his son by natural means, was something I had not considered. 

The fact that Augustine put so much into Noah's sons and their reaction to his nakedness really surprised me I had not spent much time considering the implications or even just seeing it as just this odd piece of the text. Augustine takes the sons reactions and points out that the one who is cursed is the one who's reaction was to go and tell the others, that is to point out the nakedness rather than the two who are blessed who show their father the proper respect and cover him without looking. Though I wonder how they could have done so if they had not been told about it by their brother. Some more pondering needed on this one.

Comparisons

As I have said before there is not much external I can compare this to at this point, so instead I will compare it to itself. This section of City of God moves away from external threats and deals more with heresy within the church, it does this so far by stepping through the text of the bible itself, though it still tries to only concern itself with the two cities.
It has been refreshing to move onto text that is based on something (or things) that I have read in detail, though this does not stop Augustine referencing a philosopher or two in the process.
Augustine continues to show a snapshot into the heresies (and apologetics) of the past, both those we still have some people falling for today, and some I have never heard of before.

Have you read The City of God? If so what did you think of it?

Want to read The City of God but haven't? Hopefully this inspires you to take the time to do so.
Get a copy of The City of God.

Euripides, Medea; Bloody revenge of the scorned woman

 

So its been a rather productive if uneventful week. I've finished Euripides and have a buffer setup out to late December. Which when you consider I restarted this blog with a buffer of two weeks, is a very nice change. But that will slow down now as I work on the History of the Peloponnesian War, which is a fair bit longer than one of the Greek plays. I'm not sure yet whether it will be one, two or four posts, we will see how long and how much content is in it.

The Story
We meet Medea wailing in anger and sorrow that her husband Jason has taken another wife and in effect divorced her in the process. Jason has married the kings daughter. Medea's anger includes cursing Jason, his new wife and the king himself. The counsel of her friends cannot turn away her wrath and when her children come home her attendant warns them not to come into her sight as she fears for even the sons safety.
Creon the king comes to meet with her and is so scared of her anger against him and his daughter that he sends her into exile. She begs him to let her stay but he is mostly resolute. He does concede to allow her the day to prepare for exile. Once he leaves she plots to kill the three before she leaves but is still of two minds about how to accomplish this, poison or by running them through, she knows if she takes the second road she will not survive the experience.
Jason then comes to meet with her to try and smooth things by  providing for her as she goes into exile with money and introductions to friends of his where she may find refuge. She in her rage refuses the help and his explanation that he was only trying to secure her and his sons future by marrying again of a better station. Still Medea's anger rages on.
Aegeus King of Athens arrives and tells her of his trip to Delphi to consult the oracle about his lack of children. Medea tells him of her exile and gets him to swear an oath that she will find sanctuary in Athens, he does put on one caveat though, that she must get herself to Athens, he will not take her with him.
Medea hatches a plan to kill her husband and the king, Creon, and his daughter with poison, but her plan requires that she also kill her two sons. She organises for the sons to petition the princess to petition the king to allow them to stay in Corinth with their father. As part of this petition she sends them with a gold circlet and a dress for the princess which she laces with poison.
The boys return from the palace and Medea weeps over them, until a messenger comes running in to tell her to leave now.
The messenger recounts the grisly deaths of both the Princess and the King. Medea is joyful at the news, but the messenger is both aghast at her joyfulness and pleading with her to get away before the mob comes to get her. Medea steels herself to do the awful deed of killing her two sons, their cries are heard from inside but the chorus does nothing about it.
Jason arrives to snatch his children away least the vengeful mob, expected with the death of the king and with the killer being their mother, get them . But is informed by the chorus that they are dead. Medea appears on the roof in a chariot sent by the sun with both bodies of the boys and after she and Jason trade insults she departs leaving Jason to his childless fate.

Reflections
What a depressing story, it starts with one tragedy that of a wife put aside  and ends with a mother killing her children. Medea's plan is hatched with little regard for anything but her vengeance, showing the audience both the anger of a woman scorned but also of the tragedy of pursuing a second wife. It does give us some insight also into the process (or lack there of) of divorcing in the ancient Greek world. It seems that for the man it was as simple as to marry another woman, but Medea comments that she could not have chosen to put her husband aside under any situation, it just wasn't open to her as an option. 
We see a very crafty woman in this play, she knowingly get the king of Athens to swear that he will give her sanctuary in full knowledge that she commit multiple acts of murder between him taking the oath and him having to fulfill it. From this I wonder how Aegeus reacts when he realises what he has agreed too, because sanctuary would mean not only that she could live in Athens but that Athens would not turn her over to justice at anyone hand outside of the city's, to borrow a modern term, jurisdiction.
The Princess in the play is the real tragedy, all she has done to deserve such an end is to marry the man the King has prescribed for her. I can't see her having been given any say in the matter, as, from what I know, this is still an age of arranged marriages where Kings and Lords are involved. While Medea is still right to be angry with her for taking her husband, the princess seems to have really gotten a rough deal.

Comparisons
While this is a tragedy like we see in Oedipus or in The Libation Bearers what we have not seen before is a play that starts in tragedy that is not a continuation of another play. And as such this is the first play that does not through events descend into tragedy but rather that starts there and descends but further.
Also unlike the Oedipus saga we do not see the consequences of such abominable acts. Oedipus we see live on dealing with his blindness and wretchedness where as Medea just ends with her flying off in a sun chariot to go and live in Athens as far as we know.
Unlike Ion where Apollo has actions that are a huge part of the story. In Medea we see no real interaction with the gods, save Medea's sun chariot at the end. This makes for a much more human story and yet it is just as tragic.

Have you read Medea, if so what did you think?
Want to read Medea but haven't? Hopefully this inspires you to pick it up.
Get a copy of Medea. 

Euripides, The Bacchantes; I am a god, treat me as such

Its been a week of two distinct sides, on one hand I've been very productive both last week and this week and now have a buffer through to the end of November, on the other hand we buried one of the members of our church after his very sudden passing. This week coming I get a reprieve from the Greek plays and am reading the Edda from my Ad lit list, so I'm looking forward to the change of pace.
We are getting used to being in Tokoroa now and it has been a little over two months. We have chosen a church and joined the local RSA/club so now we have somewhere to go and socialise on a Friday evening, not that we are big drinkers mind you but the company is good.

I have had to re-read this play as too much time had elapsed between when I first read it and when I went to write about it, this is not something I plan to do often. The lists are just too large to spend a double amount of time on something!

The Story
Dionysus arrives in Thebes with the intention of teaching them to worship him as a god. He starts by relaying the story of his birth, how he is the son of Zeus and of Semele. He tells of Semele's death by lightning bolt and how Zeus rescued him from that fate and sewed him up in his thigh as a womb until his birth. He says he will drive the woman of Thebes mad in punishment for the thought that his mother was killed because she claimed she would bear Zeus' son not because Hera was mad. 

Tiresias , the blind seer, arrives and calls for Cadmus and together they, forgetting their old age, discuss joining the revelers giving praise to Dionysus, with dancing. Cadmus' grandson Pentheus, the current king of Thebes arrives and chastises them both for being dressed for the festival, he commands that the mysterious foreigner be brought to him bound and that all worshipers be arrested and bound in fetters. The guards return with Dionysus in tow and after a little discussion with Pentheus, Dionysus being very oblique and not answering questions in a straight fashion, Pentheus orders him to be bound and put in the dark of the stable. Dionysus states that Pentheus will not be able to bind him, but is seemingly bound and placed in the stable. Dionysus then causes the ground to shake and walks out. Pentheus finds him at the gate, after he attempts to attack a apparition of him and in doing so destroys the barn. 

Then a herdsman runs up and tells of what is happening with the women in the woods on the mountain and how they are dancing, have been miraculously provided with milk and wine and honey seemingly by the divine. And how when the men tried to apprehend them they went mad and after the men escaped tore their livestock limb from limb and then continue on to destroy and ravage a couple of towns.

Pentheus then enraged calls for the arming of his troop but Dionysus suggests he goes and spies on the women. Pentheus retreats to make a decision. Pentheus returns out of his mind, as the god had asked for, and with Dionysus' help dresses himself as a woman. They both exit the stage and then a messenger returns and tells the tale of Pentheus death at the hands of his mother, after he climbs a tree to see him better and is betrayed by Dionysus, the woman then tear down the tree and tear him limb from limb. His mother then mounts his head on wand and takes it back to Thebes and proceeds to order a feast for the young lion she has killed barehanded. Her father Cadmus comes to her and helps lift the madness and shows her it is the head of her son. Dionysus returns in his glory as a god and pronounces the fates of the woman of Pentheus' house and that of his father. The women are to be exiled and Cadmus and his wife are to be turned to snakes. The play ends with a comment on the ferocity of the wrath of a god.

Reflections

This is quite an interesting read it is a winding of a story/myth over something that must have taken place at some point. That is that at some point the worship of Dionysus came to Thebes from the east. It is easy as a modern reader to think of the Greek gods as a static group but this reminds us that occasionally the Greeks still borrowed gods from other areas and that their beliefs weren't entirely static. 

The story itself is the basic trope of a god scorned and getting revenge, though it does have its little bit of interesting additions and distractions. One of these is that Dionysus is in what should be his home town and yet because it is his hometown the king thinks he knows better.

It is also interesting to me that we see so much anger and wrath from Dionysus and yet he is the god of, well to borrow a phrase, sex, drugs and rock and roll. This seems to be quite diametrically opposite, yet it cannot cause to much discordance to its original audience or it would not have survived so well.

Euripides has framed Pentheus in a very stubborn and unseeing light and yet it is a bit fantastical from his point of view that a god from the east would come and basically drive half his city mad. If you knew someone died before birth would you really trust a stranger that says he's him and that he is a god? So while it is easy to put Pentheus aside from the way he is portrayed he does actually have something of a point even if he turn out to be wrong in the end.

Comparisons

This is the first time in the Greek plays a god is not automatically in a place of worship. Never before has there been a question on whether a god should have been offered to, whether it happened or not. This automatic regard for the gods says a lot about the mind set of the Greeks at the time of writing. It is not the first time we have seen a god get angry over the lack of offerings or worship for example Poseidon and the tragedy that he heaps on Odysseus in the Odyssey. 

In contrast to Ion also by Euripides where Ion is a demigod at best, where as Dionysus while also being a child of a god and a mortal woman is given the title and power of a full blown god. There seems to be no clue in the text as to why there is the difference and as it is so far the only example of godhood where as there are many examples, Achilles, Hercules and more, where they were just demigods.

Have you read The Bacchantes? If so what did you think of it?

Want to read The Bacchantes but haven't? Hopefully this inspires you to take the time to do so.
Get a copy of The Bacchantes.

Euripides, Helen; A nice ending

Ok so a bit of a disclaimer before you read this weeks post. This post is not my best work. It was written right before my hiatus, and my mental health was not good, and it shows in how terse this post is in places. So why didn't I re-write it you might ask? For two reasons that compound on each other. The first is that I read this over a year ago and do not remember the specifics; the second is that re-reading a book, especially when my lists are as long as they are, represents a time and effort cost that I'm not willing to pay in this case for reasons I have put in the post below. That being said I hope you still get something positive out of this blog post and that it is still illuminating you on the classics.

I'm enjoying getting back into the Greek plays though there is no "canon" as different stories portray the same characters in rather different lights. It is still rather interesting to see these different portrayals. Well we are officially 7 days into spring here in New Zealand but it seems no-one has told the weather. We have just bought a new car which is rather nice, but now I need to clean up the old one to sell and its really cold washing a car at the moment. 

The Story
Helen starts with Helen herself relating her woes. She is at the grave of the previous king of Egypt as a way to escape the advances of the current king of Egypt who wants her as his wife, she on the other hand wants to stay true to her Greek husband who went to Troy in search of her. She explains that it was not her that Hector stole away to Troy but that a god had sent a substitute in her place and that the Trojan war had been for nothing, well at least it had not been for her virtue.
She asks the Kings sister who is a prophetess if her husband Menelaus will ever come to find her and is told that he is coming.
Menelaus then arrives looking much worse for wear as he has been shipwrecked and is wearing only sailcloth. He inquires about seeing the king and asking for aid but is quickly dissuaded of this as the King kills all Greek men on sight. During this he reveals who he is and Helen explains to him who she is and they plot their escape.
It is decided that Menelaus will pretend to be one of his crewmen and announce his death to the King. Helen will then agree to marry the King as long as she can bury Menelaus at sea as is their, somewhat improvised, custom. The King agrees and leaves the preparation to the Greek man (secretly Menelaus). Who includes provisions and weapons as supposed offerings for the dead.
All the preparations for the mock funeral are made and the rest of Menelaus' crew get aboard and once they are out at sea they escape. When the King finds out he is furious as he has also been tricked by his sister who did not tell him of the deception. He instantly wants to kill his sister for her betrayal but is stopped by the messenger who told him of the escape. Then Dioscori appears and tells him he was never to have had Helen and that he should let her go with her husband. He then renounces his anger at his sister and at Helen.

Reflections
To be honest this whole play feels like wish fulfillment on Euripides part (which is a large part of why I didn't think it was worth re-reading). The idea that Helen had not gone to Troy and could then sail off into the sunset with her true husband undefiled seems too good to be true. And whether true or not Helen would still have come home to Greece with Menelaus, whether by recapture in Troy or by this fanciful meeting in Egypt.
Also the idea that Helen has been allowed to deny to marry the King for a long 10 years seems also a little far fetched when he is an absolute ruler. In saying that we do see her clinging to the burial of the previous King for protection so there must have at least been the threat of force.

Comparisons
This play gives a very different view of Helen than we have seen in the actions of other in the Iliad. She there is portrayed as complicit in the marrying and going with Paris to Troy and being the reason for the whole war against Troy. By contrast in this play she is portrayed as the chaste wife waiting for the return of her husband and denying herself to all others. Menelaus is also portrayed here as a rescuer but also as a schemer rather than as a warrior as we see him in the Iliad.

Have you read Helen? If so what did you think of it?

Want to read Helen but haven't? Hopefully this inspires you to take the time to do so.
Get a copy of Helen.

Augustine, City of God 1B; Why the Philosophers are wrong

First Post Back! And it's great to be here. It's currently Sunday night and I'm just reactivating all the accounts associated with this blog, mainly Email and Twitter. Just trying to get back into the swing of things. Its Fathers Day here today but that doesn't make it that much different from most Sundays, (I know the USA has a different date for Fathers Day, but at least New Zealand and Australia is today. I'm unsure if other countries have different days).

This is the second post in a series of four on Augustine's City of God, feel free to go back and read the first City of God 1A; Why the Pagans are wrong. In hindsight it possibly should have been a 22 part series but that would have taken nearly 2 years to post at one a month! And I didn't feel like getting that bogged down in one book... I will learn from the experience.

The Story

Book VI

In this book Augustine take the Roman idea (as it is published by Varro) that the religious is broken into three parts, the 'fabulous', the 'natural' and the 'civil', and piece by piece shows the folly of it.  First the 'fabulous' or that pertaining to the theater, he show that for the gods to be accepting of the offering of the theater that they must be no gods at all for the plays portray them in scathing light and without dignity for all the people to laugh at and be entertained by. He then moves on to put together a proof that the 'civil' division in fact is no different to the 'fabulous'. He shows that the offerings and rituals make as little sense as the plays as they also do not honour the gods, and that for some they require a man to be out of his mind to partake in them in the first place. He rounds this all off by pointing out that for the multitude of gods none is said to give eternal life and that it is still just the Christian or True God that gives this.

Book VII

Augustine continues with his dissection of the Roman religion by further looking into the section civil (which he has already offered proof is the same as the fabulous). He shows by various examples that Verro's explanation of the "select" gods (as he call them) is inconsistent at best and unintelligible at worst. He does so by giving various examples of how the king of the gods Janus should not be considered as king as he is not most powerful or relevant but rather that because the position of "selectness" is one of luck and fortune that fortune herself should be head of the gods.

He continues for there to explain how many gods have been ascribed supposed dominion of a given area and how Verro never finds a satisfactory argument to explain this. Augustine then concludes that the select gods can not be that great as they have their very dominions usurped by "trivial" gods.

Augustine finishes the book by turning back to what he calls true religion, that is faith in Jesus Christ, explaining the need to worship the creator not the created.

Book VIII
This book moves on from Verro to instead delve into the world of philosophy. While over the course of the book Augustine deals with a variety of schools of philosophy he pays special attention to the Platonist as he regards them as the closest to Christianity. They profess that logic dictates a singular creator god but do not go any further than this to arrive at "true" religion.
This then dovetails onto a discussion about demons, first that they can not be by there very nature the messengers of the gods as some philosophers would have it. That is to say if the gods are aloof from humanity they could not intermingle with the demons either. He then posits that even if the gods are in the gods are in the ether and, demons in the air and man in the realm of the ground, it does not follow that demons are above humans because they have no hope of doing or being good which has been established to be the basis of happiness.
Augustine ten surges on into a proof of the gods that the pagans worship especially those they make idols to, are really just demons. He even goes to quote Hermes of Egypt with his view that the man made gods are just an expression of disobedience and incorrect belief from the true God.

Book IX
Augustine continues with his discussion of the demons as mediator between man and God and again refutes it. This time he uses the example of Jesus Christ as the true mediator in that he was divine in character and mortal in body, but that even with the death of his mortal body he was bought back to life. He finds Christ a much better mediator in that his divine nature makes interrelating with God possible and fruitful but also that he understands our struggles. He also goes on to expound on how the demons react to the Christ and how it shows their depravity and incapacity for the mediation that the Platonist claim.

Book X
This book moves onto the writings of Porphyry, one of the later Platonist. Here he focuses on the soul, and its providence. This mainly consists of arguing against the ideas that the soul after death returns as a beast, as Plato himself supposed and of the idea that it returns from paradise to another human. He takes the view that for blessedness to be obtained one must know that it will be eternal so the idea of forgetting the misery of the mortal body and then desiring to return to mortal form seems both ludicrous and ill conceived.
Augustine also continues to discuss the truth of eternal life with God, and of Christ as the mediator and only way to achieve this blessedness. As well as using the final book of Part 1 to summarize the nub of his arguments.

Reflections

Book VI

It is interesting that the Romans conceptually broke down their religious practices. The 'civil' or the practices of the city are the most intriguing, it seems to acknowledge that the practice of the people differ from how the gods are worshiped in their own temples. While Augustine does not compare this directly to Christianity there is this underlying sense that Christian worship is more consistent.

The other thing of note is that even some Romans, and Augustine quotes them at length, disputed the civil and fabulous parts of the religion as unprofitable and over sensationalized.

Book VII

Augustine does a thorough job of pointing out the inconsistencies in the Roman religious pantheon. It is interesting that he chooses to use so many examples to poke not just one hole but many into the rationality of the Roman gods as a whole. He even goes so far as to go back to what Verro took as first principles and in doing so undermines his whole theory of how the pantheon both works and is constructed. From Augustine's focus on Verro I must conclude that Verro's work is both well known, widely know and well accepted in the roman public and academic sphere.

Book VIII
It is interesting to see Augustine argue from the very principles of the pagan philosophers and religious writers, that there is one true creator God and that all other gods are man made and therefor nothing more that carved images possessed by Demons. I wonder if this is the origin of the understanding that the gods of the pagans were just deceiving Demons or if this was already an established idea. It is also interesting to see, at least by reference, a pagan that understands that the pagan gods are man made and as such are a poor replacement for the true God.

Book IX
At first it seems like Augustine is going to repeat parts of the previous arguments, as he repeats some of the disputation of the idea that demons go as a mediator between the gods and man. But as he continues we see that he was just setting up a foil with which to contrast the true mediation of the Christ. In many ways he does not add a lot to his arguments other than this exposition of the mediation of Christ. Everything else of this book he has already proven in greater detail in the previous book.

Book X
Augustine in the act of summarizing the work so far spends a lot more time on the gospel of Christ than we see in previous books. His short introduction of what follows in part 2 shows that there will be a great shifting in focus from arguing against the beliefs of the world to more of a focus on Christianity, though I do not really expect to see an end to his arguments I just expect them to move to false doctrine rather than external beliefs.
It is interesting, and Augustine makes this point, that the later Platonist Porphyry, while seeming to hold Plato in high esteem, still dares to disagree entirely with his teacher on the point of what happens to human spirits after death. He seems to regard the idea that they would become the spirits of beasts to degrading and yet he posits that we come back again as humans from paradise. 
This idea of reincarnation I am used to associating with more eastern thought and religion, it makes me wonder if it was influenced by the thought coming out of the sub continent or if it was arrived at by its own means. And after a little research it seems that the answer to that very question is much debated with one side listing the similarities of the philosophers to the yogis of India and the other stating that we know where Plato traveled and it was further west not east. So I guess this one is a mystery.

Comparisons

At this point the only real comparisons to be made are with different parts of the City of God with itself. As I mentioned in the previous post on this book I have not got far enough through my BC list to have read the Philosophers being referenced by Augustine in this work. As such I look forward to reading Plato and Socrates and getting my own read on their philosophy and how it is flawed or well thought out in places.
The second half of this part seems far removed from the content of the first half which focused more on Christian thought and around what was happening in the empire at the time of its writing, while this half has been entirely focused on the religions, and I count Philosophy as one of them, of the secular Romans of the empire.

Have you read The City of God? If so what did you think of it?

Want to read The City of God but haven't? Hopefully this inspires you to take the time to do so.
Get a copy of The City of God.

Another new start

 

Hello again, to all of you who are still here. I know it has been a while, but this is a project that, while it may get put down from time to time is burnt into my brain and something I always want to come back to.

So here we go back into these crazy lists of literature, mainly ancient but intermingled with the only the slightly less ancient AD literature list. The plan is still to post the  AD literature list once a month and weekly book updates from the BC list. So tomorrow there will be a post from the AD literature list, ongoing this will be the first Monday of the month but for this first one its tomorrow.

A few changes you will notice, my husband and I have decided that due to both cost and space restrictions I am going to start working with ebook copies of these classics. This means no more pictures of the books in the blog posts as I will no longer have books to photograph. I still like to have a picture at the top of the post so you will be seeing a lot more of my owl avatar which was put together for my by my good friend and artist Anna O'Dea.

Just to update you all, my husband and I have moved to Tokoroa (New Zealand). It was sad to say good bye to Hamilton, which for both of us was our university town, in saying that, it is only a little over an hours drive and we keep finding reasons to drive back, it's something we are working on. With this move and job change my hubby is no longer driving trucks but rather planning truck loading and scheduling for his new employer.

That's about it for an update, and re-commencement. Wish me luck, I do not have as big of a buffer as I would have hoped for but at least I've finished City of God.