and sinuous-minded Kronos,

that might spread the fame of past and future, and commanded me to hymn the race of the deathless gods, but always begin and end my song with  them.

“Listen, you country bumpkins, you pot-bellied blockheads, we know how to tell many lies that pass for  truth, and when we wish, we know to tell the truth itself.”

It was they who taught Hesiod beautiful song

to Gaia,

Eos, Helios, and bright Selene,

So spoke Zeus’s daughters, masters of word-craft, and from a laurel in full bloom they plucked  a branch, and gave it to me as a staff, and then breathed into  me divine song, that might spread the fame of past and future, and commanded me to hymn the race of the deathless gods, but always begin and end my song with  them.

“Listen, you country bumpkins, you pot-bellied blockheads, we know how to tell many lies that pass for  truth,

Aphrodite of the fluttering eyelids,

aegis-bearing Zeus and queenly Hera, the lady of Argos who walks in golden sandals; gray-eyed Athena, daughter of aegis-bearing Zeus, and Phoibos Apollon and arrow-shooting Artemis.

They bathe their lithe bodies in the water  of Permessos or of Hippokrene or of god-haunted Olmeios. On Helikon’s peak they join hands in lovely dances and their pounding feet awaken desire.

Helikonian Muses whose domain is Helikon, the great god-haunted  mountain;

Du Fu

Jinn / Genie / Demon

I like what I look at, but what I look at and like I can’t locate–”   (So great is the confusion in which this lover wanders, lost!)   “My pain is even greater, for no ocean lies between us, nor some highway without end, nor mountain range to cross, nor gates to scale: only this shallow pool! He would be held, for every time I lean down to the surface and offer him my willing mouth to kiss, he, on his back, lifts up his lips toward mine– you’d think he could be touched! So very small a thing it is that keeps us from our loving! Come out and show yourself! Why do you mock me, singular boy? Where do you take yourself? Surely I’m young and sufficiently attractive to stay your flight! Why, even nymphs have loved me! I’ve no idea what hopes you mean to raise with that come-hither look of yours, but when I’ve reached down toward you, you’ve reached up again, and when I laughed, why, you laughed too, and often I have seen tears on your cheeks when I wept; you second all my motions, and the movement of your bow-shaped lips suggests that you respond with words to mine–although I never hear them!   But now I get it! I am that other one! I’ve finally seen through my own image! I burn with love for–me! The spark I kindle is the torch I carry: whatever can I do? Am I the favor-seeker, or the favor sought? Why seek at all, when all that I desire is mine already? Riches in such abundance that I’ve been left completely without means! Oh, would that I were able to secede from my own body, depart from what I love! (Now that‘s an odd request from any lover.) My grief is draining me, my end is near; soon I will be extinguished in my prime. This death is no grave matter, for it brings an end to sorrow. Of course, I would have been delighted if my beloved could have lived on, but now in death we two will merge as one.”   Maddened by grief, he spoke and then turned back to his image in the water, which his tears had troubled; when he saw it darkly wavering, he cried out, “Stay! Where are you going? O cruel, to desert your lover! Touch may be forbidden, but looking isn’t: then let me look at you and feed my wretched frenzy on your image.”   And while he mourned, he lifted up his tunic and with hard palms, he beat on his bare breasts until his skin took on a rosy color, as parti-colored apples blanch and blush, or clustered grapes, that sometimes will assume a tinge of purple in their unripened state; the water clears; he sees what he has done and can bear no more; just as the golden wax melts when it’s warmed, or as the morning’s frost retreats before the early sun’s scant heat, so he dissolves, wasted by his passion slowly consumed by fires deep within. Now is no more the blushing white complexion, the manly strength and all that pleased the eye, the figure that was once quite dear to Echo. And seeing this, she mourned although still mindful of her angry pain; as often as the wretched boy cried, “Alas!” she answered with “Alas!” And when he struck his torso with his fists, Echo responded with the same tattoo. His last words were directed to the pool: “Alas, dear boy, whom I have vainly cherished!” Those words returned to him again, and when he cried “Farewell!” “Farewell!” cried Echo back. His weary head sank to the grass; death closed those eyes transfixed once by their master’s beauty, but on the ferry ride across the Styx, his gaze into its current did not waver. The water nymphs, his sisters, cut their locks in mourning for him, and the wood nymphs, too, and Echo echoed all their lamentations; but after they’d arranged his funeral, gotten the logs, the bier, the brandished torches, the boy’s remains were nowhere to be found; instead, a flower, whose white petals fit closely around a saffron-colored center.       Categories Antigone creation myths greece instructor's note maya civilization mesopotamia online work week 2 Online Work Week 3 online work week 5 online work week 6 Plato and Socrates recipe week 1 thousand and one nights Uncategorized Recent Posts Work for Thursday – Thousand and One Nights SOPHOCLES, ANTIGONE Questions 1,3 and 4 Readings for Tuesday’s Class Antigone – Answered Questions Recent Commentsj.wu32 on Readings for Tuesday’s Classj.green on Please sign up for Greek Theatre Topic!j.picotte on Please sign up for Greek Theatre Topic!k.butler on Please sign up for Greek Theatre Topic!AGeertsma on Work for next TuesdayTags845to718 accountingmajor adaptable affectionate analysis Antigone anxious Baptism Beginning Creon dreamer Ea english Enuma Elish food Gaia Gods greece Greece Dark Ages hardworker Hesiod immigrant intro Jamaican Jewish King's Role korean lazy Marduk Mayan Muses Persuasion Polytheistic Popol Vuh recipe Religion rhetoric sassy server Socrates tenneessee Theogony Tiamat welcome Zeus

He’d trifled with her and so many others, water nymphs, nymphs of the wooded mountains, as well as a host of male admirers.

but in his yielding beauty was such inflexibility and pride that no young man or woman ever moved him.

Now, only voice is left of her, on wooded mountainsides, unseen by any, although heard by all;

And yet her love endured, increased even, by feeding on her sorrow: unsleeping grief wasted her sad body,

at the hands of what breed of men– all for reverence, my reverence for the gods!

Oh god, the voice of death. It’s come, it’s here.   Creon: True. Not a word of hope–your doom is sealed.

What threat? Combating your empty, mindless judgments with a word?

Let her find a husband down among the dead.

No marriage could ever mean more to me than you, whatever good direction you may offer.

Here’s Haemon now, the last of all your sons. Does he come in tears for his bride, his doomed bride, Antigone– bitter at being cheated of their marriage?

Blest, they are the truly blest who all their lives have never tasted devastation.

Nor did I think your edict had such force that you, a mere mortal, could override the gods, the great unwritten, unshakable traditions.

it made me ache and laugh in the same breath.

And she scoops up dry dust, handfuls, quickly, and lifting a fine bronze urn, lifting it high and pouring, she crowns the dead with three full libations.  

What? You mean what you say, you’re telling me the truth?

Wretched, child of a wretched father,

I could never stand by silent, watching destruction march against our city, putting safety to rout, nor could I ever make that man a friend of mine who menaces our country. Remember this: our country is our safety. Only while she voyages true on course can we establish friendships, truer than blood itself. Such are my standards. They make our city great.

As I see it, whoever assumes the task, the awesome task of setting the city’s course, and refuses to adopt the soundest policies but fearing someone, keeps his lips locked tight, he’s utterly worthless.

Creon, the new man for the new day, whatever the gods are sending now… what new plan will he launch? Why this, this special session? Why this sudden call to the old men summoned at one command?

for the twin conquest– clashed and won the common prize of death.

Zeus hates with a vengeance all bravado, the mighty boasts of men.

the enemy out of Argos, the white shield, the man of bronze– he’s flying headlong now the bridle of fate stampeding him with pain!

Ismene: What? You’d bury him– when a law forbids the city?   Antigone: Yes! He is my brother and–deny it as you will– your brother too. No one will ever convict me for a traitor.

Decide. Will you share the labor, share the work?

no joy or pain has come my way, not since the two of us were robbed of our two brothers, both gone in a day, a double blow– not since the armies of Argos vanished, just this very night.

how many griefs our father Oedipus handed down!

Thebes and “Seven against Thebes”

Chaos gave birth to Erebos and black Night; then Erebos mated with Night and made her pregnant and she in turn gave birth to Ether and Day. Gaia now first gave birth to starry Ouranos, her match in size, to encompass all of her, and be the firm seat of all the blessed gods.

A man may have some fresh grief over which to mourn, and sorrow may have left him no more tears, but if a singer, a servant of the Muses, sings the glories of ancient men and hymns the blessed gods who dwell on Olympos, the heavy-hearted man soon shakes off his dark mood, and oblivion soothes his grief, for this gift of the gods diverts his mind.

This is why kings are prudent, and when in the assembly injustice is done, wrongs are righted by the kings with ease and gentle persuasion.

nine  nights.

Mnemosyne, mistress of the Eleutherian hills, lay with father Zeus and in Pieria gave birth to the Muses

Helios, and bright Selene,

they join hands in lovely dances and their pounding feet awaken desire.

altar of mighty Zeus.