Background

Sometime in the autumn of 2001, I was searching for Classics news for this website when I
came across an article in the Daily Telegraph revealing that a Latin translationof Harry Potter &
the Philosopher's Stone was under way (by Peter Needham, now published by Bloomsbury
Press as Harrius Potter et Philosophi Lapis). It also mentioned that they were intending to bring
out an ancient Greek version, "believed to be the first time a children's classic will have been
translated into Greek", but were having difficulty finding a translator. "J K Rowling [who
studied Latin at Exeter university] and her publishers hope that the translations will help
children overcome the common dread of studying the two dead languages - where wars in Gaul
and Virgil's thoughts on beekeeping can be as exciting as it gets." This would seem to be true, as
according to a more recent Telegraph report, in the United States "The use of Latin in J K
Rowling's books has prompted a surge of interest in the classics among high school students.
After decades of decline, the numbers taking Latin for college credits has soared by 80 per cent
since the first book was published in the United States six years ago" (Daily Telegraph 2
February 2003).
On a wild impulse I wrote to The Children's Book Commissioning Editor at Bloomsbury Press,
offering my services. Greek prose composition had been my favorite thing at school and
university - though of course we spent at least three hours working on about a paragraph of
English to be turned into Greek. I didn't really expect to hear any more - my offer was in a
slightly jokey form - but some weeks later I received a phonecall from Emma Matthewson at
Bloomsbury telling me that they were indeed serious about an ancient Greek version, and would
I like to do a specimen chapter? I said yes, and took Harry (the publishers kindly supplied me
with a copy, as I had never read the book!) and my Liddell & Scott lexicon on holiday with me
to the Caribbean, and concocted a version of chapter 1, plus a little bit of the Quidditch episode
in chapter 11. In early January 2002 I submitted my draft, it was approved and I was offered a
contract to complete the task by January 1st 2003.

The aim
My intention was to recreate a version of the book which would make sense to a Greek from
any era up to the 4th century AD who had managed by some magical process (such as would
only be taught only to very advanced students at Hogwarts!) to reach the 21st century. Objects
and ideas would be unfamiliar - but once he'd got used to his new surroundings, the book would
make complete sense. So I thought it was very important to have this time-travelling Greek in
mind at all times, and continually ask myself "would that have any meaning for him? what
would he make of that?" In other words a cultural transposition is involved, not just finding the
words. Perhaps one could conceive of a device like the Teleporter in Star Trek - no more
fanciful than many things actually dscribed in the JKR corpus!

The work proceeds

Before getting down to the translation I had to find a style - J K Rowling would not lend herself
to the style of Thucydides or Plato or Demosthenes (who had been our main models for prose
composition). But there are Greek novels (Charitons's Callirhoe, Achilles Tatius' Cleitophon
and Leucippe, Longus' Daphnis and Chloe, Heliodorus' African Story) all of whom I read, along
with the entire works of Lucian - a most entertaining task. Lucian's humorous tongue-in-cheek
approach, together with his fantastical notions such as The True History (which is guaranteed to
contain not a single word of truth) soon convinced me that he was the closest writer in ancient
Greek to J K R. So Lucian became my model - his Greek, despite his date (3rd century AD) is
(almost) pure 5th century BC Attic, which was being recycled at the time. But this also gave me
an excuse for using vocabulary from post-classical sources, without which it would have been

impossible to proceed. He was also, like me, a Greek through culture and education, not
ethnicity.
Lucian also has something in common with JKR. Many critics have remarked on her "lack of
originality" - with obvious influences being Enid Blyton's school stories, Just William, Billy
Bunter, Tolkien, and so on. In fact she is part of a fine classical tradition of mimesis - borrowing,
adapting, personalising- not stealing, as Longinus points out. As Ted Brennan points out in a
flattering review of my ancient Greek Harry Potter, if we are to condemn this in her, we must
also condemn it in that supreme classical master of mimesis, Virgil himself. But Lucian too was
part of the mimesis scene. Despite the unprecedented prosperity of the contemporary Roman
world in his day (he lived under the "Five Good Emperors" from about 120 to about 180 AD),
Lucian and his fellow writers were voluntary prisoners of the past: writing in time-honoured
formats, re-using antique themes and even reprocessing the Greek language as it had been
written 400 years previously in the glory days of Athens. No references to the contemporary
world, total denial of the koine, the common speech of the Greek world at the time.
I also read a lot of Euripides, Aristophanes, Herodotus - and medical and magical writers, for
specialised magical and medical vocabulary is not covered in Woodhouse's Dictionary! It was
necessary to read Hippocrates to discover words like (a boil). On papyri I found spells far
more outlandish that Hermione's. Liddell & Scott was indispensable - and I also needed
inspiration from modern Greek quite frequently: my most useful possession is a 19th century
"Dictionary of the English and Modern Greek Languages, as actually written and spoken" by A
N Jannaris, PhD, published by John Murray in 1895. This helped me find [he
hamaxostoichia] for "the train" rather than [to treno]. I worked in beta code, because all
ancient Greek fonts map to the qwerty keyboard idiosyncratically - and I didn't want to force a
particular font on to the printers. Quotations on this page will show as proper ancient Greek if
you are using Windows XP or have the font Palatino Linotype installed: if not and you'd like to
install the font go here to download it: http://www.ellopos.net/elpenor/greek-texts/greekfonts.asp
You can see an extract here (whatever fonts you have on your machine!) in fully accented
ancient Greek. It's Lee Jordan's commentary on the Quidditch Game - which you can also hear
me read - see below. I worked mostly at home, but also very productively in the Classics
Faculty Library in Cambridge, and - thanks to my trusty HP Jornada hand-held computer - on
trains, boats and planes, in bars and cafs around the world. Enormous thanks are due to Keith
Maclennan, formerly Head of Classics at Rugby school, for his wise advice and inspired
suggestions, and to Dr Manuela Tecusan for painstaking assistance with the highly complex
proof reading. But translating Harry has been the most enjoyable hard work of my life.

Ancient authors
As well as my very obvious debt to Lucian, alert readers will note numerous borrowings from
other classic (Aeschylean moments for example at the start of chapter 2 -
. I was doubtless attempting to convey the epic grandeur of JKR's little tale, and also evoke
the sense of tragedy which looms over the house of Dursley as surely as it did over the House of
Atreus. Mrs Dursley has something of a Clytemnestra about her; and Hagrid - like the
watchman in Agamemnon - finds an ox on his tongue at some point). But there are hidden gems
from Homer, Thucydides, Plato and many others for those wise enough to discern them. This is
of course good classical practice, where recycling was properly regarded as a compliment to the
original writer. Aristophanes' dung beetle in Peace provides ("the size of Etna" see also
below under noises) for very big things (used sparingly). Other Aristophanic phrases include
for the last day of the month (Clouds) and Dumbledore says somewhere
(Frogs) - the lewd connotation may well not have escaped the astute scholar!
Menander was a great source for interjections and conversational style, as were the Letters of

Alciphron. There are numerous Homeric echoes - Dumbledore is particularly fond of the
occasional epic turn of phrase, such as . Another Homeric
echo is the use of to describe darling Dudley. Even the Greeks didn't really know
what was supposed to mean exactly, but it's only ever used to describe some special,
cherished child, Agamemnon's son Orestes for example. Ironically though, it is Harry who will
have to avenge a murdered parent, not Dudley.

Problems
Proper names Less of a problem than I thought they'd be. I followed Herodotus' principle of
trying to make outlandish names seem native to Greek - some were easy: Auntie Marge
becomes [Marge](= the mad woman in Greek), Malfoi becomes [malakos](=
soft,wuss in Greek - not an insult to be used lightly even today: this explains why everyone
laughs at his name), Crabbe and Goyle become [Karkinos kai Kerkops]
(recalling the Kerkopes, dim-witted brothers caught by Heracles). Ron becomes [Rhoon]
(rather charmingly, the Greek for a pomegranate orchard), Muggles
become [Mugaloi]Greek for field-mice, quite appropriately), McGonagall becomes the
homophonous [Magonogalea](witch-sweetie - also contains [galea] which is
a word used for a small pet animal, like a cat?) and Dumbledore is (double = -,
therefore dumble = - !). Similarly Quirrell becomes [Kiouros]
(Greek [skiouros] = squirrel). The house names had to fit into iambic verse, for the
Sorting Hat's song, but still end up sounding vaguely Greek. Sirius Black become
[Seirios ho melas]. And some names are already Greek (Draco, Hermione, George,
Daedalus) and some could just be translated (Bane becomes [Ateros], Fang
becomes [Dakos]). Hagrid - suggests Greek [agrios] (= wild, savage).
Voldemort rather nicely becomes [Pholidomortos] = Scaly Death (-[pholido-]
being Greek for scale, as in snake, and the mort- root means fate - same as Latin mors,
mortis death.) Hogwarts I'm particularly proud of - not only does [Hyogoetou] sound
much like the original (by the way it's in the genitive case on the analogy of , Hades,
standing for "the house of Hades". I imagine there must have been an eponymous Hogwart, like
Tiffin or Bancroft or Blundell - or more likely in Edinburgh's Fette or George Watson), but it
also derives from [hyo-]the root for hog, and [goetes] the word for wizard. JKR's
cunningly punning Diagon Alley becomes [ho stenopos diagon] - "the lane that
leads one through". And Harry Potter is [Hareios Poter]- [areios] means
"belonging to Ares", the war god - appropriate for the young warrior, and [poter] is a
Greek word for "cup" or "goblet" - presumably the cup of wisdom from which Harry must
quickly learn to drink deeply. Other names: the Weaslies become the homophonous suggesting good people, with sunny dispositions: Percy is of course Perseus, an equivalent
crusader for right, and Fred is the bringer of justice. The toad-loving Neville
Longbottom transcibes to - the first name suggests "foggy" and the
surname is actually funnier in Greek. Ron's rat Scabbers has a name from Latin: which
is catchier than the Greek . The odious Snape becomes the nearhomophone derived appropriately from , mustard. The pesky poltergeist Peeves
is - the snorter or hisser, and the janitor Filch I renamed , Greek for a wild fig,
which means "deceiver", as according to Liddell & Scott wild figs deceive people into thinking
they are real figs. The amiable professor Flitwick is no longer named after an obscure
Bedfordshire village, but has the more suitable but similar-sounding , the lovable one. I
rather wish I'd called Dudley which would have meant "he who resembles a beetroot".
His skinny pal Piers is called (Fatso) on the analogy of Little John (or Varro's lucus a non
lucendo). Uncle Vernon is In Greek it's very similar to , a fish-basket. It also
suggests , the personal property which belongs to the wife in a marriage. This seems very
appropriate for the "hen-pecked" Dursley.

Special vocabulary - Quidditch becomes [ikarosphairike] (on the analogy

of [podosphairike] for football and [kalathosphairike] for
basketball- with which Quidditch is compared). Lucian calls Menippus the philosopher
Icaromenippus after his alleged trip to the moon - that's where I got the idea. The quaffle has the
near homophone (with the sort of metathesis that Greeks often applied to foreign
words) [kolophon] which means a ball in Greek, and a bludger
is [rhopalosphairion], reminding us of a ball which acts like Heracles' club! The
beaters are - a word I also use for the Hammers, the football team supported by Dean
the West Ham fan. The snitch is [phthasteon], meaning "that which must be
anticipated" from [phthano], a fantastic Greek verb with no English equivalent, meaning
"I do something before someone else realises that I'm doing it". The philosopher's stone (why
the apostrophe before the s, I asked myself?) becomes [he tou philosophou
lithos]. If you are worried about the gender of [lithos] I assure you it becomes feminine
when referring to a special stone.
Modern terms. Train I've already mentioned other modern phenomena such as rifles, bombs,
computers, tape-recorders, watches, racing-bikes,
motor-cycles, traffic lights and so on were dealt
with similarly, using the oldest modern Greek I
could find - preferably with obvious classical roots
- like [hamaxostoichia], where the
Greek evokes carriages or waggons in a line.
Sometimes - in the manner of Herodotus explaining
strange ethnic customs - I sometimes have a short digression which might help an ancient Greek
to understand a totally unfamilar object (like a parking meter). I'm sure - like modern Greeks he'd be quite happy to call a car an [autokineton],a self-moving something, and
assume that the word , chariot, was understood. The Hogwarts Express becomes
[okyporos hyogoetike], with [hamaxostoichia] of course understood, and
it leaves from [Stauros Basileios], of course. Telephones and televisions make
use of the Greek prefix - . Readers should have no trouble with terms such
as (librarian), () (spectacles - half-moon), (putter-outer).
Cultural problems. There were many, one of the more obvious being relationships - the
patriarchal Greeks not really concerning themselves with relationships like mother's sister (very
important for Harry of course) because once married a Greek bride would have little contact
with her former family. There does exist a word for aunt (mother's as opposed to father's sister),
but it's rare - although the Greeks had a word for "women whose husbands are brothers"
- [einateres] - because this might be important if one of the brothers died. Uncle Vernon
is described as retiring to the to listen to the news - he'd have been very happy to have
his own men's quarters! There are no slaves - even though Harry is treated worse than an
Athenian household slave; though Petunia does let slip that she thinks the name Harry is
, which is my translation "a nasty common name". Strangely, the owl postal
system is much closer to ancient Greek practice - hand a letter to someone and tell them who to
deliver it to.
Time was another one - Greeks had little interest in "telling the time" although they did have
devices for measuring how much had elapsed (water clocks for timing speeches, for example).
Nor did they care about minutes, let alone seconds! The nearest we get to specific times are
Thucydides' phrases for "at about the time the market-place begins to fill up", or "at about the
time the oxen begin to head home from pasture". (I'm reminded of the remark that "There is no
word in Gaelic that quite conveys the urgency of maana.") Likewise months and years "Ollivanders, wand-makers since 382 BC." The year 382 BC translates into "when Evander was
archon" quite neatly, but dates AD have had to be done more conventionally. Each Greek city

had its own system of months - so I've used the Roman ones we are familiar with to avoid
complete confusion!
And colours - it's little appreciated how languages divide up the visible spectum of light in their
own way - our red orange yellow etc is of course completely arbitrary- the spectrum is a
continuum. The Greeks had very few real colour-words- Homer's "wine-looking, wine-faced"
sea is a typical circumlocution (if it in fact means that - the traditional "wine-dark" is a romantic
suggestion). So you will have to judge how I've dealt with the various yellows, blues, greens
and other colours that JKR is so fond of - especially pink (the Romans invented the word - it
comes from puniceus, the Carthaginian/Punic colour - which was the result of dyeing cloth with
a sea mollusc whose identity is now unknown! But it was the "purple" of the emperors inappropriate surely for a blush or or Dudley's baby photos!) So you'll have to tolerate "dustcoloured" for grey, "violet-coloured" for purple, "frog-coloured" or "leek-coloured" for green
(for which the Greeks genuinely had no common word).
Food is a major preoccupation with Harry and his friends, just as it is with Odysseus - both have
suffered privation, and intend to make the most of any opportunity to eat. Harry's diet, though,
one has to say, is far from the healthy ideal of "five-a-day" - he eats mainly sweets, ice cream
and the occasional burger. Even Dumbledore, the philospher king of Hogwarts is addicted to
sweets - can one imagine Socrates or Plato sucking lemon sherbets? The Greeks ate a simple
healthy diet, involving bread, vegetables and fruit - none which (except potatoes - -in
every guise) are available at Hogwarts. In fact one of the most disgusting flavours for Bertie
Bott's Everyflavour Beans was - sprouts! JKR is not encouraging her readers to eat their greens.
The Dursleys have a fried breakfast every morning - and eggs and milk are delivered daily - so
why is Harry so undersized? The feasts - three in HP1 - are far more splendid than anything
Aristophanes could imagine - even with his wartime deprivation to encourage him. One or two
problems needed special ingenuity - trifle is (zuppa inglese!), a marsh mallow
is .
Clothes are obviously a particular problem. Greeks did not wear trousers, jackets, coats - and
most importantly had no pockets. Hagrid's coat of many pockets would have been a thing of
wonder and mystery. The school uniform at Hogwarts thankfully involves cloaks - which were
well-known to the Greeks. But the knickerbockers and tailcoat worn by Dudley at Smeltings ...
The natural world of the Mediterranean: this surfaces right at the start - there is no Greek word
for privet as in Privet Drive, so I have had to substitute an equally uninteresting Mediterranean
shrub - myrtle. (Nor of course did Greeks number their house or name their streets - the first
sentence is the most problematical in the entire book!) Tawny and Snowy Owls are unknown in
Greece - but they had a dozen or more words for owl which it's difficult to assign to particular
species: the scientists call the Little Owl - the symbol of Athens - "Athene" in her honour.
Hedwig is called [glaux], the commonest ancient word, which does probably apply to
Athene noctua, the Little Owl (Athena is called [glaukopis] by Homer, meaning
probably "owl-faced", rather than "grey-eyed" or "bright-eyed". A Little Owl might have caused
the Muggles on the Underground less excitement!). Hedwig becomes [Hedyiktin]
"sweet kite" which I quite like. There seems to be no word in Greek for "badger" - tough on the
Hufflepuffs - they seem to have used the word [galea] indiscriminately for all small to
medium size animals. And they don't distinguish between mice and rats - [mus] has to do for
both (sorry, Scabbers!). [See here for further discussion on the mouse/rat problem]. There also
seems to be a gender problem with some animals - all cats are masculine (as all bears are
feminine) - which makes the surprise even greater when McGonagall reveals herself to
Dumbledore. Mrs Norris' gender remains female (certainly not neutered!).
And also noises: an ancient Greek got by with one or two words which did duty for every kind
of noise from a snap to a crackle to a pop to a bang to a rustle to a toot to a creak to a clunk to a

click - this makes life difficult, and I had to avoid over-using comparisons with Mount Etna probably the only really loud noise ever heard in the ancient world! Somewhat bathetically, I do
use it for the wizard cracker in chapter 12 which "went of with blast like a cannon". But we just
take it for granted in English how many words we have for different kinds and intensities of
sound.
Songs and verse: In the original these are mostly what could charitably be described as
doggerel -the Sorting Hat's song for instance and the "school song" ("Hoggy Wart Hogwarts").
In Greek there is no such thing - either it is well-disciplined verse that scans or it isn't verse at
all. JKR's lyrics have, I feel, in all modesty, been considerably improved in translation into
iambics or elegiac couplets!
Mythological references: Fluffy, the three-headed dog is obviously Cerberus.

COMENTARY AND NOTES

Chapter 1: The Boy Who Lived
Page 1
. No attempt has been made to translate the English "Potter" (Greek ) - rather
the phonetic equivalence has been preserved. The Greek word means cup or goblet. You
may recall the passage about the drunken Heracles in Euripides' Alcestis:
'
, ,
', , .
'
,
'
.
The ivy-wood cup sounds just like something that would have been most appropriate for a feast
at Hogwarts. Many may feel that Harry is in some way an empty vessel waiting to be filled with
magical lore. See below
without the rough breathing occurs as a name in Greece - meaning of course "the man
of Ares", the warrior. This seems a most suitable name for young Harry - whose name in
English recalls Shakespeare's Prince Harry, educated in the Boar's tavern (like Hogwarts) before
graduating as the foremost warrior of his age. The rough breathing is inexplicable - one is
reminded of Catullus's Arrius, who becomes Harrius! (Catulli Carmina 84).
Dursley and his woman: in England a married woman often takes the
name of her husband, preceded by the title Mrs (mistress)- the couple will be known as (for
instance) Mr (master) and Mrs Dursley. Dursley appears to derive from the name of a pleasant
country town in England - but it might also suggest other English words beginning with a
similar sound (dull, dun, dour, durable, dust, dung).

 The street of the myrtles. The English like to call their streets drive, avenue,
close - all evoking a grandeur that such roads seldom possess. In England, the Dursleys live in
Privet Drive - privet being a dull evergreen clipped into neat hedges - the name also evoking
"private" - what goes on behind the privet hedge being very personal to the English occupant
("an Englishman's home is his castle"). The picket fence traditionally performs a similar role in
the USA. Myrtles in Greece are common, and - like privet - have neither attractive flowers nor
foliage (although they smell better!)
Drills. This is an English pun - drills are used for boring holes - thus drill
manufacture must be "boring" (ie annoyingly uninteresting) like Dursley himself. JKR equates
the desire of the Dursleys to appear normal to themselves with being boring to others. Their
worst fear is that their neighbours might find out something "interesting" which could be used to
gossip about them.
: the English often distinguish people by their hair colour (which differs markedly
among them, unlike our uniform black in Greece). Those with blonde hair like the Dursley
woman are often characterised as less intelligent.
JKR has "craning". Most English people have never seen a crane (or
an owl, as it appears soon), but use this verb for stretching out the neck in an inquisitive manner.
In order to preserve their normality, the Durlseys must be continually checking the neighbours'
activities: the Dursley woman - who is naturally uses this endowment to peer over
the wall "like a crane" at those next door.
Dudley: the Dursley son is named after a town in the English midlands - but it's
probably intended to suggest the du- words (see Dursley above), with additional connotations of
dud and dunce.
Potters. The first mention of the name: in English a potter is one who makes pots or
ceramics - Greek . We know them well from our Potter's Quarter in Athens
()! But of course in Greek means "drinking vessel" (which would probably
have been made by a Greek potter!) - an appropriate name for one in whose life potions will
play a large part. Lucian has the actual phrase (pottery cup). Harry only
drinks draughts of wisdom from it, of course.
Page 2
... the first event in JKR's tale is not of course the birth of Harry, but this is felt to be
the starting point of her essentially linear narrative. She doesn't start in Homeric fashion in midstory (Odyssey) or near the end (Iliad) - her epic technique is the very basic "start at the
beginning and carry on to the end" - this imparts an effectively simple childlike quality to the
story-telling.
. England is frequently thought of as fog-bound - compare Dickens' Great
Expectations, for example. In fact the famed "peasoupers" which we Greeks imagine northern
Europe to be enveloped by have been practically unkown there since the Clean Air Act of 1956.

. Neck-binder - this is a "tie", an item of formal attire worn round the neck by
office-workers and schoolchildren. It is often the only brightly-coloured thing (emblazoned
perhaps with a cartoon character from a Walt Disney film) contrasting with the grey uniformity
of a "suit". Dursley obviously owns several ties: he chooses his most unpleasant one (unpleasant
to onlookers presumably, not himself!).
. English babies are imprisoned in wooden "high chairs" very similar to the ceramic
ones we use in Athens.

. We don't have this type of owl in

Greece. is Athena's sacred bird, which they call here the
Little Owl. The English bird is the Tawny Owl, larger and darker.
As Greeks will know, the Little Owl is in fact very frequently
seen in the daytime!
. In England and elsewhere - even in Greece today - nearly everyone has
a self-mobile personal chariot, called a car, or automobile - hence , a literal Greek
translation of the Latin word.
. Towards the market-place. English cities don't really have an agora: their citycentres are filled with tall buildings, which contain "offices" ()- rooms where people
"work". This work mainly consists of sitting in a chair and talking to people in other offices,
using the "telephone". Men in offices must wear ties round their necks at all times (see note
on above).
Our word for cat is of course always masculine gender, just as our bears are always
feminine. This makes it all the more surprising for us when this particular cat turns out to be a
woman in disguise!
This is what they call a map - a "picture describing the land". We don't
have such things in Athens, as everyone who lives there knows where everything is - and a
stranger will just have to keep asking. But although all their streets have names and all their
houses have numbers, the English still have problems finding their way, and rely on these maps,
rather than risk talking to a stranger! The Persians had something similar - but we all know how
Cleomenes king of Sparta reacted when he saw one. When shown that a small space on the
bronze tablet represented a journey of three months, he rightly listened to his daughter's advice
and told the Persian envoy to get lost.
... Dursley will remind you of Strepsiades in Aristophanes' Clouds: belief that
ostentatious clothing is an indication of the immorality of the wearer is still very prevalent!
Page 3
. English writers often seem obsessed with the colours of objects in a way we Greeks
find strange. They have a word "green" which corresponds to no word in our language - so
sometimes it will be rendered by (leek-coloured), or (frog-coloured),

or (pale greenish-yellow, like grass - grass in Greece that is!). But the colour seems part
of what Dursley finds offensive about the clothes.
: the ninth storey. Many quite ordinary buildings in English cities are very
high, and have more storeys than the Pharos at Alexandria!
Windows in England are not just holes to let in the light! They have glass
to keep out bad weather and can be opened (rarely) to admit sunshine. Those in offices are
usually kept shut, and Dursley keeps his back to the window, because there is nothing to see
outside except other office buildings. I admit that I am rather puzzled why the English have so
many windows which they keep shut and cover up (with things called "blinds") so that they
work for the most part by lamp light. Why have them at all?
. "Untroubled by owls". One of the surprisingly few hapax legomena in the
work: this is one that "well-nightingaled" Aeschylus would have been proud of!
. The English meals are extremely confusing. They eat a substantial meal soon after
waking up called breakfast - where a cup of water and some of yesterday's bread would suit us.
Then there is another large meal with sometimes several courses called "lunch" - our midmorning is neither breakfast nor lunch!
: the English liike to eat large sweet sticky bread-based snacks between breakfast
and lunch: such things were unknown then in Athens - maybe a sesame-flavoured roll at most!

Page 4
Because of the "telephone", a wife in England will still be able to
communicate with her former family, and in fact will not regard herself as belonging to her
husband's family after marriage the way we do. I find it very strange that Dursley's wife's sister
- and her husband even - have a part to play in the story of his own family. I am used to our
system where the wife has no further contact with her original family once she has left her
father's house to get married. But then the English seem to lack all concept of the Dursley's fear of his wife seems very strange indeed to us!
"Muggle" - the first mention of this strange term, which seems to have no etymology
in English. In Greek of course it means "field mouse", and is the word used by the people in the
world of magic to refer to non-magical folk. Rather as we use the term to refer to all
non-Greeks. But I quite like the idea of their scuttling around inconsequentially like lots of little
mice!
"looking mustard". The English "look daggers".
: into the men's quarters. Dursley is not really the in his own , and
thus there isn't really an as we have in our houses in Athens, a room from which the
women were excluded. I think, though, that he would have liked to have had one!

 : the News. Because there isn't a real agora, the English don't
get their news at first hand as we do. Instead they buy a "newspaper" or watch a box with a
window in it (called a television see note below), which tells them what's been going on.
Dursley likes the news, because it's always about other people somewhere else, and reassures
him as to his normalness. Tonight, though, he is in for a shock.
: the newsreader. Such people in England are famous and well paid. In Greece
an would just be my slave who reads to me. In England, although they seem to
read their newspapers and books silently (a very strange idea to us Greeks!),they need a reader
to give them their news on television - most weird!
: the weather forecaster. Unlike the news, which normally confirms to
Dursley that his life is utterly normal, the "weather forecast" is something he watches most
avidly on television. Apparently it is very important to the English to know what type of rain
will be falling the next day.
... : far-speaking, far-watching. The English much prefer to
experience life from afar, and they have eagerly adopted our - prefix.
: "the feast of the one slain by fire". In England every
November, they celebrate a festival where they burn an effigy of Guido Fawkes, a man who
hundreds of years ago tried to remove the government by non-democratic means. Such is the
devotion which the English have to our great Athenian invention!
Page 6
: "at the front garden". British homes in the suburbs pride
themselves on their tiny gardens between their hedges and the house. It seems to be a vestigial
token of the country estate or castle which an Englishman imagines his home to be.
: It will surprise you to learn that the man and his wife habitually share the same bed
in the same room: there are no separate men's and women's quarters in a British house! How
very inconvenient this must be when returning late from a symposium!
: half-moon spectacles. This is a device consisting of two small bits of glass
held together by wire. The wearer is able to see more clearly - of all the modern inventions this
is probably the most useful, I think. (Apart from sliced bread)
: albus is Latin for , no doubt a suitable name for an old man with
white hair. It would have seemed less appropriate when he was a young man! All English have
at least two names - the first is personal, the last is the family name or surname - much less
useful than our system of identifying a man by his own name, his father's and where he comes
from. would mean "he to whom double gifts are given" - like our Pandora, she to
whom all gifts are given. A mu has been inserted on analogy of double/dumble, although there
is good evidence that the English word is in fact an old dialect word for bumble-bee [see
Wikipedia]. In Greek Melissa (=bee) would not have been right, as it's a common girl's name in
English, although there's a word in Aristophanes, which might have worked (Ar.
Wasps 105)

 : in his pocket - which is what the moderns call a sort of cloth purse attached to
one's garment. They are indeed very useful places to carry small items, but would be difficult to
accommodate in one of our tunics: English women find the same problem, and carry their
personal items in a bag, like we do. Oddly, the English men do not carry a : it is a
mystery to me how they manage all day without a personal supply of olive-oil.
. A small device which can miraculously generate fire. The moderns use it to light
small paper tubes containing a drug, which supposedly calms them, but in fact causes death.
This fact is generally known, but many people still continue to "smoke". Possibly they regard it
as a patriotic duty, as a large part of the substantial cost of these items goes directly to the
government in tax. Generally the modern governments are very happy to take away your money
in tax - in Athens it would seem outrageous if anyone besides foreigners and prostitutes were to
have to pay any. The joke here is that Dumbledore's "lighter" actually makes lights go out by
use of magic. He calls it his , which is a word we have in Greek for a putter-outer,
though no magic is involved in snuffing a candle!
Page 7
: Professor McGonagall . In Greece female professors are very
rare, so you may not have heard this word before! Her name is a combination
of (magician, wizard) and (sweeties: see below), which I think you
will find suits her very well!
seems to be lacking all the intelligence of his mythological namesake, despite his
surname - (he of the two tongues) which would suggest a man of supreme cunning.
: the British love sweet things so much that "sweet" has become a noun. A sweet is
something that even a like Prof Dumbledore is not embarrassed to be seen constantly
sucking. Imagine Socrates or Plato doing this! But perhaps we are fortunate that sugar was not
discovered in our day - our descendants in Athens are every bit as bad - they have special shops
called which sell only sticky cakes and other sickly confections.
Page 8
: Voldemort, the unsayable name for the unspeakable enemy of Harry. You will
see that in Greek it suggests snakes, which constantly symbolise the evil one in Harry Potter, as
in most post-christian mythology (they do not revere and respect snakes as we do in Greece).
The name derives from , a reptile's scale, as well as being connected with a very great
number of our words for fate, doom and death.
(also called ) Madam Pomphrey is the matron at Hogwarts. Her name
suggests blisters as well as bubbles - she is what they call in England a bubbly personality who
is also a nurse!
Page 9

 : the English, and even the magical world here, do not believe in Zeus.
However, many of them frequently swear by the Christian god whom they obviously do not
believe in either.
: in Athens we have only one clock for the whole city, our famous in the
agora. We are relaxed about time, and savour each moment of the day. In England everyone has
a tiny clock (not water-powered of course!) attached to a wrist or on a chain in a "pocket" (see
note on p6). The English are always frightened about being late, and never have time
to enjoy the moment! The professor's "watch " (presumably so called because the Engish are a
nation of clock-watchers) is very different from a normal one - it is more like a "grandfather"
clock in miniature.
: Hagrid's name in Greek suggests a wild unkempt thing which of course he is!
(Greek )
You may never have heard this word for your mother's sister (you have probably never
even seen your mother's sister). But in England both mother's and father's sisters are known as
"aunties" and are normally treated with great respect in the family.
Page 10
"the size of Mount Etna". The English have many many words for big. We have just
one, really: , or if it is very big. So to cope with the English love of exaggeration
- things that are just big to us are gigantic, mammoth, huge, enormous, vast, jumbo-sized,
astronomical, - Etna-sized, which Aristophanes uses to describe the very big dung beetle
in Peace, is used for Hagrid's motorbike. Like the dung beetle it also soars dangerously in the
sky! I suppose it is difficult for us Greeks to imagine anything bigger than Mt Etna in Sicily.
: "self-propelled two-wheeler". What is now called a motorbike or
motorcycle. The English have a strange word "bicycle" for a two-wheeled vehicle which they
ride like a mechanical donkey. Why not dicycle?
: In Lucian's tale "A True Story" (which is guaranteed by the author to
contain not a single word of truth) there is a land where lamps live on posts. In England such
things actually exist, and arecalled - unsurprisingly - lamp-posts.
: "milk bottles". When this book was written (in 1997) it was normal for
milk to be left outside each house in small bottles in the early morning by a "milkman". The
empty bottles from yesterday were collected at the same time. Most English children are not
aware that milk is extracted from sheep or goats, and find Book 8 of the Odyssey quite difficult
to understand. Such is the pace of change, though, that most families now buy it more cheaply
from the Hyperagora, and so avoid their milk being stolen from their doorstep by the poor
people. The obsession with drinking an animal's baby food is more difficult to understand,
especially as milk is tasteless until it has been allowed to stand for at least a few days. Odysseus
was right to have been suspicious of the milk-drinker Polyphemus. In Greece thank Bacchus we
drink only wine or water.

Chapter 2: The Vanishing Glass

Page 13
: you'll of course recognise that these words have been lifted from
the start of Aeschylus' magnificent parodos in his award-winning drama Agamemnon. No doubt
the author here is attempting to convey the epic grandeur of his little tale, and also evoke the
sense of tragedy which looms over the house of Dursley as surely as it did over the House of
Atreus. Mrs Dursley has something of a Clytemnestra about her.
. After the allusion to the Trojan War, it would be natural to assume that the
Wooden Horse referred to here has some connection. Not so. It's just a child's toy, reminding the
reader (though obvioulsly not the Dursleys) that in times past children looked forward to riding
real horses rather than a .
Page 14
Another Homeric echo. Even we Greeks don't really know what was
supposed to mean exactly, but it's only ever used to describe some special, cherished child,
Agamemnon's son Orestes for example. Ironically though, it is Harry who will have to avenge a
murdered parent, not Dudley.
Page 15
: Christian mythology has popularised the idea of an angel - the
word is as you know merely our Greek word for messenger, whether from a mortal or
an immortal. But sentimental interpretations of the scriptures by artists have confused the
awesome messengers of their immortal god with the cute little winged images of Eros, son of
Aphrodite, which decorate so much of our pottery. So "angel" is now a dismal cliche, and
applied to any cute person. The author has wisely restored JKR's "little angel" to "little cupid".
The English are funny about pigs. For us they are fine creatures, to be sacrificed to the gods on
very special occasions. For them they epitomise all that is nasty, ugly and fat - hence Harry
compares his cousin to a "pig in a wig". We rather like the way the Greek phrase
preserves a similar sound to the English.
: Marge - an auntie (see ch1 p9). Her name when transliterated into Greek means of
course "the mad woman". This is a useful coincidence!
Page 16
: Mrs Figg. is a fig tree, as you know. "Fig" in Greek has various connotations,
not all of them polite: perhaps compare English "I don't give a fig"?
: The English have taken our word , which they apply to a large
building where people sit around in the dark watching pictures on a wall, pictures that move. It

all reminds me of the cave in Plato's Republic, where people sit in the dark looking at images
which they believe are real.
: well-educated readers will recognise these as the names of some of Actaeon's
hounds. The English are amused by this story, because they have now banned hunting with
dogs, and so the fate of Actaeon in being torn apart by his own dogs would now be impossible
in England! We Greeks give names to our horses and dogs (remember Argus in the Odyssey),
but we don't revere cats like the English and the Egyptians. This is probably why Mrs Figg's
cats have doggy names.
: a slug is a naked snail, obviously.
: the Pine Islands are now called the Balearics, and include Majorca and Ibiza,
popular holiday destinations.
Page 17
: "by the two gods", "by the holy twain". Women in Greece swear by Castor and
Polydeuces, the heavenly twins - two rather minor deities. In England they seem to be allowed
to swear by the same gods as the men.
: the car is new; it is difficult to convey the sense of pride and pure joy of
ownership that cars inspire. Although it wouldn't last nearly as long, the cost would be
something like that of a slave for us - but I don't think we get quite so excited about
our .
: Piers Polkiss, Dudley's odious friend. His first name means fat, the second
suggests overflowing in abundance. He's described so was not actually fat at all - so
his name is ironic, like Little John in the English story of Robin Hood!
: the English have a large number of names for small furry animals, where we have only
two - the smaller one we call , the slightly bigger ones . But the English have to decide
whether the creature is a mouse, rat, shrew, vole, dormouse, weasel, stoat, ferret, polecat,
marten, badger. Why does it matter? Piers has a "face like a rat", so presumably seemed
more appropriate here than .
: Vernon, Dursley's first name, which we hear for the first time. In Greek it's very
similar to , a fish-basket. It also suggests , the personal property which belongs to
the wife in a marriage. This seems very appropriate for the "hen-pecked" Dursley.
Page 19
: "frozen thing". In modern times many items of food can be frozen artificially. A very
popular one is the or ice-cream, wlhich is still considered something of a luxury. A
particularly large and brightly coloured ice-cream is known, for some reason as a
"Knickerbocker Glory" - hence -"trouser-glory".
Page 22

 : our word for silk, of course - but nowadays this is a powerful drink made by our
descendants, which is silken on the tongue.

Chapter 3 : The Letters from No One

Page 24
: The ugly friends of Dudley and Piers. (Dennis) in
Greek means "disgrace", (Malcolm) - still an insulting term in Greek today, means
"softie" and (Gordon) is "staring-eyed"
is another hapax legomenon, and means "harry-hunting"; hunting with dogs was
a popular pastime in England, although it was made illegal in 2004. In Greece it has always
been a most exhilarating sport, especially if the quarry is the savage and dangerous wild boar. In
England, as with Harry's friends, the creature pursued was normally defenceless - such as the
fox, the hare or the stag.
It may come as a surprise to discover that Aristophanes's joke, his invented
word for a "thinking-shop", where Socrates in the comedy Clouds dispenses nonsense of all
kinds, became in later Greek a proper word for what they now call a "school". Strangely
"school" is derived from our Greek word for idleness, having nothing to do:
It is difficult to convey the importance which surrounds your choice of school in
England. It is widely believed that the selection of school at age eleven will determine the
course of a child's life. This is not because they choose according to the brilliance of the
teachers (one could understand the importance of enrolling with a Socrates or a Plato), but
because the English prefer to go to school only with children from families of similar income.
Thus Dudley and Piers will go to an expensive school, such as Smeltings (), and will
be proud to wear humiliating clothes while attending (called "uniform", always the antique
fashion in clothing of a bygone age), while Harry will be made to feel humiliated because he is
attending a , - a "comprehensive" - where his clothes will be of little
importance (although the rags that Petunia intends him to wear would in fact cause
humiliation!) It is a complex situation, and almost impossible for a non-English person to
understand. (Like cricket, which mercifully is not a subject referred to in this book!)
perhaps not a very exact rendition of Stonewall - but the school where Harry is
enrolled will be one one those which they lie about when they say "stone walls do not a prison
make". [For example] The main educational thrust in such establishments is the prevention
() of nearly everything.
Page 25
Items such as described here are all actually worn in "public schools" in
England - though not all at the same time! Knickerbockers, tailcoats, straw hats are all worn
(Christ's Hospital, Eton, King's Canterbury for example).

 In England all males and most females wear these leg-enveloping garments called
trousers, pants or jeans. Even in Scotland, where a healthier dress allowing air to circulate was
once the custom, kilts are worn only on special occasions.
: English education has always prided itself on its characterbuilding element (deemed more important than mere "book-learning" by many parents).
Flogging, fagging, cold baths, rugger, detention and Latin have all been seen as "characterbuilding". In order to humiliate others as an adult, it is apparently necessary first to be
humiliated frequently oneself.
Page 26
: Mrs Dursley is going to a great deal of trouble to ensure that Harry's uniform
will be as gray as his fellow students'. She is in no mood to appreciate his jest about their
wetness.
... A very obscure passage for Greek
readers - in modern Britain a man employed by a private business ("postman":
) brings you your letters every day. The letter-box () rattles as the
letters are pushed through, and they land on the mat inside the door with a thump. The sender
has to buy a stamp () which is smeared with a kind of glue which he licks in
order to attach it to the letter. This is the most unhygienic and least effective (tens of thousands
of messages are lost "in the post" every year) of various complicated ways of sending written
messages in England. You don't want to know about texting, faxing and email: fortunately there
is no mention of these in the Harry Potter corpus. How sensible the magic world is simply to use
owls - in just the same way as in Greece when we want to send a message we just give it to a
slave and tell him to take it to the person. But this is just too simple for modern people!
: Vectis - our Roman cousins' name for what the English call the Isle of Wight.
Apparently Wight means man - which is odd for there is another island between England and
Hibernia which they also call the Isle of Man. Who the man in question might be, no one seems
to know. Both islands were popular destinations for "holidays" - every English person is entitled
to be paid for several weeks every year when he does not work: this would be an excellent use
for some of our revenue in Athens, I think. The English were once frightened to travel abroad on
holiday in case they encountered frog-eaters or garlic-eaters: these islands gave them the
illusion of travel without the inconvenience of eating foreign food. Nowadays they travel far
and wide, but still avoid foreigners wherever possible. This attitude to seems to a
Greek quite normal, although we of course only travel to foreign countries in order to kill or
enslave the .
: Every small town in England has a public library like the one
in Alexandria, the difference being that citizens are - amazingly - allowed to borrow the books
and take them to their houses to read. The are very fierce, however, and demand
fines from any citizen who has not read their books within two weeks. Further down this page,
Harry refers to receiving threatening correspondence from them. Recent news,though, tells me
that these libraries are being closed down, as the government believes thay could be places
where the poor might plot revolution, or be exposed to revolutionary literature.

 : a very
puzzling expresssion. The concept that the heart has strings is familiar to the moderns (an
abandoned puppy can be said in England "to tug at the heart-strings"); strings which resemble
"gum being capable of being drawn out" (). The sense would appear to be that H is
very excited - as if a harpist were playing very loudly on his heart strings. This gum is also used
as a food-substitute by people in the modern world - they chew it until it becomes sticky and
then they "park" it on the underside of a nearby piece of furniture. I have been unable to
ascertain the purpose for this.
Page 27
At least we can all recognise this as a letter - it has been properly
sealed with wax (and is also made of a substance we know - ). One of the other letters
is in an "envelope" - those containing accounts are traditionally of a colour which is not quite
tawny ( ), for which we have no exact word in Greek. It approaches the colour of a
lion's mane or Menelaus's hair. The seal has an emblem consisting of four creatures - a lion, a
snake, an eagle and a smallish furry animal larger than a rat (weasel? polecat? see note on
chapter 2 page 13). I must say it reminds me of the punishment for parricides among the
Romans - culprits were sewn into a sack containing a variety of animals, and thrown into the
Tiber. The letter of the alphabet referred to is Y, a capital upsilon. You'll find out what it stands
for quite soon.
"concerning a fire-bearing letter". Believe it or not, such things
exist in the modern world! They can be sent to an enemy in the hope of causing him harm. I
think that we should all receive a great many each day if there were such things in Athens! But
here it seems to be some kind of joke that Dursley is making - although how fire-bearing letters
can be funny I do not understand.
No English visit to the sea-coast is complete without consuming molluscs,
known variously as winkles, whelks, cockles, mussels etc. According to a song which I have
heard they are sold "alive, alive -o", and unsurprisingly many are poisoned by them. But modern
people eat much that is unwholesome, and consequently most suffer from most of the
time, as it seems.
These are what the moderns call "traffic lights". At a place where
three roads meet they do not stop to worship Hecate, but sometimes halt their vehicles in order
to watch a display of coloured lights, red, electrum-coloured, and green. These are on top of a
herm-like post, so I can only assume the ritual has some quaint religious significance for them.
It is hard to believe that Dursley's face went through this transformation from red to green in
actual fact: but if so would it have passed through an intermediate stage when it was the colour
of ? In any case his complexion soon changes again to the colour of , a kind
of soup made from oats and milk which is the staple diet of many living in the northern parts of
England (called Scotchland), where I presume it is always so dark that they cannot see it, and
thus it becomes "neglected" (). Alternatively this could be due to the taste.
Page 29

 You will find it very difficult to picture the kind of house

that the moderns live in. There is no division into men's and women's quarters as we are used to
- in fact husbands and wives normally share a single bedroom! This seems strange, as this
house, as if it were a has actually four bedrooms - enough for a man with several
concubines! But in Dursley's house it seems, one is reserved for a female relative who does not
reside there (Marge is not a concubine), and the son does not sleep on the roof, but has two
bedrooms of his own.
Where we might expect a child of ours to have perhaps a ball,
or a rhombus, the modern boy owns a roomful of equipment, which in Dudley's case we are told
is broken and therefore useless. Most of the objects are unfamiliar to me, and I cannot therefore
do any more than list their outlandish names - I recognise, however, the birdcage, although I
have never seen a parrot.
Page 30
One of the strangest customs among the people of the modern world is petkeeping. Dogs and cats are commonly kept in their houses, and treated more luxuriously than
we do our slaves - who at least perform tasks on our behalf. Many pets live as if a member of
the family and some are even permitted to share their owners' beds. The tortoises that are so
familiar to us in Greece are common pets in England, although most die from cold within a few
months of arrival there. All animals are protected by laws against ill-treatment here, just as our
slaves are in Athens (although not everywhere in Greece), and throwing a tortoise at
a is against the law. A , by the way, is a small house made of glass
where plants are reared in similar luxury to that accorded to their animals. Glass breaks easily
when struck by a hard object.
This what they call an "alarm clock". Modern people are obsessed
with "telling the time" - everyone has a something like a very small sundial, by which they can
tell which hour, minute and second of the day it is (a second is one sixtieth of a minute, which is
one sixtieth of an hour). People become intensely agitated if a friend is a few minutes late for a
prearranged meeting. You would find this very amusing. As the sun rarely shines in England, the
people do not wake up when the sun shines into their houses each morning. Therefore they are
unable to rise in the morning without the help of a clock (large) or watch (small) which makes a
loud noise like a bell advertising fresh fish. I found them truly alarming. Many clocks make
even louder noises at unexpected moments. How surprised they would be to find that we have
only one clock in Athens, which, being worked by water, is pleasingly silent.
Page 31
The modern world divides the year up not only into 12 months, as we do, but
also into 52 "weeks". The two systems are curiously incompatible, in that there are never an
exact number of weeks in a month. Each "week" is divided into seven days, as they believe that
their only god created the world in six days, with a day to rest on the seventh. We Greeks find
this strange - as it's hard to see how a single god could look after all that goes on in the world and of course our Olympian gods didn't have to create the world - they found it already there
and just took it over! is what modern Greeks call the 6th day of their week,
because then they do their preparation () for the Sabbath - the day when they

worship their god - only they don't actually do this on the Sabbath (which in England is called
Saturday, after the Roman god Saturn!), but on the next day which they call the Lord's in most
countries, but Sun-day in England, although there they do not worship the sun - perhaps
explaining why the sun is seldom seen there. The English call the 6th day Friday - after one of
their gods. I find it extremely confusing that the week itself is in honour of their one god,
supposedly their only one, while the actual days of the week are named after a number of other
gods (Woden, Thor, Frigga), which we can identify with our Zeus, Hephaistos and Hera. I know
we have different names for the months in different parts of Greece - but compared with
England, our system is very simple!
Unbelievably, nearly all houses today actually have a room with a bath:
something that only a palace in Greece might have had. But I much prefer our system, where we
go out to a public bath and meet other people and hear the news. Many English people receive
the news also in their houses, through boxes of different shapes and sizes called radios,
televisions or telephones.
See note on .
Page 32
... Homer, Iliad 23.116. It originally described the
comprehensive search by the men sent by Agamemnon to Mt Ida to gather wood for Patroclus'
funeral pyre. Homer also adds for good measure. But even today's can't travel
diagonally.
Page 33
"to wipe out an extraterrestrial". Many of those today believe that there
are men living on the stars and planets, who are plotting to invade our world. What was a
fantasy for Lucian, is a reality for them. Consequently the children are encouraged to practise
the simulated killing of aliens using their "computers". It sems to me similar to the Spartan
system, where young men went out to kill Messenians at random as a game, though less
enjoyable.
. The strange items eaten for "breakfast" by the modern English will have already
been noted. Instead of bread, they prefer their corn to be processed into small dry flaky things
reminiscent of the scabs that form on a wound, which they moisten with cows' milk before
ingesting. If they do eat bread, they prefer it partially burned. A tomato is a fruit like a large
round red grape with a thick skin: the point here is that the tomatoes are uncooked, and that
there are no eggs and pickled pork ("bacon"). A Greek would have been perfectly happy with
this breakfast - in fact the bread, unburned, would have sufficed. But I shall have cause again to
mention the large amounts of unnnecessary food consumed by modern people.
Page 34
"to a many-roofed height"; "to the top of a many-roofed [thing]". Not
all of you will have seen the Pharos at Alexandria, but this is the only building in our world
where a roofed structure is added to the top of an already roofed structure, and then another on

top of that and so on.These added roofs are called "storeys". Because in English cities the streets
were designed for the most part for pedestrians or horses, there is little room to "park"
their . Consequently special towers are built for this purpose. As it is
normally quicker to walk to one's destination in a city owing to the large number of "cars"
attempting to drive simultaneously down the same street, it is hard to see why such buildings as
these were thought necessary.
. Modern children require constant stimulation: as the adults are too
exhausted to provide this, a theatrical or musical performance (such as we see at Athens two or
three times a year) is available all day and every day, apparently performed by tiny
actors/musicians inside a small box, which they call "television" (and I have rendered
as , avoiding the distressing hybridisation of our language with that of
the ). The nearest rendition I can find for Dudley's favorite performer, the Great
Humberto, is "the amazing extremely loud one". Despite their diminutive size, these little
musicians usually make an excessive amount of noise: louder by far than Demosthenes at his
most vehement inveighing against Aeshines in the Pnyx.
. Doubtless even the least educated of my readers will recognise
the Homeric "tag". Dursley - in his own mind only - is like Odysseus, suffering at every turn as
he seeks only to preserve his family. Some may feel he has experienced enough already today to
earn the Odyssean epithet , though posssibly not ! Alas, Petunia is no Penelope,
and Dudley certainly no Telemachus.
: "winds that drive ships ashore". Traditional ingredient of storms!
, : see above under (page 29). These are the
small units into which the modern hour is subdivided. I find it hard to imagine what the use
might be for a "minute" - and impossible to grasp the significance of an instant of time that is
one sixtieth of it. By the time one has uttered the word , it has already passed!
Perhaps it might be handy for timing how long it takes Hermes to reach an evil-doer spotted by
Zeus!

Chapter 4: The Keeper of the Keys

Page 37
... Hard to explain: [] is used to describe a weapon that
might in former times (from a modern viewpoint!) have been used to attack a city. The siege of
Troy would hardly have lasted ten days if the Greeks had had such a weapon! Dudley could
only ever have seen one on the , of course. The point here, though, is simply that it
made a very loud noise. [] is a much smaller weapon, that appears to work on
a similar principle to the . Each weapon seems to be a smaller version of Mount Etna,
which throws out a piece of metal at high speed (just as we see stones projected high into the air
by the volcano) which can cause severe injury or death to an enemy many stades distant.
The is bigger and used againt cities, the is a smaller version which can
be carried by an individual person. Both weapons would have made a considerable difference to

our wars in Greece - but I cannot escape the feeling that the true warrior must face his enemy
man to man, rather than killing him when is is still a mile away. Perhaps Dursley - a would-be
Odysseus in the last chapter - is now wishing to be seen as Achilles, or perhaps Perseus. But
the , as will be seen, is useless in hand-to-hand combat. Dursley, had he foreknown
the nature of his enemy, would have been better off with a good ashen-shafted spear.
: Like Polyphemus, the giant Hagrid is no wine-drinker. He prefers "tea" - a drink made
by pouring hot water on to dried leaves, and then diluting it with a dash of cow's milk. The
English attribute magical powers to this concoction, and will particularly look to it for support
in times of stress. When traditionally prepared in a "tea pot" and served in a "tea cup", the drink
leaves dregs which would be ideal for a game of kottabos. The English, however, use these "tea
leaves" to foretell the future, thus saving an expensive trip to the Delphic oracle.
The giant appears to be mocking Dudley's bulk, oblivious of the irony.
Page 38
JKR seems a little obsessed with Hagrid's resemblance
to a (beetle). Not only do his eyes shine
(page 37), but his eyebrows too resemble beetles! You may be interested in
the remark of the English philosopher J B S Haldane: "The Creator, if He exists, has an
inordinate fondness for beetles." The creator of Harry Potter has an inordinate fondness for
Hagrid, certainly.
... . The first mention of Hogwarts, the "school of witchcraft and
wizardry" which Harry will be attending for the next few years. Greeks will recognise the
elements in the name: - from , (connected with English word swine, and Latin sus
meaning pig, hog) and , a magician, sorcerer. I find it strange that it is Dudley Dursley
who so closely associated with pigs and pig products, rather than the future magician Harry.
(Dudley is given a pig's tail, is described as [page 39] and therefore not
requiring the sausages he craves. Harry's description of the infant Dudley is
(page 15) - a piglet in a wig.
There is considerable scholarly dispute as to the origin of the name Hogwarts: I assumed that it
referred to a mythical founder (we are told that the school is over 1.000 years old) named
Hogwart - on the analogy of British public schools called Blundell's, Fette's, Colfe's. Hence the
use of the genitive case always, by analogy with ( Hades's - standing for the house of
Hades) in our literature. But JKR apparently says it was the name of a flower she saw aged eight
in Kew Gardens! This would have been presumably hogwort [The hogwort (Croton capitatus),
also known as the woolly croton is an annual plant with erect, branched stems, densely covered
with light brown, woolly hairs that give it a whitish appearance. It grows in dry, open areas,
especially sandy and rocky soils. It is distributed across the Southern U.S.A., and elsewhere.
Hogwort contains croton oil, a powerful laxative. - from Wikipedia]. But the ultimate
connection with hog remains!
Possibly Hagrid is not after all the teetotaller imagined (above, page 37) his voluminous (pockets) contain a bottle holding ... -

an amber liquid, which may well be an alcoholic beverage of some kind (page 39). Although, to
be fair, he also carries a - and tea would seem to be his drink of preference.
I can tell you that Harry's idea of a "hot bath" is nothing but a metal tub
filled with warmish water where "modern" people wallow in their own filth, incompletely
removed from their bodies by "soap" - a slimy substance concocted from lye and pig or sheep
fat. They know nothing of our wonderful baths, where a gentle heat induces sweat, enabling a
skilled slave to scape the dirt from our bodies, liberally lubricated with scented oil.
Page 39
. Such food is as popular with the English today as it was in Greece
of our time. Scholars have pointed out the Harry, like Odysseus, seems constantly hungry. But
perhaps that is simply a characteristic of a growing boy rather than of an epic hero. Although the
use of the Homeric (the aromatic sizzle from burning fat which drifts upwards to
nourish the gods in an epic sacrifice) for the smell of the sausages would help reinforce an
identification of Potter with Odysseus.
. The overfed person is, it appears, as much a figure of fun in Britain as he is
in Greece. Although with childhood obesity a major health problem inthe modern world, one
might cavil at JKR's use of this "humorous" trope.
... Hagrid's rage at the Dursleys' incompetent parenting obviously is
intended to recall Creon's outburst against Antigone in Sophocles's play, where he, similarly,
cannot believe that anyone can be so wilfully disobedient.
Page 40
To "know oneself" is a duty for all us Greeks, of course, as
prescribed by the oracle at Delphi ( ). Harry of course will not truly "know
himself" for a long while yet. But Plato would be pleased to see his quest beginning here: the
boy from the "bronze" family will learn to accept his membership of the "gold" elite. Doubtless
the reference to the Republic 327b ( ) on the previous page is intended to alert
the reader to this Platonic parallel.
Like a man in a bacchic frenzy. Temporary madness comes, as we
know from Bacchus - whether as a punishment, as in Euripides's play, or as a result of ingesting
the god in excess. Can one feel a little sympathy with Dursley, struggling, like Pentheus against
forces he can neither understand nor hope to defeat?
Page 41
. prefers Minerva, the Roman version of her name Athena, for no
apparent reason.
"your owl". The mention of "owl" and "Athena" will immediately remind
Athenians of the proverb : "an owl to Athens" whose equivalent among the
English today is "coals to Newcastle". as mentioned earlier (see page 2) refers to our very

common Greek owl, known in England as the "little owl" (Athene noctua). Sending an owl to
Athena would thus be a by no means unusual event!
"The old and new day" -the English have no such colourful expression for the
last day of the month, alas. Alas, too, they no longer use our meaningful names for the months,
but have borrowed the dull Roman system - apart from a few named after Roman gods (January,
March, May, June), and a couple named after tyrants (July and August), the rest are simply
numbered - I say simply, but for some reason September, the seventh month (Latin septem) is
actually the ninth month, and October the 10th and so on. Only February retains some
suggestion in its name of what to expect in February (fevers!). I shall never understand Roman
numbers. And of course their months, despite the connection of the name, have no connection
with the moon! (So the new moon [] in their world may be nowhere near the 1st of the
month!)
Page 42
. is a field mouse. It's not at all clear why the non-magical community should
be called "field mice". Perhaps it's an obscure reference to one of Aesop's fables - where the
humble country mouse is overawed by the sophistication of his city relative. The commoner
Greek form is , which reveals it as a combination of and , the only two Greek
words for smallish furry animals, which could as easily equate to rat + weasel as mouse +
shrew. Perhaps here we have a clearer idea of what constitutes a "Muggle" - something
simultaneously insignificant and quite irritating.
It has been remarked on how frequently Harry (and others) spend their time "gaping",
that is standing there with their mouths open. [As illustrated on the original dust jacket of this
book!] Apparently this is a way to register surprise or amazement. I am amazed that it's not
taken as a sign of complete stupidity. As my old mother used to say, "What are you doing dear?
Catching flies?"
The Magi, as you know from Herodotus, were a class of Persian religious experts, who
would be consulted about any ritual or worship of their god Ahura Mazda, the Great God. I'm
afraid it's rather typical of our Greek attitudes to the Persians (whom we inappropriately
call ) that the name of this priestly caste has come to mean magician, and hence
quack, charlatan. At least in this book, the has some status (although not in Dursley's
eyes).
Page 43
Hagrid swears by the hideous hobgoblin Empusa (we remember her from
Aristophanes's Frogs, where Dionysus, in the "dark" appears to find her among the
audience!). ("By Heracles!") is a very frequent masculine oath.
Harry is "gaping" again just one page later! Scarcely a page goes by without this
foolishness.

 The first mention of the "unmentionable". We Greeks are familiar with things
we're not allowed to name (like the ***** that is shown to initiates during the Mysteries at
Eleusis).
Page 44
The modern world no longer knows what a touchstone is. For us its
a familiar word for testing something - whether in its original use for testing precious metals for
purity, or in its metaphorical use for the torture we insist on for an accused slave, to test his
honesty. Hagrid would agree with Orestes in Euripides's Electra:

An Euripidean phrase spoken by a dim-witted agricultural character. We

are reminded of the division of the human race by the Greek poet into foxes and
hedgehogs: , . Most of us Greeks, like Odysseus, prefer
to be foxes!
the offering to Hekate: in Greece made at the end of every month at a place where
three roads met. Hekate is a powerful goddess associated with witchcraft and magic.
The is an ancient musical instrument where sounds are produced from
pipes filled with water: a different amount of water produces a different note. The modern
equivalent is called an "organ" and uses air, not water.
Page 45
... Tragedy fans will be reminded of Medea's speech to Jason in Euripides's play.
Greek readers will not be familiar with this essential item of
equipment for one living in England - as normal for the English as a is for us. It is
similar to our sunshade or parasol, but in modern England everyone must carry such protection
against the constant savage rain storms inflicted on these benighted peoples by an angry
Zeus. here refers to its colour (pink) - very unusual as umbrellas carried by men are
invariably black. However, there is a secondary meaning to the word, as will become clear when
Hagid and Harry visit the in the next chapter.
Page 47
It is quite the norm among the English upper classes for a child to be "put down" for
a major public school at birth, or even, it is rumoured, at conception. Hogwarts is very much the
Eton of the magical world.
No need to describe the kordax to Greeks, that famously rude dance involving
much buttock activity! Recently the moderns have invented "twerking", a form of dance
displaying extreme buttock vibration - after 2500 years they are still playing catch-up!
Page 48

 In the modern world you can only tell the time using numbers (6 o'clock etc).
How useless! Six o'clock might be late in the afternoon, or pitch dark according to he time of
year: whereas "about the time the oxen come in from the fields" is something we can all relate
to.
Hagrid really did have mice in his pocket, not Muggles!

Chapter 5: Diagon Alley

Page 49
The rather weak pun in English ("diagon-ally") is a poor reflection of
the original Greek - diagon in English is meaningless, of course, where as in Greek the name
means "the alley leading through" (into the magical world).
Very difficult for a Greek reader to understand the concept of a "newspaper". You
are used to getting "news" by talking to friends and acquaintances in the agora, exchanging
views, gossip and information through leisurely conversation. Modern people cannot form
views or have anything to talk about until they have read a "newspaper" which tells them what
views they are supposed to have on the small amount of information it allows them to learn. In
this way the very stupid and the less stupid can all believe the same thing: bizarrely this is
regarded as in some way "democratic" by those who have never experienced a real democracy where there are as many opinions as people!
Page 50
Another use for the great Egyptian invention (see
"newspaper" above). Hagrid's dependence on the non-alcoholic drink "tea" has already been
noted. Like the Homeric Cyclops whom he partially resembles, he is not a regular wine-drinker.
He can make his tea at any time by pouring hot water on these "little perforated papyrus bags".
Preseumably he is not concerned if the dried leaves inside his little bags take on something of
the flavour of the other contents of his pocket. Many would prefer to make a "tea" out the mint,
anyway!
is of course a table, such as any stall-keeper might set up in the agora. Their use by
money-changers means that even today in Greece a building where, until recently, poor people
used to entrust their money to rich people is called .
Greeks are more familiar with this word to mean a rogue, a scoundrel: quite
appropriate for bankers, then. JKR's are supernatural beings, like our Greek nymphs or
satyrs: there are many kinds in English mythology: besides goblins, there are gnomes, elves,
pixies, sprites and all manner of fairy folk who haunt the remains of their woods and natural
places.
Page 51

 I remember being told as a child that crocodiles guarded the

bullion in the vaults of the bank of England.
Page 52
apparently a word used in Sparta for a blister on the heel. Not quite right for a bungler,
but suggests a very annoying person.
We are all familiar with herms, the small pillars topped with the head of Hermes, god of
luck and travellers, whose phallus we stroke every time we leave our houses. In the modern
world there are small pillars called "parking meters", to whom citizens make offerings of small
coins (they call it "feeding" the "meter": which may be a mother goddess, connected with
our - or it may not. The religion of the moderns is a strange and complex affair). These
mothers do not seem to confer a blessing, however, as one may frequently see citizens abusing
them and their priests or priestesses.
Right: a typical priestess of the Meter goddess, posing in front of a "herm".
... As will appear later the that Hagrid has in mind is no mere
snake. The snake/serpent motif runs powerfully throughout the work of JKR, reminding one of
Aeschylus' use of it in the Oresteia.
or perhaps better . Heron the
Alexandrian was one of our greatest inventors. The aeolipile was only one of many, which
included the first vending machine, rhe first wind-powered machine, the pump, the syringe. In
fact, the industrial revultion could have started in the Greek city of Alexandria right then, 2000
years early, if Heron had not had the good sense to see what misery it would cause. His steam
engine remained an amusing toy. The moderns used the principle to devise a wonderful sytem of
transportation to even the remotest demes in their countryside, but then decided it had to be
"cut". Moderns treat their economy rather as Hippocrates and his colleagues sometimes do a
sick man: when it would appear to need nourishment, they prefer to cut and bleed.
Page 53
This behaviour is as
strange in London as it would be in Athens! Not even women among us do their weaving in
public! Hagrid is so sure of his rampant masculinity, that he is not afraid to act like a woman.
And who would dare to challenge him? Or Heracles if he had taken up weaving? The weaving
in question is described as "goat-colour": possibly Hagrid was using wool from a goat. As it was
as large as one of the tents put up for the Panathenaia festival, it was presumably a garment
intended for personal use.
We do not hear of Hagrid undertaking this task of
embroidering names, despite his skill at womens' work. It's curious that scholars at an English
school all wear identical garments, yet these still need to be marked with names of individuals! I
find that very amusing. But it's typical of this modern world where slaves are employed to
perform many completely unnecessary tasks.

 The authors, along with these supposed books on magic are entirely fictitious,
providing an excuse for rather weak wordplay innvolving the name of the author and the subject
of their opus. Why are the Hogwarts students not encouraged to read the Papyri Graecae
Magicae, for example?
Page 55
This is an anachronism - the wine of Monemvasia in Laconia became
well-known in later times (in the 15th century AD an English king's brother was drowned in a
butt of it, according to their (unreliable) poet Shakespeare). In Italy it was known as Malvasia,
and this was corrupted into "Malmsey" in English. It is a wine strengthened by the addition of
more alcohol, hence the small cups ( - note the "Potter" echoes!).
"smoking a pipe". This is one of the crucial passages which help
us to date this work. Smoking in "pubs" became illegal in 2007 AD, so the book must have been
in circulation before that (unless of course JKR intends readers to believe that the ban did not
apply to magical premises). This strange custom ("smoking") may still be witnessed by the
visitor to London - "smokers" congregate in small groups outside buildings to "smoke" - despite
the bitter cold or showers of rain which are so plentiful in this city. The activity is popularly
supposed to "calm nerves" - how are these people ignorant of the power of Dionysus to produce
this effect so much more pleasantly?
Page 56
"the Dorian woman dressed in saffron" suggests an athletic young girl in a fashionable
chiton, rather than, as it turns out, a homely old dear smoking a pipe!
. , "he of the double tongue" translates as the meaniningless
"Diggle" in JKR. Daedalus, despite the fame of its original bearer as an inventor, does not seem
tohave become a popular name in later times. Many magical folk in JKR's work have Greek
names rather than "Christian" names - perhaps to emphasise the paganism of the wizard world.
Sensitive readers might be shocked if they knew the original context of
this phrase, borrowed from Aristophanes' Acharnians!
. is a squirrel; apparently therefore would equate to "Quirrel".
... The Greek text conveys the severity of Quirrel's stammer by
cunning use of the reduplicated forms of the perfect tense in our language.
. was a flesh-eating monster - every bit as terrifying as a vampire.
Page 57
, . The Graiai, or "Grey Sisters" were the daughters of Phorcys, the Old Man of
the Sea. They were grey-haired from birth - and had only one eye and one tooth between them,
which made social interaction difficult. Perhaps not as unusual in the modern world - they sound
like typical residents in a "care home".

 Self-stirring cauldrons? These wizard folk seem indeed strange: on the one
hand they avoid technology (quill pens, parchment) on the other had they devise labour-saving
devices beyond anything dreamed of in the muggle world. Even the most advanced modern
peoples do not have self-stirring saucepans, or self-stirring coffee cups.
Page 58
Nine types of owl are listed as available in the Owlshop. In English you only
have the one word: "owl". You, on the contrary have all your innumerable words for small furry
animals, where we make do with so we won't be too critical.
.. Thanks to their poet Shakespeare, wizards and witches are popularly
believed to use ingredients such as these for their potions ["Eye of newt and toe of frog..."].
... This amazing "glass" is a rare material in our world
- and how its made is a secret still. But so common is it in the new world that merchants use it to
protect their wares from too close inspection: unlike the agora in Athens, you are not
encouraged to handle and inspect the goods too closely. The young men are trying inspect a
broom, such as slaves might use to sweep dung from a courtyard. Even in modern times this a
very strange thing to interest young men! But the "2000th Over the Clouds" is no ordinary yard
brush, as will be revealed!
The wizard bank occupies grandiose premises just like banks elsewhere in the
modern world. Difficult for the moderns to realise that our Greek banker was an actual person
sitting in the market place at an actual table, with a pair of scales and a pile of coins! It's strange
that "bank robbery" is unknown to us, but common in the "new" world despite their fortress-like
buildings. But maybe there was once a Mr Coutt or Mr Barclay sitting at his table like Pasion in
the Piraeus? But would Bonnie and Clyde have been deterred by a threatening poem displayed
at the entrance to the banks they robbed?
Page 59
At least the wizard bank has no computers! But it
seems as if the like the great Pasion may have been slaves.
I have remarked previously on the modern fondness for "pets". You will
find it hard to believe that many in modern times have set up factories, not, like Pasion, to make
shields, but to manufacture food pellets for dogs (and make more money by selling them than
Pasion could have dreamed of)! Such are the "dog biscuits" that emerge from the detritus in
Hagrid's pockets.
Page 60
... This underground passage reminds me of what I've been told about our silver
mines at Laurion near Athens. How many more Attic owls we'd be able to produce if we had
little carts to bring out the precious ore rather than relying on all those slaves!
Page 61

 The wizard world had little interest in making accounting easy for their
bankers!
, , The names the coins are as bizarre as their values! Though, to be fair,
no stranger than ours: 6 obols (meaning skewers) to 1 drachma (meaning a handful). This shows
how we Greeks have been obsessed with kebabs from the earliest times! The English translation
seems to have tried to reproduce the Greek sound rather than its sense (if any). Galleon = lizard
(presumably a symbol - like the tortoise for Aegina or the owl for Athens? We don't know). Both
have "sickle" for the second denomination - but the "knut" is a word otherwise unknown in the
English language. The Greek ("dust") at least suggests the worthlessness of small coins
(witness the fate of your farthing and your half-a-pee). is the old name for Messina in
Sicily - though, weirdly, their coins have a hare as their symbol.
Like the watchman who's seen the beacon telling of the
fall of Troy (in Aeschylus' Agamemnon, as well you remember), Hagrid has "an ox on his
tongue". The watchman can't talk about the treacherous goings-on in the House of Atreus, much
as he'd like to. And Hagrid,too, is sworn to secrecy, for reasons we'll discover.
Self-stirring cauldrons? These wizard folk seem indeed strange: on the one
hand they avoid technology (quill pens, parchment) on the other had they devise labour-saving
devices beyond anything dreamed of in the muggle world. Even the most advanced modern
peoples do not have self-stirring saucepans, or self-stirring coffee cups.
Page 62
[] "The shop of the woman numb with cold". The robe
vendor's ancestors obviously went into business to make garments to keep themselves warm.
Actually she seems rather a nice, warm person! What's in a name?
"Do you play Icarus ball?" is the question. The modern world has many
strange sports unknown to our Olympic competitions - rugby, croquet, tennis, snooker, but as
will be revealed, Icarus Ball is truly unique. What is it? The clues are in the name. It envolves
balls. And flying in the air, like Icarus. And falling down, like Icarus (sometimes).
Page 63
. reminds us of Medea in Euripides' tragedy speculating
about her future if she murders her sons: "Suppose them dead. What city will accept me?" The
young man's antipathy to the "wrong" house seems at first hard to understand: another
intriguing question has been raised in the reader's mind.
Page 64
The wild berries of Mount Ida in Crete were possibly used by the Curetes to
nurture the infant Zeus. For Harry just a flavour for a commonly available snack made allegedly
from frozen cream. How they find ice all year - even in this cold country - is a mystery.

 Here Hagrid reveals his deep ignorance of the

favourite sport of the moderns - including our descendants in Hellas, champions of Europe in
the year this book was published. Look out for examples where Wizard folk generally, not just
Hagrid, seem to take little interest in the Muggle world (eg his unfamiliarity with its money).
is a common exclamation in Greece. We don't like using names for gods, parts of the
body, or bodily functions when we are excited in the way the moderns habitually do! Maybe
closest would be "Dash it!" where dash stands for an unsayable word! Hagrid in English uses
the ostensibly mild oath "Blimey!" (which still refers to a god, though).