MÊTIS 1
The Wesleyan Undergraduate Journal of Classical Studies

MÊTIS
Published by
Mêtis Editorial Board
Department of Classical Studies Majors’ Committee
Volume 8: 2018-2019
For the web version,
please visit www.metis.site.wesleyan.edu

Cover photo: Evreka, by pichi and avo,

otherwise known as pichiavo

Edited by:
Maggie Rothberg
Ana Rodríguez Santory

3
Mother to Athena,
Greece’s goddess of wisdom, Mêtis was a force for cunning counsel.

Once she’s subsumed by Zeus, her name becomes an epithet for the

king of gods. Consequently, she was regarded as personifying a

highly valued quality for the ancient Athenians. Named in her honor,

this literary journal seeks to showcase the variety of works and

diverse abilities of students studying Classics.

This edition includes scholarly essays, artistic interpretations of

classical myths, a map of the Underworld, and more.

Acknowledgements
With special thanks to Debbie Sierpinski

To those who submitted pieces to the journal

And the faculty of the Classical Studies Department

For their encouragement and ongoing support for this project.

 INDEX
1. On three translations of Aristophanes’ Ekklesiazousai

Maggie Rothberg

2. Charon’s Diary

Catherine Kiall

3. Map of the Underworld

Catherine Kiall

4. “Dennis Creed Memorial”

Ronald Kelly

5. Dido, a poem

Alyssa Aldo

6. Translation: Eumolpus in Asia

Ronald Kelly

7. Two maps: Athena and Dionysus

Ana Rodríguez Santory

8. A Song of Ilium: commentary and translation

Benjamin Sarraille

9. On the Question of Civilization

Ana Rodríguez Santory

10. The Styx, a poem

Anonymous

5
ON ARISTOPHANES’ EKKLESIAZOUSAI
Three translations by Maggie Rothberg

To translate an Ancient Greek text as a student of Classics is to embark upon a task at

once familiar and strange. A certain species of translation comprises our daily work; unlike

contemporary pedagogy for living language instruction, which has largely abandoned

translation as an instructional tool in favor of total immersion, the study of Ancient Greek and

Latin still employs translation as its chief modality of interpretation. In a given week, at least

one of my classmates in Greek will ask me something resembling the question: “did you do

the translation for today?” What they mean to ask is not whether I have read the assigned

passage in an English translation, but whether I have read it in Greek. This is because, for

most of us, to read in Ancient Greek is necessarily to translate; once we enter the classroom,

although we begin by reading the Greek aloud, the bulk of our semantic comprehension

and expressive capacity is transmitted by the oral translation which follows immediately

after.

In her essay “The Politics of Translation,” Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak writes that “it

would be a practical help if one’s relationship with the language being translated was such

that sometimes one preferred to speak in it about intimate things.”1 This Spivakian intimacy,

however, remains frustratingly out of reach in the case of a language no longer spoken,

ensuring that some act of translation figures in each act of reading. How, then, does one

habituated into this semi-automated process translation-reading circumvent it as she

embarks upon the purposeful process of translation-writing? And even if she gets this far,

how does she avoid the production of one more artless, library-bound translation, useful

only as an academic reference tool for the occasional student who cares to flip through it?

Such questions inevitably arise as I set out to craft a translation of Aristophanes

Ekklesiazousai, in the hopes of ushering the play off of the shelf and onto the stage. This task

1 Spivak 372.

6
has been seldom undertaken in the American theater of recent decades, probably because

we have yet to discern what is required, from a linguistic standpoint, to render the words

and works of Aristophanes stageable before twenty-first century Anglophone audience. The

two aforementioned traditions of translation from Ancient Greek— that of the student and

that of the scholar—will not do the job. They are, however, the primary means by which I am

able understand this play in the first place. It thus seems necessary for me to begin by facing

these traditions down, so that I might identify the differences between the translations of the

play which are familiar to me and the translation of the play which I want to make.

This was the thought process guiding my development of the three translations which

follow. The first is basically a transcription of what an eavesdropper on my weekly Greek

tutorial would be likely to hear me say aloud as I translate from left to right, along with notes

on a sample of challenging lines which I would normally to stop and discuss. The second is

my approximation of the characteristic tone and format of published scholarly translations,

which typically smoothen the English grammar and syntax while striving to preserve

historical information for the student reader. The third is my first pass at making something

recognizable to a contemporary audience as a play, and more specifically, a comedy. The

translated passage depicts the heroine Praxagora and her comrades, disguised as men,

gathering to rehearse for their upcoming invasion of the Athenian Assembly. The passage in

Greek is included as an appendix.

7
I. For My Greek Professor
Praxagora. Come now, you, tie the beard round and swiftly become a man; and I, setting down
the garlands, will tie it round also myself with you all, in case it seems best for me to
say something.
Woman A. Hither, sweetest Praxagora, look, poor dear, how ridiculous the thing
appears!
Pr. How ridiculous?
WA. Just like if someone onto a lightly-browned cuttlefish were to tie round a beard.
Pr. Purifier of the Assembly, it is necessary to bring in the weasel. Come forward
into the front. Ariphrades, stop chatting. After coming, sit down. Who wishes to
address the Assembly?
WA. I.
Pr. Place round now the crown for good luck.
WA. Behold!
Pr. You would speak.
WA. Am I to speak before I drink?
Pr. Behold, “to drink!”
WA. Why else, my dear, was I crowned?
Pr. Go away from my feet.2 You would do us that way also there.3
WA. But why? Do they not drink in the Assembly?
Pr. Look at you, “they drink.” 4
WA. Yes, by Artemis, they do these things and they drink it unmixed. The
deliberations, at least, of them, however
much they do, to those who remember are just like those of drunkards — mad 5.
And by Zeus, they make libations. Or, for the sake of what would they pray so
much, if wine was not on hand? And they brawl, at any
rate, amongst themselves, just like people having drank, and the drunken one
the archers carry out.
Pr. Walk away and sit. For you are nothing.
WA. By the God, surely it would be better for me not to have grown a beard. For in
thirst, as it seems, I will perish.
Pr. Is there someone else who wishes to speak?

2This might be understood to simply mean “go away,” but the Greek phrase expresses its directionality using the preposition
ἐκ (“away” or “out”) as a prefix on ποδών (the genitive form of “feet.”)
3 The verb for ἐργάζοµαι (“do”) used here can take a double accusative— in this case, the pronoun ἡµας (“us”) and the
pronoun τοιαῦτα, which may be taken adverbially, as here (“in this way”), or substantively (“such things.”) Formal English
would prefer that “us” become an indirect object, i.e. “you would do such things to us,” but constructions much closer to the
Greek are acceptable in vernacular English, e.g. “do me dirty.”
4 The word ἰδού, translated here as “look at you,” is translated twice earlier as “behold.” A colloquial usage of the second-
person imperative from the verb ὁράω (“look”), it can serve either to command the listener to look at something, or to
express skepticism, confusion, or disapproval towards another’s words.
5The word here translated as “mad” is an adjectival use of the perfect passive participle of the verb παραπλήσσω, lit. “strike
at the side.” So the deliberations are technically “having been struck at the side.”

8
II. For Student Readers
Pr. Come on now, you, tie on your beard and quickly become a man; I will place
down these garlands and tie on my own beard along with you, in case I decide
to say something.
WA. Come here, sweetest Praxagora; look, my dear, at how ridiculous this thing
looks!
Pr. Ridiculous how?
WA. It’s as if someone were to tie a beard onto a lightly-browned cuttlefish.
Pr. Purifier of the Assembly, it is time to bring in the sacrificial weasel.6 Come
forward. Ariphrades, stop chattering.7 Come here and sit. Who wishes to
address the Assembly?8
WA. I do.
Pr. Put on the crown, now, for good luck.
WA. There you go!
Pr. You may speak now.
WA. Am I to speak before I drink?
Pr. “Drink!” Really?
WA. But honey, why else was I crowned?
Pr. Get away from me. You would do these things to us in the Assembly, too.
WA. But why? They don’t drink in the Assembly?
Pr. Listen to you— “they drink!”
WA. Yes, by Artemis, they do these things! And they drink their wine unmixed. Their
policies, at the very least, to the extent that they make them, and if anyone
remembers them at all, are mad — as if they were made by drunkards. And by
Zeus, they pour libations. Why else would they pray so much, if no wine was on
hand? And they brawl amongst themselves, just like drunkards, and the archers
carry out the drunkest one. 9
Pr. Go and sit. You are useless.
WA. By Zeus, it would surely be better for me not to have grown a beard. For it
seems like I will die of thirst!
Pr. Is there someone else who wishes to speak? 


6 It was customary for meetings of the Athenian assembly to begin with the sacrifice of a pig. The Greek word, γαλέη, refers
to animals such as weasels, polecats, and marten cats, which were, according to some sources, commonly domesticated in
Ancient Athens. The joke here seems to be that Praxagora, unaware of the details of the political ceremony, mistakenly
invokes an animal common to her own domestic sphere.
7 Praxagora addresses an imaginary Assemblyman— likely a historical figure known to be talkative.
8 The standard formal call for speakers during Assembly meetings.
9 Archers served as law-enforcement officials.

9
III. For Contemporary American Theatre-goers
(Praxagora and the women get ready to rehearse for the Assembly. Utter
chaos.)
PRAXAGORA. (To Woman A, gesturing to her beard.) You! C’mon, quickly, man up and
put that thing on.
(She sets down the crowns and ties on her own beard. Aside:)
Just in case I decide to put a word in.
WOMAN A. (Examining her own reflection.) Hey, Prax? C’mere.
Look, dude—
This thing looks ridiculous.
PRAXAGORA. (Paying attention to something else.) What’s ridiculous?
WOMAN A. It looks like someone fried a fish and stuck a beard on it!
PRAXAGORA. (Ignoring her— assuming her place at the podium.)
The meeting will come to order.
The purification of this place of Assembly will now be offered by the
Peristiarchos.
Will he please proceed to the front, bringing the sacrificial cat.

(A woman comes forward with a stuffed cat. After presenting it to the

crowd, she places it on the ground ceremoniously. A ripple of whispers
through the crowd.)

PRAXAGORA. (Addressing an imaginary assemblyman.) Will the gentleman Ariphrades

cease talking, come forward, and sit.

(The Peristiarchos removes a knife from her pocket, lifts it high in the air
with a flourish, and brings it down hard into the heart of the cat.)
A respectful silence.

PRAXAGORA. (Clearing her throat.) Who will address the Assembly?

WOMAN A. Me!
PRAXAGORA. (Handing her a crown.) The honorable representative will assume the
crown of good luck.
WOMAN A. (She dons the crown. Strutting her stuff:) Check it.

(Titters in the crowd.)

PRAXAGORA. (Impatient whisper.) You would start speaking now.

WOMAN A. …You mean
I’m supposed to talk before I drink?
PRAXAGORA. (Rattled— a stitch in her plan.) … drink?
WOMAN A. Well, Ι put on this damn crown— and for WHAT?

(More laughter.)

10
PRAXAGORA. (Shooing her from the podium) All right, just go away—
I’m sure you’ll pull this same crap in the Assembly anyway.
WOMAN A. What? They don’t drink in the Assembly?
PRAXAGORA. Listen to yourself—
(A cruel imitation) “They don’t drink in the Assembly?”

(All laugh.)

WOMAN A. (Riled up now.) I swear to Artemis, they do! Straight up, too. No mixers.
(Hoots from the crowd. A full-on standup routine, now:)
I mean, take their policies— when they even make any!
Nobody could write that shit unless he was drunk
off
his
ASS.
I’m telling you, they pour one out for Zeus—
What the hell else are they saying all those prayers for?
If the wine’s not flowing on the side?
(a lively reenactment:)
And every time they fight like a bunch of alcoholics,
And every time the police have to drag out the guy who gets too
wasted!

(Raucous laughter.)

PRAXAGORA. (Struggling to regain control.) GO and sit. You are NO help—

WOMAN A. (Still hamming.) Lord above, if ONLY I hadn’t grown this BEARD! I just
might DIE of thirst!

(She mock-faints. The crowd is beside itself.)

PRAXAGORA. (Pissed. Snatching the crown from Woman A’s head.) IS THERE ANYONE
ELSE WHO WOULD CARE TO SPEAK?

11
VI. Reflections
Translation I is largely an exercise in grammatical comprehension. This might be

understood as an example of what John Dryden calls metaphrase: “turning an Author word

by word, and Line by Line, from one Language into another.”10 Greek syntax, grammar and

idiom are preserved here as closely as possible; where this engenders awkward English,

footnotes serve to explicate the underlying particularities of the Greek, modeling the

principle endorsed by Vladimir Nabokov of using translation as an opportunity for the

original text to be “dissected and mounted, and scientifically studied in all of its organic

details.”11 But insofar as this scientific approach renders a text that cannot— to borrow

Nabokov’s phrase—“soar and sing” on paper, this is at least partially because Translation I is a

transcription of an oral form, which in its original instantiation was composed on the spot

with the goal of demonstrating my competency in Greek grammar to my teacher. It is thus

largely dependent on my emphasis, hand gestures, and commentary for its meaning. Oral

translations of this type also tend to rely upon continual cross-reference with the Liddell,

Scott and Jones Greek-English Lexicon, a relatively antiquated product of the late nineteenth

century which has yet to be supplanted by a more contemporary dictionary. This should

explain the presence of certain archaisms (“hither,” “behold,” “perish,”) characteristic of a

long tradition of Ancient Greek grammar-school “translationese.”12

Translation II bears strong resemblance to its predecessor insofar as it shares a good

deal of vocabulary and certain lines in their entirety, but would be better described in

Dryden’s terms as paraphrase. Although it mimics the Greek grammar and syntax where

possible, it makes frequent alterations in the interest of readability. It is difficult, for example,

to comprehend the grammatical relationships in Woman A’s speech when the English tries

to mimic the phrase order of the Greek (as in Translation I), since Greek benefits from

declensional endings which English lacks— hence the rearrangement of the clauses here to

10 Dryden 114.
11 Nabokov 77.
12 Venuti 4.

12
clarify that “mad” and “like those of drunkards” both modify “their policies.” Idiom is altered

to account for what Walter Benjamin calls equivalence in “what is meant” but disparity in

“way of meaning” between English and Greek; the exclamation ἰδού (see Translation I, n.3),

for example, invokes the listener’s sense of sight, but English, in such situations, prefers to

invoke our sense of hearing— hence the translation in Praxagora’s second usage as “listen to

you.”13 Translation II thus prioritizes easy comprehension in English, and in doing so largely

domesticates the text—which is to say it brings the Greek text closer to the English reader,

rather than bringing the English reader closer to the Greek. It does employ the latter

technique, however, with respect to the preservation of certain obscure political references

and historical details, such as the maintenance of “weasel,” no longer a common domestic

animal, and the reference to the “archers,” which does not, on its own, suggest the function

of law enforcement. Where necessary, these references are explicated by footnotes.


Although the first two translations each convey their own kind of valuable information,

neither do much in the way of distinguishing the speech patterns of different characters,

expressing emotion, or anticipating stage action. Translation III, by contrast, eschews many

of the virtues of its predecessors in favor of these theatrical concerns. Dryden writes that the

“thorow Translatour” of Ovid or Pindar must also be a “thorow Poet;” I would suggest that

the thorough translator of Aristophanes might also be a thorough theater-maker.14 In

composing this translation, I had to call upon an altogether different set of interpretive tools

than those which enabled the first two versions— tools unfamiliar to the realm of classical

literary criticism, but well-known to the realm of (Stanislavksyan) script analysis for actors,

directors, and playwrights. The theater-maker encountering a script asks: What is the conflict

in the scene? Who is the character talking to? What are her objectives? What are her tactics?

How and why do these things change? Attempting to addressing these theatrical questions

through the act of translation demanded that I exploit techniques of paraphrase and

domestication to the fullest. It was an imaginative exercise of reading both closely and freely

13 Benjamin 257.
14 Dryden 5.

13
— capitalizing on subtleties in register, tone, and character where I could detect them, and

simply making them up where I could not.

An example of the first strategy is Woman A’s address of Praxagora as “dude.” the

Greek line does contain a masculine vocative (ταλάν), which means something like “wretch,”

and is used often by women to invoke other women in Aristophanes. Although the English

“dude” has a slightly different sense, it retains the masculinity, and does double duty in

establishing the casual relationship between these women and in demarcating a particular

linguistic habitude for Woman A. I aim throughout the passage to create a detectable

difference between how Woman A uses words and how Praxagora uses words, and further

between how Praxagora uses words when she is “on script” versus when she is “off script.”

Greek imperatives are translated as English imperatives when Praxagora makes commands

prior to the rehearsal or during interruptions within it, but the formal language of Assembly

procedure utilizes different grammatical structures. I grafted the syntax from footage of a

meeting of the U.S. House of Representatives, where the kinds of commands that appear in

Greek as implied second-person imperatives (“put on the crown,” “come forward and sit,”)

are typically heard in the third-person future indicative (e.g. “the House will come to order,”

“the representatives elect and their guests will please remain standing.”)15 The use of this

syntax serves both to differentiate Praxagora’s two registers of speech and to capitalize on

formulae for procedural political speech which may be more recognizable to the

contemporary American ear.

Insofar as I simply made things up, it was in service of a different domesticating

technique: the formal assimilation to contemporary Western dramatic-literary conventions.

The insertion of stage directions are the most obvious manifestation of this choice. Nowhere

does Aristophanes tell us explicitly that Praxagora is “paying attention to something else” or

“assuming her place at the podium” or that Woman A is “strutting her stuff” or that she is

“riled up.” But if the native speaker of Ancient Greek encountering Aristophanes was

deprived of written indication of action or affect, they would have been compensated by a)

15 “Opening of the House of Representatives 114th U.S. Congress” 1:43, 3:19

14
the opportunity to actually see the play onstage and/or b) the ability to intuitively register

nuances of tone in the language itself, which the English translator must take great pains to

identify and reproduce. Under such circumstances, a case can be made that a translation

which hews too closely to the ancient stage-directionless convention risks a flattening of the

drama. The stage directions are thus my attempt to transmit an imagined trajectory of action

and emotion in the text; in some cases, they replace spoken lines with physical actions

altogether (e.g. “I will place down these garlands and tie on my own beard along with you”

becomes a stage direction in which Praxagora does just that,) or supplement lines which

heavily suggest sequences of movement (e.g. the directions for the purification ritual.) In

other cases, such as the insertion of laughter, they enable me to take an interpretive leap in

deciding what the scene is about. While Translations I and II, along with most published

versions, suggest that the conflict arises from an intelligent Praxagora struggling to corral a

very stupid Woman A, the inclusion of the women’s laughter here enables us to read their

exchange differently: as a competition between two strong personalities— equally witty, but

harboring incompatible priorities— for the attention of their peers.

Even inside of these largely domesticating techniques, however, many

characteristically Ancient Greek elements are preserved. In general, I am interested in

utilizing modern forms for ancient content; although the sound and syntax of the speech is

meant to evoke a contemporary American milieu, the substance of the discussion itself aims

to keep us grounded in Ancient Athens. I do not go so far as to replace “Ariphrades” with

“Mitch McConnell,” nor do I supplant the pagan purification ritual with a Christian prayer

(which does in fact take place at the opening of U.S. Congress.) The characters still swear by

Greek gods and call each other by Greek names, and the particular political issues at hand

are decidedly those of the Athenian polis (although we may well recognize characteristics of

our own polity within them.)

I am not of the opinion that this is the only or even the superior way to translate

Aristophanes for the twenty-first century stage. The standard argument in favor of the tack

which I adopted here relies on the assertion that employment of anachronistic references or

15
jokes will rapidly render a translation outdated. A case could just as well be made, however,

that the original Greek Ekklesiazousai was itself rapidly rendered outdated; unlike

Sophocles, Aeschylus, and Euripides, who pulled from broad, mytho-historical stories to

craft tragic plays which we still today refer to as “timeless,” the comedies of Aristophanes

were ruthlessly ephemeral—packed with references to contemporaneous political figures

and events which would have gradually declined in salience over the decades, even within

the chronological space of antiquity. This reality of the comic genre suggests, then, that the

common imperative placed on translations to outlast one particular sociopolitical moment,

while already questionable insofar as all texts are, to some extent, in and of their historical

era, becomes particularly unreasonable with respect to translating Aristophanes.

At the same time, anachronism can easily become a self-defeating device; when the

pressure to modernize and to familiarize begins to erode the sense of Greekness about the

play, one is forced to probe the purpose of translating an ancient text at all. If the task at

hand is to shed some amount of light on contemporary American politics, one could just as

easily do that by writing a new play about literal American women overtaking literal

American congress. There must, however, be a certain kind of impact engendered by the

use of antiquity to illuminate modernity that is distinct from the impact engendered by the

direct representation of modernity. This impact, I suspect, arises from the metaphorical

distance that the ancient story affords. The translation ought to modernize and Americanize,

then, just enough, or in just the right respects, so as to not forgo Greekness altogether; if the

audience can maintain the sense that they are watching something from a distant world, the

effect should be altogether more arresting when they are reminded of their own.

16
Appendix: The Greek

Πραξαγόρα. Ἴθι δὴ σὺ περιδοῦ καὶ ταχέως ἀνὴρ γενοῦ:

ἐγὼ δὲ θεῖσα τοὺς στεφάνους περιδήσομαι

καὐτὴ μεθ᾽ ὑμῶν, ἤν τί μοι δόξῃ λέγειν.

Γυνή Α. δεῦρ᾽ ὦ γλυκυτάτη Πραξαγόρα, σκέψαι τάλαν

ὡς καὶ καταγέλαστον τὸ πρᾶγμα φαίνεται.

Πρ. πῶς καταγέλαστον; Γυα. ὣσπερ εἴ τις σηπίαις

πώγωνα περιδήσειεν ἐσταθευμέναις.

Πρ. ὁ περιστίαρχος, περιφέρειν χρὴ τὴν γαλῆν.

Πάριτ᾽ἐς τὸ πρόσθεν. Ἀρίφραδες παῦσαι λαλῶν.

κάθιζε παριών. Τίς ἀγορεύειν βούλεται;

Γυα. ἐγώ. Πρ. περίθου δὴ τόν στέφανον τύχἀγαθῇ.

Γυα. ἰδού. Πρ. λέγοις ἄν. Γυα. Εἶτα πρὶν πιεῖν λέγω;

Πρ. ἰδοὺ πιεῖν. Γυα. τί γαρ ὦ μέλ᾽ἐστεφανωσάμην;

Πρ. ἄπιθ´ἐκποδών. τοιαῦτ᾽ἄν ἡμᾶς ἠργάσω

κἀκεῖ. Γυα. Τί δ᾽; οὐ πίνουσι κἀν τἠκκλησία;

Πρ. ἰδού γε σοὶ πίνουσι. Γυα. νὴ τὴν Ἄρτεμιν

καὶ ταῦτα γ᾽εὔζωρον. τὰ γοῦν βουλεύματα

αὐτῶν ὅσ᾽ἄν πράξωσιν ἐνθυμουμένοις

ὥσπερ μεθυόντων ἐστὶ παραπεπληγμένα.

καὶ νὴ Δία σπένδουσί γ᾽. ἢ τίνος χάριν

τοσαῦτ᾽ἄν ηὔχοντ᾽, εἴπερ οἶνος μὴ παρῆν;

καὶ λοιδοροῦνταί γ᾽ὥσπερ ἐμπεπωκότες,

καὶ τόν παροινοῦντ᾽ἐκφέρουσ᾽οἱ τοξόται.

Πρ. σὺ μεν βάδιζε καὶ κάθησ᾽: οὐδὲν γὰρ εἶ.

Γυα. νὴ τὸν Δί᾽ ἦ μοι μὴ γενειᾶν κρεῖττον ἦν.

δίψῃ γὰρ, ὡς ἒοικ᾽, ἀφαυανθήσομαι.

Πρ. ἒσθ᾽ ἣτις ἑτέρα βούλεται λέγειν;

17
Works Cited
Aristophanes, edited by F.W. Hall and W.M. Geldart. Aristophanis Comoediae.

“Ecclesiazusae.”

Benjamin, Walter. “The Task of the Translator.”

Dryden, John. Introduction to “Ovid’s Epistles, Translated by Several Hands.”

Nabokov, Vladimir, “Problems of Translation: Onegin in English.”

Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. “The Politics of Translation.”

Venuti, Lawrence. “The Translator’s Invisibility.”

“Opening of the House of Representatives 114th U.S. Congress.” https://

www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtDCQ8F-VGE

18
 CHARON’S DIARY
By Catherine Kiall

'nullae hic insidiae tales (absiste moveri),


nec vim tela ferunt; licet ingens ianitor antro

aeternum latrans exsanguis terreat umbras,

casta licet patrui servet Proserpina limen.

Troius Aeneas, pietate insignis et armis,

ad genitorem imas Erebi descendit ad umbras.

si te nulla movet tantae pietatis imago,

at ramum hunc' (aperit ramum qui veste latebat)

'agnoscas.' tumida ex ira tum corda residunt;

nec plura his. ille admirans venerabile donum

fatalis virgae longo post tempore visum

caeruleam advertit puppim ripaeque propinquat.   
(6.399-410) henē kai nea , Anthesterion

A marvel has occurred, the like of which I thought I would never see. Another living hero appeared, another

meddlesome, sacrilegious intruder, or so I thought. Yet it was not so. For he came bearing proof of his piety,

proof of his humble position as a suppliant. He had it: the golden bough. So long it had been since I last laid eyes

on it, for what I thought would be the final time, when my queen Proserpine, frustrated by the constant danger of

hostile intruders threatening her kingdom and making the Underworld unsafe, had ordered the golden bough to

henceforth be brought as a gift ordained to her as a necessary offering for any living soul to receive safe

passage in her realm. She knew better than to trust heroes simply because they are of divine birth, supposedly

virtuous, or in Zeus’ favor; such traits simply are not good enough anymore.

19
 Admittedly, I too am part of the reason that this new plan was conceived, as I am perhaps overly

suspicious of all who seek to cross my river, and rightly so in my opinion. A less skeptical eye might have already

perceived the intrinsic piety of the man, simply in his manner of being. But with this gold token, evidence of

divine presence in the mortal world, there can be no doubt, even by myself, of the sanctity of the bearer. With it, it

was clear; he carried a message of peace and respect, expecting likewise good faith and protection on my side,

and would properly lay down the bough as an offering to the queen on the threshold of her palace in Elysium.

Another bough will now grow in its place. May we see its like again.

 Sources: Pârvulescu, Adrian. “The Golden Bough, Aeneas' Piety, and the Suppliant Branch.” Latomus, vol. 64, no. 4, 2005, pp. 882–909.
Segal, Charles. “The Hesitation of the Golden Bough: A Reexamination.” Hermes, vol. 96, no. 1, 1968, pp. 74–79. Segal, Charles Paul.
“‘Aeternum per Saecula Nomen’, the Golden Bough and the Tragedy of History: Part II.” Arion: A Journal of Humanities and the Classics,
vol. 5, no. 1, 1966, pp. 34–72.

20
THE UNDERWORLD

21
DENNIS CREED MEMORIAL
This passage is excerpted from “Who Delights in Thunder,” a novella composed for a senior

thesis in the College of Letters by one of our majors.

By Ronald Kelly

Jasper’s eyes were open. He stared resentfully at the unfamiliar white ceiling above

him. He had woken at some point, probably a few minutes ago, judging by the incessant

ticking of the clock on the wall. An elusive inflammation— light, as if he had eaten a large

chunk of wasabi— had taken up residence in his nose, and also in his right shoulder. In short,

there was nothing to look at and most things he was aware of were painful. His neck,

especially. He had tried to turn his head to look at something other than the ceiling above

him and that had been punished by a pain that originated not from his neck or joints but

instead from the place his neck was supposed to be. Jasper had also discovered, to his

considerable distress, that he couldn’t move his arms or legs, but whether and to what

extent he was restrained was impossible to investigate without the use of his arms or the

ability to move his head.

Jasper licked his lips. Yes, that was still within his power. Blinking, most movements of

the mouth. He could curl his fingers and toes, and tense every muscle below the shoulders

without pain. He had never been especially strong so he didn’t bother to consider breaking

out of his potential restraints by force. Instead, robbed of his eyes, he closed them and tried

to sleep.

Jasper failed to sleep.

Jasper could hear everything except the odd half-silence that lead to sleep. The

soundscape started on the large scale: an awareness of white noise that was not white, air

conditioning droning like a schoolteacher, loud and imposing, impossible to forget once it

had been noticed. His own breathing (were those his lungs? Could a person hear their own

lungs crumpling and inflating without a stethoscope? Probably not, he decided). His

22
heartbeat, pumping blood that sounded thick. It took him some time to hear anything else,

because it was so close to his left ear, right under it, pounding like sledgehammers and kick

drums. The rustle of the sheets on his fingers— they must have been linen, they felt heavy

and textured. But there was something just beyond the rustle, and he stilled his fingers and

flung his consciousness as far outward as he could to hear the sound.

All your life, you’ve never seen a woman taken by the wind...

Would you stay if she promised you heaven?

Will you ever win?

Taken by, taken by the sky.

Jasper couldn’t tell if he was hearing a radio broadcast or someone’s portable speaker, but

Fleetwood Mac was undeniably playing in the distance. What should he do? Shout for help

could send the wrong message. If the person (he was being ridiculous) wanted him dead,

then they probably would have killed him. On the other hand, immobilizing him in a bed did

not bode well. If they thought he was asleep, would he treat him better or worse? And he

could not overstate the extent to which he couldn’t fucking see anything. The sound of

music was briefly overwritten by his heartbeat again. Deep, slow breaths in and out. Slow the

heart rate. Fleetwood Mac came back into his awareness.

“HEY!” shouted a loud voice. Jasper’s concentration had been so deep that he shook

violently at the sudden volume of the sound and hurt his neck again He hissed a breath out

from between his teeth. The shout had come from off to the right. “Can you please play

some actual good music?” A long silence followed the statement. Jasper strained to hear

Fleetwood Mac, but it had been switched off. And then, footsteps, one by one. Soft

footsteps, not heels or boots, but also not slippers or sandals. Sneakers, or canvas shoes,

Jasper was sure, and getting closer. After a moment, the footsteps receded away again, and

he heard the sound of metal squeaking across the floor.

Tile floors! Jasper had the most concrete information so far about the place he was

being held. Tile floors, and other people also in beds. A hospital?

23
 “What can I do to make your stay more comfortable?” said a soft voice. It didn’t carry

well. No discernable gender, but a strong Southern accent.

“You could play, I don’t know, some motherfucking GNR. Have you ever heard of rock

music? I’d settle for ZZ Top.” Jasper held his breath, straining to make sure he heard

whatever was going to happen.

“You should be more grateful,” said the voice. “I’m here to help you.” There was a

sound—shuffling, a click. The complaining voice let out a deep, profound sigh. “There, isn’t

that better? Call me if you need more.” The footsteps began again, a few at a time. Jasper

shut his eyes as lightly as he could. It took him back to his childhood: his mother opening his

bedroom door and looking in, while Jasper hid his Nintendo handheld under a pillow and

pretended to sleep for as long as she stood there. As the person grew closer, Jasper could

hear them humming to themselves between slow, deep breaths, and smell the sweetness of

their body, like honeysuckle mixed with wine. It was heady and deeply pleasant, so much so

that Jasper felt his nervousness bleeding away and had to remember that he was restrained

with a stranger.

“I know you’re awake,” they said. “Don’t worry. I won’t hurt you. I’m here for your

safety.” Jasper didn’t move or open his eyes. He kept breathing deeply, in through his belly.

With his arms hanging limp at his sides, he could feel that his wrists were secured in ties that

hung from the side of his bed, with a little give in them but not enough to simply slip out of.

Then, a sharp poking in his arm and his eyes flew open.

A woman, he thought, and younger than he had expected, with a beautiful face of

makeup and her brown skin edged with gold highlights— contour? Eye shadow? Jasper

wasn’t much for cosmetics. Her silky black hair was in lustrous braids, and she was wearing a

white lab coat and a necklace with a pendant on the end: a brilliant turquoise hand with a

red-irised eye in the center of the palm. Jasper couldn’t see anything else from his angle,

looking straight up at her; if her jacket was monogrammed with a name, it was out of sight.

“Hello, there, sleepy,” she said. “Sorry for sticking you, I just hate to play pretend.

You’re Jasper, right?”

24
 “How—” Jasper paused and coughed. His voice was a little rough. “Could I have some

water?” he croaked.

“Of course, sweetie,” she said. Something cold was pressed to his mouth, and Jasper

eagerly drank the water that she tipped in. It was sweet and a little cloying, like Propel or

sugar water, but still so relieving of dryness that he wanted to gulp it down. But she took it

away from his mouth after a second. “Don’t worry, you aren’t dehydrated. I hooked you up

with saline while you were out.” Jasper filled with thoughts but there was nothing to say to

that that might not put him at risk.

“How do you know my name?” he asked.

“You were carrying your wallet when I found you,” she said. “I took liberties, I’m sorry.”

She looked down at him expectantly, her eyebrows raised a little, and Jasper almost laughed

from the telegraphing of it.

“Thank you for helping me,” he said, and she beamed, actually beamed at him, her

eyes widening and her mouth expanding to push her cheeks aside. Everyone one of her

teeth was gleaming and even, her eyes that rare brown so light it was almost yellow.

“You are so welcome, Jasper.”

“Do you think...I could walk around a bit?” he asked, watching carefully. The smile

didn’t falter.

“Oh, no,” she said. “I can adjust you and unbind your hands, but you’ll have to stay in

bed. You were injured in a car accident— do you remember?”

Actually, Jasper remembered the accident very well, and in slow-motion. He could still

see LED headlights glittering off the rain on Mulligan’s windshield.

“Yes.”

“The hospital was too far away, so the ambulance brought you here. The Dennis

Creed Memorial Clinic. We’re a little backwoods, but for out-patient we’re more than

adequate. Here.” She pressed a button and Jasper felt the bed shift beneath him. Without

jolting his neck, the bed folded until it was at an angle where he was sitting up, looking

around a room that was suddenly less monotonous nightmare and more the cover of

25
Southern Hospitality. The walls were puce. There was a window that opened onto a view of

two pine trees. Two other people, one black and one white, were sleeping in hospital beds

to his right and left.

Jasper looked toward the nurse in a mixture of disappointment and relief. Her name-

tag read “Callie”. Callie reached out and undid the Velcro restraints on his hands.

“If you want a book, or need something, call me. Otherwise, there’ll be three meals a

day.”

“Do you need my insurance?”

“No,” said Callie. “The mayor called ahead.”

Jasper’s roommates both worked at some church the mayor was building on an

outcropping near the center of town.

John Marshall had been hospitalized after a nervous breakdown and was presently

benefitting from Callie’s system of “total healing”. Jasper could never look away from his

huge pimples, sticking out red against  his pale skin. Callie was the head nurse at Dennis

Creed; the other RNs were just her glorified orderlies.

“The thing she gets which other people do not,” said John Marshall, “is that you really

can’t get better if you’re always worried about the outside. Unplugging has done more for

me than ten months of therapy.” He licked his lips constantly, so every few words he would

stop and lick again. He spent much of his time watching films from Callie’s small collection

on the TV in the corner. He would page her, and she would bring Speed or Eternal Sunshine

of the Spotless Mind or something. Jasper watched out of hunger for visual stimulus beyond

the drab room. Apparently, the philosophy of unplugging didn’t apply to television.

DeMarcus was a Black manual worker who had gotten injured in a construction

accident on the site of a nearby church. DeMarcus could whistle with incredible fluency (and

did so often). He had been transferred here to recover from the surgery that had mostly

fixed his leg. He didn’t have much to say about the accident itself, although he held forth on

26
various topics from football and boxing (his favorite sports) to how exactly China was getting

over on the United States.

“A big old piece of rock fell on me,” DeMarcus said simply. “My knee just went

backwards.” He made a quick hand gesture, like pulling on a doorknob, and Jasper couldn’t

help a wince. “I feel a lot better now.” He pointed to the IV that was feeding him painkillers

on a regular drip. They all had one, but Jasper had gathered that DeMarcus was, to borrow

John Marshall’s phrasing, on the good stuff. Twice a day DeMarcus got out of bed and was

made to do PT right there in the room, on a cracked yellow yoga mat that Callie brought in

for him. She smiled and pushed him through the exercises. John Marshall and Jasper would

clap for DeMarcus as he pushed through the pain.

There were a few rooms with three or four patients each in the clinic, but Jasper

thought there were no more than ten people in the whole building. He based this estimate

on the number of trays of food the RNs pushed past his room in their clattery carts. Some of

the doors, like the one to the room opposite his, were usually left propped open, which

meant that everyone heard everyone else doing everything: snoring, complaining, singing

along to Callie’s radio. Others were kept shut.

It only took Jasper’s neck a day to get to the point where he didn’t need to be kept

still all the time, and after that he wore a neck brace while he read in bed from whatever

books Callie had on hand. Occasionally, because he was a light sleeper and Callie made

rounds often, he’d have conversations with her while the other patients were asleep. Callie’s

floaty mannerisms seemed a sharp contrast to her medical knowledge, and among other

things, it made her the most interesting conversational partner available.

“So, what happened to Leonard?” he asked her on his third night. “I ended up here,

but I haven’t seen him.” Callie was sitting next to him in a chair, knitting in the lamplight.

“Oh, he’s in another room. He was transferred out to the hospital a county over and

sent back here to recover. His injuries were quite a bit worse than yours. He’s lucky to be

alive.” Her needles clicked together as she speared another loop of yarn. “That’s why you

should take your time to recover.”

27
 “I’m sorry, what?” asked Jasper, looking up from his book (The Magus. Callie’s books

were better than her movies.) “How does that follow from the fact that he got hurt?” Callie

frowned to herself, but her hands kept moving seamlessly as a machine. She glanced over at

the other patients sleeping in their beds and cast another row onto what looked like the

beginnings of a hat.

“This place...I mean, we are medical practitioners, but you have to understand that

almost everyone receiving treatment here could go home at any time. Nothing’s wrong with

John Marshall except that he hates his job, and DeMarcus was down to one PT session a day

before you got here. They’re not at their best, but they’re not really sick either. They just need

time to rest, and forget. It’s a public service. So it’s because the world out there—” she jerked

her head indiscriminately “is so full of stress and danger, that you should stay here.” She

licked her lips and opened her mouth, but said nothing else.

“Can I make a call?” he asked. “I have an invite to a dinner Friday.” He was starting to

panic, although somehow, he wasn’t shaking. His arms were so calm and leaden. Or maybe

that was the painkillers?

“If you need to go anywhere, you’ll be released,” said Callie. “Don’t worry! The world

will wait for you.” Jasper began struggling, through the feeling of total physical relaxation, to

understand that he was being prevented from contacting anyone or even leaving his bed

without supervision, no matter how many conversations he had or books he read, and that

really he was probably not injured very badly after all. He was being retained. Harmlessly,

but still against his will.

“What’s your favorite book, Callie?” asked Jasper, instead of voicing his thoughts. He

pressed the paperback shut.

“Same guy who wrote that one,” said Callie. “The Collector.”

28
 — DIDO —
By Alyssa Aldo

Dido seeing Aeneas for the first time… 

I feel something new.

my heart skips a beat, 

it is as if I am flying 
or I have wings to carry me through.

it is him that I need to be with,

when I look to my god from across the room:

my eyes are blind

    my tongue is frozen 
        my skin is burning
my ears are buzzing 
    my body is shaking.

it is all building and growing, 

it starts to overtake me
and before I know it

I am in love. 

29
 EUMOLPUS IN ASIA
By Ronald Kelly
From Petronius…
*cw: non-explicit pedophilia, sexual assault

                      85 “When I’d been taken out into Asia on a quaestor’s dime, I got a place in

Pergamum. Since I was living freely there, not just because of the swanky buildings, but also

because of my host’s fine-behind son, I thought up a scheme that the man of the house

didn’t suspect me of. See, every time any mention was made of putting hot young twinks to

work at dinner, I flared up so hard, and  acted like I  didn’t want that kind of obscene talk

polluting my strict, conservative ears, that the mother considered me one of those sexless

philosophers. So I started taking the young buck to the gym, seeing to his studies, and

teaching and being strict with him, so as to prevent some pedophile from being let into the

house.

            85.4 One night, we happened to be relaxing in the dining room because our fun

had been spoiled by a holiday and our good mood made us slow to leave; it was around

midnight that I realized the boy was still up. And so in the absolute shyest little whisper, I

said my prayers. “Mistress Venus,” I said, “if I can kiss this here boy so that he doesn’t feel a

thing, tomorrow I’ll give the kid a pair of doves.” Well, when he heard his reward, the boy

immediately started ‘snoring’. So I jumped the pretending boy and got some kisses out of

him. I was restrained since it was the first time, and the next morning I picked out a pair of

doves, carried them to the boy (who was waiting for them), and fulfilled my prayer.

            86 The next time circumstances allowed, I changed my tack and said, “If I feel this

boy up real good, and he doesn’t feel a thing, I’ll buy him two fighting cocks.” The boy got

30
pretty worked up about that wish, and I think he even started worrying that I might fall

asleep before I got what I asked. So I gave into him, and gorged myself with his body just

short of the really good stuff. Then, since it was almost morning, I took the cocks I had

promised to the kid, who was jumping for joy at that point. So the third time I was able, I

raised myself up and whispered into the ear of that so-called sleeper: “Immortal gods, if you

let me get the complete, top-notch pleasure from this sleeping boy, in exchange for my

good fortune I’ll give him a top-notch Macedonian stallion—on one condition, namely, that

he doesn’t feel a thing. I’m telling you, nobody ever fell into a deeper sleep than he did. So I

got a fat handful of his milky jugs, just about attached myself to him with kisses, then rolled

all my desires into one act. In the morning he took a seat and waited for my usual package.

Well, you know how much easier it is to buy doves and chickens than it is to cop a freaking

stallion, and anyway I was afraid that if my gifts got too lavish his parents would start to

suspect my high-minded motives. So after several hours strolling the property, I came back

and kissed the boy, who turned and started looking around. But when he turned all the way

around and saw nothing there, the kid pressed himself into my chest and said, “Teacher, just

curious, but where is the stallion?"

                      87 Even though my betrayal closed the backdoor I had made for myself, soon

enough I got back to his good graces. After a few intervening days, when a similar situation

to the one that started it all happened to come up, I noticed the boy’s father snoring and

started to ask the boy to come back to me, if my penance is good enough, and all the other

things one says with a turgid sex drive. To all my pleadings the angry kid said nothing but

this: “If you don’t go to sleep, I’m telling my dad.” But there’s nothing so hard that real

depravity won’t take it anyway. So while he said “I’ll go wake up my dad!”,    I took what I

wanted from him anyway, over the sad fight he put up. He wasn’t exactly upset about my

misdeed, but for a long time after he complained that he’d been tricked, and that his

classmates, to whom he had bragged about how rich I was, made fun of him. “But still,

you’re gonna see that I’m not like you. If you want that, do it again.” Putting aside all offenses,

31
I gave thanks to the boy and, after I’d used him, fell right to sleep. But the boy wasn’t of the

mature age to be satisfied by one time, and was in fact the exact right age to be taking it

hard. So he woke me up and said, “D’you want to go again?” And I definitely wasn’t

bothered. Since I was already worn out, I somehow had another go at him, panting and

sweating, and I went back to sleep, tired out by the exertions of pleasure. But after less than

an hour, he started poking me in the hand and said, “Why don’t we do it again?” Then I got

so worked up and annoyed that I gave him a taste of his own medicine and said, “If you

don’t go to sleep, I’m telling your dad.”

32
 — TWO MAPS —
By Ana Rodríguez Santory

The following maps are part of a semester-long project for CCIV205, Professor Witzke’s

introduction to mythology: Myths, Monsters, and Misogyny, titled The Changing of the

Guard. Traditionally, the expression is understood to refer to the ceremony during which

soldiers guarding an institution are replaced by a set of new officials that carry on the duty.

In many ways, the flow of generations in ancient Greek mythology could be understood in

such terms. While it is true that each usurper imposes their rule through violent means, each

generation also takes upon itself certain aspects of their elders: refining them, developing

them, nuancing them. Tracing these ideas through the development of young gods’

advocations, the trail of primordial forces evidently converge into each other, stitched into

place by the names we are now familiar with — bodies that are themselves as fluid in their

definitions as is their nature to be. Hence, the maps were transformed into videos so as to

remind the viewer of their potentiality.

The Olympian stands in the center of the image, surrounded by their spheres of power,

the lines radiating outwards to the edges of abstraction. The limits are identified in darker

hues: at the very edge, Gaia and Ouranos repeatedly stand at the frontier for those whose

roles have been subsumed into the new character are usually linked by bloodline, as much

as by conceptual relationship. The Olympian’s own nuances are represented in lighter hues,

since the powers they inherit they then put to use in their own stories. After all, the stories

are as alive as the people who tell them.

33
 — ATHENA —
Athena is often considered a motherless goddess, as the Orphic myths have her born

directly out of Zeus’s head. Even later in tradition, when her mother Metis is consumed by

Zeus in an attempt to ward off the prophecy of the usurping child, she remains her father’s

child above all else. Despite this, I’ve chosen to represent Metis in her bloodline, for her

name basically translates into “cunning” or “counsel” and, by acquiring this epithet, Zeus did

effectively devour her — Athena is all that remains of her. And yet, “I side with the male,” she

famously proclaims in Aeschylus’s play, The Eumenides. This is, in fact, a mythic explanation

for the establishment of the Areopagus, in which Athena establishes a system of justice to

sublimate the Erinyes’ elder power. I’ve tried to trace this relationship all the way back to the

Night that mothered the Furies, endless destructive rage, for Athena is the young upstart

goddess that transmutes an elder concept in the service of the city. In a way, vengeance, as

individual acts of violence that impact society, becomes justice, in the larger context of the

city’s institutions. I’ve included this observation in the map’s notes, based on Nicholas

Rynearson’s argument on the importance of Athena’s choice of persuasive rhetoric, as

civilized, over acts of violence, as exemplified by elder powers. 16 ‑

And so, Athena is truly the personification of everything a city needs to thrive — she

refines nature through the development of skills and various crafts, protects the fortifications

that guarantee the citizens’ security, and takes up arms in their defense. It seems to me that

even her virginity is representative of this construct, for as protector of the polis she must

never be breached, and as defender of the state she must not be subjugated to anyone’s

control. Furthermore, it guarantees her loyalty to her father, Zeus, above any other man, so

ending the violent cycle of usurping generations began with her grandfather Kronos.

In this way, as the firstborn child to the king of the gods, she also comes to personify

wisdom — not just because of the allegory of a brilliant idea springing from the head (of a

man) — but also because it’s a logical extension of her role as protector: guarding the city

16 Rynearson, Nicholas. "Courting the Erinyes: Persuasion, Sacrifice, and Seduction in Aeschylus's "Eumenides"." Transactions
of the American Philological Association (1974-2014) 143, no. 1 (2013): 1-22. http://www.jstor.org/stable/43830250.

34
means guarding the kings, those appointed by Zeus’s divine right. So she counsels them,

often personifying prudence and strategic tactics. In a similar manner, she’s often

considered the patroness of heroic ventures, aiding various heroes in the mythical canon

(usually her brothers) for they serve the interest of the city by slaying the chthonic (notably

female) monsters that threaten civilization with their wildness. Thus, considering that she

cannot stand any chaotic force (for example, Poseidon) that threatens civilization, her siding

with the Greeks in the Trojan War has been taken to be a clear allusion to their civilized

condition, despite Homer’s honorable treatment of the Trojans themselves. In the end, her

symmetry is striking — as she stands for no natural construct, she doesn’t usurp elder powers

as much as she actually sublimates, transforms, refines, challenges, transmutes them: an act

of creation.

35
36
37
38
 — DIONYSUS —
Dionysus came to Olympus from afar, riding on a panther, lavished in the revelry of his

followers — so the story goes. In the first century BCE, the ancient historian Diodorus Siculus

brought together Dionysus’s three births in his Bibliotheca historica, a “universal history,” in

an attempt to explain the different depictions of the god: for sometimes he was a beautiful

effeminate youth, and others he wore a long beard as a symbol of maturity. Diodorus

concluded that there must’ve been three separate men named Dionysus, who became

enmeshed into the Olympian we are now familiar with.

Therefore, according to Diodorus, the first Dionysus was born to Ammon, a creator-god

patron of Egyptian Thebes, and Amalthea, the nymph better known as the nurse of baby

Zeus, despite the former’s marriage to Rhea. Upon discovering the product of his affair, she

promptly left him and married Kronos. The second was conceived by Zeus himself, either

with Demeter or Persephone, a child of the sky and the earth. As a baby, he was torn apart

by the “sons of Gaia” and consumed. Now, either Athena managed to save his heart for Zeus

to later impregnate Semele with, or Demeter gathered his remains — symbolism fit for the

god of the vine, harvested and transformed, returned like new fruit. This version is

apparently also cited in Plato’s Phaedo, in which Socrates claims that the initiations of the

Dionysian Mysteries are similar to those of the philosophic path. In the third attempt,

Dionysus is saved from the body of his mother, Semele, after she has been consumed by

Zeus’s glory due to Hera’s trick, and carried to term sewn into the thigh of the king of the

gods. It’s this version that makes its way to us thanks to Hesiod’s Theogony and the Homeric

Hymns.

And so, all things considered, it shouldn’t be surprising to think of this god as one of

transformation — a liberator of boundaries, of life, and death, and body, and mind, and

place. Always credited with humankind’s introduction to wine, he’s a wandering reveler until

he makes his way to Olympus to claim his throne, the only one of the twelve Olympians to

be born of a mortal mother. He was honored through theater, both tragedy and comedy, a

39
role explored by Helene Foley in her article The Masque of Dionysus, of which you’ll find

some quotes integrated into the map when you explore his spheres of power. Interestingly

enough, Dionysus appears to have less roles attributed to him than Apollo, but he performs

over and over again in more diverse scenarios. In his stories, as in his plays, he can take any

form he wishes, but paradoxically enough that tricksy nature is defining of his godhood.

40
41
42
 A SONG OF ILIUM
This commentary and translation is excerpted from A Song of Ilium, a senior thesis by one of

our majors.

By Benjamin Saraille

ἃ γὰ ρ δεῖ μαθόντας ποιεῖν, ταῦτα ποιοῦντες μανθάνομεν

What we must have learned in order to do, we learn by doing.

Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics

It would be hypocritical of me to say this translation was premeditated. Certainly, I was

interested in working with the text, but I had honestly expected my thesis to be a different

kind of project. However, time and I again I found myself playing with the Greek, delighting

in an English word that captured its majesty. Soon these words grew to phrases, phrases to

sentences, and when full monologues stretched before me, I had to be honest: I would

translate it. Months passed like this, filled with pitfalls and triumphs. I stumbled about and

gradually found my bearing. By no means, in my eyes, have I finished. What I share today is a

small, unrefined fraction of what I hope it to be. However, now that I am presented with a

type of closing, I am forced to reflect and to clarify: to understand what has guided me, even

before I was aware. Like Gorgias, I have long seen this project as my plaything. Now, I must

defend it as my work.

“The true hero, the true subject, the center of the Iliad is force:” this is the titular claim of

Simone Weil’s L'Iliade ou le poème de la force (1940). Of all the interpretations I have read, this

has most closely revealed my own feeling. She goes on:

Force employed by man, force that enslaves man, force before which man's flesh shrinks
away. In this work, at all times, the human spirit is shown as modified by its relations with

43
 force, as swept away, blinded by the very force it imagined it could handle, as deformed by
the weight of the force it submits to. For those dreamers who considered that force, thanks to
progress, would soon be a thing of the past, the Iliad could appear as an historical
document; for others, whose powers of recognition are more acute and who perceive force,
today as yesterday, at the very center of human history, the Iliad is the purest and the
loveliest of mirrors. (Weil, 6)

The second of these claims, the Iliad as a mirror of our own time, is one I will return to

much later in conclusion. For now, I am captivated with her focus on force. Her own work

defining it, in all its subtleties, is lengthy, but early on she summarizes the concept:
...it is that x that turns anybody who is subjected to it into a thing. Exercised to the limit, it
turns man into a thing in the most literal sense: it makes a corpse out of him. Somebody was
here, and the next minute there is nobody here at all; this is a spectacle the Iliad never
wearies of showing us... (Weil, 6)

Whatever demise may come, we watch it arrive in gruesome detail, “no reticence veils

the step from life to death (Weil, 26).” This is what first drew me to the Iliad. This, above all

else, is what I strived to preserve in translation. But though Weil’s concept of force is well

defined, its presentation is complicated:

...such a heaping-up of violent deeds would have a frigid effect, were it not for the note
of incurable bitterness that continually makes itself heard, though often only a single word
marks its presence, often a mere stroke of the verse, or a run-on line. It is in this that the Iliad
is absolutely unique, in this bitterness that proceeds from tenderness and that spreads over
the whole human race, impartial as sunlight. Never does the tone lose its coloring of
bitterness; yet never does the bitterness drop into lamentation. Justice and love, which have
hardly any place in this study of extremes and of unjust acts of violence, nevertheless bathe
the work in their light without ever becoming noticeable themselves, except as a kind of
accent. Nothing precious is scorned, whether or not death is its destiny; everyone's
unhappiness is laid bare without dissimulation or disdain; no man is set above or below the
condition common to all men; whatever is destroyed is regretted. (Weil, 25)

Death in the Iliad, the ultimate marker of force’s hand, is not in and of itself

overwhelming. It is the poet's words that convey its power, that tear at our hearts. Often, we

are only told a man’s name and lineage before learning his demise. Yet in the instants

afterwards, through simile, we are flooded with his memory: his struggles, his triumphs, his

purpose, his life. The weight of his passing comes washing over us, in all the “bitterness”

which Weil describes; the strength of this moment lies in its subtlety. The words of

44
Shakespeare are still his own, even in a poor actor’s mouth, but without the proper cadence,

rhythm, and inflection, they are ruined. They fall from tragic to maudlin, even as the same

plot is conveyed. So too it is with translation, to a greater extent, even. The force of the text is

nothing if the reader is not swept away with it.

As for how to achieve this, I was baffled. Though Lattimore (1951) was my reference for

most matters, here in a discussion of tone, I turned to Fagles (1990). It was the first

translation I read, and combing over passages now, I still felt the force that Weil spoke of.

Section by section, I asked myself what was missing––why I had felt strongly enough that my

own work might add something––and I had no answer. Then, one day, I took a different

approach. Rather than look at a single simile or monologue, I read a book aloud. The first

page was honey, rich and shimmering, but with the second, the third, the fourth it changed. I

noticed less its sweetness and its gleam; now, I was agonized by its slow drip. On the final

page of Book I, I realized that the 611 lines of Greek now sprawled out in 735 of translation.

It felt overdone. Slow. As a contrast, I picked up Lombardo (1997). Though he does not

match the Greek line for line, his first book is a mere 643 lines, and the shorter, almost

iambic meter drives them along. I felt myself swept in the current of the text; the lines

carried me forward. But, here and there, his curtness veered into the colloquial. Again, I was

dissatisfied. Something was off.

I realize now that “forceful” is an imprecise term to apply to these translations, for, as

Newton first articulated, force is a not a metric, but a product: mass times acceleration. Now,

in the virtual age, where digital copies of translation circulate, it is strange to talk of a text’s

mass. Acceleration, certainly, should also not apply (excluding the case where a frustrated

student hurls their copy). Yet, in a broader sense, I believe this transformation helps apply

Weil’s comments to the disparate pair of translations. Fagles’ (1990) copy is not so much

forceful as it is weighty; that weight imbues passages with incredible majesty, but if they move

sluggishly along, the overall effect is diminished. Conversely, Lombardo’s (1997) verse has

great speed, but is thematically lighter in its abruptness. Though the Homeric qualities in

Matthew Arnold’s essay On Translating Homer (1861) are different enough from my own

45
conceptualizations that I will largely avoid them here, it would be remiss not to note

structural similarities. Of the four values he seeks in translation––rapidity, plainness,

directness, and nobility––he catalogues a comparable interaction between the first and the

fourth, which are analogous to the ideas of speed and weight above. He says that F. W.

Newman’s (1856) translation, “while it avoids the faults of being slow and elaborate, falls into

a fault in the opposite direction, and is slip shod...[rather than] being noble (Arnold, 43).” As

much as I enjoy Lombardo’s work, I find the same issue.

If I am not to use Arnold’s terms, however, I am left with the issue still of parsing Weil’s

force, and finding what might be analogous to mass and acceleration. I turn then to

Aristotle’s writing on tragedy, which is said to apply to epic as well:

Tragedy, then, is an imitation of an action of serious stature and complete, having
magnitude, in language made pleasing in distinct forms in its separate parts, imitating
people and not using narration, accomplishing by means of pity and fear the cleansing of
these states of feeling. By “language made pleasing” I mean that which has rhythm and
harmony, and by “in distinct” forms I mean accomplishing this in some parts through meter
alone and in others in turn through song. (Aristotle, 1449b)

The imitative work of epic, the weight of the text, is already wrought for me. I have only

the task of transferring it in such a way to convey it properly––of bearing across, as all

translation means to do. My focus, then, is on how to recreate in English the “language made

pleasing in distinct forms” that Aristotle speaks of, “that which has rhythm and harmony...in

some parts through meters alone and in others in turn through song.” Although I do not

expect any of my translation to be set to music like the choral odes mentioned above, this

reference to song has been especially formative in my approach. In fact, to explain my

decisions, to trace the path towards the eventual clarification of this quality I seek, I may

instead explain another choice: why I have chosen not to translate another Iliad, but rather to

sing A Song of Ilium.

It was a while before I settled on this title. Since the beginning, I had known this as a valid

translation. After all, the Greek Ἰλιάς (Iliās, “Trojan”) is only a part of a title, a feminine

adjective from the noun Ἴλιον (Ilium, “Troy”). The full phrase it implies by ellipsis is ἡ ποίησις

Ἰλιάς or “The Trojan Poem.” This is a well known fact; several translators before me even use

46
some variation of it as a subtitle. Still, the text has remained Iliad in my head, and first and

foremost on every title page, the word Iliad spreads. It has lost its music. In the vaguest

sense, my goal was to restore this quality. That began on the level of specificity: I wanted

monologues to ripple with plosives p’s and roll with liquid r’s. I wanted cacophony in the

clashing of armor, and euphony in the river’s course. But I gradually realized that the whole

poem, to me, is a song, and that conception has led me to view one passage very differently

from others: the conclusion. The end of the text, to many, is underwhelming. After suffering,

triumph, joy, and despair, suddenly it all just dissipates. Surely, so grand a story should have

a grand conclusion? I thought so, too. But on my second reading, when I fell deeply in love

with the poem, I realized my error. I did not hear the music of silence.

In any piano piece, it is rare for me to seek out a rendition not by Horowitz or Rubenstein.

I was raised on their playing, and their styles are ones I have become accustomed to. But,

when I first encountered Lang Lang’s La Fille aux cheveux de lin, I made an exception, for the

sheer rapture he portrayed. His playing has always been divisive. Some view him as

overwrought, too expressive in his face and in his movement. For others, this expressiveness

is an extension of the music. Here, in his rendition of Debussy, I can see no argument; his

visage augments his playing. When he reaches delicately for the final chord and gently

plucks, all his expectation rises and is held, ringing in the air. The note dies but leaves

behind a silence still drenched in its color; the audience hesitates to clap. This is but one

example of silence’s power. The hesitations in jazz, the pause between Symphonic

movements, the heroics of a fermata, fighting to keep sound alive––all rely on their relation

to quiet. In 1952, John Cage synthesized this understanding in his famous 4’33”, a three-

movement composition without a single note. Roughly three minutes of silence would drive

anyone in the age of smartphones crazy; but presented properly, it takes on a beautiful,

almost magic quality.

In the Iliad, after 15,692 lines, among tumult and uncertainty, one final phrase appears:

ὣς οἵ γ ̓ ἀμφίεπον τάφον Ἕκτορος ἱπποδάμοιο.

Thus they buried Hector, breaker of Horses

47
 And that is all. There is quiet. Before, at all the turning points of war, in between the

speeches of generals and kings, a formula appears: ὣς ἔφαθ ̓, οἳ δ ̓ ἄρα πάντες ἀκὴ ν

ἐγένοντο σιωπῇ, “he spoke, and all were still in silent hush.” Silence is the marker of

imminent change. Without fail, some leader will arise to give direction to the ranks. But now,

the poet leaves us without guidance. If this silence is mere void, mere ending, mere lack, of

course, it is lackluster. But if it can transform this quiet, as Cage does, it takes on new

meaning. More specifically, it finds meaning lost in our memory. Somewhere in the single

words, the strokes of verse, the run-on lines that Weil mentions, we recall the bitterness of

death. Wretched, ugly, crawling from behind, they wash over us: soldier after soldier, broken

by force, dead and gone. Finally, when we are allowed rest, they haunt us. We wait for a

resolution that will not come. In the silence, we are left with our own torturous thoughts.

What could be more a fitting end to epic or to war? This moment, to me, is the measure of a

great translation. This silence defines the song. But for it to have its full effect, even as the

weight of the piece is present, some measure of speed must join it, must drive us along

relentlessly, preserving the tension of the piece until this moment.

48
49
ON THE QUESTION OF CIVILIZATION
By Ana Rodríguez Santory

In defense of the Cyclopes, my proposed tackling of their episode in the Odyssey is

inspired by some sense of kinship with the monsters. Even though this is evidently

Odysseus’s story, it works within grander narrative schemes of transition — what it means to

go from the paradigm of war to that of a home. Throughout his journey, the question of a

prosperous life is repeatedly posed as Odysseus explores various lands and meets diverse

peoples. Moving away from the victories of the past to the labors of the future, Odysseus

grapples with each new context’s ideal. Thus, his encounter with Polyphemus stands out, not

just as the overarching explanation for Odysseus’s consequent troubles. It has also been

considered as exemplifying the clash between the civilized and the uncivilized, categories

that I set out to problematize as colonizing perceptions while simultaneously considering

the constraints of Odysseus’s perspective as both character and narrator.

First, a little context — as Annette Lucia Giesecke points out, dating the poems to

sometime in the eighth century is critical because that was “a time of tremendous change

and evolution in the Greek world, both socially and politically”17 which would make the

Odyssey and the Iliad key in cementing the identity of the times. Considered the epitome of

Greek civilization, the birth of the polis as a distinct form of social organization ends the Dark

Ages. It holds such sway over subsequent imaginations that Aristotle argued that whoever

forms “no part of the polis must be either a beast or a god, a creature well below or well

above the level of humanity.”18 Traditionally, these creatures that live outside of society’s

boundaries, both geographically and morally, are grouped under one label. “Here was a

piece of work, by god, a monster,” Odysseus tells the Phaecians as he describes

17Annette Lucia Giesecke, “Homer’s Eutopolis: Epic Journeys and the Search for an Ideal Society,” in Utopian Studies 14, no. 2
(2003): 24. 2016, accessed March 2019. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20720009.
18 Ibid. 23.

50
Polyphemus, who claims to have more force than a god.19 Thus, the hero is representing

certain ideals of his society in opposition to characteristics and behaviors that are

considered frightening — uncivilized. Now remember that the meeting with the Cyclops, like

most of Odysseus’s adventures before meeting the Phaecians, is narrated by Odysseus

himself. Yoav Rinon points out how this brings up two problems: the limits of the narrator’s

knowledge and the degree of the narrator’s reliability.20 Not only might Odysseus be telling

of things he does not know, his future homecoming depends on the effects of his story on

the Phaecians: he must present himself as a sympathizing character in order to inspire their

help.

Furthermore, notice that Odysseus casts judgement in his tale as equivocal truth, when in

reality he is measuring an unknown against the yardstick of his culture. I would argue that

referencing one’s own society as a universal standard for what it means to be civilized, even

whilst standing outside those boundaries and in the territory of others, betrays a colonizing

mindset. After all, while islands may exist as “imaginative coordinates of place to evoke and

explore states of mind and feeling”21 for a traveler, they are home for its inhabitants. That is

to say, Odysseus may be the point of reference for his immediate audience, and for the

poem’s larger audience, but he is certainly not the point of reference for the Cyclopes.

Therefore, with this consideration in mind, let us examine the charges one by one. First,

the Cyclopes are “lawless brutes, who trust so to the everlasting gods they never plant with

their own hands or plow the soil [...] the earth teems with all they need, wheat, barely and

vines, swelled by the rains of Zeus.”22 Considering the power of the gods over human life, I

wonder why it’s brutish to trust in them. Especially given the fact that Zeus blesses the

Cyclopes with the necessary rains for them to have all they need without working for it — a

luxury of Hesiod’s Golden Age that humans lost as punishment for Prometheus’s theft of fire.

19Homer, “Book 9: In the One-eyed Giant’s Cave,” in The Odyssey, trans. Robert Fagles (Penguin Books, 2006): 220. By
Aristotles argument, this would exclude him from the city.
20Yoav Rinon, “The Pivotal Scene: Narration, Colonial Focalization, and Transition in Odyssey 9,” in American Journal of
Philology 128, no. 3 (2007): 304, accessed March 2019, https://www.jstor.org/stable/4496968
21
Charles Segal, “Introduction: The Landscape of Imagination,” in Singers, Heroes, and Gods in the Odyssey (Ithaca and London:
Cornell University Press, 2001): 5.
22 Fagles, Odyssey, 215.

51
Indeed, unlike humans, Polyphemus seems to enjoy both, a painless livelihood and the

civilizing agent of fire, for he kindles the blaze that reveals Odysseus and his men hiding in

his cave. 23

Secondly, according to Odysseus, Cyclopes have no meeting place for council and no

laws, “up on the mountain peaks they live in arching caverns — each a law to himself, ruling

his wives and children, not a care in the world for any neighbor.”24 The quick mention of the

caves, these wild spaces up in the mountains as homes for these creatures, serves to

emphasize their monstrousness: despite the idyllic conditions in their favor, they have not

flourished into an urban center. If not a polis, even a village would have been a good

indicator of some degree of civilization! Odysseus extrapolates from this perceived lack of

community — as exemplified by the lack of meeting place and the distribution of living

spaces — that they must have no laws if they are not beholden to one another, which must

mean that they do not care for one another. And yet, the Cyclopes rush to Polyphemus when

he cries in pain, even though it’s the middle of the night. Indeed, Polyphemus calls them

friends while trying to explain his predicament.25

Odysseus follows these judgements with a description of the island across the harbor,

teeming with wild goats, “empty of humankind.”26 He focuses on everything the island could

be — a decent place to live in, fertile for plentiful harvests and ideal for setting out to sea — if

only the Cyclopes knew how to take advantage of such potential. This perspective is what

Rinon defines as Odysseus’s “colonial focalization” : an attitude towards the new world as a

potential colony based on sensory ranges of perception like seeing and hearing,

psychological aspects like cognitive and emotive components, and ideological facets which

reflect values and norms.27

Still functioning within the paradigm of appropriation that ruled during the war,

Odysseus’s “colonial focalization” makes him interpret the Cyclopes’ lack of ambition to

23 Ibid., 219.
24 Ibid., 215.
25 Ibid., 224.
26 Ibid., 215.
27 Rinon, “Pivotal Scene,” 303.

52
colonize the goat island as a lack of (civilized) knowledge. The text itself subverts this

assumption, though, when Polyphemus asks the men “Now who are you? Where did you sail

from, over the running sea-lanes? Out on a trading spree or roving the waves like pirates,

sea-wolves raiding at will, who risk their lives to plunder other men?”28 Despite Odysseus’s

biases as a narrator, it’s clear by these questions that Polyphemus is not ignorant to the

possibilities of sailing — he just doesn’t seem to ascribe a lot of value to them. I dare say,

almost as if colonizing expeditions didn’t have to determine the degree of any given

people’s civilization.

However, before setting out to the Cyclops’s cave, Odysseus announces to his men that

he’ll “probe the natives living over there. What are they — violent, savage, lawless? Or

friendly to strangers, god-fearing men?”29 I would like to point out that Achilles’s savagery

and violence was highly valued during the Trojan War, and Odysseus himself wasn’t

particularly friendly to strangers when he sacked the Cicones’ city at the beginning of his

voyage. Therefore, if these are the categories used to divide people, they appear to be

entirely dependent on particular contexts. In the end, how reliable are they really for

determining anyone’s degree of civilization?

Indeed, once inside the Cyclops’s cave, Odysseus describes certain features that would

speak to a sense of civilization, even by his standards. First, the organization of the pantry,

with the drying racks for homemade cheeses, the assortment of vessels, and the well-built

enclosures for the animals, suggest a sense of order. I’d like to point out that separating the

animals assumes a concern in tune with the Greek preoccupation regarding the mixing of

categories: each sort was penned apart,30 as every kind should be. These little details give

away Polyphemus’s craft and husbandry, recognizable markers of civilization. They must’ve

been interpreted like such by Odysseus himself, for while his men urged him to grab

28 Fagles, Odyssey, 219.

29 Ibid., 217.
30 Ibid., 218.

53
everything and run, he judged the inhabitant of the cave to be civilized enough to extend

xenia31 — a sort of equal.

However, the transgression of “cannibalism” sets the record straight. According to Carol

Dougherty, “tales of cannibalism operate as an index of savagery within an imperial or a

colonial context to represent those capable of resisting conquest as themselves violent and

voracious.”32 In this way, the weight of savagery is placed on the shoulders of those who

fight back: the truly transgressive ones. Thus, Polyphemus’s consumption of Odysseus’s men

“belongs to the larger framework of colonial discourse that first demonizes native

populations and then celebrates their conquest as the victory of civilization.”33 Indeed, with

his heart brooding on revenge, Odysseus wonders how he can pay the Cyclops back:

“would Athena give me glory?”34 This mention of the goddess strikes me as particularly

evocative, for Athena is the embodiment of civilizing force. The allusion to this refiner of

nature in the service of society35 then echoes in the description of the blinding. First the men

had to work the stake of olivewood to suit it for the purpose and then when the time came

to set the stake into Polyphemus’s eye, Odysseus described himself as a shipwright and a

blacksmith in turns.36 In this way, the act of conquering the monster is paralleled to other

civilizing activities — to conquer is to civilize.

And yet, if this is Polyphemus’s great crime, I would argue that he’s not really a cannibal,

strictly speaking. As a Cyclops, he’d have to consume others of his kind to qualify. To cast

him as a cannibal is in fact to recognize a common humanity between Odysseus and the

monster — it blurs the line. Who is truly savage? Both of them are retaliating against different

transgressions: Polyphemus literally consumes the threats he finds in his house (a great show

of dominance over the intruders more than a habitual dietary custom) and Odysseus strikes

31 Ibid., 218.
32
Rinon, “Pivotal Scene,” 316. From Carol Dougherty’s The Raft of Odysseus: The Ethnographic Imagination of Homer's Odyssey.
Oxford (2001): Oxford University Press
33 Ibid., 316.
34 Fagles, Odyssey, 221.
35 Ana Rodríguez Santory. “Athena,” in The Changing of the Guard. Unpublished project, Wesleyan University (2019).
36 Fagles, Odyssey, 223.

54
out to survive (trouble he could’ve avoided if he hadn’t applied heroic rules of conduct to a

reality inherently alien to it).

Once out of the cave, already offshore, Odysseus makes the same mistake by calling out

his name and epithet: the raider of cities.37 Still behaving within the confines of an obsolete

paradigm, he’s unable to renounce to behavior that until recently had been a standard of

excellence. After all, one’s name is one’s glory. And yet, Polyphemus annuals Odysseus’s

heroism by reducing it to trickery: “look what a dwarf, a spineless good-for-nothing, stuns

me with wine, then gouges out my eye!” 38 Even wounded, the monster defiantly doesn’t

recognize Odysseus’s kleos, prompting the hero take a parting shot at the Cyclops’s lineage:

“no one will ever heal your eye, not even your earthquake god himself!”39 For all his wiliness,

Odysseus forgets that while he may be a grandson of Hermes, Polyphemus is a son of

Poseidon — as close to the gods as the Phaecians themselves.40

Often juxtaposed to the Cyclopes, the Phaecians are taken to be the most civilized of

peoples encountered by Odysseus. Note that this court of Scheria, Odysseus’s last stop

before reaching his fatherland, is closely associated with his first colonial experiences. For

years ago, as the text tells us, the Phaecians had lived too close to the Cyclopes, and so had

decided to migrate and settle elsewhere. In this new city they put up walls, built houses,

raised temples, and shared the land for plowing41 — characteristics much more in tune with

Odysseus’s idea of civilization. However, waking to this land after surviving shipwreck,

Odysseus cries out: “Man of misery, whose land have I lit on now? What are they here —

violent, savage, lawless? Or friendly to strangers, god-fearing men?”42 The last two lines are

the same formula previously used to describe his expectations before meeting Polyphemus,

an adventure he embarked on because he was driven by the curiosity and boldness that

37 Ibid., 227.
38 Ibid., 227.
39 Ibid., 228.
40 Ibid., 186.
41 Ibid., 168.
42 Ibid., 172.

55
distinguish a hero, a pirate, and a colonizer.43 The first line, though, indicates a change in his

focalization.

Unlike the earlier episode, Odysseus is no longer enthusiastic. Instead of anticipating,

he’s now dreading an encounter with strangers. While he initiated the expedition to the

Cyclops’s cave to acquire goods and gifts that he didn’t need, now he approaches Nausicaa

out of pure necessity — totally dependent. Rinon points out how Odysseus, the raider of

cities (πτολίπορθος), is now instead defined by his long suffering (πολύτλας).44 This change

in epithets would seem to suggest that Odysseus has “relinquished his former colonial and

heroic focalization,” reflecting his new attitude towards unknown places.45 Upon arriving at

Ithaca, he repeats the same anguished lines when he doesn’t recognize his fatherland. Even

the pleasant experience at the Phaecian’s city does not revert his new ideal: nostos.

In a poetic twist, Odysseus finds his home with intruders in his hall, eating his food,

waiting to acquire goods (i.e. Penelope and the kingdom) — a state of affairs similar to

Polyphemus’s so many years ago. I would argue this parallel blurs the lines between the hero

and the monster yet again, especially when Odysseus displays his power by brutally killing

the suitors when given the chance. It’s only the contexts that define the possibilities of

prosperous lives — ideal or not — but new worlds are always newly perceived, and actions are

consequently given new interpretations... and new values.

43 Rinon, “Pivotal Scene,” 327.

44 Ibid., 327.
45 Ibid.

56
Bibliography
Giesecke, Annette Lucia. "Homer’s Eutopolis: Epic Journeys and the Search for an Ideal

Society." Utopian Studies 14, no. 2 (2003): 23-40. Accessed 2016. http://www.jstor.org/

stable/20720009.

Homer, Robert Fagles, and Bernard Knox. The Odyssey. New York: Penguin Books, 2006.

Rinon, Yoav. "The Pivotal Scene: Narration, Colonial Focalization, and Transition in

Odyssey 9." American Journal of Philology 128, no. 3 (2007): 301-34. doi:10.1353/ajp.

2007.0041.

Rodríguez Santory, Ana. “Athena,” in The Changing of the Guard. Unpublished project,

Wesleyan University (2019).

Segal, Charles. "Introduction: The Landscape of Imagination." In Singers, Heroes, and

Gods in the Odyssey, 5. Myth and Poetics. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press,

1994.

57
 — THE STYX —

lava-bodied
mouth on mine like a gas mask
you, the hold of dusk, and I:

we merrily-go-round
inwards and outwards
in our space-shuttle space

cold tip of nose

where your mother held you
when you were dunked

into the Styx.

is this the Styx?
feeding off of your see oh two.

58
— τò τέλος —

— finis —

— the end —

59