On Odyssey 10.230-73
I understand that my beloved alma mater, the University of Chicago, has decided to ‘pause’ the admission of graduate students in all those departments which require the study of a language. If the University doesn’t teach languages, and also, if its best teachers do not teach languages, what exactly is its point? Interpretations of texts, and theories in all the empirical fields, will come and go. But training in languages, including the languages of mathematics, is the key to the door. Show me someone who is familiar only with English, and I’ll show you someone who doesn’t understand English. The Philistines are not at the gate: they are in the Dean’s office, and elected to government.
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Following are the passages I read in Greek during the video. Follow along! For the whole passage performed in Greek (and English) see my previous post:
Od. 10.230-42
Out she came fast and opened the shining doors
And started inviting them: and all together, they followed in their stupidity.
Eurylochus stayed back—he suspected there was a trick.
She led them in and seated them on couches and chairs,
Put in cheese for them and barley groats and green honey
And stirred them into a pottage with Pramneian wine: she mixed into the muesli
Baneful drugs, so that they might altogether forget the land of their fathers
But once she gave it and they drank it off, right after
She struck with her wand, and confined them in the pig sties.
And they began to have pigs’ heads—and pigs’ voices and hair,
And build! Yet the mind within stayed steady—the way things were before, in fact.
So they’re wailing there, all penned up, while for those men Circe
Threw two kinds of acorn by, and cornel cherries
To feed on—the sort of thing ground-wallowing swine are always eating.
ἣ δ’ αἶψ’ ἐξελθοῦσα θύρας ὤειξε φαεινάς [230]
καὶ κάλει · οἳ δ’ ἅμα πάντες ἀϝϊδρίηισιν ἕποντο ·
Εὐρύλοχος δ’ ὑπέμεινεν, ὀϊσάμενος δόλον εἶναι.
εἷσεν δ’ εἰσαγαγοῦσα κατὰ κλισμούς τε θρόνους τε,
ἐν δέ σφιν τυρόν τε καὶ ἄλφιτα καὶ μέλι χλωρόν
ϝοἴνωι Πραμνείωι ἐκύκα · ἀνέμισγε δὲ σίτωι [235]
φάρμακα λύγρ’, ἵνα πάγχυ λαθοίατο πατρίδος αἴης.
αὐτὰρ ἐπεὶ δῶκέν τε καὶ ἔκπιον, αὐτίκ’ ἔπειτα
ῥάβδωι πεπληγυῖα κατὰ συφεοῖσιν ἐϝέργνυ ·
οἳ δὲ συῶν μὲν ἔχον κεφαλὰς φωνήν τε τρίχας τε
καὶ δέμας, αὐτὰρ νοῦς ἦν ἔμπεδος, ὡς τὸ πάρος περ. [240]
ὣς οἳ μὲν κλαίοντες ἐϝέρχατο, τοῖσι δὲ Κίρκη
πάρ ῥ’ ἄκυλον βάλανόν τ’ ἔβαλεν καρπόν τε κρανείης
ἔδμεναι, οἷα σύες χαμαιευνάδες αἰὲν ἔδουσιν.
Od. 10.220-3
They took their stand in front of the door of the goddess, Pretty-Braids,
And they began to hear Circe within, singing with a beautiful voice
As she went back and forth at the loom—a big one, ambrosial—a web for goddesses,
Finely woven and tasteful, and bright, as their works tend to be.
ἔσταν δ’ εἰνὶ θύρηισι θεᾶς καλλιπλοκάμοιο,
Κίρκης δ’ ἔνδον ἄκουον ἀϝειδούσης ὀπὶ καλῆι,
ἱστὸν ἐποιχομένης μέγαν ἄμβροτον, οἷα θεάων
λεπτά τε καὶ χαρίεντα καὶ ἀγλαὰ ϝἔργα πέλονται.
Od. 10.239-40
And they began to have pigs’ heads—and pigs’ voices and hair,
And build! Yet the mind within stayed steady—the way things were before in fact.
οἳ δὲ συῶν μὲν ἔχον κεφαλὰς φωνήν τε τρίχας τε
καὶ δέμας, αὐτὰρ νοῦς ἦν ἔμπεδος, ὡς τὸ πάρος περ.
Od. 10.259-60
“And they vanished at the same time as a group, nor did a one of them
Emerge into light: and I sat a long time on the lookout.”
οἳ δ’ ἅμ’ ἀϝϊστώθησαν ἀϝολλέες, οὐδέ τις αὐτῶν
ἐξεφάνη · δϝηρὸν δὲ καθήμενος ἐσκοπίαζον.
Od. 10.271-3
“Eurylochus, right you are, you stay here in this plot,
Eating and drinking by the ship, empty and black.
But me? I’m going; for a force comes upon me, of necessity.”
Εὐρύλοχ’, ἤτοι μὲν σὺ μέν’ αὐτοῦ τῶιδ’ ἐνὶ χώρωι
ἔσθων καὶ πίνων κοίληι παρὰ νηϝὶ μελαίνηι ·
αὐτὰρ ἐγὼν εἶμι · κρατερὴ δέ μοι ἔπλετ’ ἀνάγκη.
Linked here you can find my recent paper where I demonstrate that Homer composes for certain significant accentual pitch patterns, which function as ‘signature lines’ in a musical composition. Homer’s text cannot therefore be composed from purely metrical formulas, and any connection of his composition to an ‘oral tradition’ must be argued on a different basis. For the hardy, there is also a description of the law of tonal prominence, a new theory of the Greek accent which applies also to Latin.
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