Vacation reading

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jeidsath
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Re: Vacation reading

Post by jeidsath »

Well, the vacation is over, and though distracted by hiking and daughters and dunking myself in the lake from a canoe, I made it as far as Athena's parting in γ. I'll try to continue as I find time though.

No, I don't have time for much of the secondary Homeric literature. I appreciate the use of Homer in anthropological and linguistic sciences. And lexicons are fine tools. But that's only the surface of the wine dark sea of what gets published. I have too much else to read to be willing to waste myself on the massive Wookieepedia of literary Homeric scholarship. Nietzsche has more to say on this, but most of his quotes on this subject are too mean to use here.
“One might get one’s Greek from the very lips of Homer and Plato." "In which case they would certainly plough you for the Little-go. The German scholars have improved Greek so much.”

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Re: Vacation reading

Post by jeidsath »

My youngest got moved into her older sister's room last night, and it looks like I get to have a few wakeful nights reading the Odyssey during the transition. Lucky me.

καὶ νῦν εἰ τί πού ἐστι, πίθοιό μοι· οὐ γὰρ ἐγώ γε
τέρπομ᾽ ὀδυρόμενος μεταδόρπιος· ἀλλὰ καὶ ἠώς
ἔσσεται ἠριγένεια, νεμεσσῶμαί γε μὲν οὐδέν
κλαίειν, ὅς κε θάνησι βροτῶν καὶ πότμον ἐπίσπηι·
τοῦτύ νυ καί γέρας οἶον ὀϊζυροῖσι βροτοῖσιν,
κείρασθαί τε κόμην βαλέειν τ᾽ ἀπὸ δάκρυ παρειῶν.

I'm confused here at δ 193-198. Nestor's son is addressing Menelaus about his fallen brother. If I had to write down how I understood this, it would be something like:

"And now, if it's at all possible, be persuaded of me: for I at least do not <enjoy - τέρπομι> being <sad - ὀδυρόμενος μεταδόρπιος>, but rather it will be <spring-birthing - ἠριγένεια> morning, and I would that I were assigned nothing to cry over, whoever died among mortals and <caused grief - πότμον ἐπίσπηι>. This is now the only gift for <troubled - ὀϊζυροῖσι> mortals, to shave the hair and drip tears from our cheeks."

<> is where I am guessing or least sure.
“One might get one’s Greek from the very lips of Homer and Plato." "In which case they would certainly plough you for the Little-go. The German scholars have improved Greek so much.”

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Re: Vacation reading

Post by Hylander »

Joel, you need to look up words in the dictionary: μεταδόρπιος,, ἠριγένεια, νεμεσσῶμαί, πότμον, ἐπίσπηι (hint: εφεπω), γέρας, ὀϊζυροῖσι.

I don't think you can expect to pick up Homer and read with comprehension without doing some heavy lifting at first to solidify your command of the grammatical forms and especially the vocabulary (and in my case, after about 58 years of reading Homer, I still need to go the dictionary from time to time). Otherwise, you will miss half or more. It's a slow slog in the initial stage, but it doesn't take long before it gets much easier.

ἠριγένεια is a standard epithet of ἠώς and doesn't mean "spring-born." ὀϊζυροῖσι is formulaic with βροτοῖσιν. πότμον ἐπίσπηι is a common formula.

γὰρ does not automatically correspond exactly and in all circumstances to "for" and γε doesn't correspond to "at least", though sometimes they can be translated that way.
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Re: Vacation reading

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I think that it's fair to say that I'm missing a great deal. We could even quantify that exactly with reading comprehension tests if anybody cared.

But the second read-through would give me a higher score on such a hypothetical test. And for the third read-through, I'll only look up the very few words that I still don't understand. Even now, I am re-reading sections and lines far less than I did in book a.

The reason why I'm willing to suffer through not knowing a word -- and it really is a very hard sort of suffering when I know that the LSJ is digitally on my phone in my pocket and in print on my mapstand across the room -- is that there are some learning advantages. First, I am sensitized to words whenever I almost understand them, and to their contexts, and to their roots. Continuing, I run across something similar and get the "aha!" moment, which fixes the meaning better than a lexicon can (see the "fixed" and "broken" discussion from earlier for the peril of memorizing lexicon meanings). Stopping and looking up the (Victorian) English equivalents for everything has its advantages, but it does take away a lot of this useful mental priming for recognition and memorization. Even now, I could probably write out good chunks of the passage that I asked about from memory, and I could never have done that if I had stopped to look up every word that I half-understood in a lexicon.

And as for the specific comments, the formulas are certainly the hardest part to learn this way because the context never really changes. I know that ἠώς is ἠριγένεια always, but as for what that means, I won't be able to tell until I see the roots used elsewhere and it clicks.
“One might get one’s Greek from the very lips of Homer and Plato." "In which case they would certainly plough you for the Little-go. The German scholars have improved Greek so much.”

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Re: Vacation reading

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δ was fun, and I've come to terms with the gods fixing everything for the good guys. But if Athena is a god, why is she so bad at disguises? Mentor isn't fooling anybody, apparently.

Proteus reminded me of a number of fairy tales, including the ballad of Tam Lin: https://www.bartleby.com/243/2.html

Keeping Odysseus off-stage for so long is very good story-telling. It's getting exciting. I have to hold myself back from reading too fast.
“One might get one’s Greek from the very lips of Homer and Plato." "In which case they would certainly plough you for the Little-go. The German scholars have improved Greek so much.”

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Re: Vacation reading

Post by RandyGibbons »

the formulas are certainly the hardest part to learn this way
Hey Joel. Are you familiar with The Chicago Homer? I totally get the way you're currently trying to read the Odyssey, and probably the app doesn't fit that approach. Anyway, though, I find it a tremendously useful app. You can turn the English on and off, and I especially like being able to effortlessly find and link to all occurrences of formulae in Homer (and Hesiod).

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Re: Vacation reading

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The search function is useful, though I think that I may prefer a text file and ctrl-F.

I'll PM you with a link to a Homer web app that I wrote (though I'm not using it for this read), which you may find rather useful.
“One might get one’s Greek from the very lips of Homer and Plato." "In which case they would certainly plough you for the Little-go. The German scholars have improved Greek so much.”

Joel Eidsath -- jeidsath@gmail.com

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Re: Vacation reading

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I read the last 300 lines of ε too quickly (and in too much of a sleep deficit) and they made little sense, beyond the gross elements that there was a storm, Ino said something nice, Poseidon blustered, Odysseus' raft foundered, and he got to shore.

I read through the lines again this morning, and was able to follow everything in detail, easily even, and had a great deal of fun with the passage.

I was surprised by ὃ δ᾽ αὐτίκα παῦσεν ἑὸν ῥόον after Odysseus prayed to to the river. Despite the gods and talking seagulls (or whatever an αἰθίη is), I thought that the situation felt physically realistic and vivid up until the river stopped flowing. But maybe I took it too literally.

Earlier in ε, yesterday, I thought that Hermes came across as city-dwelling jerk to Kalypso, who was sympathetic, but not as sympathetic as Odysseus. I really appreciated the sentiment of 214 - 224.
“One might get one’s Greek from the very lips of Homer and Plato." "In which case they would certainly plough you for the Little-go. The German scholars have improved Greek so much.”

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Re: Vacation reading

Post by Paul Derouda »

I remember the first time I read ε. I had little very little Greek then, and my progress was very slow. Odysseus was drowning and I was swamped; finally, after a long and mighty struggle, we both got there, to Phaeacia. But difficult as it was, it was also very powerful, and I still have the taste of salt water in my mouth.

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Re: Vacation reading

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I got dumped into lakes twice this summer; a canoe last weekend, and capsizing my sailboat earlier in the summer when the boom caught my hat. Reading ε was terrifying. It's far more realistic action than anything the Telemachus chapters prepared me for, and I've been trying to think of what action scenes in the Iliad compare exactly.

And perhaps on a different level, I liked the short, again realistic, description of the wilderness before Odysseus goes to sleep.

EDIT:

And here is something topical for the hurricane out east right now, that can't seem to make up its mind on direction.

ἄλλοτε μέν τε Νότος Βορέηι προβάλεσκε φέρεσται,
ἄλλοτε δ᾽ αὖτ᾽ Εὖρος Ζεφύρωι εἴξασκε διώκειν.
“One might get one’s Greek from the very lips of Homer and Plato." "In which case they would certainly plough you for the Little-go. The German scholars have improved Greek so much.”

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Re: Vacation reading

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In θ, 182-184 made me think of Paul's psychology theory, and here whether Odysseus was really talking about being sore and out of training, instead of depressed. And really, whether any of his constantly referred to sorrows are meant to be understood physically throughout? The ἀνδρῶν τε πτολέμους don't seem like a good explanation for his current physical condition though. And it's certainly mental anguish on the isle of Ogygie (what a wonderful fairy-tale sounding name when you say it out loud).

νῦν δ᾽ ἔχομαι κακότηρι καὶ ἄλγεσι· πολλὰ γὰρ ἔτλην
ἀνδρῶν τε πτολέμους ἀλεγεινά τε κύματα πείρων.
ἀλλὰ καὶ ὧς κακὰ πολλὰ παθών, πειρήσομ᾽ ἀέθλων
“One might get one’s Greek from the very lips of Homer and Plato." "In which case they would certainly plough you for the Little-go. The German scholars have improved Greek so much.”

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Re: Vacation reading

Post by Aetos »

Hey, it could be Odysseus playing the hustler (would you put it past him?):
"I'm in pretty rough shape right now, both physically and mentally, I've been wounded in war, I've been beaten up by the sea, but hey, all the same (even though I've suffered many bad things), I'll take a shot at the prize."

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Re: Vacation reading

Post by Paul Derouda »

I'm not sure I really have a theory, it was more like random observations on how the focus in interactions between characters is on the external and not the internal...

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Re: Vacation reading

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The Cyclops was a jerk, but Odysseus seemed to be breaking in to steal. I was surprised at his threat of the mantis at the end, despite the earlier claim to have no use for gods. Maybe that's a character arc.

Book ι has been the only episode where I remembered the overall plot before going in (which helped me; the vocabulary got harder in ι, before getting easier again in κ). I think that my teenage "read" of the Odyssey a quarter century ago might have been more of a skim. Other than the iconic episodes (the chat with the dead, Scylla and Charybdis, Circe and the pigs, the mass slaughter at the end), I'm unsure what the next half of the Odyssey contains. In the first half, I had no memory at all of the details of the Telemachus journey, or all the time spent with the Phaiekes. A skim read during my teenage years makes sense, as I would have just been finishing the Iliad, which I enjoyed immensely, and been put off by the Odyssey's start and lack of gore-filled action.

Its charm has grown on me during this read, I admit.
“One might get one’s Greek from the very lips of Homer and Plato." "In which case they would certainly plough you for the Little-go. The German scholars have improved Greek so much.”

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Re: Vacation reading

Post by Paul Derouda »

Rest assured that some of the best parts are still to come - like the swineherd Eumaios, and others, which I’m not going to spoil for you! There’s also the horrible hanging of the slave girls. The very end might be something of a deception, but other than that, the second half is just as good as the first one.

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Re: Vacation reading

Post by Paul Derouda »

With "deception", I of course meant "disappointment", which Hylander kindly pointed out to me. Déception is disappointment in French...

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Re: Vacation reading

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Paul making a mistake in English!...Even Homer nods.

The crew opening the forbidden bladder(?) of winds, and the voyage back to Aiolos and the abrupt "enemy of the gods" change of heart was wonderful. The realistic story-telling style seems to have gone by the wayside though, and we're firmly in "fairy".

For the past book, I've been confused about what αὐτοκασιγνήτη could possibly mean, having seen it several times. Hunter? But it finally came clear in κ.135-139

Αἰαίην δ᾽ ἐς νῆσον ἀφικόμεθ᾽· ἔνθα δ᾽ ἔναιεν
Κίρκη ἐϋπλόκαμος, δεινὴ θεὸς αὐδήεσσα,
αὐτοκασιγνήτη ὀλοόφρονος Αἰήταο·
ἄμφω δ᾽ ἐκγεγάτην φαεσιμβρότου Ἠελίοιο
μητρός τ᾽ ἐκ Πέρσης, τὴν Ὠκεανὸς τέκε παῖδα.

It must mean something like "sibling" (or twin?). The γν would be a 0-grade of γιγνομαι, I guess. I have no idea about the -κασι-, though I'll keep my eye out.
“One might get one’s Greek from the very lips of Homer and Plato." "In which case they would certainly plough you for the Little-go. The German scholars have improved Greek so much.”

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Re: Vacation reading

Post by Paul Derouda »

αὐτοκασιγνήτη is a full sister (same mother and father) while κασιγνήτη is any sister, full or half (similarly for ((αὐτο)κασίγνοτος "brother").

Without looking up (thus respecting the casual nature of this thread...) I have a vague recollection that Chantraine connects -κασι- with καί.

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Re: Vacation reading

Post by seneca2008 »

Paul Derouda wrote:αὐτοκασιγνήτη is a full sister (same mother and father) while κασιγνήτη is any sister, full or half (similarly for ((αὐτο)κασίγνοτος "brother").
This reminds me of the first line of Antigone:

‘Ὦ κοινὸν αὐτάδελφον Ἰσμήνης κάρα“
Persuade tibi hoc sic esse, ut scribo: quaedam tempora eripiuntur nobis, quaedam subducuntur, quaedam effluunt. Turpissima tamen est iactura, quae per neglegentiam fit. Et si volueris attendere, maxima pars vitae elabitur male agentibus, magna nihil agentibus, tota vita aliud agentibus.

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Re: Vacation reading

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I took a break at Circe's island, and read Eurpides' Cyclops this morning, before the kids woke up. I thought it was a wonderful amplification of the Odyssey story. Everything was a little more fleshed out and sharper. The atheism of the Cyclops was a wonderful passage. The death of the companions was more horrific. (The Chorus' song! χναύειν, βρύκειν, κρεοκοπεῖν μέλη ξένων). I enjoyed the Cyclops' drunkenness (and conversion to awe of the Gods?). The replacement of the sheep escape with the Οὖτις wordplay was fun, although I missed the sheep (or was the episode there and I didn't see it? I don't pretend to have read with 100% or even 90% understanding). The Satyrs joining Odysseus' crew at the end seemed to promise more to come? I would have liked to have read more like this.

κασιγνητος shows up again, at 445

Οδ. ἐπὶ κῶμον ἕρπειν πρὸς κασιγνήτους θέλει
Κύκλωπας ἡσθεὶς τῷδε Βακχίου ποτῷ.

I don't know what "ἐπὶ κῶμον" is. A festival? It appears again later in a choral section, at 507

ὑπάγει μ᾽ ὁ χόρτος εὔφρων
ἐπὶ κῶμον ἦρος ὥραις
ἐπὶ Κύκλωπας ἀδελφούς
“One might get one’s Greek from the very lips of Homer and Plato." "In which case they would certainly plough you for the Little-go. The German scholars have improved Greek so much.”

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Re: Vacation reading

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I went to sleep Saturday after reading Circe's pronouncement that Odysseus would have to go to Hades and speak with Teiresies. That night I dreamt that I was on a bus ride with a group of fellow travelers, and we came to a stop at the end of a large T-shaped dirt intersection, where there were several people standing in a line wearing Civil War uniforms. The one on the end was an older gentleman whom I recognized, a former co-worker of mine from years ago, though not someone close, and we spoke for a while before the bus had to go on again. In the morning I woke up and realized that he had been dead for some time. Spooky.

Reading yesterday and this morning, the shades of the women where a treat, though I felt that my comprehension dropped a little for a couple of them. I will be happy to go through the Chloris story again with a lexicon on my next read through. I felt like I understood everything up to "ἐλάσειε βίης Ἰφικληείης ἀργαλέας." Earlier, I also had difficulty (perhaps) understanding what has happened to Odysseus' father in λ 187-. He's staying out in the fields? Why?

Regardless of language difficulties, I felt disappointed to get to the end at λ.332 ('Oh no, a close quote!' I thought) and come back to the Phaiekes, easy vocab, and psychologically realized characters again.
“One might get one’s Greek from the very lips of Homer and Plato." "In which case they would certainly plough you for the Little-go. The German scholars have improved Greek so much.”

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Re: Vacation reading

Post by Paul Derouda »

I don't believe that it's possible to interpret dreams (whether in the Freudian or some magical way), but it is sometimes disturbing how our mind recombines things we've experienced in the day in our dreams in surprising ways. I'm pretty sure you hadn't thought about at that colleague for some time, and now he shows up after you've read the Nekyia.

That reminds me of when I saw a ghost (not that I believe in ghosts...). It actually happened in Athens in 2008. We slept in the same hotel room with my friend. It was night, I was half awake half asleep, when I suddenly saw a grey shape roughly the size of human being standing near my feet. It was there for some time until it disappeared when I fully woke up. It was much more real than any other dream I've had; it's the only time I've had an experience like that. I've thought later on that the way the "ghost" came was not very different from how Homeric apparitions come and stand by one who is sleeping (my "ghost" didn't talk though). I was reading the Odyssey at the time (for the first time in Greek, unless I misremember) and I've wondered later if my reading about Homeric apparitions somehow provoked my own, similar ghost to appear; however, the thought occurred to me only when I thought more about it; it's similarity with the Homeric apparitions didn't strike me immediately. On the other hand, perhaps this is just a sort thing the human mind produces (both now and 2500 years ago), and my reading Homer at the time had nothing to do with it? In that case, the logical explanation would be that what brought about the ghost was me being disturbed by having to sleep in a strange place, with a friend snoring loudly next to me...
jeidsath wrote: Mon Sep 16, 2019 4:52 pm Earlier, I also had difficulty (perhaps) understanding what has happened to Odysseus' father in λ 187-. He's staying out in the fields? Why?
Laertes, for some reason, is now living a hermit life alone in the countryside. Perhaps the reason is that this allows him to be alive while doing nothing to help Telemachus.

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Re: Vacation reading

Post by Bart »

Nice (or not so nice for you at that moment). You had a hypnagogic or hypnopompic hallucination, as you no doubt know. It's not that uncommon.

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Re: Vacation reading

Post by Paul Derouda »

Will I die, doc? :D

No seriously, I knew that’s name you call it. But I don’t remember it being uncomfortable or scary, just weird. I was like wow, that’s what it’s like to see a ghost! I’ve had a sleep paralysis a very few times in my life, and that’s extremely unnice, but I don’t think I had one then, or any other sympton that one would qualify as uncomfortable. Just weird.

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Re: Vacation reading

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Paul Derouda wrote: Mon Sep 16, 2019 9:39 pm It was night, I was half awake half asleep, when I suddenly saw a grey shape roughly the size of human being standing near my feet. It was there for some time until it disappeared when I fully woke up.
There's a particularly interesting bit in William James's Varieties of Religious Experience (the whole of which is fascinating) giving examples of this kind of 'visitation'.
The Varieties of Religious Experience pp.58-62
Show
As regards the origin of the Greek gods, we need not at present seek an opinion. But the whole array of our instances leads to a conclusion something like this: It is as if there were in the human consciousness a sense of reality, a feeling of objective presence, a perception of what we may call “something there,” more deep and more general than any of the special and particular “senses” by which the current psychology supposes existent realities to be originally revealed. If this were so, we might suppose the senses to waken our attitudes and conduct as they so habitually do, by first exciting this sense of reality; but anything else, any idea, for example, that might similarly excite it, would have that same prerogative of appearing real which objects of sense normally possess. So far as religious conceptions were able to touch this reality-feeling, they would be believed in in spite of criticism, even though they might be so vague and remote as to be almost unimaginable, even though they might be such non-entities in point of whatness, as Kant makes the objects of his moral theology to be.

The most curious proofs of the existence of such an undifferentiated sense of reality as this are found in experiences of hallucination. It often happens that an hallucination is imperfectly developed: the person affected will feel a “presence” in the room, definitely localized, facing in one particular way, real in the most emphatic sense of the word, often coming suddenly, and as suddenly gone; and yet neither seen, heard, touched, nor cognized in any of the usual “sensible” ways. Let me give you an example of this, before I pass to the objects with whose presence religion is more peculiarly concerned.

An intimate friend of mine, one of the keenest intellects I know, has had several experiences of this sort. He writes as follows in response to my inquiries:—

“I have several times within the past few years felt the so-called ‘consciousness of a presence.’ The experiences which I have in mind are clearly distinguishable from another kind of experience which I have had very frequently, and which I fancy many persons would also call the ‘consciousness of a presence.’But the difference for me between the two sets of experience is as great as the difference between feeling a slight warmth originating I know not where, and standing in the midst of a conflagration with all the ordinary senses alert.

“It was about September, 1884, when I had the first experience. On the previous night I had had, after getting into bed at my rooms in College, a vivid tactile hallucination of being grasped by the arm, which made me get up and search the room for an intruder; but the sense of presence properly so called came on the next night. After I had got into bed and blown out the candle, I lay awake awhile thinking on the previous night's experience, when suddenly I felt something come into the room and stay close to my bed. It remained only a minute or two. I did not recognize it by any ordinary sense, and yet there was a horribly unpleasant ‘sensation’ connected with it. It stirred something more at the roots of my being than any ordinary perception. The feeling had something of the quality of a very large tearing vital pain spreading chiefly over the chest, but within the organism—and yet the feeling was not pain so much as abhorrence. At all events, something was present with me, and I knew its presence far more surely than I have ever known the presence of any fleshly living creature. I was conscious of its departure as of its coming: an almost instantaneously swift going through the door, and the ‘horrible sensation’ disappeared.

“On the third night when I retired my mind was absorbed in some lectures which I was preparing, and I was still absorbed in these when I became aware of the actual presence (though not of the coming) of the thing that was there the night before, and of the ‘horrible sensation.’ I then mentally concentrated all my effort to charge this ‘thing,’ if it was evil, to depart, if it was not evil, to tell me who or what it was, and if it could not explain itself, to go, and that I would compel it to go. It went as on the previous night, and my body quickly recovered its normal state.

“On two other occasions in my life I have had precisely the same ‘horrible sensation.’ Once it lasted a full quarter of an hour. In all three instances the certainty that there in outward space there stood something was indescribably strongerthan the ordinary certainty of companionship when we are in the close presence of ordinary living people. The something seemed close to me, and intensely more real than any ordinary perception. Although I felt it to be like unto myself, so to speak, or finite, small, and distressful, as it were, I didn't recognize it as any individual being or person.”

Of course such an experience as this does not connect itself with the religious sphere. Yet it may upon occasion do so; and the same correspondent informs me that at more than one other conjuncture he had the sense of presence developed with equal intensity and abruptness, only then it was filled with a quality of joy.

“There was not a mere consciousness of something there, but fused in the central happiness of it, a startling awareness of some ineffable good. Not vague either, not like the emotional effect of some poem, or scene, or blossom, of music, but the sure knowledge of the close presence of a sort of mighty person, and after it went, the memory persisted as the one perception of reality. Everything else might be a dream, but not that.”

My friend, as it oddly happens, does not interpret these latter experiences theistically, as signifying the presence of God. But it would clearly not have been unnatural to interpret them as a revelation of the deity's existence. When we reach the subject of mysticism, we shall have much more to say upon this head.

Lest the oddity of these phenomena should disconcert you, I will venture to read you a couple of similar narratives, much shorter, merely to show that we are dealing with a well-marked natural kind of fact. In the first case, which I take from the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, the sense of presence developed in a few moments into a distinctly visualized hallucination,—but I leave that part of the story out.

“I had read,” the narrator says, “some twenty minutes or so, was thoroughly absorbed in the book, my mind was perfectly quiet, and for the time being my friends were quite forgotten, when suddenly without a moment's warning my whole being seemed roused to the highest state of tension or aliveness, and I was aware, with an intenseness not easily imagined by those who had never experienced it, that another being or presence was not only in the room, but quite close to me. I put my book down, and although my excitement was great, I felt quite collected, and not conscious of any sense of fear. Without changing my position, and looking straight at the fire, I knew somehow that my friend A. H. was standing at my left elbow, but so far behind me as to be hidden by the armchair in which I was leaning back. Moving my eyes round slightly without otherwise changing my position, the lower portion of one leg became visible, and I instantly recognized the gray-blue material of trousers he often wore, but the stuff appeared semi-transparent, reminding me of tobacco smoke in consistency,”25—and hereupon the visual hallucination came.

Another informant writes:—

“Quite early in the night I was awakened.... I felt as if I had been aroused intentionally, and at first thought some one was breaking into the house.... I then turned on my side to go to sleep again, and immediately felt a consciousness of a presence in the room, and singular to state, it was not the consciousness of a live person, but of a spiritual presence. This may provoke a smile, but I can only tell you the facts as they occurred to me. I do not know how to better describe my sensations than by simply stating that I felt a consciousness of a spiritual presence.... I felt also at the same time a strong feeling of superstitious dread, as if something strange and fearful were about to happen.”26

Professor Flournoy of Geneva gives me the following testimony of a friend of his, a lady, who has the gift of automatic or involuntary writing:—

“Whenever I practice automatic writing, what makes me feel that it is not due to a subconscious self is the feeling I always have of a foreign presence, external to my body. It is sometimes so definitely characterized that I could point to its exact position. This impression of presence is impossible to describe. It varies in intensity and clearness according to the personality from whom the writing professes to come. If it is some one whom I love, I feel it immediately, before any writing has come. My heart seems to recognize it.”

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jeidsath
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Re: Vacation reading

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Paul Derouda wrote: Wed Sep 18, 2019 9:34 pm I’ve had a sleep paralysis a very few times in my life, and that’s extremely unnice...
Σχολαστικῷ τις ἰατρῷ πορςελθὼν εἶπεν· « Ἰατρέ, ὅταν ἀναστῶ ἐκ τοῦ ὕπνου, ἡμιώριον ἐσκότωμαι, καὶ εἶθ᾽ οὕτως ἀποκαθίσταμαι ». Καὶ ὁ ἰατρός· « Μετὰ τὸ ἡμιώριον ἐγείρου ».

I haven't made a great deal of progress the last few days -- I only just arrived at Scylla and Charybdis (I was surprised that Circe was so utterly transformed that they went back for more advice, by the way). But I have a 13 hour flight tomorrow, and I expect to read some more then.

λ.385 - 386 has "ψυχὰς μὲν ἀπεσκέδας᾽ ἄλλυδις ἄλλην / ἁγνὴ Φερσεφόνεια". Should I have recognized the -υδις ending? Is it one of those case-remnants that the grammars mention?
“One might get one’s Greek from the very lips of Homer and Plato." "In which case they would certainly plough you for the Little-go. The German scholars have improved Greek so much.”

Joel Eidsath -- jeidsath@gmail.com

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Re: Vacation reading

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He's home already!?!

I was surprised how the foreshadowing about the "mountain covering the city" (?) in an earlier book was resolved much more happily. The end result (they don't visit anymore) seems to be exactly the same though.
“One might get one’s Greek from the very lips of Homer and Plato." "In which case they would certainly plough you for the Little-go. The German scholars have improved Greek so much.”

Joel Eidsath -- jeidsath@gmail.com

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Re: Vacation reading

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jeidsath wrote: Mon Sep 23, 2019 10:49 am I was surprised how the foreshadowing about the "mountain covering the city" (?) in an earlier book was resolved much more happily.
Their fate is actually left in doubt. It's been a popular bone for scholars to gnaw on.

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Re: Vacation reading

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You'll have to point out what I missed as I don't see it.

It seems that Poseidon was going to cover them with the mountain in retaliation, Zeus said no, just throw a rock near their ship, the humans will be impressed. He does, they are, and the king again mentions his father's prophecy (apparently narrowly avoided by Zeus' intervention). They sacrifice to Poseidon and stop their visits to mortal shores.
“One might get one’s Greek from the very lips of Homer and Plato." "In which case they would certainly plough you for the Little-go. The German scholars have improved Greek so much.”

Joel Eidsath -- jeidsath@gmail.com

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Re: Vacation reading

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I don't have West's edition but I assume from your reply that he reads μηδέ σφιν ὄρος πόλει ἀμφικαλύψαι at 158? Check the CA for the alternate reading. Quite a difference! Maybe Zeus said the first and Poseidon heard the second.

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Re: Vacation reading

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μετα δε doesn't make sense in context, and μεγα δε certainly doesn't. It's hard to imagine any actual debate about the original reading here.
“One might get one’s Greek from the very lips of Homer and Plato." "In which case they would certainly plough you for the Little-go. The German scholars have improved Greek so much.”

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Re: Vacation reading

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μέγα δέ is the standard reading (although maybe West is the standard now). Bear in mind that we leave the Phaeacians on a cliffhanger and go straight back to Odysseus, so there's no explicit contradiction.

I'm sure Paul will have more thoughts on this!

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