Will do! Anyone who can poke fun at himself in a preface is definitely worth reading, e.g. “I committed one of them (Delphic Paeans) to memory, and the next spring, when I went to Greece for the first time, on arriving at Delphi I sang it at the top of my voice in the ruins of the sanctuary where it had had its premiere 2,084 springs previously. My two travelling companions distanced themselves somewhat.”
Thanks for the audio links! I’ll listen to them a little later, after my bride wakes up.
Now back to Herodotus!
Hagel - beautiful piece of music, well played
Barnaby Brown - my new favourite aulos player, better than Zen!
The Hammer - Brilliant co-star of video; who knew it could be so versatile?
I did read through rather quickly Hagel’s book. But his preface says it is not an introductory work. ( “It is also not the intention of this book to provide a general introduction to its topics for the entirely uninitiated; fortunately there are other works that serve this purpose, which must be consulted by anyone concerned with our subject anyway, and to which I therefore often refer; above all Martin L. West’s Ancient Greek Music and Andrew Barker’s Greek Musical Writings.”)
In another life maybe I will make study of this. Or perhaps I should take the great Seneca’a advice to heart. “…et tempus, quod adhuc aut auferebatur aut subripiebatur aut excidebat, collige et serva. 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.” (Ep.1) If only we used out time wisely we have plenty.
Fair point, and thank you for adding your thoughts. To anyone thinking of reading/buying Hagel’s book, you will need a real interest in the reconstruction of ancient Greek music and a very solid grounding in music theory (mostly to see why things are relevant to what he’s discussing. I certainly found myself asking this often enough). West’s book will probably inspire the former but won’t help with the latter. Hagel works from scattered and seemingly contradictory primary evidence to build a cohesive theory throughout the work, although some chapters can be taken on their own (I thought the auloi chapter was particularly interesting).
I met a charming academic (from Switzerland?) at a CA conference a few years ago who told me that when she spoke about Gardening her audience was full of ladies of a certain age who seemed most disappointed that her approach was political and cultural rather than practical.
On the subject of conferences I heard John Henderson talk about Seneca (he was probably writing his excellent Morals and Villas in Seneca’s Letters: Places to Dwell). He talked about letter 57 which begins (at least on the face of it) with Seneca’s journey from Baiae to Naples first going through the “crypya Neapolitana”. He produced a hand out consisting of a very large black square covering almost the whole of the sheet, entitled " The Tunnel: the view within". A splendid example of his wit and capacity to parody even the act of giving a paper.
(I feel a certain license in your threads, Sean, to veer away from strictly Homeric points. Writing styles have been on my mind this morning. Apologies if this upsets others.)
I’ve been rereading Paradise Lost alongside the Theogony, and I thought the description of Eden in book 3 wasn’t far off Alcinous’ garden, so I’m going to leave it here in this thread for future historians of internet-based language learning communities to enjoy.
and overhead up grew
Insuperable height of loftiest shade,
Cedar and pine and fir and branching palm,
A sylvan scene; and, as the ranks ascend
Shade above shade, a woody theatre
Of stateliest view. Yet higher than their tops
The verdurous wall of Paradise up sprung;
Which to our general sire gave prospect large
Into his nether empire neighboring round.
And higher than that wall a circling row
Of goodliest trees loaden with fairest fruit,
Blossoms and fruits at once of golden hue,
Appeared, with gay enamelled colors mixed;
On which the sun more glad impressed his beams,
Than in fair evening cloud or humid bow,
When God hath showered the earth; so lovely seemed
That landskip; and of pure now purer air
Meets his approach, and to the heart inspires
Vernal delight and joy, able to drive
All sadness but despair: now gentle gales,
Fanning their odoriferous wings, dispense
Native perfumes, and whisper whence they stole
Those balmy spoils.
Thank you for posting Milton. I think perhaps we should have a thread at some stage on Milton and Vergil.
Did you see the British Museum exhibition “I am Ashurbanipal” ? A number of the reliefs from A.'s palace were illuminated by means of coloured lights which helped the viewer to follow more clearly the narrative depicted.
One of the reliefs was of A. relaxing in his garden. It stands in stark contrast to Alcinous’ garden because the head of a defeated Elamite King hangs from a tree. Ashurbanipal’s idea of paradise ( our word comes via a circuitous route from Assyrian?) evidently involved exalting in trampling on his defeated enemies. I did not come away with a positive impression of him, despite his fabulous library.
Strange fruit indeed. Horrible. And someone had to carve it!
No I didn’t catch it, unfortunately, but I do remember the ridiculous furore over the Ashurbanipal ‘world king’ socks donned by ‘he who shall not be named except on the Academy board’. Interesting you should mention him though - when I was looking for information about the ‘bronze walls’ in the previous passage one of the things that came up were the slightly earlier Balawat Gates at the British Museum.
I’ll start boning up on Latin for the Milton and Virgil thread.
