"The herald came near, bringing with him a singer, very trusted, whom the Muse loved exceedingly. She gave him both a good thing and a bad thing. For she took away from him his eyes but gave him the sweetness of song." The gifts of the gods are ambiguous and double-edged. Read more
We were excited to welcome back Maria G. Xanthou for an Open House discussion on "The Muse(s)'s "white noise", sympotic calm, and the taste of sound: the background of sound-scape and the gustatory acoustics of Pindar's epinician odes." The event took place on Thursday, February 20 at 11:00 a.m. EST and was recorded. There is a handout available. Read more
As you well know the first word of the poem, mēnis, indicates ‘anger’, as both Greg and Lenny have so carefully discussed. This first word establishes a tone or mode for the complete work as anger is exchanged through an economy of metaphors with violence, death, grief, lamentation, and ultimately with kleos itself as the final price of an heroic life: that is, the poetic medium of this narrative song.… Read more
