For August, we will complete our "long summer read" of the Fall of Troy, or Posthomerica, by Quintus Smyrnaeus. This month, we will read Books 10–14, which include the death of Paris, further fighting, the construction of the Trojan Horse, the sack of Troy, and the Returns. Discussion will start and continue in the forum, and we will meet via Zoom on Tuesday, August 25, at 11 a.m. EDT. Read more
Meeting with several members of the Kosmos Society in London was a wonderful experience. We went together to the amazing exhibition "Troy: Myth and Reality" at the British Museum. The British Museum was packed with fans of Homeric poetry, so we were among people sharing similar enthusiasm. Now we offer some of our highlights. Read more
"Long time has Thetis been scanning every corner with silent glance: then, impatient of delay, she cries: “Tell me, Chiron, where is my darling? Why spends the boy any time apart from thee? Is it not with reason that my sleep is troubled, and terrible portents from the gods and fearful panics – would they were false! – afflict his mother’s heart? For now I behold swords that threaten to… Read more
I was reading Gregory Nagy's translation of the Sappho Brothers poem (“But you are always saying, in a chattering way, that Kharaxos will come in a ship full of goods”), and it made me think of Works and Days, in which Hesiod seems to have a similar concern about his brother Perses (“my father and yours, you inept Perses, used to sail around in ships, lacking a genuine livelihood.”) I… Read more
