Download Q83MYT lecture 7 handout

Q83MYT Greek Mythology
Lecture 7: The Trojan Cycle – part 1
Looking at:
 Narrative
 Versions
 Meanings
Texts:
Author
Homer
Hesiod
Sappho
Text
Iliad
Catalogue of
Women
Cypria &
epitome
Frr. 16, 141
Alcaeus
Frr. 42, 238
Stesichorus
Aeschylus
Herodotus
Palinode
Agamemnon
Histories
Gorgias
Encomium of
Helen
Trojan Women
Iphigenia in
Tauris
Philoctetes
Iphigenia in
Aulis
Epithalamium of
Achilles and
Deidameia
Heroides 5, 16
Fabulae (esp. 92)
Biblioteca,
Epitome
Dialogues of the
Gods 20
[Stasinus]
Euripides
Sophocles
Euripides
Ps-Bion
Ovid
Hyginus
Apollodorus
Lucian
Date
C8th BC
C8th BC
Location
?
Boeotia
Genre
Epic
Epic
Late C7th BC
Cyprus?
Epic
Late C7th/early
C6th BC
Late C7th/early
C6th BC
C7th/6th BC
468 BC
C5th BC
Lesbos
Lyric
Lesbos
Lyric
Lyric
Tragedy
Historiography
C5th BC
Himera (Sicily)
Athens
Halicarnassus/
Athens/ Thurii
Sicily/Athens
415 BC
415 BC
Athens
Athens
Tragedy
Tragedy
409 BC
405 BC
Athens
Athens
Tragedy
Tragedy
C2nd BC?
Alexandria?
Bucolic
AD C1st
AD C1st
AD C1st/2nd
Rome
Rome
?
Elegy
Mythography
Mythography
AD C2nd
Samosata
Satire
Rhetoric
Quotes:
There was a time when the countless tribes of men, though wide-dispersed, oppressed
the surface of the deep-bosomed earth, and Zeus saw it and had pity and in his wide
heart resolved to relieve the all-nurturing earth of men by causing the great struggle of
the Ilian War, that the load of death might empty the world. And so the heroes were
slain in Troy, and the plan of Zeus came to pass.
Cypria fr. 3
…so that Europe and Asia would go to war and his daughter would become famous.
Apd. Ep. 3.1
Let her win a mortal marriage and see her son die in war.
Pind. Isth. 8.36-38
Of sea-nymphs I alone was given in thrall to a mortal warrior, Peleus Aeacides, and I
endured a mortal warrior’s bed many a time, without desire.
Hom. Il. 18.456-59
Cheiron gave him a stout ashen shaft which he had cut for a spear, and Athena, it is
said, polished it, and Hephaestus fitted it with a head.
Cypria fr. 5
Not such was the delicate maiden whom the noble son of Aeacus, inviting all the blessed
gods to the wedding, married, taking her from the halls of Nereus to the home of
Cheiron; he loosened the pure maiden’s girdle, and the love of Peleus and the best of
Nereus’ daughters flourished; and within the year she bore a son, the finest of
demigods…
Alc. fr. 42.5-13
…Ilium and Priam and his people had incurred their hatred first, the day when
Alexandrus made his mad choice and piqued two goddesses, visitors in his sheep-fold:
for he praised a third, who offered ruinous lust.
Hom. Il. 24.25-30
Painful death would have been sweeter for me, on that day I joined your son, and left
my bridal chamber, my brothers, my grown child, my childhood friends! But no death
came, though I have pined and wept.
Hom. Il. 3.172-76
She who far surpassed all mankind in beauty, Helen, led her most noble husband and
went sailing off to Troy with no thought at all for her child or dear parents, but (love)
led her astray…
Sappho fr. 16.6-11
Oh for all the world a Helen! Hell at the prows, hell at the gates, hell on the men-of-war,
from her lair’s sheer veils she drifted, launched by the giant western wind.
Aesch. Ag. 689-92
I spake vanities, and I will go seek another prelude. The story is not true; thou wentest
not in the benched ships, thou camest not to the city of Troy”
Stesichorus, Palinode: Plat. Phdr. 243a
She’s fainting – lift her, sweep her robes around her, but slip this strap in her gentle
curving lips...here, gag her hard, a sound will curse the house’ – and the bridle chokes
her voice...
Aesch. Ag. 233-37
Whoever gets the upper hand in this shall take the treasure and the woman home; let the
rest part as friends, let all take oath, that you may live in peace in Troy’s rich land while
they make sail for Argos and the land of lovely womankind, Achaea.
Hom. Il. 3.71-75
Bibliography:
N. Austin, Helen of Troy and her shameless phantom, Ithaca 1994.
J. S. Burgess, The tradition of the Trojan War in Homer and the epic cycle, Baltimore 2001.
M. Davies, The epic cycle, Bristol 1989.
J. M. Foley (ed.) A companion to ancient epic, Oxford 2005.
L. Foxhall & J. K. Davies (eds.) The Trojan War: its historicity and context : papers of the first
Greenbank Colloquium, Liverpool, 1981, Bristol 1984.
J. Latacz, Troy and Homer: towards a solution of an old mystery, Oxford : Oxford 2004.
B. Louden, The Iliad: structure, myth, and meaning, Baltimore 2006.
M. Wood, In search of the Trojan War, London 2005.