P.S. I'm aware Archimedes, Euclid, Pythagoras, and Herodotus werenβt from Athens, but they were drawn to whatever voodoo the Athenians cooked up.
So what was the voodoo? Why did it happen, and why have such concentrations of brilliance occurred so rarely in the history of civilization?
Im wondering what would the men in Athens would react after seeing the play since women were seen as second-class citizens during that time.
β[Each] one longed for its other half, and so they would throw their arms about each other, weaving themselves together, wanting to grow together.β - Aristophanes.
It's a theory of mine that a lot of the stories we tell ourselves and each other (Mythology/Religion), have a biological basis. I don't believe in Jung's Collective Unconscious. I do believe a significant amount of our feelings and desires come from something we have no control over, instinct. Evolutionarily speaking, it's obviously advantageous for humans to seek a partner. I believe we interpret this instinct as love.
The concept of the "Other Half", feels accurate to me. I've never had a relationship, and I've always felt like something huge is missing/absent from myself.
I would love to hear anyone's thoughts or further evidence of the "Other Half" concept manifested in other cultures. Thank You!
Hi there, I'm studying classics at Alevel and I've been reading the play Frogs by Aristophanes, however, I'm not quite sure what themes I'm supposed the be looking for. I am aware that I am supposed to get evidence on Aristophanes' ideas about the Peloponnesian war but other than that I'm quite lost. If anyone could help me that would be super cool. Thanks!
I want to write on the topic and I was wondering what are the must read/cite works.
Were people in Homerβs time a lot more chaste? The Iliad has no foul language and female characters are just white-armed, heifer-eyed, lovely cheeks, etc. And then there is Aristophanes. Is it a regional thing? Time period thing? Completely individual thing?
From what I see most people seem to recommend the Henderson translations, however I understand that Aristophanes' plays are very detailed in an r-rated way at several points and wanted to be sure I get the most accurate/uncensored translation available before I just go buy a bunch. If anyone can confirm that the Henderson ones are good in this way, or if there's a more accurate translation instead, I would greatly appreciate it.
So the standard explanation for the invention of the psilh pneuma/spiritus lenis goes something like ''Aristophanes (ca. 200BC) invented it in order to help readers discern between similar words like "α½ ΟΞΏΟ" and "α½ΟΞΏΟ". This standard explanation never made any sense to me whatsoever.
Why would you invent a special sign in order to indicate the absense of a sound? Why not just have one single spiritus (dasu/asper) in order to show that k/t/p turn into ch/th/ph before that vowel?
E.g. take the two English words ''are'' and ''hare''. Obviously, ''are'' lacks the ''h''. Now why would any (sound minded) writer of English feel the need to point out that this word lacks an ''h''? Why would I want to invent a fictional character, ''β'', and write ''βare'' in stead of just writing ''are'', only to point out that ''are'' doesn't have an ''h'' like ''hare''?!
If anything, this fictional character, invented to mark the inexistence of something, could give rise to confusion! Take Ξ±αΌ΄ΟΟ and Ξ±αΌ±ΟΞΟ and their plethora of forms. A reader/learner could get confused by the spiritus on Ξ±αΌ΄ΟΟ, forgetting whether it was written with an asper or lenis. However, if we would just learn Ξ±Ξ―ΟΟ in stead of Ξ±αΌ΄ΟΟ, we could never confuse it with Ξ±αΌ±ΟΞΟ, and would never even think of accidentally writing an asper on Ξ±Ξ―ΟΟ.
Is there more to the spiritus lenis than meets the eye? Are there any other explanations for the existence of the spiritus lenis? Any examples from other scripts (other than Greek/and Greek-based Cyrillic)?
