This week Jeff and Dave - with the help of Prof. Deborah Roberts (Emerita, Haverford College) - begin their look at tragedian Aeschylus' magnum opus, Prometheus Bound. We get started with Prof. Roberts providing a lovely reading of the central passage of the play, in which Prometheus explains the many kindnesses he has wrought for the human race. Then we follow up by setting the table with the briefest of looks at the development of tragedy. Next, we dig into the main course with a bit of Greek from the play's opening, and the fascinating dialogue between smith god Hephaestus and the personifications Power (Κράτος) and Violence (Βία). In addition to examining the perennial central questions of how this telling differs from Hesiod, whether Zeus can be just while mistreating so severely one of his own – who fought for him in fact in his war against the other Titans – we also take a few glances at the vexed question of who really wrote the play. And if threnodic literature is not your cup of tea, don't worry, there are many wretched puns and inane surrealities along the way.
Giving Goliath his Due: Mycenaeans and Philistines, Part I (Ad Navseam, Episode 128)
Do the Rite Thing: The Homeric Hymn to Demeter, Part II (Ad Navseam, Episode 127)
No Pain, No Grain: The Homeric Hymn to Demeter, Part I (Ad Navseam, Episode 126)
Whoa, Milo, Come on, Come On, Let’s Go: The Greatest Ancient Athlete (Ad Navseam, Episode 125)
Use Your Allusion II: Classics in Pop Music (Ad Navseam, Episode 124)
Gildy as Charged: Arachne and Midas in two More Ovidian Vignettes (Ad Navseam, Episode 123)
The Riddle of the Labyrinth: A Conversation with Margolit Fox (Ad Navseam, Episode 122)
Loading the Canons: The Art of Classical Rhetoric (Ad Navseam, Episode 121)
Here Comes the Rage Again: Aeneid XII, Part 2 (Ad Navseam, Episode 120)
Duel Unto Others: Aeneid XII, Part 1 (Ad Navseam, Episode 119)
Tarzan and Tradition: Classical Myth in Popular Literature II (Ad Navseam, Episode 118)
Tarzan and Tradition: Classical Myth in Popular Literature I (Ad Navseam, Episode 117)
A Thrilla with Camilla: Aeneid XI, Part 2 (Ad Navseam, Episode 116)
With Pallas toward None: Aeneid XI, Part 1 (Ad Navseam, Episode 115)
Male Pattern Baldric: Aeneid X, Part 2 (Ad Navseam, Episode 114)
All’s Hair in Love and War! Aeneid X, Part 1 (Ad Navseam, Episode 113)
Translating Samuel Rutherford’s Examen Arminianismi (Ad Navseam, Episode 112)
Turnus Loose: War in Aeneid IX, Part 2 (Ad Navseam, Episode 111)
A Night to Dismember: The Tragedy of Nisus and Euryalus in Aeneid IX, Part 1 (Ad Navseam, Episode 110)
Signed, Shield, Delivered: Aeneas becomes Achilles in Aeneid Book VIII, Part 2 (Ad Navseam, Episode 109)
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