Classics in Contemporary Culture

Penelope in Ottawa

The stage adaptation of Margaret Atwood's Penelopiad is about to open at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa, after a brief run in England.  Here's part of the CTV account:

"The Penelopiad" is Atwood's retelling of Homer's "The Odyssey" from the point of view of Odysseus' wife Penelope.

In the original epic Greek poem, Penelope waits years for the return of her husband Odysseus, who is feared dead, from the Trojan War.

"She's finally telling her story," Atwood told CTV's Canada AM. "In the 'Odyssey,' she's the patient, suffering wife. But can anybody really be that patient, that suffering for that long?"

But Atwood's retelling of the story is not only limited to the wife of Odysseus. She also gives voices and characters to Penelope's 12 maids, who become her closest allies as she deals with the advances of suitors.

At the end of Homer's "Odyssey," Penelope's 12 maids are hung by a single piece of rope, "an episode so disagreeable that a lot of people in modern retellings just leave it out."

"That ticked me off," Atwood said. "For our modern sensibility it's a very brutal and excessive and awful thing to do."

"The Penelopiad" continues Atwood's penchant for putting twists on famous texts and looking at them from the view of different characters.

And from hour.ca:

Atwood worked on the script at all stages, creating a piece that blends both classical and contemporary elements: The Greek chorus does less keening and more cancan-ing. A trial takes place via video, only to have a meddling god hit eject. The universe is put back in order, but no easy answers emerge when it comes to Penelope's fidelity.

Hannibal = F. W. de Klerk

Hmm..."Mike Smith" of GlobalPolitician.com has an...interesting take on supposed Hannibal movies that are being filmed (/contemplated?):

In the next few years two movies will hit the circuit, both are about Hannibal, the Carthaginian General (247-182 BCE). One will be, "Hannibal the Conqueror", staring Vin Diesel and the other, not named yet, staring Denzel Washington as Hannibal. This is not only an outrage, but it will make both of them look like fools. Why, because Hannibal was a white man. These movies are nothing but Liberal propaganda trying to portray blacks as conquerors of whites and I want to urge every single respecting white out there to boycott these movies.

The Carthaginians were descendants of the Phoenicians, a white race who inhabited the area where Lebanon is today. From coins and other artifacts it can clearly be seen that the Phoenicians were not only white, but highly advanced. They were master ship builders whose ships’ carrying capacity of 100 tons, steel ships only bettered. The Phoenicians circumnavigated Africa (in three years) around 600BC and in 1992 two of their galleys were dug up in Pinelands near Cape Town, where they used a riverbank as a dry dock. The Phoenicians were also brilliant architects and master builders. King Hiram I of Tyre designed and built the temple of Solomon. Their alphabet was even adopted by the Greeks and their language so closely resemble Hebrew that Hebrew is used to translate their manuscripts. There is even doubt whether they were Semitic or more Caucasian.

Aha...now we see: It's a "White South African" take on the Punic Wars:

This is where many parallels between Carthage and South Africa enter.

* Both were colonies in Africa settled and run by white people.
* Both built majestic cities, ports, infrastructure, etc.
* Both made use of locals as cheap labour.
* Both treated their locals well.
* Both employed the locals into their militaries.
* Both fought against the whole known world...and lost.
* Both had excellent generals who won just about every battle, but eventually lost the war.
* Both countries were wealthy with minerals and the wars against them were always about money.
* Both countries went down, because of liberal diplomacy with the enemy.

Troy: Petersen's Real Vision

At Monsters & Critics, Jeff Swindoll reviews the Director's Cut of Troy, about 30 minutes longer than the theatrical release. Better than the theatrical release, he thinks. And better than the extended version of Oliver Stone's Alexander. For what it's worth.

Greece-Themed Black Tie Affair

This year's Wolf Trap Ball (fundraiser for the performing arts association in Washington, DC) had the theme "Discovering Greece"...strangely, it's only reported on (as far as I can tell) in the Washington Times and (of course) the Hellenic News of America, but for some reason the latter's story won't come up...Based on the former, sounds like a...um...nice event:

The backdrop of an Ionic colonnade set against Greece's famously blue sea and sky filled the proscenium; a golden mask of Agamemnon looked down as formally clad patrons, some 800 strong, entered the space where a ceiling-high scrim depicting a Santorini village at sunset lay directly ahead.

"The Greeks have a word for it — marvelous," said Ambassador Alexandros Mallias in words of greeting.

Question:  Was the ambassador speaking through an interpreter, or...?

 

Hubris, Hubris Everywhere

But this sports commentary by Jeff Carroll seems to be over-reaching - but it might just be me...

The word you're trying to think of is "hubris."

And if you're having difficulty thinking back to those junior high literature classes to retrieve a definition, it means excessive pride. Arrogance even. The term is applied to figures in Greek tragedy who can't seem to stay out of their own way. If Agamemnon doesn't do it for you, though, think of a gambler tragically chasing his losses.

Or think of Notre Dame head coach Charlie Weis.

After the latest debacle, Saturday's 38-0 loss against a previously dead-in-the-water Michigan team, Weis announced that his team would be re-starting training camp, effective immediately.

"We will not be watching tapes," Weis said. "We will not be having meetings tomorrow. We will be practicing."

About time.

After showing so much promise as a head coach in his first two seasons in South Bend, Weis bungled this campaign from the outset, something he seemed to be tacitly admitting on Saturday afternoon. It doesn't mean he can't be a good coach. It means he pathologically won't let himself be.

Meanwhile, the same word appears (surely inviting some kind of retribution) as the name of an Internet Service Provider, as the name of a short film about speed-dating, subtitled "Love Is a Battlefield"...but I guess when VD Hanson seems to be saying that hubris = foolish lack of concern, I guess I shouldn't be surprised...

Oops--just when I thought I'd had enough, this pops up:  a 1994 study [pdf] conducted for the CIA by David Ronfeldt of RAND, entitled Beware the Hubris-Nemesis Complex:  A Concept for Leadership Analysis.  It's a real doozy of a romp through ancient and modern...based on a quick skim it seems like the classic example of finding a bunch of information through research, then going with your original understanding.  Too silly not to quote, but really beneath the general level of the analysis, I think, is the following (p. 5):

Consider a leader like Fidel Castro. Which part of the dynamic fits him? He seems to have hubris, and may yet meet his nemesis. But on the other hand, he already thinks and acts like a nemesis—of the United States, which he would accuse of hubris.

Got that?

Man...I have got to get me one of these sweet commentator gigs...

Chimaerae

At the Motley Fool, an explanation of a mythological name:

From Typhon and Echidna comes Chimera

The attractive returns that can come from buying investment securities -- whether equity or debt -- at heavily discounted prices has attracted the interest of mortgage investment REIT Annaly Capital Management (NYSE: NLY), which is working with Merrill Lynch (NYSE: MER) on the IPO of a new mortgage investment REIT called Chimera Investment. Last Friday, the company filed its initial S-11 filing with the SEC to kick off the IPO process.

The stated objective of the fund is to use the management team's expertise, along with a heavy dose of leverage, to find attractive opportunities in the world of mortgage debt. The strategy isn't all that much different from what Annaly already does, though Chimera does appear to have a greater appetite for risk.

Fear the Chimera
Those up on their Greek mythology (Wikipedia helped me with mine) know Chimera as an unearthly creature that was part lion, part snake, and part goat. As Hesiod's Theogony describes it, the beast "breathed raging fire, a creature fearful, great, swift-footed and strong, who had three heads, one of a grim-eyed lion; in her hinderpart, a dragon; and in her middle, a goat, breathing forth a fearful blast of blazing fire." Well. Such a grotesque and intimidating image is probably a good one for a fund focused on investing in an asset class that's in such sorry shape.

But I found myself questioning Chimera's aim. Though the timing is perfect for a vulture fund of this sort, Chimera's S-11 makes no direct reference to the idea of using current market dislocations to find good assets on the cheap.

Uwe Justus Wenzel warns about another kind of Chimera:

He warns of the dangers of inserting human DNA into animal egg cells to produce new stem cells and draws on mythology to make his point "Even the Chimera, which by its very nature serves as a messenger here, urges us to be cautious. It, too, stands for divine punishment, or more precisely, for the indirect outcome of the vindictiveness of the gods. The 'Chimera' - a three-headed monster, part lion, part goat and part snake - was the issue of an incestuous coupling between Typhon, a huge monster with the heads of a dragon and a snake, and Echidna, a creature that according to Hesiod was 'half woman and half monstrous serpent'. Both were conceived by Gaia, who had coupled with Tartaros of the dark underworld in an act of vengeance for the death of some of her other numerous children, the titans and the giants, who were killed by Zeus in a battle for power. The Chimera was finally destroyed by Bellerophon, a grandson of Sisyphus. It echoes in your ears: Gaia, the earth's primal mother, takes her revenge! Does she also stir up experiments in the Petri dish?"

Religion Is Contagious!

Mark Liberman (at LanguageLog) has been posting on "Language as a Virus" and now expands (with help from Cosma Shalizi) to "Culture" (specifically, religion) as a contagious phenomenon, citing Pliny (Ep. 10.96.9) on the Christians:

Neque civitates tantum, sed vicos etiam atque agros superstitionis istius contagio pervagata est.

This phraseology is likely derived from Livy's depiction of the spread of the Bacchanalia (39.9):

Huius mali labes ex Etruria Romam veluti contagione morbi penetravit.

["The infection of this mischief, like that from the contagion of disease, spread from Etruria to Rome." (Google Books)]

Cf. R. M. Grant, "Pliny and the Christians," Harvard Theological Review 1948: 273-4 [link via JSTOR].

One more:  Tacitus, discussing measures against Egyptian and Jewish rites, (Ann. 2.85) mentions 4000 freedmen "infected with that [sic] superstition" (quattuor milia libertini generis ea superstitione infecta)...although "infecta" by itself is not as specific as the English "infected."

The Christians gave as good as they got, of course:  The metaphor appears, for example in the title of Theodoret's great work of apologetic, Graecarum Affectionum Curatio, "Cure of the Greek Maladies" [the Greek title being:  Hellenikon therapeutike pathematon]. (Greek text via Google Books)

For later incarnations, note Ludovico Nogarola (16th cen.) on Gian Matteo Giberti's actions against heresy (i.e. Protestantism), presuambly with Livy in mind also:

ille...vir prudens curavit sedulo, ne hoc tam late disseminatum malum Germaniae vicinitate veluti contagione morbi ad nos serperet. [Google Books]

And for more examples in Medieval times, see R. I. Moore, "Heresy as Disease," in The Concept of Heresy in the Middle Ages (11th-13th C.), ed. by W. Lourdaux and D. Verhelst (Leuven, 1976), pp. 1-11.

Filmmaker Delves into Myth-Scholar's Work

Francis Ford Coppola, apparently, has come up with a film version of a novella ("Youth Without Youth") by Mircea Eliade, the Romanian scholar of myth and history-of-religions. In the movie:

Dominic Matei, an elderly Romanian professor of linguistics who, after being struck by lightning, becomes young again. Though Matei, played by Tim Roth, retains a septuagenarian’s memories and experiences, his body, restored to 30-year-old fighting trim, is mysteriously immune to the effects of time.

The professor’s condition is presented as a medical curiosity and a metaphysical conundrum — like the novella by Mircea Eliade on which it is based, Mr. Coppola’s movie is a complex, symbol-laden meditation on the nature of chronology, language and human identity — but it also speaks to a familiar and widespread longing. What if, without losing the hard-won wisdom of age, you could go back and start again? What if you could reverse and arrest the process of growing old, securing the double blessing of a full past and a limitless future?

Wait: There wasn't a Classical reference there! Tangentially, it also turns out that Francis Ford Coppola's costume designer for his 1993 Dracula has just now collaborated in a Cirque du Soleil show, Varekai, which this article explains as a kind of counter-factual re-imagining of the Icarus story. Whew!

Why Do They Hate Us?

M. S. N. Menon argues, from an Indian perspective, that...um...well...that something is wrong with the U.S., and Wendy Doniger is a symptom of that something...and into the mix throws some Classical references, e.g.:

It shall not be said of America, as Thucydides said of the Greeks, that “we shall be the wonder of the world not only of today’s men, but of all times.” When American power bows out of the world stage, as it must—and that day is not far off—there shall be nothing left to recall it except the memory of a nightmare.

The American President appear larger than life because it is part of the mythology surrounding American Presidents that they should appear in the heroic mould. And yet the private pathologies of the incumbents of the White House, which have come down to us through anecdotes and apocrypha, continue to shock us.

The American Presidents have inherited the mantle of the Roman Caesars. And yet when the pants were down, Clinton was no more than a plebeian on the streets of Rome.

But it does not end here. The world is also called upon to pay a price to keep up the image of America as the Hegemon of the world. And it has the Presidency, the State Department, the Pentagon, CIA, Wall Street, the Church, the Academia and so on to prop up its image. The American ruling classes believe that they are a “chosen people” to guide the ignorant of the world. Wendy Doniger is one of the foot-soldiers of this chosen tribe. She thinks that Hindus are living in “darkness” and that we need the light of Christianity. Little does she realise that the torch that Christianity lighted was not meant as Rabindranth Tagore said to give light but to start fires in the world. No, thank you, we can do without your light.

Nature vs. (Viti)culture

Ok, one more brand name...even though the primary reference is Mesopotamian rather than Greco-Roman, although one of the wines is designated "Odyssey Vineyard":

Enkidu Wine LLC!!  And in case you thought they just liked the sound of it, here's part of the explanation:

Enkidu’s character was not perfect, nor is wine. But as with Enkidu himself, we look inside and adhere to beliefs that will guide our efforts. We strive to make handcrafted wines of unique character that are the result of passion, art and intelligence, mixed with hard work and a degree of luck. Whereas many producers’ names may not hold a large relevance to the wines they produce, the Enkidu mythological figure is the driving force and guide of our wine production.

And (file under:  "Oh no they didn't!") one of the wines is Shamhat Rosé...Come on now, humbaba.clanlord.net, digg.com user Huwawa, and Polish (?) site Bilgames, you're all going to have to try a little harder now!  Ok, ok, I see that Humbaba the Clanlord did name his child Gilgamesh, so that's a start...

Aw...the founder's dog is named Enkidu too...