Classics Passage IDs Part 1 Flashcards
“Tell me now you Muses…Who then…were the chief men and lords of the Danaans? I could not describe the multitude of them nor name them, not if I had ten tongues and ten mouths”
Author: Homer Text: Iliad Speaker: Poet (Homer) Addressee: The Muses Context: Catalogue of ships that lists contingents of Greek Army and their leaders
“No one can blame Phemius for singing the doom of Danaans, its always the newest song the audience praises most…You’ll have to endure it and listen…Go back upstairs and take of work, spinning and weaving”
Author: Homer Text: Odyssey Speaker: Telemachus Addressee: Penelope Context: Penelope is upset at the bard for singing of an ill-fated return, but Telemachus tell her that she must bear it and go back to weaving her tapestry
“Sing Goddess, Achilles’ rage
black and murderous, that cost the Greeks incalculable pain, pitched countless souls
of heroes into Hades’ dark
and left their bodies to rot as feasts
for dogs and birds, as Zeus’ will was done
Author: Homer Text: Iliad Speaker: Poet (Homer) Addressee: The Muse Context: Homer "invokes" the Muse, so she can deliver the story of the Iliad through Homer
“By this scepter…cut from its stock in the mountains..I swear…you will eat your heart out because you failed to honor the best Greek of all
“I’m not going to put up a fight on the account of a girl…Let everybody here see how fast your black blood boils up around my spear”
Author: Homer Text: Iliad Speaker: Achilles Addressee: Agamemnon Context: Achilles addressing Agamemnon when he demands Briseis; representative of Achilles' fetishes with a lot of phallic imagery
“The next person will wince at the thought of opposing me as an equal”
Author: Homer Text: Iliad Speaker: Agamemnon Addressee: Achilles Context: Agamemnon is trying to prove his superiority to Achilles after Achilles resists Agamemnon's efforts to take Briseis as a prize from Achilles
“Go to Olympus and call in the debt that Zeus owes you… You alone managed to save his neck when the other Olympians wanted to bind him.”
Author: Homer Text: Iliad Speaker: Achilles Addressee: Thetis Context: Achilles is asking Thetis to go seek a favor from Zeus so that he may gain revenge on Agamemnon for dishonoring him by taking Briseis
“She settled right beside him and touched his knees…with her left hand his beard, with her right…Zeus made no reply but sat a long time in silence…Thetis held fast to his knees”
Author: Homer Text: Iliad Speaker: Homer/Thetis Addressee: N/A/Zeus Context: Thetis is supplicating Zeus so that Achilles may can have a way of having revenge on Achilles; Greek armies will lose until Achilles fights again
“We’ve had enough suffering from this quarrel of mine that Paris began”
Author: Homer Text: Iliad Speaker: Menelaus Addressee: Greek and Trojan armies Context: Menelaus addresses the armies and agrees to Paris's proposal that the two duel to the death to decide who is to get Helen
“Let’s go to bed now and make love. I’ve never wanted you so much, not even when I first took you from Sparta…and made love to you…I want you even more now than I wanted you then”
Author: Homer Text: Iliad Speaker: Paris Addressee: Helen Context: RIght after being rescued from battle with Menelaus by Aphrodite, thinking about how he stole Helen despite being in bed with her at the moment
“She found Helen in the main hall, weaving a folding mantle on a great loom and designing into the blood-red fabric the trials that the Trojans and Greeks suffered for her beauty”
Author: Homer Text: Iliad Speaker: Homer Addressee: N/A Context: Describing Iris seeing Helen weave her tapestry that tells the story of the Trojan War. Helen is stuck in the nightmare of her tapestry and creates it in a literal and figurative sense.
“As a lion must feel when he finds the carcass of a stag or wild goat, and half starving consumes it even though hounds and hunters are swarming down on him”
Author: Homer Text: Iliad Speaker: Homer Addressee: N/A Context: Describing Menelaus as he wants to be greedy and really kill Paris, but forces prevent him from "sinking his teeth" into Paris
“He is propped up on the pillows in your bedroom, so silky and beautiful”
Author: Homer Text: Iliad Speaker: Aphrodite Addressee: Helen Context: Aphrodite says this to Helen to get her to sleep with Paris; portrays Paris is a "campy" figure (artifice and exaggeration)
“Paris you desperate womanizing pretty boy!…You think your lyre will help you, or Aphrodite’s gifts, your hair, or your pretty face”
Author: Homer Text: Iliad Speaker: Hector Addressee: Paris Context: Right as Paris is about to fight Menelaus, Hector abuses him as he trembles in his fight with Menelaus
“Death should have been a sweeter evil to me than following your son here, leaving my home, marriage, and friends”
Author: Homer Text: Iliad Speaker: Helen Addressee: Priam Context: Helen is telling Priam that she would have rather died than eloped with Paris. Priam is trying to convince her that the Gods are to blame for the war and not her
“Diomedes…cut down Axylos…a man rich in substance and a friend to all humanity since in his house by the wayside he entertained all comers. Yet there was none of these now to stand before him and keep off the destruction”
Author: Homer Text: Iliad Speaker: Homer Addressee: N/A Context: Notes how Axylos had a lot of frineds when he hosted other people, but facing death, none of those people provided any protection for him
“We have old ties of hospitality that makes me your friend and you my guest…so we can’t cross spears even in the thick of battle”
Author: Homer Text: Iliad Speaker: Diomedes Addressee: Glaucus Context: Diomedes and Glaucusare fighting in the Trojan War, but because one of Diomedes' ancestors hosted one of Glaucus' ancestors, they are bound by xenia
“Station your men by the fig tree…where the city is weakest”
“Your courage is going to kill you”
Author: Homer Text: Iliad Speaker: Andromache Addressee: Hector Context: Acndromache is giving Hector advice and wise words for defending Troy, but he does not heed anything that she is saying
“My shame before the Trojans and their wives…would be terrible if I came back from battle like a coward”
“Someone seeing you will say That is the wife of Hector, the best of all”
“May men say he is better than his father”
Author: Homer Text: Iliad Speaker: Hector Addressee: Andromache Context: Hector is telling Andromache that he is not too concerned with dying, as long as he has an honorable death and achieves kleos
Brother in law of a scheming, cold blooded bitch…I wish that on the day my mother bore me a windstorm had swept me away, into the waves of the restless sea”
Author: Homer Text: Iliad Speaker: Helen Addressee: Hector Context: Helen is expressing a death wish to Hector, as she does not like the negative kleos she has as the Trojan War was started partly because of her
“You’re like a little girl, pestering her mother to pick her up, pulling at her hem, until she gets her way
Author: Homer Text: Iliad Speaker: Achilles Addressee: Patroclus Context: Achilles is likening Patroclus's tears to that of a girl, indicative of Achilles' mother-like care for Patroclus
“Win me…my glory and honor from all the Greeks…Any success you have against the Trojans will be at the expense of my honor…O Patroclus, I wish to Father Zeus…that all of them were dead…and only you and I were left to rip Ilion down”
Author: Homer Text: Iliad Speaker: Achilles Addressee: Patroclus Context: Achilles expresses a strong wish to destroy Troy only with Patroclus; signifies that Patroclus is one with and a copy of Achilles
“I will do anything you ask. But come closer. Let us give in to grief, however briefly, in each others arms”
Author: Homer Text: Iliad Speaker: Achilles Addressee: Patroclus Context: Achilles speaks to Patroclus to comfort him. Indicates a possible homoerotic relation between the two (can't be mapped onto erastes/eromenos model)
“Fate has it that Sarpedon, who I love more than any man, is to be killed”
Author: Homer Text: Iliad Speaker: Zeus Addressee: Hera Context: Zeus laments how he cannot prevent Sarpedon's death, as though he is very powerful, even he is bound by fate
“Take our Sarpedon out of range…Wrap the body in a deathless shroud”
Author: Homer Text: Iliad Speaker: Zeus Addressee: Apollo Context: Despite not being able to prevent Sarpedon's death, Zeus wants to give him a beautiful death because he loves him so much; doesn't let his body rot at all
“Remember your father godlike Achilles…think of your own father and pity me”
Author: Homer Text: Iliad Speaker: Priam Addressee: Achilles Context: Priam is supplicating Achilles in order to receive Hector's body back so that it may be ceremoniously buried and he may achieve kleos
“Two jars sit at the doorstep of Zeus”
Author: Homer Text: Iliad Speaker: Priam Addressee: Achilles Context: Priam tells Achilles the story of Zeus's jars in order to convince him to release Hector's body to him
“I will not dishonor your corpse, promise me you’ll do the same”
“Do not let the dogs mutilate my body”
Author: Homer Text: Iliad Speaker: Hector Addressee: Achilles Context: Hector wants to preserve his kleos and honor after death by ensuring his body doesn't get mutilated after he dies
“Do lions make treaties with men? Do wolves and lambs get along?”
“I wish my stomach would let me cut off your flesh and eat it raw”
Author: Homer Text: Iliad Speaker: Achilles Addressee: Hector Context: Achilles doesn't particularly care for Hector's wishes in the heat of battle, becomes the enemy of kleos
“Speak memory, of the cunning hero…blown off course…Troy’s sacred heights”
Author: Homer Text: Odyssey Speaker: Homer Addressee: Muses Context: Homer invokes the Muses so that he can relay the story of Odysseus's journey and ordeals
“I’ll tell you nothing but the unvarnished truth”
“He knows every trick there is and will find some way to come home”
Author: Homer Text: Odyssey Speaker: Athena Addressee: Telemachus Context: Athena is convincing Telemachus to take on a more active role as the house's patriarch as the suitors are overrunning it
“Calypso detains the poor man…charm him into forgetting Ithaca”
Author: Homer Text: Odyssey Speaker: Athena Addressee: Zeus Context: Zeus mentions Orestes, and Athena tells Zeus that she is worried about Odysseus as he is held by Calypso
“You’ve got to stop acting like a child”
“Are you Odysseus’s son? You bear a striking resemblance to him”
Author: Homer Text: Odyssey Speaker: Athena Addressee: Telemachus Context: Athena is being a catalyst in Telemachus's coming of age, as he must assume the responsibility of the man of the house and drive out the suitors
“We are dear to the immortal gods…out of all human contact”
“Don’t care for quivers and bows…streamlined ships”
Author: Homer Text: Odyssey Speaker: Nausicaa Addressee: Ringleted Girls/Odysseus Context: Used as a way to describe the society of the Phaecians to the audience
“I myself would blame anyone who acted like this…kept the company of men before her wedding day”
Author: Homer Text: Odyssey Speaker: Nausicaa Addressee: Odysseus Context: Gives an insight into Nausicaa's sexual desire; emerges through negation and apparent conformity to the system
