Descriptions:
Video Description
The new reading course opens with a vocabulary warm-up, so the work is packed rather than puzzled over. The top words of the Odyssey come first: ho, hos, autos, tis, gar, and the small words that hold Homer together, before the harder verbs and nouns arrive. The vowels are treated as musical notes, and the lesson points out that naos (ναός) becomes naus (ναῦς) for the same sound reasons that make Attic and Doric different dialects of one song.
From the list the class moves to Odyssey Book 10, lines 274 to 280, where Ammon Hillman reads the Greek line by line. Circe is called polypharmakos (πολυφάρμακος), the one of many drugs, and Hermes is khrusorrapis (χρυσόρραπις), golden-wanded, appearing as a young man whose first beard has just come in. That one phrase becomes a lesson in its own right: the neanias (νεανίας), the youth at the edge of manhood, is the same word family as the neaniskos (νεανίσκος) the channel has used before for the young person seated with Jesus in the garden story.
The session keeps folding one text into another. Hebe (Ἥβη), youthfulness, is a goddess who serves ambrosia and is given to Heracles when he dies on the pyre. Heracles’ death is read as a christing, the centaur’s drug on the robe burning his mortality away, and that poison reaches back to the Hydra. Homer’s giants and Cyclopes are set as the next assignment, the class is asked to work out what the word kyklops (κύκλωψ) really names, and the episode closes on the claim that Medea is the first Christ, the living Artemis-Aphrodite figure of the Black Sea.
Full Video Transcript
Okay, let’s get started. Madelaine, are you there?
Me.
Fantastic. So, I know Josh is going to join us in a bit. I apologize about the technical glitch. Let’s get moving on with class, shall we? How are you doing, Maddie?
I’m alright. Hanging in there.
Okay. Fantastic. I hate using Maddie. It sounds so informal. Madelaine?
I prefer Madeline I’m sorry no no I just hear other people using it so it’s just
okay um let’s get moving a little bit now we’re going to do this the same way every class
so that you know exactly what to expect right we’re going to start our workout with a little
bit of warm-up and then we’re going to go from that into the text that I assigned for today
can i ask you did you get through the text i did i didn’t i think i read most of 11 but i read
uh book six and uh 10 too so oh fantastic so you did your english portion fantastic and i did the
translation for 274 to 280 so good good how was that how how was the 274 to 280 now don’t be
afraid to say it was difficult or it was foreign or you know yeah um it was hard at first there
were a couple words like i mean that i could pick out that i understood what they were like
quite a few i would say like 60 of the words i i knew but um piecing them all together is
always a challenge and figuring out what’s going on um too so yeah and your um first exposure to
greek should i mean to homer should be like that yeah exactly that’s totally uh normal as a matter
of fact if you’re picking out 50 you’re doing pretty good and we’re gonna have to play with
some fluid grammar here, and we’re going to have to really see. Look, prepositions are going to
take on life of their own in Homer, and they become kind of roving and more powerful than
they normally are. So, yeah, good. Okay, good. We’ll look at that, and we’ll talk about the
English that you read. Those are all like parts of the workout, but what we’re going to start with
are these words dewey i’m screen sharing correct madeline i want you just to look at the screen
and i want to hear your voice these are the top words from the odyssey tonight
it was the iliad the night before yeah i just want you to read through this list when you get to the
bottom of it i’ll just scroll up but i want you to hear hear you pronounce the greek and tell me
what the english is like you’re doing a vocabulary list okay great both the kai and also they but
who’s who that which or relative pronoun amy to be altos um self or third third person pronouns
Yeah, that third person pronoun, right?
Yeah.
He, she, it, or they, right?
Good, good.
Yeah.
Hutos, this, that, men, on the one hand or on the other hand,
te, and, en, in, among, ego, I, u, not, eis, into, tis, anyone, anything, someone, something,
gar for rose as how
su you epi on upon
with rose from at near
in addition to toward regarding. Okay, stop there for a second.
Stop there for a second so you can see the overwhelming
majority of those you’ve had. Yeah. Again, the common
vocabulary, right? So have you
have you been going over this kind of this kind of list did you hit this too yeah okay so have
you noticed that the first you know you’ll get into it look i’m scrolling down we’re still only
to diddle me right yeah right a pun right to say something right good yeah it’s so hard too with
all their forms all the forms they take on so of course of course we’re both we’re just vocab
packing though yeah keep your amy i am and your amy distinct because the amy is to go or come
and the amy is to be oh yeah you’re gonna see no this is common i mean that you’re supposed to i’m
supposed to be emphasizing these things you’re gonna be adding prefixes madeline to this amy
to go or come so don’t be surprised if you only see it you know the prefix on
it but okay you know these words cock us you know that’s bad you don’t pull them
off right let me just skip ahead a little bit so you can do some stuff here
we may get okay here’s we’re starting to get some new ones why don’t you start
here at Opus nice go nice to die be killed haven’t heard that one yet really
good um main uh now verily full surely post how in what way um hostess that’s the that’s that
indefinite right it’s somebody some some person right it’s gonna whoever hostess whoever you know
you know dikaios right dikaios yeah justice yeah yeah you know that see there’s one here look here’s
a common one see that yeah notice that it’s middle looking right little passive looking and
it means to use something right so think about it that’s gotta be middle that’s gotta be middle
one of the things i asked you to do was go over um when you when your daily regimen to spend like
15 minutes looking at the grammar sometime when you get a chance i want you to look at middle
voice in homer in that homeric grammar and just it may it may help you kind of unlock some things
that you you know that you need to have unlocked look at yeah right to be like and it’s impersonal
right how god used that way a lot el sus direct they say right and right yeah yeah good
yeah yeah yeah good look look what you’re doing you’re playing with roots right
yeah good good good men oh you know that one to wait around right um appos is a word we’ve done
Let me hear it.
Mahe.
You know Mahe’s back.
Yeah.
For goodness sakes.
Okay.
Here, look.
Here’s another.
We had Raomai before, right?
Now we’ve got Rao to proclaim an oracle.
I like that.
Yeah.
Nice, huh?
Right?
Laf it.
Let’s take a closer look at that one here.
Hopefully you’ve still got my screen.
I’m trying to go to the LSJ.
I see it.
Let’s see. There we go.
Boom, right? This is B form, because there’s another Chrao.
Anywho, let’s look at this one in number one.
Of the gods and their oracles.
That’s how it’s used actively, so to proclaim.
Proclaim. Phoebus is proclaiming, right?
That’s the god of the oracles, so that makes sense, right, Phoebus?
Anyway, Chraismon.
oh god so you can have one of these things be an actual oracle this is our word for creating
the oracle so look passively to be declared something proclaimed by an oracle see how
special it is that they have a verb itself that is just the the thing that the oracle does
right is this the same root as the the inquiry then um history oh history yeah no that’s a
different one but this is the one that everybody gets for any of the oracular stuff so okay look
what happened we looked at krahomai before right that’s the in the middle voice so let’s look at
here in in the attic you’ll see that it’s oh my look at that you bastards right that’s how we
that’s how we would learn it right okay i just want you to be noticing that kind of stuff for
fun i don’t want you to be trying to memorize any of this right okay where are we going um
to desire to yearn after and it takes a genitive in that middle wait a minute well i thought we
were on the proclaim oracles we are okay look at they give you a hint here they say furnish
so to to oracle eyes to declare to furnish something and they say it was coming from
so i just want you to see what happened here look at do you see the kikremi it’s a me verb
and it looks like it’s reduplicated now you’re going to say well that kappa and that he aren’t
the same, but, you know, really, they kind of are, so, so, mouth-wise, and so, okay, fine, it’s a, it’s a
reduplication, look, they give you some other forms, it’s rarely chrenunai, right, chrenuo, I want you to
see what’s happening with the atizo, which, if you go there, they’re just going to talk about
oracular stuff um in the middle and what does that mean to desire to yearn after
that’s interesting to be in want of something to lack you’re in a position of want right
with the dative in number three with the dative and the perfect and blue perfect
it can mean to enjoy right to take really to take part in maybe right and again once you see this
in different contexts you’ll kind of you’ll build your own definition but i want you to be able to
see how all this stuff now use you’re gonna see it used this time this way all the time right
once in Homer so you can see that it’s not as Homeric they’re fantastic to
experience to suffer this is all the same verb right people look at how much
look at the history of this verb by people I mean you Madelaine is Josh
fantastic Josh how are you I’m good I’m just caught up in this restaurant at the
moment I’m delivering you something but I’m listening okay you just hang out in
background there fantastic so madelena i want you to continue for a couple of minutes on this list
and i’m going to i’m going to scroll down because i want you to do some words
that are you know go ahead and start this with dado at the top dado to fear
stratos and encamped army hoplon a tool weapon nail my to come yeah and that one is really
common in home yeah right it’s if it’s technically from afik but whatever um homer uses it in this
form without the you know metrically it must not suit his taste or whatever but anyway go ahead
what’s hold it all day uh thus so in this wise in this wise is a weird way to say that yeah oros
a mountain or hill soma body no mind how many words how many words have we had for mind or
no yeah this is where we’re getting the noose from right look in homer the
omicron omicron doesn’t contract they’re perfectly fine with no os no no okay um we want to say noose
man come on that sounds a little bit rough is there a die camera oh god genos what is your
genos what is your genos uh race family stock stock do we have this anymore or i don’t know
know if i have a joss really yeah right i guess i’m homo for genus right homo sapiens but right
we’re all you know homines we’re all people but um yeah we know oxios is worthy we know zeus to
live oh god damn it they’re not giving me new stuff look at that trapo there’s a good one how’s
that trip here to turn to turn yeah remember that turning towards somebody
they did some love it what is I would say I would say again yeah yeah and
that’s just ow and Ted I know those two can be separated right you just get that
owl meaning again but anyway you know the next one yeah sun water your nose empty i don’t know
that one yet yeah you know petty oh no that’s a plane yeah um here’s a good verb here’s a good
verb look what it means to drive to really coming like to compel or push okay they say to set in
motion all right um think of to drive and to set in motion it’s like what’s that if it’s one concept
right that’s what ilauno is and again you’re just gonna have to see it used um patris agiles there’s
lou oh god we know lou office stay me is a revolt right in the middle yeah you’re you’re committing
a revolt oh there’s our word look you know the next one uh nox yes oh god and there’s that
gorgeous invisible type camera on the front of it and if you were to pronounce it there you go
perfect perfect um doma what is a doma i saw that one today good um now when when you say house
what do you mean by house like what picture do you get in your head well just from the word i get
like dome but but what kind of like like give me a picture if you were to have to paint the house
that you’re looking at what would it look like like uh i don’t know something like a enclosure
or a temple something like that would you want to go there with your friends for an
evening of dinner or is this a cottage i don’t know you know what i mean i have no idea
there’s another word for house too right oh of course and there’s things for household and like
how your house is working what is the actual doma in i thought it was hall two yeah this is a big
one right the doma is a serious one and in uh the odyssey that we’re about to see where you saw it
in the passage you may think more like instead of a house because most of us don’t live in you
you would either think mansion or you would think palace right this is a big this is a big she’s not
living in a cottage right this you’ll learn you’ll learn all of this stuff from context man
reading because he talks about the stones baby talks about the stones house right it’s mainly
poetic but once in her artists blah blah blah blah chief room look they say hall right so you’re
thinking of a bigger thing than just like a domicile right so that can throw you off in
english when they say house from demo people in by that i mean josh and madeline look people
what is demo to build construction yeah so yeah look so look where you’re coming from
this is the perspective when you talk about they’ve gotten the third line tejos right a demon
they built the walls people those are the ancient walls right people he built him houses
see that on the fourth line
he built houses right those are houses like you and i would live in if we were living in a house
she is living in a fucking castle don’t make any this is something as a goddess would right
it’s a construction i mean she brought all her people with her when they exiled remember
she’s here um circe is here because she was exiled after killing her husband right oh yeah who’s the
king it’s not like he was you know it’s not one of us this is the guy who runs the province and
what does she do she poisons him to death creepo he probably deserved it and took all of her people
with her and so they have construction that is amazing let’s go from the vocabulary now to the
passage that i assigned which is going to be not here chewy i didn’t put it come here
i didn’t put it um it’s in this i want to use this as an overhead and i’m sorry to keep there
this one right that one right there that’s on the screen madeline i made a nice version of this
you too josh i’m watching fantastic so madelaine will make go first but as barry powell as barry
powell used to force all of his homer people i want you to read it and i am not going to ask
you to reproduce the meter okay cool but i just want you to read it but what i want you to do
is i want you to stop at the end of every line regardless of whether or not it has a
some kind of punctuation i want you to stop there like they’re verses of a song you know what i
mean just in your head i want you to get it so just let’s hear it all the let’s see the first
three lines. Okay.
Good.
Good. And it’s at this point
that Barry Powell types in and tells Tom, the modern Greek, who is in our graduate program,
to stop using his modern Greek pronunciation, right? Yeah, exactly. I’m going to say bravo,
and I want you to, I keep needing to hear the oral.
listen and again I’m going to pronounce the freaking um
you got a subscript because the best people do
now listen to all those vowels that are in that imagine musically what this is doing
Ne-a-ni-a, right?
Ne-a-ni-a, and the pitch is on e.
So this one’s musically.
Do you recognize that word, Madeline?
Yeah.
It’s like the old version of it.
Yeah.
Now look what Homer’s doing.
Homer is lengthening the vowel because we’re going to see in the attic,
it’s ne-a with an alpha.
right that’s how they’re going to pronounce it he’s going to lengthen those vowels right
right fantastic i just want you to notice that nice dative there and why are they dative because
that’s going to be taking a dative right similar to a day and this oh great okay i’m sorry i’m
getting ahead you’re the one doing this not me but i want you to notice on the next line down
when you get to the final word it’s hebe oh we have a hebe we have a hebe with us right what is
that’s very specific aid stuff people and by the way hebe is the gorgeous like she’s the goddess
oh did you know that no oh god i just thought it was like usefulness yeah well it is it is but um
um youthfulness is an invisible entity named heavey and heavey is the one that ends up with
pericles correct do you understand oh yeah right why right why if you’re gonna have to think about
it i hope you read book six right you’re gonna get all of this okay um but but but yeah why not
madelaine you start and translate for us here and take your time all right i’ll i’ll try um so
uh so so speaking uh i went up next to the ship and to the sea okay stop right there good good
jose pon yeah speaking like this what happened on a yawn all right i disembarked part of nails
from that ship i’d i’m getting out of a death and i’m getting out of thalasses that sea yeah i want
you to see okay right um i want you to realize both of you josh any idea what the nominative
because that’s a genitive form any idea what the nominative of naos is oh are you driving
just drive and listen for sake don’t get into an accident because you’re trying to check
great okay i’m going to refer to i’m going to let you listen i’m going to refer to madeline
madelaine what do you any guesses on what the nominative of naos is um not off the top of my
head right this second yes see this this is the skill we develop yeah it’s what would it be in our
attic oh yeah yeah and stuff like this that’s like yeah i knew that already
yes josh but yes and we’ve got nows so it’s gonna it’s look what we do to the vowels now remember
how i told you the vowels are tuners right that the attic is not just a type of dialect it is a
sound. And when you’re speaking the Attic dialect and you hear the Doric dialect from those fucking
hillbilly Spartan bitches, you can’t understand it because their music is crap, right? So when
you go from naos to naos, you’re doing it for musical reasons. And I think people need to
i need to realize that look at this net s alone equals three eight ace what is say three eight
ace look it’s a trireme right now you’re getting into ship stuff unfortunately in homer you’re
gonna find a lot of ships because these people are obsessed with fucking boats man they’re living on
islands in the middle of the g and you know what i mean and they’re like dude we have to have to
boats. Notice that they give you in the LSJ here, you know, click on Naus, right? Go see Naus,
right? Oh, God. This is gorgeous. Look at the attic genitive there. Oh, that’s funny.
That’s interesting. Anywho, you’ll get lost in that. Let’s not. Let’s go back to the passage.
and now okay so you ate this little speech and got out of the boat good i’ll go give me the next
line okay so let’s see um take your time you don’t care that people are watching you don’t
fucking care that i’m here just take your time we’re we’re this is training right okay so give
that second line of shot so let’s see here but then when um i was intending or about to good
go through the holy wilderness or terrain what or um or veil i guess yeah that’s the word that
they used i was like what is a veil yeah yeah going making my way across that here us bit
bay sauce and i want you to notice yeah what is that bay sauce some kind of sigma you know
exactly notice that it’s got a double sigma in it okay this is an old mycenaean word just like
juanasa is an old mycenaean word you’re not going to see this right in a lot of later stuff it’s a
woods woods that are here us the holy woods oh on his way right he’s about he’s going there
he’s about to kick sestai in line three ace mega doma he’s about to go to that what how would you
translate mega doma mega don’t i i wrote big house but yeah
yeah um thank more instead of just being here for megas right here it’s mega for megas
mega lady megan it’s i want you to thank um great great when you go to thomas jefferson’s
monticello right that would be a mega doma like so it’d be like mega not as in size but mega as
in like power yeah exactly exactly its stones are cut perfectly it’s built as a palace a place to
radiate power this is the queen and she has built a palace um with all of her people that she brought
with her into exile isn’t that gorgeous oh god so um and the descriptions well um the descriptions
of these bronze age cyclopean they call them cyclopean buildings where they’re using stone
that is huge right it’s got to be cut out by cyclopes right it’s huge it’s a cyclopean labor
yet their their um artists are able their builders are able to get it so it looks seamless
right it looks seamless right oh god the descriptions of these things are awesome
but what is homer influ um focusing on here you’re coming to that mega doma and then give
me the genitives coming to the great palace of what
kill case blue farm Marco we can’t hear you I think you’re muted sorry um we’re
at her polypharmacy right you’re many drugs yeah yeah it came out of herself
yeah let’s do this look online to our heart a a melon right when I was about
about to on the next line.
Remember, one thing that should be blowing your mind right now
is word order is totally irrelevant.
OK?
I know what you’re saying.
That second word, which is an infinitive,
on that third line, that should be in the second line.
In any prose, we’re going to see that.
Now, here with Homer, it’s all the way in the second line.
Look, kirkes is in the genitive, and polopharmaku is in the genitive.
Those are with each other, but they’re separated by a verb.
It just got plopped in between them.
It’s got nothing to do with that verb, right?
Those are a unit together.
This is the genitive expressed with es megadoma,
which comes at the end to the great house of Circe,
who is the polypharmaceutical, right?
When I was about to go to the great palace of Circe, the polypharmaceutical,
making my way through that holy woods, whatever.
Intha, then, now what happens?
Give me the next line.
Intha moi hermeas.
Sorry, you read it.
I’m sorry.
I’m too excited.
Shut up.
Tell me to shut up.
You do it.
Intha.
Intha moi hermeas.
Chrysorapis Antipolesis.
So there, Hermes was throwing against or casting his golden stick or wand at me or to me.
Oh, God.
I don’t know.
We suddenly went to some homoerotic thing going on.
What’s…
okay stop right there now before we do anything i want you to look at that entha right and by the
way um when you start out reading you and i are going to be on the same horse for a while
don’t you understand and when i feel like i can jump off the horse i’m gonna do so entha look at
entha on line four you see entha you want to say there entha is also temporal and i am using it
temporally because of the haute that comes that sets it up in the line before he’s already getting
look it was at this point really they oughta right when i was making my way through all that
herbiage, that holy herbiage, the holy woods. When I was going to the great house of
Circe, the polypharmaceutical, in tha, then, right? Right where I was. You see how,
you’re going to ask, well, is it then or is it there? Yes, in tha is telling you at that point,
Right? At that point, it can be a location.
Crusorapis hermeas.
That’s your subject.
Crusorapis is the one with the golden rabdon.
You say, but it says rapis here.
Yes, that’s an older form of rabdon.
Don’t be surprised that your P can become a beta.
And it’s just golden.
It’s the golden wand.
the golden-wanded Hermes. What are you talking? What kind of words do we have? We had the
polypharmaceutical in line three, and now we’ve got the golden-wanded. These are epithets. They
are using in the language epithets. What is an epithet? It’s a word that goes with your name
to describe you. So polypharmaceutical Circe and golden-wanded Hermes. He’s the subject. Golden
wanted hermes did what anteboleson he ran into you you can think of that as random yeah encounter
yeah encounter ran into something like that i thought it was more like casting or like throwing
against something what you’re working with the roots right but as you’re doing so you’ve got
to realize okay where does that take the mind right casting in front of right running into
meeting it’s the same you’re in the same you’re doing it right you’re just it just is not sounding
right in english he’s running into and now this is going to take a dative so where’s the dative
that that’s going who is we he running into this hermes golden wand is he running into go all the
way back to the second word moi there’s your data from me anyhow your word order you’re trying to
use your english word order and you’re going to you have to untrain yourself to do that in homer
homer will kick your ass because look that moi goes all the way with the verb at the end
how are you going to know that if you’re not jumbling right you’re focusing on ideas madelaine
like what the hell is a cruzora piece what is somebody with a golden wand and what is this
guy hermes gonna deal with it okay now look at the next line that’s starting now this first word
that’s your dative and that dative is hearkening back to the moi to the me
coming to me almost almost he ran into me and hominoid coming
coming towards the house yes good see how that see how that works right we use that
dative there to describe what the moi is doing coming to the house good now he’s gonna use this
is a phrase that stands independent it stands on its own right go ahead go ahead how would you
Um, so a boy that’s like a man
Yeah, I couldn’t figure that one out, okay
Josh do you want to give it a shot? Oh, yeah, so isn’t that I could the ale coast
It’s like a resemblance right having a resemblance to yes. So like Hermes he takes different forms. So like this
So it’s like a literally youthful body person form, youthful body person form.
Yeah, youthful dude, right?
Youthful male, youthful male.
And that he oikos is really is, excuse me, it really is functioning there as a perfect participle, right?
having taken on the form or looking like appearing like net a knee in that home
right yeah looking like a boy of a boy dude right right now if you want and by
the way this solves for for the people the representatives of the brothel who
were here tonight right frustratedly trying to read this Homeric Greek
along with us right to prove something to those people i want you to see that this is a definition
of what a neonius is remember we’re talking about a neoniscos in the garden that is a diminutive
of the neonius now what is a neonius it’s defined it’s defined with the very next two words
Proton
Pupenete
Yeah
What does he have that gives us
The sign of his age
He’s got that fuzzy shit on his chin
That every pubescent
Boy gets
It’s his first beard
Wow
I get it all the time
Yeah me too
Do you get the peach fuzz
Of a post pubescent
Kid
um when you’re 30 no you don’t you don’t and that’s why you don’t have to pay the adult tax
is because you aren’t an adult yet we’re still talking about a neoneus right so it’s when you
get that first beard and that’s why it’s continued to be described as that hard yes not the heavy
right at the point the kid is at the point of being that most grace-filled youth i wanted us to
look at youth here i wanted us to look at youth people i mean yeah what if this guy’s younger
the neonicos is younger than this guy right he’s a diminutive of this guy right john is that
neonicos right the guy the one that sits on jesus’s lap that comes up to his nipples in the
apocrypha that is really the um the neonicos right and they try they want to make him 30 but that’s
Anyway, Hebe here, right?
Hebe.
Look in the Dorian Heba.
I don’t know, does that sound that bad?
Look at the Aeolian Abba.
Now, for some reason, people,
the Hebrew is going to use the very same word
that’s already been established in Greek
when they try to falsify it.
Youthful, prime youth people.
It’s the Aeolian that brings the Abba.
When you say Abba Father,
you’re using Aeolian, you’re not using Hebrew, right? Right? I’m serious. I’m serious. Look at
it, right? So what does this father, what does this Abba, where does it really come from? It
comes from strength, your vigor. You thought I was making that up? Your strength and your vigor,
your time your time look what they do your time that is right before that vigor when i can no
longer wrestle you right when your kid gets to be about 16 it gets to the point that okay
no more wrestling right you’ve been bested right look it has to do with the strength and vigor of
life the growth i’m telling you i’m telling you who is it that she marries she marries heracles
right where is he be I want to see he be in the way just to show you you think
these things are not related guess what guess what in the text you see it here
is oh that’s just that’s just no I want to see her in the way so you can see it
chewy to the heavens yeah oh yes oh yes she was the one who serves that ambrosia
of people right she and ganymede and zeus didn’t need ganymede but you know she was
patron goddess of the young bride that’s nice and attendance on aphrodite heracles received hebe
because they’re all fucking lace dye in marriage union upon his ascension right in in other words
people when they say ascension there that’s when he’s burned alive that’s his deification that was
the removal of his mortality and the beginning of his godhead and why because harrah was finally
reconciled that’s why he be should give the gift it’s almost like they’re trying to say something
right now remember hebe is an attendant upon aphrodite who at the time that that this
dunderhead heracles is walking around trying to figure out the mystery at the time is being
portrayed by medea that is why do i say portrayed people are calling her the goddess she is the
goddess of the artemis aphrodite black sea combo right that that dark sexy magic goddess
and of course right who is heracles going to receive okay good good let’s see what’s uh
no okay anyway i wanted you to see hebe because she’s there and she’s important um thank you
And this is underneath all the text, right?
It’s underneath all the text.
It really is.
I just want to see.
Heracles, he gets burned in a funeral pyre, right?
And gets deified a little bit.
Isn’t that how he dies?
Correct.
When he brings home Iole, okay?
You can look up her name and see what it means.
When he brings her home as his captive bride,
who’s just a young girl, right?
she’s a fucking teenager he brings her home his wife perceives this as a threat to their connection
and so she uses a drug that she christs upon a shirt that she gives to him and when he puts on
the shirt he bursts into flames she thinks it’s a love potion it’s not it’s a potion meant to
purify his mortality, right? Purifies what? I think the only thing, the only way that we get
close to this in the modern world is those monks that will burn themselves to death. Their process
of deification, of crossing over to the other side, is in a great conflagration. That’s what they’re
um doing for heracles it’s what makes him immortal right oh god um yeah yeah what’s
he goes crazy with that robe too say that again i just said he went crazy when he put on that robe
yes when he’s christing right because that robe is right the poison that is in the robe is meant
for Heracles to keep his mind in a place of love, right? It’s meant to drive him to mania,
to ecstasy, right? But that ecstasy is death in the case of this drug of the centaur,
you know? And of course, where does this come from? It’s all coming from the hydra.
It’s the hydra’s venom that the centaur is using on his arrows, right? It all goes back to the
same thing what was this um so the next line is just going to set up the speaking i wanted you
what i really wanted you to see in these lines was what uh i want you to tell me now having read it
what the hell is going on where are we like if you had to picture this right where where do you
have to take the students so that they see what’s going on if you had to make a movie out of this
scene right um hermes walks up he’s a young kid right going through going through puberty
and he’s known right he’s already known for who he is he’s the one with the golden wand what’s
he gonna do with the golden wand and why is he coming up to odysseus but is hermes coming from
cersei is hermes coming from this palace is he just hanging around in the jungle outside
what’s he doing i so want to answer this like i think maybe it was one of cersei’s attendants
like they call him golden rotted like maybe he’s walking around naked you know like what maybe he’s
got a golden rod i don’t know but like he also has the antidote that he gives to odysseus later
but in this passage you know they’re just meeting each other and he comes up and he’s like hey
odysseus and he’s like grabbing his hand and he like already knows his name somehow yeah yeah so
already we’re in a funny world because you and i don’t have young kids walk up to us who’ve got
some kind of gang name walk up to us with drugs that he’s gonna bring him drugs right and he’s
recognized as a divinity what the hell is going on in this great palace that you know what i mean
we’re going to get closer to it and we’re going to find out that the, even the animals are drugged.
I wanted to ask, uh, when it says grace filled, is it also talking about like love charm?
That is a great question. That is a great question. Oh God. Um, I’ve got to be completely
honest with you. It didn’t strike me, but, um, yeah, you’re right. You’re pointing out something
very right you mean alluring yeah is that is that setting up remember the graces are always with
aphrodite right the graces and what’s what is he about to do he’s about to go into this place
where this lady drugs him and starts to smack him with her own rob don so we’ve got another lady
we’ve got another person with a rob don and is hers golden it doesn’t say hers is gold it says
his is though right now get this i’m not shitting you the ancient physicians talk about the use of
different metals in medicine and everybody knows that gold is the hypoallergenic medicine
that you can use applicator excuse me that you can use gold in applications it’s a very good
It’s very friendly to the human body.
That’s what they’re discussing, right?
So is this applicator slash Bokic tool that is covered with gold here,
is that his special applicator?
Because don’t fool yourself in this house,
and this comes back to the English that you were supposed to read, right?
You’ve read this book in English.
You know that he goes in there.
she drugs him she beats him a little bit with this weird sadomasochistic shit and then
she demands because the drug’s not working she demands that he fuck her yeah right and she was
feeding him acorns you gotta put the you gotta put your sex slaves on the right diet you know
what i mean they gotta maintain that directive diet that high performance diet right of what’s
going on i mean if you there’s even a point in book 10 where um um he’s asking her not to unman
him it’s usually how they translate he doesn’t want to get castrated this hermes guy i think
he’s into the sex stuff i just i just don’t don’t quote me on it but it looks odd she runs a lot of
baths wait say it again i said uh she runs them all a lot of baths so that’s true but you know
he has to have sex with her all right that’s part of the deal and he ends up having sex with her and
this is the beginning of a how long do they end up staying with each other and long enough to have
children like a year yeah which he is just getting over with what’s her name who’s or calypso wait
is this before calypso oh god he gets held for seven years by calypso doing the same thing
having children right and the same thing happens the gods get involved and say you gotta let this
this guy hermy uh this guy odysseus go he’s gotta get back he’s gonna cry about his mommy
and the virgin girl is the one who keeps guiding him who keeps freeing him right this virgin girl
okay did you guys i’m gonna take it off of this um did you guys read an english um book
six did you guys get to see it’s only a few hundred lines yeah okay did either of you we’ll
start with josh did you figure out is there any mystery stuff going on yeah well it clearly seems
to be mimicking some of these uh things that involve satyrs coming across nymphs and ponds
but it’s almost like the reverse it’s like these girls are playing ball and they throw the ball
and it lands and hits odysseus in the head and he wakes up and he wanders over there naked and
and they’re everyone and they start running away and the only one that’s not scared is
nasako because she got a message from athena like so it’s pretty interesting what’s going on there
but odysseus is just like i just want to go i need shelter and so um she’s nice enough to give
give him stuff so he can give himself a bath and he’s like don’t look at me yeah now notice before
we get to his bath right and remember that odysseus is very good looking okay i’m sorry it’s just one
of the things this guy is divine do you understand they walk around calling him divine imagine
um uh you know superman himself walking in he stands a cut above everybody else right
this is odysseus so you have to realize there’s a huge amount of sexual tension
and it’s the virgin athena who herself sins now sicka who is on the cusp of marriage she tells
or get up out what are you doing all your clothes look like shite go get your shit in order man
it’s gonna be marriage time soon right there you go right they’re all disordered they’re it’s all
wrinkled and disordered take them out and take them and clean them up so it’s all starting with
her and the virgin when i say her i mean the virgin and she’s the one guiding this poor guy
who’s getting used right is he gonna go tell penelope oh god calypso fucked the shit out of me
she wouldn’t stop you know she it’s just on and on and on and she’s beating people up she’s keeping
sex slaves she’s got a whole army of poisoners dude i had to use an antidote from some kid
who was there with this medical applicator i thought he was going to shove it in my hoo-ha
right this is the world we’re talking about we’re not talking about a movie world of myth
where these magical ladies exist these magical creatures we’re not we’re talking about a very
real bronze age with real now um did you notice i want to ask you both before we go on with book
six did you notice there are references to giants i had my eyes open for that but i wasn’t connecting
the dots there okay i guess the facians are somehow related to them oh yeah right right
you’re gonna and it’s gonna be hard for you to pick out in the english because it’s not always
translated literally so these giants who are in the text you’ll notice that they are operating in
the very same way as the giants you see in the septuagint the very same way these are people with
advanced tech. They have metal tech, they have pharmacy tech, and they have navigation tech
that we don’t, right? From Odysseus’ perspective, they’re quite advanced. And Athena is sending
them, right, to rescue. She’s using Nausicaa, who’s not just any girl, right? This girl,
right? That’s how they always present her, just some girl, right? No, no, no. This is the princess,
right? Notice she says, did you guys, let me ask this question, did you notice
that when Nausicaa tells Odysseus what to do to be rescued, essentially, she tells him to go to
the palace. She tells him to bypass her father, who will be sitting there in council. She said,
bypass him and go directly to mom because if there’s any hope for you she’s the one who’s
going to be able to bring it people i want you to realize that in the middle of all of this and
modern classicists they read this thing oh women are so fucking oppressed oh god and they reflect
the 60s bullshit ideological bullshit you have to realize that odysseus has been dealing with
these women for 10 fucking years and finally on his way out if he’s gonna get out he’s gonna have
to do what these women say and he’s gonna have to go find this woman who can is the only one who can
help him get back to penelope all right this is not a picture of a dude who’s trying to make his
way back home because he loves his wife in a world of harsh circumstance this is a dude who’s trying
not to get bought and sold and fucked and in order to get back to his wife who is still in
charge of his entire estate which makes you think maybe it’s not his in order to get back yes in
order for him to get back to penelope’s domain in a world where these women have crazy power
where there are tribes of women who control men and use them as slaves
and do things like descend upon Thebes and kill people there
until they’re given hostages that they then take off and rape, right?
It’s Amazonian.
Yeah, this is the world among a whole bunch of Scythian tribes too,
not just the Amazonians.
but remember homer is using eolian and eolian is the language that is influenced by the amazonians
it is the greek that is taking on amazonian music and the language jesus uses huh jesus oh god he
can’t help what things that sneak in right and it’s doing so through the magic ultimately it’s
doing so through the magic it’s preserved in what he’s saying so oh god now let me just ask you this
you both are sitting there you don’t you’re not you’ve you’ve looked at some of the english
and you’re trying to follow the stories tell me both of you please tell me one observation that
what was one thing that stuck out to you like god these people one thing that sticks out to me is
they’re always crying the men are always crying the ladies are never crying what the hell is with
this right something like that whatever it is that you notice we’ll start with josh josh what did you
notice reading in english just in english uh well for book six i noticed like the girls came in
on mules like they all got carted in on mules and they started like uh they had some ointments and
golden bottles and stuff you know that’s like some you know i’ve had other witches and stuff
use that too like it seems like a pretty common thing back at that time they have ointments and
stuff that they would use for things uh i also noticed um in book 11 they were talking about
giants that were like as big as football fields or something and they were getting picked at by
vultures like prometheus and i think they’re somehow related to those facians somehow but
Uh, don’t call me on that and agamemnon’s like a woman hater
He like gives all this like misogynist advice from the dead like yeah. Yeah agamemnon’s a boob
right everybody hates
Everybody hates agamemnon achilles especially hates agamemnon, right? He stopped
Multiple times from killing agamemnon, right?
Agamemnon is the idiot that’s walking in with this oracle who’s telling him
um your wife’s about to kill you stupid he was crying in hell he was crying enough he deserves
it doesn’t he yeah and and a lot of them were crying but all at the same time when he was there
yeah shedding of the tears lovely lovely madelaine what it stuck out to you um so in book six i was
oh first of all i’m kind of obsessed with nausicaa or nausicaa and uh but anywho i noticed
um the mother sitting at the hearth spinning the purple yarn loved that beautiful did you
notice jaunch the purple yes i did and you just brought it back there’s something else i wish i
could remember yeah i’m gonna have to take more notes next time tomorrow today today tomorrow
you will you will absorb it madelaine over time because when you read it again you will absorb
more and when you get into the greek you’ll absorb an even deeper level but you you picked out
something absolutely gorgeous with the purple notice the tech notice the tech is there right
they’re using it and who’s using it it’s her mother right right ariti is her name right um yeah
the very meaning of her name looks like their word for virtue oh yeah all right the excellence
the excellence of life is from this woman she’s the only one who can solve odysseus’s problem
his dilemma right you realize when they go to medea she’s the only one who can solve the
fucking problem why don’t they get some other bastards to help him out and rush these fucking
fire breathers that are standing in jason’s well why can’t they do that why do they got to get
medea is it why do they have to get ariti um she is the spinner of the purple right she’s that one
who’s doing why is athena there notice that she’s making um cersei in the first time we meet her
um she’s making song as if she’s making a giant um textile telling a story right there’s all
sorts of tech here that you don’t even realize you’re you’re you’re picking up when you’re
reading this um to yourself in english and the greek forces you to get into that right it forces
you so good on you for noticing the purple what else madalena you said there was something else
it yeah well I was wondering why like there’s something about the temple of
Poseidon I was just kind of wondering that connection and but then I also was
gonna say something about like noticing how that how she was spinning that
thread at the hearth yeah but I don’t know what is it about like the temple of
poseidon uh and like the the sea yeah what is it about poseidon is pissed off god damn it
he’s pissed off at odysseus okay i’m like just think of it as i’m i’m showing you the invisible
these forces that are there just like we did hebe and just like we do eros here’s poseidon right
what is he going to where his name comes from and you get 15 different answers and it’s confusing
as hell just look at what poseidon does he’s he’s pissed off at odysseus and he’s chasing him around
destroying all of his fleets and stuff every time he gets on a ship poseidon fucking makes it hard
for him how does he do that how does he do that that earth shaker does that through the movement
of the waves, and those waves are compelled by the winds, which all of us who have been in the
mystery, all of us know that the winds are the base element that we control, right? Medea’s
first songs we have referenced as the hymns to the winds, right? The manipulation of the winds.
I’m going to give a text tomorrow on Lady Babylon that will be of Gaius Valerius Flaccus.
He’s a Roman source, and he’s the last human being to really have a look at the oracles.
I love Flaccus.
Yes, good, good.
We’re going to talk about a section where he talks about the Magus who came to see Medea
because she can do what nobody else can do with the breath of fire and it’s not talking about
fire breathing people it’s in the context of the control of the winds those winds are a part and
parcel of the magus’s craft and that’s what gaius valerius flaccus does and that’s why jesus
is all oh stop the winds and all of a sudden everything’s calm and the little kids are like
oh you saved us he’s like good i can go back to sleep right that’s the same the very same practices
the control of those winds if you think it’s just um yeah if you if you’re thinking on a level of
just a physical world without considering that invisible you’re not understanding what those
winds are and how to manipulate them so um remember and if you if you’re sitting here
thinking oh almond you’re full of shit just bringing this back to medea remember odysseus
has to find his way home using a bag of winds yeah he’s supposed to be using the very craft
that is holding him captive this magic and this world of drug use and magic is what is forming
him he is out looking for the poison the christing poison in the very beginning he’s out looking for
it right the winds are just part of his commands and cersei sends him and he’s supposed to get him
from eolus right and who’s that oh it’s he’s the father of those powers those winds don’t oh god
people it’s making the invisible visible i love it and we’re not going to see any of this in the
modern movie which i’m glad they made one because it’s good it’s interest but the the odyssey did
did the trailer come out chewy and it’s probably nothing even remotely it’s a it’s like an imagined
yeah it’s like an imagined world of who harry which is he better cry at least once
okay i want you both to realize um what we did tonight i’m going to do the same format
only i want to transition from being on the horse being off the horse so that the two of you
are doing the reading do you understand it’s how it always works in these reading course it’s just
like i’m a catapult on the aircraft carrier all i’m there is to speed you off the carrier okay
you both did exactly what you were supposed to do okay so i can tell it madelaine i can tell it
by what you’re doing i’m going to give you another passage of a few lines and i want you to read
that passage otherwise i want you to do the same thing look through the vocab look at the grammar
for 15 minutes vocabulary a little vocabulary doing during the day from the odyssey list and
then i want you to look at this passage and i want you to continue reading in english
um six was short seven’s a little bit longer um you know what about the cyclops people
we’re going to be dealing with the cyclops right so we need to know these giants where we’re going
to deal let’s do this can everybody see my screen i’m gonna put in oh they can’t okay go ahead
you i’m gonna put in giant in homer and i want us to go to that passage i want us to look a little
bit at it i’m gonna put homer up here boom it is epic excellent and i’m going not here hermes
we already touched on hermes let’s do giants from hell right how about the odyssey book seven
look at that it’s right within if you read book seven in english right and when i say read it i
mean at your leisure like you know not reading it for an exam just fucking plowing through it right
um and these are only a few hundred lines each so it doesn’t take you a long time
this is how you pack the english side of your vocabulary is how you pack it by reading the
english okay so i want us to read this passage about giants because look we’re talking about
a tribe of them right tribes oh god they’re even wild people look at that did i set this up oh muse
you’re so gorgeous muse look at this she put the cyclo piece right in there for us
that i was just talking about so are you ready to learn your assignment next time is your lines are
around 206. I want you to read a couple before, a couple of lines, just a couple of lines after,
just to get an idea of what these giants are. And I want you to figure out an answer for me next time
using all the tools that I’ve been showing you, like the grammar, like the vocab, right? I want
you to use your tools and figure out for me what the hell a cyclops is from homer look at homer
here look at the look at the you know what he’s saying about the giants and i want you to tell me
what the giants are the only reason that you and i ever sit around and say nephilim at all is because
of our deception this is the real here are the cyclops the cyclopes that’s plural for cyclops
right cyclopes not cyclopses cyclopes here are the cyclopes and the giants i want you to figure
out who the fuck they are for next time so here’s your official passage this is book seven line 205
right okay we’ll do the same thing next time josh i’m going to make you start this time and i want
the translation from you and i’m going to have us um same order and i’m going to get it down to an
hour and i apologize for being late i’m not going to do that again we’re going to start on time
tomorrow at 8 30 my time and we’ll finish at 9 30 so you’ve both been a sport i talk too much
i’m glad that you were able to bring some of it out in the end but i’m going to start
exiting the horse i’m going to start getting off the horse for the so the two of you can ride
your own horses right madeline thank you so much did you want to say anything here in the end
because i know you’ve been hitting the study hard was there anything that you saw that you
wanted to mention or anything goofy or you know just stuck out in your head oh nothing uh for the
second but i’ve been really enjoying this and i’m glad that i have the opportunity to uh work with
you again and and study yeah i’m i’m excited i’m sure there’ll be more goofy stuff i pick out so
yes it’s my it’s my honor to be able to work with you so that your goofiness can go on
and you know find the goofy frontier you know what i mean that’s that your uniqueness your
uniqueness is important here so when when you’re studying in the future from now on when something
sticks out to you right there may be things that you want to mention just make a mental note of it
like you’re okay we’re going to go to lab and when we go to lab we’re going to want to you know go
over things that we’ve been thinking about so don’t don’t um take your don’t take your eye off
of your focus is all i’m trying to say keep your keep your focus um is there any is there anything
about nausicaa because you said now sick is there is there any why did nausicaa stick out to you and
then i’ll leave you alone um i don’t know i like the how the beginning of book six went when they’re
all just beryl playing ball in the river and then how everything unfolds i i like her character and
connected to it i suppose yeah she seems like she’s a heroine you know what i mean a hero
and it’s funny that they’re promoting her as the hero and that’s what the audience is going to see
can the audience be as misogynist as we want to make them out to be sometimes it just doesn’t
look that way i think that you’re bringing that out especially homer especially the what oh i i
said especially homer especially homer yes because he’s older yeah how do you envision her what do
you think she what do you think she’s like she’s glowing and adventurous yeah yeah she’s not lazy
that’s for fucking sure you know what i mean yeah exactly she like responds to her dreams
right yeah takes takes her vision serious she seems like a not aggressive but like
i know she’s supposed to be bold like she’s the only person who doesn’t run
which you can imagine if this nude dude stepped out of the middle of nowhere
right that it would scare you and you’d you know um but no she doesn’t he doesn’t scare her and
he never although he flatters her in the beginning because he’s always doing that you know what i
mean yeah he’s the golden tongue guy who talks his way through anything right and he’s got the
looks to back it up so he gets his way you know what i mean and is that why the virgin likes him
so much sometimes there’s that tension between odysseus and athena especially when he recognizes
her right and all of a sudden there’s this like uncomfortable tension yeah i’ve noticed that with
her yeah yeah it’s lovely i love it as homer homer josh was there anything you wanted to add well
yeah so like he’s like smooth well he comes up to her because he’s been rejected so many times
already i guess he’s starting like be smooth with her and does he say something like he’s looking
for a husband in the land or something and then uh he i don’t know he tells her he he tells her she
is fortunate that whoever she ends up engaged to that that person should count their lucky stars
Because there’s going to be no other marriage that will equal hers.
And he even suspects, he tells her, he suspects that she’s, you know, divinity.
She’s got to be.
And people don’t recognize this as important.
But you have to remember, they are seeing a difference between people.
Circe is addressed as a god, right?
People are not walking around addressing Odysseus as a god.
Circe is addressed as a god.
Medea is addressed as Artemis during her life.
Do you understand?
She’s addressed as a divinity.
You’re going to be seeing that in Homer.
It’s kind of confounding to us because we don’t do that.
I don’t know.
Have you ever come across a divinity?
and i mean yeah it’s it’s uh yeah but it’s related to the giants beautiful beautiful perfect way to
end our session number two now we’re going to get into session number three and i want to hit it
right on time and i’m going to be less talky talky and you guys are going to be the ones who are
exchanging the information so i will see you tomorrow at 8 30 please keep up the good work
thank you see you tomorrow okay bye i’m in hell teresias cadmus and that’s shit and hail satan
i just wanted to say that it’s burning in me
Source: Lady Babylon