How much herd would a swineherd herd
Apr. 4th, 2014 10:03 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dorindaErgh ergh ergh, not-posting begets not-posting. And yet I am still here and doing stuff and having thoughts and whatnot!
Come to think of it, I actually wanted to ask all y'all a random question, if anyone has any thoughts about it. Background: I've been listening to a series of lectures on The Odyssey. I first read it early in high school, and have read and listened to it a lot since then; and I like to keep broadening/deepening my understanding of it with, like, lecture mp3s or iTunes U class recordings or whatever, about the poem or about Greek history & mythology. Sometimes it feels to me like coloring with a crayon, where you color over and over and over the same patch, and each time a little more crayon gets into little niches you hadn't even noticed weren't quite filled.
In this latest set of lectures, I had hoped that when we got to Eumaeus the swineherd, she might mention what the deal is with the narrator going into the second person, like the "You answered him, Eumaeus, loyal swineherd" sort of thing. Because for whatever reason, none of my other dilettantish readings or recordings have talked about it, and I'm curious. (And she made kind of a big deal about other switches in narrator style, like the bard-narrator vs. Odysseus-as-narrator of his own story to the Phaeacians...and yet now, it's like the audience is suddenly the swineherd and she doesn't even mention it.)
So, does anyone have a recommendation for something I can read to learn more about it? (Or, feel free to let me know, "It's no big deal, it was just for scansion". Because all of my Homer knowledge is in English translation.)
In conclusion, may I just say that the scene with Odysseus's old dog Argo is still the SADDEST THING. AIGH. I mean, even just hearing it recapped in a lecture I get embarrassingly misty. It's that sort of painful-sad-but-also-chest-clutchingly-heartwarming, since even though he's been neglected for so long, at least he does get to see that his master is home and wags his tail and pricks up his ears, his long and faithful waiting rewarded at last, but just for a moment before he dies, and Odysseus can't even break disguise and pet him or anything. Brb, sniveling.
Come to think of it, I actually wanted to ask all y'all a random question, if anyone has any thoughts about it. Background: I've been listening to a series of lectures on The Odyssey. I first read it early in high school, and have read and listened to it a lot since then; and I like to keep broadening/deepening my understanding of it with, like, lecture mp3s or iTunes U class recordings or whatever, about the poem or about Greek history & mythology. Sometimes it feels to me like coloring with a crayon, where you color over and over and over the same patch, and each time a little more crayon gets into little niches you hadn't even noticed weren't quite filled.
In this latest set of lectures, I had hoped that when we got to Eumaeus the swineherd, she might mention what the deal is with the narrator going into the second person, like the "You answered him, Eumaeus, loyal swineherd" sort of thing. Because for whatever reason, none of my other dilettantish readings or recordings have talked about it, and I'm curious. (And she made kind of a big deal about other switches in narrator style, like the bard-narrator vs. Odysseus-as-narrator of his own story to the Phaeacians...and yet now, it's like the audience is suddenly the swineherd and she doesn't even mention it.)
So, does anyone have a recommendation for something I can read to learn more about it? (Or, feel free to let me know, "It's no big deal, it was just for scansion". Because all of my Homer knowledge is in English translation.)
In conclusion, may I just say that the scene with Odysseus's old dog Argo is still the SADDEST THING. AIGH. I mean, even just hearing it recapped in a lecture I get embarrassingly misty. It's that sort of painful-sad-but-also-chest-clutchingly-heartwarming, since even though he's been neglected for so long, at least he does get to see that his master is home and wags his tail and pricks up his ears, his long and faithful waiting rewarded at last, but just for a moment before he dies, and Odysseus can't even break disguise and pet him or anything. Brb, sniveling.
no subject
Date: 2014-04-04 04:42 pm (UTC)I don't remember a lot else from my reading, except Scylla and Charybdis (the perfect metaphor for all sorts of teen angst, or so I thought at the time) and the men-into-swine scene, which I read with great satisfaction.
Sadly, I have no idea what is up with the change in narrator.
no subject
Date: 2014-04-04 05:07 pm (UTC)Those scenes stuck with me too, and also I had lasting memories of the Cyclops section, possibly due to how horrifying the details of the blinding scene are. With the sizzling and stuff. EWWWWWWW.
no subject
Date: 2014-04-05 03:24 am (UTC)Hmm, from a quick googling: the use of second person is in the original. Some think it was used because Homer felt an affinity to Eumaeus or it was used to signify familiarity and thus emphasize Eumaeus as the good guy at home.
no subject
Date: 2014-04-06 02:36 pm (UTC)And Eumaeus certainly is the good guy! Kind of the best guy, in a lot of ways, and all the better because he's so low-status and low-ego. So that makes a lot of sense.