/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.18029011]

>he reads Homer in translation instead of having the Illiad and Odyssey recited to him by a twink bard in a banquet, before sailing in a voyage to sack a city

any book on why translations can never reach the pure potency that an original work of art has?

[Anonymous No.18029083]

>>18029011
daily reminder: Agamemnon did nothing wrong.

[Anonymous No.18029265]

>cucks the sacred rites making a lot of good warriors die
heh, noting personal, Menelaos...

[Anonymous No.18029380]

>mfw this achilles and patroclus meme is still being repeated

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » !!bGBGaUpA8kS No.18029385]

>>18029083
Yeah, he did.

[Anonymous No.18029388]

>>18029380
Why do you keep posting this after getting BTFO each thread?

[Anonymous No.18029403]

>>18029083
achilles is the real villain

[Anonymous No.18029405]

>>18029385
Butterfly, you'll never be as pretty as her. Even in your prime, you were less than her right shoulder, and now, everyday, you age more and more ugly.

[Anonymous No.18029422]

>>18029388

[Anonymous No.18029443]

>>18029385
>>18029388
Based and based.

Butterfly, do you know that Lucretius cites the Iphigenia story as proof that religion makes men do horrible things?

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » !!bGBGaUpA8kS No.18029454]

>>18029443
In De Rerum Natura?
Do you remember which book/chapter?

[Anonymous No.18029473]

>>18029388
to be fair, he's right about achilles/patroclus. that isn't made explicit at all or alluded to in homer. they were foster brothers.

[Anonymous No.18029485]

>>18029473
That's true, but it's also true that the Greeks themselves had a tradition of interpreting Achilles and Patroclus as a pederastic couple (cf. Aeschylus, Plato). It's not a modern perversion.

[Anonymous No.18029510]

>>18029485
yeah, when we come to the classical period by which time the institution of older man/adolescent boy was normal among certain classes. then (and by a process really of anachronising) aeschylus & his myrmidons make it absolutely explicit that there is a sexual relationship.

[Anonymous No.18029511]

>>18029454
Yep. Book 1, starting at line 84.

>Aulide quo pacto Triviai virginis aram
>Iphianassai turparunt sanguine foede
>ductores Danaum delecti, prima virorum

My sight translation (read this years ago): "At Aulis, all for a covenant made with Diana, the selected leaders of the Danaids—foremost of men—stained the altar with the virgin blood of Iphigenia."

The idea being that even the best men were led to madness by the supposed demands of a goddess.

[Anonymous No.18029532]

>>18029473
>they were foster brothers.
Doesn't count for much. There's a great story from the Byzantine Empire (I forget what year): The Emperor was trying to decide which of his younger male relatives should be his heir. So he invites the three boys to spend the night at the palace, but before they arrive he writes a prayer on a piece of paper that says, "Whoever sleeps on this couch shall be the next Emperor" and he hides it beneath one of the couch's cushions. He leads the boys into the room with three couches and tells them that they can each choose to sleep wherever they want. He comes back the next morning to discover who the next emperor will be, and to his surprise the couch with the prayer under it is empty. Unbeknownst to him, two of the cousins are lovers, and so they shared a couch.

[Anonymous No.18029549]

>>18029083
Hector did nothing wrong. He was protecting his wife, child, and city only to be cruelly tricked by Athena and killed by a vengeful bottom faggot.

[Anonymous No.18029556]

>>18029532
I'd love the source for that anon. Do you know where I might find that story?

[Anonymous No.18029562]

>>18029556
I was in a used bookstore in 2014 and opened up a history of Byzantium to a random page and read that story. I wish I had bought the book, since I've remembered that scene for years now! I haven't thought to look it up. Maybe some Googling around with "couch Byzantine emperor cousins lovers" will do the trick. I don't remember the author or the name of the book, but I have a vague feeling it was an older work, like from the 1940s or thereabouts. This story only took up maybe a page or two.

[Anonymous No.18029565]

>>18029562
Thank you very much anon. I'll do a bit of looking sometime.

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » !!bGBGaUpA8kS No.18029566]

>>18029511
Thank you for reminding me of it

[Anonymous No.18029594]

>>18029549
hector's probably the only one who came out of the iliad looking all right

[Anonymous No.18029625]

>>18029388
>no citations on either
>no textual criticism or engagement
/his/ tier on both sides. you can literally see in the xeneophon quote he provided that he's both disdainful of it and that he's talking about laws, which is a pretty clear indication he thinks they should regulate it, just like plato. Likewise with the quotes about Alexander. They're insults, as decadent, effeminate, derelict of duty, because he had a lasting reputation as a bad ruler. F 2279 is Etruscan and Archaic. Same with both tombs. If you're going to include greater Greece you should mention it but classicists love to just glance over nuance. God I fucking hate classicists.

[Anonymous No.18029627]

>>18029532
well there was incest among the greek gods. i just meant their relationship was as brothers, that's why they were close

[Anonymous No.18029671]

>>18029625
>you can literally see in the xeneophon quote he provided that he's both disdainful of it and that he's talking about laws, which is a pretty clear indication he thinks they should regulate it, just like plato
The image at no point makes any claims about Xenophon's attitude toward the practice. The point is he describes it as commonplace and legal.
>Likewise with the quotes about Alexander. They're insults, as decadent, effeminate, derelict of duty
The excerpt from Athenaeus comes from a long diatribe which is mostly sympathetic to homosexuality, and the anecdote about not accepting a kiss from another person's beloved is, I imagine, meant to reflect positively on Alexander. I don't see how the bit about laying the wreaths on the tomb of Achilles and Patroclus is supposed to have effeminate connotations. You're the one using insinuation and lacking critical engagement here.
>because he had a lasting reputation as a bad ruler
Alexander was almost universally revered by the Romans, and Aelian is a Roman writer.
>F 2279 is Etruscan and Archaic
So? The discussion is not limited to classical Athens. People often try to pigeonhole pederasty as a uniquely Athenian and classical kind of decadence.
>Same with both tombs.
The Tomb of the Diver is, as far as I can tell, from the classical period and geographically close to a Doric settlement.
>no citations on either
Primary sources are used because /pol/tards are suspicious of academic secondary literature citations and will inevitably find something Jewish about them. I could cite literally hundreds of books written about antiquarian sexuality and it would mean nothing.
>but classicists love to just glance over nuance. God I fucking hate classicists.
Schizophrenic.

[Anonymous No.18029867]

>>18029671
>The image at no point makes any claims about Xenophon's attitude toward the practice
because the image doesn't say anything. It's /his/ tier deboonking of someone that already didn't say anything. Reciting quotes at each other is retarded. It obviously happened, the discussion is prevalence and attitude.
>commonplace
He offers no sense scope. It's almost certainly divided by class and he mentions education so you've already reduced it to a tiny fraction of the population.
>The excerpt from Athenaeus comes from a long diatribe which is mostly sympathetic to homosexuality
Plutarch's version of the story seems more to point to it as a vice. It's "excessively keen", which is pretty obviously associating it with a vice. Likewise with the mention of drinking. It's not really praising the relationship at all. He's praised later for his composure which is the opposite of the public kissing. I don't know what the fuck you mean by "sympathetic to homosexuality". I looked past Aelian because it's a fragment and it's rendered differently depending on the translator.
>Alexander was almost universally revered by the Romans
Depends on the writer. Aelius comes from a period when greeks were looked upon well and he is still pretty critical of him because Roman historians are always looking for vices and virtues. That's the point.
>The discussion is not limited to classical Athens
Considering the original article is, in fact, focusing on Athens and Sparta it only makes sense. It's straight up disingenuous to not mention it when it's something as glaring as being a part of greater Greece and not the main cities.
>close to a Doric settlement
It's still greater Greece and located in Italy.
>Primary sources are used because /pol/tards are suspicious of academic secondary literature citations and will inevitably find something Jewish about them
You didn't provide the translation of any of them. How fucking long were retards here parroting that story of Odin sucking dick or something when it was just some nonsense by a retarded hack kikess who made up a translation? And secondary literature can be total garbage but they at least make arguments.
>Schizophrenic
Fuck off reddit.

[Anonymous No.18029916]

>>18029867
>It obviously happened, the discussion is prevalence and attitude.
That's all I'm interested in establishing, because that's exactly what the picture does not say.
>It's almost certainly divided by class
I've heard this said a lot but I can't find any primary sources that mention class differences in attitudes to pederasty, and I know that there is scholarly disagreement about this. All we can do is speculate. I would not call it "almost certain".
>he mentions education so you've already reduced it to a tiny fraction of the population.
Yeah, if you mean the citizenry -- who were technically a minority. But the abundance of homosexual themes in popular myths and plays doesn't suggest the existence of a proletarian aversion to pederasty.
>Plutarch's version of the story seems more to point to it as a vice.
Perhaps, but remember that the essential point of what is being debated is whether or not there's any evidence for Alexander having sexual relations with males, not whether or not they were virtuous relations. Plutarch himself writes positively about pederasty in his Erotikos, so presumably he is not opposed to pederasty altogether.
>Considering the original article is, in fact, focusing on Athens and Sparta it only makes sense. It's straight up disingenuous to not mention it when it's something as glaring as being a part of greater Greece and not the main cities.
The guy is talking about "Ancient Hellas" and presumably denies the existence of sanctioned homosexuality in any city state or period.
>You didn't provide the translation of any of them.
Yeah true, I might amend that, but I did provide the exact textual references (so anyone can look them up and see the original Greek and other translations).

[Anonymous No.18029992]

>>18029532
Oh yea, Emperor Anastasius. The person who ended up being the heir was his bodyguard, Justin. Good times.