eBook - ePub
Ancient Greek Literary Letters
Selections in Translation
Patricia A. Rosenmeyer
This is a test
- 176 pages
- English
- ePUB (adapté aux mobiles)
- Disponible sur iOS et Android
eBook - ePub
Ancient Greek Literary Letters
Selections in Translation
Patricia A. Rosenmeyer
DĂ©tails du livre
Aperçu du livre
Table des matiĂšres
Citations
Ă propos de ce livre
The first referenece to letter writing occurs in the first text of western literature, Homer's Iliad. From the very beginning, Greeks were enthusiastic letter writers, and letter writing became a distinct literary genre. Letters were included in the works of historians but they also formed the basis of works of fiction, and the formal substructure for many kinds of poem.
Patricia Rosenmeyer, an authority on the history of the Greek letter, assembles in this book a representative selection of such 'literary letters', from Aelian and Alciphron to Philostrartus and the supposed letters of Themistocles.
The book will be valuable for all students of Greek literature especially those studying Greek (and Latin) letter.
Foire aux questions
Comment puis-je résilier mon abonnement ?
Il vous suffit de vous rendre dans la section compte dans paramĂštres et de cliquer sur « RĂ©silier lâabonnement ». Câest aussi simple que cela ! Une fois que vous aurez rĂ©siliĂ© votre abonnement, il restera actif pour le reste de la pĂ©riode pour laquelle vous avez payĂ©. DĂ©couvrez-en plus ici.
Puis-je / comment puis-je télécharger des livres ?
Pour le moment, tous nos livres en format ePub adaptĂ©s aux mobiles peuvent ĂȘtre tĂ©lĂ©chargĂ©s via lâapplication. La plupart de nos PDF sont Ă©galement disponibles en tĂ©lĂ©chargement et les autres seront tĂ©lĂ©chargeables trĂšs prochainement. DĂ©couvrez-en plus ici.
Quelle est la différence entre les formules tarifaires ?
Les deux abonnements vous donnent un accĂšs complet Ă la bibliothĂšque et Ă toutes les fonctionnalitĂ©s de Perlego. Les seules diffĂ©rences sont les tarifs ainsi que la pĂ©riode dâabonnement : avec lâabonnement annuel, vous Ă©conomiserez environ 30 % par rapport Ă 12 mois dâabonnement mensuel.
Quâest-ce que Perlego ?
Nous sommes un service dâabonnement Ă des ouvrages universitaires en ligne, oĂč vous pouvez accĂ©der Ă toute une bibliothĂšque pour un prix infĂ©rieur Ă celui dâun seul livre par mois. Avec plus dâun million de livres sur plus de 1 000 sujets, nous avons ce quâil vous faut ! DĂ©couvrez-en plus ici.
Prenez-vous en charge la synthÚse vocale ?
Recherchez le symbole Ăcouter sur votre prochain livre pour voir si vous pouvez lâĂ©couter. Lâoutil Ăcouter lit le texte Ă haute voix pour vous, en surlignant le passage qui est en cours de lecture. Vous pouvez le mettre sur pause, lâaccĂ©lĂ©rer ou le ralentir. DĂ©couvrez-en plus ici.
Est-ce que Ancient Greek Literary Letters est un PDF/ePUB en ligne ?
Oui, vous pouvez accĂ©der Ă Ancient Greek Literary Letters par Patricia A. Rosenmeyer en format PDF et/ou ePUB ainsi quâĂ dâautres livres populaires dans Histoire et Histoire antique. Nous disposons de plus dâun million dâouvrages Ă dĂ©couvrir dans notre catalogue.
Informations
1
CLASSICAL GREEK LITERARY LETTERS
INTRODUCTION
This section of the anthology includes epistolary passages embedded in classical tragedy and history. In the fifth and early fourth centuries BCE, references to letters and the written word begin to crop up more frequently in literature, especially in the pages of historians and in performance on the Athenian stage. Aeschylus (Prometheus Bound 460â1) praised writing in general as a benefit to mankind and a mark of advanced civilization, while Euripides (Palamedes 578 Nauck) extolled the usefulness specifically of letters in keeping people informed about the affairs of friends and relatives abroad. Cratinus, an older contemporary of Aristophanes, included in one of his comedies a scene in which a letter was read out loud: at one point, an unidentified character says ânow listen to this letter!â (Kassel and Austin 1983: 316). The historians Herodotus, Thucydides, and Xenophon focused on the power of written messages to communicate across enemy lines, as commanders sought ever more secure ways to send military secrets. While most of the passages below are fairly brief, they highlight themes that will recur in later post-classical epistolary narratives, namely urgent appeals for assistance in times of crisis, mistaken deliveries to the wrong addressee, dangerous misreadings, and scribbled confessions of secret passions.
Euripides (ca. 485â406 BCE) gave the letter serious attention in at least three of his plays, selections from which appear below. He used letters as one technique of many with which he could enliven the traditional narrative form of a tragic play. The letter itself was a visual prop that could vary the pacing of a scene, identify a courier by its seal, or deceive its recipient with a false message; when read out loud on stage, the contents of the letter could replace a stock messengerâs speech, imparting information to the audience about actions that could not otherwise easily be revealed. Like a camera zooming in for a close-up in the cinema, a letter could collapse the physical distance of the audience from the stage, as viewers were invited to read over the shoulder of the actor in a brief moment of epistolary intimacy.
In the first selection, from Iphigenia in Tauris (lines 727â87), Iphigenia has been living in exile for many years among the Taurians, hoping someday to return to her family in Argos. In the meantime, her duty as priestess of a local cult demands that she arrange for human sacrifices to satisfy Artemis. Two strangersâOrestes and Pyladesâappear on her shores, and she decides to sacrifice one but spare the other to act as a messenger. As this scene begins, Iphigenia is about to hand over a letter addressed to her brother Orestes in Argos, and she expresses her anxiety about the reliability of her chosen messenger. She asks Pylades to swear an oath that he will complete the task, but Pylades wonders aloud what will happen if the letter is accidentally lost along the way. In response, Iphigenia recites its contents out loud, so that he can deliver the message with or without the actual tablet in his hands. Iphigenia herself is illiterate, and had previously dictated the letter to a slave. But she has long since memorized its contents, and views the letter as a kind of magic talisman, her only chance for communication with the civilized world she once knew. Euripides cleverly creates the opportunity for Iphigenia to recite the letter on stage; its contents, once made public, both remind the audience of Iphigeniaâs experiences after her apparent murder at Aulis, and also allow Orestes to recognize his long-lost sister. Her faith in the power of a letter is justified, and Pylades, far from having to worry about a long and dangerous sea voyage with the tablets in his possession, simply turns to his companion and places them in Orestesâ hands. The scene ends with an emotional reunion, and the three successfully flee Tauris.
In Iphigenia in Aulis (lines 34â123), which was composed later than the previous play but covers an earlier part of the heroineâs story, the Greek fleet is becalmed at the port of Aulis on its way to fight in Troy. The Greek leader Agamemnon is desperate to appease Artemis, who has stopped the favorable winds from blowing. When the Greeks consult their oracles, they are told to sacrifice Agamemnonâs daughter Iphigenia or give up all hope of sailing to Troy. Confronted with an impossible situation, Agamemnon is forced to comply with the divinityâs cruel request. Before this scene opens, he has written a letter inviting his wife and daughter to Aulis on the pretext of marrying Iphigenia to Achilles, but in reality intending to obey the oracle and kill her. In the passage below, as he seals and unseals a letter by lamplight, he admits to a trusted slave that he has made a terrible mistake, and has decided to write a new letter warning them not to come. He reads its contents out loud and urges his messenger to hurry, but his good intentions come too late; the revised message will be intercepted by Odysseus, and Clytemnestra and Iphigenia, obeying the first letterâs instructions, have already landed on the shores of Aulis. The play ends with the apparent sacrifice of Iphigenia, although the ancient audience would certainly have known the alternative ending that Euripides had already staged in his Iphigenia in Tauris.
The final selection below is probably the most famous epistolary scene in Euripidean tragedy: the confrontation between Theseus and his dead wife Phaedra in Hippolytus (lines 856â80), which has already been discussed at some length. Here the author plays with and eventually disappoints our expectation that Theseus will read Phaedraâs letter out loud on stage so that we, too, can learn its contents. Euripides first postpones the reading, teasing us as Theseus tries to imagine his wifeâs last words, and the tension mounts as we suspect the worst. In the end, Theseus is so horrified at the evil words within that he cannot bear to repeat what the tablet âscreams out,â namely her (false) accusation of rape at the hands of his son, Hippolytus. In this case, the letter remains a visual prop, its contents undisclosed, and our curiosity thus unsatisfied on one level. But we know the power of the deceitful message is enough for Theseus to condemn his son to a horrible death. Theseus privileges his dead wifeâs text over Hippolytusâ spoken denials, but will be forgiven for his error on his sonâs deathbed.
Two passages from the fifth-century historian Herodotus follow. The first (3.40â3) claims to be a friendly letter of advice from Amasis, the pro-Greek pharaoh of Egypt in the latter part of the sixth century BCE, to Polycrates, the tyrant of Samos. This letter, it turns out, is what inspires Polycrates to throw away his famous emerald seal ring, which then re-emerges as a bad omen in the stomach of a fish served to him at dinner. Upon learning this, Amasis cuts off all correspondence, refusing to sustain friendly relations with a man so clearly destined to come to a bad end. The second passage (7.239) describes an elaborate method of sending a message in wartime: instead of writing on top of the thin wax coating of a wooden tablet, which allowed for constant melting and re-use, the exiled Spartan king Damaratus scraped all the wax off, wrote his message on the bare wood, and re-covered the tablet with a layer of smooth wax. This trick works almost too well: the Spartans who receive it are at first thoroughly confused. But eventually Gorgo, the wife of the Spartan leader Leonidas, sees through the ruse and suggests looking underneath the wax. Herodotus elsewhere in his History delights in narrating ever more complicated methods of keeping letters safe en route. One officer sews a letter in the belly of a hare and dresses his messenger up as a hunter (1.123). Another shaves the head of a slave, tattoos letters onto his skin, and waits until the hair grows back before sending the man out (5.35); the recipient merely has to shave the slaveâs head in order to read this âhumanâ letter.
While we are not told how Herodotus came by Amasisâ letter, which he quotes directly, Thucydides (ca. 460â400 BCE) is more cautious about the documentary nature of his epistolary sources. In an early section in his history (1.128â32), Thucydides records a letter exchange between the Persian king Xerxes and the Spartan general Pausanias, introducing it with the tag âas it became known later.â This lets us know that Thucydides is using reputable sources, perhaps even consulting archives, and not freely inventing what might have been a likely scenario between the two historical figures, as Herodotus may have done above (based on âhow they say it happenedâ). Although we are given just one set of letters, we are told that Xerxes and Pausanias continue to correspond over time, using a go-between for the sake of security, since Pausanias plans to betray Greece to the Persians. Finally Pausanias is caught by one of his own messengers, who opens the letter he is carrying and discovers doubly damning evidence: Pausaniasâ treason, and a postscript directing the reader to kill the bearer of the message upon his arrival in the Persian court, in an attempt to avoid the possibility of information leaking back to the Greeks.
The Persians reappear as letter writers in the final epistolary selection from the classical historians: a passage from Xenophonâs narrative of Cyrusâ upbringing, the Education of Cyrus (4.5.26â34). Xenophonâs letter is true to formal epistolary conventions of opening and closing salutation (âCyrus to Cyaxares, greetingsâ . . . âFarewellâ). As with the two dramatic scenes in Euripides, we witness the sender reading his letter aloud to the messenger so that he can âunderstand and confirm the contentsâ if he is questioned. The contents of Cyrusâ letters reflect both the friendly type of advice letter encountered above in Herodotus, and the military negotiations exemplified by Thucydidesâ exchanges between allies.
The epistolary passages introduced in this first chapter are all embedded in non-epistolary narratives; we will see later in the Hellenistic and imperial periods how letters can emerge from their frames and stand independently. These classical letters contain elements of danger, treachery, and secret love, all of which appeared in Homerâs reference to Bellerophonâs âletter,â and will reappear in many subsequent examples. With the exception of Phaedraâs deceitful letter, all the passages from the classical period demonstrate the primary function of a letter, which is to convey information from one person in one place to another person in another place. But Phaedraâs letter is an example of how else a letter can be used, namely by those who prefer not to speak directly to their audience, whether because they wish to conceal the fact that they are lying, or because they know that what they have to say will be more believable if it is in writing. Thus Phaedraâs letter emphasizes the rhetorical nature of the epistolary form itself. Euripidesâ acknowledgment of the rhetorical power intrinsic in letter writing is an important milestone in Greek literary history.
CLASSICAL GREEK LITERARY LETTERS: THE TEXTS
Euripides
âIphigenia in Taurisâ 727â36, 753â87
IPHIGENIA Here are the tablets, strangers, folded and written on many sides.
But thereâs something else I want.
People act differently when they face trouble; they lose courage and become fearful.
Iâm afraid that the person carrying my letter to Argos will ignore my instructions after he leaves this land.
ORESTES What do you want then? What can I say to convince you that you donât need to worry?
IPH. Let him promise me that heâll carry this letter to Argos, to my family . . .
PYLADES But wait, hereâs a problem weâve overlooked.
IPH. Letâs all hear it, if itâs really important.
PYL. Allow me this loophole: if something happens to the ship, and the letter, along with the cargo, disappears in the waves, and I manage to save only myself, then the oath should no longer be binding.
IPH. Well then, hereâs what I propose, since precautions are wise.
Iâll tell you everything thatâs written in the folds of the letter, so you can report it to my family.
Then all will be safe. If you save the tablet, it will communicate in silence whatâs written on it.
But if this tablet is lost at sea, by saving yourself, youâll save my message.
PYL. I like your idea; it works for both of us.
So tell me who should receive this letter in Argos, and what message I should pass on from you.
IPH. Take this message to Orestes, Agamemnonâs son . . .
PYL. Oh my gods!
IPH. Why are you calling on the gods as I speak?
PYL. Itâs nothing, go on. I was thinking of something else.
IPH. Orestes (Iâm repeating the name so you wonât forget it). âThese are the words of Iphigenia, who was sacrificed at Aulis but is still alive, even though there they think sheâs dead . . .â
OR. Where is she? Has she come back from the dead?
IPH. Sheâs right in front of your eyes; stop interrupting me! âBring me back to Argos, brother, before you die, and take me away from this barbarian land, away from the goddessâ awful sacrifices, where my duty is to kill foreigners . . .â
OR. Pylades, what should I say? Where on earth are we?
IPH. âor Iâll become a curse upon your house.â
Orestes might question you and doubt your story.
So tell him that the goddess Artemis saved me, exchanging me for a deer, and thatâs what my father sacrificed, thinking he was stabbing his sharp sword into my body.
Sheâs the one who brought me to this country. This is my message, and this is whatâs written on the tablets.
âIphigenia in Aulisâ 34â42, 89â91, 97â123
OLD MAN . . . but youâve lit the lamp and are writing a letter, the one you have in your hand.
You erase the words youâve already written, seal it and then unseal it again, and then you throw the wooden tablet on the ground, weeping warm tears; in your confusion, you almost seem to have gone mad.
Whatâs bothering you? What disaster has struck, my king?
AGAMEMNON . . . Calchas the prophet predicted that I would have to sacrifice Iphigenia to Artemis . . .
Then my brother, using all sorts of arguments, persuaded me to dare the worst. I wrote in the folds of a tablet and sent it to my wife, telling her that she should send our daughter here to marry Achilles . . .
Thatâs how I convinced her, by inventing a lie about the girlâs wedding . . .
That was a bad decision, and Iâm changing my mind for the better now in this letter, the one you saw me unsealing and sealing again tonight, old man.
So come and take this letter to Argos.
Iâm going to tell you all thatâs written in the folds of this tablet, since you are loyal to my wife and my whole household.
OLD MAN Yes, tell me, explain it to me, so that my words will agree with your writing.
AGAM. âIâm sending you another letter, Clytemnestra, daughter of Leda, ordering you not to send our daughter Iphigenia to Aulis, its bay protected from waves and jutting out toward Euboea.
We will plan the wedding party for our child some other time.â
âHippolytusâ 856â65, 874â80
THESEUS Look, whatâs this, a tablet hanging from her own dear hand?
Does it want to tell me some news?
Maybe my poor wife wrote me a message, a last request about our marriage and our children?
Donât worry, poor thing. No other woman will come into Theseusâ home or his bed.
Now the image of her gold-carved seal ring smiles up at me, the property of a dead woman.
Iâll open the sealed cover and see what this tablet wants to tell me . . .
Oh no, another evil on top of this evil, I canât bear it, canât speak of it. Wretched me!
CHORUS What? Tell me, if you can.
THESEUS The tablet screams out, screams horrible things.
Where can I go to escape this weight of evils?
Iâm completely destroyed by this song, such a song Iâve seen, wretched me, calling out in the writing.
Herodotus
3.40â3
Now Amasis noticed Polycratesâ amazing good fortune, and was very concerned. When his fortune grew even greater, Amasis wrote a letter and sent it to Samos:
Amasis writes to Polycrates as follows. Itâs wonderful to hear that a good friend and ally is doing well. But actually your great good fortune doesnât please me, because I know how jealous the gods can be. What I want for myself and my friends is a blend of good and bad fortune, a life spent sometimes succeeding and at other times failing, rather than doing well in everything. Because Iâve never heard of any man who did well all his life and then at the end didnât finish up horribly destroyed. So, if you trust my advice, do this to counteract your successes: think about what possession you value most, the one it would hurt the most to lose, and then throw it away so that no one will ever see it again. If from then on your successes are tempered by calamities, make sure you deal with it in the way I suggested.
Polycrates read the letter and realized that Amasisâ advice was good, so he started looking through his treasures for one that it would break his heart to lose, and after searching for a while he found it: the seal ring he wore, with an emerald jewel set in gold, the work of Theodorus, son of Telecles, from Samos. He decided to ...
Table des matiĂšres
- COVER PAGE
- TITLE PAGE
- COPYRIGHT PAGE
- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
- INTRODUCTION
- 1: CLASSICAL GREEK LITERARY LETTERS
- 2: HELLENISTIC LITERARY LETTERS
- 3: LETTERS AND PROSE FICTIONS OF THE SECOND SOPHISTIC
- 4: THE EPISTOLARY NOVELLA
- 5: PSEUDO-HISTORICAL LETTER COLLECTIONS OF THE SECOND SOPHISTIC
- 6: INVENTED CORRESPONDENCES, IMAGINARY VOICES
- BIBLIOGRAPHY
Normes de citation pour Ancient Greek Literary Letters
APA 6 Citation
Rosenmeyer, P. (2006). Ancient Greek Literary Letters (1st ed.). Taylor and Francis. Retrieved from https://www.perlego.com/book/1604737/ancient-greek-literary-letters-selections-in-translation-pdf (Original work published 2006)
Chicago Citation
Rosenmeyer, Patricia. (2006) 2006. Ancient Greek Literary Letters. 1st ed. Taylor and Francis. https://www.perlego.com/book/1604737/ancient-greek-literary-letters-selections-in-translation-pdf.
Harvard Citation
Rosenmeyer, P. (2006) Ancient Greek Literary Letters. 1st edn. Taylor and Francis. Available at: https://www.perlego.com/book/1604737/ancient-greek-literary-letters-selections-in-translation-pdf (Accessed: 14 October 2022).
MLA 7 Citation
Rosenmeyer, Patricia. Ancient Greek Literary Letters. 1st ed. Taylor and Francis, 2006. Web. 14 Oct. 2022.