Notebook

Notebook, 1993-

ANCIENT GREEK CULTURE

[From: Stassinopoulos, Arianna and Roloff Beny. The Gods of Greece. New York:Abrams. 1983.]

The Gods of Greece [cont.]


PLATES:
The acanthus, whose graceful leaves were the inspiration for the sculptured decorations of Corinthian columns. In the background is the Hephaisterion, dedicated to Hephaistos and Athena, in Athens. [p. 32]

The milk from Hera's breasts, the ancients believed, made the Milky Way, and when a few drops fell on the ground, lilies sprang up on the spot - a symbol of fertility and the sacred flower of the goddess of marriage and childbirth. [p. 32]

Herakles' temple at Agrigento in Sicily. 'It is Herakles, the son of Zeus, that I will sing now, the greatest man that ever lived on earth! Alcmena gave him birth in Thebes with its beautiful places after she made love to that black cloud, Zeus.' [Homeric Hymn to Heracles] [p. 41]

The asphodel, often found among ruins and in cemeteries, was, to the ancient Greeks, a symbol of death. The souls of men whom life had worn out, wrote Homer, dwelt in the 'meadows of asphodel' in the Underworld. [p. 32]

Wild narcissi, named after the beautiful youth who fell in love with his own reflection and pined away, worn out by the hopelessness of his love. [p. 32]

Wheat was sacred to Demeter in her Earth Mother aspect, and poppies were a symbol of her daughter Persephone, who personified intuition and inspiration. [p. 32]

'Mourning Athena', c. 450 BC. 'The wounder and healer, the destroyer and creator; the Goddess who delights in the turmoil of arms and in stormy, pitched battle yet instructs man in the arts of weaving and of pressing oil from the olive.' [Karl Philipp Moritz] [p. 16]

During the contest between Athena and Poseidon for control of Athens, the goddess struck the rock and bare soil of the Acropolis with her spear and there suddenly sprang into being the olive tree - the symbol of peace that became the sacred tree of Athens and Athena. [p. 41]




Byron's name carved in stone near the temple of Poseidon at Sounion:
'Place me on Sunium's marbled


Where nothing, save the waves
    and I,

May hear our mutual murmurs
    sweep;

There, swan-like, let me sing and die . . . . '
[Byron [p. 203]




Heracles wrestling with the Nemean lion, Roman copy of a Hellenistic original.
'The fury of Herakles
Has swollen beyond bounds.
And now we are never out of


We have forgotten our smiles
    and our strength.'
[Thomas Merton] [p. 205]




Basalt head of a young man, mixed Greek and Egyptian style, 1st c. AD.
'And the burst of joyful


And the joyful dawn, were
    gone.

For the eye grows fill'd with
    gazing,

And on raptures follow
    calms . . . . '
[Mathew Arnold] [p. 205]




Herakles, c. 440 BC.
'The urge, the ardour, the


The potent, felt, interior
    command, stronger than
    words,

A message from the Heavens,
    whispering to me even in sleep,
    These sped me on.'
[Walt Whitman] [p. 205]

[Stassinopoulos, Arianna and Roloff Beny. The Gods of Greece. New York: Abrams. 1983.]




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