No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
"For there is indeed something we can call the spirit of ancient Greece'a carefully tuned voice that speaks out of the grave with astonishing clarity and grace, a distinctive voice that, taken as a whole, is like no other voice that has ever sung on this earth." 'BURTON RAFFEL, from his Preface For centuries, the poetry of Homer, Aristophanes, Sophocles, Sappho, and Archilochus has served as one of our primary means of connecting with the wholly vanished world of ancient Greece. But the works of numerous other great and prolific poets'Alkaios, Meleager, and Simonides, to name a few'are rarely translated into English, and are largely unknown to modern readers. In Pure Pagan, award-winning translator Burton Raffel brings these and many other wise and witty ancient Greek writers to an English-speaking audience for the first time, in full poetic flower. Their humorous and philosophical ruminations create a vivid portrait of everyday life in ancient Greece 'and they are phenomenally lovely as well. In short, sharp bursts of song, these two-thousand-year-old poems speak about the timeless matters of everyday life: Wine (Wine is the medicine / To call for, the best medicine / To drink deep, deep) History (Not us: no. / It began with our fathers, / I've heard). Movers and shakers (If a man shakes loose stones / To make a wall with / Stones may fall on his head / Instead) Old age (Old age is a debt we like to be owed / Not one we like to collect) Frankness (Speak / As you please / And hear what can never / Please). There are also wonderful epigrams (Take what you have while you have it: you'll lose it soon enough. / A single summer turns a kid into a shaggy goat) and epitaphs (Here I lie, beneath this stone, the famous woman who untied her belt for only one man). The entrancing beauty, humor, and piercing clarity of these poems will draw readers into the Greeks' journeys to foreign lands, their bacchanalian parties and ferocious battles, as well as into the more intimate settings of their kitchens and bedrooms. The poetry of Pure Pagan reveals the ancient Greeks' dreams, their sense of humor, sorrows, triumphs, and their most deeply held values, fleshing out our understanding of and appreciation for this fascinating civilization and its artistic legacy. From the Hardcover edition.
π SIMILAR VOLUMES
Friedrich HΓΆlderlin (1770-1843) is now recognized as one of Europe's supreme poets. Although he was scarcely known to his contemporaries and became deeply unstable in the latter part of his life, when he lived in virtual seclusion, he produced, writes Michael Hamburger, a poetic work 'rich in potent
"The first appearance of this award-winning writer's work since the 1940s, this collection, which includes an introduction by John Ashbery, restores Joan Murray's striking poetry to its originally intended form. When John Ashbery hailed Joan Murray as a major influence in an essay in 2003, her sole
Bilingual Edition. Awarded the Schlegel-Tieck Prize 2013 for translation from German. In his powerful new translation, skilfully shaped into current English, Ian Crockatt succeeds in catching Rilke's blend of crafted sensuality and inward-focused spiritual searching, while his comprehensive introdu
Sequel to Tricksters and Gods. Loki (currently hiding under his human name Harry Potter) has escaped his part of the universe and has found refuge in a new one. So he tries the world where his favorite book series happens to be set in. The only catch returning home is almost guaranteed to get him ki
Poems Seven: New and Complete Poetry, the winner of the National Book Award, presents the life work of a giant of American letters, tracks a forty-year career of honest, tough artistry, and shows a man at nearly 80 years of age and still at the height of his poetic power. Dugan's new poems continue
In the sixth century b.c.-twenty-five hundred years before Einstein-Heraclitus of Ephesus declared that energy is the essence of matter, that everything becomes energy in flux, in relativity. His great book, On Nature, the world's first coherent philosophical treatise and touchstone for Plato, Arist