Archives: Chapters

Posted on

Abbreviations of Editions

Abbreviations of Editions D = E. Diehl, Anthologia lyrica Graeca (2nd ed. Leipzig 1933-1942; fascicles 1-3, 3rd ed. 1954-1964) LP = E. Lobel and D. Page, Poetarum Lesbiorum fragmenta (Oxford 1955) MW = R. Merkelbach and M. L. West, Fragmenta Hesiodea (Oxford 1967) […]

Posted on

Symbols

Symbols pher = Pherecratic gl = Glyconic pherd/pher2d/pher3d = Pherecratic with single/double/triple dactylic expansion gld/gl2d = Glyconic with single/double dactylic expansion glc/gl2c = Glyconic with single/double choriambic expansion ch = choriamb ia = iamb ^ = before a symbol, designates acephaly (e.g. ^pher = acephalic […]

Posted on

Acknowledgments

Acknowledgments This monograph, to put it simply, would not have been written without the precedent of Calvert Watkins’s work on Indo-European metrics. His field is linguistics, a discipline which I especially admire for the elegant precision that it can bring to literary studies. For my own approach to Hellenic literature and pre-literature, […]

Posted on

Foreword

Foreword Cedric H. Whitman When Milman Parry died in 1935, his great demonstration that the Homeric poems were the culminating product of a long, highly developed oral tradition had already raised many questions to which scholars today are still trying to discover answers. Perhaps the most formidable question was: if oral […]

Posted on

Bibliography, pp.100–102

Bibliography Beekes, R.S.P. 1969. The Development of th e Proto-Indo-European Laryngeals in Greek. The Hague. Benveniste, E. 1969. Le vocabulaire des institutions indo-européennes (2 vols.). Paris. Boisacq, E. 1950. Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue grecque (4th ed.). Paris. Chantraine, P. 1974. […]

Posted on

Conclusion, pp.98–99

Conclusion My object in this study has been to explore the meaning of the word nēpios within the Homeric poems. The possibility of an etymological connection between nēpios and ēpios led me to consider the contexts of ēpios also. At the least, these two words are thematically parallel—not only in that […]

Posted on

4. Adults, pp.60–97

4. Adults In Chapter Three, I proposed that the word nēpios expresses the very limitations that can be overcome, in certain symbolic frameworks, through initiation rituals—namely, childhood, ignorance, and what Eliade calls “the profane condition.” The subject of that chapter was children; in the Homeric language (or world view) children, as […]

Posted on

3. Children, pp.25–59

3. Children Nēpia Tekna In the last chapter, I tried to show that while the idea of fatherhood is a frequent contextual associate of ēpios, the basic meaning of this word is something like “connecting.” Thus it implies a social relationship between the ēpios person and someone else. And, indeed, […]

Posted on

2. ΗΠΙΟΣ, pp.10–24

2. ΗΠΙΟΣ The word ēpios, used in Homer of persons, feelings, and medicines, is glossed by LSJ as “gentle…kind…soothing…assuaging.” This interpretation is supported by its association with the word aganos (“gentle”) in the phrase: μή τις ἔτι πρόφρων ἀγανὸς καὶ ἤπιος ἔστωσκηπτοῦχος βασιλεύς No longer now let one who is […]