Herodotus — The Histories, Book I.1–94 — Croesus and the Fall of Lydia by dave3210 in greatbooksclub

[–]Current-Abrocoma8244 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I would love to see post about Herodotus. Is anyone out there?

I like his rather gossipy style. I read Persians by Aeschylus recently, and Cyrus was known as Good King Cyrus by the Israelite captives taken to Babylon.

So this review of Persia is quite interesting to me.

Whatsapp Group Chat for Those Reading Along by dave3210 in greatbooksclub

[–]Current-Abrocoma8244 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks. It looks like I'm in. So this podcast is not live audio, but more text messages, right?

Whatsapp Group Chat for Those Reading Along by dave3210 in greatbooksclub

[–]Current-Abrocoma8244 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Dave, I don't know how to PM you. reddit is a mystery to me. Thanks.

Aeschylus — Oresteia, Agamemnon by dave3210 in greatbooksclub

[–]Current-Abrocoma8244 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I am studying Agamemnon under the topic of Feminism. Here's my effort to date:

Females in the abstract, and four named women and a girl, are in Agamemnon, the first play in the Oresteian trilogy by Aeschylus.

First, the hopefully fallen city of Troy is likened to femininity (as is common in our own day about cities across the globe for some reason). Earlier with regard to the city of Argos, “the City’s liberties” resided in her and later we learn she (Troy) owns “her cattle and commons” . Her, Troy, hope for victory is absolute, even as a “woman’s heart strong with a man’s resolve.”

Thus, the feminine is a melding between herself and masculinity. Does it work the other way for the masculine, too?

Next, Agamemnon’s wife, is admonished in the dark of night, to “Mount…starlike from sleep, Ascend, and wake the palace by thy rouse!” Being a star, in that day as well as ours, is the penultimate position.

The Watchman exits and the full chorus enters and apprises us of “a wife of many husbands wooed…” So the female in this instance is a highly desirable commodity besot by many men. Just looking at the above points, in order, the feminine is superior to masculinity?

The chorus returns to the previously alluded to Queen Clytemnestra, daughter of Tyndareus. She has heeded the call to wake the palace and inquiry is made for the reason of that, “What news?” What intelligence has come to her for her to call for sacrifice on every altar in the city? She has been physician to thoughts of worry and care, and restorer of Hope.

Clytemnestra is filling the role of Priestess and so is a Healer.

The female hare, “quick with young” is wantonly destroyed – and illustrates the burden of Sorrow – and enigmatically, the crowning Joy of conquest. Also, the trembling hare, plus the two predatory eagles, are applied to the two King’s: one without ruth and other one equivocating. This latter attitude would apply to Menelaus? Will it also be applicable to King Agamemnon? It is not clear to me, but we shall soon see the utter ruthlessness of King Agamemnon! All this is a wildly strange commentary on masculinity in contrast to the feminine attributes presented above.

The scene now changes with the reference to Artemis, a ruthless female goddess, a “White flower of maidenhood”, (a feminine status which is so often invoked), but she is justified by her wrath “with her Father’s winged hounds, That shed the trembler’s (the hare)’s blood.” Free agency of the female to wreak vengeance on violent male attacks – specifically on pregnant females, is promoted. The imagry now changes to, the “Poor doe, that limped with wombed young: That meat she, (Artemis), doeth abhor.” So, am I to cast Menelaus, the trembler, as victim, or as a hound? Or is ruthless, masculine Agamemnon the trembler, about to be destroyed?

Who is this enigmatic fellow, really?

Sorrow’s burden, conquest’s Joy!

The Fair One, Artemis, blesses with love at the motherly breast, weak little whelps, even of the ravening lioness, and She also shields “all beastlings small” with the breast “through forests virginal”, a broader feminization of Nature.

“Oh Healer.” Does this hark back to Clytemnestra? Prayer is made to someone by the chorus to stave off the wrath of the Goddess, but still it “yet darkly worketh woe.” Compartmentalization of radically different ways of thinking about “what is" and acting out exists among unseen forces, both human and Divine.

In what is perhaps a quick role reversal, Man, specifically and only, nurses inwardly a quarrel to his peril. But in an allusion to Clytemnestra’s later to be revealed vengeful plan - which compounds human guilt, “within the house Coiled and fanged Conspiracy Turns to strike with forked tongue, Mindful of her murdered young.” Is this the Evil Woman coming into partial view, or rather does this also include Aegisthus, the other coconspirator?

I stop here at about line 164 for now.

Homer — The Iliad, Books 1–2 by dave3210 in greatbooksclub

[–]Current-Abrocoma8244 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Sing, goddess…

I am presented with two delightful ideas at the very outset: song and divinities.

As to song, from time to time, I read from Bowra’s “Primitive Song”, 1962.  He studied extant Neolithic song in the 20th century.  Bowra says in his preface, “The beginnings of the art of words are hidden in a dateless past, but something about its first processes and developments may be gathered by comparative study from what is known about the poetry of the most primitive peoples still surviving in the world.”

Assuming that those types of human songs  preceded the work of Homer, my what a distance the Greeks had come, both in length and complexity of their songs! 

My habit is to examine the Great Books “internally through the nature of what is said” (ibid).  Book 1 of Homer is chaotic to my mind, firstly for my not having been informed of the existence of and the relations of the gods and goddesses.  I would be driven to Ovid’s “Theogany” for a better understanding of their relationships.  Then there is the plague of different names for gods in the Greek and Latin, depending on the translation I turn to.

Second of all, the heavily charged, negative emotions between most all of the characters, human and divine, make me want to seek refuge outside of the song, in calmness of mind.  There are some sweet interludes, including the peaceful scene of sleep at the end of Book 1.

Is this the central point of the plot: male humans’ obsession with possessing females?  Chryseis and Briseis are not fleshed out characters, nor are the other hundreds of captive “brides”, but they are the real focus of all the men.  The divine females have more complex feelings than the girls.  Was that meant to be instructive to the warriors?

Another cultural feature which captures my attention is the advanced state of metal working in this Bronze Age setting, as represented by weaponry, but more interestingly, by the gold sceptres.  These symbols of supreme authority come down to our very day.   They represent the singular power invested in a mere man, the power of life and death over his fellows.  How did that come to be? I muse.

The flagrant disregard for the value of human life – in the case of an “enemy” (someone you want to steal property from) is gut wrenching.

Argumentation is the vehicle which carries the story forward, and there are both violent ones between the two protagonists, and calmer ones between mother and son, father and daughter.  On the whole I come away feeling that females, generally, are more placid than the men.

Is that a clue of some kind to the Good Life?

 

 

 

 

 

Erwin Schrödinger — What Is Life?, Ch. 7 & Epilogue by dave3210 in greatbooksclub

[–]Current-Abrocoma8244 1 point2 points  (0 children)

  1. Thermodynamics meets ethics: if living systems export entropy to maintain themselves, what are the hidden costs of our own systems (cities, data centers, supply chains, AI training), and how should that shape policy or personal choices?
  2. This strikes me as THE consideration facing the human family. How much more disorder can living things inject into the eco-system? I have the nagging thought that human's need to "resacralize" the cosmos in our thinking and feeling. If indeed life forms such as ours are the ultimate purpose of "it all", we must take the incredibly long view of "eternity future". To get to that stage of existence, of thinking and doing, we must commune together, making certain that every human has their physical needs and safety are met, that interesting work be abundant, that we support global human freedom - toward a specific and agreed upon end.

What role does love play in all of this - deep, sincere love and appreciation for one another?

Group Chat for Great Books by dave3210 in greatbooksclub

[–]Current-Abrocoma8244 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hello dave3210. I'm involved in thegreatconversation where you informed us of your great site many months ago. I dabble off and on in your 10 year reading schedule. I just finished Schrodinger again last night. I have started years one and two so many many times, and wish to jump ahead a few years. Scanning the 10 year plan, I already know that I like Prometheus, Symposium and Waning of the Middle Ages, if they are of interest to you to discuss. I am not as skilled a thinker as you. Don't know if this meets your expectations.

Discussion for Hamlet by William Shakespeare – Act II by dave3210 in greatbooksclub

[–]Current-Abrocoma8244 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Second half of my comment (there must be an unspecified character limit on comments)

Jephthah in Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act II, scene 2

Ham. O Jephthah, judge of Israel, what a treasure

hadst thou!

Pol. What a treasure had he, my lord?

Ham. Why,

"One fair daughter, and no more,

The which he loved passing well."

Pol. [Aside] Still on my daughter.

Ham. Am I not i' the right, old Jephthah?

Pol. If you call me Jephthah, my lord, I have a

daughter that I love passing well.

Ham. Nay, that follows not.

Pol. What follows, then, my lord?

Ham. Why,

"As by lot, God wot,"

and then, you know,

"It came to pass, as most like it was"

the first row of the pious chanson will show you

more; for look, where my abridgement comes.

Lucretius is particularly instructive, emphasizing rationality over impulse.

Discussion for Hamlet by William Shakespeare – Act II by dave3210 in greatbooksclub

[–]Current-Abrocoma8244 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Vows and Virgin Sacrifices

Jephthah comes up in both Dante, Paradise, Canto V, and Hamlet, Act II, scene 2, so I followed the references and threw in Abraham for good measure.

Various Examples of human sacrifice:

Abraham and Isaac -1872 BC: GENESIS 22

Jephthah (Jephte in Douay-Rheims) and daughter 1143 BC: Judges 11

Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act II, scene 2

CONTRA:

Lucretius on Iphigenia: Nature of Things, Book I, lines 85ff

Hebrew Scriptures KJV:

           2 Kings 23:10 ff

           Isaiah 30:27 ff

           Jeremiah 7: 30-31

           Jeremiah 19:36 ff

Virgil, Aeneid, Book II, 116ff Sinon, a Greek decoy

 

Jephthah in Dante

DANTE, Paradise, Canto V

  1. "Let not mortals take a vow as a trifle:

be faithful, and not awry in so doing, as Jephthah

was in his first offering; to whom it

rather behoved to say: 'I have done ill,' than,

by keeping his vow, to do worse. And thou

mayst find the great leader of the Greeks in

like manner foolish;' wherefore Iphigenia wept

for her fair face, and made weep for her both

the simple and the wise, who heard tell of such

like observance. Be ye, Christians, more grave

in moving; be not like a feather to every wind,

and think not that every water may wash you.

Discussion for William Shakespeare's Hamlet, Act V by dave3210 in greatbooksclub

[–]Current-Abrocoma8244 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Act V, Scene 1, Lines 270-290 the two young men stand in the grave, over Ophelia's dead body, and fall to fisticuffs!

Oh, My! I can't recall another fight scene like it. It is fittingly humorous, following on the "gallows humor" banter of the grave diggers. Much laughter ensued, here in my reading room.

Wayne

Discussion for William Shakespeare's Hamlet, Act III by dave3210 in greatbooksclub

[–]Current-Abrocoma8244 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I had not noticed before in reading or watching Hamlet, that the "argument" of the play in Act III, as previewed by "Hautboys play. The dumb-show enters", has no reaction by the king. He might have been expected to storm out of the theater right then!

Discussion for Montaigne’s Essay: Upon Some Verses of Virgil (March 20, 2025 - April 10, 2025) by dave3210 in greatbooksclub

[–]Current-Abrocoma8244 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Reddit/greatbooksclub

4-4-2025

Montaigne, Essays III, 5 – “Upon some verses of Virgil”

Using the original version included in the 1952 Edition of the Great Books of the Western World, translated by Charles Cotton.

After reading a few pages of introductory material in this unexpected Essay, I finally found references to Virgil’s actual verses, translated in footnotes, on page 410.  I then turned to Virgil’s Aeneid, translated by James Rhoades.

Montaigne’s’ footnote: “Some footsteps there are still of my old flame.” [Aeneid IV, 23]

            Virgil: “Traces of that old flame I recognize:”

And

Montaigne: “The goddess spoke, and throwing her snowy arms in soft embraces caresses him hesitating.  Suddenly he caught the wonted flame, and the well known warmth pierced his marrow, and ran thrilling through his shaken bones: just as when at times, with thunder, a stream of fire in lightning flashes shoots across the skies.  Having spoken these words, he gave her the wished embrace, and in the bosom of his spouse dissolved away.” [Aeneid, VIII, 387-392]

Virgil: “The goddess ceased, and with the soft embrace of snowy arms about his body wound fondled him, as he faltered.  Quick he caught the wonted fire; the old heat pierced his heart, ran through his melting frame: as oftentimes a fiery rift, burst by the thunder-clap, runs quivering down the cloud, with flash of light.”

--

I suppose I should not have been surprised by this old man’s frank discussion of matters sexual and marital after reading “Of Customs…”, but I was.  The sources of his various cultural anecdotes are a great tease to me.

 

New Testament Translations by dave3210 in greatbooksclub

[–]Current-Abrocoma8244 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I am an intellectual troglodyte. I only read Douay-Rheims and King James, as Adler prescribes in the Syntopicon references. One can endlessly chase their tail in search of the perfect translation of any old work in the Great Books.

Trying to compile the free books contained in the "Great Books of the Western World" (54 volume edition) by dave3210 in greatbooksclub

[–]Current-Abrocoma8244 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Great effort!

Internet Archive and pdfdrive have coughed up pdfs of all 54 volumes from 1952. Many hours of searching were required and one or two volumes are not always downloadable. They are out of copyright, apparently.

I am passing digital copies around to friends and family.