[Note: times are recorded EST, not PST.]
Please read from the top of the page down.
22:05:00 Admin enters this room
22:05:11 [Admin] hi
22:26:35 rudytudy enters this room
22:26:57 [rudytudy] is this the classics 28 chat?
22:27:34 [rudytudy] ok...
22:29:23 apistone enters this room
22:29:58 [apistone] yah, im here for the chat too, but i dont think it starts until 8
22:34:36 Admin exits from this room
22:50:47 AnthonyB enters this room
22:57:46 JamieMatts enters this room
23:01:22 [JamieMatts] In the review of Weil's Essay, what does Murnaghan mean by Force?
23:01:27 mollyhalv enters this room
23:01:40 smlwong enters this room
23:02:05 [JamieMatts] Does she mean physical force?
23:02:10 Kimmerian enters this room
23:02:29 bluemnm enters this room
23:02:52 mquiring enters this room
23:03:13 [JamieMatts] Or pressure from other people?... Or both?
23:03:24 [AnthonyB] Hi there, everyone! Welcome!
23:03:50 [mquiring] Good evening.
23:04:25 [mollyhalv] Hi!
23:05:01 [AnthonyB] I see that most of you are 'unregistered' - no need to if you don't want to, but it's helpful to everyone else if you could take a minute to go out and register then come in again - just a few simple questions that get recorded for others to see if they're curious to know who we are....
23:05:35 Kimmerian exits from this room
23:05:40 [smlwong] were we supposed to read the whole book, or just the poem?
23:05:59 MaryEllen enters this room
23:06:14 [AnthonyB] Which book/poem, sml?
23:06:26 [smlwong] hesiod's theogony
23:06:27 [AnthonyB] Hi there, MaryEllen! Welcome back!
23:06:47 [MaryEllen] Good evening professor!
23:08:13 [MaryEllen] I have to say (although I am not finished yet), that Theogony is one wild book
23:09:00 [AnthonyB] OK, the Hesiod. It's a long poem with a lot of detail(!!). The first thing is to get the general shape of things - then focus on the 'core' creation part (beginnings, Titans, Olympians) and the battles of the generations
23:09:27 [AnthonyB] .... but then the introduction by Caldwell is very good, and illuminating...
23:09:59 [AnthonyB] .... and I've found that the more you look into the Theogony, the more you see that there's a lot of structure there, and system
23:10:10 [AnthonyB] Yes, it is a wild book!
23:10:23 [MaryEllen] Kronos gets inside of Gaia and castrates his father, Ouranos..this is more oedipal than Oedipus
23:10:45 [AnthonyB] So, although we won't have time to go into immense detail in class, if you get interested in it it does repay close study
23:10:52 [JamieMatts] Good one!
23:11:08 [AnthonyB] Freud was a very learned and well-read classicist
23:11:35 [MaryEllen] and Aphrodite is made from a phallus? Wow!
23:12:24 [MaryEllen] I believe that about Freud, just from what we have learned so far in Greek Myth
23:12:51 adidalggg enters this room
23:14:16 [mollyhalv] but oedipus doesn't want to marry his mother...he leaves his adopted parents to try and stop it from happening.
23:14:21 [AnthonyB] no, no - Aphrodite is made from semen, thrown into the ocean...
23:14:22 [MaryEllen] and what about Pandora? Women are created to bring trouble to men? Am I reading this right?
23:14:41 [AnthonyB] Hi there, adida! Welcome!
23:14:48 [mollyhalv] Kinda like Eve and Adam.
23:14:53 [MaryEllen] Oh, I must have misinterpreted it.
23:15:32 [MaryEllen] I thought she was made from the castration of Ouranos
23:15:55 adidalggg exits from this room
23:16:02 [MaryEllen] Yes, mollyhalv, like Eve brings evil
23:16:15 [AnthonyB] No - Caldwell does at one point refer to Cronos cutting off his father's penis - but it's not what the Greek actually says. (And, in any case, if you think about it, he could only have cut off his testicles! Sorry to be so graphic....)
23:16:58 hum enters this room
23:17:07 [MaryEllen] No problem, I appreciate the small and gory details
23:19:37 [mollyhalv] Doesn't it seem a bit odd to have both religions point to women as the cause of all evils. It seems a bit biased to me.
23:20:10 [JamieMatts] Well, they were Patriarchical societies.
23:20:23 [smlwong] same here.. but what's done is done...
23:20:47 [mquiring] I found it interesting that Robert Graves seemed to present "Hope"...
23:20:48 [MaryEllen] Yes, but then again, is it some kind of weird compliment about women's power?
23:20:56 [mquiring] .. as a less than benevolent force.
23:21:56 [AnthonyB] Hesiod was a rather grouchy old thing - not necessarily very typical. And in any case the Pandora myth is somewhat ambivalent.
23:22:20 [mollyhalv] Some versions of the myth have him lock peoples' knowledge of the forthcoming evils inside the box, a some he lets out Hope.
23:22:42 [AnthonyB] Wouldn't you say that Greek Myth as a whole is rather rich in being aware of the role of women and the complexities of male-female relations?
23:22:53 [AnthonyB] Hi there, hum! Welcome!
23:24:00 [MaryEllen] yes, and it can be very scary but enlightening because it is so terribly politically incorrect
23:25:25 [MaryEllen] I think it highlights many primal feelings that we are afraid of
23:25:52 [AnthonyB] How's everyone else finding Hesiod? or the way women are portrayed in Greek Myth so far, if you're not yet up to Hesiod?
23:25:57 [JamieMatts] Well, not all those myths demonize women.
23:26:17 [AnthonyB] Yes, there are a lot of primal feelings explored in GM...
23:27:28 [JamieMatts] Graves seems to believe the myths the poem is based are based on earlier religions.
23:29:02 sandi3beac enters this room
23:29:11 [JamieMatts] He wrote something about Cronus eating his children, and how it may have been a reference to human sacrifice.
23:29:39 [mquiring] The women seem to be like the men, in many ways. Full of virtues and flaws
23:30:05 [mquiring] Is Clytemnestra a good wife or a bad wife?
23:30:58 [JamieMatts] Oh, I don't think Greek society looked too kindly on her.
23:31:03 [AnthonyB] Hi there, sandi! Welcome!
23:31:33 [AnthonyB] You could say that the men are as much 'demonised' as the women.
23:31:56 [mquiring] Certainly, she seems to be judged a poor wife.
23:32:13 [AnthonyB] Anyone taken a look at Atreus, Thyestes, Tantalus, Lycaon, Aigisthus etc. etc., not to mention Ouranos, Cronos etc.
23:32:54 [mquiring] I noticed that Odyseeus conspired to kill Palamedes, who himself was brillian
23:33:12 [MaryEllen] it's pretty bad to take on a lover and kill your husband, but maybe we can look at her as a symbol of a fiercely protective mother, avenging Iphigenia's sacrifice
23:33:12 [mquiring] That's a different side of the heroic homecomer.
23:33:15 [AnthonyB] Mmmm... we'll be talking about human sacrifice soon, as a mythic motif. One of the essential starting points is that the Greeks never did practice it, in reality.
23:34:21 [mollyhalv] The Greeks didn't mind much Agamemnon killing Iphignenia, but got really mad at Clytemnestra killing him.
23:35:28 [mquiring] I suppose Agamemnon was justified because the sacrifice was for
23:35:31 [mquiring] Artemis?
23:35:50 [smlwong] hmm... but did agamemnon really kill iphigenia?
23:36:00 Dncrcait enters this room
23:36:11 [smlwong] i remember, in some version, iphigenia ends up a priestess for artemis
23:36:26 [AnthonyB] Hi there, Dncrcait! Welcome back!
23:36:36 [Dncrcait]
thanks! 
23:36:53 [mquiring] Then, if a god was demanding it, maybe Clytemnestra wasn't entitled to revenge
23:37:10 [JamieMatts] Well, Euripides makes them everyone in Iphigenia look pretty bad. I think in the Euripides real version she was killed.
23:37:46 [AnthonyB] One of the essential things about GM is that it looks at things from many points of view - so, for example, Clytemnestra: Gm does actually allow you to consider things from her perspective
23:38:42 [AnthonyB] So if you ask: was she a good wife or a bad wife? GM will respond 'Well it all depends: here's how you could look at it one way, and here's how you could look at it another way...
23:39:43 [MaryEllen] and it seems like myth is malleable, each author takes the myth and puts their own special spin on it
23:39:55 [mquiring] That's about how I was feeling. The tangled stories and destinies have a lot of ambiguity
23:41:13 [JamieMatts] Yeah, in Medea, Ino goes insane, goes over the cliff with both children, and they all die.
23:41:59 [AnthonyB] How would you say the Agamemnon (Aeschylus) conveys/portrays Clytemnestra?
23:42:53 [AnthonyB] In GM myth is always malleable.
23:43:32 [apistone] i think its definitely not a very favorable view. i mean, everyone seems against her, not really showing a lot of argument for her side. after all, agamemnon did kill her daughter
23:43:57 [apistone] but no one thinks that thats any kind of legitimate reason
23:43:58 [mquiring] Seem to me that how Clytemnestra is represented depends strongly on the actual performance
23:44:48 [JamieMatts] Aeschylus' Clytemnestra is conniving though. She is cold-blooded.
23:45:26 [AnthonyB] Anyone remember the detail of how Agamemnon is killed (in the Ag.)?
23:45:29 [JamieMatts] Maybe a little crazy too.
23:46:16 [apistone] slaughtered in the bath, right?
23:46:29 bdeal enters this room
23:46:31 [MaryEllen] does she kill him in the bath, naked and helpless?
23:46:36 [AnthonyB] yes - go on
23:46:45 japalapa enters this room
23:46:48 [AnthonyB] Hi, bdeal! Welcome!
23:47:15 [mquiring] He was stabbed twice offstage, but we hear it.
23:47:28 [AnthonyB] Hi there, japalapa! Welcome back!
23:47:43 [AnthonyB] and when she brings the body on?
23:47:47 [Dncrcait] this doesn't really have anything to do with what you are talking about, but i was just wondering-how long did individual cults continue to worship these gods?- Did they ever believe that these were euhemerized people, or always gods?
23:47:53 [JamieMatts] She netted Agamemnon in some robes too.
23:48:11 [AnthonyB] (That is, when the production reveals the tableau of Clytemnestra and the body)?
23:48:33 [AnthonyB] More, Jamie...
23:48:47 [bdeal] thanks
23:48:54 [AnthonyB] what kind of robes?
23:49:38 [JamieMatts] Bloody ones?
23:49:55 [apistone] a lot of rich robes
23:50:12 [JamieMatts] Oh, that too.
23:50:34 [bdeal] did clytemnestra weave the robes that agamemnon was killed in?
23:52:02 [MaryEllen] robes of doom, and there is something very bizarre and possibly sexual about the way his blood sprays her like rain giving forth new life
23:52:45 [JamieMatts] Like the ocean foam Aphrodite was born from eh?
23:53:32 [MaryEllen] maybe exactly like that, something that stands as a metaphor for semen
23:54:01 [bdeal] like that was their last sexual experience?
23:54:20 [bdeal] i dont see how that plays out....
23:54:43 [JamieMatts] Yeah, but Clytemnestra penetrated Agamemnon.
23:54:47 [MaryEllen] sorry, bdeal, I was not very clear. When she kills him it is told in a strangely sexual way
23:55:01 smlwong enters this room
23:55:31 [apistone] i think all through the play theres a lot of gender role confusion, clytemnestra playing a very masculine role, so that seems like it just continues that trend
23:55:55 [MaryEllen] exactly, a reversal
23:56:56 [bdeal] i c
23:57:30 [smlwong] before i forget, what's the answer to the riddle in the e-mail?
23:57:55 [bdeal] <<<no clue
23:58:14 [apistone] yah, no idea
23:58:47 [bdeal] can anybody start it so we can figure it out
23:58:47 [AnthonyB]
Which one?
23:59:11 [apistone] how bout the first one?
23:59:14 [bdeal] well its all linked right?
23:59:53 [apistone] i think we need the first one to know what the second one is asking
23:59:53 [AnthonyB] [On Clytemnestra's demonic speech, there's a very good note on page 303 of our Penguin translation.]
00:00:33 [AnthonyB] Wild boar and flower pots?
00:01:32 [bdeal] and valentines day
00:01:37 [AnthonyB] Anyone come across the occasion when a wild boar came into Aphrodite's life?
00:01:59 [mquiring] When Ares killed Adonis?
00:02:10 [AnthonyB] There you go....
00:02:31 [mquiring] Not sure about flower pots, though.
00:02:36 japalapa enters this room
00:02:42 [smlwong] ahh.. but what does any of this have to do with flower pots?
00:04:06 [AnthonyB]
.... at the Greek equivalent ('equivalent') of Valentine's Day, women grew seeds in flower pots, in mid-summer, and put them on their roofs
00:04:47 [smlwong] oh..
00:04:55 [AnthonyB] ... then around 8 days later, when the seeds grew into rather weedy little plants (mid-summer being no time to start seeds) they took them and cast them into the sea....
00:05:59 [japalapa] ??
00:06:28 [AnthonyB] Called the Adonia. Celebrating [contrast and compare our Valentine's Day!] the pursuit of the pleasure of a torrid affair between the godess of love and a young pubescent beautiful boy a lot younger than herself....
00:07:04 [AnthonyB]
(anyone want to argue that GM is all male orientated?
00:07:12 [mollyhalv] so weedy plants=Adonis?
00:07:32 [bdeal] isnt that obvious??
00:08:06 [JamieMatts] Sure...
00:08:37 [MaryEllen] How do you guys put those little smiley faces in to show that you are kidding around?
00:08:53 [smlwong] hmm
00:08:54 [bdeal] Adonia is in honor of Adonis
00:09:00 [smlwong]
00:09:05 [mollyhalv]
00:09:14 [smlwong] colon, end parentheses
00:09:16 [japalapa]
00:09:32 [AnthonyB] [Click on the Query sign bottom left.)
00:09:32 [MaryEllen] thank you!
00:09:48 [MaryEllen]
00:10:08 [AnthonyB] Yes, Adonia celebrates Adonis, and Aphrodite, and sensuousness, and pleasure etc. etc.
00:10:37 [AnthonyB] Even though it all ends in more than tears..... (but it also starts all over again the next year)
00:10:41 [JamieMatts] Speaking of male oriented, wasn't an older male/pubescent male relationship romanticised too. I was looking in the atlas, and one fresco seemed to do that.
00:11:44 [AnthonyB] You might think of Zeus and Ganymede, Poseidon and Pelops, Heracles and Hylas....
00:12:09 [mollyhalv] Achilles and Patroclus!
00:12:19 [mollyhalv] maybe.
00:13:11 [AnthonyB] Just to pursue the riddle a little further - how did it all end?
00:13:26 [bdeal] it was respected to be involved in realationships of the same sex, yet i have yet to gaer about a same sex female relationship
00:13:53 [bdeal] hear*
00:13:59 [AnthonyB] Sappho?
00:14:27 [JamieMatts] Well, the younger male is killed or lost or something.
00:14:39 [mollyhalv] she was the poet on Lesbos?
00:15:07 [AnthonyB] Yes, Sappho of Lesbos
00:15:27 [bdeal] Lsebos=Lesbian
00:15:42 [bdeal] thanks Prof for the reference
00:16:21 [MaryEllen] the younger male is killed or lost? That is so interesting. I wonder what that means....maybe because of the age difference they could not stay together long-term?
00:16:22 [bdeal] r we way off subject of tonites trivia?
00:16:36 [AnthonyB] ... a little more on how Adonis died....?
00:17:17 [AnthonyB] No, we're still on it, bdeal - just fishing around a bit...
00:17:29 [bdeal] he was killed by a boar?
00:17:45 [AnthonyB] Got it!
00:18:12 [AnthonyB] OK - now think boars (and young men....)
00:18:40 [Dncrcait] a boar scarred odysseus
00:19:26 [MaryEllen] Heracles?
00:20:04 [bdeal] boars and circe
00:20:53 [mollyhalv] but odysseus survived, while adonis died
00:21:07 [JamieMatts] Heracles killed the wild boar of Erymanthus.
00:24:11 [AnthonyB] [Darn it! My connection dropped - right at the moment when...
00:24:31 [AnthonyB] Yes - the Scar.
00:25:22 [bdeal] odysseus' scar on his leg?
00:25:24 [AnthonyB] We haven't talked about that in class yet (we will), but that scar is the token of Od' great moment in adolscence when he proved himself a man
00:25:54 [AnthonyB] As Dncrcait said, like Heracles
00:26:00 [apistone] whereas adonis didnt . .
00:26:38 [AnthonyB] Right.
00:27:16 [AnthonyB] The Boy ~ the Man - Wild Boar ~ Domestic Pigs....
00:27:42 [AnthonyB] Husbands ~ Lovers...
00:28:21 [AnthonyB] And what about the third part? a woman/girl who can match Odysseus here?
00:29:27 [JamieMatts] It has to do with Artemis doesn't it.
00:29:57 [MaryEllen] do you mean a girl with some kind of rite of passage to womanhood?
00:30:39 [AnthonyB] OK - at this early stage in the semester this is a bit abstruse, but we're now going to think of another crossover set of realms/motifs....
00:31:04 [AnthonyB] Yes! Aphrodite ~ Artemis
00:31:23 [AnthonyB] Jamie and MaryEllen are nearly there....
00:31:54 [bdeal] iphiginia
00:32:04 [bdeal] maybe???
00:32:26 msn enters this room
00:32:33 [AnthonyB] Very close, bdeal! In a very GM way...
00:33:00 [AnthonyB] Hi there, msn! Welcome!
00:33:30 [AnthonyB] World of Artemis.... a huntress.... virgin....
00:34:39 [AnthonyB] should I?
00:35:05 [JamieMatts] There was some race where some man who could out run a very fast woman could marry her...
00:35:45 [mquiring] Atalanta?
00:35:52 msn exits from this room
00:35:56 [AnthonyB] Yes!
00:36:22 [AnthonyB] mquiring has it.
00:36:42 [mquiring] Can't remember who beat her, though. She went after the golden apples..
00:36:42 [AnthonyB] Check out Atalanta -
00:37:07 [MaryEllen] what is Atalanta's story? I thought she wanted on the Argos but they thought that a woman would stir up to much trouble so she could not go?
00:37:07 [AnthonyB] and (1) the calydonian Boar Hunt
00:37:31 [bdeal] Melanion
00:37:43 [AnthonyB] and (2) how she was won away from virginity....
00:38:24 [AnthonyB] yes, it's golden apples. With which we come all the way back to the first day of class....
00:38:25 [bdeal] she wrestles with Peleus
00:38:45 [JamieMatts] Some centaurs tried to rape Atalanta on the Boar Hunt, she killed them.
00:38:50 [bdeal] something about Melanionan dgoled apples
00:39:34 [bdeal] golden*
00:39:44 [AnthonyB] bdeal: (a) you're wrong on the detail (Peleus wrestled with Thetis), but (b) you're gloriously right on the main thematic point
00:40:51 [bdeal] Melanion brought the golden apples of Aphrodite
00:40:59 [JamieMatts] So, Aphrodite and Artemis are in conflict?
00:42:09 [mollyhalv] from what i remember from 3rd grade, Aphrodite gave some golden apples to Hippol? to distract Atalanta during the race.
00:42:16 [bdeal] sorry Prof i got that info fromPerseus.com
00:42:27 [AnthonyB] apples.... desire.... Aphrodite.... the opposite (Artemis).... male wins female.... beauty - male competition - war.... Ares ~ Aphrodite.... the male proves himself a Man... or not!
00:42:38 [apistone] yah, so he could beat her, since he knew he wasnt faster
00:43:11 [bdeal] Hippomenes is another version by Euripides
00:43:57 [AnthonyB] and we can now ponder on the connections between Thetis and Iphigeneia, Atalanta and Iphigeneia, Adonis and Peleus, and so on and so on. (And plug in Agamemnon, Clytemnestra etc. etc. along the way.)
00:44:57 [MaryEllen] bedtime for me guys...thank you all...see you in class!
00:45:08 [AnthonyB] (Don't leave out Atalanta and boar-hunting!)
00:45:12 MaryEllen exits from this room
00:45:13 [bdeal] Atalanta and Iphigenia are connected through Artemis
00:45:36 [AnthonyB] And Jamie had a great point earlier about the role of the centaurs
00:46:03 [mollyhalv] they were both unwilling sacrifices?
00:46:41 [apistone] was atalanta a sacrifice though?
00:46:57 [bdeal] Atalanta was a sacrifice?
00:47:06 [bdeal] nged into a lion
00:47:13 [AnthonyB] Hmm... looking at the clock, I'd better be moving on....
00:47:27 [mollyhalv] her virginity/independence...sort of.
00:47:31 [mquiring] Sacrificing her virgininty?
00:47:43 [mquiring]
Goodnight, Professor.
00:47:50 [AnthonyB] not literally a sacrifice.... but worth reflecting on how the two could be connected (not literally, of course)
00:47:53 [bdeal] they both had something to prove...
00:48:17 [bdeal] what is the significance of the golden apples?
00:48:48 [JamieMatts] Golden apples are cool...and really desireable.
00:49:13 [AnthonyB]
Nearly! Just think out of modern western and into ancient Greek mode.... 
00:49:24 [bdeal] thats all they entail is desire?
00:49:30 [mquiring] I think I read that they are associated with immortality.
00:50:08 [AnthonyB] and who is it that 'sacrifices' in relation to the virgin?
00:50:44 [AnthonyB] .... desire and immortality....?
00:51:12 [JamieMatts] Reperduction?
00:51:38 [JamieMatts] Reproduction and sex.
00:51:46 [mquiring] Hera had a tree that grew golden apples, and she's notoriously jealous.
00:51:54 [AnthonyB] well, we've got eleven weeks and more to work on all this - I'm going to slip away....
00:52:13 [mollyhalv] Argh..bedtime. See you all in class!
00:52:17 mollyhalv exits from this room
00:52:35 [bdeal] g'nite Prof
00:52:36 Physic enters this room
00:52:51 apistone exits from this room
00:52:58 [mquiring]
Goodnight.
00:53:15 mquiring exits from this room
00:53:21 [Physic] whoa the prof is here
00:53:45 [bdeal] lol
00:53:52 [Physic]
hiya Prof
00:54:00 [bdeal] yes he would be AnthonyB
00:54:56 [Physic] lol it was kind of cool how Ino was mentioned in Medea
00:55:39 [Physic] hmm, didn't Orpheus go into Hades too?
00:57:48 [JamieMatts] Everyone goes to hades, almost.
00:58:39 [Physic] yeah but most of them don't come back
00:59:00 [Physic] the prof in lecture said only Odysseus, Theseus, and Heracles went down and back
01:01:52 bluemnm exits from this room
01:04:01 [Physic] nite
01:04:14 JamieMatts exits from this room