Classical Continuum

Homeric Vocabulary, Heaps’ Law and the open-ended nature of epic tradition

This paper makes a simple, but significant, observation. Vocabulary keeps growing in any corpus — there is no final, fixed set of words. That phenomenon appears with any natural language corpus. Here I emphasize the significance for students of Homeric epic. The Homeric Iliad and Odyssey contain about 200,000 running… Read more

Pausanias 9.22.3, on Corinna and Pindar

2022.05.09 | By Gregory Nagy {9.22.3} Κορίννης δέ, ἣ μόνη δὴ ἐν Τανάγρᾳ ᾄσματα ἐποίησε, ταύτης ἔστι μὲν μνῆμα ἐν περιφανεῖ τῆς πόλεως, ἔστι δὲ ἐν τῷ γυμνασίῳ γραφή, ταινίᾳ τὴν κεφαλὴν ἡ Κόριννα ἀναδουμένη τῆς νίκης ἕνεκα ἣν Πίνδαρον ᾄσματι ἐνίκησεν ἐν Θήβαις. φαίνεται δέ μοι νικῆσαι τῆς διαλέκτου… Read more

Pausanias 9.23.2–4, on the tomb of Pindar

2022.05.02 | By Gregory Nagy {9.23.2}  ὑπερβάντι δὲ τοῦ σταδίου τὰ ἐν δεξιᾷ δρόμος ἵππων καὶ ἐν αὐτῷ Πινδάρου μνῆμά ἐστι. Πίνδαρον δὲ ἡλικίαν ὄντα νεανίσκον καὶ ἰόντα ἐς Θεσπιὰς [θέρους] ὥρᾳ καύματος περὶ μεσοῦσαν μάλιστα ἡμέραν κόπος καὶ ὕπνος ἀπ’ αὐτοῦ κατελάμβανεν· ὁ μὲν δὴ ὡς εἶχε κατακλίνεται βραχὺ… Read more

بوطیقای تکرار در هومر

گرگوری ناژ برگردان فارسی: فرنوش شمسیان1 What follows is a Persian translation of Gregory Nagy’s “Poetics of Repetition in Homer” by Farnoosh Shamsian. The article was first published in Greek Ritual Poetics (ed. D. Yatromanolakis and P. Roilos; Cambridge, MA and… Read more

Pausanias 10.12.1–11, Part II: on Sibyls in general

2022.04.25 | By Gregory Nagy [For the Greek text and for my working translation, see Part I.] §0. Here in Part II of my two-part essay on Sibyls as we see them described by Pausanias, I analyze some salient divergences in the details reported by our traveler about various… Read more

Pausanias 10.12.1–11, Part I: on the Sibyls of Delphi and Cumae

2022.04.18 | By Gregory Nagy {10.12.1} πέτρα δέ ἐστιν ἀνίσχουσα ὑπὲρ τῆς γῆς· ἐπὶ ταύτῃ Δελφοὶ στᾶσάν φασιν ᾆσαι τοὺς χρησμοὺς <γυναῖκα> ὄνομα Ἡροφίλην, Σίβυλλαν δὲ ἐπίκλησιν. τὴν <δὲ> πρότερον γενομένην, ταύτην ταῖς μάλιστα ὁμοίως οὖσαν ἀρχαίαν εὕρισκον, ἣν θυγατέρα Ἕλληνες Διὸς καὶ Λαμίας τῆς Ποσειδῶνός φασιν εἶναι, καὶ χρησμούς τε… Read more