This passage shows so well the senseless violence of war and its brutal destruction of life’s fragile beauty. But it also portrays the immortality of self-sacrifice, heroism and above all, […]
Author Archives: Steve Jenkin
Hesiod ‘Works and Days’ 54-105 (Contributed by Emanuele Pezzani)
This is Hesiod’s account of Pandora’s myth in the Works and Days and there is barely a mention of the famous jar, a story which he had previously told in […]
Catullus, Poem 86 (Contributed by Terry Walsh)
It has been thought that ‘Lesbia’ is a construct, or even a figment of the poet’s imagination. This poem, I think, proves that the love affair was a real one, […]
Horace, Odes 3.30 (contributed by Terry Walsh)
Horace’s sphragis or sign-off poem to the first three books of his Odes. The poem has a stately simplicity about it, which perhaps derives from the run of adynata in […]
Homer, Odyssey 9.82-105 (contributed by Amanda Waters)
As an AS level student who studied Greek to GCSE, it was very gratifying when my knowledge of Greek helped me to understand the poetry unit of my English AS. […]
Catullus, Poem 5 (Contributed by Jane Mason)
As a teenager who had only studied Virgil so far, it came as an enormous surprise when a teacher, whom we had believed to be very straight-laced, set this poem […]
Catullus, Poem 85 (Contributed by Jane Mason)
Catullus’ two line epigram is justly famous, summing up the bitterness and confused emotions of a betrayed lover. 40 years later the themes of elegaic love poetry, which Catullus first […]
Pindar, Pythian 8.88-100 (Contributed by Chris Childers)
Written for Aristomenes of Aegina, victor in the wrestling competition in 446 BC, this is the latest of Pindar’s datable odes. It is also widely considered his darkest: the aging […]
Pindar, Pythian 1.1-12 (Chosen by Chris Childers)
One of Pindar’s grandest odes, the First Pythian celebrates Hieron of Syracuse’s chariot victory of 470 and his founding of the city of Aetna in 476/5 within a broader context […]
Homer Odyssey 9.355-370, 403-414 (contributed by Jane Mason)
I love this story: the way they both try to trick each other, the baffled and callous response of the other Cyclopes, but especially the word play! The confusion between […]