About a perfect start for a world-wide web of song

7 August 2020

Guest Post

MASt @ CHS – Friday, June 26, 2020: Summaries of Presentations and Discussion

2020.08.07 | By Rachele Pierini and Tom Palaima Summaries of Presentations and Discussion by Elizabeth Barber, Thomas Palaima, Rachele Pierini, and Brent Vine §0. Rachele Pierini began the June seminar meeting of MASt @ CHS (the fifth in the series, begun November 8, 2019 and continued December 12, January 24, and April 27) by welcoming participants to the talk. As an example of the kinds of topics we have discussed in… Read more

By Gregory Nagy Guest Post

On women and weaving, draft of a two-part Foreword to a work by Hanna Eilittä Psychas, Women Weaving the World: Text and Textile in…

2018.05.10 | By Gregory Nagy and David F. Elmer Women Weaving the World: Text and Textile in the Kalevala and Beyond, by Hanna Eilittä Psychas, was completed in December 2017. It originated as a thesis presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Bachelor of Arts at Harvard University. The author of Part I of the bipartite Foreword to the online edition of Women Weaving the World,… Read more

Guest Post

On weaving and sewing as technical terms for ancient Greek verbal arts

2017.03.20 | By Ellen Harlizius-Klück and Giovanni Fanfani Two researchers from the Deutsches Museum continue the conversation on metaphors for ancient Greek verbal arts. The Fates from the Krater of Kleitias and Ergotimos, Florence Museo Archeologico Nazionale, 4209 the (so-called François-Vase), drawing from Furtwängler and Reichhold, as presented on the cover of Spinning Fates.   Ellen Harlizius-Klück and Giovanni Fanfani Research Institute for the History of Technology and Science Deutsches… Read more

By Gregory Nagy

On weaving and sewing as metaphors for ancient Greek verbal arts

2017.01.18 | By Gregory Nagy In the light of new research published on the technologies of fabric work in premodern societies, I have been rethinking my formulations about traditional metaphors that were used in ancient Greek verbal arts for the original purpose of comparing these arts to the arts of weaving and sewing. Detail from the François Vase, Florence, Museo Archeologico Etrusco, 4209. Drawing after E. B. Abrahams, Greek Dress:… Read more

Guest Post

Song, interrupted

2016.04.28 | By Keith DeStone William Wetmore Story (1819–1895), “Sappho” (modeled 1862, carved 1867), marble. §1. There is a thread of conversation on Classical Inquiries about women’s weaving and weaving songs that began with Greg’s 2015.11.19 post titled “Echoes of Sappho in two epigrams of Posidippus” and that continued in further posts by him (2015.12.03 and 2016.01.07) and by Andromache Karanika and Ioanna Papadopoulou. Taking my cue from the word “echoes”… Read more

Guest Post

Penelope’s great web: the violent interruption

2016.03.10 | By Ioanna Papadopoulou Dora Wheeler (1856–1940) “Penelope Unraveling Her Work at Night” (1886) Silk embroidered with silk thread, 45 x 68 in. (114.3 x 172.7 cm) The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York Purchase, Sylvia and Leonard Marx Gift and funds from various donors, 2002 (2002.230) http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/16951 Understanding Penelope’s weaving necessarily involves deep-diving in Odyssean poetics, because her famous “great web” is deeply connected with the overall thematic… Read more

By Gregory Nagy Sappho

Weaving while singing Sappho’s songs in Epigram 55 of Posidippus

2016.01.07 | By Gregory Nagy Elizabeth Jane Gardner Bouguereau (1837–1922), “Philomela and Procne.” Oil on canvas, 80 x 62.2 cm. Private collection. Photo, Art Renewal Center Museum via Wikimedia Commons. Once again this time, Epigram 55 of Posidippus §1. This posting for 2016.01.07 picks up from where I left off at the posting for 2015.12.03 on Epigram 55 of Posidippus. Since that posting, I have engaged in further e-conversations about… Read more

Guest Post

Weaving, interrupted

2015.12.03 | By Andromache Karanika Image via, in the public domain Greg Nagy poses an exciting question about the time of female weaving, and, what is more, about song that accompanies the weaving—song that alleviates the monotony of labor but also transforms the sense of time. Is girls’ weaving something that begins with the light of dawn? I concur with Natasha that this is to be expected, and there are… Read more

By Gregory Nagy Sappho

Girl, interrupted: more about echoes of Sappho in Epigram 55 of Posidippus

2015.12.03 | By Gregory Nagy Epigram 55 of Posidippus, a poet who flourished in the third century BCE, refers to the songs of Sappho. That is what I argued already in my posting for 2015.11.19. But the reference to Sappho in that epigram is even more complex than I had said in that posting. In that posting (at n8), as also in an earlier piece I had published (Nagy 2010,… Read more

By Gregory Nagy Sappho

Echoes of Sappho in two epigrams of Posidippus

2015.11.19 | By Gregory Nagy Charles Fairfax Murray’s  “Replica of Beata Beatrix,” c. 1900-1910. [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons; “Beata Beatrix,” by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, c. 1864–1870. Introduction §0.1. This posting for 2015.11.19 picks up from where I left off at 2015.11.12. That earlier posting in turn picked up from where I had left off at 2015.11.05. In the posting for 2015.11.12, I highlighted the use of the word paides in… Read more

By Gregory Nagy H24H

To trace a thread of thought starting from a Homeric song that seems to have no ending

2015.06.03 | By Gregory Nagy §1. This posting of 2015.06.03 continues from where I left off in the posting of 2015.05.27, where I was focusing on the first song of Demodokos, contained in verses 72–83 of Odyssey 8 [Greek | English]. In that earlier posting and in the even earlier posting of 2015.04.10, I described this song as a micro-epic that refers to the macro-epics of the Homeric Iliad and… Read more