Herakles of Euripides

By Gregory Nagy

Thinking comparatively about Greek mythology IV, Reconstructing Hēraklēs backward in time

2019.08.15 | By Gregory Nagy §0. As I have argued in the posting for 2019.07.26, “Thinking comparatively about Greek mythology I” (hereafter TC I), the myths about the Greek hero Hēraklēs and the Scandinavian hero Starkaðr are cognate, verbalized in cognate languages belonging to a language-family known to linguists as "Indo-European." Viewed in this light, the term “Indo-European” can be applied not only with reference to cognate language-groupings like Greek… Read more

By Gregory Nagy

On cases of wolfish rage experienced by Greek heroes

2019.05.24 | By Gregory Nagy §0. The Greek word that I translate here as ‘wolfish rage’ is lussa, which derives from lukos, meaning ‘wolf’, and which refers to the martial fury experienced by two of the foremost heroes in the Homeric Iliad, Achilles and Hector. The hero Herakles also experiences such fury in the drama Herakles of Euripides, but in this case it is evident that we cannot, strictly speaking, describe… Read more