Paris

By Gregory Nagy

Comments on comparative mythology 4, a dysfunctional misunderstanding of trifunctionality in myths about the Judgment of Paris

2020.03.06 | By Gregory Nagy §0. In the previous two posts, Classical Inquiries 2020.02.21 and 2020.02.28, I connected the idea of “trifunctionality” with the idea of “sins” committed in myths connected with two different Greek heroes, Hēraklēs and Paris/Alexandros. Each of these two heroes violated, according to myths told about them, three “functions” of society, which are (1) sovereignty, (2) warfare, and (3) what I described already in the first… Read more

By Gregory Nagy

Comments on comparative mythology 3, about trifunctionality and the Judgment of Paris

2020.02.28 | By Gregory Nagy §0. In the previous post, Classical Inquiries 2020.02.21, §9, I introduced the idea of “trifunctionality,” applied by the linguist Georges Dumézil in his analysis of myths about three kinds of “sins” committed by the hero Hēraklēs in the course of performing his otherwise exemplary heroic exploits. In terms of this idea, Hēraklēs committed his three “sins” by violating the three social “functions” of (1) sovereignty,… Read more

Guest Post

Lady Come Down: The Eastern Wandering of Helen, Paris, and Menelaus

2016.05.05 | By John C. Franklin One or more versions of the lost epic Kypria, which came to serve as a prequel to the Iliad, must have contained wandering adventures set in the eastern Mediterranean, deriving from a multiform traditional background that can be partially reconstructed from scattered traces. Read more