#Ancient Literature

[yuinevo]

Another Odysseus, it’s been a while (yes this is my new favourite pose to draw)

[freshminttea]

When he heard the death rattle, Gilgamesh moaned like a dove. His face grew dark. "Beloved, wait, don't leave me. Dearest of men, don't die, don't let them take you from me."

-Epic of Gilgamesh

[spooky-donut-ghost-house]

Something that I get chills about is the fact that the oldest story told made by the oldest civilization opens with "In those days, in those distant days, in those ancient nights."

This confirms that there is a civilization older than the Sumerians that we have yet to find

Some people get existential dread from this

Me? I think it's fucking awesome it shows just how much of this world we have yet to discover and that is just fascinating

[paiawon]

babes wake up new euripides just dropped

[ohdearwhatacatastrophe]

Agamemnon and Achilles watching Antinoös and his ilk entering the underworld like:

[teenaged-athena]

two of my opinions about the secret history that nobody asked for:

part of the reason Bunny is so-called might be that it is an Australian (I think??) slang word for a victim, and in British slang it can mean one who gossips (as in 'rabbiting' on about something), as well as being a reference to Edmund 'Bunny' Wilson

the murder taking place in April might be a reference to T.S Eliot's 'The Waste Land' ('April is the cruellest month', which is in itself a Chaucer reference)

[greekmythcomix]

I just had a look online to find if anyone had made a list of all the names of fighters in the Iliad, and I discovered that someone in fact had.

I had.

Me.

In 2015.

I have absolutely no memory of this.

I made a spreadsheet, and even wordclouds ffs.

It’s even got what side they’re on, where they’re originally from, their epithet and patronymic if they have one. Wow.

And, you can filter it by any of these to find which version of a character you need.

Oh my god I even put if they brought SHIPS? I made an excel spreadsheet of the CATALOGUE OF SHIPS. (I’m Dyscalculaic though so they might be wrong ha!)

Anyway, thanks, past-fugue-state-me?!

I’m sure I used it to make the Deaths in the Iliad infographic: https://www.tumblr.com/greekmythcomix/722650261704867840/death-in-the-iliad-an-infographic-originally

Anyway, the ‘names in the Iliad’ post is here with links to the spreadsheet: https://greekmythcomix.com/2015/07/21/fighters-in-the-iliad/

Have fun with it!

[paganimagevault]

Tocharian B Love Poem, manuscript B496, 6th-7th C. CE

"…a thousand years, [you will] tell [our] story. [I thus announce, [here]tofore there was no human being dearer to me than [you]; likewise hereafter there will be no one dearer to [you] than [me]. [Your] love, [your] affection, [my] jubilant song rises up! Along with life [itself], this should not come to an end for [my] whole life. I was thinking: “I will live with one love well [for the whole of my] life, without any deceit, without…” The God [of Karma] alone recognized this, my thought. Thus he provoked a quarrel; it ripped out my heart [that belonged] to [you. I]t led [you] afar, it tore me apart, it turned me into a partaker of all sorrows; he took away the consolation [I had] in thee… my life, spirit, and heart, day-by-day…"

"Tocharian B: …(ya)ltse pikala watäṃ ·e – ci(ṣṣ)e /// /// – – ·nts· p(o) ask(a)sk(au) (mā) ñ(i) (ci)sa noṣ śomo ñ(e)m(wno)lme (l)āre tāka mā ra postaṃ cisa lāre mäsketär-ñ : ciṣṣe laraumñe ciṣṣe ārtañye pelke kaltta-(r)r«†ä» śolämpa ṣṣe mā t(e) stālle śol wärñai : 2 taiysu pälskanoym sanai ṣaryompa śāyau karttse(ś) śaulu-wärñai snai tserekwa snai tā – : yāmor-ñīkte ṣe cau ñī palskañe śarsa tusa ysaly= ersate ciṣy= araś ñi sälkāte : wāya ci lauke tsyāra ñiśwetke «k»ly«†k»autka-ñ pāke po läklenta«nt»s ciṣe tsārwo sampā(te-ñ) – – – – – – ·e śol pals(k)= araś ñī kom-kom mī-"

-Cf. the transcription and translation in J. P. Mallory and Victor H.Mair, The Tarim Mummies: Ancient China and the Mystery of the Earliest Peoples from the West (London: Thames & Hudson, 2000), p. 273.

[pierrotsoup]

debuting the gilgamesh fanart on tumblr🫡🫡 (what dreaming about a meteorite that you love as you love your wife does to a mf)

[pierrotsloop]

Miscellaneous gilgamesh excerpts that go really really hard. .. . I am kind of obsessed (can you guys believe how perfrctly grief was articulated even 5000 years ago ppl had the exact same emotions and also they were gay I'm SICK!!!) (I filled happy people with woe over you is actually so nauseating) (I love ancient poetry) (also it makes me sad cause so much is missing)

[ditoob]

Had to re-read The Epic Of Gilgamesh (This time the Sophus Helle translation) for class, so here are some of the doodles I made along with my notes

[kusurrone]

October 15th? You mean Virgil's birthday???🐝🐝🎉🎉🎉

[madame-helen]

[abissusandiuno]

KLYTAIMESTRA

Now you're making sense—

to call upon the thricegorged evil demon of this family.

Deep in its nerves is a lust to lick blood and no wound heals

before the next starts oozing.

- Agamemnon, Aiskhylos - translated by Anne Carson

[unapologeticmelancholy]

Found this amusing. This is an excerpt from one of the earliest recorded texts in human history: the Sumerian Instructions of Shuruppak, 2600 BC. Oh, how little we've changed!

Source: Black, J.A., Cunningham, G., Fluckiger-Hawker, E, Robson, E., and Zólyomi, G., The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature (http://www-etcsl.orient.ox.ac.uk/), Oxford 1998- .

[teenaged-athena]

half of studying ancient languages and literature is chanting verb conjugations, and the other half is battling with the desire to unleash your inner henry winter upon the world