Montaigne's "Of Friendship" and "Of Solitude": Passages for Textual Analysis

At our meeting on next Monday, we'll talk about the questions on pages 127 to 129 and the textual passages below.  I usually pick passages that either (a) leave me baffled on first reading, or (b) ring true and are artfully stated.

From "On Friendship"

pages 108 to 109, starting "And that other, licentious Greek love ..." and ending "Because it was he, because it was I."

pages 110 to 111, starting "When Laelius," and ending "more readily than to myself."

page 112, from "Eudaimidas of Corinth" to "holding their weddings on the same day"


From "Of Solitude"

pages 118 to 119, from "Now the aim of all solitude" to "he took himself along with him."

page 120, from "We should have wife, children, goods, and above all health," to "Virtue, says Antisthenes, is content with itself, without rules, without words, without deeds."

page 124, from "This occupation with books" to "I am one of those who think that their benefits cannot counterbalance this loss."

page 125, from "Seek no longer that the world should speak of you" until the end of the piece.

Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592)

This month's selection, "Of Friendhip" and "Of Solitude" form a "boxed set."  The first is a eulogy to Montaigne's deceased friend, Etienne de la Boétie, the second a paean to the solitary, contemplative life. The translator of these essais, Donald Frame, has written of Montaigne, "His greatest attraction for most readers is that the book reveals a man and that the man becomes a friend and often another self."

"Prometheus Bound": Passages for Textual Analysis

On next Monday night, we'll take a close look at these passages from "Prometheus Bound," by Aeschylus in Great Conversations I:

page 67, from "Bright light, swift-winged winds, springs of the rivers ..." to "I pay nailed in my chains under the open sky."

page 78, from "Do not think that out of pride or stubbornness I hold my peace ..." to "all arts that mortals have come from Prometheus."

page 92: "Yet shall this Zeus, for all his pride of heart be humble yet..." to "So, in his crashing fall shall Zeus discover how different are rule and slavery."

page 96: "I have said too much already ..." to the end of the play.

What You Need to Know about "Prometheus Bound"

The subject of discussion at our meeting on Monday, February 27th will be the drama "Prometheus Bound."  Prometheus is chained to a crag in the Caucasus. In a twist on the idea of "crimes against humanity, Prometheus is being punished for "crimes for humanity"!  He gave humankind fire and other useful arts.

"Prometheus Bound" consists of a sequence of dialogues between Prometheus and the other characters: Oceanos, Io, Hermes, and perhaps most significantly, the daughters of Oceanos who form the Chorus. 

The Greek divine order, or "pantheon" forms an important backdrop to the work. There had been a dynastic struggle among races of gods. Prometheus's kin, the titans, were overthrown by the Olympian gods. In essence, "Prometheus Bound" is about the aftermath of this struggle.

Below is a glossary of some of the names of the play. I hope it helps you to follow the story line.

Amazons: A race of warrior women.

Armipasians: A one-eyed people who live near a gold-bearing river

Atlas: A titan, best known as the giant who held the earth separate from the sky.

Hades: the underworld

Haephaestus: God of metallurgy

Hera: wife of Zeus

Hermes: Messenger of the gods

Io: A daughter of the river god Inachus; changed in to a cow by Zeus

Kronos: Father of Zeus

Loxias: a title of Apollo meaning  “interpreter,” relating to Zeus’s prophetic power.

Might: a demon and servant of Zeus

Oceanos: A river and its god

Phorcys: A sea-god

Prometheus: A titan

Rhea: a titaness

Tartarus: A dark region below the earth, far below Hades

Themis: mother of Prometheus

Thetys: a sea goddess

Typho: a monster

Uranos: God of the sky

Violence: like Might, a demon and servant of Zeus; “muta persona”, or “silent character”

Zeus: The top Olympian god.

Questions on Gilgamesh

At our meeting on Monday, January 23rd, we will discuss the questions on pp. 58 and 59 in Great Conversations I, and take a close look at these sections of the work:

The Killing of Humbaba: Tablet IV (columns iii and iv)
The Spurning of Ishtar: Tablet VI (columns ii and iii)
The Death of Enkidu: Tablet VII (columns i, iii and iv)

And here's a bonus question:

Since the "Epic of Gilgamesh" is a title given by modern redactors of this work, if you could assign an alternate title, what would it be?

See you on the 23rd!

Epic of Gilgamesh

We usher in 2012 with the Epic of Gilgamesh, famous in the popular imagination as the oldest written epic of any civilization (at least as far as we know). The modern-day text comes to us via clay tablets painstakingly translated by British archaeologists in the nineteenth century.  Versions of the saga have since been discovered in various places in the Middle East. In approaching this text, I found a need to suspend my strong curiosity concerning the context of the Gilgamesh epic, and just enjoyed the story of Gilgamesh the king and demi-god who visited the "other" world and returned to tell the tale.

Cunieform table containing famous Gilgamesh epic version of the flood.

Statue of Gilgamesh at University of Sydney, Australia (credit: D. Gordon E. Robertson)

9th century BC orthostat relief found in Kapara's palace, Tell Halaf, depicting "Gilgamesh Between Two Bull-Men Supporting a Winged Sun Disk".

Some Afterthoughts on Our Discussion of Plato's "Republic"

Our reading selection focused on Socrates's discussion about justice with Glaucon and Adeimantus from Books II and IV of the "Republic," and hinges on a proof of the proposition that it is good to be just both for its own sake and for what comes of it. Here's Glaucon:

If life doesn't seem livable with the body's nature corrupted, not even with every sort of food and drink and every sort of rule, will it then be livable when the nature of the very thing by which we live is confused and corrupted, even if a man does whatever else he might want except that which will rid him of vice and injustice and will enable him to acquire justice and virtue? [Emphasis added]

Socrates has led the discussion to the point where to think otherwise would be considered, in his words, "ridiculous." Did Socrates set out to argue this point, or did he become convinced of it during the course of the discussion? It's a tough call in the Platonic dialogues.

We're left with a defense of "justice" (or "virtue," or "goodness," or whatever you choose to call it) arrived at through dialogue. It is an appeal to maintain order in one's soul ("the very thing by which we live") by means of the guidance of reason.

Shown above: Sculpture of Plato at the modern Academy in Athens. Below: Our group after its Socratic experience on the 26th of November.