 Workbook Documents |
Ancient Greece |
Sappho: Poem, Kouros nude, The Parthenon, Aristophanes: Lysistrata, Plato: The Republic |
Sappho: Poem (d. c. 570 BC)
Thorned in splendor, beauteous child of mighty
Zeus, wile weaving, immortal Aphrodite,
smile again; your frowning so affrays me
woe overweighs me.
Come to me now, if ever in the olden days
you did hear me from afar, and from the
golden halls of your father fly with all speeding
unto my pleading.
Down through mid-ether from Love's highest regions
swan-drawn in car convoyed by lovely legions
of bright-hued doves beclouding with their pinions
Earth's broad dominions.
Quickly you came; and, Blessed One, with
smiling countenance immortal, my heavy heart
beguiling, asked the cause of my pitiful condition-
why my petition:
What most I craved in brain-bewildered yearning;
whom would I win, so winsome in her spurning;
"Who is she, Sappho, so evilly requiting
fond love with slighting?
"She who flees you soon shall turn pursuing,
cold to your love now, weary with wooing,
gifts once scorned with greater gifts reclaiming
unto her shaming."
Come thus again; from cruel cares deliver;
of all that my heart wills graciously be giver-
greatest of gifts, your loving self and tender
to be my defender.
Question:
What does Sappho's poem tell us about love?
Question:
What might the Kouros tell us about ancient Greek values?
Question:
What might the style of the Parthenon tell us about ancient Greek values?
Aristophanes: Lysistrata (410 BC)
Cleonice: . . . What is this very important business you wish to inform us about?
Lysistrata: I will tell you. But first answer me one question.
Cleonice: Anything you wish.
Lysistrata: Don't you feel sad and sorry because the fathers of your children are far away from you with the army? For I'll wager there is not one of you whose husband is not abroad at this moment.
Cleonice: Mine has been the last five months in Thrace-looking after Eucrates.
Myrrhine: It's seven long months since mine left for Pylos.
Lampito: As for mine, if he ever does return from service, he's no sooner home than he takes down his shield again and flies back to the wars.
Lysistrata: And not so much as the shadow of a lover! Since the day the Milesians betrayed us, I have never once seen an eight-inch gadget even, to be a leathern consolation to us poor widows.... Now tell me, if I have discovered a means of ending the war, will you all second me?
Cleonice: Yes verily, by all the goddesses, I swear I will, though I have to put my gown in pawn, and drink the money the same day.
Myrrhine: And so will I, though I must be split in two like a flat-fish, and have half myself removed.
Lampito: And I too; why to secure peace, I would climb to the top of Mount Taygetus.
Lysistrata: Then I will out with it at last, my mighty secret! Oh! sister women, if we would compel our husbands to make peace, we must refrain...
Cleonice: Refrain from what? tell us, tell us!
Lysistrata: But will you do it?
Myrrhine: We will, we will, though we should die of it.
Lysistrata: We must refrain from the male altogether.... Nay, why do you turn your backs on me? Where are you going? So, you bite your lips, and shake your heads, eh? Why these pale, sad looks? why these tears? Come, will you do it-yes or no? Do you hesitate?
Cleonice: I will not do it, let the war go on.
Myrrhine: Nor will I; let the war go on.
Lysistrata (to Myrrhine): And you say this, my pretty flat-fish, who declared just now they might split you in two?
Cleonice: Anything, anything but that! Bid me go through the fire, if you will,-but to rob us of the sweetest thing in all the world, Lysistrata darling!
Lysistrata (to Myrrhine): And you?
Myrrhine: Yes, I agree with the others; I too would sooner go through the fire.
Lysistrata: Oh, wanton, vicious sex! the poets have done well to make tragedies upon us; we are good for nothing then but love and lewdness! But you, my dear, you from hardy Sparta, if you join me, all may yet be well; help me, second me, I beg you.
Lampito: 'Tis a hard thing, by the two goddesses it is! for a woman to sleep alone without ever a strong male in her bed. But there, peace must come first.
Lysistrata: Oh, my darling, my dearest, best friend, you are the only one deserving the name of woman!
Cleonice: But if-which the gods forbid-we do refrain altogether from what you say, should we get peace any sooner?
Lysistrata: Of course we should, by the goddesses twain! We need only sit indoors with painted cheeks, and meet our mates lightly clad in transparent gowns of Amorgos silk, and perfectly depilated; they will get their tools up and be wild to lie with us. That will be the time to refuse, and they will hasten to make peace, I am convinced of that! . . .
Cleonice: Now, my dears, let me swear first, if you please.
Lysistrata: No, by Aphrodite, unless it's decided by lot. But come, then, Lampito, and all of you, put your hands to the bowl; and do you, Cleonice, repeat for all the rest the solemn terms I am going to recite. Then you must all swear, and pledge yourselves by the same promises,-I will have naught to do whether with lover or husband...
Cleonice (faintly): I will have naught to do whether with lover or husband...
Lysistrata: Albeit he come to me with an erection...
Cleonice (her voice quavering): Albeit he come to me with an erection... (in despair) Oh! Lysistrata, I cannot bear it!
Lysistrata (ignoring this outburst): I will live at home unbulled...
Cleonice: I will live at home unbulled...
Lysistrata: Beautifully dressed and wearing a saffron-coloured gown
Cleonice: Beautifully dressed and wearing a saffron-coloured gown...
Lysistrata: To the end I may inspire my husband with the most ardent longings.
Cleonice: To the end I may inspire my husband with the most ardent longings.
Lysistrata: Never will I give myself voluntarily...
Cleonice: Never will I give myself voluntarily...
Lysistrata: And if he has me by force...
Cleonice: And if he has me by force...
Lysistrata: I will be cold as ice, and never stir a limb...
Cleonice: I will be cold as ice, and never stir a limb...
Lysistrata: I will neither extend my Persian slippers toward the ceiling...
Cleonice: I will neither extend my Persian slippers toward the ceiling...
Lysistrata: Nor will I crouch like the carven lions on a knife-handle.
Cleonice: Nor will I crouch like the carven lions on a knife-handle.
Lysistrata: And if I keep my oath, may I be suffered to drink of this wine.
Cleonice (more courageously): And if I keep my oath, may I be suffered to drink of this wine.
Lysistrata: But if I break it, let my bowl be filled with water.
Cleonice: But if I break it, let my bowl be filled with water.
Lysistrata: Will you all take this oath?
All: We do.
Lysistrata: Then I'll now consume this remnant. (She drinks.)
Cleonice (reaching for the cup): Enough, enough, my dear; now let us all drink in turn to cement our friendship. (They pass the cup around and all drink. A great commotion is heard off stage.)
Lampito: Listen! what do those cries mean?
Lysistrata: It's what I was telling you; the women have just occupied the Acropolis. So now, Lampito, you return to Sparta to organize the plot, while your comrades here remain as hostages. For ourselves, let us go and join the rest in the citadel, and let us push the bolts well home.
Cleonice: But don't you think the men will march up against us?
Lysistrata: I laugh at them. Neither threats nor flames shall force our doors; they shall open only on the conditions I have named.
Cleonice: Yes, yes, by Aphrodite; otherwise we should be called cowardly and wretched women. (She follows Lysistrata out.)
Question:
What does this excerpt tell us about men and women in ancient Greece?
AND now, I said, let me show in a figure how far our nature is enlightened or unenlightened: --Behold! human beings living in a underground den, which has a mouth open towards the light and reaching all along the den; here they have been from their childhood, and have their legs and necks chained so that they cannot move, and can only see before them, being prevented by the chains from turning round their heads. Above and behind them a fire is blazing at a distance, and between the fire and the prisoners there is a raised way; and you will see, if you look, a low wall built along the way, like the screen which marionette players have in front of them, over which they show the puppets.
I see.
And do you see, I said, men passing along the wall carrying all sorts of vessels, and statues and figures of animals made of wood and stone and various materials, which appear over the wall? Some of them are talking, others silent.
You have shown me a strange image, and they are strange prisoners.
Like ourselves, I replied; and they see only their own shadows, or the shadows of one another, which the fire throws on the opposite wall of the cave?
True, he said; how could they see anything but the shadows if they were never allowed to move their heads?
And of the objects which are being carried in like manner they would only see the shadows?
Yes, he said.
And if they were able to converse with one another, would they not suppose that they were naming what was actually before them?
Very true.
And suppose further that the prison had an echo which came from the other side, would they not be sure to fancy when one of the passers-by spoke that the voice which they heard came from the passing shadow?
No question, he replied.
To them, I said, the truth would be literally nothing but the shadows of the images.
That is certain.
And now look again, and see what will naturally follow it -- the prisoners are released and disabused of their error. At first, when any of them is liberated and compelled suddenly to stand up and turn his neck round and walk and look towards the light, he will suffer sharp pains; the glare will distress him, and he will be unable to see the realities of which in his former state he had seen the shadows; and then conceive some one saying to him, that what he saw before was an illusion, but that now, when he is approaching nearer to being and his eye is turned towards more real existence, he has a clearer vision. . . Will he not fancy that the shadows which he formerly saw are truer than the objects which are now shown to him?
Far truer. . . .
He will require to grow accustomed to the sight of the upper world. And first he will see the shadows best, next the reflections of men and other objects in the water, and then the objects themselves; then he will gaze upon the light of the moon and the stars and the spangled heaven; and he will see the sky and the stars by night better than the sun or the light of the sun by day?
Certainly.
Last of all he will be able to see the sun, and not mere reflections of him in the water, but he will see him in his own proper place, and not in another; and he will contemplate him as he is.
Certainly. . . .
And when he remembered his old habitation, and the wisdom of the den and his fellow-prisoners, do you not suppose that he would felicitate himself on the change, and pity them?
Certainly, he would.
And if they were in the habit of conferring honours among themselves on those who were quickest to observe the passing shadows and to remark which of them went before, and which followed after, and which were together; and who were therefore best able to draw conclusions as to the future, do you think that he would care for such honours and glories, or envy the possessors of them? Would he not say with Homer,
"Better to be the poor servant of a poor master,"
and to endure anything, rather than think as they do and live after their manner? . . .
This entire allegory, I said, you may now append, dear Glaucon, to the previous argument; the prison-house is the world of sight, the light of the fire is the sun, and you will not misapprehend me if you interpret the journey upwards to be the ascent of the soul into the intellectual world according to my poor belief, which, at your desire, I have expressed whether rightly or wrongly God knows. But, whether true or false, my opinion is that in the world of knowledge the idea of good appears last of all, and is seen only with an effort; and, when seen, is also inferred to be the universal author of all things beautiful and right, parent of light and of the lord of light in this visible world, and the immediate source of reason and truth in the intellectual; and that this is the power upon which he who would act rationally, either in public or private life must have his eye fixed. . . .and there is another thing which is likely. or rather a necessary inference from what has preceded, that neither the uneducated and uninformed of the truth, nor yet those who never make an end of their education, will be able ministers of State; not the former, because they have no single aim of duty which is the rule of all their actions, private as well as public; nor the latter, because they will not act at all except upon compulsion, fancying that they are already dwelling apart in the islands of the blest.
Very true, he replied.
Then, I said, the business of us who are the founders of the State will be to compel the best minds to attain that knowledge which we have already shown to be the greatest of all-they must continue to ascend until they arrive at the good; but when they have ascended and seen enough we must not allow them to do as they do now.
What do you mean?
I mean that they remain in the upper world: but this must not be allowed; they must be made to descend again among the prisoners in the den, and partake of their labours and honours, whether they are worth having or not.
But is not this unjust? he said; ought we to give them a worse life, when they might have a better?
You have again forgotten, my friend, I said, the intention of the legislator, who did not aim at making any one class in the State happy above the rest; the happiness was to be in the whole State, and he held the citizens together by persuasion and necessity, making them benefactors of the State, and therefore benefactors of one another; to this end he created them, not to please themselves, but to be his instruments in binding up the State.
True, he said, I had forgotten.
Observe, Glaucon, that there will be no injustice in compelling our philosophers to have a care and providence of others; we shall explain to them that in other States, men of their class are not obliged to share in the toils of politics: and this is reasonable, for they grow up at their own sweet will, and the government would rather not have them. Being self-taught, they cannot be expected to show any gratitude for a culture which they have never received. But we have brought you into the world to be rulers of the hive, kings of yourselves and of the other citizens, and have educated you far better and more perfectly than they have been educated, and you are better able to share in the double duty. Wherefore each of you, when his turn comes, must go down to the general underground abode, and get the habit of seeing in the dark. When you have acquired the habit, you will see ten thousand times better than the inhabitants of the den, and you will know what the several images are, and what they represent, because you have seen the beautiful and just and good in their truth. And thus our State which is also yours will be a reality, and not a dream only, and will be administered in a spirit unlike that of other States, in which men fight with one another about shadows only and are distracted in the struggle for power, which in their eyes is a great good. Whereas the truth is that the State in which the rulers are most reluctant to govern is always the best and most quietly governed, and the State in which they are most eager, the worst.
Quite true, he replied.
And will our pupils, when they hear this, refuse to take their turn at the toils of State, when they are allowed to spend the greater part of their time with one another in the heavenly light?
Impossible, he answered; for they are just men, and the commands which we impose upon them are just; there can be no doubt that every one of them will take office as a stern necessity, and not after the fashion of our present rulers of State.
Question:
Who should run the state in Plato's Republic, and why?