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Core 3
Humanities -- Classical Antiquity & the Middle Ages
49
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Undergraduate 2
08/05/2011

Additional Other Flashcards

 


 

Cards

Term
I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.  You shall have no other gods before me.
Definition

Exodus 20:2

 

First Commandment.

 

Monothesism.

Term

... Of course you cannot know a man completely,

his character, his principles, sense of judgment,

not till he's shown his colors, ruling the people,

making laws.  Experience, there's the test. 

As I see it, whoever assumes the task,

the awesome task of setting the city's course,

and refuses to adopt the soundest policies

but fearing someone, keeps his lips locked tight,

he's utterly worthless.  So I rate him now,

I always have.  And whoever places a friend

above th good of his own country, he is nothing: 

I have no use for him....

Such are my standards.  They make our city great. 

Definition

Sophocles, Antigone; ll. 194-205, 214; pp. 67-68

 

This is Creon's speech to the people of Thebes as he pronounces his edict on the two slain sons of Oedipus, Eteocles and Polynices, who have killed each other doing battle over the throne.  Antigone is going to test Creon's law and will die as a result.

 

The political impact of this speech was as vivid in Ancient Athens when it was used in elections, as it was in the twentieth century when two playwrites (Jean Anouille and Bertold Brecht) used it to criticise the Nazis.

Term

And as for this marriage with your mother-- have no fear.  Many a man before you, in his dreams, has shared his mother’s bed. Take such things for shadows, nothing at all— Live, Oedipus, as if there’s no tomorrow!

Definition

Sophocles, Oedipus the King, pp. 215, ll. 1073-1078.

 

This is what Jocasta says to Oedipus once she has figured out that the prophesy of the oracle has been fulfilled.  She tries to disuade Oedipus from pushing to find out who killed Laius.

 

This is the quote that Freud built his theory of the Oedipal Complex on.

Term

... I saw Hecuba

Together with her hundred daughters, and

among the altars I could see King Priam,

Polluting with his blood the fires he

himself had hallowed.  And the fifty bridal

chambers that had such hopes of sons of sons,

the doors that once had stood so  proud with booty

and with barbaric gold lie on the ground.

What fire cannot do, the Danaans can.

Definition

Aeneid, Book 2, ll. 671-679

 

The death of Priam, King of Troy



Term

Let there be light; and there was light.

Definition
If you don't know what this one is, google it!
Term
"You will not die.  For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."
Definition

Genesis 3:4

 

The serpent's words to Eve.

 

 

Term
"Let us make man in our image, after our likeness..."
Definition

Genesis 1: 26

(the sixth day)

 

How godlike are human beings?

Term
What is the mark of Cain?
Definition

check out Genesis 4:15,

the story of Cain and Able

Term
"Look toward heaven and number the stars, if you are able to number them." Then He said to him, "So shall your descendants be."
Definition

Genesis 15:5

 

God's covenant with Abraham

Term
"My father...Behold the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?"
Definition

Genesis 22:7

 

Isaac's question to Abraham, who planned to sacrifice his child according to God's wishes.

 

...but what happened?

Term
Well, one day he actually went to Delphi and asked this question of the god -- as I said before, Gentelmen, please do not interrupt -- what he asked was whether there was anyone wiser than myself."
Definition

Plato, The Apology of Socrates, p. 44

 

Was there anyone wiser than Socrates?  What did he do to find out?

Term
"...I am only too conscious that I have no claim to wisdom, great or small; so what can he mean by asserting that I am the wisest man in the world?"
Definition

Plato, The Apology of Socrates, p. 44

 

How can Socrates be both ignorant and wise?

Term
"To put it bluntly (even if it sounds rather comical) God has assigned me to this city, as if to a large thoroughbred horse which because of its great size is inclined to be lazy and needs the stimulation of some stinging fly.  It seems to me that God has attached me to this city to perform the office of such a fly..."
Definition

Plato, The Apology of Socrates, p. 57

 

Socrates argues that he is a gift from God to the city of Athens -- how is a stinging fly (otherwise known as a gadfly) a gift?

Term
Well, it is time to be off -- I to die and you to live; but which of us has the happier prospect is unknown to anyone but God.
Definition

Plato, The Apology of Socrates, p. 70

 

the last words of Socrates.

 (according to Plato)

Term

...the unexamined life is not worth living...

 

In our text, this quote is rendered this way: 


"If ... I tell you that  to let no day pass without discussing goodness and all the other subjects about which you hear me talking and examining both myself and others is really the very best thing man can do, and that life without this sort of examination is not worth living."

 

 

Definition

Plato, The Apology of Socrates, p. 66

 

At what point in his defense does Socrates make this famous statement?

Term

The King himself! Coming toward us, look,

holding the boy's head in his hands.

Clear damning proof, if it's right to say so --

proof of his own madness, no one else's,

no, his own blind wrongs.

Definition

Sophocles, Antigone, p. 124

 

The Chorus sees Creon holding the head of his own dead son.  Why do they call him blind?

Term
...And it is you-- your high resolve that sets this plague on Thebes.  The public altars and sacred hearths are fouled, ane and all, by the birds and dogs with carrion torn from the corpse, the doomstruck son of Oedipus!...
Definition

Sophocles, Antigone, p. 111, ll. 1123-1126.

 

Tiresias rails at Creon.

Term
All men make mistakes, it is only human.  But once a wrong is done, a man can turn his back on folly, misfortune too, if he tries to make amends, however low he has fallen, and stops his bullnecked ways.  Stubborness brands you for stupidity -- pride is a crime.
Definition

Sophocles, Antigone, p. 112, ll. 1132-1137

 

Tiresias condemns Creon's method of asserting his power over the city of Thebes in general and Antigone in particular.

Term
O tomb, my bridal bed--my house, my prison cut in the hollow rock, my everlasting watch!  I'll soon be there, soon embrace my own, the great growing family of our dead Persephone has received among her ghosts...
Definition

Sophocles, Antigone

 

Antigone, about to die, envisions joining her father, mother, and brothers in the underworld, the realm of Hades and his queen, Persephone.

 

She speaks so much like Dido -- bridal bed, cave, suicide!

Term

You'll never bury that body in the grave,

not even if Zeus's eagles rip the corpse

and wing their rotten pickings off to the throne of god!

Definition

Sophocles, Antigone, p. 112, ll. 1151-53

 

Creon vows that Antigone will not best him.

Term

I am not the man, not now; she is the man

if this victory goes to her and she goes free

Definition

Sophocles, Antigone, p. 83, ll. 541-42

 

A little gender warfare between Creon and Antigone.

Term

Banish the man, or pay back blood with blood.

Murder sets the plague storm on the city.

Definition

Sophocles, Oedipus the King, p. 164, ll. 113-114

 

Creon informs Oedipus what the oracle of Apollo demands.

Term
You freed us from the Sphinx, you came to Thebes and cut us loose from the bloody tribute we had paid...
Definition

Sophocles, Oedipus the King, p. 161, ll. 43-44

 

What was the riddle of the Sphinx that Oeudipus solved years earlier to save the people of Thebes?

Term
My baby no more murdered his father than Laius suffered -- his wildest fear-- death at his own son's hands.  That's how the seers and all their revelations mapped out the future...
Definition

Sophocles, Oedipus the King, pp. 201, ll. 794-798

 

Jocasta tells Oedipus of the oracle

that she and Laius received

when her baby was born

as proof that man can determine his own destiny,

and that oracles are not the truth.

Term
I have a terrible fear the bind seer can see.
Definition

Sophocles, Oedipus the King, l. 823, p. 203

 

Oedipus says this when he realizes that he did indeed kill Laius (without knowing it was he).

Term

He rips off her brooches, the long gold pins

holding her robes-- and lifting them high,

looking straight up into the points,

he digs them down the sockets of his eyes,

crying "You, you'll see no more the pain I suffered,

all the pain I caused!...Blind in the darkness, blind!

His voice like a dirge, rising, over and over,

raising the pins, raking them down his eyes. 

And at each stroke blood spurts from the roots, splashing his beard, a swirl of it, nerves and clots-- black hail of blood pulsing, gushing down.

Definition

Sophocles, Oedipus the King, p. 237, ll. 1402-1414

 

Oedipus blinds himself

when he comes upon his dead wife/mother

and he sees what the blind seer had seen.

Term
"You are a stiff-necked people; if for a single moment I should go up among you, I would consume you!"
Definition

Exodus 33:5

 

Moses pleads with God to spare the ancient Israelites after they worship the golden calf.  Athough He does not destroy them, He is very angry.

Term
And Mount Sinai was wrapped in smoke because the Lord descended upon it in fire; and the smoke of it went up like the smoke of a kiln, and the whole mountain quaked greatly.  And as the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder, Moses spoke and God answered him in thunder.
Definition

Exodus 19:18-19

 

God arrives, but is this before the giving of the commandments or after?

 

A volcanic erruption?!

Term

He hurries from the citadel's high point

excitedly; and with a mob around him,

from far off he calls out: 'Poor citizens,

what wild insanity is this? Do you

believe the enemy have sailed away?

Or think that any Grecian gifts are free

of craft?  Is this the way Ulysses acts?

Either Achaeans (Greeks) hide, shut in this wood

or else this is an engine built against

our wall to spy upon our houses or

to batter down our city from above;

some trickery is here.  Trojans, do not

trust in the horse...

Definition

Vergil, Aeneid, Bk II, ll. 57-69

 

Lacocoön's warning.

Term

Now yet another and more dreadful omen is thrust at us...

two snakes with endless coils, from Tenedos

strike out across the tranquil deep (I shudder

to tell what happened), resting on the waters,

advancing shoreward side by side; their breasts

erect among the waves, their blood-red crests

are higher than the breakers.  And behind

the rest of them skims along the sea;

their mighty backs are curved in folds.  The foaming

salt surge is roaring.  Now they reach the fields.

Their eyes are drenched with blood and fire--they burn.

They lick their hissing jaws with quivering tongues. 

We scatter at the sight, our blood is gone. 

They strike a straight line toward Laocoön. 

At first each snake entwines the tiny bodies

of his two sons in an embrace, then feasts

its fangs on their defenseless limbs...

Definition

Vergil, Aeneid, Bk II ll.282-302

 

Athena's serpents attack the twins of Laocoön as payback for his warnings against the Trojan horse.

Term

...For there the virgin

Cassandra, Priam's daughter, hair disheveled,

was dragged out from the temple, from Minerva's

shrine, and her eyes were raised in vain to heaven...

Definition

Vergil, Aeneid, Bk II, ll. 541-544.

 

The rape of Cassandra.

Term

And then before the very porch, along the outer portal

Pyrrhus leaps with pride,

his armor glitters with a brazen brilliance--

he is like a snake that, fed on poisonous plants

and swollen underground all winter,

now his slough cast off, made new and bright with youth,

uncoils his slippery body to the light;

his breat erect, he towers toward the sun;

he flickers from the mouth a three-forked tongue.

Definition

Vergil, Aeneid, Bk II, ll.  627-635

 

Pyrrhus, son of Achilles, takes the royal palace of Troy, on the way to avenge the death of his father.

 

A snake?!

Term

"...you have made me see the murder of my son, defiled a father's face with death.  Achilles--

you lie to call him father-- never dealt

with Priam so--and I, his enemy; 

for he had shame before the claims and trust

that are a supppliant's.  He handed back

for burial the bloodless corpse of Hector

and sent me off in saftety to my kingdom."

Definition

Vergil, Aeneid, Bk II, ll. 721-29

 

Priam's words to Pyrrhus upon the death of his young son, a prince of Troy, Polites.

 

father and son, son and father...

Term
...there is no memorable name in punishing a woman and no gain of honor in such victory, yet I shall have my praise for blotting out a thing of evil...
Definition

Vergil, Aeneid, Bk II, ll. 785-789

 

Aeneas' thoughts about killing the cowering Helen.

Term

I spread a tawny lion skin

across my bent neck, over my broad shoulders,

and then take up Anchises; small Iülus

now clutches my right hand; his steps uneven,

he is following his father; and my wife

moves on behind...

Definition

Veril, Aeneid, Bk II, ll. 974-979

 

Aeneas tries to save his family: his father (Anchises), his son (Ascanius, aka Iülus), and his wife (Creüsa)

Term
...three times I tried to throw my arms around her neck; three times the Shade I grasped in vain escaped my hands-- like fleet winds, most like a winged dream.
Definition

Vergil, Aeneid, Bk. II, ll. 1066-1070

 

Aeneas tries to embrace the shade (or spirit) of his wife; this scene will be repeated in Bk VI (The Underworld), when he encounters the shade of his father.

Term

"Let us make, instead of war,

an everlasting peace and plighted wedding. 

You have what youwere bent upon: she burns

with love; the frenzy now is in her bones. 

Then let us rule this people -- you and I --

with equal auspices; let Dido serve

a Phygian (Trojan) husband,

let her give her Tyrians (her people)

and her pledged dowry into your right hand."

Definition

Aeneid, Bk. IV, ll. 131-138

 

 

Juno bargains with Venus over Aeneas and Dido who are now fated to their tragic love.

Term

She has refused to marry me, she has taken

Aeneas as a lord into herlands.

And now this second Paris, with his crew

of half-men, with his chin and greasy hair

bound up beneath a bonnet of Maeonia,

enjoys his prey...

Definition

Vergil, Aeneid, Bk IV, ll.285-290

 

The tribal lord whom Dido refused to marry after tricking him into giving her sufficient land to found Carthage,

has found out that she is carrying on with Aeneas (of the greasy hair!).  He calls Aeneas a second Paris!  Hmmm, interesting.

Term

SHE:  "Do you flee me?  By tears, by your right hand -- this sorry self is left with nothing else-- be wedding, by the marriage we began...put off your plan, I pray..."

 

HE:  "I have never held the wedding torches as a husband; I have never entered into such agreements... Stop your quarrel.  It is not my own free will that leads to Italy."

Definition

Vergil, Aeneid, Bk IV,

Dido:  ll. 422-424, 428

Aeneas:  ll. 457-58, 491-92.

 

Dido has learned from the fearsome bird Rumor of Aeneas' impending departure.  They don't seem to agree about the nature of their committment to each other.

Term
... Among the Alps, north winds will strain against each other to root out with blasts--now on this side, now that-- a sout oak tree whose wood isfull of years; the roar is shattering, the trunk is shaken, and high branches scatter on the ground; but it still grips the rocks...
Definition

Vergil, Aeneid, Bk IV, ll. 607-612

 

The massive oak tree, battered in the storm:  a figure of Aeneas.

Term
Trying to lift her heavy eyes, the queen falls back again.  She breathes; the deep wound in her chest is loud and hoarse.  Three times she tied to raise herself and starained, propped on her elbow; and three times she fell back upon the couch.  three times with wandering eyes she tried to find high heaven's light and, when she foun dit sighed.
Definition

Vergil, Aeneid, Bk IV, ll. 948-954.

 

The death of Dido.  It was unexpected, it wasn't fated, so the queen of the Underworld, Proserpina, had not yet cut a lock of Dido's hair and assigned her a place to pass eternity.  She quickly sent the goddess of the rainbow, Iris, flying down on her saffron wings to clip a lock and free the suffering Dido from her body.

Term

twin doves descended there before his eyes...

the rise and wiftly glide along the liquid air; they settle , twins, on their desired treetop.  The gleam of gold was different, flickering across the boughs...

just so the gold leaves seemed against the dark green ilex; so in the gentle wind, the thin gold leaf was crackling.  And at once Aeneas plucks it...

Definition

Vergil, Aeneid, Bk. VI, selected lines from ll. 260-282

 

Aeneas plucks the golden bough from the tree -- it will permit him to pass into the Underworld alive, and return to the world of the living, a living man.

Term
Nearby, spread out on every side, there lie the Fields of Mourning; this, their given name.  And here, concealed by secret paths, are those whom bitter love consumed with brutal waste; a myrtle grove encloses them; their pains remain with then in death.
Definition

Vergil, Aeneid, Bk, VI, ll. 581-586

 

This is where Aeneas finds deceased Dido.

Term
O father, let me hold your right hand fast, do not withdraw from my embrace." His face was wet with weeping as he spoke.  Three times he tried to throw his arms around Anchises' neck; three times the Shade escaped from that vain clasp--like light winds, or most like swift dreams.
Definition

Vergil, Aeneid, Bk. VI, ll. 922-927

 

Aeneas encounters his father in the Underworld.

Term
There are two gates of Sleep:  the one is said to be of horn, through it an easy exit is given to true Shades; the other is made of polished ivory, perfect, glittering, but through that way the Spirits send false dreams into the world above.  And there Anchises, when he is done with words, accompanies the Sibyl and his son together; and he sends them through the gate of ivory.
Definition

Vergil, Aeneid, Bk. VI, ll. 1191-1199

 

Aeneas leaves the underworld through the ivory gates of false dream, doomed to suspect that all he has seen there was a lie.

Term

 

TWO OMENS: 1) ...in an inner courtyard of the palace there stood a laurel tree with sacred leaves, preserved with reverence for many years.  They say that it was found by King Latinus himself, when he built his first fortresses and he had made it holy to Apollo....At that laurel's crown--how strange to tell-- a thick and sudden swarm of bees, borne shrill across the liquid air, had settled; they twined their feet and hung from leafy branches.


2) ...while the virgin Lavinia with pure and fragrant torches kindled the altars, standing by her father, she seemed--too terrible--to catch that fire in her long tresses; all her ornaments were burning in that cracking blaze, and burning, her queenly hair, her crown set off with jewels; then wrapped in smoke and yellow light, she carried her flames throughout the palace.

Definition

Vergil, Aeneid, Book VII, selected from ll. 75-99

 

Aeneas lands in Italy and comes upon the lands of King Latinus, whose daughter Lavinia, he is destined to marry.  Two omens put Latinus on guard: one good omen about bees and another frightening but wonderous, suggesting that Lavinia would bring war to her own people -- is she another Helen?

Term
Across the center of the shield were shown the ships of brass, the strife of Actium...just come from conquering the peoples of the dawn...is Antonius.  He brings with him Egypt and every power of the East and farthest Bactria; and--shamefully-- behind him follows his Egyptian wife...she has not yet looked back at the twin serpents that swim behind her.
Definition

Aeneid, Bk VIII, selected from ll. 874-908

 

This is the new shield that Venus had Vulcan make for Aeneas to replace the armor destroyed by Dido.  The battle of Actium is displayed in the center of the shield -- the decisive battle that brought peace to the Roman Empire.  When Octavian (aka Augustus Caesar) beat Marc Anthony and Cleopatra, they killed themselves with poisonous snakes-- asps-- rather than suffer the humiliation of defeat.

Term
...his left foot pressed upon the body, he ripped off the ponderous belt of Pallas, on which a scene of horror was engraved:  a band of fifty bridegrooms foully slaughtered one wedding night, and bloodied marriage chambers.
Definition

Vergil, Aeneid, Bk. X, ll. 682-86.

 

Turnus kills Pallas, the son of Evander, who was fighting his first battle that day.  Evander had joined Aeneas' forces in his quest to win the hand of Lavinia from Turnus, who had been promised the girl by her mother.

 

50 bloodied brial chambers

Term

Aeneas stood, ferocious in his armor; his eyes were restless, and he stayed his hand [at Turnus's surrender and plea for mercy]; and as he hesitated, Turnus' words began to move him more and more-- until high on the Latin's shoulder he made out the luckless belt of Pallas...from whom he took this fatal sign to wear upon his back...

 

he sinks his sword into the chest of Turnus.  His limbs fall slack with chill; and with a moan his life, resentful, fled to the Shades below.

Definition

Vergil, Aeneid, Bk XII, last lines

 

Aeneas considers mercy as Turnus begs for his life, but upon seeing the belt of Pallas (depicting the 50 slaughtered bridegrooms), Aeneas recalls the wrecked body of the dead boy, and has no mercy for the man who took the boy's life.  With this, Aeneas won the war, and won the hand of Lavinia.

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