The Portable Greek Reader

by Auden, W. H.

• ISBN13: 9780140150391
• ISBN10: 0140150390
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1977-08-25
• Publisher: Penguin Books

Summary

It is commonplace to say that our civilization is built on the ruins of Greece. W. H. Auden's splendid anthology locates the truth behind the truism, while filling in the gaps in our knowledge of a people who gave us so much of our cultural legacy. Every page in The Portable Greek Reader contains some fundamental precursor of the ways in which we think about heroism, destiny, love, politics, tragedy, science, virtue, and thought itself, Included are excerpts from the mythologies of Hesiod; the martial epics of Homer; the dramas of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides; the philosophy of Plato, Aristotle, and Heraclitus; Aesop's fables; poems by Pindar and Sappho; the scientific writings of Euclid, Galen, and Hippocrates; and the history of Thucydides. Presented in their most elegant and authoritative translations, and accompanied by Auden's brilliant introduction, these selections recreate the Greek world in all its splendor, strangeness, and sophistication. "Engaging and full and intelligent ... a command performance, brought off with considerable aplomb." - The New York Times

Author Biography

W.H. Auden was born in 1907 and went to Oxford University, where he became Professor of Poetry from 1956 to 1960. After the publication of his Poems in 1930, he became the acknowledged leader of the 'thirties poets'. His poetic output was prolific, and he also wrote verse plays in collaboration with Christopher Isherwood, with whom he visited china. In 1946 he became a U.S. citizen. He died in 1973.

Table of Contents

Editor's Introduction	1	(38)
Chronological Outline of Classical Greek Civilization	39	(13)
PART ONE. COSMOGONIES AND COSMOLOGIES
The Creation [From Theogony]	52	(3)
Hesiod
H. G. Evelyn-White
The Five Ages [From Works and Days]	55	(3)
Hesiod
H. G. Evelyn-White
Prometheus [From Theogony]	58	(4)
Hesiod
H. G. Evelyn-White
Zeus [From Oedipus Tyrannus]	62	(2)
Sophocles
Robert M. Whitelaw
Dionysus [From The Bacchae]	64	(2)
Euripides
Gilbert Murray
The Earth Mother	66	(1)
Homeric Hymn
P. B. Shelley
Minor Deities	67	(1)
Archias
Anyte
J. W. Mackail
The True God [Fragments]	68	(1)
Xenophanes
John Burnet
The Word [Fragments]	69	(8)
Heraclitus
John Burnet
The Real [Fragments]	77	(3)
Parmenides
John Burnet
Love and Strife [Fragments]	80	(3)
Empedocles
John Burnet
God and the World Timaeus	83	(95)
Plato
Benjamin Jowett
The First Cause [From Metaphysics]	178	(24)
Aristotle
W. D. Ross
PART TWO. THE HERO
The Epic Hero The Death of Hector [From The Iliad]	202	(40)
Homer
Alexander Pope
The Book of the Dead [From The Odyssey]	221	(21)
Homer
E.V. Rieu
The Patriot Two Epitaphs	242	(1)
Simonides
J. W. Mackail
The Athlete Two Odes Pythia 10	243	(131)
Pindar
Richmond Lattimore
Nemea 6	246	(3)
The Tragic Hero A Trilogy: The Oresteia
Aeschylus
George Thomson
Agamemnon	249	(53)
Choephoroe	302	(37)
Eumenides	339	(35)
The Great Man [From Nicomachean Ethics]	374	(6)
Aristotle
W. D. Ross
The Happy Man [From Nicomachean Ethics]	380	(8)
Aristotle
W. D. Ross
The Philosophic Hero [From Phaedo]	388	(5)
Plato
Benjamin Jowett
The Engineer Archimedes [From Book of Histories]	393	(3)
Tzetzes
Ivor Thomas
PART THREE. NATURE
Physics
The First Science [From Metaphysics]	396	(10)
Aristotle
W. D. Ross
Nature [From Physics]	406	(25)
Aristotle
R. P. Hardie
R. K. Gaye
Mathematics Number and Proportion [From Elements]	431	(4)
Euclid
Ivor Thomas
Measurement of the Earth [From On the Circular Motion of the Heavenly Bodies]	435	(3)
Cleomedes
Ivor Thomas
Medicine on Airs, Waters, and Places	438	(27)
Hippocrates
Francis Adams
Growth [From On the Natural Faculties]	465	(5)
Galen
Arthur John Brock
PART FOUR. MAN
Ethics
Man [From Antigone]	470	(1)
Sophocles
D. Fitts
R. Fitzgerald
Human Imperfection	471	(1)
Simonides
Gilbert Highet
Self-Love [From Nicomachean Ethics]	472	(4)
Aristotle
W. D. Ross
Nature and Culture	476	(1)
Antiphon
R. Webster
Self-Control [From The Manual]	477	(9)
Epictetus
P. E. Matheson
Love [From Antigone]	486	(1)
Sophocles
D. Fitts, R. Fitzgerald
Eros [From Symposium]	487	(12)
Plato
Benjamin Jowett
Literary Forms
Lyric	499	(1)
Alcaeus
C. M. Bowra
Lyric	500	(1)
Anacreon
T. F. Higham
Lyric	501	(1)
Meleager
J. W. Mackail
Lyric	501	(2)
Sappho
Walter Headlam
E. M. Cox
Epitaph	503	(1)
Simonides
Callimachus
Palladas
J. W. Mackail
Pastoral Idyll II: The Sorceress	504	(9)
Theocritus
R. C. Trevelyan
Fable The Owl and the Birds	513	(2)
Aesop
The Man and the Satyr	514	(1)
The Goods and the Ills	514	(1)
Character Studies Tactlessness	515	(2)
Theophrastus
J. M. Edmonds
Superstitiousness	516	(1)
Biography [From Lives of the Sophists] Polemo	517	(17)
Philostratus
Wilmer Cave Wright
Hermogenes	530	(4)
PART FIVE. SOCIETY
Types of States [From Politics]	534	(11)
Aristotle
W. D. Ross
The Just Society [From Laws]	545	(14)
Plato
Benjamin Jowett
Public Education [From Laws]	559	(19)
Plato
Benjamin Jowett
Utopia The Birds	578	(61)
Aristophanes
Plato in Sicily [From Epistle VII]	639	(17)
Plato
The Sicilian Expedition [From Peloponnesian War]	656
Thucydides
Benjamin Jowett