Exodus 20:2

First Commandment.

Monothesism.

... 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. 

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.

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!

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.

... 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.

Aeneid, Book 2, ll. 671-679

The death of Priam, King of Troy

Let there be light; and there was light.

Genesis 3:4

The serpent's words to Eve.

Genesis 1: 26

(the sixth day)

How godlike are human beings?

check out Genesis 4:15,

the story of Cain and Able

Genesis 15:5

God's covenant with Abraham

Genesis 22:7

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

...but what happened?

Plato, The Apology of Socrates, p. 44

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

Plato, The Apology of Socrates, p. 44

How can Socrates be both ignorant and wise?

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?

Plato, The Apology of Socrates, p. 70

the last words of Socrates.

 (according to Plato)

...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."

Plato, The Apology of Socrates, p. 66

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

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.

Sophocles, Antigone, p. 124

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

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

Tiresias rails at Creon.

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.

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!

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!

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

Creon vows that Antigone will not best him.

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

if this victory goes to her and she goes free

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

A little gender warfare between Creon and Antigone.

Banish the man, or pay back blood with blood.

Murder sets the plague storm on the city.

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

Creon informs Oedipus what the oracle of Apollo demands.

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?

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.

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).

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.

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.

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.

Exodus 19:18-19

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

A volcanic erruption?!

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...

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

Lacocoön's warning.

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...

Vergil, Aeneid, Bk II ll.282-302

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

...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...

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

The rape of Cassandra.

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.

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?!

"...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."

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...

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

Aeneas' thoughts about killing the cowering Helen.

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...

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)

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.

"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."

Aeneid, Bk. IV, ll. 131-138

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

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...

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.

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."

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.

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

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

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.

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...

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.

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

This is where Aeneas finds deceased Dido.

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

Aeneas encounters his father in the Underworld.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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

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.

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.