Take Five: Deconstructing the News
Impromptu responses to the Ukraine crisis, Israel and Iran, the first transgender cabinet secretary, the most recent shooting in Minnesota
Category: Fleming
The Seven: A Digression on Sex
Greeks were not squeamish about discussing sexual matters, though their degree of frankness depended upon circumstance and genre: What could be said in a comedy or put on a vase was not the same as the treatment of sex in tragedy or religious sculpture.
Eteocles and the Women
In their terror, the maidens imagine all the horrors of a city taken by storm, and while the audience would have sympathized with their agitation, Eteocles is right to crack down, but his reaction is extreme, calling them immediately “unendurable” before declaring that neither in good times nor bad would he share a house with womankind.
A Crying Need for Casuistry
A young man in social media has posted a complaint, which has been going around. His girl friend wanted to go out with her female friends to visit a place the man thought unsafe and unsuitable. He made her promise not to go, and the next day he learned she had gone, with the predictable result of rape and battery. How should the boyfriend respond?
The Other Jefferson
A FB friend posted a good quotation from Jefferson about the importance of the family. Since this aroused some mild skepticism, I posted this answer, one that has been strongly influenced by my reading of Jefferson’s own words, the biography by Dumas Malone, and, above all, by the admonitions of my friend Prof. Clyde Wilson. It is a trivial observation and overstated, but perhaps it will help parents of children who are being taught the old Classical Liberal bilge. One way of looking at our third President is to see him as a split personality. There is the typical Enlightened...
Take Five: Squatters’ Rights
In this podcast, free to Silver, Gold, and Charter subscribers, we explore the war being waged by American governments–Federal, State, and Local–against the rights of property owners.
Septem TFF Series Septem, Part I: vv. 1-77
Eteocles’ response to the Scout is extremely puzzling. He calls for divine aid, first from the gods who guard Thebes, and second from the Curse (ara) and the mighty Revenge Fiend (Erinys) of his father Oedipus.
A Modest Response to Joe’s Immodest Proposal
President Biden and his supporters, ever eager to capitalize on human suffering, are once again calling for the disarming of America. The occasion of their renewed animus against the Second Amendment has been two shootings, both misreported in press accounts.
The Seven Against Thebes, II: Mythological Background
Let us turn to the story of the play, which draws upon the same mythological background as Sophocles Theban plays, written a generation later. The Seven is the third play of trilogy, a set of three plays, in this case, as in the Oresteia, forming a coherent and interrelated whole.
The Next “Book”: Aeschylus’ Seven Against Thebes, Part I Introduction
Aeschylus was known for the magnificence of his style and the power of his productions. His language is always challenging in Greek and difficult to render into English. Because of his power and occasional obscurity, he might be compared with Shakespeare, and in magnificence, I sometimes think of Richard Wagner as one of his better imitators, albeit a much shallower writer.
