Seoul Hero

Euripides’ Hecabe is the darkest of his plays that I have read so far. The play begins with the ghost of Polydorus, son of Priam and Hecabe, recounting his murder by his host, Polymestor, the king of the Thracians. Shortly after, Hecabe is visited by a dream warning her of the impending death [...]

As mentioned many times in my previous notes on “Homer’s” Odyssey, the foil for the virtuous Penelope is the vile Clytemnestra, who killed her hapless husband, Agamemnon, with her lover, Aegisthus. Euripides’ Electra picks up the story of the offspring of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, Orestes and Electra before Orestes rescues his other sister [...]

To write a truly proper “final thoughts” on any literary work, I would first want to read it again. Given my limited time and energy, I’m not able to do that at the moment. Nevertheless, a few thoughts stand out.
While much of the epic seemed preoccupied with hospitality, especially the first part, [...]

Books 23 and 24 touchingly tell, respectively, the stories of the reuniting of Odysseus with his wife and father.
Odysseus meets Penelope, who does not recognize him, the loyal woman having first been brought to him after she disbelieved the report by an old loyal nurse. He brings up the subject of Odysseus, and Penelope, [...]

This is the third and last of my commentaries today on the book of Genesis.
Chapter 3 continues the story began in 2:4.
Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat [...]

This post follows on the preceding post, in which I commented on Genesis 1. Genesis 2, of course, doesn’t actually begin in chapter two verse 1, and it’s unfortunate that the chapter divisions (which were made long after the text of the book was written and edited together), begin so badly so quickly.
2:4 These [...]

My friend Kevin of the Big Hominid’s Hairy Chasms blog and I met just after Christmas, when we discussed many things, including the earliest chapters of the book of Genesis. His current post inspired me to put my own commentary on the internet, something I’ve been wanting to do for a long time, not [...]