As I mentioned in an earlier post, the Greek morality and mentality, or mores, are very strange to both the Christian and the American way of thinking. Sometimes this difference amounts to no great significance, such as the lengthy and seemingly unnecessary genealogies in Book 2. Homer spends nearly half the book describing who was at Troy and who their ancestors were. The only other place I can think of this occurring is in the Bible, but the Israelites had very good reason to keep track of genealogy. I really do not understand why he would spend so much time on this and how it could possibly be of interest to the people listening to the poem being sung.
Another, much more striking difference is exhibited in the description of a battle scene.
The Trojans and Achaeans had struck a temporary truce and had sworn to Zeus that they would not fight or kill each other. During this lull, some Trojan took it upon himself to shoot Menelaus. This was an act of treachery and deceit and it broke an oath to the highest god. However, the Achaean response is [26.1] "Some Trojan or Lycean archer has wounded him with an arrow to our dismay and his own great glory."
Apparently glory has nothing to do with honor, piety or justice. It would be like saying that John Wilkes Booth has great glory. Infamy, yes; glory, no. I wonder if Homeric Greek has a word for infamy or if there is simply no distinction between good and bad fame.
Do you know anything about whether biblical Greek has a similar word?
ReplyDeleteDo you happen to know the particular word used for "glory" there? I always think of doxa, but there has to be more than one word for "glory" classically and biblically. The Liddell & Scott I liberated from Jody says:
ReplyDeletedoxa -h (dokew):
I. 1 a notion, opinion 2 a sentiment, judfment: esp. a philosophic opinion 3 mere opinion, as opp. to knowledge 4 a fancy, vision
II. 1. the opninion others have of one, on's reputation: good report, credit, honour 2 glory, splendour
The root word is dokew: to teach. When I teach of your deeds I could extol your honor or your shame, but I'm still sharing a notion, report, opinion about you. It's a thought.
I don't actually have the Greek Illiad, so I'm not sure on the word used.
ReplyDeleteAs far as doxa goes - I learned from Holmes that it meant opinion and when we got to Koine she told us it usually meant glory and pretty much for the reasons you gave, Keaton. It came to have the idea of your opinion of God, which would obviously be glorious (it is mostly used in Koine to refer to God's doxa). So, Joy, I'm not sure, but I think that Koine only has the one word for glory as well.