Ranking difficulty Hymn to Zeus

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Fri Jun 21 19:47:47 EDT 2002


Clay: Inasmuch as it's in the dactylic hexameter and in epic dialect, it's
really pretty much on a level with Homer--or with the Homeric Hymns,
perhaps. It's certainly a lot easier than Hellenistic epic, by which I mean
Apollonius or the idylls of Theocritus. I don't think it's near as
difficult as Sophocles or Aeschylus; it may be more difficult than 1 John,
but I don't think it's any more difficult than the Gospel of Luke. The
thing is that the epic vocabulary is a distinct blend of ancient Aeolic and
Ionic, and that takes getting used to in itself, but if one is already
accustomed to Homer, it shouldn't be even as difficult as Homer.

For those interested it's on-line at:

http://www.fh-augsburg.de/%7Eharsch/graeca/Chronologia/S_ante03/Kleanthes/kle_zeus.html

It's one of a number of ancient Greek texts readable on-line that are
listed at the University of Augsburg site; some of this is in Unicode and
readable (I think) by Windows users but Mac users will need the Arachnion
font, which can be downloaded from the site, in order to read the Greek
text on-line.

At 2:16 PM -0700 6/21/02, c stirling bartholomew wrote:
>I am wondering how some of the middle greeks, people who still have to work
>hard at reading some texts,  would rank the difficulty of Hymn to Zeus by
>Cleanthes.
>
>Where would you rank it in comparison to:
>
>1John
>
>Gospel of Luke
>
>Habakkuk LXX
>
>Zechariah 9-11 LXX
>
>Homer's Iliad
>
>Sophocles - Elektra
>
>Aeschylus - Agamemnon
>
>I have been working on Hymn to Zeus this week in honor of the solstice (nice
>pagan holiday). I don't have any notes to use and have not yet consulted a
>translation. I have one but so far have resisted the temptation to use it.
>
>I would rank it as more difficult than anything in the NT, perhaps on par
>with 2Peter. But perhaps it is just lack of familiarity with the vocabulary
>and the fact that it is poetry.
>
>greetings,
>
>Clay
>
>
>--
>Clayton Stirling Bartholomew
>Three Tree Point
>P.O. Box 255 Seahurst WA 98062
>
>
>
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-- 

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Emeritus)
Most months:: 1647 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu OR cwconrad at ioa.com
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/



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