Hello I'm Helen McVeigh and I teach
classical Greek. So why ancient Greek?
Well I love it,
and it's actually very difficult for me
to pinpoint the reason why I love it.
Firstly it's a puzzle to be solved and
that's fun in itself, but more than that
there is a great satisfaction to be gained
from translating a piece of ancient text.
This might be a speech from Euripides,
poetry by Sappho, a dialogue of
Plato, a parable from the New Testament
or some lines of Homer. Lastly and
perhaps most importantly, consider the
wealth of literature which originates in
ancient Greece: epics, poetry, history,
rhetoric, philosophy, and so much more.
Seriously what's not to like about
ancient Greek?! As an undergraduate I read
Homer's Odyssey book 9 and this is the
book in which Odysseus tells the
Phaeacians about his visit to the island
of the Cyclopes. The most famous Cyclops - 
these one-eyed giants - is Polyphemus who,
we hear, is completely uncivilized.
He drinks undiluted wine, he doesn't
honour the gods and, worst of all, he ate
Odysseus's men. Now as gory and
stomach-churning as this is, I loved reading the
part where the Greeks get Polyphemus
drunk. And when he passes out they heat
the staff in the fire and, working
together, they stab the Cyclops in his
one eye and the sound of the Cyclops'
eye burning as Odysseus and his men
drive a staff into it, and the picture
of the scene in my mind becomes so vivid
when reading the Greek and pausing on
each word to make sure you have the
correct definition and looking carefully
at noun and verb endings. Maybe it's
the child in me that loves this
episode so much. I paraphrased the story
to my daughter when she was younger and
she loved hearing it, but then children
do love the most grisly stories! Not all
of the stories that you might choose to
read in ancient Greek and in translation
are grisly but if you decide to read
Greek tragedy - and why wouldn't you?
They are wonderful works of art and by their very nature they're
going to be sad stories and it's
unlikely the characters will live
happily ever after.
Well there are many many plays
which have not survived to the
present day. We are lucky to have a number
of plays by the three Greek tragedians
Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides, and
the mythological material the
playwrights used overlaps. One of the
most well known tragedies is Sophocles
Oedipus the King/Oedipus Rex/Oedipus Tyrannos
and by the end of that play - and I
hope I'm not spoiling the plot for
anyone! - his wife / mother Jocasta has
committed suicide and Oedipus has
blinded himself. Indeed Euripides also
wrote an "Oedipus" but in the extant
fragments it seems that Oedipus was
blinded before he discovered he was
Laius' son and Jocasta's son and Jocasta,
instead of committing suicide, accompanies Oedipus into exile. So what's
interesting about ancient Greek
tragedies is that the audience was
familiar with the story
they were about to see but what they
didn't know was how the tragedian would
use the myth to create the drama.
In this video I wanted to introduce myself
and tell you a little bit about why I
love ancient Greek. If you're
interested in learning some ancient
Greek please do contact me. Even if
you're a complete beginner please don't
be put off by the alphabet because
believe it or not you already know half
of the letters! And it doesn't matter
where you are in the world. By the wonder
of technology, we can do this together
online. I'd love to hear from you!
