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English
Fall 1976
Odysseus Meets Tiresias (After Seferis)
Kostas Myrsiades
West Chester University of Pennsylvania, [email protected]
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Myrsiades, K. (1976). Odysseus Meets Tiresias (After Seferis). College Literature, 3(3), 179. Retrieved from
http://digitalcommons.wcupa.edu/eng_facpub/21
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PITY AND POETIC JUSTICE IN THE ILIAD 179
4
5
p. 23.
case of
Fyfe,
The
the bad man
a plot
"such
fy because
neither
qualities,
poetic
man
who moves
good
not
does
6
consider,
at
the end
would
For
some
reason
but
shocks
our
arouse
"it does
7
tency
Andre
York:
was
due
is the
earlier
all
negate
Aristotle
says
feelings"
pity and
effects
thought
of pity
of
this plot
13.2), when
{Poet.
fear,
he
but
the
and
it seems
our
shocks
of
quali
the
requisite
case of the
The
Aristotle
which
alleviation
of misfortune
fear.
arouse
not
it "does
that
not
does
passes
least
because
possibly
that
feelings."
he
have
this
Perhaps
or pity,
fear
should
said,
inconsis
to carelessness.
Homer,
Michalopoulos,
Twayne
to good
from bad
fortune
none
of all, having
tragic
nor pity nor fear" {Poet.
13.3-4).
justice
from bad to good
fortune
is the one case
who
Publishers,
World
Twayne's
Inc.,
1966),
pp.
Authors
Series,
No.
4
(New
71-72.
8 All quotations of the Iliad in this essay are from the translation of Richmond
Lattimore (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1951).
9
H.
J. Rose,
Britain:
A Handbook
Jarrold
&
Sons,
of Greek
Literature,
1965),
19, n.16.
p.
4th
ed.
(1951;
rpt. Norwich,
ODYSSEUS MEETS TIRESIAS
(After Seferis)
Kostas Myrsiades
below
the setting of the sun
anchored
the
of
cape
past
dogs that howl,
the
other
life beyond
the statues.
seeking
We
On the dark side of the sun
we dug our votive pit
and there the murky blood gushed
ewes.
from slashed and bleating
Slowly,
slowly they came,
thin and thirsty rustling forms
to drink of the somber blood.
And I with drawn sword crouched
to keep from the gurgling pit
the driving aparitions
until the old man came.
I knew the dark prince of Thebes
staff
by his golden
as his faint image bent toward the blood and
lies ahead on the godly sea,"
"Anguish
our
souls became
entwined with the oars
and
spoke,
and
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