IN FOCUS: The Homer Multitext Project
Jan 27th, 2013 by cfilos
Image: Detail from the Venetus A manuscript, showing Iliad 3.1-9. Text at end of post below. urn:cite:hmt:chsimg.VA042RN-0043:0.0712,0.2056,0.49,0.2028
Krissy Birthisel recently came to speak with us about the amazing opportunity to participate in the Homer Multitext Project here at Brandeis. Our student researchers are working with Prof. Leonard Muellner to transcribe, study, and publish the text and scholia found in a medieval manuscript of the Iliad known as the Venetus B.
If you would like to learn more about the Homer Multitext project, please contact Krissy (kabirthi@brandeis.edu), Prof. Muellner (muellner@brandeis.edu) or visit the Homer Multitext blog.
You may also want to read this interview with HMT researcher Stephanie Lindeborg (Holy Cross) and this interview with HMT Editor Mary Ebbott, both posted on the Center for Hellenic Studies blog. For an example of research being published by HMT researchers, see the following posts:
Identifying Aristarchean Commentary in the Venetus A Scholia, by Thomas Arralde, Class of 2013, College of the Holy Cross
Composition of the Venetus A: numbered similes, by Holy Cross student Christine Roughan
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TEXT IN FOCUS
1 Αὐτὰρ ἐπεὶ κόσμηθεν ἅμ᾽ ἡγεμόνεσσιν ἕκαστοι,
2 Τρῶες μὲν κλαγγῇ ἐνοπῇ τ᾽ ᾿ΐσαν ὄρνιθες ὣς ·
3 ἠΰτε περ κλαγγὴ γεράνων πέλει οὐρανόθι πρό·
4 αἵ τ᾽ ἐπεὶ οὖν χειμῶνα φύγον καὶ ἀθέσφατον ὄμβρον
5 κλαγγῇ ταί γε πέτονται ἐπ᾽ ὠκεανοῖο ῥοάων
6 ἀνδράσι Πυγμαίοισι φόνον καὶ κῆρα φέρουσαι·
7 ἠέριαι δ᾽ ἄρα ταί γε κακὴν ἔριδα προφέρονται.
8 οἱ δ’αρ’ΐσαν σιγῇ μένεα πνείοντες Ἀχαιοὶ
9 ἐν θυμῷ μεμαῶτες ἀλεξέμεν ἀλλήλοισιν.
And when each of them was marshaled with their leaders,
the Trojans went with a shriek and a war-cry,
like birds, just as the shriek of cranes arises in the sky,
the ones who, fleeing storm and endless downpour,
fly with a shriek over the streams of Okeanos
bringing slaughter and death to Pygmy men;
high in the air, they provoke dread strife;
but the Achaeans went in silence, infused with might,
eager in their hearts to protect one another.
( Il. 3.1–9, text via Homer Multitext, translation L. Muellner)
For more by Prof. Muellner on this passage and Homeric metaphor in general, read “The Simile of the Cranes and Pygmies: A Study of Homeric Metaphor.”