When I was a teenager, my dad moved into a small house out in the country. It wasn’t much of a house. A single-story concrete-block house in Gandy's Cove. The kind of house you could pass a hundred times without ever wondering who lived there. Not long after he moved in, one of the neighbors … Continue reading The House That Homer Built
Tag: Classical Tradition
Arete and the Meaning of Excellence
The Greek word arete is often translated as “virtue,” though I have never been fully satisfied with the equivalence. Virtue, as we tend to use the term, carries a moral tone and sometimes a certain stillness, as if it were something one might possess and set aside. Arete, at least as I understand it, seems less settled. It … Continue reading Arete and the Meaning of Excellence
Borrowed Armor
I recently finished Stephen Fry’s retelling of the Trojan War1, and as often happens with old stories, one episode lingered longer than the rest. It is the moment when Patroclus puts on Achilles’ armor. Achilles, in a fit of pride and grievance, has withdrawn from the fighting. Without him, the Greeks begin to lose ground. … Continue reading Borrowed Armor
