A Collection of Greek Mythology

The Muses, to inspire you in everything you do

Greek mythology is one of those things that everybody knows everything about, yet no one knows anything about. Most people can recall that Zeus is the god of lightning, but not which woman he slept with to spawn Hercules. Or they remember the Achilles’ Heel, Achilles fatal weakness in the battle of Troy, without actually knowing that it wasn’t in the original myth. I know some of the stories, but until I started to research for this blog, I didn’t realize how much I didn’t know. There are so many stories written down by authors of the past, ranging from Greek writers to Roman poets, that it’s hard to discern what is real and what isn’t. Yet, at the same time, nothing can ever definitively be called ‘real’ when it comes to ancient sources. After all, none of us know what happened thousands of years ago. We just take our best shot at guessing with the resources we have available. So, some people take liberties in describing the gods or explaining away divine intervention in hero stories.

Publius Papinius Statius

For this collection, I wanted to find some of the more obscure myths, as well as the popular ones. Greek mythology is one of my passions and I want more people to read it and understand that it wasn’t just some far away people doing things completely different from us. These people in myths had lives and loves and heartaches and pain and we all can identify with that. The book I’m most delighted to have found is by Statius, a Roman poet. It’s comprised of four parts: the ‘Orthographia’, or Latin-Greek dictionary; the ‘Thebaid’, the Silver Age epic story, about the battle at Thebes between Eteocles and Polyneices; the ‘Silvae’, a collection of shorter miscellaneous poems; and portions of the ‘Achilleid’, an unfinished epic about Achilles. I’ve always had a soft spot for Achilles, as I believe him to be a very tragic character, brought down by his own pride.

Most of these books were found online, on antique booksellers’ websites. The art and artifacts come from various museums. I’d like to imagine that I’ll be rich enough to afford all these things, but for now, I will content myself with observing them online.

This collection could be expanded upon exponentially. If a person just takes one of the books and tries to find every copy of that book, by every translator, in every medium known to man, they will easily find 10 or more books, just based around one story. It was hard for me to settle on one edition of each book I found. Normally, I just chose the most expensive or best-looking. (Hey, it’s imaginary, why not imagine I’m rich?)

That being said, I hope you enjoy this collection of Greek mythology. Salvete!

Bibliography:

Books:

Allix, Susan. Myth: Myths of the Greeks selected from accounts by Hesiod, Homer, Apollodorus, Ovid and others. [London:] 2011 One of twenty-eight copies. Signed by Susan Allix. Full leather with inlaid black and red goatskin and white calfskin, and an onlaid soft-ground etching of a woman printed onto white goatskin. Titled in random red letters on the spine, with hand-colored red and black endpapers. In red cloth clamshell slipcase with leather label.. 13 1/4″ x 11.” . With thirty-five prints which include etching, block print, lino, photography, and digitally reproduced drawings. Printed letterpress in 18 pt. Bell, with a hand-cut metal title, on mould-made Somerset paper. As new. Accounts of the Greek Myths are combined with an interpretive series of portraits—not of ancient Greek heads but of people who characterize and might live in the stories. Divided into five chapters, the book’s focus is sometimes on the lesser known myths, and the portraits represent a selection made from several hundred visual notes and drawings.

Euripedes. Three Plays of Euripedes: Medea, Hippolytus, and the Bacchae.London: Limited Editions Club, 1967. Small quarto (8-1/2″ x 12-1/4″) bound in natural canvas-backed boards covered with a terra-cotta hand-made Italian paper; 240 pages. Translated by Philip Vellacott with an introduction and notes by him. Designed by Will Carter and printed at the Curwen Press. Illustrated with sixteen full-page monochrome wash drawings by Michael Ayrton reproduced in gravure. Copy #461 of 1500 SIGNED by the artist on the colophon page. Monthly Letter laid in. Fine in glassine and a Fine slipcase.

Euripedes. The Bacchae. Dionysus, the God. Euripedes. The Bacchae. Dionysus, the God. Kentfield, CA: Allen Press, 1972. Copy #11 of 130 copies. Folio. Thre color etchings by Michele Forgeois based on classical mythology, each numbered and signed. Text ornamented with Greek letters, in varying colors. Wooden boards in olive green cloth backed with gilt black strip. A striking publication, entirely hand crafted. Slipcase very slightly worn, else very fine.

 

 

Fagles, Robert. The Odyssey. New York: Penguin Classics, 1997: Owned by me, reprint edition, includes extra information such as genealogies and maps of Homer’s world

 

 

 

Farleigh, John (illustrator). Aeschylus: Prometheus Bound/ Shelley: Prometheus Unbound. Haarlem:: Limited Editions Club,, 1965.. Hardcover. 161 pp. Prometheus Bound Translated by Rex Warner. With a Preface by Rex Warner and many drawings by John Farleigh. NEWMAN & WICHE 370. Limited edition, copy 200 of 1500.

Fenelon, Francois. The Adventures of Telemachus, the Son of Ulysses. In 24 Books. Written by the Archbishop of Cambray. To Which is Added the Adventures of Aristonous. London: Printed for W. Meadows, C. Hitch and L. Hawes…, 1759. 2 volumes. 360 + 304 pages. With folding engraved map and 24 engraved plates. Twelvemo (6 2/3 x 4 inches); contemporary calf, leather labels; lightly rubbed. Curiously volume one calls this the “Sixteenth Edition” while volume two calls it the “Seventeenth Edition.” Both have the same imprint and are in matching binding. Originally published by Fenelon in 1699, this famous retelling of the Greek myth proved the authors undoing as the King of France took its content as a hidden criticism. There have been many editions and translations.

Hesiod. The Works of Hesiod: Translated from Greek. London:: John Wilson for John Wood and Ch[arles] Woodward,, 1740.. Contemp calf, gilt rules, title gilt,edges speckled red,hinges cracked.. Engraved frontis. by N.Parr after bust in Pembroke Museum.. 8vo.. Second edition. By his translations from the classics Cooke (1703-1756) achieved a wider and deserved reputation. In 1728 he translated ÔHesiod,Õ and his early patron, the Earl of Pembroke, and Theobald contributed notes. This book gave him his popular nickname of Hesiod Cooke.

Homer. The Iliad. The Odyssey. Boston and New York:  Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1905. Eight volumes. Full contemporary crushed full blue morocco, raised bands, spines and boards extra gilt, gilt dentelles, marbled endpapers, top edges gilt, otherwise uncut; one of 600 copies of the large paper edition (#66), with 88 engraved plates, the majority on Japon and the remaining 16 comprising two frontispieces in two states, including one state with beautiful hand coloring.

Musaeus. Opusculum de Herone. Venice; in aedibus Aldi et Andreae soceri, 1517. 8vo. ff. 80. Mostly Greek, some Italic letter, woodcut anchor and dolphin device to t-p and verso of last, 2 õ page framed woodcuts depicting Leander crossing the Hellespont to spend the night with Hero, and Hero casting herself from her tower when seeing her nocturnal lover dead on the beach at dawn, contemp. Greek marginalium commenting on the distance between the two places at head. bviii and fii torn at blank lower corners. A very good copy in 17th C mottled sheep, spine gilt, red morocco label, unusual block-patterned endpapers, bookplate of T.Kimball Brooker to front pastedown, his inkstamp to fly. A.e.b. First post-incunable edition of Musaeus, containing the most remarkable illustrations in any of the productions of Aldus Manutius.

Rhodius, Apollonius. Argonautica, or the Quest of Jason for the Golden Fleece. Athens: Limited Editions Club, 1957. Folio (9-3/8″ x 12-3/4″) bound in light gray Greek linen divided into panels with a drawing of the Argo in the central panel. Translated by Edward Coleridge with an introduction by Moses Hadas. Printed on paper made in Greece with illustrations by A. Tassos based on ancient Greek models. Copy #325 of 1500 SIGNED by the artist on the colophon page. Mild sunning to the spine. Near Fine in a Near Fine slipcase.

Ritsos, Yannis. Persephone. Verona: Ampersand, 1990. Edition of 80. 28 x 35 cm (11 x 13.8″0; 37 pages. Printed on an 1854 Stanhope handpress by Alessandro Zanella. Text in Modern Greek and English on facing pages. Printed on dampened Cortiere Milani paper in Antigone and Lutetia types. English translation by Nikos Stangos. With two woodcuts and a screenprint on the front and back covers by Joe Tilson. Bound in illustrated hardcovers. Enclosed in a slipcase covered with yellow papers.

Statius, Publius Papinius. Orthographia et flexus dictionum; Sylvarum libri quinque, Thebaidos libri duodecim, Achilleidos duo. FIRST ALDINE EDITION, Aldine device at end of ‘Orthographia’, lightly washed leaving just a few faint spots, a library punch-stamp to first leaf unobtrusively repaired, ff. [296], 8vo., modern dark brown calf, boards panelled in blind, backstrip with five raised bands, red morocco label in second compartment, a.e.g., very good The first Aldine edition of the poems of Statius, complete with the section of Greek-Latin glossary titled ‘Orthographia’. This is the first post-incunable edition of Statius, following a number of printings of his shorter poems in the 1470s and three printings of his works in the 1480-90s. This copy was formerly in the John Crerar Library, established by the American industrialist and now part of the University of Chicago.

The Poppy and the Pomegranate. Leicester: Grange Fibre. 1962. small 8vo, quarter vellum, decorated paper covered boards. unpaginated. The Story of DEMETER AND PERSEPHONE or the Origin of the Seasons. Account from Greek mythology. Full color cover design and two-tone illustrations by RIgby Graham. Introductory note.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Art:

The Zeus or Poseidon of Artemision. The statue represents Zeus or Poseidon brandishing the lightning bolt/trident with his raised right hand. It is an original work of a great sculptor, possibly of Kalamis. It was raised from the sea in the 1920′s, off the cape Artemision, in north Euboea. Dated to ca. 460 B.C. National Archaeological Museum of Athens.

Aphrodite, often represented half nude, or Amphitrite, goddess of the sea, venerated on the island of Melos. The style is characteristic of the late Hellenistic period, which revives classical themes while innovating. Thus the slipping drapery on the hips entails a closed stance and introduces an instancy to the figure. It hides the joint between the two blocks of marble that were sculpted separately, as were the left arm and leg, according to an utterly new technique.
Dated to the 2th century B.C., Musee de Louvre, Paris, France.

“Laocoon group” This sculptural grouping is dated to 100 B.C. and it was one of the major discoveries of the Italian Renaissance; it was found in Rome in 1506 in the ruins of Titus’ palace. It depicts an event in Vergil’s Aenied (Book 2). The Trojan priest Laocoon and his sons were strangled by sea snakes, sent by the gods who favored the Greeks, while he was sacrificing at the altar of Poseidon. Because Laocoon had tried to warn the Trojan citizens of the danger of bringing in the wooden horse (Trojan horse), he incurred the wrath of the gods. The sculpture is currently exhibited at the Vatican Museum in Rome.

Achilles was the son of the mortal Peleus and the Nereid Thetis. He was the mightiest of the Greeks who fought in the Trojan War, and was the hero of Homer’s Iliad. The statue captures exactly Achilles’ anguish of death, who has just been wounded by the lethal arrow.The original sculpture is located in the Achilleion Residence of the 19th century Queen Elizabeth (Sissy) of Austria in Corfu, Greece. Made of fine white alabaster stone.

Aryballos, ca 570 B.C., black figure. Greek, Attic. Signed by Nearchos as potter. Around the lip: pygmies fighting cranes. On top: two tritons. On the end: Hermes and Perseus. Metropolitan Museum.

http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/1989.281.62

Kylix, ca 540-530 B.C., black figure. Attributed to the Amasis Painter. Greek, Attic. Terracotta. Obverse: Poseidon among Greek warriors. Reverse: stables of Poseidon. Metropolitan Museum.

http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/1989.281.62

Statuette of Nike, late 5th century B.C. Terracotta. Greek, Classical. Metropolitan Museum.

http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/07.286.23

Lekythos (oil flask) depicting Poseidon pursuing Amymone, ca 440 BC, red figure. Greek, Attic. Terracotta. Attributed to the Phiale Painter. Metropolitan Museum.

http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/17.230.35

Digitizing the Past

When the Iliad and Odyssey were first written down by scribes, many people of the time probably wondered how mere written words could capture the humanity behind the story, the humanity that is easier conveyed through verbal tellings. Now, people are wondering the same about digitizing the classics, if placing the story online will somehow take away from its beauty. It’s not just the story people are worried about however.

The Venetus A is the oldest known manuscript of Homer’s Iliad and it contains a summary of the rest of the books in the Greek Epic Cycle, most of which are now lost. Until recently, only very few people had ever seen the Venetus A, however, as it was under lock and key in the Marciana Library in Venice. If too many people handled the manuscript, it would fall apart and be lost to everybody forever. Yet, some believed it wasn’t fair that almost no one was allowed to see this beautiful manuscript. To that end, a team of classicists and scientists underwent a project to digitize the Venetus A by taking high-resolution pictures of the manuscript and posting them online for all to see.

A page of the Venetus A

It’s not just the ancient manuscripts that are getting digitized, however. Newer books and papers are getting such treatment, like the draft of Alexander Pope’s Shield of Achilles, found in his version of the Iliad. I, for one, approve of this digitizing. Thanks to this class, I know about the beauty of a book and how much work had to go into creating one, but it would have been years from now before I could go to Venice to even have a hope of seeing the Venetus A. Now, I can observe its beauty from the comfort of my dorm.

Draft of Pope's Iliad

Digital storytelling of the Iliad and Odyssey: http://iliadodyssey.com/

Digital text of the Iliad and Odyssey, Greek/English: http://digital.library.northwestern.edu/homer/

The Lost Knowledge

When you think of a great library or a museum, perhaps you think of the Library of Congress or the Smithsonian. I, however, think of the Library of Alexandria, which served both as a library and was in service to the Musaeum, or House of Muses from which we get ‘museum’.

sketch of the Library of Alexandria

The Library of Alexandria was said to initially be organized by Demetrius of Phaleron, a student of Aristotle, under the reign of Ptolemy Soter in the third century BC. It was said to be built in the style of Aristotle’s Lyceum, adjacent to the Musaeum. It contained a peripatos walk, gardens, a room for shared dining, a reading room, lecture halls, and meeting rooms. There was a hall, called bibliothekai, which contained shelves for the collection of scrolls, which numbered between 400,000 and 700,000 at it’s peak.

Recreation of the Great Hall of the library

The library was charged with collecting all of the world’s knowledge. To that end, scholars employed by the library searched wherever they could to find texts. A royal policy decreed that books were to be pulled off ships when they came into harbor. The books would be rushed to scribes for copying, then the originals would go to the library with the copies being sent back to the ship.

It was destroyed by a fire,though when is still up for debate. Four possible theories to the destruction have been presented: 1) Julius Caesar burned it down in the Alexandrian War, 48 BC; 2) attack of the Aurelian, 270-275 AD; 3) decree of Coptic Pope Theophilus, 391 AD; or 4) Muslim conquest, 642 AD.

In October of 2002, Egypt inaugurated their new Bibliotheca Alexandrina, built near the site of the ancient library. It is a trilingual library, hosting books in Arabic, English, and French.

Bibliotheca Alexandrina

 

Edible Book Festival

Thanks to this class, I’ve been introduced to an amazing culinary festival known as the celebration of edible books. I was lucky to get a chance to make my own edible book, and since for the past semester I’ve been living and breathing Homer, I decided to recreate the journey Odysseus went through in Homer’s Odyssey.

It started with, like any good project, a little research. I figured out what monsters Odysseus encountered on his journey and then narrowed the selection down to the six most well-known. Then, I had to figure out what I wanted to make the book out of. I am not a culinary genius by any stretch of the imagination, so it had to be something that I could easily create in the kitchen of my dormitory. The answer: cake.

I choose a white cake and tinted it blue with food coloring to represent the ocean. Then, I tinted the icing blue as well, to give it more color and to hold the monsters to the cake. The monsters and what I used to represent them are as follows:

Cyclops: a marshmallow eye, with pink icing for the veins and blue icing for the iris.

Circe: an animal cracker covered in white chocolate and pink sprinkles to make a pig, since Circe turned all the men into pigs

Scylla: three gummy worms melted together to make a six-headed monster

Charybdis: figs, to represent the fig tree Odysseus clung to to escape the cyclone

Sirens: a bumblebee made out of yellow Fruit Roll-up and chocolate, since the men plugged their ears with beeswax to escape their song

Calypso: a chocolate heart, to represent how she kept Odysseus as her lover for 7 years

I had a so much fun working on this cake!

My edible book, Homer's Odyssey

Ex Libris Martina Wilkinson

I think I want to start collecting bookplates now. There are so many and they are all so gorgeous, it’s hard to decide which one is my favorite from all that I’ve looked at. I love the bookplate of Minerva leaning on her spear from the Winterthur library because I have a love of Greek/Roman literature like the Iliad and Odyssey. On the other hand, the one from the University of British Columbia with books and a globe gathered in front of a picture frame that shows a castle is beautiful for the depth and detail that went into the design. It’s hard to choose just one.

Minerva bookplate from Winterthur library collection

Bookplate from University of British Columbia collection

There are several styles of bookplates. The types that were most common when my baby was published were the Early Armorial style (1680-1715) and the Jacobean Armorial style (1715-1745). The Early Armorial style was used around the end of the 17th century, when bookplates were being actively promoted to the nobility and gentry. The workshops seem to have prepared blanks containing just the shield and mantling, ready for the addition of arms, crest and motto.

Early Armorial style bookplate

The Jacobean Armorial style had frames with a symmetrical cartouche ornamented with scrolls and swags. It also had fishscales or brickwork as the background to the arms.

Jacobean Armorial bookplate

Most bookplates were used for two reasons: as a mark of ownership and way to ensure books were returned, and as a way to record the gift of the volume to some individual or institution. An inscription from an early German bookplate reads:

“By him who bought me for his own,

I’m lent for reading leaf by leaf;

If honest, you’ll return the loan,

If you retain me you’re a thief.”

 

A rough idea of what I would want my bookplate to look like, with the Shield of Achilles from the Iliad

http://bookplatejunkie.blogspot.com/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/yalelawlibrary/sets/72157627945791222/

Not a Collection in the Usual Sense

This is not a collection in the usual sense. I was not interested in a single author, period, or subject. When I buy a book, I buy what I want to read and make it part of my library. These are books that I cherish as part of my own literary and scientific interests.-Abel E. Berland

The first edition set of the Iliad and the Odyssey, found at Bauman Books, was ‘almost certainly’ bound for the Bicton Library of Lord Rolle, resided in the Loveday Library from 1739 to 1953, and then moved to the collection of Abel E. Berland.

Abel Berland was born in 1915 and died in 2010. He was an avid book collector and member of the Caxton Club. His library was composed of four general collections: 15th century incunabula, English literature, landmark scientific texts, and the works of William Shakespeare. The earliest document is a hand-drafted manscript on vellum of the Magna Charta, dating from the first quarter to the first half of the 14th century. The library contains 63 incunabula and many first editions and rare books, including the Four Folios of Shakespeare.

Bookplate for Abel Berland

The Loveday Library was started by John Loveday (1711-1789) and his son John Loveday the second (1742-1809). The elder Loveday began collecting as a student at Brasenose College and never stopped. The library contained 6000-7000 volumes, rich in theology and classics. The classics texts mainly came from the library of James Merrick, poet and scholar. Merrick was sickly and could not travel often to Oxford College and the library, so Loveday allowed him full access to the Loveday Library at Caversham. In gratitude, he bequeathed his books to Loveday for the library.

Bicton estate came to the Rolles through the marriage of Sir Henry Rolle of Stevenstone to Anne, daughter of Sir Thomas Dennis. They built a fine library on the estate.

Bicton Estate

Abel Berland Rare Book Auction

Printing in 1898

This isn’t my official blog post for the week, but I wanted to tell everybody about something interesting I found. I went to COSI this weekend and one of the exhibits was called Progress. It featured a town in 1898 with a butcher, printing shop, etc; then, that same town in 1962, with a diner, TV station, etc. A friend of mine took a few pictures of the printing shop, which had a printing press and cabinets for paper, types, and books.

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