
Eros at Play - pepys
https://aeon.co/essays/how-ancient-poetry-can-revitalise-our-erotic-imaginations
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jazzyjackson
The internet works in mysterious ways, I just discovered Sappho's poetry for
myself yesterday - here's 2 opposing performances of the same poem, [1] a
recreation of the ancient greek and lyre, and [2] a well done english
translation with electronic gesture-controlled harmonization (of Imogen Heap
fame). It's really been dragging me into wanting to learn more about ancient
people -- how little has changed !

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOlIqozu3Fg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOlIqozu3Fg)

[2]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ks19HI3r2yQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ks19HI3r2yQ)

(Translation side note, a few of the translations I've seen take "χλωροτέρα δὲ
ποίας ἔμμι" to mean "I'm greener than the grass", whereas [2] skillfully
places the meaning as "I'm paler than the grass drying", next line is "yes it
seems I am dying", does anyone know why this would be a common mistake?

All I know is χλωρο is "Chloro" as in Chlorophyll !)

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cafard
It seems to me that Ronald Knox's _On Englishing the Bible_ remarks that the
"pale horse" of Revelations is "chloros" in the Greek.

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jazzyjackson
Oh very interesting, thanks for the tip

It seems this may be related to that wine-dark sea of homeric greek, I'm
seeing some references that Chloros is also used to describe the color of
honey ! a pale yellow, so that chloros might be more about brightness than
hue.

Another aeon article goes into detail... [https://aeon.co/essays/can-we-hope-
to-understand-how-the-gre...](https://aeon.co/essays/can-we-hope-to-
understand-how-the-greeks-saw-their-world)

thanks again

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body12
It's amusing that now the (to me, fairly natural) "strangely
gratifying...withholding of details and delaying of pleasure" is portrayed as
"[casting] off the imaginative constraints of mass culture", when the general
story has been that treating sex like shaking hands or sharing a cigarette is
itself the breaking of old-fashioned constraints. The circle of life, I
suppose.

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0x8BADF00D
Opening graphic is NSFW, btw.

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teach
Thanks for the heads-up. I work in an open-floor-plan office, and dozens of
people might be able to see my screen at any random instant. This includes men
and women and some from other countries and with different cultural
backgrounds.

_Probably_ nobody would have seen it on my screen and _probably_ nobody would
have given it a second thought if they had, but I prefer not to make people
uncomfortable!

