Classic Books Store
The Greek Myths, Volumes I and II (The Folio Society Slipcased Edition)
RRP:
Our Price:
You Save: $ ( % )
Manufacturer: The Folio Society
Author: Robert Graves
Publisher: The Folio Society
Average Customer Rating:
Our Price:
You Save: $ ( % )
Manufacturer: The Folio Society
Author: Robert Graves
Publisher: The Folio Society
Average Customer Rating:
Experimental feature: Order The Greek Myths, Volumes I and II (The Folio Society Slipcased Edition) from the UK, Canada, Germany or France by clicking an appropriate flag below.
Some items available at Amazon.com are not available in all countries.
Some items available at Amazon.com are not available in all countries.
The Greek Myths, Volumes I and II (The Folio Society Slipcased Edition) Description
Binding: Hardcover
Label: The Folio Society
Manufacturer: The Folio Society
Book Pages: 700
Publication Date: 2000
Publisher: The Folio Society
Studio: The Folio Society
Label: The Folio Society
Manufacturer: The Folio Society
Book Pages: 700
Publication Date: 2000
Publisher: The Folio Society
Studio: The Folio Society
Editorial Review of The Greek Myths, Volumes I and II (The Folio Society Slipcased Edition)
Set in Eberhardt with Lithos display at The Folio Society. Printed by Grafos, S.A., Barcelona, on Caxton Wove paper and bound by them in quarter buckram with paper sides with a design by Grahame Baker. Interior illustrations by Grahame Baker. Maps by Denys Baker. Slipcased.
The Greek Myths was first published in 1955 by Penguin Books, and was reprinted with amendments in 1957. An edition revised by Robert Graves was published in 1960, also by Penguin Books. The text of this edition follows that of the 1960 edition, except for the deletion of Graves's source notes.
Customer Reviews of The Greek Myths, Volumes I and II (The Folio Society Slipcased Edition)
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: 'WHO WAS THAT OTHER ONE?'
Review: The number of characters in the Greek myths is so huge that students complained of memory-strain in classical antiquity itself. The quotation in my caption is from no less a literary figure than Juvenal. What I value Graves's collection for is that it is so handy and readable. It reminds me who was who, and I'm not inclined to assess it as any kind of academic production. Graves is a diligent dilettante, getting his learning mainly at second hand but with his own slant too. For proper academic comment on the individual myths we need to go to proper academic sources, and we should treat a great many of them with reserve too, I say from experience. When it comes to the labyrinthine maze of anthropology, where the experts are themselves at odds, a little learning is an especially dangerous thing, and all we should expect from Graves is rough guidance.
The first volume is inevitably rather disjointed. The second takes us on to more familiar territory, largely devoted to Hercules. It leads on naturally from there to the Argonauts, and unless
by now you just want an embargo
placed upon the good ship Argo
you should find a more fluent narrative, taking us on to the fall of Troy and the wanderings of Odysseus. Graves ends with a coy reference to his coy novel Homer's Daughter, and as both that book and his index here commit him to the traditional but wildly unlikely belief that its heroine's name Nausicaa means `burner of ships' I should advise that in the matter of the meaning of names Graves is out of his depth. So for that matter is Liddell and Scott's lexicon, and so are most classical editions I can remember.
The ancients loved trying to explain names, their attempts are largely shots in the dark, and matters have advanced little since except among specialists, as the subject is thought dull. However the issue is important. Languages develop word-formations, and names derived from words, by processes that are entirely systematic. Sometimes the meaning of names and descriptions is clear and obvious, e.g. Oedipus = swollen-feet and Creon = prince. However in many cases apparent resemblances between words, even very close resemblances, lead us astray. The processes of early word-formation are often disguised by later sound-shifts and/or by spelling, which I shall illustrate by just two examples at * below. Graves has the sense not to believe that `am&zon' means lacking a breast and the sense (or luck) to doubt one traditional derivation of Ariadne. However he swallows uncritically the ancient `derivation' of Virbius as `man twice', which is impossible, and I wonder who told him that medusa, which is just the feminine of `medon' meaning lord, means `cunning'. He does not explicitly endorse the Homeric description of Zeus `terpikeraunos', (which means `hurler of thunderbolts'), as `rejoicing in thunderbolts', but as that is in Liddell and Scott I doubt he doubted it, and it makes for a good clear example. My other example is his own dear Nausicaa, which means `excelling in ships'.
*
It helps to know that the Indo-European languages are pervaded by `vowel-gradation'. This is an alternation of o and e, and familiar in English from, say, foot/feet, loan/lend, steal/stole, know/knew etc. Sometimes different languages show different grades of the same root, e.g. English for-get/German ver-gess. There is also a third grade, the zero grade with no vowel, and in kn-ow/kn-ew not only the suffix (-ow/-ew) is graded, so is the stem, where English has the zero grade kn- and German the e-grade `ken-` in the verb `kennen'.
When Jupiter hurls his thunderbolts (`keraunos' is the Greek) in Latin poetry, the verb used is `torquet' (or its compound `intorquet'). This shows the o-grade of the IE root `torkw-/terkw-`, whereas Homer's Zeus has the e-grade in terkw-i-keraunos. The `-kw-` sound is kept pure in Latin, but changed to p in Greek in a way subject to systematic rules, giving `terpikeraunos'. However the Greek verb for rejoicing is `terpomai', and that has sent many scholars on their way rejoicing in a mistaken derivation.
Now poor Nausicaa. Split the name into its components as follows
(1)Naw-s -(2)i--(3)ka?--(4)a(or -e in Homer)
1 is the word for `ship', with the zero grade (`-s') of the suffix. 2 is the thematic vowel, a linking-sound between syllables, 4 is the feminine termination. What's 3? Graves and others think it is from the verb `to burn'. The IE root of that is `kawy-` or `kayw-`, with two sonants w and y. Most Greek dialects, including the Homeric dialect, drop one or other sonant: none, so far as I recall, drops both, which is what this derivation would require. There is another root `kas-`, however, which we find in the name Epikaste, the Odyssey's version of Jocasta, and that name means `surpassing'. We find it also in the Attic verb `to excel', which is in origin `kas-numai', but disguised by a later sound-shift into `kainumai'. Now take Naw-s--i--kas--a. Greek loses an inherited s between vowels, so that becomes Nawsikaa, and there we have it. (The spelling Nausikaa helps the confusion, because the spelling does not distinguish the vowel u from the sonant w). However it should not need this rigmarole to tell anyone that Sicilian royalty were not going to affront the gods by calling their princess 'burner of ships'. Common sense ought to help.
The handsome Folio Society edition, with helpful maps, was sent to me as an inducement to buy more. I am grateful but not induced, and it is doubtless ungracious of me to say that I am agin editions of this type, which seem intended for people who use books to impress the neighbours. In whatever format, this is a sort of work of reference for me. I can recommend it from that point of view, but remember when you read it that it is not to be read as any kind of oracle.
Review Summary: 'WHO WAS THAT OTHER ONE?'
Review: The number of characters in the Greek myths is so huge that students complained of memory-strain in classical antiquity itself. The quotation in my caption is from no less a literary figure than Juvenal. What I value Graves's collection for is that it is so handy and readable. It reminds me who was who, and I'm not inclined to assess it as any kind of academic production. Graves is a diligent dilettante, getting his learning mainly at second hand but with his own slant too. For proper academic comment on the individual myths we need to go to proper academic sources, and we should treat a great many of them with reserve too, I say from experience. When it comes to the labyrinthine maze of anthropology, where the experts are themselves at odds, a little learning is an especially dangerous thing, and all we should expect from Graves is rough guidance.
The first volume is inevitably rather disjointed. The second takes us on to more familiar territory, largely devoted to Hercules. It leads on naturally from there to the Argonauts, and unless
by now you just want an embargo
placed upon the good ship Argo
you should find a more fluent narrative, taking us on to the fall of Troy and the wanderings of Odysseus. Graves ends with a coy reference to his coy novel Homer's Daughter, and as both that book and his index here commit him to the traditional but wildly unlikely belief that its heroine's name Nausicaa means `burner of ships' I should advise that in the matter of the meaning of names Graves is out of his depth. So for that matter is Liddell and Scott's lexicon, and so are most classical editions I can remember.
The ancients loved trying to explain names, their attempts are largely shots in the dark, and matters have advanced little since except among specialists, as the subject is thought dull. However the issue is important. Languages develop word-formations, and names derived from words, by processes that are entirely systematic. Sometimes the meaning of names and descriptions is clear and obvious, e.g. Oedipus = swollen-feet and Creon = prince. However in many cases apparent resemblances between words, even very close resemblances, lead us astray. The processes of early word-formation are often disguised by later sound-shifts and/or by spelling, which I shall illustrate by just two examples at * below. Graves has the sense not to believe that `am&zon' means lacking a breast and the sense (or luck) to doubt one traditional derivation of Ariadne. However he swallows uncritically the ancient `derivation' of Virbius as `man twice', which is impossible, and I wonder who told him that medusa, which is just the feminine of `medon' meaning lord, means `cunning'. He does not explicitly endorse the Homeric description of Zeus `terpikeraunos', (which means `hurler of thunderbolts'), as `rejoicing in thunderbolts', but as that is in Liddell and Scott I doubt he doubted it, and it makes for a good clear example. My other example is his own dear Nausicaa, which means `excelling in ships'.
*
It helps to know that the Indo-European languages are pervaded by `vowel-gradation'. This is an alternation of o and e, and familiar in English from, say, foot/feet, loan/lend, steal/stole, know/knew etc. Sometimes different languages show different grades of the same root, e.g. English for-get/German ver-gess. There is also a third grade, the zero grade with no vowel, and in kn-ow/kn-ew not only the suffix (-ow/-ew) is graded, so is the stem, where English has the zero grade kn- and German the e-grade `ken-` in the verb `kennen'.
When Jupiter hurls his thunderbolts (`keraunos' is the Greek) in Latin poetry, the verb used is `torquet' (or its compound `intorquet'). This shows the o-grade of the IE root `torkw-/terkw-`, whereas Homer's Zeus has the e-grade in terkw-i-keraunos. The `-kw-` sound is kept pure in Latin, but changed to p in Greek in a way subject to systematic rules, giving `terpikeraunos'. However the Greek verb for rejoicing is `terpomai', and that has sent many scholars on their way rejoicing in a mistaken derivation.
Now poor Nausicaa. Split the name into its components as follows
(1)Naw-s -(2)i--(3)ka?--(4)a(or -e in Homer)
1 is the word for `ship', with the zero grade (`-s') of the suffix. 2 is the thematic vowel, a linking-sound between syllables, 4 is the feminine termination. What's 3? Graves and others think it is from the verb `to burn'. The IE root of that is `kawy-` or `kayw-`, with two sonants w and y. Most Greek dialects, including the Homeric dialect, drop one or other sonant: none, so far as I recall, drops both, which is what this derivation would require. There is another root `kas-`, however, which we find in the name Epikaste, the Odyssey's version of Jocasta, and that name means `surpassing'. We find it also in the Attic verb `to excel', which is in origin `kas-numai', but disguised by a later sound-shift into `kainumai'. Now take Naw-s--i--kas--a. Greek loses an inherited s between vowels, so that becomes Nawsikaa, and there we have it. (The spelling Nausikaa helps the confusion, because the spelling does not distinguish the vowel u from the sonant w). However it should not need this rigmarole to tell anyone that Sicilian royalty were not going to affront the gods by calling their princess 'burner of ships'. Common sense ought to help.
The handsome Folio Society edition, with helpful maps, was sent to me as an inducement to buy more. I am grateful but not induced, and it is doubtless ungracious of me to say that I am agin editions of this type, which seem intended for people who use books to impress the neighbours. In whatever format, this is a sort of work of reference for me. I can recommend it from that point of view, but remember when you read it that it is not to be read as any kind of oracle.