Wish The Piraeus Archaeological Museum Had A Public Catalog But Hey Everyone Check Out This C. 420-410

the telemachus-menelaus-helen scene in the odyssey is frankly insane btw like the fact that menelaus is trying as hard as he can to be subtle about telemachus’ presumably dead father before helen bursts into the room and is like hey guys probably shouldn’t say this but I knew your dead dad lmfao!!!! and everyone starts crying. so she drugs everyone at the table to make them stop before talking in WAY too much detail about the time she bathed and nursed odysseus back to health in front of not only her husband but odysseus’ son and then menelaus starts talking equally extendedly about how helen tried to get them killed in the war and like their stories are mentioning odysseus but clearly there is some unresolved baggage going on between them from the trojan war and telemachus just has to sit there silently until they finish at which point he IMMEDIATELY excuses himself and says they all need to sleep. homer was crazy for that

ClassicsTober Day 5: Chiron

Everyone you raised.

Staff Pick of the Week

My staff pick is The Life and Death of Jason, a Metrical Romance by William Morris with decorations by Maxwell Armfield. This edition was published by Dodd, Mead and Company in New York in 1917.

William Morris was born on March 24, 1834 in Walthamstow, near London, England. He was known for being a being a leader in the Arts & Crafts movement, a socialist activist, and for founding the Kelmscott Press in 1891 which helped kick start the contemporary fine-press movement. Morris was also a poet and author, and his poem The Life and Death of Jason was first published in 1867. It chronicles the exploits of the Greek mythological hero Jason, leader of the Argonauts, and his quest for the Golden Fleece. Morris was a follower of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, and worked closely with the artist Edward Burne-Jones who illustrated several Kelmscott Press books, including the 1895 edition of The Life and Death of Jason.

I chose this 1917 edition of The Life and Death of Jason, printed 21 years after the death of William Morris in 1896, because of Maxwell Armfield’s wonderful illustrations. Maxwell Armfield was a British artist and writer who was trained in Arts and Crafts principles. I first came across Armfield’s Jason early in my time at Special Collections when I worked as undergraduate assistant shelving books in the department. Now several years later and much wiser about William Morris’s lasting legacy, I really see the connection of this book has with earlier editions even though it is aesthetically very different. This is made clear in Maxwell Armfield’s “Note on the Drawings” which precedes the text:

“In the case of an epic, one feels, I think, that the important quality of the décor should be unity not so much with the ideas of the text as with the book as book, and unity also within itself.

This point of view must consider the embellishment not so much as illustration proceeding from the text as a continuation of the binding and page purposing to present the text to the eye; or as commentary on certain aspects of the matter not necessarily touched on at all by the author.”

This holistic approach to book design is very much in line with Morris’s principles, even if the illustrations are more modern in appearance than the Kelmscott Press’s medievalist aesthetic.

For an even deeper dive into Maxwell Armfield’s artistic interpretation of The Life and Death of Jason, I recommend the article: Illustrating Morris:The Work of ]essie King and Maxwell Armfield by Rosie Miles published for the Journal of William Morris Studies in 2004.

View more posts about William Morris.

–Sarah, Special Collections Graduate Intern

i WISH more people knew about age of bronze, it's literally the 'historically accurate' comprehensive and GAY adaptation of the trojan war all the accuracy warriors are clamoring for

it's a comic series written and drawn entirely by Eric Shanower, started in 1998 with those exact parameters

historically situated in the Mycenaean/Hittite cultures

drawing from nearly every text on the war from Homer to Shakespeare

explicit about the possibility that achilles+patroclus may have been meant as lovers. Shanower is gay himself, and found it important to depict them as such all the way back in 1998.

it can be read here in part or here completely (🏴‍☠️), but i also highly recommend supporting the artist, since this is a multi-decade passion project.

I told you I found it on a dead man

only you.

watch out for this vase with young-looking hot Menelaus holding Diomedes, to prevent him from killing Achilles (who murdered Thersites who was Diomedes' cousin)

Meanwhile Agamemnon is depicted as older hot papa, very angry at Achilles like "kid, can you stop killing people and work on your anger issues???" - not like Mycenaean daddy could join him for the anger stuff...

and Phoenix like "not this angry kid killing people again" and Achilles giving zero f 🍆cks.

homophrosyne

just. john the apostle. john the beloved. john the youngest. john who rests his head on jesus' shoulders while he speaks. john who stayed with the women during the passion & wasnt ashamed of sharing their pain. john who got to the empty tomb before anyone else. john the patron saint of love & friendship & loyalty & writers & poets. my good friend john

love this vase art of achilles by the achilles painter because it's got it all. the gorgoneion. the cunty little hand on the hip with the half-lidded eyes expression. the sheer fabric tunic with fancy draping and visible dick and balls. incredible work all around