E. Guerra-Pujol*

I.  Introduction

My home institution awarded me a sabbatical for the fall term of 2024. To make the best use of my time, I enrolled in Dr. Scott Rubarth’s graduate-level, semester-long Classics course at Rollins College in Orlando, Florida.[1] Among the many immortal works I read in Professor Rubarth’s Greek and Roman literature survey course, my favorites were Homer’s Iliad, Hesiod’s Works and Days, Plato’s Apology, and Ovid’s Metamorphoses. I present new interpretations of these four classics below.

II. In Defense of Thersites

Achilles and Patroclus. Hector and Sarpedon. The Iliad is full of memorable warriors and celebrated heroes on both sides of the Trojan War who fight to the death in man-to-man combat. But what are we to make of Thersites, the only “common man” (Willcock 1976, 20) to grace Homer’s great epic? The standard interpretation is to write him off as a weakling or coward. After all, he urges his fellow comrades-in-arms to stop fighting and return to their homes (2.225-242), and he is described as “the most repellant man” in the Achaean army, “a dragger of feet, lame in one leg” with “humped-over shoulders” and a pointy head to boot (2.217-219). To add insult to these physical deformities, Homer doesn’t even bother to mention the name of Thersites’ father. I, however, will present a more flattering picture of this peculiar figure, deformed though he may be. Although Homer is too great a poet-artist to tell us point blank whether war is good or bad, if one reads the Iliad as a critique of war, then Thersites—not Achilles—is the unsuspecting hero of this Trojan War chronicle!

For starters, what is the worst thing about Thersites? Is it his physical deformity? His willingness to call it quits? Or his failure to show his commanding officer King Agamemnon any deference when he confronts him? Alas, all these possibilities pale in comparison to Achilles, who commits the most “shocking deed” (22.395) of the entire Iliad, “the most outrageous and unholy of actions, more suitable … for barbarians than for Greeks” (Kucewicz 2016, 425). To the point, after avenging the death of Patroclus by slaying Hector, Achilles desecrates the corpse of his slain adversary by mounting the dead man’s ankles to his chariot and dragging the body through the dirt (22.395-404; see also Pietro Testa, “Achilles Dragging the Body of Hector” in the Appendix). By contrast, the worst one can say about Thersites is that he is ugly and insolent and refuses to fight.

But that said, Thersites is not the only Greek warrior to question King Agamemnon’s authority or lay down his spear (2.225-242). In fact, it is none other than Achilles—not Thersites—who first declares his decision to return home (1.169-171) as well as his intention to defy military orders (1.293-303). Now, it is true that Achilles’ refusal to fight is not motivated by fear or cowardice but rather because he feels slighted by his commander Agamemnon for taking away his most cherished war prize, lovely Briseis, but if one reads the text of the Iliad closely, one will notice that the actual timing of Achilles’s decision is amiss. Specifically, it is only after Achilles has announced his intention to abandon the battlefield and return home (1.169-171) that Agamemnon, in reprisal, decides to take Briseis for himself (1.180-187). So, why does Achilles first decide to sit out the rest of the war? Because Agamemnon had threatened to take away a yet-to-be-named prize from one of three specific men inside his camp: Ajax or Odysseus or Achilles (1.135-140). Which member of this martial triumvirate would be the unlucky one, and what thing of value would he have to relinquish? Agamemnon leaves those questions open: “We shall consider these things later” (1.140). 

Worse yet, Achilles’ initial decision to lay low is not only based on pure emotion—his profuse anger at the mere possibility of being slighted by his commander—it is also rash and premature, since he feels insulted that Agamemnon would even consider taking something away from him. Thersites’ refusal to fight, by contrast, is based on principle. Instead of making an emotional appeal, he presents a well-reasoned, compelling, and logical argument for calling it quits. First off, he points out that Agamemnon has already accumulated more than enough treasures from his military exploits thus far: “Your huts are full of bronze, many choice women are within your shelter …” (2.226-227) Next, he rightfully questions Agamemnon’s leadership skills, calling his commander out for “dishonor[ing] Achilles, a man far better than him.” (2.239) Why should Thersites or any other Greek warrior, for that matter, fight for such a bad leader who would stoop so low? But most importantly, when Thersites delivers his short anti-war speech Achilles had already announced that he was sitting out the rest of the war. Simply put, if Achilles has decided to lay down his own spear, why should the rest of the Achaeans continue fighting? Thersites may be ugly and deformed, but his is the voice of reason.

The best piece of evidence in favor of my thesis, however—the notion that Thersites is an unsung hero of the Iliad—resides precisely in his physical ugliness and lowly station. Simply put, the only man among the Achaeans who is brave enough to float the idea of packing up and returning home en masse and to openly question the wisdom of continuing a futile war is none other than Thersites. That he is the most repellant, ugly, and incoherent man on the Greek side to make the case against war should not detract from the substance of his argument. To argue otherwise is to commit the ad hominem fallacy.

III. The Fable of the Birds

One of the earliest recorded fables in the Western literary canon, if not the first,[2] is the fable of the hawk and the nightingale in Hesiod’s 8th-century (B.C.) poem Works and Days.[3] But what is the moral of Hesiod’s beautiful bird fable? Does the hawk, for example, represent the corrupt public officials of Hesiod’s day, the all-powerful god Zeus, or Hesiod’s spendthrift brother Perses? Although all these readings are plausible, I will present an alternative interpretation. In short, the fable dramatizes the timeless tension between vita brevis on the one hand and ars longa on the other—i.e. the perpetual battle of all aspiring poets between making a living and producing great works of lasting art.

For starters, some scholars have read the fable as “a rousing warning against the dangers of tyranny.”[4] After all, the little songbird is “clutched in [the] claws” of her captor (line 205), totally subject to the hawk’s arbitrary whim: “You’ll go where I decide” (line 209); “I’ll have you for a meal, or let you go” (line 211). On this political reading of Hesiod’s fable, the nightingale represents the plight of the common man and the hawk stands for corrupt public officials who prey on their subjects by taking bribes or ruling by force, while the moral is that one must remain ever-vigilant, keeping an eye out overhead to avoid the nightingale’s fate. But this interpretation of Hesiod’s bird tale is wrong on its face, for the fable is addressed to the hawks of the world, not the nightingales—the ancient poet himself begins the fable by telling us he is addressing a group of powerful men, “lords who understand” (line 203).[5]

In the alternative, a possible clue as to the fable’s true meaning may be found in its particular placement or location within the overall text of Works and Days, for the fable immediately follows Hesiod’s description of the fifth age of man, the age of iron (lines 176-202), where the ancient poet tells us that “Zeus will destroy this race of mortal men” (line 184). Some scholars thus read the fable as an allegory for divine justice.[6] On this reading of the fable, the hawk is “far-seeing Zeus” (line 176), while the metaphorical nightingale are the corrupt public officials “who judge dishonestly and swallow bribes” (line 220) and who will be punished by Zeus in the end.[7] This interpretation, though plausible, is ultimately untenable because it equates the will of Zeus (divine justice) with the iron-age principle “might makes right.” Yet it would be more accurate to say that Zeus punishes wrongdoers because he is just, not because he is all-powerful. The hawk, by contrast, devours his prey because he needs a meal.

Yet another possible interpretation of the fable is that Hesiod himself is the nightingale, while his brother Perses, to whom Works and Days is addressed, is the hawk.[8] Hesiod not only refers to Perses by name immediately after recounting his fable;[9] the brothers themselves had been embroiled in a real-life dispute (lines 37-44): although they had agreed to split their inheritance in half (line 39), Perses had “grabbed the larger part” (line 40) of the estate by bribing the “lords” who heard their case.[10] On this anthropomorphic view of the fable, Hesiod’s act of composing his poem is like the nightingale’s song or “minstrel’s lovely voice” (line 210) and Perses’ act of gaming the legal system to his advantage is like the hawk swooping down and clutching its prey. Alas, this reading is off the mark, for it is Hesiod, the ostensible nightingale—not Perses, the would-be hawk—who is prospering on his farm because of his hard work and daily toil.

What if, however, Hesiod’s ancient fable were read as a proto-Stoic allegory on the shortness of life? On this reading, the fable represents the eternal conflict between the necessity of meeting the fleeting demands of everyday life (e.g. the day-to-day toil of farming or making a living more generally) and the noble aspiration of producing great works of lasting art (e.g. composing an epic poem like Homer’s Iliad or, for that matter, Hesiod’s Works and Days). This interpretation of the fable, though unorthodox, makes both literary and logical sense. Works and Days begins with an invocation to the Muses calling on them to sing of their father Zeus (lines 1-11), so the nightingale, with her “minstrel’s lovely voice” (line 210), may represent the “Pierian Muses” (line 1) who inspire would-be poets to create timeless works of art, while the hawk represents the fleeting sands of time. Like the little nightingale in the clutches of the hawk, the poet-artist is at the mercy of his ultimate captor—his mortality. He has but a limited lifespan to make his mark on the world.

Moreover, my Stoic interpretation of Hesiod’s bird fable best fits the biographical facts of the ancient poet’s own life. By all accounts, Hesiod was a promising poet in his youth—so talented that he had won a tripod at a festival once—but had to go back to farming after his brother cheated him of part of his inheritance.[11] Although the daily toil of the farmer’s life almost kept him from perfecting his poetic craft,[12] Hesiod still found the time to compose his Works and Days and make his mark on the world. Simply put, the lesson of the fable of the nightingale and the hawk is this: we cannot escape our mortality; our time to shine is fleeting, for no one knows when the hawk of death will swoop one away. In the meantime, one can spend one’s days either making a living or striving to create great art like a Homer or a Hesiod.

IV. Aristophanes versus Socrates

Plato’s Apology is supposed to be the actual courtroom oration that Socrates delivered during his ill-fated trial, which took place in classical Athens in 399 B.C.[13] According to the conventional scholarly wisdom, the “obvious intent” of Plato’s transcription of Socrates’ speech is to “vindicate the Master.”[14] But what if the opposite were true? What if Plato wanted to present a much less flattering picture of his philosopher-mentor on purpose? Specifically, what if Socrates’ legendary oration is really no defense at all, but rather an admission in open court that the Athenian gadfly is indeed guilty as charged? In the remainder of this essay, I will explain why the Socrates of Plato’s Apology is almost indistinguishable from the sophistic and impious Socrates of Aristophanes’ comedy The Clouds.

In summary, Socrates’ defense speech can be broadly divided into three parts. First is an introduction (17a to 19a) in which Socrates identifies two different groups of accusers. Next is the middle part of his oration (19b to 28a), where Socrates responds to the substance of the charges against him. Lastly, Socrates concludes his oration with an eloquent defense of philosophy as a way of life (28b to 35d). Here, however, I will focus on the middle part of Socrates’ courtroom oration, where he defends himself against two different groups of accusers: (i) “those who have accused me recently” (18d), i.e. prosecutors like Meletus, who brought formal charges against Socrates—namely, “corrupting the young” (24c) and impiety or “not believ[ing] in the gods at all” (26e)—and (ii) his original critics of “old” (18d), like the popular poet Aristophanes, who decades before Socrates was put on trial painted a scathing sophistic portrait of the Greek philosopher-gadfly in his comedy The Clouds.[15]

First off, from a purely legal perspective Socrates’ defense speech goes off the rails right from the start, for instead of focusing on the actual charges against him (i.e. the two formal allegations set forth in Meletus’ affidavit), Socrates introduces an additional set of informal accusations that he must now defend against as well—namely, those popularized by Aristophanes in his comedy The Clouds. Socrates himself perfectly sums up the informal charges against him thus: “he [Socrates] busies himself studying things in the sky and below the earth; he makes the worse into the stronger argument, and he teaches these same things to others” (19b/c), precisely the things he is shown doing in The Clouds, which famously begins with Socrates high in the sky “look[ing] down upon the gods from [a] basket,” while his students are bent over and studying the ground, and ends with Pheidippides employing the Socratic method to justify his beating up his father Strepsiades. These informal allegations are not only difficult to dismiss out of hand—for how does one defend oneself against a parody?—; Socrates even seems to concede that there must be some truth to the informal charges against him when he paraphrases his accusers by saying, “‘all these rumors and talk would not have arisen unless you did something other than most people’” (20d).[16] Put another way, where there’s smoke, there’s fire.

So, why then does Socrates bring these old allegations against him into his speech? From a purely legal perspective, this move makes little sense. Instead, the sheer audacity of Socrates’ seemingly counterproductive defense strategy only makes sense if, in fact, Socrates is taunting the jurors to find him guilty. This ironic reading of the Apology is all the more plausible when one considers that, in the process of defending himself against Aristophanes, Socrates ends up creating a sophistic caricature of himself that could easily have been mistaken for one of the comedic scenes from The Clouds! Specifically, Socrates tells the jurors that the old rumors against him originated when his late friend Chairephon visited the oracle at Delphi and asked the priestess “if any man was wiser than [Socrates], and the Pythian replied that no one is wiser” (21a). Had Socrates rested his defense here, he might have been exonerated, for how could any pious Athenian juror find Socrates guilty of impiety by himself committing a sacrilegious and impious act? After all, is not the oracle a prophecy coming directly from the gods?[17]

Alas, Socrates does not rest his case here. Instead, he tries to prove his innocence in a most roundabout and peculiar way—specifically, by showing that he is indeed the wisest man of all only because he realizes that he is not wise at all, that whatever wisdom he may have is, in fact, “worthless” (23b). Worse yet, in the process of presenting this paradoxical argument to the jury, Socrates painstakingly describes how he “proceeded systematically” (21e) to corroborate the accuracy of the Delphic oracle by carefully questioning the men of Athens’ three learned professions: the politicians, the poets, and the craftsmen (22-23), i.e. the types of men most likely to be sitting in judgment of Socrates on the jury. But instead of appealing to their mercy or to the godlike authority of the oracle, he “talks down” to them, for according to Socrates, all the men he questioned fell into the same intellectual trap: in brief, because of the prior success they already happened to enjoy in their respective fields they wrongly “[think] themselves very wise men in other respects” (22c), “which they were not,” Socrates adds for good measure (ibid.). In other words, Socrates not only antagonizes his learned Athenian interlocutors; he makes them look foolish!

Yet Socrates does not stop there. By his own voluntary admission, he also tells the jury that he extended his Socratic questioning to anyone he came across: “I go around seeking out anyone, citizen or stranger, whom I think wise” (23b). And to make matters worse, Socrates then informs the jury that he has been so busy with his oracular investigations that he is unable to meet his public duties to the polis or even take care of his own welfare: “Because of this occupation, I do not have the leisure to engage in public affairs to any extent, nor indeed to look after my own, but I live in great poverty because of my service to the god” (23b). Simply put, Socrates has the chutzpah to argue that he should get a pass, that his status as philosopher should make him exempt from his public and private duties. Instead of trying to elicit the sympathy of the jurors with his plight, Socrates appears to be taunting them!

Lastly, it is worth noting that Socrates’ systematic campaign to corroborate the oracle by probing the relative levels of wisdom of his contemporaries is not just an annoying or pedantic sideshow. It is also, ironically enough, a gross act of impiety in and of itself! After all, the oracle has already adjudged Socrates to be the wisest man of all. Why should anyone who believes in the gods question such an authoritative pronouncement from the most famous oracle of all? On the contrary, Socrates’ self-described efforts to corroborate the oracle smack of open irreligiosity, especially given the oracle’s godlike quality and origins. By subjecting the oracle to systematic or rational investigation, Socrates, in both word and deed, is guilty of at least one of the crimes or wrongs he has been charged with, that of impiety.

What about the charge of corrupting the young, an accusation made by all of Socrates’ accusers? To the point, this charge can be read as being directed not just against Socrates but also against the man seated in the courtroom gallery who transcribed Socrates’ courtroom oration, Plato. He was, after all, Socrates’ student and intellectual disciple. As such, rather than deny the charge, perhaps Plato wants to embrace it. More broadly speaking, perhaps Plato wants to turn the tables on Socrates’ accusers, for they are not just condemning a single individual but an entire way of life. If applying rational methods to the pronouncements of the oracle is a wrongful act—if the practice of philosophy is a crime—then Socrates the teacher and Plato the student are both guilty as charged!

V. Ajax’s Rebuttal

Who truly deserves to inherit the shield and armor of Achilles: Ajax or Ulysses? I want to revisit this great debate, one of my favorite parts of Ovid’s Metamorphoses (XIII, 1-652),[18] by presenting a short rebuttal to Ulysses on Ajax’s behalf. Ajax deserves an opportunity to present a reply because Ulysses’ argument takes up twice as much space and time as Ajax’s. Compare, for example, the number of lines of verse it takes Ajax to present his initial case (193 lines in all) with that of Ulysses, whose argument spans over 400 lines of verse in total.[19] Ajax deserves some rebuttal time for another reason as well. By all accounts, Ulysses has a well-deserved reputation for his cunning and craftiness; or in the words of the late great Achilles himself, Ulysses is the kind of man “who hides one thought in his mind, but speaks another.” (Iliad, IX, 313) Therefore, to avoid the risk of being swayed by faulty or fallacious arguments—and to reduce the risk of rewarding the wrong party—we should hear Ajax out one more time before deciding on the merits of this case. Rest assured, however, I will not re-litigate the merits of Ajax’s claim. Instead, I will point out a fatal flaw or logical fallacy in Ulysses’ argument. In summary, although Ulysses is an eloquent debater, he confuses correlation with causation time and time again. This fundamental fallacy not only undermines Ulysses’ entire argument; it also shows why Ajax should have been declared the rightful winner of the debate.

To begin with the most egregious example of Ulysses’ fallacious reasoning, consider his shameless attempt to take credit for the Greek victory at Troy. (XIII, 547-57) If Ulysses’ argument is to be believed, it was he who single-handedly won the Trojan war by sneaking into Troy late at night and stealing a statue of the goddess Minerva from a Trojan temple: “On that night I ensured our victory against the Trojans. On that very night I conquered their citadels, for my theft made such a conquest possible.” (XIII, 570-74) Put aside the fact that Ulysses did not accomplish this feat alone—Ulysses himself concedes that “Diomedes shares all he does with me” (XIII, 401)—his argument is still fallacious because he confuses correlation with causation. Even assuming for the sake of argument that the theft of the statue was a necessary condition for the Greek victory at Troy, it was not a sufficient condition for this outcome. King Agamemnon still had to sacrifice his daughter, Achilles had to slay Hector, the Trojan horse had to be built and equipped, etc., before Troy could be conquered.

By way of further illustration, Ulysses commits this same fallacy when he takes credit for Agamemnon’s sacrifice of Iphigenia and the subsequent launching of the expedition for Troy: “I used my skill with words to change his mind, to shift the affections of a parent towards the public good.” (XIII, 309-11) Without Ulysses, in other words, the expedition to Troy would have never been able to set sail in the first place, for it was Ulysses who persuaded Agamemnon to “sacrifice his innocent child to cruel Diana.” (XIII, 304-5) Yet once again Ulysses is confusing correlation with causation. An analogy will help us see why. For Ulysses’ argument to make any sense, we must treat Agamemnon like a mere bowling ball and his subsequent decision to sacrifice his daughter as if it were one of the upright pins at the end of a bowling alley. But just because it was Ulysses who got the ball rolling, so to speak, he does not deserve credit for striking down the pins. In short, the fatal flaw with Ulysses’ argument is that it denies any moral agency to Agamemnon, for he is not an inanimate object with no autonomy of his own. He is a flesh-and-blood father who must make his own decisions.

The most outrageous instance of Ulysses’ fallacious reasoning, however, has to be his bald-faced attempt to take credit for Achilles’ brave deeds at Troy: “I took him in hand. I sent that brave man out to do brave deeds. And so his exploits are my own.” (XIII, 278-280) In brief, when Achilles was young, his mother had dressed him as a girl to keep him out of the expedition force heading for Troy, but Ulysses played a trick on Achilles to get him to join the expedition. He hid some “weapons which would stir the heart of any man” (XIII, 271-2) among his playthings and, true to his heroic form, the young Achilles “reached for the spear and shield” and thus revealed his willingness to join the other warriors destined for Troy. But, alas, just because it was Ulysses who got Achilles to join the expedition force so long ago does not mean that Ulysses deserves any credit for Achilles’ slaying of Hector.

I will now conclude my brief rebuttal with Aristotle’s doctrine of the four causes. In summary, Aristotle identifies four different types of causation: (i) material or that which is given in reply to the question, “What is it made out of?”; (ii) formal or that which is given in reply to the question, “What is it?”; (iii) efficient or that which is given in reply to the question, “Where does change or motion come from?”; and (iv) final or that which is given in reply to the question, “What is its telos or final purpose?”[20] At most, Ulysses is a “material cause” of the Greek victory at Troy and of the deeds of Agamemnon and Achilles. By way of analogy, just because a statue cannot be sculpted without the relevant tools and raw materials (e.g. a chisel, a slab of marble, etc.) does not mean that those tools and materials deserve credit for the final product, for the “final cause” of the statue is the skill and labor of the artist or sculptor who actually did the work, not the slave boy who brought him his tools. Likewise, Ulysses does not deserve to take credit for the actions of Agamemnon and Achilles, let alone for the Greek victory at Troy. If anyone deserves credit for this outcome, it is Ajax, one of the bravest, fiercest, most lethal warriors of the entire Iliad.

VI. Conclusion

Although my sabbatical has now come to an end, I will forever be grateful to Dr Rubarth and Rollins College for making my sabbatical the most rewarding and intellectually-enriching experience I could have ever wished for.

VII. Bibliography

Ancient Performances Database. (Not dated) “Clouds”, Archive of Performances of Greek & Roman Drama (online), http://www.apgrd.ox.ac.uk/ancient-performance/performance/956 [https://archive.ph/0y5Qo].

Bowden, H. (2005) Classical Athens and the Delphic Oracle: Divination and Democracy, Cambridge University Press.

Brickhouse, T. C. (1989) Socrates on Trial, Princeton University Press.

Andrea Falcon, “Aristotle on Causality,” in Edward N. Zalta & Uri Nodelman, editors, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Spring 2023 Edition.

Gagarin, M. (1974) Hesiod’s dispute with Perses, Transactions of the American Philological Association, 104:103-111.

Grube, G. M. A. (2002) “Introduction to the Apology”, in Plato, Five Dialogues, 2nd ed., Hackett, pp. 21-22.

Hesiod (1914) Works and Days, in Homeric Hymns, Epic Cycle, Homerica, trans. by Evelyn-White, H. G., London: William Heinemann (Loeb Classical Library edition).

______ (1973) Works and Days, in Hesiod and Theogenis, trans. by Wender, D., New York: Penguin (Penguin Classics edition).

______ (1988) Works and Days, in Theogeny; Works and Days, trans. by M. L. West. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press (World’s Classics edition).

Hubbard, T. (1995) Hesiod’s fable of the hawk and the nightingale reconsidered, Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies, 36(2): 161-171.

Kucewicz, C. (2016) Mutilation of the dead and the Homeric gods, Classical Quarterly, 66(2): 425-436.

Loeb edition. (1999) Plato: Euthyphro. Apology. Crito. Phaedo. Phaedrus (Loeb Classical Library), reprint of the 1904 edition, Harvard University Press.

Maeno, N., Fletcher, A. S., and Ichiko, T. (not dated) Fable, parable, and allegory, Encyclopedia Britannica (online), https://archive.ph/zIWAr.

Nelson, S. (1997) The justice of Zeus in Hesiod’s fable of the hawk and the nightingale, Classical Journal, 92(3): 235-247.

Perseus Digital Library (not dated), Hippocrates’ Aprohism 1.1 (online), https://archive.ph/538E.

Plato. (2002) Five Dialogues, 2nd ed. (translation by G. M. A. Grube), Hackett.

Skwire, S. (2022) Political animals: Hesiod’s hawk and nightingale, Online Library of Liberty (April 7, 2022), https://archive.ph/ON5AZ.

Willcock, M. M. (1976) A Companion to the Iliad.

VIII. Appendix

“Achilles Dragging the Body of Hector”
(Pietro Testa)
[Source: https://harvardartmuseums.org/collections/object/316189]

* * *

Dorothea Schmidt Wender translation (Hesiod 1973, lines 203-215)

And now, for lords who understand, I’ll tell
A fable: once a hawk, high in the clouds, 
Clutched in his claws a speckled nightingale.
She, pierced by those hooked claws, cried, “Pity me!”
But he made scornful answer: “Silly thing.
Why do you cry? Your master holds you fast, 
You’ll go where I decide, although you have 
A minstrel’s lovely voice, and if I choose,
I’ll have you for a meal, or let you go.
Only a fool will match himself against
A stronger party, for he’ll only lose, 
And be disgraced as well as beaten.” Thus
Spoke the swift-flying hawk, the long-winged bird.

L. West translation (Hesiod 1988, lines 202-210)

Now I will tell you a fable to the lords, although they can think for themselves. Here is how the hawk addressed the dapple-throat nightingale as hecarried her high in the clouds, grasping her in his claws; impaled on thecurved talons, she was weeping piteously, but he addressed her sternly:

“Goodness, why are you screaming? You are in the power of one much superior, and you will go whichever way I take you, singer though you are. I will make you my dinner if I like, or let you go. He is a fool who seeks to compete against the stronger: he both loses the struggle and suffers injury on top of insult.”

So spoke the swift-flying hawk, the great winged bird.

Hugh G. Evelyn-White translation (Hesiod 1914, lines 202-211)

And now I will tell a fable for princes who themselves understand. Thus said the hawk to the nightingale with speckled neck, while he carried her high up among the clouds, gripped fast in his talons, and she, pierced by his crooked talons, cried pitifully. To her he spoke disdainfully: “Miserable thing, why do you cry out? One far stronger than you now holds you fast, and you must go wherever I take you, songstress as you are. And if I please I will make my meal of you, or let you go. He is a fool who tries to withstand the stronger, for he does not get the mastery and suffers pain besides his shame.” So said the swiftly flying hawk, the long-winged bird.

* * *

“Socrates before his judges”
[Source: https://archive.ph/wip/YCUix]

* * *

“Argument between Ajax & Odysseus over Achilles’ Armor”
(Agostino Masucci)
[https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Argument_between_Ajax_and_Odysseus_over_Achilles%27_armour,_by_Agostino_Masucci.jpg]

* Senior Instructor, Kenneth G. Dixon School of Accounting, University of Central Florida. Associate Professor, Pontifical Catholic University of Puerto Rico. J.D., Yale Law School. I thank (in alphabetical order) Dr Todd French for opening the doors of Rollins College to me during my sabbatical, Dr Theresa Libby for making my sabbatical possible, Dr Matthew Kenney for teaching my survey course during my leave, and Debbie Tatum, my graduate advisor at Rollins College, for her guidance and good cheer.

[1] In addition, I enrolled in two consecutive seven-week seminars at Rollins College: Dr. Todd French’s religion seminar on “Saints & Sinners” and Dr Hannah Ewing’s history seminar on “Istanbul.”

[2] Cf. Maeno, et al., n.d.: “The Western tradition begins effectively with Aesop (6th century bc), of whom little or nothing is known for certain; but before him the Greek poet Hesiod (8th century bc) recounts the fable of the hawk and the nightingale.”

[3] For reference, I have reproduced in the Appendix three different translations of Hesiod’s fable–Dorothea Schmidt Wender, M. L. West, and Hugh G. Evelyn-White’s. Unless otherwise noted, all line references in the remainder of this essay are to the Wender translation (Hesiod 1973).

[4] Cf. Skwire 2022: “… perhaps we, as Hesiod’s readers, are meant to be not merely resigned to the invasions made by the powerful in our lives, but warned to keep an eye out overhead, before they swoop down upon us.”

[5] For reference, the first full sentence of the fable begins thus: “And now, for lords who understand, I’ll tell a fable” (line 203). (By way of comparison, this introductory sentence is translated as “And now I will tell a fable for princes who themselves understand” by Hugh Gerard Evelyn-White in the Loeb edition, line 202.)

[6] See, e.g., sources in Nelson 1997, p. 235 n.1.

[7] Cf. Nelson 1997, p. 235, footnote omitted: “As M. Skafte Jensen and others have suggested, Hesiod may mean us to see the helpless party not as himself in the clutch of the kings, but as the kings in the clutch of Zeus.”

[8] See, e.g., Hubbard 1995, pp. 161-162.

[9] See line 216: “O Perses, follow right; control your pride.”

[10] Cf. Gagarin 1974, p. 104: “the traditional view of the brothers … has characterized Perses as both lazy and dishonest: not content with his share of their father’s estate he has bribed the judges in order to acquire some of Hesiod’s share and is still trying to get more of this share through legal wrangling.”

[11] See, e.g., the introduction to Hesiod 1973, pp. 14-15.

[12] Cf. ibid., p. 14: “the daily grind [of farming] almost obscured his talents forever ….”

[13] See generally Brickhouse 1989.

[14] Grube 2002, p. 21. Cf. the introduction to the Apology in the Loeb edition, 1999/1904, p. 64: “The purpose of the [Apology] is to present Socrates in a true and favourable light to posterity.” As an aside, this heroic image of the great philosopher is also how many artists depict Socrates. See the Appendix: “Socrates before his judges.”

[15] Aristophanes’ The Clouds was first performed in the Dionysia of 423 BC, 25 years before Socrates was charged and tried in 399 BC! See Ancient Performances Database, https://archive.ph/0y5Qo.

[16] Socrates even goes on to say, “Anyone who says that seems to be right …” (20d).

[17] See generally Bowden 2005.

[18] These lines correspond to Ian Johnston’s translation of The Metamorphoses. All line cites in the remainder of my paper will refer exclusively to the Johnston translation of Ovid’s epic poem.

[19] For reference, Ajax’s case is reprinted on lines 8 to 201 of Johnston’s translation of Book XIII, while Ulysses’ appears in lines 209 to 625.

[20] See generally Falcon 2023.