Rude Talk in Athens
Page 16
After eight repetitions—sixty-two solid minutes—of “I Want You (She’s So Heavy),” the waiter finally went to the stereo and put on something else. I was so relieved that it stopped that I can’t remember what he played next. I do remember that the taverna burst into applause. The waiter looked at us sheepishly. His coworker scowled and said, “Did you have that on repeat?” He shrugged and said, “I like it.”
As simple as that. Mastery of life.
The chorus leaves the stage.
Acknowledgments
I want to thank all the classicists, scholars, and translators who did the heavy lifting that made this book possible.
Much gratitude to the people who lent their voices to this project.
In Athens: Tilemachos Aidinis, Dimitra Papadopoulou, George Papamattheakis, Nicolas Nicolaides, Yanis Varoufakis, Evangelia Tseliou, Greg Prassas, Michalis Leontios, and Maria Panagiotopoulou and Olga Pavlatos of the Athens & Epidaurus Festival.
In the U.S.: Brian Brown, Matthew Battles, Mary Norris, James Romm, and Mark Anderson.
This book would not have been possible without the intelligence, enthusiasm, and courage of the great team at the Unnamed Press: Olivia Taylor Smith, Chris Heiser, Jaya Nicely, Kelsey Nolan, and ace copyeditor Nancy Tan.
A shout-out to my long-suffering agents: Mary Evans. Brian Lipson. Michèle Kanonidis.
A round of drinks to my colleagues who listened to me talk about this book for the past few years: David L. Ulin, Viet Thanh Nguyen, Liska Jacobs, Edan Lepucki, Laila Lalami, Tony Dushane, Jamison Stoltz, Adam Davidson, Chad Gomez Creasey, and Tod Goldberg.
And thanks to my friends and family for their continued support: Diana Faust, Jules Haskell Smith, Vincent Willems, Bruce and Cynthia Faust, Jennifer Matthews, and Santiago Gallego Villa.
Endnotes
An Introductory Scene
1. Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers, translated by R. D. Hicks (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1931).
2. For more on Epicurus, I recommend Catherine Wilson’s How to Be an Epicurean: The Ancient Art of Living Well (New York: Basic Books, 2019).
3. James Davidson, Courtesans and Fishcakes: The Consuming Passions of Classical Athens (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1998).
At the Symposium
1. Plato, Symposium, translated by Alexander Nehamas and Paul Woodruff (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 1989).
2. Jeffrey Rusten, ed., The Birth of Comedy: Texts, Documents, and Art from Athenian Comic Competitions, 486–280 (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2011).
3. “Platonius, On the Distinctions among Comedies,” Living Poets, 2014 https://livingpoets.dur.ac.uk/w/Platonius,_On_the_Distinctions_among_Comedies_I.
4. W. J. W. Koster, trans., Prolegomena de Comoedia (Groningen, Netherlands: Bouma’s, 1975).
Athens™®
1. Johanna Hanink, The Classical Debt: Greek Antiquity in an Era of Austerity (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 2017).
2. Demosthenes, Against Neaera, translation by Norman W. DeWitt, Ph.D., and Norman J. DeWitt, Ph.D. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann Ltd. 1949.)
3. Xenophon, Memorabilia, translated by Amy L. Bonnette (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994)
4. James Miller, Examined Lives: From Socrates to Nietzsche (New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2011)
5. David Kawalko Roselli, Theater of the People: Spectators and Society in Ancient Athens (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2011).
6. H. W. Fowler and F. G. Fowler, trans., The Works of Lucian of Samosata (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1905).
7. Ian C. Storey, ed. and trans., Fragments of Old Comedy, vol. 2, Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011).
The Case against Ariphrades
1. Aristophanes, Clouds; Women in Power; Knights, translated by Kenneth McLeish (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979).
2. Aristophanes, The Complete Plays, translated by Paul Roche (New York: New American Library, 2005).
3. Aristophanes, Knights, translated by J. Henderson, Loeb Classic Library (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998)
4. Karl Friedrich Forberg, Manual of Classical Erotology (De figuris Veneris), (Germany: 1824) Trans. Unknown (Manchester: Privately printed for Viscount Julian Smithson and friends, 1884)
5. Benjamin Dann Walsh, trans., The Acharnians, Knights, and Clouds, by Aristophanes (London: Henry G. Bohn, 1848).
6. Robert C. Bartlett, Against Demagogues: What Aristophanes Can Teach Us about the Perils of Populism and the Fate of Democracy (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2020).
7. Aristophanes, Wasps, translated by Alan H. Sommerstein (Warminster, UK: Aris & Phillips, 1983).
8. Aristophanes, Wasps, translated by Moses Hadas, in The Complete Plays of Aristophanes, edited by Moses Hadas (New York: Bantam Books, 1962), 165–212.
9. Aristotle, Politics and Poetics, translated by Benjamin Jowett and H.S. Butcher (New York: The Heritage Press, 1964)
10. Aristophanes, Peace, translated by B. B. Rogers, in The Complete Plays of Aristophanes, edited by Moses Hadas (New York: Bantam, 1962), 213–62.
11. Aristophanes, Women of the Assembly, translated by Aaron Poochigian (New York: Liveright, 2021)
12. Found in the section “Dubiously Attributed Fragments” in Jeffrey Henderson, ed. and trans., Aristophanes: Fragments, Loeb Classic Library (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007).
13. Alan H. Sommerstein, “How to Avoid Being a Komodoumenos,” Classical Quarterly 46, no. 2 (1996): 327–56.
The Defense of Ariphrades
1. Mary Norris, Greek to Me: Adventures of the Comma Queen (New York: W. W. Norton, 2019).
2. Mary Norris, Between You & Me: Confessions of a Comma Queen (New York: W. W. Norton, 2015).
3. Aristotle, The Poetics of Aristotle: Translation and Commentary, translated by Stephen Halliwell (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1987).
4. Ian C. Storey, ed. and trans., Fragments of Old Comedy, vol. 1, Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011).
5. Barry S. Strauss, Fathers and Sons in Athens: Ideology and Society in the Era of the Peloponnesian War (London: Routledge, 1993).
6. Joseph Roisman, The Rhetoric of Manhood: Masculinity in the Attic Orators (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005).
7. Demosthenes, Against Aristogeiton I, translated by Joseph Roisman, The Rhetoric of Manhood (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005)
8. Dean Obeidallah, “Why Are Conservatives So Freaked Out by Gays?,” Daily Beast, March 1, 2014, https://www.thedaily-beast.com/why-are-conservatives-so-freaked-out-by-gays.
9. Stephen Greenblatt, The Swerve: How the World Became Modern (New York: W. W. Norton, 2012).
Amazonon Street
1. Henry Miller, The Colossus of Maroussi (San Francisco: Colt Press, 1941).
2. “Remarks by M. Centeno Following the Eurogroup Meeting of 21 June 2018,” European Council, Council of the European Union, https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2018/06/22/remarks-by-m-centeno-following-the-eurogroup-meeting-of-21-june-2018/.
3. Venetia Rainey, “Greece Exits Bailout, but ‘Shackles and the Asphyxiation Continue,’” The World, August 20, 2018, https://www.pri.org/stories/2018-08-20/greece-exits-bail-out-shackles-and-asphyxiation-continue.
4. “The Burden of Disease in Greece, Health Loss, Risk Factors, and Health Financing, 2000–16: An Analysis of the Global Burden of Disease Study 2016,” Lancet Public Health 3, no. 8 (August 2018): e395–406, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S2468-2667(18)30130-0.
5. Yanis Varoufakis, Adults in the Room: My Battle with the European and American Deep Establishment (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2017).
6. Kerin Hope, “Greece Brain Drain Hampers Recovery from Economic Crisis,” Financial Times, August 15, 2018, https://www.ft.com/content/24866436-9f9f-11e8-85da-eeb7a9ce36e4.
7. ZZ Packer, “Sarah Coo
per Doesn’t Mimic Trump. She Exposes Him,” New York Times, June 25, 2020.
8. Daniel Lipman, “Trump says he plans to ban Tik Tok in the U.S.” Politico, July 31, 2020 https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/31/trump-plans-to-ban-tiktok-389956
9. From the Bhaddekaratta Sutta.
Rusk Never Sleeps
1. Attributed to Borges in Alastair Reid, “Neruda and Borges,” New Yorker, June 24, 1996, as well as in Talk of the Town, New Yorker, July 7, 1986.
The Name of the Moth
1. Frederick DuCane Godman and Osbert Salvin, eds., Biologia Centrali-Americana: Zoology, Botany, and Archaeology (London: R. H. Porter, 1879–1915).
2. I also found the name in Ian W. B. Nye’s doorstopper of a book The Generic Names of Moths of the World, vol. 1, Noctuoidea: Noctuidae, Agaristidae, and Nolidae (London: Trustees of the British Museum [Natural History], 1975).
3. Ariphrades setula (Noctuoidea: Noctuidae: Hypeninae).
The Antagonist of the Piece
1. Translated by Jeffery Henderson in Rusten, The Birth of Comedy.
2. Aristophanes, Peace, translated by Paul Roche (New York: New American Library, 2005)
3. Aristophanes, Wasps.
4. Ibid.
5. Kenneth McLeish in his translation notes in Clouds; Women in Power; Knights, by Aristophanes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979).
6. From Lil Wayne’s song “What’s Wrong With Them,” I Am Not a Human Being (Cash Money, 2010).
7. Rusten, The Birth of Comedy.
8. Lucian, The Dead Come to Life or The Fisherman translated by A.M. Harmon (London: William Heinemann, Ltd Cambridge: Harvard University Press 1925)
9. Storey, Fragments of Old Comedy, vol. 2.
10. Aristotle, Constitution of the Athenians 28.3. translated by H. Rackham. (Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1952.)
11. Aristophanes, Clouds, Women at the Thesmophoria, Frogs: A Verse Translation, with Introduction and Notes, translated by Stephen Halliwell (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015).
12. Plato, Plato in Twelve Volumes, vol. 3, translated by W. R. M. Lamb (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann, 1967).
13. This refers to the gymnasium, which was a center for learning where young men studied and exercised in the nude. For more on the history of the gymnasium and nudity in ancient Greece, please read my previous nonfiction book Naked at Lunch: A Reluctant Nudist’s Adventures in the Clothing-Optional World (New York: Grove Press, 2015). Please. Really. I’m asking.
14. Aristophanes, Clouds, in The Complete Plays, translated by Paul Roche.
15. Philip Walsh, “A Study in Reception: The British Debates over Aristophanes’ Politics and Influence,” Classical Receptions Journal 1, no. 1 (2009): 55–72.
16. Storey, Fragments of Old Comedy, vol. 1.
Clouds
1. Miller, The Colossus of Maroussi.
2. Stephen Halliwell, trans., Clouds, Women at the Thesmophoria, Frogs: A Verse Translation, with Introduction and Notes, by Aristophanes (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015).
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Samuel Beckett, “Worstward Ho,” Nohow On (London: Calder, 1989).
The Arc of Comedy Bends
1. Arlene W. Saxonhouse, Free Speech and Democracy in Ancient Athens (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006).
2. Aristophanes, Clouds, in The Complete Plays, translated by Paul Roche.
Yanis Varoufakis Is in the House (of Parliament)
1. Paul Mason, “Adults in the Room by Yanis Varoufakis Review—One of the Greatest Political Memoirs Ever?,” Guardian, May 3, 2017, https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/may/03/yanis-varoufakis-greece-greatest-political-memoir.
Tilemachos at Sea
1. Aliki Bacopoulou-Halls, “The Theatre System of Greece,” in Theatre Worlds in Motion: Structure, Politics and Developments in the Countries of Western Europe, edited by H. van Maanen and S. E. Wilmer (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1998), 259–308.
2. Henri-Georges Clouzot, dir., Le salaire de la peur [Wages of Fear] (Filmsonor, 1953). Starring Yves Montand, the film tells the story of a group of desperate men trying not to blow themselves up as they drive trucks of explosives down some extremely bumpy roads.
3. Steve Rose, “Taika Waititi: ‘You Don’t Want to Be Directing Kids with a Swastika on Your Arm,’” Guardian, December 26, 2019, https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/dec/26/taika-waititi-flight-of-the-conchords-thor-ragnarok-jojo-rabbit-nazi-dictator.
Decorative Pottery
1. For more information https://sailor-poon.bandcamp.com
2. Leslie Kurke, Coins, Bodies, Games, and Gold: The Politics of Meaning in Archaic Greece (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999).
3. Holt N. Parker, “Vaseworld: Depiction and Description of Sex at Athens,” in Ancient Sex: New Essays, edited by Ruby Blondell and Kirk Ormand (Columbus: The Ohio State University Press, 2015), 23–142.
4. Quoted in Marguerite Johnson and Terry Ryan, Sexuality in Greek and Roman Society and Literature (London: Routledge, 2005).
Building Zeta
1. History of advertising department: Nicolas related a story of a prostitute who would walk through the Agora in specially designed shoes that imprinted the words “follow me” in the dirt. Her trail led to the Kerameikos.
2. Davidson, Courtesans and Fishcakes.
3. Parker, “Vaseworld.”
Parabasis
1. James Robson, Aristophanes: An Introduction (London: Bloomsbury, 2009).
2. Donna Zuckerberg, Not All Dead White Men: Classics and Misogyny in the Digital Age (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2018).
This Library Is on Fire
1. Matthew Battles, Library: An Unquiet History (New York: W. W. Norton, 2015), and Palimpsest: A History of the Written Word (New York: W. W. Norton, 2015).
2. William A. Johnson, Bookrolls and Scribes in Oxyrhynchus (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2013).
3. And Tango Makes Three, the true story of a couple of penguins in a zoo, was written by Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson, illustrated by Henry Cole (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2005).
Ta Kanaria
1. Hanink, The Classical Debt.
2. Vlassis Rassias, “Reclaiming the True European Identity,” speech delivered at the 2014 European Congress of Ethnic Religions, Seimas of the Republic of Lithuania, Vilnius, July 9, 2014, https://ecer-org.eu/reclaiming-the-true-european-identity/.
3. Miller, The Colossus of Maroussi.
PHOTO BY MARTIN RUSCH
About the Author
Mark Haskell Smith is the author of six novels with one-word titles, including Moist and Blown, as well as the nonfiction books Heart of Dankness and Naked at Lunch. He lives in Los Angeles.