APPENDIX B: THE TWELVE LABORS OF PERSEUS
B.1 USING THE PHILOLOGICAL TOOLS
PHILOLOGICAL SAMPLE 1
Find out how a phrase is used by an author by using the English translations
and the Find Text feature. Homer, for example, is known for his repetition of
certain phrases: a familiar one is the "rosy-fingered dawn."
If you do not know Greek, you can locate this phrase by going into Primary
Texts and choosing Homer, Iliad, Book 1. Click the "Eng" button to
highlight it. Next, type the key phrase "rosy-fingered" in the Find Text field.
Each click on the Find Text button will find the next occurrence of
"rosy-fingered."
Now try the same procedure in the Odyssey. Does "rosy-fingered" always
modify "dawn"? Does the phrase occur more frequently in one epic than in the
other? Does the appearance of the rosy-fingered dawn mark different stages of
the narrative?
PHILOLOGICAL SAMPLE 2
Find out how a phrase is used by an author by using the English Word Search.
Click the Tools & References icon in the Perseus Gateway, then click
English Word Search under Word Searches. Type "rosy-fingered" in the Look For
field. Select Homer in the Author pop-up menu, and select Word in the Type of
Search pop-up menu. Now click the Do Search button. Perseus will list citations
for "rosy-fingered" in Homer.
PHILOLOGICAL SAMPLE 3
English translations do not correspond word-for-word with the primary Greek
texts. You can discover a Greek equivalent of an English word by using the
English-Greek Word List.
How did Homer say "rosy-fingered dawn"? To find out, go to the English-Greek
Word List by choosing it from the Links Menu or by going to the Tools &
References Index, where it is a subcategory of Philological Tools. Type
"rosy-fingered" in the String to Find field, select Word from the Type of
Search pop-up menu, and click the Look Up button.
A dialog box appears with the message "There are no lemmas for rosy-fingered."
Click OK and simplify the search by trying "rosy." Five Greek words appear in
the result box. To find which of these words Homer uses, select Homer from the
Author pop-up menu, highlight the five Greek words, and click the Search
button. The search yields the Greek word =ododãktulow in Homer.
Highlight this and click the Define button. =ododãktulow does indeed
mean "rosy-fingered." You can find the Greek word for "dawn" by the same
process.
PHILOLOGICAL SAMPLE 4
Search for a Greek phrase in a Primary Text. Go to Homer's Iliad, Book
1. Be sure the Grk button is highlighted. Now type the phrase you wish to find
in the Find Text field and click the Find Text button. Try this with the phrase
=ododãktulow ÉH~w. (If you do not have SMK GreekKeys installed in
your system, you will not be able to type accented Greek. In that case, cut the
word =ododãktulow from the results in the English-Greek Word List and
paste it into the Find field.) In what position of the Homeric line does
=ododãktulow ÉH~w appear? Is this consistent? What about the
other words in the line?
B.2 EXPLORING MYTHS
Find out more about mythological characters or themes. You can locate
references to mythology in the English notes feature of the Primary Texts. For
example, you can find out more about the offspring of Zeus and Hera from the
abundant references to primary sources in Perseus given in Sir James Frazer's
notes to the Library of Apollodorus.
Go to the Library of Apollodorus in Primary Texts. To bring up the
English translation and notes, click the Primary Text Display Format button
located next to the Translation/Notes button in the upper right-hand corner.
Click the English Translation and Notes icon. Return to the text by clicking
the Go Back icon on the Navigator.
Type "Zeus" in the Find Text field and begin the search. Among the topics you
will see are the Birth of Zeus, the Revenge of Zeus on Cronos, and the war of
Zeus with the Titans. When you reach chapter 3.1-3.3 in Book 1, which lists the
offspring of Zeus and Hera, you will see that Note 1.3.1.a refers to passages
in Homer and Hesiod. You can go directly to those texts by highlighting the
reference and choosing Primary Texts from the Links Menu. To go to the
reference in an additional window, press the Shift key while you release the
mouse button on Primary Texts.
For example, highlight "Hom. Il. 11.270" (without the "ff."). Press the Shift
key while you release the mouse button on Primary Texts under the Links Menu.
Perseus will find the passage in a few seconds. You can display the Greek text
by changing the Primary Text Display Format.
B.3 STUDYING CULTURE
CULTURAL EXAMPLE 1
What can we learn from the texts about the value system of ancient Greek
society? It is possible to move from specific English words that describe a
concept such as "wealth" to Greek terms, and from there to passages where these
words appear in Greek texts. Look for samples of material concerning the
concept "wealth" in the fifth-century poet Pindar. Begin by examining Greek
words for such terms as "wealth," "money," "gold," "silver," "greed," and
"profit," but feel free to pursue other terms that seem relevant.
Go to the English-Greek Word List found either under Philological Tools in the
Tools & References Index or under the Links Menu. Type "wealth" into the
String to Find field and click the Look Up button. A list of twenty-six Greek
words containing the English keyword "wealth" appear. To find which of these
words occur in Pindar, release the mouse on Pindar under the Author pop-up
menu. Of the twenty-six words with "wealth" in their definitions, seven appear
in Pindar. Next, find out their definitions by highlighting individual Greek
words and clicking the Define button. Of course, some definitions will not be
relevant, such as a definition containing "a wealth of detail." The word
eÈdaimon[[currency]]a, however, is not only defined as "wealth" but
also suggests other keywords to explore ("prosperity," "happiness").
To see how Pindar uses eÈdaimon[[currency]]a, return to the
English-Greek Word List card. Highlight the word and click the Show Usage
button. The results appear in a new window, Greek Word Search. From here, the
three citations can be located in the text of Pindar by highlighting each
citation in turn and clicking the Go to Text button. From studying those
passages in which "wealth" and related concepts appear, you can begin to form
conclusions on what "wealth" meant to the Greeks of Pindar's time.
CULTURAL EXAMPLE 2
Insights about Greek culture and society can also be gained by studying the
intersection of two concepts over a broad range of literature and art. One line
of inquiry might be an investigation of the convergence of the terms "war" and
"woman." Taking these as keywords, you can search in the Historical Overview
(entered directly from the Perseus Gateway or from Overview under the Links
Menu), as well as in Primary Texts and Art & Archaeology. Beware of drawing
conclusions from extraordinary or unique instances (Herodotus, for example,
mentions Artemisia, a woman who fought as a general in the Persian Wars). Also
consider that contexts differ in time periods (warfare in Homeric epic versus
warfare in the fifth century) and literary settings (women in drama versus
women in myth).
B.4 USING ART & ARCHAEOLOGY
ART & ARCHAEOLOGY EXAMPLE 1
Consider representations of Herakles and Theseus on vases of different periods
and in different scenes. Use the Archaeology Keyword Search (under the Tools
& References Index), and look for Herakles. Choose Vases in the Object Type
pop-up menu and Divinities in the Class pop-up menu. Scroll down to Herakles
and click. A list of vases on which Theseus is also depicted will appear. You
can show different attributes of the vases by choosing them in the three pop-up
menus above the three search results columns. In this search for vases, you may
see the attributes of shape, ware, period, context, painter, and others. Look
at some Archaic black-figure images, a later Classical red-figure, and Late
Classical Attic and Italian red-figures. How does the imagery change over time?
How does dress? Expression?
ART & ARCHAEOLOGY EXAMPLE 2
Explore the Temple of Aphaia on Aegina. Begin in the Sites Index; make sure
that you are viewing the sites by Region (select Region on the pop-up menu at
the upper right-hand corner), then click Aegina in the list of sites at the
right. When you are on the catalog card, click Small Composite Site Plan in the
Plans and Views field. Try the phase plans. If you click on the plan you will
see an enlarged site plan. Click the temple itself and look at its plan, and
look at the catalog entry. To view the sculpture, you need to go to the
sculpture index--the easiest way would be through the "associated building"
index. (Note that pedimental sculptures have one entry for the whole pediment,
and then individual entries for each figure--begin with the whole pediment,
with reconstruction drawing.) Compare the Athenas on the East and West
pediments, as well as the comparanda listed in the Description card. (Highlight
the catalog number of the vase [Boston 97.368] and choose Pottery in the Links
Menu.) Compare the figure of Athena in the vase to those in the two pediments.
If you wish, compare these with the pediments of the Parthenon, carved some
forty to fifty years later.
ART & ARCHAEOLOGY EXAMPLE 3
How are drinking cups typically decorated? Under the Art & Archaeology
Index, choose Pottery indexed by shapes. Browse through some of the cup
information and images, looking for recurring iconographic subjects: Dionysos,
maenads, symposium scenes, and the like. Explore these with the Keyword Search
(the Archaeological tool), looking for chronological patterns.
B.5 ENHANCING YOUR USE OF PERSEUS
ENHANCEMENT EXAMPLE 1
Keep a record of your work with the Notebook feature. Information collected for
use in a research project can be saved in a Notebook stack. For example, for a
paper on Greek financing of the Persian Wars, the following quotation from the
Martin Overview (II A. The Kingdom of Persia, beginning on the sixth line of
text) may be relevant. For footnote purposes, the source should be identified
as "Martin Overview, II A."
Click the button Hide Links/Unlock Text so that it reads See Links/Lock Text
and then select the passage. Copy the selected passage by choosing Copy from
the Edit Menu. Now pull down the Perseus Menu while holding down the Shift key
and select Notebook. The Notebook Index will appear. Create a new Note card by
clicking the New Note button. Paste in the passage by choosing Paste from the
Edit Menu. A new card can be created for each note, and the contents can be
exported to a word processing file. Make sure to give your notes useful,
significant names. Also, be sure to put the correct information about your
Notebook stack into the Settings card on the Perseus Gateway. (Another way to
retain a list of interesting points in Perseus is to add them to a Path.)
ENHANCEMENT EXAMPLE 2
Navigation within the Perseus environment can be facilitated by using the
resources of HyperCard to customize the Perseus Gateway card. If you are
working on Aeschylus' Agamemnon, for example, a customized button can
lead you directly to a specific line in the play on entering Perseus.
Open the Perseus Gateway. Pull down the Objects Menu and release the mouse on
New Button. A new button appears.
Double-click the new button. A dialog box appears.
Type "Aeschylus" in the box called Button Name, then click the Script button at
the bottom of the dialog box.
The script for the button appears.
Between the lines "on mouseUp" and "end mouseUp" type the following five
HyperTalk instructions:
go to stack "Aeschylus Agamemnon"
ask "What Line?"
put it into bg field "LineNum"
Click at the loc of bg button "Go to Line:"
beep
These lines will be slightly indented to the right of the lines "on mouseUp"
and "end mouseUp." Save the script by clicking the close box in the upper
left-hand corner of the window. When you are asked whether you wish to save
your work, click Yes. The Gateway card reappears. Finish by pulling down the
Tools Menu and releasing the mouse on the Browse tool (the pointing index
finger at the upper left-hand corner).
NOTE: Do not add buttons to the Perseus Gateway if others share this stack.