Day 4

ANNUAL INTERDISCIPLINARY SCHOOL OF ANCIENT GREEK, EGYPTOLOGY AND ORIENTAL LANGUAGES. DAY 4

On the fourth day of the School, the participants, coordinated by Mrs. Assoc. dr. Maria-Luiza Oancea (Department of Classical Philology, University of Bucharest) read in Greek and translated the androgynous myth, narrated by the comedian Aristophanes in Plato's "Banquet", 189d-193b (text written in the middle period of the great philosopher's activity , between 384 and 379 BC). In this work, the guests of the banquet expose various theories of eros, the best known being the doctrine of eros narrated by Socrates, as transmitted to him by Diotima of Mantinea. In the passage proposed for translation, Aristophanes presents with great humor the period in which there were not two, but three human genera. The male gender was derived from the sun, the female gender from the earth, and the androgynous gender from the moon. Because of their immeasurable pride, the androgynes have been cut in half by Zeus and since then each is looking for his half in the world.

In the second part of this session, a passage from the dialogue "The Politician" - 269c-273c (published around 365 BC) was translated, in which Plato uses various myths, as educational procedures: the myth of universal civilization, the myth of the retrograde cyclical motion of the universe, as well as the social myth of the golden age. Thus, the politician imagined by Plato should not be confused with a god or a divine shepherd, but is a pastor of the community and a weaver who can achieve the union of opposites.

The participants - mostly students in the Department of Classical Philology at the University of Bucharest - focused on the linguistic and stylistic features of Platonic texts.