Typed Response 3, EXPLICATION

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DUE date: Monday, Oct 6. (However, if you hand it in before 4pm on Friday, Oct. 3, I will guarantee to have it back to you by Wed. Oct 8 [before our midterm])

Explicate ONE of the following passages. Your essay MUST contain the following information:

Identify the work it's from, the author, the rough time period. Explain what is it saying, how does it fit in with the immediate context (identify the speaker, other important characters), how does it contribute meaning to the work as a whole? (some essential summary can be okay here) Finally – what importancedoes it have for your general study of myth? That is, why, of all the passages from the work that could have been reproduced in your book, was this one chosen?

All papers MUST answer all of these questions. Outstanding papers will answer all of these questions in smooth, concise, polished prose, with additional quotations where necessary.

Include the passage you are explication at the top of your paper (single spaced, in smaller font if extra space is needed).

PASSAGES:

  1. "O deathless Aphrodite, fancy-throned daughter of Zeus, weaver of deceit, I beg you, do not conquer me with pain and sorrow, O mistress, deep in my heart but come here, if ever once hearing my voice, acquiescing you came leaving the golden home of your father, yoking your car."
  2. "Never again could she claim, when immortals were gathered together, with a softly innocent smile, that she alone drove them to couple with mortal women, who bore them sons who were destined to perish, and deathless goddesses too she had driven to mate with mere humans."
  3. "Blessed the man who in life has viewed the mysteries's ritual. But the uninitiate many, who have no part in their teaching, will have no share in a future like his when they pass below, when they descend to the gloom and the moldering shadow of death."
  4. "Lycurgus, Dryas’ son, dared fight with the gods of the heaven, but his life was not long. He tried to expel from holy Mount Nysa the Bacchanal nurses who follow the maddening god Dionysus."
  5. "In terror the sailors ran aft, crowding around the helmsman, the only sensible man. Then, with a sudden spring, the lion pounced on the master, while the horrified sailors looked on. To escape their fate they dived into the shining sea and at once were turned into dolphins."