Welcome to the Banquet Hall

I love the description of the live performance at the ancient Greek banquet hall as it appears in your text on page 884. "Imagine a large hall full of people who are freshly bathed, rubbed with fine oils, and draped in clean tunics. Imagine the smell of meat being cooked over charcoal, the sound of voices..." Doesn't that sound nice? I found this overhead view of an ancient Greek banquet place and theater. Too bad we can't enjoy hearing The Odyssey being performed under just such conditions!

The ancient Greeks gave us so much, as we will see. This section of your textbook is full of pictures of art, and of course, there are also the Greek roots to our English words, which we began to look at today. There are references to the gods and goddesses and Greek mythology throughout literature. The culture is rich.

It's amazing to me to think about the way these stories were told. As the textbook explained, this was an oral tradition. These stories were not written, so there were techniques the storytellers used to be able to perform these stories from memory. To think that many of their words were impromptu! The rhythm and repetition of words and phrases would help a singer remember, but the singer or storyteller would also have to be very talented to hold the storyline as well as the audience's attention.

Finally, I'd like to point out something mentioned in your textbook's introductory section to the epic. The hero's journey can be seen as a "rich metaphor for life." There are milestones in all of our lives and journeys we must take into our own unknown futures.