Tag: Oedipus
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Ancient Greek plague and coronavirus
Patrick BellBelfast, Northern Ireland Introduction Homer’s Iliad, Sophocles’ Oedipus the King, and Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War have been termed “the three earliest, and arguably most influential, representations of the plague in Western narrative.”1 This essay uses these historical sources to examine attitudes toward plague in ancient Greece and parallels in the modern response…
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Saint kills parents, erects hospital, and shares bed with a leper
Sally MetzlerChicago, Illinois, United States The Italian Renaissance artist Franciabigio has illustrated a horrendous crime of passion (fig. 1). He depicted the moment when Saint Julian, consumed with false jealously, killed his parents—by mistake! A disguised devil had told Julian that his wife was in bed with a lover, but in fact the couple were…