Opsimath—Jan. 13, 2025

Now, Greek fables for the neophyte

οἱ δ’ ἤδη μοίρας τ’ ἔνεμον κερόωντό τε οἶνον

Homer, Odyssey 8.470

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Athenaze¹, Thrasymachus, Logos, Alexandros…

If you’ve stumbled around online Greek discourse much, and have a penchant for comprehensible input methods (as we hope, dear reader, you do), you’ve likely encountered most if not all of these Greek readers. Maybe per the Raineri-Roberts method you are even reading all of them simultaneously!

Each text has its merits (and downsides) but readers far more learned than we have already written reams on each. Perhaps we’ll do a longer feature on each in the future, but for today, following up on last week’s primer on some of the Latin resources out there, we’ve included some more esoteric Greek readings, based on the idea that for the early reader, familiar stories—even if grammatically challenging—will be particularly useful and enjoyable for building vocabulary and understanding.

For the beginner in Greek, say still getting comfortable with the first eight chapters or so of Athenaze, pickings are somewhat slim, but resources do exist! A relative newcomer to the realm of easy Greek resources, Peter Quillen has produced a number of simple stories on his patreon. Conveniently, his ‘about’ section is even available in Greek! The remaining resources we’ve found are somewhat scattered, but include a sweet children’s tale about a pair of horses and their quest for carrots, as well as a brief retelling of the fable of the emperor’s new clothes.

The best familiar fable in Greek that we’ve found is the Polis Institute’s Hansel & Gretel. The text advances at a very reasonable pace, and less familiar vocabulary gets an illustration, Ørberg style. In a similar vein, this illustrated Hippocratic Oath builds on a New Testament Koine vocabulary and presents both the oath itself and an imagined background narrative that helps establish pertinent vocabulary.

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N.B.:

A collection of other Latin and Greek bits and bobs that have caught our eye in the past week

• A new Thrasymachus by Luke Raineri

  [It is clearly still in development, but this takes the classic Thrasymachus textbook about as close to an Ørbergized reader as it has ever been! I’m enjoying it as an easy read and opportunity to compose some Greek while answering the comprehension questions Luke has included. - Josh]

• An argument for the practicality of Latin on Antigone

• Astronautilia, a Greek tale for the advanced reader and enjoyer of Czech postmodern sci-fi

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That is all for today, but in a future newsletter we’ll share some stories for the intermediate reader as well as introduce our favorite intermediate commentaries on popular texts.

1. Some of the wise suggest the Italian version. We agree.