About us
BCE is a literary conversation group where we read together “classic” texts in a broad sense, from before the Christian era, anything loosely before/during the first Christian Roman Emperor, Constantine I (272–337), his successor and son Constantius II and his nephew, Julian the Apostate, who rejected Christianity and promoted Neoplatonic Hellenism as a philosophy, and the worship of the traditional Roman gods as ritual practice.
BCE expects participants to have read the text and have formulated questions for discussion and have marked a few passages that we can read aloud and discuss. Participants have the same edition in front of them so they can create a common experience.
Examples of texts we can take on: Seneca, Lucan, the epic of Gilgamesh, the Hebrew book of Genesis, the plays of Aristophanes, Homer’s Odyssey, Ovid, Song of Songs, or the Egyptian Story of Sinuhe.
Upcoming events
3
119: Odyssey Book 9 and 10 – The Hero as Bard
·OnlineOnlineOn our journey to read Mendelsohn's new translation of the Odyssey – two books at a time, with occasional special topics – we have now entered the four books with the apologoi (Greek for "stories" or "tales"). These are Books 9–12, where Odysseus narrates his adventures directly to the Phaeacians. This "story within a story" covers his journey from Troy to Calypso’s island, including the Cyclops Polyphêmos, Circe, and the Descend into the Underworld, acting as a centerpiece for his character as a clever, often manipulative, storyteller.
Read Books 9 and 10 in the Mendelsohn translation of the poem. If you can find a quiet space read it outloud, imagine yourself to be a bard.
As you read, mark passages you would like to discuss together. Practise reading selected sections aloud so you are ready to contribute and can help one another appreciate the poem more fully during discussion. Prepare interpretive questions for the group.
Book 9 – The Cyclops Polyphêmos
Odysseus names himself and begins his tale. After Troy, his men sack the city of the Kíkones but are driven off with losses. A brief stop among the Lotos-Eaters – Lotophaguses – almost robs his crew of desire to return. They then reach the land of the Cyclopes, lawless shepherds without assemblies or agriculture. In the cave of the Cyclops Polyphêmos, Odysseus’ curiosity leads to disaster: the giant eats several companions. Odysseus plies him with wine, blinds him as he sleeps, and escapes clinging beneath the rams. Boastfully revealing his true name as they sail away, he provokes Polyphêmos’ curse and Poseidon’s lasting hostility.Book 10 – Aíolos, Laestrygonians, and Circe
On Aíolos’ floating island Aiolía, Odysseus receives a bag containing all adverse winds, with only the homeward breeze left free. Near Ithaka, his curious crew opens it, blowing them back. Aeolus refuses further help. Next, in Laistrygónian land, giant cannibals destroy eleven ships in a sudden ambush; only Odysseus’ vessel escapes – he had his boat beached outside the harbor. Reaching Aiaíê, they encounter the goddess sorceress Circe, who turns some of the men into pigs. With Hermes’ herb moly, Odysseus resists her magic, wins his comrades’ restoration, becomes her lover, and has, according to legend, sons by her. They linger a year before Circe instructs him to consult the dead in the Underworld.
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For this series on Homer's Odyssey we will be using the new translation by Daniel Mendelsohn: Homer: The Odyssey. Translated, with Introduction and Notes. University of Chicago Press, April 9th, 2025.Sessions devoted to Daniel Mendelsohn’s translation will alternate with meetings focused on a broader range of “Odysseiana,” materials that illuminate the transmission, reception, and interpretation of Homer’s poem across time. These companion materials will include ancient textual witnesses, archaeological and visual evidence, and modern thematic and analytical work that together situate the Odyssey within its cultural, historical, and performative contexts.
Textual materials
• Early manuscripts on papyrus and parchment from as early as the third century BCE, along with later medieval codices, show how the text of the Odyssey was copied, stabilized, and annotated over many centuries.
• A clay tablet from Roman-era Olympia, inscribed with verses from Book 14, offers one of the earliest substantial epigraphic attestations of the poem and illustrates its circulation in public and sacred spaces.
• Later printed editions, informed by Alexandrian scholarship and modern textual criticism, will serve as points of comparison for issues of wording, lineation, and commentary.Archaeological and visual materials
• Vase paintings and other images from Greek pottery that depict scenes associated with the Odyssey—such as shipwrecks, supplication, or women at the loom—will be used to explore how ancient artists visualized narrative moments and social practices found in the poem.
• Museum collections, such as those of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, provide objects like armor, textiles, and domestic furnishings that help reconstruct the material world of Odysseus and his contemporaries.
• These artifacts will help connect specific passages in Mendelsohn’s translation to ancient views of the gods, warfare, hospitality, and poetic performance.Thematic and analytical materials
• Scholarly discussions of themes such as cunning and intelligence, homecoming and estrangement, and the tension between order and disorder will frame close readings of selected episodes.
• Attention to the Odyssey’s origins in oral performance, including formulaic language, meter, and narrative framing, will complement Mendelsohn’s effort to reproduce the poem’s formal features in English.
• Companion texts from later epic and narrative traditions will be brought in to show how Homeric patterns are adapted, challenged, or echoed in subsequent literature.Mendelsohn’s translation is also available on Kindle and as an Audible audio book. About Daniel Mendelsohn read here.
10 attendees
120: Odyssey Book 11 and 12 – The Hero as Bard II
·OnlineOnlineWe have now entered the four books with the apologoi (Greek for "stories" or "tales"). These are Books 9–12, where Odysseus narrates his adventures directly to the Phaeacians. This "story within a story" covers his journey from Troy to Calypso’s island, including the Cyclops, Circe, and the Underworld, acting as a centerpiece for his character as a clever, often manipulative, storyteller.
Read Books 11 and 12 in the Mendelsohn translation of the poem. If you can find a quiet space read it outloud, imagine yourself to be a bard.
As you read, mark passages you would like to discuss together. Practise reading selected sections aloud so you are ready to contribute and can help one another appreciate the poem more fully during discussion. Prepare interpretive questions for the group.
Book 11 – The Dead Speak
Sailing to the edge of Ocean, Odysseus performs libations and sacrifices to summon the dead. The ghost of Elpênor begs burial. Teiresias appears, drinking blood to prophesy: Odysseus will reach home, but if his men harm Helios’ cattle, disaster follows. Odysseus must later placate Poseidon inland. He then meets his mother Antíkleia, learning of Ithaca’s misery and Penelope’s constancy. A parade of heroines follows. Later, he converses with Agamemnon, who warns against trusting even a faithful wife, and Achilles, who laments death. Other shades—Aías, Minos, Herakles—appear before Odysseus, frightened by the thickening dead, abruptly departs.Book 12 – – Sirens, Scylla, and the Cattle of the Sun
Back on Aiaíê, Odysseus buries Elpênor and receives detailed warnings from Circe. First, the Sirens: he plugs his crew’s ears with wax and has himself bound to the mast to hear their seductive song safely. Then the narrow strait where monstrous Skylla snatches six men as they row past, while Kharybdis churns a deadly whirlpool on the other side. On Thrinakía, despite strict orders, the crew slaughter Helios’ sacred cattle during a storm-enforced stay. Once they sail, Zeus destroys the ship with a thunderbolt. Odysseus alone survives, drifting to Calypso’s island, where his narrative catches up.****
For this series on Homer's Odyssey we will be using the new translation by Daniel Mendelsohn: Homer: The Odyssey. Translated, with Introduction and Notes. University of Chicago Press, April 9th, 2025.Sessions devoted to Daniel Mendelsohn’s translation will alternate with meetings focused on a broader range of “Odysseiana,” materials that illuminate the transmission, reception, and interpretation of Homer’s poem across time. These companion materials will include ancient textual witnesses, archaeological and visual evidence, and modern thematic and analytical work that together situate the Odyssey within its cultural, historical, and performative contexts.
Textual materials
• Early manuscripts on papyrus and parchment from as early as the third century BCE, along with later medieval codices, show how the text of the Odyssey was copied, stabilized, and annotated over many centuries.
• A clay tablet from Roman-era Olympia, inscribed with verses from Book 14, offers one of the earliest substantial epigraphic attestations of the poem and illustrates its circulation in public and sacred spaces.
• Later printed editions, informed by Alexandrian scholarship and modern textual criticism, will serve as points of comparison for issues of wording, lineation, and commentary.Archaeological and visual materials
• Vase paintings and other images from Greek pottery that depict scenes associated with the Odyssey—such as shipwrecks, supplication, or women at the loom—will be used to explore how ancient artists visualized narrative moments and social practices found in the poem.
• Museum collections, such as those of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, provide objects like armor, textiles, and domestic furnishings that help reconstruct the material world of Odysseus and his contemporaries.
• These artifacts will help connect specific passages in Mendelsohn’s translation to ancient views of the gods, warfare, hospitality, and poetic performance.Thematic and analytical materials
• Scholarly discussions of themes such as cunning and intelligence, homecoming and estrangement, and the tension between order and disorder will frame close readings of selected episodes.
• Attention to the Odyssey’s origins in oral performance, including formulaic language, meter, and narrative framing, will complement Mendelsohn’s effort to reproduce the poem’s formal features in English.
• Companion texts from later epic and narrative traditions will be brought in to show how Homeric patterns are adapted, challenged, or echoed in subsequent literature.Mendelsohn’s translation is also available on Kindle and as an Audible audio book. About Daniel Mendelsohn read here.
5 attendees
Past events
118
