Scenes From Homer By Janet & Anne Grahame Johnstone

yoo imma fight a river god

“Lend it to us and wipe away our tears.”

he was right to fear the helmet: it makes it impossible to tell father from foe.

The last image was the first image and only one I meant to make. starting thought (that I don't think I communicated well tbh): "A shot looking up the walls of Troy where Odysseus is dangling Astyanax from the top by his heel, reminiscent of Thetis dipping Achilles, ready to plunge him into his namesake, the river Scamander, brimming with Trojan blood below, while the Achaeans watch in expectation. And the walls are cyclopean, of course!"

you know. standard classicist mental illinois.

maybe one day i'll be better at art and think of a better way to communicate that concept? dipping the baby in the river to cement his legacy? idk. i'll probably come back to it someday.

gods' blessing

Clytemnestra for @lesbiancassius (my part of the trade for an incredible alcibiades/socrates fic ;__;)

Electra ‼️‼️

ref : courage anxiety and despair: watching the battle (James Sant 1850)

everyone shhh for a second and look at this ink doodle of diomedes and glaucus hugging by 18th century painter antoine-jean gros

penelope didn't have to turn the tree bed into a riddle. she could have asked odysseus to prove his identity, to tell her something only he would know — which she actually did a few books earlier, when she asked the beggar to describe odysseus, and odysseus told her about a purple cloak with a particular golden brooch that she fastened herself twenty years ago. when penelope tells telemachus they have signs by which they'll know each other, you sort of expect more of the same. and instead, she decides to trap him. like a bug in a cup.

and it's delightful to me, idk, how odysseus has been trapped and cornered in various way throughout the odyssey, but arguably never so that he has to tell the truth to get out. (with the phaeacians, maybe? the omniscient narrator corroborates some of what he tells them, but do we really know everything?) and in fact he is not trying to get free of penelope. he wants something from her, wants to convince her, wants to be welcomed home, but until this point he's lied to her, revealed himself to other people before her, and been distant with her (though also patient! he doesn't try to strongarm or rush her into accepting him; it's his idea to sleep elsewhere).

except penelope isn't looking for him to be distant and patient. penelope lies in a way that requires odysseus to stop playing along — not only to prove that he knows what odysseus knows, but that he's willing to tell the truth about himself.