Christmas Issue '13

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DECEMBER 2013

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Mry Xmas lol

THENEWSATYRICA CHRISTMAS ISSUE December 2013

Greek Play Wasps Making an Ass of Myself

By Gina Miller

Having last performed on stage aged 12 (as an androgynous Eros, clad in a Lycra peplos and inexplicably told by my drama teacher to put on a cockney accent), it did not immediately occur to me to offer my questionable services to this year's Greek play: Aristophanes' Wasps. I am not a born thespian, and the added challenge of a performance spoken in Ancient Greek was an intimidating prospect.

This was before Rosa Wicks, the director, informed me that there were a number of silent roles to be filled. Or rather, before she caught me in one of my weaker moments and coerced me into taking on a part. To be truthful, though, I was rather thrilled at the suggestion of my depicting 'the flute player' (prostitute), for it seemed like the perfect chance to re-don my theatrical boots without assuming too much/any responsibility for the success of the play.

Email addresses were exchanged and a few days later the final cast list was sent out.

You can imagine my surprise on seeing not mine, but a man's name next to the part of the flute player. However it wasn't long (forty minutes of tears) before I noticed that I had instead been given the part of 'Donkey'.

Hoorah. Isn't this every pantomime-attending child's dream? To clarify, I will be the front legs; my rear end is yet to be cast.

EVENTS GREEK PLAY Coming in February.

Beeware.

Common sense told me that the first thing an actor must do on landing a job is some background research on their part.

Since 'Donkey' is a silent role there is not an abundance of character description to be found online. I therefore resolved to carry out my research in a broader sense, looking more generally at donkeys and their role in the ancient past. The dictionary definition is: 'a domesticated hoofed mammal of the horse family with long ears and a braying call.’

It’s a daunting prospect to take on a role as a member of an entirely different species but I am a mammal, which is a strong start. Having Googled ‘donkeys in antiquity’ I can confirm that there are very few, if any, informative search results to be found, so I’m left believing that they weren’t all that different from donkeys today. By this rationale, and inspired by the ‘method acting’ techniques of certain highly esteemed professionals, I have lined up trips to Spitalfields City Farm for the coming weeks, in the hope of mastering an authentic bray. I predict that one on one contact with the beasts will propel me to reach deep for the donkey within.

But what does any of this matter?

There will be no difference between my doing a stellar job or a shoddy one; either way I shall seem an ass.

Classics Society Christmas Ball 10/12/2013

170 Drury Lane

CHRISTMAS BALL Thursday 12th December

Tickets: £15

Email vishnu.nambiar@kcl.ac.uk for bookings

THENEWSATYRICA CHRISTMAS ISSUE December 2013

President’s Word: Sport What we do in life, B6 echoes in eternity

PAGE 3 TORSO OF THE WEEK

By George Ellis

On the 17th November 2013, the Classics Society was represented for the first time ever by a rugby XV. This was a colossal day for all involved, and resulted in one of the most high-scoring games of rugby seen by Regent’s Park in two weeks.

The early work of Callimachus comes to mind when seeking to describe the Class-Soc performance: stoic, brave, individual, and no one really remembers much of it apart from the gay bits.

Official Class-Soc Man of the Match was Vishnu Nambiar, following his beautifully executed try, but an anonymous 5’4” spokeswoman from the Spectator’s Club gave an interview in which, combing back her large dark hair, she openly voted to award the unofficial MotM accolade to Oliver Harrington who, according to the 19-year old female Classics student, worked tirelessly on a dirty pitch, churning in the mud like a lost wombat, never ceasing to provide a hard tackle when necessary, and always delivering ball when required. The same anonymous interviewee also gave a damning report of a new BBC programme.

The Class-Soc ‘Dick of the Day’ award was chosen to be presented to Laurence Hall (no longer known as ‘Sandbag’) for challenging a member of the opposition to hand-to-hand combat after the opponent had kindly helped him stand up. Laurence also referred to the rugby ball as his ‘gravy pie’ throughout the match, and repeatedly suggested that this was why he wanted to protect it so diligently. Let’s just hope that he does a good job keeping Westeros safe.

Riace Warriors.

Saucy.

The Golden Moment of the match was awarded to Fabian Critchlow, for keeping a clearance kick in play with his face; exceptional dedication from the 2nd year, who took a ball to the face in such a way that could only bring back fond memories of his time at Harrow.

Despite losing by a one-score margin, the society took a lot from the game, and only one small bone was broken on the pitch. Max Smith put in a solid performance as the new Class-Soc Sports Secretary, getting his name on the score sheet and delivering some masterful tactical kicks. Huge thanks as ever to all players and also the dedicated Supporter’s Club for their rallying. Based on the success of this match, we are in the process of ordering a full Class-Soc kit, and will look forward to our next fixture with resolute anticipation.

KCL Classics Soc vs East India Club rugby ʻfriendlyʼ...

THENEWSATYRICA CHRISTMAS ISSUE December 2013

Classicool Why Classics Matters

by Oliver Norris, a Postgraduate Student in the Classics Department where he is currently completing a PhD on the Late Antique poet, Sedulius

As Classicists we often feel the need to justify why studying Classics matters. The irony is that as Classicists we’re often the last people to know why it matters. Wander into a department of History of Art, or New Testament Studies, or any Medieval Language and mention that you’re a Classicist and you’ll immediately be swamped with requests to help understand an inscription or a scriptural passage or a mythical reference. To non-Classicists the worth of Classics is only too clear: it teaches a set of essential skills.

If you’ll forgive me the analogy, university education can be likened to shipbuilding, with an undergraduate degree the construction of a sturdy ship, or trireme even. The different university departments are like the shipyards that line Piraeus’s harbour front: some specialise in fishing boats, others in merchant ships, and so on. The shipyard responsible for decking out the swiftest triremes has to be Classics. Our subject matter, Ancient Literature, brings us into contact with so many diverse disciplines – for sail, tackle and oars, read Philosophy, Art and History – and learning to read ancient languages is like building a ship ready to defy the roughest waters.

As a Classicist you can acquaint yourself with all these disciplines and along the way have the opportunity to work with texts in all their forms, as

inscriptions, manuscripts and as published texts, in the process learning the skills of the epigraphist, the palaeographer, the editor and the translator.

But why does this matter in our day and age?

As Benedict Wilkinson put so well in last month’s column, studying Classics forges a range of skills that come in very handy in the job market.

But what if a post at some City bank or journalist’s desk is not for you?

If that’s the case then why not put these skills to use in research! Our generation is privileged (not in term of university fees admittedly) but because a digital revolution has placed the Ancient World at our fingertips in a way that our ancestors could have only dreamt of. Every single day, manuscripts are digitalised, databases compiled and terabytes of information made available to us, much of it untranslated, un-published, and yet –o be investigated. No longer do we have to trawl the dusty libraries and monasteries of the Old World; all their treasures can be plundered at the click of a mouse. A veritable ocean of information is crying out to be navigated, explored and understood using exciting new digital methods. In my own field of Late Antique Literature, you only need to turn to a major publisher’s upcoming publications to get an idea of the staggering quantity of material about to be published in the field. And to be at the forefront of this revolution, there is no better preparation than a Classics degree, so you could say that Classics matters more now than it ever did.

Poetry Please When I Grow Up I Want To Be Mary Beard

by Megan Beech, 2nd Year English student at King’s and published performance poet

When I grow up I want to be Mary Beard.

A classy, classic, classicist, intellectually revered.

Wickedly wonderful and wise full to brim with life, while explaining the way in which Caligula died, on BBC prime time.

And I would like, like her, to shine.

The kind inclined to speak her mind, refined and blinding.

Yet I am finding it tough to grow up in a world where Twitter is littered with abuse towards women, where intelligent, eminent, eloquent females are met with derision.

Because she should be able to analyse Augustus' dictums or early AD epithets, without having to scroll through death, bomb and rape threats.

Do not tell me this is just the internet or a public figure deserves everything they get.

Because this isn't just about one academic, it's endemic in this society enmeshed in sexist rhetoric.

I cannot live accepting it!

Because when I grow up I want to be Mary Beard, to wear shiny converse and converse on conquerors and pioneers.

A sheer delight, an igniter of young minds, but never a victim.

Like Minerva herself, a goddess of wisdom.

THENEWSATYRICA CHRISTMAS ISSUE December 2013

Cultural Review The Globe Theatre’s The Lightening Child

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By Oliver Harrington

Though The Lightning Child, The Globe’s recent ‘musical remix of Euripides’ The Bacchae’, opened with the theme of defying mortal boundaries, bizarrely incorporating Neil Armstrong’s mission to the moon, all seriousness was dispelled with the entrance of an effeminate, heavily eyeliner-ed ‘ladyboy herald’ dangling from the mechane in a silver sphere, his faux-Jamaican accent complimented by a wig of multi-coloured dreadlocks. Curtains parted to reveal a dazzlingly bright Carribean-feel set that fitted perfectly with the live reggae band (part of the eclectic musical score composed by Arthur Darvill who, as an actor in Doctor Who, spent a little too much time in the public eye dressed as a Roman Centurion, an achievement that I too can claim).

It is fair to say that The Lightning Child was delightfully camp, embracing every opportunity Euripides offered for crossdressing.Cadmus and Tiresias were in all-out drag with an attitude epitomised in Tiresias’ gruffest line: ‘fuck the homophobes up the arse!’ Soon a chorus of maenads in gold lyrca introduced Dionysus who unequivocally owned the stage, glamorously combining James Brown, Diana Ross and Snoop Dogg by sporting sparkling 6inch platforms, purple flares and a jacket so chic it would only otherwise be seen on Ben Foulston.

And, thankfully, neither the power nor the passion demanded by the God of Revelry was lost.

Dionysus was almighty in comparison to the petulant Pentheus, who, trying to be the big man in his combat kit, at one point forced a terrified member of the yard’s front row to caress his six pack, shouting ‘feel how firm it is’ (which made his later transformation into a blonde bombshell even more delightful).

Episodes with a very modern feel, including cameos from Caster Semenya and Billy Holiday, were mixed in, alongside the sub-plots of ‘a couple of smack heads plus their puppy’ and ‘a pair of insufferably middle-class women in a house-share’.

Despite the comic energy throughout, the play stayed true to its Classical origins: it was almost too nasty to bear in moments of tragic retribution.

Anyone squeamish, as the ladyboy herald puts it, ‘may find the epic brutality unnecessarily extreme’: scenes like the hammering of a violinist’s hand, the

ripping apart of Pentheus and the parading of his severed head were all played out with no care for subtlety.

Moments of betrayal, violence and insanity were shocking and chilling, and from start to finish the spectacle was truly engaging. Whether moving you to laughter or tears (or to complete sickening revultion) the play was totally captivating, especially with the flow of a verse dialogue; Che Walker’s script is very much something Euripides’s himself would be proud to hear. Ultimately ‘The Lightning Child’ took its audience through emotional extremes, with a combination of fabulous gaiety, unrestrained gore and the glory of Classics bringing the truth of Greek Tragedy to life for the 21st Century.

Culture Vulture’s Round Up (May contain brackets and witty asides)

By Aaron Marchant

If culture were a drug, then members of the Classics Society would be higher than Icarus. Our top cultural events this term have been the British Museum Tour, Treasure Hunt and lingere modelling session, as well as the screening of THAT film (no, not George's latenight dvd collection), Gladiator.

The former was a frantic and fun-filled festivity, involving racing around the BM as swiftly as possible, taking suitably amusing pictures and generally invoking the wrath of the museum attendants. So heady an occasion was this that one of our society’s newer members managed to confuse the gift shop with Ann Summers (other purveyors of undergarments available).

The screening of Gladiator was shown in 2.5D (the .5 accounting for the film’s highly amusing subtitles). After 2 hours and 44 minutes of Russell Crowe, sausage rolls, cheap wine and "Stealthy Instrumental Music', B6 vaguely resembled the battlefield after a war between Alcoholics Anonymous and Weightwatchers. Despite an unfortunate shortage in volume (something Alex knows a lot about), the film evening ended in overall success (Alex doesn't know about this), and I look forward with the greatest anticipation to the next in our series of screenings.

Nunc bibendum est.

THENEWSATYRICA CHRISTMAS ISSUE December 2013

BM

The ‘G’BM for Beginners Standing on the shoulders of giants

By JK Maiden

It was only as I left the KCL Classicist’s Mecca, a place that I had previously believed was called the GBM (Great British Museum…terrible, I know…), that I could appreciate the ionic columns that had previously welcomed my ignorant self into the world of Classics.

From the Assyrian lion hunt to the metopes (metopes: very small cities or legendary weather forecasters) of the Parthenon, the British Museum certainly entertains and leaves one thirsting for more understanding and encounters with this ancient world ( a world that is not as lost as I had imagined).

Of course one can appreciate the British Museum on a purely aesthetic level, but the opportunity to engage with a time that was just as thrilling and fastpaced as our society today takes one’s afternoon from enjoyable to inspiring.

Having the opportunity to explore the museum with a dear friend who happens to be studying Classical Archaeology and Ancient History, I was fascinated by the ever-on-going debate regarding the gender of the giver of the peplos (peplos: mint-flavoured sweets taken for a burst of energy before exams); the way Greek sculpture has continued to influence concepts of artistic beauty throughout the ages; and to hear of the ‘nuclear arms race’ regarding displays of wealth undertaken by each elite member of all the ancient civilizations in their own unique, breath-taking way. The Mausoleum is just the crescendo of a people’s desire to be imprinted forever-more in the present.

Whilst walking from meticulous Egyptian writings brought to life by the Rosetta stone, to a beautiful Greek sculpture depicting a mythical fight between a Centaur and a Lapith, the sense of an age more elaborate and mystical than our own is overwhelming. Bernard of Chartres during the 12th Century Renaissance likened his intellectual contemporaries to ‘Dwarves seated on the shoulders of giants,’ indeed when stood before the towering Balawat gate one cannot help but agree with Bernard that today the achievements we make can seem small compared to the works of the great civilizations that have stood, and still stand, monumentally tall before us.

Indeed, the twenty-first century also stands tall: we have idolatrised ‘progression’ and ‘modernity’ which has led us to great technological advances. Advances such as the World Wide Web allow us to see great distances and mine vast fields of knowledge. Nonetheless I’d still argue that sometimes it is imperative to leave our own busy lives at the entrance, and just immerse ourselves in the people and the lives that have come before us. If only to stop and appreciate once in a while where we have come from, not just where we want to go. in the hope we might also one day be appreciated by those who will follow us.

From our BM Corrrespondent Risqué business

By Kostas O. Philokastoras

Confession time: I, a veteran British Museum goer, a patron thereof, who sends emails of inquiry into the thesis of the thesis of the South America curator regarding Muiscan Tunjos, am disappointed with the British Museum. I know, I know, take a deep breath, let it sink in, and read on.

This may not be Classical, but the Victorian prude within me simply cannot not help but vent my outrage in this flight of invective against the new exhibition ‘Shunga: Sex and Pleasure in Japanese Art’. Yet the Dutch, ‘we are just so open and comfortable with talking about sex and every juicy detail of it’ side of me thought that the exhibition was a novel idea, brilliantly displaying what is a forgotten art form and taking people out of their comfort zones to experience something wholly new - though maybe not too new for those seasoned watchers of ‘hentai’ (look it up yourself)…

Words simply fail me. Garrulous though I am, with a whole armoury of multisyllabic Greco-Roman linguistic terminology to support my case, I am dumbfounded. Is the British Museum for real? Seriously? It’s putting on an exhibition that is quite clearly nothing more than gratification for the twelve-year-old school children inside of the curators, and shows in more detail than I care to mention the male and female pudenda in all its Japanese glory (small though that glory may be). Then again, the skill of the painters cannot be doubted, as is displayed in some truly wonderful, intimate and romantic works such as Kitagawa Utamaro’s ‘Poem of the Pillow’ print. In the “Lovers in an Upstairs Bedroom” painting, tenderness is juxtaposed with comedy: two Romeo and Juliet style lovers with a gigantic octopus who is supposedly and expert in cunnilingus…

This dichotomy I guess gives us an idea of what is perhaps the whole aim of the exhibition, to leave us with questions that don’t really seem to have straightforward answers. On the one hand we are looking at pornography; on the other hand we are admiring beautiful artwork.

Visitors are either middle aged bald men in trench coats with glints in their eyes and more in their trousers, or they are people who are interested in comparative art and cultural sentiment (or who just like to talk a bunch of rubbish and pretend to be culturally enlightened).

My opinion, you ask? Go and make your own mind up, but leave your embarrassment at home. This stuff is x-rated, and some of it words simply cannot describe. So go and laugh to your heart’s content at all those things you feel you shouldn’t – now, thanks to the BM, you’re allowed to!

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THENEWSATYRICA CHRISTMAS ISSUE December 2013

to add fluidity, solidity and remove structured rigidity Moreover, he made a new innovation A cessation, of the masculine dominance To prominence, came the female figures of Trachis, and Antigone too who eschew the traditional view of women, and their submissive

By Alexander Zietek bearing More daring, less despairing Now Sophocles of Sophillus was born But still maintaining the customary in 495 caring Within his works and legacy he and devotion, and though sentiment is managed to contrive a tragedy, changed contemporary style omitted Committed are the women in the plays Afiled, though Aeschylus had trialed a In more ways, than simply through biofile relationships technique, he restyled, and sought to And outstrip women like Clytemnestra seek an exploration into the nature of man, Sequesters her, in her heroic stature a creation of the tragic flaw, more than And enraptures the audience to unparalleled levels had been probed by the playwrights He revels in his success in what he had from before achieved The core of the tragedy based on the The explorations of emotions in the flaw plays that he has weaved, and The struggles of man he aims to opt received countless prizes for his efforts for in 30 competitions Losing the focus on religion and for his transmissions, in Dionysia, and morality all the other city states Bringing back that lost smidgen of He dictates the structure of the tragedy, reality now a great Mortality, becomes formality An aim to show the audience a sense of surpassing Aeschylus and laying down the foundations fatality for future creations, for future More geniality, more sensuality Make the audience feel the pain of the generations, his innovations, of painted background scenery and his tragedy installations Bond with the audience, lose the of new characters and their formality degradations of Aeschylus, increase the partiality he changed the regulations, removed reach the actuality, explore the the limitations catharsishis tragedies were revelations, Ajax, This, which Aristotle favoured greatly Innately, became the foundation of his Antigone, Oedipus the King, Oedipus at Colonus, were plays accompanying A change, of significance, convention, The Trachinian Women, Philoctetes An invention, of a third actor, a new and Electra dimension Their director, a defector from the explored, the complexity of a tragedy confines of tradition, increased, his submission, of the inversion of the The chorus were ceased, became a trilogy limited role The Theban Plays with the distinctive the whole structure of the tragedy antilogy, revolved the lack of a continuous narrative, and resolved, Aeschylus adopted the comparative changes with the previous plays of simplistic His adaption laid the marker through anatomy the ages the disparity, serves as way of Euripides, Aristotle, even Shakespeare adhere, but Sophocles didn’t stop here, highlighting the manifestation, and revocation of tragedy, from the to add drama, his use of the iambic legend that is trimeter Sophocles. with Oedipus and his exploration of the martyr

An Epic Rap The Transformation of Tragedy Under Sophocles

WALL OF SHAME

Who, me?

I love you

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THENEWSATYRICA CHRISTMAS ISSUE December 2013

AGORA AUNT Dear Agora Aunt,

I’ve started developing feelings for this guy and I’m really picking up signals that he likes me too. It all started when he taught me how to fight: he kept on brandishing his sword, thrusting deep and hard. He even grabbed my spear a couple of times. See what I mean? The only thing is some people say we’re cousins and I just don’t know if I should go there. Not to mention the fact that he’s also the best warrior ever and I can’t help feeling I’m not good enough for him. I don’t even know how to tell him, like will I be able to bring it up?

-Patroklos

Readers’ responses ‘SEE what you mean? No not really.’ – Oedipus ‘Um…my dad told me Achilleus was straight…is there something I should know?’

- Iphigeneia ‘Don’t pine after him, turn over a new leaf before it’s too late and branch out to other guys.’ – Myrrha ‘Seriously? My city is burnt to the ground, my whole family is dead AND I’m Achilleus’ beard?’ - Briseïs Agora Aunt’s verdict It seems to be a unanimous ‘no’ from the responses; you just have to face the fact that incest isn’t always best. Good luck getting over your crush and don’t do anything rash like running out onto the battlefield to impress him, it won’t end well.

Until next time, Agora Aunt xx (G.C.)

For Philippa Coles-Bayes By ways remote and distant waters sped, Brother, to thy sad grave-side am I come, That I may give the last gifts to the dead, And vainly parley with thine ashes dumb: Since she who now bestows and now denies Hath taken thee, hapless brother, from mine eyes.

But lo! these gifts, the heirlooms of past years, Are made sad things to grace thy coffin shell, Take them, all drenchèd with a brother’s tears, And, brother, for all time, hail and farewell!

- Catullus’ Ave Atque Vale trans. Aubrey Beardsley

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Anglo-Classical Semi-Cryptic Xmas Xword by Numquam A. A a b

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For the New Satyrica Chrismas Crossword Grand Prize, e-mail the name of the family whose motto begins: Ff Ig Hk Ac If Bh Ac Ig Ki Cb Ii Ff to thenewsatyrica@gmail.com.

Across 1 Endless sun-god, one nostril: saint, heretic, et al. (xi) 8 The city (iv) 9 Painter of Danaë series after 11 and circa M years after 24: a preOlympian god, plus one (vi) 10 Half a passing comment: key in wobbly orbit (vi) 11 Eggy poet with half a dozen (iv) 14 Adonis’ mother, as 6 to Hesiod, alias Phoebe (xi) 16 2-dweller Cornelius Nepos: “… accola” (Pliny) (iv) 18 I give up: old-style nothing (v) 19 Ubi mel … apes (iii) 21 Casually friendless by chance (iv) 22 … hoc, ref, rem, acta, nauseam (ii) 23 A side in football etc. (ii) 24 Painter, a bit like 1 across, sounds smelly: all of us droop, lacking force (xi) !

Down 1 Hellenistic epic with action, aura, gravity, and Jason (xi) 2 River in 1 across, 24 and Italy (ii) 3 Love conquers this: mixed acid (v) 4 11’s lingo as per ISO 639-1 (ii) 5 I look into short introduction about confused general (xi) 6 Uncertain source reference (abbrev.), in great tribulation (vi) 7 The Holy See: Father Christmas is around a hundred, but you are palindromic (vi, v) 12 E.g. Appia, in “semper aliquid novi Africam adferre” (Pliny) (iii) 13 Certain source reference (abbrev.), in Dido in Hades (iii) 15 Everyone likes me: fancy fabric in 2 (vi) 17 I learn, to or from a quoit (v) 20 First degree in e.g. Classics (ii) 23 Size forty sounds good (ii)