This week we’re starting to work with the primary source readings. For the one you picked, what moment stood out to you? What do you think the author was trying to impress on their audience?

Take some time to read through your chosen text and get a feel for the mood, the intent, the people. How does this connect with what we’re saying about the Greeks in class?

I picked Homer’s Odyssey, the story of “Nausicaa and the Stranger,” because it shows a different side of Greek life than the usual battles, kings, and bloody wars. The part that stood out most to me was when Odysseus comes out of the bushes, dirty, weak, and in need of help, and has to beg Nausicaa for mercy. Even though he appears frightening, Nausicaa stays calm while the other girls run away. She listens to him, shows courage, and offers food, clothes, and guidance. I think Homer wanted his audience to see how important kindness and hospitality were to the Greeks, especially since they believed strangers were under the gods’ protection. This moment also shows Odysseus in a new light, not just as a powerful warrior, but as someone vulnerable and dependent on the goodwill of others.

This reading tells us a lot about the time and culture it came from. The way Homer describes Nausicaa’s family life, her father leaving for council, her mother spinning wool, and Nausicaa doing laundry with her maid, gives the royal household more of an ordinary, middle-class feel than a palace filled with luxury. This matches what we’ve talked about in class: that bards in the Dark Age pictured the Bronze Age through the lens of their own daily experiences. Compared to other readings, this primary source highlight more family roles, social expectations, and 'hospitality' rather than wealth or war. It makes me curious about how much of what Homer describes reflects real traditions and how much is just his society’s values placed onto the past. I’d like to learn more about how daily Greek life mixed with myth in these kinds of stories.

I picked the reading named "The Beginning of Things" by Hesiod, and what was interesting to me was how Hesiod described how the gods made different generations of "men" from the "golden" to the "age of iron" generation, and he explains how each generation lives and what they do. The detail that jumped out to me was how, in every instance, when Hesiod describes a generation, he goes from a glorious description of what the golden generation is to the harsh, dirty description of the age of iron generation. The author was trying to communicate how life was from the high, glorious days of Greece to the present, which in this case is the age of iron, when everything went downhill. What this document was trying to say, according to the time and place this was written, most people, especially those of higher power, think that life as a normal person like him is nothing hard, but in reality, it is the most excruciating thing ever. This document supports the other readings that we have seen because this passage is addressing the harsh realities of what life really is, and this time, not from the perspective of a person in a high position, but one in a low, looked-down-upon position as a farmer.