Does anyone know anything about this book? Can you recommend any scholarly or critical articles that could give me some insight into the text, or should I just jump in? I'm working on an email to my old classics professor, but I'm not sure she will answer. I have this edition with the remainder of the books as well in a similar volume. I obtained it because someone on /x/ mentioned it as the longest epic poem of antiquity, and I studied the Iliad and the Odyssey a little in college and gained a lot from it (just in translation). I am interested in the text in general and occult, esoteric, and mythological themes, motifs, events, figures, and anything like spells, diegetic texts incantations or songs, artifacts, or rituals as is consistent with my current interests. Have any of you read Dionysiaca? I guess it's the story of Dionysus going to Persia and returning. I'm interested to know where he began and how the journey affected him.
>>41369007Nonnos is a fascinating figure. Dionysiaca is one of those works that are kept from the masses, in expensive ancient language editions.
>>41369007It’s always been frustrating to me that there is not an English verse translation of this. The edition you posted is, as far as I know, the only English translation — I have it too, and it’s in prose. Which is fine, but then it reads almost like a novel and not a poem.I’ve thought about adapting this translation into English heroic verse, or even blank verse, though I can’t read Greek (and nor have I read this poem). One day, though.The Bacchae of Euripides is probably a good place to start re Dionysus and his rites + rituals, if you haven’t read it already. Then other obscure epic poems you should look into, in addition to the Dionysiaca:The Thebiad of StatiusThe Post-Homerica of Quintus The Punica of Sillius Italicus And then the less-obscure but under-rated and under-read Pharsalia of LucanIn terms of epic poetry: if you haven’t read it, you should start with Virgil’s Aeneid. For a thousand+ years it was considered a spiritual text — late Romans and medieval people used to use it to tell fortunes. You'd ask a question, open the poem to a random page, then whichever line your finger landed on was your response.Poetry/poet as Oracle. I think you guys should talk about/read poetry more often. At a high level it is certainly spiritual and it interacts with the supernatural I think more than we tend to realize.
Unless you have all 48-books and are very fluent in the logic and meaning of homeric greek you are wasting your time.I don't want to discourage, but if you are going to read the Dionysiaca, do it right. Do it actually right
