Thursday, June 29, 2006

The Ancient Temple of Athena Parthenos 巴特农神殿(雅典娜庙)



The Temple of Athena Parthenos, the Parthenon, is now a ruin lying atop the Acropolis of Athens. The Parthenon was built to house a huge gold and ivory statue of the goddess Athena, patron of the polis of Athens. The polis was the Greeks' distinctive political formation - a walled town with surrounding villages and countryside, and politically independent of its neighbors. The high place of a polis - the acropolis - was the site of shrines to locally important deities.

Work began on the Parthenon in 447 BC and continued until 432 BC. The Parthenon is a Doric peripteral temple. This means that it consists of a rectangular floor plan with a series of low steps on every side, and a colonnade of Doric columns extending around the periphery of the entire structure. Each entrance has an additional six columns in front of it. The larger of the two interior rooms, the naos, housed the statue (a gold and ivory standing figure, forty feet tall, which was clothed in a peplos and wore a helmet decorated with a sphinx and two winged horses. Her lance leaned against her shoulder and the shield was grounded. In her right hand she held the Winged Victory). The smaller room (the opisthodomos) was used as a treasury.

The temple was constructed larger than usual temples so that the statue would not be cramped in the naos. The peristyle consists of eight columns on the short sides and seventeen on the long sides. The building, of Pentelic marble, measures 228 feet by 101 feet. In addition to the decoration of the frieze, the metopes repeated the theme of Victory by depicting the victory of the Athenians over the Amazons, the victory of the gods over the giants, the war between the Centaurs and the Lapiths, and the end of the Trojan War.

Within the Parthenon was a shelter for the Goddess Athena. The Parthenon was not a place open to the masses. The Parthenon’s spiritual quality is heightened by the lack of a single, straight, vertical line in the peristyle (the surrounding colonnade). The columns are arranged in diminishing thickness toward the centre of the colonnade. There is diminishing space between the columns, and they lean toward the centre too. All these differences are virtually invisible to the naked eye.

The Goddess Athena was the armed protector of all Greek poleis, not only Athens. She was the daughter of Zeus and Metis. Zeus heard a prophecy that the child Metis bore after she gave birth to Athena would become the lord of heaven, so, to prevent this from happening, he swallowed Metis while she was still pregnant with Athena. When the time came for Athena to be born, the smith god, Hephaistos, opened Zeus' head with an axe, and Athena stepped out, in full armor.

In the Greek epic Iliad, Athena's warlike qualities are apparent as she sternly thwarts Aphrodite, goddess of erotic desire, and Aphrodite's pawns, the ill-fated lovers Paris and Helen of Troy. Athena's devious cunning inspired Odysseus, hero of the epic Odyssey, to build the Trojan Horse. She also invented the horse-bit, which, for the first time, tamed horses, allowing men to use them. She is, above all, the Goddess of the City, the protectress of civilized life, of artesian activities, and of agriculture. In poetry she is the incarnation of Wisdom, Reason and Purity. Athens is her city; the olive tree, created by her, is her tree; the owl, is the birth consecrated to her.

Tuesday, June 27, 2006

Image of Minerva



The goddess of wisdom, medicine, the arts, science and trade, and war.

Owl Of Minerva

Owl Of Minerva

Minerva was the Roman goddess of wisdom and of war. The owl was the symbol of her wisdom.
Minerva herself was derived from the Greek goddess Athena and Athena is also often portrayed with her owl. Many Roman deities are directly taken from Greek predecessors.


The owl of Minerva spreads its wings only with the falling of the dusk.
---G. W. F. Hegel, 1821

Monday, June 26, 2006

Eric the Half-a-Bee

Eric the Half-a-Bee

Take it away Eric the Orchestra Leader

Eric: A-one, two, a-one two three four

Half a bee, philosophically,
Must, ipso facto, half not be.
But half the bee has got to be
Vis a vis, its entity. D'you see?

But can a bee be said to be
Or not to be an entire bee
When half the bee is not a bee
Due to some ancient injury?
-singing

La dee dee, one two three,
Eric the half a bee.
A B C D E F G,
Eric the half a bee.

Is this wretched demi-bee,
Half-asleep upon my knee,
Some freak from a menagerie?
No! It's Eric the half a bee!

Fiddle de dum, Fiddle de dee,
Eric the half a bee.
Ho ho ho, tee hee hee,
Eric the half a bee.

I love this hive, employee-ee,
Bisected accidentally,
One summer afternoon by me,
I love him carnally.

He loves him carnally,
Semi-carnally.

The End

Cyril Connolly?

No, semi-carnally

Oh
Cyril Connoly (whistle)

Music by: Eric Idle
Lyrics by: Eric Idle and John Cleese

Saturday, June 24, 2006

Philosopher's Drinking Song by Monty Python

Immanuel Kant was a real piss-ant who was very rarely stable.
Heideggar, Heideggar was a boozy beggar who could think you under the table.
David Hume could out-consume Wilhelm Freidrich Hegel.
And Wittgenstein was a beery swine who was just as sloshed as Schlegel.
There's nothing Nieizsche couldn't teach 'ya 'bout the raising of the wrist.
Socrates, himself, was permanently pissed.
John Stewart Mill, of his own free will, after half a pint of shanty was particularly ill.
Plato, they say, could stick it away, half a crate of whiskey every day!
Aristotle, Aristotle was a bugger for the bottle,
And Hobbes was fond of his Dram.
And Rene Descartes was a drunken fart:
"I drink, therefore I am."
Yes, Socrates himself is particularly missed;
A lovely little thinker, but a bugger when he's pissed.

Sunday, June 18, 2006

猫头鹰哲学征文赛

猫头鹰哲学征文赛

猫头鹰之家 (Minerva Circle)成立于2005年,目的是提供哲学爱好者一个交流平台,也为了让更多人有接触哲学的机会。

这个非牟利组织在创立后,陆续主办过中外哲学课程、哲学生活营、哲学讲座、哲学会饮等活动。6月18日也将对外开办“柏拉图《理想国》专书研读”课程。若对猫头鹰之家的哲学活动有兴趣,可透过电邮minervacircle@gmail.com和我们联系。

此次猫头鹰之家将举办哲学征文赛,由即日起开始征稿,截止日期为9月2日。体裁限小说,散文或论文,字数介于2000 到 5000之间。不拘范围或题目,惟每人限投稿1份。评审标准为原创性、逻辑性、可读性、清晰性,文笔优美尤佳。

评审团将从中取1名特奖及5名佳作,但也保留奖项悬空的决定权。有兴趣参加者,请在截止日期前将稿件以电邮寄至上述地址。详细参赛简章请到http://windowofminerva.blogspot.com游览。

18/6/2006 《南洋商报》《人文》版

Saturday, June 10, 2006

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