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| Hans Kels the Younger Phaedra and Hippolytus 1537 oak relief-carving on token for board game Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna |
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| Hans Kels the Younger Orpheus and Eurydice 1537 oak relief-carving on token for board game Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna |
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| attributed to Giovanni Caccini Phalaris and the Bull of Perillus ca. 1590-1600 terracotta relief Art Institute of Chicago |
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| Ancient Greece Stater of Lampsakos with Head of Pan 387-330 BC gold Museum of Fine Arts, Boston |
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| Ancient Greece Obol of Megalopolis with Head of Pan 370-363 BC silver Museum of Fine Arts, Boston |
An Antique Gesture
I thought, as I wiped my eyes on the corner of my apron:
Penelope did this too.
And more than once: you can't keep weaving all day
And undoing it all through the night;
Your arms get tired, and the back of your neck gets tight;
And along towards morning, when you think it will never be light,
And your husband has gone, and you don't know where, for years,
Suddenly you burst into tears;
There is simply nothing else to do.
And I thought, as I wiped my eyes on the corner of my apron:
This is an ancient gesture, authentic, antique,
In the very best tradition, classic, Greek;
Ulysses did this too.
But only as a gesture, – a gesture which implied
To the assembled throng that he was much too moved to speak.
He learned it from Penelope . . .
Penelope, who really cried.
– Edna St. Vincent Millay (1949)
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| Ancient Greece Statuette of Pan 3rd-2nd century BC bronze Museum of Fine Arts, Boston |
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| Ancient Rome Statuette of Phrixos 1st century BC bronze Getty Museum, Los Angeles |
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| Ancient Greece Woman wearing Peplos ca. 450 BC terracotta statuette Museum of Fine Arts, Boston |
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| Attic Greece Kylix - Hercules and Antaeus (detail) ca. 500-480 BC painted terracotta Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna |
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| Attic Greece Hydria - Achilles dragging the Corpse of Hector behind his Chariot ca. 520-510 BC painted terracotta Museum of Fine Arts, Boston |
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| Attic Greece Skyphos - Amazon mounted on a Lion, confronting a a Monster ca. 510-500 BC painted terracotta Museum of Fine Arts, Boston |
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| Attic Greece Neck Amphora - Hercules and Triton ca. 520 BC painted terracotta Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
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| François Dumont Titan struck by a Thunderbolt (detail) 1712 marble Musée du Louvre |
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| Ancient Rome Great Eleusinian Relief (fragment of Roman copy with with Demeter, Triptolemos and Persephone) ca. 27 BC - AD 14 marble relief-panel Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |