Tea at Trianon: Ancient Greeks at the Beach

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Thursday, August 7, 2025

Ancient Greeks at the Beach

From The Conversation:

As I write in my 2016 book, “The Sea in the Greek Imagination,” Greek literature discounts all the positive sensations of the beach and the sea and focuses on the negative ones in order to stress the discomfort the ancient Greeks felt about the beach and the sea in general.

For instance, Greek literature emphasizes the intense smell of seaweed and sea brine. In the “Odyssey,” an eighth century B.C.E. poem that takes place largely at sea, the hero Menelaus and his companions are lost near the coast of Egypt. They must hide under the skins of seals to catch the sea god Proteus and learn their way home from him. The odor of the seals and sea brine is so extremely repulsive to them that their ambush almost fails, and only magical ambrosia placed under their noses can neutralize the smell.

Similarly, while the sound of the waves on a calm day is relaxing for many people, the violence of storms at sea can be distressing. Ancient Greek literature focuses only on the frightening power of stormy seas, comparing it to the sounds of battle. In the “Iliad,” a poem contemporary with the “Odyssey,” the onslaught of the Trojan army on the Greek battle lines is compared to a storm at sea: “They advanced like a deadly storm that scours the earth, to the thunder of Father Zeus, and stirs the sea with stupendous roaring, leaving surging waves in its path over the echoing waters, serried ranks of great arched breakers white with foam.” (Read more.)