hawkwing_lb (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
hawkwing_lb) wrote2010-06-18 08:36 pm
hawkwing_lb) wrote2010-06-18 08:36 pm
Entry tags:
The Greeks had words for it.
I'm presently reading James Davidson's massive work on homosexuality in ancient Greece, The Greeks and Greek Love. I'm not very far in, but Davidson has a lively style and an impressive skill at conveying his (impressively extensive) knowledge.
Two paragraphs struck me today, though, when he was speaking of charis - grace, the lubricating element in human relationships and human and divine interactions. Charm, favour.
[p44]"Even when it seems to reside in someone, charis never loses its sense of circulation. If it appears in a song, it is because the Muses or the Graces have momentarily graced the composer with their presence. Charis therefore is never, properly, something you can vaunt. It is not yours to be proud of. It is always reflected glory, even though the fons et origo of all this munificence may not be readily definable. The metaphysical powers who sprinkle it or pour it or fill people with it are invoked primarily to dispossess the one they sprinkle with it of agency... and of ultimate ownership, to remind one, especially the one graced with charm, that it is but a gift, a loan without interest. This is how charis can be so closely associated with humility or 'a sense of shame' (aidos), and how grace for ancient Greeks is so potent a word of piety.
"The Girl from Ipanema also helps us to see why charm can be seen as a prerogative especially of youth. Charis is fleeting not only because you cannot quite pinpoint exactly what it is, or who has it, but because what it is tends to magically appear and then to be gone again, as evanescent in fact as it is to comprehension. The key conceit of this song is that the girl's loveliness, her beauty, is passing her, as she passes, as if, like a hummingbird, charm has temporarily nested on her, graced her with its presence. But of course it is precisely in its passingness that her charm lies... [p45] Like Hogarth's spiralling line of grace it is forever receding, as hard for her to take permanent hold of as it is for the world she walks through, or for the poet who puts pen to paper and still - because it's 'more than a poem' - misses it, or for the listener as she passes through the song."
[all italics original]
Davidson continues, of course, but that seems to be the heart of his discussion of charis to me. It's one of the words - like philos and eros and himeros, which Davidson also discusses - that comes up quite a bit in Greek texts in translation: grace or favour or charm, words which in English mean different things but which in Greek are all charis.
So my head has been cracked open a little wider, and more context for an entirely different worldview poured in. Many historians hedge things around, and so do many archaeologists: few go all the way down to the level of philology and illuminate a concept from its underside as well as from straight in front.
But aside from ancient context, it's an interesting discussion of such an ephemeral and ambiguous thing as grace in its own right.
Two paragraphs struck me today, though, when he was speaking of charis - grace, the lubricating element in human relationships and human and divine interactions. Charm, favour.
[p44]"Even when it seems to reside in someone, charis never loses its sense of circulation. If it appears in a song, it is because the Muses or the Graces have momentarily graced the composer with their presence. Charis therefore is never, properly, something you can vaunt. It is not yours to be proud of. It is always reflected glory, even though the fons et origo of all this munificence may not be readily definable. The metaphysical powers who sprinkle it or pour it or fill people with it are invoked primarily to dispossess the one they sprinkle with it of agency... and of ultimate ownership, to remind one, especially the one graced with charm, that it is but a gift, a loan without interest. This is how charis can be so closely associated with humility or 'a sense of shame' (aidos), and how grace for ancient Greeks is so potent a word of piety.
"The Girl from Ipanema also helps us to see why charm can be seen as a prerogative especially of youth. Charis is fleeting not only because you cannot quite pinpoint exactly what it is, or who has it, but because what it is tends to magically appear and then to be gone again, as evanescent in fact as it is to comprehension. The key conceit of this song is that the girl's loveliness, her beauty, is passing her, as she passes, as if, like a hummingbird, charm has temporarily nested on her, graced her with its presence. But of course it is precisely in its passingness that her charm lies... [p45] Like Hogarth's spiralling line of grace it is forever receding, as hard for her to take permanent hold of as it is for the world she walks through, or for the poet who puts pen to paper and still - because it's 'more than a poem' - misses it, or for the listener as she passes through the song."
[all italics original]
Davidson continues, of course, but that seems to be the heart of his discussion of charis to me. It's one of the words - like philos and eros and himeros, which Davidson also discusses - that comes up quite a bit in Greek texts in translation: grace or favour or charm, words which in English mean different things but which in Greek are all charis.
So my head has been cracked open a little wider, and more context for an entirely different worldview poured in. Many historians hedge things around, and so do many archaeologists: few go all the way down to the level of philology and illuminate a concept from its underside as well as from straight in front.
But aside from ancient context, it's an interesting discussion of such an ephemeral and ambiguous thing as grace in its own right.