Spring Into March: A Time to Celebrate Greek Heritage

March is Greek Heritage Month at the TDSB. This year's theme is “Wisdom, Hope, Love” , translated as  “Sofia, Elpida, Agape.”

SOFIA was not a Greek goddess, but rather the personification of cleverness and skill; wisdom incarnate. She is not to be confused with Athena, the goddess of wisdom and war. By definition, philosophy equates to a "love of Sophia" -or a love of wisdom. 
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ELPIS (Elphida in modern Greek) is the personified spirit (daimon) of hope. She and the other daimones were trapped in a jar by Zeus and entrusted to the care of the first woman Pandora. When she opened the vessel all of the spirits escaped except for Elpis (Hope) who remained behind to comfort mankind. Elpis was depicted as a young woman carrying flowers in her arms. Her opposite number was Moros, the spirit of hopelessness and doom.

AGAPE is what some call spiritual love, or love in its highest form. It is an unconditional love, bigger than ourselves, a boundless compassion, an infinite empathy. It is what the Buddhists describe as “mettā” or “universal loving kindness.” It is the purest form of love that is free from desires and expectations, and loves regardless of the flaws and shortcomings of others. This type of love is in direct contrast and not to be confused with eros (love associated with sexuality and desire), deriving from the Greek god Eros and associated with Aphrodite; the goddess of love and beauty. 

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​The Republic 
Often ranked as the greatest of Plato's many remarkable writings, this celebrated philosophical work of the fourth century B.C. contemplates the elements of an ideal state.
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Written in the form of a dialog in which Socrates questions his students and fellow citizens, The Republic concerns itself chiefly with the question, "What is justice?" as well as Plato's theory of ideas and his conception of the philosopher's role in society. To explore the latter, he invents the allegory of the cave to illustrate his notion that ordinary men are like prisoners in a cave, observing only the shadows of things, while philosophers are those who venture outside the cave and see things as they really are, and whose task it is to return to the cave and tell the truth about what they have seen.

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https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Socrates#/media/File:Marcello_Bacciarelli_-_Alcibiades_Being_Taught_by_Socrates,_1776-77_crop.jpg

The Iliad 
by Homer (Author), Bernard Knox 
​(Editor, Introduction), Robert Fagles (Translator)
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Dating to the ninth century B.C., Homer’s timeless poem still vividly conveys the horror and heroism of men and gods wrestling with towering emotions and battling amidst devastation and destruction, as it moves inexorably to the wrenching, tragic conclusion of the Trojan War. Renowned classicist Bernard Knox observes in his superb introduction that although the violence of the Iliad is grim and relentless, it coexists with both images of civilized life and a poignant yearning for peace.

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​The Odyssey
by Homer (Author), Bernard Knox
 (Editor, Introduction), Robert Fagles (Translator)
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If the Iliad is the world's greatest war epic, the Odyssey is literature's grandest evocation of an everyman's journey through life. Odysseus' reliance on his wit and wiliness for survival in his encounters with divine and natural forces during his ten-year voyage home to Ithaca after the Trojan War is at once a timeless human story and an individual test of moral endurance. In the myths and legends  retold here.

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