From Atsummers@aol.com Fri May 3 17:39:29 2002 Received: from mailscan5.cac.washington.edu (mailscan5.cac.washington.edu [140.142.32.14]) by lists.u.washington.edu (8.12.1+UW01.12/8.12.1+UW02.01) with SMTP id g440dSw3032746 for ; Fri, 3 May 2002 17:39:28 -0700 Received: FROM mxu4.u.washington.edu BY mailscan5.cac.washington.edu ; Fri May 03 17:39:27 2002 -0700 Received: from imo-m01.mx.aol.com (imo-m01.mx.aol.com [64.12.136.4]) by mxu4.u.washington.edu (8.12.1+UW01.12/8.12.1+UW02.01) with ESMTP id g440dRIe014012 for ; Fri, 3 May 2002 17:39:27 -0700 Received: from Atsummers@aol.com by imo-m01.mx.aol.com (mail_out_v32.5.) id d.17e.7d304f5 (30964) for ; Fri, 3 May 2002 20:39:21 -0400 (EDT) From: Atsummers@aol.com Message-ID: <17e.7d304f5.2a0487b9@aol.com> Date: Fri, 3 May 2002 20:39:21 EDT Subject: Re: Did Homer visit Mt. Olympus? To: classics@u.washington.edu MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="part1_17e.7d304f5.2a0487b9_boundary" X-Mailer: AOL 6.0 for Windows US sub 10572 --part1_17e.7d304f5.2a0487b9_boundary Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Homer may or may have not visited Mt. Olympus but his epithet "cloud gatherer" for Zeus became vividly accurate for me: One morning, as I was standing at the foot of the mountain gazing up at the clear blue sky, I saw in the west horizon an amorphous cloud that was approaching Mt. Olympus at great speed. Within 10 minutes the cloud took the form of a mass of innumerable balls of smaller, white clouds that were rolling quickly (as if obeying to the orders of a summoning spirit) like sheep running toward their shepherd. The clouds soon enveloped the top half of the mountain and then hovered around it, as if they had reached their destination. I truly experienced the feelings of awe and amazement at that powerfully majestic sight that any ancient must have felt at natural phenomena like this one, and I was convinced that whoever composed those poems was most definitely not blind! ts ********************************* Dr. Tatiana Tsakiropoulou-Summers Modern Languages & Classics Classics Section 238 B. B. Comer Hall Box 870246 University of Alabama Tuscaloosa, AL 35487-0246 Phone: (205) 348-3011 FAX: (205) 348-2042 --part1_17e.7d304f5.2a0487b9_boundary Content-Type: text/html; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Homer may or may have not visited Mt. Olympus but his epithet "cloud gatherer" for Zeus  became vividly accurate for me: One morning, as I was standing at the foot of the mountain gazing up at the clear blue sky, I saw in the west horizon an amorphous cloud that was approaching Mt. Olympus at great speed. Within 10 minutes the cloud took the form of a mass of innumerable balls of smaller, white clouds that were rolling quickly (as if obeying to the orders of a summoning spirit) like sheep running toward their shepherd. The clouds soon enveloped the top half of the mountain and then hovered around it, as if they had reached their destination.

I truly experienced the feelings of awe and amazement at that powerfully majestic sight that any ancient must have felt at natural phenomena like this one, and I was convinced that whoever composed those poems was most definitely not blind!

ts

*********************************
Dr. Tatiana Tsakiropoulou-Summers
Modern Languages & Classics
Classics Section
238 B. B. Comer Hall
Box 870246
University of Alabama
Tuscaloosa, AL 35487-0246

Phone: (205) 348-3011
FAX: (205) 348-2042 --part1_17e.7d304f5.2a0487b9_boundary-- .