Ancient Classics

Christopher Marlowe's play about a man who sells his soul to the devil is not only one of the first of many works to explore this theme but also one of the most startling. Eschewing the usual division of the drama into acts, it presents the story of Faustus' fall in a series of apparently disconnected scenes. However, the integrity of the drama is maintained by the remorseless unraveling of Faustus' fortunes as he approaches his inevitable damnation.

The Metamorphoses by Publius Ovidius Naso (43 B.C. - A.D. 17) has, over the centuries, been the most popular and influential work from our classical tradition. This extraordinary collection of some 250 Greek and Roman myths and folk tales has always been a popular favorite, and has decisively shaped western art and literature from the moment it was completed in A.D. 8. The stories are particularly vivid when read by David Horovitch, in this new lively verse translation by Ian Johnston.

Les sonnets parus en 1609 mais rédigés au fil des décennies précédentes résonnent encore aujourd'hui de part les thèmes intemporels qu'ils abordent, le désir, l'amour, la jalousie, le doute, la vieillesse, la mort. Ces 154 poèmes nous offrent à voir un concentré de l'univers shakespearien passionné, touchant, universel.

When the mysterious Green Knight arrives unbidden at the Round Table one Christmas, only Gawain is brave enough to take up his challenge.... This story, first told in the 1400s, is one of the most enthralling, dramatic and beloved poems in the English tradition. Now, in Simon Armitage, the poem has found its perfect modern translator. Armitage's retelling of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight captures all of the magic and wonderful storytelling of the original while also revitalising it.

As one of the supremely gifted poets of all time, one might expect great things from this collection of poetry by Horace. And these works do not disappoint. The 17 poems of the Epodes cover a variety of topics, including politics, magic, eroticism and food. A product of the turbulent final years of the Roman Republic, the collection is known for its striking depiction of Rome's sociopolitical ills in a time of great upheaval. In the Epistles, Horace reveals himself as a genuine moralist, a subtle observer of life, and a very good writer.

Pindar was one of the greatest lyric poets of ancient Greece. He is best known today for his odes to the victors of athletic contests, including those at famed Olympia. These odes, the only complete surviving pieces by Pindar, are marvels of sustained imagination, packed with dense parallels between the athletic victor, his illustrious aristocratic ancestors, and the myths of Olympian gods and heroes like Jason, Heracles, and Perseus.

Livy continues his magnificent epic, with Rome in complete ruin after the Gallic invasion and sack of the city in 310 B.C. Led by Camillus, one of Rome's great heroic patricians, the city regains her self-confidence and once more becomes the leader of the Latin people. Painstakingly rebuilding alliances, forging friendships, cementing relations among her own people, and fighting endless wars, Rome soon becomes the dominant power among the fractious Italic tribes on the Latin plain.

This is a summary of Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations. Meditations is essentially a scrapbook of thoughts written over a 19-year period; it’s not ordered and it repeats itself frequently as ideas reoccurred to the author at different times. For this reason, it can be hard for a casual reader to extract the myriad messages contained within. This summary helps in that by interpreting Meditations and reducing it from around 50,000 words down to 4,400. While it has been interpreted, the author has done his best not to embellish it.

This simplistic and ingenious allegory from one of the fathers of Western philosophy casts light on society’s naiveté and ignorance.

The Athenian court has found Socrates guilty and sentenced him to death. While he is waiting to be executed, his friend, Crito, comes to the prison to persuade him to escape and go into exile. Socrates responds by examining the essence of law and community, probing the various kinds of law and making distinctions that go far beyond the particular issue of whether or not Socrates should escape.

Petronius’ Satyricon is a rampant and vivacious Roman adventure dating back to the first century, during the reign of Nero. It follows the exploits of Encolpius, an impoverished ex-gladiator, and his boy-lover Giton. The action is fleet and the narrative sweeping: over the course of their journey we meet a host of lewd and comical rogues, including beggars, prostitutes, poets, sodomites, and pedants, and witness many strange and curious events, including a remarkably vulgar multi-course feast, hosted by the pompous nouveau riche Trimalchio

The iconic love story of the Middle East, by a 12th-century Persian poet who has been compared to Shakespeare for his subtlety, inventiveness, and dramatic force, Layli and Majnun tells of star-crossed lovers whose union is tragically thwarted by their families and whose passion continues to ripple out across the centuries. Theirs is a love that lasts a lifetime, and in Nezami's immortal telling, erotic longing blends with spiritual self-denial in an allegory of Sufi aspiration, as the amenities of civilization give way to the elemental wilderness.

This tale of a man who, when tinkering with magic, becomes changed into an ass is one of the most entertaining and remarkable stories from classic Latin literature. It is funny, bawdy and completely approachable - but also shows life from the point of view of a beast of burden in the Roman Empire of the second century CE.

In this collection, you will enjoy the epic stories of ancient Mesopotamia that echoed through other great works like the Bible and The Odyssey. The Sumerian belief system offers a fascinating insight into the lives of these ancient people as they struggled to establish the first empires of man.

The Song of Roland is acknowledged today as the first masterpiece of French vernacular literature and one of the world’s greatest epic poems. Written down around the year 1090, The Song of Roland finely crafted verses tell of the betrayal and defeat of Charlemagne’s beloved nephew at the Pass of Roncevaux in the Pyrenees and of the revenge subsequently sought on his behalf.

This widely studied play is one of the "best sellers" of the Shakespeare canon. This production is the sixth Shakespeare play in the series undertaken by Naxos AudioBooks in conjunction with Cambridge University Press.

The Hellenica is Xenophon’s continuation of Thucydides’ history of the Peloponnesian War, literally resuming from where the previous author’s history was abruptly left unfinished and narrating the events of the final seven years of the conflict and the war’s aftermath. Some historians consider the Hellenica to be a personal work, written by Xenophon in retirement on his Spartan estate, and intended primarily for circulation among his friends, who would have known the main protagonists and events, having most likely participated in them.

Norse Mythology contains stories passed down from the ancient Norse religion, practiced by the Vikings and other northern people who live in modern-day Scandinavia, Iceland, and throughout the British Isles. In this book, you will also find many stories about the gods Thor and Loki and their exploits in the land of the giants. You will hear the story of the dwarf Andvari and his golden ring - the myth that is the basis for Robert Wagner’s famous opera The Ring of Nibelung as well as J. R. R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy.

The power and the beauty of The Iliad resound again across 2,700 years in Stephen Mitchell's exciting new translation, as if the lifeblood of its heroes Achilles and Patroclus, Hector and Priam flowed in every word. And we are there with them amid the horror and ecstasy of war, carried along by a poetry that lifts even the most devastating human events into the realm of the beautiful.

We are all classicists - we come into touch with the classics on a daily basis: in our culture, politics, medicine, architecture, language, and literature. What are the true roots of these influences, however, and how do our interpretations of these aspects of the classics differ from their original reality?