Juliana Surratt -- Herodotus and Borders

  General comment to everyone:  Be sure you articulate why you are calling some things 
  *borders* or *boundaries* (i.e. things that divide some place from another place or 
  some people from others, or ... , while at the same time forming a connection between them).  
  Some of you seem to be using those words almost as synonyms for "differences," but there is 
  more to it than that because you aren't always working in the idea of simultaneous 
  *separation* and *connection*. 

  Juliana, there are many good aspects of your paper.  I like especially that 
  you tried to use the "Some might say that ... , but I think ... " maneuver
  in discussing how widely the "silly stories" characterization that Herodotus
  uses should apply.  But unfortunately, I don't agree with your conclusion
  there.  

  It does not seem at all obvious to me that Herodotus is being scornful of the 
  Egyptians because of the way they accept the Psammetichos story.  And
  I don't think it is clear at all that the characterization "silly stories"
  applies to the main part of the account.  It seems more likely to me that 
  Herodotus is telling the Egyptian version "straight," then saying that the 
  Greeks tell other versions that have silly aspects.  I have the feeling that
  the particular wording of the translation we are using might have influenced 
  your thinking unduly here. Here's another English version of the same passage
  (by the late 19th and early 20th century British classicist A.D. Godley):

  "This is the story which I heard from the priests of Hephaestus' temple 
  at Memphis; the Greeks say among many foolish things that Psammetichus 
  had the children reared by women whose tongues he had cut out."

  Do you see how different that makes it sound?  This (and the original Greek 
  text too) make it much clearer to me that the word "silly" really only applies 
  to the Greek versions of the story, not to the "authentic" Egyptian version 
  that Herodotus has learned from the priests. 
  
  I also think you are reading much too much into the "Such are the stories ... "
  at the start of 2.3.  Godley's translation of that is just:

  "Besides this story of the rearing of the children, I also heard other 
  things at Memphis in conversation with the priests of Hephaestus."

  It's always wise to think twice before basing an interpretation of
  a text on nuances of meanings of words in your own language when the 
  author was writing in a different language and you are relying on a 
  translation.  The process of making a translation inevitably 
  results in small changes in meaning and emphasis--there's simply no such 
  thing as a completely faithful translation.  In fact there's a wonderful
  Italian saying that sums this up perfectly: "traduttore, traditore." 
  My very free translation:  A translator is a *traitor* (that is, a 
  traitor to the original text's intent, at least some of the time).

  For the rewrite I think you should thoroughly rethink your main ideas about this
  passage.  If you want to stick to the idea that Herodotus is really being
  at least partly critical of, or insulting to, the Egyptians, then you have 
  a hard case to make, I think, and you would need to find some other more
  clear-cut evidence.   If you want to say that the whole Psammetichos 
  story is "silly," then I wouldn't necessarily disagree, but I think that 
  would be your own interpretation, not Herodotus's interpretation.   
 
  Several related comments:

  (1)  I think you have added a layer of interpretation of your own when you say
       that Psammmetichos concluded that the word "bekos" was innate in humans,
       and hence, since that is the word for "bread" in the Phrygian language,
       that the Phrygians must be the oldest people.  Note that Herodotus does not
       say anywhere that "bekos" must be innate in humans.  He's just saying that
       that word appears in the Phrygian language, so the children must have been
       speaking Phrygian.

  (2)  I don't see anything like the sort of internal conflict within Herodotus's
       thinking on the Egyptians that you are claiming.  I think he's actually
       quite consistently *non-judgmental.*  Here and later in Book II, he acknowledges 
       differences but doesn't say either people is right or wrong.  

  There are also some word choice issues I see here:  "Other" is not a verb so
  "othering" is not correct; "expressing praise towards the maneuvers of certain 
  peoples" is a strange choice of words (practices instead of maneuvers? But you
  may want to change this anyway); "Herodotus seems rigid in his grasp of other peoples"
  -- I'm not sure what you meant there.  

  In terms of the attached writing rubric, I think most of the "Content" category
  is either "Proficient" or "Advanced," but in the "Evidence" category some points are 
  probably "Basic" because you have read too much into our version of the text.  The Structure
  subcategories are "Proficient" or "Advanced", and the "Execution" subcategories
  are about the same.

  Content:  B

  Mechanics: B+