With the Canada Games over and the Olympics a year away, Classics professor Jack Mitchell is seizing this down time to re-establish a competitive diversion of another kind.
This Friday, heâs bringing back the Pythian Games.
Truth be told, weâve never held them here. Indeed, they have not taken place since since 394 AD, but a classicistâs sense of time differs slightly from most other mortals.
Like the Olympic Games, the Pythian Gamesânamed after the myth of a serpent slain by the Greek god Apollo at Delphiâwere held every four years. Ancient Greece had four sets of games like this. Every year there was a contest with a different focus.
âThey all were contests of performance, music, literature and athletic performance,â Dr. Mitchell explains. âOlympia was more athletic, Delphi was more literary, but they all had elements of the same thing together.â
Wine, poetry, togas
So, wine, music, poetry and theatre will flow in the Classics Library and Dr. Mitchell will emcee the Pythian Games in a toga.
This is how it happened: Soon after he started in Department of Classics last September, departmental chair Dr. Hankey asked him to revive the games.
Dr. Mitchellâs own research focuses on ancient education and the arts of performance and oratory. Plus, he wrote and performs a Homeric epic poem about the battle of the Plains of Abraham.
In short, the Pythian Games fell right into his bailiwick.
â(Dr. Hankey) put two and two together,â says Dr. Mitchell. âHe wanted to foster spoken Greek and Latin and the spoken performance of any text.â
While you will hear ancient languagesâClassics major Bruce Russell for example, has a busy schedule performing in a choral ode from Euripides, a Latin text and an original compositionâstudents from many other departments will step up as well.
±«Óătv 30 students will perform everything from Al Purdy to Pushkin and Woody Allen to Catullus. Performances will be made in English, Middle English, Latin, Greek, Turkish, German, Russian, Welsh and yes, even Elvish.
âNo one knows what to expect. It could be totally chaotic,â says Dr. Mitchell, with a slightly wicked anticipation in his voice.
The Wasteland
âItâs gonna be such a random night,â agrees Leah Collins Lipsett.
Ms. Lipsett, a music major, will perform an abridged version of T.S. Eliotâs The Wasteland.
She memorized the famous poem a few years ago as a bet with her high school English teacher. He didnât believe she could memorize it. She bet him $25 she could. She did it over one long summer hiking through Norway with only her parents for company.
âIt was very appropriate: âHere is no water, but only rock,ââ she says dramatically, âI came back and recited it for my school and got my money.â
Now sheâs got another chance to perform for cash.
âObviously when you have something like that memorized, you use every excuse you can to trot it out! So I was like, yes!â
Daniel Gillis, a music and religious studies major, will perform a modernist piece of music: a guitar piece by German composer Hans Werner Henze called, âYou Beautiful Stream.â
âI read a little bit about the Pythian Games,â he says, in preparation. âApparently all the competitors used to wash their hair in the Castilian Spring before competing, so Iâm going to hopefully have the Castilian Spring in mind when I play.â
Eyes on the prize
Prestige was the prize in the ancient Pythian Games. Winners received a sprig of laurel and huge fame. At ±«Óătv, four cash prizes, from $250 to $100 are up for grabs. Drs Peter OâBrien and Leona MacLeod will play the King and Queen and judge the competition.
âAt firstâas a lot of arts people areâI was skeptical about the idea of a competition,â says Mr. Gillis. âBut I donât know why we have to separate the arts from things like sports. They certainly werenât so separate in the ancient world. The gymnasium was where people went, learned their sports and then got their philosophical education.â
For Dr. Mitchell, the end goal is less about being programmatic and more about enjoyment.
âI wanted to get literature out of the books and get it into peopleâs daily lives. Itâs amazing how much talent is out there. We just need to provide more venues for people to express their love of literature and music.â
He says the Department of Classics plans to do this every year.
âHopefully, weâll have a blast.â
Event details
The Pythian Games take place Friday, March 18 from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. in the Classics Library, Room 1184 in the Marion McCain Arts & Social Sciences Building.