Talk:Silenus

Comments

This page used to redirect to "Ipotane", a word which does not exist in English, Latin or ancient Greek. The article itself needs serious work; all I have done is to remove the confusing references to "Ipotanes". Charlie 06:52, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

What you did was create a duplicate of the article. I'm with you on changing it to Silenus, but since there is already a "Silenus" page, I believe we'd need an administrator to move Ipotane over and preserve it's edit history. -Ravenous 14:25, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing that out, though I don't know how to go about doing what you've suggested. Does the duplication of the article have ramifications in practice (for the user), or is it simply not in adherence to wikipedia guidelines? I wonder who got "Ipotane" created in the first place... Charlie 22:45, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

I see you've taken care of it Ravenous, nice work. Charlie 22:47, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

I put a request on Wikipedia:Requested moves for them to move Ipotane here. Could take them a week or so, not sure. There are several ramifications in having duplicate pages... including problems with the edit history as I mentioned, links (which page to link to?), and the pages branching off into different content over time. It's definately best if we keep it on one page if it's the same content. - Ravenous 04:31, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

The context of this article should be established. It should clearly mention that this relates to Greek mythology in more than just the Categories.

Beginning paragraph

It just seems to repeat itself many times over.. Perhaps we could remove unnecessary repetitions and hone it down a little bit to read better? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Nasier Alcofribas (talk • contribs) 01:47, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Stysippos

What about Stysippos? He should be noted here. --88.64.90.192 (talk) 22:49, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Phallic

The first para reads in part "This puts him in a company of phallic or half-animal tutors of the gods..." I thought "phallic" had to do with the phallus, i.e. the penis, or maybe a phallic cult, and my brief search at Wikipedia and on the web backs this up. If this term is correctly used here, then I think some kind of explanation is necessary. Mcswell (talk) 14:48, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Citation for "That the best thing for a man is not to be born"

That is from The Birth of Tragedy by Nietzsche. --TimSC (talk) 17:53, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Interwikis...

... are wrong (they are for class of Sylenes). Infovarius (talk) 12:59, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Sileni, not Silenoi

Although "Silenoi" is closer to the Greek Σειληνοί (though a more accurate transliteration would be "Seilenoi"), in practice the Sileni are always known as "Sileni" (see, for example, the OED and the Oxford Classical Dictionary). Opting for "Silenoi" would demand that Silenus was changed to "Silenos" since the Greek word is Σειληνός. TonySever (talk) 22:03, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Silenus statues that could be opened

Plato states (in the Symposium) that the statues of Sileni could be opened and contained the statues of gods inside. I have no further reference on that. 46.109.77.155 (talk) 11:01, 8 August 2020 (UTC)

This is referred to in the prologue to Rabelais' Gargantua and Pantagruel (1592), where the statue that can be opened in called a "Silenus Box".

Rabelais: “When Alcibiades, in that dialogue of Plato’s entitled The Symposium, praises his master Socrates, beyond all doubt the prince of philosophers, he compares him, amongst other things, to a Silenus. Now a Silenus, in ancient days, was a little box, of the kind we see today in apothecaries’ shops, painted on the outside with such gay, comical figures as harpies, satyrs, bridled geese, horned hares, saddled ducks, flying goats, stags in harness, and other devices of that sort, light-heartedly invented for the purpose of mirth, as was Silenus himself, the master of good old Bacchus. But inside these boxes were kept rare drugs, such as balm, ambergris, cardamum, musk, civet, mineral essences, and other precious things. Just such an object, according to Plato, was Socrates. For to view him from the outside and judge by his external appearance, no one would have given a shred of an onion for him, so ugly was his body and so absurd his appearance, with his pointed nose, his bovine expression, and his idiotic face ... What is more, he was always laughing, always drinking glass for glass with everybody, always playing the fool, and always concealing his divine wisdom. But had you opened that box, you would have found inside a heavenly and priceless drug: a superhuman understanding, miraculous virtue, invincible courage, unrivalled sobriety, unfailing contentment …. ” Rabelais, Gargantua, Prologue (1532), translated by J.R. Cohen Mballen (talk) 00:54, 3 August 2021 (UTC) Mballen (talk) 01:00, 3 August 2021 (UTC)

Add Simmons' Hyperion to the "in literature" section

In Dan Simmons' Hyperion, Martin Silenus is a major character, with a satyr -like appearance, who writes a prophetic Cantos, describing the events of the story. The character is a direct reference to the ancient Silenus, and since Hyperion is a major work of sci-fi literature, I think it deserves a mention. 188.121.15.11 (talk) 05:37, 16 July 2022 (UTC)