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Strange, isn’t it: We have more, much more to do than before Corona. We realized all books planned, even 3 additional titles. Everything has changed, all that has been learned in 27 years of publishing is totally new each day.—Are we prepared to the New? And wasn’t it exactly the New, the curiosity about »News« that inspired the founding of a… MORE
Authors & Books
Michael Psellos
The Byzantine scholar and royal advisor Psellos, or rather: Μιχαήλ Ψελλός, probably lived in Constantinople, now Istanbul, from 1018 to 1078. In addition to several clever »Essays«, which would certainly make him wonder about today's word, he wrote this »Eulogy on Wine«.
Professor Klaus Nickau, Göttingen, has transcribed the little text—at the suggestion of Antje Boijens—for our series of 16. We have taken over the footnotes that our colleagues from the Italian edition have put in, which were brought to my attention by my colleague Monika Lustig from Edition Converso , as backfill for our reading.—Many thanks to all four of them.
Jámas! Cheers!
Hymn to Praise Wine
An Essay ~anno 1056
- 24 pages
- in our smalles series »The 16ers«
- hand stitched
- translated by Prof. Klaus Nickau
978-3-86638-317-3
Starting from a guest gift, an—let us assume—amphora of wine, Psellos ponders the meaning and enjoyment of wine sometime around 1060. He will have had the wine in the ancient treatises of the philosophers in his head and the wines from the north-eastern Adriatic upto the Black Sea on his palate, certainly also the wine of Greece and the Aegean Islands—is that why Psellos looks so grim above?—No, no, rather he unfolds a history of wine enjoyment that is entertaining and insightful to read.
It is a long journey that Psellos takes us on: We travel with Demosthenes to the oldest provenances, play poker with Euripides' Medea, Alcestes and Phoenician women, Psellos enlightens us about Dionysus' drinking habits, searches for wine recommendations along Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, searches the books of Solomon and Genesis for grape juice, leads us through 36,000 years of wine-sensing Stoicism, and the great Italian Greek and Byzantine scholar of the 20th century, Antonio Garzya, is allowed to introduce us to wine. Antonio Garzya may drop in on us in between, Plato's Timaeus advises on wine drinking as does the Book of Jesus Sirach from the Old Testament and Timothy from the New Testament, even Aristotle is not missing as an oenological advisor—would all these wine experts have come to mind the next time we pick up a glass of wine?—Never!—Eureka!
P.s. Axel Dielmann, as publisher, is happy to take a »First Stitch« at your place: He stitches a few first copies of the new Psellos and other volumes of our 16-volume series and talks about 1000 years of viticulture and 30 years of publishing history—Şerefe!
