Closed book examination. For this exam, as for all exams at Reed, the Honor Principle applies.

Part One (one hour):
Identify ten (and no more than ten) of the following twelve quotations. Supply the author, and where appropriate, the title of the work and the speaker. Follow each identification with a brief statement describing the quotation's place in and importance for the work.

1. I know that I will die - of course I do -
   even if you had not doomed me by proclamation.
   If I shall die before my time, I count that
   a profit. How can such as I, that live
   among such troubles, not find a profit in death?
   So for such as me, to face such a fate as this
   is pain that does not count. But if I dared to leave
   the dead man, my mother's son, dead and unburied,
   that would have been real pain. The other is not.
   Now, if you think me a fool to act like this,
   perhaps it is a fool that judges so.


2. An Athenian is always an innovator, quick to form a resolution and quick at carrying it out. You, on the other hand, are good at keeping things as they are; you never originate an idea, and your action tends to stop short of its aim. Then again, Athenian daring will outrun its own resources; they will take risks against their better judgement, and still, in the midst of danger, remain confident. But your nature is always to do less than you could have done, to mistrust your own judgement, however sound it may be, and to assume that dangers will last for ever.


3. Then we will allow [poetry's] defenders, who aren't poets themselves but lovers of poetry, to speak in prose on its behalf and to show that it not only gives pleasure but is beneficial both to constitutions and to human life. Indeed, we'll listen to them graciously, for we'd certainly profit if poetry were shown to be not only pleasant but also beneficial.


4. If you work you will be dearer to immortals
   and mortals; they both loathe the indolent.
   No shame in work but plenty in sloth.
   If your work brings you wealth, you will be envied by the slothful,
   because glory and excellence follow riches.
   Whatever your lot, nothing will be as good as work,
   if you take my advice and turn your foolish mind
   away from the possessions of your fellow men
   to labor in the service of what is your own.


5. It is wise, listening not to me but to the account (logos), to agree that all things are one.


6. After her prayer came the ceremonies of sacrifice and feasting; and the two lads, when all was over, fell asleep in the temple - and that was the end of them, for they never woke again. The Argives had statues made of them, which they sent to Delphi, as a mark of their particular respect.


7. The people were assembled in the market place, where a quarrel
   had arisen, and two men were disputing over the blood price
   for a man who had been killed. One man promised full restitution
   in a public statement, but the other refused and would accept nothing.
   Both then made for an arbitrator, to have a decision;
   and people were speaking up on either side, to help both men.
   But the heralds kept the people in hand, as meanwhile the elders
   were in session on benches of polished stone in the sacred circle
   and held in their hands the staves of the heralds who lift their voices.
   The two men rushed before these, and took turns speaking their cases,
   and between them lay on the ground two talents of gold, to be given
   to that judge who in this case spoke the straightest opinion.


8. ...for it is the mark of an educated person to look for precision in each class of things just so far as the nature of the subject admits.


9. Consider the City as fleece, recently shorn.
   The first step is Cleansing: Scrub it in a public bath,
   and remove all the corruption, offal, and sheepdip.
   Next, to the couch for Scutching and Plucking:
   Cudgel the leeches and similar vermin
   loose with a club, then pick the prickles and cockleburs out.
   As for the clots-those lumps that clump and cluster in knots
   and snarls to snag important posts - you comb these out,
   twist off their heads, and discard.
   Next, to raise the City's nap, you card the citizens together in a single basket
   of common weal and general welfare. Fold in our loyal
   Resident Aliens, all Foreigners of proven and tested friendship,
   and any Disenfranchised Debtors.


10. Throned in splendor, deathless, O Aphrodite,
    child of Zeus, charm-fashioner, I entreat you
    not with griefs and bitternesses to break my
                spirit, O goddess.


11. Here is dilemma. Whether I let them stay or drive
    them off, it is a hard course and will hurt. Then, since
    the burden of the case is here, and rests on me,
    I shall select judges of manslaughter, and swear
    them in, establish a court into all time to come.


12. I seem to see two suns blazing in the heavens.
    And now two Thebes, two cities, and each
    with seven gates. And you--you are a bull
    who walks before me there. Horns have sprouted
    from your head. Have you always been a beast?
    But now I see a bull.

Part Two (one and one quarter hour):
Choose one topic and write an essay answering it.

1. Plato and Aristotle report that Socrates thought virtue was knowledge. What did Aristotle think about virtue and its relation to knowledge?


2. Choose one of the following pairs of characters and imagine how Plato and Aristotle would each assess their characters. You may structure your response as a conventional essay or as a dialogue among the philosophers and literary characters but in either case you should make clear how each philosopher would understand these figures, including the notion of the good life (eudaimonia), the nature of virtue, the relationship among the parts of the soul, etc.
   
   Croesus and Solon
   Clytemnestra and Orestes
   Oedipus and Tiresias
   Nicias and Alcibiades
   Pentheus and Dionysus

Part Three (one and one quarter hour):
Choose one topic and write an essay answering it.

1. Sophocles' Antigone makes the following observation about her piety:

   What law of God have I broken?
   Why should I still look to the gods in my misery?
   Whom should I summon as ally? For indeed
   because of piety I am called impious.

   Trace the evolving understanding of piety-or of conflicting pieties-in ancient Greece through three of the following works: the Oresteia, Herodotus' Histories, Oedipus the King, Thucydides' History, the Bacchae, Plato's Apology and Crito.


2. Compare the relationship between family (oikos) and state (polis) in three of the following: the Iliad, the Oresteia, the Antigone, the Lysistrata, the Bacchae, and Plato's Republic. Account for any differences in perspective among the three works you select.

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