Communicating in the classroom

Eighty-some years ago a Latin teacher by the name of Wren Jones Grinstead (and what a name it is) wrote a piece for the Classical Journal about the use of projects in the beginning Latin class.

By far the most interesting and provocative part of this most interesting article is the suggestion that we introduce our students to two characters whom they should always keep in mind: Romanus (who knows no English) and Barbarus (who knows no Latin). The argument goes that Language exists in a dualistic mode, between the first and second person, one aiming to be understood, the other to understand.

Now one of the chief reasons for the stiff and silly translations too often offered in our classes lies in the fact that the pupil does not visualize Romanus as the speaker of the Latin sentence, and then in turn make himself the utterer of the same thought to the English- speaking Barbarus in his own vernacular. Hence he is merely solving a puzzle, and his only criterion of success is the teacher's authority; whereas it should be found in the socialization of his own imagination. For the perennial query to the teacher, "Is this right?" the pupil should come to ask Barbarus (or Romanus, as the case may be), "Do you get me?"

This is shockingly good, and I plan to introduce these guys immediately.

(Grinstead, Wren Jones. "The Project Method in Beginning Latin." The Classical Journal 16.7 (1921): 388-398.)

Dormouse

In the derivatives of dormio in the vocabulary section of ch. 31, Wheelock lists 'dormouse'. I gave it a quick look-up in the OED. The etymology was interesting, so I thought I'd post it here.

[Origin obscure: the second element has been, at least since c 1575, treated as the word mouse, with pl. mice, though a pl. dormouses is evidenced in 16-17th c. The first element has also from 16th c. been associated with L. dormire, F. dormir to sleep, (as if dorm-mouse; cf. 16th c. Du. slaep-ratte, slaep-muys); but it is not certain that this is the original composition.
(Skeat suggests for the first element ON. dár benumbed: cf. also dial. ‘dorrer, a sleeper, a lazy person’ (Halliwell). (The F. dormeuse, fem. of dormeur sleeper, sometimes suggested as the etymon, is not known before 17th c.).]

stomachor!

What makes a "teacher's guide"?  Is it the editor's helpful notes on lesson planning or specific problems in the text?  Is it the guidance in effective approaches, or making connections to secondary material?  Is it the insight into the editor's intent and the choices made in selection and presentation, that allow you to make up your mind as to whether you agree, and if not how to adapt?

I suspect it's all these things and more.  What a "teacher's guide" is not, however, is a bare set of translations for teachers who don't have enough Latin to read the texts they're assigning to their students.

This is what I found today when I received a new classroom set of Minkova & Tunberg's Reading Livy's Rome (Bolchazy-Carducci).

When ordering the book, one receives no hint of the subtitle: "Translation of Paraphrases," or the blurb headed "Ease the Time Crunch of Daily Classroom Preparation."  Reading bits of Latin is the least of my concerns as a teacher, and yet it's the one area in which a teacher of Latin can least afford to cut corners.  I neither need nor can benefit from translations: I know Latin well enough to read it, and only by reading it (rather than a translation) can I anticipate and respond to the difficulties my students will face.

Was I wrong to expect a "guide" or was Bolchazy-Carducci wrong to call it that?

I was acting a time crunch when I ordered the materials, being told during the last period of the day that I had until the final bell to put together an order.  So it may be argued that I was rash in ordering copies of the "guide" for my colleague and myself.  And yet if it had been appropriately titled, or explained at all, on the publisher's site, my school could have purchased two more student texts instead.

Then again I might have guessed from the "guide" to Boyd's Aeneid selections.

Isn't there a better name for this sort of thing?  Like "trot"?

AP Latin

With all of the hullabaloo being made over the cancellation of AP Latin: Literature, I just wanted to express my appreciation to College Board for administering the Vergil exam.  I'm the minority (vocally, at least) in thinking that Catullus is less suited to an AP course than is Vergil, and I would not want to teach the Literature option because my students read much of Catullus before the AP year.  What I'm really thankful for, however, is that College Board has somehow made it possible for me to read lots and lots of Vergil.  Without the test I would not likely be able to offer a full semester of him.

I will never understand why so many teachers seem to think that reading Vergil is a chore.  There's far less reward in counting kisses or feigning invitations to dinner.

Memory, Pleasure, and Suffering/Aeneas, Odysseus, and Eumaios

It is well known that Aeneas' speech in Aeneid 1.198-207 draws on a speech of Odysseus in Odyssey 12.208ff. (see, e.g., R.D. Williams ad A.1.198f. Here is Aeneas' speech (online text here):

'O socii—neque enim ignari sumus ante malorum—
O passi graviora, dabit deus his quoque finem.
Vos et Scyllaeam rabiem penitusque sonantis 200
accestis scopulos, vos et Cyclopea saxa
experti: revocate animos, maestumque timorem
mittite: forsan et haec olim meminisse iuvabit.
Per varios casus, per tot discrimina rerum
tendimus in Latium; sedes ubi fata quietas 205
ostendunt; illic fas regna resurgere Troiae.
Durate, et vosmet rebus servate secundis.'

The first 9 ll. of Odysseus' speech run as follows (12.208-16, Lattimore's translation):

'Dear friends, surely we are not unlearned in evils.
This is no greater evil now than it was when the Cyclops
had us cooped in his hollow cave by force and violence,
but even there, by my courage and counsel and my intelligence,
we escaped away. I think that all this will be remembered
some day too. Then do as I say, let us all be won over.
Sit well, all of you, to your oarlocks, and dash your oars deep
into the breaking surf of the water, so in that way Zeus
might grant that we get clear of this danger and flee away from it.'

A quick glance at the two passages will make clear some of the similarities (e.g., the first line of each speech and the reference to the Cyclops). In addition, Williams (at A.1.203) states that forsan et haec olim meminisse iuvabit recalls Od.12.212 (here rendered 'I think that all this will be remembered some day too'), and the infintives for 'to remember' (meminisse and mnhsesthai) certainly point in that direction. I was recently struck, however, by the similarity in sentiment to 1.203 that is found in Eumaios' words in 15.400-1 (again in Lattimore's translation):

'For afterwards a man who has suffered
much and wandered much has pleasures out of his sorrows.'

These words come as Eumaois is about to tell (that is, in a sense, to remember) the story of his sufferings to Odysseus. Perhaps there is a secondary reference in the Aeneid to this passage, in which the idea of pleasure in the memory or recounting of sufferings is foregrounded.

If that is not the case and I am over-reading, the words of Aeneas in Book 1 still still line up with those of Eumaois quite nicely.

Literature in translation?

I have long wanted a reader in classical literature in translation to build into the early years of my Latin language courses, but have come up empty. Several years ago in the course that put me on the path toward classics (a brilliant course called simply 'Humanities'), one of the two instructors lamented that there wasn't a better or more affordable set of anthologies than the little paperback Penguins by Michael Grant. If memory serves they were boring and scatter-shot to my young college brain, and even if they were not now out of print, I could not see purchasing them for high school students.

Surely I am not alone in wanting something like this to help contextualize the study of Latin, and to help communicate things like values that do not translate from the pages of introductory textbooks.

Has anyone a suggestion?

Dover's Theocritus a review (reprint: Bolchazy-Carducci)

As I make my (not so) triumphant return to the field of Mawr's I feel myself compelled to do something I ought to have done a long time ago. The good folks at Bolchazy-Carducci once thought well-enough of this blog to send along a review copy of my choice with the note, "Be honest about the book, because an honest review will be of more use to your readers. While we at Bolchazy-Carducci are hoping for a good review, a useful review would be better for everyone."

Good advice, which I will now follow.

---

Dover, K.J., ed. Theocritus: Select Poems. Wauconda IL: Bolchazy-Carducci, 1994. (Pages: lxxii + 323) $46.00. isbn: 978-0-86516-204-2

---

As an eager undergraduate (after the turn of the century) disheartened at the lack of advanced Greek offerings, I cooked up a plan with two friends to hit up a young professor for an independent study in one of his pet areas: Hellenistic Greek poetry. It happened that the subject was heating up at the time, and good commentaries were easily attainable. We purchased our own copies of a handful of Cambridge green and yellows: (1) Argonautica: Book III, (2) Theocritus: A Selection (both edited by R.L. Hunter), and (3) A Hellenistic Anthology (edited by Neil Hopkinson). We had recourse to other texts from the library, relying on Pfeiffer for much of our Callimachus, with the aid of the brilliant commentaries that have surfaced on various of the hymns, and used sources ranging from Hutchinson's (somewhat disappointing) Hellenistic Poetry to Peter Bing's (somewhat brilliant) The Well-Read Muse.

To this day it remains one of the most rewarding courses I've taken, and thinking back I'm reminded of a sense of awe for learning and scholarship that has never quite been matched.

I'm also reminded of my professor's recommendation of K.J. Dover's Theocritus: Select Poems (a classic red Macmillan), and his disappointment that the book was no longer in print.

If only he had known of Bolchazy-Carducci's reprint, available since 1994. Since neither he nor I knew that we could buy it, I purchased the Hunter and settled for a library copy of Dover. I have distinct memories of the book's excellence, and while I appreciated Hunter, Dover I loved.

Both editors followed Gow, whose edition has been a holy grail--unattainable yet a source of hope--for me and others like me for some time, and thus stands without compare. It is difficult, however, to not compare Dover and Hunter, and one of the simplest and most significant comparisons for the general reader (if there is a general reader of Greek bucolic) is bang for the buck.

Hunter (the more recent of the two) printed just eight Idylls (1, 3, 4, 6, 7, 10, 11, & 13). By way of comparison, Dover printed eighteen, inclusive of Hunter's eight (1-7, 10, 11, 13-16, 18, 22, 24, 26, & 28). Both teacher and student benefit from the greater variety of texts.

As a struggling student I found Dover's notes more readable, less discursive, and on the whole more useful. Hunter, of course, had the advantage of being more 'current', and his references are a boon to graduate students dealing with an ever-growing bibliography. But to a reader making his way through the poems, Hunter is cumbersome. His rewards come later, to a smaller audience. Dover, by contrast, reaches more broadly and achieves his aims with great elegance.

One need look no further than the first note of the book to see just how effective Dover's style is:

ἁδύ...μελίσδεται:Lit., 'something pleasant the whispering that pine-tree...makes music', i.e. 'sweet is the whispered music which that pine-tree makes'. καί...καί is superimposed on ἁδύ...ἁδὺ δέ, thus:

ἁδύ τι ... καὶ ἁ πίτυς ... μελισδεται
ἁδὺ δὲ ... καὶ τὺ ... συρίσδες

At once and concisely Dover shows us the music of the line (which transcends the simple position-to-position correspondence that students too often adhere to), and waves his magic wand of the mist that would cloud many a student's mind: the literal rendering tells the student that he does in fact know his forms. The 'id est' that follows is a lesson in adjusting one's thinking, encouraging the student to read intelligently and to make the leap from translation to meaning. While the literal translation sounds like stilted nonsense, the paraphrase helps us to bridge the gap between Translationese and English.

Add to this the undeniable link in meaning and sound that would, without Dover's note, have escaped most students, and you catch a glimpse of the sort of useful and encouraging information that is to be had throughout, and how skillfully it is presented.

By contrast, the reader loses himself in Hunter's pages wherein such things as the linguistic and sound connections (visually displayed by Dover) are buried in explicit prose. Hunter gives a page to a general note on lines 1-11, then another paragraph to lines 1-3, then more than a page to line 1 alone. By the time we've reached συρίσδες, which Dover has in a few lines of text, Hunter has written nearly three pages of notes.

Some might say that this brevity has its price. When Dover tells us, for example, that Apollonius and earlier poets 'represented Herakles as never reaching Kolchis at all' (Idyll 13.75), some will want to know more about the sources. Dover is unconcerned, but Hunter discusses the scholia on Apollonius, the fragments of Dionysius Scytobrachion and Demaretus, as well as Antoninus Liberalis (who would have gotten his version from Nicander). On the one hand this clarifies an indistinct reference, yet on the other bears little on the poem.

It seems necessary here to stop and ask myself which commentary I use when I want to read Theocritus, and the answer is Dover.

And when I want to study Theocritus? Dover with Hunter. And yet I find myself more likely to read than to study Theocritus, and so it is my Dover whose spine is cracked more often.

A final note on the introductory matter: like much else in the books, Hunter is more current, more discursive, and more laden with references. This again makes Dover more readable, and, though it may seem counter-intuitive, more timeless.

With all sincerity I extend my deepest appreciation to Bolchazy-Carducci for keeping this commentary in print (in a clean, durable paperback) and would love to see more reprints like it. Imagine reprints of Stanford's Odyssey, or Marchant's Thucydides, just to name two personal favorites.

Call me old-fashioned.

Bad Guests in the Odyssey

(Lattimore's translations again.)

When we first come upon the estate of Eumaios in Odyssey 14 and receive a description of his property, it is noted that the suitors have been eating the best of the pigs:

These were
the breeding females, but the males lay outside, and these were
fewer by far, for the godlike suitors kept diminishing
their numbers by eating them, since the swineherd kept having
to send them in the best of all the well-fattened porkers
at any time. (14.15-20)

The reader is reminded, perhaps, of the behavior of Odysseus' men on Thrinakia. As the hunger becomes more and more unbearable, Eurylochos exhorts his companions:

Come then, let us cut out the best of Helios' cattle,
and sacrifice them to the immortals who hold wide heaven... (12.343-4)

So spoke Eurylochos, and the other companions assented.
At once, cutting out from near at hand the best of Helios'
cattle... (12.352-4)

Odysseus' men were punished for being bad guests on Thrinakia and eating what was not rightfully theirs. The fact that the suitors too eat 'the best' of the animals reminds us of the punishment Odysseus' men received and reinforces the inevitability of the coming vengeance on the suitors, who seem to parallel the men on Thrinakia in this respect.

Fairies and Fate

In the Ch. 29 vocabulary list in Wheelock, 'fairy' is listed as a derivative of Lat. fatum. I hadn't known this, so I decided to look it up quickly in the OED. The etymology for 'fairy' is: a. OF. faerie, faierie (mod.F. féerie), f. OF. fae (mod.F. fée) FAY n.2.

And 'fay' is derived from fatum as follows: ad. OF. fae, faie (Fr. fée) = Pr. and Pg. fada, Sp. hada, It. fata:--Com. Rom. fata fem. sing., f. L. fata the Fates, pl. of fatum FATE.

One can perhaps see how 'fairy' came from fatum in definition A.4.a.: 'One of a class of supernatural beings of diminutive size, in popular belief supposed to possess magical powers and to have great influence for good or evil over the affairs of man.'

Pigs and Ships in the Odyssey (Updated)

(I use Lattimore's translation in what follows.)

As Odysseus approaches the home of the swineherd Eumaios in Book 14 of the Odyssey, we get a description of the property. One of the things we learn is the following:

Inside the enclosure he made twelve pig pens
next to each other, for his sows to sleep in, and in each of them
fifty pigs who sleep on the ground were confined. (14.13-15)

Interestingly, the number of pig pens kept by Eumaios, who functions as a loyal representative and relic of the old Odyssean order (cf. 14.3-4: '...who beyond others/cared for the house properties acquired by noble Odysseus'), is the same as the number of Odysseus' ships (9.159: 'Now there were twelve ships that went with me...'). The number of pigs in each of Eumaios' pens even seems to be close to the Odyssean norm for the number of men per ship if the ship of the Phaiakians is any indication, for Alkinoos, when promising that he will give Odysseus conveyance to Ithaka, says:

Come then, let us drag a black ship down to the bright sea,
one sailing now for the first time, and have for it a selection
from the district, fifty-two young men, who have been the finest
before. (8.34-7)

The Phaiakians, however, perhaps do not provide an ideal indication, since Odysseus' own ships seem to have had slightly more men. When Odysseus and his companions come to Aiaia, they split up into two groups led by Odysseus and Eurylochos, each with 22 men under their command (10.203-8), making for a total of 46 (at this point, only Odysseus' ship is left after the Laistrygonian debacle earlier in Book 10). His ship, along with every other ship, had lost 6 men to the Kikonians in Book 9, along with 6 men to Polyphemus, bringing the total to 58. In addition, one of Odysseus' men from his own ship (cf. 10.95-102 and 116-17) was killed by the Laistrygonian Antiphates, giving us a total of 59.

Update: P.V. Jones, in his companion to Lattimore's translation ad 9.60, makes it clear that a ship in the Odyssey could get by with a much smaller crew, noting that Homer states in 2.212 that Telemachos needed only 20 companions for his journey.

Logic(s)

'It was the myths, above all, that seemed to defy rational analysis and to give rise to the idea that their makers were rambling around in a kind of mystical fog. Yet closer observation, and the whole tendency of anthropologists to treat tribal peoples with increasing respect, have shown that most of the apparently illogical connections in 'primitive' myths are not really so. Rather, the logical systems involved are different from those standardized in western cultures. Levi-Strauss showed in La Pensee sauvage that many simple societies, far from having no category structure at all, have systems of immense range and complexity. That is fact; yet one has to guard against sentimentality at this point, for it is all too easy to add (as many now do) that these alternative logical structures are 'just as good' as the ones we happen to use. After all, they say, even Aristotelian logic has had to be replaced by different kinds in certain conditions, much as the Euclidean system, which once seemed the essence of logical geometry, is now recognized as too restricted for study of the world at large. But the truth is that for many purposes Aristotelian logic, which has established simple and consistent rules of cause and effect, is greatly superior to alternative systems depending on loose grades of symbolic association. Some aspects of myths can be appreciated more fully by these alternative systems, but there are also elements and qualities to which discursive analysis can properly be applied, at least as a preliminary stage.'

--G.S. Kirk, The Nature of Greek Myths, pp. 42-3

Ancient Brain Surgery

Just saw this on Yahoo News, though I'm sure it's been reported on other Classics sites already. Here's the intro:

THESSALONIKI, Greece - Greek archaeologists said Tuesday they have unearthed evidence of what they believe was brain surgery performed nearly 1,800 years ago on a young woman — who died during or shortly after the operation.

Although references to such delicate operations abound in ancient writings, discoveries of surgically perforated skulls are uncommon in Greece.

Site excavator Ioannis Graikos said the woman's skeleton was found during a rescue dig last year in Veria, a town some 75 kilometers (46 miles) west of Thessaloniki.

"We interpret the find as a case of complicated surgery which only a trained and specialized doctor could have attempted," Graikos said.

A bone expert who studied the finds said the skeleton belonged to a woman up to 25 years old who had suffered a severe blow to the crown of her head, Graikos said. The operation was apparently an attempt to save her life.

An Allusion to Keats?

Another of Mifflin's classically-themed sonnets is called 'An Elegy'. I was reminded of Keats due to the following bolded rhyme.

Immortal laurel of no growth terrene,
Gather, ye Muses, in Olympian air;
'T is for a shepherd, loved of Pan, to wear;
Behold him lying on the headland green
That juts above the sea in this demesne,
As still as sculptured marble, and as fair.
Ye will not wake him if ye crown him there;
Wreathe him the while he seems to sleep serene.
The syrinx now lies useless by his head...
Was that a sigh within the cypress near?
Oh, soft, ye Muses!--softly round him tread,
Bring all your late reluctant garlands here;
Relax your haughty mien; ye need not fear
To crown this Dorian now--for he is dead!

The rhyme of 'demesne' and 'serene' occurs here in lines 5 and 8. Keats' poem 'On First Looking into Chapman's Homer' is also in sonnet form. In addition, the rhyme-scheme is the same in the two poems except for the last two lines (Mifflin: abbaabbacdcddc; Keats: abbaabbacdcdcd). But Mifflin's 'a' line-ending ('-ene') is Keats' 'b' line-ending. Thus, though the 'demesne-serene' rhyme occurs in the same four-line segment of Keats' poem, it is in lines 6 and 7 instead of 5 and 8.

Much have I travell'd in the realms of gold,
And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;
Round many western islands have I been
Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.
Oft of one wide expanse had I been told
That deep-brow'd Homer ruled as his demesne;
Yet did I never breathe its pure serene
Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold:
Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken;
Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes
He star'd at the Pacific--and all his men
Look'd at each other with a wild surmise--
Silent, upon a peak in Darien.

(Text here.)

It seems probable to me that this particular rhyme (especially with the rather uncommon 'demesne') was borrowed from Keats, but of course I may well be wrong about that. Has anyone come across it elsewhere before?

Graves Found in Thessaloniki

Sic incipit:

ATHENS, Greece - Greek workers discovered around 1,000 graves, some filled with ancient treasures, while excavating for a subway system in the historic city of Thessaloniki, the state archaeological authority said Monday.

Some of the graves, which dated from the first century B.C. to the 5th century A.D., contained jewelry, coins and various pieces of art, the Greek archaeological service said in a statement.

The remainder is here.

Lloyd Mifflin

I confess I'd never heard of the Pennsylvanian sonneteer Lloyd Mifflin until recently. He has a goodly number of poems on classical subjects. The following, called 'The Ship', is a nice little reflection on the effects that the reading of Homer can bring to bear on the imagination. You can find it at Google books here.

I LAY at Delos of the Cyclades,
At evening, on a cape of golden land;
The blind Bard's book was open in my hand,
There where the Cyclops makes the Odyssey's
Calm pages tremble as Odysseus flees.
Then, stately, like a vision o'er the sand,
A phantom ship across the sunset strand
Rose out of dreams and clave the purple seas;
Straight on that city's bastions did she run—
Whose toppling turrets on their donjons hold
Bells that to mortal ears have never tolled—
Then drifted down the gateway of the sun
With fading pennon and with gonfalon,
And dropped her anchor in the pools of gold.

Artemis Comparisons in the Odyssey

A female figure is compared to Artemis in both books 4 and 6 of the Odyssey. The first one makes me chuckle. Here it is (Lattimore's translation):

While he was pondering these things in his heart and his spirit,
Helen came out of her fragrant high-roofed bedchamber,
looking like Artemis of the golden distaff. (4.120-2)

Helen, of all people, is liked to the chaste, virgin Artemis. I can't help but picture Homer snickering as he wrote (or recited?) that.

The second is more appropriate. In 6.99-109, we read:

But when she and her maids had taken their pleasure in eating,
they all threw off their veils for a game of ball, and among them
it was Nausikaa of the white arms who led in the dancing;
and as Artemis, who showers arrows, moves on the mountains
either along Taygetos or on high-towering
Erymanthos, delighting in boars and deer in their running,
and along with her the nymphs, daughters of Zeus of the aegis,
range in the wilds and play, and the heart of Leto is gladdened,
for the head and brows of Artemis are above all the others,
and she is easily marked among them, though all are lovely,
so this one shone among her handmaidens, a virgin unwedded.

Accent & Rhythm

This is just to brag that I've finally gotten my very own copy of W. Sidney Allen's Accent and Rhythm, Prosodic Features of Latin and Greek: a study in Theory and Reconstruction. With shipping from the UK it was far below what it normally goes for.

It will keep Wilkinson's Golden Latin Artistry good company within easy reach here in the study.

The times, they aren't a changin'

The following comes to us from "A Professional Debt" by Robert L. Ladd, published in
The Classical Journal, Vol. 30, No. 4. (Jan., 1935), pp. 203-211.

A bit of vocabulary aside this could have been written today.

During the period characterized by the supposed financial suc-
cesses of the twenties, when success was synonymous with the
acquisition of wealth, the subjects of the high-school curriculum
had to justify their position in the schools almost exclusively on
the basis of their practical value in the promotion of this material
end. Many and strange have been the activities of the classroom
to demonstrate the practical value of Latin. For the instructor in-
terested in teaching pupils the language the task has been well-
nigh impossible because of the necessity of making the process
painless, practical, and even delightful. In many cases these ac-
tivities of the classroom have deteriorated into a process of learn-
ing much about Latin and of learning very little Latin. Too often
this process has the same result as in the case of the little tot who
had been ill and was in need of a tonic. The doctor prescribed
quinine. The child was difficult to manage when it became neces-
sary to administer any kind of medicine. The mother seized upon
the happy thought of disguising the quinine by making a pill of it
and placing it in the centre of a luscious cherry. The little girl took
the cherry gleefully and went away eating it. With outstretched
hand she soon returned to her mother, saying, "Mother, I've eaten
the cherry, and here's the seed!" We regret that the essential tonic
of Latin is frequently returned to the teacher untouched, after the
nonessentials have gone the way of the luscious cherry.

Now, once you get past this it's very jarring to read about the threat of child labor laws flooding the classrooms with more students, and the 'problem' of what to do with leisure time now that all classes are seeing a reduction in work hours. Still, that opening is right on.

Typhoeus/Typhon/Typhoon

In The Nature of Greek Myths (p. 48), G.S. Kirk makes the following comment:

'Typhoeus (in his alternative form Typhon the origin of 'typhoon') succumbed to Zeus, but in a later epoch Boreas, the north wind, snatched away Oreithyia, daughter of Erechtheus King of Athens, much as Hades had ravished Kore-Persephone.'

In other words, Kirk derives our English word 'typhoon' from the Greek monster. Barry Powell, on the other hand, remarks in Classical Mythology as follows (5th ed., p. 100 n. 5):

'Our word typhoon, really from the Chinese term tai fung, "violent wind," derives its form by analogy with Typhon (= Typhoeus). Typhus and typhoid fever also come from the Greek monster, for both arouse a wild delirium in the patient.'

This made me curious to check the etymology in the OED. Here is what they give:

[Two different Oriental words are included here: (1) the {alpha}-forms (like Pg. tufão, {dag}tufõe) are a. Urd{umac} (Persian and Arabic) {tdotbl}{umac}f{amac}n a violent storm of wind and rain, a tempest, hurricane, tornado, commonly referred to Arab. {tdotbl}{amac}fa, to turn round (nouns of action {tdotbl}auf, {tdotbl}awaf{amac}n), but possibly an adoption of Gr. {tau}{gumac}{phi}{gwfrown}{nu} TYPHON2; (2) the {beta}- and {gamma}- forms represent Chinese tai fung, common dialect forms (as in Cantonese) of ta big, and fêng wind (hence also G. teifun). The spelling of the {beta}-forms has apparently been influenced by that of the earlier-known Indian word, while that now current is due to association with TYPHON2.]

(Sorry, the formatting did not transfer, and I'm not sure how to fix it.)

The earliest citations for 'typhoon' and 'typhon' (this latter derived from the Greek), with current spellings that are nearly identical, present an interesting contrast. The OED's earliest citation for 'typhoon', from 1588, is:

I went a boord of the Shippe of Bengala, at which time it was the yeere of Touffon. Ibid. 35 This Touffon or cruell storme endured three dayes and three nightes.

The OED's earliest citation for 'typhon', from 1555, mentions the Greeks explicitly:

These tempestes of the ayer (which the Grecians caule Tiphones that is whyrle wyndes) they caule, Furacanes.

The second citation (1585) does as well:

A wind called by the Gretians Typhon, of Plinie Vertex or Vortex.

No Monolithic Theories

'My own conviction, nevertheless, is that there can be no single and comprehensive theory of myths--except, perhaps, the theory that all such theories are necessarily wrong.'

--G.S. Kirk, The Nature of Greek Myths, p. 38