"Investigating the historical, ethnological, linguistic, and conceptual dimensions of 'sorrow' and 'agony' in the literature of the Sages and in comparison with ancient Greek agonistics"
I will seek to find the causal connection between "sorrow", "agony" and ancient Greek agonistics. In the list discussed, I will seek to present the historical, ethnological, social, linguistic, conceptual and comparative side in the sporting context between a linguistic box that appears in ancient Sage literature.
Under the aforementioned seemingly "strange" title, I would like to propose a thesis, somewhat problematic, as we will see later in my lecture, regarding ancient Greek athletics and its "strange" incarnations of our day. In short, I would like to find the causal connection between "sorrow", "agony" and ancient Greek agonistics. In the list discussed, I would like to present the historical, ethnological, social, linguistic, conceptual and comparative aspects in the sporting context between a linguistic term that appears in ancient Sage literature
And let's begin, as is my "holy custom," by breaking a somewhat historical linguistic myth. I wish to completely disassociate the word/phrase "sports" from the ancient Peloponnesian kingdom, that is, Sparta. It is true that we are talking about the ancient Spartan kingdom, for which the issue of physical activity was an inseparable part of its history as a military, expanding kingdom, for which the issue of physical activity was an integral, inherent part of its history. However, there is nothing to connect, nothing to bind between...that is, between the name of the aforementioned kingdom and the word/term sports. Neither its species nor any of them.
So what is the origin of the word, the term, the concept of "sport" in ancient times? Its origin, its history, is deeply rooted in ancient Roman civilization. It is a concept, a clear Latin term, one that reflected the position of ancient Rome towards physical activity in general and towards the "fear" of its penetration into Roman education, especially aristocratic education. Roman physical activity was taken out, pushed outside the walls of the city itself and its nickname, its name, was "Dis-porta", whose meaning and essence were translated as "outside the city", as "outside the city gates", and the meaning was outside the gates of the city of Rome. This nickname had a rather derogatory, physical and somewhat brutal meaning, of pushing sporting activities outside the city walls both physically, literally, and ideologically and semantically as an esoteric, rejected and repressed activity. And let's not forget that this is, perhaps, somewhat similar to the Spartan civilization of strength, physical roughness, and more of that kind. We should also not forget about the "sporting" "contribution" of ancient Rome to the physical world in the form of battles between humans, warriors, prisoners of war, which were known by the gruesome terminology of "contests/battles of gladiators among themselves and between themselves and dangerous predatory animals in the presence of an audience that filled the stands from end to end." And when the origin of the word "gladiator" was Gladius in Latin, which means - sword. And in short - battles between wielders of various weapons. And if we ask the ancient Roman whether this activity was intended for a sporting event? His answer, probably, was positive, due to the education he received. And as for us - we are allowed to deeply doubt this statement, but ancient, Roman history, will certainly laugh about it loudly.
And what was the fate of that physical, somewhat military activity, which was bound up with the nature of the city, the kingdom, the political-military power throughout history? This, the word, the term, of "outside the city", as mentioned - "dis-porta", of course in physical, competitive, and definitely violent aspects, one that was rolled out in the European languages of the Middle Ages to the present modern era. We will therefore turn to European and Latin-American languages such as Deportivo, when it is absolutely clear what the ancient origin of the aforementioned expression is from its rollout from the ancient, brutal Roman term presented above, namely dis-porta, and in its translation - outside the gate ... outside the city gates. That is, over time, the brutal, cruel aspect of the expression sport was erased and its image changed to a real physical activity, of completely non-violent contests between athletes from different countries and states.
These and many other data gave rise to a unique Roman concept, which encapsulates the difference between Roman and Greek, Hellenic sports. In short – the Greek competitions were called "Agones", as a kind of combination of the concepts of striving for victory, strenuous training, balance between body and mind, socialization, sorrow and grief, suffering and soul-crushing (sounds strange, but the matter will be clarified well later). In contrast, we should note that the Roman competitions were called Ludi, meaning amusements. And for the subject of our study, Roman sporting activity gradually became the domain of individuals, professionals, whose role and purpose was to charm, impress and entertain the audience. The same audience that the Roman ruler wanted to visit for political and personal reasons.
Greek, Hellenic physical activity, whose chronological origins were much earlier than those in Rome, was in fact almost the inversion of the Roman one, and perhaps the writer and philosopher Lucian summed it up well when he said that "if you ever make an effort to learn how to run a society and a state that will educate excellent citizens, then you too will agree to these (physical) exercises and value them like us... because the main intention is not for competitiveness, for the publicity and the prizes that can be won. And these can only be acquired by a few (in each competition there was only one winner. And the ranking of the trio of winners will appear later, in imperial Rome for example and in fact to this day, i.e. - gold, silver and bronze), but for the good that grows from them for the entire republic and its free citizens... and the prize is freedom and liberty for every citizen and citizen as an individual and for the entire homeland - wealth and glory, , enjoyment in the national holidays, the existence of respect for all Family ... We pay special attention to the fact that our citizens are physically capable, strong in spirit, and built for glory ... because only in this way will they be able in times of peace to manage public affairs and also individual affairs to the best of their ability. And in times of war - to defend and preserve the freedom of the state (the city of the polis) and its happiness ..." (Lucianus, On Gymnastics, 14).
Hellenic, Greek physical activity was called "gymnastics", from the word "gymnos", meaning "naked" and its subject - "an exercise for the sake of which one strips naked", and indeed the competitions were held naked, except for the chariot races, and gymnastics as a whole centered all branches of education. The competitions were generally called "agonistica" (running, wrestling, boxing, javelin throwing, long jump, etc.). The origin and root of the name in Greek was "agonia" as a word that of course expressed competition and competitiveness and struggle in general, with words and phrases such as danger and especially suffering and torment and, more than that, the ability to overcome and cope with them at its center. No, no, this is not a masochistic, tormenting and agonizing concept that seeks to perpetuate physical and mental pain. But let me say this – among almost all Greek writers and thinkers, you will not find the winner who boasts of his abilities as the goal of the individual and the whole. And not even in the athlete, in the athlete who declares that "everything came easily to him. Nor will you find the athlete tormented by expressions of suffering and torment as a kind of fate imposed on him, as a kind of imposed predestination. It was clear that in the run-up to and during the competitions, suffering, effort, exhausting one's abilities, and coping with physical and mental difficulties took the main place in the activity, difficulty, and feeling. The Greek agonistic concept highly valued the suffering of the competing athletes, and those who knew how to deal with their weaknesses and shortcomings were sometimes a focus for exhausting their immanent ability and were sometimes valued much more than the winners who "had it easy," for unlike the Roman concept, the Greek concept was the property of the citizens of the city, boys, young people, and adults alike, and had very important messages for shaping the character of the boy, the adolescent, and the adult alike. And less and less have we squinted in the direction of pride, prestige, contempt for the failed and the weak, etc. And it is clear that it is hard for us to believe that the feelings of the past were indeed like this, real and unadulterated. The athlete who suffers, who suffers, and especially the one who succeeds in overcoming his physical and especially mental hardships is the one who receives all the praise and glory.
Indeed, it is not without reason and in continuation of the above, as if hundreds of years of history had not passed since, when in Latin languages, later, some of which are spoken to this day, we "encounter" expressions that are reminiscent, phonetically and historically, of the following sporting aspects that were mentioned and emphasized above, such as the Italian and Spanish Agonia, which means pain, suffering and agony, and in English Agony is nothing but agony, suffering and soul-crushing, and the French Agonie is similar. And all of them together point to the ancient, Greek-sporting linguistic source, namely the "agony", which means a sacred sporting competition, in which the painful aspects, both physical and mental, "peek out" in the context of ancient Hellenic sports. To teach us, if we only listen to the music that emerges from these expressions, how the ancients, the athletes and the spectators together saw the quasi-distilled essence of the athlete who was supposed to undergo a Seven sections of "hell" before, during, and after the competition. And indeed, it was not for nothing that it was created, the sadness, torment, mental anguish, and other athletic activities of that time were absorbed into the classic dictionaries of the immortal connection between "agonistics"/"agony" and "grief."
And to complete the above-mentioned plot, I sought to wonder about the expression "agon" in the literature of the Sages in order to stitch together, to tie all the above information to the ancient Land of Israel under Hellenistic and Roman rule. Well, in the Midrash Beresheet Rabbah (N"6:18) the phrase "He kept Agino" in the river appears and then "...and jumped his son with him". This seems to be a competition or some kind of aquatic amusement, and it is interesting to point out the word "Agon", which is perhaps connected to the above-mentioned "agon" just like the above interpretations on the connection between athletic physical activity and that which is painful, aching, both physical and mental.
Moreover, Ms. Este Dworzetsky published an article entitled "Kaftar Egon" at the time, and thus claimed (in "Studies in the History of Israel in Antiquity, edited by Menachem Mor and others, p. 459) following Harris and Sorek, that competitions were held in Kaftar Egon and within the boundaries of the polis Geder (a gated area with a gate and two ramparts) in the south of the Sea of Galilee. She cites an interesting archaeological find to support the above assumption, regarding a collection of carved gemstones and amulets from Geder, which taught about the sporting activity that characterized the city. There are depicted horses, riders, chariots, athletes, an arena (a Roman sports arena), a warship and seals, and they date from the first to the third century AD. According to the author, Geder coins were also distinguished by their abundance of nautical symbols, such as a ship, a battering ram, rowers, and more. Likewise, in honor of the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius, a staged naval battle was held in Gedera, known as a Naumachia in Greek, and we learn about it from medallions minted in his honor.
The linguistic expression that is completely integrated into the Hellenic, Hellenistic sporting aspect, in the form of the name of the village, namely "Kafir Agon" which binds its name and nicknames, seems marginal and hidden, in light of the athletic, naumachy findings that were uncovered in the Delta of its ancestors. As a contribution to this article and to both the linguistic and archaeological findings presented in the list in question,
And what does the Bible, the Tanakh, say about this? Well, in later biblical sources, right on the border of biblical times and the beginning of the Hellenistic era in the Land of Israel, from which I derive interesting information about the word "yagoun", the aforementioned word, i.e. "yagoun" connects us to the aforementioned testimonies in Greek, Hellenistic and Roman literature and literally, phonetically, this, i.e. "yagoun" somehow connects to the word, to the term "agoun". Thus in Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and the Psalms, such as "I have poured out grief upon me, my heart is filled with death" (Jeremiah 18:39). Or "And they shall be few and shall swim from the restraint of evil and sorrow" (Psalm 18:3) and also (Jeremiah XNUMX:XNUMX): "Why did I come out of the womb to see labor and sorrow, and they shall be consumed with shame of my days", or for example: "The sorrows of death compass me, and the snares of Sheol have found me; trouble and sorrow have found me" (ibid., XNUMX:XNUMX).
And perhaps, perhaps, we can connect the expression "yagoon" in its tormenting sense with the verb "igae," which also appears in later books of the Bible, such as Ezekiel 29:46; Psalms 2:18; Isaiah 13:XNUMX; Job XNUMX:XNUMX; Nehemiah XNUMX:XNUMX and others of the kind whose meaning is labor, and sometimes great labor, and even one acquired through suffering. Perhaps these expressions may be parallel, complementary to the biblical "sorrow" and in a slightly allegorical context to the Greek "agony." The gist of my assumption is that the word "sorrow" in its later appearance and phonetically close to "Agon" and its meaning of torment, causing suffering, etc. - is, and again in my humble opinion, in addition to the expressions that have, as we saw above, connections to the athletic-agonistic atmosphere, such as, for example, beating of the soul, sorrow, sadness and even mourning, when all these expressions are associated with both the gymnastic and agonistic atmosphere in ancient Greece and the Hellenistic one, it is - it is what it has, and I repeat with great caution, a kind of proof of the connection between the expressions "agony" And "grief" in its sporting relevance and those mentioned in our ancient sources.
