Fashioning Immortality

The book is an interdisciplinary study on Pythian Three, Nemean Three and Nemean Five, three Pindaric epinicians, which share a special use of the word τέκτων, ‘fashioner’. In these victory odes, the term τέκτων refers to creators of immaterial objects and occurs close to the first and/or the final words of the poems, in connection with key themes, namely: health, poetry, choral performance, movement as opposed to stasis.

The study shows that structures in which Pindaric metaphors are found have parallels in Indo-European languages of ancient attestation: Old Indic and Avestan. In doing so, the book casts new light on Pindar’s language and the stylistic features of his odes, which are in a relation of historical continuity with phraseological and structural characteristics of religious hymns of Ancient India and Iran. The study reveals that *tetƙ-metaphors and “*tetƙ-compositions”, i.e. metaphors and ring-compositions built by means of repetitions of “*tetƙ-words” (Vedic takṣ, Avestan taš, and Greek τέκτων), have a deep meta-thematic relevance in three linguistically related traditions and are an inherited phraseological stylistic feature common to Ancient Greek and Indo-Iranian poetic creations.

Laura Massetti was trained in Classics and Music in Milan. She completed a Ph.D. in Historical and Comparative Linguistics at University of Cologne and held several fellowships between 2017 and 2023: Center for Hellenic Studies of Harvard University (2017, Washington DC), Marie-Curie Individual Fellowship (2018–2020, University of Copenhagen), Carlsberg Visiting Fellowship (2020–2023, University of Oxford). She is Assistant Professor in Greek Literature (‘non-tenure track researcher’) at University of Naples “L’Orientale.” Her main research interests include Greek Literature, Historical Linguistics, Indo-Iranian Languages, Comparative Religion, Mythology and Poetics.