Playing with Life Uncertainties of Antiquity
Playing with Life Uncertainties of Antiquity

Author(s): Véronique Dasen
Subject(s): Pre-WW I & WW I (1900 -1919), Interwar Period (1920 - 1939), WW II and following years (1940 - 1949), Post-War period (1950 - 1989), Transformation Period (1990 - 2010)
Published by: Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego
Keywords: vases; play; games; toys; love; marriage; Aphrodite; Eros
Summary/Abstract: A number of Attic and South Italian vases depict maidens playing various games together, with young men, or deities such as Aphrodite and Eros. The depictions convey a metaphorical discourse on the perception of love and marriage as risks for girls in prenuptial age. They are often based on verbal puns associated with the double meaning of paizô, ‘play’ and ‘play amorously’, or ‘toy with love emotions’. A divinatory dimensions appears in several games, reflecting the agency of maidens training to control their fate.

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