A British university censored an ancient Greek poem referring to violence against women so as not to upset students, the London time Monday reports.

According to the report, the book “Types of Women”, which is over 2,500 years old, is being taught to first-year classics students at the University of Reading.

The poem, sometimes translated simply as Women or rendered by Semonides 7, is an archaic Greek satirical poem written by Semonides of Amorgos in the 7th century BC.

The poem is based on the idea that Zeus created men and women differently, and that he specifically created ten types of women based on different models of the natural world.

Ancient Greek poem refers to violence against women

The university has deleted passages from the poem in part to avoid disturbing students. “The part of the poem now omitted involved a brief reference to domestic violence.” He added: “This part seemed unnecessarily obnoxious and (potentially) triggering.”

Reading said the poem contained “a particularly nasty reference to breaking your wife’s teeth with a stone, in order to control her.”

He said the professor decided not to include these lines to avoid focusing on extreme misogyny and “so as not to give classics freshmen, who may be learning ancient Greece for the first time. times, an inaccurate impression of Greek culture and literature from this period, which although clearly misogynistic, does not generally highlight acts of domestic violence.

Before the discussions, the students were informed that the work was an example of “extreme misogyny in archaic Greece”, The temperature reports.

Would universities ban the Bible or the Koran?

The university’s decision sparked strong reactions from some classics.

Ewen Bowie, professor emeritus of classical languages ​​and literature at the University of Oxford, told Daily mail that ancient works had to be “understood in their context”. He added, “When you start censoring playlists, you step on the slippery slope. “

Several readers also expressed their disapproval in the comments section of The Times.

“Aren’t these students supposed to be mature enough to attend a murder trial?” Shame on the teachers though; either drop the text if there is something better, or assume the students are adults able to identify and deal with unpleasant aspects of the text, ”one reader said.

Another said, “Maybe they would like to ban the Bible or the Quran too, for references to deeply uncomfortable paragraphs about slaves, what wives did to husbands, how daughters extracted seed from their father, etc. Crikey! Have a hold! “

“I wonder how they teach Anglo-Saxon and Viking history these days,” commented a third reader.