kestrell

Since the summer, I've been trying to find ways to deal with severe chronic fatigue, which has really cut down on the activities I've felt up to doing. It has, however, upped my intake of audiobooks and other things I can listen to. I recently discovered Audiobooks.com, which seems to have the largest selection of audiobooks and podcasts to search from, while also being very accessible and, as in the following instance, if it is a podcast, you have the option of either purchasing it to download or listening to it for free through the app.

So yesterday, while searching for new audiobooks, I came across this BBC Radio 4 series by Natalie Haynes and, being the classics and myth geek that I am, I listened to her Series 5, which began with Aristotle. I'm always interested in hearing more about Aristotle due to my obsession with _The Name of the Rose_. Since I've read a number of her books, I was quite prepared for Natalie Haynes to be witty and fascinating, but I had no idea that she was so *funny*!!! In addition, she has other classicists as guests who are *also* funny!

Haynes also makes it a point to feature as her subjects women of the classical world and recent archeological discoveries which support broadening our ideas regarding diversity in Western Europe. I can see how this show led her to write _Pandora's Jar_, in which she explores ideas regarding the role of women in Greek epic and drama, including lost and obscure works (note that _Pandora's Jar_ and other books by Haynes are available on NLS and on Bookshare).

Two episodes which I absolutely must recommend are "The Amazons" and "homer." During the latter, she announces that, since we really don't know anything about Homer, she will, instead, give a summary of all twenty-four books of "The Iliad" in the next twenty-four minutes and this turns out to have so many insights and poetic highlight that I am feeling excited about rereading the entire thing again.

You can find Natalie Haynes Stands Up for the Classics online, including an episode list here
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b077x8pc/episodes/player

and you can also ask Alexa "Alexa, play Natalie Haynes Stands Up for the Classics.," although I'm not sure if Alexa has access to all the episodes that are available on the BBC website.

Not from a text scanned by me, but from a book I downloaded from archive.org, titled _Survivals of Roman Religion_:
a chapter titled "The Egyptian Dieties: Isis, Serapis, and Harpo."

Reread and then reread again. Yes, that is what the text says.

Wander down the page a few lines and find the word "crates."

Still...

Honk if you love Harpo!

I am really lusting after this book

_The Carmina Burana: Songs from Benediktbeuern (Second Edition)_
by Tariq William Marshall (Apr 15, 2013)

http://www.amazon.com/The-Carmina-Burana-Benediktbeuern-Edition/dp/1481117599

which is not available in e-format, although a reviewer claims that an extra when you buy the paper book is a downloadable version.

As the format being used for the downloadable files is PDF, which has about a fifty-fifty chance of being accessible with my screenreader program, I am wondering if anyone has bought this book and tried out the downloadable content, specifically, is the PDF just image files, and does it have the highest setting of DRM attached, which locks out screen readers?

I was planning on saving the best one for last, but I've been feeling under the weather for the past few days, so I'm going to link to Alexx's post about this dead Greek guy who really managed to convey some of life's truly timeless aspects
http://alexx-kay.livejournal.com/348805.html
http://alexx-kay.livejournal.com/348805.html

Diogenes the Cynic 5th century BC
a.k.a. "The Dog"

1
I have come to debase the coinage.

7
I am a citizen of the world.

18
When I die, throw me to the wolves. I'm used to it.

30
A. I am Alexander the Great.
B. I am Diogenes, the dog.
A. The dog?
B. I nuzzle the land, bark at the greedy, and bite louts.
A. What can I do for you?
B. Stand out of my light.

39
One wrong will not balance another to be honorable and just is our only defense against men without honor or justice.

42
There is no stick hard enough to drive me away from a man from whom I can learn something.

54
Bury me prone: I have always faced the other way.

66
Even with a lamp in broad daylight I cannot find an honest man.

73
I pissed on the man who called me a dog. Why was he so surprised?

102
Discourse on virtue and they pass by in droves, whistle and dance the shimmy, and you've got an audience.

Alexx nobly patched together my fragmented and slightly scrambled scan of _Seven Greeks_ translated by Guy Davenport, which features seven Greek poet/performers who chronologically came after Homer and Hesiod but before the classical period. This translation was made by a poet, not a classical scholar, and this reflects its strength and its weakness: it is a highly quotable translation which reflects many of the concerns and attitudes of our modern century, but is not necessarilyt as accurate a translation as the classical scholar would approve of.

Archilochos, who lived in the 7 century BC, was a soldier-poet whose poems are pretty much concerned with two subjects: fighting and sex. Through the first century or so, he was one of the most famous of Greek poets, as well-known as Homer, and one of aphorisms is still quoted often, although most have no idea who the original author was:
The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog just one big thing.

Classical scholar William Harris has placed his own translation and notes online at
http://community.middlebury.edu/~harris/Archilochus.pdf?

( Read more... )

I especially like the final line where someone reprimands the storytellerfor telling stories that will give kids nightmares--good to know spooky stories at bedtime is a timeless tradition.
http://www.laphamsquarterly.org/voices-in-time/the-masters-tools.php

Last week I scanned a paper copy of Guy Davenport's _Seven Greeks_, which is a collection of his translations of the writings of seven Greek poets who came after Homer and Hesiod

The page design must have been in two columns, however, because the scanned text came out all scrambled.

But when your scanner gives you scrambled eggs, it's time to make souffle.

So I have been piecing the scrambled fragments together by going to Google and entering the search terms of the title of the book and then the last phrase which I know was in the correct sequence, like this

"Seven Greeks" "The trap's spring."

And I get back a result like this:

7 Greeks - Page 45 - Google Books Result
books.google.com/books?isbn=0811212882
1995 - Poetry
115 Gently cock The trap's spring. 116 Let us sing, Ahem, Of Glaukos who wore The pompadour. 117 Damp crotch. 118 Where, where, O Entias, Is the guidon ...

(You may have already realized that this Archilochos guy was more than slightly obscene at times. but, hey, he was a soldier-poet so his two favorite subjects are sex and fighting.)

Anyway, I then take the results and go correct my scanned text. It is both time- and mind-consuming, and I often find I have been doing it for hours without realizing it.

But this morning I realized something--well, two things, actually.

1. I am insane.
2. I am getting a metatextual experience of the fragmentary nature of the texts which is very similar to the scholars who pieced together the original paper fragments.

And *that* is pretty cool.

For my sighted friends who have never had the experience of reconstructing a patchy scanned text, here is a link to an online project which allows people to help piece together papyrus fragments in the British Library.

Ancient Lives
is a collaboration between a diverse group of Oxford papyrologists and researchers in the Departments of Classics and Astrophysics, the Imaging Papyri Project, the Oxyrhynchus Papyri Project, the Egypt Exploration Society and the Citizen Science Alliance, a collaborative body of universities and museums dedicated to allowing everyone to make a meaningful contribution to scientific research.
http://www.papyrology.ox.ac.uk/Ancient_Lives/

Current Mood: bookish
Current Location: aerye
Current Music: wwoz.com

_The Pregnant Male as Myth and Metaphor in Classical Greek Literature_ by Dr David D. Leitao (Cambridge University Press, 2012)

Entries tagged with classics

Natalie Haynes Stands Up for the Classics

Possibly my favorite scanno ever

new complete translation of _Carmina Burana_

Dead Greek guy of the day

Dead Greek guy of the day: Diogenes

Archilochos

The original source for "The Sorcerer's Apprentice"

So this is what it is like to be one of those mad British scholars

Hey, pregfic is period!

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