Wednesday, December 3, 2014

TFBT: Beautiful Text and Iliad 17.436

For my Homeric Vocabulary class on Friday I had to pick out some "favorite" text for us to translate.  I did a search of "beautiful" to see what had moved me in the past.  Here are the flowers I picked from my literary garden (blog) just for you.

  “Will it ever happen again that our ancient Troy will know the day-long revelries the love pledges and companionship, the strumming of the lyres and the wine cups circling, passed to the right, in sweet contention while on the open waters the sons of Atreus make for Sparta, gone from the shores of Ilium?” Rhesus 360-369

 “Scamander, my native stream! Upon your banks in bygone days, unhappy maid, was I nurtured with fostering care; but now by Cocytus and the banks of Acheron, I think, I soon must chant my prophecies  Agamemnon by Aeschylus  1157-1161

Writing by Pindar on a Sicilian oread; “white-capped Aetna, nursing all year long her brood of stinging snow, within her secret depths pure springs of unapproachable fire erupt -  her rivers in daytime pour forth billows of glaring smoke, while at night the blood-red , rolling blaze whirls boulders crashing onto the flat plain of the sea  Pythian 1 20-24

Iliad 17: [436 they immovably with the beauteous car, bowing their heads down to the earth. And hot tears ever flowed from their eyes to the ground, as they wept in longing for their charioteer, and their rich manes were befouled, [440]

Thus [Agamemnon] spoke. And the son of Peleus  felt grief and the heart within his shaggy chest was divided whether to draw the sharp sword at his thigh and make the others get up and scatter while he kills the son of Atreus or whether to check his anger and restrain his heart”.  Iliad 1:188-192

Iliad 1: 476 when the child of morning, rosy-fingered Dawn, appeared they again set sail for the army of the Achaeans. Apollo sent them a fair wind,  so they raised their mast and hoisted their white sails aloft. As the sail bellied with the wind the ship flew through the deep blue water, and the foam hissed against her bows as she sped onward. When they reached the wide-stretching army of the Achaeans.

2 comments:

  1. In the Rhesus quote, I like that Hector doesn't wish Achaeans dead, just gone home.

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  2. Made me think of the Golden Age. We always want to get back to the Garden don't we? Bill

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