Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Must-read news

A new anniversary to celebrate every year on the Peril's calendar: 16 April 1178 B.C., the day when Odysseus revenged himself upon Penelope's suitors.

Or at least, that's what these guys say. Then again, this could be another scholarly effort similar to the apocryphal story of the classics professor who labored twenty years to prove that the Iliad and the Odyssey were not written by Homer, but by a different Greek who happened to have the same name.

Point of family significance: my mother, when telling stories on herself, tends to refer to herself in the third person as "Penelope." I have no idea why.

οἱ δ' ἐφέβοντο κατὰ μέγαρον βόες ὣς ἀγελαῖαι:
τὰς μέν τ' αἰόλος οἶστρος ἐφορμηθεὶς ἐδόνησεν
ὥρῃ ἐν εἰαρινῇ, ὅτε τ' ἤματα μακρὰ πέλονται.
οἱ δ' ὥς τ' 6αἰγυπιοὶ γαμψώνυχες ἀγκυλοχεῖλαι,
ἐξ ὀρέων ἐλθόντες ἐπ' ὀρνίθεσσι θόρωσι:
ταὶ μέν τ' ἐν πεδίῳ νέφεα πτώσσουσαι ἵενται,
οἱ δέ τε τὰς ὀλέκουσιν ἐπάλμενοι, οὐδέ τις ἀλκὴ
γίνεται οὐδὲ φυγή: χαίρουσι δέ τ' ἀνέρες ἄγρῃ:
ὣς ἄρα τοὶ μνηστῆρας ἐπεσσύμενοι κατὰ δῶμα
τύπτον ἐπιστροφάδην: τῶν δὲ στόνος ὤρνυτ' ἀεικὴς
κράτων τυπτομένων, δάπεδον δ' ἅπαν αἵματι θῦε.

Then the hearts of the suitors quailed. They fled to the other end of the court like a herd of cattle maddened by the gadfly in early summer when the days are at their longest. As eagle-beaked, crook-taloned vultures from the mountains swoop down on the smaller birds that cower in flocks upon the ground, and kill them, for they cannot either fight or fly, and lookers-on enjoy the sport - even so did Ulysses and his men fall upon the suitors and smite them on every side. They made a horrible groaning as their brains were being battered in, and the ground seethed with their blood.
Ah, good times, good times.

UPDATE: Link fixed.

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