Divine Gifts
Weland
Looking for a bit of aid. Odyssey 8 and Iliad 13 have short sections in
which something is stated about how each man receives from the god(s) a
gift or skill: to one is given prowess in war, to one harping, to one
counsel etc. Some will no doubt note the analogues in the Hebrew and
Christian bibles.
What I'm looking for is similar sorts of statements in Latin literature,
particularly the big guns like Vergil, Ovid, Horace, but I'll take any
such reference any of you know.
Thanks for the pointers in advance, or if no pointers forthcoming, at
least for your time.
Ed Cryer
There are zillions. I wouldn't know where to start.
I tell you what, though. You give us the specific lines from Homer that
you've mentioned, and I'll take it from there.
Ed
Weland
Zillions? I'm looking for just a few then.....if zillions, should be
easy to name a few without looking.
Iliad 13:723-47, Polydamas' speech to Hector
Odyssey 8: 44 (I think I have that right) where Demodocus is said to
have been given the skill of song
Odyssey 8: 152-185, the exchange between Odysseus and Euryalus.
I'm not interested in the specific skills or gifts so much as in tracing
the trope.
Ed Cryer
Well, you probably know as well as I do that the Romans copied the
Greeks, probably well aware that they couldn't surpass their literature.
As Horace put it in Ars Poetica;
Vos exemplaria Graeca
nocturna uersate manu, uersate diurna.
Vergil himself used Greek models almost slavishly; Theocritus, Hesiod
and Homer for his Eclogues, Georgics and Aeneid respectively.
Ed
Weland
authors.
Ed Cryer
No. You want specific lines from famous poetry. But, as I said, you'll
find zillions. That's because Roman religion(s) was/were about
individual gods and their help to mortals. Just as a Greek might choose
Apollo for culture & light (with the Muses on Parnassus) or Ares for
war; so a Roman might choose Jupiter Optimus Maximus or Venus. And they
sacrificed to them, asking for their help at their temples and shrines.
The Aeneid's premise is the fated founding of Rome; and individual gods
connive with each other to assist or hinder what the Fates themselves
have sewn in the weft of life ("Si qua fata sinant" echoes through the
whole twelve books). Aeneas is driven by destiny (divine destiny) to go
from Troy to Italy and found Alba Longa. Venus and Juno help and hinder
respectively. And just look at the miracles that Venus weaves around her
son! (Exactly as Athena does for Odysseus in The Odyssey, and Poseidon
opposes).
Book 6 of the Aeneid; where Aeneas goes down to Hades and talks to his
dead father is a trope, I guess; line 679 >>.
There are lots of famous Latin tags as well which show the attitude;
Dis aliter visum est
Deus ex machina
You might also look at inscriptions made on votive offerings that have
been excavated; at places such as Aquae Sulis in Bath, UK. They asked
the gods for almost anything imaginable, including vengeance on a human
enemy.
Ed
Weland
Well first, thanks for stating the obvious, very unhelpful, and none of
which actually addresses the question asked.
Second, if you didn't know of any specifics, you could have saved us
both time by just saying so rather than claiming zillions.
Evertjan.
> Well first, thanks for stating the obvious, very unhelpful, and none of
> which actually addresses the question asked.
>
> Second, if you didn't know of any specifics, you could have saved us
> both time by just saying so rather than claiming zillions.
>
Hey Weland, Usenet is not a paid helpdesk.
Being helpful is not something you have any right to when posting a Q.
--
Evertjan.
The Netherlands.
(Please change the x'es to dots in my emailaddress)
Johannes Patruus
> Weland wrote on 05 dec 2010 in alt.language.latin:
>
>> Well first, thanks for stating the obvious, very unhelpful, and none of
>> which actually addresses the question asked.
>>
>> Second, if you didn't know of any specifics, you could have saved us
>> both time by just saying so rather than claiming zillions.
>>
>
> Hey Weland, Usenet is not a paid helpdesk.
It's not a paid anything!
> Being helpful is not something you have any right to when posting a Q.
ABANDON HOPE ALL YE WHO ENTER HERE !!
Patruus
Weland
> Weland wrote on 05 dec 2010 in alt.language.latin:
>
>> Well first, thanks for stating the obvious, very unhelpful, and none of
>> which actually addresses the question asked.
>>
>> Second, if you didn't know of any specifics, you could have saved us
>> both time by just saying so rather than claiming zillions.
>>
>
> Hey Weland, Usenet is not a paid helpdesk.
It's not a paid anything. This group, though, has a history of being
quite helpful on questions related to Latin language and literature.
I'm told there are zillions of answers to my query: yet nothing
forthcoming except material unrelated to the query.
>
> Being helpful is not something you have any right to when posting a Q.
>
Where did I say it was my right? Nowhere I can see. Of course, being
on Usenet also doesn't give you the right to be an ass, but there you
are being one.
Weland
Indeed.
Ed Cryer
I’ve been giving you what I regard as friendly answers; educated,
intelligent ones, calculated to promote open discussion of a subject
that interests me enormously. And you grumble and groan like a baby
throwing his rattle out of the pram for his mummy to pick up for him.
“Gimme, gimme, gimme some quotes in Latin from the classical age about
the gods endowing different people with different gifts”.
You call them “tropes”; I’d call them “trophies” for you to hang on a
little decorated tree.
What do those quotes you’ve given us from the Iliad and Odyssey show or
prove? You think maybe they demonstrate that “Greeks of the time all
believed such and such a thing”?
No. Most of them are in the mouths of characters; characters drawn from
the heroic age of Greece. And even the comments by Homer himself about
Demodocus and his talents & limitations are platitudes; mere
conventional trite commonplace modes of expression.
In Vergil’s Aeneid the gods are copies of Homer’s Olympian ones. Would
you conclude from that that Vergil himself believed in them? I pointed
you to Aeneid book 6, but you didn’t even see that as given.
Similarly with John Milton in “Paradise Lost”. It’s littered with
references to classical Graeco-Roman deities and their doings; but, do
you think he believed in them?
I think you’ve deserved Odysseus’ retort to Euryalas in one of the
quotes you give from the Odyssey;
ξεῖν᾽, οὐ καλὸν ἔειπες· ἀτασθάλῳ ἀνδρὶ ἔοικας.
οὕτως οὐ πάντεσσι θεοὶ χαρίεντα διδοῦσιν
ἀνδράσιν, οὔτε φυὴν οὔτ᾽ ἂρ φρένας οὔτ᾽ ἀγορητύν.
(Odyssey 8; 166)
Ed
Ed Cryer
Here's an essay on Fate in Virgil's Aeneid and Homer's Iliad;
http://www.123helpme.com/assets/16636.html
And here are some quotes fom 19th c pop songs;
The gods may throw a dice
Their minds as cold as ice.
And someone way down here
Loses someone dear.
(ABBA)
It's in the lap of the gods
(Queen)
A goddess on a mountain top,
Was burning like a silver flame.
The summit of beauty she was,
And Venus was her name.
(Bananarama)
Ed
Weland
Yes, well perhaps the problem is with what you "regard." You weren't
accused of being unfriendly, just unhelpful in spite of the claim of
zillions. I would debate whether your answers were either educated or
intelligent since they clearly don't address the query, as already
noted, and as for open discussion...if you are unable to address the
query, then open discussion can not really happen.
And you grumble and groan like a baby
> throwing his rattle out of the pram for his mummy to pick up for him.
> “Gimme, gimme, gimme some quotes in Latin from the classical age about
> the gods endowing different people with different gifts”.
I made a request, like many here do every week, including just today.
I've noted on more than one occasion that your answers do not address
the question. The question had nothing to do with a "where does Roman
literature imitate Greek" nor did it have to do with Roman religion and
votive offerings nor with sacrifices or divine providence nor the belief
in divine activity in the world.
I'm sorry that you don't like my request, but no reason throwing a
temper tantrum over it. Were I as childish as you, I'd say something
like, "I got caught making a claim I can't support about something I
didn't understand, and now I'm going to be a jackass to cover up my
mistake! WAH! Where's my mommy!!????" But good thing I'm not like you.
> You call them “tropes”;
Well, no, I called *it* a trope...singular, one trope, in a particular
kind of literature.
I’d call them “trophies” for you to hang on a
> little decorated tree.
Well, there's the problem. I'm looking to catalog a trope in Greek and
Roman literature, you're looking for trophies. But please, don't hang
your trophies on my "tree."
>
> What do those quotes you’ve given us from the Iliad and Odyssey show or
> prove?
Depends on what argument you want to make and use them as evidence for.
By themselves, they prove nothing. You could ask what I'm looking
for, but instead you pleasure yourself with straw men.
You think maybe they demonstrate that “Greeks of the time all
> believed such and such a thing”?
> No. Most of them are in the mouths of characters; characters drawn from
> the heroic age of Greece. And even the comments by Homer himself about
> Demodocus and his talents & limitations are platitudes; mere
> conventional trite commonplace modes of expression.
Good straw man there....
> In Vergil’s Aeneid the gods are copies of Homer’s Olympian ones. Would
> you conclude from that that Vergil himself believed in them? I pointed
> you to Aeneid book 6, but you didn’t even see that as given.
Didn't I? Since you've been talking past me and past the query, it
would seem not. There, there, child, no need to pout. Another well
constructed straw man though. Keep it up, soon you'll have an entire
fortress of straw men and you'll feel nice and safe.
> Similarly with John Milton in “Paradise Lost”. It’s littered with
> references to classical Graeco-Roman deities and their doings; but, do
> you think he believed in them?
Another straw man for the walls....
>
> I think you’ve deserved Odysseus’ retort to Euryalas in one of the
> quotes you give from the Odyssey;
>
> ξεῖν᾽, οὐ καλὸν ἔειπες· ἀτασθάλῳ ἀνδρὶ ἔοικας.
> οὕτως οὐ πάντεσσι θεοὶ χαρίεντα διδοῦσιν
> ἀνδράσιν, οὔτε φυὴν οὔτ᾽ ἂρ φρένας οὔτ᾽ ἀγορητύν.
> (Odyssey 8; 166)
LOL! Oh you've schooled me there....by citing the very passage I
already pointed you to.
You know, for someone who claims there are literally zillions of things
that fit my query, I find it odd how much smoke is being blown to avoid
actually providing a single definite citation, especially from the
requested authors. Don't you think it interesting to claim that there
are literally zillions and that not provide a single one?
Weland
Interesting that you can cite all manner of thing except what was
interesting as 19th century pop songs might be in their own right, I do
find it indicative that you are claiming Abba, Queen, and Bananarama as
19th century performers. Perhaps a little more attention to detail
might be in order....
Ed Cryer
Perhaps there just aren't any, then.
Ed
Johannes Patruus
>>>>>>>>> On 04/12/2010 23:10, Weland wrote:
>>>>>>>>>> Hello all,
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> Looking for a bit of aid. Odyssey 8 and Iliad 13 have short
>>>>>>>>>> sections in
>>>>>>>>>> which something is stated about how each man receives from the
>>>>>>>>>> god(s) a
>>>>>>>>>> gift or skill: to one is given prowess in war, to one harping, to
>>>>>>>>>> one
>>>>>>>>>> counsel etc. Some will no doubt note the analogues in the Hebrew
>>>>>>>>>> and
>>>>>>>>>> Christian bibles.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> What I'm looking for is similar sorts of statements in Latin
>>>>>>>>>> literature,
>>>>>>>>>> particularly the big guns like Vergil, Ovid, Horace, but I'll take
>>>>>>>>>> any
>>>>>>>>>> such reference any of you know.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> Thanks for the pointers in advance, or if no pointers
>>>>>>>>>> forthcoming, at
>>>>>>>>>> least for your time.
>
>
> Ed
Howzabout this from Aeneid Book 2? -
Tempus erat quo prima quies mortalibus aegris
incipit et dono divum gratissima serpit.
It was the time when the first, sweetest sleep,
A gift from gods, slips into weary mortals.
http://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/Virgil-up-to-speed-3849
Patruus
(I've never understood the word 'trope'.)
Johannes Patruus
> going north (or south) and "turns" back.
>
> any literary or rhetorical device, as metaphor, metonymy, synecdoche,
> and irony, that consists in the use of words in other than their literal
> sense.
> b.
> an instance of this. Compare figure of speech.
> 2.
> a phrase, sentence, or verse formerly interpolated in a liturgical text
> to amplify or embellish.
> 3.
> (in the philosophy of Santayana) the principle of organization according
> to which matter moves to form an object during the various stages of its
> existence.
>
> Origin:
> 1525–35;< L tropus figure in rhetoric< Gk trópos turn, turning,
> turn or figure of speech, akin to trépein to turn
Thanks. I've think I've come across it most frequently in sense 2, and
this has confused my grasp of the other senses.
Patruus semper Discombobulatus
Weland
Thanks, that's one. I'm looking for more particular things, though
cataloging everything....that is, the things I'm looking for are things
like particular skills that are said to be gifts from the Gods: success
in battle, skill in the dance, skill with the sword etc, especially
where these appear in longer or shorter lists. But in order to discern
patterns, if any, I need to catalog as much as possible of
everything...including this one. I thank you very much.
Weland
Wow, either black or white: zillions or none. So can I take it that
"none" now means you're retracting your previous claim? How long to
retract this one? Or would you like to provide some more 20th century
artists claiming they're singing 19th century songs?
Johannes Patruus
You're welcome.
There is also this, attributed to the Roman poet Grattius -
I sing in thanks for the gifts of the Gods,
and for those gifts, O Diana, which are under Your auspices,
for those skills in which hunters delight.
http://www.novaroma.org/nr/Prayers_to_Diana
Both my citations came from googling. I had hoped to find some academic
tract that would address your query, but failed.
May I, at this point, invite you to take over the helm of the good ship
Google?
Patruus
Ed Cryer
I've found one! Vergil's Eclogue 1;
Divus Augustus!!! The deified Augustus.
O Meliboee, deus nobis haec otia fecit.
namque erit ille mihi semper deus, illius aram
saepe tener nostris ab ovilibus imbuet agnus.
O Meliboeus, a god has created this leisure for us.
Since he’ll always be a god to me, a gentle lamb
from our fold, will often drench his altar.
And here's the whole thing with a translation.
P. VERGILI MARONIS ECLOGA PRIMA
Meliboeus
Tityre, tu patulae recubans sub tegmine fagi
silvestrem tenui Musam meditaris avena;
nos patriae fines et dulcia linquimus arva.
nos patriam fugimus; tu, Tityre, lentus in umbra
formosam resonare doces Amaryllida silvas. 5
Tityrus
O Meliboee, deus nobis haec otia fecit.
namque erit ille mihi semper deus, illius aram
saepe tener nostris ab ovilibus imbuet agnus.
ille meas errare boves, ut cernis, et ipsum
ludere quae vellem calamo permisit agresti. 10
Meliboeus
Non equidem invideo, miror magis; undique totis
usque adeo turbatur agris. en ipse capellas
protenus aeger ago; hanc etiam vix, Tityre, duco.
hic inter densas corylos modo namque gemellos,
spem gregis, a, silice in nuda conixa reliquit. 15
saepe malum hoc nobis, si mens non laeva fuisset,
de caelo tactas memini praedicere quercus.
sed tamen iste deus qui sit da, Tityre,nobis.
Tityrus
Urbem quam dicunt Romam, Meliboee, putavi
stultus ego huic nostrae similem, cui saepe solemus 20
pastores ovium teneros depellere fetus.
sic canibus catulos similes, sic matribus haedos
noram, sic parvis componere magna solebam.
verum haec tantum alias inter caput extulit urbes
quantum lenta solent inter viburna cupressi. 25
Meliboeus
Et quae tanta fuit Romam tibi causa videndi?
Tityrus
Libertas, quae sera tamen respexit inertem,
candidior postquam tondenti barba cadebat,
respexit tamen et longo post tempore venit,
postquam nos Amaryllis habet, Galatea reliquit. 30
namque - fatebor enim - dum me Galatea tenebat,
nec spes libertatis erat nec cura peculi.
quamvis multa meis exiret victima saeptis
pinguis et ingratae premeretur caseus urbi,
non umquam gravis aere domum mihi dextra redibat. 35
Meliboeus
Mirabar quid maesta deos, Amarylli, vocares,
cui pendere sua patereris in arbore poma.
Tityrus hinc aberat. ipsae te, Tityre, pinus,
ipsi te fontes, ipsa haec arbusta vocabant.
Tityrus
Quid facerem? neque servitio me exire licebat 40
nec tam praesentis alibi cognoscere divos.
hic illum vidi iuvenem, Meliboee, quot annis
bis senos cui nostra dies altaria fumant,
hic mihi responsum primus dedit ille petenti:
'pascite ut ante boves, pueri, submittite tauros.' 45
Meliboeus
Fortunate senex, ergo tua rura manebunt
et tibi magna satis, quamvis lapis omnia nudus
limosoque palus obducat pascua iunco.
non insueta gravis temptabunt pabula fetas
nec mala vicini pecoris contagia laedent. 50
fortunate senex, hic inter flumina nota
et fontis sacros frigus captabis opacum;
hinc tibi, quae semper, vicino ab limite saepes
Hyblaeis apibus florem depasta salicti
saepe levi somnum suadebit inire susurro; 55
hinc alta sub rupe canet frondator ad auras,
nec tamen interea raucae, tua cura, palumbes
nec gemere aeria cessabit turtur ab ulmo.
Tityrus
Ante leves ergo pascentur in aethere cervi
et freta destituent nudos in litore pisces, 60
ante pererratis amborum finibus exsul
aut Ararim Parthus bibet aut Germania Tigrim,
quam nostro illius labatur pectore vultus.
Meliboeus
At nos hinc alii sitientis ibimus Afros,
pars Scythiam et rapidum cretae veniemus Oaxen 65
et penitus toto divisos orbe Britannos.
en umquam patrios longo post tempore finis
pauperis et tuguri congestum caespite culmen,
post aliquot, mea regna, videns mirabor aristas?
impius haec tam culta novalia miles habebit, 70
barbarus has segetes. en quo discordia civis
produxit miseros; his nos consevimus agros!
insere nunc, Meliboee, piros, pone ordine vites.
ite meae, felix quondam pecus, ite capellae.
non ego vos posthac viridi proiectus in antro 75
dumosa pendere procul de rupe videbo;
carmina nulla canam; non me pascente, capellae,
florentem cytisum et salices carpetis amaras.
Tityrus
Hic tamen hanc mecum poteras requiescere noctem
fronde super viridi. sunt nobis mitia poma, 80
castaneae molles et pressi copia lactis,
et iam summa procul villarum culmina fumant
maioresque cadunt altis de montibus umbrae.
******************************************************************
Eclogue I: The Dialogue of Meliboeus and Tityrus
Meliboeus:
Tityrus, lying there, under the speading beech-tree cover,
you study the woodland Muse, on slender shepherd’s pipe.
We are leaving the sweet fields and the frontiers of our country:
we are fleeing our country: you, Tityrus, idling in the shade,
teach the woods to echo ‘lovely Amaryllis’.
Tityrus:
O Meliboeus, a god has created this leisure for us.
Since he’ll always be a god to me, a gentle lamb
from our fold, will often drench his altar.
Through him my cattle roam as you see, and I
allow what I wish to be played by my rural reed.
Meliboeus:
Well I don’t begrudge you: rather I wonder at it: there’s such
endless trouble everywhere over all the countryside. See,
I drive my goats, sadly: this one, Tityrus, I can barely lead.
Here in the dense hazels, just now, she birthed twins,
the hope of the flock, alas, on the bare stones.
I’d have often recalled that this evil was prophesied to me,
by the oak struck by lightning, if my mind had not been dulled.
But, Tityrus, tell me then, who is this god of yours?
Tityrus:
Meliboeus, foolishly, I thought the City they call Rome
was like ours, to which we shepherds are often accustomed
to drive the tender young lambs of our flocks.
So I considered pups like dogs, kids like their mothers,
so I used to compare the great with the small.
But this city indeed has lifted her head as high among others,
as cypress trees are accustomed to do among the weeping willows.
Meliboeus:
And what was the great occasion for you setting eyes on Rome?
Tityrus:
Liberty, that gazed on me, though late, in my idleness,
when the hairs of my beard fell whiter when they were cut,
gazed yet, and came to me after so long a time,
when Amaryllis was here, and Galatea had left me.
Since, while Galatea swayed me, I confess,
there was never a hope of freedom, or thought of saving.
My hand never came home filled with coins,
though many a victim left my sheepfolds,
and many a rich cheese was pressed for the ungrateful town.
Meliboeus:
Amaryllis, I wondered why you called on the gods so mournfully,
and for whom you left the apples there on the trees:
Tityrus was absent: Tityrus, here, the very pines,
the very springs and orchards were calling out for you.
Tityrus:
What could I do? I could not be rid of my bondage
elsewhere, or find gods so ready to help me.
There, Meliboeus, I saw that youth for whom
our altars smoke for six days twice a year.
There he was first to reply to my request:
‘Slave, go feed you cattle as before: rear your bulls.’
Meliboeus:
Fortunate old man, so these lands will remain yours.
And they’re wide enough for you: though bare stone,
and pools with muddy reeds cover all your pastures.
No strange plants will tempt your pregnant ewes,
no contagious disease from a neighbour’s flock will harm them.
Fortunate old man, here you’ll find the cooling shade,
among familiar streams and sacred springs.
Here, as always, on your neighbour’s boundary, the hedge,
its willow blossoms sipped by Hybla’s bees,
will often lull you into sleep with the low buzzing:
there, under the high cliff, the woodsman sings to the breeze:
while the loud wood-pigeons, and the doves,
your delight, will not cease their moaning from the tall elm.
Tityrus:
So the swift deer will sooner feed on air,
and the seas leave the fish naked on shore,
or the Parthian drink the Saône, the German the Tigris,
both in exile wandering each other’s frontiers,
than that gaze of his will fade from my mind.
Meliboeus:
But we must go, some to the parched Africans,
some to find Scythia, and Crete’s swift Oaxes,
and the Britons wholly separated from all the world.
Ah, will I gaze on my country’s shores, after long years,
and my poor cottage, its roof thatched with turf,
and gazing at a few ears of corn, see my domain?
An impious soldier will own these well-tilled fields,
a barbarian these crops. See to what war has led
our unlucky citizens: for this we sowed our lands.
Now graft your pears, Meliboeus, plant your rows of vines.
Away with you my once happy flock of goats.
Lying in some green hollow, I’ll no longer see you
clinging far off to some thorn-filled crag:
I’ll sing no songs: no longer grazed by me, my goats,
will you chew the flowering clover and the bitter willows.
Tityrus:
Yet you might have rested here with me tonight
on green leaves: we have ripe apples,
soft chestnuts, and a wealth of firm cheeses:
and now the distant cottage roofs show smoke
and longer shadows fall from the high hills.
**************************
Ed
Ed Cryer
Here's a beaut from Horace, the would-be Epicurean.
(Perhaps I'll find something in Ovid as well)
I.XXXIV
Parcus deorum cultor et infrequens,
insanientis dum sapientiae
consultus erro, nunc retrorsum
uela dare atque iterare cursus
cogor relictos: namque Diespiter 5
igni corusco nubila diuidens
plerumque, per purum tonantis
egit equos uolucremque currum,
quo bruta tellus et uaga flumina,
quo Styx et inuisi horrida Taenari 10
sedes Atlanteusque finis
concutitur. Valet ima summis
mutare et insignem attenuat deus,
obscura promens; hinc apicem rapax
Fortuna cum stridore acuto
sustulit, hic posuisse gaudet.
***************************
BkI:XXXIV Fortune’s Changes
Once I wandered, an expert in crazy wisdom,
a scant and infrequent adorer of gods,
now I’m forced to set sail and return,
to go back to the paths I abandoned.
For Jupiter, Father of all of the gods,
who generally splits the clouds with his lightning,
flashing away, drove thundering horses,
and his swift chariot, through the clear sky,
till the dull earth, and the wandering rivers,
and Styx, and dread Taenarus’ hateful headland,
and Atlas’s mountain-summits shook.
The god has the power to replace the highest
with the lowest, bring down the famous, and raise
the obscure to the heights. And greedy Fortune
with her shrill whirring, carries away
the crown and delights in setting it, there.
**********************
Ed
Ed Cryer
Another beaut, fom Ovid as promised.
Exiled to the Black Sea, he writes very sorrowful poetry; Tristia (Sadness).
tu tamen i pro me, tu, cui licet, aspice Romam;
di facerent, possem nunc meus esse liber!
You go for me, you, who can, gaze at Rome.
If the gods could grant now that I were my book!
Ed
Johannes Patruus
> As they say in Spanglish, no problemo (unneutering and masculinizing the
> Greek). Btw, could you leave the example of Arcadius' calligraphy on
> your site for a while? It loads faster and I want to link to it rather
> than to Harvard's copy over the next few weeks.
Done deal!
> Eduardus
Patruus
Weland
Thank you, most kind. You seem under the mistaken impression that I
hadn't already googled. The purpose of my query was to attempt to
uncover material that perhaps I had missed or not been aware of, making
the slow slog through databases quicker. It has been my experience that
nothing substitutes for first-hand knowledge of a text, so who better to
ask than a group of collected individuals who have done a wide range of
reading in Latin texts? Don't be concerned though, I've learned my
lesson: don't question a hyperbolic answer of no substantive content,
just accept what the "experts" say with a tug of the forlock.
Weland
Well, thank you, but not really. Again, the query was about gifts of
skills: dance, councel, sword play, success in battle, ability to have
wealth....I appreciate the help, but the examples so far don't fit what
I'm looking for. Undoubtedly the fault lies in my description above.
Weland
Well, thank you, but not really. Again, the query was about gifts of
skills: dance, councel, sword play, success in battle, ability to have
wealth....I appreciate the help, but the examples so far don't fit what
I'm looking for. Undoubtedly the fault lies in my description above.
But thanks....
Ed Cryer
How about this from Vergil; written about 40BC, owing nothing to Greek
models, predicting the birth of Jesus, using Isaiah-type language.
http://www.rainybluedawn.com/translations/latin/eclogue4.htm
Ed
Weland
explicitly asked for "a gift or skill" and gave specific examples of
such, and then later pointed to specific passages. Please show me how
these examples from the Eclogues to which you have pointed match the
pattern of skills previously illustrated by example and specific
passage. You know what, never mind. I came to this group because I
thought there were some thoughtful, helpful, well read individuals here
who could perhaps help make my catalog complete. Instead I got
"zillions" of nothing except crap and insults. So I was wrong: this
group is not populated with thoughtful, helpful, well read individuals.
Johannes Patruus
Perhaps you already know of the "Classics-L" list which is populated with
academics who one hopes would be able to address your query:
http://lsv.uky.edu/scripts/wa.exe?A0=classics-l&D=1&H=0&O=D&T=0
I'm sorry we've disappointed you here.
Patruus