Since I was feeling unsociable last night and didn’t do the “comment on five other blogs” assignment, I can’t really do today’s Blogging 101 assignment to build a post around one of those comments. Instead, I’m going to do my own mucked-up version of the Daily Prompt (or whatever it was called) that suggested taking “the nearest book” and writing a post involving the third full sentence on page 82.
I call it a mucked-up version because I use the back of my sofa (on which I’m sitting right now) as an impromptu bookshelf. Trying to determine which of the books on my sofa is “nearest” is next to impossible. So instead I’m going to copy down the third sentence on page 82 from all of the books (apart from the language-learning textbooks (one for German, two for Homeric Greek), the German/English dictionary and the character-name guidebook…oh, and the game art books, which don’t have much in the way of, you know, text) and then see if I can build anything out of that. Ooh, except one of them doesn’t have a page 82, as it starts on page 467. (For the paperback, it was divided into two volumes, but kept the original hardback page notations.) So I guess I’ll put the third sentence from page 549 for volume two, in addition to the one from page 82 of volume one. Also having to use page 83 on a few books, ’cause their even numbered pages are in other languages.
“Other ancient peoples thought of the earth as female and the sky as male, but the Egyptians, as the Greek historian Herodotus remarked, “did everything backwards.””
“In that event, two children would constitute the Aischylean meal.”
“This ceremony is almost like what the Christians do when they are confirmed.”
“He was killed by Deiphontes.”
“He was discovered and torn to pieces by his mother, who in her frenzy believed him to be a wild beast (Apollod. 3.5.2, Ov. Met. 3.725).”
“But the lunar cycles do not dovetail with a yearly rhythm.”
“No–if our generous Argives will give me a prize, a match for my desires, equal to what I’ve lost, well and good.”
“I hate you more than any other god alive.”
“Do not attach power wholly to the people, nor on the other hand degrade them by privileging wealth.”
“In Aristophanes’ comedy (422 B.C.) the Greek words make a trochaic tetrameter.”
“It was usually ornamented with the “leaf-and-dart” pattern, in the simpler forms of which the “leaf” is a pendent shape rather like a heraldic shield, i.e. a triangle with bulging curved sides and its apex at the bottom.”
“Parthenius, Love Romances 3 summarizes the plot.”
“A single wand lay on a faded purple cushion in the dusty window.”
“Try to prevent the monster from getting close to Genis, so that his casting is not interrupted.”
“On none of these occasions is her parentage mentioned, so we cannot be sure whether the poet of the Iliad would have agreed with Hesiod on that point.”
“On a few Attic and Apulian red-figure vases he sometimes plays for Thracians [140] or later is himself shown in Thracian dress.”
“There is my father’s park, and the orchard, full of fruit, as far from the city as a man’s voice will carry.”
I think what I’m going to do with all that is present it as a “game.” Below is the list of source books, alphabetized by author. So the “game” is to guess which quote came from which book. (One hint, the quote from the Rouse translation of the Iliad is one of my all-time favorite lines from that epic. As a further hint(?), I’ve tagged this post with the names of the speakers of the lines from the Iliad and the Odyssey.) Some of them are a lot easier to get than others. (Or rather, there’s one that most people probably got without even seeing the list below, and a few others that can be reasonably easily guessed. The rest would probably require you to own copies of the book in question…)
Aeschylus, Fragments (In all fairness, I should admit that in this case, the third full sentence ended up coming from one of the translator’s notes, rather than from one of the fragments.)
Robert E. Bell, Place-Names in Classical Mythology: Greece
Dan Birlew, Tales of Symphonia Official Strategy Guide (In my own defense, I’m not the one who bought this guide, and I don’t usually play with strategy guides. I was just using its map so I could find the conversation points spread out on the world map. I really need to get back to playing that eventually. The seiyuu all sounded really familiar, so I want to see the end credits and find out who they are. (The re-mastered PS3 version included the original Japanese voices.))
T.H. Carpenter, Art and Myth in Ancient Greece
James Davidson, The Greeks and Greek Love
Euripides, Fragments Aegeus-Meleager (As with the Aeschylus, this one, too, came from notes, not an actual fragment.)
Euripides, Fragments Oedipus-Chrysippus, Other Fragments
Timothy Gantz, Early Greek Mythology (this is the two volume one)
Michael Grant & John Hazel, Who’s Who in Classical Mythology
Homer, The Iliad, trans. Robert Fagles
Homer, The Iliad, trans. W.H.D. Rouse
Homer, The Odyssey, trans. W.H.D. Rouse
Barry B. Powell, Classical Myth, Fifth Edition
J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (See, I do own works of fiction as well as mythology and history books! It annoys me that someone decided Americans wouldn’t understand what the Philosopher’s Stone is, though. Seriously, we’re not all morons. Wow, though…this has been sitting on the back of the sofa for so long that I’d forgotten how enormous the print was! And the space between the lines is huge! They could’ve printed this with half the number of pages if they’d just scaled down the type to a normal size and not double-spaced it…)
Sophocles, Fragments (This one actually comes from page 82-3 as if they were one page, because both pages were plot summaries of lost plays, and the text crossed from page to page in an odd way that necessitated treating them as one page for these purposes.)
Titu Cusi Yupanqui, History of How the Spaniards Arrived in Peru
Wow, for something born out of having no inspiration to write and nothing to write about, this was long and time-consuming…and probably pretty boring for anyone looking at it. Although it does give you an idea just how weird a place my house is. (Also how weird my head is…)
We're All Mad Here! 