Catullus's 64th poem (as the collection comes to us) is what we call an epyllion: a miniature epic, in which poets of his period showed off their ability to handle the epic style and epic topics, without running to the bloated and tedious length that those had become associated with over time. That still makes it his longest extant poem (and likely ( Read more... )

(Inspired by the writeup here of a book on Saint Ijanel, and the subsequent invocation of her in various places to help us stop dawdling and get to doing what we need to do ( Read more... )

Is this thing on ( Read more... )

My dog's name:
* Adverb

Things I actually call my dog in practice:
* Darling
* Sweetheart
* Kid
* Kiddo
* Dog
* Small Dog
* This Dog
* Dogkin
* Dogface
* Dogarooni
* Doggy-Dog
* Dog who Dogs like a Dog
* Pup
* Pup-Dog
* Puppy
* Pupperoni
* Pup-Tart
* Puppernickel
* Pup de Pup
* Goofball
* Little Mister Paranoid
* Communist Inspector
* Good Boy!

( Read more... )

Everyone wants some awkward Greek translation, right? Right!

( Theogony 1-206 )

Behold, a clunky as heck translation of the third book of his work. In which he ramps up to explaining all the reasons why there is no immortal soul, and thus there's no reason to be afraid of death.

( Awkwardly translated text! )

So, graduate school! I've now had one week of real proper classes, though I still haven't been to two of the seven, on account of labor day. Monday's my roughest day, with three classes: the archeology lecture, Latin sight-reading, then Hesiod. Eek. At least only two of those assign homework/paper/readings, eh? Anyway, so far ( Read more... )

Ah, I remember when I used to have theme and focus for my posts! But anyway.

* Endure is a tiny game by Emily Short, in which you translate a few lines of the Odyssey. In four different styles, piece by piece, for very different translated results. (Refresh to play again, if you've translated all the Greek and want to see it in different styles.) ( Read more... )

I moved to Minneapolis (temporarily) for grad school ( Read more... )

Forgive me. It's been a summer of stressful things happening, most of which are too tedious or private to talk about. But, as a summary ( Read more... )