.i“ * ^ / . . . . . ` `~

Etymonline doesn’t make this connection, but I’m guessing English prone comes ultimately from Ancient Greek πρανής “with the face downwards, falling forwards.”

Another curious thing about Book 6 is how dominated by women it is, relative to the other books: we see Andromache, Hekabe, and Helen, all the female “stars,” as well as frequent mentions of handmaidens, while goddess Athena is the central divine figure of the book. The ceremonial plea to Athena is itself a very feminine affair.

We also see Hector and Paris with respect to their women: the former twice refusing offers of rest and comfort, by Hecabe then Andromache, the latter needing to be urged into action by Helen. (And of course there can be no parallel scene of that kind on the Achaean side, where there are no mothers and wives.)

This is Alexander Pope’s translation of Iliad 6. 311-312:

“So prayed the priestess in her holy fane;
So vowed the matrons, but they vowed in vain.”

Fane here means temple…. I hadn’t realized Pope was so young when he made this translation of the Iliad — having written it between the ages of 25 and 30.

ἀνανεύω: to throw back the head in a sign of refusal. This is the word used to describe Athena’s refusal of The Trojans’ plea in the Iliad’s Book 6. Apparently ancient scholars believed the actual statue of Athena to whom the Trojans had been praying threw back it’s head, but that’s not explicit in, or even indicated by, the text.

τῶν δὲ λοιπῶν Ἀπόλλων μὲν Ἐφιάλτου τὸν ἀριστερὸν ἐτόξευσεν ὀφθαλμόν, Ἡρακλῆς δὲ τὸν δεξιόν (Apollodorus).

“And of the other giants, Apollo shot Ephialtes in his right eye, Hercules in his left.”

(Ephialtes, incidentally, is also the name of the person who betrayed the Greeks at Thermoplae.)

ngrams: darn,dang,damn,drat

ὥστε ὑπερέχειν μὲν πάντων τῶν ὀρῶν, ἡ δὲ κεφαλὴ πολλάκις καὶ τῶν ἄστρων ἔψαυε (Appolodorus).

“So that he exceeded in size all the mountains, and his head often even touched the stars.” Of Typhon.

So “clang” comes direct from Ancient Greek κλαγγή (see opening of Iliad’s book III below.)

ngrams: clang,bang,ding,bonk,boing

Iliad III.1-6 (trans):

αὐτὰρ ἐπεὶ κόσμηθεν ἅμ᾽ ἡγεμόνεσσιν ἕκαστοι,
Τρῶες μὲν κλαγγῇ τ᾽ ἐνοπῇ τ᾽ ἴσαν ὄρνιθες ὣς
ἠΰτε περ κλαγγὴ γεράνων πέλει οὐρανόθι πρό:
αἵ τ᾽ ἐπεὶ οὖν χειμῶνα φύγον καὶ ἀθέσφατον ὄμβρον
κλαγγῇ ταί γε πέτονται ἐπ᾽ ὠκεανοῖο ῥοάων
ἀνδράσι Πυγμαίοισι φόνον καὶ κῆρα φέρουσαι:

(Reminds of.)

mûrement. “je voulais peser mûrement le parti à prendre envers vous”…

“What is even more difficult than failure is when you are perceived as a ‘success’ and you are failing,” (post)

“The actual film has a lot of problems — its grasp repeatedly exceeds its reach. But it’s in the text of the film that this is good and necessary, that we need to try more things and be less paralyzed by fear of failure. That as a society we cannot collapse into a choice between stasis and mindless populism. That we ought to try audacious, difficult, bizarre things. …“

Notre amour-propre souffre plus impatiemment la condamnation de nos goûts que de nos opinions.

*

Our self love suffers more impatiently the condemnation of our tastes than of our opinions.

[13]

ngrams of the trendy word resiliency.

Spent an incredible three days in NYC in August recording tunes with my former music buddies, just so happy to have been in their company. We didn’t finish anything but have posted some notable rough mixes:

SPOTIFY: Presence of Senescence, The Meter’s Running. YOUTUBE: Presence of Senescence, The Meter’s Running

Quite like the phenomenon of checking your watch to see how much time has elapsed and not knowing what time it is is the phenomenon of looking at the street sign for Idaho Street time and again and never thinking of the State of Idaho — yet which today I have done.

I was looking through U.S. history in 1981 and 1982 to understand why the term “savage cuts” might have peaked around then. Interesting to wade again through this history of one’s early lifetime.

Ngrams: savage cuts… Feel like I hear this used to describe proposed cuts to Medicaid and Medicare a lot — “savage cuts.”

Savage comes from Latin Sylva — woods.

Just as I thought: “conflate” has really been enjoying an upsurge in recent decades. Came across it twice in the media yesterday.

ὄγδοος ( -η, -ον )– eighth . . .ἐν ὀγδόῳ τούτῳ συγγράμματι τὰ καθ᾿ ἡμᾶς αὐτούς [*]

olla podrida: a hodgepodge.