Dec 31– From “Inaugural Address at Edinburgh University” by Thomas Carlyle (1866)

 15MAD was released in 1916, so 1917 would be the first New Years it was available

Dec 31– From “Inaugural Address at Edinburgh University” by Thomas Carlyle (1866)

Summary: Reading well is the most important thing NEXT TO SERVING GOD! 

Commentary: Carlyle is alllll over the place here. He does point this out in the intro (basically, "I don't have notes, but my rambling will be honest.") Reading, no religion, no history, no democracy! Also, he really likes Oliver Cromwell. I like that they marked the applause, so you'll know where undergrads from 1866 were amused. I said this before when there was another commencement (or something similar) address, but it's comforting to know that even the "best" ones have sucked for the better part of two hundred years.

This feels like it was selected for the by-line (ending a year long reading list with a speech about the importance of reading) not the content (a guy rambling about whatever came to mind, which occasionally included reading).

He does kind of get around to it in the end. He goes on about the danger of "bad books" for a bit. I don't think I agree. A bad book might still have good parts, or might illuminate you on a bad idea (I would qualify this as a bad speech, but I don't think it's damaged me by reading it.)

But, to not end this year's last entry on a whiny note, here's a quote I liked:

 And then, when you leave the University, and go into studies of your own, you will find it very important that you have chosen a field, some province specially suited to you, in which you can study and work. The most unhappy of all men is the man who cannot tell what he is going to do, who has got no work cut-out for him in the world, and does not go into it. For work is the grand cure of all the maladies and miseries that ever beset mankind,—honest work, which you intend getting done.

I always say that it's not that people don't want to work, they just don't want to do work that they don't see the value in. We can disagree on what a good or valuable job is, but very few people just want to bum around doing literally nothing all day. A lot of people would probably see this job was a bunch of pointless work, but you know what?

I MADE IT! 

Casually Completing Classics #15: The Odyssey Books 22-24

 Book 22

Summary: Oddy, Tele, and co. execute everyone.

Commentary: It's the section I read last night! As promised, I did some research on the executions of the women.

Here's a whole article on JSTOR (did you know you can get a free JSTOR account? you should go do it.) And here's a bit by Emily Wilson, who did the translation of The Odyssey that my stepdaughter read.

1. The women are generally translated as servants or just women, but were slaves. I guess executing a slave for fucking the people harassing your wife is slightly more justified in a culture that has them.

2. Odysseus suggests, "hacking them with your swordblades till you cut/ the life out of them," and Telemachus is the one who decides to hang them. Not really any better or worse, just a correction to my notes from last night.

Beyond that, there's a lot of graphic and/or weird shooting/stabbing (arrows from breast to liver!). A goat pun "goatish goatherd" that I appreciate, and some hacking people up and feeding parts of them to dogs. Rereading Fitzgerald and Butcher back to back really drives home how much better Fitzgerald's translation is. More readable, clearer, more vivid. Also, not a prose translation.

Book 23:

Summary: Oddy and Penny make up.

Commentary: Penelope is disbelieving and tests Odysseus. I like to think she mostly thinks it's him and is just fucking with him, since that's the kind of relationship they have. Athena pauses the dawn to give them more time to reunite, which must have terrified everyone else. 

Book 24:

Summary: Suitors in the underworld, Oddy trolls his dad, almost another fight.

Commentary: Homer really likes writing these underworld-talking-to-ghost-scenes. For some reason, Odysseus thinks it's essential to tease and test his father, rather than just kissing him and telling him the story. If I was lost from my dad for 20 years, I would not torture him by pretending to be someone else and talking about how I was dead. Odysseus is truly a jerk. 

He almost gets in another fight over his treatment of the suitors, but the poem ends with Athena stopping it. He'd be so screwed without her.

And that's it for The Odyssey. Probably one more post soonish as a general wrap up, but glad I made it to the end.

Dec 30– From "Two Years Before the Mast" by Richard Dana (1840)

 The best of a different Dana

Dec 30– From Two Years Before the Mast by Richard Dana (1840)

Summary: Dana gets to California, where people overpay for stuff. He fakes Spanish with a dictionary and his knowledge of other romance languages.

Commentary: The last Two Years Before the Mast. This was one of the more enjoyable books to read excerpts from this year. I look forward to reading the whole thing at some point. It's kind of weird (I've been saying this a lot lately) to jump back fairly early into the book. There was a section very close to the end a couple months ago. I guess Dana's arrival in California could symbolize the arrival of the new year or something. It's interesting reading Dana's account of the Californian culture. He's not describing them as as savages, like some of the authors have written about the people in their travels, but they're also obviously very foreign and different to him. (His later descriptions of the English sailor actually sounds even more foreign, and does start to veer into generic "savage" tropes in a few places.)

I had never studied Spanish while at college, and could not speak a word, when at Juan Fernandez; but during the latter part of the passage out, I borrowed a grammar and dictionary from the cabin, and by a continual use of these, and a careful attention to every word that I heard spoken, I soon got a vocabulary together, and began talking for myself. As I soon knew more Spanish than any of the crew, (who indeed knew none at all,) and had been at college and knew Latin, I got the name of a great linguist, and was always sent for by the captain and officers to get provisions, or to carry letters and messages to different parts of the town. I was often sent to get something which I could not tell the name of to save my life; but I liked the business, and accordingly never pleaded ignorance. Sometimes I managed to jump below and take a look at my dictionary before going ashore; or else I overhauled some English resident on my way, and got the word from him; and then, by signs, and the help of my Latin and French, contrived to get along. This was a good exercise for me, and no doubt taught me more than I should have learned by months of study and reading; it also gave me opportunities of seeing the customs, characters, and domestic arrangements of the people; beside being a great relief from the monotony of a day spent on board ship.

This paragraph is probably my favorite. Such an interesting story of learning a language. I wish I knew enough of other languages to fumble my way through a new one. I can relate to the, "I don't really know how to do this, but it's interesting and gets me out of grunt work" feeling. 

Dec 29– From "The Odyssey" by Homer translated by S. H. Butcher and A. Lang

 What about a man who was dead?

Dec 29– From The Odyssey by Homer translated by S. H. Butcher and A. Lang

Summary: "The killing of the wooers."

Commentary: Hey, this is the book that I'm on for Casually Completing Classics. Neat. Still don't love this translation, but whatever.

The part of this book that always strikes me the most is how Odysseus treats the women servants who have betrayed them. He kills the suitors. That's fine, they ruined his house, harassed his wife, tried to kill his son, etc., etc., and it's mostly more or less clean deaths in battle. But he makes the women clean up the bodies (a gruesome enough task), then hangs them to make sure it's an especially "pitiful death."

It seems completely overkill. Embarrass/fire them? Okay. Kill them? Probably overdoing it. BOTH, and make it worse than the actual suitors just feels cruel for the sake of cruel. I'll do some Googling before I write tomorrow's CCC on this section.

Dec 28– From “Drake’s Great Armada” by Captain Walter Briggs

 Drake had a drum.

Dec 28– From “Drake’s Great Armada” by Captain Walter Briggs

Summary: Privateering!

Commentary: Kind of scattered. This was probably the least enjoyable of the Francis Drake selections this year. Some parts were about privateering, some were logistics, but none of it really went into any detail. Felt like an abridged version that just flew through what could've been 50 pages in 10.

Casually Completing Classics #14: The Odyssey Books 20-21

 Book 20

Summary: Oddy Spends the night. The Suitors taunt fate.

Commentary: Odysseus reflects on escaping Polyphemus: "Nobody, only guile,/ got you out of that cave alive." If only he had kept his mouth shut after, they'd have been home years ago. Athena has "body like a woman." The suitors fail to be hospitable to Odysseus, illustrating one of the main themes of the poem. This is why they have to die. (Odysseus later has a meal that doesn't specifically mention an offering to the gods, which is surprising.)

Book 21

Summary: Oddy does a trick shot.

Commentary: There's a good eight lines of Penelope opening a door in this section when she goes to get the bow. I guess it's dramatic buildup, like when someone opens their secret lair or whatever. Penelope finally calls out the suitors for being inhispitable. Odysseus makes the axe-ring-shot (I like to think the axes have rings at the base of the handle to hang them. Apparently is a matter of some debate.) And declares it time, "to cook their lordships' mutton--/supper by daylight."

Dec 27– From Voyage of the Beagle by Charles Darwin (1839)

 A famous beagle this season.

Dec 27– From Voyage of the Beagle by Charles Darwin (1839)

Summary: Darwin goes to the Galapagos.

Commentary: I expect better from Darwin then, "This archipelago consists of ten principal islands, of which five exceed the others in size." That's like when my dad says, "It's always in the last place you look, because then you stop looking."

The famous finch picture is in this section:

Assorted finch heads and beaks

though there isn't a ton of discussion. There's a similarly small bit about the tortoises, mostly about riding them and hunting them.

Reflections on Week 36 (Sep 2-8)

Link to the readings

Back to school kicked my ass!

Quick review on this week's readings:

Sep 2 All For Love by Dryen : 2/5 It's really hard to give a blob of play any higher than this. 

Sep 3 The Treaty of Paris: 3/5 We still fight about fishing rights.

Sep 4 Letters On The English by Voltaire: 1/5 Almost good satire, but not satire, so not good.

Sep 5 The Origin of Species by Darwin: 3/5 If we're going to talk about evolution, it's good to think about extinction as well. All part of the same continuum.

Sep 6 Sir Walter Scott by Caryle: 3/5 Weird beginning, but some good thoughts on writing and existing in society.

Sep 7 "The Destruction of Da Derga's Hostel": 2/5 Fragment of a fragment is meh.

Sept 8 Ice and Glaciers by von Helmholtz: 3/5 Some interesting general science.

Average: 2.43 I think this is a good score? I haven't done this in a while.

Overall Thoughts on The Project:

Alright, trying to get caught up again. The beginning of the school year really kicked my ass this year, and I had to cut back to just the core posts to keep up. I don't know why I thought committing to basically two posts a day (between this, Star Wars, and guest posts elsewhere), plus the reading, plus my fiction writing was going to work out. Still, proud that I kept up with the core posts at least. I think I should be able to get pretty close to caught up by the new year. I plan to take some time to do reflection posts without doing a new project, so that'll give a little buffer to finish up if I need to.

Caryle was, unexpectedly, the highlight this week. I'm not a big fan of these random introduction sections, but he had some good thoughts on writing, "jostling", etc.

Casually Completing Classics #13: The Odyssey Books 18-19

 Book 18

Summary: Odysseus wins a bum fight. Penelope "unknowingly" prepares for him. The suitors and maids taunt Ody.

Commentary: "No pith/ was in him, and no nerve, huge as he looked."

A huge guy (for you)

"By god, old Iros is retiros." This is the best translation of this pun out of all the versions I looked at.

Odysseus is not having it with his maids talking shit and fucking the suitors: "you slut; he'll [Telemachus] cut your arms and legs off!"

One of the suitors "shines/ around the noggin like a flashing light,/ having no hair at all to dim his lustre." Sick burn, Homer.

Book 19

Summary: Tele steals hides the weapons. Oddy and Pene talk Oddy's wet nurse recognizes him. Pene plans the axes.

Commentary: Odysseus's prophecy about the geese and eagle is a pretty straight forward prophecy. Eagle kills geese; he kills suitors. It's barely even a metaphor.

Dec 26– From "King Lear" by William Shakespeare (1606)

 I liked the other one better (shaky cam recording of a live performance is never a winner), but they seem to have cut/rearranged todays scenes.

Dec 26– From King Lear by William Shakespeare (1606)

Summary: Gloucester wants to jump off a cliff, but Edgar tricks him.

Commentary: This leads directly to the first part of King Lear in 15MAD. The year is cyclical! I enjoy Edgar changing his voice after Gloucester "falls." Also, Gloucester telling him he has no eyes (in case he didn't notice the giant bloody bandage). JEJ does have a better crazy vibe than the Lear in the other one. Fight choreography was meh, but the sword steal was cool.

Dec 25– From the Gospel of Luke

 That's what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown

Dec 25– From the Gospel of Luke

Summary: Jesus is born. And then when he's a kid he wanders off to the temple.

Commentary: It's a pretty short story for being one of the most important parts of Christianity. Merry Christmas, all!

Dec 24– From Holinshed’s Chronicles by William Harrison (1577)

 No fun allowed

Dec 24– From Holinshed’s Chronicles by William Harrison (1577)

Summary: No fun allowed! (Also, how to improve schools and churches)

Commentary: Very little here actually connected to "abolishing" Christmas Eve. A paragraph or so at the start, then some about clergy dressing too nicely. I wonder if there's an account of Christmas Eve celebrations or something Dickensish somewhere in T5FSOB that could've fit here.

Dec 23– “What Is a Classic?” by Charles Augustin Saint-Beuve (1850) translated by E. Lee

There are some classics in here.

 Dec 23– “What Is a Classic?” by Charles Augustin Saint-Beuve (1850) translated by E. Lee

Summary: A classic is a high quality influential work.

Commentary: Saint-Beuve begins by presenting a fairly standard definition of a classic, "A classic, according to the usual definition, is an old author canonised by admiration, and an authority in his particular style."

Pretty close to what you'd find in a dictionary today.

He eventually gives his own definition, most of which is in this paragraph:

A true classic, as I should like to hear it defined, is an author who has enriched the human mind, increased its treasure, and caused it to advance a step; who has discovered some moral and not equivocal truth, or revealed some eternal passion in that heart where all seemed known and discovered; who has expressed his thought, observation, or invention, in no matter what form, only provided it be broad and great, refined and sensible, sane and beautiful in itself; who has spoken to all in his own peculiar style, a style which is found to be also that of the whole world, a style new without neologism, new and old, easily contemporary with all time.

Which I think is wordy, but more accurate.

    My own definition is that classic must be three things:

1. "Good"

2. Influential

3. Old

    First, it can't be a classic if (at least some people) don't like and respect it. It might be niche, it might be a sleeper hit, it might be "low art", but people have to appreciate it. Otherwise, it won't get a chance to do the other two. Second, it has to somehow influence something. That might be people (a classic philosophical text, for example) or maybe simply the genre or medium. I don't know that Pokémon has had any revolutionary impacts on human nature, but it's influenced a lot of other video games. And finally, it has to have stood some kind of test of time. I don't mean a 100 years, but people should still be talking about it after a decade or something. Shakespeare In Love is a classic (ha!) example here. Won best picture, well received, made a bunch of money... and no one gives a crap about it today. 

Dec 22– From "The Voyage of The Beagle" by Charles Darwin (1839)

 Clearly the origin of Noozles

Dec 22– From The Voyage of The Beagle by Charles Darwin (1839)

Summary: In New Zealand, they rub noses instead of shaking hands.

Commentary: It's interesting how much stuff that we recognize as pseudo-science today Darwin believed in. I've rambled about Lamarckism a couple times, but now we get some Physiognomy (faces show your personality). "Physiognomy here spoke the truth; this chief had been a notorious murderer, and was an arrant coward to boot."

This part was also kind of weird: 

The sight of so much fern impresses the mind with an idea of sterility: this, however, is not correct; for wherever the fern grows thick and breast-high, the land by tillage becomes productive.

I would think the presence of thick ferns would mean the land was fertile. I'm not a farmer, so maybe there's some logic here I'm missing.

 

Dec 21– From "The Pilgrim’s Progress" by John Bunyan (1678)

 That tree's crazy looking!

Dec 21– From The Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan (1678)

Summary: The pilgrims? all leave their wills and go to heaven.

Commentary: Having read two other parts of The Pilgrim's Progress, I have no idea about this ending. A bunch of characters with allegorical character names leave their traits with their families and go to heaven I think. Sometimes it's a script, sometimes it's prose. There's a demon named Madam Bubble. It was weird.

Dec 20– From "An Account of Egypt" by Herodotus translated by G.C. Macauley

This is on my "worst music videos" list.

Dec 20– From An Account of Egypt by Herodotus translated by G.C. Macauley

Summary: Herodotus figures out how big Egypt is, and Psammetichos conducts questionable experiments on children.

Commentary: I don't know about Psammetichos' whole experiment here. He makes kids be isolated and not talk so that he can see which language they naturally wind up speaking, which will tell him where people originated? What if the first people aren't the ones that invented language? Besides that, lots of old timey measurements: parasang, furlong, schoine, cubit...

Good on Herodotus for admitting the Egyptians did a better job calculating the length of the year than Greece. 

Dec 19– From "Samson Agonistes" by John Milton (1671?)

 I will imagine Milton in this voice from now on.

Dec 19– From Samson Agonistes by John Milton (1671?)

Summary: Samson kills everyone.

Commentary: After a good Milton essay the other day he's now trying his hand at drama. It goes about as well as his poetry. There is a great line, "My heels are fetter'd, but my fist is free!" Real Stan Lee stuff. As usual, God hates everyone and we need to overcompensate by saying how good he is all the time. The highlight is the page and a half long narration by the chorus of Samson freaking out and killing everyone, just in case you somehow wandered into this play and didn't know about Samson already.

Dec 18– From "Some Thoughts Concerning Education" by John Locke (1693)

(pig) Latin!

Dec 18– From Some Thoughts Concerning Education by John Locke (1693)

Summary: How to teach kids Latin (which they don't really need to know).

Commentary: Locke spends about half a page explaining why Latin is unnecessary (most of the people who learn it will never learn it well, never use it, and forget it), but then goes on for a couple pages about how to best teach it (immersion). Weird. The highlight of the whole thing is his discussion on how to avoid forgetting English:

Only care is to be taken whilst he is learning these foreign languages, by speaking and reading nothing else with his tutor, that he do not forget to read English, which may be preserved by his mother or somebody else hearing him read some chosen parts of the scripture or other English book every day.

Someone forgetting their first language because their tutor only speaks a second one is definitely an origin story. 

Bonus Classic! "Areopagatica" by John Milton (1644)

 "Areopagatica" by John Milton (1644)

I stumbled across this today (I don't even remember how) and gave it a read on my lunch break. Basically, it's an essay by Milton (who is just as wordy in essay form than in poetry, but is more tolerable here) denouncing print licensing/censorship laws in England. In particular, I liked the following sections:

If we think to regulate printing, thereby to rectify manners, we must regulate all recreation and pastimes, all that is delightful to man. No music must be heard, no song be set or sung, but what is grave and Doric. There must be licensing dancers, that no gesture, motion, or deportment be taught our youth but what by their allowance shall be thought honest; for such Plato was provided of. It will ask more than the work of twenty licensers to examine all the lutes, the violins, and the guitars in every house; they must not be suffered to prattle as they do, but must be licensed what they may say. And who shall silence all the airs and madrigals that whisper softness in chambers? The windows also, and the balconies must be thought on; there are shrewd books, with dangerous frontispieces, set to sale; who shall prohibit them, shall twenty licensers? The villages also must have their visitors to inquire what lectures the bagpipe and the rebeck reads, even to the ballatry and the gamut of every municipal fiddler, for these are the countryman’s Arcadias, and his Monte Mayors.

Next, what more national corruption, for which England hears ill abroad, than household gluttony: who shall be the rectors of our daily rioting? And what shall be done to inhibit the multitudes that frequent those houses where drunkenness is sold and harboured? Our garments also should be referred to the licensing of some more sober workmasters to see them cut into a less wanton garb. Who shall regulate all the mixed conversation of our youth, male and female together, as is the fashion of this country? Who shall still appoint what shall be discoursed, what presumed, and no further? Lastly, who shall forbid and separate all idle resort, all evil company? These things will be, and must be; but how they shall be least hurtful, how least enticing, herein consists the grave and governing wisdom of a state.

     A great example of why censorship, etc. should always be nipped in the bud early. If you let them get away with blocking one "baddish" thing, they'll take a mile.

Not that I can think well of every light separation, or that all in a Church is to be expected gold and silver and precious stones: it is not possible for man to sever the wheat from the tares, the good fish from the other fry; that must be the Angels' ministry at the end of mortal things. Yet if all cannot be of one mind—as who looks they should be?—this doubtless is more wholesome, more prudent, and more Christian, that many be tolerated, rather than all compelled. I mean not tolerated popery, and open superstition, which, as it extirpates all religions and civil supremacies, so itself should be extirpate, provided first that all charitable and compassionate means be used to win and regain the weak and the misled: that also which is impious or evil absolutely either against faith or manners no law can possibly permit, that intends not to unlaw itself: but those neighbouring differences, or rather indifferences, are what I speak of, whether in some point of doctrine or of discipline, which, though they may be many, yet need not interrupt THE UNITY OF SPIRIT, if we could but find among us THE BOND OF PEACE. 

 We don't all have to be agree to coexist. Tolerance is an underrated virtue.

I will now go try to fix this migraine. 

Dec 17– From "The Confession of St. Augustine" (~400) translated by E. B. Pusey

 Did you know there was a Batboy musical?

Dec 17– From The Confession of St. Augustine (~400) translated by E. B. Pusey

Summary: St. Augustine feels bad about being sad his mom died.

Commentary: I'm so tired of reading these batshit rambling Christian rants. Augustine's mom is great, because she's such a good Christian who makes he son beat people. She dies. He's sad. He shouldn't be bad because she's in heaven now, etc., etc. Also it starts with this monster of a sentence:

Her mother-in-law also, at first by whisperings of evil servants incensed against her, she so overcame by observance and persevering endurance and meekness, that she of her own accord discovered to her son the meddling tongues whereby the domestic peace betwixt her and her daughter-in-law had been disturbed, asking him to correct them.

Casually Completing Classics #12: The Odyssey Books 15-17

 Book 15

Summary: Telemachus comes home

I took literally no notes in this chapter, which is a first.

Book 16:

Summary: Reunited? The suitors are scumbags.

"[...] and Odysseus' bed/ left empty for some gloomy spider's weaving?" a classical/poetic reference to cobweb vagina 

Book 17:

Summary: Recap! THE GOODEST BOY IN LITERATURE! The suitors are assholes and attack Odysseus (they're doomed). Odysseus plans to meet Penelope.

The first chunk of this book is mostly recap, but we do get to meet Argos, the best dog ever. Odysseus had started to train him before he left, and he's the only one who recognizes him in his disguise. He's waited for him this whole time (20 years, that's like 140 in dog years!) despite being neglected/abused. Odysseus cries a single, manly tear for him. Argos wags his tail once and dies. 

Behold this equally sad modern recreation:

This book also has what I assume is the ancient Greek onomatopoeia for a sneeze, "kchaou!"

Dec 16– From "On the Sublime and Beautiful" (1757) by Edmund Burke

 Brutes!

Dec 16– From On the Sublime and Beautiful (1757) by Edmund Burke

Summary: Some people are men, and some are brutes.

Commentary: 

The second head to which the passions are referred with relation to their final cause, is society. There are two sorts of societies. The first is, the society of sex. The passion belonging to this is called love, and it contains a mixture of lust; its object is the beauty of women. The other is the great society with man and all other animals. The passion subservient to this is called likewise love, but it has no mixture of lust, and its object is beauty; which is a name I shall apply to all such qualities in things as induce in us a sense of affection and tenderness, or some other passion the most nearly resembling these.

     One of the more batshit-ranty takes I've read this year. Burke spends a lot of time on the difference between "men" and "brutes" but it mostly comes down to, "Brutes are too horny." The rest is vague and largely agreeable (people like being in society, but sometimes like being alone.) and of course some necessary shoehorning of Christianity.

Dec 15– From "The Odyssey" by Homer, translated by Butcher and Lang

 I had some deja vu about reading this.

Dec 15– From The Odyssey by Homer, translated by Butcher and Lang

Summary: Odysseus talks to vampire ghosts.

Commentary: I really thought I read this twice already this year, once for 15MAD in January and again when I read The Odyssey. I realize now I read the part of The Aeneid that's ripped off lovingly referenced in this.

Ughhh, prose translation. I don't like poetry (see yesterday), but at least be faithful to whatever you're translating. This is like one of those weird 90s anime dubs that totally change the story. This is one of the parts of The Odyssey that Odysseus narrates personally, which I always think are a little weird. There's a lot of frame story within a frame story stuff in The Odyssey. 

Odysseus meets his dead crewman Elpenor, who dies from getting drunk, falling off a roof, and breaking his neck. It's kind of tragicomic.

The ghosts all drink the blood of some sheep/rams/goats they sacrifice:

You don't see a lot of vampire-ghosts, so that's cool. Even if one of them is his mom, which is sad.

Yea and even so did I too perish and meet my doom. It was not the archer goddess of the keen sight, who slew me in my halls with the visitation of her gentle shafts, nor did any sickness come upon me, such as chiefly with a sad wasting draws the spirit from the limbs; nay it was my sore longing for thee, and for thy counsels, great Odysseus, and for thy loving kindness, that reft me of sweet life.”

Then he tries to hug her, but his hands pass through her. The Odyssey has a surprising number of generally, effectively sad moments. Even if it also has things like, "while they woo thy godlike wife and offer the gifts of wooing."

Thanks, Butcher and Lang. Great translation. (At least in verse the wooing are on separate lines. Most of the other translations go with "courtship gifts" which is way less awkward.)

There are some hecatombs, which always sounds like it should be some sort of undead fortress or something (it's a sacrifice of 100 oxen). "Be wary, adventurers. None have ever returned Hecatomb of the Lich... At least, none have returned alive!"

Dec 14– Poems by Andrew Marvell

 The most famous Andrew Marvell poem not included for some reason.

Dec 14– Poems by Andrew Marvell

Summary: Flowers.

Commentary: These are not good poems. 

Dec 13– From "Sir Francis Drake’s Famous Voyage Round the World" by Francis Pretty

 Math Drake!

Dec 13– From Sir Francis Drake’s Famous Voyage Round the World by Francis Pretty

Summary: Sir Francis Drake sales around and has adventures.

Commentary: There have been several of these, "brave explorer meets weird savages" entries in T5FSOB and this one just felt kind of generic. I did learn about Ells, which is like a Viking version of a cubit, and related to elbow. So that was neat.

Dec 11– From “Alcibiades” from Plutarch’s Lives

 Alcibiades, Archibald, same thing.

Dec 11–  From “Alcibiades” from Plutarch’s Lives

Summary: Alcibiades was very pretty. But also smart. Shitty husband though.

Commentary: Every time an Ajax is in one of these, I go to check if it's the big one or the little one, and I like to think that "which Ajax was it?" was a meme ~3000 years ago.

I was going to say "Megacles" sounds like an intentionally annoying nickname and/or made up, but I realized all names are made up. (I took cold medicine.)

There's a sick burn tonight:

“Therefore,” said he, “let the Theban youths pipe, who do not know how to speak, but we Athenians, as our ancestors have told us, have Minerva for our patroness, and Apollo for our protector, one of whom threw away the flute, and the other stripped the Flute-player of his skin.”

Stick a fork in Thebes. They're done. 

Also, I learned Socrates was a soldier for a time. I just kind of figured he was a philosopher-bum for his whole life.

Alcibiades gets in a fight with a guy, the marries his sister and makes him pay for all his kids. But then he cheats on her and she tries to divorce him. It's the weirdest part of the reading.

Dec 12– Poems by Robert Browning

 Browning recites his poem on phonograph

Dec 12– Poems by Robert Browning

Summary: Poems.

Commentary: I sure love reading a mediocre story with the phrases arranged as awkwardly as possible so that they fit in the meter and rhyme scheme. Or, if this was a poem:

A story not ace

I read at a pace

Some parts track

If read from the back

They need a time

To fitly the rhyme

Dec 10– From "The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini" (1723) translated by John Addington Symonds

 How I imagine Cellini

Dec 10– From The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini (1723) translated by John Addington Symonds

Summary: Cellini tries to cockblock a kid and continues to be a meme.

Commentary: It's amazing how many modern memes and edgelordism just fit into Cellini, despite being 300 years old. He almost drops, "you're already dead," "a big guy, for you," "I must go all out, just this once."

He's like like an Anti-Don Quixote. DQ's narrator knows he's nuts, but he's mostly a good guy. Cellini buys into his own bullshit and doesn't even pretend not to be an asshole.

Dec 9– “The Fugitive Slave Law” (1850)

 A different fugitive

Dec 9– “The Fugitive Slave Law” (1850)

Summary: No escaping slavery.

Commentary: This is a little different than the other documents in this volume (being both less foundational, and a specific law rather than a constitution or something.) It's kind of weird to think that, at the time T5FSOB was published, someone who was alive while the Fugitive Slave Act was passed could still be alive. They'd be in their 60s, but still. If you bump it up to anyone alive while the act was still in force (repealed in 1864) it's a little easier.

What laws from 50 years ago would someone put in a similar collection today? 

Beyond that:

shall from time to time enlarge the number of the commissioners, with a view to afford reasonable facilities to reclaim fugitives from labor, and to the prompt discharge of the duties imposed by this act.

Horribleness of tossing people back into slavery aside, I hear so often about issues in courts, government, etc. caused by them being overloaded. Was this followed? Do the laws today say this is supposed to happen and they just aren't?

 

Dec 8– “Levana and Our Ladies of Sorrow” (1821) by Thomas De Quincey

 "Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrow"

Dec 8– “Levana and Our Ladies of Sorrow” (1821) by Thomas De Quincey

Summary: There are three sorrows to go with the three fates.

Commentary: My favorite part of this is the implication that sending kids away to boarding school will kill them: 

The rules of Eton require that a boy on the foundation should be there twelve years: he is superannuated at eighteen, consequently he must come at six. Children torn away from mothers and sisters at that age not unfrequently die. I speak of what I know.

Other than that, the part about lifting children to face the stars after birth sounds like Disney may have cribbed it for The Lion King but I would assume many cultures have a similar ritual. 

The Three Ladies are interesting, and De Quincey is a pretty clean writer. He apparently wrote a memoir about drug addiction that was quite popular. I added him to the to read list. Maybe next year.

Dec 7– From Cicero by "Plutarch" translated by Arthur Hugh Clough

 Some of this sass is in the reading.

Dec 7– From Cicero by Plutarch translated by Arthur Hugh Clough

Summary: Cicero was a wily politician/judge.

Commentary: So the Lives are all paired (it's sometimes titled Parallel Lives). Each set has a Greek and a Roman that were somehow similar, comparable, whatever. Which I knew. What I didn't know is that there's a little essay at the end comparing the two. I've been reading these all year, and generally not super impressed with them, but I wonder if it'd work better if I actually read excerpts from a matched pair and the essay together. That's not generally how 15MAD works, but I think it'd really improve it for this set.

Dec 6– “The Vision of Mirza” and “On Westminster Abbey” (1711) by Joseph Addison

 And The Dutch

Dec 6– “The Vision of Mirza” and “On Westminster Abbey” (1711) by Joseph Addison

Summary: Boring didactic story about how we need to endure life being terrible because heaven is great, followed by whining about monuments.

Commentary: A strong contender for the worst essays of the year. The world would safely be a better place without either one of these.

Dec 5– Poems by Christina Georgina Rossetti (~1850)

 Reading of one of the poems.

Dec 5– Poems by Christina Georgina Rossetti (~1850)

Summary: Poems, mostly about death and remembering.

Commentary: Four shortish poems today, so speed round on each one, plus an overall note as a set. 

Song: This is more or less how I feel about dying. Don't worry about me! Go live your own life.

Remember: I think this is a more reasonable take. I want people to mostly forget about me, but I recognize that they won't, and I think this is healthy balance.

Up-Hill: I guess this is showing range? Very different than the other. 

In the Round Tower at Jhansi: I somehow missed the pistol line the first time I read this, and it's a very different (but still mostly working) poem without it.

I like this little poetry sampler, even as someone who doesn't love poetry. It helps that Christina writes like a human being instead of a generic poetry machine #9001. I think the fact that they're shorter helps. I like some longer poems (semi-abandoned Odyssey series will come back sometime before the end of the year), but shorter is nice (and I think it's hard to keep up poetry over a long stretch without having to do some real stretching to keep the form (or shifting into non-poemish poetry that would do better as narrative).

The first two together form a nice contrasting view of death. Both are healthy in their focus on the living more than the dead, while the first takes it to an almost excessive degree, while the second is more reasonably measured. Just forger about me vs don't worry about me.

Dec 4– From "The Aeneid" by Virgin (19 BC) translated by John Dryden

 The Trailer

Dec 4– From The Aeneid by Virgin (19 BC) translated by John Dryden

Summary: Dido works to seduce Aeneas during a hunt, the gods convince him to leave anyway. 

Commentary: I don't know if it's the translation, the content, or the fact that I'm not familiar with the out of order story, but I enjoy the Aeneid bits a lot less than the Odyssey ones.

Dec 3– Buddhist Writings, translated by Henry Clarke Warren

 Remember the time Bobby Hill was Buddhist?

Dec 3– Buddhist Writings, translated by Henry Clarke Warren

Summary: The Buddha will be born when people live to be 100 (but not 100,000), in the middle-middle of the continent of India, to a high caste (convenient, can't have your religious figure be a peasant), to a perfectly virtuous mother (holy Madonna-whore complex, Batman!) who will die a week after childbirth.

Commentary: Two things jump to mind here:

1. If you put these conditions on the destined king in a fantasy novel, no one would buy it. "People have to live to be older than they do now. But not too old!" He will be born in the middle of the middle of the middle of India (a whole paragraph of middles). To warrior caste parents (that one tracks) and a mom who is absolutely virtuous and perfect (kind of cliché, there, although this might be one of the earliest appearances), who will die a week later (Because barren women are useless, apparently. She gets to keep her couch at least!). Also, the Buddha turns into an elephant and gets unbirthed. Maybe. It's a dream sequence.

2. I had to do math and look up how to do the circle inscribed in a square stuff. The circumference of a circle inscribed in a square is pi times the length of a side (technically it's an oval in a rectangle, but the math for that is just taking the average, which I did). Classical education musing of the evening: How many literature scholars knew that math back then? Could I have figured it out? (It's sort of a right triangle problem, but I doubt I would've figured out to use pi.) Did they all just have formula books sitting around? I want to get one of those engineering references and keep it on my desk. With the formula, it was fairly easy to do the math.

Dec 2– From "Le Morte d’Arthur" by Thomas Malory, edited by William Caxton (1485)

 Castle Anthrax!

Dec 2– From Le Morte d’Arthur by Thomas Malory, edited by William Caxton (1485)

Summary: Galahad escaped the Castle of Maidens, beats up Lancelot and Percivale. Lancelot witnesses a healing, and promises not to bang Guinevere (that's gonna go great), and gets called out.

Commentary: Lancelot gets a pretty severe tongue lashing here: 

Now have I shewed thee why thou art harder than the stone and bitterer than the tree. Now shall I shew thee why thou art more naked and barer than the fig tree. It befell that Our Lord on Palm Sunday preached in Jerusalem, and there He found in the people that all hardness was harboured in them, and there He found in all the town not one that would harbour him. And then He went without the town, and found in midst of the way a fig tree, the which was right fair and well garnished of leaves, but fruit had it none. Then Our Lord cursed the tree that bare no fruit; that betokeneth the fig tree unto Jerusalem, that had leaves and no fruit. So thou, Sir Launcelot, when the Holy Grail was brought afore thee, He found in thee no fruit, nor good thought nor good will, and defouled with lechery. Certes, said Sir Launcelot, all that you have said is true, and from henceforward I cast me, by the grace of God, never to be so wicked as I have been, but as to follow knighthood and to do feats of arms.

God brought you the grail, but then decided you sucked. 

Dec 1– From "Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous" by David Hume (1734)

Dialogue

Dec 1– From "Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous" by David Hume (1734)

Summary: OH MY GOD HUME YOU'RE SO SMART! *INAPPROPRAITELY SEXUAL NOISES*

Commentary: I NEVER HAVE TO READ ONE OF THESE EVER AGAIN!

Hylas and Philonous engage in the classical philosophical dialogue routine of one guy mindlessly agreeing with the other part of the time and being an idiot the rest of the time in order to make whatever point the author wants to without using any actual logic. Here, Hume "seems" (his favorite weasel word, since apparently even he knows this is bullshit) that heat isn't real and that skepticism is bullshit by repeating things that don't actually prove this.

Thanks, Elliot. I sure loved reading this 1700s version of Ben Shapiro. I'm sure he spent a lot of time on college campuses going, "heat isn't real; change my mind."