SR V: To boldly go where no room has gone before

cacho wrote: James wrote: Padraic wrote: cacho wrote: ^ah, my brother and I just ate some pizzas...we had a tiny accident, while trying to take out one of them from the oven that's why children shouldn't be allowed in the kitchen Or brothers. "Sorry Bro, I didn't mean to shut you in the oven..." What really happened was, while listening to Steppenwolf, my brother was taking the pizza and suddenly fell ...anyways, change of topic, tomorrow the brother of a friend of my brother, who he met in our short-living in England, is coming here with his girlfriend for more than 7 days in our house!!! We'll have to speak english all day!

As teenagers my cousin and I set the oven on fire making a pizza.    I mean...

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/johann-hari/the-dark-side-of-dubai-1664368.html
Dubai = Rapture

Epignosis wrote: cacho wrote: James wrote: Padraic wrote: cacho wrote: ^ah, my brother and I just ate some pizzas...we had a tiny accident, while trying to take out one of them from the oven that's why children shouldn't be allowed in the kitchen Or brothers. "Sorry Bro, I didn't mean to shut you in the oven..." What really happened was, while listening to Steppenwolf, my brother was taking the pizza and suddenly fell ...anyways, change of topic, tomorrow the brother of a friend of my brother, who he met in our short-living in England, is coming here with his girlfriend for more than 7 days in our house!!! We'll have to speak english all day! As teenagers my cousin and I set the oven on fire making a pizza.    I mean...

You're the first person I've heard say that Italian is easy. Generally speakers of English or other non-Romance languages don't find it particularly easy (though of course it's not as difficult as Finnish, for instance).

What did you think about Juturna? I'm familiar with the poem, of course, though I can't say I like it very much. My mom (who used to teach Latin) said that the first part was a rip-off of the Odyssey, the second a rip-off of the Iliad.

You like it? I found it on another forum I sometimes visit (the one about immigration to the US) - it was another member's avatar, and I immediately loved it.

All the time - but please, don't compare me to DT! At least I don't make entire records that way!

Raff wrote: You're the first person I've heard say that Italian is easy. Generally speakers of English or other non-Romance languages don't find it particularly easy (though of course it's not as difficult as Finnish, for instance). What did you think about Juturna? I'm familiar with the poem, of course, though I can't say I like it very much. My mom (who used to teach Latin) said that the first part was a rip-off of the Odyssey, the second a rip-off of the Iliad.

To be fair, I'm getting pretty good at Latin (not stunningly so, and my Greek's probably overtaken it, but I'm pretty good these days), so I don't think the non-romance language thing comes through so much, and my Italian's not hugely advanced, so maybe I've misassessed it, but it seems relatively easy to understand and appreciate, and I can usually sort of work out writing generally, though I can't make out the smaller bits. I'm now approaching competence with ancient Greek, which was much harder for me to come to terms with, and still has ridiculous nuances which the majority of its teachers don't seem to know (for example, philteros, the usual irregular superlative of philos (dear) can be, but rarely is, instead philaiteros (rather than the expected philoteros)). So, that's why I don't think Italian's difficult. Again, maybe I haven't learned enough to really appreciate the challenge, but the basics I didn't find difficult (admittedly, written, not spoken), and that was self-taught. I should be learning further after these coming exams are behind me.

On Juturna, the iam iam (now, now) of her statement 'now, now I leave the battle-line' (when she's forced by the appearance of the Fury to abandon Turnus to his fate) called back to mind Dido's doubling of sic, sic (thus, thus) in her dying speech, 'thus, thus it pleases me to go below the shades'. Some commentators have suggested that the 'sic, sic' indicates that Dido's stabbing herself twice. My thought was that it provided another route by which Vergil suggests that Juturna has been stabbed doubly through the metaphorical heart by her forced abandonment and the prospective death of her brother, in spite of her god-given immortality.

It also provides another connection between the various hindrances, friendly and unfriendly, to the greatness of Rome.

Maybe I'm just seeing things, though... I can never quite tell where to draw the line between deep thought and mindless speculation, but then, Vergil is pretty open with the form-reflecting-content thing, so it's maybe not too crazy, and at best this is half as crazy as some of my scansion triplets theories with Iliad XXII. I swear just about any word with a surprise element is lumped in the first foot of an enjambmented (neologism, there ) line at the end of a sentence.

875Iam iam linquo acies. Ne me terrete timentem,
obscenae volucres: alarum verbera nosco
letalemque sonum, nec fallunt iussa superba
magnanimi Iovis. Haec pro virginitate reponit?

Book 12 875-878, Juturna

“Sic, sic iuvat ire sub umbras:
Hauriat hunc oculis ignem crudelis ab alto
Dardanus, et nostrae secum ferat omina mortis.”

Book 4, lines 660-662, Dido

I don't think the Aeneid overall is particularly impressive... I mean, it's not terrible, but it's no match for the Iliad or, say, Ovid in terms of interest/impact. There are some bits which are much stronger than others - his similes are extremely picturesque, when he puts together a speech more concisely, it tends to have a lot of depth, and he's got a fairly stately and distinctive style of Latin, with a lot of depth to his vocabulary connotations. On the other hand, some of the plot twists/delays are simply idiotically frustrating (no, that really wasn't the magic sword we spent whole lines describing! fooled ya!... he instead took gasp his charioteers sword by accident... isn't that convincing), and while the Iliad is merciless in its general flow, Vergil takes his supporting cast too lightly to give any general impression. There are also moments when he's managed to directly nick something off Homer and then make it worse. Very frustrating at times.

The half-Odyssey/half-Iliad thing is entirely intentional, done as a sort of tribute (it does lead to him inserting a book [11] which is just about pointless (OK, it's got Amazons, yes... but plot?) just to balance the two 'halves' in terms of size). I think rip-off is maybe a bit harsh on it, if somewhat accurate, as he does have very much his own moral direction/motivation and the Augustus link-in, as well as referencing millions of other sources very adeptly (hell, there's even a Herodotus connection in there somewhere, with Palinurus).

Rob, I have no idea what you're talking about but much respect for saying it.

As I said, I want to learn Latin and Old English and maybe Old Norse too.  Reading Beowulf, Historia Brittonum, Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum, De Excidio Britanniae, The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Historia Regum Britanniae and ven the Orkneyinge Saga in their original form would make me happy.

It may be that I've taken Spanish for 4 or so years (but only about the first two semester's worth of the language, more or less, on 3 different occasions), but I think Spanish must be one of the easiest if not the easiest language to learn.

4. Volapuk
5. Esperanto