How to use my various sites?

Posted on September 5th, 2007 by GregPC.
Categories: Uncategorized, Books.

I have so many places to write that sometimes deciding what to write where results in my not writing as much as I’d like or knowing what should appear where. My main blog, Over the River, has long been my quasi professional outlet, my various humor blogs (written under different names and without links) have become popular and are growing. Earlier this year we launched a blog at work and that has created some confusion for me with OTR. And what about this one?

When I was brewing more often it was a good place to track each session. But the summer has been long and hot and I haven’t brewed in a few months. I think I’ll continue to write about brewing here and will pick up the pace on that as soon as I do (hopefully this weekend). The other think I’ve been planning on using this one for is books. Aside from beer, they’re on of my other favorite things and I read a lot.

So far this summer, I’ve read three books (well, more than that, but I can only think of three off the top of my head): The Lord or the Rings, Into the Land of Bones and The Accidental Time Machine. Now I’m reading River Town which I want to finish this week if possible. Sitting here in the office at the end of the day isn’t the time of place to go into these books but it was a time for giving some thought to this site. Perhaps tonight I will write more.

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Robert Fagles translation of the Aeneid

Posted on April 2nd, 2007 by GregPC.
Categories: Reading, Poems, Books.

I’m reading Robert Fagles translation of the Aeneid and can’t help wanting to tell people how great it is.  Whenever I do though, people raise an eyebrow and nod politely.  “Yes,” they seem to say, “I’m sure it is - if you’re in school.”  This is too bad because it’s a really good story and Fagles makes it easy and exciting to read.

People seem to forget that the classics got to be classics because they’ve been read and enjoyed by people for hundreds - or in this case, thousands - of years.  Unfortunately, what we’re usually presented with are outdated translations that make the texts not only inaccessible but also, in some cases, laughable.

Here’s a passage - the opening of Book Two - from the Aeneid taken from MIT’s Internet Classics Archive, as translated by John Dryden:

All were attentive to the godlike man,

When from his lofty couch he thus began:

“Great queen, what you command me to relate

Renews the sad remembrance of our fate:

An empire from its old foundations rent,

And ev’ry woe the Trojans underwent;

A peopled city made a desart place;

All that I saw, and part of which I was:

Not ev’n the hardest of our foes could hear,

Nor stern Ulysses tell without a tear.

And now the latter watch of wasting night,

And setting stars, to kindly rest invite;

But, since you take such int’rest in our woe,

And Troy’s disastrous end desire to know,

I will restrain my tears, and briefly tell

What in our last and fatal night befell.

The Internet Classics Archive | The Aeneid by Virgil

Now here’s the same passage from the Fagles translation:

Silence, All fell hushed, their eyes fixed on Aeneas now

as the founder of his people, high on a seat of honor,

set out on his story: “Sorrow, unspeakable sorrow,

my queen, you ask me to bring to life once more,

how the Greeks uprooted Troy in all her powers,

our kingdom mourned forever.  What horrors I saw,

a tragedy where I played a leading role myself.

Who could tell such things - not even a Myrmidon,

a Dolopian, or a comrade of iron-hearted Ulysses -

and still refrain from tears? And now, too

the dank night is sweeping down from the sky

and the setting stars incline our heads to sleep.

But if you long so deeply to know what we went through,

to hear, in brief, the last great agony of Troy,

much as I shudder at the memory of it all -

I shrank back in grief - I’ll try to tell it now . . .

The pace and prose of the Fagles version draws me in.  I’m constantly amazed by the story - its twists, its strength, its excitement.  What a pity it is that more people aren’t reading it.  Part of the problem, of course, is that sub par versions are forced on kids when they are young.  This can act as a vaccine, immunizing people against the wonder of these stories.

Do your self a favor and get a copy of this translation of the Aeneid.  At least sit in a bookstore and read Book Two (The Last Hours of Troy) and see if you don’t find yourself wanting to read more.

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