An ARGH for the day
Today I started chapter three. Since I have not read over the texts for chapter three for, um, about three years, I decided to spend the day reading.
I started with the Argonautica of Valerius Flaccus (hehe his name is Mr Floppy). Now, one of the earliest poems in existence, Hesiod's Theogony, is an interesting work of how to make really interesting stuff really boring. The Theogony relates the beginning of the world, and there is lots of fun stuff to work with. Sadly, fun stuff like the battle of the Gods and Titans is related in a couple of lines, while all the offspring of certain sea nymphs are listed in all their glory (seriously: there are a couple of paragraphs that are just lists of names).
The Argonautica is the story of Jason and the Argonauts. That's pretty interesting, right? This is a Latin 1st century AD vague translation and reworking of a 3rd century BC poem in Greek called the (go on, guess) Argonautica. Now, I read the original Argonautica the other week, and it's fine. It's interesting, it's readable, it certainly didn't make me want to stab myself in the eyes with knitting needles... no, scrap that... knit with knitting needles, knit long and hard till both my elbows really hurt.
So, given that the Latin Argonautica elicited that response (don't worry, I didn't act on it) yet the Greek one didn't, I have to suspect that maybe, just maybe, the fault is not with the Latin reworking of the Greek poem, but with the tedious archaic bloody English bloody translation of what I am giving the benefit of the doubt was a respectably interesting Latin poem. Somehow, the translator has managed to make a story about battles and storms and dragons and fire-breathing bulls and heroes REALLY REALLY REALLY DULL.
And you know the worst thing about reading such a boring story, so boring that you have no idea what's going on half the time until you vaguely remember that a similar thing happened in the Greek version and you can work it out from that, so boring that you can't remember what you've already read and nearly read book three twice (that was a close one, I can tell you)... no, the worst bloody thing about reading such a bloody boring book, is that some cheeky stinking bloody pooey poohead has ripped out sodding page 415. ARGH!
Unfortunately, this poem isn't really up there with the Iliad and the Odyssey, and this awful archaic 1934 translation is one of the only ones available, and the only one in the university library. The other translation worryingly appears to be in blank verse, but the excerpt I have read on Amazon didn't induce any notions of self-inflicted knitting injuries or put me to sleep through boredom... plus I actually paid attention. Stinks that I have to buy it, but since I've only bought two other books this year* and since I'll actually require this book for my PhD (and so if you work it out on a cost per use thingammybob it's not too bad) I'll just have to suck it up and order it. And hope it arrives by Wednesday. I guess this means I'll have a free space on my library ticket.
EDITED TO ADD: Just ordered it from Amazon. They're sneaky, ya know. On the 'buy me buy me' page is says if I ordered within the next 12 hours they'd deliver it by Wednesday. Cool. That is A Good Thing. I go through checkout (adding a *coughcoughknittingbookcough*+ to make the order qualify for free delivery), only to find out that to get the delivery by Wednesday thing I have to pay £8.99 postage! Ha! No! I'll stick with Mr 1934 (I'm sure page 415 isn't that great anyway) until the free postman turns up, thank you very much.
* Two other books for my course. I now have a large collection of teenage fantasy fiction. Garth Nix and Cornelia Funke rock.
+ Don't worry it's actually about the process of knitting rather than actually knitting.
I started with the Argonautica of Valerius Flaccus (hehe his name is Mr Floppy). Now, one of the earliest poems in existence, Hesiod's Theogony, is an interesting work of how to make really interesting stuff really boring. The Theogony relates the beginning of the world, and there is lots of fun stuff to work with. Sadly, fun stuff like the battle of the Gods and Titans is related in a couple of lines, while all the offspring of certain sea nymphs are listed in all their glory (seriously: there are a couple of paragraphs that are just lists of names).
The Argonautica is the story of Jason and the Argonauts. That's pretty interesting, right? This is a Latin 1st century AD vague translation and reworking of a 3rd century BC poem in Greek called the (go on, guess) Argonautica. Now, I read the original Argonautica the other week, and it's fine. It's interesting, it's readable, it certainly didn't make me want to stab myself in the eyes with knitting needles... no, scrap that... knit with knitting needles, knit long and hard till both my elbows really hurt.
So, given that the Latin Argonautica elicited that response (don't worry, I didn't act on it) yet the Greek one didn't, I have to suspect that maybe, just maybe, the fault is not with the Latin reworking of the Greek poem, but with the tedious archaic bloody English bloody translation of what I am giving the benefit of the doubt was a respectably interesting Latin poem. Somehow, the translator has managed to make a story about battles and storms and dragons and fire-breathing bulls and heroes REALLY REALLY REALLY DULL.
And you know the worst thing about reading such a boring story, so boring that you have no idea what's going on half the time until you vaguely remember that a similar thing happened in the Greek version and you can work it out from that, so boring that you can't remember what you've already read and nearly read book three twice (that was a close one, I can tell you)... no, the worst bloody thing about reading such a bloody boring book, is that some cheeky stinking bloody pooey poohead has ripped out sodding page 415. ARGH!
Unfortunately, this poem isn't really up there with the Iliad and the Odyssey, and this awful archaic 1934 translation is one of the only ones available, and the only one in the university library. The other translation worryingly appears to be in blank verse, but the excerpt I have read on Amazon didn't induce any notions of self-inflicted knitting injuries or put me to sleep through boredom... plus I actually paid attention. Stinks that I have to buy it, but since I've only bought two other books this year* and since I'll actually require this book for my PhD (and so if you work it out on a cost per use thingammybob it's not too bad) I'll just have to suck it up and order it. And hope it arrives by Wednesday. I guess this means I'll have a free space on my library ticket.
EDITED TO ADD: Just ordered it from Amazon. They're sneaky, ya know. On the 'buy me buy me' page is says if I ordered within the next 12 hours they'd deliver it by Wednesday. Cool. That is A Good Thing. I go through checkout (adding a *coughcoughknittingbookcough*+ to make the order qualify for free delivery), only to find out that to get the delivery by Wednesday thing I have to pay £8.99 postage! Ha! No! I'll stick with Mr 1934 (I'm sure page 415 isn't that great anyway) until the free postman turns up, thank you very much.
* Two other books for my course. I now have a large collection of teenage fantasy fiction. Garth Nix and Cornelia Funke rock.
+ Don't worry it's actually about the process of knitting rather than actually knitting.
posted by DMK @ 11:10 PM
2 Comments:
At 10:19 PM,
Anonymous said…
I wonder what was on page 415 then to be so good that had to be stolen?????
Mum xx
At 10:23 PM,
DMK said…
I haven't got a clue, it was all far too boring for me to take in. Pretty much all I understood about pages 413 and 417 (there is Latin on the even-numbered pages) was that there wasn't a 415 between them (and I only noticed that because 413 ended with a full stop, yet 417 did not begin with a capital letter. This was enough to break the tedium).
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