tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8278510471239667560.post7500515535135615661..comments2024-03-27T19:59:10.159+00:00Comments on Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park birds: Ralph Hancockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11686354797977020917noreply@blogger.comBlogger16125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8278510471239667560.post-18005603598236602972016-02-17T00:04:44.610+00:002016-02-17T00:04:44.610+00:00In case anyone is interested, the Classics-L discu...In case anyone is interested, the Classics-L discussion about ancient perception of blue and other colours begins <a href="http://lsv.uky.edu/scripts/wa.exe?A2=ind1208c&L=classics-l&T=0&F=&S=&P=1863" rel="nofollow">here</a>. Click on 'Next in topic' near the top of the screen to go to the next message. (*Do not* click on 'Next message', which may take you off the topic.)<br /><br />A later return to the subject mentioned two possibly interesting online articles on color perception in the ancient world, <a href="http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/exchange/node/61" rel="nofollow">here</a> and <a href="http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/hoffman_01_13/" rel="nofollow">here</a>.<br /><br />Gladstone' s <i>Studies on Homer</i>, which started the matter, is available <a href="http://www.hancock.dircon.co.uk/Gladstone.zip" rel="nofollow">here</a>.<br /><br />The zip file, a big one at 107 MB, contains the three volumes as PDF files. They are page facsimiles of the original, but the text is searchable. These PDFs are publicly available, but the third was originally not searchable, and I've added a search facility myself.Ralph Hancockhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11686354797977020917noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8278510471239667560.post-54263699673102033972016-02-16T20:31:29.307+00:002016-02-16T20:31:29.307+00:00It would be a bit of an anticlimax if it turned ou...It would be a bit of an anticlimax if it turned out that he meant sparrow.Ralph Hancockhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11686354797977020917noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8278510471239667560.post-63954098439935045892016-02-16T20:25:48.528+00:002016-02-16T20:25:48.528+00:00Very interesting, and no need to shut up -- I'...Very interesting, and no need to shut up -- I'm always partial to a spot of hypallage.Ralph Hancockhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11686354797977020917noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8278510471239667560.post-4924276802738853722016-02-16T20:20:06.876+00:002016-02-16T20:20:06.876+00:00Ralph, I'm starting to believe that you read m...Ralph, I'm starting to believe that you read my mind. I am ALSO writing a paper on whether Aeschylus' use of στρουθός in Agamemnon can mean eagle or not. Tinúvielhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04794275230697959519noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8278510471239667560.post-71721624363905876802016-02-16T20:16:40.475+00:002016-02-16T20:16:40.475+00:00The use of purpureus in Latin is fascinating, and ...The use of purpureus in Latin is fascinating, and scholars as far as I know still debate whether it can mean simply "brilliant" or "dazzling" without any notion of colour (flushed, reddish, rosy and so forth). There are only two passages in which notion of colour is impossible, purpurea nive in Elegia in Maecen. and Horace's purple swans. In the first instance corruption is assumed to have taken place, which would leave us with just Horace's swans as witnesses to the meaning of "brilliant" used without implied colour. <br /><br />My thesis regarding Horace's purple swans is I think simpler. By hypallage the epithet is transferred from its rightful owner, Venus, to the birds who carry her, being that the goddess is traditionally associated with purple.<br /><br />I'll shut up now...Tinúvielhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04794275230697959519noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8278510471239667560.post-68557433307428170412016-02-16T20:01:04.209+00:002016-02-16T20:01:04.209+00:00Thanks for this. I remember a long and tangled dis...Thanks for this. I remember a long and tangled discussion about this on the Classics-L list a few years ago which, among other things, revealed that the man who set the ball rolling was Mr Gladstone, in his enormous _Notes on Homer_.<br /><br />The ancients were equally vague on bird species, of course. According to Liddell & Scott, στρουθός can mean a sparrow, an eagle or an ostrich.Ralph Hancockhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11686354797977020917noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8278510471239667560.post-41318869286444827452016-02-16T12:09:55.362+00:002016-02-16T12:09:55.362+00:00Colour-words are notoriously difficult to translat...Colour-words are notoriously difficult to translate, as the categories (and their boundaries) are cultural not derived via the ‘laws' of physics. I had a quick look at Lewis & Short’s Latin Dictionary for "purpureus":<br /><br />"Purple-coloured, purple; including very different shades of colour, as red, reddish, violet, brownish, blackish, etc." <br /><br />There were some extraordinary usages in the examples: “purple" is used of rose flowers in Horace, Odes III.xv, and of the dawn in his ‘Ars Poetica’ Epistle. Vergil uses it for blood in “Aeneid" IX (l. 349) – but also for the colour of human hair in the first “Georgic". Propertius uses it for the colour of poppies (I.xx), but Columella ("De Re Rustica" XI.ii) uses it for the colour of lettuce! <br /><br />Just to make this more perplexing the word can be used by transference to mean just brilliant, shining, bright, or beautiful – it is used of thoroughly non-purple things like eyes - beautiful, nor tired or bruised (by Valerius Flaccus), or the moon ("Aeneid" I), or light (Ovid, "Fasti" VI) – or, to bring things back to the avian, Horace’s swan in Odes, IV.i.<br /><br />Harry G. harryghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04184350321693687780noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8278510471239667560.post-91530974596388684392016-02-16T01:50:10.087+00:002016-02-16T01:50:10.087+00:00I suppose that Horace's purpureis oloribus rea...I suppose that Horace's <i>purpureis oloribus</i> really means 'rich-coloured' in a general sense, like Vergil's description of the sky of the Elysian Fields in Aeneid 6.638-641:<br /><br /><i>devenere locos laetos et amoena virecta<br />fortunatorum nemorum sedesque beatas.<br />Largior hic campos aether et lumine vestit<br />purpureo, solemque suum, sua sidera norunt.</i><br /><br />In Dryden's distant but wonderful version:<br /><br />Where long extended plains of pleasure lay:<br />The verdant fields with those of heav'n may vie,<br />With ether vested, and a purple sky;<br />The blissful seats of happy souls below.<br />Ralph Hancockhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11686354797977020917noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8278510471239667560.post-89621318364439287912016-02-16T00:35:58.075+00:002016-02-16T00:35:58.075+00:00I'm quoting that very same passage on a little...I'm quoting that very same passage on a little something I am writing about Horace's purple swans! Talk about coincidence.Tinúvielhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04794275230697959519noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8278510471239667560.post-69434847781072307912016-02-15T23:19:43.320+00:002016-02-15T23:19:43.320+00:00And, a century later, I'd like to see Juvenal&...And, a century later, I'd like to see Juvenal's jaw drop when he saw the bird he said was impossible.Ralph Hancockhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11686354797977020917noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8278510471239667560.post-79463818944178210462016-02-15T23:16:09.607+00:002016-02-15T23:16:09.607+00:00One crowded hour of glorious life
Is worth an age ...One crowded hour of glorious life<br />Is worth an age without a name.<br /><br />But hurrah for Wisdom. Have been told that vultures can live to over 100. They are less charismatic than albatrosses, but extremely important to the ecology, as Indians have found to their loss after most of theirs were poisoned by diclofenac.Ralph Hancockhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11686354797977020917noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8278510471239667560.post-58203964100863244142016-02-15T21:33:51.242+00:002016-02-15T21:33:51.242+00:00Just had to share - Wisdom, the 65-year-old Laysan...Just had to share - Wisdom, the 65-year-old Laysan Albatross, just had a tiny chick, her 40th.<br />She is miraculous.Tinúvielhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04794275230697959519noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8278510471239667560.post-25172116947246742012016-02-15T21:19:01.137+00:002016-02-15T21:19:01.137+00:00Sometimes I amuse myself by thinking that, were Ov...Sometimes I amuse myself by thinking that, were Ovid to be born in our time, he would be inclined to believe that the Black Swan was a man before, who was changed into a swan. It is so human-like in its reactions.Tinúvielhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04794275230697959519noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8278510471239667560.post-67646924279769396952016-02-15T21:17:15.878+00:002016-02-15T21:17:15.878+00:00Oh God, I didn't know that :-( It seems like s...Oh God, I didn't know that :-( It seems like such a horrid waste of beauty and charm.<br /><br />We forget how fragile nature's beauty is.Tinúvielhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04794275230697959519noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8278510471239667560.post-79463990293436111642016-02-15T20:00:13.025+00:002016-02-15T20:00:13.025+00:00They can't be much shorter than a Goldcrest, w...They can't be much shorter than a Goldcrest, with 90 per cent mortality inside a year.Ralph Hancockhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11686354797977020917noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8278510471239667560.post-35831658746555235112016-02-15T19:34:25.558+00:002016-02-15T19:34:25.558+00:00Which birds have the shortest lives?Which birds have the shortest lives?Arjun Duttahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12428937191960058515noreply@blogger.com