Katthánoisa dè keísēi oudé pota mnāmosúnā séthen
esset' oudè póthā eis ústeron. ou gàr pedékhēis bródōn
tṑn ek Pīeríās, all' aphánēs kān Aídā dómōi
phoitāsēis ped' amaúrōn nekúōn ekpepotāménā.

"You will lie dead, and there will not ever [pota] be any memory of you nor longing [póthā] for you thereafter. For you have no share in the roses of Pieria ( Read more... )

Is there such a thing as a good (comprehensive, informative, and not given to crackpottery) etymological dictionary of Hebrew? (The kind that would tell you, for example, that אצטרובל comes from the Greek strobilos 'twisted, whirled; a top; a whirlpool, a whirlwind; a whirling dance, pirouette ( Read more... )

I dreamed that a cat gave birth to a book. She lay briefly on her back, under a table, and in a momentary agony pushed out a slimy but perfectly printed copy of Gower's Confessio Amantis. It was full of curious facsimiles, tables of medieval lore in shorthand and the like, all faithfully reproduced by a superbly skillful process of gestation. I ( Read more... )

I have a vacation of Biblical proportions (forty days precisely), a car, and a plan - Baja! (In some language this is perhaps a palindrome. I will ask my friend Leon Noel of Glenelg, who speaks fluent Malayalam.) Yes: no less a plan than to drive my fairly new and moderately shiny Saturn down the coast, and down the coast, until we arrive somewhere ( Read more... )

I'm thinking of revising an old story I posted here long ago to see if I can't get it published in some magazine or other (this is called Breaking Into Print). This presents me with a familiar difficulty, which in this case is more acute than usual. I find it impossible to read my own work with the eyes of a first-time reader; I'm on too intimate a ( Read more... )

Nature hath implanted so inveterate a hatred atweene the wolfe and the sheep, that being dead, yet, in the secret operation of Nature, appeareth there a sufficient trial of their discording natures, so that the enmity betweene them seemeth not to dye with their bodies: for if there be put upon a harpe, or any such like instrument, strings made of ( Read more... )

‘Well, shall we on?’ said the head of a party ( Read more... )

Now the dragons of the mountains have scales of a golden colour, and in length excel those of the plain, and they have bushy beards, which also are of a golden hue; and their eyebrows are more prominent than those of the plain, and their eye is sunk deep under the eyebrow, and emits a terrible and ruthless glance. And they give off a noise like the ( Read more... )

The fine delight that fathers thought; the strong ( Read more... )

Hebrew speakers, please help:

Is hitputar the only example of a verb in the hitpu'al template? I can't think of any others, but since a combination of passive and reflexive might be a useful thing to have, semantically, there's no particular reason why other such verbs with a meaning of "do something ostensibly of one's own volition but actually ( Read more... )