A Place of Brightness: ajax

Monday, April 4, 2016

The Most Gruesome Death Scene in Literary History...

While teaching some Vergil to my Latin IV this morning, I made the assertion that the following is the most gruesome death scene in literary history:

illum expirantem transfixo pectore flammas
turbine corripuit scopuloque infixit acuto.
With a whirlwind she snatched him up, breathing out flames
from his pierced chest, and impaled him on a sharp crag.
(Aeneid 1.44-45)

Here he is prior to his richly deserved impaling

The backstory is that Minerva used her father Jove's thunderbolts and took vengeance on a man who raped her priestess Cassandra.

There's no good classical artwork that truly depicts this death scene in all its gory detail. Shame. There should be.

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https://www.amazon.com/Saecula-Saeculorum-Keith-Massey/dp/0984343253?ie=UTF8&creativeASIN=0984343253&linkCode=w00&linkId=5WIF2DJM6ZHW3LFX&redirect=true&ref_=as_sl_pc_tf_til&tag=keitmassintea-20

If you're interested in Latin or ancient history, or even just an entertaining read, check out the time-travel thriller In Saecula Saeculorum. Click to learn more.

You'll travel back to ancient Rome on a harrowing mission to save the modern world. It's the adventure of four lifetimes.

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Sunday, May 4, 2014

Translating Homer: It's Funny Because it's True...

Stephen Butler Leacock, a Canadian economist and humorist, provides a delicious parody of Homer in the following:

"Then he too Ajax on the one hand leaped (or possibly jumped) into the fight wearing on the other hand, yes certainly a steel corselet (or possibly a bronze under tunic) and on his head of course, yes without doubt he had a helmet with a tossing plume taken from the mane (or perhaps extracted from the tail) of some horse which once fed along the banks of the Scamander (and it sees the herd and raises its head and paws the ground) and in his hand a shield worth a hundred oxen and on his knees too especially in particular greaves made by some cunning artificer (or perhaps blacksmith) and he blows the fire and it is hot. Thus Ajax leapt (or, better, was propelled from behind), into the fight."

Homer did indeed produce beautiful poetry. But if you've ever translated him for the original Greek, you got at least a giggle out of Leacock's rendering.

In Saecula Saeculorum, the 4th Novel in the Valquist Series

In this fourth novel of the Valquist Series, Andrew Valquist is retired (?) from the National Security Agency and teaching Latin at a Classical Academy in the Washington DC area. But in the world of espionage, looks can be deceiving. He's not necessarily happy with the role he has played in all this, but the school was actually a joint NSA/MI-6 Project in which four young people have been unwittingly prepared for a mission to travel back in time to ancient Rome to retrieve information from a library that may save the modern world from certain destruction. They know they have to at least try to save humanity, but can they also save each other?

Next Stop: Spanish, the 3rd Novel in the Valquist Series

This third novel in the Valquist Series can be read as an espionage action-adventure in its own right, but also you can use it as a way to either brush up on your Spanish or learn functional Spanish for the first time! John Valquist needs to learn Spanish. But he's in luck, since his uncle Andrew is a language expert and a former (?) spy who is taking him on a vacation to Spain so he can study the language. In Next Stop: Spanish, you have the chance to see and study the words John studies, and then watch him add more and more Spanish into his dialogue as the story progresses. During this vacation, they get pulled into espionage intrigue (why do these things always happen to the Valquist family?). In the dramatic conclusion, John will need to put together everything he has learned to save his uncle!

Amor Vincit Omnia: the 2nd Novel in the Valquist Series

In this second novel of the Valquist Series, Keith Massey takes you into the halls of the National Security Agency, where he himself worked for four years after 9/11 and an Arabic linguist. You follow our hero Andrew Valquist, as he starts work as a new recruit at the NSA. Little does he know that on his first on the job, he's about to fly off on an unexpected overseas assignment. He'll be even more surprised when he learns that his background in ancient Latin will be crucial to the mission!