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This is a blade that cuts both ways. Are you imagining yourself Homer or Ramus? Sorry, that's unkind. Hard to resist an easy shot. At 02:08 PM 4/14/98 PDT, you wrote: > The discussion of my translation from Theocritus, which I have >followed with the liveliest interest, has not only been enlightening but >has also given me the very great pleasure of enabling me to feel as if >I were enacting in actuality one of my favorite scenes from Swift, in >which Gulliver asks the Governor of Glubbdubdrib, The Island of >Sorcerers, to use his necromantic powers to invoke the fabled figures of >antiquity: > > Having a desire to see those ancients, who were most > renowned for wit and learning, I set apart one day on > purpose. I proposed that Homer and Aristotle might > appear at the head of all their commentators; but these > were so numerous that some hundreds were forced to > attend in the court and outward rooms of the palace. I > knew and could distinguish those two heroes at first > sight, not only from the crowd, but from each other. > Homer was the taller and comelier person of the two, > walked very erect for one of his age, and his eyes were > the most quick and piercing I ever beheld. Aristotle > stooped much, and made use use of a staff. His visage > was meager, his hair lank and thin, and his voice > hollow. I soon discovered that both of them were > perfect strangers to the rest of the company, and had > never seen or heard of them before. And I had a > whisper from a ghost, who shall be nameless, that these > commentators always kept in the most distant quarters > from their principals in the lower world, through a > consciousness of shame and guilt, because they had so > horribly misrepresented the meaning of those authors to > posterity. I introduced Didymus and Eustathius to > Homer, and prevailed on him to treat them better than > perhaps they deserved, for he soon found they wanted a > genius to enter into the spirit of a poet. But > Aristotle was out of all patience with the account I > gave him of Scotus and Ramus, as I presented them to > him, and he asked them whether the rest of the tribe > were as great dunces themselves. > > I shall certainly stay with this list. Who knows what other >fantasies of mine it may eventually incarnate? > >To: BRITPOE([log in to unmask]) > > %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%