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RE: BDSM in nature - Penis Spikes - 10/25/2012 5:53:58 AM   
crazyml


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quote:

ORIGINAL: CuriousFerret

I spent a half-hour yesterday reading the original Greek version of the Iliad, for example. It's a lot better than the translated version.

http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/homer/greek/ili01.htm


M'Kay... sure, I've no doubt that you could recreationally translate the Iliad from the Ancient Greek (I take it you've studied Ancient Greek for a few years?). I ask because I did study it for several years at High School and College, and while I'm happy I could get a good sense, I wouldn't dream of claiming that my translation was better than, say Lattimore or Fagles.

I'm sure you're aware that there are dozens of translations of this text, some of which took years of Academic study to write. It's just that when you say things like "It's a lot better than the translated version." it sort of seems to me that you really don't know what it is you're talking about.

Just out of curiosity, which translation of the Iliad in particular was your personal translation an improvement on?

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RE: BDSM in nature - Penis Spikes - 10/25/2012 7:01:15 AM   
CuriousFerret


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quote:

ORIGINAL: crazyml

M'Kay... sure, I've no doubt that you could recreationally translate the Iliad from the Ancient Greek (I take it you've studied Ancient Greek for a few years?).
My goodness, no! I know very little of the Greek language, and the only reason I can make out the Iliad is by rote memorization. I have very little familiarity with Greek, and I'm only slowly making progress on my Latin. I'm certainly not an expert on ancient languages, and I wouldn't pretend to be one anymore than I would pretend to be a scientist.

No, the reason I say that I like the Greek version better is that I like the way it sounds read in hexameter, in its original language. It has a certain grandeur to it. Try reading it aloud, and try to project your voice as an ancient poet would.

Of course, dactylic hexameter is almost as difficult to master as Ancient Greek, when you get right down to it.

quote:

I ask because I did study it for several years at High School and College, and while I'm happy I could get a good sense, I wouldn't dream of claiming that my translation was better than, say Lattimore or Fagles.
Well, to me, I think I get a lot more of a sense of the spirit of the poem by reading it aloud, in the original Greek. However, you have me at a disadvantage, here, because I haven't really taken time to compare different translations. I think it is likely that you are thinking of a particular translation of the work that captures the spirit of it exceptionally well.

< Message edited by CuriousFerret -- 10/25/2012 7:15:24 AM >

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RE: BDSM in nature - Penis Spikes - 10/25/2012 8:20:27 AM   
crazyml


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quote:

ORIGINAL: CuriousFerret

No, the reason I say that I like the Greek version better is that I like the way it sounds read in hexameter, in its original language. It has a certain grandeur to it. Try reading it aloud, and try to project your voice as an ancient poet would.

Of course, dactylic hexameter is almost as difficult to master as Ancient Greek, when you get right down to it.


Well there it's you who has me at a disadvantage, since my first teacher of Ancient Greek was from Wigan (a town in the North of England). Naturally this wasn't a problem while I studied with the same teacher, but when I went to university it all went terribly wrong from a pronunciation perspective, because my spoken ancient greek, it seems, comes with a very strong northern accent, which I've never been able to shake.

quote:

Well, to me, I think I get a lot more of a sense of the spirit of the poem by reading it aloud, in the original Greek. However, you have me at a disadvantage, here, because I haven't really taken time to compare different translations. I think it is likely that you are thinking of a particular translation of the work that captures the spirit of it exceptionally well.


You're touching on an eternal debate when it comes to the translation of classic texts. In my personal opinion, it's impossible to recreate both meaning and rhythm successfully and/or consistently and would rather read a good prose translation than poor verse any day.

I think there's something to memorising a decent translation and rolling through it while reading the orginal text aloud, but... meh, my personal priority when translating is to produce a good, easily read translation that balances being faithful to the literal translation with being faithful to the intent.

I've been working on a translation of Sun Tsu's "Art of War" on and off for 9 years now and that's basically my goal.


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RE: BDSM in nature - Penis Spikes - 10/25/2012 8:40:14 AM   
CuriousFerret


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quote:

ORIGINAL: crazyml

I've been working on a translation of Sun Tsu's "Art of War" on and off for 9 years now and that's basically my goal.

It makes me faint to even think about taking on Ancient Chinese.

By the way, would you by any chance know where I might find a good English translation of the full text of the Codex Theodosianus? I've been laboring through the document (Latin) with a simple and ineffective translator program, and my progress in trying to parse it has been horrendously slow.

I got started on trying to decipher it after some argument that I was involved in about the history of serfdom and how far the early Christian emperors could really be blamed for it. Well, I eventually had to concede that I really didn't have any satisfactorily authoritative sources on this, and I have been extremely anxious to try and get it straight from the horse's mouth. All I've been able to work out so far is that I had vastly underestimated how sophisticated Ancient Roman government really was.

< Message edited by CuriousFerret -- 10/25/2012 8:46:22 AM >

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RE: BDSM in nature - Penis Spikes - 10/25/2012 10:28:51 AM   
crazyml


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Status: offline 		No, alas. It's not a text I've ever paid any attention to. I will ask a Latin scholar friend and if they come back with a suggestion I'll cmail you.

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RE: BDSM in nature - Penis Spikes - 10/25/2012 10:51:43 AM   
CuriousFerret


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quote:

ORIGINAL: crazyml

No, alas. It's not a text I've ever paid any attention to. I will ask a Latin scholar friend and if they come back with a suggestion I'll cmail you.

Okay, I'll keep a look-out. Thanks.

< Message edited by CuriousFerret -- 10/25/2012 11:09:18 AM >

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RE: BDSM in nature - Penis Spikes - 10/25/2012 11:17:12 AM   
CuriousFerret


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Status: offline 		Anyway, I see the issue as a problem of what I can only think to call "evolutionary teleology." That is, I think that some people make a mistake of thinking of evolution as some active force that works with some sort of purpose, and this allows people to develop this idea that traits such as human intelligence, for example, arise in all but a vacuum.

It also leads to this idea that all things that came before Mankind were just an intermediate between the primordial mud and the assumed "end product," modern Man. That's kind of like assuming that Aristotle wrote his works specifically to serve as a basis for helping, via Averroes, to end the so-called "dark ages." Every generation in history has thought itself to be the reason that previous generations bothered to exist, and it has always been egocentric nonsense.

If you avoid teleological assumptions, the bigger picture of human evolution and also human history makes a lot more sense, from my point-of-view. For example, if you realize that the ancient Sumerians were preoccupied mostly with an ancient and somewhat silly political game of, "I bet my god could beat up your god," a lot of the mythology surrounding that culture makes a hell of a lot more sense. Their lives were centered around their own affairs and their own time. They never thought of themselves as being a mere link in a longer historical chain of events.

< Message edited by CuriousFerret -- 10/25/2012 11:23:54 AM >

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RE: BDSM in nature - Penis Spikes - 10/25/2012 11:48:04 AM   
Darkfeather


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Status: offline 		You have absolutely no concept of what evolution is. Which makes sense now, from how you argue against it. Honestly, you seem to love reading difficult books, try reading On the Origin of Species by Charles Robert Darwin. Just listening to your theories on how it works without understanding it, makes you sound silly

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RE: BDSM in nature - Penis Spikes - 10/25/2012 12:10:31 PM   
CuriousFerret


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Status: offline 		I found the works of Erasmus Darwin to be more interesting. Then again, I always have had a weakness for poets.

< Message edited by CuriousFerret -- 10/25/2012 12:13:46 PM >

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RE: BDSM in nature - Penis Spikes - 10/25/2012 12:24:30 PM   
Darkfeather


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quote:

ORIGINAL: CuriousFerret

I found the works of Erasmus Darwin to be more interesting. Then again, I always have had a weakness for poets.


Considering Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus was a theologian and philosopher, that helps you none. The two are wildly different sciences

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RE: BDSM in nature - Penis Spikes - 10/25/2012 12:35:23 PM   
CuriousFerret


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quote:

ORIGINAL: Darkfeather


quote:

ORIGINAL: CuriousFerret

I found the works of Erasmus Darwin to be more interesting. Then again, I always have had a weakness for poets.


Considering Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus was a theologian and philosopher, that helps you none. The two are wildly different sciences
I had never heard of him. The only Dutch philosopher I've ever read much about is Huygens. I started briefly to try to learn some of his language, but I got distracted with something else before I could make much progress on it.

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RE: BDSM in nature - Penis Spikes - 10/25/2012 12:44:12 PM   
Darkfeather


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Status: offline 		So the point you are trying to make is, you haven't read Darwin before, or know his description of how evolution works

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RE: BDSM in nature - Penis Spikes - 10/25/2012 1:02:12 PM   
CuriousFerret


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quote:

ORIGINAL: Darkfeather

So the point you are trying to make is, you haven't read Darwin before, or know his description of how evolution works

Which Darwin? Erasmus or Charles?

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RE: BDSM in nature - Penis Spikes - 10/25/2012 1:19:04 PM   
Darkfeather


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Status: offline 		Well lets see. Erasmus Darwin was also a philosopher, and a poet as you pointed out. And although he did touch on evolution, it was not his main forte. He thought of evolution like a philosopher would. Charles Darwin, on the other hand, was a naturalist. He actually went out into the world and researched the things he wrote about. He was a scientist, not a philosopher. So when I say Darwin, as it relates to the discussion of evolution and its validity, of course I mean the one who has proved what he says

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RE: BDSM in nature - Penis Spikes - 10/25/2012 1:50:52 PM   
CuriousFerret


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quote:

ORIGINAL: Darkfeather

Well lets see. Erasmus Darwin was also a philosopher, and a poet as you pointed out. And although he did touch on evolution, it was not his main forte. He thought of evolution like a philosopher would. Charles Darwin, on the other hand, was a naturalist. He actually went out into the world and researched the things he wrote about. He was a scientist, not a philosopher. So when I say Darwin, as it relates to the discussion of evolution and its validity, of course I mean the one who has proved what he says
Wallace also enunciated it pretty well, actually.

Of course, the general idea of evolution has been around at least since Anaximander of Miletus.

< Message edited by CuriousFerret -- 10/25/2012 1:52:28 PM >

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RE: BDSM in nature - Penis Spikes - 10/25/2012 2:11:06 PM   
Darkfeather


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Status: offline 		Can't get a straight answer out of you can I

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RE: BDSM in nature - Penis Spikes - 10/25/2012 2:40:06 PM   
CuriousFerret


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quote:

ORIGINAL: Darkfeather

Can't get a straight answer out of you can I
I did like The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals, though. Here's a good excerpt:

"When a dog approaches a strange dog or man in a savage or hostile frame of mind be walks upright and very stiffly; his head is slightly raised, or not much lowered; the tail is held erect, and quite rigid; the hairs bristle, especially along the neck and back; the pricked ears are directed forwards, and the eyes have a fixed stare: (see figs. 5 and 7). These actions, as will hereafter be explained, follow from the dog's intention to attack his enemy, and are thus to a large extent intelligible. As he prepares to spring with a savage growl on his enemy, the canine teeth are uncovered, and the ears are pressed close backwards on the head; but with these latter actions, we are not here concerned. Let us now suppose that the dog suddenly discovers that the man he is approaching, is not a stranger, but his master; and let it be observed how completely and instantaneously his whole bearing is reversed. Instead of walking upright, the body sinks downwards or even crouches, and is thrown into flexuous movements; his tail, instead of being held stiff and upright, is lowered and wagged from side to side; his hair instantly becomes smooth; his ears are depressed and drawn backwards, but not closely to the head; and his lips hang loosely. From the drawing back of the ears, the eyelids become elongated, and the eyes no longer appear round and staring. It should be added that the animal is at such times in an excited condition from joy; and nerve-force will be generated in excess, which naturally leads to action of some kind. Not one of the above movements, so clearly expressive of affection, are of the least direct service to the animal. They are explicable, as far as I can see, solely from being in complete opposition or antithesis to the attitude and movements which, from intelligible causes, are assumed when a dog intends to fight, and which consequently are expressive of anger. I request the reader to look at the four accompanying sketches, which have been given in order to recall vividly the appearance of a dog under these two states of mind. It is, however, not a little difficult to represent affection in a dog, whilst caressing his master and wagging his tail, as the essence of the expression lies in the continuous flexuous movements."

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RE: BDSM in nature - Penis Spikes - 10/25/2012 2:59:08 PM   
Darkfeather


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Status: offline 		I get it now, you simply like to pick and choose what you answer and what you don't, what you believe and what you ignore. This is why its impossible to discuss anything with you, because how can you talk with someone who is constantly evasive. Well, I asked you if you read Charles Darwin's book On the Origin of Species, and I got his grandfather, a colleague who's ideas were remarkably similar to his, and now a book that he wrote in 1872 on emotions (of which I don't disagree, animals do have emotions). So I will go with the fact that you completely avoid any information that contraries your "belief". This is not only bad form in a conversation standpoint, but the death knell of a scientist.

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RE: BDSM in nature - Penis Spikes - 10/25/2012 3:21:38 PM   
CuriousFerret


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quote:

ORIGINAL: Darkfeather

Well, I asked you if you read Charles Darwin's book On the Origin of Species, and I got his grandfather, a colleague who's ideas were remarkably similar to his,
And not only that, but there were many other major contributors to evolutionary thought, both before and after Charles Robert Darwin. In light of that, it seems silly to deify one man.

quote:

and now a book that he wrote in 1872 on emotions (of which I don't disagree, animals do have emotions).
And it's the only one of Darwin's works that is actually applicable to what was, at some point, the central topic of this thread.

< Message edited by CuriousFerret -- 10/25/2012 3:22:09 PM >

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RE: BDSM in nature - Penis Spikes - 10/25/2012 3:40:33 PM   
Darkfeather


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Status: offline 		I rest my case. Did I ask if you had read others viewpoints on evolutionary thought? Did I even ask you to agree or "deify" the man? No, I simply asked if you had read the book. But you can't even answer that simple question because you seem to enjoy being evasive again.

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