修身以正,济世以韧-京华浪客--apity 铁杆中医 » 日志 » 向英语高阶迈进．词汇·词源·人文【Word from MYtholoGY & HistorY】, 看得不爽可以骂，骂还不爽就自己看着办
向英语高阶迈进．词汇·词源·人文【Word from MYtholoGY & HistorY】, 看得不爽可以骂，骂还不爽就自己看着办
apity 发表于 2005-10-31 20:05:54
转自putclub
向英语高阶迈进．词汇·词源·人文【Word from MYtholoGY & HistorY】, 看得不爽可以骂，骂还不爽就自己看着办
我做这个主题，不是针对大众，而是给同道中人看的。
主要是一些词汇。
有些可能都很熟了，也有些可能很生疏，没关系，词的后面都有不少注释。很多都很精彩。看了就知道，一定让你少长头发！
其实都是出于这本书。
我只是做点打字员的工作。
总共12各部分。1，2，4，--12的部分和主题有关。 3，5 两个部分是关于拉丁词的借用。
还有，这个是连载，慢慢载。一个字一个字锤进电脑很累的。
下面是内容．
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Section 11a.
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Muse : A source of inspiration; a guiding spirit.
* At 8:00 each morning he sat down at his desk and summoned his muse, and she almost always responded.
The Muses were the nine Greek goddesses that presided over the arts (including music) and literature. Their temple was called in Latin the Museum. An artist or poet such as Homer, especially when about to begin work, would call on his particular Muse to inspire him. Today a muse may be one＇s special creative spirit, but some artists have also chosen living human beings to serve as their muses.
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这里的解释和词典的中文意思不太一样。例句中有的地方写的很漂亮，summoned his muse, 写的人是不有点牛了？
Muse女神们其实是９个婊子，呵呵。横行霸道喜怒无常。她们的爹是Zeus,老妈是记忆女神Mnemosyne。所以龙生龙，凤生凤，老鼠下的孩子会打洞，按现在的说是基因不好，教育不好，环境不好。因此她们的谬行也是可以理解的。中国的翻译有特点，不错，叫她们作“谬思”女神，让人费解的女神。哈哈。她们的老妈我以后会专门的说。
文章中还给出了Museum的来源，是她们的庙。
对了要把这九个叽叽喳喳的女神例一下，因为以后有几个重要的还有专门介绍．
Euterpe－－－－ (music) Calliope －－－－(epic poetry) *
Clio －－－－－－(history) Erato －－－－－(lyric poetry)
Melpomene －－(tragedy) Polyhymnia －－(sacred poetry)
Terpsichore －－(dancing) Thalia －－－－－(comedy)
Urania －－－－(astronomy)
最有意思的是，在《[Section 2] Greco-Roman Tradition, [第二章] 希腊与罗马的文化 ——请关注！不断跟贴中！》我们曾hope妹妹帖的那个Sappho of Lesbos 被后人称为第１０个Muse,因为她的lyric poetry写的太好了（不怕神嫉吗？）。
Iridescent : Having a glowing, rainbowlike play of color that seems to change as the light shifts.
* The children shrieked with glee as they blew iridescent soap bubbles into the gentle breeze.
Iris, the Greek goddess of the rainbow, took messages from Mount Olympus to earth, and from gods to mortals or other, using the rainbow as her stairway. Iridescence is thus the glowing, shifting colorful quality of a rainbow, also seen in an opal, a light oil slick, a butterfly wing, or the mother-of-pearl that lines an oyster shell.
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例句给了我们一幅可爱的画面．呵呵．
彩虹妹妹通常别描写成一个youthful virgin，长俩金色的翅膀。那里都去，天上人间地狱大海。主要工作还是帮宙斯夫妇往人间带信，业余时间还为赫耳墨斯拿拿权杖算是打小工。
在Iliad里面频繁的出现, 但是奇怪的是在Odyssey里面却不见了。因此也也成了怀疑荷马创作的一个线索。
Iris是个好名字，毕竟是彩虹女神同时兼邮差mm的名字. 突然想起了Karen Carpenter的postman.
Mausoleum : (1) A large tomb , especially one built aboveground with shelves for the dead. (2) A large, gloomy building or room.
* The family’s grand mausoleum occupied a prominent spot in the cemetery. For all the good it did the silent dead within.
Mausoleum was ruler of a kingdom in Asia Minor in the 4th century B.C. He beautified the capital, Halicarnassus, with all sorts of fine public buildings, but he is best known for the magnificent monument, the Mausoleum, that was built by his wife Artemisia after his death. The Mausoleum was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Today any large tomb can be called a mausoleum, and so can any big, dark, echoing interior space.
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例句有点意思．
Halicarnassus翻作哈利卡那苏斯．这个地方我倒是没去过，你呢？
这个地方一共有２个女王都叫Artemisia，２个都是寡妇，所以才是女王嘛．这里说的到是第２个．她老公是什么人呢？她老公其实没什么名气，主要就是和几个联军打败了雅典方面军，抢了一大片希腊的土地，还有几个岛，然后就把首都从Mylasa（米拉撒）迁到了Halicarnassus．但他一死就出名了，因为她老婆帮他做了个大棺材．请了很多人来帮她雕棺材盖子，有当时希腊最出名的建筑师Satyrus and Pythis还有４个雕塑家Scopas, Leochares, Bryaxis 和 Timotheus．这些人我都不认识．
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Section 11b.
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Mentor : A trusted counselor. Guide, tutor, or coach
* This pleasant old gentleman had served as friend and mentor to a series of young lawyers in the firm.
Odysseus was away from home fighting and journeying for 20 years, according to Homer. During that time, the son he left as a babe in arms grew up under the supervision of Mentor, and old and trusted friend. When the goddess Athena decided it was time to complete young Telemachus’s education by sending him off to learn about his father, she visited him disguised as Mentor and they set out together. From this , anyone such as a coach or tutor who gives another (usually younger) person help and advice on how to achieve success in the larger world is called a mentor.
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Odysseus（奥德修斯）是Odyssey 《奥德赛》的主人公，这也就书是叫Odyssey 的原因．这同Iliad 不同．
老奥又称作Ulysses（尤利塞斯），罗马神话里这么叫唤来着．在《奥德赛》里面老奥前面加了个定语，狡黠的．不会空穴来风，和他人是脱不了干系的，否则木马计也不会凭空蹦出来了．
老奥有个老婆叫Penelope，是个好老婆．还有个儿子Telemachus，也是个懂事的孩子．老奥是个幸福的人．
有个法国人就写了本书：The Adventures of Telemachus, Son of Ulysses ，当然目的不是单纯的为了说他儿子好，还是政治背景的．不过里面有很多关于他儿子的事体．
最后再说一下：Odyssey这个此现在也有了自己的意思，意思为长时间的冒险旅行．
比如８０年代的时候有部科幻片叫2010,a new odyssey.
Narcissism : (1) Extreme self-centeredness or fascination with oneself. (2) Love or desire for one’s own body.
* His girlfriend would complain about his narcissism, saying be spent more time looking in the mirror than looking at her.
Narcissus was a handsome youth in Greek mythology who inspired love in many who saw him. One was the nymph Echo, who could only repeat the last thing that anyone said. When Narcissus cruelly rejected her, she wasted away to nothing but her voice. Though he played with the affections of others, Narcissus became a victim of his own attractiveness. When he caught sight of his own reflection in a pool, he sat gazing at it in fascination, wasting away without food or drink, unable to touch or kiss the image he saw. When he finally died, the gods turned him into a flower, a narcissus, that stands with its head bent as though gazing at its own reflection. From this myth comes the name of a psychological disorder, narcissism, which is the excessive love of oneself, as well as a more common type of vanity and self-centeredness.
P225
美丽的神话？Narcissus的死有很多说法，有不吃不喝活活饿死的，伤心欲绝痛苦死的，掉河到里淹死的，多的很．反正死了，而且是看到自己的倒影死的．死得好，呱呱叫．
现在说说Echo了．先说说Echo怎么会变的只会echo别人的．
Echo原来是赫拉这个婊子的随从，专帮赫拉说话解闷来着，Echo有个本领就是能连续不断的说，连续不断的吹！够牛的！话白了就是唠唠叨叨．赫拉有个毛病，爱妒嫉．喜欢捉他老公宙斯的奸．但是谁愿意带一个唠叨婆一起去捉奸？所以赫拉就把Echo变成了只能echo了．只要赫拉不说话Echo就会发出声音．我看到Echo的时候总会想起我们的三藏法师．
其实在神话里，她被塑造成一个活泼美丽可爱但成熟的女子的形象．不过结局很可怜，大家都看到了，人都没了，只留下了声音回荡在耳边．凄凉！和《海的女儿》一样啊，同样也看出希腊神话对西方文化的影响．
daffodil这个词也是水仙的意思．和上面那个不同的是这个是从拉丁文出来的，科学味重了点．上面是希腊文来得．哪个场合用哪个词要斟酌了．
Tantalize : To tease or torment by offering something desirable but keeping it out of reach.
* The sight of a warm fire through the window tantalized the little match girl almost unbearably.
Tantalus, according to Greek mythology, killed his son Pelops and offered him to the gods in a stew for dinner. Almost all of the gods realized what was happening and refused the meal, but Demeter took a nibble out of Pelops’s shoulder. The gods reconstructed Pelops, replacing the missing shoulder with a piece of ivory, and then punished Tantalus. In Hades he stands in water up to his neck under a tree laden with fruit. Each time he stoops to drink, the water moves out of reach; each time he reaches up to pick something, the branches move beyond his grasp. He is thus eternally tantalized by the water and fruit. Today anything or anyone that tempts but is unobtainable is tantalizing.
P225
例句出自卖女孩的小火柴．
在希腊神话中Tantalus不是个好东西．做过不少伤天害理的事．可以用这个词evildoer来形容．
在Demeter这里有个问题，为什么别的神都不吃，而就她吃了呢？
原因是这样的：Demeter和我们的宙斯生了个女儿叫Persephone，张的漂亮，被冥王抢去做了压寨夫人．Demeter就是为了这个事情而在烦心，所以一个没留神就中埋伏了．
之后，Persephone当然被他妈妈救出来了，毕竟哪个妈妈也不想自己的女儿嫁到阎王爷那里去．但是Hades不是好惹的．在把老婆交出去之前，骗她吃了６粒石榴子pomegranate seed．接着两股强强势力就坐下来谈斤两了．
谈判的结果是Persephone获得自由了，但由于６粒石榴子的力量让她不得不会到阴间去做６个月阎王婆每年．在他会来晒太阳的６个月，庄稼丰收鱼粮满仓；在她做女阎王的６个月，田地荒芜寸草不生．这也就是她２重性格的来源．
tantalus还有一个意思，叫做酒架子．这是中有铁条锁住的透明架子，目的是防止仆人偷酒．我想大家都知道的．
Thespian : (1) An actor. (2) Having to do with the drama; dramatic.
* in summer the towns of New England welcome troupes of thespians dedicated to presenting plays of all kinds.
Greek drama was originally entirely performed by choruses. Literary tradition says that Thespis, the Greek dramatist, was inventor of tragedy and the first to write roles for the individual actor as distinct from the chorus. Thespians fill all the roles in more modem plays. Thespian is also an adjective; thus we can speak of “thespian ambitions” and “thespian traditions,” for example.
225
这是个好词．有tragic的意思,但是这里没提到．
Thespis据说是第一个演员．但他发明的悲剧是无可置疑的．
他的东西不多说，在《[Section 2] Greco-Roman Tradition[第二章] 希腊与罗马的文化》 中会详细介绍。
这里我要吹吹我们的莎士比亚。以前有个说法：莎士比亚其人是杜撰的，是某某人的笔名。这当然是个论点。在接着的论据里面就设计到我们Thespian 这个词了。说Shaken 或Sceacan 加上Thespian 这个词，创造了我们的Shakespeare,意为惊人的剧作或什么别的。惊人的＂发现＂．
这是种说法，听过算过，shakespeare的一生的确有很多问号，培根的后人就称老莎是培根的笔名。但唯一没有问号的就是，那３７部巨作给人类文明带来的巨大贡献。让我不敢仰视。
Zephyr : (1) A breeze from the west. (2) a gentle breeze.
* Columbus left Genoa sailing against the zephyrs that continually blow across the Mediterranean.
The ancient Greeks called the west wind Zephyrus and regarded him and his fellow winds as gods. A zephyr is a kind wind, bringer of clear skies and beautiful weather, though is may occasionally be more than a soft breeze.
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奇怪！看到Zephyr想到了Percy.B.Shelley,牛头不对马嘴啊！中文意识在作怪。
Zephyr还可以经常看到另一个意思：Something is airy, insubstantial, or passing.很美的词．
接着说说Cristóbal Colón .
Crisoforo Colombo 是个不太收欢迎的人．道理很简单：西班牙人不喜欢他，因为他没有带会半个香料和黄金； 印第安人的不喜欢他，因为他带来的只有灾祸；他的船员不喜欢他，因为他太苛刻而没有回报；他自己也不喜欢自己，因为四次远行一次比一次更失败．最后在极度失意中死掉liao，直到他死他还是认为他＂发现＂的是印度．莫名奇妙的印第安人给突然莫名其妙的按上了印度教。现在还在错着，而且还将继续下去，没完没了了。
没过两年，就有个人声称Colombo发现的不是印度．这个人就是Americus Vespucius ，这也就是America的来源了．
其实，老哥不是第一个发现美洲的人．在他第一个到达前我们的印第安兄弟已经在上面安居乐业了很久．他也不是第一个到达的欧洲人，１１世纪的时候维京强盗已经划着小舢板在那里藏过宝藏了．小哥只能说是第一个掀开美洲征服史的人．
一个血与泪的征服史．slavery, genocide, and the wholesale destruction of indigenous cultures, that's the guilt.
不能都怪小哥，小哥已经很可怜了。要怪只能怪我们自己是 Son of Seven Sins. 要怪只能怪我们是 just mortal, 要怪只能怪我们 still live 在人间.
在美国有这样一个节日，目的是庆祝小哥发现他们住的地方．Oct 12nd . 不过现在知道的人已经不多，大家把哥伦布渐渐忘记了．
2003-11-19. noxorc
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拿起剪子跟我来．
Section 10.
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Cereal : (1) A plant that produces grain that can be eaten as food, or the grain it produces. (2) The food mad from grain.
* Rice is the main food cereal grown in Asia, whereas wheat is the main food cereal of the West.
The Roman goddess Ceres (the Greek Demeter) was a serene goddess who did not take part in the quarrels of the other gods. She was in charge of the food-giving plants, and the grains came to carry her name. Cereals of the Romans included wheat, barley, spelt, oats, and millet, but not corn (maize), which was a cereal of the Americas.
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Junoesque : Having mature, poised, and dignified beauty.
* In 1876, as a centennial gift, the French sent to America a massive statue of a robed Junoesque figure representing Liberty.
Juno was the wife of Jupiter, the chief of the Roman gods. She was a matron, mature and well filled out. Her presence was imposing; her authority as wife of Jupiter and her power in her own right gave her particular dignity. But the younger Diana, goddess of the hunt, perhaps came closer to today’s ideals of slim and athletic female beauty.
P204
Martial : Having to do with war and military life.
* The stirring, martial strains of “The British Grenadiers” echoed down the snowy street just as dawn was breaking.
Mar was the Roman god of war and one of the patron gods of Rome itself. He was in charge of everything military, from warriors to weapons to provisions to marching music. Thus, when martial law is proclaimed, a country’s armed forced take over the functions of the police. Martial arts are skills of combat and self-defense also practiced as sport. And a court-martial is a military court of trial.
P204
Promethean : New or creative in a daring way.
* At his best, Steven Spielberg has sometimes shown Promethean originality in the special effects of his movies.
Prometheus was a Titan, a generation older than Zeus. When Zeus overthrew his own father Cronus and seized power, Prometheus fought on the side of the gods and against his fellow Titans. But when Zeus later wanted to destroy the race of humans, Prometheus saved them by stealing fire for them from the gods. He also taught them how to write, farm, build houses, read the stars and weather, cure themselves when sick, and tame animals—in short, all the arts and skills that make humans unique, So inventive was he that anything that bears the stamp of creativity and originality can still be called Promethean. But for his disobedience Zeus had him chained to a rocky cliff, where for many long centuries an eagle daily tore at his liver. Thus, any suffering on a grand scale can also he called Promethean.
P204
Sisyphean : Endless and difficult.
* High-school dropouts usually find getting a good job to be a Sisyphean task.
Reputedly the cleverest man on earth, Sisyphus tricked the gods into bringing him back to life after he died. For this they punished him by sending him back to the underworld, where he must eternally roll a huge rock up a long, steep hill, only to watch it roll back to where he started. Something Sisyphean demands the same kind of unending, thankless, and ultimately unsuccessful efforts.
P204
Titanic : Having great size, strength, or power; colossal.
* the titanic floods of 1993 destroyed whole towns on the Mississippi River.
The ocean liner Titanic was named for its unmatched size and strength and its assumed unsinkability. But a truly titanic iceberg ripped a fatal hole in the great ship on its maiden voyage in 1912, and more than 1,500 people perished in the
icy waters off Newfoundland. In Greek mythology, the original Titans also came to a bad end. They belonged to the generation of giant creators that produced the younger, stronger, cleverer gods, who soon overpowered and replaced them (see Promethean above).
P205
Triton : (1) A being with a human upper body and the lower body of a fish; a merman. (2) Any of various large mollusks with a heavy, conical shell.
* In one corner of the painting, a robust Triton emerges from the sea with his conch to announce the coming of the radiant queen.
Triton was originally the son of the sea god Poseidon/Neptune. A guardian of the fish and other creatures of the sea, he is usually shown as hearty, muscular, and cheerful. Like his father, he often carries a trident (a three-pronged fork) and sometimes rides in a chariot drawn by seahorses. Blowing on his conch shell, he creates the roar of the ocean. As a decorative image, Tritons are simply the male version of mermaids. The handsome seashells that bear his name are the very conchs on which he blows. Triton ha also given his name to the planet Neptune’s largest moon.
P205
Vulcanize : To treat crude or synthetic rubber or plastic so that it becomes elastic and strong and resists decay.
* The native islanders had even discovered how to vulcanize the rubber from the local trees in a primitive way.
The Roman god Vulcan (the Greek Hephaestus) was in charge of fire and the skills that use fire, especially blacksmithing. When Charles Goodyear accidentally discovered how to vulcanize rubber in 1893, he revolutionized the rubber industry. He called his process vulcanization because it used fire to heat the rubber (before the addition of sulfur and other ingredients). His discovery influenced the course of the Civil War, when balloons made of this new, stronger rubber carried Union spies over the Confederate armies.
P205
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Section 9.
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Arachnid : A member of the class Arachnida, which principally includes animals with four pairs of legs and no antennae, such as spiders, scorpions, mites, and ticks.
* My interest in arachnids began when I used to watch spiders build their gorgeous webs in the corners of the porch.
The Greek word for “spider” is arachne . According to Greek mythology, the original arachnid was a girl, Arachne. Like all good Greek girls, she spent much of her time weaving, but she made the misktake of claiming she was a better weaver than the goddess by showing the gods at their worst in the pattern she wove. As punishment, Athena changed Arachne into a spider, fated to spend her life weaving.
Calliope : A musical instrument similar to an organ in which whistles are sounded by steam or compressed air.
* The town’s old calliope, with its unmistakable sound, summoned them to the fair every summer.
To the ancient Greeks, the muses were nine goddesses, each of whom was the spirit of oneor more of the arts and sciences. Calliope was the muse of heroic or epoc poetry and responeible for inspiring poets to write epics such as the Iliad and the Odyssey. Since these were generally sung and were usually every long, she wasresponsible for a great deal of musical reciting. When the hooting musical calliope was invented in America around 1835, her name seemed natural for it. Calliopes gave a festive air to river showboats; the loudest of them could supposedly be heard eight miles away. Today they are only heard on merry-go-rounds and at circuses.
Dryad : A wood nymph.
* The Greeks’ love of trees can be seen in their belief that every tree contained a dryad, which died when the tree was cut.
The term dryad comes from the Greek word for “oak tree.” As the Greeks saw it, every tree (not only oaks) had a spirit. The myth of Daphne tells of a young woman who chose to become a dryad in order to escape an unwanted suitor, the god Apollo. Pursued by Apollo, she transformed herself into a laurel tree.
Fauna : Animal life, especially the animals that live naturally in a given area or environment.
* In biology class they examined the fauna of the meadow next to the school.
Faunus and Fauna were the Roman nature god and goddess, part goat and part human, who were in charge of animals. Their helpers, who look just like them, are called fauns, perhaps the most famous depiction of a faun is Debussy’s orchestral work “Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun,” which was turned into a ballet by the great Russian dancer Nijinsky.
Flora : Plant life, especially the flowering plants that live naturally in a specific area or environment.
* Scientists are busily identifying the flora of the Amazon rain forest before the rapid expansion of the commercial interests consumes it.
The Roman Flora, which means “flower,” was the goddess of spring and flowering plants, especially wildflowers and plants not raised for food. She was shown as a beautiful young woman in a long, flowing dress with flowers in her hair and cascading across her shoulders. English preserves her name in such words as floral, floret, and flourish.
Herculean : (1) Extremely strong. (2) Extremely extensive, intense, or difficult.
The whole family now faced the herculean task of cleaning out the attic.
The hero Hercules (in Greek, Heracles) had to perform twelve enormously difficult tasks, or “labors,” to pacify the wrath of the god Apollo. Any job or task that is extremely difficult or calls for enormous strength, therefore, is called herculean.
Pandora’s box : A source of many troubles.
* Raising the issue of a new tax opened a real Pandora’s box of related economic problems.
The beautiful woman Pandora was created by the gods to punish the human race because Prometheus had stolen fire from heaven, As a gift, Zeus gave Pandora a box, but told her never to open it. However, as soon as he was out of sight she took off the lid, and out swarmed all the troubles of the world. Only Hope was left in the box, stuck under the lid. Anything that seems harmless but when opened or investigated brings forth problems is called a Pandora’s box.
Scylla and Charybdis : Two equally dangerous alternatives.
* As always, they feel caught between Scylla and Charybdis as they try to hold down costs while still investing for the future.
Scylla and Charybdis were two monsters in Greek mythology who endangered shipping the Strait of Messina between Italy and Sicily. Scylla, a female monster with twelve feet and six heads, each with pointed teeth, barked like a dog from the rocks on the Italian side. Charybdis lived under a huge fig tree on the Sicilian side and caused a whirlpool by swallowing the waters of the sea. Being caught between Scylla and Charybdis is a lot like being between a rock and a hard place.
2003-11-26 noxorc
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Section 8.
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Aeolian harp : A box with strings that produce musical sounds when wind blows on them.
* Poets have long been fascinated by the aeolian harp because it is an instrument that produces music without a human performer.
Aeolus was the king or guardian of the wind, according to the ancient Greeks. He lived in a cave with his many, many sons and daughters, and sent forth whatever wind Zeus asked for. When Odysseus stopped there on his way home from Troy, he received a bag of winds to fill his sails. His men, however, opened the bag and released them all while he was asleep, and the raging winds blew them all the way back to their starting point. An aeolian harp produces enchanting harmonies when the wind passed over it. According to Homer, it was the god Hermes who invented the harp, by having the wind blow over the dried sinews attached to a tortoise shell.
Cynosure : (1) A guide. (2) A center of attention.
* Whenever the latest hot young rock star enters the nightclub, he becomes the cynosure of the assembled crowd.
Cynosure means “dog’s tail” in Greek and Latin. In those languages it was the name for the constellation Ursa Minor, or the Little Bear, whose tail is formed by the North Star. The North Star has always been a trusty guide for travelers, especially sailors, because unlike the other stars, it always remains in the same position in the northern sky. So cynosure came to mean both “guide” and “center of attention.”
Laconic : Using extremely few words.
* Male movie stars usually don’t have a lot of dialogue to learn because most scripts seem to call for laconic leading man who avoid conversation.
Ancient Sparta was located in the region known as Lanconia. The disciplined and militaristic Spartans were known for using no more words than they had to. So this terse, abrupt way of speaking became known as laconic after them and their territory.
Mnemonic : Having to do with the memory; assisting the memory/
* Sales-training courses recommend mnemonic devices as a way of remembering peoples’ names.
The Greek word for memory is mnemosyne; something that helps the memory is therefore a mnemonic aid. Such snappy mnemonic devices as KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid) or Every Good Boy Does Fine (for the notes on the lines of a musical staff with a treble clef) help to recall simple rules or complicated series that might otherwise slip away.
Platonic : (1) Relating to the philosopher Plato or his teachings. (2) Involving a close relationship from which romance and sex are absent.
* The male and female leads in many situation comedies keep their relationship platonic for the first few seasons, but romance almost always wins out in the end.
The philosopher Plato taught that all objects here on earth are pale imitations of their ideal form, just as a shadow is a weak imitation of the real object or a painting fails to capture true reality. This true form has come to be called the “Platonic dialogues.” Because these philosophers and their students were all male, and because Socrates in the dialogues sometimes goes to great lengths to avoid committing homosexual acts, despite his desires, close but nonsexual friendship between two people who might be thought to be romantically attracted to each other is today known as platonic love or friendship.
Sapphic : (1) Lesbian. (2) Relating to a poetic verse pattern associated with Sappho.
* The Roman poets Catullus and Horace composed wonderful lover poems in sapphic verse.
Sappho wrote poems of passion and self-reflection, some of them directed to the women attending the school she conducted on the Greek island of Lesbos around 600 B.C. The poems were written in an original rhythmical pattern, which has become known as sapphic verse. The island of Lesbos also gave its name to lesbianism, which is sometimes called sapphic love.
Socratic: Having to do with the philosopher Socrates or with his teaching method, in which he systematically questioned the student in conversation in order to draw forth truths.
* The professor fascinated some students but annoyed others with her Socratic method of teaching, which required them to listen think, and participate in class.
Socrates lived in Greece in the 5th century B.C. He left no writings behind, so all that we know of him is through the writings of his disciple Plato. Today he is most remembered for his method of teaching by asking questions. His name survives in terms such as Socratic induction, which is a method of gradually arriving at generalizations through a process of questions and answers, and Socratic irony, in which the teacher pretends ignorance, but questions his students skillfully to make them aware of their errors in understanding.
Solecism : (1) A grammatical mistake in speaking or writing. (2) A blunder in etiquette or proper behavior.
* The poor boy committed his first solecism immediately on entering by tracking mud over the Persian rug in the dining room.
In ancient Asia Minor, there was a city called Soloi where the inhabitants spoke Greek that was full of grammar or in formal social behavior has hence come to be known as a solecism. Such things as saying “ain’t” or “they was” or using the hostess’s best bath towel to dry off the dog are solecisms. The earth won’t shatter from such acts, but sometimes a few nerves will.
2003-11-27 noxorc
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Section 7.
Achilles'heel : A vulnerable point.
* Grafton had been an excellent manager in his first years there, but his Achilles' heel turned out to be his addiction to increasingly damaging drugs.
When the hero Achilles was an infant, his sea-nymph mother dipped him inti the river Styx to make him immortal. But since she held him by one heel, this spot did not touch the water and so remained mortal and vulnerable. It was this heel where Achilles was everntually mortal and vulnerable. It was the heel where Achilles was eventually mortally wounded. Today, the tendon that stretches up the calf from each heel is called the Achilles tendon; however, the term Achilles' heel is onlu used figuratively; thus, it can refer to the weakest point in a country's military defenses, or a person's tendency to drink too much, for example.
arcadia : A region or setting of rural pleasure and peacefulness.
* The Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania are a vacationer's acadia.
Arcadia, a beautiful rural area in Creece, became the favorite setting for poems about naive and ideal innocence unaffected by the passions of the larger world. There, shepherds play their pipes and sigh with longing for flirtatious nymphs; shepherdesses sing to their flocks, and goat-footed nature gods cavort in the fields and woods.
Cassandra : A person who predicts misfortune or disaster.
* The newspaper columnist was accused of being a Cassandra who always looked for the worst and predicted disaster, despited the fact that his predictions often came true.
Cassandra, the daughter of King Priam of Troy, was one of those beautful young maidens with whom Apollo fell in love. He gave her the gife of prophecy on return for the promise of her sexual favors, but at the last minute she refused him. Though he could not take back his gift, he pronounced that no one would ever believe her predictions. Thus, her prophecy of the fall of Troy and the death of its heroes were laughed at the Trojans. A modern-day Cassandra goes around predictiong gloom and doom, kike many current economists with their constant pessimistic forecasts.
cyclopean : Huge or massive.
* The scale of the new ten-block high-rise medical center was cyclopean.
The Cyclops of Greek mythology were hug, crude giants, each with a single eye in the middle of his forehead. Odysseus had a terrible encounter with one of these creatures in his travels, and escaped being devoured only by blinding the monster with a burning stick. The great stone walls at such places as Troy, Tiryns, and Mycenae are called cyclopean because the stones are so massive and the construction so expert that it was assumed that only a superhuman race such as the Cyclops could have achieved such a feat.
Jan. 20th 2004
draconian : Extremely severe or cruel.
* The new president thinks that only draconian spending limits and staff cutbacks can save the ailing company.
The word draconian comes from Draco, the name of a 7th-century B.C. Athenian legislator. Legends and stories about Draco hold that he created a very severe code of laws, which were sometimes said to have been written in blood rather than ink. Today, we use the word draconian in a wide variety of ways, sometimes even referring to something as minor as parking policies. ( Because the word is derived from a person’s name, draconian is often spelled with a capital D. )
myrmidon : A loyal follower, especially one who executes orders unquestioningly.
* Wherever the corporate tycoon went, he was surrounded by myrmidons all too eager to do his bidding.
Achilles’ troops in the Trojan War, called Myrmidons, were created from ants. This insect origin explained their blind obedience to him, their willingness to carry out any order – such as refusing to fight even when it meant many lives would be lost. The Nazis expected all Germans in uniform to exhibit this same unquestioning loyalty and obedience; the postwar Nuremberg trials established the principle that the utter, unthinking obedience of a myrmidon does not excues committing certain crimes against humanity in wartimes.
nemesis : A powerful, frightening opponent or rival who is usually victorious.
* During the 1970s and 1980s Japanese carmakers became the nemesis of the U.S. auto industry.
The Greek goddess Nemesis doled out rewards for noble acts and vengeance for evil ones. The Greeks believed that Nemesis did not always punish an offender right away, but might wait as much as five generations to avenge a crime. But whenever she worked, her cause was always just and her victory sure. Today, a nemesis may or may not be believed to be working justice. So most people agree that the weak economy was George Bush’s nemesis in 1992, even if they voted for him.
Trojan horse : Someone or something that works from within to defeat or undermine.
* Like a Trojan horse, she came back to school with a bad case of the flu that spread rapidly among the other students.
After besieging the walls of Troy for ten years, the Greeks built a huge, hollow wooden horse, secretly filled it with armed warriors, and presented it to the Trojans as a gift for the goddess Athena. The Trojans accepted the offering and took the horse inside the city’s walls. That night, the armed Greeks swarmed out and captured and burned the city. A Trojan horse is thus anything that looks innocent but, once accepted, has power to harm or destroy for example, a computer program that seems helpful but actually works to wipe out data and functions.
Jan 21st 2004 今天系大年夜, 各位新年 tm 快乐.
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section 6.
Augean stable : A condition or place marked by great accumulation of filth or corruption.
* Leaders of many of the newly formed nations of Eastern Europe found that the old governments of their countries had become Augean stables that they must now clean out.
Augean stable most often appears in the phrase “clean the Augean stable,” which usually means “clear away corruption” or perform a large and unpleasant task that has long called for attention.”Augeus, themythical king of Elis, kept great stables that held 3,000 oxen and had not been cleaned for thirty years when Hercules was assigned the job. Thus the word Augean by itself has come to mean “extremely difficult or distasteful,” so we can also refer to Augean tasks or Augean labor, or even Augean clutter. By the way, Hercules cleaned the stables by causing two rivers to run through them.
Croesus : A very rich person.
* H. Ross Perot’s many successful business ventures have made him an American Croesus.
Croesus most often appears in the phrase “rich as Croesus,” which means “extremely rich.” Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft, could fairly be called “rich as Croesus.” Croesus himself was a sixth-century B.C. king of Lydia, an ancient kingdom in what is now Turkey. He conquered many surrounding regions, grew wealthy, and became the subject of many legends.
Dragon's teeth : Seeds of conflict.
* We should realize that we sow dragon’s teeth when we neglect the education of our children.
This term often appears in the phrase “sow dragon’s teeth,” which means to create the conditions for future trouble. In an ancient Greek legend, Cadmus killed a dragon and planted its teeth in the ground. Armed men immediately sprang up from where the teeth were sown and tried to kill him. The goddess Athena directed him to throw a precious stone into their midst and they proceeded to slaughter each other until only the five greatest warriors were left and these became Cadmus’s generals.
Hades : The underground home of the dead in Greek mythology.
* Always careful not to offend, the angry Senator bellowed, “Who in Hades gave out this information about me?”
Hades is both the land of the dead and the god who rules there. Hades (Pluto) the god is the brother of Zeus (Jupiter) and Poseidon (Neptune), who rule the skies and the seas respectively. His own realm is Hades, the region under the earth, full of mineral wealth and fertility and home of the dead. There he rules with his wife Persephone (Proserpina). Hades has become a polite term for hell and often appears in its place, as in the sentence “The restaurant became hotter than Hades after the air conditioner broke down.”
Lethargic : (1) Lazily sluggish. (2) Indifferent or apathetic.
* Once again the long Sunday dinner had left most of the family feeling stuffed and lethargic.
The Greek philosopher Plato wrote that before a dead person could leave Hades to begin a new life, he or she had to drink from the River Lethe, whose name means “forgetfulness” in Greek. One would thereby forget all aspects of one’s former life and the time spent in Hades ( usually pretty awful, according to Plato ). But our word lethargic and the related noun lethargy usually refer not to forgetting but rather to the weak, ghostly state of those who have drunk from Lethe as dead spirits – so weak that they may require a drink of blood before the can even speak.
Midas touch : The talent for making money in every venture.
* For much of his career Donald Trump seemed to possess the Midas touch.
Midas was then legendary king of Phrygia who, when granted one wish by the god Dionysus, asked for the power to turn everything he touched into gold. When he found that even his food and drink turned to gold, he begged Dionysus to take back his gift. The moral of this tale of greed is usually ignored when the term is used today.
Pyrrhic victory : A victory won at excessive cost.
* The coach regarded their win as a Pyrrhic victory, as his best players sustained injuries that would sideline them for weeks.
Pyrrhic victories take their name from Pyrrhic victory, the king of Epirus, an ancient country in northwest Greece. Pyrrhus defeated the Romans at the Battle of Ausculum (279 B.C.) but lost all of his best officers and many men. He is said to have exclaimed after the battle, “One more such victory and we are lost.”
Stygian : Extremely dark, dank, gloomy, and forbidding, like the River Styx.
* When the power went out in the building, the halls and stairwells were plunged in stygian darkness.
The word stygian comes from the name of the River Styx, which was the chief river of the Greek underground world of the dead and which had to be crossed in order to enter this world.
2004, Feb 6th. 刚刚有2个put挂名的斑竹, 逼我吃水仙花. 我好可怜啊, 我好饿啊!
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Section 5.
Now this section is empty, for content of the section don’t concern the words on mythology and history, but on something borrowing from Latin.
However, the words from this section is really fancy, never appear in any place of this BBS, so I am not willing to cut the section off. And I will list them at the end of the material.
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Section 4.
Calypso : A folk song or style of singing of West Indian origin that has a lively rhythm and words that are often made up by the singer.
* If you take a Caribben vacation in December you end up listening to a lot of Christmas carols played to a calypso beat.
In Homer’s Odyssey, the nymph Calypso detains Odysseus for seven years on his way home from the Trojan War. She uses all her wiles to hold him on her lush, hidden island, but he still longs for home. The calypso music of the West Indian islands has the same captivating, bewitching power as the nymph, the lyrics that are often improvised to the melodies, however, often make fun of local people and happenings. Calypso may not have been the original name for this music; it may instead have simply replaced a similar-sounding native Caribbean word.
Odyssey : (1) A long, wandering journey full of trials and adventures. (2) A spiritual journey or quest.
* Their six-month camping trip around the country was an odyssey the would always remember.
Odysseus, the hero of Homer’s Odyssey, spends 20 years traveling home from the Trojan War. He has astonishing adventures and learns a great deal about himself and the world; he even descends to the underworld to talk to the dead. Thus, an odyssey is any long, complicated journey, often a quest for a goal, and may be a spiritual or psychological journey as well as an actual voyage.
Palladium : A precious, silver-white metal related to platinum that is used in electrical contacts and as an alloy with gold to form white gold.
* Most wedding rings today are simple bands of gold, platinum, or palladium.
Pallas Athena was one of the poetical names given to the Greek goddess Athena, although it is no longer clear what Pallas was supposed to mean. When an asteroids belt was discovered between Mars and Jupiter, most of the asteroids were named after figures in Greek mythology, and one of the first to be discovered was named Pallas, in 1803. In the same year, scientists first isolated the element palladium, and they named the new element in honor of the recently discovered asteroid.
Penelope : A modest domestic wife.
* Critics of Hillary Rodham Clinton would perhaps have preferred her to be a Penelope, quietly keeping house and staying out of politics.
In the Odyssey, Penelope waits 20 long years for her husband Odysseus to return from Troy. During that time, she must raise their son and fend off the attentions of numerous rough suitors. She preserves herself for a long time by saying that she cannot remarry until she has finished weaving a funeral shroud for her aging father-in-law; however, what she weaves each day she secretly unravels each night. A Penelope, thus, appears to be the perfect, patient, faithful wife, and she uses her clever intelligence to keep herself that way.
Procrustean : Ruthlessly disregarding individual differences or special circumstances.
* The school’s procrustean approach to education seemed to assume that all children learned in the same way and at the same rate.
Procrustes was a bandit in the Greek tale of the hero Theseus. He ambushed traveler and, after robbing them, made them lie on an iron bed. He would make sure they fit this Procrustean bed by cutting off the parts that hung off the ends or stretching those that were too short. Either way, they died. Something procrustean, therefore, takes no account of individual differences but cruelly and mercilessly makes everything the same.
Protean : (1) Displaying great versatility or variety. (2) Able to take on many different forms or natures.
* He was attempting to become the protean athlete, with contracts to play professional baseball, football, and basketball.
Proteus was the figure in the Odyssey who revealed to Menelaus how to get home to Sparta with the notorious Helen of Troy. Before he would give up the information, though, Menelaus had to capture him – no mean feat, since he had the ability to change into any natural shape he chose. The word protean came to describe this ability to change into many different shapes or to play many different roles in quick succession.
Sibyl : A females prophet or fortune-teller.
* Her mother treated her as if she were the family sibyl, able to predict what fate was about to befall her sisters.
The sibyls were ancient prophetesses who lived in Babylonia, Greece, Italy, and Egypt. The most famous was the Sibyl of Cumae in Italy, a withered crone who lived in a cave. Her prophecies were collected into twelve books, three of which survived to be consulted by the Romans in times of national emergencies. Whether or not she was the first sibyl, her name or title became the term for all such prophets.
Siren : A woman who tempts men with bewitching sweetness.
* Reporters treated her like a sex symbol, but she lacked the graceful presence and air of mystery of a real siren.
The sirens were a group of partly human female creatures in Greek mythology that lured sailors onto destructive rocks with their singing. Odysseus and his men encountered the sirens after leaving Troy. The only way to sail by them safely was to make oneself deaf to their enchanting song, so Odysseus packed the men’s ears with wax. But he himself, ever curious, wanted to hear, so he had himself tied to the mast to keep from flinging himself into the water or steering his ship toward sure destruction. A siren today is almost always a woman, though she need not sing or cause shipwrecks. But a siren song may be any appeal that lures a person to act against his or her better judgment.
Feb. 8th. 2004, in home.
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Section 3.
Same to Section 5, and will be listed at end of all the sections.
keep waiting.
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Section 2.
Apollonian : Harmonious, ordered, rational, calm.
* After years of Romantic emotionality, may artists began to adopt a more apollonian style, producing carefully detailed patterns and avoiding extremes of all kinds.
The god Apollo governed the sun, light, and music. Due partly to the work of Nietzsche and other German scholars, we now associate Apollo with the forces of calm rationality and may call anything that has these qualities apollonian. This is not the whole story, however. Apollo was also the god of prophecy, so he was not entirely a force of reason; he had a terrible temper and an appetite for young girls as well.
Bacchanalian : Frenzied, orgiastic.
* The bacchanal8ian partying on graduation night resulted in three wrecked cars, two lawsuits by unamused parents, and more new experiences than most of the participants could remember the next day.
The Roman god of drama, wine, and ecstasy, Bacchus was the focus of a widespread celebration, the Bacchanalia, at which there was wine in abundance and celebrants were expected to cut loose from normal restraints and give in to all sorts of wild desires/ the festivities got so out of hand that in 186 B.C. the Roman authorities had them banned. Much the same bacchanalian spirit fills New Orleans’s Mardi Gras carnival each year.
Delphic : Unclear, ambiguous, or confusing.
* All she could get from the old woman were a few Delphic comments that left her more confused than ever about the missing documents.
Delphi in Greece was the site of a temple to Apollo at which there was an oracle, a woman through whom Apollo would speak, foretelling the future. The Greeks consulted the oracle frequently on matters both private and public. The prophecies were given in obscure poetry that had to be interpreted by priests, and even then was subject to disastrous misinterpretation. Modem-day descendants of the oracle include some political commentators, who continue to utter words of Delphic complexity each week.
Dionysian : Frenzied, orgiastic.
* Only in the tropics did such festivals become truly Dionysian, he said, which was why he was booking his flight to Rio.
Dionysus was the Greek forerunner of Bacchus. He was the inventor if wine, the first intoxicant, which he gave to the human race. For that gift and for all the uninhibited behavior that it led to, Dionysus became immensely popular, and he appears in a great many myths. He is often shown with a wine goblet, his hair is full of vine leaves, and he is frequently attended by a band of goat-footed satyrs and wild females spirits called maenads. The Greek Dionysian worship began as solemn rituals but eventually became great celebrations with much drunken lewdness.
Feb 9, 2004, 等等吧. 今天心情不好. 就到这里. 有人不让我还我欠银行的钱,但是那些人又不愿意帮我还. 郁闷.
Jovial : Jolly, expansively good-natured.
* Their grandfather was as jovial as their grandmother was generally a cheerful, sociable, fatherly figure, although his anger could destroy offenders in a flash. Every department-store Santa Clasus strives to attain this appearance of generous joviality.
Mercurial : Having rapid and unpredictable change of mood.
* His mother’s always mercurial temper became even more unpredictable, to the point where the slightest thing would trigger a violent fit.
The god mercury and the planet named for him were thought to govern eloquence and cleverness. As the god’s messenger, with his winged cap and sandals, he was the very symbol of speed. The planet Mercury was named for him because it is the fastest of the planets. His name was also given to the liquid silver metal that skitters out of one’s hand so quickly it is almost impossible to hold. A mercurial person isn’t necessarily physically quick, but changes moods with bewildering speed.
Olympian : Lofty, superior, and detached.
* The mafia don’s manner grew increasingly Olympian as he aged but the old-timers could still remember when he was a hotheaded young thing.
The Greek gods lived high atop Mount Olympus, which allowed them to watch what went on in the human realm below and intervene as they saw fit. But they tended not to worry much about the affairs of these weak and short-lived creatures, although they did insist on being properly worshiped by them. We American voters sometimes feel that Congress treats us in an Olympian manner as it determines how our money will be spent.
Venereal : Having to do with sexual intercourse or diseases transmitted by it.
* In the 19th century syphilis especially was often fatal, and venereal diseases killed some of the greatest figures of the time.
Venus was the Roman goddess of love, the equivalent of the Greek Aphrodite. Since she governed all aspects of human sensuality and sexuality, she has given her name to the diseases acquired through sexual contact. Most of these venereal diseases have been around for centuries, but only in this century have doctors devised tests to identify them medicines to cure them, today the official term is sexually transmitted disease, or STD; but even this name turns out to be ambiguous, since some of these diseases can be contracted in other ways as well.
Feb.10th 2004. 今天又好了一个段落. Ruth1982啊, 别走了啊, 走了就少了个人看我帖子了.
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Section 1.
Cicerone : A guide, especially one who takes tourists to museums, monuments, or architectural sites and explains what is being seen.
* While in Paris, they placed themselves in the care of a highly recommended cicerone to ensure that they saw and learned what was most noteworthy.
Cicerones ( or ciceroni ) take their name from the Roman statesman and orator Cicero, who was renowned for his long-windedness as well as for his elegant style, though they rarely match his scholarship or eloquence.
Hector : To bully; to intimidate or harass by bluster or personal pressure.
* He would swagger around the apartment entrance with his friends and hector the terrified inhabitants going in and out.
In the Iliad, Hector was the leader of the Trojan forces, and the very model of nobility and honor. In the war against the Greeks he killed several great warriors before being slain by Achilles. His name began to take on its current meaning only after it was adopted by a crowd of bullying young rowdies in late 17th century London.
Hedonism : An attitude or way of life based on the idea that pleasure or happiness should be the chief goal.
* In her new spirit of hedonism she went for a massage, picked up champagne and chocolate truffles, and made a date with an old boyfriend for that evening.
Derived from the Greek word for “please,” hedonism over the ages has provided the basis for several philosophies. The ancient Epicureans and the more modern Utilitarians both taught and pursued hedonistic principles. Hedonism is often said to be more typical of those living in southern and tropical climates than of northerners, but it varies greatly from person to person everywhere.
Nestor : A senior figure or leader in one’s field.
* After dinner the guest of honor, a nestor among journalists, shared some of his wisdom with the other guests.
Nestor was another character from the Iliad, the eldest of the Greek leaders at Troy. He was noted for his wisdom and his talkativeness, both of which increased as he aged. These days a nestor need not go on at such length; he may share his knowledge or give advice with few words.
Spartan : Marked by simplicity and often strict self-discipline or self-denial.
* His Spartan life bore no relation to the lush language of his poetry.
In ancient times, the Greek city of Sparta had a reputation for enforcing a highly disciplined, severe way of life among its citizens so as to keep them ready for war at any time. The city required physical training for men and women and maintained a common dining hall and communal child care, but provided few physical comforts. The term Spartan today may sometimes suggest communal life ( for example, in the army ) but always signifies strictness and frugality.
向英语高阶迈进．词汇·词源·人文【Word from MYtholoGY & HistorY】, 看得不爽可以骂，骂还不爽就自己看着办
我做这个主题，不是针对大众，而是给同道中人看的。
主要是一些词汇。
有些可能都很熟了，也有些可能很生疏，没关系，词的后面都有不少注释。很多都很精彩。看了就知道，一定让你少长头发！
其实都是出于这本书。
我只是做点打字员的工作。
总共12各部分。1，2，4，--12的部分和主题有关。 3，5 两个部分是关于拉丁词的借用。
还有，这个是连载，慢慢载。一个字一个字锤进电脑很累的。
下面是内容．
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Section 11a.
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Muse : A source of inspiration; a guiding spirit.
* At 8:00 each morning he sat down at his desk and summoned his muse, and she almost always responded.
The Muses were the nine Greek goddesses that presided over the arts (including music) and literature. Their temple was called in Latin the Museum. An artist or poet such as Homer, especially when about to begin work, would call on his particular Muse to inspire him. Today a muse may be one＇s special creative spirit, but some artists have also chosen living human beings to serve as their muses.
P223
这里的解释和词典的中文意思不太一样。例句中有的地方写的很漂亮，summoned his muse, 写的人是不有点牛了？
Muse女神们其实是９个婊子，呵呵。横行霸道喜怒无常。她们的爹是Zeus,老妈是记忆女神Mnemosyne。所以龙生龙，凤生凤，老鼠下的孩子会打洞，按现在的说是基因不好，教育不好，环境不好。因此她们的谬行也是可以理解的。中国的翻译有特点，不错，叫她们作“谬思”女神，让人费解的女神。哈哈。她们的老妈我以后会专门的说。
文章中还给出了Museum的来源，是她们的庙。
对了要把这九个叽叽喳喳的女神例一下，因为以后有几个重要的还有专门介绍．
Euterpe－－－－ (music) Calliope －－－－(epic poetry) *
Clio －－－－－－(history) Erato －－－－－(lyric poetry)
Melpomene －－(tragedy) Polyhymnia －－(sacred poetry)
Terpsichore －－(dancing) Thalia －－－－－(comedy)
Urania －－－－(astronomy)
最有意思的是，在《[Section 2] Greco-Roman Tradition, [第二章] 希腊与罗马的文化 ——请关注！不断跟贴中！》我们曾hope妹妹帖的那个Sappho of Lesbos 被后人称为第１０个Muse,因为她的lyric poetry写的太好了（不怕神嫉吗？）。
Iridescent : Having a glowing, rainbowlike play of color that seems to change as the light shifts.
* The children shrieked with glee as they blew iridescent soap bubbles into the gentle breeze.
Iris, the Greek goddess of the rainbow, took messages from Mount Olympus to earth, and from gods to mortals or other, using the rainbow as her stairway. Iridescence is thus the glowing, shifting colorful quality of a rainbow, also seen in an opal, a light oil slick, a butterfly wing, or the mother-of-pearl that lines an oyster shell.
P224
例句给了我们一幅可爱的画面．呵呵．
彩虹妹妹通常别描写成一个youthful virgin，长俩金色的翅膀。那里都去，天上人间地狱大海。主要工作还是帮宙斯夫妇往人间带信，业余时间还为赫耳墨斯拿拿权杖算是打小工。
在Iliad里面频繁的出现, 但是奇怪的是在Odyssey里面却不见了。因此也也成了怀疑荷马创作的一个线索。
Iris是个好名字，毕竟是彩虹女神同时兼邮差mm的名字. 突然想起了Karen Carpenter的postman.
Mausoleum : (1) A large tomb , especially one built aboveground with shelves for the dead. (2) A large, gloomy building or room.
* The family’s grand mausoleum occupied a prominent spot in the cemetery. For all the good it did the silent dead within.
Mausoleum was ruler of a kingdom in Asia Minor in the 4th century B.C. He beautified the capital, Halicarnassus, with all sorts of fine public buildings, but he is best known for the magnificent monument, the Mausoleum, that was built by his wife Artemisia after his death. The Mausoleum was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Today any large tomb can be called a mausoleum, and so can any big, dark, echoing interior space.
P224
例句有点意思．
Halicarnassus翻作哈利卡那苏斯．这个地方我倒是没去过，你呢？
这个地方一共有２个女王都叫Artemisia，２个都是寡妇，所以才是女王嘛．这里说的到是第２个．她老公是什么人呢？她老公其实没什么名气，主要就是和几个联军打败了雅典方面军，抢了一大片希腊的土地，还有几个岛，然后就把首都从Mylasa（米拉撒）迁到了Halicarnassus．但他一死就出名了，因为她老婆帮他做了个大棺材．请了很多人来帮她雕棺材盖子，有当时希腊最出名的建筑师Satyrus and Pythis还有４个雕塑家Scopas, Leochares, Bryaxis 和 Timotheus．这些人我都不认识．
2003-11-17. noxorc
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Section 11b.
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Mentor : A trusted counselor. Guide, tutor, or coach
* This pleasant old gentleman had served as friend and mentor to a series of young lawyers in the firm.
Odysseus was away from home fighting and journeying for 20 years, according to Homer. During that time, the son he left as a babe in arms grew up under the supervision of Mentor, and old and trusted friend. When the goddess Athena decided it was time to complete young Telemachus’s education by sending him off to learn about his father, she visited him disguised as Mentor and they set out together. From this , anyone such as a coach or tutor who gives another (usually younger) person help and advice on how to achieve success in the larger world is called a mentor.
P224
Odysseus（奥德修斯）是Odyssey 《奥德赛》的主人公，这也就书是叫Odyssey 的原因．这同Iliad 不同．
老奥又称作Ulysses（尤利塞斯），罗马神话里这么叫唤来着．在《奥德赛》里面老奥前面加了个定语，狡黠的．不会空穴来风，和他人是脱不了干系的，否则木马计也不会凭空蹦出来了．
老奥有个老婆叫Penelope，是个好老婆．还有个儿子Telemachus，也是个懂事的孩子．老奥是个幸福的人．
有个法国人就写了本书：The Adventures of Telemachus, Son of Ulysses ，当然目的不是单纯的为了说他儿子好，还是政治背景的．不过里面有很多关于他儿子的事体．
最后再说一下：Odyssey这个此现在也有了自己的意思，意思为长时间的冒险旅行．
比如８０年代的时候有部科幻片叫2010,a new odyssey.
Narcissism : (1) Extreme self-centeredness or fascination with oneself. (2) Love or desire for one’s own body.
* His girlfriend would complain about his narcissism, saying be spent more time looking in the mirror than looking at her.
Narcissus was a handsome youth in Greek mythology who inspired love in many who saw him. One was the nymph Echo, who could only repeat the last thing that anyone said. When Narcissus cruelly rejected her, she wasted away to nothing but her voice. Though he played with the affections of others, Narcissus became a victim of his own attractiveness. When he caught sight of his own reflection in a pool, he sat gazing at it in fascination, wasting away without food or drink, unable to touch or kiss the image he saw. When he finally died, the gods turned him into a flower, a narcissus, that stands with its head bent as though gazing at its own reflection. From this myth comes the name of a psychological disorder, narcissism, which is the excessive love of oneself, as well as a more common type of vanity and self-centeredness.
P225
美丽的神话？Narcissus的死有很多说法，有不吃不喝活活饿死的，伤心欲绝痛苦死的，掉河到里淹死的，多的很．反正死了，而且是看到自己的倒影死的．死得好，呱呱叫．
现在说说Echo了．先说说Echo怎么会变的只会echo别人的．
Echo原来是赫拉这个婊子的随从，专帮赫拉说话解闷来着，Echo有个本领就是能连续不断的说，连续不断的吹！够牛的！话白了就是唠唠叨叨．赫拉有个毛病，爱妒嫉．喜欢捉他老公宙斯的奸．但是谁愿意带一个唠叨婆一起去捉奸？所以赫拉就把Echo变成了只能echo了．只要赫拉不说话Echo就会发出声音．我看到Echo的时候总会想起我们的三藏法师．
其实在神话里，她被塑造成一个活泼美丽可爱但成熟的女子的形象．不过结局很可怜，大家都看到了，人都没了，只留下了声音回荡在耳边．凄凉！和《海的女儿》一样啊，同样也看出希腊神话对西方文化的影响．
daffodil这个词也是水仙的意思．和上面那个不同的是这个是从拉丁文出来的，科学味重了点．上面是希腊文来得．哪个场合用哪个词要斟酌了．
Tantalize : To tease or torment by offering something desirable but keeping it out of reach.
* The sight of a warm fire through the window tantalized the little match girl almost unbearably.
Tantalus, according to Greek mythology, killed his son Pelops and offered him to the gods in a stew for dinner. Almost all of the gods realized what was happening and refused the meal, but Demeter took a nibble out of Pelops’s shoulder. The gods reconstructed Pelops, replacing the missing shoulder with a piece of ivory, and then punished Tantalus. In Hades he stands in water up to his neck under a tree laden with fruit. Each time he stoops to drink, the water moves out of reach; each time he reaches up to pick something, the branches move beyond his grasp. He is thus eternally tantalized by the water and fruit. Today anything or anyone that tempts but is unobtainable is tantalizing.
P225
例句出自卖女孩的小火柴．
在希腊神话中Tantalus不是个好东西．做过不少伤天害理的事．可以用这个词evildoer来形容．
在Demeter这里有个问题，为什么别的神都不吃，而就她吃了呢？
原因是这样的：Demeter和我们的宙斯生了个女儿叫Persephone，张的漂亮，被冥王抢去做了压寨夫人．Demeter就是为了这个事情而在烦心，所以一个没留神就中埋伏了．
之后，Persephone当然被他妈妈救出来了，毕竟哪个妈妈也不想自己的女儿嫁到阎王爷那里去．但是Hades不是好惹的．在把老婆交出去之前，骗她吃了６粒石榴子pomegranate seed．接着两股强强势力就坐下来谈斤两了．
谈判的结果是Persephone获得自由了，但由于６粒石榴子的力量让她不得不会到阴间去做６个月阎王婆每年．在他会来晒太阳的６个月，庄稼丰收鱼粮满仓；在她做女阎王的６个月，田地荒芜寸草不生．这也就是她２重性格的来源．
tantalus还有一个意思，叫做酒架子．这是中有铁条锁住的透明架子，目的是防止仆人偷酒．我想大家都知道的．
Thespian : (1) An actor. (2) Having to do with the drama; dramatic.
* in summer the towns of New England welcome troupes of thespians dedicated to presenting plays of all kinds.
Greek drama was originally entirely performed by choruses. Literary tradition says that Thespis, the Greek dramatist, was inventor of tragedy and the first to write roles for the individual actor as distinct from the chorus. Thespians fill all the roles in more modem plays. Thespian is also an adjective; thus we can speak of “thespian ambitions” and “thespian traditions,” for example.
225
这是个好词．有tragic的意思,但是这里没提到．
Thespis据说是第一个演员．但他发明的悲剧是无可置疑的．
他的东西不多说，在《[Section 2] Greco-Roman Tradition[第二章] 希腊与罗马的文化》 中会详细介绍。
这里我要吹吹我们的莎士比亚。以前有个说法：莎士比亚其人是杜撰的，是某某人的笔名。这当然是个论点。在接着的论据里面就设计到我们Thespian 这个词了。说Shaken 或Sceacan 加上Thespian 这个词，创造了我们的Shakespeare,意为惊人的剧作或什么别的。惊人的＂发现＂．
这是种说法，听过算过，shakespeare的一生的确有很多问号，培根的后人就称老莎是培根的笔名。但唯一没有问号的就是，那３７部巨作给人类文明带来的巨大贡献。让我不敢仰视。
Zephyr : (1) A breeze from the west. (2) a gentle breeze.
* Columbus left Genoa sailing against the zephyrs that continually blow across the Mediterranean.
The ancient Greeks called the west wind Zephyrus and regarded him and his fellow winds as gods. A zephyr is a kind wind, bringer of clear skies and beautiful weather, though is may occasionally be more than a soft breeze.
P226
奇怪！看到Zephyr想到了Percy.B.Shelley,牛头不对马嘴啊！中文意识在作怪。
Zephyr还可以经常看到另一个意思：Something is airy, insubstantial, or passing.很美的词．
接着说说Cristóbal Colón .
Crisoforo Colombo 是个不太收欢迎的人．道理很简单：西班牙人不喜欢他，因为他没有带会半个香料和黄金； 印第安人的不喜欢他，因为他带来的只有灾祸；他的船员不喜欢他，因为他太苛刻而没有回报；他自己也不喜欢自己，因为四次远行一次比一次更失败．最后在极度失意中死掉liao，直到他死他还是认为他＂发现＂的是印度．莫名奇妙的印第安人给突然莫名其妙的按上了印度教。现在还在错着，而且还将继续下去，没完没了了。
没过两年，就有个人声称Colombo发现的不是印度．这个人就是Americus Vespucius ，这也就是America的来源了．
其实，老哥不是第一个发现美洲的人．在他第一个到达前我们的印第安兄弟已经在上面安居乐业了很久．他也不是第一个到达的欧洲人，１１世纪的时候维京强盗已经划着小舢板在那里藏过宝藏了．小哥只能说是第一个掀开美洲征服史的人．
一个血与泪的征服史．slavery, genocide, and the wholesale destruction of indigenous cultures, that's the guilt.
不能都怪小哥，小哥已经很可怜了。要怪只能怪我们自己是 Son of Seven Sins. 要怪只能怪我们是 just mortal, 要怪只能怪我们 still live 在人间.
在美国有这样一个节日，目的是庆祝小哥发现他们住的地方．Oct 12nd . 不过现在知道的人已经不多，大家把哥伦布渐渐忘记了．
2003-11-19. noxorc
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拿起剪子跟我来．
Section 10.
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Cereal : (1) A plant that produces grain that can be eaten as food, or the grain it produces. (2) The food mad from grain.
* Rice is the main food cereal grown in Asia, whereas wheat is the main food cereal of the West.
The Roman goddess Ceres (the Greek Demeter) was a serene goddess who did not take part in the quarrels of the other gods. She was in charge of the food-giving plants, and the grains came to carry her name. Cereals of the Romans included wheat, barley, spelt, oats, and millet, but not corn (maize), which was a cereal of the Americas.
P203
Junoesque : Having mature, poised, and dignified beauty.
* In 1876, as a centennial gift, the French sent to America a massive statue of a robed Junoesque figure representing Liberty.
Juno was the wife of Jupiter, the chief of the Roman gods. She was a matron, mature and well filled out. Her presence was imposing; her authority as wife of Jupiter and her power in her own right gave her particular dignity. But the younger Diana, goddess of the hunt, perhaps came closer to today’s ideals of slim and athletic female beauty.
P204
Martial : Having to do with war and military life.
* The stirring, martial strains of “The British Grenadiers” echoed down the snowy street just as dawn was breaking.
Mar was the Roman god of war and one of the patron gods of Rome itself. He was in charge of everything military, from warriors to weapons to provisions to marching music. Thus, when martial law is proclaimed, a country’s armed forced take over the functions of the police. Martial arts are skills of combat and self-defense also practiced as sport. And a court-martial is a military court of trial.
P204
Promethean : New or creative in a daring way.
* At his best, Steven Spielberg has sometimes shown Promethean originality in the special effects of his movies.
Prometheus was a Titan, a generation older than Zeus. When Zeus overthrew his own father Cronus and seized power, Prometheus fought on the side of the gods and against his fellow Titans. But when Zeus later wanted to destroy the race of humans, Prometheus saved them by stealing fire for them from the gods. He also taught them how to write, farm, build houses, read the stars and weather, cure themselves when sick, and tame animals—in short, all the arts and skills that make humans unique, So inventive was he that anything that bears the stamp of creativity and originality can still be called Promethean. But for his disobedience Zeus had him chained to a rocky cliff, where for many long centuries an eagle daily tore at his liver. Thus, any suffering on a grand scale can also he called Promethean.
P204
Sisyphean : Endless and difficult.
* High-school dropouts usually find getting a good job to be a Sisyphean task.
Reputedly the cleverest man on earth, Sisyphus tricked the gods into bringing him back to life after he died. For this they punished him by sending him back to the underworld, where he must eternally roll a huge rock up a long, steep hill, only to watch it roll back to where he started. Something Sisyphean demands the same kind of unending, thankless, and ultimately unsuccessful efforts.
P204
Titanic : Having great size, strength, or power; colossal.
* the titanic floods of 1993 destroyed whole towns on the Mississippi River.
The ocean liner Titanic was named for its unmatched size and strength and its assumed unsinkability. But a truly titanic iceberg ripped a fatal hole in the great ship on its maiden voyage in 1912, and more than 1,500 people perished in the
icy waters off Newfoundland. In Greek mythology, the original Titans also came to a bad end. They belonged to the generation of giant creators that produced the younger, stronger, cleverer gods, who soon overpowered and replaced them (see Promethean above).
P205
Triton : (1) A being with a human upper body and the lower body of a fish; a merman. (2) Any of various large mollusks with a heavy, conical shell.
* In one corner of the painting, a robust Triton emerges from the sea with his conch to announce the coming of the radiant queen.
Triton was originally the son of the sea god Poseidon/Neptune. A guardian of the fish and other creatures of the sea, he is usually shown as hearty, muscular, and cheerful. Like his father, he often carries a trident (a three-pronged fork) and sometimes rides in a chariot drawn by seahorses. Blowing on his conch shell, he creates the roar of the ocean. As a decorative image, Tritons are simply the male version of mermaids. The handsome seashells that bear his name are the very conchs on which he blows. Triton ha also given his name to the planet Neptune’s largest moon.
P205
Vulcanize : To treat crude or synthetic rubber or plastic so that it becomes elastic and strong and resists decay.
* The native islanders had even discovered how to vulcanize the rubber from the local trees in a primitive way.
The Roman god Vulcan (the Greek Hephaestus) was in charge of fire and the skills that use fire, especially blacksmithing. When Charles Goodyear accidentally discovered how to vulcanize rubber in 1893, he revolutionized the rubber industry. He called his process vulcanization because it used fire to heat the rubber (before the addition of sulfur and other ingredients). His discovery influenced the course of the Civil War, when balloons made of this new, stronger rubber carried Union spies over the Confederate armies.
P205
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Section 9.
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Arachnid : A member of the class Arachnida, which principally includes animals with four pairs of legs and no antennae, such as spiders, scorpions, mites, and ticks.
* My interest in arachnids began when I used to watch spiders build their gorgeous webs in the corners of the porch.
The Greek word for “spider” is arachne . According to Greek mythology, the original arachnid was a girl, Arachne. Like all good Greek girls, she spent much of her time weaving, but she made the misktake of claiming she was a better weaver than the goddess by showing the gods at their worst in the pattern she wove. As punishment, Athena changed Arachne into a spider, fated to spend her life weaving.
Calliope : A musical instrument similar to an organ in which whistles are sounded by steam or compressed air.
* The town’s old calliope, with its unmistakable sound, summoned them to the fair every summer.
To the ancient Greeks, the muses were nine goddesses, each of whom was the spirit of oneor more of the arts and sciences. Calliope was the muse of heroic or epoc poetry and responeible for inspiring poets to write epics such as the Iliad and the Odyssey. Since these were generally sung and were usually every long, she wasresponsible for a great deal of musical reciting. When the hooting musical calliope was invented in America around 1835, her name seemed natural for it. Calliopes gave a festive air to river showboats; the loudest of them could supposedly be heard eight miles away. Today they are only heard on merry-go-rounds and at circuses.
Dryad : A wood nymph.
* The Greeks’ love of trees can be seen in their belief that every tree contained a dryad, which died when the tree was cut.
The term dryad comes from the Greek word for “oak tree.” As the Greeks saw it, every tree (not only oaks) had a spirit. The myth of Daphne tells of a young woman who chose to become a dryad in order to escape an unwanted suitor, the god Apollo. Pursued by Apollo, she transformed herself into a laurel tree.
Fauna : Animal life, especially the animals that live naturally in a given area or environment.
* In biology class they examined the fauna of the meadow next to the school.
Faunus and Fauna were the Roman nature god and goddess, part goat and part human, who were in charge of animals. Their helpers, who look just like them, are called fauns, perhaps the most famous depiction of a faun is Debussy’s orchestral work “Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun,” which was turned into a ballet by the great Russian dancer Nijinsky.
Flora : Plant life, especially the flowering plants that live naturally in a specific area or environment.
* Scientists are busily identifying the flora of the Amazon rain forest before the rapid expansion of the commercial interests consumes it.
The Roman Flora, which means “flower,” was the goddess of spring and flowering plants, especially wildflowers and plants not raised for food. She was shown as a beautiful young woman in a long, flowing dress with flowers in her hair and cascading across her shoulders. English preserves her name in such words as floral, floret, and flourish.
Herculean : (1) Extremely strong. (2) Extremely extensive, intense, or difficult.
The whole family now faced the herculean task of cleaning out the attic.
The hero Hercules (in Greek, Heracles) had to perform twelve enormously difficult tasks, or “labors,” to pacify the wrath of the god Apollo. Any job or task that is extremely difficult or calls for enormous strength, therefore, is called herculean.
Pandora’s box : A source of many troubles.
* Raising the issue of a new tax opened a real Pandora’s box of related economic problems.
The beautiful woman Pandora was created by the gods to punish the human race because Prometheus had stolen fire from heaven, As a gift, Zeus gave Pandora a box, but told her never to open it. However, as soon as he was out of sight she took off the lid, and out swarmed all the troubles of the world. Only Hope was left in the box, stuck under the lid. Anything that seems harmless but when opened or investigated brings forth problems is called a Pandora’s box.
Scylla and Charybdis : Two equally dangerous alternatives.
* As always, they feel caught between Scylla and Charybdis as they try to hold down costs while still investing for the future.
Scylla and Charybdis were two monsters in Greek mythology who endangered shipping the Strait of Messina between Italy and Sicily. Scylla, a female monster with twelve feet and six heads, each with pointed teeth, barked like a dog from the rocks on the Italian side. Charybdis lived under a huge fig tree on the Sicilian side and caused a whirlpool by swallowing the waters of the sea. Being caught between Scylla and Charybdis is a lot like being between a rock and a hard place.
2003-11-26 noxorc
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Section 8.
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Aeolian harp : A box with strings that produce musical sounds when wind blows on them.
* Poets have long been fascinated by the aeolian harp because it is an instrument that produces music without a human performer.
Aeolus was the king or guardian of the wind, according to the ancient Greeks. He lived in a cave with his many, many sons and daughters, and sent forth whatever wind Zeus asked for. When Odysseus stopped there on his way home from Troy, he received a bag of winds to fill his sails. His men, however, opened the bag and released them all while he was asleep, and the raging winds blew them all the way back to their starting point. An aeolian harp produces enchanting harmonies when the wind passed over it. According to Homer, it was the god Hermes who invented the harp, by having the wind blow over the dried sinews attached to a tortoise shell.
Cynosure : (1) A guide. (2) A center of attention.
* Whenever the latest hot young rock star enters the nightclub, he becomes the cynosure of the assembled crowd.
Cynosure means “dog’s tail” in Greek and Latin. In those languages it was the name for the constellation Ursa Minor, or the Little Bear, whose tail is formed by the North Star. The North Star has always been a trusty guide for travelers, especially sailors, because unlike the other stars, it always remains in the same position in the northern sky. So cynosure came to mean both “guide” and “center of attention.”
Laconic : Using extremely few words.
* Male movie stars usually don’t have a lot of dialogue to learn because most scripts seem to call for laconic leading man who avoid conversation.
Ancient Sparta was located in the region known as Lanconia. The disciplined and militaristic Spartans were known for using no more words than they had to. So this terse, abrupt way of speaking became known as laconic after them and their territory.
Mnemonic : Having to do with the memory; assisting the memory/
* Sales-training courses recommend mnemonic devices as a way of remembering peoples’ names.
The Greek word for memory is mnemosyne; something that helps the memory is therefore a mnemonic aid. Such snappy mnemonic devices as KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid) or Every Good Boy Does Fine (for the notes on the lines of a musical staff with a treble clef) help to recall simple rules or complicated series that might otherwise slip away.
Platonic : (1) Relating to the philosopher Plato or his teachings. (2) Involving a close relationship from which romance and sex are absent.
* The male and female leads in many situation comedies keep their relationship platonic for the first few seasons, but romance almost always wins out in the end.
The philosopher Plato taught that all objects here on earth are pale imitations of their ideal form, just as a shadow is a weak imitation of the real object or a painting fails to capture true reality. This true form has come to be called the “Platonic dialogues.” Because these philosophers and their students were all male, and because Socrates in the dialogues sometimes goes to great lengths to avoid committing homosexual acts, despite his desires, close but nonsexual friendship between two people who might be thought to be romantically attracted to each other is today known as platonic love or friendship.
Sapphic : (1) Lesbian. (2) Relating to a poetic verse pattern associated with Sappho.
* The Roman poets Catullus and Horace composed wonderful lover poems in sapphic verse.
Sappho wrote poems of passion and self-reflection, some of them directed to the women attending the school she conducted on the Greek island of Lesbos around 600 B.C. The poems were written in an original rhythmical pattern, which has become known as sapphic verse. The island of Lesbos also gave its name to lesbianism, which is sometimes called sapphic love.
Socratic: Having to do with the philosopher Socrates or with his teaching method, in which he systematically questioned the student in conversation in order to draw forth truths.
* The professor fascinated some students but annoyed others with her Socratic method of teaching, which required them to listen think, and participate in class.
Socrates lived in Greece in the 5th century B.C. He left no writings behind, so all that we know of him is through the writings of his disciple Plato. Today he is most remembered for his method of teaching by asking questions. His name survives in terms such as Socratic induction, which is a method of gradually arriving at generalizations through a process of questions and answers, and Socratic irony, in which the teacher pretends ignorance, but questions his students skillfully to make them aware of their errors in understanding.
Solecism : (1) A grammatical mistake in speaking or writing. (2) A blunder in etiquette or proper behavior.
* The poor boy committed his first solecism immediately on entering by tracking mud over the Persian rug in the dining room.
In ancient Asia Minor, there was a city called Soloi where the inhabitants spoke Greek that was full of grammar or in formal social behavior has hence come to be known as a solecism. Such things as saying “ain’t” or “they was” or using the hostess’s best bath towel to dry off the dog are solecisms. The earth won’t shatter from such acts, but sometimes a few nerves will.
2003-11-27 noxorc
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Section 7.
Achilles'heel : A vulnerable point.
* Grafton had been an excellent manager in his first years there, but his Achilles' heel turned out to be his addiction to increasingly damaging drugs.
When the hero Achilles was an infant, his sea-nymph mother dipped him inti the river Styx to make him immortal. But since she held him by one heel, this spot did not touch the water and so remained mortal and vulnerable. It was this heel where Achilles was everntually mortal and vulnerable. It was the heel where Achilles was eventually mortally wounded. Today, the tendon that stretches up the calf from each heel is called the Achilles tendon; however, the term Achilles' heel is onlu used figuratively; thus, it can refer to the weakest point in a country's military defenses, or a person's tendency to drink too much, for example.
arcadia : A region or setting of rural pleasure and peacefulness.
* The Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania are a vacationer's acadia.
Arcadia, a beautiful rural area in Creece, became the favorite setting for poems about naive and ideal innocence unaffected by the passions of the larger world. There, shepherds play their pipes and sigh with longing for flirtatious nymphs; shepherdesses sing to their flocks, and goat-footed nature gods cavort in the fields and woods.
Cassandra : A person who predicts misfortune or disaster.
* The newspaper columnist was accused of being a Cassandra who always looked for the worst and predicted disaster, despited the fact that his predictions often came true.
Cassandra, the daughter of King Priam of Troy, was one of those beautful young maidens with whom Apollo fell in love. He gave her the gife of prophecy on return for the promise of her sexual favors, but at the last minute she refused him. Though he could not take back his gift, he pronounced that no one would ever believe her predictions. Thus, her prophecy of the fall of Troy and the death of its heroes were laughed at the Trojans. A modern-day Cassandra goes around predictiong gloom and doom, kike many current economists with their constant pessimistic forecasts.
cyclopean : Huge or massive.
* The scale of the new ten-block high-rise medical center was cyclopean.
The Cyclops of Greek mythology were hug, crude giants, each with a single eye in the middle of his forehead. Odysseus had a terrible encounter with one of these creatures in his travels, and escaped being devoured only by blinding the monster with a burning stick. The great stone walls at such places as Troy, Tiryns, and Mycenae are called cyclopean because the stones are so massive and the construction so expert that it was assumed that only a superhuman race such as the Cyclops could have achieved such a feat.
Jan. 20th 2004
draconian : Extremely severe or cruel.
* The new president thinks that only draconian spending limits and staff cutbacks can save the ailing company.
The word draconian comes from Draco, the name of a 7th-century B.C. Athenian legislator. Legends and stories about Draco hold that he created a very severe code of laws, which were sometimes said to have been written in blood rather than ink. Today, we use the word draconian in a wide variety of ways, sometimes even referring to something as minor as parking policies. ( Because the word is derived from a person’s name, draconian is often spelled with a capital D. )
myrmidon : A loyal follower, especially one who executes orders unquestioningly.
* Wherever the corporate tycoon went, he was surrounded by myrmidons all too eager to do his bidding.
Achilles’ troops in the Trojan War, called Myrmidons, were created from ants. This insect origin explained their blind obedience to him, their willingness to carry out any order – such as refusing to fight even when it meant many lives would be lost. The Nazis expected all Germans in uniform to exhibit this same unquestioning loyalty and obedience; the postwar Nuremberg trials established the principle that the utter, unthinking obedience of a myrmidon does not excues committing certain crimes against humanity in wartimes.
nemesis : A powerful, frightening opponent or rival who is usually victorious.
* During the 1970s and 1980s Japanese carmakers became the nemesis of the U.S. auto industry.
The Greek goddess Nemesis doled out rewards for noble acts and vengeance for evil ones. The Greeks believed that Nemesis did not always punish an offender right away, but might wait as much as five generations to avenge a crime. But whenever she worked, her cause was always just and her victory sure. Today, a nemesis may or may not be believed to be working justice. So most people agree that the weak economy was George Bush’s nemesis in 1992, even if they voted for him.
Trojan horse : Someone or something that works from within to defeat or undermine.
* Like a Trojan horse, she came back to school with a bad case of the flu that spread rapidly among the other students.
After besieging the walls of Troy for ten years, the Greeks built a huge, hollow wooden horse, secretly filled it with armed warriors, and presented it to the Trojans as a gift for the goddess Athena. The Trojans accepted the offering and took the horse inside the city’s walls. That night, the armed Greeks swarmed out and captured and burned the city. A Trojan horse is thus anything that looks innocent but, once accepted, has power to harm or destroy for example, a computer program that seems helpful but actually works to wipe out data and functions.
Jan 21st 2004 今天系大年夜, 各位新年 tm 快乐.
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section 6.
Augean stable : A condition or place marked by great accumulation of filth or corruption.
* Leaders of many of the newly formed nations of Eastern Europe found that the old governments of their countries had become Augean stables that they must now clean out.
Augean stable most often appears in the phrase “clean the Augean stable,” which usually means “clear away corruption” or perform a large and unpleasant task that has long called for attention.”Augeus, themythical king of Elis, kept great stables that held 3,000 oxen and had not been cleaned for thirty years when Hercules was assigned the job. Thus the word Augean by itself has come to mean “extremely difficult or distasteful,” so we can also refer to Augean tasks or Augean labor, or even Augean clutter. By the way, Hercules cleaned the stables by causing two rivers to run through them.
Croesus : A very rich person.
* H. Ross Perot’s many successful business ventures have made him an American Croesus.
Croesus most often appears in the phrase “rich as Croesus,” which means “extremely rich.” Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft, could fairly be called “rich as Croesus.” Croesus himself was a sixth-century B.C. king of Lydia, an ancient kingdom in what is now Turkey. He conquered many surrounding regions, grew wealthy, and became the subject of many legends.
Dragon's teeth : Seeds of conflict.
* We should realize that we sow dragon’s teeth when we neglect the education of our children.
This term often appears in the phrase “sow dragon’s teeth,” which means to create the conditions for future trouble. In an ancient Greek legend, Cadmus killed a dragon and planted its teeth in the ground. Armed men immediately sprang up from where the teeth were sown and tried to kill him. The goddess Athena directed him to throw a precious stone into their midst and they proceeded to slaughter each other until only the five greatest warriors were left and these became Cadmus’s generals.
Hades : The underground home of the dead in Greek mythology.
* Always careful not to offend, the angry Senator bellowed, “Who in Hades gave out this information about me?”
Hades is both the land of the dead and the god who rules there. Hades (Pluto) the god is the brother of Zeus (Jupiter) and Poseidon (Neptune), who rule the skies and the seas respectively. His own realm is Hades, the region under the earth, full of mineral wealth and fertility and home of the dead. There he rules with his wife Persephone (Proserpina). Hades has become a polite term for hell and often appears in its place, as in the sentence “The restaurant became hotter than Hades after the air conditioner broke down.”
Lethargic : (1) Lazily sluggish. (2) Indifferent or apathetic.
* Once again the long Sunday dinner had left most of the family feeling stuffed and lethargic.
The Greek philosopher Plato wrote that before a dead person could leave Hades to begin a new life, he or she had to drink from the River Lethe, whose name means “forgetfulness” in Greek. One would thereby forget all aspects of one’s former life and the time spent in Hades ( usually pretty awful, according to Plato ). But our word lethargic and the related noun lethargy usually refer not to forgetting but rather to the weak, ghostly state of those who have drunk from Lethe as dead spirits – so weak that they may require a drink of blood before the can even speak.
Midas touch : The talent for making money in every venture.
* For much of his career Donald Trump seemed to possess the Midas touch.
Midas was then legendary king of Phrygia who, when granted one wish by the god Dionysus, asked for the power to turn everything he touched into gold. When he found that even his food and drink turned to gold, he begged Dionysus to take back his gift. The moral of this tale of greed is usually ignored when the term is used today.
Pyrrhic victory : A victory won at excessive cost.
* The coach regarded their win as a Pyrrhic victory, as his best players sustained injuries that would sideline them for weeks.
Pyrrhic victories take their name from Pyrrhic victory, the king of Epirus, an ancient country in northwest Greece. Pyrrhus defeated the Romans at the Battle of Ausculum (279 B.C.) but lost all of his best officers and many men. He is said to have exclaimed after the battle, “One more such victory and we are lost.”
Stygian : Extremely dark, dank, gloomy, and forbidding, like the River Styx.
* When the power went out in the building, the halls and stairwells were plunged in stygian darkness.
The word stygian comes from the name of the River Styx, which was the chief river of the Greek underground world of the dead and which had to be crossed in order to enter this world.
2004, Feb 6th. 刚刚有2个put挂名的斑竹, 逼我吃水仙花. 我好可怜啊, 我好饿啊!
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Section 5.
Now this section is empty, for content of the section don’t concern the words on mythology and history, but on something borrowing from Latin.
However, the words from this section is really fancy, never appear in any place of this BBS, so I am not willing to cut the section off. And I will list them at the end of the material.
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Section 4.
Calypso : A folk song or style of singing of West Indian origin that has a lively rhythm and words that are often made up by the singer.
* If you take a Caribben vacation in December you end up listening to a lot of Christmas carols played to a calypso beat.
In Homer’s Odyssey, the nymph Calypso detains Odysseus for seven years on his way home from the Trojan War. She uses all her wiles to hold him on her lush, hidden island, but he still longs for home. The calypso music of the West Indian islands has the same captivating, bewitching power as the nymph, the lyrics that are often improvised to the melodies, however, often make fun of local people and happenings. Calypso may not have been the original name for this music; it may instead have simply replaced a similar-sounding native Caribbean word.
Odyssey : (1) A long, wandering journey full of trials and adventures. (2) A spiritual journey or quest.
* Their six-month camping trip around the country was an odyssey the would always remember.
Odysseus, the hero of Homer’s Odyssey, spends 20 years traveling home from the Trojan War. He has astonishing adventures and learns a great deal about himself and the world; he even descends to the underworld to talk to the dead. Thus, an odyssey is any long, complicated journey, often a quest for a goal, and may be a spiritual or psychological journey as well as an actual voyage.
Palladium : A precious, silver-white metal related to platinum that is used in electrical contacts and as an alloy with gold to form white gold.
* Most wedding rings today are simple bands of gold, platinum, or palladium.
Pallas Athena was one of the poetical names given to the Greek goddess Athena, although it is no longer clear what Pallas was supposed to mean. When an asteroids belt was discovered between Mars and Jupiter, most of the asteroids were named after figures in Greek mythology, and one of the first to be discovered was named Pallas, in 1803. In the same year, scientists first isolated the element palladium, and they named the new element in honor of the recently discovered asteroid.
Penelope : A modest domestic wife.
* Critics of Hillary Rodham Clinton would perhaps have preferred her to be a Penelope, quietly keeping house and staying out of politics.
In the Odyssey, Penelope waits 20 long years for her husband Odysseus to return from Troy. During that time, she must raise their son and fend off the attentions of numerous rough suitors. She preserves herself for a long time by saying that she cannot remarry until she has finished weaving a funeral shroud for her aging father-in-law; however, what she weaves each day she secretly unravels each night. A Penelope, thus, appears to be the perfect, patient, faithful wife, and she uses her clever intelligence to keep herself that way.
Procrustean : Ruthlessly disregarding individual differences or special circumstances.
* The school’s procrustean approach to education seemed to assume that all children learned in the same way and at the same rate.
Procrustes was a bandit in the Greek tale of the hero Theseus. He ambushed traveler and, after robbing them, made them lie on an iron bed. He would make sure they fit this Procrustean bed by cutting off the parts that hung off the ends or stretching those that were too short. Either way, they died. Something procrustean, therefore, takes no account of individual differences but cruelly and mercilessly makes everything the same.
Protean : (1) Displaying great versatility or variety. (2) Able to take on many different forms or natures.
* He was attempting to become the protean athlete, with contracts to play professional baseball, football, and basketball.
Proteus was the figure in the Odyssey who revealed to Menelaus how to get home to Sparta with the notorious Helen of Troy. Before he would give up the information, though, Menelaus had to capture him – no mean feat, since he had the ability to change into any natural shape he chose. The word protean came to describe this ability to change into many different shapes or to play many different roles in quick succession.
Sibyl : A females prophet or fortune-teller.
* Her mother treated her as if she were the family sibyl, able to predict what fate was about to befall her sisters.
The sibyls were ancient prophetesses who lived in Babylonia, Greece, Italy, and Egypt. The most famous was the Sibyl of Cumae in Italy, a withered crone who lived in a cave. Her prophecies were collected into twelve books, three of which survived to be consulted by the Romans in times of national emergencies. Whether or not she was the first sibyl, her name or title became the term for all such prophets.
Siren : A woman who tempts men with bewitching sweetness.
* Reporters treated her like a sex symbol, but she lacked the graceful presence and air of mystery of a real siren.
The sirens were a group of partly human female creatures in Greek mythology that lured sailors onto destructive rocks with their singing. Odysseus and his men encountered the sirens after leaving Troy. The only way to sail by them safely was to make oneself deaf to their enchanting song, so Odysseus packed the men’s ears with wax. But he himself, ever curious, wanted to hear, so he had himself tied to the mast to keep from flinging himself into the water or steering his ship toward sure destruction. A siren today is almost always a woman, though she need not sing or cause shipwrecks. But a siren song may be any appeal that lures a person to act against his or her better judgment.
Feb. 8th. 2004, in home.
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Section 3.
Same to Section 5, and will be listed at end of all the sections.
keep waiting.
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Section 2.
Apollonian : Harmonious, ordered, rational, calm.
* After years of Romantic emotionality, may artists began to adopt a more apollonian style, producing carefully detailed patterns and avoiding extremes of all kinds.
The god Apollo governed the sun, light, and music. Due partly to the work of Nietzsche and other German scholars, we now associate Apollo with the forces of calm rationality and may call anything that has these qualities apollonian. This is not the whole story, however. Apollo was also the god of prophecy, so he was not entirely a force of reason; he had a terrible temper and an appetite for young girls as well.
Bacchanalian : Frenzied, orgiastic.
* The bacchanal8ian partying on graduation night resulted in three wrecked cars, two lawsuits by unamused parents, and more new experiences than most of the participants could remember the next day.
The Roman god of drama, wine, and ecstasy, Bacchus was the focus of a widespread celebration, the Bacchanalia, at which there was wine in abundance and celebrants were expected to cut loose from normal restraints and give in to all sorts of wild desires/ the festivities got so out of hand that in 186 B.C. the Roman authorities had them banned. Much the same bacchanalian spirit fills New Orleans’s Mardi Gras carnival each year.
Delphic : Unclear, ambiguous, or confusing.
* All she could get from the old woman were a few Delphic comments that left her more confused than ever about the missing documents.
Delphi in Greece was the site of a temple to Apollo at which there was an oracle, a woman through whom Apollo would speak, foretelling the future. The Greeks consulted the oracle frequently on matters both private and public. The prophecies were given in obscure poetry that had to be interpreted by priests, and even then was subject to disastrous misinterpretation. Modem-day descendants of the oracle include some political commentators, who continue to utter words of Delphic complexity each week.
Dionysian : Frenzied, orgiastic.
* Only in the tropics did such festivals become truly Dionysian, he said, which was why he was booking his flight to Rio.
Dionysus was the Greek forerunner of Bacchus. He was the inventor if wine, the first intoxicant, which he gave to the human race. For that gift and for all the uninhibited behavior that it led to, Dionysus became immensely popular, and he appears in a great many myths. He is often shown with a wine goblet, his hair is full of vine leaves, and he is frequently attended by a band of goat-footed satyrs and wild females spirits called maenads. The Greek Dionysian worship began as solemn rituals but eventually became great celebrations with much drunken lewdness.
Feb 9, 2004, 等等吧. 今天心情不好. 就到这里. 有人不让我还我欠银行的钱,但是那些人又不愿意帮我还. 郁闷.
Jovial : Jolly, expansively good-natured.
* Their grandfather was as jovial as their grandmother was generally a cheerful, sociable, fatherly figure, although his anger could destroy offenders in a flash. Every department-store Santa Clasus strives to attain this appearance of generous joviality.
Mercurial : Having rapid and unpredictable change of mood.
* His mother’s always mercurial temper became even more unpredictable, to the point where the slightest thing would trigger a violent fit.
The god mercury and the planet named for him were thought to govern eloquence and cleverness. As the god’s messenger, with his winged cap and sandals, he was the very symbol of speed. The planet Mercury was named for him because it is the fastest of the planets. His name was also given to the liquid silver metal that skitters out of one’s hand so quickly it is almost impossible to hold. A mercurial person isn’t necessarily physically quick, but changes moods with bewildering speed.
Olympian : Lofty, superior, and detached.
* The mafia don’s manner grew increasingly Olympian as he aged but the old-timers could still remember when he was a hotheaded young thing.
The Greek gods lived high atop Mount Olympus, which allowed them to watch what went on in the human realm below and intervene as they saw fit. But they tended not to worry much about the affairs of these weak and short-lived creatures, although they did insist on being properly worshiped by them. We American voters sometimes feel that Congress treats us in an Olympian manner as it determines how our money will be spent.
Venereal : Having to do with sexual intercourse or diseases transmitted by it.
* In the 19th century syphilis especially was often fatal, and venereal diseases killed some of the greatest figures of the time.
Venus was the Roman goddess of love, the equivalent of the Greek Aphrodite. Since she governed all aspects of human sensuality and sexuality, she has given her name to the diseases acquired through sexual contact. Most of these venereal diseases have been around for centuries, but only in this century have doctors devised tests to identify them medicines to cure them, today the official term is sexually transmitted disease, or STD; but even this name turns out to be ambiguous, since some of these diseases can be contracted in other ways as well.
Feb.10th 2004. 今天又好了一个段落. Ruth1982啊, 别走了啊, 走了就少了个人看我帖子了.
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Section 1.
Cicerone : A guide, especially one who takes tourists to museums, monuments, or architectural sites and explains what is being seen.
* While in Paris, they placed themselves in the care of a highly recommended cicerone to ensure that they saw and learned what was most noteworthy.
Cicerones ( or ciceroni ) take their name from the Roman statesman and orator Cicero, who was renowned for his long-windedness as well as for his elegant style, though they rarely match his scholarship or eloquence.
Hector : To bully; to intimidate or harass by bluster or personal pressure.
* He would swagger around the apartment entrance with his friends and hector the terrified inhabitants going in and out.
In the Iliad, Hector was the leader of the Trojan forces, and the very model of nobility and honor. In the war against the Greeks he killed several great warriors before being slain by Achilles. His name began to take on its current meaning only after it was adopted by a crowd of bullying young rowdies in late 17th century London.
Hedonism : An attitude or way of life based on the idea that pleasure or happiness should be the chief goal.
* In her new spirit of hedonism she went for a massage, picked up champagne and chocolate truffles, and made a date with an old boyfriend for that evening.
Derived from the Greek word for “please,” hedonism over the ages has provided the basis for several philosophies. The ancient Epicureans and the more modern Utilitarians both taught and pursued hedonistic principles. Hedonism is often said to be more typical of those living in southern and tropical climates than of northerners, but it varies greatly from person to person everywhere.
Nestor : A senior figure or leader in one’s field.
* After dinner the guest of honor, a nestor among journalists, shared some of his wisdom with the other guests.
Nestor was another character from the Iliad, the eldest of the Greek leaders at Troy. He was noted for his wisdom and his talkativeness, both of which increased as he aged. These days a nestor need not go on at such length; he may share his knowledge or give advice with few words.
Spartan : Marked by simplicity and often strict self-discipline or self-denial.
* His Spartan life bore no relation to the lush language of his poetry.
In ancient times, the Greek city of Sparta had a reputation for enforcing a highly disciplined, severe way of life among its citizens so as to keep them ready for war at any time. The city required physical training for men and women and maintained a common dining hall and communal child care, but provided few physical comforts. The term Spartan today may sometimes suggest communal life ( for example, in the army ) but always signifies strictness and frugality.
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