It Bleeped

Reading Tacitus, I get to a part where this guy dreams there's gold buried under his field. So he runs up to Nero like Chicken Little and says "There's gold in my field!" You can see where this is going. There's no gold. And Nero... well, you know how Nero is. Anyway! So! The translator, A.J. Woodman, is crazy in love with footnotes. There's hardly a page without multiple footnotes at the bottom... or "foot." And are his footnotes dry? I don't know. Is the Sahara dry? I'm assuming the answer is yes, although I can easily imagine a big smart nerd who would tell me otherwise. Anyway, A.J. Woodman's footnotes are so dry they make the Sahara look like the grotto at the Playboy Mansion, as Dennis Miller would put it, causing us all to throw up. But in this singular case, A.J. Woodman's footnote is... whimsical? I don't know what it is. Here, I'll quote it: "'Dream guided treasure hunter to Roman coins' (headline in The Times [London], 11 December 1998)." So that footnote gives us nothing, really. That's not like A.J. Woodman! And really, the Roman coins found in 1998 could not be more different than the gold dreamed of by Caesellius Bassus, which was "not in the form of money but in a raw and ancient mass." (Also, unlike the Roman coins found in 1998, it didn't exist.) I guess A.J. Woodman just thought it was a fun story. It's still a mystery, if so, why he suddenly and very uncharacteristically wanted to be "fun." And certainly it would be going too far to postulate that he put forth the headline from the Times of London as a counternarrative... as if to say, "Hey, sometimes a dream CAN lead you to buried gold! Never give up, kids!" I couldn't find the article (I didn't try too hard), but I found the same story reported in the Irish Independent a full day before the Times of London picked it up. Here's a paragraph: "'In my dream I could see myself in the middle of the field pulling up a haul of coins,' Mr Roberts (46), a plumber, told a treasure trove inquest in Newport, south Wales, yesterday. 'When I had the same dream again a few nights later I took a few hours off and went to the field. I took just two paces and my metal detector bleeped.'" A treasure trove inquest! I didn't know about those. You know what this puts me in mind of? The other day, McNeil told me he had dreamed of salmon patties. And that was weird, because the day before - that is, the day leading to the night of McNeil's dream - I had been thinking about salmon patties! AND... later that night (the night AFTER McNeil's dream), Dr. Theresa - having been privy to neither my salmon patty thoughts nor McNeil's salmon patty dreams - suddenly announced, "I'd like to make salmon patties!"

I Owe You Nothing

I owe you (?) the end of Dolon's tale. Come on, you know Dolon! Everybody's favorite character in THE ILIAD? The man with the polecat on his head? Yes, that Dolon! As if there could ever be another. So last night in bed I came to the conclusion of his sorry plight. Maybe you'll be happy to hear that Diomedes didn't spear him like he spears everybody else. But then I would have to tell you that for a change of pace, Diomedes just chopped Dolon's head right off! And get this: "Dolon's head, still speaking, rolled in the dust." How about that? You know what that reminded me of? Well, lots of things. So many things that I began to worry about myself. For example, I believe there is a scene in AGUIRRE, THE WRATH OF GOD wherein a decapitated head kind of goes "cha cha cha cha" and the eyes look around as if to say, "Hey! What gives?" I am not sure whether the scene in question, if it truly exists, was the wellspring whence arose an inside joke shared by Dr. Theresa and myself, where we sort of... act like a skull going "cha cha cha cha cha cha"? You had to be there. I am also put in mind, though the situation is a bit different, of Sir Everard Digby, referred to by John Aubrey as "the handsomemest man in England." Here, I will save you the trouble of "clicking": "When his heart was pluct out by the executioner (who... cryed 'Here is the heart of a traytor!') it is credibly reported, he replied, 'Thou liest!'" And then there's the execution I read about in Tudor (?) England: "When the executioner held up the head, its eyes and lips moved." Anyway, I can't stop thinking about the "polecat cap," as Emily Wilson calls it. After Diomedes chops off Dolon's head, he grabs the polecat cap and dedicates it as an offering to Athena. Just what Athena wanted!

A Swarm of Bees

I was reading THE ILIAD last night and here come Diomedes and Odysseus, sneaking off to spy on the Trojans. As encouragement, Athena sends along a "dark night heron." And I was like what? No! It should have been an owl! I don't mean to tell Homer how to do his job. And now I'm going to tell you something else, but wait. What about this Diomedes? I had no memory of him from however much I made it through THE ILIAD last time. This guy! I don't know. His self-confidence gets on my nerves. He just goes around spearing everybody like they were Vienna sausages. And when you get him out of bed, he puts something on: a whole lion he happens to have "lyin'" around, ha ha. That's my own clever wordplay, not Emily Wilson's. When I typed it, I thought, "I must be exaggerating!" So I double checked. And (now I will quote Emily Wilson's translation) "Diomedes wrapped around his shoulders a massive golden full-length lion skin." Okay! Gross! Later on, he's tormenting a poor Trojan who's wearing a polecat on his head. What a contrast! You can see why Diomedes irritates me. You strut around in your lion suit running your spear through everybody you meet and this other guy's wearing a polecat for a hat, give him a break! Now, "polecat" is Emily Wilson's word, and it's what my grandfather in Alabama called a skunk. I was like... is this guy wearing a skunk on his head like Davy Crockett? (I know Davy Crockett didn't wear a skunk on his head. But if you ever really study the TV show, he is wearing an ENTIRE raccoon on his head. Freeze a frame and you can see its poor exed-out eyes. But don't do it! It's very troubling.) So I looked it up, even though I long ago vowed never to look anything up, and I assume she means... well, I don't know. I didn't look up much after all. I did see that the European polecat has anal scent glands, so good for him. And I don't think Emily Wilson implies the guy is wearing a whole polecat. But really what I want to mention is that I finished Gombrowicz and returned to Tacitus as promised. So you can breathe a sigh of relief! Over here in Tacitus, Rome is having some bad times, accompanied by the usual signs and portents. You know how that is! "The Capitol was occupied by ominous birds." I know what you're thinking! You're thinking I wish or assume that these ominous birds were owls. But I don't care. You don't know me at all! I just like the phrase: "The Capitol was occupied by ominous birds." A little later, some more bad times come up and "on the pinnacle of the Capitol a swarm of bees took up occupation."