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I saw a mad gaiety in his shadowed eyes
My poem "Tapping the Vine" is now online at Goblin Fruit. It was written for ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
time_shark and tithenai. The turndun is an Australian Aboriginal form of the ritual instrument known in English as a bull-roarer and in classical Greek, as a component of the Dionysian Mysteries, as a rhombos (ῥόμβος). The OED tells me the name is "Native Australian of the Kurnai tribe in Gippsland." I do not know if the language it came from is still extant; I hope so.
On an utterly un-classical topic, How to Train Your Dragon (2010) was quite a bit more awesome than I had been expecting. I had assumed the dragons would be good: they were. (The protagonist dragon is of the feline rather than the purely saurian model, which accords with my tastes; it is also not a wish-fulfillment animal companion.) I had not assumed they would be in the same film as aeronautical engineering, subtle non-stupid gender stuff, and cursing by Odin and Thor. Yes, all right, Northumbrian smallpipes are not particularly Norse, and neither is the tradition of apotropaic names. But the credits song was by Sigur Rós!
And my fever broke sometime this afternoon, so I am going to celebrate by going to bed at a reasonable hour, or at least staying up with The Annotated Hobbit (2002) rather than a thermometer.
time_shark and tithenai. The turndun is an Australian Aboriginal form of the ritual instrument known in English as a bull-roarer and in classical Greek, as a component of the Dionysian Mysteries, as a rhombos (ῥόμβος). The OED tells me the name is "Native Australian of the Kurnai tribe in Gippsland." I do not know if the language it came from is still extant; I hope so.On an utterly un-classical topic, How to Train Your Dragon (2010) was quite a bit more awesome than I had been expecting. I had assumed the dragons would be good: they were. (The protagonist dragon is of the feline rather than the purely saurian model, which accords with my tastes; it is also not a wish-fulfillment animal companion.) I had not assumed they would be in the same film as aeronautical engineering, subtle non-stupid gender stuff, and cursing by Odin and Thor. Yes, all right, Northumbrian smallpipes are not particularly Norse, and neither is the tradition of apotropaic names. But the credits song was by Sigur Rós!
And my fever broke sometime this afternoon, so I am going to celebrate by going to bed at a reasonable hour, or at least staying up with The Annotated Hobbit (2002) rather than a thermometer.
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Love the poem. You do the best damn Dionysian on the planet.
So glad the fever broke. Savor.
Nine
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I think Euripides holds that honor, or at least Mary Renault, but thank you.
So glad the fever broke. Savor.
Well, then it came back. But it went away again . . . (He wasn't there again today.)
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And I'm glad your fever broke!
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Thank you!
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That is a great compliment. Thank you!
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Glad you enjoyed the movie. I've been a bit uncomfortable with it, on the grounds that they seemed to have made such unnecessarily substantial changes from the book. But I can forgive a film much when it uses Northumbrian smallpipes (anachronistic though they be) and has good dragons.
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Thank you!
I've been a bit uncomfortable with it, on the grounds that they seemed to have made such unnecessarily substantial changes from the book.
I am in the rare position of never having read the original books; I understand they're quite different. But what they were adapted into did not register to me as the usual Hollywood bastardization, if that helps.
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You're welcome!
I am in the rare position of never having read the original books; I understand they're quite different. But what they were adapted into did not register to me as the usual Hollywood bastardization, if that helps.
That does help, actually. I've only read the first one, which seemed a charming bit of silly fluff--my aunt, a teacher, discovered it and lent a copy to my mother, who used to be a children's librarian. What I can't understand is why they'd take a book about Vikings who tame dragons and the kid who makes the best of getting stuck with a whimpy one into a movie about Vikings who slay dragons and the kid who somehow manages to befriend/tame a whimpy one.
Oh well. It sounds as if it's worth seeing, all the same, and if they've added girls (I don't remember any as major characters) they've not done ill in all their changing of the story.
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I think the book's premise is the movie's end situation.
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It does sound that way. Now, if they'd decided to make the movie a prequel to the book, it would all make sense.
Any road, I suppose I'll be able to to tell my mother that the movie sounds worth seeing.
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The movie sounded quite good. I fear 3D will make me ill, but that may be worthwhile anyway.
Most of all, I am glad your fever broke. Rest well and enjoy being well.
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Thank you. I am very glad you think so.
The movie sounded quite good. I fear 3D will make me ill, but that may be worthwhile anyway.
We saw it on an ordinary screen at the Waltham Embassy and it was not a noticeable detraction; the textures are beautifully rendered and looked like the sort of immersive effects that are not nausea-making, in any case (unless you react badly to things like Omni films on principle). The dragon is a particularly beautiful creation. It is not anthropomorphic and it is not a fantasized single animal; at different moments it reminds of cat, bat, salamander, falcon, but mostly it is reminiscent of itself.
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Tell me where your subject line is from--I love it.
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Mary Renault's The King Must Die (1958):
The ship approached, all bound with green boughs and wreaths; the mast and oar blades and the beak were gilded, the sail was scarlet. Young girls were singing on the deck, playing the tabor and the pipes, and clashing cymabls. Standing in the prow, girt with a fawnskin, crowned with green ivy and young vine-shoots, stood the King. He was very drunk, with wine and with the god; as he waved to the people, I saw a mad gaiety in his shadowed eyes.
The scene is from the Dionysian Mysteries on Naxos; the novel is a historical retelling of the myth of Theseus. Its cultural dualism—the dark matriarchal pre-Greeks, the fair patriarchal Hellenes—owes more to Graves and Frazer than to the archaeological record, but it is still an excellent novel and my favorite version of the myth. I read it young. It's where I learned this, also:
"Horses go blindly to the sacrifice, but the gods give knowledge to men. When the King was dedicated, he knew his moira. In three years, or seven, or nine, or whenever the custom was, his term would end and the god would call him. And he went consenting, or else he was no king, and power would not fall on him to lead the people. When they came to choose among the Royal Kin, this was his sign: that he chose short life with glory, and to walk with the god, rather than live long, unknown like the stall-fed ox. And the custom changes, Theseus, but this token never. Remember, even if you do not understand . . . It is not the sacrifice, whether it comes in youth or age, or the god remits it; it is not the bloodletting that calls down power. It is the consenting, Theseus. The readiness is all. It washes heart and mind from things of no account, and leaves them open to the god. But one washing does not last a lifetime; we must renew it, or the dust returns to cover us. And so with this. Twenty years I have ruled in Troizen, and four times sent the King Horse to Poseidon. When I lay my hand on his head to make him nod, it is not only to bless the people with the omen. I greet him as my brother before the god, and renew my moira."
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This--is so true, and I've never seen it written in a way that made me see the truth, before. Wow.
Wow--yeah, thank you for this. I've been circling around this issue for days now, and you've just given me the words.
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You're welcome. It's a concept that matters to me, and I read it first in Mary Renault.
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---L.
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You will have to watch the entire movie before you get to Jónsi, but I thought it was worthwhile.
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---L.
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I'm fairly certain Astrid and Ruffnut have to talk to one another about dragons/slaying at some point, because it's pretty much what everyone talks about. Nobody was bothering with talking about boys.
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So, almost.
---L.
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Okay. Thank you for observing.