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#137520 - 01/20/05 11:59 AM Mules in Greece?
Wordwind Offline
Carpal Tunnel


Registered: 09/30/01
Posts: 6296
Loc: Piedmont Region of Virginia, U...
I'm reading the Odyssey for a class I teach--and in Book VI, there's a passage translated by Robert Fagles in reference to Nausicaa about to go take her laundry out to the river:

"With that
he [Alcinous] called to the stablemen and they complied.
They trundled the wagon out now, rolling smoothly,
backed the mule-team into the traces, hitched them up,
while the princess[Nausicaa] brought her finery from the room
and piled it into the wagon's polished cradle."

I'm surprised by this translation and wonder at its accuracy. Could there have been mules as far back as 800 B.C. or so?

Also, it would be good to know what a wagon's cradle is, but I can look that up.
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#137521 - 01/20/05 02:24 PM Re: Mules in Greece?
Wordwind Offline
Carpal Tunnel


Registered: 09/30/01
Posts: 6296
Loc: Piedmont Region of Virginia, U...
I did find a site that indicated that mules were used on the desert in ancient Egypt.

So, that's that. Sorry, but I lost the url.
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#137522 - 01/31/05 07:05 PM Re: Mules in Greece?
Zed Offline
Pooh-Bah


Registered: 08/27/02
Posts: 1661
Loc: British Columbia, Canada
I should think that mules came along shortly after the first time some early farmer left a she donkey and a he horse alone together. I doubt it was intentional but I also doubt if the farmer objected.
do you think he originally called it a honkey or a dorse like the cross bred dog namers do.


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#137523 - 01/31/05 07:33 PM Re: Mules in Greece?
maverick Offline
Carpal Tunnel


Registered: 09/15/00
Posts: 4683
Am I the only one here who saw the subject line and thought of McDonalds?!
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#137524 - 02/01/05 07:11 AM Re: Mules in Greece?
Faldage Offline
Carpal Tunnel


Registered: 12/01/00
Posts: 11418
the only one here

I most certainly hope so.
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#137525 - 02/01/05 07:34 AM Re: Mules in Greece?
maverick Offline
Carpal Tunnel


Registered: 09/15/00
Posts: 4683
> hope so.

oh, good - wouldn't want to turn it into a cookery thread! ;)
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