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#14167 01/11/02 08:55 PM
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Dear Faldage: I have given up buying books. Indications are that I will be unable to read before very long. I have hardly room for computer manuals. Have to throw books away.If I can't find it on Internet, I have to do without.


#14168 01/11/02 09:08 PM
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Dear Dr. Bill

There was mention of an audio tape on the amazon site.


#14169 01/12/02 12:18 AM
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Dear Faldage: thank you for your kind consideration. My hearing is far worse impaired than my vision.That's why AWADtalk is my only form of recreation. I read a couple magazines with a six inch magnifying glass, and can occasionally find a word to use here, but that's it. Probably as the Katzenjammer Kids used to say, I brung it on myself.


#14170 01/12/02 07:35 AM
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What, you didn't believe them when they told you it would make you go blind?


#14171 01/12/02 02:20 PM
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Dear consuelo: At least hair didn't grow on my palms.


#14172 01/13/02 08:05 AM
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With a bit of rooting around in Perseus I found the story of Theseus and Ariadne as told by Apollodorus. The Greek word used was linon, the most relevant dictionary definition of which is cord or fishing-line (http://perseus.csad.ox.ac.uk/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0058:entry=#19760). In Ovid's poem "Letter from Ariadne to Theseus", he uses the Latin word filum, which means thread or string (http://perseus.csad.ox.ac.uk/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0058:entry=#19760. If you're carrying a thread or cord long enough to trace your path through a labyrinth, I suppose the obvious way to carry it is wound up into a ball.

Bingley


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#14173 01/13/02 12:28 PM
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I am an idiot, I forgot to look in the obvious place. Perseus also has Sir Thomas North's translation of Plutarch's life of Theseus (this is the translation Shakespeare used for his plays "Julius Caesar" and "Anthony and Cleopatra"). The relevant part says in English:


Furthermore, after he was arrived in Creta, he slew there the Minotaur (as the most part of ancient authors do write) by the means and help of Ariadne: who being fallen in fancy with him, did give him a clue of thread, by the help whereof she taught him, how he might easily wind out of the turnings and crancks of the labyrinth.


(http://perseus.csad.ox.ac.uk/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus:text:1999.03.0078&query=chapter=#281&layout=&loc=Thes. 18)

Plutarch also uses the Greek word linon I mentioned in my previous post. However, I have this idea that Sir Thomas North did not translate direct from the Greek, but translated a French (?) translation of Plutarch into English.

Also relevant is Chaucer's Legend of Good Women (I had a vague feeling Chaucer wrote about Theseus and found this by googling Chaucer Theseus Ariadne, where I found a reference to the Legend of Good Women amongst all the stuff about the Knight's Tale, which is about a different episode in Theseus's life, and then googling Chaucer Legend of Good Women). Lines 2012 to 2018 read:

And, for the hous is crinkled to and fro,
And hath so queinte weyes for to go --
For hit is shapen as the mase is wroght --
(130) Therto have I a remedie in my thoght,
That, by a clewe of twyne, as he hath goon,
The same wey he may returne anoon,
Folwing alwey the threed, as he hath come.


(http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/OMACL/GoodWomen/ariadne.html)

I'll leave it to someone else to find something on Chaucer's sources for this or to push it further back.

Bingley


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#14174 01/13/02 10:37 PM
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Dear Bingley: That Chaucer site is marvelous. If I read it right, Ariadne and her sister Phedre plot to give Theseus "balls of towe and wax" with which to choke the Minotaur, because in the Labyrinth there is not room to use a sword or spear. The word "clewe of twyne" is also used to help him find his way out, after killing the bull with a dagger (presumably) provided by the jailer.

I wonder why he used both words. Perhaps to fit his meter better?

And we shul make him balles eek also
Of wexe and towe
, that, whan he gapeth faste,
(120) Into the bestes throte he shal hem caste
To slake his hunger and encombre his teeth;
And right anon, whan that Theseus seeth
The beste achoked, he shal on him lepe
To sleen him, or they comen more to-hepe.
2010 This wepen shal the gayler, or that tyde,
Ful privily within the prison hyde;
And, for the hous is crinkled to and fro,
And hath so queinte weyes for to go --
For hit is shapen as the mase is wroght --
(130) Therto have I a remedie in my thoght,
That, by a clewe of twyne, as he hath goon,
The same wey he may returne anoon,
Folwing alwey the threed, as he hath come.
And, what that he this beste hath overcome,
2020 Then may he fleen awey out of this drede,
And eek the gayler may he with him lede,
And him avaunce at hoom in his contree,
Sin that so greet a lordes sone is he.
This is my reed, if that he dar hit tak


#14175 04/25/02 07:10 PM
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#14176 04/25/02 07:22 PM
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may we assume that "swine" means two pigs twisted together?

We may assume anything we please. Sometimes reality has a way of biting us where we least like it.


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