How the Shroud for Laertes became the robe of Odysseus

2000 ◽  
Vol 50 (2) ◽  
pp. 331-337
Author(s):  
William Whallon
Keyword(s):  
Evil Spirit ◽  
The Sun ◽  
The Web ◽  
As If

This paper builds an argument against R. D. Dawe, who believes that one of the most famous of all stories is inauthentic and badly told. In his notes on ‘When she showed the robe, after weaving the great web, washing it so that it looked like the sun or moon, then it was that an evil spirit brought Odysseus from somewhere’, Dawe remarks that the web story ‘hardly belongs’ in the Odyssey, and asks: ‘Why “showed”? And to whom? Why the otiose addition of “after weaving the great web”, as if we had not just been talking about that very thing? Answers to these questions will be given in my final paragraph.To look closely into the epics, and if possible behind them, I will say a word about distinguishing the pre-text from the text. First, oral poets would enlarge and otherwise reshape their material, not always with flawless technique. It may be true but cannot be proven that one such poet, more than any other, created the Iliad, and that the same one, or a different one, more than any other, created the Odyssey.

A Clock in the Sun?

2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (S354) ◽  
pp. 127-133
Author(s):  
C. T. Russell ◽  
J. G. Luhmann ◽  
L. K. Jian
Keyword(s):  
Sunspot Number ◽  
Solar Minimum ◽  
Sunspot Cycle ◽  
Solar Dynamo ◽  
The Sun ◽  
Average Period ◽  
Magnetic Cycle ◽  
Number Cycle ◽  
As If

AbstractThe sunspot cycle is quite variable in duration and amplitude, yet in the long term, it seems to return to solar minimum on schedule, as if guided by a clock with an average period of close to 11.05 years for the sunspot number cycle and 22.1 years for the magnetic cycle. This paper provides a brief review of the sunspot number cycle since 1750, discusses some of the processes controlling the solar dynamo, and provides clues that may add to our understanding of what controls the cadence of the solar clock.

As if our friends felt the sun for us

2012 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 472-475
Author(s):  
Georgina Kleege
Keyword(s):  
The Sun ◽  
As If

The Gaze in Polybius' Histories

1991 ◽  
Vol 81 ◽  
pp. 10-24 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Davidson
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Roman History ◽  
The Sun ◽  
The Gaze ◽  
Roman Imperialism ◽  
Unitary Reality ◽  
As If

Summarizing Polybius' contribution to the study of Roman history, Mommsen paid him the following compliment: ‘His books are like the sun in the field of Roman history; where they begin, the misty veils which still cloak the Samnite and Pyrrhic wars are lifted, where they finish, a new and if possible still more vexatious twilight begins.’ Since Mommsen our understanding of Polybius' methods, his bias and omissions, his ideology and concerns, has progressed immeasurably, thanks largely to the work of Pédech and Walbank. Nevertheless, the idea that the Histories represent, at least in their conception, the illumination of an intrinsic reality persists. Polybius' supposed ‘poor style’ is often treated as in some way an absence of historiographical mediation. In this case, ‘transparency’ in a text, the sensation that it provides unmediated access to what it describes, is achieved not by a smooth and inconspicuous style, but by coarseness. Tarn compared Polybius' work to rescripts and despatches, as if he were only interested in an unobtrusive recording role, and this attitude to the historian, far from being in decline, has received some radical and authoritative support in recent years. One reappraisal of Roman imperialism has argued that Polybius was much closer to the reality of the process than many twentieth-century historians. Another study claims to ‘want to say no more than what Polybius said’. Ultimately, I have no argument with those who stress Polybius' honesty and reliability. More problematic, however, is an attitude to our use of Polybius' history which is often assumed in eulogies of his truthfulness: that when we read Polybius, we are enabled to gaze directly on the landscape of Roman history, a single substantial unitary reality, structured out of objective facts.

Of Secrets and Supper Parties

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julian Swann
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Sun ◽  
Political Crises ◽  
Changing Patterns ◽  
Louis Xv ◽  
As If

The court of Louis XV has been depicted as if it was a dusty museum, re-enacting the rituals and ceremonies of the Sun King, but without any vitality as cultural pre-eminence passed to Paris. Using the perspective of disgrace, this chapter takes a fresh look at the court in the eighteenth century, and argues that Louis XV showed dexterity in managing his court using intermediaries and access to his person in intimate settings such as his famous supper parties. Versailles was not immune to change, and in the course of the king’s reign the court experienced a form of ‘politicization’ resulting from changing patterns of ministerial recruitment and the influence of the political crises in the parlements. The infamous Revolution of 1771 demonstrates how Louis XV used his power to divide the opposition to his policies and to uphold his position as the head of the House of Bourbon.

The Need for the Psychological Study of Clinical Death

1971 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carol Pandey
Keyword(s):  
Clinical Death ◽  
The Sun ◽  
Psychological Study ◽  
As If

“Why dost thou not tell us what happened in the beyond?” And all grew silent, startled by the question. It was as if it occurred to them only now that for three days Lazarus had been dead, and they looked at him, anxiously awaiting his answer. But Lazarus kept silence. For three days had he been dead; thrice had the sun risen and set, but he had been dead; children had played, streams had murmured over pebbles, the wayfarer had stirred up the hot dust in the highroad … but he had been dead. And now he was again among them; he touched them, he looked at them … looked at them! And through the black discs of his pupils, as through darkened glass, stared the unknowable Beyond.

The Fabric of Faith

2019 ◽  
pp. 183-197
Author(s):  
Howard Wettstein
Keyword(s):  
The Sun ◽  
Changes Over Time ◽  
Over Time ◽  
As If

Emunah (Hebrew for “faith”) is not to be thought of as cognitive assent to a proposition. It is no mere state of the head, something internal to consciousness. It is rather, in my language, a stance, an attitude in an almost nautical sense, as if the agent were facing, tracking the sun. And as with tracking the sun, faith is dynamic; one does not face God in a static way. Faith concerns living in God’s tempo. What God wants of us, what He needs, changes over time and circumstances. In this chapter, I begin to unpack these metaphors for faith.

The Sun and the Good

2019 ◽  
pp. 81-95
Author(s):  
Nicholas D. Smith
Keyword(s):  
The Sun ◽  
Middle Ground ◽  
Contemporary Epistemology ◽  
As If ◽  
The Way

Explains and reveals the limitations of the first in the sequence of Plato’s three images of cognition and education: the simile of the sun and the good. Shows how this simile continues Plato’s epistemology of cognitive powers, and also shows how the role of truth in Plato’s epistemology is very different from the way it figures in contemporary epistemology. Introduces Plato’s idea of thinking as a first step in summoning the power of knowledge. Plato has Socrates and Glaucon come to an impasse when Glaucon wishes to hear about what Socrates thinks about what the good is, which they agree should be the highest study of the philosopher-rulers. Socrates balks at this, not wishing to speak of the good as if he knew what it is. But Glaucon presses, insisting that they should at least discuss the good in the ways in which they have already discussed justice and moderation. A middle ground is thus indicated between just comparing opinions on a subject without knowledge, and the sort of knowledge that philosopher-rulers will have, but which Socrates and Glaucon lack. The discussion of the good, then, falls into this middle ground, as do the earlier discussions of justice and moderation.

HOW TO PREDICT THE SEX OF THE UNBORN INFANT

PEDIATRICS ◽  
1969 ◽  
Vol 43 (6) ◽  
pp. 1024-1024
Author(s):  
T. E. C.
Keyword(s):  
Male Child ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Sun ◽  
The Right ◽  
Difficult Cases ◽  
As If

A fascinating book, entitled The Ladies Dictionary, was published in 1694 in London. The author, who identified himself only by the initials N. H., stated in his preface that he wrote the book "for the use of the Fair-Sex to serve them as a Secret Oracle to consult in all difficult cases." The book is filled with advice and "information" about many intimate topics which women of that period would have probably been too embarrassed to have asked their husbands or physicians. Many answers to questions that N. H. felt women of that period would have wished to have asked the "Learned Men" are fallacious. The following is an excellent example of the untruths offered to the readers of this book: We come now to a nicer Point which we should be difficulty brought to undertake were we not warranted by divers Learned Men who have given their Opinions about it. They tell as if it be a Male Child, that when it is come to some Perfection in the Womb, the Right-Eye of the mother would to appearance move swifter and sparkle more than the other. The Right Pap [breast] rise and swell more than the left, and become harder, the Niple [sic] sooner changing Colour, and the increase of the Milk be more speedy, and being milked out and set in the Sun, it will settle to a Pearl Colour. Her right cheek will often glow and colour more than the other, and she a livelier Blush on all Occasions, than at another time, and is more brisk and free from sadness than if she conceiv'd a Female.

The Registered Distance of the Celestial Sphere: Some Historical Cross-Cultural Data

1989 ◽  
Vol 68 (1) ◽  
pp. 211-217 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. Plug
Keyword(s):  
Cross Cultural ◽  
The Sun ◽  
The Past ◽  
Celestial Sphere ◽  
The Last Two Millennia ◽  
Cultural Data ◽  
As If

Estimates of the diameters of the sun and moon expressed in centimetres have been reported by several authors in the past. These estimates imply that the sizes of the sun and moon are perceived as if these bodies are only some tens of metres distant. In this study five units of length that were used by ancient astronomers to estimate arcs on the celestial sphere were investigated. The purpose was to determine whether the lengths and angles represented by these units imply a specific registered distance of the star sphere. The sizes of the Babylonian cubit, Arab fitr and shibr, Greek eclipse digit, and Chinese chang support the conclusion that the registered distance of the stars was about 10 to 40 metres in these four cultures over the last two millennia.

The Diathesis of General Paralysis

1892 ◽  
Vol 38 (160) ◽  
pp. 30-40
Author(s):  
G. R. Wilson
Keyword(s):  
Nervous System ◽  
Large Family ◽  
Recent History ◽  
The Sun ◽  
General Paralysis ◽  
Hereditary Factor ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Common ◽  
As If

Ten years ago Mr. Jonathan Hutchinson said that the description of a fresh diathesis was almost as easy as the discovery of a new nerve centre or the revelation of a new bacterium. Yet no new diathesis, so far as I know, has since then become generally recognized in our special branch of medicine. To-day the neurotic diathesis stands as god-mother to a large family of diseases, and little has been done to differentiate their ætiology, or to trace their genealogy. On the contrary there seems to be a tendency to exaggerate the importance of environment in the ætiology of many of the diseases of the nervous system, and to ignore the hereditary factor. Especially is this the case with general paralysis. Excepting the writings of a few, a course of reading on the ætiology of general paralysis would incline one to believe that there is no evil under the sun—from syphilis to the cessation of lactation—that may not sufficiently account for the onset of that disease. It seems almost as if the observers had first tried to find an acknowledged raison d'être, and, failing in that, had adduced as “cause” anything in the recent history of the patient at all out of the common, or which had ranked as important in the estimation of his friends.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document