Word: virgil
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...school, I loathed Latin, in general, but I detested Virgil in particular. After you'd spent hours wading through conjugations and declensions and ablative absolutes and gerunds and pasts perfect, imperfect and pluperfect, there was the pointless torture of learning and then reciting lines of dactylic hexameter about this bloke wandering aimlessly around the Mediterranean at the whim of a perpetually pissed-off goddess. I mean, even Milton was more fun than that...
...blood flows over his shapely limbs, his neck droops,/ sinking over a shoulder, limp as a crimson flower/ cut off by a passing plow." Fagles published terrific translations of The Iliad and The Odyssey a few years ago, so maybe I shouldn't have been gobsmacked by his Virgil. They're all quite popular too, part of a renewed passion for the classical world. The culture has lately offered up for mass consumption two new histories of the Peloponnesian War, a whacking great biography of Julius Caesar, a film on Alexander the Great (plus a book lauding his business strategy...
There's nothing especially venal about the ancients in this regard; nobody's perfect or ever was. The classical world knew crosshatching as much as bands of white and black; the Greeks and Romans had their moments of doubt. Here's Virgil's Aeneas in the underworld, catching sight of his erstwhile lover, Dido, Queen of Carthage, whom he had deserted as she climbed onto her funeral pyre: "Oh, dear god, was it I who caused your death?/ I swear by the stars, by the Powers on high ... I left your shores, my Queen, against my will ... Stay a moment...
...campaign fund transfers, is also under investigation for dealings with lobbyist Jack Abramoff and former staffers. The former Chairman of the House Administration Committee, Ohio Republican Bob Ney, has been fingered by four people in a public corruption scheme tied to Abramoff. Florida Republican Katherine Harris and Virginia Republican Virgil Goode have also been caught up in spreading influence-peddling allegations. And Republicans Conrad Burns, John Doolittle and other Abramoff casualties are biting their nails while the feds investigate them...
...decision to portray the Muslim prophet in perdition. The cartoon borrowed an image from Dante's Inferno, in which Mohammed languishes in hell, sliced in two for the crime of "dividing" faith in God. Studi's editors then placed in the mouth of Dante's infernal tour guide, Virgil, the remark that a guy next to Mohammed "with his pants down" represented Italy's current policy toward Islam, which the magazine's editors apparently regard as too lenient...