Neil And Todd Sharing Tender Looks While Charlie Recites She Walks In Beauty By Lord Byron:

“You love him. The story still ends.”

— there is no absolution for the fallen, only the dying | p.d  (via lostcap)

Artists need to lay their soul bare for the world to mock

That must be painful

Trim. The investigator, 2019 - Todd Fuller.

so I was translating the Iliad and of course I had to end up crying again

why?

well, first of all, there’s something important about the Iliad: it’s very common that a certain verse appears a lot of times in the poem (for example, “and thus, X said” or “and then, black death took over his corpse”) because the Iliad and the Odyssey were oral poems. Those verses made it easier for the poet to remember the rest, a bit like the chorus of a song.

Okay. So. In the book 2 of the Iliad, Achilles is with his mother, and he’s crying because Agamemnon has offended him. And Thetis says:  τί δέ σε φρένας ἵκετο πένθος; ἐξαύδα, μὴ κεῦθε νόῳ, ἵνα εἴδομεν ἄμφω. (Son, what sorrow has taken over your heart? speak, don’t hide it in your heart, so we both know).

Then we move forward to book 16. Homer shows us a four verse long simile describing Patroclus’ tears: he cries warm tears like a dark fountain pours its waters over a cliff.  Achilles gets worried about him (because who would like seeing the love of his life crying like that? not me, not Achilles) and Achilles asks him why is he crying, and says:  ἐξαύδα, μὴ κεῦθε νόῳ, ἵνα εἴδομεν ἄμφω. The exact same verse.

And! then! there’s book 18. Patroclus has died, and Achilles is completely devastated. His mother appears quickly at his side, and, alarmed, says:  τέκνον τί κλαίεις; τί δέ σε φρένας ἵκετο πένθος; ἐξαύδα, μὴ κεῦθε. (Son, why are you crying? what sorrow has taken over your heart? speak, don’t hide it). Yes, this same verse again.

Think about it. The very words Achilles had comforted Patroclus with, Thetis has to repeat them to comfort her son again. At first, he was crying because he was offended; then he cries because, as a consequence of that offence, he’s lost the person whom he loved more than his own life.

Intertextuality in the Iliad is absolutely fascinating and heartbreaking and I’m not okay

I have three modes of reading

Dont read

Read a 500 page book in a day

Read only fanfiction until my eyeballs drop out of my skull from exhaustion

Reminder that academia isn’t just an aesthetic but a way of living that allows you to see all the beauty in the world, to learn to your hearts content for the sake of learning, and to embrace human resilience and creation. It is NOT an excuse to think you’re better than anyone who “hAsnT rEad sHaKEspEaRe” nor is it required that you “look a certain way”. Wanna go all grunge and learn about Greek mythology? Wanna wear pastels and flower print while reading Dante’s Inferno? Wanna wear sweats and research Egyptian curses? Go for it! You aren’t bound to one aesthetic and should not feel pressured to look or behave a certain way! To me academia is about learning and love. Regardless of sexual orientation, race, gender, disability, etc. You are welcome here <3

the sun sets late these days and i love to see which new corners of my house the light discovers every evening

Undersong: Equinox by Audre Lorde

i wanna study classics and i wanna study english literature and i wanna study mathematics and i wanna study chemistry and i wanna study languages and i wanna study botany and i wanna study medicine and i wanna study history and i wanna-