I’m a former English teacher. You don’t need to be an English teacher, however, to know THE ILIAD AND THE ODYSSEY ARE TWO DISTINCTLY SEPARATE STORIES.

This lying fuck did a wikipedia search of “the classics” and wants smart people points for name-dropping THE WRONG FUCKING NAME.

He hasn’t read either. At best he’s seen a bunch of bleached Hellenistic statue avatars on the internet and nodded along to their RETVRN prattling. biggus-dickus

Ever meet that annoying kid in grade school that said “I am very smart. I know that E Equals Em Cee Squared!” young-sheldon Fifty years later, one of those became my-hero

    • UlyssesT [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      That comes from the same jagoff that said chess was too simple for him because there’s no “fog of war” and he prefers some specific bibeo bame instead. Like any insufferable “smarter than you” tryhard on the playground, he won’t actually play you in chess to prove it’s too simple for him, though.

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      lmao he’s trying to act like his brain is so big that he needs to take the information in faster. he’s like those kids in 3rd grade that swear they can read a whole book in 1 minute and then they open it up and pretend to speed read it just going “ABABABABABAUDDDBABABUBDBAUBUDBAUBBDBABDBUA”

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        lmao he’s trying to act like his brain is so big that he needs to take the information in faster. he’s like those kids in 3rd grade that swear they can read a whole book in 1 minute and then they open it up and pretend to speed read it just going “ABABABABABAUDDDBABABUBDBAUBUDBAUBBDBABDBUA”

    • how else can a brilliant scholar achieve the coveted Pizza Hut BOOK IT! goals, which is above even the MacArthur Fellowship in renown and international prestige?

      who has time to read words on a page when you can have a speaker on in a room while you play League of Legends and call it multitasking? my brain is too powerful to focus on some cringe shit like literacy. anyway, The Illiad was about some guy with good XP/min and controlled his creep line. he did some 360 no scope shit and was like “gg”.

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    Elon Musk is a CHUD that ironically acts like how conservatives joke liberals are:

    • Will never shut up about how smart and cultured they are
    • Live in cities with other people like them, sneering down at “real americans” (You know damn well Elon Musk agreed with Hillbilly Elegy).
    • Cosmopolitan as shit.
    • Think they know everything and treat anyone who disagrees with them no matter how politely as scum
    • Literally RUNS an electric car company.

    Democrats adopted the platform of republicans in the 2000s, Republicans adopted the vibe of Democrats in the 2000s. The working class is cooked.

  • BeamBrain [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    Ever meet that annoying kid in grade school that said “I am very smart. I know that E Equals Em Cee Squared!”

    I was that kid agony-consuming

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    I just noticed there’s another tryhard flex within the tryhard flex: the “listening at 1.25x speed” thing. Because unless you do that you’re not optimizing your verysmartness points. jagoff

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    Oh I love the Odyssey! That’s that movie where Brad Pitt is an unkillable twink, right? And then he dies from posting feet

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    I read the Iliad back in school in the original Greek. So much of it is just “this noble killed that noble”. Ya it has good moments, but damn it’s a plod. I don’t suggest it for anyone unless you’re into classics.

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      I agree with you there; even the motivations were exhausting. “I WILL GET REVENGE FOR THAT” “YOUR REVENGE COMPELS ME TO SEEK REVENGE” and on and on and on. Cassandra was a fun i-told-you-dog vibe on the side, that said.

      I much preferred the Odyssey as one of the forerunners of pretty much everything we now call an adventure in western literature… and it was in reverse!

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    Dan Carlin’s “Hardcore History” podcast — known for its “unique blend of high drama, masterful narration and Twilight Zone-style twists,” according to its Apple Podcasts page — is “probably my top recommendation,” Musk said.

    Musk also shared some of his favorites in another medium: audiobooks. He likes “The Story of Civilization” by Will and Ariel Durant as well as the Penguin edition of “The Iliad.”

    It’s the club-penguin-dance edition or bust!! How long until he starts wearing a gold laurel wreath on his head? No one around him will discourage it.

    Seems like he’s in a surface level ‘wow, isn’t (the western narrative of) history crazy, some stuff sure happened…’ centrist phase, but because he’s rich Business Insider and others make note of these inconsequential musings. Gotta do their part to prop up that ‘captains of industry’ myth right.

    • UlyssesT [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      I can seem like a genius mathematician (to credulous media and gullible onlookers anyway) if I say, like “my favorite sequence is the Fibonacci sequence” and then fluff it up with quirky nowhere talk.

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      How long until he starts wearing a gold laurel wreath on his head? No one around him will discourage it.

      If this is a Julius Ceasar reference, I hope that’s not the only part of the play he emulates IRL.

      knifecatmy-hero

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      It’s bad enough that my bosses were bazinga brained and kept trying to force janky tech into the classrooms that typically lasted a year or less before it broke down and was a waste of money and yet what it replaced was never fully put back.

      Part of why I despise my-hero so much was he reminded me of those petite bourgeoisie fucks that’d get rock-hard anytime “what if thing already in classroom… but now on a subscription and requiring an internet connection?” was peddled their way.

      Some of the most gut-aching moments I had to see of bazingafication involved piles and piles of books outright thrown away because the library keep getting refurbished to look more and more to look like a Starbucks instead of a place for reading and study. I rescued what books I could… but the memory still sickens me.

  • neo [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    Speaking of The Iliad and The Odyssey, are there any particularly good English translations of it that I could read? Is Penguin Classics good enough? Are there better ones?

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      Speaking as a former educator, I can tell you the best translation is the one that you understand best. I mean that. If the ideas are conveyed in a way you can internalize and visualize, that’s the best one.

      Read a few pages of whatever’s in reach of you, each, and see which one reads the best if they have different word choices and phrasing.

      I’ve seen some olde-timey versions of the Odyssey, and they’re wacky because they make Odysseus sound like a Popeye character.

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        That’s why I’m always hesitant to read non-natively English texts from Project Gutenberg. It’s often a translation from the 1800s, or something that is, as you say, olde-timey. That’s fine for English-native works, but it grinds me a bit with translated ones.

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          I strongly believe that the translation that best conveys the ideas, characters, and themes in a way that most vividly speaks to you is the best one.

          If you can pick up Odysseus’ yearning and his stubbornness, Athena’s sympathy but also her divine arrogance, Penelope’s marital faith and deep aching frustration and the like, you’ve found the one that best speaks to you.

          As weird it may seem, modernizations of Romeo and Juliet that turn the entire story into a contemporary gang war, or Julius Caesar into a corporate CEO, work somehow.

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            When it comes to Shakespeare I just enjoy the originals as is. I read a lot of the plays and found the stories extremely enjoyable. I haven’t seen many productions of the plays, however.

            That said, I also appreciate movies like 10 Things I Hate About You as a rendition of Taming of the Shrew, or that Richard III where Ian McKellan is a Hitler-esque fascist.

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              I suppose I got used to modernizing Shakespeare to my students because it made it a lot easier for them to get into it and start paying attention.

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                  For those (and my classes had them too) there’s always the original text, and I always left that option open for their individual work.

              • Omegamint [comrade/them, doe/deer]@hexbear.net
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                I think younger students maybe should read the modernized versions (with some explanations for anything quirky that got lost), but the older ones should be trying to go through the original English. There’s just so much to absorb on even a first run through if Shakespeare’s plays (I’m always saddened when I try to reference stuff and almost none of my friends read or remember any Shakespeare), just the historical connections alone are really great/important. I’ve wanted to suggest watching HBOs Rome so many times to people but they never went through the Shakespeare plays and it’s a much harder sell

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                  I would agree with you if I had the time, resources, and engaged students that weren’t exhausted from constant standardized testing. I considered it good enough if I could keep them engaged and maybe even interested.

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            Part of that is because, with a few exceptions, the plays were already anachronistic and it’s not like early modern England was a place that was big on the historical accuracy thing…

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            My friends don’t believe me when I tell them Romeo + Juliet is straight up just art no matter how stupid it sounds

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    Speculation Time : the Ending in the Offical Odysee is a Later Edition , in which a Happy Ending was inserted , with Athena convincing Zeus to intervene .

    The Actuall ending that fits the Archeological Record and the Bronce Age Collapse and the Themes of “Greek Tragedy” . Is The News of the Massacare on the Suitors reaching their Families, where they Swear Revenge , they March on the Kings Palace / Great Hall and Odyseus and his hole “Heroic Age Family” salling out against them under the Solar Eclipse havenly Impling the Civil War , Ruin and the Death of the Odyseus Clan.

    The Actual ending should go something like that: (From the 24th)

    Rumour went round the town, and noised abroad the terrible fate that had befallen the suitors; as soon, therefore, as the people heard of it they gathered from every quarter, groaning and hooting before the house of Ulysses. They took the dead away, buried every man his own, and put the bodies of those who came from elsewhere on board the fishing vessels, for the fishermen to take each of them to his own place. They then met angrily in the place of assembly, and when they were got together Eupeithes rose to speak. He was overwhelmed with grief for the death of his son Antinous, who had been the first man killed by Ulysses, so he said, weeping bitterly, “My friend, this man has done the Achaeans great wrong. He took many of our best men away with him in his fleet, and he has lost both ships and men; now, moreover, on his return he has been killing all the foremost men among the Cephallenians. Let us be up and doing before he can get away to Pylos or to Elis where the Epeans rule, or we shall be ashamed of ourselves for ever afterwards. It will be an everlasting disgrace to us if we do not avenge the murder of our sons and brothers. For my own part I should have no mote pleasure in life, but had rather die at once. Let us be up, then, and after them, before they can cross over to the mainland.”

    He wept as he spoke and every one pitied him. But Medon and the bard Phemius had now woke up, and came to them from the house of Ulysses. Every one was astonished at seeing them, but they stood in the middle of the assembly, and Medon said, “Hear me, men of Ithaca. Ulysses did not do these things against the will of heaven. I myself saw an immortal god take the form of Mentor and stand beside him. This god appeared, now in front of him encouraging him, and now going furiously about the court and attacking the suitors whereon they fell thick on one another.”

    On this pale fear laid hold of them, and old Halitherses, son of Mastor, rose to speak, for he was the only man among them who knew both past and future; so he spoke to them plainly and in all honesty, saying,

    “Men of Ithaca, it is all your own fault that things have turned out as they have; you would not listen to me, nor yet to Mentor, when we bade you check the folly of your sons who were doing much wrong in the wantonness of their hearts- wasting the substance and dishonouring the wife of a chieftain who they thought would not return. Now, however, let it be as I say, and do as I tell you. Do not go out against Ulysses, or you may find that you have been drawing down evil on your own heads.”

    This was what he said, and more than half raised a loud shout, and at once left the assembly. But the rest stayed where they were, for the speech of Halitherses displeased them, and they sided with Eupeithes; they therefore hurried off for their armour, and when they had armed themselves, they met together in front of the city, and Eupeithes led them on in their folly. He thought he was going to avenge the murder of his son, whereas in truth he was never to return, but was himself to perish in his attempt.

    Ulysses began by saying, “Some of you go out and see if they are not getting close up to us.” So one of Dolius’s sons went as he was bid. Standing on the threshold he could see them all quite near, and said to Ulysses, “Here they are, let us put on our armour at once.” They put on their armour as fast as they could- that is to say Ulysses, his three men, and the six sons of Dolius. Laertes also and Dolius did the same- warriors by necessity in spite of their grey hair. When they had all put on their armour, they opened the gate and sallied forth, Ulysses leading the way.

    (From the 23th)

    By now there was light over the earth, but Athena hid them in the night, and swiftly led them forth from the city (towards them) .

    The End.

      • ThomasMuentzner [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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        Bonus Speculation Time :

        Scheria is Troys Timeless Shadow in the Elysium Plane and when Odsseus travels to it at Night (you didnt sail at night in the Bronce age) and travels for 17 Days or Something thats him Doing Dimensional Travel . The Phaikians then return him on their “Special Ships” to ithaka , but he sleeps so deep that they just Leave him on the Beach

        “Far apart we live in the wash of the waves, the farthermost of men, and no other mortals are conversant with us.”