#08-366: Ovid's Metamorphoses

Daphne becomes a laurel tree to escape Apollo's clutches (Wikipedia)

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I often draw on collections of famous stories for the works I bring you: Aesop's Fables, Grimm's Fairy Tales, The 1001 Nights, and so on. But I have barely touched on one of the greatest: The Metamorphoses (meaning "transformations") by the great Roman poet Publius Ovidius Naso, known in English as "Ovid."

The book is purported to be a history of the world from its creation to Ovid's era, ending with the deification of Julius Caesar. Along the way it tells over 250 Greek and Roman myths. It is considered one of the most influential works in Western literature, having served as source material for Dante, Chaucer, Shakespeare, and many, many more.

The thread that strings together many of these stories is transformation: people are changed into animals, gods into people, animals into gods--and all possible permutations, including all of these being changed into inanimate objects and vice versa.

For example, among the stories in Book I (of 15) we find Deucalion who, with his wife Pyrrha, is the only human couple to survive a great flood sent by Zeus. Unlike Noah, he saved no animals, but he repopulated the earth by transforming stones into men.

Also in Book I is the god Apollo, who regularly transformed into a hawk; Daphne, a nymph who was transformed into a laurel tree to prevent her from being raped by Apollo; the human woman Io, the object of Zeus's lust who was transformed into a heifer to hide her from Zeus's wife, Hera; and two transformations relating to the fall of Phaeton, son of the sun-god Helios, who insisted on driving his father's chariot: his sisters were changed into black poplar trees and his lover Cycnus became a swan, all in mourning over his death.

The theme is carried right through to the end of Book XV, where we find Asclepius, the Greek god of medicine who used his art to "transform" sick people into healthy ones; and Julius Caesar, the Roman general and statesman who, after his assassination in 44 BCE, was transformed into a god in a process called apotheosis. This occurred just a year before the birth of Ovid.

Incidentally, the symbol of Asclepius is a serpent twined around a staff, the serpent embodying transformation by the periodic shedding of its skin.

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Practice: Match the term to its definition:

Term Definition
  1. hawk
  2. heifer
  3. inanimate objects
  4. incidentally
  5. influential
  6. mourning
  7. nymph
  8. periodic
  9. purported
  10. twined
  1. sadness over a loss
  2. supposed
  3. a high-flying bird
  4. a nature spirit
  5. by the way
  6. a young female cow
  7. from time to time
  8. having a big effect
  9. wrapped around
  10. non-living things

Answers are in the first comment below.

MOVE TO COMMENTS - Answers to the Practice: 1. c; 2. f; 3. j; 4. e; 5. h; 6. a; 7. d; 8. g; 9. b; 10. i

Submitted to the Shenzhen Daily for December 14, 2023

#08-365: The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter

"He took the little Creature in his Hand." (Wikisource)

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The Japanese folk tale "The Bamboo Cutter" shows some debt to the Chinese stories of Chang'e, the moon goddess. It is also produced in film and other media as Kaguya-hime, or Princess Kaguya. Others call her "Princess Moonlight."

In the Japanese story, an old, childless bamboo cutter finds a thumb-sized infant inside a stalk of bamboo. He and his wife raise the baby as their own. From then on, every time he cuts a bamboo stalk, he finds a gold nugget inside. The old couple becomes rich. The child, meanwhile, grows to be a beautiful woman in just three months.

Her beauty attracts many suitors, but she wants none of them. Finally, five noble members of court convince the old "father" to give them a chance, but the girl has other ideas. She sets an impossible task for each one.

The first, a Prince, is told to bring her the stone begging bowl of the Buddha. He presents her with a fake--it's just a blackened pot!--but she notices that it does not glow with holy light, as one would expect.

Another Prince must fetch a jeweled branch from Mount Horai (the Chinese Penglai Island of Immortals). He, too, brings forth a fake: he had the country's finest jewelers fashion a jeweled branch. But a messenger arrives at Kaguya-hime's house to collect payment for the work, revealing the subterfuge.

One government minister is to bring a robe made of the skins of Chinese fire-rats, a supernatural species which cannot burn. He purchases such a robe from a "friend"--a Chinese merchant--but is himself duped: when subjected to fire it immediately burns to a crisp.

A Grand Counselor should get a five-colored jewel from the neck of a dragon. He sends out all his men, but they fail; and when he goes himself, his ship is caught in a terrific storm and he gives up.

Finally, another counselor must bring a cowry shell that was born from a swallow. In attempting to reach the bird's nest, he falls to his death.

At last, the Emperor courts the girl, but she rejects him, too. She reveals to her foster father that she has come from the moon, and will return at the next Moon Festival. Sure enough, messengers come to take her away. They explain to the old man that they had placed the gold nuggets in the bamboo to pay for her care.

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Practice: Match the term to its definition:

Term Definition
  1. cowry
  2. duped
  3. fetch
  4. foster father
  5. infant
  6. nugget
  7. stalk
  8. subterfuge
  9. suitors
  10. swallow
  1. fooled; tricked
  2. a type of small bird that builds its next in high places
  3. a very young baby
  4. a shelled sea animal similar to a snail
  5. an adoptive dad
  6. admirers
  7. a small chunk of something
  8. trick; ruse
  9. bring back
  10. stem; branch

Answers are in the first comment below.

MOVE TO COMMENTS - Answers to the Practice: 1. d; 2. a; 3. i; 4. e; 5. c; 6. g; 7. j; 8. h; 9. f; 10. b

Submitted to the Shenzhen Daily for December 8, 2023

#08-364: The Rape of the Lock

Arabella Fermor in a 19th-century print (Wikipedia)

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One of my favorite college courses covered "The Augustan Age," the first half of the 18th century, when great poetry dominated English literature (though it also produced such prose writers as Jonathan Swift [Gulliver's Travels] and Daniel Defoe [Robinson Crusoe]). Among the poets we read, the greatest was Alexander Pope (not to be confused with the many popes named Alexander).

It is called "The Augustan Age," by the way, because the poets were emulating the forms and intentions of Roman poetry in the time of the Roman Emperor Augustus (27 BCE to 14 CE), which featured such writers as Virgil, Ovid, and Horace.

Rape is, of course, no laughing matter. But one point of parody is served when a writer takes a seemingly trivial matter and blows it up out of all proportion, like turning a minor insult into a major incident. This shows the silliness of the reaction.

So Pope wrote a poem called The Rape of the Lock, in which an overly-amorous suitor doesn't actually attack a woman, but instead cuts off a lock of her hair. ("Rape" here is not sexual; it means "to carry away against one's will.")

The poem was based on a true story: the aristocrat Robert Petre cut off a piece of hair  (a "lock") from the head of his beloved, Arabella Fermor, without her permission (lovers cherished such keepsakes). This silly act caused a rift between the two families. Pope introduced gods and other supernatural beings into the story, in imitation of Roman writings, intending to make people laugh and bring reconciliation between the two great houses. (It didn't work; she married someone else.)

Pope was a genius at a form called the "heroic couplet," two rhyming lines written in iambic pentameter (the "rhythm" of speech that Shakespeare usually used, containing five beats per line). As with any good poetry, the language is quite condensed; here's one famous couplet from the poem:

"Beauties in vain their pretty eyes may roll;

Charms strike the sight, but merit wins the soul."

Unpacked, this means that a woman may do her best to try to look attractive ("roll her eyes"), but that only affects what a man sees with his eyes. It is her good character ("merit") that appeals to a man's soul.

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Practice: Match the term to its definition:

Term Definition
  1. aristocrat
  2. condensed
  3. emulating
  4. keepsakes
  5. overly-amorous
  6. prose
  7. reconciliation
  8. rift
  9. trivial
  10. unpacked
  1. souvenirs; mementos
  2. member of the upper class
  3. imitating
  4. too much in love
  5. taken apart
  6. non-poetic writing
  7. act of bringing back together
  8. unimportant
  9. pushed tightly together
  10. break; split

Answers are in the first comment below.

MOVE TO COMMENTS - Answers to the Practice: 1. b; 2. i; 3. c; 4. a; 5. d; 6. f; 7. g; 8. j; 9. h; 10. e

Submitted to the Shenzhen Daily for December 7, 2023

#08-363: The Thirty-Nine Steps

Hannay crashes a meeting (Gutenberg)

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James Bond may be the best-known fictional spy, but he wasn't the first. One famous precursor is Richard Hannay, protagonist of five novels and a side character in two more, by the Scottish novelist John Buchan. His first appearance was in the 1915 novel, "The Thirty-Nine Steps." The first of many films (and radio and TV shows) based on it was made by Alfred Hitchcock in 1935, though like many such adaptations it deviated significantly from Buchan's original telling.

Unlike Bond, Hannay--like many "real spies"--is not a government official, but rather an ordinary man thrown into an extraordinary situation.

It's 1914. Richard Hannay has just returned to London from Rhodesia after making money as a mining engineer. A journalist neighbor knocks on his door seeking refuge, telling him he has uncovered a German plot to kill the Premier of Greece and provoke a war. Hannay hides the man in his apartment, but discovers him dead a few days later.

Hannay goes on the run, from both the murderers and the police, who suspect him of the murder. He heads for a remote place in Scotland, taking along a coded notebook which the journalist had kept.

While running from good guys and bad guys, he deciphers the book, figuring out that a spy ring called the "Black Stone" is planning to steal British naval secrets. Hannay meets a local landowner, Sir Harry, who happens to be the godson of Sir Walter Bullivant, a high government officer. Sir Harry writes to his godfather to inform him of the plot.

Escaping his pursuers, Hannay enters a lonely cottage--only to find it's a nest of enemy spies! He convinces them he is someone else, and they lock him in a storeroom. He uses some explosives he finds there to escape again, blowing out a window. He heads for the home of Sir Walter, and after some persuasion, convinces Sir Walter that the plot is real.

Unfortunately, Sir Walter learns that the Greek Premier is already dead. He takes Hannay with him to London, where Hannay drops in on a meeting at Sir Walter's and recognizes one of the spies in disguise. The man escapes, taking the naval secrets with him.

Hannay, Sir Walter, and others look carefully again at the coded notebook, looking for clues as to how the spies will cross the English Channel back to Germany. There they read, "Thirty-nine steps--I counted them--High tide, 10:17 p.m."

They find a clifftop villa with private steps down to a beach--39 of them, to be exact--where a yacht waits offshore. Hannay confronts the occupants of the villa, at first thinking it's just an ordinary group of English friends. But then he recognizes the spy from before, blows his whistle, and the authorities arrest the lot.

England is saved! But the country nevertheless enters World War I seven weeks later, and Hannay is made an army captain.

Practice: Match the term to its definition:

Term Definition
  1. deciphers
  2. godfather
  3. offshore
  4. precursor
  5. Premier
  6. provoke
  7. refuge
  8. the authorities
  9. the lot
  10. yacht
  1. something which leads to something else
  2. push (into action)
  3. away from the land
  4. breaks a code
  5. an honorary relative
  6. a safe place
  7. all of something
  8. a head of government 
  9. a small, expensive boat
  10. government law enforcement; police, etc.

Answers are in the first comment below.

MOVE TO COMMENTS - Answers to the Practice: 1. d; 2. e; 3. c; 4. a; 5. h; 6. b; 7. f; 8. j; 9. g; 10. i

Submitted to the Shenzhen Daily for December 1, 2023

#08-362: The Turn of the Screw

The governess sees a man--Peter Quint?--on a high tower (Wikipedia)

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The best horror stories, in my opinion, are those that don't at first seem to be horror stories at all. Henry James's The Turn of the Screw is one such story. For years after its publication, the question was asked: is it truly horrible, or does its horror exist only in the mind of the protagonist?

A group of friends gather on Christmas Eve, and one of them reads from a manuscript written over two decades earlier by the late governess of his sister. The document tells the alleged experience of the unnamed governess at a previous employer's.

She has full charge of that man's niece and nephew, who were left in his care after their parents died. Ten-year-old Miles, the boy, is at boarding school; Flora, two years younger, lives at the employer's country estate, where the governess cares for her. The employer specifically instructs her not to bother him at his place in London.

Miles comes home at the start of summer break, after the governess receives a letter saying that he has been kicked out of school. The kid is a charmer, and she doesn't want to spoil things by asking him why he had been expelled.

Over time, the governess begins to see a man and woman on the grounds of the estate; no one else mentions them, and she feels there is something otherworldly about them. She learns from the housekeeper that the previous governess, Miss Jessel, had had an inappropriate relationship with another employee, Peter Quint, before they both died (she of illness, he of a drunken accident). The governess begins to believe she is seeing ghosts--ghosts who are negatively influencing the children.

The new governess thinks Flora is conversing with Miss Jessel, but she denies it. In fact, the governess is the only person to claim to see the old governess. When the girl falls ill, she is sent to her uncle in London to remove her from the ghost's influence.

Miles at last confesses why he was removed from school: he is accused of using bad words, which the governess assumes he had learned from Quint. As he is telling his story, the governess sees Quint at the window, and tries to shield the boy from the apparition. As she does so, Miles falls dead in her arms.

Practice: Match the term to its definition:

Term Definition
  1. alleged
  2. apparition
  3. confesses
  4. expelled
  5. governess
  6. inappropriate
  7. manuscript
  8. otherworldly
  9. shield
  10. spoil
  1. ghostly appearance
  2. protect
  3. ruin; make awkward
  4. a hand-written document
  5. removed (for wrongdoing)
  6. supposed; reported but not proven
  7. admits
  8. supernatural
  9. immoral; not right
  10. a female private teacher and caregiver

Answers are in the first comment below.

MOVE TO COMMENTS - Answers to the Practice: 1. f; 2. a; 3. g; 4. e; 5. j; 6. i; 7. d; 8. h; 9. b; 10. c

Submitted to the Shenzhen Daily for November 30, 2023

#08-361: The 1,001 Nights

Scheherazade and Shahryar by Ferdinand Keller, 1880 (Wikipedia)

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Nothing beats a good story collection. In the west we have the Fables of Aesop, and the 200 or so fairy tales collected by the German Brothers Grimm. Then there are the literary collections such as Ovid's Metamorphoses, Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, and the fairy tales of Hans Christian Anderson and Charles Perrault.

Turning east, we have the Jataka stories and the Panchatantra from India, and of course China's Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio by Pu Songling.

But straddling east and west are the 1,001 Nights, misnamed Arabian because Europe first encountered them in the Arabic language. In fact, the collection is more Persian than Arabic, and some of the best known tales--like those of Aladdin, Ali Baba, and Sinbad the Sailor--were not part of the original collection at all! (Aladdin's origins seem to lie in Western China.)

The first translation of the full collection into a western language was that of Antoine Galland in French in the first decades of the 18th century. It was Galland who included the "orphan tales" like "Aladdin" and "Ali Baba" as though they were authentic parts of the collection.

After various partial efforts, the first full English translations came from John Payne in the 1880s, and then from the travel celebrity Sir Richard Francis Burton a bit later--much of it plagiarized from Payne. Because these translations were unexpurgated, leaving in all the sexual imagery of the originals, they had to be circulated in private editions to avoid censorship in the strict moral atmosphere of Victorian England.

The "frame story" of the collection is well known: King Shahryar's wife had cheated on him. Hurt and angry, he not only killed her, but had a new woman brought to him every night; in the morning, he would kill each new "bride" before she, too, could betray him.

Along came Scheherazade, daughter of the vizier who was procuring these unfortunate women. She volunteered to go in to the king, but with a plan: to tell him a story every night that ends in a "cliffhanger" as the sun rises; if the king wanted to hear the end of the story, he'd have to let her live one more day.

Her plan worked, and after "1,001 nights"--about 2-3/4 years--the king realized what a brilliant woman she was, and decided to let her live on as his true wife.

The tales are often told in a nested manner. That is, as Scheherazade is telling story A, one of the characters will interrupt with story B, and sometimes more and more, before the first story is wrapped up. So the telling might go A start - B start - C start - D whole story - C end - B end - A end. It can be very confusing, especially when you try to retell one of the nested stories!

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Practice: Match the term to its definition:

Term Definition
  1. authentic
  2. betray
  3. cliffhanger
  4. misnamed
  5. nested
  6. orphan
  7. procuring
  8. straddling
  9. unfortunate
  10. vizier
  1. standing with one foot on either side of something
  2. be disloyal to
  3. child with no parents
  4. wrongly called
  5. unlucky; to be pitied
  6. obtaining, getting
  7. an ending that leaves the listener in suspense
  8. advisor
  9. situated one within another
  10. genuine, real

Answers are in the first comment below.

MOVE TO COMMENTS - Answers to the Practice: 1. j; 2. b; 3. g; 4. d; 5. i; 6. c; 7. f; 8. a; 9. e; 10. h

Submitted to the Shenzhen Daily for November 24, 2023

#08-360: The Magic School Bus

(Wikipedia)

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A few years ago, my wife's younger brother lived with us. Friends recommended educational television shows for him to watch, and the best of the ones we tried (better than when I was a kid!) was "The Magic School Bus," an award-winning animated science series. In four seasons of 52 episodes, it covered topics from astronomy, biology, chemistry, climatology, ecology, engineering, geology, physics--and even dinosaurs!

The show is based in the class of a teacher named Miss Frizzle, who is actually a kind of witch (but a GOOD witch). Every week she loads up her students for a field trip in a dilapidated old bus which, as the title says, is magic, taking the kids to other times and places, including outer space and inside the human body. (It was based on a series of books of the same name.)

Each student has a distinct personality:

Arnold Perlstein: a seemingly timid Jewish American boy, he often says in difficult situations, "I knew I should have stayed home today." But he's brave enough when the situation calls for it.

Carlos Ramon: a Hispanic American who is the "class clown," always making jokes or puns about the situations they're in. (The kids often groan in unison, "CAAR-LOOS!")

Dorothy Ann Hudson: a bookworm who often looks up background on the episode's topic.

Keesha Franklin: an African American girl, level-headed and realistic. When things get tough she may say, "Let's get the facts!" 

Phoebe Terese: a French-Canadian girl who is sweet and caring toward her classmates. Not surprisingly, she is also an animal activist.

Ralphie Tennelli: an Italian American boy who is the class "jock." A bit of a daydreamer, he is nonetheless the de facto class leader, who often says when facing difficulties, "I think I'm gonna be sick."

Tim Wright: an African American boy who likes to draw or film the class's experiences. In tight situations he says, "We've been Frizzled!"

Wanda Li: a Chinese American tomboy who is very adventurous. She can be a bit bossy, admonishing the others, when necessary, "Come on, you weasily wimps!"

And of course we have to mention Liz, the class's pet chameleon who often--through mishaps--leads the students into an adventure. She has some human traits, but never speaks.

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Practice: Match the term to its definition:

Term Definition
  1. bookworm
  2. chameleon
  3. de facto
  4. dilapidated
  5. in unison
  6. jock
  7. level-headed
  8. tomboy
  9. weasily
  10. wimps
  1. in fact, but not official
  2. all together
  3. a type of lizard
  4. weak people
  5. a masculine girl
  6. someone who loves to read
  7. clear thinking, practical
  8. dishonest
  9. an athlete
  10. old and worn out

Answers are in the first comment below.

Answers to the Practice: 1. f; 2. c; 3. a; 4. j; 5. b; 6. i; 7. g; 8. e; 9. h; 10. d

Submitted to the Shenzhen Daily for November 23, 2023

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