#ancient story

[moonymoon90]

In the meantime I discovered that yesterday, in Rome, this happened

[anujemansy]

it was the time of the dwapur yuga the great rishi or sage vyasa composed an epic poem which he called the

rishi vyasa mahabharata the son of satyavati and rishi parashara since he was of dark complexion and was born in an island he was also called krishna dwaipayan

vyasa composed the poem but couldn't write it down because his thoughts ran faster than his pen so he was looking for a scribe who could write the verses at the same speed with which he recited them but he could find none vyasa invoked lord brahma brahma appeared before vyasa and asked why did you call me vyasa what do you yes i want oh lord i have composed this wonderful poem an epic it is the story of mankind the story of our humanity but i need someone who can write it while i recite the verses can you recommend someone brahma said i think ganesha would be the best person for this job why don't you ask him yours are called ganesha elephant headed god ganesha appeared and asked i understand you are looking for a scribe for your poem yes i am said vyasa i can write your poem for you said but i have a condition my pen should never stop if you ever hesitate while reciting your poem and my pen stops it will not start again and i will leave right away we are thought for a while and then said i agree but i also have a condition you cannot write a single word or verse without understanding it ganesha thought that should be easy after all ganesha is a god and vyasa a mere human being how could vyasa write something that you won't understand ganesha agreed to vyasa's condition and sat down to write vyasa started dictating the poem but whenever vyasa ran out of material and needed some time he would compose a verse with difficult words and complicated phrases even the god ganesha had to stop and think to decipher those phrases while vyasa composed few more in his mind thus the great story of mahabharata began to take shape with this wonderful collaboration between vyasa and ganesha

long long ago there lived a king named shantanu who ruled over a vast kingdom in the northern india

one day shantanu was strolling along the riverbank enjoying the cool breeze and listening to the soothing sounds of the flowing water suddenly he saw a beautiful maiden rise from the water and walked toward the riverbank shantanu was awestruck by your exquisite beauty and he understood what love at first sight meant he felt an invisible force pull him towards the lady as he lost all control over himself he stood in front of the gorgeous lady and asked wherever you are my lady i am in love with you and i cannot live a single moment without you please please marry me and save my life i king shantanu of beg for your mercy the lady smiled and said i am flattered looking but i have a couple of conditions for any suitor who wants to marry me if you can agree to my conditions i'll marry you but i must warn you these conditions are not easy to keep especially for a husband said for you i can agree to any condition the lady smiled again and said listen to them before you agree first you can never ask or inquire about who i am or where i come from second you can never stop me or ask me for any explanations for any of my actions whatever they may be if you ever break your promise i'll leave you at once do you think you can agree to these conditions the infatuated king didn't have the patience to think through he said i agree i will never ask you who you are and i will never stop you from doing anything now will you please marry me the lady agreed shantanu took her to his palace in hastinapur and married her in a grand wedding ceremony the happy couple spent a great year together until their first child a boy actually my opinion is about i like this story maharaja so much so much this proud about me that i am indian right now this is oh you know and what about you don't you like the mahabharat don't you like this story huh don't you please comment what are you waiting for it comment yes

that his wife has given birth to a beautiful little boy he left his coat and ran to the birthing chamber but as he entered the room he saw his queen pick up the newborn baby wrap him in a shawl and walk out of the room shantanu was about to ask where she was going but he remembered his promise and kept quiet he followed her as she left the palace and went to the bank of the river where they had first met and there he saw his queen drop the baby into the river and within moments the boys sunk into the deep waters shantanu was horrified how could a mother do such a thing to her own child he wanted to scream at his wife but again he remembered his promise not to ask any questions or demand any explanations he was heartbroken but he kept his mouth shut after about a year when shantanu had almost forgotten the trauma of losing his first son the queen gave birth to another child and this time too the shocked king saw his queen drown the baby in the river right after his birth shantanu could neither protest nor demand any explanation for a horrific behavior one after another the queen gave birth to seven sons and each time she took the baby and drowned him in the river the king bound by his promise stood silent and watched the tragic events when the eighth son was born and the queen was about to drown the baby in the river shantanu couldn't take it anymore he shouted stop stop this i won't tolerate this anymore the queen stopped and said but you've promised the angry king said i don't care for my promise anymore how could you be so cruel how could you kill your own child i have kept my mouth shut all these years but i won't let you kill my child anymore the queen smiled and said you have broken your promise hence i must leave you but before i leave i'll tell you the reasons for my action i am ganga the river goddess these eight sons seven of whom have drowned in the river are the eight vassous of the heavens

once the bosses visited rishi washington provoked by their wives they stole vashista's cow nandini my sister was furious and cursed them that they would be born as humans and go to the sufferings as any human does the fossils were scared they cried and prayed for his mercy only prahasha the eighth vasu the one who stole the cow stood defiant finally bashista calmed down but he couldn't take back his curse he said the vasus would have to be born as humans but the seven of them who begged for his mercy would be short-lived i was assigned to be their mother and i had to relieve them of their curse by drowning them right after their birth but the eighth vasu prabhasa would live a long life on this earth and endure the sufferings of human life the eighth son of yours is the eighth vasu

shantanu was amazed to hear the story he pleaded to ganga please please don't leave it would be hard for a boy to grow up without a mother ganga said i am sorry my job is over and i must go now i'll take this child with me and train him to be your worthy son then one day i will return your son to you saying so she disappeared into the river with the newborn baby

shantanu was heartbroken he was sad and depressed every day shanthan would go back to the river bank with the faint hope to see ganga come back with a son days passed months passed years passed but ganga didn't come back

[samartworksblog]

~ Dido asks for the intervention of a sorceress in order not to allow Aeneas to leave. The woman then cuts the spelled with a sickle invoking Hecate, Erebo and other underworld deities.

(In collaboration with MeetMyths on Instagram)

[sanctus-ingenium]

the werewolf killer

[lastoneout]

why do people on the internet know so much about the epic of gilgamesh

[endivinity]

one of my favorite books as a kid was this one on speculative zoology/evolution that I loved so much I borrowed it to the point my school had to chase me up on returning it several times. it influenced my early creature art and design and pushed me to delve into my own specbio (on dragons. no surprises there). I loved the informatic entries, all their little lore bits and ecological adaptations; the wild color palettes, their weird little shapes. it was called The New Dinosaurs, by Dougal Dixon.

there were two more books in the series that my school didn’t have, which is either a blessing or a curse, because the third book in the set is called Man After Man.

which contains this.

[tooquirkytolose]

Have you heard the tale of the queen of thieves?

[incorrectsmashbrosquotes]

If I may once again dip my toe into the discourse surrounding Greek Mythology, a lot of people like to rewrite or reframe the story of Medusa, and that’s great! Highly encourage it. But, DON’T YOU DARE GO AND DEMONIZE MY BOY PERSEUS!

Perseus isn’t some vile misogynist who hunts down and murders Medusa for the hell of it. He’s a scared kid who’s trying to save his mom from a forced marriage (whom herself has been a victim of terrible abuse from her father) to a creepy evil king and gets duped by the Gods into cleaning up their mess for them. He’s not the villain, he’s just another pawn. So if I see one more motherfucker trying to make him out to be the “real monster” I will throw hands.

You know what would be way more interesting?! Medusa sees Perseus rolling up to her crib and freaks out cause ‘holy shit this is a fucking kid. a fucking toddler with a sword and shield.’ and they hash it out and then TEAM UP to kill the evil kind trying to force marry Perseus’ mother! Think of the dynamics that you could write! The interactions that could occur. I mean, one of ‘em is gonna have to wear a blindfold but hey, minor problems.

What I’m saying is, gimme a buddy cop movie where Perseus and Medusa team up to fight evil in Ancient Greece.

[lost-carcosa]

[hedgehog-moss]

(replying to this post)

That’s a good example of the perils of domesticating translations! It seems obvious that if you try to adapt an ongoing series by changing a main character’s hometown so it’s more local, at some point you’re going to run into problems, like a whole book where they visit their hometown, which will need an in-depth rewrite so it stays coherent.

The France-French translations of Baby-Sitters Club were still set in the US, so the characters had names that were slightly domesticated so as not to frighten French children, but not so much that it wouldn’t make sense for these girls to be American—e.g. Mary Ann became Mary-Anne vs. Anne-Marie in Québec French, and Dawn and Stacey became Carla and Lucy, which still sounds American to a French kid, but not as unconscionably American as their original names. (Part of it is finding names that won’t be difficult to pronounce—but the Famous Five kids had easily-pronounced names like Julian and Dick, and they still ended up heavily Frenchified, into François and Michel. And the books were set in Brittany in the French translations, instead of England, even though French kids could have handled reading a story that was set five metres to the left.)

I remember feeling puzzled about Nancy Drew at one point, because she’s such a household name in anglo literature and I’d never ever heard of her, so I was like, we’ve translated every other popular anglo series, why have I never seen a Nancy Drew book in a French library? And then I discovered that Alice Roy from the “Alice” book series in French was, in fact, Nancy Drew. It blew my mind—Nancy Drew is Alice!! omg, I did know her this whole time. I read somewhere that the French translation re-named her because French kids would have no idea how to pronounce “Drew” and because they would be more likely to associate “Nancy” with the French city of the same name, so it wouldn’t feel anglo enough. So, amusingly, it was a mix of domesticating and foreignising. 

One type of domestication that’s regrettably popular in children’s literature is “temporal” domestication—when you re-translate older books to modernise the language and remove references that would “confuse” today’s kids (not talking about changing aspects of the books that wouldn’t fly with today’s sensibilities, that’s another discussion.) In revised editions of the Famous Five books in the UK, “shall / shan’t” were changed to “will / won’t”, dated words like “horrid” became “horrible”, “trunks” -> “suitcases”, etc. It’s a form of domesticating translation—from 1950s English to modern English. Personally I’m not a fan of it, because in a lot of instances, “modernising” prose for children is synonymous with pruning it and dumbing it down.

In French children’s literature spatial domesticating is losing steam while this kind of temporal domesticating is on the rise—we now feel like French kids can handle reading about an English boy named Julian who lives in England, rather than making the story about François in Brittany, but apparently kids can’t handle reading about a boy who lives in the 1950s and speaks accordingly. In recent re-translations of the Famous Five books they changed the passé simple conjugations to the less complex present, and the “nous” to “on” in the kids’ dialogue among other things, to make the text less formal, more modern—and simpler. The Spanish revised editions have examples of both trends—George calls her father “Padre” in the original translation and “Papá” in the modern one (temporal domesticating—the UK reprints do the same thing, changing “Father” to “Dad”); the kids having tea was initially translated as “tomar el té”, while the new translation changed it to “merendar” (spatial domesticating—and sure, it’s a similar enough concept, but it erases cultural differences. If you’re reading about English kids you can accept that they refer to their snack time as la hora del té rather than la merienda...)

Idk, I think kids who enjoy reading can handle books about fictional children that don’t live and talk just as they do; identifying with people who are quite different from you is part of the fun of reading. I remember reading as a kid the Comtesse de Ségur children’s books which were written under Napoléon III, and the 19th century language was a delightful aspect of them—the fact that little kids my age used imperfect subjunctive in casual conversation was hilarious to me. I was saying in my previous post that domesticating your translation too much evinces a lack of respect for your reader’s ability to handle unfamiliar concepts, and I think we should try to have a little more respect for children in that regard.

[peristasis]

I appreaciate the unwillingness of greek red-figure-pottery to be photographed through showcase glass by a smartphone

[roguone]

does luke even know what a mandalorian is? or is he just like “wow these guys all look like boba fett huh”

[t3ooc]

“I’d bite myself and take my feelings out with my teeth.”

[finnichang]

what if… ancient Fierce Deity Link? I’m just very suspicious about not seeing his face in the trailer… artist info: @FinniChang Instagram | Twitter

[legogeek33]

s5 is peak Ninjago imo. you got the ninja struggling to lead, you got Cole as a ghost, you got a villain who feels like destiny is beneath him and that he should control his destiny, you got the ninja all singing a dumb song on wallopers, you got the ninja pranking Cole (and in general feeling WAY closer than I remembered), you got Ronin, who is a genuinely intriguing character, you got Nya struggling with perfectionism and her powers, and most importantly, you got epic jokes.

[high-quality-tiktoks]

📜🙄