#translation by gregory hays

[intertexts]

sigh

[thespanishversion]

Nota del artista, @birdie-ghost

Vanny no tiene la ventaja esta vez.

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[original english] [en ruso]

[genderkoolaid]

"His eyes were always / tearful; he wept sweet life away, in longing / to go back home, since she no longer pleased him. / He had no choice. He spent his nights with her / inside her hollow cave, not wanting her / though she still wanted him." Some have sensed a poignant sorrow in these lines. Gregory Hays, in his New York Times review of Wilson’s translation, says that “we feel sadness on both sides” here. But I have difficulty mustering the same sympathy for Calypso as for Odysseus, who must sleep with the goddess without desire and without choice. My students, ready to condemn Odysseus for his faithless philandering, are always caught off guard by this passage. Put simply, Odysseus — like all victims of rape — does not have the power to say no. His daily weeping recalls that of his wife Penelope, who spends tearful days within the women’s quarters of her palace. If gender is defined not as biologically determined but as a culturally constructed phenomenon informed by power, then it is not Calypso but Odysseus who plays the woman’s part in this episode.

[dispactke]

(think this joker got read?)

Random (mixed-up & garbled) selections of my extractions from Marcus Aurelius, Meditations:

It’s not so much that I believe all or most expressed there within (though much of it is stunningly illuminating), but rather that either way it inspires reflection, a questioning of spiritual perception. (Of even Emperor Aurelius himself with blindness to his own imperialism). In the end he’s a tad fatigued, bitter. But shards of illumination lie here...

Meditations by Marcus Aurelius 

(Gregory Hays, University of Virginia, translation, Modern Library):

* To the world: Your harmony is mine. Whatever time you choose is the right time. Not late, not early. To nature: What the turn of your seasons brings me falls like ripe fruit. All things are born from you, exist in you, return to you.

* Whatever this is that I am, it is flesh and a little spirit and an intelligence. Throw away your books; stop letting yourself be distracted. That is not allowed. Instead, as if you were dying right now, despise your flesh. A mess of blood, pieces of bone, a woven tangle of nerves, veins, arteries. Consider what the spirit is: air, and never the same air, but vomited out and gulped in again every instant. Finally, the intelligence. Think of it this way: You are an old man. Stop allowing your mind to be a slave, to be jerked about by selfish impulses, to kick against fate and the present, and to mistrust the future.

* To pass through this brief life as nature demands. To give it up without complaint. Like an olive that ripens and falls. Praising its mother, thanking the tree it grew on.

* When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: The people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous, and surly. They are like this because they can’t tell good from evil. But I have seen the beauty of good, and the ugliness of evil, and have recognized that the wrongdoer has a nature related to my own―not of the same blood or birth, but the same mind, and possessing a share of the divine. And so none of them can hurt me. No one can implicate me in ugliness. Nor can I feel angry at my relative, or hate him. We were born to work together like feet, hands, and eyes, like the two rows of teeth, upper and lower. To obstruct each other is unnatural. To feel anger at someone, to turn your back on him: these are obstructions.

* A straightforward, honest person should be like someone who stinks: when you’re in the same room with him, you know it. But false straightforwardness is like a knife in the back. False friendship is the worst. Avoid it at all costs. If you’re honest and straightforward and mean well, it should show in your eyes. It should be unmistakable.

* You don’t have to turn this into something. It doesn’t have to upset you. Things can’t shape our decisions by themselves.

* What injures the hive injures the bee.

* Soon you’ll be ashes, or bones. A mere name, at most―and even that is just a sound, an echo. The things we want in life are empty, stale, and trivial. Dogs snarling at each other. Quarreling children―laughing and then bursting into tears a moment later. Trust, shame, justice, truth―“gone from the earth and only found in heaven.”

* If you want to talk about people, you need to look down on the earth from above. Herds, armies, farms; weddings, divorces, births, deaths; noisy courtrooms, desert places; all the foreign peoples; holidays, days of mourning, market days...all mixed together, a harmony of opposites.

* The world is maintained by change―in the elements and in the things they compose.

* Before long, nature, which controls it all, will alter everything you see and use it as material for something else―over and over again. So that the world is continually renewed.

* Wash yourself clean. With simplicity, with humility, with indifference to everything but right and wrong. Care for other human beings. Follow God.

* Love the discipline you know, and let it support you. Entrust everything willingly to the gods, and then make your way through life―no one’s master and no one’s slave.

* But death and life, success and failure, pain and pleasure, wealth and poverty, all these happen to good and bad alike, and they are neither noble nor shameful―and hence neither good nor bad.

* The speed with which all of them vanish―the objects in the world, and the memory of them in time. And the real nature of the things our senses experience, especially those that entice us with pleasure or frighten us with pain, or are loudly trumpeted by pride. To understand those things―how stupid, contemptible, grimy, decaying, and dead they are―that’s what our intellectual powers are for. And to understand what those people really amount to, whose opinions and voices constitute fame. And what dying is―and that if you look at it in the abstract and break down your imaginary ideas of it by logical analysis, you realize that it’s nothing but a process of nature, which only children can be afraid of. (And not only a process of nature but a necessary one.) And how man grasps God, with what part of himself he does so, and how that part is conditioned when he does.

* And above all, that it accepts death in a cheerful spirit, as nothing but the dissolution of the elements from which each living thing is composed. If it doesn’t hurt the individual elements to change continually into one another, why are people afraid of all of them changing and separating? It’s a natural thing.

* Keep your philosophy ready too―ready to understand heaven and earth. In everything you do, even the smallest thing, remember the chain that links them. Nothing earthly succeeds by ignoring heaven, nothing heavenly by ignoring the earth.

* Neither servility nor arrogance. Neither cringing nor disdain. Neither excuses nor evasions. 

* Why are you still here? Sensory objects are shifting and unstable; our senses dim and easily deceived; the soul itself a decoction of the blood; fame in a world like this is worthless. And so? Wait for it patiently―annihilation or metamorphosis.

* Death: something like birth, a natural mystery, elements that split and recombine. Not an embarrassing thing. Not an offense to reason, or our nature.

* Alexander the Great and his mule driver both died and the same thing happened to both. They were absorbed alike into the life force of the world, or dissolved alike into atoms.

* Something happens to you. Good. It was meant for you by nature, woven into the pattern from the beginning. Life is short. That’s all there is to say. Get what you can from the present―thoughtfully, justly. Unrestrained moderation.

* Don’t look down on death, but welcome it. It too is one of the things required by nature. Like youth and old age. Like growth and maturity. Like a new set of teeth, a beard, the first gray hair. Like sex and pregnancy and childbirth. Like all the other physical changes at each stage of life, our dissolution is no different.

* Character: dark, womanish, obstinate. Wolf, sheep, child, fool, cheat, buffoon, salesman, tyrant.

Alien: (n.) one who doesn’t know what the world contains. Or how it operates.

Fugitive: (n.) one who evades his obligations to others.

Blind: (adj.) one who keeps the eyes of his mind shut tight.

Poor: (adj.) requiring others; not having the necessities of life in one’s own possession.

Rebel: (n.) one who is rebellious, one who withdraws from the logos of Nature because he resents its workings. (It produced you; now it produces this.)

Schismatic: (n.) one who separates his own soul from others with the logos. They should be one.

* To watch the courses of the stars as if you revolved with them. To keep constantly in mind how the elements alter into one another. Thoughts like this wash off the mud of life below.

* Injustice is a kind of blasphemy. Nature designed rational beings for each other’s sake: to help―not harm―one another, as they deserve. To transgress its will, then, is to blaspheme against the oldest of the gods. And to lie is to blaspheme against it too. Because “nature” means the nature of that which is. And that which is and that which is the case are closely linked, so that nature is synonymous with Truth―the source of all true things.

* No matter what anyone says or does, my task is to be good. Like gold or emerald or purple repeating to itself, “No matter what anyone says or does, my task is to be emerald, my color undiminished.”

* To see the nature of a sunbeam, look at light as it falls through a narrow opening into a dark room. It extends in a straight line, striking any solid object that stands in its way and blocks the space beyond it. There it remains―not vanishing, or falling away. That’s what the outpouring―the diffusion―of thought should be like: not emptied out, but extended. And not striking at obstacles with fury and violence, or falling away before them, but holding its ground and illuminating what receives it. What doesn’t transmit light creates its own darkness.

* Then what should we work for? Only this: proper understanding; unselfish action; truthful speech. A resolve to accept whatever happens as necessary and familiar, flowing like water from that same source and spring.

* The world as a living being―one nature, one soul. Keep that in mind. And how everything feeds into that single experience, moves with a single motion. And how everything helps produce everything else. Spun and woven together.

* What am I doing with my soul? Interrogate yourself, to find out what inhabits your so-called mind and what kind of soul you have now. A child’s soul, an adolescent’s, a woman’s? A tyrant’s soul? The soul of a predator―or its prey?

* Remember: Matter. How tiny your share of it. Time. How brief and fleeting your allotment of it. Fate. How small a role you play in it.

* Honor and revere the gods, treat human beings as they deserve, be tolerant with others and strict with yourself. Remember, nothing belongs to you but your flesh and blood―and nothing else is under your control.

* Everything is brought about by nature, not by anything beyond it, or within it, or apart from it.

* All underground for a long time now. And what harm does it do them? Or the others either―the ones whose names we don’t even know? The only thing that isn't worthless: to live this life out truthfully and rightly. And be patient with those who don’t.

* Evil: the same old thing. No matter what happens, keep this in mind: It’s the same old thing, from one end of the world to the other. It fills the history books, ancient and modern, and the cities, and the houses too. Nothing new at all. Familiar, transient.

* Forget the future. When and if it comes, you’ll have the same resources to draw on―the same logos.

* Think of yourself as dead. You have lived your life. Now take what’s left and live it properly.

* So you know how things stand. Now forget what they think of you. Be satisfied if you can live the rest of your life, however short, as your nature demands. Focus on that, and don’t let anything distract you. You’ve wandered all over and finally realized that you never found what you were after: how to live. Not in syllogisms, not in money, or fame, or self-indulgence. Nowhere. Then where is it to be found? In doing what human nature requires. How? Through first principles. Which should govern your intentions and your actions. What principles? Those to do with good and evil. That nothing is good except what leads to fairness, and self-control, and courage, and free will. And nothing bad except what does the opposite.

* Three relationships:

i. with the body you inhabit;

ii. with the divine, the cause of everything in all things;

iii. with the people around you.

* It’s quite possible to be a good man without anyone realizing it. Remember that. And this too: you don’t need much to live happily. And just because you’ve abandoned your hopes of becoming a great thinker or scientist, don’t give up on attaining freedom, achieving humility, serving others, obeying God.

* Fear of death is fear of what we may experience. Nothing at all, or something quite new. But if we experience nothing, we can experience nothing bad. And if our experience changes, then our existence will change with it―change, but not cease.

* It’s silly to try to escape other people’s faults. They are inescapable. Just try to escape your own.

* A given action that stops when it’s supposed to is none the worse for stopping. Nor the person engaged in it either. So too with the succession of actions we call “life.” If it ends when it’s supposed to, it’s none the worse for that. And the person who comes to the end of the line has no cause for complaint. The time and stopping point are set by nature—our own nature, in some cases (death from old age); or nature as a whole, whose parts, shifting and changing, constantly renew the world, and keep it on schedule.

* And further... That whatever happens has always happened, and always will, and is happening at this very moment, everywhere. Just like this. What links one human being to all humans: not blood, or birth, but mind.

[belovedblabber]

Also for the fandom ask: something very nerdy and obscure relating to your field of study (if you want!). Like, 12th Century Despots or Most Annoying Middle Age Saints. IDK EXACTLY but I think it would be cool to know some History Facts

Oh this makes me so happy thank you!

Favorite Male Character: King Leovigild, of Visigothic Iberia c. 568-586CE. Most of what we know about him comes from a seventh-century work of Visigothic hagiography, vitas patrum emeretensium aka The Lives of the Fathers of Merida. He gets a bad rep from certain sections of it, and a lot of hagiographical tropes apply, but by doing a careful reading and cross referencing with some chronicles and law codes (primary sources on Visigothic Iberia are scarce!) it's possible to get a much more nuanced picture of him. Anyway I'm weirdly defensive of this random Visigothic king fghjk. Okay other favorite male character, so to speak, is Saint Francis. I love him, I almost wrote a thesis on him, he's my fave. ALSO Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius, who wrote "The Meditations" which were his personal musings and notes to self never intended for publication. I would highly suggest the Gregory Hays translation, as it's really easy to connect to. My students loved reading bits of it and really connected with the text, which was a real breakthrough. If I talk about Marcus Aurelius too much I start tearing up fghjghjk

Favorite Female Character: Queen Radegund of Poitier. She's so fascinating! She's a great case study in the avenues of power and autonomy open to sixth-century noblewomen, and there's so much to glean from the various accounts about her. She escaped her husband and became an abbess, and her story is worth a read! I also love Saint Christina the Astonishing who is just...wild. I highly suggest googling her if you don't know her already

Least Favorite Character: Tik tok 'historians' dfghjk

Favorite Ship: Gonna pass on this one although one time I made a joke about writing a slash fic of Leovigild and Masona, the bishop he was fighting with. A JOKE

Favorite Friendship: I find the friendship between Queen Radegund and the poet Venantius Fortunatus really interesting. He wrote about her!

Favorite Quote: Anything from my seminar paper eyyyyyyy. Also a whole bunch of excerpts from "The Meditations" because there's so much to connect to in them. It's like reaching back through the ages and touching the mind of this man who is so utterly different than me in every way, but I still understand things he expresses and feel this deep sense of connection even as I know that we're so profoundly different. It's such a personal work because it was never meant to be published! It would be like if someone published my notesapp stuff sdfghj. Also he addresses himself as 'you' in his notes to himself which I also do, and I love that. Anyway there are so many great moments in that text. At one point he talks about not wanting to get out of bed in the morning. Mood. There are also so many beautiful parts that I connect to on a more painful level. I find many sections of the work to be legit helpful and inspiring to me in my daily life, and it's gotten me through some hard times, so it's a very special text to me. And I get a little teary thinking about how this long dead man's words can resonate today. It's like he's talking to us. Me and my parasocial relationship with roman emperor Marcus Aurelius. But anyway my very favorite quote from the entire work is one that ends in "While you're alive and able--be good." There's something that really hits me about that, not least of which is because when I was a teenager I wrote almost exactly the same sentiment on my bunkbed, as a note to self. I hadn't read The Meditations yet back then, I was just expressing this sentiment as a reminder or a call to action or some such thing, and then years later I read the words of a random Roman emperor from the second century CE that were an exact echo of my own words (or my words were an echo of his?) And idk, that struck me. That a teen girl in the 2010s and a roman emperor in the second century could write down the same little note to self.

Worst Character Death: uhhh...Jesus. That one caused some long-term issues (this is a joke I do not have a least favorite death from my areas of study dfghj)

This made me so happy you have no idea Moment: I just love everything about the periods and people I study, I love history, I love the fact that people are people are people, I love engaging with the parts of the past that I study on their own terms, but also feeling this connection and seeing these shared threads of humanity. That's what it's all about to me, you know?

Saddest Moment: When I have to actually put my ideas into essay form. Or I mean, at least the initial bit of that process is hard

Favorite Location: Visigothic Mérida, let's say

Anyway thank you for asking me this made me wildly happy!

[default-cube]

9,35, and 48 for the book ask game?

Thank you for asking! These were really hard to answer

9) do you have a favorite author? Oh this is hard. This is really hard. There are so many to chose from! I'm just gonna mention a couple (in no particular order!) Orson Scott Card - I know you haven't particulary enjoyed ender's game, but I really liked it. Way better however was the spinoff series ender's shadow which I absolutely devoured. I love it! (that being said if you didn't like enders game chances are you also wouldn't like ender's shadow) Hemmingway - His short stories are just so so great. Serious recommendation to just get a short story collection from him and read through it. George R.R. Martin - but not for the reason you might think! I refuse to read asoiaf until it is finished (so I can be sure that it will be finished), but I absolutely loved his early sci-fi short stories! Huge recommendation to Dreamsongs (particulary volume I), which is a great collection of his early work, in publication order, with bits of autobiography thrown in in between. John McCrae - Now admittetly I've only read one work of him (Worm), so it might be a bit weird to put him into "favourite author" category, but that work was 1,680,000(!) words long, and being able to contiously hold the tension in a novel for that long is just an enourmous feat. So, also huge rec for Worm (though be aware that it is also probably the most gruesome novel I've read so far, so if you cannot stomach that, are on the lookout for pretty much any trigger-warnings, or just plain don't like too much violence in your novels, you might want to stay away)

35) what’s a book you read over and over? I… don't think I have any fiction books that I've read multiple times. For non-fiction, books that I've read 5+ times would be The Willpower Instinct by Kelly McGonigal (classic self-help, but helped me tremendously when I was about sixteen), and, as much of a cliché as it is, the Meditations by Marcus Aurelius (Gregory Hays translation)

48) what book would you give someone if they wanted a glimpse into your psyche? Oh God. I don't know. <- 15 min. have passed since I wrote this sentence and I still don't know, this one is the hardest question for sure. I definetly identified a lot with shevek from Le Guin's The Dispossessed, though I don't know if I would call that a "glimpse into my psyche".

[modernmarcus]

Disclaimers:

I am not claiming to be like Marcus Aurelius or any one else.

If anything, I’m just someone trying to do better & this helps sometimes.

These are not new translations, just my own interpretations drawn from 3 translations (I don’t make money from these links) -

Gregory Hays:

Robin Hard:

George Long:

[donotexterminateupgradepudding]

Black Sails - update on Captain Flint’s reading list - quick thoughts

I’ve been working my way through what I’m calling Captain Flint’s reading list - or the key books he either owned or were key to the plot of the show.  To keep things fresh I have been reading more than one book at a time.

A few books were hard to find as e-books or based on the original formatting that has been maintained for the copies, I chose to purchase the hard copy.

After getting my Covid booster shot, I popped into a bookstore and got a hard copy of Meditations.  I’d been getting tired of the free ebook with rather over the top language.  This copy is hailed as the first translation in a generation from 2003 by Gregory Hays.  I’ve been taking my time with it and find this translation to be more direct in its intentions.  It still keeps the true feelings of the text, but it does shy away from the more dramatic:

- You should be like a rocky promontory, against which the restless surf continuously pounds.  It stands fast while the churning sea is lulled to sleep at its feet.

which is what Miranda reads to Richard Guthrie as her favorite selection.

The Hays translation instead goes with:

- To be like the rock that the waves keep crashing over.  It stands unmoved and the raging of the sea falls still around it.

The ebook version has this variation from a translation by Casaubon, which is edited by someone who isn’t credited in the document.  It is clear though that Casaubon took liberties with the translation - including paraphrasing things for the current reader of 1634 or 1635:

I have a feeling that some of these 17th and 18th century translations seem to have taken a rather loose interpretation of the text for their contemporary readers.  I’m now personally curious to go digging around for the original Latin text and see if I can clear out the cobwebs of my own Latin skills which have gone unused for over twenty years.   All in all, I’m starting to favor Hays’ translation which has that more exact vibe I recall from translating prose myself many moons ago.  Latin is always so clear what is going on with its over the top number of verb tenses and noun declensions, but damn, they do tell you exactly what it going on.

Leviathan - by Hobbes.  This is one that I’m still reading the ebook version since it would be pretty thick. Honestly, this was likely not the best -or- maybe the best choice to read around Midterm elections.  I could just absorb the Hobbes-ness of it and feel smug as the political theatre was turned up to 11.

I love the transcriber’s notes on the text in the second paragraph - ‘and sometimes, it seems, just because.’  I can wholeheartedly agree with that statement. 

My favorite parts so far are the oft quoted ‘of accidents of bread and cheese’ and his refusal to use consistent spelling of ‘we’ or ‘wee’ for ‘we’; sometimes using both spellings in the same paragraph!  Lastly, his spelling of corn as ‘corne’.

Joking aside, it is a very interesting read.  The first part goes about defining what is man, common sense, human nature, fighting against that human nature which would be a state of war and general crappiness.  The idea that people suck and will sink to their lowest level = conflict/war is pretty obvious.  It ties on the idea that uncivilized places would be in this state of war while a civilized commonwealth would not.  But anyone watching Black Sails knows that the longer the series goes on the more and more you wonder what is a civilization? What makes a civil society?  When is it justified to fight for your rights and wage war against an oppressive force?  The pirates of Nassau both wage war upon merchants (and each other) yet have democratic crews voting on leaders and choices and giving leadership to someone with their consent which is a great transition into part two.

The commonwealth where people put aside those natural instincts and surrender their rights to the commonwealth to maintain order and stability.  This commonwealth is led/cemented by the sovereign, who can drive all policies even if the people feel they are incorrect or flawed.  What reading the text really highlighted for me how loosely the concept of the social contract and the role of the sovereign are communicated in passing.  Multiple times Hobbes is quite clear that the ‘sovereign’ can be a single individual or can be an elected government of a collection of individuals.  Furthermore, if it is a single individual, he’s staunchly opposed to the idea of that power being hereditary since it would just make him a king.

Are we as viewers to see the juxtaposition between England being civilization where the people of the commonwealth put up with the government to manage them while the pirates exist in a more primitive state of nature?  Or is it through the process of removing oneself from the colonial naval complex where one is ruled by fear and punishment (that state of war/conflict) and by breaking free of this and forms a commonwealth where a crew democratically elects a captain and quartermaster, thus creating a social contract in a state of ‘lawlessness’?

Does Flint’s knowledge of Leviathan both feed into his belief that most men are dumb and would revert to that state of nature? E.g. Flint to Silver - “If left up to their own devices they’d eat it raw.” However, is it by joining his crew and his commonwealth, they escape that state of nature by forming a social contract with him?

I’m currently stuck in part three where he discusses the Christian commonwealth b/c well, he sort of has to address the geopolitical elements of the time and the power of the Church and the Church of England.  It is a rather dry part of the text but there is no way it would have been published without the religious element.  I’m not as excited by a man using Biblical text to back up his thesis that a commonwealth lead by a sovereign is key to advancing society and government. La Galatea - by Cervantes (Gyll translation).  I was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed this book.  It is stated to be a pastoral romance - an excuse to have lots of poems in homage to the man who really solidified the genre - Virgil.  The idea that it is a single romance is misleading - it is all sorts of romances between shepherds and shepherdesses as well as a few cavilers and more noble ladies.  The book introduces the famed Galatea, a beautiful shepherdess who has two men very much into her, Elicio and Erasto who happen to be best friends.  I found some of the more exciting stories of Timbrio and his horrible luck in all of his travels. 

The worst part is that the book ends with Elicio going forth to try to “rescue” Galatea from an arranged marriage by her father.  And then Cervantes ends it with a statement that if the book is received well and his patrons give him some money, he’ll write book two.  However, there is no book two!  We’ll never know what happens.

For Black Sails, this means that James gave Miranda a book where the two boys never get the one girl!  The prose is interesting and the poems are pretty much entirely about all sorts of romances/love/rejection/lust but there is no way to know how this ends.  I have to admit, I wanted to know what happened! However, if Flint read the beginning where it describes Elicio as the more sophisticated shepherd and Erastro as the overly educated and eloquent but of the proletariat with a lovely lady who has their attention. . . . Well, he likely saw it as representing Thomas and himself.  Two very different men (strange pairs in Thomas’s words) with a single woman between them, Miranda.  Or are we to feel terrible that Miranda was given a book which didn’t reveal what happened thus her stuck with her ultimate fate while James and Thomas remain?

After talking with a friend, I was told to give Don Quixote another try.  She’d also complained she struggled with it previously, and that I should seek out the Edith Grossman translation.  I’ll see if I go down that path in the near future. Lastly, I’ve started Hugo Grotius’ De Jure Belli ac Pacis - with a harder to find edition of the second English translation by William Evats.  I’d originally gotten a version from a right wing publisher in Indiana which annoyingly split each book up into an individual version as a part of their ‘Natural Law and Enlightenment Classics’ and references a 1738 version of the translation after the end of the series.  I found the Evats’ translation from a law book publisher which dates back to 1682 and completely replicates the original text, odd printing format and all.  Plus, it includes all three books in one volume.  The language is quite similar to reading Hobbes with the need to define what is right, war, nature etc.  But that makes sense since it was published in 1625 and Leviathan in 1651.

This will likely become more interesting as I get further into the book as it defines when war is justified, if the law applies in war and all sorts of other issues that are always swirling around in the series.  The index references piracy several times where it concludes that robbers and pyrates do not = a civil society despite their equity among themselves.  I was a little eager to see what Mr. Grotius had to say on the issue and I’ll see how it fits into the context of the greater work soon-ish, when I get to book III.

[on-other-winds]

Meditations, by Marcus Aurelius; translated by Gregory Hays / The Green Knight; directed by David Lowery

[thedhananjayaparkhe]

Daily Stoic Newsletter

Before we get into this weekend’s Stoic Review—in case you missed it, last week, we announced a premium leather-bound edition of ​Meditations.** Because our paperback copies were starting to get a little worse for wear, we went out and created an edition with a level of quality not possible with mass produced books. First, we reached out to Gregory Hays, the translator of the Modern Library…

[a-ramblinrose]

—It’s unfortunate that this has happened. No. It’s fortunate that this has happened and I’ve remained unharmed by it—not shattered by the present or frightened of the future. It could have happened to anyone. But not everyone could have remained unharmed by it. Why treat the one as a misfortune rather than the other as fortunate? Can you really call something a misfortune that doesn’t violate human nature? Or do you think something that’s not against nature’s will can violate it? But you know what its will is. Does what’s happened keep you from acting with justice, generosity, self-control, sanity, prudence, honesty, humility, straightforwardness, and all the other qualities that allow a person’s nature to fulfill itself? So remember this principle when something threatens to cause you pain: the thing itself was no misfortune at all; to endure it and prevail is great good fortune.

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations trans. Gregory Hays

[dispactke]

Random Meditations: Marcus Aurelius (Gregory Hays translation, Modern Library).

[lucy-mclean]

tag 9 people to learn about their interests!

tagged by: @neve-campbells​, thank you so much!! ♡

MUSIC

Fave genre? Trap.

Fave artist? Fernando Costa.

Fave song? Gusanos de Seda - fernandocosta

Most listened song recently? Blin Blin - Bad Gyal

Song currently stuck in your head? Surprisingly none lmao.

5 fave lyrics? Those are from the songs I’ve been listening to the most lately. Also, I didn’t translate them because they kind of lose their magic in English :/ (oh and even if you don’t understand Spanish I encourage y’all to listen to these songs because the rhythm is so cool.)

Cuántos marineros se han perdido por oír sirenas. Cuántos delincuentes han huido por oír sirenas. Cuántas noches yo con mis dilemas. [Gusanos de Seda - fernandocosta]

Cuantas lagrimas vertidas. Cuantas noches increíblemente divertidas, tanto amor y ahora tanto limón en la herida. Jóvenes amando como jóvenes suicidas. [Forget & Forgive - Swan Fyahbwoy]

Ni una escalera, para poder alcanzarte. Ni una pistola, para poder gobernarte. [Ingobernable - C. Tangana]

El día de mi muerte quiero que beban fuerte. Que brinden con champán y que fumen rama. Quiero verte hoy por si ya no estoy mañana. [Rolas - Hard Gz & fernandocosta]

Si se vacían las alas y el cielo ya se calla, cuando el telón ya se ha bajado y solo ya hay butacas. Cuando termino mi actuación y espero otra función, cuando la ansiedad me corroe, crear mi adicción. Cuando las luces se han callado, no te he olvidado. Cuando llueve sobre mojado y mi alma se ha empapado. Cuando todo va mal y solo hay diazepam, pasadme el micro darle al on que yo soy inmortal. [Inmortal - Costa]

radio or your own playlist | solo artists or bands | pop or indie | loud or silent volume I slow or fast songs | music video or lyrics video | speakers or headset | riding a bus in silence or while listening to music | driving in silence or with radio on

BOOKS

Fav book genre? Thrillers.

Fav writer? Stephen King.

Fav book? The Girl on the Train.

Fav book series? The Hunger Games.

Comfort book? I don’t read enough to have one :(

Perfect book to read on a rainy day? Same as before.

Fave characters? I mostly read thrillers so I don’t really get attached to the characters lmao but I liked Katniss Everdeen.

5 quotes from your fave book that you know by heart? I don’t think I know any quote by heart (damn I really need to read more.)

hardcover or paperback | buy or rent | standalone novels or book series | ebook or physical copy | reading at night or during the day | reading at home or in nature | listening to music while reading or reading in silence | reading in order or reading the ending first | reliable or unreliable narrator | realism or fantasy | one or multiple POVS | judging by the covers or by the summary | rereading or reading just once

TV AND MOVIES

Fave tv/movie genre? I love procedural shows and I also like well done dramas. Fav movie genre is definitely thriller/mystery.

Fave movie? Se7en.

Comfort movie? About Time, Paddington.

Movie you watch every year? About Time, The Dreamers.

Fave tv show? Shameless, Skins.

Comfort tv show? Modern Family and early seasons (s1-5) Grey’s Anatomy.

Most rewatched tv show? I’ve seen Modern Family, Shameless and Skins way too many times.

5 fave characters? Fiona Gallagher, Kate Beckett, Peyton Sawyer, Wolfgang Bogdanow and I’m having a hard time choosing a fifth one lmao (perhaps Gregory House.)

tv shows or movie | short seasons (8-13 episodes) or full seasons (22 episodes or more) | one episode a week or binging | one season or multiple seasons | one part or saga | half hour or one hour long episodes | subtitles on or off | rewatching or watching just once | downloads or watches online

tagging: @brockedavis @rupert-giles @starkozova @lieutenantcasey @gallagherfionas @torisvega @scullay @fitzs @adamsruzek 

[thecousinsdangereux]

fic preview: over the wide skies up above (and the earth below)

Pairing: Blake/Yang (RWBY)

Playlist: On Spotify

Notes: This is a preview of a thing that I may or may not be something I actually finish post ski!au. Basically, it’s all for @twelveclara who wanted a Greek Gods AU. You’re lucky I adore you, you dumb bitch. I’ll fix this up and write more for you some day. Happy birthday. <3

                                                           — 

She was picking flowers: roses, crocus, and beautiful violets. Up and down the soft meadow. Iris blossoms too she picked, and hyacinth. And the narcissus, which was grown as a lure for the flower-faced girl by Gaia. All according to the plans of Zeus. She was doing a favor for the one who receives many guests. It was a wondrous thing in its splendor. To look at it gives a sense of holy awe to the immortal gods as well as mortal humans. It has a hundred heads growing from the root up. Its sweet fragrance spread over the wide skies up above. And the earth below smiled back in all its radiance. So too the churning mass of the salty sea

[From the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, translated by Gregory Nagy]

                                                            —

They meet on a Sunday morning, on the first day of Winter, under a cloudy and snow-filled sky.

It’s a collision only barely avoided; she swerves, but the white petals still brush against her cheek, sticking out every which way and thus not as easily dodged as the form carrying them (barreling around the corner without any particular concern or hesitation). The juxtaposition hardly stops there, because the resulting stream of expletives feels in direct opposition to what follows it: an apology that —  when directed at her — sounds soft and familiar, despite the lingering profanities.  

The thought doesn’t make any sense, but she hardly has time to consider its meaning when it first hits her; it’s quickly followed by a scent — floral and strong and overwhelming — that hits just as hard, turns the world over on itself, shifts the seasons, melts the ice around them. 

“Shit, sorry! I’ve got so many of these fucking things that I can barely see and I’ve got to get them to the greenhouse in like five minutes and I’m really running late and are you okay?” 

The flowers — she can see them more clearly now: long-stemmed and white with a brilliant yellow center ringed in red — obscure most of the woman’s face. But her long blonde hair spills outside of the boundaries of the dozens of stems barely contained to the two large buckets she holds in front of her chest. Blake finds herself briefly distracted again (distracted from a distraction), this time by the looping curls, the different colors of gold that glint among the strands despite the overcast skies. But then the woman shifts, trying to see around the stems, and with the movement, a new wave of the scent hits her and it’s all she can think about again. 

“What is that?” 

“What’s what?” The woman laughs and finally pokes her head through the flowers. The bright smile that appears is one that Blake cannot differentiate from the first bloom of Spring. “You mean like, the daffodils or — whoa.” 

She can’t pinpoint the reason for the change, but something makes the woman’s eyes (the color of the sky at 5:30 am in the middle of June) widen when they first meet Blake’s. The surprise steals her smile, but it returns almost immediately, stronger than before. 

“Whoa,” she says again. “Where have you been?” 

Blake’s a college freshman — one who got a fake ID at 16 and has been to frat parties and bars and clubs — and so she’s heard the line before (or something like it, ‘all my life’ tacked on at the end), but she’s never heard anyone say it like this woman does. The emphasis is in the wrong spot, the tone out of place, the emotion behind it incomprehensible. 

(Stranger than all that, her instantaneous thought — one she only just keeps from escaping her own lips — is waiting for you.) 

“I — what?” she says instead. 

“It’s the day before Christmas break! I’ve been here all semester and I’ve never seen you before. It’s not that big of a school. So, like, where have you been?” 

The girl shifts her cargo to the side — as though to give herself a better view — and the warm leather of her coat, the soft wool around the collar, belong on her frame as much as the dark gold belongs around her neck (a woven scarf, color deeper than her hair). 

“Not in the greenhouse,” Blake settles on. “I didn’t know we had one.” 

“Yeah, I could have guessed that.” 

It comes with a laugh and Blake’s not sure whether to be offended or not, but the woman quickly continues, before Blake can settle on any one expression.

“The Botany program is pretty small. Not too many people other than us visit the far field, let alone the Greenhouse.”

“Botany?” It’s not what she expects, but it feels right. 

(Blake’s not sure how she knows what feels right. But she doesn’t question it either.)

“Yeah. Plants are sort of my thing.” The girl lifts one of the buckets as though to prove her point, and Blake is once again reminded. 

“Yeah. What are those? They smell — ”

(Perfect. Like something she’s been searching for.) 

“Really good right?” She laughs again; a breeze, but one strong enough to bend the trunks of trees. “Yeah, people use it in perfumes all the fucking time. But I think I like the pure version of it best.” Leaning forward, the woman tips the bucket in Blake’s direction, allowing her to get another whiff. “Poet’s Daffodil. Narcissus poeticus, if you’d be into me showing off.” 

She’s leaning in, breathing in deep, but her surprise at the name is such that it nearly sends her rocking off balance and crashing face-first into the delicate stems.

“Oh, you are into me showing off.” The woman shifts again, but the flowers can’t obscure the brightness of her grin. “Hold on, let me take some notes for future reference. Is it the Latin, foreign languages in general, or the vast depth of knowledge that does it for you?” 

“No, I — ” Blake barely recognizes the laugh that escapes from her own lips. “No, it’s just. I’ve never seen it before. The flower version of Narcissus, I mean. But I’ve read about it a hundred times. The man, at least.” 

The woman’s head tilts in thought, but her expression clears quickly.

“Mythology nerd, huh?”

“Classics major.” 

“Oh, super mythology nerd.” She tips the bucket forward again. One of the flowers slides against Blake’s cheek. “You better take one then. You can show it off to all your friends. Spin it however you like. Something like, you got a mythological flower from a mythological girl.” She pauses. “Okay that didn’t actually make sense, I don’t think. I meant like, you got a flower from a goddess. Because I’m like -- uh, I dunno -- what’s the hottest goddess?” 

“The last person who answered that question got into an awful lot of trouble, in the end,” Blake quips, but finds her smile aches. (She also finds she has an immediate answer, though it’s not one of the three that Paris had to consider in the contest that lead to such trouble for the Greeks and Trojans both.)

“I think I remember the basics of that one. How about you take the flower and my number instead of a golden apple and we’ll skip the bad ending.” 

It’s sudden, but it doesn’t feel like it. It feels like Blake’s been waiting for a while. 

“Forward,” she says despite all that, because it’s almost as though she has to. As though there are steps to take that she’s not allowed to skip, lest she upset a balance she wasn’t aware existed before now. 

It’s a dramatic thought; she’d laugh at herself if — when she reaches into the bucket to grasp one of the stems — she didn’t feel the world sigh in relief.  

“I’ve never really seen the point of wasting time.” The woman shrugs, tone and words light, but only in the same sort of way (required, practiced lines). “There’s just not enough of it.” 

“You sound like you’re a hundred years old and on your deathbed,” Blake laughs, but oh, her heart is clenching. And she’s taking out her phone. She’s making a new contact. She’s already thinking about the first time she’ll text this woman and she doesn’t even know her name. 

(There isn’t enough time. Somehow, she agrees, and that makes her want to get all of it in now, while she has a chance.)

“Or I’m someone who is very late in dropping off some daffodils that don’t really like the cold much. Even if I have a very valid excuse in wanting to stick around.” She pulls away with several long strides backwards; it seems genuinely regretful, but she brightens a little, seeing the flower clutched in one of Blake’s hands (and her phone in the other). “818-815-6247. Let me know if you want to see the greenhouse. Or tell me about the prettiest goddess. Or do anything at all.” 

She takes another step back and Blake nods twice, before realizing she’s missing something. 

“Wait! I’m — ” It comes out sounding a little more desperate than she would have liked, but then, the woman turns back towards her quickly enough for a single petal to fall off of one of of the flowers, so maybe pretenses aren’t really something either of them are concerning themselves with. “I don’t know your name.” 

“Yang.” It’s not the name she expects, but it slides into place easily enough. 

“Blake.” (Somehow, that’s not the name she expects either, even though it’s her own.) “I’ll text you. Call you. Soon.” 

“Good.” She catches another flash of that smile before Yang turns away. “And I’ll be waiting. Or —  trying to. I’ve never been very patient, though you’d think I would have learned by now.” 

“A lot of practice?” Blake calls after her, takes a step towards her (doesn’t notice). 

“Too much, I think.” Her laugh carries, blonde curls whip in the wind as she walks off. “So try to have mercy on me this time.”

Afterwards, she smells of daffodils (of dark green leaves, of a meadow that stretches on and on and on, of mint and hay and dirt and weeds and the whole of spring), as though it’s coming from her pores rather than the flower she places in a small glass on her nightstand. The scent persists through showers and nights out and all the smells that come with living in a coed freshman dorm. It lasts for days (or eons) and stretches back in time, too; she finds it tucked away in memories where it has no place, couldn’t possibly exist. 

(She’s five and her mom takes her to pick blueberries, she’s fourteen on a field trip to the botanical gardens, she’s seventeen and trying to find a perfume that suits her, she’s nineteen and stepping out of her late night Byzantine history seminar. And it’s there — it’s always there — just out of reach: the field over, the next flower, a slightly different perfume, a whiff on the wind that she chases across campus for ten minutes before giving up.)  

(She’s older — ageless — and she doesn’t recognize herself, but it’s there too.) 

The scent of flowers lingers and Blake doesn’t mind. 

She also texts Yang before it can begin to fade.

—

They first meet on Helios’s Day, on the morning of the vernal equinox, under a bright and clear sky.

She watches from behind the treeline, but even from a distance, it’s obvious, the way the ground rises to greet her when the woman walks past: stalks lengthening, flowers unfolding, grass brightening into a more vibrant shade of green with each step she takes. The world is in bloom and it follows the unspoken instructions of only one creature that roams its face. 

Hesitation is not a trait often associated with the gods, but the god of the underworld feels it now, unwilling to interrupt the celebration that the very Earth seemingly wishes to partake in, but desiring it all the same. She is used to the damp, dark coolness of the world below, and the sun always seems beats down with an unfamiliar and uncomfortable heat, but today it feels indomitable and irresistible. 

Today, she wants to step out into the light. 

Vines wrap around her as soon as she does — nothing binding or restrictive, but welcoming — a soft touch that greets her in time with the smile of the one who controls them. She does not appear surprised at the intrusion, nor displeased, but when she walks closer and white flowers — fragrant and familiar — spring up all around them, certainty sprouts as well. 

“The receiver of many guests. Giver of good counsel. It’s not often we see you up here.” The tone is teasing, different from what she typically hears, and it warms her cheeks, places a shade of color there that others would not recognize. (She barely recognizes it in herself.) “What have you come to the surface for?” 

She has an answer to the question, but it’s an honest one, not one she typically gives freely. 

She gives it freely now.  

“Sometimes, I miss being around things that are alive.” 

The goddess doesn’t belittle when she responds — though her smile stays playful — like so many others would. 

“I may be able to help you with that.” 

The ground shifts again and one of the flowers at her feet lifts, stem lengthening to four times what would be natural, until it’s sliding between her fingers, depositing itself in her palm, releasing itself from the Earth when she lifts it to her nose and breathes deep. 

“Everything dies when I go below,” she says softly, and with regret. 

“Not this.” 

She stares into the goddess’s eyes (crocus, monkshood, bellflower, wisteria, lilac) and believes her words, impossible though they are. 

“I’m Kore.” The name doesn’t quite suit her, though the king of the underworld had known it before now. “You should call on me whenever you want to feel something that is alive.” 

“And what if I feel that always?” 

Kore laughs. The whole of the clearing blooms. 

“Then you should call on me always, Hades. Whenever you please.”

—

There’s no need for any pretense. No desire for it, besides.

They graduate from text to voice quickly — within the span of a week —  and when Blake calls, Yang answers on the first ring. When Blake asks if she wants to hang out, Yang rattles off seven different options without pause. 

(“I’ve been thinking about what we should do together since we first met,” Yang says, not really an admission, not when the truth is so easily accessible.

“That was four days ago,” Blake feels she has to add, but Yang just laughs.)

Yang — without flowers blocking her face — is more beautiful than anything Blake’s ever seen. It’s more than the sharp cut of her jaw or the muscles of her forearm or the way her eyes crinkle when she smiles; Yang is attractive and anyone would agree, but it’s more than that. (Something curls in Blake’s stomach and settles in place at the sight, roots growing quick and deep.) And maybe it’s more for Yang too, because her expression — when Blake steps into view, climbing up over the crest of the hill that marks the start of the far field  — holds more than Blake can measure. 

College is strange, and the relationships formed within it, stranger still. She’d met Sun at a freshmen karaoke mixer that she’d been dragged to by her roommate, and in the span of a few hours, they’d gone through every stage of a relationship imaginable: strangers (the awkward first meet), rivals (when he and Ilia had picked the same song and Blake had been dragged along in solidarity), possible partners (when mixer had become unofficial and the alcohol had come out), and (finally) best friends (when the awkward flirtation and intoxication was behind them).   

But this — Yang taking her hand and leading her towards the greenhouse — is different, and that must be apparent to both of them, because Yang hardly looks surprised when Blake doesn’t step away, even once they’re inside. 

“Why botany?” Blake asks, tone softer than the question merits.

Yang’s lips curl and Blake gets caught on the corner like it’s a hook; she wants to press her fingers against the indent, and then do the same with her mouth.   

“I like making things grow. Wherever I go.” Her smile is unabashed, even when she continues. “Cheesy, I know. But I like making things come alive.”

(Blake thinks of vines growing in places they shouldn’t be able to, thinks of flowers sprouting from the cracks in pavement, thinks of the roots of trees spilling out over and digging into rock. She thinks — most of all — of Yang’s hands on all of them and on her as well, a different sort of challenge that Yang never took as such.) 

“It’s not cheesy it’s — “ As she searches for the word, Yang’s gaze does something similar with the planes of her face (searching, though Blake doesn’t think she finds what she’s looking for, and finds herself coming up similarly short). “ —  sincere? Earnest?” She shakes her head; neither are quite right. “Whatever it is, the world needs more of it.” 

The honesty doesn’t sound as sweet coming from her lips, but Yang doesn’t appear to mind. She smiles again, wider this time, and the plants around them pulse with a soft sigh, a tangible exhale of oxygen. And when Yang walks along the rows -- running her fingers gently along the leaves and petals and stalks -- when she speaks each of their names, Blake could swear the vegetation leans into her touch. 

The thought is less strange when coupled with her own: that she wants to do much of the same. 

She searches for patience, then. 

She’s had practice with it too. 

(She used to have more of it.) 

—

She doesn’t last long. 

But then, how could she? 

Only a week later, one of Yang’s friends throws a back-to-school party and Blake gets pulled along, as seems to be the new trend. 

(“It’s weird,” Yang says, much in the same way she always does, with a grin lighting her face. “She’s normally a lot more particular about her guest list.”) 

There’s alcohol waiting for them as soon as they walk in, and they each throw back a shot before moving any further, though the (surprisingly) fancy cocktail Blake picks up shortly after is one that she nurses for the rest of the night, at least until her hands find better uses. 

Yang’s hands find them more quickly than Blake’s; she’s tactile and gregarious and fun and she touches people as she greets them, throughout conversations, when she says goodbye. But she touches Blake most of all: her hand on the small of her back, her fingers threading through the hair that rests at the nape of her neck, her chin resting on Blake’s shoulder. 

It builds and builds and there’s not enough time and so Blake reaches down, tugs on Yang’s hand and pulls her outside. It feels like the only place they can be — tucked into the corner of the balcony of Yang’s friend’s lavish apartment with the night sky overhead — when she kisses her. 

There’s no surprise in the action, but there’s plenty of everything else. 

(Blake considers all the Greek words for affection, for feeling, for lust, for every form of love known to the poets, and disregards them all.) 

Her lipstick is dark, and it’s smeared over Yang’s mouth when she pulls back (later — that night and in the upcoming weeks and months and years — she’ll find it in other places: Yang’s neck, her thighs, her sheets). The stains Yang leaves is of a different sort, but Blake first notices it in the taste left on her lips. She runs her tongue along it, brow pinching in thought, and Yang laughs as she watches her try to figure it out. 

“Pomegranate,” she explains. “It’s the lip balm.” 

Blake can’t see how that accounts for all of it and kisses her again, just to be sure.

—

The first time they kiss, the world springs into revelry.

The humans flourish under the bountiful harvest; their yields triple, they write songs about the season, they throw feasts without excuse, and each of the gods benefit from an upsurge of tributes, from the smallest villages to the largest city-states. 

She hardly notices. 

Instead, she focuses on memorizing the way Kore tastes. 

 —

She meets a boy in her Ancient Greek Lit class, finds his translation of the first line of the Odyssey to be interesting. The word polytropos, he argues, should be taken as an active description; Odysseus is not controlled but in control of his fate. ‘Sing to me, Muse, of a compelling man; sing through me the story of a man who could shape the world around him’, the boy writes, and Blake gets caught on the intensity in his expression as he reads it, is taken by his confidence and passion (forgets to argue against the lengthiness and the clear liberties he takes). 

He greets her after class, suggests they study together sometime, and that’s what Yang finds them doing a couple days later, tucked away in a corner of the library, pouring over words translated a thousand times, Adam finding a way to disagree with every previous version of them. Yang slides into the conversation and the seat next to Blake without needing to be invited, her warm smile at ease even when Adam switches to Greek, speaks fast and condescending. 

“Well I don’t know anything about any of that,” Yang says easily. “But Blake told me that myths were supposed to be enjoyed by everyone, right? That they were passed on from generation to generation, like bedtime songs or campfire stories. Seems like getting all wordy and pretentious doesn’t really fit that idea, right?” She smiles, and Blake’s gaze shifts towards it, away from the clear ire in Adam’s eyes. “I’d go with Blake’s version.”

In the hour they’d been at the table, Blake hadn’t offered her own translation (hadn’t been asked), but it’s scribbled there, within the margins of the pages of printed out Greek, and Yang’s fingers brush against the pen strokes as she leans in, their shoulders brushing against each other. 

“Tell me about a complicated man,” Blake reads, voice soft. 

“Yeah.” Yang nods and completely ignores Adam’s glare. Blake finds doing the same to be easy, his magnetism fading away, swept aside by stronger forces. “Sometimes you’ve got to admit that something like that can’t be totally summed up in a word or even in a sentence. There’s something kind of beautiful about that too — I think — admitting the complexity in such a simple way.”

“I… think so too.”  

Adam doesn’t last for much longer, quickly tiring of not being the center of attention. He slams his books shut and shoves his chair out with force when he stands and Blake can’t remember what it was about him that appealed to her in the first place.

“I don’t like him,” Yang says after he leaves, a simple declaration as she steals a sip from Blake’s water bottle.

Blake blinks. Considers. “Yeah. I don’t think I’ll be studying with him again.” 

And she doesn’t. 

(It’s not normally that easy, she thinks, later on, and isn’t sure what she means by that at all.)

—

The humans tell tales about them, before their story is finished. 

Time is odd like that when you are immortal and infinite. Beginnings and ends and middles get jumbled in a way that they never do for those who have a life to live in a linear manner.  

It starts small: maidens whispering to each other, children making up rhymes, mothers telling stories to put their daughters to sleep. There’s a soft reverence in these traditions, and though she does not catalog the words they use, she picks up on the meaning. It settles in her chest — the warmth of it — different from the sort that presses at her heart when Kore is near, but significant in a distinct way. 

The tales change over time, warped by the teller and the listener alike, move further from the truth. But the humans could hardly know of the color of Kore’s hair, the tone of her skin, the color of her eyes, and what did it matter when the genders were confused or the courtship was pressed into a single day? The meaning persisted, the good intentions enough to sate the both of them. 

The stories lengthen, turn into poems, turn into songs, turn into performances, turn into epics. And one day Hermes tells them — amusement in his voice — that they have started to record them, to actually write them down.

But they carry on, much in the same way. 

What harm could human words -- written or no -- have on the lives of the gods?