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Not a Proper Post, but I'm writing an essay on Odysseus and wanted to post this bit from the Odyssey as translated by Robert Fitzgerald. I can honestly say I think it's one of my favorite books now.  Also to explain a new variation of Scrabble I played at youth group last night.

This is known as Cute Scrabble. There is exactly one rule: every word you spell out must be cute. To determine a word's relative cuteness factor, there must be a general vote. Other than that, you can do whatever you please. You can steal letters from other words, you can spell words in any direction, you don't have to utilize letters of other words in your word (so the words are scattered across the board), and you can spell off the board. Among the lovely contributions last night were Sir Bunnie Sir, Glee, and Huggles.

Also, I looked it up this morning...did you know Agape, the Greek word for love, is actually considered part of the English language? At least according to Webster's 1828 American Dictionary of the English Language.

So anyway, as for the Odyssey quote...

...he wept at last,
his dear wife, clear and faithful, in his arms,
longed for
       as the sunwarmed earth is longed for by a swimmer
spent in rough water where his ship went down
under Poseidon's blows, gale winds and tons of sea.
Few men can keep alive through a big surf
to crawl, clotted with brine, on kindly beaches
in joy, in joy, knowing the abyss behind:
and so she too rejoiced, her gaze upon her husband,
her white arms round him pressed as though forever.
The rose Dawn might have found them weeping still
had not grey-eyed Athena slowed the night
when night was most profound, and held the Dawn
under the Ocean of the East. That glossy team,
Firebright and Daybright, the Dawn's horses
that draw her heavenward for men- Athena
stayed their harnessing.

Two amazing metaphors in one short passage. I am not sure how much of this is Homer and how much of this is Fitzgerald and how much of this is an unidentified Greek scribe, but I do like it.

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