#hello-delicious-tea

it might be wall-to-wall irises

maybe some pansies, and a bunch of wildflowers

also rosemary, and roses for the scent; and pear, peach, cherry, and apple trees

I have electric orange ones. They are awful, but at least I only have to see them briefly. And my husband and I can both wear them.

!

okay, electric orange sounds /hilarious/

but, like, i just don’t get it? i mean, if someone absolutely wants colour coded clothes to fit their gender, that is totally cool, and i hope they find clothes that allow them to do that, but. there is no need to actually brand anything for that purpose?

*grumbles*

i am increasingly annoyed with this whole gendered versions of things stuff that tells you nothing whatsoever about what the actual thing does. like, is it a difference in colours? shape? weight? material? function?

that is a super interesting question that I don't have a definitive answer to! There isn't a lot of comedy in the Iliad, for sure – I'd say the closest is Thersites passages; the Odyssey is in a slightly lower register than the Iliad, so there probably are funny parts, though I'd say probably more situational than verbal (it's hard to joke in dactylic hexameter!). The best example I've got is that it probably would be amusing to "see" Odysseus trying to hide his nakedness from Nausicaa. 

Also, I doubt people would sit through it in one night – 12000 lines takes a long time to recite! so maybe it would be like the tragedies, where you'd have the three tragic ones and then a satyr play: you'd hear a book or two of the serious stuff, and then have a mock-epic (I think there's one about a battle between the frogs and the mice?) or some light epigrams or something. 

Also, Odysseus' cleverness is, in the Odyssey at least, a little bit of an Informed Attribute, to use TV Tropes terminology – the closest you really get to cleverness is hiding under the sheep to escape the Cyclops (which, again, might be situational comedy). Most of the other "plans" are Athena's idea, if I recall correctly, or another of the gods. 

Also Odysseus is a good liar, according to Homer, but not necessarily a joker.

The Cardinal's soldiers went out to bring the exhausted messenger into the city on their fastest horses. It was clear that the man hadn't eaten or slept much, and the side of his tunic was stained dark brown. The soldiers brought him to the Cardinal immediately, along with water and a loaf of bread. 

And you will be ablefor once to lie down under the small fireof winter stars.

oh wow: 

I find her translation highly readable, accessible, and fun, and am going to use excerpts with my students next year, because Fitzgerald’s syntax fucks with their reading comprehension, but I think Fitzgerald is significantly more beautiful, more poetic, and more accurate. I very much enjoy Wilson’s version and I love her explanations for why she does things, but - I think different audiences.

oh, yeah, it totally depends on what you're reading it for! I feel like Fitzgerald's syntax is much less esoteric than Lattimore's (my bff and I had an in-joke about him stranding "illustrious" at the end of a line with no apparent antecedent in a way that would have worked in Greek but absolutely did not in English), but yes, more poetic, for sure.