Random Thoughts From Out of Nowhere
- Thread starter Caldwin
- Start date
^^vv<><>BA-Start
I got good neighbours, they cleaned out the drain pipe behind our garage for us this evening, for free, so a lot of moss came out of there and a ball was also struck in the pipe, which was really dirty, thus got binned
Okay, real question. I was off last week so I watched both Clash of the Titans movies. But I know they both take liberties with the actual mythology. That's just how movies are.
But here's the thing. Homer wrote the Iliad and the Odyssey. So writing was around back then.
But when I try to find anything on Perseus, all I see are general books on Greek Mythology that basically just gives an encyclopedia summary of each of the myths and legends.
Maybe I'm showing my ignorance a bit, but was there no actual written story of Perseus?
I only ask because I grew up on the original Clash of the Titans and would love to see the original story.
But here's the thing. Homer wrote the Iliad and the Odyssey. So writing was around back then.
But when I try to find anything on Perseus, all I see are general books on Greek Mythology that basically just gives an encyclopedia summary of each of the myths and legends.
Maybe I'm showing my ignorance a bit, but was there no actual written story of Perseus?
I only ask because I grew up on the original Clash of the Titans and would love to see the original story.
A lot of mythology is like that. Just scattered bits and pieces that may or may not have ever had any intended order. So little has survived that we just don't know.
Bless the Mesopotamians for writing their stuff down on relatively durable material. They tried.
Bless the Mesopotamians for writing their stuff down on relatively durable material. They tried.
Could be worse. Try finding good sources on Norse mythology. They didn't write much down, and the few sources that survived the centuries are either fragmentary, written post-Christianisation, or both. And they had three or four different runic systems, so translating is a pain.
I guess a lot of these old stories are likely handed down via word of mouth over the centuries to pass a story onto the next generation, so its pretty much a very long game of chinese whispers but its likely only been in the last few centuries that humans started writing down many of these stories, such as Little Red Riding Hood, Snow White, ETC.... When it comes to the stuff by the Romans, its likely many of these stories have been lost to time or waiting somewhere to be redicovered, but I know one thing for sure that the Romans gave the world including America is: CATS, they started off in Africa and decided to make us humans their pets/staff, between Egypt & the Romans, cats conquered the whole world aside from the South & North Poles, but that is understanable as they tend to like warm places!
Other people have said other stuff but I just need to correct you - Homer did not write either the Iliad or the Odyssey.
Yes, the stories are both credited to him but since the early 20th century, it has become accepted knowledge that the Greek Epics were constructed and passed down orally. Writing did exist at the time (Homer - if he did exist - was possibly born c. 8th century BC and the Greek alphabet dates to the 8th century BC as well) but the vast majority of the population were illiterate. People would learn of these stories because bards would memorize and recite them to audiences but many of these recitations were likely at least semi-improvised.
It's also accepted by most scholars that the same person did not originate both the Iliad or the Odyssey.
As for 'Well why do we say Homer wrote them then?' because the stories have been credited to him since ancient times but we don't even know if he existed for that matter. Possibly the best you can say is he may or may not have been a blind and illiterate bard who recited a version of these already existing stories that became so good it became the 'standard' version other bards would recite and that was later written down (IIRC the earliest record we have of an actual written version of either story is from a few centuries after Homer is believed to have lived - again assuming Homer was actually a real person).
The attempted domestication of cats is hilarious. They still don't get our aggressive need to pack bond with everything. We just made them too small to do anything about it.
i do not understand why people insist that cats aren't actually domesticated
like every single thing people use as an example as to 'prove' that cats aren't fully domesticated can apply to any fuckin animal we've domesticated.
like every single thing people use as an example as to 'prove' that cats aren't fully domesticated can apply to any fuckin animal we've domesticated.
If I build a large enough group of heavily-armed ducks, that would be The Army, The Navy and The Air Force all at once.
Dogs throw off the whole scale. They make every other domesticated animal look wild.
Dogs descend from pack animals, so they already had the pack bond instinct in their makeup. We just brought it out more.
Domestic cats descend from colony animals. They still bond to the group, but it's a different set of behaviors than a pack.
Domestic cats descend from colony animals. They still bond to the group, but it's a different set of behaviors than a pack.
Well there is the saying: "Dogs come when called, cats take a message and get back to you!" so cats tend to do as they please and its hard to teach them tricks, while dogs its much easier as they are naturally pack animals and the humans are the higher ups of the pack, cats on the other hand, tend to work alone, thou they do like to soicallise from time to time, for example one of my neighbours cat, when they are away, he will go and find my dad and file a complaint with him, pretty much saying "They gone and left me alone, again!!"
i mean we also have completely genetically screwed up dogs in ways that should be made illegal so like
that's our fault mostly.
Finally got to pet my next door neighbour's cat today, he rather shy, I got home from work, he was outside by a neighbour's garage, as I put my bike away, he was at first appearing around the side of the bin then I look away for a moment as I put my bike in the garage and he had moved closer and peering around the edge of their grarage, after closing the garage door, I made a little bit of a cat sound and then slowly approched him and finally got to actually pet him, well a scratch around the ears and a chin scratch, after that, he decided to walk off along the drive of his home to tell me, that's enough for now, so I respected his bounderies, besides, he is a young cat, so he might warm up more in due course