Clash of the Titans

I was going to start on the Gesta Francorum today but I went to the movies yesterday and changed my mind. In 1981, when the first Clash of the Titans came out, I was one of the few people take saw it and I enjoyed it. So, I was looking forward to the updated version with 'special effects' since the kraken in the first one was clearly a guy in a rubber suit and he looked like the creature from the black lagoon.

If a movie is called a 'remake' of an earlier movie, then should it not be very similar to the first one? This 'remake' was not only loosely based on Greek myth but also loosely based on the 1981 film. Okay, there was a guy called Perseus, he killed Medusa, flew on Pegasus and saved Andromeda. That is where the similarity ends to myth or movie.

The movie was clearly about the special effects and violence. My 13 year old son loved it. My daughter and I, who both have some familiarity with Greek myth, sat there gnashing our teeth. This is a list of the things that annoyed me (with spoilers):

• Perseus marries Andromeda, that is why he saves her.
• Andromeda is chained to a rock not suspended over the harbor. It is a huge part of the imagery about her, she is chained nude to a rock.
• Perseus does not run off with Io, who is literally a cow
• Perseus is conceived when Zeus appears to his mother in a shower of gold, she was not raped as punishment for her husbands' impiety. She did not have a husband.
• His mother survived being thrown into the sea
• Perseus did not hate Zeus, the gods helped him all along to kill Medusa.
• Hades did not hate Zeus and attempt to overthrow the government.
• There are no Jinn in Greek myth. They are Arabic. And I am certain they are not zombies.
• Perseus was pursued by Thetis and no one else
• Zeus did not create humans, Prometheus did.
• The only Olympian to have created something like the Kraken was Poseiden and his monster was called Cretus.

I would like to say on that last point that I did not mind the Kraken being the sea beast sent out to kill Andromeda. The best part of the film is when Liam Neeson says "Release the Kraken".

Now that I have mentioned Liam Neeson, I have to say that I have never seen a more Biblical Zeus. He looked like Moses and acted like the Judeo Christian God. It was nauseating how he kept saying that he 'loved humans' and did not want to punish them for their impiety. Perseus, who insisted that he was not a son of Zeus, kept insisting he was a simple fisherman. Jesus was a fisher of souls.

In the end, out comes the Kraken, deadly scorpions, a deadly disfigured monster and because, every movie has to have zombies or vampires, the undead Jinn. With all that divine anger and death, it seemed so very Old Testament and nothing like the Iliad. Anyway, I thought it sucked. Shame on the producers of this 'remake'; I do not think they ever saw the film they were basing this on.

Medieval Latin

I have been studying Classical Latin for 3 years, getting straight A's and I feel ready to tackle Medieval Latin. So I looked at two texts and straight away noticed words that are not in my Oxford Latin Dictionary. The dictionary is exclusively Classical Latin but I thought the whole point of using Latin as the language of scholarship meant that clerics and scholars could always speak a common language no matter where they came from. And, by using a dead language as the language of choice, one would always be able to read latin texts no matter which century they were written in. Silly me.

Oxford does not have a dictionary of Medieval Latin. They do have a dictionary of Medieval Latin from English sources. There are dictionaries with German and French sources. Time and place do matter in translating Medieval Latin. It is a bit of a shock to me. I thought it might be fun for a summer project to read Walter Map's De Nugis Curialium in the original latin or Gesta Francorum.

The Bodleian Library, which owns the only manuscript of De Nugis Curialium, jealously guards it. I could shell out $170 American for their book. This is better than the version I saw on Amazon last year that was going for close to $300. At the same time, Gesta Francorum is on Latin Library for free. Gesta Francorum features one of my favorite characters - Bohemond of Taranto, the studmuffin, who , if a movie is ever made of the First Crusade featuring him, should be played by Brad Pitt. That movie should be made soon before Brad gets too old.

Gestae Francorum it is. Chapter One, Book One will be posted tomorrow. It is already done as best as I can.

And I think a link to Latin Library is in order.

More People Should Read Ovid

There are two books that we know for certain Shakespeare has owned: Ovid's Metamorphoses and Michel de Montaigne's Essaies. One does not have to read much Ovid, especially his poems to see that Shakespeare was a devotee. Milton was not as dedicated to Ovid's poetry because Ovid was too naughty for Milton but he was still influenced by Ovid. Even more than Ovid, Milton was influenced by Horace and Virgil.

Few Renaissance writers, apart from Jonson and Milton read the other three elegist Catullus, Tibullus and Propertius. I think they are worth reading too. Milton was lucky enough to be able to read Greek and so he was also able to read Homer.

Why should we care about the Romans and the Greeks? Because by reading them, we get all the Easter eggs hidden in the texts. By reading them, you can get what Milton was trying to do with his incredibly complicated way of stating things. By reading them, you understand so much more and not just Shakespeare and Ovid. If you can, read them in Latin.

I am thinking of taking Ovid in translation and putting him back into Latin and see how close to his own words I get. That is studying Latin old school. They did it like that in Milton and Shakespeare's day. That is how they got to be so good at it.

Abelard and Heloise

"In my case, the pleasures of lovers which we shared have been too sweet - they cannot displease me, and can scarcely shift from my memory. Wherever I turn they are always there before my eyes, bringing with them awakened longings and fantasies which will not even let me sleep." Heloise to Abelard, letter 4

Most of what we know about the romance between Heloise and Peter Abelard comes from a letter that Abelard wrote to a 'friend' called Historia Calamitatum, or the History of my Troubles. It was probably written to be circulated as letters often were copied and circulated around. Letter writing was a serious business in the Middle Ages. One copy was given to Heloise and this is when she wrote to him.

One gets the impression at first that when she took the veil, she did not hear anything from him or see him for 10 years when this letter was handed to her but this is not correct. He gave her and her nuns the building and lands of Le Paraclet, when the Bishop Suger took the Abbey of St. Denis and threw the nuns out. But I am getting ahead of myself.

We don't know who Heloise's parents were or why she was being raised by her uncle Fulbert. He was the canon of Notre Dame in Paris and had a house near the cathedral. Heloise spent some of her early years being educated at a convent in Argenteuil, after which she came to Paris to be further educated by her uncle and what ever tutors he could find for her. She became famous as a scholar and by this came to the attention of Abelard. Peter was looking for lodgings and so Fulbert invited him to live at his house in exchange for him tutoring his niece. A passionate affair began between the student and her teacher.

Fulbert caught them in the act one day and tossed Abelard out of his house but by then Heloise was pregnant. Abelard snuck her out of Paris and brought her to his family home in Le Pallet and went back to Paris to resume teaching. Fulbert of course was angry and wanted Abelard to marry Heloise but that would have meant giving up teaching. At the cathedral schools, the teachers were not in 'orders' but they had to behave as though they were, i.e. live chastely, never marry. It would have been the end of Abelard's career. Heloise refused to marry him until he convinced her that they could marry to satisfy Fulbert but keep it a secret. Heloise had some serious misgivings about this but allowed herself to be guided by Abelard. They returned to Paris together, leaving their new born son Astralabe with his sister.

Fulbert, as would be natural, told people that Heloise was married. Heloise denied it and Fulbert got angry with her and treated her roughly so that she appealed to Peter for help again. Abelard took her to a convent outside of Paris for safety. To Fulbert, this looked like he was setting his wife aside and resolved to avenge his family honour. He hired some men to assist him and broke into Abelard's apartment and cut off the parts that had offended. Most likely, he was simply castrated. Paris was rocked by the scandal. Fulbert was banished. Abelard, ashamed, resolved to become a monk and asked Heloise to take the veil. She felt no calling to be a nun but because he asked her to she did. In spite of the pleas of friends and quoting some lines from the Pharsalia by Pompey's wife about having caused the death of Pompey, she took up the veil. And they parted. It all happened very quickly before anyone had a chance to think about what they were doing.

But they did see each other. They both were in separate buildings of the Abbey of St. Denis and could have had opportunities to see each other. They certainly saw each other when Abelard set Heloise up at Le Paraclete because, as their patron, he had to visit occasionally. Then the letter came and all the emotions that Heloise kept bottled up came flooding out in these letters to him. It is likely that she kept a copy of all their correspondance and that the letters come from the archives of Le Paraclete.

Abelard went on teaching and faced two charges of heresy. It was Heloise who asked Peter the Venerable to give him absolution and when Abelard died, Peter sent his body to her saying that he belonged to her more than anybody. She lived for another 20 years after he died and then she was laid to rest in the tomb with him. Their bones were moved a few times and whatever remains are left are in Pere-Lachaise cemetary in Paris.