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Interesting items

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Items of interest

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Lost is my Quiet, SACD, amazon.co.uk

Debussy: Pelléas et Mélisande, Magdalena Kozena, Christian Gerhaher, Gerald Finley, SACD, amazon.co.uk




Ancient Civilizations

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Go Beyond The Myths!

What hidden knowledge lies in our ancient past? A team of renowned scholars has come together to go beyond the surface-level myths, artifacts, and mysteries found in ancient texts and lost cities from around the world. Journey through Eden and the Gnostic Garden to the Pyramids and the Tower of Babel to decipher the code scattered throughout ancient civilizations.

FREE INTRO EPISODE: GAIA.com’s New Series | Ancient Civilizations

English translation of Corneille’s The Cid

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In 1637, soon after the first performances in France of Pierre Corneille’s famous play Le Cid, English poet and playwright Joseph Rutter translated the play from the French rhyming alexandrine couplets into English iambic pentameter verse. Two pupils of Rutter, Richard and Edward Sackville, sons of Edward Sackville, fourth Earl of Dorset, may have contributed to Rutter’s translation.

Rutter’s translation was performed at the English royal court before King Charles I and his wife Queen Henrietta Maria, and subsequently at the Cockpit Stage, Drury Lane, London, by the king’s players.

The play, described as a tragicomedy, tells of the Spanish military hero who must avenge an insult to his father by killing in a duel the father of the woman that he loves.

I have edited the 1637 text and have updated the spelling for a new paperback edition of The Cid, and also for a Kindle ebook. I have also added my own translation of two soliloquies that Rutter’s translation had omitted.

Both the paperback and the ebook can be purchased from Amazon.

It is death, not passing.

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It irritates me to hear TV newspeople say “passing” when they are speaking of a death.

In his 1983 (or 1984?) book Class: A Guide Through the American Status System, Paul Fussell wrote, “And of course the middle [class] is where you hear false teeth called dentures, the rich called the wealthy, and dying called passing away (or over). (Proles are likely to be taken to Jesus.)”

“The middles cleave to euphemisms not just because they’re an aid in avoiding facts. They like them also because they assist their social yearnings toward pomposity.”

And in the 1950’s, Nancy Mitford in her essay “The English Aristocracy” characterized “die” as U (Upper Class) speech, and “pass on” as non-U (not Upper Class) speech.