A record of philological minutiae
For the morning came, morning and a wind from the sea; and darkness was removed, and the hosts of Mordor wailed, and terror took them, and they fled, and died, and the hoofs of wrath rode over them.
end of chapter 5, “The Ride of the Rohirrim”, The Return of the King
In my yearly re-read of the LOTR trilogy, I was struck by this sentence and the glory of the phrase “hoofs of wrath.” It would be absurd if it were not so damn beautiful.
#philologydust #ovid #metamorphoses
Pyramus dies with blood that spurts like a Roman sewer:
et iacuit resupinus humo: cruor emicat alte, non aliter, quam cum vitiato fistula plumbo scinditur et tenui stridente foramine lognas eiaculatur aquas atque ictibus aera rumpit.
Here's Raeburn: As he lay stretched out on the earth, his blood leapt up in a long jet, just as a spurt from a waterpipe, bursting because of its faulty leadwork, gushes out through a tiny crack to create a hissing fountain of water and cuts the air with its impact.
#philologydust #ovid #metamorphoses #etiology
inde genus durum sumus experiensque laborum et documenta damus, qua simus origine nati.
From this we are a hard race, tried in work and we bear the brand of being birthed from this source.