|
|
Tuesday, December 29th, 2009
|
mirrorshard
|
|
|
Jo Walton posted at Tor on Susan Cooper's The Dark Is Rising, noting in passing that she preferred to think of the poem that drives the plot as an indifferent translation from the Welsh. On a whim, and with the aid of the online lexicon and verb conjugator, I did an untranslation. Roman text is Cooper's English; bold is my Welsh; italic is a literal translation back into English. I've doubtless made some mistakes somewhere, so nitpicking is appreciated.
The Dark is rising; six shall turn it back.
When the Dark comes rising, six shall turn it back (Thanks, ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) ashfae)
Pan godir y dywyllwch, anghenir chwech ei atroi.
When the darkness rises, six are needed to turn it back.
Three from the circle, three from the track.
Deuir tair o'r gylch, a dair o'r llwybr[1].
Three come from the circle, and three from the pathway.
Iron for the birthday, bronze carried long
Ar ben y flwyddyn[2], haearn; gludwyd yr efydd o hyd.
At the head of the year, iron; the bronze was carried all this time.
Wood from the burning, stone out of song.
Yn y llosg canfyddir y bren, ac yn gerdd[3] y maen.
In the conflagration the wood is found, and in song the stone.
Fire from the candle ring, -
Chwiliwch y dân yn gylch y ganhwyllau,
Search for the fire in the circle of candles,
- water from the thaw;
ac yn y ddadmeriad ddarganfyddir y ddwr.
And in the melting ice for the water.
Six signs the circle -
Gwneir y gylch o'r chwech arwydd[4]
The circle is made from the six signs
- and the grail gone before.
Ac aethpwyd y greal yn y flaen.
And the grail went ahead.
[1] Llwybr mostly means "path"; trac is a perfectly good Welsh word, but it sounds wrong in context to me.
[2] Penblwydd means "birthday" - literally, "year-head".
[3] Cân could have served instead of cerdd, but the first refers more to lyrics (including spoken poetry) and the latter to music or song as an art form.
[4] Arwydd is the common Welsh word for a sign; an informational one, an omen or portent, and a military ensign or banner. Argoel carries only the sense of an omen or portent.
|
|
Monday, December 28th, 2009
|
|
Sunday, December 27th, 2009
|
|
Saturday, December 26th, 2009
|
|
Friday, December 25th, 2009
|
|
Thursday, December 24th, 2009
|
vashti
|
|
|
Watching "Have I Got News For You", and could not help but see this quote on Tony Blair pop up:
Since those sorry days, we have frequently heard him repeating the self-regarding mantra that "hand on heart I only did what I thought was right", but this is a narcissist's defence, and self-belief is no answer to misjudgement. It is certainly no answer to death.
And thus, at the close of this decade, both my major interests from it coincide. Isn't it beautiful? *wipes away a single tear*
It's from Ken MacDonald, the former Director of Public Prosecutions. I looked up the full article, too - summary: "Important people now realising what everyone else knew seven years ago".
|
|
Wednesday, December 23rd, 2009
|
|
Tuesday, December 22nd, 2009
|
hellison
|
|
|
Hello! and Happy Solstice ! I have been meaning to post for aaaages, but just never seem to get to it! The last few weeks have been busy, but mostly in a good way, actual nights out in pubs, having fun with the horse and even doing interesting stuff at work!
Even the work christmas do was good fun, tasty foods, tasty drink in comfy, uncrowded bar.
This weekend, I even had visitors! thesme_01 and lazy_hoor arrived on sat. afternoon, after doing some very Unpatriotic Shopping around Belfast. We exchanged Tasteful And Interesing Presents (they got me the tastful one ;p), then went for foods and cinema.
2012 is great, if you like giggling at terrible terrible disaster movies that MAKE NO SENSE. The special effects tho are pretty damn awesome, but there should been more of them and less 'plot', 'dialogue' and pull-ups. On the plus side, Giraffe!
After 3 hours of that (THREE HOURS!) we returned home to sip fine, fizzy wines and discuss the issues of the day (that part is actually true!). BUt then, SNOW! Thesme took photos and had weathergasms, so we had to pelt her with snowballs to calm her down again, like the TROO FWENDS we are. Then, MOAR WINE. All this AND we got to see teh hoors Relaxoslacks. They are awesome, I want some!
Sunday was Cold and Snowy. After the ladies departed back for the south, I remained on the sofa for some time, til I could put off going up to the stables no longer. There was much thawing tho, so I figured it would be safe to take the windy, hilly, little lane rather than take the much longer route round the main roads.
It was all fine at first, then I turned a corner and... Oh dear.
'Maybe it'll get better further on' I thought...
( moar snow! )
So there we go! Today we had a Solstice Day at work, in which I had to demonstrate our web mapping/database thingsy to The Public, then there was a talk on astro-archaeology and solstices, followed by an excellent (if less relevent) talk on tree rings, comets and mythology, which you can read about here and here, if you like that kind of thing.
Tomorrow, normal work day, the wed, Last Day, which usually means pub. Then HOLIDAY. For nearly a week! Hurrah!
How are y'all doing out there? I have been reading lj, if not quite managing commenting/posting, but have probably missed plenty!
Oh and, btw (if you are still reading) if you don't want do sit through THREE HOURS of 2012, Cleolinda has done a 15 minute review, here!
|
|
Monday, December 21st, 2009
|
|
Sunday, December 20th, 2009
|
|
Saturday, December 19th, 2009
|
|
Friday, December 18th, 2009
|
|
Thursday, December 17th, 2009
|
|
Wednesday, December 16th, 2009
|
orts
|
|
|
I have been reading the comments on news sites, and find it informative but really discouraging. Every crime report brings out cries of "scum"! as though some people (not us, heaven forbid! always "them") are irredeemable. Many people seem to want to believe this for some reason -- probably because it absolves everyone else of responsibility.
Helen Epstein gives a fascinating criticism of claims (like the one in 1992 by the US National Research Council) that there are genetic reasons why blacks are statistically more likely to be involved in violent crime in the US:
...wide fluctuations in murder rates occur much more rapidly than changes in the human genome, which may take thousands of years. Today homicide is more common in America than in Western Europe, but historians estimate that in the fourteenth and fifteen centuries, murder rates in London, Amsterdam, and Stockholm were just as high as they were in New York at the peak of the US crime wave in 1990. Until the 1960s, murder rates were generally lower in Africa than they were in Europe,so a race-specific 'violence gene,' if one existed, is unlikely to have come from Africa....
("America's Prisons: Is There Hope?" NYRB, June 11, 2009).
|
pause4paws
|
|
|
I haven't really; I've just been absent from Live Journal. :(
If you want to catch up with me, you have two options.
1) Be my friend on Facebook! You can find me at: http://www.facebook.com/awanthi
2) Follow me on Twitter! I'm awanthi on Twitter and this is my profile: http://twitter.com/awanthi
Love you all!
|
|
|
cold.
cheerful.