I have a tennis game at 11:00. "Tell the Dauphin that when we have played a set we shall strike his father's crown into the wager..." Ok, so I couldn't resist a little Henry V. Interestingly enough, tennis was already all the rage among nobles and spreading to the wealthy commons in the 14th century (100 years before Prince Hal). In many ways, that's what you might call the beginning of the modern era. Of course, in history, claims for the beginning of the modern era keep creeping backward until Ulysses' Trojan horse is the marker. That probably should tell us something about the unchanging nature of man in spite of his changing circumstances. Whatever the scene, man is the great spectacle, as G.K. Chesterton would say, and all of heaven clamours "let him play again!" Most of us resist that thought instinctively, but Chesterton actually makes it compelling. Goethe does that as well with his "Faust". These are the things I think of when I'm waiting. The Platypus just reads "Calvin and Hobbes".
Thoughts after reading the "Iliad" to prepare a Greece unit for my students: -Hector is a jerk until he's dead. He even advocates the exposure of Achaean corpses and then has the cheek to turn around and ask Achilles to spare his. He rudely ignores Polydamas' prophecies and fights outside the gate to save his pride knowing full well what it will cost his family and city. After he's dead, he becomes a martyr for the cause. -Agamemnon has several moments of true leadership to balance out his pettiness. In this way, he's a haunting foil to Achilles: the two men are more alike than they want to acknowledge. -We see that Achilles is the better man at the funeral games of Patroclos. His lordliness, tact, and generosity there give us a window into Achilles before his fight with Agamemnon and the death of Patroclos consumed him. -Nestor is a boring, rambling, old man who's better days are far behind him, and yet every Achaean treats him with the upmo...
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