ryelasrandomfun

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"The best way to discuss ancient literature’s survival is to contemplate the dark side of the moon first: i.e., what we know for certain did not survive, and how this affects our understanding of ancient culture. Perhaps the most dramatic example (no pun intended) is ancient drama, since we can quantify lost plays as units analogous to existing ones, which produces a simple ratio. We have seven of Aeschylus’ estimated 70 to 90 plays, and short quotations and fragments of others; seven of Sophocles’ 120-plus plays, again with sound bites and bits of others, including extensive fragments of the satyr play The Trackers (only made public in 1912); and 18 (19 with the disputed Rhesus) of Euripides’ estimated 90, with two volumes of intriguing shards ( TrGF 5.1–2). The survival rates of complete works for these pillars of Western drama are then roughly: 10 per cent to 7 per cent (Aeschylus), 5.8 per cent (Sophocles), and 20 per cent (Euripides). … What of the other great dramatists of the Classical age? We would certainly like to read more of early tragedy to understand the evolution of the genre, but we have none of Choerilus’ alleged 160 plays or of Pratinas’ 50, nor are we sure who voted them off the island of posterity. I would love a look at Phrynichus’ Fall of Miletus, which so upset the Athenians they fined him and outlawed its further production – setting a lasting precedent against tragedies written from contemporary events (Herodotus, Histories 6.21). Agathon was a significant enough poet to be portrayed in works by both Plato (Protagoras and Symposium) and Aristophanes (Thesmophoriazusae), and later gossip claimed Euripides wrote the Chrysippus out of infatuation for him (Aelian, Var. Hist. 2.21); but of his work we have less than 50 lines.

While we get by on an appallingly low percentage of known tragedies, we had up to 1912 a single satyr play – Euripides’ Cyclops – to represent that whole genre, one that was a part of every tragedian’s output at the dramatic festivals (the normal entry was three tragedies and one satyr play). Now we have a fair amount of one by Sophocles, and much less from two by Aeschylus; this is still far from enough to get a feel for the genre and its relation to comedy and tragedy. Similarly scanty are the remains of the dithyramb, a choral genre that was a major part of several Athenian festivals, with wide participation from among the men and boys of Athens’ tribes. It is largely represented by fragments of Pindar, Bacchylides and Timotheus, in spite of centuries of competitive output. Some 20 dithyrambic compositions a year were produced for the City Dionysia alone, not to mention the other festivals in Athens and beyond (Hordern 2002, 22). All of Old Comedy is represented to us by 11 plays of Aristophanes (we know of an additional 32 titles for him); … Most of Middle Comedy is in shreds, though we know the names of 50 working poets and Athenaeus attributes more than 800 plays to the period. For New Comedy, we know of nearly 80 playwrights active between 325 and 200 BCE, and 50 working beyond then. …

We read Homer with little else to compare it to, since so much of the epic cycle is missing, as is the Hesiodic Catalogue of Women. We concentrate heavily on 44 extant plays, but we are unable to reconstruct the complete line-up for a single year of the City Dionysia. We accept Plato’s caricatures of the sophists as valid (hence the pejorative meaning of “sophistry” and “sophistic”), and may assume all philosophy is a footnote to him because what came before is so scanty. Our entire view of Greek culture is decidedly skewed toward Athens. We don’t get to read the 50 odd plays of Theodectes of Lycia, whose Lynceus and Tydeus were admired by Aristotle (Poet. 1452a27, 1455a9, b29), or the comedies of Epicharmus, who wrote in Sicilian Doric (PCG 1, 9–137). We don’t get to read five whole books of Tyrtaeus of Sparta or nine of Sappho of Lesbos, or five of Corinna of Tanagra, as the ancients reportedly did. We sadly lack most of the mimes of Sophron of Syracuse, which, we are told, Plato first brought to Athens and actively imitated in his dialogues, loving them so much he kept a copy under his pillow (Diog. Laer. 3.18). … We would gain a good deal of information on Athens’ famous rival had the works of Sosibius of Sparta (fl. mid-third century BCE) survived. … What remains of the great commentaries of Aristarchus or the alleged 3,500-plus works of Didymus must be gleaned from the scholia in the margins of medieval manuscripts of Homer. Imagine what we would at least know about our losses had Callimachus’ vast bibliographical work, the Pinakes, survived, which detailed the holdings of the library of Alexandria? The work’s full title, Lists of Those Eminent in All Areas of Learning and Their Writings, shows the amplitude of his bibliographical ambitions, and its reported 120 bookrolls attest to the scope of his achievement. The fragmentary remains of 58 entries can only serve to torment us about its loss."

- A Wound, not a World: Textual Survival and Transmission by Richard H. Armstrong, in A Companion to Greek Literature

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just a handy little info chart on the spectrums of sexuality.

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My husband plays this game he calls “king of the cats” where he tries to hold all 3 of our boys at once… today he was successful

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Interspecies lesbianism

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official invitation for a nap in autumn leafs!! (for you)

print ✧

! do not reupload my art anywhere !

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what they don't tell you is that a well-written fic can get you to ship anything, and i mean ANYTHING. notp? not anymore. you will stay up late thinking about and crying over them for the rest of your life. characters you don't even know from a piece of media you've never engaged with? fuck it, they belong to you now. problematic ship that you loved to hate and now just love to love, that you must never tell your friends about? don't worry, ao3 knows how to keep a secret. like. a well-written fic will have you acting UP and that's a fact baby !!

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tongue in cheek art about weird bodies and waiting for a diagnosis

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using "what were YOU doing at the devils sacrament" to mean "yeah i made an embarrassing reference but you understood it which is also embarrassing" is very funny to me

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I reblogged a comic the other day about a doctor watching House, MD and diagnosing toxoplasmosis, tagging it with "you're more likely to get toxoplasmosis from a salad than a cat". There's a story behind that.

I used to work in the kennel at a vet clinic. One day one of the vet techs came into the kennel in a tearing hurry, handed me two cat carriers, and said, "Find a cage for these two. Don't know how long, but you can put them together." And then she left.

This was not how that was supposed to happen. I had no cage cards--no names, no feeding instructions, no health information--they weren't on the schedule, and techs didn't usually intake boarders. Medical cases had a separate kennel, so a tech shouldn't be bringing me an animal in during office visit hours. But I had a cage in the cat room, so I tucked them in--two adult females, very friendly, apparently healthy.

Half an hour later the tech came back--with cage cards--and said, "It's okay, they're staying overnight and going home tomorrow." She slumped against the kennel wall and told the cats' story.

They had been brought to the clinic to be euthanized, to die.

These healthy, friendly, beloved cats had been brought in to be killed, because a woman's doctor, her obstetrician, had told her that they had killed her unborn baby. He told her if she ever wanted a child she had to get rid of the cats. He told her they should be euthanized before they killed any other woman's unborn child.

He said, with no evidence, that they had toxoplasmosis. He said that toxoplasmosis caused her miscarriage.

The woman was distraught. She had just lost her baby, she was dealing with the hormonal changes of the pregnancy loss, and now she had to euthanize her beloved cats. Fortunately no vet I've ever worked for will euthanize healthy animals brought in by a sobbing client without asking why!

The vet spent almost an hour talking to the woman, educating her on toxoplasmosis, telling her all the reasons her doctor was wrong.

Not all cats have toxoplasmosis, and even when they do they only shed the oocytes in their feces--they're only infectious--for the first few weeks. Most cats are infected as kittens and are no longer infectious as adults. According to Wikipedia, "Numerous studies have shown living in a household with a cat is not a significant risk factor for T. gondii infection,[61][63][64] though living with several kittens has some significance.[65]"

Most people get toxoplasmosis from raw vegetables, especially salad greens that grow close to the soil and are hard to clean. Raw or rare meat, raw seafood, and unpasteurized milk are also a risk.

Toxoplasmosis can be a soil-borne disease from feces in the soil. Gardening is a greater risk than cat cohabitation.

Toxoplasmosis infection is dangerous to the fetus in pregnancy, yes, causing birth defects and miscarriages. But only the first time the person is infected. If this this woman had lost her first pregnancy to toxoplasmosis--and the vet said it really didn't fit the symptoms--she would be at low risk in a subsequent pregnancy.

So basically the vet told the woman that 1) her miscarriage probably wasn't toxoplasmosis, 2) even if it was, she probably didn't get it from her cats, 3) even if her cats had given her toxoplasmosis, they weren't infectious anymore.

The woman kept her cats and got a new obstetrician.

Human doctors get a few lectures on zoonotic diseases--diseases transmitted from animals to humans or vice versa. Veterinarians get semesters. If a doctor ever tells you your animals have given you a disease, get a second opinion from your vet!

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Wait you're telling me the bamboo I used to sword-fight my brothers as a kid is a rare plant?? I was always told 'yeah, that's native bamboo' but I never thought much on it.

y'all ever reach the end of google

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A mark on your forehead identifies the god you must worship to stay alive, usually by joining its local church or temple. Your mark is unknown, meaning an old, forgotten god sponsored you. To survive, you must either find an old temple to worship at, or do the arduous task of building a new one

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Temples are built for gods. Knowing this a farmer builds a small temple to see what kind of god turns up.

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….well, she’s got the spirit!

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"NANI?!"