#‘Ivan we read the bible’

[ivan-fyodorovich-k]

God I am so tired of hearing about G.K. Chesterton fucking read another book

[perfectwitchcrown]

Allusions in Make the Exorcist Fall in Love

So far in Make the Exorcist Fall in Love there’s been a lot of allusions to various texts. I thought it might be fun to compile all the ones people have noticed so far as far as I've seen. Some of these are more speculative than others and I will update as I go along. Also, I read Ekuoto as free first read chapters on Mangaplus so unfortunately I can’t go back and check much so this is largely through memory, so if anyone has anything else to add I would greatly appreciate it! All I’ve got is a few screenshots and a dream. If I get anything wrong feel free to correct me! I’ve organized this in order of allusions I’m confident about to allusions I’m less so confident about.

CW: reference to sexual violence

Dante's Divine Comedy and Vita Nuova: Dante Alighieri

This one is pretty obvious since there are characters directly named after the characters figured in Dante’s Inferno. It’s been a long time since I read it, but other details are also taken from the text, such as the frozen center of hell where Satan is located.

Lmao Leah from the Bible (who is probably Leah’s namesake) also shows up in Dante’s Divine Comedy apparently in Purgatorio.

Ok also super important to Dante retellings r Beatrice, who’s used as a symbol of divine love and is instrumental to Dante's journey through hell, purgatory, and paradise, so of course Ekuoto Dante advises Priest to fall in love lmao. So far though there hasn’t been a direct Beatrice in narrative (which there might never be one since the text has already made the Dante-Virgil connection an active choice of Virgilius's to reference the Divine Comedy rather than just an allusion by the author).

To be so real though I figure that Vergilius is probably also intended to be the Beatrice in this narrative.

The points I would draw attention in support of this would be these: 1. Beatrice is the woman who Dante has been in love with since early childhood but unable to ever be with because they both married others. Ekuoto Virgilius and Dante have known each other since childhood, and have something going on. 2. Beatrice is, like Virgil, one of Dante’s guides (through part of purgatorio and paradiso) 3. We still don’t know what Virgilius’s name was before he took that one on. Beatrice does not have a masculine form in current use and I tried finding some sort of nickname that would work and was unable to do so. However. Beatrice’s name is rendered in Japanese as ベアトリーチェ, and Beato is at least a surname. Then again, I’m not sure anyone has both a first name and last name except for Imuri so far???

"Book of Tobit"

I wasn’t familiar w this one so I didn’t notice it until I saw posts pointing it out, but the Asmodeus flashback was a retelling of the book of Tobit. Other people have already done analysis of this so I’d recommend checking other’s out. Unfortunately I failed to save the link to any of them so I can’t pass any along :’) Belfagor arcidiavolo: Machiavelli

Another one that I wasn’t familiar with but have seen people referencing. As above, I recommend checking out other’s analysis. "Those Who Walk Away from Omelas": Ursula K. Le Guin

The Brothers Karamazov: Fyodor Dostoevsky

Ok major spoilers and I also highly recommend this book, but also, its super long so I don’t blame anyone who chooses not to read. This book is about the most disgusting father alive and his three, maybe four, sons: Dimitri, Ivan, Alyosha, and maybe Smerdyakov (rumored to be an illegitimate son). Most of the action follows Alyosha, who is the youngest and probably the most idealistic character in the novel, at least in the beginning. Alyosha starts out as a novice in the local Russian Orthodox monastery under the purview of Father Zossima, an elder who really emphasizes love in religious practice. There's a series of chapters that cover a theological debate between Ivan and Alyosha.

In this theological debate, Ivan is arguing not that God doesn’t exist, but that the foundation of the world as understood by Christianity is something he fundamentally rejects.

Quotations from the Signet Classics edition:

“I don’t accept this world of God’s. Although I know it exists, I don’t accept it at all. It’s not that I don’t accept God, you must understand, it’s the world created by Him I don’t and cannot accept” (Dostoevsky 266) - “If all must suffer to pay for eternal harmony, what have children to do with it?....I understand solidarity in sin among men. I understand solidarity in retribution too; but there can be no such solidarity with children. And if it is really true that they must share responsibility for all their father’s crimes, such a truth is not of this world and is beyond my comprehension” (Dostoevsky 276)

“Imagine that you are creating a fabric of human destiny with the object of making men happy in the end, giving them peace and rest at last. Imagine you are doing this but that it is essential and inevitable to torture to death only one tiny creature—that child beating its breast with its fist, for instance—in order to found that edifice on its unavenged tears. Would you consent to be the architect on those conditions?” (This quotation, although from a different translation, is the one that inspired Omelas - I think the bowling alley theological discussion between Virgilius and Priest bears some similarities to this conversation. Its not a debate about the existence of god, but rather a debate whether or not the world envisioned by Christianity is inherently unjust or not. Demian: Hermann Hesse

“The bird fights its way out of the egg. The egg is the world. Who would be born must first destroy a world. The bird flies to God. That God's name is Abraxas”

Potential references but tbh they’re a bit of a stretch:

“Book of Martha”: Octavia Butler

"Book of Martha" is an Octavia Butler short story in the Bloodchild collection about an ordinary woman who is visited by god one day who tells her to choose one thing to change about people to try and make the world a better place. It’s a very short read and I’d recommend reading it before you read the next sentence where I’ll spoil the end.

She eventually decides that the thing to focus on is people’s dreams. Specifically, to give them the things they desire most within their dreams, in the hope that people will be less violent to each other in real life. A stretch, but Octavia Butler comes from similar recommendation circles as Ursula K. Le Guin (feminist science fiction authors with overlapping periods of activity) so I don’t think it’s impossible for the most recent chapters' use of dreams to hold some sort of inspiration from this short story. Again, this one is a pretty big stretch, as the idea of dreams to escape reality is pretty common.

The Monk: Matthew Lewis

Ok! So! Demon seduces a person is like not at all an original story (The Daemon Lover, Cazotte’s The Devil in Love, etc etc). BUT! The Monk is specifically a story that’s like. What if there was this extremely virtuous young man who has never lived in the outside world ever because he was raised in the church as an orphan and then the devil sent a demon girl to seduce him.

I have not finished the book yet so I can’t comment in depth on it other than to say the concept is similar but the execution so far is very different (It's a fairly misogynistic text. Ambrosio turns evil in ways that I doubt Priest will because thematically they’d go completely against the story. Also, The Monk is veryyy lurid in terms of Lust is Evil!!! And will turn you into a murdering maniac!!!! Because evil women are out there seducing you!!! Whereas so far sexual desire in Ekuoto has been handled as a perfectly natural thing, but complicated by religion, patriarchy, trauma, etc.)

This is all I have so far but I'd be interested to see if anyone else has any other ideas!

[ohsalome]

What are some amazing, most read Ukraine authors? The only one I know is Gogol and I would like more on my radar.

First important disclaimer is that without knowing ukrainian, your pool of choice is very limited. Unfortunately, our translators haven't done nearly enough to make ukrainian literature acessable for english speakers, so a lot of genuinely amazing stuff would require you to know the language.

The second important disclaimer is that I am going to recommend you a lot of poetry, and, with no disrespect to the translators, it doesn't hit nearly as hard in english as it is in ukrainian. I've recently heard the phrase "to read poetry in translation is like to take a shower wearing a raincoat", and it is so true. So, apologies for this barrier, but there is nothing one can do.

With that in mind, let's start from classics:

The first most important author is Taras Shevchenko. He mainly wrote poetry, but has some prose works as well, and during his life he was more known as a popular artist. The Bible of his works is Kobzar (a ukrainian word for travelling blind musicians), and the same word is also often used as a nickname for Shevchenko - akin to how Shakespeare can be called the Bard. Among the most important poems pay attention to A Dream (the poem for which he was imprisoned by the russians with an explicit ban on writing and painting), The Caucasus, My Testament, Kateryna, A cherry orchad by the house, О thoughts of mine

The second big name to know is Lesya Ukrainka. Lesya is also more known for her drama and poetry than her prose, but she also was a prolific translator and a feminist. Her most well-know play is The Forest Song (a cartoon adaptation is soon to be released after 7 years of production, but from the trailer it looks like it's not going to be close to the text). I find her Бояриня play to be much more interesting and relevant, however, it looks like it has not been translated yet. Among her poems, some of the most important are Contra Spem Spero and Cassandra (the latter has had some successful stage prouctions in Great Britain last year, mayhaps it will gain popularity)

Some links to her works: [x] [x]

Fun fact: there are speculations about Lesya Ukrainka's relationship with her close friend Olga Kobylyanska. The letters they exchanged are quite intimate and sometimes even erotic in nature, which lead some academics to believe that they were more than friends (most still fall in the "gal pals" camp tho). However, if that were true, that would mean that Lesya Ukrainka is the only bisexual woman to ever be printed on banknotes.

The third pillar of ukrainian classical literature is Ivan Franko. Once again, we are talking about partiotic poetry, but there are also many socialistic ideas in his works (although he became dissilusioned with it in his later years ), which I think many western readers will find appealing - (side comment - it looks like "collective west" is going through the same processses that we overcame a century ago, so ehm... good luck, y'all will need it). I haven't been able to find much of his works translated in English, so here is a good master page. Zakhar Berkut is considered to be one of his greatest works (a ukrainian-american co-production movie The Rising Hawk was released a couple of years ago, it was shit). If you manage to put your hands on it, I would greatly recommend The Painted Fox and Moses. Also, reading Eternal Revolutionary imprinted on me so much in childhood and determined who I grew up to be, I pretty much consider Franko to be my spiritual father.

A great event that happened this year is that Valeryan Pidmohylny's The City is finally getting an english translation. I have been gushing about this book on this blog before (you can also find the link to the publisher there), because for the archetypical ukrainian literature this book is a breath of fresh air. It's beautiful, it's modern, it's urbanistic, the protagonist is irredeemable asshole, it's amazing and I should re-read it as well.

Among the authors that are much more difficult to find, I greatly recommend Ivan Nechu-Levytsky. In my humble opinion, he like no other has managed to capture the "ukrainian spirit" and his plots are extremely captivating and dramatic as hell.

I will always, always add Ivan Bahryiany to my lists of ukrainian "must reads". He is an author of the first ever ukrainian adventure novel Tiger Trappers/The Hunters and the Hunted, which is the book that is loved even by those who don't like ukrainian literature. However, I personally find his Garden of Gethsemane to be a much more important (but take care, it is much more depressing as well). This author is extremely important, but I struggle finding PDFs of his work - perhaps, you'd have to search the libraries or ukr diaspora publishers for paperbacks. I have also been unsuccessfully hunting for an english translation of Why I am not going back to the Soviet Union? pamphlet for years - and I know for sure it exists because the USA first lady at that time has read it and it influenced her opinion on the USSR - but I've had no luck so far.

Another very important author of the same time period is Mykola Khyvylovy. One of his plays has actually been recently put to stage in English (shamefully, I haven't watched it yet, but I can vouch for the text it was based on - it's brutal).

I can't speak about ukrainian literature without mentioning crimean tatars, and although their works are much, much less known (in Ukraine as well, unfortunately), please do not overlook it. It is a gorgeous culture, and reading it, I grew to love and value Crimea so much even without ever visiting it. There are some english translations avaliable, including those of Noman Çelebicihan - an extermely important figure in Crimean Tatar history, the founder of the unfortunately short-lived Crimean Democratic Republic, the author of their national anthem, and overall very influential revolutionary.

Now let's jump to the popular modern authors. Many don't have english translation, but the problem is much less prominent in comparison to the ukrainian classics. With these authors, you shouldn't have trouble with finding paperbacks. Among the most influential authors I can recommend Serhiy Zhadan (Timothy Snyder has once said that he expects Zhadan to receive a Nobel Prize in literature and I agree), Oksana Zabuzhko (she either aught to release soon or has already released an english-exclusive book about the russian-ukrainian war), Yuri Izdryk (extremely modern and unconventional, but he's a good represention of the current state of art), Yuriy Andrukhovych (love his mastery of language, hate his characters). These authors are more light-hearted, but a grim necessity for today is Stanislav Aseyev's The Torture Camp on Paradise Street. It is a autobilgraphical book describing his experience being imprisoned by russians between 2017 and 2019. Western journalism often describes the war crimes russians commit on our land, but just listing the number of people lost doesn't show the face of the russian horror. Read this book to understand why we were screaming about the russian threat before the full-scale invasion, and why every time we regain the territory we brace with terror of what we'll discover there - because everywhere russian army goes, they build hunderds of such Isolyatsya camps that the book describes.

Also check out Serhiy Zhadan's band!

[torreshalstead]

On a crowded street in 1944 - Chapter 14

Summary - The four walls of Upton’s General Store were all Hailey knew although she longed to see what else life had to offer. When a handsome soldier walks through the door, she thinks he might just be the answer to the life she wants to have. But it was 1944 and the country was at war. Would fate smile on her or would her heart be another casualty of the war?

Chapters - 14/16

Notes - I can’t believe we are so close to the end of this story, just an epilogue and a bonus chapter to go. Thank you so much for reading! AO3 Link

‘Where have you been?’ Ivan Upton barked loudly when Hailey walked into the store. Her grip on Jay’s hand tightened slightly. This was what she wanted and she wasn’t going to let her father tell her she couldn’t have it, she had already bent to his wishes more times than she could count. She wasn’t about to do it again.

‘I was seeing Oscar,’ she said truthfully, walking towards the back counter.

‘Oh,’ her father said, huffing slightly. ‘You were supposed to be manning the store.’

He hadn’t picked up his gaze from where it was scanning the business pages of the paper, his version of the Bible.

‘I needed to speak to him about the wedding,’ she swallowed deeply. ‘About calling it off.’

‘Calling it off!’ He yelled, his fierce gaze staring at her and then flicking to Jay who was standing firm next to her. When his eyes fell to their joined hands, Hailey would have put money on the fact smoke started to come out of his ears. ‘What the hell is going on Hailey?’

‘This is Jay Halstead,’ Hailey said, trying to keep her voice steady, even with her fathers fury spiralling around them. ‘Jay and I are to be wed.’

‘You’re already engaged young lady, you will be marrying Oscar not this boy,’ he spat, spittle flying from his mouth. Turns out even a soldier's uniform didn’t impress him, Hailey wondered if Jay had come in with a fistful of money in each hand if the reaction would have been any different.

‘Oscar already agreed to end the engagement, he doesn’t want to marry me,’ she said.

‘I don’t give a damn what he wants, the licence is as good as signed,’ he snarled.

‘But it isn’t signed and I will be marrying Jay.’ She was thankful for Jay’s calming presence next to her, he hadn’t said a word yet, letting her lead the way but she knew he’d jump in the very moment she needed him to.

‘Like hell you will!’

‘I will be marrying Jay with or without your permission, father,’ she said, breathing through her nose to keep herself calm. ‘I would like you to be happy for me though.’

‘Happy for you,’ he scoffed, his tone dismissive. ‘You’ve just blown up the biggest deal I’ve ever made.’

That was the final straw for Hailey, she had tried to stay calm, to be rational and reasonable but that had come to an end.

‘That’s the problem father,’ she sneered at the word. ‘My marriage shouldn’t be a business deal, I want to get married for love, not to add some zero’s to the bottom of your ledger. I am in love with Jay and he loves me, he’s loved me for months, longer than you’ve been arranging this deal for. So I will be marrying him.’

‘Hailey Anne Upton-’ he started, his bloodshot eyes bulging in their sockets.

‘I’ll be Hailey Anne Halstead on Monday morning, you are welcome to join us but if you cannot be happy for me and my new husband, please do not.’ Hailey had never felt so brave and she would put most of it down to the firm grip that Jay had on her hand, he had never wavered in his support for her. ‘Now I’m going to speak to introduce Jay to mother. Good day.’

She marched past him with Jay following suit, her fathers mouth hanging open. She had never had the gall to answer back to him before, and years of pent up energy had come spilling out of her without much control.

‘I’ll follow you up,’ Jay said softly when they reached the bottom of the stairs, he nodded when she looked like she was about to argue but there was something in his eyes that made her agree.

She didn’t go up though, she waited in the shadows and listened intently as Jay walked back into the store.

‘Mr Upton,’ Jay said, and Hailey’s chest tightened. She knew her father well, he could fly off the handle at the smallest of things and Hailey had as good as detonated a bomb in the middle of the store. Unstable was too polite of a word to describe him right now. ‘I wanted to let you know that I love your daughter and I will honour and protect her for everyday the good lord gives me in this life. I will support her with every penny I have, she is my family. I understand if you cannot accept that, or me, but I hope one day you will be able to. Because that woman out there is my life, and I will lay down mine for her if I need to.’

He didn’t wait for her father to answer and Hailey met him in the stairwell, tears streaming down her face. She didn’t say anything, just pressed her lips to his, smiling through the tears.

Not only had he given her the bravery to tell her father what she wanted but he had cemented it by speaking to him himself. He didn’t yell, he didn’t raise his voice or threaten him, he calmly told him that he loved her. She had never felt so much love from another person as she did in that moment. She had never thought it was possible. She should have known with Jay back in her life that anything was possible.

——————————————————————————

The meeting with her mother went much better, she pulled Jay into a tight hug even though Hailey was sure her father would have deemed it inappropriate. Her mother could see the love the young man had for her daughter and that was all that seemed to matter.

Back outside underneath the streetlight where they had both shared their first kiss and been reunited after too many months apart, Hailey once again stood with Jay, the brown paper package he had pressed into her hand the day before held tightly in her grasp.

‘You didn’t need to get me something,’ Hailey muttered as she let her fingers trace over the smooth paper. ‘You returning home is the greatest gift you could ever give me.’

‘I made a promise Hailey, and I am nothing if not a man of my word,’ he pressed a soft kiss to her hair and gestured for her to open the package.

Hailey’s fingers carefully undid the twine that was neatly tying it together and slipped her fingers underneath the wrapping. The familiar feeling of a book greeted her and she smiled up at Jay.

Removing all the paper which Jay took off her and pocketed, a copy of The Death of the Heart by Elizabeth Bowen is now sat in Hailey’s hands. Her fingers stroked delicately across the cover and down the unbroken spine of their own accord.

‘I promised I’d buy you a new book, seemed a fitting engagement present,’ he smiled warmly down at her as the tears were pricking at the corners of her eyes.

She never imagined she could be this happy - the man of her dreams was standing in front of her, their wedding was only days away and she was holding a book that had never been read by anyone else. This was the moment that people wrote about in books, a moment she never thought she would get.

——————————————————————————

They were married on the following Monday, just as Hailey had told her father.

They had managed to get an expedited licence from the church, apparently they were not the only couple who wanted to tie the knot quickly upon the end of the war. The dress her mother had made her for her other wedding was altered slightly, removing any of the suggestions that Mrs Farrell had made. It was much more Hailey now and her mother had helped her get dressed that morning, her eyes shining with tears.

Eugenia Upton had taken the news much better than her husband, pulling both Hailey and Jay into a tight hug and wishing them all the best.

Her father had given her the silent treatment in the days leading up to the wedding but he hadn’t kicked her out of the apartment like she had initially anticipated. She had expected to wake up to all her belongings being tossed haphazardly into bags and thrown onto the street but instead she had been ignored, as if she didn’t exist. Which, Hailey realised, if she was no longer part of the cogs that made the store work, was probably how she was viewed in her fathers eyes.

Still, it didn’t matter. She had Jay.

He had managed to find them a small apartment not too far away, it wasn’t any bigger than the one Hailey’s family currently lived in and he had apologised profusely when he had told her that Will would be moving in with them until he could find a place of his own. She didn’t mind though, it would be nice, getting to make the place a home and as Jay had said, they were family. Will was included in that.

She wasn’t moving in until after the wedding, they may have gotten an expedited licence but they wouldn’t live in sin. Monday came soon enough.

Jay and Hailey walked arm in arm into the church, a couple of the regulars from the shop were in attendance, Mrs Stevens with a big hat, Mrs Smith her eyes full of tears, she was a hopeless romantic after all and Mr Richards, his camera in hand, who Hailey made a mental note to introduce to Jay after the ceremony.

Hailey’s mother was there, sitting in the front row along with Will, Jay’s brother, who Hailey had met the previous evening.

Her father was notably absent. But it didn’t sting as much as she thought it might. He had made his decision and she had made hers.

She was more than ready to move on from a life in the store where her dreams and ambitions were put into little jars and then forgotten about. And as the minister pronounced them husband and wife, she knew her new life was waiting for her just around the corner.

——————————————————————————

Hailey and Jay strolled arm in arm towards the cemetery.

‘Are you upset that your father wasn’t there?’ Jay asked quietly as he held open the kissing gate for her.

‘I thought I would be,’ she admitted honestly, ‘but no. If he isn’t ready to love me in this life then he is the one missing out.’

‘I love you,’ Jay said, leaning down to press his lips to her forehead. Hailey closed her eyes and relished in the feeling. It was new and unusual, being able to show affection out in the open without worrying what other people might think.

Jay led the way over to where his mothers grave was tucked at the back of the cemetery, the plot was well looked after, the grass recently trimmed and the headstone had been polished, it shone brightly in the sun.

‘Hi Mom,’ he said quietly as they approached it. ‘Thought you’d like to meet my wife.’

Hailey’s stomach tightened, she still hadn’t got used to being called his wife yet, but it wasn’t the bad kind of tightening full of apprehension and worry, it was full of excitement of what was to come.

‘Hello Mrs Halstead,’ Hailey said, placing down the small bouquet of flowers that her own mother had put together for her wedding day. It seemed right to give them to Jay’s mother. ‘I hope you know how wonderful your son has turned out.’

Jay squeezed her hand a little tighter and Hailey didn’t need to look over at him to know his eyes would be swimming with tears.

‘This is the girl I told you about the morning I left Ma,’ Jay said. Hailey hadn’t realised he had visited the cemetery that morning, it must have been just after he dropped off the book for her. The book that was still one of her most prized possessions. ‘I married her like I told you I would.’

They took a seat, crossed legged on the dry ground, Jay setting down his jacket so Hailey’s white dress wouldn’t be stained. They talked to each other and to the headstone for a while, sharing stories, some they had both heard before and some that were still new to each other. Hailey knew they had gotten married quickly, that there was still a lot she didn’t know about her husband and he her, but she knew she loved him. And that was enough.

He was a good man. And hearing him talk to his mother only cemented that fact in her mind.

The sun started to wain in the evening sky and Jay made the first move to get up.

‘We should go Mom, but we will be back to visit you soon,’ he offered Hailey a hand and pulled her to her feet as well.

‘I’ll give you two a moment,’ Hailey said, pressing a gentle kiss to his cheek. ‘I’ll be by the gate.’

Jay nodded and let her walk away. She knew as well as anyone that sometimes you needed a moment with a parent, either here or on the other side, without anyone listening in. By the time her feet had carried her to the gate and she turned to face the way she had come, Jay was already walking towards her.

‘She loves you,’ Jay said, threading his fingers through hers, the newly familiar feeling of his rough skin against hers warming her from the inside out. ‘Let’s go home Mrs Halstead, and hope my brother hasn’t eaten all the cake.’

‘I can always bake us another,’ Hailey chuckled.

‘I have plans for you this evening my love that do not involve baking,’ Jay murmured softly even though there was no one around. ‘Will is going to the local with some of his friends, I’ve offered him money to stay out until first light.’

Hailey couldn’t help the blush that spread across her cheeks and her chest at the thought of her first night alone with Jay, she’s read enough romance books and her mother had pulled her aside this morning to give her the talk as well. She had heard other brides were nervous of taking the next step with their spouses, but she was excited. She loved Jay and knew he loved her with every ounce of his being, he would be gentle, tender and kind and would show her how much she was treasured.

‘I hope you paid him enough,’ Hailey sassed as she fell into step next to him. ‘You never get a second chance at a wedding night.’

‘But we do have the rest of our lives to practise,’ Jay winked and tugged Hailey into his chest dramatically, eliciting a small squeal from his wife. ‘And I for one, cannot wait for the rest of our lives Hailey.’

‘Me neither,’ she said, letting herself get lost in the feelings of his lips against hers not caring that there could be passerby’s tutting at their frivolous behaviour. They were newly weds, it was to be partially expected after all.

[boldlycrookedsalad]

Literary Canon (from kissgrammar)

The Holy Bible, Authorized King James Version [At a minimum, the books of Genesis, Exodus, Job, Psalms, from the Old Testament; Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and Apocalypse from the New.] Whether or not you are Christian is irrelevant. The civilization in which we live is based on and permeated by the ideas and values expressed in this book. Understanding our civilization, the world in which we live, is probably impossible without having read -- and thought about -- at least the most famous books in the Bible. Historically, the King James Version is considered the most artistic, and thus has probably had the most literary influence.

Homer, The Iliad

Homer, The Odyssey

Sophocles, Oedipus the King (Oedipus Rex)

Sophocles, Antigone

Plato, The Republic, especially "The Myth of the Cave"

Ovid, Metamorphoses

Saint Augustine, The Confessions

Dante, The Divine Comedy

Giovanni Boccaccio, The Decameron

Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince

Giambattista Vico, Principles of a New Science

Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote

Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales

Romeo and Juliet

King Lear

Hamlet

Othello

Macbeth

John Donne, "Holy Sonnet XIV"

John Donne, "A Valediction Forbidding Mourning"

Andrew Marvell, "To His Coy Mistress"

John Milton, Paradise Lost

Jonathan Swift, Gulliver's Travels

A Modest Proposal

Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe

Laurence Sterne, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman

Michel de Montaigne, Essays, especially "Of Experience"

Francois Rabelais, Gargantua and Pantagruel

Moliere, The Misanthrope

Blaise Pascal, Pensees

Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Emile

Voltaire, Candide

Erasmus, In Praise of Folly

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust, Parts One & Two

Honore de Balzac, Old Goriot (also translated as Pere Goriot)

Stendhal, The Red and the Black

Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary

Emile Zola, Germinal

Henrik Ibsen, A Doll's House

William Blake

William Wordsworth

Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

Lord Byron, Don Juan

John Keats, "Ode on a Grecian Urn"

Robert Browning, "My Last Duchess"

Charles Dickens - Oliver Twist

A Tale Of Two Cities

Hard Times

A Christmas Carol

Matthew Arnold, "Dover Beach"

John Stuart Mill, On Liberty

Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre

Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights

Francis Thompson, "The Hound of Heaven"

Samuel Butler, Erewhon

Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

George Eliot- Silas Marner

Middlemarch

Robert Louis Stevenson, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Friedrich Nietzsche - Beyond Good and Evil

The Will To Power

The Birth of Tragedy

On the Genealogy of Morals

Alexander Pushkin - Eugene Onegin

The Bronze Horseman

Nikolai Gogol -The Overcoat

Dead Souls

Mikhail Lermontov, A Hero of Our Time

Ivan Turgenev, Fathers and Sons

Fyodor Dostoevsky -Notes From the Underground

Crime and Punishment

Leo Tolstoy -The Death of Ivan Ilych

War and Peace

Anton Chekhov, The Cherry Orchard

James Fenimore Cooper, The Deerslayer

Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays

Emily Dickinson - "Because I Could Not Stop For Death"

"The Tint I Cannot Take"

"There's a Certain Slant of Light"

Walt Whitman  - "Song of Myself"

"The Sleepers"

"Crossing Brooklyn Ferry"

"As I Ebbed With The Ocean of Life"

"Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking"

"When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloomd"

Nathaniel Hawthorne - Young Goodman Brown

The Scarlet Letter

Herman Melville, Moby-Dick

Edgar Allen Poe - "The Raven"

The Cask of Amontillado

Henry David Thoreau, Walden

Kate Chopin -The Story of An Hour

The Awakening

Stephen Crane, The Red Badge of Courage

Henry James

Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Luigi Pirandello

[orthodoxydaily]

Saints&Reading: Sunday, May 19, 2024

may 6_may 19

Tradition Liturgique: On the Third Sunday of Pascha the Orthodox Church celebrates theMyrrh-Bearing women as well as Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodimius.

SAINTS. MARY AND MARTHA, SISTERS OF ST. LAZARUS (1ST C.)

Icon: Uncut Mountain Supply

The righteous sisters Martha and Mary were believers in Christ even before He raised their brother Saint Lazarus (October 17) from the dead. After the murder of the holy Archdeacon Stephen a persecution against the Jerusalem Church broke out, and Righteous Lazarus was cast out of Jerusalem. The holy sisters then assisted their brother in the proclaiming of the Gospel in various lands.

Saints Martha and Mary are also commemorated on the Sunday of the Myrrh-bearing Women.

VENERABLE JOB, HEGUMEN OF POCHAEV AND WONDERWORKER (1651)

Saint Job, Abbot and Wonderworker of Pochaev (in the world named Ivan Zhelezo), was born around 1551 in Pokutia in Galicia. At age ten he came to the Transfiguration Ugornits monastery, and at age twelve he received monastic tonsure with the name Job. The venerable Job from his youth was known for his great piety and strict ascetic life, and he was accounted worthy of the priestly office.

Around the year 1580, at the request of the renowned champion of Orthodoxy Prince Constantine Ostrozhsky, Saint Job was appointed the head of the Exaltation of the Cross monastery near the city of Dubno, and for more than twenty years he governed the monastery amidst the growing persecution of Orthodoxy on the part of the Catholics and Uniates.

At the beginning of the seventeenth century, Saint Job withdrew to Pochaev hill and settled in a cave not far from the ancient Dormition monastery, famed for its wonderworking Pochaev Icon of the Mother of God (July 23). The holy hermit, beloved by the brethren of the monastery, was chosen as their Igumen. Saint Job zealously fulfilled his duty as head of the monastery, kind and gentle with the brethren, he did much of the work himself, planting trees in the garden, and strengthening the waterworks at the monastery.

Saint Job was an ardent defender of the Orthodox Faith against the persecution of the Catholics. Following the Union of Brest (1596), many Orthodox living in Poland were deprived of their rights, and attempts were made to force them to convert to Catholicism. Many Orthodox hierarchs became apostates to Uniatism, but Saint Job and others defended Orthodoxy by copying and disseminating Orthodox books. Prince Ostrozhsky was also responsible for the first printed edition of the Orthodox Bible (1581).

In taking an active part in the defense of Orthodoxy and the Russian people, Saint Job was present at the 1628 Kiev Council, convened against the Unia. After 1642, he accepted the great schema with the name John.

Sometimes he completely secluded himself within the cave for three days or even a whole week. The Jesus Prayer was an unceasing prayer in his heart. According to the testimony of his disciple Dositheus, and author of the Life of Saint Job, once while praying in his cave, the saint was illumined by a heavenly light. Saint Job reposed in the year 1651. He was more than 100 years old, and had directed the Pochaev monastery for more than fifty years.

The uncovering of Saint Job’s relics took place on August 28, 1659. There was a second uncovering of the relics on August 27-28, 1833.

Source: Orthodox Church in America_OCA

ACTS 6:1-7

1 Now in those days, when the number of the disciples was multiplying, there arose a complaint against the Hebrews by the Hellenists, because their widows were neglected in the daily distribution. 2 Then the twelve summoned the multitude of the disciples and said, "It is not desirable that we should leave the word of God and serve tables. 3 Therefore, brethren, seek out from among you seven men of good reputation, full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom, whom we may appoint over this business; 4 but we will give ourselves continually to prayer and to the ministry of the word. 5 And the saying pleased the whole multitude. And they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and the Holy Spirit, and Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicolas, a proselyte from Antioch, 6 whom they set before the apostles; and when they had prayed, they laid hands on them. 7 Then the word of God spread, and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests were obedient to the faith.

MARK 15:43-16:8

43 Joseph of Arimathea, a prominent council member, who was himself waiting for the kingdom of God, coming and taking courage, went in to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. 44 Pilate marveled that He was already dead; and summoning the centurion, he asked him if He had been dead for some time. 45 So when he found out from the centurion, he granted the body to Joseph. 46 Then he bought fine linen, took Him down, and wrapped Him in the linen. And he laid Him in a tomb which had been hewn out of the rock, and rolled a stone against the door of the tomb. 47 And Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses observed where He was laid.

1 Now when the Sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, that they might come and anoint Him. 2 Very early in the morning, on the first day of the week, they came to the tomb when the sun had risen. 3 And they said among themselves, "Who will roll away the stone from the door of the tomb for us?" 4 But when they looked up, they saw that the stone had been rolled away-for it was very large. 5 And entering the tomb, they saw a young man clothed in a long white robe sitting on the right side; and they were alarmed. 6 But he said to them, "Do not be alarmed. You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He is risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid Him. 7 But go, tell His disciples-and Peter-that He is going before you into Galilee; there you will see Him, as He said to you. 8 So they went out quickly and fled from the tomb, for they trembled and were amazed. And they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.

[howhow326]

Guys guys I had the same dream about the first episode of season 6 three times and its starting to freak me out

When I woke up I swaer I remembered reading about this episode in the show bible or from leaked story borads or whatever but tgen I realized its not real!

Ok ok, so the episode begins and everything is pretty normal, Ladybug and team miraculous are helping to stop villains in Paris (who I assume arent conected to Hawkmoth cuz he dosent show up). Then almost every person in the world gets superpowers! Not a miraculous, but like X-gene mutant superpoqers!!! The only people who DON'T get them are team miraculous for some reason (and chloe).

So mid way through the episode, things are hard for team miraculous because civilians have started to fight villains themselves and they don't really need Ladybug/Chat Noir anymore.

Team miraculous have an argument in their headquarters(?) And then Ladybug is all like "Fine! If you guys don't need me anymore, then I quite! I will reveal mine, and Chat Noir so he dosen't feel left out, identities to Paris and choose a new ladybug and cat holders". Then after she says that, like half of team miraculous quite their job and theres only like seven holders left!!!

Ok ok ok so this is what really weirded me out and made me think this episode was wrong. At the end of the episode, we see the line-up of the new miraculous holders and like all of them are using two miraculous! We got:

Scarabella/Alya with the ladybug and fox miraculous. The outfit was kind of predictable and busy, but it was better than most of the stuff further down

Kitty Noir/Zoe with the Cat and Snake miraculous. It was like the same as Snake Noir but Zoe still had her hair out.

Nino with the turtle + some orange miraculous (I keep remembering it as the fox but that means there are two fox weilders at the same time). For some reason, his hero outfit was this complete redesign that made him look like a DnD/WoW Paladin with like silver armor that was constantly bathed in green lights that made it kind of hard to tell what color his outfit was. AND FOR SOME REASON Nino had this big, ball shaped, shoulder paludrons/shoulder armor that was like bigger than his head and every time I looked at him I kept staring at those things because they were the only part of his hero suit that juted out from his outfit like that. Like everything else was skin tight armor(?), excpet those two metal balls on his shoulders!!!!

Max is here with the horse and some other red miraculous and he also got a completely new outfit: he has long silver pants + shoes and a red leather jacket. He kind of looked like Party Crasher but wirh different colors, honestly. Also he had a rapier (rip Kagami, she wasn't on the new team) .Also he flat ironed his hair and slicked it back for some reason (he barely looked like himself).

MANON/TJE NEWS REPORTERS DAUGHTER GIRL WAS ON THE TEAM!!! She was wearing some ugly Ladybug and Chat Noir themed princess outfit like she wears as puppeteer despite not having those miraculous wtf

Bare with me... Markov was on the team. And when he transformed he became a person sized mech suit. Uh gvh gh hfyffggyyyt

I don't remember who the seventh team member was caused the kind of faded with the background and looked a lot like Markov but I think it might have been Ivan.

Amd thats how the first episode of season 6 ended. Me just staring at these weird designs before waking up. And thats when I realized I seen those same exact ugly outfits like three times!!!

I think the only difference I had in this dream was that in one dream Chloe was their and Ladybug made her the new guardian because she proved herself in the episode (she didn't get the bee miraculous or any other miraculous, back however) and in a different dream Chloe was forced to leave Paris forever... and that dream happened before I saw Revolution!!!!!! Not before I saw the leaks, but still!!!!!!!

I'm internally screaming. I think the episode was supposed to be another fake out but the idea of MANON randomly becoming a hero and running around in her ugly little tutu scares me.

[radiomayak]

What were you like as a kid?

"How much do you really want to know?

"I remember a lot of adults being tolerant of me, even though I was an orphan on the street, before I started coming in and out of the monastery. I foraged, ate garbage and castings, and I was a trapper's tiny apprentice. I trapped and learned how to clean and sell my hides, and he taught me how to clean the animals. It was mostly marten and rabbits.

"I was active and cheerful, at least in my opinion. I remember being difficult to understand. Whenever I spoke, people misunderstood me or admonished me, but I didn't take it to heart. It was frustrating, but it didn't stop me too much.

"I came into the monastery when my neck got clipped during a Mongol invasion. They nursed me even though I was terrified to be so exposed and isolated indoors, like an animal. Cagey. I did some farming, but I came and went regularly. They tried to teach me how to read and write, but since I couldn't speak well for whatever reason, they wrote me off as an idiot, but they gave me my first name, Mikhail. Of course, whenever anyone asked me what my name was, I made something up, until Ivan IV declared himself Tzar, and I named myself after him. It helps that it's a popular name. It just felt right.

"By the time I got truly under the Tzar and became a palace stablehand, I had a better handle on saying what I wanted to say. They kept me around knowing I was immortal, but wasn't sure what I represented. When the capital moved to St. Petersburg, they assumed he was the Russian Empire. In the time of 'Catherine the Great', I finally went through puberty, and I think I was about 500. I was taught some phrases in French to impress visitors and help the coachmen, but I still didn't know how to read.

"A friend of Lenin, a historian, helped me walk back what I remembered, and we think what happened was that I was born as Muscovy, then became the Grand Duchy of Moscow, and became the Russian Empire because of Ivan IV. "I think I was normal. I did my best to be good and godly and productive. I tried to be friendly, I met a bunch of people who read the Bible to me and helped me find clothes, I ate often enough, and I played with any other child I could meet. I was a good boy. At least, that's what I like to think."

[nahalism]

How old are you if you don’t mind me asking? I’m the “liberal feminists are dumb” anon maybe I should pick another name to identify myself lmao but for someone so young you seem to be someone very wise. I did mean it when I called you intelligent last time, I’m curious about what made you want to learn about esotericism, while I don’t believe in everything esotericism has to say it’s definitely something that has always attracted me too. Like what books do you or have you read?

lmao, its cool come as u are. & im 25 (will be 26 in june). and thank you

i dont want to make this reply a long history of my life story, cause ultimately it will just be a story & one that may have no bearing or relation to what you feel/think. my truth is that i feel each person should believe and follow in what feels true for them. for me that is the principle of being loving and lovable, creating harmony or betterment where i go, and leaving what i touch better than how i found it or at least untainted by my presence. when i fall short of that, i dissect it and apply it to myself painstakingly so that i become a fuller expression of what i want to be and that has always been my nature. esoteric study has helped me tremendously in that pursuit, but it isnt the core reason its my nature to pursue that way of living. ive always loved the stories of people older than me, music, literature, science, history, psychology, anthropology, philosophy, building things, logic, so schools of thought whether they be animism, islam, christianity, hinduism, theosophy, syncretism, the kabbalah, the sybil oracles, are all of interest to me because theyre like giant slabs of all of those subjects put together to pick apart and bring me to a fuller understanding of the world. i take what i find to be true & apply it, leave what i dont agree with & respect it because one day i might find it relevant. but ive always said on here and still feel that its not what you know or how much you know, its what you do with it. knowing something means nothing if it cant be practically applied & my experiences, beyond any book ive ever read, are what lead me to feel conviction in my beliefs. & yes, 😂those experiences are all the typical inexplicable psychic phenomena that are usually palmed off as woowoo. so ill write a list of some authors or books that have been great resources for me over the years below, but what i hope you ultimately get from this is that its what we feel and what we experience that trumps everything. ive met many athiests that are just genuinely good people & i think that example exhibits this best. to not believe in a god or a point to any of all this and still choose to be 'good' for goodness sake is i think what all of these teachings wish for us to arrive at.

- ted andrews and ivan antic (both have many good books), manly p hall - the secret teaching of all ages, helena blavatsky isis unveiled and the secret doctrine, rudolph stiener (many good books all audio also as books on youtube), any resources left behind by nikola tesla and einstein are incredibly to marry with the content in many of these books, florence scovel shinn, krs1 (also many good videos on youtube), ralph waldo emerson has amazing insights, james redfield the celestine prophecy, the monk who sold his ferarri robin sharma, santos bonacci has a good video on syncretism & how the bible relates to astrology and the earth as a tauric field of energy, robert wang quabalistic tarot is phenomenal, and of course the bible, the quaran, the bhagavad gita, the majority of hindu and buddhist texts and whichever gnostic texts you can get your hands on. if you are a sceptic your free to remain a sceptic. the key thing is to allow the texts to meet you where you are, but to know the difference between bias and separating the wheat from the chaff. best of luck & feel free to dm me at any point

[iverlove]

TRANSFORMING HEARTS AT THE GYM OF THE SOULS BY IverLove, Ivan Enrique Va...

Beloved Souls

Transforming hearts in the Souls Gym with IverLove.

Before we begin our little communication I would like to say a Little Prayer to Thank Our Heavenly Father for Life.

Dear Father, At this moment we want to surrender to you with Love and Devotion to express our gratitude for so much beauty created both in heaven and on earth; thank you for the visible and invisible which makes us beings of Light; Human beings who depend on your Grace and goodness.

Thank you, my God, because without you and the wonders created in this vast Universe; we would not be here today; and perhaps we would be dust; but your love for us is what keeps us full of hope, and we know that being with you we will be worthy of life and life in abundance; just as you tell us in the Bible verse that mentions the “life in abundance” is John 10:10b, which says: “I have come that they may have life and that they may have it more abundantly”.

O my almighty God, cover us with your holy mantle and guide our steps today, tomorrow, and always.

Amen.

In the Gymnasium of the Soul, today will be a simple but profound exercise.

In the Live journey, we meet other beings whose souls are dark; they have unconsciously surrendered to the light; to what is right; to following God's commandments. When those lost souls encounter Souls of Light what happens; they show themselves to be devalued; because your light has put them in a zone of competition; which is not your fault, it is simply their subconscious that drives them to react negatively against you through Envy, betrayal, blasphemy (Gossip, destructive Criticism) and many of them become so cowardly that they begin to take on situations to bring you down. Unfortunately, they cause a lot of damage in their journey.

As a consequence of these events; many of the souls of light face oppression, mistreatment, and injustices which have affected the Divine state established in the Celestial Kingdom created by God.

You have to learn to detect and listen to your intuition; the aura, the intentions of those souls that approach you and use discernment; let go of what is not good for you.

I hope you are reflecting and analyzing what is described above. If you do not understand it well; I recommend you to read it, again carefully without distractions.

Now beautiful Souls, as a summary of everything described above is to reaffirm to you that between Heaven and Earth, there is nothing hidden. Sooner or later what has been done in darkness will come to Light, and no matter how much someone tries to turn off your Light, your Innocence, and your essence, they will never succeed, and you know why not! Because you are a Child of Light, you are with God and he does not forsake his Children.

Focus on establishing your open-hearted relationship with him and you will discover the magical celestial world where you will put Heaven to work in your favor.

Blessings.

IverLove

Ivan Enrique Varela

[edelweissacermacrophyllum]

Tempting God, the beginning of wisdom, and God perhaps behaving badly

Genesis 7:1-9:17, Proverbs 1:1-7, Matthew 4:1-22

I read The Brothers Karamazov when I was much younger and I recall Ivan's poem being one of my favourite parts. In it, it suggests that in the temptations of Jesus, where Jesus is standing atop the temple, being tempted to jump down, if he had done so it would have resulted in his death. A jump would not be a sign of faith but a sign of doubt. This isn't exactly the scientific mindset, but it is the mindset we expect from relationships. If we are constantly testing eachother's trust, it's a pretty unhealthy relationship, but if we are content to not do that, it becomes healthy.

I like how, in the temptations of Jesus in the bible, it doesn't dramatize Jesus feelings at all. He was human, to be sure, and was subject to human emotions, but I like to imagine that none of these temptations had any power or lure compared to the trust he had in God and in himself and his plan. But we do know that Jesus questioned the plan later in life, so maybe he was agonizing over these temptations of easy power, shortcuts to glory without self sacrifice.

My bible in one year plan has, as one can see, a bit from the old testament, a bit from the new, and some wisdom literature. I don't know why we're starting proverbs today, but we are. Proverbs has never been a book I enjoyed because I have seen it misused and cherry picked from far too much. Not for any particular evil, but just the preacher wanted to use the bible to back up his personal opinion.

That being said, the beginning of Proverbs does say that the express purpose of wisdom is to do what is right and fair. It is not for gaining power or manipulating people. Wisdom is the servant of justice.

And finally, we come to the first great genocide of the bible. The flood narrative. I am guilty of motivated reasoning when it comes to the flood. I don't think God would have murdered everyone, therefore this story must be allegory or parable or origin fable for rainbows. To my knowledge, the genetic record doesn't show a bottleneck 7,000 years ago. The last ice age ended 11,000 years ago, but that is a pretty big leap to make. There is no good evidence for a global flood.

Some people may ask me, "Why are you trusting human science over the holy word of God?" I think it is far more likely that humans are misinterpreting the word of God, something that happens all the time, than that scientists, without any particular religious or political agenda, are independently misinterpreting the rules of the world in exactly the same way.

This isn't the issue, though, because if the flood did happen the way the bible says, we are faced with a God who is behaving badly. I have never heard a satisfactory explanation for the violent God of the old testament.

People have said, "He's God. He has the right to do what he likes with his creation." I don't think parents are allowed to do whatever they like to their children, even though they made them. By any human standard, killing and hurting large groups of people indiscriminately is wrong, and I don't have an answer for why God did it. If God did it. As I said, my reasoning is motivated, but I think that this story bears the marks of an origin story or myth much more than actual history for history's sake.

There was a cool part after the flood I hadn't noticed before, where God says that humans are allowed to eat meat now. It's strange because able definitely was a herder, and Adam and Eve wore animal skins, but here God says that now this is no longer sinful.

I thought I would have more to say about the flood, but I just keep thinking that it sucks and I wish that it wasn't used as a heart-warming Sunday school story.

[hollandvosljk]

theory: fyodor’s ability is harming him

first off, i’d like to say this will probably be a very long post of my ramblings which may or may not make sense lol. if you spot any grammatical errors it’s because english isn’t my native language so i apologize. i took some inspiration from https://ratstoyevsky.tumblr.com/post/657013568752992256/fyodor-dostoyevsky-bungou-stray-dogs-ability , so please go check that post out :)

ever since fyodor first appeared, he’s been one of my favourite characters to analyze. we know virtually nothing about him - not even how old he is and most importantly, how his ability works. he’s been shown to only divulge the information he wants his enemies to know so he can always have the upper hand.

in the manga, he’s shown to be frail and weak looking with bags underneath his eyes — he’s also shown to be using his non threatening appearance to his advantage. honestly, i find the emphasis on fyodor’s appearance interesting and i think it’s intentional on asagiri’s part.

in chapter 42, fyodor says that he has anemia. in the same chapter, ace refers to fyodor as a “soulless, vampire like man”.

according to the dead apple official guidebook:

he has a pattern of surrounding himself with light colored, white haired men (ivan, nikolai, hawthorne, sigma, fukuchi, bram, shibusawa) which is in stark contrast to his black hair. white, in the bible and today, is associated with purity, innocence, cleanliness — all the things fyodor isn’t and all he wants to be.

so this begs the question - why is fyodor so unhealthy? personally, i think it has to do with his ability. we don’t know how his ability works exactly, but i think the mechanics of it have something to do with blood. both times we’ve seen him use it on someone, blood starts bursting from their body. i don’t think it’s a coincidence fyodor just so happens to be anemic.

i think fyodor’s ability is taking a toll on him or harming him somehow everytime he uses it, which is why he has anemia. i’m also saying everytime he uses it, because from the looks of it it’s not always active like no longer human is. but then again it could be, he hasn’t used it enough times for us to know. it could also tie into why he hates ability users so much: he’s the only one that has to suffer for using his ability. my 2 reasons for thinking this are: 1. when talking to karma in chapter 42, he says:

2. what he says in dead apple:

notice how fyodor is the one saying “i am crime” and his ability is the one saying “i am punishment”. just like ace, fyodor’s crime is merely existing; his crime is being an ability user and that’s why he’s being punished by his own ability. not only does he punish others for being sinners, he himself gets punished for being one. just like he said: “crime and punishment are close friends” fyodor’s ability is the punishment to his crime.

it also makes sense when you take crime and punishment, the book itself, into consideration. raskolnikov comitted a crime he wasn’t caught for, but his conscience tormented him to the point of confessing.

anyway i’m not sure if any of this makes sense, i hope you had fun reading at least 😭 all of the manga scenes are taken from dazaiscans !!

[dancing-on-the-waves]

How Many Have You Read?

1 The Red and the Black - Stendhal 2 Penguin Island - Anatole France 3 Main Street - Sinclair Lewis 4 Babbitt - Sinclair Lewis 5 Absalom, Absalom! - Wm. Faulkner 6 As I Lay Dying - Wm. Faulkner 7 The Sound and the Fury - Wm. Faulkner 8 The Divine Comedy - Dante 9 The Aeneid - Virgil 10 One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich -  Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn 11 We -  Yevgeny Zamyatin 12 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley 13 1984 - George Orwell 14 Mother Night -  Kurt Vonnegut 15 Fearless -  Eric Blehm 16 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo 17 The Idiot -  Fyodor Dostoyevsky 18 The Brothers Karamazov-  Fyodor Dostoyevsky 19 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy 20 The Bible - God 21 Dead Souls - Gogol 22 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck 23 East of Eden - John Steinbeck 24 Canterbury Tales - Chaucer 25 The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkein 26 Plague Dogs - Richard Adams 27 Little Dorrit - Charles Dickens 28 Bleak House - Charles Dickens 29 The Last of the Mohicans - James Fenimore Cooper 30 The Deerslayer - James Fenimore Cooper 31 Of Human Bondage - W. Somerset Maugham 32 Black Beauty -  Anna Sewell 33 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austin 34 The City of God - Augustine 35 The Gulag Archipelago -  Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn 36 Don Quixote -  Miguel de Cervantes 37 Bonhoeffer -  Eric Metaxas 38 The Federalist Papers -  Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay 39 Common Sense - Thomas Payne 40 The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich - Wm. L. Shirer 41 Macbeth - Shakespeare 42 Hamlet - Shakespeare 43 Frankenstein - Mary Shelley 44 The Good Earth - Pearl S. Buck 45 The War of the Worlds - H. G. Wells 46 The Invisible Man - H. G. Wells 47 The Time Machine - H. G. Wells 48 Lenore, or the Raven by E. A. Poe 49  The Fall of the House of Usher - E. A. Poe 50 A Descent into the Maelström - E. A. Poe 51 The Masque of the Red Death - E. A. Poe 52 Giants in the Earth -  Ole Edvart Rolvaag 53 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad 54 Charge of the Light Brigade - Alfred Lord Tennyson 55 Paradise Lost - John Milton 56 Faust - Goethe 57 The Red badge of Courage - Stephen Crane 58 Maggie: A Girl of the Streets - Stephen Crane 59 The Jungle - Upton Sinclair 60  Germinal by Emile Zola 61 Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand 62 The Book of the Just by Eric Silver 63 The Rape of Nanking by Iris Chang 64 The Wave by Todd Strasser 65 Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown 66 The Republic of Plato 67 Rolling Pennies in the Dark by MacKinnon 68 Witness by Whitaker Chambers 69 Foxe Voices of the Martyrs 70 The Ugly American by Lederer and Burdick 71 In His Steps by Charles Sheldon 72 The Mouse That Roared by Leonard Wibberley 73 Democracy in America By Alexis de Tocqueville 74 Aesop’s Fables 75 The Dark Room by Rachel Seiffeert 76 The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald 77 The Call of the Wild by Jack London 78  Moby Dick by Herman Melville 79 The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain 80 The Iliad by Homer 81 The Odyssey by Homer 82 Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray 83 Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev 84 You can’t Go Home Again by Thomas Wolfe 85 The Red Badge of Courage  by Stephen Crane 86 The Devil and Daniel Webster by Stephen Vincent Benet 87 The Diary of a Madman by Gogol 88 The Crucible by Arthur Miller 89 Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad 90 The Turn of the Screw and Daisy Miller by Henry James 91 Mutiny on the Bounty by Nordhoff and Hall 92 War and Peace by Tolstoy 93 The Octopus by Frank Norris 94 All Quiet on the Western Front by Remarque 95 Animal Farm by George Orwell 96 To Hell and Back: The Last Train from Hiroshima by Charles Pellegrino 97 Dresden 1945: The Devil’s Tinderbox by Alexander McKee 98 The Ox Bow Incident by Walter Van Tilburg Clark 99 The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder 100 A journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne 101 The Year of the Rat - by Mladin Zarubica

[linguoverse]

Translation History

by Alexander Campaña

Throughout the history of translation, there have been several crucial translators who have contributed to this field. Do you know some of these essential characters? If you do not know them do not worry, you are going to know them right now!  

St. Jerome 

Eusebius Hieronymus, or St. Jerome was born in what is known today as Croatia, his mother tongue was Illyrian, however, he was fluent in other languages, such as Greek, Aramaic, Syriac, Arabic, Hebrew, and Latin.  

St. Jerome strongly believed that translation should be equal in meaning and style. He “was one of the first notable translators to translate sense for sense rather than word for word” (Faulwetter, 2018). Therefore, he was a pioneer in the field subsequently named “dynamic equivalence”.   

One of his most important contributions is translating the Bible from Hebrew and Greek into Latin, which until these days remains the standard Latin version of this holy book and is known as Vulgate. 

Vulgate was controversial due to it was the first translation that was not done using a literal translation, but by sense for sense. Additionally to that, “Vulgate relied heavily on the cross-reference of the original Hebrew text- which many Christian scholars at the time ironically believed “tainted” the religion with Judaism” (Faulwetter, 2018).  

St. Jerome passed away on September 30, thus the celebration of the International Day of Translators takes place on that date.  

Constance Garnett  

Constance Garnett was born on December 19, 1861, in Brighton, England. In a time when high-level education for women was rather uncommon, she won a scholarship to Newnham College, Cambridge, where she graduated and studied Latin and Greek. Constance married in 1889 to the critic Edward Garnett, who encouraged her to learn Russian.  

Soon after, in 1892, she started her career as a translator by translating Russian works for publication by Leo Tolstoy and Ivan Goncharov. In one of her travels to Russia, she met Tolstoy, who asked her to translate his religious works, but Garnett refused as her main goal was to translate novels. 

Constance was the translator who took the responsibility for translating the great works of Russian literature into English. She made works from Tolstoy, Goncharov, Gogol, Dostoyevsky, Ostrovsky, Herzen, Turgenev, and Chekhov available to English-speaking readers in the 20th century. She died on December 17, 1946.  

Fun fact: “When Constance Garnett did not know the translation of a particular word or phrase, she would sometimes leave it out altogether” (Moser, 1988).  

Natasha Randall explores the task of biographical research into the figure of the literary translator Constance Garnett. This talk attempts to figure out some details about the interior life of this magnificent translator, addressing questions, such as the following: Can her translations provide additional insight into her life and character? What are the detectable choices in Garnett’s work that can contribute to a portrait of her?  

We can assure you that you will not regret watching this talk! Have a look at it by clicking on this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbIZMzCVz8U 

Jorge Luis Borges 

Borges was one of the most proficient, successful, and famous Latin-American writers and poets. He has massively contributed to the field of translation, even though he never worked for an official translation agency.  

Since Borges was little, he was surrounded by foreign languages, at home he spoke English and Spanish, and, later, learned German and French. His reading was done mainly in foreign languages, focusing mainly on English texts.  

“For Borges, Translation was not about transferring a text from one language to another, but rather to transform one text into another” (Mermoud, 2015). He stated that translation, even literal ones, changes their meaning due to the inherent changeability of texts according to the reader and to the place and time of reading.  

This translator believed that high-quality translations could enrich or improve the source text since it provides, to any type of text, nuanced meaning, connotation, and association. According to Mermoud (2015), “Borges enjoyed leafing through different translations of the same text, often as a literary exercise, maintaining that any changes in linguistic code were encouraged in his opinion and at times necessary”. 

Borges’ translation method/philosophy goes along with the belief that the work itself is “ultimately more important than its creator”. In that sense, Borges applied his own translation method which consisted of eliminating redundant or unnecessary elements in the source text, removing what he called “textual distractions” and adding nuance, or changing the tile, among other things. Borges is responsible for some of the best and most beautiful writings as well as translations.  

Do you want to check one of his translations? Below you will find his translation into Spanish of a Whitman poem. 

SONG OF MYSELF 

I celebrate myself, and sing myself, 

And what I assume you shall assume, 

For every atom belonging to me as good 

belongs to you. 

Whitman 

CANTO DE MÍ MISMO 

Yo me celebro y yo me canto, 

Y todo cuanto es mío también es tuyo, 

Porque no hay un átomo de mi cuerpo 

que no te pertenezca. 

Translated by Jorge Luis Borges 

Edward George Seidensticker  

Edward Seidensticker was a translator, Japanologist, historian, author, and educator who was born on February 21, 1921, in Castle Rock, Colorado. His family had some financial struggles, which is why he attended the University of Colorado at Boulder and graduated with a degree in English in 1942.  

His first approach to Japanese language and culture began during World War II, while he was accompanying the U.S. Marines ashore at Iwo Jima in his capacity as a language officer. Since then, his passion for the language has only increased.  

Seidensticker traveled to Japan to work as a foreign service officer of the United States. Afterward, he decided to study Japanese literature at the University of Tokyo and focused on the modern side of literature. In the middle of the 1950s, he worked as a lecturer of both American and Japanese literature at Sophia University. “While there he became acquainted with some of Japan's most revered authors and began translating their masterpieces for American readers” (Fox, 2007).  

During his lifetime, Seidensticker translated more than a hundred literary Japanese works, making able for English speakers to read authors, such as Yasunari Kawabata and Yukio Mishima, among others. He is considered one of the best Japanese literature translators due to his capacity to convey the same nuances and emotions that are portrayed in the source text.  

In 1971, Edward won the National Book Award in the category of Translation for his version of Yasunari Kawabata’s “The Sound of the Mountain”.  

His edition of “The Tale of Genji”, an 11th-century epic of love and intrigue written by Murasaki Shikibu, was praised by critics. This translation took Seidensticker more than ten years. Sadly, he died on August 26, 2007, in Tokyo, Japan.   

Now you know some of the most important, famous, and proficient translators in history. There is a long list of people worth mentioning, so why not? Comment below other translators that we should talk about in the next post!  

Salto de página 

References: 

Costa, W. C. (1996). Borges and Textual Quality in Translation. Cadernos de tradução, 1(1), 115-135. 

Faulwetter, K. (2018, February 28). St. Jerome and the First Sense-for-Sense Method in Translation Studies. Motaword. https://www.motaword.com/blog/st-jerome#:%7E:text=Jerome%20coined%20the%20field%20phenomenon,than%20%E2%80%9Cword%20for%20word%E2%80%9D. 

Fox, M. (2007, August 31). Edward G. Seidensticker - Obituary. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/31/arts/31seidensticker.html 

Mermoud, M. (2020, September 9). Stories of translators: Jorge Luis Borges. Cultures Connection. https://culturesconnection.com/stories-of-translators-jorge-luis-borges/ 

Moser, C. (1988). Translation: The achievement of Constance Garnett. The American Scholar, 57(3), 431-438. 

Nguyen, M. (2005). Prologue of the Gospel of St. John from the Clementine Vulgate [Photograph]. https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-ncregister/swp/hv9hms/media/20200828040816_5f4868edc2bf74d8cce1d2ecjpeg.webp 

Panetti, D. (1500). Saint Jérôme [Saint Jérôme]. Abbaye de Chaalis - Musée Jacquemart-André, Paris, France. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/38/Domenico_Panetti_-_St_J%C3%A9r%C3%B4me.jpg/467px-Domenico_Panetti_-_St_J%C3%A9r%C3%B4me.jpg 

[chitto]

I Analyzed All Of the Songs on Ranboo’s Lore Playlist and Here’s What I Learned.

We can pick a few themes out from the songs: 

Time

Fighting something inside of you 

Alluding to a villain arc 

Transition of a person 

My biggest theory from all this is that c!Ranboo is a time traveler from the future (probably before Mizu but after the Haunted Mansion). He traveled to the past, November 27th specifically, to stop c!Tommy’s exile. We can assume that in c!Ranboo’s future, c!Tommy burned down c!George’s house by himself but when c!Ranboo went back, he got caught up in it, thus creating a time paradox. (Evidence from the songs Merry-Go-Round of Life, all songs of Hawaii - Part Two by Miracle Musical, and The Ruler of Everything). Now knowing he is the cause of c!Tommy’s exile, c!Ranboo feels immense amounts of guilt for his actions, the regret keeping him up at night (Ain’t No Rest for The Wicked). This mental stress is something that has resulted in the beginnings of insanity for c!Ranboo (The Mind Electric). 

A villain arc is very plausible for c!Ranboo in the near future, most likely brought up by harm coming to c!Tubbo or Michael (Killer Queen, Mr. Bad Guy, I Can’t Decide, Ain’t No Rest for the Wicked, and Live and Let Die) 

Full Analysis on Each Song Under the Cut: 

(All Song Lyric Analysis Credits go to the wonderful people on genius, I merely fit them into the context of the DreamSmp and c!Ranboo) 

Prologue (StarKid) - A simple ticking clock. ARG trailer tie in as well as even more references of time. 

Introduction to the Snow (Miracle Musical) - Comes off an album that (storywise) has the listener loop over and over the songs in the album, as a time paradox. 

Dream Sweet in Sea Major (Miracle Musical) - Final song in the album (loops). Occurs in three movements. Tells the story of a sailor that gives himself up to the mermaids. Lyrics don’t give much in terms of hints at anything. 

Turn the Lights Off (Tally Hall) - About a journey through puberty and adolescence (??) perhaps could be changed to fit. However main name of the song is meant to convey accepting differences and confronting fears, something c!Ranboo doesn’t really do. First line also says ‘Don’t go in there, you’ll become one, Freaky creatures, monster party’ perhaps relating to the enderwalk/possession c!Ranboo goes through. 

The Mind Electric (Miracle Musical) - The song starts off in reverse, the singer speaking backwards. Once the song straightens out, we’re shown that the protagonist of the song is a mentally unstable man trying to figure out what triggers a specific fear. The second verse then goes into a young child who’s been held trial for insanity. The child and the judge then have an open dialogue throughout the rest of the verse until the child is sent to an asylum. The song concludes with insane yet peaceful thoughts from the child. Obviously I’m not a psychiatrist but doing some light research into insanity (NOT psychosis, as insanity is more of an umbrella term for unstable mental state while psychosis is a specified disorder) you can see a few signs of insanity that could be applied to c!Ranboo. ‘Denial of obvious problems’ Many times c! Ranboo has dismissed or downplayed his issues and problems, most notably when he’s found in a panicked state by c!Sam who asks him if he’s okay, to which c!Ranboo replies that he’s fine. ‘Delusions or Hallucinations’ this is a big one as throughout the Doomsday arc, c!Ranboo spoke to c!Dream in his panic room, only to realize he was talking to no one. ‘Dramatic changes in sleeping habits’ This is more of a reach as we have no actually confirmation but it could be assumed that c!Ranboo’s enderwalking could be disrupting his sleep patterns. 

Live and Let Die (Paul McCartney) - a song about a once young person who used to say ‘Live and Let Live’ but has now changed their maxim to ‘Live and Let Die’. Could be said that as people grow older they grow more cynical. Granted the phrases mean the same thing but one seems much more pessimistic. 

The Ruler of Everything (Tally Hall) - Once again a song about time, the entire song meant to symbolize how time controls our lives (once again feeding into a time paradox theory). The song has a verse that is a man and Time itself singing. The song then starts to speed up, representing how short periods of our lives can be in the grand scheme of things. ‘Do you understand that mechanical hands are the ruler of everything’ This lyric of the song is meant to mean that time (the mechanical hands of the clock) are at the root of everything, once again drawing us back to a time motif with Ranboo’s character. This specific line could lead us to believe that c!Ranboo is being ‘controlled’ by time, aka perhaps caught in a time travelers loop. 

Merry-Go-Round Of Life (Howl’s Moving Castle OST) - While the song itself is an instrumental without words, one could do some digging into the story of Howl’s Moving Castle, spoilers for the film in this analysis. In Howl’s Moving Castle, there is a sequence in which Sophie goes back in time to find Howl, seeing him as a young boy. She calls out to him, telling him to find her in the future, before getting taken back to her time. It seems pretty insignificant until you remember that in the beginning of the film, during Howl and Sophie’s first interaction he says to her, “There you are, sweetheart, sorry I’m late. I was looking everywhere.” thus representing that Howl has been looking for Sophie his entire life after she called out to him in the past. So what does this mean for c!Ranboo? Well its just more time motif and even more time paradox themes. But what even is a time paradox? A time paradox is when somebody who has traveled back in time, becomes a part of the past and causes the events they set out to stop in the first place. Perhaps this means c!Ranboo traveled back in time to stop c!Tommy’s exile, as it was a catalyst event that resulted in many problems on the server (L’manberg’s second destruction to name one) before getting sucked into the events that caused it himself. 

Killer Queen (Queen) - Really can’t say too much for this song as the song is meant to convey how “that classy people can be whores as well” (Freddie Mercury). Freddie also said that anyone else could call their own interpretations of the song as well. I can’t really think of too much about the song that could be molded to c!Ranboo. 

Mr. Bad Guy (Freddie Mercury) - This one is more interesting as the bridge of this song details how Freddie is ‘Mr. Bad Guy’ and that he can ruin people’s lives and many people are afraid of him. This could sound like something c!Ranboo would say in relation to someone trying to threaten the people he cares about. c!Ranboo going to any length for those he cares about (most notably his family) is something that recently cc!Ranboo has tried to drive home, making it a tweet under his character’s lore thread on twitter. 

Ain’t No Rest For The Wicked (Cage the Elephant) - The main line of this song is a bible verse that means that those who are sin-free can sleep well at night knowing they haven’t done anything wrong but those are commit sins need to keep one eye open at all times. Perhaps c!Ranboo believes that he has done something wrong that keeps him up at night. It could be tied back to the time paradox theory by saying that c!Ranboo is kept up at night by the fact that he couldn’t stop the bad events from happening, even becoming a part of them. 

The Bidding (Tally Hall) - While the song itself is about an auction in which men are trying to “sell” themselves to a woman, I would like to call attention to one specific verse. ‘I’ve been training like a Pavlov dog,  Let my independence out to take a hike, All you gotta do is activate my bell, and I’ll fetch you anything you like’. The first lyric calls reference to Ivan Pavlov, who ran a conditioning experiment on dogs, training them to associate the sound of a bell with food, whether they actually got food or not. The last two lyrics I find particularly interesting as we have seen somebody “activate” c!Ranboo. c!Sapnap. After c!Sapnap visited c!Dream in prison, c!Dream asked c!Sapnap to deliver a message to c!Ranboo. The message being ‘:)’. When c!Sapnap repeated the message to c!Ranboo, c!Ranboo immediately switched and began to speak in enderman language before wandering off. He then spoke to c!Sapnap in chat saying, in ender, “Doomed are those who try to run, for it always catches up eventually :)’. This is one of many incidents of c!Ranboo being switched into his enderwalk state, in which he does stuff for c!Dream such as burning down the community house. 

I Can’t Decide (Scissor Sisters) - This song is a upbeat song about a psychotic killer trying to decide on whether or not he should kill his victim. This song could relate back to c!Ranboo’s relationship with c!Dream. c!Ranboo has been very cagey on whether or not he would like c!Dream, most recently being very eager to break into prison and murder him. This song could also hint towards a possible villain arc for c!Ranboo. 

Stardust Crusaders (JoJo’s Bizarre Adventures OST) - Unfortunately, this song is another instrumental. And even more unfortunately, I don’t watch JJBA so I can’t comment on what the song could be alluding to. Stardust Crusaders is the name of an arc of the show but reading through the plot summary on Wikipedia doesn’t turn back anything that could be tied to c!Ranboo. 

A Mask of My Own Face (Lemon Demon) - While the song itself is relatively simple, a man singing about how he wants to wear a mask of his own face to confuse people, a few lines have sparked certain people to examine the song deeper coming to the conclusion that the singer wants to cause chaos and controversy. The mask of his own face would allow him to mask his identity, as no one would wear a mask of their own face, while still allowing him to be associated with the chaos. For c!Ranboo I can’t really see this pointing to anything but the Syndicate. c!Ranboo really does believe in their core value of dismantling the things on the server that are bad but also he knows many people he’s close to who are at odds with members of the Syndicate, most notable c!Tubbo. However this could be rather lose as cc!Ranboo is a big fan of Lemon Demon and who hasn’t put a song from their favorite artist on a playlist even though the vibe doesn’t necessarily fit. 

Stranded Lullaby (Miracle Musical) - Another song of the Miracle Musical album Hawaii - Part Two, which loops itself over within the story. This particular song is about a sailor sailing through a cerebral ocean, which may or may not represent time itself; the sailor being a time traveler who had a mistake in his time traveling. This once again brings us back to the theory of c!Ranboo as a time traveler. There is also a line I would like to call upon, ‘Aimless thoughts and papers blown around, A million moments meant remembered rest in deep dark sound’. These lyrics are meant to relate to memories and how truly fleeting some may be, just papers floating in our brains eventually lost to time. This obviously can relate back to c!Ranboo’s memory problems, which are a known side effect of time travel, as told to us through the story of c!Karl, the only other time traveler on the server (excluding c!Connor who is only theorized as a time traveler for right now). 

Hidden In The Sand (Tally Hall) - This is slightly complicated as the song has two meanings. On the surface, the song is about a man who falls in love with a woman who leaves him, however the man is still in love with her. But in the music video, a new meaning can be found. The music video shows a cruise full of people, all very nice and kind until the ship begins to sink and the real, selfish, sides of the people is revealed. ‘Hidden in the Sand’ is meant to symbolize that a persons true nature is covered up by their outward acts and personality. This could apply to c!Ranboo, as he is outwardly very polite and gentle, growing attached to every animal he finds and refusing to kill any Enderman but he could have a whole other personality to him that we don’t know about. If songs such as ‘I Can’t Decide’ and ‘Mr. Bad Guy’ are any hints, we could theorize that c!Ranboo has a secret dark side to him that could be exposed in the events of his family being threatened. 

Now I’m Here (Queen) -  No statements or theories about what the song means or any of the lyrics. 

& (Tally Hall) - This song, as with others off this particular album, deal with opposites. The whole chorus of this song is about certain opposites such as dark and light or cold and hot. Relating back to c!Ranboo, perhaps this song is meant to tell us that c!Ranboo is a foil of a certain character. Possibilities could be c!Dream and c!Ranboo, as c!Dream is very against attachments towards things and is a very outwardly violent person while c!Ranboo is attached to almost every animal and enderman (not to mention c!Tubbo and Michael) and is a very peaceful person, or perhaps c!Ranboo and c!Karl, the two time (theorized) travelers on the server. c!Karl has a stronger control over his abilities and seems to retain most of his memory fairly well so far while c!Ranboo perhaps can’t control his power and has short term memory loss and can’t remember where he came from. 

I’m Gonna Win (Rob Cantor) - This song is a description of a fight between the singer and his inner demons, the fight resulting in very physical injuries for the singer. This can relate back to c!Ranboo, as he could be fighting the demons of his enderwalking state. This song has a very cheerful outlook on the fight however, as the singer is very confident in his abilities and knows he will win. c!Ranboo isn’t always the most positive, sometimes believing more in the pessimistic outcome but this could be a new leaf for c!Ranboo or a goal of his to be more positive. 

[upyrica]

Dearest Red, which version of the Bible is your favorite? Do you have any favourite quotes?

My answer here shall not be helpful for the vast majority of my following, since I tend to gravitate towards the Ukrainian Bible as translated by Ivan Ohienko for casual reading, with a side of Old Church Slavonic, Latin, and occasional forays into Hebrew and Greek, and the New King James mostly when I need to post something I found to be interesting in an English-speaking space.

My favourite quotes change from day to day, the book is, if anything, truly a wealth of repeatable things. Today it is this, in Acts 17:

Then Paul stood in the midst of Mars' hill, and said, Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious. For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, To The Unknown God. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you. God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands; neither is worshipped with men's hands, as though he needed any thing, seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things; and hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation; that they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us: for in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring.

To showcase the difference in translation and the weight of connotation, what is "superstitious" in this text, the Ukrainian one shows as "побожний" - that is, "religious". The Greek word in this case can imply either, but it truly depends on the mindset of the translator, does it not: does one assume, in a typical fire and brimstone King James fashion, that Paul was disgusted at the practices of the locals, wholly without compassion, or that he was informing them that they unknowingly and without proper understanding had already had an established practice around his God, aiming to position himself on their side.