2015.10.28 - Week7

A. Vocabularies to Know

Xerox copy

1) Xerox copy:  a copy made by a xerographic printer
1-1) carbon copy: the under-copy of a document created when carbon paper is placed between the original and the under-copy during the production of a document (c.c. 通常是上對下)
( Q-lip和Xerox Copy都是用做得最好的廠商命名)
2) ally: a country that has agreed officially to give help and support to another one, especially during a war
3) silver-footed: like mercury, the metal, also called "quicksilver", silver -footed means fast. So the god mercury is a fast moving god. Someone who is silver footed can run very fast.
4) rage: (a period of) extreme or violent anger
4-1) fury: extreme anger
4-2) angry: having a strong feeling against someone who has behaved badly, making you want to shout at them or hurt them
5) mourn: to feel or express great sadness, especially because of someone's death
5-1) lament:  to express sadness and feeling sorry about something
6) attendant: someone whose job is to be in a place and help visitors or customers
6-1) flight attendant: someone who serves passengers on an aircraft
7) elegy: a sad poem or song, especially remembering someone who has died or something in the past
8) Eugenics: the study of methods of improving humans by allowing only carefully chosen people to reproduce
9) foreshadowing: to act as a warning or sign of a future event
10) swine: a person who you consider to be extremely unpleasant and unkind
11) nemesis: someone's nemesis is a person or thing that is very difficult for them to defeat.
12) omen: something that is considered to be a sign of how a future event will take place
13) chron- time
14) treaty: a written agreement between two or more countries formally approved and signed by their leaders
15) entreaty: an attempt to persuade someone to do something
B. Movie - In her shoes

In Her Shoes is a 2005 American comedy-drama film based on the novel of the same name by Jennifer Weiner. It is directed by Curtis Hanson with an adapted screenplay by Susannah Grant and stars Cameron Diaz, Toni Collette, and Shirley MacLaine. The film focuses on the relationship between two sisters and their grandmother.
C. Movie - Four wedding and funeral

Four Weddings and a Funeral is a 1994 British romantic comedy film directed by Mike Newell. It was the first of several films by screenwriter Richard Curtis to feature Hugh Grant. It was made in six weeks and cost under £3 million, becoming an unexpected success and the highest-grossing British film in cinema history at the time, with worldwide box office in excess of $245.7 million, and receiving an Academy Award nomination for Best Picture.

2015.10.21 - Week 6

A. Vocabularies to Know
1) suitor:  a man who wants to marry a particular woman
2) Archery contest: 射箭比賽
3) -naut: 人
3-1) Astronaut: a person who has been trained for travelling in spacecraft
4) siren: a device for making a loud warning noise (原: 海神女妖的歌聲)
5) innovation: (the use of) a new idea or method
6) cunning: describes people who are clever at planning something so that they get what they want, especially by tricking other people, or things that are cleverly made for a particular purpose
7) Menelous: 斯巴達國王(老婆被搶走的)
8) Ithaca: Odyssey的國度
8-1) Ithaca, New York: Cornell大學的所在地
B. Penelope's weaving

Penelope is in a very dangerous situation when the suitors begin invading her house and asking — and then demanding — her hand in marriage. Although the suitors abuse an important social tradition of hospitality, Penelope lacks the natural, social, and familial protections that would enable her to remove them from her house. Her son, Telemachus, has neither the maturity nor the strength to expel the invaders. Although unassuming, Penelope has a cunning that indicates she is a good mate for her wily husband. He claims — rightly, by the way — that she has misguided the suitors for nearly four years, leading on each man with hints and promises but choosing no one.
The story of the loom symbolizes the queen's clever tactics. For three years, Penelope worked at weaving a shroud for the eventual funeral of her father-in-law, Laertes. She claimed that she would choose a husband as soon as the shroud was completed. By day, the queen, a renowned weaver, worked on a great loom in the royal halls. At night, she secretly unraveled what she had done, amazingly deceiving the young suitors. Her ploy failed only when one of her servants eventually betrayed her and told the suitors what was happening.
C. Search" Electra" on Wiki Pedia

In Greek mythology, Electra was the daughter of King Agamemnon and Queen Clytemnestra, and thus princess of Argos. She and her brother Orestes plotted revenge against their mother Clytemnestra and stepfather Aegisthus for the murder of their father, Agamemnon.Electra is one of the most popular mythological characters in tragedies. She is the main character in two Greek tragedies, Electra by Sophocles and Electra by Euripides. She is also the central figure in plays by Aeschylus, Alfieri, Voltaire, Hofmannsthal, and Eugene O'Neill.In psychology, the Electra complex is named after her.

2015.10.14 - Week 5

A. Vocabularies to Know
1) nature: all the animals, plants, rocks, etc. in the world and all the features, forces and processes that happen or exist independently of people, such as the weather, the sea, mountains, reproduction and growth
1-1) nurture: to take care of, feed and protect someone or something, especially young children or plants, and help them to develop; to help a plan or a person to develop and be successful
2) messenger:  someone who takes a message or documents from one person to another
2-1) passenger: a person who is travelling in a vehicle but is not driving it, flying it or working on it; a train carrying people rather than goods
3) fate: what happens to a particular person or thing, especially something final or negative, such as death or defeat; a power that some people believe causes and controls all events, so that you cannot change or control the way things will happen
3-1) fatal: A fatal illness or accident, etc. causes death
4) fate: what happens to a particular person or thing, especially something final or negative, such as death or defeat
4-1) destiny: the things that will happen in the future
5) hubris: being very proud and believing in your own importance
6) para- 平行並立
6-1) paragraph: a short part of a text, consisting of at least one sentence and beginning on a new line. It usually deals with a single event, description, idea, etc.
6-2) parallel: If two or more lines, streets, etc. are parallel, the distance between them is the same all along their length
6-3) parasol: a type of sunshade (= round frame covered in cloth on a stick) carried especially by women in the past, to give protection from the sun
6-4) paradox: a situation or statement which seems impossible or is difficult to understand because it contains two opposite facts or characteristics
7) dic- to say, to tell, word
7-1) dictionary:  a book that contains a list of words in alphabetical order with their meanings explained or written in another language, or a similar product for use on a computer
7-2) dictator: a leader who has complete power in a country and has not been elected by the people
7-3) predict: to say that an event or action will happen in the future, especially as a result of knowledge or experience
8) vir& ver在拉丁文中是一樣的
virtual: almost a particular thing or quality

B. Greeks call themselves Helens

* 舊約聖經是希伯來文 新約聖經是希臘文

新約聖經

舊約聖經

2015.10.7 - Week 4

A. Vocabularies to Know
1) provoke: to cause a reaction, especially a negative one
1-1) evoke: to make someone remember something or feel an emotion
2) anxious: worried and nervous
2-1) anxiety: an uncomfortable feeling of nervousness or worry about something that is happening or might happen in the future
3) initial:  of or at the beginning
3-1) initiate: to cause something to begin
4) rage: (a period of) extreme or violent anger
4-1) outrageous: shocking and morally unacceptable; describes something or someone that is shocking because they are unusual or strange
5) vulnerable: able to be easily physically, emotionally, or mentally hurt, influenced or attacked
6) snobbish: like a snob
B. Introduction of Hephaestus

Hephaestus is the Greek god of blacksmiths, craftsmen, artisans, sculptors, metals, metallurgy, fire and volcanoes. Hephaestus' Roman equivalent is Vulcan. In Greek mythology, Hephaestus was the son of Zeus and Hera, the king and queen of the gods. In another version, he was Hera's parthenogenous child, rejected by his mother because of his deformity and thrown out of heaven and down to earth

As a smithing god, Hephaestus made all the weapons of the gods in Olympus. He served as the blacksmith of the gods, and was worshipped in the manufacturing and industrial centers of Greece, particularly Athens. The cult of Hephaestus was based in Lemnos. Hephaestus' symbols are a smith's hammer, anvil, and a pair of tongs.

C. Search " Epic poetry"

An epic is a lengthy narrative poem, ordinarily concerning a serious subject containing details of heroic deeds and events significant to a culture or nation. Milman Parry and Albert Lord have argued that the Homeric epics, the earliest works of Western literature, were fundamentally an oral poetic form. These works form the basis of the epic genre in Western literature. Nearly all Western epic self-consciously presents itself as a continuation of the tradition begun by these poems. Classical epic employs dactylic hexameter and recounts a journey, either physical (as typified by Odysseus in the Odyssey) or mental (as typified by Achilles in the Iliad) or both. Epics also tend to highlight cultural norms and to define or call into question cultural values, particularly as they pertain to heroism.

Another type of epic poetry is epyllion , which is a brief narrative poem with a romantic or mythological theme. The term, which means "little epic", came into use in the nineteenth century. It refers primarily to the erudite, shorter hexameter poems of the Hellenistic period and the similar works composed at Rome from the age of the neoterics; to a lesser degree, the term includes some poems of the English Renaissance, particularly those influenced by Ovid. The most famous example of classical epyllion is perhaps Catullus 64.

Some of the most famous examples of epic poetry include the ancient Indian Ramayana and Mahabharata, the Ancient Greek Iliad and the Odyssey, Dante's Divine Comedy, John Milton's Paradise Lost, and the Portuguese Lusiads.

2015.9.30 - Week 3

A. Vocabularies to Know
1) Heifer: a ​young ​cow, ​especially one that has not ​yet given ​birth to a ​calf
    Bull:  a male cow, or the male of particular animals such as the elephant or the whale
    Cub: a young lion, bear, wolf, etc.
2) nymph: (in ancient Greek and Roman traditional stories) a goddess or spirit in the form of a young woman, living in a tree, river, mountain, etc.
B. The Story about Achilles

Achilles’ most notable feat during the Trojan War was the slaying of the Trojan hero Hector outside the gates of Troy. Although the death of Achilles is not presented in the Iliad, other sources concur that he was killed near the end of the Trojan War by Paris, who shot him in the heel with an arrow. Later legends state that Achilles was invulnerable in all of his body except for his heel. Because of his death from a small wound in the heel, the term Achilles' heel has come to mean a person's point of weakness.

C. The Judgement of Paris

All of the gods were invited to Peleus and Thetis' wedding and brought many gifts, except Eris (the goddess of discord), who was stopped at the door by Hermes, on Zeus' order. Insulted, she threw from the door a gift of her own: a golden apple on which was inscribed the word Kallistēi ("To the fairest"). The apple was claimed by Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite. They quarreled bitterly over it, and none of the other gods would venture an opinion favoring one, for fear of earning the enmity of the other two. Eventually, Zeus ordered Hermes to lead the three goddesses to Paris, a prince of Troy, who, unaware of his ancestry, was being raised as a shepherd in Mount Ida, because of a prophecy that he would be the downfall of Troy. After bathing in the spring of Ida, the goddesses appeared to him naked, either for the sake of winning or at Paris' request. Paris was unable to decide between them, so the goddesses resorted to bribes. Athena offered Paris wisdom, skill in battle, and the abilities of the greatest warriors; Hera offered him political power and control of all of Asia; and Aphrodite offered him the love of the most beautiful woman in the world, Helen of Sparta. Paris awarded the apple to Aphrodite, and, after several adventures, returned to Troy, where he was recognized by his royal family.

* Peleus and Thetis are Achilles' parents

D. Zeus and Europa in Greek Mythology

The legend of Europa and Zeus begins when the ruler of the Olympian gods glimpses the young woman one day. At first sight of Europa, Zeus is instantly overcome by her beauty and grace. Not being one to ignore his desires, the god immediately comes up with a plan - he assumes the form of a glorious white bull and swims to the shore on which Europa and her female companions are playing . The bull is so sleek and handsome, not to mention gentle, that the maidens all take turns stroking and petting the pretty creature.

In time, Europa feels comfortable enough with the bull to climb upon his back for a little ride. However, as soon as she is safely seated, the bull moves toward the sea, carrying the object of his affection with him. They together cross the water. Their strange but compelling journey leads them eventually to the island of Crete.

Upon arriving in Crete, Zeus finally casts off his disguise and reveals his divine identity to Europa. The mortal woman then becomes yet another of the god’s lovers. Ultimately, Europa gives birth to a trio of sons - Minos, Rhadamanthys, and Sarpedon.

* It was said that Zeus so loved Europa that he gave her three priceless presents. The first was Talos, a magical man made of bronze, who served as a guard on Crete. The second was Laelaps, a dog that excelled at the hunt. And the third and final gift was a javelin that always hit its target. In addition, as a last poetic touch, it is worth mentioning that the bull that “stars” in this story was transformed into the constellation Taurus.

E. The Story of Ceres and Procepina

 Pluto fell in love with Proserpine, and carried her off to the Underworld. Ceres searched everywhere, but couldn't find her. Eventually Ceres refused to let the plants grow any more, and everyone begun to die of hunger. So Pluto admitted he had Proserpine, but said she could only go back home if she had eaten none of the food of the Dead. Proserpine had eaten almost nothing, as she was so sad at being kept underground, but she had eaten six seeds from a pomergranate. This means that she could go home, but had to return to her husband for six months every year. When this happens, Ceres stops everything growing, and winter comes