2015.11.18 - Week 10

A. Vocabularies to Know
1) It's Greek to me = it's difficult to me
2) Three tragedy poetry: Sophocles. Euripides. Aeschylus
3) confession: when you admit that you have done something wrong or illegal;  when a Christian tells God or, especially in the Roman Catholic Church, tells a priest formally and privately, what they have done wrong so that they can be forgiven
3-1) conversion: when someone or something is converted from one thing to another; a place for living in that has been changed from its previous use
B. Apollo and Daphne

Apollo, one of the most powerful gods and a great warrior, mocked the god of love Eros for his use of bow and arrow, saying, "What have you to do with warlike weapons? Leave them for hands worthy of them. Behold the conquest I have won by means of them over the vast serpent that stretched his poisonous body over acres of the plain! Be content with your light, child, and kindle up your flames, as you call them, where you will, but presume not to meddle with my weapons."

The insulted Eros then prepared two arrows, one of gold and one of lead. With the leaden shaft, to incite hatred, he shot the nymph Daphne and with the golden one, to incite love, he shot Apollo; both of them through the heart. Apollo was seized with love for the maiden Daphne and she, in turn, abhorred him. In fact, she spurned her many potential lovers, preferring instead woodland sports and exploring the forest. Her father, the river god Peneus, demanded that she get married and give him grandchildren. She, however, begged her father to let her remain unmarried.

Apollo continually followed her, begging her to stay, but the nymph continued her flight. They were evenly matched in the race until Eros intervened, helping Apollo gain upon Daphne. Seeing that Apollo was bound to catch her, she called upon her father, "Help me, Peneus! Open the earth to enclose me, or change my form, which has brought me into this danger! Let me be free of this man from this moment forward!"

Peneus frightfully answered her plea, casting upon her an enchantment of great power. Daphne's arms transformed into branches as her hair became leaves; her skin then turning to bark. She stopped running as her feet became rooted to the ground and Apollo overcame her, embracing her branches. Yet, even the branches shrank away from him. Since Apollo could no longer take her as his wife, he vowed to tend her as his tree; to raid away all tempted beasts and creatures of the earth that intended to do her harm. He promised that her leaves would crown the heads of leaders and champions, decorate the weaponry of warriors, and never be claimed as another's for as long as her branches flourished. Apollo also used his powers of eternal youth and immortality to render her ever green. For this reason, the leaves of the Bay laurel tree have never known decay.
C. Youth is a state of mind not a time of life

Samuel Ullman

Youth is not a time of life—it is a state of mind.

It is not a matter of red cheeks, red lips and supple knees.
It is a temper of the will; a quality of the imagination; a vigor of the emotions;
it is a freshness of the deep springs of life.

Youth means a tempermental predominance of courage over timidity,
of the appetite for adventure over a life of ease.
This often exists in a man of fifty, more than in a boy of twenty.
Nobody grows old by merely living a number of years;
people grow old by deserting their ideals.

Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul.
Worry, doubt, self-distrust, fear and despair—
these are the long, long years that bow the head
and turn the growing spirit back to dust.

Whether seventy or sixteen, there is in every being’s heart a love of wonder;
the sweet amazement at the stars and starlike things and thoughts;
the undaunted challenge of events,
the unfailing childlike appetite for what comes next,
and the joy in the game of life.

You are as young as your faith, as old as your doubt;
as young as your self-confidence, as old as your fear,
as young as your hope, as old as your despair.

In the central place of your heart there is a wireless station.
So long as it receives messages of beauty, hope, cheer, grandeur, courage,
and power from the earth, from men and from the Infinite—so long are you young.
When the wires are all down and the central places of your heart are covered with the snows of pessimism and the ice of cynicism,
then are you grown old, indeed!
D. Movie - Lost Civilization (1995)

 The Evidence of Earth's Lost Civilization is a book first published in 1995 by Graham Hancock, in which he echoes 19th century writer Ignatius Donnelly, author of Atlantis: The Antediluvian World (1882), in contending that some previously enigmatic ancient but highly advanced civilization had existed in prehistory, one which served as the common progenitor civilization to all subsequent known ancient historical ones. The author proposes that sometime around the end of the last Ice Age this civilization ended in cataclysm, but passed on to its inheritors profound knowledge of such things as astronomy, architecture, and mathematics. His theory is based on the idea that mainstream interpretations of archaeological evidence are flawed or incomplete.