Ian H > Recent Status Updates

Book IX complete.

“Feast on my destruction, Saturnian Juno, / Feast! Look down from above on my affliction, / Cruel goddess, and glut your savage heart!”

At least someone had the courage to say it. Juno is the literal worst.

Inferno, Canto V complete.

It’s weird seeing Achilles here and not in a lower circle for wrath (you know, for the whole stopping up a river with bodies of slain Trojans), but apparently Homer wasn’t available in Dante’s time. That’s too bad. He really missed out.

Book VIII complete.

Canto IV complete.

Canto III done.

“All hope abandon, ye who enter in!”

Act IV complete.

“He’s loved of the distracted multitude, / Who like not in their judgment, but their eyes; / And, where ’tis so, th’ offender’s scourge is weighed, / But never the offense.”

Canto II complete.

Act III complete.

“To be, or not to be…” yeah, you all know the rest.

Book VIII complete.

Canto I complete.

100 days left in the year means 100 days of the Divine Comedy (1 canto per day). I’m primarily reading the Longfellow translation, but consulting the Hollander translation for better notes.

Act II complete.

“More matter with less art.”

Or the best way of saying “get to the point.”

Books V, VI, and VII complete.

Act I complete.

“So excellent a king, that was to this / Hyperion to a satyr;”

I actually just read this tale in the Metamorphoses yesterday. Hyperion skinned the satyr alive. Happy Monday!

Books VI and VII complete.

Sonnets CXX - CXXVI

With this week’s batch, we have concluded the love sonnets and will be moving onto the Dark Lady sonnets for these last 4 weeks. I’m definitely appreciative for a change in subject. As for this week’s batch, I’m going to have to re-read these. Shakespeare’s finally gotten out of his repetitive cycle, and these were actually more difficult than anything I’ve read in weeks.

“Only unconscious activity bears fruit, and a man who plays a role in a historical event never understands its significance. If he attempts to understand it, he is struck with fruitlessness.”

Book V complete.

Act IV complete.

Book IV complete.

Act III complete.