The beginning
Hello everybody ( you who dared to come to this blog),
If you found this blog somehow by googling, then I applause you for finding it in the first place and for wanting to read a blog about classics by a student. Perhaps you're the unfortunate person who discovered me by searching for "mosquito killer" with the hope that you could find a way to get rid of them? In that case, I have to apologize beforehand because this string is just a random tag I put in. (Not to say that I am not a phenomenal bug smasher since I have already splashed two gnats, only the third one is still lurking in my room).
But let's get to the point, shall we? I am a classics student named Kevin van der Hoek and I have recently attained my bachelor's degree in Greek and Latin language and culture. Hereafter, I am going to carry on with the research Master's in Literary Studies. As you might guess from my name, I am not from the UK or the USA, but from the Netherlands. This has all to do with my reason for blogging: while my bachelor's was taught in my native language Dutch, this research master is being taught in English (the main language if you want to achieve something in the academic world). Therefore, I thought it would be a good idea to practice my writing skills by blogging. It also gives me an opportunity to write about the things that I will read and research for my studies.
Initially, I thought by myself: This is a nice opportunity to talk about my bachelor thesis. Now I am actually convinced to put this idea aside since this post is long enough as it is. Not forgetting the classics, I will talk about a other theme that was also introduced at the beginning: gnats. The word for mosquito/gnat in Latin is culex. The word that you would consider at first as a classicist would be musca (which the word "mosquito" is derived from), but this means actually fly. This mosquito makes his first appearance in Plautus, but I present to you a small excerpt from Martial.
Illa potest culicem longe sentire volantem
et minimi pinna papilionis agi;
It can feel a mosquito flying from far away
and the wing of the smallest butterfly moving (Mart. 8.33, 7-8)
The way that Martial portrays the mosquito as a equivalent of the butterfly is really interesting. In this poem, Martial complains about a present, a phalia (drinking cup) he has gotten from his friend Paulus. He whines about how thin the material of the phalia is. Martial even ends with saying:
Denique cum possis mittere, Paule, nihil?
In fact, when you could have send me nothing, Paulus (Mart. 8.33, 26)
In this context, both culux and the papilio represent agents that can prove the delicacy of the phalia. As to say, both animals can create a "butterfly-effect" that makes ripples on the surface of this unappreciated present.
Remind yourselves not to offer any cheap, quickly disposable items to Martial.
If you found this blog somehow by googling, then I applause you for finding it in the first place and for wanting to read a blog about classics by a student. Perhaps you're the unfortunate person who discovered me by searching for "mosquito killer" with the hope that you could find a way to get rid of them? In that case, I have to apologize beforehand because this string is just a random tag I put in. (Not to say that I am not a phenomenal bug smasher since I have already splashed two gnats, only the third one is still lurking in my room).
But let's get to the point, shall we? I am a classics student named Kevin van der Hoek and I have recently attained my bachelor's degree in Greek and Latin language and culture. Hereafter, I am going to carry on with the research Master's in Literary Studies. As you might guess from my name, I am not from the UK or the USA, but from the Netherlands. This has all to do with my reason for blogging: while my bachelor's was taught in my native language Dutch, this research master is being taught in English (the main language if you want to achieve something in the academic world). Therefore, I thought it would be a good idea to practice my writing skills by blogging. It also gives me an opportunity to write about the things that I will read and research for my studies.
Initially, I thought by myself: This is a nice opportunity to talk about my bachelor thesis. Now I am actually convinced to put this idea aside since this post is long enough as it is. Not forgetting the classics, I will talk about a other theme that was also introduced at the beginning: gnats. The word for mosquito/gnat in Latin is culex. The word that you would consider at first as a classicist would be musca (which the word "mosquito" is derived from), but this means actually fly. This mosquito makes his first appearance in Plautus, but I present to you a small excerpt from Martial.
Illa potest culicem longe sentire volantem
et minimi pinna papilionis agi;
It can feel a mosquito flying from far away
and the wing of the smallest butterfly moving (Mart. 8.33, 7-8)
The way that Martial portrays the mosquito as a equivalent of the butterfly is really interesting. In this poem, Martial complains about a present, a phalia (drinking cup) he has gotten from his friend Paulus. He whines about how thin the material of the phalia is. Martial even ends with saying:
Denique cum possis mittere, Paule, nihil?
In fact, when you could have send me nothing, Paulus (Mart. 8.33, 26)
In this context, both culux and the papilio represent agents that can prove the delicacy of the phalia. As to say, both animals can create a "butterfly-effect" that makes ripples on the surface of this unappreciated present.
Remind yourselves not to offer any cheap, quickly disposable items to Martial.
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