Weekend QoD: Saturday, October 11
Posted: Sat Oct 11, 2008 11:08 am
In keeping with the theme of languages and foreign relations and so on, today’s QoD will describe seven ‘epics’ of one sort or another, and you will be asked to identify the epic, the language in which it was composed, and, where applicable, the author.
Oh, and be sure to spoilerize your answers, please.
This will remain open until Tuesday, October 14, at noon Eastern Daylight Time.
1. This story covers just a few weeks in the final year of a ten year war. The greatest champion of the side that ultimately wins the war is ticked off: his commander-in-chief has, um, taken his slave girl, and he sulks in his tent for days and days and days, refusing to fight. The champion of the side that ultimately loses keeps challenging him to single combat, and finally the sulking champion’s very close personal friend (not that there is anything wrong with that) answers the challenge and goes into battle wearing the sulking champion’s armor. And gets himself killed. So the sulker says, screw it, and he goes out to fight the other side’s champion, and kills him, and then drags the dead body around the city three times. The end.
2. This story follows the first epic, telling of the ten-year journey home taken by a guy who was on the winning side of the war (in fact, he is the guy who figured out how to win the war). He doesn’t spend the whole ten years traveling-- in fact, he spends seven of those ten years on an island, boinking this nympho, Calypso, while his loyal wife is fighting off would-be suitors. In the course of his adventures he takes a side trip to the underworld, where he meets the (now dead) sulking champion from the first epic, who tells him that he would rather be a slave on earth than be the king of the underworld (he is neither). He finally gets home, where he meets his old dog, who dies. Then he kills the suitors. The end.
3. This story also follows the first epic, and tells about the years long journey into exile of a guy who was on the losing side of the war. He spends some time in Carthage boinking the queen (pretty much as commanded by a couple goddesses, one of whom hates him while the other likes him, because she is his mother), but he dumps the queen when another god tells him he has to leave to fulfill his destiny; she kills herself (Henry Purcell has a cool opera about this part of the story). Like the main character in the second epic, this guy goes to the underworld, but he goes there to chat with his dad (he also runs into the queen he dumped, but she snubs him), who died earlier in the story (this guy actually carried his dad on his shoulders when they were escaping the burning city when it fell to the guys who won the war, but dad was pretty old, and he dies later in the journey, which is why he is in the underworld). This guy’s journey parallels the journey of the guy in the second epic, but while the guy in the second epic was a great hero to the people for whom the second epic was composed, the people for whom this third epic was written really despised the hero of the second epic. Anyway, the hero of this epic eventually kills a lot of people, he subdues some others, and he fulfills his destiny. The end.
4. This epic poem is composed in three parts, in which the author visits Hell, then Purgatory, then Heaven. The author of the third epic acts as his guide through Hell and Purgatory (based upon his expert description of the underworld in the third epic), but because he is a pagan he cannot take the author to Heaven; the author’s beloved (who died young, and probably barely know that the author existed) guides him through Heaven. Hell is really cool, Purgatory is interesting, Heaven seems kind of a bore; maybe you have to be there to appreciate it. The author was a politico who found himself on the wrong side of a major controversy and he was exiled from his home town; coincidentally, while passing through Hell, he runs into many of his political enemies (a couple of them were actually still alive when the epic was written-- the author makes the point that some people are so bad that their souls go to Hell while they are still alive). No boinking in this one, but some people do end up in Hell for having boinked the wrong people when they were alive (Tchaikovsky has a really nice piece, Francesa da Rimini, that tells-- musically-- the story of a pair of adulterous lovers whom the author meets in Hell).
5. In this epic, the nephew of the first (Holy Roman) Emperor fights an unsuccessful rearguard action against a vast army of Saracens. His uncle would have come to the rescue if the nephew had only blown his horn in time, but he was too proud to do this until it was too late, and when he did finally blow his horn, his head exploded. The end. The story is somewhat based on a true incident, except that the guys who attacked were Basques, not Saracens.
6. An old king and his pals are terrorized by a guy who is a direct descendant of Cain, who disrupts their nightly celebrations by killing and eating the king’s pals (that kind of thing can put a damper on any celebration). The king’s nephew arrives and agrees to take care of things: he kills the son of Cain by ripping his arm off, leaving everyone happy. Except for the dead guy’s mom, who is ticked off. So she starts killing the king’s pals in revenge for the death of her son. So the hero kills her, too, leaving everyone happy. But then, years later, a dragon comes by to kill some more people; the hero kills the dragon, but he dies while doing so. The end. Contrary to what happened in a recent movie, the hero in the epic never boinks the mom, and the dragon is not the product of their boinking.
7. This story tells of an unsuccessful campaign against the Polovsty, a tribe of barbarian nomads also known as the Cumans. A very prominent 19th Century chemist (among other things, he was the first person to describe the nucleophilic displacement of chlorine by fluorine in benzoyl chloride, and he also discovered the aldol reaction) who described himself as a ‘Sunday Composer’ (because he only composed music part-time, when he could fit it in to his laboratory schedule) composed an opera (well, he composed most of it; a friend of his had to finish it for him because he had a little too much of a good time at a party and he collapsed from heart failure before completing the opera) that tells the story of this epic; the opera provides much of the musical basis (but not much of the story) for the Broadway musical Kismet; in particular, the opera includes a series of dances, one of which is the basis for the most famous tune in Kismet (Stranger in Paradise). Unless you’re into really odd stuff (as I am), you are not likely to have any reason to know the name of the epic, nor the language in which it was composed (today, this language is used only in some religious services), so howzabout naming the opera (whose name is similar to that of the epic), the language in which the opera was written (the language of which has some similarities to the language of the epic), and its composer? A bonus point for identifying the language in which the original epic was composed.
1. The epic’s name is:
The epic’s language is:
The epic’s author is:
2. The epic’s name is:
The epic’s language is:
The epic’s author is:
3. The epic’s name is:
The epic’s language is:
The epic’s author is:
4. The epic’s name is:
The epic’s language is:
The epic’s author is:
5. The epic’s name is:
The epic’s language is:
6. The epic’s name is:
The epic’s language is:
7. The opera’s name is:
The opera’s language is:
The opera’s composer is:
(BONUS): The language of the original epic is:
Oh, and be sure to spoilerize your answers, please.
This will remain open until Tuesday, October 14, at noon Eastern Daylight Time.
1. This story covers just a few weeks in the final year of a ten year war. The greatest champion of the side that ultimately wins the war is ticked off: his commander-in-chief has, um, taken his slave girl, and he sulks in his tent for days and days and days, refusing to fight. The champion of the side that ultimately loses keeps challenging him to single combat, and finally the sulking champion’s very close personal friend (not that there is anything wrong with that) answers the challenge and goes into battle wearing the sulking champion’s armor. And gets himself killed. So the sulker says, screw it, and he goes out to fight the other side’s champion, and kills him, and then drags the dead body around the city three times. The end.
2. This story follows the first epic, telling of the ten-year journey home taken by a guy who was on the winning side of the war (in fact, he is the guy who figured out how to win the war). He doesn’t spend the whole ten years traveling-- in fact, he spends seven of those ten years on an island, boinking this nympho, Calypso, while his loyal wife is fighting off would-be suitors. In the course of his adventures he takes a side trip to the underworld, where he meets the (now dead) sulking champion from the first epic, who tells him that he would rather be a slave on earth than be the king of the underworld (he is neither). He finally gets home, where he meets his old dog, who dies. Then he kills the suitors. The end.
3. This story also follows the first epic, and tells about the years long journey into exile of a guy who was on the losing side of the war. He spends some time in Carthage boinking the queen (pretty much as commanded by a couple goddesses, one of whom hates him while the other likes him, because she is his mother), but he dumps the queen when another god tells him he has to leave to fulfill his destiny; she kills herself (Henry Purcell has a cool opera about this part of the story). Like the main character in the second epic, this guy goes to the underworld, but he goes there to chat with his dad (he also runs into the queen he dumped, but she snubs him), who died earlier in the story (this guy actually carried his dad on his shoulders when they were escaping the burning city when it fell to the guys who won the war, but dad was pretty old, and he dies later in the journey, which is why he is in the underworld). This guy’s journey parallels the journey of the guy in the second epic, but while the guy in the second epic was a great hero to the people for whom the second epic was composed, the people for whom this third epic was written really despised the hero of the second epic. Anyway, the hero of this epic eventually kills a lot of people, he subdues some others, and he fulfills his destiny. The end.
4. This epic poem is composed in three parts, in which the author visits Hell, then Purgatory, then Heaven. The author of the third epic acts as his guide through Hell and Purgatory (based upon his expert description of the underworld in the third epic), but because he is a pagan he cannot take the author to Heaven; the author’s beloved (who died young, and probably barely know that the author existed) guides him through Heaven. Hell is really cool, Purgatory is interesting, Heaven seems kind of a bore; maybe you have to be there to appreciate it. The author was a politico who found himself on the wrong side of a major controversy and he was exiled from his home town; coincidentally, while passing through Hell, he runs into many of his political enemies (a couple of them were actually still alive when the epic was written-- the author makes the point that some people are so bad that their souls go to Hell while they are still alive). No boinking in this one, but some people do end up in Hell for having boinked the wrong people when they were alive (Tchaikovsky has a really nice piece, Francesa da Rimini, that tells-- musically-- the story of a pair of adulterous lovers whom the author meets in Hell).
5. In this epic, the nephew of the first (Holy Roman) Emperor fights an unsuccessful rearguard action against a vast army of Saracens. His uncle would have come to the rescue if the nephew had only blown his horn in time, but he was too proud to do this until it was too late, and when he did finally blow his horn, his head exploded. The end. The story is somewhat based on a true incident, except that the guys who attacked were Basques, not Saracens.
6. An old king and his pals are terrorized by a guy who is a direct descendant of Cain, who disrupts their nightly celebrations by killing and eating the king’s pals (that kind of thing can put a damper on any celebration). The king’s nephew arrives and agrees to take care of things: he kills the son of Cain by ripping his arm off, leaving everyone happy. Except for the dead guy’s mom, who is ticked off. So she starts killing the king’s pals in revenge for the death of her son. So the hero kills her, too, leaving everyone happy. But then, years later, a dragon comes by to kill some more people; the hero kills the dragon, but he dies while doing so. The end. Contrary to what happened in a recent movie, the hero in the epic never boinks the mom, and the dragon is not the product of their boinking.
7. This story tells of an unsuccessful campaign against the Polovsty, a tribe of barbarian nomads also known as the Cumans. A very prominent 19th Century chemist (among other things, he was the first person to describe the nucleophilic displacement of chlorine by fluorine in benzoyl chloride, and he also discovered the aldol reaction) who described himself as a ‘Sunday Composer’ (because he only composed music part-time, when he could fit it in to his laboratory schedule) composed an opera (well, he composed most of it; a friend of his had to finish it for him because he had a little too much of a good time at a party and he collapsed from heart failure before completing the opera) that tells the story of this epic; the opera provides much of the musical basis (but not much of the story) for the Broadway musical Kismet; in particular, the opera includes a series of dances, one of which is the basis for the most famous tune in Kismet (Stranger in Paradise). Unless you’re into really odd stuff (as I am), you are not likely to have any reason to know the name of the epic, nor the language in which it was composed (today, this language is used only in some religious services), so howzabout naming the opera (whose name is similar to that of the epic), the language in which the opera was written (the language of which has some similarities to the language of the epic), and its composer? A bonus point for identifying the language in which the original epic was composed.
1. The epic’s name is:
The epic’s language is:
The epic’s author is:
2. The epic’s name is:
The epic’s language is:
The epic’s author is:
3. The epic’s name is:
The epic’s language is:
The epic’s author is:
4. The epic’s name is:
The epic’s language is:
The epic’s author is:
5. The epic’s name is:
The epic’s language is:
6. The epic’s name is:
The epic’s language is:
7. The opera’s name is:
The opera’s language is:
The opera’s composer is:
(BONUS): The language of the original epic is:
