WTF-Beta

Do the grandchildren visit?

@jon-nyc said:

No human has seen it certainly seems unlikely.

But no human has seen it who also had a pen and paper and camera and knowledge of previously described species in the area with the contacts and platform to give it a name and bring it to the attention of scientists worldwide seems far more believable.

Maybe.

This could be the case.

It might not be.

A record could have been made orally, in writing, or with photography, and might well be extant and undiscovered.

@jon-nyc said:

I’ve not studied it.

This is the kind of thing AI is great at. Here’s Claude’s take:

Great questions — Echo is actually the emotional key to the whole myth, and it makes way more sense once you see how her story and Narcissus's mirror each other.

Who was Echo, and what happened to her before Narcissus?
Echo was a mountain nymph. In Ovid's version, she had a habit of talking constantly — and she used it to help Zeus (Jupiter). Whenever Hera (Juno) went looking for Zeus mid-affair with one of the other nymphs, Echo would distract Hera with long chattering stories, giving Zeus time to get away. When Hera figured out the trick, she punished Echo with a curse: Echo could no longer speak her own words first. She could only repeat the last words someone else said to her.

So what was Echo doing in the Narcissus story?
After the curse, Echo sees Narcissus wandering in the woods, falls in love with him, and follows him — but she can't call out to him or start a conversation. She can only wait for him to speak, then repeat his words back. There's a famous moment where he calls out "Who's here?" and she can only answer "...here." Eventually he rejects her cruelly (he'd rather die than let her touch him), and devastated and ashamed, she withdraws into isolation.

Did Echo die?
Yes — sort of. She wastes away from grief and rejection, her body fading until literally nothing is left but her voice. She becomes what we now call an "echo": the acoustic phenomenon of a voice bouncing back without a body behind it. So she wasn't an echo of something at the start — she became the phenomenon we call an echo, as a consequence of the curse plus her heartbreak. That's why it feels sad rather than just a device: it's a literal transformation, a person reduced to only being able to reflect back what others say.

Why does she matter to Narcissus's story?
Because she's not a warning exactly — she's a parallel. Narcissus rejected Echo (and others) cruelly, and Nemesis (goddess of retribution) curses him in return: he falls in love with his own reflection, something he can never have or touch, just as Echo could never fully speak or be heard as herself. Both of them waste away pining after something unreachable — she for a person who won't turn toward her, he for an image that isn't even a person. Structurally, they're doubles: Echo can't speak first; Narcissus can't recognize what he's seeing isn't someone else. Communication fails both of them, in mirrored ways.

That's likely part of why it felt disorienting — Echo isn't background scenery, she's doing real narrative work, and leaving her out (as your friend seems to have done) makes the story lose its shape. The myth is really about two kinds of unreciprocated love collapsing into each other.

@jon-nyc

That was great!

Thanks and warm regards.

@RealPlayer said:

Yes, and another analysis I read speaks of Narcissus rejecting the real (avoiding the possibility of a real relationship with a real person, Echo) in favor of an obsession with an unreal entity he can never have (his reflection).

Hmm.

Rejecting realism is a dangerous viewpoint.

If only the risk of danger could be (unrealistically, sigh) detached from the risk of causing harm to others.

@Bernard said:

@Daniel said:

I get the young man in love with his own reflection.

Narcissus did not recognize the reflection as himself (he had never seen himself). "Oh marvellous boy, I loved you in vain, farewell" he said to the reflection, whereupon he withered away and all that was left was a white flower with a yellow center that we know today as Narcissus, ie Daffodils.

Ah!

Wow.

Got it.

Not with a Club, the Heart is broken
Nor with a Stone-

A Whip so small you could not see it
I've known

To lash the Magic Creature
Till It fell,

Yet that Whip's Name
Too noble then to tell.

Magnanimous as Bird
By Boy decried-

Singing unto the Stone
Of whIch it died-

Shame need not crouch
In such an Earth as Ours-

Shame - stand erect-
The Universe is yours.

https://www.amherst.edu/

https://www.amherst.edu/about/literary-amherst/emily-dickinson-museum

https://photos.app.goo.gl/92e91aCU4v3VkEZMA

Bump.

Someone must know something about this?

I'll emails Classics professors in the US and UK.

Will end up doing it anyway.

But any insight?

Means a lot to me.

Don't know why.

Nothing personal!

I don't believe it.

A cat existed in Bolivia and no human saw it?

I'll bet there's more to this story.

Both home and abroad if you care to

91 F- 75F

Winds 9- 12 mph

Sun, no rain

AQI- 37

There's be no named storms hit Gulf FL west cost.

There wasn't a hurricane last year.

We could end up with 2 consecutive quiet storms seasons.

Milton and Helene happened the season before last.

Slight cooling over next 4 days.

It's gets "cold" here at lows between 40 F- 50 F, occasionally high 30's as and rarely below freezing starting end of October.

Looking forward to it.

@mary-anna How often I miss Muffin's sister's posts, and how often I wished Muffin was still posting.

Hope your kids are well.

I saw an historian's video the other saying it's a myth that the Romans didn't cross Hadrian's Wall. If his scholarship is reviewed, legitimate, etc., some did cross over, married Scottish women, etc.

To be clear, he also said incursions were made, settlements were held, etc.

I'm looking into this but I believe these events would have been inevitable.

Wow. That's an impressive figure.

I met old Japanese people in Hawaii occasionally including women, men, and couples.

They were fascinating. The were so gentle.

@realplayer Oh, no worries.

My palate has never been accused of being sophisticated.

I'm glad your career brought you to Lugano, and that you enjoyed the cheese!

@RealPlayer said:

Cheese! Far more than just the generic Swiss.

It's my favorite. Blasphemy!

@steve-miller , Couldn't see a picture.

Anticipating knowing place!

Yay!

How great.

I've always wanted to go to Switzerland.

My maternal grandfather (so my late mother and myself as well) was directly descended from German speaking Switzerland.

Basel, 1300's, church records. He had genealogy work done. I verified it to see what I thought. Easy to follow. Birth, marriage, and deaths recorded. Copies provided.

My mother's maiden name was Swiss-German.

I'm Swiss-German and identity strongly with this line of my ancestors.

"Basel is primarily German-speaking, making it part of Deutschschweiz (German-speaking Switzerland).While the official written language is Standard Swiss German, the local spoken dialect is Baseldytsch (Basel German), a distinct variety of High Alemannic. Because of its location directly on the border with France and Germany, you will also hear a lot of French and English spoken throughout the city."

It's a beautiful a beautiful place of the world as everyone in the world knows.

I'm looking forward to your travel reports and pictures!

Be safe.

Apparently, that's real news. So there might not be a United Kingdom.

Also, there's news the EU has invited Canada to become an associate member of the EU, and it looks like Canada will accept.

Oh, he fled from US immigration because there was a problem with his paperwork (stated he had not used drugs, then published statements in his book about use of marijuana and psychodelics).

He and his wife are no longer together.

His children were born by surrogates.

Their DNA? Open question.

He's 40 million in debt.

I just read Ireland, Scotland, and Wales are in joint talks about breaking from the UK.

Fake news? Actual news? I don't know.

But I'll say this, at this point, I believe they will put Andrew in prison, put Harry in some adequate but not stupid expensive, or borrowed, or financed "safe space" house in the country, reign in the the corruption (if that's even possible), downsize their budgets massively, and demonstrate their ability to survive without being treated like gods on eath, or it won't last long.

William and Catherine might be able to save it in a downsized form, but it looks like it's on life support to me.

it doesn't play.

Link to video

It didn't play in the US.

Titles in abeyance?

I've said this before but William will strip them.

People say "You need Parliament, blah, blah".

What did Parliament have to say about Andrew?

Yes, exactly. Nothing.

"All honors stem from the font of the sovereign."

Harry. Pretending to be who he used to be.

Now pretending in the face officialdom.

And for the 2nd time, since he violated all of the agreements he made at Queen Elizabeth's Sandringham Summit.