Some talk of...

Subject: RE: Some talk of...
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 27 Jul 14 - 01:09 PM

Some talk of Alexander, and some of Hercules,
Of Hector and Lysander, and such great names as these,
Bur of all the world's great heroes, there's none can compare
With the tow, row, row, row, row, row, for the British Grenadier.

Subject: RE: Some talk of...
From: GUEST,dick greenhaus
Date: 27 Jul 14 - 12:16 PM

Lysander (/laɪˈsændər/ or /ˈlaɪˌsændər/; died 395 BC, Greek: Λύσανδρος, Lýsandros) was a Spartan admiral who commanded the Spartan fleet in the Hellespont which defeated the Athenians at Aegospotami in 405 BC. The following year, he was able to force the Athenians to capitulate, bringing the Peloponnesian War to an end; he organized the dominion of Sparta over Greece in the last decade of his life.

(Wikipedia)

Subject: RE: Some talk of...
From: Rapparee
Date: 27 Jul 14 - 09:05 AM

My mother read us the stories of Arthur and Lancelot before I was 7 -- I knew what that red dragon in the sky portended looooong before I studied it in college! My great-great aunt lived with us after my father died (I was 5) and she'd tell us stories of Jesse and Frank (she met Frank once, after his pardon) and told us stories of his life in Montana. Of course, the uncles threw in as well.

Some of the stories may have be slightly exaggerated (I don't think my Uncle Gene ended the Pacific War all by himself) but they were great fodder for kids.

By the time I was out of grammar school I'd read Edith Hamilton's "Mythology" several times and had a nodding acquaintance with Caesar, Homer, "The Aeniad", the Norse gods and goddesses, and Thucydides. (Also quite a few comic books and library books.) Naturally, when I got to college I'd forgotten the stuff when I needed it!

Subject: RE: Some talk of...
From: GUEST,#
Date: 27 Jul 14 - 08:14 AM

I always had one helluva time with Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks. Since I only ever really liked one of their cuts (Go Your Own Way), I didn't follow the group way back when and I have to think about it to know who's who.

Lysander I knew about in a general sense (sorry 'bout that) because I had an interest in warfare. Mythology has never held my interest, but world history always has. It's particularly wonderful when pieces of the jigsaw puzzle fall into place and one can cry eureka when getting out of the bath, usually in shocked response to having found the soap. To this day I think of eureka as Greek for "Oh, sh#t."

Subject: RE: Some talk of...
From: Rapparee
Date: 27 Jul 14 - 08:06 AM

David Crockett, Jesse Woodson James, King Arthur, Henry "Billy the Kid" McCarty, John Henry, Boone Helm, Alferd Packer, and quite a few more whose exploits I grew up listening too in song and story told by my parents and grandparents. I found out more about them later and they rarely lived up to the stories I was told (some were worse).

Subject: RE: Some talk of...
From: Manitas_at_home
Date: 27 Jul 14 - 06:52 AM

I guess generations after yours are not so familiar with the classics or poets such as Macaulay who retold the stories. Although I was educated at a grammar school in the 1970's we did not have a Latin master,the English literature curriculum no longer covered such material and I had to discover this myself through the penguin classics. I cannot remember who Lysander was and I suspect most people of my generation and after would not know of the others either.

Subject: RE: Some talk of...
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 27 Jul 14 - 05:58 AM

Ah, yes. I wondered who would be first to think of that, Pike! The warplane will indeed be found in the 'Disambiguation' wiki section. Those distinctive wings on the Westland certainly made it easy to identify among all us plane-spotting 1940s children who lived thru the Blitz.

However, bit early in thread for drift, perhaps? Or is it never too early for drift...!

≈M≈

Subject: RE: Some talk of...
From: GUEST,Hootenanny
Date: 27 Jul 14 - 05:41 AM

If I remember correctly I used to watch Lysander flying over London during WW2. Easy to spot with those odd shaped wings.

Subject: Some talk of...
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 27 Jul 14 - 05:35 AM

...Alexander,
And some of Hercules
Of Hector and Lysander
And such great names as these...

I bet you all know who the first three were: the great Macedonian conqueror; the super-strong Greek demigod; the eldst son of Priam and chief Trojan general during the Siege of Troy in the Iliad &c, killed, by treachery in some versions, by Achilles & his Myrmidons and dragged behind his chariot round the walls of Troy...

But Lysander, now? Bet you can't say who he was. I can, coz just looked him up on Wikipedia; but confess I didn't know who he was when I woke this morning!

Who else can you think of whose name you have always known by reference in song, or legend, or whatever, but don't really know who they were?

≈Michael≈