JM: pretty “pair o’ ducks” is a well-worn verbal trick. Spoken quickly it comes out as the Gilbert & Sullivan “pretty paradox.”
Can we clarify this thanatos (classical and modern Greek for ‘death’) affair? When written Thanatos, it is usually taken as a personification. In English we employ a similar trick using initial Upper Case: “O Death be not proud ... “ compared with “Freud’s death came as a great shock.” (Note that I used the “O” to stress the personification, and also to remove the ambiguity caused by our convention of capitalizing the first letter when starting a sentence. If you read “Death came quickly ...” it does not necessarily imply personification.) It’s a typical step for the personified entity to become deified (or maybe semi-demi-deified!). Thus the Greek Thanatos becomes identified as something more like the god or spirit of Death. The Roman mors/Mors conveys the same deification. Compare also eros=desire/Eros=god of love.
If any English texts (Freudian or otherwise) include the words ‘death’ or ‘Death,’ the modern Greek translator is likely to use ‘thanatos’ or ‘Thanatos.’ BUT according to my big Collins, Freud borrowed the Greek Thanatos as a technical term for a “universal death instinct.” How do Greek translators cope with this?
skb
On 27/03/2009 04:16, "jansymello" <jansy@AETERN.US> wrote:
SK-B ( to Jansy): PS to my "sans" sermon: As kids we sang...There is a green hill far away, without a city wall/ Where our dear Lord was crucified, he died to save us all.Can you spot the parsing challenge?... This "without" is NOT a "sans." [...] You say Freud never used the word Thanatos in his works. But, it does appear often in the Greek translations of his vast corpus. A pretty pair-o'-ducks ;=)"
JM: Barmen and Carmen and hell's belles and balls: one-two (sans three)... seven postings in all!
And good for you, Stan. You are absolutely right, the word Thanatus must needs shine without in any future Greek translation of the freudian vast corpus*
I had to google "a pretty pair of ducks", though - and here's what I found: "A pair of ducks, which stand for both a premiere ranking, and happiness in marriage because ducks mate for life, portrayed in mother of pearl..."
A "muderperl"!!! So you did imply a pair of iridulean geese**?
Are you keeping intact your nephelibacy or still nubile in "blue inenubilable Zembla? (See, SB, how one can worm in Kinbote? And Zembla, of course.)
* btw: Speaking of incorporation, Kinbote, in a preterist mood, thought he'd found an incorporated Zemblan counterpart of the Elder Edda (line 79): "The wise at nightfall praise the day,/ The wife when she has passed away,/ The ice when it is crossed, the bride/ When tumbled, and the horse when tried."
Unfortunately I couldn't find the missing link in note and quote.
** - Iridule: "an iridescent cloudlet, Zemblan muderperlwelk"