Re: [ga] Olympic Hymn [arete]

[Sotiris Sotiropoulos <sotiris@hermesnetwork.com>]

At 08:51 PM 1/19/2003 +0000, Richard Henderson wrote:
>Sotiris!
>
>What a tangled web we weave... and how strange to be touched by your poem in
>this barren ghetto with its endless attrition.
>
>"O saeclum insipiens et infacetum"
>
>You fret over your poem, and yet seem to overlook the knowledge it imparts,
>in itself and of itself.

The value of that knowledge is exactly what I am fretting over, 
Richard.  Others get paid handsomely for far more ephemeral produce.  I am 
an Injured Party, have been for at least 11 months and change.


>Knowledge comes imparted like that, sometimes. When I recall a particular
>encounter, an unsolicited encounter ten years ago, what resides and
>resonates in my memory is not the spectacular technology and unimagined
>power of advanced minds, but simply an awareness:  awareness of
>communication, of an untaught knowledge imparted whole. Just suddenly there.

Knowledge comes about as the result a Synthesis of preceeding 
Experience(s).  It doesn't appear out of thin air, just like my translation.


>Plato understood this too, in a separate way.

To be honest, I prefer to hear my Socrates through Xenophon.  Plato doesn't 
carry much weight with me.


>Your poem captures something of the wholeness of another place. it is an
>achievement.

Others get commercial endorsements and big bucks for their achievements 
Richard, I have not.  I have to eat, Richard.  I am only human.


>Do you seriously think you can control and contain your excellent
>translation, once it has been created?

That's what the Laws are there for Richard.  Redress of wrongs 
committed.  I have been wronged.  How many eyes drank in my poem without 
even an acknowledgment of my achievement?  There are plenty of venues for 
this kind of news.

>Don't you realise the nature of this
>web, its repetition of repetitions? Soon, even this forum, this ICANN, will
>exist only as one of innumerable parallel worlds.
>
>...or as Borges said:
>
>"The Governor of Yunnun renounced all worldly power to construct a
>labyrinth - a labyrinth in which all men would become lost. I imagined it
>inviolate. I imagined it infinite. I thought of a labyrinth of labyrinths
>that would encompass the past and the future. An invisible labyrinth of
>time. To me, a barbarous Englishman, has been entrusted the revelation of
>this diaphanous mystery. I read, uncomprehendingly and with fervour, these
>words written by a man of my blood : I leave to the various futures my
>garden of forking paths. The forking in time. Diverse futures, diverse times
>which themselves also proliferate and fork."

I am of Greek heritage and we have a Labyrinth too, but Theseus showed us 
how to get out a long time ago.

>"In a riddle whose answer is chess, what is the only prohibited word? I
>thought a moment and replied: the word Chess. To omit a word always, is
>perhaps the most emphatic way of stressing it."
>"In contrast to Newton and Schopenhauer, your ancestor did not believe in a
>uniform, absolute time. He believed in an infinite series of times, in a gro
>wing, dizzying net of divergent, convergent and parallel times. We do not
>exist in the majority of these times; in some you exist and not I; in others
>I, and not you; in others, both of us. Time forks perpetually towards
>innumerable futures."
>"The least things in the universe must be secret mirrors to the greatest.
>Every man is on Earth to symbolize something he is ignorant of. I do not
>know what right we have to that continuity which is time. Each moment is
>autonomous. My life is a flight and I lose everything and everything belongs
>to oblivion."
>
>But the significance of your Hymn is that it reaches out from another place.
>Inviolable. It has a classic timelessness and dignity.

Thank you, I know.  But it was still STOLEN without my permission and 
displayed where conceivably millions got what you got out of it, and I got 
NOTHING, not even the dignity of a little CREDIT.


>Just let it go, and the path will fork, and fork. Maybe it is not yours.
>Maybe it was given to you.

It came out of my head, Richard.  Nothing could be more mine.


>Outside, the sun shines bright - and your fingers can trace the rough bark -
>and a breeze as ancient as Thermopylae feels ardent against your cheek.
>Offerings are given up in honour of the gods. You can smell their fragrance
>but you cannot bring them back. That is part of the dignity. Part of the
>arete or excellence.

So is GERAS and I want my share for my part

Regards,

Sotiris Sotiropoulos



>Richard H
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: Sotiris Sotiropoulos <sotiris@hermesnetwork.com>
>To: <ga@dnso.org>
>Sent: Sunday, January 19, 2003 7:49 PM
>Subject: [ga] Olympic Hymn [continued]
>
>
> > Using an interesting facility called "The Wayback Machine"
> > I have found the following regarding the British Olympic
> > Association's webpages (specifically the contents of the
> > page now found at:
> > http://www.olympics.org.uk/olympicmovement/olympicmovement.asp
> > that is, the page where they are currently displaying my
> > uncredited translation of Costis Palamas' Olympic Hymn).
> >
> > Please go here to see what I mean:
> >
>http://web.archive.org/web/*/www.olympics.org.uk/olympicmovement/olympicmove
>ment.asp
> >
> > The first archived instance of the web page in question is
> > from Jul 14, 2001, and in the section "Olympic Hymn" it
> > contains a DIFFERENT translation from the one currently
> > displayed (i.e. my own).
> >
> > The second available archive instance is from Aug 05, 2001
> > and again, it does not contain my version of the
> > translation but rather, it contains the same one as the
> > preceeding date.
> >
> > On Aug. 6, 2001 I sent the following message (containing
> > my translation) to the Classics-L academic list:
> >
>http://omega.cohums.ohio-state.edu:8080/hyper-lists/classics-l/01-09-01/0217
>.html
> > As well, I have a copy of an email I sent to Isidoros at
> > ioniccentre@hol.gr from Aug 6, 2001 which contains my
> > translation.  Also, on Aug. 7, 2001 I sent a digitally
> > certified email to the publisher Aristide Caratzas (as
> > mentioned in my previous email) which contained my
> > translation.  On Aug. 8, 2001 I responded onlist on
> > Classics-L to questions about my translation from Dr.
> > Rudolph Masciantonio.
> >
> > The third referenced copy from the "Wayback Machine"
> > archive of the same BOA web page from Oct 31, 2001 is
> > unavailable.
> >
> > The fourth archived instance of the same web page is from
> > Feb 22, 2002, and it contains MY translation (without any
> > credit to myself)!
> >
> > So, my transltion has been on their web site for about 1
> > year, for sure.  They replaced a previous translation with
> > my own.
> >
> > How do you like that?
> >
> > Sotiris Sotiropoulos
> >
> >
> >
> > --
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> >
> >
>
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Sotiris Sotiropoulos
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