{"id":5589,"date":"2010-09-16T05:16:11","date_gmt":"2010-09-16T09:16:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/?p=5589"},"modified":"2010-09-16T05:34:39","modified_gmt":"2010-09-16T09:34:39","slug":"you-sir-are-badass-ajax-cleans-up-edition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/you-sir-are-badass-ajax-cleans-up-edition","title":{"rendered":"You, Sir, Are Badass: Ajax Cleans Up edition"},"content":{"rendered":"

This edition of hardcore badassery comes from Book 13 of The Iliad<\/a>\"\". Pushed back to their boats by the Trojans and their leader, Hektor, the despairing Achaians are inspired by the god Poseidon to stave off the attack. An exchange of spear-thrusts has left Amphimachos (an Achaian) and Imbrios (a Trojan) dead. Each side tries to claim the fallen bodies during the combat. The Aiantes (two Achaian champions both named Aias\/Ajax) snatch the Trojan body away and . . . oh, why don’t I let Homer tell it (translated by Richmond Lattimore)?<\/p>\n

But the two Aiantes in the fury of their fierce war strength,
\nas two lions catch up a goat from the guard of the rip-fanged
\nhounds, and carry it in to the density of the underbrush,
\nholding it high from the ground in the crook of their jaws, so the lordly
\ntwo Aiantes lifted Imbrios high and stripped him
\nof his armour, and the son of O\u00c3\u00afleus [the larger Aias], in anger
\nfor Amphimachos, hewed away Imbrios’ head from the soft neck
\nand threw it spinning like a ball through the throng of fighters
\nuntil it came to rest in the dust at the feet of Hektor.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Sure, the gods would later drive Aias batshit-crazy and lead him to suicide<\/a>, but sawing the head off a Trojan and throwing it like a bowling ball at the enemy general? B-A-D-A-S-S.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This edition of hardcore badassery comes from Book 13 of The Iliad. Pushed back to their boats by the Trojans and their leader, Hektor, the despairing Achaians are inspired by the god Poseidon to stave off the attack. An exchange of spear-thrusts has left Amphimachos (an Achaian) and Imbrios (a Trojan) dead. Each side tries … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “You, Sir, Are Badass: Ajax Cleans Up edition”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[998],"tags":[1143,1144,84,1142],"class_list":["post-5589","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-you-sir-are-bad-ass","tag-aias","tag-ajax","tag-homer","tag-iliad"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4C7K-1s9","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":5553,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/what-it-is-82310","url_meta":{"origin":5589,"position":0},"title":"What It Is: 8\/23\/10","author":"Gil","date":"August 22, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"What I'm reading: After Bernard Knox's death last week, I decided to read his introduction to Fagles' translations of Homer. I found myself bored by them for some reason (probably because of their focus on philology), so I decided to break out my old Richmond Lattimore translation of the Iliad.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Adventures in Rufus and\/or Otis"","block_context":{"text":"Adventures in Rufus and\/or Otis","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/adventures-in-rufus-and-or-otis"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=virtualmemories-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0226469409","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3342,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/monday-morning-montaigne-of-the-disadvantage-of-greatness","url_meta":{"origin":5589,"position":1},"title":"Monday Morning Montaigne: Of the disadvantage of greatness","author":"Gil","date":"February 2, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"With Of the disadvantage of greatness (pp. 849-853), Montaigne counters Mel Brooks' wisdom that \"it's good to be the king.\" M. concedes that the actions and effects of kings are awesome, but the tradeoff is that they'll never have a measure of themselves because of the deference of their subjects.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Monday Morning Montaigne"","block_context":{"text":"Monday Morning Montaigne","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/monday-morning-montaigne"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1995,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/learning-to-learn","url_meta":{"origin":5589,"position":2},"title":"Learning to learn","author":"Gil","date":"April 9, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"In my previous post, I decried some lame-ass attempts at infusing \"literaryness\" into an article that chronicled the decline of the New York Knicks. My complaint was that the writer's story is compelling enough that it doesn't require the trappings of middlebrowness-trying-to-prove-its-smartypantsness in order to please hip urban crowd. But\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "basketball"","block_context":{"text":"basketball","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/sports\/basketball"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=virtualmemories-20&l=as2&o=1&a=158510101X","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":12840,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/episode-358-daniel-mendelsohn","url_meta":{"origin":5589,"position":3},"title":"Episode 358 – Daniel Mendelsohn","author":"Gil","date":"January 20, 2020","format":"audio","excerpt":"Virtual Memories Show 358: Daniel Mendelsohn \"Achilles is a hero who is mesmerizing without being penetrable, whereas Odysseus I think I understand (perhaps hubristic to say that).\" His wondrous new collection, Ecstasy and Terror: From the Greeks to Game of Thrones (NYRB), brings a dizzying array of Daniel Mendelsohn's critical-essayistic-memoir\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Architecture"","block_context":{"text":"Architecture","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/architecture"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/dmendelsohncomp.jpg?fit=1200%2C509&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/dmendelsohncomp.jpg?fit=1200%2C509&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/dmendelsohncomp.jpg?fit=1200%2C509&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/dmendelsohncomp.jpg?fit=1200%2C509&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/dmendelsohncomp.jpg?fit=1200%2C509&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":5562,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/what-it-is-83010","url_meta":{"origin":5589,"position":4},"title":"What It Is: 8\/30\/10","author":"Gil","date":"August 30, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"What I'm reading: The Iliad. What I'm listening to: Sir Lucious Left Foot, The Singular Adventures of the Style Council, Simple Things and Blood Like Lemonade What I'm watching: Nothing much. We watched 3 hours of Spike Lee's new New Orleans documentary, but eh. What I'm drinking: Luchador Tremblor shiraz.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Adventures in Rufus and\/or Otis"","block_context":{"text":"Adventures in Rufus and\/or Otis","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/adventures-in-rufus-and-or-otis"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=virtualmemories-20&l=as2&o=1&a=B003TX24OU","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":8673,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/episode-115-idlers-and-belgians","url_meta":{"origin":5589,"position":5},"title":"Episode 115 – Idlers and Belgians","author":"Gil","date":"April 19, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Virtual Memories Show: Edward Mendelson - Idlers and Belgians \"I have a private test for whether I'm an individual person or whether I'm part of the culture: I go to the supermarket and I look at the supermarket weeklies, and if I recognize the names, then I'm not a person,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Art"","block_context":{"text":"Art","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/art"},"img":{"alt_text":"moral-agents200","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/moral-agents200.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5589","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5589"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5589\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5591,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5589\/revisions\/5591"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5589"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5589"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5589"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}