Talk:Heroides

Quotebox Discussion
So, Wareh, about this quotebox issue: The problem I'm having is predominantly one of spacing&mdash;Wikipedia's built-in formatting seems to automatically 1.5-space lines, which means that blocks of line-by-line poetry (esp. elegiac couplets) end up looking very sloppy, strangely spaced, and (ultimately) much too big. Example 1, below, shows a block of elegiac poetry that is simply done in. Notice that with elegiac poetry, the pentameter lines are also necessarily indented to highlight their difference in metre from the lines of dactylic hexameter which precede them. This is yet another reason I had preliminarily opted for the start-each-line-with-a-space, dashed-off box approach: that method keeps all your formatting, including both single line-spacing and indents. Unfortunately, as you've seen on the Heroides page as it stands, it also makes giant, unwieldy, and unattractive dashed-off boxes all over the screen, and also the text doesn't line up the way you want it to when centred (and you certainly can't just leave a quote floating off on the left, as that looks very unprofessional...) Example 2 below shows what happens when you centre such a blockquote of elegiac poetry&mdash;you've noted the formatting problems here, as the start of lines no longer lines up properly (etc.). I explored the various quotebox options you suggested to me, but none of them were going to do anything to solve the line-spacing issue, and I personally don't care at all for the look of the Template:cquote quotations&mdash;also cheesy and unprofessional. Some explorations with the Praxilla tabling idea have proved slightly more fruitful. Example 3 belows shows what this might look like straight. As you'll probably agree, this is still far too widely spaced out and takes up a massive part of the screen&mdash;unacceptable, in my opinion. So, based on these options, the very best I've been able to come up with so far is Example 4, below, which uses the Praxilla wikitable format in combination with the start-each-line-with-a-space, dashed-off box format, to produce a fairly slick, balanced design that can be easily centred on a page. What are your thoughts on this? Personally, I think I'd prefer it if we could make the dashed-off boxes invisible, but I don't know if that's at all possible&mdash;do you? (though actually, the jury's still out on that one: the double-box look is sort of starting to appeal to me. I find it . . . strangely elegant . . .) Or would you have any other suggestions along these lines? Cheers for the help!! Shug2304 00:33, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Example 1: The blockquote elegiac couplet:

quod licet, aut artes teneri profitemur Amoris
 * (ei mihi, praeceptis urgeor ipse meis)

aut quod Penelopes uerbis reddatur Ulixi
 * scribimus et lacrimas, Phylli relicta, tuas,

quod Paris et Macareus et quod male gratus Iason
 * Hippolytique parens Hippolytusque legant,

quodque tenens strictum Dido miserabilis ensem
 * dicat et †Aoniae Lesbis amata lyrae.†

(Am. 2.18.19-26)

Example 2: (Alternatively) The centred blockquote elegiac couplet:

quod licet, aut artes teneri profitemur Amoris
 * (ei mihi, praeceptis urgeor ipse meis)

aut quod Penelopes uerbis reddatur Ulixi
 * scribimus et lacrimas, Phylli relicta, tuas,

quod Paris et Macareus et quod male gratus Iason
 * Hippolytique parens Hippolytusque legant,

quodque tenens strictum Dido miserabilis ensem
 * dicat et †Aoniae Lesbis amata lyrae.†

(Am. 2.18.19-26)

Example 3: Wikitable without further formatting


 * {|class="wikitable"

quod licet, aut artes teneri profitemur Amoris
 * (ei mihi, praeceptis urgeor ipse meis)

aut quod Penelopes uerbis reddatur Ulixi
 * scribimus et lacrimas, Phylli relicta, tuas,

quod Paris et Macareus et quod male gratus Iason
 * Hippolytique parens Hippolytusque legant,

quodque tenens strictum Dido miserabilis ensem
 * dicat et †Aoniae Lesbis amata lyrae.†
 * (Am. 2.18.19-26)

I do what I may—either profess the arts of tender love
 * (Alas! I'm beset by my own teachings!)

Or write what's rendered in the words of Penelope to her Ulysses,
 * And your tearful tale too, forsaken Phyllis—

That which Paris and Macareus, and that also which oh-so-ungrateful Jason,
 * And Hippolytus's sire, and Hippolytus himself may read—

And what pitiable Dido, holding now the blade unsheathed,
 * Might say, and that woman of Lesbos, beloved of the Aonian lyre, as well.
 * (trans. shug2304)


 * }
 * }

Example 4: Wikitable with dashed-off box formatting


 * All right, I'll have a go at making this look more like properly formatted poetry. The elegiac couplets do introduce some complications.  By using HTML nonbreaking spaces instead of the wiki indentation markup, I've been able to achieve the following (based on your Ex. 3).  The chief reason I'd recommend this over the dashed boxes is that the latter will often be cut off by the right side of the screen (as on my display).  Wareh 02:57, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
 * {|class="wikitable"

quod licet, aut artes teneri profitemur Amoris (ei mihi, praeceptis urgeor ipse meis) aut quod Penelopes uerbis reddatur Ulixi scribimus et lacrimas, Phylli relicta, tuas, quod Paris et Macareus et quod male gratus Iason Hippolytique parens Hippolytusque legant, quodque tenens strictum Dido miserabilis ensem dicat et †Aoniae Lesbis amata lyrae.† (Am. 2.18.19-26) I do what I may—either profess the arts of tender love (Alas! I'm beset by my own teachings!) Or write what's rendered in the words of Penelope to her Ulysses, And your tearful tale too, forsaken Phyllis— That which Paris and Macareus, and that also which oh-so-ungrateful Jason, And Hippolytus's sire, and Hippolytus himself may read— And what pitiable Dido, holding now the blade unsheathed, Might say, and that woman of Lesbos, beloved of the Aonian lyre, as well. (trans. shug2304)
 * }
 * }


 * Out of curiosity, Wareh, are the dashed-off boxes giving you the same trouble when they're inside of the wikitable, as in my example 4, above? Or does being contained within the table makes the dashed-off boxes more compatible?  I do like your version, which would certainly be acceptable, but for later editing purposes I'd be curious to hear what effect the double-box format has on your screen. Same problem as before?  Cheers!  Shug2304 13:27, 21 August 2007 (UTC)


 * In the article, some of the text actually crosses the dashed lines in addition to going beyond the edge of the screen (e.g. V, "Letter made by any Mycenaean hand!"). In the table (Ex. 4 above), everything fits within the dashed lines perfectly, but the whole is so wide (because of the different font formatting in Courier vel sim.) that I have to scroll to the right to see the part that doesn't fit on my display.  All this is still true on a 19" display if I logout so that none of my personal settings are a factor.  Wareh 15:45, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

layout
This article is well-referenced and provides a good description of the topic, but the layout of the text is somewhat confusing and takes away from the general readability of the articleMrathel (talk) 15:36, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Section on individual epistulae
I agree with the comment above that the article has been written and researched with far more care and sophistication than most Wikipedia articles on individual works of classical literature — but also that the layout (which in its complexity far surpasses my own ability to format articles) is "busy" to a distracting degree. Cynwolfe (talk) 15:14, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Oops. I've deleted portions of my comment above upon learning that my own error led me to think there was something wrong with the subheads. Cynwolfe (talk) 15:25, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, meanwhile I was bold and drastically simplified the formatting, to no loss that I can fathom (except that now any working links you made to individual epistles will not work; but the correct premise of your comment as a whole is that the content here does not justify so many linkable subsections). By the way, I should point out that, despite my attempt to help with formatting above, the only "primary caretaker" of the article was Shug2304, who however has not made any Wikipedia contributions since September 2007.  So it was certainly time to format the content as it exists here, rather than in anticipation of the thorough treatment of each of the Heroides.  Wareh (talk) 15:42, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Corroboration from Amores, etc.
There's something seriously weird here: "As an example following these lines, for some time scholars debated over whether this passage from the Amores—corroborating, as it does, only the existence of Her. 1–2, 4–7, 10–11, and very possibly of 12, 13,[9] and 15—could be cited fairly as evidence for the inauthenticity of at least the letters of Briseis (3), Hermione (8), Deianira (9), and Hypermnestra (14), if not also those of Medea (12), Laodamia (13), and Sappho (15)." ... since the passage clearly mentions Medea (who else could the reference to Jason's ingratitude possibly be referring to). And the bit with Sappho is exceptionally unclear; I *think* it is trying to say that the reference to Sappho may not have been present in the original text, but instead it comes off sounding like it's arguing that "Aoniae Lesbis amata lyrae" might not refer to Sappho, which is... bizarre. Vultur (talk) 10:41, 23 February 2010 (UTC)