User talk:Yin Custodio

Summary of "In a Grove"

The story starts with the testimony of a woodcutter who has found a man's body in the woods. He reports that man died because of a single sword slash to the man's chest, and that the packed down leaves around the body proved that there was an aggressive battle that took place. Unfortunately, there were inadequate evidences that will tell what really happened. There were no weapons and horses in close proximity but just a single piece of rope, a comb and a lot of blood.

Second report is by Buddhist priest who is traveling then. The priest testifies that he met the man who was go together with a woman on horseback, realizing that they were a couple in a hours of daylight on the day before the murder. The man was carrying weapons but all of these, along with the woman's horse, were gone astray when the woodcutter found the body of the man.

Third person to bear witness is a bounty hunter. He was the one who captured Tajomaru, a notorious criminal.Since the horse thrown him, Tajomaru got injured.The evidence that proves Tajomaru to be the person responsible for this crime, according to the bounty hunter, was that Tajomaru is carrying a bow and a black quiver which he does not own. Yet, Tajomaru was not holding the man's sword.

After that, testimony is now given by an old woman, who recognizes herself as the mother of the lost girl. Masago, her daugther who is just only a nineteen year old then,married to a samurai named Takehiro from Wakasa. She states that her daughter is a faithful wife to her husband. This old woman pleads to the police to find her missing daughter.

It's now the turn for Tajomaru to confess.He says that he saw the couple on the forest road and setting eyes on Misago, he then decided to rape her. For him to make his umpleasant plan, he separated the couple by tempting Takehiro that there where hidden treaures he buried somewhere down the forest.Then he stuffed his mouth full of leaves, tied him to a tree and went and got Masago. When Masago saw the awful thing Tajomaru gave to Takehiro, she hurriedly got the dagger and tried to fight with Tajomaru. Unfortunately, the girl didn't make it. After that, Tajomaru made his dark plan to Misago. Initially, he had no intention of killing the man but after the rape, she begged him to either kill her husband or kill himself for she could not live if two men knew her shame. But then Tajōmaru did not want to kill the Takehiro in an "unfair battle" so he untied him and they had a battle using swords. During the duel, Masago took off. Tajōmaru left the man and took the man's sword, bow, and quiver, as well as the woman's horse. He sold the sword before he was captured by the bounty hunter.

Then the version of Masago. She says that after the rape, Tajōmaru run away, and her husband, still tied to the tree and looked at her with great disrespect. She was ashamed of what had happened to her that why she didn't want to live anymore. Masago wanted to die with her husband. He agreed, or so she believed—he couldn't actually say anything because his mouth was still stuffed full of leaves—and she forced her dagger into his chest. Then she cut the rope that tied with Takehiro's body. She ran into the forest and attempted to commit suicide a lot of times.But, she didn't made it. Of all of testimonies of the crime, Misago's statement is not that convincing because it somehow contradicts with the testimony of the other two.

The finishing version was conveyed by Takehiro's spirit through a spirit medium. The ghost says that after the rape, Tajōmaru convinced Masago to stay away with her husband and become his own wife. In a very unreasonable manner,Misago agreed but in a condition that Tajomaru should kill him. Tajōmaru was hopped mad at the suggestion and kicked her to the ground. He then asked Takehiro if he should kill his shameful wife. Masago got frightened with this that's why she rushed to the forest to escape. Tajōmaru cut Takehiro's ties and ran away also. Takehiro took hold of her wife's dagger and stubbed it into his own chest. Soon as he died, he was aware that someone moved quietly towards him and steal the dagger from his chest. At the end, it was evident that he was very disappointed with his wife.

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Summary of RAMAYANA

Summary of RAMAYANA

The central plot of the Ramayana is quite simple. The king of Ayodhya, Dhashratha's heir apparent is Rama, the righteous man, respectful son, brave warrior, loving brother and husband. His brothers, Bharata, Lakshmana and Shatrughana, were from the various other queens of the king. The king's favorite spouse is Keikeyi, Bharat's mother. Things begin to swiftly fall from ideal when Keikeyi is initiated by her lady-in-waiting to ask Dhashratha to make her son Bharata the heir-evident instead. She convinces the king to send Rama to exile for fourteen years. The king tries to reason with her – to no avail and in the end has to give in.

Rama, being the model son, obeys his father's wish without question. However, Sita being the ideal wife and Lakshmana, being the ideal younger brother, insist on following Rama to exile. When they are gone, Bharata returns home to find his brother gone and when he comes to know of what has gone on behind his back, he chastises his mother and refuses to accept the kingdom. He insists on following his brother to exile too and living in severe conditions. Then Lord Rama himself has to step in and talk him out of this – for someone has to rule the kingdom. Bharata then agrees to rule on his brother behalf.

In the forests, Rama and his associates go through several interesting experiences and insights. Disaster strikes as late as their last year in exile. In the shape of Ravana. Actually Ravana pretty much leaves them to their devices, until Shurpanakha his sister gets in love with Rama. She tries to seduce him; however Rama rejects her and indeed gets so impatient doing this that he cuts off her nose. Hurt by this, Ravana decides to take revenge and kidnaps Sita. Now starts the trouble.

Rama, of course, decides to get his wife back. He organizes a force and attacks the capital of Ravana, called the golden Lanka. Ravana is talked about as a brave, powerful and very wise king whose only fault was arrogance, which of course does him in, in the end. In the violent war which follows, Ravana is defeated and killed, along with his brothers and son. Sita returns to the fold. and then they all come back happily to Ayodhya, where Rama takes over as king again.

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The Iliad Chryses pleading with Agamemnon for his daughter, ca. 360 BC–350 BC (Louvre). Thetis gives her son Achilles his weapons newly forged by Hephaestus, detail of an Attic black-figure hydria, ca. 575 BC–550 BC (Louvre). Thetis gives her son Achilles his weapons newly forged by Hephaestus, detail of an Attic black-figure hydria, ca. 575 BC–550 BC (Louvre).

Main article: Iliad

Chryses, a priest of Apollo and father of Chryseis, came to Agamemnon to ask for the return of his daughter. Agamemnon refused, and insulted Chryses, who prayed to Apollo to avenge his ill-treatment. Enraged, Apollo afflicted the Achaean army with plague. Agamemnon was forced to return Chryseis to end the plague, and took Achilles' concubine Briseis as his own. Enraged at the dishonor Agamemnon had inflicted upon him, Achilles decided he would no longer fight. He asked his mother, Thetis, to intercede with Zeus, who agreed to give the Trojans success in the absence of Achilles, the best warrior of the Achaeans.

After the withdrawal of Achilles, the Achaeans were initially successful. Both armies gathered in full for the first time since the landing. Menelaus and Paris fought a duel, which ended when Aphrodite snatched the beaten Paris from the field. With the truce broken, the armies began fighting again. Diomedes won great renown amongst the Achaeans, killing the Trojan hero Pandaros and nearly killing Aeneas, who was only saved by his mother, Aphrodite. With the assistance of Athena, he then wounded the gods Aphrodite and Ares. Throughout the next days, however, the Trojans had the upper hand. They drove back the Acheans to their camp. On the first day of the Trojan attack they were stopped at the Achean wall by Poseidon. The next day, though, with Zeus' help, the Trojans broke into the Achaean camp and were on the verge of setting fire to the Achaean ships. An earlier appeal to Achilles to return was rejected, but after Hector burned Protesilaus' ship, he allowed his close friend[104] and relative Patroclus to go into battle wearing Achilles' armor and lead his army. Patroclus drove the Trojans all the way back to the walls of Troy, and was only prevented from storming the city by the intervention of Apollo. Patroclus was then killed by Hector (with Apollo's help), who took Achilles' armor from the body of Patroclus.

Achilles, maddened with grief, swore to kill Hector in revenge. He was reconciled with Agamemnon and received Briseis back, untouched by Agamemnon. He received a new set of arms, forged by the god Hephaestus, and returned to the battlefield. He slaughtered many Trojans, and nearly killed Aeneas, who was saved by Poseidon. Achilles fought with the river god Scamander, and a battle of the gods followed. The Trojan army returned to the city, except for Hector, who remained outside the walls because he was tricked by Athena. Achilles killed Hector, and afterwards he dragged Hector's body from his chariot and refused to return the body to the Trojans for burial. The Achaeans then conducted funeral games for Patroclus. Afterwards, Priam came to Achilles' tent, guided by Hermes, and asked Achilles to return Hector's body. The armies made a temporary truce to allow the burial of the dead. The Iliad ends with the funeral of Hector.

......................................................................................... The Iliad The Iliad (Greek Ἰλιάς, Iliás) is, together with the Odyssey, one of two ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer, supposedly a blind Ionian poet. Most modern scholars consider the epics to be the oldest literature in the Greek language, possibly equalled by Hesiod, dated to the 8th or 7th century BC.

The poem concerns events during the tenth and final year in the siege of the city of Ilium, or Troy, by the Greeks (See Trojan War). The word "Iliad" means "pertaining to Ilium" (in Latin, Ilium), the city proper, as opposed to Troy (in Greek, Τροία, Troía; in Latin, Troia), the state centered around Ilium, over which Priam reigned. The names "Ilium" and "Troy" are often used interchangeably.

The story of the Iliad The first verses of the Iliad The first verses of the Iliad

The Iliad begins with these lines:

μῆνιν ἄειδε θεὰ Πηληϊάδεω Ἀχιλῆος οὐλομένην, ἣ μυρί' Ἀχαιοῖς ἄλγε' ἔθηκεν, Sing, goddess, the rage of Achilles the son of Peleus, the destructive rage that sent countless pains on the Achaeans...

The first word of the Iliad is μῆνιν (mēnin), "rage" or "wrath". This word announces the major theme of the Iliad: the wrath of Achilles. When Agamemnon, the commander of the Greek forces at Troy, dishonors Achilles by taking Briseis, a slave woman given to Achilles as a prize of war, Achilles becomes enraged and withdraws from the fighting for almost all of the story. Without him and his powerful Myrmidon warriors, the Greeks suffer defeat by the Trojans, almost to the point of losing their will to fight. Achilles re-enters the fighting when his dearest friend, Patroclus, is killed by the Trojan prince Hector. Achilles slaughters many Trojans and kills Hector. In his rage, he then refuses to return Hector's body and instead defiles it. Priam, the father of Hector, ransoms his son's body, and the Iliad ends with the funeral of Hector.

Homer devotes long passages to frank, blow-by-blow descriptions of combat. He gives the names of the fighters, recounts their taunts and battle-cries, and gruesomely details the ways in which they kill and wound one another. Often, the death of a hero only escalates the violence, as the two sides battle for his armor and corpse, or his close companions launch a punitive attack on his killer. The lucky ones are sometimes whisked away by friendly charioteers or the intervention of a god, but Homeric warfare is still some of the most bloody and brutal in literature.

The Iliad has a very strong religious and supernatural element. Both sides in the war are extremely pious, and both have heroes descended from divine beings. They constantly sacrifice to the gods and consult priests and prophets to decide their actions. For their own part, the gods frequently join in battles, both by advising and protecting their favorites and even by participating in combat against humans and other gods.

The Iliad's huge cast of characters connects the Trojan War to many Greek myths, such as Jason and the Argonauts, the Seven Against Thebes, and the Labors of Hercules. Many Greek myths exist in multiple versions, so Homer had some freedom to choose among them to suit his story. See Greek mythology for more detail.

The action of the Iliad covers only a few weeks of the tenth and final year of the Trojan War. It does not cover the background and early years of the war (Paris' abduction of Helen from King Menelaus) nor its end (the death of Achilles and the fall of Troy). Other epic poems, collectively known as the Epic Cycle or cyclic epics, narrated many of these events; these poems only survive in fragments and later descriptions. See Trojan War for a summary of the events of the war. ........................................

SYPNOSIS

As the poem begins, the Greeks have captured Chryseis, the daughter of Apollo's priest Chryses, and given her as a prize to Agamemnon. In response, Apollo has sent a plague against the Greeks, who compel Agamemnon to restore Chryseis to her father to stop the sickness. In her place, Agamemnon takes Briseis, whom the Achaeans had given to Achilles as a spoil of war. Achilles, the greatest warrior of the age, follows the advice of his goddess mother, Thetis, and withdraws from battle in revenge.

In counterpoint to Achilles' pride and arrogance stands the Trojan prince Hector, son of King Priam, a husband and father who fights to defend his city and his family. With Achilles on the sidelines, Hector leads successful counterattacks against the Greeks, who have built a fortified camp around their ships pulled up on the Trojan beach. The best remaining Greek fighters, including Odysseus, Diomedes, and Ajax, are wounded, and the gods favor the Trojans. Patroclus, impersonating Achilles by wearing his armor, finally leads the Myrmidons back into battle to save the ships from being burned. The death of Patroclus at the hands of Hector brings Achilles back to the war for revenge, and he slays Hector in single combat. Hector's father, King Priam, later comes to Achilles alone (but aided by Hermes) to ransom his son's body, and Achilles is moved to pity; the funeral of Hector ends the poem. ................. MAJOR CHARACTERS Major characters

Main article: List of characters in the Iliad

The Iliad contains a sometimes confusingly great number of characters. The latter half of the second book (often called the Catalogue of Ships) is devoted entirely to listing the various commanders. Many of the battle scenes in the Iliad feature bit characters who are quickly slain. See Trojan War for a detailed list of participating armies and warriors.

* The Achaeans (Αχαιοί) - the word "Hellenes", which would today be translated as "Greeks", is not used by Homer o Achilles (Αχιλλεύς), the leader of the Myrmidons (Μυρμιδόνες) and the principal Greek champion whose anger is one of the main elements of the story + Briseis, a woman captured by the Achaeans in the sack of Lyrnessus, a small town in the territory of Troy, and awarded to Achilles as a prize; Agamemnon takes her from Achilles in Book 1 and Achilles withdraws from battle as a result o Agamemnon (Αγαμέμνων), King of Mycenae, supreme commander of the Achaean armies whose actions provoke the feud with Achilles; brother of King Menelaus o Menelaus (Μενέλαος), Helen's abandoned husband, younger brother of Agamemnon, King of Sparta o Odysseus (Οδυσσεύς), another warrior-king, famed for his guile and cunning, who is the main character of another (roughly equally ancient) epic, the Odyssey, is an important character in the Iliad o Calchas (Κάλχας), a powerful Greek prophet and omen reader, who guided the Greeks through the war with his predictions. o Patroclus (Πάτροκλος), beloved companion to Achilles o Nestor (Νέστωρ), Diomedes (Διομήδης), Idomeneus (Ιδομενεύς), and Telamonian Ajax (Αίας ο Τελαμώνιος), kings of the principal city-states of Greece who are leaders of their own armies, under the overall command of Agamemnon o Diomedes (Διομήδης), son of Tydeus, and a noble Greek. He was a close companian of Odysseus.

* The Trojan men and their allies o Priam (Πρίαμος), king of the Trojans, too old to take part in the fighting; many of the Trojan commanders are his fifty sons o Hector (Έκτωρ), firstborn son of King Priam, leader of the Trojan and allied armies and heir apparent to the throne of Troy o Paris (Πάρις), Trojan prince and Hector's brother, also called Alexander (Aλέξανδρος); his abduction of Helen is the casus belli. He was supposed to be killed as a baby because his sister Cassandra foresaw that he would cause the destruction of Troy. Raised by a shepherd. o Aeneas (Αινείας), cousin of Hector and his principal lieutenant, son of Aphrodite, the only major Trojan figure to survive the war. Held by later tradition to be the forefather of the founders of Rome. See the Aeneid. o Glaucus and Sarpedon (Σαρπήδων), leaders of the Lycian forces allied to the Trojan cause. o Pandarus, a Trojan archer whose shot at Menelaus in Book 4 breaks the temporary truce between the two sides. o Polydamas, a young Trojan commander who sometimes figures as a foil for Hector by proving cool-headed and prudent when Hector charges ahead. Polydamas gives the Trojans sound advice, but Hector seldom acts on it. o Agenor, a Trojan warrior who attempts to fight Achilles in Book 21. Agenor delays Achilles long enough for the Trojan army to flee inside Troy’s walls. o Dolon (Δόλων), a Trojan who is sent to spy on the Achaean camp in Book 10. o Antenor (mythology), a Trojan nobleman, advisor to King Priam, and father of many Trojan warriors. Antenor argues that Helen should be returned to Menelaus in order to end the war, but Paris refuses to give her up.

* The Trojan women o Hecuba (Εκάβη), Queen of Troy, wife of Priam, mother of Hector, Cassandra, Paris etc o Helen (Ελένη), former Queen of Sparta and wife of Menelaus, now espoused to Paris o Andromache (Ανδρομάχη), Hector's wife and mother of their infant son, Astyanax (Αστυάναξ) o Cassandra (Κασσάνδρα), daughter of Priam, prophetess, first courted and then cursed by Apollo. As her punishment for offending him, she accurately foresees the fate of Troy, including her own death and the deaths of her entire family, but does not have the power to do anything about it.

The Olympian deities, principally Zeus, Hera, Apollo, Hades, Aphrodite, Ares, Athena, Hermes and Poseidon, as well as the lesser figures Eris, Thetis, and Proteus appear in the Iliad as advisers to and manipulators of the human characters. All except Zeus become personally involved in the fighting at one point or another (See Theomachy).

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The Iliad as oral tradition

The Iliad and the Odyssey were considered by Greeks of the classical age, and later, as the most important works in Ancient Greek literature, and were the basis of Greek pedagogy in antiquity. As the center of the rhapsode's repertoire, their recitation was a central part of Greek religious festivals. The book would be spoken or sung all night (modern readings last around 14 hours), with audiences coming and going for parts they particularly enjoyed.

Throughout much of their history, scholars of the written word treated the Iliad and Odyssey as literary poems, and Homer as a writer much like themselves. However, in the late 19th century and the early 20th century, scholars began to question this assumption. Milman Parry, a classical scholar, was intrigued by peculiar features of Homeric style: in particular the stock epithets and the often extensive repetition of words, phrase and even whole chunks of text. He argued that these features were artifacts of oral composition. The poet employs stock phrases because of the ease with which they could be applied to a hexameter line. Taking this theory, Parry travelled in Yugoslavia, studying the local oral poetry. In his research he observed oral poets employing stock phrases and repetition to assist with the challenge of composing a poem orally and improvisationally. Parry's line of inquiry opened up a wider study of oral modes of thought and communication and their evolution under the impact of writing and print by Eric Havelock, Marshall McLuhan, Walter Ong and others.

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The Iliad in subsequent arts and literature

Subjects from the Trojan War were a favourite among ancient Greek dramatists. Aeschylus' trilogy, the Oresteia, comprising Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers, and The Eumenides, follows the story of Agamemnon after his return from the war.

William Shakespeare used the plot of the Iliad as a source material for his play Troilus and Cressida, but focused the love story of Troilus, a Trojan prince and a son of Priam, and a Trojan woman Cressida. The play, often considered to be a comedy, reverses traditional views on events of the Trojan War and depicts Achilles as a coward, Ajax as a dull, unthinking mercenary, etc.

Power Metal band Blind Guardian composed a 14 minute song about the Iliad. The song's name is And Then There Was Silence.

The 1954 Broadway musical The Golden Apple by librettist John Treville Latouche and composer Jerome Moross was freely adapted from the Iliad and the Odyssey, re-setting the action to America's Washington state in the years after the Spanish-American War, with events inspired by the Iliad in Act One and events inspired by the Odyssey in Act Two.

Christa Wolf's 1983 novel Kassandra is a critical engagement with the stuff of the Iliad. Wolf's narrator is Cassandra, whose thoughts we hear at the moment just before her murder by Clytemnestra in Sparta. Wolf's narrator presents a feminist's view of the war, and of war in general. Cassandra's story is accompanied by four essays which Wolf delivered as the Frankfurter Poetik-Vorlesungen. The essays present Wolf's concerns as a writer and rewriter of this canonical story and show the genesis of the novel through Wolf's own readings and in a trip she took to Greece.

An epic science fiction adaptation/tribute by acclaimed author Dan Simmons titled Ilium was released in 2003. The novel received a Locus Award for best science fiction novel of 2003.

A loose film adaptation of the Iliad, Troy, was released in 2004, starring Brad Pitt as Achilles, Orlando Bloom as Paris, Eric Bana as Hector, Sean Bean as Odysseus and Brian Cox as Agamemnon. It was directed by German-born Wolfgang Petersen. The movie only loosely resembles the Homeric version, with the supernatural elements of the story were deliberately expunged, except for one scene that includes Achilles' sea nymph mother, Thetis (although her supernatural nature is never specifically stated, and she is aged as though human).

Though the film received mixed reviews, it was a commercial success, particularly in international sales. It grossed $133 million in the United States and $497 million worldwide, placing it in the 50 top-grossing movies of all time.

A number of comic series have re-told the legend of the Trojan War. The most inclusive may be Age of Bronze, a comprehensive retelling by writer/artist Eric Shanower that incorporates a broad spectrum of literary traditions and archaeological findings. Started in 1999, it is projected to number seven volumes.