orichalcum

Well, at least this one can.

it gets really hard to argue lines of sentience when you see things like this....

There have been multiple unexpected deaths in my field. Robert Fagles, one of the only scholars ever to translate the Iliad, Odyssey, and Aeneid, passed away yesterday. His epics are the epics for my generation, I think - they speak to me in a way that Fitzgerald or others never did. All three books are far better in the original, but for those of you who can't appreciate them that way, I offer Fagles:

"May the good gods give you all your heart desires:
husband, and house, and lasting harmony too.
No finer, greater gift in the world than that...
when man and woman possess their home, two minds,
two hearts that work as one. Despair to their enemies,
a joy to all their friends. Their own best claim to glory." -- Odyssey VII.198-203.

At the age of 47, Ross Scaife, another gifted Homeric scholar, died this week. He was one of the pioneers of bringing classics to the net through www.stoa.org and making it searchable and openly accessible, as well as being a kind mentor and gifted scholar in his own right. If I am unlucky enough to die early, I hope that I have helped as many students and colleagues as he did in his life.