“...and thus ends the story of King Paros.”
After the applause dies down, a young scholar stands. “Homer, can you tell us the story of Ileum?”
“Next week, I promise.”
Later, the blind teacher calls for his boy, and the two of them slowly make their way through the busy Athenian streets, and then out into the empty countryside, to the flat, barren field where all of Greek knowledge is stored. Here, singers trudge in endless, nested circles. There is much to remember, and the circles are packed—the air filled with a thousand voices. With the boy holding his elbow, Homer squeezes through the queues <excuse me, sorry, won’t happen again> until he finds the man who sings the epic of Troy. Homer listens, memorizing the metrical verse, and then touches him. “Got it.” And the man trudges on, silent for the first time in years.


-- ldischler, May 31 2004

Stone Disks that Stored Value http://web.archive....lty/tank/stone3.htm
Yap Island [Vernon, Oct 04 2004, last modified Oct 05 2004]

like "Fahrenheit",? only 800 BC. and in song, I'm seeing a laser disk in the circles now, this makes less sense than before.
-- dentworth, May 31 2004


I have a gut feeling that something is wrong with this.
-- po, May 31 2004


Excellent, Idischler. Low-tech writ large, and trod by human feet. Also explains crop circles.
-- lostdog, May 31 2004


I don't see what walking in circles has to do with it, if the boy just asks the guy to recite it for him. This is just oral tradition, quite possibly one of the most baked things in the world.
-- 5th Earth, Jun 07 2004


I think a slightly clearer picture of how it actually differs from the oral tradition might be good.

I also think UnaBubba is wrong on this one. The greeks were ilterate at one point, but when Homer was going around reciting poetry they had not yet developed writing... Also, greeks never found much anything wrong with taking boys out into the countryside, although I find something wrong with the suggestion having appeared here for no apparent reason.
-- ye_river_xiv, Jan 02 2007


Ah, but it took you nearly three years to find it :-)
-- normzone, Jan 02 2007



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