Tag archive for medio pollico (RSS)

The storks of war

Posted: January 30th 2010 00:05. Last modified: January 30th 2010 00:07

A fragment from Italo Calvino’s quasi-17th century folk romance, Il visconte dimezzato/The cloven viscount, uses storks as a portent of battle. Several unconnected 2nd century Greek accounts might appear to do the same, perhaps particularly if one’s a lazy sod and doesn’t read anything but scraps of stuff on Google Books.

Tags: Alexander the Great, Aristophanes, Bohemia, Greece, Hungary, italian, Italo Calvino, medio pollico, medio pollito, migration, Persia, stork, translation, Turkey
Categories: (Pre-)Roman, Birds, Empire, Empires, rulers and warfare, Heathen philosophers, Les bourgeois, Poets, Rivers, Springs

Rhyme vs reason

Posted: October 4th 2009 18:05. Last modified: October 4th 2009 18:24

Restif de la Bretonne goes one step beyond Shakespeare and says that poetry is the language of Gods and beasts, and that reason speaks in prose.

Tags: Abelard, cocks, Comedy of errors, demi-coq, foxes, Heloise, La Motte, Le nouvel Abeilard, medio pollico, medio pollito, poetry, prose, Rétif de la Bretone, Restif de la Bretonne, Rivers, Shakespeare, wolves
Categories: Animals, Decline, Poets, Small flying creatures

El gallito inglés / le coq anglais

Posted: September 15th 2009 16:47. Last modified: February 2nd 2010 22:41

Proud English cock, limp Latin hen: the binary opposition of English and Spanish fowls as a metaphor for the contrast between growing British military might and declining Spanish power.

Tags: Admiral John Byng, Bataille du 13 prairial an 2, blood sports, cock, cockfighting, cocking, Combat de Prairial, coq anglais, costumbrism, demi-coq, el gallito inglés, England, fighting cock, France, gallito inglés, gallo peleador, game cock, game fowl, Glorious First of June, medio pollico, medio pollito, Menorca, Siege of Minorca, Spain, Third Battle of Ushant, translation
Categories: Empires, rulers and warfare, Heathen philosophers, Les bourgeois, Poets

My 5% bookstore - new stuff

Spanish history

EL DISCURSO BOLCHEVIQUE: EL PARTI COMMUNISTE FRANÇAIS Y LA SEGUND A REPUBLICA ESPAÑOLA (1931-1936)
CEAMANOS LLORENS, ROBERTO
20.00€
LA HUELLA MORISCA: EL AL ANDALUS QUE LLEVAMOS DENTRO
RODRIGUEZ RAMOS, ANTONIO MANUEL
19.00€
CASTILLA Y EL MUNDO FEUDAL (3 TOMOS): HOMENAJE AL PROFESOR JULIO VALDEON
VAL VALDIVIESO, Mª ISABEL DELMARTINEZ SOPENA, PASCUAL
90.00€

Modern Spanish fiction

EL OFICINISTA (PREMIO BIBLIOTECA BREVE 2010)
SACCOMANO, GUILLERMO
18.00€
LA ENMILAGRADA
GOMEZ-ARCOS, AGUSTIN
18.95€
DIAS DE HIELO Y FUEGO
ORDOÑEZ, ROCIO
18.00€

Spanish classics

TRAGEDIA DE NUMANCIA
CERVANTES SAAVEDRA, MIGUEL DE
33.00€
LIFE IS A DREAM / LA VIDA ES SUEÑO (ED. BILINGÜE INGLES-ESPAÑOL)
CALDERON DE LA BARCA, PEDRO
16.64€
INGENIOSO HIDALGO DON QUIJOTE DE LA MANCHA (FACSIMIL) ESTUCHE 2 VOL.
CERVANTES SAAVEDRA, MIGUEL DE
39.90€

On this day

Barcelona

March 15 1401
Barcelona’s five small hospitals meet in the Colom Hospital [part of the current Santa Creu building], called after its founder [Guillem de Colom, 1219], and take the name of the Holy Cross.
Los cinco hospitales pequeños que habia en Barcelona se reunen al...

Josep Pla, Palafrugell (1918-9)

15 de març de 1919 El mecanisme de la penya. La primera persona que sol arribar a la tertúlia, havent dinat, és Enric Jardí. Arriba caminant pausadament, portant sota el braç dos diaris: «L’Action Française» i «L’Humanité». És un home que segueix amb una gran lucidesa i un agut esperit dialèctic els moviments extrems de les idees –únics que en [...]