Jewish Odysseus: FAREWELL TO A GIANT

Saturday, April 5, 2008

FAREWELL TO A GIANT

Charlton Heston, 1923-2008

What a loss. He was a great American, and a great old guy.

I'll never forget the time he called Rush Limbaugh's show to read a great excerpt from "Jurassic Park," that STILL had more common sense on climate change than a thousand NY Times editorials...His majestic voice laying out those arguments over the airwaves was just fabulous!

[UPDATE--Thanks to Mike at PatDollard, here is the Jurassic Park reading!]

Not to mention Moses and Ben-Hur...And three times prez of the NRA...And marching in the streets with the civil rights movement in the 1960s, when other Hollywood stars kept quiet to avoid offending people...

What a loss.

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The Odyssey by Homer, Chapter 21:

For long Odysseus stood with the bow in his hands, handling it as a minstrel handles a lyre when he stretches a cord or tightens a peg. Then he bent the great bow; he bent it without an effort, and at his touch the bow-string made a sound that was like the cry of a swallow. The wooers seeing him bend that mighty bow felt, every man of them, a sharp pain at the heart. They saw Odysseus take up an arrow and fit it to the string. He held the notch, and he drew the string, and he shot the bronze-weighted arrow straight through the holes in the back of the axe-heads. Then as Eumæus took up the axes, and brought them outside, he said, ‘Thou seest, lord Telemachus, that thy guest does not shame thee through foolish boasting. I have bent the bow of Odysseus, and I have shot the arrow aright. But now it is time to provide the feast for the lords who woo thy lady mother. While it is yet light, the feast must be served to them, and with the feast they must have music and the dance.’ Saying this he nodded to Telemachus, bending his terrible brows. Telemachus instantly girt his sword upon him and took his spear in his hand. Outside was heard the thunder of Zeus. And now Odysseus had stripped his rags from him and was standing upright, looking a master of men. The mighty bow was in his hands, and at his feet were scattered many bronze-weighted arrows.