Done done done

That’s it for exams this year – nothing to do for uni until the new semester starts in September (apart from obsessively check the website for results – but even that can wait a few weeks yet). The next task is to tidy up the avalanches of paper and books which have covered every available surface and most of the floor in my study. And then the fun starts – deciding what reading I’m going to do over the summer.

Previous experience suggests that I will make a grandiose list and will in fact barely scratch the surface, but I refuse to let that put me off. I quite fancy having a look at Triphiodorus, maybe even translating some, doing some work on accents, and reading more around Greek tragedy, in particular Vernant and Vidal-Naquet and Oliver Taplin’s new book . We’ll see how much of this actually happens…

End in sight

I haven’t ended up blogging instead of revising, which is probably a good thing. There’s just not anything very interesting to say about the process of cramming a term’s thoughts into tidy exam-shaped nuggets. The whole thing is fairly dispiriting; fortunately after tomorrow I’m done with exams for the year.

The one good thing has been really getting to grips with Iliad 24, to the point where I can read it fluently from the Greek; I keep finding new ideas, new connections and subtleties I hadn’t noticed before. Maybe someday I’ll have read the whole poem in this amount of detail. But for the next few weeks, it’s light reading only!

Classical carry on

Now back at my desk, attempting to install a full working knowledge of Iliad 24. But enlivened by a few days at the Copenhagen Glyptotek, which is possibly the best museum of classical artefacts I’ve ever visited. While its collections don’t really rival the British Museum, the Louvre, or even Basel, it’s certainly the only museum I’ve seen with a palm lined atrium:

And its collections of Greek and Roman portraits are beautifully laid out in a succession of rooms with mosaic floors and trompe l’oeuil painting, and include a bust of Vespasian, my favourite emperor, looking exactly like Sid James:

And a very pleasing ’severed head in gigantic disembodied claw’ motif, apparently designed to keep intruders from Etruscan tombs:

Which strikes me as very effective – I could do with one by my desk at work.