Author Archives: Wilson Ruiz

The quote I’d like to discuss is the following:

… He made his dwelling among the trees of the sacred grove of Phoibos Apollo, and he gave me glorious presents. He gave me seven talents of well-wrought gold, and he gave me a mixing bowl made all of silver, and gave along with it wine, drawing it off the storing jars, twelve in all. (Lattimore 142; lines 200-205)

This part of the book is talking about a gift that was given to Odysseus because he save the life of Maron and his family and how Odysseus and his companions were drinking wine. My question is: what does the seven talents really mean? I feel that there is a different meaning to “seven talents.”

I’ve thought of many shows that are on TV today, but most of them were already talked about on previous posts by my fellow classmates. However, I did find one show that I used to watch late 2014. The show is a Netflix series called “Hemlock Grove.”

Hemlock Grove is a Netflix Series that takes place in a fictional town in Pennsylvania. The people living in town ranged on all social classes, from the richest family to the poorest family. The TV series have certain characteristics of Jacobean theater; such as, secrets, promiscuity, abuse, killings, incest, and mainly demonic I’d say. The show started when police were investigating a murder of a high school cheerleader who was brutally murdered. The main suspects are two guys. One guy who is a ware-wolf and another guy who comes from high social class. However, they decided to investigate the case themselves. This let them to discover many secrets the town had hidden.

Acts 4 and 5 of the Dutchess of Malfi reminded me in some sort way of this show, where all the violence started, executions, etc.

RED BAND trailer below.

I chose to write a comparison about “The Hardship of Traveling the Road 1” with the song called “Car Radio” by Twenty One Pilots.  I chose this poem because I can relate to it.

The poem is about someone who is settled wants to leave their current social status to pursue the journey into finding him/herself. It is describing the moment where s/he decided to let go of what s/he had and began the journey of finding him/herself. Filled with fear and confusion, the individual did not know where to go, but s/he had faith that one day, they will be able to defeat adversity and become happy with his/her life.

I chose the song Car Radio because of the song is about someone who has lost something in their life. The singer is expressing what felt loosing something that he had valued throughout his life and now it is in the journey to reclaim back what was lost.

The poem “The Hardship of Traveling the Road 1” has the following line:

… But I stopped the cup, threw down the chopsticks, was unable to eat. I took out my sword, stared all around, my heart was blindly lost.

I compare it to the following lyrics for the song “Car Radio”

I have these thoughts
So often I ought
To replace that slot
With what I once bought
‘Cause somebody stole
My car radio
And now I just sit in silence

In the poem, the author expresses the actions he took to leave the undesired live and how it felt in the midst of adversity. Meanwhile, in the song “Car Radio”, the lyrics above are metaphorical. The radio means that something he once lost (or got stolen from him). Now he is sitting in silence, which it indicates that he is lost and feels different, missing the “Car Radio” that was lost or stolen.

The other section of the poem I’d like to compare is:

The long wind will smite the waves, and surely will come a time to hang straight the cloudy sail and cross the gray-blue sea!

In this section, the author of the poem has indicated that adversity will be finished and they will be able to identify which path to partake and defeat adversity and fear.

I’d like to compare this part of the poem with the following lyrics of the song “Car Radio”.

And from the two that we choose to do
Peace will win
And fear will lose
There’s faith and there’s sleep
We need to pick one please because
Faith is to be awake
And to be awake is for us to think
And for us to think is to be alive
And I will try with every rhyme
To come across like I am dying
To let you know you need to try to think

http://youtu.be/5KCMeR26yAs