On 6/11/06 02:42, "Steven" <mcquaryq@COMCAST.NET> wrote:
Stout-hearted, mayhap? Also consider that if you sail across the Atlantic, crawl through the Panamanian hills to a crest spanning the isthmus, you would be facing west and it would be the Pacific that your eagle eye would fall on.
On Nov 5, 2006, at 10:16 AM, jansymello wrote:
He wrote about "stout Cortez" staring at the Pacific Ocen from a peak in Darien.Perhaps Cortez was as stout as Shade, but it was Balboa who came across the Pacific Ocean.
[Certain scholars argue that Keats choose Cortez to create a juxtaposition to Chapman's translation of Homer, who only delights him when Chapman's translation makes his Odyssey available to him. Cortez conquered Mexico and this may brings to our minds the Aztecs, whose civilization could be compared with the ancient Greek culture. Other studious ask why, other than the rhyme scheme, did Keats select Darien, an area of Panama settled by the Scots in the seventeenth century...]
Steven
Not everyone knows (or needs to know) that to reach the Pacific from the Atlantic you must counter-intuitively head WESTward along the Panama Canal. PF and Life-Itself are like that damned twisted strip of infested jungle -- which reminds me to wish all Listers a MERRY ISTHMUS. (Kindly leave the stage — Ed)