The Garden Of The Hesperides

Combining art and biography, the novel consists of alternating literary portraits inspired by works of Dali and Velazquez. As the title suggests, the loose story frame of the novel is that of the Herculean labor to find the twilight realm of the lovely nymphs of the Hesperides and, by conquering the dragon that jealously guards it, to plunder the garden of its golden apples of immortality. The contemporary fable casts the artist as the hero who, armed only with paintbrushes and inkwells, confronts the demons of his subconscious.

Giovanni Gioviano Pontano was one of the great scholar-poets of the Renaissance as well as a leading statesman. Eclogues and Garden of the Hesperides, both broadly inspired by Virgil, might be considered Pontano's love songs to the landscapes of Naples. This volume features the first published translations of both works into English.

When Eryx and his companion Boentos arrived at Massalia, the two thieves decided to despoil the Artemis sanctuary. To their dismay, that did not work: surprised by guards of the Phocaean city, they had to hurriedly leave Lacydon, the Massalia port, aboard a frail vessel. But what the two thieves did not know was that their adventures carried them beyond the columns of Herakles to Erytheia Island. The most beautiful of orchards spans this wild area: the garden of the Hesperides!

Thomas Doane's thorough examination of Old and New Testament Biblical myths and legends, drawing parallels to stories belonging to older traditions, such as those of ancient Egypt. The central purpose of the text is to unite, in a single compendium, analysis of all the Bible myths which bear resemblance to earlier tales. Doane's system is practical; the myths are recounted, examined and compared against their apparent forebears in chronological order. The purpose is to demonstrate that religions share much in common with one another; while their themes and the names of figures change, the character of the tales and legends remains similar or even identical across centuries of lore. At the outset, Doane acknowledges that very little of this book is entirely original; what is special and unique to this work is its arrangement, and the systematic, readable manner in which the subject is tackled. Each chapter is amply annotated, that the reader may consult both the Bible and surviving texts of other religious works, plus previous scholarly researches into ancient mythologies. Perhaps most controversially, Doane focuses upon the tale of Christ. His birthplace, the events in which he was involved, the subject and message of his sermons, and his untimely death upon the crucifix are shown to mirror aspects of previous stories concerned prophets or holy men of other religious traditions.

Zeus, Medusa, Hercules, Aphrodite. Did you know that these and other dynamic deities, heroes, and monsters of Greek and Roman mythology live on in the names of trees and flowers? Some grow in your local woodlands or right in your own backyard garden. In this delightful book, botanist Peter Bernhardt reveals the rich history and mythology that underlie the origins of many scientific plant names. Unlike other books about botanical taxonomy that take the form of heavy and intimidating lexicons, Bernhardt's account comes together in a series of interlocking stories. Each chapter opens with a short version of a classical myth, then links the tale to plant names, showing how each plant "resembles" its mythological counterpart with regard to its history, anatomy, life cycle, and conservation. You will learn, for example, that as our garden acanthus wears nasty spines along its leaf margins, it is named for the nymph who scratched the face of Apollo. The shape-shifting god, Proteus, gives his name to a whole family of shrubs and trees that produce colorful flowering branches in an astonishing number of sizes and shapes. Amateur and professional gardeners, high school teachers and professors of biology, botanists and conservationists alike will appreciate this book's entertaining and informative entry to the otherwise daunting field of botanical names. Engaging, witty, and memorable, Gods and Goddesses in the Garden transcends the genre of natural history and makes taxonomy a topic equally at home in the classroom and at cocktail parties.

Turner was deeply affected by the world in which he lived, the sciences that explained it, and the conflicts and accomplishments of his society. He wove these strands into the dense fabric of the historical pictures he created, pictures that were extremely varied, complex, original, and controversial. In Angel in the Sun Gerald Finley untangles the various thematic strands running through Turner's art, including the intersection of private and public histories, classical and biblical history and contemporary events, and science and religion, and shows how Turner's use of light and colour played an important role in conveying these ideas. Angel in the Sun includes over 130 illustrations in colour and black and white that reveal Turner's remarkable achievement as a painter of historical subjects. Because of its interdisciplinary nature, the book will appeal not only to art historians and landscape theorists but also to historians of science and literature.