Portugal's supreme poet Camoes was the first major European artist to cross the equator. The freshness of that original encounter with Africa and India is the very essence of Camoes's vision. The first translation of The Lusiads for almost half a century, this new edition is complemented by an illuminating introduction and extensive notes.

    Young Dick Shelton, caught in the midst of England's War of the Roses, finds his loyalties torn between the guardian who will ultimately betray him and the leader of a secret fellowship, The Black Arrow. As Shelton is drawn deeper into this conspiracy, he must distinguish friend from foe and confront war, shipwreck, revenge, murder, and forbidden love, as England's crown threatens to topple around him.

    Set in the 15th century, it is a juvenile "coming of age" work in which a young squire, Myles Falworth, seeks not only to become a knight but to eventually redeem his father's honor. In Chapter 24 the knighthood ceremony is presented and described as it would be in a non-fiction work concerning knighthood and chivalry. Descriptions of training equipment are also given throughout.In 1954 it was made into a movie called The Black Shield of Falworth.

    Horace Gregory, in this modern translation, turns his poetic gifts toward a deft reconstruction of Ovid's ancient themes, using contemporary idiom to bring today's reader all the ageless drama and psychological truths vividly intact. --From the book jacket

    One by one, over a hundred men and women are forced by the harsh feudal officialdom to take to the hills. They band together and defeat every attempt of the government troops to crush them. Within this framework we find intrigue, adventure, murder, warfare, romance ... in a connected series of fascinating individual tales, told in the suspenseful manner of the traditional storyteller.

    Love has not always taken such precedence, however, and it was in fact not until the eleventh century that French poets first began to express the romantic species of passion which English poets were still writing about in the nineteenth century. This book is intended for students of medieval literature from A-level upwards. Anyone interested in the "Courtly Love" tradition. Fans of C.S. Lewis's writings.

    The only surviving Greek epic to bridge the gap between Homer and late antiquity, this epic poem is the crowning literary achievement of the Ptolemaic court at Alexandria, written by Appolonius of Rhodes in the third century BC. Appollonius explores many of the fundamental aspects of life in a highly original way: love, deceit, heroism, human ignorance of the divine, and the limits of science, and offers a gripping and sometimes disturbing tale in the process. This major new prose translation combines readability with accuracy and an attention to detail that will appeal to general readers and classicists alike.

    First published on the eve of war in 1939, the essay has often been read as a pacifist manifesto. Rachel Bespaloff was a French contemporary of Weil’s whose work similarly explored the complex relations between literature, religion, and philosophy. She composed her own distinctive discussion of the Iliad in the midst of World War II—calling it “her method of facing the war”—and, as Christopher Benfey argues in his introduction, the essay was very probably written in response to Weil. Bespaloff’s account of the Iliad brings out Homer’s novelistic approach to character and the existential drama of his characters’ choices; it is marked, too, by a tragic awareness of how the Iliad speaks to times and places where there is no hope apart from war.This edition brings together these two influential essays for the first time, accompanied by Benfey’s scholarly introduction and an afterword by the great Austrian novelist Hermann Broch.

    This religion, called Heathenry, is one of the fastest growing polytheistic religious movements in the United States today.

    Written as a result of the author's Greek travels and studies, Cassandra speaks to us in a pressing monologue whose inner focal points are patriarchy and war. In the four accompanying pieces, which take the form of travel reports, journal entries, and a letter, Wolf describes the novel's genesis. Incisive and intelligent, the entire volume represents an urgent call to examine the past in order to insure a future.

    But while this epic struggle forms the core of his work, Herodotus' natural curiosity frequently gives rise to colorful digressions - a description of the natural wonders of Egypt; an account of European lake-dwellers; and far-fetched accounts of dog-headed men and gold-digging ants. With its kaleidoscopic blend of fact and legend, the "Histories" offers a compelling Greek view of the world of the fifth century BC.

    But at the centre of their cosmos stands a gnarled old ash tree from which all distances and times are measured. When the old tree creaks, Ragnarok - the end of the world and of the gods themselves - is at hand. It is from this tree that Odin, father of the gods, hanged himself in search of the wisdom of the dead: a disturbing image of divine sacrifice far removed from the feasting and fighting of his otherworld home, Valhalla. This is the first book to show how the Norse myths have resonated from era to era: from Viking-age stories of ice and fire to the epic poetry of Beowulf; and from Wagner's Ring to Marvel Comics' Mighty Thor. Heather O'Donoghue considers the wider contexts of Norse mythology, including its origins, medieval expression and reception in post-medieval societies right up to the present. From Asgard to Valhalla is a book that will intrigue and delight anyone with an interest in how the Norse myths have so profoundly shaped the western cultural heritage.

    Other tellings can be found under "all editions," each credited to its respective storyteller.

    The esteemed and critically acclaimed historian Garrett Mattingly explores all dimensions of the naval campaign, which captured the attention of the European world and played a deciding role in the settlement of the New World. “So skillfully constructed it reads like a novel” (New York Times), The Armada is sure to appeal to the scholar and amateur historian alike.

    Led by the title character, the women of the warring city-states of Greece agree to withhold sexual favours with their husbands until they agree to cease fighting. The war of the sexes that ensues makes Lysistrata a bawdy comedy without peer in the history of theatre.