[ExI] abandoning hope

[Amara Graps]

Eliezer S. Yudkowsky sentience at pobox.com
Sun Oct 28 22:32:43 UTC 2007

>"Abandon any hope" sounds like "Pick one arbitrary hope and abandon it."

>My translation by Allen Mandelbaum has:

>  LASCIATE OGNE SPERANZA, VOI CH'INTRATE
>    /
>   ABANDON EVERY HOPE, WHO ENTER HERE


I wonder if my post was sucked into the abyss.
(OK, my Italian hellish ISP, maybe it was)

P.S : Ogne is mispelled? The literal meaning of that phrase with ogni:
is "You (plural) leave every hope (singular), you (plural) that
enters (you, plural)."

P.P.S. The phrase above is straightforward, but you should know
that Dante's old Italian is not even easy for Italians today
to follow.

------------------------------------------------------------------
Amara Graps amara at amara.com
Sun Oct 28 16:22:48 UTC 2007

Damien Broderick:
>>"Lasciate ogni speranza voi ch'entrate".
>"Abandon ALL hope, ye who enter here."

Right. But literally it is _every_ hope.

Even those itsy, bitsy, teeny hopes that might be hanging
off one's coat jacket, sticking to one's shoes, embedded
under one's fingernails. Dante knew Italy well. Give up.

While I gave up hope, some people still are not heeding Dante.
Beppe Grillo announced his next V-day (literally: "Fuck off Day"
to the Parliamentarians) to be  April 25, 2008.

http://www.beppegrillo.it/eng/2007/10/yesterdays_vday_and_tomorrows.html

And Italy's bloggers, sick of the present unfree media raised
such a rukus over this stupidity,

http://www.boingboing.net/2007/10/22/italy-proposes-a-min.html#comments

and how the mainstream media went after Grillo's September 8 V-Day,
that the proposed law is being re-examined (likely dropped) and
an intense focus is on journalism and media now, to try to
change it.

There is another well-known expression here, to keep in mind, though:

"Tutto deve cambiare perchè nulla cambi"
(everything must change so that nothing will truly change)

Ciao,
Amara