I suppose that it's hard, if you regard a book as in some way a fount of wisdom, not be impressed or jolted if you open it at a passage which engages with your mood, wishes or fears. Certainly I find this. There is rather a good study of the matter in M.R.James' short story 'The Ash Tree' - Sortes remind some of the characters that they are not as free as they think they are of what they regard as superstition or paganism. There is reference to the Bible rather than to V or to classical literature, but we do meet a Cambridge scholar who has edited Polyaenus' Stratagems - his own stratagems are rather ill-advised. - Martin Hughes
On Sat, 31 Jul 1999, Dr Helen Conrad wrote: > On this question, how many of you have known people who actually used > sortes with some degree of seriousness for any work, ie bible, Vergil, > Koran? > Helen Conrad-O'Briain > > > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > To leave the Mantovano mailing list at any time, do NOT hit reply. > Instead, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message > "unsubscribe mantovano" in the body (omitting the quotation marks). You > can also unsubscribe at http://virgil.org/mantovano/mantovano.htm#unsub > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- To leave the Mantovano mailing list at any time, do NOT hit reply. Instead, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message "unsubscribe mantovano" in the body (omitting the quotation marks). You can also unsubscribe at http://virgil.org/mantovano/mantovano.htm#unsub
