Travel Ideas Number 01: The Anabasis To Corinth Of Kudakwashe Kanhutu

I have not yet made this trip but when I do, it will involve two big ideas as templates; 1. visiting all the places it is said Apostle Paul visited after the Ascension and, 2. tracing all the places where the major battles of the Peloponnesian War took place as recounted in The History of the Peloponnesian War by the Athenian General - Thucydides. This kind of trip will involve a lot of Island hopping by ferry - something I have already done - but I will also need a vehicle so as to drive from point A to B at my leisure.

 

To psyche myself for my expeditions, I normally like to quote military passages as they tend to focus on the essence of the matter. But not this time around, this time around my inspiration for the trip will come not from Thucydides’ The History of the Peloponnesian War - the greatest book of all time - instead, it will come from Apostle Paul’s message to the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 13, he said:

“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonour others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres” - Apostle Paul, Epistle To The Corinthians.

Island hopping by Ferry in Greece (2012)

1 Corinthians 13 

If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonour others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

Piraeus Port, Athens (2012)

Boarding The Flying Dolphin at Piraeus, Athens for my first Greek Anabasis (2012)

A Little Understood Problem With Regards The Ancient Books We Read

Above are just 3 different versions of Herodotus's The Histories. I am reading the middle one but know that the Robin Waterfield version is the best, while the Tom Holland one I have already thrown in the bin for being illegible.

Mark Twain once wrote; “The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them.” I always took this to mean that we should all only read certified classics, little realising that even among those certified classics, some are so badly translated that the value of their teaching becomes lost. 

This has only fully hit home now after going through two different versions of Herodotus's The Histories and finding them unsatisfactory. Below I will show you how I got to know that they were not good enough. Fortuitously, I have been quoting Herodotus for the past 5 years or so from Wikiquote. So, as I was reading through the first (discarded) and second (already halfway with notes made so I am stuck with it) versions, I would constantly find what approximates to a quote I had used before but it just didn't sound right. 

For example, I have always liked Herodotus's: "If a man insisted always on being serious, and never allowed himself a bit of fun and relaxation, he would go mad or become unstable without knowing it." In the picture below, here is where I found that quote misrepresented (but as I said above, I am halfway through this book, with notes made, so I must press on).

"If a man insisted always on being serious, and never allowed himself a bit of fun and relaxation, he would go mad or become unstable without knowing it."

But because all these different authors truly believe their translations to be the best in circulation, you will never find a copy which forewarns you that it may not be the best.