Acknowledgements

I am indebted to Bernd Heine, Christa Koenig, Pete Austin, Betty Snell, David Payne, Colette Grinevald, Bonny Tibbitts and the late Alexandre Kimenyi for sharing with me their knowledge of various languages that seemed relevant to the cross-linguistic portion of this study. For the language materials at the core of this book, I am indebted, as we all are, to long-departed masters – Homer, Geoffrey Chaucer, Thomas Mallory and William Shakespeare, as well as to two great practitioners of contemporary English – Elmore Leonard for his written fiction, and my late friend and teacher Harris Brown for his informal spoken language. Above all, I am indebted to Agustinus Gianto, S. J. of the Instituto Pontifico Biblico in Rome, for introducing me to the Classical scholarly tradition, for generous comments on early drafts of the five Homeric chapters, for much encouragement, and for attempting to shield me from the wrath of contemporary Classicists, who – alas – were inclined to dismiss me as a shameless interloper who had no business messing up with their Homer. Last but not least, I am indebted to Kees Vaes, my long-time editor at J. Benjamins, who stuck with me through thick and thin for nigh 40 years of what appeared to be, often, thankless hard labor.