Watch the video “Elizabeth: The Golden Age”. Make up a narrative of the events.

1. Spend a few minutes making notes what happened.

2. Write a first draft of your story.

3. Read through your first draft.

4. Now try to make it sound more interesting.

5. Look up new words and phrases in the dictionary.

6. Check the tenses you have used.

7. Write a final draft of your story.

 

UNIT 10. LANGUAGE PRACTICE, READING, SPEAKING AND WRITING

I. Review Reported speech: Reporting the past

Main points: A report structure is used to report what people say or think.

You use the present tense of the reporting verb when you are reporting something that someone says or thinks at the time of your speaking. You often use past tenses in report structures because a reported clause usually reports something that was said or believed in the past.

 

A. Here are some sayings by well known people. Look at the sayings, then complete the reports by putting the verbs in brackets in the right tense. Retell the saying in indirect speech.

 

1. When I grow up I want to be a little boy (Joseph Heller)

When someone asked Joseph Heller what he wanted to be when he grew up, he said he wanted to be a little boy. (want, grow up, say, want)

2. I don’t like bath. I don’t enjoy them in the slightest and if I could, I would prefer to go round dirty. (J. B. Priestley)

J. B. Priestly … baths. He … that if he … the choice he would prefer to stay dirty. (hate, say, have)

3. I am happy to say someone has stolen my wife’s credit card. He would probably spend a lot less than she does. (Anon.)

A man … he … delighted that someone … his wife’s credit card. He … sure the thief.. less money than his wife. (say, be, steal, be, spend)

4. His ears are so big, he looks like a taxicab with both doors open. (Howard Hughes about Clark Gable)

After meeting the film star, Clark Gable, Howard Hughes … Gable … such big ears he … like a taxi with both doors open. (say, have look)

5. I know only two tunes. One is Yankee Doodle and the other isn’t. (Ulysses S. Grant)

President Ulysses S. Grant … that he only two tunes. One of them … Yankee Doodle and the other ….(say, know, be, not be)

 

B. Read and translate the text. Rewrite the direct speech into indirect one and retell the story.

Persian wars

The great civilizations of the Ancient World were in contact with each other: Greeks, Egyptians and Mesopotamians traded with each other, warred with each other and coexisted throughout the known world. In the early 5th century BC, peaceful coexistence between the Greeks and the Persians broke out into open warfare. Following the long war, the Greeks vilified the Persians. Did the Greeks always hate the Persians or was this a consequence of the war?

It can be safely assumed that conflict between the Greeks and the Persians arose out of imperial expansion. Darius I sought to both expand the political territory of his empire in the West and capture a significant portion of Mediterranean trade. According to Herodotus, Darius’ wife shamed him into invading Greece. “The fact that you are making no further conquest to increase the power of Persia, must mean that you lack ambition,” she tells him in bed on night. This serves two purposes: one, it provides a motivation (Democedes prompts Atossa into encouraging an expedition to Greece), and two; it vilifies the actions (a woman goads the mighty Darius into attacking). Darius had allowed a certain amount of democracy for the Asian Greeks, and thus could not be totally vilified himself.

Darius was correct, however, in placing the blame for Asiatic revolts back in Ionia. At the Battle of Marathon (490 BC), Greek strategic victory over the mighty Persian army provided psychological strength: He said: “They were the first Greeks, so far as I know…who dared to look without flinching at Persian dress and the men who wore it; for until that day came, no Greek could hear the word Persian without terror”. Marathon was a decisive victory of a small city over a massive empire. Dehumanizing the enemy was simply a way to stress the moral superiority of the Athenians and the wickedness of the enemy.

In The Trojan Women by Euripides, the women of Troy have been divided between the heroes of Greece. Hecabe has been chosen by Odysseus to be his slave. She rails against him: “Now I belong to a perjured impious outcast, who defies Man’s law and God’s, monster of wickedness”. Odysseus, it should be remembered, is the great hero of Homer. To malign a mythic hero from the mouth of an Asian in this play is an example of demonizing the enemy. Euripides’ career spans the period immediately following the Persian Wars; as an established enemy they could be safely maligned in favor of the tragic hero of the play, in this case the Greek army.