DUCKS AND "THE ILIAD."

[Kriton Kyrimis]

MARK:

> One of the earliest Duck stories that I enjoyed was from a Greek issue of
> MIKY MAOYS from about 1966. It was probably translated from an Italian
> story. It was a loose adaptation of the "Iliad," and although I don't
> remember much at all about the story-line ( I was about seven or eight) I
> recall that in the story, Scrooge, who had a similarity to Homer's Menelaus,
> recruits Donald (Achilles?) and launches a mission to recover a chess-set
> (or chess-board) of some special significance that had been pilfered by
> Gladstone Gander (Paris of Troy?). That's really all I remember!

In the Greek edition it was a checker-board, and the special thing about
it was that if you put a grain of rice on the first square, two grains
would appear on the second, four on the third, etc. The story ends with
Donald breaking the checker-board on Gladstone's head into 64 pieces,
and Scrooge making them try all possible combinations of putting the
squares together again, until they would hit the one combination that
would turn the checker-board into a magic one.

Why checker-board instead of a chess-board, given that this is clearly
based on the legend about the reward that the inventor of chess is
supposed to have asked for his invention? Well, the story relies on
Scrooge tricking Donald into believing that the Beagles had kidnapped
Daisy rather than having stolen his checker-board. In Greek, the word
"ntama" (pronounced "dama") can mean either the game of checkers, the
queen of hearts, or a dance partner.  This is *very* weak word-play, but
it was probably the best the translator could do. I wonder what was in
the original script, and whether the word-play is much better in Italian.

	Kriton	(e-mail: kyrimis at cti.gr)
	      	(WWW:    http://dias.cti.gr/~kyrimis)
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"Nobody would have the gumption to tell the captain of the U.S.S. Enterprise
 he couldn't have his doctor, his dentist, his favorite carpenter, or his dog
 groomer at his side if he wanted to, security clearance or not."
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