The same as others when they say: "Fear the Danes who bring gifts." Why should we be afraid of the Danes who came with gifts? With the advent of intelligence and counterintelligence, the expression "Fear the Danes who bring gifts" has become even more relevant.
The existence of the once majestic Troy, the Danes and their "gift" became known to modern man from Homer's poem "The Iliad". Everything changed when the Danes decided to go to the trick. Nobody listened to him, and at night the Danaans hiding inside the horse opened the gates with their fellow tribesmen.
Today, such gifts are synonymous with deceit, treachery, and deceit. And this is far from the only case when the insidious gifts of the Danaans were presented as a gift. True, it is very similar to the gift of the Danes? Danaans, Danai (ancient Greek. In the inscriptions of the 8th year of Ramses III, among the “peoples of the sea” who attacked Egypt, Peleset, Teker, Shakalusha, Danuna (that is, Danaans) and Vashsha (wššw) are mentioned.
Danaans - (Greek Danaoi) the oldest name of the Greek tribes. The Greeks who besieged Troy are called Danaans in the Homeric epic. Apollo endowed her with the gift of divination. The recipient of the gift-prosthesis, thanks to him, acquires superpower, which allows him to cope with hitherto impossible tasks with incredible ease.
The cunning Odysseus advised the Danaans to take the fortress by deceit. Then, on the advice of the cunning Odysseus, the Danaans decided to deceive the besieged. Example: (During the unsuccessful siege of Troy by the Danaans, they eventually decided to take Troy by cunning. Having built a large wooden horse and leaving it at the gates of the city, the Danaans pretended to resign themselves to defeat and sail away from the coast of the Troad. Dictionary of phraseological units 2008-2014. That is, about the Zetas - aliens from Zeta Reticuli. They should be feared, like their gifts. They lie. And another race, friendly to humanity, tries to warn that the Zetas cannot be trusted.
Be afraid of the Danes who bring "gifts"?
So what happened in Ancient Greece that people remember this event to this day? More than one thousand years have passed since then, but at different times these words could be heard. And not only in personal correspondence and fiction, but also in entertainment films. Most often, the expression is used when they want to protect themselves from false gifts that bring only misfortunes and troubles to the new owner. For many years, the Danaans, representatives of one of the ancient Greek tribes, unsuccessfully tried to take control of it.
The Greeks left the horse on the shore as a sacrifice to the goddess Athena, while they themselves plunged into ships and pretended to sail away for good. The expression Trojan horse also belongs to the same story, with approximately the same meaning.
Part of the Danaans settled in the southeast of Asia Minor and in eastern Cilicia in the 9th century. BC e. there was a state of Dununa (Danunites). Without taking Troy by storm, the Danaans resorted to a trick: they lifted the siege, leaving a wooden horse near the walls of the city, inside which was hiding ... the ancient world. Dictionary reference. The gift may well transmute into a death sentence dictated by revenge, one has only to remember the poisoned gift of Medea, the daughter of Creon (although any revenge is intertwined with an archaic payment).
The last gift of Isora's love, it would seem, allows Salieri to find the desired creative gift, but only by poisoning his rival, a happy double. The Danians are a Greek tribe, they called themselves that in memory of the mythical progenitor Danae. At the dawn of their history, the Greeks besieged the Asia Minor city of Troy, or Ilion. For ten years, Troy resisted the enemies. Gordius founded the capital Gordion and brought his cart as a gift to Zeus, setting it up in the temple and tying the yoke to the drawbar with such a complex knot that no one could untie it.
Both of them retell the same myth about the siege and capture of the city of Troy. The legend is so instructive that the phrase from it simply could not help but become winged. The meaning of this phrase for modern man is as follows. How many times unwanted members of the royal families received poisoned clothes and food that killed them slowly and imperceptibly.
"Fear the Danes who bring gifts": the history of the appearance and the meaning of the popular expression
But the fact is that often users are prompted to download an interesting file (most often a video or a game) to their hard drive, and a virus program is also loaded with it.
It is much easier and more convenient to install a special anti-virus program so that not a single "Trojan horse" penetrates. A good antivirus will not only reject suspicious files, but also cure already infected ones. The meaning of this expression is not obvious to us from the context. Only the clairvoyant Cassandra and the Trojan priest Laocoon tried to prevent this, but no one listened to them. All the events of the Trojan War are described by the Roman poet Virgil in the Aeneid and in Homer's Iliad.
Often while watching a movie or news, you can hear the famous expression: "Beware of the Danaans who bring gifts." Of course, you can follow the advice: "Beware of the Danes who bring gifts" - and not upload unverified information to your computer. DANANS - In the poems of Homer, the Greeks were called either Danaans or Achaeans. The ears of the expression gifts of the Danes grow from the myths of ancient Greece. Beware of those who bring false gifts and make empty promises!
) - gifts that bring danger and death with them (Explanatory Dictionary, 1935-1940).
In the same sense, the expression "Trojan horse" is used.
The phrase "Fear the Danaans who bring gifts" in Latin: Quidquid id est, timeo Danaos et dona ferentes!
The war between the Trojans and the Danaans began because the Trojan prince Paris stole the beautiful Greek woman Helen from the city of Sparta. Her husband, the king of Sparta Menelaus, with his brother Agamemnon, gathered an army of Greeks and went to Troy. The Trojan War proved difficult and protracted. It is described in the work "". Moreover, the story of the Trojan horse in "" is not mentioned, since this work orders a description of the war before it ends - the last episodes are connected with the death of Hector. The story of the Trojan horse is mentioned in other ancient Greek sources.
After a long and unsuccessful siege, the Greeks (Danaans) resorted to a trick: on the advice of Odysseus, they built a huge wooden horse, left it at the walls of Troy, and pretended to swim away, leaving their intentions. On the side of the horse was written "This gift is brought to Athena the Warrior by the departing Danaans."
The Trojan priest Laocoont, seeing this horse and knowing the tricks of the Danaans, exclaimed: “Whatever it is, beware of the Danaans, even those who bring gifts!” (Quidquid id est, timeo Danaos et dona ferentes!). But the Trojans, not listening to the warnings of Laocoont and the prophetess Cassandra, dragged the horse into the city.
Inside the horse sat 50 of the best warriors of the Greeks. At night, the Greeks, who were hiding inside the horse, got out of it, killed the guards, opened the city gates, let in the army of the Danaans who returned on ships, and thus captured Troy (“Odyssey” by Homer, 8, 493 et seq.; “Aeneid” by Virgil, 2, 15 etc.).
Virgil's half-line "Fear the Danaans, even those who bring gifts", often quoted in Latin ("Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes"), has become a proverb.
The story of the Trojan horse is mentioned in the work "(Chapter 8):
So, turn to Demodocus, said the cunning Odysseus:
“Above all mortal people, I put you, Demodocus;
Muse, the daughter of Dia, or taught by Phoebus himself,
You sing everything in order, what happened to the Achaeans in Troy,
490 What did they do, and what troubles did they endure;
You might think that he himself was a participant in everything or from the faithful
You recognized all the eyewitnesses. Now about the wooden horse,
Wonderful Epeos with the help of the virgin Pallas creation,
Sing to us how Odysseus brought it into the city by cunning,
495 Full of leaders, finally crushing Saint Ilion.
If, in truth, all of us are about this, as it was, you will sing,
Then I will repeat in front of all people everywhere
I, that the gods bestowed upon you with divine singing.
From the Trojan horse, a type of computer virus was named Trojan.
Examples
Alexey Ulyukaev
09/07/2017 - During the trial, journalists asked the former Minister of Economic Development Alexei Ulyukaev, who is accused of taking a bribe, if he ate sausage for breakfast. He replied: “Beware of the Danes who bring gifts. Be afraid of Danians who bring sausages” (according to the investigation, the minister received a bribe in a basket of sausage).
Often while watching a movie or news, you can hear the famous expression: "Beware of the Danaans who bring gifts." The meaning, however, of this phrase is not entirely clear. Who are the Danaans and why should one be so wary of their gifts? The fact is that the expression is already more than one thousand years old, and therefore modern man does not understand the meaning. However, to understand the meaning of the phrase, it is enough to recall the ancient legends.
The myth of Troy and the very gift of the Danaans
The existence of the once majestic Troy, the Danes and their "gift" became known to modern man from Homer's poem "The Iliad". However, the expression "Fear the Danes who bring gifts" can still be found in the work of another Greek poet - Virgil. Both of them retell the same myth about the siege and capture of the city of Troy. The legend is so instructive that the phrase from it simply could not help but become winged.
So what happened in Ancient Greece that people remember this event to this day? In the 13th century BC, a war broke out between the Danaans (ancient Greeks descended from the mythical king Danae) and the Teucres (inhabitants of Troy and the Hittite kingdom). The reason for this is the love of young Paris for the beautiful Helen, whom he stole from the king of the Danaans, Menelaus. Tom had no choice but to go to war against Troy. According to the myth, the siege of the ancient city lasted more than one year, but the inhabitants steadfastly held the line. Everything changed when the Danes decided to go to the trick.
So, one morning the Trojans saw that there were no Danaans. They also noticed a beautiful statue of a horse left by the besiegers as a gift. They decided that the enemy admitted defeat and admired the courage and stamina of the unconquered Troy. The statue was so large that it was necessary to open the gate and dismantle part of the fortress wall in order to bring it into the city. No one suspected anything, except for the priest Lacoon. It was he, according to the myth, who said as a warning: "Beware of the Danaans who bring gifts." Nobody listened to him, and at night the Danaans hiding inside the horse opened the gates with their fellow tribesmen. Thus fell majestic Troy.
And what does it all mean?
More than one thousand years have passed since then, but at different times these words could be heard. And not only in personal correspondence and fiction, but also in entertainment films. So, in the popular Hollywood action movie "The Rock" the hero utters this very phrase in response to the suggestion of the FSB officers. What did he mean by this? The same as others when they say: "Fear the Danes who bring gifts." The meaning of this phrase for modern man is as follows. Today, such gifts are synonymous with deceit, treachery and deceit. Most often, the expression is used when they want to protect themselves from false gifts that bring only misfortunes and troubles to the new owner. Quite often, the phrase is not fully pronounced, speaking only about the gifts themselves or the Danes, because it is already clear what was meant.
History teaches nothing
Although the myth of the capture of Troy was told by Virgil and Homer as a warning to posterity, a similar story was repeated over and over again. Moreover, the "Trojan horse" was given more than once even to the highest-ranking officials. So, in order to organize a tapping of the American Embassy, one of its employees was presented with a magnificent wooden eagle. With its help, the KGB for 6 years freely received information, so to speak, first-hand, until they accidentally found a bug inside it during cleaning. And it was in the middle of the 20th century.
And this is far from the only case when the insidious gifts of the Danaans were presented as a gift. How many times unwanted members of the royal families received poisoned clothes and food that killed them slowly and imperceptibly. With the advent of intelligence and counterintelligence, the expression "Fear the Danes who bring gifts" has become even more relevant. All friendly gifts were carefully checked, but this, as history has shown, did not always save.
And what about computers?
But who is familiar not only from legends, but also to active computer users. But the fact is that often users are prompted to download an interesting file (most often a video or a game) to their hard drive, and a virus program is also loaded with it. True, it is very similar to the gift of the Danes? As a result, the attacker gains access to the information of interest to him or uses the program to send spam. The owner himself may not suspect anything.
Of course, you can follow the advice: "Beware of the Danes who bring gifts" - and not upload unverified information to your computer. However, this is not always possible. It is much easier and more convenient to install a special anti-virus program so that not a single "Trojan horse" penetrates. A good antivirus will not only reject suspicious files, but also cure already infected ones.
Instead of a conclusion
Sometimes a phrase taken out of context takes on a completely different meaning, especially over time. And the expression "Fear the Danes who bring gifts" (Latin: Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes) still reminds of the deceit of people.
Attention, only TODAY!Where did the expression "Fear the Danaans who bring gifts?" Who are the Danaans?
- The expression is used in the meaning: insidious gifts that bring death to those who receive them. Originated from Greek legends about the Trojan War. (gift in this case, a huge wooden horse). From the history.
- Danaans (#916;#945;#957;#945;#959;#943;, Danai) in ancient Greek mythology (in particular, Homer) is the ancient name of the Greeks (along with the Argives and Achaeans), with which such mythical characters are associated like Danae, Danae and the Danaids. First of all, it is used in relation to the inhabitants of Argolis, but it can mean any Greek, especially from the Peloponnese.
This ethnonym is mentioned in Egyptian inscriptions from ser. 15th c. BC e. The inscription of Amenhotep III from Kom-el-Getan mentions tnjw (Danai) and their cities: mukanu (Mycenae), deqajis (Thegwais-Thebes, according to another reading of Tegeus), misane (Messene), nuplija (Nafplion), kutira (Kythera) , waleja / weleja (Elea, that is, Pis), amukla (Amikla). In the inscriptions of the 8th year of Ramesses III, among those who attacked Egypt, the Peleset, Teker, Shakalusha, Danuna (that is, the Danaans) and Washasha (w#353;#353;w) are mentioned. According to Y. Yadin's hypothesis, the name of the Danaans is compared with the name of the Jewish tribe Dan. An animal of the Dan tribe is called a horned serpent, which has parallels in Greek mythology.
In a later era, Virgil's expression from the Aeneid became famous. Fear the Danaans who bring gifts, Quidquid id est, timeo Danaos et dona ferentes! (Whatever it is, I'm afraid of the Danes, even when they bring gifts)
- For more than 10 years, the Greeks unsuccessfully besieged Troy, almost losing hope of success. Then, at the suggestion of Odysseus, the Achaeans decided to take the city by cunning. A huge wooden horse was built, inside which a select detachment of warriors hid. The rest of the army, in order to convince the Trojans that the Achaeans are going home, burns their camp and sails on ships from the coast of Troad. In fact, the Achaean ships took refuge not far from the coast, near the island of Tenedos. Surprised by the abandoned wooden monster, the Trojans gathered around him. Some began to offer to bring the horse into the city. Priest Laocoön, warning about the deceit of the enemy, exclaimed: Beware of the Danaans (Greeks), who bring gifts! (This phrase eventually became winged.) But the speech of the priest did not convince his compatriots, and they brought a wooden horse into the city as a gift to the goddess Athena. At night, the warriors hidden in the belly of the horse come out and open the gate. The secretly returned Achaeans break into the city, and the beating of the inhabitants taken by surprise begins. Menelaus with a sword in his hands is looking for an unfaithful wife, but when he sees the beautiful Elena, he is unable to kill her. elsewhere (Ancient Rome). The women of Troy faced a no less sad fate: they all became captives and slaves of the victors. The city perished in a fire. Danaans, Greek tribes that inhabited Argolis. According to Homer, the Danaans are participants in the Trojan War, who by cunning (with the help of a wooden Trojan horse) took Troy; hence the expression "gifts of the Danaans" - gifts that are disastrous for the recipient.
- free cheese in a mousetrap,
- Well, they didn’t watch Troy, if you’re too lazy to read))
- The sage of the city of Troy said this when the horse was brought in. Danaans - Greeks
- The expression of the priest Laocoon, who warned the inhabitants of the city of Troy not to accept any gifts from those with whom the war was fought. Danaans and Achaeans are the first Greek population of Greece.
- These are the ones who gave the horse to the Trojans. Details at Comrade. Homer.
- they presented the horse, and the army sat in it, which at night got out of this wooden horse and defeated everyone!
- Danaans, they are Danai, one of the tribes inhabiting the lands of ancient Greece,
originally the name of the inhabitants of Argos, and since Agamemnon, the king of Argos, stood at the head of the Greeks in the Trojan War, Homer calls all the Greeks by this name. - Trojan horse..
- about the Trojan horse heard that the Greeks, but about Trojan viruses?
- ... an addition to other answers - Danae - a mythological person ("Myths of ancient Greece") was considered the progenitor of the Greek tribes (Zeus's mistress), Zeus's wife was punished to fill a bottomless vessel with water with a dish. In honor of her name, other Greeks - Danaans ...
- those who plant trojans
- from the bible... Trojan horse. if it’s just that they bring or give it suspiciously ... bribery ....
- During the Trojan War, the Danaans besieged Troy, but could not take the city. Then they pretended to retreat and left only a wooden horse in which their best warriors hid. Although Cassandra warned the Trojans not to bring the horse outside the walls of the city, the Trojans did not listen to her. And the horses sitting inside at night opened the gates of the city and Troy was taken. In general, when enemies send you gifts, this is not good.
- Alnushka Sage (15277)3 months ago (link)
Odysseus (Greek #927;#948;#965;#963;#963;#949;#973;#962;, "angry", "angry"), Ulysses (lat. Ulixes), in Greek mythology the king of the island Ithaca, one of the leaders of the Achaeans in the Trojan War. It was Odysseus who came up with the idea with the Trojan horse, which brought victory to the Achaeans. The Greeks pretended to lift the siege from the city, and went out to sea, leaving a huge hollow horse on the shore, inside the body of which a detachment of soldiers hid under the leadership of Odysseus. Despite the warning of the priest Laocoön (Beware of the Danaans who bring gifts, - Laocoön warned) and the prophetess Cassandra, curious Trojans drag the horse into the city.
They decided to present the statue as a gift to Athena and provide the city with the patronage of the gods. At night, armed Achaeans poured out of the horse through a secret door, killed the guards and opened the gates of Troy. Hence the ancient saying: "Fear the Achaeans (Danaans), who bring gifts", and the expression "Trojan horse".
The so-called catchphrases are often found in fiction, we hear them in the conversations and reasonings of different people, but we do not always guess these expressions, not to mention the history of their origin. In this article we will try to find out what it means “be afraid of the Danes who bring gifts” and where this intricate phraseological unit came from.
Even from the school bench, we begin to get acquainted with the legends and myths of the peoples of the world. The characters in these stories help children get a general idea of good and evil, the complexity of choice and the need to make important life decisions. They can act as a role model or show how not to act in order to avoid serious consequences.
A lot of interesting and deep in meaning phraseological units came to us from the myths of ancient Greece. Surely each of us has at least heard about the history of the fall of the ancient city of Troy, reflected in the work of Homer's "Iliad", and, of course, in the work of Virgil's "Aeneid", to which we, in fact, owe the proverb about the gifts of the Danaans.
The Danaans were the ancient Greeks who, according to legend, waged a long, exhausting war with the Trojans. The Greeks unsuccessfully tried to overthrow Troy, besieging the walls of the city for a long ten years. However, all attempts were in vain. Then the cunning and enterprising leader of the Danaans, Odysseus, came up with the idea of how to deceitfully defeat the stubborn Trojans. The Hellenes built a huge wooden horse, in which there was a place for the most courageous warriors, and pretended that they were stopping the siege, leaving only a generous offering for the goddess Athena on the shore.
Happy that the enemy had surrendered, the people of Troy decided to take possession of the gigantic horse and put it in the center of the city as a trophy. Seeing the madness of his people, one of the priests named Laocoont exclaimed: “Whatever it is, beware of the Danaans, even those who bring gifts!” But neither he nor the prophetess Cassandra, who predicted troubles for the careless Trojans, was heard. On the night when Troy plunged into darkness, and its inhabitants were sound asleep, the Greek soldiers got out of the wooden horse, having dealt with the guards, opened the city gates and called in the army that had returned by that time. And so the great Troy fell victim to gullibility and recklessness.
The modern meaning of phraseology
For modern society, the popular expression “beware of the Danes who bring gifts” is no less significant and relevant, because every day we somehow encounter human vices and evil intentions. Based on the ancient meaning, this phraseological unit has the following meanings for us, the inhabitants of the 21st century:
- describes cases where a gift or good deed hides a person's true evil intentions;
- acts as a symbol of deceit, ingenuity and cunning aimed at causing harm or obtaining benefits by fraudulent means;
- can characterize a person prone to flattery, hypocrisy and lies.
These words are a kind of call for caution, vigilance and foresight, like the legend of the fall of the legendary city of Troy itself. The story of the Danaan gifts, of course, does not encourage us to become paranoid and check everyone and everything for the presence of ins and outs, however, it gives us reason to think that not all virtue can be caused. Sometimes gifts and favors oblige us to make decisions or actions from which we incur enormous loss or loss.
