quinta-feira, 4 de março de 2010

Labirintos ou Dédalos?

em língua portuguesa, labirinto é entendido como dédalo
e labirinto mesmo é novidade
embora labirinto mesmo exista há mais de 2000 anos AC
na vasta literatura sobre o assunto a explicação é a seguinte:


Labyrinths or Mazes?


Mazes and Labyrinths - why are there two terms in popular use and just what is the difference between them? This is often the first question that journalists and curious newcomers to the field ask. Current literature and news reports frequently confound and confuse the two, but designers and owners alike are often passionate about which is which.


Look up the words in a dictionary and you will probably conclude that maze is a labyritnh and a labyrinth is a maze. Maybe you will find some mention of hedges, Minotaurs, or Hamptom Court. Before continuing, we need to define what constitutes a maze or a labyrinth, and why these two terms are used, often interchangeably, and what mkes up the real difference between them.


Throughout much of the non-English speaking world, pratically every maze mentioned in this book would be called a "labyrinth", for the word "maze" is a peculiarly English word of medieval origin that refers to a state of confusion, from which the term "amazed" is derived. To be confused, let alone amazed, there must be some element of choice in the pathway that you are following, some opportunity to become bewildered. Many current writers, designers, and comentators within the field have taken this as a point of definition:


To qualify as a maze, a design must have choices in the pathway.


This category includes most of the modern installations in tourist attractions and entertainments parks, which exist solely for the purpose of perplexing potential visitors.


But what are we to make of the earliest examples of the type known as hedge mazes? Many of these were planted to designs, then current, on the floors of cathedrals; they have but one path that leads inexorably from the entrance to the goal, albeit by the most complex and winding of routes. These designs were known at the time as "labyrinths" and were developments of simpler labyrinth designs that had been in existence for thousands of years. All have just the single path, however confusing it might seem. This has also been taken as a definition of this style:


To qualify as a labyrinth, a design should have but one path.


Of course, as in life, nothing is quite this simple. The dividing line between what constitutes a maze or a labyrinth can sometimes become blurred and difficult to define. 


Jeff Saward, 2002