In two endings, a man is eaten by lions or buried by a sandstorm after this figure tells him that the world is a “perpetual cycle of production and destruction.” For 10 points each:
[10h] Name this figure who appears as a colossal woman sitting on a mountain in a dialogue from the Operette Morali (“oh-pair-ETT-tay moh-RAH-lee”) in which she mocks an Icelandic man for fleeing her.
ANSWER: Nature [or Natura; accept “Dialogue Between Nature and an Icelander” and “Dialogo della Natura e di un Islandese”]
[10m] This 19th-century poet presented a pessimistic vision of Nature in his “Dialogue Between Nature and an Icelander” and asked Nature “why / do you so deceive your children?” in the poem “To Silvia.”
ANSWER: Giacomo Leopardi [or Giacomo Taldegardo Francesco di Sales Saverio Pietro Leopardi]
[10e] Leopardi used this event to illustrate how Nature cares no more for humans than ants in his poem “The Broom Tree.” The author of Naturalis Historia exclaimed “fortune favors the bold” before dying in this event.
ANSWER: eruption of Vesuvius [or destruction of Pompeii or equivalents; or Vesuvius eruption of 79 CE; accept Vesuvio in place of “Vesuvius”; prompt on volcanic eruption, natural disaster, cataclysm, or equivalents of any] (Pliny the Elder wrote Naturalis Historia.)
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