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Quiz about My True Love Guild To Me  7th Day
Quiz about My True Love Guild To Me  7th Day

My True Love Guild To Me - 7th Day Quiz


Quiz Maker Guild author Tabby Tom has wrapped a Christmas quiz gift of "Seven Swans A-Swimming." See how much you know about swans, swimmers and heptads (groups of seven).

A multiple-choice quiz by TabbyTom. Estimated time: 4 mins.
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Author
TabbyTom
Time
4 mins
Type
Multiple Choice
Quiz #
300,888
Updated
Aug 19 24
# Qns
10
Difficulty
Average
Avg Score
6 / 10
Plays
9523
Awards
Top 5% quiz!
Last 3 plays: Guest 174 (10/10), alythman (7/10), realmccoy72 (10/10).
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Question 1 of 10
1. William Shakespeare is known as the Swan of Avon. Which author first called him by this nickname? Hint


Question 2 of 10
2. In which year did Matthew Webb become the first person to swim the English Channel? Hint


Question 3 of 10
3. Which Shakespearean character makes a famous speech about the "seven ages of man", beginning "All the world's a stage"? Hint


Question 4 of 10
4. According to traditional European folklore, when do swans sing? Hint


Question 5 of 10
5. One of the great classical love stories tells how Leander, a youth of Abydos, loved Hero, a priestess in Sestos, and swam to her nightly across the water that separated them, guided by a light in her window. One night the lamp was blown out by a violent storm. Leander was drowned, and the grief-stricken Hero took her own life. The body of water separating the lovers was known to ancient Greeks as the Hellespont; what do English speakers usually call it today? Hint


Question 6 of 10
6. Caelian, Quirinal, Viminal, Esquiline, Capitoline, Aventine,_ . Complete the list of the Seven Hills of Rome. Hint


Question 7 of 10
7. In which of these places can you find a Swan River? Hint


Question 8 of 10
8. Johnny Weissmuller, a famous Tarzan in early movies, won a total of five gold medals for swimming in the 1924 and 1928 Olympics. He also won a bronze medal in what other sport? Hint


Question 9 of 10
9. In the musical "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers", the sixth of the Pontipee brothers is called Frank. What is this short for? Hint


Question 10 of 10
10. Who wrote the fairy tale of the Ugly Duckling, who is mocked by all the birds of the farmyard because of his appearance, but who finally sheds his dowdy brown feathers and stands revealed as a dazzling white swan? Hint



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Most Recent Scores
Oct 29 2024 : Guest 174: 10/10
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Score Distribution

quiz
Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts
1. William Shakespeare is known as the Swan of Avon. Which author first called him by this nickname?

Answer: Ben Jonson

Ben Jonson's poem "To the memory of my beloved, the author, Mr. William Shakespeare, and what he hath left us" is one of several tributes which form a preface to the First Folio edition of the plays, published by John Heminge and Henry Condell in 1623. Jonson's poem also includes the often-quoted observations that Shakespeare had "small Latin and less Greek" and that "he was not of an age, but for all time."
2. In which year did Matthew Webb become the first person to swim the English Channel?

Answer: 1875

Webb, a 27-year-old merchant naval captain from Shropshire, attempted to swim the Channel on August 12 1875, but was forced to give up because of strong winds and high seas. Less than two weeks later he successfully crossed from Dover to Calais on August 24/25 1875, using the breaststroke and taking 21 hours 45 minutes.

Webb already had a reputation as a daredevil, and he met his death eight years later trying to swim across the Niagara River below the falls. He drowned in the whirlpool and buried in Oakwood Cemetery on the American side of the border.
3. Which Shakespearean character makes a famous speech about the "seven ages of man", beginning "All the world's a stage"?

Answer: Jaques in "As You Like It"

Not surprisingly for a man of the theatre, Shakespeare frequently uses the image of life as a play. Antonio in "The Merchant of Venice" calls the world "a stage where every man must play a part", and the doomed Macbeth sees life as "a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage."

Jaques goes into the metaphor in more detail, likening the successive stages of life to the acts of the play in which we must perform a series of parts. The seven ages are those of the infant, the schoolboy, the lover, the soldier, the justice, the "lean and slippered pantaloon," and finally second childhood "sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything."

The Globe Theatre, at which many of Shakespeare's later plays were performed, is said to have sported the motto "Totus mundus agit histrionem", the Latin equivalent of the opening words of Jaques' speech.
4. According to traditional European folklore, when do swans sing?

Answer: immediately before they die

Unlike the trumpeter swans of North America, European swans are mute. We are unwilling to accept that such a beautiful creature doesn't have a voice to match; and so the belief has evolved that the swan sings one song, of surpassing loveliness, when it is at the point of death.

The use of "swan-song" for an author's last work or a performer's last appearance strikes me as inappropriate, since it is usually the last of many and not a long-awaited sole example; but the usage is established.
5. One of the great classical love stories tells how Leander, a youth of Abydos, loved Hero, a priestess in Sestos, and swam to her nightly across the water that separated them, guided by a light in her window. One night the lamp was blown out by a violent storm. Leander was drowned, and the grief-stricken Hero took her own life. The body of water separating the lovers was known to ancient Greeks as the Hellespont; what do English speakers usually call it today?

Answer: The Dardanelles

Sestos and Abydos faced each other across the narrowest point in the Dardanelles. The strait is only about a mile wide, but the strong cross-current makes the swim a physically demanding task. Many visitors to the area have felt impelled to emulate Leander's feat, notably Lord Byron in 1810. Nowadays there is an annual race across the strait on August 30th.
6. Caelian, Quirinal, Viminal, Esquiline, Capitoline, Aventine,_ . Complete the list of the Seven Hills of Rome.

Answer: Palatine

"Can Queen Victoria eat cold apple pie" is a widely used mnemonic for the names of the hills. The names still survive in modern Rome, where the Quirinal Palace (Palazzo del Quirinale) is the official residence of the President of the Italian Republic.
7. In which of these places can you find a Swan River?

Answer: Western Australia

Originally called the Swarte Swaene-Revier by the Dutch explorer Willem de Vlamingh, the river takes its name from the black swans which are native to the area. Perth, the state capital, and its port of Fremantle, stand on the estuary.
8. Johnny Weissmuller, a famous Tarzan in early movies, won a total of five gold medals for swimming in the 1924 and 1928 Olympics. He also won a bronze medal in what other sport?

Answer: water polo

Weissmuller was a member of the US water polo team which finished third in the 1924 Games. His swimming medals were won in the 100 metres freestyle and the 4 x 200 metres freestyle relays in 1924 and 1928, and in the 400 metres freestyle in 1924.
9. In the musical "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers", the sixth of the Pontipee brothers is called Frank. What is this short for?

Answer: Frankincense

The brothers were given Biblical names in alphabetical order: Adam, Benjamin, Caleb, Daniel, Ephraim, Frankincense, Gideon. According to Caleb, their mother couldn't find any Biblical personal names beginning with F, and so she called the sixth son Frankincense "because he smelled so sweet."
10. Who wrote the fairy tale of the Ugly Duckling, who is mocked by all the birds of the farmyard because of his appearance, but who finally sheds his dowdy brown feathers and stands revealed as a dazzling white swan?

Answer: Hans Christian Andersen

Other well-known tales by Andersen include "The Emperor's New Clothes", "The Little Match Girl", "The Little Mermaid", "The Princess and the Pea", "Thumbelina" and "The Tinder Box." Those of us who were children in the 1950s will probably remember some of them as they were told in song by Danny Kaye in the RKO movie, with music and lyrics by Frank Loesser, though the film bears little resemblance to Andersen's life.
Source: Author TabbyTom

This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor Bruyere before going online.
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