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202:. There he had a bed, in which he invited every passer-by to spend the night, and where he set to work on them with his smith's hammer, to stretch them to fit. In later tellings, if the guest proved too tall, Procrustes would amputate the excess length; if the guest was too short Procrustes would stretch them until they died; nobody ever fit the bed exactly. Procrustes continued his reign of terror until he was captured by
1175:
300:
inquisitor? Fallible men; men governed by bad passions, by private as well as public reasons. And why subjected to coercion? To produce uniformity. But is uniformativity desirable? Introduce the bed of
Procrustus then, and as there is danger that the large men may beat the small, make us all of a size, by lopping the former and stretching the latter. Difference of opinion is advantageous in religion."
325:, wrote "Progress of scientific understanding is often obstructed and side-tracked when a working hypothesis which proves serviceable in a certain field is used as a Procrustean bed to mutilate the evidence derived from other fields." Dobzhansky made this chiding statement in response to claims that certain biological phenomena could only arise via one mechanism.
856:
422:
data that does not, so to "prove" some idea. It is a form of rhetorical deception made to forward one set of interests at the expense of others. The unique goal of the
Procrustean solution is not win-win, but rather that Procrustes wins and the other loses. In this case, the defeat of the opponent justifies the deceptive means.
421:
is the undesirable practice of tailoring data to fit its container or some other preconceived structure. In a
Procrustean solution in statistics, instead of finding the best fit line to a scatter plot of data, one first chooses the line one wants, then selects only the data that fits it, disregarding
299:
Thomas
Jefferson used the Procrustean bed as a metaphor in a paper on religious freedom. "Reason and experiment have been indulged, and error has fled before them. It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself. Subject opinion to coercion: whom will you make your
627:
features a spidery villain named
Procustes, being the nightmare kingdom's royal writer that refuses to accept the shortcomings of his work in a changing world and imprisons the soul of Frankelda, a female horror writer defying the standards and expectations placed on her in 1870s Mexico, within his
617:
who has taken control of the Yuma Ferry by means of violence, is described as imposing a "procrustean" toll on his clients wherein "the fares were tailored to accommodate the purses of the travelers". The meaning here denotes how
Glanton and his men would not ferry any customer until they had
275:'s seminar on "The Purloined Letter" (1956), applies the metaphor to the structural analysis of texts: "By framing in this violent way, by cutting the narrated figure itself from a fourth side in order to see only triangles, one evades perhaps a certain complication." This is one of
291:
draws upon the metaphor to critique poetic form: "The most elementary form of torturing one's language is called poetry—think of what a complex form like a sonnet does to language: it forces the free flow of speech into a
Procrustean bed of fixed forms of rhythm and rhyme." Poet
480:
as "procrustean". If the first assembly of a film is too long by a certain amount, that amount is removed quickly, sometimes brutally. Then the film is viewed at this new length, and progress afterwards is aimed at smoothing out the amputations without adding length. Similarly,
395:
to a set of shapes. This removes variations in translation, rotation and scaling across the dataset in order to move them into a common frame of reference. This is generally the precursor to further statistical analysis. A related problem in
150:
is thus used by analogy to describe, for example, situations where an arbitrary standard is used to measure success, while completely disregarding obvious harm that results from the effort.
355:
shows an analogy between 'fitting' people to the bed of
Procrustes and totalitarian regimes of 20th century trying to create a 'new man' that will be subordinate to their authority.
737:
1.4) and
Hyginus. "Later it was stated, by those who did not think of the meaning of Prokrustes, Prokoptas and Damastes, that he even had two beds, a large one and a small one." (
210:
He killed
Damastes, surnamed Procrustes, by compelling him to make his own body fit his bed, as he had been wont to do with those of strangers. And he did this in imitation of
705:
1116:
with an English Translation by W. H. S. Jones, Litt.D., and H. A. Ormerod, M.A., in 4 Volumes. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1918.
359:
238:"It is impossible to establish universal uniformity of hours without inflicting very serious injury to workers." —Motion at the recent Trades' Congress. Cartoon from
1140:
with an English Translation by Sir James George Frazer, F.B.A., F.R.S. in 2 Volumes, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1921.
461:—the replacement string is truncated or padded in order to have length equal to the portion being replaced. Such an assignment is also sometimes referred to as
538:
163:
264:" (1844), the private detective Dupin uses the metaphor of a Procrustean bed to describe the Parisian police's overly rigid method of looking for clues.
191:
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as a political philosophy, where state power is used to force individuals to fit the standards designed by politicians and intellectuals.
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1098:
with an English Translation by Bernadotte Perrin. Cambridge, MA. Harvard University Press. London. William Heinemann Ltd. 1914. 1.
383:, the author uses the image of the Procrustean bed as an allegory to modernity, linking it to present-day man's fear of randomness.
1234:
234:
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into which strings of varying lengths are placed. If the string inserted is too short, then it is padded out, usually with
1060:. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann, Ltd. 1989. Vol. 3. Books 4.59–8.
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who attacked people by stretching them or cutting off their legs, so as to force them to fit the size of an iron bed.
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Dobzhansky, T. (1955). "A review of some fundamental concepts and problems of population genetics".
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1071:. Immanel Bekker. Ludwig Dindorf. Friedrich Vogel. in aedibus B. G. Teubneri. Leipzig. 1888–1890.
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About maths and myths: A spanish article published in El País about the origin of some problems
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translated and edited by Mary Grant. University of Kansas Publications in Humanistic Studies.
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Although the term did not catch on in wider usage, it appears in some references, notably
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draws upon the metaphor to structure a sonnet about cutting lines to fit meter and rhyme.
35:
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http://www.mezzocammin.com/iambic.php?vol=2011&iss=1&cat=poetry&page=robbins
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592:) Procrustes' bed is used as a symbol for the strict standards of the society.
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user manuals, where a portion of a string is replaced by another string using
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surrendered all of their money and goods, leaving them entirely destitute.
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is a critique of what the author describes as the negative effects of
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had to be edited to a length of exactly 47 minutes, 7 seconds, and 4
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Killing Procrustes was Theseus's last adventure on his journey from
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838:. N.Y, N.Y.: Literary Classics of the United States. p. 286.
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alludes to the Procrustean bed when stating that each episode of
219:
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1021:(1st ed.). New York: Vintage International. p. 262.
810:
Less Than Nothing: Hegel and Shadow of Dialectical Materialism
252:
is an arbitrary standard to which exact conformity is forced.
106:
798:
The Purloined Poe: Lacan, Derrida, and Psychoanalytic Reading
781:
360:
The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms
85:
97:
476:
refers, not entirely negatively, to a certain style of
363:
is a 2010 book by philosopher and probability theorist
303:
The concept of the Procrustean bed has been invoked by
23:. For the ancient Greek historian and geographer, see
539:
Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lighting Thief
109:
100:
91:
19:"Damastes" redirects here. For the spider genus, see
103:
94:
82:
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1128:
Greek text available at the Perseus Digital Library
1073:
Greek text available at the Perseus Digital Library
877:
Cold Spring Harbor Symposia on Quantitative Biology
88:
1201:
545:The legend of Procrustes figures prominently in
391:is the process of performing a shape-preserving
1039:
859:After Brexit the people's spring is inevitable
800:eds. John P. Muller and William J. Richardson,
796:Derrida, Jacques, "The Purveyor of Truth", in
334:The Menace of the Herd, or Procrustes at Large
271:, in "The Purveyor of Truth", his response to
34:. For the statistical analysis technique, see
1142:Online version at the Perseus Digital Library
1118:Online version at the Perseus Digital Library
1100:Online version at the Perseus Digital Library
981:
718:The Meridian Handbook of Classical Mythology.
445:. If the string inserted is too long, it is
174:, another malefactor captured and killed by
1146:Greek text available from the same website
1104:Greek text available from the same website
874:
733:, is reported by both pseudo-Apollodorus (
345:Damastes (Also Known as Procrustes) Speaks
1087:Online version at the Topos Text Project.
833:
307:to describe the relationship between the
1062:Online version at Bill Thayer's Web Site
1016:
914:. Sinclair Research Limited. Chapter 21.
836:Notes on the State of Virginia, Writings
621:The Mexican stop-motion animated series
233:
42:
909:
571:Sleepless Nights in the Procrustean Bed
379:. Giving continuation to this idea, in
1202:
784:of, Volume 101, 19 September 1891, by
767:Theoi.com on-line English translation
229:
959:. Folkmanbrothers.com. Archived from
745:, 1959:223, noting pseudo-Apollodorus
729:This detail, which injects a note of
349:Damastes z przydomkiem Prokustes mówi
186:Procrustes had a stronghold on Mount
1007:Approximately 1 hour, 10 seconds in.
935:Free On-line Dictionary of Computing
924:
137:, was a rogue smith and bandit from
957:"Nothing Ever Changes, or Does It?"
125:, "the stretcher "), also known as
13:
518:salesman. He also appeared in the
449:. The concept is mentioned in the
14:
1256:
1167:
1126:3 vols. Leipzig, Teubner. 1903.
1083:Fabulae from The Myths of Hyginus
501:Percy Jackson & the Olympians
1185:
1173:
563:) is a novel by Romanian author
510:. This version is depicted as a
75:
1240:Mythological people from Attica
1069:Bibliotheca Historica. Vol. 1–2
1010:
975:
949:
918:
912:Sinclair ZX81 BASIC Programming
903:
868:
850:
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644:Generalized Procrustes analysis
525:Percy Jackson and the Olympians
30:For the Larry Niven story, see
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803:
790:
772:
752:
723:
710:
695:
677:
1:
1235:Metaphors referring to people
1190:The dictionary definition of
573:is a collection of essays by
403:orthogonal Procrustes problem
328:The Austrian-American writer
1040:General and cited references
992:Breaking Bad Insider Podcast
670:
260:'s influential crime story "
181:
59:Staatliche Antikensammlungen
16:Character in Greek mythology
7:
889:10.1101/SQB.1955.020.01.003
632:
10:
1263:
1092:Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus
834:Jefferson, Thomas (1884).
624:Frankelda's Book of Spooks
498:Procrustes appears in the
29:
18:
1158:II 1.14 (4th-century BC).
1017:McCarthy, Cormac (1985).
988:"Episode 502: 'Madrigal'"
582:A. F. Th. van der Heijden
330:Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn
153:
133:(Δαμαστής, "subduer") or
1245:Fictional serial killers
910:Vickers, Steven (1981).
743:The Heroes of the Greeks
393:Euclidean transformation
279:'s central critiques of
158:Procrustes was a son of
32:Procrustes (short story)
1054:Charles Henry Oldfather
720:Meridian, 1970, p. 498.
463:Procrustean formatting.
406:of finding the closest
317:, a founding figure in
1058:Loeb Classical Library
1050:The Library of History
459:Procrustean assignment
311:and its member states.
245:
216:
62:
50:and Procrustes, Attic
1114:Description of Greece
928:(12 September 1997).
561:The Bed of Procrustes
365:Nassim Nicholas Taleb
315:Theodosius Dobzhansky
287:) literary analysis.
237:
208:
46:
1182:at Wikimedia Commons
1124:Graeciae Descriptio.
1079:Gaius Julius Hyginus
930:"Procrustean string"
547:Malayalam literature
419:Procrustean solution
319:evolutionary biology
262:The Purloined Letter
1220:Fictional hoteliers
654:Procrustes analysis
586:Het Schervengericht
507:The Lightning Thief
388:Procrustes analysis
267:French philosopher
230:Cultural references
198:between Athens and
36:Procrustes analysis
1230:Labours of Theseus
1134:Pseudo-Apollodorus
1067:Diodorus Siculus,
1056:. Twelve volumes.
963:on 23 January 2013
862:The New York Times
590:Jugement by shards
433:is a fixed length
431:Procrustean string
246:
63:
25:Damastes of Sigeum
1178:Media related to
1028:978-0-307-76252-8
812:Verso 2012 p. 871
779:Project Gutenberg
649:One size fits all
607:John Joel Glanton
557:Patul lui Procust
551:Vayalar Ramavarma
532:(who also played
408:orthogonal matrix
21:Damastes (spider)
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250:Procrustean bed
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277:deconstruction
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121:: Προκρούστης
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1225:Ironworkers
1193:procrustean
1156:Memorabilia
1138:The Library
1122:Pausanias,
926:Howe, Denis
821:"Acrostic"
763:Vita Thesei
702:Apollodorus
455:ZX Spectrum
381:Antifragile
376:Antifragile
147:Procrustean
123:Prokroustes
61:(Inv. 2325)
1210:Amputation
1204:Categories
1180:Procrustes
1001:1 February
749:, 4.59.5.)
639:Ergonomics
611:filibuster
512:half-giant
343:In a poem
281:structural
196:sacred way
188:Korydallos
71:Procrustes
52:red-figure
1110:Pausanias
671:Citations
584:'s novel
516:water bed
514:who is a
447:truncated
194:, on the
182:Mythology
168:Corinthus
144:The word
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