"'...my people have a saying.' He uttered a string of throaty gutturals, and translated. '"Two men can keep a secret, but only if one of them is dead."'" (13, p. 167)
"Even a god couldn't fight two, as the saying went." (24, p. 278)
Two men cannot keep a secret but can outfight a single man. Profundity, indeed. But such sayings reflect a lot of experience.
That the first saying had to be translated is important. People from many nations in the Hyborian Age travel and interact so that language becomes an issue. More than once, Conan encounters:
"...the usual irritation of both speaking in a language foreign to them, and not very well." (23, p. 267)
At last, Irawagbon grasps that Conan is explaining that he now sees that he had misunderstood her!
Lernu Esperanton. Gi estas tre facila lingvo.
4 comments:
There was an ancient Greek saying: "Even Hercules can't fight two." Meaning that while one engaged him, the other would stab him in the back or bludgeon him.
It's a good thing Conan had a talent for languages! 8-).
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Cliches and old saws generally have at least a kernel of truth in them. Or old wives tales, as Gandalf said in the Houses of Healing in Minas Tirith.
Ad astra! Sean
Kaor, Paul!
What Stirling's Conan said about how best to keep a secret awoke echoes of a possible Biblical connection, and this is what I found in Tobias/Tobit 12.7: "For it is good to hide the secret of a king;..." With the rest of the verse saying: "...but honorable to reveal and confess the works of God."
Ad astra! Sean
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