Timeo Danaos

I will describe what happened today, then place it in an Andersonian context. First, because of an illness, we did not go to Preston (see previous post). Secondly, because we did not go to Preston, I was able to attend a Latin class in the afternoon and therefore spent the morning preparing for it.

After St Columba's encounter with the Loch Ness Monster and two short extracts from the Latin New Testament, we started Virgil! We even read, "...timeo Danaos et dona ferentes." (II, 49) ("I fear the Greeks, even bearing gifts.")

Virgil celebrated the Roman Empire which, in diverse timelines, is:

served by the King of Ys;
guarded by the Time Patrol;
the inspiration for the Terran Empire.

Virgil described the Greeks at Troy as "...fracti bello fatisque repulsi..." (II, 13) ("...shattered by war, rejected by the fates...") and this reflected his own experience of living through the Roman Civil Wars. It may also remind us of Poul Anderson's many descriptions of past and future wars. Virgil thanked Augustus for establishing an Imperial pax/peace. We can imagine Terrans reading Virgil while thanking Manuel Argos.

Afterword III

Virgil wrote, "Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes," (I fear Greeks bringing gifts), in Aeneid, II, 49.

The captain of the first survey ship to Toka is alleged to have said, of the Hoka's reptilian opponents, "'Timeo dracones et dona ferentis'..." (I fear dragons bringing gifts):

- S*ndr* M**s*l, "'The Bear That Walks Like a Man': An Ursinoid Stereotype in Early Interbeing Era Popular Culture" IN Poul Anderson and Gordon R Dickson, Hoka (New York, 1985), pp. 241-253 AT p. 244.

M**s*l thinks "...it is no accident that the next starship dispatched to Toka was the H.M.S. Draco." (pp. 244-245)

Thus, Sandra Miesel, as she is on our side of the event horizon, neatly links reptilian Tokans to the H.M.S. Draco through a clever Virgilian misquotation.

If I were ever to be assisted by an apprentice blogger, I might set him/her this exercise: edit M**s*l's piece to eliminate political swear words. Thus:

"Although in their contemptible bourgeois fashion Anderson and Dickson attempt to portray Jones as a bumbling simpleton of a hero, it is well known that he was in actuality a cunning arch-villain steeped in reactionary paternalism of the deepest hue. This lackey of the League's ruling caste..." (p. 245)

would have to become something like:

"Although Anderson and Dickson attempt to portray Jones as a bumbling simpleton of a hero, he was in actuality a League apologist who..."

- and even that might not be edited down enough. I edited out "...it is well known that..." because M**s*l needs to cite evidence, not appeal to what (she says) we all know anyway. (Sorry if I sound as if I am taking this too seriously but it is an interesting exercise.)

"Had political development proceeded at its natural pace, a bispeciesist communal society would have inevitably evolved on Toka." (p. 244)

Ideological blindness indeed! In fact, there are three howlers here. First, nothing about society is either inevitable or mechanically predictable and in this case the projected outcome seems highly unlikely. Secondly, political development is not a "natural" process like biology or natural selection. Rational species have stepped out of natural history into social history which is qualitatively different. Everything that they do is "artificial" and interstellar contact is just more of that. Thirdly, political development cannot possibly have a predetermined "pace." It can stagnate for millennia or explode in a week.

"Although the cleansing fire of revolutionary zeal has happily rendered such aberrations obsolete, speciesism in all its loathsomeness did pervade human behavior in the League era." (p. 249)

I think that this just means, "League human beings were speciesist."

- and, of course, this requires elucidation. One example given is "...Tanni Jones plays goddess for the Telks..." (ibid.)

We thought that Tanni was forced into this role and had to be rescued from it but now we know that our informants were contemptibly bourgeois.

M**s*l hints at dark revelations "...when the unexpurgated critical edition of Tanni Jones' diary is finally published." (ibid.)

It is fortunate that M, to abbreviate the name further, seems to be unaware of the illustrations showing Tanni and Hokas with the naked Alex Jr playing Mowgli.

Latin

Delenda Est
Timeo Danaos...
negotium perambulans... (see the link for "Timeo Danao...")
Roma Mater
Tene Mithra... (see the link for "Roma Mater")
peregrinator temporis
Ultima regio regnum
festina lente
Requiescant in pace
Nemo me impune lacessit
Homo sum...
Primus inter pares (See the link for "Homo sum...")
De Mortuis...
res naturae and Tempus fugit (see here)

I have listed links to uses of Latin for a reason but am being interrupted by a family outing so I will get back to you all later.

More Latin

A while ago, we mentioned Latin in Poul Anderson's works, e.g.: Delenda est; Roma Mater; Tene, Mithra... Here is some more.

"'Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes,' remarked Sarlish surprisingly."
-Poul Anderson, Sir Dominic Flandry: The Last Knight Of Terra (New York, 2012), p. 332.

Since Sarlish is from "'...Jagranath, which lies beyond the Empire...'" (p. 331), this is indeed surprising. He is also an Imperial Duke's chief Intelligence officer. This explains his knowledge of Anglic, though not of a Latin quotation. I was pleased to come across this famous line, "I fear Greeks bringing gifts," because our Latin class recently read that passage, about the Trojan horse, in the Aeneid.

Aycharaych, another extra-Imperial alien but also a student of humanity, tells Flandry:

"'I already had business in these parts - negotium perambulans in tenebris, if you like -...'" (p. 461).

I do not know how Flandry feels but I am in the dark about this phrase and have asked our Latin tutor for enlightenment. It is something to do with "a task walking around in darkness."

Addendum, 26 May 2014: "Doing the job in the dark."

Escape And Education

Fiction writers can not only entertain by offering an escape from reality but also educate by reflecting reality and can even do both simultaneously. Ingenious. We can do some of this for ourselves with help from imaginative authors. My own immediate environment is exotic enough:

in London, a devotee of Krishna offers me free vegetarian food;

in Birmingham, a Muslim propagandist hands me a free Koran while a passerby tells me that I should read the Bible;

in Liverpool, I passed a parish church, a mosque, a Krishna Temple and a Latin Rite Catholic Church before returning to my apartment to meditate -

- and all of this reminds me of Poul Anderson's Technic civilization where:

on Avalon, Tabitha Falkayn says that we are mostly of the Old Faith in Highsky Choth;

on diverse planets, the natives are converted to Terrestrial religions;

in the Patrician system, a revolutionary proclamation claims that the Divine in whatever form It manifests Itself to you is with us! (See here.)

Three powerful statements, from an epic, a play and a traditional story respectively, have gained a universal significance:

"Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes" (I fear Greeks bringing gifts);
"Something is rotten in the state of Denmark";
"...appointment in Samara."

Here we discussed the politics of Mongo, Barsoom, Technic civilization, the Emberverse and that other strange mental construct, contemporary Britain. Imagine one Zodangan trying to assassinate the Jeddak of Helium or to sabotage a Heliumite airship while another leads a peaceful protest against Heliumite occupation or imagine similar political differences between Anderson's Braeans. Such is fictional life.

Greek And Latin

Poul Anderson, Harvest The Fire, Chapter 4.

The poet, Jesse Nicol, knows the Odyssey and The Trojan Women. Even if he knows these works only in translation, he must know that they are translated from Greek. He cannot know this without also knowing of Virgil's Aeneid, the great Latin sequel to the Homeric epics.

If this much is known, then Nicol or other students of literature will have encountered at least a few words of Latin, e.g.:

Arma virumque cano;
Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes.

So I find it difficult to accept that Latin is "...forgotten by all but the great database." (See Venator.)

A Little Or A Lot Of Latin Lit.

We have found quite a lot of Latin in Poul Anderson's works from "Delenda Est" to "Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes." (See here.) We have even been told that Falkayn quoted Flecker in Latin translation but have had to do the translating ourselves. See here.

In SM Stirling's Island In The Sea Of Time (New York, 1998), William Walker pats the barrel of a cannon and says, "'Ultima regio regnum,'" (p. 442) translating this phrase as "'The last argument of kings.'" (ibid.)

I think that the phrase should read: "Ultima regio regum." "Regnum" is a noun meaning "kingly government; kingship; royal power; monarchy," whereas "regum" is the genitive plural of "rex," a king, thus meaning "of kings." "Regio" means a boundary rather than an argument.

I speculated here about how Walker would wind up. Here is another speculation: will McAndrews who was persuaded to join Walker switch his loyalty back to Nantucket? He can clearly see that Walker is doing no good.