Tag Archives: latin

I WANT TO …

… tell you all a little story. And it’s really down to the insistence of one of the regular readers of this rubbish.

It’s something that I wrote to myself late one night about a week or so before my final voyage across the Atlantic Ocean came to an end.
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Wind the clock back to 1969/70 when I was studying Latin … “well, puer amat mensam” – ed … at Grammar School and having to translate – either from the English to the Latin or vice versa (and if there’s any vice involved, you can bet your life that I’m in there somewhere!) – a Roman myth or legend.

For reasons that I no longer remember, I chose the story of Castor and Pollux, and I can recall the story quite clearly even to this day.

Leaving aside all other kinds of myths and legends concerning Castor and Pollux that people might think are quite apposite, and other names by which they might have been known, which may be even more apposite to some, I’m referring to the fact that one of them (Castor) was a mortal being and his twin Pollux was the creation of the Gods, fathered by Zeus who having disguised himself as a swan, came down to earth and seduced Leda, wife of Tyndareus King of the Spartans and who were the mortal parents of Castor.

Therefore Castor and Pollux were in fact half-brothers.

Cutting a long story short … “for which we are all grateful” – ed … and missing out quite a few very relevant thoughts, including the phenomenon of St Elmo’s Fire (canwyll yr ysbryd or “candles of the spirit” as it is known in Welsh) and which has more of a bearing on this story than anyone might imagine, Castor the mortal died, and Pollux, the immortal, was heart-broken.

Pollux pleaded with the Gods and eventually Zeus changed things around so that half of the immortality of Pollux was given to Castor.

This meant that they took it in turns to be immortal, so that whoever was the mortal on any particular day was in Hades and whoever was immortal on that day was on Mount Olympus, and they changed over on a regular basis.

To whichever bank of the River Styx Charon the boatman had taken you, whether to Hades or Mount Olympus, you would only ever see the one and not the other until they alternated. For the casual observer, whether you were in Hell or in the Paradise of the Gods, it was really exactly the same situation and the same circumstance as in the other place but on different days depending upon who was the immortal God and who was the mortal being on that particular day.

A schizophrenic’s delight or dilemma, you might say. And I should know all about that of course.

So there are things going on right now that I don’t quite understand. And maybe I ought to understand them, I dunno. But right now I have a couple of quotes going round in my head, and seeing as we are on board a ship in difficult seas a nautical metaphor is appropriate. It’s an exchange between Peter Ustinov and Mia Farrow in Agatha Christie’s “Death On The Nile”
Ustinov – “You are embarking on a hazardous journey in troubled waters. You face who knows what currents of misfortune”.
Farrow – “One must follow one’s star wherever it leads, even unto hell itself”.
Such is the price of loneliness, boredom, inaction and, most importantly, curiosity.

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I hope that you enjoyed that little story.

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Wednesday 1st February 2017 – UNLESS I’M VERY MUCH MISTAKEN …

… which has happened once, believe it or not, I might have been tentatively offered a job just now.

How bizarre is that?

The landlord came into the building to stock up the supplies for the building (and I’ve had my bedding changed at last!) and we got to talking, like you do … "well, like one of us does" – ed. I told him about the hospital and my plans (such as they are) to leave after my next hospital visit at the end of the month. He started to talk about how long I’ve been there, and how well I know the place, and all of this. I mentioned that I would be looking for a new place to live when I go back to France, and he finished his chat by saying “perhaps I should hire you on”.

Well, it’s been a long time since someone has offered me a job. My immediate response was “why not?”. After all, I need to keep my options open and this might be some kind of solution – you never know.

A bad night last night – it took ages to go off properly to sleep and then we had the 06:00 wake-up. I was alone at breakfast and then I came back down here for a little work on the laptop – and a doze too of course.

I went up to the Delhaize to buy lunch stuff, and of course I forgot everything that was important. I’m going to have to start to make a list, I reckon.

But I did have some more luck in my researches. I’ve tracked down a book entitled Voyages of the Northmen to America. This book, edited by the Reverend Edmund Slafter, dates from 1877 and is very pro-Norse, in contrast to the book Wineland the Good by Reeves, that we discussed last night.

In addition, “Voyages of the Northmen” contains a synopsis of Carl Rafn’s proposition, so derisively dismissed by Reeves.

I’ve not read much of it yet, but it seems from a map on the opening pages that Slafter favours Cape Cod Bay in Massachusetts USA as being the site of Vinland. However, Slafter’s proposition seems at first glance from the map (although we’ll see when I read it) to overlook the fact that all of the Outer Banks off the coast have changed dramatically even in our lifetimes, due to storms and currents and the like. It’s very probable that back 1000 years ago Cape Cod Bay was nothing like it is today.

Slafter also acknowledged his sources, and tells us the name of the book written by Rafn. But it’s apparently written in Latin and it’s 45 years since I last seriously spoke any Latin. I shall have to go to Latin America for a crash course.

Puer amat mensam, hey?

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