Good day to you. May a thousand vultures peck out your eyes.
I Curse Thee:
I was thinking about Roman curses this morning and did a little research on them. Romans were incredibly spiteful and jealous and loved their curses, which they generally written down rather than spoken. These were called tabulae defixiones. Apparently the curse lasted only as long as the material upon which it was written, and all of the ones that have been found were written on thin sheets of lead (more accurately pewter) using a stylus (and have thus lasted 2,000 or more years). They were then rolled up with the writing on the inside and placed in a location where the curse would have maximum effect, like the home of the victim. A person could be cursed for innumerable reasons, including theft, murder, shady business deals and even envy. The text on the tabulae defixiones were usually addressed to a god who was to enact the punishment and listed the reasons for the curse and the suspects of the slight if he or she wasn’t known to the curser. The curse itself could be for just about anything; forgetting the words to a speech, sexual impotence, shriveling of limbs and appendages, or becoming dizzy during an important moment. But the language was usually colorful and verbose, often including qualifiers such as, “whoever committed this” or “if he is guilty.” Curses often included nonsensical “curse words” which may have leant some sort of efficacy to the curse and some tabulae defixiones were accompanied by small figurines that were sometimes pierced by nails, similar to a Voodoo doll.
Here’s an excellent example of a Roman curse, found in Bath, England:
“May he who carried off Vilbia from me become liquid as the water; may she who so obscenely ate her lose the power of speech; whether the culprit be Velvinna, Exsupereus, Severinus, Augustalis, Comitanius, Catusminianus, Germinalla or Jovina.”
I wonder what the phrase “ate her” means. In any event, as with most fun things Roman, cursing people died out as Christianity took hold, but the curses that have been found provide keen insight into the hopes, desires, and wishes of every day Romans. I’ll bet life would be more colorful if we had curses today though.
New al-Qaida Production – Straight to Video:
Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaida’s second in command, released a new video tape recently. It’s no Girls Gone Wild, by any means, but it’s still pretty interesting. In this video, al-Zawahiri informs us that the United States is failing (“defeated”) in Iraq and is simply looking for an exit strategy. He says, “The reports from Iraq tell of the growth of the mujahedeen and the collapse of the Americans' circumstances.” By “growth” Ayman means “collapse in numbers”, and by “mujahedeen” he means “guys with American targets painted on their heads.” He’s confused.
Al-Zawahiri also stated that Sunni Arab tribes are traitors who are the recipients of “oceans of bribes” from the Americans. No, they’re not tired of their children being burned alive or their relatives having their heads cut off, they simply like the good old fashioned American dollar (at least someone does nowadays).
Of course, in the same video he says, “We are seeing a triple failure for the Americans in Iraq. No matter how much the gigantic propaganda machine in America tries to deceive the people, the reality is stronger and worse than all the deceptions.” So we’re all clear: do not believe American propaganda machine, believe instead al-Qaida propaganda machine. Got it. Reality is stronger than propaganda, and it’s worse than all the deceptions. Which is why no one believes that the insurgents are presently winning; reality simply doesn’t support that. I’m sure, however, that al-Qaida’s target audience will likely believe Ayman “Honest Injun” al-Zawahiri’s propaganda vice ours.
In the video, al-Zawahiri wore a white robe and turban and sat in front of Islamic theology and law books, i.e. copies of the Quran and various other books full of quoted Quranic verses.
Word of the Day: Unfledged (adjective): 1. Lacking the feathers necessary for flight. 2. Not fully developed; immature. Al-Zawahiri has an unfledged perception of the success of the mujahedeen.
On This Day in History:
Pope Clement establishes a parallel body to the Inquisition in Portugal (1531). General Ulysses S Grant issues General Order No. 11, which expels Jews from Tennessee, Mississippi, and Kentucky (1862).
The Wright Brothers make their first powered flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina (1903). The US Air Force closes out Project Blue Book, stating that UFO sightings were the result of a “mild form of mass hysteria” (1969).
Brigadier General James Dozier was abducted by the Red Brigade in Verona, Italy (1981). He was eventually rescued by Italian anti-terrorist forces after 42 days. I met this guy. He would be the first one to tell you that his force protection methods were grossly negligent and resulted in his relatively easy capture.
The Roman festival Saturnalia, in honor of Saturn, god of agriculture and harvest, began.
“In the absence of justice, what is sovereignty but organized robbery?” – Saint Augustine of Hippo
“That government is best which governs least.” – Thomas Paine“Ancient Rome declined because it had a Senate, now what's going to happen to us with both a House and a Senate?” – Will Rogers
3 comments:
I'm reading Don Quixote again. The translator notes a difficulty in translating the oaths and epithets because they only appear ridiculous in modern language. He comments that the richness of languages - he is here using Spanish and English - has steadily diminished since the 17th century.
Which leads into my theory of the disappearing curse. That's about the time that Rationalism, modern science, and mechanism began to dominate education, more so than literature, philosophy, or other arts. An exception was during the Greek revival, but this was somewhat artificial because scholars appropriated the studies to demonstrate their own cleverness. During the late 19th to mid-20th century, English found numerous authors who wrote with verbal flourish; now that was a rennaisance of flowering English.
Anyhow, given a more mechanical view of the world, we started to lose colorful "unnecessary" terms and phrases. Late 20th century English is an extreme example of the problem. Our lack of verb verbiage is stunning. Note how many times the intransitive verb "to be" is found in the prior sentences; we use it for more than half our written thoughts. Count it sometimes. The average joe uses an intransitive (i.e. neither active nor passive, but simply a form of 'is') verb for the majority of their sentences. Nearly as often as the blonde uses "like". By the way, in Latin "verbum" means "word". The verb was considered THE word of the sentence, as it directed the subject of the sentence to the subject. The verbum controlled the sentence.
The point? The curse likely died out as a result of industrialism, science, and lack of respect for "nonproductive" elements of life.
Lack of religious zeal, or any other zeal for that matter, surely aided this decline. If someone feels passionately about something, their curse associated with the object of their love or hate can freeze you in your tracks.
According to one website, researchers investigating the previously unknown word 'Vilbia,' concluded that it was not a person's name, but an object, possibly a napkin. Also worth noting, though not for its topical relevance, is that the word for "to bless", as used in the Old Testament could mean either to bless or to curse. Augustine notes that similar peculiarities existed in Latin for other terms.
Logician;
The Roman "curse" could be used as a form of blessing. I didn't include that simply because I was focusing on the much more interesting "spiteful" aspect of cursing. Very interesting about Vilbia. I'll bet she was a lovely lady.
I too agree that our language has lost richness. I fear that it will only continue to do so. I was recently in some training that focused on "information mapping" and how to apply this to work products and articles. Makes things "easier" on the reader. Thus is our reading comprehension....
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