De Revolutionibus

I’m currently in the middle of reading a really interesting book, called (funnily enough) The Book Nobody Read, by Owen Gingerich. The title refers to the De Revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the revolution of the heavenly spheres) by Nicholaus Copernicus, in which he proposed a model for the solar system centred not on the earth but the sun. Apparently it’s such a complex technical work, that few of Copernicus’ contemporaries were thought to have read it, let alone understood it, and so it was left to later astronomers (Brahe, Kepler, Galileo) to popularise Copernicus’ ideas.

The book’s main aim is to show that many of Copernicus’ contemporaries did in fact read De Revolutionibus carefully, which the Gingerich does by hunting down as many first and second edition copies as he can (published in 1543 and 1566 respectively) and examining the notes the various readers left in the margins.

In Copernicus’ own introduction to De Revolutionibus, he wrote about his concern that his ideas about the mobility of the Earth would lead to his “being hissed off stage”. Gingerich adds in a foot-note:

Copernicus used the Latin word explodendum, which means “being hissed or clapped off the stage.” The Oxford English Dictionary confirms that this is also the original but now obsolete meaning of the English word explode, which did not pick up the modern meaning of “to blow up with a loud noise” until around 1700. Shakespeare never used the word despite its theatrical connotation, but his contemporary Kepler did, undoubtedly in an echo of Copernicus’ usage, when in the introduction to his Astronomia nova, he wrote (in Latin), “First, Ptolemy is certainly hissed off the stage.” Kepler may have been sensitized to the word by Galileo, who used it in his first letter to Kepler in 1597.

(p. 135)

My elementary Lewis and Short gives the following definition for explodo:

explodo, si, sus, ere [ex+plaudo], to drive out, hiss away, hoot off… To reject, disapprove.

Cicero uses the word in a similar context, in his De Divinatione (Concerning Fortune-telling):

Explodatur haec quoque somniorum divinatio pariter cum ceteris.

This fortune-telling by means of dreams must also be hissed off stage, along with all the rest.

(De Divinatione II.48)

Asterix and the Archeologists

There was an interesting article in Monday's newspaper about some archaeological digs going in central France. The archaeologists have found all kinds of things which suggest that the Gauls had a much more sophisticated society than is popularly imagined. I'm not sure that it's as revolutionary a discovery as the article makes out, but it's an interesting read nevertheless. Here's an extract:

Rather than the random gatherings of rudimentary thatched huts illustrated in the Asterix books, first published in 1961, archaeologists now believe the Gauls lived in elegant buildings with tiled roofs, laid out in towns with public squares.

Ironmongers' tools, coins and scales suggest they also crafted metalwork just as complex as anything produced by the Romans, even before the Roman invasion in 52BC. The findings have been made at a dig in Corent, near Lyon, where archaeologists have uncovered what they believe is the palace of Vercingetorix, a prince and the last military leader of all Gaul.

Vercingetorix was a leader of the Gauls, who fought a long war against Julius Caesar. Plutarch records a dramatic account of his surrender to Caesar:

But those who held Alesia, after giving no small trouble to themselves and to Caesar, at last surrendered; and the leader of the whole war, Vergentorix, putting on his best armour, and equipping his horse, came out through the gates, and riding round Caesar who was seated, and then leaping down from his horse, he threw off his complete armour, and seating himself at Cæsar's feet, he remained there till he was delivered up to be kept for the triumph.

[Plutarch, Life of Caesar, XXVII]

Caesar himself gives us quite a different account in his own history of the Gallic wars:

Vercingetorix, having convened a council the following day, declared that he had undertaken that war, not on account of his own exigencies, but on account of the general freedom; and since he must yield to fortune, he offered himself to them for either purpose, whether they should wish to atone to the Romans by his death, or surrender him alive. Ambassadors are sent to Caesar on this subject. He orders their arms to be surrendered, and their chieftains delivered up. He seated himself at the head of the lines in front of the camp, the Gallic chieftains are brought before him. They surrender Vercingetorix, and lay down their arms.

[Caesar, de bello Gallico VII.89]

Aeolus

One of the clues in yesterday's cryptic crossword was "Ruler of the winds found in USA Leo (6)". The answer is (of course) Aeolus, the ruler of the winds according to Greek and Roman mythology (and an anagram of 'USA Leo').

In the opening lines of the Aeneid, Juno comes to Aeolus and asks him to set free his winds, in order to create a storm which will sink the Trojans' ships.

Here Aeolus is king and here in a vast cavern he keeps in subjection the brawling winds and howling storms, chained and bridled in their prison. They murmur in loud protest round bolted gates in the mountainside while Aeolus sits in his high citadel, holding his sceptre, soothing their spirits and tempering their angry passions. But for him they would catch up the sea, the earth and the deeps of the sky and sweep them along through space. In fear of this, the all powerful father banished them to these black caverns with massive mountains heaped over them, and gave them a fixed charter, a king who knew how to hold them in check or, when ordered, to let them run with free rein...

To Juno's request, Aeolus answers, "Your task, O queen, is to decide your wishes; my duty is to carry out your orders. It is thanks to you that I rule this little kingdom and enjoy this sceptre and the blessing of Jupiter. Through you I have a couch to lie on at the feasts of the gods, and my power over cloud and storm comes from you.'

At these words he struck the side of the hollow mountain with the butt of his spear and the winds seemed to form a column and pour out through an open gate to blow a hurricane over the whole earth. The east wind and the south and the south-west with its squalls all fell upon the sea at once, whipping it up from its bottom-most depths and rolling huge waves towards its shores. Men shouted, ropes screamed, clouds suddenly blotted out the light of the sky from the eyes of the Trojans and black night brooded ove the sea as the heavens thundered and lightning flashed again and again across the sky.

Aeneid I.52ff

My Fair Lady

On the weekend I went to see a production of My Fair Lady put on by my brother-in-law's school (he did a great job as freddy). If you don't know the story it's about a professor of phonetics who teaches a poor cockney girl to speak English the way he thinks it should be, and passes her off as an aristocrat.

The musical is based on the play Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw, which takes its title in turn from the myth of the sculptor Pygmalion, who made a sculpture so beautiful that he fell in love it (which should give you an idea of what happens in the musical). Here's how Ovid describes Pygmalion attempts to court his statue:

'...with marvellous artistry, he skillfully carved a snowy ivory statue. He made it lovelier than any woman born, and fell in love with his own creation... Often he ran his hands over the work, feeling it to see whether it was flesh or ivory, and would not yet admit that ivory was all it was. He kissed the statue, and imagined that it kissed him back, spoke to it and embraced it, and thought that he felt his fingers sink into the limbs he touched, so that he was afraid lest a bruise appear where he had pressed the flesh.

Sometimes he addressed it in flattering speeches, sometimes brought the kind of presents that girls enjoy: shells and polished pebbles, little birds and flowers of a thousand hues, lilies and painted balls, and drops of amber which fall from the trees that were once Phaeton's sisters. He dressed the limbs of his statue in woman's robes, and put rings on its fingers, long necklaces round its neck. Pearls hung from its ears, and chains were looped upon its breast. All this finery became the image well, but it was no less lovely unadorned.'

[Ovid, Metamorphoses X.247ff]