More later on what title and where, but it’s the Sacred Band item, and she wanted Ischade to do a walk-on, and wanted me to write it. So…I’m taking a bit of a busman’s holiday and going for a drive in that universe.
Ischade (pronounced ee-ShAHd) [short a]—is the morals enforcement division in Sanctuary. Or as a filksong has it: “It’s Ischade who keeps the streets all clean. She walks them every night…”
We’re under snow again today, about half a foot. It’ll all melt tonight, as we continue this striped weather pattern. People in lowlying areas of Washington on the Columbia drainage, heads-up. Fortunately the snowpack is staying unmelted in the mountains.
Right now the horizon toward Mt. Spokane is gorgeous. It’s rare that you see the mountains all snowcapped, usually just Mt Spokane, which is the only one to rise at all above the tree line, but right now all the peaks have snow halfway down their flanks, thick enough even the tree cover doesn’t show much.
Loved Thieves World. Also loved Heros in Hell, Ceaser was my favorite.
We’re working on getting the rights back. You’ve got an in-house vote for more Romans. I figure the two kids, Caesarion and Brutus, are in deep dutch after the affair in Tiberius’ house, and it may take the lawyer, Cicero, who really does NOT get along with Marcus Antonius, to bail them out…
Wonderful!
You need to toss in some more of the BC boys, like Cato the Elder, never mind Marius and Sulla.
Oh please do some more Heros in Hell!!! I adore your Roman series in it and have been following the misadventures of Caesarion and Brutus as I can trace them through the various, multi-writer paperbacks as well as your and related full books. Please!!!
As for snow: Boston is has gotten a nice Northeaster today (Wed. the 12th) which has laid down well over a foot here so far of pretty heavy snow. Smartcat: are you getting snow or rain in Rhode Island?
p.s. Legions in Hell makes a great read-aloud! And I have extra copies just so I can loan them to friends.
Hey Raesean…We got about a foot, I think….I haven’t been out since it stopped. We had a little sleet around dawn, the rest was snow. It came in bands. At one point I could look out the deck sliders well into the woods. Ten minutes later it was coming down so hard I could just see the outlines of the trees. From what I hear Boston survived very well. Hope you did not lose electricity or at least not for long. 😉
Heroes in Hell: How did I manage to miss it? 🙁 Can see that I have some catching up to do. There always new things under the sun.
Ischade was always a great favorite of ours. Proge introduced me to Thieve’s World when he was about twelve. Sort of a case of reverse osmosis. 8)
Hard to tell with the drifting, SmartCat, but I figure we got about 14 inches here, most of it in the morning. Today dawned sunny, with snow and ice crystals sparkling on the trees… utterly lovely!
Heroes in Hell is a “Shared Universe” series with some really good stories (in my biased opinion, Cj’s and others that interrelate their events and hers are best) and some really rather odd and occasionally disturbing stories. I strongly recommend starting with CJ’s stand-alone book in the series, Legions in Hell. The scene with Cleopatra, Caeser, Hatshepsut and the red Ferrari (I believe is the make) is simply one of the best combos of characters & action in literature. The problem is, it is a very difficult bool to find… although perhaps now that ABE.com and other on-line book stores exist, it would be easier.
I correct myself: I thought I would glance at said, excellent book before going to bed — it is Legions of Hell, not “in” Hell. It’s a really cute red Ferrari on the cover.
Romans and snow…
Vides ut alta stet nive candidum
Soracte, nec iam sustineant onus
silvae laborantes, geluque
flumina constiterint acuto.
See how Mount Soracte stands
Shining white with the deep snow.
The straining trees cannot now hold up their burden
And the streams are frozen with the biting cold.
http://www.merriampark.com/horcarm19.htm
Just substitute Spokane for Soracte. 😉
GreenWyvern,
Thank you for sharing that magnificent poem. My high school Latin is quite rusty, so the translation was also very much appreciated.
We had a succession of thunderstorms blow through early this morning, waking me up at 3:00… and 4:30… and 5… The library nearest me had to close, as did 2 schools, because the main drag was once again inundated with mud and impassable.
I never had Latin, but thanks to French and some Spanish (and bits of others, and language talent) I could make educated guesses at most of the poem. However, having the translation really helped. I notice the translation moves the words around to arrive at poetry in English. That’s a very fine Latin poem.
I haven’t read any of the Heroes in Hell books, though I’d heard of the series a couple of years ago. I *think* I’ve read one of the Thieves’ World books, but I can’t recall. — I’d love to read about the Romans.
Among my still-packed books, I should (I had better) have Lest Darkness Fall, by L. Sprague DeCamp. I loved the book. Seeing the Common Romance / very late Latin / very early Italian was great, besides all the goings-on in the book. I remember he had a couple of Middle Eastern characters too, to point out early Arabic math and science contributions.
But probably the earliest book (it had better still be there too) was a Christmas gift from science fiction loving friends, when I was about 12. I Am a Barbarian, by Edgar Rice Burroughs, which had a Celtic slave of the Romans as the central character, and a mention of a much younger Caligula.
I recently watched half of Carl Sagan’s amazing Cosmos series, which is available on DVD or via iTunes. His love of all learning and his admiration and fascination with ancient cultures, especially the Greeks and Romans, together with his frank comments on what they got right as well as what they got wrong, in their science and in their mysticism, I thought were truly enjoyable. It’s mainly thanks to one of those episodes that I came to understand why the loss of the Library at Alexandria was such a loss.
So… Wow, Caesarion, Brutus, Cicero, Marcus Antonius, and possibly Caesar… I think that merits another wow. I should check out the second season of HBO’s Rome series.
I suppose the strangest thing, to me, about the Greeks and Romans is how much they were both quite modern and advanced, and yet quite barbaric in some ways. But then, I’m not sure, some days particularly, just how civilized and non-barbaric our own culture is.
Anyway, more Romans, more Heroes in Hell, and more Thieves’ World, very much enjoyable.
CJ,
A while back I remember you mentioning the 500 year cycle – today I found an article:
Fall of Roman Empire linked to wild shifts in climate
Thought you might like to read it.
Wayne
Interesting. The MesoAmerican civilizations were hard-hit, too. Not to mention the Egyptians. The Romans got through one such decade, by shipping grain, and sharing-round the Empire…but the second time they got hit, it wasn’t so much what happened within Rome, as that they had deeply entangled their politics with the barbarians, and when their barbarian allies were being hard pushed by tribes in the hinterlands, things got wild. Look up a chap named Stilcho.
St Jerome, writing in 409 calls Stilicho ‘a half-barbarian traitor who with our money has armed our foes against us’, because of his gold payment to Alaric, who was threatening to invade Italy.
Jerome’s letter is very moving in describing the magnitude of the disaster facing Rome at this time:
A lot more at
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf206.v.CXXIII.html
(Scroll down to paragraph 16)
This post isn’t relevant to your post. I would like to recommend to you and your readers particularly of the foreigner series the book “In the land of invented languages” by Arika Okrent. The chapter in which she spends 4 days trying to translate the phrase “It is clear that there is no classification of the universe not being arbitrary and full of conjectures. The reason for this is very simple: we do not know what thing the universe is.” in to John Wilkins philosophical language of 1668 is very good demonstration of Bren’s problems with Mosphei and Ragi and how those problems are tackled. Ironically the trouble starts with the word clear. There is a later passage in which Okrent has been studying lojban, the logical language, and then finds herself unable to understand the question “What two numbers come after 6?” that reminded of Jase Grahams early struggles with Ragi.
While you are obviously already familiar with language translation problems this book articulates and illustrates the problems very clearly. I hope you can find the time to read it.
Even French occasionally presents items you can’t properly translate—you just figure out what they meant and say something of the kind in English. I find French the most frequently untranslatable of the Romance languages I handle. Italian is very cozy. Not counting Russian as Romance, it’s still fairly straightforward. I’m making some slow inroads into Japanese, which is proving to be one of those you just capish (comprehend) the topic and memorize some nice catch phrases that will get you out of trouble. Chinese, same thing: when you have to have subtitles for different Chinese-speaking regions, this should warn the beginning student! When in doubt, be polite…
But every language comes with its baggage: Vanye in the Italian version is referred to as a condottiere, which means a mercenary in a city-state army, what in the wild west we would call a hired gun, and in yet another language, a landsknecht—which he really isn’t unless the term embraces cavalry. Gives you a whole different color to the story, but a window on the thinking in the language.
Translation is a circus: and one of the hardest things to translate is a pun or a joke. What’s funny does not always translate, because most humor is based on someone’s unappropriate or inept behavior, and impropriety or ineptitude are culturally affected.
The landsknechts were definitely footmen. On the other hand IIRC, Vanye had been cast out of the landed nobility, so he couldn’t be called a Ritter or Edler. I think he would have been either a hussar or uhlan, although those were often light rather than heavy cavalry. This difficulty in finding a precise translation for his caste and function is entirely due to the anomalous status of a professional heavy horseman with no lands or title in a feudal-manorial society. He is much like a “Silver Dagger” from Katherine Kerr’s Deverry stories. Most of his angst is due to his loss of honor and having no place whatsoever in his world.
The trouble with translation is, every word and every concept has both denotations and connotatins, nuances, references, associations within the languages. Every word has some set of related ideas, besides the direct concept the word denotes. That core denoted concept may be a good bit different or just different enough from the other language that translating properly from one to the other presents a problem of how to get across the meaning in the best way possible. That’s difficult sometimes. Add to that the structures and idioms, humor, manners and customs, and it can get fuzzy.
I’ve found lately, when I’ve tried to watch two or three French films, that I’m more out of practice than I’d thought. My college French (up through literature classes) is now rusty on vocabulary and some tenses and prepositions and phrases, and I’m evidently weaker on interpreting spoken French than I’d thought, from various native speakers. Add in that I needed vocabulary back then, and wow, I feel out of my depth. But I want to regain my fluency, and build on it. I know even in college, I would’ve been walking around with my dictionary, looking up words often, and that’s with a command of the language that was very good…for a non-native college student who’d studied French throughout high school and into college. I could think, dream, and take notes in French (with bits of English and Spanish thrown in) if I wasn’t careful. So even being skilled, a good student, is not the same as immersion, living within the culture, breathing it, and it’s certainly a bit different after years of too-limited practice and exposure.
Last year, I began getting into anime more. CJ had suggested Bleach and Saiyuki, and I’d checked a few others per episode, aside from a handful I’ve seen over the years. Those were great suggestions, but for reasons that CJ, you may not have expected. I’ve found Bleach captures me more, and Saiyuki seems to jump around more. But quickly, I found there were things I wasn’t quite getting, and they were obviously cultural assumptions, customs, history and literature references, the behavior that fits within Japanese culture, just as our American culture carries around things from our past and our ways of doing things. I was getting the hang of it, but I was having to figure things out or just let them pass, as I went along. I was surprised at some of the things that are commonplace in the stories, and had a moment where I thought, “What the heck, did I just see, did they really mean what I think they meant?” And yes, they did indeed. For a minute there, the story, as well as my own frame of reference, did quite a spin. It, and thinking further on the differences, was good for me. It made me consider how “foreign” we can be, and yet there are examples of all sorts of things in human behavior and history, including our own Western outlook in former times. Times change and morals or mores can change. It also reminded me, strongly, that these (anime and manga) are fiction, sometimes trendy or avant garde, intended for certain audiences, and…just because the story has something, does not mean that is indicative of all Japanese culture, any more than our American movies, TV, music videos, news, or books are necessarily a true reflection of American culture. A story is often intentionally different or heightened for effect, to make its points and to entertain. It was definitely food for thought, and I thought I already knew, but clearly I would have a whole lot to learn, if I were to be immersed in a non-Western culture.
I recently bought a couple of books on Hindi and the Devanagari and a couple on Japanese. I figure if I like these enough to be paying attention, then I should learn a little more about them. (Somehow. But how to find the time, make the time, I’m not sure. Still, I want to.)
I’m hooked on the Bleach series, but I’m not sure how to explain why. In some ways, it’s not quite my cuppa, but in others, it’s a neat story and neat characters.
That’s one of the great things about science fiction and fantasy, or storytelling in general though. For a few hours or days, I can imagine what it would be like to be a starship officer, or an alien, or a warrior or knight errant, or maybe a rogue or thief or something far, far different than anything I might ever be in real life. What sort of person would I have been in the Roman empire? Or Norman and Saxon England? Or running around in Ice Age Europe? Feudal Japan? …Or that little hole in the wall pub tavern with the ogre and the elf and the dragon… Or that strange looking alien who looks like nothing at all in Earth biology, yet somehow is made of basically the same stuff. It’s looking at me funny… I think it either wants a date, or expects me to pay the tab… Just remembered a cargo of flatcats that need their litterbox changed….
Heheh.
Looking forward to Thieves’ World and such.
For example, AFAIK, man’chi falls about halfway in between the Hawaiian terms pono and kuleana. Pono refers to the concept of correctness or propriety, but with a strong moral obligation; in the Hawaiian state motto “Ua Mau Ke Ea O Ka Aina I Ka Pono”, The Life of the Land is Perpetuated in Righteousness, where pono is translated as ‘righteousness’, there is a feeling of “do the right thing” in your caretaking. Kuleana means responsibility, again with the caretaking. You are obligated to take care of and do right by the people and lands that look to you!
Chondrite, I’ve never been good at the abbreviated language of the Internet: what’s AFAIK? I presume it is an abbreviation, like LOL, which I eventually have remembered.
AFAIK = as far as I know. Disclaimer implied 😀
Could this mean more Thieves’ World? I loved those books when I was kid. Good thing my parents failed to pay attention what was on my bookshelf.
Ooo! Heroes In Hell! Can I haz mor Mouse? Plz?
I loved Mouse. Caesarion and Brutus were interesting (they sort of remind me of Christian and Tom, respectively, aboard Corinthian) but it was Decius Mus who kept my attention.
Yep, loved Decius Mus. Real hero material.
“Decius Mus”? Either that family really liked mice, or it’s really time to get a cat or two…or move! “Decius Mus” — “Tenth Mouse” — Just consider. I mean, really!
On the other hand, mice can be kinda cute, nice…. Just look at Mouse from Ladyhawk.
So perhaps they liked mice for their more…esoteric qualities?
No, I have no idea who Decius Mus was. I may have seriously impugned the honor of a fine gentleman…or a terrible rogue…or an angry warrior. It would help greatly if I knew much at all about Roman and Greek history and literature, who the notable people of those days really were.
I think I’d better check Wiki for Decius Mus. I could be in real trouble, here. …Great, I can just imagine having to shout, “Help, I’m being chased by a Mouse!”
(Hmm, actually, I think “tenth” is “decimus,” but “Decius” is related to “ten, tenth” some way, unless I’m mistaking the root.)
BCS…..I have to admit that I originally read Decius Mus as Deus Mus, which led to some *really interesting* thoughts on the character. 8)
Publius = personal name
Decius = family name (surname, last name)
Mus = ‘cognomen’ – like a nickname, only more official, and often inherited.
The same with Gaius Julius Caesar – Julius is actually his family name, not his personal name.
Roman cognomina can seem pretty strange if you look at the meaning.
Cicero = chickpea
Brutus = dull
Cato = clever
Crassus = fat
Longus = tall
Paulus = small
Lentulus = a bit slow
Superbus = arrogant
Rufus = red-head
Flavus = blonde
Flavius = belonging to the Flavus family
Maximus = the greatest
Tacitus = silent
Agricola = farmer
Faber = carpenter
Pictor = painter
Caepio = onion seller
Corvinus = like a raven
Asellio = little donkey
Pavo = peacock
Merenda = afternoon snack
Plautus = flat-footed
Scipio = like a stick
Some Roman poets:
Publius Virgilius Maro (Virgil or Vergil): Maro = from the sea
Quintus Horatius Flaccus (Horace): Flaccus = floppy ears
Publius Ovidius Naso (Ovid): Naso = big nose
So Mus = mouse isn’t really all that strange by comparison.
🙂
Roman names really are neat, when you understand what they mean.
I should mention that CJ is partly responsible for me trying to learn Latin, thanks to her part of Heros in Hell.
Merci, gracias, Green Wyvern. Besides “Mus,” of all of those, “Caepio, Onion Seller,” somehow appeals to me.
So cognomen (cognomeni? -ae? -a?) might be inherited? But they look like something that might be applied as a nickname within the family or by friends (or perhaps not quite friends) in childhood. I know cognomen itself is “the name one by which one is known (cogn- + nomen). Yet it carries with a person through life? What about renaming? Would a person rename him-/herself or have a new epithet bestowed upon him-/herself?