Over the holiday weekend, Tim Spalding of LibraryThing added a feature to Common Knowledge (the site's book-oriented wiki) to record a work's epigraphs. In the discussion leading up to this in Talk (the site's social network), Tim mentioned Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner's The Gilded Age and its satirizing polyglot epigraphs.
From the authors' Preface:
No apology is needed for following the learned custom of placing attractive scraps of literature at the heads of our chapters. It has been truly observed by Wagner that such headings, with their vague suggestions of the matter which is to follow them, pleasantly inflame the reader's interest without wholly satisfying his curiosity, and we will hope that it may be found to be so in the present case.
Our quotations are set in a vast number of tongues; this is done for the reason that very few foreign nations among whom the book will circulate can read in any language but their own; whereas we do not write for a particular class or sect or nation, but to take in the whole world.
I thought it would be fun to actually transcribe these mottoes, which appear at the head of each chapter, into LT. And, since so many 19th century books have been digitized, it is easy to find many of the sources and check them. A couple of the mottoes have enough to do with the admittedly loosely defined charter of this blog for me to post the results here.
The chapter mottoes for The Gilded Age (1873) are the work of James Hammond Trumbull, friend and neighbor of Samuel Clemens. Trumbull featured in an earlier post here as an authority on the etymology of the word squash.
A footnote in Paine's biography of Mark Twain, says:
There was another co-worker on The Gilded Age before the book was finally completed. This was J. Hammond Trumbull, who prepared the variegated, marvelous cryptographic chapter headings. Trumbull was the most learned man that ever lived in Hartford. He was familiar with all literary and scientific data, and according to Clemens could swear in twenty-seven languages. It was thought to be a choice idea to get Trumbull to supply a lingual medley of quotations to precede the chapters in the new book, the purpose being to excite interest and possibly to amuse the reader—a purpose which to some extent appears to have miscarried.
And so swearing in 27 languages has become a standard part of Trumbull's biography. I have not been able to locate anywhere where Clemens actually says this, though. He did write an obituary for Century Magazine (November, 1897, p. 154).
Critical reaction was understandably varied, with some seeing it as another aspect of the satire and others being confused. For example, a review by F. B. Perkins in Old and New (Vol. IX, March 1874, p. 387: entire volume in the Internet Archive; preview of this and other contemporary reviews in Google Books) said:
In the First American Edition, the mottoes appeared with no explanation at all. In the 1899 Author's National Edition of Twain's works, a note was added and Trumbull's translations were put in an appendix to each of two volumes, though Trumbull had died in the interim. These show that the mottoes are both real and relevant and present some of Trumbull's own satire of scholarly notes (e.g., XXXVII & XLI).Nor must the grotesque parody on the motto business, at the chapter-heads, be overlooked. We strongly suspect that the writers may have purchased an assorted lot of spare mottoes from Mr. Trumbull, Prof. Whitney, or some of the other Connecticut linguists. There used to be, in “Horne's Introduction,” or some such book, a set of specimens of the type used in the various translations of the Bible, which we thought at first had been transcribed; but we missed the Burmese passage. But Old French, Anglo-Saxon, Ethiopic, Erse, Syriac, ancient Mexican, Basque, Russian, Armenian, Chinese, Sanscrit, and in particular Chinook and Kanaka (which Mr. Clemens could furnish), Natick Indian, and other kindred language (which Mr. Trumbull could furnish), and even English, occur to us. Still, if Messrs. Clemens and Warner, or either of them, do habitually study in these and all the other languages of their mottoes, we beg to apologize, and wish them joy.
Modern editions tend to print the earlier text, with the translations appendix. This means that the amplifications and corrections to the mottoes proper from the later edition are not present. Even worse, since these are so hard to proofread, some further new errors have slipped in.
In the transcription below, I have mostly followed the later edition, except where it introduced errors or formatting inconsistencies. Links to both versions are included. I have corrected (and noted) simple printer's errors with the unusual languages and scripts. More substantial mysteries I have left alone (and noted). Where sources can be located straightforwardly and no commentary is called for, I have simply linked to them inline. Where no translation source is cited, and I have not found the text, and the language is popular enough, such as French or Latin, I assume it is Trumbull's own and do not call attention to it further. I have sometimes abbreviated The Gilded Age as GA.
Formatting is a bit of a challenge, since some chapters have more than one motto, each of which may or may not have either translation or commentary. So, I've compromised on interleaving the translations (rather than giving all the chapter's mottoes, then all their translations, then any commentary) and adding a little mark in the margin to distinguish mottoes and Trumbull's translations.
According to Bryant Morey French's Mark Twain and The Gilded Age: The Book That Named an Era, the original holograph of Trumbull's notes is in the Mark Twain Library (SM-TR-1). It might be interesting to get a scan or photocopy of this. French's article “James Hammond Trumbull's Alternative Chapter: Headings for The Gilded Age” (Philological Quarterly, April 1971, pp. 271-280; the journal has been scanned and so can be accessed from a decent reference library, but I can't deep link to it) gives some of the choices Trumbull offered the authors, based on the same material. These alternatives are worked into footnotes to the endnotes of the 1972 Bobbs-Merrill edition, edited by French, together with brief bibliographical and biographical data for some of the works and authors. The editor of the Penguin Classics edition only alludes to these notes, presumably due to copyright concerns.
協力山成玉
同心坭變金Chinese: Hie li shán ching yŭ: tung sin ní pien kin.
Literally, By combined strength, a mountain becomes gems: by united hearts, mud turns to gold.
[A maxim often painted on the door-posts of a Chinese firm—which may be freely translated—Two heads, working together, out of commonplace materials, bring The Gilded Age.]
In Pinyin, xie2 li4 shan1 cheng2 yu4, tong2xin1 ni2 bian4 jin1. In addition to mud, the same proverb is written with 土 tu3 'earth'. There is no indication of an immediate source and hunting around I am unable to locate a likely one.
Nibiwa win o-dibendan aki.
Chippeway: “He owns much land.”—Baraga.
As will be seen below, this second edition of Baraga (the only one in GB) probably wasn't the one used; the first edition is in the Internet Archive (phrase appears on p. 375).
Eng. A gallant tract
Of land it is!
Meercraft. 'Twill yield a pound an acre:
We must let cheap ever at first. But, sir,
This looks too large for you, I see.
Ben Jonson. The Devil is an Ass.
መፍትው፡ሕዝበ፡ክርስቲያን፡እለ፡አልቦሙ፡ውሉደ፡
ይሕፅንዎሙ፡ለእጓለ፡ማውታ፡ወራዙት፡ወደናግል፡
ወይረስይዎሙ፡ከመ፡ውሉዶሙ፡ወፈድፋደ[፡ያፍቅርዎሙ]።Ethiopic: “It behoveth Christian people who have not children, to take up the children of the departed, whether youths or virgins, and to make them as their own children,” etc.
The Didascalia (translated by T. Platt), 121.
The Internet Archive has a scan of the work from microform; the meta-data for the series is off by one, so while it appears that this is it, actually this is (p. 121 is 146 in the PDF). The text:
maftəw ḥəzba krəstiyān ʾəla ʾaləbomu wəluda yəḥṣ́ənəwwomu laʾəgwāla māwtā warāzut wadanāgəl wayrasyəwwomu kama wəludomu wafadfāda yāfqərəwwomu.
was abbreviated to just what is on that page, or to avoid taking up another line. Platt's translation continues (on the next page) “and love them yet more.” One word is omitted, ያፍቅርዎሙ yāfqərəwwomu 'they (masc.) love them (masc.) (subj.)', leaving the quotation to end with ወፈድፋደ wafadfāda 'and abundantly', which doesn't really work.
Babillebabou! (disoit-il) voici pis qu'antan. Fuyons! C'est, par la mort bœuf! Leviathan, descript par le noble prophete Moses en la vie du sainct home Job. Il nous avallera tous, comme pilules. … Voy le cy. O que tu es horrible et abhominable! … Ho ho! Diable, Satanas, Leviathan! Je ne te peux veoir, tant tu es ideux et detestable.
Rabelais Pantagruel, b. iv, c. 33.Old French: [Pantagruel and Panurge, on their voyage to the Oracle of Bacbuc, are frightened by seeing afar off, “a huge monstrous physeter.” “Poor Panurge began to cry and howl worse than ever:] Babillebabou, said he, [shrugging up his shoulders, quivering with fear, there will be the devil upon dun.] This will be a worse business than that the other day. Let us fly, let us fly! Old Nick take me, if it is not Leviathan, described by the noble prophet Moses, in the life of patient Job. It will swallow us all like a dose of pills. … Look, look, it is upon us. Oh! how horrible and abominable thou art! … Oh, oh! Devil, Sathanas, Leviathan! I cannot bear to look upon thee, thou art so abominably ugly.”—Motteux's Translation.
The earlier GA edition has Mosis for Moses.
—Seventhly, Before his Voyage, He should make his peace with God, satisfie his Creditors if he be in debt; Pray earnestly to God to prosper him in his Voyage, and to keep him from danger, and, if he be sui juris, he should make his last will, and wisely order all his affairs, since many that go far abroad, return not home. (This good and Christian Counsel is given by Martinus Zeilerus in his Apodemical Canons before his Itinerary of Spain and Portugal.)
Leigh's Diatribe of Travel, p. 7.
The original text (EEBO; anthologized) included one more to-do item between peace with God and satisfy creditors, “Receive the Lord's Supper.” (Martin Zeiler's Hispaniae et Lusitaniae itinerarium is online; the Canones Apodemici are on p. 20.)
دهِئَڙىَ کهٖي اُتهَارٖي پَنْهَن جٖي کهَرِ وِهَارٖي پَاڙهِينْدَا هُئَسِ
Sindhi: “Having removed the little daughter, and placed her in their own house, they instructed her.”—Life of Abd-ul-Latif, 46 (cited in Trumpp's Sindhi grammar, p. 356).
In Trumpp's transliteration scheme, dhiaṛia khē uthārē panhan ǰē khari wihārē pāṛhīndā huasa. The Sindhi subscript alef vowel does not seem to render very well on Windows.
Il veut faire sécher de la neige au four et la vendre pour du sel blanc.
French Proverb: He would dry snow in the oven, to sell it for table salt.—Quitard, 193.
十年前事幾翻新
Chinese: [Shap neen tseen sze, ke fan sun.] The affairs of ten years past, how often have they been new.
A more modern Cantonese transliteration (Jyutping) would be sap6 nin4 cin4 si6 gei2 faan1 san1. The phrase appears to come from this book.
Mesu eu azheïâshet
Washkebemâtizitâking,
Nâwuj beshegandâguzé
Mauwâbegönig edush wen.
Ojibwa Nugumoshäng, p. 78.Chippeway. “So blooms the human face divine,
When youth its pride of beauty shows:
Fairer than Spring the colors shine,
And sweeter than the virgin rose.”
Ojibwa Hymns. (Am. Tract Society), p. 78.
The later GA edition adds the dieresis on begönig. Note that the title is actually Ojibwa Nugumoshäng, with an m, not a wi, and that the printed hymns have hyphens separating the syllables.
Via, Pecunia! when she's run and gone
And fled, and dead, then will I fetch her again
With aqua vitӕ, out of an old hogshead!
While there are lees of wine, or dregs of beer,
I'll never want her! Coin her out of cobwebs,
Dust, but I'll have her! raise wool upon egg-shells,
Sir, and make grass grow out of marrow-bones,
To make her come!
Ben Jonson.
—Whan þe borde is thynne, as of seruyse,
Nought replenesshed with grete diuersite
Of mete & drinke, good chere may then suffise
With honest talkyng—
The Book of Curtesye.Mammon. Come on, sir. Now, you set your foot on shore
In Novo Orbe; here's the rich Peru:
And there, within, sir, are the golden mines,
Great Solomon's Ophir!—
Ben Jonson. The Alchemist.
Quando ti veddi per la prima volta,
Parse che mi s'aprisse il paradiso,
E venissano gli angioli a un per volta
Tutti ad apporsi sopra al tuo bel viso,
Tutti ad apporsi sopra il tuo bel volto;
M'incatenasti, e non mi so'anco sciolto—
J. Caselli. Chants popul. de l'Italie, 21.Italian: When I saw thee for the first time, it seemed to me that paradise was opened, and that the angels were coming, one by one, all to rest on thy lovely face, all to rest on thy beautiful head; Thou bindest me in chains, and I cannot loose myself.
J. Caselli, Chants popul de l'Italie, 21.
The earlier printing has a defective a, so some later editions (for instance, the Library of America one) have veniss no.
Yʋmohmi hoka, himak a̱̱ yakni ilʋppʋt immi ha chi̱̱ ho̱̱—
Choctaw: “Now therefore divide this land for an inheritance.”— Joshua, xiii. 7.
—Tajma kittôrnaminut innèiziungnǽrame, isikkæne sinikbingmun illièj, annerningærdlunilo siurdliminut piok.
Mos. Agl. Siurdl. 49.32.Eskimo (Greenland), from Fabricius's translation of Genesis:—“And when he had made an end of commanding his sons, he gathered up his feet into the bed, and yielded up the ghost, and was gathered unto his people.”
First Book of Moses, xlix. 32.
It does not seem to be online, but I scanned the relevant page (198) from Testamentitokamit, mosesim aglegèj siurdleet. The GA text is missing an accent on innèiziungnǽrame.
—Okarbigàlo: “Kia pannigátit? Assarsara! uamnut nevsoïngoarna”—
Mo. Agleg. Siurdl. 24.23.Eskimo:—“And said, ‘Whose daughter art thou? tell me, I pray thee.’”— Gen. xxiv. 23.
Again, I scanned the page (84) of Fabricius's Genesis.
Nꝏtah nuttaunes, natwontash,
Kukkeihtash, wonk yeuyeu
Wannanum kummissinninnumog
Kah Kꝏsh week pannuppu.Massachusetts Indian (Eliot's version of Psalm xlv. 10): “Harken, O daughter, and consider, and incline thine ear; forget also thine own people, and thy father's house.”
The earlier edition properly uses Eliot's vowel ꝏ; later editions tend to just write oo. This is Eliot's metrical version of the Psalm. The metrical Psalms were published separately (see entries in this bibliography) and as well as bound with the 1663 Bible (EEBO). The main Bible contains a prose translation, in both the 1663 (EEBO) and 1685 (EEBO) editions:
Nꝏtah (nuttaunes) kah natwontash kah kukkeitash: wannanum wonk nehenwonche kummissinninnumog, kah kꝏsh week.
The extra words added to fit the metre are yeuyeu 'now' and pannuppu 'thoroughly'.
Trumbull later owned an Eliot Bible, which he bought at the Brinley sale for $500, “very appropriately,” the New York Times wrote, as he was, “the only man in the wide world who can read the language in which it is printed.” He made a detailed study of Eliot's translations, publishing a paper on mistakes others had made in similar efforts. And of the Algonquian languages generally: in addition to the paper cited in the earlier post and the posthumous Natick Dictionary, he wrote one on native words in English and another detailing 40 versions of the Lord's Prayer, of particular interest to Pater Noster collectors. Of further interest for this blog were studies of native food plant words: he co-authored (with Asa Gray) a note on the Jerusalem Artichoke and a review of de Candolle (Part I, II, III; mentioned in this biography). His chronicle, “Origin and early progress of Indian missions in New England,” is snippet view. (But available in the Hathi Trust. For even more, see the entries in that same bibliography.)
—La Giannetta rispose: Madama, voi dalla povertà di mio padre togliendomi, come figliuola cresciuta m'avete, e per questo ogni vostro piacer far dovrei—
Boccacio, Decam. Giorno 2, Nov. 8.Italian:—“Jeannette answered: 'Madame, you have taken me from my father and brought me up as your own child, and for this I ought to do all in my power to please you.”
The GA text prints agni for ogni.
くらへどもあじしらず
Japan: Though he eats, he knows not the taste of what he eats.
The handwritten text uses a hentaigana form of し shi, based on 志; fortunately, it's one of the common ones and even included in the Wikipedia's short sample. It took me a bit to realize that it is written right-to-left — after remembering that 'taste' is aji (あじ = 味) from reading an interesting article on the history of MSG and the Ajinomoto Company in Gastronomica. So it reads, kurahedomo aji shirazu. I did not find this online in this form, but in comments below and at LanguageHat, John Emerson and IllVes recognize this as the Japanese version of a passage from commentary by Zengzi (曾子) on The Great Learning (大學; VII, 2):
心焉に在らざれば、視れども見えず、聴けども聞こえず、食らえども其の味を知らず。
kokoro koko ni arazareba, miredomo miezu, kikedomo kikoezu, kuraedomo sono aji o mirazu.
心不在焉、視而不見、聽而不聞、食而不知其味。
xin1 bu4 zai4 yan1, shi4 er2 bu4 jian4, ting1 er2 bu4 wen2, shi2 er2 bu4 zhi1 qi2 wei4.
When the mind is not present, we look and do not see; we hear and do not understand; we eat and do not know the taste of what we eat. (tr. Legge)
Todtenbuch, 141. 17, 4.Egyptian (from the Book of the Dead, or Funereal Ritual, edited by Lepsius from the Turin papyrus; translated by Birch). “The Preparation in the West. The Roads of the West.”
Birch's translation appears in Bunsen's Egypt's Place in Universal History, vol. 5. The papyrus is item 1791 in the Museo Egizio di Torino; the Italian government commissioned a small number of special reproductions for diplomatic purposes, but did not make the digital photos available. Lepsius's plates are also reproduced in Davis's Egyptian Book of the Dead, which I have a copy of and from which I have made a bigger scan of the relevant plate. The Egyptian text is online in the TLA, but has been somewhat normalized by lemma so that you cannot always tell how something is spelled. There: 141 [17,3]: jqr m jmn.tt; 141 [4,3]: w3.wt jmn.tt.
What ever to say he toke in his entente,
his langage was so fayer & pertynante,
yt semeth vnto manys herying
not only the worde, but veryly the thyng.
Caxton's Book of Curtesye, l. 340-343 (ed., E. E. Text Society).
The exact spelling is that in the Preface to the EETS edition, not the critical text, which like Caxton's printing (EEBO; reprint) had slightly different spelling, such fayr and mannys. This also explains why the line numbers are off: the reference there is to 343, meaning the last line, not the first.
Pulchra duos inter sita stat Philadelphia rivos;
Inter quos duo sunt millia longa viæ.
Delawar his major, Sculkil minor ille vocatur;
Indis et Suevis notus uterque diu.
Hîc plateas mensor spatiis delineat æquis,
Et domui recto est ordine juncta domus.
T. Makin.From Thomas Makin's Description of Pennsylvania (Descriptio Pennsylvaniæ) 1729. Translated [?] by Robert Proud:
“Fair Philadelphia next is rising seen,
Between two rivers plac'd, two miles between,
The Delaware and Sculkil, new to fame,
Both ancient streams, yet of a modern name.
The city, form'd upon a beauteous plan,
Has many houses built, tho' late began;
Rectangular the streets, direct and fair;
And rectilinear all the ranges are.”
Two lines are left out of the Latin, though all eight are included in the translation (which does not quite line up line-for-line):
Ædibus ornatur multis urbs limite longo,
Quæ parva emicuit tempore magna brevi.
Vergin era fra lor di già matura
Verginità, d'alti pensieri e regi,
D'alta beltà; ma sua beltà non cura,
O tanta sol, quant' onestà sen fregi.
Tasso.Italian (translated by Wiffen—from Tasso):
“Of generous thoughts and principles sublime,
Amongst them in the city lived a maid,
The flower of virgins, in her ripest prime,
Supremely beautiful! but that she made
Never her care, or beauty only weighed
In worth with virtue.”
Jerusalem Delivered, c. ii., st. 14.
—Rationalem quidem puto medicinam esse debere: instrui vero ab evidentibus causis; obscuris omnibus non à cogitatione artificis, sed ab ipsa arte rejectis. Incidere autem vivorum corpora, et crudele, et supervacuum est: mortuorum corpora discentibus necessarium.
Celsus.Latin: [Celsus] I think the healing art ought to be based on reason to be sure, and too that it should be founded on unmistakable evidences, all uncertainties being rejected, not from the serious attention of a physician, but from the very profession itself.
The same English translation occurs in this magazine, but since it's a snippet, it's hard to tell what the original source is.
Todtenbuch, 117. 1, 3.Egyptian (from the Book of the Dead), in Birch translation: “I have come.” “Make Road expresses what I am” (i.e., is my name).
Again, I have scanned the relevant plate from Davis. Also online in the TLA: 117 [1] jy.n.j; [3] jrt w3t twt sw[t] jnk.
—“We have view'd it,
And measur'd it within all, by the scale:
The richest tract of land, love, in the kingdom!
There will be made seventeen or eighteen millions,
Or more, as't may be handled!
Ben Jonson. The Devil is an Ass.
ⵏⵔⵜⴳⵎⴹⵙⴾⵍⵏⵜⵏⵔⴰ
ⵓⵔⵉⵈⵎⵍⵙⵓⵔⵏⵜⵜⴾⴰ
Bedda ag Idda.Tamachekh (Touareg): From an improvisation by a native poet, at Algiers; printed by Hanoteau, Essai de Grammaise de Langue Tamackek, p. 207.
—If she should come to our country (the plains), there is not a man who would not run to see her.
Hanoteau also gives a transliteration:
enner teg'medh s ikallen n tiniri
our ik'k'im ales our en tet ikki.
The Tifinagh character set in Unicode is just the bare minimum: there is no support for the square ⵔ, or the directional variants of ⵎ and ⴳ when writing right-to-left, or the diagonal variant of ⵏ used when it is next to ⵍ or another ⵏ. The title of the book is printed Langeu.
—“E ve us lo covinentz qals er,
Que voill que m prendatz a moiler.
—Qu'en aissi l'a Dieus establida,
Per que non pot esser partida.” Roman de Jaufre.
Raynouard. Lexique Roman, i. 139.Romance:
—“Enough! she cries, henceforth thou art
The friend and master of my heart.
No other covenant I require
Than this: ‘I take thee for my wife.’
That done, enjoy thy heart's desire,
Of me and mine the lord for life.”
A. Bruce Whyte's paraphrase.
Eight lines are omitted from the Occitan, though nothing is trimmed from the corresponding translation. The earlier GA edition has Eve for E ve, convintz for covinentz, and prendats for prendatz.
Wie entwickeln ſich doch ſchnelle,
Aus der flüchtigſten Empfindung,
Leidenſchaften ohne Grenzen
Und die zärtlichſte Verbindung!
Täglich wächſt zu dieſer Dame
Meines Herzens tiefſte Neigung,
Und dass ich in ſie verliebt ſei,
Wird mir faſt zür Ueberzeugung.
HeineGerman: from the “Book of Songs” (Angelique, 4) of Heine.
“O how rapidly develop
From mere fugitive sensations
Passions that are fierce and boundless,
Tenderest associations!
Tow'rds this lady grows the bias
Of my heart on each occasion,
And that I'm enamoured of her
Has become my firm persuasion.”
The English translation appears to be Bowring's.
—Buaḃall bionngloraċ go mbuaiḋ ninnscne & nurlaḃra ceille, & coṁairle, go ttaidḃriḋ seirce ina ḋreiċ attar lá gaċ aen at as cíoḋ—
Old Irish: from the Annals of the Four Masters (vol. vi., p. 2298). O'Donovan translates:
—“A sweet-sounding trumpet; endowed with the gift of eloquence and address, of sense and counsel, and with the look of amiability in his countenance, which captivated every one who beheld him.”
Both text (in Roman type) and translation have also been transcribed into CELT. There is one vowel difference: ttaidbhridh for ttaidbhredh; the character written as e (another convention is to use ę) is the “tall e”. O'Donovan's font had it, but Trumbull's may not have; none of the Unicode fonts I can find do. A scan of the original manuscript is in ISOS; the cited passage is f. 273 r, starting on the third line at the right (the troublesome word is at the end of the next line).
Unusquisque sua noverit ire via.—
Propert. Eleg. ii. 25.[Let each one know how to follow his own path.]
O lift your natures up:
Embrace our aims: work out your freedom. Girls,
Knowledge is now no more a fountain sealed;
Drink deep until the habits of the slave,
The sins of emptiness, gossip and spite
And slander, die.
The Princess.
Wohl giebt es im Leben kein süsseres Glück,
Als der Liebe Geständniss im Liebchen's Blick;
Wohl giebt es im Leben nicht höhere Lust,
Als Freuden der Liebe an liebender Brust.
Dem hat nie das Leben freundlich begegnet,
Den nicht die Weihe der Liebe gesegnet.
Doch der Liebe Glück, so himmlisch, so schön
Kann nie ohne Glauben an Tugend bestehn.
Körner.“Is there on earth such a transport as this,
When the look of the loved one avows her bliss?
Can life an equal joy impart
To the bliss that lives in a lover's heart?
O! he, be assured, hath never proved
Life's holiest joys who hath never loved!
Yet the joys of love, so heavenly fair,
Can exist but when honor and virtue are there.”
Translated by Richardson.O ke aloha ka mea i oi aku ka maikai mamua o ka umeki poi a me ka ipukaia.
Hawaiian: Love is that which excels in attractiveness (is much better than) the dish of poi and the fish-bowl (the favorite dishes of the Islanders).
I imagine that all the Hawaiian mottoes (see also XLVIII and LXIII) came from a single source, as most other languages that occur more than once do. If so, it seems to be Lorrin Andrews's Dictionary of the Hawaiian Language, although the translations are not verbatim. This proverb occurs here.
“O see ye not yon narrow road
So thick beset wi' thorns and briers?
That is the Path of Righteousness,
Though after it but few inquires.
“And see ye not yon braid, braid road,
That lies across the lily leven?
That is the Path of Wickedness,
Though some call it the road to Heaven.”
Thomas the Rhymer.
Cante-teca. Iapi-Waxte otonwe kin he cajeyatapi nawaḣon; otonwe wijice ḣinca keyapi se wacanmi.
Toketu-kaxta. Han, hecetu; takuwicawaye wijicapi ota hen tipi.
Mahp. Ekta Oicim. ya.Sioux-Dakota (from Riggs's translation of Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress).
“Christian. This town of Fair-Speech—I have heard of it; and as I remember, they say it's a wealthy place.
By-Ends. Yes, I assure you that it is; and I have very many rich kindred there.”
I cannot find Riggs's Mahpiya Ekta Oicimani ya online, but I have scanned the relevant page (157).
𒀀𒂡 𒆗𒆗𒋾
Assyrian:—“A place very difficult.”
Smith's Assurbanipal, p. 269 (l. 90).
(A Neo-Assyrian Unicode font can be downloaded here.) Smith transliterates this text, from Prism A, col. viii, a-sar dan-dan-ti. Others, including Streck, read the second word as kal-kal-ti (same sign, different phonetic; snippet; unfortunately, the Internet Archive only has Vol. I), 'hunger', so that the sense of the phrase is 'wasteland'. (See this translation and its endnote; and CAD s.v. galgaltu A.)
பணம் மெத்த அரிதாய் இருக்கி்றது
Tamul: Money is very scarce.
The phrase, paṇam metta aritāy irukkiṟatu, appears to come from a phrase-book intended to teach English to Tamil speakers. As printed in GA, பணம் எமத்த அரிதாய் இருக்தி்றது, there are a couple of printer's errors where similar looking letters are substituted. Using the initial isolated form of the vowel instead of the combining form (which goes on the left) makes எமத்த ematta. I don't think இருக்தி்றது iruktiṟatu, with a த t instead of க k, is a form of இரு iru 'to be'; it may not even be phonologically sound. In addition to இருக்கி்றது irukkiṟatu, another version of the phrase-book has இருக்கி்று irukkiṟa (or I'm being faked out by the edge of the scan), and yet another one that looks to be a somewhat different dialect, ருக்கின்றது rukkiṉṟatu.
Egyptian: “Things prepare I. I prepare a road.”
Book of the Dead, xliv. 117. 1, 2.
The same plate and TLA section as XVI: [1] ḫy zmn.n.j; [2] wpi.n.j w3t.
ὡς οὖν τὰ πραχθέντ᾽ἔβλεπεν, τυφλὸς γεγώς,
οὐ μὴν ὑπέπτηξ᾽ οὐδέν, ἀλλ᾽ εὐκαρδίως
βάτον τιν᾽ ἄλλην ἤλατ᾽ εἰς ἀκανθίνην,
κἀκ τοῦδ᾽ ἐγένετ᾽ ἐξαῦθις ἐκ τυφλοῦ βλέπων.
Bishop Butler. In Arundines Cami.Greek (post-classical):
“And when he saw his eyes were out,
With all his might and main,
He jumped into another bush,
And scratched them in again.”
As printed in GA, a couple of the Greek acute accents are turned into grave and a breathing mark is missing. Bishop Butler, S.B. in the source, is Samuel Butler, the grandfather of the author of Erewhon.
Hvo der vil kjöbe Pölse af Hunden maa give ham Flesk igjen.
Danish proverb: “He who would buy sausage of a dog, must give him bacon in exchange.”
The Danish proverb is probably from this polyglot collection.
—Mit seinem eignen Verstande wurde Thrasyllus schwerlich durchgekommen seyn. Aber in solchen Fällen finden seinesgleichen für ihr Geld immer einen Spitzbuben, der ihnen seinen Kopf leiht; und dann ist es so viel als ob sie selbst einen hätten.
Wieland. Die Abderiten.German: “Thrasyllus, with his unaided intellect, would not have succeeded; but such worthies can always find rogues who for money will lend brains, which is just as well as to have brains of their own.”
The translation of Wieland may be based on Christmas's.
—Mihma hatak ash osh ilhkolit yakni ya̱ hlopullit tʋmaha holihta ʋlhpisa ho̱ kʋshkoa untuklo ho̱ hollissochit holisso afohkit tahli cha.
Chosh. 18.9.Choctaw translation of Joshua xviii. 9: “And the men went and passed through the land, and described it [by cities, into seven parts] in a book.”
—Gran pensier volgo; e, se tu lui secondi,
Seguiranno gli effetti alle speranze:
Tessi la tela, ch' io ti mostro ordita,
Di cauto vecchio esecutrice ardita.
Tasso.Italian: in Wiffen's translation: “I nurse a mighty project: the design
But needs thy gentle guidance to commend
My hopes to sure success; the thread I twine;
Weave thou the web, the lively colors blend;
What cautious Age begins, let Dauntless Beauty end.”Bella domna vostre socors
M'agra mestier, s'a vos plagues.
B. de Ventadour.Provençal: “Fair lady, your help is needful to me, if you please.”
All the editions of Bernard de Ventadour that I can find, such as this collection of troubadour poetry, have bella, not belle.
Deh! ben fôra all' incontro ufficio umano,
E ben n'avresti tu gioja e diletto,
Se la pietosa tua medica mano
Avvicinassi al valoroso petto.
Tasso.Italian: from the Jerusalem Delivered, c. vi. st. 76:
“It would be some humanity to stand
His dutiful physician! what delight
Would it not be to lay thy healing hand
Upon the young man's breast!”
Wiffen.
The GA text prints bed for ben. There is a lot of variability in 19th century spelling of 16th century poetry, and some effort is required to find an edition that matches the four selections as given, but I am pretty sure that this is an error. I cannot locate any version of Wiffen's translation that has “young man” and not “brave man” for valoroso, but that may be intentional.
She, gracious lady, yet no paines did spare
To doe him ease, or doe him remedy:
Many restoratives of vertues rare
And costly cordialles she did apply,
To mitigate his stubborne malady.
Spenser's Faerie Queene.
Lo, swiche sleightes and subtiltees
In women ben; for ay as besy as bees
Ben they us sely men for to deceive,
And from a sothe wol they ever weive.
Chaucer.
This obviously really is Chaucer, from The Squire's Prologue, but I am not sure whose edition. In particular, based on the spelling in the various manuscripts, those that have subtiltees instead of subtilitees seem to have wommen for women. I am not, however, prepared to say that no such edition exists.
—Itancan Ihduhomni eciyapi, Itancan Tohanokihi-eca eciyapi, Itancan Iapi-waxte eciyapi, he hunkakewicaye cin etanhan otonwe kin caxtonpi; nakun Akicita Wicaxta-ceji-skuya, Akicita Anogite, Akicita Taku-kaxta—
Sioux (Dakota) translation of the Pilgrim's Progress. By-Ends names his distinguished friends, in the City of Fair-Speech:
—“My Lord Turn-about, my Lord Time-server, my Lord Fair-speech, from whose ancestors the town first took its name; also Mr. Smooth-man, Mr. Facing-both-ways, Mr. Anything,” etc.
The passage from Riggs's translation of the Pilgrim's Progress is from the same page as XXIV.
þe richeste wifmen alle: þat were in londe,
and þere hehere monnen dohtere. …
þere wes moni pal hende: on faire þā uolke.
þar was mochel honde: of manicunnes londe,
for ech wende to beon: betere þan oþer.
Layamon.Semi-Saxon:
“The richest women all—that were in the land,
And the higher men's daughters—
There was many a rich garment—on the fair folk,
There was mickle envy—from [all parts of the country],
For each weened to be—better than others.”
The first excerpt of Laȝamon's Brut begins here in the 19th century edition (v. 24507) and the second on the next page here (v. 24531). (In a more modern edition, Vol. II, p. 640/641.) The GA text prefers MS Cotton Otho C.xiii, perhaps because the language is less archaic, except where the Otho Reviser has cut lines, where they are restored from Cotton Caligula A.ix, giving a hybrid result.
Eet Jomfru Haar drager stærkere end ti Par Öxen.
Danish proverb: One hair of a maiden's head pulls stronger than ten yoke of oxen.
Another Danish proverb in the same collection.
“Mi-x-in tzakcaamah, x-in tzakcolobeh chirech nu zaki caam, nu zaki colo. … nu chincu, nu galgab, nu zalmet” …
Rabinal-Achi.Quiché (Guatemalan), from a native drama, published by Brasseur de Bourbourg:
“I have snared and caught him, I have taken and bound him, with my brilliant snares, with my white noose, with my bracelets of chiseled gold, with my rings, and with my enchantments.”
The GA text prints tzakcolobch; it is possible that this is defective type in the earlier editions, for which I only have scans, but it is definitely a c in modern ones.
Chascus hom a sas palmas deves se meteys viradas.
Old French proverb: Every one has the palms of his hands turned toward himself.
From Quitard's collection of French proverbs (p. 339; cf. V).
புத்தகங்கள்
Tamul: “Books.”
The Tamil word puttakaṅkaḷ occurs a number of times in the phrase-book suggested above for XXVI; for instance, on this page (in the “nominative case”).
“Bataïnadon nin-masinaiganan, kakina gaie onijishinon.”—
“Missawa onijishinig kakina o masinaiganan, kawin gwetch o wabandansinan.”
Baraga.Chippeway: “My books are many and they are all good.”
“Although his books are good, he does not much look into them.”
Only the second Baraga example appears in the version in Google Books (with an added circumflex accent, which is used irregularly to indicate nasalization). Both are in the edition in the Internet Archive (pp. 394, 393). The GA text adds a third n, in the verb ending, which is emphasized in the paradigm:
Missawa onijishininig kakina o masinaiganan, kawin gwetch o wabandansinan.
Although his books are good, (useful,) he does not much read them, (look into them.)
𒉌 𒅔 𒀉 𒂵 𒊏 𒀀 𒄩 𒈨𒌍
Assyrian (from Smith's Assurbanipal): “Ni-in-id [dag]-ga ra a-ha-mis,” “We will (help) each other.”
[Note. The fourth group varies in different copies of the cuneiform record. Mr. Smith puts dag, marking it as a variant, and translates by “help.” Others may prefer to read gul, “to cheat.” As philological criticism would have been out of place in The Gilded Age, and as the passage is a familiar one, it seemed best to omit the questionable group—leaving it to the reader to fill the blank as in his better judgment he might determine.]
The GA appendix prints -ni- for -in-. Trumbull's deadpan note plays around with Smith's text (p. 25, col. ii, l. 11) and the variant it actually records. The prism A text has ni-in-id-ga-ra and another (p. 42, K 2675, l. 39) substitutes dag (𒁖) for id. Both are writing nimtagara 'let us come to a mutual agreement' phonetically; see CAD, s.v. magāru 5a. (The Prism B version of this passage on the First Egyptian War and the one on the Arabian War in XXV are also presented in Beginner's Assyrian, an inexpensive reprint of An Assyrian Manual.)
Usa ogn' arte la donna, onde sia cólto
Nella sua rete alcun novello amante;
Nè con tutti, nè sempre un stesso volto
Serba, ma cangia a tempo atti e sembiante.
Tasso.Italian, from the Jerusalem Delivered, c. iv., st. 78:
“All arts the enchantress practised to beguile
Some new admirer in her well-spread snare;
Nor used with all, nor always, the same wile,
But shaped to every taste her grace and air.”
Now this surprising news scaus'd her fall in a trance,
Like as she were dead, no limbs she could advance,
Then her dear brother came, her from the ground he took
And she spake up and said, O my poor heart is broke.
The Barnardcastle Tragedy.
Some of the versions I can find of this online have “Life” (here) like the earlier GA edition and others “Like” (here) like the later. That second has “caus'd,” not “scaus'd,” as does the broadside here from 1718. All have “as if.”
—Belhs amics, tornatz,
Per merce, vas me de cors.
Alphonse II.Provençal: Dear friend, return, for pity's sake, to me, at once.
From the same collection of troubadour poetry as suggested for XXX.
Ala khambiatü da zure deseiña?
Hitz eman zenereitan,
Ez behin, bai berritan,
Enia zinela.
—Ohikua nüzü;
Enüzü khambiatü,
Bihotzian beinin hartü,
Eta zü maithatü.
Maitia, nun zira?Basque (Souletin dialect); from a popular song, published by Vallaberry: “You gave me your word—not once only, twice—that you would be mine. I am the same as in other times; I have not changed, for I took it to my heart, and I loved you.”—Chants populaires du pays Basque, pp. 6, 7.
Open your ears; for which of you will stop
The vent of hearing, when loud Rumor speaks?
I, from the orient to the drooping west,
Making the wind my post-horse, still unfold
The acts commenced on this ball of earth:
Upon my tongues continual slanders ride;
The which in every language I pronounce,
Stuffing the ears of men with false reports.
King Henry IV.
وَزَادَهُ كَلَفاً فِى الحُبِّ أَنْ مَنَعَتْ
وَحَبَّ شَيْئاً الَى الانْسَانِ مَا مُنِعَا
Táj el-'AroosArabic:
“And her denying increased his devotion in love:
For lovely, as a thing, to man, is that which is denied him.”
From an Arabic poet quoted in the Táj el-'Aroos (of the Seyyid Murtada), which, as everybody knows, is a commentary on the Kámoos—the Arabic “Webster's Unabridged.”
The Arabic poem occurs in the تاج العروس من جواهر القاموس Taj al-Arus Min Jawahir al-Qamus, s.v. حبب ḥbb 'to love'. The text in the online version here and in the Internet Archive (vol. 2, p. 217, right at the top)
وزَادَهُ كَلَفاً فِي الحُبِّ أَنْ مَنَعَتْ
وَحَبَّ شَيْئاً إلى الإِنْسَانِ ما مُنِعَاwa-zāda-hu kalafa fī al-ḥubbi an manaʿat
wa-ḥabba šaiʼa ila al-insāni mā muniʿā
differs only slightly in the exact placement of a few vowels and hamzas. I do not know whether Trumbull found this by browsing through the dictionary or (as seems more likely) quoted in some bilingual work (which I cannot locate).
Egundano yçan daya ni baydienetacoric?
Ny amoriac enu mayte, nic hura ecin gayecxi.
Bern. d'Echeparre.Basque. From the Poésies Basques of Bernard d'Echeparre (Bordeaux, 1545), edited by G. Brunet, 1847:
“Was there ever any one so unfortunate as I am?
She whom I adore does not love me at all, and yet I cannot renounce her.”
Subtle. Would I were hang'd then! I'll conform myself.
Dol. Will you, sir? Do so then, and quickly: swear.
Sub. What should I swear?
Dol. To leave your faction, sir,
And labour kindly in the common work.
Ben Jonson. The Alchemist.Eku edue mfine, mfine ata eku: miduehe mfine, mfine itaha.
Efik (or Old Calabar) proverb: “The rat enters the trap, the trap catches him; if he did not go into the trap, the trap would not do so.” From R. F. Burton's Wit and Wisdom of West Africa, p. 367.
The later GA edition lost a mfine and inserted a spurious comma, the most serious error it introduced. The same proverb can be seen in modern orthography here.
“Ikkaké gidiamuttu Wamallitakoanti likissitu anissia ukunnaria ni rubu kurru naussa abbanu aboahüddunnua namonnua.”
Arrawak version of Acts xix. 23: “And the same time there arose no small stir (Gr. τάραχος οὐκ ὀλίγος) about that way.”
Capienda rebus in malis præceps via est.
Seneca.Latin (Seneca): “In an evil career a reckless downward course is inevitably taken.”
Based on the various manuscripts, the more common modern reading for Seneca's Agamemnon, v. 154 is Rapienda. Since capio and rapio are mostly synonyms as well as rhymes, this does not much change the sense. But it is the Capienda version that has made it into collections of proverbs and into Montaigne (translation).
Et enim ipsi se impellunt, ubi semel à ratione discessum est: ipsaque sibi imbecillitas indulget, in altumque provehitur imprudenter: nec reperit locum consistendi.
Cicero.Latin (Cicero): “For men are subject to their own impulses as soon as they have once parted company with reason; and their very weakness gives way to itself, incautiously sails into deep water and finds no place of anchorage.”
The earlier GA edition has ipse and provebitur. The later edition corrects this to the above. Now, Cicero actually wrote (Tusc. Disp., iv, 18 [41]):
Etenim ipsæ se impellunt, ubi semel a ratione discessum est, ipsaque sibi imbecillitas indulget in altumque provehitur imprudens nec reperit locum consistendi.
The subject in the original is feminine because it refers to ægritudo autem ceteræque perturbationes 'sorrow and other perturbations'. Based on the translation, it may have been intentional to make it masculine. Though, as it happens, the same two changes, that and imprudenter for imprudens, were made in that English translation of Montaigne of a few years before (French original). That would be an even more likely source for both the mottoes in this chapter, except that the English translations of the Latin appear to be original.
—Nakila cu ch'y cu yao chike, chi ka togobah cu y vach, x-e u chax-cut?—Utz, chi ka ya puvak chyve, x-e cha-cu ri amag.
Popol Vuh.Quiché (Guatemalan), from the Popol Vuh, or Sacred Book, edited by Brasseur de Bourbourg, p. 222:
—“‘What will you give us, then, if we will take pity on you?’ they said. ‘Ah, well we will give you silver,’ responded the associate [petitioners].”
Forte è l'aceto di vin dolce.
Italian proverb: “Strong is the vinegar of sweet wine.”
An Italian proverb from the same polyglot collection.
Ne bið swylc cwénlíc þeáw
idese to efnanne,
þeáh ðe hió ǽnlícu sý,
þætte freoðu-webbe
feores onsæce,
æfter lig-torne,
leófne mannan.
Beowulf.Anglo-Saxon:
“Such is no feminine usage
for a woman to practise,
although she be beautiful,—
that a peace-weaver
machinate to deprive of life,
after burning anger,
a man beloved.”
— Thorpe's Translation, 3885-91.
The printed GA version is missing a couple of the long vowel marks from Thorpe's transcription. The last line of the translation seems to have been modernized from Thorpe's “a dear man.”
—Mana qo c'u x-opon-vi ri v'oyeualal, ri v'achihilal! ahcarroc cah, ahcarroc uleu! la quitzih varal in camel, in zachel varal chuxmut cah, chuxmut uleu!
Rabinal-Achi.Quiché (from a native drama): “My bravery and my power have availed me nothing! Alas, let heaven and earth hear me! Is it true that I must die, that I must die here, between earth and sky?”
—In our werking, nothing us availle;
For lost is all our labour and travaille,
And all the cost a twenty devil way
Is lost also, which we upon it lay.
Chaucer.He moonihoawa ka aie.
Hawaiian Proverb.“A poison-toothed serpent (moonihoawa) is debt.”
This Hawaiian proverb occurs here.
Солнце заблистало, но не надолго: блеснуло и скрылось.
Russian: “The sun began to shine, but not for a long time; it shone for a moment and disappeared.”
The phrase occurs in an English-Russian grammar here (the GA text does not include the accents), with the English translation coming from the earlier exercise here, to which that is the key. (The idea evidently is to supply the correct form of the given verb.) Interestingly, searching for that phrase online will turn up a Russian translation of The Gilded Age, Позолоченный век.
“Mofère ipa eiye nā.” “Aki ije ofere li obbè.”
Yoruba proverb: “I almost killed the bird.” “Nobody can make a stew of almost” (or “Almost never made a stew”).— Crowther's Yoruba Proverbs, in Grammar, p. 229.
Crowther's Grammar is not online (or in a nearby library), but the same proverb (less diacritics) is in Burton (429), who presumably got it from there.
Þá eymdir stríða á sorgfullt sinn,
og svipur mótgángs um vánga ríða,
og bakivendir þér veröldin,
og vellyst brosir að þínum qvíða;
þeink allt er knöttótt, og hverfast lætr,
sá hló í dag er á morgun grætr;
Alt jafnar sig!
Sigurd Peterson.Icelandic, from a modern poem:
“When anguish wars in thy heavy breast,
and adverse scourges lash thy cheeks,
and the world turns her back on thee,
and pleasure mocketh at thy pain:
Think all is round and easily turns;
he weeps to-morrow who laughs to-day;
Time makes all good.”
This appears to be from an English translation of Rask's Icelandic grammar. There, the pronoun þér is actually spelled þèr (original). Rask prefers a different accent because the change is before the base vowel; see discussion here (translation). In addition to just leaving an accent off the e, as mentioned there, the sound might be spelled je. But the GA text has the modern spelling, and there is never a question of different accents being interpreted differently. Also, the Swedish has hnöttótt 'globular'; apparently there was a misprint in Dasent's translation. I suppose that ought to be corrected, too.
Mpethie ou sagor lou nga thia gawantou kone yoboul goube.
Wolof Proverb.Wolof (Senegambian) proverb: “If you go to the sparrows' ball, take with you some ears of corn for them.” R. F. Burton, from Dard's Grammaire Wolofe.
Both Burton and Dard have sagor, not sagar. Based on the dictionaries I can find, sagar means 'rag; bit of cloth' and sagor 'sparrow'.
“Mitsoda eb volna a' te szolgád, hogy illyen nagy dolgot tselekednék?”
Királyok II. K. 8. 13.Hungarian, from 2 Kings, viii. 13:
—“Is thy servant a dog, that he should do this great thing?”
For Királyok II 8.13, the GA text is missing the long vowel in tselekednék. In modern grammar and spelling, but still basically Gáspár Károli's translation, (e.g., here), this is “Kicsoda a te szolgád, ez az eb, hogy ilyen nagy dolgokat cselekednék?”
Aucune chose au monde et plus noble et plus belle
Que la sainte ferveur d'un véritable zèle.
Le Tartuffe, a. I, sc. 6.French of Molière:
“Nothing in the world is more noble and more beautiful
Than the holy fervor of true zeal.”—Molière.
The later GA edition consistently has Tartufe.
With faire discourse the evening so they pas;
For that olde man of pleasing wordes had store,
And well could file his tongue, as smooth as glas—
Faerie Queene.—Il prit un air bénin et tendre,
D'un Laudate Deum leur prêta le bon jour,
Puis convia le monde au fraternel amour!
Roman du Renard (Prologue).French: [The Fox] “assumed a benign and tender expression,
He bade them good day with a Laudate Deum,
And invited the whole world to share his brotherly love.”
The GA text prints fraternal.
—He seekes, of all his drifte the aymed end:
Thereto his subtile engins he does bend,
His practick witt and his fayre fylèd tongue,
With thousand other sleightes; for well he kend
His credit now in doubtful ballaunce hong:
For hardly could bee hurt, who was already stong.
Faerie Queene.
I am not sure what edition of Spenser this is from, since only a couple of the spellings (tongue for tonge; doubtful for doubtfull) have been modernized.
Selon divers besoins, il est une science
D'étendre les liens de notre conscience,
Et de rectifier le mal de l'action
Avec la pureté de notre intention.
Le Tartuffe. a. 4, sc. 5.French of Molière: Tartuffe, the hypocrite, is speaking:
“According to differing emergencies, there is a science
Of stretching the limitations of our conscience,
And of compensating the evil of our acts
By the purity of our motives.”
Molière wrote selon, even when it was spelled, “Selon diuers beſoins, il eſt vne Science.” The substitution of selons seems rather prevalent: there are lots of hits in Google, Google Books, and even JSTOR; it even occurs right next to selon. A good number are transcriptions of French in English, but some seem to be native French compositions, suggesting a common typo (or something I don't understand). It also creeps into later reprints: for instance, Macaulay 1850 vs. 1901; and with the same Molière quote, Arnold 1862 vs. 1873. All editions of GA that I have seen have it.
भेदस्तमसो ऽष्टविधो मोहस्य च दशविधो महामोहः
तामिस्रो ऽष्टादशधा तथा भवत्यन्धतामिस्रः
Sánkhya Káriká, xlviii.Sanskrit: “The distinctions of obscurity are eightfold, as are also those of illusion; extreme illusion is tenfold; gloom is eighteenfold, and so is utter darkness.”
[This description of a New York jury is from Memorial Verses on the Sankya philosophy, translated by Colebrooke.]
The later GA edition corrects the chapter number to xlviii. An online transcription is here and it transliterates:.
bhedastamaso.aṣṭavidho mohasya ca daśavidho mahāmohaḥ
tāmisro.aṣṭādaśadhā tathā bhavatyandhatāmisraḥ
Ny byd ynat nep yr dysc; yr adysco dyn byth ny byd ynat ony byd doethineb yny callon; yr doethet uyth uo dyn ny byd ynat ony byd dysc gyt ar doethineb.
Cyvreithian Cymru.Old Welsh: “Nobody is a judge through learning; although a person may always learn he will not be a judge unless there be wisdom in his heart; however wise a person may be, he will not be a judge unless there be learning with the wisdom.”—Ancient Laws of Wales, ii. 207.
The earlier GA edition prints doethinab for the second occurrence.
“Dyden i Midten,” sagde Fanden, han sad imellem to Procutorer.
Danish proverb: “Virtue in the middle,” said the Devil, when he sat down between two lawyers.
Another Danish proverb in the same collection, with a slightly altered translation.
Eur breûtaer brâz eo! Ha klevet hoc'h eûz-hu hé vreût?
Breton: “This is a great pleader! Have you heard him plead?”—Legonidec's Descrip. de Braham.
Of course, Le Gonidec never wrote a description of the novel's fictional “Mr. Braham, the great criminal lawyer.” But those phrases are taken from his French-Breton dictionary. (Search will not find them; the OCR is not tuned for fine italic type.) Breûtaer, literally 'pleader', is generally 'lawyer'.
—Voyre mais (demandoit Trinquamelle) mon amy, comment procedez vous en action criminelle, la partie coupable prinse flagrante crimine?—Comme vous aultres Messieurs (respondit Bridoye)—
Old French: “‘Yea, but,’ asked Trinquamelle, ‘how do you proceed, my friend, in criminal causes, the culpable and guilty party being taken and seized upon flagrante crimine?’ ‘Even as your other worships use to do,’ answered (Judge) Bridlegoose.”—Rabelais, Pantagruel, b. ii., ch. 137.
Again Motteux's translation of Rabelais.
“Hag eunn drâ-bennâg hoc'h eûz-hu da lavaroud évid hé wennidigez?”
Breton: “Have you anything to say for her justification?”—Legonidec.
“Wegotogwen ga-ijiwebadogwen; gonima ta-matchi-inakamigad.”
Chippeway: “I don't know what may have happened; perhaps we shall hear bad news!” — Baraga.
From the same edition of Baraga in the Internet Archive, p. 398.
皁白不分
Chinese (Canton dialect, Tsow pak păt fun): “Black and white not distinguished,” i. e., Right and wrong not perceived.
In Jyutping, zou6 baak6 bat1 fan1. From the same Cantonese book as VI. (French's note from Trumbull's list seems to confirm this by referring to Morrison.) Note that while that was written left-to-right, this is right-to-left. Also found with a more common word for 'black', 黑 hak1.
Papel y tinta y poco justicia.
Spanish proverb (of a court of law): Paper and ink and little justice.
The proverb is almost certainly, “Papel y tinta y poca justicia.”
Ebok imana ebok ofut idibi.
Efik (Old Calabar) proverb: “One monkey does not like to see another get his belly full.” — Burton's W. African Proverbs.
Ὁ καρκίνος ὧδ᾽ ἔφα
Χαλᾷ τὸν ὄφιν λαβών·
Εὐθὺν χρὴ τὸν ἑταῖρον ἔμμεν,
Καὶ μὴ σκολιὰ φρονεῖν.Grecian. From the Greek Anthology: “When the Crab caught with his claw the Snake, he reproved him for his indirect course.” [An old version of what the Pot said to the Kettle.]
The skolion is printed in GA with one acute accent turned to grave and one grave left out, relative to the text in Bergk. The version in Jacobs has an extra δὲ in the first line. A translation given in Bland's Collections comes from an essay from the Edinburgh Review on “Greek Banquets” (in the Internet Archive, p. 372; the essay starts on p. 350) and the tradition in which this poem occurs.
Mishittꝏnaeog nꝏwaog
ayeuuhkone neen,
Nashpe nuskesukqunnonut
ho, ho, nunnaumunun.Massachusetts Indian, from Eliot's translation of Psalm xxxv. 21: “Yea, they opened their mouth wide against me, and said, Aha, aha, our eye hath seen it!”
Once again, in addition to Eliot's metrical translation (EEBO), there is a prose one, which in the 1663 edition (EEBO) reads:
Nux mishittꝏnaéog ayeuukone neen, nꝏwaog, Ho, ho, naumunan nashpe nuskesukqunonat.
and the same in the 1685 edition (EEBO), except for “Aha, aha” instead of “Ho, ho.”
Javanese: “Alas!”
I am not entirely confident of my abilities with the Javanese script (I used the font from here) or the particular variant used here. But it appears that this says aḍoh tĕlahĕ. This is somewhat confirmed by some books that give the first word as aḍuh. A dictionary gives a variant adhuh lae, leaving only the tĕ unaccounted for. Of course, I have no idea what work this was copied from.
“Ow holan whath ythew prowte
kynthoma ogas marowe”—Cornish:
“My heart yet is proud
Though I am nearly dead.”—The Creation.
Han ager ikke ilde som veed at vende.
Danish proverb: “He is a good driver who knows how to turn.”
Another Danish proverb in the same collection, with “not bad” adjusted to “good” in the translation.
Wanna unyanpi kta. Niye de kta he?
Iapi Oaye, vol. i, no. 7.Sioux (Dakota): “Let us go now. Will you go?” [The Iapi Oaye is a Dakota newspaper published monthly in the Dakota language.]
“School Talk — Wowapi Yawapi Owohdake” p. 4.
Gedi kanadiben tsannawa.
Kanuri (Borneo): “At the bottom of patience there is heaven.”—R. F. Burton's West African Proverbs.
—La xalog, la xamaih mi-x-ul nu qiza u quïal gih, u quïal agab?
Rabinal-Achi.Quiché: “Is it in vain, is it without profit, that I am come here to lose so many days, so many nights?”
Five words are left off the end of the question from Rabinal-Achi, “chiri chuxmut cah, chuxmut uleu.” And a corresponding part of the translation omitted, “between heaven and earth (entre le ciel et la terre).” I believe chiri means 'here' (ici), which was not left out of the translation. (The vocabulary in the same book is a bit chaotic, but there is one on the FAMSI site.) The same stock phrase occurs elsewhere (including XLVII) with varal, which also seems to mean 'here' (perhaps with some distinction that dictionaries don't make clear).
Alaila pomaikai kaua, ola na iwi iloko o ko kaua mau la elemakule.
Laieikawai, 9.Hawaiian: “Then we two shall be happy, our offspring shall live in the days of our old age.”
This quotation occurs in the same Hawaiian dictionary as the previous ones, but since the translation is slightly different, I'm still not certain this is not Trumbull's source. The entire Hawaiian Romance of Laieikawai can be found in a later Ethnology Bureau Annual Report.
ܘܢܗܘܐ ܡܒܝܐܢܐ ܠܢܦܫܟܝ܅ ܘܡܬܪܣܝܢܐ ܠܡܕܝܢܬܟܝ܅
ܪܥܘܬ܃ܕ܃ܝܗSyriac (from the Old Testament; the blessing on Naomi transferred to Ruth): “And he shall be unto thee a restorer of thy life [consolotor animæ, as Walton translates from the Syriac version,] and a nourisher of thine old age.” Ruth iv. 15.
Since Walton is mentioned explicitly, I assume the Peshitta text comes form his Polyglot Bible, a favorite of polyglot scripture collectors. (Though it is sacrilege to bibliophiles, there are internet sites that sell single leaves of the Walton Polyglot, making at least a piece of it affordable.) I don't know whether Trumbull owned a Walton Polyglot. This line is on vol. I, p. 193 (EEBO). The Syriac Bible can be found online in CAL: both text and grammatical analysis. The name of book in the GA attribution is printed ܪܕܥܘܬ, probably a transposition of ܕܪܥܘܬ., that is, with an Aramaic genitive particle, which is how it appears in a sentence marking the end of Ruth on that same page.
Tail-piece. (p. 574 / 325, 337):
טוב אחרית דבר מראשיתו
Hebrew: “The end of a thing is better than the beginning.” Eccles. vii. 8.
ṭôḇ ’aḥărîṯ dāḇār mērē’šîṯô.
17 comments:
The Danish one makes sense without explanation, but I've never heard it before.
Can't find it in my copy of the 'standard' collection: Bevingede Ord by T. Vogel-Jørgensen, but I only have the latest (6th) edition.
There's an error in your Japanese transcription. The わ should be も. This gives you an abbreviated version of the quote usually given as 食らえども其の味知らず (that is, without the 其の/その).
This comes from Confucius' "The Great Learning". James Legge's translation of full line from Chinese is "When the mind is not present, we look and do not see; we hear and do not understand; we eat and do not know the taste of what we eat." This is of course just the last part.
As I know next to nothing of the textual history of Chinese philosophy, I leave the rest to you. (I also can't 100% guarantee there's not another source that provides a better origin for the abbreviated form—it seems a bit popular for that.)
(Brought here by LanguageHat.)
To elaborate, the full quote is often given as something like "心焉に在らざれば視れども見えず聴けども聞こえず食らえども其の味を知らず" (kokoro koko ni arazareba miredomo miezu kikedomo kikoezu kuraedomo sono aji o mirazu, 'When one's mind wanders, one looks but cannot see, one listens but cannot hear, one eats but knows not the food's taste').
The epigraph gives the old orthography and thus has へ for え. (It also doesn't have the を but Japanese sources bounce back and forth on which they like better.)
You might translate the epigraph itself as "One eats but knows not the taste of the food", though I find that somewhat unsatisfactory.
Thank you very much. I have corrected the text based on your explanation.
The Javanese interjection translated as "alas" is properly romanized as "adhuh" (where "dh" represents retroflex d).
adhuh being something like /aɖə/, right? I have tried to clarify what I was doing with the e's. Do you recognize what I took to be melahe or the signs in between?
No, "adhuh" is /aɖuh/. Final /h/ is represented by the "2"-shaped symbol (called a "wignyan"), which I think you're interpreting as a punctuation mark.
I'm not sure what's going on with the vowel there. I get the sense that /u/ was not always consistently represented (there's no corresponding symbol in Crawfurd, for instance.)
Thank you for taking the time to straighten me out; I see what you mean now. Based on Omniglot, I believe the vowel is /o/, made by putting both /ē/ on the left and /ā/ on the right, the same as in, e.g., Tamil. And search does confirm some informal transliterations with adoh for 'alas'.
Any thoughts on tĕlahĕ? Does adhuh lae seem like just a coincidence?
Let me tell you what I've found so far:
Ch. X: For the "oo" ligature you could use ꝏ (U+A74F) rather than infinity.
Ch. XIV: The additional Latin verses should say "Quæ", not "Quaæ".
Ch. XVIII: The last line should say "non pot", not "not pot".
Ch. XXIV: It seems two "h" should have a dot above: "nawahon" and "hinca".
Ch. XXV: Could this be the source?
Note that the font used should have Neo-Assyrian characters, rather than Sumerian (like the Unicode tables have). I found the reference here. As far as I can see, the character for SAR has one additional horizontal "tick", and the one in the text looks like EZEN. However, when I try the font here, both characters look exactly the same.
Thanks so much for your help. I've incorporated those edits into the post.
On XXV, yes, that's the same work. But you've linked to a second occurrence of the word on page 294, while I linked to page 269, which is the citation given. I also used Google Books instead of the Internet Archive in order to get the highlight, although such links seem to be less portable. I haven't been able to find a font that looks like Smith's transcription, either.
Ch. V: The first word in French is "Il", not "ll" (double-ell)
Ch. XXVII: I see the Greek in smallcaps, it may be a problem in my end, but other sites with Greek look fine. In the third line you have a normal apostrophe (is that intentional?) and I think κάκ in the last line should have a breathing mark rather than an accent.
Ch. XXXV: "zald" should be "zaki".
Ch XXXVIII: this could be the original, it has "Like as if", "surprizing" and "news, caus'd"
Ch. IX: In the Esquimo fragment, do I see an acute accent above some of the "æ" in the original?
Ch. XXVII: I see the Greek in smallcaps
I have an explicit font style of New Athena Unicode because most fonts don't have all the polytonic combinations. Perhaps if you don't have that, you get something worse?
Ch XXXVIII: this could be the original, it has "Like as if", "surprizing" and "news, caus'd"
That's older than Ritson and so more likely to be. If life and scaused as mistakes, they aren't original. But oddly no printed text seems to quite match.
Ch. IX: In the Esquimo fragment, do I see an acute accent above some of the "æ" in the original?
Well spotted. I've added a note of that.
Ch. LVIII: Note the Chinese is written right-to-left, as is the Japanese in Ch. XI, but unlike the Chinese in Ch. VI.
The Spanish proverb is most likely "poca justicia", which makes more sense ("little justice", rather than an ungramatical "a little justice"), and for which google gives many more matches.
Yes, of course. I put in a link to Correas's 1627 Vocabulario de refranes y frases proverbiales. Thanks.
Ch. LXII: (Quiche) According to the same book, p. 137 (http://books.google.se/books?id=3xgOAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA137#v=onepage&q&f=false) "varal" means here, and "chiri" means around here. It could also be that "come here" is implicit in the verb and "chiri" would only emphasize it.
And with that I end my review for the moment. Thanks for all these transcriptions and research.
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