Virgil and context

[Garson O'Toole]

The Latin text (in variant forms) has been used as an inscription on
other memorials.

The Valiants Memorial in Ottawa Canada unveiled in 2006 is dedicated
to Canadian military veterans and it uses the phrase: "Nulla dies
umquam memori vos eximet aevo".

http://books.google.com/books?id=-hcSnYut8wQC&q=Nulla#v=snippet&


Cite: 1888 May, St. Nicholas, Girard College by Alice Maude Fenn,
Volume 15, Number 7, The Century Co., New York. (Google Books full
view)

Close to the main building is a very handsome monument erected to the
memory of the Girard graduates who were killed during the war. Around
the base are the words:

Erected, A.D. 1869,

To perpetuate the memory and record the services of pupils of this
College who, in the then recent contest for the preservation of the
American Union, died that their country might live.

"Fortunati omnes! Nulla dies Umquam memori vos eximet aevo."*

*A literal translation of this Latin inscription reads: "Fortunate all
ye! No day shall  e'er remove you from a mindful age."

http://books.google.com/books?id=cBIbAAAAYAAJ&q=Nulla#v=snippet&


If the denotations and connotations of a phrase are somehow fixed for
all time by the initial context of application then one must await
additional archaeological discoveries to determine the "true" meaning
of a phrase such as "Nulla dies umquam memori vos eximet aevo." For
example, some future investigation might reveal that the Latin phrase
was first employed before Virgil's text to commemorate a group of
villagers who were massacred by a marauding army.

This would upend and discredit the Virgilian meaning. It would become
a travesty to use the phrase to commemorate warriors when its primal
(and hence overruling) use was to condemn militaristic savagery
directed against innocents.

Alternatively, one might contend that the meaning of a phrase is
determined only in part by the palimpsest of previous uses. It is also
determined by envisioning future uses that are not arbitrarily
straitjacketed by previous cultural identifications.


On Fri, Apr 8, 2011 at 10:27 PM, Jonathan Lighter
<wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Virgil and context
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> I was about get Swiftian on Post's butt, but lucky for him I reconsidered.
>
> I pass over the issue of Constitutional Originalism as beneath my notice.
>
> As for the verse from Virgil...
> On the one hand, by arrogating the power to impose his own
> preferred interpretation of Virgil's words, Post might
> be considered hypocritically guilty of the worst form of elitism, not to
> mention  psychocolonialism.  At least Alexander doesn't sound like a
> hypocrite!
>
> Post seems to "reason" that a poem can mean whatever you want it to mean,
> and what he wants it to mean is what it by-God means. Never mind what
> Alexander wants it to mean.
>
> But in that case, words chosen at random from a Latin dictionary might be
> even more meaningful, since each one of us would then be totally free to
> interpret them as we please, especially if we don't know Latin.  Greek would
> be even better because most people wouldn't even be able to sound out the
> letters.
>
> Ironically, however, Post's conclusion, that the verse is fine, may be more
> satisfactory in spite of being strictly a non sequitur. Alexander seems to
> object to contextual associations that only Vergilians would notice. I
> suspect that even most of them would dismiss these associations as
> irrelevant to the memorial context, particularly since both Aeneas and
> visitors to the memorial are or would be mourning the deaths of compatriots,
> and the plain meaning of the proposed words seems entirely fitting.
>
> That's not to say that an even more appropriate, more pointed inscription
> might not be found.  But till then, the line sounds OK to me.
>
> I mean in Latin. The proposed English version is not "eloquent" at all. Why
> not something a bit more concise and rhythmical, like "Never shall you
> fade from the memory of Time"?
>
> JL
>  --
> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org