What's a Grecian Urn?

The Write Way

9 October 2009

What's a Grecian Urn?

Greetings,

There's no doubt about it, we carbon-based bipeds have eclectic tastes and interests ... if my scribbled notes are anything to go by. Today is one of those days where I can't think of a single thing to write about, so I've resorted to my tattered notebook of ideas -- things I jot down on the run, in the middle of some other writing or when engaged in something totally unrelated. (When the Muse strikes, you have to nab her.)

Usually, I'll have an entire newsletter bubbling away in my head when I sit down at my desk, and on really easy days, I'll have woken through the night and composed the whole jolly thing, so then it's just a matter of somehow extracting the words from my little grey cells and coaxing them down my arm, through my fingers and onto the page.

But not today, dear reader, not today.

So it's back to the tatty notes where I find "In Arcadia ego est" ... which I remember was something like the quotation from Brideshead Revisited. So off to my best mate Google to see what the correct Latin is ... Ah, here we are. It should be: Et in Arcadia ego, which means "And I, too, am in Arcadia."

OK ... so why, I hear you ask, should anyone wish to be in Arcadia?

Because Arcadia was a "region of ancient Greece, in the middle of the Peloponnesus, without a seaboard, and surrounded and dissected by mountains. The Arcadians, relatively isolated from the rest of the world, lived a proverbially simple and natural life." And it's this fact which explains why it appears as the representation of a paradise in Greek and Roman poetry. (Source) In Greek mythology, Arcadia was the home of Pan, the same who gave his name to those haunting pipes, and one of the gods of nature and the patron god of shepherds.

However, there's also a famous C17th painting by Nicholas Poussin that's called 'Et in Arcadia ego,' which is variously interpreted to mean that Death is reminding the shepherds who are frolicking around a tomb that "Even in Arcadia I exist" OR it could also mean that the person in the tomb once "lived in Arcadia" and enjoyed all the worldly pleasures that the shepherds "(as symbols of the nymphs and swains of ancient Arcadia) were thought to embody."

You can see a copy of the painting in this week's Little Something Extra and make up your own mind about what it all means.

It's always one of those shivers-up-the-spine moments for me when I stop and think about these people who lived so long ago and yet were just like us -- we haven't changed much at all. Remove a few minor technological advances(!) and we're just the same.

To prove it, here's a little story from an ancient Greek collection of the Philogelos, "The Laughter Lover," a collection of some 265 jokes, from around the fourth or fifth century CE:

When an intellectual was told by someone, "Your beard is now coming in," he went to the rear-entrance and waited for it. Another intellectual asked what he was doing.

Once he heard the whole story, he said: "I'm not surprised that people say we lack common sense. How do you know that it's not coming in by the other gate?"

Hmmm ... Ready for another?

A man, just back from a trip abroad, went to an incompetent fortune-teller. He asked about his family, and the fortune-teller replied, "Everyone is fine, especially your father."

When the man objected that his father had been dead for ten years, the reply came, "You have no clue who your real father is."

How about this one then?

An intellectual came to check in on a friend who was seriously ill. When the man's wife said that he had 'departed,' the intellectual replied, "When he gets back, will you tell him that I stopped by?"

Yes ... they do seem to have lost something in the translation, but these apparently had the punters rolling in the aisles back in ancient Greece.

"Jokes and story telling were then, just as now, a lively part of dinner conversation and certain guests were invited to dinner because of their wit. Said one guest at Xenophon's banquet, "The reason why I got invitations to dinner was that I might stir up laughter among the guests and make them merry." Advice on not only how to tell a good joke but also on how to avoid inadvertently offending a fellow guest was offered by Plato and others. Plato contends that to "joke with grace and good taste is a task for the well-educated man." Two thousand years ago, Plutarch counseled that 'the man who cannot engage in joking at a suitable time, discreetly and skillfully, must avoid jokes altogether" and that humor should be "casual and spontaneous, not brought in form a distance like previously prepared entertainment.'" (Source)

But it's no wonder that some of the ancient Greeks laughed at these stories ... especially not when you consider what they ate at times ...

"Spartan ‘black broth’ was the daily fare of the Spartan military élite, and to this they ascribed many of their soldierly qualities.

"Recipe: Take medium-sized cuts of pork, place in a large cooking-pot, add pig’s blood and wine vinegar, and seethe until tender. Serve with loaves of barley-bread.

"A story is told of the Athenian Themistocles when he was a guest of one of the Spartan kings in the royal mess-hall. After one mouthful of the black broth, he turned to his host and said: ‘No wonder you Spartans are not afraid of death’." (Source)

Read more about what the ancient Greeks ate in this week's Little Something Extra (it's not nearly as bad as black broth!)

Oh, and if you're wondering about the answer to our eponymous question this week, I'll put you out of your misery now (and give you a corny joke to tell your classically-minded mates).

Q: What's a Grecian urn?

A: About 3 obols a day ...

You'll find a link to the original Grecian Urn here.

This week's quiz:

palimpsest, patache, palisade, paralipsis, palinode, paradigm, palindrome, palinopsia, patible, pareable

1. abnormally recurring visual imagery

2. a word or phrase that reads the same backward as forward

3. a poem in which the poet retracts a view or sentiment expressed in a former poem; a retraction of a statement

4. a manuscript or piece of writing material on which later writing has been superimposed on effaced earlier writing; figurative something reused or altered but still bearing visible traces of its earlier form

5. to cut off the outer coating, layer, or part of

6. rhetoric the device of giving emphasis by professing to say little or nothing of a subject, as in not to mention their unpaid debts of several millions

7. fortification consisting of a strong fence made of stakes driven into the ground

8. a tender to a fleet, formerly used for conveying men, orders or treasure

9. a typical example or pattern of something; a pattern or model; a world view underlying the theories and methodology of a particular scientific subject

10. sufferable; tolerable; endurable

OK ... here are some more stories (from the Philogelos) that tickled the funny-bone of the ancient Greeks ...

A man complains that a slave he has just bought has died, “By the gods,” answers the slave’s seller, “when he was with me, he never did any such thing!”

Still not laughing hysterically?

Then what about this one?

An egg-head (literal-minded) doctor was seeing a patient. ‘Doctor’, he said, ‘when I get up in the morning I feel dizzy for 20 minutes.’

The doctor advises, ‘Get up 20 minutes later, then.’

I don't know ... you're a tough audience ...

"The residents of three Greek towns – Abdera, Kyme and Sidon – are ridiculed for their “how many Abderites does it take to change a light bulb?” style of stupidity. Why these three places in particular, we have no idea. But their inhabitants are portrayed as being as literal-minded as the egg-heads, and even more obtuse.

“An Abderite saw a eunuch talking to a woman and asked if she was his wife. When he replied that eunuchs can’t have wives, the Abderite asked, ‘So is she your daughter then?’” (Source)

Sigh ... I give up.

Last week's quiz:

Here are some words about your muscles ... how much do you really know about your body and its bits?

agonist, rhomboids, abduction, isometric, obliques, isotonic, ligament, adduction, deltoids, trapezius

1. muscles to either side of abdominals that rotate and flex the trunk - OBLIQUES

2. exercise that involves lifting weights - ISOTONIC

3. either of two back muscles that function to move the scapula - RHOMBOIDS

4. the muscle directly engaged in contraction that is primarily responsible for movement of a body part; a muscle that contracts while another relaxes - AGONIST

5. band of flexible, fibrous connective tissue that is attached at the end of a bone near a joint - LIGAMENT

6. movement of a body part away from the middle of the body - ABDUCTION

7. a broad, flat muscle on each side of the upper and back part of the neck, shoulders, and back, the action of which raises, or rotates, or draws back the shoulders, and pulls the head backward or to one side - TRAPEZIUS

8. movement of a limb toward middle of body, such as bringing arm to side from extended position at shoulder - ADDUCTION

9. exercise that involves pushing or pulling an immovable object like a wall or bar anchored to the floor - ISOMETRIC

10. the large triangular muscles of the shoulder that raise the arm away from the body and perform other functions - DELTOIDS

Another comment from my Belgian friend (who is also a fitness expert, having owned a commercial gym when he was "back home"):

"... isometric is technically not against an immovable object, but may also involve force against an object that is heavier than the force your muscles can produce or even involve no object at all but merely provide resistance against gravity i.e. if you would have been on the bench with the weights of your son trying to lift them out of the cradle that would have been an isometric for you, but entirely isotonic for your son; the object is immovable for you, but is not immovable, also, it is argued (on a philosophical level amongst pedantic people such as myself) that walking and running may also be classified as isometric because the ground against which is pushed is unmoveable, but the discussion depends on which object is seen as the resistance, the body or the ground.

"Stability, and stabilisation are also forms of isometric muscle actions; there is action in the muscles but no movement in the joint, there is no immoveable object but the muscles fire without shortening or lengthening and the objective of the muscle force is no movement of the joint ..."

Hmm ... The sages are right when they say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. My recent joyful experiences with weight-training have given me a false sense of my own skills in the exercise field. If you missed out on what I'm doing these days, here's the link to that ebook again: 7 Secrets

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A Little Something Extra

What's your interpretation of the 'Et in Arcadia ego' painting? See the painting

More about ancient Arcadia than you would ever want to know here

And why Arcadia figures so prominently in literature here

All you need to now about eating and drinking in ancient Greece here

Some typical recipes the ancient Greeks and Romans could have cooked here

A massive collection of sites about all aspects of life in ancient Greece and Rome here

Word of the week: Megalopolis (n) a very large city; an urban region, esp. one consisting of several large cities and suburbs that adjoin each other.

This word comes from two ancient Greek words megas (great) and polis (city), and it was also the name of one of the largest cities in ancient Arcadia. (Source)

Oxymoron of the week: Delicious black broth

And a Latin phrase this week for those of us exercising ...

Perfer et obdura; dolor hic tibi proderit olim

[PAYR-fayr ET ohb-DOOR-ah DOH-lohr TEE-bee proh-DAYR-eet OH-leem]

(Be patient and tough; some day this pain will be useful to you.)

Recommend this page to other writers by clicking the Recommend it! button below, then see what pages others are recommending here.

Did you know that you can have your very own Latin reminders? How about undies proclaiming, Bene est rex esse? (It's good to be king) Or a shopping bag that warns, Emptrix nata sum (Born to shop)?

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