The Outlandish Companion - Diana Gabaldon [297]
—translation by Richard Crashaw (1612?—1649)
When Jamie is faced with the grave responsibility of training his nephew Ian to be a “man of worth” himself, he turns from the sensual delights of Catullus to the sterner “Venue” of Plautus:
VERTUE
Virtus praemium est optimum; virtus omnibus rebus anteit profecto: libertas salus vita res et parentes, patria et prognati tutantur, servantur: virtus omnia in sese habet, omnia adsunt bona quem penest virtus.
—from Amphitryon, Plautus (254?-184 B.C.)
Verily Vertue dothe all thinges excelle. For if librtie, helthe, lyvyng and substance, Our country, our parentes and children do well It hapneth by vertue; she doth all aduance. Vertue hath all thinges under gouernaunce, And in whom of vertue is founden great plentie,
Any thinge that is good may neuer be deintie.
—translation by Sir Thomas Elyot (1531)
And later still, as stimulus and mental refreshment amid bodily labors, Jamie recites from the “Meditations” of Marcus Aurelius Antonius: (A.D. 121–180)
“’Body, soul, and mind,’” Jamie said, translating as he bent to seize the end of another trimmed log. “‘The body for sensation, the soul for the springs of action, the mind for principles. Yet the capacity for sensation belongs also to the stalled ox; there is no wild beast or degenerate but obeys the twitchings of impulse; and even men who deny the gods, or betray their country, or’—careful, man!”
Ian, thus warned, stepped neatly backward over the ax handle, and turned to the left, steering his end of the burden carefully round the corner of the half-built log wall.
“’—or perpetrate all manner of villainy behind locked doors, have minds to guide them to the clear path of duty,’ “Jamie resumed Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations. “‘Seeing then’—step up. Aye, good, that’s got it—’seeing then that all else is in common heritage of such types, the good man’s only singularity lies in his approving welcome to every experience the looms of fate may weave for him, his refusal to soil the divinity seated in his breast or perturb it with disorderly impressions…’ All right, now, one, and two, and… ergh!”
—Drums of Autumn, Chapter 20, page 371
By contrast, Claire’s Latin is less formal: “All I remember is Anna virumque cano.” I glanced at Ian and translated, grinning. “My arm got bit off by a dog.”5
GREEK QUOTES
While an educated eighteenth-century gentleman might have been as familiar with the Greek poets and philosophers as with the Romans, I’m not. There’s also the minor consideration that original Greek quotations are written in… ah… Greek. This is a major pain in the neck for typesetters and copy editors.
Therefore, most of the classical allusions in the novels are Latin. For the sake of accurate representation, though, I did include one brief exchange in Greek, between Jamie and Lord John Grey, during the Incident of the Snake in the Privy (Drums, chapter 25, “Enter a Serpent”).
The references used here [pp. 481–482] are not literal, but only allusive; Epicharmus did say philosophical things about the oracle at Delphi, but the quote attributed to him is only a rough approximation.
CELTIC INVOCATIONS
While Greek and Latin were the languages of an educated eighteenth-century man, Gaidhlig (Gaelic) was the language of the Scottish Highlander. A rich and beautiful language, this Celtic tongue gives voice to prayer and poetry.
During the late part of the nineteenth century, an exciseman and scholar named Alexander Carmichael performed a great service to future