Re: Hell hath no Fury (was: war and death are in my hand)

David: the Romans had a netherworld, indeed, as did the
Greeks.  Vunggya, in Teonaht, refers to an underworld
of ice and punishment that is NON-Christian.  For the
Christian Hell, they use a word derived from Latin:
imfferin.

Ray: the translations of this text from the Aeneid are
charmingly reminiscent of the Relay Games that many
of us are engaged in.  :)  A permissive English version
of the passage has introduced a concept that wasn't there,
and given rise to an addition (by yours truly!) from the
Gospel of Grorel, so what we have here isn't really even
Vergil anymore!   So... ?  methinks...?  ;-) I'm with Mia
on this one.

Sally Caves
scaves@frontiernet.net


----- Original Message -----
From: Roger Mills <romilly@...>
To: <CONLANG@...>
Sent: Tuesday, June 12, 2001 7:03 PM
Subject: Re: Hell hath no Fury (was: war and death are in my hand)


> David Peterson wrote:
>
> >In a message dated 6/12/01 1:05:37 PM, Guy.Wade@QTIWORLD.COM writes:
> >
> ><< But Raymond has a good point.  Whoever translated "Hell" may have lost
> the
> >original meaning that made sense to the writer & his audience, unless
the>
> >writer used an idiom that meant 'fiery place of torment.'  When I cast it
> in my own conlang, I made that cultural mistake: instead of Hell I used
> >Grave/place of the dead (ile mordai) which would be a no-no if it
changed>
> >the original meaning of the words, IMHO. >>
> >
> >    Well, I'm not reading it in Latin.  In fact, I have a cheap Dover
> edition
> >(cost me two bucks!  How about that?), so I make no apology for the
> >translation I used (from the Latin).  I just liked the lines, whether
true
> to
> >the text or not.  And of course, I think everyone should've known this
had
> >nothing to do with judeo-christianity since I said it was from the
Aeneid.
> >Just the book before he goes down to the Elysian Fields to talk to his
> father
> >who fortells the (now) history of Rome.
>
> We should take the translator (not you) to task for introducing the word,
> and so the concept of, "Hell", which was, clearly, not in the original.
> Even if the original had had "infernus" 'the nether regions???' (is that
> idea Roman, or a later Xn invention?) or some such-- those of us who "had
> trouble with Hell" were, after all, in the right.
>
> Ah well:  traduttore, tradittore.
>