Re: OT: First text in Agsem

Patrick Dunn wrote:

> cod da secundo cajstjo: cod es a essem da caos prim?  a essem de caos es a
> res et-cod nos nimov cando nifac et majic.  otid a stulti jinominujid
> <<impeto>>; sed a sapjenes jijadavjid.
Ooh, this is interesting.  It brings up the fact that a Renaissance
mage would naturally use Aristotelian physics, not Newtonian.  So
there would be no precise counterpart in his world to "energy" in the
world of physics.  "Impetus" would be the closest thing, but "impetus"
would I think connote something like "oomph" -- a tendency to move
which is imparted to a moving object *BY A MOVER* and which is slowly
exhausted by that very movement.  Remember, in this world, it is not
true that "objects in motion naturally stay in motion" unless they are
acted on by an unopposed force.  Objects in motion stay in motion only
so long as they are acted on by a mover, or until their "impetus" runs
out.  After that, they naturally come to rest.

I'm not sure how well this would square with the concept of "magical
energy" that the author of the passage is criticizing.

I also wonder about the translation of "copiae" as "forces;" I
suspect that that would only mean "military forces" and that the
closest thing to a concept of physical force might be "impetus."

But I'm sure there were technical terms for all these things
available and I'm not familiar with them, so I could be quite wrong.

Ed

BTW: I'm falling prey to Critic Syndrome: respond to something which
is generally very cool by citing the ways that it might fall short of
perfect coolness, without stopping to mention that it is overall
extremely cool to begin with.

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"In the labyrinth of the alphabet the truth is hidden. It is one
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