Disgressed

There seems to be something about questions of language which promotes contradiction for its own sake. It’s not enough to know something: others must be wrong about it. This Language Log piece seeks to sort out the authorship of the idea that “Da Vinci” was not the artist’s name, and that referring to him in that way is as absurd as calling Jesus “Of Nazareth”. In the wake of the publicity for the film of “The Da Vinci Code”, this idea has certainly whizzed around the Internet. I’m no expert, but it seems to me that the case is considerably overstated, and I fear we may be in at the birth of a new shibboleth. Soon you won’t be able to mention the words “Da Vinci” or even “Leonardo Da Vinci”, without a premonitory gleam appearing in someone’s eye as they get ready to rectify your presumed ignorance.

The fact that “Da Vinci” literally means “Of Vinci” does not mean it isn’t also a name, or course. Moreover, the fact that a literal translation into English such as ‘Mr Of Vinci’ sounds silly is not much of an argument for the original being poor Italian. Most literal translations sound silly. It’s probably English that is the odd man out here: names beginning with ‘Da’, ‘De’, ‘Von’, and equivalents seem to be common enough in other European languages: I imagine the fact that ‘Of’ names don’t occur in English is probably a result of the Norman Conquest, which lumbered us with the French ‘De’ instead. “Mr De Nazareth” doesn’t sound quite so strange.

But this kind of thing does fall along a spectrum. At one end, we have people like Heraclitus of Ephesus. ‘Of Ephesus’ is clearly not a name in itself: you wouldn’t actually be able to tell who it referred to. It merely serves to distinguish him from the other Heraclitus. At the other end of the spectrum, we have D’Artagnan, which although it still means ‘Of Artagnan’ is clearly the name of the Musketeers’ friend. The claim, then, is that Leonardo is closer to Heraclitus in this respect than D’Artagnan.

So is “Da Vinci” not a name, but a mere prepositional phrase? Not necessarily: surely when people called Lorenzo “Di Medici”, they weren’t just (or even) letting you know where he came from. Leonardo, it’s true, was born near (not quite in) Vinci, but the position is complicated by the fact that his family had lived there for some time: all his male ancestors back to his great great grandfather had apparently been called “Da Vinci”. It appears from some cursory Googling that in legal documents Leonardo was referred to as “Leonardo di Ser Piero da Vinci” (“Leonardo the son of Master Piero of Vinci”), or even longer versions – “Leonardo di Ser Piero d’Antonio di Ser Piero di Ser Guido da Vinci” . It looks as though, on the whole, the reference identified him with a particular family rather than primarily with a particular location: you surely can’t say, at any rate, that “Da Vinci” was “simply the identifier of his town of origin”. I don’t know whether people would have been shouting “Oi, Da Vinci!” across the piazza, exactly, but I’m not convinced we can rule out the possibility of his being addressed or referred to in that way sometimes and in some contexts.

Modern Italians, at any rate, seem ready to accept “Da Vinci” as a name: the Italian title of Dan Brown’s novel is “Il Codice Da Vinci”. The translator seems to have been happy with this, and so far as I know the readership are not puzzled or outraged either.

More fundamentally, we have to remember that “The Da Vinci Code” was written, in the main, for modern Americans, not Renaissance Italians. There is no law which says we must refer to people in exactly the way their peers would do, and indeed sometimes there are grammatical issues about doing so – is Anna’s surname Karenina or Karenin? Fine art students and experts certainly speak of the artist as “Leonardo”: but in modern English that does suggest a claim to familliarity which sounds odd and faintly pretentious unless you feel comfortable with the idea that the artist is somehow a personal friend. It could be argued that normal English usage requires us, for this reason, to treat “Da Vinci” as a name even if it wasn’t strictly one to begin with, or invent some other less matey nickname.

But let me not fall in my turn into the snare of contradictoriness. I don’t mean it’s wrong to call him “Leonardo”: I just don’t really think you can say that Dan Brown, in this instance, was wrong either.

So the British version of “The Apprentice” concluded last night: one or other of the lacklustre contestants stumbled more or less randomly through to victory.

I wonder what kind of example these shows are setting, though. Already my daughters think that the way to become a rock star is to submit yourself to the judgement of a panel of clapped-out music industry bureacrats and “celebrities” on some X-factor Idol thing. Insolence used to be the key – even Cliff Richard used to sneer at people – but now the idea is to fawn on the bosses and thank them effusively for granting you a moment of their time. Sarah is puzzled to hear that the Beatles actually did not want to appear on the Eurovision Song Contest.

Elizabeth, on the other hand, tells me I’ve mentioned before – more than once – that you’re supposed to start playing in your bedroom, then a garage, then the back room of a grotty pub. She has taken on board, she says, that that was how it was in my day, thank you very much.

Aristotle is with me on this, I feel. The crown of the virtues, in his eyes, was the quality of Megalopsyche: ‘great-souledness’, sometimes translated as ‘pride’, which isn’t accurate, but nicely points up the contrast with Christian humility. The great-souled man has natural dignity: he knows that much of life is transitory and chance, and when he meets success or failure therefore, he treats those two impostors just the same, as Kipling advises, knowing that true worth lies elsewhere. This applies just as much to success or failure in other people: he treats his social inferiors with the same respect he expects himself, and offers no special deference to the rich or powerful (nor any resentful hostility).

So you would not catch the Stagirite begging for approval, frantically describing himself as a winner, a hard worker, desperately committed to attaining the status of devoted employee. Of course, Aristotle would in all probability regard business itself as a demeaning activity, and television as altogether too corrupting and vulgar for a gentleman’s attention. I wouldn’t quite go along with that, but it does seem to me that someone who really loves business surely prefers to be the boss: of a one-person outfit if necessary.

“Why do you want to work for me?” asked Sir Alan.

“I don’t, you fat fool, you seller of under-specified sub-PCs and other laughably inadequate pieces of kit,” came the answer, “I want to run you out of business. I want your money. I want your desk. I want to buy out your company and turn you onto the street. Give me five years and I will.”

No it didn’t.

Of all the glad New-year, mother, the maddest merriest day,
For I’m to be Queen o’ the May, mother, I’m to be Queen o’ the May.

Not quite yet. Our local May Queen was crowned at the weekend and processed around the streets. My daughter Sarah has attained the status of banner bearer this time round. In the strange hierarchy of the May Queen tradition, this means she can expect to become the Prince next year (the Prince is always female), and all being well, Queen in 2008.

The tradition of May Queens appears to be an old one, though whether in the current form is more doubtful. Tennyson’s tear-jerking poem The May Queen, quoted above, no doubt helped to generate some extra interest in Victorian times, and the Victorians were never ones to let their ancient traditions pass unaltered (I read somewhere that maypoles only acquired ribbons in the 19th century).

Our local May Queen belongs to one of the “Realms” which are associated with the Merrie England and London May Queen Festival created by Joseph Deedy in 1913. Later in the year the May Queens from all these realms gather on Hayes Common in the presence of a grand London May Queen (although so far as I can see all the participating realms are to the south of London – I don’t think the Camden and Finchley May Queens, if there are such persons, come along.

Butter Hill must, I think, be one of the smallest of the realms, and apparently it lapsed for a few years: but these days it’s strongly supported, and in a way I think the smaller numbers make it work better – ten committed supporters are better than a hundred who might or might not turn up. Of course I leave all that to the wife, myself.

Update.

You may have heard about the Sultan’s Elephant, the giant-sized piece of outdoor theatre which is currently underway in London. Created by the French company Royal de Luxe, it was originally commissioned to mark Jules Verne’s centenary in Nantes and Amiens, and the fantastic story which provides the theme for the piece has a definite Vernesque character.
It’s about a sultan who dreams about a giant wooden girl, and has a time-travelling vehicle constructed out of an elephant in order to go after her. The elephant, which appears to have a whole palace inside it, is apparently powered (a rather unpleasant idea) by human sweat. They eventually meet (in London this time round), the little girl arriving in a mysterious rocket which appears to have been made out of something akin to old railway sleepers, and to have smashed into the road (in Wellington Place, in this case)
The actual performance started with the appearance of the rocket on Thursday evening (I took pictures, but my camera went on the blink, I’m afraid), and continues with processions and ceremonies until Sunday. Alas, I shall only be able to visit odd moments of the overall event, but I recommend having a look if you are in or near London this weekend.
The elephant is quite an object: its head and legs are smoothly shaped wood, with the grain very evident: as you can see, there are large windows in its sides which suggest the rooms which are supposed to be inside, and provide access to the inside and the “terrace”, a kind of howdah, on top. Underneath and in the trunk you can see a forest of hydraulic equipment, levers, wheels, and other pieces of mechanism. Besides walking around, it is capable of shooting a powerful jet of water over the spectators (so it’s just as well the weather has been nice recently).

If you want to get a fuller idea of the show, there is a complete set of photographs from the original performance in Nantes here.

One day last week the way into Victoria tube station was clogged with people, and once I finally got to the entrance the gates were shut in my face. They do this occasionally when the station gets so full that there’s an imminent prospect of people being shoved off the platforms and onto the track. It can be some time before they re-open, so it wasn’t worth waiting. As I trudged off wearily in the general direction of the office, more or less reconciled to being late, this publication was thrust at me. I have the old commuter’s instinctive tendency to ignore everyone in my path, especially those who are trying to give or sell me something, but for once, perhaps because of the depressing circumstances, I took it.

You may have seen something like it: apparently versions of it are published all over the world. It looks pretty much like a normal newspaper, and many of the articles are straightforward, readable stuff: they may seem a little underpowered somehow, and the cartoons are profoundly unfunny, but it’s not like picking up the ‘Invest in Zambia!” pull-out supplement by mistake. However, a slightly closer examination reveals a special interest in the affairs of China, and a distinctly negative view of the government of the People’s Republic. In fact, the thing is published by Falun Gong.

Falun Gong is like an exercise system with mystical ambitions. Once well-favoured in China, it is now proscribed: some say that the Chinese government is especially sensitive about it because of the precedents in Chinese history for rebellions led by religious sects.

What strikes one most forcibly, though, is what a colossal waste of money and effort the newspaper represents. Of the commuters streaming past, I suppose one in ten took a copy. I should guess no more than half of those read any of it. Perhaps one in ten of those read the articles on Chinese issues: and probably one in a hundred of those changed their opinion. Not even one in a thousand (if there were that many) wrote to their MP or did anything else about it. Net impact on UK and world politics, zero. One of my colleagues probably typifies the general response – when he saw me with my copy he told me he hadn’t taken one because he thought it was produced by the Jehovah’s Witnesses.

If anything, the covert manner of operation embodied in the paper is likely to alienate people, and the vast resources expended in producing it raise suspicions. The journalists involved would surely do better to work as freelances and offer straight pieces on Falun Gong and its problems to mainstream publications wouldn’t they?