Aegidius

Capitulum Octavum Decimum
http://scion-of-lykaios.blogspot.com/2013/03/capitulum-octavum-decimum.html

Capitulum Nonum Decimum
http://scion-of-lykaios.blogspot.com/2013/03/capitulum-nonum-decimum.html

Capitulum Vicesimum
http://scion-of-lykaios.blogspot.com/2013/03/capitulum-vicesimum.html

Capitulum Vicesimum Primum, et Fortasse Capitulum Ultimum
http://scion-of-lykaios.blogspot.com/2013/03/capitulum-vicesimum-primum.html

And that's that. I was hoping to finish it all yesterday, but that just didn't quite happen, in part because it seems like, all of a sudden, I have to juggle every plate in the world this week, and perhaps next week as well.

So, where are we with it? Of course, it's a bit of a mess: while the basic plot won't change, the beginning is entirely wrong for where the story ended up, and there are inconsistencies that need to be ironed out. (As generally happens, it's the small ones that bug me, like repeated typos with Krasnoyarsky Krai and Vsesalevich. I find the Russian language baffling. And looking back, I honestly don't know how any Russian ended up in the story at all; I certainly didn't expect it going in. I signed up for a story knowing that it would give me trouble with Latin, I didn't expect one that would give me trouble with Russian as well. And I can, and did, cheat to make sure the actual Latin wouldn't be too awful without having to carefully work through each and every saying on this very first draft. But how do you cheat at Russian? I don't know. And this bugs me, too, even in the English. I will at some point have to go through the dialogues with Ivan and Vsesalevich and strip out purely English colloquialisms.) The narrator, too, will need to be brought to the fore less clumsily, and parts of the story are absurdly rushed. Lots to revise, although I think the story is worth revising -- I like Aegidius himself, anyway, even if the story around him is a shambles. But this revision is all for down the road, because I'll set it aside for now.

Despite the fact that it took me forever to finish even such an absurdly messy first draft, I did manage to finish it, which is something. After a breather I'll restart Tanaver.

Incidentally,speaking of cheating at Latin, the Latin from Vicesimum Primum is, with some minor modification and reordering, from Boethius's Consolation of Philosophy, which Giles has been quoting all the way through. Most of it is from Philosophy's diagnosis of Boethius's philosophical illness in Book I, Prose 6:

But this question would I have you answer: do you remember that you are a man?' --`How can I but remember that?' --`Can you then say what is a man?' --`Need you ask? I know that he is an animal, reasoning and mortal; that I know, and that I confess myself to be.' --`Know you naught else that you are?' asked Philosophy. --`Naught,' said I. --`Now,' said she, `I know the cause, or the chief cause, of your sickness. You have forgotten what you are....'

 But there are sprinklings from elsewhere in the book.

Lent XV

Fasting is as old as mankind itself. It was given as a law in paradise. The first commandment Adam received was: "From the tree of the knowledge of good and evil do not eat." Now this command, "do not eat," is the divine law of fasting and temperance. If Eve had fasted from the tree, we would not have to keep this fast now.

St. Basil of Caesarea, Homily 1 on Fasting

Vacans

From the Vatican.va website. This is an image of the Umbraculum, which means exactly what you think it means; the Italian is Ombrellino. It is a standard papal symbol, representing the temporal powers of the Holy See -- governance of Vatican City, fiscal administration of the Patrimony, and the like. Despite being purely papal, it appears on the coat of arms of the Cardinal Camerlengo of the Holy Roman Church during a papal vacancy, because he wields the temporal powers of the papacy as steward and agent of the papal office. He only wields the temporal powers. Papal powers of routine and emergency ecclesiastical administration are administered by the College of Cardinals; and the entire episcopal college in communion with the Holy See retains, of course, its magisterial authority (to be in communion with a see, including the Holy See, does not require that the see be currently occupied by a bishop, because communion is, to put the matter somewhat simplistically, liturgical).

I once thought of writing a science fiction story called "Camerlengo," taking place in the far future, where, due to extraordinary and unexpected catastrophe and upheaval, the See was vacant and the College of Cardinals was literally unable to meet in proper Conclave for a very long period of time -- decades, perhaps. This would affect the Catholic Church in general much less than one might think, but obviously there would be problems to deal with. The story would have followed the Camerlengo in episodic fashion from the Incident (whatever it would be) through struggles to the final victory of forming the Conclave. In effect, it would be a story about a man dealing with the immense pressures and responsibilities that come with having to be a caretaker of another's estate for an indefinite period of time, along with the risks and temptations that could mean even for a very decent and intelligent man. It would be an interesting story to write, but to do it properly would take a fair amount of research and a properly thought-out Incident to set it all off, which is why this summary is about as far as the story ever got.

Lent XIV

Let us endeavour to do our best: beware of the poisonous reptiles--that is to say, the bad thoughts and aridities which are often permitted by God to assail and torment us so that we cannot repel them. Indeed, perchance we feel their sting! He allows this to teach us to be more on our guard in the future and to see whether we grieve much at offending Him. Therefore if you occasionally lapse into sin, do not lose heart and cease trying to advance, for God will draw good even out of our falls, like the merchant who sells theriac, who first takes poison, then the theriac, to prove the power of his elixir. This combat would suffice to teach us to amend our habits if we realized our failings in no other way, and would show us the injury we receive from a life of dissipation. Can any evil be greater than that we find at home? What peace can we hope to find elsewhere, if we have none within us? What friends or kindred can be so close and intimate as the powers of our soul, which, whether we will or no, must ever bear us company? These seem to wage war on us as if they knew the harm our vices had wrought them. 'Peace, peace be unto you,' my sisters, as our Lord said, and many a time proclaimed to His Apostles. Believe me, if we neither possess nor strive to obtain this peace at home, we shall never find it abroad.

St. Teresa of Avila, Interior Castle, Second Mansions

Lent XIII

Do you see that a failure in almsgiving is enough to cast a man into hell fire? For where will he avail who does not give alms? Do you fast every day? So also did those virgins, but it availed them nothing. Do you pray? What of that? prayer without almsgiving is unfruitful, without that all things are unclean and unprofitable. The better part of virtue is destroyed. "He that loves not his brother," it is said, "knows not God." And how do you love him, when you do not even impart to him of these poor worthless things? Tell me, therefore, do you observe chastity? On what account? From fear of punishment? By no means. It is of a natural endowment that you observe it, since if you were chaste from fear of punishment, and did violence to nature in submitting to so severe a rule, much more ought thou to do alms. For to govern the desire of wealth, and of bodily pleasures, is not the same thing. The latter is much more difficult to restrain. And wherefore? Because the pleasure is natural, and the desire of it is innate and of natural growth in the body. It is not so with riches. Herein we are able to resemble God, in showing mercy and pity. When therefore we have not this quality, we are devoid of all good. He has not said, "you shall be like your Father, if you fast," nor "if you be virgins," nor "if you pray," has He said, "you shall be like your Father," for none of these things can be applied to God, nor are they His acts. But what? "Be merciful, as your Father in Heaven is merciful."

St. John Chrysostom, Homily 6 on Second Timothy

Reason's Foot in the Door

We are in the midst of Lent, of course, and that is traditionally a season of penitent prayer, almsgiving, and fasting. I always find the fasting part of it fascinating, because it's the part I'm completely incompetent at. Penitent prayer really doesn't require any more than being able to say you're sorry and think of how to do better; almsgiving requires little more than just setting some aside and remembering to get it somewhere. Confessedly I've failed at both, but it's not a competence issue. I really and truly do not fast well, though.

I am very much the sort of person who doesn't pay attention to these things. I don't usually have regular meals -- the whole rule of "one full meal and two small meals" for mandatory fast days is completely useless to me since almost all my meals consist of light snacking over the course of a few hours. Sometimes, in any season of the year, I will forget to eat almost entirely. Normally I just eat when I'm hungry; a bite here, a bite there, while doing other things. (I am a consistent multitasker when it comes to eating.) I have never succeeded in giving up anything for the entire period of Lent; I usually only remember that I'm supposed to be giving something up after I've finally failed to do so. The same happens during Fridays of the ordinary year; in principle I don't eat meat on Friday, but I fail at that about every three to four weeks. "Ham is meat," I think, as I finish the last bite of a ham sandwich. "Today is Friday," I think, fifteen minutes after I have finished a pepperoni pizza. You might think I'm exaggerating, but no.

There are lots of reasons for traditional practices of fasting. But one of them is just to remind ourselves that there are many parts of our lives to which we simply don't attend, at least not in any serious way. Maybe things are just fine there, maybe not, but obviously if you never look, you never know. Bad habits build up most easily where you cannot see them, and we are less transparent to ourselves than we usually think. It's not that reason has to pay attention to everything all the time; it's that it has to look around sometimes at things it usually leaves to themselves, tidying them up a bit, making sure the whole thing's working as it should. And sometimes things have become quite bad (or, if not yet bad, absurd in a way that could be bad someday) without one's ever realizing it. It's useful, for instance, to look around and realize that, while I don't really eat too little or too much in quantity, an inordinate proportion of my food pyramid consists of pizza or chips and dip. In those cases something needs to be done, and the first thing that needs to be done is to get reason's foot in the door by actually paying attention for once.

Fasting is a spiritual practice. It is not about the food. It's not even really about how well one succeeds at restricting oneself, although I hope most people's failures in it do not reach the height of ridiculousness mine sometimes do. It's really about avoiding the thoughtlessness that lets anything take root, about looking around at your life occasionally in order to pay attention to the little things. That's the primary discipline. There are other things, of course, since it's a penitential practice as well as a disciplinary one, and also (both very important, but too often forgotten) a way of marking the importance of a new beginning and a way of freeing oneself of unnecessary distraction. But all these presuppose that you've undergone the discipline of having a good, rational look around.

Skill and Magic II

As a sort of appendix to my Skill and Magic post, I thought I would just list the etymologies of some magic-related terms, showing links to various skills or crafts. I've skipped steps in several of the etymologies. And, of course, with all etymologies one should exercise a bit of caution; etymology is a tentative study at best, even for experts, and for us amateurs there's plenty of danger of falling victim to mere appearances. But it's an interesting list.

charm < Latin carmen = song
enchantment < Latin incantare = to sing onto/into
Old English galdor < galan = to sing

gramarye < Old French gramaire < Latin grammatica < Greek grammatike techne = art of writing
glamour < gramarye
grimoire < gramaire

spell < Old English spell = story
German besprechen (to charm) < sprechen = to speak
rune < Old High German runa = whisper, quiet conversation

fetish < French fétiche < Portuguese feitiço < Latin facticius = something crafted

wizard < Middle English wys = wise or skilled in craft

Of course, there are many words relating to magic whose etymology is abscure at best, or trails back through the depths of time to oblivion. 'Alchemy' is one of them (perhaps it's a reference to the land of black soil, i.e., Egypt, but perhaps this association is later), as is 'witch'. And other words relating to magic were straight descriptions that have just been carried from one language to the other. In yet other cases, former magic-related words, like 'amethyst' or 'poppet' or 'prestigious', have since shed their magic to become non-magical denizens of the English language.