Hiro Protagonist

About horns

A long time back Rhydon, Genie, and I discussed the etymology of the word "horn." It was a discussion brought about due to an anniversary gift Rhydon had purchased for Genie - an illustrated Bible, and the fact that many depictions of Moses include horns and that some anti-Semitism evolved out of the reading of the bible indicating that Moses had horns. (More to the point, there was a depiction of Moses with the horns in their Bible.) Reading through "Mr. Wilson's Cabinet of Wonder: Pronged Ants, Horned Humans, Mice on Toast, and Other Marvels of Jurassic Technology" by Lawrence Weschler I came across a great passage concerning the etymology of horns and their role in Western tradition:

It Turns out that human horns, anomalous growths consisting entirely of concentric layers of keratinized epidermal cells with a tendency to originate on the sites of sebaceous cystss, warts, or scars, are "far more frequent than ordinarily supposed," according to Drs. George Gould and Walter Pyle (Anomolies and Curiosities of Medicine; New York: Julian Press, 1956; p.222). . . .

"Many ancient peoples believed that strength and fertility were concentrated in horns," Monestier points out, "hence the numerous cults wirshipping bulls and rams. . . . Jupiter, the supreme Roman god, was depicted with horns, as was Isisi, the Egyptian goddess of fertility. When Alexander the Great declared himself the son of Jupiter [or, actually, of AZeus], he ordered that all coins bearing his likeness should henceforth show him with horns. Moses was sometimes depicted with horns, as was Christ Himself. Many rulers had horns affixed to their helmets, as a symbol of power" (p. 110).

Monestier suggests that the association of horns with adultery and cuckoldry dates to Roman times, but in fact a primordial sense of the interrelationship between horns and sexuality - an understanding of the "horny," as it were - is embedded deep in the linguistic roots of our civilization. The master text in this regard is R.B. Onian's seminal, and in fact mind-boggling, The Origins of European Thought about the Body, the Mind, the Soul, the World, Time and Fate (cambridge University Press, 1951). Norman O. Brown draws heavily on Onians's work, as for instance in this pasage from Love's Body (New York: Random House, 1996):

In the unconscious, cerebral is genital. The word cerebral is from the same root as Ceres, the goddess of cereals, of growth and fertility; the same root as cresco, to grow, and creo, to create. Onians, archeologist of language, who uncovers lost worlds of meaning, buried meanings, has dug up a prehistoric image of the body, according to which head and genital intercommunicate via the spinal column: the gray matter of the brain, the spinal marrow, the seminal fluid are all one identical substance, on tap in the genital and stored in the head. The soul-substance is the seminal substance: the genius is the genital in the head. (pp. 136-37)

By this reading, Freud's entire theory of sublimation is merely an unpacking of the possibilities already latent in the language itself. But it goes further than that, as Brown himself brought out in his most recent book, Apocalypse and/or Metamorphosis (University of Calirnia Press, 1991), for

English horn is Latin cornu, therefore English corn. Greek keras ("horn") is English kern and kernel; also . . . Cornucopia, horn of plenty.

But also cornu ("horn") is corona ("crown") . . .. And Greek keras ("horn") is Greek kras, English cranium, a head. Greek kratos, a head of power, an authority (aristo-cracy, demo-cracy); krainein, "authorize."

Herne the horny hunter [Falstaff's name in The Merry Wives of Windsor when he cavorts in the forest, horns on his brow] is German hirn ("brain"). Herne was brainy; like the horned Moses, crescent, cresting . . . A swollen or horny head; insane. Cerebrosus (cerritus), which ought to mean "brainy," means "mad." Greek keras and keraunos, "horn" and "thunder". horn-mad and thunderstruck. (p.38)

This latter passage is taken from Brown's essay on Actaeon, who turns out to be an enormously important figure in the Elizabethan imagination (as in the wider universe of wonder). The Elizabethans got their Actaeon from Ovid, more specifically from Arthur Golding's 1567 translation of the Metamorphosis (a text Ezra Pound once praised as "the most beautiful book in the language").

. . . .


. . . Antlers: from the French antoeil ("in the place of eyes") or the German Augensprosse ("eye-sprouts"). And recall, in this context [Actaeon being turned into a stag], both the alchemical and astrological symbols for Mercury, still in use today in both chemistry and astronomy:

From The Miraculous Fever Tree by Fiammetta Rocco (p74):

The rich Quechua language shows that the Incas had a fine knowledge of anatomy and medicine, with words such as hisca for abdomen, cunca oncoy for angina, susuncay for putting to sleep, siqui tulla for coccyx, husputay for haemorrhage, hanqqu for nerve and rupphapacuy for fever.

When I was younger I would read a lot of swords and sorcery fiction. Stuff like Conan and what have you. While in high school I began to amass lists of foriegn words,place names, etc., that would be employed in these books. (I would also detail such things as the currency system used or catalog the deities mentioned.) It's been quite some time since I've done that, but I was very tempted to when I read King Solomon's Mines. It really took me back to those times.

There's a particular passage that I found riviting. The backstory is that King Solomon had access to a large diamond mine in South Africa. I'm not much of a Biblical scholar, but I'd wager there is little, if any, ground for this view in reality. Here's Quartermaine's description of the top of the mine:

At the edge of the vast hole, which was the pit marked on the old don's map, the great road branched into two and circumvented it. In many places this circumventing road was built entirely of vast blocks of stone, apparently with the object of supporting the edges of the pit and preventing falls of reef. Along this road we pressed, driven by curiosity to see what the three towering objects were which we could discern from the hither side of the great hole. As we got nearer we perceived that they were colossi of some sort or another, and rightly conjectured that these were the three "Silent Ones" that were held in such awe by the Kukuana people. But it was not until we go quite close that we recognized the full majesty of these "Silent Ones."

There, upon huge pedestals of dark rock, sculptured in unkown characters, twenty paces between each, and looking down the road which crossed some sixty miles of plain to Look, were three colossal seated forms -- two males and one female -- each measuring about twenty feet from the crown of the head to the pedestal.

The female form, which was nude, was of great though severebeauty, but unfortunately the features were injured by centuries of exposure to the weather. Rising from each side of head were the points of a crescent. The two male colossi were, on the contrary, draped, and presented a terrifying cast of features, especially the one to our right, which had the face of the devil. That to our left was serene in countenance, but the calm upon it was dreadful. It was the calm of inhuman cruelty, the cruelty, Sir Henry remarked, that the ancients attributed to beings potent for good, who could yet watch the sufferings of humanity, if not with rejoicing, at least without suffering themselves. The three formed a most awe-inspiring trinity, as they sat there in their solitude and gazed out across the plain forever. Contemplating these "Silent Ones," as the Kukuanas called them, an intense curiosity again seized us to know whose hands that had shaped them, who was it that had dug the pit and made the road. While I was gazing and wandering, it suddenly occurred to me (being familiar with the Old Testament) that Solomon went astray after strange gods, the names of three of whom I remembered -- "Ashtoreth the goddess of the Zidonians, Chemosh the god of the Moabites, and Milcom the god of the childen of Ammon" -- and I suggested to my companions that the three figures before us might represent these false divinities.

"Hum," said Sir Henry, who was a scholar, having taken a high degree in classics at college, "there may be something in that; Ashtoreth of the Hebrews was the Astarte of the Phoenicians, who were the great traders of Solomon's time. Astarte, who afterwards was the Aphrodite of the Greeks, was represented with horns like the half-moon, and there on the brow of the female figureare distinct horns. Perhaps these colossi were designed by some Phoenician official who managed the mines. Who can say?"

Sometimes it is confusing when two different etymologies are given by different dictionaries for the same word. E.g.*, Ketchup: From The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company : [Probably Malay kicap, fish sauce, possibly from Chinese (Cantonese) k-chap, equivalent to Chinese (Mandarin) qié, eggplant + Chinese (Mandarin) zh, sap, gravy.] Word History: The word ketchup exemplifies the types of modifications that can take place in borrowing - both of words and substances. The source of our word ketchup may be the Malay word kchap, possibly taken into Malay from the Cantonese dialect of Chinese. Kchap, like ketchup, was a sauce, but one without tomatoes; rather, it contained fish brine, herbs, and spices. Sailors seem to have brought the sauce to Europe, where it was made with locally available ingredients such as the juice of mushrooms or walnuts. At some unknown point, when the juice of tomatoes was first used, ketchup as we know it was born.But it is important to realize that in the 18th and 19th centuries ketchup was a generic term for sauces whose only common ingredient was vinegar. The word is first recorded in English in 1690 in the form catchup, in 1711 in the form ketchup, and in 1730 in the form catsup. All three spelling variants of this foreign borrowing remain current. from Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary: [Probably of East Indian origin, because it was originally a kind of East Indian pickles.] You can also use Google to define words for you. define : ketchup (indlude the colon!) will net you several definitions.... including Sacbee's Glossary of Sauces & Condiments entry: A thick, sweet sauce made with tomatoes, vinegar, sugar, salt and spices. Also known as catsup and catchup. Ketchup is said to be derived from ke-tsiap -- a spicy pickled-fish condiment popular in China. from the movie Get Shorty: Ray "Bones" Barboni: Let me explain something to you. Momo is dead. Which means that everything he had now belongs to Jimmy Cap, including you. Which also means, that when I speak, I speak for Jimmy. E.g., from now on, you start showing me the proper fucking respect. Chili Palmer: "E.g." means "for example". What I think you want to say is "I.e.". Ray "Bones" Barboni: Bullshit! That's short for "ergo". Chili Palmer: Ask your man. Bodyguard: To the best of my knowledge, "e.g." means "for example". Ray "Bones" Barboni: E.g., i.e., fuck you! The point is this: is that, When I say "jump", you say "OK", okay? e.g., exempli gratia, which means "for the sake of example" ([Latin exempl gratia, for the sake of example : exempli, genitive of exemplum, example + gratia, ablative of gratia, favor.], should not be confused with i.e., id est (that is). Also, confuse has an archaic meaning of "to bring to ruination." ([Middle English confusen, from Old French confus, perplexed, from Latin confusus, past participle of confundere, to mix together. See confound.]) After doing this post I decided to catch up on my listening to This American Life. Strangely, on last week's episode Howard Chackowicz explained how you can measure the special treatment you're getting, by the number of ketchup packets the delivery man gives you. The Web site had a picture of one of these packets. I altered the post to include the pic.

Metallic odor
minutes before it begins
we can smell the rain