Essay on Janus
Aug. 2nd, 2004 03:28 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethIn the Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode Halloween we first meet the character Ethan Rayne, my current favourite obsession. He works the spell that turns everyone who bought costumes in his shop into what they are pretending to be.
First he dedicates himself:
The world that denies thee, thou inhabit.
The peace that ignores thee, thou corrupt.
Chaos. I remain, as ever, thy faithful, degenerate son.
Then he calls on Janus in Latin:
Janus, evoco vester animum.
Exaudi meam causam.
Carpe noctem pro consilium vestrem.
Vene, appare, et nobis monstra quod est infinita potestas.
Persona intra corpem et sanguem commutandum est.
Vestra sancta praesentia concrescit visceram!
Janus! Sume noctem!
Translated: "Janus, hear my plea. Take this night as your own. Come forth and show us your truth. The mask is made flesh. The heart is curdled by your holy presence. Janus, this night is yours!"
The Latin is copied from the subtitles on my DVDs, the English is from the script book. No they don't match. The subtitles may not even match the spoken Latin. The transcript sites have two slightly different versions, neither of which match the subtitles. I continue to try and find a definitive transcription and translation, but in the meantime I'll just put these two here.
The key point is it is clearly an invocation to Janus.
Ethan prays in front of a statue that Giles later identifies as:
Giles: Janus. Roman mythical god.
Willow: What does this mean?
Giles: Primarily the division of self. Male and female, light and dark.
All this has been confusing to Buffy fans and fanfic writers, for a few reasons. Firstly Ethan dedicates himself to Chaos, then calls on Janus. So which does he worship? Secondly the Encyclopaedia Mythica says Janus was a god of doors, beginnings and endings, not chaos, masks or division of self, so where did the writers get this interpretation from? And thirdly Janus is most often represented with two male faces, but in this episode has one male and one female face. Again, why?
Janus in the episode makes sense if you accept what Giles says as true, but it looked rather like the writers had landed on a convenient name to fit the story, which was rather disappointing for something as well written as BtVS.
So, I decided to dig to try and find where the writers got the idea to use Janus this way, and also to resolve the questions and know Ethan a bit better.
Ethan Rayne worships Chaos. We know this because Giles says it in the episode A New Man.
Some BtVS sites, like Chaos Child, have concluded that Ethan is a Chaote, modern Chaos magicians who invoke whatever gods seem to fit the effect they want, rather than actually worshipping particular gods. It seems reasonable, and could be what the BtVS writers intended, but there is another possibility.
Ovid lived between 43 BCE – 17 CE. He was a Roman poet who wrote a lot about the Roman gods and heroes. Metamorphoses has the most famous stories in it, but he also wrote Fasti, 'Festivals', about the Roman Calendar. The first month of the year is named for Janus, and Ovid writes a lot about him for January 1.
***
Book I: January 1: Kalends
Then suddenly, sacred and marvellous, Janus,
In two-headed form, showed his twin faces to my eyes.
Holding his stick in his right hand, his key in the left,
He spoke these words to me from his forward looking face:
The ancients called me Chaos (since I am of the first world):
Note the long ages past of which I shall tell.
The clear air, and the three other elements,
Fire, water, earth, were heaped together as one.
When, through the discord of its components,
The mass dissolved, and scattered to new regions,
Flame found the heights: air took a lower place,
While earth and sea sank to the furthest depth.
Then I, who was a shapeless mass, a ball,
Took on the appearance, and noble limbs of a god.
Even now, a small sign of my once confused state,
My front and back appear just the same.
***
I've snipped extensively to just present parts most relevant to the BtVS episode. If you are interested in Janus you can read this page, which links to the other parts of Fasti that mention Janus.
So Janus was called Chaos. The apparent confusion about Ethan's religious affiliations can be resolved- Chaos or Janus is a false duality, Chaos is the ancient name for Janus.
***
Ovid
Fasti
Book I: January 1: Kalends
Listen to the other reason for the shape you query,
So you know of it, and know of my duties too.
Whatever you see: sky, sea, clouds, earth,
All things are begun and ended by my hand.
Care of the vast world is in my hands alone,
And mine the governance of the turning pole.
When I choose to send Peace, from tranquil houses,
Freely she walks the roads, and ceaselessly:
The whole world would drown in bloodstained slaughter,
If rigid barriers failed to hold war in check.
I sit at Heaven’s Gate with the gentle Hours,
Jupiter himself comes and goes at my discretion.
Every doorway has two sides, this way and that,
One facing the crowds, and the other the Lares:
And like your doorkeeper seated at the threshold,
Who watches who goes and out and who goes in,
So I the doorkeeper of the heavenly court,
Look towards both east and west at once.
You see Hecate’s faces turned in three directions,
To guard the crossroads branching several ways:
And I, lest I lose time twisting my neck around,
Am free to look both ways without moving.’
***
Janus is the god of doors (ianua), doorways (januae), archways (jani), gates, and passage. He kept the gate of Heaven, and was Guardian of Exits and Entrances. He is called the Opener and Closer. His jurisdiction included all things which had the sense of going out, such as departures, travel, journeys and harbours.
Janus was the presiding deity of the beginning of anything and everything. He ruled over daybreak or dawn as also over the first hour of the day, the first of every month, and the first month of the year. He was considered as the promoter of all initiative. He was worshipped at the beginning of the harvest time, planting, marriage, birth, and other types of beginnings, especially the beginnings of important events in a person's life.
He was also the god of endings, and returns.
He was therefore the god of change and transitions such as the progression of past to future, of one condition to another, of one vision to another, and of one universe to another.
Janus also represents the transition between primitive life and civilization, between the countryside and the city, peace and war, and youth and adulthood. He was representative of the middle ground between these states.
He particularly presided over all that is double-edged in life.
So, while he says the ancients called him chaos, he seems to me to be a god of the emergence of order *from* chaos, the first moment of the new order emerging from the old, that shaky moment when neither state quite presides, or possibly the constantly changing balance where a lot of new things happen and old things go away. Which would be the present I guess.
Janus was well-respected and highly-regarded as a God by the ancient Romans and his dual-faced image could be found on most city gates and many Roman coins.
He was usually depicted as Janus Geminus (twin Janus) or Bifrons, with two faces looking in opposite directions.
Bifrons was also the name of a two headed demon in later years. Which makes it interesting that Ethan calls on Janus, the god, not Bifrons the demon.
Janus had two faces, one regarding what is behind and the other looking toward what lies ahead. Originally, Janus was portrayed with one bearded face and the other clean-shaven, which may have symbolized the moon and the sun, or age and youth. Later both faces were bearded. Often one face was melancholy and the other one smiling.
The other famous symbol with one face smiling and one sad is that of the masks of comedy and tragedy, which naturally leads to thinking about masks, costumes and roles.
His two faces meant that he watched entrances as well as exits, and saw into the internal as well as the external world, left and right, above and below, before and after, for and against. It was said that one face was looking into the past, while the other face looked into the future.
In BtVS the Janus episode hints at Giles' past and how this will affect him in the future.
Janus had a wife named Jana.
Most sites say very little about her, simply listing her as a wife or consort.
Sometimes she is said to be a moon goddess.
Searching for more information about Jana led me to the third answer-
The Mystery of Janus is a page about Janus and Jana as a dual hermaphroditic or androgyne god/dess, male and female but a single being. Like the Janus statue that was used in the BtVS episode, one face male, one female.
Jana represents the feminine side, and also the moon. The other face is masculine and bearded, representing the sun. The two parts blend into a single being, two faces around one mind, a balanced deity.
So, though it is from a fairly modern source, we have an example of some people using the Jana-Janus image to mean apparent division but actual balance and unity of opposites. More or less as it is used in the episode.
Another reason the name Jana is important is that Jenny Calendar's given name is Janna, of the Kalderash people. Janus is a god of time- of the calendar- as is his consort / other half Jana. So the two faced Janus is connected to Jenny, who turns out to be two faced in the current idiomatic sense of having presented a false face to the world.
Janus is two faced because he looks both to the past and to the future, the ancient and the modern.
Modern businesses often use the Janus name and image, usually to invoke the idea of learning from the past and looking to the future. Sometimes because of the idea of doors, of selectively opening and closing doors, locking things in and leaving things out.
The Society of Janus is a San Francisco based BDSM education/support group. Their logo is interesting- the word reads the same way whichever way up it is, but is half light and half dark. Their FAQ explains why they took that name-
"There were three basic reasons why we chose Janus. First of all, Janus has two faces, which we interpreted as the duality of SM (one's dominant and submissive sides). Second, he's the Roman god of portals, and more importantly, of beginnings and endings. To us, it represents the beginning of one's acceptance of self, the beginning of freedom of guilt, and the eventual ending of self-loathing and fear over one's SM desires. And third, Janus is the Roman god of war--the war we commonly fight against stereotypes commonly held against us."
So a very modern society uses the name to represent a kind of division of self, in a way associated with desire and fighting. Which seemed to me fairly relevant to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Halloween.
The Janus symbol is still being used in a living, evolving way, so as well as drawing on the old meanings the episode adds new layers to the meaning.
*********
Sources and further reading
Encyclopaedia and dictionary listings:
1911, eleventh edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica
Smaller Classical Dictionary
Mythopedia.info
Encyclopaedia Mythica
Roman Gods
Penumbra
Wikipedia
Free Dictionary
with lots of related pages linked from there
http://www.livius.org/ja-jn/janus/janus.html
has a lot of history of the Janus cult and some nice artwork, coins and sculpture
First he dedicates himself:
The world that denies thee, thou inhabit.
The peace that ignores thee, thou corrupt.
Chaos. I remain, as ever, thy faithful, degenerate son.
Then he calls on Janus in Latin:
Janus, evoco vester animum.
Exaudi meam causam.
Carpe noctem pro consilium vestrem.
Vene, appare, et nobis monstra quod est infinita potestas.
Persona intra corpem et sanguem commutandum est.
Vestra sancta praesentia concrescit visceram!
Janus! Sume noctem!
Translated: "Janus, hear my plea. Take this night as your own. Come forth and show us your truth. The mask is made flesh. The heart is curdled by your holy presence. Janus, this night is yours!"
The Latin is copied from the subtitles on my DVDs, the English is from the script book. No they don't match. The subtitles may not even match the spoken Latin. The transcript sites have two slightly different versions, neither of which match the subtitles. I continue to try and find a definitive transcription and translation, but in the meantime I'll just put these two here.
The key point is it is clearly an invocation to Janus.
Ethan prays in front of a statue that Giles later identifies as:
Giles: Janus. Roman mythical god.
Willow: What does this mean?
Giles: Primarily the division of self. Male and female, light and dark.
All this has been confusing to Buffy fans and fanfic writers, for a few reasons. Firstly Ethan dedicates himself to Chaos, then calls on Janus. So which does he worship? Secondly the Encyclopaedia Mythica says Janus was a god of doors, beginnings and endings, not chaos, masks or division of self, so where did the writers get this interpretation from? And thirdly Janus is most often represented with two male faces, but in this episode has one male and one female face. Again, why?
Janus in the episode makes sense if you accept what Giles says as true, but it looked rather like the writers had landed on a convenient name to fit the story, which was rather disappointing for something as well written as BtVS.
So, I decided to dig to try and find where the writers got the idea to use Janus this way, and also to resolve the questions and know Ethan a bit better.
Ethan Rayne worships Chaos. We know this because Giles says it in the episode A New Man.
Some BtVS sites, like Chaos Child, have concluded that Ethan is a Chaote, modern Chaos magicians who invoke whatever gods seem to fit the effect they want, rather than actually worshipping particular gods. It seems reasonable, and could be what the BtVS writers intended, but there is another possibility.
Ovid lived between 43 BCE – 17 CE. He was a Roman poet who wrote a lot about the Roman gods and heroes. Metamorphoses has the most famous stories in it, but he also wrote Fasti, 'Festivals', about the Roman Calendar. The first month of the year is named for Janus, and Ovid writes a lot about him for January 1.
Book I: January 1: Kalends
Then suddenly, sacred and marvellous, Janus,
In two-headed form, showed his twin faces to my eyes.
Holding his stick in his right hand, his key in the left,
He spoke these words to me from his forward looking face:
The ancients called me Chaos (since I am of the first world):
Note the long ages past of which I shall tell.
The clear air, and the three other elements,
Fire, water, earth, were heaped together as one.
When, through the discord of its components,
The mass dissolved, and scattered to new regions,
Flame found the heights: air took a lower place,
While earth and sea sank to the furthest depth.
Then I, who was a shapeless mass, a ball,
Took on the appearance, and noble limbs of a god.
Even now, a small sign of my once confused state,
My front and back appear just the same.
***
I've snipped extensively to just present parts most relevant to the BtVS episode. If you are interested in Janus you can read this page, which links to the other parts of Fasti that mention Janus.
So Janus was called Chaos. The apparent confusion about Ethan's religious affiliations can be resolved- Chaos or Janus is a false duality, Chaos is the ancient name for Janus.
Ovid
Fasti
Book I: January 1: Kalends
Listen to the other reason for the shape you query,
So you know of it, and know of my duties too.
Whatever you see: sky, sea, clouds, earth,
All things are begun and ended by my hand.
Care of the vast world is in my hands alone,
And mine the governance of the turning pole.
When I choose to send Peace, from tranquil houses,
Freely she walks the roads, and ceaselessly:
The whole world would drown in bloodstained slaughter,
If rigid barriers failed to hold war in check.
I sit at Heaven’s Gate with the gentle Hours,
Jupiter himself comes and goes at my discretion.
Every doorway has two sides, this way and that,
One facing the crowds, and the other the Lares:
And like your doorkeeper seated at the threshold,
Who watches who goes and out and who goes in,
So I the doorkeeper of the heavenly court,
Look towards both east and west at once.
You see Hecate’s faces turned in three directions,
To guard the crossroads branching several ways:
And I, lest I lose time twisting my neck around,
Am free to look both ways without moving.’
***
Janus is the god of doors (ianua), doorways (januae), archways (jani), gates, and passage. He kept the gate of Heaven, and was Guardian of Exits and Entrances. He is called the Opener and Closer. His jurisdiction included all things which had the sense of going out, such as departures, travel, journeys and harbours.
Janus was the presiding deity of the beginning of anything and everything. He ruled over daybreak or dawn as also over the first hour of the day, the first of every month, and the first month of the year. He was considered as the promoter of all initiative. He was worshipped at the beginning of the harvest time, planting, marriage, birth, and other types of beginnings, especially the beginnings of important events in a person's life.
He was also the god of endings, and returns.
He was therefore the god of change and transitions such as the progression of past to future, of one condition to another, of one vision to another, and of one universe to another.
Janus also represents the transition between primitive life and civilization, between the countryside and the city, peace and war, and youth and adulthood. He was representative of the middle ground between these states.
He particularly presided over all that is double-edged in life.
So, while he says the ancients called him chaos, he seems to me to be a god of the emergence of order *from* chaos, the first moment of the new order emerging from the old, that shaky moment when neither state quite presides, or possibly the constantly changing balance where a lot of new things happen and old things go away. Which would be the present I guess.
Janus was well-respected and highly-regarded as a God by the ancient Romans and his dual-faced image could be found on most city gates and many Roman coins.
He was usually depicted as Janus Geminus (twin Janus) or Bifrons, with two faces looking in opposite directions.
Bifrons was also the name of a two headed demon in later years. Which makes it interesting that Ethan calls on Janus, the god, not Bifrons the demon.
Janus had two faces, one regarding what is behind and the other looking toward what lies ahead. Originally, Janus was portrayed with one bearded face and the other clean-shaven, which may have symbolized the moon and the sun, or age and youth. Later both faces were bearded. Often one face was melancholy and the other one smiling.
The other famous symbol with one face smiling and one sad is that of the masks of comedy and tragedy, which naturally leads to thinking about masks, costumes and roles.
His two faces meant that he watched entrances as well as exits, and saw into the internal as well as the external world, left and right, above and below, before and after, for and against. It was said that one face was looking into the past, while the other face looked into the future.
In BtVS the Janus episode hints at Giles' past and how this will affect him in the future.
Janus had a wife named Jana.
Most sites say very little about her, simply listing her as a wife or consort.
Sometimes she is said to be a moon goddess.
Searching for more information about Jana led me to the third answer-
The Mystery of Janus is a page about Janus and Jana as a dual hermaphroditic or androgyne god/dess, male and female but a single being. Like the Janus statue that was used in the BtVS episode, one face male, one female.
Jana represents the feminine side, and also the moon. The other face is masculine and bearded, representing the sun. The two parts blend into a single being, two faces around one mind, a balanced deity.
So, though it is from a fairly modern source, we have an example of some people using the Jana-Janus image to mean apparent division but actual balance and unity of opposites. More or less as it is used in the episode.
Another reason the name Jana is important is that Jenny Calendar's given name is Janna, of the Kalderash people. Janus is a god of time- of the calendar- as is his consort / other half Jana. So the two faced Janus is connected to Jenny, who turns out to be two faced in the current idiomatic sense of having presented a false face to the world.
Janus is two faced because he looks both to the past and to the future, the ancient and the modern.
Modern businesses often use the Janus name and image, usually to invoke the idea of learning from the past and looking to the future. Sometimes because of the idea of doors, of selectively opening and closing doors, locking things in and leaving things out.
The Society of Janus is a San Francisco based BDSM education/support group. Their logo is interesting- the word reads the same way whichever way up it is, but is half light and half dark. Their FAQ explains why they took that name-
"There were three basic reasons why we chose Janus. First of all, Janus has two faces, which we interpreted as the duality of SM (one's dominant and submissive sides). Second, he's the Roman god of portals, and more importantly, of beginnings and endings. To us, it represents the beginning of one's acceptance of self, the beginning of freedom of guilt, and the eventual ending of self-loathing and fear over one's SM desires. And third, Janus is the Roman god of war--the war we commonly fight against stereotypes commonly held against us."
So a very modern society uses the name to represent a kind of division of self, in a way associated with desire and fighting. Which seemed to me fairly relevant to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Halloween.
The Janus symbol is still being used in a living, evolving way, so as well as drawing on the old meanings the episode adds new layers to the meaning.
*********
Sources and further reading
Encyclopaedia and dictionary listings:
1911, eleventh edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica
Smaller Classical Dictionary
Mythopedia.info
Encyclopaedia Mythica
Roman Gods
Penumbra
Wikipedia
Free Dictionary
with lots of related pages linked from there
http://www.livius.org/ja-jn/janus/janus.html
has a lot of history of the Janus cult and some nice artwork, coins and sculpture
Ovid, Fasti:
all references in this book to Janus
Pages with references to Jana:
The Mystery of Janus
The Janic Tradition
Images of Janus:
http://www.redlandsfortnightly.org/janus.jpg
http://www.fatigatio.de/pool/janus.gif
http://www.dearqueologia.com/calendario_romano/janus.jpg
http://lorian.bigmindcatalyst.com/cgi/bmcDL.pl/jberg/Janus.jpg
in the Buffy episode Halloween:
http://meredith.no-ip.info/screencaps/b02/2ep06/halloween76.jpg
http://www.buffysdomain.com/library/Janus.jpg
There is a lot about Janus that I did not mention because I couldn’t directly tie it to the questions I was answering here, but it is all interesting, and useful if you want to write Ethan Rayne as a Janus worshipper.
ETA: More data found later
http://www.livejournal.com/users/beccaelizabeth/62136.html
and
http://www.livejournal.com/users/beccaelizabeth/386630.html
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
Author's note
Date: 2004-08-01 07:41 pm (UTC)If anyone with a better library than me can kick it to pieces, please do so, cause I only had the Penguin Dictionary of Symbols and Google to play with.
Also if I seem to jump about in my logic anywhere *please* tell me, because I am well aware that becca logic does not often resemble earth logic, so I have to translate to try and put thoughts in a straight line. Often I fail. But I don't notice until someone points it out to me.
Also this was put together with the handy cut and paste function, and probably reads like it too. Any suggestions for where it needs bridging text or fewer paragraph breaks or me to turn it all into my own phrasing, all welcome.
Also also, much work went into it, so pretty please comment :)
Thanks
Re: Author's note
Date: 2004-08-03 08:10 am (UTC)Your essay is fascinating, and it got me thinking about BTVS Season 2 in general. The dual natures of many of the characters are revealed or manifested in this season, and it all starts with Ethan.
Now, I'm sure all this has been discussed to death, but it's a new thought for me. Anyway:
In "Halloween", we meet Ethan, mild-mannered shopkeeper and Chaos worshiper-mage. Over the course of that episode, and the rest of the season, we discover that Rupert Giles is also Ripper, Jenny the computer teacher is a gypsy spy, Oz is a werewolf, and Cordelia is really a fairly decent kid. Others in S2 are Willow's discovery of her power, Angel-Angelus, and Buffy, who finally has to tell her mom that she's not just a high school kid, she's the Chosen One. You could even stretch the point to Joyce, who, by trying to start dating again, is reasserting her identity as a woman as well as a mother.
It's a great essay, Becca. It really made me think, and it's all Ethan's fault (and yours).
Re: Author's note
Date: 2004-08-03 08:10 pm (UTC)some really fascinating theme stuff going on
thanksyou
Ethan and I accept the blame with sardonic grins
no subject
Date: 2004-08-01 11:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-01 11:37 pm (UTC)verging on smug
yeah, time, effort, research, more research, poking Google with a stick to make it cough up the relevant gems of fact, then ducking when it rains gems down until I'm under a great big pile of them... er, its 0730 and I havent slept, my metaphors are getting a teensy bit out of control.
glad you like, thanks :)
no subject
Date: 2004-08-02 06:05 am (UTC)I've never believed Ethan worshiped Janus, and he never claimed he did. He dedicated himself to Chaos, Giles says he worships Chaos, and no one claims he worships Janus.
Also, if Janus was Ethan's deity of choice, Giles would surely have realised what/who he was dealing with before Ethan appeared talking about peanut butter.
However, when performing a ritual designed to transform, to take the outside (costumes) and bring it inside (make it real), Janus seems a perfectly good numen to use.
The Latin literally translates as something like:
Janus, I summon your spirit
Hear my plea
Take the night for yourself (on behalf of your own agency)
Come, appear, and to us reveal unlimited power
The mask is taken within the flesh and the blood/lifeforce is transformed.
Let your sacred presence thicken the viscera!
Janus, take ownership of the night!
no subject
Date: 2004-08-02 06:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-02 01:49 pm (UTC)in the script book = curdles the heart
here thicken the viscera
or strengthen the heart
other versions heart grows greater
latin word lookup gives
concresco -crescere -crevi -cretum [to grow , collect, be formed; to become stiff, congeal, harden].
Which to me looks like it could be "Your sacred presence hardens the heart" like supports and motivates, or "Your sacred presence forms the heart", like the god is the heart of things. but since I havent seen anyone translate it that way I'm probably wrong.
I theoretically studied latin for a couple of years. When I was 10. Due to my unceasing efforts, ably assissted by my friends, we managed to get through one years worth of course in two years of study.
So one of the questions I have to ask about Ethan is how on earth did he ever get motivated enough to learn this stuff instead of irritating people?
but it also means my understanding of latin is really, really minimal.
no subject
Date: 2004-08-02 02:11 pm (UTC)Looking at the rest of the invocation, I guessed the intended meaning concerned making the changes corporeal and real rather than just surface. But that's pure conjecture on my part ;)
I think Ethan could be very motivated in the right circumstances. I also think that Latin was liable to be part of his syllabus at school back then, even if he didn't attend public school, which would certainly make his studies a bit easier.
(Personally, I don't consider him a public school boy -- he doesn't have the accent.)
no subject
Date: 2004-08-02 02:25 pm (UTC)I'm wondering, if latin is so difficult to make precise, why it is used for spells. I'm also wondering if this could be part of why magic has the reputation of being unreliable. Not that that part would bother a chaos worshipper.
Latin at grammar school I reckon. But still, school and Ethan, I cant see that as 'the right circumstances' for him to be particularly motivated. Mind you judging Giles from how he acted as Ripper could lead to same puzzlement. Maybe Ethan was a model student.
*Ethan in my head sniggers*
no subject
Date: 2004-08-02 02:43 pm (UTC)Yes, that works equally well if not better.
Latin is, I imagine, used for spells for at least three reasons:
1. Because it adds an air of knowledge and arcane mystery. That's certainly why TV writers use it.
2. Because historically in the West, Latin was the language of the educated and of the Church, and while Western magic comes from both Hermetic and Hebrew roots (among others), it was easier to use Latin in the main.
3. Because of Church connitations, Latin lends a sense of formality and sanctity to a spell or ritual.
If you have a talent for a subject, you hardly need to be a model student to do well at it. I got an 'A' for my biology O-level for instance, despite having skived off a good half the lessons in the fifth year, never doing homework, and doing no revision ;).
no subject
Date: 2004-08-02 02:50 pm (UTC)I got an A in Spanish despite having slept through half the lessons. (Yes, I'm being literal- they scheduled it last thing on a friday after PE, what did they expect?) What really wound the teacher up was that somehow, even if they caught me snoring, when questioned I could always come up with an answer.
heh. Ethan sleeping in class. cute. then thinking what he'd been doing to not sleep the nights before...
no subject
Date: 2004-08-02 01:44 pm (UTC)but- words! in order! some of them originally Latin!
the research suggests a solution I hadnt heard before so I span it that way because I'd read the other answers elsewhere
Do you read latin then?
and is that the translation of the version I typed out up there?
because theres many versions
thanksyou for that one
no subject
Date: 2004-08-02 02:00 pm (UTC)And yes, that's my translation of the Latin you quote above.
no subject
Date: 2004-08-02 02:11 pm (UTC)thanks
Lola stopped by - late as usual
Date: 2004-08-03 07:59 pm (UTC)Fascinating essay, becca! And a lovely hymn in praise of the joys of research as well.
I particularly liked: “So, while he says the ancients called him chaos, he seems to me to be a god of the emergence of order *from* chaos, the first moment of the new order emerging from the old, that shaky moment when neither state quite presides, or possibly the constantly changing balance where a lot of new things happen and old things go away. Which would be the present I guess.”
Because to many people, change itself is often seen as chaos – all the possibilities, many potential paths, too many choices – what to do!? So chaos could definitely be seen as the eternal present.
So, basically, Ethan is all about the possibilities of life – throw some stuff out there and see what happens.
Very very neat stuff be.
Lola
Re: Lola stopped by - late as usual
Date: 2004-08-03 08:12 pm (UTC)research, copying from as many sources as possible...
thanks :)
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Date: 2004-08-04 05:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-04 12:45 pm (UTC)beautiful
cool
It is looking more and more finished since I've had to change precisely one letter in response to comments. If theres still no glaring holes found in a couple of weeks I'll post it other places, including Glitter Jungle if you don't mind it not being an exclusive.
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Date: 2004-08-05 09:04 am (UTC)Thank you very much! :)
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Date: 2004-08-07 09:28 pm (UTC)up on my site
you can post it at Glitter Jungle too if you like
but please keep the link to this LJ version on the end so feedback is easy.
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Date: 2004-08-11 04:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-03-11 04:01 am (UTC)He was also the god of endings, and returns.
He was therefore the god of change and transitions such as the progression of past to future, of one condition to another, of one vision to another, and of one universe to another.
This is how I see Ethan Rayne in a fic that has taken over my life right now. (plug plug)
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Date: 2005-03-11 04:57 am (UTC)I'll have a look at your Ethan fic later, I'm trying to get my WIP finished before I read more.
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Date: 2014-04-07 06:44 am (UTC)efforts and I am waiting for your next write ups thank you once again.
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Date: 2018-03-22 06:05 am (UTC)https://beccaelizabeth.dreamwidth.org/384531.html
DW versions of LJ links above