Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2018 August 4

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August 4

On smiling in antiquity

Per a ref desk answer in the archives, there's no word for smiling in biblical Hebrew. Per similar, there's no word in classical Latin either. smile contains a "Historical Background" section for which that heading is a misnomer.

I don't doubt that smiling is older than history, but I wonder when we found words for it.

Ancient texts give many, many accounts of historical figures and fictional characters laughing. Sometimes it seems like it might be too much laughing: were the words for 'laugh' and 'smile' the same at this point? Seems to me if 'laughter' and 'smiling' were synonymous at one point, and 'smiling' and 'happiness' are near-synonymous now, ancient writings on happiness may take on a different meaning! Temerarius (talk) 03:14, 4 August 2018 (UTC)

Cassell's Latin Dictionary (1968 edition) translates the verb whose principal parts are rideo, ridere, risi, risum literally as "laugh" or "laugh at", but with transferred senses including "look cheerful" and "smile". But there is also subrideo, subridere, subrisi, subrisum (also spelled with surr-), which it translates directly as "smile". Authors cited include Cicero and Vergil, so that was certainly classical Latin. Note incidentally how these two verbs relate to the modern French rire and sourire. --76.69.47.228 (talk) 05:33, 4 August 2018 (UTC)

In addition to rideo and subrideo/surrideo, The online version of Lewis & Short, where you can search for English words within the text, has annuo, arrideo, and renideo as verbs meaning "smile". (Although annuo really means "nod at".) Adam Bishop (talk) 23:00, 4 August 2018 (UTC)

Ancient Greek isn't my thing, but Liddell and Scott have an entry for μειδ-άω, which should apparently be translated as the verb smile. They have citations going back as far as Homer and Hesiod. --Antiquary (talk) 09:10, 5 August 2018 (UTC)

In modern Greek, the term has become "μειδίαμα", which depending on the context translates to "smile", "grin", or "smirk" ("smug or scornful smile"). See: http://www.wordreference.com/gren/%CE%BC%CE%B5%CE%B9%CE%B4%CE%AF%CE%B1%CE%BC%CE%B1 and https://mymemory.translated.net/en/Greek/English/%CE%BC%CE%B5%CE%B9%CE%B4%CE%AF%CE%B1%CE%BC%CE%B1 Dimadick (talk) 10:19, 5 August 2018 (UTC)

See also the Archaic smile in Ancient Greek sculpture - the Egyptian version is called the Saite smile. Also, on something of a tangent, Why the Pharaohs didn’t smile. Alansplodge (talk) 12:15, 5 August 2018 (UTC)

On the second temple

Are there any accounts of the destruction of the second temple in early Christian writings? I'm sure there must. I know there's some stuff in the bible that's couched in metaphor and seemingly intentional obscurity. But I'm wondering about more literal accounts of it, and how they might shine light on the split between the Jewish and the Christian. Temerarius (talk) 15:59, 4 August 2018 (UTC)

See Josephus#The Jewish war. 92.31.141.124 (talk) 16:15, 4 August 2018 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Have you looked at the writings of Josephus? He was contemporaneous to the events, and participated in the Jewish–Roman wars himself, so his works are considered first-person narratives of the events in question. He was Jewish, and not Christian, but he would be one of the best sources you've got considering he was there. --Jayron32 16:17, 4 August 2018 (UTC)

I am familiar with Josephus. I know he's the best source we've got; I'm curious about early Christian writings, besides which whatever else we've got extant other than our friend Joe. Temerarius (talk) 16:27, 4 August 2018 (UTC)

Pieces of what you are looking for might be in This, although Josephus happens to be also mentioned in it. At the core of an otherwise widely very interesting subject. --Askedonty (talk) 08:46, 5 August 2018 (UTC)

There may be some things written in the New Testament apocrypha or in other non-canonical works by early Christians, like the Epistle of Barnabas, which clearly references the destruction of the temple. --Jayron32 20:42, 5 August 2018 (UTC)

I'm curious as to how Christian accounts of the destruction of the Temple would "shine light on the split between the Jewish and the Christian". --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 11:50, 6 August 2018 (UTC)

The sample size you're looking for (presumably eye witnesses, so people who were adolescent or adult Christians in the year 70 who survived the cataclysmic destruction and wholesale slaughter that accompanied it, wrote about it, and their account survives) is, I think, small. --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 11:50, 6 August 2018 (UTC)

Early centers of Christianity#Jerusalem has some information; it is important to note that much of the New Testament was written during the time of the Jewish–Roman wars, and most of the authors would have been aware of the events intimately as they were alive and writing during the time. As noted at Gospel#Authors, dates and sources under most common chronologies, only the Gospel of Mark would have probably been written before the destruction of the temple. Similarly, the Pauline epistles would have been written at the same time, though most scholars date them to before the destruction of the temple, many of the General epistles can be dated to shortly after the destruction of the temple. If you check my reference above, the dates of many of the Apocrypha would have been around the right time as well; certainly many of the 1st century authors would have, even if not in Jerusalem on the day, would have been intimately aware of the war and its aftermath. James, brother of Jesus would have been the leader of the Jerusalem church in the events leading up to the destruction, and probably saw the early phases of the war; Simeon of Jerusalem was his successor, and Eusebius, two centuries later, mentions the destruction of the temple and of Simeon taking over the leadership of the Jerusalem congregation at the time. I don't know if any writings by Simeon are extant, but there were certainly identifiable Christians in Jerusalem at the time (at least, as well as we can do given 2000 years and all...) --Jayron32 17:30, 6 August 2018 (UTC)

Oh I don't doubt there were Christians in Jerusalem in 70. Like all the inhabitants, they must have had a rather bad year. We can glide over the usual spurious numbers, but as our article Siege_of_Jerusalem_(70_CE)#Destruction_of_Jerusalem tells us, "Josephus claims that 1.1 million people were killed during the siege ...] Armed rebels, as well as the frail citizens, were put to death. All of Jerusalem's remaining citizens became Roman prisoners. After the Romans killed the armed and elder people, 97,000 were still enslaved ... thousands were forced to become gladiators and eventually expired in the arena. Many others were forced to assist in the building of the Forum of Peace and the Colosseum." And our article omits all mention of the horrific famine that preceded this in a city that was artificially bloated with pilgrims when the Romans arrived. --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 20:55, 6 August 2018 (UTC)

Josephus's numbers are likely bullshit; according to List of largest cities throughout history, Rome itself had a population of 0.8-1.0 million people. I find it beyond ridiculous that there were 1.1 million people (even accounting for transient population) in Jerusalem. There probably were only about 1.1 million Jews in the world, never mind in Jerusalem; there are 18 million Jewish people alive today; and the world population is 20x bigger than in the first century. Doing a quick Fermi calculation indicates that 18/20 < 1, so even accounting for some variation, it stretches credibility to think that that many died in one siege in one city all at once. About 1 million people on both sides died in the Battle of Stalingrad. The Wikipedia article titled Siege of Jerusalem (70 CE) notes in the caption in the infobox the unbelievability of Josephus's estimates, and comes up with a more reasonable number of deaths at 350,000 for all deaths across the entirety of Romano-Jewish conflicts during the first two centuries. --Jayron32 11:47, 7 August 2018 (UTC)

I did write "We can glide over the usual spurious numbers" but we can cut Josephus a bit of slack here. The number trapped in the siege doesn't need to relate to the population of any city, not even Jerusalem. Here's one of the sources we cite in the article - they seem to be talking to you: "Number of prisoners taken in the entire war: 97,000. Died during siege: 1,100,000. This large number during the siege was due to the Passover celebration, as Jews from many countries had been in the city for the festival when the siege began. Josephus tells skeptical readers this number is consistent with Cestius' population estimate under Nero." See Three Pilgrimage Festivals --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 12:21, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

I was more interested in the sourced statement "Josephus' death toll assumptions are rejected as impossible by modern scholarship, since around the time about a million people lived in Palestine, about half of them were Jews, and sizable Jewish populations remained in the area after the war was over, even in the hard-hit region of Judea.[21] " --Jayron32 12:50, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

On difficile lectu

I'd encourage anyone to take a listen to Difficile_lectu, it's actually quite a nice little piece. Plus you'll get a good laugh out of it; it's funnier than its description.

Translations seem to just say it sounds like "lick my ass," but what's the first word (difficile) supposed to sound like? Its first syllable could be any definite article, or «denn» or «dann» or «du.» Then the second syllable sounds like «fick.» Then does the "ile" mean anything, or is it just some kind of pre-echo of «leck?»

On my first listen what I hear is «dich fick ich, le-, leck du mich im arsch, balls balls balls...»

And is the Latin absolute nonsense, or is there another layer of meaning there? Temerarius (talk) 16:25, 4 August 2018 (UTC)

"Difficile lectu" by itself could mean "difficult to read" (or more literally "difficult in the reading"). I don't know if that's supposed to be part of the joke, but our article is right about the rest, it's just nonsense meant to sound like German. It's kind of like "o sibili si ergo" in English (we don't have an article on that? Amazing) Adam Bishop (talk) 23:10, 4 August 2018 (UTC)

According to a claim in the article cited to a paper, "The line thus translates as 'It is difficult to lick my arse and balls.'" So it sounds like the "difficile" part was just supposed to be taken at face value, and the humor came from the rest. -Elmer Clark (talk) 08:15, 5 August 2018 (UTC)

It would remind a scholar of "lectio difficilior"... AnonMoos (talk) 16:52, 5 August 2018 (UTC)

It's a double-entendre where the phrase in faux-Latin sounds similar to the obscene phrase in German. The article even notes it isn't really in Latin. I'm reminded of another famous double-entendre, Marcel Duchamp's L.H.O.O.Q., which when the abbreviation is read letter-by-letter sounds like colloquial French for "She's horny" (lit. "She is hot of ass") --Jayron32 18:23, 6 August 2018 (UTC)

Do we have any evidence that Mozart's intent authoring the piece was an other rather than didactic ? It could be about the discipline necessary to avoid the possible traps (of the singing of a canon) when performing at a serious occasions. I tend to feel less ready for indulgence with Duchamp's riddle, to me displaying a similar potential for diverting attention as flocks of raging flies inside my home focusing on my place at the typer's desk: it'll take several distinct quarters-of-an-hour each time to recall that the first time I heard about it was when that elaborate possible pun based on "look" remained the obvious piece of ingeniosity by the artist. I wouldn't say it's negligible. It's yet another - given refDesk's Humanities discussions about Antiquity I strongly doubt a first, may-be in as a fashion-of - building a meaning like: "born outside, bound to accusation" (The Girl Can't Help It). In case, it remains unclear to me whether it's asserting fact and in which measure, a motto. --Askedonty (talk) 09:17, 7 August 2018 (UTC)

I don't know what you're on about with that Duchamp thing, but as for the occasions for Mozart's comic canons, that's easy to find in the literature, e.g. here: [1]. Fut.Perf. ☼ 10:13, 7 August 2018 (UTC)

On Mozart's BFF Voltaire

Where can I find the correspondence between Wolfy and Volty? DE:Mozarts_Briefe says there was such, but google only gives me a salty quote about the latter by the former. Temerarius (talk) 16:41, 4 August 2018 (UTC)

As a sidenote, DE:Mozarts_Briefe is entirely lacking in the content covered in Mozart_and_scatology, likewise DE:Mozart on a quick gloss. Curious! If somebody could link me to his dirty letters to his cousin et al in the original language, I'd appreciate that too. The English translations in EN WP are... felicitous, but somehow I doubt them; it feels like Jabberwocky#Translations. Temerarius (talk) 16:57, 4 August 2018 (UTC)

The standard work on the subject seems to be Letters of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart edited by Hans Mersmann. Alansplodge (talk) 12:40, 6 August 2018 (UTC)

The correspondence of the Mozart family, in the original languages, is online as part of the Digital Mozart Edition. There's some discussion here about what's included--a quick search didn't come up with anything relating to Voltaire. Herbivore (talk) 14:58, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

Today I had a chance to look at Voltaire's Correspondence, edited by Theodore Besterman, published between 1953 and 1965 in 107, yes 107, volumes. It includes all Voltaire's incoming and outgoing letters, whether the complete manuscript survives, whether only printed extracts are known, or whether nothing is known of them bar the date. I have to tell you there's not so much as a mention of any letters to or from Mozart. Sorry. The German Wikipedia article gives no reference for its supposed Mozart-Voltaire correspondence and I'm beginning to think there's a reason for that. --Antiquary (talk) 18:14, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

now that is a reference desk answer! Thank you. Temerarius (talk) 02:20, 10 August 2018 (UTC)

Unless more than a serious blank by Georg Knepler, none of such correspondence. --Askedonty (talk) 20:38, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

A simple question about Christmas

Is Christmas jesus’ birthday or jesus’ feast day? Temerarius (talk) 18:21, 4 August 2018 (UTC)

Have you considered that it could be both? Blueboar (talk) 21:16, 4 August 2018 (UTC)

Christmas is the day of (the celebration of) the winter solstice. For more, did you read the article Christmas? ✦ _hugarheimur 18:57, 4 August 2018 (UTC)

Specifically Christmas#Choice of December 25 date. If you're going to have a big party, you might as well have it when everyone has the day off work anyway. Alansplodge (talk) 12:09, 5 August 2018 (UTC)

December 25 was assigned as Jesus' birthday. No one knows His actual birthdate. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:54, 4 August 2018 (UTC)

Liturgically, Jesus isn't a saint. So he doesn't have a feast day like a saint would. Which is just as well, since it ought to be on the day he died. Good Fridayish. In the liturgical calendar, Christmas is considered a solemnity, ranking above a feast (and feasts outrank lesser memorials of saints). - Nunh-huh 22:10, 4 August 2018 (UTC)

Agreed, although Christmas is sometimes referred to as a "high feast" in some traditions, like this for example. Alansplodge (talk) 12:01, 5 August 2018 (UTC)

• The best way to think of it is that Christmas is the celebration of Jesus's birth, it is not specifically on the day he was born, however. --Jayron32 20:36, 5 August 2018 (UTC)

• Considering all the changes to calendars (and of calendars) over the last two millennia, the chances that a particular day back then could be correlated in a meaningful way to a particular day now is doubtful anyway. Even a more fully dated incident, like the assassination of Julius Caesar, is problematic. Okay, so he died on the Ides of March, which corresponds with our modern March 15th, but what does the anniversary even mean when you're that far removed? Matt Deres (talk) 15:26, 7 August 2018 (UTC)

Insofar as we do know the correct date on a given year, we can find what date that is on the modern calendar by converting from the other calendar to the modern one. For most dates in Western Europe for the past several thousand years, that means translating from the Julian Calendar to the Gregorian Calendar, for which there is a formula. We can also convert from other calendars, such as the Jewish Calendar and the Ab urbe condita Roman calendar. You just need to know the conversion formula. It's really trivial. The question of whether we know the date is a different one, but if we're assuming that the fact that Caesar died on March 15 on his calendar in the year 44 BC, we just figure out how far off the Julian calendar was from the eventually adopted Gregorian Calendar. It took almost 1600 years to get 10 days off, which gives us a drift of 1 day/160 years. Since the Julian calendar was only 2 years old when Caesar died, the date of his death is still March 15. However, when we get to later dates, such as Washington's Birthday, for example, on the Julian Calendar, he was born on February 11. By 1731/2, when he was born, that was 11 days off. --Jayron32 16:22, 7 August 2018 (UTC)

Worse yet, the calendar was already off by the time December 25 was chosen for Christmas. That day was chosen because it was (at one point) the winter solstice, exactly nine months after the spring equinox, which was Anunciation Day. So even the Gregorians messed it up. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:00, 7 August 2018 (UTC)

Maybe. How the December 25th date was chosen is the subject of several competing hypothesis. --Jayron32 17:06, 7 August 2018 (UTC)

Think of it as Jesus's official birthday. DuncanHill (talk) 15:39, 7 August 2018 (UTC)

As with the "birthday" of every Thoroughbred. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:27, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

And the Queen's Official Birthday (or King's), observed in many countries, usually in the first week of June. Akld guy (talk) 23:23, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

You can't blame Pope Gregory this time. He didn't show up till the sixteenth century. At the time there was a plan to put the calendar back the way it was originally but that was vetoed for religious reasons. Another camp thought no days should be removed at all. It was divided up quite well - the nativity of Christ is three days after the solstice, the Annunciation is four days after the equinox, the nativity of St John the Baptist is three days after the solstice and Michaelmas is six days after the equinox. 109.180.237.248 (talk) 18:45, 9 August 2018 (UTC)

The ending -mas appears to be used exclusively for festivals which are also quarter or half-quarter days - Michaelmas, Christmas, and the old Scottish quarter days, Candlemas (2 February), Lammas (6 August) and Martinmas (11 November). Is this because they were replacements for older festivals such as Beltane and Samhain? The early missionaries found the new faith was better received if a pagan festival was replaced with a Christian equivalent - even the communists, when they seized power in China and outlawed the indigenous calendar, arranged their new "spring festival" so that it coincided with the old new year. 95.149.37.51 (talk) 10:57, 10 August 2018 (UTC)