Tuesday, January 15, 2013

An amusing foray into philology

Just for fun I thought I'd discuss an amateur foray into the wooly world of groping in the dark for a plausible translation of a - maybe - Latin word in a rabbinic text. A friend of mine is doing some research - on what I have no idea - and asked me if I had any idea what the following word from the Yalkut Shimoni Tehillin 80 (#830) means:

יכרסמנה חזיר מיער" זה רומולוס, "וזיז שדי ירענה" זה האיסקראטורין"

So of course the answer is no, I have no idea. Here's the verse:

יד  יְכַרְסְמֶנָּה חֲזִיר מִיָּעַר;    וְזִיז שָׂדַי יִרְעֶנָּה.14 The boar out of the wood doth ravage it, that which moveth in the field feedeth on it.


So the first part is easy, it mentions Romulus, the legendary founder of Rome. Plus, in rabbinic symbolism the boar means Rome.

My immediate, definitely mistaken idea, was that the second part referred to Greece, and the reason why is because איסקראטורין, uh, sounds Greek. So I thought really hard about it and concluded that it was a metathesis/corruption of the word aristokratia, and refers to the Greek government.

My interlocutor quickly pointed out that plainly Rome is meant in both parts, and I rethought again and agreed. So my next try was to look at old texts of the Yalkut to make sure our איסקראטורין was at least spelled right. Well, not texts. One text. I looked at the Livorno 1650 edition (link) and noticed that in this text the word "Romulus" is changed to "melekh"/king and reads "האוסטרולוטון." Although I have not yet pursued this lead - forgive me, sometimes I would like to post mid-thought - it definitely indicated to me that we cannot consider איסקראטורין to be a perfect text. Could be a transcription error or corruption. In any event, I looked at a late 19th century edition of the Yalkut which has a glossary and source list on the bottom of the pages, and the editor gave סופרים as the translation.









After an embarrassing few minutes leafing through Masseches Sofrim (including the 1799 Hamburg Latin edition) I realized that he meant to define איסקראטורין, not cite a rabbinic source for it. So thinking Romish I decided that perhaps איסקראטורין is the Latin word scriptor, which means scribe, writer or author. To get at this, we of course disregard the rabbinic plural suffix ין- and also the prefix א, which is common enough in Hebrew, which does not deal well with initial consonant clusters (cf, Achashverosh, aspaklaria, etc.). Left with סקראטור, and armed with the opinion of the Yalkut editor I mentioned, I deemed it close enough to scriptor and hoped no one would know the difference. Finally, I admit that I have no idea how the second part of the verse is supposed to mean Roman scribes or sofrim or scriptor.

Thoughts?

15 comments:

  1. Seems reasonable. "Scrittore" is the Italian word for author / writer. It could be an unrelated Greek word, though...

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  2. http://www.hebrewbooks.org/pagefeed/hebrewbooks_org_20771_439.pdf
    see footnote 76

    מדרש תהלים (בובר) מזמור פ

    יכרסמנה חזיר מיער. זה השר צבא. וזיז שדי ירענה. זה איסטרטיקולין.

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  3. The Yalkut editor seems to have gotten it right. See Aruch אסקרטורי, who says: סקרטרי בלשון רומי סופרי סוד. "E-secretaries," if you will!

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  4. The word appears a few times in our sources. See Ketubot 35b.
    I would propose that the word comes from Secretarium. It serves to define secretary in the general sense. But the original meaning was related to the word secret. So perhaps it means spies and the like.
    Ziz is usually defines as a bird. It can refer both to written edicts that fly quickly across the empire or perhaps to spies. As in ועוף השמים יוליך את הקול.

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  5. http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=48229&hilite=8a7072a0-49ab-4b12-b36e-6933affeb4a8&st=%d7%90%d7%99%d7%a1%d7%a7%d7%a8%d7%90%d7%98%d7%95%d7%a8%d7%99%d7%9f

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  6. Thanks all. Seems I was a little premature. ;-)

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  7. What happened to my comment?!

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  8. I've seen iskratorin, I'm pretty sure; think it refers to some kind of torturers, but I can't remember the Latin word it's supposed to be. (And I even know Latin!) And maybe I'm confusing it with a different word.

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  9. arent איסטרטילוטין some form of roman officers איכה רבה בובר http://www.hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=33182&st=&pgnum=217

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  10. Jastrow derives איסקריטורי from Greek σηκρηταροι, sekretaroi, Latin secretarii, for "a sovereign's private secretaries". Meanwhile he derives אסטרטילוטין from Greek στρατηλατης, stratelates, "military governor", which seems reasonable as well. Is there a reason you didn't go to check Jastrow while researching these words? Might have saved some of the guesswork.

    And the etymology of secretary does indeed suggest that its earliest meaning was "one entrusted with secrets; a trusted confidant".

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    Replies
    1. > Is there a reason you didn't go to check Jastrow while researching these words? Might have saved some of the guesswork.

      Sure. I also didn't go to the Arukh Ha-shalem or other annotated editions of the Yalkut linked above - I didn't get up to that yet. This post was my initial thinking. Normally I dig a little deeper, but this time I decided not to and just throw it out there.

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  11. I think the implication of the text is that the "boar" and "that which moveth in the field" are agents of Rome that are attacking the Jews; in that context "stratelates" (field general, later a military governor) works much better than "secretarii" (secretary). But what was the author's source? According to Wikipedia stratelates had become a merely honorary rank by the 6th century CE, and it would have been an unlikely choice for a late text.

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    Replies
    1. Although the Yalkut is a late compilation, the range of its source texts stretches back to the early CEs. I haven't looked to see what parallels are cited, but it's as likely as not that this is a rather old midrash, possibly contemporary with the events it reads into the verse.

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  12. I wonder if the homily is not that the passuk really does refer to Romulus himself, and then in order to other stages of the roman polity, ending with the hurban, alluded to in v. 16. In that case, maybe we should consider that the word is ισοκρατεια or some permutation thereof, meaning "republic"?

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  13. The reason why chazal refer to rome as a boar is because the symbol of the fretensis was a boar.

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