[lit-ideas] Re: Feral Dogs at the River

Lawrence Helm shares with the list an interesting story. Some running  
comments:
 
>I expected Ginger  to especially appreciate the coolness.
 
Exactly -- what is it with coolness. Whenever I'm out on a very cool day I  
think of Orwell at St. Cyprian: Spartanity of it all. But then the Spartans  
never suffered from too cool a weather did they?
 
>we saw two dogs, one of which was a Boxer.  From its docked tail  and 
appearance I assumed it to be pure bred. 
 
That's an interesting philosophical question -- for the epistemologist. I  
wonder, and would ask R. Paul this, how can we _prove_ if a dog is purebred. 
The 
 silly folks at the A. K. A. just ask for the 'papers' -- so, I assume there 
is  _no_ way to know, genetically or genomically, whether the thing is a  
thoroughbred or not, right. Liza Minnelli used to proudly display: "Artist? I'm 
 a 
thoroughbred". 
 
 
 >The feral dogs, if that’s what they were, seemed to be guarding  something. 
 
 
It's interesting to analyse a bit this interesting adjective, 'feral' cfr.  
N. Smith and his book on 'savage sauvant'. 
 
The online Latin Short/Lewis has it:
 
fĕrus. Cognate with Greek thêr, Aeolian dialect phêr; also with Lat.  ferox, 
etc.; v. ferio]. So we have 'ferocity' as related. Oddly, Grice was  sometimes 
concerned about homophones, and in Latin it seems 'feralis' is _only_  used 
for 'funerary rite'. A true homophone in Engilsh, now. 
 
The she-wolf that suckled Romulus for example is described as "Romulea  fera" 
by Juvenal 11, 104. who belongs to the same ordo of dogs (?) and she was  
found by the river, too -- and guarding none other than the memorable couple of 
 
babies. But, well, some say it's metonymic for 'prostitute' (cfr. 'lupanare',  
italian for brothel) 
 
Under 'ferio', the Short Lewis gives:
 
"perhaps cognate with Sanscr. dhūr-, injure, destroy. Cognate with Lat.  
ferus, ferox; Gr. thêr; Aeol. phêr; cf. Gr. thourios, impetuous, thorein, to  
leap; and Lat. furere, furia, etc.].
 
I like the cognateness with 'fury', though. 
 
Helm continues:
 
>The feral dogs ran a few steps toward us and barked  threateningly.  
 
 
"We kept moving forward.  I yelled, “is anyone there?  Are you  okay?”  No 
one answered.

"What they had been guarding, or at  least interested in, was a dead 
animal.[coyote]"
 
"I probably won’t learn the solution to that feral-dog mystery."
 
Nor will your readers, I guess. :(
 
_Very strange_. I guess you could investigate if someone in the  
neighbourhood had recently or not so recently lost his boxer. Such a good 
breed. 
 
Oddly, if you use 'feral' now you are using it in the second homophone  
sense, too:
 
So it's like the feral of the feral:
 
feral:
From the Latin feralis: pertaining to the dead.] 

The pun wouldn't do in Latin for the -al of 'feral' (qua wild) is later  than 
the -al of 'feral' (qua funerary).
 
Very good story. My other favourite of ferals guarding, if that's what it  is 
from Disney, "The Jungle Books" -- Mowgli. Although in both Lupa and Mowgli  
they were guarding something 'alive', as it were. As for dogs guarding the 
dead,  my favourite has to go to Landseer's two paintings: the Sheperd's grave 
and the  shepherd's coffin -- not ferals at all, so should not count. 

A good chapter I was recently reading about ferality is the "Fox"  chapter in 
Little Prince. It describes so well what it means to be a feral. It's  
online, of course.
 
And it also echoes on the 'ferality', if that's what it is, of "Into the  
Wild" the recent film directed by S. Penn _apres_ a bestseller (posthumous) by 
a  
would-be savage savant. I especially hated the ending: to be killed by a  
poisonous mushroom. Very bitter in the ultimate message. But that's Sean Penn  
for ya!
 
Cheers,
 
JL Speranza
    
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