[lit-ideas] Immunized by the Chants of the Troops
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 10 Dec 2007 08:58:17 EST
In "Immunized by Europe" L. K. Helm replies to J. Wager:
>This has been suggested by
>several people in the past, but at present it is mere conjecture.
We are still trying to find the original Lycurgus quote.
_http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Lives/Lycurgus*.ht
ml_
(http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Lives/Lycurgus*.html)
A third rhetra of Lycurgus is mentioned, which forbids making frequent
expeditions against the same enemies, in order not to accustom such enemies to
frequent defence of themselves.
I seem to believe that the words Lycurgus used was a simile:
The farmer does not use the same plot of land on two successive seasons.
It exhaust the land.
Ditto, the general should not use the same enemy on two successive
seasons. It _immunizes_ them.
----
The Brits know about this. In "1006 and all that", there's a chapter on the
"Bore War".
Subsection is called "The Zulu War"
"Cause: The Zulus"
"Result of the War: Extermination of the Zulus".
------
They knew that the Zulus were not worth immunizing.
----
The Romans were just as good in strategies, perhaps better than the Greeks.
"Pharsalia" for example, the battle of Julius Caesar against Pompeii
taking place in Greece (48 BC) is a classic of military strategy
studied by laymen and military types alike.
I notice that a high-school (male) student tends to love to study
military battles of old.
-- and Wellington was a bit too vacuous when he said about the
Etonian playing fields. Surely the Etonians were not strictly
illiterate and besides moving around his musculature, they
knew basics of strategy from the study of the Classics.
----
Frontinus, in his book of Strategies,
refers to one interesting strategy:
* FEED THE ENEMY.
He recalls the very many occasions when the enemy
was fed to the point of indigestion or siesta and then
massacred.
I note that the word 'strategy' is ambiguous.
There's something secretive about it,
and people should NOT overuse it in contexts
like "strategies for effective reading".
A strategy always involves a non-Gricean element
of 'sneakiness'. Usually we understand the people
who should not KNOW is defined as 'the enemy'.
But sometimes, it's one's own troops themselves.
This general, -- I shared the quote with the list
already -- with leave Rome for battle, and as
he marched with his troops, changes his mind
as to any possible success, so without telling
the troops so, makes a longest arc possibly
and the troops are safely returned home without
making explicit the reason why.
"Pharsalia", which I got yesterday, makes for
fun reading. It was written by Lucan.
One problem is that it ends abruptly. The reason
possibly is, the author of the Introduction writes,
that Lucan ;was found conspirating against
Nero and forced to die.
Nero, always kind-hearted, first listened to
Lucan's excuse.
Lucan said, "It wasn't my idea to betray you -- but my mother."
Eventually Lucan's mother was killed. But upon further examination
Lucan was still found guilty. Nero, the Kind-Hearted, let Lucan
decide the way to die.
Lucan chose the way Seneca had, and which seems to be
pretty much the best choice given the circumstances.
He asked to be taken to a 'therma', and in the warm waters
cut his veins. The death took like one hour, upon which he
recited his poem (incomplete).
"Pharsalia" retells the story of the Caesareans. When one
troop was defeated by Pompey, Lucan recalls that the
prisoners all COMMITTED SUICIDE, as they thought it
more appropriate to be a Caesarian in death than a
Pompeian slave. And it may be just as well.
Slaves were used anally penetrational, and who wants that.
-- Also they had to clean the kitchen.
------- Wars are terrible, civil or other.
But civil are the worst.
Thanks to D. Ritchie for the rebel-yell. Yes, it does sound like
a dog, and the article you quote cites the Native American
wolf-cry.
Since "alala" was onomatopoetic for the owl cacophonic
cry, we are before a puzzle here.
There are various theories on the origin of language
mainly the
bow-wow -- imitative in origin.
ya-hoo! -- expressive in origin.
I would think it was 'expressive' in origin, with the battle cry as ONE type
of expression
of emotion. "mmmm" would emote "love", and "aargh" would emote -- the OED
says,
_pain_ or _fear_.
The rebel-yell article mentions the man imitating what dogs do in fox
hunting.
You don't need to imitate the dog, though. It's more, and the rebel-yell
article
also notes this, like the hunter's own cry ALONG with the howling of the
dogs. A different animal as it were. Possibly the man's howling is more
potent than any common-or-garden fox-hound's.
The Native Americans could call it wolf-cry, because they were boringly
into animals, but I don't think the Greeks or the Romans were (and I still
don't have evidence for the ROMAN battle cry -- if any).
The problem with the yahoo! theory of language origin is that it
sketches the basics of language development but gets into too much
detail explaining syntax.
Palmer in his book on Grammar (Penguin) has this cartoon where two
Bushmen or Cavemen meet by a fire, and one tells the other, "Remember
the good old days when all we had to care for was nouns and verbs?"
With battle cries is not even that. A. Sayce, in his book on Language
(Oxford)
-- he was professor of Oxford in the 1860s -- has a good section on this,
which ends up being Gricean.
The battle cry would be the inarticulate expression of one emotion.
It's where 'meaning' becomes 'equi-vocal', with 'equi-' meaning 'same', as
in equation.
Smoke means fire, and smoke means salmon.
And clouds mean rain.
And 'Grass is green' means grass is green.
So, a tear in one's eye, means sorrow
And a chuckle means joy.
-- and joy is the greatest emotion one can express-- cfr. 'enjoying oneself'
= finding pleasure.
-- And a battle cry is PROTREPTIC, not just exhibitive.
For Grice, utterances are exhibitive when they just exhibit YOUR emotion.
A tear is exhibitive because it exhibits your pain. It may have a further
implicature ("Pass me a handkerchief" but it may not).
A battle cry is 'protreptic' -- the term is Classic -- when it's part of the
utterer's constitutive intention _as per the explicature_ that it will have
at at least two targets as recognised by the addressee:
-- that the utterer means _war_
-- that the utterer is a _dangerous_ winner.
The rebel-yell mentions the students's cry at one university. I would think
that one's battle-cry will have affinity with emotions like LOVE or loyalty.
We wouldn't be using,
"SHIT!"
as a battle cry, because we are not affectionately linked with that. And the
effect would be slightly vain ("You are shit, and we don't like you". Note
that bullshit means 'silliness').
So something like the more articulated,
"Saint James for the Argentine!"
is better for a war-cry, only five syllables too long.
The rebel-yell article notes that there is regional variance, and for
regiments too, and that is just as well. What would be the point of having just
ONE
battle-cry for the whole ARMY?
The Japanese are good at this, and McCreery must know them all.
The rebel-yell mentioned different variations as dealing with different
battle strategies -- the battle cry being the most clear, obvious one. But
there
were signals for "RETREAT", or "WARN" and the rest of them.
I cannot think of a good retreat cry --. But perhaps A. Palma knowing French
will.
Cheers,
JL
Historien Militaire, etc.
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