tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1991467372007401147.post819889021746629920..comments2022-11-10T02:26:57.331-08:00Comments on "La Condamine's voyage": End of the journey: 27-30 May 2007c.woldringh@gmail.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00548284398688249163noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1991467372007401147.post-73840958035431022442007-06-16T06:35:00.000-07:002007-06-16T06:35:00.000-07:00On the title page we find"oppofuit natura Alpemque...On the title page we find<BR/>"oppofuit natura Alpemque nivemque" with that old -f- without a little bar that in old prints stands for an -s-. So corrected we read: opposuit natura Alpemque nivemque, Juv. Sat. X. The quoted lines are (Juv. Sat. 10:151/3)<BR/>additur imperiis Hispania, Pyenaeum<BR/>transilit. Opposuit natura Alpemque nivemque:<BR/>diducit scopulos et montem rumpit aceto.<BR/>Which is to say: <BR/>"Spain is brought under his command, he leaps over the Pyrenees. <BR/>Nature opposes him with Alps and snow, <BR/>but he clears the rocks away and breaks the mountains with vinegar".<BR/>Juvenal wrote "satires", humourous treatises of a general character and all this stands in a philosophical context; "he" is Hannibal, when crossing the Alps seemingly on the way to hegemony of the world, yet meeting with an abominable end of his life in agony and dispair. Condamine may not have alluded to these sombre implications . . . . and simply have been proud of his measuring the circumference of the earth precisely at the equator high in the mountains near Quito, and having crossed mountains and snow on his way through the Andes to Amazonia. He had overcome, like Hannibal, "Alps and snow".<BR/>Henri WijsmanAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com