More Latin and Greek-derived Terms II

I have written on various kinds of "dip" words, though none gave me as much pleasure as tracing the history of "dipshit." However, in this essay, I want to continue the "seriousness" of the preceding by focusing on Latin and Greek-derived words that either have use today or reveal interesting stories. We know the root "dips" has something to do with "thirst;" indeed, the Greek dipsa means "thirst." But dipsas has reference to a serpent whose bite was fabled to produce a raging thirst. John Wyclif knew the story in the 14th century when he translated Deut. 8:15, "Scorpioun, and dipsas, that is, an eddre that whom he biteth, he maketh thurst ...die." But where does this story originate?

As far as I can tell, it all began in Lucan's Pharsalia, a mini-epic of the first century CE about the events leading to the fateful battle of Pharsalus, has this to say about the the snake, in these lines:

"Tyrrhenian Aulus, bearer of a flag, / Trod on a Dipsas; quick with head reversed / The serpent struck; no mark betrayed the tooth: / The aspect of the wound nor threatened death, / Nor any evil; but the poison germ / In silence working as consuming fire / Absorbed the moisture of his inward frame, / Draining the natural juices that were spread / Around his vitals; in his arid jaws / Set flame upon his tongue: his wearied limbs / No sweat bedewed; dried up, the fount of tears / Fled from his eyelids. Tortured by the fire / Nor Cato's sternness, nor of his sacred charge / The honour could withhold him; but he dared / To dash his standard down, and through the plains / Raging, to seek for water that might slake / The fatal venom thirsting at his heart. / Plunge him in Tanais, in Rhone and Po, / Pour on his burning tongue the flood of Nile, / Yet were the fire unquenched. So fell the fang / Of Dipsas in the torrid Libyan lands; / In other climes less fatal. Next he seeks / Amid the sands, all barren to the depths, / For moisture: then returning to the shoals / Laps them with greed -- in vain -- the briny draught / Scarce quenched the thirst it made. Nor knowing yet / The poison in his frame, he steels himself / To rip his swollen veins and drink the gore. / Cato bids lift the standard, lest his troops / May find in thirst a pardon for the deed," Lucan, Pharsalia, Book IX, lines 867-895.

Thus the story circulated about such a snake, whose bite leaves no mark but basically makes one die of insatiable thirst. The story may be ancient, but the use is still modern. "What happened? Step on a dipsas?" Or, "You look as if you stepped on a dipsas." Isidore of Seville, the great 7th century encyclopedist, had this to say about the dipsas:

"The dipsas is a kind of asp, called in Latin situla because anyone bitten by it dies of thirst," Etymologies, 12.4.13.

I won't go into Isidore's fanciful etymology here; suffice it to say that the story entered into the Western mental and literary consciousness and is still lying around, as a weapon to be used in the literary battles.

Latin Legal/Artistic Terms

But we are having too much fun, and now we have to take our doses of legal Latin. Several terms come to mind, such as dedimus, retraxit, ignoramus, cognovit, elegit. Other Latin terms you should know are pinxit and scripsi. Knowing these, as well as others, will help you negotiate almost nothing in life, except possibly a spelling bee, but they will deepen your appreciation of our past. First, the "artistic" term: pinxit. It translates as "s/he painted," and is the 3rd person singular perfect tense of pingere, to paint. The Century defines it as "a word occurring as part of a marginal note on a picture, noting who painted it: as 'Rubens pinxit,' or 'Rubens painted (this).'" A similar word, scripsi or scripsit, relates to a written document. Translated "I wrote" or "s/he wrote" (this), it doesn't appear in any English dictionary, but that is no excuse for not knowing it...

Now let's turn to the Legal terms. Dedimus ("we gave") was, at common law, a "writ to commission one who is not a judge to do some act in place of a judge, as to examine a witness, etc." The writ began, "Dedimus potestatem.." Another word, cognovit ("he has acknowledged") appears in full as cognovit actionem, and is "an acknowledgment by a defendant that the plaintiff's case is just; in which case the defendant, to save expenses, suffers judgment to be entered against him without trial." I think this term has utility today. "The only thing for you to do, buddy, is to give your cognovit." Maybe he will give you a blank stare, but that isn't bad...

On the other hand, a retraxit, the 3rd person singular perfect indicative of retrahere, means "the formal withdrawal of his suit by a plaintiff." As Blackstone says, in his magisterial Commentaries: "A retraxit is an open and voluntary renunciation of his suit, in court, and by this he for ever loses his action." Maybe my buddy above, when I tell him to give his cognovit, might respond to me that I should give my retraxit. I would really be in a bind then, for he has figured out my Latin "game." I wouldn't suppose, however, that there are many who could do this...

An elegit ("s/he has chosen, from eligere, to "choose") was a "writ of execution, by which a creditor is put in possession of (formerly half) the goods and lands of a debtor, until his claim is satisfied." A wonderfully dense sentence is from 1796: "Quare clausum fregit May breed a monster called Elegit." The first is the commission of a tort; by the commission of a tort, one injures another. The injured person has a right to sue for goods lost. If the injured person wins, s/he becomes like a creditor to the "debtor" tortfeasor. Thus, a writ of elegit may be an appropriate remedy. Thus, the tort might breed the "monster" elegit. Legal dictionaries go into more detail on defining the scope and history of the writ. Suffice it to say here that it was technically called quod eleget sibi executionem fiere de omnibus catalis et medietate terrae, which is rendered "that he hath elected to have execution of all the chattels and half of the land [of the defendant]..."

Conclusion

I only have the word ignoramus to clarify. But I spend half of an essay doing that a few years ago. Here is the link. Suffice it to say that the first attestation of the word in English is from 1577:

"If they (the grand jury) doe not find it (the indictment) true, they write on the back-side Ignoramus ("We know nothing of it"), and so deliver it to the Justices..."

Not so bad to be an Ignoramus, is it?

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