# ...gelidas leto scrutata medullas...



## smmichael

Hello guys,

Can anyone give a reasonable translation of the following verse:

_`...gelidas leto scrutata medullas,
Pulmonis rigidi stantes sine vulnere fibras
Invenit, et vocem defuncto in corpore quaerit.`_

Source: 'Ivanhoe' by Walter Scott

Thank you!


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## Scholiast

smmichael привёт! et omnibus amicis

As an Anglo-Scots classicist I ought to recognise this at once. I am sure though that someone else here will.

It feels like Lucretius.

'Looking at the marrow, icy in death,
She finds the fibres of an unwounded stiff lung standing [alive?] still 
And seeks a voice in the dead body'

I must obviously re-read _Ivanhoe_, which I confess I have not since I was in my teens.

Σ


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## smmichael

Thank you, Scholiast,
now it makes sense!


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## fdb

It is from Lucan, line 629 sqq.

LUCAN, The Civil War | Loeb Classical Library


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## Scholiast

Excellent! Well done and thank you, fdb (# 4). I was kicking myself for not immediately recognising the passage, but Lucan is one of those poets more admired than read, at least by...

Σ


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## smmichael

Scholiast, I see you have edited your post the way that makes me think I am not quite sure about the meaning anymore. Could you please explain me the second line? Does it mean that she looks for a lung of a dead man - the lung that is also dead but still untouched by any weapon? And if so, what should be the purpose or a hidden idea of that passage, if any?
Thank you!


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## Scholiast

salutem renovatam!

Yes, smmichael (# 6), I did edit my original answer, because I later realised that in my unrevised reply I had omitted the words 'sine vulnere'.

I think this is all meant as a grotesque 'parody' of the very Roman ritual of inspecting the entrails (i.e. the inner organs) of sacrificed animals to find omens. Anything that was malformed or damaged in some way was either considered a bad omen, or else the sacrifice was thought invalid, and a replacement victim would have to be slaughtered.

Instead of looking for omens in the inner organs of sacrificial beasts, however, the sinister witch here is looking for signs or portents in one of the dead human bodies on the blood-stained* battlefield of Philippi in Thrace (which today is Plovdiv in Bulgaria my mistake, Σ), where in 42BC Mark Antony and Octavian (the future Caesar Augustus) caught up with and defeated the 'Republican' leaders Brutus and Cassius, who promptly committed suicide—not quite the last, but the decisive, battle of the Civil War as regards the assassins of Julius Caesar in 44.

In # 4 fdb helpfully attached the Loeb text and facing-page translation, and here's another (rather older, dating from 1905), by Sir Edward Ridley (courtesy of Perseus):

Thus spake the hag
And through redoubled night, a squalid veil
Swathing her pallid features, stole among
Unburied carcases. Fast fled the wolves,
The carrion birds with maw unsatisfied
Relaxed their talons, *as with creeping step
She sought her prophet. Firm must be the flesh
As yet, though cold in death, and firm the lungs
Untouched by wound.*

Does this help to explain things better?

Σ

*Edited afterthought: there was quite terrible carnage on both sides.


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## smmichael

Yes, Scholiast, thank you so much! Your detailed explanation is more than sufficient.


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## bearded

Scholiast said:


> Philippi in Thrace (which today is Plovdiv in Bulgaria)


Are you sure, Scholiast? A few years ago I visited what remains of ''Phìlippoi'' in Greek Macedonia..
Battle of Philippi - Wikipedia


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## fdb

These are two different places: Philippi in Macedonia and Philippopolis (Plovdiv) in Thrace.


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## bearded

fdb said:


> These are two different places: Philippi in Macedonia and Philippopolis (Plovdiv) in Thrace.


Exactly.  And the famous battle took place in  Philippi.


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## Scholiast

Fdb and bearded (## 9, 10, 11)

I stand corrected, so thank you—I've been under a misapprehension for decades!

Σ


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