Notes from a fascinating world.
The world is like a bazaar, full of interesting odds and ends, and I've been exiled into it. This is my all-over-the-map (literally and metaphorically) attempt at capturing some of the world's many wonders.
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The woman at the tourist information office in Larnaca was not encouraging. I had asked her about crossing the “green line” or UN buffer zone in Nicosia, the capital of Cyprus. She was not amused. “If you go across,” she said, “you go at your own risk.” “As my own risk?” I was a little taken aback. “There’s not any actual risk, is there?” “It’s an illegal government up there,” she said sternly. “It’s occupied territory. There are no embassies, no consulates. If you have any problems, no one can help you.”  View of northern Nicosia from a tower in the south on a cloudy day. In the hills in the distance, the Turkish Cypriots have painted a TRNC flag. Being in Lebanon has put in my mind once again the legend of Zenobia, the Queen of Palmyra, of Syria and Lebanon, or as she styled herself, “Queen of the East.” I first came across Zenobia in Gibbon’s Decline and Fall. He introduces her as follows — and once you get past the prejudices unsurprising in an 18th century Englishman, you can sense Gibbon’s admiration for Zenobia in the striking portrait he paints of her: Modern Europe has produced several illustrious women who have sustained with glory the weight of empire. . . . But. . . Zenobia is perhaps the only female whose superior genius broke through the servile indolence imposed on her sex by the climate and manners of Asia. She claimed her descent from the Macedonian kings of Egypt, equalled in beauty her ancestor Cleopatra, and far surpassed that princess in chastity and valour. Zenobia was esteemed the most lovely as well as the most heroic of her sex. She was of a dark complexion (for in speaking of a lady these trifles become important). Her teeth were of a pearly whiteness, and her large black eyes sparkled with uncommon fire, tempered by the most attractive sweetness. Her voice was strong and harmonious. Her manly understanding was strengthened and adorned by study. She was not ignorant of the Latin tongue, but possessed in equal perfection the Greek, the Syriac, and the Egyptian languages. I have wanted to visit Baalbek since high school. And it wasn’t even because of the alien spaceships. Mr. Hamel, my classics and art history teacher back in New Zealand, showed us photos of Baalbek as an example of Roman temple architecture. Mr. Hamel’s lessons, including on Baalbek, form a cornerstone of my education. And now I have finally seen it for myself.  Temple of Bacchus, Baalbek. In my travels through many countries where I am ignorant of the local languages, there is one thing I almost always know how to say: orange. From Western Europe to India, there are basically four ways to say “orange.” Three, really. First, obviously, there is just “orange” along with its variants. In French it’s still just “orange,” but of course you have to say it like it’s French. In Finnish it’s “oranssi.” In Italian it’s “arancia.” Other variants retain the initial consonant from the source language. So in Spanish it’s “naranja.” In Portuguese it’s “laranja.” In Hindi it’s “naarangee.” In Hungarian it’s “narancs.” In Bosnian it’s “narandza.” And so on. All of these come from the Sanskrit word “naranga” of ancient India, which in turn was loaned from a root in Dravidian, that family of languages likely native to the Indian subcontinent.  Still Life with Lemons, Oranges and a Rose, a 1633 painting by the Spanish painter Francisco de Zurbaran. Public domain. |
AuthorWriter, traveler, lawyer, dilettante. Failed student of physics. Not altogether distinguished graduate of two Ivy League institutions. Immigrant twice over. "The grand tour is just the inspired man's way of getting home." Archives
March 2020
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