Buffy: Empty Places

[prillalar]

Eh. This didn't sit right with me. I was on board with the mutiny until Dawn told Buffy to get the hell out. That pretty much came out of nowhere.

I adored the Spike-Andrew interaction, but I so wanted Andrew to be there when Xander came home. Andrewsunrquitedloveissopure.

I don't have anything insightful to say, so I will proceed to my rant about the inscription.

The inscription is not Greek. It is Latin written in Greek characters. I kept getting distracted during that scene because I'd see "NON" and think, OK, Latin, and then see sigmas and lambdas in the lines below.

I don't think there's any way to get the gender "for her" from the Latin. This is the inscription as I was able to copy it down from my shaky freeze-frame:

Non tibi est. Ei sol(l)i tractare licet.

"It is not for you. He/she only is permitted to touch/handle/wield."

Both "ei" and "soli" are in the dative so the male and female forms are identical. Without any more context, there's no way to tell.

Except I guess the context is this is Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

I'm such a geek. Shun me.

Comments

[thran.livejournal.com]

Nah, I shan't shun thee. I'm one of those geeks that actually knows Tengwar script and can write in it almost as quickly as in traditional English.

I was guessing that the use of greek characters was because those greek characters are all in straight lines, (sigma rather than 's', etc.) which are much more convenient for stone carving. Does that sound likely? I have no answer for the gender construct, though I suspect that is merely a convenience of plot, as you indicate.

Si hoc legere scis nimium eruditiones habes. Or whatever.

[prillalar]

I was guessing that the use of greek characters was because those greek characters are all in straight lines, (sigma rather than 's', etc.) which are much more convenient for stone carving.

That's certainly a possibility, though I've never seen that done. I've been trying to google it without any luck.

Mostly, I just didn't want people to think it was Greek when it wasn't. :)

[thran.livejournal.com]

Hah! Right on. I'm intrigued, now. I've got some other expert friends to whom I could pass the question along. Will get back to you. :)

[harriet-spy.livejournal.com]

I did some graduate-level study in imperial Rome (and TAed for an awful class in it) and cannot say I ever heard of such a thing. Of course, I did not specialize in paleography/epigraphy.

That's why runes are formed the way they are, though. Which, incidentally, makes them more convenient for knitting.

Re:

[thran.livejournal.com]

Huh. Maybe they did it just to spread confusion and make people like us debate endlessly about what they really meant by it all.

::scratches head::

[prillalar]

Yeah, my guess is that they just did it to look mystic. Though why not write in Greek if you want it to look Greek is beyond me.

[ethrosdemon.livejournal.com]

This is really funny. Tonight I was talking to this guy I know and I was all "why are there supposedly ancient greek inscriptions in this Spanish mission in Califorian?" and he was "It was latin." And I was "I thought it was greek characters. What? I couldn't read it on my tape anyway." And then I went on a whole diatribe about how Andrew is supposedly a demon raising expert, but he can't read greek? What? He can read demon languages and not greek?!

Thank you for getting on this. You are my hero.

[prillalar]

I think Andrew was just so deep in character as the Bad Cop he forgot to make the comment. So I made it for him. [insert many deep sighs over Andrew]

I am a hero! Maybe I could be a super hero. Or villain. I remember this one guy who showed up as a villain in one of the early New Warriors books -- Mathamaniac or something. His big power was that he would make people see infinity and then their eyes would glaze over. I'm sure I could have the same effect talking about Homer.

[http://users.livejournal.com/peasant_/]

Hi, I quoted you in my LJ recently (http://www.livejournal.com/users/peasant_/47094.html) (hope you don't mind) and it was pointed out to me that the inscription reads
NON TIBI EST EI SOLAE TRACTARE LICET
What would that do for the translation? From my very limited Latin I think that makes Spike's translation correct, but I could well be wrong.

[prillalar]

Wow, this was almost two years ago now! Yes, if it says "solae", then that's feminine in form, so Spike's translation is fine. I had a hard time getting it all down correctly from my videotape; it must be a lot easier now that the DVDs are out.

I'm still not sure why they used Greek characters though!