Tarot History Forum

I think, it will be a worthwhile installation to have a thread, where one can gather open questions with Latin language passages.

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Here's a problem inside the "Filelfo Odes" thread.

The Latin text of the critical passage, including the translated "shrewd scholars of the gaming table" ...



... and here's the English translation version.



Is the translation "gaming table" clear and really necessary?

I collected from wordbooks

venefica ... sorceress, witch ... poisoner (?)
gula ... gullet, throat, palate ... gluttony, greediness
publicanus ... tax collector, publican
ingens honos ... great honors
scortum ... skin, hide, prostitute
leno ... pimp, seducer

... so the riddle seems to be in "aleae vafris doctoribus statutis", from which I identify ...

vafer ... sly, cunning, crafty, artful
... and I think, that this must have caused the "shrewd" in the translation.

"aleae" is often a translation problem. It could refer to dice, but also to other games, mostly gambling games.

... coming so far with this sentence, I realize or at least suspect, that there are no "gambling tables" in the sentence of Filelfo, but those gambling statutes ("statutus" in the text), which so often play an important role in our Trionfi documents as witness of the existence of prohibited games during 15th century.
Naturally a translator, who didn't often meet the relevant "statutes" in their specific juristic function in his usual literature, had difficulties to identify these statutes as a very relevant factor of the sentence.

More to this problem at: forum.tarothistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=976

Lenonibus, scortis et aleae vafris doctoribus

To pimps, whores and to the crafty doctors of dice

statutus est ingens honos

a great honor is granted

et publicanis et gulae et veneficis

and [also] to publicans, gluttons and poisoners.

I more or less rearranged the sentence to make it a word-to-word translation.
Aleae can be "dice" or "gambling" in general. No "table" here.

Thanks.

My Latin grammar understanding is very weak.
I assume, that it is impossible, that it is spoken of "crafty doctors responsible for the city statutes", whereby the statutes have a lot to say about prostitutes, pimps, games etc.. Can you confirm this?

Huck wrote:Thanks.

My Latin grammar understanding is very weak.
I assume, that it is impossible, that it is spoken of "crafty doctors responsible for the city statutes", whereby the statutes have a lot to say about prostitutes, pimps, games etc.. Can you confirm this?

Yes, I confirm.
"Statutus" is http://www.archives.nd.edu/cgi-bin/word ... d=statutus

statut.us VPAR 3 1 NOM S M PERF PASSIVE PPL
statuo, statuere, statui, statutus V [XXXAX]
set up, establish, set, place, build; decide, think

Here it has been reasonably well translated as "granted".

Good.
Thanks, I'll place your explanation in the thread, where the problem appeared, I hope, you don't mind.

Huck/Marco,
The key word, for me at least, is the problematic use of 'doctoribus' - dice-throwing has no strategy (although it obviously gave its name to gambling in general and notably in that context there are numerous die that have come down to us from Roman archaeological sites) and so some other form of 'gambling' must be the intended target of the satirical use of that word. Trick-taking card games most definitely have a strategy and I don't think gamblers would have used chess (it simply took too long) so wouldn't card playing be the remaining logical option in the context of the derisive use of 'scholarly'? Filelfo regularly attacked fellow scholars for their scholarly shortcomings, particularly for their supposed inadequacies in translating Greek (especially when he was in Florence), so it would seem particularly odd of him to associate a word that would personally vex him, 'scholarly', unless there wasn't at least the slightest pretense for thinking the persons to be riducled weren't aspiring to some level of "scholarship."

Thanks,
Phaeded

Hello Huck and Phaeded,
please use my comment in any way you find fit.
I don't think I can provide more help about the meaning of "aleae" in this passage: I'll leave further discussion to you.

Diana Robin is the translator of the edition Huck is using. She had an earlier translation in 1991, in Filelfo in Milan, p. 110:

Here great honor goes to pimps, whores, and the learned professors of the dice-bos, to tax collectors, gourmands, and poisoners.

That is vs. her later:

Great honor is granted to pimps, whores, and the shrewd scholars of the gaming table, to tax collectors, gluttons, and poisoners.

So at least she thought about it before she put "shrewd scholars" instead of "learned professors" and "gaming table" instead of "dice-box".