In the middle of august I sent the subjoined question.
I received no answer.
Maybe everybody was on holiday.
I repeat the question.
At the Place de la Concorde in Paris, on the meridian passing through
the footh of the obelisk from the temple of Ramses II at Thebes (the XII
hour line of the sundial) there is the inscription "AU LEVANT DE THEBES
SURGIT A PARIS LE NORD".
I translate this as "AT THE EAST OF THEBES THE NORD RISES IN PARIS".
Can anybody explain this sentence ?
Willy,
This caught my eye the first time round -- couldn't avoid it, I
spent nearly 25 years of my life as a French-English translator and
interpreter, so I've been rolling this around for days! I haven't said
anything though because I'm at just as much a loss as you are.
Your translation is, given what little context we have, correct,
or at most a single vowel off; practically, I can't imagine any
other way of translating it: but the French itself is a bit strange,
so although it makes formal sense (whatever that sense is!), I
wouldn't be surprised if a word or a line were missing.
If I absolutely had to go out on a limb with a paraphrase, my
guess is that the idea is the banal "This used to mark the East
in Thebes; Paris now is the North on the rise: it marks the centre of
civilization."
"Levant", though technically an astronomical term (the
Rising, thus the East), was used and still is though to a much lesser
extent now, in a geographical sense: to mean what older English
writers call "the Levant", i.e., the Middle East.
"Au levant de Thèbes", strictly speaking, is somewhat
ambiguous: it might mean "to the East of Thebes" (i.e., at
some point not in Thebes, but East of it); but since the obelisk
definitely came from Thebes itself, it clearly does not, and means
"to the East that is Thebes". (An epithetical "of"
rather than the "of" of distance: in Latin, "Orientis
Thebarum" rather than "in Oriente a Thebis".)
"Surgit", properly means, not "rises" (as of
the star or the sun: the verb there is usually "se lever"),
but "Arises" (Lat. surgere), the same root as
"surge", "source", "resurrection"; it
suggests something not astronomical, but metaphorical: civilization
"arising" again: but is clearly meant to suggest
"rising" as well.
The whole thing remains a mystery to me.
--
Bill Thayer
http://tinyurl.com/iquh
