Her Majesty Margarita a cultured, Eastern pearl,
Studied Upstanding Philosophers of old, who once wrote,
We “do not know whether speed or endurance contributes more to the swiftness of their feet. No distance is so long that they will not traverse it in a short time; nothing can be so far ahead of [the tiger] that they will not immediately overtake.”
The same can be said of Our Justinius Alexander Eternus.
Like the tiger written about, he has been running since he was a Cub.
A burgeoning herald who speaks at every chance he can get.
Today joins the Order of the Silver Wheel.
Done this Day January 4, AS LIV at East kingdom Twelfth Night
In the Crown Province of Ostgardr
Words by Aislinn Chiabach
Text based on the writings of Solinus, Polyhistor
FRIENDS, BLOGGERS, EAST KINGDOMERS...
This was the last scroll I agreed to write before a much needed break after a busy fall season of events and projects. The scroll ended up being over 100 words, which I try very hard not to do. As I ended up using a direct quote from a Roman source, Fiona the Volatile, the calligrapher & Illuminator and I decided to keep it. This went out at East Kingdom 12th Night
The description of the award recipient was not all that detailed. The key pieces of information were: he had been playing at least since age 13; he had received his Tyger’s Cub and AoA; and he was an enthusiastic court herald, reading scrolls in baronial and royal courts.
All I could deduce from his name was that he had a roman persona. He has an East Kingdom wiki entry, but it is little more than a stub.
Since he didn't have a specific persona listed, I felt comfortable playing with the time period, so t first I looked into using a Roman or Italian poetic form from a different century. I looked around a bit online, but hadn't found a particular form before I got distracted by the midwinter holiday preparations.
When I revisited the scroll, I changed tactics and focused on that he was a tiger’s cub - which led me to focus on tiger. On a whim I googled “Medieval Treatise Tiger.”
The first hit brought me to The Bestiary Tiger - Sir Thomas Browne - a page filled with Roman and medieval references and illuminations of tigers. One quote, attributed to Solinus, caught my eye: “Nothing can be so far ahead of them that they will not immediately overtake."
The quote intrigued me as it contained a philosophy that seemed compatible with the service side of the SCA. I wanted to see if there was more to it, so I looked up Solinus on Wikipedia. Skipping down to the external links, I found Gaius Julius Solinus, the Polyhistor, English translation by Arwen Apps (in ToposText.org, from her PhD diss., Macquarie University, 2011).
This site was the gold that I needed.
The full quote is:
§ 17.4 A great space intercedes between the Arimphaei and the mouths of the river Oxus, which are held by the Hyrcanians. This people possesses wild forests, which are abundant in savage beasts, and teem with tigers. 5 Their remarkable speed and well-known spots have rendered this kind of beast famous. They shine with a tawny colour. This tawniness in interspersed with strips of black, and on account of the contrast, the whole is most becoming. I do not know whether speed or endurance contributes more to the swiftness of their feet. No distance is so long that they will not traverse it in a short time; nothing can be so far ahead of them that they will not immediately overtake.
I debated for a bit how much of the quote I wanted to use or if I was going to essentially filk it for the scroll. In the end, I chose to use the last two sentences, making only one change: I specified "the tiger" in brackets. I was safe to do so, since other parts of the piece made it very clear that tigers are what Solinus was talking about.
Since I was going with a heavy tiger theme in the scroll I got to play up that the recipient had also been a Tyger’s Cub. The only other piece of real information I had was that Justinius was an avid voice herald. I added a sentence each referencing these things.
Since I was not writing this in any particular rhyme or metre, adding the date, event and location into the scroll was fairly simple. At most I changed the phrasing to "Done this Day" a couple times to best work in the content before this.
As a non armigerous award I did not have to include a space for the recipients arms. I do find it ironic that when I consciously choose not to do a counted syllable, the scroll I am writing does not have arms in a strict heraldic language that I cannot take any liberties with.
To be included on the scroll itself, I include my SCA name and a little pronunciation key. For a very long time no Herald could seem to pronounce my name correctly. Writing: Aislinn Chiabach (Ace-Lynn Key-uh-bok) has appeared to help them pronounce my lovely Gaelic name (at least, it's helped them pronounce it the way I do).
This scroll needed to also include the original author of the quote. For this I was a little bit stumped. How should I attribute the quote? As listed above I had the name of the author as well as the scholar who had translated the piece from Latin. This was above my pay grade. I turned to Master Ryan MacWhyte, for his opinion. He told me that he has used the phrase, "Texet based on the writings of…" whenever he has used a direct quote of an ancient or medieval writer. With that solution I went over the words one last time before sending them off to Fiona.
When she read them, the first thing she focused on was the opening line where I had written, "Her Majesty Margarita a cultured, Eastern Queen."
Fiona suggested changing "Queen" to "pearl." She was right - it certainly fit the flow of the words better than reiterating her title would have.
Finally I will point out the one in-joke that I included in the line which reads: "Studied Upstanding Philosophers of old." Upstanding Philosophers is an oblique reference to Mel Brooks' movie, History of the World, Part One, in which the following exchange occurs:
Dole Office Clerk: "Occupation?"
Comicus: "Stand-up philosopher."
Dole Office Clerk: "What?"
Comicus: "Stand-up philosopher. I coalesce the vapors of human experience into a viable and meaningful comprehension.”
Even if someone doesn't understand the reference, the words are still completely relevant!
And, not for nothing, coalescing the vapors of human existence is a little bit of the wordsmith's job. It is my job to sift through the information that I have been given about the award recipient and put it into a small, yet pleasing essay of their attributes.
Unofficial Court Report of East Kingdom 12th Night
