Death of a Master: Belated Thoughts on Alan Treloar

Alan Treloar
Google Images

I've previously mentioned Professor Alan Treloar as a master of languages whom I became acquainted with during a postdoctoral stint of mine at the University of New England, in Armidale, NSW, Australia. He was an amazing man, unfailingly courteous, ever helpful, and profoundly knowledgeable. I was recently reworking an old article of mine on an Egyptian word that surfaces in a Greek text, when I came upon his linguistic analysis:

[I]t seems to me that Neb[t]hietep, which would be Nb[t]hitp in the original, vocalised conventionally by Budge with e's, might be read hiotep. Then if the n is taken to be the article and is dropped, b is replaced by another labial, h is dropped, and the o is lengthened. You get very close to the Coptic term.

Without going into the details of Professor Treloar's analysis, let me just say that this note given to me after he read an early version of my article helped a lot in my research, and I incorporated it into my argument.

Anyway, that note was nearly thirteen years ago, but I was his colleague from 1996 to 1998 and knew him fairly well, so I found myself wondering what had ever happened to this old scholar who knew so many languages and was seeking the Mutter-Sprache of them all, a quest that led him to the Nostratic Theory, as shown by this review he wrote of Nikita Tschenkeli's Einfuehrung in die Georgische Sprache. Did he ever find that holy grail? I ran a search of the internet and found sad news.

He died two years ago, at age 91 (November 13, 1919 - July 22, 2011). Here's his obituary, "Eminent linguist fought for country," written by a former student who also became a scholar, Trevor Evans, appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald (August 15, 2011):

Colonel Alan Treloar was one of Australia's greatest linguists and classical scholars and also a distinguished soldier.

Few could rival his knowledge as a scholar of ancient Greek and Latin. He had a special interest in the Roman poet Horace but had read the entire classical literatures of both languages at least twice.

He had an astonishing gift for languages and would admit, when pressed, to direct knowledge of about 80. He had a formidable command of many, such as Sanskrit, Russian, Chinese, Arabic and Hittite. In his early 80s he was investigating Bunuba, a language of the Kimberley.

Alan Treloar was born in Ivanhoe, Victoria, on November 13, 1919, the eldest of four children of John Treloar, who became the first director of the Australian War Memorial, and his wife, Clarissa (nee Aldridge), a music teacher.

His first linguistic interests were in French at six and Latin at 10. He soon took up ancient Greek as well and was learning Japanese by correspondence while at school.

He went to Carey Baptist Grammar School and the University of Melbourne, where he took a bachelor of arts and was the Victorian Rhodes Scholar for 1940 but did not take up the scholarship then because of his service in the Second Australian Imperial Force. He began his military career with the Melbourne University Regiment and went on to serve with the 2/14th Battalion from 1940 to 1944, first in the Syrian campaign, during which he was seriously wounded, and later on the Kokoda Track.

His wounding meant he was no longer able to march with the infantry and he was transferred to a staff appointment at Victoria Barracks in Melbourne. After hours, he worked for his master of arts degree from the University of Melbourne, which he took in 1943. He then transferred to the Australian Army Intelligence Corps from 1944 to 1945.

In 1945 he married Bronnie Taylor, a fellow linguist and diplomatic staff cadet.

On release from the army, Treloar was a lecturer in classics at the University of Melbourne and tutor at Trinity College, Melbourne, before taking up his Rhodes Scholarship. At Oxford, he chose to read classical moderations and greats.

He also served with the British Army of the Rhine in 1946 and from 1949 to 1950 was assistant lecturer in ancient history at the University of Nottingham. He then went to the University of Glasgow from 1950 to 1959. During this period, he was attached from the Australian Army to the University of Nottingham Training Corps and then the Glasgow Highlanders, then was transferred to the Territorial Army.

In 1959 the Treloars moved back to Australia. He became first warden of Hytten Hall and reader in classics at the University of Tasmania in 1959 and, in 1960, moved to the University of New England, where he was master of Wright College (1960 to 1966) then reader in comparative philology (1966 to 1984).

He also continued his military involvement, transferring back to the Australian Army to serve with the Tasmania Command and then the Sydney University Regiment in command of New England Company until retiring in 1969.

Academic retirement came nominally in 1984 but in fact ended only with failing health in the past few years. He continued to be sought out for expert advice by scholars from around the world and to make his skills available as an inspirational teacher to a string of students.

His publications reflect the diversity of his interests and include The Importance of Music (1987) and Lyra (1994), as well as academic and military papers.

Treloar was a reserved and dignified man of honesty and integrity and a warm and generous friend. In 1992, he was awarded an honorary Doctor of Letters by the University of New England.

Alan Treloar is survived by his children, Anna and Jeannie, son-in-law James and grandchildren Sarah, Katy and Alex. Bronnie died in 1991, as did daughter Meg, in 1995.

Professor Treloar told me some of these stories, but I learned still more from this obituary. For those interested in learning yet more about such an impressive scholar, go to this three-part remembrance of the man by a former colleague.

As for me, I knew him only for about two years, but I'll remain impressed with him all my life.

Virgil's Graecism: "sensit medios delapsus in hostis" (Aeneid 2.377)

Flight from Troy (1598)

Federico Barocci

(Image from Wikipedia)

Through my investigations into the grammatical background to the line "And knew not eating death" (Paradise Lost 9.792), I've come across more evidence that Milton would have been very familiar with the possibility in Greek grammar for a participle in the nominative case to follow a verb of knowing or perceiving. He would also have been quite familiar with this grammatical possibility in Latin, for such well-known writers as Virgil borrowed it from the Greek, as in Book 2, Line 377 of the Aeneid:

sensit medios delapsus in hostis

This line occurs in the following context, lines 370-384, in which Aeneas, describing his flight with a number of other Trojans from the fallen city of Troy, recounts how he and his compatriots inadvertently encountered a band of Greek soldiers led by Androgeos:

Androgeos, followed by a thronging band
of Greeks, first met us on our desperate way;
but heedless, and confounding friend with foe,
thus, all unchallenged, hailed us as his own:
"Haste, heroes! Are ye laggards at this hour?
Others bear off the captives and the spoil
of burning Troy. Just from the galleys ye?"
He spoke; but straightway, when no safe reply
returned, he knew himself entrapped, and fallen
into a foeman's snare; struck dumb was he
and stopped both word and motion; as one steps,
when blindly treading a thick path of thorns,
upon a snake, and sick with fear would flee
that lifted wrath and swollen gorge of green:
so trembling did Androgeos backward fall.

These English lines are from the translation of Vergil's Aeneid by Theodore C. Williams (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co. 1910), and I've borrowed them from the Perseus Digital Library, which is edited by Gregory R. Crane, of Tufts University. This library also supplies a Latin version replete with hyperlinks defining each word and offering grammatical analyses.

As for Williams, he translates "sensit medios delapsus in hostis" (line 377) of the Latin original as "he knew himself entrapped, and fallen / into a foeman's snare" (lines 378-379). If we want a more literal translation of "sensit . . . delapsus," we obtain "he sensed . . . fallen," i.e., "he sensed (himself) . . . fallen." The word "sensit" is the third singular perfect indicative active of the verb "sentio" (i.e., "to discern by sense, feel, hear, see, perceive, be sensible of"), and the word "delapsus" is the singular perfect passive masculine nominative participle of the verb "delabor" (i.e., "to fall, sink, slip down, glide down, descend").

I was led to all of this by way of a couple of sources. The first that I came across was a note in Roland Gregory Austin's annotated edition of Virgil's Aeneid. In Aeneidos Liber Secundus (Oxford University Press, 1980), Austin notes of line 377 in book 2 ("sensit medios delapsus in hostis," page 13):

377 sensit . . . delapsus : a pure Grecism, ᾔσθετ᾿ ἐμπεσών, for which there is no precise Classical Latin parallel; Löfstedt (Synt. ii. p. 428) notes Apul. Met. iv. 34 'invidiae nefariae letali plaga percussi sero sentitis'. For an allied turn cf. Stat. Th. 7. 791 f. 'non aliter caeco nocturni turbine Cori / scit peritura ratis'; so Milton, PL ix. 792 'And knew not eating death'. (page 159)

The other source was the New First Latin Reader, by John Henderson and R.A. Little (Toronto: The Copp, Clark, Company, Limited, 1906), which also notes of line 377 in book 2 ("sensit medios delapsus in hostis," page 168):

377. sensit delapsus : a Graecism for sensit se delapsum esse : cp. ᾔσθετ᾿ ἐμπεσών. So also Milton, Paradise Lost, 9, 792 :--

Greedily she gorged without restraint
And knew not eating death.

i.e., that she was eating.

So also Catullus iv, 2 :--

Phaselus ille quam videtis hospites
Ait fuisse navium celerrimus.

This note is found on page 215 of Henderson and Little. As for ᾔσθετ᾿ ἐμπεσών, this is the Greek expression that Virgil takes as his model for "sensit delapsus," and the Perseus website also proves useful in analyzing this Greek model:

αἰσθάνομαι - to perceive, apprehend by the senses, to see, hear, feel (ᾔσθετ᾽ is the third singular aorist indicative middle form of the verb)

ἐμπίτνω - fall upon (ἐμπεσών is the singular aorist active masculine nominative participle form of the verb)

And that's probably enough for any reader who's followed me this far into terrain beyond my ken. Let us now follow the example of Aeneas instead and escape this terrain by setting sail for other shores.

And off we go to the farewell of "Bon voyage!"

My jocular character's gonna get me in trouble . . .

Creation of Eve (ca. 1310-1330)

Marble Relief by Lorenzo Maitani

Orvieto Cathedral, Italy

(Image from Wikipedia)

On the Milton List yesterday, one of the scholars asked for advice because a student was upset with John Milton's depiction of Eve's creation in Paradise Lost 8.465-466:

I have a student very distressed about Eve's being created from Adam's left rib.

A number of scholars weighed in, some wondering if the student was female, so I attempted a lighthearted suggestion:

I assume a woman in distress (maybe a bad-hair day?).

Could she be comforted to realize that the heart is on the left and that in a prelapsarian state, there would surely be nothing sinister about a left rib.

You could also always quip that since God chose the left rib, then it was actually the right one, whereas the right one was in fact left. But I know from experience that my 'humor' doesn't always have the desired effect . . .

That last remark was prescient of me, for another scholar found my comment offensive:

Perhaps we could refrain from blatant misogyny on this list. Nuanced, implied and "humourous" comments notwithstanding, a certain level of civility would enhance our professional discourse.

I wasn't sure how to respond to that, but not wishing to cause anyone further distress, I posted to the list:

I'm sorry that my pun on tresses gave the impression that I hate women.

I had briefly considered responding with an explicit reference to what Milton calls Eve's "wanton" tresses and a query about pre- and postlapsarian connotations of words in Paradise Lost, but I suspected that such a 'wanton' point might get me into further hot water. At any rate, I did receive a posted reply from the scholar:

Please do not mistake my post as personal nor implying "hatred." The discussion and comment in context, conveyed, to me, some degree of condescension and trivialization sufficient to devalue the inquiry. That's all.

I had to wonder what the scholar meant by "misogyny" if not "hatred of women," but I decided to merely respond -- lest my point be inadvertently obfuscated by linguistic equivocacy -- with the following clarification:

Humor aside, my more serious point was to question the assumption that "left" necessarily means sinister. In prelapsarian Eden, would a left rib -- near the left-positioned heart -- be anything but good?

Unfortunately, we live in a postlapsarian world, so my words resound like ambiguous scoffing and my humor is fallen flat.

Staffordshire Hoard: Gold Strip with Old Testament Verse

The Staffordshire website offers a hoard of images, including the two fine ones below showing the entire gold strip with its semiliterate inscription taken from Numbers 10:35, "surge d[omi]ne [et] disepentur inimici tui et fugent qui oderunt te a facie tua," which translates as "Rise up, O Lord, and may thy enemies be dispersed and those who hate thee be driven from thy face."



In a previous entry, I noted that the Old Testament offers two parallels:

Numbers 10:35 "surge Domine et dissipentur inimici tui et fugiant qui oderunt te a facie tua"

Psalm 67:2 "Exsurgat Deus et dissipentur inimici eius et fugiant qui oderunt eum a facie eius"

Comparison with the inscription, however, clearly shows that Numbers 10:35 is the source:

"surge d[omi]ne [et] disepentur inimici tui et fugent qui oderunt te a facie tua"

Note the use of "tui" and "tua" in both the inscription and in Numbers 10:35, whereas Psalm 67:2 has "eius" (and note as well the use of "Domine" versus "Deus").

Brandon Hawk has some interesting things to say about this inscription -- though he gets one thing wrong. He approvingly cites the usually impeccable Michael Drout, who says that the inscription is "probably taken directly from Psalm 67:2, where it is also used." Drout, however, offers no reasons or evidence in his blog entry, so I don't know why he thinks this unless he took the inscription's "dNE" as "Deus" rather than as an abbreviation for "Domine," but the use of "tui/tua" argues against Psalm 67:2. At any rate, here are Hawk's interesting remarks:

A search of the Fontes Anglo-Saxonici database reveals that only one text (or set of texts, as will be revealed) known in Anglo-Saxon England also quotes this passage from Numbers 10:35/Psalm 67:2: Felix's Vita S. Guthlaci. This Vita was written in c.730-49, and, according to E. Gordon Whatley, the text was present in Anglo-Saxon England in at least eight extant manuscripts, one of these (a fragment) from the late eighth or early ninth century (Biggs et al.). The corresponding use does appear in the Old English prose Life (which corresponds closely to Felix's Latin version), but not in Vercelli Homily XXIII or Guthlac A or B.

What is interesting about the passage in which this verse is used is that it is not merely a quotation; instead, Guthlac himself uses the Psalm to ward off evil spirits. According to the Old English prose version (Goodwin), Guthlac "þone sealm sang: Exurgat deus et dissipentur, et reliqua. Sona swa he þæt fyrmeste fers sang þæs sealmes, þa gewiton hi swa swa smic fram his ansyne" ("sang the psalm: Exurgat Deus et dissipentur, et reliqua. As soon as he had sung the first verse of the psalm, they departed like smoke from his presence") (Goodwin, 44, trans. 45). What we find, then, is an act of warding off evil, a use of the psalm to achieve victory over one's enemies. In this case, demons are the main enemies, but it is curious to think about the use of such a verse in the Old Testament as referring to humans all too hostile to the psalmist. Likewise, the use of the newly discovered gold strip with the biblical inscription also hearkens to a warrior's need to keep himself safe from his all-too-real opponents. More could be said, and perhaps in the future I will have more to add, but it may be enough to leave this examination without any more conclusion than to say that this verse evokes a supplication for bodily and spiritual aid from a warrior in need of the grace of God.

For his information about Felix's Vita S. Guthlaci, Hawk cites Whatley and seems to be using "Guthlacus," in Sources of Anglo-Saxon Literary Culture Volume 1: Abbo of Fleury, Abbo of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, and Acta Sanctorum, which is edited by Frederick M. Biggs, Thomas D. Hill, Paul E. Szarmach, and E. Gordon Whatley (Kalamazoo, 2001), for he offers a note to that effect and references pages 244-247. For "the Old English prose version" of Saint Guthlac's life, Hawk cites the Cotton version presented in The Anglo-Saxon Version of the Life of St. Guthlac, hermit of Crowland, which is edited by Charles Wycliffe Goodwin (London: John Russell Smith, 1848).

Anyway, Hawk's musings on the Psalm 67:2 with respect to the inscription raise the possibility that the gold strip was intended as a sort of 'charm bracelet' used for warding off spiritual evil. Relevant in this context might be the words of Saint Paul in Ephesians 6:12, and let's cite the Latin from the Vulgate since the Anglo-Saxons were using Latin:

quia non est nobis conluctatio adversus carnem et sanguinem sed adversus principes et potestates adversus mundi rectores tenebrarum harum contra spiritalia nequitiae in caelestibus

The New International Version gives this modern translation:

For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.

Of course, the 'charm bracelet' might be just as useful against physical evils as well. Incidentally, Richard Marsden, on page 73 of The Text of the Old Testament in Anglo-Saxon England (Cambridge University Press, 1995), presents Saint Guthlac as citing Numbers 10:35 (rather than Psalm 67:2) in a somewhat loose 'quote':

et fugient a facie tua qui te oderunt

Compare with Numbers 10:35 in the Vulgate:

et fugiant qui oderunt te a facie tua

Somewhat loose, as noted, but given the use of "tua" instead of "eius," this clearly comes from Numbers 10:35, not Psalm 67:2. In the passage noted by Hawk, however, Saint Guthlac is obviously using Pslam 67:2, for it states "Exurgat deus" rather than "surge Domine." Did Saint Guthlac splice the opening words of Psalm 67:2 to the following words of Numbers 10:35? I don't have the sources before me for checking, so I'll leave this to my readers . . . if there be any.

Incidentally, the evidence from Saint Guthlac's use of Latin for both Numbers 10:35 and Psalm 67:2 demonstrates that the Staffordshire gold strip with its Latin inscription could very well have come from an Anglo-Saxon context rather than being war booty taken from Christian Celts, a possibility that has also been suggested, but further analysis by experts will be necessary on this point.

Pear-Apples?

Pear-Apples?

(Image from Wikipedia)

When I was five years old and staying with my maternal grandparents in their old Ozark home, my grandfather brought some pears from town and gave one to me. I ate it and told him that it was a very good apple. My grandfather -- whose family name "Perryman" implies that he would surely know -- corrected me:

"It's a pear."

Yet . . . it was once said that Adam, in his native innocence, saw into the essence of things and therefore correctly named all of the animals. Milton has the still innocent Eve name the plants (PL 11.277). In my childlike 'innocence', I knew that I was right, but I compromised and called the fruit a "pear-apple," and for the next several months whenever my grandfather went to town, I badgered him to get some more "pear-apples."

From some recent etymological work, I see that mine was not the first instance of compromise. In checking the Promptorium Parvulorum, a dictionary made in 1440 for speakers of Middle English to help them find the Latin terms for Middle English words (or so I assume, for the entries are given in Middle English), I found the following entry:

peere appul: pirumpomum, piri-pomi, neut. 2.

This entry "peere appul" is obviously the Middle English expression "pear apple" -- and the Latin "pirumpomum" just as obviously means the same thing.

What I don't know is how this expression originated. Was this a Middle English term translated back into Latin, or a Latin term translated into Middle English? If anyone knows, please comment.

By the way, here in Korea, we find the Pyrus pyrifolia, a pear that looks very much like an apple, so much so that it also bears the common name "apple pear":

Apple Pear

(Image from Wikipedia)

It also has other names, such as the apparently better-known "nashi pear." I say "apparently" because I'd never heard these called nashi pears, so I'm assuming that "nashi pear" is the British expression, for Wikipedia informs me that in India, this pear is called "nashipati."

But that presumably has nothing to do with the Middle English "peere appul" or the Latin "pirumpomum."