Tuesday 30 September 2014

Wenn ein Löwe sprechen könnte, wir könnten ihn nicht verstehen


The 30th of September seems, throughout the Christian Era, to have been a favourite day for things to happen. I’m too busy just now to write about all four of the ‘30th of September Events’ I’ve picked out: here’s just one, the first on my list:

On the 30th of September 430 (that’s A.D.)(Duh, if you think about it) St Jerome died. Jerome translated the bible into the Latin version that came to be known as the Vulgate. He is the patron saint of translators. There is a wonderful painting of him by, I think, one of the Bellinis: it shows him sitting outside his cave in the desert, raising a didactic finger as he reads to an attentive lion who sits before him with one paw raised as he gazes devotedly at his teacher. Actually, I’ll just do an internet search for it; it must surely be out there. I’ll put it here if I find it. (The expression ‘One picture is worth a thousand words’ springs to mind. Luckily — no, not luckily, but thanks to people like Jerome — we can have both.)
 
 

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