Et In Arcadia Ego...

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From the sacred geometry of Poussin to Star Trek and Dead Can Dance in one sweeping conspiracy...

http://www.angelfire.com/falcon/codex_morpheu/poussin.html

Can someone please tell me what this is about, because they've lost me. Whatever it is, it's brilliant, though.

― Danger Whore (kate), Wednesday, 29 September 2004 13:08 (twenty-one years ago)

Being an amoral hedonistic brute of pure reason, he would sieze long suffering Venus by the waist and plant a big slobbering kiss upon her pert and pretty lips, as for the rest of the Arcadian hippies, he would knock Mars out with a single blow from his fearsome fist, despatch Mercury to fetch the largest barrel of ale he could purchase and carry, whilst handing Earth an electric guitar and ordering him to stand upon the tomb and play 'death metal'.

I love it when conspiracy theorists have a sense of humour...

― Danger Whore (kate), Wednesday, 29 September 2004 13:11 (twenty-one years ago)

I thought this was going to be an Emma H. thread.

― Jerry the Nipper (Jerrynipper), Wednesday, 29 September 2004 13:11 (twenty-one years ago)

Why?

― Danger Whore (kate), Wednesday, 29 September 2004 13:13 (twenty-one years ago)

She works for 4rc4d1a, I think.

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Wednesday, 29 September 2004 13:14 (twenty-one years ago)

I was recently trying to remember the two possible readings of this phrase, as relate to the painting bearing its name. One, fairly obviously, has Death saying '"Even in paradise, I am here". What's the other one, though?

― Alba (Alba), Wednesday, 29 September 2004 13:15 (twenty-one years ago)

What, you mean like Nick Rhodes and Simon LeBon?

x-post

― Danger Whore (kate), Wednesday, 29 September 2004 13:15 (twenty-one years ago)

Neither death, nor Emma, works in Arcadia anymore.

― Alba (Alba), Wednesday, 29 September 2004 13:16 (twenty-one years ago)

The other meaning is "Once, I was in paradise" or something like that, which just reminds me of "I had a farm in Africa once..."

― Danger Whore (kate), Wednesday, 29 September 2004 13:16 (twenty-one years ago)

This is a pastoral painting depicting idealized shepherdss from classical antiquity, clustering around an austere tomb. Thus the phrase is in fact a memento mori, and can be interpreted two different ways, either "I, Death, am also in Arcadia;" or "I used to dwell in Arcadia as well." The sentiment was meant to set up an ironic contrast by casting the shadow of death over the usual idle merriment that the nymphs and swains of ancient Arcadia were thought to embody.

― Danger Whore (kate), Wednesday, 29 September 2004 13:18 (twenty-one years ago)

Despite recent propoganda Vulcans don't change (lest Universal archetypes become endangered species...), they certainly don't meditate..!!!

Damn internet myths...

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Wednesday, 29 September 2004 13:19 (twenty-one years ago)

I swear to god, I was only trying to find out which side the Freemasons were on in the French Revolution, and ended up finding the most bizarre things...

― Danger Whore (kate), Wednesday, 29 September 2004 13:20 (twenty-one years ago)

But 'ego' is present tense, so how can "I used to dwell in Arcadia as well" be right?

My googling suggests the other reading has the figure in the tomb saying “I, too, am in Arcadia (I was expecting to find Emma H here but alas, she has gone to the Institute of Public Relations)"

― Alba (Alba), Wednesday, 29 September 2004 13:21 (twenty-one years ago)

Ego isn't a verb, it just means "I". There *is* no verb in the sentance (meaning it's not really a sentance, is it?) so it's impossible to tell tense.

Literally it just means "Also/and, in Paradise, I"

― Danger Whore (kate), Wednesday, 29 September 2004 13:22 (twenty-one years ago)

Damn, I was hoping that this would actually turn into a decent thread.

Ah well. Et in ILX ego...

― Danger Whore (kate), Wednesday, 29 September 2004 14:03 (twenty-one years ago)

it's not really a sentance.

― RJG (RJG), Wednesday, 29 September 2004 14:04 (twenty-one years ago)

The absense of a real verb indicates that "Arcady" is beyond temporal concerns. CGJung goes on in Psychology and Alchemy about how the fountain in the four-walled garden is the location of the Self.
There's a great sequence in The Invisibles about this phrase.
(I like how this guy incorporates details about Star Trek's Vulcans without ever mentioning Spock or anything. Classy stuff.)

― Loose Translation: Sexy Dancer (sexyDancer), Wednesday, 29 September 2004 14:09 (twenty-one years ago)

Oh yeah - I wasn't thinking. Silly me. I am surprised by Kate's 'sentance', but it makes me feel better about my crappo Latin.

― Alba (Alba), Wednesday, 29 September 2004 14:10 (twenty-one years ago)

I specifically stated that it wasn't a proper sentence:

There *is* no verb in the sentance (meaning it's not really a sentance, is it?)

(And don't pick on my spelling, Nick, I've caught dyslexia from the kids in my clinic.)

CGJung goes on in Psychology and Alchemy about how the fountain in the four-walled garden is the location of the Self.

That is very interesting, and I shall look it up.

The first place that I encountered it was in Brideshead Revisted - at Oxford, Charles had a skull with "et in arcadia ego" engraved on it. I think it might even have been the title of one of the chapters. (Or maybe it was one of the epidsodes of the television programme.) Which seems fairly appropriate for the second meaning.

― Danger Whore (kate), Wednesday, 29 September 2004 14:13 (twenty-one years ago)

RJG and I were both picking on the spelling, I think, nothing else.

I remember it in Brideshead too.

― Alba (Alba), Wednesday, 29 September 2004 14:14 (twenty-one years ago)

It's the title of the first part, novel and TV.

― Alba (Alba), Wednesday, 29 September 2004 14:18 (twenty-one years ago)

Ah, I remembered correctly, then.

Of course, I didn't know about all the silly esoteric associations then.

― Danger Whore (kate), Wednesday, 29 September 2004 14:21 (twenty-one years ago)

Here's that place I mentioned:
http://www.levity.com/alchemy/images/amcl8.jpg

― Loose Translation: Sexy Dancer (sexyDancer), Wednesday, 29 September 2004 14:26 (twenty-one years ago)

I, too, was once (living) in Arcadia. Perhaps it's that weird Latin phrasing that means at one specific point in time I did such and such. The idea of Arcadia is commonly referenced in the "pastoral" in the 17th century, the idea that shepherds and milkmaids lived the ideal lifestyle because they were uncorrupted by society and its games. But it doesn't appear to be a phrase by a Roman writer, but coined later on in the 1600s, which may explain the missing words. (Sorry, I'll be quiet now)

― jocelyn (Jocelyn), Wednesday, 29 September 2004 17:37 (twenty-one years ago)

= lysergic acid diethylamide + slavish preoccupation with da vinci code + preexisting insanity

― {Sand in the [vaseline} on the lens] (x Jeremy), Wednesday, 29 September 2004 17:43 (twenty-one years ago)

James Cameron...Freemason?

― latebloomer (latebloomer), Wednesday, 29 September 2004 18:10 (twenty-one years ago)

Poussin wasn't even in the freaking Da Vinci Code. It was in the book that the Da Vinci code was cribbed from - i.e. Holy Blood and Holy Grail.

Anyway...

― Danger Whore (kate), Friday, 1 October 2004 09:25 (twenty-one years ago)

this is used as a puzzle in gabriel knight 3, also based on that book i believe. the missing word, revealed to you by the wandering jew, is SUM, and there is a circle and a triangle hidden in the painting, which can be overlapped with a map of france to find the location of the jesus's corpse.

― a banana, Friday, 1 October 2004 09:54 (twenty-one years ago)

The last time I caught the bus to work, a week ago, the woman next to me was reading The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail

― caitlin (caitlin), Friday, 1 October 2004 10:20 (twenty-one years ago)

I'm surprised it hasn't been reprinted or whatever in the light of the success of DaVinci code...

― Danger Whore (kate), Friday, 1 October 2004 10:39 (twenty-one years ago)

I was tempted, just as I was getting off the bus, to turn to her, say "Et in arcadia ego sum" and wink.

― caitlin (caitlin), Friday, 1 October 2004 10:40 (twenty-one years ago)

If she was *really* paying attention, she would turn back to you and say "Imposter!!! A real member of the Priory of Sion would know that there WAS no sum!!!"

― Danger Whore (kate), Friday, 1 October 2004 10:41 (twenty-one years ago)

And I'd reply: "But a true member would always try to make you think they are not a member. And, clearly, I am not a member."

― caitlin (caitlin), Friday, 1 October 2004 10:47 (twenty-one years ago)

(except that by then my bus would have passed its stop and I'd have ten minutes further to walk to work)

― caitlin (caitlin), Friday, 1 October 2004 10:49 (twenty-one years ago)

"Some would say that the greatest thing that the Illuminati ever did was convince people that they exist. And others might say that the greatest thing the Illuminati ever did was convince people that they *didn't*."

(Or was that the other way around?)

― Danger Whore (kate), Friday, 1 October 2004 10:49 (twenty-one years ago)

Queer. I think Brideshead Revisited is bad, do you?

― the bellefox, Friday, 1 October 2004 13:10 (twenty-one years ago)

Brideshead Revisited is, quite possibly, one of my favourite novels, ever.

― Danger Whore (kate), Friday, 1 October 2004 13:12 (twenty-one years ago)

I am in agreement with Danger Whore here.

― Alba (Alba), Friday, 1 October 2004 14:31 (twenty-one years ago)

ACK!!!

― Danger Whore (kate), Friday, 1 October 2004 14:32 (twenty-one years ago)

I quite often agree with you.

― Alba (Alba), Friday, 1 October 2004 14:32 (twenty-one years ago)

Yes, and it always disturbs me, N!

― Danger Whore (kate), Friday, 1 October 2004 14:43 (twenty-one years ago)

It was funny when you fancied me by mistake, in that Colette photo.

― Alba (Alba), Friday, 1 October 2004 14:53 (twenty-one years ago)

No it wasn't. Not in the slightest.

― Danger Whore (kate), Friday, 1 October 2004 14:54 (twenty-one years ago)

And it wasn't you, it was just your hair, alright?

(Will I never live this down?)

― Danger Whore (kate), Friday, 1 October 2004 14:55 (twenty-one years ago)

uh oh.... hair crush.

― Catty (Catty), Friday, 1 October 2004 15:18 (twenty-one years ago)

now YOU shut up!

― Danger Whore (kate), Friday, 1 October 2004 15:19 (twenty-one years ago)

I washed my hair this morning but I can put more Colette-goo in my hair if you like.

― Alba (Alba), Friday, 1 October 2004 15:20 (twenty-one years ago)

Leave me alone!

(and just for that, Catty, you're getting the Crack Patch Kid's microphone in Bethnal Green.)

― Danger Whore (kate), Friday, 1 October 2004 15:22 (twenty-one years ago)

I'm surprised it hasn't been reprinted or whatever in the light of the success of DaVinci code...
-- Danger Whore (masonicboo...), October 1st, 2004.

It has, actually! At least here in the states, anyway. At the bookstore my mother works at there's a whole display set up for it and the Da Vinci Code.

― latebloomer (latebloomer), Friday, 1 October 2004 16:08 (twenty-one years ago)

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