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He came to the ancient city of Nineveh. Here was an image standing, which looked un-Greek enough in the style of dress, but proved in fact to be none other than Io, the daughter of Inachus : little horns, or rather the promise of horns, sprouted from its forehead. It was during his stay here, and because he knew so much more about this image than the priests or ministers knew, that Damis the Ninevite visited him. This is the man whom I spoke of at the beginning as having been the Sage’s companion in travel, the partner of all his science, and the preserver of many particulars about his life. Conceiving an admiration for him and envying his proposed travels, he said, ’ Let us go, Apollonius! You shall follow the god and I will follow you. Really I may be of great service to you: if I know nothing else, at least I have had recent experience of all the country this side Babylon, every one of the cities, and the villages (which contain many good things), and the languages of the tribes as well. There is the Armenian, the Median, the Persian, the Cadusian, all different, and I can talk them all.’
’ And I, my friend, understand them all, though I never learned any.’
The Ninevite was astonished at this; but Apollonius continued, ’ You need not be astonished if I know all the languages of mankind; let me tell you that I know all the silences of mankind as well.’
Upon hearing this the Assyrian worshipped him, regarded him as more than human, and attached himself to his service.
I understand the perspective , but of course I would have not worshipped him , the simple tend to do this , because they do not know , not that they , the simple couldn’t , they just don’t
I also disagree though , because to the silences is to know what is said , talked of and written
By ‘silence’, he’s likely referring to their mannerisms, body languages, customs, —something like that. Not very profound. Kind of comical. Reminds of me Sancho Panza in Don Quixote (…google it Ascolo).
…Sorry to step on your mystical, incommunicability buzz.
The context is one of language and communication, which can be done silently. I’m all for including the things that go unsaid. Not sure what you mean by your other suggestions, but if they’re related to silent communication, then by all means.
…Sometimes when we look too deeply into something, we think it’s deep.
Some things are not communicated, because they’re commonly understood and communication is either socially awkward or it doesn’t even occur to the speaker that the other person wouldn’t understand things in a certain way. If you’re a Westerner dealing with Japanese colleagues, for example, it is very useful to confirm everything very explicitly as what is ‘understood’ in their context may completely have eluded you, and vice versa. Language is embedded in a culture of rules and expectations.
On a tangentially related note, Google is failing me - one of the standard entries in lists of enormously-long-words and isn’t-it-clever-that-someone-has-a-word-for-that lists is (IIRC) a South American Indian word for ‘the feeling when two people both want something but neither of them want to be the person to suggest it’.
Well, in the context of language and communication… if you want to include things that are not communicated and pertain to language only indirectly somehow, that’s OK. It might lead you to confuse and muddle the passage though, or make it look more profound than it was. That might not be a bad thing; I mean, very charitable of you.
In the context of the OP, it’s silence as opposed to language.
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It might lead you to confuse and muddle the passage though, or make it look more profound than it was.
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Is profundity inherent in a statement? I thought it was more an indication of the effect it had on the reader’s thoughts.
I interpreted it as: the person is multi-lingual, and knows how to communicate silently, as well—body language, etc. No oppositions. If I shat on something profound, well, —I do that sometimes, by accident.
But yes, profundity usually has something to do with the actual statement—otherwise, the statement just seems profound.
I see where you’re coming from, it’s not something I’ve thought of one way or another… But if it’s a personal (maybe aesthetic) affect, what’s the difference between seeming profound and being profound? It seems a bit like saying “you may think she’s beautiful, but she only looks beautiful”.
This might be the crux of the whole conversation so far. I see your point, I think. --Although, aren’t there criteria in aesthetics, even? I apparently felt the need to shit on this passage. Assholo, what says you on this topic?
Yup, that sounds like it’s the most charitable reading to me. Although I don’t believe in incommunicability or witchcraft—I can suspend snarkiness about them.
I was going to say that I disagree, and that I think he could have self-taught himself a language or two. (I’m doing it right now with Rosetta Stone). But that doesn’t seem right.
I know eight languages. All self-taught. To understand the tongue of a people you must understand (philosophically and historically) the repeated experience out of which it was grown; the hatreds, prejudices, enmity, of a people-- what is silent.
Every single word of a language is an entire epic poem. Built into it is an entire history of a nation’s fears, sorrows, wars, struggles, hopes… their whole physiology of affects.
Profundity has to do with how a statement is interpreted, or what it leaves one to contemplate. If we can’t say any statement is universally received as “profound”, I wouldn’t think we have any inherent or aesthetic criteria by which to measure profundity. What is profundity if not an evaluation of how something seems? Even if you realize latter that the statement was misinterpreted, it was still ‘profound’ up to that point – even if the only deep insight it provided was into the statement itself.
That is a valid statement too though; no? Looks are only one aspect to beauty, the same that the aesthetic value of a statement is only one aspect to profundity. Many people look beautiful without conveying beauty [in character], which seems similar to a statement that looks well said [poetically or pleasing to some degree] but is not conveying anything profound.