Indignor quandoque bonus dormitat Homerus

In this case, the Homer is the Royal Society, historically one of the greatest forces for good ever assembled by man. As Ben Pile and Stuart Blackman reveal on Spiked, Homer is not so much nodding as stooping to wilfully mistranslate Horace, from whose masterful first Epistle comes the society’s motto, Nullius in Verba. The relevant lines are:

nullius addictus iurare in uerba magistri,
quo me cumque rapit tempestas, deferor hospes.

Translated, this means, “Not bound to swear allegiance to any master/ wherever the storm takes me I travel as a visitor.” Now, the Royal Society could have chosen “quo rapit tempestas” to indicate the society is led by data, but no, they chose “nullius in verba” instead, indicating that there should be no bowing to the dictates of fashion or authority. Today, however, accurate translation be damned:

Lord May of Oxford, erstwhile president of the Royal Society and former chief scientific adviser to the UK government, offers us a whole new translation: ‘respect the facts.’ This provides the title of his recent review in the Times Literary Supplement (TLS), in which he gave the scientific nod of approval to seven recent publications on climate change, including books by George Monbiot, Al Gore and Sir Nicholas Stern.

Indignor, quidem. Thankfully, ira furor brevis est.

Whate else can we learn from Horace about the Royal Society today, I wonder.

Climate alarmists might remember before their next prediction of doom, “Et semel emissum volat irrevocabile verbum.”

Sir Nicholas Stern might remember, “Vitae summa brevis spem nos vetat incohare longam.”

On the cycical nature of climate: “Diffugere nives, redeunt iam gramina campis/ Arboribusque comae.”

And as for the massed ranks of the IPCC: “Parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus.”

(I am, by the way, here following the advice, “Misce stultitiam consiliis brevem: Dulce est desipere in loco.”)

For more on the Royal Society and its motto, see <a href=”http://adamant.typepad.com/seitz/2007/05/nullius_in_verb.html“>Russell Seitz.