Friday, May 6, 2022

Of earth and the heavens he makes one fatherland, [one] commonweal.

0x010C
"soli polique patriam
unam facit rem publicam."

Of sole (soil) and pole he makes one fatherland, [one] republic.


     St. Fulbert of Chartres (d. 1029), Chorus novae Ierusalem. 
And another, earlier hymn?  (I have not yet had a chance to do the research.)  My thanks to Dr. Owen Ewald for his help with this.  I go my own (and rather idiosyncratically nonsensical) way, though, in suggesting—for the sake of a rhyme in English and to preserve that sense of πόλος"Of sole and pole," given that solum can mean not just soil, but "the sole of the foot or of a shoe" in the sense of that which stands on "the lowest part of a thing, the bottom, ground, base, foundation," and polus, more literally "the end of an axis, a pole," "the north" or "south pole" (Lewis & Short).