The Name of the Rose

by Umberto Eco

VETERA ANALECTA, Sive COLLECTIO VETERUM ALIQUOT OPERUM & Opusculorum omnis generis, Carminum, Epistolarum, Diplomatum, Epitaphiorum, & CUM ITINERE GERMANICO, Adnotationibus & aliquot disquisitionibus R.P.D. Joannis Mabillon, Presbiteri ac Monachi Ord. Sancti Benedicti e Congregatione S. Mauri.—NOVA EDITIO, Cui accessere MABILONII Vita & aliquot opuscula, scilicet Dissertatio de PANE EUCHARISTICO, AZYMO ET FERMENTATO, ad Eminentiss. Cardinalem BONA. Subjungitur opusculum ELDEFONSI Hispaniensis Episcopi de eodem argumento ET EUSEBII ROMANI ad THEOPHILUM Gallum epistola, DE CULTU SANCTORUM IGNOTORUM. Parisiis, apud Levesque, ad Pontem S. Michaelis, MDCCXXI, cum privilegio Regis.

ANCIENT ANALYTICS, OR A COLLECTION OF SOME OLD WORKS & Essays of all kinds, Poems, Letters, Diplomas, Epitaphs, & WITH A GERMAN ITINERARY, NOTES & SOME DISCUSSIONS R.P.D. John Mabillon, Presbyter and Monk Ord. Sancti Benedicti from the Congregation of S. Mauri.—A NEW EDITION, to which may be added the Life of MABILONI and several pamphlets, namely a Dissertation on EUCHARISTIC BREAD, LEAVES AND FERMENTATE, to Eminentiss. Cardinal BONA Attached is an essay by ELDEFONSUS, Bishop of Spain, on the same subject, and a letter from EUSEBIUS ROMANUS to THEOPHILUS Gallus, ON THE WORSHIP OF UNKNOWN SAINTS. In Paris, at Levesque, at the Bridge of St. Michael, 1821, with the privilege of the King.

There are magic moments, involving great physical fatigue and intense motor excitement, that produce visions of people known in the past (“en me retraçant ces détails, j’en suis à me demander s’ils sont réels, ou bien si je les ai rêvés”). As I learned later from the delightful little book of the Abbé de Bucquoy, there are also visions of books as yet unwritten.

recalling these details, I find myself wondering if they are real, or if I dreamed them

“In omnibus requiem quaesivi, et nusquam inveni nisi in angulo cum libro.”

I looked for rest in everything, and I found it nowhere but in the corner with a book.

Machines, he said, are an effect of art, which is nature’s ape, and they reproduce not its forms but the operation itself. He explained to me thus the wonders of the clock, the astrolabe, and the magnet. But at the beginning I feared it was witchcraft, and I pretended to sleep on certain clear nights when he (with a strange triangle in his hand) stood watching the stars. The Franciscans I had known in Italy and in my own land were simple men, often illiterate, and I expressed to him my amazement at his learning. But he said to me, smiling, that the Franciscans of his island were cast in another mold: “Roger Bacon, whom I venerate as my master, teaches that the divine plan will one day encompass the science of machines, which is natural and healthy magic.

unico homine regente,

a single man ruling

ruled by one man

every creature in the world is like a book and a picture to us in a mirror

“Eris sacerdos in aeternum.”

you will be a priest forever.

coram monachis?”

the monks

Monasterium sine libris,” the abbot recited, pensively, “est sicut civitas sine opibus, castrum sine numeris, coquina sine suppellectili, mensa sine cibis, hortus sine herbis, pratum sine floribus, arbor sine foliis. . . .

"A monastery without books," the abbot recited, pensively, "is like a city without wealth, a castle without numbers, a kitchen without furniture, a table without food, a garden without herbs, a meadow without flowers, a tree without leaves."

Aller wunder si geswigen, das erde himel hât überstigen, daz sult ir vür ein wunder wigen.

All the wonders that have passed through earth and heaven must be regarded as a miracle.

Erd ob un himel unter, das sult ir hân besunder vür aller wunder ein wunder.

Earth above and heaven beneath, this is what you have, a miracle, special among all miracles.

“Verba vana aut risui apta non loqui.”

Do not speak idle words or words fit for laughter.

per speculum et in aenigmate,

through the mirror and in the riddle

Adelmo, on the contrary, whose death you now mourn, took such pleasure in the monsters he painted that he lost sight of the ultimate things which they were to illustrate. And he followed all, I say all”—his voice became solemn and ominous—“the paths of monstrosity. Which God knows how to punish.”

“Oculi de vitro cum capsula!”

"Eyes made of glass with a capsule!"

ab oculis ad legendum

from the eyes to read

“You can certainly speak of magic in this device,” William allowed. “But there are two forms of magic. There is a magic that is the work of the Devil and which aims at man’s downfall through artifices of which it is not licit to speak. But there is a magic that is divine, where God’s knowledge is made manifest through the knowledge of man, and it serves to transform nature, and one of its ends is to prolong man’s very life. And this is holy magic, to which the learned must devote themselves more and more, not only to discover new things but also to rediscover many secrets of nature that divine wisdom had revealed to the Hebrews, the Greeks, to other ancient peoples, and even, today, to the infidels (and I cannot tell you all the wonderful things on optics and the science of vision to be read in the books of the infidels!). And Christian knowledge must regain possession of all this learning, taking it from the pagans and infidels tamquam ab iniustis possessoribus, as they had no right to hold it.”

“Tu autem Domine miserere nobis.”

But you, Lord, have mercy on us

Symbol sometimes of the Devil, sometimes of the Risen Christ, no animal is more untrustworthy than the cock. Our order knew some slothful ones who never crowed at sunrise. On the other hand, especially in winter, the office of matins takes place when night is still total and all nature is asleep, for the monk must rise in darkness and pray at length in darkness, waiting for day and illuminating the shadows with the flame of devotion. Therefore, custom wisely provided for some wakers, who were not to go to bed when their brothers did, but would spend the night reciting in cadence the exact number of psalms that would allow them to measure the time passed, so that, at the conclusion of the hours of sleep granted the others, they would give the signal to wake.

Benedicamus Domino,”

Bless the Lord

Deo gratias.”

Thank God

Domine labia mea aperies et os meum annuntiabit laudem tuam.”

Lord, you will open my lips and my mouth will declare your praise.

Venite exultemus,”

Come let us rejoice

Te Deum.”

You gods

Omnis mundi creatura, quasi liber et pictura

Every creature of the world, like a book and a picture

Credo in unum Deum.’

I believe in one God.

Est domus in terris, clara quae voce resultat. Ipsa domus resonat, tacitus sed non sonat hospes. Ambo tamen currunt, hospes simul et domus una.

There is a house on the earth, bright that is revealed by the voice. The house itself echoes, silent but the guest does not sound. However, they both run, the host together and the house together.

“I would not like to be unjust toward the people of this country where I have been living for some years, but it seems to me typical of the scant virtue of the Italian peoples to abstain from sin out of their fear of some idol, though they may give it the name of a saint. They are more afraid of Saint Sebastian or Saint Anthony than of Christ. If you wish to keep a place clean here, to prevent anyone from pissing on it, which the Italians do as freely as dogs do, you paint on it an image of Saint Anthony with a wooden tip, and this will drive away those about to piss. So the Italians, thanks to their preachers, risk returning to the ancient superstitions; and they no longer believe in the resurrection of the flesh, but have only a great fear of bodily injuries and misfortunes, and therefore they are more afraid of Saint Anthony than of Christ.”

speculum mundi,

mirror of the world

pueri!”

Merdre à toy, filthy Bogomil!”

‘fabulas poetae a fando nominaverunt, quia non sunt res factae sed tantum loquendo fictae. . . .

stultus in risu exaltat vocem suam.”

De habitu et conversatione monachorum

Admittenda tibi ioca sunt post seria quaedam,’

Tum podex carmen extulit horridulum.”

anagoge. . . .”

“Truly this is the sweetest of theologies,” William said, with perfect humility, and I thought he was using that insidious figure of speech that rhetors call irony, which must always be prefaced by the pronunciatio, representing its signal and its justification—something William never did.

theophanic matter.”

William coughed politely. “Er . . . hm . . .” he said. This is what he did when he wanted to introduce a new subject. He managed to do it gracefully because it was his habit—and I believe this is typical of the men of his country—to begin every remark with long preliminary moans, as if starting the exposition of a completed thought cost him a great mental effort.

“Salva me ab ore leonis,”

daytime sleep is like the sin of the flesh: the more you have the more you want, and yet you feel unhappy, sated and unsated at the same time.

“Hunc mundum tipice labyrinthus denotat ille,” the old man recited, absently. “Intranti largus, redeunti sed nimis artus.

Bacon was right in saying that the conquest of learning is achieved through the knowledge of languages.

“Graecum est, non legitur,”

“Apocalypsis Iesu Christi.”

“Super thronos viginti quatuor,”

“Nomen illi mors.”

“Obscuratus est sol et aer,”