The Name of the Rose

by Umberto Eco

“Facta est grando et ignis,”

“Gratia vobis et pax,”

“Tertia pars terrae combusta est.”

Quinti Sereni de medicamentis, Phaenomena, Liber Aesopi de natura animalium, Liber Aethici peronymi de cosmographia, Libri tres quos Arculphus episcopus Adamnano escipiente de locis sanctis ultramarinis designavit conscribendos, Libellus Q. Iulii Hilarionis de origine mundi, Solini Polyhistor de situ orbis terrarum et mirabilibus, Almagesthus. . . .

quodlibetical

sic et non.

“Why the Jews?” I asked Salvatore. He answered, “And why not?” He explained to me that all his life and from all the pulpits they had been told that the Jews were the enemies of Christianity and accumulated those possessions that they had been denied. I asked him, however, whether it was not also true that lords and bishops accumulated possessions through tithes, so that the Shepherds were not fighting their true enemies. He replied that when your true enemies are too strong, you have to choose weaker enemies. I reflected that this is why the simple are so called. Only the powerful always know with great clarity who their true enemies are. The lords did not want the Shepherds to jeopardize their possessions, and it was a great good fortune for them that the Shepherds’ leaders spread the notion that the greatest wealth belonged to the Jews.

Quod enim laicali ruditate turgescit non habet effectum nisi fortuito,

Sed opera sapientiae certa lege vallantur et in finem debitum efficaciter diriguntur:

he thought that the new natural science should be the great new enterprise of the learned: to coordinate the elementary needs that represented also the heap of expectations, disordered but in its way true and right, of the simple. According to Bacon, this enterprise was to be directed by the church, but I believe he said this because, in his time, to be a cleric and to be wise was the same thing. Today that is no longer the case: learned men grow up outside the monasteries and the cathedrals, even outside the universities. So I think that, since I and my friends today believe that for the management of human affairs it is not the church that should legislate but th...

How can I discover the universal bond that orders all things if I cannot lift a finger without creating an infinity of new entities? For with such a movement all the relations of position between my finger and all other objects change. The relations are the ways in which my mind perceives the connections between single entities, but what is the guarantee that this is universal and stable?”

suppose that we had a machine that tells us where north is.

‘hic lapis gerit in se similitudinem coeli,’

“De hoc satis,”

et ibidem igne et flammis igneis accensis concremetur et comburatur, ita quod penitus moriatur et anima a corpore separetur.

mulier amicta sole.

“Pulchra sunt ubera quae paululum supereminent et tument modice,”

“O sidus clarum pellarum,” I cried to her, “o porta clausa, fons hortorum, cella custos unguentorum, cella pigmentaria!”

“O langueo,” and, “Causam languoris video nec caveo!,”

cuncta erant bona.

Omne animal triste post coitum.

Every animal is sad after mating.

aut semel aut iterum medium generaliter esto,

or once or twice be generally in the middle,

amor est magis cognitivus quam cognitio,

intus et in cute

bestia cenocroca

“But then,” I said, “what is the use of hiding books, if from the books not hidden you can arrive at the concealed ones?” “Over the centuries it is no use at all. In a space of years or days it has some use. You see, in fact, how bewildered we are.” “And is a library, then, an instrument not for distributing the truth but for delaying its appearance?” I asked, dumbfounded. “Not always and not necessarily. In this case it is.”

Historia anglorum of Bede . . . And also by Bede, De aedificatione templi, De tabernaculo, De temporibus et computo et chronica et circuli Dionysi, Ortographia, De ratione metrorum, Vita Sancti Cuthberti, Ars metrica

De rhetorica cognatione, Locorum rhetoricorum distinctio,

Hoc spumans mundanas obvallat Pelagus oras terrestres amniosis fluctibus cudit margines. Saxeas undosis molibus irruit avionias. Infima bomboso vertice miscet glareas asprifero spergit spumas sulco, sonoreis frequenter quatitur flabris. . . .”

ignis, coquihabin (quia incocta coquendi habet dictionem), ardo, calax ex calore, fragon ex fragore flammae, rusin de rubore, fumaton, ustrax de urendo, vitius quia pene mortua membra suo vivificat, siluleus, quod de silice siliat, unde et silex non recte dicitur, nisi ex qua scintilla silit. And aeneon, de Aenea deo, qui in eo habitat, sive a quo elementis flatus fertur.”

‘in nomine patris et filiae’—and

“But why have they also put a book with the unicorn among the falsehoods?” I asked. “Obviously the founders of the library had strange ideas. They must have believed that this book which speaks of fantastic animals and beasts living in distant lands was part of the catalogue of falsehoods spread by the infidels. . . .” “But is the unicorn a falsehood? It’s the sweetest of animals and a noble symbol. It stands for Christ, and for chastity; it can be captured only by setting a virgin in the forest, so that the animal, catching her most chaste odor, will go and lay its head in her lap, offering itself as prey to the hunters’ snares.” “So it is said, Adso. But many tend to believe that it’s a fable, an invention of the pagans.” “What a disappointment,” I said. “I would have liked to encounter one, crossing a wood. Otherwise what’s the pleasure of crossing a wood?” “It’s not certain the animal doesn’t exist. Perhaps it’s different from the way it’s illustrated in these books. A Venetian traveler went to very distant lands, quite close to the fons paradisi of which maps tell, and he saw unicorns. But he found them rough and clumsy, and very ugly and black. I believe he saw a real animal with one horn on its brow. It was probably the same animal the ancient masters first described faithfully. They were never completely mistaken, and had received from God the opportunity to see things we haven’t seen. Then this description, passing from auctoritas to auctoritas, was transformed th...

nigra et amara”

Liber continens

identifies amorous melancholy with lycanthropy, which drives its victim to behave like a wolf: first the lovers seem changed in the external appearance, their eyesight weakens, their eyes become hollow and without tears, their tongue slowly dries up and pustules appear on it, the whole body is parched and they suffer constant thirst; at this point they spend the day lying face down, and on the face and the tibias marks like dog bites appear, and finally the victims roam through the cemeteries at night.

was perhaps what had happened the previous night not satisfaction of love? But how is this illness satisfied, then?),

(Was Berengar trying to be healed of his lovesickness for the dead Adelmo? But could one suffer lovesickness for a being of one’s own sex, or was that only bestial lust? And was the night I had spent perhaps not bestial and lustful? No, of course not, I told myself at once, it was most sweet—and then immediately added: No, you are wrong, Adso, it was an illusion of the Devil, it was most bestial, and if you sinned in being a beast you sin all the more now in refusing to acknowledge it!)

the dorsal part of the median ventricle of the encephalus

nomina sunt consequentia rerum,

dilectissimo.

Qui non habet caballum vadat cum pede. . . .”

Patarini, gazzesi, leoniste, arnaldiste, speroniste, circoncisi

planta Dei pullulans in radice fidei;

Abigor, pecca pro nobis . . . Amon, miserere nobis . . . Samael, libera nos a bono . . . Belial eleison . . . Focalor, in corruptionem meam intende . . . Haborym, damnamus dominum . . . Zaebos, anum meum aperies . . . Leonard, asperge me spermate tuo et inquinabor. . . .”

a cingulum diaboli

Sederunt principes et adversus me loquebantur, iniqui persecuti sunt me. Adiuva me, Domine Deus meus, salvum me fac propter magnam misericordiam tuam.

minimas differentias odorum?

“Age primum et septimum de quatuor,”

“In finibus Africae, amen.”