Date: Mon, 3 Oct 1994 16:31:50 -0500 From: [g--l--n] at [falcon.bgsu.edu] (Metroplex) Subject: FTP 505 ==== FIT TO PRINT by cathrine yronwode for the week of October 3, 1994 THIS IS FIT TO PRINT NUMBER 505: In which we receive answers. JOLLY ROGERS IN ARCADIA: Well, my query about the origins of the Jolly Roger pirate flag, the phrase "Et in Arcadia Ego" and the link both have to Captain Harlock and Walt Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean has produced a flood of mail. Jim Korkis of Glendale, California, an authority of Disney matters, sends the following information: "When the Disney artists were research-ing pirate lore before building The Pirates of the Caribbean, they determined that in the early days all ships had to show flags to signify their country of origin. The French pirates would fly a blood read flag they called the "Jolie Rouge" (loosely, the "pretty red"). When they were captured by English seamen who demanded to know what country's colors they were flying, the French replied, "Jolie Rouge," which the English corrupted into "Jolly Roger." When the English pirates adopted the Skull and Crossbones as their emblem, the term "Jolly Roger" for a pirate flag carried over. There was going to be a fairly elaborate Pirate Arcade with all sorts of neat pirate oriented things (like a shooting gallery with flintlock rifles) at the exit of Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean but at the last moment, even though Walt him-self had approved some early plans, that attraction was scrapped, although some objects like the fortune telling machine with Pirate Red still exist in the shop at the end of the ride. Pirates of the Caribbean was the last ride at Disneyland that Walt personally supervised before his untimely death due to lung cancer from too much smoking in 1966." Gary Ferguson of Baton Rouge, LA writes to remind me that the Cajuns are Acadians not Arcadians, the former being "a word of uncertain origin." (Oh my gosh! My radio, tuned to KPFA in Berkeley, has just burst into a French-English version of the so-called "Cajun national anthem," Jolie Blon'! Synchronicity City!!!! I can't stand it!!!!) Gary notes that in addition to Pouissin, Guercino used the phrase "Et in Arcadia Ego" (hereinafter EIAE.) in a painting circa 1623, as did the painter Schedone (1570-1615); that Arcadia was the title of a pas-toral romance by Sir Phillip Sydney pub-lished in 1590; and that the art historian Erwin Panofsky wrote a good essay on the subject in 1936. He gives the usual two potential meanings for the verbless EIAE: "I (death) am in the midst of life" and "I (the deceased) once lived in pastoral bliss." As for the Jolly Roger, Gary sends cita-tions of a derivation similar to "pretty red," but includes another source that attributes it alternatively to 17th century English slang in which Roger means "rogue," or to-get this!-the "widely used Tamil title Ali Raja, meaning 'King of the Sea.'" E. J. Barnes of Cambridge (Our Fair City) MA, explains the two contradictory meanings of EIAE (the missing words are perceived as "vixi" or "fui"), but better than that, nails down of the Goethe quote (definitely "Et in arcadia vixi") which the German author used in 1818 as the motto for his Travels in Italy and which a 1947 edition of Bartlett's Familiar Quotations refer-ences to Pouissin and the earlier painter Bartholemew Schidoni (i.e. Schedone) Anthony F. DeMaria of Brooklyn, NY, weighs in with a citation separating the Acadians from the Arcadians, given that Acadia derives from the American Indian word "aquoddiake" (the meaning is not given), which first appeared on a patent for land in North America from the King of France to Pierre de Guast in 1603. Andrew Laubacher of Albion, NY, notes that Captain Harlock spun off from Leiji Matsumoto's earlier Space Cruiser Yamoto, that the skull-and-crossbones is his family crest, that he refers to his ances-tors as Pirate-Knights (renegade Templars?), that he calls his homeland Helingenstadt (Holy City-of St. John?) and that the quote at the end of Arcadia of My Youth is "I live forever in Arcadia." A graphic novel goes to each participant, with my thanks! ==== Fit to Print appears in print each week in Comics Buyers Guide and is available via e-mail. Tell your friends! To subscribe to Fit to Print via e-mail send a request with the words "Subscribe FtP" in the subject header and your address in the body of the message to [g--l--n] at [bgnet.bgsu.edu.] You will be added to the list and receive the next available issue. Responses are welcome and should be directed to the address above. Fit to Print is Copyright 1994 Cathrine Yronwode. All rights reserved.