The House of Rumour
See also: www.albelli.nl/onlinefotoboek-bekijken/66948188-f350-4898...
Ovid's Metamorphoses, Book XII.
There is a place in the centre of the world,
between earth, sea, and sky, at the limits
of the three-fold universe where all things
which exist anywhere, even far away,
are seen and where all voices penetrate
attentive ears. In this place Rumour lives.
Here she has chosen herself a dwelling,
at the very summit of a citadel
with a thousand doorways and entrances,
but not a single gate to bar the way,
so the place stands open day and night.
Built all of echoing brass, it mutters,
repeating voices and echoing sounds
it has picked up. There is no quiet spot
inside, no silence anywhere. But still,
there is no loud din, only the subdued noise
of voices murmuring, the kind of sound
waves of the ocean often make when heard
from far away or the rumbling produced
by a final thunder roll when Jupiter
makes the clouds collide. An unruly crowd
fills up the halls, a fickle common throng,
which comes and go. A thousand rumours,
combining falsehood with the truth, wander
here and there, passing around misleading chat.
Some of these fill empty ears with gossip,
and some bear stories they have heard elsewhere.
The number of made-up tales keeps growing,
as every author alters what he heard
by adding something new. Here one can find
Credulity and hot-headed Error,
empty Joy, alarming Fears, instant Sedition,
and Whispers whose origin is unknown.
Rumour herself sees everything going on
in heaven, land, and sea, and asks about
events the whole world over.
---
Visiting the House of Rumor
OVID, AS TRANSLATED BY HORACE GREGORY AND PROVIDED HERE BY KENNETH HARWOOD
[The celebrated Roman poet of love and fable, Ovid (also known as Naso P. Ovidius, who lived from B.C.E. 43 to C.E. 18), guides us through a current conundrum in “The House of Rumor.”]
A mountain-round-house tower is her home.
Innumerable doorways all around it.
A thousand entrances, exits, arcades,
And none with doors. Or night and day
The place keeps open house, and its brass walls
Reflect the lightest word, the lowest whisper;
The place is silent, never noisy,
Yet full of voices, like the sound of waves
Heard from a lighthouse set a mile inshore,
Or like the stilled and trembling trail of sound
Jove’s thunder leaves after black clouds collide.
Through tower halls the Many come to talk,
Lies twisted into truth, truth into lies;
All come and go, and gossip never ends.
Talk, talk, talk, talk fills many hundred ears
That empty as a story’s told, rehashed,
And told to someone else, or fiction grows;
Each time retold adds what is heard
To what’s been said before. And Innocent
Believe-It-All walks there, Deaf-And-Blind Error,
Pushing his way or runs and hides, and dear,
Foolish, Without-A-Leg-To-Stand-On Joy,
Mad Fear, Glib Treason, Confidential Whisper.
Rumor takes in all things at sea, on land,
And, at a distance, in the skies in heaven,
Everything heard or seen throughout the globe.
What might media ethicists make of this tour of the House of Rumor?
Ovid himself has remarked that Rumor sometimes is mistaken for great Fame—and more often is seen as Notoriety. A few main points stand out. Persistence of “true news” mixed with “false” reaches across two thousand years and more. Centuries before printing arrived in Germany from China (c. 1454 C.E.), the task of sorting fake accounts from real ones continues. The task of finding ways to tease out the truth and knock falsehood back on its heels is only a partial success today and in the long term—for otherwise we could see little but the losses we suffer from accepting the false.
Horace Gregory translated and introduced this edition of Ovid’s The Metamorphoses (copyright by The Viking Press, Inc., 1958). This extract is from the prologue to Book 12, which deals with the start of the battle for Troy. Kenneth Harwood is an Adjunct Professor of Communication in the University of California, Santa Barbara, and may be reached at harwood.ken@gte.net.
www.mediaethicsmagazine.com/index.php/browse-back-issues/...
The House of Rumour
See also: www.albelli.nl/onlinefotoboek-bekijken/66948188-f350-4898...
Ovid's Metamorphoses, Book XII.
There is a place in the centre of the world,
between earth, sea, and sky, at the limits
of the three-fold universe where all things
which exist anywhere, even far away,
are seen and where all voices penetrate
attentive ears. In this place Rumour lives.
Here she has chosen herself a dwelling,
at the very summit of a citadel
with a thousand doorways and entrances,
but not a single gate to bar the way,
so the place stands open day and night.
Built all of echoing brass, it mutters,
repeating voices and echoing sounds
it has picked up. There is no quiet spot
inside, no silence anywhere. But still,
there is no loud din, only the subdued noise
of voices murmuring, the kind of sound
waves of the ocean often make when heard
from far away or the rumbling produced
by a final thunder roll when Jupiter
makes the clouds collide. An unruly crowd
fills up the halls, a fickle common throng,
which comes and go. A thousand rumours,
combining falsehood with the truth, wander
here and there, passing around misleading chat.
Some of these fill empty ears with gossip,
and some bear stories they have heard elsewhere.
The number of made-up tales keeps growing,
as every author alters what he heard
by adding something new. Here one can find
Credulity and hot-headed Error,
empty Joy, alarming Fears, instant Sedition,
and Whispers whose origin is unknown.
Rumour herself sees everything going on
in heaven, land, and sea, and asks about
events the whole world over.
---
Visiting the House of Rumor
OVID, AS TRANSLATED BY HORACE GREGORY AND PROVIDED HERE BY KENNETH HARWOOD
[The celebrated Roman poet of love and fable, Ovid (also known as Naso P. Ovidius, who lived from B.C.E. 43 to C.E. 18), guides us through a current conundrum in “The House of Rumor.”]
A mountain-round-house tower is her home.
Innumerable doorways all around it.
A thousand entrances, exits, arcades,
And none with doors. Or night and day
The place keeps open house, and its brass walls
Reflect the lightest word, the lowest whisper;
The place is silent, never noisy,
Yet full of voices, like the sound of waves
Heard from a lighthouse set a mile inshore,
Or like the stilled and trembling trail of sound
Jove’s thunder leaves after black clouds collide.
Through tower halls the Many come to talk,
Lies twisted into truth, truth into lies;
All come and go, and gossip never ends.
Talk, talk, talk, talk fills many hundred ears
That empty as a story’s told, rehashed,
And told to someone else, or fiction grows;
Each time retold adds what is heard
To what’s been said before. And Innocent
Believe-It-All walks there, Deaf-And-Blind Error,
Pushing his way or runs and hides, and dear,
Foolish, Without-A-Leg-To-Stand-On Joy,
Mad Fear, Glib Treason, Confidential Whisper.
Rumor takes in all things at sea, on land,
And, at a distance, in the skies in heaven,
Everything heard or seen throughout the globe.
What might media ethicists make of this tour of the House of Rumor?
Ovid himself has remarked that Rumor sometimes is mistaken for great Fame—and more often is seen as Notoriety. A few main points stand out. Persistence of “true news” mixed with “false” reaches across two thousand years and more. Centuries before printing arrived in Germany from China (c. 1454 C.E.), the task of sorting fake accounts from real ones continues. The task of finding ways to tease out the truth and knock falsehood back on its heels is only a partial success today and in the long term—for otherwise we could see little but the losses we suffer from accepting the false.
Horace Gregory translated and introduced this edition of Ovid’s The Metamorphoses (copyright by The Viking Press, Inc., 1958). This extract is from the prologue to Book 12, which deals with the start of the battle for Troy. Kenneth Harwood is an Adjunct Professor of Communication in the University of California, Santa Barbara, and may be reached at harwood.ken@gte.net.
www.mediaethicsmagazine.com/index.php/browse-back-issues/...