Sors Bona Nihil Aliud

[David Amicus]

I got that epic poem today "The Siege of Sziget". In the intro it says that the motto of Miklos Zrinyi is "Sors Bona Nihil Aliud".When I tried to Google that phrase almost everything that showed up was in Hungarian.


I was wondering if anyone knows if it has an ancient source?

[Ed Cryer]

I get no hits in the classical corpus; not even for "sors bona" or
"fortuna bona".
I think I can guess why. Both Fors (Fortuna) and the Bona Dea had
temples and rites.
Bona Fors seems to confound the two.

There are, of course, zillions of ways of saying "good luck" in Latin.

Ed

[David Amicus]

Thanks Ed!

[Ed Cryer]

"Sors" goes with "sortior"; to draw lots. Roman officials used
lot-drawing quite a lot. Consuls drew lots for their subsequent
provinces; judges were drawn by lot; and soldiers who mutinied or
deserted were subjected to "decimation", ie divided into groups of ten
who drew lots, and the loser was stoned or clubbed to death by the other
nine (who were put on bad rations and made to camp outside the castra
for a while).

I wonder just when "life's a lottery" came it. It seems more related to
Evertjan's eliminative materialism than my humanist mentalism.

Ed

[Evertjan.]

Ed Cryer <e...@somewhere.in.the.uk> wrote on 24 jul 2014 in
alt.language.latin:

> I wonder just when "life's a lottery" came it.

Not from me.

"Sores" [Dutch & Yiddish from Hebrew "tsore" = [throat] narrowing]
= worries, bad things happening/expected, sorrows[!]

[Not connected to "sors", meseems]

> It seems more related to
> Evertjan's eliminative materialism than my humanist mentalism.

I don't know what you mean with either.

I want to eliminate juvenile brainwashing
that leads to the illogic of faith
... and so to present wars.

Indeed, "life's a lottery" in the sense
that if bad luck comes to you,
it is not punishment for your sins.

Or if you fare well in life,
it is not because you were so pious.

Or because the neighbours prayed for you,
making some deity do what he or she
should not have done otherwise.

I for one prefer to live in this world of chance,
than being subject to the whims of such deities.

In a world where the effects of small chance-induced changes
are filtered out by natural selection,
making our planet and our nature
and our human mind so marvelously beautifull.

But that is not materialism,
because this natural selection brought us
compassion, love, kindness, benevolence,
intelect, insight, inquisitiveness,
languages, science, primordial doubt,
music, painting, etc, etc.

Yes, it brought us religiousness,
malice, tribal war, etc. too.

We can only hope the first group will be stronger,
perhaps because the selective advantages are stronger.

If that is not "humanist" I wouldn't know what is.

btw: natural selection is NOT chance, just the opposite.

"mentalism" wouldn't that have something to do with "being mental"?

===========================

"Sors Bona Nihil Aliud"

The Amsterdam Jews, when congratulating at a wedding,
traditionally wished and still wish the couple and family:

"Mazzel en broge voor de hele mispoge!"

"Mazzel" [from Hebrew = "the stars"]
= nonreligious luck

"en" = and

"Broge" ["Beracha" = religious luck wishing, blessing]

"voor de hele" [Dutch = to all the ...]

"Mispoge" ["Mispacha" = the family]

For them, both forms of "luck" were strongly related,
God endowing them not [just] as the result
of his or her human actions.

========================

OED has something to say about this too:

"With the phrase mazel and brocha compare Yiddish mazlbrokhe success,
prosperity; the second element is < Yiddish brokhe blessing < Hebrew
beraka." <http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/123110>

--
Evertjan.
The Netherlands.
(Please change the x'es to dots in my emailaddress)

[David Amicus]

So the mazel comes from stars. What does tov mean?

[David Amicus]

Seeing that sors means lots I'm reminded of this which has been discussed here before


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortes_Vergilianae

[Ed Cryer]

I think you'd find eliminative materialism quite fascinating. I
certainly do. Get a book by Paul Churchland.
It approaches the mind problem from neuroscience. You get pages of
historical accounts about altered mind-states; from cutting the corpus
callosum to cure epilepsy, geniuses who've had half the cerebrum eaten
away by hydrocephalia and their brain appears to have realigned itself,
to lots of brain damage in accidents where strange results have
occurred. The most fascinating one I recall was a bloke who doesn't
perceive any motion; no movement in the external world.

Anyway, Churchland says that we have completely misunderstood our
conscious life, and that "thoughts" etc. don't occur. That is "folk
psychology"; and that is what has to be eliminated to get a deeper
understanding of mind and brain.
http://tinyurl.com/n28p9ep

Ed

[John W Kennedy]

On 2014-07-24 18:54:28 +0000, David Amicus said:

> So the mazel comes from stars. What does tov mean?

Hebrew for "good".

--
John W Kennedy
"The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and
Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes.
The business of the Conservatives is to prevent the mistakes from being
corrected."
-- G. K. Chesterton

[Patricio]

> "Sores" [Dutch & Yiddish from Hebrew "tsore" = [throat] narrowing]
> = worries, bad things happening/expected, sorrows[!]
> [Not connected to "sors", meseems]

In New York we say tsuris (good word for the city), which we get straight from Yiddish, not via Dutch, though we still use a few old Dutch words (stoop, boss), as well as innumerable place names, both in the original and anglicized.


--Patricio

[Evertjan.]

Patricio <rahul...@gmail.com> wrote on 26 jul 2014 in
alt.language.latin:

>> "Sores" [Dutch & Yiddish from Hebrew "tsore" = [throat] narrowing]
>> = worries, bad things happening/expected, sorrows[!]
>> [Not connected to "sors", meseems]
>
> In New York we say tsuris (good word for the city), which we get
> straight from Yiddish, not via Dutch,

No, of course not,
it was notyet Dutch in the New Amsterdam time, methinks,
even now it feels [Old] Amsterdam slang,
and Jewish for the linguisticly interested.

> though we still use a few old
> Dutch words (stoop, boss), as well as innumerable place names, both in
> the original and anglicized.

Boss:
<http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=boss>

"Baas" is known in Dutch since the 13th c.
<http://etymologiebank.nl/trefwoord/baas>

"Stoep" originally [12th c.] (1)stone floor in front of a house
[still so in Afrikaans], or a (2)floating platform,
has since the New York highjack narrowed its Dutch meaning
to "pavement for pedestrians as part of a street".

<http://etymologiebank.nl/trefwoord/stoep>

Its Indoeuropean root *stopan- suggests "stepping (stone)".

cf Gr. "to behma" [stepping stone, rostrum] (Modern Gr: To Vima)
from baino, "behma" is the Alexandrean origin of [Ashkenazic] Hebrew "bimah"

<http://www.tovima.gr/education/>

[David Amicus]

Thanks! Interesting. So "boss" is Dutch. I had no idea. My mother used the word "stoop" and thus I do too.

[Patricio]

On Thursday, July 24, 2014 2:55:59 PM UTC-4, David Amicus wrote:

> Seeing that sors means lots I'm reminded of this which has been discussed here before
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortes_Vergilianae

After this came up before I took my own sortes for a few weeks. Rather than riffle and point I went all high-tech and used a random number generator and a conversion chart. It was fun.

--Patricio

[szi...@gmail.com]

2014. július 24., csütörtök 4:59:42 UTC+1 időpontban David Amicus a következőt írta:
> I got that epic poem today "The Siege of Sziget". In the intro it says that the motto of Miklos Zrinyi is "Sors Bona Nihil Aliud".When I tried to Google that phrase almost everything that showed up was in Hungarian.
>
>
> I was wondering if anyone knows if it has an ancient source?

Hello there!

I just came across this post, don't know if you already figured out the correct translation. Zrínyi often employed Hungarian words in his Latin, "sors" means fate/fortune. The correct translation is "Good fortune, nothing else." This reflects on his confidence in his skills, all he needed in life is a chance.

[John W Kennedy]

"Sors" is perfectly good Latin for "lot" as in "lottery", though it
seems to have been adopted in Magyar.

--
John W Kennedy
Having switched to a Mac in disgust at Microsoft's combination of
incompetence and criminality.

[David Amicus]

Thank-you!

[svaro...@gmail.com]

"Sors bona, nihil aliud" was motto of Nikola VII. Zrinski (1620-1664),Croatin ban; vicerex, one of the most influent nobelman in Europe in this period. He was Croat (Zrínyi Miklós in Hungarian). The correct translation of Croatin, ( Dobra sudbina, ništa drugo ) is "Good destiny ( fate ), nothing else"!!!
Siget guardian was Nikola IV Šubić Zrinski ( 1508-1566 ), granfather of Nikola VII. They were members of house Šubić, primary ( The Šubić were one of the twelve tribes which constituted Croatian statehood in the Middle Ages; they held the county of Bribir), later Zrinski, by new residence, town Zrin. My family comes from one branch Šubić dynasty.

[svaro...@gmail.com]

Dana četvrtak, 24. srpnja 2014. u 05:59:42 UTC+2, korisnik David Amicus napisao je:
> I got that epic poem today "The Siege of Sziget". In the intro it says that the motto of Miklos Zrinyi is "Sors Bona Nihil Aliud".When I tried to Google that phrase almost everything that showed up was in Hungarian.
>
>
> I was wondering if anyone knows if it has an ancient source?

"Sors bona, nihil aliud" was motto of Nikola VII. Zrinski (1620-1664),Croatin ban; vicerex, one of the most influent nobelman in Europe in this period. He was Croat (Zrínyi Miklós in Hungarian). The correct translation of Croatin, ( Dobra sudbina, ništa drugo ) is "Good destiny ( fate ), nothing else"!!!

> Siget guardian was Nikola IV Zrinski ( 1508-1566 ), grandfather of Nikola VII. They were members of house Šubić, primary ( The Šubić were one of the twelve tribes which constituted Croatian statehood in the Middle Ages; they held the county of Bribir), later Zrinski, by new residence, town Zrin. My family comes from one branch Šubić dynasty.Motto of Nikola IV Zrinski was Vincere aut mori; Win or die (Pobijedi ili umri).

[svaro...@gmail.com]

[svaro...@gmail.com]

Dana četvrtak, 24. srpnja 2014. u 05:59:42 UTC+2, korisnik David Amicus napisao je:
> I got that epic poem today "The Siege of Sziget". In the intro it says that the motto of Miklos Zrinyi is "Sors Bona Nihil Aliud".When I tried to Google that phrase almost everything that showed up was in Hungarian.
>
>
> I was wondering if anyone knows if it has an ancient source?

[Ed Cryer]

dobra i loša sudbina
https://meditacijayoga.wordpress.com/category/dobra-sudbina/

Ed