Description

Overhear Scipio and Berganza, the canine conversationalists in Miguel de Cervantes’ social satire The Conversation of the Dogs), who understand the role played by displays of Latin and Greek in the Spanish class system. The last of Cervantes’ Exemplary Novels (1613), the dialogue is overheard by a man in hospital with venereal disease. Scipio and Berganza are the hospital guard dogs.

They agree that there are two ways of abusing Latin quotations. Berganza, who learned Latin tags when owned by schoolmasters, resents writers who insert ‘bits of Latin phrases into the conversation, giving the impression to those who do not understand that they are great Latinists, when they scarcely know how to decline a noun or conjugate a verb.’ Scipio, the more educated and cynical hound, sees humans who DO know Latin as more ‘harmful’. Their conversations even with lower-class cobblers and tailors are flooded with Latin phrases, incomprehensible to their listeners and therefore creating opportunity for exploitation of the less educated.

Scipio woofs references to the myths of Ulysses and Sisyphus. He would rather bark about philosophy than abuses of Latin. Like Plato’s Socrates, he becomes exasperated when his interlocutor relates anecdotes rather than producing definitions.  Here is the dialogue after Berganza concedes that he does not know what ‘philosophy’ means:

Scipio I’ll soon tell you. The word is composed of two Greek nouns which are ‘philos’ and ‘sophia’; ‘philos’ means ‘love’, and ‘sophia’ means ‘knowledge’; so ‘philosophy’ means ‘love of knowledge’ and ‘philosopher’ means ‘lover of knowledge’.

Berganza You know a great deal, Scipio. Who the devil taught you Greek words?

Scipio You are simple, Berganza, if you take any notice of that; these are things that every schoolboy knows; and there are those who pretend to know Greek when they don’t, just as there are those who pretend to know Latin.

Scipio is in danger of exhibiting the very intellectual snobbery which he purports to criticise. But it is Berganza who concludes the discussion of Classics with a striking, problematic image. He compares people who deceive others into thinking they are refined by faking knowledge of Latin and Greek with people who use tinsel to cover up the holes in their breeches. But he also suggests that such such intellectual imposters be exposed by the torture methods used by Portuguese slavers on ‘the Negroes in Guinea,’ thus revealing that he is not himself free from ‘human’ indifference towards the plight of slaves.