Quo me rapis?
“Quo me, Rapis?” My first guess at this latin while reading the passage written from Dr. Maturin’s viewpoint in The Far Side of the World by Parrick O’Brian was:
“Am I drunk?”
Not quite. Here’s the passage, Aubrey and Maturin have been invited to celebrate the granting of a royal title to the fleet admiral:
‘What delightful wine,’ observed Stephen to nobody in particular. ‘But it is by no means innocent,’ he added, slowly drinking the rest of the glass. Because of the total confusion in the frigate he had had no breakfast apart from a cup of coffee; the packet of sandwiches and the flask of cold negus that he had forgotten to take up the Rock lay in his cabin…his usual dinner time was two hours earlier than this; the latter part of his morning had been intensely frustrating, hot, dusty and hurried; and so far he had eaten nothing but crumb of bread: he felt the effect of the wine well before his glass was emptied – a very slight swimming in his head, the faint birth of a certain benignity, a willingness to be pleased with his company. ‘Quo me rapis?’ he murmured. Sure it destroys one’s sense of free will. Jove made Hector bold and timid, timid and bold by turn so there was no personal merit in his heroism, no shame in his running away. From a misanthrope Bacchus makes me sociable…Yet on the other hand I have already bowed and smiled; I had performed at least the motions of complaisancy; and how have I not observed that imitation begets the reality.’
Have you ever seen so many semicolons?
“…a willingness to be pleased with his company.” In the clipped vernacular of today wouldn’t that translate to buzz?
Searching so the meaning of Quo me rapis? it was only fitting that I find the answer on a site dedicated to O’Brian. It’s from Horace’s Odes. In a roundabout way my first guess was near correct. Am I ravished, or Where, Bacchus, are you carrying me off to?
And again with the negus. Maybe we can get our local Wine & Spirits Shop to stock some.
Tags: Patrick O'Brian
Patrick O'Brian, The Far Side of the World, negus | bshears February 27, 2009
