Early Corn and Early Poetry: when did Europeans discover corn?
Why we don’t know anything: Because Corn.
From:This is only about
Ask exactly what air is.
And, See we are divided.
There are those who know it all.
There is also the enlightened...
This read isn't for everyone. Ovid wrote Metamorphoses around, about, year 1 AD. The poem mentions corn numerous times. If that doesn't mean anything to you this is not a read that you'll appreciate.
When reading a poem written so close to the AD BCE changeover, one can’t help but wonder what treasures Ovid has hidden for us in there.
The version I am writing about was translated by Sir Samuel Garth and John Dryden et al. It was told to to us by what some critics of the time had called "same-sided dice" a polarized and often ostracized poetry crew. Accused for straying too far from sciences thought typical for their time.
But what, if anything, did these rabble-rouser romantics contribute to this poem besides its translation?
"Metamorphosis is about the birth of earth, the ages of men and what gods came first; and how they did each other in. It talks about arbor-sexual demigods, and patricidal divinity; about the phases of man; and Ovid even mentions giants in a very similar light as does modern day conspiracy theorist. But it's just a poem. Giants have been fantasized about for ages. We all have heard a bit about “The giants’ blood spills and mixes with that of the earth, creating new beasts”(1)… It is similar to the fallen angles mixing with man to create giants in the first place as in the Good Book (2). Almost like the same three wood-blocks were stack in Ovid's work, just a bit differently.
What is the importance of that? If Ovid really wrote the Metamorphosis the way we read it today, then it is more significant to history than we believe. But not because of Giants.
The thing that stands out like a giant bandaged finger is: in Dryden’s English translation there are several mentions of South American Corn. Something that Europe or any of the Middle Eastern world wouldn’t see until the right before the 15 century. Fantasy or not, it's very startling that he describe corn so vividly.
"Corn." It is only one word, but it could not have been in Ovid’s original version of Metamorphosis(2)"
But, if it was in there, theologically it would raise Ovid to that of a poet possessing prophetic power. One would have to read in Latin to pear beyond this veil. Because not only is corn represented in this translation, but also the way that it looks is: “the Bearded Corn” This fact is one Publius Ovidius Naso could not have really known about in the years near the BC AC change-over. Not in Rome.
What is meant by “treasure” then?
Information of notable value is treasure. Stuff not used by our K-12 educational system. This Translation also mentions “liquid air” several times; and in the first few pages it reads something like “the sea of liquid air, thinner on the mountain peaks,” Something also not known until after we learned what oxygen and atmosphere is.
Keep in mind Oxygen, Atmosphere, and corn were not discovered when Ovid was alive.
Some believe oxygen was discovered by Joseph Priestley, others think it was discovered earlier by Antoine Lavoisier in the 17 or 18 century. So in this translation one “treasure” is Joseph Priestley could not have been the only voice who discovered oxygen and atmosphere density because this translation speaks of such things. Even if it was Ovid who knew these things, his poem was translated before Joseph Priestley discovered it.
A real treasure would be:
Occom’s razor, “lex parsimoniae” or in words that I actually understand: “what is most likely is likeliest.” So starting with the least likely and working through the possible implications of these few logical road blocks lets use the lex parsimoniae theorem to unravel these questions:
- The first and least likely is: Ovid knew about corn, oxygen, and things that could have been known by the original Latin speaking world.
1. Those who argue this could mention the fossilized Antikythera Mechanism. It would be easy to see it as proof of lost history. There was no written mention of the Antikythera Mechanism after all; unless perhaps the “seer stone” mentioned in the King James Bible was an “Antikythera.” The device is actually thought to be from Ovid’s time and no one knew about it until one was actually found. So, maybe Ovid did know these things as unlikely as it seems, but like the Antikythera Mechanism, they just where lost in "word-form" until Garth and Dryden pulled them out of the unsuspected poem.
The later and more likely events are that the translators transformed Metamorphosis. The lesser questions within this possibility are:
- Was that modification made to the translation to meet the required rhythm and rhyme scheme Ovid had originally set down in Latin? Was it changed so when read in Old English it would flow?
- Was it to serve the translators own terms? How much more was changed to celebrate their new discoveries in science. Things that were bursting from the writer’s pens of the times, seem to be showing up in the poem. All things that would have been known by Dryden and Garth but not Ovid. It would mean this translation is not what Ovid had meant at all. And it would explain these incongruities, but then it would also mean that we don't know what metamorphosis is really about and that would have a far-reaching dogmatic significance.
If Ovid had really foresaw the introduction of corn into his part of the world that would happen 1500 years after his death, and if he understood the atmosphere beyond the wind’s displacement of ethereal space, then it would mean that our understanding of the world was brutally stunted somehow between then and now.
It's fun to believe that Ovid was even greater than we give him credit for. But, if all these new concepts and crops mentioned were added by Sir Samuel Garth or John Dryden, at el, whatever treasures or knowledge were encrypted in the original poem Metamorphosis are useless and can’t be trusted. And we'd have to wonder what these famous poets who translated it meant to hide???
All we know of this, from what we know of history: is that Publius Ovidius Naso probably didn’t know what atmospheric pressure was and certainty he could not have’t know what corn was, let alone how it looked.