L'Italo-Americano

THURSDAY, JUNE 29, 2023 www.italoamericano.org 24 L'Italo-Americano T oday, we use the phrase "the die is c a s t " w h e n w e w a n t t o s a y w e took a decision and we can no longer turn back. In Italian, it translates as il dado è tratto. While the e x p r e s s i o n i s c o m m o n i n both languages, not everyo- ne knows that, according to tradition, the first to utter these famous words was no other than Julius Caesar. Many of us learn in school t h a t h i s e x a c t w o r d s h a d been the Latin alea iacta est, b u t t h i n g s m a y b e a t a d more complex than that. The phrase appears in Suetonius' The Lives of the Caesars, where the historiographer wrote about Julius Caesar himself and eleven emperors from Octavian Augustus to Domitian, covering about t w o c e n t u r i e s o f R o m a n h i s t o r y . I f w e w a n t t o b e more specific, alea iacta est appears in a passage Sueto- n i u s l i k e l y b a s e d o n t h e works of Gaius Asinius Pol- lio, where he described the moment when, on January 10 in 49 BC, Caesar crossed the river Rubicon (Emilia Romagna), plunging Rome i n t o i t s s e c o n d c i v i l w a r , which saw Caesar and Pom- p e y f i g h t o n e a n o t h e r f o r four years. C a e s a r w a s w e l l a w a r e that, by crossing the river with his army, there was no way to avoid war, hence the sentence "the die is cast," that is, "we crossed a point of no return." B u t h e r e c o m e s t h e mystery: while Suetonius doesn't mention in which language the sentence was u t t e r e d , w h i c h l e d p r e t t y much everyone to believe it was in Latin, other sources beg to differ: Plutarch, for one, was adamant Caesar, on the Rubicon, spoke in Greek, the language of the intellectuals and the power- ful back then. He wrote that t h e c o n q u e r o r o f G a u l actually said anerríphtho k ý b o s , a n i m p e r a t i v e w e w o u l d t r a n s l a t e a s a l e a iacta esto in Latin and "let the die be cast" in English. F a s t f o r w a r d t o t h e e a r l y Renaissance and the enligh- tening mind of Erasmus of R o t t e r d a m , t o f i n d o u t t h a t , v e r y l i k e l y , i t w a s a t r a n s c r i p t i o n e r r o r t o modify the sentence's entire meaning: according to the D u t c h p h i l o s o p h e r , t h e Latin imperative esto beca- me est because of a copying mistake. According to some linguists, more issues arise with the translation of the Latin verb iaceo: "to cast," which is commonly used to render Caesar's words, isn't really the most appropriate t r a n s l a t i o n , w i t h o p t i o n s such as "to launch" or "to throw" better delivering the real meaning of the Latin. However, the true dilem- ma surfaces with the term alea. This doesn't directly translate to "die" (which is e x p r e s s e d i n L a t i n w i t h talus or alternatively tesse- ra), but it does pertain to the game of dice, or more b r o a d l y , t o g a m b l i n g ( a practice permitted in Rome during Saturnalia, between December 17th and 23rd). Caesar was fully aware he was taking a gamble when, despite the Senate's opposi- tion, he crossed what was to b e c o m e o n e o f t h e m o s t f a m o u s r i v e r s i n h i s t o r y , a n d w h i c h s e r v e d , b a c k then, as the border between Italy and Cisalpine Gaul. He was knowingly accepting the risk. And so, regardless of the language it was truly uttered in and its various translating options, the sentence alea iacta est signifies that the g a m e h a s b e e n s e t i n t o motion and it can't be hal- ted. It's comparable to the saying "les jeux sont faits," a popular French phrase used by dealers when the roulette ball is in motion: the bets have been placed, no altera- tions can be made, and it's simply a matter of waiting to see where fortune will cause this ball to land. From this comes the sense of ine- vitability inherent in both the Latin expression and its equivalent in both modern Italian and English, a sense of inevitability Caesar must h a v e b e e n v e r y a w a r e o f when he decided to lead his troops to Rome. C avarsela (cah- vahr-sai-lah)– is a delightful Ital- ian expression, b r i m m i n g w i t h nuances and subtle connota- tions. Its strictest meaning is a b o u t m a k i n g i t t h r o u g h tough circumstances, not nec- essarily unscathed, but cer- tainly undeterred. In English, we can translate it with "get- ting away with," "getting by," or "managing." B u t b e f o r e d e l v i n g a n y deeper into its meaning, we should say a thing or two about the way cavarsela is formed or, to say it with lin- guists, about its morphology. Cavarsela is a reflexive verb c o m p o s e d o f t h e v e r b "cavare" and the pronouns " s i " ( w h i c h b e c o m e s " s e " when followed by another pronoun) and "la." A closer look at its etymology brings to l i g h t i t s l i t e r a l m e a n i n g : " c a v a r e " t r a n s l a t e s t o "extract" or "remove," and w h e n c o m b i n e d w i t h t h e reflexive pronouns, the term broadly hints at the act of extracting or removing one- self from a given situation, usually a difficult one. For instance, let's say you took a t u m b l e w h i l e r i d i n g y o u r bike: potentially, it could have been very dangerous but tutto considerato, te la sei cavata solo con qualche graffio ("all in all, you got away with only a couple of scraps"). Cavarmela often dips its toes into the realm of cun- ning, resourcefulness, and the ability to manage your affairs well: hai dovuto fare tutto da s o l o , m a t e l a s e i c a v a t a benissimo ("you had to do all by yourself but you managed beautifully"). But cavarsela is no one- trick pony: it can also convey the idea of skirting difficulties, especially by employing wit or shrewdness." The very com- mon expression cavarsela bene, or "getting off lightly," illustrates this perfectly. L a s t b u t n o t l e a s t , cavarsela can be used to say you manage something rea- sonably well. For instance, If you're a non-native Italian speaker who has managed to get a grasp of the intricacies of the language, you might say, con l'Italiano me la cavo, "I manage fairly well with Ital- ian." L'esame era difficile ma me la sono cavata lo stesso The exam was difficult but I managed anyway Non me la cavo male in cucina I ' m n o t t o o b a d i n t h e kitchen LA VITA ITALIANA TRADITIONS HISTORY CULTURE Cavarsela: when luck - and skills - help you succeed Italian curiosities: why do we say "Il dado è tratto"? Photo: Nejron/Dreamstime Julius Caesar, the man who uttered the famous sentence "The die is cast" (Wikicommons/Marie-Lan Nguyen. Public Domain)

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