Saturday, October 4, 2014

Confused? Just ask!

Danīshan daghdan ashmīsh.
Danīshmiyan duz yold yoluna sahmīsh.

The one who asks passes through the mountains,
The one who doesn't ask is confused by a straight road.

A saying straight from the Armenians from Marash early in the 20th Century.

2 comments:

  1. If the Praetor, Marcus Licinius Crassus, the richest man in Rome, conqueror of Spartacus (72 B.C.), had only listened to his Armenian guide who offered a circuitous route through the mountains to enable Crassus' 50,000 man legion, raised, equipped, and led by Crassus himself, to attack the Parthians, his head would have remained in place. Instead, Crassus followed the straight road that led him to the plains of Carrhae, where the Parthian mounted bowmen cut his army to pieces. Crassus' head was severed from the rest of him, but only before molten gold had been poured down his throat. That evening the king of Persia (Parthians) was served Crassus' head on a platter, as part of the evening's celebration of having wiped out five Roman legions. If only Rich Crassus who was confused, and lost his head on the straight road, had adhered to his Armenian guide's advice, As michael Douglas intoned, admonished, alan ark in the film, In-Laws, "Serpentine, Serpentine".!

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  2. That battle took place in 53B.C. I should also like to add a word on the etymology of the phrase, 'parting shot'. It is derived from a battlefield tactic of Parthian cavalry, who would turn around in their saddle, as they raced away from the enemy, and fire a volley. That tactic came to be known as the Parthian Shot, which devolved over time to, 'parting shot'. That phrase describes the denouement of a confrontation, one, however drained of the original's morbidity.

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