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by Tara Carreon
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Old Macdonald Had a Farm,
E-I-E-I-O "The
Borgias," by Alexandre Dumas, Pere
The
Imperial throne was occupied by Frederic III, who had been rightly named
the Peaceful, not for the reason that he had always maintained peace,
but because, having constantly been beaten, he had always been forced to
make it. The first proof he had given of this very philosophical
forbearance was during his journey to Rome, whither he betook himself to
be consecrated. In crossing the Apennines he was attacked by brigands.
They robbed him, but he made no pursuit. And so, encouraged by example
and by the impunity of lesser thieves, the greater ones soon took part
in the robberies. Amurath seized part of Hungary. Mathias Corvinus took
Lower Austria, and Frederic consoled himself for these usurpations by
repeating the maxim, Forgetfulness is the best cure for the losses we
suffer. At the time we have now reached, he had just, after a reign of
fifty-three years, affianced his son Maximilian to Marie of Burgundy and
had put under the ban of the Empire his son-in-law, Albert of Bavaria,
who laid claim to the ownership of the Tyrol. He was therefore too full
of his family affairs to be troubled about Italy. Besides, he was busy
looking for a motto for the house of Austria, an occupation of the
highest importance for a man of the character of Frederic III. This
motto, which Charles V was destined almost to render true, was at last
discovered, to the great joy of the old emperor, who, judging that he
had nothing more to do on earth after he had given this last proof of
sagacity, died on the 19th of August, 1493, leaving the empire to his
son Maximilian.
This
motto was simply founded on the five vowels, a, e, i, o, u, the initial
letters of these five words
"AUSTRIAE
EST IMPERARE ORBI UNIVERSO."
This
means
"It is
the destiny of Austria to rule over the whole world."
So much
for Germany.
The Convivio, by Dante
Alighieri
In the third chapter of this book,
a promise was made to discuss the loftiness of the imperial and
philosophic authorities. Therefore having discussed the imperial
authority, I must continue my digression and take up the subject of the
authority of the Philosopher, in keeping with my promise. Here we must
first observe what this word "authority" means, for there is a greater
necessity to know this in discussing the philosophic as opposed to the
imperial authority, which by virtue of its majesty does not seem open to
question. It should be known, then, that "authority" is nothing but
"the pronouncement of an author."
This word, namely "auctor" without the
third letter c, has two possible sources of
derivation. One is a verb that has very much fallen out of
use in Latin and which signifies more or less "to tie words
together," that is, "auieo." Anyone who studies it carefully
in its first form will observe that it displays its own
meaning, for it is made up only of the ties of words, that
is, of the five vowels alone, which are the soul and tie of
every word, and is composed of them in a different order, so
as to portray the image of a tie. For beginning with A it
turns back to U, goes straight through to I and E, then
turns back and comes to O, so that it truly portrays this
image: A, E, I, O, U, which is the figure of a tie. Insofar
as "author" is derived and comes from this verb, it is used
only to refer to poets who have tied their words together
with the art of poetry; but at present we are not concerned
with this meaning. The other source from which "author"
derives, as Uguccione attests in the beginning of his book
Derivations, is a Greek word pronounced "autentin"
which in Latin means "worthy of faith and obedience." Thus
"author," in this derivation, is used for any person
deserving of being believed and obeyed. From this comes the
word which we are presently treating, namely "authority";
hence we can see that authority means "pronouncement worthy
of faith and obedience." Consequently, when I prove that
Aristotle is most worthy of faith and obedience, it will be
evident that his words are the supreme and highest
authority.
Rune-Magic, by Siegfried Adolf Kummer
Guido von List
gives an enlightening explanation in his Ursprache fur die Jodlerart
der Selbstlaute [Primeval-Language for Yodeling the Vowels], as to
how yodeling is involved with ancient Germanic customs. He directs our
attention to the threefold mystical sense added in ancient times to the
vowels A, E, I, 0, U. This idea still has echoes in the fact that
a! is the outburst of amazement, of wonderment, but also of
contempt. Likewise, e! is the cry of a sense of justice, of
regret and of inhibition; i! is the cry of inwardness, of stress
of the ego or of the individual personality, as well as of fear; while
o! serves as the expression of pain, of aversion and of fear of
death; as u! serves as a shout of joy and surprise, of spurring
on to energetic endeavor, and as a cry of terror. The Germanic people
were thoroughly shaped by mystical values.
This ancient sense of the
vowels is again related to their mystical primal meaning as symbolic
sounds, namely, a as the fundamental sound of the meaning of
shaping [Schaffen] and mastering [Walten]; e as
the fundamental sound of decreeing [Gesetz], ethics [Recht]
and being [Leben]; i is the fundamental sound of
inwardness, of spiritual light; o is the fundamental sound
for the corporeal, for order; u is the fundamental sound for
that which was perfected in the pre-temporal All-Perfected -- the
Ur -- the Height, ruling from the Beyond.
These developments in the
study of language strengthen the view that the age of yodeling
reaches back deep into the earliest times of the Aryo-Germanic
tribes.
Tik-Tok of
Oz, by L. Frank Baum
He came out of his throne to
stand before the Shaggy Man, and then he waved his hands, palms
downward, in seven semicircles over his victim's head, saying in a low
but clear tone of voice the magic wugwa:
"Adi, edi, idi,
odi, udi, oo-i-oo!
Idu, ido, idi, ide, ida, woo!"
The American Astronaut, directed by Cory McAbee
A, A, E, I, A, E, I know. I
know, A. E, I, O, U.
O, U sweet thing. Yes. A, E, A, E, I.
A, E, I, O, U. IOU nothing. But sometimes you owe me.
A, E, I, O, U. IOU nothing. But sometimes you owe me.
You owe me. You owe me. I. E. A. I. E. A. A. A. A.
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