Carmania

From: Argrath_at_aol.com
Date: Sun, 24 Sep 1995 17:06:23 -0400


A Hazari Ditty (Early Sixth Wane through late Seventh)

Rhyming English translation from the Carmanian:

What use have I for money?
Lucre ain't my creed.
Gold is sticky honey,
Source of Karmanoi greed.

Truer but non-rhyming translation:

Copper is just a tarnished metal.
Bribe-silver is below my caste.
Gold sticks to Karmanoi fingers
Like honey on a hungry man's [fingers].

This ditty expresses a common sentiment of the old-line Hazari in the years when the threat (and promise) of the West had faded away and was known only through legend. Attempting to maintain their identity, many Hazari rigidly followed their code of honor. Thus, they disdained copper clacks (common payment for common goods and services) as beneath them. One of the names for silver carried connotations of illegal activity or "filthy lucre." Hazari could easily disdain gold, since few of them would ever have any. The slap at the Karmanoi is actually clearer in the rhyming than the non-rhyming version, but the implication of the latter is that only a greedy man would scoop honey up in his hand, thus getting his fingers sticky.

While I'm on Carmania, I have a question for Loren about the Carmanian castes. I apologize if this has already come up and I missed the discussion. While reviewing the Carmanian Glossary, I find an apparent contradiction between two entries: "Hazar" and "Gentle Castes." The former says "many houses of Hazari have sold or gambled away their ancestral weapons and live as degenerate artists or minor tradesmen." The latter says "members of each caste are chosen by the head of the family..." A family is a subset of a house, so how is it possible to have a house of Hazari? I offer multiple choice solutions:

  1. The reference to houses of degenerate artists and minor tradesmen really applies to all the gentle castes, and should be moved in the Glossary.
  2. There are minor houses whose menfolk belong exclusively to only one of the gentle castes. (This is corroborated by the Glossary entry for Fazzi.) Some of the Hazari houses have become degenerate.
  3. A man's caste is decided by the head of the House, not the head of the family. Certain families are traditionally Hazari, so the reference to degeneracy should be to degenerate families, not houses.
  4. Family and house are synonyms.
  5. (Make your own solution.)

I prefer C.

BTW, Sandy's source for the "write message on a tree, shoot enemy leader in the dark" bit is from Sun Pin's ambush of Pang Chuan in 341 B.C. I only know this because it's illustrated in the Cartoon History of the Universe II. Unfortunately, that source doesn't provide any context, and only includes the story because Sun Pin was a descendant of Sun Wu, author of "On War."

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