Gifts to the Chapin Library
During the holidays just past, we were pleased to receive for the Chapin Library notable gifts from Neal Baer, M.D. and Ms. Gerrie Smith of Los Angeles, California, and from Dr. Michael D. Rosse of Yeadon, Pennsylvania.
From Dr. Baer and Ms. Smith came a book considered one of the most important in the history of medicine: The Seats and Causes of Diseases Investigated by Anatomy, in Five Books, Containing a Great Variety of Dissections, with Remarks by John Baptist Morgagni, published in London in 1769. It is the first edition in English of Giovanni Battista Morgagni’s De Sedibus et Causis Morborum (first published in Latin in 1761) and a fine set of the three volumes, bound in contemporary calfskin. We were happy to accept it as a gift made in honor of the donors’ son, Caleb, who will enter Williams with the Class of 2014. Morgagni (1682–1771), a teacher of anatomy in Padua, showed through case histories how postmortem anatomical investigation, compared with clinical symptoms, can reveal the points at which disease causes the body to fail. On the strength of this book, with its methodical analysis and classification, Morgagni has been called the founder of modern pathological anatomy.
Michael Rosse has been a regular donor to the Chapin Library, in support of an archive centered on the work of his Dutch-American parents, the distinguished artist and architect Herman Rosse and the talented landscape designer S. Helena Rosse. For his 2009 gift, Dr. Rosse presented the Chapin Library with six sheets containing sketches by his father, at least two for a theatrical production set in Venice; six 18th- and 19th-century prints from his father’s reference collection; three volumes by John Ruskin from Herman Rosse’s library; and an interesting wooden chest, painted by Herman Rosse in an Arts and Crafts style in the early years of the 20th century and always kept on display in the family home as a treasured artifact.
With the help of a colleague, German expert Dr. Arden Smith of California, we have learned that the inscription painted on the lid of the chest reads: “Wie sehrte mich Sehnen nach solcher Minne! / Wie, Maid, dich nach meiner! / Nun ist es gewisz; nun werden wir ewig beisammen sein.” Which freely translates as: “How longing for such love injured me! / As longing for mine injured thee, maid! / Now it is certain; now we will be together forever.” This is a German translation of the final strophe of the Fjolsvithmal or Lay of Fjolsvith from the Icelandic Elder (or Poetic) Edda. In Lee Hollander’s English translation from the Icelandic, this reads: “Heartsick was I; to have thee I yearned, / whilst thou didst long for my love. / Of a truth I know: we two shall live our life and lot together.”
The lay is one of a pair of poems, together the Svipdagsmal or Lay of Svipdagr, concerning a young hero named Svipdag given the task of winning the hand of the maiden Mengloth in Giant-Land. In the first poem, he visits his mother’s grave and receives spells to help him on his way. In the second, he comes to a great house or castle surrounded by flames. Mengloth dwells there, with nine maidens to help her. Svipdag puts a long series of riddling questions to the watchman, Fjolsvith (“the very wise”), to learn how he might evade dogs and other obstacles blocking entrance to the house. Finding that the house can be entered only by one hero, Svipdag, whom Mengloth is fated to marry, Svipdag identifies himself and is allowed to pass. Mengloth greets him as her deliverer. In Hollander’s translation and others from the original text, it is she who speaks the final words of the poem, but in the German translation the final words are given to Svipdag. Some scholars associate Mengloth with Freyja, the Norse goddess of love, beauty, fertility, etc., and Fjolsvith with Odin (“the very wise” is one of his epithets). – WGH