Forgive my current fixation with Latin phrases. I can't even remember why on earth I did Latin at school; sure I was pretty good at it but then I went and choked on the final exam. Although in my defence, as I was recently reminded by an old school friend, my poor performance was probably due to the fact that the movie "Grease" was released in the final week of my exams and I (together with most of my fellow boarding-school inmates) went to see it on three consecutive days. Olivia Newton-John was infinitely more alluring than revising my translations of Caesar's Gallic Wars.
Anyway, every so often Latin does have the useful habit of throwing up a particularly apposite phrase or two and right now “The die is cast” seems particularly appropriate. On 10 January 49 BC, Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon into northern Italy, a momentous event that put him in direct conflict with the Roman Senate. The resulting civil war ultimately led to the fall of the Roman Republic and the ascendency of the Julio-Claudian emperors. The historian Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus describes the scene as follows. After some hesitation, Caesar was given a sign by the gods and snatching a trumpet from a nearby soldier he sounded a battle signal and cried out “Take we the course which the signs of the gods and the false dealing of our foes point out. The die is cast.” For those of you who are sticklers for detail, this translation may be inappropriate because, of course, Caesar uttered these words prior to crossing Rubicon.
In current parlance one might be inclined to translate the phrase as “Game on” or “The game is afoot”. Given our family penchant for the stories of Arthur Conan-Doyle I prefer the latter, although I did notice that the phrase was first used not by Conan-Doyle but in 1597 by none other than William Shakespeare in King Henry IV Part I – "Before the game is afoot, thou still let'st slip." (Yes, writing this blog does send me down a lot of rabbit holes.)
It's certainly game on for Cath and me, because we have just signed the contract of sale on the house that has been our family home for the last 23 years (we bought it in June 1999).
The die is cast
During this time the house changed quite dramatically.
June 1999
June 2022
The stress of selling the house has now been replaced with a huge swell of emotion at the thought of parting with this grand and gracious Queenslander that has protected and nurtured our family for so long. There is also a feeling of complete terror at the finality of this act. On 29 July we will hand over the keys, and once more make the drive down to Tasmania and our new home on the banks of the Huon. The drive is planned to commence almost exactly two years to the day since my very first post on this blog ("And so it begins" ... 26 July 2020). Although I am fairly sure that neither Cath nor I will be grabbing a trumpet or shouting loudly about the die being cast, one thing is absolutely certain, the game will definitely be afoot.
Now that the house is sold, I have been recalled from my island exile. I make the trip back to Brisbane on Saturday where I expect that champagne, tears and trepidation will all be mixed in equal parts ...
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