A Priest in a family way

[transward (imported)]

This story happened years ago before abortion became safe and legal

In those days a young girl finding herself in a family way faced a much different situation than today. Fortunately, for the wealthy, the situation was much easier to deal with and out story begins when a young lady, belonging to an old money family, found herself unexpectedly pregnant. This of course caused consternation in the halls of the old family mansion and she was quickly chauffeured to the family physician who had spent years specializing in diseases of the rich.. The doctor comforted her and assured that she could be successfully re-virginized, with only a small inconvenience. “What we will do is pack you off to an exclusive spa for a few months till the baby is due. Then we’ll check you into the hospital for unspecified minor surgery to correct “female trouble” Then we will take the little inconvenience and find another woman in for surgery that day. When she wakes up we’ll tell her that she didn’t really have a gallbladder attack, but had an undiagnosed pregnancy, and here is her new child.”

And so all this came to pass and the young lady duly delivered a beautiful bouncing baby boy, returned to her usual round of social events a new virgin, and so passes out of our little story.

There was a slight hitch in the proposed plan. On the day that the baby boy was delivered, by a quirk of fate, only men were in for surgery. Not one to give up a good plan the doctor instead went in to a handsome young priest, and said “Father we have a miracle. When we opened you up to fix your gallbladder, we found something completely unprecedented in medical literature. There was a healthy baby boy growing inside you. He priest promptly fainted, but when he revived, he said "Well it must be God’s will."

And so the priest took the child home and raised him to manhood. In all this the boy grew up thinking that his father, the priest had failed to honor his vows and that he was the result.

In the fullness of time the priest grew older and found death looming. And as he lay on his deathbed, the lie that he had lived with, between himself and his son, grew to be a heavy burdent on his soul and so he called his son to his bedside. :”Son, all these years I have been living a lie. I have told you that I am your father. That is not true. ... I am not your father. … I am your mother. ...

The Bishop is your father.”

[fredericlei (imported)]

Good story, but I write because of the signature: “nil humanium alienum est” which, surely, is an error for some portion of the famous quotation from Terrence, “homo sum, nihil humanum alienum mihi puto.” That is, “I am a human being: I consider nothing human is alien to me.”

“Nil humanum alienum est” would be correct Latin, though almost meaningless—nothing human is alien? alien to what? For extraterrestrial life forms, I imagine, everything human is indeed alien.

[kristoff]

Good story, but I write because of the signature:

“nil humanium alienum est”

which, surely, is an error for some portion of the famous quotation from Terrence, “homo sum, nihil humanum alienum mihi puto.” That is, “I am a human being: I consider nothing human is alien to me.

”

“Nil humanum alienum est”

would be correct Latin, though almost meaningless—nothing human is alien? alien to what? For extraterrestrial life forms, I imagine, everything human is indeed alien.

"Sic" 'em, heheh

[fredericlei (imported)]

"Sic" 'em, heheh

Sic, indeed. I like taking things literally, too.

There’s a word for people who take things literally. It’s thief.

[transward (imported)]

I am well aware of Terrence’s original quotation. But the phrase has appeared again and again in various forms. The following link has a thorough discussion of your question,

http://www.funtrivia.com/ubbthreads/sho ... ain=380579

Both Marx (Karl not Groucho) and Spinoza quote it as I have it and as a former optician I have always had a soft spot for Spinoza so I chose his formulation. But I may change it to include the mihi or a me. My goal was to have the sort of Latin quote that even not Latinists can puzzle out. Sort of like Caesar’s “Omnia Gallia in tres partes divisa est.” which I believe translates as”DeGaul had a party in a tree.”

By the way I have been told that it is inscribed over the entry to Harvard's Medical Library. Does anyone know the exact phrasing there?

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[fredericlei (imported)]

Both Marx (Karl not Groucho) and Spinoza quote it as I have it ...

Fair enough. Surely, though, neither Marx nor Spinoza would have wriiten it with the erroneous humanium.

[transward (imported)]

No that was a brain lock up on my part; I got humani and humanum tangled up in my mind and didn't do the simple copy and paste and typed it from memory, which at my age is a mistake. Like they say memory is the second thing to go.

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