In Petronius’s Satyricon, there is a very well-known story about werewolves. But just after Niceros tells this story, Trimalchio follows it up with his own Halloween-worthy short story: the tale of the strigae. Petronius’s discussion of the strigae brings me back to a question that I had when writing Erictho: Tartarorum Terror: what is the “right” Latin word for “witch?” If you think about all the modern languages that have a word for “witch” like strega in Italian that derives from striga, you might thing striga is the best choice. However, when we say “witch” in English, we usually mean something closer to sāga or maga. Sāgae and magae are the spell-chanting, potion-making, fortune-telling witches that are closer to what we think of when we picture a witch standing besides her cauldron. But what are strigae? Even in Petronius, what they are is a little murky: some sort of female, wailing creature that lurks outside and steals the bodies of children. Strigae are decidedly more monstrous than sāgae, even one like Erictho.
I realized when making this video that Francisco Goya’s paintings of witches depict something closer to strigae than sāgae:
Goya has depicted these witches as nocturnal and barely human, and the title and basket let us know they are engaged in the same activities of the strigae in the Satyricon.
In his book Horrenda, R.C. Reeves titled Trimalchio’s story about strigae “The Vampires,” which is his interpretation of what strigae were. I’m not sure I exactly agree with this, but it illustrates the problem with simply translating striga as “witch.”
The video has Latin captions. I had issues uploading the English captions, so here is a file with a translation:
Here is the text of Trimalchio’s story about strigae with macrons added, notes and glosses in Latin, and comprehension questions:
Tomorrow is the last day of the Halloween sale in our Latin store. At the beginning of November, we will change our store over to Saturnalia season. Just fyi, I won’t run a sale in November or December. That’s because I’m going to use nearly all the profits from our sales to stock up the little free pantries in my neighborhood. Also, if you donate on our support page on our website through the end of the year, I will commit 100% of of these donations to stocking up our little free pantries and giving to the Food Bank of Central & Eastern North Carolina.
Donate Directly to CENC Food Bank
(I would rather you donate to the above right now than consider a paid subscription! Gratias!)
Comments
Nothing yet. Say the first thing.
Sign in to join the conversation.