The Τατα

These are souls in Abraham's bosom, but it is the closest image I can find for τατα.

Τατα is so variously and inconsistently accented in the sources that I will not attempt any accents.  There are comparatively few sources for the word, and once you eliminate those where 

-τατα  might be part of a missing word, I have only found six incidents in the TLG that seem to be what I want.

What I wanted originally was the sense of τατα intended when Sphrantzes says his father was τατα to young Thomas Palaiologos and his uncle was τατα to Constantine.  

Doukas tells a story in which Mehmed calls for Halil Pasha in the middle of the night. Halil thought this could only be fatal, and made his farewells to his wife and children. He went to Mehmed. "Lala," Mehmed says, and Doukas explains that this means the same as τατα, which he over-glosses as παιδαγωγέ.  "Lala," says Mehmed, "I want you to give me The City." It is not often you catch Mehmed making a joke, but here he is acting the child, asking for a present.

It makes me think -- with no justification -- of the time when Sphrantzes asked Manuel II for a present.  When Sphrantzes' father died, Manuel put Sphranzes in charge of his wardrobe. Sphrantzes once asked Manuel for a particular antique chest.  (And this is where I imagine him impulsively calling Manuel, "Τατα.") Manuel's first response was that he had the chest from his father, the emperor John, and he planned to give it to his son, the emperor John.  But he gave it to Sphrantzes.  Nothing in Sphrantzes' narrative allows me to insert Τατα into the story.

In Characters, 7, Theophrastos speaks of older children teasing their father, a compulsive talker, who, when they want to sleep, say, "Babble something at us, τατα, to make us feel sleepy."    

I've seen τατα translated as "tutor" and "child-minder" and "Dada," but neither of the first quite gets to my understanding, while "Dada" seems about right.  Τατα was a term of affection, and while tutoring may have been part of an imperial assignment, it primarily suggests an intimate relationship more like a foster-father. Dokeianos compared Constantine’s education to that of Achilles by Chiron and Phoenix, and Phoenix's account in Iliad 9 of caring for Achilles includes cutting his meat into bites and dealing with his spit-ups: 

. . . for you would not go with another out to any feast, nor taste any food in your own halls until I had set you on my knees and cut little pieces from the meat, and given you all you wished, and held the wine for you.And many times you soaked the shirt that was on my body with wine you would spit up in the troublesomeness of your childhood."

In the Liddell & Scott lexicon, τατα is referred to τέττα in Homer and explained as a term of affection towards an older male. Homer's sole use is for Diomedes in Iliad 4 speaking to Sthenelos (Sthenelos?) who is an older male.  Aristophanes collects these and other  similar words into a list, "ἄππα, πάππα, μάμμα, μάμμη, μαμμία, τέττα / ἄττα."

Ἄττα is essentially the same word as τατα. Achilles uses ἄττα for Phoinix, and Telemachos uses ἄττα for Eumaios, even after he knows who Odysseus actually is. Odysseus had left home by the time he was able to say the word.  The Vita of S. Marina speaks of a hungry child crying  "Τατα, and other such things the way children do." Similarly, Tzetzes, writing about how he always uses the appropriate language for the person to whom he is speaking, says that he uses μάμμα and τατα with small children.

Τατα does not always get the result one might hope.  Ioannes Antiochenos tells a story of Phokas saying, "Bring me my τατα."  The  τατα was brought, and Phokas cut off his head. We will not speculate as to the reason.

One of the loveliest of all saints' lives, that of Philaretos, tells of the dream of his small grandson Niketas, after his death.  Niketas saw his grandfather in the place of Abraham in a world of great joy and light, and woke up crying because he had to leave "the sweet light." "I wanted," he said, to be with my τατα and my πάππου -- my daddy and my grandfather."

Sophia of Montferrat

                                                                   

 This faceless Byzantine queen will represent Sophia of Montferrat: it was Sophia's face that was supposed to be the problem.

The short version of the story says that Pope Martin V gave permission for the sons of Manuel II to marry women of the Latin rite. This would do wonders to promote the Papacy's goal of church Union on the one side, and on the other, produce military aid and money for the defense of Constantinople. The first brides, papal nieces, were shipped out in the fall of 1420: Sophia of Montferrat to Constantinople to marry John,  and Cleofe Malatesta to Mistra for Theodoros. 

Sophia had a huge dowry, a gracious manner, the body of a goddess, golden hair down to her feet, and apparently a face such that John refused to have anything to do with her after the wedding and coronation. She lived quietly in the palace with her Italian household and the friendship of her in-laws, Manuel II and Helena. After Manuel died, she "escaped" from Constantinople on a Genoese ship and returned to Montferrat where lived out her life in a convent.

There are problems with this story, though we can concede that he did not like her face. The first problem is that both of those brides, Sophia and Cleofe, were rejected by their husbands, and the stories of both rejections specify sexual rejection. John just ignored the marriage entirely and went on with his life, while Theodoros immediately took a six-year vow of chastity. There is a great deal of room for speculation, but the sexuality of neither man is in question. The specific area of speculation I will mention here is the fact that Manuel II had written a treatise on marriage, presented in the form of a dialogue between himself and his mother, in which he presents his reservations against marriage, and she argues for. Manuel worked on this treatise between 1417 until his death 1425, and it was widely circulated in the palace and among the literati. His sons had read it and seen that the best reason their father could produce for marriage was that it was a good influence for the lower classes. He did grant the possibility of companionship, and an heir to the throne, but he clearly begrudged the necessity.

The second problem is the face. The degree of the problem has much to do with the reports, and the translations of the reports. The conventional report comes from Doukas, and this is how it goes in the conventional translation by Harry Magoulias:

Emperor John, however, was not pleased with his wife. The young woman was extremely well-proportioned in body. Her neck was shapely, her hair blondish with braids flowing down to her ankles like glimmering golden streams. Her shoulders were broad and her arms, bosom, and hands well proportioned. Her fingers were transparent. She was tall in stature and stood very straight -- but her face and lips and the malformation of her nose and eyes and eyebrows presented a most revolting composition. In general, she may be described in the words of the vulgar adage: "Lent from the front and Easter from behind." When Emperor John saw how she looked, therefore, he had no sexual relations with her nor did he ever sleep with her. Consequently, she lived alone in one of the apartments of the palace. 

Ὁ δὲ βασιλεὺς Ἰωάννης ἦν μὲ στέργων τὴν σύνοικον, ἡ κόρη γὰρ τῷ μὲν σώματι καὶ μάλα εὐάρμοστος, τράχηλος εὐειδής, θρίξ ὑποχανθίζουσα καὶ τοὺς πλοκάμους ὡς ῥύακας χρυσαυγίζοντας μέχρι τῶν ἀστραγάλων καταρεομένους ἔχουσα, ὤμους πλατεῖς καὶ βραχίονας καὶ στέρνα καὶ χεῖρας ἐμμέτρους καὶ δακτύλους κρυσταλλοειδεῖς καὶ τὴν πᾶσαν ἡλικίαν τοῦ σώματος ἀνωῤῥεπη καὶ πολὺ εἰς τὸ ὄρθιον ἱσταμένη, ὄψις δὲ καὶ χείλη καὶ ῥινὸς κατάστασις καὶ ὀφθαλμῶν καὶ ὀφρύων σύνθεσις ἀειδεστάτη, παντάπασιν ὡς ἔπος χυδαῖον εἰπεῖν, "Ἀφ´ ἐμπρὸς τεσσαρακοστὴ καὶ ὄπισθεν πάσχα." Τοιαύτην οὗν ἰδὼν ὁ βασιλεὺς Ἰωάννης οὐκ ἐμιγε τούτην, οὐδὲ τὸ παράπαν σύγκοιτος ταύτης ἐγένετο, διὸ καὶ μονάζουσα ἦν ἐν ἑνὶ τῶν κοιτώνων τοῦ παλατίου.

I have underlined two words in the Greek, the ones Magoulias translates with "malformation" and "revolting." This is how Pierre MacKay and I translate that part: 

but her face and lips, the condition of her nose, and the arrangement of her eyes and eyebrows were extremely unpleasant.

"Condition" is not "malformation," "unpleasant" is not "revolting": we read an implication of aesthetic preference rather than of deformity.

One more example of translation, or paraphrase of Doukas, this from Sylvia Ronchey: 

Il viso di Sofia era veramente brutto. Fronte, naso, denti, occhi, sopracciglia, no si salvava nulla. ’La natura’ sospirò un cortigiano ’aveva rifiutato alla sovrana ogni bellezza.’ ’Spiacevole, per non dire disgustosa’ sentensiò un altro. Dopo una bambina russa di undici anni, Giovanni Palaeologo aveva avuto in moglie da suo padre Manuele una gigantessa dalla faccia di gorgone. 

Scholarship is corrupted to turn a phrase: a giantess with the face of a gorgon.

(A parenthesis here: both Sophia and Cleofe were described by contemporaries as tall. John, and probably Theodoros, was slight and below average height, like his father. We have strong evidence of John's concern for how he was seen in public, and he could not have tolerated a wife larger than he.) 

The section quoted above is from a longer paragraph by Doukas on the Sophia episode. Doukas was not a familiar at the court though Ronchey would make him so: he reports from what he has heard or read, and much of what he relates sounds like gossip. In his paragraph are two provable errors in terms of when events happened: there is no reason to assume that any other specific detail is accurate beyond the fact of the event itself. The wisecrack he quotes typifies Byzantine humor: personal and humiliating -- Mazaris is full of it if you like this sort of thing -- and this passage has been considered quite funny in my hearing by male Byzantinists. 

Sphrantzes, who was in the palace and with the family at the time, who knew Sophia, tells us nothing but the fact of the marriage, and the fact of her departure. He was incapable of writing critically about Manuel, or John, and I suspect that more accuracy would have required criticism. Chalcocondyles, who knew the family and knew people who knew Sophia, wrote a brief account. There is no general English translation of Chalcocondyles available, but we translate it this way: 

He [Manuel] brought him [John] as wife from Italy the daughter of the ruler of Monferrat. She was pleasant in manner, but not attractive in face. Crowned with the diadem, he was made high priest and king over the Greeks. As for her, as he did not live with her, he became hostile and disagreeable to her for a time, and the wife of the emperor [Helena] noticed that her husband was behaving disagreeably and that she was very hateful to her husband . . .

καὶ ἀπὸ Ἰταλίας ἀγόμενος αὐτῷ γυναίκα τοῦ Μονφεράτου ἡγεμόνος θυγατέρα, ἐπιεικῆ μὲν τὸν τρόπον, ἀηδὴ δὲ τὴν ὄψιν, διαδήματι ταινιώσας ἀρχιερέα τε καὶ βασιλέα ἐστήσατο τοῖς Ἕλλησι. ταύτην μὲν οὖν, ὡς οὔτε συνῴκει συνεγένετο ὲς ἔχθος ἀφικόμενος καὶ ἀηδῶς ἔχων αὐτῇ ἐπί τινα χρόνον, καὶ ἧ τε γυνή τοῦ βασιλέως ἐνεώρα ὲς αὐτὴν τὸν ἄνδρα ἁηδῶς ἔχοντα, καὶ ἀπεχθάνεσθαι τῷ ἀνδρὶ ὲς τὰ μάλιστα . . .

It is not a great deal different, but Chalcocondyles does not need to exploit Sophia for compare-and-contrast, or for amusement, and his emphasis is on John's unkindness, not on Sophia's appearance which to him was not much of a problem. Doukas emphasizes the reverse.

For almost any word, particularly adjectives, a translation can be selected from a spectrum of choices.  How does one choose? Does the translator decide in advance the meaning the words need to produce? Does the translator take the most sensational of dictionary alternatives? The most conservative? The one that will cover the most possibilities? How does the translator distinguish between Greek ideas of feminine attractiveness, and a medical condition? 

So we really don't know the problem with Sophia's face, beyond the fact that it was most unfortunate where the Greeks were concerned, but this suggests Chalcocondyles heard a version that finds more fault with John's behavior than with her face. And what Chalcocondyles tells us of Theodoros' behavior toward Cleofe in the first years makes it clear that the problem was his. Sons and daughters of rulers knew they would be sold off in one political arrangement or another: that was a given. There are too many questions about this one -- the first being: would the Marchese of Montferrat and the Pope have actually shipped out a genuinely deformed bride? Women with serious disfigurements, if upper-class, usually disappeared into some convent early on. 

What we do know is that Sophia was humiliated by her uncle, the Pope, by her father, by Manuel, and by John, for the sake of a political solution to a problem that was not a problem, and another problem that had no solution.

When she slipped away from Constantinople with the aid of a Genoese ship and a palace plot, she took with her a crown. In a Greek wedding, bride and bridegroom are crowned, and their crowns are exchanged. The day after the wedding, she was crowned queen. Whichever crown she took, that was all she had to show for her six years in the Queen of Cities. It was not enough. 

The fresco is of an Empress Helena from the monastery of Sopocani. I would be grateful for more information.

Lady 'Reen, the Little Bird, and the Pirate

The Skleroi's lovely lady 'Reen and Doukas' Areti,

and Goldilocks, three fairest maids ever in Napoli,
went out one day to take a walk, they went to take a bath.

Katsi Rini, was the name mother Skleraina used,
her father said, "My 'Rini, go. I worry for your care.
To help us all, I have a plan, I'll set up lookouts three.
The first I'll put uo on the mount, the second by the sea,
the third and best I'll place below to guard the gate for thee."

And so the story moves along and so the crisis breaks:
the tower on the mountain cries, "A sail, there comes a sail,
it cuts the white foam on the waves, it nears the platan tree!"

The tower on the sea cries out, "And now two fustas sail,
they've set their prows right toward the baths, they come onto our shore."
The tower cried, the third and best, "O maidens, be aware!"

Areti she changed her steps and 'Rini turned around,
and Goldilocks threw down her bag, and ran back into town.
some crawled in the window, and some dashed in the gate,
the darling of the Skleroi froze and waited for her fate.

The Turkish youth, he swept her up, clad in her golden hair,
he fiercely seized her fair white hand, he took her to his ship,
he kissed her mouth amidst her cries, he wrapped her in his arms.

The bird flew fast and sat him down, he perched high on the mast,
it did not call out like a bird or twitter like a swallow,
it only cried and spoke aloud, it cried out like a child.

What dreadful thing, Skleraina dear, you suffer, on this day
with dearest 'Rini, best-belov'd, your sweetly-perfumed child,
where goes the brother, there, you see, the sister 'Rini goes.

It's not a crime, it's not a shame, it's not a route to hell
if brother hold his sister close pressed up against his chest,
but like a bride he kisses her, he sees her like a man.

"Hark, hark, o hark, Turkopoulo, what does the small bird say?
It's just a bird and yet it cries, a bird and still it speaks!
I say to you, Turkopoulo, who are you, what's your name?
I had a brother long ago, he loved to travel far,
some told us once that he had died, some told us he had drowned,
some told us he became a Turk in places hot with sand."

"Tell me, o tell me, maiden mine, how does your lineage run?
"What can it matter now to you how does my lineage run?
since now it brings anathema, it brings the hurricane."

"Tell me, o tell me, lovely girl, your birth and your descent?"
"My father is from Napoli, my mother from Corinth,
The name Skleros is known by all, they call me Lady 'Reen."

"My sister, hold me out your purse, and hold me out your shoe."
The purse he filled with florins gold, her shoe he filled with coins,"
"Go, 'Rini, you go home at once, go find our family dear,
and I will follow close behind to see how you will wed."

She kissed him like a brother dear, again she pressed his brow,
he kissed her like a sister dear, and then she took her bath.

***************************

This old folksong was collected in Nauplion in the 19th century. There is no way the geography of Nauplion can be reconciled to the narrative. The jogging translation fairly reflects the jogging of the Greek. The theme of brother-sister incest appears frequently in narratives of the Ottoman and post-Ottoman period, reflecting anxieties raised by the Ottoman child tax (which was never in effect in Nauplion). The little bird is a persistent inhabitant of Greek folktales and songs. The names Skleros and Doukas are known from the Byzantine period.