Through the Mirrors

Sunday, March 20, 2022

Men•Songe

laying falsehood

lie

« Ombres que nous sommes, si nous avons déplu,

figurez-vous seulement que vous n’avez fait qu’un mauvais somme ».

Le Songe d'une nuit d'été, A Midsummer Night's Dream,

a comedy by William Shakespeare

c. 1595 or 1596

"A Midsummer Night's Dream" by Arthur Rackham

Act V, Scene 1

— Robin "Puck" Goodfellow—

mischievous sprite with magical powers

"If we shadows have offended,

Think but this and all is mended:

That you have but slumbered here

While these visions did appear.

And this weak and idle theme,

No more yielding but a dream,

Gentles, do not reprehend.

If you pardon, we will mend.

And, as I am an honest Puck,

If we have unearnèd luck

Now to ’scape the serpent’s tongue,

We will make amends ere long.

Else the Puck a liar call.

So good night unto you all.

Give me your hands, if we be friends,

And Robin shall restore amends."

「He exits.」

Les Fées, conte de Charles Perrault, tiré des Contes de ma mère l'Oye parus en 1697

μήν • (mḗn)

*men-

The Proto-Indo-European root means "to think," with derivatives referring to qualities and states of mind or thought.

It forms all or part of: admonish; Ahura Mazda; ament; amentia; amnesia; amnesty; anamnesis; anamnestic; automatic; automaton; balletomane; comment; compos mentis; dement; demonstrate; Eumenides; idiomatic; maenad; -mancy; mandarin; mania; maniac; manic; mantic; mantis; mantra; memento; mens rea; mental; mention; mentor; mind; Minerva; minnesinger; mnemonic; Mnemosyne; money; monition; monitor; monster; monument; mosaic; Muse; museum; music; muster; premonition; reminiscence; reminiscent; summon.

The hypothetical source of/evidence for its existence is provided by: Sanskrit मनस् manas, "mind, spirit," matih "thought," मुनि muni, literally “silent”, from मन् (मन् • man, “to think, believe, suppose”) "sage, seer;" Avestan manah- "mind, spirit;" Greek μέμονᾰ • (mémona) "I yearn," μανία (manía, “madness”) μᾰ́ντῐς • (mántis) "one who divines, prophet, seer;" Latin mens "mind, understanding, reason," memini "I remember," mentio "remembrance;" Lithuanian mintis "thought, idea," Old Church Slavonic mineti "to believe, think," Russian pamjat "memory;" Gothic gamunds, Old English gemynd "memory, remembrance; conscious mind, intellect."

somnium: (from the root of somnus “sleep”) dream, vision, fantasy, daydream

स्वप्न्यम् svápnyam, “vision in a dream”