# Estienne (Zurich, 1548) ## expand\_more Author of this page: Elena Lu, Harvard (2024) In this poem, Gessner praises Johannes Fries’ translation of the French in Robert Estienne’s Latin-French dictionary into German. Gessner remarks on the significant accomplishment of mastering three languages (in Fries’ case, Latin, German, and French), offering several mythical parallels for the trilingual man. While Gessner and Fries had been long-time friends since their travels together in 1533, Gessner was also acquainted with Estienne’s work as a printer, dedicating the fifth book of his *Pandectae* (1548) to Estienne. Gessner’s own interest in Germanic languages and their dialects was to be broadcasted in his *Mithridates* (1555), a study in linguistics mapping relationships between various families of languages and their dialects. Gessner gives a brief nod to mastery over dialects in this poem (*ll*.16-19). This poem is preceded by a dedication to D. Marcus Roeystus of Zurich and followed by a poem by Rudolf Gwalther and a list of *observanda* (editor’s notes). Translation: \[Iambic\] Hexameters by Conrad Gessner, to the Reader. Hark, hark, you seek ideas that the mind has made sense of in fine words—in Latin, in French, in German—may you buy this most useful Vocabulary of Robert, the typographer of the king, to which Johannes Fries has now joined the best German words in sure faith. He who has learned these words could appear greater than the Attic king, Diphyes **\[1\]**, since he too was experienced at once in Egyptian and Greek tongues. To be sure, I think a man to be as great in appearance as are various in languages the words he translates. I’d prefer the trilingual man over the tri-bodied, like the one that the poets render their own Geryon: or rather Briareus, who is shown to be a-hundred-fold. He is an interpreter too, the sole messenger between all parts of the body, which they call language: where a language has been scattered across many dialects, he would know how to teach and to learn them all. Thus, may you all celebrate Frisius, favor him, love him, advance with praises this trilingual man. He is worthy of the three-pieced caduceus of the Argos-slayer, on which twin tongues of snakes tremble; for him, these snakes cut sacred languages to pieces. Transcription: CONRADI GESNERI SENARII ad Lectorem. HEUS heus, Latinè, Gallicè, Germanicè, Concepta mente sensa quaeris eloquis Emas Roberti regij typographi Hoc utilissimum Vocabularium, Cui Ioannes Frisius Germanica Nunc verba iunxit optima sanè fide. Haec qui didicerit, rege poterit Attico Maior videri, cui Diphyes nomen fuit, Aegyptia quod esset et Graeca simul Linguis peritus. Et merito quidem mihi Tot instar unus aliquis aestimabitur, Quot ille linguis verba diversa exprimet. Virum trilinguem praeferam tricorpori, Qualem poetae Geryonem faciunt suum: Imó Briareo, centuplex qui fingitur. Interpres atq; nuncia partes corporis Est inter omnes sola, quam linguam vocant : Quae quò dialectis est diserta pluribus, Hoc plura noverit docere et discere. Quin igitur omnes concelebrate Frisium, Favete, amate, promovete laudibus Virum trilinguem, tergemino caduceo, In quo geminae serpentium linguae micant, Dignum Argicidae, cui sacras linguas secant. **\[1\]** Lit. “two-natured,” referring to the mythical king of Attica Cecrops. In classical Greek tradition, Cecrops was born autochtonously and had therefore the lower half of a serpent and the upper half of a man (e.g. ὦ Κέκροψ ἥρως ἄναξ, τὰ πρὸς ποδῶν Δρακοντίδη, Aristophanes, Wasps*.* 438). Diodorus Siculus explains that the double-form of Cecrops was owed to his dual-identity as both Egyptian and Athenian (ἐν μέσῳ κειμένου πᾶσιν ὅτι δυοῖν πολιτειῶν μετασχών, Ἑλληνικῆς καὶ βαρβάρου, διφυὴς ἐνομίσθη, τὸ μὲν ἔχων μέρος θηρίου, τὸ δὲ ἀνθρώπου, D.S. 1.28). ![Estienne 1548](/sites/g/files/omnuum9491/files/gzp1565/files/00000016.jpg) Citation : Gessner's poem is in Robert Estienne, Dictionariolum puerorum tribus linguis Latina Gallica, et Germanica consciptum. Zurich: Froschauer, 1548, sig. α3v. Zentralbibliothek Zürich, shelf mark Gal Tz 207. Link: