 The origin of this odd saying, whose currency
outside of Greece and to the best part of the Western world is largely due to Hegel
and Karl Marx, takes a little explaining.
Its current misspelled form originates from
a Latinized Latin translation: “Hic Rhodus, hic saltus” (“Here is Rhodes, jump here”) [see
Erasmus, Adagia III.3.28] of
the punch line from
Aesop’s fable The Boastful Athlete or
The Boasting Traveler.
The first mistranslation occurs in the translation from ancient Greek to
Latin. The name of the Greek Island that is mistakenly used in the
translation is Ροδος (Rodos). Classical Greek used only capital letters in its written forms. Common Greek, with separate capital and
lowercase letters was developed as a result of the conquests of
Alexander the Great, in order to make the language easier to learn among
non-native speakers (it is the same time at which accents are for the first time used in
written Greek, to allow non-native speakers to pronounce words correctly).
 The
quote of course originates from before Alexander the Great's time, and the initial spelling of the word was ΡΟΔΟΣ
(RODOS), as only capital letters were used at that time. Here is where the confusion
begins. The Greek word ροδος, in its female gender means “rod”,
or in Latin “rodus,” which was used to refer to the long stick that
athletes uses for pole-vaulting.
At a point in time, some ancient translator haphazardly capitalised the "R" of ροδος, so
from there on people thought it was a reference to
the island of Rhodes, when in fact it referred to the rod the boastful athlete used
to make his jump. To add to the confusion, the Greek word for rose is ΡΟΔΟΝ
(RODON), which despite claims to the contrary, cannot be associated to the name of the
island, although rhododendrons get their name from this root.
Note that rodos meaning rod is of female gender (η ρόδος), whilst rodon
meaning rose is of neutral (so the saying should then be “το ρόδον)”, but Rhodes, the island, is female.
“Πήδημα” still to this day in Greek means “jump”,
definitely not “dance”. Whichever way the fable is
translated, the story is that the athlete or traveler boasts that he once performed a
stupendous jump, and can produce witnesses of the event. The punch line, which follows the athlete's/travelere's statement is the comment
of a bystander, who says that there is no need of witnesses, since the athlete/traveler can demonstrate the jump here and now: “Here is a rod, make your jump!”
 The last thing that led to today's misconception of the actual literal meaning of the saying, was its wrong usage by two big modern philosophers, namely Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel &
Karl Marx.
The epigram is given by
Hegel, rather out of the blue, first in Greek, then in Latin (in the
form “Hic Rhodus, hic saltus”), in the Preface to his Philosophy of
Right (mid page 19). Hegel does not explain what the proverb meant in its original
context (without which it can hardly be understood); on the contrary he
makes a comment about jumping over Rhodes, something that suggests that he may not have fully
understood it himself. At any rate, he then offers an adapted German
version with yet again a different meaning, “Hier ist die
 Rose, hier tanze” (“Here
is the rose, dance here”, an allusion to the rose in the cross of
rosicrucianism, implying that fulfilment should not be postponed to some
Utopian future), punning first on the Greek (Rhodos = Rhodes, rhodon =
rose), then on the Latin (saltus = jump [noun], salta = dance
[imperative]).
Karl Marx, in Ch.1 of his 1852 work “The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte” adopts the saying in the saying, first giving the
supposedly Latin form (misspelled), “Hic Rhodus, hic salta!” (a garbled mixture of
Hegel’s two versions) and then immediately adds the “Hier ist die Rose, hier
tanze!” paraphrase, as if it were a translation!
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Vihar has always been a big surprise and a blessing for us. We
never planned on getting him. At the time, we were looking for a
foundation bitch and for something that
would appeal to our inner image of the
true Siberian dog. We had seen many prospectus bitches but
nothing that was close to what we wanted. All this was in an
instant changed when we glanced at this spectacle of a light red
bitch, turning circles around in a Hungarian grassy ring. She
did not win, but that meant nothing! We knew we had found what
we were looking for.
On the way to the breeder's house a couple of days later, we promised to each other that we were just going to look, inspect the
bitches and if it came to that, make the necessary arrangements for the mating of the
one we selected to the male of our choice. The breeder had
informed us that he had a litter in the kennel. This took up a second promise to each
other that no matter what, we were not going to buy in haste and most probably not from the litter
he had.
The moment the small pen door opened, these six puppies poured
out like a furry colorful ball onto the grass and started doing what liberated puppies do
best, RUN!
They ran and ran and ran in circles, chasing each others' tales
and legs. So we let them and capitalised on the chance to
observe them in motion and attitude.
Amongst them was this beige coloured reserved puppy, with a sparkle in its' eyes and a slight
smile on its little face. He saw us looking at him from across the court but did nothing to move any closer. He didn't run away either, which was a good sign! Eventually, when he was self assure, he took the big step and approached us. And into our hands we immediately knew. Like a Stephen King story...
The moment became even more "airy" when the breeder handed us over the pedigree. The litter letter was "H" and the
pedigree read: Light Gray Male, born 19 July, name... Love of Wolf Hic Rhodus, hic salta!
We just stood there, gazing at this piece of paper. All these days we didn't even bother looking at the kennel's name. We were so much absorbed by the task at hand (finding the bitch of our dreams) that we did not
even for a moment notice it!. And yet, there it was... Love of Wolf... what had in a big degree attracted me to the Siberians.
But even stranger, was the actual name of the puppy... it was a Greek saying, albeit wearing its western
European cloak... yet even more, it was a saying of challenge and dare and this witty little puppy wore it as its name!
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