Then, one of her suitors dethroned her father and liege (had him locked away, after the coup, in a lunatic asylum) to subsequently summon the intelligentsia of the land to court, to instruct her:
History acted its deeds before her on their lips. Strange nations lived and spoke
to her; and as she spoke to them she learned their language.
My interest in the past is far newer than my philological vein.
I was once told that learning about the past would help
me comprehend the present and even the future, as demonstrated in the many
historical allusions scattered throughout this very blog.
As a child, I was interested in languages being a third-culture child from a multicultural background. I was told stories and sung to in English, in Swedish, Spanish, Catalan, even in German and French. The prospect of strange nations and fantasy worlds was tempting for a hinterland outsider like me... but the first thought I had was of changing this world (present-day Earth) for better, stopping all crimes, wars, and religious conflicts. I was also curious about learning where words come from, why there are cognates and false friends across languages (that discipline is called onomasiology)... With the pass of years, those wishes gave way to sheer passion: philology for the sake of philology. So it is to the present day and the come-of-age university student.And yes, royal children, like cadets and wannabe diplomats, had to be multilingual in the olden days.
Still into our days, that is a skill that shapes history, raising bridges across nations/cultures and revealing hidden secrets. I think of Luther, having learned Latin and Greek at Erfurt, being able to understand the original Bible and kickstart the Protestant Reformation... and of the diplomats behind Westphalia and many other relevant peace treaties.
Needless to say that Gustavus Adolphus and his daughter Christina were both multilingual, and so were Charles V, Luther, and many others.
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