Café Discovery: Hope and Despair

While I was writing last Friday’s piece, I decided to do a bit of follow up today.  I’m always interested in words and thought I would drag some along behind me.

Please note: These words are about the subject of that other essay, Despondency. They have nothing to do with my present state of mind. Suggestions that I need anti-depressants just might be inconsistent with what that essay said and with my current state of mind, although people commenting in my essays without seeming to have actually read them is a bit depressing in and of itself.

The closest word at the Online Etymological Dictionary (quoted liberally here) to despondency is despondence, a word dating from 1676.  It derives from the Latin despondere:

“to give up, lose, lose heart, resign” (especially in the phrase animam despondere, literally “to give up one’s soul”), from the sense of a promise to give something away, from de- “away” + spondere “to promise” (see spondee [we shall return to this]).  A step above despair.

So, okay.  How about despair?

c.1325, from O.Fr. desperer “lose hope, despair,” from the Latin desperare “to despair,” from de- “without” + sperare “to hope,” from spes “hope” (see speed).  The noun replaced native wanhope.

Notice that de- is assigned two different meanings.  If we assign the meaning used in the second to the first, despondent could mean “without promise.”  That might be apt.

Of course, now we should look at hope.

O.E. hopian “wish, expect, look forward (to something),” of unknown origin, a general Low German word (cf. O.Fris. hopia, M.L.G., M.Du. hopen; M.H.G. hoffen “to hope” was borrowed from Low German).  Some suggest a connection with hop (v.) on the notion of “leaping in expectation.”

The state of desperation dates to around 1366.  Being desperate, referring to people has a citation in 1483, used in the sense of people who have given up.

Searching hope led to the word forlorn and a leap a couple of centuries backward.

1154, “depraved,” past participle of the obsolete forlesan “be deprived of, lose, abandon,” from O.E. forleosan, from for- “completely” + leosan “to lose” (see lose).  In the Mercian hymns, the Latin perditionis (from which derives perdition) is glossed by O.E. forlorenisse.  Originally “forsaken, abandoned;” sense of “wretched, miserable” first recorded 1582.  Commonly in forlorn hope (1579), which is a partial translation of the Dutch verloren hoop, in which hoop means “troop, band,” literally “heap,” and the sense of the whole phrase is of a suicide mission.  The phrase is usually used incorrectly in English, and the misuse has colored the sense of forlorn.

Of course, no discussion of hope should avoid Pandora, in some traditions the name of the first mortal woman, (“whose descendants will torment the race of men”).  In Greek mythology Zeus ordered Hephaestus to mold her out of earth (a familiar life-forming substance back then).  Each god gave her unique gifts as a bride to Epimetheus.  Payback for Prometheus stealing fire and all (Epimetheus being Prometheus’ brother and all).  

According to Hesiod (the Theogony and Works and Days) Pandora opened a jar which let loose all the evils of mankind, including greed, vanity, slander, envy, pining for the fjords, yada, yada, yada, and left only Hope trapped inside, stuck under the lip of the jar.

Hesiod did not have a good view of her.

From her is the race of women and female kind:

of her is the deadly race and tribe of women who

live amongst mortal men to their great trouble,

no helpmeets in hateful poverty, but only in wealth.

There is, however, an account of a pre-Hesiodic legend given by Theognis of Megara:

Hope is the only good god remaining among mankind;

the others have left and gone to Olympus.

Trust, a mighty god has gone, Restraint has gone from men,

and the Graces, my friend, have abandoned the earth.

Men’s judicial oaths are no longer to be trusted, nor does anyone

revere the immortal gods; the race of pious men has perished and

men no longer recognize the rules of conduct or acts of piety.

Sound familiar?

Indeed an even later account by Babrius has the jar containing blessings, not evils.  In this story it was not Pandora who opened the jar, but “a foolish man” and all the blessings were lost forever, save Hope, who remained “to promise each of us the good things that fled.”

The journey through despair and hope cannot be complete without returning to spondee, a word dating to around 1390, “a metrical foot consisting of two long syllables,” from O.Fr. spondee, from Latin spondeus, from Greek spondeios (pous), the name of the meter originally used in chants accompanying libations.  Now we’re talking.  This derives from sponde, “solemn libation,” and is related to spendein “make a drink offering,” from PIE base *spend- “to make an offering, perform a rite,” hence “to engage oneself by a ritual act” (cf. Latin spondere “to engage oneself, promise,” Hittite shipantahhi “I pour out a libation, I sacrifice”).