As prepared for delivery:
De Hereditatibus Peregrinis
Praeses Garber, aestimatissimi decani, sapientissimi professores, honestissimi hospites, amici, familiae, et carissimi condiscipuli: salvete omnes!
Honor mihi maximus est vos adloqui. Oratio illa non tantum quo facultatis carente, sed etiam cohorte insuefactorum discipulorum antiquitatis qui linguam Latinam legere scribereque sed non dicere audireque possunt, sine translatione intellegi non potest, imprimis me. Itaque omnes audientes exspectatis unam modo iocosam sententiam in Anglice (ventura est, nolite trepidare). Horologia aspicitis et clare putatis quando Abraham Verghese, immo aliquis loquens in Anglice, dictaturus sit! Quis ratio loquendi Latine?! Patientiam rogo; rationem proferam.
Ante illam diem gaudii maximi, vincula nos iungentia obscura erant. Condiscipuli nostri non tam vicini quam peregrini. Discipuli humanitatum iter fecerunt ad Area Harvardiana, dum discipuli scientiarum naturalium in exilium eunt ad ripam ulteriorem ingentis fluvii Caroliani, gravioris quam Rubico. Illa tempora inusitata ubi convenimus — in sectione discussionis GenEd — terribilia erant. Horribile dictu! Visi sumus dicere “barbari ad portas!” cum clamabamus aut “mathematicus in classe litterarum!” aut “concentrator studiorum socialium conatur ‘coding’!”
O tempora! O mores! Non nos intellegimus, et orator equidem linguam tantam obscuram dicit ut aliquis audiens iure exclamet “what is this guy saying!?” Quot res peregrinas discimus, tot linguas peregrinas dicimus. Alii linguam historiae loquuntur, alii linguam Pythonis vel C++, alii microbion, alii stellarum. Universa lingua saepe caremus. Multae hereditates nostrae in aeternum dividentur?
Minime! Multas linguas peregrinas loquimur; una tamen stamus, et una discimus, et una athletas Olympianosque laudamus, et maxime una detestabiles Yalienses damnamus et quorum saevum tyrannum Handsome Dan.
Eodem modo, sueta lingua Latina aliis, aliis insueta, sed est hereditas tradita beneficium omnibus. Hereditates peregrinae vincula nos iungentia confirmant. Fortasse a sede potestatis audiebas non esse dignam laudis tuam hereditatem, sed alienam aut obscuram aut inferiorem. Tibimet dico: nec potestates nec principes tuam hereditatem iudicare possunt. Nec potestates nec principes tuam hereditatem auferre possunt. Nec potestates nec principes possunt veritatem mutare aut negare diversitatem nostram fortitudinem esse.
Quis ratio loquendi Latine? Hic est: memoria tenere omnem hereditatem, quantumvis insuetam, nostras fortunas augere. Cultura mundi melioris omnes linguas poscet. Illa nos poscet. Navis mundi corrigetur non a subductisupercilicarptore querente quod credens iustitiae ex agmine ignorantiae egressus sit, sed ab artifice qui vates mundi novi fit, ab medico qui vulneratos ab verberis vinculisque mundi curat, a discipulo historiae qui iniquitates solitas mundi ab radice evellit. Una corrigemus.
Ut pius Aeneas olim suae cohortis animas confirmavit, nunc vos adhortor: “durate, et vosmet rebus servate secundis.” Usque ad res illas secundas: Valete!
On Foreign Inheritances
President Garber, most esteemed deans, most wise professors, most distinguished guests, friends, families, and my beloved fellow students: welcome all!
It is a great honor for me to address you all. This oration is not only unintelligible to those without Latin, but even the crew of trained students of antiquity who can read and write the Latin language but cannot speak or hear it need a translation, especially me. Therefore, you all who are listening are only waiting for the one funny sentence in English (which is coming, don’t worry)! You check your watches and wonder aloud when Abraham Verghese, or really anyone speaking in English, will speak! What is the reason for speaking Latin? I ask for patience; I will offer an explanation.
Before this day of great joy, the ties that bind us together were hard to see. Our fellow students were not so much our neighbors as strangers. Students of the humanities journeyed to Harvard Yard, while students of sciences journeyed into exile on the far shore of the mighty River Charles, a river more important than the Rubicon. Those strange times when we came together — in GenEd discussion section — were frightening. How horrible to say! We might as well have been saying “the barbarians are at the gates!” when we shouted that “there is a mathematician in my literature class!” or that “a Social Studies concentrator is trying to code!”
Oh, the times! Oh, the customs! We do not understand each other, and indeed, even the orator speaks a language so obscure that anyone listening could rightly exclaim “what is this guy saying!?” As we study foreign subjects, so do we speak foreign languages. Some speak the language of history, others the language of Python or C++, some that of microbes, others that of stars. We often lack a common language. Will our many inheritances be forever separated?
Not at all! We speak many foreign languages; but we stand together, and we learn together, we cheer on our athletes and Olympians together, and most importantly, we condemn those detestable Yalies together and their savage tyrant “Handsome Dan.”
In the same way, the Latin language is familiar to some and unfamiliar to others, but it is one inheritance handed down as a benefit for all. Foreign inheritances strengthen the ties that bind us together. Perhaps you have heard from the seat of power that your inheritance is not worthy of praise, but that it is alien or confusing or lesser. To you, I say this: neither powers nor princes can judge your inheritance. Neither powers nor princes can take your inheritance away. And neither powers nor princes can change the truth and deny that diversity is our strength.
What is the reason for speaking Latin? It is this: to remember that every inheritance, however unfamiliar, adds to our fortunes. The cultivation of a better world demands all languages. It demands all of us. The ship of the world will not be righted by the eyebrow-raising hyper-critic complaining that the believer in justice has stepped out of the marching column of ignorance, but by the artist who becomes a prophet of a better world, by the doctor who cares for those wounded by the whips and chains of the world, and by the student of history who tears out the familiar inequities of the world by the root. We will right it, together.
As the dutiful Aeneas once emboldened the spirits of his crew, so now I encourage you: “Endure. And preserve yourselves for better times to come.” Until those better times: Farewell!
