On Mon, 25 Aug 2003 pddb at demesne.com wrote: > On Mon, Aug 25, 2003 at 09:08:46PM -0500, David Dyer-Bennet wrote: > > Smed <smed51 at yahoo.com> writes: > > > Note the present tense: Aerich reports. This implies that Aerich is > > > alive at the point that Paarfi wrote the story. > > > > I don't think so; I think it implies that Aerich was alive at the time > > that he "reported" -- and that report could have been a written letter > > that later came into Paarfi's hands. I don't think it tells us > > anything about Aerich's lifespan. > > I think you are correct. > > This is standard historical language -- one might say also, "Plutarch > writes" or "Gibbon writes," or, for that matter, "Shakespeare writes," > even though they are all dead. On the other hand, the historical present is not typically used by Paarfi. I suspect this is the only possible instance. On the other hand, it would be hard to convince anyone on the basis of what could so easily be a misprint or -translation. Not on any hand, I wonder if Paarfi has read Thucydides, who says some useful things about his sources (e.g., Book 1.21-22). It seems to me vaguely possible that in the intros to what a perhaps invidious publisher refers to as the Khaavren "Romances", Paarfi (or the Dean of Pamlar U.) may or may not have in mind his earliest predecessor (taking Paarfi [as I do] to be rather reliable [except of course re the "Mario" coverup] - someone familiar with Herodotus will have to comment on the non-reliable possibility - I don't remember H. bothering much about these issues.)