On Mon, 13 Mar 2006, Scott Schultz wrote: > While I wouldn't rule that out completely, it seems like an awfully > significant error. Begs the question. > According to the text, the original palace was completed shortly before > the end of the reign of Jamiss. Likewise, it was started during the > reign of Faarith. It's difficult to reconcile those statements with the > statement "encompassed...the entirety of the reign of the House of the > Vallista". "Encompass" can mean, says my dictionary, "accomplish or achieve". Paarfi could simply have used a word meaning "Was the principal activity and crowning achievement of" - so "encompass entirely" would be the mistranslation. More an aside than a strong argument: "Encompass" is a weird word to use to describe a person holding an office, I think - it has a sense of "surround" to me, and to say a reign surrounded a project seems more likely than to say a person's term surrounded the possible period. It would strike me odd to write, e.g., "Clinton's presidency encompassed the two terms he was elected for but Nixon's didn't". > It can't have begun before the Vallista reign and ended prior > to the change in the Cycle and still have encompassed the entire reign of > the House. I can't see any reasonable way to read it as applying to the > construction of the Palace rather than applying to the reign of Jamiss. To me, this is simply explained by a mistake on the translator's part (rather more likely) or Paarfi's. We know of at least one error in _TPG_ which is "awfully significant" by comparison - the business with the Captain and the conspiracy. There is a strong argument for Paarfi being thoroughly sloppy and fallible - consider the historians Ilen the Magian quotes. Note that you haven't addressed my other objections - the supposed use of "The X emperor" to the exclusion of "An X emperor" (book search is not giving me a response here - if someone has the Texts it would be easy to grep them in perl or whatever) and the ending of _FHYA_.