Y Safle

I was asked recently to define the word “bathyscaphe”. This is what I discovered:

Bathyscaphe (pronounced bat-hyscaphe) is a word like “television” or “dinosaur” which derives not from one language but two. However, bathyscaphe is most unusual and of very ancient origin - unlike these modern imposters. It is not some word made up to describe a modern invention, but rather a very ancient (and rather gruesome) invention.

The two languages concerned are ancient Greek and proto Celtic. The Greek part derives from the Greek for “be quiet” or “fell silent”:

ἥσυχαζω

The accent over the leading eta, of course, tells us to aspirate the word. Thus the word is transliterated as “hysuchazo”. (the Greek ‘eta’ is often pronounced in this way in words sych as “hypnosis”, “hypostasis” etc.).

The proto celtic word is very familiar to us - it is “Bat” meaning a cudgel. cf. Irish and Gaelic “bat” and “bata” meaning a staff or cudgel).

But how did these words become so conjoined? It is really a rather amazing history. You see, during the Pelopponesian War, you will remember that Sparta laid siege to Athens. Whilst Spartan hoplites were second to none, Athens was a great naval power with the worlds largest fleet of triremes the world had yet seen. From the battle of Salamis in 480BC until the fateful Aegospotami on 404 BC, Athens was totally supreme at sea, and until the Spartans learned the art of trireme warfare, they could not hope to defeat Athens.

Of course, this is exactly what Sparta did, eventually overwhelming Athens by sheer weight of numbers at sea, but the Spartans were never very good seafarers, and on their way to defeating Athens, there were some notable failures (not least that they lost three or four triremes to every one of Athens’).

Now there was one Spartan captain who took his trireme into battle, but unfortunately he and his crew got lost en route. They sailed right out of Aegean sea into the mediterranean, before anyone realised they had taken a wrong turn. Being true heroic Spartan men, they resolutely refused to stop and ask for directions, and when they saw the pillars of Hercules, they thought that the Aegean must lie beyond (why else would it be associated with Heracles after all), and they sailed on through.

Well they got more than they bargained for and sailed straight into an Atlantic storm that took them violently off course and before they knew it they were shipwrecked somewhere. Sources are a little vague as to whether this was Great Britain or Ireland, but certainly it was one or the other.

Now it just so happened that as they were shipwrecked, one of the inhabitants of that island had just invented a cudgel infused with the sap of the elm tree. At this time elm was the most prevalent tree on that island, and the ingenious infusion gave the cudgel a quality of firm sponginess - sufficient that it continued to be an effective cudgel, but completely silent on impact with someone’s head.

In order to plunder the unfortunate Spartans, the cudgel was quickly put into use against the Spartan captain, but the Spartans, being great hoplites, stood their ground against this onslaught. After some time, the Celts of that area realised that the Spartans were too Spartan to be worth robbing, and the Spartans realised the Celts were mighty warriors who had invented a weapon - the Celts called it a “bat” that was able to fell someone silently (hysuchazo). They thus called the weapon the “bathysuchazo”. Unfortunately the Spartans all died of a nasty stomach bug (perhaps e-coli, although it is hard to determine the strain of bacteria from symptoms recorded). Thus the bathysuchazo was never used in the Pelopponesian war, where it may have proved decisive. Instead it was a closely guarded secret amongst the Celtic tribe that invented it. Because they did not speak any Greek, “suchazo” became “schazo” then “schapho” then “schaphe” which was pronounced identically with “scaphe”.

The tribe emigrated to America with Prince Madog of Deheubarth, and the weapon was not rediscovered until 1998, when a team studying native American languages found a curious mix of Welsh and other celtic words amongst the native Americans, and realised that these were Madog’s descendents. There were no elm trees in North America, so the only bathyscaphe left was lost in the American Indian wars of the late 19th century. A single article - the source of great reverence amongst the tribe - was captured by an American general and allegedly destroyed (although some theorise that it is being held at a secret American air base in New Mexico, where scientists are trying to discover the secret of how to make their very own bathyscaphe. For the sake of world peace, we must hope that they never succeed).