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Hortensia
xw posted on 11/23/2005
Explanation of the name

Several theories have been put forward to explain the origins of the
plant’s other name, Hortensia. The French botanist Philibert Commerson
first used this name in 1771, possibly in honor of a lady.

For example:

Hortense Barré, Commerson’s mistress who, disguised as a youth,
accompanied him on a trip around the world between 1766 and 1769. This
was called the Bougainville Expedition.

Perhaps it was for Hortense Lepaute, a well-known astronomer, the wife
of a watchmaker and a friend of Commerson. Originally Commerson
christened his new plant Peautia coelestina, a reference to the name
Lepaute and to the lady’s interest in astronomy.

Others say that the plant was named after Queen Hortense, the daughter
of Joséphine de Beauharnais, wife of Napoleon. However, that Hortense
was not born until after the death of Commerson.

The most likely 'godmother' is Hortense de Nassau, daughter of the
Prince of Nassau who participated in the Bougainville Expedition
together with Commerson.

Whatever the truth of the matter may be, the name 'Hortensia' is not
considered by botanists to be a scientific name. In addition it only
refers to the type brought back in dried form by Commerson from the
island of Mauritius in the 18th century. This was Hydrangea
macrophylla, with its familiar round flower heads.

SYMBOLISM:

Hydrangea stands for instability.

=====

昨天翻发现丛书《牛顿》，很喜欢书里面的一个法国女性的名字叫作
Hortense Lepaute的，现在抄这一段：

这时代当然没有计算机，但他们有勒波特(Hortense Lepaute)，勒波
特小姐一辈子与数字为伍，俨然就是巴黎天文台的计算机。克莱罗把
计算工作交给她和助手负责，两人整整忙了六个月。

勒波特还有桩轶事。事情是这样的：一七六一年，有位法国天文学家
勒＊让蒂(Le Gentil)前往印度，去观察金星从太阳表面经过的情形。金
星从太阳表面经过的现象，每一百年只会发生两次，其间相隔八年。

由于法国和英国之间争战不休，勒＊让蒂不巧错过了一七六一年金星
通过的时间。他决定就在印度等，等到下一次金星再通过太阳表面。
到了一七六九年六月，天气本来一直都很好，但金星通过那晚竟是一
片乌云。勒＊让蒂失望透顶。

一七七一年，勒＊让蒂回到法国，得知自己已被官方认定是死亡，他
原先在科学院的职位也被替代了。屋漏偏缝连夜雨，他为了收回继承
的产业，打了场官司，不幸败诉。诉讼的费用很高，濒临破产。

不过，他倒不是空手从印度回来。他带回的东西里面，有一种花，是
那时欧洲人没见过的。他把花献给了计算奇才勒波特。从此，欧洲人
称呼这种花为Hortensia，是从勒波特的名字来的。

我的植物书上却把Hortense Barre与The daughter of the Prince
of Nassau合成一个人了，里面写道：

It is usually supposed that the name "hortensia" was after Mlle.
Hortense, daughter of the prince of Nassau; the latter had joined
Bougainville's expedition in order to escape his creditors. But it is
worth noting that the woman named Jeanne Baret, who had sailed on the
voyage disguised as a boy (called Jean), changed her name to Hortense
when she settled in France.

La Condamine和Bougainville Expedition在科学探险上很重要。

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Re: Hortensia
#1 涓哄姏 posted on 11/23/2005

这植物是喜阴湿的，难道是印度原生？

“Hydrangea stands for instability.” 花朵的蓝色或粉色好像是和酸碱度等有关的，非常有趣呢。

xw wrote:

SYMBOLISM:
Hydrangea stands for instability.

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Re: Hortensia
#2 xw posted on 11/23/2005

我也不确实，文章中说是毛里求斯，现在已铺盖世界各地了。

关于颜色，JJ MABBERLEY的植物书中说：

Colour of fls dependent on capacity to absorb Al3+ which cause pigments
to go from red to blue; this is made difficult on limy soils
where 'blue' forms go pink though the addition of iron reverses
this. During development, the somata of K disintegrate as lobes green &
lose char. colours. Dried roots sources of hydrangin, a disphoretic &
diuretic alk. - some spp. medic. & steamed lvs of H. macrophylla
(Thunb.) Ser. subsp. serrata(Thunb.) Makino(Japan, Korea) used in
a drink, amacha, in Japan, though H.spp. can poison man & stock. Many
cult. orn. forms esp. derived from H. macrophylla(hortensia) - typical
var. with all sterile fls but wild var. normalis E. Wilson(Japan) with
both fertile & sterile.

为力再讲讲！

The following list shows the Top Ten by cultivar name.

1. 'Schneeball’
2. Masja Classic Red
3. 'AB Green Shadow’
4. Renate Steiniger Blue
5. Challenge Blue
6. Bodensee Blue
7. Masja Red
8. Masja Purple
9. Renate Steiniger Classic
10. Green Shadow Classic

颜色真的很丰富。汉语中叫八仙花，又叫绣球的。

文中提到法国的女神算子，午饭的瞬间我就想到了英国的女神算子ADA
，比金镛里面那些神算姑强多啦。。。再贴一回。

Ada Augusta Lovelace, also known as ada byron. aside from being lord
byron's daughter, ada was a scientist. her collaboration with british
mathematician charles babbage led her to invent an operating system for
his difference engine. she is considered to be the inventor of the
concept of software. lady ada was also a poet, a musician, and a
society woman who was very much involved with her contemporary culture.
in a sense she is our muse ...

&&&&&

Ada Byron, Lady Lovelace, was one of the most picturesque characters in computer history. Augusta Ada Byron was born December 10, 1815 the daughter of the illustrious poet, Lord Byron. Five weeks after Ada was born Lady Byron asked for a separation from Lord Byron, and was awarded sole custody of Ada who she brought up to be a mathematician and scientist. Lady Byron was terrified that Ada might end up being a poet like her father. Despite Lady Byron's programming Ada did not sublimate her poetical inclinations. She hoped to be "an analyst and a metaphysician". In her 30's she wrote her mother, if you can't give me poetry, can't you give me "poetical science?" Her understanding of mathematics was laced with imagination, and described in metaphors.

At the age of 17 Ada was introduced to Mary Somerville, a remarkable woman who translated LaPlace's works into English, and whose texts were used at Cambridge. Though Mrs. Somerville encouraged Ada in her mathematical studies, she also attempted to put mathematics and technology into an appropriate human context. It was at a dinner party at Mrs. Somerville's that Ada heard in November, 1834, Babbage's ideas for a new calculating engine, the Analytical Engine. He conjectured: what if a calculating engine could not only foresee but could act on that foresight. Ada was touched by the "universality of his ideas". Hardly anyone else was.

Babbage worked on plans for this new engine and reported on the developments at a seminar in Turin, Italy in the autumn of 1841. An Italian, Menabrea, wrote a summary of what Babbage described and published an article in French about the development. Ada, in 1843, married to the Earl of Lovelace and the mother of three children under the age of eight, translated Menabrea's article. When she showed Babbage her translation he suggested that she add her own notes, which turned out to be three times the length of the original article. Letters between Babbage and Ada flew back and forth filled with fact and fantasy. In her article, published in 1843, Lady Lovelace's prescient comments included her predictions that such a machine might be used to compose complex music, to produce graphics, and would be used for both practical and scientific use. She was correct.

When inspired Ada could be very focused and a mathematical taskmaster. Ada suggested to Babbage writing a plan for how the engine might calculate Bernoulli numbers. This plan, is now regarded as the first "computer program." A software language developed by the U.S. Department of Defense was named "Ada" in her honor in 1979.

After she wrote the description of Babbage's Analytical Engine her life was plagued with illnesses, and her social life, in addition to Charles Babbage, included Sir David Brewster (the originator of the kaleidoscope), Charles Wheatstone, Charles Dickens and Michael Faraday. Her interests ranged from music to horses to calculating machines. She has been used as a character in Gibson and Sterling's the Difference Engine, shown writing letters to Babbage in the series " The Machine that Changed the World" and I have gathered her letters and writings in "Ada, The Enchantress of Numbers: A Selection from the Letters of Lord Byron's Daughter and Her Description of the First Computer Though her life was short (like her father, she died at 36), Ada anticipated by more than a century most of what we think is brand-new computing.

http://www.agnesscott.edu/lriddle/women/love.htm
可惜我没学过ADA语！

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Re: Hortensia
#3 涓哄姏 posted on 11/24/2005

Hydrangea可以算做Flowering Shrub, 难得的是它们大都在夏季开花，不在春天与百花争艳，是我对Hydrangea厚爱的原因。

有一种开淡绿色花朵的，非常迷人。冬天白雪堆在干燥的冠状花上，别有一番风味。

本想收集不同颜色呢。但我这地方夏天干燥炎热，我的Hydrangea在我离家的那一年大多牺牲了。

现在只种好侍候的花。

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Re: Ada
#4 adagio posted on 11/24/2005

Ada Augusta Lovelace, also known as ada byron. aside from being lord
byron's daughter, ada was a scientist. her collaboration with british
mathematician charles babbage led her to invent an operating system for
his difference engine. she is considered to be the inventor of the
concept of software. lady ada was also a poet, a musician, and a
society woman who was very much involved with her contemporary culture.
in a sense she is our muse ...
&&&&&
Ada Byron, Lady Lovelace, was one of the most picturesque characters in computer history. Augusta Ada Byron was born December 10, 1815 the daughter of the illustrious poet, Lord Byron. Five weeks after Ada was born Lady Byron asked for a separation from Lord Byron, and was awarded sole custody of Ada who she brought up to be a mathematician and scientist. Lady Byron was terrified that Ada might end up being a poet like her father. Despite Lady Byron's programming Ada did not sublimate her poetical inclinations. She hoped to be "an analyst and a metaphysician". In her 30's she wrote her mother, if you can't give me poetry, can't you give me "poetical science?" Her understanding of mathematics was laced with imagination, and described in metaphors.
At the age of 17 Ada was introduced to Mary Somerville, a remarkable woman who translated LaPlace's works into English, and whose texts were used at Cambridge. Though Mrs. Somerville encouraged Ada in her mathematical studies, she also attempted to put mathematics and technology into an appropriate human context. It was at a dinner party at Mrs. Somerville's that Ada heard in November, 1834, Babbage's ideas for a new calculating engine, the Analytical Engine. He conjectured: what if a calculating engine could not only foresee but could act on that foresight. Ada was touched by the "universality of his ideas". Hardly anyone else was.
Babbage worked on plans for this new engine and reported on the developments at a seminar in Turin, Italy in the autumn of 1841. An Italian, Menabrea, wrote a summary of what Babbage described and published an article in French about the development. Ada, in 1843, married to the Earl of Lovelace and the mother of three children under the age of eight, translated Menabrea's article. When she showed Babbage her translation he suggested that she add her own notes, which turned out to be three times the length of the original article. Letters between Babbage and Ada flew back and forth filled with fact and fantasy. In her article, published in 1843, Lady Lovelace's prescient comments included her predictions that such a machine might be used to compose complex music, to produce graphics, and would be used for both practical and scientific use. She was correct.
When inspired Ada could be very focused and a mathematical taskmaster. Ada suggested to Babbage writing a plan for how the engine might calculate Bernoulli numbers. This plan, is now regarded as the first "computer program." A software language developed by the U.S. Department of Defense was named "Ada" in her honor in 1979.
After she wrote the description of Babbage's Analytical Engine her life was plagued with illnesses, and her social life, in addition to Charles Babbage, included Sir David Brewster (the originator of the kaleidoscope), Charles Wheatstone, Charles Dickens and Michael Faraday. Her interests ranged from music to horses to calculating machines. She has been used as a character in Gibson and Sterling's the Difference Engine, shown writing letters to Babbage in the series " The Machine that Changed the World" and I have gathered her letters and writings in "Ada, The Enchantress of Numbers: A Selection from the Letters of Lord Byron's Daughter and Her Description of the First Computer Though her life was short (like her father, she died at 36), Ada anticipated by more than a century most of what we think is brand-new computing.

Fascinating story ... I didn't know Byron had such an outstanding daughter, who's more useful to the society and the posterity than the father perhaps. :)

Ada was born exactly 15 years earlier than Emily Dickinson BTW.

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Re: Hortensia
#5 鍒樻収鍎� posted on 11/25/2005

里尔克有《蓝绣球花》一诗，抄在下面：

Rilke:

Blaue Hortensie

So wie das letzte Grün in Farbentiegeln
sind diese Blätter, trocken, stumpf und rauh,
hinter den Blütendolden, die ein Blau
nicht auf sich tragen, nur von erne spiegeln.

Sie spiegeln es verweint und ungenau,
als wollten sie es wiederum verlieren,
und wie in alten blauen Briefpapieren
ist Gelb in ihnen, Violett und Grau;

Verwaschnes wie an einer Kinderschürze,
Nichtmehrgetragnes, dem nichts mehr geschieht:
wie fühlt man eines kleinen Lebens Kürze.

Doch plötzlich scheint das Blau sich zu verneuen
in einer von den Dolden, und man sieht
ein rührend Blaues sich vor Grünen freuen.

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Re: Three English translations
#6 xw posted on 11/26/2005

This translation is by Guntram Deichsel

Blue Hydrangea

Just like the last green in a colour pot
So are these leaves, withered and wrecked
Behind the flower umbels, which reflect
A hue of blue only, more they do not.

Reflections are tear-stained, inaccurate,
As if they were about to cease,
And like old blue notepaper sheets
They wear some yellow, grey and violet,

Washed-out like on a children's apron,
Outworn and now no more in use:
We contemplate a small life's short duration.

But suddenly some new blue seemingly is seen
In just one umbel, and we muse
Over a moving blue delighting in the green.

Translation © by Guntram Deichsel, 2003-12-03

-------------------------------------------------

The following translation is by Jack Lohrmann, January 2004, taking a lot of license of Guntram's version

Just as the remnant green in tinted pot
So are these leaves, now rough and wrecked
Behind the flower umbels, that reflect
Only a hue of blue, more do they not.

Reflected are they, tear-stained, imperfect,
As if this they were prone to cease,
And as in blue and aged paper leaves
There´s yellow within, grey and violet.

Faded like a washed-out pinafore
No longer worn and of so little use:
How do we our too-short life endure.

But suddenly a blue renewed is seen
Among one of the umbels, and I sense
A blue delighted, smiling at the green.

-------------------------------------------------

This translation is by Bernhard Frank

Like in old cans of paint the last green hue,
these leaves are sere and rough and dull-complected
behind the blossom clusters in which blue
is not so much displayed as it's reflected;

They do reflect it imprecise and teary,
as though they'd rather have it go away,
and just like faded, once blue stationery,
they're tinged with yellow, violet and gray;

As in an often laundered children's smock,
cast off, its usefulness now all but over,
one senses running down a small life's clock.

Yet suddenly the blue revives, it seems,
and in among these clusters one discovers
a tender blue rejoicing in the green.

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xw
#1 涓哄姏
#2 xw
#3 涓哄姏
#4 adagio
#5 鍒樻収鍎�
#6 xw