Aux armes · the mottoes

Le vent se lève ! … Il faut tenter de vivre !

The wind is rising! … We must try to live!

Paul Valéry (1920). Le Cimetière marin.*

Hier scheiden sich nun die Wege der Menschen; willst Du Seelenruhe und Glück erstreben, nun so glaube, willst Du ein Jünger der Wahrheit sein, so forsche.

Here the ways of men part: if you wish to strive for peace of soul and pleasure, then believe; if you wish to be a disciple of the truth, then seek.

Friedrich Nietzsche. Letter, 1865.

Then you must know from the start that if you want the truth without flummery you must seek it and seek it diligently.

Ibn Tufayl (Abu Bakr Ibn Tufayl) (c. 1105–85). Hayy Ibn Yaqzan.†

細推物理須行樂
何用浮名絆此身

Having studied the world, one must seek joy,
For what use is the trap of passing honour?

Du Fu (杜甫) (c. 758). Winding River (1).^a

Motto, below the arms

CLARERE AUDERE GAUDERE¹
Be bright: be daring: be joyful.

That this seemingly classical tricolon urges mindfulness is plain and in the manner of the now somewhat trite, but still cogent, maxims carpe diem ^[b] (Latin ▸ pick, pluck or gather the day) and laetus in praesens ^[c] (Latin ▸ joyful in the present moment). Yet formerly only the first two elements of the tricolon formed the motto, these being a double pun on familial surnames:

A patrilineal, Geal:

Clarere (Latin) ▸

1. Be clear or bright, be shining;
2. Be obvious or clear, evident, lucid, manifest;
3. Be distinguished, illustrious, renowned (ante-classical).

Geal is Irish Gaelic for I. white, bright II. clear; and III. (figuratively) bright, pure; glad, happy; dear, beloved, fond; Scottish Gaelic for white, bright, pale; from Old Irish gel (fair, white, bright, shining); from Proto-Celtic *gelos; related to Ancient Greek αἴγλη (I. the light of the sun or moon; II. radiance, gleam; III. metaph., splendour, glory); from Proto-Indo-European *ǵ^helh- ‘to shine’.⁠²

A matrilineal, Hardy:

Audere (Latin) ▸ be daring or bold, intrepid, courageous.

Hardy is Middle English for bold, courageous, daring; from Anglo-Norman French and Old French hardi (hardy, tough, durable), of Germanic origin.

Completing the tricolon:

Gaudere (Latin) ▸ be glad or joyful, rejoice; from Ancient Greek γαῦρος (exulting in).

The syllabic balance of the isocolonic Latin is retained in another translation: [be] bright: bold: glad. Here the third element also provides yet another oblique pun on the bearer's name: in Old English the original sense of glæd was I. bright, shining II. cheerful; glad. Of proto-Germanic origin, *gladaz (shiny; gleaming; radiant; happy; glossy; smooth); related to Old Norse glathr (bright, joyous), from Proto-Indo-European *ǵ^hlad-, again from Proto-Indo-European *ǵ^helh- ‘to shine’.

Motto, above the crest

ΖΗΤΕΙΝ ΤΗΝ ΑΛΗΘΕΙΑΝ
Seek the truth.

This motto, for Christians, obviously accords with the crest (Fig. 1). The eagle being a traditional attribute of St. John the Evangelist and hence the crest and motto may be taken to evoke New Testament passages:

And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. John 8:32

… seek, and ye shall find … Matthew 7:7

However the implicit scepticism of the motto contrasts with the biblical self-assurance, although both cherish the centrality of truth — or, at least, honest attempts at the apprehension of reality — and affirm its necessity for the attainment of personal freedom.³

Whereas in the Middle Ages devices such as the crest would likely have been strongly evocative of the Johannine message — even in the absence of the distinctly anachronistic motto — now it may be more widely taken as representative of the triumph of Liberty over oppression.

Figure 1: the crest