DI DOVE SEI? ~ Where are you from?
Picture: The Northern Forest – bargaining with female outlaws
DI DOVE SEI? ~ Where are you from?
By Teal Razor, slave of Captain Siri Emerald Jr., Olni
Back on the planet I came from, the Italian side of my family asked visitors to their home, “Where are you from.” The response would be, “Sono di…” which was, I am from (insert name of town). Those two phrases for me seem aptly Gorean. At the gates of the city one is always asked to declare one’s Home Stone. Then again in the commons, if a free person sees an unfamiliar face, the unfamiliar face is asked where on the planet they hail from. This remark is asked more seriously at the gate but once you declare yourself and you are inside the gates, then being asked where you are from is seen as light banter.
The question of “where are you from”, is never asked of slaves. I mean, you would ask a pet sleen where it is from. Instead you would ascertain its owner. As all slaves are animals, and they, for the most part can speak, the question asked of a slave is “Who is your owner?” Even slaves ask other slaves, “Who owns you?” If the slave being asked, “who is your owner”, adds some inane factoid like, they came from Tafa, no one will give a rosy red urts bottom. The owner is the most important thing. Besides slave’s too have their pecking order. The more important the owner, the more important the slave, or so those princesses claim.
Many Goreans carry around little scroll pouches on their belts or secured under robes of concealment. These scrolls contain their identification, all the particulars the magistrate of another city might need to double check when checking the veracity of certain people. Also, it helps a member of the High Counsel to get a hold of these individuals should they cause a small insurrection or an all out war.
I have been privy to some of these identification scrolls. I have read them at the gate when my Master put ID scrolls down to talk to the stranger as he guarded the portals of Port Olni. I had a hard time not laughing as I read some lengthy autobiographies on those scrolls. Some of them I laughed at because they seem to match the visitor’s demeanor who was standing before us. Some were funny because they were a fantasy concoction of the holder’s own life. For example; a puny free man, dressed in clothes that have seen better days, gave my Master his scroll that read like a page out of an earth manual, Debrett’s Peerage. According to him, he was first in line of succession in a very old royal dynasty on Gor. He went on for paragraph after paragraph about how high he was in that royal family. I was starting to think of him in earth terms again and I wondered how “high” he was when he wrote it.
Now bespoke clothing is quality clothing. When a person wears clothing that is frankly from another fashion period and that ensemble looks smart, that person is truly wearing a bespoke item. The puny man before us at the gate looked like a wastrel and in fact he appeared to be a vagabond. This is only one example I could regale you with regarding the question, “Where are you from”.
I am going to refrain from doing so as I could receive angry threats from those who might see themselves in what I have written. I think all that could be avoided if free persons would avail themselves of my side business, Teal’s ID Scribe Service. I compose smart and true identification scrolls. I correct your Gorean and punctuation. Then I move on to content. I would want to team up with a painter of renown, for instance, one Mistress JJLowe. Her likenesses could be included on the scroll to accompany my words. Together we could produce some of the snappiest identification scrolls upon which would flow understandable Gorean. The owners of these ID’s would be presented in a more favorable light to the viewing public.
To get back to the puny free man at the gate, he was obviously an opportunist. I saw stamped in the lower left corner an advertisement for Sammy’s Slave Auctions with an address and times of operation. I am sure that Sammy paid the puny fellow for taking up space on his ID. But I have seen advertisements on ID scrolls that are there for the sheer pleasure of giving the magistrate something else to look at than just the ho hum life of the stranger.
I will have to respectfully decline composing ID scrolls for the Mamba group. As darling as their language is, I do not read, write, nor understand it. This past week I was treated to the Mamba language by a group of free people in the commons. I listened for repetition of a word and I heard one that I thought I could make a spring board for understanding this foreign tongue. I came to find out later this word meant Bosk Shit.
From the NEW VOICE OF GOR v.4 Issue 170