[HPforGrownups] Evil!Minerva? - I think NOT, Names have meaning in Potterverse

[Fiat Incantatum]

No: HPFGUIDX 39795

On 12 Jun 2002 at 1:11, Linda C. McCabe wrote:

> 
> And then as the Goddess was ready to retire to her chambers, she notices a
> name meaning that sends alarm bells off.  Professor Sinestra:  The Latin
> sinister meant "on the left," or more often, "unlucky." Something that is
> sinister in Modern English means it is evil or suggestive of evil. The
> left side was often associated with evil or bad luck in Roman and other
> ancient cultures.
> 
> Ooooh, many wild theories have been woven with less yarn than this.

<G> I know this one!

The name is actually a valid (if medieval) astronomical concept.  To 
whit:

"According to the Aristotelian convention as established in the De Caelo 
and under stood in the Middle Ages, absolute "up" in the cosmos
correspond to the Southern Hemisphere; from this perspective absolute 
"right' is associated with the East, from which the heavens initiate 
their apparent movement across the sky; and clockwise motion a sinistra 
in the Northern Hemisphere is therefore movement to the "right' and only 
apparently to the left. "

That's from a discussion of Dante's Inferno, the rest of which is 
irrelevant here, the reference to the De Caelo is the important bit.  The 
stars move "a sinistra", to the left or towards the west.  Using this, 
Sinistra would seem to be a perfectly understandable surname for a 
professor of Astronomy.

Anyone wishing to read for themselves will find an English translation of 
Aristotle's De Caelo ("Of the Heavens") here:

http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/heavens.1.i.html


  
-- 
Fiat Incantatum 
fiatincantatum at attbi.com

The last temptation is the greatest treason:  
To do the right deed for the wrong reason.
           T. S. Eliot "Murder in the Cathedral"