"ACCIPE LUMEN."

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 181, 1 August 1936, Page 1 (Supplement)

"ACCIPE LUMEN."

THE TORCH RACE. LINK WITH ANCIENT TIMES.

(By CYRANO.)

"Accipe Lumen et Imperti," says the motto of Wellington College; "take up tlio torch and pass it oil." One is tempted to wonder how many of-the boys who have passed through this great New Zealand school have understood the full significance of this link with a very ancient past. The other day we read in our cable news that a torch lighted with solemn ceremonial at Olvmpia in Greece during the past ten days has been carlied by relays of runners across Europe to Berlin, where it will signalise the opening of the Olympic Games. "Take up the torch and pass it on." Thus, is the new world linked with the old. A War Memorial Museum in the most remote of the British Dominions bears on its front a passage from the Greek historian Thucydides, and the motto of a New Zealand school refers to a Greek custom that was old when Thueydides wrote. The past is woven with the very fabric of the present.

Running with Torches. In ancient Greece there seems to have been more than one kind of torch race. In one each tribe supplied a team, and the teams carried torches from an altar, where they were lit, to a goal. The contest was like our modern relay race. In another type of race the contest was more individual,' but so far as I can ascertain a competitor in the race that was, a feature of the annual games in Athens passed on the torch to a comrade if lie was overtaken. I must refer you to experts for details. Evidently, however, handing over the torch was a common practice, and it gave rise to a metaphor which was used in Greek literature, and lias persisted in Western letters to this day. Plato compared the transmission of life to a torch race, and the great Latin poet Lucretius wrote "et quasi cursores, ' vitai bimpada trudurit" ("and runners,, as it were, thrust forward the torches of life.") The race was religions in origin—an act of worship to three deities: Prometheus, the giver of fire to mankind; Hephaetus, who taught man to apply fire to industry and art; and Athena, the goddess who was the special patron and protector of Athens. The torch race is, therefore, connected with the Promethean myth, and goes back beyond the dawn of history. In Athens the race was held at night. The runner had to keep his torch alight, and carry it through the city to the Acropolis, where the sacred tire was. preserved. The torch was a symbol of the everlasting nature of that flame. The torch-bearer who last week carried through Athens the flame destined for Berlin, lit a fire at a special altar at the Acropolis. The ritual of the torch race involved Athens in a good deal of expense, and wealthy citizens were expected to foot the bill. Similar calls are made on the wealthy to-day.

In Flanders Fields.^ Modern English verse contains two particularly well known references to the torch race. One is in the poem in which Sir Henrv Newbolt took the phrase from Lucretius: "Vita Lanipada": Bear through lifp like n torch in flame, And fulling fling to the host behind, "Play up! Play up 1 And play the game!" The other is in the verses of the Canadian soldier, John McCrae, who fell in the war: To you from failing hands we throw The torch ; he yours to hold it h'gh. If ye break faith with us who die We shall not sleep, though poppies grow In Flanders fields.

"Poppy Day" has thus a connection with the ancient torch race. Another English poem uses the idea at greater length, and it has an ironic ring to-day. In 1814 Tom Moore wrote "The Torch of Liberty," in which he described the nations of Europe catching up the love of liberty from England, as in a torch race the lighted brand passed'from hand to hand. There was some justification for such a comparison then, but what of 1930? The torch has been carried from Greece, where freedom and democracy were born, to Germany, where they have been strangled. Fire from Greece inaugurates the Olympic Games, and Australian athletes in Germany for these games have their correspondence opened!

Eternal Metaphors. The use of the torch idea in literature and speech illustrates the persistence of ancient symbols.* How many people in New Zealand have ever seen an oldfashioned torch? It may be presumed that this method of lighting has never been used for ordinary purposes since the early days of the Westland diggings. Yet we quite naturally speak of passing on the torch. If we want to use a lamp as a symbol we don't take an electric lamp or even a kerosene lamp, but the Hat oil lamp of classical times. The Federation of University Women uses this design on its badge, but its members would be hard put to it to do an evening's study by such light. Similarly, we still talk of shortening sail or trimming sails, though sailing ships have almost completely disappeared from the ocean routes, and of drawing the sword, though literally swords are drawn only on parade. The day may come when "turning on the gas" will be used in the same sense, though before such familiarity is reached mankind may have perished through its own folly. Ancient symbols persist becausc man has become used to them and they have a universal and permanent significance. Steam ousted sail and man became familiar with the phrase "full steam ahead," but after a hundred years steam was challenged by the internal combustion engine and to-day the phrase in its literal sense is inapplicable to many vessels. But whether a..-ship is driven by steam piDiesel, she still "sails" from port. The metaphor of the torch race might still be used though every home in the world could switch on electric light.