At Ease

What does slow music have to do with being at ease? Let’s find out. The word adagio [əˈdɑːdʒiəʊ / əˈdædʒiəʊ] is used in music to indicate that a passage is to be played rather slowly, leisurely and gracefully. It can also refer to a passage of music marked adagio, or to a type of ballet for two or three people that involves demanding balance, spins and/or lifts [source]. It comes from Italian adagio [aˈda.dʒo], which means slowly, and comes from ad (at, to) and agio (ease), so could be literally translated as meaning “at ease” [source]. The Italian word adagio can also mean proverb, adage or saying in Italian, and was borrowed from Latin adāgiō, a form of adāgium (proveb, adage) [source]. The English word adage (an old saying, a cliché) comes from the same roots, as does adágio (adage, saying, proverb) in Portuguese, and adagiu (adage) in Romanian [source]. Agio means ease, comfort or luxury in Italian, and comes from Old Occitan aize (ease), from Vulgar Latin *adjace(m), from Latin adjacēns / adiacēns (adjacent, adjoining, neighbouring), from adiaceō (to lie beside, to be adjacent to, to adjoin), from ad (to, towards, at) and iaceō (to lie down, recline, to be sick), from iaciō (to throw, hurl, cast, fling) [source]. Words from the same roots include giacere (to lie, to be lying down, to find oneself) in Italian, jazer (to lie (down), sit, lay) in Portuguese, gîte (shelter, lodging, self-catering holiday home) in French, abject, deject, gist, inject, object, project, reject and trajectory in English [source]. The English word ease might come from the same roots as well [source]. The Latin verb iacio also features in the phrase ‘iacta ālea est’, which means ‘the die is cast’ and is supposedly what Julius Caesar said when crossed the Rubicon River in 49 BC(E) and began a civil war in the Roman Republic. However, the Latin phrase is apparently a mistranslation by the Roman historian Suetonius of the Ancient Greek phrase ἀνερρίφθω κύβος (anerrhíphthō kúbos), which is what Caesar actually said. He was quoting a line from a comedy by Menander, a Greek playwright, entitled Ἀρρηφόρῳ (Arrhēphórōi – The Bearer of Ritual Objects). The Greek version means “let the die be cast”, “let the game be played” or “let us proceed irreversibly” [source]. Lovely word history. The part where Italian adagio also means proverb or saying caught me — adage and adágio apparently come out of the same Latin root, a connection I had never noticed despite using both words. Chinese keeps a similar distinction alive: 谚语 for folk sayings handed down orally, 成语 for the four-character set phrases that mostly come out of classical texts with a known source. Knowing which one you are looking at tells you a fair bit about how old a phrase is and who has been using it.