Proverbs/CATS

Friday, July 26, 2013

Pandora's Vox

Yes, you read the title correctly. I heard a marvelous harpist, Alys Howe, at the Boxwood Festival concert in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia this week. Searching for more information about her recordings, I found also that Alys Howe had performed with a group called Pandora's Vox. A typo, I thought, until I watched a video about the group. Pandora's box is the mythological container that held both all the world's woes and hope. Why would a woman's choral group call itself Pandora's Vox? The Latin noun vox, vocis f. means "voice;" does this group sing of all the world's woes but also offer songs of hope? Searching a little more I found that one of the members of the Vox is named-- Pandora! From vox, vocis we also have in English vocal (pertaining to voice), and the trade name Magnavox means "great/big voice." The Latin verb vocō, vocāre, vocāvī, vocātum means "I call (i.e., use my voice)," and gives us all of the -voke, -vocative, and -vocation words: avocation (a calling away), convoke (I call together), evoke (I call out), invoke (I call on), provoke (I call forth), vocation (a calling). Pandora's Vox is provocative!

No comments:

Post a Comment