About that Extra "e"

RE: Peripateo.

My friend Aikaterina (the Ariesest-Aries I know) was having a Virgoan moment.  "What is that 'e' doing in 'perípato'?" Good question.  Perípato is a perfectly respectable Greek word meaning 'walk,' and here I went stuffing an extra vowel into the last syllable. How dare I. 

I looked at her for a long minute, and said: "Have you met your language? The one that is essentially *made* of vowels? The one that has four forms of the letter "i" (with no clear rules about where to use them in spelling?)?  I think it will not begrudge me the extra E." 

In truth, I was thinking of the mysterious letter "E" at Delphi, the one that hung at the back of the Apollonion naos for so long that no one remembered what it symbolized.  At the beginning of the CE, Plutarch speculated on its origins and meaning; the scholars Berman & Losada came up with a plausible explanation a few years back; but my feeling is that it refers to Eleusis.  What does a Mysterium have to do with Delphi?  Good question, and one I will be happy to discuss with you in person after the proper sacrifices (it being Eleusis and all, I'd rather not get kicked out of my well-earned afterlife).  

Meanwhile, just indulge me.  That "E" has been inserted into the word Peripat(E)o in homage to Delphi's mysterious E, in homage to Eleusis, in homage to (as Plutarch points out) E's fifthness in the alphabet.  By extension, that E serves as metonymy for the Fifth (all-embracing) Element: Space, the Ghanta in our Ghantayana -- without which there is no pilgrimage. . .which is the actual meaning of 'Peripateo.' 

Are you dizzy yet? Give it a minute, or use this handy hypercode ...

 E=>DelphiE=>Eleusis=>5thLetter=>5thElement=>Space=>Ghanta=Ghantayana=>FifthTurningoftheWheelofDharma=>the whole point of the Eleusian Epiphanies :: Women's Millennium .  

Better? 

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