Tridents (was Re: FreeBSD Version Release numbers)

[Bill Moran]

You're quite the historian, Terry.

My understanding, however, of the use of the "trident" with
the Beastie is that it's not a trident but a "fork", with the
obvious play on words in mind.  Obviously, for t-shirts and
other representations to be viewable at a distance, an eating-
sized fork was not large enough, thus a pitchfork was used.
The pitchfork was stylized in such a way that modern
representations look more like a trident (probably unfortunate
for those who apply great significance to symbols).

So, if someone claims that the Beastie has some negative
symbology because he's carrying a trident, simply explain
that it's only a fork, and refer them to the proper man
page.

Terry Lambert wrote:
> 
> They are not technically tridents.  They are a symbol of the
> Hindu god Vishnu.  The news report from Reuters, which was
> echoed by Yahoo, incorrectly confuses Vishnu with Shiva, and
> calls Vishnu "god of destruction" (as opposed to Shiva, who
> is also known as "Shiva The Destroyer").
> 
> The three tines represent creation, destruction, and rebirth.
> 
> Philosophically, this has nothing to do with the ancient
> mediterranean gods "Poseidon" or "Neptune", depending on you
> being, respectively, an ancient Greek or an ancient Roman,
> who was god of the sea and of earthquakes.
> 
> The original purpose of the trident was for the spearing of
> fish -- it was the ancient equivalent of a fishing pole (hence
> the association with sea gods).
> 
> The trident was never really a weapon of war; instead, it was
> used as a weapon in gladitorial combat, shortly after the
> introduction of the Circus Maximus; like the short sword (a
> "gladius", from which "gladiator" is derived), it was not very
> efficient as a weapon, since, like the gladius, it was really
> intended to provide a prolonged battle (oh yes, the modern word
> "circus" derives from the central Rome arena "Circus Maximus",
> but I don't see anyone suggesting that Ringling Brothers &
> Barnum and Bailey rename their show!).
> 
> FWIW, the trident was only one of three weapons given to a
> specific type of gladiator called a "Retarius".  The other two
> were a net and a dagger.  When a killing blow was called for
> (a "thumbs up" meant "death" and a "thumbs down" meant "mercy";
> the modern "thumbs up" originated from aviation ground crews in
> WW I being unable to OK a checklist verbally over noisy engines),
> it was the dagger that was used -- surprise: 7-8 foot pointy
> sticks are generally not useful in the necessary close combat).
> 
> I always like to think of the BSD Daemon's trident being used to
> keep trouble at a distance, as the trident was used in gladatorial
> combat to keep the enemy at a distance until they could be snared
> with the net and finished off (if necessary) with the dagger.  I
> guess you could also make a case for a fishing metaphor, too,
> particularly for, say, the early lpd, which trolled a spool
> directory looking for files to write to the printer device.
> 
> Of course, you needn't take my word for it: I'm sure this is all
> out there on the Internet somewhere.
> 
> -- Terry
> 
> 


-- 
Bill Moran
Potential Technologies
http://www.potentialtech.com