Hi, everyone. And welcome back to one of your favorite segments 【詞源考古研究所】. In English we call it 【It means what?】

Whee~

Hi, 安瀾,

Hi, Lulu, hi everyone.

You sound chirpy.

I am very chirpy.

So in this segment, we are going to explore the origin of words, phrases, even idioms, get to the bottom of these interesting back stories.

Yes!

So what word or phrase or idiom we're gonna talk about today?

We're going to talk about a word, once again, that comes from a name. We're going to be talking about Casanova.

Woo~ Saucy!

Absolutely. I thought you might like that one.

Casanova, isn't that the name of "the great lover", not even "a great lover", "the great lover".

Giacomo Casanova

這不是情圣嗎? 中文叫情圣。

Yes.

愛(ài)情圣手。

Yes. Now Casanova, to be honest, he's now just become a term, but a lot of people don't really know his back story, which is really, really interesting.

So this was a real person?

This was a real person.

Okay.

He was an Italian adventurer and writer from the 18th century.

Of course Italian.

And he was known for his romantic adventures, shall we say?

He's many affairs with many different women.

Yes, but Casanova was more than just that. He is often remembered as a great lover, but he was a writer, diplomat, spy, and librarian.

Lover, spy, librarian.

Yeah.

But I guess librarian, nowadays it sounds like a pretty generic, almost boring job, but back then, librarian they're the one that holds the key to knowledge.

Emm. I think that's taking a little bit too far. It's taking a little bit too far.

Okay.

But he was a librarian when he was like 60 or 70 years old.

Oh, I see, I see.

There's only so much you could really do.

Probably sitting in the library and writing his memoir.

That's exactly what he did. This is why Casanova is so famous. It's because he actually wrote his own story and he traveled across Europe. He met many important people of the time, kings, queens and philosophers.

Back then that was the time when adventurer was an actual job description, wasn't it?

Yeah.

He traveled a lot, and he loved to take risks. So for example, he loved gambling. And he won and lost large amounts of money throughout his life.

Sounds like he was a thrill seeker of his time definitely.

Exactly and even escape from prison as well.

Okay.

A couple of times, but it's for his exploits as a lover. That's where he's most well known because he used to go for relationships that were dangerous or forbidden. For example...

married woman then....

Well, married women, nuns. He had a think about nuns.

就是修女,是嗎? 就相當(dāng)于我們說(shuō)的尼姑的那種感覺(jué).

Yes. He really like nuns apparently.

Did he like, work his way through the entire nunnery?

Well. There are stories of that, but you have to remember he was writing his own story.

True, it could just be a man bragging in his older years.

Exactly, exactly. So you have to take what he says with a pinch of salt.

Yeah.

But he did have lots of romantic relationships. That is one thing that we do know, and he rarely stayed with one person for long, because he believed in enjoying life and love without commitment.

Oh. So in modern day he would be one of those that has a fear of commitment and can’t settle down.

Pretty much.

I think Casanova does have a bit of an unfair reputation, because one of the reasons why he was so successful as a lover is, he actually had a very deep respect for women.

OK. I think we need to put things into perspective.

Yes.

Because for our listeners, when they hear that he's being with so many women and he has his precise preferences, forbidden relationships, and married men and nuns are also they're married to god. Right?

Well, yeah.

That's the whole thing. So you might think of him as just like an everyday like a pretty generic womanizer, womanizer is a pretty negative word.

Yeah.

But the reason why he became so legendary was because back in the days, women really did not have a significant social role.

No.

Very, very passive, very sort of oppressed, but they were pretty much seen as just properties to men.

Well,exactly. And in his writing, he talks a lot about the intelligence and independence of women.

So, one of the reasons why he probably was quite successful is that women, as you say back then, were treated as passive property. He treated women...

As people.

As individuals.

As individuals.

Yeah, and you have to think that back then women had no rights whatsoever, and he would actually try to use romance to woo these women.

Yeah, I mean, nowadays obviously we see this in completely different lights. We think these are just womanizers or players trying to use tricks就是海王想要去撩妹的那種技巧. But back in the day, there was not even an idea or the idea or the notion of romantic love.

No. The idea of romantic love was very, very kind of one-sided.

Mhm.

There was that idea of course, but in reality, women were married to whoever their fathers said they need to marry...

Exactly.

And they couldn't really refuse, they had absolute zero zero rights.

Well, think about Romeo and Juliet.

Well, exactly. And Casanova is somebody that put in the time the efforts to sort of get to know these women.

Yeah, we're not trying to obviously promote what he was doing.

No.

But in perspective, if you put things in perspective, let's say he was seeing these women not just mere conquest, but perhaps another like just basically romantic encounters.

Yeah. Exactly.

And I doubt he lied to women about ways like sort of like empty promises.

No. And the thing is that eventually he became popular because of his own legend. Really! So I would say that even though we don't condone, we don't support this behavior. It is important to understand that it's not just...

It's not the same as being a player.

It's not the same as being a player.

That is also why you would see words like 情圣.

Yeah.

Things like that, is which is pretty... I would say it's definitely not a negative word.

No. No.

Similarly you also have... what was it Don Juan (唐璜 )?

But Don Juan is more like a legend, like it's not really like something that can be verified to that extent, more like a fictional.

Well, yeah.

And it's famous because of the opera Don Juan.

In the opera, Don Juan is a really, really horrible person. He would kill people to get women and then just abandon them.

Yeah. That's more of a user.

That's a user. Yes.

So, Don Juan, Spanish; and Casanova, Italian. You don't get many of these great lovers from England. Do you? You guys are busy killing each other and chopping heads of your mistresses.

I would say the idea of romance developed a lot later in the UK.

Well, coming back to Casanova, you were talking about him becoming a librarian in later years, so that he could look back on his life and many of these romantic encounters and wrote about it.

Exactly.

In his later years, Casanova worked as a librarian in Bohemia, which is now part of modern Czech Republic. And then he just focused on his writing and thinking about his life and that's where he died in 1798 at the age of 73.

Wow. Back then it was definitely a ripe old age.

A very ripe old age. And I'm sure in his later years he did kind of have a few kind of like pleasant memories to think about.

I mean, even as a woman, I would say that was a very interesting life.

Exactly. Whether or not you support what he did. You have to admit it is a life that not many people have.

Yeah. It was an interesting life. Let's put it that way.

Exactly.

But nowadays, when we say, for example, he is a Casanova, we would say a Casanova, a regular Casanova, then that just means they are probably they have many romantic encounters.

It gives the impression a bit sleazy.

Probably a little bit of above sleazy. It was sleazy. I would just say he's a player.

Someone a bit too smooth, a bit too sleazy, who's always just chasing women.

I would say, Casanova, if I say he thinks of himself as a Casanova, that probably meant that he thinks he has a way with women. He's perfected the art of romance and love.

Yeah. Which to be honest, I would say is so different from the original Casanova, because in his writings he does look at women as individuals. But when we say he's a Casanova now, it's a pretty horrible objectification of women, treating women as objects.

As romantic conquests.

Exactly, rather than as what Casanova looked them as, kind of a romantic relationship between two people which might not necessarily been very long, but still it's the relationship between two individuals, two partners.

Okay.

I think we'd need to stop here. I think you're rooting for him a bit too much.

Okay, okay.

I'm going to ask you a personal question.

Yes.

Because Casanova is mainly used to describe men, obviously.

Okay, yeah.

I already know the answer to this question, but I'm still gonna ask, 安瀾, have you ever been a Casanova?

No.

You wish.

I'm far too awkward for that.

Just not very smooth.

I'm not very, very smooth.

Okay. So, leave us a comment in the comment section, tell us about your idea of Casanova or people who are like Casanova. I know for a fact that in Chinese literature, our sort of folk tales we had those people as well.

Of course.

So leave us a comment in the comment section. If you want anything to the topic or if you want to put in a request for any new words, phrases or idioms that you want us to talk about in the segment. Thank you, 安瀾, for coming to the show.

Thanks, Lulu, thanks everyone.

We'll see you next time.

Bye. Bye.