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Ultra Auroram et Gangen

Index: El hombre en el umbral.

Fishburn and Hughes: "Latin for 'beyond sunrise and the Ganges': an adaption of the line 'usque Auroram et Gangen' ('as far as sunrise and the Ganges') from the opening lines of Juvenal's tenth satire. The theme of the satire is that throughout the known world 'only a few know what is really good' and 'can see their way through the fog of deception'. Ambition for power and authority is based on the mistaken belief that they last, while in both the present and the past the lives of the great and powerful have shown that such privileges are fickle and short-lived. Only virtues are worth desiring. Given that India is frequently used by Borges as a metaphor for the universe, by replacing 'usque' with 'ultra' and extending the spatial allusion of the original verse the narrator adds further connotations of remoteness to the land in which the story is set, with implications of infinity." (202)