By Julia Alvarez. 309 pp. Chapel Hill, N.C.: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill. $18.95. he had four girls. Enough said.'' Those are the words that the mother of the Garcia sisters, introduced in Julia Alvarez's acclaimed novel ''How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents,'' wants inscribed on her tombstone.y Julia Alvarez. 309 pp. Chapel Hill, N.C.: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill. $18.95. he had four girls. Enough said.'' Those are the words that the mother of the Garcia sisters, introduced in Julia Alvarez's acclaimed novel ''How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents,'' wants inscribed on her tombstone.
The Lxx translates it with the Greek verb sozo, which means to rescue one from peril, danger or suffering, to protect from loss or destruction, to heal, to make whole, to keep alive, to preserve life (physical but especially spiritual - compare Ps 6:4, Ps 86:2).
In classical Greece, sophrosyne ( soh-froh-soo'-neh ) referred to excellence of character and soundness of mind in a well-balanced individual. This complex ideal has no direct translation into English.Its roots suggest a bringing together (syne) of the qualities of wisdom (sophia)...the subject of the Charmides is, What is sophrosyne? -- and that word cannot be translated by any one English word. The truth is that this quality, this sophrosyne, which to the Greeks was an ideal second to none in importance, is not among our ideals. We have lost the conception of it.