plays them up

English translation: leads them / accompanies them to their death, playing music to which they dance

GLOSSARY ENTRY (DERIVED FROM QUESTION BELOW)

English term or phrase:	plays them up
Selected answer:	leads them / accompanies them to their death, playing music to which they dance
Entered by:	Charles Davis

18:12 May 8, 2017

English language (monolingual) [Non-PRO]
General / Conversation / Greetings / Letters / history, 1600

English term or phrase: plays them up

To further his understanding of the locals, Jerome has purchased The History of Scotland, written in Latin by Hector Boece. Within its pages he – and, a few decades later, William Shakespeare, via Holinshed – first encounters the macabre tale of the Scottish king, Macbeth. Jerome is also enthralled by the “most wonderful” fortitude of the Scots, who take a piper with them to their executions: “he, who is himself often one of the condemned, plays them up dancing to their death.”

budu KudoZ activity Questions: 596 (9 open) (4 without valid answers) (31 closed without grading) Answers: 2
Local time: 01:37

leads them / accompanies them to their death, playing music to which they dance

Explanation:
"Play up" can mean to accentuate the importance of something; but that's not what it means here. This passage, which Cardano is using to illustrate the fortitude of the Scots, means that the piper accompanies them or leads them up to death, playing music, to which the condemned prisoners dance, showing how brave and unconcerned they are even though they are about to die.

So "plays them up to their death" means "plays while they go to their death".

This is quoted in Morley's life of Cardano:
https://books.google.es/books?redir_esc=y&id=Xz4DAAAAYAAJ&q=...

It comes from Cardano's dialogue De Morte, whose Spanish translator, José Manuel García Valverde, has kindly posted the original Latin text and his translation on academic.com (you have to register, but it's free). Here they are:

LAT: "pulsando saltantes illos ducit ad mortem"
SP: "tocando los conduce danzantes a la muerte"
http://s3.amazonaws.com/academia.edu.documents/48886141/TEXT... (pp. 59, 60, near top).

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Note added at 1 hr (2017-05-08 19:21:39 GMT)
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Sorry; the site I mentioned is called academia.edu, not academic.com.

Cardano's Latin text (as you probably don't me to tell you) literally means:
"playing, he leads them dancing to death".

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Note added at 1 hr (2017-05-08 19:25:26 GMT)
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And my reference to the Valverde edition was wrong; the Latin is at the top of p. 60 (p. 108 of the file), and the Spanish is near the top of p. 61 (p. 109 of the file).

Selected response from:

Charles Davis
Spain
Local time: 01:37

Grading comment

4 KudoZ points were awarded for this answer

SUMMARY OF ALL EXPLANATIONS PROVIDED

4 +8

leads them / accompanies them to their death, playing music to which they dance

Charles Davis

4 -2

make them seem more important then they really are

Michael Powers (PhD)

5 -3

portrays tem

Phoenix III

4 -3

excruciates /displeases them by dancing when they are being executed

Morad Seif

Summary of reference entries provided

Pipers playing people up and down, in and out

B D Finch

Discussion entries: 2

Answers

3 mins confidence:

peer agreement (net): -2

make them seem more important then they really are

Explanation:
I cannot explain it in Italian. It is an idiom.

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Note added at 5 mins (2017-05-08 18:17:56 GMT)
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play up
Also found in: Dictionary, Thesaurus, Medical, Legal, Financial, Encyclopedia, Wikipedia.
play someone or something up
to make someone or something seem to be more important. The director tried to play Ann up, but she was not really a star. Try to play up the good qualities of our product.
See also: play, up
play something up
to emphasize something; to be a booster of something. The press played the scandal up so much that everyone became bored with it. They really played up the scandal.
See also: play, up
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs. © 2002 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

Michael Powers (PhD)
United States
Local time: 19:37
Native speaker of: English
PRO pts in category: 83

5 mins confidence:

peer agreement (net): -3

portrays tem

Explanation:
...

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Note added at 6 mins (2017-05-08 18:19:38 GMT)
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Meant to give it a 4 level of confidence and 5 popped up. :0(

Phoenix III
United States
Local time: 19:37
Specializes in field
Native speaker of:

English,

Spanish
PRO pts in category: 2

43 mins confidence:

peer agreement (net): +8

leads them / accompanies them to their death, playing music to which they dance

Charles Davis
Spain
Local time: 01:37
Works in field
Native speaker of: English
PRO pts in category: 572

Notes to answerer

Asker: Many thanks!!

Asker: Thank you all!

Peer comments on this answer (and responses from the answerer)

agree

philgoddard: I think "up" may mean "as they ascended the scaffold".

8 mins

-> It could; I read it as "up to", in the sense of "as far as". Thanks!

agree

Tony M

16 mins

-> Thanks, Tony!

agree

lorenab23: Yes, "who take a piper with them to their executions" very important clue here ;-)

34 mins

-> True! Many thanks, Lorena :-)

agree

AllegroTrans

1 hr

-> Thanks!

agree

Yasutomo Kanazawa

8 hrs

-> Thanks, Yasutomo-san :)

agree

Yvonne Gallagher: I'd have thought this was simple so don't understand how so many could have got it so wrong//:-))...

15 hrs

-> Thanks a lot! This is how I understood it straight off. I think it's probably tricky for non-natives, and maybe it's also a matter of familiarity with literary language. I hunted out the original texts just to try to nail it for sceptics :)

agree

B D Finch: "Plays them" here = accompanies them with music and "up" is probably because executions, being public, were performed on a platform.// See my reference entry.

16 hrs

-> Thanks! I agree with the first point and the second is a possibility, though I am still doubtful whether "up" implies verticality, since that idea is not present in the source text.

agree

acetran

21 hrs

-> Thanks, acetran :)

1 hr confidence:

peer agreement (net): -3

excruciates /displeases them by dancing when they are being executed

Explanation:
Plays somebody up: to cause difficulties or pain for someone.
My back’s been playing me up all day.

Morad Seif
Türkiye
Local time: 02:37
Native speaker of: Persian (Farsi)

Reference comments

18 hrs peer agreement (net): +4

Reference: Pipers playing people up and down, in and out

Reference information:
www.scotsman.com/news/return-from-a-war-that-never-was-1-611416
A piper played them down the steps, then inside the arrivals hall, they embraced the loved ones they had not seen for six months.

humanistcelebrantgeorge.blogspot.com/2011/07/To round off their wedding, my friend, Robbie Innes, the Piper, played them down the aisle with the Canadian National anthem which he had transposed for the ...

www.youandyourwedding.co.uk/forum/the-ceremony/how...a-pipe... Jun 2008 - We are paying £60 for piper to play me in and out of ceremony and ... We're having a piper before I arrive and piping me in and us out and up to ...

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Note added at 18 hrs (2017-05-09 12:34:35 GMT)
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www.scotsman.com/news/return-from-a-war-that-never-was-1-61...
A piper played them down the steps, then inside the arrivals hall, they embraced the loved ones they had not seen for six months.

humanistcelebrantgeorge.blogspot.com
To round off their wedding, my friend, Robbie Innes, the Piper, played them down the aisle with the Canadian National anthem which he had transposed for the ...

www.youandyourwedding.co.uk/forum/the-ceremony/how...a-pipe...
We are paying £60 for piper to play me in and out of ceremony and ... We're having a piper before I arrive and piping me in and us out and up to ...

B D Finch
France
Works in field
Native speaker of: English
PRO pts in category: 192

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plays them up

English translation: leads them / accompanies them to their death, playing music to which they dance

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