Translations of the two foreign language pieces were performed by the amazing Babelfish program, and may not be totally reliable.

Unhelpful clues will appear early in March, and answers will be revealed at intervals on the MM MMM, on March 18th, and by electronic means shortly afterwards.

Jonathan Partington

1. Every man who is not a monster, a mathematician, or a mad philosopher, is the slave of some woman or other.

2. Well, resolve me in this question; why have we not conjunctions, oppositions, aspects, eclipses, all at one time, but in some years we have more, in some less?

Per inequalem motum respectu totius.

Well, I am answered.

3. "I wouldn't fash masel' about them, miss. Them things be all wore out. Mind, I don't say that they never was, but I do say that they wasn't in my time. They be all very well for comers and trippers, an' the like, but not for a nice young lady like you. Them feet-folks from York and Leeds that be always eatin' cured herrin's an' drinkin' tea an' lookin' out to buy cheap jet would creed aught. I wonder masel' who'd be bothered tellin' lies to them---even the newspapers, which is full of fool-talk."

4. Blushing maiden of the paleface,
   If you ask me to what nation,
   To what aggregate of people,
   We've the honour of belonging,
   I will answer, I will tell you!
   This is little Wappewango,
   Which in language of the paleface
   Means the consequential vulture;
   This is Pooby-Jubbegabo,
   Or the Abernethy Biscuit,
   I am Hicky-hawky-pawky,
   The Unmitigated Blackbird.

5. How could youths better learn to live than by at once trying the experiment of living? Methinks this would exercise their minds as much as mathematics. If I wished a boy to know something about the arts and sciences, for instance, I would not pursue the common course, which is merely to send him into the neighbourhood of some professor, where anything is professed and practised except the art of life; - to survey the world through a telescope or a microscope and never with his natural eye; to study chemistry, and not learn how his bread is made, or mechanics, and not learn how it is earned; to discover new satellites to Neptune, and not detect the motes in his eyes, or to what vagabond he is a satellite himself; or to be devoured by the monsters that swarm all around him, while contemplating the monsters in a drop of vinegar.

6. "Half a minute," he said. "They may as well have a sermon at the same time." Taking out his pencil he wrote in big letters along the side of the wooden fish, "HONESTY IS THE BEST POLICY".

7. Certainly Dr Dee was a Cambridge man; I do not know where else he would have ben brought up so detestably. This is what will come when you let men souse themselves in mathematics; it breeds so great a lack of judgement, as that before long they will be busying themselves over Abracadabra and Rebus Rubus Epitepscum.

8. Thor glanced down at the map on his knees, consulted the position of the sun and nodded approvingly. 'Now then,' he said, 'those hills over there are quite definitely the Pennines, so that down there must be Leeds, and in another five minutes or so we'll see the M6 directly below us.'

Slowly, ponderously, in its own unique way magnificently, the giant traction engine flew on across the Amazon jungle.

9. Marseillais --- Tous gens d'esprit.

Mathématiques --- Dessèchent le coeur.

Minuit --- Limite du labeur et des plaisirs honnêtes, tout ce qu'on fait au-delà est immoral.

[Marseillais --- All people of spirit.

Mathematics --- Dessicates the heart.

Midnight --- Limit of the labour and the honest pleasures, all that one does beyond is immoral.]

10. 'What can you do? Do you know anything besides that useless trash of college learning --- Greek, Latin and so forth?'
'I have studied mathematics.'
'Stuff! I daresay you have.'
'I can read and write French and German.'
'Hum!' He reflected a moment, then opening a drawer in a desk near him, took out a letter, and gave it to me.
'Can you read that?' he asked.

11.  And though he were unsatisfied in getting,
     Which was a sin, yet in bestowing, madam,
     He was most princely: ever witness for him
     Those twins of learning that he raised in you,
     Ipswich and Oxford! 

12. Mein junger Sohn fragt mich: Soll ich Mathematik lernen?
    Wozu? möchte ich fragen.
    Daß zwei Stück Brot mehr ist als eines:
    Das wirst Du auch so merken!

    Mein junger Sohn fragt mich: Soll ich Englisch lernen?
    Wozu? möchte ich fragen.
    Dieses Reicht geht unter und reibe
    Du nur mit der flachen Hand den Bauch und stöhne
    und man wird Dich schon verstehen. 

    Mein junger Sohn fragt mich: Soll ich Geschichte lernen?
    Wozu? möchte ich fragen.
    Lerne nur Deinen Kopf in die Erde zu stecken,
    dann wirst Du vielleicht übrig bleiben.
    Ja! Lerne Mathematik, sag ich, lerne Englisch,
    ja lerne Geschichte.

My young son asks me: Am I to learn English? For what? I would like to ask. This is enough is neglectable and rubs you only with the flat hand the antinode bulge and groans and one you will already understand.

My young son asks me: Am I to learn history? For what? I would like to ask. Learn your heading to put only into the earth, then you will remain perhaps remaining. Yes! Learn mathematics, say I, learn English, learn history.]

Clues.

Solutions.