The origin of the spelling Ymagier

Many who first encounter the name of Jarry’s first magazine, which he co-founded with Remy de Gourmont, marvel at its exoticism and may wonder of its etymology.

We are lucky that the editors answered the question directly in Tome 1. Here is the full translation of that explanation:

Ymagier. — Some people have asked us, even by letters from afar, why there is a y in this word, when the dictionaries say imagier? — A decorative reason: this title, drawn in old Hispanic letters, wanted a y, in symmetry with the g — so it seems to us. And why wouldn’t there be, still today as in the past, a little freedom in spelling, for a little more beauty? Lys looks better than lis. We have written in defiance of etymology: hydeus for hideus (hispidosum): “Ugly people and ugly women” (Joinville); we have written: hystoire, aymer, cymetière, sydère, Ysabel, enyvrer, Yglise, etc. To justify ourselves:

“… Struck with a stick the image on the back of the neck (nape)… A great and marvelous image of bronze… "

— The Seven Sages of Rome, VII

Ymagier is no more etymological than y, an adverb coming from the Latin ibi. And what does it matter! Whatever their form, words are no less the complaisant mirrors of things and the springs in whose depths ideas allow themselves to be glimpsed. Words are like the cloak of Briseida, daughter of Chalchas, made of an “enchanting cloth — by magic and by marvel,” and,

There is nothing beneath the sky, beast or flower,
Of which one cannot see portraits,
Forms, semblances, and figures….

(Romance of Troy).