Professor Playfair’s Translation Theory lecture highlights translation’s unavoidable distortions and the translator’s rewriting role. He invokes Babel’s mythic loss of a perfect language and claims that Babel’s work is “magic,” ultimately serving the Crown. When Robin asks if translation should unite mankind, Playfair answers that such unity is the work of empire.

Language tutorials begin. In Latin, Professor Margaret Craft is austere and exacting; a brief laugh at Ovid aside, she rebuffs Letty’s attempt to seek advice as a woman in Oxford. Letty returns quiet and upset, and the cohort leaves the moment unspoken.

Robin’s Chinese tutorial with Professor Anand Chakravarti becomes a probing dialogue on words, characters, radicals, and Classical Chinese ambiguities. Blocked from research in China by a Qing ban, they rely on Robin’s knowledge. When Robin asks about another Chinese student, Chakravarti offers a cover story that “Griffin Harley” died abroad and reveals Lovell’s concerns about loyalty and “upbringing,” exposing prejudices that unsettle Robin.

At dinner, Lovell discusses the futility of seeking an Adamic language, proposes a “language in between” that powers silver, and argues European languages are converging, making China the future for innovation. Robin presses about the unequal distribution of silver and Babel’s hoarding of knowledge; Lovell insists Babel serves the Crown. When Robin asks why silver could not save his mother, Lovell snaps, “She was only just a woman.” Sterling Jones arrives, and he and Lovell ignore Robin while discussing Ricci dictionaries, deepening Robin’s humiliation and anger.

Leaving without a word, Robin goes to Merton College and, still conflicted but resolved, scratches an X into a pale tree to signal Griffin. The act commits him to contact Hermes, driven by alienation, doubt, and a growing disillusionment with Babel.