Laudator Temporis Acti

The wavering crowd is torn into opposing factions.

scinditur incertum studia in contraria vulgus.

39 scinditur Cf. Luc. 10.416f. Latium sic scindere corpus / dis placitum, Tac. Hist. 1.13 hi discordes et rebus minoribus sibi quisque tendentes, circa consilium eligendi successoris in duas factiones scindebantur. But cf. already G. 4.419f. quo plurima uento cogitur / inque sinus scindit sese unda reductos; the abstract development was to be expected. Leumann, 14 remarks that PColt1 here (Cavenaile, CPL, p.34) marks not long syllables but those bearing the word-accent.

incertum Honest uncertainty perhaps seen as a first step towards noisy and unprofitable partisanship; not here alone, an expert (and commentary ultimately unsympathetic) view of crowd mentality. Cf. Ehlers, TLL 7.1.883.76f.; tacet EV.

studia in contraria Cf. Eur. Hec. 117ff. (a later occasion), Cic. Cael. 12 (of Catiline) neque ego umquam fuisse tale monstrum in terris ullum puto, tam ex contrariis diuersisque <atque> inter se pugnantibus naturae studiis cupiditatibusque conflatum, Suet. Aug. 81 (Aug. and the doctors) contrariam et ancipitem rationem medendi necessario subiit, Tac. Hist. 4.6 ea ultio, incertum maior an iustior, senatum in studia diduxerat. See TLL 4.770.42f. (Spelthahn), Hellegouarc'h, 176, n.12. Also used of the divided passions of a sporting crowd, 5.148, 228, 450; cf. EV 4, 1045.

uulgus With a little of the disapproval present at 1.148f. cum saepe coorta est / seditio saeuitque animis ignobile uulgus; cf. too 2.99, 119, 798, 11.451 (with n.), 12.223, Pomathios, 152, A. La Penna, EV 4, 911, and in Vergiliana (ed. H. Bardon and R. Verdière, Leiden 1971), 285.

Strangers, you have only to declare your need, for we have everything that suits this house: warm baths, beds to charm away fatigue, and the presence of honest faces.

ξένοι, λέγοιτ᾽ ἂν εἴ τι δεῖ· πάρεστι γὰρ
ὁποῖά περ δόμοισι τοῖσδ᾽ ἐπεικότα,
καὶ θερμὰ λουτρὰ καὶ πόνων θελκτηρία        670
στρωμνή, δικαίων τ᾽ ὀμμάτων παρουσία.

As an Oxford man, he struck me as a prig: he was always throwing his education about.

So true is it, evidently, that a base nature, when given great indulgence, generates public disasters.

οὕτως ὡς ἔοικε πονηρὰ φύσις, μεγάλης ἐξουσίας ἐπιλαβομένη, δημοσίας ἀπεργάζεται συμφοράς.

It's true that bookshops have disappeared from many places. New York, which was a city of bookshops, has endured a genuine extinction, although a few survive as relics of bygone times. This has an impact on a city's intellectual life, on conversations, and changes the way one thinks. In Madrid, Buenos Aires, or Paris, you see people holding books. In New York, people are always holding their iPhone, and I find that disturbing. Not that I think that virtual reading is evil, but it is quite different. The equivalent of that intellectual desert in the world of transport would be Los Angeles, where one never walks, and goes everywhere by car: a city where one never walks is a city of ghosts.

For in the end—to get back to Rabelais—we have to reread the words after taking off our modern eyeglasses, the ones of today; we have to read them with the eyes of another time.

Before I do that, I apologize to my readers lest by syllable or even letter I offend against grammatical usage, a matter in which I am far from being expert.

sed prius veniam legentibus praecor, si aut in litteris aut in sillabis grammaticam artem excessero, de qua adplene non sum inbutus.