Saturday, January 01, 2005

 

Times Square on New Year's Eve

Chamfort (1741-1794):
Men shrink when they gather together in a crowd: they are Milton's devils, compelled to turn themselves into pygmies in order to enter into Pandemonium.

Les hommes deviennent petits en se rassemblant: ce sont les diables de Milton, obligés de se rendre pygmées, pour entrer dans le pandaemonion.
Chamfort is referring to Paradise Lost, 1.777-781:
Behold a wonder! They but now who seemed
In bigness to surpass Earth's giant sons,
Now less than smallest dwarfs, in narrow room
Throng numberless -- like that pygmean race
Beyond the Indian mount...

# posted by Michael Gilleland @ 6:02 AM


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