Thursday, February 06, 2014

 

What Have They Decided?

Gilles Ménage, Menagiana ou Les Bons Mots et Remarques Critiques, Historiques, morales & d'érudition, Vol. II (Paris: Delaulne, 1729), p. 387 (my translation):
The first time Casaubon came to the Sorbonne (it hadn't yet been rebuilt), someone told him, "Here is a room in which disputations have taken place for four hundred years." He replied, "What have they decided?"

La premiere fois que Casaubon vint en Sorbonne (elle n'avoit pas encore été rebâtie), on lui dit: Voila une sale où il y a quatre cens ans qu'on dispute. Il dit: Qu'a-t-on décidé?


Update: Michael Hendry wonders if Casaubon might have been alluding to Cicero, De Legibus 1.53.



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