Tuesday, January 19, 2016
Patriae Solum Carum
Ovid, Letters from Pontus 1.3.35-36 (my translation):
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By some inexplicable charm our native land attracts us all and doesn't allow us to forget her.Henry David Thoreau, Journal (November 12, 1853):
nescioqua natale solum dulcedine cunctos
ducit et inmemores non sinit esse sui.
I cannot but regard it as a kindness in those who have the steering of me that, by the want of pecuniary wealth, I have been nailed down to this my native region so long and steadily, and made to study and love this spot of earth more and more. What would signify in comparison a thin and diffused love and knowledge of the whole earth instead, got by wandering? The traveller's is but a barren and comfortless condition.
