Laudator Temporis Acti

Aren't the enjoyments in the course of one's life and age few compared with what's disagreeable? Yes, this is everyone's lot, this is the gods' will: grief should follow enjoyment as its companion, yes, and there should immediately be more discomfort and trouble if anything good has happened.

satin parva res est voluptatum in vita atque in aetate agunda
praequam quod molestum est? ita quoiqu' comparatum est
in aetate hominum;
ita dis est placitum,
voluptatem ut maeror comes consequatur:
quin incommodi plus malique ilico assit, boni si optigit quid.

Oh sweet night, oh holy
and quiet hours of night,
you that couple yearning lovers;
in you all pleasures join,
so you are the only cause that renders souls blessed.

Oh dolce notte, oh sante
ore notturne e quete,
ch'i disïosi amanti accompagnate;
in voi s'adunan tante
letizie, onde voi siete
sole cagion di far l'alme beate.

One can conceive of a great many things vastly more exciting than the index of a volume of the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, especially as it presents itself to the casual observer. Lists, lists, lists; columns, words, cabalistic symbols; capitals, italics, numerals; poor, disjointed combinations of letters, some of them attaining to the dignity of a half-word, more of them hopeless wrecks, with all traces of their identity gone — a dry enough aggregation, in all conscience! And yet concealed in it all lies an incredible amount of curious and interesting information.

Others were named for personal characteristics (258 names). Of these, the 131 names denoting physical peculiarities are interesting and varied, especially those derived from names of parts of the body. The feet (Plantanus), the beard (Barba), the teeth (Dentio), the mouth (Bucco), the head (Capito), the heart (Corellius), the hip (Coxsa), the back (Tergus), the forehead (Fronto), the lips (Labeo), the breast (Mamulla), the nose (Naso), sinews (Nerva), the eye (Ocella), the shoulder (Scapula), the legs (Sura, Valgus, Vatinianus), veins (Varex), the stomach (Ventrio) — all these are well represented. Names denoting the hair (or lack of it! — cf. Calvenus and Glabrio) are particularly numerous: Cincinnata, Crispus, Flavianus, Fulvius, Rufus, Russinus, Rutilus, Subincanus, Villus, etc. Many of these, in turn, are color-names — cf. English Gold and Gould, Grey, Whitehead, and "Reddy," and German Roth. Other names denoted general physical appearance, e. g., Curvus, Macer, Venusus. In this group there are also a few color-names — Albulus, Albinus, Candidus (English White and Whiteman); Aterianus, Nigella, Niger (English Black); Fuscus, Fuscinilla (English Brown); Pullo, Pullus (English Grey). Names denoting size were likewise frequent — Celsus, Latus, Longanicus, Magnilla, Maximilla, Paullus, etc. (English Little, Longfellow, Small, Stout). Still others were names the roots of which imply characteristic activity of some sort. In some cases these verge closely on mental traits (e. g., Vemens and Violentilla). Names implying haste, or a great deal of activity in general, are common here: Activa, Agilis, Celer, Strenuus, Vibrio. Others are Dexter, Mordax, Scaeva, Sollers. Other individuals bore names denoting their age (Iunior, Perpetuus, Pupilla, Senio, Vetus), or their physical condition (Potens, Salutaris, Satur, Valens, Vitalis).

Oh human spirit insatiable, arrogant,
crafty, and shifting, and above all else
malignant, iniquitous, violent, and savage...

O mente umana insaziabil, altera,
subdola e varia, e sopra ogni altra cosa
maligna, iniqua, impetuosa e fera...

Wherever you turn your eyes, you see
the earth wet with tears and blood,
and the air full of screams, of sobs, and sighs.

Dovunche gli occhi tu rivolti, miri
di lacrime la terra e sangue pregna
e l'aria d'urla, singulti e sospiri.

Where is the religious awe, where is the veneration owed by you to your ancestors? In dress, habit of life, furniture, feeling, yes! and speech, you have renounced your great-grandfathers!

ubi religio, ubi veneratio maioribus debita a vobis? habitu, victu, instructu, sensu, ipso denique sermone proavis renuntiastis.

Yes, old sir, all this you have said is fair and orderly.

ναὶ δὴ ταῦτά γε πάντα, γέρον, κατὰ μοῖραν ἔειπες.

Aeneas, his chief captains, and fair Iülus
lay their limbs to rest under the boughs of a high tree,
and spread the feast; they place cakes of meal on the grass
beneath the food—Jove himself inspired them—
and they crown the wheaten base with fruits of the field.

Aeneas primique duces et pulcher Iulus
corpora sub ramis deponunt arboris altae,
instituuntque dapes et adorea liba per herbam
subiciunt epulis (sic Iuppiter ipse monebat)        110
et Cereale solum pomis agrestibus augent.

liba Technically a cake of far, oil and honey, used in offerings (so Serv. here and cf. Cato, Agr. 75; 'Opferkuchen' to Wissowa, passim): the size of small buns (Ryberg (615), 40 and pl. X, carried by the Aen. of the Ara Pacis, when about to sacrifice the sow), when used in such contexts and clearly not what V. has in mind here. 'Pizza' cries J. Ades (CJ 64 (1968/9), 268), 'chapatis' retorts Gransden (Virgil's Iliad (Cambridge 1984), 51), 'focaccia' asserts Ranucci (EV 3, 876f.). 'Pitta' counters Braun, cit.; at least he knows (as do I, as a regular consumer) what emmer bread tastes and looks like (not, indeed like pitta!). Bakery aside (not to mention emmer soup, still a delectable staple in rural Umbria), V. uses an archaising adj. and a noun from the lexicon of sacred offerings (a dozen instances in Ov. F., e.g.) for an item of quite different appearance (and 'pitta' will do very well for flat bread on which food is heaped) on an initially non-ritual occasion.

• John I. Ades, "Vergil (Or Aeneas) et Pizza," Classical Journal 64.6 (March, 1969) 268
• John I. Ades, "The Pizza Plot," Classical Outlook 49.10 (June, 1972) 112-114
• Stephen Bertman, "The Half-Baked Theory of Pizza," Classical Outlook 50.8 (April, 1973) 88-89

Learning is what you get by wearing out the seat of your trousers in the Bodleian.

And thenketh, lord, among youre thoghtes wyse
How that oure dayes passe in sondry wyse,
For thogh we slepe, or wake, or rome, or ryde,
Ay fleeth the tyme, it nyl no man abyde.
And thogh youre grene youthe floure as yit,        120
In crepeth age alwey as stille as stoon,
And deeth manaceth every age, and smyt
In ech estaat, for ther escapeth noon;
And al so certein as we knowe echoon
That we shul deye, as uncerteyn we alle        125
Been of that day, whan deeth shal on us falle.

                                                   Invoke
Your wisdom, ponder carefully and see
How variously days pass; the seasons flee
Away in sleeping, waking, roaming, riding.
Time passes on and there is no abiding.
Still in the flower of your youth's delights
Age creeps upon you, silent as a stone.
Death menaces all ages and he smites
The high and low, the known and the unknown;
We see for certain, are obliged to own
That we must die, but we are ignorant all
Of when the hour's to come, the blow to fall.

Labels: eheu fugaces labuntur anni

For what could be more unjust than for men to hate a thing they do not know, even though it really deserves hatred? It can only deserve hatred when it is known whether it does deserve it. But so long as nothing at all is known of its deserts, how can you defend the justice of the hatred? That must be established, not on the bare fact of its existence, but on knowledge. When men hate a thing simply because they do not know the character of what they hate, what prevents it being of a nature that does not deserve hate at all?

Quid enim iniquius, quam ut oderint homines quod ignorant, etiam si res meretur odium? Tunc etenim meretur, cum cognoscitur an mereatur. Vacante autem meriti notitia, unde odii iustitia defenditur, quae non de eventu, sed de conscientia probanda est? Cum ergo propterea oderunt homines, quia ignorant quale sit quod oderunt, cur non liceat eiusmodi illud esse, quod non debeant odisse?

And those who hate them cannot explain the cause of their enmity.

καὶ τὴν αἰτίαν τῆς ἔχθρας εἰπεῖν οἱ μισοῦντες οὐκ ἔχουσιν.

The President of this Republic is not free. He cannot, like the humblest citizen, take his ease in his inn, shoot off his mouth, and curse Congress to his heart's content. He has to 'watch his step.'

For the eastern region of Libya, which the nomads inhabit, is low-lying and sandy as far as the river Triton; but the land westward of this, where dwell the tillers of the soil, is exceeding mountainous and wooded and full of wild beasts. In that country are the huge snakes and the lions, and the elephants and bears and asps, the horned asses, the dog-headed men and the headless that have their eyes in their breasts, as the Libyans say, and the wild men and women, besides many other creatures not fabulous.

ἡ μὲν γὰρ δὴ πρὸς τὴν ἠῶ τῆς Λιβύης, τὴν οἱ νομάδες νέμουσι, ἐστὶ ταπεινή τε καὶ ψαμμώδης μέχρι τοῦ Τρίτωνος ποταμοῦ, ἡ δὲ ἀπὸ τούτου τὸ πρὸς ἑσπέρην ἡ τῶν ἀροτήρων ὀρεινή τε κάρτα καὶ δασέα καὶ θηριώδης· καὶ γὰρ οἱ ὄφιες οἱ ὑπερμεγάθεες καὶ οἱ λέοντες κατὰ τούτους εἰσὶ καὶ οἱ ἐλέφαντές τε καὶ ἄρκτοι καὶ ἀσπίδες τε καὶ ὄνοι οἱ τὰ κέρεα ἔχοντες καὶ οἱ κυνοκέφαλοι καὶ οἱ ἀκέφαλοι οἱ ἐν τοῖσι στήθεσι τοὺς ὀφθαλμοὺς ἔχοντες, ὡς δὴ λέγονταί γε ὑπὸ Λιβύων, καὶ οἱ ἄγριοι ἄνδρες καὶ γυναῖκες ἄγριαι, καὶ ἄλλα πλήθεϊ πολλὰ θηρία ἀκατάψευστα.

Get rid of the rich man and you won't find a poor man. Let no one possess more than is necessary, and everyone will have as much as is necessary. For the few rich men are the cause of the many poor men.

Tolle divitem et pauperem non invenies. Nemo plus, quam necessarium est, possideat, et, quantum necessarium est, omnes habebunt. Pauci enim divites pauperum sunt causa multorum.

• B.R. Rees, Pelagius: Life and Letters (Suffolk: Boydell Press, 1998), pp. 171–211 (English translation of the treatise)
• Andreas Kessler, Reichtumskritik und Pelagianismus. Die pelagianische Diatribe de Divitiis: Situierung, Lesetext, Übersetzung, Kommentar (Freiburg: Universitätsverlag, 1999)
• Santo Toscano, Tolle Divitem: Etica, società e potere nel De divitiis (Catania: Edizioni del Prisma, 2006)

• Mma Potokwane and Saint Jerome
• St. Jerome on Wealth and Poverty

But perhaps his most famous essay is On farting (Hōhiron 放屁論) of 1744. This was occasioned by his discovery that someone in Edo was making a living by an exhibition of farting. This Japanese flatulist had a fantastically wide repertoire of melodies, his genius lying in his ability to conjure up all sorts of sounds, animal noises, and music for plays; a cornucopia of soundscapes. In this sense he had created another language. Gennai describes one of his performances and then sets up an argument with a strict Confucian who, not surprisingly, brands the whole business as immoral and beneath contempt. It breaks the rules of propriety without which society cannot function and should be condemned because it does not edify but merely entertains. On the contrary, argues Gennai, defending the performer as a true artist. It is not shocking but an object lesson in how to be an entrepreneur. By taking something as utterly useless and common as a fart and then making the best of a special ability to control flatulence at will, the man is making money from nothing and should be praised for sheer creativity. Making money out of thin air, he is precisely the kind of person Japan needs to dig itself out of economic difficulties, in obvious contrast to Confucian scholars who produce hot air but do nothing with it. The argument is serious but undercut, as ever, by cynicism. The new language, capable of producing ideas and images from a man's arse, is ultimately just air and as incapable as any other language of pinning down reality.

• A Musical Instrument
• Roland le Pettour
• A Resonating Fundament
• Rectal Music

Labels: noctes scatologicae

To acquire the habit of reading is to construct for yourself a refuge from almost all the miseries of life.

It is well to acquire the habit of reading. There are few sports in which you can engage to your own satisfaction after you have passed the prime of life; there are no games except patience, chess problems and crossword puzzles that you can play without someone to play them with you. Reading suffers from no such disadvantages; there is no occupation—except perhaps needlework, but that leaves the restless spirit at liberty—which you can more easily take up at any moment, for any period, and more easily put aside when other calls press upon you; there is no other amusement that can be obtained in these happy days of public libraries and cheap editions at so small a cost. To acquire the habit of reading is to construct for yourself a refuge from almost all the miseries of life.

This reminded me of a passage in his novel Of Human Bondage, where the narrator says somewhat more concerning his semi-autobiographical main character (ch. 9):

Insensibly he formed the most delightful habit in the world, the habit of reading: he did not know that thus he was providing himself with a refuge from all the distress of life; he did not know either that he was creating for himself an unreal world which would make the real world of every day a source of bitter disappointment.

The law is that which all men ought to obey for many reasons, but above all because every law is an invention and gift of the gods, a tenet of wise men, a corrective of errors voluntary and involuntary, and a general covenant of the whole State, in accordance with which all men in that State ought to regulate their lives.

ᾧ [sc. νόμῷ] πάντας πείθεσθαι προσήκει διὰ πολλά, καὶ μάλισθ᾿ ὅτι πᾶς ἐστι νόμος εὕρημα μὲν καὶ δῶρον θεῶν, δόγμα δ᾿ ἀνθρώπων φρονίμων, ἐπανόρθωμα δὲ τῶν ἑκουσίων καὶ ἀκουσίων ἁμαρτημάτων, πόλεως δὲ συνθήκη κοινή, καθ᾿ ἣν πᾶσι προσήκει ζῆν τοῖς ἐν τῇ πόλει.

All the noble and reverend qualities that adorn and preserve our city,—sobriety, orderliness, the respect of your younger men for parents and elders—hold their own, backed by the laws, against the base qualities of indecency, audacity, and shamelessness.

πάντα γὰρ τὰ σεμνὰ καὶ καλὰ καὶ δι᾿ ὧν ἡ πόλις κοσμεῖται καὶ σῴζεται, ἡ σωφροσύνη, πρὸς τοὺς γονέας καὶ τοὺς πρεσβυτέρους ὑμῶν ἡ παρὰ τῶν νέων αἰσχύνη, ἡ εὐταξία, τῇ τῶν νόμων προσθήκῃ τῶν αἰσχρῶν περίεστι, τῆς ἀναισχυντίας, τῆς θρασύτητος, τῆς ἀναιδείας.

Labels: typographical and other errors

We were talking about The New Yorker, a publication excluded from both commissary and PX after it ran John Hersey's issue-long account of Hiroshima.

"It never contains a typographical error," he said.

I, believing in unavoidable sloppiness, said that this was impossible.

"Oh no, it's not," he said mildly. "It is quite possible. All that is necessary is that every error is caught. I admire the editor."

Perfection was possible, all one had to do was to take all possible care. I watched him doing so. When he practiced his calligraphy no mistake was made—the forming of the kanji, the width of the stroke, the pressure of the brush—everything was as it ought to be. Methodical, he built up, line upon line, his ideal world.

Altogether, we are dealing with a notion that causes acute embarrassment to modern persons. Such embarrassment is calculated to make the historian of religion sit up and take notice. Why is it that a way of speaking of the relation between heaven and earth that late antique and medieval Christians took for granted seems so very alien to us? Perhaps it is we who are strange.

Augustine found himself confronted by exactly the same questions. In order to reassure Laurentius, he took refuge in a trenchant formula. He offered what can best be called a Van Ness diagram of the other world. In this diagram, only in the area of overlap could ritual action by the living be thought to affect the fate of the dead.

Sic ergo evenit, ut qui in publico vix necessitate vesicae tunicam levet, idem in circo aliter non exuat, nisi totum pudorem in faciem omnium intentet ...

So it comes about that a man who will scarcely lift his tunic in public for the necessities of nature, will take it off in the circus in such a way as to make a full display of himself before all ...

The late sixteenth century, when the Ottoman Empire threatened, and the religious militancy of Spain was at its height, was a glorious period in the Knights' history. In 1565, in the Great Siege of Malta, they had, against terrible odds, and suffering appalling losses, fought off a massive Turkish onslaught made by the most powerful Turkish sovereign, Suleiman the Magnificent. The Siege was marked by individual feats of heroism and macabre acts of cruelty. The Turks floated the bodies of decapitated knights on wooden crucifixes in the Grand Harbour, and Jean de La Valette Parisot, the Grand Master, who became an almost legendary hero, responded by firing Turkish heads from the guns of Fort St Angelo.

Mustapha, of a cruel and bloody nature, by way of revenge, and at the same time to terrify the knights that were in the town, and the other fortresses of the island, ordered such as were found found lying among the dead, and had still any marks of life left, to be ripped open, and their hearts to be plucked out. To this unexampled piece of barbarity, the Basha, in order to insult the instrument of our salvation, which the knights wore as the badge of the Order, had gashes made over their body in form of a cross, when putting their subrevests upon them, they tyed them to planks, and threw them into the sea, hoping, as indeed fell out, that the tide would carry them to the foot of the town and the castle of St. Angelo.

This dismal and shocking spectacle drew tears from the Grand Master. His first sensations were those of grief, but his next were those of anger and indignation; in consequence of which, and by way of reprisals, he, in order to teach the Basha to make war with less barbarity, ordered all the Turkish prisoners to be immediately executed; and ramming their heads into his cannon, had them shot, all covered with blood as they were, instead of ball, into the camp of the infidels.

Scimus nihil esse nomina mortuorum, sicut nec ipsa simulacra eorum; sed non ignoramus, qui sub istis nominibus institutis simulacris operentur et gaudeant et divinitatem mentiantur, nequam spiritus scilicet, daemones.

We know that the names of dead men are nothing—just as their images are nothing—but we are not unaware who are at work under those names and behind the images set up for them,^a what joy they take in them, and how they feign deity,—I mean, evil spirits, demons.

^a It is possible to take institutis as "customs" and render "those names, customs, images"; but in this tract at least there is hardly another case of asyndeton.

§ 8 Magnis Potentibus Valentibus (p. 252)

§ 22 quadrigarios scaenicos xysticos arenarios .... curia rostris senatu equite (p. 284)

§ 23 amores iras gemitus lacrimas (p. 286)

§ 29 sancta perpetua gratuita (p. 296)

Nowadays Rome is not so crowded, nor so rich and splendid, as it was in Horace's time. Yet it is often recognizably the same city. As one wanders through its busy streets, one occasionally sees a plump little man strolling vaguely along, eyeing the shop windows, glancing at the pretty girls, pausing to buy a lottery ticket, reading the headlines in a newspaper-office window, and at last sitting down to drink a glass of bitter Campari and to watch, with apparent complacency, the noisy traffic swirling past. One puts him down as—well, what? A Milanese business-man, who has just concluded a successful transaction, and is enjoying Rome before returning to his desk and his wife? Or a small landowner from central Italy, on his annual visit to the capital? He may be either of these, the plump little man with the watchful eyes; he may be a metropolitan lawyer, taking the air after a difficult day in court. But it is still possible that he may be an artist, a philosopher, or a poet.

If indeed it had been his will to come forth of a she-wolf or a sow or a cow, and, clothed with the body of a wild or a domestic animal, he were to preach the kingdom of heaven, your censorship I suppose would make for him a ruling that this is a disgrace to God, that this is beneath the dignity of the Son of God, and consequently that any man is a fool who so believes.

si revera de lupa aut sue aut vacca prodire voluisset, et ferae aut pecoris corpore indutus regnum caelorum praedicaret, tua opinor illi censura praescriberet turpe hoc deo et indignum hoc dei filio, et stultum propterea qui ita credat.

In 1593, for example, a young married woman, Leonora Palelli, who lived near the Piazza dei Santissimi Apostoli, denounced Decio and Onorio for making a disturbance in the streets, beneath her windows — 'singing with lutes and guitars abusive songs in the manner of famous insults' (libelli famosi), and making such a racket that all the neighbours had come out.⁶

6 S. Corradini, 'Nuove e false notizie sulla presenza del Caravaggio in Roma', in S. Macioce (ed.), Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio: La Vita attraverso i Documenti (Rome, 1995), p. 73. Obscene lyrics were part of the usual weaponry of scorned young men; E. Cohen, in 'Honor and Gender in the Streets of Early Modern Rome', Journal of Interdisciplinary History, xxii, 4, 1992, p. 613, tells the story of a young prostitute, Aurelia, woken by the delicate harmonies of lute and guitar, accompanied by the lyric 'Oh little whore, now comes the summer / Prepare your ass for your lover'.

On 28 August [1600], Baglione lodged a complaint with the Governor of Rome about some libelli famosi, or 'famous libels'. The accused were Onorio Longhi, Caravaggio, Orazio Gentileschi and the hapless Filippo Trisegni.

Qu'est-ce qu'un classique, en effet? C'est un livre dont l'aura est antérieure à la lecture. Nous n'avons pas peur qu'il nous déçoive mais que nous le décevions en n'étant pas à la hauteur. Nous admirons avant de comprendre et, si nous comprenons, c'est parce que l'admiration a tenu bon et forcé tous les obstacles.

What, indeed, is a classic? It is a book whose reputation precedes its reading. We aren't afraid that it will disappoint us, but that we will disappoint it, by not being up to its level. We admire it before we understand it, and, if we do understand, it's because our admiration stood firm and overcame all obstacles.

damnosa quid non inminuit dies?
aetas parentum, peior avis, tulit
nos nequiores, mox daturos
progeniem vitiosiorem.

A Third cause of common Errors is, the Credulity of men, that is, an easie assent to what is obtruded, or a believing, at first ear, what is delivered by others. This is a weakness in the understanding, without examination assenting unto things which, from their Natures and Causes, do carry no perswasion; whereby men often swallow falsities for truths, dubiosities for certainties, feasibilities for possibilities, and things impossible as possibilities themselves.

On 4 December 1571 an enormous theatrical triumph was staged in Rome. Its hero was Marcantonio Colonna, scion of one of the most illustrious of all Roman families, and commander of the papal galleys in the triumph of the Holy League over the Turks at Lepanto. He progressed from the church of San Sebastiano, on the Appian Way, passing the Baths of Caracalla, and under the triumphal arches of Constantine and Titus, to the monastery of Santa Maria in Aracoeli, built on the holiest site of the Capitol, at the very centre of the old Roman Empire.

Colonna rode, unarmed, on a white horse. He was escorted by a glittering cortège of five thousand people, and 170 liveried and chained Turkish prisoners were driven before him. Before them the standard of the sultan was trailed in the dust. The procession pressed forward through tumultuous applause. 'Here from every part', wrote an observer, 'his name rang out. Everyone rushed to the street, clapping their hands. Crowds of people thronged together, crying out, while trumpets serenaded him. He was greeted from far and near, by people gesturing, shouting, waving caps and banner'. Ringed by twenty-five Cardinals, Colonna crossed the Tiber at the Ponte Sant' Angelo, and then rode to St Peter's and the Vatican Palace, where Pope Pius V received him in the Sala Regia.

His progress was modelled on the triumphs that were granted to generals in ancient Rome and it drew on the splendour of ancient myth. Yet it was also an intensely Christian event. The façade of the church of Santa Maria in Aracoeli was decorated with captured Turkish flags. It bore the proud inscription: `The gratitude which, in their pagan folly, the Ancients offered to their idols, the Christian conqueror, who ascends the Aracoeli, now gives, with pious devotion, to the true God, to Christ the Redeemer, and to His most glorious Mother'. Colonna seemed to bring the new promise of a more joyful Christian era.

All Rome was in a stir when the bright and sunny day of December 4th dawned. Thousands of people had gathered along the Via Appia, where, near the basilica of St. Sebastian, Girolamo Bonelli and the Swiss Guard, the Senator and the Conservatori, awaited the arrival of Colonna, who was to come from Marino. Unarmed, and with no decoration but the Golden Fleece, Marcantonio rode upon a white horse given him by the Pope; a black silk mantle lined with fur covered his tunic of cloth of gold, and on his head he wore a black velvet cap, with a white plume fastened with a pearl clasp.

Amid scenes of extraordinary rejoicing, the clash of trumpets, and the firing of guns, the cortège was formed, in which were to be seen the gaily coloured banners of all the city corporations, and the 13 Rioni of Rome. As can easily be understood, the chief interest was excited by the 170 Turkish prisoners, dressed in red and yellow, in chains, and guarded by halbardiers. In front of them rode a Roman in Turkish dress dragging the standard of the sultan in the dust. At the side of the prisoners walked a hermit, who had taken part in the battle, and whom the people, by whom he was greatly loved, called Fate bene per voi, from the words which he was always saying. The standard of the Church was borne by Romegasso, and that of the city of Rome by Giovan Giorgio Cesarini, with whom rode Pompeo Colonna and Onorato Caetani, and the two nephews of the Pope, Michele and Girolamo Bonelli; then came Marcantonio Colonna, who was rapturously acclaimed by all, and was followed by the Senator of Rome and the Conservatori, and a large number of his friends and comrades. The Papal light cavalry brought the procession to an end.

As Charles V. had done 35 years before, so Marcantonio Colonna, entering the city by the Porta S. Sebastiano, and passing the Baths of Caracalla, and under the triumphal arches of Constantine and Titus, chmbed the hill of the Capitol, and came to S. Marco, passing thence along the Via Papale to the Bridge of St. Angelo. On the way he came to the statue of Pasquino, which was gaily decorated; in the left hand was the head of a Turk, with blood pouring from the mouth, and in the right a drawn sword.

After praying in St. Peter's at the tomb of the Prince of the Apostles, and offering, in allusion to his own name, a column of silver, Colonna proceeded to the Vatican, where the Pope received him, accompanied by 25 Cardinals, with the greatest honour. He exhorted the victor of Lepanto to give the glory to God, Who, despite our sins, had been so kind and merciful.

Vain trifles and the triviality of the empty-headed, my old loves, held me back. They tugged at the garment of my flesh and whispered: 'Are you getting rid of us?' And 'from this moment we shall never be with you again, not for ever and ever'. And 'from this moment this and that are forbidden to you for ever and ever.' What they were suggesting in what I have called 'this and that' — what they were suggesting, my God, may your mercy avert from the soul of your servant! What filth, what disgraceful things they were suggesting!

retinebant nugae nugarum et vanitates vanitantium, antiquae amicae meae, et succutiebant vestem meam carneam et submurmurabant, 'dimittisne nos?' et 'a momento isto non erimus tecum ultra in aeternum' et 'a momento isto non tibi licebit hoc et illud ultra in aeternum.' et quae suggerebant in eo quod dixi 'hoc et illud,' quae suggerebant, deus meus, avertat ab anima servi tui misericordia tua! quas sordes suggerebant, quae dedecora!

Yet, what for Christians such as Cyprian was an "extraordinary" death struck the average pagan as abnormal. Christians were seen by pagans as suicidal exhibitionists. As the Emperor Marcus Aurelius (161-180) wrote in his Meditations: a wise man could decide to leave the world through suicide. But to court death out of a mere spirit of opposition "as is the case with the Christians" was a form of "stage heroics" that repelled him. The phrase "as ... with the Christians" may have been added by a later copyist.¹¹ But the copyist got the point. Some deaths (and not only the deaths of Christians) were public theater of the most obtrusive and unwelcome sort.

We should always remember that, for the average pagan, Christian martyrs were not a unique phenomenon. They fitted all too easily into a long line of gore-soaked and crazed figures. Gladiators played with death in the arena. Their blood and mangled corpses were associated with uncanny powers.¹² Maverick philosophers also courted death by going out of their way to insult the powerful. The craziest of these, the philosopher Peregrinus, had even toyed for a time with Christianity. He gained great prestige among Christians as a potential martyr. He ended his life, in 165 AD, by committing suicide through burning himself near the crowds assembled at Olympia for the Olympic Games.¹³ The deaths of Christian martyrs did not necessarily impress outsiders. Rather, these deaths struck them as bizarre and disturbing. But pagans and Christians had one thing in common: heroic or pathological, the grisly, fully public deaths of the Christian martyrs held their attention, at the expense of more ordinary deaths.

11. Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 11.3, ed. C. Haines, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1961), 294. See R.B. Rutherford, The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius: A Study (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989), 188.

12. F. Dölger, "Gladiatorenblut and Märtyrerblut," Vorträge der Bibliothek Warburg 1 (1923-1924), 196-214.

13. Lucian, Peregrinus, 11-14 and 35, ed. A.M. Harmon, Lucian 5, Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1972), 12-16 and 38-40; see J. König, "The Cynic and Christian Lives of Peregrinus," in The Limits of Ancient Biography, ed. B. McGing and J. Mossman (Swansea: Classical Press of Wales, 2006), 227-254.

And you may add as many of the most extreme insults against me as you please.

                                                 λέγων ὅσ᾿ ἂν
θέλῃς καθ᾿ ἡμῶν ἔσχατ᾿ ἐσχάτων κακά.

Speaking against me evils, most extreme of most extreme, as many as you wish.

And herein, I think, all the philosophers of the newest age are open to a serious criticism. What they do not possess is real standing in actual life. Not one of them has intervened effectively, either in higher politics, in the development of modern technics, in matters of communication, in economics, or in any other big actuality, with a single act or a single compelling idea. Not one of them counts in mathematics, in physics, in the science of government, even to the extent that Kant counted. Let us glance at other times. Confucius was several times a minister. Pythagoras was the organizer of an important political movement akin to the Cromwellian, the significance of which is even now far underestimated by Classical researchers. Goethe, besides being a model executive minister though lacking, alas! the operative sphere of a great state was interested in the Suez and Panama canals (the dates of which he foresaw with accuracy) and their effects on the economy of the world, and he busied himself again and again with the question of American economic life and its reactions on the Old World, and with that of the dawning era of machine-industry. Hobbes was one of the originators of the great plan of winning South America for England, and although in execution the plan went no further than the occupation of Jamaica, he has the glory of being one of the founders of the British Colonial Empire. Leibniz, without doubt the greatest intellect in Western philosophy, the founder of the differential calculus and the analysis situs, conceived or co-operated in a number of major political schemes, one of which was to relieve Germany by drawing the attention of Louis XIV to the importance of Egypt as a factor in French world-policy. The ideas of the memorandum on this subject that he drew up for the Grand Monarch were so far in advance of their time (1672) that it has been thought that Napoleon made use of them for his Eastern venture. Even thus early, Leibniz laid down the principle that Napoleon grasped more and more clearly after Wagram, viz., that acquisitions on the Rhine and in Belgium would not permanently better the position of France and that the neck of Suez would one day be the key of world-dominance. Doubtless the King was not equal to these deep political and strategic conceptions of the Philosopher.

Turning from men of this mould to the philosophers of to-day, one is dismayed and shamed. How poor their personalities, how commonplace their political and practical outlook! Why is it that the mere idea of calling upon one of them to prove his intellectual eminence in government, diplomacy, large-scale organization, or direction of any big colonial, commercial or transport concern is enough to evoke our pity? And this insufficiency indicates, not that they possess inwardness, but simply that they lack weight. I look round in vain for an instance in which a modern "philosopher" has made a name by even one deep or far-seeing pronouncement on an important question of the day. I see nothing but provincial opinions of the same kind as anyone else's. Whenever I take up a work by a modern thinker, I find myself asking: has he any idea whatever of the actualities of world-politics, world-city problems, capitalism, the future of the state, the relation of technics to the course of civilization, Russia, Science? Goethe would have understood all this and revelled in it, but there is not one living philosopher capable of taking it in.

I feel a profound cleavage between my own generation and that of young adults today: I do not understand, and do not really like, their tastes, their ambitions, their enjoyments, their sorrows, their opinions, or even their humor. But then I could say that of my own generation also: I never really belonged to it, or wanted to belong to it. I have always been a fish out of water, ever since I can remember.

Not only so, but they sank in the sea a mass of iron, and swore never to return to Phocaea before the iron should again appear. But while they prepared to voyage to Cyrnus, more than half of the citizens were taken with a longing and a pitiful sorrow for the city and the life of their land, and they broke their oath and sailed back to Phocaea.

πρὸς δὲ ταύτῃσι καὶ μύδρον σιδήρεον κατεπόντωσαν καὶ ὤμοσαν μὴ πρὶν ἐς Φωκαίην ἥξειν πρὶν ἢ τὸν μύδρον τοῦτον ἀναφανῆναι. στελλομένων δὲ αὐτῶν ἐπὶ τὴν Κύρνον, ὑπερημίσεας τῶν ἀστῶν ἔλαβε πόθος τε καὶ οἶκτος τῆς πόλιος καὶ τῶν ἠθέων τῆς χώρης, ψευδόρκιοι δὲ γενόμενοι ἀπέπλεον ὀπίσω ἐς τὴν Φωκαίην.

I pity him, in that
with none among mortals to care for him        170
and with no companion he can look on,
miserable, always alone,
he suffers from a cruel sickness
and is bewildered by each
need as it arises. How, how        175
does the unhappy man hold out?
O contrivances of the gods!
O unhappy race of mortals
to whom life is unkind!

οἰκτίρω νιν ἔγωγ᾿, ὅπως,
μή του κηδομένου βροτῶν        170
μηδὲ σύντροφον ὄμμ᾿ ἔχων,
δύστανος, μόνος αἰεί,
νοσεῖ μὲν νόσον ἀγρίαν,
ἀλύει δ᾿ ἐπὶ παντί τῳ
χρείας ἱσταμένῳ. πῶς ποτε πῶς        175
δύσμορος ἀντέχει;
ὦ παλάμαι θεῶν,
ὦ δύστανα γένη βροτῶν,
οἷς μὴ μέτριος αἰών.

177 θεῶν Lachmann: θνητῶν codd.

I'm from the country: I call the tub a tub.

ἄγροικός εἰμι· τὴν σκάφην σκάφην λέγω.

I am Refutation here before you,
the friend of truth and frankness,
who calls the figs figs, and the tub a tub.

                 Ἔλεγχος οὗτός εἰμ' ἐγώ
ὁ φίλος ἀληθείᾳ τε καί παρρησίᾳ,
τὰ σῦκα σῦκα καὶ σκάφην σκάφην λέγων.

But lives like ours within this world include
    so many evils that ferocious beasts
    inside some cave lead lives far happier.
The more the eyes of mortals see the good,        145
    the more they suffer from not having it:
    thus greater knowledge brings us greater woe.
Moreover, all the while we live our lives
    the sum of things we covet ever grows,
    yet beasts want only grass and cooling springs.        150
Who has the fewest needs is happiest:
    hence man appears least happy in this world,
    where all his life he dreams and vacillates.

Ma al mondo vita tal mal tanto ha seco
    che in vita più felice gli animali
    sarien bruti e selvaggi in qualche speco.
Quanto più veggon gli occhi de' mortali        145
    il ben, si dolgon più se ne son privi,
    e maggior cognizion ne dà più mali.
Ed oltre a questo, mentre siam qui vivi,
    assai più cose nostra vita agogna,
    che a lor basta l'erbetta e i freschi rivi.        150
Felice è più a chi manco bisogna;
    così par l'uomo più infelice al mondo,
    mentre che in vita qui vacilla e sogna.

The most interesting new youth group formed in this period was, however, the Whistlers or Sifflars of Poitiers, so-called from a whistle the members wore around their necks. Founded among students around 1561, it initially mocked both religions. Initiates had to swear by flesh, belly, death and "the worthy double head, stuffed with Relics" and by all the Divinity in this pint of wine, that they would be devoted Whistlers, and that instead of going to Protestant service, mass or Vespers, they would go twice a day to a brothel, etc. The group grew to some sixty-four youths and became especially hostile to the Reformed Church and its services, perhaps because of Reformed hostility to them. Its members began to go around armed. Hist. eccl., i, pp. 844-5.

I would certainly assign this book if I were teaching Chaucer, or for that matter any survey course on early English literature; further, I recommend it to the generally literate reader as a mini-introduction, not only to Chaucer but to key touchstones of Western literature, such is its richness of reference. But I would add the following, not noted by Professor Wallace. If we look to the end of the Tales we find the devout Parson. In his tale, Chaucer (with not long to live), takes his leave with a faithful gravitas:

Al that is written is writen for oure doctrine, and that is myn entente . . . thanke I oure Lord Jhesu Crist and his blisful Mooder . . . and graunte me grace of verray penitence . . . thrugh the benigne grace of hym that is kyng of kynges so that I may been oon of hem at the day of doom that shulle be saved. Qui cumpatre et Spiritu Sancto vivit et regnat Deaus per omnia scuela. Amen.

• For written read writen (so my copy of Chaucer, John H. Fisher's 2nd edition)
• For thrugh read thurgh (the Chaucerian form of through)
• For doom read doome (so Fisher's edition)
• For cumpatre read cum Patre (two words)
• For Deaus read Deus
• For scuela read saecula or secula

But he that hath mysseyd, I dar wel sayn,
He may by no wey clepe his word agayn.
Thyng that is seyd is seyd, and forth it gooth,
Though hym repente or be hym nevere so looth.

Labels: typographical and other errors

The boastful man, then, is thought to be apt to claim the things that bring glory, when he has not got them, or to claim more of them than he has, and the mock-modest man on the other hand to disclaim what he has or belittle it, while the man who observes the mean is one who calls a thing by its own name, being truthful both in life and in word, owning to what he has, and neither more nor less. Now each of these courses may be adopted either with or without an object. But each man speaks and acts and lives in accordance with his character, if he is not acting for some ulterior object. And falsehood is in itself mean and culpable, and truth noble and worthy of praise. Thus the truthful man is another case of a man who, being in the mean, is worthy of praise, and both forms of untruthful man are culpable, and particularly the boastful man.

δοκεῖ δὴ ὁ μὲν ἀλαζὼν προσποιητικὸς τῶν ἐνδόξων εἶναι καὶ μὴ ὑπαρχόντων καὶ μειζόνων ἢ ὑπάρχει, ὁ δὲ εἴρων ἀνάπαλιν ἀρνεῖσθαι τὰ ὑπάρχοντα ἢ ἐλάττω ποιεῖν, ὁ δὲ μέσος αὐθέκαστός τις ὢν ἀληθευτικὸς κἂν τῷ βίῳ καὶ τῷ λόγῳ, τὰ ὑπάρχοντα ὁμολογῶν εἶναι περὶ αὑτόν, καὶ οὔτε μείζω οὔτε ἐλάττω. ἔστι δὲ τούτων ἕκαστα καὶ ἕνεκά τινος ποιεῖν καὶ μηθενός· ἕκαστος δ᾿ οἷός ἐστι, τοιαῦτα λέγει καὶ πράττει καὶ οὕτω ζῇ, ἐὰν μή τινος ἕνεκα πράττῃ. καθ᾿ αὑτὸ δὲ τὸ μὲν ψεῦδος φαῦλον καὶ ψεκτόν, τὸ δ᾿ ἀληθὲς καλὸν καὶ ἐπαινετόν· οὕτω δὲ καὶ ὁ μὲν ἀληθευτικὸς μέσος ὢν ἐπαινετός, οἱ δὲ ψευδόμενοι ἀμφότεροι μὲν ψεκτοί, μᾶλλον δ᾿ ὁ ἀλαζών.

For while praise from others, as Xenophon^c said, is the most pleasant of recitals, praise of ourselves is for others most distressing.

^c Memorabilia, ii.1.

αὑτῷ μὲν γὰρ ὁ παρ᾿ ἄλλων ἔπαινος ἥδιστον ἀκουσμάτων ἐστίν, ὥσπερ ὁ Ξενοφῶν εἴρηκεν, ἑτέροις δὲ ὁ περὶ αὑτοῦ λυπηρότατον.

I would be surprised if there is any greater happiness than that provided by a game of croquet played on an English lawn through a summer's afternoon, after a good luncheon and with the prospect of a good dinner ahead.

Satyrs who on vases are shown masturbating with one hand use the right one.

So few wild creatures, relatively, remain in Britain and Ireland: so few, relatively, in the world. Pursuing our project of civilisation, we have pushed thousands of species towards the brink of disappearance, and many thousands more over the edge. The loss, after it is theirs, is ours. Wild animals, like wild places, are invaluable to us precisely because they are not us. They are uncompromisingly different. The paths they follow, the impulses that guide them, are of other orders. The seal's holding gaze, before it flukes to push another tunnel through the sea, the hare's run, the hawk's high gyres: such things are wild. Seeing them, you are made briefly aware of a world at work around and beside our own, a world operating in patterns and purposes that you do not share. These are creatures, you realise, that live by voices inaudible to you.

But casual readers are misled by problems and ambiguities of many kinds, mistaking one thing for another. In some passages they find no meaning at all that they can grasp at, even falsely, so thick is the fog created by some obscure phrases. I have no doubt that this is all divinely predetermined, so that pride may be subdued by hard work and intellects which tend to despise things that are easily discovered may be rescued from boredom and reinvigorated.

sed multis et multiplicibus obscuritatibus et ambiguitatibus decipiuntur qui temere legunt, aliud pro alio sentientes. quibusdam autem locis quid vel falso suspicentur non inveniunt: ita obscure dicta quaedam densissimam caliginem obducunt. quod totum provisum esse divinitus non dubito, ad edomandam labore superbiam et intellectum a fastidio renovandum, cui facile investigata plerumque vilescunt.

Happy is he whose wants reflect his needs,
    but woe to him whose ever-hungry mind
    cannot possess the thing it covets most;
our boundless longing never dies but grows,        100
    and growing racks us all the more: who yearns
    the most must always settle for much less.
That man who's pleased with what he has seems much
    more rich to me than he who values what
    he doesn't have above the things he owns.        105
True wealth is tranquil poverty, so long
    as it supplies life's needs. If you feel rich
    or poor, it's what you're used to, nothing more.

Felice è quel che quanto gli bisogna
    tanto disia, e non quello a cui manca
    ciò che la insazïabil mente agogna;
nostra infinita voglia mai non manca        100
    ma cresce, e nel suo crescer più tormenta:
    a quel che più disia, più sempre manca.
Colui che di quel c'ha, sol si contenta,
    ricco mi pare; e non quel che più prezza
    ciò che non ha, che quel che suo diventa.        105
Quïeta povertà è gran ricchezza,
    pur che col necessario non contenda:
    ricco e non ricco è l'uom, come s'avvezza.

97-99. Felice... agogna: motivo oraziano; cfr. Carm., III, 1, 25-32. - 100-101. nostra infinita... più tormenta: motivo oraziano; cfr. Carm., III, 16, 42-44. - 103-104. Colui... ricco mi pare: topos classico; cfr. Ovidio, Metam., I, 131; Virgilio, Aen., VIII, 324-327. - 104-105. e non quel... diventa: motivo oraziano; cfr. Serm., I, 1, 108-112. - 107. pur che... non contenda: purché sia sufficiente alle necessità della vita; cfr. Orazio, Epist., II, 2, 199. - 108. s'avvezza: si abitua.

• Avarice and Dropsy
• Poverty and Wealth
• Can't Get No Satisfaction

Sleep, ignorant of anguish, ignorant of pains,
come to us with gentle breath, come bringing felicity,
bringing felicity, lord!

Ὕπν᾿ ὀδύνας ἀδαής, Ὕπνε δ᾿ ἀλγέων,
εὐαὴς ἡμῖν ἔλθοις, εὐαίων,
εὐαίων, ὦναξ.

Difference of race also tends to produce faction, until the city shares a common spirit. For just as a city does not arise from any chance multitude, so neither does it arise in any chance period of time. That is why most of those who in the past admitted joint colonists or later colonists have split into factions.

στασιωτικὸν δὲ καὶ τὸ μὴ ὁμόφυλον, ἕως ἂν συμπνεύσῃ· ὥσπερ γὰρ οὐδ᾿ ἐκ τοῦ τυχόντος πλήθους πόλις γίγνεται, οὕτως οὐδ᾿ ἐν τῷ τυχόντι χρόνῳ. διὸ ὅσοι ἤδη συνοίκους ἐδέξαντο ἢ ἐποίκους οἱ πλεῖστοι ἐστασίασαν ...

The Florentine Martino dello Scarfa was unusually obese, so that he couldn't see those lower parts that are kept most covered. One day while he was urinating, a young boy stopped and had a good look. Martino said to the boy: "If you can see him, say hello to him from me; for I haven't seen him for ten years."

Martino dello Scarfa, cittadino fiorentino, era del corpo molto compresso et grasso oltra l'ordinario, talchè lui medesimo non si poteva vedere le parti interiori più coperte. Orinando uno giorno, uno fanciullo si fermò et guardavagli sotto. Martino gli dixe: Se tu lo vedi, salutalo per mia parte; che egli è dieci anni che io non l'ho visto.

While Martino dello Scarfa, who was very fat and had a large belly, was urinating one day, he saw that a boy was staring at him; he turned to him and said: "If you see him, say hello to him for me, for I haven't seen him in ten years."

Martino dello Scarfa, orinando un tratto, e veduto un fanciullo che lui che grassissimo era guardava, voltosi a lui, disse: Se tu lo vedi, salutalo da mia parte, chè son dieci anni ch'io non l'ho veduto.

I know well myself how to fight and kill men in battle;
I know how to turn to the right, how to turn to the left the ox-hide
tanned into a shield which is my protection in battle;
I know how to storm my way into the struggle of flying horses;        240
I know how to tread my measures on the grim floor of the war god.

αὐτὰρ ἐγὼν εὖ οἶδα μάχας τ᾽ ἀνδροκτασίας τε·
οἶδ᾽ ἐπὶ δεξιά, οἶδ᾽ ἐπ᾽ ἀριστερὰ νωμῆσαι βῶν
ἀζαλέην, τό μοι ἔστι ταλαύρινον πολεμίζειν·
οἶδα δ᾽ ἐπαΐξαι μόθον ἵππων ὠκειάων·        240
οἶδα δ᾽ ἐνὶ σταδίῃ δηΐῳ μέλπεσθαι Ἄρηϊ.

In a university worthy of the name, the mere mention of a contemporary problem should be outlawed.

En una universidad respetable la sola mención de un problema contemporáneo debería estar prohibida.

When Milhaud and (I think) Poulenc went to his rooms after his death, the most wonderful thing under the bed was all of his correspondence. He had opened not one letter in 25 years.

But from now on your task is to help me, and to see where in this place there is a cave with two mouths, such that when it is cold there is a double seat in the sun, and in summer a breeze wafts sleep through the cavern with its opening at both ends.

ἀλλ᾿ ἔργον ἤδη σὸν τὰ λοίφ᾿ ὑπηρετεῖν,
σκοπεῖν θ᾿ ὅπου ᾿στ᾿ ἐνταῦθα δίστομος πέτρα
τοιάδ᾿, ἵν᾿ ἐν ψύχει μὲν ἡλίου διπλῆ
πάρεστιν ἐνθάκησις, ἐν θέρει δ᾿ ὕπνον
δι᾿ ἀμφιτρῆτος αὐλίου πέμπει πνοή.

Odysseus describes the cave like a house-agent ...

We all know the reader-annotated book of the present day, and we prefer not to think about it. It's a scruffy thing. Somebody has used yellow highlighter to mark significant passages — most of the text, it seems. Perhaps it was the same person who scribbled some page numbers in ballpoint pen inside the back cover, with the odd word to show what subject the page numbers refer to, and who wrote a disparaging comment on the title page, just under the author's name. If it is a library book, there will be no way of telling who marked it up, but if it is private property, the owner's name will almost certainly be on the first blank page inside the cover, at the top right-hand corner. If it is left behind on a bus, nobody will carry it off: it is unlovable and unsaleable.

Somebody has used yellow highlighter to mark significant passages — just in the first ten or so pages, it seems.

It's beach time, and you've probably already scanned a hundred lists of summer reads. Sadly overlooked is that other crucial literary category: the summer non-read, the book that you pick up, all full of ambition, at the beginning of June and put away, the bookmark now and forever halfway through chapter 1, on Labor Day. The classic of this genre is Stephen Hawking's "A Brief History of Time," widely called "the most unread book of all time."

How can we find today's greatest non-reads? Amazon's "Popular Highlights" feature provides one quick and dirty measure. Every book's Kindle page lists the five passages most highlighted by readers. If every reader is getting to the end, those highlights could be scattered throughout the length of the book. If nobody has made it past the introduction, the popular highlights will be clustered at the beginning.

Thus, the Hawking Index (HI): Take the page numbers of a book's five top highlights, average them, and divide by the number of pages in the whole book. The higher the number, the more of the book we're guessing most people are likely to have read.

• Pet Peeve
• Between the Pages of Books
• Scholia
• Book Abuse
• Books Disfigured by Students

Any part of piggy
Is quite all right with me
Ham from Westphalia, ham from Parma
Ham as lean as the Dalai Lama
Ham from Virginia, ham from York,
Trotters, sausages, hot roast pork.
Crackling crisp for my teeth to grind on
Bacon with or without the rind on
Though humanitarian
I'm not a vegetarian.
I'm neither a crank nor prude nor prig
And though it may sound infra dig
Any part of darling pig
Is perfectly fine with me.

• Nulla Dies Sine Suilla
• Ham
• Sausage and Mash
• Bacon and Eggs
• The Foundation of Civilization

But first you must rip off the tunic that you wear, the garment of ignorance, the foundation of vice, the bonds of corruption, the dark cage, the living death, the sentient corpse, the portable tomb, the resident thief, the one who hates through what he loves and envies through what he hates.

πρῶτον δὲ δεῖ σε περιρρήξασθαι ὃν φορεῖς χιτῶνα, τὸ τῆς ἀγνωσίας ὕφασμα, τὸ τῆς κακίας στήριγμα, τὸν τῆς φθορᾶς δεσμόν, τὸν σκοτεινὸν περίβολον, τὸν ζῶντα θάνατον, τὸν αἰσθητὸν νεκρόν, τὸν περιφόρητον τάφον, τὸν ἔνοικον λῃστήν, τὸν δι' ὧν φιλεῖ μισοῦντα καὶ δι' ὧν μισεῖ φθονοῦντα.

After a long and painful debate over the election of a prince, the choice fell on one whom, out of respect, I shall not mention. This had come about because of the numerous disagreements among the electors, who ended up by choosing an individual who was quite unworthy of that principality. When Umore from Bologna was asked what he thought of that election, he, without stopping to think a single moment, replied that those electors had imitated the fly, which circles hither and thither for a long time and finally settles on a heap of manure.

S'era penato gran tempo in far elezione d'un principe, il quale per degni rispetti io non voglio nominare, e ciò era intervenuto per le molte discordie degli elettori, i quali poscia erano caduti in eleggere un suggetto poco degno di quel principato. Ed essendo dimandato l'Umore da Bologna quel che gli pareva di cotal elezione, egli, senza punto pensare, rispose che quei tali elettori avevano imitato il moscone, il quale va girando quinci e quindi per buon spazio d'ora e dopo un gran giro si posa sopra una meta.

(with acknowledgements to W.M.P.)

Good night to the year Academic,
It finally crept to a close:
Dry fact about physic and chemic,
Wet drip about people and prose.
Emotion was down to a snivel
And reason was pulped to a pap,
Sociologists droning out drivel
And critics all croaking out crap.
For any such doctrine is preachable
In our tolerant Temple of Thought
Where lads that are largely unteachable
Learn subjects that cannot be taught.

Good night to the Session — portentous
Inside the Vice-Chancellor's gown,
The personage who'll represent us
To Public and Party and Crown.
By enthusing for nitwitted novelty
He wheedles the moment'ry Great,
And at influence-dinner or grovel-tea
Further worsens the whims of the State.
So it is that, however much we rage,
The glibber of heart and of tongue
Build ladders to reach a life-peerage
From the buzz-sawed-up brains of the young.

Good night to the Session — the Chaplain,
Progressive and Ritualist too,
Who refers to the role of the apple in
Eden as 'under review'.
When the whole situation has ripened
Of his temporal hopes these are chief:
A notable increase in stipend,
And the right to abandon belief.
Meanwhile, his sermons: 'The Wafer —
Is it really the Presence of God?'
'Is the Pill or the French Letter Safer?'
And, 'Does the Biretta look Mod?'

Good night to the Session — what Art meant,
Or Science, no longer seemed plain,
But our new Education Department
Confuses confusion again.
'Those teach who can't do' runs the dictum,
But for some even that's out of reach:
They can't even teach — so they've picked 'em
To teach other people to teach.
Then alas for the next generation,
For the pots fairly crackle with thorn.
Where psychology meets education
A terrible bullshit is born.

Good night to the Session — the students
So eager to put us all right,
Whose conceit might have taken a few dents
But that ploughing's no longer polite;
So the essays drop round us in torrents
Of jargon a mouldering mound,
All worrying weakly at Lawrence,
All drearily pounding at Pound;
And their knowledge would get them through no test
On Ghana or Greece or Vietnam,
But they've mugged up enough for a Protest
— An easyish form of exam.

Good night to the Session — so solemn,
'Truth' and 'Freedom' their crusader crests,
One hardly knows quite what to call 'em
These children with beards or with breasts.
When from State or parental Golcondas
Treasure trickles to such little boys
They spend it on reefers and Hondas
— That is, upon sweeties and toys;
While girls of delicious proportions
Are thronging the Clinic's front stair,
Some of them seeking abortions
And some a psychiatrist's care.

Good night to the Session — the politics,
So noisy, and nagging, and null.
You can tell how the time-bomb of Folly ticks
By applying your ear to their skull;
Of course, that is only a metaphor,
But they have their metaphors too,
Such as 'Fascist', that's hardly the better for
Being used of a liberal and Jew
— The Prof. of Applied Aeronautics,
For failing such students as try,
With LSD lapping their cortex,
To fub up a fresh way to fly.

Good night to the Session — the Union:
The speeches with epigram packed,
So high upon phatic communion,
So low upon logic and fact.
(Those epigrams? — Oh well, at any rate
By now we're all quite reconciled
To a version that's vastly degenerate
From the Greek, via Voltaire and Wilde.)
Then the bold resolutions devoted
To the praise of a party or state
In this context most obviously noted
For its zeal in destroying debate.

Good night to the Session — the sculpture:
A jelly containing a clock
Where they say, 'From the way that you gulped you're
Therapeutically thrilled by the shock!'
— It's the Shock of, alas, Recognition
At what's yearly presented as new
Since first seen at Duchamps' exhibition
'Des Maudits', in Nineteen-O-Two.
But let's go along to the Happening,
Where an artist can really unwind,
Stuff like 'Rapists should not take the rap' penning
In gamboge on a model's behind.

Good night to the Session — a later
Will come — and the freshmen we'll get!
Their pretensions will be even greater,
Their qualifications worse yet.
— But don't be too deeply depressible
At obtuseness aflame for applause;
The louts that are loudest in decibel
Melt away in post-graduate thaws.
Don't succumb to an anger unreasoned!
Most students are charming, and bright;
And even some dons are quite decent ...
But good night to the Session, good night!

Matters standing thus and Rustico being more than ever inflamed in his desires to see her so fair, there came the resurrection of the flesh, which Alibech observing and marvelling, "Rustico," quoth she, "what is that I see on thee which thrusteth forth thus and which I have not?"

"Faith, daughter mine," answered he, "this is the devil whereof I bespoke thee; and see now, he giveth me such sore annoy that I can scarce put up with it."

E così stando, essendo Rustico più che mai nel suo disidero acceso per lo vederla così bella, venne la resurrezion della carne; la quale riguardando Alibech e maravigliatasi, disse: "Rustico, quella che cosa è che io ti veggio che così si pigne in fuori, e non l'ho io?"

"O figliuola mia," disse Rustico "questo è il diavolo di che io t'ho parlato. E vedi tu? ora egli mi dà grandissima molestia, tanta che io appena la posso sofferire."

But may you one and all turn to earth and water,
you who sit there each man with no heart in him, utterly inglorious.

ἀλλ᾽ ὑμεῖς μὲν πάντες ὕδωρ καὶ γαῖα γένοισθε
ἥμενοι αὖθι ἕκαστοι ἀκήριοι ἀκλεὲς αὔτως.

'May you all become water and earth' is a unique expression. These are the components from which human beings are made according to one popular view (so Hesiod, Erga 61, Xenophanes frag. 33, cf. Hesiod, Theog. 571 with M. L. West's comment), and the Achaeans' inertia makes it an appropriate form of curse. ἀκήριοι, from κήρ = 'heart', means 'lifeless' or 'spiritless' (6x Il.; in its two Odyssean uses it has a different sense akin to that ἀκήρατος). ἀκλεές is neuter acc. used adverbially; nom. plur. ἀκλέες, so accented, had some support (cf. Eustathius 669.1) but is probably an incorrect form (Chantraine, GH 1, 74). αὔτως intensifies: 'in an utterly inglorious way'.

For all its strangeness to modern eyes, Joachim's prophesy was perhaps most strange to contemporaries for a claim that would go largely unnoted today — that this third age would be a new age and a better one because it was new. One of the deep differences that sets modern society and culture off from most others is that it tends to accept without question that the new is good. The premodern world, by contrast, had a deep suspicion of change and the new. In fact, in many ways it was enough to label a thing new or a change as an innovation to ensure that it would be seen as wrong and rejected. At one level there is a profound logic in this, for if one looks at the world around us, all things do seem to break down with time and change; thus, from that perspective, change over time, and the new, imply decay. In the best of worlds, then, the ideal would be to hold things as they are or, better yet, to return to their beginnings before change and decay set in, that is, return to when they were first made.