Monday, December 30, 2019

 

Inner Sanctum

Erasmus, Collected Works, Vol. 28: Literary and Educational Writings, 6: Ciceronianus, tr. Betty I. Knott (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1986), p. 351:
Nosoponus I have a shrine of the Muses in the innermost part of the house, with thick walls and double doors and windows, and all the cracks carefully sealed up with plaster and pitch, so that hardly any light or sound can penetrate even by day, unless it's a very loud one, like quarrelling women or blacksmiths at work.

Bulephorus True, the sudden boom of human voices and workshop crashes destroy one's concentration.

Nosoponus I won't even allow anyone to use any of the nearby rooms as a bedroom, because I don't want the voices even of sleepers, or their snorts, breaking in on the sanctuary of my thoughts — some people talk in their sleep, and a good many snore so loudly they can be heard quite a long way off.
The Latin, from Opera Omnia Desiderii Erasmi Roterodami I.2 (Amsterdam: North-Holland Publishing Company, 1971), p. 620:
NOSOP. Habeo Musaeum in intimis aedibus densis parietibus, geminis et foribus, et fenestris, rimis omnibus gypso piceque diligenter obturatis, vt vix interdiu lux aut sonitus vllus possit irrumpere, nisi vehementior, qualis est foeminarum rixantium, aut fabrorum ferrariorum.

BVL. Vocum humanarum tonitrua et officinarum strepitus non sinunt animum sibi praesentem.

NOSOP. Proinde ne in proximis quidem conclauibus patior quenquam habere cubile, ne vel dormientium voces, ronchiue cogitationis secretum interpellent. Sunt enim qui in somnis loquuntur, et nonnulli tam clare stertunt, vt procul etiam audiantur.



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