Laudator Temporis Acti

Basil Lanneau Gildersleeve, "Brief Mention," American Journal of Philology 37.2 (1916) 232-243 (at 233):

I was and am no more free than are others from the tendency to use archaic language when I have to do with classical poetry. Andrew Lang half apologizes for it in the case of Homer, where it needs no apology. Bevan makes use of a strange mixture in translating Aischylos (A.J.P. XXIII 467). Starkie has given us a glossematic Shakespearian Aristophanes (A.J.P. XXXII 116-7); and everyone is in love with the Tudor translations because of the quaint effect (A.J.P. XXX 354), against which Matthew Arnold protests. The patina is adorable. Theoretically an everyday word ought to have an everyday rendering and yet we go on translating γῆρας 'eld' and δῶρον 'guerdon' and κίνδυνος 'emprise', lucky if we do not translate it 'derring do'. Father becomes 'sire', much to the disgust of said Arnold. Pindarists are sadly given to 'sire', but the stud-book term is not so much out of place in view of Pindar's insistence on blood (I.E. xxiii). Why should κᾶπος figure as 'demesne'? 'Garden' is familiarly used in the same sense. Myers has the courage to translate πάσσαλος (O. I, 18) by 'peg'. Sandys calls it 'resting-place'. 'Pin' might serve as a compromise. 'Uncle', I grant, is an ugly word with ugly phonetic associations, but a great Pindarist has told us that Pindar does not shy at the ugly (A.J.P. XXVI 115) and Sandys has not bettered the matter by resorting to a dialectic 'eme', which he has to explain in a footnote and which recalls the sinister figure of Oom Paul. After all, the fault, and fault it is, must be construed as a tribute of respect to the 'exemplaria Graeca', though it must be acknowledged that the 'nocturna manus' sometimes evokes a nightmare.

"I.E. xxiii" is a reference to the Introductory Essay of Gildersleeve, ed., Pindar, The Olympian and Pythian Odes (New York: American Book Company, 1885). The page number is incorrect, however — it should be xxviii.

Oom Paul (Uncle Paul) was the Afrikaans nickname of the Boer leader Paul Kruger. Oom is cognate with German Ohm, Old English eam, Scots eme.

Exemplaria Graeca etc. is of course a reference to Horace, Ars Poetica 268-269 (tr. John Conington):

Make Greece your model when you write,
And turn her volumes over day and night.

                        vos exemplaria Graeca
nocturna versate manu, versate diurna.