Laudator Temporis Acti

That remark of Plato's (or whoever made it) strikes me as very apt. When he had been driven by a storm at sea to an unknown land and cast up on a lonely shore, and the others were in terror because they knew nothing of the place, he is supposed to have noticed some geometric figures drawn in the sand. On seeing them he cried 'Take heart! I see the traces of men!' He drew this conclusion, evidently, not from any crops which he saw growing in the fields, but from the signs of intellectual activity. That is why, Tubero, I have always valued learning, and educated men, and those interests of yours.

ut mihi Platonis illud, seu quis dixit alius, perelegans esse videatur, quem cum ex alto ignotas ad terras tempestas et in desertum litus detulisset, timentibus ceteris propter ignorationem locorum, animadvertisse dicunt in arena geometricas formas quasdam esse descriptas; quas ut vidisset, exclamavisse ut bono essent animo: videre enim se hominum vestigia. quae videlicet ille non ex agri consitura quapiam cernebat, sed ex doctrinae indiciis interpretabatur. quamobrem, Tubero, semper mihi et doctrina et eruditi homines et tua ista studia placuerunt.

quapiam Powell: quam codd.

My own feeling is different; I shall find antiquity a rewarding study, if only because, while I am absorbed in it, I shall be able to turn my eyes from the troubles which for so long have tormented the modern world, and to write without any of that over-anxious consideration which may well plague a writer on contemporary life, even if it does not lead him to conceal the truth.

ego contra hoc quoque laboris praemium petam, ut me a conspectu malorum quae nostra tot per annos vidit aetas, tantisper certe dum prisca illa tota mente repeto, avertam, omnis expers curae quae scribentis animum, etsi non flectere a vero, sollicitum tamen efficere posset.

He is ever consorting with the young, and such also is he: well says the old saw, 'Like and like together strike.'

μετὰ δὲ νέων ἀεὶ σύνεστί τε καὶ ἔστιν· ὁ γὰρ παλαιὸς λόγος εὖ ἔχει, ὡς ὅμοιον ὁμοίῳ ἀεὶ πελάζει.

And you have also come across those writings of eminent sages, which tell us this very thing—that like must needs be always friend to like?

οὐκοῦν καὶ τοῖς τῶν σοφωτάτων συγγράμμασιν ἐντετύχηκας ταῦτα αὐτὰ λέγουσιν, ὅτι τὸ ὅμοιον τῷ ὁμοίῳ ἀνάγκη ἀεὶ φίλον εἶναι;

For like is akin to like by nature.

τὸ γὰρ ὅμοιον τῷ ὁμοίῳ φύσει συγγενές ἐστιν.

It seems to me that the closest possible friendship between man and man is that mentioned by the sages of old time as 'like to like.'

φίλος μοι δοκεῖ ἕκαστος ἑκάστῳ εἶναι ὡς οἷόν τε μάλιστα, ὅνπερ οἱ παλαιοί τε καὶ σοφοὶ λέγουσιν, ὁ ὅμοιος τῷ ὁμοίῳ.

But there is much difference of opinion as to the nature of friendship. Some define it as a matter of similarity; they say that we love those who are like ourselves: whence the proverbs 'Like finds his like,' 'Birds of a feather flock together,' and so on....

διαμφισβητεῖται δὲ περὶ αὐτῆς οὐκ ὀλίγα. οἳ μὲν γὰρ ὁμοιότητά τινα τιθέασιν αὐτὴν καὶ τοὺς ὁμοίους φίλους, ὅθεν τὸν ὅμοιόν φασιν ὡς τὸν ὅμοιον, καὶ κολοιὸν ποτὶ κολοιόν, καὶ τὰ τοιαῦτα...

Like is the friend of like.

τὸ ὅμοιον τῷ ὁμοίῳ φίλον.

• Jackdaws
• People of the Same Stock
• Incompatibility
• Flocking Together
• Birds of a Feather Flock Together
• Like Is Dear to Like
• Akin and Alike
• Worlds Apart

Markland is the type of the pure-hearted scholar. He was content with the company of his books; he was without ambition and without vices. He believed that a scholar should be humanus. 'What profit is it', he asked, 'if an education in letters instead of making us, as it professes to, gentle, upright, simple, frank, modest and kindly towards all men, renders us fierce, virulent, cunning, arrogant, malignant and implacable towards all who presume to differ from us even in trifles.'¹

1 Supplices, Dedication.

Quid prodest, si pro Mitibus, Probis, Simplicibus, Ingenuis, Modestis, Benevolis erga omnes Homines, quales promittit Literata Institutio; ea nos dimittat Feroces, Maledicos, Versutos, Insolentes, Malignos, Implacabiles omnibus qui a nobis dissentire ausi fuerint, etiam in nugis?

At this point in the narrative it occurs to me to comment on the manner in which Fortune makes sport of human affairs, not always visiting men in the same manner nor regarding them with uniform glance, but changing about with the changes of time and place; and she plays a kind of game with them, shifting the value of the poor wretches according to the variations of time, place, or circumstance...

ἐνταῦθά μοι τοῦ λόγου ἔννοια γέγονεν ὅντινα ἡ τύχη διαχλευάζει τὰ ἀνθρώπεια τρόπον, οὐκ ἀεὶ κατὰ ταὐτὰ παρὰ τοὺς ἀνθρώπους ἰοῦσα οὐδὲ ἴσοις αὐτοὺς ὀφθαλμοῖς βλέπουσα, ἀλλὰ ξυμμεταβαλλομένη χρόνῳ καὶ τόπῳ, καὶ παίζει ἐς αὐτοὺς παιδιάν τινα παρὰ τὸν καιρὸν ἢ τὸν χῶρον ἢ τὸν τρόπον διαλλάσσουσα τὴν τῶν ταλαιπώρων ἀξίαν...

As an Oxford man, he struck me as a prig: he was always throwing his education about.

What is god? Everything.

τί θεός; τὸ πάν.

[29] But here again Fortune was obviously disporting herself and tearing human affairs to shreds by way of making a display of her own perverse nature and unaccountable will; for she had endowed Totila of her own free will with prosperity for no particular reason for a long time, and then after this fashion smote the man with cowardice and destruction at the present time for no fitting cause. [30] But these things, I believe, have never been comprehensible to man, nor will they ever become so at any future time. And yet there is always much talk on this matter and opinions are being for ever bandied about according to each man's taste, as he seeks comfort for his ignorance in an explanation which seems reasonable.

[29] ἀλλὰ καὶ νῦν ἡ τύχη ὡραϊζομένη τε διαφανῶς καὶ διασύρουσα τὰ ἀνθρωπεια τό τε παράλογον τὸ αὐτῆς ἴδιον καὶ τὸ τοῦ βουλήματος ἀπροφάσιστον ἐπιδέδεικται, Τουτίλᾳ μὲν τὴν εὐδαιμονίαν ἐξ αἰτίας οὐδεμιᾶς ἐπὶ χρόνου μῆκος αὐτοματίσασα, δειλίαν δὲ οὕτω τῷ ἀνθρώπῳ καὶ καταστροφὴν ἀπαυθαδισαμένη ἐξ οὐ προσηκόντων ἐν τῷ παρόντι. [30] ἀλλὰ ταῦτα μὲν ἀνθρώπῳ, οἶμαι, καταληπτὰ οὔτε γέγονε πώποτε οὔτε μήποτε ὕστερον ἔσται· λέγεται δὲ ἀεὶ καὶ δοξάζεται διαψιθυριζόμενα ἐς τὸν πάντα αἰῶνα, ὥς πη ἑκάστῳ φίλον, λόγῳ τῷ εἰκότι δοκοῦντι εἶναι παρηγοροῦντι τὴν ἄγνοιαν.

Courage is the very best gift of all; courage stands before everything, it does, it does! It is what maintains and preserves our liberty, safety, life, and our homes and parents, our country and children. Courage comprises all things: a man with courage has every blessing.

virtus praemium est optumum;
virtus omnibus rebus anteit profecto:
libertas, salus, vita, res et parentes,          650
patria et prognati                                      650a
tutantur, servantur:
virtus omnia in sese habet, omnia adsunt
bona quem penest virtus.

648 post optumum praemiorum add. Onions, nam virtute add. Havet
650a post patria hac add. Palmer
653 post bona ei add. Havet

But the vast number of the enemy is worthy only to be despised, seeing that they present a collection of men from the greatest possible number of nations. For an alliance which is patched together from many sources gives no firm assurance of either loyalty or power, but being split up in nationality it is naturally divided likewise in purpose.

τοῦ δὲ τῶν πολεμίων ὁμίλου ὑπερφρονεῖν ἄξιον, ἐξ ἐθνῶν ξυνειλεγμένων ὅτι μάλιστα πλείστων. ξυμμαχία γὰρ πολλαχόθεν ἐρανισθεῖσα οὔτε τὴν πίστιν οὔτε τὴν δύναμιν ἀσφαλῆ φέρεται, ἀλλὰ σχοζομένη τοῖς γένεσι μερίζεται καὶ ταῖς γνώμαις εἰκότως.

The Church in the Middle Ages tolerated many religious extravagances, provided they did not lead up to novelties of a revolutionary sort, in morals or in doctrine. So long as it spent itself in hyperbolic fancies or in ecstasies, superabundant emotion was not a source of danger. Thus, many saints were conspicuous for their fanatical reverence for virginity, taking the form of a horror of all that relates to sex. Saint Colette is an instance of this. She is a typical representative of what has been called by William James the theopathic condition. Her supersensibility is extreme. She can endure neither the light nor the heat of fire, only the light of candles. She has an immoderate horror of flies, ants and slugs, and of all dirt and stenches of all kinds. Her abomination of sexual functions inspires her with repugnance for those saints who have passed through the matrimonial state, and leads her to oppose the admission of non-virginal persons to her congregation. The Church has ever praised such a disposition, judging it to be edifying and meritorious.

Let us imagine a man who, while standing on the street, would say to himself: "It is six o'clock in the evening, the working day is over. Now I can go for a walk, or I can go to the club; I can also climb up the tower to see the sun set; I can go to the theater; I can visit this friend or that one; indeed, I also can run out of the gate, into the wide world, and never return. All of this is strictly up to me, in this I have complete freedom. But still I shall do none of these things now, but with just as free a will I shall go home to my wife."

Wollen wir uns einen Menschen denken, der, etwan auf der Gasse stehend, zu sich sagte: „Es ist 6 Uhr Abends, die Tagesarbeit ist beendigt. Ich kann jezt einen Spaziergang machen; oder ich kann in den Klub gehn; ich kann auch auf den Thurm steigen, die Sonne untergehn zu sehn; ich kann auch ins Theater gehn; ich kann auch diesen, oder aber jenen Freund besuchen; ja, ich kann auch zum Thor hinauslaufen, in die weite Welt, und nie wiederkommen. Das Alles steht allein bei mir, ich habe völlige Freiheit dazu; thue jedoch davon jetzt nichts, sondern gehe ebenso freiwillig nach Hause, zu meiner Frau.“

Somehow I came to read Italian. I taught myself through reading articles in Italian journals and Italian books on tenth-century Rome, on the Norman kingdom of Sicily, and on the fascinating figure of the emperor Frederick the Second (1194-1250). I approached these books on the happy-go-lucky principle that Italian was, somehow, a mixture of the best in French and the worst in Latin. To read the orotund prose of Italian historians was like coming upon the firm lines of a Roman inscription in a late, late Latin that had gone to seed, warmed in Mediterranean sunlight.

Aeneas, his lieutenants and fair Ascanius
Sat themselves down beneath the boughs of a tall tree
To have a meal. Now it happened—Jupiter prompted the action—
They laid the viands on flat cakes of meal about the grass,
Using those cereal mats to heap the fruits of the earth on.

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.

For evil men cannot change their character either in prosperity or in adversity, though it is true as a general thing that, during periods of ill fortune, they are wont to conceal it, particularly when they need something from their neighbours, their need compelling them to cover up their baseness of heart.

πονηροὶ γὰρ ἄνθρωποι τὸν αὑτῶν τρόπον ἀμείβειν μὲν οὐκ εὐτυχοῦντες, οὐ πράσσοντες κακῶς δύνανται, ἀποκρύπτειν δὲ αὐτὸν ἐκ τοῦ ἐπὶ πλεῖστον ἐν κακοπαθείαις εἰώθασιν, ἄλλως τε ἢν καὶ τῶν πέλας τινὸς δέωνται, τῆς χρείας αὐτοὺς συγκαλύπτειν ἀναγκαζούσης τὴν μοχθηρίαν.

Let her keep harping on about Zeus-of-blood-relatives.

ἐφυμνείτω Δία / ξύναιμον.

θεῶν — τῶν ἐγγενῶν] I.e. 'who preside over and defend the rights of relationship.' Gl. P: ἐγχωρίων. Cf. on Ant. 199. θεοὺς τοὺς ἐγγενεῖς. Aesch. Sept. 564. θεοὺς τοὺς ἐγγενεῖς. In Latin 'dii gentilicii.' Called elsewhere θεοὶ πατρῷοι (411), and ὁμόγνιοι (Oed. C. 1333. Plat. Legg. 729 C.). So Ζεὺς ξύναιμος Ant. 659.

War depends for its decision in large measure upon the commissary, and those in want of supplies are inevitably bound to be defeated by their enemy. For valour cannot dwell together with hunger, since nature will not permit a man to be starving and to be brave at the same time.

πολλή τις ἐπὶ ταῖς δαπάναις ἀπόκειται τοῦ πολέμου ῥοπή, τούς τε τῶν ἐπιτηδείων σπανίζοντας ἡττᾶσθαι τῶν πολεμίων ἐπάναγκες. λιμῷ γὰρ οὐκ οἶδεν ἡ ἀρετὴ ξυνοικίξεσθαι, πεινῆν τε καὶ ἀνδραγαθίζεσθαι οὐκ ἀνεχομένης τῆς φύσεως.

In the long run, the only way into the European Middle Ages was an old-fashioned one: reading—tenacious Sitzfleisch, sedentary study, in one's rooms, in the Radclife Camera undergraduate library, in the Upper and Lower Reading Rooms of the Bodleian Library, and—when in Ireland—in the armchair in the sitting room or beside the Moloch in the kitchen during the long, quiet vacations.

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

The younger generation does not want instruction. It is perfectly willing to instruct if any one will listen to it.

That which Heraclitus avoided, however, is still the same as that which we shun today: the noise and democratic chatter of the Ephesians, their politics, their latest news of the "Empire," (the Persian, you understand) their market business of "today"—for we philosophers need to be spared one thing above all: everything to do with "today." We reverence what is still, cold, noble, distant, past, and in general everything in the face of which the soul does not have to defend itself and wrap itself up—what one can speak to without speaking aloud.

Das aber, dem Heraklit auswich, ist das Gleiche noch, dem wir jetzt aus dem Wege gehn: der Lärm und das Demokraten-Geschwätz der Ephesier, ihre Politik, ihre Neuigkeiten vom „Reich“ (Persien, man versteht mich), ihr Markt-Kram von „Heute,“—denn wir Philosophen brauchen zu allererst vor Einem Ruhe: vor allem „Heute.“ Wir verehren das Stille, das Kalte, das Vornehme, das Ferne, das Vergangne, Jegliches überhaupt, bei dessen Aspekt die Seele sich nicht zu vertheidigen und zuzuschnüren hat,—Etwas, mit dem man reden kann, ohne laut zu reden.

And when he was requested by them to make laws, he scorned the request because the state was already in the grip of a bad constitution. He would retire to the temple of Artemis and play at knuckle-bones with the boys; and when the Ephesians stood round him and looked on, "Why, you rascals," he said, "are you astonished? Is it not better to do this than to take part in your civil life?"

ἀξιούμενος δὲ καὶ νόμους θεῖναι πρὸς αὐτῶν ὑπερεῖδε διὰ τὸ ἤδη κεκρατῆσθαι τῇ πονηρᾷ πολιτείᾳ τὴν πόλιν. ἀναχωρήσας δ᾿ εἰς τὸ ἱερὸν τῆς Ἀρτέμιδος μετὰ τῶν παίδων ἠστραγάλιζε· περιστάντων δ᾿ αὐτὸν τῶν Ἐφεσίων, "τί, ὦ κάκιστοι, θαυμάζετε;" εἶπεν· "ἢ οὐ κρεῖττον τοῦτο ποιεῖν ἢ μεθ᾿ ὑμῶν πολιτεύεσθαι;"

[5] Yet the Romans love their city above all the men we know, and they are eager to protect all their ancestral treasures and to preserve them, so that nothing of the ancient glory of Rome may be obliterated. [6] For even though they were for a long period under barbarian sway, they preserved the buildings of the city and the most of its adornments, such as could through the excellence of their workman­ship withstand so long a lapse of time and such neglect. [7] Furthermore, all such memorials of the race as were still left are preserved even to this day...

[5] καίτοι ἀνθρώπων μάλιστα πάντων ὧν ἡμεῖς ἴσμεν φιλοπόλιδες Ῥωμαῖοι τυγχάνουσιν ὄντες, περιστέλλειν τε τὰ πάτρια πάντα καὶ διασώζεσθαι ἐν σπουδῇ ἔχουσιν, ὅπως δὴ μηδὲν ἀφανίζηται Ῥώμῃ τοῦ παλαιοῦ κόσμου. [6] οἵ γε καὶ πολύν τινα βεβαρβαρωμένοι αἰῶνα τάς τε πόλεως διεσώσαντο οἰκοδομίας καὶ τῶν ἐγκαλλωπισμάτων τὰ πλεῖστα, ὅσα οἷόν τε ἦν χρόνῳ τε τοσούτῳ τὸ μῆκος καὶ τῷ ἀπαμελεῖσθαι δἰ ἀρετὴν τῶν πεποιημένων ἀντέχειν. [7] ἔτι μέντοι καὶ ὅσα μνημεῖα τοῦ γένους ἐλέλειπτο ἔτι...

You will take no wealth to the waters of Acheron:
fool, you will be naked when you travel on the ferry of the world below.
Victor and vanquished meet as equals among the dead:
beside consul Marius sits captive Jugurtha in the boat.
Croesus of Lydia differs not from Irus of Dulichium:
that death is best which comes when life has been first enjoyed.

haud ullas portabis opes Acherontis ad undas:
    nudus in inferna, stulte, vehere rate.
victor cum victo pariter miscetur in umbris:        15
    consule cum Mario, capte Iugurtha, sedes.
Lydus Dulichio non distat Croesus ab Iro:
    optima mors, carpta quae venit ante die.

14 <in> Barber inferna . . . rate ς: [ad] inferna[s] . . . rate[s] Ω
15 victo Willis: victis Ω | miscetur <in> Housman: miscebitur Ω
18 carpta Baehrens: parca Ω | ante Helm: acta Ω

Verse 14 needs only the briefest word: <IN> INferna, stulte,... rate (Palmer, and independently Barber) led by the easily discernible stages of inferna ... rate and infernas ... rate and infernas ... rates to a point which clamoured for the insertion of the preposition ad. For the elegiac Muse there exists only one infernal boat, and the dead are uecti, "given passage," not to it, nor from it, but in it.

The first couplet addresses an imaginary reader "You will not take your wealth with you to the underworld,"; the second contains the platitude "Victor and vanquished sit side by side in the underworld." More precisely the Latin of the third verse says, according to the manuscripts, "Victor will be equally mingled with the vanquished shades," with three flaws. (1) The future tense destroys the logic of the couplet. The theme is "Victor and vanquished are as one in death," not will be: the futures of 13f are apt and prophetic, since the poet apostrophizes someone alive; but in 15f the statement is universal and, as the pentameter shows, requires the timeless aspect of the present. (2) "Vanquished shades" is a gross inelegancy for "the shades of the vanquished"; and after his uictrix cum uictis, a reductio ad absurdum if ever there was one, Postgate must be summarily divested of the laurels with which we have just crowned him. The first verse shows how unlikely the poet was to speak of opulentae umbrae: his very theme is that there exists no discrimination between umbrae. (3) "The victor will be equally mingled ..." is nonsense: equally with what? On the construction of pariter in Propertius' sentence, Ovid, Her. 8.57 will throw valuable light: ora mihi pariter cum mente tumescunt "My face and mind are equally swollen with anger": pariter cum serves as an alternative to et ... pariter (cf. Ovid, Ars 2.728 pariter femina uirque "woman and man alike"). Thus we must interpret "Victor and vanquished shades alike will be mingled": but mingled how or where or when or why? The sentence now lacks a formal predicate.

Housman (JP 16 [1888] 9) removed these three distinct flaws by the neat conjecture miscetur in "Victor and vanquished alike are mingled among the dead" (i.e., are numbered among the dead). Clearly, in was swallowed up by um-bris, and, under the influence of the futures in the preceding lines, some scribe replaced miscetur with miscebitur to fill up the verse.

Now it happened not long ago that I challenged my classmate James Willis, quo non praestantior alter, to emend this crux, and without remembrance of Housman's conjecture or the slightest hint from me he duly came up with miscetur in. But to my consternation he came up with more: he pointed out that the inconcinnity of number in uictor cum uictis, harsh in itself, cannot be imputed to Propertius when augmented by the homoeoptoton ... -is... -is in unrelated words at caesura and verse-end. Willis' emendation is:

uictor cum uicto pariter miscetur in umbris.

Someone has altered cum uicto . .. miscebitur umbris to cum uictis... miscebitur umbris.

Verse 18, "that death is best which comes driven by thrifty day," has by virtue of its manifest unintelligibility impelled most critics to pronounce it corrupt. Though common sense will not itself restore the original words for us, it will nevertheless permit us to reject out of hand with the utmost assurance Lachmann's Parcae: "that death is the best which comes driven by the day of the Fate." Pass over the conundrums of death being driven, of death's being driven by a day, of a day of Fate, of the Fates being reduced from three to one: what would this conjecture mean? It would mean that, if one is fated to be cut off in childhood, to be butchered in war, to be stricken down by disease, or to perish in some horrible tragedy, then that death is best. There lurks, alas, a Beckmesser in even the greatest of Meistersinger, and it chose this moment to appear in Lachmann.

Let us turn quickly to Baehrens' felicitous and, of course, certain restoration carpta quae uenit . . . die "which does not come until life has been enjoyed" (cf. Hor. Carm. 1.11.8): the route from carp(t)a to parca is a short one, and retracing it brings us back to sanity. We are, however, not yet through. With carpta, acta cannot stand: senseless before, it is impossible now. Baehrens himself discarded it in favour of apta (DV), a feeble attempt to improve on acta, as Luck's contrived translation betrays: "Der Tod ist der beste, der im rechten Augenblick, wenn man das Leben genossen hat, kommt," i.e., optima mors est, quae optima ... uenit. What Propertius wrote was carpta quae uenit ante die (Helm, BPW 54 [1934] 170) "'which does not come until life has first been enjoyed." Compare 1.1.2 contactum nullis ante cupidinibus; Ovid, Fast. 1.234, Her. 3.87. After the corruption of carpta, ante lacked a connection with the grammar of the sentence, and was doomed.

The endless complaint of the frailty of all earthly glory was sung to various melodies. Three motifs may be distinguished. The first is expressed by the question: Where are now all those who once filled the world with their splendour? The second motif dwells on the frightful spectacle of human beauty gone to decay. The third is the death-dance: death dragging along men of all conditions and ages.

And I see evil reign so fully
That it has conquered and dominated the world,
So that one can scarcely find a country
Whose head is not caught in its trap.

E vei tant renhar malvestat
Que .I segl' a vencut e so brat,
Si qu'apenas truep nulh paes
Qu'el cap non aj'a son latz pres.

• Deterioration
• False Teachers

[35] When Chosroes and the Medic army were storming the fortifications of Edessa, one of the elephants, mounted by a great number of the most warlike men among the Persians, came close to the circuit-wall and made it seem that in a short space he would overpower the men defending the tower at that point, seeing they were exposed to missiles falling thickly from above, and would thus take the city. [36] For it seemed that this was, in fact, an engine for the capture of cities. The Romans, however, by suspending a pig from the tower escaped this peril. [37] For as the pig was hanging there, he very naturally gave vent to sundry squeals, and this angered the elephant so that he got out of control and, stepping back little by little, moved off to the rear. Such was the outcome of that situation.

But perhaps the universities taught best by leaving the undergraduates alone. Johnson had a low opinion of the formal teaching at Pembroke, but he read widely by himself, and his reading included Greek, in particular Homer and Euripides.⁴ And in the same college a few years later we hear of a 'very sober little party, who amused themselves in the evening with reading Greek and drinking water';⁵ the authors they chose were those seldom read at school, such as Theophrastus, Epictetus and Phalaris. At Balliol in 1794 Southey was told by his tutor that he would learn nothing from his lectures and that he had better pursue his own studies; left to himself he used to rise at five in the morning to read Homer.⁶ Henry Fynes Clinton the chronologist, who was at Christ Church when it enjoyed a great reputation under Cyril Jackson, derived more advantage from discussions with friends than from his official teachers.⁷

4 Boswell, Life of Johnson (ed. Hill), I, p. 70.
5 Richard Graves, Recollections of William Shenstone, p. 13.
6 Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey (1859), I, p. 215.
7 Clinton, Literary Remains, p. 11.

It was a commonplace among undergraduates at Oxford that we learned more from each other than we ever learned from any lectures or, even, from our tutors.

I was reminded of this Sanskrit proverb:

ācāryāt pādam ādatte
pādaṃ śiṣyaḥ svamedhayā |
pādaṃ sabrahmacāribhyaḥ
pādaṃ kālakrameṇa ca || (variant: "pādaḥ kālena pacyate")

“One-fourth is learned from the teacher,
one-fourth the student grasps on his own,
one-fourth from fellow students, and
one-fourth with the passage of time. (or: one-fourth gets "cooked" with time.)

Be warned, my son. No man alive is free
From error, but the wise and prudent man
When he has fallen into evil courses
Does not persist, but tries to find amendment.
It is the stubborn man who is the fool.

ταῦτ᾽ οὖν, τέκνον, φρόνησον. ἀνθρώποισι γὰρ
τοῖς πᾶσι κοινόν ἐστι τοὐξαμαρτάνειν·
ἐπεὶ δ᾽ ἁμάρτῃ, κεῖνος οὐκέτ᾽ ἔστ᾽ ἀνὴρ        1025
ἄβουλος οὐδ᾽ ἄνολβος, ὅστις ἐς κακὸν
πεσὼν ἀκῆται μηδ᾽ ἀκίνητος πέλῃ.
αὐθαδία τοι σκαιότητ᾽ ὀφλισκάνει.

1025 f. ἐπεί, instead of ἐπάν, with subjunct.: O.C. 1225. The subject to ἁμάρτῃ (ἀνήρ, or τις) is quickly supplied by the next clause.—ἄνολβος, of folly, as Ai. 1156: so δύσποτμος, O.T. 888.

1027 ἀκεῖται. Il. 13.115 ἀλλ᾽ ἀκεώμεθα θᾶσσον· ἀκεσταί τοι φρένες ἐσθλῶν.— ἀκίνητος: cp. O.T. 336 ἄτεγκτος. Plat. Tim. 51 E τὸ μὲν ἀεὶ μετὰ ἀληθοῦς λόγου, τὸ δὲ ἄλογον· καὶ τὸ μὲν ἀκίνητον πειθοῖ, τὸ δὲ μεταπειστόν. Il. 15.203 ἤ τι μεταστρέψεις; στρεπταὶ μέν τε φρένες ἐσθλῶν.

1028 αὐθαδία (poet. for αὐθάδεια), self-will, incurs the reproach of σκαιότης (for ὀφλισκάνει cp. 470). As δεξιός is a quick-witted man, of flexible and receptive mind, so σκαιός is one whose mental clumsiness makes him unapt to learn. σκαιότης, ‘ineptitude,’ is often associated with ignorance and with inaccessibility to new ideas. Cp. Plat. Rep. 411 E; one who omits to cultivate his mind acts βίᾳ...καὶ ἀγριότητι, ὥσπερ θηρίον..., καὶ ἐν ἀμαθίᾳ καὶ σκαιότητι μετὰ ἀρρυθμίας τε καὶ ἀχαριστίας ζῇ. Lys. or. 10 § 15 ἡγοῦμαι...τοῦτον...οὕτω σκαιὸν εἷναι ὥστε οὐ δύνασθαι μαθεῖν τὰ λεγόμενα. Aristoph. Vesp. 1183 ὦ σκαιὲ κἀπαίδευτε. So here σκαιότης expresses a stupidity that is deaf to remonstrance.

But he says the whole thing is a very inconsiderable point, which a wise man would grudge the throwing away a week's thought upon (p. 24). And I doubt not but many others, whose designs and studies are remote from this kind of learning, will follow this censure. To such men as these I must answer, that, if the dispute be quite out of their way, they have liberty to let it alone; it was not designed for them, but for others, that know how to value it; who, if the principal point about Phalaris were quite dropt, will think the other heads, that are here occasionally handled, not unworthy of a scholar. But that the single point whether Phalaris be genuine or no, is of no small importance to learning, the very learned Mr. Dodwell is a sufficient evidence; who, espousing Phalaris for a true author, has endeavoured by that means to make a great innovation in the ancient Chronology. To undervalue this dispute about Phalaris because it does not suit to one's own studies, is to quarrel with a circle because it is not a square. If the question be not of vulgar use, it was writ therefore for a few; for even the greatest performances upon the most important subjects are no entertainment at all to the many of the world.

So do: and avoid the talk of men. For Talk is mischievous, light, and easily raised, but hard to bear and difficult to be rid of. Talk never wholly dies away when many people voice her: even Talk is in some ways divine.

ὧδ᾽ ἔρδειν· δεινὴν δὲ βροτῶν ὑπαλεύεο φήμην.
φήμη γάρ τε κακὴ πέλεται, κούφη μὲν ἀεῖραι
ῥεῖα μάλ᾽, ἀργαλέη δὲ φέρειν, χαλεπὴ δ᾽ ἀποθέσθαι.
φήμη δ᾽ οὔτις πάμπαν ἀπόλλυται, ἥν τινα πολλοὶ
λαοὶ φημίξωσι· θεός νύ τίς ἐστι καὶ αὐτή.

Most of our classrooms were dull and the teaching purely mechanical; a curse hung over the Faculty, a blight on the art of teaching. Many professors were merely hearers of prepared recitations; they never showed any living interest, either in the studies or in the students. I remember we had Homer three hours a week during the entire year. The instructor never changed the monotonous routine, never made a remark, but simply called on individuals to recite or to scan, said 'That will do,' put down a mark; so that in the last recitation in June, after a whole college year of this intolerable classroom drudgery, I was surprised to hear him say, and again without any emphasis, 'The poems of Homer are the greatest that have ever proceeded from the the mind of man, class is dismissed,' and we went out into the sunshine. Two Freshmen instructors shone by contrast; a young teacher of Latin named Ambrose Tighe, who left Yale in a few years, and had a fine career as a lawyer and member of the legislature in Minnesota. He tried to teach us Roman history as well as Latin grammar; he talked about Horace as though Horace were a man about town, and he himself looked and acted like a man of the world. I remember his saying that he would like to teach us Lucretius, but that he did not know enough; 'for,' said he, 'in comparison with Lucretius, the entire works of Horace and Virgil sink into insignificance.' The older members of the Faculty looked upon Mr. Tighe with suspicion. He made Latin interesting; and they got rid of him.

One of our instructors in Greek, the opposite in all respects of the Greek teacher I have mentioned, was Horatio Reynolds; he had a defective leg, and was by us affectionately called 'step-and-a-half,' shortened to 'Steppy'—while later college generations always spoke of him as 'Limpy.' He was universally beloved. He told us we ought to read some Greek history outside of the classroom. Therefore for several months, I stayed up one hour later, and every night from ten to eleven, I read Grote's History of Greece—one of the best things I ever did.

γαίης...γενεὴ...πατρὶς ἄρουρα Just as πόθεν (170 n.) refers to familial rather than geographical origins, so these words probably have less to do with place than with kinship. Old Iranian evidence suggests that Indo-European thought recognized four levels of belonging (Benveniste 1969: 1.293-319): nmāna- ('house'), vīs ('clan'), zantu ('tribe'), and dahyu ('country', 'nation'). Whilst γενεή is cognate with Avestan zantu, there are no other etymological correspondences here. We are probably dealing with lexical replacement: γαῖα (not γαίη in the nom., Chantraine 1958: 198) corresponds with dahyu and πατρὶς ἄρουρα with nmāna- (by reference to the ancestral turf). The Homeric terms are arranged in descending order of magnitude and there are three rather than four. Nevertheless, they likely reflect a traditional PIE constellation of ideas.

The social organization proper rests on a quite different classification: society is considered not in the light of the nature and hierarchy of its classes, but as what may be called its national extension, a man being regarded as belonging to circles of increasing magnitude. This structure is clearest in ancient Iran. It comprises four concentric circles, four social and territorial divisions which, proceeding from the smallest unit, increase in size until they comprise the whole of the community. The terms which designate them are:

1. dam-, dǝmāna-, nmāna- (equivalent forms which are distributed according to the date of the texts), “family” and “house.” The second form, dǝmāna-, is derived from the first, dam-, by suffixation, and dǝmāna- evolved by sound change to nmāna-.

2. Above this, vīs ‘clan’, a group of several families.

3. Above this, zantu ‘tribe’, properly “the whole of those of the same birth.”

4. Finally, dahyu, which may be rendered as “country.”

Alongside each of these Iranian terms we can put the Sanskrit correspondent: dam ‘house’ (Av. dam-); viś- ‘community, people’ (Av. vīs-); jantu- ‘creature’ (Av. zantu-). To the fourth term, Avestan dahyu- ‘country’, corresponds Vedic dasyu which, in circumstances which we shall try to determine, has taken on the sense of “barbarian enemy population.” But in India we do not find an organic connection between these four terms. They no longer form a whole. The ancient schema is already altered. Iranian society has been more conservative.

The same observation is true of the classical languages. We find words that are the congeners of the first three terms: Gr. démos (δέμος) [sic, read dómos (δόμος)], Lat. domus; Gr. woîkos (wοῖĸoς); Lat. metis [sic, read vīcus]; and Gr. génos (γένος) (a neuter in -s), Lat. gens (a feminine in -ti, hence Lat. *genti- as compared with *gentu-, the prototype of the Iranian term). But in the classical world they do not constitute a series any more than they do in India. The correspondence is simply etymological. In Greek and Latin, these inherited words are not arranged as they are in Iranian. There is not even parallelism between Latin and Greek. Far from constituting two distinct social units, Gr. dómos and (w)oîkos signify practically the same thing, “house.” Date, dialect and style govern the choice of one or the other. Nor does Latin present the Iranian structure: vīcus is not the superior grade to domus; it differs from vīs in Iranian and also from (w)oîkos in Greek.

Furthermore, in Greece and Rome, new words unknown to Indo-Iranian joined this ancient series; e.g. Gr. phulḗ (φυλή) and Lat. tribus.

But as things are, the intelligent are infected by a gross mental disorder which makes them defend the irrational workings of their minds as if they were logic and truth itself, even when the evidence has been put before them as plainly as is humanly possible. Either they are too blind to see what is put before their face, or they are too perversely obstinate to admit what they see. The result is that we are forced very often to give an extended exposition of the obvious, as if we were not presenting it for people to look at, but for them to touch and handle with their eyes shut.

nunc vero quoniam ille est maior et taetrior insipientium morbus animorum, quo inrationabiles motus suos, etiam post rationem plene redditam, quanta homini ab homine debetur, sive nimia caecitate, qua nec aperta cernuntur, sive obstinatissima pervicacia, qua et ea quae cernuntur non feruntur, tamquam ipsam rationem veritatemque defendunt, fit necessitas copiosius dicendi plerumque res claras, velut eas non spectantibus intuendas, sed quodam modo tangendas palpantibus et coniventibus offeramus.

Unfortunately, however, there prevails a major and malignant malady of fools, the victims of which mistake their irrational impulses for truth and reason, even when confronted with as much evidence as any man has a right to expect from another. It may be an excess of blindness which prevents them from seeing the most glaring facts, or a perverse obstinacy which prevents them from accepting the facts when seen. This compels me to present more diffusely, not for their closed eyes to see, but, so to speak, for their hands to touch and feel, some obvious points.

As for "the learned," who should know better, they are moved by a perverse hatred of Christianity and like to give academic respectability to popular slanders (2.3). There would seem to be little hope for this audience, either, for as long as they want to disagree with Augustine they will be capable of making endless replies and objections to anything he says."The intelligent," Augustine laments, "are infected by a gross mental disorder which makes them defend the irrational workings of their minds as if they were logic and truth itself, even when the evidence has been put before them as plainly as is humanly possible" (2.1).

Labels: typographical and other errors

For those who come into a situation where safety is despaired of could be saved only by not courting safety; for a fondness for life is wont in most cases to be followed by destruction.

τοὺς γὰρ εἰς ἀπόγνωσιν σωτηρίας ἐλθόντας τοῦτο ἂν διασώσασθαι δύναιτο μόνον, τὸ μὴ τῆς σωτηρίας ἐφίεσθαι· ἐπεὶ τῷ φιλοψύχῳ τὸ διαφθείρεσθαι ἐκ τοῦ ἐπὶ πλεῖστον ἕπεσθαι πέφυκε.

The search after truth plays strange tricks with an historian. He sets out to tell a plain straightforward story, and he finds himself running about in all sorts of places. Insensibly the interest of his story is merged in the excitement of the chase. He cannot bring himself to believe that his readers will not be as interested as he has been in seeing how one point leads to another, how this fact throws light on that, why one clue has to be discarded, and another pursued to the end. As Maitland once wrote: "Out of the thicket may fly a bird worth powder and shot"; but the thicket must be a clue, not any thicket, and the bird must be worth powder and shot, not any bird. If this condition is observed, the story becomes more than a story; it breathes a troubled life of its own as part of a living past. The things which first stirred interest, the picturesque, the amusing, the dramatic, are still there, but are no longer the essential things. Sometimes, as I work at a series of patent and close rolls, I have a queer sensation; the dead entries begin to be alive. It is rather like the experience of sitting down in one’s chair and finding that one has sat on the cat. These are real people, this casual official letter is telling something that really happened, it was written on the impulse of a real emotion.

Amongst the Germans, children are not reared well. Still, we are not writing this for Germans or for any other wild or foreign people, any more than for bears or lions or goats or any other wild beasts, but for Greeks and for all those who although foreign by race nevertheless emulate the customs of the Greeks.

παρὰ μέν γε τοῖς Γερμανοῖς οὐ καλῶς τρέφεται τὰ παιδία. ἀλλ' ἡμεῖς γε νῦν οὔτε Γερμανοῖς οὔτε ἄλλοις τισὶν ἀγρίοις ἢ βαρβάροις ἀνθρώποις ταῦτα γράφομεν, οὐ μᾶλλον ἢ ἄρκτοις ἢ λέουσιν ἢ κάπροις ἤ τισι τῶν ἄλλων θηρίων, ἀλλ' Ἕλλησι καὶ ὅσοι τῷ γένει μὲν ἔφυσαν βάρβαροι, ζηλοῦσι δὲ τὰ τῶν Ἑλλήνων ἐπιτηδεύματα.

ἑκατόμβη Has been the subject of much discussion. It is normally assumed that it referred to a sacrifice of 100 oxen (ἑκατὸν βοῦς) but then lost its specificity with regard both to number and to species. At 1.315-16, it denotes sheep and goats, and elsewhere in the poem it can refer to fifty animals (23.146-8) or even just twelve (6.93 vs. 6.115). Thieme has argued (SBLeipzig 98:5 (1952), 62-76) that the word originally meant an act designed to win the favour of the gods so as to bring in 100 oxen. Whilst this might seem outlandish, there are persuasive parallels in Indic sources, to say nothing of the fact that a sacrifice of 100 oxen in an archaic farming community would probably have spelled economic ruin.

[4] This man then came up close to the fortress and spoke as follows: "Most noble Persians, what has come over you that you are stubbornly holding to this course of destruction, bending your energies with unreasonable zeal to accomplish a certain death and conspicuously dishonouring the practice of valour? For it is not a manly thing to array oneself against the inevitable, nor a wise thing to refuse to bow to those who have won the mastery; nor, on the other hand, is it inglorious to live by falling in with the situation chance has brought. [5] For man, in the grip of necessity which is relieved by no hope of rescue, is thereby justly acquitted of the charge of dishonour, even if he is involved in the most shameful actions; for evil, when it is unavoidable, is naturally followed by forgiveness. [6] Do not, therefore, emulate madmen in the midst of obvious danger, and do not barter your safety for wanton folly, but rather call to mind that it is impossible for the dead to come to life, while the living can destroy themselves at a later time, if indeed this seems best."

[4] Καὶ ὃς ἀγχοτάτω γενόμενος ἔλεξε τοιάδε· "Τί πεπονθότες ἐφ᾿ ὑμῖν αὐτοῖς, ὦ βέλτιστοι Πέρσαι, τὸν ὄλεθρον διατείνεσθε τοῦτον, ἐπιτηδεύοντες τὰ θανάσιμα σπουδῇ ἀλογίστῳ καὶ τῆς ἀρετῆς τὰ ἐπιτηδεύματα διαφανῶς ἀτιμάζοντες; οὐ γάρ ἐστιν ἀνδρεῖον τὸ τοῖς ἀμηχάνοις ἀντιστατεῖν, οὐδὲ ξυνετὸν τὸ μὴ βούλεσθαι τοῖς κεκρατηκόσιν ὑπείκειν· οὐδὲ μὴν ἄδοξον τὸ τύχῃ τῇ παρούσῃ ἑπομένους βιῶναι. [5] ἀνάγκη γὰρ οὐδὲ ἀγαθῆς τινὸς ἐλπίδος τυχοῦσα τὴν ἀτιμίαν ἐκφεύγει δικαίως, ἢν καὶ τῶν ἔργων περιβάλληται τὰ αἰσχρότατα· κακῷ γὰρ τῷ ἀμηχάνῳ τὸ σύγγνωμον ἕπεσθαι πέφυκε. [6] μὴ τοίνυν τὴν ἀπόνοιαν ἐν προὔπτῳ ζηλοῦτε κινδύνῳ, μηδὲ τῆς σωτηρίας τὴν ἀλαζονείαν ἀλλάξασθε, ἀλλ᾿ ἐνθυμεῖσθε ὡς ἀναβιώσεσθαι μὲν τοὺς τετελευτηκότας ἀδύνατον, οἱ δὲ περιόντες καὶ χρόνῳ διαχρήσονται σφᾶς αὐτοὺς ὕστερον, ἤν γε τοῦτο κρεῖσσον εἶναι δοκῇ."

In the Jouvencel we find a remarkable portrayal, hardly to be sur­passed, of the psychology of warlike courage of a simple and touching kind. 'It is a joyous thing, is war. . . . You love your comrade so in war. When you see that your quarrel is just and your blood is fighting well, tears rise to your eye. A great sweet feeling of loyalty and of pity fills your heart on seeing your friend so valiantly exposing his body to execute and accomplish the command of our Creator. And then you prepare to go and die or live with him, and for love not to abandon him. And out of that there arises such a delectation, that he who has not tasted it is not fit to say what a delight it is. Do you think that a man who does that fears death? Not at all; for he feels so strengthened, he is so elated, that he does not know where he is. Truly he is afraid of nothing.'

These sentiments have nothing specifically chivalrous or medieval. The words might have been spoken by a modern soldier. They show us the very core of courage: man, in the excitement of danger, stepping out of his narrow egotism, the ineffable feeling caused by a comrade's bravery, the rapture of fidelity and of sacrifice — in short, the primitive and spontaneous asceticism, which is at the bottom of the chivalrous ideal.

ὑμᾶς δ᾿ ἐγὼ πομποῖσιν ἐκ πάντων δίχα
ἔστειλ᾿ ἱκέσθαι, τοῦτο μὲν τὰ Λαΐου        165
σέβοντας εἰδὼς εὖ θρόνων ἀεὶ κράτη,
τοῦτ᾿ αὖθις, ἡνίκ᾿ Οἰδίπους ὤρθου πόλιν,
                      *    *    *    *    *
κἀπεὶ διώλετ᾿, ἀμφὶ τοὺς κείνων ἔτι
παῖδας μένοντας ἐμπέδοις φρονήμασιν.

¹⁶⁷ post hunc versum lacunam statuit Dindorf

And I have summoned you out of all the people by emissaries, knowing well first that you have always reverenced the power of the throne of Laius, and second that when Oedipus guided the city <with my sister as his wife, you always served them faithfully,> and when he perished, you persisted in loyalty towards their children.

167 post hunc v. lacunam statuit Dindorf: <τούτῳ βεβαίους ὄντας αὖ παραστάτας> Wecklein; possis etiam <ἔχων γυναῖκα τὴν ἐμὴν ὁμόϲπορον, | ὑπηρετοῦνταϲ πιϲτὰ καὶ τούτοιϲ ἀεί,) ut κείνων aliquid significet

167. Gerhard Müller did well to revive Dindorf's diagnosis of a lacuna following this line, for ἀμφὶ ... φρονήμασιν can refer to the time following the ruin of Oedipus, but not to Oedipus' reign. Dawe, STS iii. 103 remarks that κείνων, which as the text is transmitted has to mean 'Laius and Oedipus', heightens the suspicion. It is not easy to fit a mention of Jocasta into a single line after 167, and it may be that more than one line is missing; ex. gr., we suggest <ἔχων γυναῖκα τὴν ἐμὴν ὁμόϲπορον, | ὑπηρετοῦνταϲ πιϲτὰ καὶ τούτοιϲ ἀεί,>.

dum percontor portitores, ecquae nauis uenerit
ex Asia, negant uenisse, conspicatus sum interim
cercurum, quo ego me maiorem non uidisse censeo.
in portum uento secundo, uelo passo peruenit.

While I was asking the customs officers if any ship had come from Asia and they were saying that none had come, I spotted the biggest chipper that I think I've ever seen. It enters the harbor with a favorable wind, full sail.

Labels: typographical and other errors

It is quite a good idea to do what Greek holidaymakers so often do, get yourself 'marooned' for a day or a weekend. Start by borrowing a sack and filling it with a couple of blocks of ice upon which to put your beer, wine, butter, and anything else which might turn with the heat. Strike a price with your boatman to carry you to the bathing beach of your choice and Crusoe you. But if you do this, do not forget to take an umbrella or parasol — even several of them. The stretch of heat from midday to sundown can turn a Nordic skin to roast pork and cost the unwary person a couple of days in bed with fever; it's a fine way to ruin a holiday. Your boatman will return at evening to get you, and carry you home to harbour at sundown, exhausted and happy and burning (in several senses) for a cold shower and an ouzo with ice, plus a slice of delicious cold octopus. There is nothing to compare with the sense of well-being after such a day — and it is all quarried out of frugality. Greece is a wonderful school for hoggish nations; you suddenly realize that you don't need all the clobber of so-called civilization to achieve happiness and physical well-being. Just to think of a Paris menu, or a Los Angeles dustbin, fills one with shame, makes one queasy. How did we get to be this way — we pigs?

For Zeus utterly abhors the boasts of a proud tongue...

Ζεὺς γὰρ μεγάλης γλώσσης κόμπους
ὑπερεχθαίρει...

γλώσσης τε κόμποι.

[F]or I am aware that as a general thing all men, if they first discover an ancient argument, are no longer willing to devote themselves to the labour involved in the search for truth nor to learn instead some later theory about the matter in hand, but the more ancient view always seems to them sound and worthy of honour, while contemporary opinions are considered negligible and are classed as absurd.

ἐκεῖνο εἰδὼς ὡς ἐκ τοῦ ἐπὶ πλεῖστον ἄνθρωποι ἅπαντες, ἤν τινος φθάσωσι λόγου ἀρχαίου πεποιημένοι τὴν μάθησιν, οὐκέτι ἐθέλουσι τῇ τῆς ἀληθείας ζητήσει ἐμφιλοχωροῦντες ταλαιπωρεῖν, οὐδὲ νεωτέραν τινὰ μεταμαθεῖν ἀμφ᾽ αὐτῷ δόξαν, ἀλλὰ ἀεὶ αὐτοῖς τὸ μὲν παλαιότερον ὑγιές τε δοκεῖ καὶ ἔντιμον εἶναι, τὸ δὲ κατ᾽ αὐτοὺς εὐκαταφρόνητον νομίζεται εἶναι καὶ ἐπὶ τὸ γελοιῶδες χωρεῖ.

For I am aware that as a general thing all men, if they first discover a recent argument, are no longer willing to devote themselves to the labour involved in the search for truth nor to learn instead some earlier theory about the matter in hand, but the more recent view always seems to them sound and worthy of honour, while earlier opinions are considered negligible and are classed as absurd.

The best treasure a man can have is a sparing tongue, and the greatest pleasure, one that moves orderly; for if you speak evil, you yourself will soon be worse spoken of.

γλώσσης τοι θησαυρὸς ἐν ἀνθρώποισιν ἄριστος
φειδωλῆς, πλείστη δὲ χάρις κατὰ μέτρον ἰούσης.        720
εἰ δὲ κακὸν εἴποις, τάχα κ᾽ αὐτὸς μεῖζον ἀκούσαις.

The next morning Larry was up as usual, his morning coffee soon followed by glasses of wine. Françoise departed to see her youngest, Edouard, off to school and to run errands. Pierre, her middle son, was in the house with Larry. Around 11.30 Larry shuffled into the bathroom; after some moments, Pierre heard a thump and called to him. When there was no response, he pushed the door open. Larry lay on the floor, unmoving. His face was a raspberry colour. Pierre fetched Françoise from her flat across the road, and the doctor was summoned: there was nothing to be done, he said, and Larry soon stopped breathing. It appeared that a massive cerebral haemorrhage had felled him. Larry had often said that he wanted to die 'on my feet, with all systems working': this would be the ideal Buddhist death, with the dying person alert and fully conscious of the process of death. Apparently Larry was cheated: the man who had prepared for death throughout his life was surprised by it, ignominiously, in the homely act of relieving himself. Perhaps it was not so inappropriate after all. God, as Larry and Pursewarden both appreciated, is a humorist.

Christopher Sykes, Evelyn Waugh's first biographer, gives a very vague account of Waugh's death. When I interviewed Graham Greene, he told me not only that Waugh had died in the toilet but that he had died in the toilet, had drowned, that there had been an inquest. To Greene this appeared as a spectacularly grotesque demise for his friend, strangely appropriate for a novelist who had made Apthorp's chemical toilet a structural motif to mock his vulgarity in Men at Arms (1952). I must admit to a certain illicit thrill on being told the story. Here was a coup, something Sykes had covered up, a macabre image to conclude a book about a man obsessed with the macabre. I could have printed Greene's version and left it as his account. He was quite certain it was true. It had, he said, been reported to him by Father Caraman who was in the house at the time.

Nevertheless, I felt it necessary to check the story out. I wrote to Fr Caraman, a Farm Street priest. In my interview with him I stuck to factual matters. Who was in the house at the time? Who discovered the body? Where did Waugh's last Mass take place and who conducted it? In the course of his answers he stated that Waugh was found face down on the floor with a gash in his head, presumably made by the door handle as he fell after suffering a heart attack; and that his daughter's nanny had attempted mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Finally I came to the 'drowning'. He denied it, denied having told Greene anything of the sort. I wrote to Greene. He insisted that Fr Caraman had told him the story. I wrote to Sykes. Was Greene's story true? Yes, he said, it was but he was appalled to think that Greene was spreading such vulgarity. Sykes knew all about it but thought that the anecdote would only serve Waugh's enemies.

I wrote up my account as best I could from this miasmic scenario and sent it to Caraman for correction. He wrote back saying that it was wrong in almost every detail. I asked him to point out, in detail, where it was wrong. When he did so, approximately 50 per cent of his corrections turned out to be inaccurate but at least this purified a certain amount of the literal truth. I was still left, however, with the problem of how, exactly, Waugh had died. The death certificate mentions only coronary thrombosis. It then struck me that if there had been an inquest, there ought to be official records. I wrote to the Coroner's Office in Taunton. Did they have records? Yes, they did, and would look into it. Eventually they replied: yes, there had been an inquest but the Home Office had sent round a circular instructing that all enquiry papers since 1875 should be destroyed after fifteen years. The only exceptions were treasure trove and cases of historical interest. Evelyn Waugh apparently fell into neither category. Finally, I traced the coroner who had performed the examination. He had no memory of water in the lungs. It was, he said, an autopsy rather than an inquest, perfectly normal procedure when there are no witnesses to a death.

• Death in a Private Place
• Fournier, Vespasian, Claudius, and Elvis
• Death in the Privy

At last the townsfolk could stand it no more: they rose in arms
Against the criminal maniac, besieged him in his palace,
Put his friends to the sword and set the place alight.

at fessi tandem cives infanda furentem
armati circumsistunt ipsumque domumque,         490
obtruncant socios, ignem ad fastigia iactant.

On the other hand, St Paul (who got into trouble almost wherever he went) had a particularly hard time in Crete, for he told Titus (the first Bishop of Crete) that, to quote a poet, the islanders were 'always liars, evil beasts, and slow bellies'. It is clear that he had gone into a bar in Chanea for an ouzo, with a mass of contentious epistles under his arm, and had naturally received what the New York bartenders would call 'the bum's rush'. Much the same thing happened in Cyprus. As for the phrase 'slow bellies', this needs checking with the original; it surely must be a bad translation. How could the saint so assail the digestive tract of the Cretans? Cretans eat faster and more than most islanders. I suspect the passage means something different — perhaps that they were slow to kindle to the faith. At any rate, it is clear St Paul thought the Cretans had not been sent on earth to charm; which suggests he must have been badly treated.

One of themselves, even a prophet of their own, said, The Cretians are alway liars, evil beasts, slow bellies.

εἶπέν τις ἐξ αὐτῶν ἴδιος αὐτῶν προφήτης Κρῆτες ἀεὶ ψεῦσται, κακὰ θηρία, γαστέρες ἀργαί.

venter ... tardus.

From our present position there is unquestiably something very arrogant in the old claims of classical humanism to be the necessary centre of our studies. The supposition that the seeds at least of all knowledge, all wisdom, all philosophy, are contained in the brief experience of a chosen people is no more defensible in secular studies than in theology. Why should two ancient cities, minuscule by the standards of our provincial towns, be the repositories of truth, the sources of civilization, any more than a fanatical semitic hill tribe in Palestine? Such a concept, however it may be sophisticated, is repugnant to those who believe in progress; and it had to be defeated before the idea of progress could be denizened in European thought.

I suppose I really ought to modify my irrational antipathy to Wilamowitz. He did. after all, affect my life. It was because of him that I learned German. Brought up, as I was, in the extraordinary and indeed, it now seems to me the ludicrous belief that one could not be a good classical scholar unless one read the works of this Prussian high-priest of the subject, I obediently set myself, as a first year undergraduate, to master his rebarbative language. After spending the best part of vacations in Germany learning it, I returned to Oxford somewhat disillusioned. With undergraduate confidence, I decided that Wilamowitz, whose works I had now read (or perhaps only tasted) was a fraud and that Nazi Germany was not only very disagreeable itself but also a menace to the world. I therefore used up the linguistic expertise which I had so mistakenly acquired to read Hitler's Mein Kampf, which was not then available in translation. I found it very rewarding, in a certain sense, and the experience has had some influence on my later career. Since war I have occasionally dipped into Mein Kampf again. I have not found any occasion to reread Wilamowitz. My view of him, however erroneous, was fixed in 1934, and I saw him now only as a salutary warning. He symbolised to me the barrenness of a purely literary and philological approach to the classics, and indeed to literature in general, and the absurd pretentiousness of assuming that so narrow an approach can have any wider meaning. He warned me to turn away from line of study which, within those limits, led nowhere.

For whatever my motives in turning away from classical studies, they were not a repudiation of classical literature. Indeed, in a sense, I believe that it was love of that literature which persuaded me to escape from the course which, at that time, seemed likely destroy the passion which had been kindled at school. How vividly I remember each new discovery in that progress! Above all, I member my delight when the vocabulary of Homer, as it were, broke in my hands: when that novel epic dialect, which at first had seemed so strange and difficult, suddenly revealed itself as easy and I found that I could enjoy the poetry. Once that had happened, I would sit up half the night, and had soon read the whole of Homer — indeed, I even won a Homeric crossword puzzle at school, of which I still treasure the prize, and can say with Gibbon that Homer became the most intimate of my friends.

Above all, they loved to emend those texts. How those famous scholars vied with one another in that esoteric parlour-game! How they conjured with syllables, transposed lines, inverted letters, in the hope of finding themselves immortalised, in the apparatus criticus of their successors, with that noblest of epitaphs 'emendatio palmaris'! When I first read the Greek tragedians, I was adjured to marvel at those brilliant tours de force which had made the names of Bentley and Porson and were still regularly continued, as a ritual exercise, in the pages of the Classical journals. Now (I am afraid) I view these ingenious reconstructions with considerable scepticism. My scepticism began when I had my own writings copied by a typist. The most regular error of any typist, I then discovered, was to jump from one word to the same word repeated a line or so later, omitting the intermediate text and thus making nonsense of the whole passage. Clearly, in such circumstances, no amount of textual tinkering can restore the original text. Assuming, as I do, that a certain common humanity links a modern typist with a monastic copyist of the Dark or Middle Ages, I now assume that such omissions are the cause of many corruptions in ancient manuscripts, and ingenious conjecture is effort wasted.

Most good scholars are much fonder of learning than of teaching...

And maintain a dog with sharp teeth, not stinting his food,
in case a couchbyday* robs you of your property.

605 couchbyday: a burglar who works at night.

καὶ κύνα καρχαρόδοντα κομεῖν—μὴ φείδεο σίτου—
μή ποτέ σ᾽ ἡμερόκοιτος ἀνὴρ ἀπὸ χρήμαθ᾽ ἕληται.

604. καρχαρόδοντα: formulaic of the dog, and for Aristotle technical (HA 501^a16 ff.). On the importance of the dog for security cf. Varr. 1.19.3, 2.9, Virg. G. 3.404 ff., Colum. 7.12.

σίτου: perhaps in a general sense, 'food'; but Greek dogs were largely fed on cereals and bread, see Gow on [Theoc.] 21.45, adding Colum. 7.12.10, Dio Prus. 7.17.

605. ἡμερόκοιτος ἀνήρ: = dormitator, Plaut. Trin. 862, 984. Other kennings for the thief are μονοβάτας (Hesych.) and the standard Attic τοιχώρυχος.

As I was passing into the seventeenth year of my life,
Fate snatched me away to the chambers of Persephone;
for god wanted me only to sprint in the torch-race of life,
but to run no further the long course of old age;
I, Dionysios, just now blooming in youthful prime
and in the columns of the Muses, have come to Hades.
But, o father and mother, forsake bitter lamentation;
for Fate established this end-post of life for me.

ἕβδομον εἰς δέκατόν τε βίου λυκάβαντα περῶντα
    Μοῖρά με πρὸς θαλάμους ἅρπασε Φερσεφόνας·
λαμπάδα γὰρ ζωᾶς με δραμεῖν μόνον ἤθελε δαίμων,
    τὸν δὲ μακρὸν γήρως οὐκέτι θεῖν δόλιχον·
ἄρτι δ' ἐφηβείαις θάλλων Διονύσιος ἀκμαῖς        5
    καὶ σελίσιν Μουσῶν ἤλυθον εἰς Ἀΐδαν.
ἀλλὰ πάτερ μᾶτέρ τε, προλείπετε πικρὸν ὀδυρμόν·
    τέρμα γὰρ εἴς με βίου Μοῖρ' ἐπέκρανε τόδε.

He shall mark our goings, question whence we came,
Set his guards about us, as in Freedom's name.

He shall take a tribute, toll of all our ware;
He shall change our gold for arms—arms we may not bear.

He shall break his Judges if they cross his word;
He shall rule above the Law calling on the Lord.

He shall peep and mutter; and the night shall bring
Watchers 'neath our window, lest we mock the King—

Hate and all division; hosts of hurrying spies;
Money poured in secret, carrion breeding flies.

Strangers of his council, hirelings of his pay,
These shall deal our Justice: sell—deny—delay.

We shall drink dishonour, we shall eat abuse
For the Land we look to—for the Tongue we use.

We shall take our station, dirt beneath his feet,
While his hired captains jeer us in the street.

Cruel in the shadow, crafty in the sun,
Far beyond his borders shall his teachings run.

Sloven, sullen, savage, secret, uncontrolled—
Laying on a new land evil of the old;

Long-forgotten bondage, dwarfing heart and brain—
All our fathers died to loose he shall bind again.

I had rather be shut up in a very modest cottage, with my books, my family, and a few old friends, dining on simple bacon, and letting the world roll on as it liked, than to occupy the most splendid post, which any human power can give.

You are astray and wander far from true reasoning.

avius a vera longe ratione vagaris.

[T]he alliteration and assonance avius a vera ... vagaris is striking, and stresses above all the preposition a; the man who thinks the atoms come to a halt in compounds is way off course, like those of 10 who are seen 'errare atque viam palantis quaerere vitae'. L. is the first to use avius of a person who misses the path (TLL ii. 1447. 66 ff.); the effect is perhaps like saying in English that a person is 'out of the way'.

avius a vera longe ratione recedit.

One of the chief obstacles to our treating each other tolerantly, sympathetically, and considerately is the illusion, which we find it hard to overcome, that our own particular relative values and standards are universal and absolute. Any means at our disposal for dispelling this dangerous illusion, even partially, therefore has an unusually high value for mankind at the present day. And a 'classical' education is an effective means for dispelling the illusion, partially at least, inasmuch as a 'classical' education teaches one to appreciate and revere a culture that is not one's own.

This is a first step towards becoming aware of the relativity of one's outlook to one's social milieu and one's personality; and an awakening to this truth sets one's feet on the path towards intellectual and moral salvation. Learning to admire what one recognizes as being admirable in an alien culture opens one's eyes to the blemishes in one's own culture, and this makes one receptive to the sense of humility which is the necessary condition for achieving even the smallest measure of insight and discretion. The mere fact that the culture in which one is being educated is not one's own is enough in itself to teach one this lesson. But the lesson is also taught explicitly in the literatures of the earlier civilizations that have been canonized by subsequent civilizations as 'classics'. These literatures, like all literatures, reflect and convey something of the experience of the societies in which they were created. The participants in the civilizations of the first two generations lived to have the tragic but illuminating and regenerating experience of seeing their high hopes brought to naught by their own perverse acts.

Nemo,⁴ ením, baccalaureatu, aliove gradu academico, qui Graecam et Romanam linguam (doctrinae omnis fundamentum,) non secùs ac sermonem patrium, loqui, scribere, et legere nequit, donari debet.

⁴ Nemo, &c., "for, no one, who cannot speak, write, and read the Greek and Latin languages, (the basis of all learning,) not otherwise than (just as) his native tongue, ought to be presented with the degree of bachelor, or other academic degree."

From an exhaustive study on Mesopotamian ^LUALAN.ZU by Römer we see that the Akkadian word for "jesters" is probably of Anatolian origin. He disguises himself like a woman or a king, thus holding kings as well as religious persons up to public ridicule; he is "Imitator" and "Persiflator", i.e. satirizer. He deals with tamed bears, billy goats and appears as tightrope-walker (Seiltänzer) and glutton (Vielfrass); he sits on chamber pots and lets off farts. He pretends to eat unimaginable foods. The scope of his activities is very wide.

Labels: noctes scatologicae

A hanger-on jolly well ought to be a poor Cynic;¹⁷
he should have a flask, a scraper, a bowl, flat shoes, a cloak,
and a wallet, and in it a little support
to sustain his own life only.

¹⁷ The Cynic school of philosophy, founded by Diogenes of Sinope, aimed at freeing man from unnecessary desires. Cynics were often proverbially poor, like the hangers-on of comedy; but unlike hangers-on the Cynics tried to be self-sufficient.

cynicum esse egentem oportet parasitum probe:
ampullam, strigilem, scaphium, soccos, pallium,
marsuppium habeat, inibi paullum praesidi        125
qui familiarem suam uitam oblectet modo.

It jolly well behooves a parasite to be a poverty-stricken cynic—
let him have a flask, strigil, cup, sandals, cloak,
and a purse garrisoned with next to nothing
for the sole delectation of his very own household.

ληκύθιον στλεγγίδα ποτήριον ἐμβάδας τριβώνιον πήραν

Satchel, barley-meal, cloak, staff, cup — this was the scanty kit of the Cynic. But he thought it was excessive. For seeing a rustic drinking with cupped hands, he said, "Why, cup, do I carry you, a superfluous thing?"

pera, polenta, tribon, baculus, scyphus, arta supellex
    ista fuit Cynici, set putat hanc nimiam.
namque cavis manibus cernens potare bubulcum
    'cur, scyphe, te', dixit, 'gesto supervacuum?'

• Self-Sufficiency
  
• Omnia Mea Mecum Porto
  
• Use Your Memory

For the morning accounts for a third of the work:
morning forwards the journey, forwards the job,
morning, whose appearance puts many a man
on the road, and sets the yoke on many an ox.

ἠὼς γὰρ ἔργοιο τρίτην ἀπομείρεται αἶσαν,
ἠώς τοι προφέρει μὲν ὁδοῦ, προφέρει δὲ καὶ ἔργου,
ἠώς, ἥτε φανεῖσα πολέας ἐπέβησε κελεύθου        580
ἀνθρώπους πολλοῖσί τ᾽ ἐπὶ ζυγὰ βουσὶ τίθησιν.

One-third of work is Dawn's own share to ask,
Dawn lights the path, Dawn offers you the task,
Dawn shows herself, and sets men on their way;
Dawn yokes the oxen at the break of day.

One maxim of my old friend the late W.G. Rutherford was, 'Always suspect a ἅπαξ λεγόμενον'...

A liberal admixture of verses adds further spice: G. can turn his hand not only to elegiacs and hexameters (Virgilian, Lucretian and Horatian), but also to hendecasyllables, senarii, scazons, iambic and trochaic septenarii, Alcaics, and Asclepiads. And I have little to fault in his metrical technique, though it might have been wise to avoid violation of diaeresis in an iambic septenarius, interlinear elision in senarii, and monosyllabic 'ain' in elegiacs.

There were just two routes they could take from home...

erant omnino itinera duo, quibus itineribus domo exire possent...

When Caesar realized he was being led on and the date when grain must be rationed to the soldiers was pressing...

ubi se diutius duci intellexit et diem instare quo die frumentum militibus metiri oporteret...

[I]n a relative clause, the relative pronoun is sometimes pleonastically followed by the noun to which it refers, which normally occurs in the main clause.⁵⁹ This lengthy form of expression is again restricted in the speech of old people in Terence, especially to that of Lucius Ambivius in the prologues of Heautontimoroumenos and Hecyra (two out of three examples): Heaut. 20–1 habet bonorum exemplum, quo exemplo sibi licere [id] facere and Hec. 10–11 sinite exorator sim eodem ut iure uti senem liceat quo iure sum usus adulescentior. The last example is spoken by Micio at Ad. 854 i ergo intro, et quoi reist, ei rei [hilarum] hunc sumamus diem.

⁵⁹ Cf. K-S 569.