Laudator Temporis Acti

Now it so happened that, at a dinner party in honor of the revolution of February 1848, a young intellectual had proposed a toast to the god Pan. “But what has Pan got to do with the revolution?” Baudelaire asked the young intellectual. “Don’t you know?” came the answer: “It’s Pan who starts revolutions. He is the revolution.” Baudelaire didn’t leave it at that: “So it’s not true that he’s been dead for ages? I thought a loud voice had been heard drifting across the Mediterranean and that this mysterious voice that rang out from the Columns of Hercules as far as the shores of Asia had announced to the old world: THE GOD PAN IS DEAD.” The young intellectual didn’t seem worried. “It’s just a rumor,” he said. “Scandal mongers, nothing in it. No, the god Pan is not dead! The god Pan lives on,” he insisted, lifting his eye to the heavens with quite bizarre tenderness: “He will return.” Baudelaire glosses: “He was talking about the god Pan as if he were the prisoner of Saint Helena.” But the exchange wasn’t over; Baudelaire had another question: “So can we presume that you are pagan?” The young intellectual was positively disdainful: “Of course I am; don’t you know that only paganism, if properly understood, that is, can save the world? We must go back to the true doctrines that were eclipsed, but only for an instant, by the infamous Galilean. And then, Juno has looked favorably on me, a look that went right to my soul. I was sad and miserable, watching the procession go by; I implored that beautiful divinity, my eyes were full of love, and she sent one of her looks, a profound and benevolent look, to cheer me up and give me courage.”

Dans un banquet commémoratif de la révolution de Février, un toast a été porté au dieu Pan, oui, au dieu Pan, par un de ces jeunes gens qu’on peut qualifier d’instruits et d’intelligents.

— Mais, lui disais-je, qu’est-ce que le dieu Pan a de commun avec la révolution ?

— Comment donc ? répondait-il ; mais c’est le dieu Pan qui fait la révolution. Il est la révolution.

— D’ailleurs, n’est-il pas mort depuis longtemps ? Je croyais qu’on avait entendu planer une grande voix au dessus de la Méditerranée, et que cette voix mystérieuse, qui roulait depuis les colonnes d’Hercule jusqu’aux rivages asiatiques, avait dit au vieux monde : Le dieu Pan est mort !

— C’est un bruit qu’on fait courir. Ce sont de mauvaises langues ; mais il n’en est rien. Non, le dieu Pan n’est pas mort ! le dieu Pan vit encore, reprit-il en levant les yeux au ciel avec un attendrissement fort bizarre… Il va revenir.

Il parlait du dieu Pan comme du prisonnier de Sainte-Hélène.

— Eh quoi, lui dis-je, seriez-vous donc païen ?

— Mais oui, sans doute ; ignorez-vous donc que le Paganisme bien compris, bien entendu, peut seul sauver le monde ? Il faut revenir aux vraies doctrines, obscurcies un instant par l’infâme Galiléen. D’ailleurs, Junon m’a jeté un regard favorable, un regard qui m’a pénétré jusqu’à l’âme. J’étais triste et mélancolique au milieu de la foule, regardant le cortége et implorant avec des yeux amoureux cette belle divinité, quand un de ses regards, bienveillant et profond, est venu me relever et m’encourager.

• Still the Old Gods Reign
• Epiphany
• The Old Goat-Legged Gentleman from Greece
• They Told Me Pan Was Dead
• You Shall Hear the Note of His Pipe
• Pan Is Not Yet Dead
• A Worshipper at Pan's Shrine
• This Modern World Is Grey and Old
• Poems of a Stockbroker
• The Survival of Pan

And now, if the festival of the Gentiles which is taking place today in the joys of the world and the flesh, with the din of silly and disgraceful songs, with disgraceful junketing and dances, with the celebration of this false feast day—if the things the Gentiles are doing today do not meet with your approval, you will be gathered from among the Gentiles.

Et modo si solemnitas Gentium, quae fit hodierno die in laetitia saeculi atque carnali, in strepitu vanissimarum et turpissimarum cantionum, in conviviis et saltationibus turpibus, in celebratione ipsius falsae festivitatis, si ea quae agunt Gentes non vos delectent, congregabimini ex Gentibus.

But if you get mixed up with the Gentiles, it means you don't want to follow the one who has redeemed you; instead you're mixing with the Gentiles in life-style, actions, mind, and heart, by believing such things, hoping for such things, loving such things; you are being ungrateful to your Redeemer, you are not acknowledging the price paid for you, the blood of the Lamb without blemish. So in order to follow your Redeemer, who redeemed you with his blood, don't mix with the Gentiles by the same kind of morals, habits, and actions. They give good luck presents; see to it you give alms. They are entertained by lascivious songs; see to it you are entertained by the words of the scriptures. They run off to the theater, you to church; they get drunk, see to it you fast. Or if you can't fast today, at least dine with sobriety.

Si autem misceris Gentibus, non vis sequi eum qui te redemit: misceris autem Gentibus vita, factis, corde, talia credendo, talia sperando, talia diligendo: ingratus es Redemptori tuo, nec agnoscis pretium tuum, sanguinem Agni immaculati. Ut ergo sequaris Redemptorem tuum, qui te redemit sanguine suo, noli te miscere Gentibus similitudine morum atque factorum. Dant illi strenas, date vos eleemosynas. Avocantur illi cantionibus luxuriarum, avocate vos sermonibus Scripturarum: currunt illi ad theatrum, vos ad ecclesiam: inebriantur illi, vos ieiunate. Si hodie non potestis ieiunare, saltem cum sobrietate prandete.

So their morals give pleasure to their gods. But the man who said I do not wish you to become the associates of demons, wished them to set themselves apart in life and morals from those who served demons. Now those demons take pleasure, don't they, in idle songs, they take pleasure in the trifling spectacle, in the manifold indecencies of the theaters, in the mad frenzy of the chariot races, in the cruelties of the amphitheater, in the unrelenting rivalries of those who take up quarrels and disputes, to the point of open hostilities, on behalf of pestilential persons, on behalf of a comedian, an actor, a clown, a charioteer, a hunter. When they do these things, it's as if they were offering incense to demons from their hearts. These spirits, given to seduction you see, rejoice in the people they have seduced, and feed on the bad morals and shameful and shocking life-style of those they have seduced and deceived.

Ergo Deos ipsorum delectant mores eorum. Ille autem qui dixit: Nolo vos fieri socios daemoniorum, voluit ut ab illis qui daemonibus servirent, vita et moribus separarentur. Etenim illa daemonia delectantur canticis vanitatis, delectantur nugatorio spectaculo, et turpitudinibus variis theatrorum, insania circi, crudelitate amphitheatri, certaminibus animosis eorum qui pro pestilentibus hominibus lites et contentiones usque ad inimicitias suscipiunt, pro mimo, pro histrione pro pantomimo, pro auriga, pro venatore. Ista facientes, quasi thura ponunt daemoniis de cordibus suis. Spiritus enim seductores gaudent seductis; et eorum quos seduxerint atque deceperint, malis moribus et vita turpi infamique pascuntur.

The third annual match between the top players in the Maine Chess League and their counterparts in the Northeast League of Massachusetts was a real thriller, going down to the final game before winding up as a 10-10 standoff.

[....]

Maine winners on the lower boards included Val Michaud of Waterville, Ken Carter of Portland and all three Bangor representatives — Bob Perkins, Phil Pond and Mike Gilleland.

For indeed true things are ever dear to me to tell.

ἦ γὰρ ἐμοὶ φίλ᾽ ἀληθέα μυθήσασθαι.

Public affairs go on pretty much as usual: perpetual chicanery and rather more personal abuse than there used to be.

For what is Sicily, if you take away its agriculture, if you blot out the farming population and the farming profession?

quid est enim Sicilia si agri cultionem sustuleris, et si aratorum numerum ac nomen exstinxeris?

And so, there are thousands of human pursuits, but the best one is farming; for it gives the greatest profit to those who farm—namely, that they are good. For a man who is devoted to his fields and serious about his land stays far from the marketplace and quarreling in the marketplace, far from the courts and false accusations in the courts, far from the assembly and uproars in the assembly, neither indicting, nor lying, nor acting as a defendant, nor giving false testimony, nor demanding fair restitution, nor working for money with which to overwhelm another man with disasters. Rather, after sowing and doing everything else for his plants, he awaits the harvest and the resulting profit, planting his seeds with prayers, offering the first-fruits to the gods who have granted them, and refraining as much as possible from being a busybody, inasmuch as he spends his time among oxen and sheep and goats. As a result, farmers also seem to me to obtain what they ask from the gods easily, whenever they call upon them, because they ask for something good for themselves and certainly not for anything evil for others.

Μυρία μὲν οὖν ἐπιτηδεύματα κατὰ ἀνθρώπους, ἄριστον δὲ ἡ γεωργία. τὸ γὰρ μέγιστον κέρδος δίδωσι τοῖς γεωργοῦσι. τοῦτο δέ ἐστιν αὐτοὺς ἀγαθοὺς εἶναι. ἀνὴρ γὰρ ἀρούρᾳ προσκείμενος καὶ περὶ τὴν γῆν ἐσπουδακὼς πόρρω μὲν ἀγορᾶς καὶ τῆς ἐν ἀγορᾷ φιλονεικίας, πόρρω δὲ δικαστηρίων καὶ τῶν ἐν δικαστηρίοις συκοφαντιῶν, πόρρω δὲ ἐκκλησίας καὶ τῶν ἐπ’ ἐκκλησίας θορύβων, οὐ γραφόμενος, οὐ ψευδόμενος, οὐ φεύγων, οὐ τὰ ψευδῆ μαρτυρῶν, οὐ τὴν ἴσην ἀνταπόδοσιν ἀπαιτῶν, οὐκ ἐργαζόμενος χρήματα ἐξ ὧν ἕτερον συμφοραῖς περιέβαλλεν, ἀλλὰ σπείρας καὶ τὰ ἄλλα ποιήσας ὁπόσα περὶ τὰ φυτὰ περιμένει τὰς ὥρας καὶ τὸν ἐκεῖθεν πόρον, μετὰ μὲν εὐχῶν καταβάλλων τὰ σπέρματα, τῶν δὲ καρπῶν ἀπαρχόμενος τοῖς δεδωκόσι θεοῖς, φιλοπραγμοσύνης ὅτι πλεῖστον ἀπέχων ἅτε ἐν βουσὶ καὶ προβάτοις καὶ αἰξὶ διατρίβων, ὥστε μοι δοκοῦσι καὶ ῥᾷον τυγχάνειν τῶν θεῶν, ἡνίκα ἂν αὐτοὺς καλῶσιν αἰτοῦντες ἑαυτοῖς ἀγαθά, οὐ γὰρ δὴ ἑτέροις κακά.

Those who labour in the earth are the chosen people of God, if ever he had a chosen people, whose breasts he has made his peculiar deposit for substantial and genuine virtue. It is the focus in which he keeps alive that sacred fire, which otherwise might escape from the face of the earth. Corruption of morals in the mass of cultivators is a phaenomenon of which no age nor nation has furnished an example. It is the mark set on those, who not looking up to heaven, to their own soil and industry, as does the husbandman, for their subsistance, depend for it on the casualties and caprice of customers. Dependance begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition. This, the natural progress and consequence of the arts, has sometimes perhaps been retarded by accidental circumstances: but, generally speaking, the proportion which the aggregate of the other classes of citizens bears in any state to that of its husbandmen, is the proportion of its unsound to its healthy parts, and is a good-enough barometer whereby to measure its degree of corruption. While we have land to labour then, let us never wish to see our citizens occupied at a work-bench, or twirling a distaff.

"No man knows his luck 'til he's dead."
They've been saying that for a long time
but it's not true in my case. Mine's soggy.
Don't have to go to hell to find that out.

I had a worse scare about getting married than any
girl in Pleuron, my father's place in Aetolia.
First came a three-twisted river, Akheloös,
part bullheaded cloud, he looked like,
part like a slicky snake with scales on it
shining, then it would look like a bullheaded man
with water dripping out of his whiskers, black ones.

Bed with that! I ask you!

Λόγος μὲν ἔστ᾿ ἀρχαῖος ἀνθρώπων φανεὶς
ὡς οὐκ ἂν αἰῶν᾿ ἐκμάθοις βροτῶν, πρὶν ἂν
θάνῃ τις, οὔτ᾿ εἰ χρηστὸς οὔτ᾿ εἴ τῳ κακός·
ἐγὼ δὲ τὸν ἐμόν, καὶ πρὶν εἰς Ἅιδου μολεῖν,
ἔξοιδ᾿ ἔχουσα δυστυχῆ τε καὶ βαρύν,        5
ἥτις πατρὸς μὲν ἐν δόμοισιν Οἰνέως
ναίουσ᾿ ἔτ᾿ ἐν Πλευρῶνι νυμφείων ὄτλον
ἄλγιστον ἔσχον, εἴ τις Αἰτωλὶς γυνή.
μνηστὴρ γὰρ ἦν μοι ποταμός, Ἀχελῷον λέγω,
ὅς μ᾿ ἐν τρισὶν μορφαῖσιν ἐξῄτει πατρός,        10
φοιτῶν ἐναργὴς ταῦρος, ἄλλοτ᾿ αἰόλος
δράκων ἑλικτός, ἄλλοτ᾿ ἀνδρείῳ κύτει
βούπρῳρος· ἐκ δὲ δασκίου γενειάδος
κρουνοὶ διερραίνοντο κρηναίου ποτοῦ.
τοιόνδ᾿ ἐγὼ μνηστῆρα προσδεδεγμένη        15
δύστηνος ἀεὶ κατθανεῖν ἐπηυχόμην,
πρὶν τῆσδε κοίτης ἐμπελασθῆναί ποτε.

There is an ancient saying among men, once revealed to them,
that you cannot understand a man’s life before
he is dead, so as to know whether he has a good or bad one.
But I know well, even before going to Hades,
that the one I have is unfortunate and sorrowful.
While I still lived in the house of my father Oeneus, in Pleuron,
I suffered painful affliction in the matter of my wedding, if any Aetolian woman did.
For I had as a wooer a river, I mean Achelous,
who came in three shapes to ask my father for me,
at some times manifest as a bull, at others as a darting,
coiling serpent, and again at others with a man’s trunk
and a bull’s head; and from his shaggy beard
there poured streams of water from his springs.
Expecting such a suitor as that
I was always praying, poor creature, that I might die
before ever coming near his bed.

The Turdetanians, however, and particularly those that live about the Baetis, have completely changed over to the Roman mode of life, not even remembering their own language any more.

οἱ μέντοι Τουρδητανοί, καὶ μάλιστα οἱ περὶ τὸν Βαῖτιν, τελέως εἰς τὸν Ῥωμαίων μεταβέβληνται τρόπον, οὐδὲ τῆς διαλέκτου τῆς σφετέρας ἔτι μεμνημένοι.

The hour granted me is so much gain.

in lucro est quae datur hora mihi.

For of itself does the iron draw a man to it.

αὐτὸς γὰρ ἐφέλκεται ἄνδρα σίδηρος.

apparently a proverb, used here to add persuasiveness by an appeal to traditional wisdom (cf. note to xvii 347, where an apparent proverb also closes a speech). Although meant as a warning against the temptation to resort to weapons in a drunken quarrel—a common danger in heroic societies—this proverb may have older origins in an awareness of the magnetic, and hence magical, properties of iron. So M. Cary and A.D. Nock, CQ xxi (1927), 125-6. And perhaps the early availability of meteoric iron contributed to this belief: G.A. Wainwright, Antiquity x (1936), 6: ‘Iron was the thunderbolt, one of the most appalling powers in Nature’. The use of ‘iron’ as the word for an unspecified weapon, instead of the more normal ‘bronze’ (cf. xi 120, xix 522, xx 315, and throughout the fight in xxii), is criticized by Lorimer, Monuments, 510, as ‘an unexampled breach of epic convention’ (but see 119-20 for what she admits are ‘partial exceptions’), but this is hardly an adequate reason for doubting the line’s authenticity.

Tertullian spoke for the New Prophecy, advocating long fasts and continence with unrelenting, medical precision. Fasting was necessary, otherwise

the whole dwelling-place of the inner person becomes blocked up with food . . . a thought-flow panting to burn off its load of excrement becomes no more than an obsession with the lavatory. Nothing else remains but to pass on from this to thoughts of lust.⁷⁸

⁷⁸ Tertullian, de ieiunio 5.1, Corpus Christianorum 2:1261.

totum illud domicilium interioris hominis escis stipatum, uinis inundatum, decoquendis iam stercoribus exaestuans praemeditatorium efficitur latrinarum, in quo plane nihil tam in proximo supersit quam ad lasciuiam sapere.

But even if our food be the commonest, we must avoid repletion. For nothing is so destructive to the mind as a full belly, fermenting like a wine vat and giving forth its gases on all sides. What sort of fasting is it, or what refreshment is there after fasting, when we are blown out with yesterday's dinner, and our stomach is made a factory for the closet? We wish to get credit for protracted abstinence, and all the while we devour so much that a day and a night can scarcely digest it. The proper name to give it is not fasting, but rather debauch and rank indigestion.

Sed et ex vilissimis cibis vitanda satietas est. Nihil enim ita obruit animum, ut plenus venter et exaestuans, et huc illucque se vertens, et in ructus vel in crepitus ventorum efflatione respirans. Quale illud jejunium est, aut qualis illa refectio post jejunium, cum pridianis epulis distendimur, et guttur nostrum meditatorium efficitur latrinarum? Dumque volumus prolixioris inediae famam quaerere, tantum voramus, quantum vix alterius diei nox digerat. Itaque non tam jejunium appellandum est, quam crapula, ac fetens, et molesta digestio.

But even if our food be the commonest, we must avoid repletion. For nothing is so destructive to the mind as a full belly, seething and turning itself hither and thither and transforming its gases into belches and farts. What sort of fasting is it, or what refreshment is there after fasting, when we are swollen with yesterday's dinner, and our gullet is made a preparation for latrines? We wish to get credit for protracted abstinence, and all the while we devour so much that the night of a second day can scarcely digest it. The proper name to give it is not fasting, but rather debauch and rank indigestion.

Labels: noctes scatologicae, typographical and other errors

Is he read nowadays at all? I never hear anyone talk of him. Of course, this proves nothing. Many a writer, including some of those whom he admired, has failed of admiration until long after his death. Perhaps the time has not come for Strachey to be enjoyed. If our own civilization should move more and more completely into a period of perfect officialdom and supreme organization, with everything arranged by the State, everything authorized and docketed in triplicate and quadruplicate, with a group of unchallengeably powerful officials at the top directing everybody's lives, then the clawed and sharp-toothed critics like Strachey will be prized more and more—not as historians but as satirists—and, if they survive at all, will be read with more and more enthusiasm. At least, until the officials find out ...

Their only reason for living lies in gourmandise.

... in solo vivendi causa palato est.

versum secl. Willis ("versus glossatoris ingenium sapit")

L’accusa di vivere al solo scopo di mangiare è diffusa nella letteratura filosofica e moralistica; fra i tanti esempi si possono citare i proemi di entrambe le monografie sallustiane (Cat. 2, 8; Iug. 2, 4), Demostene, De cor. 296 ἄνθρωποι μιαροὶ καὶ κόλακες καὶ ἀλάστορες... τῇ γαστρὶ μετροῦντες καὶ τοῖς αἰσχίστοις τὴν εὐδαιμονίαν; Senofonte, Mem. 1, 6, 8; Cic. Fin. 2, 40 ad pastum et procreandi voluptatem; Red. Sen. 13 e 55; Sen. Ep. 55, 5 ille sibi non vivit, sed, quod est turpissimum, ventri, somno, libidini; Dial. 10, 7, 1; altri esempi in Otto 1890, edere. In molti dei passi citati la gola è associata spesso al sonno e alla libidine sessuale, ma nella nostra satira, conformemente al tema, la critica è rivolta esclusivamente contro il lusso della tavola. Anche la scelta di palatum per indicare metonimicamente il peccato di gola (invece del più frequente venter) è funzionale a una critica che colpisce specificamente la ricerca di raffinatezze culinarie; palatum si trova spesso in contesti analoghi (il palato come oggetto di una stimolazione artificiale al fine di provare piacere); cfr. 10, 203-4 non eadem vini atque cibi torpente palato/ gaudia; Var. Men. 549 Astbury² multinummus piscis… quivit palatum suscitare; Sen. Ben. 4, 6, 3 unde ista palatum tuum saporibus exquisitis ultra satietatem lacessentia?; altri esempi in TLL, 110, 65-111, 10.

• Natus Abdomini et Voluptatibus
• Deus Venter Est
• The Religion of the Gourmand
• Greatest of Divinities

A ham came from Harry Meacham in Richmond ("THAT HAM is kulchur, THAT ham is civilization," he had written of a previous Virginia offering).

It could be said that European civilization — and Chinese civilization too — has been founded on the pig. Easily domesticated, omnivorous household and village scavenger, clearer of scrub and undergrowth, devourer of forest acorns, yet content with a sty — and delightful when cooked or cured, from his snout to his tail. There has been prejudice against him, but those peoples — certainly not including the French — who have disliked the pig and insist that he is unclean eating, are rationalizing their own descent and past history: they were once nomads, and the one thing you can't do with a pig is to drive him in herds over vast distances.

E.B. Gilleland of Gunn City., Mo., sold a nice lot of hogs yesterday.

As chance would have it I cooked "cinta ibérica" this afternoon....Nothing to it: olive oil, garlic and rosemary.

• Nulla Dies Sine Suilla
• Ham
• Pork Products

It is not so very thickly settled, but it is a good land,
rich in herds, rich in flocks, full of wine, abounding in wheat.
Famine never comes into the land, nor does any
hateful sickness besides fall on wretched mortals;
but when the tribes of men grow old throughout the city,
Apollo, of the silver bow, comes with Artemis,
and assails them with his gentle shafts, and slays them.

οὔ τι περιπληθὴς λίην τόσον, ἀλλ᾽ ἀγαθὴ μέν,        405
εὔβοτος, εὔμηλος, οἰνοπληθής, πολύπυρος.
πείνη δ᾽ οὔ ποτε δῆμον ἐσέρχεται, οὐδέ τις ἄλλη
νοῦσος ἐπὶ στυγερὴ πέλεται δειλοῖσι βροτοῖσιν·
ἀλλ᾽ ὅτε γηράσκωσι πόλιν κάτα φῦλ᾽ ἀνθρώπων,
ἐλθὼν ἀργυρότοξος Ἀπόλλων Ἀρτέμιδι ξὺν        410
οἷς ἀγανοῖς βελέεσσιν ἐποιχόμενος κατέπεφνεν.

406 εὔβοτος codd.: εὔβοος Jacob Wackernagel, Sprachliche Untersuchungen zu Homer (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1916), pp. 245-246

The unity of the first pair (referring to types of livestock) is underlined by the repeated prefix. The second pair has a loose unity too, in that both terms denote an abundance of certain products of the land.

And Ammuna ruled. And the gods sought (vengeance for) the blood of his father, Zidanta, and into his hand the barley, wine, oxen (and) sheep [they did] no[t ...] in (his) hand.

When I meet with a proposition beyond finite comprehension, I abandon it as I do a weight which human strength cannot lift: and I think ignorance, in these cases, is truly the softest pillow on which I can lay my head.

“Knapsacks,” wrote one veteran scornfully, “were a foot above their heads; overcoats, two suits of clothes and underwear, all kinds of trimmings, bear’s oil for the hair, gifts from loving and well-meaning friends but useless to the soldier. On the back of their knapsacks were strapped frying-pans, coffee pots and stew pans, pairs of boots hanging to the knapsacks, blankets and ponchos, making in weight one hundred pounds to the man, while the vet carried about twenty-five pounds.”

In the Army of the Potomac, old-timers hooted at the new 118th Pennsylvania, which came in equipped with oversized knapsacks, extra pants, and other incidentals, and told the recruits to throw all that stuff away (starting with the knapsacks themselves) and roll up their essentials in their blankets. A rolled blanket could be tied in a horse-collar loop and worn over the shoulder; it weighed little and there were no straps to cut a man’s collarbones on a long march.

PAPHLAGON [kneeling before Demos]: Blow your nose, Demos, and then wipe your hand on my head.
SAUSAGE-SELLER: No, on mine!
PAPHLAGON: No, on mine!

ΠΑΦΛΑΓΩΝ
ἀπομυξάμενος, ὦ Δῆμέ, μου πρὸς τὴν κεφαλὴν ἀποψῶ.
ΑΛΛΑΝΤΟΠΩΛΗΣ
ἐμοῦ μὲν οὖν.
ΠΑΦΛΑΓΩΝ
ἐμοῦ μὲν οὖν.

Despite the importance of her research, Lang's main contribution to the profession was probably her teaching, particularly her legendary elementary Greek class, through which she introduced more than a thousand students to the Greek language. Many of her former elementary Greek students went on to enter the profession, as classicists, archaeologists, historians, and historical linguists, and all share a deep appreciation of the thoroughness with which they learned Greek, coupled with a tremendous relief at never needing to go through an experience like that again. Lang's classes, from elementary to graduate level, were famous for their impossible workload, but at the same time she had a cult status that led to her classes being over-subscribed: when the 9 A.M. elementary Greek class filled up she could offer an extra section at 8 A.M. and fill that too.

Despite her impressive research record, Miss Lang (as she was known to her students) was always first and foremost a teacher. Happily shouldering a load of ten or more teaching hours each semester, she taught on a regular basis everything from elementary Greek and mythology to graduate seminars, and was legendary for giving every student in every class an extraordinary level of care and attention. She inspired a rare mixture of terror and adoration that caused students to discover capacities for learning that they had no idea they possessed.

Miss Lang's signature undergraduate course, which she offered nearly every year from the time she joined the faculty until her retirement, was elementary ("Baby") Greek, a course renowned among the undergraduate population as the ultimate Bryn Mawr experience. In the first semester the students learned all the grammar of ancient Greek, and in the second they read Plato's Apology and Crito, the Gospel according to Matthew (for sight translation practice), and sometimes Euripides' Alcestis as well. The course offered not only a solid foundation for future study of Greek, but also friends for life in the form of the other students who had survived the experience.

Despite meeting at nine a.m. four days a week, Baby Greek was so well attended that often a second section had to be added at eight a.m.; in a college with an annual intake of fewer than three hundred students, Miss Lang's Baby Greek classes had an average enrollment of twenty-two and in some years more than twice that number. During her teaching career she introduced nearly a thousand students to the Greek language via this course. Each year's students were ruthlessly compared with those from preceding years and told how far they fell behind (more than one group heard, "I've taught this class every year for forty years, and this is the worst group of students I've ever had!" or "Ten years ago we were three chapters ahead by this date!"). Yet these tactics only served to increase her status among the students.

Unfortunately, the custom of learning by heart has disappeared in the schools, and as a consequence the very use of memory has gone with it. Nobody knows how to read verse. My best students, notably gifted philologists, can’t recognize by ear whether a line is hendecasyllabic or not: they have to count on their fingers.

GIANFRANCO CONTINI,
quoted in Diligenzia e Voluttà [Diligence and Enjoyment]:
Ludovica Ripa di Meana Interroga Gianfranco Contini, p. 100

There is an untranslatable Italian word for the mental bank account you acquire by memorizing poetry: it is a gazofilacio. Contini believed that an accumulation of such treasure would eventually prove its worth even if it had to begin with sweated labour. He confessed that not all of the teachers who had made him memorize a regular ration of Tasso’s epic poetry had been inspired. Some of them had held him to the allotted task because they lacked imagination, not because they possessed it. But in the long run he was grateful. Most readers of this book will spot the sensitive point about modern pedagogy. Readers my age were made to memorize and recite: their yawns of boredom were discounted. Younger readers have been spared such indignities. Who was lucky? Isn’t a form of teaching that avoids all prescription really a form of therapy? In a course called Classical Studies taught by teachers who possess scarcely a word of Latin or Greek, suffering is avoided, but isn’t it true that nothing is gained except the absence of suffering? In his best novel, White Noise, Don DeLillo made a running joke out of a professor of German history who could not read German. But the time has already arrived when such a joke does not register as funny. What have we gained, except a classroom in which no one need feel excluded?

My uncle has a farm out in the woods,
Where I withdraw, having cast off the squalor
Of all the worries that torment mankind.
Its verdant grass, the silent woods, the gentle
And playful breezes, and the spring, vivacious
Amidst the herbs, refresh the weary mind—
Restore my self to me and make me rest
Within me ...

Rus habet in silva patruus meus; huc mihi saepe
Mos est abjectis curarum sordibus, et quae
Excruciant hominem, secedere ruris amoena;
Herba virens, et silva silens, et spiritus aurae
Lenis et festivus, et fons in gramine vivus
Defessam mentem recreant, et me mihi reddunt,
Et faciunt in me consistere...

For Marbod of Rennes, see Manitius, op. cit., III, p. 719ff. and passim; Raby, Christian-Latin Poetry, p. 273 ff.; idem, Secular Latin Poetry, I, p. 329ff. The beautiful poem partly quoted and translated in my text is found in Patrologia Latina, CLXXI, col. 1665 ff. (cf. also another poem, ibidem, col. 1717, extensively quoted by Raby, Secular Latin Poetry, I, p. 336). For the tendency of learned men of the twelfth century to withdraw into monastic or pastoral seclusion, see the life histories of Marbod of Rennes and Baudry of Bourgueil (Raby, Christian-Latin Poetry, p. 273 ff., particularly p. 278) and, more especially, E.H. Kantorowicz, Die Wiederkehr gelehrter Anachorese im Mittelalter, Stuttgart 1937.

But we two will drink and feast in the hut,
and will take delight each in the other's grievous woes,
as we recall them to mind. For in after time a man finds joy even in woes,
whosoever has suffered much, and wandered much.

νῶϊ δ᾽ ἐνὶ κλισίῃ πίνοντέ τε δαινυμένω τε

κήδεσιν ἀλλήλων τερπώμεθα λευγαλέοισι,
μνωομένω· μετὰ γάρ τε καὶ ἄλγεσι τέρπεται ἀνήρ,        400
ὅς τις δὴ μάλα πολλὰ πάθῃ καὶ πόλλ᾽ ἐπαληθῇ.

And so, joy suddenly replaced fear: the soldiers happily called to each other; they told and listened to stories, each man extolled to the skies his brave deeds. To be sure, that is the way human affairs are: in victory, the coward is allowed to boast; failure discredits even the brave.

igitur pro metu repente gaudium mutatur: milites alius alium laeti appellant, acta edocent atque audiunt, sua quisque fortia facta ad caelum fert. quippe res humanae ita sese habent: in victoria vel ignavis gloriari licet, adversae res etiam bonos detrectant.

Error, after all, is the joy of pedants, whether the error be serious or trivial.

Far westward lies an isle of ancient fame,
By nature blessed and Scotia is her name.
An island rich; exhaustless is her store
Of veiny silver and of golden ore.
Her fruitful soil forever teems with wealth,
With gems her water and her air with health.
Her verdant fields with milk and honey flow,
Her woolly fleeces vie with virgin snow;
Her waving furrows float with bearded corn,
And arms and arts her envied sons adorn.
No savage bear with ruthless fury roves,
Nor ravening lion through her sacred groves;
No poison there infects, no scaly snake
Creeps through the grass, nor frog annoys the lake;
An island worthy of its pious race,
In war triumphant, and unmatched in peace.

Finibus occiduis describitur optima tellus
    nomine et antiquis Scottia scripta libris.
dives opum, argenti, gemmarum, vestis et auri,
    commoda corporibus, aere, putre solo.
melle fluit pulchris et lacte Scottia campis,
    vestibus atque armis, frugibus, arte, viris.
ursorum rabies nulla est ibi, saeva leonum
    semina nec umquam Scottica terra tulit.
nulla venena nocent nec serpens serpit in herba
    nec conquesta canit garrula rana lacu.
in qua Scottorum gentes habitare merentur,
    inclita gens hominum milite, pace, fide.

The maker of man, he was made man, so that the director of the stars might be a babe at the breast; that bread might be hungry, and the fountain thirsty; that the light might sleep, and the way be weary from a journey; that the truth might be accused by false witnesses, and the judge of the living and the dead be judged by a mortal judge; that justice might be convicted by the unjust, and discipline be scourged with whips; that the cluster of grapes might be crowned with thorns, and the foundation be hung up on a tree; that strength might grow weak, eternal health be wounded, life die.²

2. Here are some of the texts alluded to in this elaborate chain of paradoxes: Ps 147:4; Jn 6:35; Lk 4:2; Ps 36:9; In 7:38; Jn 19:28; Jn 8:12; Mk 4:38; Jn 14:6, 4:6; Jn 14:6; Mk 14:57; 2 Tim 4:1; Mt 27:26; 1 Cor 1:30; Mk 14:64; Nm 13:23; Mk 15:17; 1 Cor 3:11; Jn 14:6.

Homo factus, hominis factor: ut sugeret ubera, regens sidera; ut esuriret panis, ut sitiret fons, dormiret lux, ab itinere via fatigaretur, falsis testibus veritas accusaretur, iudex vivorum et mortuorum a iudice mortali iudicaretur, ab iniustis iustitia damnaretur, flagellis disciplina caederetur, spinis botrus coronaretur, in ligno fundamentum suspenderetur, virtus infirmaretur, salus vulneraretur, vita moreretur.

There is nothing, absolutely nothing, that warrants greater vigilance than letting some individual rise above the many.

οὐ γὰρ ἔστιν, οὐκ ἔσθ᾽ ὅ τι τῶν πάντων μᾶλλον εὐλαβεῖσθαι δεῖ ἢ τὸ μείζω τινὰ τῶν πολλῶν ἐᾶν γίγνεσθαι.

For the statesman should not regard any fellow-citizen as an enemy, unless some man, such as Aristion, Nabis, or Catiline, should appear who is a pest and a running sore to the State.

δεῖ γὰρ ἐχθρὸν μηδένα πολίτην νομίζειν, ἂν μή τις, οἷος Ἀριστίων ἢ Νάβις ἢ Κατιλίνας νόσημα καὶ ἀπόστημα πόλεως ἐγγένηται.

                                       Yet the blessed gods
prosper the work of my hands, at which I labor.

                                                ἀλλά μοι αὐτῷ
ἔργον ἀέξουσιν μάκαρες θεοὶ ᾧ ἐπιμίμνω.

There is nothing worse for mortal men than the vagrant
life, but still for the sake of the cursed stomach people
endure hard sorrows, when roving and pain and grief befall them.

πλαγκτοσύνης δ᾽ οὐκ ἔστι κακώτερον ἄλλο βροτοῖσιν·
ἀλλ᾽ ἕνεκ᾽ οὐλομένης γαστρὸς κακὰ κήδε᾽ ἔχουσιν
ἀνέρες, ὅν τιν᾽ ἵκηται ἄλη καὶ πῆμα καὶ ἄλγος.        345

343. 'There is nothing worse for mortal men than going astray.' Note O.'s attitude to his travels: he was no romantic adventurer indulging his Wanderlust, but a weary ex-soldier always yearning to reach home—yet, it must be added, with enough vitality and curiosity to take an interest in his enforced travels. But now, looking back on them, in this line he gives his melancholy considered judgement. With πλαγκτοσύνη cp. πλάγχθη in 1, 2: it implies unwilling deflection from one's chosen course.

344-5. ἀλλ᾽ κ.τ.λ.: 'But the fact is that men suffer cruelly to satisfy their accursed belly, involving themselves in wandering, sorrow, and woe '. ἀλλά here has its common eliminative force 'substituting the true for the false' (Denniston, G.P. p. 1) after a negative clause. οὐλομένη (2 aor. mid. part. of ὄλλυμι, used as an adj.) has the force of the English slang expression 'his perishing' so-and-so. Schulze explains it as a development from the imprecation ὄλοιο or ὄλοιτο 'may it perish', as ὀνήμενος from ὄναιο (ὀνίνημι).

I am just returned from one of my long absences, having been at my other home for five weeks past. Having more leisure there than here for reading, I amused myself with reading seriously Plato's republic. I am wrong however in calling it amusement, for it was the heaviest task-work I ever went through. I had occasionally before taken up some of his other works, but scarcely ever had patience to go through a whole dialogue. While wading thro' the whimsies, the puerilities, and unintelligible jargon of this work, I laid it down often to ask myself how it could have been that the world should have so long consented to give reputation to such nonsense as this? How the soi-disant Christian world indeed should have done it, is a piece of historical curiosity. But how could the Roman good sense do it? And particularly how could Cicero bestow such eulogies on Plato? Altho' Cicero did not wield the dense logic of Demosthenes, yet he was able, learned, laborious, practised in the business of the world, and honest. He could not be the dupe of mere style, of which he was himself the first master in the world. With the Moderns, I think, it is rather a matter of fashion and authority. Education is chiefly in the hands of persons who, from their profession, have an interest in the reputation and the dreams of Plato. They give the tone while at school, and few, in their after-years, have occasion to revise their college opinions. But fashion and authority apart, and bringing Plato to the test of reason, take from him his sophisms, futilities, and incomprehensibilities, and what remains? In truth, he is one of the race of genuine Sophists, who has escaped the oblivion of his brethren, first by the elegance of his diction, but chiefly by the adoption and incorporation of his whimsies into the body of artificial Christianity. His foggy mind, is forever presenting the semblances of objects which, half seen thro' a mist, can be defined neither in form or dimension. Yet this which should have consigned him to early oblivion really procured him immortality of fame and reverence. The Christian priesthood, finding the doctrines of Christ levelled to every understanding, and too plain to need explanation, saw, in the mysticisms of Plato, materials with which they might build up an artificial system which might, from it's indistinctness, admit everlasting controversy, give employment for their order, and introduce it to profit, power and pre-eminence. The doctrines which flowed from the lips of Jesus himself are within the comprehension of a child; but thousands of volumes have not yet explained the Platonisms engrafted on them: and for this obvious reason that nonsense can never be explained. Their purposes however are answered. Plato is canonized; and it is now deemed as impious to question his merits as those of an Apostle of Jesus. He is peculiarly appealed to as an advocate of the immortality of the soul; and yet I will venture to say that were there no better arguments than his in proof of it, not a man in the world would believe it. It is fortunate for us that Platonic republicanism has not obtained the same favor as Platonic Christianity; or we should now have been all living, men, women and children, pell mell together, like beasts of the field or forest.

I am very glad you have seriously read Plato: and still more rejoiced to find that your reflections upon him so perfectly harmonize with mine. Some thirty Years ago I took upon me the severe task of going through all his Works. With the help of two Latin Translations, and one English and one French Translation and comparing some of the most remarkable passages with the Greek, I laboured through the tedious toil. My disappointment was very great, my Astonishment was greater and my disgust was shocking.

Prudent Racine (1807-1881)
Philibert Racine (1845-1900, aka Philip Root)
Grace Albina Racine (1868-1947)
Eddie Paiement (1895-1971), my grandfather

As for trust and harmony, what hope is there for that? They want to be masters, you want to be free; they want to break the law, you want to stop them; finally, they treat our allies like enemies, our enemies like allies. With such different ideas about the world can there be peace or friendship between you?

nam fidei quidem aut concordiae quae spes est? dominari illi volunt, vos liberi esse; facere illi iniurias, vos prohibere; postremo sociis nostris veluti hostibus, hostibus pro sociis utuntur. potestne in tam divorsis mentibus pax aut amicitia esse?

You can see how the god blasts living things that are prominent and prevents their display of superiority, while small creatures don't irritate him at all; you can see that it is always the largest buildings and the tallest trees on which he hurls his thunderbolts. It is the god's way to curtail anything excessive.

ὁρᾷς τὰ ὑπερέχοντα ζῷα ὡς κεραυνοῖ ὁ θεὸς οὐδὲ ἐᾷ φαντάζεσθαι, τὰ δὲ σμικρὰ οὐδέν μιν κνίζει· ὁρᾷς δὲ ὡς ἐς οἰκήματα τὰ μέγιστα αἰεὶ καὶ δένδρεα τὰ τοιαῦτα ἀποσκήπτει τὰ βέλεα· φιλέει γὰρ ὁ θεὸς τὰ ὑπερέχοντα πάντα κολούειν.

Hear me now, Eumaios and all you other companions.
What I say will be a bit of boasting. The mad wine tells me
to do it. Wine sets even a thoughtful man to singing,
or sets him into softly laughing, sets him to dancing.
Sometimes it tosses out a word that was better unspoken.

κέκλυθι νῦν, Εὔμαιε καὶ ἄλλοι πάντες ἑταῖροι,
εὐξάμενός τι ἔπος ἐρέω· οἶνος γὰρ ἀνώγει
ἠλεός, ὅς τ᾽ ἐφέηκε πολύφρονά περ μάλ᾽ ἀεῖσαι
καί θ᾽ ἁπαλὸν γελάσαι, καί τ᾽ ὀρχήσασθαι ἀνῆκε,        465
καί τι ἔπος προέηκεν ὅ περ τ᾽ ἄρρητον ἄμεινον.

O. describes the earlier (the 'merry') stages of intoxication: singing, laughing [ἁπαλὸν is better taken pejoratively as 'feebly', rather than 'gently' with L.-S.-J.], dancing and unrestrained talk. For the disgusting and dangerous next stage see 9, 371-4 and 21, 304. Wine was not a luxury to the Greeks, but a pleasant necessity of life. H. mentions its aroma, taste, colour (always red or dark red in H.), as well as its keeping properties and potency (for references see on 9, 196). Drunkenness was despised (cp. οἰνοβαρής as an abusive word in Il. 1, 225), not pitied. The triple rhyme of -ηκε conceivably may be designed to suggest a drunken jingle here.

• Some Effects of Wine
• Praise of Dionysus
• Wine
• The Power of Wine

But why am I dosing you with these Ante-diluvian topics? Because I am glad to have some one to whom they are familiar, and who will not recieve them as if dropped from the moon. Our post-revolutionary youth are born under happier stars than you and I were. They acquire all learning in their mothers' womb, and bring it into the world ready-made. The information of books is no longer necessary; and all knolege which is not innate, is in contempt, or neglect at least. Every folly must run it's round; and so, I suppose, must that of self-learning, and self sufficiency; of rejecting the knolege acquired in past ages, and starting on the new ground of intuition.

                                                               It does not become you
to love this man, for fear you turn hateful to me, who love you.
It should be your pride with me to hurt whoever shall hurt me.

                                                    οὐδέ τί σε χρὴ
τὸν φιλέειν, ἵνα μή μοι ἀπέχθηαι φιλέοντι.
καλόν τοι σὺν ἐμοὶ τὸν κήδειν ὅς κ᾽ ἐμὲ κήδῃ.

May the great wide bronze sky fall upon me from above, the fear of earth-born men, if I do not aid those who are my friends and cause my enemies pain and great misery.

ἔν μοι ἔπειτα πέσοι μέγας οὐρανὸς εὐρὺς ὕπερθεν
    χάλκεος, ἀνθρώπων δεῖμα χαμαιγενέων,
εἰ μὴ ἐγὼ τοῖσιν μὲν ἐπαρκέσω οἵ με φιλεῦσιν,
    τοῖς δ' ἐχθροῖσ' ἀνίη καὶ μέγα πῆμ' ἔσομαι.

Indeed, I know how to love my friend
and hate and attack my enemy,
like an ant. There is truth, then, in my words.

ἐπ]ίσταμαί τοι τὸν φιλ[έο]ν[τα] μὲν φ[ι]λεῖν[,
τὸ]ν δ' ἐχθρὸν ἐχθαίρειν τε [κα]ὶ κακο[στομέειν
μύ]ρμηξ. λόγῳ νυν τ[ῷδ' ἀλη]θείη πάρ[α.

If I were a lonely man, or a despondent man, believing this was a terrifying age of hitherto unparalleled anxiety and danger, or if I were a young man who thought I lacked courage and wanted to train for it, I should read half a dozen of the Icelandic stories, beginning with Grettir the Strong and Burnt Nial.

You may strut around as proudly as you like on account of your money—
fortune does not alter breeding.

licet superbus ambules pecunia,
fortuna non mutat genus.

5 licet 'although'; cf. 15.19n.

superbus: a term of opprobrium, especially in political contexts (2.7n.).

ambules 'strut' (OLD s.v. 4), a manner of walking that H. found particularly hateful (5.71, 8.14 (cf. 17.41), S. 1.2.25, 4.51, 66). There may be a reference here to Cat. 29.6-7 (of Mamurra) et ille nunc superbus et superfluens I perambulabit omnium cubilia; cf. 5.69n. ambulo is unpoetic and possibly colloquial (Blok (1961) 65, ThLL 1 1870).

pecunia: cf. Ep. 1.6.36-7 scilicet uxorem cum dote fidemque et amicos I et genus et formam regina Pecunia donat.

6 fortuna 'good luck' (C. 1.31.10, 37.11, 3.27.75, 4.4.71, S. 1.9.45, Ep. 1.5.12, 8.17, 2.1.32), but still only luck (C. 1.34, 3.29.49-56). Cf. 13.7n.

genus '(low) birth'; cf. C. 2.4.15, 4.7.23, S. 2.5.8, Ep. 1.6.37 (5n.), 20.22. The speaker's view of the importance of ancestry is very different from that expressed by H. in S. 1.6 (4 intro.).

Men must needs bear the fortunes given by the gods; but when they cling to self-inflicted miseries, as thou dost, no one can justly excuse or pity them.

                  ἀνθρώποισι τὰς μὲν ἐκ θεῶν
τύχας δοθείσας ἔστ᾽ ἀναγκαῖον φέρειν·
ὅσοι δ᾽ ἑκουσίοισιν ἔγκεινται βλάβαις,
ὥσπερ σύ, τούτοις οὔτε συγγνώμην ἔχειν
δίκαιόν ἐστιν οὔτ᾽ ἐποικτίρειν τινά.

• Self-Inflicted Woes
• Self-Inflicted Wounds
• Architects of Our Own Sadness

I am truly glad to read of your pleasure from your little girl and your château. The haunts of Happiness are varied, and rather unaccountable; but I have more often seen her among little children, and home firesides, and in country houses, than anywhere else,—at least, I think so. God bless you!

Walking around the steps of the temple of Aphaea on Aegina, you have the finest view in Greece. At this altitude the mainland is visible in a 270 degree arc from south to east. Over the hills of the Peloponnesus to the south is the great plain of Argos; over the hills to the west is Nemea, and a bit to the northwest the Isthmus—the sites of most of Aegina's athletic victories. Fully visible in the north, and brought into focus by the alignment of the temenos, is Salamis, where she won her greatest victory of all, first prize for valor in the battle. Behind is the sacred plain of Eleusis, and then as your eye continues north and east it hits Athens. On clear days when the pollution is not too bad you can make out the Parthenon. Finally you continue to Sounion, though the temple of Poseidon is too distant to be seen. Beyond, only sea.

Let me now ask you, very seriously my Friend, Where are now in 1813, the Perfection and perfectability of human Nature? Where is now, the progress of the human Mind? Where is the Amelioration of Society? Where the Augmentations of human Comforts? Where the diminutions of human Pains and Miseries?

[....]

When? Where? and how? is the present Chaos to be arranged into Order?