Laudator Temporis Acti

She maintains a fervent belief that no one can possibly function well in modern society without learning Old English.

And if there be need also of witnesses, slaves will not stand forth, nor any disreputable and utterly accursed race of eunuchs,—yes, I mean just that—a race, neither feminine nor masculine, woman-mad, envious, of evil wage, quick to anger, effeminate, slaves to the belly, money-mad, coarse, grumbling about their dinner, fickle, stingy, ready to accept anything, disgusting, crazed, jealous—and yet why say more?—at their very birth doomed to the knife! How then can these possess true judgment, whose very feet are twisted? They are chaste without reward—thanks to the knife; and they rave with passion without fruition—thanks to their own lewdness.

εἰ δὲ καὶ μαρτύρων χρεία, οὐ δοῦλοι στήσονται, οὐδὲ εὐνούχων γένος ἄτιμον καὶ πανώλεθρον· τοῦτο δὴ τοῦτο, ἄθηλυ, ἄνανδρον, γυναικομανές, ἐπίζηλον, κακόμισθον, ὀξύθυμον, θηλυδριῶδες, γαστρίδουλον, χρυσομανές, ἀπηνές, κλαυσίδειπνον, εὐμετάβλητον, ἀμετάδοτον, πάνδοχον, ἀπροσκορές, μανικὸν καὶ ζηλότυπον· καὶ τί γὰρ ἔτι εἰπεῖν; σὺν αὐτῇ τῇ γενέσει σιδηροκατάδικον. πῶς οὖν τούτων γνώμη ὀρθή, ὧν καὶ οἱ πόδες στρεβλοί; οὗτοι σωφρονοῦσι μὲν ἄμισθα διὰ σιδήρου· μαίνονται δὲ ἄκαρπα δι᾿ οἰκείαν αἰσχρότητα.

It has indeed been observed, nor is the observation absurd, that except in experimental sciences, which demand a costly apparatus and a dexterous hand, the many valuable treatises that have been published on every subject of learning may now supersede the ancient mode of oral instruction. Were this principle true in its utmost latitude, I should only infer that the offices and salaries which are become useless ought without delay to be abolished. But there still remains a material difference between a book and a professor: the hour of the lecture enforces attendance; attention is fixed by the presence, the voice, and the occasional questions of the teacher; the most idle will carry something away; and the more diligent will compare the instructions which they have heard in the school, with the volumes which they peruse in their chamber. The advice of a skilful professor will adapt a course of reading to every mind and every situation; his learning will remove difficulties, and solve objections: his authority will discover, admonish, and at last chastise the negligence of his disciples; and his vigilant enquiries will ascertain the steps of their literary progress. Whatsoever science he professes, he may illustrate in a series of discourses, composed in the leisure of his closet, pronounced on public occasions, and finally delivered to the press.

Sadness, you see, is just like dung. Dung dumped in what isn't its proper place is filth; dung dumped in what isn't its place makes a house filthy; dumped in its proper place it makes a field fertile.

Tristitia enim sic est, quomodo stercus. Stercus non loco suo positum immunditia est. Stercus non loco suo positum immundam facit domum; loco suo positum fertilem facit agrum.

So it's a foul, an ugly time, but let it be the ugliness of dung in the field, not in the house. Let the sorrow be for sins, not for greedy desires cheated and disappointed. It's a foul, ugly time, but if used well a fertile time. What could be more foul than a field spread with farmyard muck? The field was beautiful before it received its cartload of muck from the dunghill. The field was first reduced to ugliness, in order to attain to fruitfulness. So the ugliness of this time is a sign, but let this ugliness be for us a time of fertility.

Ideo foedum tempus, sed foeditas ista stercoris sit in agro, non in domo. Maeror sit de peccatis, non de cupiditatibus fraudatis. Foedum tempus, sed, si bene utatur, fertile tempus. Quid foedius agro stercorato? Pulcher fuit ager, antequam cophinum haberet stercoris. Perductus est prius ager ad foeditatem, ut veniret ad ubertatem. Foeditas ergo huius temporis signum est, sed nobis sit ista foeditas tempus fertilitatis.

And those who blame the middle-class for their conventions in such matters, and who profess to be above the care for cleanliness and clothes and social ritual which marks the middle-class, are either anarchists by nature or fools who take what is but an effect of their wealth for a natural virtue.

I say it roundly; if it were not for the punctiliousness of the middle-class in these matters all our civilisation would go to pieces. They are the conservators and the maintainers of the standard, the moderators of Europe, the salt of society.

[2] In the marshes around the city [Syracuse] which receive much fresh water from springs and rivers flowing to the sea, there lived great numbers of eels which could always be caught by anybody who cared to fish for them, and whenever there was a pause in the fighting, the mercenary soldiers of both sides used to fish there. As they were all Greeks and had no reason to hate each other personally, these men would bravely risk their lives in battle, but at times of truce they would meet and converse in the friendliest fashion.

[3] So on this occasion, as they fished, they spoke enthusiastically of how rich the sea was in fish and of the character of the city and the neighbourhood. Then one of the Corinthian garrison said, 'You are Greeks like us. Can it be that you really want to hand over a great city such as this with all its riches and amenities to the barbarians? Do you really want to plant the Carthaginians, who are the cruellest and wickedest people on earth, so much nearer to our country? You ought to pray that there were many more Sicilies to stand between them and Greece.'

[2] ἐν τοῖς περὶ τήν πόλιν τενάγεσι, πολὺ μὲν ἐκ κρηνῶν πότιμον ὕδωρ, πολὺ δ᾽ ἐξ ἑλῶν καὶ ποταμῶν καταρρεόντων εἰς τήν θάλατταν δεχομένοις, πλῆθος ἐγχέλεων νέμεται, καὶ δαψίλεια τῆς ἄγρας τοῖς βουλομένοις ἀεὶ πάρεστι. ταύτας οἱ παρ᾽ ἀμφοτέρων μισθοῦ στρατευόμενοι σχολῆς οὔσης καὶ ἀνοχῶν συνεθήρευον. οἷα δ᾽ Ἕλληνες ὄντες καὶ πρὸς ἀλλήλους οὐκ ἔχοντες ἰδίων ἀπεχθειῶν πρόφασιν, ἐν μὲν ταῖς μάχαις διεκινδύνευον εὐρώστως, ἐν δὲ ταῖς ἀνοχαῖς προσφοιτῶντες ἀλλήλοις διελέγοντο.

[3] καὶ τότε κοινὸν περὶ τήν ἁλιείαν ἔχοντες ἔργον ἐν λόγοις ἦσαν, θαυμάζοντες τῆς θαλάσσης τήν εὐφυΐαν καὶ τῶν χωρίων τήν κατασκευήν. καὶ τις εἶπε τῶν παρὰ τοῖς Κορινθίοις στρατευομένων "τοσαύτην μέντοι πόλιν τὸ μέγεθος καὶ τοσούτοις ἐξησκημένην καλοῖς ὑμεῖς Ἕλληνες ὄντες ἐκβαρβαρῶσαι προθυμεῖσθε, τοὺς κακίστους καὶ φονικωτάτους Καρχηδονίους ἐγγυτέρω κατοικίζοντες ἡμῶν, πρὸς οὓς ἔδει πολλὰς εὔχεσθαι Σικελίας προκεῖσθαι τῆς Ἑλλάδος."

Hence the elder Antigonus, when a certain Hermodotus in a poem proclaimed him to be "the Offspring of the Sun and a god," said, "the slave who attends to my chamber-pot is not conscious of any such thing!"

ὅθεν Ἀντίγονος ὁ γέρων, Ἑρμοδότου τινὸς ἐν ποιήμασιν αὐτὸν Ἡλίου παῖδα καὶ θεὸν ἀναγορεύοντος, "οὐ τοιαῦτά μοι," εἶπεν, "ὁ λασανοφόρος σύνοιδεν."

When Hermodotus in his poems wrote of him as "The Offspring of the Sun," he said, "The slave who attends to my chamber-pot is not conscious of that!"

Ἑρμοδότου δὲ αὐτὸν ἐν τοῖς ποιήμασιν Ἡλίου παῖδα γράψαντος, "οὐ ταῦτά μοι," ἔφη, "σύνοιδεν ὁ λασανοφόρος."

Labels: noctes scatologicae

Counsels they gave me, admonishing phrases,
Heaped me high with honors and praises,
Told me that I had only to wait,
I'd be their protégé sure as fate.

Still, despite many a promise-monger,
I would have died long since of hunger,
Save that a good man came to agree
He'd undertake to look after me.

Excellent man! he tended and fed me!
Never will I forget, God stead me!
Embrace him I cannot, unfortunately:
I am that excellent man, you see!

Gaben mir Rat und gute Lehren,
Überschütteten mich mit Ehren,
Sagten, daß ich nur warten sollt,
Haben mich protegieren gewollt.

Aber bei all ihrem Protegieren
Hätte ich können vor Hunger krepieren,
Wär nicht gekommen ein braver Mann,
Wacker nahm er sich meiner an.

Braver Mann! Er schafft mir zu essen!
Will es ihm nie und nimmer vergessen!
Schade, daß ich ihn nicht küssen kann!
Denn ich bin selbst dieser brave Mann.

They gave me counsel and words to the wise
And eulogies more than enough,
Told me to just be patient a while,
They'd intercede in my behalf.

But for all their patronages
I could have perished under bridges
Had there not come a man of heart
To look after me and take my part.

Oh worthy man! He keeps me in food!
I'll never forget his solicitude!
Ah, what shame I can't embrace him!
It's in my looking glass I face him.

'Forgery' is no doubt a convenient term. Yet it should now be asked how far it is useful or correct. The word exudes an odour of personal guilt and criminal handiwork; the intent is to defraud or at the least to deceive; and notions of legal penalty or redress may not be far distant.

Various questions therefore come up. First, who suffers injury from a 'literary forgery', and how can the damage be assessed? When the act is contemporary, no grave problem. Passing one day through the book market at Rome, Galen noticed that spurious tracts were on sale, bearing his name. In this instance, the purchaser would be victimised. Also Galen, but perhaps less so, for the fraud bore witness to his fame. It is another matter when deceased worthies are impersonated, let alone such as never existed.

As concerns names and labels it is a further step when an author, from diffidence or discretion, prefers that his work should circulate anonymous or carry a name not his own. There is a world of difference between faking for profit and using an innocent pseudonym. All in all, 'imposture' will often prove a more helpful designation than 'forgery'.

Next, not all forgeries were made for profit in money or for the benefit of a party, a cause, a nation. The attempt might be made to draw a distinction, to seclude fabrications and works of propaganda intended to serve religious or political ends (most Jewish forgeries belong to this type).

Finally, a large number of literary impostures in any age have been perpetrated without any serious purpose or hope of deceiving the reader. When for one reason or another an author has chosen to write under an invented name, the deceit may be mild, venial or temporary; he may not be loath to allow the truth to percolate. Most important, a deed of deception may actually be intended to be seen through sooner or later. The contriver of a hoax derives a double delectation from his ingenuity. He fools the reader — and then the reader comes to realize that he has been taken in.

In his apparatus criticus Housman helpfully signalled his own conjectures with an asterisk; there are some 30 such asterisks. We may begin with 6.157 f. (on a precious ring):

                                            hunc dedit olim
barbarus incestae, dedit hunc Agrippa sorori.

For the inanely repeated dedit hunc, which disassociates incestae from sorori, Housman printed gestare (lost after -cestae), citing Virg. Aen. 12.211 patribusque dedit gestare Latinis. This was the kind of proposal that makes "the hair stand up on many uninstructed heads" (Manilius V, p. xxxiv), but it was characteristic of its author (posit the loss of an easily lost word followed by interpolation to restore the metre); Housman rightly insists that the plausibility of a conjecture does not depend on the number of letters changed. I have described gestare as the best emendation that has ever been made in Juvenal (JRS 52 [1962] 233), and this view has been endorsed by Professor Courtney in his commentary.

It was once given by the barbarian Agrippa to his incestuous sister to wear.

Housman would emend to incestae gestare, because it is absurd to suppose Juvenal, a first-rate rhetorician, splitting one act into two in this fashion. And indeed, if the lines mean simply "Herod Agrippa gave this ring to his sister and mistress," no one with any feeling for style will fail to agree. But I see no reason why they should be so understood. The emphatic hunc dedit . . . dedit hunc is sound and commendable if Juvenal is listing two generations of the diamond's pedigree, which is what I think he is doing. The barbarus is not Agrippa but Ptolemy, king of barbara Memphis; any Ptolemy who had married his sister would do, but the last of them has the advantage, for purposes of this piece of jewelry, of being the nominal husband of the best-known incesta of all to a Roman, Kleopatra VII. After her death, it would seem, Herod Agrippa got hold of it and gave it to Berenike, through whom it came to Rome, and so (from Titus?) into the market.

Armed and accoutred, they led him forth to the Gaul, who in his stupid glee—for the ancients have thought even this worth mentioning—thrust his tongue out in derision.

armatum adornatumque adversus Gallum stolide laetum et—quoniam id quoque memoria dignum antiquis visum est—linguam etiam ab inrisu exserentem producunt.

Then the Gaul began to laugh and stick his tongue out.

deinde Gallus inridere coepit atque linguam exsertare.

Linguam exserere ludibrii causa in aliquem mos fuit antiquis Latinis, qui etiannum apud nostrates viget, quo quidem obsceni aliquid adversus alium, quicum contendis, significatur; nam lingua ita exserta similitudinem quandam penis exhibet, quæ tum viris, tum feminis, tum pueris stupri contumeliam minitari videtur. Liv. 7.10. Armatum adornatumque adversus Gallum stolide lætum, et linguam etiam ab irrisu exserentem, producunt. Idem vero Gallus in tabula pictus pro signo positus deinde fuerat sub tabernis argentariis in foro Romano, ut narrant Cic. 2. Orat. 66., Plin. 35.4.8. et Quintil. 6.3. ante med. Hanc subsannandi consuetudinem memorant etiam Pers. 1.60. et Hieronym. ep. 125. n. 18. (quem locum vide in CICONIA §. 2.) et Vulgat. interpr. in Isaj. 57.4.3.

From active life as a manufacturer he had retired to a good-sized white house close by the sidewalk as it passed over a knoll shaded by a magnificent and enormous elm tree. When the town fathers widened the street, cut some of the large roots of this tree, and thus led to its death, grandfather's regret was something from which I think he never quite recovered. It seemed almost as if the tree had been the residence of what the anthropologists call his "external soul."

Labels: arboricide

Lord, give me the grace of good understanding, that I might learn letters and gain the upper hand over my fellows.

Κύριε, ἀγαθὸν νοῦν χάρισαί μοι, ἵνα μάθω τὰ γράμματα καὶ νικῶ τοὺς ἑταίρους μου.

Moreover, they relate that the ancient Egyptians put from them luxury, lavishness, and self-indulgence, to such a degree that they used to say that there was a pillar standing in the temple at Thebes which had inscribed upon it curses against Meinis, their king, who was the first to lead the Egyptians to quit their frugal, thrifty, and simple manner of living. It is said also that Technactis, the father of Bocchoris, when he was leading his army against the Arabians, because his baggage was slow in arriving, found pleasure in eating such common food as was available, and afterwards slept soundly on a bedding of straw, and thus became fond of frugal living; as the result, he invoked a curse on Meinis, and, with the approval of the priests, had a pillar set up with the curse inscribed upon it.

ἀλλὰ τρυφήν τε καὶ πολυτέλειαν καὶ ἡδυπάθειαν οὕτω προβάλλεσθαι τοὺς παλαιοὺς λέγουσιν, ὥστε καὶ στήλην ἔφασαν ἐν Θήβαις ἐν τῷ ἱερῷ κεῖσθαι κατάρας ἐγγεγραμμένας ἔχουσαν κατὰ Μείνιος τοῦ βασιλέως, ὃς πρῶτος Αἰγυπτίους τῆς ἀπλούτου καὶ ἀχρημάτου καὶ λιτῆς ἀπήλλαξε διαίτης. λέγεται δὲ καὶ Τέχνακτις ὁ Βοκχόρεως πατὴρ στρατεύων ἐπ᾽ Ἄραβας, τῆς ἀποσκευῆς βραδυνούσης, ἡδέως τῷ προστυχόντι σιτίῳ χρησάμενος, εἶτα κοιμηθεὶς βαθὺν ὕπνον ἐπὶ στιβάδος, ἀσπάσασθαι τὴν εὐτέλειαν: ἐκ δὲ τούτου καταράσασθαι τῷ Μεινίῳ, καὶ τῶν ἱερέων ἐπαινεσάντων στηλιτεῦσαι τὴν κατάραν.

It is easy to understand how Menes, the first king of the First Dynasty (c. 3000 B.C.) became a symbol of the sophistication which followed primitive simplicity. Menes is credited with two main achievements: the foundation of Memphis and the institution of the Apis-cult. Derchain, Rev. d'égyptol. 18 (1966), 31-6, shows that these actions were embodied in the coronation rites, and he makes the acute suggestion that in the temple archives the relevant documents would be prepared either with a blank space for the King's name or with a mn, 'so and so, such a one', and that the name Menes may have emerged erroneously from this practice. In PSBA 34 (1912), 300 Wiedemann suggests that certain Roman terra-cotta reliefs of the time of Augustus, in which an Egyptian landscape accompanies a figure lying on a couch, reflect the recumbent position connected with Mnes (cf. the tables and couches mentioned by Diod. Sic. 1.45.1); the Roman custom of accubitio may rather be involved. The story of the curses recorded against Menes, told also by Diod. Sic. 1.45, reminds one of the Greek approach to the traditions of frugality and extravagance among the Persians. Egyptian literature¹ does not often point the contrast, and the story is probably of Greek origin. The Saïte king Tekhnactis (or Tefnakhte)² ruled in parts of Egypt c. 730-720 B.C. Curses against previous rulers are not attested, but condemnation is sometimes shown by expunging the royal name from monuments, as in the case of Akhenaten. Trespassers or violators of tombs or of royal and divine property are often threatened with curses, and in Schott, Kanais, 185 Sethos I threatens impious kings in this way.

¹ Occasionally the wisdom literature warns against covetousness, e.g. E.-B. Lit Eg. 60 (19).

² See Moret, De Bocchori Rege (Paris, 1903), 2ff.; Kienitz, Geschichte, 6.

[3] How vast the spectacle that day, and how wide! What sight shall wake my wonder, what my laughter, my joy and exultation? as I see all those kings, those great kings, welcomed (we were told) in heaven, along with Jove, along with those who told of their ascent, groaning in the depths of darkness! And the magistrates who persecuted the name of Jesus, liquefying in fiercer flames than they kindled in their rage against the Christians! [4] those sages, too, the philosophers blushing before their disciples as they blaze together, the disciples whom they taught that God was concerned with nothing, that men have no souls at all, or that what souls they have shall never return to their former bodies! And, then, the poets trembling before the judgement-seat, not of Rhadamanthus, not of Minos, but of Christ whom they never looked to see! [5] And then there will be the tragic actors to be heard, more vocal in their own tragedy; and the players to be seen, lither of limb by far in the fire; and then the charioteer to watch, red all over in the wheel of flame; and, next, the athletes to be gazed upon, not in their gymnasiums but hurled in the fire—unless it be that not even then would I wish to see them, in my desire rather to turn an insatiable gaze on them who vented their rage and fury on the Lord.

[3] quae tunc spectaculi latitudo! quid admirer? quid rideam? ubi gaudeam, ubi exultem, tot spectans reges, qui in caelum recepti nuntiabantur, cum Iove ipso et ipsis suis testibus in imis tenebris congemescentes? item praesides persecutores dominici nominis saevioribus quam ipsi flammis saevierunt insultantes contra Christianos liquescentes? [4] quos praeterea? sapientes illos philosophos coram discipulis suis una conflagrantibus erubescentes, quibus nihil ad deum pertinere suadebant, quibus animas aut nullas aut non in pristina corpora redituras adfirmabant? etiam poetas non ad Rhadamanthi nec ad Minonis, sed ad inopinati Christi tribunal palpitantes? [5] tunc magis tragoedi audiendi, magis scilicet vocales in sua propria calamitate; tunc histriones cognoscendi, solutiores multo per ignem; tunc spectandus auriga in flammea rota totus ruber; tunc xystici contemplandi, non in gymnasiis, sed in igne iaculati, nisi quod ne tunc quidem illos velim visos, ut qui malim ad eos potius conspectum insatiabilem conferre, qui in dominum desaevierunt.

Politics is like a chicken-coop, and those inside get to behave as if their little run were all the world.

But since the ancients have passed over this question in silence, what can I adduce other than an opinion such as everyone can by conjecture arrive at for himself?

quod cum ab antiquis tacitum praeter­missum sit, cuius tandem ego rei praeter opinionem, quae sua cuique coniectanti esse potest, auctor sim?

If anyone brings deceitful hands against this carving,
he will die without children, without a tomb, without relatives.

εἴ τις τῆσδε γλυφῆς δολίας χ[ε]ῖρας προσενένκ[η]ι,
ἄτεκνος ἄτυμβος ἀνανχίστευτος ὀλ[ε]ῖται.

Labels: asyndetic privative adjectives

Isn't the daily course of nature itself a miracle, something to be wondered at? Everything is full of marvels and miracles, but they are so common that we regard them as cheap and of no account. Give me a rational explanation—I'm questioning you on something usual and everyday; give me an explanation of why the seed of such a big tree as the fig is so small that you can scarcely see it, while the humble pumpkin produces such an enormous seed. And yet in that tiny grain of seed, scarcely visible, there is, if you consider it with your mind, not your eyes; there is in that minuteness, in those infinitesimal limits, both a root hiding, and a trunk inserted, and the leaves to come are already tied on, and the fruit which is going to appear on the tree has already been programmed in the seed. There's no need to run through many instances; nobody can give a rational explanation of everyday things, and you are demanding of me an explanation of miracles?

Nonne admirandus est quotidianus cursus ipse naturae? Omnia miraculis plena sunt: sed assiduitate viluerunt. Redde mihi rationem: aliquid interrogo de consuetis et solitis: redde rationem, quare tam magnae arboris fici semen tam modicum est, ut videri vix possit, et humilis cucurbita tam grande semen parit. In illo tamen grano seminis exiguo, vix visibili, si consideres animo, non oculis; in illa exiguitate, illis angustiis, et radix latet, et robur insertum est, et folia futura alligata sunt, et fructus qui apparebit in arbore, iam est praemissus in semine. Non opus est multa percurrere: de quotidianis rebus nemo reddit rationem, et exigis a me de miraculis rationem.

And the most important cause of this feeling of satisfaction is that you are doing what the human race has done for thousands upon thousands upon thousands of years. This is a matter of such moment that I am astonished people hear of it so little. Whatever is buried right into our blood from immemorial habit that we must be certain to do if we are to be fairly happy (of course no grown man or woman can really be very happy for long—but I mean reasonably happy), and, what is more important, decent and secure of our souls. Thus one should from time to time hunt animals, or at the very least shoot at a mark; one should always drink some kind of fermented liquor with one's food—and especially deeply upon great feast-days; one should go on the water from time to time; and one should dance on occasions; and one should sing in chorus.

reperiamus aliquid calidi, conducibilis consili.

Le’s find some fresh, expedient plan

Labels: typographical and other errors

A school is the cavern of fear and sorrow: the mobility of the captive youths is chained to a book and a desk; an inflexible master commands their attention, which every moment is impatient to escape. They labour, like the soldiers of Persia, under the scourge; and their education is nearly finished before they can apprehend the sense or utility of the harsh lessons which they are forced to repeat. Such blind and absolute dependence may be necessary, but can never be delightful. Freedom is the first wish of our heart; freedom is the first blessing of our nature; and, unless we bind ourselves with the voluntary chains of interest or passion, we advance in freedom as we advance in years.

Our sense of Latin poetic diction, as of the poetic diction of any language not our own, is necessarily influenced by our sense of the poetic diction of our own language, and is liable, therefore, to be erroneous. Many an English reader has been delighted with Catullus' 'limpid lake', 4.24 'limpidum lacum', but limpidus is unpoetic, not, that is, a word used by other poets or by Catullus elsewhere (being incapable of hearing, of feeling, the word, we can only observe how it is used); the poetic word is liquidus.

Every man should be happy in a service, like you, when he obeys orders. I couldn't get on in any service. I lack the bump of veneration. I can't swallow things merely because I'm told to. My sort are always talking about 'service,' but we haven't the temperament to serve. I'd give all I have to be an ordinary cog in the wheel, instead of a confounded outsider who finds fault with the machinery. . . .

He [Reggie Balfour] took me one morning to Low Mass at Notre Dame des Victoires. I had never attended a Low Mass before in my life. It impressed me greatly. I had imagined Catholic services were always long, complicated, and overlaid with ritual. A Low Mass, I found, was short, extremely simple, and somehow or other made me think of the catacombs and the meetings of the Early Christians. One felt one was looking on at something extremely ancient. The behaviour of the congregation, and the expression on their faces impressed me too. To them it was evidently real.

The Mass is a daring and unspeakably frightful pretence to worship God by methods not of God’s appointing; open idolatry it is, in Knox’s judgment; a mere invitation and invocation to the wrath of God to fall upon and crush you. To a common, or even to the most gifted and tolerant reader, in these modern careless days, it is almost altogether impossible to sympathize with Knox’s horror, terror and detestation of the poor old Hocuspocus (Hoc est Corpus) of a Mass; but to every candid reader it is evident that Knox was under no mistake about it, on his own ground, and that this is verily his authentic and continual feeling on the matter.

For whenever I look upon these very limbs of ours, and see that no one of them is sufficient in itself to produce action, how can I reason that I of myself suffice to cope with the difficulties of life? For one foot could not make a stride safely unless the other supported it, nor could the eye see accurately unless it had the other as its partner and, working in harmony with it, cast its glance upon the objects of sight. The hearing is more exact when it receives sound through both its channels; and the grasp of the hand is stronger through the combined efforts of the fingers. And to sum up, I see that none of those things which are accomplished either by nature or by deliberate choice is completed without the union of the related forces...

ὅταν γὰρ πρὸς αὐτὰ ταῦτα ἀπίδω τὰ μέλη ἡμῶν, ὅτι ἓν οὐδὲν ἑαυτῷ πρὸς ἐνέργειαν αὔταρκες, πῶς ἐμαυτὸν λογίσομαι ἐξαρκεῖν ἑαυτῷ πρὸς τὰ τοῦ βίου πράγματα; οὔτε γὰρ ἂν ποῦς ἀσφαλῶς βαδίσειε, μὴ συνυποστηρίζοντος τοῦ ἑτέρου, οὔτε ὀφθαλμὸς ὑγιῶς ἴδοι, μὴ κοινωνὸν ἔχων τὸν ἕτερον καὶ μετ᾿ αὐτοῦ συμφώνως προσβάλλων τοῖς ὁρατοῖς. ἡ ἀκοὴ ἀκριβεστέρα ἡ δι᾿ ἀμφοῖν τοῖν πόροιν τὴν φωνὴν δεχομένη, καὶ ἀντίληψις κραταιοτέρα τῇ κοινωνίᾳ τῶν δακτύλων. καὶ ἁπαξαπλῶς οὐδὲν οὔτε τῶν ἐκ φύσεως οὔτε τῶν ἐκ προαιρέσεως κατορθουμένων ὁρῶ ἄνευ τῆς τῶν ὁμοφύλων συμπνοίας ἐπιτελούμενον...

[2] Have the soil of our native City and this land which we call our mother so slight a hold on us? Is our love of country confined to buildings and rafters? [3] And in truth I will confess to you — though I like not to recall the wrong you did me — that as often, during my absence, as I thought of my native place, all these objects came into my mind: the hills and the fields and the Tiber and the region familiar to my eyes, and this sky beneath which I had been born and reared. And I wish these things may rather move you now with love, Quirites, to make you abide in your own home, than afterwards, when you have left it, torment you with vain regrets.

[2] adeo nihil tenet solum patriae nec haec terra quam matrem appellamus, sed in superficie tignisque caritas nobis patriae pendet? [3] et quidem — fatebor vobis, etsi minus iniuriae vestrae meminisse iuvat — cum abessem, quotienscumque patria in mentem veniret, haec omnia occurrebant, colles campique et Tiberis et adsueta oculis regio et hoc caelum sub quo natus educatusque essem; quae vos, Quirites, nunc moveant potius caritate sua ut maneatis in sede vestra, quam postea, cum reliqueritis eam, macerent desiderio.

They live in memory rather than in hope; for the life that remains to them is short, but that which is past is long, and hope belongs to the future, memory to the past. This is the reason of their loquacity; for they are incessantly talking of the past, because they take pleasure in recollection.

καὶ ζῶσι τῇ μνήμῃ μᾶλλον ἢ τῇ ἐλπίδι· τοῦ γὰρ βίου τὸ μὲν λοιπὸν ὀλίγον τὸ δὲ παρεληλυθὸς πολύ, ἔστι δὲ ἡ μὲν ἐλπὶς τοῦ μέλλοντος ἡ δὲ μνήμη τῶν παροιχομένων· ὅπερ αἴτιον καὶ τῆς ἀδολεσχίας αὐτοῖς· διατελοῦσι γὰρ τὰ γενόμενα λέγοντες· ἀναμιμνησκόμενοι γὰρ ἥδονται.

I heard a woman speaking pretty clean-cut English, which amid the hoarse Dutch jabber sounded like a lark among crows.

If talking unceasingly, often, and swiftly
was the mark of intelligence, swallows
would be considered far more sound-minded than us.

εἰ τὸ συνεχῶς καὶ πολλὰ καὶ ταχέως λαλεῖν
ἦν τοῦ φρονεῖν παράσημον, αἱ χελιδόνες
ἐλέγοντ᾽ ἂν ἡμῶν σωφρονέστεραι πολύ.

If in prating from morning till night
    A sign of our wisdom there be,
The swallows are wiser by right,
    For they prattle much faster than we.

If copious quick incessant talk meant wit,
you'd say the swallows had the best of it.

I'll retreat to the wall and imitate a scorpion.
I need to eavesdrop on their talk secretly.

recessim cedam ad parietem, imitabor nepam;
captandust horum clanculum sermo mihi.

Nepa Afrorum lingua sidus, quod cancer appellatur, vel, ut quidam volunt, scorpios. Plautus (Cas. 443): „Dabo me ad parietem, imitabor nepam.“

As to the senate, he ceased not to encourage it in opposing the law: they must go down into the Forum, when the day should arrive for voting on it, in no other spirit than that of men who realized that they had to fight for hearth and home, for the temples of their gods, and for the soil of their birth.

senatum vero incitare adversus legem haud desistebat: ne aliter descenderent in forum, cum dies ferendae legis venisset, quam ut qui meminissent sibi pro aris focisque et deum templis ac solo in quo nati essent dimicandum fore.

aris focisque: 28.42.11, often appealed to by Cicero in patriotic outbursts of emotion (Phil. 2.72; in Catil. 4.24; cf. Sallust, Catil. 52.3, 59.5; see Otto, Sprichwörter s.v.). Strictly both arae and foci refer to domestic worship (Nisbet on de Domo 1)—'the altars on the hearth of the house'. There is no evidence of separate altars in private houses distinct from the hearths.

When asked why he had decided to enlist in the Artists' Rifles in 1915, Edward Thomas stopped, picked up a pinch of earth, and said, 'Literally, for this.'<sup>58

58</sup> Eleanor Farjeon, Edward Thomas: The Last Four Years (Oxford, 1958; repr. 1979), p. 154.

• Things Worth Fighting For (Cicero)
• Battle Cry

As I follow events, there's a skunk been let loose in the world, and the odour of it is going to make life none too sweet till it is cleared away. It wasn't us that stirred up that skunk, but we've got to take a hand in disinfecting the planet. See?

I've never, on any day, laughed as much,
nor do I think I will laugh more during all the rest of my life.

numquam ecastor ullo die risi adaeque,
neque hoc quod relicuom est plus risuram opinor.

Thus one sees, when the fine months return,
our ladies of Blois or Orleans, or Tours, or Amboise,
walking along the banks where Loire sings
with her breaking wavelets; on the green banks,
pacing two by two, their breasts displayed,
their neckwear loosened, they tread the
enamelled Spring grass as they follow the river.

Ainsy qu'on voit au retour des beaux moys
Se promener ou nos Dames de Blois
Ou d'Orléans, ou de Tours, ou d'Amboise,
Dessus la grève ou Loire se degoise
A flot rompu; elles sur le bord vert
Font deux à deux au tétin decouvert,
Au collet lasche, et joignant la rivière
Foulent l'émail de l'herbe printanière.

It's like Sparta: they're expelling foreigners, and punches have started flying pretty thick and fast all over town.

                   ὥσπερ ἐν Λακεδαίμονι
ξενηλατοῦσι καὶ κεκίνηνταί τινες.
πληγαὶ συχναὶ κατ᾿ ἄστυ.

1013 ξενηλατοῦσι Elmsley: ξενηλατοῦνται codd.: ξενηλατοῦμεν Dindorf
κεκίνηνταί codd.: κἀκκεκίνηνταί Blaydes
1014 πληγαὶ συχναὶ codd.: πληγαῖς συχναῖς Luck

One entered the château from the village side, under the view of two towers, part of a medieval defensive system which served Louis de Ronsard as a quarry for his new buildings. The Middle Ages had based their architecture on fear, not on display. Even in the new Renaissance manor, fear showed its blind face. The outer wall of La Possonnière had few apertures or none at all; there was no need to tempt an enemy with a crossbow or a blazing torch. One passed into the interior court through a low, wide gate surmounted by a Gothic arch and by a single story with its rooms.

One stood then in a rectangular space, securely walled on four sides. The forbidding face of the exterior was not needed here. The builder could indulge his fancy, and make a home for happy people in security. On the north side rose the main building, the quarters of the Ronsard family. It was, and is today, a graceful and comely structure, ornamented with the Italian elegance Louis de Ronsard loved. Enormous windows, symbols of Renaissance enlightenment, open to the southern sun. The grace of the façade is marred, but the charm of incongruousness is enhanced, by a pentagonal medieval tower, out-topping the roof-line, and bearing, beneath its crown, a richly ornamented Renaissance window. The old tower peers abroad like an ancient bedizened patrician of Antonio Moro or Titian.

At the base of the tower opens a narrow door giving access to the spiral staircase contained within. Over the door is an elaborately carved Italian lintel, with the inscribed dedication of the house: VOLVPTATI ET GRATIIS, to pleasure and the Graces. A shield, a part of the decoration, bears the arms of the Ronsards, three entwined fish called rosses, the English red-eye or rudd.

The high window in the tower has the inscription: DOMÎ OCUL. LONGE SPEC., for Domini oculus longe speculatur, the master's eye sees far. Between two of the windows of the facade is carved a wild rose bush, licked by flames, to signify ronce ard, the brambles burn, a punning derivation of the master's name. Elsewhere on the facade the eye catches the words: AVANT PARTIR, before we depart; and RESPICE FINEM, look to the end; and VERITAS FILIA TEMPORIS, truth the daughter of time; and DNE CONCERVA ME, God save me. Here was matter for a child to spell and meditate upon.

The east side of the courtyard was formed by one or those natural, nearly perpendicular walls common in the Vendômois, where ancient streams have cut and quarried the soft tufa underlying all the region. In this yielding stone Louis, or some Ronsard before him, dug a series of eight caves. Each is marked by an appropriate motto. The first is surcharged, LA BVANDERIE BELLE, the pretty laundry; the second, LA FOVRIERE, the hay-loft, with two hay-bundles grossly carved; the third, VVLCANO ET DILIGENTIAE, to Vulcan and diligence, with three kettles to make the meaning clear; the fourth, VINA BARBARA, vins ordinaires, or possibly, wines from afar, superior wines; the fifth, a jug and two glasses, and CVI DES VIDETO, look well to whom thou givest, an ungenerous motto for the storage-place of delicacies; the sixth, CVSTODIA DAPVM, the food-cellar; the seventh, mysteriously, SVSTINE ET ABSTINE, bear and forbear, Epictetus's counsel, perhaps addressed ironically to prisoners whom the cavern quartered; and the eighth, TIBI SOLI GLORIA, to Thee alone the glory, the sign of a chapel or oratory.

The south side of the court consisted of farm-buildings, which have now disappeared. In the southwest angle stood a small chapel. The west side was closed by a crenelated wall, with a continuous step along its top, for communication or for defense.

Of the interior of the manor-house, not much has survived an outrageous century, from about 1750 to 1850, when the building served as farmers' quarters. There is the noble fireplace of the great hall, all carved stone up to the lofty ceiling, and the masterpiece of Louis de Ronsard's Italian sculptors. Viol and lute, the attributes of poetry, enclose the main panel, which represents the burning wild rose bushes of the Ronsards. Out of the flame emerges the family shield, and the confident device: NON FALVNT FVTVRA MERENTEM, the future shall not fail the well-deserving. Above, a stone banner sown with fleurs-de-lis, surrounding the shield of France. And over all, the escutcheons of forty families allied to the master's line.

In the room which was apparently Louis de Ronsard's office and study is another carven fireplace, with cupids, stars, suns, heraldic beasts, viols, and lutes, and the device: NYQVIT NYMIS, dog-Latin for the ancient rule, nothing in excess.

Faugh, faugh! It stinks when you speak.

fy fy! foetet tuos mi sermo.

O Zeus!
Can't you leave me,
unless you want me
to vomit today?

ὦ Ζεῦ,
potin a med abeas,
nisi me vis
vomere hodie?

From the earliest representations in Roman art, a horse-whip (scutica) is a standard attribute of Sol. The scutica typically consists of an arm-length rod to which a single cord, or leather thong, is attached at one end. The whip logically refers to Sol’s role as charioteer of the solar chariot, and as such also occurs when Sol is represented as a standing figure or as a bust. The whip is not unique to Sol, as it is also is an attribute of Luna, but no other deities have a whip as a standard part of their iconography. Thus, when any other male deity is depicted with a whip, this often can be taken as a reference to Sol.

As I came into Flavigny I saw at once that it was a place on which a book might easily be written, for it had a church built in the seventeenth century, when few churches were built outside great towns, a convent, and a general air of importance that made of it that grand and noble thing, that primary cell of the organism of Europe, that best of all Christian associations — a large village.

I say a book might be written upon it, and there is no doubt that a great many articles and pamphlets must have been written upon it, for the French are furiously given to local research and reviews, and to glorifying their native places; and when they cannot discover folk-lore they enrich their beloved homes by inventing it.

Flavigny then, I say (for I seem to be digressing), is a long street of houses all built together as animals build their communities. They are all very old, but the people have worked hard since the Revolution, and none of them are poor, nor are any of them very rich. I saw but one gentleman's house, and that, I am glad to say, was in disrepair. Most of the peasants' houses had, for a ground floor, cavernous great barns out of which came a delightful smell of morning — that is, of hay, litter, oxen, and stored grains and old wood; which is the true breath of morning, because it is the scent that all the human race worth calling human first meets when it rises, and is the association of sunrise in the minds of those who keep the world alive: but not in the wretched minds of townsmen, and least of all in the minds of journalists, who know nothing of morning save that it is a time of jaded emptiness when you have just done prophesying (for the hundredth time) the approaching end of the world, when the floors are beginning to tremble with machinery, and when, in a weary kind of way, one feels hungry and alone: a nasty life and usually a short one.

To return to Flavigny. This way of stretching a village all along one street is Roman, and is the mark of civilisation. When I was at college I was compelled to read a work by the crabbed Tacitus on the Germans, where, in the midst of a deal that is vague and fantastic nonsense and much that is wilful lying, comes this excellent truth, that barbarians build their houses separate, but civilised men together. So whenever you see a lot of red roofs nestling, as the phrase goes, in the woods of a hillside in south England, remember that all that is savagery; but when you see a hundred whitewashed houses in a row along a dead straight road, lift up your hearts, for you are in civilisation again.

[1] It is well known that none of the German tribes live in cities, that even individually they do not permit houses to touch each other: they live separated [2] and scattered, according as spring-water, meadow, or grove appeals to each man: they lay out their villages not, after our fashion, with buildings contiguous and connected; everyone keeps a clear space round his house...

[1] nullas Germanorum populis urbes habitari satis notum est, ne pati quidem inter se iunctas sedes. colunt discreti [2] ac diversi, ut fons, ut campus, ut nemus placuit. vicos locant non in nostrum morem conexis et cohaerentibus aedificiis: suam quisque domum spatio circumdat...

Leopold and Wolfgang by sheer chance arrived too late to take the seats reserved for them on one of the temporary scaffoldings, which collapsed as soon as they had been given a place among courtiers on a balcony. More than fifty people were killed.

But in matters of so great antiquity I should be content if things probable were to be received as true: this story, more fit to be displayed on the stage, that delights in wonders, than to be believed, it is worth while neither to affirm nor to refute.

sed in rebus tam antiquis si quae similia veri sint pro veris acci­piantur, satis habeam: haec ad ostentationem scaenae gaudentis miraculis aptiora quam ad fidem neque adfirmare neque refellere est operae pretium.

Personally I am content, as a historian, if in things which happened so many centuries ago probabilities are accepted as truth; this tale, which is too much like a romantic stage-play to be taken seriously, I feel is hardly worth attention either for affirmation or denial.

But in matters of such antiquity, I would be content if things that are like the truth are taken as being true. These events are more appropriate to be displayed on the stage, which rejoices in miracles, than to be believed. Nor is there any return for the effort of affirming or refuting them.

“Have you read all of Nietzsche?”

He was looking at the bookcase right behind the man. All of Nietzsche’s works, including the famous Thus Spoke Zarathustra, along with collections of his letters, were lined up inside the glass case.

“I like Nietzsche, too,” he added.

“There are people all over the world who claim to like Nietzsche,” replied the man, without lifting his head from his book. “However, there are very few people who say this after having read all his work. They’ve seen the odd quotation or some watered-down, abridged version. They try Nietzsche on for size like some fashionable overcoat. Are you one of those, too?”

The learner who attacks the play with this commentary will find unfailing help by the way and acquire much information before his journey's end. The old miserable experiences of the classical student who wants to understand what he reads, his lonely fights with difficulties whose presence the editor has never apprehended, his fruitless quest of a meaning in notes where the editor has rendered Greek nonsense into English nonsense and gone on his way rejoicing, are not repeated.

When Mr. Tucker's [approximately 200] conjectures are not palaeographically improbable they are apt to be causeless and even detrimental. Among the axioms assumed in the preface are the following: 'the reading in the text must hold its place until such cause to the contrary can be shewn as will satisfy a rigidly impartial tribunal. The onus probandi lies entirely with the impugner of the text.' 'The conditions of dispossession are these. It must either be proved that the reading is an impossibility, or else that in point of grammar it is so abnormal, or in point of relevance so manifestly inappropriate, as to produce a thorough conviction that the MS. is in error.' I for my part should call this much too strict; but these are Mr. Tucker's principles. His practice is something quite different: in practice no word, however good, is safe if Mr. Tucker can think of a similar word which is not much worse.

Here I have given proofs enough of the disasters which attend us when we desist from the pursuit of truth to follow after our own inventions. Thus much it was necessary to say, because the many students who will I hope resort to this edition for help and instruction must be warned that they will find not only what they seek but also a good deal which they are not to believe. The book however in spite of its faults the most useful edition of the Supplices we have. The purely explanatory part of the commentary does not contain very much that is absolutely new, and this is well; for it is really a far more venturesome thing, if critics would but understand it, to propose a new rendering than a new reading.

We know nothing in reality; for truth lies in an abyss.

ἐτεῇ δὲ οὐδὲν ἴδμεν· ἐν βυθῷ γὰρ ἡ ἀλήθεια.

So my youth has reached its end!
I've no store of strength to spend,
My head is white, my teeth are black;
Thin red water in my veins
Warms me little, nor sustains
Sinews dissolute and slack.

Adieu, my lyre; adieu, my dears,
Darling girls of careless years,
Adieu; my frolic days have fled,
And after all youth's jubilee,
There's nothing now will comfort me
But a good fire, and wine, and bed.

Ma douce jouvence est passée,
Ma première force est cassée;
J'ai la dent noire et le chef blanc;
Mes nerfs sont dissous, et mes veines,
Tant j'ai le corps froid, ne sont pleines
Que d'une eau rousse en lieu de sang.

Adieu ma lyre! adieu fillettes,
Jadis mes douces amourettes!
Adieu, je sens venir ma fin;
Nul passetemps de ma jeunesse
Ne m'accompagne en la vieillesse
Que le feu, le lit et le vin.

• Ronsard, Odes IV.13
• Ronsard, Odes 4.13

KINGS OF MACEDON: Antigonos II Gonatas, 277-239 BCE, AE16. 3.63g, 16mm. Obv: Helmeted head of Athena right. Rev: Pan right, erecting trophy to right; B-A across upper field, monogram of Antigonos between legs. Moushmov 7308. Lovely depiction of Athena. The introduction of the Pan types under Antigonos II is much discussed. The most popular view is that Antigonos wished to associate himself with the expulsion of the Gauls from Greece after their massive invasion in 279 BCE, an event that carried huge significance for his contemporaries. Antigonos wished to be seen as "the shield of Greece" rather than its overlord. The story went that Pan helped rout the Gauls at Delphi by instilling in them an unreasoning fear (thus the word "panic"). Antigonos certainly participated in the expulsion of Gallic forces from Greece, especially at Lysimacheia. Another possible connection is with the confusion and fear that helped Antigonos defeat Pyrrhos's Gallic forces in a battle that ended the contest for Macedon's throne with the death of Pyrrhos himself. Pyrrhos's Gauls had desecrated royal tombs at Aegae, and Pyrrhos had betrayed Argos where the battle took place; so Antigonos could again portray himself as the saviour of Hellas. Whatever the exact reason for the Pan types, it's clear that Pan experienced a surge of popularity in the third century BCE and that Antigonos regarded the god as his patron.

I had a long drink, and read the evening papers. They were full of the row in the Near East...

Life and the world's too fragmented for me!
A German professor can give me the key.
He puts life in order with skill magisterial,
Builds a rational system for better or worse;
With nightcap and dressing-gown scraps as material
He chinks up the holes in the Universe.

Zu fragmentarisch ist Welt und Leben!
Ich will mich zum deutschen Professor begeben.
Der weiß das Leben zusammenzusetzen,
Und er macht ein verständlich System daraus;
mit seinen Nachtmützen und Schlafrockfetzen
Stopft er die Lücken des Weltenbaus.

The evils which afflict us are well known, even if we do not now mention them, for long since have they been re-echoed through the whole world. The teachings of the Fathers are scorned; the apostolic traditions are set at naught; the fabrications of innovators are in force in the churches; these men, moreover, train themselves in rhetorical quibbling and not in theology; the wisdom of the world takes first place to itself, having thrust aside the glory of the Cross. The shepherds are driven away, and in their places are introduced troublesome wolves who tear asunder the flock of Christ. The houses of prayer are bereft of those wont to assemble therein; the solitudes are filled with those who weep. The elders weep, comparing the past with the present; the young are more to be pitied, since they know not of what they have been deprived.

γνώριμα δὲ τὰ θλίβοντα ἡμᾶς, κἂν ἡμεῖς μὴ λέγωμεν· εἰς πᾶσαν γὰρ τὴν οἰκουμένην λοιπὸν ἐξήχηται. καταπεφρόνηται τὰ τῶν πατέρων δογματα· ἀποστολικαὶ παραδόσεις ἐξουδένωνται· νεωτεροποιῶν3 ἀνθρώπων ἐφευρέματα ταῖς ἐκκλησίαις ἐμπολιτεύεται· τεχνολογοῦσι λοιπόν, οὐ θεολογοῦσιν, οἱ ἄνθρωποι· ἡ τοῦ κόσμου σοφία τὰ πρωτεῖα φέρεται, παρωσαμένη τὸ καύχημα τοῦ σταυροῦ. ποιμένες ἀπελαύνονται, ἀντεισάγονται δὲ λύκοι βαρεῖς, διασπῶντες τὸ ποίμνιον τοῦ Χριστοῦ. οἶκοι εὐκτήριοι ἔρημοι τῶν ἐκκλησιαζόντων· αἱ ἐρημίαι πλήρεις τῶν ὀδυρομένων. οἱ πρεσβύτεροι ὀδύρονται, τὰ παλαιὰ συγκρίνοντες τοῖς παροῦσιν· οἱ νέοι ἐλεεινότεροι, μὴ εἰδότες οἵων ἐστέρηνται.

[1] A vast throng went out, and filled the camp. Then the dictator, after taking the auspices, came forth and commanded the troops to arm. [2] "Under thy leadership,” he cried, "Pythian Apollo, and inspired by thy will, I advance to destroy the city of Veii, and to thee I promise a tithe of its spoils. [3] At the same time I beseech thee, Queen Juno, that dwellest now in Veii, to come with us, when we have gotten the victory, to our City—soon to be thine, too—that a temple meet for thy majesty may there receive thee."

[1] ingens profecta multitudo replevit castra. tum dictator auspicato egressus cum edixisset ut arma milites caperent, [2] "tuo ductu" inquit, Pythice Apollo, tuoque numine instinctus pergo ad delendam urbem Veios tibique hinc decimam partem praedae voveo. [3] te simul, Iuno regina, quae nunc Veios colis, precor, ut nos victores in nostram tuamque mox futuram urbem sequare, ubi te dignum amplitudine tua templum accipiat."

Grand Velas Riviera Maya is undoubtedly a Grande Dame of the Mexican Caribbean. The all-suite hotel, a 2021 World's Best Awards winner, is known for its spectacular beachfront, onsite mangroves and cenobites, and some of the largest suites in the region.

I suppose that the author meant "mangroves and cenotes". But we are surely entering a new AI dark age when even the dictionaries are spoiled. This is the sort of nonsense example that the mindless copyists put into the Etymologicum Magnum.

Labels: typographical and other errors

Gods, like dogs, will only answer to their names. Living as we do in an age in which numbers (national health numbers, bank account numbers, telephone numbers etc.) identify people more easily than names, it is hard for us to understand the power which more primitive people attribute to names. But a trivial example of the survival of this idea is given by Ronald Knox when he points out how boys at school often try to conceal their Christian names and prefer to be called by a nick-name, because to reveal your Christian name is to give other boys a hold over you.¹ The same idea lies behind the Gnat’s advice to Alice to lose her name: ‘For instance, if the governess wanted to call you to your lessons, she would call out “Come here—”, and there she would have to leave off, because there wouldn’t be any name for her to call, and of course you wouldn’t have to go, you know.’

¹ Pastoral Sermons, p. 37.

We did verses once a week. A little later most of these were done in the house by a boy called Malcolm, who had the talent for dictating verses, on any subject, while he was eating his breakfast, with the necessary number of mistakes and to the exact degree of badness needed for the standard of each boy, for if they were at all too good my tutor would write on them, "Who is the poet?" In return for this I did the French for him and a number of other boys. Latin verses both then, and until I left Eton, were the most important event of the week's work. When one's verses had been done and signed by one's tutor one gave a gasp of relief. Sometimes he tore them up and one had to do them again. I was a bad writer of Latin verse. The kind of mistakes I made exasperated my tutor to madness, especially when I ventured on lyrics which he implored me once never to attempt again. In spite of the trouble verses gave one, even when they were partly done by someone else, one preferred doing them to a long passage of Latin prose, which was sometimes a possible alternative. It is a strange fact, but none the less true, that boys can acquire a mechanical facility for doing Latin verse of a kind, with the help of a gradus, without knowing either what the English or the Latin is about.

The subjects given for Latin verse, what we called sense for verses, were sometimes amusing. The favourite subject from the boys' point of view was Spring. It was a favourite subject among the masters, too. It afforded opportunities for innumerable clichés, which were easy to find. One of the masters giving out sense for verses used to say: "This week we will do verses"—and then, as if it were something unheard of—"on Spring. Take down some hints. The grass is green, sheep bleat, sound of water is heard in the distance—might perhaps get in desilientis aquæ."

The same master said one day, to a boy who had done some verses on Charles II., "Castus et infelix is hardly an appropriate epithet for Charles II." Once we had a lyric on a toad. "Avoid the gardener, a dangerous man," was one of the hints which I rendered:

"Fas tibi sit bufo custodem fallere agelli."

Small favours at the right time are greatest to the recipients.

μικραὶ χάριτες ἐν καιρῷ μέγισται τοῖς λαμβάνουσι.

You ought to make yourself of a different stamp from the multitude.

dissimilem te fieri multis oportet.

From these many notorious instances of the priests' conduct, I conclude they are not to be relied on in any one thing relating to religion, but that every man must think freely for himself.

But to this it may be objected that the bulk of mankind is as well qualified for flying as thinking; and if every man thought it his duty to think freely, and trouble his neighbour with his thoughts (which is an essential part of freethinking), it would make wild work in the world. I answer; whoever cannot think freely may let it alone if he pleases by virtue of his right to think freely; that is to say, if such a man freely thinks that he cannot think freely, of which every man is a sufficient judge, why then he need not think freely unless he thinks fit.

LAC. Danged, an' there ever waur a bonnier lassie!
ATH. Hanged if I ever saw so sweet a creature!

ΛΑΚ. οὔπα γυναῖκ᾽ ὄπωπα χαϊωτεραν.
ΑΘ. ἐγὼ δὲ κύσθον γ᾽ οὐδέπω καλλίονα.

SPARTANS
I've never seen a nobler woman anywhere.
ATHENIANS
Nor I one with such prettily jointing hips.

In the evenings the Lower boys did their work in pupil room. Boys in fifth form, when they were slack, did the same as a punishment, and this was called penal servitude. While they prepared their lessons or did their verses, my tutor would be taking older boys in what was called private; this in our case meant special lessons in Greek. One night these older boys were construing Xenophon, and a boy called Rashleigh could not translate the phrase, "Τοὺς πρὸς ἐμὲ λέγοντας."¹ My tutor repeated it over and over again, and then appealed to us Lower boys. I knew what it meant, but when I was asked I repeated exactly what Rashleigh had said, like one hypnotised, much to my tutor's annoyance.

Sometimes when my tutor was really annoyed he would say: "Do you ever wake up in the middle of the night and think what a ghastly fool you are?" Another time he said to a boy: "You've no more manners than a cow, and a bad cow, too." When the word δύναμαι occurred in Greek, my tutor made a great point of distinguishing the pronunciation of δύναμαι and δυνάμει. δύναμαι he pronounced more broadly. When we read out the word δύναμαι we made no such distinction, and he used to say, "Do you mean dunamy or dunamai?" It was our great delight to draw this expression from him, and whenever the word δύναμαι occurred we were careful to accent the last syllable as slightly as possible. It never failed.

¹ I have looked up the reference and miraculously found it. My memory after thirty-three years is correct. The phrase occurs in Xenophon's Anabasis, Book II.v.27.

Other important or interesting readings from the edition of the Benedictines have also been included in the critical apparatus. One probably important fact has been noted in the process of this work: the Benedictine editors frequently quoted readings as found only in the earlier editions (editi antiqui), and apparently without any MS. authority, but our collation of E has shown most of these readings to exist also in that MS.

Labels: typographical and other errors

There was a rush to the walls, and the women, drawn from their houses by the general consternation, betook themselves to prayer in the temples, and besought the gods to ward off destruction from the houses and shrines of the City and from the walls of Rome, and to turn that panic against Veii, if the sacred rites had been duly renewed and the portents expiated.

concursumque in muros est et matronarum, quas ex domo conciverat publicus pavor, obsecrationes in templis factae, precibusque ab dis petitum, ut exitium ab urbis tectis templisque ac moenibus Romanis arcerent Veiosque eum averterent terrorem, si sacra renovata rite, si procurata prodigia essent.

Veiosque codd.: Veiisque Gronovius

The prayer is of a familiar type—an ἀποπομπή by which the supplicant prays that evil may be directed elsewhere; cf. Catullus 63.92 with Kroll's note; Orph. Hymn. 3.12, 11.21.

Although he remained clean-shaven, Mommsen’s hair was always shoulder-length and untidy, turning grey and finally white, resembling a witch or a wizard, as his critics observed. Possibly through the fame of Mommsen, wild hair in old age became a recognizable badge of an eccentric professor or genius, cultivated later by Einstein and generations of academics ever since.

In other ways too, Mommsen seemed the very model of a modern academic. He was very thin and generally graceless in movement. He had a high forehead, a straight slightly aquiline nose and deep-set piercing eyes, beneath very dark eyebrows. His eyes were described both as pale blue and as almost black. He looked fearsomely clever; all people who met him agreed on this. He had great presence, and he was quick and dogmatic in giving opinions in a high-pitched voice. Throughout his adult life, he wore thick oval wire-rimmed glasses, which he pushed up onto the top of his head for close reading. He dressed formally, often in a bow tie, although his clothes were reported as being too big for him and looking slept in, like the Bücherwurm in that fictional painting by Spitzweg. Mommsen was immediately recognizable. Even the tram conductors in Berlin pointed him out with awe to visitors when he was seen in the street.

There are legends of eccentricities, doubtless exaggerated or even invented, like many student fables of their professors, such as that he put a baby in the wastepaper basket to stop it crying and that he did not remember his own children’s names. A credible anecdote was told by his daughter. He always welcomed visitors at home in the ground-floor reception room in a formal tailcoat. One day in 1858 or 1859, he emerged to greet an important guest wearing the coat but having forgotten to change out of his yellow slippers. This became an often-repeated family joke for the rest of his life. If it does not seem especially funny to us now, it does tell us something of his Biedermeier world of middle-class respectability and convention, and how academia was the exception, forgiven or even admired for failing to conform.

My strength of body is decayed, my sight and hearing dulled, memory fails me, and the vigour of my mind is impaired.

vires corporis adfectae, sensus oculorum atque aurium hebetes, memoria labat, vigor animi obtunsus.

What's the point of fighting a battle of words with beasts like these?

τί τοῖσδε σαυτὸν ἐς λόγον τοῖς θηρίοις ξυνάπτεις;

My heart is heavy—sad the present;
I think back to the olden days
When all the world was still so pleasant
And people went their peaceful ways.

Now, helter-skelter, elbows shove us,
Pressure and stress on every side!
Dead is the good Lord God above us,
And down below the devil's died.

Everything goes in churlish fashion,
A rotten, tangled, cold affair;
And but for a little love and passion
There'd be no surcease anywhere.

Das Herz ist mir bedrückt, und sehnlich
Gedenke ich der alten Zeit;
Die Welt war damals noch so wöhnlich,
Und ruhig lebten hin die Leut’.

Doch jetzt ist alles wie verschoben,
Das ist ein Drängen! eine Not!
Gestorben ist der Herrgott oben,
Und unten ist der Teufel tot.

Und alles schaut so grämlich trübe,
So krausverwirrt und morsch und kalt,
Und wäre nicht das bißchen Liebe,
So gäb’ es nirgends einen Halt.

My heart is crushed with grief, for sadly
    I think of old times, clean of strife,
When all the world went far from badly,
    And people lived a normal life.

But now the world seems madly driven;
    Scrambling to pull and push ahead!
    Dead is the good Lord up in Heaven,
And down below the devil's dead.

All things, with this eternal shoving,
    Become a gray and sodden brawl;
And if it were not for a little loving
    There'd be no rest for us at all.

My heart is sad and filled with longing
I think of the past;
the world was then so comfortable
and everyone lived so peacefully.

And everything is now as if displaced.
Such crowding! such need.
Lord God is dead above,
And below the devil is dead.

And everything looks so peevishly sad,
so confusing, so rotten, so cold,
And if it were not for the bit of love,
there would not be a foothold anywhere.