Laudator Temporis Acti

The Latin phrase stolidius saxum translates to "stone of the stolid"

nullum est hoc stolidius saxum.

No stone is more stupid than him.

No stone is more stupid than it.

No, I don't like him, the new burgomaster!
Now that he's in, he just gets bolder faster.
And for the town what is he doing, pray?
Are we not worse off every day?
It's Do-what-you-are-told as never,
And fork out taxes more than ever.

Nein, er gefällt mir nicht, der neue Burgemeister!
Nun, da ers ist, wird er nur täglich dreister,
Und für die Stadt was tut denn er?
Wird es nicht alle Tage schlimmer?
Gehorchen soll man mehr als immer
Und zahlen mehr als je vorher.

No, our new burgomaster doesn't suit me!
Now he's in, he gets more high-handed every day.
And what is he doing for the city?
Aren't things getting steadily worse?
More than ever we're told what we must do,
and it all costs more than ever before.

What is odious but noise, and people who scream and bewail?

He then spoke with admiration of a young literary scholar in Leipzig, Karl Schöne, who had written a study of the costumes in the plays of Euripides, and wore his great learning lightly, not parading it beyond what was necessary for his purposes.

'I like the way he goes straight to the heart of the matter,' said Goethe, 'while other scholars and critics of our day spend far too much time fussing over technicalities and long and short syllables.

'It's always the sign of an unproductive age when it becomes obsessed with technical detail, and likewise it's the sign of an unproductive individual when he frets about such things.'

Sodann sprach er mit großem Lobe über Karl Schöne, einen jungen Philologen in Leipzig, der ein Werk über die Costüme in den Stücken des Euripides geschrieben und, bei großer Gelehrsamkeit, doch davon nicht mehr entwickelt habe als eben zu seinen Zwecken nöthig.

»Ich freue mich,« sagte Goethe, »wie er mit productivem Sinn auf die Sache losgeht, während andere Philologen der letzten Zeit sich gar zu viel mit dem Technischen und mit langen und kurzen Silben zu schaffen gemacht haben.

Es ist immer ein Zeichen einer unproductiven Zeit, wenn sie so ins Kleinliche des Technischen geht, und ebenso ist es ein Zeichen eines unproductiven Individuums, wenn es sich mit dergleichen befaßt.«

You deserve a thousand bad things.

mala mille meres.

The translator’s task here does not stop at the dictionary: you really do need to read all the Latin (or Greek) texts that Politian mentions, if you have not already done so, and take good notes, because this man is never lazy or vague in how he uses words. You must have a clear sense of what he is talking about. The only way to gain this is by reading everything that he expects you to have read — which sometimes feels like every single ancient text ever written.

No wonder translators shy away from this dismal grind. Alas, there is no way of getting around it. You cannot use American-style ‘theoretical’ gobbledygook to cover up your lack of comprehension. You must sacrifice your eyesight, posture and sanity amidst the dim light and strange smells of your local academic library, and move from your uncomfortable seat only to find copy after copy of a great many Greek and Latin books and add them to the pile on your desk. Those worryingly shabby, unhealthy-looking people who seem to have nowhere else to go, and drip from the mouth when they stare at you? Congratulations. You are one of them now.

[....]

The next time you read an accurate-sounding translation of a Neo-Latin text that seems to make coherent sense, and is written in recognisable English rather than objectionable translationese, spare a thought for the hapless wretch who has spent hours on every page, checking and double-checking both the original work and his own rendition of it, whilst knowing that perhaps half a dozen people will fully recognise the effort — and those who do will be those other lost souls who stare occasionally at one another from across the reading-room in the same cursed library, as their only relief from the work to which they have condemned themselves, for reasons no sane or normal man can fathom.

Eat, drink, enjoy yourself with me, and load yourself up with joy.

es, bibe, animo opsequere mecum atque onera te hilaritudine.

possibly a case of end-of-list coordination, but it is better to take eating and drinking as one unit, asyndetic, and indulging one's feelings and being joyful as a second, coordinated.

All Sparta rises, and our allies
all have hard-ons. We need Pellana.

ὀρσὰ Λακεδαίμων πᾶἁ καὶ τοὶ σύμμαχοι
ἅπαντες ἐστύκαντι· Πελλάνας δὲ δεῖ.

996 Πελλάνας codd.: Παλλάνας Taillardat

To the question what is wretched in life he replied, "An old man destitute."

ἐρωτηθεὶς τί ἄθλιον ἐν βίῳ, ἔφη, "γέρων ἄπορος."

If a physician should notice infected and decayed tissue in a body and say, 'What concern is that of mine?' you would conclude rightly that he is cruel; but if he should excise the infected tissues and cauterize the wound, he is compassionate, for he is saving the life of a man. Likewise, a teacher, if he dismisses a lad and does not exact obedience from him, hates him; if, on the other hand, he disciplines him and the remedy cures him, his apparent severity turns out to be clemency.

Si uiderit medicus in corpore carnes putridas, et dicat, Quid ad me pertinet? scias quia crudelis est. Si autem praecidat, et cauterium inponat, misericors est, quia saluat hominem. Similiter et magister si dimittat puerum, et non eum exigat disciplinam, odit eum. Si autem exigat, et medicus curet, quae putatur esse asperitas, clementia est.

if, on the other hand, [the teacher] exercises discipline and the physician effects a cure, the apparent severity turns out to be clemency.

Who are you? What business do you have with me?

quis tu homo es aut mecum quid est negoti?

Traces of a pro-Greek bias in the poem exist, but they are occasional and very slight. Few readers or listeners realize what a close count shows, that in the Iliad’s individual combats 189 named Trojans die, but only 43 Greeks. The warriors who abase themselves on the battlefield and supplicate their victors are all Trojans, but when they beg a Greek to spare them, they never succeed. Trojans are also recipients of most of the deadly wounds which Homer describes in grisly detail.

'I can't blame the dear man,' said Goethe, for speaking so warmly of Italy. I remember how it affected me at the time. It's fair to say that it was only in Rome that I felt what it means to be human. I have never again reached such heights or experienced such elation; compared with my state of mind in Rome, I have not known true gladness ever since.'

»Ich kann es dem Guten nicht verargen,« sagte Goethe, »daß er von Italien mit solcher Begeisterung redet; weiß ich doch, wie mir selber zumute gewesen ist! Ja ich kann sagen, daß ich nur in Rom empfunden habe, was eigentlich ein Mensch sei. Zu dieser Höhe, zu diesem Glück der Empfindung bin ich später nie wieder gekommen; ich bin, mit meinem Zustande in Rom verglichen, eigentlich nachher nie wieder froh geworden.«

Wherever he goes, he's everyone's laughingstock.

is deridiculo est, quaqua incedit, omnibus.

Then he’s a first-class, six-cylindered, copper-bottomed highbrow. A gentlemanly Communist. An intellectual who doesn’t forget to shave. The patron of every new fad in painting and sculpting and writing. Mighty condescending about all that ordinary chaps like you and me like, but liable to enthuse about monstrosities, provided that they’re brand-new and for preference foreign.

[....]

His line is that he despises capitalism, as he despises all orthodoxies, but that as long as the beastly thing lasts, he will try to make his bit out of it, and spend the proceeds in hastening its end.

I for my part did not come here for the sake of the Trojan
spearmen to fight against them, since to me they have done nothing.
Never yet have they driven away my cattle or my horses,
never in Phthia where the soil is rich and men grow great did they
spoil my harvest, since indeed there is much that lies between us,
the shadowy mountains and the echoing sea.

οὐ γὰρ ἐγὼ Τρώων ἕνεκ᾽ ἤλυθον αἰχμητάων
δεῦρο μαχησόμενος, ἐπεὶ οὔ τί μοι αἴτιοί εἰσιν·
οὐ γὰρ πώποτ᾽ ἐμὰς βοῦς ἤλασαν οὐδὲ μὲν ἵππους,
οὐδέ ποτ᾽ ἐν Φθίῃ ἐριβώλακι βωτιανείρῃ        155
καρπὸν ἐδηλήσαντ᾽, ἐπεὶ ἦ μάλα πολλὰ μεταξὺ
οὔρεά τε σκιόεντα θάλασσά τε ἠχήεσσα.

This catalogue of reasons why one might fight gives us an insight into the world outside Troy. At 11.668-762, Nestor gives a long account of military action that came about because of cattle-rustling. This is not an unepic subject: great heroes guard herds, and several Ulster epics revolve around precisely this issue. It was a common feature of Mediterranean life, judging by the parallel in 1 Samuel 12:3: ‘Whose ox have I taken? or whose ass have I taken? or whom have I defrauded?’

Good health to me, good health to you.

bene mihi, bene vobis.

• Make Love, Not War
• Lampons!
• A Toast (my favorite)
• A Toast
• Poculation

He would often insist loudly that the gods had given to men the means of living easily, but this had been put out of sight, because we require honeyed cakes, unguents and the like. Hence to a man whose shoes were being put on by his servant, he said, "You have not attained to full felicity, unless he wipes your nose as well; and that will come, when you have lost the use of your hands."

ἐβόα πολλάκις λέγων τὸν τῶν ἀνθρώπων βίον ῥᾴδιον ὑπὸ τῶν θεῶν δεδόσθαι, ἀποκεκρύφθαι δ' αὐτὸν ζητούντων μελίπηκτα καὶ μύρα καὶ τὰ παραπλήσια. ὅθεν πρὸς τὸν ὑπὸ τοῦ οἰκέτου ὑποδούμενον, "οὔπω," εἶπε, "μακάριος εἶ, ἂν μή σε καὶ ἀπομύξῃ· τοῦτο δ' ἔσται πηρωθέντι σοι τὰς χεῖρας."

I experienced what was rare with me — a considerable dissatisfaction with life. Lombard had been absorbed into the great, solid, complacent middle class which he had once despised, and was apparently happy in it. The man whom I had thought of as a young eagle was content to be a barndoor fowl. Well, if he was satisfied, it was no business of mine, but I had a dreary sense of the fragility of hopes and dreams.

It was about myself that I felt most dismally. Lombard’s youth had gone, but so had my own. Lombard was settled like Moab on his lees, but so was I. We all make pictures of ourselves that we try to live up to, and mine had always been of somebody hard and taut who could preserve to the last day of life a decent vigour of spirit. Well, I kept my body in fair training by exercise, but I realized that my soul was in danger of fatty degeneration. I was too comfortable. I had all the blessings a man can have, but I wasn’t earning them. I tried to tell myself that I deserved a little peace and quiet, but I got no good from that reflection, for it meant that I had accepted old age. What were my hobbies and my easy days but the consolations of senility? I looked at my face in the mirror in the carriage back, and it disgusted me, for it reminded me of my recent companions who had pattered about golf. Then I became angry with myself. ‘You are a fool,’ I said. ‘You are becoming soft and elderly, which is the law of life, and you haven’t the grit to grow old cheerfully.’ That put a stopper on my complaints, but it left me dejected and only half convinced.

If someone is looking for eloquence, or if someone delights in declamations, he has in the two languages Demosthenes and Tullius (Cicero), Polemon and Quintilian. The church of Christ has not been gathered from the Academy and the Lyceum, but from the common rabble.

Si quis eloquentiam quaerit, vel declamationibus delectatur, habet in utraque lingua Demosthenem et Tullium, Polemonem et Quintillianum. Ecclesia Christi non de Academia, et Lyceo, sed de vili plebecula congregata est.

I do indeed confess that it is glorious to die for one's country.

equidem mortem pro patria praeclaram esse fateor.

It is sweet and fitting to die for one's country.

dulce et decorum est pro patria mori.

'Niebuhr was right,' said Goethe, 'when he saw a new age of barbarism coming. It's already here, and we are right in the middle of it; for what else is barbarism, if not a refusal to acknowledge excellence?'

»Niebuhr hat Recht gehabt,« sagte Goethe, »wenn er eine barbarische Zeit kommen sah. Sie ist schon da, wir sind schon mitten darinne; denn worin besteht die Barbarei anders als darin, daß man das Vortreffliche nicht anerkennt?«

Goat follows after the moon-clover, wolf after goat,
crane after plough, and I for thee am mad.

    ἁ αἲξ τὰν κύτισον, ὁ λύκος τὰν αἶγα διώκει,
ἁ γέρανος τὤροτρον, ἐγὼ δ’ ἐπὶ τὶν μεμάνημαι.

• Pickup Line
• A Seductive Speech
• Acharnians (ad fin.)
• The Women You Will Wow
• Classical Pickup Lines
• How To Pick Up Girls
• How To Pick Up Women
• How To Ogle
• What Do Women Really Want?

At this they came to a halt, without any command, and a stupor came over the minds of all, and a strange kind of numbness over their bodies; and looking at one another — for every man supposed his neighbour more capable of thinking and planning than himself — they stood for a long time motionless and silent.

sistunt inde gradum sine ullius imperio, stuporque omnium animos ac velut torpor quidam insolitus membra tenet, intuentesque alii alios, cum alterum quisque compotem magis mentis ac consilii ducerent, diu immobiles silent.

Among this uncertainty, one life-long expert, Sinclair Hood, has championed a bold alternative: Troy VIIb.2, a level which also shows a few signs of burning by fire.

Despite its difficulties, an attractive aspect of Stuart Hood’s theory, that the end of Troy VIIb.2 inspired the Greek tale of the Trojan war, is that it occurred when the Hittite empire had already disappeared.

Labels: typographical and other errors

That Hera is white-armed is, of course, part of the formulaic tradition. It does not belong exclusively to Hera; it is used of Helen at 3.121 and of Andromache at 24.723. When Athene transforms Odysseus back to his usual form, the poet says that his skin took on its usual dark colour (μελαγχροιής, Od. 16.175). This distinction between pale women and dark men was an aesthetic one in Homer; Greek vase-painting of the eighth and seventh centuries shows women’s skin as white and that of men as reddish-brown. [Later sources say that having white skin was unusual and the result either of the use of cosmetics (Xen. Oec. 10 .2) or of deliberately staying indoors (Eur. Bacch. 457).] No doubt upper-class men valued paleness in their women since it showed they did not have to engage in outdoor manual work.

[W]hiteness is the conventional attribute of women’s skin, both in the Homeric world and later in the archaic and classical periods. Homer repeatedly uses the epithet λευκώλενος of Hera, Andromache, Helen, Arete, Nausicaa, and various female attendants; and the arms of Aphrodite and of Penelope are white in the conventional formula πήχεε λευκώ (Il. v 314, Od. xxiii 240). Greek vase painting of the eighth and seventh centuries represents women’s skin as white and men’s as reddish-brown: see J.D. Beazley and B. Ashmole, Greek Sculpture and Painting to the End of the Hellenistic Period (Cambridge, 1932), 6-7, 23; J.D. Beazley, The Development of Attic Black Figure (Berkeley, 1951), 1; E. Buschor, Griechischen Vasen (Munich, 1940), 67; E. Irwin, Colour Terms in Greek Poetry (Toronto, 1974), 112-14. It should be noted that this stereotyping begins as early as Minoan palace painting. M. Treu, op. cit. 52, 75-6, stresses that white skin for women and dark skin for men (cf. Od. xvi 175) are aesthetic ideals in Homeric epic; but he notes that white skin is often attributed to heroes also, citing Jax, op. cit. 31-2, n. 131, who suggests, no doubt rightly, that in such cases the poet is emphasizing the vulnerability of the hero’s skin.

• Perusta Solibus
• Pale Skin
• Pallor
• Umbrellas
• White Lead

Goethe laughed. 'Yes,' he said, 'how very true that is! The only way to deter brutish behaviour is to behave even more brutishly. I recall an incident from my earlier years, when you occasionally came across an aristocrat who was a really nasty piece of work. We were at table, in very distinguished company and in the presence of ladies, when a rich nobleman used very coarse language, to the discomfort and annoyance of all who had to listen to him. Words of reproof would have been wasted on him. So a determined worthy sitting opposite him, taking the view that actions speak louder than words, promptly — and very loudly — committed an act of gross impropriety which shocked everybody, including the boorish aristocrat, with the result that he felt chastened and didn't open his mouth again. From then onwards the conversation took a much lighter and more amusing turn, to the relief of all those present; and everyone was grateful to that determined gentleman for his outrageous audacity, given the excellent effect it had.'

Goethe lachte. »Ja,« sagte er, »es ist so. Eine Roheit kann nur durch eine andere ausgetrieben werden, die noch gewaltiger ist. Ich erinnere mich eines Falles aus meiner frühern Zeit, wo es unter den Adeligen hin und wieder noch recht bestialische Herren gab, daß bei Tafel in einer vorzüglichen Gesellschaft und in Anwesenheit von Frauen ein reicher Edelmann sehr massive Reden führte zur Unbequemlichkeit und zum Ärgerniß aller, die ihn hören mußten. Mit Worten war gegen ihn nichts auszurichten. Ein entschlossener ansehnlicher Herr, der ihm gegenübersaß, wählte daher ein anderes Mittel, indem er sehr laut eine grobe Unanständigkeit beging, worüber alle erschraken und jener Grobian mit, sodaß er sich gedämpft fühlte und nicht wieder den Mund aufthat. Das Gespräch nahm von diesem Augenblick an eine anmuthige heitere Wendung zur Freude aller Anwesenden, und man wußte jenem entschlossenen Herrn für seine unerhörte Kühnheit vielen Dank in Erwägung der trefflichen Wirkung, die sie gethan hatte.«

What this short life is like, well is there any need to describe it? We all experience how distressing, how full of complaints it is; beset by trials and temptations, full of fears, feverish with all kinds of greed, subject to accidents; grieving when things go badly, smugly self-satisfied when they go well; cock-a-hoop over profits, in agony over losses. And even when cock-a-hoop over profits, it's in dread of losing what it has gained; the man dreading being investigated on their account, who before he had anything was never subjected to investigation. True unhappiness, false happiness. The person at the bottom of the heap longs to climb to the top, the person at the top dreads sliding down to the bottom. The have-nots envy the haves; the haves despise the have-nots. And who can find the words to unfold how extensively and conspicuously ugly this life is?

Qualis sit brevis haec vita, quid describere opus est? Experti sumus quam aerumnosa, quam querelosa; circumdata temptationibus, plena timoribus; ardens cupiditatibus, subdita casibus; in adversis dolens, in prosperis tumens; lucris exsultans, damnis excrucians. Et in ipsis lucris exsultatione trepidat, ne quod acquisivit, amittat; ne propter hoc quaeratur, qui antequam haberet non quaerebatur. Vera infelicitas, mendosa felicitas. Humilis cupit ascendere, sublimatus timet descendere. Qui non habet, invidet habenti; qui habet, contemnit non habentem. Et quis explicet verbis huius vitae tantam et tam conspicuam foeditatem?

By the 5th century BCE, Thucydides felt he knew what separated civilisation from barbarism: the ability to graft the olive tree.

As these indirect tributes recognize, the Iliad itself is something we could not possibly now compose. It is at least 2600 years old, but it is beyond our ability. It remains overwhelming. It makes us marvel, sometimes smile and often cry. Whenever I read it, it reduces me to tears. When I leave it and return to everyday life, it changes the way in which I look on the world.

I hope they will proceed to such a reading or even to learning Homeric Greek: it becomes possible within two years to read long stretches of the Iliad in Greek and catch its force and flow.

SAGARISTIO
What about what you’ve seen? How did the city appear to be fortified with its wall?
GIRL
If its inhabitants have a good character, I consider it beautifully fortified. If perfidy and embezzlement and greed have gone into exile from this city, fourth envy, fifth corruption, sixth vilification, seventh perjury—
TOXILUS
(still aside) Hear, hear!
GIRL
—eighth carelessness, ninth injustice, and tenth wickedness, which is most difficult of all to tackle: a city from which these are absent will be fortified sufficiently with a simple wall; where they are present, a hundredfold wall is too little to preserve its contents.

SAGARISTIO
quid id quod vidisti? ut munitum muro tibi visum oppidum est?
VIRGO
si incolae bene sunt morati, id pulchre moenitum arbitror.
perfidia et peculatus ex urbe et avaritia si exulant,        555
quarta invidia, quinta ambitio, sexta optrectatio,
septumum periurium—
TOXILUS
                                       eugae!
VIRGO
                                                   —octava indiligentia,
nona iniuria, decumum, quod pessumum aggressu est, scelus:
haec unde aberunt, ea urbs moenita muro sat erit simplici;
ubi ea aderunt, centumplex murus rebus servandis parum est.        560

• Malefactors and Sinners
• Men

If God held fast in his right hand the whole of truth and in his left hand only the ever-active quest for truth, albeit with the proviso that I should constantly and eternally err, and said to me: ‘Choose!’, I would humbly fall upon his left hand and say: ‘Father, give! For pure truth is for you alone!’

Wenn Gott in seiner Rechten alle Wahrheit, und in seiner Linken den einzigen immer regen Trieb nach Wahrheit, obschon mit dem Zusatze, mich immer und ewig zu irren, verschlossen hielte und spräche zu mir: Wähle! Ich fiele ihm mit Demut in seine Linke und sagte: Vater, gieb! Die reine Wahrheit ist ja doch nur für dich allein!

A true hapax legomenon seems to present a special problem for those who believe that the techniques of composition used in the Homeric poems are mainly those of oral poetry. The techniques of oral poetry are generic and formular, the hapax legomenon by definition is not. It may not even bear any relation of sound, sense, or form to the formular part of the diction, and it would be gratuitous and implausible to claim that more than a handful make their sole appearances by chance. On the contrary, hapax legomena, being an aspect of the vitality of the Kunstsprache, and of the willingness of ἀοιδοί to experiment with their lexicon, must be accommodated in any satisfactory account of Homeric diction.⁵ Here then the question is how hapax legomena can be deployed in a sentence otherwise made up of formular elements by a composer who relies heavily on such elements. When it is put in that way the problem posed by a hapax legomenon for the singer is not radically different from that posed by an otherwise unused grammatical form of a regular part of his lexicon. The unique grammatical form will indeed bring with it the verbal associations of the regular forms, but since the associated words and phrases would be built around the particular metrical shape of the regular forms they are likely to be as much a hindrance as a help in handling the unusual form.

The scale of the problem presented by true hapax legomena and by many uniquely occurring grammatical forms is quite serious. The printed text of the Iliad is made up of some 111,500 words, i.e. segments of text marked off by verse-ends or spaces, or about 63,000 if particles, pronouns, and prepositions are ignored. Many of these 'words' are repeated, but about 11,000, or more than one in six, are found once only. About 2,000 of them according to M. Pope are true hapaxes, lexical items occurring just once in the poem.<sup>6

5</sup> See M.M. Kumpf, Four Indices of the Homeric Hapax Legomena (Hildesheim 1984) for statistics, N.J. Richardson in Bremer, HBOP 165-84, for argument, Edwards, vol. v 53-5. Edwards concludes his discussion of hapax legomena with these words: '[Homer] was also completely at ease in employing in his verse words which are not only non-formular but which must be considered (on our limited evidence) foreign to the usual epic vocabulary.' M. Pope, CQ 35 (1985) 1-8, draws attention to new coinages in Homer.

⁶ 'Word' is used here as a publisher might speak of a 'book of 80,000 words'. The composer's vocabulary or lexicon of course is very much shorter: ἔγχος is one entry in the lexicon but supplies 205 'words' to the text of the Iliad. Statistics are mine. I am indebted to the Revd A.Q. Morton, formerly of the University of Edinburgh, for making available to me computerized word-lists and indices.

Unless perhaps you've been made a new magistrate, since you're taking care of others' business, asking about it, spying on it, and listening to it.

                      nisi forte factu's praefectus novos,
qui res alienas procures, quaeras, videas, audias.

• Let's Stop Somebody from Doing Something!
• Right Thinkers
• Foolish
• A Prying Busybody of a God
• Against Busybodies and Nosey Parkers
• Recipe for a Happy Life
• Most Hateful of All Names
• Mind Your Own Business
• Our Masters
• Omnipotent Moral Busybodies
• Minding Other People's Business
• Seeking to Make All the World Like Himself
• A Prying Busybody
• Nosey Parker

Surviving the Honor Code often depended on luck, since even trivial violations were grounds for dismissal. Just at the end of our Plebe year ordeal, a good friend of mine from Los Angeles, an excellent scholar and champion rope climber, had been convicted of saying he had shined his shoes when he had not. Awakened from a nap to hand deliver a message to another division, he stumbled out into the corridor with the message. In the hallway an upperclassman challenged him with "Did you shine your shoes before you left your room, mister?" In a daze he gave the standard answer "Yes, sir!" when in fact he had not. In a state of shock, he soon admitted as much. It was never a question of whether his shoes were shiny — they were — but just what he had said. He was on a Greyhound bus back to the outside world within twenty-four hours.

...and sent down to Hades so many valiant souls
of warriors, and made the men themselves to be the spoil for dogs
and birds of every kind...

πολλὰς δ᾽ ἰφθίμους ψυχὰς Ἄϊδι προΐαψεν
ἡρώων, αὐτοὺς δὲ ἑλώρια τεῦχε κύνεσσιν
οἰωνοῖσί τε πᾶσι...

5 πᾶσι codd.: δαῖτα Zenodotus

Athenaeus (I 12F) tells us that Zenodotus read δαῖτα for πᾶσι in line 5. The fact that all the MSS read πᾶσι does not guarantee its authenticity, because they all date from a much later period, and if πᾶσι is a corruption, it could have got into the tradition quite early. The reading δαῖτα is very attractive because two passages in tragedy that appear to be modelled on these lines also contain the word δαῖτα (Eur. Hec. 1077, Ion 505-6). That Aesch. Suppl. 801 has ὄρνισι δεῖπνον also suggests that the author was familiar with a text which had δαῖτα, not πᾶσι. If we read δαῖτα with τεῦχε, we have a striking image of a banquet being prepared for the birds. There has been some discussion as to whether δαίς in the Iliad ever refers to animals eating. At 24.43. we hear of a lion who εἶσ᾿ ἐπὶ μῆλα βροτῶν, ἵνα δαῖτα λάβῃσιν. As punctuated here, δαῖτα must refer to the lion's dinner. However, our papyri and MSS contain very little by way of punctuation marks, so that the choice is often left to the reader. If the comma were placed before βροτῶν, then δαῖτα would refer to the humans. The line can be taken either way. It is none the less worth noting that the almost synonymous word δεῖπνον is used of horses at 2.383. But even if Homer did not normally use δαίς when speaking of animals, it is still possible that he intended its use at 1.5 as a striking metaphor. The reading δαῖτα provides us with a noun to balance ἑλώρια, instead of the insipid adjective πᾶσι, so that the overall phrase has a chiastic shape (ABBA), 'carrion for the dogs, for the birds a meal'. An even more powerful objection to πᾶσι is that not all birds eat carrion.

...and sent so many noble souls of heroes
to Hades, and made men the spoils of dogs,
a banquet for the birds...

I have long thought that δαῖτα is preferable to πᾶσι. It is worth noting that in the Gesamtkommentar Latacz supports Zenodotus' text. In fact, it is one of the few places where his translation is at variance with the version of West's Teubner that is printed opposite it ("… und sie selbst zum Fraße werden ließ für Hunde / und für Vögel zum Bankett …").

[....]

Zenodotus has often been judged to be 'subjective' on issues of text (see M. van der Valk, Researches on the Text and Scholia of the Iliad [Leiden 1964] 2.66-68; K. Nickau, Untersuchungen zur Textkritischen Methode des Zenodotos von Ephesos [Berlin and New York 1977] 42 with n. 22; West is also dismissive, Studies in the Text and Transmission of the Iliad [Munich and Leipzig 2001] 173), but that doesn't mean that he was always wrong.

Palmer once called attention to "the first rule of etymology," attributed to Franz Skutsch: "Look for Latin etymologies first on the Tiber."<sup>35

35</sup> L.R. Palmer, "The Language of Homer," in A.J.B. Wace and F.H. Stubbings (eds.), A Companion to Homer (London 1963) 90-91; cf. Palmer (above, note 1) 187.

Read much and learn as much as possible. Let sleep creep upon you with a book in your hand, and let the sacred page catch your head as you nod.

crebrius lege et disce quam plurima. tenenti codicem somnus obrepat et cadentem faciem pagina sancta suscipiat.

Many teachers believe that looking up words in a dictionary is good for the learner; these also will be able to use this book. It may not be out of place, however, to ask those who believe this whether they have any reason for their belief. I do not know that any one has made any systematic inquiry into the use of the dictionary, to find out how long it takes beginners to look up words and what their minds are doing while they are looking them up. I cannot pretend to have done this systematically; but the few inquiries we have made in this school, go to show that to look up words takes a very long time for the beginner, even when he has not a dictionary with many meanings to the word, but a special vocabulary with only one or two meanings. It certainly distracts his attention, and he has to resume the thread of his thought before he can fit in his new word, which also takes time. My own state of mind in looking up new words is quite clear to me: it is a blank, out of which emerges now a word expressive of exasperation, now the address of a friend forgotten and puzzled over, or other flotsam of the subconsciousness. If it were so that all this time the new word should be impressing itself on the memory, well and good; but it does not seem to be so, and if not, here is another of the time-wasting devices which have become sacred in schools.

If he who dines well, lives well, then—'tis daybreak, let's be off,
whither the palate guides us.

si bene qui cenat bene vivit, lucet, eamus
quo ducit gula.

• Hail, Hail, Plump Paunch!
• Slim
• Let Me Have Men About Me That Are Fat
• Greatest of Divinities
• Anti-Obesity Legislation
• Apollonius of Tyana Meets a Fat Man
• Good Living to You
• A Very Valiant Trencherman (Balzac)
• A Very Valiant Trencherman (Samuel Johnson)
• A Hearty Eater
• Men That Are Fat
• Orgies of Gluttony
• A Valiant Trencherman (Eupolis)

A grown man, a trained mind, can learn Greek in three months; if he has known it before, in less. And what a world that will open to him!

I couldn't possibly say where the youth of today gets gets the strange idea that it is somehow born with accomplishments that have hitherto taken years of study and personal experience to acquire. But what I can say is this: the view we hear so often expressed in Germany now — that one can happily skip the whole business of gradual self-development — inspires little hope of future masterpieces.

Ich will nicht untersuchen, woher unserer jetzigen Jugend die Einbildung gekommen, daß sie dasjenige als etwas Angeborenes bereits mit sich bringe, was man bisher nur auf dem Wege vieljähriger Studien und Erfahrungen erlangen konnte, aber so viel glaube ich sagen zu können, daß die in Deutschland jetzt so häufig vorkommenden Äußerungen eines alle Stufen allmählicher Entwickelung keck überschreitenden Sinnes zu künftigen Meisterwerken wenige Hoffnung machen.

Hideous, and yet comic too; for the spectacle of these feverish cranks toiling to create a new heaven and a new earth and thinking themselves the leaders of mankind, when they were dancing like puppets at the will of a few scoundrels engaged in the most ancient of pursuits, was an irony to make the gods laugh.

The food of demons is drunkenness, luxury, fornication, and all the sins. These are persuasive and lascivi­ous; they soothe the senses with pleasure; and immediately upon their appearance they provoke a man to use them.

daemonum cibus est ebrietas, luxuria, fornicatio et universa vitia. haec blanda sunt et lasciva et sensus voluptate demulcent statimque, ut apparuerint, ad usum sui provocant.

The food of the demons is the songs of poets, secular wisdom, the display of rhetorical language. These delight all with their sweetness; but while they captivate the ears with fluent verses of charming rhythm, they penetrate the soul as well and bind the inmost affections. But when they have been read with the greatest enthusiasm and effort, they afford their readers nothing more than empty sound and the hubbub of words. No satisfaction of truth, no refreshment of justice is found. They who are zealous for these things continue to hunger for truth, to lack virtue.

daemonum cibus est carmina poetarum, saecularis sapientia, rhetoricorum pompa verborum. haec sua omnes suavitate delectant et, dum aures versibus dulci modulatione currentibus capiunt, animam quoque penetrant et pectoris interna devinciunt. verum ubi cum summo studio fuerint ac labore perlecta, nihil aliud nisi inanem sonum et sermonum strepitum suis lectoribus tribuunt: nulla ibi saturitas veritatis, nulla iustitiae refectio repperitur. studiosi earum in fame veri, in virtutum penuria perseverant.

I do not crave or pray for wealth, but may I
live from modest means, suffering no ill.

οὐκ ἔραμαι πλουτεῖν οὐδ᾿ εὔχομαι, ἀλλά μοι εἴη
    ζῆν ἀπὸ τῶν ὀλίγων μηδὲν ἔχοντι κακόν.

May it now be mine to live for myself, to live contented with my little.

iam mihi, iam possim contentus vivere parvo.

Damis's Scrap Book was composed for this purpose, that he wished nothing about Apollonius to go unknown, but even his asides and random remarks to be recorded. It is worth noting the retort he made to a man who criticized this pursuit. Some lazy and malevolent creature ridiculed him, saying that he was right to put down everything that constituted the sayings and opinions of the Master, but in collecting such trifling things he was acting like a dog that feeds on the scraps fallen from a dinner. Damis replied, "If the gods have dinners and the gods take food, they must certainly have attendants to make sure that even the scraps of ambrosia do not go to waste."

Ἡ γοῦν δέλτος ἡ τῶν ἐκφατνισμάτων τοιοῦτον τῷ Δάμιδι νοῦν εἶχεν· ὁ Δάμις ἐβούλετο μηδὲν τῶν Ἀπολλωνίου ἀγνοεῖσθαι, ἀλλ᾿ εἴ τι καὶ παρεφθέγξατο ἢ εἶπεν, ἀναγεγράφθαι καὶ τοῦτο. καὶ ἄξιόν γε εἰπεῖν, ἃ καὶ πρὸς τὸν μεμψάμενον τὴν διατριβὴν ταύτην ἀπεφθέγξατο. διασύροντος γὰρ αὐτὸν ἀνθρώπου ῥᾳθύμου τε καὶ βασκάνου, καὶ τὰ μὲν ἄλλα ὀρθῶς ἀναγράφειν φήσαντος, ὁπόσαι γνῶμαί τέ εἰσι καὶ δόξαι τοῦ ἀνδρός, ταυτὶ δὲ τὰ οὕτω μικρὰ ξυλλεγόμενον παραπλήσιόν που τοῖς κυσὶ πράττειν τοῖς σιτουμένοις τὰ ἐκπίπτοντα τῆς δαιτός, ὑπολαβὼν ὁ Δάμις "εἰ δαῖτες" ἔφη "θεῶν εἰσι καὶ σιτοῦνται θεοί, πάντως που καὶ θεράποντες αὐτοῖς εἰσιν, οἷς μέλει τοῦ μηδὲ τὰ πίπτοντα τῆς ἀμβροσίας ἀπόλλυσθαι."

I hate more than I love. All we humanitarians and pacifists have hatred as our mainspring. Odd, isn't it, for people who preach brotherly love? But it's the truth. We're full of hate towards everything that doesn't square in with our ideas, everything that jars on our ladylike nerves.

For let military discipline be once broken, and soldier would not obey centurion, nor centurion tribune, nor tribune lieutenant, nor lieutenant consul, nor master of the horse dictator—none would have respect for men, none reverence for the gods; neither edicts of generals nor auspices would be regarded; the soldiers, without leave, would roam in hostile as in peaceful territory; with no thought of their oath they would quit the service by their own permission, when they pleased; the standards would be deserted, the men would not come together at command; they would fight without reference to night or day, to the advantage or disadvantage of the ground, to the orders or prohibition of the general; they would neither wait for the word nor keep to their ranks; blind and haphazard brigandage would supplant the time-honoured and hallowed ways of war.

cum polluta semel militari disciplina non miles centurionis, non centurio tribuni, non tribunus legati, non legatus consulis, non magister equitum dictatoris pareat imperio, nemo hominum, nemo deorum verecundiam habeat, non edicta imperatorum, non auspicia observentur, sine commeatu vagi milites in pacato, in hostico errent, immemores sacramenti licentia sua se ubi velint exauctorent, infrequentia deserantur signa neque conveniatur ad edictum nec discernatur interdiu nocte, aequo iniquo loco, iussu iniussu imperatoris pugnent, et non signa, non ordines servent, latrocinii modo caeca et fortuita pro sollemni et sacrata militia sit.

From here to the beginning of section 6, as far as of whom I am the foremost, there is a hole in the only manuscript of this sermon, which belonged to the Abbey of Corbey. Only the first few words of the next ten lines survive. The reason, say the Maurists, is that "some good-for-nothing with too much time on his hands," quidam nebulo male feriatus, liked the illuminated initial letter of the manuscript on the reverse side so much, that he hacked it out.

Haec lacuna contigit (ut saepe in elegantioribus manuscriptis) facinore nebulonis cujusdam male feriati, qui litteram initialem hujus sermonis auro minioque depictam cultro praecidit.

To one who asked what was the proper time for lunch, he said, "If a rich man, when you will; if a poor man, when you can."

πρὸς τὸν πυθόμενον ποίᾳ ὥρᾳ δεῖ ἀριστᾶν, "εἰ μὲν πλούσιος," εἶπεν, "ὅταν θέλῃ· εἰ δὲ πένης, ὅταν ἔχῃ."

More wine; let the liquor master these unwonted pains.

Adde merum vinoque novos compesce dolores.

Sometimes you really are incredibly stupid.

interdum inepte stultus es.

You're terribly stupid, in a childish way.

nimis tu quidem hercle homo stultus es pueriliter.

'At bottom, people are only comfortable with the condition in which, and for which, they were born. Unless some great enterprise takes you abroad, you are much better off staying at home.'

»Denn imgrunde ist dem Menschen nur der Zustand gemäß, worin und wofür er geboren worden. Wen nicht große Zwecke in die Fremde treiben, der bleibt weit glücklicher zu Hause.«

• Native Soil
• Stability and Mobility
• Domi Manere Oportet
• Oikos Philos, Oikos Aristos
• Small Houses
• Staying Put
• My Native Hills
• More on Aglaus of Psophis
• Staying at Home
• Lottites
• To Be Happy At Home
• Aglaus of Psophis
• Here

Wanting to avoid Charybdis, you fall into Scylla.

Incidis in Scillam cupiens uitare Caribdim.

Pigs' trotters fill the platters, wine fills the cups;
A cool breeze sighs, when the god approaches.
They hope the god will come cheerfully and leave cheerfully, too;
Young boys bow low to welcome him, little girls dance.
Old men brandish incense sticks, smiling as they talk:
"This year farmers' lives will definitely be better than last.
Last year we had to sell our clothes to pay the rent and taxes;
But this year we'll have plenty of clothes to wear for the autumn thanksgiving!"

Lovers don't love a woman's dress, but its stuffing.

non vestem amatores amant mulieris, sed vestis fartim.

A beautiful woman will be more beautiful naked than dressed in purple.

pulchra mulier nuda erit quam purpurata pulchrior.

One must endure what the gods give mortal men and calmly bear both lots, neither too sick at heart in bad times nor suddenly rejoicing in good times, until the final outcome is seen.

τολμᾶν χρὴ τὰ διδοῦσι θεοὶ θνητοῖσι βροτοῖσιν,
    ῥηϊδίως δὲ φέρειν ἀμφοτέρων τὸ λάχος,
μήτε κακοῖσιν ἀσῶντα λίην φρένα, μήτ᾿ ἀγαθοῖσιν
    τερφθῇς ἐξαπίνης πρὶν τέλος ἄκρον ἰδεῖν.

Don't be too vexed at heart in hard times or rejoice too much in good times, since it is the mark of a noble man to endure everything.

μηδὲν ἄγαν χαλεποῖσιν ἀσῶ φρένα μηδ᾿ ἀγαθοῖσιν
    χαῖρ᾿, ἐπεὶ ἔστ᾿ ἀνδρὸς πάντα φέρειν ἀγαθοῦ.

Hopeful in adversity, anxious in prosperity, is the heart that is well prepared for weal or woe.

sperat infestis, metuit secundis
alteram sortem bene praeparatum
pectus.

'Indeed,' said Goethe. 'What could be more important than the subject matter? All the art theory in the world is nothing without that. No amount of talent will help you if the subject is no good. This is the problem with all modern art: today's artists don't have any worthy subjects. We're all affected by this; I myself can't escape my own modernity.'

»Ja,« sagte Goethe, »was ist auch wichtiger als die Gegenstände, und was ist die ganze Kunstlehre ohne sie. Alles Talent ist verschwendet, wenn der Gegenstand nichts taugt. Und eben weil dem neuern Künstler die würdigen Gegenstände fehlen, so hapert es auch so mit aller Kunst der neueren Zeit. Darunter leiden wir alle; ich habe auch meine Modernität nicht verleugnen können.«

John the apostle and evangelist says in his Epistle [1 John 3.15]: Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer. And he is right. Since murder has its origin in hatred, whosoever hates, even though he has not yet struck a blow with the sword, is nevertheless a murderer at heart.

Ioannes idem apostolus et evangelista in epistula sua ait: quicumque odit fratrem suum, homicida, et recte. cum enim homicidium ex odio saepe nascatur, quicumque odit, etiam si necdum gladio percusserit, animo tamen homicida est.

πᾶς ὁ μισῶν τὸν ἀδελφὸν αὐτοῦ ἀνθρωποκτόνος ἐστίν, καὶ οἴδατε ὅτι πᾶς ἀνθρωποκτόνος οὐκ ἔχει ζωὴν αἰώνιον ἐν αὐτῷ μένουσαν.

My heart aches since I know how I am now and how I used to be.
None of the young men worked harder than me
*** in athletics:
I lived joyfully with the discus, javelins, the ball, running, weapons, and riding.
With my thrift and self-discipline I was an example for others:
all the best sought a model in me.
Now that I'm worthless I’ve found this state through my own character.

cor dolet quom scio ut nunc sum atque ut fui,
quo neque industrior de iuuentute erat        150
*** arte gymnastica:
disco, hastis, pila, cursu, armis, equo
victitabam volup,
parsimonia et duritia discipulinae aliis eram,
optumi quique expetebant a me doctrinam sibi.        155
nunc, postquam nihili sum, id vero meopte ingenio repperi.

151 ***: <quisquam nec clarior> Ussing

Si può quindi ben comprendere la colorita liquidazione che Acidalio 1607, 226 riservò alla lettura del Lambino³¹, e con essa a quelle simili, preferendo inserire un haud prima di volup. Qualcosa di simile hanno poi proposto Ritschl 1852 (in apparato: Nec minus suo animo uictitabat uolup), Bugge 1873 (hau uictitabam uolup), e Ussing 1880 (Meo animo haud uictitabam uolup): insomma, Filolachete direbbe che allora "non faceva una vita piacevole". E però anche questa osservazione meramente negativa, nel momento in cui il giovane ripercorre con grande rimpianto le glorie e la stima di un tempo, sembra stonata e fuori luogo.

31) "Scio Lambini interpretationem: vixisse duriter, & tamen iucundè. Sed interpretatio est Lambini, qui prorsus hìc Lambinus" (fr. lambin = 'poltrone').

There they'd train themselves by running, wrestling, throwing the spear and the discus, boxing, playing ball, and jumping, rather than with a prostitute or kisses. There they'd spend their lives, not in dark dens.

ibi cursu, luctando, hasta, disco, pugilatu, pila,
saliendo sese exercebant magis quam scorto aut saviis:
ibi suam aetatem extendebant, non in latebrosis locis.

If thou desirest riches, see that thou hast a fertile farm;
for a farm, they say, is a horn of Amalthea.

χρηίζων πλούτου μελέτην ἔχε πίονος ἀγροῦ·
ἀγρὸν γάρ τε λέγουσιν Ἀμαλθείης κέρας εἶναι.

Amalthea was a nymph, daughter of Oceanus, Helios, Haemonius, or of the Cretan king Melisseus, who fed Zeus with the milk of a goat. When this goat broke off one of her horns, Amalthea filled it with fresh herbs and gave it to Zeus, who placed it among the stars. According to other accounts Zeus himself broke off one of the horns of the goat Amalthea, and gave it to the daughters of Melisseus, and endowed it with the wonderful power of becoming filled with whatever the possessor might wish. This is the story about the origin of the celebrated horn of Amalthea, commonly called the horn of plenty or cornucopia, which was used in later times as the symbol of plenty in general.

I am a fine, prize–winning horse, but I carry a man who is utterly base, and this causes me the greatest pain. Often I was on the point of breaking the bit, throwing my bad rider, and running off.

ἵππος ἐγὼ καλὴ καὶ ἀεθλίη, ἀλλὰ κάκιστον
    ἄνδρα φέρω, καί μοι τοῦτ᾿ ἀνιηρότατον.
πολλάκι δὴ ᾿μέλλησα διαρρήξασα χαλινὸν
    φεύγειν ὠσαμένη τὸν κακὸν ἡνίοχον.        260

It is, however, just possible that our elegy had a political meaning; then ἵππος would signify a state ruled by а κακός (oг κακοί), cf. 681.

the horse may be a city ruled by a bad man

An enigma, or riddle poem, of which Theognis wrote several. One possible solution is that the horse and rider are a city and her tyrant.

For how few pass beyond the age of a hundred years, or attain to it without regretting the attainment—even as Scripture bears witness in the book of Psalms [90.10]: The days of our life are threescore years and ten, and if it is long, fourscore; what is more of them is labor and sorrow!

quotus enim quisque aut centenariam transgreditur aetatem aut non ad eam sic pervenit, ut pervenisse paeniteat, secundum quod in libro Psalmorum Scriptura testatur: dies vitae nostrae septuaginta anni, si autem multum, octoginta; quidquid reliquum est, labor et dolor?

"Brat" has its origins in the 15th century, when Chaucer used it to mean a cloak of coarse cloth, and by the early 16th century it came to refer to an unwanted child.

Chaucer's 15th century amounted to fewer than 300 days.

Brat, or brat n.1 at least, appears in a triple gloss in the 10th century Lindisfarne Gospels (Matthew 5:40 et ei qui vult tecum iudicio contendere et tunicam tuam tollere remitte ei et pallium = And if a man will contend with thee in judgment, and take away thy coat, let go thy cloak also unto him), so its history in English is five centuries earlier.

The advancing years rob us of every thing:
they have taken away my mirth, my gallantry, my revelings, and play.

singula de nobis anni praedantur euntes;
eripuere iocos, venerem, convivia, ludum.

Afterwards, when the body is now wrecked with the mighty strength of time, and the frame has succumbed with blunted strength, the intellect limps, the tongue babbles, the intelligence totters, all is wanting and fails at the same time.

post ubi iam validis quassatum est viribus aevi
corpus et obtusis ceciderunt viribus artus,
claudicat ingenium, delirat lingua, <labat> mens,
omnia deficiunt atque uno tempore desunt.

453 labat add. Lachmann (vagat Palmer, Hermathena 4.8 [1882] 264; vagat vel vacat Everett, Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 7 (1896) 31; meat Merrill, American Journal of Philology 21.2 [1900] 183-184; natat Orth, Helmántica 11 (1960) 311)

They saw, however, that those who were in power were ruling like tyrants, and perceived that their state was being put out of existence, inasmuch as boundary stones had been removed and their fatherland was called Argos instead of Corinth; and, while they were compelled to share in the rights of citizenship at Argos, for which they had no desire, they had less influence in their state than aliens. Some of them, accordingly, came to the belief that life under such conditions was not endurable; but if they endeavoured to make their fatherland Corinth again, even as it had been from the beginning, and to make it free, and not only pure of the stain of the murderers, but blest with an orderly government, they thought it a worthy deed, if they could accomplish these things, to become saviours of their fatherland, but if they could not do so, to meet a most praiseworthy death in striving after the fairest and greatest blessings.

ὁρῶντες δὲ τοὺς τυραννεύοντας, αἰσθανόμενοι δὲ ἀφανιζομένην τὴν πόλιν διὰ τὸ καὶ ὅρους ἀνασπᾶσθαι καὶ Ἄργος ἀντὶ Κορίνθου τὴν πατρίδα αὐτοῖς ὀνομάζεσθαι, καὶ πολιτείας μὲν ἀναγκαζόμενοι τῆς ἐν Ἄργει μετέχειν, ἧς οὐδὲν ἐδέοντο, ἐν δὲ τῇ πόλει μετοίκων ἔλαττον δυνάμενοι, ἐγένοντό τινες αὐτῶν οἳ ἐνόμισαν οὕτω μὲν ἀβίωτον εἶναι· πειρωμένους δὲ τὴν πατρίδα, ὥσπερ ἦν καὶ ἐξ ἀρχῆς, Κόρινθον ποιῆσαι καὶ ἐλευθέραν ἀποδεῖξαι καὶ τῶν μὲν μιαιφόνων καθαράν, εὐνομίᾳ δὲ χρωμένην, ἄξιον εἶναι, εἰ μὲν δύναιντο καταπρᾶξαι ταῦτα, σωτῆρας γενέσθαι τῆς πατρίδος, εἰ δὲ μὴ δύναιντο, τῶν γε καλλίστων καὶ μεγίστων ἀγαθῶν ὀρεγομένους ἀξιεπαινοτάτης τελευτῆς τυχεῖν.