Laudator Temporis Acti

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.