Laudator Temporis Acti

D(is) M(anibus) s(acrum). Atimeti lib(erta) Fabia Merope annorum LXXV pia in suis h(ic) s(ita) e(st). s(it) t(ibi) t(erra) l(evis).
si quantum pietas potuit tantum fortuna dedisset
    litteris auratis scribere hunc titulum.

Consecrated to the Manes. Fabia Merope, freedwoman of Atimetus, of 75 years, devoted to her own. She lies buried here; may the earth rest lightly on you. If fortune had let me do as much as affection allowed, I would have inscribed this with letters of gold.

Pius/pia in suis ist eine in den Grabinschriften der Baetica allgemein verbreitete Formel (vgl. die Belege in CIL II p. 1177).

Let us return to old times, and that will be progress.

Pathetic lodgings cost a lot...

magno hospitium miserabile...

When men pass judgment on the past, they tend to award the palm to high culture, which has normally (and indeed exclusively) been the product of cities and of minorities. Athens is praised, and Rome—while the slaves and serfs and the voiceless earth-coloured rustics are conveniently forgotten.

To me, all-seeing deity,
All-puissant god, the human race
Will sacrifice with pious prayers.
My eyes survey the whole of earth,
I keep its copious fruits quite safe
By killing teeming broods of beasts
Who feed on all that grows in soil,
Crushing the produce of plants in omnivorous jaws,
And sitting on branches devouring the fruit of the trees.
I also kill the ones which blight
All fragrant gardens with their stains.
All manner of insects which creep and which bite
Are caught in the sweep of my wings
And fall to destruction in bloodshed.

ἤδη ᾿μοὶ τῷ παντόπτᾳ
καὶ παντάρχᾳ θνητοὶ πάντες
θύσουσ᾿ εὐκταίαις εὐχαῖς.        1060
πᾶσαν μὲν γὰρ γᾶν ὀπτεύω,
σῴζω δ᾿ εὐθαλεῖς καρποὺς
κτείνων παμφύλων γένναν
θηρῶν, ἃ πᾶν τ᾿ ἐν γαίᾳ
ἐκ κάλυκος αὐξανόμενον γένυσι παμφάγοις        1065
δένδρεσί τ᾿ ἐφημένα καρπὸν ἀποβόσκεται.
κτείνω δ᾿ οἳ κήπους εὐώδεις
φθείρουσιν λύμαις ἐχθίσταις·
ἑρπετά τε καὶ δάκετα <πάνθ᾿> ὅσαπερ
ἔστιν, ὑπ᾿ ἐμᾶς πτέρυγος        1070
ἐν φοναῖς ὄλλυται.

You keep quiet and don't speak too impetuously;
or do you not know very well, exceptionally intelligent as you
are, that foolish words lead to punishment being inflicted?

σὺ δ᾿ ἡσύχαζε μηδ᾿ ἄγαν λαβροστόμει.
ἢ οὐκ οἶσθ᾿ ἀκριβῶς, ὢν περισσόφρων, ὅτι
γλώσσῃ ματαίᾳ ζημία προστρίβεται;

Cambridge Classics was but a mild extension of school, although I did come to see the value of working hard at translation into English, to improve my English rather than just render the Greek, and got no little pleasure from writing Greek and Latin verse. The Master, A.B. Ramsay ('the Ram'), made us have 'saying lessons' (as he would have done at Eton) each morning, and I got Demosthenes 'First Olynthiac Oration' off by heart, as well as long stretches of Virgil, Cicero and Sophocles. 'What do I want from my boys?' — 'Accuracy, eloquence and deportment, Master'. This did no harm and helped composition since they gave one inbuilt criterion for good prose. A fellow undergraduate at Magdalene was Maurice Pope, later Professor of Classics at Cape Town. He and I could still manage the first few sentences of the Demosthenes in 2004: Anti pollon an, o andres Athenaioi... — the whole took about 20 minutes. In Greece in 1949, in a taverna at Nauplion, I came across a Greek soldier who had also learned the Oration and we exchanged recitals over the dinner table with vastly different pronunciations.

Once a week during our first two terms every undergraduate reading Classics had to appear before him and recite a portion of the prescribed classical text — in our case a Demosthenes oration. Every week an extra section was added so that finally one recited the complete work. Strange though this was, the formal preliminaries were even odder — taking the form of an inquisition. To the first question ‘What do I expect of my boys in their saying lessons?’, the required answer was ‘accuracy, eloquence and deportment, Master’ and to the next question ‘And what do I expect of my boys in their work?’, the answer had to be ‘diligence and obedience, Master’. In 1939 we did not protest.

It is the word which is used in the famous saying of Meander: "Whom the gods love, dies young."

ὃν οἱ θεοὶ φιλοῦσιν ἀποθνῄσκει νέος.

There's another egregious blunder in the same paragraph in the Insufficiently Revised Version:

I’m sure not every man would be overjoyed to have hot philountes but each to his own.

And here’s the 2001 Revised Version: the <n> restored in Menander and the <t> of Hot removed but still getting it wrong doesn’t seem to matter to them one iota:

Labels: typographical and other errors

Observe how much the lovers of gold are prepared to suffer. They commit themselves to sea voyages in the roughest winter weather; they are so heated up with avarice, that they don't dread any cold; they are tossed about by the winds, hoisted up and dumped down by the waves; pursued by unimaginable dangers to the point of death.

Amatores auri videte quanta patiantur. Hiemalibus asperitatibus se navigando committunt: sic fervent avaritia, ut nulla formident frigora; iactantur ventis, suspenduntur et deprimuntur fluctibus; ineffabilibus periculis usque ad mortem agitantur.

He went up to Anaximenes the rhetorician, who was fat, and said, "Let us beggars have something of your paunch; it will be a relief to you, and we shall get advantage."

Ἀναξιμένει τῷ ῥήτορι παχεῖ ὄντι προσελθών, "ἐπίδος καὶ ἡμῖν" ἔφη, "τοῖς πτωχοῖς τῆς γαστρός· καὶ γὰρ αὐτὸς κουφισθήσῃ καὶ ἡμᾶς ὠφελήσεις."

It appears that in war the factors of chief importance are the numbers and valour of the soldiers, the abilities of the commanders, and Fortune, which, powerful in all the affairs of men, is especially so in war.

plurimum in bello pollere videntur militum copia et virtus, ingenia imperatorum, fortuna per omnia humana, maxime in res bellicas potens.

in res bellicas codd.: inter res bellicas vel in rebus bellicis Harant: in re bellica Mueller: re bellica Weissenborn

In our chosen fields we shall understand our authors better if we read what they read, see what they saw, believe for the moment what they believed, enjoy the art and music of their day, enter into their enthusiasms and hatreds, fight their battles with them, hobnob with their fellows, in a word, be their most intimate associates in all respects.

For I'm the only thing in my house that I can call my own.

nam ego meorum solus sum meus.

For I'm the only thing I can call my own.

ἐγὼ γάρ εἰμι τῶν <ἐμῶν> ἐμός <μόνος>.

suppl. Guyet

I don't understand why we must do things in this world, why we must have friends and aspirations, hopes and dreams. Wouldn't it better to retreat to a faraway corner of the world, where all its noise and complications would be heard no more? Then we could renounce culture and ambitions; we would lose everything and gain nothing; for what is there to be gained from this world?

J'ignore totalement pourquoi il faut faire quelque chose ici-bas, pourquoi il nous faut avoir des amis et des aspirations, des espoirs et des rêves. Ne serait-il pas mille fois préférable de se retirer à l'écart du monde, loin de tout ce qui fait son tumulte et ses complications? Nous renoncerions ainsi à la culture et aux ambitions, nous perdrions tout sans rien obtenir en échange. Mais que peut-on obtenir en ce monde?

You know what Lebedus is—a town more desolate than Gabii and
Fidenae: yet there would I love to live,
and forgetting my friends and by them forgotten,
gaze from the land on Neptune's distant rage.

scis Lebedus quid sit? Gabiis desertior atque
Fidenis vicus; tamen illic vivere vellem,
oblitus meorum, obliviscendus et illis,
Neptunum procul e terra spectare furentem.

To the question what wine he found pleasant to drink, he replied, "That for which other people pay."

ἐρωτηθεὶς ποῖον οἶνον ἡδέως πίνει, ἔφη, "τὸν ἀλλότριον."

What a splendid wall for wall posters⁴ this Quadratus had presided over!

4. Parietem signinarium. This odd word is not given in Lewis & Short's Latin Dictionary. I am guessing that here it indicates a wall—whitewashed, of course, because it was the White Mass—on which signs, advertisements, can be painted, and graffiti scrawled; it's a novel metaphor for a fervent community of martyrs: a billboard for Christ.

Quam magnum parietem signinarium (?)²⁰ regebat iste Quadratus!

²⁰ signinarium] Restitution conjecturale. Le manuscrit a sigmnarium, dont il n'y a rien à faire. Mais l'adjectif signinus est d'usage courant, par ex. «signinum opus» (PLIN. 55, 46, 5): «signini parietes» (PALLAD., 1, 17). On trouve aussi simplement «signinum, signina». La pensée m'est venue qu'Augustin avait pu former de là l'adjectif subsidiaire «signinarius»; le copiste aurait écrit un m au lieu de ni. Mons. Giov. Galbiati, Préfet de l'Ambrosienne, partage en cela ma manière de voir.

Human flatulence alone generates about three quarters of a billion liters of methane per day, or 30 million cubic feet — enough to meet the daily cooking and heating needs of 140,000 northern city dwellers.

Labels: noctes scatologicae

He who feared he might not win sat still.

sedit qui timuit ne non succederet.

A coward will always stick where he is.

When I set myself, as I sometimes do, to consider human unrest in its various forms, and the perils and pains to which men expose themselves at court or in the camp (rich source of quarrels and passions, of bold and often unsuccessful ventures), I have often said that man's unhappiness arises from one thing only, namely that he cannot abide quietly in one room.

Quand je m'y suis mis quelquefois à considérer les diverses agitations des hommes et les périls et les peines où ils s'exposent dans la Cour, dans la guerre, d'où naissent tant de querelles, de passions, d'entreprises hardies et souvent mauvaises, etc., j'ai dit souvent que tout le malheur des hommes vient d'une seule chose, qui est de ne savoir pas demeurer en repos dans une chambre.

Just as tombs are smoothed over on the outside with chalk, adorned with marble, and distinguished with gold and colors, but inside they are full of dead men's bones, so also are bad teachers. They teach one thing and do something else. They may show purity in the quality of their clothing and in the humility of their words, but inwardly they are full of all filth, avarice, and lust.

quomodo sepulcra forinsecus lota sunt calce et ornata marmoribus et auro coloribusque distincta, intus autem plena sunt ossibus mortuorum, sic et perversi magistri, qui alia docent et alia faciunt, munditiam habitu vestis et verborum humilitate demonstrant: intus autem pleni sunt omni spurcitia et avaritia et libidine.

“Why, sir,” the student asks, “does Achilles drag the body of Hector around the walls of Troy?” “That sounds like a stimulating question. Most interesting. I’ll bite,” says the professor. “Well, you see, sir, the Iliad is full of circles—shields, chariot wheels and other round figures. And you know what Plato said about circles. The Greeks were all made for geometry.” “Bless your crew-cut head,” says the professor, “for such a beautiful thought. You have exquisite sensibility. Your approach is both deep and serious. Still, I always believed that Achilles did it because he was so angry.”

It would take an unusual professor to realize that Achilles was angry. To many teachers he would represent much but he would not be anything in particular. To be is too obvious. Our professor, however, is a “square” and the bright student is annoyed with him. Anger! What good is anger? Great literature is subtle, dignified, profound. Homer is as good as Plato anytime; and if Plato thought, Homer must surely have done so too, thought just as beautifully circle for circle.

But, if there be any bliss among mortal men, it doth not reveal itself without toil; yet a god may bring that bliss to an end, verily, even to-day. That which is fated cannot be fled; but a time shall come which, smiting with a stroke that is unforeseen, shall grant one boon beyond all hope, but shall withhold another.

εἰ δέ τις ὄλβος ἐν ἀνθρώποισιν, ἄνευ καμάτου
οὐ φαίνεται· ἐκ δὲ τελευτάσει νιν ἤτοι σάμερον
δαίμων—τὸ δὲ μόρσιμον οὐ παρφυκτόν,—ἀλλ᾽ ἔσται χρόνος        30
οὗτος, ὃ καί τιν᾽ ἀελπτίᾳ βαλὼν
ἔμπαλιν γνώμας τὸ μὲν δώσει, τὸ δ᾽ οὔπω.

Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?

τίς δὲ ἐξ ὑμῶν μεριμνῶν δύναται προσθεῖναι ἐπὶ τὴν ἡλικίαν αὐτοῦ πῆχυν ἕνα;

Anxiety will not add even the smallest unit of time to one's life. Some translations read as if one added a cubit to one's height (Schwarz 1980, speculatively retroverting into Aramaic; cf. Tert. Spec. 23), but the adjective "single" in the phrase "a single cubit" militates against this interpretation. Jesus in 6:27 refers not to adding a "mere" cubit to one’s height — which would be a considerable addition! — but to adding a "mere" cubit to one’s longevity (see Schweizer 1975: 165; Filson 1960: 101; France 1985: 140; cf. Ps 39:5), thus the NRSV translation, "a single hour." (Though a graphic image, a cubit as a metaphorical time unit was intelligible; cf., e.g., Ap. Rhod. 4.1510.) Jesus may employ intentional understatement here (rhetoricians would have called his figure "catachresis," whereby a related term substitutes for a more precise one, such as "short power" or "small height" — Rhet. ad Herenn. 4.33.45). Not only is it true that one cannot extend one's life by worrying; daily experience in our comparatively fast-paced culture confirms the wisdom of an earlier Jewish sage who observed that worry and a troubled heart actually shorten life (Sir 30:19-24; cf. Pub. Syr. 187). If much study is wearying to the flesh (Eccl 12:12), "worry" about wealth also banishes sleep and destroys the flesh (Sir 34:1).

A very great many of the ills of the human race, after all, have no other source but false and unfounded suspicions. You imagine someone hates you when perhaps he's fond of you; and that crooked suspicion makes you extremely hostile to someone who is extremely friendly. What's he to do, since you don't believe him or trust him, and he isn't able to show you his heart? He speaks to you and says, "I'm very fond of you." But because he could still say this and be lying—one uses the same words, after all, when lying as when telling the truth—you don't believe him, and still go on hating him.

Pleraque enim mala generis humani non aliunde oriuntur, nisi de suspicionibus falsis. Credis de homine quod oderit te, qui forte amat te; et per pravam suspicionem fis inimicissimus amicissimo. Quid faciat, cui non credis, et cor suum tibi demonstrare non valet? Loquitur tibi dicens, Amo te. Sed quia posset tibi hoc dicere et mentiens (ea sunt enim verba mentientis, quae vera dicentis), non credendo adhuc odisti.

Now come on, you Whitefeet,
we who went against Leipsydrium
when we still were something,
now, now we must become young again and revitalize
our whole body and shake off this old skin of ours.

ἀλλ᾿ ἄγετε λευκόποδες,
οἵπερ ἐπὶ Λειψύδριον        665
ἤλθομεν ὅτ᾿ ἦμεν ἔτι,
νῦν δεῖ, νῦν ἀνηβῆσαι πάλιν κἀναπτερῶσαι
πᾶν τὸ σῶμα κἀποσείσασθαι τὸ γῆρας τόδε.        670

λευκόποδες Hermann: λυκόποδες codd.

I wish that all of you were as I am.

θέλω δὲ πάντας ἀνθρώπους εἶναι ὡς καὶ ἐμαυτόν.

Therefore he ought to be punished, not merely as an enemy, but also as a traitor both to you and to ourselves. And treason is a far more dreadful thing than war, inasmuch as it is harder to take precaution against the hidden than against the open danger, and a far more hateful thing, inasmuch as men make peace with enemies and become their trustful friends again, but if they catch a man playing the traitor, they never in any case make peace with that man or trust him thereafter.

ὥστε οὐ μόνον ὡς ἐχθρῷ αὐτῷ προσήκει ἀλλὰ καὶ ὡς προδότῃ ὑμῶν τε καὶ ἡμῶν διδόναι τὴν δίκην. καίτοι τοσούτῳ μὲν δεινότερον προδοσία πολέμου, ὅσῳ χαλεπώτερον φυλάξασθαι τὸ ἀφανὲς τοῦ φανεροῦ, τοσούτῳ δ᾿ ἔχθιον, ὅσῳ πολεμίοις μὲν ἅνθρωποι καὶ σπένδονται καὶ αὖθις πιστοὶ γίγνονται, ὃν δ᾿ ἂν προδιδόντα λαμβάνωσι, τούτῳ οὔτε ἐσπείσατο πώποτε οὐδεὶς οὔτ᾿ ἐπίστευσε τοῦ λοιποῦ.

Man is a hater of truth, a lover of fiction.

The same emperor, having been defeated, laid the blame on his commanders. For, though he claimed for himself all the successes, none of which was due to him, yet he blamed others for the reverses, notwithstanding that they had been incurred in consequence of the orders issued by him. Indeed, he hated those who succeeded and blamed those who met with reverses.

Ὅτι ὁ αὐτὸς πταίσας τοῖς στρατιάρχαις ἐπεκάλει. τὰ μὲν γὰρ ἀμείνω πάντα, καίτοι μηδὲν αὐτῶν πράττων, προσεποιεῖτο, τῶν δὲ δὴ χειρόνων ἑτέρους, εἰ καὶ ἐκ τῆς ἐκείνου τι κελεύσεως συνεβεβήκει, ᾐτιᾶτο. καὶ ἐμίσει μὲν τοὺς κατορθώσαντάς τι, ἐμέμφετο δὲ τοὺς πταίσαντας.

Such a man, in truth, am I. When means fail, I cry up a safe and lowly lot, resolute enough where all is paltry: but when something better and richer comes my way I, the same man, say that only men like you are wise and live well—whose invested wealth is displayed in handsome villas.

nimirum hic ego sum. nam tuta et parvola laudo,
cum res deficiunt, satis inter vilia fortis:
verum ubi quid melius contingit et unctius, idem
vos sapere et solos aio bene vivere, quorum        45
conspicitur nitidis fundata pecunia villis.

That's just like me: all for the simple life
when short of cash, and brave enough about it;
but in better and fatter times my opinion is,
you can only be wise and happy with visible assets
soundly invested in fine residences.

Every human being, though, of whatever kind or quality, wishes to be happy. There isn't anybody who doesn't want that, and want it in such a way as to want it above everything else; or rather, in such a way, that whoever wants other things wants them for the sake of this one thing. People are carried away by the most diverse longings, and one longs for this, another for that. There are different modes of life in the human race; and in the great variety of modes of life, one has chosen and taken to one way, another to another. There is nobody, however, whatever mode of life may have been chosen, who does not long for a happy life. So a happy life is the common aim of all; but how one gets to it, how one makes one's way to it, what route one follows in order to arrive at it, that's what the argument is about. And thus if we were to look for the happy or blessed life on earth, I don't know whether we could find it; not because what we are looking for is bad, but because we are not looking for it in its own place.

One man says, "Happy are those who join the army." Another denies this, and says, "Happy, yes, but those who have a plot of land to cultivate."' This too is contradicted by another, who says, "Happy are those who spend their time in the public eye in the courts, and defend cases, and control the life and death of people with their tongues." This too is contradicted by another, who says, "Happy, yes, but those who are the judges, who have the authority to try cases and decide them." Someone else denies this, and says, "Happy are those who sail the seas, learn about many countries, make big profits." You can see, dearly beloved, how in this great variety of modes of life there isn't one thing that pleases everybody; and yet the happy life pleases everybody. How can this be, that while no one form of life is pleasing to all, the happy life is pleasing to all?

---

Omnis autem homo, qualiscumque sit, beatus vult esse. Hoc nemo est qui non velit, atque ita velit, ut prae caeteris velit; imo quicumque vult caetera, propter hoc unum velit. Diversis cupiditatibus homines rapiuntur, et alius cupit hoc, alius illud: diversa genera sunt vivendi, in genere humano; et in multitudine generum vivendi alius aliud elegit et capessit: nemo est tamen quocumque genere vitae electo, qui non beatam vitam cupiat. Beata ergo vita, omnium est communis possessio: sed qua veniatur ad eam, qua tendatur, quo itinere tento perveniatur, inde controversia est. Ac per hoc si quaeramus beatam vitam in terris, nescio utrum invenire possimus: non quia malum est quod quaerimus, sed quia non in loco suo quaerimus.

Alius dicit: Beati qui militant. Negat alius, et dicit: Beati, sed qui agrum colunt. Et hoc negat alius, et dicit: Beati qui in foro populari claritate versantur, causasque defendunt, vitam mortemque hominum lingua moderantur. Et hoc alius negat, et dicit: Beati, sed qui iudicant, qui potestatem habent audiendi et discernendi. Negat hoc alius, et dicit: Beati qui navigant, multas regiones discunt, multa colligunt lucra. Videtis, carissimi, in omni ista multitudine generum vivendi non placere unum omnibus: et tamen beata vita placet omnibus. Quid est hoc, ut cum omnibus non placeat quaecumque vita, omnibus placeat beata vita?

• Every Humour Hath His Adjunct Pleasure
• Suum Cuique
• Archilochus, Fragment 19 West
• Priamel (from the movie Johnny Guitar)
• Book Lovers
• A Priamel by Asclepiades
• Monday's Child Again?
• Different Strokes for Different Folks
• Attraction
• Priamel
• Suos Cuique Mos
• Individual Differences

The very morning I was to put in order some notes on this book, the post brought a letter from a former pupil, now at Oxford, from which a quotation is here made. "When in Germany I met a Bonn student who told me a remarkable story about his Greek professor. One day in the Seminar the professor said he had just received the finest Greek grammar he had ever seen. It read like a poem and was written by a poet. He handed it around, saying it was not his usual practice to risk injury to his books by students, but he must insist that the members of the Seminar be able to say they had at least touched—Gildersleeve's Greek Grammar. The student said the professor clasped and hugged it as though it were a most precious darling (Liebling)".

Food for the stomach, and the stomach for food, and God will do away with both the one and the other.

τὰ βρώματα τῇ κοιλίᾳ, καὶ ἡ κοιλία τοῖς βρώμασιν· ὁ δὲ θεὸς καὶ ταύτην καὶ ταῦτα καταργήσει.

You say, "Food for the stomach and the stomach for food, and God will destroy them both."

Now there is a saying amongst men: "Do not hide
in silence on the ground a noble achievement".
For a divine song of vaunting verses is fitting for it.

ἔστι δέ τις λόγος ἀνθρώπων, τετελεσμένον ἐσλόν
μὴ χαμαὶ σιγᾷ καλύψαι· θεσπεσία δ᾿ ἐπέων
καύχας ἀοιδὰ πρόσφορος.

'We Norlanders get tied up in a skein of fate from which there is no escape. Read in the Sagas, and you will see how relentless is the wheel. Hrut slays Hrap, and Atli slays Hrut, and Gisli slays Atli, and Kari slays Gisli. My father, God rest him, punishes the old Troth, and the younger Troth would punish me, and if he succeeds perhaps Anna or some child of Anna's will punish him.'

Musonius Rufus had joined these delegates. He was a member of the equestrian order, a man devoted to the study of philosophy and in particular to the Stoic doctrine. Making his way among the companies, he began to warn those in arms, discoursing on the blessings of peace and the dangers of war. Many were moved to ridicule by his words, more were bored; and there were some ready to jostle him about and to trample on him, if he had not listened to the warnings of the quieter soldiers and the threats of others and given up his untimely moralizing.

miscuerat se legatis Musonius Rufus equestris ordinis, studium philosophiae et placita Stoicorum aemulatus; coeptabatque permixtus manipulis, bona pacis ac belli discrimina disserens, armatos monere. id plerisque ludibrio, pluribus taedio: nec deerant qui propellerent proculcarentque, ni admonitu modestissimi cuiusque et aliis minitantibus omisisset intempestivam sapientiam.

Blessed are the peacemakers...

μακάριοι οἱ εἰρηνοποιοί...

Further, when sleep has tightly bound our limbs in sweet repose,
And the whole frame lies in deepest peace, we nonetheless suppose
That we are wide awake, our limbs astir, and that our sight
Beholds the light of day there in the inky black of night.
We think we trade our ceiling for the sky, our cramped room yields
To rivers, mountains, sea, we seem to stride across the fields
And to hear voices, though the night holds everything spellbound
In its grave silence; we seem to speak, but do not make a sound.

denique cum suavi devinxit membra sopore
somnus, et in summa corpus iacet omne quiete,
tum vigilare tamen nobis et membra movere        455
nostra videmur, et in noctis caligine caeca
cernere censemus solem lumenque diurnum,
conclusoque loco caelum mare flumina montis
mutare et campos pedibus transire videmur,
et sonitus audire, severa silentia noctis        460
undique cum constent, et reddere dicta tacentes.

In the language of the Psalms with which he had been familiar since his early childhood Hermannus could claim that God "de stercore pauperem erexit et eum cum princibus populi sui collocavit" (see Ps. 112:7-8).

Suscitans a terra inopem, et de stercore erigens pauperem: ut collocet eum cum principibus, cum principibus populi sui.

Ecce enim misericors et miserator Dominus de stercore pauperem erexit, et eum cum principibus populi sui collocavit.

The race that's now most popular with wealthy Romans—the people I want especially to get away from—I'll name them right away, without any embarrassment. My fellow-citizens, I cannot stand a Greekified Rome. Yet how few of our dregs are Achaeans? The Syrian Orontes has for a long time now been polluting the Tiber, bringing with it its language and customs, its slanting strings along with pipers, its native tom-toms too, and the girls who are told to offer themselves for sale at the Circus.

quae nunc divitibus gens acceptissima nostris
et quos praecipue fugiam, properabo fateri,
nec pudor obstabit. non possum ferre, Quirites,        60
Graecam Vrbem. quamvis quota portio faecis Achaei?
iam pridem Syrus in Tiberim defluxit Orontes
et linguam et mores et cum tibicine chordas
obliquas nec non gentilia tympana secum
vexit et ad Circum iussas prostare puellas.        65

The cheated nation's happy fav'rites, see!
Mark whom the great caress, who frown on me!
London! the needy villain's gen'ral home,
The common shore of Paris and of Rome;
With eager thirst, by folly or by fate,        95
Sucks in the dregs of each corrupted state.
Forgive my transports on a theme like this,
I cannot bear a French metropolis.

So why, O man, O woman, does your head swell so? Why, carrion skin, do you stretch yourself so? Why, stinking pus, do you puff yourself up so? You rant, you lament, you get steamed up, because heaven knows who has insulted you. On what grounds do you insist on satisfaction, do you thirst with gaping jaws for revenge, and not desist from your intention, until you have avenged yourself on the one who harmed you?

Quid ergo intumescis, o homo? O pellis morticina, quid tenderis? O sanies fetida, quid inflaris? Anhelas, doles, aestuas, quia nescio quis tibi fecit iniuriam. Unde tu flagitas ultionem, sitis arenti fauce vindictam; nec prius ab intentione desistis, donec de illo qui te laeserit, vindiceris?

As Plato was conversing about Ideas and using the nouns "tablehood" and "cuphood," he said, "Table and cup I see; but your tablehood and cuphood, Plato, I can nowise see." "That's readily accounted for," said Plato, "for you have the eyes to see the visible table and cup; but not the understanding by which ideal tablehood and cuphood are discerned."

Πλάτωνος περὶ ἰδεῶν διαλεγομένου καὶ ὀνομάζοντος τραπεζότητα καὶ κυαθότητα, "ἐγώ," εἶπεν, "ὦ Πλάτων, τράπεζαν μὲν καὶ κύαθον ὁρῶ· τραπεζότητα δὲ καὶ κυαθότητα οὐδαμῶς·" καὶ ὅς, "κατὰ λόγον," ἔφη· "οἷς μὲν γὰρ κύαθος καὶ τράπεζα θεωρεῖται ὀφθαλμοὺς ἔχεις· ᾧ δὲ τραπεζότης καὶ κυαθότης βλέπεται νοῦν οὐκ ἔχεις."