Laudator Temporis Acti

Montaigne devotes a brief essay to a pair of pre-Socratic Greek thinkers, "Of Democritus and Heraclitus." The former is reputed to have been a misanthrope, perhaps a melancholic. The latter was known as "the laughing philosopher."

Labels: typographical and other errors

De Ste Croix was driven by a hatred of Christianity. He used to talk about his list of the most evil influences in world history, with Plato, St Paul and Augustine topping the list.

From trivial causes the tongue brings about great quarrels for men.

σμικρᾶς ἀπ' ἀρχῆς νεῖκος ἀνθρώποις μέγα
γλῶσσ' ἐκπορίζει.

LYS                         perii hercle ego miser!
PAR                                                              dig<nus es>.

LYS Poor me, I'm dead!
PAR (aside) Serves you right.

He loved to sprinkle howlers into his tutorial teaching (for instance the false claim that Julius Caesar had gone to Ireland) and unsuspecting pupils would repeat them in examination papers unaware that the examiners already knew them well. He also kept a barrel of beer in his rooms at Magdalen. After Schools (the final examination in Greats) he would entertain his finalists and throw half crowns to whoever had included one of his howlers in their Roman history paper.

Where, after all, does the earth get its richness from, if not from the rotting of earthy things? Those who cultivate the countryside are well aware of this; and those who don't, because they always live in town, should certainly know, from the gardens near the town, with what diligent care the worthless off-scourings of the city are kept, by whom they are even bought for a price, where they are carried to. Certainly all this could be thought by people with no experience to be worthless rubbish, void of any further use. And is anyone ready to spare a glance for a lump of dung? What people shrink from glancing at, they take great care to save.

So what seemed to have been already used up and thrown away goes back into the richness of the earth, the richness into sap, the sap into the root. And what passes from the earth into the root wanders up by invisible channels into the trunk, is distributed through the branches, passes from the branches into the seeds, from seed into fruit and leaves. There you are—what you shuddered at in the putrefaction of dung, you admire in the fruit and the greenery of the tree.

Unde enim terra pinguificatur, nisi de putredine terrenorum? Attendunt haec qui agrum colunt; et qui non colunt, quia in urbe semper vivunt, de hortis certe vicinis urbi cognoscant contemptibilia quaeque purgamenta civitatis quibus studiis serventur, a quibus etiam pretio comparentur, quo portentur. Certe iam contemptibilia, exinanita omni utilitate, ab inexpertis possent putari. Et quis dignatur stercus intueri? Quod intueri homo horret, servare curat.

Illud ergo quod consumptum iam et abiectum videbatur, redit in pinguedinem terrae, pinguedo in succum, succus in radicem; et quod de terra in radicem transit, invisibilibus accessibus migrat in robur, distribuitur per ramos, a ramis in germina, a germine in fructus et folia. Ecce quod horrebas in putredine stercoris, in arboris fecunditate et viriditate miraris.

Does any coin ever seem so carefully hidden that the authors of this law have not smelt it out?

numquisnam tam abstrusus usquam nummus videtur, quem non architecti huiusce legis olfecerint?

For myself, though I cannot recall the former age of liberty because I was born after that era, yet, as I insatiably steep myself in our present liberty, I count those enviable who were born and brought up in it; and I hold worthy of honour not less than the gods these men here who at this late date and at this stage of our lives, have treated us to one sip of liberty that we may know its taste.

ἐμοὶ δὲ τῆς μὲν πρότερον ἐλευθερίας ἀμνημονεῖν ἔστι διὰ τὸ κατόπιν αὐτῆς γεγονέναι, τῆς δὲ νῦν ἀπλήστως πιμπλαμένῳ μακαριστούς τε ἡγεῖσθαι τοὺς ἐγγενηθέντας καὶ ἐντραφέντας αὐτῇ καὶ τῶν θεῶν οὐδὲν μειόνως ἀξίους τιμῆς τούσδε τοὺς ἄνδρας, οἳ ὀψὲ γοῦν κἀν τούτῳ τῆς ἡλικίας ἡμᾶς γεύσαντας αὐτῆς.

Past history I know from tradition, but from the evidence of my own eyes I have learned with what evils tyranny infects a state. For it frustrates all the virtues, robs freedom of its lofty mood, and opens a school of fawning and terror, inasmuch as it leaves matters not to the wisdom of the laws, but to the angry whim of those who are in authority.

ἐγὼ γὰρ τὰ παλαιὰ οἶδα ἀκοῇ παραλαβών, οἷς δὲ ὄψει ὁμιλήσας ᾐσθόμην, οἵων κακῶν τὰς πολιτείας ἀναπιμπλᾶσιν αἱ τυραννίδες, κωλύουσαι μὲν πᾶσαν ἀρετὴν καὶ τοῦ μεγαλόφρονος ἀφαιρούμεναι τὸ ἐλεύθερον, κολακείας δὲ καὶ φόβου διδάσκαλοι καθιστάμεναι διὰ τὸ μὴ ἐπὶ σοφίᾳ τῶν νόμων, ἀλλ᾿ ἐπὶ τῇ ὀργῇ τῶν ἐφεστηκότων καταλιπεῖν τὰ πράγματα.

This tyranny was fostered by nothing but indolence and our failure to speak in opposition to any of its wishes.

καὶ τέτροφε τὴν τυραννίδα οὐδὲν ἕτερον πλὴν ἥ τε ἀργία καὶ τὸ πρὸς οὐδὲν τῶν ἐκείνῃ θελομένων ἀντιλογίᾳ χρώμενον

Taxation had doubled, even trebled, within living memory. The poor were victimized by an insane inflation. The rich defended themselves by unparalleled accumulations of property.

But when the dead are carried out to burial, people's thoughts do turn to death, and you hear them saying, "Poor soul! That's how it was; he was walking about only yesterday," or, "I saw him only a week ago, we had a conversation about this and that; yes, man is nothing at all."

Yes, they mutter things like that. But perhaps while the dead person is being mourned, while the funeral is being arranged, and preparations being made for it, when the cortège sets off, while the coffin is being laid in the grave, this kind of talk is to be heard. But once the dead have been buried, even this kind of thought is buried too. All those death-dealing preoccupations return, people forget whom they have buried, those who are going to follow them to the grave start thinking about the succession. Back they go to their frauds, their extortions, their perjuries, their drunkenness, to the endless pleasures of the body which are, I don't say going to vanish when they've been exhausted, but already vanishing while they are being sampled. And what is much more pernicious, from the burying of the dead an argument is drawn for the burial of the heart, and they say, Let us eat and drink; for tomorrow we die.

Sed cum efferuntur mortui, cogitatur mors, et dicitur: Vae misero! talis fuit, heri ambulabat; aut: ante septem dies illum vidi, illud atque illud mecum locutus est; nihil est homo.

Murmurant ista. Sed forte cum mortuus plangitur, cum funus curatur, cum exsequiae praeparantur, cum effertur, cum itur, cum sepelitur, viget iste sermo: sepulto autem mortuo, etiam talis cogitatio sepelitur. Redeunt illae curae mortiferae, obliviscitur quem deduxerit, de successione cogitat decessurus; reditur ad fraudes, ad rapinas, ad periuria, ad vinolentiam, ad infinitas corporis voluptates, non dico, cum exhaustae fuerint, perituras, sed cum hauriuntur pereuntes; et, quod est perniciosius, de sepulto mortuo argumentum sepeliendi cordis assumitur, et dicitur: Manducemus et bibamus; cras enim morimur.

The hyphen in "Greco-Roman" civilization stands by abbreviation for many significant differences, within which still others set at odds "the dull Boeotians," "deceitful Carthaginians," "volatile Alexandrians," and so forth, each caricatured by jealous neighbors.³

3 Differences in manners and values between the Latin- and the Greek-speaking parts of our area of study appear above, chapter 3 note 69, and 4 notes 61, 68, 91, and 99. The prevalence of caricatures of nations and city-state populations can best be illustrated by passages dealing with Alexandrians and (usually meaning the same thing) Egyptians: Tac., Hist. 1.11; Plin., Paneg. 31.2; Dio Chrysos., Or. 32.1, 68, 77 and 86; Herodian 4.9.2; Dio 51.17.1; Expositio tot. mundi 37; etc.; and more generally E. Wölfflin in Archiv für Lat. Lexicographie 7 (1892) 135-146, 333-342.

I don't believe in the heaven
Of which the preachers drone:
I believe in your eyes only—
There is my heaven alone.

I don't believe in the godhead
Of which the preachers drone:
I believe in your heart only—
No other god do I own.

I don't believe in the devil,
In hell or its counterpart:
I believe in your eyes only
And in your devilish heart.

---

Ich glaub' nicht an den Himmel,
Wovon das Pfäfflein spricht;
Ich glaub' nur an dein Auge,
Das ist mein Himmelslicht.

Ich glaub' nicht an den Herrgott,
Wovon das Pfäfflein spricht;
Ich glaub' nur an dein Herze,
'Nen andern Gott hab' ich nicht.

Ich glaub' nicht an den Bösen,
An Höll' und Höllenschmerz;
Ich glaub' nur an dein Auge,
Und an dein böses Herz.

I dont' believe in Heaven, of which the little priest speaks; I only believe in your eyes, they are my heavenly light.

I don't believe in the Lord God, of whom the little priest speaks; I only believe in your heart, I have no other god.

I don't believe in the Evil One, in Hell and the torments of Hell; I only believe in your eyes, and in your evil heart.

But whether your ways or mine are more supportable is perhaps clear to the gods, for among men there is no one capable of arbitrating in our disagreement. For such is our self-love that we shall never believe him, since everyone of us naturally admires his own ways and despises those of other men. In fact he who grants indulgence to one whose aims are the opposite of his own is, in my opinion, the most considerate of men.

πότερα μὲν οὖν ἐστι κουφότερα, θεοῖς ἴσως δῆλον, ἐπείπερ ἀνθρώπων οὐδεὶς οἷός τε ἡμῖν ἐστιν ὑπὲρ τῶν διαφορῶν βραβεῦσαι· πεισόμεθα γὰρ οὐδαμῶς αὐτῷ διὰ φιλαυτίαν, θαυμάζειν γὰρ εἰκὸς τὰ ἑαυτοῦ ἕκα στον, ἀτιμάζειν δὲ τὰ παρὰ τοῖς ἄλλοις. ὁ δὲ τῷ τὰ ἐναντία ζηλοῦντι νέμων συγγνώμην εἶναί μοι δοκεῖ πραότατος.

In their criticism, the opposition chose their standards from the past. They wanted to turn the clock backward. Their words of praise were "ancient" or "ancestral," in Sentius' mouth. They longed for a world that, as Sentius admitted, they had never seen, known to them only through books and busts. They cultivated the memory of men who had fought against the future—Brutus, Cassius, Cato.

Over the first hundred years of the principate, people lumped together as the "opposition" shared the same kind of background in any one generation, though it was a slightly different one at different times. They were alert to the same ideas, under the same dark skies, a close group. On the periphery stood men of views and courage similar but not so extreme: Curiatius Maternus or Pliny; at the heart, someone like Thrasea Paetus. It was their receptions and banquets that emperors feared, where, after the slaves had left the room, voices got lower and zeal hotter for revolution, for "new things," in the usual phrase, novae res. Here too was where men praised old things: the Republic, Brutus, and the ancestral way of life, mos maiorum.

I hate poor people. If anyone wants something for nothing, he's a fool. Let him pay up and he'll get it.

abomino paupero(s). quisqui(s) quid gratis rogat, fat(u)us est. aes det et accipiat rem.

Who, for example, can clear the history of the Greek philosophers of the soporific miasma spread over it by the learned, though not particularly scientific and unfortunately all too tedious, labours of Ritter, Brandis and Zeller? I for one prefer reading Laertius Diogenes to Zeller, because the former at least breathes the spirit of the philosophers of antiquity, while the latter breathes neither that nor any other spirit.

Wer erlöst zum Beispiel die Geschichte der griechischen Philosophen wieder von dem einschläfernden Dunste, welchen die gelehrten, doch nicht allzuwissenschaftlichen und leider gar zu langweiligen Arbeiten Ritter's, Brandis und Zeller's darüber ausgebreitet haben? Ich wenigstens lese Laertius Diogenes lieber als Zeller, weil in jenem wenigstens der Geist der alten Philosophen lebt, in diesem aber weder der noch irgend ein andrer Geist.

Indeed I have observed that even the barbarians across the Rhine sing savage songs composed in language not unlike the croaking of harsh-voiced birds, and that they delight in such songs. For I think it is always the case that inferior musicians, though they annoy their audiences, give very great pleasure to themselves.

ἐθεασάμην τοι καὶ τοὺς ὑπὲρ τὸν Ῥῆνον βαρβάρους ἄγρια μέλη λέξει πεποιημένα παραπλησίᾳ τοῖς κρωγμοῖς τῶν τραχὺ βοώντων ὀρνίθων ᾄδοντας καὶ εὐφραινομένους ἐπὶ τοῖς μέλεσιν. εἶναι γὰρ οἶμαι συμβαίνει τοῖς φαύλοις τὴν μουσικὴν λυπηροῖς μὲν τοῖς θεάτροις, σφίσι δ᾿ αὐτοῖς ἡδίστοις.

Men's fortunes are on a wheel, which in its turning suffers not the same man to prosper for ever.

κύκλος τῶν ἀνθρωπηίων ἐστὶ πρηγμάτων, περιφερόμενος δὲ οὐκ ἐᾷ αἰεὶ τοὺς αὐτοὺς εὐτυχέειν.

It is thanks to the gods that we dwell in an unconquered City
and that our wall keeps off the enemy horde.

διὰ θεῶν πόλιν νεμόμεθ᾿ ἀδάματον,
δυσμενέων δ᾿ ὄχλον πύργος ἀποστέγει.

Early in May, and before the Americans had taken over the sector at Verkhne Udinsk and Mysovaya, the interference of Semenoff and his officers and his military station commandants became apparent in the American sector. On May 16 they forcibly seized a car held by the American command and threatened to whip the Russian caretaker if he reported the facts. On May 28 a train of seven cars in charge of Captain Gilleland, Russian Railway Service Corps, was in the Verkhne Udinsk yards. The armored train demanded that one car of the R.R.S.C. train be turned over to the armored train. This R.R.S.C. train was a work train engaged in repairing and erecting telephone lines. The demand was refused, after which the officer in charge of the R.R.S.C. train was informed that if the car was not turned over within an hour the armored train would fire on him. On May 29 the armored train opened its ports, manned its guns, and trained them on these cars, which had been placed under charge of an American guard, but did not fire.

Labels: typographical and other errors

What is malice, but a love of doing harm? What is guile but doing one thing and pretending to do another? What is flattery, but leading astray with deceitful praise? What is envy, but hatred of another's good fortune? What is fault-finding, but criticism that is more waspish than truthful?

Quid est malitia, nisi nocendi amor? Quid est dolus, nisi aliud agere et aliud simulare? Quid est adulatio, nisi fallaci laude seductio? Quid est invidia, nisi odium felicitatis alienae? Quid est detractio, nisi mordacior, quam veracior reprehensio?

By mixed marriages they are getting to look like the Sarmatians in their coarse appearance.

conubiis mixtis nonnihil in Sarmatarum habitum foedantur.

To support this opinion they pile up words, as much as each of them can; whether shouting or just stammering, they never keep quiet. Yet even when we talk to them, even if they are beaten in argument, they don't admit it.

In hanc sententiam exaggerant verba, quanta quisque potest; lingua vel sonanti, vel titubanti, non tacent: tamen et quando eis loquimur, etsi vincantur, non consentiunt.

He had no regard for truth, and none for sanctity, no fear of the gods, no reverence for an oath, no religious scruple.

nihil veri nihil sancti, nullus deum metus nullum ius iurandum nulla religio.

As a result, our community's
filled with assistant secretaries
and clownish monkeys of politicians
forever lying to the people.

κᾆτ᾿ ἐκ τούτων ἡ πόλις ἡμῶν
ὑπογραμματέων ἀνεμεστώθη
καὶ βωμολόχων δημοπιθήκων        1085
ἐξαπατώντων τὸν δῆμον ἀεί.

Beginning at about the birth of Cicero, the tendency of the empire's socioeconomic development over five centuries can be compressed into three words: fewer have more. That story would make a good book—and a big one.

Tiridates, the king of that country, who met them and gave them battle, narrowly escaped being taken alive in the engagement; for a noose was thrown round him by a distant enemy who would have dragged him off, had he not instantly cut the rope with his sword and succeeded in escaping.

Τιριδάτης δ᾿ αὐτῆς ἐβασίλευεν, ὃς ὑπαντιάσας αὐτοῖς καὶ ποιησάμενος μάχην παρὰ μικρὸν ἦλθεν ἐπ᾿ αὐτῆς ζωὸς ἁλῶναι τῆς παρατάξεως· βρόχον γὰρ αὐτῷ περιβαλών τις πόρρωθεν ἔμελλεν ἐπισπάσειν, εἰ μὴ τῷ ξίφει θᾶττον ἐκεῖνος τὸν τόνον κόψας ἔφθη διαφυγεῖν.

Tell me, though, when you pardon someone from your heart, what are you losing? When you pardon the person who sins against you, what will you have less of in your heart? It's from there, you see, that you are forgiving, but you're not giving anything away. On the contrary, indeed, a kind of wave of charity was sweeping over your heart, and so to say welling up from an inner spring; you nurse hatred against your brother, you have blocked up the source. So not only do you lose nothing when you pardon, but you are watered more abundantly than ever. Charity is not limited at all; you place a stone of offense there, and you're limiting yourself. "I'll get my own back, I'll get my revenge, I'll show him, I'll do it." You're all steamed up, you're wearing yourself out, when by granting him pardon you could be without a care in the world, live without a care in the world, pray without a care in the world.

Dic mihi, cum ignoscis de corde, quid perdis? Cum ignoscis ei qui peccat in te, quid minus habebis in corde tuo? Inde enim dimittis, sed nihil amittis. Immo vero unda quaedam caritatis ibat in corde tuo, et tamquam de vena interiore manabat: tenes odium contra fratrem, obturasti fontem. Non solum ergo nihil perdis, cum ignoscis; sed abundantius irrigaris. Caritas non angustatur. Ponis ibi lapidem offensionis, et tu tibi facis angustias. Vindicabo me, ulciscar me, ego illi ostendam, ego faciam: aestuas, laboras, cui licet ignoscendo esse securum, securum vivere, securum orare.

• Loving or Hating Enemies
• Friends and Enemies
• Love and Hate

[T]he peasant too seldom speaks for himself. We would like to hear him say, "Here is where I fit in, these are my feelings toward my neighbors or toward outsiders, such-and-such are the groups in which I feel at home, or depend on, or compete against; my prospects, my condition, my social heritage, are thus-and-so." Instead, either he has left us only brief mentions of the externals of his life, or appears through the eyes of observers quite alien to him: the literate, or rather the literary, classes. They are not likely to have understood the peasant. Though he supported their own ease and cultivation, he was as silent, motionless, and far below them as the great tortoise on which, in Indian mythology, the whole world ultimately rests.

That returns us to the central characteristic of villages—their conservatism. They and their population hovered so barely above subsistence level that no one dared risk a change. Conservatism in its root sense, simply to hang on to what one had, was imposed by force of circumstances. People were too poor, they feared to pay too heavy a price, for experiment of any kind. So the tortoise never moved, it never changed its ways.

In the ravine which encloses the town on the north, there is a place called Baaras, which produces a root bearing the same name. Flame-coloured and towards evening emitting a brilliant light, it eludes the grasp of persons who approach with the intention of plucking it, as it shrinks up and can only be made to stand still by pouring upon it certain secretions of the human body.

τῆς φάραγγος δὲ τῆς κατὰ τὴν ἄρκτον περιεχούσης τὴν πόλιν Βαάρας ὀνομάζεταί τις τόπος, <ὃς> φύει ῥίζαν ὁμωνύμως λεγομένην αὐτῷ. αὕτη φλογὶ μὲν τὴν χροίαν ἔοικε, περὶ δὲ τὰς ἑσπέρας σέλας ἀπαστράπτουσα τοῖς ἐπιοῦσι καὶ βουλομένοις λαβεῖν αὐτὴν οὐκ ἔστιν εὐχείρωτος, ἀλλ᾿ ὑποφεύγει καὶ οὐ πρότερον ἵσταται, πρὶν ἄν τις οὖρον γυναικὸς ἢ τὸ ἔμμηνον αἷμα χέῃ κατ᾿ αὐτῆς.

I think people who drink old wine are wise,
and so are those who enjoy watching old plays.

qui utuntur vino vetere sapientis puto
et qui lubenter veteres spectant fabulas.

• Give Me the Old
• Proverbs on the Preference for Old Things

If you, young master, when your mother bore
You, were the only one of all mankind
Born on the understanding that you should
Do what you wanted all your life, always
Enjoying happiness, and one of the gods
Had granted this to you, then you'd be right
To be upset; for god has done you wrong,
Deceiving you. But if you breathe the air
That all men share, to quote a tragic phrase,
On the same terms as all of us, then you
Must bear these troubles better and be more
Alive to reason. This is the real point:
You are a man; no creature suffers change
From pride to humbleness quicker than him.
That's fair. By nature feeblest of all things,
He manages the greatest of affairs.
So when he fails, he shatters in his fall
Much that is good. But you, young master, have
Not lost outstanding goods; your present ills
Are only moderate. And so you must endure
What is, presumably, a middling pain.

εἰ γὰρ ἐγένου σύ, τρόφιμε, τῶν ἄλλων μόνος,
ὅτ' ἔτικτεν ἡ μήτηρ σ', ἐφ' ᾧ τε διατελεῖς
πράσσων ἃ βούλει καὶ διευτυχῶν ἀεί,
καὶ τοῦτο τῶν θεῶν τις ὡμολόγηκέ σοι,
ὀρθῶς ἀγανακτεῖς· ἔστι γάρ σ' ἐψευσμένος,        5
ἄτοπόν τε πεποίηκ'. εἰ δ' ἐπὶ τοῖς αὐτοῖς νόμοις
ἐφ' οἷσπερ ἡμεῖς ἔσπασας τὸν ἀέρα
τὸν κοινόν, ἵνα σοι καὶ τραγικώτερον λαλῶ,
οἰστέον ἄμεινον ταῦτα, καὶ λογιστέον.
τὸ δὲ κεφάλαιον τῶν λόγων, ἄνθρωπος εἶ,        10
οὗ μεταβολὴν θᾶττον πρὸς ὄγκον καὶ πάλιν
ταπεινότητα ζῷον οὐθὲν λαμβάνει.
καὶ μάλα δικαίως· ἀσθενέστατον γὰρ ὂν
φύσει μεγίστοις οἰκονομεῖται πράγμασιν,
ὅταν πέσῃ δέ, πλεῖστα συντρίβει καλά.        15
σὺ δ' οὔθ' ὑπερβάλλοντα, τρόφιμ', ἀπώλεσας
ἀγαθά, τὰ νυνί τ' ἐστὶ μέτριά σοι κακά,
ὥστ' ἀνὰ μέσον που καὶ τὸ λυπηρὸν φέρε.

Nothing was wasted in the ancient world: not an abandoned baby, not the cloth that kept the ragpicker in business, not the empty fisherman's shack on the beach, not even the grains of barley in horse manure on the streets. There were always people poor enough to fight over another's leavings.⁵⁰

50 Sarcinator, Serv., Aen. 12.13; cf. Matt. 9.16; abandoned shack an object of litigation, Dig. 1.8.5 f.; barley grains salvaged from dung, Büchler, op. cit. (above, note 9) 22 and 30; on exposure of children to be made slaves, below, chapter 4 n. 8.

In Ma'on in the south of Judaea, several hours' distance from Hebron, R. Joḥanan b. Zakkai saw a Jewish girl picking up grains of barley from the dung of horses (Mekhil. on Ex. 19, 1, 61 a)...

One of the wealthiest men of Jerusalem before its destruction,¹ Nakdimon b. Gorjon, most probably perished during the siege of the capital. After the catastrophe his daughter is found by R. Joḥanan b. Zakkai and his disciples starving and picking grains of barley from horses' dung,² and, when questioned by the rabbi, explained that the money of her father and her father-in-law was all gone.

¹ His wealth and his position are described in ARN, XVII, 33 a, VI, 16a, b; 2 ARN, XIII, 16a; Kethub., 66 b, bottom.

² Sifrê Deut., 305, 130 a; Kethub., 66 b; ARN, XVII, 33 a; Bacher, Tannaiten, I, 42. R. Eleazar b. Ṣadok met her in Akko in abject poverty, Tos. Kethub., V, 10; jer., V, 30 b, 76 ff., b. 67 a.

So what then, my dearest friends, if these things are now crystal-clear? It wasn't to cheat us, but to give us some innocent fun that they were first locked up in obscurity. They wouldn't be grasped, you see, with such pleasure, if they were rendered cheap by being laid out in the open.

Quid ergo, carissimi, si patent haec? Non ad fraudem, sed ad iucunditatem clausa erant. Neque enim tam dulciter caperentur, si prompta vilescerent.

Anyone who sketches his mental picture of country life from Vergil's Eclogues must plainly re-do its outlines to match real truth. The shepherd was not his own man but hired to guard someone else's flocks, or a slave: and that someone else might be removed from him by an immense distance, physically, as an absentee landlord, socially, by a wealth that spread its possessions across whole ranges of hills, and administratively, by the interposition of bailiffs, overseers, and lessees. Rustic swains had indeed nothing to sing about. Their world was as poverty-stricken and ignored as it was dangerous. And while Vergil's Lycidas and Tityrus contended only for priority as poets, their living models had to confront each other, village or city officials, outraged farmers, or brigands, in struggles that knew no end.

nugas blatis.

nugas garris.

But there is no way for a mortal to overstep what the deity sees fit to send.

ἀλλ᾿ οὐδεὶς πόρος ἐστὶν ἀνθρώπῳ παραβῆναι τὸ καθῆκον ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ.

How many other sins there are, whether in talking about other people's affairs and business, which don't concern you; or in futile cackling and laughter, seeing that it is written, The fool raises his voice in laughter, while the wise man will scarcely laugh even silently (Sir 21:20). Or there's the greedy and unrestrained appetite for food, which is properly prepared out of the need to keep body and soul together, the proof of excess being the next day's indigestion. Or there are the wrong-headed maneuvers in commerce to buy things cheap and sell them dear. It would be tedious to list all the things that anyone can observe with more certainty and reprehend in himself, if he is not careless about looking into the mirror of the divine scriptures. Although none of them, taken singly, are felt to inflict a mortal wound, like murder and adultery and sins like that; still when they all pile up like a suppurating rash, the more they are, they can kill, or so disfigure our appearance, that they cut us off from the chaste embraces of that bridegroom who is the fairest in form among the sons of men (Ps 45:2), unless they are dried up by the medicine of daily repentance.

Quam multa sunt alia peccata, sive in loquendo de rebus et negotiis alienis, quae non ad te pertinent; sive in vanis cachinnationibus, cum scriptum sit: Stultus in risu exaltat vocem suam, sapiens autem vix tacite ridebit; sive in ipsis escis, quae ad necessitatem sustentandae huius vitae praeparantur, avidior atque immoderatior appetitus, saepe excessum modum postridiana cruditate contestans: sive in vendendis et emendis rebus caritatis et vilitatis vota perversa. Piget cuncta colligere, quae quisque in se ipso certius comprehendit atque reprehendit, si divinarum Scripturarum speculum non neglegenter attendat. Quae quamvis singula non lethali vulnere ferire sentiantur, sicuti homicidium et adulterium, vel cetera huiusmodi: tamen omnia simul congregata velut scabies, quo plura sunt necant, aut nostrum decus ita exterminant, ut ab illius sponsi speciosi forma prae filiis hominum castissimis amplexibus separent, nisi medicamento quotidianae paenitentiae desiccentur.

The people, however, were incited to desert; and selling for a trifling sum, some their whole property, others their most valuable treasures, they would swallow the gold coins to prevent discovery by the brigands, and then, escaping to the Romans, on discharging their bowels, have ample supplies for their needs.

ὁ δὲ δῆμος ἐκινήθη πρὸς αὐτομολίαν. καὶ οἱ μὲν τὰς κτήσεις ἐλαχίστου πωλοῦντες, οἱ δὲ τὰ πολυτελέστερα τῶν κειμηλίων, τοὺς μὲν χρυσοῦς, ὡς μὴ φωραθεῖεν ὑπὸ τῶν λῃστῶν, κατέπινον, ἔπειτα πρὸς τοὺς Ῥωμαίους διαδιδράσκοντες, ὁπότε ενέγκαιεν εὐπόρουν πρὸς ἃ δέοιντο.

Labels: noctes scatologicae

For in my opinion filial affection is the basis of all virtues.

nam meo iudicio pietas fundamentum est omnium virtutum.

For indeed, gentlemen, while I would fain have some tincture of all the virtues, there is no quality I would sooner have, and be thought to have, than gratitude. For gratitude not merely stands alone at the head of all the virtues, but is even mother of all the rest. What is filial affection, if not a benevolent gratitude to one’s parents? What is patriotism, what is service to one's country in war and peace, if it is not a recollection of benefits received from that country? What is piety and religion, save a due reverence and remembrance in paying to the immortal gods the thanks that we owe? Take friendship away, and what joy can life continue to hold? More, how can friendship exist at all between those who are devoid of gratitude?

Who is there of us that has received an enlightened upbringing who does not constantly ponder with grateful recollection upon those who had the care of him, upon his tutors and teachers, and even upon the inanimate scenes of his rearing and schooling?

etenim, iudices, cum omnibus virtutibus me affectum esse cupio, tum nihil est, quod malim quam me et gratum esse et videri. Haec est enim una virtus non solum maxima, sed etiam mater virtutum omnium reliquarum. quid est pietas nisi voluntas grata in parentes? qui sunt boni cives, qui belli, qui domi de patria bene merentes, nisi qui patriae beneficia meminerunt? qui sancti, qui religionum colentes, nisi qui meritam diis immortalibus gratiam iustis honoribus et memori mente persolvunt? quae potest esse iucunditas vitae sublatis amicitiis? quae porro amicitia potest esse inter ingratos?

quis est nostrum liberaliter educatus, cui non educatores, cui non magistri sui, atque doctores, cui non locus ipse mutus ille, ubi altus aut doctus est, cum grata recordatione in mente versetur?

Do you know any place to be preferred to the blissful country?

novistine locum potiorem rure beato?

A child was born into a praenomen, nomen, and cognomen, all parts of which committed him to the character of earlier namesakes — to whom, as he grew up, he offered sacrifices in his home, and for whose deeds he was ridiculed or respected by his friends as son (or grandson, or great-grandson) of the man who did thus-and-so. Career and marriage were in the gift of the family, and at his death his merits were recalled and his very few faults sunk to the bottom of a sea of rhetoric by cousins and adherents whose powers qualified them to deliver a eulogy. The embrace of the clan thus received him from the womb, shaped him, delivered him to his grave, and hallowed his memory thereafter. By a custom most extraordinary, it even brought him to life again at his funeral; for at this moment an actor who looked and talked most like him, or perhaps some relative who resembled him, put on his death mask of wax, exactly painted, and walked ahead of his bier accompanied by dozens or (for a great man of a great family) by hundreds of his ancestors represented in turn by their masks, and by the robes and rites of the highest office they had attained, so that the whole procession brought together praetors and consuls, generals and party leaders reaching back through generations.

Growing up in a house filled with one's own forebears, reading their stories and seeing them come to life and walk beside some relative's bier—all this must surely have had an effect on the stupidest boy. He would know what was expected of him with a vividness at times overwhelming. At the least he could continue the line with a carven correctness. He could be "a walking bust." But it was hard to stop there. The faces on the walls exercised a more powerful spell over the imagination. They made pride and obligation visible.

To a stripling who was talking nonsense his words were, "The reason why we have two ears and only one mouth is that we may listen the more and talk the less."

πρὸς τὸ φλυαροῦν μειράκιον, "διὰ τοῦτο," εἶπε, "δύο ὦτα ἔχομεν, στόμα δὲ ἕν, ἵνα πλείονα μὲν ἀκούωμεν, ἥττονα δὲ λέγωμεν."

So listen to me, Mr. Rich Man, and let my advice win your approval. Redeem your sins with almsgiving. Don't sit on your gold like a hen on eggs. Naked you came from your mother's womb, naked you are going to return into the earth! And if you are going to return naked into the earth, for whom are you amassing all these things upon the earth? I imagine, if you could carry anything with you, you would have devoured people alive. Look, you came forth naked, why not be bountiful with your money, whether you've made your pile by fair means or foul? Send ahead what makes you such an admired figure, make balloons of your much admired goods,⁴ in order to reach the kingdom of heaven.

4. Fac inflationes rerum permirarum; literally, make inflations of your much admired goods. But I doubt if they talked about inflation in the monetary sense in those days, though they certainly experienced it. They called it adulterating the coinage. So I am treating inflationes as if it means inflated objects, that is, balloons. Did they have balloons in those days? I don't know; perhaps this text is evidence that they did. Anyway, it is a pleasant image: send your wealth up to heaven by balloon.

Audi ergo me, o dives, et consilium meum placeat tibi. Peccata eleemosinis redime. Noli incubare auro; nudus existi de utero matris tuae, nudus es rediturus in terram. Et si nudus rediturus es in terram, cui congregas supra terram? Credo, si aliquid tecum portare possis, vivos homines devorasses. Ecce, nudus egredieris, cur non pecuniam vel bone vel male congregatam largiris? Promitte, quo mirus es, fac inflationes rerum permirarum, ut pervenias ad regnum caelorum.

Once when, in a crowd of people among whom was Diogenes, a certain youth made an unseemly noise, Diogenes struck him with his staff and said "And so, vile wretch, though you have done nothing that would give you the right to take such liberties in public, you are beginning here and before us to show your scorn of opinion?"

ἐπειδὴ γάρ τις τῶν νέων ἐν ὄχλῳ, παρόντος καὶ τοῦ Διογένους, ἀπέπαρδεν, ἐπάταξεν ἐκεῖνος τῇ βακτηρίᾳ φάς· εἶτα, ὦ κάθαρμα, μηδὲν ἄξιον τοῦ δημοσίᾳ τὰ τοιαῦτα θαρσεῖν πράξας ἐντεῦθεν ἡμῖν ἄρχῃ δόξης καταφρονεῖν;

On the other hand when Diogenes made unseemly noises or obeyed the call of nature or did anything else of that sort in the market-place, as they say he did, he did so because he was trying to trample on the conceit of the men I have just mentioned, and to teach them that their practices were far more sordid and insupportable than his own. For what he did was in accordance with the nature of all of us, but theirs accorded with no man's real nature, one may say, but were all due to moral depravity.

ἐπεὶ καὶ Διογένης εἴτε ἀπέπαρδεν εἴτε ἀπεπάτησεν εἴτε ἄλλο τι τοιοῦτον ἔπραξεν, ὥσπερ οὖν λέγουσιν, ἐν ἀγορᾷ, τὸν ἐκείνων πατῶν τῦφον ἐποίει, διδάσκων αὐτούς, ὅτι πολλῷ φαυλότερα καὶ χαλεπώτερα τούτων ἐπιτηδεύουσι. τὰ μὲν γάρ ἐστιν ἡμῖν πᾶσι κατὰ φύσιν, τὰ δὲ ὡς ἔπος εἰπεῖν οὐδενί, πάντα δὲ ἐκ διαστροφῆς ἐπιτηδεύεται.

Labels: noctes scatologicae

                                                 Who'd claim high nobility
for one who falls short of his breeding, whose only distinction
is a famous name?

         quis enim generosum dixerit hunc qui
indignus genere et praeclaro nomine tantum
insignis?

Now one could no more discover where myth was originally invented and who was the first to compose fiction in a plausible manner for the benefit or entertainment of his hearers, than if one were to try to find out who was the first man that sneezed or the first horse that neighed.

ὁ πρῶτος ἐπιχειρήσας τὸ ψεῦδος πιθανῶς συνθεῖναι πρὸς ὠφέλειαν ἢ ψυχαγωγίαν τῶν ἀκροωμένων, οὐ μᾶλλον εὔροι τις ἂν ἢ εἴ τις ἐπιχειρήσεις τὸν πρῶτον πταρόντα ἢ χρεμψάμενον ἀναζητεῖν.

PHAE What if I approach the door and sing it a song?
PAL If you want to, I neither forbid you nor tell you to do so, master, since I can see that your habits and character have changed.

PHAE quid si adeam ad fores atque occentem?
PAL                                                  si lubet, nec voto nec iubeo,
quando ego te video immutatis moribus esse, ere, atque ingenio.

...Phaedromus non ha mutato né costumi né disposizione d’animo, ma continua a comportarsi in maniera irrazionale...