Laudator Temporis Acti

We the philologists, dry as dust, who stick to the letter and analyse grammatical subtleties, we also happen to be perverse enough to love the ideals we serve with all our heart.

Wir Philologen, die trocknen Schleicher, die am Buchstaben haften und grammatischen Haarspaltereien nachhängen, haben nun einmal auch die Verkehrtheit, daß wir mit ganzem Herzen die Ideale lieben, denen wir dienen.

People do not want to know too much about us. That is their business, and for many of us the feeling is mutual. But they also do not want to know anything about the ideals we have devoted our life to because we believe in them. That cannot leave us indifferent. Not because of our ideals: they are divine and they have proved that earthly power does not prevail against them, let alone the wild shouting of the modern mob of educators.

Die Leute wollen von uns ja wenig wissen; das ist ihre Sache und beruht für viele auf Gegenseitigkeit. Aber sie wollen auch von den Idealen nichts wissen, denen wir doch deshalb unser Leben gewidmet haben, weil wir an sie glauben. Das kann uns nicht gleichgiltig sein. Keineswegs wegen unserer Ideale; die sind ja göttlich und haben bewiesen, daß irdische Macht ihnen nichts anhaben kann, geschweige das wüste Geschrei des modernen Bildungspöbels.

In Ar. (the head) is called a pot:

so that you don't get your pot cracked with a stick

(ἡ κεφαλὴ) καλεῖται . . . παρὰ δὲ Ἀριστοφάνει σκάφιον·

ἵνα μὴ καταγῇς τὸ σκάφιον πληγεὶς ξύλῳ

How did we come to these corrupted times?
Bitter fate, why give us life,
or else why not an earlier death,
when you see our country
enslaved by profane foreigners...?

Perchè venimmo a sì perversi tempi?
Perchè il nascer ne desti o perchè prima
Non ne desti il morire,
Acerbo fato? onde a stranieri ed empi
Nostra patria vedendo ancella e schiava...?

How came our times to be thus out of joint?
Why were we born or why, ere such a day,
Not deal us merciful death,
O bitter Fate, that dost our land appoint
To be the slave of impious foreigners...?

I beseech you, my brothers, remain faithful to the earth, and do not believe those who speak to you of otherworldly hopes! Poison-mixers are they, whether they know it or not.

Despisers of life are they, decaying and poisoned themselves, of whom the earth is weary: so let them go.

Ich beschwöre euch, meine Brüder, bleibt der Erde treu und glaubt denen nicht, welche euch von überirdischen Hoffnungen reden! Giftmischer sind es, ob sie es wissen oder nicht.

Verächter des Lebens sind es, Absterbende und selber Vergiftete, deren die Erde müde ist: so mögen sie dahinfahren!

Coartatio Erroris Principium Sapientiae

The restriction of error is the beginning of wisdom.

Classical education in the English public schools consists of casting sham pearls before real swine.
                                                                                     Author unidentified

The whole crowd shouts out and clatters arms in the way they do for someone whose speech they approve.

conclamat omnis multitudo et suo more armis concrepat, quod facere in eo consuerunt cuius orationem approbant.

                          The patriots haunt
Dark tavern corners talking politics,
Get up their projects, bet and curse and yawn,
And booze it up for the welfare of the country.

                           Die Patrioten liegen
In dunkeln Schenken und politisieren,
Und subskribieren, wetten, fluchen, gähnen,
Und saufen auf das Wohl des Vaterlands.

Soon as early Dawn appeared, the rosy-fingered...

ἦμος δ᾽ ἠριγένεια φάνη ῥοδοδάκτυλος Ἠώς...

'Rosy-fingered', as Eustathius explains, probably refers to the spreading crimson rays of the rising sun. The suggestion that being an Oriental lady she would have her finger-nails dyed red is too far-fetched.

• 2.1 The early Dawn was born; her fingers bloomed
• 3.404 When newborn Dawn appeared with rosy fingers
• 3.491 When rosy-fingered Dawn came bright and early
• 4.306 Soon Dawn was born, her fingers bright with roses
• 4.431 When Dawn appeared, her fingers bright with flowers
• 4.576 When early Dawn appeared and touched the sky with / blossom
• 5.228 When vernal Dawn first touched the sky with flowers
• 8.1 Soon Dawn appeared and touched the sky with roses
• 9.152 When early Dawn shone forth with rosy fingers
• 9.170 But when the rosy hands of Dawn appeared
• 9.307 Early the Dawn appeared, pink fingers blooming
• 9.437 When early Dawn revealed her rose-red hands
• 9.560 Then when rose-fingered Dawn came, bright and early
• 10.187 Then the roses of Dawn's fingers / appeared again
• 12.8 When Dawn came, / born early, with her fingertips like petals
• 12.316 When rosy-fingered Dawn / appeared
• 13.18 Then Dawn was born again; her fingers / bloomed
• 15.189 When rosy-fingered Dawn / the early-born appeared
• 17.1 When newborn Dawn appeared with hands of flowers
• 19.428 When early Dawn, / the newborn child with rosy hands appeared

When Dawn appeared, early risen and rosy-fingered

Hesiod, who is also a Bœotian, is admirable for the purity of his life and soundness of his precepts, but there is hardly a trace of poetry in his ploughed field.

I find in all his writings but one verse worth transcribing, and that only for the melody:

In a soft meadow and on vernal flowers.¹

¹ Hes., Theog., 279.

ἐν μαλακῷ λειμῶνι καὶ ἄνθεσιν εἰαρινοῖσιν.

The master's mullet will be one sent from Corsica or the Tauromenian cliffs, since our own sea has been totally ransacked to the point of exhaustion, since gluttony rages, the delicatessens raking the nearest waters with nonstop nets—and we don't let the Tyrrhenian fish grow to size.

mullus erit domini quem misit Corsica vel quem
Tauromenitanae rupes, quando omne peractum est
et iam defecit nostrum mare, dum gula saevit,
retibus adsiduis penitus scrutante macello        95
proxima, nec patimur Tyrrhenum crescere piscem.

It is practice and experience that hold supremacy in the crafts, and there is no branch of learning in which one is not taught by his own mistakes.

usus et experientia dominantur in artibus, neque est ulla disciplina, in qua non peccando discatur.

I'm nothing but a skeleton-thing of bones;
My words are nothing but cold puffs of wind
That blow through dried-up ribs with rattling noises.
The wise little man that lives inside my head
Has gone away, and there within my skull
A spider spins its quiet web in peace.

Ich bin nur noch ein knöchrichtes Skelett;
Und was ich sprech', ist nur ein kalter Windstoß,
Der klappernd zieht durch meine trocknen Rippen.
Das kluge Männlein, das im Kopf mir wohnte,
Ist ausgezogen, und in meinem Schädel
Spinnt eine Spinn' ihr friedliches Gewebe.

It is evident by that time the limit for the Ming dynasty had already been reached. It no longer mattered whether the ruler was conscientious or irresponsible, whether his chief counsellor was enterprising or conformist, whether the generals were resourceful or incompetent, whether the civil officials were honest or corrupt, or whether the leading thinkers were radicals or conservatives—in the end they all failed to reach fulfillment.

I don't know what else will convince you, Menelaus, if you won't believe your own eyes.

οὐκ οἶδα, ὦ Μενέλαε, ᾥτινι ἂν ἄλλῳ πιστεύσειας τοῖς σεαυτοῦ ὀφθαλμοῖς ἀπιστῶν.

The things we learn of by sight and hearing, those do I prefer.

ὅσων ὄψις ἀκοὴ μάθησις, ταῦτα ἐγὼ προτιμέω.

Eyes are more exact witnesses than ears.

ὀφθαλμοὶ τῶν ὤτων ἀκριβέστεροι μάρτυρες.

Κτησίας ὁ Κτησιόχου ὁ Κνίδιος, ὃς3 συνέγραψεν περὶ τῆς Ἰνδῶν χώρας καὶ τῶν παρ᾿ αὐτοῖς ἃ μήτε αὐτὸς εἶδεν μήτε ἄλλου ἀληθεύοντος ἤκουσεν.

[…]

γράφω τοίνυν περὶ ὧν μήτε εἶδον μήτε ἔπαθον μήτε παρ᾿ ἄλλων ἐπυθόμην, ἔτι δὲ μήτε ὅλως ὄντων μήτε τὴν ἀρχὴν γενέσθαι δυναμένων. διὸ δεῖ τοὺς ἐντυγχάνοντας μηδαμῶς πιστεύειν αὐτοῖς.

One of them is Ctesias, son of Ctesiochus, of Cnidos, who wrote a great deal about India and its characteristics that he had never seen himself nor heard from anyone else with a reputation for truthfulness.

[…]

I am writing about things which I have neither seen nor had to do with nor learned from others—which, in fact, do not exist at all and, in the nature of things, cannot exist. Therefore my readers should on no account believe in them.

• Believing One's Own Eyes
• Trust Your Senses

I do not remember what books we read, except that we did Euripides' "Medea," and used Wordsworth's "Greek Grammar," which, by way of rendering obscurius per obscurum, was written in Latin. It remains to me to this day the ideal of all that is hideous and hateful in learning.

Middle and Junior Part were set to learn a most portentous amount of Wordsworth's Greek Grammar, all in Latin! Some 50 pages of this horrible book had to be learnt by heart, all by rote, without any attempt to apply the rules! I still shudder at the sight of page 75: "Multa sunt verba quae Futuro Activo carent,—sic ἄδω cano ἄσομαι" followed by 48 other verbs, which have only a Futurum Medium, none of which we had ever seen, or were likely to see. A more preposterous waste of effort, or one more calculated to disgust us with the Greek language, it is difficult to imagine.

The good old Yorkshire custom of sending a present at pig-killing time to neighbours is in full life in Holderness. Holderness, however, differs somewhat from other parts of the country. In the neighbourhood of the city of York, for instance, it is always "pig-fry" which is sent—that is, a taste of liver, "leets" (or lungs), heart, etc., the whole neatly covered with a bit of the diaphragm. This part of the business also obtains in Holderness, but here there is an additional present sent later on. This second present consists of cooked, or at any rate prepared, articles, and generally includes a mince pie, a link or two of sausage, a bit of black-pudding, a "standin' pie" (pork raised pie), with some times a bit of "chine." The whole stock of articles sent, prepared or unprepared, is spoken of as "pig-cheer." The liberality of the cottager on such occasions is very remarkable.

• Martinmas
• Nulla Dies Sine Suilla
• Ham
• Pork Products
• Culture and Civilization

How wonderful would it be to live together in these
Rough fields, in a homely cottage, hunting the deer with our bows,
Herding a flock of kids with green marsh-mallow switches!

o tantum libeat mecum tibi sordida rura
atque humiles habitare casas, et figere cervos,
haedorumque gregem viridi compellere hibisco!

This fellow's ignorant and barbaric!

ἅνθρωπος ἀμαθὴς οὑτοσὶ καὶ βάρβαρος.

A βάρβαρος is someone who does not know Greek, and thus by definition an idiot.

In most cities the majority is composed of the ignorant, the idle, and the profligate. In most cities, after a time, there are enough of bad citizens to subvert good laws.

I shall humour you and explain what you wish as best I can, not however as if I were the Pythian Apollo making statements to be regarded as certain and unalterable, but following out a train of probabilities as one poor mortal out of many. For further than likelihood as I see it I cannot get. Certainty will be for those who say such things can be known and who claim wisdom for themselves.

geram tibi morem et ea, quae vis, ut potero, explicabo, nec tamen quasi Pythius Apollo, certa ut sint et fixa quae dixero, sed ut homunculus unus e multis, probabilla coniectura sequens. ultra enim quo progrediar quam ut verisimilla videam non habeo. certa dicent ii, qui et percipi ea posse dicunt et se sapientes esse profitentur.

Zephyr returns, and with sweet accents
enchants the air and awakens the waves,
and murmuring his way through green leaves
he invites the meadow flowers to dance to his tune.

With garlanded hair, Phyllis and Cloris
sing joyful love songs so dear to them,
while from high hills and deep valleys
the echoing caves redouble their music.

Dawn rises more lovely in the sky, and the sun
pours down gold yet brighter, embellishing
the sky-blue mantle of Thetis with purer silver.

Alone I wander through lonely and deserted woods,
and, as my fortune demands, now weep, now sing
the brightness of two lovely eyes and my torment.

---

Zefiro torna e di soavi accenti
l'aer fa grato e'il pié discioglie a l'onde
e, mormoranda tra le verdi fronde,
fa danzar al bel suon su'l prato i fiori.

Inghirlandato il crin Fillide e Clori
note temprando lor care e gioconde
e da monti e da valli ime e profonde
raddoppian l'armonia gli antri canori.

Sorge più vaga in ciel l'aurora, e'l sole,
sparge più luci d'or; più puro argento
fregia di Teti il bel ceruleo manto.

Sol io, per selve abbandonate e sole,
l'ardor di due belli occhi e'l mio tormento,
come vuol mia ventura, hor piango hor canto.

Of the other duets from this period, 'Zefiro torna, e di soavi accenti' (in the 1632 Scherzi madrigali) is deservedly famous. The poem is not the usual one by Petrarch, which Monteverdi had set in Book VI. It is a sort of 'parody' in the sixteenth century sense, by Ottavio Rinuccini and, most important, keeps the same contrast between joyful nature and the lover abandoned to his doleful thoughts. Monteverdi sets this as a chaconne, using an ostinato bass pattern very popular about this time:

The form is a difficult one. The shortness of the bass pattern (compared with others such as the romanesca) means short phrase-lengths which can become tiresome,  and the harmonies are not easily varied enough for an extended piece. Monteverdi conquers these problems magnificently. His first paragraph lasts a dozen bars, as each voice replies with a variant of the initial theme; and then the sweetness of the breeze, slightly syncopated, is expressed by a succession of pure consonances. There are gentle roulades for the murmuring waves, pictorial motifs for the valleys and mountains (complete with the echo device), in fact all the imagery of 'Ecco mormorar l'onde' in the form of a duet. Then, as the lover speaks of his plight, a piece of recitative with dissonances is ushered in with a great chromatic change, brought to a peaceful end as the lover sings praise of his lady's eyes in an ornamental, sonorous passage with trills and scales in thirds. The technical mastery of the piece is astonishing. Out of conventional features — the ostinato bass, the by now customary division into speech-rhythm recitative and dance-rhythm aria, echo music and so on — Monteverdi builds up a vivid picture, and one which proves him to be a composer by no means semper dolens.

For pleasant it is at a feast and rich banquet
to tell delightful tales, when men have had enough of feasting...

ἡδὺ [μέν] ἐστ ̓ ἐν δαιτὶ καὶ εἰλαπίνῃ τεθαλυίῃ
τέρπεσθαι μύθοισιν, ἐπὴν δαιτὸς κορέσωνται,,,

For Nature is unfeeling: the sun shines on the evil and on the good, and the criminal as well as the best of men sees the brightness of the moon and the stars.

Denn unfühlend
Ist die Natur:
Es leuchtet die Sonne
Über Bös' und Gute,
Und dem Verbrecher
Glänzen, wie dem Besten
Der Mond und die Sterne.

For He maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.

In 1937 I was in Paris and decided to call on Jean [sic] Marouzeau, Professor of course at the Sorbonne. He had very little time for me, because, as he told me proudly, he was off to Spitsbergen the next morning. He was not a very impressive-looking man, but he was a remarkable scholar (although I find some of his books a little dull), and above all he was a wonderful organizer. Where would we be without L'année philologique? But he put his organizing ability to even more practical use. He was in fact the head and organizer of the French Resistance in Paris. One day a pamphlet, through an error signed M., fell into the hands of the Germans. Being somewhat suspect already he was arrested. Fortunately a German officer, who was a classical scholar, succeeded in persuading the people in charge that as a classical scholar Marouzeau was obviously harmless and innocent; and so he was released.

But I consort with long-haired things
    In velvet collar-rolls,
Who talk about the Aims of Art,
    And “theories” and “goals,”
And moo and coo with women-folk
    About their blessed souls.

But that they call “psychology”
    Is lack of liver pill,
And all that blights their tender souls
    Is eating till they’re ill,
And their chief way of winning goals
    Consists of sitting still.

Of all those who dwell between the Euxine Sea and the Pillars of Atlas and look on the light of the sun, I honor those who reverence my power, but I lay low all those who think proud thoughts against me. For in the gods as well one finds this trait: they enjoy receiving honor from mortals.

ὅσοι τε Πόντου τερμόνων τ᾽ Ἀτλαντικῶν
ναίουσιν εἴσω, φῶς ὁρῶντες ἡλίου,
τοὺς μὲν σέβοντας τἀμὰ πρεσβεύω κράτη,        5
σφάλλω δ᾽ ὅσοι φρονοῦσιν εἰς ἡμᾶς μέγα.
ἔνεστι γὰρ δὴ κἀν θεῶν γένει τόδε·
τιμώμενοι χαίρουσιν ἀνθρώπων ὕπο.

if indeed the gods are pleased to receive from men respect and worship, and repay these with favours.

εἰ δὴ τιμώμενοι χαίρουσιν οἱ θεοὶ καί θαυμαζόμενοι ὑπ᾿ ἀνθρώπων καὶ ἀντὶ τούτων χάριτας ἀποδιδόασιν.

Sextius had this habit, and when the day was over and he had retired to his nightly rest, he would put these questions to his soul: "What bad habit have you cured to-day? What fault have you resisted? In what respect are you better?" Anger will cease and become more controllable if it finds that it must appear before a judge every day. Can anything be more excellent than this practice of thoroughly sifting the whole day?

faciebat hoc Sextius, ut consummato die, cum se ad nocturnam quietem recepisset, interrogaret animum suum: "quod hodie malum tuum sanasti? cui vitio obstitisti? qua parte melior es?" desinet ira et moderatior erit, quae sciet sibi cotidie ad iudicem esse veniendum. quicquam ergo pulchrius hac consuetudine excutiendi totum diem?

Labels: typographical and other errors

I once heard him conversing in Russian with a visitor and said to him: "I didn't know, Arnaldo, that fluent Russian was one of your numerous accomplishments." "Languages were created for communication," he replied, "I refuse to let them be a barrier."

As a matter of fact, whenever any event of greater note or importance occurs, the Gauls shout it abroad through fields and districts and then others take it up in turn and pass it on to their next neighbours; as happened on this occasion. For deeds done at Cenabum at sunrise were heard of before the end of the first watch in the borders of the Arverni, a distance of about one hundred and sixty miles.

nam ubicumque maior atque illustrior incidit res, clamore per agros regionesque significant; hunc alii deinceps excipiunt et proximis tradunt, ut tum accidit. nam quae Cenabi oriente sole gesta essent, ante primam confectam vigiliam in finibus Arvernorum audita sunt, quod spatium est milium passuum circiter centum LX.

He was a wonderful chessplayer. I thought I was reasonably good myself, but every time we played he had me tied up in knots after half a dozen moves. It was many years later that I got rid of the feeling of inferiority which that gave me. It was when Prof. Penrose,⁶⁷ the father of the British chessmaster, told me that old players would sometimes wonder what had become of young Rose, who had drawn with Capablanca or whoever it was. And when they were told that he had become a Professor of Classics, they would say: "What a pity!"

⁶⁷ Not identified.

Your Skutsch anecdote reminded me that the great physicist Roger Penrose is the son of Lionel Penrose the psychiatrist, geneticist, and chess theorist. That must be the one Skutsch talked to about H J Rose. Roger's brother became a chess master.

[A]n enormous amount of modern ingenuity is expended on finding defences for the indefensible conduct of the powerful.