Laudator Temporis Acti

Excerpt from an email from a friend:

Many twenty-first century librarians are nothing but crypto-misobiblists, never happier than when they're maliciously culling their stock and stamping WITHDRAWN on whatever is of proven quality and worth, which is then quietly consigned to the dumpster or the charity shop. Well-stocked shelves are anathema to this race of poisonous elves.

Related post: A Misobiblist.

Homer, Odyssey 4.62-64 (Menelaus to Telemachus and Pisistratus; tr. A.T. Murray, trv. George E. Dimock):

For in you two the line of your sires is not lost, but you are of the race of men that are sceptered kings, fostered by Zeus; for no commoner could beget such sons as you.

... οὐ γὰρ σφῷν γε γένος ἀπόλωλε τοκήων,
ἀλλ᾿ ἀνδρῶν γένος ἐστὲ διοτρεφέων βασιλήων
σκηπτούχων, ἐπεὶ οὔ κε κακοὶ τοιούσδε τέκοιεν.

62–64 ath. Zenodotus, Aristophanes Byzantius, Aristarchus

Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff (1848-1931), Der Glaube der Hellenen, Bd. I (Berlin: Weidmannsche Buchhandlung, 1931), p. 9 (my translation):

As I declared when I first dealt with a god, one must believe in him in order to understand him; Frickenhaus on Greek soil felt much the same way, and with pleasure I quote his words: "One cannot be a historian of religion without reproducing the belief in the old gods in one's heart."

Wie ich, als ich zuerst von einem Gotte handelte, ausgesprochen habe, man müsse an ihn glauben, um ihn zu verstehen, hat ganz ähnlich Frickenhaus auf hellenischem Boden empfunden, und ich setze gern seine Worte her „man kann nicht Religionshistoriker sein, ohne den Glauben an die alten Götter in seinem Herzen nachzuschaffen“.

The source of the quotation seems to be Ludolf Malten, "August Frickenhaus," Biographisches Jahrbuch für Altertumskunde 46 (1926) 1-29 (at 5).

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Part II, § 4, "On Priests" (tr. Walter Kaufmann):

He whom they call Redeemer has put them in fetters: in fetters of false values and delusive words. Would that someone would yet redeem them from their Redeemer!

Der, welchen sie Erlöser nennen, schlug sie in Banden: — In Banden falscher Werthe und Wahn-Worte! Ach dass Einer sie noch von ihrem Erlöser erlöste!

E.J. Kenney (1924-2019), The Classical Text: Aspects of Editing in the Age of the Printed Book (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974), p. 76 (he = Erasmus):

For Revelations he was dependent on a single copy borrowed from Reuchlin, which lacked the last six verses...

For Revelations read Revelation, a common mistake.

Labels: typographical and other errors

Homer, Odyssey 13.348-349 (tr. A.T. Murray):

But as for me, the gods themselves undid my bonds
full easily...

αὐτὰρ ἐμοὶ δεσμὸν μὲν ἀνέγναμψαν θεοὶ αὐτοὶ
ῥηϊδίως...

Cf. Acts of the Apostles 16:26.