Laudator Temporis Acti

Of this, at least, I feel assured, that there is no such thing as ultimate forgetting; traces once impressed upon the memory are indestructible; a thousand accidents may and will interpose a veil between our present consciousness and the secret inscriptions on the mind. Accidents of the same sort will also rend away this veil. But alike, whether veiled or unveiled, the inscription remains for ever; just as the stars seem to withdraw before the common light of day, whereas, in fact, we all know that it is the light which is drawn over them as a veil, and that they are waiting to be revealed whenever the obscuring daylight itself shall have withdrawn.

May Bacchus, giver of joy, be near ...

adsit laetitiae Bacchus dator ...

adsis 'alii' ap. Serv.

alii 'adsis' legunt, secundum quos Bacchus aut antiptosis est aut antiquus vocativus, ut (XII 192) socer arma Latinus habeto. bene autem addidit dator laetitiae, quia est et dator furoris.

"I have everywhere found, primarily, thieves and scalliwags arranging the nominations to offices, and sometimes filling the offices themselves. I have found the north just as full of bad stuff as the south. Of the holders of public office in the Nation or the States or their municipalities, I have found that not one in a hundred has been chosen by any spontaneous selection of the outsiders, the people, but all have been nominated and put through by little or large caucuses of the politicians, and have got in by corrupt rings and electioneering, not capacity or desert. I have noticed how the millions of sturdy farmers and mechanics are thus the helpless supple-jacks of comparatively few politicians. And I have noticed, more and more, the alarming spectacle of parties usurping the government, and openly and shamelessly wielding it for party purposes."

All mortals have by nature an insatiable appetite for success; and no one bans it and keeps it away from houses at which fingers are pointed, saying "Don't come in here any more!"

τὸ μὲν εὖ πράσσειν ἀκόρεστον ἔφυ
πᾶσι βροτοῖσιν· δακτυλοδείκτων δ᾽
οὔτις ἀπειπὼν εἴργει μελάθρων,
"μηκέτ᾿ ἐσέλθῃς", τάδε φωνῶν.

Dr. Druring and his wife sat in the library. The scientist was in rare good humor.

"I have just obtained, by exchange with another collector," he said, "a splendid specimen of the ophiophagus."

"And what may that be?" the lady inquired with a somewhat languid interest.

"Why, bless my soul, what profound ignorance! My dear, a man who ascertains after marriage that his wife does not know Greek, is entitled to a divorce. The ophiophagus is a snake which eats other snakes."

Lawrence of Arabia’s portraits have been given trigger warnings for the cultural appropriation of Arab clothing.

The National Portrait Gallery has flagged as “sensitive” artworks depicting the First World War hero in tribal dress.

Portraits of TE Lawrence in his thobe and keffiyeh now come with a warning stating that the images may clash with “today’s attitudes”.

The caution was put in place despite the fact that Lawrence, who fought alongside the Arabs against the Ottoman Empire, was presented with the robes as a gift by the Arab ruler Emir Faisal.

Reading this triggered a reaction:

Acts 2:40: Σώθητε ἀπὸ τῆς γενεᾶς τῆς σκολιᾶς ταύτης.

Save yourselves from this untoward/crooked/perverse/eldritch generation (I threw in ‘eldritch’ for good measure. A bit of copia verborum never killed anyone).

slang (originally U.S.). Trivial, foolish, or empty words; nonsense, blather.

• 2.203-204 payback / will never come (οὐδέ ποτ᾽ ἶσα / ἔσσεται)
• 3.311 rambunctious Menelaus (βοὴν ἀγαθὸς Μενέλαος)
• 4.55-56 a humble / slave girl brought bread and many canapés (σῖτον δ᾽ αἰδοίη ταμίη παρέθηκε φέρουσα, / εἴδατα πόλλ᾽ ἐπιθεῖσα)
• 7.48 Mr. Foreigner (ξεῖνε πάτερ)
• 10.53 bite my lip, be stoical (καλυψάμενος)
• 10.279 the cutest age (χαριεστάτη ἥβη)
• 11.39 teenagers (νύμφαι τ᾽ ἠίθεοί τε)
• 16.375 he is wise to us (αὐτὸς μὲν γὰρ ἐπιστήμων βουλῇ τε νόῳ τε)
• 17.24-25 the morning frost / may do me in (μή με δαμάσσῃ / στίβη ὑπηοίη)
• 17.406 little show-off (ὑψαγόρη)
• 18.29 this greedy pig yaks on (ὁ μολοβρὸς ἐπιτροχάδην ἀγορεύει)
• 18.79 you big show-off (βουγάϊε)
• 18.94 in case / the suitors cottoned on (ἵνα μή μιν ἐπιφρασσαίατ᾽ Ἀχαιοί)
• 18.389 you nasty hobo (ἆ δείλ᾽)
• 22 5 playtime is over (οὗτος μὲν δὴ ἄεθλος ἀάατος ἐκτετέλεσται)
• 22.165 that little sneak (κεῖνος δ᾽ αὖτ᾽ ἀΐδηλος ἀνήρ)
• 22.334-335 of mighty Zeus, the god of home owners (Διὸς μεγάλου ... / ἑρκείου)
• 24.119 a whole damned month (μηνὶ δ᾽ ἄρ᾽ οὔλῳ)

That the province of Quebec should be extended to include all the territory which the French had been supposed to lay claim to under the name of Canada, i.e., on the east to Labrador, on the west to the boundaries of Louisiana and the Hudson Bay Company's territory, and on the south to the boundaries of the other provinces and the Ohio; including therefore to the southwest and west the regions which now form the states of Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, and part of Minnesota.

An Indiana bill, written by a conservative think tank based in Florida, would deny grants and scholarships administered by the Indiana Commission for Higher Education to college degree programs that don't provide a sufficient return on investment for graduates, just less than a year after lawmakers forced colleges to eliminate or merge hundreds of degrees.

Senate Bill 161 is based off of a similar provision in President Donald Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which blocks federal student loans and other aid from "low earning" degrees.

Under the bill, a degree is determined to be "low earning" if the median wage of a program's cohort falls below the median wage of someone between 24 and 35 with only a high school degree, said Foundation for Government Accountability senior fellow Christian Barnard, who drafted the bill's language.

He that doeth good to the baser sort suffereth two ills — deprivation of goods and no thanks.

δειλοὺς εὖ ἔρδοντι δύω κακά· τῶν τε γὰρ αὐτοῦ
    χηρώσει πολλῶν, καὶ χάρις οὐδεμία.

What if the dead whom still you hate
    Were wrong? Are you so surely right?
    We know the issues of the fight —
The sword is but an advocate.

What most we censure, men as wise
   Have reverently practiced; nor
    Will future wisdom fail to war
On principles we dearly prize.

The wretch, whate'er his life and lot,
   Who does not love the harmless dead
   With all his heart and all his head —
May God forgive him, I shall not.

Few men have it in their nature to honour a friend who is enjoying good fortune, without being jealous of him.

παύροις γὰρ ἀνδρῶν ἐστι συγγενὲς τόδε,
φίλον τὸν εὐτυχοῦντ᾿ ἄνευ φθόνων σέβειν.

Where whining mendeth nothing, wherefore whine?

For various streams bearing
pleasures and pains come at various times upon men.

ῥοαὶ δ᾿ ἄλλοτ᾿ ἄλλαι
εὐθυμιᾶν τε μέτα καὶ πόνων ἐς ἄνδρας ἔβαν.

ῥοαὶ codd.: πνοαὶ Robert Parker

But when some deed has been done, right or wrong,
not even Time the father of all things can undo its outcome.

                             τῶν δὲ πεπραγμένων
ἐν δίκᾳ τε καὶ παρὰ δίκαν ἀποίητον οὐδ᾿ ἄν
Χρόνος ὁ πάντων πατὴρ
δύναιτο θέμεν ἔργων τέλος.

15. τῶν δὲ κτλ.: construe τέλος ἔργων τῶν ἐν δίκᾳ τε καὶ παρὰ δίκαν πεπραγμένων. This is periphrastic for τὰ ἐν δίκᾳ κτλ. πεπραγμένα.

16. ἐν δίκᾳ κτλ.: cf. Terence, Adelphi V 9:33 iusta, iniusta, prorsus omnia. — The emphasis is on παρὰ δίκαν as is shown by v. 18 λάθα δὲ πότμῳ, κτλ.

17. χρόνος: time produces all things (ὁ πάντων πατήρ) yet it can destroy nothing. The Greeks often refer to the immutability of the past. Hom. Ι 249 οὐδέ τι μῆχος | ῥεχθέντος κακοῦ ἔστ ̓ ἄκος ἔσσεται. Simonides fr. 69 τὸ γὰρ γεγενημένον οὐκέτ ̓ ἄρεκτον ἔσται. Agatho fr. 5 μόνου γὰρ αὐτοῦ καὶ θεὸς στερίσκεται, | ἀγένητα ποιεῖν ἅσσ ̓ ἂν ᾖ πεπραγμένα. Time is often personified. See on Ol. I 33; Pyth. I 46. So also in Shakespeare Two Gent. of Verona, III 1 Time is the nurse and breeder of all good. Soph. Εl. 179 χρόνος γὰρ εὐμαρὴς θεός.

• πεπραγμένων ... ἔργων (15 words intervening)
• ἀποίητον ... τέλος (9 words intervening)

METROPOLIS, n. A stronghold of provincialism.

As the greatest cities are most provincial, so the self-complacency of aristocracies is most frankly plebeian.