Laudator Temporis Acti

What a difference there is indeed between our beginning and our end! The former in the delirium of craving and the rapture of lust, the latter in the destruction of all organs and the musty odour of corpses. The path between these two also goes steadily downhill with respect to well-being and enjoying life. Blissfully dreaming childhood, cheerful youth, toilsome manhood, frail, often pitiful old age, the torments of final illness and finally the struggle with death — does it not look exactly as if existence were a blunder whose consequences inevitably and increasingly become apparent?

Welch ein Abstand ist doch zwischen unserm Anfang und unserm Ende! jener in dem Wahn der Begier und dem Entzücken der Wollust; dieses in der Zerstörung aller Organe und dem Moderdufte der Leichen. Auch geht der Weg zwischen Beiden, in Hinsicht auf Wohlseyn und Lebensgenuß, stetig bergab: die seelig träumende Kindheit, die fröhliche Jugend, das mühsälige Mannesalter, das gebrechliche, oft jämmerliche Greisenthum, die Marter der letzten Krankheit und endlich der Todeskampf; sieht es nicht geradezu aus, als wäre das Daseyn ein Fehltritt, dessen Folgen allmälig und immer mehr offenbar würden?

The part of air nearest earth is fired by thunderbolts, and the low-lying places of the world are visited by gales and long flashes of flame; but Olympus rises above the clouds. It is heaven's law, that small things are troubled and distracted, while great things enjoy peace.

fulminibus propior terrae succenditur aer,
imaque telluris ventos tractusque coruscos        270
flammarum accipiunt: nubes excedit Olympus.
lege deum minimas rerum discordia turbat,
pacem magna tenent.

It is more often the tall pine that is shaken by the wind; the collapse is more devastating when high towers fall, and it is the mountain peaks that are struck by lightning.

saepius ventis agitatur ingens
pinus et celsae graviore casu        10
decidunt turres feriuntque summos
        fulgura montis.

CLEINIAS: By heaven, sir, you're quite right. You've the sharp eye of an old man for these things.

ATHENIAN: Yes, when we're young, we're all pretty blind to them; old age is the best time to see them clearly.

Κλεινίας. ναὶ μὰ Δία, ὦ ξένε· καθ᾽ ἡλικίαν γὰρ ὀξὺ βλέπεις.

Ἀθηναῖος. νέος μὲν γὰρ ὢν πᾶς ἄνθρωπος τὰ τοιαῦτα ἀμβλύτατα αὐτὸς αὑτοῦ ὁρᾷ, γέρων δὲ ὀξύτατα.

When a single people speaks the same language and observes the same laws you get a certain feeling of community, because everyone shares the same religious rites and so forth...

τὸ μὲν γὰρ ἕν τι εἶναι γένος ὁμόφωνον καὶ ὁμόνομον ἔχει τινὰ φιλίαν, κοινωνὸν ἱερῶν ὂν καὶ τῶν τοιούτων πάντων...

Do you know the land where the lemon-trees blossom, where the golden oranges glow in the dark foliage, a soft wind blows from the blue sky, and the myrtle stands silent and the bay-tree is tall? Do you know it perhaps? It is there, there that I would like to go with you, my beloved.

Kennst du das Land, wo die Zitronen blühn,
Im dunkeln Laub die Goldorangen glühn,
Ein sanfter Wind vom blauen Himmel weht,
Die Myrte still und hoch der Lorbeer steht?
Kennst du es wohl? Dahin!
Dahin möcht’ ich mit dir,
O mein Geliebter, ziehn.

In endeavoring to ascertain the mind of the Church in regard to Pagan culture, I am assuming that the message of Christianity was clear, profound, and new. Anybody can read it in the Gospels, even, I venture to imagine, in the sources that New Testament scholars have discovered behind the first three Gospels, — writers that I must mention as canonized, since they precede the Evangelists themselves, — St. Urmarkus and St. Q.

[Thucydides 7.84.5] The Peloponnesians also came down and butchered them, especially those in the water, which was thus immediately spoiled, but which they went on drinking just the same, mud and all, bloody as it was, most even fighting to have it.

οἵ τε Πελοποννήσιοι ἐπικαταβάντες τοὺς ἐν τῷ ποταμῷ μάλιστα ἔσφαζον. καὶ τὸ ὕδωρ εὐθὺς διέφθαρτο, ἀλλ᾽ οὐδὲν ἧσσον ἐπίνετό τε ὁμοῦ τῷ πηλῷ ᾑματωμένον καὶ περιμάχητον ἦν τοῖς πολλοῖς.

In references to the text of Homer the books of the Iliad are denoted by the Greek capital letters, those of the Odyssey by the Greek lower case letters. For the convenience of readers who may be using a text that only gives the Roman or Arabic numerals a concordance is printed below:

To me, however, it seems that we ought to consider yet again this very question, whether it is best to send the ships at all, and that we ought not, on such slight deliberation about matters of great importance, at the instigation of men of alien race, to undertake a war that does not concern us.

ἐμοὶ μέντοι δοκεῖ καὶ περὶ αὐτοῦ τούτου ἔτι χρῆναι σκέψασθαι, εἰ ἄμεινόν ἐστιν ἐκπέμπειν τὰς ναῦς, καὶ μὴ οὕτω βραχείᾳ βουλῇ περὶ μεγάλων πραγμάτων ἀνδράσιν ἀλλοφύλοις πειθομένους πόλεμον οὐ προσήκοντα ἄρασθαι.

Oekoermezoe [Galicia], February 6, 1915 (on the German Eastern Front): "... Niedner says that the numerous psychoses among the officers and men coming here from the west is striking. Recently of ten newly arrived officers, three had nervous breakdowns. He spoke as well of a hospital case where a man sat in the antechamber, a common soldier, his rifle on the ground between his knees, looking at the ground, and murmuring something incomprehensible. He came up to him and asked him what he wanted. The man didn't answer, however, but only continued to murmur in the same tone. He soon noticed that something wasn't right psychologically, listened, and to his astonishment suddenly recognized that the man was reciting long passages of The Odyssey in Greek."

Labels: asyndetic privative adjectives

For over thirty years two Greek books, the Odyssey of Homer and the Description of Greece by Pausanias, the one from the golden springtime, the other from the mellow autumn of that ancient world, have been my loved companions, at home and on my journeyings. To read and read again the Odyssey itself has ever to me seemed more profitable, as it is indubitably more entertaining, and never more so than now, to one that is ἐπὶ γήραος οὐδῷ, than to read books written about the Odyssey. And still at each reading once more is recaptured the fascination, the exhilarating sense of discovery and adventure with which, nearly half a century ago, as a self-imposed labour of love, I first spelt out the magic lines.

Doubtless, one's knowledge must have been enriched by countless rills from forgotten sources; but the main stream flows deep and strong and untroubled from a single spring, which is the poem itself.

If any one, retorting my own avowal, resolves to read the Odyssey itself rather than to spend time over what is here said about it, so much the better—provided only that the Odyssey be read. Should the reading of my book lead others to the divine poet—well, with that again I should be content, and more than content. For if my book does that, what other merit need it claim?

His name reflects his father's characteristic method of fighting; for Odysseus' skill at archery cf. viii 215 ff. (with Hainsworth's n.), xxi 393 ff., xxii 1 ff. The children of many Homeric heroes bear names which recall some aspect of their fathers' lives—Eurysaces (Ajax), Astyanax (Hector), Megapenthes (Menelaus), Iphianassa, Chrysothemis, and Laodice (Agamemnon), Pisistratus (Nestor)...

• Astyanax: city's king
• Chrysothemis: golden law
• Eurysaces: broad shield
• Iphianassa: strong queen
• Laodice: people's justice
• Megapenthes: great sorrow
• Pisistratus: persuader of the army
• Telemachus: fighting from afar

Really therefore a wild animal lies at the heart of every person, only waiting for the opportunity to rant and rave; it wants to hurt others and annihilate them if they should dare to block its path.

Wirklich also liegt im Herzen eines Jeden ein wildes Thier, das nur auf Gelegenheit wartet, um zu toben und zu rasen, indem es Andern wehe thun und, wenn sie gar ihm den Weg versperren, sie vernichten möchte.

Remember that this is the part of a good governor—to benefit his country as much as possible, or willingly at least to do it no harm.

τὸ καλῶς ἄρξαι τοῦτ ̓ εἶναι, ὃς ἂν τὴν πατρίδα ὠφελήσῃ ὡς πλεῖστα ἢ ἑκὼν εἶναι μηδὲν βλάψῃ.

I have floundered somewhat ineffectually through the slough of philology, but I look forward to the time when it will be possible for the lover of poetry to study poetry—even the poetry of recondite times and places—without burdening himself with the rags of morphology, epigraphy, privatleben and the kindred delights of the archaeological or "scholarly" mind.

There is no disgrace in being told of some blemish — indeed, if one takes criticism in good part, without being ruffled by it, it commonly leads one to a remedy.

οὐ γὰρ τό γε γνῶναί τι τῶν μὴ καλῶν ἄτιμον, ἀλλὰ ἴασιν ἐξ αὐτοῦ συμβαίνει γίγνεσθαι τῷ μὴ φθόνῳ τὰ λεγόμενα ἀλλ᾽ εὐνοίᾳ δεχομένῳ.

The human being is at bottom a wild, horrible animal. We know it merely in its bridled and tame state, which we call civilization, and this is why we are shocked by the occasional eruptions of its nature. But where and when the lock and chain of lawful order happen to fall away and anarchy breaks out, then it shows what it is.

Der Mensch ist im Grunde ein wildes entsetzliches Thier. Wir kennen es bloß im Zustande der Bändigung und Zähmung, welcher Civilisation heißt: daher erschrecken uns die gelegentlichen Ausbrüche seiner Natur. Aber wo und wann einmal Schloß und Kette der gesetzlichen Ordnung abfallen und Anarchie eintritt, da zeigt sich, was er ist.

When a man drinks it, it immediately makes him more cheerful than he was before; the more he takes, the more it fills him with boundless optimism: he thinks he can do anything. Finally, bursting with self-esteem and imposing no restraint on his speech and actions, the fellow loses all his inhibitions and becomes completely fearless: he'll say and do anything, without a qualm.

πιόντα τὸν ἄνθρωπον αὐτὸν αὑτοῦ ποιεῖ πρῶτον ἵλεων εὐθὺς μᾶλλον ἢ πρότερον, καὶ ὁπόσῳ ἂν πλέον αὐτοῦ γεύηται, τοσούτῳ πλειόνων ἐλπίδων ἀγαθῶν πληροῦσθαι καὶ δυνάμεως εἰς δόξαν; καὶ τελευτῶν δὴ πάσης ὁ τοιοῦτος παρρησίας ὡς σοφὸς ὢν μεστοῦται καὶ ἐλευθερίας, πάσης δὲ ἀφοβίας, ὥστε εἰπεῖν τε ἀόκνως ὁτιοῦν, ὡσαύτως δὲ καὶ πρᾶξαι;

• Some Effects of Wine
• Praise of Dionysus
• Wine
• The Power of Wine
• Effects of Wine

In order to have original, extraordinary, perhaps even immortal thoughts it suffices to alienate oneself so thoroughly from the world and things for a few moments that the most ordinary objects and events appear to one as entirely new and unfamiliar, thereby revealing their true nature.

Um originelle, außerordentliche, vielleicht gar unsterbliche Gedanken zu haben, ist es hinreichend, sich der Welt und den Dingen auf einige Augenblicke so gänzlich zu entfremden, daß Einem die allergewöhnlichsten Gegenstände und Vorgänge als völlig neu und unbekannt erscheinen, als wodurch eben ihr wahres Wesen sich ausschließt.

For Time changes the nature of the whole world, and one phase
Must be succeeded by the next; there is no thing that stays
The same. Everything flows. Nature makes everything alter,
For as one thing grows feeble with old age and starts to falter,
Another strengthens, emerging from obscurity.

mutat enim mundi naturam totius aetas
ex alioque alius status excipere omnia debet
nec manet ulla sui similis res: omnia migrant,        830
omnia commutat natura et vertere cogit.
namque aliud putrescit et aevo debile languet,
porro aliud succrescit et e contemptibus exit.

Not that God, the Lord and Creator of the universe, takes any delight in the rumbling of our intestines or the emptiness of our stomach or the inflammation of our lungs...

non quo deus, universitatis creator et dominus, intestinorum nostrorum rugitu et inanitate ventris pulmonumque delectetur ardore....

Everything a man does in the service of the state is contrary to his nature...

Alles, was ein Mensch im Dienste des Staates thut, geht wider seine Natur...

I hope succeeding generations will be able to be idle. I hope that nine tenths of their time will be leisure time; that they may enjoy their days, and the earth, and the beauty of this beautiful world; that they may rest by the sea and dream; that they may dance and sing and eat and drink.

• The Case for Inactivity
• Heatherlegh's Prescription
• Song of the Slackers
• A Fool
• Laziness as a Good Quality
• On Laziness
• To Loaf
• Kayf
• Slackers
• Planet of the Apes
• Ode to Indolence
• The More Idle, the More Deserving
• Work and Leisure
• Praise of Laziness
• Lazy Man's Song
• Exquisite Pregnant Idleness
• How Can I Work?
• Dolce Far Niente
• Weekdays of Unfreedom
• The Dreary Vacuum of Idleness
• Idleness and Business
• Archilochus on the Idle Life
• Idleness
• Futile Work
• Otium Cum Dignitate

A human baby's like a sailor washed up on a beach
By the battering of the surf, naked, lacking the power of speech,
Possessing no means of survival, when first Nature pours
Him forth with birth-pangs from his mother's womb upon Light's shores.
He fills the room up with his sorrowful squalls, and rightly so!
Just think what lies in store for him, Life's full supply of woe.

tum porro puer, ut saevis proiectus ab undis
navita, nudus humi iacet infans indigus omni
vitali auxilio, cum primum in luminis oras
nixibus ex alvo matris natura profudit,        225
vagituque locum lugubri complet, ut aequumst
cui tantum in vita restet transire malorum.

227 restet transire Lact. opif. 3.2 : re et transirest (transire est Q) Ω

Stupidity carried beyond a certain point becomes a public menace.

I will do as you wish, as well as I can, and shall at once begin my discussion, following the rule which, I think, ought always to be observed in the exposition of a subject if one wishes to avoid confusion; that is, that if the name of a subject is agreed upon, the meaning of this name should first be explained. Not until this meaning is agreed upon should the actual discussion be begun; for the qualities of the thing to be discussed can never be understood unless one understands first exactly what the thing itself is.

faciam, quod vultis, ut potero, et iam ingrediar in disputationem ea lege, qua credo omnibus in rebus disserendis utendum esse, si errorem velis tollere, ut eius rei, de qua quaeretur, si nomen quod sit conveniat, explicetur, quid declaretur eo nomine; quod si convenerit, tum demum decebit ingredi in sermonem; numquam enim, quale sit illud, de quo disputabitur, intellegi poterit, nisi, quid sit, fuerit intellectum prius.

"I don't hold with politics," the Superintendent confided to Smiley inconsequentially, staring downward still. "I don't hold with politics and I don't hold with politicians either. Licensed lunatics most of them, in my view."

All this is recounted as though it had happened already, though in fact that psalm refers to future events, foreseen long before. But why need we labor this point? What does all our diligent research achieve? What does our careful inquiry reveal? When are we so confident in the result of our study that we can say with certainty, "This is how it is"? We observe that the prophets often use verbs in the past tense to predict the future; but it is not easy to find an example of the future tense being used to indicate past happenings. I do not presume to say that there is no such example; I would merely suggest to students of those writings a suitable object for their research. If they find an instance of it and report it to us, we busy older people will applaud the studies of younger scholars who have more time, and we too will learn something from their industry. We shall not think this beneath our dignity, for Christ uses all means to teach us.

Omnia quasi iam facta commemorantur, quae utique adhuc ventura cernebantur. Sed quantum potest nostra diligentia? Quantum autem potest tanta occupatio? Aut quando sic vacat, ut possimus pro certo dicere: 'Ita est'? Animadvertimus saepe prophetas praeterito tempore verborum dicere quae futura sunt; figura autem futuri dicere praeterita non facile occurrit legenti. Non audeo dicere: 'Non est', sed certe studiosis earum litterarum indixerim quid quaerant. Si invenerint et ad nos attulerint, gratulabimur adolescentium studiis otiosorum occupati senes, et ex eorum ministerio et nos aliquid discimus. Non enim dedignamur, quando Christus de omnibus docet.

A university is the organ of the intellectual life of the nation; it is the school of learning, the nursery of the liberal arts, the academy of the sciences, the home of letters, the retreat of the studious and the contemplative.

Your “What is a University” post reminds me that David Lance Goines (Berkeley poster artist and graphic designer) used to say:

“It’s not a university if it doesn’t have a classics department.”

He said this when he was designing a poster for one year’s Sather Lectures. 2013, François Lissarrague’s Panta Kala: Heroic Warriors and the Aesthetics of Weaponry in Greek Art.

Nothing is more hostile to a city than a despot; where he is, there are first no laws common to all, but one man is tyrant, in whose keeping and in his alone the law resides, and in that case equality is at an end.

οὐδὲν τυράννου δυσμενέστερον πόλει,
ὅπου τὸ μὲν πρώτιστον οὐκ εἰσὶν νόμοι        430
κοινοί, κρατεῖ δ᾽ εἷς τὸν νόμον κεκτημένος
αὐτὸς παρ᾽ αὑτῷ· καὶ τόδ᾽ οὐκέτ᾽ ἔστ᾽ ἴσον.