Laudator Temporis Acti

Norman Douglas (1868-1952), How About Europe? Some Footnotes on East and West (London: Chatto and Windus, 1930), pp. 22-23:

Go to the East, young man; leave behind you the frowsy and fidgety little hole called Europe. Savour the remedial effects of that other continent before you are caught in our humiliating machinery; before you are ticketed and labelled as to your monetary worth to a worthless 'community'; before you are taxed, and overtaxed, for the purpose of keeping alive thousands of people who ought to be dead.

Get out of Europe! Rectify your values while there is still some flexibility in your mind, and learn to laugh at the flabby gibberings of our cultured classes and the comical bestiality of their inferiors, our nauseating politics and childish social ideals, our moral hypocrisy that breeds liars, the inquisitorial tyranny of our laws that breeds cowards, and certain absurd newspapers whose function consists in persuading us to attach importance to what is not worth thinking about. Get out of it!

Sophia Peabody Hawthorne, letter to Annie Adams Fields (May 1862):

I suppose he [Thoreau] believed that beasts and reptiles, birds and fishes fulfilled their ends, and that man generally came short. So he respected the one and avoided the other.

John J. Chapman, Two Greek Plays: The Philoctetes of Sophocles and the Medea of Euripides (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1928), p. 114:

In spite of all the essays that scholars and dilettanti have written about translating the classics, the task is chiefly valuable as an agreeable pastime for elderly gentlemen with time on their hands. And one may feel sure that such men will never be satisfied with anything that other elderly men with time on their hands have said about the matter. The game is endless, and therein lies its charm.

T'ao Yuan-ming (365-427) "Poem in the Form of a Coffin-Puller's Song, No. 1," tr. Burton Watson in The Columbia Book of Chinese Poetry: From Early Times to the Thirteenth Century (New York: Columbia University Press, 1984), p. 140:

What has a life must have a death;
an early end doesn't mean the lifespan's been shortened.
Last evening I was the same as other people;
this morning I'm listed in the roster of the dead.
When soul and breath scatter, where do they go,
when the wasted form's consigned to hollow wood?
My little boy, wailing, searches for his father;
my close friends caress me and mourn.
I know nothing now of gain or loss;
how could I distinguish right from wrong?
A thousand autumns, ten thousand years after,
who'll know if I lived in glory or disgrace?
I only regret that while I was in the world
I never got to drink enough wine!

Allan Ramsay (1686-1758), "An Epistle Wrote from Mavisbank, March 1748, to a Friend in Edinburgh":

Dear friend, to smoak and noise confine'd,
which Soils your Shirt, and frets your mind,
and makes you rusty look, and crabbed,
as if you were bepoxed, or Scabbed,
or had been going through a dose        5
of Mercury, to save your Nose,
let me advise you, out of pity,
to leave the chattering, Stinking city;
wher pride, and Shallowness, take place
of plain Integrety, and grace,        10
where hidious Screams, would kill a Cat,
of who buys this or who buys that,
and through the Day from break of Mornings
the buz of Bills, protests, and Hornings,
besides the everlasting Squable        15
amongst the great and litle Rable
who tear their Lungs, & deave your Ears,
with all their party hopes and fears,
while ratling o'er their silly Cant,
learn'd from the Mercury, and Currant,    20
about the Aid that comes from Russia,
and the neutrality of Prussia,
of ffrance's Tyranie and Slavery,
of Holands Selfishness & knavery,
of Spain, the most beloved Son        25
of the old whore of Babylon,
the Guardian of her whips & fagots
and all her superstitious magots,
of all his gambols on the Green
with Hungary's Imperial Queen,        30
of Genoa's resolute resistance
without Napolitan assistance,
of passing Var, seiging Savona,
and breaking fidles at Cremona,
of how much Blood & dirt is cost        35
before a Town is won or lost,
of Popes, Stateholders, faith's Deffenders,
Generals, Marshals, and pretenders,
of Treaties, Ministers, and Kings,
and of a Thousand other Things,        40
of all which their Conceptions Dull,
sutes with the thickness of the Scull,
yet with such Stuff one must be worried,
that's through the City gauntlet hurried.

But Ah! ye cry, the dear dear Dances         45
with Beautys brisk, who harm our fancys,
for five or six gay hours complete
in circles of the Assembly Sweet,
who can forsake so fair a field
where all to conquering Beauty yield.        50
No doubt while in this am'rous fit
your next plea's Boxes, and the pit,
where wit, and humours of the Age
flow entertaining from the Stage,
where, if the Drama's right conducted,        55
one's both diverted and instructed.

Well I shall grant it bears with Reason
these have their charms in proper Season,
but must not be indulg'd too much,
lest they the Soften'd Soul bewitch,        60
and faculties in fetters bind
that are for greater ends design'd.

Then, rouze ye from these dosing Dreams,
come view with me the golden Beams,
which Phebus every Morning pours         65
upon the plains, adorn'd with flowers,
with me o'er springing verdures stray,
where wimpling watters make their way,
here from the Oak with Ivy bound
you'll hear the soft melodious Sound        70
of all the Choiresters on hy
whose notes re-echoe through the skie,
better than concerts of your Town,
yet do not cost you half a crown;
here Blackbirds, Mavises & Linnets,        75
excell your fidles, flutes, & Spinnets.
Next we may mount the broomy Height
and wild, wide Landskips chear our Sight,
diverted with the bleating Tribe,
and plough-men whistling oer the Glibe.        80

Thus we, with little Labour, gain
firm Health, and all its Joyfull Train,
silent repose, the chearfull Smile,
which best intruding cares beguile,
and makes the Springs of Life to flow        85
through every vein with kindly glow,
giving the Cheek a rosie teint
surpassing all the arts of paint.

The Heights survey'd, we may return
along the Margin of the Burn,        90
where fishes will divert your Eye
while jumping up to catch a fly,
which taught the Angler first to wait
and Hook them with the tempting Bait.
Next the fair Gardens we may trace        95
where art adds life to Native grace,
The Walls & Espaliers Load, & lined
with fruits of the best chosen kind,
the Borders fraughted with delight,
to please the Smelling, & the Sight,        100
while Ecchoe entertains the Ear
when rais'd by Notes well tune'd, & clear.

Such Morning walks, the Balmy Air,
improves the gust for healthy fair,
and, when the Bell for Breakfast rings,        105
at heels you'll find Hermetick wings,
to reach a Table, neatly crownd,
with all that's hearty, hale, & sound,
where in the shining vessels stand
Blessings of Jacob's promised Land,        110
of which with freedom you may share,
for ceremony comes not there.

Nature refresh'd, you may retire
with Books that jump with your Desire;
if cloudy Skies keep you within,        115
you've Closets warm & free from Din,
where in the well degested pages
you may review the by past ages,
or, with great Newton, take a flight
through all the rolling Orbs of Light,        120
their order note, their bulk & shine,
'till fire'd with raptures all divine,
or with the pen, and pincell's aid,
trace nature out in Light & Shade
with freedom, in a bold out line,        125
like Sachi, or Salvator, shine.

If Zyphers, and the radiant bleeze,
invite you to the Shady Trees,
some hours, in indolence, to pass
extended on the velvet gras,        130
with Milton, Pope, & all the Rest,
who smoothly coppy Nature best,
their Lays inspired, peruse, and find,
what brightens, and improves, the Mind,
and carrys it a pitch beyond        135
these views, of which Low Minds are fond.

This is the Life, all those have sung,
most to be wish'd by old, and young,
by the most Brave, and the most ffair,
where Least Ambition, least of Care,        140
desturbs the Soul, where virteous Ease,
and Temperance, never cease to please.

6 Mercury: treatment for venereal disease
14 Hornings: letters of horning were "a process of execution issued under the signet directing a messenger to charge a debtor to pay or perform in terms of the letters, under pain of being 'put to the horn', i.e. declared rebel" (Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. horning, n., sense 4).
17 deave: deafen
20 Mercury, and Currant: newspapers, the Caledonian Mercury and the Edinburgh Evening Courant
21-34: references to the War of the Austrian Succession (1740–1748)
26 old whore of Babylon: Roman Catholic Church
28 magots: maggots, i.e. odd notions or ideas
46 harm: should charm be read here?
68 wimpling: winding, meandering
80 Glibe: glebe, soil
90 Margin of the Burn: bank of the stream
104 gust for healthy fair: appetite for healthy fare
106 Hermetick wings: as messenger of the gods, Hermes wore winged sandals.
114 jump: agree completely, coincide (Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. jump, v., sense 5.a)
126 Andrea Sacchi (1599-1661) and Salvator Rosa (1615-1673) were Italian painters.
127 bleeze: blaze

John Stuart Blackie (1809-1895), Altavona: Fact and Fiction from My Life in the Highlands (Edinburgh: David Douglas, 1882), p. 240:

CH.—You do not really mean to say, Miss Flora, that there can be any wisdom in serving God by systematically renouncing all the good things which he has prepared for us? Is it not rather monstrous ingratitude and most faulty manners, when a kind host spreads the board with all sorts of dainties for your entertainment, to refuse to taste one of them, and wrap yourself up in the cold garb of general abstinence? It brings me to despair of humanity when I think that the highest Christian authorities for centuries should have set the seal of their approval on such a hateful caricature of the piety of their Master.

Anatole France (1844-1924), The Garden of Epicurus, tr. Alfred Allinson (London: John Lane, 1920), p. 101:

We call men dangerous whose minds are made differently from our own, and immoral those who profess another standard of ethics. We condemn as sceptics all who do not share our own illusions, without ever troubling our heads to inquire if they have others of their own.

The French, from Le Jardin d'Épicure, 9th ed. (Paris: Calmann Lévy, 1895), p. 116:

Nous appelons dangereux ceux qui ont l'esprit fait autrement que le nôtre et immoraux ceux qui n'ont point notre morale. Nous appelons sceptiques ceux qui n'ont point nos propres illusions, sans même nous inquiéter s'ils en ont d'autres.

Norman Douglas (1868-1952), How About Europe? Some Footnotes on East and West (London: Chatto and Windus, 1930), pp. 118-119:

A system of polytheism such as we find in Homer can be evolved only among men who are really free, men of good health, of sensitive and alert minds; men who possess constructive imagination and a deep sympathy—a kind of masonic feeling—for the processes of nature. These are the qualifications; and we no longer have them. The Christian theory that polytheism points to a low state of culture is refuted by the life described in these poems, which reveal an ethical outlook cleaner than our own; the morality, private and public, of these polytheists has extorted praise from all scholars, including the sanctimonious Mr. Gladstone. Their standard of female virtue, for example, contrasts favourably with what our monotheistic teachers have told us about women. And that is a crucial test. Gladstone cannot avoid making his usual reservation in favour of Christianity; he says, nevertheless, that 'it would be hard to discover any period of history, or country of the world, not being Christian, in which women stood so high as with the Greeks of the heroic age.'

Id., p. 121:

If we must have gods, let us have them by the score—it is the only way out of the difficulty. Let us have them numerous as in the streets of old Naples, where, according to Symmachus, it was easier to encounter a god than a man. The more the merrier. Then we shall know on whom to fix the blame, when anything disagreeable happens to us. At present, God being good, we are up a tree.

According to Symmachus, or Petronius? See Petronius, Satyricon 17.5:

utique nostra regio tam praesentibus plena est numinibus ut facilius possis deum quam hominem invenire.

Related post: Pound on Polytheism.

"Passages from Hawthorne's Notebooks, XI," Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XVIII, No. 109 (November 1866) 536-544 (at 540):

Here now are whortleberries, ripe and black, growing actually within reach of my hand, yet unseen till this moment. Were we to sit here all day,—a week, a month, and doubtless a lifetime,—objects would thus still be presenting themselves as new, though there would seem to be no reason why we should not have detected them all at the first moment.

Robert Gunther (1869-1940), quoted by Christopher Stray, "Dictionary mongers," Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources (May 5, 2014):

The Delegates [of the Clarendon Press] never realized what a monkey house their employees made of the Old Ashmolean. How their young male assistants used to keep rushing up the stairs with their latest lexicographical slips to the upper room where shrieks of feminine laughter rewarded their lexicographical discoveries.

Hat tip: Ian Jackson.

Norman Douglas (1868-1952), How About Europe? Some Footnotes on East and West (London: Chatto and Windus, 1930), pp. 93-94:

When all is said and done, an intelligent interest in food—how to prepare it and how to enjoy it—is no illusory sign of civilization. Judged by this test, the French stand in the front rank of civilized people.

Seneca, Suasoriae 4.2 (quoting from a declamation by Arellius Fuscus; tr. Michael Winterbottom):

But those who have, as they put it, "launched themselves" into the mysterious certainties of fate enquire into birthdays, and regard the first hour of life as a harbinger of all the years to follow. They work out what the movement of the stars was at that date, in what directions they scattered. Did the sun stand in ominous opposition, or shine on the scene calmly? Did the moon receive her full light, or was she at the beginning of her waxing, or had she hidden her darkened head in night? Did Saturn welcome the newborn child to cultivate the fields, or Mars as a soldier for war, or Mercury as a businessman for profit, or did Venus nod graciously on the baby? Did Jupiter bear it from low to high? So many gods bustling about one head!

qui vero in media se, ut praedicant, fatorum misere pignora, natales inquirunt et primam aevi horam omnium annorum habent nuntiam; quo ierint motu sidera, in quas discucurrerint partes, contrane dirus steterit an placidus adfulserit Sol; [in] plenam lucem an initia surgentis acceperit, an abdiderit in noctem obscurum caput Luna; Saturnus nascentem <ad agrorum cultum>, an ad bella Mars militem, an negotiosum in quaestus Mercurius exceperit, an blanda adnuerit nascenti Venus, an ex humili in sublime Iuppiter tulerit, aestimant: tot circa unum caput tumultuantis deos!

pignora codd.: signa Lennart Håkanson
dirus Martin Gertz: deus codd., durus Emil Thomas
[in] del. Emil Thomas
nascentem codd.: ad sementem Adam Eussner
<ad agrorum cultum> suppl. Clemens Konitzer

At first I thought this passage might refer to the day of the week on which a child is born, i.e.

• Sunday (sun)
• Monday (moon)
• Saturday (Saturn)
• Tuesday (Mars, cf. mardi)
• Wednesday (Mercury, cf. mercredi)
• Friday (Venus, cf. vendredi)
• Thursday (Jupiter, cf. jeudi)

But the reality seems more complicated. See, e.g., Ptolemy, Tetrabiblos 4.4 (tr. Frank Egleston Robbins):

The lord of action is apprehended by two methods, from the sun and from the culminating sign. For it will be needful to look both for the planet that has made its morning appearance closest to the sun, and that which is at mid‑heaven, particularly when it occupies the application of the moon; and if the same star occupies both the aforesaid positions, this alone must be employed, and similarly if none occupies one of these places, we must use only the one which occupies the other of the places. And if one planet has made the nearest morning appearance and another is associated with the mid‑heaven, and with the moon, we must employ them both, giving preference to the one which by reason of its strength has the greater number of claims to domination according to the scheme which we have already set forth. But if not one is found which either has made an appearance or is at mid‑heaven, we must take the lord of the latter region, with reference however to the occasional pursuits of the subject, for persons with such genitures are for the most part inactive.

Thus, then, we shall determine the planet that governs action. The quality of the action, however, is to be discerned from the character of the three planets, Mars, Venus, and Mercury, and from that of the signs through which they happen appear to be passing. For if Mercury governs action, to speak generally, he makes his subjects scribes, men of business, calculators, teachers, merchants, bankers, soothsayers, astrologers, sacrificers, and in general those who perform their functions by means of documents, interpretation, and giving and taking. And if Saturn testifies to him, they will be managers of the property of others, interpreters of dreams, or frequenters of temples for the purpose of prophecies and inspiration. If it is Jupiter that witnesses, they will be law-makers, orators, sophists, who enjoy familiarity with great persons. If Venus rules action, she makes her subjects persons whose activities lie among the perfumes of flowers or of unguents, in wine, colours, dyes, spices, or adornments, as, for example, sellers of unguents, weavers of chaplets, innkeepers, wine-merchants, druggists, weavers, dealers in spices, painters, dyers, sellers of clothing. And if Saturn testifies to her, she makes them dealers in goods used for pleasure or adornment, sorcerers, poisoners, panders, and those who make their living from similar occupations. If Jupiter testifies, they will be athletes, wearers of the wreath, persons deemed worthy of honours, and men who derive advancement from women.

Mars, in aspect with the sun, makes his subjects those who use fire in their crafts, such as cooks, moulders, cauterizers, smiths, workers in mines; if he is not with the sun, those who work with iron, such as shipbuilders, carpenters, farmers, quarrymen, stone-dressers, jewellers, splitters of wood, and their subordinate workers. If Saturn testifies to him, he produces seamen, drawers of water, tunnelers, painters, gamekeepers, cooks, embalmers. If Jupiter testifies, he produces soldiers, servants, publicans, innkeepers, ferrymen, assistants at sacrifice.

The thought also occurred to me that these planetary influences might lie behind some of the "occupational" priamels found in Greek and Latin literature. See Elroy L. Bundy, Studia Pindarica (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986), p. 11, n. 34, for a list of "priamels of this occupational (or preoccupational) type." We would need a priamel with seven occupations, each corresponding to one of the planets. If we combine farmer and peasant, sailor and merchant, Horace, Odes 1.1 contains eight occupations (seven plus Horace's own occupation of poet), but I doubt whether the ode should be forced into such a rigid scheme.

Related post: Monday's Child is Fair of Face.

Norman Douglas (1868-1952), How About Europe? Some Footnotes on East and West (London: Chatto and Windus, 1930), p. 21:

Curry is India's gift to mankind; her contribution to human happiness.

Norman Douglas (1868-1952), How About Europe? Some Footnotes on East and West (London: Chatto and Windus, 1930), pp. 25-26:

The Western notion seems to be this: some dogs can learn tricks, therefore all dogs must learn them. Are we ever going to realize that we have our unteachables too, and that to keep them in schools is wasting not only our money but their time? Presumably not. The school-age is continually being raised. Soon we shall be doing sums when we might be getting married. Under discipline all the time, and coddled like little girls! The consequence is that England is full of well-groomed adolescents of twenty-five, with no more poise or self-reliance than a Newfoundland puppy.

Alessandro Barchiesi, review of R.G.M. Nisbet and Niall Rudd, A Commentary on Horace, Odes Book III (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), in Classical World 100 (2006) 73-74 (at 74):

[I]t is a sobering thought that neither of the two leading commentators on Roman poetry uses a word-processor: E.J. Kenney prefers a typewriter, and Nisbet a black ballpoint pen.

Norman Douglas (1868-1952), How About Europe? Some Footnotes on East and West (London: Chatto and Windus, 1930), pp. 32-33:

A supply of men who have not inhaled that poison-gas of education which paralyses our nerve-centres of independent thought would be a national asset in times of stress; a reservoir of sturdy sanity.

Related post: Emphasis on Individuality.

Norman Douglas (1868-1952), How About Europe? Some Footnotes on East and West (London: Chatto and Windus, 1930), p. 5:

An occasional spasm of lucidity is all we may ever expect. Enlightened individuals crop up in the most unlikely places and epochs; enlightened groups of them are as common as a flock of white blackbirds. The world has grown not only older since Pericles; it has grown stupider.

W.G. Waddell, "A Teacher of Classics in Egypt," Classical Journal 28.7 (April 1933) 489-496 (at 489, n. 2):

As an indication of the popular feeling in Egypt towards ancient culture, it may be mentioned that when the chairs of Latin and Greek were created at Cairo, a journalist wrote in an Arabic newspaper: "Why should Egyptian students learn Greek, the language of grocers and sardine-sellers?"

When I look back on my misspent life, I sometimes wish I had never left the town where I grew up. This sonnet by Joachim Du Bellay, number 25 of Les Regrets, expresses the feeling:

Malheureux l'an, le mois, le jour, l'heure et le point,
Et malheureuse soit la flatteuse espérance,
Quand pour venir ici j'abandonnai la France:
La France, et mon Anjou, dont le désir me point.

Vraiment d'un bon oiseau guidé je ne fus point,
Et mon coeur me donnait assez signifiance
Que le ciel était plein de mauvaise influence,
Et que Mars était lors à Saturne conjoint.

Cent fois le bon avis lors m'en voulut distraire,
Mais toujours le destin me tirait au contraire:
Et si mon désir n'eût aveuglé ma raison,

N'était-ce pas assez pour rompre mon voyage,
Quand sur le seuil de l'huis, d'un sinistre présage,
Je me blessai le pied sortant de ma maison?

The text, in modern spelling, comes from Joachim Du Bellay, Les Regrets précédé de Les Antiquités de Rome et suivi de La Défense et Illustration de la Langue française (Paris: Gallimard, 1967), p. 85. Thanks to the generous friend who sent me this book as a gift.

Here is a translation of the sonnet by Richard Helgerson:

Cursed be the year, the month, the day, the hour, and the instant, and cursed be the flattering hope, when to come here I left France, France and my Anjou, for which longing torments me.

Truly I was not led by a bird of good fortune, and my heart gave me plenty of warning that the heavens were charged with bad influence and that Mars was then housed with Saturn.

A hundred times good advice tried to draw me back, but fate always pulled me the other way, and had desire not blinded my reason,

Was it not enough to cancel my trip when—sinister omen!—I injured my foot on the doorstep as I was leaving the house?

Related posts:

• Heureux Qui Comme Ulysse
• Homecoming
• Home Sweet Home (Homer, Theognis, Marcantonio Flaminio)
• Home Sweet Home (Catullus)
• My Native Hills
• Death Far From Home

Joachim Du Bellay (1522-1560), "To the Reader," at the beginning of Les Regrets (tr. Richard Helgerson):

This little book, Reader, that we give you now has at once the taste of gall and honey mixed with salt. If it pleases your palate, come as a guest. If not, please go away. I did not mean to invite you to the feast.

The Latin ("Ad Lectorem"):

Quem, lector, tibi nunc damus libellum,
Hic fellisque simul, simulque mellis,
Permixtumque salis refert saporem.
Si gratum quid erit tuo palato,
Huc conviva veni: tibi haec parata est
Coena. Sin minus, hinc facesse, quaeso:
Ad hanc te volui haud vocare coenam.

Related post: Martial on Blogging.