Laudator Temporis Acti

In its original form, the rule of falsus in uno was mandatory. "The notion," Wigmore wrote, "was that the testimony of one detected in a lie was wholly worthless and must of necessity be rejected.<sup>368

368</sup> 3 WIGMORE, supra note 44, § 1009, at 675. Wigmore traced the rule of falsus in uno to the Stuart treason trials of the late 17th century. See id. § 1008, at 675 n.l; see also, e.g., Trial of Hampden, 9 Howell's State Trials 1053, 1101 (1684) ("Falso in uno, falsus in omnibus. If we can prove that what he hath said of my lord of Essex is false, he is not to be believed against the defendant."); Trial of Langhorn, 7 Howell's State Trials 417, 478 (1679) ("If I can prove any one point (in answer to that which he hath given evidence) not to be true, then I conceive, my lord, he ought to be set aside."); Trial of Coleman, 7 Howell's State Trials 1,71 (1678), quoted in KENYON, supra note 162, at 125 ("[I]t would much ennervate any man's testimony, to the whole, if he could be proved false in any one thing."). Although Wigmore did not find earlier expressions of the rule, its repeated appearance in the trials of this era suggests it had earlier roots. Barbara Shapiro notes that Michael Dalton's early-17th-century manual for justices of the peace advised magistrates that when examining accused felons, they should discredit the whole of the accused's story if any part proved false. See SHAPIRO, supra note 28, at 156, 279 n.l6.

Baldus de Ubaldis, in the 14th century, discussed the question in his commentaries on Roman law (in the course of which he elaborated a sophisticated account of partial proof). The index to the Giuntine Opera Omnia (Venice, 1577) indicates that he wrote on “Testis si dicit falsum in vno capitulo, an reprobetur in omnibus” and on “Testis si in vno capitulo est falsus, in tota causa dicitur suspectus”.

As to Homer, it is as if the scales had fallen from my eyes. The descriptions, similes and so on appear to us poetical, and are yet unspeakably natural, though of course drawn with a purity, an inward truth enough to strike us poor moderns dumb. The very strangest fictions are characterised by a naturalness I never felt so much as in the presence of the objects described. To express the antithesis briefly; they presented the thing, we usually present the effect; they described the dreadful, we describe dreadfully; they the agreeable, we agreeably, and so on. This will explain all our extravagance, our affectation, our false grace, our inflation; for once you elaborate and strain after effect, you fancy you can never make it strong enough. If what I now say is nothing fresh yet have I felt it freshly and right heartily.

Now that all these coasts and promontories, gulfs and bays, islands and necks of land, rocks and sand-belts, bushy hills, soft meadows, fruitful fields, ornamented gardens, cultivated trees, hanging vines, cloud-capt mountains and ever cheerful plains, cliffs and banks, and the all-surrounding sea, with so many changes and variations—now that all these have become the present property of my mind—now, indeed, for the first time does the Odyssey address me as a living reality.

Was den Homer betrifft, ist mir wie eine Decke von den Augen gefallen. Die Beschreibungen, die Gleichnisse usw. kommen uns poetisch vor und sind doch unsäglich natürlich, aber freilich mit einer Reinheit und Innigkeit gezeichnet, vor der man erschrickt. Selbst die sonderbarsten erlogenen Begebenheiten haben eine Natürlichkeit, die ich nie so gefühlt habe als in der Nähe der beschriebenen Gegenstände. Laß mich meinen Gedanken kurz so ausdrücken: sie stellten die Existenz dar, wir gewöhnlich den Effekt; sie schilderten das Fürchterliche, wir schildern fürchterlich; sie das Angenehme, wir angenehm usw. Daher kommt alles Übertriebene, alles Manierierte, alle falsche Grazie, aller Schwulst. Denn wenn man den Effekt und auf den Effekt arbeitet, so glaubt man ihn nicht fühlbar genug machen zu können. Wenn, was ich sage, nicht neu ist, so hab ich es doch bei neuem Anlaß recht lebhaft gefühlt.

Nun ich alle diese Küsten und Vorgebirge, Golfe und Buchten, Inseln und Erdzungen, Felsen und Sandstreifen, buschige Hügel, sanfte Weiden, fruchtbare Felder, geschmückte Gärten, gepflegte Bäume, hängende Reben, Wolkenberge und immer heitere Ebnen, Klippen und Bänke und das alles umgebende Meer mit so vielen Abwechselungen und Mannigfaltigkeiten im Geiste gegenwärtig habe, nun ist mir erst die Odyssee ein lebendiges Wort.

There was laughing and scowling and cries of 'Let go the cup!'
Deals and drinking commenced;
and they sat there until Evensong, singing occasionally,
until Glutton had gulped a gallon and a gill.
His guts began to grumble like two greedy sows;
he pissed half a pint in the time it takes to say the Paternoster,
and blew his round trumpet at the end of his spine,
so everyone who heard that horn held their nose afterwards
and wished it had been polished with wisp of furze.

There was laughynge and lourynge and 'Lat go the cuppe!'
[Bargaynes and beverages bigonne to arise;]
And seten so til evensong, and songen umwhile,
Til Gloton hadde yglubbed a galon and a gille.        340
His guttes gonne to gothelen as two gredy sowes;
He pissed a potel in a Paternoster-while,
And blew his rounde ruwet at his ruggebones ende,
That alle that herde that horn helde hir nose after
And wisshed it hadde ben wexed with a wispe of firses!        345

So they laughed and they lowered and yelled, 'Let's have a drink,'
And sat there till Evensong, singing now and then,
Till Gluttony had golloped a gallon or more
And his guts now started to rumble like two greedy sows.
He pissed four pints in the space of a Pater-noster,
And blew the round bugle at his backbone's end
So that all who heard that horn held their noses,
And wished he had bunged it with a bunch of whins.

There was laughing and larking and "Let go the cup!"
And swigging and swilling and settling of deals,
And they sat on till Evensong, singing some snatches,
Till Gluttony'd glugged down a gallon and more
And his guts started grunting with greed like two sows.
He pissed an Our Father's worth, pot after pot
And blew such a blast from his bloated behind
That all hearing his hornpipe held their noses
And wished it were wiped with a wisp of sharp furze.

• How to Be an Entrepreneur
• A Musical Instrument
• Roland le Pettour
• A Resonating Fundament
• Rectal Music

Labels: noctes scatologicae

...and this being true, I'll do what I want, and doing what I want, I'll do what I like, and doing what I like, I'll be happy, and when a man is happy he doesn't wish for anything else, and not wishing for anything else, that'll be the end of it...

...y, siéndolo, haría lo que quisiese; y, haciendo lo que quisiese, haría mi gusto; y, haciendo mi gusto, estaría contento; y, en estando uno contento, no tiene más que desear; y, no teniendo más que desear, acabóse...

• Stop Laughing
• A Climax in St. Jerome
• The Long and the Short of It
• A Climax in Epicharmus
• Two Passages from Plutarch
• The Ladder Revisited
  
• Ladder
• Rhetorical Device

Jacob Burckhardť's rather remote way of life, devoted almost exclusively to scholarly work and to the study of art, including numerous trips to see art treasures, museums, galleries and the like in Italy and elsewhere in Europe, was chosen deliberately. Early in his life Burckhardt had for a few years acted as political editor of the Basel newspaper; soon afterwards he decided to leave politics alone: 'For me politics is dead, whatever I do, I do as a human being'.² He did not wish to become entangled in any way whatsoever in day-to-day politics.

² Cf. Karl Löwith, Jacob Burckhardt. Der Mensch inmitten der Geschichte, Stuttgart, second ed., 1966, p. 127. Translations by the author.

Nietzsche, as I read him, is a model for a very different sort of life than is celebrated as "success" today. It is an outwardly simple and unglamorous life but a life of rich passion and ecstatic enthusiasm, expressed first of all in the privacy of one's notes and writing, a life of exquisite taste, cultivated through listening, looking, and the exercise of elegance in even the simplest things in life.

Rousseau's Utopia had already spread widely from the educated circles down to the semi-educated. This utopia was composed of, and sustained by, the following premises. Human nature was assumed to be good once the barriers were taken down; in connection with this, virtuous feelings, compassion, and the like were extolled and the praises of primitive man were sung at the expense of civilized man; arguments or actions were advanced transcending individual nations, in the name of mankind; the assumption was made of an original contract into which things could be put at will (the more cautious spoke of a tacitly made contract); then, from the 'social contract' there were derived liberty and equality, the latter assuming that all men should possess something, but none too much; finally, the volonté de tous [will of all] and the volonté générale [general will] were to be balanced, without its being stated who was to determine the latter.

Die Rousseau'sche Utopie, aus den Kreisen der Gebildeten schon weit zu den Halbgebildeten abwärts verbreitet. Diese Utopie war zusammengesetzt und getragen:

Durch die Ansicht von der Güte der menschlichen Natur, sobald man nur die Schranken von ihr nähme — cf. Tugendgefühl, Rührung etc.;

Das Lob des Urmenschen auf Kosten des civilisirten;

Das Raisonniren (und Handeln resp.) über das einzelne Volk hinweg, im Namen und zu Gunsten des genre humain;

Die Voraussetzung eines Urvertrages, in den man Beliebiges hineinlegen konnte (die Vorsichtigem redeten von einem stillschweigend geschloßnen Vertrag).

Dann im Contrat social: liberté und egalité, letztere schon mit Bedingung: daß alle Menschen etwas, keiner zu viel besäße.

Die Abrechnung zwischen der volonté de tous und der volonte générale, ohne zu sagen wer letztere ermitteln sollte.

So they spoke, but he went down into his father's high-roofed
and wide storeroom, where gold and bronze were lying piled up,
and abundant clothing in the bins, and fragrant olive oil,
and in it jars of wine, sweet to drink, aged,        340
were standing, keeping the unmixed divine drink inside them,
lined up in order close to the wall, for the day when Odysseus
might come home even after laboring through many hardships.

ὣς φάν, ὁ δ᾽ ὑψόροφον θάλαμον κατεβήσετο πατρὸς
εὐρύν, ὅθι νητὸς χρυσὸς καὶ χαλκὸς ἔκειτο
ἐσθής τ᾽ ἐν χηλοῖσιν ἅλις τ᾽ ἐυῶδες ἔλαιον·
ἐν δὲ πίθοι οἴνοιο παλαιοῦ ἡδυπότοιο        340
ἕστασαν, ἄκρητον θεῖον ποτὸν ἐντὸς ἔχοντες,
ἑξείης ποτὶ τοῖχον ἀρηρότες, εἴ ποτ᾽ Ὀδυσσεὺς
οἴκαδε νοστήσειε καὶ ἄλγεα πολλὰ μογήσας.

Read often and learn all you can.

Crebrius lege et disce quam plurima.

Always have a book in your hand and before your eyes.

Numquam de manu et oculis tuis recedat liber.

The worst readers are those who behave like plundering troops: they take away a few things they can use, dirty and confound the remainder, and revile the whole.

Die schlechtesten Leser sind die, welche wie plündernde Soldaten verfahren: sie nehmen sich einiges, was sie brauchen können, heraus, beschmutzen und verwirren das übrige und lästern auf das Ganze.

Clearly the first and most basic choice was whether to allow the xenoi to live, and go on living, within the confines of the polis at all, or whether to expel them; and here one can say unequivocally, I believe, that virtually all poleis allowed them to stay. This is clear positively, from general statements like Aristotle's (quoted above), and also negatively: expulsion of xenoi, xenelasia(i), is something which the ancients themselves associated with that least typical of poleis, Sparta¹⁰; and when we hear of the same thing happening in Apollonia, in North-West Greece, it is said to be a practice 'in the Spartan manner'¹¹. Cretan xenelasiai are an aberration of modern scholarship¹². So the norm in this was acceptance and tolerance — grounded, quite obviously, in self-interest. In every polis of which we know anything, the ownership of land was a citizen monopoly. This left immigrants obliged to make a living in occupations which did not entail landownership; and such occupations were often prey to contempt and discrimination, official or private; yet even the smallest, most isolated, most "backward", most agriculturally-oriented polis could not manage without them in some degree. Indeed the irony is that for the great urbanised, metropolitan cities like Corinth or Miletus, where on general grounds one would envisage immigrant communities of a size and importance most nearly commensurate with the Athenian metoikia, the hard evidence is almost entirely lacking, whereas we do discover them in some very much less likely places, on the face of it: in Tegea, for example¹³; in Chaleion and Oiantheia, two small poleis in Ozolian Locris¹⁴; or in Coresia, one of the four poleis on the island of Ceos — within spitting distance, virtually, of Athens and Piraeus¹⁵. Evidence such as this makes it difficult to follow Professor Andrewes in his claim that 'in many cities [the existence of a free immigrant population] must be unlikely'¹⁶.

¹⁰ E.g. THUC., I, 144, 2; II, 39, 1; ARISTOPH., Aves, 1012-4; PLATO, Prot., 342 C (cf. Leges, 950 A-B); XEN., Lac. Pol., 14, 4.

¹¹ AELIAN, Varia Historia, XIII, 16 (κατὰ τὸν Λακεδαιμόνιον νόμον).

¹² On the basis of ARISTOT., Pol., (II), 1272 b 17-8 (ξενηλασίας γὰρ τὸ πόρρω πεποίηκεν) H. SCHAEFER [in RE, IX A, 2 (1967), col. 1438] infers the existence of Cretan xenelasiai. This is wrong: throughout his discussion Aristotle is comparing Crete with Sparta, and his point here is that on Crete isolation (τὸ πόρρω) has the same effect as the Spartan expulsions.

¹³ Inschr.v.Olymp., 267 (fifth century); IG, V 2, 36 (third century).

¹⁴ TOD, GHI, 34 (mid fifth century).

¹⁵ IG, XII 5, 647 (mid fourth century or early third).

¹⁶ A. ANDREWS, Greek Society, Harmondsworth, 1971, p. 145.

A little while, a little while
The noisy crowd are barred away;
And I can sing and I can smile —
A little while I've holyday!

Where wilt thou go my harassed heart?
Full many a land invites thee now;
And places near, and far apart
Have rest for thee, my weary brow.

There is a spot 'mid barren hills
Where winter howls and driving rain
But if the dreary tempest chills
There is a light that warms again

The house is old, the trees are bare
And moonless bends the misty dome
But what on earth is half so dear —
So longed for as the hearth of home?

The mute bird sitting on the stone,
The dank moss dripping from the wall,
The garden-walk with weeds o'ergrown
I love them — how I love them all!

Shall I go there? or shall I seek
Another clime, another sky.
Where tongues familiar music speak
In accents dear to memory?

Yes, as I mused, the naked room,
The flickering firelight died away
And from the midst of cheerless gloom
I passed to bright unclouded day.

A little and a lone green lane
That opened on a common wide
A distant, dreamy, dim blue chain
Of mountains circling every side —

A heaven so clear, an earth so calm,
So sweet, so soft, so hushed an air
And, deepening still the dreamlike charm
Wild moor-sheep feeding everywhere —

That was the scene — I knew it well
I knew the pathways far and near
That winding o'er each billowy swell
Marked out the tracks of wandering deer

Could I have lingered but an hour
It well had paid a week of toil
But truth has banished fancy's power
I hear my dungeon bars recoil —

Even as I stood with raptured eye
Absorbed in bliss so deep and dear
My hour of rest had fleeted by
And given me back to weary care —

And Goethe, after expressing his surprise at the general belittling of Euripides by "the aristocracy of philologists, led by the buffoon Aristophanes," asks emphatically: "Have all the nations of the world since his time produced one dramatist who was worthy to hand him his slippers?" (Tagebüchern, November 11, 1831.)

Mich wundert's denn doch, daß die Aristokratie der Philologen seine Vorzüge nicht begreift, indem sie ihn mit herkömmlicher Vornehmigkeit seinen Vorgängern subordinirt, berechtigt durch den Hanswurst Aristophanes. Hat doch Euripides zu seiner Zeit ungeheure Wirkungen gethan, woraus hervorgeht, daß er ein eminenter Zeitgenosse war, worauf doch alles ankommt. Und haben denn alle Nationen seit ihm einen Dramatiker gehabt, der nur werth wäre, ihm die Pantoffeln zu reichen?

Many species of animal have already disappeared; if man disappeared as well, nothing would be lacking in the world.

Es sind schon viele Thierarten verschwunden; gesetzt daß auch der Mensch verschwände, so würde nichts in der Welt fehlen.

• Skin Disease
• What Is Viler Than Man?
• The Cancer of the Earth
• Homo sapiens
• Beware
  
• Toadstools by the Wayside

[19] Do not suppose that it was by arms that our forefathers raised our country from obscurity to greatness. [20] If that were so, we should have a much fairer state than theirs, since we have a greater number of citizens and allies than they possessed, to say nothing of arms and horses. [21] But there were other qualities which made them great, which we do not possess at all: efficiency at home, a just rule abroad, in counsel an independent spirit free from guilt or passion. [22] In place of these we have extravagance and greed, public poverty and private opulence. We extol wealth and foster idleness. We make no distinction between good men and bad, and ambition appropriates all the prizes of merit. [23] And no wonder! When each of you schemes for his own private interests, when you are slaves to pleasure in your homes and to money or influence here, the natural result is an attack upon the defenceless republic.

[19] Nolite existumare maiores nostros armis rem publicam ex parva magnam fecisse. [20] Si ita res esset, multo pulcherrumam eam nos haberemus, quippe sociorum atque civium, praeterea armorum atque equorum maior copia nobis quam illis est. [21] Sed alia fuere quae illos magnos fecere, quae nobis nulla sunt; domi industria, foris iustum imperium, animus in consulundo liber neque delicto neque lubidini obnoxius. [22] Pro his nos habemus luxuriam atque avaritiam, publice egestatem, privatim opulentiam. Laudamus divitias, sequimur inertiam. Inter bonos et malos discrimen nullum, omnia virtutis praemia ambitio possidet. [23] Neque mirum; ubi vos separatim sibi quisque consilium capitis, ubi domi voluptatibus, hic pecuniae aut gratiae servitis, eo fit ut impetus fiat in vacuam rem publicam.

Overwork, inquisitiveness and compassion — our modern vices.

Überarbeitung, Neugierde und Mitgefühl — unsre modernen Laster.

Impermanent and swift,
transformed in an instant,
a youthful face will not remain.
Black yarn on the head turns into white threads;
the backbone bends like a bow.
Skin wrinkles like waves over a stormy visage;
cicadas inside the ears chirp all night.
Blossoms fly endlessly over the eyes.
Standing up you take a deep long sigh.
You walk on your cane absentmindedly
or ponder pleasures of younger days
accompanied by today's worry.
How pitiful, you who regret your old age!
You are like a branch covered in frost.
Among those who have received life in the three realms,
who can avoid arriving here?
Moment to moment nothing stays,
how long are youthful and mature ages?
The four elements decay day by day;
body and mind dwindle night by night.
Once you lie in sickness,
you don't part from the pillow for a long time.
Even if you keep talking aloud,
what can your talking accomplish?
The six roots have nothing to depend upon
if one breath is cut off.
Your relatives wail into your face.
Your wife and children sadden while rubbing your back.
They call you, but you won't answer.
They cry for you, but you won't know.
Total darkness is the path in the Yellow Spring.
Dazed, you walk alone.

A man's life is very short, so it is best to do what he enjoys most. It is foolhardy indeed to waste your life in this world between dreams, doing things you don't enjoy as you endure the suffering.

Indeed it seems generally to be the case that our labours are eased when someone goes out of his way to share them with us; it has the effect of making the labour not seem forced. And what a Roman soldier likes most to see is his general eating his ration of bread with the rest, or sleeping on an ordinary bed, or joining in the work of digging a trench or raising a palisade. The commanders whom they admire are not so much those who distribute honours and riches as those who take a share in their hardships and their dangers; they have more affection for those who are willing to join in their work than for those who allow them to take it easy.

ὅλως μὲν γὰρ ἔοικε τοῦ κάμνειν ἑκάστῳ παραμυθία τὸ συγκάμνον ἑκουσίως εἶναι· δοκεῖ γὰρ ἀφαιρεῖν τὴν ἀνάγκην· ἥδιστον δὲ Ῥωμαίῳ θέαμα στρατιώτῃ στρατηγὸς ἐσθίων ἐν ὄψει κοινὸν ἄρτον ἢ κατακείμενος ἐπὶ στιβάδος εὐτελοῦς ἢ περὶ ταφρείαν τινὰ καὶ χαράκωσιν ἔργου συνεφαπτόμενος. οὐ γὰρ οὕτως τοὺς τιμῆς καὶ χρημάτων μεταδιδόντας, ὡς τοὺς πόνου καὶ κινδύνου μεταλαμβάνοντας ἡγεμόνας θαυμάζουσιν, ἀλλὰ μᾶλλον ἀγαπῶσι τῶν ῥᾳθυμεῖν ἐπιτρεπόντων τοὺς συμπονεῖν ἐθέλοντας.