Laudator Temporis Acti

[L]et them that scorn the tartan fear the dirk!

i.e. let those who scorn a Highlander fear a Highland mode of revenge. Although the formulation seems proverbial this is not recorded as a traditional proverb.

Sorry again. But a talk to the general public on 'Paradise Lost' would be an absolute waste of time. What's the good of telling them they'll enjoy it, when we both know they won't?

In conclusion, then, I would say that a city which is accustomed to activity would be very quickly destroyed by a change to inactivity, and that the people who live in the greatest security are those who most respect their existing character and institutions, whatever their shortcomings, in the way they manage their affairs.

παράπαν τε γιγνώσκω πόλιν μὴ ἀπράγμονα τάχιστ᾽ ἄν μοι δοκεῖν ἀπραγμοσύνης μεταβολῇ διαφθαρῆναι, καὶ τῶν ἀνθρώπων ἀσφαλέστατα τούτους οἰκεῖν οἳ ἂν τοῖς παροῦσιν ἤθεσι καὶ νόμοις, ἢν καὶ χείρω ᾖ, ἥκιστα διαφόρως πολιτεύωσιν.

The principles to be observed in elementary books seem to be such as these:

I. Keep the master in view, as much as the pupils; let each sentence be either new to him, or suggestive of some heroic act, some noble character, some masterpiece of letters or of art, some pregnant law of language; let common sayings be traced to their source; many a story, supposed of recent importation from the backwoods, is hoary with the dignity of 2000 years, and proves once more, that 'there is nothing new under the sun.' In short, let each line, like the oratory of Perikles, 'leave its sting' in the hearers; at least let it convey some information not wholly trivial.

II. Let each sentence be a whole, intelligible in itself; proverbs, words of the wise, anecdotes which clothe the skeletons of history with flesh and blood, linking contemporaries indissolubly in the memory; choice flowers from the Florilegia; those lofty γνῶμαι in which the Greek literature is rich beyond all thought of rivalry, — let these form the staple of the feast. Season all with Attic salt of a lower, but not less enduring kind, tart homely gibes of Diogenes, light touches of Menander's pencil, and the broad fun of Hierokles. Who does not recall, after 30 or 40 years, the σχολαστικός carrying a brick by way of sample of his house, apt emblem of our puffing advertisements? It is of the last importance never to set before any student a whole too large for him to apprehend in one view.

By the observance of these two rules you may ensure that a boy who learns Greek only for a week, will carry away with him something of real interest.

"Once upon a time" is a rather loaded translation of "olim", I think!

(dating an incident on an occasion in the past) once (upon a time).

Labels: typographical and other errors

The Abbey of the Holy Cross is organizing, for the first time in its guesthouse, a course dedicated to Latin as the proper language of the Church’s tradition and of Christian culture: Sub Cruce scholae Latinae. The course aims to provide a living space for study, prayer, and encounter with the ancient authors who transmitted the faith and wisdom of the Christian tradition throughout the centuries. It will take place during the first week of August 2026 (from 3 to 9 August) at the Abbey Guesthouse of the Holy Cross Abbey. Registrations and inquiries may be sent to subcrucescholaelatinae@gmail.com until 15 July.

The program is intended both for students who already understand Latin and wish to begin speaking it, and for readers with experience in Latin texts who seek to deepen their engagement with classical and Christian authors.

The daily schedule will combine classes in spoken Latin, the reading of ancient and Christian texts, conversation in Latin, and optional participation in the liturgical life of the monastery, all within a monastic environment dedicated to study, fellowship, and prayer.

The course will feature specialists in Latin language and literature and will offer an authentic experience of linguistic and humanistic immersion.

Philology has fallen on hard times in the English-speaking world (much less so in continental Europe). Many college-educated Americans no longer recognize the word. Those who do often think it means no more than scrutiny of ancient Greek or Roman texts by a nit-picking classicist, while British readers may take it as referring only to technical research into languages and language families. Professors of literature use the term to belittle a simpleminded approach to their subject, mercifully discarded long ago. Indeed, for most of the twentieth century, philology was put down, kicked around, abused, and snickered at, as the archetype of crabbed, dry-as-dust, barren, and by and large pointless academic knowledge. Did I mention mind-numbingly boring? Whenever philology shows its face these days in North America or the British Isles—not often, outside of classics departments or linguistics faculties—it comes coated with the dust of the library and totters along with arthritic creakiness. One would not be startled to see its gaunt torso clad in a frock coat.

I take a less favourable view of the Humanists than you. I've never quite forgiven them for killing live Latin and erecting the mausoleum of Ciceronianism over its corpse—specially when they themselves have to fall back on that live Latin and do so without gratitude ('quod barbari nostri circumstantias vocant' says J.C. Scaliger).

In a Europe of unpaved streets and primitive sanitation, Madrid was celebrated for more than usual Spanish negligence in such matters. Visitors were eloquent in their commentaries; poems appeared with such titles as La Merdeide; and innumerable stories were current in the eighteenth century of homesick Spaniards revived in spirit by sudden whiffs of unspeakable odors.

Labels: noctes scatologicae

Why should quiet ruminants as you and I have been born in such a ghastly age? Let me palliate the apparent selfishness of this complaint by asserting that there are people who, while not, of course, liking actual suffering when it falls to their own share, do really like the 'stir', the 'sense of great issues'. Lord!, how I loathe great issues. How I wish they were all adjourned sine die. 'Dynamic' I think is one of the words invented by this age which sums up what it likes and I abominate. Could one start a Stagnation party—which at General Elections would boast that during its term of office no event of the least importance had taken place.

                                              Then there gathered
from out of Erebus the spirits of those that are dead,
brides, and unwedded youths, and toil-worn old men,
and tender maidens with hearts yet new to sorrow,
and many, too, that had been wounded with bronze-tipped spears,
men slain in fight, wearing their blood-stained armour.

                                                  αἱ δ᾽ ἀγέροντο
ψυχαὶ ὑπὲξ Ἐρέβευς νεκύων κατατεθνηώτων.
νύμφαι τ᾽ ἠίθεοί τε πολύτλητοί τε γέροντες
παρθενικαί τ᾽ ἀταλαὶ νεοπενθέα θυμὸν ἔχουσαι,
πολλοὶ δ᾽ οὐτάμενοι χαλκήρεσιν ἐγχείῃσιν,        40
ἄνδρες ἀρηίφατοι βεβροτωμένα τεύχε᾽ ἔχοντες.

This noble passage was condemned as spurious by Zenodotus, Aristophanes, and Aristarchus, on grounds of inconsistency with the later description of the ghosts approaching one by one. Luckily, whether an interpolation or not, it survived their censure, to be imitated by Virgil twice (Georgics 4, 475 ff., Aen. 6, 306 ff.) and to find echoes in Dante and Milton.

The first thing we know about this iconic Greek sweet is that it dates back to the Homeric era. In the Odyssey and in the Iliad, a sweet called ιτριον (itrion) is mentioned. A dish made of honey and sesame, it was used to give energy to Greek warriors who were battling in the Trojan War.

Labels: typographical and other errors

Nothing is harder for a modern individual to understand than ancient concepts of loyalty and treachery. Those who have read so far will be uncomfortably aware that patriotism, in our sense, is a quality more or less irrelevant to Greek civic morality during the fifth century B.C. On very exceptional occasions — the Persian Wars are a good example — patriotism could burst its normal partisan bounds, and become something we all can recognise; but in the ordinary way loyalty was to one's family clan, one's religious or political group, rather than to that comparatively recent institution the polis. What one scholar describes as our passion for "the transcendental power of Greek city-state patriotism" is largely the pursuit of a modern myth. There was seldom a time when an oligarchic group was not ready to betray a democratically controlled city — or vice versa — to the foreign enemy at the gates. As for distinguished individual traitors, there was no shortage of them either in Athens or in Sparta: Hippias and Pausanias are only the first two names that come to mind. The number of Spartan rulers who defected, collaborated, or plotted against the state would make a very impressive roll-call on its own.

[T]he world, as it is now becoming and has partly become, is simply too much for people of the old square-rigged type like you and me. I don't understand its economics, or its politics, or any dam' thing about it.

I love the reversion of a feast better than the feast itself. I delight in the analecta, the collectanea, as I may call them, of the preceding day's dinner...

But worse than any physical decline is the dementia. It doesn't remember the names of slaves or recognise the face of a friend who dined with him the previous evening or the children he fathered and raised himself.

                                                       sed omni
membrorum damno maior dementia, quae nec
nomina servorum nec voltum agnoscit amici
cum quo praeterita cenavit nocte, nec illos        235
quos genuit, quos eduxit.

'I do bethink me you were the first person we met when Sir Arthur made his successful attack upon Misticot's grave, and also that when the labourers began to flag, you, Edie, were again the first to leap into the trench, and to make the discovery of the treasure. Now you must explain all this to me, unless you would have me use you as ill as Euclio does Staphyla in the Aulularia.'

'Lordsake, sir,' replied the mendicant, 'what do I ken about your Howlowlaria?—it's mair like a dog's language than a man's.'

Odysseus, no longer hast thou steadfast might nor any valor,
such as was thine when for high-born Helen of the white arms
thou didst for nine years battle with the Trojans unceasingly,
and many men thou slewest in dread conflict,
and by thy counsel was the broad-wayed city of Priam taken.

οὐκέτι σοί γ᾽, Ὀδυσεῦ, μένος ἔμπεδον οὐδέ τις ἀλκή
οἵη ὅτ᾽ ἀμφ᾽ Ἑλένῃ λευκωλένῳ εὐπατερείῃ,
εἰνάετες Τρώεσσιν ἐμάρναο νωλεμὲς αἰεί,
πολλοὺς δ᾽ ἄνδρας ἔπεφνες ἐν αἰνῇ δηϊοτῆτι
σῇ δ᾽ ἥλω βουλῇ Πριάμου πόλις εὐρυάγυια.

• The Dead, Then and Now
• Pale Women and Dark Men
• Perusta Solibus
• Pale Skin
• Pallor
• Umbrellas
• White Lead

But now, if my years are prolonged, I know that the frailties of old age will inevitably be realized, that my vision must be less perfect and my hearing less keen, that I shall be slower to learn and more forgetful of what I have learned.

νῦν δὲ εἰ ἔτι προβήσεται ἡ ἡλικία, οἶδ ̓ ὅτι ἀνάγκη ἔσται τὰ τοῦ γήρως ἀποτελεῖσθαι καὶ ὁρᾶν τε χεῖρον καὶ ἀκούειν ἧττον καὶ δυσμαθέστερον εἶναι καὶ ὧν ἔμαθον ἐπιλησμονέστερον.

Day by day we are surrounded by the din, and often by the violence, of those who propose to make men better and happier, and who are sure they know how to do it, if only others would have the sense to give them the necessary powers.