Laudator Temporis Acti

James Ryman, poem CXVII, in J. Zupitza, "Die Gedichte des Franziskaners Jacob Ryman," Archiv für das Studium der neueren Sprachen and Litteraturen 89 (1892) 167-338 (at 292-293):

Nowe lete us syng and mery be,
For Crist, oure kyng, hath made us fre.

                       1.
Now forto syng I holde it best
And lete alle care and sorowe goo,
For Crist, oure kyng, nowe in þis fest
Was born to bryng us owte of woo.

                       2.
Thatte blessyd chyld tok flesshe and bloode
By vertu of the holigost
Of Mary myld, thatte meyde so goode,
To saue mankynde, the whiche was lost.

                       3.
When he was born of thatte myld meyde,
Thatt blessyd lord and heuen kyng,
As long beforn prophetys hadde seyde,
With on accorde angellis didde syng.

                       4.
The angellis than seide: 'Ioy mot be
To god a-boue in heuen blys
And peas to man, for alle thatte he
Hath offendid and done a mys.'

                       5.
The shepherdis than kepyng there folde
Hurd fulle sweete songe and sawe grete liȝt,
When god and man, as prophetis told,
Was mekely born vppon thatte nyght.

                       6.
Syth man ys take ayen to grace
And brought ayen to ioye and blys,
Lete us alle make myrþe and solace
And lete us thanke oure lorde of thys.

In modern spelling:

Now let us sing and merry be,
For Christ, our king, hath made us free.

                       1.
Now for to sing I hold it best
And let all care and sorrow go,
For Christ, our king, now in this feast
Was born to bring us out of woe.

                       2.
That blessed child took flesh and blood
By virtue of the Holy Ghost
Of Mary mild, that maid so good,
To save mankind, the which was lost.

                       3.
When he was born of that mild maid,
That blessed lord and heaven king,
As long before prophets had said,
With one accord angels did sing.

                       4.
The angels then said: 'Joy must be
To God above in heaven bliss
And peace to man, for all that he
Hath offended and done amiss.'

                       5.
The shepherds then keeping their fold
Heard full sweet song and saw great light,
When God and man, as prophets told,
Was meekly born upon that night.

                       6.
Since man is taken again to grace
And brought again to joy and bliss,
Let us all make mirth and solace
And let us thank our Lord of this.

Esteban Manuel de Villegas (1589-1669), "To Winter" ("Al Hibierno"), tr. Robert Southey:

Enough, enough, old Winter!
Thou workest to annoy us,
With cold, and rain, and tempest,
When snows have hid the country,
And rivers cease to flow.
The flocks and herds accuse thee,
And even the little ermine
Complains of thee, old Winter!
For thou to man art freezing,
And his white fur is warm.
The beasts they crouch in cover,
The birds are cold and hungry,
The birds are cold and silent,
Or with a weak complaining,
They call thee hard and cruel.
But not to me, old Winter!
Thy tyranny extends;
For I have wine and music,
The cheerful hearth and song.

The Spanish, from Parnaso Español, T. I (Madrid: Joachin Ibarra, 1768), pp. 63–64:

Basta, que das, Hibierno,
en ser nuestro enemigo,
ya con nieves y barros,
ya con lluvias y frios,
quando, encaneces campos
quando, detienes rios,
y para que se quiebren
los conviertes en vidrio.
Destruyes los ganados,
agostas los egidos;
y al fin de tus rigores
se quexan los armiños.
Porque ¿ quien al capullo,
o quien al lanificio
cosió sus blancas pieles
sino tus blancos hilos?
Las fieras en sus chozas,
las aves en sus nidos,
te llaman insolente
con quejas, y bramidos.
Solo contra mí solo
no tienes poderío
donde hay citara y canto,
donde hay hogar y vino.

Related posts:

• By the Fire-Side
• Invitations
• Cold Outdoors, Warm Indoors
• A Winter's Afternoon
• Fine Old Christmas
• Snowbound
• The Science of Happiness
• Invitation
• Winter Pursuits
• Cold Outside, Cozy Inside

F.W.H. Myers (1843-1901), Essays Classical (London: Macmillan and Co., 1883), p. 133:

There never has been, there never will be, a language like the dead Greek. For Greek had all the merits of other tongues without their accompanying defects. It had the monumental weight and brevity of the Latin without its rigid unmanageability; the copiousness and flexibility of the German without its heavy commonness and guttural superfluity; the pellucidity of the French without its jejuneness; the force and reality of the English without its structureless comminution.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines comminution as "Reduction or breaking up into small fragments."

Walter de la Mare (1873-1956), "They Told Me," Collected Poems (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1941), p. 4:

They told me Pan was dead, but I
  Oft marvelled who it was that sang
Down the green valleys languidly
  Where the grey elder-thickets hang.

Sometimes I thought it was a bird
  My soul had charged with sorcery;
Sometimes it seemed my own heart heard
  Inland the sorrow of the sea.

But even where the primrose sets
  The seal of her pale loveliness,
I found amid the violets
  Tears of an antique bitterness.

Related posts:

• The Death of Pan (Laurence Whistler)
• You Shall Hear the Note of His Pipe (Robert Louis Stevenson)
• Pan Is Not Yet Dead (W.H.D. Rouse)
• A Worshipper at Pan's Shrine (Henry David Thoreau)
• This Modern World Is Grey and Old (Oscar Wilde)
• Poems of a Stockbroker (John Myers O'Hara)
• The Survival of Pan (Robert Frost)

Laurence Whistler (1912-2000), "The Death of Pan: A Fragment," The World’s Room: The Collected Poems of Laurence Whistler (London: William Heinemann, 1949), pp. 10-13:

                                          Then Pan rose up
And in clear daylight stretched his heavy arms,
That seemed encumbered with the wasted weeks,
And on his forehead the broad shield of the sun
Smote golden, and within his lampless eyes—
Dim as dead leaves among the twilight groves
Of green Arcadia, where Alpheus glides
In haunting laughter by the hollow urn
Of some scarce-pictured shepherd—in those eyes,
Unbeaconed by long sadness, it might seem
A little shadow of a faded joy
Quivered one moment, as, on burning noons,
The blue-fly dances by the meadow pool
Where cattle drink at ease. Around, above,
High-templing heaven dreamed in brilliant fire—
The dome of the no-more-remembered Gods;
And there, serene like memory, and fair,
As all the splendid actions of those Gods,
Jagged Erymanthus stretched in dwindling line,
And pale Cyllene dreamed into the clouds.
Between the mountains and the gazing God
Lay all bough-built Arcadia—sunlit farms—
Tree-vaulted pens—flocks like ethereal clouds
That browse on the cool pastures of the wind—
And all unseen in green forgotten places
Old temples mouldering softly into grass
With nothing but a whisper of hushed leaves
To tell their lost divinity—alas!

Tears filled the God's fair eyes: he forced them down—
What use were tears, now all Olympus slept?
Now that the ribald lips of melting pipes
No longer roused the hooves of frolic goats
In stony places, and the shepherd's heart
Paused not to hear the syrinx trembling low
In some deep dell, beneath the early stars?—
That day Doom’s wing had darked Arcadia's soul:
Three men had passed him in outlandish dress,
Slow-chanting as they moved; and one of them
Walked upright through the woods nor glanced aside;
And one outsprinkled water from a stoup;
And one of them, within whose eyes were seen
The bright wild flowers of a new faith blowing,
Held high the swaying Cross. Pan wailed aloud—
And they, with looks of saintly agony,
Fled all along the valley shrieking, Satan!—
While the God crouched and trembled in the pines,
With great fear-widened eyes.

                                             So trembling now,
But rather from infirmity than fear,
More with a strange and inward sickliness
That told the approaching end, great Pan moved down
With sluggish crawl, and sunless countenance
Toward the rustling border of the foam.
Removed a little from the leafless sand,
Built in the everlasting twilight of
The stiff, wind-buffeted pines, a temple stood
Within whose ancient shell-encrusted dome
The voices of the waves far-islanded
Seemed gathered in a smooth eternal hush,
A very dwelling and a silent sound.
Here once were voices too, and shepherd pipes,
But now there was no song;
And here were smouldering censers, and green sprigs
Of laurel and of ivy and of bay,
But withered now, and gone.
The very cornice, where the swallows housed
And spiders worked to catch the stars in rain,
Tipped to the Pan-pipes and the wreathed horns
Along the frieze. Here paused the dying God,
And stayed his step upon the threshold twigs,
And gazed like one that has a shaded thought
Upon those empty walls a long, deep time.
Then, sighing, like a giant of the woods
That men lay low upon a misty morn
In dank October, to the waves he turned
And left the slow-obliterating sands
The only vestige of his passing there,
The stamp of earth's own strong Divinity,
The footmark of the latest of the Gods,
Fallen and fallen for ever.

                                                Tide and wind,
Tide and tempestuous wind among the pines—
Wild tossing leaves from leaves—high birds from them—
And thence all green Arcadia from the banks
Of swift Alpheus to the Ladon flood,
And Erymanthus twining to the sea—
Sprang all to life beneath the sudden wind;
The sun's clear beauty was all blotted out,
Burdened with clouds; and darknesss, like a mask
Wherein the sun burned with a hollow eye
Giving frail light, concealed the face of heaven!
Then candles were lit up in many a farm
Among the hills; and in a low-roofed shrine
Men praying to their God were all struck dumb
In terror and bewildement—the prayer
Congealed within their hearts—for from the woods,
And from the waves, and all the depths of air,
It seemed a strange and awful voice arose,
Wailing upon the darkness—PAN IS DEAD.

Hat tip: Eric Thomson.

Related posts:

• You Shall Hear the Note of His Pipe (Robert Louis Stevenson)
• Pan Is Not Yet Dead (W.H.D. Rouse)
• A Worshipper at Pan's Shrine (Henry David Thoreau)
• This Modern World Is Grey and Old (Oscar Wilde)
• Poems of a Stockbroker (John Myers O'Hara)
• The Survival of Pan (Robert Frost)

Francis Quarles (1592-1644), "Song," from The Virgin Widow. A Comedie (London: Printed for R. Royston, 1649), p. 34 (line numbers added):

How blest are they that wast their weary howers
In solemne Groves, and solitary Bowers,
                           Where neither eye, nor eare
                                           Can see, or heare,
                                           The frantique mirth,        5
                 And false delights of frolique earth;
                            Where they may sit, and pant,
                             And breathe their pursy souls,
Where neither Grief consumes, nor griping want
                 Afflicts, nor sullen Care controuls.        10
Away false joyes, ye murther where ye kisse:
There is no heav'n to that; No life to this.

1 wast their weary howers: waste their weary hours
8 pursy: short of breath, wheezy, asthmatic (Oxford English Dictionary)
12 to: equal to

Greek Anthology 9.127 (tr. W.R. Paton):

If a little sweet wine remains in a vessel, this remnant turns to vinegar. So the old man who has quite emptied life and has reached the depth of eld becomes sour-tempered.

ἂν περιλειφθῇ μικρὸν ἐν ἄγγεσιν ἡδέος οἴνου,
  εἰς ὀξὺ τρέπεται τοῦτο τὸ λειπόμενον·
οὕτω ἀπαντλήσας τὸν ὅλον βίον, εἰς βαθὺ δ᾽ ἐλθὼν
  γῆρας, ὁ πρεσβύτης γίνεται ὀξύχολος.

Two words in the opening couplet (περιλειφθῇ...λειπόμενον) are an example of compound-simplex verbal iteration, where the simplex verb has the meaning of the preceding compound verb. On this idiom see:

• Calvert Watkins, "An Indo-European Construction in Greek and Latin," Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 71 (1966) 115-119
• Robert Renehan, Greek Textual Criticism: A Reader (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1969), pp. 77-85
• Robert Renehan, Studies in Greek Texts: Critical Observations to Homer, Plato, Euripides, Aristophanes and other Authors (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1976), pp. 11-27
• James Diggle, Euripidea: Collected Essays (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994), p. 84, n. 64 (on Euripides' Suppliant Women 811-812)

Related post: An Image of Old Age.

John Stuart Blackie (1809-1895), Notes of a Life (Edinburgh: William Blackwood and Sons, 1910), p. 129:

I had travelled over Europe; seen and conversed with some of the greatest scholars of the age; written flaming historical and critical articles in Quarterly and Monthly Reviews; and had to sit down in a sort of intellectual Botany Bay, and teach raw country lads and little boys escaped from school to blunder through Latin sentences, in the human meaning and purport of which they seemed incapable of taking any interest! It was too bad.

Related post: The Joy of Teaching.

Walter de la Mare (1873-1956), "In a Library," Collected Poems (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1941), p. 266:

Would—would that there were
A book on that shelf
To teach an old man
To teach himself!—

The joy of some scribe,
Brush in service to quill,
Who, with bird, flower, landscape,
Emblem and vision,
Loved his margins to fill.

Then might I sit,
By true learning beguiled,
Far into the night,
Even with self reconciled,
Retrieving the wisdom
I lost, when a child.

Louis MacNeice (1907-1963), "The British Museum Reading Room," Collected Poems (London: Faber and Faber, 1979), pp. 160-161:

Under the hive-like dome the stooping haunted readers
Go up and down the alleys, tap the cells of knowledge—
  Honey and wax, the accumulation of years—
Some on commission, some for the love of learning,
Some because they have nothing better to do
Or because they hope these walls of books will deaden
  The drumming of the demon in their ears.

Cranks, hacks, poverty-stricken scholars,
In pince-nez, period hats or romantic beards
  And cherishing their hobby or their doom
Some are too much alive and some are asleep
Hanging like bats in a world of inverted values,
Folded up in themselves in a world which is safe and silent:
  This is the British Museum Reading Room.

Out on the steps in the sun the pigeons are courting,
Puffing their ruffs and sweeping their tails or taking
  A sun-bath at their ease
And under the totem poles—the ancient terror—
Between the enormous fluted Ionic columns
There seeps from heavily jowled or hawk-like foreign faces
  The guttural sorrow of the refugees.

Stanley Anderson, The Reading Room

John Stuart Blackie (1809-1895), Notes of a Life (Edinburgh: William Blackwood and Sons, 1910), pp. 25-26:

The foundation of all my studies was now the Greek Testament, upon which I made the results of my classical, theological, and general reading to bear, by the insertion of notes in the blank leaves written in the Latin language. The same plan I have since formed with other books, such as Plato's 'Republic' and Aristotle's 'Politics,' and have ever had cause to felicitate myself on the rich results of the single, direct, and businesslike method of study laid down for me by the stout, club-bearing Gamaliel of Old Aberdeen [Dr. Patrick Forbes]. Take your knowledge of the case from the evidence of the original witnesses, from them directly, and from them only in the first place; come face to face with the primary facts of the matter you are going to deal with, you will then be in a condition to profit by the observations and opinions of other men, which, without such a previous course of independent training, could only confound and cripple you. This was what my Gamaliel taught me; and, however common it may be in Scotland and elsewhere to substitute a traditional indoctrination about fundamental facts for a direct dealing with the facts themselves, there cannot be the slightest doubt that the latter is the only true method of scientific and philosophical investigation about an important matter of which our systematic books on all subjects are apt to act, either as a thick cloud which must be blown away, or a strong wall which must be knocked down, before the mind can be brought into living contact with the object of its cognitive activity.

Beatrice Offor (1864–1920), A Knotty Point,
in Bruce Castle Museum

John Stuart Blackie (1809-1895), "Christ," The Day-Book of John Stuart Blackie (London: Grant Richards, 1902), p. 35:

Show me Christ as he lived and moved,
  The wonder of all men;
In word and deed all perfect proved,
  Thou mak'st me Christian then;
But lace him in a cramping creed,
  As many creeds there be:
Thank God if thus he serves your need,
  No Christ he is for me.

Walter Savage Landor (1775-1864), Poems, Dialogues in Verse and Epigrams, ed. Charles G. Crump, vol. II (London: J.M. Dent & Co., 1892), p. 143:

Various the roads of life; in one
  All terminate, one lonely way.
We go; and "Is he gone?"
  Is all our best friends say.

Walter Savage Landor (1775-1864), Poems, Dialogues in Verse and Epigrams, ed. Charles G. Crump, vol. II (London: J.M. Dent & Co., 1892), p. 110:

When we have panted past life's middle space,
And stand and breathe a moment from the race,
  These graver thoughts the heaving breast annoy:
"Of all our fields how few are green!
And ah! what brakes, moors, quagmires, lie between
  Tired age and childhood ramping wild with joy."

Edward FitzGerald, letter to W.F. Pollock (November 20, 1861):

I see, however, by a Handbill in the Grocer's Shop that a Man is going to lecture on the Gorilla in a few weeks. So there is something to look forward to.

All of the following examples of verse-filling asyndeton occur in the 9th book of the Greek Anthology. Translations are by W.R. Paton, from vol. III (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1917; rpt. 1948) of his edition of the Greek Anthology in the Loeb Classical Library series. As in my previous posts on this phenomenon, I only include examples in hexameters. The authors of all but the first poem are anonymous.

---

491 (by Theon; a monostich on days of the week):

Jove, Mars, Venus, Moon, Saturn, Sun, Mercury.

Ζεύς, Ἄρης, Παφίη, Μήνη, Κρόνος, Ἥλιος, Ἑρμῆς.

This line also appears in Pseudo-Manetho, Apotelesmatica 5(6).34.

---

494 (a monostich on a soldier's gear):

Arrow, bow, shield, helmet, spear, sword, cuirass.

ἰός, τόξα, σάκος, κυνέη, δόρυ, φάσγανα, θώρηξ.

---

524 (alphabetic hymn to Dionysus; all but the first and last lines are examples of verse-filling asyndeton):

Let us chant the king who loves the call of Euhoe, the King Eiraphiotes,
Tender-haired, rustic, much besung, fair of form,
Boeotian, Bromius, reveller, with vine-leaves in his hair,
Merry, productive, slayer of giants, the laugher,
Son of Zeus, twice-born, son of the Dithyramb, Dionysus,        5
Euius, with lovely locks, rich in vines, awaker of revels,
Jealous, very wrathful, envious, bestower of envy,
Gentle, sweet drinker, sweet-voiced, cozener,
Thracian, thyrsus-bearing, boon-companion, lion-hearted,
Slayer of Indians, desirable, twiner of violets, hierophant,        10
Reveller, horned, ivy-crowned, noisy,
Lydian, lord of the wine-press, dispeller of care,
Healer of sorrow, mystic, frenzied, giver of wine, thousand-shaped,
God of the night, shepherd-god, fawn-like, clothed in fawn-skin,
Spear-thrower, common to all, giver of guests, yellow-haired,        15
Prone to anger, stout of heart, lover of the mountain shade, wanderer on the mountains,
Deep drinker, wanderer, wearer of many garlands, constant reveller,
Mind-breaker, slender, wrinkled, clad in sheep-skin,
Leaper, satyr, son of Semele,
Jovial, bull-faced, slayer of Tyrrhenians, swift to wrath,        20
Chaser of sleep, liquid, hymeneal, dweller in the woods,
Mad for wild beasts, terrible, laughter-loving, wanderer,
Golden-horned, graceful, relaxer of the mind, golden-filleted,
Disturber of the soul, liar, bent on noise, tearer of the soul,
Seasonable, eater of raw flesh, nurtured on the mountains, making clamour on the mountains.        25
Let us chant the King who loves the call of Euhoe, the King Eiraphiotes.

μέλπωμεν βασιλῆα φιλεύιον, εἰραφιώτην,
ἁβροκόμην, ἀγροῖκον, ἀοίδιμον, ἀγλαόμορφον,
Βοιωτόν, βρόμιον, βακχεύτορα, βοτρυοχαίτην,
γηθόσυνον, γονόεντα, γιγαντολέτην, γελόωντα,
Διογενῆ, δίγονον, διθυραμβογενῆ, Διόνυσον,        5
εὔιον, εὐχαίτην, εὐάμπελον, ἐγρεσίκωμον,
ζηλαῖον, ζάχολον, ζηλήμονα, ζηλοδοτῆρα,
ἤπιον, ἡδυπότην, ἡδύθροον, ἠπεροπῆα,
θυρσοφόρον, Θρήικα, θιασώτην, θυμολέοντα,
Ἰνδολέτην, ἱμερτόν, ἰοπλόκον, ἰραφιώτην,        10
κωμαστήν, κεραόν, κισσοστέφανον, κελαδεινόν,
Λυδόν, ληναῖον, λαθικηδέα, λυσιμέριμνον,
μύστην, μαινόλιον, μεθυδώτην, μυριόμορφον,
νυκτέλιον, νόμιον, νεβρώδεα, νεβριδόπεπλον,
ξυστοβόλον, ξυνόν, ξενοδώτην, ξανθοκάρηνον,        15
ὀργίλον, ὀβριμόθυμον, ὀρέσκιον, οὐρεσιφοίτην,
πουλυπότην, πλαγκτῆρα, πολυστέφανον, πολύκωμον,
ῥηξίνοον, ῥαδινόν, ῥικνώδεα, ῥηνοφορῆα,
σκιρτητόν, Σάτυρον, Σεμεληγενέτην, Σεμελῆα,
τερπνόν, ταυρωπόν, Τυρρηνολέτην, ταχύμηνιν,        20
ὑπνοφόβην, ὑγρόν, ὑμενήιον, ὑλήεντα,
φηρομανῆ, φρικτόν, φιλομειδέα, φοιταλιώτην,
χρυσόκερων, χαρίεντα, χαλίφρονα, χρυσεομίτρην,
ψυχοπλανῆ, ψεύστην, ψοφομηδέα, ψυχοδαϊκτήν,
ὥριον, ὠμηστήν, ὠρείτροφον, ὠρεσίδουπον.        25
μέλπωμεν βασιλῆα φιλεύιον, εἰραφιώτην.

In line 12, Paton's translation has only three epithets, whereas the Greek has four. Even though λαθικηδέα, λυσιμέριμνον are roughly equivalent in meaning, I would add "banisher of trouble" or something similar to the translation. Similarly, in line 19 I would add "Semeleian".

On this hymn see Difabio de Raimondo and Elbia Haydée, "Dioniso, dios del lagar, dador del vino (AP IX 524)," Universum 22.1 (2007) 20-31.

On ancient interpretations of "Eiraphiotes" (lines 1, 26) see Silvia Porres Caballero, "Dionysus' Definitive Rebirth", in Tracing Orpheus: Studies of Orphic Fragments, edd. Miguel Herrero de Jáuregui et al. (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2011), pp. 127-132 (at 129-130).

---

525 (alphabetic hymn to Apollo; all but the first and last lines are examples of verse-filling asyndeton):

Let us hymn Paean the great god, Apollo;
Immortal, gloriously formed, unshorn, soft-haired,
Stern-hearted, king, delighting in arrows, giver of life,
Joyous, laughing, slayer of giants, sweet-hearted,
Son of Zeus, slayer of the dragon, lover of the laurel,        5
Sweet of speech, of ample might, far-shooter, giver of hope,
Creator of animals, divine, Jove-minded, giver of zeal,
Mild, sweet-spoken, sweet-hearted, gentle-handed,
Slayer of beasts, blooming, charmer of the spirit, soft speaking,
Shooter of arrows, desirable, healer, charioteer,        10
Weaver of the world, Clarian, strong-hearted, father of fruits,
Son of Leto, pleasant, delighting in the lyre, resplendent,
Lord of the mysteries, prophet, magnanimous, thousand-shaped,
Lover of the bow-string, wise, stiller of grief, sober,
Lover of community, common to all, taking thought for all, benefactor of all,        15
Blessed, making blessed, Olympian, dweller on the hills,
Gentle, all-seeing, sorrowless, giver of wealth,
Saviour from trouble, rose-coloured, man-breaker, path-opener,
Glittering, wise, father of light, saviour,
Delighting in the dance, Titan, initiator, revered,        20
Chanter of hymns, highest, stately, of the height,
Phoebus, purifier, lover of garlands, cheerer of the spirit,
Utterer of oracles, golden, golden-complexioned, golden-arrowed,
Lover of the lyre, harper, hater of lies, giver of the soul,
Swift-footed, swift-voiced, swift of vision, giver of seasons.        25
Let us hymn Paean the great god, Apollo.

ὑμνέωμεν Παιᾶνα μέγαν θεὸν Ἀπόλλωνα,
ἄμβροτον, ἀγλαόμορφον, ἀκερσεκόμην, ἁβροχαίτην,
βριθύνοον, βασιλῆα, βελεσσιχαρῆ, βιοδώτην,
γηθόσυνον, γελόωντα, γιγαντολέτην, γλυκύθυμον,
Διογενῆ, Διόπαιδα, δρακοντολέτην, δαφνογηθῆ,        5
εὔλαλον, εὐρυβίην, ἑκατηβόλον, ἐλπιδοδώτην,
ζῳογόνον, ζάθεον, Ζηνόφρονα, ζηλοδοτῆρα,
ἤπιον, ἡδυεπῆ, ἡδύφρονα, ἠπιόχειρα,
θηροφόνον θαλερόν, θελξίφρονα, θελγεσίμυθον,
ἰαφέτην, ἱμερτόν, ἰήιον, ἱπποκορυστήν,        10
κοσμοπλόκον, Κλάριον, κρατερόφρονα, καρπογένεθλον,
Λητογενῆ, λαρόν, λυρογηθέα, λαμπετόωντα,
μυστιπόλον, μάντιν, μεγαλήτορα, μυριόμορφον,
νευροχαρῆ, νοερόν, νηπενθέα, νηφαλιῆα,
ξυνοχαρῆ, ξυνόν, ξυνόφρονα, ξυνοδοτῆρα,        15
ὄλβιον, ὀλβιοεργόν, Ὀλύμπιον, οὐρεσιφοίτην,
πρηΰν, πανδερκῆ, παναπήμονα, πλουτοδοτῆρα,
ῥυσίπονον, ῥυσίπονον, ῥηξήνορα, ῥηξικέλευθον,
σιγαλόεντα, σοφόν, σελαηγενέτην, σωτῆρα,
τερψίχορον, Τιτᾶνα, τελέστορα, τιμήεντα,        20
ὑμναγόρην, ὕπατον, ὑψαύχενα, ὑψήεντα,
Φοῖβον, φοιβάζοντα, φιλοστέφανον, φρενογηθῆ,
χρησμαγόρην, χρύσεον, χρυσόχροα, χρυσοβέλεμνον,
ψαλμοχαρῆ, ψάλτην, ψευσίστυγα, ψυχοδοτῆρα,
ὠκύπον, ὠκυεπῆ, ὠκύσκοπον, ὡρεσιδώτην.        25
ὑμνέωμεν Παιᾶνα μέγαν θεὸν Ἀπόλλωνα.

Related posts:

• Some Lines in Lucretius
• Asyndeton Filling Hexameters
• Asyndeton Filling Hexameters in Sidonius
• Verse-Filling Asyndeton

Anonymous poet quoted by Athenaeus, Deipnosophistae 8.336 b (tr. Charles Burton Gulick):

All mortals I fain would counsel to live this fleeting life in pleasure. For he that has died is nothingness, only a shade in the world below. Life is short, and while you live it behooves you to enjoy it.

πᾶσιν δὲ θνητοῖς βούλομαι παραινέσαι
τοὐφήμερον ζῆν ἡδέως· ὁ γὰρ θανὼν
τὸ μηδέν ἐστι καὶ σκιὰ κατὰ χθονός.
μικροῦ δὲ βιότου ζῶντ’ ἐπαυρέσθαι χρεών.

Related post: Cracker-Barrel Philosophy.

Scholia to Dionysius Thrax AB. 855, in Alfred Hilgard, ed., Scholia in Dionysii Thracis Artem Grammaticam (Lepizig: B.G. Teubner, 1901), p. 226, lines 17-19 (my translation):

"Kindly give me a little horse." For I disparage the thing asked for, to make the one possessing it more ready to give it.

ἱππάριόν μοι χάρισαι· μειῶ γὰρ τὸ ζητούμενον ἵνα ἑτοιμότερον πρὸς τὸ δοῦναι ποιήσω τὸν ἔχοντα.

Michael Syncellus, in J.A. Cramer, ed., Anecdota Graeca, Vol. IV (Oxford, 1837), p. 273, lines 9-11 (my translation):

Diminutives occur...by necessity, as if someone belittles what he asks for, to make the favor smaller; the comic writers used this, as the "little kettle" in Menander [Dyscolus 472].

γίνεται δὲ τὰ ὑποκοριστικὰ ... δι' ἀναγκαιότατα [sic], ὡς ἐὰν ὃ αἰτῇ τις σμικρύνῃ, ἵνα μὴ μεγάλην ποιήσῃ τὴν χάριν· ᾧ κέχρηνται οἱ κωμικοί, ὡς ἔχει τὸ παρὰ Μενάνδρῳ λεβήτιον.

There is a good example of this in a fragment from another play with the title Dyscolus, this one by Mnesimachus. See Athenaeus, Deipnosophistae 8.359 c-d (tr. Charles Burton Gulick):

Again, the Peevish Man, who was a terrible miser in the play of that name by Mnesimachus, says to the young man who leads a spendthrift life: 'A. Nay, I entreat you, don't exact too many things from me, your own uncle—things which are too cruel, too overlaid with money. Make your demands moderate. B. But good Heavens, man, how could they be more moderate? A. How? Fool me by using diminutive terms. Call fishes little fishes; if you speak of any other dainty, call it a little dainty. Then I shall die more happily, by far.'

ὁ δὲ παρὰ Μνησιμάχῳ ἐν τῷ ὁμωνύμῳ δράματι Δύσκολος φιλάργυρος ὢν σφόδρα πρὸς τὸν ἀσωτευόμενον νεανίσκον φησίν·

Α. ἀλλ᾽ ἀντιβολῶ σ᾽, ἐπίταττέ μοι μὴ πόλλ᾽ ἄγαν,
μηδ᾽ ἄγρια λίαν μηδ᾽ ἐπηργυρωμένα,
μέτρια δέ, τῷ θείῳ σεαυτοῦ. Β. πῶς ἔτι
μετριώτερ᾽, ὦ δαιμόνι᾽; Α. ὅπως; σύντεμνε καὶ
ἐπεξαπάτα με· τούς μὲν ἰχθῦς μοι κάλει
ἰχθύδι᾽ ὄψον δ᾽ ἂν λέγῃς ἕτερον, κάλει
ὀψάριον. ἥδιον γὰρ ἀπολοῦμαι πολύ.

Related post: Diminutives in the Begging Scene of Aristophanes' Acharnians.

Ovid, Art of Love 1.471-476 (tr. J.H. Mozley):

In time refractory oxen come to the plough, in time horses are taught to bear the pliant reins; an iron ring is worn by constant use, a curved share wastes by constant ploughing of the ground. What is harder than rock, what softer than water? yet soft water hollows out hard rock.

tempore difficiles veniunt ad aratra iuvenci,
  tempore lenta pati frena docentur equi;
ferreus adsiduo consumitur anulus usu,
  interit adsidua vomer aduncus humo.
quid magis est saxo durum, quid mollius unda?
  dura tamen molli saxa cavantur aqua.

Thomas Love Peacock (1785-1866), "The Four Ages of Poetry," Works, Vol. III (London: Richard Bentley and Son, 1875), pp. 324-338 (at 335):

A poet in our times is a semi-barbarian in a civilized community. He lives in the days that are past. His ideas, thoughts, feelings, associations, are all with barbarous manners, obsolete customs, and exploded superstitions. The march of his intellect is like that of a crab, backward. The brighter the light diffused around him by the progress of reason, the thicker is the darkness of antiquated barbarism, in which he buries himself like a mole, to throw up the barren hillocks of his Cimmerian labours.

David Whitehead writes about The Earliest Record of a Curfew? in an email:

Gulick either did not know or had temporarily forgotten the martial-law regulations in chap.10 of Aeneas Tacticus, three centuries before Athenion. See esp. 10.14-15.

Professor Whitehead is the author of Aineias the Tactician, How to Survive under Siege: translated with introduction and commentary (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990; 2nd ed. Bristol, 2001).

Henry Gunning (1768-1854), Reminiscences of the University, Town, and County of Cambridge, from the Year 1780, 2nd. ed., Vol. I (London: George Bell, 1866), p. 17:

Nothing could he pleasanter than the hour passed at [John Barlow] Seale's lectures,—such was his kindness to all, particularly to those who wished to profit by them. When any ludicrous blunder occurred (which was not unfrequently the case), he joined in the laugh as heartily as any of us. One of his pupils, when construing a passage in Grotius, made a mistake, which set us all in a roar of laughter: the passage was this,—"Merite suspecta merx est, quae hâc lege obtruditur, ne inspici posset." The nature of the blunder will be understood by Seale's remark upon it: "I think, Sir, you have mistaken merx for meretrix!"

Grotius actually wrote "Merito suspecta merx est, quae hac lege obtruditur, ne inspici posset." The quotation appears in his treatise De Veritate Religionis Christianae (Paris: Seb. Cramoisy, 1640), p. 198 (from book VI, discussing prohibitions against reading the Bible). The sentence means "Deservedly suspect is merchandise offered for sale with the restriction that it can't be inspected." Instead of translating merx as merchandise, Seale's student confused the word with meretrix (prostitute) and presumably translated the sentence somewhat as follows: "Deservedly suspect is a prostitute offered for sale with the restriction that she can't be inspected."

Gunning, Vol. II, p. 47:

I have previously mentioned that in consequence of ill health, the Regius Professor of Divinity was allowed, in 1787, to appoint Dr. Kipling, of St. John's, his deputy. Dr. Kipling was the Senior Wrangler of his year, and had published a treatise on optics, which was but little read and soon forgotten; he also edited Beza, and published a Latin preface so full of bad Latin, that he deemed it expedient to call in those copies that had been circulated in the University, that the work might be re-issued with an amended preface. A friend of mine was so much delighted with its blunders that he refused to part with his copy, saying that he considered it a literary curiosity, which in a few years would become extremely valuable. I could at one time quote a number of memorable expressions, but I can now only remember his using the word Paginibus which actually appeared in several copies of the amended preface.

John Selby Watson (1804-1884), The Life of Richard Porson, M.A. Professor of Greek in the University of Cambridge from 1792 to 1808 (London: Longman, Green, Longman, and Roberts, 1861), p. 202:

There was also in the preface some bad Latinity, and Frend in consequence charged Kipling with "inability to speak or write a single sentence of pure Latin." One blunder was paginibus, on which somebody, perhaps Porson, made this epigram, in the style of the Epistolae obscurorum Virorum:

Paginibus nostris dicitis mihi menda quod insunt;
  At non in recto vos puto esse, viri.
Nam, primum, jurat (cetera ut testimonia omitto)
  Milnerus, quod sum doctus ego et sapiens.
Classicus haud es, aiunt. Quid si non sum? in sacrosanctâ
  Non ullo tergum verto theologiâ.

The last two words in italics exemplify some of the Doctor's other inaccuracies. Kipling had "the paginibus sheet," as it was called, reprinted in the copies that had not been issued, but in a large number the blunder necessarily remained. The publication cost the University nearly two thousand pounds, and Kipling is supposed to have cleared at least six hundred guineas.

Kipling should have written paginis, not paginibus. According to M.L. Clarke, Richard Porson: A Biographical Essay (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1937), p. 46, "As a result of an unfortunate dative or ablative form the deputy won the nickname of Dr Paginibus..." Kipling's other errors castigated in Porson's epigram are presumably omitto for omittam, and ullo for ulli, although I can't find anywhere on the Internet a copy of Codex Theodori Bezae Cantabrigiensis Evangelia et Apostolorum Acta complectens, quadratis literis Graeco-Latinus. Academia auspicante venerandae has vetustatis reliquias summa qua potuit fide adumbravit expressit edidit codicis historiam praefixit notasque adjecit Thomas Kipling, S.T.P., Coll. Div. Joan. nuper socius (Cantabrigiae: e prelo Academico impensis Academiae, 1793), 2 vols.

Robert Forsyth Scott, ed., Admissions to the College of St. John the Evangelist in the University of Cambridge, Part III: July 1715-November 1767 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1903), p. 699:

The opportunity of making things disagreeable to Kipling came when his edition of the Codex Bezae appeared. He was guilty of several mistakes in his introductory preface and there were many misprints in his text. His work was sharply criticised by Porson in the British Critic, iii. He was also fiercely and coarsely attacked by Thomas Edwards (of Clare Hall, LL.B. 1782, LL.D. 1787, and Fellow of Jesus College; sometime Vicar of Histon; who died at Huntingdon 30 March 1820), who published Remarks on Dr Kipling's Preface to Beza, Part i, 1793; Part ii, 1797. In this he disclaims any personal animosity to Dr Kipling, but displays extraordinary bitterness. Kipling is constantly referred to as 'our Promoter.' His slips in Latin are pointed out and his learning held up to ridicule. Edwards seems to have been the author of the expression 'a Kiplingism,' which afterwards passed into the slang of the University as the equivalent of an error in latinity.

Gradus ad Cantabrigiam: or, A Dictionary of Terms, Academical and Colloquial, or Cant, which are used at the University of Cambridge (London: W.J. and J. Richardson, 1803), p. 81:

A KIPLINGISM; a blunder-BUS levelled at poor Priscian's head by the learned Dr. Kipling. The opposition wits at Cambridge have composed an epigram of Kiplingisms.—(Kiplingius loquitur.)

Porson's epigram follows on p. 82 of the Gradus.

Joseph R. Conlin, The American Past: A Survey of American History, 9th ed. (Boston: Wadsworth, ©2010, 2009), p. 573:

"No tendency is quite so strong in human nature," William Howard Taft observed, "as the desire to lay down rules of conduct for other people."

Did Taft really say or write this? Conlin doesn't cite a source, and I can't find one.

John Stuart Blackie (1809-1895), "Parva Domus Magna Quies," Musa Burschicosa: A Book of Songs for Students and University Men (Edinburgh: Edmonston and Douglas, 1869), pp. 69-71:

On a little grassy knoll,
  Beneath the huge Ben More,
Where the loch's clear amber waters
  Lave the white and pebbly shore,
I have built a little dwelling,
  Without or pomp or state,
In smallness quite excelling;
  But oh! the peace is great.

From the hot and dusty tumult
  Of the men that rule the land,
From the pageant of the Park,
  And the rattle of the Strand;
From the weariness and worry
  Of contention and debate,
I am sheltered, I am hidden;
  And my peace is very great.

From the knocking and the ringing
  Of the beggar and the bore,
When every man is bringing
  Every business to my door;
From saying Yes, and saying No,
  To seas of endless prate,
I am sheltered, I am hidden;
  And my peace is very great.

From the doctrine and the dogma
  Of each lofty-fancied fool,
Who would take the great Creator
  (If Creator be) to school;
From the thousand maggots swarming
  In each eager-witted pate,
I am sheltered, I am hidden;
  And my peace is very great.

From the carping and the grumbling
  Of the spiteful and the small,
Who, when mighty things are tumbling,
  Love to see the mighty fall;
From the lust of hot reforming
  In the Church and in the State,
I am sheltered, I am hidden;
  And my peace is very great.

With a wife to share my pillow,
  And a man to row my boat,
And a rod to lash the billow
  And a friend to glass my thought;
With no great ambition swelling,
  And no questions asked of Fate,
Pride leaves the little dwelling;
  But my peace is very great.

Then fare-thee-well, the City's din,
  The tumult and the throng,
For a moment and a moment
  To myself I will belong;
In my lonely mountain dwelling
  Disrobed of empty state,
In smallness quite excelling,
  And in peace how very great!

Related posts:

• Watkyns' Wish
• Two Little Houses
• Klein aber Mein
• Oikos Philos, Oikos Aristos
• Small Houses
• More on Small Houses
• Parva Domus, Magna Quies

Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862), Journal (1850):

I pray to be delivered from narrowness, partiality, exaggeration, bigotry.

William Blake (1757-1827), Vala, Night II, lines 402-418:

It is an easy thing to triumph in the summers sun
And in the vintage & to sing on the waggon loaded with corn
It is an easy thing to talk of patience to the afflicted
To speak the laws of prudence to the houseless wanderer
To listen to the hungry ravens cry in wintry season
When the red blood is filld with wine & with the marrow of lambs

It is an easy thing to laugh at wrathful elements
To hear the dog howl at the wintry door, the ox in the slaughter house moan
To see a god on every wind & a blessing on every blast
To hear sounds of love in the thunder storm that destroys our enemies house
To rejoice in the blight that covers his field, & the sickness that cuts off his children
While our olive & vine sing & laugh round our door & our children bring fruits & flowers

Then the groan & the dolor are quite forgotten & the slave grinding at the mill
And the captive in chains & the poor in the prison, & the soldier in the field
When the shatterd bone hath laid him groaning among the happier dead

It is an easy thing to rejoice in the tents of prosperity
Thus would I sing & thus rejoice, but it is not so with me!

Athenaeus, Deipnosophistae 5.214 d (tr. Charles Burton Gulick, on Athenion, with Gulick's footnote):

He also proclaimed that all should stay indoors after sunset,^b and nobody might go out even with a lantern.

^b The earliest record of a curfew?

The Greek:

ἐκήρυσσέν τε δύντος ἡλίου πάντας οἰκουρεῖν καὶ μετὰ λυχνοφόρου μηδένα φοιτᾶν.

Thomas Love Peacock (1785-1866), Headlong Hall, chapter II:

"You will allow," said Mr. Foster, as soon as they were again in motion "that the wild man of the woods could not transport himself over two hundred miles of forest, with as much facility as one of these vehicles transports you and me through the heart of this cultivated country."

"I am certain," said Mr. Escot, "that a wild man can travel an immense distance without fatigue; but what is the advantage of locomotion? The wild man is happy in one spot, and there he remains; the civilized man is wretched in every place he happens to be in, and then congratulates himself on being accommodated with a machine that will whirl him to another, where he will be just as miserable as ever."

Related posts:

• A Bionic Roach
• Walking versus Driving
• Crossing the Seas
• Travel
• Here
• From Dan to Beersheba

Ovid, Art of Love 1.519-520 (tr. J.H. Mozley):

Do not let your nails project, and let them be free of dirt; nor let any hair be in the hollow of your nostrils.

et nihil emineant et sint sine sordibus ungues,
   inque cava nullus stet tibi nare pilus.

On untrimmed fingernails see Theophrastus, Characters 19.1-2 (tr. Jeffrey Rusten):

The squalid man is the sort who goes around in a leprous and encrusted state, with long fingernails...

ὁ δὲ δυσχερὴς τοιοῦτός τις, οἷος λέπραν ἔχων καὶ ἀλφὸν καὶ τοὺς ὄνυχας μεγάλους περιπατεῖν...

Herwerden conjectured μέλανας for μεγάλους (black nails, instead of overgrown ones).

On nasal hair see W.M. Lindsay, ed., Sexti Pompei Festi De verborum significatu quae supersunt cum Pauli epitome (1913; rpt. Stuttgart: Teubner, 1997), p. 509, with apparatus:

Vibracae pili in naribus hominum, dicti quod his evulsis caput vibratur.

Vibraessae G I ut uid.: Vibresse (ex -isse ut uid.) R: Viprisse (-ae) M E: Vibrissae P: Vibrucae Gloss.: corr. Thewr., qui archetypi formam uibra ēe (i.e. uibra esse) ad uibrace revocat

My translation:

Vibracae hairs in men's nostrils, so-called because the head shakes (vibratur) when they're plucked out.

In Lewis and Short's Latin dictionary, the lemma is vibrissae, and zoologists have adopted the word in that form to refer to the whiskers of cats and other animals.

The explanation of Festus is odd; that of André Dacier (quod spiritu, qui per nares meat, vibrentur = because they vibrate with the breath that passes through the nostrils) makes more sense to me.

Samuel Butler (1835-1902), Notebooks: Selections, edd. Geoffrey Keynes and Brian Hill (New York: E.P. Dutton & Company, Inc., 1951), p. 169:

Jones went to an evening party and said there was a lady there who sang a song (as he at first thought) about an Indian potentate named Sir Cussha Sweesong Twar, but he discovered presently that the song was French ('Ce que je suis sans toi').

Roger Bull, Grobianus; or, The Compleat Booby. An Ironical Poem. In Three Books. Done into English, from the Original Latin of Friderick Dedekindus (London: T. Cooper, 1739), pp. 17-18:

When Air imprison'd labours for a Vent,
That you shou'd belch, I give my free Consent:
Nor belch to Halves—but of the Clangor proud,
Like some substantial Burgo-master, belch aloud.
Check not the rising Belch, lest, hapless, you,
Experience, late, how many Ills ensue:
Perhaps the too, too long imprison'd Wind,
Which in the Stomach's Cavern lies confin'd,
May taint thee with some fatal, foul Disease;
And Pain and Anguish thy whole Body seize.
Or all thy Body o'er diffuse a Stench,
Rank as the Armpits of a red-hair'd Wench.
If Wind ascend, which with just Cause we dread,
Whims, Freaks, and Megrims dire affect the Head:
Or downwards, without legal Notice, come
Forth from the treach'rous Passage of the Bum,
A horrid Fume shall straight your Crime proclaim
To ev'ry Nose; nor aught conceal your Shame.
Wou'd you these Ills by prudent Care prevent,
Nor, like a Fox, be follow'd by the Scent?
Then give to ev'ry Belch a timely Vent.

Id., p 28:

If the digested Meals of Yesterday
Demand a Vent, 'tis troublesome to stay.
Of Breeches, Shoes, and Stocking take good Care;
And dread besides to taint the ambient Air:
Get up in haste—and answer in a Word,
Shou'd any ask your Business, 'tis a T—.

Id., p 40:

The Bowels now b'ing cramm'd with splendid Fare,
Far off be banish'd, that Intruder, Care.
The Stomach sickens when the Mind's unblest,
Nor in due Order can its Food digest;
From thence Diseases numberless arise,
O! shun all anxious Labour, and be wise.
Believe me, Sir! 'tis wholesomer by much,
To rest, when Dinner's ended, on the Couch;
Till Supper one continu'd Slumber take,
When Supper calls, 'tis Time enough to wake.
Unreprehended there, supine, you lie,
And many a fragrant *Bum-gut-shot let flie:
Tell each nice Critick, that you want the Art,
To curb, that active Principle—a Fart.

* Bumgutshot, a Word of Rabelais.

Id., p. 50:

When Wind, that pains the Belly, wou'd repair
Forth from a narrow Gut to open Air,
Your Pris'ner, in what Way you please, dismiss;
What Nature bids, can never be amiss.
Whenever such Behaviour gives Offence,
This Answer vindicates your Innocence;
"From Wind, which long within the Belly* lies;
"Vertigo, Cholick, Spasm, and Dropsy rise.
"This Rule each learned Son of Galen gives,
"A Rule by which the Man of Manners lives.
Claudius, lest Sickness shou'd ensue, decreed,†
That all Men fart and belch in Time of Need;
His Edict serves to justify your Ways,
Nor only bare Forgiveness gains, but Praise.

* This Distich is a Quotation from the Schola Salernitana; to which Book I refer the Reader.
† This Edict of Claudius (here specified) is recorded by several Classick Authors: Wherefore it is no uncommon Thing with Fellows of Colleges, when they fart in Company, to strike their Paws upon the Table, and roar out CLAUDIUS.

Related posts:

• Symmachus the Physician
• Egestions of Port Esquiline

Theopompus, fragment F 233 Jacoby, quoted by Athenaeus, Deipnosophistae 4.166 e-f (tr. Charles Burton Gulick):

The city of Tarentum offers sacrifices of oxen and holds public banquets nearly every month. The mass of common people is always busy with parties and drinking-bouts. And the Tarentines have a saying of some such purport as this, that whereas the rest of the world, in their devotion to work and their preoccupation with various forms of industry, are always preparing to live, they themselves, with their parties and their pleasures, do not put off living, but live already.

ἡ πόλις ἡ τῶν Ταραντίνων σχεδὸν καθ᾽ ἕκαστον μῆνα βουθυτεῖ καὶ δημοσίας ἑστιάσεις ποιεῖται. τὸ δὲ τῶν ἰδιωτῶν πλῆθος αἰεὶ περὶ συνουσίας καὶ πότους ἐστί. λέγουσι δὲ καί τινα τοιοῦτον λόγον οἱ Ταραντῖνοι, τοὺς μὲν ἄλλους ἀνθρώπους διὰ τὸ φιλοπονεῖσθαι καὶ περὶ τὰς ἐργασίας διατρίβειν παρασκευάζεσθαι ζῆν, αὐτοὺς δὲ διὰ τὰς συνουσίας καὶ τὰς ἡδονὰς οὐ μέλλειν, ἀλλ᾽ ἤδη βιῶναι.

T.J. Hogg, letter to Shelley (September 8, 1817), quoted by Howard Mills, Peacock: His Circle and His Age (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969), p. 29:

If I have been in practise less loyal to Greece than usual I am not without this apology, that in heart I am more a Grecian than ever. The vulgarity of America as depicted in Ashe's travels and shewn by all other communications from that country, and which in a great measure arises from ignorance of Classical Literature, is so disgusting that we shrink from it with horror and take refuge in the ruins of ancient taste and elegance.

John Thorne, Serious Pig: An American Cook in Search of His Roots (New York: North Point Press; Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1996), p. 32 (ellipsis in original):

[A] clever geographer might be able draw up a map that districted Maine by bean type. He might start by marking off southeast Maine as favoring the pea bean, farm-country Maine the soldier and the Jacob's cattle bean, lumber country the original Steuben yellow eye, the Bangor area the sulphur bean, and Down East (up the coast from Ellsworth) the marafax ... and go on from there.

Id., p. 35:

You could, if you wished, assemble a book—a small one, to be sure, but a book even so—of Maine writers opining on the subject of cooking beans. Such narratives appear not only in the obvious places—Kenneth Roberts's Trending into Maine, Nathan S. Lowrey's folklore study, "Tales of the Northern Maine Woods: The History and Traditions of the Maine Guide"—but sometimes out of nowhere.

In The House That Jacob Built, John Gould (who swears by Jacob's cattle beans) interrupts his account of rebuilding the family house after the original burned to the ground to devote an entire chapter to the subject. Carroll F. Terrell, in Growing Up Kennebec, a funny, no-holds-barred narrative of a Maine boyhood in the twenties, stops the action to provide a step-by-step description of his mother's recipe (she prefers yellow eyes). Walter Howe pauses in his comic narrative, Frost You Say?, to explain his method (he leans toward Kentucky Wonders).

Related post: Kenneth Roberts on Beans.

Thomas Love Peacock (1785-1866), "Glee":

Quickly pass the social glass,
Hence with idle sorrow!
No delay—enjoy today,
Think not of tomorrow!
Life at best is but a span,
Let us taste it whilst we can;
Let us still with smiles confess,
All our aim is happiness!

Childish fears, and sighs and tears
Still to us are strangers;
Why destroy the bud of joy
With ideal dangers?
Let the song of pleasure swell;
Care with us shall never dwell;
Let us still with smiles confess,
All our aim is happiness!

James Ryman, poem XCII, in J. Zupitza, "Die Gedichte des Franziskaners Jacob Ryman," Archiv für das Studium der neueren Sprachen and Litteraturen 89 (1892) 167-338 (at 265-267; line numbers added):

                      1.
O cruell deth paynfull and smert,
On the to thenke my hert is colde,
For why noman fro the may sterte,
Neither riche ne pore, nor yonge ne olde.
Thou sparest not for siluir nor golde,        5
But, in whome thou wilte thy marke set,
He shall departe withouten lette.

                      2.
Why art thou so cruell to man
Of hym no man grisly to make,
His nose sharpe and his lippes wan,        10
His chekes pale and his tethe blake,
His handes and his fete to shake
And alle his body quake for colde
And returne hym ayene to molde?

                      3.
"Like to a thinge vayne man is made,        15
His dayes passith, as a shadewe,
And, as a floure, fro hym they fade,"
Thus seith Dauid, that prophete true.
Seint Iames seith: "As a floure newe
By hete of sonne turneth to hay,        20
So mortall man shall passe away."

                      4.
A thousand yere fro hym be past,
As yesterday, the whiche is gone.
In an ymage he passeth fast,
This worldes figure passeth anon:        25
It is right nought to trust vppon.
Therefore alwey you redy make,
For, when tyme is, I wille you take.

                      5.
"What man shall leve and se no deth?
No man, truly," thus seith Dauid.        30
"Haue myende, my lyfe is but a breth,"
Thus seith Iob according herewith.
His daies, as of a messangere, beth.
"More swyfter my daies passeth and lyfe,
Than a webbe of a wever is cutte with knyfe."        35

                      6.
I sende sekenesse you to a taste
And to meke you in euery place,
But, whenne that I come at the last,
I make an ende within shorte space.
I sette no lawe day in the case,        40
For, whenne that I sey: "Make an ende,"
Withouten delay ye shall hense wende.

                      7.
Fro mortall deth Crist vs defende
And graunte vs alle by his grete grace,
Out of this worlde when we shall wende,        45
In heuen blisse to haue a place
And hym to see there face to face,
That was and is and ay shall be
Eternall god in persones thre.

The poem is a dialogue between Man and Death. Man speaks in stanzas 1-2, 7, Death in stanzas 3-6. Some notes for my own use follow.

2 On the to thenke my hert is colde: My heart is cold, to think on thee
3 fro the may sterte: from thee may escape (Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. start, sense 6).
7 lette: let (noun), i.e. hindrance, delay
8 no man: something not human
14 ayene: again
15-16 Like to a thinge vayne man is made, / His dayes passith, as a shadewe: Psalm 144.4 (Man is like to vanity: his days are as a shadow that passeth away).
19-21 As a floure newe / By hete of sonne turneth to hay, / So mortall man shall passe away: James 1.10-11 (But the rich, in that he is made low: because as the flower of the grass he shall pass away. For the sun is no sooner risen with a burning heat, but it withereth the grass, and the flower thereof falleth, and the grace of the fashion of it perisheth: so also shall the rich man fade away in his ways).
22-23 A thousand yere: Psalm 90.4 (For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night).
27 alwey you redy make: always be prepared
29 What man shall leve and se no deth?: Psalm 89.48 (What man is he that liveth, and shall not see death?).
31 Haue myende, my lyfe is but a breth: Job 7.7 (Remember, O God, that my life is but a breath).
36 sekenesse: sickness
37 meke: make, but with what meaning?
40 lawe day: Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. law-day, sense 2, citing this verse: "A day appointed for the discharge of a bond, after which the debtor could not at common law be relieved from the forfeiture."
42 hense wende: go hence


Grandes Heures de Rohan,
Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, lat. 9471, fol. 159

David Jones (1895-1974), letter to René Hague (April 15, 1935), in Dai Greatcoat: A self-portrait of David Jones in his letters (London: Faber and Faber, 1980), p. 70:

The doctor been and say I'm all right but wants me to only smoke ten cigarettes a day—and have bath in morning instead of night and do some physical jerks each morning. O bugger bugger bugger and rest half an hour before dinner and lunch and only drink two gingies a day—He is nice but it's always the same stuff. Doc: 'Are you worried about any things?' Am I worried me arse. Doctor: 'What do you read—let me see—let me look—The Nature of Belief—Shakespeare—Medieval Religion—I shouldn't trouble the mind with anything disturbing you know. What do you read for light literature?' Me: Well—well—eh—eh—well—you know that's the bugger of it—well, I like Alice in Wonderland if I want to have a good laugh.'

Hat tip: Ian Jackson.

Diphilus, fragment 86 Kock, quoted by Athenaeus, Deipnosophistae 2.35 d (tr. Charles Burton Gulick):

O Dionysus, dearest and wisest in the eyes of all men of sense, how kind art thou! Thou alone makest the humble to feel proud, and persuadest the scowler to laugh, the weak to be brave, the cowardly to be bold.

ὦ πᾶσι τοῖς φρονοῦσι προσφιλέστατε
Διόνυσε καὶ σοφώταθ᾽, ὡς ἡδύς τις εἶ·
ὃς τὸν ταπεινὸν μέγα φρονεῖν ποιεῖς μόνος,
τὸν τὰς ὀφρῦς αἴροντα συμπείθεις γελᾶν
τὸν τ᾽ ἀσθενῆ τολμᾶν τι, τὸν δειλὸν θρασύν.

Related post: Some Effects of Wine.

James Ryman, poem LXXXIV, stanzas 1-2, in J. Zupitza, "Die Gedichte des Franziskaners Jacob Ryman," Archiv für das Studium der neueren Sprachen and Litteraturen 89 (1892) 167-338 (at 253; line numbers added):

Atte sumtyme mery, at sume tyme sadde;
At sumtyme wele, at sumtyme woo;
At sumtyme sory, at sumtyme gladde;
At sumtyme frende, at sumtyme foo;
At sumtyme richesse and welthe is hadde,        5
At sumtyme it is gone vs froo;
Truly, he is not wyse, but madde,
That aftur worldly welthe will goo.

As medowe floures of swete odoures
Vadeth to erthe by theire nature,        10
Likewise richesse and grete honoures
Shall vade fro euery creature;
Therfore to suffre grete doloures
I holde it best to do oure cure
And to forsake castillis and toures,        15
So that of blisse we may be sure.

6 gone vs froo: gone from us
10, 12 Vadeth ... vade: Fadeth ... fade
15 castillis and toures: castles and towers

Samuel Parr (1747-1825), Aphorisms, Opinions, and Reflections of the Late Dr. Parr (London: J. Andrews, 1826), pp. 2-3:

Upon the points in which we dissent from each other, argument will always secure the attention of the wise and good; whereas, invective must disgrace the cause which we may respectively wish to support.
                                                                                     Letter from Irenopolis, p. 5.

In response to The Evidence of Style, David Smart compares C.S. Lewis (1898-1963), "Modern Theology and Biblical Criticism," Christian Reflections, ed. Walter Hooper (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, ©1995), pp. 154-155 (footnotes omitted):

First then, whatever these men may be as Biblical critics, I distrust them as critics. They seem to me to lack literary judgement, to be imperceptive about the very quality of the texts they are reading. It sounds a strange charge to bring against men who have been steeped in those books all their lives. But that might be just the trouble. A man who has spent his youth and manhood in the minute study of New Testament texts and of other people's studies of them, whose literary experience of those texts lacks any standard of comparison such as can only grow from a wide and deep and genial experience of literature in general, is, I should think, very likely to miss the obvious thing about them. If he tells me that something in a Gospel is legend or romance, I want to know how many legends and romances he has read, how well his palate is trained in detecting them by the flavour; not how many years he has spent on that Gospel. But I had better turn to examples.

In what is already a very old commentary I read that the fourth Gospel is regarded by one school as a 'spiritual romance', 'a poem not a history', to be judged by the same canons as Nathan's parable, the book of Jonah, Paradise Lost 'or, more exactly, Pilgrim's Progress'. After a man has said that, why need one attend to anything else he says about any book in the world? Note that he regards Pilgrim's Progress, a story which professes to be a dream and flaunts its allegorical nature by every single proper name it uses, as the closest parallel. Note that the whole epic panoply of Milton goes for nothing. But even if we leave our the grosser absurdities and keep to Jonah, the insensitiveness is crass—Jonah, a tale with as few even pretended historical attachments as Job, grotesque in incident and surely not without a distinct, though of course edifying, vein of typically Jewish humour. Then turn to John. Read the dialogues: that with the Samaritan woman at the well, or that which follows the healing of the man born blind. Look at its pictures: Jesus (if I may use the word) doodling with his finger in the dust; the unforgettable ἦν δὲ νύξ (xiii, 30). I have been reading poems, romances, vision-literature, legends, myths all my life. I know what they are like. I know that not one of them is like this. Of this text there are only two possible views. Either this is reportage—though it may no doubt contain errors—pretty close up to the facts; nearly as close as Boswell. Or else, some unknown writer in the second century, without known predecessors, or successors, suddenly anticipated the whole technique of modern, novelistic, realistic narrative. If it is untrue, it must be narrative of that kind. The reader who doesn't see this has simply not learned to read. I would recommend him to read Auerbach.

Id., pp. 156-157:

So there is no personality of Our Lord presented in the New Testament. Through what strange process has this learned German gone in order to make himself blind to what all men except him see? What evidence have we that he would recognize a personality if it were there? For it is Bultmann contra mundum. If anything whatever is common to all believers, and even to many unbelievers, it is the sense that in the Gospels they have met a personality. There are characters whom we know to be historical but of whom we do not feel that we have any personal knowledge—knowledge by acquaintance; such are Alexander, Attila, or William of Orange. There are others who make no claim to historical reality but whom, none the less, we know as we know real people: Falstaff, Uncle Toby, Mr Pickwick. But there are only three characters who, claiming the first sort of reality, also actually have the second. And surely everyone knows who they are: Plato's Socrates, the Jesus of the Gospels, and Boswell's Johnson. Our acquaintance with them shows itself in a dozen ways. When we look into the apocryphal gospels, we find ourselves constantly saying of this or that logion, 'No. It's a fine saying, but not His. That wasn't how He talked'—just as we do with all pseudo-Johnsoniana. We are not in the least perturbed by the contrasts within each character: the union in Socrates of silly and scabrous titters about Greek pederasty with the highest mystical fervor and the homeliest good sense; in Johnson, of profound gravity and melancholy with that love of fun and nonsense which Boswell never understood though Fanny Burney did; in Jesus of peasant shrewdness, intolerable severity, and irresistible tenderness. So strong is the flavour of the personality that, even while He says things which, on any other assumption than that of Divine Incarnation in the fullest sense, would be appallingly arrogant, yet we—and many unbelievers too - accept Him as his own valuation when He says 'I am meek and lowly of heart'. Even those passages in the New Testament which superficially, and in intention, are most concerned with the Divine, and least with the Human Nature, bring us fact to face with the personality. I am not sure that they don't do this more than any others. 'We beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of graciousness and reality ... which we have looked upon and our hands have handled.' What is gained by trying to evade or dissipate this shattering immediacy of personal contact by talk about 'that significance which the early Church found that it was impelled to attribute to the Master'? This hits us in the face. Not what they were impelled to do but what impelled them. I begin to fear that by personality Dr Bultmann means what I should call impersonality: what you'd get in a D.N.B. article or an obituary or a Victorian Life and Letters of Yeshua Bar-Yosef in three volumes with photographs.

Ernst Robert Curtius (1886-1956), European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages, tr. Willard E. Trask (1953; rpt. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1973), pp. 285-286 (ellipses in original):

Another manneristic deformation of the line consists in getting as many words into it as possible. To attain this end the superfluous "and" must be omitted. Hence this piling up of words was also called "verse-filling asyndeton."³⁹ Examples from Lucretius (I, 685 and 744):

Concursus motus ordo positura figurae.
Aera solem ignem terras animalia fruges.

Horace uses this type of asyndeton when he wants to dispose scornfully of an entire class of things—objects of value, for example (Epi., II, 2, 180 f.):

Gemmas, marmor, ebur, Tyrrhena sigilla, tabellas,
Argentum, vestis Gaetulo murice tinctas ...

or forms of superstition (Epi., II, 2, 208 f.):

Somnia, terrores magicos, miracula, sagas,
Nocturnos lemures portentaque Thessala ...

The practice becomes more frequent in Statius, and in Dracontius is carried to excess.⁴⁰ In the Middle Ages it is a well-known stylistic device, recommended by the rhetoricians.⁴¹ I give but one medieval Latin example, from Alan (SP, II, 473):

Furta doli metus ira furor fraus impetus error
  Tristities hujus hospita regna tenent.

The seventeenth-century German poets are fond of using the device, especially Gryphius. It still occurs in Brockes:

Blitz, Donner, Krachen, Prasseln, Knallen,
Erschüttern, stossweis abwerts fallen,
Gepresst, betäubt von Schlag zu Strahl,
Kam, ward, war alles auf einmal
Gesehn, gehört, gefühlt, geschehn.

(Flash, thunder, crashing, rustling, booming,
Shudd’ring, a sudden falling back,
Oppressed, benumbed from stroke to streak,
Came, was, then suddenly had been
Seen, heard, felt, done.)

I take this example from a dissertation on "The Accumulation of Words in Baroque." The author comments: "Such an exhaustion of all the possibilities of accumulation in a single sentence belongs only to Baroque."⁴² So people say, but I am on another track ...

³⁹ Carl Weyman, Beiträge zur Geschichte der christlichlateinischen Poesie (1926), 126; ibid., 51 f., and 154, n. 1.
⁴⁰ Statius, Thebais I, 431; VI, 116; X, 768.—Dracontius, De laudibus Dei I, 5 ff.; I, 13 ff.; etc.
⁴¹ Bede in Keil, Grammatici Latini, VII, 244.—Albericus Casinensis, Flores rhetorici, ed. Inguanez and Willard (1938), p. 44, § 4.
⁴² Hans Pliester, Die Worthäufung im Barock (Bonn, 1930), 3.

Related posts:

• Some Lines in Lucretius
• Asyndeton Filling Hexameters
• Asyndeton Filling Hexameters in Sidonius

I've often noticed a problem with book reviews on amazon.com, but never before have I found such an egregious example of it as the following.

Here is Amazon's web page offering for sale Roger Dawes' edition of Sophocles' Trachiniae in the Teubner series (Bibliotheca Scriptorum Graecorum et Romanorum Teubneriana).

There are two supposed reviews of the book on the web page. The reviews, however, don't discuss Dawes' edition. Rather, they discuss P.E. Easterling's edition and commentary on the play (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982).

Further, on the same web page Amazon invites you to "Click to LOOK INSIDE!" Dawes' edition. But if you click as invited, you don't see inside the book pictured. Instead, you see inside some wretched paperback edition of R.C. Jebb's translation of Trachiniae.

Amazon recently announced plans to deliver its products using drones. Mindless drones are already at work, composing Amazon's web pages.

Simon Leys, The Hall of Uselessness: Collected Essays (© 2011; rpt. New York: New York Review Books, 2013), p. 318 with endnote on p. 554:

Textual problems have led some modern scholars to question the credibility of the Gospels and even to doubt the historical existence of Christ. These studies have provoked an intriguing reaction from an unlikely source: Julien Gracq—an old and prestigious novelist, who was close to the Surrealist movement—made a comment which is all the more arresting for coming from an agnostic. In a recent volume of essays,² Gracq first acknowledged the impressive learning of one of these scholars (whose lectures he had attended in his youth), as well as the devastating logic of his reasoning; but he confessed that, in the end, he still found himself left with one fundamental objection: for all his formidable erudition, the scholar in question had simply no ear—he could not hear what should be so obvious to any sensitive reader—that, underlying the text of the Gospels, there is a masterly and powerful unity of style, which derives from one unique and inimitable voice; there is the presence of one singular and exceptional personality whose expression is so original, so bold that one could positively call it impudent. Now, if you deny the existence of Jesus, you must transfer all these attributes to some obscure, anonymous writer, who should have had the improbable genius of inventing such a character—or, even more implausibly, you must transfer this prodigious capacity for invention to an entire committee of writers. And Gracq concluded: in the end, if modern scholars, progressive-minded clerics and the docile public all surrender to this critical erosion of the Scriptures, the last group of defenders who will obstinately maintain that there is a living Jesus at the central core of the Gospels will be made of artists and creative writers, for whom the psychological evidence of style carries much more weight than mere philological arguments.

2. Julien Gracq, Les carnets du grand chemin (Paris: José Corti, 1992), pp. 190-91.

Samuel Parr (1747-1825), Aphorisms, Opinions, and Reflections of the Late Dr. Parr (London: J. Andrews, 1826), pp. 33-35:

However extensive may be the importance of the studies which are now most prevalent, and however brilliant may be the success with which they have been prosecuted, we feel no diminution of our reverence for the labours of those scholars who have employed their abilities in explaining the sense, and in correcting the text, of ancient authors. Verbal criticism has been seldom despised sincerely by any man who was capable of cultivating it successfully; and if the comparative dignity of any kind of learning is to be measured by the talents of those who are most distinguished for the acquisition of it, philology will hold no inconsiderable rank in the various and splendid classes of human knowledge. By a trite and frivolous sort of pleasantry, verbal critics are often holden up to ridicule as noisy triflers, as abject drudges, as arbiters of commas, as measurers of syllables, as the very lacqueys and slaves of learning, whose greatest ambition is to "pursue the triumph, and partake the gale," which wafts writers of genius into the wished-for haven of fame. But, even in this subordinate capacity, so much derided, and so little understood, they frequently have occasion for more extent and variety of information, for more efforts of reflection and research, for more solidity of judgment, more strength of memory, and we are not ashamed to add, more vigour of imagination, than we see displayed by many sciolists, who, in their own estimation, are original authors.
                                               Review of the Variorum Horace, British Critic, p. 122.

The Works of William Paley, D.D., Archdeacon of Carlisle. With a Life of the Author, Vol. I (London: Printed for Thomas Tegg, 1825), p. xvii:

When at Cambridge, being one day in a party of young men who were discussing somewhat pompously the summum bonum of human life, he heard their arguments with patience, and then with a half smile, and in a dry sarcastic tone, replied, "I differ from you all; the true summum bonum of human life consists in reading Tristram Shandy, in blowing with a pair of bellows into your shoes in hot weather, and in roasting potatoes in the ashes under the grate in cold."

Related post: The Summum Bonum.

Samuel Parr (1747-1825), Aphorisms, Opinions, and Reflections of the Late Dr. Parr (London: J. Andrews, 1826), p. 74 (on Henry Homer):

He was not a stranger to many niceties in the structure of the Latin tongue. He never attempted to show off his own powers in that frivolous jargon, or that oracular solemnity which I have now and then observed in persons who prated yesterday, as they prate to-day, and will prate again to-morrow about subjects which they do not understand. "He, to my knowledge, had fed on the dainties that are bred in a book. He had eaten paper, as it were, and drunk ink. His intellect was replenished."
                                                   Remarks on the Statement of Dr. Coombe, p. 21.

Hat tip: Ian Jackson.

From Ian Jackson:

I notice that David Petrain ends his interesting note on your posting on Filelfo with the remark, "It looks as if a new translation of Jovius's work has just appeared in the I Tatti Library".

Should one really have to say "It looks as if..." about a well-advertised publication from a major university press? But he is absolutely right to be cautious. Harvard, annoyingly, makes it difficult to tell what lurks behind their English titles. Most, of course are obvious, but surely they owe their readers a plain and prominent statement both in advertising and at the very beginning of each volume. The book to which Prof. Petrain refers, Kenneth Gouwens' Notable Men and Women of our Time (I Tatti Library, 2013) is in fact a translation of quite another work by Giovio, De Viris et Feminis aetate nostra florentibus, not that you'd necessarily discover this without having the book in hand. And even then, the usual easy path to an answer (a glance at the Library of Congress cataloguing-in-publication entry on the verso of the title-page) leads in the wrong direction. LC claims that this is an English translation of the very book under discussion, Giovio's Elogia doctorum virorum! Did they make this up themselves, or did Harvard misguide them? In either case, it will surely mislead librarians who really don't have the time (or means? or knowledge?) to investigate.

Again:

I forgot that I owned Franco Minonzio's edition and translation of Giovio's Elogi degli uomini illustri (Einaudi, 2006). He agrees (p.60) with Prof. Petrain’s reading:

                                         Vincitore,
gli negasti di poter salvare la barba pagando la stessa somma di denaro

                                         Victorious,
you refused to allow him to preserve his beard by paying the same amount of money

Perhaps, however, Gragg has simply expressed herself clumsily and elliptically. Petrain asks "Why would Philelphus buy a beard?" but if we take her first "you" to mean Filelfo and her second to mean "one" or "someone," it accords with the versions of both Petrain and Minozio:

You won, and declaring that [a person] could not buy a beard for the amount of the wager...

Ananius, fragment 3, tr. M.L. West, Greek Lyric Poetry (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), p. 115:

If someone locked a lot of gold up in a house
with two or three people, and a small amount of figs,
he'd soon find out how much more figs are worth than gold.

The Greek, from Iambi et Elegi Graeci ante Alexandrum Cantati, ed. M.L. West, Vol. II (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992), p. 35:

εἴ τις καθείρξαι χρυσὸν ἐν δόμοις πολὺν
καὶ σῦκα βαιὰ καὶ δύ᾽ ἢ τρεῖς ἀνθρώπους,
γνοίη χ᾽ ὅσωι τὰ σῦκα τοῦ χρυσοῦ κρέσσω.

Giacomo Leopardi (1798-1837), Zibaldone, tr. Kathleen Baldwin et al. (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2013), p. 647 (Z 1361-1362):

Anyone wishing to grasp the difference between ancient love of country and modern, and between the ancient and modern condition of the nations, and between the idea one had in times past, and the idea one has at present of one's own country, etc., should consider the punishment of exile, a supreme and very frequently used punishment among the ancients, and the ultimate punishment for Roman citizens. And yet today it has almost fallen into disuse, and is always the least of punishments, and [1362] often ridiculous. Nor is it helpful to invoke the smallness of states. Among the ancients, being exiled from a single city, even if it were as small, poor, and unhappy as you like, was dreadful, if that was the exiled person's homeland.

In Italian:

Chi vuol vedere la differenza fra l'amor patrio antico e moderno, e fra lo stato antico e moderno delle nazioni, e fra l'idea che s'aveva anticamente, e che si ha presentemente del proprio paese ec. consideri la pena dell'esilio, usitatissima e somma presso gli antichi, ed ultima pena de' cittadini romani; ed oggi quasi disusata, e sempre minima, e [1362] spesso ridicola. Nè vale addurre la piccolezza degli stati. Presso gli antichi l'essere esiliato da una sola città, fosse pur piccola, povera, infelice quanto si voglia, era formidabile, se quella era patria dell'esiliato.

Thomas Love Peacock, letter to Thomas Jefferson Hogg (September 26, 1817), in The Letters of Thomas Love Peacock, ed. Nicholas Joukovsky, Vol. I: 1792-1827 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2001), p. 116:

Perhaps a due mixture of tea Greek & pedestrianism constitute the summum bonum.

Mentally supply a comma after "tea". Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. pedestrianism, sense 1: "The activity of travelling on foot, walking..."

Ovid, Ibis 107-126 (tr. J.H. Mozley):

May the earth refuse thee her fruits and the river his waters, may wind and breeze deny their breath. May the sun not be warm for thee, nor Phoebe bright, [110] may the clear stars fail thy vision. May neither Vulcan nor the air lend thee their aid, nor earth nor sea afford thee any path. Mayst thou wander an exile and destitute, and haunt the doors of others, and beg a little food with trembling mouth. [115] May neither thy body nor thy sick mind be free from querulous pain, may night be to thee more grievous than day, and day than night. Mayst thou ever be piteous, but have none to pity thee; may men and women rejoice at thy adversity. May hatred crown thy tears, and mayst thou be thought worthy, [120] having borne many ills, to bear yet more. And (what is rare) may the aspect of thy fortune, though its wonted favour be lost, bring thee but ill-will. Mayst thou have cause enough for death, but no means of dying; may thy life be compelled to shun the death it prays for. [125] May thy spirit struggle long ere it leave thy tortured limbs, and rack thee first with long delaying.

The Latin:

Terra tibi fruges, amnis tibi deneget undas,
    Deneget afflatus ventus et aura suos.
Nec tibi sol calidus, nec sit tibi lucida Phoebe,
    Destituant oculos sidera clara tuos.        110
Nec se Vulcanus nec se tibi praebeat aër,
    Nec tibi det tellus nec tibi pontus iter.
Exul, inops erres, alienaque limina lustres,
    Exiguumque petas ore tremente cibum.
Nec corpus querulo nec mens vacet aegra dolore,        115
    Noxque die gravior sit tibi, nocte dies.
Sisque miser semper, nec sis miserabilis ulli:
    Gaudeat adversis femina virque tuis.
Accedat lacrimis odium, dignusque puteris,
    Qui mala cum tuleris plurima, plura feras.        120
Sitque, quod est rarum, solito defecta favore
    Fortunae facies invidiosa tuae.
Causaque non desit, desit tibi copia mortis:
    Optatam fugiat vita coacta necem:
Luctatusque diu cruciatos spiritus artus        125
    Deserat, et longa torqueat ante mora.

Phoebe is the moon, Vulcan fire. Commentary on these lines, from P. Ovidii Nasonis Ibis: ex novis codicibus edidit, scholia vetera, commentarium cum prolegomenis, appendice, indice addidit R. Ellis (Oxonii: e Typographeo Clarendoniano, 1881), pp. 110-111: