Laudator Temporis Acti

It is strange to reflect on the gulf that lies between the life of an ancient poet and his modern descendants. Our poets and men of letters mostly live either by writing or by investments eked out by writing. They are professional writers and readers and, as a rule, nothing else. It is comparatively rare for any one of them to face daily dangers, to stand against men who mean to kill him and beside men for whom he is ready to die, to be kept a couple of days fasting, or even to work in the sweat of his body for the food he eats. If such things happen by accident to one of us we cherish them as priceless "copy," or we even go out of our way to compass the experience artificially.

But an ancient poet was living hard, working, thinking, fighting, suffering, through most of the years that we are writing about life. He took part in the political assembly, in the Council, in the jury-courts; he worked at his own farm or business; and every year he was liable to be sent on long military expeditions abroad or to be summoned at a day's notice to defend the frontier at home. It is out of a life like this, a life of crowded reality and work, that Aeschylus and Sophocles and Euripides found leisure to write their tragedies; one writing 90, one 127, and the third 92! Euripides was considered in antiquity a bookish poet. He had a library—in numbers probably not one book for every hundred that Tennyson or George Meredith had: he was a philosopher, he read to himself. But on what a background of personal experience his philosophy was builded! It is probably this immersion in the hard realities of life that gives ancient Greek literature some of its special characteristics. Its firm hold on sanity and common sense, for instance; its avoidance of sentimentality and paradox and various seductive kinds of folly; perhaps also its steady devotion to ideal forms and high conventions, and its aversion from anything that we should call "realism." A man everlastingly wrapped round in good books and safe living cries out for something harsh and real—for blood and swear-words and crude jagged sentences. A man who escapes with eagerness from a life of war and dirt and brutality and hardship to dwell just a short time among the Muses, naturally likes the Muses to be their very selves and not remind him of the mud he has just washed off. Euripides has two long descriptions of a battle, one in the Children of Heracles and one in the Suppliant Women; both are rhetorical Messenger's Speeches, conventionally well-written and without one touch that suggests personal experience. It is curious to compare these, the writings of the poet who had fought in scores of hand-to-hand battles, with the far more vivid rhapsodies of modern writers who have never so much as seen a man pointing a gun at them.

No one can understand Aristophanes without studying Euripides. A man's enmities are as important for the appreciation of his work in life as his friendships, if not more important. 'Dearest foe', we say, and 'pet aversion'.

And who would listen to another? Homer is enough for all.

τίς δέ κεν ἄλλου ἀκούσαι; ἅλις πάντεσσιν Ὅμηρος.

If we sit here at home listening to the abuse and mutual recriminations of the orators, there is not the slightest chance of our getting anything done that ought to be done.

ἂν μέντοι καθώμεθ᾽ οἴκοι, λοιδορουμένων ἀκούοντες καὶ αἰτιωμένων ἀλλήλους τῶν λεγόντων, οὐδέποτ᾽ οὐδὲν ἡμῖν μὴ γένηται τῶν δεόντων.

All we have of freedom, all we use or know—
This our fathers bought for us long and long ago.

Sometimes I sit alone, apart,
on a hillside, by a lake
ringed by silent reeds and bushes.
There, when high noon fills the sky,
the Sun paints his undisturbed reflection,
and no blade of grass or leaf
stirs in the wind, you neither see nor hear
wave break nor cicada shriek; no bird
moves a feather on a branch, no butterfly
flitters—there's no sound or movement, far or near.
Deepest quiet fills those shores,
and, sitting still, I seem to forget
myself and the world; my limbs relax,
no longer ruled by mind or spirit,
their immemorial calm
dissolving in the silence of the place.

Talor m'assido in solitaria parte,
Sovra un rialto, al margine d'un lago
Di taciturne piante incoronato.        25
Ivi, quando il meriggio in ciel si volve,
La sua tranquilla imago il Sol dipinge,
Ed erba o foglia non si crolla al vento,
E non onda incresparsi, e non cicala
Strider, nè batter penna augello in ramo,        30
Nè farfalla ronzar, nè voce o moto
Da presso nè da lunge odi nè vedi.
Tien quelle rive altissima quiete;
Ond'io quasi me stesso e il mondo obblio
Sedendo immoto; e già mi par che sciolte        35
Giaccian le membra mie, nè spirto o senso
Più le commova, e lor quiete antica
Co' silenzi del loco si confonda.

In this deliberate return to country myths and scenes, Leopardi—like his great contemporary Manzoni—was following the current of his time; he was sharing in the revolution which was bringing back literature from the palace to the farm, from the heroic to the quotidian. His lady is not a goddess, but a country girl on a summer's evening, bringing home an armful of fresh grass; his subjects, not kings or heroes, but an old woman gossiping on the church steps, and children shouting, and a tired labourer, bearing home his hoe. His scene is the village square, the hedgerow beneath the hill. But the square holds the whole pageant of human life, and beyond the hedgerow lies infinity.

At times I seat me in a lonely spot,
Upon a gentle knoll, beside a lake
Ringed with a silent coronal of trees.
There, in the full noon of a summer's day,
The Sun his tranquil image loves to paint,
Nor grass, nor leaf stirs in the windless air,
No ripple of water, no cicala's shrill
Chirping, no flutter of wings upon the bough,
No buzz of insect, voice or movement none,
Far off or near, can ear or eye perceive.
Those shores a deep, unbroken stillness holds;
Whence, sitting motionless, I half forget
Myself, forget the world, my limbs appear
Already loosened, neither soul nor sense
Informs them more, and their age-old repose
Is mingled with the silences around.

Any peace is preferable to any war.

πᾶσα μὲν εἰρήνη παντός ἐστι πολέμου κρείττων.

Most (though not all) of the war memorials which stand in squares, schools and churchyards all over Europe, whether they portray idealized warriors, mourning women or (as at Thiepval) merely list names on stone or bronze, insist that those who died in the war did not die in vain. 'Morts pour la Patrie' is the most frequently encountered inscription on French monuments aux morts, whether heroic, civic or funerary. 'Deutschland muss leben, auch wenn wir sterben müssen,' reads the legend of the Dammtor memorial I used to pass every day as a student in Hamburg: 'Germany must live, even if we must die.' Only a few memorials venture to suggest that the 'sacrifice' of those they bring to mind was in vain.

This seemingly indestructible military monument by Richard Kuohl [sic] was erected by the Nazis in 1936 near the entrance to Hamburg's wondrous Botanical Garden at the Dammtor. A massive cube of granite blocks, it is encircled by a frieze of marching German soldiers, four abreast in profile relief. In Gothic script typical of the Third Reich, the monument is dedicated to the memory of soldiers from Hamburg's Second Hanseatic Infantry Regiment number 76 who fell in the 1870-71 war and in the First World War.

Despite its militaristic tenor and Nazi origin, the monument might have remained undisturbed had it not been for a line of poetry by Heinrich Lersch inscribed on one side: "Deutschland muss leben, auch wenn wir sterben müssen" (Germany must live, even if we have to die). In the midst of the surrounding devastation after the war (this monument was practically the only edifice left standing in the Dammtor after the bombing), this verse had taken on a mock hollow ring in 1945, a perceived affront to the dead of all wars.

As antiwar sentiment rose over the years, Kuohl's monument came under siege by demonstrators, who smeared it with paint and took hammer and chisel to its stone reliefs. It has incited full-fledged rock-and-bottle riots between skinheads and police, as other police and antiwar marchers battled in the streets nearby. At the same time, veterans of the Second Hanseatic Infantry Regiment number 76 continued to honor their fallen comrades at the monument's base, and the city continued to clean the monument and repair its vandalized facade. At one point, Radio Bremen invited listeners to turn out en masse and swaddle the monument in rags, blankets, and linen—à la Christo. All the networks covered this live "TV happening," to the great concern of local Christian Democratic Union politicians and veterans groups still attempting to protect the monument from its pubic. Eventually, the city gave up cleaning the monument, caught between its popular rejection as a glorification of war and the veterans' need for a place to honor their comrades. Having withstood the Allies' bombs, the monument also defeated the townspeople's own attempts to demolish it.

This memorial stone had become, in the punning vernacular, a "Stein des Anstosses"—an annoyance, a stone of contention—that just wouldn't go away.

For the generation of fools is numberless.

τῶν γὰρ ἠλιθίων / ἀπείρων γενέθλα.

If we take a good look at life, at the actions and decisions of men, we will see that for ten things done well, which are advantageous and useful to those who do them, there are thousands of things done badly, which are disadvantageous, completely useless, self-damaging, more or less, contrary to wisdom, to what a wise and perfectly prudent man would have decided or done, finding himself in that situation. We will see that most of the time men do not deliberate as mature adults when there is need of maturity, they do not recognize the importance of the things that they have to decide or do, do not have the least suspicion that it is useful or necessary that they consult other people on the matter, and do not enter into any consultation at all. I speak of great men and ordinary ones alike, [4059] of public and private matters, of things of relatively little or great importance. It is certain that the affairs of any men, which go badly, do not go that way (except rarely) without some fault or insufficiency on their own part. Now how then can looking for what is useful or advantageous to them be the rule for guessing at their actions and decisions? The number of absolutely stupid people, or of those inept for tasks or for matters that they have to manage, although they might be determined in other ways, or of those who are well suited to the task in hand, but not perfect, or of decisions and actions badly taken and badly done, useless and damaging to those who have done them or taken them, inappropriate to the matter in hand, or that in the end prove in the given circumstances not to have been the best; the number, I repeat, of such actions, decisions, and such men surpasses and has always surpassed by a long way that of the actions, decisions, and men who are their opposites, as appears from all ancient and modern stories of civil and military and private life, and from the observation of life as well as private and public events daily.

La mamma dei cretini è sempre incinta.

Apropos of grammars and syntaxes Krueger's Greek Grammar is a mirror of his life. The quarrel with his wife, his wrangle with the world, made themselves felt in the examples which he gathered from his Greek authors, and when the examples did not fit, he altered them to suit his mood—and fooled the men who copied him blindly. This was made known to me when I was a student in Berlin sixty odd years ago and it lent a new interest to a book, which gave me my first interest in syntax, and I sometimes wonder how many suspect that there is a human document in a schoolbook that came into the world shortly after the great conflict of the Civil War, out of which the author, who was not a mere compiler, emerged, crippled in body, shattered in fortune, with teeth set hard to meet the stress of fate, his eyes wet with tears for his fallen comrades; and yet with the gleam of a new love reflected in their depths. In the examples of my Latin Grammar of 1867 lies perdu the history of that period of my life. The first page of the Syntax shows my attitude towards the Civil War by a quotation from Ovid, <Non> tam | turpe fuit vinci quam contendisse decorum est (A.J.P. XXXV 234), and the poet of love is accountable for many examples of a different kind. The book is a breviary of love. My friend, Professor March, used to say that Hamlet belonged to Shakespeare's earlier period by reason of the large part that love plays in the drama, and anyone interested in the story of my life might recognize my state of mind in the many quotations from Ovid and Propertius. If the period of disillusionment should ever come, I said to myself, Krueger is at hand.

[1] When they came near to one another, his mother was the first to advance toward him to greet him, clad in rent garments of mourning and with her eyes melting with tears, an object of great compassion. Upon seeing her, Marcius, who till then had been hard-hearted and stern enough to cope with any distressing situation, could no longer keep any of his resolutions, but was carried away by his emotions into human kindness, and embracing her and kissing her, he called her by the most endearing terms, and supported her for a long time, weeping and caressing her as her strength failed and she sank to the ground. After he had had enough of caressing his mother, he greeted his wife when with their children she approached him, and said: [2] "You have acted the part of a good wife, Volumnia, in living with my mother and not abandoning her in her solitude, and to me you have done the dearest of all favours." After this, drawing each of his children to him, he gave them a father's caresses, and then, turning again to his mother, begged her to state what she had come to ask of him. She answered that she would speak out in the presence of all, since she had no impious request to make of him, and bade him be seated where he was wont to sit when administering justice to his troops. [3] Marcius willingly agreed to her proposal, thinking, naturally, that he should have a great abundance of just arguments to use in combating his mother's intercession and that he should be giving his answer where it was convenient for the troops to hear. When he came to the general's tribunal, he first ordered the lictors to remove the seat that stood there and to place it on the ground, since he thought he ought not to occupy a higher position than his mother or use against her any official authority. Then, causing the most prominent of the commanders and captains to sit by him and permitting any others to be present who wished, he bade his mother speak.

Whoever speaks or writes about you,
who, remembering you in your pride,
wouldn't say: She was great once; but no longer?
Why? What happened to our ancient strength,
the arms, the courage, the resolve?
Who stripped you of your sword?
Who betrayed you?
What treachery, what sabotage, what power
could take away your cloak and golden crown?
When did you fall, and how,
so low from such great heights?

Chi di te parla o scrive,        25
Che, rimembrando il tuo passato vanto,
Non dica: già fu grande, or non è quella?
Perchè, perchè? dov'è la forza antica,
Dove l'armi e il valore e la constanza?
Chi ti discinse il brando?        30
Chi ti tradì? qual arte o qual fatica
O qual tanta possanza
Valse a spogliarti il manto e l'auree bende?
Come cadesti o quando
Da tanta altezza in così basso loco?        35

And let no one interrupt me before he hears what I have to say.

καί μοι μὴ θορυβήσῃ μηδεὶς πρὶν ἀκοῦσαι.

O for an Asmodeus of morality who for his minion rendered transparent not merely roofs and walls, but also the veil of dissimulation, falseness, hypocrisy, grimace, lying, and deception that is spread over everything, and who enabled him to see how little genuine honesty is to be found in the world and how often injustice and dishonesty sit at the helm, secretly and in the innermost recess, behind all the virtuous outworks, even where we least suspect them. Hence we see the four-footed friendships of so many men of a better nature; for how could we recover from the endless dissimulation, duplicity, perfidy, and treachery of men if it were not for the dogs into whose open and honest eyes we can look without distrust? Our civilized world, then, is only a great masquerade; here we meet knights, parsons, soldiers, doctors, barristers, priests, philosophers, and the rest. But they are not what they represent themselves to be; they are mere masks beneath which as a rule moneymakers are hidden. One man dons the mask of the law which he has borrowed for the purpose from his barrister, merely in order to be able to come to blows with another. Again, for the same purpose, a second chooses the mask of public welfare and patriotism; a third that of religion or religious reform. Many have already donned for all kinds of purposes the mask of philosophy, philanthropy, and so on.

O, um einen Asmodäus der Moralität, welcher seinem Günstlinge nicht bloß Dächer und Mauern, sondern den über Alles ausgebreiteten Schleier der Verstellung, Falschheit, Heuchelei, Grimace, Lüge und Trug durchsichtig machte, und ihn sehn ließe, wie wenig wahre Redlichkeit in der Welt zu finden ist, und wie so oft, auch wo man es am wenigsten vermuthet, hinter allen den tugendsamen Außenwerken, heimlich und im innersten Receß, die Unrechtlichkeit am Ruder sißt. — Daher eben kommen die vierbeinigen Freundschaften so vieler Menschen besserer Art: denn freilich, woran sollte man sich von der endlosen Verstellung, Falschheit und Heimtücke der Menschen erholen, wenn die Hunde nicht wären, in deren ehrliches Gesicht man ohne Mißtrauen schauen kann? — Ist doch unsere civilisirte Welt nur eine große Maskerade. Man trifft daselbst Ritter, Pfaffen, Soldaten, Doktoren, Advokaten, Priester, Philosophen, und was nicht alles an! Aber sie sind nicht was sie vorstellen: sie sind bloße Masken, unter welchen, in der Regel, Geldspekulanten (moneymakers) stecken. Doch nimmt auch wohl Einer die Maske des Rechts, die er sich dazu beim Advokaten geborgt hat, vor, bloß um auf einen Andern tüchtig losschlagen zu können: wieder Einer hat, zum selben Zwecke, die des öffentlichen Wohls und des Patriotismus gewählt; ein Dritter die der Religion, der Glaubensreinigkeit. Zu allerlei Zwecken hat schon Mancher die Maske der Philosophie, wohl auch der Philanthropie u. dgl. m. vorgesteckt.

Be sure, therefore, to be men worthy of the freedom you possess.

ὅπως οὖν ἔσεσθε ἄνδρες ἄξιοι τῆς ἐλευθερίας ἧς κέκτησθε.

A great critic of our own time, Professor Momigliano, has referred to the 'sublime poverty' of his style.¹⁷ He was referring, I think, not only to the poet's deliberate restraint and economy of expression, but also to the actual size of his vocabulary—which is surprisingly small. But this 'poverty' was rather like a millionaire's whim to lead the simple life: it was founded upon riches. The years that he had spent in his philological studies, noting down innumerable words and phrases, tracing their origin and their development, had provided him with an unequalled storehouse to draw upon; and it is fascinating to observe the process of rejection and exclusion by which his personal lexicon was formed. He had always maintained that the exclusion of archaisms, as practised by some of his contemporaries and especially by the French, was an unnecessary and mistaken act of self-impoverishment, and there are a number of words which he always preferred to use in their old form. Indeed it was this deliberate use of archaisms, as well as the close web of classical reminiscence, which formed the very texture of his thought, that caused Tommaseo to observe maliciously that Leopardi's work was like a badly scraped palimpsest, in which, beneath the new writing, one can always perceive the old. But beside these archaisms there are a number of familiar, very simple words so frequently used by him, and so often linked to the same adjectives or verbs, that they have almost come to form a personal language. The night is almost always placida or quieta, the moon candida or tacita, solinga or pellegrina; the woods, too (selve, not boschi), are tacite; beauty is fugace or fuggitiva, and so is life (though sometimes, instead, sudata); fate is acerbo or duro; youth l'età verde or il fior degli anni miei, and life 'il viver mio'.¹⁸ Among the most frequent archaisms are speme or spene for speranza (generally linked to tanta or cotanta), desìo for desiderio, dì for giorno, alma for anima, donzella for giovanetta, beltà for bellezza, il sembiante for faccia; illusions are called inganni, errori, larve, fole; a bird is an augello, and a beast a fera; every sword becomes a ferro or a brando, and most houses an ostello. It is the conventional language of Petrarca and Tasso and subsequently of Metastasio, and yet, used by Leopardi's pen, the well-worn phrases undergo a strange alchemy: they are renewed, they become his own.

17. A. Momigliano, La poesia di Leopardi, in a series of lectures at the Lyceum of Florence.

18. Cf. Flora's Preface to his school edition of I Canti e le Prose scelte, pp. 9–14.

The Anabasis is not often quoted. Like the commentaries of Julius Caesar, the associations are too painful. Outside of 'Gallia omnis' and Κῦρος ἐξελαύνει, which serve the purpose of 'Arma virumque', there is seldom an allusion to either of these classic engines of torture. The boasted ἀφέλεια of Xenophon does not commend itself to the average schoolboy; the humour is very thin, and it is only the advanced student that tastes out the foreign tang in the honey of the Attic bee, or takes to heart the encomium of Aristeides. When it was my fortune to teach the Anabasis and correct Greek exercises based on the Anabasis, a favorite pedagogic device, I prepared, as much I must confess for my own sake as for the alleviation of my pupils, a special series of my own in which I narrated the adventures of a camp-follower of the Ten Thousand, whose report, couched in the language of Xenophon and treating of the same events, was not over-favorable to Themistogenes. My restlessness under the task made me anticipate Dürrbach. There is one passage, however, that everybody knows and everybody cites, the θάλαττα θάλαττα passage (4, 7, 24). One would think that celebrity and brevity would secure the famous cry from misquotation, but I was shocked the other day to find it cited as θάλασσα θάλασσα. At first the change seems to be a brutal change, but such are the refinements of modern scholarship that I asked myself whether it had not been made wittingly, and σσ substituted for ττ because of the Arcadians and other rough fellows who composed the Ten Thousand and who were not up to the refinements of the new Attic dialect.

ὦ Κλέων, παῦσαι φλυαρῶν· ἂν ὀκνῇς τὸ μανθάνειν,
ἀνεπικούρητον σεαυτοῦ τὸν βίον λήσεις ποῶν.
οὔτε γὰρ ναυαγός, ἂν μὴ γῆς λάβηται φερόμενος,
οὔποτ ̓ ἂν σώσειεν αὑτόν, οὔτ ̓ ἀνὴρ πένης γεγώς
μὴ οὐ τέχνην μαθὼν δύναιτ' ἂν ἀσφαλῶς ζῆν τὸν βίον.        5
κἂν μὲν ὁρμισθῇ τις ἡμῶν εἰς λιμένα τὸν <τῆς> τέχνης,
ἐβάλετ ̓ ἄγκυραν καθάψας ἀσφαλείας εἵνεκα·
ἂν δ' ἀπαιδεύτου μετάσχῃ πνεύματος φορούμενος,
τῆς ἀπορίας εἰς τὸ γῆρας οὐκ ἔχει σωτηρίαν.
ἀλλὰ χρήματ ̓ ἔστιν ἡμῖν. ἅ γε τάχιστ ̓ ἀπόλλυται.        10
κτήματ', οἰκίαι. τύχης δὲ μεταβολὰς οὐκ ἀγνοεῖς,
ὅτι τὸν εὔπορον τίθησι πτωχὸν εἰς τὴν αὔριον·
ἀλλ' ἑταῖροι καὶ φίλοι σοι καὶ συνήθεις, νὴ Δία,
ἔρανον εἰσοίσουσιν. εὔχου μὴ λαβεῖν πεῖραν φίλων.
εἰ δὲ μή, γνώσῃ σεαυτὸν ἄλλο μηδὲν πλὴν σκιάν.        15

γνώσει σεαυτόν ἄ. μ. πλ. σκ. übersetzt Grotius: comperies umbras esse, sc. amicos. Er muss also für σεαυτὸν etwas anderes gelesen haben, etwa γ' εκείνους. Wenn σεαυτὸν richtig ist, dann ist der letzte Satz unvollständig überliefert und hat der folgende Vers mit einem Participium, wie etwa ἐκτεθηρευκότα begonnen. Denn aus λαβεῖν vielleicht λαβόντα zu σεαυτὸν extrahiren zu wollen dürfte kaum als zulässig erscheinen.

OLD MAN Stop talking nonsense, Cleon; if you just won't try to learn,
You'll find your life's got no support to which a man can turn.
A poor man who's not learnt a trade can no more live secure
Than a sailorman can save his skin if he doesn't make the shore.
If one of us makes harbour in the trade he wants to ply,
He drops his anchor and ties up and lets the storms go by;
If one who's never learnt his job gets a bit tossed about,
He's in for trouble every time and won't see his way out.
CLEON Oh yes, we've got some money though—
                                               O.M. But that won't last you long.
C. And real property as well.
                                       O.M. But luck, you know, goes wrong,
And then your rich man of to-day's your poor man of to-morrow.
C. But all my kind acquaintances will join to let me borrow.
O.M. If you put friends to such a test you'll suffer for your faith;
You'll find as far as they're concerned you're nothing but a wraith.

O Cleon desine nugarum: nisi quid addiscas boni,
Non vides, ut omni auxilio vitam destituas tuam?
Namque ut naufragus natator terram nisi prehenderit
Non quit adipisci salutem: sic qui pauper factus est,
Artem nisi didicerit, vitam nequit in tuto ponere.        5
Sunt pecuniae mihi, inquis; nempe quae pereunt cito.
At domus sunt, sunt et agri: nescis fortunae vices,
Quæ perfacile divitem hodie cras mendicum fecerit?
Nostrum quisquam, si fortunae portum appulerit, anchoram
Dejicit, et sic extra pelagi se locat violentiam.        10
Hoc si eveniat imperito, raptus qua venti ferunt,
Nullum reperit, quod senecta pauper praesidium occupet.
Sed tribules et sodales et cognati conferent.
Imo opta illorum periclum ne sit faciendum tibi:
Sin eo venies, comperies umbras esse, aliud nihil.        15

Courage in the face of danger is not apt to be felt in equal measure by those who fight for their own blessings and by those who set out after what belongs to others. For the latter, if they do not succeed, suffer no loss, whereas the others, if they are defeated, have nothing left. And this is the chief reason why large armies have often been beaten by smaller ones and superior forces by inferior ones. For necessity is formidable, and a struggle in which life itself is at stake is capable of inspiring boldness in a man which was not already his by nature.

τὸ παρὰ τὰ δεινὰ εὔτολμον οὐκ ἐξ ἴσου παραγίνεσθαι φιλεῖ τοῖς θ' ὑπὲρ οἰκείων ἀγαθῶν ἀγωνιζομένοις καὶ τοῖς ἐπὶ τἀλλότρια πορευομένοις· οἱ μέν γ' οὐδέν, ἐὰν μὴ κατορθώσωσι, βλάπτονται, τοῖς δ' οὐδέν, ἐὰν πταίσωσι, καταλείπεται· καὶ τοῦ σφάλλεσθαι τὰς μεγάλας δυνάμεις ὑπὸ τῶν ἐλαττόνων καὶ τὰς κρείττους ὑπὸ τῶν φαυλοτέρων τοῦτ' ἐν τοῖς μάλιστ' αἴτιον ἦν. δεινὴ γὰρ ἡ ἀνάγκη, καὶ ὁ περὶ τῶν ἐσχάτων κίνδυνος ἱκανὸς θάρσος ἐνθεῖναί τινι καὶ μὴ προϋπάρχον φύσει.

Erudite controversies can go on for a long time. Repetition or fatigue is no bar. Of some, notably in sacred history, there never was a solution.

Hence the prolonged controversy, the echo and the annoyance of which is not yet mute. It serves no profit to retail opinions and arguments, to catalogue verdicts or even recantations.

Manifold harm accrues when passages are culled from a large work without estimating the sources, structure, and habits of the author—often a compiler.

His interest in his own language, which had begun during his philological studies in his boyhood, was perhaps the only passion of his youth that never failed him.

… Il cor di tutte
Cose alfin sente sazietà, del sonno,
Della danza, del canto e dell' amore,
Piacer più cari che il parlar di lingua;
Ma sazietà di lingua il cor non sente.*

Certainly the pages of the Zibaldone bear eloquent witness to the fact that, for Leopardi himself this statement was true! Some men have an addiction to drink, some to drugs, some to one particular human being: Leopardi had an addiction to words.¹²

* 'The heart at last tires of all things: of sleep, dance, song, and even love—pleasures sweeter than the gift of words—but of words themselves, the heart is never tired.' From Leopardi's notes to the Canzoni, Poesie e Prose, vol. I, p. 152.

12. 'The measure of a nation's genius', he affirmed, 'is the richness of its language, and when a language is insufficient to render in translation the subtleties of another, it is a sure sign that it belongs to a less cultivated people.' Zibaldone, I, pp. 730–1, 25 May 1821.

I thought you might be interested to know that today's quotation from Leopardi appears to be a reworking of Iliad 13.636-9, in the 19th century translation by Vincenzo Monti:

… Il cor di tutte
Cose alfin sente sazietà, del sonno,
Della danza, del canto e dell’amore,
Piacer più cari che la guerra; e mai
di guerra non saranno i Teucri?

πάντων μὲν κόρος ἐστὶ καὶ ὕπνου καὶ φιλότητος
μολπῆς τε γλυκερῆς καὶ ἀμύμονος ὀρχηθμοῖο,
τῶν πέρ τις καὶ μᾶλλον ἐέλδεται ἐξ ἔρον εἷναι
ἢ πολέμου· Τρῶες δὲ μάχης ἀκόρητοι ἔασιν.

Indeed, the relative frequency of χρή and δεῖ in different spheres and in different periods cannot have escaped any careful student of the orators, and I have alluded to it (A.J.P. XXVI 249) lightly as a matter of course, as one would allude to σύν and μετά, as one would allude to ἐθέλω and βούλομαι—familiar ear-marks all.¹ It has long been observed that there is but one δεῖ in Homer,² and there is but one δεῖ in Pindar, as there is but one βούλομαι. A convenient test is furnished by that paraenetic ragbag, the Theognidea. A rapid count reveals nearly a score of 'duty' χρή's, not a solitary δεῖ. χρή gives way to δεῖ in the later Attic orators, and finally δεῖ reigns. Eleusis is merged in Athens. χρή beats δεῖ in Antiphon, χρή beats δεῖ in Lysias, whereas, not being a professional, Andokides, 'the gentleman orator', as I have nicknamed him, is nearer to the later usage. With Isokrates the break begins. It is not necessary to count. A footrule will serve. The orators all follow. There are f.i. four times as many δεῖ's as χρή's in Hypereides, and all the χρή's go without much coaxing into the προσήκει category—the category of moral obligation. Heaven bless the indexes! There is no index to Isaios, so that I have had to count. In Isaios δεῖ draws off gradually, but winds up a good third ahead, a warning against averages made on the basis of segmental reading (A.J.P. VIII 221, footn.).

¹ In the Περὶ πολιτείας attributed to Herodes Atticus, Wilamowitz has noted, as who would not, the strong archaic flavour, which he considers characteristic of Herodes, whereas Drerup, largely on the ground of that very same archaic flavour, has surmised in the little document the hand of a political pamphleteer prior to 404. See his edition, Paderborn 1908. In this performance χρή beats δεῖ five to three, and in the same line of observation λέξαι (bis), λέξει, λέξειε are decidedly old-fashioned (C.W.E.M., A.J.P. XVI 162; XXXI 117). By the way, that Drerup should have retained ἴσως ἄν τις εἴπῃ (30) as an Homeric formula seems to me even more absurd than the retention of ἂν ἐρεῖ (Pind. N. 7, 68) as an Homeric reminiscence, ἴσως would kill any Homeric formula.

² The types made J.H.H. Schmidt (Syn. 3. 702) say that there is only one χρή in Homer. Of course, he meant δεῖ. A.J.P. XXVII 480.

Augustus praised, incinerated, and consecrated, the Senate was permitted to discuss the position of his successor.

Don't rebuke an old man when he makes a mistake;
it's difficult to transplant an old tree.

μὴ νουθέτει γέρονθ' ἁμαρτάνοντά τι·
δένδρον παλαιὸν μεταφυτεύειν δύσκολον.

All things are subject to change and nothing is apt to continue long in the same state. All things that wax too great, when they reach the peak of eminence, incur the displeasure of the gods and are brought to naught again. And this is the fate which comes especially to stubborn and haughty spirits and those that overstep the bounds of human nature.

μεταβολὰς ἔχει πάντα τὰ πράγματα καὶ οὐδὲν ἐπὶ τῶν αὐτῶν φιλεῖ διαμένειν, νεμεσᾶταί τε πάντα ὑπὸ θεῶν τὰ ὑπερέχοντα, ὅταν εἰς ἄκρον ἐπιφανείας ἀφίκηται, καὶ τρέπεται πάλιν εἰς τὸ μηδέν. μάλιστα δὲ τοῦτο πάσχει τὰ σκληρὰ καὶ μεγάλαυχα φρονήματα καὶ τοὺς ὅρους ἐκβαίνοντα τῆς ἀνθρωπίνης φύσεως.

'Tis oftener the tall pine that is shaken by the wind; 'tis the lofty towers that fall with the heavier crash, and 'tis the tops of the mountains that the lightning strikes.

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

As for men of letters, about whom you ask, in truth I have met few of them, and those few have destroyed any wish on my part to meet others. They all expect to achieve immortality in a coach and pair, the way bad Christians think they can get to Heaven. According to them the summit of human wisdom, or rather man's sole true science, is antiquarianism. I still have not managed to meet a Roman man of letters who understands by the term literature anything other than archeology. Philosophy, ethics, politics, knowledge of the human heart, eloquence, poetry, philology: all this is foreign to Rome, and seems child's play, compared with finding out whether some bit of copper or stone belonged to Mark Anthony or Mark Agrippa. The joke is that a Roman who has a real mastery of Latin or Greek is not to be found; without a perfect knowledge of those languages, you are well aware what the study of antiquity can amount to. They gossip and argue all day long, they jeer at each other in the journals, they form cabals and cliques, and that is how Roman literature lives and moves forward.

Come now, what kind of man should I be if, deprived as I am of the glory and honours I ought to be receiving from my fellow citizens to whom I have rendered great services, and, in addition to this, driven away from my country, my family, my friends, from the gods and sepulchres of my ancestors and from every enjoyment, and if, finding all these things among you against whom I made war for their sake, I should not become harsh toward those whom I have found enemies instead of fellow citizens, and helpful to those whom I have found friends instead of enemies? For my part, I could not count as a real man anyone who feels neither anger against those who make war upon him nor affection for those who seek his preservation. And I regard as my fatherland, not that state which has renounced me, but the one of which I, an alien, have become a citizen; and as a friendly land, not the one in which I have been wronged, but that in which I find safety.

φέρε δή, τίς ἂν εἴην ἀνήρ, εἰ δόξης καὶ τιμῶν, ὧν προσῆκέ μοι παρὰ τοῖς ἐμαυτοῦ πολίταις τυγχάνειν πρὸς τῶν εὖ παθόντων ἀποστερηθείς, πρὸς δὲ τούτοις πατρίδος τε καὶ οἴκου καὶ φίλων καὶ θεῶν πατρῴων καὶ τάφων προγονικῶν καὶ παντὸς ἄλλου ἀπελασθεὶς ἀγαθοῦ, παρ᾽ ὑμῖν δ᾽ ἅπαντα ταῦθ᾽ εὑρών, οἷς ἐκείνων χάριν ἐπολέμουν, εἰ μὴ γενοίμην χαλεπὸς μὲν οἷς ἀντὶ πολιτῶν ἐχθροῖς κέχρημαι, χρηστὸς δ᾽ οἷς ἀντὶ πολεμίων φίλοις; ἀλλ᾽ ἔγωγ᾽ οὐδ᾽ ἐν ἀνδρὸς μοίρᾳ θείην ἄν, ὅστις μήτε τὸ πολεμοῦν δι᾽ ὀργῆς ἔχει μήτε τὸ σῶζον ἑαυτὸν δι᾽ εὐνοίας. πατρίδα θ᾽ ἡγοῦμαι οὐ τὴν ἀπαρνησαμένην με πόλιν, ἀλλ᾽ ἧς ἀλλότριος ὢν πολίτης γέγονα, γῆν τ᾽ οὐκ ἐν ᾗ ἠδίκημαι φίλην, ἀλλ᾽ ἐν ᾗ τὸ ἀσφαλὲς ἔχω.

Lord, great and invincible, you who have received the body of Attis, please receive the body of the one who took away my baggage, who robbed me (by stealing it) from the house of Hispanus (or 'the Spaniard'). His body (viz. the thief's) and his soul I give (you), I confer on you in order that I may find my possessions. Then I vow to give you a four-footed sacrificial victim, Lord Attis, if I find that thief. Lord Attis, I implore you by your Nocturnus, that you make me obtain my wish as soon as possible.

Domine Megare
invicte, tu qui Attidis
corpus accepisti, accipias cor-
pus eius qui meas sarcinas
supstulit, qui me compilavit        5
de domo Hispani. Illius corpus
tibi et anima(m) do dono ut meas
res inveniam. Tunc tibi (h)ostia(m)
quadrupede(m) do(mi)ne, Attis, voveo,
si eu(m) fure(m) invenero. Dom(i)ne        10
Attis, te rogo per tuum Nocturnum
ut me quam primu(m) compote(m) facias.

I don't believe in paradise on earth and even less in heaven.

On St John's eve, 1817, an insurrection—the first in Italy—broke out in Macerata, with the object of overthrowing the Papal government. 'When God, the All Highest, wishes to punish His people, He places them under the government of fools'—so ran a proclamation posted one night upon the walls of Recanati...

Rare names are a rare delight, and often instructive.

Rare nomina are pure delight...

Rare nomina attract and captivate.

I went with the schoolmaster to look at the local antiquities; and the stroll was rewarded by the sight of one precious human document which might have something to say for the education of women in ancient Karystos. On the beach, amid the acres of ancient blocks already mentioned, lies one of pure white marble fresh from the bottom of the sea; and from it I have the joy of copying an inscription which no archaeologist had yet seen. The block is a statue-basis and it registers the fact that "Phrynis, Praxagoras' daughter and wife of Eurytides, priestess of Artemis and Apollo, out of her own [means], dedicated the agalma of Artemis in payment of a vow." Ah, Phrynis, it was immortal luck your giving the goddess that agalma 'out of your own' and the act has floated your fair name over twenty centuries of oblivion. And what store of biography your stone-cutter chiselled in this little space: of how many ancient worthies we shall forever seek in vain to learn as much. Lend me a poet for an hour up yonder in the glen and you shall see again fair Phrynis as she lived and the incense from the altar of Leto's Twins shall sweeten this air you breathe.

Φρυνὶς Πραξαγόρου, γυνὴ δὲ Εὐρυτίδου, ἡ ἱέρεια τῆ̣ς Ἀρτέμιδος καὶ τοῦ Ἀπόλλωνος τὸ ἄγαλμα τῆς Ἀρτέμιδος ἐκ τῶν ἰδίων ἀνέθηκεν εὐχήν.

Just as I was giving way to the affecting reveries which such an object [the sepulchral chapel of Pedro I and Inês de Castro] could not fail of exciting in a bosom the least susceptible of romantic impressions, in came the Grand Priors hand in hand, all three together. "To the kitchen," said they in perfect unison,—"to the kitchen, and that immediately; you will then judge whether we have been wanting in zeal to regale you."

Such a summons, so conveyed, was irresistible; the three prelates led the way to, I verily believe, the most distinguished temple of gluttony in all Europe. What Glastonbury may have been in its palmy state, I cannot answer; but my eyes never beheld in any modern convent of France, Italy, or Germany, such an enormous space dedicated to culinary purposes. Through the centre of the immense and nobly-groined hall, not less than sixty feet in diameter, ran a brisk rivulet of the clearest water, flowing through pierced wooden reservoirs, containing every sort and size of the finest river-fish. On one side, loads of game and venison were heaped up; on the other, vegetables and fruit in endless variety. Beyond a long line of stoves extended a row of ovens, and close to them hillocks of wheaten flour whiter than snow, rocks of sugar, jars of the purest oil, and pastry in vast abundance, which a numerous tribe of lay brothers and their attendants were rolling out and puffing up into an hundred different shapes singing all the while as blithely as larks in a corn-field.

My servants, and those of their reverend excellencies the two Priors, were standing by in the full glee of witnessing these hospitable preparations, as well pleased, and as much flushed, as if they had been just returned from assisting at the marriage at Cana in Galilee. "There," said the Lord Abbot,—"we shall not starve: God's bounties are great, it is fit we should enjoy them."

Live as on plunder^b and pluck fleeting joys.

^b On borrowed time, in modern idiom.

vive velut rapto fugitivaque gaudia carpe.

Vive...carpe: i.e. make the most of this new lease of life. — rapto: here a noun; cf. the idiom rapto (ex rapto) vivere. This new span of life is like plunder stolen from Pluto himself, which Pluto may at any moment seek to recover; hence one who wishes to get full use of it must use it at once. — fugitiva...gaudia: cf. 1.15.8 N. — carpe: cf. Hor. C. 1.11.8 carpe diem; Ov. A.A. 3.661 aliae tua gaudia carpent.

For, come now, if anyone should ask you what you regard as the greatest of the evils that befall states and the cause of the swiftest destruction, would you not say it is discord? I, at least, think you would.

φέρε γάρ, εἴ τις ὑμᾶς ἔροιτο, τί μέγιστον οἴεσθε εἶναι τῶν καταλαμβανόντων κακῶν τὰς πόλεις, καὶ τοῦ ταχίστου τῶν ὀλέθρων αἴτιον, ἆρ᾽ οὐχὶ τὴν διχοστασίαν εἴποιτ᾽ ἄν; ἐμοὶ γοῦν δοκεῖ.

My only fear is that attention will be called, not to the persistence of the Journal, but to the age of the Editor, and I shall be moved to protest, however ineffectually, as I protested publicly some years ago, against the opprobrious epithet of Nestor. 'To me', said I, 'Nestor is the only hateful character in the Iliad. In the Odyssey he is more tolerable. In my eyes the chief merit of Nestor is the witness he bears to the realism of Homer. The Marquis of Salisbury yawned when he delivered his first speech in Parliament. Homer must have yawned when he composed one of Nestor's long discourses. If Homer nods, it is in response to the nid-nod-nodding of Nestor. If Homer is a bore, it is when he tells us how Nestor holds Patroklos by the antique substitute for the buttonhole until he spins out his yarn about his own youthful exploits. In vain does the son of Menoitios protest οὐχ ἕδος ἐστί [Iliad 11.648]. But the grievance of grievances is that Nestor has left a name to be fastened on every man who, to avail myself of the schoolboy's translation of μετὰ τριτάτοισιν ἄνασσεν [Iliad 1.252], has the opportunity of making an ass of himself in the sight of the third generation. Juvenal cites Nestor as a deterrent answer to the prayer: Da spatium vitae, multos da, Juppiter, annos [10.188]; for he survived Antilochus, he survived everybody and everything except his self-complacency.

The lamp of our youth shall be utterly out, and we shall subsist on the smell of it;
And whatever we do we shall fold our hands and suck our gums and think well of it.
Yes, we shall be perfectly pleased with ourselves, and that is the perfectest hell of it.

A Shakespearian reminiscence of Kipling's [The Old Men, lines 20-22]. 'Let me not live', quoth he, 'After my flame lacks oil to be the snuff Of younger spirits'. (All's Well, i.2[.301-302]). It is this self-complacency that makes Philokleon in the Wasps so loathsome as he hiccups out; The older fellow floored the younger chap— πρεσβύτερος κατέβαλε τὸν νεώτερον [Wasps 1385]. It is this self-complacency that takes away any pleasure I should have in contemplating the Teniers-like interior of the Nestorian cabin, and the portrait of fair-tress'd Hekamede, whose functions were limited to setting the table and drawing the bath and mixing the liquors of this garrulous prototype of Old King Cole, who showed his vigour by the ease with which he raised his punch-bowl. Νέστωρ δ᾿ ὁ γέρων ἀμογητὶ ἄειρεν' [Iliad 11.637]. True, this is a favorite quotation of mine, but it is not because of Homer's truth to human nature and the persistency of senile vanity, but because of the Attic article ὁ γέρων therein contained (S.C.G. 514).

But it seemeth he had no desire at all to meddle in the government: because in those days it was impossible for any man to give good and profitable counsel for the commonwealth, and not incur the displeasure of the people. For their opinion was such of their own power, and of the facility of achieving whatsoever action they undertook, that such men only swayed the assemblies, and were esteemed wise and good commonwealth's men, as did put them upon the most dangerous and desperate enterprizes. Whereas he that gave them temperate and discreet advice, was thought a coward, or not to understand, or else to malign their power. And no marvel: for much prosperity (to which they had now for many years been accustomed) maketh men in love with themselves; and it is hard for any man to love that counsel which maketh him love himself the less.

[2] Would you not become indignant and complain that you were treated outrageously if anyone deprives you of your freedom of speech and of your liberty by threatening to visit the extreme penalty upon any who have spoken frankly in behalf of the people? [3] You cannot deny that you would. Then do you think it reasonable that others should bear what you yourselves would not submit to?

[2] ἆρ᾽ οὐκ ἂν ἀγανακτήσαιτε καὶ δεινὰ φαίητε πάσχειν, εἰ τὴν παρρησίαν ἀφαιρήσεταί τις ὑμᾶς καὶ τὴν ἐλευθερίαν, τὸν ὑπὲρ τῶν ἐσχάτων κίνδυνον ἐπιθεὶς τοῖς ἐλευθέραν φωνὴν ὑπὲρ τοῦ δήμου φθεγξαμένοις; [3] οὐκ ἔνεστ᾽ ἄλλως εἰπεῖν. ἔπειθ᾽ ἃ παθεῖν οὐκ ἂν ὑπομείναιτε αὐτοί, ταῦθ᾽ ἑτέρους πάσχοντας ἀνέχεσθαι δικαιοῦτε;

Follow my advice, moderate your behaviour, and bear as fellow-citizens should, rather than with ill humour, the words which give you offence.

ἐμοὶ συμβούλῳ χρησάμενοι μετριάσατε καὶ τοὺς λόγους, ἐφ᾽ οἷς ἄχθεσθε, πολιτικῶς καὶ μὴ δυσοργήτως ἐνέγκατε.

If we don't enjoy those things we have, but seek those we don't have, we'll be deprived of the latter by fate, of the former by our own fault.

ἂν οἷς ἔχομεν τούτοισι μηδὲ χρώμεθα,
ἃ δ' οὐκ ἔχομεν ζητῶμεν, ὧν μὲν διὰ τύχην,
ὧν δὲ δι' ἑαυτοὺς ἐσόμεθ' έστερημένοι.

Juvenal might have been away from Rome for several years on military service as an equestrian officer. Not impossible. To go further is to go lower—to lapse into byways frequented by scholiasts and their modern disciples.

[3] Otherwise you would be the most foolish of all men if, after regarding it as intolerable to be governed by one tyrant, you should now deliver yourselves up to the populace, a many-headed tyranny, and grant these things to them, not as a gracious concession to their pleading, but constrained by necessity and, on the assumption that it is not in our power to do anything else now, yielding against your will. [4] And when this senseless multitude, instead of being punished for its offences, even obtains honours as a reward for those offences, how headstrong and arrogant do you think it will become? For do not encourage yourselves with the hope that the people will moderate their demands if it becomes known to them that you all concurred in this resolution.

[3] ἢ πάντων ἂν εἴητε ἀφρονέστατοι, εἰ πρὸς ἑνὸς ἄρχεσθαι τυραννικοῦ ἀνδρὸς οὐκ ἀνασχετὸν ἡγησάμενοι δήμῳ τυραννίδι πολυκεφάλῳ νῦν ὑμᾶς αὐτοὺς παραδώσετε, καὶ ταῦτ᾽ οὐ μετὰ χαρίτων αὐτῷ πείθοντι συγχωρήσετε ὑπό τ᾽ ἀνάγκης κρατηθέντες καὶ ὡς οὐκ ἐξὸν ἄλλο τι δρᾶν νῦν ἡμῖν παρὰ γνώμην εἴξαντες. [4] ὅταν δὲ τὸ ἀνόητον ἀντὶ τοῦ κολάζεσθαι ἐφ᾽ οἷς ἂν πλημμελήσῃ καὶ τὸ τιμᾶσθαι δι᾽ αὐτὰ προσλάβῃ, πῶς δοκεῖτε αὔθαδες ἔσται καὶ ὑπερήφανον; μὴ γὰρ δὴ ἐκείνῃ τῇ ἐλπίδι ἐπαίρεσθε, ὡς μετριάσει περὶ τὰς ἀξιώσεις ὁ δῆμος, ἐὰν φανερὸν αὐτῷ γένηται, ὅτι ὑμεῖς ἅπαντες ἐψηφίσασθε οὕτως.

And if we are under the tyranny, not of one man, but of a whole populace, what is the difference? For the effect of both is the same.

εἰ δ᾽ οὐχ ὑφ᾽ ἑνὸς ἀνδρός, ἀλλ᾽ ὑφ᾽ ὅλου τυραννούμεθα δήμου, τί τοῦτο διαφέρει; τὸ γὰρ ἔργον ἐξ ἀμφοῖν ταὐτό.

What a language teacher is Experience—especially when one gets into a scrape and must get out of it again by dint of Greek! It throws people together and lets loose the stammering tongue. Moreover, to learn one language one should isolate himself from every other. It is so easy to slide into the more familiar when you can. A hungry tramp will saw wood and the stupid Barbarian will speak Greek—if he must. I suspect there are shoals of lads in our schools and colleges who will never catch it except by this sort of exposure and isolation; and it would be money saved to scatter some ship-loads of them among these 'Isles of Greece.' They would gain, too, more than mere language: what a revelation of Nature at her loveliest, of antique life surviving in its strength and simplicity! One summer in the Cyclades should prepare even the schoolboy Philistine to enjoy his Homer and to find choice society in Plutarch. What our Greek needs is the touch of reality, the warm breath of life: undo the cerements and roll away the stone. Greek is not dead—at least, out of school!

Why, pray, did Prometheus, who, they say, formed us and all other animals, give to each of the beasts his own peculiar nature? All lions are brave, whereas all hares are timid. Then, as to the foxes, one is not cunning and another simple in its nature; but if thou wert to collect three myriads of foxes, they would all have the same nature and the same habits. With man it is different; whatever number of persons there are, the same will be found the number of minds and of characters.

τί ποτε Προμηθεύς, ὃν λέγουσ' ἡμᾶς πλάσαι
καὶ τἄλλα πάντα ζῷα, τοῖς μὲν θηρίοις
ἔδωχ' ἑκάστῳ κατὰ γένη μίαν φύσιν;
ἅπαντες οἱ λέοντες εἰσιν ἄλκιμοι,
δειλοὶ πάλιν ἑξῆς πάντες εἰσὶν οἱ λαγοί·        5
οὐκ ἔστ' ἀλώπηξ ἡ μὲν εἴρων τῇ φύσει
ἡ δ' αὐθέκαστος, ἀλλ ̓ ἐὰν τρισμυρίας
ἀλώπεκας τις συναγάγη, μίαν φύσιν
ἁπαξαπασῶν ὄψεται τρόπον θ' ἕνα.
ἡμῶν δ' ὅσα καὶ τὰ σώματ' ἐστὶ τὸν ἀριθμὸν        10
καθ' ἑνός, τοσούτους ἔστι καὶ τρόπους ἰδεῖν.

11 καθ' ἑνός codd.: καθ' ἕνα Meineke

If you consider Luni, Urbisaglia—
   how they've ceased to be—and how Chiusi
   and Senigallia soon will join them,
then to hear how families come to nothing
   will not seem strange or difficult to grasp,
   since even cities cease to be.

Se tu riguardi Luni ed Urbisaglia
   Come son ite, e come se ne vanno
   Diretro ad esse Chiusi e Sinigaglia,
Udir come le schiatte si disfanno
   Non ti parrà nuova cosa nè forte,
   Poscia che le cittadi termine hanno.

73. Se tu ecc.: se consideri come si siano spente città un tempo grandi e famose, come Luni (cfr. Inf., XX, 47) o Urbisaglia (il municipio di Urbs Salvia nelle Marche), e altre se ne stiano spegnendo a poco poco, quali Chiusi (antico centro etrusco oggi ridotto a piccola città) e Sinigaglia (l'antica Sena Gallica, decaduta nel secolo XIII, a cagione di saccheggi subiti e della malaria), e se rifletti che anche la vita delle città, come quella di ogni organismo, è soggetta a corruzione e distruzione; non ti parrà strano udire come muoiano le schiatte, le famiglie. — Cfr. Summa theol., III, suppl., q. XCIX, 1: «perpetuo homo non manet; etiam ipsa civitas deficit».

"What other power, indeed," he asked, "shall we have after this, if we are not allowed even that of speaking?"

"τίνος γὰρ ἂν ἔτι γενοίμεθ", ἔφη, "κύριοι τῶν ἄλλων, εἰ μηδὲ τοῦ λέγειν ἐσόμεθα;"

For words, I presume, are the beginning of all action; and it is obvious that those who are not allowed to say what they think will not be allowed to do, either, what they please.

ἄρχουσι γὰρ δήπου παντὸς ἔργου λόγοι, καὶ οὐκ ἄδηλον, ὅτι οἷς εἰπεῖν ἃ φρονοῦσιν οὐκ ἔξεστιν, οὐδὲ πρᾶξαι ἂν ἐξείη, ἃ βούλονται.

M. MASQUERAY'S Bibliographie Pratique de la littérature grecque (Paris, Klincksieck) is intended for the use of French novices in classical philology, and must be measured by that standard; and, which is very refreshing, it is thoroughly imbued with the personality of the compiler, who is much more than a compiler. In M. MASQUERAY'S eyes 'ten verses of Sophokles are worth more than ten books of scholia, were they of Didymos or Aristarchos', and those who are acquainted with M. MASQUERAY'S special studies will understand the comparative fulness of certain sections. The tone is that of a teacher in the circle of his pupils, a paternal tone, more paternal perhaps than it would be twenty years hence, which one hopes M. MASQUERAY may be spared to see. No dry list of books is this bibliography of M. MASQUERAY's. It is full of caprices—caprices which affect sometimes the spelling and accentuation; but it is a delightful book for all that, perhaps by reason of all that, and I should be glad to surrender to it all the pages reserved for the current Brief Mention. It opens with a chapter of advice to beginners—sound advice for the latitude and longitude of Bordeaux. It enlivens the dusty way of bibliography by summaries of situations, the 'gegenwärtiger Stand' business and by criticisms of books, always brief, now caustic, now kindly, and in the main just, so far as my knowledge goes. One wishes there were more of these comments, but the author exercises his sovereign pleasure in such matters; and so from time to time he refers his pupils to the leading reviews of the work in question. But you can't count on your cicerone; and when he gets tired of all the necessary aridity of the subject, he refers the student to the Bursian-Kroll Jahresbericht or to the Berliner Wochenschrift; for whilst he puts French editions and French works of reference first, and his criticisms of French articles constitute a valuable feature of the book, the bulk of the bibliography is German. M. MASQUERAY is no chauviniste, and in fact he begins by doing homage to German erudition and German methods. 'Whoever', he says, 'wishes to study Greek antiquity seriously must know German'. 'L'allemand est la langue qu'il lui importe le plus de connaître. Il ne la saura jamais assez'. The italics are his, but there is no escaping the justice of the law thus emphatically laid down; and in like manner the first question the American teacher asks the intending philologian is, 'Do you know German?'

For fortune is indeed a great weight in the scales; I might almost say it is everything in human affairs.

μεγάλη γὰρ ῥοπή, μᾶλλον δὲ τὸ ὅλον ἡ τύχη παρὰ πάντ᾽ ἐστὶ τὰ τῶν ἀνθρώπων πράγματα.

O my country, I can see the walls
and arches and the columns and the statues
and lonely towers of our ancestors,
but I don't see the glory;
I don't see the laurel and the sword
our ancient fathers wore.
Your forehead and your breast are naked,
undefended.

O patria mia, vedo le mura e gli archi
E le colonne e i simulacri e l'erme
Torri degli avi nostri,
Ma la gloria non vedo,
Non vedo il lauro e il ferro ond'eran carchi
I nostri padri antichi. Or fatta inerme,
Nuda la fronte e nudo il petto mostri.

In well-framed polities, innovation—great innovation that is—can only be occasional. If you are always altering your house, it is a sign either that you have a bad house, or that you have an excessively restless disposition—there is something wrong somewhere. Just so a nation which is for ever having great eras, changing fundamental laws, founding new constitutions, is either very unfortunate in its old polity, or very fickle in its disposition—perhaps it may be both. In any case there is no hope for steady happiness in such a State. Happiness, as far as it is affected by politics, needs a good, or at any rate a suitable, inherited polity, and a tenacious resolution not to change that polity without reason shown. The most successful nations have erred on the other side, and have evinced a stupid inability to admit even the best reasons.

"Primitive" is hardly the word for the culture which produced the Altamira paintings; thus at the very outset Iberian archaeology induces that sense of perspective, proportion, even humility, which is one of archaeology's great rewards. We come to recognize a little better our place in space and time, to be a little more careful about using "modern" as a word of praise and "ancient" as one of scorn; even to recognize "modernity" wherever, as at Altamira, there is evidence of the vital spark of creative genius.

He fell with a thud, and his armor rattled upon him.

δούπησεν δὲ πεσών, ἀράβησε δὲ τεύχε᾽ ἐπ᾽ αὐτῷ.

He slumped from his chariot, and loathsome darkness took him.

ἤριπε δ᾽ ἐξ ὀχέων, στυγερὸς δ᾽ ἄρα μιν σκότος εἷλε.

He screamed and fell to his knees, and death enfolded him.

γνὺξ δ᾽ ἔριπ᾽ οἰμώξας, θάνατος δέ μιν ἀμφεκάλυψε.

He collapsed in the dust, teeth clamped on the cold bronze.

ἤριπε δ᾽ ἐν κονίῃ, ψυχρὸν δ᾽ ἕλε χαλκὸν ὀδοῦσιν.

                                                                        His eyes
were closed by blood-red death and all-mastering fate.

                                                       τὸν δὲ κατ᾽ ὄσσε
ἔλλαβε πορφύρεος θάνατος καὶ μοῖρα κραταιή.

On the 'scrub' see Myres, Greek Lands and the Greek People, p. 24, who is, however, in error in saying that, owing to the absence of berry-bearing plants, 'the Greek world is, in general, a jamless world.' 'On the contrary,' writes Mr. Atchley, it is par excellence a berry-bearing country. Blackberries are abundant, whilst myrtle, lentisk, arbutus, juniper, bryony, all produce quantities of berries. Wild pears are abundant all over Greece, wild plums are not uncommon, while raspberries and strawberries abound in Pindus.' It was the lack of sugar, not of berries, which made ancient Greece jamless.

Quinces could be boiled with wine and water to make a kind of pulmentarium (Pliny NH 15.58). There are many recipes and instructions for conserving them so as to retain their food value through the winter, whether whole or cooked down. They combined particularly well with honey. Recipes can be found for kydonion syn meliti 'quince in honey' and kydonion en staiti 'quince in fat' (Oribasius CM 41.20 quoting Rufus of Ephesus): see Grant 1999 pp. 111-12 for modern interpretations of these. A more homogenised product, a distant ancestor of modern quince marmalade or quince cheese, was kydonomeli or melomeli, mentioned by Columella (DA 12.47): a recipe for this is supplied by Dioscorides (MM 5.21 = Oribasius CM 5.25.16). A fermented drink, essentially a fruit wine, was made from this and was known in Greek as hydromelon (Dioscorides MM 5.22; Galen BM 6.744). There is also a recipe for steeping quinces in grape wine to make what was known in Greek as kydonites oinos or melites oinos 'quince wine, apple wine' (Dioscorides MM 5.20). Finally there is a recipe for a kind of quince jam, known as cydonites, a preserve with the consistency of honey (Palladius OA 11.20); and one for a quince syrup or cordial, to apo ton kydonion melon (Oribasius CM 5.20 quoting Philagrius). All these conserves had medicinal uses, and it is generally in medical sources that the recipes are found.

Voltaire somewhere says that facts are vermin that infest history and prevent understanding. Another feature may be found even more repellent. The perpetual expansion of the governing class at Rome is nothing but the annals of the few and the fortunate.

The concept of élite, like the word itself, enjoys a certain disfavour in the modern time. Historical scholarship takes to embracing the labouring poor with eager solicitude or with doctrinaire affection. Not to much profit or exhilaration, at least as concerns the study of antiquity. Peasants and slaves did not speak or write, their condition denied them freedom of action. By good fortune, the Hellenes, although not always in possession of the liberty which they cherish even to excess, exhibit and avow a strong tendency to be active, visible, and vocal.

Malheur aux détails! la postérité les néglige tous: c'est une vermine qui tue les grands ouvrages.

Hear me, unwearying child of Zeus of the aegis!
If ever with kindly heart you stood beside my father
in the madness of battle, now befriend me too, Athēnē!
Let me take down this man, let him come within my spear cast,
whose shot caught me unawares, who now boasts over me, who
swears that not for much longer shall I look on the sun's bright light.

κλῦθί μοι, αἰγιόχοιο Διὸς τέκος, Ἀτρυτώνη·        115
εἴ ποτέ μοι καὶ πατρὶ φίλα φρονέουσα παρέστης
δηΐῳ ἐν πολέμῳ, νῦν αὖτ᾽ ἐμὲ φῖλαι, Ἀθήνη·
τόνδέ τέ μ᾽ ἄνδρα ἑλεῖν καὶ ἐς ὁρμὴν ἔγχεος ἐλθεῖν,
ὅς μ᾽ ἔβαλε φθάμενος καὶ ἐπεύχεται, οὐδέ μέ φησιν
δηρὸν ἔτ᾽ ὄψεσθαι λαμπρὸν φάος ἠελίοιο.        120

ἀτρυτώνη occurs 5x Il., 3x Od. as an epithet for Athene and as part of the formula (αἰγιόχοιο) Διὸς τέκος, ἀτρυτώνη as here. Derivation is uncertain, but probably from τρύω, cf. τείρω, 'wear out', and therefore 'unwearied' as in Aeschylus, Eum. 403, ἄτρυτον πόδα; in which case the capital letter adopted in many modern texts is unjustified.

We not only strip the jackdaw of his feathers and trace each feather to the part of the bird from which it is taken, but we run down the fable of the feathers itself to its ultimate source. The quest has the irresistible charm of the detective story. One becomes a Gaboriau, a Sherlock Holmes. It is so throughout the whole field of philology. Whence that interpretation? Whence that emendation? Whence that formula? The whole thing is a tradition from the days of the Alexandrian grammatici; and the fragments thereof remain in the scholia. Our modern methods are more exact, more persistent, and there are few of our leaders who dare say with Wilamowitz that like Plato they care more for the λόγος than for οἱ λέγοντες. In periods of creative activity your healthy ancient, yes, your healthy modern, troubled himself little about sources, about the charge of plagiarism. These periods over, the packs of Alexandrian scholars, of modern scholars, have busied themselves in nosing out the origin of this fancy and that fancy, this and that story. No man is supposed to have a brook of his own; everybody is supposed to have drawn from the tank of some other man, as Coleridge puts it. What would Shakespeare have cared about all the proofs of his indebtedness? Molière snapped his fingers at those who made him out to be under heavy obligations to Spain. And, to cite a very modern instance, Charles Reade was notoriously a thief of the world. 'The pedigree of honey', sings the New England Sappho, 'Does not concern the bee'. Most assuredly it did not concern the Matinian bee. It did not concern Vergil. The Roman poets rifled Greek prose as well as Greek poetry. Every fresh find of Greek lyric fragments contributes to the sources of Horace. But as has been well said: If Alkaios and the rest of the nine lyric poets were to rise from the dead, Horace would still be Horace.

The Ludovisi battle sarcophagus made from a single block of marble is the biggest and artistically one of the most important Roman sarcophagi. The deceased appears in the midst of a battle against barbarians as the victorious commander. The barbarians are shown as inferior people over whom the Roman troops can triumph with ease. The commander is denoted with a cross on his forehead (not satisfactorily explained). Since at least one other portrait of him survives, he must have been a rather well-known personality. Rome. Museo Nazionale Romano. Palazzo Altemps. Around 260.

Here we would like to cast at least a brief look at the famous battle sarcophagi which depict the victories of Roman troops over barbarians. They form a small group to which little importance is generally attached, with the exception of the Ludovisi sarcophagus (Ill. 207). The sarcophagus workshops originally articulated the battle theme through mythological and historical battles (Greeks against Amazons, Romans against Gauls), without a chief protagonist, and the fighting itself was evidently used as a formula for virtus. But later the figure of the commander would be highlighted as the victor amidst the mêlée of a great battle scene. The most arresting example is the Ludovisi battle sarcophagus, made at some time after 260, whose size and unusually high quality make it one of the most important of all Roman sarcophagi. The man who is buried in the sarcophagus and clearly commemorated in the portrait of the victor was once thought to be a son of the emperor, but may well have been a noble young officer, since at least one other surviving portrait head represents the same man. But this is just as uncertain as is the commander rank on the other military commander sarcophagi; here too, even more clearly than on those, the figure of the victorious emperor served as the epitome of all virtus. The young commander appears like the emperor, with his victorious gesture in the midst of the barbarians who have been mown down by the Roman legionaries. The barbarians are depicted not as dangerous opponents, but as despicable and ugly figures, who need to be wiped from the face of the earth. The relief shows not so much a victorious battle as a massacre, creating the impression that the culture of the Imperium Romanum can only be saved by the extermination of the barbarians. As if divorced from both time and place, the commander with his victory gesture is untouched by the horrors unfolding around him: he is surrounded only by the aura of the victory which the trumpets are sounding.

At the time when the Ludovisi sarcophagus was produced, this kind of battle representation had long fallen out of fashion in the sarcophagus workshops. Like the military-commander sarcophagi, these other battle reliefs date back to the late second century. Perhaps their popularity was connected with the political and social mood of part of the elite in the face of the first serious threat to imperial power by barbarians at the time of Marcus Aurelius and Commodus.

Hence the outcome is strife and contention among yourselves, some taking this side and some that, while the interests of the state suffer.

περίεστι τοίνυν ὑμῖν ἀλλήλοις ἐρίζειν καὶ διεστάναι, τοῖς μὲν ταῦτα πεπεισμένοις, τοῖς δὲ ταῦτα, τὰ κοινὰ δ᾽ ἔχειν φαύλως.

We face certain actual facts, sad and unpleasant facts, but facts which must be faced if we are to dwell in the world of realities and not of shams, and if we are to try to make things better by deeds and not merely to delude ourselves by empty words.

All changes in England should be made slowly and after long discussion. Public opinion should be permitted to ripen upon them. And the reason is, that all the important English institutions are the relics of a long past; that they have undergone many transformations; that, like old houses which have been altered many times, they are full both of conveniences and inconveniences which at first sight would not be imagined. Very often a rash alterer would pull down the very part which makes them habitable, to cure a minor evil or improve a defective outline.