Laudator Temporis Acti

The claim of Demosthenes to be ranked among the heroic men of the past rests above all on the constancy and sincerity with which he defended the noblest cause known to the Greeks — that of Hellenic liberty; and only those who have failed to recognise that most of what was best in the Greek, and, above all, in the Athenian character sprang from and was bound up with political liberty, can seriously censure his choice. If any cause was, to a Greek, worth fighting for to the death, that for which Demosthenes fought and died was pre-eminently so.

Resist your time — take a foothold outside it — see other times and ask yourself whether the time of our ancestors is fit for us.

Hanslik follows a practice in which he is by no means alone, but to which vigorous objection should be made, of listing the names of scholars who have printed or approved this or that reading or conjecture. Even when this information is accurately and consistently conveyed — which all too frequently is not the case here — it is totally valueless.

A Melancholly Man

Is a strayer from the drove: one that Nature made a sociable, because she made him man, and a crazed disposition hath altered. Impleasing to all, as all to him; straggling thoughts are his content, they make him dream weaking, there's his pleasure. His imagination is never idle, it keeps his mind in a continuall motion, as the poise the clock: he winds up his thoughts often, and as often unwinds them; Penelopes web thrives faster. He'le seldome be found without the shade of some grove, in whose bottome a river dwels. He carries a cloud in his face, never faire weather; his outside is framed to his inside, in that he keeps a Decorum, both unseemly. Speak to him; he hears with his eyes, eares follow his mind, and that's not at leasure. He thinkes businesse, but never does any; he is all contemplation, no action. He hewes and fashions his thoughts, as if he meant them to some purpose, but they prove unprofitable, as a peece of wrought timber to no use. His Spirits and the Sun are enemies; the Sun bright and warm, his humour black and cold: variety of foolish apparitions people his head, they suffer him not to breath according to the necessities of nature, which makes him sup up a draught of as much aire at once as would serve at thrice. He denies nature her due in sleep, and nothing pleaseth him long, but that which pleaseth his own fantasies; they are the consuming evils, and evil consumptions that consume him alive. Lastly, he is a man onely in shew, but comes short of the better part; a whole reasonable soul, which is man's cheif preeminence, and sole mark from creatures sensible.

My hopes have been dashed so often; where then shall poor Peace go now? Well, princes are powerful rather than learned, and moved more by their desires than by true rational judgment. I shall seek refuge in the company of scholars, for good learning makes men, philosophy makes superior men, theology makes holy men. Surely I shall be allowed to settle down amongst them after all my wanderings. But woe is me! Here too there is warfare, another kind and not so bloody, but just as insane. Scholar argues with scholar, and, apparently, factual truth is altered by a change of place; some dogmas don't cross the sea or climb over the Alps or swim the Rhine, and indeed, in the same seat of learning logicians war with rhetoricians and theologians argue with lawyers. Even in the same profession, Scotist battles with Thomist, Nominalist with Realist, Platonist with Peripatetic,²⁴ so fiercely that there is no agreement amongst them even on the smallest points, and often enough they fight with the utmost fury on the subject of goat's wool.²⁵ Then the heat of the debate mounts from argument to insult, from insults to fisticuffs, and if they don't settle the matter by daggers or spears they take to stabbing with poisoned pens, tear one another with barbed wit,²⁶ and attack each other's reputation with the deadly darts of their tongues.

24 Peripatetic] Ie Aristotelian

25 goat's wool] One of Erasmus' favourite expressions for trivial subjects of debate; Horace Epistles 1.18.15; Moria 84 and n22; Adagia i iii 53. For disputes between philosophers cf Moria 125-6.

26 barbed wit] Adagia in vi 87 (Dentata charta)

Quo me posthac conferam infelix, posteaquam toties fefellit spes? At Principes fortasse magni sunt potius quam eruditi, magisque ducuntur cupiditatibus, quam recto animi iudicio. Ad eruditorum greges confugiam, Bonae litterae reddunt homines, Philosophia plusquam homines, Theologia reddit divos. Apud hos certe dabitur conquiescere, tot circumactae ambagibus. Verum, proh dolor! en hic quoque bellorum aliud genus, minus quidem cruentum, sed tamen non minus insanum. Schola cum schola dissidet, et ceu rerum veritas loco commutetur, ita quaedam scita non traiiciunt mare, quaedam non superant Alpes, quaedam non tranant Rhenum, immo in eadem Academia cum Rhetore bellum est Dialectico, cum Iureconsulto dissidet Theologus. Atque adeo in eodem professionis genere, cum Thomista pugnat Scotista, cum Reali Nominalis, cum Peripatetico Platonicus, adeo ut ne in minutissimis quidem rebus inter hos conveniat, ac saepenumero de lana caprina atrocissime digladientur, donec disputationis calor ab argumentis ad convitia, a convitiis ad pugnos incrudescat, et si res pugionibus aut lanceis non agitur, stylis veneno tinctis sese confodiunt, dentata charta dilacerant invicem, alter in alterius famam letalia linguarum vibrant spicula.

• Odium Scholasticum
• You Lie!

Sound the trumpet, sound the trumpet, sound the trumpet!
Sound, sound, sound the trumpet till around
You make the list'ning shores rebound.
On the sprightly hautboy play
All the instruments of joy
That skillful numbers can employ,
To celebrate the glories of this day.

Now the Night is chac'd away,
All salute the rising Sun;
'Tis that happy, happy Day,
The Birth-Day of King Oberon.

Propertius only wants to say that Cynthia had the fair complexion associated with free birth (cf. 2.3.10 lilia non domina sint magis alba mea). From Cic. Pis. 1 commendatione fumosarum imaginum quorum simile habes nihil praeter colorem it appears that Piso was swarthy; and a few sentences previously his complexion is called slavish (color iste seruilis). If fuscus=seruilis where skins are concerned then ingenuus=albus.

Exaggeration of every kind is as essential to journalism as it is to the dramatic arts, since what matters is to make as much as possible of every event. This is why all who write for newspapers are also alarmists, by virtue of their trade; it is their way of making themselves interesting. But in doing so they resemble little dogs that immediately start to bark loudly at anything that even moves. Accordingly we have to adjust our attention to their alarm trumpet in such a way that it does not ruin our digestion, and generally keep in mind that the newspaper is a magnifying glass, and this only at best; for often it is a mere shadow play on the wall.

Uebertreibung in jeder Art ist der Zeitungsschreiberei eben so wesentlich, wie der dramatischen Kunst: denn es gilt, aus jedem Vorfall möglichst viel zu machen. Daher auch sind alle Zeitungsschreiber, von Handwerks wegen, Allarmisten: dies ist ihre Art sich interessant zu machen. Sie gleichen aber dadurch den kleinen Hunden, die bei Allem, was sich irgend regt, sogleich ein lautes Gebell erheben. Hienach hat man seine Beachtung ihrer Allarmtrompete abzumessen, damit sie Keinem die Verdauung verderbe, und soll überhaupt wissen, daß die Zeitung ein Vergrößerungsglas ist, und Dies noch im besten Fall: denn gar oft ist sie ein bloßes Schattenspiel an der Wand.

For, to touch on only one point among many, there are in England nymphs of divine appearance, both engaging and agreeable, whom you would certainly prefer to your Muses; and there is, besides, one custom which can never be commended too highly. When you arrive anywhere, you are received with kisses on all sides, and when you take your leave they speed you on your way with kisses. The kisses are renewed when you come back. When guests come to your house, their arrival is pledged with kisses; and when they leave, kisses are shared once again. If you should happen to meet, then kisses are given profusely. In a word, wherever you turn, the world is full of kisses. If you too, Fausto, once tasted the softness and fragrance of these same kisses, I swear you would yearn to live abroad in England; and not for ten years only, in the manner of Solon, but all your life long.

Nam vt e plurimis vnum quiddam attingam, sunt hic nymphae diuinis vultibus, blandae, faciles, et quas tu tuis camoenis facile anteponas. Est praeterea mos nunquam satis laudatus. Siue quo venias, omnium osculis excipieris; siue discedas aliquo, osculis dimitteris; redis, redduntur suauia; venitur ad te, propinantur suauia; disceditur abs te, diuiduntur basia; occurritur alicubi, basiatur affatim; denique quocunque te moueas, suauiorum plena sunt omnia. Quae si tu, Fauste, gustasses semel quam sint mollicula, quam fragrantia, profecto cuperes non decennium solum, vt Solon fecit, sed ad mortem vsque in Anglia peregrinari.

41 purpureo . . . stamine: Probably she means spinning rather than weaving, since it is late in the evening and artificial light was poor in Rome (for spinning wool already dyed, cf. e.g. 4.3.33-4). The crimson thread reminds us of the magic thread of Ariadne that guided Theseus out of the Labyrinth (cf. supra 1-2).

42 Orpheae carmine . . . lyrae: The epithet Orpheae is not purely ornamental; Orpheus was a Thracian, and so recalls the Edonian girl of 5-6.

A bull was bitten by a mouse. Smarting from the sting, the bull began to chase the mouse but the mouse was too quick for him and managed to hide in the depths of his mouse hole. The bull came to a halt and dug his horns into the walls until finally he sank down in exhaustion and went to sleep right there in front of the hole. The mouse peeped out from inside his hole, crept up on the bull, bit him again, and ran back inside his hole. The bull leaped to his feet but he had no idea what to do. 'It's not always the big one who has the power,' said the mouse, 'in some cases being humble and small is a strength!'

Μῦς ταῦρον ἔδακεν. ὁ δ' ἐδίωκεν ἀλγήσας
τὸν μῦν· φθάσαντος δ' εἰς μυχὸν φυγεῖν τρώγλης,
ὤρυσς' ἐνεστὼς τοῖς κέρασι τοὺς τοίχους,
ἕως κοπωθεὶς ὀκλάσας ἐκοιμήθη
παρὰ τὴν ὀπὴν ὁ ταῦρος. ἔνθεν ἐκκύψας        5
ὁ μῦς ἐφέρπει καὶ πάλιν δακὼν φεύγει.
ὁ δ' εξαναστὰς οὐκ ἔχων ὃ ποιήσει
διηπορεῖτο. τῷ δ' ὁ μῦς ἐπιτρύξας·
"οὐχ ὁ μέγας ἀεὶ δυνατός· ἔσθ' ὅπου μᾶλλον
τὸ μικρὸν εἶναι καὶ ταπεινὸν ἰσχύει."        10

They tell how once upon a time a little mouse on its wanderings ventured with its tiny teeth to attack a mighty ox. When its nibbling mouth finished biting, it thereupon hid safely in its winding hole. Though the ox made sullen threats with his huge neck, yet for all his anger he could not see that there lived an enemy for him to attack. Then the mouse dispersed the foe's threats with its cleverness, bantering the enraged ox with these words: "Because your parents transmitted strong limbs to you, it does not follow that they added efficiency to your strength. Learn, however, the self-reliance that our tiny mouths possess, and learn how our pigmy band does whatever it wants."

Ingentem fertur mus quondam parvus oberrans
    ausus ab exiguo laedere dente bovem.
verum ubi mordaci confecit vulnera rostro,
    tutus in anfractus conditur inde suos.
ille licet vasta torvum cervice minetur,        5
    non tamen iratus quem petat esse videt.
tunc indignantem iusto sermone fatigans
    distulit hostiles calliditate minas:
"non quia magna tibi tribuerunt membra parentes
    viribus effectum constituere tuis.        10
disce tamen brevibus quae sit fiducia rostris,
    et faciat quicquid parvula turba cupit."

You should thus assume that I too have become the person I am because I am by nature similar to my ancestors, and also that because I received the same education as them, I have the same qualities of soul. I know that my father used to despise human affairs as of small importance, which holds especially for me too now in my old age.

νόμιζε δὴ οὖν κἀμὲ καὶ φύσει μὲν ὅμοιον τοῖς προγόνοις ὄντα γενέσθαι τοιοῦτον, καὶ μέντοι καὶ παιδευθέντα τὴν αὐτὴν αὐτοῖς παιδείαν, ὁμοίαν ἐκείνοις σχεῖν διάθεσιν τῆς ψυχῆς. οἶδα δέ μου τὸν πατέρα καταφρονοῦντα τῶν ἀνθρωπίνων πραγμάτων ὡς μικρῶν, ὅπερ κἀμοὶ μάλιστα νῦν γέγονεν ἐν γήρᾳ.

No ancient German literature, Nibelungs and other such poets of the Middle Ages should be taught in gymnasia. These things are highly remarkable, to be sure, and also worth reading, but they do not contribute to the cultivation of taste and they rob time that belongs to ancient, really classical literature. If you noble Teutons and German patriots impose ancient German doggerel in place of Greek and Roman classics, then you will be educating nothing but unwashed loafers. Now to even compare these Nibelungs with the Iliad is an outright blasphemy, from which, above all, youthful ears should be spared.

Auf den Gymnasien sollte keine altdeutsche Litteratur, Nibelungen und sonstige Poeten des Mittelalters gelehrt werden: diese Dinge sind zwar höchst merkwürdig, auch lesenswert, tragen aber nicht zur Bildung des Geschmacks bei und rauben die Zeit, welche der alten, wirklich klassischen Litteratur angehört. Wenn ihr, edle Germanen und deutsche Patrioten, an die Stelle der griechischen und römischen Klassiker altdeutsche Reimereien setzt; so werdet ihr nichts anderes, als Bärenhäuter erziehn. Nun aber gar diese Nibelungen mit der Ilias zu vergleichen ist eine rechte Blasphemie, mit welcher die Ohren der Jugend, vor allem, verschont bleiben sollten.

[You also said] that you learned that when his books were lost in the fire, Philides the grammarian wasted away from depression and grief and died, and that various others were going around in black clothing for a long time, thin and pale, resembling mourners.

πεπύσθαι δὲ ὡς καὶ Φιλίδης μὲν ὁ γραμματικὸς ἀπολλυμένων αὐτῷ τῶν βιβλίων κατὰ πυρκαϊὰν ὑπὸ δυσθυμίας καὶ λύπης διεφθάρη συντακείς, ἄλλος δὲ καὶ ἄλλος ἐν μέλασιν ἱματίοις προῄεσαν ἄχρι πολλοῦ, λεπτοὶ καὶ ὠχροί, τοῖς πενθοῦσι παραπλήσιοι.

Aldous Huxley, consoling Victoria Ocampo on the partial destruction by fire of her library: “…[T]he thought of a burned library is one to sadden the heart of an old book-worm like myself.” A prolepsis. The conflagration that destroyed his own thirty-one years later was total, but he displayed a noble composure and detachment that Galen would have recognised and admired.

All this might stem from the fact that poetry by nature is untranslatable. For in it thoughts and words are so intimately and firmly intertwined, like the uterine and foetal parts of the placenta, that we cannot substitute foreign words without affecting the thoughts. After all, everything with metre and rhyme is inherently a compromise between thought and language; however, by its nature this can only be accomplished on its own native soil of thought, not on a foreign soil in which we would like to transplant it, let alone in one so barren as the minds of translators usually are. What greater contrast could there be, really, than the free outpouring of the poet’s inspiration, which on its own and instinctively comes into being dressed in metre and rhyme, and the painstaking, calculating, cold, syllable-counting and rhyme-seeking agony of the translator?

Dies Alles mag daran liegen, daß Poesie, ihrer Natur nach, unübersetzbar ist. Denn in ihr sind Gedanken und Worte so innig und fest mit einander verwachsen, wie pars uterina et pars foetalis placentae; so daß man nicht, ohne jene zu affiziren, diesen fremde substituiren kann. Ist doch alles Metrische und Gereimte eigentlich von Hause aus ein Kompromiß zwischen dem Gedanken und der Sprache: dieses aber darf, seiner Natur nach, nur auf dem eigenen, mütterlichen Boden des Gedankens vollzogen werden, nicht auf einem fremden, dahin man ihn verpflanzen möchte, und gar auf einem so unfruchtbaren, wie die Uebersetzerköpfe in der Regel sind. Was überhaupt kann entgegengesetzter sein, als die freie Ergießung der Begeisterung eines Dichters, die schon von selbst und instinktiv in Metrum und Reim gekleidet an den Tag tritt, und die peinliche, rechnende, kalte, Silben zählende und Reime suchende Qual des Uebersetzers.

I was unwounded by Desires, but Myiscus shot me in the heart with his eyes, and cried, 'I have caught the braggart. That supercilious sneer that imperious philosophy gave, look, I am trampling on it.' Just breathing, I replied, 'Dear lad, why all this surprise? Zeus himself was hauled down from Olympus by Love.'

τόν με Πόθοις ἄτρωτον ὑπὸ στέρνοισι Μυΐσκος
    ὄμμασι τοξεύσας, τοῦτ ̓ ἐβόησεν ἔπος·
“τὸν θρασὺν εἶλον ἐγώ· τὸ δ ̓ ἐπ ̓ ὀφρύσι κεῖνο φρύαγμα
    σκηπτροφόρου σοφίας ἠνίδε ποσσὶ πατῶ.” τῷ δ ̓, ὅσον
ἀμπνεύσας, τόδ ̓ ἔφην· “Φίλε κοῦρε, τί θαμβεῖς;
    καὐτὸν ἀπ ̓ Οὐλύμπου Ζῆνα καθεῖλεν Ἔρως.”

Cynthia was the first whose eyes captured me, poor wretch, uninfected before by any desires. Then I had to lower my gaze with its steady hauteur and Love trampled on my head...

Cynthia prima suis miserum me cepit ocellis,
    contactum nullis ante cupidinibus.
tum mihi constantis deiecit lumina fastus
    et caput impositis pressit Amor pedibus...

What has disappeared? Ambrose Bierce, Weldon Kees, Jimmy Hoffa. Aristotle s second book of Politics, three-decker novels, rhupunts. Typewriters, payphones, civility.

Labels: typographical and other errors

And, indeed, when I reflect on this subject I find four reasons why old age appears to be unhappy: first, that it withdraws us from active pursuits; second, that it makes the body weaker; third, that it deprives us of almost all physical pleasures; and, fourth, that it is not far removed from death.

etenim, cum complector animo, quattuor reperio causas cur senectus misera videatur: unam, quod avocet a rebus gerendis; alteram, quod corpus faciat infirmius; tertiam, quod privet omnibus fere voluptatibus; quartam, quod haud procul absit a morte.

To my mind, it is a miracle that in a world afflicted by Attention Deficit Disorder anyone would labor over, publish, distribute, or purchase six hundred pages dissecting descriptors in two lengthy, three thousand year old poems that barely ten thousand human beings can read in their eclectic, original idiolect, one never spoken by a single soul.

A longing for a lair, for a cave, for a fortress, for any hidden domain, which cannot be disturbed, is still deep in my nature. It is doubtless for this reason that I have always wanted to live in narrow quarters, a little house in the country or in a single room in the city, and I have a positive detestation of large houses. This feeling of being safe and snug in a hidden retreat, while the world passes by outside and cannot reach you, is very dear to me. I have always loved that passage in Scott’s poem about the hunted stag:

"There, close-couched, while the thickets shed
Cold dews and wild flowers on his head,
He heard the baffled dogs in vain
Rave through the hollow pass amain
Chiding the rocks …"

Up went Akróneôs Top-Ship, Okýalos Quick-Sea, the Paddler,
Sea-Man Nauteús and Aft-Deck, Beach-Man, Eretmeús the Rower,
Deep-Sea Ponteús and Fore-Deck, Full-Speed and All-Aboard,
And Amphíalos Sea-Girt, the son of Many-Ships, child of Sea-Wright;
Up stood Eurýalos Broad-Sea, the equal of Ares, that plague on mortals—
The son of Naúbolos the Sounder, who in looks and physique surpassed
All of the other Phaiêkians after handsome Laodámas.
There arose as well three children of handsome Alkínoös:
Laodámas and Hálios Sea-Lad, and godlike Klytónêos Ship-Fame.

ὦρτο μὲν Ἀκρόνεώς τε καὶ Ὠκύαλος καὶ Ἐλατρεύς,
Ναυτεύς τε Πρυμνεύς τε καὶ Ἀγχίαλος καὶ Ἐρετμεύς,
Ποντεύς τε Πρωρεύς τε, Θόων Ἀναβησίνεώς τε
Ἀμφίαλός θ᾽, υἱὸς Πολυνήου Τεκτονίδαο·
ἂν δὲ καὶ Εὐρύαλος, βροτολοιγῷ ἶσος Ἄρηϊ,        115
Ναυβολίδης, ὃς ἄριστος ἔην εἶδός τε δέμας τε
πάντων Φαιήκων μετ᾽ ἀμύμονα Λαοδάμαντα.
ἂν δ᾽ ἔσταν τρεῖς παῖδες ἀμύμονος Ἀλκινόοιο,
Λαοδάμας θ᾽ Ἅλιός τε καὶ ἀντίθεος Κλυτόνηος.

Young champions were found in plenty: Topship and Quicksea and Paddler, Seaman and Poopman, Beacher and Oarsman, Deepsea and Lookout, Goahead and Upaboard; there was Seagirt the son of Manyclipper Shipwrightson; there was Broadsea, the very spit of bloody Arês himself, and Admiraltidês, the finest man in stature and strength after the admirable Laodamas. And there were three sons of Alcinoös, Laodamas, and deep-sea Halios, and Clytoneos of naval renown.

[A]nd many a young athlete now came forward
with seaside names like Tipmast, Tiderace, Sparwood,
Hullman, Sternman, Beacher and Pullerman,
Bluewater, Shearwater, Runningwake, Boardalee,
Seabelt, son of Grandfleet Shipwrightson;
Seareach stepped up, son of the Launching Master,
rugged as Ares, bane of men: his build
excelled all but the Prince Laódamas;
and Laódamas made entry with his brothers,
Halios and Klytóneus, sons of the king.

Up got Akroneōs, Ōkyalos and Elatreus,
Nauteus and Prymneus, Anchialos and Eretmeus,
Ponteus and Prōreus, Thoōn and Anabēsineōs,
with Amphialos, the son of Polynēos, Tektōn's son;
up, too, Euryalos, peer of man-killing Arēs,
Naubolos’ son, the best in looks and stature—
bar only peerless Laodamas—of all the Phaiakians;
and up got the three sons of matchless Alkinoös:
Laodamas, Halios, and godlike Klytonēos.

• No Accounting for Taste
• A Puzzle
• Stopper

Valere pour vray le baudit
Qui fut nommé le Grant a Romme.

This is vouched for by Valerian
Who was called "The Great" in Rome.

Valerian: Valerian Maximus. However, the story isn't from his writing but from Jean de Salisbury's Policraticus. It also appears in Augustine's City of God and the Jouvencel of J. de Bueil.

Labels: typographical and other errors

In the mean time I spend all my mornings in the Bodleian: and the evenings in trying, for the hundredth time, to get a real working knowledge of the German language, since in my present occupation I find my ignorance of it up against me at every turn. For example, the only history of mediaeval Latin literature is in German. The authoritative edition of an old French poem I shall have to read is in German. And so on. But I am making progress.

[T]here is a secret affinity, a hankering after, evil in the human mind, and that it takes a perverse, but a fortunate delight in mischief, since it is a never-failing source of satisfaction. Pure good soon grows insipid, wants variety and spirit. Pain is a bittersweet, which never surfeits. Love turns, with a little indulgence, to indifference or disgust: hatred alone is immortal. Do we not see this principle at work everywhere? Animals torment and worry one another without mercy: children kill flies for sport: every one reads the accidents and offences in a newspaper as the cream of the jest: a whole town runs to be present at a fire, and the spectator by no means exults to see it extinguished. It is better to have it so, but it diminishes the interest; and our feelings take part with our passions rather than with our understandings. Men assemble in crowds, with eager enthusiasm, to witness a tragedy: but if there were an execution going forward in the next street, as Mr. Burke observes, the theatre would be left empty. A strange cur in a village, an idiot, a crazy woman, are set upon and baited by the whole community. Public nuisances are in the nature of public benefits. How long did the Pope, the Bourbons, and the Inquisition keep the people of England in breath, and supply them with nicknames to vent their spleen upon! Had they done us any harm of late? No: but we have always a quantity of superfluous bile upon the stomach, and we wanted an object to let it out upon. How loth were we to give up our pious belief in ghosts and witches, because we liked to persecute the one, and frighten ourselves to death with the other! It is not the quality so much as the quantity of excitement that we are anxious about: we cannot bear a state of indifference and ennui: the mind seems to abhor a vacuum as much as ever nature was supposed to do. Even when the spirit of the age (that is, the progress of intellectual refinement, warring with our natural infirmities) no longer allows us to carry our vindictive and headstrong humours into effect, we try to revive them in description, and keep up the old bugbears, the phantoms of our terror and our hate, in imagination. We burn Guy Fawkes in effigy, and the hooting and buffeting and maltreating that poor tattered figure of rags and straw makes a festival in every village in England once a year. Protestants and Papists do not now burn one another at the stake: but we subscribe to new editions of Fox's Book of Martyrs; and the secret of the success of the Scotch Novels is much the same — they carry us back to the feuds, the heart-burnings, the havoc, the dismay, the wrongs, and the revenge of a barbarous age and people — to the rooted prejudices and deadly animosities of sects and parties in politics and religion, and of contending chiefs and clans in war and intrigue. We feel the full force of the spirit of hatred with all of them in turn. As we read, we throw aside the trammels of civilization, the flimsy veil of humanity. "Off, you lendings!" The wild beast resumes its sway within us, we feel like hunting animals, and as the hound starts in his sleep and rushes on the chase in fancy, the heart rouses itself in its native lair, and utters a wild cry of joy, at being restored once more to freedom and lawless, unrestrained impulses.

For such is the depth of the Christian Scriptures that, even if I were attempting to study them and nothing else, from boyhood to decrepit old age, with the utmost leisure, the most unwearied zeal, and with talents greater than I possess, I would still be making progress in discovering their treasures.

tanta est enim christianarum profunditas litterarum, ut in eis quotidie proficerem, si eas solas ab ineunte pueritia usque ad decrepitam senectutem maximo otio, summo studio, meliore ingenio conarer addiscere.

I have got quite recently ONE pupil, tho’ not through Poynton. He is a youth of eighteen who is trying to get a Classical scholarship. I am to coach him in essay writing and English for the essay paper and general papers which these exams always include. I fear we shall win no laurels by him. I questioned him about his classical reading: our dialogue was something like this:—

SELF: ‘Well Sandeman, what Greek authors have you been reading?’
SAND (cheerfully): ‘I never can remember. Try a few names and I’ll see if I can get on to any.’
SELF (a little damped:) ‘Have you read any Euripides?’
SAND: ‘No.’
SELF: ‘Any Sophocles?’
SAND: ‘Oh yes.’
SELF: ‘What plays of his have you read?’
SAND (after a pause): ‘Well—the Alcestis.
’ SELF (apologetically): ‘But isn’t that by Euripides?’
SAND (with the genial surprise of a man who finds £1 where he thought there was a 10/-note): ‘Really. Is it now? By Jove, then I HAVE read some Euripides.’

Yet even the genius is somewhat forbidding, for Augustine the genius is hidden away in eleven great folios of strangely scintillating Latin, a fitting subject for the scholar and especially for those industrious human bees, the philologists.

Xanthus, Aesop's master, said to him, 'Can you tell me why we sometimes look at our own shit after we go to the bathroom?' Aesop replied, 'A long time ago the son of a king indulged in all kinds of luxurious foods. As a result, he spent a lot of time in the bathroom. And once he spent such a long time sitting there that he forgot what he was doing and crapped his own guts out. Ever since, anyone taking a crap bends over to make sure he hasn't done the same thing. But you don't have to worry about that, since you don't have any guts to begin with!'

Note: This fable depends on a distinctly Greek understanding of human anatomy: the 'guts' are actually the seat of intelligence (English 'brains') rather than a sign of courage. By saying that his master has no 'guts', Aesop means that his master is an idiot, not that he is a coward.

Ὁ Ξάνθος αὐτῷ· "δύνασαί μοι εἰπεῖν διὰ ποίαν αἰτίαν, ἐπὰν χέζωμεν, πυκνὰ εἰς τὸ ἀφόδευμα ἑαυτῶν βλέπομεν;" Αἴσωπος· "ὅτι κατὰ τοὺς πάλαι χρόνους βασιλέως υἱὸς ἐγένετο ὅστις διὰ τὴν σπατάλην καὶ τρυφὴν ἐπὶ πολὺν χρόνον ἐκαθέζετο χέζων, ἐπὶ τοσοῦτον δὲ χρόνον, ἄχρις οὗ ἐπιλαθόμενος τὰς ἰδίας φρένας ἔχεσεν. ἀπ’ ἐκείνου δὲ τοῦ χρόνου οἱ ἄνθρωποι χέζοντες ὑποκύπτουσιν φοβούμενοι μὴ καὶ αὐτοὶ τὰς ἰδίας φρένας χέσωσιν· σὺ δὲ μηδὲν ἀγωνία περὶ τούτου· οὐ μὴ γὰρ χέσης σου τὰς φρένας, οὐκ ἔχεις γὰρ."

Labels: noctes scatologicae

I am drumming ahead like anything with my Anglo-Saxon, and it is great fun. One begins it in a Reader constructed on the admirable system of having nearly all the text in one dialect and nearly all the glossary in another. You can imagine what happy hours this gives the young student—for example, you will read a word like 'WADO' in the text: in the glossary this may appear as WEDO, WAEDO, WEODO, WAEDU, or WIEDU. Clever bloke, ain't he? The language in general, gives the impression of parodied English badly spelled. Thus the word 'CWIC' may baffle you till you remember the 'quick and the dead' and suddenly realize that it means 'Alive'. Or again TINGUL for a star, until you think of 'Twinkle, twinkle little star'.

Here is the text of a telegram which you sent to my mother on March 18, 1946:

ARRIVED 11:15 SATURDAY NIGHT ALSO MET AIRBORNE SLICK CHICK NECKED FROM ALBUQUERQUE TO KANSAS CITY

Sounds like quite a trip...

I landed in Seattle late Feb., 1946, after a ride on a troopship from Japan. After a train ride to Ft. MacArthur, California, I was discharged from the army on March 9, 1946, 3 months before my 21st birthday. Your Dad was on recruiting duty in L.A. after serving in the Pacific. In Japan I told the army that I lived at your parents' address in L.A. so I could visit them. After I got to Ft. MacArthur, I told them that I lived in Maine.

I visited for a few days and then went to a local air base and tried to get a ride East on an Air Corps plane. (Free). Because I was discharged, it was not possible. I had to buy a ticket on a regular airline. The Army gave me 5 cents a mile travel allowance. I received around $154.00. Believe it or not, the price of an airline ticket to Portland, Maine, was just about the same amount that I received.

Your folks gave me a ride to the Burbank Airport in Los Angeles. My flight left at 11:00 P.M. It went to Albuquerque, NM. (Your 61-year-old telegram copy covers this segment only.) The "chick" referred to was grateful to those of us who had saved the world from oblivion. However, she got off in Kansas City. (No pun intended.)

From Kansas City, my flight went on to Chicago. From Chicago we flew to New York City, then to Boston, then to Portland, Maine.

It was cold and dark. I hitchhiked and walked to the road to Brunswick, then with my limited luggage, I put on my pity-full look and hitched a ride to Brunswick. By this time I was very cold and uncomfortable. I still had on my uniform and did not have to wait too long for a ride. I did not have an overcoat as we didn't need an overcoat in California.

The guy let me off at the corner of Pleasant St. (Rte. 1) and Spring St. in Brunswick. Consequently, I walked the last half mile to 29 Spring St. (I was asked why I hadn't called my father from Portland to ask for a ride. I said that I didn't know how much he'd charge me.)

I walked into my home at 11:15 P.M. The trip took 21 hours using planes, autos, and foot power. I had been gone since Sept., 1944, 18 months. (Eighteen months of still untold unique experiences.)

Yet men go out and gaze in astonishment at high mountains, the huge waves of the sea, the broad reaches of rivers, the ocean that encircles the world, or the stars in their courses. But they pay no attention to themselves.

et eunt homines mirari alta montium et ingentes fluctus maris et latissimos lapsus fluminum et oceani ambitum et gyros siderum, et relinquunt se ipsos.

Mostly, the critics centered their fire on Jefferson Davis, taking the traditional American view that if anything goes wrong the President must be at fault. As a member of the intimate circle surrounding that wan perfectionist, Vice-President Alexander Stephens, who criticized Mr. Davis with a sad but tireless persistence, [Howell] Cobb knew all about that kind of talk; but as the new year began he felt that at least part of the trouble lay with Congress. After a visit to the capital he wrote candidly to Stephens: "What is wanting in Richmond is brains. I did not find the temper and disposition of Congress as bad as I expected, but there is a lamentable want of brains and good sound common sense."

That denizen of the swamps who likes the shade,
the frog, who lives beside the ditches,
once came forth on dry land and bragged to all the creatures:
"I'm a physician, skilled in the use of drugs
such as no one, doubtless, knows, not even Paean
who lives on Olympus, physician to the gods."
"And how," said a fox, "can you cure someone else,
when you can't save yourself from being so deathly pale?"

Ὁ τελμάτων ἔνοικος ὁ σκιῇ χαίρων,
ὁ ζῶν ὀρυκτοῖς βάτραχος παρ' αὐρίποις,
εἰς γῆν παρελθὼν ἔλεγε πᾶσι τοῖς ζώοις·
"ἰατρός εἰμι φαρμάκων ἐπιστήμων,
οἵων ταχ' οὐδεὶς οἶδεν, οὐδ' ὁ Παιήων,
ὃς Ὄλυμπον οἰκεῖ καὶ θεοὺς ἰατρεύει."
"καὶ πῶς" ἀλώπηξ εἶπεν "ἄλλον ἰήσῃ,
ὃς σαυτὸν οὕτω χλωρὸν ὄντα μὴ σώζεις;"

A Frog espied some Oxen ploughing near his abode of reeds. In order to get acquainted with them, he started bragging and vaunting of his supreme wisdom and acumen, particularly as far as Leechcraft is concerned. He said: "I am able to cure every disease and sickness and to procure an efficient, adequate specific for the remedy of all sores and ailments. My accurate diagnosis is well-known, and my medical skill has achieved wonders and brought much relief to many a patient."

An old Ox addressed the boasting Frog as follows: "You brag of your wisdom, medical dexterity and wonderful achievements as a most gifted physician, but why do you look like a withered, half-dead person? Why is your complexion more decayed and wretched than that of any other reptile? Why are you devoid of any blood-red healthy colour? Everybody turns up his nose at your loathsome, repulsive, sickly-green colour!"

Our pseudo-doctor was thus put to the blush. He hid his diminished head and went quickly away in order to conceal himself in the screened reeds and marshes.

Wherever possible, I have tried to avoid words whose modernity would jolt readers out of the world that is the epic’s setting. In Book 11, for instance, the ghost of Agamemnon describes how he was murdered at the feast given to celebrate his return from Troy, a passage in which he uses the word eranos, often translated as “picnic.” But “picnic” is what my late friend and mentor Bob Gottlieb, widely acknowledged as one of the greatest editors of the twentieth century, called a “stopper”: given the strong associations that “picnic” has for an Anglophone reader, its presence in this passage would stop the reader, raising questions that would interrupt the flow of the reading experience. (Did the Greeks have picnics? What were they like? What kind of food did they eat? Were there blankets and sunscreen? Etc.) The Odyssey is certainly “modern,” in the sense that its themes are always with us; but the body it inhabits, its accoutrements, are very much of its own remote time. When all is said and done, the world of the epic, its heroes and heroines, villains and goddesses and monsters, is very distant from ours; that distance is, to my mind, an essential part of what the Odyssey is, and should be felt in translation. To cast Homer in up-to-the-minute, contemporary English speech might make it feel approachably modern for some readers, especially young ones; but it is worth remembering that Homer never felt “modern,” even in his own time.

Once they had bathed in the water and anointed their skin with rich oil
They took their meal right there along the bank of the river...

αἱ δὲ λοεσσάμεναι καὶ χρισάμεναι λίπ᾽ ἐλαίῳ
δεῖπνον ἔπειθ᾽ εἵλοντο παρ᾽ ὄχθῃσιν ποταμοῖο...

• No Accounting for Taste
• A Puzzle

But it's utterly impossible for us other gods to thwart
Or void the intention of Zeus, he who bears the aegis.

ἀλλὰ μάλ᾽ οὔ πως ἔστι Διὸς νόον αἰγιόχοιο
οὔτε παρεξελθεῖν ἄλλον θεὸν οὔθ᾽ ἁλιῶσαι.

But it's utterly impossible for us other gods to thwart
Or void the intention of Zeus who bears the aegis.

Harken to me, Atrytône, child of Zeus who bears the aegis...

κλῦθί μευ, αἰγιόχοιο Διὸς τέκος, Ἀτρυτώνη...

I have not yet exhausted the horrors of the place: I was glad to see a book case in the lounge. All the books were uniformly bound, and I was surprised to see such unlikely titbits as the Ethics of Aristotle and the works of the Persian epic poet Firdausi. I solved the mystery by finding out that they were a uniform series of Lubbock's HUNDRED BEST BOOKS!!! How I abominate such culture for the many, such tastes ready made, such standardization of the brain. To substitute for the infinite wandering of the true reader thro the byways of the country he discovers, a char-a-banc tour.

One day the Saracens came and robbed the old man and his brother. As he was setting off into the desert to find something to eat, the old man found some camel dung and having broken it up, he found some grains of barley in it. He ate a grain and put the other into his hand. His brother came and saw him in the act of eating and said to him, 'Is this charity, to find food and to eat it alone without having called me?' Abba Sisoes said to him, Ί have not wronged you, brother, here is your share which I have kept in my hand.'

Ἦλθόν ποτε Σαρακηνοὶ, καὶ ἐξέδυσαν τὸν γέροντα καὶ τὸν ἀδελφὸν αὐτοῦ. Καὶ ἐξελθόντων αὐτῶν εἰς τὴν ἔρημον ἵνα εὕρωσί τι βρώσιμον, εὖρεν ὁ γέρων βόλβιτα καμήλων, καὶ κλάσας εὗρε κοκκία κριθῶν· ἔτρωγε δὲ ἓν κοκκὶν, καὶ τὸ ἓν εἰς τὴν χεῖρα αὐτοῦ ἐτίθει. Ἐλθὼν δὲ ὁ ἀδελφὸς αὐτοῦ, εὖρεν αὐτὸν ἐσθίοντα, καὶ λέγει αὐτῷ· Αὕτη ἐστὶν ἡ ἀγάπη, ὅτι εὗρες βρώσιμον, κὰὶ μόνος ἐσθίεις, καὶ οὐκ ἐφώνησάς με; Λέγει αὐτῷ ὁ ἀββᾶς Σισόης· Οὐκ ἠδίκησά σε, ἀδελφέ· ἰδοὺ τὸ μέρος σου ἐν τῇ χειρί μου ἐτήρησα.

Labels: noctes scatologicae

76, 97,
134, 146, 169, 173, 181, 184, 186, 193,
205, 209, 217, 231, 254, 297, 298, 299,
310, 396,
416, 426, 461, 478,
509, 512,
664, 680,
832, 841,
912, 934, 954, 966, 997,
1126, 1141, 1152,
1231,
1371,
1400, 1404, 1409, 1496,
1506, 1507

• By Zeus (in Aristophanes' Lysistrata)
• "By Zeus" in Aristophanes' Wealth

A man journeying into the desert
found Truth in person standing all alone.
He said to her: "Why, venerable dame,
have you left the city and now are dwelling in the wilderness?"
To which she, deeply wise, replied forthwith:
"Among the men of old it was only with a few that falsehood found a place,
but now it has spread beyond to all mankind."
[If I may say so, and you care to hear it,
the life of men in the present age is wicked.]

Ὁδοιπορῶν ἄνθρωπος εἰς ἐρημαίην
ἑστῶσαν εὗρε τὴν Ἀληθίην μούνην,
καί φησιν αὐτῇ "διὰ τίν' αἰτίην, γραίη,
τὴν πόλιν ἀφεῖσα τὴν ἐρημίην ναίεις;"
ἡ δ' εὐθὺ πρὸς τάδ' εἶπεν ἡ βαθυγνώμων·        5
"ἐν τοῖς παλαιοῖς παρ' ὀλίγοισιν ἦν ψεῦδος,
νῦν δ' εἰς ἅπαντας ἐξελήλυθ' ἀνθρώπους."
[Εἰ δ' ἔστιν εἰπεῖν καὶ βεβούλησαι κλύειν,
ὁ νῦν βίος πονηρός ἐστιν ἀνθρώπων.]

So there she stood all naked to my gaze.
In all her body not one fault there was.
What shoulders and what arms I saw, I held,
What dainty nipples, asking to be felt,
Beneath the shapely breast what belly smooth,
Hips large and beautiful, the thighs of youth!
Why single out? No part but stood the test.
Her naked to my naked form I pressed.
All know the sequel. We relaxed in swoon.
O, oft may Fortune grant me such a noon!

ut stetit ante oculos posito velamine nostros,
    in toto nusquam corpore menda fuit:
quos umeros, quales vidi tetigique lacertos!        20
    forma papillarum quam fuit apta premi!
quam castigato planus sub pectore venter!
    quantum et quale latus! quam iuvenale femur!
singula quid referam? nil non laudabile vidi,
    et nudam pressi corpus ad usque meum.        25
cetera quis nescit? lassi requievimus ambo.
    proveniant medii sic mihi saepe dies.

There is also a 'Greek Literature' by Gilbert Murray, the bad verse-translator, which I have read with dire anger, as he degrades Homer from a poet into a 'question' and prefers that snivelling metaphysician Euripides to Aeschylus.

salva me ex ore Leonis.

adversarius vester diabolus tamquam Leo rugiens circuit, quaerens quem devoret.

Kirk did not, of course, make me read nothing but Homer. The Two Great Bores (Demosthenes and Cicero) could not be avoided. There were (oh glory!) Lucretius, Catullus, Tacitus, Herodotus. There was Virgil, for whom I still had no true taste. There were Greek and Latin compositions. (It is a strange thing that I have contrived to reach my late fifties without ever reading one word of Caesar.) There were Euripides, Sophocles, Aeschylus.

During the war of the dogs and the wolves, the dog-assembly chose an Achaean to be their commander. Although he was an expert in the art of war, the commander waited and delayed. With fierce threats, the dogs urged him to advance and to engage in battle but the commander explained, 'Here is the reason why I delay and act with caution! One must always make plans with an eye to the future. All of the enemy whom I have seen are wolves, members of the same breed, whereas some of us are dogs from Crete, some are Molossian hounds, some are Acarnanians, others are Dolopians, while others boast of being from Cyprus or Thrace. Still others come from other places — what need is there to go on at length? We are not even the same colour, as the wolves are: some of us are black, some are grey, some are red with white-spotted chests, and some of us are white all over. How can I lead troops who are so lacking in unity to fight against an enemy who all resemble each other in every possible way?'

Κυσίν ποτ' ἔχθρα καὶ λύκοις συνειστήκει.
κύων δ' Ἀχαιὸς ᾑρέθη κυνῶν δήμῳ
στρατηγὸς εἶναι. καὶ μάχης ἐπιστήμων
ἔμελλεν, ἐβράδυνεν. οἱ δ' ἐπηπείλουν,
εἰ μὴ προάξει, τὴν μάχην τ' ἐνεργήσει.        5
"ἀκούσατ'" εἶπεν "οὗ χάριν διατρίβω,
τί δ' εὐλαβοῦμαι· χρὴ δ' ἀεὶ προβουλεύειν.
τῶν μὲν πολεμίων τὸ γένος ὧν ὁρῶ πάντων
ἕν ἐστιν· ἡμῶν δ' ἦλθον οἱ μὲν ἐκ Κρήτης,
οἱ δ' ἐκ Μολοσσῶν εἰσιν, οἱ δ' Ἀκαρνάνων,        10
ἄλλοι δὲ Δόλοπες, οἱ δὲ Κύπρον ἢ Θρᾴκην
αὐχοῦσιν, ἄλλοι δ' ἄλλοθεν — τί μηκύνω;
τὸ χρῶμα δ' ἡμῖν οὐχ ἕν ἐστιν ὡς τούτοις,
ἀλλ' οἱ μὲν ἡμῶν μέλανες, οἱ δὲ τεφρώδεις,
ἔνιοι δὲ πυρροὶ καὶ διάργεμοι στήθη,        15
ἄλλοι δὲ λευκοί. πῶς ἂν οὖν δυνηθείην
εἰς πόλεμον ἄρχειν" εἶπε "τῶν ἀσυμφώνων
πρὸς τοὺς ὅμοια πάντ' ἔχοντας ἀλλήλοις;"

However, this I suppose is part of the curse inherited from our first parents: my private opinion is that after the words 'In the sweat of thy brow shalt thou earn thy bread' [Genesis 3:19] another clause has dropped out from the original text, running 'In the exasperation of thy souls shalt thou attend social functions'.

Once they had bound fast the tackle on the swift-running, black-hulled ship
They set out two-handled jars that were filled to the brim with wine
And poured libations out to the deathless gods everlasting—
Above all to the daughter of Zeus, she of the bright owl-eyes.
All through the night and into the dawn the ship cut her way.

δησάμενοι δ᾽ ἄρα ὅπλα θοὴν ἀνὰ νῆα μέλαιναν
στήσαντο κρητῆρας ἐπιστεφέας οἴνοιο,
λεῖβον δ᾽ ἀθανάτοισι θεοῖς αἰειγενέτῃσιν,
ἐκ πάντων δὲ μάλιστα Διὸς γλαυκώπιδι κούρῃ.
παννυχίη μέν ῥ᾽ ἥ γε καὶ ἠῶ πεῖρε κέλευθον.

In this translation from the Odyssey, "she" appears to be a grammatical error. Can you analyze?: Once they had bound fast the tackle on the swift-running, black-hulled ship They set out two-handled jars that were filled to the brim with wine And poured libations out to the deathless gods everlasting— Above all to the daughter of Zeus, she of the bright owl-eyes. All through the night and into the dawn the ship cut her way.

Let me check which translation this is from, since identifying the translator will help pin down whether this is a deliberate stylistic choice.This is a great catch, and I think I can resolve it. First, confirmation of context: this is from Homer's Odyssey Book 2 (the departure scene when Telemachus's ship sets sail for Pylos) — I found a parallel rendering of the same lines elsewhere confirming this passage and its content.

Is "she" actually an error?

No — but it's worth walking through exactly why it looks like one, because your instinct about case-agreement is grammatically sound in principle.

The sentence structure is:

"...poured libations out to the deathless gods everlasting— / Above all to the daughter of Zeus, she of the bright owl-eyes."

"The daughter of Zeus" is the object of the preposition "to." In strict English grammar, an appositive should match the case of the noun it re-identifies. Since English nouns don't visibly decline for case but pronouns do, if you swapped in a pronoun for "the daughter of Zeus" directly, you'd get the objective form: "to her." So by that logic, the appositive tag ought to be "her of the bright owl-eyes," not "she of the bright owl-eyes" — which is exactly the mismatch you spotted.

Why translators do it anyway

This "[pronoun] of the [quality]" construction functions as a fixed epithet-formula in English poetic translation, not as an ordinary grammatical appositive subject to normal case rules. It's the same pattern as archaic/Biblical English like "O ye of little faith," or poetic tags like "he of the silver tongue" — these are conventionally frozen in the nominative regardless of their syntactic position in the sentence, because they're functioning more like a title or standing epithet ("Bright-Owl-Eyed One") than like a normal descriptive clause.

Why this happens specifically in Homer translation

The deeper reason is that Homer's Greek is an inflected language — the original epithet here (a form of glaukōpis, "gray/bright/owl-eyed," describing Athena) is properly declined to match the case of "daughter" in the Greek sentence (both would appear in the dative, since the phrase is the object of "to"). Greek has no case-mismatch problem at all, because the adjective bends with the noun.

English adjectives don't decline, so when a translator wants to render that same standing epithet as a phrase rather than a simple adjective ("bright-owl-eyed daughter of Zeus"), they sometimes convert it into a nominalized tag ("she of the bright owl-eyes") for rhythm or emphasis — and that conversion drags in a pronoun that does carry visible case marking in English, where the original adjective didn't. The "error" you're sensing is really a seam left behind by translating a case-inflected epithet into a language where only pronouns still show case.

So: not a slip, but a deliberate (if grammatically loose by strict prescriptive standards) stylistic device — an artifact of representing a Homeric formulaic epithet in English, following a convention with real precedent elsewhere in English poetic diction.

What life is there, what pleasure without golden Aphrodite?

τίς δὲ βίος, τί δὲ τερπνὸν ἄτερ χρυσέης Ἀφροδίτης;

If, as Mimnermus holds, without love and play
there's no enjoyment, live for love and play.

si, Mimnermus uti censet, sine amore iocisque
nil est iucundum, vivas in amore iocisque.

How can we reach our President with advice? He is ignorant, self-willed, and is surrounded by men some of whom are almost as ignorant as himself. So we have the dilemma put to us, What to do, when his power must continue two years longer and when the existence of our country may be endangered before he can be replaced by a man of sense. How hard, in order to save the country, to sustain a man who is incompetent.

[W]e shall align ourselves firmly with Professor Nilsson when he declares, "The name is one of the few that are etymologically transparent and means 'he of the stone-heap'."¹ Hermes then is an ancient god of the countryside, named by the Greeks from the ἕρμα, also called ἑρμαῖον which was a cairn or heap of stones. These cairns served as landmarks, and can already be seen as such in Homer, where Eumaios, describing to Telemachos how he has seen a ship, indicates his position by saying, "I had reached that point above the city where there is a ἑρμαῖος λόφος² "A hill of Hermes"? Yes, but also "a mound in the form of a cairn". The Etymologicum Magnum defines ἑρμαῖον as "heap of stones, and in general stones by the wayside", and the scholiast on the passage in the Odyssey explains the ἑρμαῖος λόφος in the same way, and adds that the same name was given to Roman milestones.³ To explain the connexion of Hermes with the cairns, the Greeks characteristically invented an aetiological myth. When Hermes killed Argos, he was brought to trial by the gods. They acquitted him, and in doing so each threw his voting-pebble (ψῆφος) at his feet. Thus a heap of stones grew up around him.³ In fact he must simply have been the daemon or spirit of the stone-heaps themselves, about which there were several more or less superstitious beliefs.

¹ Rose, Hbk. Gr. Myth. 146, Boisacq, Dict. Etym. de la Langue Grecque, 282, n. 3, Nilsson, Hist. Gr. Rel. 109. See also J. Chittenden in Hesperia, xvi (1947), 94, 95, to whom further reference will be made.

¹ Od. xvi, 471.

³ Text in Farnell, Cults, v, 67.

⁴ Etym. Magn. s.v. ἑρμαῖον.

What then of Hermes' Greek name? I have never been able to see any difficulty in the supposition that the Greeks, finding and paying homage to a friendly and helpful spirit of the country to which they had come, gave him their own title or nickname, which in this case Mrs. Chittenden translates as "Old Heapy".

A square-cut statue of Hermes had been placed by the side of a road, supported by a pile of stones at its base. A dog came up and said, "To begin with, Hermes, I salute you. But then I'd like to anoint you. I can't walk past a deity without doing so, and especially you, the god of wrestling." And the statue said, "I'll thank you not to come and lick off the oil with which I'm already coated, and not to piss on me either. That's all the honor I need from you."

Ἐν ὁδῷ τις ἑρμῆς τετράγωνος εἱστήκει,
λίθων δ' ὑπ' αὐτῷ σωρὸς ἦν. κύων τούτῳ
εἶπεν προσελθών "χαῖρε πρῶτον, Ἑρμεία·
ἔπειτ' ἀλεῖψαι βούλομαί σε, μηδ' οὕτω
θεὸν παρελθεῖν, καὶ θεὸν παλαιστρίτην."
ὁ δ' εἶπεν "ἤν μου τοῦτο μὴ 'πιλιχμήσῃς
τοὔλαιον ἐλθών, μηδέ μοι προσουρήσῃς,
χάριν εἴσομαί σοι· καὶ πλέον με μὴ τίμα.

May I never live a Muse-less life!

μὴ ζῴην μετ᾽ ἀμουσίας.

Never may I live among uneducated boors.

How you see tyranny and conspirators everywhere,
as soon as anyone voices a criticism large or small!

ὡς ἅπανθ᾽ ὑμῖν τυραννίς ἐστι καὶ ξυνωμόται,
ἤν τε μεῖζον ἤν τ᾽ ἔλαττον πρᾶγμά τις κατηγορῇ.

The twentieth-century English equivalents would hardly be 'tyranny' and 'conspirators', but rather 'dictatorship' and 'subversive'.

Abba Theodore of Pherme had acquired three good books. He came to Abba Macarius and said to him, Ί have three excellent books from which I derive profit; the brethren also make use of them and derive profit from them. Tell me what I ought to do: keep them for my use and that of the brethren, or sell them and give the money to the poor?' The old man answered him in this way, 'Your actions are good; but it is best of all to posses nothing.' Hearing that, he went and sold his books and gave the money for them to the poor.

Ὁ ἀββᾶς Θεόδωρος ὁ τῆς Φέρμης ἐκτήσατο τρία βιβλία καλά· καὶ παρέβαλε τῷ ἀββᾷ Μακαρίῳ͵ καὶ λέγει αὐτῷ͵ ὅτι Ἔχω τρία βιβλία καλὰ͵ καὶ ὠφελοῦμαι ἐξ αὐτῶν· καὶ οἱ ἀδελφοὶ κιχρῶνται αὐτὰ͵ καὶ ὠφελοῦνται. Εἰπὲ οὖν μοι͵ τί ὤφειλον ποιῆσαι; κατάσχω αὐτὰ εἰς τὴν ἐμὴν καὶ τὴν τῶν ἀδελφῶν ὠφέλειαν͵ ἢ πωλήσω αὐτὰ καὶ δώσω πτωχοῖς; Καὶ ἀποκριθεὶς ὁ γέρων εἶπε· Καλαὶ μὲν αἱ πράξεις͵ ἀλλὰ μείζων πάντων ἡ ἀκτημοσύνη ἐστί. Καὶ τοῦτο ἀκούσας͵ ἀπελθὼν ἐπώλησεν αὐτὰ͵ καὶ διέδωκε πτωχοῖς.

A shepherd found some wolf cubs and brought them up with a great deal of care because he thought that when they were adult they would not only protect his own sheep but also steal other people's sheep and bring them to him. But as soon as they were grown up, the first thing they did was take advantage of the shepherd's carelessness and kill his sheep. And the shepherd groaned and said, "It serves me right! Why did I save their lives when they were little, since I've got to kill them now when they're big?"

Likewise, those who keep bad people safe are failing to realize that all they're doing is empowering them to do them harm.

Ποιμὴν εὑρὼν λυκίδια, ἔτρεφεν ἐπιμελῶς, οἰόμενος ὅτι μεγαλυνθέντα τηρήσουσι τὰ ἑαυτοῦ πρόβατα, ἀλλὰ καὶ ἔτι προσθήσουσιν ἁρπάζοντες ἕτερα καὶ εἰσάξουσιν ἐν τῇ αὐτοῦ μάνδρᾳ. Οἱ δὲ, ὡς ηὐξήνθησαν, πρῶτον αὐτοῦ τὴν ποίμνην διέφθειραν. Καὶ ὃς ἀναστενάξας εἶπεν· Δίκαια πέπονθα· τί φὰρ μὴ νηπίους ἀπέκτεινον;

Ὁ μῦθος δηλοῖ ὅτι οἱ τοὺς πονηροὺς διασώζοντες λανθάνουσι καθ' ἑαυτῶν πρῶτον αὐτοὺς ῥωννύντες.

Her words.

ὣς εἰποῦσ᾽...

His words.

ὣς ἔφαθ᾽...

Now chronologically it is true that empty thrones came before sculptured gods, and that orgiastic rites like those of Dionysos or the Great Mother are older than the Olympian religion of Homer. If that is all that we mean, we may call them more primitive, but it does not follow that there was progress from one to the other. That depends on what our criterion of progress is. If it is the growth of spiritual insight, there is much to be said for the view that the man who carves a stone seat and leaves it for the god to occupy when he will, asking only to see him with the eye of the imagination, is at a higher stage of religious development than the man who demands to see the god in physical form, carved by the hand of a Pheidias. Similarly the Dionysiac idea of communion and identification with the god, or the belief of the worshipper of the Mother-goddess that he could be adopted into the family of his deity, together with the other mystical forms of religion practised from time immemorial in Aegean lands, contained, despite their crudeness, possibilities of spiritual development which were lacking to the religion of Homer.

A few years ago workmen digging in Peristéri, a northern suburb of Athens, found some ancient slabs of marble that had been used to construct an early Christian sarcophagus. These slabs dated from the fifth century B.C., and were covered with lists of names. As the Greek scholar Mastrokostas has conclusively shown, they were originally memorial plaques, and formed part of a cenotaph to the Athenian citizen-hoplites who died during the Sicilian Expedition.

We know too little of the anonymous, uncelebrated heroes of history, the men who passed through great events, whose sweat and blood helped to shape the world we inherit, yet who died and were forgotten as though they had never been, leaving no memorial to posterity. Throughout this story we have been concerned, inevitably, with the men who were not forgotten, the politicians and commanders who took the decisions that others carried out. But now, for one brief moment, the curtain is lifted. Here, passing in silent order, like the names on any war memorial in any age, are the heavy-armed infantrymen who toiled and fought and died on the heights of Epipolae or during the long agony of that final retreat. 2,950 Athenians of hoplite rank fought in Sicily. Between 700 and 1,200 of them died in action. Of these casualties, 169 names, from five tribal regiments, are preserved on the Peristéri stelae.

Youth I long for always.
But old age lies on my head,
a weight more heavy than Aetna's rocks;
darkness hides
the light from my eyes.
Had I the wealth of an Asian king,
or a palace crammed with gold,
both would I give for youth,
loveliest in wealth,
in poverty, loveliest.
But old age I loathe: ugly,
murderous. Let the waves take it
so it comes no more to the homes
and cities of men! Let the wind
whirl it away forever!

ἁ νεότας μοι φίλον αἰ-
εί· τὸ δὲ γῆρας ἄχθος
βαρύτερον Αἴτνας σκοπέλων
ἐπὶ κρατὶ κεῖται, βλεφάρων        640
σκοτεινὸν φάος ἐπικαλύψαν.
μή μοι μήτ᾽ Ἀσιήτιδος
τυραννίδος ὄλβος εἴη,
μὴ χρυσοῦ δώματα πλήρη        645
τᾶς ἥβας ἀντιλαβεῖν,
ἃ καλλίστα μὲν ἐν ὄλβῳ,
καλλίστα δ᾽ ἐν πενίᾳ.
τὸ δὲ λυγρὸν φόνιόν τε γῆ-
ρας μισῶ· κατὰ κυμάτων δ᾽        650
ἔρροι, μηδέ ποτ᾽ ὤφελεν
θνατῶν δώματα καὶ πόλεις
ἐλθεῖν, ἀλλὰ κατ᾽ αἰθέρ᾽ αἰ-
εὶ πτεροῖσι φορείσθω.

[4] For it is an excellent thing to be able to use the ignorant mistakes of others as warning examples for the correction of error, and, when we confront the varied vicissitudes of life, instead of having to investigate what is being done now, to be able to imitate the successes which have been achieved in the past. Certainly all men prefer in their counsels the oldest men to those who are younger, because of the experience which has accrued to the former through the lapse of time; but it is a fact that such experience is in so far surpassed by the understanding which is gained from history, as history excels, we know, in the multitude of facts at its disposal. For this reason one may hold that the acquisition of a knowledge of history is of the greatest utility for every conceivable circumstance of life.

[5] For it endows the young with the wisdom of the aged, while for the old it multiplies the experience which they already possess; citizens in private station it qualifies for leader­ship, and the leaders it incites, through the immortality of the glory which it confers, to undertake the noblest deeds; soldiers, again, it makes more ready to face dangers in defence of their country because of the public encomiums which they will receive after death, and wicked men it turns aside from their impulse towards evil through the everlasting opprobrium to which it will condemn them.

[4] καλὸν γὰρ τὸ δύνασθαι τοῖς τῶν ἄλλων ἀγνοήμασι πρὸς διόρθωσιν χρῆσθαι παραδείγμασι, καὶ πρὸς τὰ συγκυροῦντα ποικίλως κατὰ τὸν βίον ἔχειν μὴ ζήτησιν τῶν πραττομένων, ἀλλὰ μίμησιν τῶν ἐπιτετευγμένων. καὶ γὰρ τοὺς πρεσβυτάτους ταῖς ἡλικίαις ἅπαντες τῶν νεωτέρων προκρίνουσιν ἐν ταῖς συμβουλίαις διὰ τὴν ἐκ τοῦ χρόνου περιγεγενημένην αὐτοῖς ἐμπειρίαν: ἧς τοσοῦτον ὑπερέχειν συμβέβηκε τὴν ἐκ τῆς ἱστορίας μάθησιν ὅσον καὶ τῷ πλήθει τῶν πραγμάτων προτεροῦσαν αὐτὴν ἐπεγνώκαμεν. διὸ καὶ πρὸς ἁπάσας τὰς τοῦ βίου περιστάσεις χρησιμωτάτην ἄν τις εἶναι νομίσειε τὴν ταύτης ἀνάληψιν.

[5] οῖς μὲν γὰρ νεωτέροις τὴν τῶν γεγηρακότων περιποιεῖ σύνεσιν, τοῖς δὲ πρεσβυτέροις πολλαπλασιάζει τὴν ὑπάρχουσαν ἐμπειρίαν, καὶ τοὺς μὲν ἰδιώτας ἀξίους ἡγεμονίας κατασκευάζει, τοὺς δ’ ἡγεμόνας τῷ διὰ τῆς δόξης ἀθανατισμῷ προτρέπεται τοῖς καλλίστοις τῶν ἔργων ἐπιχειρεῖν, χωρὶς δὲ τούτων τοὺς μὲν στρατιώτας τοῖς μετὰ τὴν τελευτὴν ἐπαίνοις ἑτοιμοτέρους κατασκευάζει πρὸς τοὺς ὑπὲρ τῆς πατρίδος κινδύνους, τοὺς δὲ πονηροὺς τῶν ἀνθρώπων ταῖς αἰωνίοις βλασφημίαις ἀποτρέπει τῆς ἐπὶ τὴν κακίαν ὁρμῆς.

Nowadays a Greek or Latin work is to most people a rather strange object, whose structure and conventions and world of ideas are very far from being readily intelligible.

Up to this time, O Romans, I have regarded the misfortune to my eyes as an affliction, but it now distresses me that I am not deaf as well as blind, that I might not hear the shameful resolutions and decrees of yours which bring low the glory of Rome.

πρότερον μέν ... τὴν περὶ τὰ ὄμματα τύχην ἀνιαρῶς ἔφερον, ὦ Ῥωμαῖοι, νῦν δ’ ἄχθομαι πρὸς τῷ τυφλὸς εἶναι μὴ καὶ κωφὸς ὤν, ἀλλ’ ἀκούων αἰσχρὰ βουλεύματα καὶ δόγμαθ’ ὑμῶν, ἀνατρέποντα τῆς Ῥώμης τὸ κλέος.

The philologist is an interpreter, a translator, though not merely of words: he will not understand them fully unless he also understands the soul from which they spring. He has to be the interpreter of this soul, too. For that reason, because it proves its art in interpretation, biography is the true work of the philologist, raised to a higher level

Der Philologe ist nun einmal Interpret, Dolmetsch, aber nicht nur der Worte; die wird er nicht voll verstehen, wenn er nicht die Seele versteht, aus der sie kommen. Er muß auch der Interpret dieser Seele sein. Denn weil sie ihre ganze Kunst im Interpretieren bewährt, ist die Biographie recht eigentlich Philologenarbeit, nur in höherer Potenz.

For a city sick with dissension and evil counsels thinketh not aright; otherwise it would never have accepted thee as its master.

                                οὐ γὰρ εὖ φρονεῖ πόλις
στάσει νοσοῦσα καὶ κακοῖς βουλεύμασιν·
οὐ γάρ ποτ' ἂν σὲ δεσπότην ἐκτήσατο.

He is no true Theban, and rules most wrongfully over the citizens since he is an immigrant.

                                       οὐ Καδμεῖος ὢν
ἄρχει κάκιστα τῶν ἐτῶν ἔπηλυς ὤν.

257 κάκιστα Kovacs: κάκιστος L
ἐτῶν Kovacs: νέων L: ἐμῶν Dobree

The Ostia herm ... portrays a most striking personality, and one which exactly matches the impression conveyed by our other sources. An influential group of scholars and art-historians now maintains, rightly as I would hold, that this bust derives from an original portrait made towards the end of Themistocles' life, about 460 BC. Till recently it was taken as axiomatic that no true 'likenesses', in the modern sense, existed for almost another century. This view is now undergoing considerable revision and modification, for which the Themistocles bust itself is in no small part responsible. That big round head, simple planes recalling the early cubic conception, poised squarely above a thick, muscular, boxer's neck; the firm yet sensuous mouth, showing a faint ironic smile beneath those drooping moustaches; wiry crisp hair lying close against the skull — all tell an identical story. What we have here is the portrait of a born leader: as Gisela Richter wrote, 'a farseeing, fearless, but headstrong man, a saviour in time of stress, but perhaps difficult in time of peace'. There is, surely, nothing conventional or stylised about that broad forehead and bulldog jaw; they have an ineluctably Churchillian quality. Indeed, of all modern statesmen, Churchill is the one whose career parallels that of Themistocles in so many ways that coincidence will hardly suffice as an explanation. Both possessed the unpopular gift of being right when their more intellectual contemporaries were wrong. Both had a streak of that dazzling yet suspect histrionic genius which can transcend and transform a national emergency. Both were voted out of office with uncommon speed when the crisis they surmounted was over. Under Themistocles' leadership the Athenians, too, lived through their finest hour.

We will first discuss the question of justice and rectitude, especially as we are seeking an alliance, for we know that neither does friendship between men prove lasting, nor does a league between states come to aught, unless they comport themselves with transparent honesty of purpose towards one another and in general are of like character and way of thinking; for differences in men's actions arise from the diversity of their convictions.

περὶ γὰρ τοῦ δικαίου καὶ ἀρετῆς πρῶτον, ἄλλως τε καὶ ξυμμαχίας δεόμενοι, τοὺς λόγους ποιησόμεθα, εἰδότες οὔτε φιλίαν ἰδιώταις βέβαιον γιγνομένην οὔτε κοινωνίαν πόλεσιν ἐς οὐδέν, εἰ μὴ μετ ̓ ἀρετῆς δοκούσης ἐς ἀλλήλους γίγνοιντο καὶ τἆλλα ὁμοιότροποι εἶεν· ἐν γὰρ τῷ διαλλάσσοντι τῆς γνώμης καὶ αἱ διαφοραὶ τῶν ἔργων καθίστανται.

We don't cry enough now a days, that's one of the things that is wrong with us. Achilles cried, Roland cried, Lancelot cried. It's in Shakespeare that characters first start apologising for tears.

The truth is I'm v. unfair to contemporaries. When it comes to the point I always ask myself why I shd. go to a bookseller and get something wh. I may like when my shelves are full of what I certainly do like already.

Moreover, he bore splendid testimony to the wisdom of Plato¹ in urging the man who would be truly rich, not to make his possessions greater, but his inordinate desires fewer; since he who puts no end to his greed, this man is never rid of poverty and want.

¹The passage cannot be determined.

λαμπρὰν τῷ Πλάτωνι μαρτυρίαν διδοὺς διακελευομένῳ μὴ τὴν οὐσίαν πλείω, τὴν δὲ ἀπληστίαν ποιεῖν ἐλάσσω τόν γε βουλόμενον ὡς ἀληθῶς εἶναι πλούσιον, ὡς ὅ γε μὴ παύων φιλοπλουτίαν, οὗτος οὔτε πενίας οὔτε ἀπορίας ἀπήλλακται.

Suppose I want to find out the correct interpretation of Plato's teaching. What I am most confident in accepting is that interpretation wh. is common to all the Platonists down all the centuries: what Aristotle and the Renaissance scholars and Paul Elmer More agree on I take to be true Platonism. Any purely modern views wh. claim to have discovered for the first time what P. meant, and say that everyone from Aristotle down has misunderstood him, I reject out of hand.

But there is something else I wd. also reject. If there were an ancient Platonic Society still existing at Athens and claiming to be the exclusive trustees of P's meaning, I shd. approach them with great respect. But if I found that their teaching in many ways was curiously unlike his actual text and unlike what ancient interpreters said, and in some cases cd. not be traced back to within 1000 years of his time, I shd. reject these exclusive claims: while still ready, of course, to take any particular thing they taught on its merits.

I do the same with Xtianity. What is most certain is the vast mass of doctrine wh. I find agreed on by Scripture, the Fathers, the Middle Ages, modern R.C.'s, modern Protestants. That is true 'catholic' doctrine. Mere 'modernism' I reject at once.

Ismenias the Theban used to exhibit both good and bad players to his pupils on the flute and say, "you must play like this one," or again, "you must not play like this one"; and Antigenidas used to think that young men would listen with more pleasure to good flute-players if they were given an experience of bad ones also.

Ἰσμηνίας ὁ Θηβαῖος ἐπιδεικνύμενος τοῖς μαθηταῖς καὶ τοὺς εὖ καὶ τοὺς κακῶς αὐλοῦντας εἰώθει λέγειν, “Οὕτως αὐλεῖν δεῖ,” καὶ πάλιν, “Οὕτως αὐλεῖν οὐ δεῖ,” ὁ δ᾿ Ἀντιγενίδας καὶ ἥδιον ᾤετο τῶν ἀγαθῶν ἀκροᾶσθαι τοὺς νέους αὐλητῶν ἐὰν καὶ τῶν φαύλων πεῖραν λαμβάνωσιν.