Laudator Temporis Acti

Tonight at a secondhand bookstore I picked up Surprised by Laughter: The Comic World of C.S. Lewis, by Terry Lindvall, Ph.D. (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1996), for one dollar. I've read a few chapters, and it's not a bad book. It quotes extensively from Lewis, which alone guarantees that there will be much worth reading in it. The title is a takeoff on Lewis' own book Surprised by Joy.

The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language defines howler as "an amusing or ridiculous blunder." So it happened that I was amused (surprised by laughter, as it were) when I read the dedication of Surprised by Laughter, which ends with a howler, the supposedly Latin sentence "Soli Deus Gloria."

If you're a Latin teacher, it might be a good extra credit exercise for your students to correct this mistake. I won't give away the answer by correcting it here.

Hint: I assume Lindvall meant "To God alone be glory." As Fr. Deighan points out, it is possible to translate "Soli Deus gloria" as "To a loner, God is glory." But it is clear from the rest of the dedication that Lindvall did not have this in mind.

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Two more howlers from the pen of Terry Lindvall, Ph.D., on p. 223 of the same work:

Man is homo risens, the zoion gelastikon -- the animal that laughs.

How about homo cachinnans, or ridens, or risor? But not risens, which implies the existence of a non-existent Latin verb riso or riseo. And there is no Greek word zoion, which should be zōon (ζῶον).

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Matt Carter correctly points out that ζῷον is the preferred orthography, and that zoion is therefore an acceptable transliteration. I wrongly relied on the lemma in my old (1872) Liddell and Scott, which has ζῶον, without the iota subscript. The title of this post describes my own mistake, and I hereby eat humble pie.

Ephesians 5.3-4:

[3] But fornication, and all uncleanness, or covetousness, let it not be once named among you, as becometh saints; [4] Neither filthiness, nor foolish talking [μωρολογία, mōrología], nor jesting [εὐτραπελία, eutrapelía], which are not convenient: but rather giving of thanks.

[3] πορνεία δὲ καὶ ἀκαθαρσία πᾶσα ἢ πλεονεξία μηδὲ ὀνομαζέσθω ἐν ὑμῖν, καθὼς πρέπει ἁγίοις, [4] καὶ αἰσχρότης καὶ ἢ εὐτραπελία, ἃ οὐκ ἀνῆκεν, ἀλλὰ μᾶλλον εὐχαριστία.

Colossians 3.8:

But now ye also put off all these; anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication [αἰσχρολογία, aischrología] out of your mouth.

νυνὶ δὲ ἀπόθεσθε καὶ ὑμεῖς τὰ πάντα, ὀργήν, θυμόν, κακίαν, βλασφημίαν, αἰσχρολογίαν ἐκ τοῦ στόματος ὑμῶν.

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Richard Chenevix Trench, Synonyms of the New Testament (London, 1880; rpt. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1948), § xxxiv. μωρολογία, αἰσχρολογία, εὐτραπελία:

All these designate sins of the tongue, but with a difference.

Μωρολογία, employed by Aristotle (Hist. Anim. i.11), but of rare use till the later Greek, is rendered well in the Vulgate, on the one occasion of its occurrence (Ephes. v.4), by 'stultiloquium,' a word which Plautus may have coined (Mil. Glor. ii.3.5); although one which did not find more favour and currency in the after language of Rome, than did the 'stultiloquy' which Jeremy Taylor sought to introduce among ourselves.

Not merely the πᾶν ῥῆμα ἀργόν [every idle word] of our Lord (Matt. xii.36), but in good part also the πᾶς λόγος σαπρός [every corrupt communication] of his Apostle (Ephes. iv.29), will be included in it; discourse, as everything else in the Christian, needing to be seasoned with the salt of grace, and being in danger of growing first insipid, and then corrupt, without it.

Those who stop short with the ἀργὰ ῥήματα [idle words], as though μωρολογία reached no further, fail to exhaust the fulness of its meaning. Thus Calvin too weakly: 'Sermones inepti ac inanes, nulliusque frugis;' and even Jeremy Taylor (On the Good and Evil Tongue, Serm. xxxii. pt. 2) fails to reproduce the full force of the word. 'That,' he says, 'which is here meant by stultiloquy or foolish speaking is the "lubricum verbi," as St. Ambrose calls it, the "slipping with the tongue" which prating people often suffer, whose discourses betray the vanity of their spirit, and discover "the hidden man of the heart."'

In heathen writings μωρολογία may very well pass as equivalent to ἀδολεσχία, 'random talk,' and μωρολογεῖν to ληρεῖν (Plutarch, De Garr. 4); but words obtain a new earnestness when assumed into the ethical terminology of Christ's school. Nor, in seeking to enter fully into the meaning of this one, ought we to leave out of sight the greater emphasis which the words 'fool,' 'foolish,' 'folly,' obtain in Scripture, than elsewhere they have, or can have. There is the positive of folly as well as the negative to be taken account of, when we are weighing the force of μωρολογία: it is that 'talk of fools,' which is foolishness and sin together.

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I broke Trench's prose into shorter paragraphs and inserted extra matter in square brackets.

The Greek noun μωρολογία [mōrología] is a compound formed from μωρός (mōrós = foolish) and λόγος (lógos = word). We see mōrós in English sophomore = wise fool and moron. Lógos is an element of many English words (theology, trilogy, etc.). The title of Erasmus' Praise of Folly (Encomium Moriae) was a pun on the Greek word μωρία (mōría = folly) and the surname of Erasmus' friend Thomas More.

With the Plautine stultiloquium in the Vulgate of Ephesians 5.4, compare turpis lucri cupidum at Titus 1.7, where I once half seriously suggested emending the text to turpilucricupidum, after the Plautine compound turpilucricupidus (Trinummus 100). St. Jerome was an avid reader of Plautus.

The next installment will be Sins of the Tongue, II: Filthy Communication, on the Greek word αἰσχρολογία, aischrología.

Sophocles, Antigone 295-301 (tr. Hugh Lloyd-Jones):

There is no institution so ruinous for men as money; money sacks cities, money drives men from their homes! Money by its teaching perverts men's good minds so that they take to evil actions! Money has shown men how to practise villainy, and taught them impiousness in every action!

οὐδὲν γὰρ ἀνθρώποισιν οἷον ἄργυρος
κακὸν νόμισμ᾽ ἔβλαστε. τοῦτο καὶ πόλεις
πορθεῖ, τόδ᾽ ἄνδρας ἐξανίστησιν δόμων·
τόδ᾽ ἐκδιδάσκει καὶ παραλλάσσει φρένας
χρηστὰς πρὸς αἰσχρὰ πράγμαθ᾽ ἵστασθαι βροτῶν·
πανουργίας δ᾽ ἔδειξεν ἀνθρώποις ἔχειν
καὶ παντὸς ἔργου δυσσέβειαν εἰδέναι.

By the way, I noticed that Hugh Lloyd-Jones, in his Loeb translation of Sophocles' Antigone, for some reason skipped the beginning of line 76. I see no translation of the words ἐκεῖ γὰρ αἰεὶ κείσομαι, which mean "For there shall I always lie."

William Cowper, To His Cousin Lady Hesketh, Reasons Why He Could Not Write Her a Good Letter:

My pens are all split, and my ink-glass is dry;
Neither wit, common sense, nor ideas have I.

William Cowper, To Rev. Walter Bagot, Excuse for Delay in Writing to Him:

It is a maxim of much weight,
  Worth conning o'er and o'er,
He who has Homer to translate,
  Had need do nothing more.

My excuse is that I'm going out of town for a few days and probably won't have access to a computer.

In the meantime, try reading some of the blogs on the sidebar. Samples:

• Roger Kuin at Old Men ought to be Explorers has started a series on Forgotten Poems, with poems by Alfred Noyes and Francis Jammes. These forgotten poems deserve to be remembered, especially the one by Jammes.
  
• Dennis Mangan at Mangan's Miscellany writes entertainingly on plastic water bottles and aptronyms.
  
• The list of books I want to read grows longer each time I visit Patrick Kurp's Anecdotal Evidence. I had never heard of R.S. Thomas before, but what curmudgeon can resist this description (by Anthony Daniels, aka Theodore Dalrymple)? "R.S. Thomas's hatred of modernity and all its works slides into bitter misanthropy and a severe limitation of human sympathy....Men did not live up to his standards. They ran after the transitory and failed to notice the eternal glory that surrounded them."

La Bruyère, Les Caractères XI, 16:

The question arises why all men don't join together as one single nation, why they have been unwilling to speak one identical language, live under the same laws, agree among themselves as to the same customs and the same religion. As for me, when I consider the difference among personalities, tastes, and feelings, I'm surprised to see even seven or eight people join themselves together under the same roof, within the same enclosure, and form a single family.

L'on demande pourquoi tous les hommes ensemble ne composent pas comme une seule nation, et n'ont point voulu parler une même langue, vivre sous les mêmes lois, convenir entre eux des mêmes usages et d'un même culte; et moi, pensant à la contrariété des esprits, des goûts et des sentiments, je suis étonné de voir jusques à sept ou huit personnes se rassembler sous un même toit, dans une même enceinte, et composer une seule famille.

William Cowper's Epitaph on "Fop," a Dog Belonging to Lady Throckmorton, doesn't seem to be available elsewhere on the World Wide Web:

Though once a puppy, and though Fop by name,
Here moulders one whose bones some honour claim;
No sycophant, although of spaniel race,
And though no hound, a martyr to the chase.
Ye squirrels, rabbits, leverets, rejoice!
Your haunts no longer echo to his voice;
This record of his fate exulting view,
He died worn out with vain pursuit of you.
"Yes" -- the indignant shade of Fop replies --
"And worn with vain pursuit man also dies."

I guess it's a sign of my perspective on things, that I call a poem composed in August 1792 modern.

For a similar twist at the tail end of an epitaph on a dog, compare the final verses of John Gay's An Elegy on a Lap-dog:

He's dead. Oh lay him gently in the ground!
And may his tomb be by this verse renown'd.
Here Shock, the pride of all his kind, is laid;
Who fawn'd like man, but ne'er like man betray'd.

Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary:

ADAGE, n. Boned wisdom for weak teeth.

APHORISM, n. Predigested wisdom.

The flabby wine-skin of his brain
Yields to some pathologic strain,
And voids from its unstored abysm
The driblet of an aphorism.

"The Mad Philosopher," 1697

PLATITUDE, n. The fundamental element and special glory of popular literature. A thought that snores in words that smoke. The wisdom of a million fools in the diction of a dullard. A fossil sentiment in artificial rock. A moral without the fable. All that is mortal of a departed truth. A demi-tasse of milk-and-mortality. The Pope's-nose of a featherless peacock. A jelly-fish withering on the shore of the sea of thought. The cackle surviving the egg. A desiccated epigram.

Eric at Campus Mawrtius wonders if there are any classical parallels to Shakespeare, Merchant of Venice 2.1.32-38:

If Hercules and Lichas play at dice
Which is the better man, the greater throw
May turn by fortune from the weaker hand:
So is Alcides beaten by his rage,
And so may I, blind Fortune leading me,
Miss that which one unworthier may attain,
And die with grieving.

rage: page Pope

I love a puzzle like this, but I can't find any passages in classical literature where Hercules and Lichas play at dice. Hercules seems to have become fond of dice only after his death and apotheosis. Plutarch, Life of Romulus 5 (tr. Bernadotte Perrin), writes:

They pay honours also to another Larentia, for the following reason. The keeper of the temple of Hercules, being at a loss for something to do, as it seems, proposed to the god a game of dice, with the understanding that if he won it himself, he should get some valuable present from the god; but if he lost, he would furnish the god with a bounteous repast and a lovely woman to keep him company for the night.

On these terms the dice were thrown, first for the god, then for himself, when it appeared that he had lost. Wishing to keep faith, and thinking it right to abide by the contract, he prepared a banquet for the god, and engaging Larentia, who was then in the bloom of her beauty, but not yet famous, he feasted her in the temple, where he had spread a couch, and after the supper locked her in, assured of course that the god would take possession of her.

And verily it is said that the god did visit the woman, and bade her go early in the morning to the forum, salute the first man who met her, and make him her friend. She was met, accordingly, by one of the citizens who was well on in years and possessed of a considerable property, but childless, and unmarried all his life, by name Tarrutius.

This man took Larentia to his bed and loved her well, and at his death left her heir to many and fair possessions, most of which she bequeathed to the people. And it is said that when she was now famous and regarded as the beloved of a god, she disappeared at the spot where the former Larentia also lies buried.

This spot is now called Velabrum, because when the river overflowed, as it often did, they used to cross it at about this point in ferry-boats, to go to the forum, and their word for ferry is "velatura." But some say that it is so called because from that point on, the street leading to the Hippodrome from the forum is covered over with sails by the givers of a public spectacle, and the Roman word for sail is "velum." It is for these reasons that honours are paid to this second Larentia amongst the Romans.

The same story is told by Plutarch, Roman Questions 35; Tertullian, Ad Nationes 2.10; and Augustine, City of God 6.7.

But this can have nothing to do with Shakespeare. The keeper of Hercules' temple cannot be Lichas, because before his own death Hercules killed Lichas. Also, Hercules wins at dice in Plutarch, but loses in Shakespeare. Finally, the contest in Shakespeare is over "which is the better man," and Hercules is god, not man, in Plutarch.

In response to the last post, E.J. Moncada (via email) adduces Richmond Lattimore, Themes in Greek and Roman Epitaphs (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1962), p. 107: μή, δέομαι, γελάσῃς εἰ κυνός ἐστι τάφος (Please do not laugh because this is a dog's grave.) = Kaibel, Epigrammata Graeca 627, 2 (near Florence).

This seems similar to an epigram translated by J. W. Mackail, as LIV in his collection Select Epigrams from the Greek Anthology (1890):

Thou who passest on this path,
If haply thou dost mark this monument,
Laugh not, I pray thee, though it is a dog's grave.
Tears fell for me, and the dust was heaped above me
By a master's hand.

Also in Mackail's collection are LV (by Tymnes):

Here the stone says it holds the white dog from Melita, the most faithful guardian of Eumelus; Bull they called him while he was yet alive; but now his voice is prisoned in the silent pathways of night.

and LVII (by Simonides):

Surely even as thou liest dead in this tomb I deem the wild beasts yet fear thy white bones, huntress Lycas; and thy valour great Pelion knows, and splendid Ossa and the lonely peaks of Cithaeron.

Mackail's LV is number 7.211 in the Greek Anthology:

Τῇδε τὸν ἐκ Μελίτης ἀργὸν κύνα φησὶν ὁ πέτρος
  ἴσχειν, Εὐμήλου πιστότατον φύλακα.
Ταῦρόν μιν καλέεσκον, ὅτ᾽ ἦν ἔτι· νῦν δὲ τὸ κείνου
  φθέγμα σιωπηραὶ νυκτὸς ἔχουσιν ὁδοί.

I have not yet tracked down the standard citations of Mackail's LIV and LVII.

Julia Lougovaya-Ast, in a review of Reinhold Merkelbach and Josef Stauber, Steinepigramme aus dem griechischen Osten. Band 4: Die Südküste Kleinasiens, Syrien und Palaestina (München/Leipzig: K.G. Saur, 2002), writes:

18/01/28, from Termessos, is a very interesting inscription on a small sarcophagus of a dog named Stephanos. The epitaph seems to have comprised three epigrams, of which the first is largely lost, but the following two survive intact:

This is the tomb of the dog, Stephanos, who perished,
Whom Rhodope shed tears for and buried like a human (vv. 4-5).
I am the dog Stephanos, and Rhodope set up a tomb for me (v. 6).

The small sarcophagus was found near the inscribed sarcophagus of Rhodope herself.

Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum 6.29896 is an epitaph for a dog named Margarita (Pearl):

Gallia me genuit nomen mihi divitis undae /
concha dedit formae nominis aptus honos /
docta per incertas audax discurrere silvas /
collibus hirsutas atque agitare feras /
non gravibus vinc(u)lis unquam consueta teneri /
verbera nec niveo corpore saeva pati /
molli namque sinu domini dominaeque iacebam /
et noram in strato lassa cubare toro /
et plus quam licuit muto canis ore loquebar /
nulli latratus pertimuere meos /
sed iam fata subii partu iactata sinistro /
quam nunc sub parvo marmore terra tegit /
Margarita

It should be noted that Sauvage Noble's second example is a variation on Catullus' dirge for Lesbia's sparrow (3, Lugete, o Veneres Cupidinesque).

I don't have access to Courtney's Musa Lapidaria, but if I recall correctly, it has extensive notes, and probably cites everything above and more.

Sauvage Noble posts two very interesting epitaphs for dogs from E. Courtney's Musa Lapidaria: A Selection of Latin Verse Inscriptions (1995). This is a subject much on my mind lately, at a time when my sister's dog is near death.

A poem that captures well the bond between man and dog, not dissolved even by death, is Robinson Jeffers' The House Dog's Grave, in which Jeffers' dead English bulldog Haig speaks:

I've changed my ways a little; I cannot now
Run with you in the evenings along the shore,
Except in a kind of dream; and you, if you dream a moment,
You see me there.

So leave awhile the paw-marks on the front door
Where I used to scratch to go out or in,
And you'd soon open; leave on the kitchen floor
The marks of my drinking-pan.

I cannot lie by your fire as I used to do
On the warm stone,
Nor at the foot of your bed; no, all the nights through
I lie alone.

But your kind thought has laid me less than six feet
Outside your window where firelight so often plays,
And where you sit to read - and I fear often grieving for me -
Every night your lamplight lies on my place.

You, man and woman, live so long, it is hard
To think of you ever dying.
A little dog would get tired, living so long.
I hope that when you are lying

Under the ground like me your lives will appear
As good and joyful as mine.
No, dears, that's too much hope: you are not so well cared for
As I have been.

And never have known the passionate undivided
Fidelities that I knew.
Your minds are perhaps too active, too many-sided...
But to me you were true.

You were never masters, but friends. I was your friend.
I loved you well, and was loved. Deep love endures
To the end and far past the end. If this is my end,
I am not lonely. I am not afraid. I am still yours.

James Boswell, The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D.

Monday, 16th August:

Somebody talked of happy moments for composition; and how a man can write at one time, and not at another. -- "Nay (said Dr. Johnson) a man may write at any time, if he will set himself doggedly to it."

Wednesday, 25th August:

Dr. Johnson wrote a long letter to Mrs Thrale. I wondered to see him write so much so easily. He verified his own doctrine that "a man may always write when he will set himself doggedly to it."

Greek Anthology 9.110 (Alpheius of Mitylene, tr. W.R. Paton):

I crave not for deep-soiled fields nor wealth of gold such as was Gyges.' I love a self-sufficient life, Macrinus. The saying "naught in excess" pleaseth me exceedingly.

Οὐ στέργω βαθυληίους ἀρούρας,
οὐκ ὄλβον πολύχρυσον, οἷα Γύγης.
αὐτάρκους ἔραμαι βίου, Μακρῖνε·
τὸ Μηθὲν γὰρ ἄγαν ἄγαν με τέρπει.

Aeschylus, Agamemnon. Edited with a Commentary by Eduard Fraenkel (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1950), vol. 2, p. 217 (on line 412):

The use of the privative τρίκωλον is very old and widespread, and perhaps we can find one of the roots of it in phrases such as ἀφρήτωρ, ἀθέμιστος, ἀνέστιός (I 63), of which the form and content are associated with solemn imprecations.¹ It will suffice here to quote from Aeschylus Ag. 769 ἄμαχον ἀπόλεμον ἀνίερον, Cho. 54 ἄμαχον ἀδάματον ἀπόλεμον, as well as S. Ant. 876 ἄκλαυτος ἄφιλος ἀνυμέναιος, 1071 ἄμοιρον ἀκτέριστον ἀνόσιον, Oed. C. 130 f. παραμειβόμεσθ᾽ ἀδέρκτως ἀφώνως ἀλόγως τὸ ... στόμα ... ἱέντες, 1236 f. ἀκρατὲς ἀπροσόμιλον γῆρας ἄφιλον, Eur. Andr. 491 ἄθεος ἄνομος ἄχαρις ὁ φόνος, Ar. Frogs 838 ἀχάλινον ἀκρατὲς ἀπύλωτον, and in more comic form ibid. 204 ἄπειρος ἀθαλάττωτος ἀσαλαμίνιος, Phyrinichus Com. ap. Phot. Berol. p. 118.25 ἄσιτος ἄποτος ἀναπόνιππος. The figure is one which invites imitation: in tragic language, e.g. Paradise Lost, ii.185 unrespited, unpitied, unreprieved (ibid. v.895 f. in quadruplet form, unmoved, Unshaken, unseduced, unterrified), in comic (with παρατραγωιδεῖν of Shakespeare's line in Hamlet, i.5.77 unhouseled, disappointed, unaneled), L. Stern, Tristram Shandy, chap. 35 unwiped, unappointed, unannealed.

¹ There is a much later instance (IV/III cent. B.C.), but conceived in the same spirit, in the curse recorded on the Attic lead tablet, Dittenberger, Syll. 1175 l. 10 ἄχωρα καὶ ἄμοιρα καὶ ἀφανῆ αὐτῶι ἅπαντα γένοιτο. Cf. ibid. l. 28 f. R. Hirzel, 'Die Strafe der Steinigung', Abh. Sächs. Ges. d. Wiss., phil.-hist. Kl. xxvii, 1908, 253 n. 7, observes: 'In Hom. Il. 9.63 in the words spoken against the man who stirs up civil discord, ἀφρήτωρ ἀθέμιστος ἀνέστιός ἐστιν ἐκεῖνος, I cannot help recognizing an ancient formula of proscription or of permanent and complete banishment, only, as happens elsewhere too, it is proleptically transformed from a wish or a curse into an affirmation. "He is tribeless, hearthless", instead of "he deserves to be...."' This coincides exactly with my own assumption. For the asyndetic tricolon in general cf. F. Leo, Analecta Plautina, iii (Göttinger Univ.-Programm, 1906), 6 ff.

On my next trip to the library, I'll try to find the discussions of Hirzel and Leo.

Earlier posts on this subject:

• Privative, Asyndetic Adjectives
  
• More Privative, Asyndetic Adjectives
  
• Yet More Privative, Asyndetic Adjectives
  
• From the Mailbag

It's encouraging to see that we (I include my correspondents) uncovered some examples not mentioned by Fraenkel.

Seneca, Letters to Lucilius 28.1-2 (tr. Richard M. Gummere):

Do you suppose that you alone have had this experience? Are you surprised, as if it were a novelty, that after such long travel and so many changes of scene you have not been able to shake off the gloom and heaviness of your mind? You need a change of soul rather than a change of climate. Though you may cross vast spaces of sea, and though, as our Vergil remarks,

Lands and cities are left astern,

your faults will follow you whithersoever you travel. Socrates made the same remark to one who complained; he said: "Why do you wonder that globe-trotting does not help you, seeing that you always take yourself with you? The reason which set you wandering is ever at your heels." What pleasure is there in seeing new lands? Or in surveying cities and spots of interest? All your bustle is useless. Do you ask why such flight does not help you? It is because you flee along with yourself. You must lay aside the burdens of the mind; until you do this, no place will satisfy you.

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Hoc tibi soli putas accidisse et admiraris quasi rem novam quod peregrinatione tam longa et tot locorum varietatibus non discussisti tristitiam gravitatemque mentis? Animum debes mutare, non caelum. Licet vastum traieceris mare, licet, ut ait Vergilius noster,

terraeque urbesque recedant,

sequentur te quocumque perveneris vitia. Hoc idem querenti cuidam Socrates ait, 'quid miraris nihil tibi peregrinationes prodesse, cum te circumferas? premit te eadem causa quae expulit'. Quid terrarum iuvare novitas potest? quid cognitio urbium aut locorum? in irritum cedit ista iactatio. Quaeris quare te fuga ista non adiuvet? tecum fugis. Onus animi deponendum est: non ante tibi ullus placebit locus.

Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Poet:

For though the origin of most of our words is forgotten, each word was at first a stroke of genius, and obtained currency because for the moment it symbolized the world to the first speaker and to the hearer. The etymologist finds the deadest word to have been once a brilliant picture. Language is fossil poetry. As the limestone of the continent consists of infinite masses of the shells of animalcules, so language is made up of images or tropes, which now, in their secondary use, have long ceased to remind us of their poetic origin.

Daniel Defoe, An Essay upon Projects (1697):

Swearing, that lewdness of the tongue, that scum and excrement of the mouth, is of all vices the most foolish and senseless; it makes a man's conversation unpleasant, his discourse fruitless, and his language nonsense.

It makes conversation unpleasant, at least to those who do not use the same foolish way of discourse; and indeed, is an affront to all the company who swear not as he does; for if I swear and curse in company, I either presume all the company likes it, or affront them who do not.

Then 'tis fruitless; for no man is believed a jot the more for all the asseverations, damnings, and swearings he makes; those who are used to it themselves, do not believe a man the more, because they know they are so customary, that they signify little to bind a man's intention; and they who practise them not, have so mean an opinion of those that do, as makes them think they deserve no belief.

Then, they are the spoilers and destroyers of a man's discourse, and turn it into perfect nonsense; and to make it out, I must descend a little to particulars, and desire the reader a little to foul his mouth with the brutish, sordid, senseless expressions, which some gentlemen call polite English, and speaking with a grace.

Some part of them indeed, though they are foolish enough, as effects of a mad, inconsiderate rage, are yet English; as when a man swears he will do this or, that, and it may be adds, God damn him he will; that is, God damn him if he don't: this, though it be horrid in another sense, yet may be read in writing, and is English: but what language is this?

Jack, God damn me Jack, how dost do, thou little dear son of a whore? How hast thou done this long time, by God? — And then they kiss; and the other, as lewd as himself, goes on:

Dear Tom, I am glad to see thee with all my heart, let me die. Come, let us go take a bottle, we must not part so; prithee let's go and be drunk by God. —

This is some of our new florid language, and the graces and delicacies of style, which if it were put into Latin, I would fain know which is the principal verb.

But for a little further remembrance of this impertinence, go among the gamesters, and there nothing is more frequent than, God damn the dice, or God damn the bowls.

Among the sportsmen 'tis, God damn the hounds, when they are at a fault; or, God damn the horse, if he balks a leap. They call men sons of bitches, and dogs sons of whores: and innumerable instances may be given of the like gallantry of language, grown now so much a custom.

....

The grace of swearing has not obtained to be a mode yet among the women; God damn ye does not sit well upon a female tongue; it seems to be a masculine vice, which the women are not arrived to yet; and I would only desire those gentlemen who practice it themselves, to hear a woman swear: it has no music at all there, I am sure; and just as little does it become any gentleman, if he would suffer himself to be judged by all the laws of sense or good manners in the world.

'Tis a senseless, foolish, ridiculous practice; 'tis a mean to no manner of end; 'tis words spoken which signify nothing; 'tis folly acted for the sake of folly, which is a thing even the Devil himself don't practice. The Devil does evil, we say, but it is for some design, either to seduce others, or, as some divines say, from a principle of enmity to his maker: men steal for gain, and murther to gratify their avarice or revenge; whoredoms and ravishments, adulteries and sodomy, are committed to please a vicious appetite, and have always alluring objects; and generally all vices have some previous cause, and some visible tendency; but this, of all vicious practices, seems the most nonsensical and ridiculous, there is neither pleasure nor profit, no design pursued, no lust gratified, but is a mere frenzy of the tongue, a vomit of the brain, which works by putting a contrary upon the course of nature.

Again, other vices men find some reason or other to give for, or excuses to palliate; men plead want to extenuate theft; and strong provocations to excuse murthers; and many a lame excuse they will bring for whoring; but this sordid habit, even those that practise it will own to be a crime, and make no excuse for it; and the most I could ever hear a man say for it was that he could not help it.

Besides, as 'tis an inexcusable impertinence, so 'tis a breach upon good manners and conversation, for a man to impose the clamour of his oaths upon the company he converses with; if there be any one person in the company that does not approve the way, 'tis an imposing upon him with a freedom beyond civility; as if a man should fart before a Justice, or talk Bawdy before the Queen, or the like.

Dr. Johnson, in James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson, A.D 1763 (aetat. 54):

There is nothing, Sir, too little for so little a creature as man. It is by studying little things that we attain the great art of having as little misery and as much happiness as possible.

Read Galfridus Chauceres Lynes of Picke-uppe, at Geoffrey Chaucer Hath a Blog. The pick-up lines are about halfway through the post. Here are a couple of examples:

• Do sheriffs administere thee to those who breke the kinges peace? Bycause thou lookst "fyne."
  
• Ich haue the tale of Lancelot yn myn roome. Woldstow rede of yt wyth me?

With the second example, compare Dante, Inferno 5.127-138 (Paolo and Francesca, tr. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow):

One day we reading were for our delight
Of Launcelot, how Love did him enthral.
Alone we were and without any fear.

Full many a time our eyes together drew
That reading, and drove the colour from our faces;
But one point only was it that o'ercame us.

When as we read of the much-longed-for smile
Being by such a noble lover kissed,
This one, who ne'er from me shall be divided,

Kissed me upon the mouth all palpitating.
Galeotto was the book and he who wrote it.
That day no farther did we read therein.

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Noi leggiavamo un giorno per diletto
di Lancialotto come amor lo strinse;
soli eravamo e sanza alcun sospetto.

Per più fiate li occhi ci sospinse
quella lettura, e scolorocci il viso;
ma solo un punto fu quel che ci vinse.

Quando leggemmo il disiato riso
esser basciato da cotanto amante,
questi, che mai da me non fia diviso,

la bocca mi basciò tutto tremante.
Galeotto fu 'l libro e chi lo scrisse:
quel giorno più non vi leggemmo avante.

Cf. Chaucer, Nun's Priest's Tale 3211-3213:

This storie is also trewe, I undertake,
As is the book of Launcelot de Lake,
That wommen holde in ful greet reverence.

In my opinion, Dante's Quel giorno più non vi leggemmo avante (That day no farther did we read therein) is the most erotic line in all of world literature.

Mark Ynys-Mon has some good photographs of bedesmen from the 15th century tomb of John Anne and his wife Alice, North Aston church, Oxfordshire. See here and here.

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Dennis Mangan draws our attention to a neat musical aptronym, the name of Sir Simon Rattle, percussionist turned conductor.

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E.J. Moncada writes:

Re: "Standing on one foot," cit. Hor. Sat. I.IV.9, Bennett and Rolfe remark: "Stans pede in uno: easily without effort, apparently proverbial though it does not occur elsewhere. Cf. the opposite expression in Quint. xii.9.18, in iis actionibus omni, ut agricolae dicunt, pede standum est." This last, Erasmus lists as a proverb (Adag. III.1.34) meaning 'with all one's might,' and notes that it is recorded by Suidas (O 190). I found it curious that the expression is (reportedly) not found elsewhere, since it seems not too farfetched a metaphorical application. I do recall that Strabo speaks of a sophist who would stand on one leg all day holding a heavy piece of wood (when one leg was fatigued he would support it with the other) but of course this was not meant to suggest an easy task; quite the opposite.

Here is a translation of Quintilian 12.9.18, by H.E. Butler:

Therefore, in such pleadings we must, as the rustic adage says, "stand on all our feet."

Suidas O 190 reads Ὅλῳ ποδί: ὅλῃ δυνάμει = with the whole foot: with all one's power. See also Apostolius 12.63 = Leutsch, Corpus Paroemiographorum Graecorum, vol. II, p. 557, with many parallels in the notes.

And here is the passage from Strabo (15.1.61, tr. Horace Leonard Jones):

Aristobulus says that he saw two of the sophists at Taxila, both Brachmanes; and that the elder had had his head shaved but that the younger had long hair, and that both were followed by disciples; and that when not otherwise engaged they spent their time in the market-place, being honoured as counsellors and being authorized to take as a gift any merchandise they wished; and that anyone whom they accosted poured over them sesame oil, in such profusion that it flowed down over their eyes; and that since quantities of honey and sesame were put out for sale, they made cakes of it and subsisted free of charge; and that they came up to the table of Alexander, ate dinner standing, and taught him a lesson in endurance by retiring to a place near by, where the elder fell to the ground on his back and endured the sun's rays and the rains (for it was now raining, since the spring of the year had begun); and that the younger stood on one leg holding aloft in both hands a log about three cubits in length, and when one leg tired he changed the support to the other and kept this up all day long; and that the younger showed a far greater self-mastery than the elder; for although the younger followed the king a short distance, he soon turned back again towards home, and when the king went after him, the man bade him to come himself if he wanted anything of him; but that the elder accompanied the king to the end, and when he was with him changed his dress and mode of life; and that he said, when reproached by some, that he had completed the forty years of discipline which he had promised to observe; and that Alexander gave his children a present.

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Siris has a draft of a nice poem entitled Thalassa, based on the famous episode described by Xenophon, Anabasis 4.7.23-25 (tr. Carleton L. Brownson):

But as the shout became louder and nearer, as the successive ranks that came up all began to run at full speed toward the ranks ahead that were one after another joining in the shout, and as the shout kept growing far louder as the number of men grew steadily greater, it became quite clear to Xenophon that here was something of unusual importance; so he mounted a horse, took with him Lycius and the cavalry, and pushed ahead to lend aid; and in a moment they heard the soldiers shouting, "The Sea! The Sea!" and passing the word along. Then all the troops of the rearguard likewise broke into a run, and the pack animals began racing ahead and the horses. And when all had reached the summit, then indeed they fell to embracing one another, and generals and captains as well, with tears in their eyes.

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From Matthew Gervais and David Sloan Wilson, "The Evolution and Functions of Laughter and Humor: A Synthetic Approach," The Quarterly Review of Biology 80.4 (December 2005) 395-430 (at 414):

The broadening of the laughter trigger thereby converted some stimuli — such as near accidents, flatulence and excretion, and sexual mischief — from potential sources of social stress to elicitors of social play and positive emotion.

Some of us are apparently throwbacks to the early days of the species, when the laughter trigger was broadening.

John Woolman, Journal, chapter 1 (1720-1742):

I may here mention a remarkable circumstance that occurred in my childhood. On going to a neighbour's house, I saw on the way a robin sitting on her nest, and as I came near she went off; but having young ones, she flew about, and with many cries expressed her concern for them. I stood and threw stones at her, and one striking her, she fell down dead.

At first I was pleased with the exploit, but after a few minutes was seized with horror, at having, in a sportive way, killed an innocent creature while she was careful for her young. I beheld her lying dead, and thought those young ones, for which she was so careful, must now perish for want of their dam to nourish them.

After some painful considerations on the subject, I climbed up the tree, took all the young birds, and killed them, supposing that better than to leave them to pine away and die miserably. In this case I believed that Scripture proverb was fulfilled, "The tender mercies of the wicked are cruel."

I then went on my errand, and for some hours could think of little else but the cruelties I had committed, and was much troubled. Thus He whose tender mercies are over all His works hath placed a principle in the human mind, which incites to exercise goodness towards every living creature; and this being singly attended to, people become tender-hearted and sympathizing; but when frequently and totally rejected, the mind becomes shut up in a contrary disposition.

Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire: A Season in the Wilderness (1968), chapter Cliffrose and Bayonets:

As I am returning to the campground and the truck I see a young cottontail jump from the brush, scamper across the trail and freeze under a second bush. The rabbit huddles there, panting, ears back, one bright eye on me.

I am taken by the notion to experiment -- on the rabbit. Suppose, I say to myself, you were out here hungry, starving, no weapon but your bare hands. What would you do? What could you do?

There are a few stones scattered along the trail. I pick up one that fits well in the hand, that seems to have the optimum feel and heft. I stare at the cottontail hunched in his illusory shelter under the bush. Blackbrush, I observe, the common variety, sprinkled with tightly rolled little green buds, ready to burst into bloom on short notice. Should I give the rabbit a sporting chance, that is, jump it again, try to hit it on the run? Or brain the little bastard where he is?

Notice the terminology. A sportsman is one who gives his quarry a chance to escape with its life. This is known as fair play, or sportsmanship. Animals have no sense of sportsmanship. Some, like the mountain lion, are vicious -- if attacked they defend themselves. Others, like the rabbit, run away, which is cowardly.

Well, I'm a scientist not a sportsman, and we've got an important experiment under way here, for which the rabbit has been volunteered. I rear back and throw the stone with all I've got straight at his furry head.

To my amazement the stone flies true (as if guided by a Higher Power) and knocks the cottontail head over tincups, clear out from under the budding blackbush [sic, should be blackbrush]. He crumples, there's the usual gushing of blood, etc., a brief spasm, and then no more. The wicked rabbit is dead.

For a moment I am shocked by my deed; I stare at the quiet rabbit, his glazed eyes, his blood drying in the dust. Something vital is lacking. But shock is succeeded by a mild elation. Leaving my victim to the vultures and maggots who will appreciate him more than I could -- the flesh is probably infected with tularemia -- I continue my walk with a new, augmented cheerfulness which is hard to understand but unmistakable. What the rabbit has lost in energy and spirit seems added, by processes too subtle to fathom, to my own soul. I try but cannot feel any sense of guilt. I examine my soul: white as snow. Check my hands: not a trace of blood.

Not exactly Abbey's finest moment. At least Woolman felt remorse. Schopenhauer hit the nail on the head:

One might say with truth, Mankind are the devils of the earth, and the animals the souls they torment.

An excellent book on this subject is Matthew Scully, Dominion: The Power of Man, the Suffering of Animals, and the Call to Mercy (New York: St. Martin's, 2002).