Laudator Temporis Acti

Greek Anthology 10.41 (by Lucian; tr. W.R. Paton):

The wealth of the soul is the only true wealth; the rest has more trouble than the possessions are worth. Him one may rightly call lord of many possessions and wealthy who is able to use his riches. But if a man wears himself out over accounts, ever eager to heap wealth on wealth, his labour shall be like that of the bee in its many-celled honeycomb, for others shall gather the honey.

πλοῦτος ὁ τῆς ψυχῆς πλοῦτος μόνος ἐστὶν ἀληθής·
    τἄλλα δ᾿ ἔχει λύπην πλείονα τῶν κτεάνων.
τόνδε πολυκτέανον καὶ πλούσιον ἔστι δίκαιον
    κλῄζειν, ὃς χρῆσθαι τοῖς ἀγαθοῖς δύναται.
εἰ δέ τις ἐν ψήφοις κατατήκεται, ἄλλον ἐπ᾿ ἄλλῳ        5
    σωρεύειν αἰεὶ πλοῦτον ἐπειγόμενος,
οὗτος ὁποῖα μέλισσα πολυτρήτοις ἐνὶ σίμβλοις
    μοχθήσει, ἑτέρων δρεπτομένων τὸ μέλι.

Related post: You Can't Take It With You.

Erwin Panofsky (1892-1968), Meaning in the Visual Arts: Papers in and on Art History (Garden City: Doubleday Anchor Books, 1955), pp. 343-344:

However, even assuming that the future humanist was lucky enough to choose the right curriculum when he was thirteen or fourteen (and a recent survey has disclosed that of the million precollege students in New York City only one thousand take Latin and only fourteen Greek), even then he has, as a rule, not been exposed to that peculiar and elusive spirit of scholarship which Gilbert Murray calls religio grammatici—that queer religion which makes its votaries both restless and serene, enthusiastic and pedantic, scrupulously honest and not a little vain. The American theory of education re­quires that the teachers of the young—a vast majority of them females—know a great deal about "behavior patterns," "group integration," and "controlled aggression drives," but does not insist too much upon what they may know of their subject, and cares even less for whether they are genuinely interested or actively engaged in it. The typical German "Gymnasialprofessor" is—or at least was in my time—a man of many shortcomings, now pompous, now shy, often neglectful of his appearance, and blissfully ignorant of juvenile psychology. But though he was content to teach boys rather than university students, he was nearly always a scholar. The man who taught me Latin was a friend of Theodor Mommsen and one of the most respected Cicero specialists. The man who taught me Greek was the editor of the Berliner Philologische Wochenschrift, and I shall never forget the impression which this lovable pedant made on us boys of fifteen when he apologized for having overlooked the misplacement of a comma in a Plato passage. "It was my error," he said, "and yet I wrote an article on this very comma twenty years ago; now we must do the translation over again." Nor shall I forget his antipode, a man of Erasmian wit and erudition, who became our history teacher when we had reached the stage of "high school juniors" and introduced himself with the words: "Gentlemen, this year we shall try to understand what happened during the so-called Middle Ages. Facts will be presupposed; you are old enough to use books."

It is the sum total of little experiences like these which makes for an education. This education should begin as early as possible, when minds are more retentive than ever after. And what is true of method is also true, I think, of subject matter. I do not believe that a child or an adolescent should be taught only that which he can fully understand. It is, on the contrary, the half-digested phrase, the half-placed proper name, the half-understood verse, remembered for sound and rhythm rather than meaning, which persists in the memory, captures the imagination, and suddenly emerges, thirty or forty years later, when one encounters a picture based on Ovid's Fasti or a print exhibiting a motif suggested by the Iliad—much as a saturated solution of hyposulphite suddenly crystallizes when stirred.

Vergil, Aeneid 7.600 (my translation):

He shut himself up in his house.

saepsit se tectis.

Id. 7.619:

He concealed himself in dark shadows.

caecis se condidit umbris.

Thomas Mann (1875-1955), Buddenbrooks, I.5 (tr. John E. Woods):

"Practical ideals—well, yes ..." Buddenbrook senior played with his gold snuffbox and rewarded his jaws with a little rest. "Practical ideals. Nope, set no store by 'em at all!" In his annoyance he had fallen back into Plattdeutsch. "Trade schools and technical schools and commercial schools are popping up like mushrooms, and grammar schools and classical education are suddenly all foolishness, and the whole world has nothing in its head but coal mines and factories and making money. Fine, fine, it's all very fine. But on the other hand a bit stupide, over the long term—is it not?"

„Praktische Ideale ... na, ja ...“ Der alte Buddenbrook spielte während einer Pause, die er seinen Kinnladen gönnte, mit seiner goldenen Dose. „Praktische Ideale ... ne, ich bin da gar nich für!“ Er verfiel vor Verdruß in den Dialekt. „Da schießen nun die gewerblichen Anstalten und die technischen Anstalten und die Handelsschulen aus der Erde, und das Gymnasium und die klassische Bildung sind plötzlich Bétisen , und alle Welt denkt an nichts, als Bergwerke ... und Industrie ... und Geldverdienen ... Brav, das alles, höchst brav! Aber ein bißchen stupide, von der anderen Seite, so auf die Dauer — wie?“

William S. Heckscher (1904-1999), Erwin Panofsky: A Curriculum Vitae (Princeton: Princeton University, Dept. of Art and Archaeology, 1969), p. 7:

He said of himself (November 1946), "Every six weeks I have a thought. The rest of the time I work."

Hat tip: Ian Jackson.

James Henry (1798-1876), Aeneidea, or Critical, Exegetical, and Aesthetical Remarks on the Aeneis, Vol. III (Dublin: Printed for the Trustees of the Author, 1881), pp. 39-40 (on 5.118):

Ingens is our author's maid of all work—cook, slut, and butler at once. No sooner has Ingens put her hand to CHIMAERAM, than she has to turn and give a lift to MOLE; hardly has she despatched "Lausum," 10.842, or "Murranum," 12.639, when she has to attend to "vulnere" of each. It is Ingens who is put in requisition, 11.641, for Herminius's "animis," Ingens for Herminius's "corpore et armis." Aeneas's fame is nothing without Ingens; without Ingens Aeneas's arms, nothing, 11.124: "O fama ingens ingentior armis." Seville's famous barber was never busier: it is Ingens here, Ingens there, everywhere Ingens. Scarce a hero in the Aeneid but has something for Ingens to do. Sarpedon calls Ingens, 1.133, "ubi ingens Sarpedon"; Periphas calls Ingens, 2.476, "una ingens Periphas"; Polyphemus calls Ingens, 3.658, "monstrum informe ingens"; Entellus calls Ingens, 5.423, "atque ingens media consistit arena"; Bitias calls Ingens, 9.709, "clipeum super intonat ingens"; Pandarus calls Ingens, 9.735, "tum Pandarus ingens"; and repeats the call, 11.369, "et Pandarus ingens"; Turnus calls Ingens, 12.926:

                                           ... "incidit ictus
ingens ad terram duplicato poplite Turnus."

Aeneas calls Ingens until both he and she may well be tired, as 10.578:

"haud tulit Aeneas tanto fervore furentes;
irruit, adversaque ingens apparuit hasta."

12.441:

"haec ubi dicta dedit, portis sese extulit ingens."

6.412: "simul accipit alveo ingentem Aenean." 8.366:

                        ... "angusti subter fastigia tecti
ingentem Aenean duxit."

Nor is it only amongst articulating men Ingens is thus in demand. Serpents hiss Ingens, 5.84:

                            ... "lubricus anguis ab imis
septem ingens gyros, septena volumina traxit"

7.351:

                                         ... "fit tortile collo
aurum ingens coluber, fit longae taenia vittae."

Swine grunt Ingens, 3.390; 8.43:

"littoreis ingens inventa sub ilicibus sus."

Bulls bellow Ingens, 8.203:

"Alcides aderat taurosque hac victor agebat
ingentes."

Not only the whole hody, the integrum corpus, but parts and sections of bodies, no matter whether of men or animals, no matter whether alive or dead, hands, horns, mouths, eyes, beards, breasts, ring the bell for Ingens, as 10.446: "corpusque per ingens lumina volvit"; 11.556: "quam dextra ingenti librans"; 7.483:

"cervus erat forma praestanti et cornibus ingens";

11.680:

                                ... "caput ingens oris hiatus
et malae texere lupi";

3.635: "et telo lumen terebramus acuto ingens"; 12.300: "olli ingens barba reluxit"; 10.485: "pectus perforat ingens." Even the headless trunk shouts Ingens, 2.557:

                                ... "iacet ingens littore truncus,
avulsumque humeris caput, et sine nomine corpus."

Id., pp. 43-45:

But all this were tolerable, and so "ingens" is the activity and readiness on the one hand, and the patience on the other, of this veritable "serva servarum," that I doubt if one word of complaint had even to this hour reached my ears, however quick, as ears go, of hearing, if it had not been for the perpetual worrying she has to endure from the merest abstractions, airy nothings, buzzing about her, teazing her, and pricking her like myriads of midges to no good or purpose whatever, but out of mere wantonness and love of mischief. I could not tell you the names of a thousandth part of them, but gloria is one of them, as 2.325: "ingens gloria Teucrorum." Pavor is another of them, 7.458: "olli somnum ingens rumpit pavor." Argumentum, another, 7.791: "argumentum ingens." Pudor, another, 10.870:

                                        ... "aestuat ingens
uno in corde pudor mixtoque insania luctu."

Luctus, another, 11.62: "solatia luctus exigua ingentis"; 11.231:

"deficit ingenti luctu rex ipse Latinus";

6.869: "ingentem luctum ne quaere tuorum." Metus is another, 6.491: "ingenti trepidare metu." Minae, another, 4.88: "minaeque murorum ingentes." Curae, another, 5.701:

"nunc huc ingentes, nunc illuc pectore curas
mutabat";

1.212: "curisque ingentibus aeger." Coepta, another, 9.296:

"spondeo digna tuis ingentibus omnia coeptis";

10.461 : "coeptis ingentibus adsis." Genus, another, 12.224:

                        ... "formam assimulata Camerti,
cui genus a proavis ingens."

None but a heart of adamant had worked any unfortunate biped in such a manner. Many a time I have pitied her, but small good to her a pity of which she knew nothing, which was not to come till two thousand years after; her only consolation, if tears and sighs deserve the name of consolation, was the sympathy of her fellow-servant Contra, who "non ignara mali miseris succurrere didicit"; poor Contra who—never required by previous master to do coarse, common, every-day work, but allowed to live at ease, only lending a helping hand when the ordinary household was insufficient, and hired by her present master on those terms; and as long as he was himself strong and hale and alert only employed in such manner, viz., in his first book three times; in his second book, twice; in his third, three times; in his fourth, where he was in his full prime and vigour, only once; in his fifth, six times; in his sixth, twice; in his seventh, four times; in his eighth, three times—has to put to her hand in his ninth book, where her master first begins to show signs of fatigue, no less than ten times; in his tenth book, where his fatigue is greater, seventeen times; and even in his eleventh and twelfth books, where he seems to have become conscious how unfairly he had been treating a faithful servant, and shows a praiseworthy desire to spare her in future as much as his own increasing infirmities might allow, as often as twelve times in the eleventh, and seven times in the twelfth book. Poor Contra and poor Ingens! as honest and kind-hearted as ye were overwrought, ye never complained, never thought either of giving warning or going off without giving warning, but stuck faithful and steady to your employer from the day ye first entered his service (1.13: "Italiam contra Tiberinaque longe ostia"; 1.103: "ubi ingens Sarpedon") to the very end of your engagement, when ye are still found hand in hand helping alike, and at one and the same moment, your master and each other, 12.887:

"Aeneas instat contra telumque coruscat
ingens, arboreum";

896: "saxum circumspicit ingens"; 897: "saxum antiquum, ingens"; 926:

                                           ... "incidit ictus
ingens ad terram duplicato poplite Turnus."

Farewell! hard-working, faithful creatures, farewell!

James Henry (1798-1876), Aeneidea, or Critical, Exegetical, and Aesthetical Remarks on the Aeneis, Vol. I (London: Williams and Norgate, 1873), pp. lxxvii-lxxviii:

Returning from Dresden to Ireland through London, and calling at the library of the British Museum with a present of a recently published work of my own, I begged to be allowed to look at a passage in a volume which stood on a shelf close beside me. "Have you permission to read in the library?" asked the officer in charge. "No, I have not; nor have I come for the purpose of reading; nor do I intend to stay longer in London than this day. All I ask is permission to look at a few lines in that volume. I shall do so without sitting down or stirring out of this spot. I shall not require to have the book in my hands for quite five minutes." "You cannot be allowed; it is contrary to rule. But if you get a banker, or the principal of any college, seminary or commercial establishment in London, to write a letter to Sir Henry Ellis, certifying that you are a fit and proper person to read in the library, Sir Henry Ellis will, on receipt of such letter, post you a ticket of admission, and on that ticket you can come and read in the library daily for the next three months." "I do not want admission to the library; I am in it already. I only wish to have that book, there, in my hands for five minutes, and then to go away and trouble you no more." "Impossible; it is contrary to rule." "Can I see Sir Henry Ellis?" "Certainly." Sir Henry Ellis made his appearance, replied to my request in the same terms, and I proceeded to Ireland, more than ever convinced that even in civilization there is a golden mean, every step beyond which is a step further from humanity, and towards an extreme in which ingenuas didicisse fideliter artes non emollit mores sed sinit esse feros, and consoling myself en vrai Darwiniste as I am, with the prospect I saw opening in the distance for my successors, that books in British libraries continuing to be guarded as if they were Hesperides' apples, readers would in due course come to be born with the strength of Hercules, and the instinct to use it on the proper occasion.

Thomas Mann (1875-1955), Buddenbrooks, III.1 (tr. John E. Woods):

"And what are you reading, Master Buddenbrook? Ah, Cicero! A difficult text, the work of a great Roman orator. Quousque tandem, Catilina. Huh-uh-hmm, yes, I've not entirely forgotten my Latin, either."

The consul said, "Unlike my dear departed father, I have always had some reservations about this everlasting preoccupation of young minds with Greek and Latin. So many serious and important matters are necessary to prepare a man for the practical side of life."

"My opinion entirely, Herr Buddenbrook," Herr Grünlich hastened to reply. "You took the words out of my mouth. A difficult text, and as I failed to add, a not unexceptionable one. Quite apart from everything else, I can recall several passages in those speeches that are blatantly offensive."

Kenneth Rexroth (1905-1982), "Signs of a New Youth Revolt," San Francisco Examiner (May 29, 1960):

Chesterton once said that ideally the daily newspapers should print every day selections from Shakespeare and Homer and the Bible and other things that were really important and that people should read regularly, and then, once every three months, put out a special supplement with a brief run-down of fires, murders, accidents, infidelities, political events — one compressed tabloid of the trivialities of the quarter.

I can't locate the passage in question from Chesterton.

Giordano Bruno (1548-1600), The Heroic Enthusiasts (Gli Eroici Furori): An Ethical Poem by Giordano Bruno, Part the Second, Translated by L. Williams (London: Bernard Quaritch, 1889), pp. 2-4 (from Part II, Dialogue 1; interlocutors are Maricondo and Cesarino):

MARICONDO. Know, my brother, that this succession and order of things is most true and most certain; but as regards ourselves in all ordinary conditions whatever, the present afflicts more than the past, nor can these two together console, but only the future, which is always in hope and expectation as you may see designated in this figure which is taken from the ancient Egyptians, who made a certain statue which is a bust, upon which they placed three heads, one of a wolf which looks behind, one of a lion with the face turned half round, and the third of a dog who looks straight before him; to signify that things of the past afflict by means of thoughts, but not so much as things of the present which actually torment, while the future ever promises something better; therefore behold the wolf that howls, the lion that roars and the dog that barks (applause).

CES. What means that legend that is written above?

MAR. See, that above the wolf is Lam, above the lion Modo, above the dog Praeterea, which are words signifying the three parts of time.

CES. Now read the tablet.

MAR. I will do so.

                                  41.
A wolf, a lion, and a dog appear
At dawn, at midday, and dark night.
That which I spent, retain and for myself procure,
So much was given, is given, and may be given;
For that which I did, I do, and have to do.
In the past, in the present and in the future,
I do repent, torment myself and re-assure,
For the loss, in suffering and in expectation.
With sour, with bitter and with sweet
Experience, the fruits, and hope,
Threatens, afflict, and comforts me.
The age I lived, do live and am to live,
Affrights me, shakes me and upholds
In absence, presence and in prospect.
Much, too much and sufficient
Of the past, of now, and of to come,
Put me in fear, in anguish and in hope.

The nonsensical "above the wolf is Lam" continues to appear in reprints of this book and on web pages. Here is an image of the sentence, from p. 3 of the book:


Nowhere, it seems, has the obvious correction been made—"above the wolf is Iam". The three Latin temporal adverbs (iam, modo, praeterea) signify the three parts of time. See an image of the Italian sentence, from Giordano Bruno, Opere italiane, Vol. II: Dialoghi morali...con note da Giovanni Gentile (Bari: Gius. Laterza & Figli, 1908), p. 402:


Here is the Italian of Bruno's sonnet, from Gentile's edition, pp. 402-403:

Un alan, un leon, un can appare
    A l'auror, al dì chiaro, al vespr'oscuro.
    Quel che spesi, ritegno, e mi procuro,
    Per quanto mi si diè, si dà, può dare.
Per quel che feci, faccio ed ho da fare
    Al passato, al presente ed al futuro,
    Mi pento, mi tormento, m'assicuro,
    Nel perso, nel soffrir, nell'aspettare.
Con l'agro, con l'amaro, con il dolce
    L'esperienza, i frutti, la speranza
    Mi minacciò, m'affligono, mi molce.
L'età che vissi, che vivo, ch'avanza,
    Mi fa tremante, mi scuote, mi folce,
    In absenza, presenza e lontananza.
Assai, troppo, a bastanza
    Quel di già, quel di ora, quel d'appresso
    M'hanno in timor, martir e spene messo.

Titian, Allegory of Prudence
See Erwin Panofsky (1892-1968), "Titian's Allegory of Prudence: A Postscript," in his Meaning in the Visual Arts: Papers in and on Art History (Garden City: Doubleday Anchor Books, 1955), pp. 146-168.

Labels: typographical and other errors

Deborah Hobson, "Naming Practices in Roman Egypt," Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists 26.3/4 (1989) 157-174 (at 163-164):

An interesting example of this distinction between the literal and the "real" meaning of a name, and an illustration of the difficulty of using anthropological evidence to answer papyrological questions, is the case of copronyms, which have been the subject of a considerable body of scholarship. Most recently the long-prevailing theory that names based on the Greek word κόπρος ( = "dung") belong to people of slave origin has been convincingly refuted, but as yet no papyrologist has made a satisfactory explanation of why anyone would be named "Dung." A persuasive answer comes to us from the vast anthropological literature which attests to the common practice of naming; that is, for example, when a woman has had trouble conceiving a child, or has had a number of children die in infancy, she will name a new baby something negative in order to ward off the evil eye and thereby ensure the survival of her child. This phenomenon is copiously documented in various societies around the world, and makes perfect sense of the otherwise inexplicable phenomenon of copronyms. In other words, I am suggesting here that although the literal meaning of the name Κόπρος may be "dung," the true significance of the name in a particular case may be that the mother has had difficulty getting pregnant, or has lost three previous children in infancy, and is therefore choosing an apotropaic name to ward off the evil eye and ensure the survival of this child.

I haven't seen Sarah B. Pomeroy, "Copronyms and the Exposure of Infants in Egypt," in Roger S. Bagnall and William V. Harris, edd., Studies in Roman Law in Memory of A. Arthur Schiller (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1986), pp. 147-162. The word copronym doesn't appear in the Oxford English Dictionary. Copronyms exist today, e.g. Shitavious (Google it).

Related posts:

• Crappy Names
• More Crappy Names

Labels: noctes scatologicae

Stephanie R. West, "The Papyri of Herodotus," in Dirk Obbink and Richard Rutherford, edd., Culture in Pieces: Essays on Ancient Texts in Honour of Peter Parsons (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), pp. 69-83 (at 71):

Almost half our papyri (19) come from Book 1; Books 2 and 5 achieve quite a respectable score (six each). Book 8 has four; Book 7 three; Books 3 and 4 two each. Book 6 is not attested at all. There was nothing from Book 9 until the publication in 2004 of P.Oslo inv. 1487,10 preserving parts of 9.74–5, now in the library of the University of Oslo—just too late to get into Flower and Marincola's edition (2002).¹¹ In antiquity, as now, only a small proportion of those who started to read long books actually finished them. Notwithstanding the Herodotean Solon's sage counsel to look to the end (1.32.9) comparatively few can have pressed on to see how Herodotus presented the conclusion of the intercontinental conflict whose origins he outlines at the start of his work. If the last chapter contains a message of profound significance for the interpretation of the Histories as a whole, the majority of readers in Roman Egypt missed it. The relative popularity of individual books is consistent with the impression we get from citations in ancient authors, both pagan and Christian; Book 1 comes top by a long way.<sup>12

11</sup> While precise statistics relating to published papyri are subject to rapid obsolescence, the substantial group of Oxyrhynchus papyri in the pipeline confirms the general proportions, enhancing the lead of Book 1; I am very grateful to Dirk Obbink for letting me see this material.

¹² Of the 27 passages from Herodotus most frequently cited by pagan and Christian writers, eleven come from Book 1: see Ehrhardt 1988, 858.

Related post: The Hawking Index.

Erwin Panofsky (1892-1968), Meaning in the Visual Arts: Papers in and on Art History (Garden City: Doubleday Anchor Books, 1955), pp. 24-25 (footnote omitted):

To grasp reality we have to detach ourselves from the present. Philosophy and mathematics do this by building systems in a medium which is by definition not subject to time. Natural science and the humanities do it by creating those spatio-temporal structures which I have called the "cosmos of nature" and the "cosmos of culture." And here we touch upon what is perhaps the most fundamental difference between the humanities and the natural sciences. Natural science observes the time-bound processes of nature and tries to apprehend the timeless laws according to which they unfold. Physical observation is only possible where something "happens," that is, where a change occurs or is made to occur by way of experiment. And it is these changes which are finally symbolized by mathematical formulae. The humanities, on the other hand, are not faced by the task of arresting what otherwise would slip away, but of enlivening what otherwise would remain dead. Instead of dealing with temporal phenomena, and causing time to stop, they penetrate into a region where time has stopped of its own accord, and try to reactivate it. Gazing as they do at those frozen, stationary records of which I have said that they "emerge from the stream of time," the humanities endeavor to capture the processes in the course of which those records were produced and became what they are.

In thus endowing static records with dynamic life, instead of reducing transitory events to static laws, the humanities do not conflict with, but complement, the natural sciences. In fact these two presuppose and demand each other. Science—here understood in the true sense of the term, namely, as a serene and self-dependent pursuit of knowledge, not as something subservient to "practical" ends—and the humanities are sisters, brought forth as they are by that movement which has rightly been called the discovery (or, in a larger historical perspective, rediscovery) of both the world and man. And as they were born and reborn together, they will also die and be resurrected together if destiny so wills. If the anthropocratic civilization of the Renaissance is headed, as it seems to be, for a "Middle Ages in reverse"—a satanocracy as opposed to the mediaeval theocracy—not only the humanities but also the natural sciences, as we know them, will disappear, and nothing will be left but what serves the dictates of the subhuman. But even this will not mean the end of humanism. Prometheus could be bound and tortured, but the fire lit by his torch could not be extinguished.

Richard Jenkyns, Virgil's Experience. Nature and History: Times, Names, and Places (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), p. 437 (on Aeneid 3.509):

'Optatae gremio telluris'—in three Latin words all the longing for home, for roots, for mother earth is contained.

Roger S. Bagnall, "Alan Edouard Samuel (1932-2008)," Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists 46 (2009) 7-9 (at 8-9):

He was also a gifted teacher, even if not always in conventional ways. I remember vividly how he would come into class at Yale juggling a cup of coffee, a stack of Loebs, a cigarette, and some papers, proceeding to talk about some stretch of classical Greek history in what seemed like a largely impromptu performance, not always apparently very well organized, but full of original insights. He seemed to assume that opening up the ancient text, quoting it, and explaining its problems as if in a scholarly discussion would work with an undergraduate class, and for the most part it did. One might, without great exaggeration, describe the method as charismatic chaos.

Dirk Obbink, "Vanishing Conjecture: Lost Books and their Recovery from Aristotle to Eco," in Dirk Obbink and Richard Rutherford, edd., Culture in Pieces: Essays on Ancient Texts in Honour of Peter Parsons (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), pp. 20-49 (at 39-40):

Those who collect fragments get used to following certain rules.

1. Don't split up integral fragments into smaller units (i.e. don't atomize the fragmentary tradition further).

2. Distinguish direct quotation from paraphrase or adaptation.

3. Pay close attention to context. Albert Henrichs has said that 'collections of fragments are both a blessing and a curse', the latter because they remove material from its original context, thus obscuring the readerly signs that signal the way it was intended to be (and obviously was) understood when it is quoted. Therefore one should not make the pericope (the amount of surrounding context to be included with a fragment or quotation being studied) too narrow. To pay attention to and when necessary to reconstruct the original context of a fragment is as important as reconstructing the original work from which it was derived, and may be our only key to it. In addition, it provides an unexpected bonus in the form of a received and in many ways new fragment.

4. You must already in a sense know what the text says before you can read or restore it. New knowledge comes by way of correction and refinement or from the new context gained. It may link to another piece of the puzzle. When William of Baskerville, the Franciscan monk and detective in Eco's The Name of the Rose, finally lays hands on the long-lost second book of Aristotle’s Poetics, he 'smiled as he read it, as if he recognized the things he expected to find'. And when questioned by the murderer Jorge as to how he knew it was the second book of Aristotle, he explains that he pieced it together from facts dropped in conversation with the murderer and knowing that these were mentioned in Aristotle's Rhetoric and the first book of the Poetics, together with a definition of comedy preserved in Isidore: 'Gradually it took shape in my mind, as it had to be. I could tell you almost all of it, without reading the pages that were meant to poison me'. Another way of putting this is, as Lionel Pearson once told me, 'You have to read the books that don’t survive before you can understand the ones that do.'

5. Never emend the text at or in a lacuna (Youtie's first law).

6. Always assume that the text makes sense. Even a corrupt one is easier to correct if you start from this principle, and even a sound text is unreadable if you don't.

5: R. Merkelbach, "Lex Youtie," Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 38 (1980) 294, first named this law (iuxta lacunam ne mutaveris) after Herbert C. Youtie. See also Marco Fassino, "Sulla cosiddetta 'Lex Youtie'," Rivista di Filologia e di Istruzione Classica 126 (1998) 72-75; R. Merkelbach, "Iuxta lacunam ne mutaveris," Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 142 (2003) 34; and Nikolaos Gonis, "A.S. Hunt and 'Youtie's Law'," Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 151 (2005) 166. Gonis, n. 4, quotes a passage relevant to Obbink's 6th rule, from G. Levi Della Vida, "Remarks on a Recent Edition of Arabic Papyrus Letters," Journal of the American Oriental Society 64.3 (July-September, 1944) 127-137 (at 129):

Two elementary methodological criteria seem to have remained unknown to him [Karl Jahn]: first, that a newly discovered text, whatsoever its origin and character may be, must make reasonable sense, and, secondly, that its language is not expected to differ from the standard grammar and style of the linguistic area to which it belongs. To be sure, the contents of private letters are sometimes cryptic, since they often mention details which were familiar to the writers and addressees, while they remain unknown to us. However, when the things which they seem to say are absurd or meaningless, our first reaction ought to be to doubt the correctness of our interpretation rather than the soundness of their minds.

The Lex Youtie isn't included in Klaas A. Worp, "Youtie's 'Guidelines'," Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists 37.1/4 (2000) 111-115, but I like Youtie's penultimate guideline (at 113):

Make sure of your accents at all times. Nothing so quickly repels a Greek scholar as false accents.

Erwin Panofsky (1892-1968), Meaning in the Visual Arts: Papers in and on Art History (Garden City: Doubleday Anchor Books, 1955), p. 7 (footnote omitted):

Every historical concept is obviously based on the categories of space and time. The records, and what they imply, have to be dated and located. But it turns out that these two acts are in reality two aspects of one. If I date a picture about 1400, this statement would be meaningless if I could not indicate where it could have been produced at that date; conversely, if I ascribe a picture to the Florentine school, I must be able to tell when it could have been produced in that school. The cosmos of culture, like the cosmos of nature, is a spatio-temporal structure. The year 1400 means something different in Venice from what it means in Florence, to say nothing of Augsburg, or Russia, or Constantinople. Two historical phenomena are simultaneous, or have a determinable temporal relation to each other, only in so far as they can be related within one "frame of reference," in the absence of which the very concept of simultaneity would be as meaningless in history as it would in physics. If we knew by some concatenation of circumstances that a certain Negro sculpture had been executed in 1510, it would be meaningless to say that it was "contemporaneous" with Michelangelo's Sistine ceiling.

Ovid, Art of Love 1.237-242 (tr. J.H. Mozley):

Wine gives courage and makes men apt for passion; care flees and is drowned in much wine. Then laughter comes, then even the poor find vigour, then sorrow and care and the wrinkles of the brow depart. Then simplicity, most rare in our age, lays bare the mind, when the god dispels all craftiness.

vina parant animos faciuntque caloribus aptos:
    cura fugit multo diluiturque mero.
tunc veniunt risus, tum pauper cornua sumit,
    tum dolor et curae rugaque frontis abit.        240
tunc aperit mentes aevo rarissima nostro
    simplicitas, artes excutiente deo.

Related posts:

• Praise of Dionysus
• Some Effects of Wine

Stephanie R. West, "The Papyri of Herodotus," in Dirk Obbink and Richard Rutherford, edd., Culture in Pieces: Essays on Ancient Texts in Honour of Peter Parsons (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), pp. 69-83 (at 76, n. 31):

During the Second World War a handy Penguin selection from Herodotus appeared not in the dark blue covers appropriate to history but in the orange covers characterizing general fiction (The Penguin Herodotus, edited by A. J. Evans, Penguin Fiction No. 330; Harmondsworth. 1941).

Tyrtaeus, fragment 12 (tr. M.L. West):

I would not rate a man worth mention or account
    either for speed of foot or wrestling skill,
not even if he had a Cyclops' size and strength
    or could outrun the fierce north wind of Thrace;
I would not care if he surpassed Tithonus' looks,        5
    or Cinyras' or Midas' famous wealth,
or were more royal than Pelops son of Tantalus,
    or had Adrastus' smooth persuasive tongue,
or fame for everything save only valour: no,
    no man's of high regard in time of war        10
unless he can endure the sight of blood and death,
    and stand close to the enemy, and fight.

This is the highest worth, the finest human prize
    and fairest for a bold young man to win.
It benefits the whole community and state,        15
    when with a firm stance in the foremost rank
a man bides steadfast, with no thought of shameful flight,
    laying his life and stout heart on the line,
and standing by the next man speaks encouragement.
    This is the man of worth in time of war.        20
Soon he turns back the foemen's sharp-edged battle lines
    and strenuously stems the tide of arms;
his own dear life he loses, in the front line felled,
    his breast, his bossed shield pierced by many a wound,
and of his corselet all the front, but he has brought        25
    glory upon his father, army, town.

His death is mourned alike by young and old, the whole
    community feels the keen loss its own.
People point out his tomb, his children in the street,
    his children's children and posterity.        30
His name and glorious reputation never die;
    he is immortal even in his grave,
that man the furious War-god kills as he defends
    his soil and children with heroic stand.
Or if in winning his proud spear-vaunt he escapes        35
    the doom of death and grief's long shadow-cast,
then all men do him honour, young and old alike;
    much joy is his before he goes below.
He grows old in celebrity, and no one thinks
    to cheat him out of his due respect and rights,        40
but all men at the public seats make room for him,
    the young, the old, and those his own age.

This is the excellence whose heights one now must seek
    to scale, by not relenting in the fight.

οὔτ᾿ ἂν μνησαίμην οὔτ᾿ ἐν λόγῳ ἄνδρα τιθείμην
    οὔτε ποδῶν ἀρετῆς οὔτε παλαιμοσύνης,
οὐδ᾿ εἰ Κυκλώπων μὲν ἔχοι μέγεθός τε βίην τε,
    νικῴη δὲ θέων Θρηΐκιον Βορέην,
οὐδ᾿ εἰ Τιθωνοῖο φυὴν χαριέστερος εἴη,        5
    πλουτοίη δὲ Μίδεω καὶ Κινύρεω μάλιον,
οὐδ᾿ εἰ Τανταλίδεω Πέλοπος βασιλεύτερος εἴη,
    γλῶσσαν δ᾿ Ἀδρήστου μειλιχόγηρυν ἔχοι,
οὐδ᾿ εἰ πᾶσαν ἔχοι δόξαν πλὴν θούριδος ἀλκῆς·
    οὐ γὰρ ἀνὴρ ἀγαθὸς γίνεται ἐν πολέμῳ        10
εἰ μὴ τετλαίη μὲν ὁρῶν φόνον αἱματόεντα,
    καὶ δηίων ὀρέγοιτ᾿ ἐγγύθεν ἱστάμενος.

ἥδ᾿ ἀρετή, τόδ᾿ ἄεθλον ἐν ἀνθρώποισιν ἄριστον
    κάλλιστόν τε φέρειν γίνεται ἀνδρὶ νέῳ.
ξυνὸν δ᾿ ἐσθλὸν τοῦτο πόληί τε παντί τε δήμῳ,        15
    ὅστις ἀνὴρ διαβὰς ἐν προμάχοισι μένῃ
νωλεμέως, αἰσχρῆς δὲ φυγῆς ἐπὶ πάγχυ λάθηται,
    ψυχὴν καὶ θυμὸν τλήμονα παρθέμενος,
θαρσύνῃ δ᾿ ἔπεσιν τὸν πλησίον ἄνδρα παρεστώς·
    οὗτος ἀνὴρ ἀγαθὸς γίνεται ἐν πολέμῳ.        20
αἶψα δὲ δυσμενέων ἀνδρῶν ἔτρεψε φάλαγγας
    τρηχείας, σπουδῇ δ᾿ ἔσχεθε κῦμα μάχης.
αὐτὸς δ᾿ ἐν προμάχοισι πεσὼν φίλον ὤλεσε θυμόν,
    ἄστυ τε καὶ λαοὺς καὶ πατέρ᾿ εὐκλεΐσας,
πολλὰ διὰ στέρνοιο καὶ ἀσπίδος ὀμφαλοέσσης        25
    καὶ διὰ θώρηκος πρόσθεν ἐληλαμένος.

τὸν δ᾿ ὀλοφύρονται μὲν ὁμῶς νέοι ἠδὲ γέροντες,
    ἀργαλέῳ δὲ πόθῳ πᾶσα κέκηδε πόλις,
καὶ τύμβος καὶ παῖδες ἐν ἀνθρώποις ἀρίσημοι
    καὶ παίδων παῖδες καὶ γένος ἐξοπίσω·        30
οὐδέ ποτε κλέος ἐσθλὸν ἀπόλλυται οὐδ᾿ ὄνομ᾿ αὐτοῦ,
    ἀλλ᾿ ὑπὸ γῆς περ ἐὼν γίνεται ἀθάνατος,
ὅντιν᾿ ἀριστεύοντα μένοντά τε μαρνάμενόν τε
    γῆς πέρι καὶ παίδων θοῦρος Ἄρης ὀλέσῃ.
εἰ δὲ φύγῃ μὲν κῆρα τανηλεγέος θανάτοιο,        35
    νικήσας δ᾿ αἰχμῆς ἀγλαὸν εὖχος ἕλῃ,
πάντες μιν τιμῶσιν, ὁμῶς νέοι ἠδὲ παλαιοί,
    πολλὰ δὲ τερπνὰ παθὼν ἔρχεται εἰς Ἀΐδην,
γηράσκων δ᾿ ἀστοῖσι μεταπρέπει, οὐδέ τις αὐτὸν
    βλάπτειν οὔτ᾿ αἰδοῦς οὔτε δίκης ἐθέλει,        40
πάντες δ᾿ ἐν θώκοισιν ὁμῶς νέοι οἵ τε κατ᾿ αὐτὸν
    εἴκουσ᾿ ἐκ χώρης οἵ τε παλαιότεροι.

ταύτης νῦν τις ἀνὴρ ἀρετῆς εἰς ἄκρον ἱκέσθαι
    πειράσθω θυμῷ μὴ μεθιεὶς πολέμου.

Werner Jaeger, Paideia: The Ideals of Greek Culture, tr. Gilbert Highet, Vol. I (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1946), pp. 91-93 (notes omitted):

Tyrtaeus exalts true areté above the other goods which his contemporaries believed could give a man true worth and esteem. 'I would' not,' he says, 'mention or take account of a man for the prowess of his feet or for his wrestling, even if he had the stature and strength of the Cyclopes and outran the Thracian Boreas.' These are exaggerated instances of the athletic areté which had been admired, above all else by the aristocracy ever since Homer's day; during the previous century, because of the rise of the Olympic Games, it had come to be regarded even by the common people as the highest pinnacle of human achievement. Tyrtaeus now adds other virtues admired by the old nobility. 'And were he more beautiful in face and body than Tithonus, and richer than Midas and Cinyras, and more kingly than Tantalus' son Pelops, and sweeter of tongue than Adrastus, I would not honour him for these things, even if he had every glory except warlike valour. For no one is a good man in war, unless he can bear to see bloody slaughter and can press hard on the enemy, standing face to face. That is areté!' cries Tyrtaeus in a transport of emotion, 'that is the best and fairest prize which a young man can win among men. That is a good which is common to all—to the city and the whole people—when a man takes his stand and holds his ground relentlessly among the foremost fighters and casts away all thought of shameful flight.' We must not call this 'late rhetoric'. Solon speaks in the same way. The origins of rhetorical style go far back into history. Tyrtaeus' excited repetitions are prompted by the deep emotion with which he asks his central question—what is true areté? The usual answers to that question are one by one rejected, in the powerful negations of the first ten or twelve lines; all the lofty ideals of the old Greek aristocracy are removed to a lower plane, although not wholly denied or superseded; and then, when the poet has raised his audience to a high pitch of excitement, he proclaims the severe new ideal of citizenship. There is only one standard of true areté—the common good of the polis. Whatever helps the community is good, whatever injures it is bad.

From this, he passes naturally to eulogies of the reward which a man wins by sacrificing himself for his country, whether he falls in battle or returns home triumphant. 'But he who falls among the foremost fighters and loses his dear life in winning glory for his city and his fellow-citizens and his father—his breast and his bossed shield and his breastplate pierced with many wounds in front—he is lamented by young and old together, and the whole city mourns for him in sad grief; and his tomb and his children are honoured among men, and his children's children likewise and his whole race after him; never is his name and fair fame destroyed, but though he lies beneath the earth he becomes immortal.' The glory of a Homeric hero, however widely it is disseminated by the wandering bard, is nothing to the glory of a simple Spartan warrior, as Tyrtaeus describes it, laid up for ever deep in the hearts of his people. The close community of the city-state, which seemed at the beginning of the poem to be only an obligation, now appears as a privilege and an honour: it is the source of all ideal values. The first part states the heroic ideal of areté in terms of the city-state. The second restates, in the same terms, the heroic ideal of glory. Areté and glory are inseparable in the epic. Glory is now to be given, and areté to be exercised, by and in the city-state. The polis lives when the individual dies; and so it is a safe guardian of the 'name' and, with it, of the future life of a hero.

The early Greeks did not believe in the immortality of the soul. A man was dead when his body died. What Homer calls the psyché is a reflection or wraith of the physical body, a shadow living in Hades, a nothing. But if a man crossed the frontiers of ordinary human existence and reached a higher life by sacrificing himself for his country, then the polis could give him immortality by perpetuating his ideal personality, his 'name'. This political idea of heroism became dominant with the rise of the city-state, and remained so throughout Greek history. Man as a political being reaches perfection by the perpetuation of his memory in the community for which he lived or died. It was only when the value of the state, and indeed of all earthly life, began to be questioned, and the value of the individual soul to be exalted—a process which culminated in Christianity—that philosophers came to preach the duty of despising fame. Even in the political thought of Demosthenes and Cicero there is no trace of this change; while Tyrtaeus' elegies represent the first stage in the development of city-state morality. It is the polis which guards and immortalizes the dead hero, and it is the polis which exalts the victorious warrior who returns alive. 'He is honoured by all, young and old together; his life brings him much happiness, and no one will offer him insult or injury. As he grows old, he is respected among the citizens, and wherever he goes all make way for him, both the youth and the elders.' This is not merely rhetoric. The early Greek city-state was small, but it had something truly heroic and truly human in its nature. Greece, and in fact all the ancient world, held the hero to be the highest type of humanity.

See also Robert D. Luginbill, "Tyrtaeus 12 West: Come Join the Spartan Army," Classical Quarterly 52 (2002) 405-414.