Laudator Temporis Acti

Rabelais is famous for his comical lists, e.g. the catalogue of books in the Library of Saint Victor (II.7), containing such imaginary works as the Ars honeste petandi in societate (The Art of Farting Politely in Public). See W.F. Smith (1842-1919), "Lists, Blazons and Litanies," Rabelais in His Writings (Cambridge: At the University Press, 1918), pp. 200-211, and Eric MacPhail, "Lists," The Rabelais Encyclopedia, ed. Elizabeth Chesney Zegura (Westport: Greenwood Press, 2004), pp. 145-146.

But it is possible to make other sorts of Rabelaisian lists, for example by collecting words scattered throughout Rabelais all referring to similar objects or actions. One such list was compiled by Raymond C. La Charité, "An Aspect of Obscenity in Rabelais," Renaissance and Other Studies in Honor of William Leon Wiley, ed. George Bernard Daniel (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1968 = Studies in the Romance Languages and Literatures, 72), pp. 167-189, who collected words and phrases used by Rabelais to describe copulation.

Quoted definitions in the list below are La Charité's, unless otherwise indicated. Harrap = Harrap's New Standard French and English Dictionary (London: Harrap, 1980).

1. badouiner: "to copulate with reference to donkies [sic, read donkeys]"
2. beliner: "Breed: (of ram, or ewe), to tup" (Harrap, s.v. béliner)
3. beluter: "(1) to sift, to pass through a sieve; (2) to separate while sifting; (3) to agitate; (4) to examine attentively"
4. besoingner: "to work hard" (Harrap, s.v. besogner)
5. biscoter: "to hop or to jump about"
6. bouter: "to put, to place, to drive"
7. bragmarder: to engage in sword-play, to fence. "The braquemart was a short, stubby sword..."
8. brimballer: "to swing, to dangle"
9. bubajaller: to enjoy like a buffalo. L. Sainéan, La Langue de Rabelais, Vol. II: Langue et Vocabulaire (Paris: E. De Boccard, 1923), p. 310: "Une contamination de bubaler, faire comme les buffles, et de jaller (forme réduite de galler), jouir."
10. chevaucher: "to ride (on), straddle" (Harrap, sense 2)
11. coingner: "to hit, to strike"
12. décrotter: "to expedite, to do ... something rapidly"
13. depuceller: "to deflower" (Harrap, s.v. dépuceler)
14. embourrer: "to stuff, pad" (Harrap)
15. estoupper: "to stop up (crevices, etc.) with tow, oakum" (Harrap, s.v. étouper, sense 1)
16. faire la beste à deux dos: to make the beast with two backs (cf. Shakespeare, Othello I.i.14)
17. faire la combercelle: "to bend one's back (namely that of the woman) in the form of a saddle"
18. fanfrelucher: "to garnish with baubles, trifles, or trinkets," i.e. to play at trifles
19. farbouller: to stuff (farcir) the ball (boule), or to stuff the cabinet (boulle)?
20. fretinfretailler: to perform "the sexual act in terms of both sound and the repeatedly short and rapid movement or agitation which creates it." A portmanteau word perhaps made up of freter ("to rub"), fertailler ("to strike"), and fresteler ("to make noise").
21. frotter son lard: to rub one's bacon
22. gimbretiletolleter: to jiggety-jog (cf. M.A. Screech's translation of IV.prol.).
23. jocqueter: "to go to roost, to perch" (Harrap, s.v. jucher)
24. jouer des manequins à basses marches: to play "the stiff lowdown in-and-out game" (cf. Douglas Frame's translation of II.21).
25. jouer de quille: to play skittles. A quille is a "ninepin, skittle(pin)" (Harrap, sense 1.a).
26. jouer du serrecropière: to play "at squeezing one's rumps together"
27. labourer: "to till, esp. to plough" (Harrap, sense 1)
28. lanterner: "to trifle; to dilly-dally" (Harrap, sense 1)
29. rataconniculer: "to reiterate leacherie," i.e. lechery (Randle Cotgrave, A Dictionarie of the French and English Tongues)
30. roussiner: act like a war-horse, charger, stallion
31. sabouler: "to jostle; to pull (s.o.) about" (Harrap)
32. sabourrer: "to ballast or to weigh down a ship"
33. saccader: "to jerk (a horse's rein)" (Harrap)
34. sacsacbezevezinemasser: "to stuff and to go back and forth in a noisy, jerky way"
35. tabourer: "(1) to beat the drums, (2) to make a loud noise, and (3) to strike..."
36. talocher: "to cuff; to clout (s.o.) on the head; to box (s.o.'s) ears" (Harrap, sense 2)

Happy Valentine's Day!

English as She is Taught: Genuine Answers to Examination Questions in Our Public Schools. Collected by Caroline B. Le Row (New York: Cassell & Company, Limited, 1887), pp. 37-38:

Girls are very stuckup and dignefied in their maner and behaveyour. They think more of dress than any thing and like to play with dowls and rags. They cry if they see a cow in afar distance and are afraid of guns. They stay at home all the time and go to Church every Sunday. They are al-ways sick. They are al-ways funy and making fun of boys hands and they say how dirty. They cant play marbels. I pity them poor things. They make fun of boys and then turn round and love them. I dont beleave they ever kiled a cat or any thing. They look out every nite and say oh ant the moon lovely. Thir is one thing I have not told and that is they always now their lessons bettern boys.

James Russell Lowell (1819-1891), "Sixty-Eighth Birthday," Heartsease and Rue (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1888), p. 218:

As life runs on, the road grows strange
With faces new, and near the end
The milestones into headstones change,
'Neath every one a friend.

---

More lugubrious birthday verses, these written on his 24th birthday by George Crabbe (1754-1832), "My Birth-Day," Poetical Works, Vol. II (London: John Murray, 1834), pp. 313-314:

                                       Aldborough, Dec. 24. 1778.
Through a dull tract of woe, of dread,
The toiling year has pass'd and fled:
And, lo! in sad and pensive strain,
I sing my birth-day date again.

Trembling and poor, I saw the light,
New waking from unconscious night:
Trembling and poor I still remain
To meet unconscious night again.

Time in my pathway strews few flowers,
To cheer or cheat the weary hours;
And those few strangers, dear indeed,
Are choked, are check'd, by many a weed.

Related posts:

• Motto for a 65th Birthday Card
• Birthday Celebrations
• Ideas for Birthday Card Greetings
• Motto for a Birthday Card
• Birthday Greetings

Kenneth Rexroth (1905-1982), "An Age of Inoffensiveness," San Francisco Examiner (December, 1961):

I think the world was better when Senator Borah, William Jennings Bryan, Abie Kabibble, the Two Black Crows, Eugene V. Debs, burlesque shows, Bert Savoy and Mr. Dooley were all at large in the land, each raising his special brand of commotion. It was certainly livelier.

Let a hundred flowers bloom, say I, and if that be subversion, make the most of it.

Lucian, Menippus 17:

πολλοὺς δὲ καὶ ἄλλους ἦν ἰδεῖν ἐν ταῖς τριόδοις μεταιτοῦντας, Ξέρξας λέγω καὶ Δαρείους καὶ Πολυκράτας.

Lucian, How to Write History 2:

ἀλλ᾿ ἀφ᾿ οὗ δὴ τὰ ἐν ποσὶ ταῦτα κεκίνηται—ὁ πόλεμος ὁ πρὸς τοὺς βαρβάρους καὶ τὸ ἐν Ἀρμενίᾳ τραῦμα καὶ αἱ συνεχεῖς νῖκαι—οὐδεὶς ὅστις οὐχ ἱστορίαν συγγράφει· μᾶλλον δὲ Θουκυδίδαι καὶ Ἡρόδοτοι καὶ Ξενοφῶντες ἡμῖν ἅπαντες...

Lucian, Saturnalia 24:

...παῖδας δὲ αὐτῶν τοὺς ὡραίους καὶ κομήτας, οὓς Ὑακίνθους ἢ Ἀχιλλέας ἢ Ναρκίσσους ὀνομάζουσι...

Lucian, Apology for the "Salaried Posts in Great Houses" 1 (I know that Pactolus is a river name, not a person's name):

πόσοι Μίδαι καὶ Κροῖσοι καὶ Πακτωλοὶ ὅλοι μετέπεισαν αὐτὸν ἀφεῖναι μὲν τὴν ἐκ παίδων φίλην καὶ σύντροφον ἐλευθερίαν...;

Lucian, Hermotimus 35:

τί ποτ᾿ οὖν ἀδύνατον εἶναί σοι δοκεῖ, ἐντυγχάνοντά τινα μόνοις τοῖς Στωϊκοῖς λέγουσι τἀληθῆ πείθεσθαί τε αὐτοῖς καὶ μηκέτι δεῖσθαι τῶν ἄλλων εἰδότα ὡς οὐκ ἄν ποτε τὰ τέτταρα πέντε γένοιτο, οὐδ᾿ ἂν μυρίοι Πλάτωνες ἢ Πυθαγόραι λέγωσιν;

Lucian, To One Who Said, "You're a Prometheus in Words" 2:

καὶ αὐτοὶ δὲ Ἀθηναῖοι τοὺς χυτρέας καὶ ἱπνοποιοὺς καὶ πάντας ὅσοι πηλουργοί Προμηθέας ἀπεκάλουν...

Lucian, The Ship 46:

...ὥσπερ οἱ τοὺς βασιλεῖς ὑποκρινόμενοι τραγῳδοὶ ἐξελθόντες ἀπὸ τοῦ θεάτρου λιμώττοντες οἱ πολλοί, καὶ ταῦτα πρὸ ὀλίγου Ἀγαμέμνονες ὄντες ἢ Κρέοντες.

See I. van Wageningen, "Cerdo sive de nominibus propriis Latinis appellativorum loco adhibitis," Mnemosyne 40 (1912) 147-172, and a series of posts at the Farrago blog:

• Plurals of personal names in Latin
• Plurals of personal names from mythology
• Plurals of regional names

The Sayings of the Desert Fathers. The Alphabetical Collection. Translated, with a forward by Benedicta Ward, rev. ed. (Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications, 1984), p. 4 (Anthony the Great, #17):

One day some old men came to see Abba Anthony. In the midst of them was Abba Joseph. Wanting to test them, the old man suggested a text from the Scriptures, and, beginning with the youngest, he asked them what it meant. Each gave his opinion as he was able. But to each one the old man said, 'You have not understood it.' Last of all he said to Abba Joseph, 'How would you explain this saying?' and he replied, Ί do not know.' Then Abba Anthony said, 'Indeed, Abba Joseph has found the way, for he has said: "I do not know."'

Patrologia Graeca, Vol. 65, col. 80 D:

Παρέβαλόν ποτε γέροντες τῷ ἀββᾷ Ἀντωνίῳ͵ καὶ ἦν ὁ ἀββᾶς Ἰωσὴφ μετ΄ αὐτῶν. Καὶ θέλων ὁ γέρων δοκιμάσαι αὐτοὺς͵ προεβάλετο ῥῆμα ἐκ τῆς Γραφῆς͵ καὶ ἤρξατο ἐρωτᾷν ἀπὸ τῶν μικροτέρων͵ τί ἐστι τὸ ῥῆμα τοῦτο. Καὶ ἕκαστος ἔλεγε κατὰ τὴν ἰδίαν δύναμιν. Ὁ δὲ γέρων ἑκάστῳ ἔλεγεν· Οὔπω εὗρες. Ὕστερον ὅλων λέγει τῷ ἀββᾷ Ἰωσήφ· Σὺ πῶς λέγεις εἶναι τὸν λόγον τοῦτον; Ἀποκρίνεται· Οὐκ οἶδα. Λέγει οὖν ὁ ἀββᾶς Ἀντώνιος· Πάντως ἀββᾶς Ἰωσὴφ εὗρε τὴν ὁδὸν͵ ὅτι εἶπεν͵ Οὐκ οἶδα.

Lucian, Menippus 2 (tr. A. M. Harmon):

MENIPPUS
But tell me, how are things going on earth, and what are they doing in the city?

FRIEND
Nothing new; just what they did before—stealing, lying under oath, extorting usury, and weighing pennies.

ΜΕΝΙΠΠΟΣ
ἀτὰρ εἰπέ μοι, πῶς τὰ ὑπὲρ γῆς ἔχει καὶ τί ποιοῦσιν οἱ ἐν τῇ πόλει;

ΦΙΛΟΣ
καινὸν οὐδέν, ἀλλ᾿ οἷα καὶ πρὸ τοῦ· ἁρπάζουσιν, ἐπιορκοῦσιν, τοκογλυφοῦσιν, ὀβολοστατοῦσιν.

Aristophanes, Knights 90-94 (tr. Jeffrey Henderson):

How dare you cast aspersions on the creative power of wine?
Can you come up with anything more effective?
Don't you see, it's when people drink that
they get rich, they're successful, they win lawsuits,
they're happy, they can help their friends.

οἶνον σὺ τολμᾷς εἰς ἐπίνοιαν λοιδορεῖν;
οἴνου γὰρ εὕροις ἄν τι πρακτικώτερον;
ὁρᾷς, ὅταν πίνωσιν ἄνθρωποι, τότε
πλουτοῦσι, διαπράττουσι, νικῶσιν δίκας,
εὐδαιμονοῦσιν, ὠφελοῦσι τοὺς φίλους.

Horace, Epistles 1.5.16-20 (tr. H. Rushton Fairclough):

What a miracle cannot the wine-cup work! It unlocks secrets,
bids hopes be fulfilled, thrusts the coward into the field,
takes the load from anxious hearts, teaches new arts.
The flowing bowl—whom has it not made eloquent?
Whom has it not made free even amid pinching poverty?

quid non ebrietas dissignat? operta recludit,
spes iubet esse ratas, ad proelia trudit inertem,
sollicitis animis onus eximit, addocet artes.
fecundi calices quem non fecere disertum?
contracta quem non in paupertate solutum?

[An update to The Desire to Learn, because I just noticed something wrong about the quotation there.]

Humanist Educational Treatises. Edited and Translated by Craig W. Kallendorf (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2002 = I Tatti Renaissance Library, 5), pp. 262-263 (= Battista Guarino, De Ordine Docendi et Studendi 3), with notes on p. 343:

Antequam tamen ad studendi docendique praecepta veniamus, haudquaquam a proposito nostro alienum esse videbirur, si adolescentes ipsos admonuerimus, primum ut quam eis praeceptor extriinsecus tradere non potest discendi cupiditatem, ipsi per se sponte illam arripiant, et ad hydropis similitudinem se conforment, cui, ut inquit Ovidius, quo plus sunt potae, plus sitiuntur aquae. Sic et ipsi quo plura in dies didicerint, eo plura percipere et haurire tamquam diuturnam sitim extinguere cupientes incitentur. Teneantque illud assidue ante mentis oculos quod Socrates graecus praecipit: si eris discendi studiosus, multa disces. Facile autem ad eam aviditatem se ipsos exhortabuntur si, ut idem inquit Socrates, turpe esse cogitaverint mercatores tot tantaque maria navigare ut divitias amplificent, iuniores vero terrestri itinere ad praeceptores tendere ut meliorem mentis habitum constituant; si animo etiam versaverint nullam esse possessionem doctrina honestiorem aut stabiliorem: nam pulchritudinem et robur, etiam si nullo morbo diminuantur, certe senectus ipsa conficit: pecuniae vero saepius inertiae causam quam adipiscendae virtutis materiam praestant.

Nevertheless before we come to the precepts of study and teaching, it is highly relevant to our undertaking to advise young people themselves, first, to acquire spontaneously a real desire to learn—something a teacher can't give them from the outside—and act like a case of dropsy, for whom, as Ovid says, the more water it drinks, the more it thirsts for.⁴ And so the more knowledge they acquire each day, the more knowledge they are stimulated to seize and drink in, as though longing to quench a chronic thirst. Let them always keep in mind the teaching of the Greek Socrates: if you are eager to learn, you will learn much. They will find ready encouragement to acquire that eagerness, as the same Socrates says, if they see how shameful it is that merchants sail far across the seas to increase their wealth, while young people go by land seeking teachers to improve their minds;⁵ if they also keep in mind that no possession is more honorable or stable than learning, for beauty and strength, even when not diminished by any disease, are surely laid low in the end by old age, and money more often provides an excuse for sloth than a means for attaining virtue.

4. quo plus sunt potae, plus sitiuntur aquae: Ovid Fast. 1.216.

5. teneantque illud ... constituant: ps. Plutarch De educ. 7; Cicero Tusc. 5.4.10-11. Sea travel was considered much more dangerous than land travel in premodern times.

The references to Socrates, in both Latin and English, are mistaken. Guarino was referring not to Socrates, but to Isocrates. See Isocrates, To Demonicus 18-19 (tr. George Norlin):

If you love knowledge, you will be a master of knowledge. What you have come to know, preserve by exercise; what you have not learned, seek to add to your knowledge; for it is as reprehensible to hear a profitable saying and not grasp it as to be offered a good gift by one’s friends and not accept it. Spend your leisure time in cultivating an ear attentive to discourse, for in this way you will find that you learn with ease what others have found out with difficulty. Believe that many precepts are better than much wealth; for wealth quickly fails us, but precepts abide through all time; for wisdom alone of all possessions is imperishable. Do not hesitate to travel a long road to those who profess to offer some useful instruction; for it were a shame, when merchants cross vast seas in order to increase their store of wealth, that the young should not endure even journeys by land to improve their understanding.

ἐὰν ᾖς φιλομαθής, ἔσει πολυμαθής. ἃ μὲν ἐπίστασαι, ταῦτα διαφύλαττε ταῖς μελέταις, ἃ δὲ μὴ μεμάθηκας, προσλάμβανε ταῖς ἐπιστήμαις· ὁμοίως γὰρ αἰσχρὸν ἀκούσαντα χρήσιμον λόγον μὴ μαθεῖν καὶ διδόμενόν τι ἀγαθὸν παρὰ τῶν φίλων μὴ λαβεῖν. κατανάλισκε τὴν ἐν τῷ βίῳ σχολὴν εἰς τὴν τῶν λόγων φιληκοΐαν· οὕτω γὰρ τὰ τοῖς ἄλλοις χαλεπῶς εὑρημένα συμβήσεταί σοι ῥᾳδίως μανθάνειν. ἡγοῦ τῶν ἀκουσμάτων πολλὰ πολλῶν εἶναι χρημάτων κρείττω· τὰ μὲν γὰρ ταχέως ἀπολείπει, τὰ δὲ πάντα τὸν χρόνον παραμένει· σοφία γὰρ μόνον τῶν κτημάτων ἀθάνατον. μὴ κατόκνει μακρὰν ὁδὸν πορεύεσθαι πρὸς τοὺς διδάσκειν τι χρήσιμον ἐπαγγελλομένους· αἰσχρὸν γὰρ τοὺς μὲν ἐμπόρους τηλικαῦτα πελάγη διαπερᾶν ἕνεκα τοῦ πλείω ποιῆσαι τὴν ὑπάρχουσαν οὐσίαν, τοὺς δὲ νεωτέρους μηδὲ τὰς κατὰ γῆν πορείας ὑπομένειν ἐπὶ τῷ βελτίω καταστῆσαι τὴν αὑτῶν διάνοιαν.

I now see that Luigi Piacente, ed., Battista Guarini, La didattica del greco e del latino: De ordine docendi ac studendi e altri scritti (Bari: Edipuglia, 2002), p. 28, correctly prints Isocrates and correctly identifies the quotations.

Labels: typographical and other errors

Robert Browning (1812-1889), Aristophanes' Apology, lines 406-408:

'Rough dealing, awkward language,' whine our fops:
The world's too squeamish now to bear plain words
Concerning deeds it acts with gust enough...

Battista Guarino (1434-1503), De Ordine Docendi et Studendi 3 (tr. Craig W. Kallendorf):

Nevertheless before we come to the precepts of study and teaching, it is highly relevant to our undertaking to advise young people themselves, first, to acquire spontaneously a real desire to learn—something a teacher can't give them from the outside—and act like a case of dropsy, for whom, as Ovid says,

the more water it drinks, the more it thirsts for. [Ovid, Fasti 1.216]

And so the more knowledge they acquire each day, the more knowledge they are stimulated to seize and drink in, as though longing to quench a chronic thirst. Let them always keep in mind the teaching of the Greek Socrates: if you are eager to learn, you will learn much.

Antequam tamen ad studendi docendique praecepta veniamus, haudquaquam a proposito nostro alienum esse videbirur, si adolescentes ipsos admonuerimus, primum ut quam eis praeceptor extriinsecus tradere non potest discendi cupiditatem, ipsi per se sponte illam arripiant, et ad hydropis similitudinem se conforment, cui, ut inquit Ovidius,

quo plus sunt potae, plus sitiuntur aquae.

Sic et ipsi quo plura in dies didicerint, eo plura percipere et haurire tamquam diuturnam sitim extinguere cupientes incitentur. Teneantque illud assidue ante mentis oculos quod Socrates graecus praecipit: si eris discendi studiosus, multa disces.

Update and correction here.

Lucian, How to Write History 39 (tr. K. Kilburn):

The historian's sole task is to tell the tale as it happened.

τοῦ δὴ συγγραφέως ἔργον ἕν—ὡς ἐπράχθη εἰπεῖν.

---

From Jaume Ripoll Miralda:

I find [the passage from Lucian] very interesting, specially in comparison to some comments made by the German historian Leopold von Ranke (1795-1886) in the Preface to his The History of the Latin and Teutonic Nations (1824):

History has had assigned to it the office of judging the past and of instructing the present for the benefit of the future ages. To such high offices the present work does not presume: it seeks only to show what actually happened.

Man hat der Historie das Amt, die Vergangenheit zu richten, die Mitwelt zum Nutzen zukünftiger Jahre zu belehren, beigemessen: so hoher Aemter unterwindet sich gegenwärtiger Versuch nicht: er will blos zeigen, wie es eigentlich gewesen.

The final sentence, wie es eigentlich gewesen ("what actually happened"), is some kind of motto for some historians even nowadays.

Lucian, How to Write History 6 (tr. K. Kilburn):

Advice works in two ways: it teaches us to choose this and avoid that.

διττοῦ δὲ ὄντος τοῦ τῆς συμβουλῆς ἔργου, τὰ μὲν γὰρ αἱρεῖσθαι, τὰ δὲ φεύγειν διδάσκει...

Note how many of the Greek words in this short clause are connected with English words:

• διττοῦ: dittography
• ὄντος: ontology
• συμβουλῆς: symboleutic (surprisingly not in the Oxford English Dictionary)
• ἔργου: ergonomic
• αἱρεῖσθαι: heresy
• φεύγειν: fugue, fugitive
• διδάσκει: didactic

Gustave Flaubert, letter to George Sand (October 28, 1872; tr. Francis Steegmuller):

The slightest discussion with anyone at all exasperates me, because I find everybody idiotic. My sense of justice is continually outraged. All talk is of politics—and such talk! Where is there the least sign of an idea? What is there to hold on to? What cause is there to be passionate about?

Le moindre dialogue avec qui que ce soit m'exaspère, parce que je trouve tout le monde idiot. Mon sentiment de la justice est continuellement révolté. On ne parle que de politique, et de quelle façon! Où y a-t-il une apparence d'idée? à quoi se raccrocher? Pour quelle cause se passionner?

Related post: An Indecency Among Intellectuals.

Sir Thomas More. A Play By Anthony Munday and Others, edd. Vittorio Gabrieli and Giorgio Melchiori (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1990), p. 134 (Act III, Scene 1, lines 202-207, with editors' notes):

More.               Why, I'll show the reason.
This is no age for poets: they should sing
To the loud cannon heroica facta:
Qui faciunt reges heroica carmina laudant;           205
And as great subjects of their pen decay,
Even so unphysicked they do melt away.

204 cannon] a quibble: (a) singing to the accompaniment of martial noises; (b) singing to a musical 'canon', by which different voices or instruments take up the same tune in different keys.

heroica facta] heroic feats: it completes the sentence (poets should sing heroic deeds). But it could be the subject of the Latin relative clause in the next line. The expression regia facta ('kingly deeds') is used ironically of Henry VIII's misdeeds in the apocryphal Erasmian poem on More's death mentioned in note to l. 205.

205] 'Epic poems praise what kings do.' The Jesuit phraseological repertory Gradus ad Parnassum (London, 1680) quotes this line (p. 380) under the heading heroicus, attributing it to Ovid, but we have been unable to find it in his works, and later editions of Gradus, while locating precisely most other quotations in the works of their respective authors, fail to do the same with this. Can the line be an oblique reference to the pamphlet published in Hagenau in September 1536 containing an Heroicum Carmen attributed to Erasmus, In mortem Thomae Mori? The pamphlet is a fabrication of anti-Protestant pro-paganda, but was taken seriously by Roman Catholics when circulated on both sides of the Channel, and it is just the sort of literature with which Anthony Munday would be familiar from his stay in Rome in 1579 and from his profession as pursuivant of Roman Catholics in England, see Intro., §2.4.

The Latin quotation isn't from Ovid but rather from Mantuan (1448-1516), Eclogues 5.155-156. See Wilfred P. Mustard, ed., The Eclogues of Baptista Mantuanus (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1911), p. 88.

By the way, the only way I can construe the quotation is without the stop after heroica facta (there is no stop in the manuscript). I translate:

Epic poems praise kings who perform epic deeds.

I.e. parsing as follows:

Qui reges faciunt heroica facta, eos reges heroica carmina laudant.

Excerpts from Raphael Holinshed (1529-1580), Chronicles, Vol. III: England (London: Printed for J. Johnson et al., 1808), pp. 617-620 (anno 1518, but actually 1517):

About this season there grew a great hartburning and malicious grudge amongst the Englishmen of the citie of London against strangers; and namelie the artificers found themselues sore grieued, for that such numbers of strangers were permitted to resort hither with their wares and to exercise handie crafts to the great hinderance and impouerishing of the kings liege people.

[....]

This abuse was much noted, so that the same and manie other oppressions doone by them, increased such a malice in the Englishmens harts, that at the last it burst out. For amongst other that sore grudged at these matters, there was a broker in London called Iohn Lincolne...

[....]

Wherfore (said Lincolne) maister doctor, sith you were borne in London, and see the oppression of the strangers, and the great miserie of your owne natiue countrie, exhort all the citizens to ioine in one against these strangers, raueners, and destroiers of your countrie.

[....]

The tenor of the bill of complaint which doctor Bele read in open audience at the Spitle.

To all you the worshipfull lords & maisters of this citie, that will take compassion ouer the poore people your neighbours, and also of the great importable hurts, losses, and hinderances, whereof proceedeth the extreame pouertie to all the kings subiects, that inhabit within this citie and suburbs of the same. For so it is, that the aliens & strangers eat the bread from the fatherlesse children, and take the liuing from all the artificers, and the intercourse from all merchants, whereby pouertie is so much increased, that euerie man bewaileth the miserie of other; for craftsmen be brought to beggerie, and merchants to needinesse. Wherefore the premisses considered, the redresse must be of the commons, knit and vnited to one part. And as the hurt and damage greeueth all men, so must all men set to their willing power for remedie, & not to suffer the said aliens so highlie in their wealth; & the naturall borne men of this region to come to confusion.

[....]

[H]e intreated, how this land was giuen to Englishmen. And as birds defend their nests, so ought Englishmen to cherish and mainteine themselues, and to hurt and grieue aliens for respect of their common-wealth. And vpon this text Pugna pro patria, he brought in, how by Gods law it was lawfull to fight for their countrie. And thus he subtilie mooued or rather vndiscreetlie prouoked the people to rebell against strangers.

Honoré de Balzac (1799-1850), La Peau de chagrin, chapter 1 (tr. Ellen Marriage):

Education, there's a pretty piece of tomfoolery. M. Heineffettermach estimates the number of printed volumes at more than a thousand millions; and a man cannot read more than a hundred and fifty thousand in his lifetime. So, just tell me what that word education means. For some it consists in knowing the name of Alexander's horse, of the dog Bérécillo, of the Seigneur d’Accords, and in ignorance of the man to whom we owe the discovery of rafting and the manufacture of porcelain. For others it is the knowledge how to burn a will and live respected, be looked up to and popular, instead of stealing a watch with half-a-dozen aggravating circumstances, after a previous conviction, and so perishing, hated and dishonored, in the Place de Grève.

L'instruction, belle niaiserie! Monsieur Heineffettermach porte le nombre des volumes imprimés à plus d'un milliard, et la vie d'un homme ne permet pas d'en lire cent cinquante mille. Alors expliquez-moi ce que signifie le mot instruction? pour les uns, elle consiste à savoir les noms du cheval d'Alexandre, du dogue Bérécillo, du seigneur des Accords, et d'ignorer celui de l'homme auquel nous devons le flottage des bois ou la porcelaine. Pour les autres, être instruit, c'est savoir brûler un testament et vivre en honnêtes gens, aimés, considérés, au lieu de voler une montre en récidive, avec les cinq circonstances aggravantes, et d'aller mourir en place de Grève, haïs et déshonorés.

Well, at least I know the name of Alexander's horse.

John Edwin Sandys (1844-1922), A History of Classical Scholarship, Vol. III: The Eighteenth Century in Germany, and the Nineteenth Century in Europe and the United States of America (1908; rpt. New York: Hafner Publishing Co., 1958), p. 3 (with my additions to n. 6 in square brackets):

Fabricius counted among his correspondents the leading scholars of his age. He was assisted in the compilation of the Bibliotheca Latina by the Danish scholar, Christian Falster³; and, in that of the Bibliotheca Graeca, by Küster⁴. He was also largely aided in the latter by Stephan Bergler (c. 1680-c. 1746), who, by his knowledge of Greek, might have attained a place among the foremost scholars of his time, but was reduced to the level of a literary hack by an insatiable craving for drink. Early in the century he was a corrector of proofs at Leipzig; in 1705 he left for Amsterdam, where he produced indices to the edition of Pollux begun by Lederlin and continued by Hemsterhuys, and himself completed Lederlin's edition of Homer (1707). We next find him helping Fabricius at Hamburg and elsewhere. During his second stay at Leipzig, he produced an excellent edition of Alciphron (1715); his edition of Aristophanes was published after his death by the younger Burman (1760); his work on Herodotus is represented only by some critical notes in the edition of Jacob Gronovius (1715); while his Latin translation of Herodian was not published until 1789. His rendering of a modern Greek work on moral obligations⁵ led to, his being invited to undertake the tuition of the author's sons at Bucharest, a position for which his intemperate habits made him peculiarly unfit. However, he was thus enabled to send Fabricius a few notes on the Greek MSS in his patron's library. After this he disappears from view. On his patron's death in 1730, he is said to have left for Constantinople, and to have adopted the religion of Islam. If so, he probably ended his days in perfect sobriety⁶.

³ Cp. chap. xxxviii init.

⁴ ii 445 supra.

⁵ Nic. Mavrokordatos, Περὶ τῶν καθηκόντων, 1722.

⁶ Cp. Burman's Aristophanes, i 2-14; Reimar, De Vita Fabricii, 169 f, 222 f; Saxe, Onom. vi 78-81 ; [Conrad] Bursian, [Geschichte der classischen Philologie in Deutschland (1883),] i 362-4.

On the dispute as to whether Bergler converted to Islam, see Christoph Saxe (1714-1806), Onomasticon Literarium, sive Nomenclator Historico-Criticus, Pars Sexta (Utrecht: Paddenburg, 1788), pp. 78-81 (at 80-81):

Rumor fuit, pulsum domo a Maurocordato abiisse ad Turcos, iisque circumsecandum se praebuisse. v. Christo. Wollius ad Clarkii Dissertationem de verbis Mediis, p. 240. ex eo P. Burmannus, in Praefatione ad Aristophanem, p 3 & 9. & Io. Matthi. Gesnerus ad Isagogen §. 524. p. 422. 423. Tom. I. qui varia de eo singularia habet. Sed in alia omnia nuper abiit Paulus Wallaszky, in Conspectu Reipublicae Litterariae in Hungaria, Posonii, & Lipsiae, 1785 8. edito, p. 243 (b.) qui vti eum vocat Cynicae vitae Philologum, sic refert, euocatum in Valachiam a Nicol. Maurocordato principe, vt filios eius doceret, mortuumque esse non tamen, vt Turcicum recutitum, quemadmodum Cl. Gesner in Praelect. Isag. in Erudit. vniversam §. 524. false ait, sed Bucharesti magna cum pompa elatum esse.

Paullus Wallaszky (1742-1824), Conspectus Reipublicae Litterariae in Hungaria, 2nd ed. (Buda: Typis Regiae Vniversitatis Hungaricae, 1808), p. 355, note a:


In short, Wallaszky contradicts Gesner's claim that Bergler ended up as a circumcised Turk, and states instead that he died and was buried in Bucharest. But Gesner knew Bergler personally ("Novi istum hominem Lipsiae....Fui aliquando apud ipsum"), and so his account should be given some weight. See Johann Matthias Gesner (1691-1761), Primae Lineae Isagoges In Eruditionem Universalem, 2nd ed. (Leipzig: Fritsch, 1784), pp. 423-424:


Note that, in contrast to Sandys' speculation ("he probably ended his days in perfect sobriety"), Gesner suggests that maybe the Turks killed him for drinking ("Sine dubio periit vt pecus, aut a Turcis inter pocula interfectus est"). But this is just a guess, since Gesner admits that he lost contact with Bergler after his move to Turkey ("Postea nihil de illo mihi innotuit").

Maria C. Marinescu, "Umanistul Ştefan Bergler (1680-1738). Viața şi activitatea sa," Rivista istorică romănă 11-12 (1941-1942 [1943]) 163-213, is unavailable to me.

I took a quick look at Marina Marinescu, "Neue Erkenntnisse über den Siebenbürgischen Humanisten Stephan Bergler (1680-1738)," Balkan Studies 30.2 (1989) 221-260, but didn't notice anything about Bergler's conversion to Islam, except for this excerpt (on p. 222) from Peter Burmann the Younger's preface to his edition of Aristophanes (Leiden, 1760), pp. 3-4:

Est hic Stephanus Berglerus Transilvanus, Hermanstadiensis (falsch!), qui Homeri editionem Barnesianam erudite recensuit, atque in Acta nostra Latina retulit. Vivebat eo tempore vir hic Graece doctissimus in hac Academia (Lipsiensi) deque Graecis literis egregie merebatur. Ego ipse cognovi hominem, in Graecis quidem literis praecipuum, at moribus impolitum, atque ex ejus usu, quum hanc linguam in hac Academia colerem, non parum profeci. Post aliquot annos hinc Hamburgum ad Fabricium, deinde Amstelodamum ad Kusterum ivit. Hinc vero Lipsiam rediens Graecos quosdam auctores (Aristophanem nempe & Herodotum) Th. Fritschii sumtu, praelo paravit, qui et Seren. Principis Valachiensis Alex. Maurocordati Tò περί των καθηκόντων βιβλίον Latine ipsi vertendum dedit, an. 1722. formis hic descriptum. Pro quo labore quum Princeps valde liberalis eximium ei pretium solvisset, consilium tandem Cl. Berglerus capiebat in Valachiam ad ipsum proficiendi, commodam ibi plures hujusmodi libros convertendi nacturus occasionem. Hoc autem in vivis non amplius reperto, Constantinopolim se contulit, ac, si famae tunc emananti credendum, Mohammedicam adscivit religionem.

C.G. Cobet (1813-1889), Protrepticus ad Studia Humanitatis (Leiden: Hazenburg, 1854), p. 7 (my translation):

To cultivate heart and mind with learning; to sharpen all one's natural intellectual endowments by observation and knowledge of useful subjects; to increase day by day the ability to comprehend; to know the past, and to correct and extend what is known; to make new discoveries by research; to investigate the causes of phenomena; to examine thoroughly the sources and progress of events; to explain the present by the past; to unlock hidden and complicated matters; to set right what is wrong and flawed; to refute, topple, and destroy foolishness and nonsense; and, summing up, to see the truth—this in the final analysis is a task worthy of human aptitude and reason, this is the spirit's nourishment, this is to live and enjoy one's life at last!

Excolere animum et mentem doctrina, rerum utilium observatione et cognitione ingenii dotes omnes acuere, intelligendi facultatem in dies augere, vetera nosse et cognita emendare et amplificare, nova excogitando reperire, inquirere in rerum causas, perscrutari rerum originem et progressum, ex veteribus praesentia explicare, obscura et intricata expedire, ubique vera a falsis discernere, prava et vitiosa corrigere, futilia et absurda confutare, labefactare, tollere, et, ut uno verbo absolvam, verum videre, hoc demum est humano ingenio ac ratione dignum, hoc pabulum est animi, hoc demum est vivere et frui anima denique!

Greek Anthology 11.13 (by Ammianus; tr. W.R. Paton with his note):

Dawn after dawn goes by, and then, when we take no heed shall come the Dark One. Melting some of us, roasting some and puffing out others,¹ he shall bring us all to the same pit.

¹ i.e. killing us by consumption, fever or dropsy.

ἠὼς ἐξ ἠοῦς παραπέμπεται, εἶτ᾿, ἀμελούντων
    ἡμῶν, ἐξαίφνης ἥξει ὁ πορφύρεος,
καὶ τοὺς μὲν τήξας, τοὺς δ᾿ ὀπτήσας, ἐνίους δὲ
    φυσήσας, ἄξει πάντας ἐς ἓν βάραθρον.

The same, tr. F.A. Wright:

Dawn follows Dawn, until the Dark One come
To drive us scattered to our Common Home.
    Heedless we play, while Water, Wasting, Fire,
To this one and to that he gives for Doom.

Commentary by Francesca Ricciuti, Gli epigrammi di Ammiano, pp. 10-12.