Laudator Temporis Acti

To help the guilty is to share his crime.

Socius fit culpae qui nocentem sublevat.

I know not how — nor is it proper — to labour at what we have not learned.

οὐκ οἶδ' οὐδ' ἐπέοικεν ἃ μὴ μάθομες πονέεσθαι;

οἶδ' codd. Stobaei 4.16.4: ἔστ' Ameis
μάθομες Ahrens: μάθωμεν vel μάθομεν codd.

The sentiment recalls the proverb ἔρδοι τις ἣν ἕκαστος εἰδείη τέχνην (Aristoph. Vesp. 1431; cf. Cic. Ad Att. 5.10.3, Tusc. 1.18.41; Hor. Epist. 1.14.44; Crinag. A.P. 9.516.1).

• Let the Cobbler Stick to His Last
• Sutor Ne Ultra Crepidam

"Nowhere on earth is life peaceful." In one place there is war, in another a peace sadder than war; in one place there is infected air, in another an even more fatal infected morality; in one place there is desolate famine, in another a flowing abundance more dangerous than famine; in one place there is wretched slavery, in another an insolent freedom worse than slavery; in one place there is thirst and a desert region, in another a widespread raging of rivers; finally in one place there is heat, in another cold; in one place attacks by beasts, in another the deceits of men; in one place a vast and horrible solitude, in another a rough and troublesome crowd. Thus the spot that we seek is nowhere.

Nusquam terrarum mora tranquilla est. Illic bellum, hic tristior bello pax, illic aer infectus, hic quod est pestilentius infecti mores: illic fames avida, hic fame periculosior exundans copia: illic calamitosa servitus, hic servitute peior insolens libertas; illic sitiens et inaquosa regio, hic fluminum vagus furor; denique illic æstus, hic frigora, illic ferarum impetus, hic hominum doli; illic solitudo vasta et horribilis, hic gravis et importuna frequentia. Ita locus ille quem quærimus nusquam est.

When doing something, don't be sluggish; when talking to people, don't be muddled; when thinking, don't be vague.

μήτε ἐν ταῖς πράξεσιν ἐπισύρειν μήτε ἐν ταῖς ὁμιλίαις φύρειν μήτε ἐν ταῖς φαντασίαις ἀλᾶσθαι.

A curriculum for instructors, for obstreperous students who wish to annoy dull instructors, for men who haven't had time for systematized college courses. Call it the minimum basis for a sound and liberal education in letters (with French and English 'aids' in parenthesis).

CONFUCIUS—In full (there being no complete and intelligent English version, one would have either to learn Chinese or make use of the French version by Pauthier).

HOMER—in full (Latin cribs, Hugues Salel in French, no satisfactory English, though Chapman can be used as reference).

OVID—And the Latin 'personal' poets, Catullus and Propertius. (Golding's Metamorphoses, Marlowe's Amores. There is no useful English version of Catullus.)

A PROVENÇAL SONG BOOK—With cross reference to Minnesingers, and to Bion, perhaps thirty poems in all.

DANTE—'And his circle'; that is to say Dante, and thirty poems by his contemporaries, mostly by Guido Cavalcanti.

VILLON—

PARENTHETICALLY—Some other medieval matter might be added, and some general outline of history of thought through the Renaissance.

VOLTAIRE—That is to say, some incursion into his critical writings, not into his attempts at fiction and drama, and some dip into his contemporaries (prose).

STENDHAL—(At least a book and half).

FLAUBERT (omitting Salambo and the Tentation)—And the Goncourts.

GAUTIER, CORBIÈRE, RIMBAUD.

This would not overburden the three- or four-year student. After this inoculation he could be with safety exposed to modernity or anything else in literature. I mean he wouldn't lose his head or ascribe ridiculous values to works of secondary intensity. He would have axes of reference and, would I think, find them dependable.

At Padua in the first week of June 1996, I sat in an upper-story room of the sixteenth-century Palazzo del Bo reading documents from the Archivio Antico dell'Università di Padova. The window overlooked the small square in front of the Palazzo. Early June is the time for the laureate (doctoral) examinations in Italy, some in progress in rooms below. As a successful candidate emerged, friends hailed the new doctor with a scatological serenade in dialect: "Dotore, Dotore, Dotore, pal buso del cul. Vaffan cul, vaffan cul." While the chant seems crude and insulting in English translation, the words floated on joy and laughter. Sometimes friends draped a large wreath around the neck of the new doctor.

As the examinations continued in the ensuing days, large handwritten and illustrated posters appeared on the front wall of the Palazzo del Bo to celebrate in verse and picture the accomplishments of new doctors. Signed by many friends, they were both elaborate and funny. The climax came with a placard chronicling the life of a certain "Dottoressa Barbara Pasqueta." The placard was a university version of the pasquinades (pasquinata = Pasqueta) attached to the famous statue in Rome. According to the placard, Dottoressa Pasqueta had enjoyed a life full of extraordinary academic and sexual exploits, all detailed in satirical verses and graphic illustrations. She obtained her degree with a minimum score of thirty-seven out of sixty points.

Sometimes the celebrations honoring the new doctor continued into the evening. One night I watched the festivities for a new laureate in front of the Palazzo. The graduate wore a swimsuit, apron, brown paint on her face, and flowers in her hair, making her into a wood nymph. She first delivered a short peroration on a platform. Friends abruptly ended her speech by putting tape over her mouth and tying her to a post. Upon release she went about the piazza selling vegetables from a basket, as comrades took pictures. Before long the group moved on, possibly to further celebration in home or tavern. Gaudeamus igitur.

Education he declared to be the best provision for old age.

κάλλιστον ἐφόδιον τῷ γήρᾳ τὴν παιδείαν ἔλεγε.

We ought not to be still considering whether we have been wronged but how we should be responding in our defence.

χρῆν γὰρ οὐκ εἰ ἀδικούμεθα ἔτι σκοπεῖν, ἀλλὰ καθ᾽ ὅτι ἀμυνούμεθα.

This difference between what is known, and what is merely faked or surmised has at all times seemed to me worth discovering. Obviously the more limited the field the more detailed can the demarcation become.

History is the most dangerous product evolved from the chemistry of the intellect. Its properties are well known. It causes dreams, it intoxicates whole peoples, gives them false memories, quickens their reflexes, keeps their old wounds open, torments them in their repose, leads them into delusions either of grandeur or persecution, and makes nations bitter, arrogant, insufferable, and vain.

History will justify anything. It teaches precisely nothing, for it contains everything and furnishes examples of everything.

How many books have been written entitled "the lesson of this, the teaching of that"! Nothing could make more absurd reading, after the events that actually followed, instead of the ones the books told us would be the way of the future.

In the present state of the world the danger of letting oneself be seduced by history is greater than it ever was.

L’Histoire est le produit le plus dangereux que la chimie de l’intellect ait élaboré. Ses propriétés sont bien connues. Il fait rêver, il enivre les peuples, leur engendre de faux souvenirs, exagère leurs réflexes, entretient leurs vieilles plaies, les tourmente dans leur repos, les conduit au délire des grandeurs ou à celui de la persécution, et rend les nations amères, superbes, insupportables et vaines.

L’Histoire justifie ce que l’on veut. Elle n’enseigne rigoureusement rien, car elle contient tout, et donne des exemples de tout.

Que de livres furent écrits qui se nommaient : « La Leçon de ceci, les Enseignements de cela!… » Rien de plus ridicule à lire après les événements qui ont suivi les événements que ces livres interprétaient dans le sens de l’avenir.

Dans l’état actuel du monde, le danger de se laisser séduire à l’Histoire est plus grand que jamais il ne fut.

There was laughter of warriors, voices rang pleasant,
words were cheerful.

Ðær wæs hæleþa hleahtor,    hlyn swynsode,
word wæron wynsume.

Is there anyone, after all, who doesn't cry here, along this bad road, seeing that the very infant begins with crying? Certainly when the infant is born it is tumbled out of the cramped confines of the womb into the wide open spaces of this world, it proceeds from darkness into light. And yet as it comes from the dark into the light it is able to cry, it isn't able to laugh. This life is such that when you are enjoying it here, be afraid it may all be deceptive. When you are crying here, pray for release. Trouble passes, trouble comes. People laugh, people cry. Even what people laugh about is a matter for crying. But one man cries over his losses, another cries about his affliction because he has been dumped in jail, another cries because he has lost one of his dear ones who has died.

Quis enim non hic plorat in via ista mala, quando ipse infans inde incipit? Utique infans, quando nascitur, de angustiis uteri in huius mundi latitudinem funditur, de tenebris procedit ad lucem. Et tamen de tenebris veniens ad lucem, plorare potest, ridere non potest. Est enim vita ista, ut quando gaudetur hic, time ne fallat. Quando hic ploratur, roga ut evadas. Et transit tribulatio, et venit tribulatio. Et rident homines, et plorant homines. Et quod rident homines, plorandum est. Sed plorat alius damnum suum, plorat alius pressuram suam quia in carcere est constitutus, plorat alius quod amiserit mortuum aliquem carissimorum suorum.

The classical humanities educate because they know nothing about the fundamental assumptions of the modern mind.

Las humanidades clásicas educan porque ignoran los postulados básicos de la mente moderna.

I had hoped that at least one of my Sons would have been ambitious to excel — I find them all three, coming to manhood, with indolent minds — Flinching from study whenever they can, and if not content to hold the 30th and forty-fifth rank in their class, incapable of the exertion necessary for raising them higher. It is bitter disappointment. The blast of mediocrity, is the lightest of the evils, which such characters portend.

Speaking at length about oneself, making false claims, taking the credit for what another has done, these are signs of boastfulness.

τὸ περὶ αὑτοῦ πάντα λέγειν καὶ ἐπαγγέλλεσθαι, καὶ τὸ τἀλλότρια αὑτοῦ φάσκειν· ἀλαζονείας γάρ (sc. σημεῖα).

Welcher Esel kommt da?

Which jackass is coming there?

Moreover, learning to read difficult texts and write and speak in Latin was a foundation, or as the humanists would say, a doorway.⁹ Once you passed through the doorway you would find Livy and Sallust, Cicero and Demosthenes, Plato and Aristotle waiting to engage you in conversation.¹⁰ It was the lifelong companionship of the ancients that was supposed to do you good, not the mastery of irregular verbs. Real education did not end with grammar school. It was supposed to go on for your entire life. As Cicero wrote in the Pro Archia—a speech which became a kind of manifesto for humanists—it was supposed to enrich and inform your entire life.¹¹ The concept of institutio for the humanists did not only mean learning to read old books in school. It meant absorbing the moral and intellectual formation human beings needed to live successfully in civilized societies.

9 Platina writes of grammar in his oration De laudibus bonarum artium, ed. Vairani, 110, "for it contains the stone, the wood and the cement for building the edifice of the humanities." The wider point was already made by Seneca in Epistulae Morales 88.20.

10 A metaphor used by Marsilio Ficino when describing the riches of the Platonic corpus; see Hankins 2003–2004a, 201–202.

11 Cicero, Pro Archia 16: "These studies nurture adolescence, delight old age, embellish good times, offer refuge and solace in bad, are delightful at home and no obstacle in public life, they accompany us through the night-time, when travelling and in the country." For the importance of the Pro Archia in the humanist conception of education, see Chapter 2, page 46.

It is proper that laws, properly enacted, should themselves define the issue of all cases as far as possible, and leave as little as possible to the discretion of the judges.

μάλιστα μὲν οὖν προσήκει τοὺς ὀρθῶς κειμένους νόμους, ὅσα ἐνδέχεται, πάντα διορίζειν αὐτούς, καὶ ὅτι ἐλάχιστα καταλείπειν ἐπὶ τοῖς κρίνουσι.

Above all, though, it is fitting for laws that are correctly laid down to define everything themselves, wherever possible, and leave the fewest things up to the jurors.

To begin with, it is easy to observe in ourselves a diminution, a kind of general clouding over of sensibility. We modems are not very sensitive. Modern man has blunted his senses; he puts up with every kind of noise, as we all know; he puts up with nauseating smells, with violently contrasting or insanely intense lighting; he is subjected to perpetual vibration; he feels the need of brutal stimulants, strident sounds, the strongest drinks, brief and bestial emotions.

J'observe d'abord très facilement qu'il y a chez nous une diminution, une sorte d'obnubilation générale de la sensibilité. Nous autres modernes, nous sommes fort peu sensibles. L'homme moderne a les sens obtus, il supporte le bruit que vous savez, il supporte les odeurs nauséabondes, les éclairages violents et follement intenses ou contrastés; il est soumis à une trépidation perpétuelle; il a besoin d’excitants brutaux, de sons stridents, de boissons infernales, d'émotions brèves et bestiales.

What a glory-hole is the commentary of an old author. One minute you are puzzling out a quotation from a French medieval romance: the next, you are being carried back to Plato: then a scrap of medieval law: then something about geomancy: and manuscripts, and the signs of the Zodiac, and a modern proverb 'reported by Mr Snooks to be common in Derbyshire', and the precession of the equinoxes, and an Arabian optician (born at Balk in 1030), five smoking room stories, the origins of the doctrine of immaculate conception, and why St Cecilia is the patroness of organists. So one is swept from East to West, and from century to century, equally immersed in each oddity as it comes up, and equally sudden in ones flight to the next: like the glimpses (oh how I hate the word vignette) that you get from an express train, when the cart going under the bridge seems to be a little world in itself, until it is replaced—instantaneously—by the horses running away from the line in the next field.