Laudator Temporis Acti

Aristophanes, Peace 335 (tr. Alan H. Sommerstein):

I'm glad, I'm happy, I fart, I laugh.

ἥδομαι γὰρ καὶ γέγηθα καὶ πέπορδα καὶ γελῶ.

This is a line of Greek worth memorizing, for those social situations when it might come in handy. Despite the translation, there is no asyndeton in the Greek, where καί (and) separates the verbs.

Sommerstein ad loc.:

[F]or breaking wind as a sign of contentment and satisfaction cf. Knights 115 (with 103-4), Clouds 9, Wasps 1305, Eccl. 464, Wealth 176.

Maurice Platnauer ad loc.:

On πέπορδα (perfect of πέρδομαι with present sense) Σ^R comments, 'μεταφορὰ ἀπὸ τῶν ὄνων· χαίροντες γὰρ πέρδονται'. His psychology may be faulty, but one treasures the note.

The note from the Ravenna (R) scholia (Σ) may be translated, "A metaphor from donkeys; for when they are joyful, they fart."

Dave Lull brought to my attention a new translation of Isidore's Etymologiae, The Etymologies of Isidore of Seville edited by Stephen A. Barney, W. J. Lewis, J. A. Beach and Oliver Berghof (Cambridge, 488pp, £85, ISBN 0521837499), and a review of the translation by Dot Wordsworth in The Spectator (5 August 2006) under the title Shedding light in dark places. The review ends with these interesting paragraphs about the etymology lucus a non lucendo (the word grove, "lucus," comes from not being light, "a non lucendo"):

As for lucus a non lucendo I have heard it attributed to Varro (116-27 BC), though I cannot find it in his surviving work. (It is certainly to be found in the fourth-century commentary on the Aeneid by Servius, one of Isidore’s authorities.) Doubts about its truth appeared early. ‘Are we to admit the derivation of certain words from their opposites, and accept lucus a non lucendo, since a grove is dark with shade?’ asked Quintilian (AD 35-100).

The last laugh is that a present-day scientific etymological dictionary of Latin like Ernout and Meillet does find a connection between lucus, no matter how dark it is, and lucendo. Both come from the Indo-European root leuk- that gives us Old English leah, ‘wood’ or ‘clearing’, as well as Latin lux, lumen and luna. Isidore was brighter than his shady detractors.

I don't have access to Ernout and Meillet, but Julius Pokorny, Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch (Bern: Francke, 1959), s.v. leuk-, supports the connection between lucus and lucendo:

lūcus, alat. Akk. loucom 'Hain', eigentlich '(Wald-)Lichtung' (vgl. collūcāre 'in einem Wald eine Lichtung vornehmen', interlūcāre 'Bäume auslichten').

I too was unable to find lucus a non lucendo in Varro's De Lingua Latina. Don't be misled by H.E. Butler's translation of Quintilian (1.6.34) into thinking that the phrase occurs there:

But are we also to admit the derivation of certain words from their opposites, and accept lucus a non lucendo, since a grove is dark with shade, ludus in the sense of school as being so called because it is quite the reverse of "play" and Dis, Ditis from diues, because Pluto is far from being rich?

Quintilian's Latin reads:

etiamne a contrariis aliqua sinemus trahi, ut "lucus" quia umbra opacus parum luceat, et "ludus" quia sit longissime a lusu, et "Ditis" quia minime dives?

As Wordsworth points out, the phrase seems to originate with Servius, in his commentary on Vergil's Aeneid (1.22):

et dictae sunt parcae kata antiphrasin, quod nulli parcant, sicut lucus a non lucendo, bellum a nulla re bella.

Here are passages from Isidore's Etymologiae where he refers to the derivation.

1.29.3:

Sunt autem etymologiae nominum aut ex causa datae, ut "reges" a [regendo et] recte agendo, aut ex origine, ut "homo" quia sit ex humo, aut ex contrariis ut a lavando "lutum" dum lutum non sit mundum, et "lucus" quia umbra opacus parum luceat.

1.37.24:

Antiphrasis est sermo e contrario intellegendus, ut "lucus" quia caret lucem per nimiam nemorum umbram; et "manes" id est mites (quum sint inmites) et modesti, cum sint terribiles et inmanes; et "Parcas’ et "Eumenides" Furiae quod nulli parcant vel benefaciant.

14.8.30:

Lucus est locus densis arboribus septus, solo lucem detrahens. Potest et a conlucendo crebris luminibus dici, quae ibi propter religionem gentilium cultumque fiebant.

17.6.7:

Lucus est densitas arborum solo lucem detrahens, tropo antiphrasi, eo quod non luceat; sive a luce, quod in eo lucebant funalia vel cerei propter nemorum tenebras.

To the passages collected here and here, add Columella, De Re Rustica (preface 16, tr. H.B. Ash):

And presently, then, that we may come to our gluttonous feasts in proper fettle, we steam out our daily indigestion in sweat-baths, and by drying out the moisture of our bodies we arouse a thirst; we spend our nights in licentiousness and drunkenness, our days in gaming or sleeping, and account ourselves blessed by fortune in that "we behold neither the rising of the sun nor its setting."

Mox deinde, ut apti veniamus ad ganeas, cotidianam cruditatem Laconicis excoquimus et exusto sudore sitim quaerimus noctesque libidinibus et ebrietatibus, dies ludo vel somno consumimus, ac nosmet ipsos ducimus fortunatos, quod "nec orientem solem videmus nec occidentem."

The quotation is from Cato -- see Seneca, Letters to Lucilius 122.3 (tr. Richard M. Gummere):

There may be Antipodes dwelling in this same city of ours who, in Cato's words, "have never seen the sun rise or set."

Sunt quidam in eadem urbe antipodes qui, ut M. Cato ait, nec orientem umquam solem viderunt nec occidentem.

On the health benefits of vitamin D and sunlight, see the series of posts by Dennis Mangan at Mangan's Miscellany, e.g:

• Sunbathing in the UK
  
• Letters to the Press Democrat: Solar Exposure
  
• Excitement
  
• Vitamin D Paradigms and Paradoxes
  
• Vitamin D Resources

From an article in the Brunswick, Maine Times Record by Bob Kalish on Terry Donald's trash-hauling business:

For him the bottom line on recycling is money.

"Sure, it's a good thing to do, it just makes sense," he says while unloading the brush onto the brushpile. "But for each item to be recycled that's less I have to pay to dump it. So it becomes an economic asset."

Donald tells the story of one of his jobs when he emptied an attic of books. Cartons of them.

"I had thousands I'll bet," he recalls. "Mostly hardcover. Now hardcover books can't be recycled like other papers. So what I did, I tore the covers off each book and recycled the coverless books as paper. The covers were cardboard."

See also the horrible story about the recent destruction of 400,000 Russian books from Kamkin Books in Gaithersburg, Maryland.

Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Chapter X, Part IV:

Another circumstance is related of these invasions, which might deserve our notice, were it not justly to be suspected as the fanciful conceit of a recent sophist. We are told, that in the sack of Athens the Goths had collected all the libraries, and were on the point of setting fire to this funeral pile of Grecian learning, had not one of their chiefs, of more refined policy than his brethren, dissuaded them from the design; by the profound observation, that as long as the Greeks were addicted to the study of books, they would never apply themselves to the exercise of arms. The sagacious counsellor (should the truth of the fact be admitted) reasoned like an ignorant barbarian. In the most polite and powerful nations, genius of every kind has displayed itself about the same period; and the age of science has generally been the age of military virtue and success.

A footnote says "Zonaras, l. xii, p. 635. Such an anecdote was perfectly suited to the taste of Montaigne. He makes use of it in his agreeable Essay on Pedantry, l. i, c. 24." I can't find Zonaras online, but here is Montaigne (tr. Donald Frame):

When the Goths ravaged Greece, what saved all the libraries from being set afire was that one of the invaders spread the opinion that this item might well be left intact to the enemy, to divert them from military exercises and keep them busy in sedentary and idle occupations.

Whatever the motivations of the barbarian Goths, they showed themselves more civilized than the destroyers of books anno Domini 2006.

This supplements an earlier post on solitary eating.

Seneca, Letters to Lucilius 19.10 (tr. Richard M. Gummere):

This saying of Maecenas's might have squared my account with you; but I feel sure, knowing you, that you will get out an injunction against me, and that you will be unwilling to accept payment of my debt in such crude and debased currency. However that may be, I shall draw on the account of Epicurus. He says [fragment 542 Usener]: "You must reflect carefully beforehand with whom you are to eat and drink, rather than what you are to eat and drink. For a dinner of meats without the company of a friend is like the life of a lion or a wolf."

Poteram tecum hac Maecenatis sententia parem facere rationem, sed movebis mihi controversiam, si novi te, nec voles quod debeo in aspero et probo accipere. Ut se res habet, ab Epicuro versura facienda est. 'Ante' inquit 'circumspiciendum est cum quibus edas et bibas quam quid edas et bibas; nam sine amico visceratio leonis ac lupi vita est.'

Lucian, Saturnalia 3.34 (tr. H.W. and F.G. Fowler):

It is surely not so agreeable to gorge yourself alone, like a lion or an old wolf that has deserted the pack, as to have the company of well-bred people who do their best to make things pleasant. In the first place they banish dull silence from your table, and are ready with a good story, a harmless jest, or some other contribution to entertainment; that is the way to please the Gods of wine and love and beauty. And secondly they win you love by spreading abroad next morning your hospitable fame. These are things that would be cheap at a considerable price.

Plutarch, Convivial Questions 7.pr.1 (697 a, tr. T.C., rev. William W. Goodwin):

The Romans, Sossius Senecio, remember a pretty saying of a pleasant man and good companion, who supping alone said that he had eaten today, but not supped; as if a supper always wanted company and agreement to make it palatable and pleasing.

These examples come from John E.B. Mayor's commentary on Juvenal 1.95. Mayor has other references, which I'll try to track down later.

Fr. Gerard Deighan writes, "Your most recent post on the asyndetic privatives provoked me to trawl through the entire NT to search out all occurrences." In Fr. Deighan's list, I have italicized the words in the English translation that correspond to the Greek asyndetic, privative adjectives.

Romans 1.30-31:

Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, Without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful.

καταλάλους, θεοστυγεῖς, ὑβριστάς, ὑπερηφάνους, ἀλαζόνας, ἐφευρετὰς κακῶν, γονεῦσιν ἀπειθεῖς, ἀσυνέτους, ἀσυνθέτους, ἀστόργους, ἀνελεήμονας.

1 Timothy 1.17:

Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honour and glory for ever and ever. Amen.

τῷ δὲ βασιλεῖ τῶν αἰώνων, ἀφθάρτῳ, ἀοράτῳ, μόνῳ θεῷ, τιμὴ καὶ δόξα εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας τῶν αἰώνων· ἀμήν.

1 Timothy 3.3:

Not given to wine, no striker, not greedy of filthy lucre; but patient, not a brawler, not covetous.

μὴ πάροινον, μὴ πλήκτην, ἀλλὰ ἐπιεικῆ, ἄμαχον, ἀφιλάργυρον.

1 Timothy 6.14:

That thou keep this commandment without spot, unrebukeable, until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ.

τηρῆσαί σε τὴν ἐντολὴν ἄσπιλον ἀνεπίλημπτον μέχρι τῆς ἐπιφανείας τοῦ κυρίου ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ.

2 Timothy 3.2-3:

For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good.

ἔσονται γὰρ οἱ ἄνθρωποι φίλαυτοι, φιλάργυροι, ἀλαζόνες, ὑπερήφανοι, βλάσφημοι, γονεῦσιν ἀπειθεῖς, ἀχάριστοι, ἀνόσιοι, ἄστοργοι, ἄσπονδοι, διάβολοι, ἀκρατεῖς, ἀνήμεροι, ἀφιλάγαθοι.

Titus 3.3:

For we ourselves also were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, and hating one another.

Ἦμεν γάρ ποτε καὶ ἡμεῖς ἀνόητοι, ἀπειθεῖς, πλανώμενοι, δουλεύοντες ἐπιθυμίαις καὶ ἡδοναῖς ποικίλαις, ἐν κακίᾳ καὶ φθόνῳ διάγοντες, στυγητοί, μισοῦντες ἀλλήλους.

Hebrews 7.3:

Without father, without mother, without descent, having neither beginning of days, nor end of life.

ἀπάτωρ, ἀμήτωρ, ἀγενεαλόγητος, μήτε ἀρχὴν ἡμερῶν μήτε ζωῆς τέλος ἔχων.

Hebrews 7.26:

For such an high priest became us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens.

Τοιοῦτος γὰρ ἡμῖν καὶ ἔπρεπεν ἀρχιερεύς, ὅσιος, ἄκακος, ἀμίαντος, κεχωρισμένος ἀπὸ τῶν ἁμαρτωλῶν, καὶ ὑψηλότερος τῶν οὐρανῶν γενόμενος.

James 3.17:

But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be intreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy.

ἡ δὲ ἄνωθεν σοφία πρῶτον μὲν ἁγνή ἐστιν, ἔπειτα εἰρηνική, ἐπιεικής, εὐπειθής, μεστὴ ἐλέους καὶ καρπῶν ἀγαθῶν, ἀδιάκριτος, ἀνυπόκριτος.

There is an example of asyndetic, privative adjectives in 1 Timothy 1.17:

Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only [wise] God, be honour and glory for ever and ever. Amen.

τῷ δὲ βασιλεῖ τῶν αἰώνων, ἀφθάρτῳ, ἀοράτῳ, μόνῳ θεῷ, τιμὴ καὶ δόξα εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας τῶν αἰώνων· ἀμήν.

I have Fr. Gerard Deighan to thank for the only other New Testament examples in my collection, Hebrews 7.3 (ἀπάτωρ ἀμήτωρ ἀγενεαλόγητος) and 7.26 (ἄκακος ἀμίαντος).

David E. Aune, Revelation 1-5 (Dallas: Word Books, 1997), p. 123, on Rev. 2.7 (ὁ ἔχων οὖς ἀκουσάτω τί τὸ πνεῦμα λέγει ταῖς ἐκκλησίαις = He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches):

Placed at the conclusion of each of the seven proclamations, this formula functions as a proclamation formula, i.e., as an injunction to an audience to pay very close attention to the message that it accompanies. Dibelius coined the term Weckformel, "alertness formula," for the parallels found in the synoptic gospels (Die Formgeschichte des Evangeliums, 6th ed., ed. G. Bornkamm [Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1971] 248). This formula has no close verbal parallels in ancient literature with the exception of the parable tradition found in the synoptic Gospels and in some apocryphal gospels.

There are a number of parallels from ancient pagan literature, although they lack the characteristic third person imperative of the Weckformel. See, e.g., Heraclitus fragment 34 Diels (tr. Kathleen Freeman):

Not understanding, although they have heard, they are like the deaf.

ἀξύνετοι ἀκούσαντες κωφοῖσιν ἐοίκασι.

and Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound 447-448 (tr. Herbert Weir Smyth):

First of all, though they had eyes to see, they saw to no avail; they had ears, but understood not.

οἳ πρῶτα μὲν βλέποντες ἔβλεπον μάτην,
κλύοντες οὐκ ἤκουον.

According to [Demosthenes] 25.89 (tr. J.H. Vince), the expression was proverbial:

As the saying runs, "seeing, they see not; hearing, do not hear."

τὸ τῆς παροιμίας, ὁρῶντας μὴ ὁρᾶν καὶ ἀκούοντας μὴ ἀκούειν.

For more, see here.

Thoreau, Journals (January 3, 1861):

It is safest to invest in knowledge, for the probability is that you can carry that with you wherever you go.

Thoreau, Journals (October 7, 1860):

Many people have a fooish way of talking about small things, and apologize for themselves or another having attended to a small thing, having neglected their ordinary business and amused or instructed themselves by attending to a small thing; when, if the truth were known, their ordinary business was the small thing, and almost their whole lives were misspent, but they were such fools as not to know it.

Peter Head at Evangelical Textual Criticism takes a humorous look at the computer-generated index of Wayne C. Kannaday, Apologetic Discourse and the Scribal Tradition: Evidence of the Influence of Apologetic Interests on the Text of the Canonical Gospels (Text-Critical Studies 5; Atlanta GA: SBL, 2004). I'm reminded of the words of F.R.D. Goodyear, The Annals of Tacitus. Books 1-6 edited with a commentary, vol. 1 (Cambridge, 1972), p. 15, n. 1:

There is much in Gerber-Greef with which one may disagree. Naturally so, for it is a scholarly work and full of controversial opinions. I esteem it the more every time I look at the wretched computerized products which now masquerade as lexica and concordances.

---

From the Associated Press:

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has ordered government and cultural bodies to use modified Persian words to replace foreign words that have crept into the language, such as "pizzas" which will now be known as "elastic loaves," state media reported Saturday.

---

On the subject of philosophers and beards, here is Thomas More, Epigram 139:

If a long beard makes one wise, what prevents a bearded goat from being able to be a Plato?

Si promissa facit sapientem barba, quid obstat
  barbatus possit quin caper esse Plato?

This is a translation of a poem from the Greek Anthology (11.430, by Lucian):

Εἰ τὸ τρέφειν πώγωνα δοκεῖς σοφίαν περιποιεῖν,
  καὶ τράγος εὐπώγων αἶψ᾽ ὅλος ἐστὶ Πλάτων.

---

In the last post, I quoted G.G. Ramsay's translation of a passage from Juvenal. The translation contained the words "against whose statue more than one kind of nuisance may be committed!" The Latin is "cuius ad effigiem non tantum meiere fas est." Ramsay euphemistically conceals Juvenal's crude language. A more literal translation is "against whose statue it is permitted not only to urinate." Juvenal implies "non tantum meiere fas est, sed etiam cacare," that is, "it is permitted not only to urinate, but also to defecate" on the statue.

Of the two Juvenal editions with commentaries on my bookshelf, E.G. Hardy's school edition omits this line altogether, and J.D. Duff's edition includes the line in the text, but does not comment on it. There is a parallel in Horace, Satires 1.8.37-39, where a statue of the god Priapus swears this oath:

But if I am telling a lie in any respect, may I be fouled on my head with the white turds of crows, and may Julius and frail Pediatia and the thief Voranus come to urinate and defecate on me.

mentior at siquid, merdis caput inquiner albis
corvorum atque in me veniat mictum atque cacatum
Iulius et fragilis Pediatia furque Voranus.

Arthur Palmer's edition with commentary of Horace's satires omits these lines.

There is a likewise a parallel to Priapus' oath in Aristophanes' Wasps, at the end of a prayer to the hero Lycus, where Philocleon promises (393-394, tr. Alan H. Sommerstein):

O take pity now on me who dwell close to thee, and save me, and I vow never to piss or fart beside your wicker fence.

ἐλέησον καὶ σῶσον νυνὶ τὸν σαυτοῦ πλησιόχωρον·
κοὐ μή ποτέ σου παρὰ τὰς κάννας οὐρήσω μηδ᾽ ἀποπάρδω.

This is a parody of the do ut des ("I give so that you may give") type of prayer. What Philocleon gives is a promise not to defile the fence around the hero's shrine, in return for which he wants the hero to pity and save him.

Philocleon is actually making a considerable sacrifice. The beneficial health effects of urinating and breaking wind simultaneously are well known. As the jingle goes,

Mingere cum bumbis,
Res saluberrima est lumbis.

Meio and mingo are synonyms in Latin, both meaning urinate. There is a small town in Iowa named Mingo.

---

G.K. Chesterton, All Things Considered:

I believe firmly in the value of all vulgar notions, especially of vulgar jokes. When once you have got hold of a vulgar joke, you may be certain that you have got hold of a subtle and spiritual idea. The men who made the joke saw something deep which they could not express except by something silly and emphatic. They saw something delicate which they could only express by something indelicate. I remember that Mr. Max Beerbohm (who has every merit except democracy) attempted to analyse the jokes at which the mob laughs. He divided them into three sections: jokes about bodily humiliation, jokes about things alien, such as foreigners, and jokes about bad cheese. Mr. Max Beerbohn thought he understood the first two forms; but I am not sure that he did. In order to understand vulgar humour it is not enough to be humorous. One must also be vulgar, as I am.

4 Maccabees 1.25-27:

In pleasure there exists even a malevolent tendency, which is the most complex of all the emotions. In the soul it is boastfulness, covetousness, thirst for honor, rivalry, and malice; in the body, indiscriminate eating, gluttony, and solitary gormandizing.

ἐν τῇ ἡδονῇ δὲ ἔνεστιν καὶ ἡ κακοήθης διάθεσις, πολυτροπωτάτη πάντων οὖσα τῶν παθῶν, καὶ τὰ μὲν ψυχῆς ἀλαζονεία καὶ φιλαργυρία καὶ φιλοδοξία καὶ φιλονεικία καὶ βασκανία, κατὰ δὲ τὸ σῶμα παντοφαγία καὶ λαιμαργία καὶ μονοφαγία.

See also 4 Maccabees 2.7:

Otherwise how could it be that someone who is habitually a solitary gormandizer, a glutton, or even a drunkard can learn a better way, unless reason is clearly lord of the emotions?

ἐπεὶ τίνα τις τρόπον μονοφάγος ὢν τὸ ἦθος καὶ γαστρίμαργος ἢ καὶ μέθυσος μεταπαιδεύεται, εἰ μὴ δῆλον ὅτι κύριός ἐστιν τῶν παθῶν ὁ λογισμός;

Solitary gormandizing is μονοφαγία (monophagía), and the solitary gormandizer is μονοφάγος (monophágos). These Greek compounds come from μόνος (mónos) = alone and φαγεῖν (phageîn) = to eat. The superlative μονοφαγίστατος (monophagístatos) occurs in Aristophanes' Wasps (922-923, trial of the dog Labes, tr. Alan H. Sommerstein):

So don't you let him off, because he's also, of all dogs alive, by far the worst man for solitary eating.

μή νυν ἀφῆτέ γ᾽ αὐτόν, ὡς ὄντ᾽ αὖ πολὺ
κυνῶν ἁπάντων ἄνδρα μονοφαγίστατον.

What's wrong with the solitary eater is not so much the mere fact that he dines alone, but that he doesn't share his food with others. Juvenal in his first satire (lines 127-146, tr. G.G. Ramsay) criticizes the rich patron for not sharing his sumptuous meal with his clients:

The day itself is marked out by a fine round of business. First comes the dole; then the courts, and Apollo learned in the law, and those triumphal statues among which some Egyptian Arabarch or other has dared to set up his titles; against whose statue more than one kind of nuisance may be committed! Wearied and hopeless, the old clients leave the door, though the last hope that a man relinquishes is that of a dinner; the poor wretches must buy their cabbage and their fuel. Meanwhile their lordly patron will be devouring the choicest products of wood and sea, lying alone upon an empty couch; yes, at a single meal from their many fine large and antique tables they devour whole fortunes. Ere long no parasites will be left! Who can bear to see luxury so mean? What a huge gullet to have a whole boar—an animal created for conviviality—served up to it! But you will soon pay for it, my friend, when you take off your clothes, and with distended stomach carry your peacock into the bath undigested! Hence a sudden death, and an intestate old age; the new and merry tale runs the round of every dinner-table, and the corpse is carried forth to burial amid the cheers of enraged friends!

ipse dies pulchro distinguitur ordine rerum:
sportula, deinde forum iurisque peritus Apollo
atque triumphales, inter quas ausus habere
nescio quis titulos Aegyptius atque Arabarches,
cuius ad effigiem non tantum meiere fas est.
vestibulis abeunt veteres lassique clientes
votaque deponunt, quamquam longissima cenae
spes homini; caulis miseris atque ignis emendus.
optima silvarum interea pelagique vorabit
rex horum vacuisque toris tantum ipse iacebit.
nam de tot pulchris et latis orbibus et tam
antiquis una comedunt patrimonia mensa.
nullus iam parasitus erit. sed quis ferat istas
luxuriae sordes? quanta est gula quae sibi totos
ponit apros, animal propter convivia natum!
poena tamen praesens, cum tu deponis amictus
turgidus et crudum pavonem in balnea portas.
hinc subitae mortes atque intestata senectus.
it nova nec tristis per cunctas fabula cenas;
ducitur iratis plaudendum funus amicis.

If I'm not mistaken, Leopardi somewhere in his Zibaldone discusses solitary eating, but I can't put my finger on the passage.

From the Wikipedia article on composer Anton Bruckner (1824-1896):

A devout Catholic who loved to drink beer, Bruckner was out of step with his contemporaries.

I recently learned about a new blog with the title Underbelly and the subtitle A Journal of Soft Information. It has some interesting posts on language, e.g.

• The F Word (not what you might think)
  
• Cafoni

I have added it to my browser's Favorites list and will be looking at it often.

People sometimes ask how I insert Greek characters into my blog posts. Others probably skip any blog post with Greek characters. At any rate, here is how I do it.

First, I try to find the Greek text in question somewhere on the World Wide Web, so I don't have to type it in by myself. I usually consult Library of Ancient Texts Online, which despite its title is restricted to ancient Greek texts. When I do find a text, I often copy and paste it into a Microsoft Word file on my personal computer, using the Athena font. In this way I have amassed a collection of texts that I can look at without going on the Internet (always a pain with my slow dialup connection).

If I cannot find the text already on the Internet, I type it in myself with the aid of the Unicode Classical Greek Inputter. If you use this tool, be sure to hit the "Greek Letters" button to see all the characters available. Once text is entered with the aid of this tool, I copy and paste the text into Notepad. I always compose my blog posts offline with the minimalist Notepad editor. I also have my own local copy of the Unicode Classical Greek Inputter, to minimize time spent online.

Finally, I surround the Greek characters with some HTML gobbledygook, to help browsers render them properly. At the start of the Greek characters I place this directive:

<SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: Gentium, Palatino Linotype, Arial Unicode MS">

At the end of the Greek characters, I insert:

</SPAN>

I have checked the appearance of my Greek characters using both Microsoft's Internet Explorer (IE) browser and the Mozilla Firefox browser, and they are rendered properly, without any of those annoying little squares. Whether others can read them, I don't know. I find that I cannot read Greek characters on certain other classics blogs with IE. Perhaps there is some IE option I need to set.

At any rate, this works for me, and now I can simply refer to this post whenever anyone asks how to enter Greek characters into a blog. It's a cumbersome procedure, but it's the best I've been able to devise.

Joseph Conrad, Lord Jim, chapter 13:

It's all very well for you beggars to laugh, but my immortal soul was shrivelled down to the size of a parched pea after a week of that work.

Aristophanes, Wasps 471-472 (tr. Alan H. Sommerstein):

Is there any way we can get into a discussion and an agreement with each other, without fighting and without this shrill screaming?

ἔσθ᾽ ὅπως ἄνευ μάχης καὶ τῆς κατοξείας βοῆς
ἐς λόγους ἔλθοιμεν ἀλλήλοισι καὶ διαλλαγάς;

Halldór Laxness, The Fish Can Sing, chapter 21 (tr. Magnus Magnusson):

He thought Latin a ridiculous and unnecessary invention, particularly the subjunctive; he believed that it was the prince of darkness who had so arranged it that one verb could have different forms by the score in Latin and by the hundred in Greek; and yet he did not hesitate to tackle all these rigmaroles, for the sake of his calling.

Sophocles, fragment 698 (tr. Hugh Lloyd-Jones):

But death is the last healer of sickness.

ἀλλ᾽ ἔσθ᾽ ὁ θάνατος λοῖσθος ἰατρὸς νόσων.

For parallels see:

• Death the Healer
  
• Panacea

Charles Baudelaire, Les Chats (tr. Francis Scarfe):

Fervent lovers and austere scholars share the same love, in their riper years, for powerful but gentle cats, the pride of the household, who like themselves are sedentary and sensitive to draughts.

Friends of learning and sensuality, cats ever seek silence and dreadful night; Erebus would have employed them as messengers of gloom, could they lower their pride to slavery.

They assume, when their minds wander, the majestic poses of those colossal sphinxes who stretch their limbs in the realms of solitude, and who seem to be sleeping in an endless dream.

Magical sparks teem in their fertile loins, and particles of gold, like delicate grains of sand, vaguely fleck their mystic pupils with stars.

---

Les amoureux fervents et les savants austères
Aiment également, dans leur mûre saison,
Les chats puissants et doux, orgueil de la maison,
Qui comme eux sont frileux et comme eux sédentaires.

Amis de la science et de la volupté
Ils cherchent le silence et l'horreur des ténèbres;
L'Erèbe les eût pris pour ses coursiers funèbres,
S'ils pouvaient au servage incliner leur fierté.

Ils prennent en songeant les nobles attitudes
Des grands sphinx allongés au fond des solitudes,
Qui semblent s'endormir dans un rêve sans fin;

Leurs reins féconds sont pleins d'étincelles magiques,
Et des parcelles d'or, ainsi qu'un sable fin,
Etoilent vaguement leurs prunelles mystiques.