Laudator Temporis Acti

Among the gifts which the gods gave Pandora, Hesiod (Works and Days, line 66) includes the following gifts given by Aphrodite: painful longing (πόθον ἀργαλέον) and cares that gnaw the limbs (γυιοβόρους μελεδώνας). How can these dreadful things be considered as gifts? M.L. West in his commentary (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978; rpt. 1996), p. 159, explains:

πόθον: the longing felt by a man because of her, not longing felt by her; but it is treated as an attribute of hers. Likewise the μελεδῶναι. The transference seems strange to us because we think or desire or preoccupation as originating inside us; the Greek thinks of them as invading from outside.

From Elliott Goodman:

I'm writing to ask if it's possible for you to post something on the Laudator blog about the National Latin Survey. It would just be a short couple of sentences directing people to the survey website: www.NationalLatinSurvey.com.

A little about the survey: The last national survey of Latin students and teachers was conducted in the 1920s by the American Classical League. The purpose of the National Latin Survey is to survey middle and high school students and teachers all across the United States and find out the many different reasons why people study and teach Latin.

The immediate goal of the project is to survey approximately 1,200 Latin teachers and 4,100 Latin students. (These numbers may increase to ensure proper sampling.) The long-term goals of the project are to produce at least two reports describing the findings; one report will be a full needs analysis study including all the statistical formulae for the applied linguistics community and the other report will be written for an audience of Latin teachers with no knowledge of statistics. These reports will be submitted to peer-reviewed journals and be made available to the public for free on the project website.

Aelian, Historical Miscellany 7.15 (tr. N.G. Wilson):

When Mytilene ruled the seas it imposed a penalty on allies who rebelled: that their children should not become literate or have a cultural education. They reckoned it the most severe punishment to live in ignorance and have no acquaintance with the Muses.

ἡνίκα τῆς θαλάσσης ἦρξαν Μυτιληναῖοι, τοῖς ἀφισταμένοις τῶν συμμάχων τιμωρίαν ἐκείνην ἐπήρτησαν, γράμματα μὴ μανθάνειν τοὺς παῖδας αὐτῶν μηδὲ μουσικὴν διδάσκεσθαι, πασῶν κολάσεων ἡγησάμενοι βαρυτάτην εἶναι ταύτην, ἐν ἀμουσίᾳ καὶ ἀμαθίᾳ καταβιῶναι.

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot (1796-1875), Moine italien assis, lisant, in Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo:

Thomas Gainsborough (1727-1788), Two Monks Reading, in Ashmolean Museum, Oxford (A482):


Théophile Gide (1822-1890), Le Réfectoire de la Grande Chartreuse, la Dictée, in Musée des Beaux-Arts, Nîmes:


François Marius Granet (1775-1845), Hermit Reading, in Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge (accession number PD.65-1997):


Eduard von Grützner (1846-1925), Lesender Prämonstratenser Mönch, sold by Neumeister:


Hans Adolf Hornemann (1866-1913), Lesender Mönch, sold by Neumeister (Munich; March 12, 2008; lot 672):


Franz Reichardt (1825-1887), Pater Prior in der Klosterbibliothek, sold by Zeller (Lindau; December 6, 2012; lot 2647):


Alessandro Sani (1856-1927), In der Klosterbibliothek, sold by Van Ham (Cologne; November 16, 2012, lot 846):


Carl Schleicher, Ein lesender Mönch, sold by Dorotheum (Vienna; April 28, 2011; lot 216):


Fritz Wagner (1896-1939), Kardinal mit drei Mönchen in einer Klosterbibliothek, sold by Hampel (Munich; March 25, 2011; lot 472):


Fritz Wagner (1896-1939), Mönch bei der Lektüre, sold by Van Ham (December 15, 2001; lot 443):


Reinhard Sebastian Zimmerman (1815-1893), Monastic Library, in Victoria and Albert Museum, London (museum number 1064-1886):


Anonymous, A Smiling Monk Reading, in National Trust Collections (inventory number 744023), on exhibit at Mr Straw's House, Nottinghamshire:

Labels: books in art

J.G. Lockhart, Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Bart., Vol. V (Edinburgh: Adam and Charles Black, 1862), pp. 321-324 (from Chapter XLI):

He at this time occupied as his den a square small room, behind the dining parlour in Castle Street. It had but a single Venetian window, opening on a patch of turf not much larger than itself, and the aspect of the place was on the whole sombrous. The walls were entirely clothed with books; most of them folios and quartos, and all in that complete state of repair which at a glance reveals a tinge of bibliomania. A dozen volumes or so, needful for immediate purposes of reference, were placed close by him on a small moveable frame—something like a dumb-waiter. All the rest were in their proper niches, and wherever a volume had been lent, its room was occupied by a wooden block of the same size, having a card with the name of the borrower and date of the loan, tacked on its front. The old bindings had obviously been retouched and regilt in the most approved manner; the new, when the books were of any mark, were rich but never gaudy—a large proportion of blue morocco—all stamped with his device of the portcullis, and its motto, clausus tutus ero—being an anagram of his name in Latin. Every case and shelf was accurately lettered, and the works arranged systematically; history and biography on one side—poetry and the drama on another—law books and dictionaries behind his own chair. The only table was a massive piece of furniture which he had had constructed on the model of one at Rokeby; with a desk and all its appurtenances on either side, that an amanuensis might work opposite to him when he chose; and with small tiers of drawers, reaching all round to the floor. The top displayed a goodly array of session papers, and on the desk below were, besides the MS. at which he was working, sundry parcels of letters, proof-sheets, and so forth, all neatly done up with red tape. His own writing apparatus was a very handsome old box, richly carved, lined with crimson velvet, and containing ink-bottles, taper-stand, &c. in silver—the whole in such order that it might have come from the silversmith's window half an hour before. Besides his own huge elbow chair, there were but two others in the room, and one of these seemed, from its position, to be reserved exclusively for the amanuensis. I observed, during the first evening I spent with him in this sanctum, that while he talked, his hands were hardly ever idle—sometimes he folded letter-covers—sometimes he twisted paper into matches, performing both tasks with great mechanical expertness and nicety; and when there was no loose paper fit to be so dealt with, he snapped his fingers, and the noble Maida aroused himself from his lair on the hearth-rug, and laid his head across his master's knees, to be caressed and fondled. The room had no space for pictures except one, an original portrait of Claverhouse, which hung over the chimneypiece, with a Highland target on either side, and broadswords and dirks (each having its own story), disposed star-fashion round them. A few green tin-boxes, such as solicitors keep title-deeds in, were piled over each other on one side of the window; and on the top of these lay a fox's tail, mounted on an antique silver handle, wherewith, as often as he had occasion to take down a book, he gently brushed the dust off the upper leaves before opening it. I think I have mentioned all the furniture of the room except a sort of ladder, low, broad, well carpeted, and strongly guarded with oaken rails, by which he helped himself to books from his higher shelves. On the top step of this convenience, Hinse of Hinsfeldt—(so called from one of the German Kinder-märchen )—a venerable tom-cat, fat and sleek, and no longer very locomotive, usually lay watching the proceedings of his master and Maida with an air of dignified equanimity; but when Maida chose to leave the party, he signified his inclinations by thumping the door with his huge paw, as violently as ever a fashionable footman handled a knocker in Grosvenor Square; the Sheriff rose and opened it for him with courteous alacrity,—and then Hinse came down purring from his perch, and mounted guard by the footstool, vice Maida absent upon furlough. Whatever discourse might be passing, was broken every now and then by some affectionate apostrophe to these fourfooted friends. He said they understood every thing he said to them, and I believe they did understand a great deal of it. But at all events, dogs and cats, like children, have some infallible tract for discovering at once who is, and who is not, really fond of their company; and I venture to say, Scott was never five minutes in any room before the little pets of the family, whether dumb or lisping, had found out his kindness for all their generation.

Hat tip: Eric Thomson.

---

Update: Michael Hendry explains the anagram clausus tutus ero.

Samuel Butler (1835-1902), Notebooks: Selections, edd. Geoffrey Keynes and Brian Hill (New York: E.P. Dutton & Company, Inc., 1951), p. 52:

Mrs. Brown at Shrewsbury used to keep a tray of spoiled tarts which she sold cheaper. They most of them looked pretty right till you handled them. We are all spoiled tarts.

M.K.C. MacMahon, "Ellis [formerly Sharpe], Alexander John (1814–1890), phonetician and mathematician," Oxford Dictionary of National Biography:

By any criterion Ellis was an individualist to the point of idiosyncrasy. According to Alfred Hipkins's daughter, he was in later life a portly man, who wore a greatcoat (except in summer) which he called Dreadnought. It contained twenty-eight pockets, into which he stuffed manuscripts and 'articles for an emergency'. He carried with him a large bag containing a variety of tuning forks, together with two sets of nail scissors—one for each hand—a corkscrew, string, and a knife sharpener. His furled umbrella ('bumbershoot'), monocle (for formal occasions), and shoes 3 inches too large for him ('barges') were further distinguishing characteristics. A strict teetotaller, he allowed himself only a limited intake of food and drink—the latter being 'warm water and a little milk'. He weighed himself daily, with and without clothes....Despite his outward appearance, Ellis was a thoughtful, sociable, and affable person, and modest about his considerable erudition. He was driven by a genuine love of learning and the desire to put that learning at the service of others, especially the economically less advantaged members of society. His activities and published work, voluminous (about 300 publications) and crossing several disciplines, attracted the attention and approval of scholars in Britain, Europe, and North America.

Hat tip: Eric Thomson.

These are some notes on the translation of Ajax in Sophocles, Ajax, Electra, Oedipus Tyrannus. Edited and Translated by Hugh Lloyd-Jones (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1994), a volume in the Loeb Classical Library series.

928-932 (pp. 116-117):

                         τοῖά μοι
πάννυχα καὶ φαέθοντ᾽
ἀνεστέναζες ὠμόφρων
ἐχθοδόπ᾽ Ἀτρείδαις
οὐλίῳ σὺν πάθει.

Such were the words, hostile to the sons of Atreus, which in the dark and in the light you groaned forth with grievous suffering.

Ll-J doesn't translate ὠμόφρων (savage-minded) in line 930. Cf. Jebb's translation (emphasis added):

Such was the omen of those complainings which by night and day I heard thee utter in thy fierce mood, bitter against the Atreidae with a deadly passion.

1062-1069 (pp. 130-131):

ὧν οὕνεκ᾽ αὐτὸν οὔτις ἔστ᾽ ἀνὴρ σθένων
τοσοῦτον ὥστε σῶμα τυμβεῦσαι τάφῳ,
ἀλλ᾽ ἀμφὶ χλωρὰν ψάμαθον ἐκβεβλημένος
ὄρνισι φορβὴ παραλίοις γενήσεται.
πρὸς ταῦτα μηδὲν δεινὸν ἐξάρῃς μένος.
εἰ γὰρ βλέποντος μὴ ᾽δυνήθημεν κρατεῖν,
πάντως θανόντος γ᾽ ἄρξομεν, κἂν μὴ θέλῃς,
χερσὶν παρευθύνοντες.

For this reason there is no man mighty enough to bury this body, but he shall be cast out upon the pale sand and become prey for the birds along the coast. Why, if we could not rule him while he was alive, at least we shall rule him now that he is dead, even if you do not wish it, controlling with our hands.

Ll-J doesn't translate line 1066 (πρὸς ταῦτα μηδὲν δεινὸν ἐξάρῃς μένος). Jebb translates it as "Then raise no storm of angry threats." More literally: "Then stir up no terrible passion."

1093-1098 (pp. 132-133; Teucer speaking):

οὐκ ἄν ποτ᾽, ἄνδρες, ἄνδρα θαυμάσαιμ᾽ ἔτι,
ὃς μηδὲν ὢν γοναῖσιν εἶθ᾽ ἁμαρτάνει,
ὅθ᾽ οἱ δοκοῦντες εὐγενεῖς πεφυκέναι
τοιαῦθ᾽ ἁμαρτάνουσιν ἐν λόγοις ἔπη.
ἄγ᾽, εἴπ᾽ ἀπ᾽ ἀρχῆς αὖθις, ἦ σὺ φὴς ἄγειν
τόνδ᾽ ἄνδρ᾽ Ἀχαιοῖς δεῦρο σύμμαχον λαβών;

I could never again wonder at a man's doing wrong who was nothing on account of birth, when they who are thought to be nobly born go wrong in talk by uttering words like these. Come, tell me over again, do you say you brought this man here as an ally for the Argives?

At line 1093 Ll-J doesn't translate the vocative ἄνδρες. This omission obscures somewhat the fact that in lines 1093-1096 Teucer is speaking to the chorus, but in lines 1097 ff. to Menelaus. Cf. line 1318, where Ll-J does translate the vocative ἄνδρες as "sirs" (Odysseus addressing the chorus).

1320-1321 (pp. 150-151; spoken by Agamemnon):

οὐ γὰρ κλύοντές ἐσμεν αἰσχίστους λόγους,
ἄναξ Ὀδυσσεῦ, τοῦδ᾽ ὑπ᾽ ἀνδρὸς ἀρτίως;

Why, had we not heard shameful words from this man just now?

Ll-J doesn't translate the vocative in line 1321 (ἄναξ Ὀδυσσεῦ = lord Odysseus), although he does translate the same form of address, at the same position in the line, in line 1316 (spoken by the chorus). Agamemnon is deferential to Odysseus throughout, and the polite vocative here emphasizes his deference.

1338-1341 (pp. 152-153, 155):

ἀλλ᾽ αὐτὸν ἔμπας ὄντ᾽ ἐγὼ τοιόνδ᾽ ἐμοὶ
οὔ τἂν άτιμάσαιμ᾽ ἄν, ὥστε μὴ λέγειν
ἕν᾽ ἄνδρ᾽ ἰδεῖν ἄριστον Ἀργείων, ὅσοι
Τροίαν ἀφικόμεσθα, πλὴν Ἀχιλλέως.

[B]ut though he was such in regard to me, I would not so far fail to do him honour as to deny that he was the most valiant man among the Argives, except Achilles.

Ll-J doesn't translate the words ὅσοι / Τροίαν ἀφικόμεσθα in lines 1340-1341. Cf. Jebb (emphasis added):

[Y]et, for all that he was such toward me, never would I requite him with indignity, or refuse to avow that, in all our Greek host which came to Troy, I have seen none who was his peer, except Achilles.

But this is nit-picking. The translation is excellent.

Samuel Butler (1835-1902), Notebooks: Selections, edd. Geoffrey Keynes and Brian Hill (New York: E.P. Dutton & Company, Inc., 1951), p. 151:

                                      'MEDIO TUTISSIMUS IBIS'

A boy in examination translated it thus: 'In the middle of them all stalks the Ibis, most cautious of birds'; and he put a note, as follows: 'By this translation I have endeavoured to give the full value of the superlative.'

Related posts:

• The Mystery of the Spicy Virgin
• Comical Construes

R.S. Thomas (1913-2000), "The Minister," lines 159-166:

I wore a black coat, being fresh from college,
With striped trousers, and, indeed, my knowledge
Would have been complete, had it included
The bare moor, where nature brooded
Over her old, inscrutable secret.
But I didn't even know the names
Of the birds and the flowers by which one gets
A little closer to nature's heart.

Related posts:

• New Life and Awakening
• The Desire for Knowledge and the Names for Things

Edmund Burke (1729-1797), Reflections on the Revolution in France, 2nd ed. (London: J. Dodsley, 1790), p. 231:

But in this, as in most questions of state, there is a middle. There is something else than the mere alternative of absolute destruction, or unreformed existence. Spartam nactus es; hanc exorna. This is, in my opinion, a rule of profound sense, and ought never to depart from the mind of an honest reformer. I cannot conceive how any man can have brought himself to that pitch of presumption, to consider his country as nothing but carte blanche, upon which he may scribble whatever he pleases. A man full of warm, speculative benevolence may wish his society otherwise constituted than he finds it; but a good patriot, and a true politician, always considers how he shall make the most of the existing materials of his country. A disposition to preserve, and an ability to improve, taken together, would be my standard of a statesman. Everything else is vulgar in the conception, perilous in the execution.

The Latin phrase "Spartam nactus es; hanc exorna" means "You have received Sparta as your portion; ornament her." It is a translation of a line from Euripides (fragment 723, from Telephus, spoken by Agamemnon to Menelaus): Σπάρτην ἔλαχες, κείνην κόσμει. I don't find it in Renzo Tosi, Dictionnaire des sentences latines et grecques, tr. Rebecca Lenoir (Grenoble: Jérôme Millon, 2010), but there is an extended discussion by Erasmus, Adagia II v 1.

William Morris (1834-1896), The Life and Death of Jason, Book V, ad fin.:

Then did they fall to banqueting again,
Forgetting all forebodings and all pain;
And when that they had ate and drank enow,
With songs and music and a goodly show
Their hearts were gladdened; for before their eyes
Played youths and damsels with strange fantasies,
Clad as in Saturn's time folk used to be,
With green leaves gathered from the summer tree,
When all the year was summer everywhere,
And every man and woman blest and fair.

So, set 'twixt pleasure and some soft regret,
All cares of mortal men did they forget,
Except the vague wish that they might not die,
The hopeless hope to flee from certainty,
Which sights and sounds we love will bring on us
In this sweet fleeting world and piteous.

David Harvey, obituary of Geoffrey de Ste Croix, The Guardian (February 10, 2000):

He described himself as "an atheist, politely militant", and was increasingly militant with advancing years. St Paul replaced Plato as his "greatest enemy of the human race", and later that distinction went to Jahweh, the Old Testament Jehovah, whose cruelties never ceased to appal him. Yet he was always anxious not to offend sincere believers, and spoke with respect of the best Christian scholarship. He found little to quarrel with in liberation theology: Jesus was OK, his dad was appalling.

R.C.T. Parker, "Ste Croix, Geoffrey Ernest Maurice de (1910–2000), ancient historian," Oxford Dictionary of National Biography:

On the death of his father in 1914 his mother, Florence Annie MacGowan, daughter of a prominent protestant missionary to China, John MacGowan, took him home to England. She was a fervently committed member of an extreme protestant group, the British Israelites, who identified the British with the lost twelfth tribe of Israel. A devoted only child, he acquired a profound knowledge of the Bible at his mother's knee; it may be supposed that he acquired there too his strong feelings about religion (in later life he often described himself as a ‘politely militant’ atheist), and a certain earnestness and missionary zeal that always marked him.

David Ruhnken, letter to John Daniel Ritter (July 29, 1747), tr. in Barnas Sears et al., Classical Studies: Essays on Ancient Literature and Art. With the Biography and Correspondence of Eminent Philologists (Boston: Gould, Kendall and Lincoln, 1843), pp. 101-103 (at 102-103):

No class of men are held in greater detestation here, than those shameless compilers, who, though they say some useful things, are led, for the sake of making a book, to fill out their pages with commonplaces which the veriest blockhead knows. How often are these German luminaries, as they are called in their own country, the subject of merriment with Wesseling, Alberti, Wetstein, myself, and others. I wish you could be present to enjoy the fun.

The Latin, from Dav. Ruhnkenii Orationes, Dissertationes et Epistolae, Vol. II (Brunswick: L. Lucius, 1828), pp. 551-556 (at 553):

Nullum hominum genus magis detestantur, quam impudentes istos compilatores, vel etiam eos, qui, etsi aliqua tradunt haud contemnenda, tamen, ut liber fiat, ipsis dupondiis nota inculcant. Dii boni! quoties illa Germaniae lumina (sic enim a suis celebrantur) et ego, et homines amicissimi, Wesselingius, Alberti, Wetstenius, alii, ridemus. Cui risui utinam et Tibi interesse liceret.

Update from Joseph Yarbrough:

I was curious about "ipsis dupondiis nota inculcant". Unless I overlooked something elsewhere, only Forcellini gave the sense of it:

Figurate dupondius dicebatur ridiculi causa auditor seu discipulus jurisprudentiae anni primi, quemadmodum etiam nunc apud nostrates vulgo matricolino appellatur. Imp. Justinian. in Epist. 2. praemissa libris Digestor. . 2. Cujus (anni primi) auditores non volumus vetere tam frivolo, quam ridiculo cognomine dupondios appellari, sed Justinianeos novos nuncupari.

Fritz Wagner, Tobacco and Oysters

A.T. Grove and Oliver Rackham, The Nature of Mediterranean Europe: An Ecological History (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003), p. 171:

Where Pausanias or some other ancient author mentions a wood, sometimes there is a wood today, sometimes not. On the borders of Laconia and Arkadia he found 'the whole place full of oaks' sacred to Zeus Skotita, above the shrine of Artemis and the Nymphs at Káryai.²⁰ The site is now a great coppice-wood of deciduous oak (Fig. 11.4). Skotitas is probably the oldest named wood-lot still in existence, and the only surviving European wood harbouring its own god.

²⁰ Pausanias III.x.6.

Fig. 11.4 on the same page:


Oliver Rackham, Woodlands (2006; rpt. London: Collins, 2010), p. 135 (footnote omitted):

Reader, go to the remote byways of Mount Párnon in the Peloponnese, above the village whose modern Greek name is Káryai, previously known by the Slavonic name Arachova — both meaning 'nuts'. The sanctuary of Artemis and the Nymphs is now a chapel, with wonderful plane-trees, beside a spring. As far as I know, this is the earliest account of a named wood in Europe. Skotitas Wood was 'rediscovered' by the explorer Jochmus and a local priest in 1834. It is now probably bigger than in Pausanias's time. The dominant tree, as in other ancient woods in the Peloponnese, is the deciduous oak Quercus frainetto. It is a rather open coppice (Fig. 44), with some ancient stools, and a rich flora of shrubs and herbs in glades and newly felled areas. Some of the oaks have been shredded.

Skotitas, as far as I know, is the only surviving wood in Europe to have its own god.

There is a fuller account in Oliver Rackham, "Observations on the Historical Ecology of Laconia," in Continuity and Change in a Greek Rural Landscape: The Laconia Survey, Vol. I: Methodology and Interpretation (London: British School at Athens, 2002 = Annual of the British School at Athens, Supplementary Volume, 26), pp. 73-120 (at 85-87, 108).

Pausanias 3.10.6 (tr. W.H.S. Jones):

On the way from the Hermae the whole of the region is full of oak-trees. The name of the district, Scotitas (Dark), is not due to the unbroken woods but to Zeus surnamed Scotitas, and there is a sanctuary of Zeus Scotitas on the left of the road and about ten stades from it.

ἰοῦσι δὲ ἀπὸ τῶν Ἑρμῶν ἐστιν ὁ τόπος οὗτος ἅπας δρυῶν πλήρης: τὸ δὲ ὄνομα τῷ χωρίῳ Σκοτίταν τὸ δὲ σκότος οὐ τὸ συνεχὲς τῶν δένδρων ἐποίησεν, ἀλλὰ Ζεὺς ἐπίκλησιν ἔσχε Σκοτίτας, καὶ ἔστιν ἐν ἀριστερᾷ τῆς ὁδοῦ δέκα μάλιστά που στάδια ἐκτραπομένοις ἱερὸν Σκοτίτα Διός.

Liddell-Scott-Jones, s.v. σκοτίτας:

epith. of Zeus, whether as bringer of dark clouds (cf. κελαινεφής), or as a god of the nether world, or from the dark oak-forest surrounding the shrine (v.l. Σκοτινᾶς ap. St.Byz.), Paus.3.10.6.

Seneca, On Benefits 7.26.4-5 (tr. Aubrey Stewart):

One man is crazed with lust, another is the slave of his belly, another gives his whole soul to gain, caring nothing for the means by which he amasses it; some men's minds are disturbed by envy, some blinded by ambition till they are ready to fling themselves on the sword's point. In addition to this, one must reckon sluggishness of mind and old age; and also the opposites of these, restlessness and disturbance of mind, also excessive self-esteem and pride in the very things for which a man ought to be despised. I need not mention obstinate persistence in wrong-doing, or frivolity which cannot remain constant to one point; besides all this, there is headlong rashness, there is timidity which never gives us trustworthy counsel, and the numberless errors with which we struggle, the rashness of the most cowardly, the quarrels of our best friends, and that most common evil of trusting in what is most uncertain, and of undervaluing, when we have obtained it, that which we once never hoped to possess.

alius libidine insanit, alius abdomini servit; alius lucri totus est, cuius summam, non vias, spectat: alius invidia laborat, alius caeca ambitione et in gladios irruente. adice torporem mentis ac senium et huic contrariam inquieti pectoris agitationem tumultusque perpetuos; adice aestimationem sui nimiam et tumorem, ob quae contemnendus est, insolentem. quid contumaciam dicam in perversa nitentium, quid levitatem semper alio transilientem? huc accedat temeritas praeceps et numquam fidele consilium daturus timor et mille errores, quibus volvimur; audacia timidissimorum, discordia familiarissimorum, et, publicum malum, incertissimis fidere, fastidire possessa, quae consequi posse spes non fuit.

Siegfried Sassoon (1886-1967), "October," The Old Huntsman and other Poems (London: William Heinemann, 1917), p. 71:

Across the land a faint blue veil of mist
Seems hung; the woods wear yet arrayment sober
Till frost shall make them flame; silent and whist
The drooping cherry orchards of October
Like mournful pennons hang their shrivelling leaves
Russet and orange: all things now decay;
Long since ye garnered in your autumn sheaves,
And sad the robins pipe at set of day.

Now do ye dream of Spring when greening shaws
Confer with the shrewd breezes, and of slopes
Flower-kirtled, and of April, sweetling guest;
Days that ye love, despite their windy flaws,
Since they are woven with all joys and hopes
Whereof ye nevermore shall be possessed.

John Milne Donald (1819-1858), Autumn Leaves

Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947), "The Education of an Englishman," Atlantic Monthly 138 (1926) 192-198 (at 197):

We had no interest in foreign languages. It was Latin and Greek that we had to know. They were not foreign languages; they were just Latin and Greek; nothing of importance in the way of ideas could be presented in any other way. Thus we read the New Testament in Greek. At school — except in chapel, which did not count — I never heard of any one reading it in English. It would suggest an uncultivated religious state of mind. We were very religious, but with that moderation natural to people who take their religion in Greek.

Hat tip: Ian Jackson.

On Saved by Horace and Saved by Horace: Update, Eric Thomson comments:

I may be completely wrong but I read 'Ce trou a été fait dans le campagne de Iéna' as a joke involving implicature. Did Stendhal even participate in the Jena campaign? Certainly not in a military capacity. He only left Paris two days after the battle was fought and by the time he reached Berlin it was all over. Nor, as far as I know, is there any mention in the letters of an incident in which he might have lost his life. I wonder if he didn't skewer his own Horace? Perhaps it was a self-aggrandizing gesture (a painless version of the soldier-manqué's self-inflicted wound) or did Horace just bore him ('je ne l'ai guère lu')?

....

There's perhaps another more plausible explanation, one suggested by Sir Walter Scott's scouring of Waterloo for mementos and by Goethe's inscribing the date of the battle of Jena on his wedding ring. The Horace might have been a souvenir of the campaign that Beyle just missed, acquired from some soldier whose life had indeed been saved by it (or not). The fact that it wasn't the only volume of Horace that he owned would lend albeit feeble support to this explanation.

T.E. Lawrence, letter to Ralph Isham (January 2, 1928):

When your letter came, I took the Odyssey down from the shelf (it goes with me, always, to every camp, for I love it) and tried to see myself translating it, freely, into English. Honestly, it would be most difficult to do. I have the rhythm of the Greek so in my mind, that it would not come readily into straight English. Nor am I a scholar: I read it only for pleasure, and have to keep a dictionary within reach.