Laudator Temporis Acti

Walter Savage Landor, "Tibullus and Messala," Imaginary Conversations, Vol. II (London: J.M. Dent & Co., 1901), pp. 77-90 (at 84):

Tibullus. In my humble opinion, and I hope I am falling into no impiety when I say it, we have gods enow already. Those of Egypt we have in our kitchens,⁵ and those of Gaul are not worth conveyance from their woods. We require no importations.

Messala. Formerly, gods made men; at present, men make gods. Where will this fashion have an end? Perhaps you may live to enlarge your sacristy.

Tibullus. I find an object of worship in every field. Wherever there is a stake or a stone crowned with flowers,* I bend before it, and thank the gods for inspiring the hearts of men with gratitude. I feel confident they are well-pleased at these oblations, however poor their worshipper, and however he mispronounce their names.

Messala. While the gods came from the potter, men were virtuous and happy; when they came from the goldsmith, they retained the heat of the furnace, and dazzled and deluded. Priests assumed their similitude, and encrusted one another with the same metal.

[⁵ Cats.]

* Nam veneror seu stipes habet desertus in agris,
    Seu vetus in trivio florida serta lapis.

Tibullus 1.1.11-12 (tr. J.P. Postgate):

For I bend in worship wherever flowery garlands lie on deserted tree-stock in the fields or old stone at a crossway.

nam veneror seu stipes habet desertus in agris,
    seu vetus in trivio florida serta lapis.

Kirby Flower Smith ad loc.: Related posts:

• Nature's Religion
• Prayers in Fields or Woods
• Keeping the Sabbath
• Sabbath Observance
• Remember the Sabbath Day, to Keep It Holy
• The Religion of the Fields
• The Church of Unbent Knees

Modris Eksteins, Rites of Spring: The Great War and the Birth of the Modern Age (1989; rpt. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2000), p. 184, with note on p. 353:

A sensitive friend of Vera Brittain's who was worried that he might not pass the test of courage in the front lines in an emergency wrote: "I tell you it is a positive curse to have a temperament out here. The ideal thing to be is a typical Englishman."²⁶ And to be a typical Englishman meant, of course, that one repressed inner feelings, stiffened one's upper lip, and functioned according to form. What was vital was what the British used to call "bottom," stability of character, staying power, integrity.

26. In Brittain, Testament of Youth, 316.

H.L. Mencken, "Ambrose Bierce," Prejudices, Sixth Series:

There was nothing of the milk of human kindness in old Ambrose; he did not get the nickname of Bitter Bierce for nothing. What delighted him most in this life was the spectacle of human cowardice and folly. He put man, intellectually, somewhere between the sheep and the horned cattle, and as a hero somewhere below the rats. His war stories, even when they deal with the heroic, do not depict soldiers as heroes; they depict them as bewildered fools, doing things without sense, submitting to torture and outrage without resistance, dying at last like hogs in Chicago, the former literary capital of the United States. So far in this life, indeed, I have encountered no more thorough-going cynic than Bierce. His disbelief in man went even further than Mark Twain's; he was quite unable to imagine the heroic, in any ordinary sense. Nor, for that matter, the wise. Man to him, was the most stupid and ignoble of animals. But at the same time the most amusing. Out of the spectacle of life about him he got an unflagging and Gargantuan joy. The obscene farce of politics delighted him. He was an almost amorous connoisseur of theology and theologians. He howled with mirth whenever he thought of a professor, a doctor or a husband. His favorites among his contemporaries were such zanies as Bryan, Roosevelt and Hearst.

Pindar, Pythian Odes 2.86-88 (tr. Richmond Lattimore):

Yet in each state the candid man will go far,
when tyrants rule, or the swirling rabble,
or the wise keep the city in ward.

ἐν πάντα δὲ νόμον εὐθύγλωσσος ἀνὴρ προφέρει,
παρὰ τυραννίδι, χὠπόταν ὁ λάβρος στρατός,
χὤταν πόλιν οἱ σοφοὶ τηρέωντι.

The three types of government:

1. Monarchy (παρὰ τυραννίδι, 6 syllables)
2. Democracy (χὠπόταν ὁ λάβρος στρατός, 8 syllables)
3. Aristocracy (χὤταν πόλιν οἱ σοφοὶ τηρέωντι, 11 syllables)

William H. Race, Style and Rhetoric in Pindar's Odes (Atlanta: Scholar's Press, 1990), p. 21, regards these lines as an example of das Gesetz der wachsenden Glieder (the law of increasing elements). See Otto Behaghel, "Beziehungen zwischen Umfang und Reihenfolge von Satzgliedern," Indogermanische Forschungen 25 (1909) 110-142.

Related post: The Law of the Increasing Members.

Alexander Pushkin, Boris Godunov, Scene 5, lines 56-58 (tr. James E. Falen):

Below me, on the square, the people seethed,
All pointing up at me with mocking laughter;
And I became ashamed and full of dread...

Anatole France, The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard, Part I (December 24, 1849; translator unknown):

And, if you will allow me to give my opinion about it, I think you have books enough here now. Monsieur has thousands and thousands of books, which simply turn his head; and as for me, I have just two, which are quite enough for all my wants and purposes—my Catholic prayer-book and my 'Cuisinière Bourgeoise.'

Et si vous me permettez de donner mon avis, je dirai que nous avons assez de livres ici. Monsieur en a des mille et des mille qui lui font perdre la tête, et moi j'en ai deux qui me suffisent, mon Paroissien romain et ma Cuisinière bourgeoise.

Walter Savage Landor, "Marcus Tullius and Quinctius Cicero," Imaginary Conversations, Vol. II (London: J.M. Dent & Co., 1901), pp. 29-73 (at 55):

There is no more certain sign of a narrow mind, of stupidity, and of arrogance, than to stand aloof from those who think differently from ourselves. If they have weighed the matter in dispute as carefully, it is equitable to suppose that they have the same chance as we have of being in the right; if they have not, we may as reasonably be out of humor with our footman or chairman: he is more ignorant and more careless of it still.

I have seen reason to change the greater part of my opinions. Let me confess to you, Quinctus, we oftener say things because we can say them well, than because they are sound and reasonable.

Footman = pedisequus, chairman = lecticarius.

Ezra Pound, Guide to Kulchur (New York: New Directions, 1970), p. 84:

Landor finding no good conversation had to pretend it had sometimes existed.

Ezra Pound, Literary Essays (New York: New Directions, 1954), p. 344:

A set of Landor's collected works will go further towards civilizing a man than any university education now on the market.

Basil L. Gildersleeve, ed., Pindar, Olympian and Pythian Odes (New York: American Book Company, 1885), p. xlii:

In the fine feeling of language few poets can vie with Pindar; and though he is no pedantic synonym-monger, like a true artist he delights in the play of his own work. There is danger of over-subtilty in the study of antique style; but Pindar is a jeweller, his material gold and ivory, and his chryselephantine work challenges the scrutiny of the microscope, invites the study that wearies not day or night in exploring the recesses in which the artist has held his art sequestered—invites the study and rewards it. Pindar himself has made φωνάεντα συνετοῖσιν (O. 2, 93) a common saying; Pindar himself speaks of his art as ἀκοὰ σοφοῖς (P. 9, 84); his call across the centuries is to the lovers of art as art. There is an aristocratic disdain in his nature that yields only to kindred spirits or to faithful service.

Goethe, Faust, Part I, lines 682-683 (tr. Walter Kaufmann):

What from your fathers you received as heir,
Acquire if you would possess it.

Was du ererbt von deinen Vatern hast,
Erwirb es, um es zu besitzen!

See Hermann Barnstorff, "Translating and Interpreting Goethe's Faust, I, 682/3," Modern Language Notes 58.4 (April, 1943) 288-291.

These lines are inscribed on the Goethe-Schiller monument in Milwaukee, Wisconsin:

Pausanias 9.10.4 (tr. J.G. Frazer):

The following custom is still to my knowledge observed in Thebes. A boy of good family, handsome and strong, is made priest of the Ismenian Apollo for a year. His title is Laurel-bearer, for these boys wear wreaths of laurel leaves. I am not clear whether it is the custom for all boys who have worn the laurel to dedicate a bronze tripod to the god; but I think it is not the rule for all of them to do so, for I did not see many of these votive offerings here. But the wealthier boys certainly dedicate them. Most remarkable for its age and for the renown of him who dedicated it, is a tripod dedicated by Amphitryo for Hercules who wore the laurel.

Frazer ad loc.:

The festival of the Laurel-bearing (Daphnephoria) is more fully described by Proclus (quoted by Photius, Bibliotheca, p. 321, ed. Bekker). He says: "They cover a staff of olive-wood with laurels and many-coloured flowers, and on the top of the staff is fitted a bronze globe, and from it they suspend smaller globes. To the middle of the staff they attach <a globe> smaller than the one at the top, and purple fillets; the lowest part of the staff they swathe in a saffron pall. The globe at the top is meant to signify the Sun, with which they connect Apollo; the globe beneath it signifies the moon, and the small globes, which are fastened on, signify the stars. The fillets symbolise the course of the year, and they make 365 of them. The procession of the Laurel-bearing is headed by a boy, whose parents are both alive. His nearest kinsman bears the wreathed staff, which they call Kopo. The Laurel-bearer himself follows grasping the laurel, his hair streaming down; he wears a golden crown and is clad in a bright-hued garment that reaches to his feet, and he is shod with the shoes called Iphicratides. A choir of virgins follows him holding boughs in token of supplication and singing hymns. The procession of the Laurel-bearing is escorted to the sanctuary of the Ismenian and Galaxian (Chalazian?) Apollo." Proclus describes the Laurel-bearing (Daphnephoria) as a Boeotian festival, and from an inscription (C.I.G. No. 1595; C.I.G.G.S. 1. No. 3407) we learn that at Chaeronea Apollo was worshipped under the title of Laurel-bearer (see note on ix.40.5). The festival, Proclus tells us, took place every eighth or, as the Greeks expressed it, every ninth year; in other words, seven years elapsed between two successive celebrations. Thus the period of the festival was the same as that of the Delphic festival at which a boy, whose parents were both alive, fetched the laurel from the sacred laurel-tree at Tempe. The two festivals may have been closely alike. The Delphic festival was explained as an imitation of the slaughter of the Python by Apollo and the subsequent purification of the god, the purification having apparently consisted in a year's servitude and the wearing of the laurel. The resemblance between the two festivals would be still greater if we supposed that the Laurel-bearing at Thebes commemorated the slaughter of the dragon by Cadmus and the subsequent purification of the slayer by servitude and the wearing of the laurel. But though Cadmus was said to have served Ares eight years for slaying the dragon (see note on § 1), there seems to be no direct evidence to connect that legend with the festival of the Laurel-bearing. Still the eight years of Cadmus's servitude, compared with the octennial period of the festival, seem to indicate a connexion between the legend and the festival. The traditional origin of the festival, according to Proclus, was this. The Aeolians of Arne abandoned that city at the bidding of an oracle and laid siege to Thebes, which was held by Pelasgians. It happened that both sides desired to celebrate a festival of Apollo; so they made a truce and cut laurels, the Aeolians on Mount Helicon and the Pelasgians at the Black River, and they brought these laurels to Apollo. But Polematas, the Boeotian leader, dreamed that a young man gave him a suit of armour and commanded that they should offer prayers to Apollo every ninth (eighth) year, wearing the laurel. Two days afterwards Polematas attacked and conquered the enemy; so he performed in person the ceremony of the Laurel-bearing, and the custom was observed from that time forth. The description and explanation which Proclus gives of the Laurel-bearing are repeated verbally by a scholiast on Clement of Alexandria (Protrept. i. § 10, p. 9, ed. Potter).

As to the festival, see also Böckh's Pindar, Explicationes, p. 590; K.O. Müller, Orchomenos und die Minyer², p. 215 sq.; id., Dorier,² I. pp. 236 sq., 333 ; Hermann, Gottesdienstliche Alterthümer,² § 63, 28; Schömann, Griech. Alterthümer,³ 2. P. 463 sq.; C. Bötticher, Baumkultus der Hellenen, p. 386 sqq. ; Preller, Griechische Mythologie,⁴ I. p. 288, note 1.

The procession of the Laurel-bearing is the subject of a fine painting by the late Lord Leighton.

Frederic Leighton, Daphnephoria
Pindar, fragment 1 (paean perhaps composed for the Daphnephoria; tr. G.S. Conway):

Before reaching the painful [threshold] of old age,
a man should shade his soul
with cheerfulness, free of anger
in due measure
and see to the resources of his house.

Ié ié, now the year that brings all to fulfilment
and the seasons, daughters of Themis,
have come to the horse-driving city of Thebes
to bring a banquet for Apollo, lover of garlands.
May he crown the people
with flowers of good government.

πρὶν ὀδυνηρὰ γήραος σ̣[χεδὸν μ]ολεῖν
πρίν τις εὐθυμίᾳ σκιαζέτω
νόημ᾿ ἄκοτον ἐπὶ μέτρα, ἀδών
δύναμιν οἰκόθετον.

ἰ]ὴ ἰή, νῦν ὁ παντελὴς Ἐνιαυτός        5
Ὧρα[ί] τε Θεμίγονοι
πλάξ]ιππον ἄστυ Θήβας ἐπῆλθον
Ἀπόλ]λωνι δαῖτα φιλησιστέφανον ἄγοντες·
Παιὰ]ν δὲ λαῶν γενεὰν δαρὸν ἐρέπτοι
σαό]φρόνος ἄνθεσιν εὐνομίας.       10

On the festival see Albert Schachter, Cults of Boiotia, vol. 1: Acheloos to Hera (London: University of London, Institute of Classical Studies, 1981), pp. 83-85.

Pindar, Nemean Odes 1.25-26 (tr. Richmond Lattimore):

Skills vary with the man. We must tread a straight path and strive by that which is born in us.

τέχναι δ᾽ ἑτέρων ἕτεραι·
χρὴ δ᾽ ἐν εὐθείαις ὁδοῖς στείχοντα μάρνασθαι φυᾷ.

Pindar, Nemean Odes 3.40-42 (tr. G.S. Conway):

                                       By worth        
         Of inborn talent a man
Wins rich repute. Whose art is but instructed,
An obscure feather-brain he, now here aspiring
Now there, and steps with no sure foot, essaying
A thousand valorous deeds to no avail.

συγγενεῖ δέ τις εὐδοξίᾳ μέγα βρίθει·
ὃς δὲ διδάκτ᾽ ἔχει, ψεφηνὸς ἀνὴρ
ἄλλοτ᾽ ἄλλα πνέων οὔ ποτ᾽ ἀτρεκεῖ
κατέβα ποδί, μυριᾶν δ᾽ ἀρετᾶν ἀτελεῖ νόῳ γεύεται.

Walter Savage Landor, "Lucullus and Caesar," Imaginary Conversations, Vol. II (London: J.M. Dent & Co., 1901), pp. 9-29 (at 11-12, Lucullus speaking; I corrected imposotrs to impostors):

But the philosophers are wrong, as they generally are, even in the commonest things; because they seldom look beyond their own tenets, unless through captiousness, and because they argue more than they meditate, and display more than they examine. Archimedes and Euclid are, in my opinion, after our Epicurus, the worthiest of the name, having kept apart to the demonstrable, the practical, and the useful. Many of the rest are good writers and good disputants; but unfaithful suitors of simple science, boasters of their acquaintance with gods and goddesses, plagiarists and impostors.

Oswald Spengler (1880-1936), The Hour of Decision, Part One: Germany and World-Historical Evolution, tr. Charles Francis Atkinson (London: George Allen and Unwin Ltd., 1934), p. 151, n. 1:

This intellectual work can never be limited to a definite number of hours. It pursues and tyrannizes over its victims during their periods of rest, on their travels, and in their sleepless nights. It makes a real rest from thought and real relaxation impossible and uses up the most able men of the time. No worker for wages breaks down from overstrain or mental collapse. But among these others it happens in innumerable cases. So much for the demagogues' picture of the gourmandizing, idle bourgeois!

Solomon and Saturn II, lines 177-180 (tr. Tom Shippey):

The clutch of fire and the chill of frost cannot live in the same place, nor can snow and sun bear to live together, but one of them will have to weaken and give in, the one which has less power.

Ne mæg fyres feng    ne forstes cile,
snaw ne sunne    somod eardian,
aldor geæfnan,    ac hira sceal anra gehwylc
onlutan ond onliðigan    ðe hafað læsse mægnn.

The same, tr. Daniel Anlezark:

Fire's grasp and frost's chill, snow and sun, can neither dwell nor endure life together, but either one of them must submit and yield, that which has less power.

Solomon and Saturn II, lines 173-174 (tr. Tom Shippey):

It is a miserable and spiritless man who keeps on being gloomy when he is in trouble. God finds him most offensive.

Unlæde bið ond ormod    se ðe a wile
geomrian on gihðe;    se bið Gode fracoðast.

The same, tr. Daniel Anlezark:

He is miserable and despairing, he who always wishes to be sad in grief. He is most offensive to God.

Pindar, Pythian Odes 1.41-42 (tr. John Sandys):

From the gods come all the means of mortal exploits; thanks to the gods are men wise and brave and eloquent.

ἐκ θεῶν γὰρ μαχαναὶ πᾶσαι βροτέαις ἀρεταῖς,
καὶ σοφοὶ καὶ χερσὶ βιαταὶ περίγλωσσοί τ᾽ ἔφυν.

The same, tr. Richmond Lattimore:

From the gods come all means to mortal endeavor;
by them we are wise, or strong with our hands, or eloquent of speech.

Hat tip: My brother.

Last lines of Sonatorrek, tr. Tom Shippey, Laughing Shall I Die: Lives and Deaths of the Great Vikings (London: Reaktion Books, 2018), p. 129, with note on p. 323:

Still I shall gladly
with a good will
and not grieving
wait for death.³⁷

Skalk þó glaðr
með góðan vilja
ok óhryggr
heljar bíða.

37 Jónsson, ed., Íslendinga sögur, vol. II, p. 267.

Craig Simpson, "Chaucer courses to be replaced by modules on race and sexuality under University of Leicester plans. Beowulf and The Canterbury tales could be sidelined under plans for the English department. Geoffrey Chaucer's works will no longer be taught under new proposals," Telegraph (20 January 2021):

The University of Leicester will stop teaching Geoffrey Chaucer's work and other medieval literature in favour of modules on race and sexuality, according to new proposals.

Management told the English department that courses on canonical works will be dropped for modules “students expect” as part of plans now under consultation.

Foundational texts like The Canterbury Tales and Anglo-Saxon epic Beowulf would no longer be taught under proposals to scrap medieval literature.

Instead the English faculty will be refocused to drop centuries of the literary canon and deliver a “decolonised” curriculum devoted to diversity.

Academics now facing redundancy were told via email: “The aim of our proposals (is) to offer a suite of undergraduate degrees that provide modules which students expect of an English degree.”

New modules described as “excitingly innovative” would cover: “A chronological literary history, a selection of modules on race, ethnicity, sexuality and diversity, a decolonised curriculum, and new employability modules.”

Professors were told that to facilitate change management planned to stop all English Language courses, cease medieval literature, and reduce Early Modern Literature offerings.

It was claimed that this would “refocus and strengthen” the department.

Despite Chaucer’s position as “the father of English literature” the 14th century figure will no longer be taught if plans currently under consultation go ahead.

They would end all teaching on texts central to the development of the English language, including the Dark Age epic poem Beowulf, and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.

Sir Thomas Malory's Morte D'Arthur, the Viking sagas, and all works written earlier than 1500 would also be removed from the syllabus.

Cuts to Early Modern English modules could see texts John Milton’s Paradise Lost omitted, according to concerned academics, with teaching on Christopher Marlowe and John Donne potentially reduced.

The University of Leicester has said that teaching on William Shakespeare’s work will remain in place.

Staff do not have the same certainty, and were alerted to the change and the threat of redundancies on Monday, with 60 jobs under threat.

Many more roles are likely to be reassigned as specialist subjects are replaced.

Plans for restructuring at the university were announced in 2020, with management seeking to ensure courses were “sustainable” for the next decade of student intake.

President and Vice-Chancellor Professor Nishan Canagarajah said that changing modules was part of the long-term strategy to “compete on a global level”, adding: “To facilitate this, we may need to cease activity in a limited number of areas.”

While teaching on almost 1000 years of the English language and its literature may be subject to cuts, the university has pledged that students will still receive comprehensive education.

A spokeswoman said: “We are currently considering some proposed changes to our English programme and are consulting with staff as part of these discussions.

“The University of Leicester continues to offer students a broad programme of learning at undergraduate level, including a chronological span of English Literature, from Shakespeare to Bernadine Evaristo, alongside thematically-driven and author-driven modules.

“We are committed to the future sustainability of teaching English, and we will continue to work with our staff and our students to deliver this.”

Consultation will begin next week on the future of English faculty roles placed under threat of redundancy.

A Chaucer Wordlist:

ape n. "ape, monkey (also as adj.); dupe, fool"
bitraisinge ger. "betrayal"
couardie n. "cowardice"
daffe n. "fool"
falshede n. "falseness, deceitfulness, infidelity"
idel adj. "idle, lazy; futile, worthless; empty"
idolatrie n. "idolatry"
inconstaunce n. "inconstancy, fickleness"
infecten v. "infect with disease, contaminate; invalidate; darken"
imposen v. "(ppl.) imposed, made compulsory"
knavish adj. "crude"
shreue n. "scoundrel, evildoer; malignant planet"
swines-hed n. "pig's head, fool"
tene n. "harm, trouble; grief, affliction; ill will; cause of trouble"
temporal adj. "temporal, worldly"
thef n. "thief, scoundrel"
trecheri n. "treachery, treason"
unwit n. "lack of prudence, foolishness"
unworshipful adj. "without honor"
unworthi adj. "unworthy"

Hat tip: Eric Thomson.

A few of the Chaucer posts on this blog:

• The Five Senses in Hell
• An Epicurean
• Woe
• I Am Old
• A Nest of Friars
• Quoniam
• I Believe in Chaucer
• The Drought of March
• Books and Reading
• Chaucer Garbled
• Cheerfulness and Joyousness
• Dangers of Reading Novels and Chaucer's Poems
• Our Supreme Poet of Happiness
• A Happy Spectator

Robin Waterfield, Olympia: The Story of the Ancient Olympics (London: Head of Zeus, 2018), page number unknown (from chapter 1):

Whether they were rich or poor, and whether they came from one of the few great states or one of the many that were small and obscure, everyone at Olympia recognized themselves as kin. The games were an affirmation of Greekness that was particularly important for those visiting from overseas or the fringes of the Greek world. When the fifth-century-BCE historian Herodotus of Halicarnassus said that one of the things that bound all Greeks together, wherever they lived, was their common sanctuaries and festivals, he was thinking of the Olympic festival and others like it.⁵ A shared religious festival such as the Olympics gave the Greeks a chance to recognize their cultural unity — even though, as we shall see, it often did little to disguise their political disunity.

Greeks lived not just in the country that is nowadays called 'Greece', but also in separate states all over the Mediterranean and Black Sea coastlines. From about the middle of the fifth century onwards, judges were appointed at Olympia — they were called the Hellanodikai, the 'judges of the Greeks' — and one of their jobs was to make sure that all contestants were genuinely Greek, full citizens of their states (in particular, not slaves) and of good standing in their states. Greekness remained a prerequisite for several centuries, until from the end of the third century BCE the rule was obsequiously bent for Romans, the new masters of the Mediterranean world (though in fact they entered only the equestrian events, and left the rest to Greeks).

5 Herodotus, Histories, 8.144