Laudator Temporis Acti

Petrie was notorious for the lengths he would go to in order to avoid meeting visitors. A young student, Arthur Weigall later recounted how he visited the museum and, while viewing the displays, first encountered Petrie. Weigall was to become Petrie's assistant in the museum in 1902.

"I made a quick movement round the case, and there behind it I found the Professor. He was on his hands and knees, and was just crawling stealthily away towards a dark corner wherein some sacking and other packing materials were heaped. I stood quite still; and to my surprise, I saw him reach out his arm for a piece of the sacking, and attempt to toss it over his hindquarters, just as an elephant throws dust or straw over its back with its trunk."

To me as to every scholar, as to everyone who has pretensions to scholarship, false quantities are an abomination...

Among the sins that seem to be purged by confession are typographical errors. They are sins because they shew a lack of vigilance.

PAR. What happened in the end? Explain.

OL. Then I tried to seduce her. I said, "Casina, please, my little wife, why are you rejecting me, your husband, like this?"

PAR. quid fit denique? edisserta. OL. ibi appello, "Casina," inquam,
"amabo, mea uxorcula, quor virum tuom sic me spernis?
nimis tu quidem hercle immerito
meo mi haec facis."

appellare est blanda oratione alterius pudicitiam adtemptare.

[1] After that the tribunes and the consuls appeared and the herald bade anyone who so desired to speak against the law. But though many good men came forward, the words of none of them could be heard by reason of the tumult and disorderly behaviour of the assembly. For some cheered and encouraged the speakers, while others were for throwing them out or for shouting them down; but neither the applause of the supporters nor the clamour of the opponents prevailed.

[2] When the consuls were incensed at this and protested that the populace had begun the violence by refusing to tolerate a word, the tribunes attempted to justify them by saying that, inasmuch as the plebeians kept hearing the same arguments for now the fifth year, they were doing nothing remarkable if they did not care to put up with stale and trite objections.

[1] μετὰ ταῦτα οἵ τε δήμαρχοι καὶ οἱ ὕπατοι παρῆσαν καὶ λέγειν ὁ κῆρυξ ἐκέλευσε τὸν βουλόμενον τοῦ νόμου κατηγορεῖν. πολλῶν δὲ καὶ ἀγαθῶν ἀνδρῶν παριόντων οὐθενὸς ἐξάκουστος ἦν ὁ λόγος ὑπὸ τοῦ θορύβου τε καὶ τῆς ἀκοσμίας τῶν ἐκκλησιαζόντων. οἱ μὲν γὰρ ἐπεκέλευόν τε καὶ ἐπεθάρρυνον τοὺς λέγοντας, οἱ δ᾽ ἐξέβαλλόν τε καὶ κατεβόων. ἐκράτει δὲ οὔτε ὁ τῶν συλλαμβανόντων ἔπαινος οὔτε ὁ τῶν ἀντιπραττόντων θόρυβος.

[2] ἀγανακτούντων δὲ τῶν ὑπάτων καὶ μαρτυρομένων ὅτι τῆς βίας ὁ δῆμος ἄρχει λόγον οὐκ ἀξιῶν ὑπομένειν, ἀπελογοῦντο οἱ δήμαρχοι πρὸς ταῦτα ὅτι ἤδη πέμπτον ἔτος τῶν αὐτῶν ἀκούοντες λόγων οὐθὲν ποιοῦσι θαυμαστόν εἰ μὴ ἀξιοῦσιν ὑπομένειν ἑώλους καὶ κατημαξευμένας ἀντιλογίας.

• The "No Platform" Movement
• A Handful of Rowdies
• Not Just a Modern Phenomenon

I have fun, delighting in my youth; for I will lie a long time beneath the earth, mute as a stone, when my life is over and I leave the sun's lovely light. For all my merit I'll have sight no more.

ἥβῃ τερπόμενος παίζω· δηρὸν γὰρ ἔνερθεν
   γῆς ὀλέσας ψυχὴν κείσομαι ὥστε λίθος
ἄφθογγος, λείψω δ’ ἐρατὸν φάος ἠελίοιο·
   ἔμπης δ’ ἐσθλὸς ἐὼν ὄψομαι οὐδὲν ἔτι.

567. παίζω: cf. Hes. Sh. 277, 282; Pind. Ol. 1.15. ἔνερθ’ Ἀίδεω Il. 8.16.

568. ὥστε = ὡς as often in Hom. λίθος, a frequent type of the inanimate, also of the stupid, τὸ ὥσπερ λίθον ζῆν Plat. Gorg. 494 A; τί κάθησθ’ ἀβέλτεροι, λίθοι, πρόβατ’ ἄλλως; Ar. Clouds 1202; λίθος τις, οὐ δούλη, ἐν τῇ οἰκίῃ κεῖσ(αι) Herodas 6.4.

569. ἄφθογγος: cf. δηρὸν δ’ ἄφθογγος τετιημένη ἧστ’ ἐπὶ δίφρου H. Dem. 198. Leaving the light of day was regarded as among the bitterest woes of death; it has frequently a prominent place in the final speeches of dying heroes and heroines.

570. There may be a reference to the popular etymology of Ἀίδης (ἀ + ἰδεῖν).

In the second century, sporadic evidence brings Epicureans into close proximity with Christians. Atheists both, so Alexander, the false prophet declared.⁹⁰ The features they exhibited in common are numerous enough. Both denied the gods, divination, the science of the Chaldaeans; and both asserted freedom of the will, the primacy of friendship, community of living, the practice of charity. Finally, they rejected distinctions of birth, wealth, or rank.

⁹⁰ Lucian, Alex. 25.

As by a thief in the night has our free republic been stolen from us. We can not suffer this, and we may not. It is the will of God that the unity of our fathers and our love to our children should oblige us to deliver unto our children, unblemished, the heritage of our fathers.

I shall fight in defence of things sacred and profane and I shall not hand the fatherland on lessened, but greater and better both as far as I am able and with all.

ἀμυνῶ δὲ καὶ ὑπὲρ ἱερὼν καὶ ὁσίων καὶ οὐκ ἐλάττω παραδώσω τὴν πατρίδα, πλείω δὲ καὶ ἀρείω κατά τε ἐμαυτὸν καὶ μετὰ ἀπάντων.

[1] You will think it a joke — or an outrage, but a joke after all — if you read this, which has to be seen to be believed. [2] On the road to Tibur, less than a mile from Rome, as I noticed the other day, there is a monument to Pallas with the following inscription: 'To him the Senate decreed in return for his loyal services to his patrons, the insignia of a praetor, and the sum of fifteen million sesterces, but he thought fit to accept the distinction only.' [3] Personally I have never thought much of these honours whose distribution depends on chance rather than on a reasoned decision, but this inscription more than anything makes me realize what a ridiculous farce it is when they can be thrown away on such dirt and filth, and that rascal could presume to accept and refuse them, all with a show of setting posterity an example of moderation. [4] But it isn't worth my indignation; better to laugh, or such people will think they have really achieved something when their lucky chance has brought them no more than ridicule.

[1] Ridebis, deinde indignaberis, deinde ridebis, si legeris, quod nisi legeris, non potes credere. [2] est via Tiburtina intra primum lapidem (proxime adnotavi) monimentum Pallantis ita inscriptum: 'Huic senatus ob fidem pietatemque erga patronos ornamenta praetoria decrevit et sestertium centies quinquagies, cuius honore contentus fuit.' [3] equidem numquam sum miratus quae saepius a fortuna quam a iudicio proficiscerentur; maxime tamen hic me titulus admonuit, quam essent mimica et inepta, quae interdum in hoc caenum, in has sordes abicerentur, quae denique ille furcifer et recipere ausus est et recusare, atque etiam ut moderationis exemplum posteris prodere. [4] sed quid indignor? ridere satius, ne se magnum aliquid adeptos putent, qui huc felicitate perveniunt ut rideantur. vale.

For their brilliancy does not lie in arms, but in words, nor is their power exerted against their enemies, but against their friends; and they do not regard the commonwealth in which they dwell as belonging to all alike, but as their own private property...

οὐ γάρ ἐστιν αὐτῶν ἐν τοῖς ὅπλοις ἡ λαμπρότης, ἀλλ᾽ ἐν τοῖς λόγοις, οὐδὲ κατὰ τῶν ἐχθρῶν τὸ δυνάμενον, ἀλλὰ κατὰ τῶν φίλων· οὐδ᾽ ἡγοῦνται κοινὴν οἰκεῖν πόλιν, σφῶν δ᾽ αὐτῶν ἰδίαν...

φίλων codd.: φιλίων C.G. Cobet, Observationes Criticae et Palaeographicae ad Dionysii Halicarnassensis Antiquitates Romanas (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1877), p. 196

I say nothing of the other insults, small and great, which they continue to heap upon us, as you all know; but they have gone so far in their arrogance that they forbid any one of us even to utter a free word in behalf of our country or even to open our mouths.

οἵ γε — τὰ μὲν ἄλλα, ὅσα ὑβρίζοντες ἡμᾶς μικρὰ καὶ μείζω διατελοῦσιν, ὡς ἅπαντες ἐπίστασθε, σιωπῶ, — ἀλλ᾽ εἰς τοῦτο προεληλύθασιν ὑπερηφανίας, ὥστ᾽ οὐδὲ φωνὴν ἀξιοῦσί τινα ἡμῶν ἀφιέναι περὶ τῆς πατρίδος ἐλευθέραν οὐδὲ διᾶραι τὸ στόμα.

On another occasion Korinna is said to have blamed Pindar for having used an Attic word. This, also, is not a bad invention. It accords with the conservative character of woman; it accords with the story that Korinna won a victory over Pindar by the familiar charm of her Boeotian dialect as well as by the beauty of her person, a beauty not lost in the picture at Tanagra, which represented her in the act of encircling her head with a fillet of victory. Aelian, an utterly untrustworthy scribbler, adds that Pindar, in the bitterness of his heart, called his successful rival a swine. If Pindar used the phrase at all, it must be remembered that Βοιωτία ὗς (O. 6, 90) was a common expression—half spiteful, half sportive—and that the moral character of the swine stood higher with the Greeks than it stands with us. The swine-woman of Phokylides, who was neither good nor bad, was not the sow of the Old Testament or the New. The Greeks were brotherly to the lower animals. Bull, cow, heifer, cock, ass, dog, were at all events not beneath the level of the highest poetry.

But countless other miseries roam among mankind;
for the earth is full of evils, and the sea is full;
and some sicknesses come upon men by day, and others by night,
of their own accord, bearing evils to mortals
in silence, since the counsellor Zeus took their voice away.
Thus it is not possible in any way to evade the mind of Zeus.

ἄλλα δὲ μυρία λυγρὰ κατ' ἀνθρώπους ἀλάληται·        100
πλείη μὲν γὰρ γαῖα κακῶν, πλείη δὲ θάλασσα·
νοῦσοι δ' ἀνθρώποισιν ἐφ' ἡμέρῃ, αἳ δ' ἐπὶ νυκτὶ
αὐτόματοι φοιτῶσι κακὰ θνητοῖσι φέρουσαι
σιγῇ, ἐπεὶ φωνὴν ἐξείλετο μητίετα Ζεύς.
οὕτως οὔτι πη ἔστι Διὸς νόον ἐξαλέασθαι.        105

The dative has modal force, but properly denotes attending circumstances (comitativus); cf. Hom. Δ 412 σιωπῇ ἧσο, Γ 2 κλαγγῇ τ᾽ ἐνοπῇ τ᾽ ἴσαν, K.G. I, 435, Schw. II, 162, Chantr. II, 75. The meaning obviously is 'secretly' (LSJ II 2), not 'Und wenn der Mensch in seiner Qual verstummt', as is assumed by F. Dornseiff, in Heitsch, 131. For the difference between σιγάω ('be silent') and σιωπάω ('keep something quiet') cf. T. Krischer, Glotta 59 (1981), 93-107.

The idea is, that diseases give no warning of their approach. Compare σιγῶν ὄλεθρος, Aesch. Εum. 895.

But the natural evils which I have mentioned, want and sickness, steal upon us silently with no shock of terror to the eye or to the ear.

naturalia mala quae rettuli, inopia atque morbus, silentio subeunt nec oculis nec auribus quicquam terroris incutiunt.

Fifty years ago one of my pupils found fault with my instruction because I did not pay enough attention to the Greek particles. Whether the reproach was deserved or not, I cannot tell at this distance of time, but the particles certainly form an extremely important chapter in the study of Greek. The literature is now appallingly massive, now hopelessly scattered. What one finds in the school grammars is utterly inadequate. Translations carry no conviction. In other spheres great reputations for scholarship have been gained by translations of imaginary differences, but a King of Greek Scholarship, if such a being were conceivable, would lose his rights where there is nothing into which to translate; for English is asyndetic as Greek is syndetic. In four consecutive lines of So. Ai. 1226 we find σὲ δή ... σέ τοι ... ἦ που. δή, τοι, που produce each a distinct effect. But can you bring that out in English without cumbrous circumlocution? Your German cannot live without 'schon'. Translate 'schon' into English and it becomes an ear-mark of the unassimilated Teuton. δέ is a good example.

For generations δέ has been translated with distressing uniformity by 'but'; and the head-master of Grayfriars school apostrophizes Pendennis thus:

'Miserable trifler! A boy who construes δέ and instead of δέ but at sixteen years of age is guilty not merely of folly and ignorance and dulness inconceivable but of crime, deadly crime, of filial ingratitude which I tremble to contemplate'.

If the Doctor had been spared to read Sir John Sandys' translation of Pindar in which the 'but' translation is dodged at every turn, one 'trembles to contemplate' the consequences. Now it is 'while', now it is 'and', now it is frankly left to the uncovenanted mercies of the sentence. Scientific etymology has nothing to do with it. Translation is an art and not a science. δέ = δή, the equation given in the last Brief Mention, is repudiated by high authority. 'But' makes no picture, unless one drags in the other adversative 'butt' with two t's. δέ is in like case, and my advocacy of the μήν-δή theory (A.J.P. XXXVII 240) was intended chiefly as an argument against those who consider the explanation too metaphysical. The Greek language, as far back as we know it, is capable of subtilties that can be revealed only by painstaking analysis. The naïveté of Homer is almost as much a myth as the naïveté of Herodotos. What are we to do with γε? We are told to render γε simply by stress, but emphasis is the refuge of poverty, and in my teaching I have always declared that 'emphasis' is no explanation, even if I have resorted to it myself. γε = Lat. 'quidem', but 'quidem' is three times as long and 'at least' is not only three times as long but more than three times as heavy. γε is a gasp. All we can do is to write long excursuses on δέ γε as Neil has done in his much lauded edition of the Knights and to find comfort in the fact that γε is a constituent element of γάρ and that we must not consider γάρ too strictly illative. As for ἄρα, science tells us that it is short for ἀραρότως. The full translation would be 'accordingly', but what after it is reduced to the canina littera ρ? There is an ἄρα of accord, there is an ἄρα of discord, the familiar ἄρα of surprise. 'Therefore' becomes 'after all'. The second ἄρα differs from the first only in the putting out of the tongue, such as we expect from the Greek εἰρωνεία. The German 'so' has been called a compendium of the German language, just as the difference between the German and the English 'also' reflects, if it does not sum up, the differences of the two nationalities. I have never found an explanation for the curious phenomenon that while 'sooth' is said to be the equivalent of the Greek ὄντως, 'forsooth' should be invariably ironical and 'in sooth' should be invariably serious, although it is often accompanied by 'sober' in order perhaps to guard against the contagion of its mocking companion.

δέ is the normal equivalent of 'and' at the beginning of a sentence.

It was at the close of the forenoon school, and Pen had been unnoticed all the previous part of the morning till now, when the Doctor put him on to construe in a Greek play. He did not know a word of it, though little Timmins, his form-fellow, was prompting him with all his might. Pen had made a sad blunder or two when the awful Chief broke out upon him.

'Pendennis, sir,' he said, 'your idleness is incorrigible and your stupidity beyond example. You are a disgrace to your school, and to your family, and I have no doubt will prove so in after-life to your country. If that vice, sir, which is described to us as the root of all evil, be really what moralists have represented (and I have no doubt of the correctness of their opinion), for what a prodigious quantity of future crime and wickedness are you, unhappy boy, laying the seed! Miserable trifler! A boy who construes δέ and instead of δέ but, at sixteen years of age is guilty not merely of folly, and ignorance, and dulness inconceivable, but of crime, of deadly crime, of filial ingratitude, which I tremble to contemplate. A boy, sir, who does not learn his Greek play cheats the parent who spends money for his education. A boy who cheats his parent is not very far from robbing or forging upon his neighbour. A man who forges on his neighbour pays the penalty of his crime at the gallows. And it is not such a one that I pity (for he will be deservedly cut off), but his maddened and heart-broken parents, who are driven to a premature grave by his crimes, or, if they live, drag on a wretched and dishonoured old age. Go on, sir, and I warn you that the very next mistake that you make shall subject you to the punishment of the rod. Who's that laughing? What ill-conditioned boy is there that dares to laugh?' shouted the Doctor.

We schoolmasters are supposed to be pedants. We always have been γωνιοβόμβυκες μονοσύλλαβοι, οἷσι μέμηλε | τὸ σφίν καὶ τὸ σφῶιν καὶ τὸ μίν ἠδὲ τὸ νίν, 'People who bumble away in obscure corners, muttering in monosyllables and fussing about σφίν and σφῶιν, and μίν and νίν'. Of course we are, and of course we have to be. Why is it considered pedantic to insist upon accuracy in a literary or linguistic subject, but laudable to demand precision in the laboratory or in the mathematical discipline? Our scientific colleagues surely insist that their pupils weigh and analyse with perfect exactitude. Our mathematical friends do not regard the placing of a decimal point as a detail unworthy of scrupulous attention. But if we insist upon distinguishing between an aorist and an imperfect, or between a spondee and an anapaest, we are frowned upon as men who exalt the letter at the expense of the spirit. If we speak of Greek accents, hands are flung up in sheer horror. But I am entirely unrepentant. I simply do not believe that anyone's interest in the classics was ever killed because he was made to address himself to them with a close regard for accuracy. It was killed by bad teaching, by dull people, and that is a very different matter.

My father is a fly, nothing can be kept secret from him,
and there's nothing so sacred or profane that he wouldn't be on the spot immediately.

musca est meus pater, nil potest clam illum haberi,
nec sacrum nec tam profanum quicquam est, quin ibi ilico assit.

The jokes with the idea of exchange and transformation considered here are all testimony to a particular tendency in the Plautine imagination; we have already alluded to this. It is however possible to go further and reach the core of this group of images. Turns of phrase like Bellerophontem tuos me fecit filius: egomet tabellas tetuli ut vincirer ('Your son has made me into Bellerophon: I have brought the message that I should be tied up') may be compared to Merc. 361, for instance: muscast meus pater: nil potest clam illum haberi ('My father is a fly: nothing can be kept secret from him'). In neither case is a comparison uttered in the sentence if you consider what it really says: the former states a transformation into something else, the latter a complete identity (and not just parity or similarity). How far this is a characteristic of any vigorous and unjaded imaginative world is a question we cannot pursue here; it is however clear that perception through the senses is expressed more immediately than in similes which merely indicate a relationship, and the possibilities of comic effect are increased. A man interrogates two guilty maids (Truc. 788), separates them and then says neve inter vos significetis ('so that you may not communicate between yourselves')—not 'I shall separate you like a wall, but ego ero paries ('I will be a wall'). The tendency to such identifications dominates Plautus' creative process to a large extent. Particularly in the parts which seem to us versus Plautinissimi, traces of this tendency are usually not lacking. Turns of phrase like Aul. 704: ego sum ille rex Philippus ('I am that King Philip') or Epid. 178: Hercules ego fui, dum illa mecum fuit ('I was a Hercules while she was with me') show this. We add to the examples discussed above others of the type muscast meus pater: nil potest clam illum haberi ('My father is a fly: nothing can be kept secret from him'), in order to show the extent and at the same time the uniformity of this mode of thought and speech. The form, too, is vital here: the identification is first expressed in a short phrase, without the audience knowing the reason for it. This reason then follows, once again in few words, asyndetically. The whole utterance smacks of the γρῖφος ('riddle'). It should be noted that it is always the second, explanatory phrase that is the actual point of departure of the idea and contains the important part of the connection; the first part is the playful elaboration. We can take first the shortest example, Pseud. 747. Here Charinus laconically answers the question quid cum manifesto tenetur ('What about when he is caught red-handed') with: anguillast: elabitur ('He is an eel: he slips away'). Similarly Bacch. 1148: arietes truces nos erimus: iam in vos incursabimus ('We will be fierce rams. we will now charge you'); here the identification is particularly emphasized and relates to the action of the whole scene. The second clause explains to what extent the oves ('sheep') suddenly become arietes ('rams'). Cas. 360: stimulus ego nunc sum tibi: fodico corculum ('I am now your goad: I pierce your little heart'). Curc. 9: tute tibi puer es: lautus luces cereum ('You are your own slave elegant as you are, you light up your way with a taper'). Pseud. 614: nam haec mihi incus est: procudam ego hodie hinc multos dolos ('For this is my anvil: I will hammer out many tricks on it today'). Trin. 1015: huic, quisquis est, gurguliost exercitor (cf. 226 in the markedly Plautine canticum): is hunc hominern cursuram docet ('For him, whoever he is, the gullet is a trainer: it will teach this fellow running').

On this type of 'synthetic comparison' of [sic, read or?] 'identification joke', a strange proposition of an identification followed by an asyndetic explanation see the discussions in Fraenkel (1960) 21-54, Monaco (1963) 81-90, Molsberger (1989) 62f. (the basic formula is: x is not like y, it is y, followed by the tertium comparationis), cf e.g. Au. 198, Ba. 1148, Cas. 360, Cu. 9, 112, 397, Poen. 248, Ps. 614,7471, Tri. 226, 1015. On the use of the literary εἰκών, a form of αἴνιγμα or γρῖφος, 'word puzzle', see Fraenkel (1960) 36, Dover on Ar. Ran. 906, Averna (1990) 24, MacDowell on Ar. V. 1308-1313, and Fraenkel on A. Ag. 1244. This kind of elaborate comparison of one thing with another, which, originating from folklore and popular speech, found its way into comedy via the display of wit in symposial contexts in the 5th and 4th century, see Arnott (1996) 160f. It is over-confident of Benz (1998) 112 to regard such identification conundrums as prime examples of the kind of entertainment used in Italiote farce. A quick glance at the Greek identifications listed by Monaco (1963) 91 f. will suffice to show that such riddling games should not be taken to be a hallmark of Italiote orality.

• W. Geoffrey Arnott, Alexis: The Fragments. A Commentary (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996)
• Daniela Averna, Male malum metuo. Espressioni di paura nella palliata (Palermo: Palumbo, 1990)
• Lore Benz and Eckard Lefèvre, Maccus barbarus. Sechs Kapitel zur Originalität der Captivi des Plautus (Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag, 1998)
• Hans Jürgen Molsberger, Abstrakter Ausdruck im Altlatein: Form und dramatische Funktion abstrakt-begrifflichen Sprechens in der altlateinischen Bühnensprache (Frankfurt am Main: Athenäum, 1989)
• Giusto Monaco, Paragoni burleschi degli antichi (Palermo: Palumbo, 1963)

For no one can wear a mask long; the false quickly lapses back into its own nature; but whatever has truth for its foundation, and whatever springs, so to speak, from out the solid earth, grows by the mere passing of time into something larger and better.

nemo enim potest personam diu ferre, ficta cito in naturam suam recidunt; quibus veritas subest quaeque, ut ita dicam, ex solido enascuntur, tempore ipso in maius meliusque procedunt.

Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant to step the ocean and crush us at a blow? Never! All the armies of Europe, Asia, and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest, with a Bonaparte for a commander, could not by force take a drink from the Ohio or make a track on the Blue Ridge in a trial of a thousand years. At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer. If it ever reach us it must spring up amongst us; it cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen we must live through all time or die by suicide.

So saying, the father of gods and men laughed aloud.

ὣς ἔφατ᾿, ἐκ δ' ἐγέλασσε πατὴρ ἀνδρῶν τε θεῶν τε.

Even to suggest learning by heart is to pronounce oneself old-fashioned. Yet I am not convinced that it is wrong. Its difficulty is easily exaggerated. Boys cheerfully learn vast amounts when they want to act in a play. The Bradfield boys do it pretty well in their stride. And remarkable feats are recorded of the Winchester boys of a century ago. There was a custom then (perhaps it still exists) called 'standing up', which consisted of voluntary repetition of Greek or Latin poetry. More than one example was known of a boy offering the whole Aeneid, and one Henry Butler took up the whole Iliad. Compared with that, to learn a whole tragedy, as J.E.B. Mayor says that he did, is no great undertaking, and he tells us that many of the Salopians of his time were 'masters of the Greek tragedians'. Is that a mere exercise of memory? Or is it the way to make the language a living possession? It will be said that it does nothing to improve or nourish the critical and constructive side of the mind, and perhaps that is true. But it may be replied that it does nothing to prevent such improvement or nourishment, and that it provides the mind with some material upon which to exercise those powers.

Proto-Indo-Europe, the country east of the asterisk, is a never-never land...