Laudator Temporis Acti

That remark of Plato's (or whoever made it) strikes me as very apt. When he had been driven by a storm at sea to an unknown land and cast up on a lonely shore, and the others were in terror because they knew nothing of the place, he is supposed to have noticed some geometric figures drawn in the sand. On seeing them he cried 'Take heart! I see the traces of men!' He drew this conclusion, evidently, not from any crops which he saw growing in the fields, but from the signs of intellectual activity. That is why, Tubero, I have always valued learning, and educated men, and those interests of yours.

ut mihi Platonis illud, seu quis dixit alius, perelegans esse videatur, quem cum ex alto ignotas ad terras tempestas et in desertum litus detulisset, timentibus ceteris propter ignorationem locorum, animadvertisse dicunt in arena geometricas formas quasdam esse descriptas; quas ut vidisset, exclamavisse ut bono essent animo: videre enim se hominum vestigia. quae videlicet ille non ex agri consitura quapiam cernebat, sed ex doctrinae indiciis interpretabatur. quamobrem, Tubero, semper mihi et doctrina et eruditi homines et tua ista studia placuerunt.

quapiam Powell: quam codd.

My own feeling is different; I shall find antiquity a rewarding study, if only because, while I am absorbed in it, I shall be able to turn my eyes from the troubles which for so long have tormented the modern world, and to write without any of that over-anxious consideration which may well plague a writer on contemporary life, even if it does not lead him to conceal the truth.

ego contra hoc quoque laboris praemium petam, ut me a conspectu malorum quae nostra tot per annos vidit aetas, tantisper certe dum prisca illa tota mente repeto, avertam, omnis expers curae quae scribentis animum, etsi non flectere a vero, sollicitum tamen efficere posset.

He is ever consorting with the young, and such also is he: well says the old saw, 'Like and like together strike.'

μετὰ δὲ νέων ἀεὶ σύνεστί τε καὶ ἔστιν· ὁ γὰρ παλαιὸς λόγος εὖ ἔχει, ὡς ὅμοιον ὁμοίῳ ἀεὶ πελάζει.

And you have also come across those writings of eminent sages, which tell us this very thing—that like must needs be always friend to like?

οὐκοῦν καὶ τοῖς τῶν σοφωτάτων συγγράμμασιν ἐντετύχηκας ταῦτα αὐτὰ λέγουσιν, ὅτι τὸ ὅμοιον τῷ ὁμοίῳ ἀνάγκη ἀεὶ φίλον εἶναι;

For like is akin to like by nature.

τὸ γὰρ ὅμοιον τῷ ὁμοίῳ φύσει συγγενές ἐστιν.

It seems to me that the closest possible friendship between man and man is that mentioned by the sages of old time as 'like to like.'

φίλος μοι δοκεῖ ἕκαστος ἑκάστῳ εἶναι ὡς οἷόν τε μάλιστα, ὅνπερ οἱ παλαιοί τε καὶ σοφοὶ λέγουσιν, ὁ ὅμοιος τῷ ὁμοίῳ.

But there is much difference of opinion as to the nature of friendship. Some define it as a matter of similarity; they say that we love those who are like ourselves: whence the proverbs 'Like finds his like,' 'Birds of a feather flock together,' and so on....

διαμφισβητεῖται δὲ περὶ αὐτῆς οὐκ ὀλίγα. οἳ μὲν γὰρ ὁμοιότητά τινα τιθέασιν αὐτὴν καὶ τοὺς ὁμοίους φίλους, ὅθεν τὸν ὅμοιόν φασιν ὡς τὸν ὅμοιον, καὶ κολοιὸν ποτὶ κολοιόν, καὶ τὰ τοιαῦτα...

Like is the friend of like.

τὸ ὅμοιον τῷ ὁμοίῳ φίλον.

• Jackdaws
• People of the Same Stock
• Incompatibility
• Flocking Together
• Birds of a Feather Flock Together
• Like Is Dear to Like
• Akin and Alike
• Worlds Apart

Markland is the type of the pure-hearted scholar. He was content with the company of his books; he was without ambition and without vices. He believed that a scholar should be humanus. 'What profit is it', he asked, 'if an education in letters instead of making us, as it professes to, gentle, upright, simple, frank, modest and kindly towards all men, renders us fierce, virulent, cunning, arrogant, malignant and implacable towards all who presume to differ from us even in trifles.'¹

1 Supplices, Dedication.

Quid prodest, si pro Mitibus, Probis, Simplicibus, Ingenuis, Modestis, Benevolis erga omnes Homines, quales promittit Literata Institutio; ea nos dimittat Feroces, Maledicos, Versutos, Insolentes, Malignos, Implacabiles omnibus qui a nobis dissentire ausi fuerint, etiam in nugis?

At this point in the narrative it occurs to me to comment on the manner in which Fortune makes sport of human affairs, not always visiting men in the same manner nor regarding them with uniform glance, but changing about with the changes of time and place; and she plays a kind of game with them, shifting the value of the poor wretches according to the variations of time, place, or circumstance...

ἐνταῦθά μοι τοῦ λόγου ἔννοια γέγονεν ὅντινα ἡ τύχη διαχλευάζει τὰ ἀνθρώπεια τρόπον, οὐκ ἀεὶ κατὰ ταὐτὰ παρὰ τοὺς ἀνθρώπους ἰοῦσα οὐδὲ ἴσοις αὐτοὺς ὀφθαλμοῖς βλέπουσα, ἀλλὰ ξυμμεταβαλλομένη χρόνῳ καὶ τόπῳ, καὶ παίζει ἐς αὐτοὺς παιδιάν τινα παρὰ τὸν καιρὸν ἢ τὸν χῶρον ἢ τὸν τρόπον διαλλάσσουσα τὴν τῶν ταλαιπώρων ἀξίαν...

As an Oxford man, he struck me as a prig: he was always throwing his education about.

What is god? Everything.

τί θεός; τὸ πάν.

[29] But here again Fortune was obviously disporting herself and tearing human affairs to shreds by way of making a display of her own perverse nature and unaccountable will; for she had endowed Totila of her own free will with prosperity for no particular reason for a long time, and then after this fashion smote the man with cowardice and destruction at the present time for no fitting cause. [30] But these things, I believe, have never been comprehensible to man, nor will they ever become so at any future time. And yet there is always much talk on this matter and opinions are being for ever bandied about according to each man's taste, as he seeks comfort for his ignorance in an explanation which seems reasonable.

[29] ἀλλὰ καὶ νῦν ἡ τύχη ὡραϊζομένη τε διαφανῶς καὶ διασύρουσα τὰ ἀνθρωπεια τό τε παράλογον τὸ αὐτῆς ἴδιον καὶ τὸ τοῦ βουλήματος ἀπροφάσιστον ἐπιδέδεικται, Τουτίλᾳ μὲν τὴν εὐδαιμονίαν ἐξ αἰτίας οὐδεμιᾶς ἐπὶ χρόνου μῆκος αὐτοματίσασα, δειλίαν δὲ οὕτω τῷ ἀνθρώπῳ καὶ καταστροφὴν ἀπαυθαδισαμένη ἐξ οὐ προσηκόντων ἐν τῷ παρόντι. [30] ἀλλὰ ταῦτα μὲν ἀνθρώπῳ, οἶμαι, καταληπτὰ οὔτε γέγονε πώποτε οὔτε μήποτε ὕστερον ἔσται· λέγεται δὲ ἀεὶ καὶ δοξάζεται διαψιθυριζόμενα ἐς τὸν πάντα αἰῶνα, ὥς πη ἑκάστῳ φίλον, λόγῳ τῷ εἰκότι δοκοῦντι εἶναι παρηγοροῦντι τὴν ἄγνοιαν.

Courage is the very best gift of all; courage stands before everything, it does, it does! It is what maintains and preserves our liberty, safety, life, and our homes and parents, our country and children. Courage comprises all things: a man with courage has every blessing.

virtus praemium est optumum;
virtus omnibus rebus anteit profecto:
libertas, salus, vita, res et parentes,          650
patria et prognati                                      650a
tutantur, servantur:
virtus omnia in sese habet, omnia adsunt
bona quem penest virtus.

648 post optumum praemiorum add. Onions, nam virtute add. Havet
650a post patria hac add. Palmer
653 post bona ei add. Havet

But the vast number of the enemy is worthy only to be despised, seeing that they present a collection of men from the greatest possible number of nations. For an alliance which is patched together from many sources gives no firm assurance of either loyalty or power, but being split up in nationality it is naturally divided likewise in purpose.

τοῦ δὲ τῶν πολεμίων ὁμίλου ὑπερφρονεῖν ἄξιον, ἐξ ἐθνῶν ξυνειλεγμένων ὅτι μάλιστα πλείστων. ξυμμαχία γὰρ πολλαχόθεν ἐρανισθεῖσα οὔτε τὴν πίστιν οὔτε τὴν δύναμιν ἀσφαλῆ φέρεται, ἀλλὰ σχοζομένη τοῖς γένεσι μερίζεται καὶ ταῖς γνώμαις εἰκότως.

The Church in the Middle Ages tolerated many religious extravagances, provided they did not lead up to novelties of a revolutionary sort, in morals or in doctrine. So long as it spent itself in hyperbolic fancies or in ecstasies, superabundant emotion was not a source of danger. Thus, many saints were conspicuous for their fanatical reverence for virginity, taking the form of a horror of all that relates to sex. Saint Colette is an instance of this. She is a typical representative of what has been called by William James the theopathic condition. Her supersensibility is extreme. She can endure neither the light nor the heat of fire, only the light of candles. She has an immoderate horror of flies, ants and slugs, and of all dirt and stenches of all kinds. Her abomination of sexual functions inspires her with repugnance for those saints who have passed through the matrimonial state, and leads her to oppose the admission of non-virginal persons to her congregation. The Church has ever praised such a disposition, judging it to be edifying and meritorious.

Let us imagine a man who, while standing on the street, would say to himself: "It is six o'clock in the evening, the working day is over. Now I can go for a walk, or I can go to the club; I can also climb up the tower to see the sun set; I can go to the theater; I can visit this friend or that one; indeed, I also can run out of the gate, into the wide world, and never return. All of this is strictly up to me, in this I have complete freedom. But still I shall do none of these things now, but with just as free a will I shall go home to my wife."

Wollen wir uns einen Menschen denken, der, etwan auf der Gasse stehend, zu sich sagte: „Es ist 6 Uhr Abends, die Tagesarbeit ist beendigt. Ich kann jezt einen Spaziergang machen; oder ich kann in den Klub gehn; ich kann auch auf den Thurm steigen, die Sonne untergehn zu sehn; ich kann auch ins Theater gehn; ich kann auch diesen, oder aber jenen Freund besuchen; ja, ich kann auch zum Thor hinauslaufen, in die weite Welt, und nie wiederkommen. Das Alles steht allein bei mir, ich habe völlige Freiheit dazu; thue jedoch davon jetzt nichts, sondern gehe ebenso freiwillig nach Hause, zu meiner Frau.“

Somehow I came to read Italian. I taught myself through reading articles in Italian journals and Italian books on tenth-century Rome, on the Norman kingdom of Sicily, and on the fascinating figure of the emperor Frederick the Second (1194-1250). I approached these books on the happy-go-lucky principle that Italian was, somehow, a mixture of the best in French and the worst in Latin. To read the orotund prose of Italian historians was like coming upon the firm lines of a Roman inscription in a late, late Latin that had gone to seed, warmed in Mediterranean sunlight.

Aeneas, his lieutenants and fair Ascanius
Sat themselves down beneath the boughs of a tall tree
To have a meal. Now it happened—Jupiter prompted the action—
They laid the viands on flat cakes of meal about the grass,
Using those cereal mats to heap the fruits of the earth on.

Aeneas primique duces et pulcher Iulus
corpora sub ramis deponunt arboris altae,
instituuntque dapes et adorea liba per herbam
subiciunt epulis (sic Iuppiter ipse monebat)        110
et Cereale solum pomis agrestibus augent.

For evil men cannot change their character either in prosperity or in adversity, though it is true as a general thing that, during periods of ill fortune, they are wont to conceal it, particularly when they need something from their neighbours, their need compelling them to cover up their baseness of heart.

πονηροὶ γὰρ ἄνθρωποι τὸν αὑτῶν τρόπον ἀμείβειν μὲν οὐκ εὐτυχοῦντες, οὐ πράσσοντες κακῶς δύνανται, ἀποκρύπτειν δὲ αὐτὸν ἐκ τοῦ ἐπὶ πλεῖστον ἐν κακοπαθείαις εἰώθασιν, ἄλλως τε ἢν καὶ τῶν πέλας τινὸς δέωνται, τῆς χρείας αὐτοὺς συγκαλύπτειν ἀναγκαζούσης τὴν μοχθηρίαν.

Let her keep harping on about Zeus-of-blood-relatives.

ἐφυμνείτω Δία / ξύναιμον.

θεῶν — τῶν ἐγγενῶν] I.e. 'who preside over and defend the rights of relationship.' Gl. P: ἐγχωρίων. Cf. on Ant. 199. θεοὺς τοὺς ἐγγενεῖς. Aesch. Sept. 564. θεοὺς τοὺς ἐγγενεῖς. In Latin 'dii gentilicii.' Called elsewhere θεοὶ πατρῷοι (411), and ὁμόγνιοι (Oed. C. 1333. Plat. Legg. 729 C.). So Ζεὺς ξύναιμος Ant. 659.

War depends for its decision in large measure upon the commissary, and those in want of supplies are inevitably bound to be defeated by their enemy. For valour cannot dwell together with hunger, since nature will not permit a man to be starving and to be brave at the same time.

πολλή τις ἐπὶ ταῖς δαπάναις ἀπόκειται τοῦ πολέμου ῥοπή, τούς τε τῶν ἐπιτηδείων σπανίζοντας ἡττᾶσθαι τῶν πολεμίων ἐπάναγκες. λιμῷ γὰρ οὐκ οἶδεν ἡ ἀρετὴ ξυνοικίξεσθαι, πεινῆν τε καὶ ἀνδραγαθίζεσθαι οὐκ ἀνεχομένης τῆς φύσεως.

In the long run, the only way into the European Middle Ages was an old-fashioned one: reading—tenacious Sitzfleisch, sedentary study, in one's rooms, in the Radclife Camera undergraduate library, in the Upper and Lower Reading Rooms of the Bodleian Library, and—when in Ireland—in the armchair in the sitting room or beside the Moloch in the kitchen during the long, quiet vacations.

Learning is what you get by wearing out the seat of your trousers in the Bodleian.

The younger generation does not want instruction. It is perfectly willing to instruct if any one will listen to it.

That which Heraclitus avoided, however, is still the same as that which we shun today: the noise and democratic chatter of the Ephesians, their politics, their latest news of the "Empire," (the Persian, you understand) their market business of "today"—for we philosophers need to be spared one thing above all: everything to do with "today." We reverence what is still, cold, noble, distant, past, and in general everything in the face of which the soul does not have to defend itself and wrap itself up—what one can speak to without speaking aloud.

Das aber, dem Heraklit auswich, ist das Gleiche noch, dem wir jetzt aus dem Wege gehn: der Lärm und das Demokraten-Geschwätz der Ephesier, ihre Politik, ihre Neuigkeiten vom „Reich“ (Persien, man versteht mich), ihr Markt-Kram von „Heute,“—denn wir Philosophen brauchen zu allererst vor Einem Ruhe: vor allem „Heute.“ Wir verehren das Stille, das Kalte, das Vornehme, das Ferne, das Vergangne, Jegliches überhaupt, bei dessen Aspekt die Seele sich nicht zu vertheidigen und zuzuschnüren hat,—Etwas, mit dem man reden kann, ohne laut zu reden.

And when he was requested by them to make laws, he scorned the request because the state was already in the grip of a bad constitution. He would retire to the temple of Artemis and play at knuckle-bones with the boys; and when the Ephesians stood round him and looked on, "Why, you rascals," he said, "are you astonished? Is it not better to do this than to take part in your civil life?"

ἀξιούμενος δὲ καὶ νόμους θεῖναι πρὸς αὐτῶν ὑπερεῖδε διὰ τὸ ἤδη κεκρατῆσθαι τῇ πονηρᾷ πολιτείᾳ τὴν πόλιν. ἀναχωρήσας δ᾿ εἰς τὸ ἱερὸν τῆς Ἀρτέμιδος μετὰ τῶν παίδων ἠστραγάλιζε· περιστάντων δ᾿ αὐτὸν τῶν Ἐφεσίων, "τί, ὦ κάκιστοι, θαυμάζετε;" εἶπεν· "ἢ οὐ κρεῖττον τοῦτο ποιεῖν ἢ μεθ᾿ ὑμῶν πολιτεύεσθαι;"