Laudator Temporis Acti

Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 5.5.3 (1132 b 27) = Hesiod, fragment 286, line 2 Merkelbach and West (tr. W.D. Ross):

Should a man suffer what he did, right justice would be done.

εἴ κε πάθοι τά τ᾽ ἔρεξε, δίκη κ᾽ ἰθεῖα γένοιτο.

Donald Davidson (1893-1968), "The Thankless Muse and Her Fugitive Poets," Sewanee Review 66.2 (Spring, 1958) 201-228 (at 211; on Herbert Sanborn, professor of philosophy at Vanderbilt University):

One could not but be awed and obedient when Dr. Sanborn strode vigorously to his desk, cloaked in all the Olympian majesty of Leipzig and Heidelberg, and, without a book or note before him, delivered a perfectly ordered lecture, freely sprinkled with quotations from the original Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, German, French, or Italian, which of course he would not insult us by translating.

Pindar, fragment 109 Maehler, 99.b Bowra (tr. William H. Race):

Let any townsman who would put the public good
in fair weather seek out proud Peace's
shining light,
having plucked from his mind wrathful discord,
giver of poverty, hateful nurse of children.

τὸ κοινόν τις ἀστῶν ἐν εὐδίᾳ
τιθεὶς ἐρευνασάτω μεγαλάνορος Ἡσυχίας
τὸ φαιδρὸν φάος,
στάσιν ἀπὸ πραπίδος ἐπίκοντον ἀνελών,
πενίας δότειραν, ἐχθρὰν κουροτρόφον.

Friedrich Hölderlin (1770-1843), "The Rhine," lines 46-53 (tr. Christopher Middleton):

A riddle it is, whatever
Springs from the pure source. Even song
May hardly reveal it. For
As you began so you remain
And though compulsions leave their mark,
And upbringing, birth performs
The most, and the ray of light encountering
The newborn being.

Ein Rätsel ist Reinentsprungenes. Auch
Der Gesang kaum darf es enthüllen. Denn
Wie du anfingst, wirst du bleiben,
So viel auch wirket die Not,
Und die Zucht, das meiste nämlich        50
Vermag die Geburt,
Und der Lichtstrahl, der
Dem Neugebornen begegnet.

Quoting these lines, Gilbert Norwood, Pindar (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1945 = Sather Classical Lectures, 19), p. 232, n. 2, says:

In at least one original poem (Der Rhein, 46 ff.) he uses not only the Pindaric tone but also one of the Pindaric beliefs.

Demosthenes 19.15-16 (On the Dishonest Embassy; him = Philocrates; tr. Arthur Wallace Pickard-Cambridge):

Aeschines rose and spoke in support of him, using language for which he deserves, God knows, to die many deaths, saying that you must not remember your forefathers...

ἀναστὰς ἐδημηγόρει καὶ συνηγόρει ἐκείνῳ πολλῶν ἀξίους, ὦ Ζεῦ καὶ πάντες θεοί, θανάτων λόγους, ὡς οὔτε τῶν προγόνων ὑμᾶς μεμνῆσθαι δέοι...

Richard Weaver (1910-1963), Ideas Have Consequences. Expanded Edition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2013), p. 2:

Surely we are justified in saying of our time: If you seek the monument to our folly, look about you. We may well ask, in the words of Matthew, whether we are not faced with "great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world." We have for many years moved with a brash confidence that man had achieved a position of independence which rendered the ancient restraints needless. Now, in the first half of the twentieth century, at the height of modern progress, we behold unprecedented outbreaks of hatred and violence; we have seen whole nations desolated by war and turned into penal camps by their conquerors; we find half of mankind looking upon the other half as criminal. Everywhere occur symptoms of mass psychosis. Most portentous of all, there appear diverging bases of value, so that our single planetary globe is mocked by worlds of different understanding.

Donald Davidson (1893-1968), "Hermitage," Poems 1922-1961 (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1966), pp. 68-73 (at 73):

These old tales are like prayers. I only know
This is the secret refuge of our race
Told only from a father to his son,
A trust laid on your lips, as though a vow
To generations past and yet to come.

Vergil, Eclogues 4.60-63 (tr. Barbara Hughes Fowler):

Begin, then, little boy, to know your mother
with a smile. Ten long months have left your mother tired.
Begin, little boy: he who has not smiled at his mother
is not worthy of a god's table or a goddess's bed.

Incipe, parve puer, risu cognoscere matrem
(matri longa decem tulerunt fastidia menses)
incipe, parve puer: qui non risere parenti,
nec deus hunc mensa, dea nec dignata cubili est.

62 qui Quint. 9.3.8: cui PRω, Serv., Quintiliani codd. (corr. Politianus)
parenti Schrader: parentes codd.

Wendell Clausen on line 62:

62. qui non risere parenti: the MSS and Servius have 'cui non risere parentes', which gives the wrong sense; so far from being wonderful, it is natural for parents to smile at a new-born child. Quintilian 9.3.8 evidently read 'qui non risere parentes', but this again gives the wrong sense; rideo with the accusative can only mean 'laugh at' or 'mock', as in Hor. Epist. 1.14.39 'rident uicini glaebas et saxa mouentem'. J. Schrader saw that parenti was wanted; cf. Catull. 61.209-12 'Torquatus uolo paruulus / . . . / . . . / dulce rideat ad patrem' (ad patrem being equivalent to patri). The marvellous child is urged to greet his mother with a smile ('risu cognoscere matrem' )—a recognition of which a new-born child is incapable, except in the fond imagination of his mother—for no god invites to table those who have not smiled at their mother, no goddess to bed. The transition from a generalizing plural to the singular is Greek; P. Maas, Textkritik⁴ (Leipzig, 1960), 23, compares Eur. Herc. 195-7; for other examples see Fraenkel on Aesch. Ag. 1522 ff. (p. 717 n. 3). Schrader also conjectures hos for hunc, but the singular, as Maas remarks, will be intelligible to anyone who thinks of the goddess's bed. See Norden, Die Geburt des Kindes, 62 n. 2.

parenti: for the feminine see TLL s.v. 354.31 , Hofmann-Szantyr 7.

See also Egil Kraggerud, Vergiliana: Critical studies on the texts of Publius Vergilius Maro (London: Routledge, 2017), pp. 21-22.

Plutarch, fragment 216(a) (tr. F.H. Sandbach):

That new-born babies do not smile but have a fierce look for about three weeks, sleeping most of the time. But all the same at times in their sleep they often laugh and relax.

Ὅτι τὰ νεογενῆ παιδία ἀμειδῆ ἐστι καὶ ἄγριον βλέπει μέχρι τριῶν σχεδὸν ἑβδομάδων, ὑπνώττοντα τὸν πλείω χρόνον· ἀλλ᾿ ὅμως ποτὲ καθ᾿ ὕπνους καὶ πολλάκις γελᾷ καὶ διαχεῖται.

Id. 217(f):

Whether many babies laugh in their sleep, though they do not yet do so when awake...

Εἰ πολλὰ παιδία ὑπνώττοντα γελᾷ, ὕπαρ δ᾿ οὔπω...

Augustine, Confessions 1.6.8 (tr. Vernon J. Bourke):

Later, I began to smile: first, while sleeping; then, while waking. This was told me about myself and I believed it, since we so observe other babies; of course, I do not remember those things about myself.

post et ridere coepi, dormiens primo, deinde vigilans. hoc enim de me mihi indicatum est et credidi, quoniam sic videmus alios infantes: nam ista mea non memini.

James J. O'Donnell ad loc.:

Modern medicine ascribes the apparent smile of a sleeping newborn to flatulence...

Homer, Odyssey 13.45-46 (tr. A.T. Murray):

And may the gods grant you prosperity
of every sort, and may no evil come upon your people.

                               θεοὶ δ᾽ ἀρετὴν ὀπάσειαν
παντοίην, καὶ μή τι κακὸν μεταδήμιον εἴη.

John Adams, letter to Thomas Jefferson (June 7, 1785):

The Smoke and Damp of this City is ominous to me. London boasts of its Trottoir, but there is a space between it and the Houses through which all the Air from Kitchens, Cellars, Stables and Servants Appartements ascends into the Street and pours directly on the Passenger on Foot. Such Whiffs and puffs assault you every few Steps as are enough to breed the Plague if they do not Suffocate you on the Spot.

Euripides, Orestes 804-806 (tr. David Kovacs):

This proves it: get comrades, not just blood kin!
An outsider whose character fuses with yours
is a better friend to have than countless blood relations!

τοῦτ᾽ ἐκεῖνο, κτᾶσθ᾽ ἑταίρους, μὴ τὸ συγγενὲς μόνον·
ὡς ἀνὴρ ὅστις τρόποισι συντακῇ, θυραῖος ὢν,        805
μυρίων κρείσσων ὁμαίμων ἀνδρὶ κεκτῆσθαι φίλος.

Proverbs 18:24 (KJV):

There is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother.

Cf. Hesiod, Works and Days 707 (tr. Hugh G. Evelyn-White):

Do not make a friend equal to a brother.

μὴ δὲ κασιγνήτῳ ἶσον ποιεῖσθαι ἑταῖρον.

Related post: Family Values.

The Adams-Jefferson Letters: The Complete Correspondence Between Thomas Jefferson and Abigail and John Adams. Edited by Lester J. Cappon (1959; rpt. Chapel Hill:The University of North Carolina Press, 1987), p. 29 (letter of Abigail Adams to Thomas Jefferson, June 6. 1785):

Whilst I am writing the papers of this day are handed me. From the publick Advertiser I extract the following. "Yesterday morning a messenger was sent from Mr. Pitt to Mr. Adams the American plenipotentiary with notice to suspend for the present their intended interview" (absolutely false). From the same paper:

"An Ambassador from America! Good heavens what a sound! The Gazette surely never announced any thing so extraordinary before, nor once on a day so little expected. This will be such a phœnomenon in the Corps Diplomatique that tis hard to say which can excite indignation most, the insolence of those who appoint the Character, or the meanness of those who receive it. Such a thing could never have happened in any former Administration, not even that of Lord North. It was reserved like some other Humiliating circumstances to take place

Sub Jove, sed Jove nondum
Barbato—————" ²⁹

29. "Under Jove, but Jove not yet barbaric."

The editor in his footnote mistranslated the Latin tag from Juvenal 6.15-16. For "barbaric" read "bearded," i.e. when Jupiter was still young (thus, in the earliest time).

Related post: Barbarians and Beards.

Labels: typographical and other errors

Augustine, Sermons 148-183, tr. Edmund Hill (New Rochelle: New City Press, 1992), p. 144, n. 2 (translator's note on sermon 161.1):

Calling us, or our bodies, "members of Christ" is really very unsatisfactory as a translation of membra, because in current English the word is confined to its secondary sense, signifying belonging to some club, society, or organization. But to find an alternative is difficult; "limbs" is too narrow, since it doesn't include most of our organs, like eyes and ears and so on; in fact we only have four limbs. "Organs" is too medical, "parts" too mechanical. So I think we are stuck with "members," but every now and again need to amplify it with one of these other words.

M.I. Finley (1912-1986), The Use and Abuse of History (New York: The Viking Press, 1975), p. 62:

Consider the word 'Greek', whether as noun or as adjective. It is literally impossible to make any statement including 'Greek' which excludes some sort of generalization. Furthermore, it is impossible to make such a statement which would be true without greater or less qualification (excepting such truisms as 'All Greeks must eat'). In the first place, there is no meaningful definition of 'Greek' which does not differentiate in time, between a Mycenaean Greek and a contemporary Greek, to give the most extreme example. Second, applied to the ancient world any definition must face the fact of mixed populations, part Greek, part something else. Third, any meaningful statement, even when restricted to 'pure' Greeks at a fixed moment of time, must allow for variations in ideas or practices, whether by region or by class or for some other reason.

Sophocles, Oedipus the King 977-979 (Jocasta to Oedipus; tr. Richard Jebb):

What should a mortal man fear, for whom the decrees of Fortune
are supreme, and who has clear foresight of nothing?
It is best to live at random, as one may.

τί δ᾽ ἂν φοβοῖτ᾽ ἄνθρωπος ᾧ τὰ τῆς τύχης
κρατεῖ, πρόνοια δ᾽ ἐστὶν οὐδενὸς σαφής;
εἰκῆ κράτιστον ζῆν, ὅπως δύναιτό τις.

979 εἰκῇ L: εἰκῆ KA

C.M. Bowra, Sophoclean Tragedy (1944; rpt. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1952), pp. 207-208:

The words may easily be underestimated. Though they are not the language of complete unbelief, they show a grave irresponsibility and culpable ignorance of what the gods are. Luck was not unreal or always unworthy of respect. So long as it was associated with some higher power, it was even pious to take note of it. There is nothing wrong when Pindar calls Luck the daughter of Zeus.³ But it was a different matter to substitute the rule of Luck for that of the gods, and this is what Jocasta does. She is perilously near to denying the power of the gods altogether and displays a scepticism like that of Euripides' Talthybius:

O Zeus, what shall I say? that you regard
Mankind? Or are the gods an idle fancy
And Luck the only governor of the world?¹

or his Odysseus:

Or should we think Luck a divinity,
And everything divine less strong than she?²

Since Jocasta denies the rule of the gods, she also denies human responsibility towards them and thinks that it is best to live at random, without purpose or plan. She can be contrasted with the pious Nicias who thought it unwise to trust in Luck,³ and her real motives are well illustrated by Democritus' searching words that 'Men have made an image of Luck as an excuse for their own lack of wisdom'.⁴ By exalting Luck Jocasta defies the gods and denies her responsibilities. This is not only impious; it is imprudent. It means that she has no foresight for the fixture. Thucydides distrusts those who believe in Luck and says that we attribute to it anything that turns out contrary to our reckoning.⁵ When Jocasta says that providence or foresight is impossible and that it is best to live at random, she deprives life of order and security. She offends against religion, morality, and common prudence. The audience would expect her to be corrected, and before the scene is over she has been.

[p. 207]
³ Ol. xii.1.

[p. 208]
¹ Hec. 488-91 [including 490, omitted by Bowra]

ὦ Ζεῦ, τί λέξω; πότερά σ᾽ ἀνθρώπους ὁρᾶν;
ἢ δόξαν ἄλλως τήνδε κεκτῆσθαι μάτην,
ψευδῆ, δοκοῦντας δαιμόνων εἶναι γένος
τύχην δὲ πάντα τἀν βροτοῖς ἐπισκοπεῖν;

² Cyc. 606-7

ἢ τὴν τύχην μὲν δαίμον᾽ ἡγεῖσθαι χρεών,
τὰ δαιμόνων δὲ τῆς τύχης ἐλάσσονα;

³ Thuc. v.16.

⁴ Fr. 119

ἄνθρωποι τύχης εἴδωλον ἐπλάσαντο πρόφασιν ἰδίης ἀβουλίης.

⁵ Thuc. i.140.1.