Laudator Temporis Acti

Cicero, On Divination 2.2.4-5 (tr. William Armistead Falconer):

For what greater or better service can I render to the commonwealth than to instruct and train the youth—especially in view of the fact that our young men have gone so far astray because of the present moral laxity that the utmost effort will be needed to hold them in check and direct them in the right way? Of course, I have no assurance—it could not even be expected—that they will all turn to these studies. Would that a few may! Though few, their activity may yet have a wide influence in the state.

quod enim munus rei publicae afferre maius meliusve possumus, quam si docemus atque erudimus iuventutem, his praesertim moribus atque temporibus, quibus ita prolapsa est, ut omnium opibus refrenanda atque coërcenda sit? nec vero id effici posse confido, quod ne postulandum quidem est, ut omnes adulescentes se ad haec studia convertant. pauci utinam! quorum tamen in re publica late patere poterit industria.

Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859), Democracy in America, Part II, Book I, Chapter XV (tr. Henry Reeve):

If men were to persist in teaching nothing but the literature of the dead languages in a community where every one is habitually led to make vehement exertions to augment or to maintain his fortune, the result would be a very polished, but a very dangerous, set of citizens. For as their social and political condition would give them every day a sense of wants, which their education would never teach them to supply, they would perturb the state, in the name of the Greeks and Romans, instead of enriching it by their productive industry.

Thomas Lodge (1558–1625), "Pluck the Fruit and Taste the Pleasure," in John Wain, ed., The Oxford Anthology of English Poetry, Vol. I: Spenser to Crabbe (1990; rpt. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), pp. 52-53:

Plucke the fruite and tast the pleasure
    Youthfull Lordings of delight,
Whilst occasion gives you seasure,
    Feede your fancies and your sight:
        After death when you are gone,
        Joy and pleasure is there none.

Here on earth nothing is stable,
    Fortunes chaunges well are knowne,
Whil'st as youth doth then enable,
    Let your seedes of ioy be sowne:
        After death when you are gone,
        Ioy and pleasure is there none.

Feast it freely with your Louers,
    Blyth and wanton sweetes doo fade,
Whilst that lonely Cupid houers
    Round about this louely shade:
        Sport it freelie one to one,
        After death is pleasure none.

Now the pleasant spring allureth,
    And both place and time inuites:
But alas, what heart endureth
    To disclaime his sweete delightes?
        After death when we are gone,
        Joy and pleasure is there none.

Inscriptiones Graecae XIV 268 (Selinus, 5th century BC), tr. R. Ross Holloway, The Archaeology of Ancient Sicily (1991; rpt. London: Routledge, 2000), pp. 76-77:

Through these gods the Selinuntines are victorious. We are victorious through Zeus and through Phobos (Ares), through Heracles and through Apollo and through Poseidon and through the sons of Tyndareus (Castor and Pollux) and through Athene and through Malophorus (Demeter) and Pasikrateia (Persephone) and through the other gods but especially Zeus. Inscribing then the peace treaty in gold, appending these names, dedicate it in the temple of Apollo, making Zeus' version an inscription. And the gold shall weigh sixty talents.

[Δι]ὰ τὸς θεὸς τό[σ]δε νικοντι τοὶ Σελινον[τίοι. τὸν Δία νικομες καὶ διὰ τὸν Φόβον [καὶ] δ[ιὰ] Ηρακλέα καὶ δι' Ἀπόλλονα καὶ διὰ Π[οτ]ε[ιδά]να καὶ διὰ Τυνδαρίδας καὶ δι' Ἀθ[α]ναίαν καὶ διὰ Μαλοφόρον καὶ διὰ Πασικρά[τ]ειαν καὶ δι[ὰ] τὸς ἄλλος θεός, [δ]ιὰ δ[ὲ] Δία μάλιστ[α]. Φιλί[ας] δὲ γενομένας ἐν χρυσέο[ι] ἐλά[σα]τα[ς, τὰ δ'] ὀνύματα ταῦτα κολάψαντ[ας ἐς] τὸ ̓Α[π]ολ[λ]όνιον καθθέμεν, τὸ Διὸς προ]γρά[ψα]ντες· τὸ δὲ χρυσίον ἐξέκ[οντα τ]αλάντον ἔμεν.

J.B. Hainsworth, ed., Tituli ad dialectos Graecas illustrandas selecti, Fasc. 2: Tituli Dorici et Ionici (Leiden: Brill, 1972), p. 16: See Laurent Dubois, Inscriptions grecques dialectales de Sicile: Contribution à l'étude du vocabulaire grec colonial (Geneva: Librairie Droz, 1989 = Publications de l'École française de Rome, 119), pp. 74-79.

Thanks to Eric Thomson for a photograph of the stone, now in the Museo archeologico regionale Antonino Salinas in Palermo (click to enlarge):

Pindar, Nemean Odes 11.43-46 (tr. William Race):

As for that which comes from Zeus, no clear sign attends men, but all the same we embark on ambitious projects and yearn for many accomplishments, for our bodies are enthralled to shameless hope, and the streams of foreknowledge lie far off.

τὸ δ᾿ ἐκ Διὸς ἀνθρώποις σαφὲς οὐχ ἕπεται
τέκμαρ· ἀλλ᾿ ἔμπαν μεγαλανορίαις ἐμβαίνομεν,
ἔργα τε πολλὰ μενοινῶντες· δέδεται γὰρ ἀναιδεῖ        45
ἐλπίδι γυῖα· προμαθείας δ᾿ ἀπόκεινται ῥοαί.

Horace, Odes 3.29.29-32 (tr. Niall Rudd):

God in his providence hides future events in murky darkness, and laughs if a mere mortal frets about what is beyond his control.

prudens futuri temporis exitum
caliginosa nocte premit deus,        30
ridetque si mortalis ultra
fas trepidat.

Suda EI 323 Adler (tr. David Whitehead):

It is prophesied into Trophonios' [cave]. The proverb is applied to gloomy and unlaughing people. For those descending into Trophonios are said to spend the entire time unlaughing.

εἰς Τροφωνίου μεμάντευται. ἐπὶ τῶν σκυθρωπῶν καὶ ἀγελάστων ἡ παροιμία τάττεται. οἱ γὰρ καταβαίνοντες εἰς Τροφώνιον λέγονται τὸν ἑξῆς χρόνον ἀγέλαστοι εἶναι.

The effect is reversible. See Pausanias 9.39.13 (tr. W.H.S. Jones):

Afterwards, however, he will recover all his faculties, and the power to laugh will return to him.

ὕστερον μέντοι τά τε ἄλλα οὐδέν τι φρονήσει μεῖον ἢ πρότερον καὶ γέλως ἐπάνεισίν οἱ.

Related posts;

• Killjoy
• Heraclitus the Agelast
• No Tittering
• Against Monastic Laughter
• Now Hear About Laughter
• No More Laughing, No More Fun
• Stop Laughing
• Don't Laugh
• Crassus Agelastus
• Did Adam Laugh Before the Fall?
• Against Laughter
• Agelasts
• Did Christ Ever Laugh?

Aeschylus, Libation Bearers 1044-1045 (tr. Herbert Weir Smyth):

Therefore do not yoke your tongue to an ill-omened speech, nor let your lips give vent to evil forebodings.

                        μηδ᾽ ἐπιζευχθῇς στόμα
φήμῃ πονηρᾷ μηδ᾽ ἐπιγλωσσῶ κακά.        1045