Laudator Temporis Acti

Essays by the Late Mark Pattison, Vol. I (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1889), p. 85 (on Robert Estienne):

The life of the printer, a life practical, industrious, real, if ever life was, has however collected its legend in passing down the current of biography. Nay, as in the case of other saints, the legend is more widely known than the facts. Such is the fiction, that he hung out his proofs at his street-door, offering a reward to any passer-by who could detect an error of the press. This apocryphal anecdote has even found its way into history. It may be found in other Histories of France besides that of Michelet¹, who is but too careless as to his authorities.

¹ VII.208.

Donald E. Knuth, The Art of Computer Programming, Vol. 2: Seminumerical Algorithms, 3rd ed. (Reading: Addison-Wesley, 1998), p. vii:

I have corrected every error that alert readers detected in the second edition (as well as some mistakes that, alas, nobody noticed); and I have tried to avoid introducing new errors in the new material. However, I suppose some defects still remain, and I want to fix them as soon as possible. Therefore I will cheerfully pay $2.56 to the first finder of each technical, typographical, or historical error.

Knuth makes the same offer in other books, e.g. in Ronald L. Graham, Donald E. Knuth, and Oren Patashnik, Concrete Mathematics, 2nd ed. (Boston: Addison-Wesley, 1994), p. ix:

We have tried to produce a perfect book, but we are imperfect authors. Therefore we solicit help in correcting any mistakes that we've made. A reward of $2.56 will gratefully be paid to the first finder of any error, whether it is mathematical, historical, or typographical.

In the event that there aren't new editions, Knuth posts corrections on his web site. I doubt that Knuth's bank account suffers much by payment of these rewards. First, he is so careful and painstaking that he makes few mistakes. Second, I suspect that most of those lucky enough to receive a $2.56 check from Knuth don't cash it, but rather save it as a prized possession.

Augustine, Expositions of the Psalms 99.4 (Corpus Christianorum Series Latina, vol. 39, p. 1394; tr. Maria Boulding):

People who work in the fields are especially given to joyful shouting. Harvesters and grape-gatherers and other fruit-pickers are greatly cheered by a plentiful crop and rejoice over the fecundity and bounty of the earth. In their exultation they sing, and between the words of their songs they interject happy, wordless sounds that express the elation they feel. This is called jubilation, shouting for joy.

maxime iubilant qui aliquid in agris operantur; copia fructuum iucundati uel messores, uel uindemiatores, uel aliquos fructus metentes, et in ipsa fecunditate terrae et feracitate gaudentes, exsultando cantant et inter cantica quae uerbis enuntiant, inserunt uoces quasdam sine uerbis in elatione exsultantis animi, et haec uocatur iubilatio.

Related post: I Hear America Singing.

Essays by the Late Mark Pattison, Vol. I (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1889), p. 71:

Addressing his own son Paul in 1585, Henri [Estienne] says:

    And as I am on the topic of speaking Latin, I will add another notable reminiscence of my father's family, by the which thou mayst understand the facilities I enjoyed as a boy for acquiring that tongue. There was a time when thy grandfather Robert entertained in his own household ten men employed by him as correctors on his press, or in other parts of his business. These ten persons were all of them men of education; some of them of considerable learning; as they were of different nations, so they were of different languages. This necessitated them to employ Latin as the common medium of communication, not at table only, but about the house, so that the very maidservants came to understand what was said, and even to speak it a little. As for your grandmother [Perrette,] except one made use of some very unusual word, she understood what was said in Latin with the same ease as if it had been French. As to myself and my brother Robert, we were allowed at home to use no other language whenever we had to address my father, or one of his ten journeymen.—
Dedication to Aulus Gellius, 1585.

One is reminded of Montaigne.

Related posts:

• A Utopian Dream
• Motivation to Learn Latin

James Willis (1925-2014), "The Science of Blunders: Confessions of a Textual Critic," Text 6 (1994) 63–80 (at 64):

At every copying there is the possibility of human error. I say "the possibility", but it is nearer to certainty. Copying is usually a boring task; boredom breeds inattention; inattention breeds mistakes. Therefore the manuscripts of classical authors contain mistakes. The detection and correction of mistakes in texts is the function of textual criticism. Therefore textual criticism is necessary, Q.E.D.

Id. (at 69-70):

The first of these inquiries involves what I have called the science of blunders — the name sphalmatology, jokingly invented by the late J.B.S. Haldane, has not achieved circulation, but the study deserves to be an -ology in its own right, and to endow a readership in it would be less waste of money than many things which I have seen done in the academic world

.

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.