Monday, April 15, 2024
Smiling Babies
Vergil, Eclogues 4.60-63 (tr. Barbara Hughes Fowler):
Plutarch, fragment 216 (tr. F.H. Sandbach):
Begin, then, little boy, to know your motherWendell Clausen on line 62:
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.
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.See also Egil Kraggerud, Vergiliana: Critical studies on the texts of Publius Vergilius Maro (London: Routledge, 2017), pp. 21-22.
parenti: for the feminine see TLL s.v. 354.31 , Hofmann-Szantyr 7.
Plutarch, fragment 216 (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.Augustine, Confessions 1.6.8 (tr. Vernon J. Bourke):
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.
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.James J. O'Donnell ad loc.:
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.
Modern medicine ascribes the apparent smile of a sleeping newborn to flatulence...
Good Wishes
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.
Sunday, April 14, 2024
Air Pollution
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.
Friends or Kinsmen?
Euripides, Orestes 804-806 (tr. David Kovacs):
This proves it: get comrades, not just blood kin!Proverbs 18:24 (KJV):
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.
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.Related post: Family Values.
μὴ δὲ κασιγνήτῳ ἶσον ποιεῖσθαι ἑταῖρον.
Saturday, April 13, 2024
A Howler
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):
Related post: Barbarians and Beards.
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: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).
"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 placeSub Jove, sed Jove nondum29. "Under Jove, but Jove not yet barbaric."
Barbato—————" 29
Related post: Barbarians and Beards.
Labels: typographical and other errors
Members
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.
Friday, April 12, 2024
Generalizations
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.
Luck
Sophocles, Oedipus the King 977-979 (Jocasta to Oedipus; tr. Richard Jebb):
What should a mortal man fear, for whom the decrees of FortuneC.M. Bowra, Sophoclean Tragedy (1944; rpt. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1952), pp. 207-208:
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
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 regardor his Odysseus:
Mankind? Or are the gods an idle fancy
And Luck the only governor of the world?1Or should we think Luck a divinity,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.
And everything divine less strong than she?2
[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;2 Cyc. 606-7
ἢ δόξαν ἄλλως τήνδε κεκτῆσθαι μάτην,
ψευδῆ, δοκοῦντας δαιμόνων εἶναι γένος
τύχην δὲ πάντα τἀν βροτοῖς ἐπισκοπεῖν;ἢ τὴν τύχην μὲν δαίμον᾽ ἡγεῖσθαι χρεών,3 Thuc. v.16.
τὰ δαιμόνων δὲ τῆς τύχης ἐλάσσονα;
4 Fr. 119
ἄνθρωποι τύχης εἴδωλον ἐπλάσαντο πρόφασιν ἰδίης ἀβουλίης.5 Thuc. i.140.1.
Thursday, April 11, 2024
The Worst Life Is Better Than Death
Homer, Odyssey 11.488-491 (Achilles speaking; tr. Richmond Lattimore):
O shining Odysseus, never try to console me for dying.W.B. Stanford ad loc.:
I would rather follow the plow as thrall to another
man, one with no land allotted him and not much to live on,
than be a king over all the perished dead.
μὴ δή μοι θάνατόν γε παραύδα, φαίδιμ᾽ Ὀδυσσεῦ.
βουλοίμην κ᾽ ἐπάρουρος ἐὼν θητευέμεν ἄλλῳ,
ἀνδρὶ παρ᾽ ἀκλήρῳ, ᾧ μὴ βίοτος πολὺς εἴη, 490
ἢ πᾶσιν νεκύεσσι καταφθιμένοισιν ἀνάσσειν.
The θῆτες (cp. 4, 644), though they had personal freedom, often lived less comfortably, and always more precariously, than the δμῶες who were fed and housed by their masters. A θής on a poor estate was particularly hard-worked and pitiable, being often cheated by the land-owner (cp. Il. 21, 444 ff.; Keller, H.S. pp. 84-5 ; Nilsson, H.M. p. 244). Hesiod (Works 602) recommends farmers to drive them out as soon as the harvest is over. Note in this passage the typical early Greeks' attitude to existence after death. Its shadowy impotence appalled them, for they loved vigour, action, personality and the sunshine. Contrast Milton's Satan — 'Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven'. The recurrent melancholy of all Greek literature is mainly due to this abhorrence of losing one's vital physical powers after death. The Mystery Religions and some philosophies tried to dispel it. But it met no decisive challenge till St. Paul on the Areopagus proclaimed the Resurrection of the Body (Acts 17, 32). In 489 ἐπάρουρος is ἅπαξ εἰρημένον and is best taken = ἐπὶ γῆς = 'on earth' (cp. ἄχθος ἀρούρης) as distinct from νέρθεν γῆς in 302; but L.-S.-J. and others render it as 'attached to the soil, as a serf '.Lexikon des frühgriechischen Epos s.v. ἐπάρουρος:
Wednesday, April 10, 2024
Scenes from the Odyssey
6th century BC black-figure drinking cup depicting scenes from the Odyssey, with nonsense words written in Greek letters, in Boston, Museum of Fine Arts 99.518,
Side A, with description from the Museum's web page:
"Circe and the companions of Odysseus, eight figures. Circe appears in center mixing her potion for Odysseus' men. The men have animal heads and arms, but retain their human lower bodies. Eurylochus escapes the scene at far right and Odysseus enters at far left."
Side B, with description from the Museum's web page: "Odysseus in the cave of Polyphemos, seven figures. Polyphemos is the central figure, kneeling on one knee in a state of drunkenness. Odysseus' companions bring more wine from the left. Odysseus appears at right with an oinochoe containing more wine. Athena stands behind Odysseus, as his guardian."
For bibliography see the Beazley Archive, number 302569, which also gives the nonsense Greek words on side A as follows:
Side B, with description from the Museum's web page: "Odysseus in the cave of Polyphemos, seven figures. Polyphemos is the central figure, kneeling on one knee in a state of drunkenness. Odysseus' companions bring more wine from the left. Odysseus appears at right with an oinochoe containing more wine. Athena stands behind Odysseus, as his guardian."
For bibliography see the Beazley Archive, number 302569, which also gives the nonsense Greek words on side A as follows:
χνεπ(.)hχ̣(.). χ(ε)νυνι. ϝκ(.)π(ο), retr. χκ̣h(.), retr. κχ̣(.), retr. κοπν[--]. κϝνκχ(ϝ)ϝ(2), retr. κυκκ·, retr.{3}. πχγοτ. πυπhπο(.)[--]. κμϝοσπχγ. κhκνϝ(ϝ)ϝ̣ε(λ). κοεhο(α). ϝ(α)ϝ·{3}. ϝν[.]ι̣οϝπγνρ̣. πḥοϝ(π)χ(ε)χ(4) (.)πολι̣.Hat tip: Eric Thomson.
Minor Corrections
Donald Kagan (1932-2021), The Fall of the Athenian Empire (1987; rpt. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991), p. 39:
Id., p. 55, n. 15:
There is no entry for Kagan, who was Sterling Professor of Classics at Yale, in the Database of Classical Scholars.
On reflection, they decided instead to draw the ships up and shore and guard them with their soldiers until a chance of escape should occur.For "up and" read "up on".
Id., p. 55, n. 15:
Thucydides seems to date the beginning of the suspicion against Alcibiades after the death of Chalcideus (8.24.1) and the battle of Miletus (8.25-26): Ἀλκιβιάδης μετὰ τὸν Χαλκιδέως καὶ τὴν ἐν Μιλήτῳ μάχην τοῖς Πελοποννησίοις ὕποπτος ὤν, καὶ ἀπ᾽ αὐτῶν ἀφικομένης ἐπιστολῆς πρὸς Ἀστύοχον ἐκ Λακεδαίμονος ὥστ᾽ ἀποκτεῖναι .... "After the death of Chalcideus and the battle at Miletus Alcibiades, being an object of suspicion to the Peloponnesians and a letter having come to Astyochus from Sparta as a result of this ordering him to be killed .... he withdrew to Tissaphernes" (8.45.1).The quotation from Thucydides is faulty—add θάνατον after Χαλκιδέως. Probably also add at least some of πρῶτον μὲν ὑποχωρεῖ δείσας παρὰ Τισσαφέρνην after the ellipsis.
There is no entry for Kagan, who was Sterling Professor of Classics at Yale, in the Database of Classical Scholars.
Labels: typographical and other errors
Tuesday, April 09, 2024
Marks of a Proud Man
Augustine, Sermons 160.3 (Patrologia Latina, vol. 38, col. 874; tr. Edmund Hill):
But this proud fellow, with his nose in the air, and his gobbling throat, and his big words, and his puffed out cheeks, he sneers at Christ crucified.The translation is loose, e.g. there is no nose in the Latin. It might be worthwhile rummaging around in Richard Foerster's Scriptores Physiognomonici Graeci et Latini for parallels, but I'm too lazy to do it.
sed superbus iste, erecta cervice, tumenti gutture, elata lingua, inflatis buccis irridet Christum crucifixum.
Childish Things
Pompeius Macer, fragment 1, lines 4-6 (perhaps from his Medea), in Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, ed. Bruno Snell, rev. Richard Kannicht, vol. I, p. 313 (tr. Marinos Yeroulanos):
‹Older
Play now, young spirits,
for now is your life's springtide;
worries grow as you grow.
παίζετ’ ὦ νέαι φρένες·
ὡς ἔστιν ὑμῖν τοῦτ’ ἔαρ παντὸς βίου,
ἥβῃ δὲ λῦπαι φροντίδες θ’ ἡβῶσ’ ὁμοῦ.



